if i hated you (and i really, really do)

by BatzsVat7kGraveyard (battybatzgirl)

Summary:

Four years after the defeat of Zhan Tiri, the Dark Kingdom is finally making political moves to rebuild to their once former glory. Dropped suddenly into a status of nobility, Varian has to play the part of dutiful court member to support his ancestral home--which becomes instantly harder when Hugo, Varian's sworn rival and Ingvarr's Royal Engineer, shows up and causes Problems.

To prevent a controversy that would destroy the Dark Kingdom's name, the two are forced to spend time together. But years of bitter bickering and brawling won't go away overnight, especially if the reason for their fighting may actually be rooted in something a little more...tender.

But Varian would rather die than admit that out loud. And spending this much time with Hugo might just kill him.

Notes:

imagine. you are staring at your computer screen at 2 am, and your brain demands, "write the fake dating au." and then it screams "BUT WRITE IT IF THEY WERE RIVALS" and you spend the next 48 hours chained to your laptop listening to fletcher...low and behold, you have this fic.

so, i may or may not have just wanted to write a bunch of scenes with the boys kissing and varian experiencing Gay Panic. i also may or may not have taken a lot of my varigo wip ideas and mushed them into this fic. plot randomly got thrown in, and now, this has become my magnum opus. i hope y'all enjoy my defining work because BOY i had a blast writing this.

EDIT: now with AMAZING FANART by Nart! dude this made me cry laughing it's so good. Thank you so much!

Chapter 1

It's barely been twenty minutes, but Varian is already considering dumping acid on himself and melting into the floor.

Or, jumping out a window and landing head-first on the cold cobblestone of the castle's courtyard. Anything would be better than staying at this party any longer than necessary.

Don’t get him wrong, it's a nice party, if you were into that kind of thing. The music is light and airy, the conversations are soft and the champagne is bubbling, but five (5!) strangers from visiting kingdoms have already tried to start conversations with him, and that is simply four too many.

He knows he should be mingling. Should be excited for the festivities that are planned for the week ahead--a whole week of activities and celebrations across Corona to foster peace between the Dark Kingdom and the other Seven Kingdoms, building in grandeur until next Saturday, when the summer solstice would kick off Corona's biggest party of the year.

But all he can feel is dread.

He isn't meant for this crowd of tittering noble folk. He wants to be back in his lab, elbows deep in wiring his next greatest invention. The one that'll kick Hugo's ass in the next interkingdom science exposition, for sure. He's not good at sweet-talking a bunch of aristocrats. He's not Flynnigan Rider. He's just a nerd hiding in the corner by the dessert table, desperately counting the minutes until he can disappear back into his lab.

It doesn’t take long for Eugene to find him.

“I think you should glare at the floor tiles a little harder,” he suggests. “They need to know who’s boss.”

Varian rolls his eyes, but a treacherous smile worms its way onto his face. Eugene hip-checks him as he leans up against the pillar where Varian is trying to hide in the shadow of the eight-tier cake. The other man is wearing ceremonial armor of black and deep purple, topped with a fur cloak clasped together by the comet emblem of the Dark Kingdom. Edmund even dug up Eugene’s crown, a circlet of black embedded with deep purple gems.

Handsome and effortlessly charming, Eugene plays the part of prince well.

“So! Who are we avoiding?”

“Everyone.” But even as he says this, his eyes drift across the room, keeping a cautious eye out for one specific person.

“Ah,” Eugene says, reading him like a book. “You’re little engineer rival?”

“Rival?” Varian takes his eyes off the crowd to turn to look at his brother. “No, no, no. The word rival implies that Hugo is on the same intellectual level as me, and he is nowhere close.”

Eugene quirks an eyebrow. “Are you still mad that he won the last interkingdom science exposition—”

“No I am not mad that he won the last interkingdom science exposition,” Varian hisses in all one breath. Eugene holds up his hands in defeat, and Varian tries to breathe through the hot adrenaline that shoots through his veins.

Okay, maybe he is still mad. It’s just…

Ever since he’s known the Ingvarrian, Hugo has always proved to be just a little more than Varian. A little smarter, a little faster, a little wittier, a little taller (okay, maybe a lot taller). The truth is, Varian could probably learn a lot from Hugo. At first, he’d even wanted to! But then he realized Hugo was the kind of person who liked to shake someone up and then cackle as they exploded, Varian would much rather avoid the other boy.

Especially this week, when so many political pieces hang in the balance.

“Sorry,” he says truthfully, rubbing at his arm. “I know I’m supposed to be mingling or whatever, but you know I’m no good with words.”

He’d blanched when his father told him the news; that in an effort to preserve the Dark Kingdom’s appearance of longevity, their family had been reelevated to its once noble status. And because he is one of two offspring that exist from the Dark Kingdom bloodline, until Eugene and Rapunzel had kids, Varian was now technically second in line for the throne.

Varian knows that this concept of royal lineage is nothing more than a preemptive gesture, one he’d never actually have to take on, but it lands him in an uncomfortable place. A place where he never, ever wanted to be:

Smack dab in the middle of the royal court.

That means people at this party are watching him as much as he’s watching them. Trying to figure him out as one of the children of the defunct Dark Kingdom, making judgments about him and about the kingdom they’re trying to rebuild.

And by the sun, he hates this. He hates this so much, but the status change is only temporary, and the appearance of success was important—to his dad, to his family, to his ancestral kingdom. Edmund is trying so hard, and who is Varian to get in the way of that? What more can he do but quietly accept this duke-or-prince-regnant-or-whatever status that’s thrust onto his shoulders and play the part until all these stupid negotiations end?

It's only a week. Varian can survive a week.

Eugene shrugs, bumping their shoulders together in a calming gesture. “Eh. I doubt anybody’s looking at you tonight, kid. Out of the two of us, I’m definitely the handsome one.”

Varian can’t argue with that. The other man pulls off his dark suit—Varian feels like a doll stuffed into an uncomfortably tight vest and necktie.

Ugh, he misses his apron.

Across the room, a woman from Koto waves to them. Like an idiot, Varian looks over his shoulder, then upon confirmation that she was indeed waving at him, shrinks farther back into the shadows. “Tell them I choked on a macaron and died,” he begs Eugene. “I leave all my worldly possessions to Ruddiger.”

“I can cover for you for half an hour,” Eugene promises like the saint he is. “Be back here before they serve dinner.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know.” And with a grin, Eugene is off into the crowd, taking that woman by the arm and gesturing grandly as he schmoozes.

Varian takes a breath to steady himself, eyes sweeping one more time over the crowd before taking a step back. Still no sign of Hugo. Maybe, if he’s lucky, the blond is still on the Ingvarrian's stupid gaudy airship. Maybe, if he’s really lucky, he won’t have to see the other engineer at all.

“Aww, Goggles, leaving so soon? We haven’t even had a chance to chat yet!”

Fuck.

Steeling himself, Varian slowly turns. Hugo is leaning against the other side of the pillar at a full fifty-degree angle, one arm on the pillar, the other hand cocked on his hip, effectively blocking the way of escape. Hugo was lean, but he always had a way of taking up an enormous amount of space wherever he was. What he’s wearing doesn’t help—a green dress coat with golden buttons and long tails makes his frame look bigger than what it actually was.

What a tacky trick.

“Sorry,” Varian says, oozing sarcasm. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone in the gardens.” A flimsy lie, but who cares. His priorities have switched from avoiding this crowd to solely avoiding Hugo.

He takes a step forward, hoping Hugo will get the message and move. Hugo doesn’t, instead trailing his emerald eyes up and down Varian’s figure.

“What’s with the suit?” he asks, eyes lingering in a way that makes the back of Varian’s neck feel hot.

Since he’s obviously getting nowhere with Hugo in the way, Varian decides to use this as a moment to flex. “Since you were late, as usual, you missed the formal announcement. My family’s been elevated back to their original noble status. That makes me two steps away from being king, and one step away from tossing you into the bay if you don’t get out of my way.”

Infuriatingly, this doesn’t have the effect Varian wants. Hugo snickers. “Skipping the foreplay and moving right into bodily threats? Someone’s feeling dommy tonight.”

Varian wants to scream.

“I do admit,” the blond drawls, “as much as it offends me that you’re now a class traitor, I am a fan of what that vest is doing for you.”

Varian blames the heat on his face as a reaction to the spicy tart he’d eaten earlier. “Are you seriously trying to flirt with me right now?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs. “Is it working?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Guess I’ll have to try harder then.”

Varian pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and reminds himself that he is a grown twenty-year-old and not a child, he cannot throw a temper tantrum because this moron is pulling on his pigtails.

“What are you even doing here?” he asks instead. “This celebration for the royals and their courts, and you’re not part of that.” As the ward of the Ingvarrian queen and the Royal Engineer, Hugo's social status was a little like Varian's own--important, but not nearly important enough for a party as elegant as this.

“Astute deduction.” Hugo pushes off the pillar, sidestepping Varian to pluck a cupcake off the dessert table. “Savni and Nadia owed me and snuck me in. I’m not gonna turn down the chance to get free food.”

Varian’s eyes sweep across the crowd again, searching for the two Ingvarrian princesses. After a moment, he spots them—Lance is trying to chat them up. He can’t help but snort—that guy definitely had a type for fierce warrior women.

“It kinda sucks, though. The party, I mean.”

Varian turns to look at the other boy. He’s got a smudge of frosting on his upper lip. Varian hopes that it stays there all night and makes him look stupid.

He should be going. His pathway was free, and talking to Hugo for too long was always risky. One way or another, they always ended up bickering. And yet, curiosity gets the better of him. “Oh yeah?”

The blond swallows and nods. “Everything is too quiet. There’re too many violins. Not nearly enough liquor. No one’s fighting. Not sure if this is better than waiting on the airship.” Hugo’s eyes have always reminded Varian of shimmering emeralds, kept precious and hidden behind his glasses. He turns those eyes onto Varian and smirks. “Maybe one day I’ll take you to a real party. Show you a good time.”

“Ha!” Varian’s rueful laugh is so loud that it makes a few heads turn in their direction. “Only in your dreams.”

Hugo leans closer, so close that Varian can almost feel the heat radiating off his body. It makes him want to take a step back, but on principle of not giving up any inch to Hugo, he refuses to move.

The blond lowers his voice and purrs, “In my dreams, we’re doing something very different.”

Varian flushes deeply. Hugo throws back his head and cackles.

He’s immediately annoyed at himself for giving Hugo this reaction. He’s got to get it together. He’ll never be able to survive this week if he explodes every time this jerk pokes him.

And the worst part? Varian knows Hugo hates him back. He has to. They’re both alchemical engineers for opposing kingdoms. They compete not only in the science exposition every year, but also in what they can offer their kingdoms in ways of technological advancement. Their rivalry was as natural as fire and ice, and it doesn’t help that Hugo took literally every opportunity to antagonize Varian to the point of him wanting to claw his own eyes out.

“You make it so easy, Goggles,” Hugo croons, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

“Shut the fuck up,” Varian hisses.

“Now that’s not very nice.”

“I don’t want to be nice to you.”

“Isn’t that the point of being a royal? Being nice to everybody, then turning around and stabbing people in the back? You seem awfully out of touch in this political rat race.”

“Did I offend you or something? Is that why you won’t ever leave me alone?” Varian feels his patience start to fray like an overused rope.

“Leave you alone? Oh sweetheart. You’re the one who’s obsessed with me.”

Varian stares at him. “What.”

“Has it occurred to you that you always try to get my attention?” the blond asks, “That for the past four years, every one of your experiments has been built in a pathetic attempt to one-up me in those expositions? That you call me out specifically in your presentations? Even tonight, standing back here gives you a good view of the crowd. You were looking for me, weren’t you?”

Varian’s jaw drops, and Hugo’s smirk gets a little meaner.

“It’s only an observation,” he says simply.

“What—that’s not—” Varian sputters, heart stuttering into a gallop. “I’m not—”

“Oh, don’t blow a gasket. Your little crush is adorable.” He snickers, then tweaks Varian’s nose. “Now, I’m not about to sit through this godawful dinner without getting delightedly buzzed on free liquor. Catch ya later.” Hugo turns to leave.

And—no?? Absolutely not? He’s not letting that fucker leave after saying something like that. Varian reaches out to pull Hugo’s shoulder back, to get him back here so Varian can—do what, exactly? Throttle him, punch him, shove him to the ground? All of the above sounds agreeable.

But because Hugo is a stick, the motion knocks him off balance, and his heel slips on the tablecloth. He stumbles, sending an arm flying out to grab Varian for balance as he falls. It does nothing more than yank Varian forward, and suddenly they’re both careening toward Atilla’s eight-tier masterpiece.

In slow motion, the table collapses underneath them, cake goes flying up, arcing up to the ceiling in a display of buttercream and fruit, and then crashes back down on top of both of them.

Varian’s first thought, as he stares up at the ceiling of the ballroom covered in icing and cake, is that they really need to get someone up there to clear all those cobwebs.

The second thought is that his dad is going to murder him.

Beside him, he hears Hugo mutter, “Oh shit.”

And oh shit is right, because the chattering and music in the room has gone completely silent. Hugo is a mess, glasses and dress coat dripping in frosting and cream. Varian can’t help but shrink back as every eye of the Seven Kingdom’s royal society land on him.

He offers the stunned room a small, sheepish smile. “Ah, hah. Oops?”

 

 

 

 

Caketastorphy, the servants are calling it. A real mousse-y mess. A bad bake for Corona’s Royal Engineer.

The list of puns goes on, but no matter what you want to call it, the word about how Varian assaulted the Ingvarrian Royal Engineer spreads like wildfire throughout the present courts of the Seven Kingdoms.

Normally, Varian can brush off the gossip. People have been whispering behind his back his whole entire life. But this? This is different. Because now, he’s not just a kid from the tiny farming village. He’s been introduced to the world as the second in line to the Dark Kingdom throne, and not even fifteen minutes into his debut he’s managed to get on the wrong side of one of the more powerful kingdoms in existence.

You know, the kingdom that went to war when someone sneezed impolitely in their direction. Dropping a cake on the ward of the Queen is pretty much asking for a massacre.

It’s bad. Varian knows it’s bad. His ancestral kingdom already has a reputation of being one full of feral warriors unfit for civilization, and he’s done nothing but publicly endorse that stereotype.

He locks himself in his room the next morning, too nervous even to let in Faith or Friedborg. He knows they’re probably talking about him too.

Around mid-day, there’s a knock on his door. Not even the rattling sound of the lock breaking is enough to make Varian raise his head out of his pillows.

He hears the door open, and light yet sure footsteps pad across the room. Varian’s ears perk, trying to determine who was about to chew him out. Not Dad, he walked too loud—not Eugene, he would have started talking immediately—not Rapunzel, her barefooted gait was recognizable anywhere. So who…?

The bed dips, and Varian raises his head to lock eyes with a pair of yellow orbs.

“You fucked up,” Hector tells him.

Varian groans and buries his face back into the pillow. God, if Hector was the one lecturing him about his behavior, then the situation was even worse than he thought.

“How bad is it?” he asks, not sure if he even wants to know.

His uncle hums. “Well, it took a few hours but the Coronian queen has successfully mitigated any talk of war, so that’s good. I left after that—it got boring. I’m not the one who’s gonna make any political decisions, anyway. I’m just the muscle.”

Varian snorts. He’s seen the way the Brotherhood fights, understands the tactics the three of them were trained in—Hector was decidedly not the muscle. He rolls over onto his back. “I can’t be the only one to blame here. Hugo was goading me. It’s his fault too!”

“Look, I don’t blame you for trying to punch a twerp,” Hector holds up his hands. “If it were me, I wouldda punched him a lot faster.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, it’s just a fact.”

Varian throws one of his arms over his eyes and prays to whatever gods still govern the universe that all of this would go away. Maybe he could build a time machine, one that’ll send him back far enough to prevent himself from ever meeting Hugo.

Never meeting Hugo.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

“Ah, don’t worry too much about it kid,” Hector nudges his knee. “If there’s one thing I know your dad is good at, it’s negotiating crazy people out of doing crazy things. Plus, I’m pretty sure the sunshine princess isn’t gonna let anything happen to you either.”

Varian lets out a shuddering breath. He knows the wrath of his sister very intimately, but he'd created as much of a problem for Eugene as for him. There was no telling if he was on the right side of her rage this time.

As if on cue, there’s another knock on the door. Eugene pokes his head in, and Varian does his best not to cower in shame.

“Alright kid,” the captain says. “You ready to talk?”

As he’s led to a council room, he tries not to panic. Eugene doesn’t say anything, which only makes his heart beat even faster, and by the time they get there, his knees are practically shaking.

The conference room has a long table, and a lot of people are crowded around it—Edmund, the Ingvarrian queen and princesses, Rapunzel, Frederic, Arianna, and, ugh, Hugo. His dad is standing just behind Edmund, like he always has, stoic and supportive. Adira is lounged in a plush chair in the corner, sharpening a knife.

The entire room is made up of angry, feral warriors. Varian doesn’t know facing which half of the room would be worse.

He’s offered a chair across from Hugo, but Varian keeps his eyes stubbornly set on Rapunzel. His sister stands as soon as he sits, face calm and collected like the perfect ruler she is.

“Varian,” she starts gently, “I know last night was a little stressful for all of us. No one blames you for, ah, getting a little excited—”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hugo disguise a snicker as a cough.

“—but hiccups are natural when establishing new alliances. No one is mad at you.” Rapunzel aims a reassuring smile in his direction, and for the first time, Varian feels some of the knots in his stomach uncoil. “We’re all prepared to move on from this, but because of the scene yesterday, we’re going to need your help making this right.”

“Ohhhkay,” Varian says, feeling as if he’s treading on ice that was crackling with every step.

“Because this happened in public, you can imagine the kind of gossip that’s currently running rampant throughout the courts,” Frederic cuts in. “That can be very detrimental to a kingdom’s reputation, especially when it’s as fragile as Edmund’s. I know being a member of court is new to you, but that position comes with certain restrictions.”

Varian’s stomach drops. “Are you suspending me from my position?”

“We can’t,” Arianna admits. “Corona relies too much on you to do that.”

“But what we can do,” Rapunzel says, with a wide and hopeful grin, “is make friends.”

Varian stares at her, feeling the ice under his feet crack a little more. He waits for someone in the room to elaborate, so when no one does, he asks, “What?”

“Assaulting a member of my staff is an instigation for war,” the Ingvarrian queen cuts in. (He thinks he remembers hearing that her name is Anya?) Varian nearly cringes under her icy gaze. “To everyone outside this room, there is an understanding that your kingdom has just made itself an enemy of mine.”

Varian almost laughs, hysterics bubbling inside him. Here he was, six years after his stint as a criminal, and he’s still making enemies of kingdoms.

“The way we fix that,” Anya continues, “is by a show of good faith.”

A show of good faith? What the hell is that supposed to mean? He glances helplessly at his father and says honestly, “I don’t understand.”

Quirin takes pity on him. “You and Hugo are going to spend time together,” he explains. “Publicly. You’re going to show everyone that you’re on friendly terms to dispel any rumors that may be spreading about the contrary.”

The ice beneath him breaks, and Varian is plunged into a frigid bath of absolute horror.

“There are plenty of activities happening throughout the week across the kingdom,” Rapunzel continues, heedless to his mounting panic. “All you guys need to do is show up to one per day, share a smile or two, and then—”

“No.” The word is out of his mouth before he even processes it. “No, Rapunzel—you can’t be serious! I, I don’t have the time to go do public activities, my schedule is too busy.”

“Hugo is an engineer,” the brunette shrugs. “He’s perfectly capable of helping you when you need it.”

Varian shoots the blond a glare, his entire body revolting at the idea of Hugo even getting within eighty feet of his laboratory. Hugo isn’t even looking at him, instead inspecting his nails like he’s got someplace better to be.

God, what a prick.

Eugene leans down and squeezes his shoulder. “Look, I know you don’t like this kid, but think about what we’re trying to build here.”

“Frederic and my son are right,” Edmund says. “This is bigger than just petty squabbles. If we establish enemies before we establish friends, we might as well be back where we started, isolated from everything.”

Rapunzel nods in affirmation. “Exactly. After all, the whole point of this week is to show how friendly the Dark Kingdom can be. So, you’ll just have to—”

“No!”  Varian says again, voice raised, and he really shouldn’t be this close to shouting but stars above, the seventh circle of hell sounds better than being forced to spend time with Hugo. “Why am I being punished for this? It’s his fault too!”

“I know,” Anya pipes up, surprising him. “I know it’s partially his fault. He wasn’t even supposed to be at that dinner.”

At this, the tiniest flicker of something flashes across Hugo’s face, there and gone before Varian can identify what the emotion is.

The queen continues, “It’s because of this that I’m agreeing to this plan. Had this solely been an assault on your end, we would be having a very different conversation.”

Varian bites the inside of his cheek. If the record showed that he wasn’t the only one at fault here, that makes him feel a little better.

He leans back in his chair and nudges one of Hugo’s feet with his own. It makes the blond look up. “Are you happy with this?”

Hugo sneers. “What do you think?”

And, okay. If they were both miserable about this, then whatever friendship Rapunzel was pushing for clearly wouldn’t happen.

But that was fine. Varian doesn’t want to be friends with Hugo. They only had to pretend to like each other in public for a week. Seven days. They’d go back to hating each other immediately after.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “I’ll do it. Let me know where I need to be and I’ll be there.”

Rapunzel beams and claps her hands together. “Yay!”

“Yay,” Hugo intones flatly.

Varian lets out a sigh. This was going to be the longest week of his life.

 

 

 

 

The first activity that Rapunzel plans for them is a royal brunch.

It’s held outside in the queen’s gardens, where servants are bustling around bringing eggs and pancakes and fresh fruit that was probably shipped in from his father’s orchards earlier this morning. Varian clutches his notebook to his chest as he weaves through the topiaries. Not even Ruddiger’s calming weight on his shoulders can stop the feeling of the eyes of servants and visiting royals bearing down on him.

At least he wasn’t in that stupid vest anymore.

Hugo is already waiting for him at a table that’s placed in the middle of the rest of the seating arrangements. So they’re not going for subtle at all, huh. A few tables away sits Rapunzel and Eugene, chatting with a woman wearing colors from Neserdnia. As he gets closer, the brunette queen looks up, waves, and shoots him a thumbs up.

Varian tries hard not to roll his eyes.

He slouches into his chair and slaps his notebook on the table. Ruddiger leaps off his shoulders and quickly snatches an apple off the center of the table, chomping down on it like the little fiend that he is.

Hugo shoots him a crooked smile.

“Mornin’, Goggles,” he chirps, and ugh, why was he already so peppy? Did he not run on coffee like a normal human being?

There’s an awkward silence. Varian catches a passing servant staring at him, whispering hurriedly to another dressed in a colorful sash from Bayangor.

Varian grits his teeth. “Hi.”

“Well now, don’t sound too excited to see me,” Hugo croons. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly happy about this arrangement either, but at least I’m committing to making this work.”

“Why?” Varian asks, the thought only just occurring to him that Hugo really didn’t have much to lose in this situation. He could have said no.

“Cause I’d lose my job if I said no.” Hugo shrugs. And oh, yeah, that is a pretty good reason.

The thought still makes Varian frown. “But aren’t you one of their best inventors? Why would they fire you over one little scandal?”

Hugo’s face is carefully expressionless as he reaches for his glass of orange juice. “I'd rather stay on Queen Anya’s good side. Trust me, pissing her off never ends well for anybody.”

Part of Varian wants to keep prodding, but the other part is much more interested in the tray of coffee the servants bring by. After chugging nearly the whole mug and burning his tongue in the process, Varian brightens, finally starting to feel like a real person.

“You’re addicted,” Hugo says.

“Shut up.”

Now that his brain is working, he opens his journal and flips through the pages to his latest diagram. It’s an idea he’s had forever—to build a greenhouse that will promote growing crops even in the winter.

He’s already got the underground bit figured out, with his boilers across the Corona's sewer system, they can keep the soil rich with nutrients all year round. It’s the heating and power bit that he’s running into an issue. Fires won’t work, for obvious reasons, and steam won’t cut it either because it messes with the properties of the soil.

No, Varian’s currently toying with the idea of creating and installing solar panels to generate enough heat from the sun—heaven knows they get enough of it here.

The only problem is he’s never worked with solar technology before, and has no idea how to even begin calibrating something like that. It's a technology that's still relatively new to any kingdom. In fact, he only knows one other person who has successfully built something with solar power before, but there’s no way he’s asking for their help.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Ugh.

“Just because we have to be seen together doesn’t mean we have to talk,” Varian says, not looking up from his notes.

“No, but you need to smile at me and pretend like you don’t want to hurl in my presence.”

Varian snorts, grabbing a cherry tart from the center of the table and chewing on it as aggressively as possible. Hugo inclines forward in his chair, clearly trying to peer at the contents of the notebook. Varian inches it back toward himself a little more.

“You’re trying to use solar panels to generate energy?”

Dammit.

Varian sighs. “Not energy,” he corrects. “Heat. Enough to keep the ground from freezing and to promote photosynthesis.”

“Why the interest in plants?”

“Wouldn’t everything be easier on your kingdom if you could grow crops during the winter?” Varian shrugs. “Growing up on a farm makes you think things like that.” Even now, as an adult living in the castle, he’s still can’t help but try to improve his dad’s life in Old Corona.

“Well you’re not gonna do it like that.” Hugo is now shamelessly standing and leaning over the table to get a better look. Varian resists the urge to slam the notebook shut. “No, look here. It’s a miscalculation. You’re not factoring in a place to store that energy once you’ve got it. You need a battery. Something that holds the charge and can dispel it when needed.”

And Varian wants to scoff and shove his suggestions into the trash where they belong, but he can’t. He knows he can’t, because he knows Hugo has built things with solar panels before.

“Is that what she has?” he asks. “A solar battery that powers her movements?”

Hugo blinks at him. “What?”

“Olivia,” Varian clarifies. “Your mouse.” Hugo stares, looking utterly caught off guard. Seeing him so gobsmacked is actually pretty funny, but Varian should probably explain in order to get the solution he wants. “You brought her once, at one of those expositions. Not to showcase or anything, but I remember seeing her. She’s got solar panels for ears, right? But that’s on a smaller scale.”

“Yeah,” Hugo says slowly, then blinks hard as he slowly sinks back down into his seat. “Er—yeah. Yes. Charging a smaller battery is easy, but something bigger takes longer and sometimes doesn’t work. I tried converting all our airships to solar power and that obviously was doomed from the start.”

“Obviously?” Varian echoes curiously.

“Ingvarr’s cold, wet, and smoggy. Nothing large can run on solar power ‘cause we don’t see the sun enough. We’re a coal or bust society.” Then, Hugo’s face splits into a cocky grin. “Now, are we just gonna brush by the fact that you remember me bringing my automaton to an exposition when I didn’t even present her, ooorrr…?”

Varian clenches his jaw and fights against the rising heat to his face. He should have known Hugo would have taken that nugget of information and made a whole big deal out of it.

“If you wanna ask me questions about my work, all you gotta do is ask, sweetheart.” Hugo winks. Varian nearly throws up that scone.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Understood, Sweet Cheeks.”

Varian blanches, “What the fuck? That’s even worse!”

The blond lets out a wistful sigh, reaching out a hand to scratch Ruddiger behind the ears. The raccoon stiffens, but then purrs and starts swishing his tail. Little traitor. “So picky. No wonder you don’t have any friends.”

And that makes the frustration boil so hot underneath Varian’s skin, he has to grab the edge of the table with both hands. “I have friends, you pompous ass—”

There’s a loud and hacking “Ahem!” from their left. Varian’s eyes snap over to Rapunzel and Eugene. Rapunzel is wearing a big, almost cringing exaggerated smile, and Eugene is waving his hands and mouthing, "Sit down."

Varian looks down at himself. Huh. He hadn’t even realized he’d stood up.

He immediately deflates, slumping back into his seat. Hugo grins at him from across the table. What he wouldn’t give to shove his face into a tower of pancakes and let him drown in the syrup.

“A slave to her royal highness's whims?” Hugo says, and Varian actually does gag at that.

“Ew, gross! No, Rapunzel is my sister.”

Hugo tilts his head. “Isn’t the sunshine princess an only child...?”

“I mean, technically, but she has an adopted half-sister. She got kidnapped as a kid and raised by a different woman—it’s a whole thing. And her husband and I are cousins, even though we’re not related by blood, but we didn’t know we were cousins until, like, four years ago. He treats me more like a brother anyway.” His eyes drift a bit to land on the table next to them, where the Schnitz family was currently wolfing (ha!) down an impressive stack of pancakes. “And then there’s Kiera and Catalina, who are kind of like Eugene’s little sisters, but now more like nieces, I guess, since Lance adopted them? So that makes them second cousins to me—”

“Wow,” Hugo says. “That’s a lot of people I don’t know. And therefore, do not care about.”

Varian’s eyebrow twitches in annoyance. “Do you ever care about anyone but yourself?”

“Nope,” Hugo says brightly.

Just then, one of the Ingvarr princesses—the shorter one with dark auburn hair—saunters up to their table. Varian hasn’t been introduced, but assumes by the three gems in the girl’s circlet that she’s the older of the two.

He catches the way Hugo sits up a little straighter in her presence, but she doesn’t pay him any mind, instead focusing her dusty blue eyes directly on Varian. Varian finds himself tensing, unsure of what to make of this encounter, preparing for the worst after yesterday—

The girl smiles.

She says something in Ingvarrian, the gruff, vowelly language rolling off her tongue like water cascading in rough river rapids, ending the sentence with a snicker of Hugo’s name.

Hugo smirks, hooded eyes raking over Varian in that same way he did at the party. The expression makes Varian’s stomach squirm. “No promises,” he responds, and the princess lets out a snorty giggle before walking away.

“What was that?” Varian demands fiercely. “What did she say?”

The blond turns to inspect his nails, which Varian knows are nothing more than little chewed on nubs. He was literally just doing that to pretend to look cool. “Oh, nothing.”

Adrenaline crackles down Varian's spine like lightning. “You think that’s funny? Talking about me in front of my face?”

“Actually? Yeah.” Hugo’s smirk widens. “It makes you turn purple.”

Varian grits his teeth so hard he’s certain he’s going to crack a molar.

He shoots Hugo one last glare before suddenly throwing himself back in his chair with a loud and dramatic gasp. “Lance!” he crows, catching the big man’s attention. “Is that a spider on your shoulder?”

The reaction is immediate. Lance shrieks on principle, bolting to his feet so fast he makes their table flip. Pancakes go flying, a stack landing in the bird headdresses of the Pittsford duke and duchess. They glower in his direction, but Lance is so far from caring, jumping around and clawing at his back, bumping into tables and knocking over chairs as he goes.

Eugene is chasing after him and shouting at him to calm down, along with half a dozen servants. Kiera and Catalina, the little gremlins that they are, are using this excuse for chaos to start launching handfuls of porridge at each other. Some of the other royals get caught in the chunky crossfire, and Varian can’t help but revel in the destruction.

“Breakfast is over,” he says definitively. He snaps his journal shut, scoops up Ruddiger, and stalks back to the castle.

 

 

 

 

It takes approximately fifty-three minutes for Eugene to find him in the corner of the library.

“Porridge, Varian!” he cries, getting an irritated shush and glare from the librarian. “I have porridge in my hair!”

Varian hums but doesn’t look up from his notebook, still staring at the calculations in his notes. He’ll find a way to build solar panels on his own, thank you. “’S not my fault.”

“Oh, ohohoho, no. See, it is your fault.” Eugene is close enough now that he can point a finger in his face. “You were the one who freaked out Lance and ruined breakfast.”

Varian’s nose scrunches up. “You trick Lance like that all the time.”

“Yeah, but not in front of the kingdoms we’re trying to impress! Look kid, I know you and Four Eyes McGee don’t get along, but you can’t give the appearance of being friendly if you keep making scenes like that!”

“You don’t get it, Eugene,” Varian says, hating that his voice sounds so whiney. He can’t help it. This whole being-fake-friends idea is too ridiculous to even consider taking it seriously. “Hugo is terrible. Literally the worst person on this planet. Even pretending to be nice makes me feel sick!”

“Then take a tonic and get over yourself!” Eugene’s tone is sharp enough that it actually makes Varian flinch. “No, no, sorry, I just—ugh.” The other man sighs heavily and runs a hand down his face. He looks stressed and worn out. Commanding Corona’s guard during such a huge festival while making time for political appearances as Prince of the Dark Kingdom must be exhausting.

For the first time, Varian feels a little guilty about this morning.

“You gotta remember this isn’t about you and Hugo,” Eugene says, tone softer now. “This is about our dads. Their legacy. Our ancestry. I know you and I call Corona home, but how would you feel if Corona fell and your one chance of building it back up kept getting ruined by a couple of bratty kids? You gotta do better than that, Varian. I know you can.”

Alright, now he feels a lot guilty about this morning. He deflates back into his chair, staring at a grain swirl on the desk, unable to look Eugene in the eye. Such was the duality of having an older brother—he was there for protection and pranks, but also there to call him out on his shit.

“Okay,” he mumbles.

“Okay,” Eugene confirms. “Six more days and then he’s outta here, and we can make fun of his tacky haircut all you want.” The captain reaches into his pocket and pulls out a parchment. “Also, here. The kid handed me this after you ran off. Maybe it’s an apology for whatever he did that upset you.”

An apology, ha! As if someone as stuck up as Hugo would ever swallow his pride enough to say something as humanizing as I’m sorry. Still, Varian finds himself curious as he unfolds the note.

Eugene peers over his shoulder. “Ooorrr maybe it’s a weird math apology…?”

“It’s not an apology,” Varian seethes. He looks down at his notes and is suddenly furious. “It’s an equation for the solar panels!”

“Ohhkay,” Eugene says slowly, still trying to make sense of his reaction. “And this is bad because…?”

“Because this is exactly what I’m talking about!” Varian waves the paper around, barely resisting the urge to tear it into shreds. “He’s one-upping me, even right now, and he’s not even here!”

“Kid, it looks like Hugo is trying to help you.”

“He doesn’t want to help me,” Varian spits, feeling a vein in his forehead is about to burst. “He wants to…to…”

He finds himself coming up short. God, what did Hugo want? To pester him until he exploded and spewed his guts across the walls? To keep reminding him that he was superior in his calculations. To rub salt in the wound, to shove Varian down into the dirt?

Unless…

Did Hugo actually want to help him?

No. No. Hugo is the enemy. Sending him this wasn’t helping, it was probably just part of some grand scheme to rile him up this week. To make the Dark Kingdom look bad. To make Varian look bad.

“…to be nice?” Eugene supplies when he doesn’t say anything.

Varian thinks of Hugo’s mean smirk, that smarmy look in his eyes he got whenever he knew he’d done something particularly impressive that not even Varian could beat.

“Sure,” he says bitterly. “Nice.”

Eugene smiles. “See? Look at that, you guys are getting along better already. Now work out whatever the rest of your feelings are before tomorrow, you guys are gonna be in close quarters on the water.”

The captain pats Varian on the back, and he bites back a groan.

 

 

 

 

Varian squints in the mid-afternoon sun, pulling out the watch in his pocket. He registers the time, and clenches his jaw.

Hugo is late.

He glances around the pier and bounces on his heels, hoping to make out some sight of the blond he’s been bound to for today’s activity, but still comes up with nothing. By now, everybody else has loaded into their fishing boats and have pushed away from the shores, leaving Varian looking like an idiot for standing around and waiting for someone who probably wasn’t coming.

And as relieved as he is not to see Hugo, he’s more frustrated at the idea of the blond trying to play hooky after making such a big deal about committing to the part they’re both forced to play out.

He did not get guilted by his brother yesterday into just letting this go.

The Ingvarrian princesses and queen are already out on their own boats, but their attendants are standing back on the shores. He marches up to one of them and demands to know where their stupid royal engineer is hiding.

The attendant’s accent is heavy, but Varian gathers enough out of the garbled sentence to get an answer:

The ship.

Varian has never stepped foot on an Ingvarrian airship before, but he’s always wanted to. They look like Saporian balloons on steroids; a behemoth of a zeppelin that somehow can effortlessly carry the bulk of the metal hull large enough to fit Old Corona inside it.

It’s currently docked on the west side of the island, hovering low enough to the ground that the metal bridge allows easy passage for people to get on and off. Varian stalks up the grated boarding platform, all the while reminding himself that he will not stop and stare at the engineering marvel in front of him.

He epically fails.

Because by the sun, the inside of this ship is fucking gorgeous. Copper pipes of all sizes swoop down from the ceiling, weaving in and out of each other like they’re doing an elaborate tango. There’s puffs of hot air that emerge every few seconds from various pressures cap—Hugo had mentioned most of Ingvarr ran on coal power, but was there a combination of coal and steam in this engine? That was so intuitive!

His eyes widen, his fingers itch. He wants to stare at this beautiful beast forever, wants to sketch it, wants to get himself elbows deep in her wiring and find out what makes her tick. All of his fury evaporates and is replaced by pure admiration of this goddess of machinery and metal.

“Oi! Shcho ty—oh.” Varian turns to see a giant of a man come up to him and pause. He’s muscley and tall, covered in armor with a nasty scar on his left eyebrow. Probably some kind of security. “Can I help you?”

Varian blinks rapidly, trying to remind himself that he wasn’t here to marvel at the engineering inside this ship. He was supposed to be angry, damn it. “I’m, uh. Looking for Hugo?”

The man looks him up and down, then snorts. “’Course you are.” And before Varian can determine what that’s supposed to mean, the man is already walking away.

He’s led through the ship, down through her belly into her bowls, where the pipes get bigger and the heat gets more intense. The humming of working machinery is music to Varian’s ears. He has to bite his lip to keep from squealing like a child.

They enter into what must be a boiler room, where there are seven large bulkheads and a giant control panel alight with buttons. They were each color-coded, blinking delightedly and—oh! It even had pressure gauges. Varian wants to poke it.

His escort walks with purpose to the control panel, hooking his foot under something and yanking backward. With a cry, Hugo is pulled out from under the shadows like a scrabbling rat, head thunking as it connects to the ground.

“Fucking what, Cyrus?” Hugo snaps. “I’m working.” He’s wearing his working goggles for once, the green-tinted lenses standing out against the blotchy flush on his pale skin.

“Visitor,” the man called Cyrus grunts. Hugo’s eyes drift over to Varian.

“Oh,” he says snappishly, “it’s you.”

Varian suddenly remembers his anger. “You were supposed to meet me at the pier half an hour ago.”

“The pier,” Hugo echoes blankly. “For what?”

“For our arrangement?”

“Oh, that thing.” Hugo sits up fully, pushing his goggles up to his head and fishing his glasses out from his jacket pocket. “Well, unfortunately, Sweet Cheeks, I’m busy today. Our ship’s air filtration system doesn’t like the sea air. It’s too salty. Causes buildup. I have to recalibrate this whole system.”

Varian’s mind immediately starts whirling with all the possibilities of how to fix that problem. Then, he remembers who is in front of him, and his annoyance returns. “You’re not the only one who has a schedule to keep, you know. But at least I honor my prior engagements.”

“Prior—you literally started a food fight yesterday because you couldn’t handle spending time with me, and now you’re asking to do it again?”

“It’s not like I want to,” Varian shoots back. “It’s for appearances.”

“Of course.” Hugo pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He looks more frustrated than that time one of Varian’s automatic steam-sweepers beat his healing solution at the exposition. “You nobles and your fucking appearances.”

Varian feels the frustration in him build, rattling like the pressure in one of these engines. “If you don’t come with me right now, I’ll tell Queen Anya you’re skipping out.”

Hugo rises to his feet slowly, eyes narrowing as he reaches his full height. Pfft. As if that was intimidating at all. “You fucking wouldn’t—”

“I fucking would.” 

Frustrated and clearly at the end of his rope, Hugo throws up his hands and screams in a way that makes Cyrus cackle. He sticks a finger in Varian’s face and sneers, “You have one hour for your goddamn appearance, nothing more.”

They stalk in stewing silence back over to the water. When they reach the pier, Hugo puts his hands on his hips. “So! What are we doing, exactly?”

“Fishing,” Varian says. “It’s a fishing competition.”

“Ha!” Hugo tosses back his head and laughs bitterly. The sunlight glistens off the metal of his glasses and the sweat on his brow. “Fucking peachy.”

They clamber into their own little boat and shove off to join the others in the bay. The sun makes the surface of the water gleam like it's captured hundreds of diamonds. The breeze is light, the water is clear, and if Varian were with literally anybody else right now, he might even be relaxing.

“Fishing, wheeeee.” Hugo throws a halfhearted reel off the side, then splays out on his back and throws an arm over his eyes. Varian pointedly does not look at the way Hugo’s shirt rides up, does not notice the sliver of skin on his stomach, nope, no sir. “Wake me up when something interesting happens.”

Varian rolls his eyes. The blond has once again succeeded in taking up way too much space that was physically possible. It forces Varian to curl his knees up closer to his chest to avoid touching one of Hugo’s legs.

For a moment, they sit in a silence that’s broken only by the distant calls of gulls and the chatter from other boats. The boat rocks gently side to side as it’s pushed by the tide. Varian bites his lip, gripping his fishing rod a little tighter.

“You could use vinegar.”

“Huh?”

“To clear out your air filters,” Varian says. “But the acidity might damage the mesh.”

Hugo takes the arm off his eyes, squinting up at Varian through the sun. “I’m well aware of the acidic properties of vinegar. That’s alchemy one-oh-one, thank you professor Goggles.”

It takes a herculean effort not to leap across the boat and strangle the other boy. “If you’d just listen,” he raises his voice, then takes a sharp breath. He quickly glances around across the bay and catches the eyes of a young girl in the boat not too far from them, dressed in purples from Bayangor, and grits his teeth.

He repeats the mantra of this isn’t about you, this isn’t about you, over and over in his head, hoping Eugene’s words will calm him down.

“I made a cleaning solution that’s vinegar-based but has a combination of anti-acidic properties that makes it applicable to practically anything.” He’d concocted it when he was sixteen, in an effort to help Friedborg and Faith take over Cassandra's Lady in Waiting duties when she left Corona. “It’s called Friedroxide. I have samples back in my lab that I can give you.”

“Friedroxide?” Hugo narrows his eyes. “What’s it made out of?”

“Trade secret.”

The blond snorts, then sits up onto his elbows. “’Kay, so then why give it to me?”

Varian shrugs. He’s come to the same realization that Hugo probably has. There’s always the chance that he can synthesize the ingredients of the given formula and make his own, make it better. This peace offering could lead to a huge backfire. “You helped me with my solar diagram. It’s only fair I help you with something else.”

Hugo stares at him for a moment, expression serious. For a wild instant, Varian thinks Hugo is actually going to thank him. Maybe this would be good for them. They’re both genius engineers, they could clearly learn from each other, work together to improve their kingdom’s lives. Hugo opens his mouth and—

“So you admit that you needed my help.”

“Oh my god,” Varian seethes, immediately infuriated. He can feel the heat of anger bubbling up in his throat like a volcano. Hugo, ever the bastard, laughs. “I’m trying to be nice! Why are you like this?”

“’Cause it’s fun,” Hugo smirks. The fishing rod by his foot twitches. “Ooh, look! I got a bite!”

Varian buries his face in his hands and wishes desperately that a tidal wave, a typhoon, or hell, even a blizzard, would suddenly flare up and kill him right here, right now.

Hugo tsks when he reels in an empty hook. “Damn. Hey, Sweet Cheeks, you got any worms over there?”

“I am going to kill you.”

“Mm, no. I don’t think you will.”

“I’m literally going to pour acid all over your dumb face.”

“Sound to me like you’re jealous I’m hotter than you.”

Varian shoots up to his feet so fast it rocks the boat. “I am NOT jealous—”

Below him, Hugo has a hand over his mouth. He’s barely suppressing a cackling laugh if the shaking of his shoulders is anything to go by, eyes alight with wicked amusement.

Varian would very much like to punt Hugo’s stupid head off his stupid shoulders.

His chest heaves as he takes a few measuring breaths, counting to ten backward in his head, and then he sinks back down into his seat.

“Aww,” Hugo croons mockingly, “is someone upset that they can’t unleash their unbridled fury because of their new social status?”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Varian says, sounding more honest than he intended. Sounding desperate, reedy, and upset. “I don’t want—” He closes his mouth with a click, remembering who he’s talking to. He crosses his arms and leans back into the curve of the boat. “Whatever. Not like you’d care.”

“Oh, woe is me. My silver spoon is choking me.”

“I’m doing this for my dad, jackass. The Dark Kingdom is his home. Wouldn’t you do something like this for your dad?”

“Don’t know,” Hugo shrugs. “Don’t have a dad.”

“Your mother, then.”

“Nope. I’m out of that one, too.”

Varian frowns, sitting up a little. “You don’t have any family?”

Hugo shrugs again, casting out another reel into the water. “Eh, I’ve got my machines. Oh, and the girls. But I’m like, their pet project, not a family member. I think only Nadia really likes me. Think of it like your relationship with your princess, only working for the royal family isn’t a choice.”

“Queen Anya forces you to work for her?”

“Forces isn’t the right word. I want to,” Hugo says, sounding oddly sincere. “I mean, if I don’t have my job, then what am I, just some poor orphan Nadia took pity on when she saw them stealing on the streets? Nah. I’d rather be a boiler rat than a trophy.”

Then, he turns to Varian. “Alright, now that’s my tragic backstory. Fess up.”

Varian smiles wryly. “Mine’s more tragic.”

“Try me.”

“At fourteen, I accidentally encased my dad in amber, committed treason, kidnapped the queen, almost killed her and Rapunzel, then singlehandedly nearly destroyed Corona’s entire armed forces…Got arrested, was in jail for a year, got manipulated by a terrorist into almost nuking the kingdom, and—oh! Six months after that, I translated an ancient incantation that helped a demon sorceress break out of a shadow dimension and it nearly destroyed the world.”

Hugo is staring at him, slack-jawed. “I…have no response to that.”

Varian snorts. “Told ya.”

Then, the silence that settles between them isn’t awkward like Varian feared it would be. It’s simple, both of them relaxing on the boat, listening to the soft churn of the waves against the wood, feeling the rays of the afternoon sun against their skin…

This is weird.

Because in the four years he’s known Hugo, Varian has never felt…comfortable around him. He’s always been on edge in his presence, always trying to anticipate and react to the next sharp word that’s going to come out of the blond’s mouth. They’re constantly at each other’s throats, and this mutual vulnerability shouldn’t feel this natural.

It shouldn’t feel this good.

Itching not to dwell in his thoughts anymore, Varian tosses out, “Teach me a phrase in Ingvarrian.”

Hugo quirks an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Anything. Something I can yell at these fish.”

Hugo cracks a smile at that—and it isn’t his usual cocky one, full of snark and spite. It looks a little more genuine, open. Huh. He didn’t know Hugo could smile like that. “Svoloch.”

“Sla-vul-ichh,” Varian tries.

“Terrible,” Hugo chides, but his grin is getting wider. “You gotta feel it in the back of your throat, like you’re hacking up a hairball.” He scoots closer, gesturing for Varian to pay attention to his lips as they curl around the vowels. He repeats it slower this time, and.

Well.

Maybe it’s because Hugo is sitting closer to Varian than he probably ever has, or maybe it’s because he’s been encouraged to look directly at Hugo’s lips, but he can’t help but, you know. Actually notice his lips. Have they always been that plush?

“Um,” Varian blinks rapidly, trying to shove that thought back into whatever crevasse it crawled out of. He must be coming down with heat stroke if he’s thinking about how appealing Hugo’s lips are. “Slovich.”

Hugo chuckles, the noise bright and lacking any bitterness, and Varian can’t help but feel a smile grow on his own face. Hugo’s laugh was actually kind of nice when it wasn’t coming on the tail end of a nasty comment.

“Mmm, that’s a little closer. Why don’t you try—” And at that moment, the fishing rod in Hugo’s hand explodes with momentum.

The blond is caught off guard as he’s yanked forward abruptly, flung across the boat like the twiggy ragdoll that he was by the pull of a furious fish. Unfortunately, he’s flung in the direction of Varian, and their foreheads smack together when Hugo lands on him.

“Ow, fuck,” the blond whines, and Varian can agree with that sentiment. He tries to shift himself, rub at his own throbbing head, but—oh.

Their legs are hopelessly intertwined as Hugo’s entire torso is pinning him down into the wood of the boat. When Hugo lifts his head, the soft tufts of his bangs brush against Varian’s cheek, and Varian’s entire body goes stiff.

Oh, oh shit. Their faces are so close. Varian can count every constellation of freckles that are spread across Hugo’s cheeks. Emerald eyes are alight with concern as he looks down at him, his lips parting and breath ghosting across Varian’s face.

“Goggles, are you—”

“Get off me,” Varian says, then repeats it as his voice pitches louder into a panicked screech, “Get off me!” He musters all his strength and shoves Hugo back, probably a little too hard, because the entire boat rocks heavily to the right when Hugo’s body lands on the other side of the boat.

The sudden shift in weight causes Varian to automatically lean hard to the left, but this is exactly the wrong thing to do.

The boat flips, and they both go tumbling into the bay.

The seawater is thankfully warm, but the initial shock of getting wet still isn’t pleasant. Varian breaks the surface only a moment later, coughing and flinging himself over the underside of the boat. There are nearby shouts and calls from the other boats and the people around them crane to see what’s going on.

Hugo bursts out of the water seconds later, looking like a drenched rat. “What the everloving fuck!” he screams, but Varian is already gone, doggy-paddling up to the dock like a madman. Hugo is still shrieking profanities at him in the water even when Varian hauls himself up on the pier, heart beating fast.

He powerwalks past all the attendants gawking at him and heads back to the castle, his steps squelching as he drips salt water everywhere. He’s shaking and flushed, but not from the chill of the air hitting his wet skin. From the memory of their legs, tangled together, of Hugo’s torso pinning him down, of the feeling of heated skin pressing flush against his own.

It makes Varian feel…things.

Things he’s never felt toward a guy.

Things he shouldn’t be feeling, especially not toward Hugo.

He locks himself in his room and dives into his bed, screaming at the top of his lungs into a pillow.

What the everloving fuck is right.

 

 

 

 

After much more screaming and a hot bath to ward off the chill, Varian is back in his lab. Chemicals won’t talk back to him. Chemicals won’t judge him for his apparent boorish behavior. Chemicals won’t forget that they’re holding fishing poles and then slam their foreheads together and ohgod if one of them had tilted their head just so they would have been—

Hugo bursts through the door like he owns the place, a sneer dancing on his face. “I’ve come to collect, bitch.”

Apparently, no one respects the privacy of his space anymore.

“Varian!” Stan sprints through the door next, out of breath and doubled over. “I’m so-sorry—” the guard is wheezing, “I’m sorry— he, he pushed past—”

Varian sighs. Ugh, he can’t seem to catch a break with this guy. “It’s okay, Stan. You can go.”

The guard looks like he wants to protest, but catches the ice in Varian’s stare, and obediently slips back into the hall. Varian is certain this isn’t going to be pretty, and he doesn’t want any witnesses.

“Collect what? Hey! Don’t touch that!”

Hugo is already rifling through his beakers, notes, and tools, poking through the things on Varian’s workbench like a Ruddiger rifling through a garbage can. “God, this is how you work? How do you find anything in this mess?”

“I don’t need to explain my organizational system to you.” Varian moves to act as a human shield between Hugo and his stuff. “Why are you here?”

“You told me you’d give me your little cleaning solution. So fork it over.”

Oh, the Friedroxide. Right. Varian’s eyes flicker to a batch of little pink vials he keeps for cleanups. He could just not give Hugo the chemical. Or, even better, give him a bath bomb instead and then point and laugh when his stupid beautiful airship falls out of the sky.

Hugo follows his gaze and reaches out with grabby fingers for a handful of the vials. Varian forces his way between Hugo and the desk, but the blond isn’t giving up without a fight, shoving Varian so hard his hip connects painfully into the wood. The beakers and pipets rattle in their holders and Varian lets out an upset noise.

“You don’t need all of them,” he says, irritated at this intruder in his sacred space. “Just a few drops is enough for six of those airships.”

“Uh, no. You owe me at least two of those for flipping the fucking boat and dunking me in saltwater. Do you have any idea how crusty my jacket is?”

Varian’s hard gaze doesn’t budge. “You get one. That’s it.”

Hugo pulls back, lips thinly pursed as he locks Varian in a stink-eyed glare. See, this is more the type of interactions he’s used to having with the blond. Not laughing and exchanging details about their backstories. Bitter fighting. The way it should be.

“Fine,” Hugo relents, crossing his arms. “Then I want something else instead.”

Varian narrows his eyes. “As if I’m obligated to give you anyth—”

“I want a kiss.”

Varian blinks, certain that his brain has stopped correctly processing words to hear what he just heard come out of Hugo’s mouth. His voice cracks as he responds, “Huh?”

Hugo smirks, a cocky little thing, and he takes a challenging step forward. Varian on instinct backs up, but the table reminds him that it’s there, digging into his lower back. Hugo looms closer, close enough that Varian can see all the little golden flecks in his green eyes.

Varian’s mouth goes dry.

“A kiss,” Hugo repeats. “Surely even a backwater hick like you knows what that is, Goggles.”

Varian suddenly feels hot all over, but from anger or something else, he doesn’t know. Probably anger. Please, let it be anger.

“I know what a kiss is,” he snaps. “And why would you—why would you think I’d—” He can’t even finish a full sentence, the idea of kissing Hugo making his heart do Things in his chest. Has Hugo always been this warm? Felt this solid, pressed up against him like this?

He must’ve swallowed some saltwater. He must be going crazy. He has to be, to be thinking something like that—!

“We’ve already established your massive crush on me,” Hugo says, ignoring Varian’s noise of indignation. “And while it’s adorable, you’re going about courting me all wrong. I mean, dropping a cake on my head, starting a food fight, and flipping a boat? Clearly, no one has ever taught you proper dating etiquette, so I’m taking pity on you and righting this wrong, for all our sakes.”

“What,” Varian says, thoughts spinning a hundred miles per hour as they whirl through his head. “What—”

“Let’s use our words, Sweet Cheeks.”

His brain finally clicks back on. “The cake was your fault too, asshole! And I do not like you in any capacity! I loathe you!”

“Do you?” Hugo purrs, eyes glittering with challenge. “If this really didn’t mean anything to you, you’d have no problem with it.”

Varian gapes in disbelief, feeling as though he’s been lead directly into a beartrap and the iron has sinched tight around his throat. If he fights this, Hugo will use this as evidence for having a crush and never let him hear the end of it. If he agrees, Hugo will be kissing him. If he wraps his hands around Hugo’s throat, he’ll be a murderer, and get sent back to jail.

There was no way out of this.

He chews on his lip, considering. “…Just one kiss?”

"Mmhm." Hugo nods earnestly, expression dutifully innocent despite the evil glint in his eye. “What’s one meaningless kiss between rivals?”

And Varian knows, deep in his bones, that the only reason Hugo is doing this is to mess with him. To get inside his head and screw around. But now that he was aware of the blond’s plan, he wasn’t about to let him get the satisfaction of throwing Varian for a loop.

So Varian grits his teeth and says, “Fine.”

The word is barely out of his mouth before Hugo’s hands are wrapped around his face, pulling him forward.

At first, Varian is stiff, dimly registering the pressure of Hugo’s lips and the brush of smooth leather gloves against his cheeks. And then, all his other thoughts fizz out into nothing, because oh, Hugo’s lips are soft.

Varian has been kissed before—he’s twenty, he’s had that experience, thank you—but he’s never been kissed like this.

Hugo doesn’t kiss like Varian thought he would—not aggressive, but almost tender, cradling Varian’s face between his palms as if he was something to be cherished. It’s a mindboggling contrast to his personality.

Testing the waters, he leans forward into it, and is rewarded by Hugo’s mouth sliding open against his. And okay, wow. Hugo tastes…kind of incredible. He can’t help the hum of satisfaction that leaves his throat when their tongues intertwine.

And then Hugo shifts, one hand weaving fingers into Varian’s hair, the other bracing against the lab table as he leans Varian back. It slots their hips together in a way that makes Varian inhale sharply through his nose and arch closer. His lungs are starting to burn, but he barely registers it, too occupied by the fire crackling through his veins as he’s overwhelmed by this boy—

Hugo abruptly pulls away. Varian has to resist grabbing the collar of his shirt and yanking him back. He’s flushed such a delicate shade of pink, his lips are red and swollen, and—

Um.

Since when was Hugo so hot??

Unaware of Varian’s building panic, the blond shoots him a crooked grin. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it Sweet Cheeks?”

Varian is still trying to remember how human language works, and says nothing. Hugo snickers.

“See you tomorrow,” he sing-songs. He waves with one hand but keeps the other behind his back as he turns and sprints up the stairs like a man possessed.

Gravity is still pulling, the earth is still spinning, but Varian feels as if something momentous has just occurred in the universe. He raises his hand to his lips, still tingling with the taste of Hugo.

“Oh,” Varian murmurs, a thought slowly occurring in his sluggish brain. “I didn’t give him—”

He cuts himself off as he glances down at his desk. He’s missing not one, not two, but five vials of Friedroxide. A fucking handful.

The noise that leaves him next is shrieky, unhinged, and enraged.

 

 

Chapter 2

Notes:

this chapter is literally just "oh no he's hot" and i have zero regrets

The thing about the kiss, is that Varian can’t stop thinking about it.

It's on his mind for the rest of the night. It sneaks into his thoughts at breakfast the next morning, during his supply run into town, when he’s taking Ruddiger outside for a walk—at one point, he starts reciting the periodic table of elements just to think about something else, but finds himself stuttering over hydrogen, uranium, gallium, and oxygen. 

Obviously, he is having a crisis.

He needs to talk this out—or like, flee Corona altogether—because clearly, he is losing his mind. Eugene is the obvious choice of a listening ear. As an outspoken bisexual man who is married to a semi-magical woman, he’ll probably have wise words to say about what it means when you accidentally make out with your sworn enemy.

But Eugene already doesn’t like Hugo, and if his big brother hears that a guy he doesn’t like kissed Varian, he would forgo any interkingdom peace talks and murder Hugo in cold blood. His dad would definitely murder Hugo, and the Schnitz’s are all out of the question because no one in that family can keep secrets for shit.

So, Varian goes to find Rapunzel.

He comes prepared with a tray of cupcakes that were baked fresh that morning. It’s totally a bribe. Maybe, if he talks sweetly enough—if she sees what kind of mental state he’s in—Varian won’t be forced to do any more public activities and he can hide in his lab like the coward that he is.

Rapunzel is sitting in her old room, now converted into a painting studio, playing chess with Pascal.

“Are those all for me?” She beams when he walks through the door, already out of her chair and reaching for a sugary treat. Classic.

He waits until she’s got a mouthful of cake, then drops his bomb.

“I’ve decided that I’m going back to Old Corona for the rest of the week. It’ll be easier for everyone if I quietly abdicate right now and lay low until whatever trade deals with the Dark Kingdom are over with.”

Concern etches on Rapunzel’s face. She takes the tray from him and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

“Hugo happened!” The concern immediately drops from her expression and she purses her lips in preparation for what was probably a lecture, but Varian is having none of it. “No, I know what you’re thinking but just listen! He’s evil, Rapunzel! He’s got a plan to ruin me, I know it!”

“Evil?” his sister repeats with an amused eyebrow. “Tell me one thing he did that was evil.”

“He kissed me.”

Rapunzel’s eyebrows shoot up, looking completely taken by surprise. So does Pascal, his little jaw dropping open with a squeak.

“He kissed you without asking?”

“I—” Varian’s mouth shuts with a click. “I mean, no—”

“Did he hurt you?”

“N-no—”

Rapunzel’s lips quirk into an expression more mischievous. “Did you want to kiss him?”

“Ye—no! No, definitely not, he just—I mean, technically I said yes, but—l-look, it all happened so fast—” Had he wanted to kiss Hugo? He had agreed to it, hadn’t he? Or had stupid Hugo used his stupid pretty lips to manipulate him into saying yes?

(He has got to stop thinking Hugo’s lips are pretty.)

The queen cracks a smile at his inability to answer, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Pascal. “Yes, very evil.”

Varian lets out a noise of aggravation and flops face-first into a fluffy loveseat, smothering his face into the pillows. “He did it to taunt me,” he mutters miserably into the cushions. “He’s trying to get in my head.” And it’s fucking working, a small voice in his head whispers.

“Or,” Rapunzel says, “he’s trying to show you that he likes you.”

Varian laughs bitterly at the ridiculousness of that. Hugo, like him? Was Ruddiger going to learn how to fly?

His sister gets up and pads over, forcing him to scootch to make room for her on the seat. He lifts his head and lays it on her lap, humming as she runs her fingers through his hair.

“Varian, you have the tendency to hyper-fixate on things. And sometimes that includes people. Remember how crazy you went when you had that little puppy crush on Cassandra?”

Varian groans, smushing his face into her thigh. “When are people going to stop bringing that up?”

Rapunzel giggles, though not unkindly. “You literally created a new element to impress her. You spent a whole day doing her chores. You obsessed over her. And,” she pauses her motions, letting her hand rest comfortably on the back of his neck. “I think you’ve been obsessed with Hugo for a while.”

And Varian just…lets that sink in. His thoughts whirl, reanalyzing every encounter he’s ever had with the blond in rapid succession. He always thought the reason why he itched to win those expositions was to prove that he was better than Hugo out of spite—but maybe, just maybe, it was because he’d wanted to impress the other boy.

He thinks of Hugo, of the first time they met, four years ago—when the blond had smiled at him and Varian had blushed, though he had no idea why. He thinks of Hugo’s quick wit, long legs, and broad shoulders. Thinks about his hands working at that control panel, of his large palms cupping Varian’s face, weaving into his hair. He thinks about Hugo’s tongue, how it had felt curling so perfectly with his own—and then he imagines several other incriminating ways Hugo would probably use his tongue if Varian let him.

Ho-ley shit. He likes Hugo.

“Oh,” he breathes.

“Oh,” Rapunzel echoes gently. “How are you feeling?”

Varian rolls onto his back to look at his sister. He’s always been comfortable in his sexuality, but thought the reason his dating life never went anywhere serious was because he never found anyone who really understood him. Dumbing down conversations about his experiments just got so exhausting after a while, so Varian gave up dating until further notice.

It never occurred to him to broaden his spectrum outside of girls.

It never occurred to him to look toward the only other person in the Seven Kingdoms that has proven to be as intellectually capable as him.

“Bad,” Varian decides. “This is bad.”

“No,” Rapunzel says fiercely. “Never feel ashamed about your romantic interest in someone, no matter their gender or sexual orientation.”

“I don’t mean that.” He shakes his head. “I’m not upset that I like guys. I’m upset that I like Hugo.” Saying it out loud makes his heart flutter like a bird trapped between his ribs. Disgusting. “I mean, what am I even supposed to do with this information?”

Rapunzel taps her chin with a finger as she pretends to seriously consider this. “Mmm…You could start by telling him how you feel?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Varian, have you ever considered that your little rivalry might be based on mutual pining?”

“Mutual—” Varian sits up abruptly and gapes at her. “Hang on, mutual what?”

“I bet if you brought it up, he’d say that he likes you too,” Rapunzel shrugs. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I thought he wanted to be your friend, but I guess I was wrong on that front, huh?” And oh stars, she’s serious. She doesn’t see the huge problem in what she says.

He can’t tell Hugo that he likes him, because then—

Then—

Well. Then Hugo would know. And that, frankly, is just not an option.

“Or,” he says, feeling a little hysterical, “I could just poison him and bury the dismembered pieces of his corpse on Dad’s farm.”

The queen snorts and flicks his ear. “No murdering. Yes talking.”

Varian buries his face in his hands and groans.

 

 

 

 

The third day goes by too fast. Their next activity is a tradition kept by the kingdom of Bayangor and it’s literally the worst one yet—stargazing.

“Tonight we share one of our most sacred traditions,” the queen of the Air Kingdom is saying, arms spread wide as she addresses the entire hillside. The courts have marched their way off the main island and are now on an empty clearing in the woods, where they’re supposed to look up at the sky and—bask in the sacred light of the stars, or something. The queen is making a speech about it. Varian should probably be paying attention, but he’s too focused on trying not to explode out of his skin.

Hugo isn’t here yet. (Late again, what an ass.) Just like the first night at the dinner party, the anticipation of seeing him is somehow even worse than actually catching sight of his face—only now, that anxious feeling has racketed up about a hundred notches. Now, Varian finally understands why seeing Hugo makes him so restless.

He misses Hugo. He never wants to see Hugo’s stupid face again.

Crushing on your rival is simply baffling. 

He hovers toward the back of the group near a couple of Galcrest nobles, wishing he could hide in one of their parkas. From upfront, one of the Bayangor princesses—the one with the golden eyes—is watching him.

Varian swallows.

He heard over lunch that Eugene helped Edmund gain a pelt trading deal with Neserdnia. That could singlehandedly kickstart the Dark Kingdom’s economy. It was huge. He can’t let his stupid crush get in the way of keeping up appearances, not now!

The queen must have ended her speech because the crowd breaks off, letting people mingle around the open space like cattle. Some people wave sparklers around in high arcs, laughing and drawing their own shapes in the evening air along with the fireflies.

“Hi,” a voice at Varian’s elbow says. Varian does not shriek, merely crying out manly at the surprise.

He turns to see that golden-eyed princess. She’s wearing a periwinkle skirt that’s got constellations embroidered onto it, and there is a star barrette in her hair.

“Um, hi?”

The girl snorts. She’s about the same height as him, but looks a little younger, more around Kiera and Catalina’s age. “You looked like you were drowning over here by yourself. Which I should know, because I watched you almost drown yesterday.”

Varian lets out an aggravated sigh, running a hand down his face. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says.

“Are you lying to make me feel better?”

“Yep." She nods with a grin, then thrusts out her hand. “I’m Nuru.”

“Varian.”

“I know.” She looks around the clearing for a moment, eyes scanning for something. “Where’s your shadow?”

“Hopefully in a ditch somewhere.” The words are out of his mouth before he registers them, and registers who he is talking to. “Er—I mean—”

But Nuru laughs. “I guessed by the way you guys kept arguing you were either best friends or enemies. Guess I have my answer now.”

Enemies, Varian thinks woozily. Enemies don’t say they loathe you and then kiss you so hard your world shifts on its axis.

“D’you wanna get a better view?” Nuru asks, and Varian nods, desperate to do something besides dwell in his thoughts.

Nuru, to his surprise, leads him to a tall tree and makes to climb it. Varian has never climbed a tree before, certainly not one that tall, but Nuru coaches him on where to put his feet and how to balance his weight. Soon, they’re both at the top of the tree, standing on opposite branches, probably about a hundred feet off the ground.

His stomach swoops at the height, but then Varian turns to look in the shining castle in the distance, alight like a shining crown on the midnight waters of the bay. The breath get stolen right out of his lungs. “Wow.”

“I know,” Nuru says, but she isn’t looking at the castle. Her head is craned upward, toward the stars. “The sparklers are part of our tradition, but they always ruin the light.” Varian turns to look at the sky, and she’s right—on a cloudless night, the constellations are shining as bright as the fireflies below.

She reaches out a hand and points, “That’s Orion. And that one is Lyra. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor…Oh, and Lepus.”

Varian can’t help but be a little impressed. He can recognize the glint of passion in her eye, signaling a fellow enthusiast. “You study the stars?”

She shrugs. “We have to. Our capital is plagued by meteor showers. We have to monitor the heavens to know when they’re coming.” Nuru inhales a little sharply, pursing her lips. “We’re in a constant state of rebuilding. Seeing your kingdom constantly being torn to shreds is painful, especially when there's no end in sight.”

“I’m sorry,” Varian says, genuinely meaning it.

“It’s alright.” She offers him a wistful smile, the glow of the moonlight illuminating the longing on her face. “There’s nothing anybody can do. Now, c’mon, let's get back down there before my mother notices I'm gone.”

As they clamber down the tree, Varian’s mind whirls, thinking through the possibilities of how to prevent a meteor shower. Maybe a city-wide energy shield? Or some kind of giant bazooka to shoot them out of the sky?

Hugo is waiting for them at the bottom of the tree, because of course he is. He’s got his hands on his hips and is glaring at Varian like a disappointed mother. Varian’s treacherous heart leaps at the sight of him, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from doing something stupid like trying to kiss him again.

“Replacing me already? Why Goggles, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to hurt my feelings.”

Surprisingly, Nuru beats him to a comeback. “Maybe he just needed a break from this.” She waves her hand around in a circle, gesturing to Hugo’s general area.

“You just gestured to all of me.”

“So you see my point.”

“A magnet!” Varian says abruptly, causing both of them to turn to look at him. He doesn’t care, a sudden grin overtaking his face. “You could build giant magnets on the outskirts of your kingdom and turn them on whenever a shower is about to start. That would deter their trajectory away from your capital. Meteoroids are just rocks made up of nickel and iron, it’d be easy to attract them if you calibrated it right.”

Nuru blinks at him, confusion slowly being replaced by curiosity. “Okay,” she says, “let’s say that works. Then what do we do with the meteorites once we have them? We get hit twice a month, that’s a ton of rock laying around.”

“Melt them down,” Hugo says with a shrug. “Like he said, their bases are made up of valuable metals. Metals like that can be repurposed for other uses.”

Varian nods excitedly. “Or traded.”

“That’s a better idea, actually,” Hugo agrees, and—hang on, did Hugo just admit he was right?? “Heaven knows Ingvarr needs as much iron as we can get. Our airships eat that metal for breakfast.”

Nuru looks between them both as if it was Christmas morning and they’d just handed her a puppy. “Great nebula,” she breathes, and then launches herself at them like a rocket. Varian chokes as one of her arms wraps around his throat, Hugo making a similar noise as they’re suddenly smushed together in a giant bear hug by a tiny girl.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou—”

“What,” Hugo gasps, squirming in her hold but unable to break free. “What’s happening right now?”

“It’s called a hug,” Varian tells him. “Y’know, something humans do when they’re happy.” Over Nuru’s shoulder, the Ingvarrian sneers, and Varian sticks out his tongue.

“You guys have to build it,” Nuru implores, pulling back far enough to look in their faces. “Please, please. This could solve so many problems in our kingdom!”

“We are not building anything,” Hugo says mildly.

“Sure we will,” Varian chirps at the same time, just to piss Hugo off. “I can sketch up some blueprints tomorrow morning.”

Nuru beams and lets out a little squeal, finally releasing them. “I have to go tell my mother!” And then she’s gone in a swirl of periwinkle in the direction of the queen.

Hugo turns to look at him, glare cold underneath his glasses. “Since when were you allowed to contract me out?”

Varian shrugs nonchalantly. “Since it’ll actually help you. Didn’t you just say Ingvarr needs all the iron it can get? Boom. I just helped you get more, and the only things it’ll cost you are some manual labor and time with me.”

Hugo’s glare turns icy. “You little shit.”

“I believe the words you’re looking for are you’re welcome.”

The blond grumbles under his breath, shoulders hiked high in irritation as he stalks back over to the main clearing. Varian bounds after him, meanly overjoyed at still being able to annoy the shit out of Hugo despite this recent development of, ugh, feelings.

To his surprise, they don’t rejoin a crowded hillside filled with the upper crust. Most of the people are gone, already headed back to their respective spaces on the island. Huh. They were up in that tree longer than Varian thought.

“Congratulations, Goggles, you successfully weaseled your way out of this one,” Hugo says. “A complete waste of my time.”

“You were the one that was late,” Varian shoots back, annoyed. “Where were you?”

“Rubbing elbows with the riffraff. Which, I am going to continue to do if we’re done here. I got invited to a party.”

“A party?” Varian repeats, frowning. “There’s no party happening tonight.”

Hugo snorts. “Yeah, not a Coronian party. Apparently, the Bayangorians always throw huge bashes this time of year since it’s so close to the summer solstice and their celebration of the heavens. Being in another kingdom isn’t going to break that tradition. I'd say I'm surprised your new little friend didn't tell you that, but then again, I forgot you can't make friends."

Varian clenches his jaw and imagines several ways he could tackle this boy and shove his face into the ground. Luckily, for his sake, Hugo has already started to descend the hillside out of tackling range. Varian’s chest feels strangely tight watching him leave, the sudden longing giving him whiplash.

But then, Hugo pauses. Turns around and eyes him in that hooded way that always means he’s planning something particularly evil—

“You should come with me.”

A laugh bursts out of his chest, loud and abrupt. “Ha. Haha. Um, what? No. Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, Sweet Cheeks,” and fuck, how did Hugo get so close to him so fast? Stupid tall people. “I promised you I’d show you a good time at a party, right?”

“You didn’t promise, it was more of a feeble ambition—”

“You scared?”

Adrenaline crackles through Varian’s veins like lightning. “No.”

Hugo smirks that stupid, smarmy smirk. “Mm, I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not scared of a stupid party!” Varian shouts, even though Hugo has weaseled his way into his personal space. They were in the middle of a vast hillside, and yet are less than an inch apart. “And I’m not scared of you!”

Hugo’s eyebrows shoot up at that, but the smirk remains on his face. He leans in closer, impossibly close, close like they were yesterday when their lips had touched. Varian swallows thickly and stubbornly keeps his jaw set despite the heat rushing to his ears.

Hugo's breath ghosts across his face when he says, “Prove it.”

 

 

 

 

They hear the music before they even reach the docks. There’s a crowd of people bustling around the pier, mostly crowded around one of the Bayangorian ships. He can hear loud laugher, shrieks, and even an occasional splash when someone must fall into the bay.

Hugo was right. This is nothing like a Coronian party.

The number of people clustered on that ship’s deck cannot be up to codes. Varian is certain that, somewhere in the stables, Max is frothing at the mouth. And honestly? He’d take his chances with an infuriated equine than dive into whatever mess that was.

“Uhh, I’m not sure if…” His flimsy excuse dies in his throat when he makes the mistake of glancing over to Hugo.

The blond is wearing a wild grin, face alight with excitement.

“Now that’s a party,” he says, and yanks Varian forward until the crowd swallows them whole.

Hugo is apparently intent on getting right in the thick of things, climbing right up on the center of the deck. Surprisingly, Varian finds that he doesn’t mind having the blond lead him; right now, Hugo is acting as his plow, clearing a path for him to follow up the boarding platform.

People are clapping and dancing in a circle on the deck, chattering with each other, but this seems to be the breathing room. The rest of the noise is bleeding from below, coming from the belly of the ship.

Hugo tears down the stairs like a man determined. At this point, Varian can only follow and hope for the best.

As predicted, things are much louder down in the hull.

There’s a haze of sweet-smelling smoke and what was probably just general body heat made visible from having so many people smashed together. In one corner, Varian spots a group of musicians with fiddles, flutes, and drums, all creating an upbeat tune that has people dancing in the center of the ship. Bodies push, pull, and roll together like the tide. Varian had thought that dinner party was crowded, but at least that was in the castle’s ballroom, where there was a seventy-five-foot ceiling. Down here, everything is cramped, musky, and moving as the ship rocks with the gentle waves of the bay.

Varian stares, wide-eyed, trying to just breathe.

Some guy who’s dressed in Bayangorian colors shoves a mug into Varian’s hand, laughs something in his native tongue, then lets the crowd carry him away.

Varian looks curiously down at the liquid that was just given to him. Is he…supposed to drink this?

Hugo is suddenly there, swiping the mug out of his hand and raising it to his nose.

“What is that?” Varian asks, his voice almost lost to the music.

“Ugh, don’t drink that, ‘s fuckin’ foul. Hang on.” Hugo stands on his toes and cranes his neck, searching through countless heads and faces. He must find whoever he’s looking for because he brightens and cups his hands around his mouth. “Nads! Nads!”

Varian is shocked to see the younger Ingvarr princess appear out of the crowd, summoned by Hugo’s siren call. And, what the hell? This room was definitely not a place he'd ever imagine he'd see a princess, but then again, Varian doubts the Ingvarrians have an issue with seedy crowds.

“You got—hell yeah you do, that’s my girl!” The princess answers his unasked question by pulling a small metal flask out of her jacket. She chuckles as he rips the top open and takes a swig, then lets her eyes drift to Varian.

Like her sister, Nadia has pale blue eyes and red hair, but her face is wider, heart-shaped. It gives her the appearance of looking softer, but Varian remembers the Contest of the Crown from a few years ago. He knows she could drop him on his ass as easily as she decked that giant metal lion.

And then, the flask is being shoved toward him.

“Uh.” Varian blinks, trying to figure out a way to politely decline drinking a liquor that probably had three people’s backwashes.

Hugo sees his hesitation as a personal offense and is swift to pounce. “What’s the matter, Goggles? Can’t keep up?”

And goddamn, Hugo somehow always knows just what to say to get the adrenaline racing through his heart. Varian glares at him as hard as he can, then throws his head back and chugs. The liquid tastes like fire, burning all the way down his throat and into his stomach. It’s disgusting, nothing like any of the sweet Coronian ales he usually has, but he hasn’t let Hugo get the better of him so far this week, he’s not gonna start now.

He swallows, coughs, then spits “Svoloch” in Hugo’s stupid face.

Hugo screams, laughing so hard he almost doubles over. Even the princess is cackling. Varian has no idea what he just said, but can’t help but feel a little tension drain from his shoulders at the sound of Hugo’s laugh.

“Fucker,” the blond says, voice holding something that sounds almost like affection(??). Hugo is looking at him, eyes bright and twinkling. Varian doesn’t have time to process what it means, because the two Ingvarrians grab him and hustle him onto the makeshift dancefloor.

Nadia and Hugo join the dancers effortlessly, falling into some elaborate jig that involves lots of kicking and jumping and spinning and clapping. They move together seamlessly, long limbs arching and swaying like tree branches in the wind. With a spark, he realizes they must dance with each other often. Varian imagines them doing this routine on the deck of their airship, the metal grate bending and bouncing beneath their stomping feet.

He watches them—more specifically, watches Hugo—taking notice of, well. Everything. Hugo’s face is split in half by his smile, the strands of his golden hair coming loose from his ponytail as he spins, his throat bobbing as he laughs. He’s the embodiment of kinetic energy. A force of nature. Watching him sets Varian’s nerves ablaze.

Because the way Hugo moves is just—

Is just—

Unfair.

It’s so unfair, that Hugo has secretly been this smart and handsome and perfect, and Varian has been blind to it until right fucking now. How has he never noticed the way that Hugo’s eyes shine or how his nose scrunches when he laughs and how his spine curves when he moves his hips—

Oh stars. His hips.

So, like. Varian should just leave, right? He’s just taking up space at this party, ogling at the boy he thought he hates but apparently very much does not. There was no reason to keep torturing himself like this. Let the engineer and his warrior princess dance all night and leave Varian to wallow in his crush alone with his raccoon.

But that blond bastard must smell his notion to retreat like a shark smells blood, because he moves toward Varian like a hurricane. Varian clutches at the flask for dear life, praying he won’t get swept away.

“What, you don’t dance?”

“No, I do.” Varian thinks fleetingly of the dorky little victory dances that burst out of him when an experiment goes right, or the times he’s playfully waltzed with Rapunzel. “Just uh, not like that.”

“C’mon, you gotta loosen up.” Hugo’s hands are suddenly at his waist, and Varian’s entire body goes as rigid as a board. He can feel the heat radiating through the other boy’s gloves, through his clothing, and is suddenly dizzy with the knowledge that Hugo’s long fingers could probably meet under his ribcage.

Hugo laughs at his reaction. The searing heat is still there, even as he moves his hands away. “That’s the opposite of what I said. Here, watch me.”

“I am,” Varian says gravely. By the sun, this boy is going to kill him. A desperate noise claws out of his throat, lost to the music. “Hugo, I can’t—”

The music suddenly stops, and there’s an instant of silence—and then the drums start beating a new tune, one that’s fast and impossibly upbeat. People around them cheer and grab new partners. Someone behind him jostles him roughly, shoving him forward hard enough to make him lose his grip on Nadia’s flask.

Hugo catches him. Steadies him.

And then grins.

“Don’t,” Varian begs, but it’s too late. He barely has time to gain his bearings on Hugo’s shoulders before the blond moves.

It’s terrible. Varian is stiff and fumbling, tripping over himself and stepping on Hugo’s feet as he’s maneuvered around like dead weight. He keeps his eyes on the floor, biting his lip as he tries to focus on moving his feet in the right way. The liquor is making his coordination fuzzy, and the humiliation and frustration make the tips of his ears burn.

“I can’t—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know the steps—”

“Varian.”

It’s as if he shouted it—Varian’s head snaps up so fast he feels dizzy. Hugo’s smile is soft, emerald eyes glittering with something that makes Varian’s heart pound a little faster.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t either. Just go with it.”

Go with it, Varian thinks. Right.

He grabs Hugo’s waist and swings the taller boy into a low dip. The blond blinks up at him before a laugh bursts from his chest, wild and chaotic, and Varian can’t help but laugh right along with him.

He stops thinking, letting his body move to the music, letting Hugo guide him and guiding Hugo right back. He clumsily tries to imitate that weird jumping dance they were doing earlier, and Nadia swoops in, guiding him through the moves and calling him “zaychonok” between giggles.

It’s fun—bodies push and pull around them, the music is shifting again, and Varian accepts a mug of that Bayangorian liquor when it’s pushed toward him by another dancer. He nearly vomits it right back up after he swallows and rolls his eyes when Hugo screams “IFUCKINGTOLDYOU” in his ear.

Normally, he’d never do something like this. Never would feel bold enough to grab a random stranger and start swinging to a fiddle, but having Hugo at his side makes him feel brave. Makes him feel free.

So of course, Varian has to fuck it up.

It’s at the end of a song, and he’s once again in Hugo’s arms. They’re both giggling like fools, feeling light and weightless. Varian is mesmerized by the way the dim lanterns reflect off Hugo’s glasses, highlighting the slope of his nose and cheekbones. How someone can be so sharp and smooth at the same time is simply mindboggling. Truly, it was worth studying in closer detail.

So he stands on his toes and presses his lips to the corner of Hugo’s mouth.

He feels Hugo go stiff underneath him, a sudden rock in an ocean of moving bodies. Distantly, he hears a whistle, someone else crooning about getting a room, but Hugo still doesn’t move. Varian’s brain finally catches up to what he’s doing, and ice floods in veins.

He pulls back quickly, only catching a glimpse of Hugo’s shocked face before he whirls around and flees.

And shitshitfuck, why did he just do that? What could have possibly compelled him to do something that stupid? He’s basically just outed himself and his crush. He's shown his hand, completely folded, and he doesn’t even know if Hugo likes him back. The last time they’d kissed, it was because Hugo was trying to trick him. Varian has no evidence of Rapunzel’s theory of mutual pining being accurate and now Hugo wasn’t ever going to let him hear the end of it—

“Goggles!” he hears from behind him, but that only makes him push through the crowd even faster, climbing back up the stairs of the ship three at a time and bursting out onto the main deck. The cool night air washes over him in a tidal wave of clarity.

He just kissed Hugo. He just kissed Hugo. Hugo, his rival. Hugo, his crush. Fuck, he needs to get out of here. Needs to get back to the castle. Needs to scream into his pillow, needs to find Rapunzel and cry—

He’s only just moving to the docking platform when Hugo reappears on the deck.

Oh, hell.

Varian does not run, but does something very close to it as he powerwalks the fuck off the ship. He wildly considers throwing an acidic bomb at the wooden plank to burn it up just so Hugo can’t follow him onto the docks.

“Goggles!” Hugo is calling, sounding closer now. “Varian! ” Varian desperately tries to weave in and out of barrels and crates and people and anything that’ll put distance between him and the other boy, but Hugo’s long legs let him catch up faster than Varian would want.

Fingers attempt to wrap around his elbow, but Varian pulls away quickly and keeps walking. “Don’t touch me."

“The fuck is happening right now?” Hugo asks, following him. “You kissed me—shouldn’t I be the blushing debutante in this situation?”

Varian cringes, a wave of regret and self-loathing filling him to the brim. He hates feeling so out of control. He only has half the variables in this equation—Hugo is still a wild card, there’s no telling how he’ll react. He can only focus on putting one foot in front of the other in a desperate attempt at escape. They’re in the lower city now, away from the noise of the docks, and Varian feels the chill of the quiet wrap around his heart and squeeze.

“It was a mistake,” Varian says, hating how his stomach churns at the word.

“A mistake,” Hugo repeats flatly.

Varian grits his teeth. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that without your consent. It won’t happen again.”

Hugo lets out a tiff, and actually manages steps in front of Varian to block his path. Varian snarls, but hands are suddenly shoving at his shoulders and pushing him off the street into an ally.

They tousle for a moment as Varian tries to move around the other boy, but Hugo does the thing where he takes up too much space that should be physically possible with his gangly limbs, effectively blocking any escape.

Varian’s heart thuds in his chest, desperately trying to escape the cage of delicate bone. “Move.”

“So, lemme just try to make sense of the way your mind is working right now,” Hugo starts, pushing his glasses to his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You think that because I didn’t immediately respond to your little surprise attack, you somehow broke my trust and acted against my consent? Is that what’s happening?”

Well, when you put it that way…

On principle, Varian tries to muster up an excuse. As long as they’re fighting, the world made sense. If they weren’t, then…the unknown was something he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with right now. “I shouldn’t have kissed you if you didn’t want to.”

“And what, pray tell, would make you think that I didn’t want to?”

That stops Varian up short. He blinks hard, trying to formulate thought between the buzz of liquor and the fuzziness that spreads through him as the blond steps closer.

Did—did that mean—?

Hugo snorts at his inability to answer, looking lovingly bemused. “You’re so fucking dumb,” he mutters, and then slots their lips together.

Kiss one was slow and smooth. Kiss two was but a brief touch of lips. But kiss three is a whole new sensation.

This time, Hugo kisses like Varian thought he would—hot and heady and leading the fight with his tongue. It’s a messy clash of tongue and teeth, but by the stars it’s delicious. He nudges Varian back until his shoulders hit stone, boxing him in. Fire erupts on Varian’s face and in his lower belly, and he can’t help but moan when Hugo nips at his bottom lip, lavishing the wound with his tongue.

He hates that he loves this feeling. Hates that he loves that Hugo is the one who does this to him, melts him into a puddle of want and warmth and vulnerability.

But fuck, he isn’t going to let this bastard get away with it.

Varian gets a fistful of Hugo’s jacket and the other in his hair, pulling him impossibly closer. Hugo lets out a needy little noise when his fingers tug at his ponytail, and seriously, the guy with the undercut’s got a hair pulling kink? So fucking predictable. Varian almost snickers as he does it again, but the teasing noise gets aborted as a leg is suddenly shoved between his hips, solid and warm.

Varian suddenly aches, some deep unexplainable need lighting up within him, making him desperate for something.

His chest feels white-hot—angry and giddy and infatuated all at once—and it makes him kiss the other boy even more furiously, four years of pent-up aggression pouring out in a rising crescendo. Varian wants to scream at how good Hugo’s lips feel under his, at how perfectly they fit together, at the sudden realization that he’s probably wanted to do this for a really, really long time.

He wrenches his head back with a gasp when Hugo grinds their hips together. His skull cracking on brick is only collateral damage. “Oh—” He whimpers when Hugo traces a line of open-mouthed kisses against the feverish skin of his neck. “Fuck, Hugo—!”

“Varian,” the other boy responds, and stars, the way Hugo’s tongue curls around the syllables of his name should be illegal.

“I—” He clutches at the sleeve of Hugo’s jacket for dear life, blinking up past the banners that are strung up on the alley and toward the glittering stars. “Hnng, Hugo—please, I want—ah!”

Varian feels Hugo’s teeth bare in a smile before he presses a soft kiss against the flesh where he’d just bitten. “Shh, you don’t gotta beg, sweetheart. Imma give you everything, make you feel so good.”

Hugo’s voice is sinful, hot and curling sweetly in the pit of Varian’s stomach. He grasps at the blond’s shoulders and heaves in shuddering breaths, trying desperately to stay afloat in this hazy sea of pleasure he was set adrift in—

A hand brushes against his belt, Varian suddenly feels like he’s drowning.

“No,” he gasps.

Hugo instantly goes still. He pulls back, eyes wide and searching Varian’s face as he puts at least six inches in-between their bodies. Varian barely holds himself back from writhing at the open air, desperate and missing the touch.

“No?” Hugo asks carefully.

“Not—no as in no,” Varian stutters, trying to pull the words he wants to say out of the fog in his brain.

“No is a pretty definitive word in my book, Sweet Cheeks.”

Varian shakes his head. Ugh, this was coming out all wrong. “I just—I think you should know I’m bisexual.”

Hugo raises an eyebrow. “And I’m very gay, so what’s your point?”

“I figured out I was bisexual this morning.”

“Oh,” Hugo says. And then, “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” Funny story, but you caused my sexuality crisis, Varian almost says, but doesn’t. Lord knows what would happen if Hugo knew that. “I mean—I want to do this, but I just…don’t know if I’m ready for it that fast? And also...maybe not in a public alleyway?”

Hugo nods, expression understanding and not altogether unkind. “That’s fair. It's best to wait, anyway. When I go down on you, I’m gonna ruin you for any other person for the rest of your life.”

Varian splutters and blushes so hard he feels dizzy. Hugo cracks a grin, and Varian wants to kiss him again to get that smarmy expression off his face, so he does. It’s gentle and smooth and as easy as breathing. Why have they been fighting this whole time when they could have been doing this?

Dimly, Varian knows that they should probably talk about…whatever this is. They’ve been at each other’s throats for so long, and now, they’d taken that phrase and given it a whole new meaning.

Maybe Rapunzel was right. Maybe Hugo did like him back.

Or maybe he didn’t, and just enjoyed sticking his tongue down his sworn enemy's throat.

Either way, Varian knows a conversation would be smart; to talk this out and think about what it means for them. If there even was a joint them. But right now, he doesn’t want to think, just wants to feel and get lost in the taste of the other boy’s tongue.

After a few minutes of going back and forth, Varian figures they should probably stop making out in the alley like horny teenagers and actually head back to their respective beds. As they exchange quiet goodnights, Varian can’t help but feel like something is blooming between them. Some soft unspoken wish that’s lingering in the cool evening air that neither of them wants to name.

He takes a few steps toward the castle, then pauses when he realizes Hugo hasn’t moved.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“Enjoying the view,” Hugo drawls with a lazy grin.

Varian scowls and flips him off, but revels in the feeling of his heart fluttering at the sound of Hugo’s laugh.

 

 

 

 

The next morning is terrible.

His tongue is fuzzy and thick, his head feels like it’s going to explode, and his stomach is rolling like he’s still on that boat adrift in the harbor. Varian has had hangovers before, but god, this one came from a special hell.

Ruddiger paws his way up from the end of the bed and pokes at his face, checking in with a curious chirrup. Varian groans in response.

“Buddy, what the hell do Ingvarrians drink? Isopropyl?”

His raccoon can offer no answer, but nudges a cup of water in his direction.

It takes almost an hour for him to get out of bed, and another good forty minutes to relearn how to walk with his nauseated stomach. He knows, logically, that eating something carby would help, but that requires actually walking into the dining room.

He makes it, but not without great effort.

“Gooooood morning, sleepyhead!” Eugene chirps from the table, and Varian has never wanted to punch his brother so badly in his life.

“Unnnngh,” is Varian’s garbled response. He sluggishly makes his way over to the table and—oh, incredible, coffee. He sinks into a chair and reaches greedily for a cup.

“Sooooo, a little birdy told me that you were busy last night.”

Varian chokes and spits the scalding liquid back up on the table. “What.”

“Your deal with the Air Kingdom!” Eugene is beaming at him, bouncing out of his chair and over to him in excitement. “The giant magnet thingy you said you were gonna build to help with their asteroid problem?”

“Oh.” A wave of relief washes over him and he slumps into the chair. “That.”

Eugene continues on, unperturbed. “Varian, my dad is so excited. And I admit, teaming up with that Ingvarrian brat was a bit out of the left field, but it’s showing that the Dark Kingdom can collaborate as a center of commerce. This could usher in a new wave of interkingdom trade! Stroke of pure genius, kid.”

Varian lets his head fall and thunk against the back of the chair. Nuru had said she was going to talk to her mother, but to have this plan accepted so fast, and without seeing any prior blueprints…Bayangor must be pretty desperate for relief.

“Just doin’ my part,” he sighs, closing his eyes and relaxing back into the seat. He’s so tired, he could just doze off right here. “Now please stop talking so loudly.”

His brother snorts. “Guess you finally found the liquid courage to mingle, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Nerd.”

“Jerk.”

“Wait.” Eugene leans closer, and Varian doesn’t have time to think before there’s a hand grabbing his jaw and tilting his head to the side. “Excuse me, is this a hickey I am seeing?”

Varian is suddenly violently awake.

He shoves out of the captain’s hold and jumps to his feet, hand flying up to poke and prod at the flesh of his neck. Just like Eugene said, there’s a tender bit just under his jaw. Dread pools in his stomach. Fucking Hugo. “Um…no?”

“Oh my god,” Eugene says with mounting horror. “OH my GOD—Varian, how the hell did you get a hickey?! Wha—oh no! Don’t you run away from me young man! C’mere!”

Face lit aflame, he hastily darts away from the other man, who is now chasing him around the table in pursuit. “It’s—it’s not a hickey, it’s, uhm, just a bruise from, uh, Ruddiger climbing on my neck—”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, kid! I know what a hickey looks like.” Eugene squints at him. “Hang on, are you having sex? You’re too young to have sex!” The captain’s voice sounds unhinged, and it would be hilarious in literally any other situation, but right now, Varian is a dead man. He’s so, so dead—

Wait.

“Too youn—Eugene, I’m twenty.”

“No, you’re a baby. That’s baby age.”

“It’s an adult age, you ass! And I didn’t have sex—”

“Don’t lie to me, you little shit.” Eugene flings an accusatory finger at him from across the table. “If you’re canoodling with somebody, I need to know.”

Varian lets out an offended noise. “You absolutely do not! My dating life isn’t any of your business!”

“It’s my castle! Anything that happens under this roof is one hundred percent my business, and anything that happens to my baby brother under this roof is two hundred percent my business!”

“It is literally not your castle! You married into this real estate!”

“Yeah, but I’m also the prince consort! I own at least, like, forty-two percent of this real estate!”

“Forty-two percent,” Varian mocks with a sneer. “Not even a majority—”

“Boys.”

Both of them turn to see Rapunzel standing in the doorway, looking bemused. “What’s going on?”

Eugene immediately rushes to her. “Sunshine, do you know anything about Varian’s secret girlfriend?”

Rapunzel, the absolute goddess that she is, takes this comment in stride. “Varian doesn’t have a secret girlfriend.”

Varian only gets a brief wave of relief, because Eugene points at him and says, “Well somebody had to give him that hickey, and it sure as hell wasn’t the raccoon.”

The brunette blinks, looking at him in a new light. Varian immediately shrinks under his sister’s gaze. He has no idea how she’ll react—

“Did you follow my advice?” she asks instead, sending a whole different kind of panic through him.

He gnaws the inside of his cheek. “Ahhh…kind of…?” Her lips purse, and Varian suddenly explodes. “Talking is harder than it looks, okay? He gets all sassy and it makes me want to punch him—”

“So you punched him with your mouth,” Rapunzel says sagely. “Excellent plan.”

Varian buries his face in his hands and groans.

“He?!” Eugene repeats, looking like he’s clawing himself off the cliff of cardiac arrest. “Hold—hold on. Full stop. Have I missed something…?”

Varian shoots Eugene a nervous smile, one that he hoped conveys, Surprise, I’m Bisexual! His brother lets out a heavy sigh, deflating off his pedestal of rage.

“Firstly, congratulations on figuring yourself out. I love you very much and that will never change,” Eugene says seriously. “But secondly, tell me who you’re punching with your mouth so I can punch them with my fist.”

Rapunzel giggles, “Eugene—” but she doesn’t get to finish that sentence. Pete bursts through the door, eyes bulging and out of breath.

“Thank goodness—Eugene—Varian—you have to—come right now—” the guard pants.

Eugene immediately sobers up from whatever crisis he’s having and lets the captain training take over. “Pete, what’s wrong? What happened?”

The guard takes a few more wheezing breaths before his face twists into something sour. “Something bad.”

 

 

 

 

The screaming of the Griffon can be heard all the way across the courtyard, and it does absolutely nothing for Varian’s headache.

“—some kind of prank, huh? You think I’m laughing? Do I LOOK like I’m laughing to you?!”

“No, no one is laughing,” Frederic frantically tries to pacify the smaller man. They’re over by the stables, where a group of carriages are parked, ranging in color and size and kingdom. Stan is wringing his hands on his staff, and Max is pacing, keeping guard between the Coronian king and the small bird man. “We only want to help.”

They get close enough for the Griffon to catch sight of Varian. “Help by locking him up!”

“Oh boy, here we go,” he hears Eugene mutter before plastering on a smile. “Griffon! Your golden poultry excellence! What’s wron—oh.”

And oh is right.

The Pittsford carriage is absolutely destroyed. Jagged spikes of hardened pink crack the carriage in half like an egg, wood splintered around the wreckage in a halo of destruction. Varian rushes forward, past the pair of kings who are screaming, reaching forward to the wreckage to be certain—

He gets hit with the distinct smell of vanilla, and that seals the deal.

This was one of his concoctions! One of his bombs—a hardening foam one, by the looks of it—that was thrown haphazardly at this carriage, blown up in the middle like some wooden piñata.

Ears ringing, he backs up over to Eugene, who has joined the attempt of calming the Griffon down. “It’s mine,” Varian grits out. A sudden fury is starting to burn him from the inside out, because who the hell stole his formula? How did they get into his lab? They touched his stuff, someone could have gotten hurt—

“See?” the Griffon points a tiny infuriated finger at him. “He admits it!”

“I didn’t blow up your carriage,” Varian says mildly. “Someone must have taken this out of my lab.”

“Even worse!” the Griffon screams. He flings his finger at Eugene instead. “A sign of bad security! Some job you’re doing as a prince when you can’t even make sure your kingdom’s guests don’t get robbed—”

“Griffon, please,” Frederic says, “We don’t know how this happened, but we are not taking this lightly. Eugene and the guards will stop at nothing to apprehend this criminal. And while we wait, we can discuss building you a new carriage, free of charge…”

Freddy starts schmoozing like a pro, giving time for Eugene to huddle up with Stan, Pete, and Varian.

“Okay, guys.” The captain glances at the three of them in expectation. “Theories. Go.”

“They got into my lab,” Varian says bitterly. “I’ve been so busy with those stupid peace activities, it probably wasn’t hard for someone to sneak in.”

Eugene’s lips thin. “Yeah, but we would have noticed someone acting suspiciously around your lab. It could have been an inside job, done by someone who knows their way around the servant corridors. Or, someone we wouldn’t have been suspicious to see with you. Have you invited anyone from another kingdom into your lab to show off an experiment or something?”

Varian shakes his head. “No, no one.”

“What about Hugo?” Stan pipes up, and Varian freezes.

“Hugo?” Eugene repeats, frowning. “Did you show Hugo some of your bombs, kid?”

“Uh—”

“He was in Varian’s lab,” Stan continues innocently, missing the way Varian frantically draws a cutthroat motion across his neck. “Left in a big hurry, too. Looked like he was smuggling something out, but I thought you’d given something to him since he was all riled up about what you owed him.”

“Owed him?” Eugene’s eyes are on him now, squinty and suspicious. “What did Hugo want?”

My tongue in his mouth, Varian thinks hysterically. “A-a cleaning solution,” he says instead, forcing his voice to remain steady. “For the Ingvarrian’s ship air filters. But—but that’s all he wanted. He wasn’t asking about any bombs.”

“Could he have taken something off your desk without you knowing?” Pete asks.

“Not likely,” Eugene says. “Varian keeps his chemicals down on lock, don’tcha kid?”

“Ahhh…” Varian rubs at the back of his neck, suddenly unable to look his brother in the eye. “Actually, that’s a possibility? When he was with me, I got a little, um. Distracted.”

Eugene looks perplexed at his reaction. “Distracted? Since when are you not breathing down the neck of anybody who sets foot into your lab? That’s so unlike—” He cuts himself off, and Varian watches as his brother’s face contorts, slotting together the puzzle pieces in front of him.

“Oh,” he says, dumbstruck and horrified. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.” Varian offers a hesitant, innocent smile, which only seems to aggravate the man even more. “No. No. Seriously? Him?!”

Varian lets out a nervous giggle. “Eugene—”

“This is—oh god.” Eugene actually doubles over, hands bracing against his knees. “This is a manifestation of my worst nightmares. This is going to give me stress wrinkles—”

“Hel-LO!” the Griffon shouts. “Do you have a culprit or not? I want somebody searched and seized!”

Eugene presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and lets out a sharp exhale through his nose. “One crisis at a time, Fitzherbert, one crisis at a time.”

He pulls his hands away from his face and turns to the Griffon with a firm resolution. “Sir, I promise you that we’ll search and potentially seize anyone who is responsible for this. Stan, Pete, I need you to go find Hugo and bring him in for questioning. We have to be as civil as possible with this. We still don’t have any actual proof that he’s behind this, and the last thing we need is to point fingers and set off Queen Anya.”

The two guards salute before hurrying off in the direction of the Ingvarrian airship. Then, Eugene turns to him. “Kid, go back to your lab and check to see if anything else is missing. Some of your stuff is deadly, and we need to know if it’s out in the wild.”

“Right.” He nods, feels a sliver of uncertainty slide into his chest. Had Hugo taken one of his alchemical compounds? He'd taken the Friedroxide, but Varian had been present for that, even if he was being kissed. There was no other time when he could have--

Except. Last night. When Hugo was late.

Blood rushes in Varian's ears. None of this felt right. Hugo may be a bastard, but he wasn't a thief. He'd have nothing to gain stealing from Varian. Everything in that lab Hugo could probably make himself. But there was really only one way to prove he was innocent. As he’s about to rush off on trembling legs, an arm catches his elbow.

“Here.” Varian blinks as a small circular container is pressed into his palm. “Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.”

“What…?” He squints down at the little container. It takes a beat, but he recognizes it as part of Eugene’s facial care kit. It’s concealer. Despite everything, he finds a grin pulling at his mouth. “So, do you carry this around with you all the time, or…?”

Eugene leans forward and snarls, “One more word and I’m telling Quirin everything.”

And with that, Varian shuts up and scampers back into the castle.

 

 

Notes:

ahahAHA BET YOU WEREN'T EXPECTING PLOT IN THIS STORY NOW WERE YA

i live by the personal principle that Eugene acts out that jamie lee curtis argument meme when he figures out hugo and varian are a Thing and it gives me so much joy writing it every time.

Chapter 3

Notes:

my cat was trying to eat my hair when i wrote the majority of this chapter

“You’re having a bad day, aren’t you?”

Varian looks up from his list. His aunt is leaning up against the kitchen doorway, munching on a strudel. Biting back a sigh, he nods, then continues his walk past her to get deeper into the castle.

They haven’t locked Hugo up in the dungeons—yet. But the interrogation room they’re keeping him in is in one of the lower levels of the castle, past the kitchen, past the armory, past any sunlight and chance of escape.

“I’m missing six of my bombs. Six. Not to mention all the other random ingredients.” He thought by saying it out loud, he can wrap his mind around it. Mm, nope. Still can’t believe it. He knows Adira is listening, the sound of her sure footsteps gently echoing off the stone walls as she falls into step with him. “I just…I don’t know how someone could have gotten into my lab past the guards.”

Adira shrugs. “Anyone could have snuck past the guards during a big festival like this. Security is bound to be a little lax, and the guards in this kingdom get distracted by any shiny thing.”

“But not anyone would know what to take,” Varian stresses. “To a non-alchemist, my lab looks like a colorful mess of incomprehensible solvents. Whoever took those chemicals knew what they were looking for.”

And that, right there, was the real problem. The one that shook Varian to his core. Because, theoretically, everything in his lab was dangerous to the untrained person if they just grabbed something and dumped it; but for someone to know exactly what to look for, who could swipe solutions with precision and manage to take chemicals without him even noticing...That was a hell of a lot scarier.

And all the neon arrows pointed straight back to Hugo.

The thought makes him taste bile in the back of his throat. Because, rivals or not, Varian has known Hugo for four years. He knows the other boy wouldn’t have stooped so low as to steal another chemist’s work. Hugo shared Varian’s own drive of being the best, and stealing to get there was just cheating.

Plus, Hugo wouldn’t steal from him.

Right?

(But he took the Freidroxide, a tiny voice in him whispers. What if you don't know him as well as you think?)

Adira hums, finishing up the last of her strudel and wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb. “They knew to take something that would create a large display and start a fight,” she agrees. “But why start it with a country as small as Pittsford?”

And that was the other part of this that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone from Ingvarr blatantly attack a kingdom that had no squabble with them? Ingvarr went to war a lot, but usually, they were responding, not instigating. Hugo would have absolutely nothing to gain from going after Pittsford. If anything, hurting Pittsford hurt the Griffon's trust in Corona—and by extension, hurt the Dark Kingdom.

Varian’s stomach starts to sink.

He doesn’t want to think about this anymore—and thankfully, he can't, because when they round the next corner, they bump into another pair in the hall.

It’s the older Ingvarr princess, Savni, and that intimidating giant, Cyrus.

The woman’s dusty blue eyes go wide when they lock on Varian. “Zaychonok.” She addresses him with the same term Nadia used during the party, only this time, she spits the word like an insult. “Where is he? What did your guards do with him?”

“I—” Varian tries, but she suddenly steps forward into his space, leaning down and glowering into his face. Up close, she’s terrifying.

“Well? Have you forgotten how to speak? Do I need to cut the answer from your tongue?”

She flicks her wrist, and oh hello—that’s a fucking knife that’s she’s got. Varian squeaks and tries to back up, but she follows him, the cool metal pressing into the skin of his neck.

“I’d put that down if I were you.” And then there’s another dagger, this time belonging to Adira, pointed at the princess’s nose.

Next, there’s a fast shink, and Varian glances over to see—yep, Cyrus has a sword pulled out and aimed at Adira.

“Can we all put the sharp weapons down?!” Varian cries desperately. “I know where they’re keeping Hugo—I can take you, but—oh god, please don’t cut me. I cannot faint right now.”

The girl scowls but sheathes her dagger. The other two warriors follow suit. That was way too close to turning into something terrible, in Varian’s humble opinion.

Hugo is in the middle of an arguing, “—want a lawyer, you people are insane—” when the four of them burst into the interrogation room. The blond’s jaw is set so hard Varian can see the muscle ticking on the side of his face.

He’s also in handcuffs.

Savni easily maneuvers around Eugene, Stan, and Pete, whipping out her dagger and smashing it down on the table between where his wrists are held, destroying the cuffs. Eugene lets out a strangled noise at this, Hugo a sigh of relief.

“Sav, finally—”

“Um, excuse me, warrior princess lady! That is destruction of Coronian property—”

“Get up.” She barks at Hugo, snarls at Eugene. “We’re leaving.”

Hugo doesn’t need to be told twice, already pushing out of the chair to stand. Eugene stands too, hand floating to the sword at his belt. “Whoa, whoa, whoa—hey, nobody is leaving until we figure this out!”

He glances at Adira, who moves to block the door. Cyrus sneers down at her, and Adira quirks an eyebrow in challenge, waiting for him to make the first move. Stan and Pete look between them nervously, clearly unsure of how to help, and Varian does his best to sink back against the wall to prevent getting caught in the crossfire.

“We do not have to sit here and be insulted by you,” Savni spits. “This is twice now your kingdom has attempted to slander our country’s name, and we will be having none of it anymore. Ingvarr will not be participating in any more peaceful endeavors with Corona or the Dark Kingdom. We’re going home.”

Eugene pales a little, but doesn’t break his firm gaze with her. “Your highness, you have to hear me when I say that we’re not pointing the finger here. All we wanted to do was ask a few questions to try to understand the situation.”

Savni throws an infuriated arm out to gesture to Hugo. “Then why was he in chains?”

“Because he tried to bite me!”

Despite everything, a laugh claws out of Varian’s throat. It’s a hysterical little ha! that bursts out of his chest, loud enough to draw everyone’s attention to him.

Oops.

Eugene lets out a sigh. “Kid, is there anything else missing from your lab?”

“Six alchemical bombs,” Varian says, very carefully not looking at Hugo. “And a bunch of other random ingredients.”

Eugene turns his attention back to Hugo. “I’ll ask again, if you took anything—”

“I didn’t fucking take anything!” the blond snaps, green eyes ablaze in a fury. “Nothing except the Freidroxide, which was given to me, as I’ve told you, five times. And even if I did want a foam bomb, I would have literally zero reasons to steal one, because I could just make it myself!” Hugo turns his furious attention to Varian. “It’s just a combination of isocyanate and polyol, right?”

“I—” Now pinned under that stare, Varian finds it hard to grasp words. In all of their fights and fury, he’s never seen Hugo quite this enraged. And after last night, when he’d felt those scowling lips smiling against his skin… “Ye-yeah. Yes. I mean, I usually add some vanilla or rosewater to make them smell better, but that’s the basic formula.”

The blond snorts, still looking angry, but now just a little less so. “Okay, minus the vanilla. I can still make that shit. Also,” Hugo’s on a roll now, face tinging red as his voice gets closer and closer to shouting. “If I wanted to fuck with Pittsford, I wouldn’t blow up their goddamn carriage. That makes a huge scene! There’s literally nothing stealthy about a foam bomb.”

“He’s got a point, Fishskin,” Adira pipes up from the back. “Whoever did this could have wanted to cause interkingdom fighting.”

Hugo throws his arms up into the air. “Thank you, giant mystery woman! Finally, somebody is listening!”

Eugene rubs his forehead with one hand. “Okay, so we might have missed the shot with this one…but still, we’ve got a thief on the loose with an arsenal of dangerous chemicals, attacking the royal courts. This isn’t good.”

“Eugene,” Varian says, catching the other man’s attention. “They’re not just a thief. With some of the ingredients that they took, they could make any combination of bombs. If they're an alchemist…”

“…They're only that much more dangerous,” the captain finishes his thought. “Great.” Eugene sighs, heavy and defeated. The man looks stiff, tired, and pale.

Varian looks at Hugo, trying to mind-control the other boy to return his gaze. Hugo doesn’t, and Varian knows the squeezing in his chest can’t be a good sign.

“Stan, Pete, gather all the kings and queens and inform them about this. We’re going to cancel any more peace activities until we figure this out. And, princess,” he turns to Savni, “I’m going to respectfully ask that you remain in Corona until we’ve caught this thief. For our safety as much as yours.”

She sneers. “And why should we? You’ve brought nothing but dishonor on us when all we’ve ever done is shown you our goodwill—”

“Because we need an alchemist to catch an alchemist!” Eugene shouts, now at the end of his rope. “I’ve got one, but I want the pair of them to make sure that this plan works! For all we know, this person could be planning a regicide against all Seven Kingdoms. And that doesn’t just affect Corona—that affects everyone.”

Savni’s chin lifts as her gaze hardens. It’s clear she isn’t happy about seeing the truth in Eugene’s statement. “My mother will hear of this.”

Then, Savni is gone, disappearing out the door in a whirl of her cloak into the labyrinth of the dungeons. She’s followed closely by Cyrus, and then—

Hugo finally looks at him.

Varian forgets how to breathe, suddenly windswept in the hurricane of fury and anger and spite held in the other boy’s gaze. But it’s not only that—it’s a deep, aching kind of sadness, almost mournful, but of what, Varian has no idea.

And then, Hugo leaves too.

Adira moves over to Eugene, to either comfort or to offer council, Stan and Peter are already laying out logistics of who to contact first about the city-wide shutdown, and Varian—

Varian feels rooted to the floor, feeling that soft, precious thing he felt growing between him and Hugo wither.

He barely registers the strangled noise of desperation that wrenches out of his throat, taking off in a sprint out the door.

It seems like a cruel reversal of last night, when he was rushing away from Hugo, desperate to get away—now he’s desperate to catch the blond, just so he can say…say…what? Sorry my brother falsely accused you of stealing? Last night was really nice, also, I have a crush on you? 

He finally catches up to Hugo, snagging him before he has the chance to round into another corridor. The blond tries to shake off his grip on his wrist, but when he can’t he turns to face him.

“What, Goggles?”

Varian pants for a moment, trying to pull together a coherent sentence. “You—you—!”

Hugo quirks an irritated brow. “I…?”

“You gave me a hickey,” Varian blurts out, and the blond’s face darkens. He quickly backpedals, “Er—no, sorry, sorry, that’s not what I meant—”

“I gave you a hickey, so you sic your brother-cousin on me and try to get me arrested?”

Varian cringes. Oh, this wasn’t going right. “I, I didn’t tell him to question you, it was situational—and, you were the one who stole all that Freidroxide from me, you could have taken something else—”

“Why would I steal something from you?” Hugo asks, voice sounding strained. “Why would you think I’d break your trust like that?”

Varian grits his teeth. “Because we’re rivals, Hugo! You’re not supposed to trust me! You’re supposed to hate me!”

And those words hang there, out in the open, strung up between them like dirty laundry. It only takes Varian a second to regret saying them, but a sliver of him doesn’t. They were true, weren’t they?

They…were supposed to be rivals. Not alchemical engineer partners. Not people who built things together or stole kisses in dark alleyways.

“Rivals,” Hugo spits, mouth twisted into a sour scowl. “Ha. Sure. Whatever you want, Varian.”

And then the blond rips out of his hold and stalks away into the dark.

 

 

 

 

Varian hums, finishing up the sketch of the kingdom on his laboratory wall with a flourish of blue chalk. “Okay…if I were an alchemist planning an attack on Corona, where would I stash my stolen chemicals?”

The question is almost painfully ironic.

Yesterday, they started by clearing through the tunnels underneath the castle and sewers. That turns out to be a dead end. This afternoon, the Coronian guards are searching through the lower and upper town, searching through shops and houses for any sign of stolen bombs, but none of it sits right with Varian. This wasn't someone from Corona attacking him. But their knowledge of the castle and his lab made the prospect of this being someone from another visiting kingdom less likely. 

It was like this person knew him.

Varian chews on the inside of his cheek and puts his hands on his hips. “It’s inevitable. We’re going to have to interview every visiting court member to get to the bottom of this.”

“They’re not going to like that,” Adira warns from her corner chair.

Hugo hums in agreement from where he’s lounging underneath the lab table, mindlessly teasing Ruddiger with a shoelace. Ever since their sort-of-fight, the blond has been more irritating than ever. “Gotta agree with the scary lady on that one, Sweet Cheeks. Being searched and interrogated for a crime you didn’t commit is quite the hassle.”

Varian huffs and bends to glare at him under the table. “Her name is Adira.”

“Y’know actually,” Adira says after a moment of consideration, “I prefer scary lady. That descriptor has grown on me.”

“Would. You. Quit that?” Varian snatches the shoelace out of Hugo’s hands and meets that emerald glare head-on. “You’re supposed to be helping me.”

“Mmm, nope, don’t think I agreed to that.” Hugo shoos his raccoon away and stretches out like a cat, all liquid bones and sleepy yawns.

“What are you talking about?” Varian frowns at him. “You totally agreed!”

“No, your brother-cousin assumed I would be helpful, but they’re your chemicals. It’s your kingdom. So it’s your problem. Don’t worry, I fully believe in your ability to solve this criminal conundrum all by yourself.”

Varian barely bites back a shriek. He’s going to pour acid down his own throat. He’s going to eat dirt. He’s going to rip off his fingernails one by one. He’s going to throw himself out of Rapunzel’s tower wearing a Lady-In-Waiting uniform.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and stalks over to Adira. Now that they knew there was a criminal with potential murderous intentions on the loose, Eugene thought it best that the pair of them had a guard with them in case the thief came back to rob the lab.

It’s such bullshit.

Varian knows it’s bullshit, because Eugene specifically put Adira with him, not Stan or Pete. And yes, while there was probably a very real threat of a thief wanting to get back into his lab, Eugene is clearly using this as an excuse to make a statement about Varian’s relationship with Hugo. By preventing them from being alone—by making his aunt a chaperone—his brother thinks he’s created the perfect cockblock.

But Eugene has miscalculated. Out of the trio of Moonstone disciples, his aunt is the most chaotic, and therefore the most likely to be swayed to Varian’s whims.

Adira looks up from where she’s sharpening her knife, chin tilted up in curiosity.

“I need you to take Ruddiger for a walk,” he hisses. “Right now.”

The warrior woman immediately sees past his facade. She lowers her voice into a whisper, “You know you can’t kill him.”

Varian scrubs a hand across his face. “I know,” he bemoans. “I just need to talk to him. Alone.”

A flicker of an expression crosses Adira’s face. Varian doesn’t have the energy to piece together what it means. “Eugene doesn’t want you two alone.”

“Since when is Eugene the boss of you?” Adira’s unimpressed expression doesn’t change, and Varian feels the fire in his fuse burn a little closer to exploding. He lets out a breath and smiles sweetly, “Auntie—”

“Nope, that’s not going to work. Try again.”

Varian quickly switches tactics. “I’ll help you switch out Hector’s face paint with ink.”

The left corner of her mouth quirks up. Bingo. No older sibling could resist dunking on their younger brother, not even Adira. With an almighty sigh, Adira rises from her chair, looking wryly amused. “Five minutes.”

“That’s all I need.”

Adira is still shaking her head as she scoops up Ruddiger and heads for the stairs. Varian watches her go, bouncing on the balls of his feet, measuring her steps until she crosses the doorway.

“Hey wait,” Hugo says, looking up from where he’s drawing a cartoonish version of Varian’s head exploding on the wall. “Where’s she—”

The lab door slams. Varian moves like lightning, grabbing Hugo by the elbow and bodily throwing him back toward the table.

Hugo catches himself on the edge of the furniture, and has the nerve to let out a noise of irritation. “Do you mind?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut all the way up,” Varian hisses. He grabs a fist full of Hugo’s jacket, and a spark of recognition lights up in those emerald eyes seconds before Varian crushes their lips together.

Hugo’s mouth falls open, more in shock than permission, but Varian is too infuriated to care. He kisses Hugo like he wants to destroy him, and part of Varian really, really does. He wants to wreck Hugo, tear him apart with his teeth, wants to make him as stupid as Varian feels whenever he smiles at him.

He shoves Hugo up onto the table, using his still vice-like grip on his jacket to force his spine to bend to Varian’s level. Varian feels like he’s on fire and he lets it burn all the way through his veins, igniting that bitter, dark side of him that knows how to bring kingdoms to their knees. He wants to burn through Hugo until he’s nothing but a pile of ash and glasses.

After a small struggle, Hugo breaks off, wild-eyed and mouth red. “What the—”

“No talking,” Varian snarls, and yanks him back down.

And, maybe they should be talking. Voicing all those thoughts that were unspoken between them, instead of tearing into each other and ruining clothes and fogging glasses. Talking was still a terrifying concept, mostly because that means Varian has to verbally admit to Hugo how he feels—

But all thoughts of talking melt out of his ears when Hugo hooks his ankles behind Varian’s lower back, firmly trapping him between his legs. Varian lets out a noise he didn’t even know was possible for him to make, hands finding their way down Hugo’s jacket and waist to the hard muscle of his thighs. He trails his hands up and up and up until Hugo jolts and whines and pulls so hard at his hair that Varian is certain a chunk of it is going to be missing from his scalp—

“Time’s up!” Adira’s voice echoes through a crack in the door.

They both freeze, and Varian forces himself to pull back, just enough to admire his handiwork. Hugo’s face is bright red and his eyes are slightly out of focus. His glasses are hanging off one of his ears and his hair has been ripped completely out of his ponytail. His expression is so helplessly ruined that Varian can’t help but preen.

“Ohmygod,” Hugo pants, collapsing onto his back on the table. “Fucking, fuck—Hnngg. I’m going to die.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Varian agrees.

He glances fleetingly toward the door. Adira is probably waiting outside, trying to be courteous to her silly little nephew and his boytoy. Varian swallows hard, meeting Hugo’s gaze once the blond sits back up.

“I don’t want to be rivals.” The words are spilling out of his mouth before he can really process them. “I don’t want to hate you. I just want—” he cuts himself off before he can say something really stupid like you, forever.

Unfortunately, Hugo seems to be waiting for an answer. “Just want…what?”

“I want…I want to catch this thief,” Varian deflects. He chews on his lip and rubs at his arm for something to give his hands to do. “And then, after all that’s done, maybe we could…watch the fireworks during the solstice celebration together?”

Hugo grins so widely it nearly splits his face in half. “Did you just ask me out on a date?”

“No,” Varian says, flushing. “Ma-maybe. I-I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be a thing—”

“No, no. This is a thing. I’m making it a thing. It’s a Thing with a capital T.”

“God, I hate you.”

“And yet I’ve got a widening stack of evidence that points to the contrary.” Hugo hops off the table and straightens his clothing, smoothing away any evidence of their previous activities. He peers at Varian’s chalk map, letting a little elastic hair tie dangle between his teeth as he gathers up his hair. The sight is so domestic is makes Varian want to cry.

Ruddiger barrels down the stairs and up Varian’s shoulder, making an offending chitter in his ear. You kicked me out, he seems to hiss. Varian coos to him softly and gives him a good little scritch under his chin in apology.

“If I were a thief trying to law low under the noses of the Seven Kingdoms, you know where I’d hide?”

Varian slides up closer to Hugo, close enough that their shoulder to shoulder and the back of their hands brush. “Where?”

“Somewhere in plain sight.” Hugo bites his lip as his eyes dance across the map. “Somewhere that would already be crowded enough with other delegates that no one would think twice about seeing me, or any potential stolen goods. Somewhere like…”

The realization hits them at the same time.

 

 

 

 

After explaining their theory to Eugene, they come up with a plan. They only have two more days until the solstice festival, and so only two more days before every court member is expected to get sent home. If they can’t find this thief before then, they could very well be sending out a royal family member with an assassin.

“Alright, so we’ll all meet down at the docks tonight.” The captain nods in satisfaction to everyone in the meeting room. “Great work team! Now, let’s break for lunch!”

The gathering of guards all rises to leave. Under the table, Hugo reaches over and squeezes his hand, a quick action that makes Varian’s heart flutter. The blond smiles at him, that gentle, open gaze, and Varian almost feels dizzy when he stands up from his chair—

“Hey, Varian?” Eugene calls lightly. “Can you hang back a second?”

Varian bites back a groan and he flops back into his chair. Had Adira snitched? No, she never would. Either way, this couldn’t be good. Hugo offers him a sympathetic little look before slipping out the door.

Sighing, Varian turns to face the music. “What is i—” He cuts himself off with a choaked noise.

At the end of the table, Eugene has produced an easel with a big cue card that says THINKING OF SEXUALLY EXPERIMENTING WITH YOUR SWORN RIVAL? THINK AGAIN.

Varian heavily considers throwing himself out the nearest window to avoid whatever conversation is coming next.

“Look, before we get into this, I need you to know that I love you very much,” Eugene says quickly. “But I need to make sure you understand the physical and logistical consequences of what you’re doing, because frankly, I don’t think you do.”

Varian shakes his head wildly. “Is—is this a punishment? Are you punishing me right now?”

“No. I’m trying to help.” Eugene’s tone turns a little more gentle. “I know you’re new to this, so I need to know that you’re being safe, just to give me peace of mind.”

“I’m twenty, Eugene. I’ve dated before, I don’t need the talk.”

“Speaking from experience, sex with a man is very different than with a woman. Not a bad different, but just different.”

Varian thunks his head onto the table and wishes for the sweet relief of death. “Kill me now—”

“Just bear with me, kid,” his brother pleads, then flips to the next card. This one reads, HOW TO BE BI-CURIOUS AND NOT GO BI-CRAZY.

Varian grits his teeth, sinks lower into the chair, and tries to keep his groaning to a minimum. The cards have a wide variety of titles (the most horrifying one reading: SIX REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER EXCHANGE BODILY FLUIDS WITH A GUY WITH AN UNDERCUT), but the information is surprisingly thorough. The handwriting is sloppy, so at least that tells him that Rapunzel didn’t help in any of this. How did Eugene even have time to make all of these? He must have stayed up all night.

Despite the absurdity, the gesture is pretty sweet.

“Okay, so.” Eugene says once the final card has flipped. “I know you’re smart. I trust you, and I trust your judgment. If you want to keep doing whatever it is you’re doing with Hugo because it makes you happy, I’ll try my best not to meddle, even if I don’t understand it literally at all or approve.”

The captain rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand as he visibly tries to find the right words. “But, like. Have you thought at all about any of this in the long term? What happens at the end of this week when Hugo has to go back to Ingvarr?”

Varian opens his mouth, but no words come out. He shuts his jaw with a click and a wince.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt once he leaves,” Eugene tells him honestly. “I know you, kid, and I know you’ve got a nasty habit of hyper-fixating and then burning out so fast the wick turns into ash. But if you feel forever about him, we can look into the logistics of interkingdom dating—”

The idea of being with Hugo forever makes his stomach flip.

“I haven’t even told my dad,” Varian admits quietly, suddenly feeling like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. “I haven’t, um. Explained yet.”

There’s a shuffle, and then Eugene is kneeling down in front of his chair so he’s at eye-level with him. “That’s okay,” he stresses. “You’re allowed to take your time with it. But I think you should figure out where you and Hugo stand first, alright? That’s on a time limit, and I don’t want you regretting something you never said.”

Varian nods, and can’t help but feel a tiny knot in his stomach uncurl with relief. He smiles a little. “Thanks,” he says, and really means it. And while the idea of being honest about his feelings is still terrifying, Eugene is right. He was on a time limit. The next science exposition wasn’t until next year, and going a year without seeing Hugo again just seemed like an impossibility.

“No problem.” The other man stands and shoots him a smile in return. “Oh! Also, you still need to be using protection, even if you’re—”

“Okay thanks Eugene bye!” Varian yells, knocking over his chair as he sprints for the door.

 

 

 

 

“So, tell me again what was so special about that moonrock?”

Varian bites back a sigh, knowing full well that he’s explained this enough times for Hugo to properly understand. “It’s called the Moonstone. And it was a destructive magical object that could have ended the world.”

“So naturally, your uncle formed a cult around it.” Hugo nods sagely. “Seems legit.”

This time, Varian does sigh. He thought explaining the concept of the Brotherhood would have been easy, but like everything, Hugo made it more difficult.

He lets his eyes scan the empty docks one last time before slouching back down behind the crates. Behind another one closer to the boat was Hector. As capable as the Coronian guards were, they weren’t the best at stealthy operations. Their armor was loud and clunky, and Stan and Pete couldn’t stay quiet for longer than thirty seconds. After living as an assassin inside a tree for so many years, Hector was their best weapon of stealth.

Eugene himself was planted on the schooner, just in case they slipped past their ambush. They’d dug through all the logs of the shipments and found that this one particular boat wasn’t registered to a Coronian log, nor any other Kingdom. It was a ghost ship, and upon investigation, housed three of Varian’s stolen foam bombs onboard.

The plan was a simple stakeout. Stan and Pete would do their normal rounds, while everyone hidden would wait until whoever’s boat this belonged to was to come back and catch them in the act.

“It’s not a cult,” Varian says. “It’s a protective order formed to keep the Moonstone away from the world. Which they did, by the way.”

“From what it sounds like, that was more of your sister’s thing than your uncle’s. With all her,” Hugo waggles his fingers, “weird hair magic.”

“I still can’t believe you’ve never heard that story,” Varian says honestly. “I thought everybody in the Seven Kingdoms knew about the Sundrop and the Moonstone.”

“Oh, I heard about it, sure.” Hugo shrugs, and stretches out his legs in front of him. He’s sitting so close that his calf brushes against Varian’s crouched knee. A tiny thrill goes through Varian at the contact. “I just didn’t believe it. Magic isn’t supposed to be real.”

“Unfortunately, it’s very real in Corona. It’s honestly almost obnoxious.”

Hugo snorts, his expression wry and fond. “Only a scientist would think magic was obnoxious.”

“Hey, if you had to deal with it, you’d see what I mean.” You could always stick around and experience it yourself, Varian almost says, but the words get stuck in the middle of his throat.

Even just thinking of asking Hugo to stay makes his heart beat faster. Because how does he even broach a topic like that? How does he say, I like you so much the thought of you leaving makes me physically ill, please quit your job and move in with me without sounding pathetic?

Anxiety rolls through his stomach. Right now was a perfect time to do it, to talk this out. They were just sitting here in the dark, alone between these crates, waiting on a criminal that may or may not show their face. Varian only had two more days. Two more days of Hugo, and then three-hundred-and-sixty-five days of No Hugo. Two weeks ago that would have been Varian’s dream, but now it fills him with the oddest dread.

But now with both Rapunzel and Eugene pushing him to talk, there really wasn’t much of a choice.

“So um…I wanted to ask you something.” Varian already feels his ears turning hot, and his eyes flicker from the crates, to his boots, to water to the lamps above them. He can’t even look in Hugo’s direction.

“What’s up, Sweet Cheeks?”

He goes to rub his sweaty palms on his trousers, but a gloved pinky hooks through his own and tangles their fingers together. Varian looks up, eyes locking with a brilliant emerald gaze. Hugo’s eyes shine brilliantly behind his glasses, even in the dark. Varian feels his heart go thumpthumpthump like it’s trying to burst out of its bony prison and throw itself at Hugo's feet. His mouth goes dry, wishing he could say everything and nothing all at once.

“I…” Oh stars, the way Hugo is looking at him makes him want to melt. Varian bites down on his lip and looks away. “What does zaychewlnock mean?”

Hugo blinks. “What?”

“Er—Zawl-chaawl-noch?” Varian tries again, knowing he’s butchering the phrase, knowing he’s hiding, and only feeling a little guilty about it.

Hugo’s brows draw together. “Zawl-chaawl…Are you trying to say zaychonok?”

Varian nods. “Yeah, that’s it! What’s it—” He cuts himself off at the sight of Hugo’s expression. “Oh. Oh. Is it bad?”

“Uh,” Hugo blinks rapidly, face paling an instant before rapidly turning bright pink. “Who called you that?”

Varian didn’t know what kind of response to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. Hugo looks almost…angry. “Your princesses? Except, Nadia said it a lot nicer than Savni did.” And at that, a strangled noise rips out of Hugo’s throat, and he slams his head into the back of the crate. “What? Is it an insult?”

“No,” Hugo grits out, eyes squeezed shut as though he was in pain.

“Then what’s it mean?”

For a minute, he doesn’t answer. Varian isn’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. But eventually, Hugo cracks a miserable eye open. “It means…little hare.”

It takes a few beats before the words click. Then, Varian is scrambling back, hands flying up to self-consciously cover his mouth. “They’re calling me a rabbit?!” Horror and humiliation make tears automatically prick at his eyes. “That’s so mean! ”

“What?!” Hugo blanches, “No! No, it’s not like that—I just said it’s not an insult!”

Varian glowers at him, his face burning. He’d thought Nadia was the nicer of the two sisters, but god, that whole kingdom was full of snarky assholes, wasn’t it? “How is calling me a rabbit not insulting me?”

“They’re not making fun of you,” the blond tries desperately. “They’re making fun of me.”

Nope, he’s not buying that. Not one bit. “How does that make any sense?”

Hugo opens and closes his mouth a few times in rapid succession. “Because Nadia calls me--ugh, look, it's hard to translate.”

“Oh, that’s such bullshit—”

“It’s not bullshit! Listen, they just think they're being funny, but if it bothers you—”

“Of course it fucking bothers me! They've been saying it in front of my face all week and I didn’t even know—”

“Hey guys,” cuts in a new voice. Pete is peering over the crate and flinches outright when Varian turns his furious glare onto him. “Uhm—Eugene said this was supposed to be a stakeout. You should probably stop screaming at each other.”

Varian lets out a huff and shoots to his feet. He blinks rapidly against the stinging in his eyes and holds his arms to his chest, irritated and embarrassed and not wanting to be here a second longer. “It’s not like we’re accomplishing anything. The boat is still there, there hasn’t been anybody on these docks for hours! That criminal probably realized we caught on to them by now and is already gone. This is just a huge waste of time!”

“Yeah,” Stan pipes up, appearing by Pete’s shoulder. “Varian’s got a point. Maybe we should just go get Eugene and head back to the castle.”

Pete wrinkles his nose. “Elugh, no way am I stepping on that boat again. It smelled so gross. Something must have been rotting on that deck before they cleared it.”

“Rotting?” Varian repeats, frowning. “Wait, wait—you smelled something rotting on an empty boat?”

“Oh yeah,” Stan says with a nod. “Smelled like rotten eggs. It was probably used as a garbage barge or something.”

“Hey, peanut gallery,” Hugo’s voice calls from below. “Is it normal for empty rowboats to be on fire in Corona?”

The three of them whip around to look where Hugo is pointing. Sure enough, an unmanned rowboat had been lit aflame and is steadily floating toward the schooner in the dock.

Varian’s mind reels, thoughts flying at a hundred miles per hour as the pieces rapidly fall into place. The schooner was empty, but some of his stolen goods were left on the ship; the ship reeked of rotten eggs even though there was nothing there. For some reason, that detail bothered him the most; rung a bell in the back of his head, but he couldn’t place why.

“Nope, that’s not normal,” Stan confirms.

“Hmm,” Pete says. The rowboat is creeping closer and closer to the schooner in the bay, drifting forward as though pulled by an invisible force. “Think we should put it out?”

“That’s more of a job for the coast guard, Pete. Not really our jurisdiction.”

“Could it be a signal for something?” Hugo asks. “Or, like, part of an insurance scam?”

Varian gnaws on his lip, rapidly running through every formula he’s ever created in his head. Rotten eggs, rotten eggs, what did I make that smells like rotten eggs? Why do I remember—

Clarity hits him like a frying pan to the face, coming in the form of a singular name:

Andrew.

When he was working with the Saporians, Andrew liked to walk around like he owned the place, constantly touching things in his lab. Tired of giving explanations on the dangers of meddling with reactive compounds, Varian eventually added hydrogen sulfide to his Quirineon formula as a big fat warning of THIS ONE’S DANGEROUS, PAWS OFF. It worked, because the smell deterred Andrew and Varian just adjusted to wearing a face covering while working with it—which he needed to anyway because of messing with it as a gas required it.

But if the ship was empty, but there was a criminal on the loose who understood his chemicals, and the whole ship reeked of rotten eggs, that meant—

“The hull is doused in Quirineon,” he breathes.

“What was that, Sweet Che—Hey! Where are you—?”

Varian is already gone, vaulting over the crates and sprinting like a madman up the dock. He nearly slips on an empty casting net but catches himself, pushing forward and forcing his legs to pump faster. He has to get to that boat, has to get to Eugene—

A strong arm suddenly wraps around his middle and yanks him back behind another set of crates. Varian cries out and immediately begins to struggle like a feral cat frantically trying to claw his way free.

“Kid, what are you doing?” Hector is hissing somewhere above him, sounding perplexed. “You’re giving away your position!”

“Nononono let me go—” he chants, snarling and spitting and unabashedly kicking his uncle in the shin. “Let me go let me go let me go!”

But Hector is too strong, and can easily keep his struggle at bay. He manhandles Varian until he’s turned around, one hand still on his upper arm, the other grabbing his jaw to force their gazes to meet. “Varian! Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s a trap!” Varian screams, “It’s a—”

Years of experience and instinct tell Varian what’s going to happen next. He hears the soft bump of the rowboat connect with the schooner, hears the telltale poppoppop of a crackling ignition, and feels the pressure in the air dip.

He braces himself, and the dock goes BOOM.

Instinct must make Hector move, because he tucks Varian under his chin and whirls them around so that his back is toward the explosion. Varian can feel the rattling of the wood all the way up his legs and into his knees. He grits his teeth against the familiar ringing in his ears. Unused to explosions, Hector looks dazed, and Varian uses this opportunity to finally squirm out of his uncle’s hold.

The schooner’s hull has collapsed inward, concave onto the decks below. One of the masts is now nothing but wooden shrapnel that litters across the dock, and the whole damn thing is on fire.

Panic crawls up Varian’s throat. For a moment, he’s rooted where he stands, helplessly watching the burning corpse of a ship.

And that’s when the fear sets in.

Varian screams, “EUGENE!” and takes off running toward the fire. Dimly, he’s aware of people shouting behind him, hearing cries of, “Kid, wait!” and “Goggles!” but he doesn’t care, tearing up the platform and onto the ship.

The smoke is blinding. It wraps around Varian like a shroud of dark water beckoning him deeper into an abyss. He makes the mistake of inhaling and immediately regrets it, choking and blinking back tears that are already pooling in his eyes.

He dives through the doors to the captain’s quarters, barely avoiding the licking flames that try to get a taste of him, but finds it empty. Fuck. Fuck, that means Eugene is below deck.

He makes a mad dash down to the belly of the ship, ignoring the way the ship groans and the fire spits and how the air down here is even thinner, so thin it makes Varian dizzy—

He spots the crumpled form of his brother half-tucked underneath a pile of wood from the deck that caved in.

Varian tries, “Eu—” but can’t even get his full name out before he starts hacking. The smoke has started to coat his lungs now, making tears stream freely down his face, but Varian ignores it all and presses on in desperation.

Eugene is unconscious—he must have been directly underneath the spot where the deck had collapsed. One side of his face is bloody, oozing from a head wound, and the sight makes Varian feel woozy but he shakes himself out of it because his brother needs him he can’t faint right now—

He shakes Eugene’s shoulder and only gets a weak groan in response. Okay. Great. Still alive. Next problem: moving the rubble and getting off the ship before it sinks.

Varian claws at the planks of wood, able to move some away but feeling weaker and weaker by the second. Eugene’s leg is at a weird angle from where it’s trapped and oh god there’s more blood. Nausea rolls through him and everything is going fuzzy and he keeps inhaling but he can’t fucking breathe—

He suddenly feels hands under his arms, pulling him away. Varian lets out an animalistic sound of fury but is unable to do much but let himself be dragged back. He blinks, and then sees Hector fling Eugene over his shoulder. He hears muffled voices, hears the fire sizzle as though it’s burning his own skin, and then there’s an arm under his legs and his feet aren’t on the floor anymore.

He blinks again, and he’s suddenly on his back on the docks, the clean air hitting him like a punch in the solar plexus. Varian gasps, chokes, then coughs. He feels like he’s drowning on dry land, unable to suck in oxygen.

Someone above him is shrieking.

“—solutely crazy, hear me? You are insane, what would compel you to run into a goddamn explosion—”  

Varian squints, trying to make sense of the blur above him. There’s a familiar spark of emerald, wide and glistening like stars in a mixture of unhinged panic and relief. “…Hu…go…?”

“—literally the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, I’m going to have a serious conversation with you about basic self-preservation, you could have died—”

Feeling sluggish, Varian lulls his head to the side away from the hysterical boy. He sees the fuzzy form of what he recognizes as Eugene, laid out on the dock next to him. He can hear distant calls and footsteps as more people begin to rush around them.

Safe. Everyone he loves is safe. Relief blooms in his aching chest and he stops fighting the heaviness of his eyelids.

“Y’re pr’tty,” Varian tells Hugo, and then passes out.

 

 

 

Chapter 4

Notes:

*shuffles meekly in* ...hi?

wow, y'all. i'm SUPER sorry for the wait on this one...i did leave ya hangin' for a bit, huh? 🙈 Mostly it was because of Summer, but I also debated a lot about the direction of this chapter. There is a nonexplicit spicy scene in here and I was waffling for literal months about whether or not to cut it or hike the rating and that's honestly the reason this chapter took so long. But, since the circumstances are important to the plot, so I couldn't cut it directly, and tbh I love it too much so the boys are gonna get hot and heavy for a minute. Again, it's nonexplicit, but feel free to skip past it if you want! I updated the tags and debating on feedback, may also hike the rating to be extra safe.

But! Until then! You guys have waited long enough GET READIN'

Varian floats up to consciousness like he’s rising from the bottom of a deep lake. He registers the pressure in his chest first, the one that made breathing that much more difficult. Then, the pounding at his temples. And then, the aching everywhere else.

With effort, he opens his eyes. He’s in the castle infirmary, tucked securely under the covers of a bed. The silver light that streams through the window tells him that it’s still nighttime. He tries to sit up, but the breath catches in his throat and makes him cough.

And, ugh, ouch. His throat feels like it’s been barbequed from the inside out.

“Oh, hey,” says a soft voice by his shoulder. “Drink this.”

A cup is being shoved under his nose. His limbs feel too heavy to take it, so the hands help bring it up to his lips. The cool liquid soothes the fire in his throat.

Clarity returns to his fuzzy vision. A pair of green eyes hover over him, concern glistening behind glass.

Varian swallows past a scratchy throat. “Hi?”

Hugo tiffs, leaning back so that he’s just sitting on the edge of the bed. The cot underneath him is lumpy and the air is stale. For a moment, he’s confused, unable to place why he’s here—

—until he remembers, and jolts up to a sitting position. His heart thunders in his chest as he frantically looks around the darkened room. “Where—Where’s Eugene?”

“Hey, hey.” Large gloved palms are on his shoulders, pushing him back down. “Your brother-cousin is fine. See?” He points off to a corner bed, where Varian can see the lumpy bandaged form of Eugene. Varian can’t help but let out a breath of relief. Seeing his brother unconscious and half covered in debris was going to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Hugo’s voice is lowered, clearly trying not to wake up anyone else in this wing. “His leg is broken and he’s got a concussion, but all things considered it could have been worse.” He shrugs. “Your princess has been in and out a lot. She’s been checking on you, too.” The blond playfully tweaks Varian’s nose, and Varian musters up enough strength to clumsily bap his hand away.

“What about you?” Varian asks. “You ran into the fire too.” He squints at Hugo in the dark, taking in his form. He’s shed the jacket he usually wears, left only in a thin undershirt. He’s got bandages around his hands, and Varian wonders if he touched something that was hot enough to burn through his gloves.

Hugo waves him off. “Eh, I’m fine. Coal or bust, remember?” A half-hearted grin plasters on his face. “Smoke can’t touch me. I’ve had tar in my lungs since I was born.”

Varian levels him with a Look. Hugo looks too shaken up to be just fine. His shoulders looked too stiff—something was definitely wrong.

The blond visibly swallows, quickly breaking his gaze. “Besides,” he continues, still sounding aloof, “someone had to make sure you didn’t kill yourself when you ran into a literal explosion.”

“Oh,” Varian says. “Yeah, the boat was a trap.”

“Did you figure that out before or after you blew up?” Hugo’s tone is snippy, and if Varian didn’t know any better, he’d say the other boy was—oh.

Varian’s heart flutters. That's what was wrong. Hugo was worried about him.

“Blowing up is an occupational hazard,” he says with a shrug. “I’m used to it.”

“The longer I’m in this kingdom, the more I think everyone here is just batshit insane. Blowing up isn’t something you should be used to.”

“Trust me, a boat exploding is a lot better than a literal demon sucking the lifeforce out of you.”

Hugo chokes, “What—”

Varian continues over him, thinking out loud. “They doused the hull with one of my explosive chemicals and left those bombs there to lure us in. They probably wanted all of us to be on the ship for an ambush and wipe us out at once.”

“Since when did you get into a habit of making enemies who wanted to assassinate you?”

“Since I tried to kill the queen,” Varian answers truthfully. “But I already went to jail for that. The only real enemies I still have are from a radical terrorist group who tried to manipulate me into nuking Corona.”

Even the thought of Andrew and his cronies sends an automatic shiver down his spine. “They’ve been in jail for almost six years now. There’s no way the Saporians could have escaped. We would have heard about it.” He chews on his lip, mind whirling. “But that chemical that made the boat explode—that was something I made for them. No one but the Saporians could have known that formula.”

He rubs at his forehead, trying to rid himself of the ache there and make his brain work. He had to figure this out before someone else got hurt, before Andrew—

No, not Andrew. Andrew was still in the dungeons. Wasn’t he?

Hugo’s voice cuts through his thoughts. “Not gonna lie, I’m still caught up on the nuke part. Also, did you have to make your bomb formula be so rank? It’s gonna be weeks before I get my sense of smell back to normal.”

Varian frowns. “It wasn’t originally that bad. I only added the smell to act as a warning.”

A tiny crease appears between Hugo’s eyebrows. “Why would the person trying to sneak attack you warn you of an explosive?”

“I don’t know.” He tugs at his hair so hard that tears prick in his eyes. “It’s almost like—”  

His voice dies in his throat as the thought solidifies. There would be no reason to add hydrogen sulfide to the Quirinian if they were recreating it because the chemical was designed to explode without that late addition.

…Which a chemist would have known, if they read his formula.

His eyes widen, grabbing Hugo by the arm and shaking the other boy as he’s filled with manic energy. “Hugo, they’re not an alchemist! They’re just following a recipe! They probably didn’t have a plan for the things they stole, either. They just took whatever looked important and tested out what those bombs did on the Pittsford carriage.”

Hugo nods slowly, thinking it over. “That attack was pretty random. Your aunt was right then. It was just for show to cause chaos.” Then, he leans forward and flicks Varian on the ear.

“Ow!” Varian snatches Hugo’s wrist and holds it as collateral as he glares at the other boy. “What was that for?”

“’Cause you wrote down deadly formulas in your diary where anyone could find them instead of keeping them in your head like a normal person.”

“I don’t have a diary!”

“Sure you do.” Hugo smirks. “Have to write down your waxing poetry about me somewhere.”

Varian splutters, “Waxing—”

The blond flops dramatically over Varian’s legs, raising his voice into a falsetto and fluttering his eyelashes. “Dear diary—”

“Oh my god stop.”

“—I couldn’t stop thinking about Hugo today. He’s so hot and funny, a total genius. I wish I was as smart as him—”

“I literally beat you at the interkingdom science expo two years ago.”

Hugo grins slyly. “That’s only ‘cause I let you win, Sweet Cheeks.” The look of smarminess is only there for a second, quickly replaced by one of panic as Varian whaps him in the face with a pillow. “Owww, watch the glasses!”

“Suffer.” Varian grins as he presses the pillow harder into the other boy’s face. Hugo spits like a cat and claws at the pillow, wrestling it off and chucking it back toward Varian’s head. Then, they’re lightly tousling, slap fighting like they’re three-year-olds. His lungs ache and his throat burns when he laughs, but it’s almost impossible not to grin when Hugo makes him feel this giddy.

Hugo collapses back on the mattress, letting his feet dangle off the edge of the cot as his head lays next to Varian’s hip. “Admit it. You’re gonna miss it.”

Still giggling, Varian asks, “Miss what?”

“Miss me,” Hugo says, and Varian's blood runs cold. “You only get two more days and then your life gets boring again.”

“Two more days…” The words make Varian’s stomach sink. “Right.”

Hugo taps his chin as he thinks. “Technically, one more day, since it’s probably around four a.m. right now—”

“Hugo.” Varian does something reckless, reaching out and grabbing the blond’s hand. Both boys stare at where their hands are intertwined for a moment, then share a look. Varian breaks the gaze first, feeling his ears heat. Hugo doesn’t move away, though, fingers automatically curled around Varian’s. “What if…theoretically…you didn’t go back to Ingvarr?”

It’s quiet for a beat, and then the blond snorts. “What, like, I quit my job?”

“Yeah.”

He bites his lip, glancing up to meet the other boy’s gaze. Hugo is looking up at him with an expression that Varian can’t begin to define.

And then, he sits up, turning his body so they’re fully facing each other. Their fingers are still woven together. Varian feels like he might vibrate out of his skin.

Hugo speaks slowly, rolling the words around in his mouth before pushing them through his lips. “And why would I do that? Theoretically.” 

“Because—” Varian’s heart claws its way up to his throat, making it ten times harder to shove words out of his mouth. “Because I…think we’d make a good team. We could become Corona’s Co-Royal Engineers, or—or I could quit too, and we can travel the Seven Kingdoms and build things for everybody, like with Bayangor. We could work together.” He hesitates, clutching his fingers tightly in Hugo’s. The moonlight streams in through the window above his head, tinting the other boy’s pale skin an ethereal, milky white. “Stay together.”

The silence that comes next is nearly suffocating. Varian’s ears ring from it.

But then, softly—so softly Varian swears his heart is going to shatter—Hugo asks, “You want me to stay?”

Varian looks up, seeing a million emotions flashing through those emerald eyes. Pulse racing, he shoots back, “Do you want to stay?”

Hugo’s mouth drops open, in either surprise or in preparation for an answer, but he doesn’t get to voice his thoughts. A trio of women burst through the door, and a pair of them launch themselves at Hugo. The blond lets out a huaak! as he’s tackled roughly off the side of the bed onto the floor.

“Glupyy lisonok,” Nadia spits, easily pinning Hugo down with a thick thigh and a muscular forearm. Varian can’t tell if she wants to kill him or kiss him.

“Ow.” Hugo wheezes from the floor. She starts shaking him roughly, spitting out a string of curse words mixed in her native tongue. “Ack—hey, the glasses! Nads, watch the glasses!”

“See? He’s fine,” Savni declares, standing above both of them. “I told you.”

Rapunzel, who lead them in, giggles at the display. Varian automatically scoots over onto the cot and she slides into the space like she belongs there, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He lets out a shuddering breath, pressing his face to the spot between her shoulder and neck. He can feel her pulse, steady and present just under her skin.

She draws him close, tangling her legs in his. She smells like she always does—flowers and paint and sunshine after a thunderstorm.

“You okay?” she asks, the question ruffling his hair. Varian nods jerkily, and he feels her let out a breath of relief. She squeezes his shoulders, and every anxious bone in Varian’s body settles.

Below them is much more chaos. Varian laughs when he sees Hugo being lifted up underneath the armpits and dragged backward like a petulant toddler by Nadia. He’s got his heels dug into the ground and is pouting so hard it looks like there are tears in his eyes. He makes no move to stop the princess from hauling backward toward the door like a predator capturing their prey.

“You good, Hugo?” Varian asks, his grin so wide it hurts his face.

“Why are you asking?” The blond’s pout drops into a sneer. “Can’t you tell I’m in complete control of this situation?”

Rapunzel bites her lip to keep her own smile at bay. “Ah, do you guys need help getting back outside?”

“No,” Nadia says lightly. “We can always jump out a window.” Varian is like, 80% certain she’s kidding, but that other 20% sure imagines a lot of hilarious scenarios. “Thank you for patching him up, but our medical team will take over from here.”

Varian swears he hears Savni mutter something about explosions and Coronian courting rituals, but Hugo makes a choked noise and talks loudly over her, “SOUNDS GREAT see you tomorrow Goggles bye.”

“Ingvarr’s culture is so unique,” Rapunzel says once they’re gone, and Varian has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from guffawing loud enough to wake Eugene.

 

 

 

With Eugene out of commission, it's technically Stan and Pete’s job to take over the investigation as lieutenants. But, knowing Stan and Pete and their, ah, ability to get distracted, it was Rapunzel leading the mission. This was personal for her now—this person was not only threatening her kingdom, but tried to kill her husband. Varian knows things aren’t gonna be pretty when they found the culprit. Rapunzel may be warm like the sun, but she could also burn.

“You’re sure there’s no one else who would have known that formula?”

Varian shakes his head, giving the same answer he gave her the other times she’s asked. “I stopped working with Quirinian after you came back to Corona. The only people who would have known about it are the Saporians.”

They’ve been over the scenario five times by now. Andrew and his gang were still locked safely down in the dungeons, and they hadn’t had any kind of communication with the outside world. But they were the only ones who would have been able to know Quirineon.

Rapunzel taps her colored pencil to her chin as she thinks. “We’re missing something.”

Varian snorts. Thanks for stating the obvious, your highness. He stands from his chair and comes up next to her to look at the diagram she’s sketched out on a parchment hanging from her studio wall. There are cartoony versions of Andrew, Kai, Clementine, Maisie, and Juniper, all wearing frowny faces as they’re behind bars. There’s a dotted line and a question mark that trails away from them, signaling the unknown.

That question mark is taunting him.

Fatigue is prickling at his brain, making his vision blearily and his thoughts slow. He rubs at his eyes to rid them of the dryness. He technically hadn’t been discharged from the medical wing this morning; he just left. He didn’t have the time to wait around for his body to recover—in twelve hours, the solstice celebration was going to begin.

Their culprit was going to strike then. Hit all the kingdoms at once during the party, he just knew it. It would be stupid not to. And with multiple royals already targeted, having them all in one place was easy.

But it was also the perfect way to set a trap and catch the criminal. They just had to figure out who they were trapping.

“Varian,” Rapunzel says evenly, “what did Andrew plan to do once he destroyed Corona?”

Varian shoots her a puzzled look. She knew the answer to this. “Create New Saporia from the ashes of the kingdom.”

Rapunzel nods, slowly at first but then faster as she must be putting something together. “It seems a little odd to create a new country for only five people.”

It takes a beat before the implication of her words click. “Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, shit.”

“Mmhm.” She purses her lips gravely and circles the question mark with her pencil. “That’s what we’re missing. The second half of the Separatist group.”

The floor underneath him lurches so hard that Varian needs to sit down. He collapses back into the settee and drops his face in his hands. There were more of them? Stars. It made sense—Andrew was always waxing on about the importance of Saporian heritage, but that terrorist group had all come from other kingdoms. They were just the soldiers sent into battle. They all had families and friends and probably lived in villages that were full of Saporian sympathizers.

He's such an idiot. Of course there were more of them. “I should have thought of this sooner.”

“No,” Rapunzel kneels in front of him, gently removing his hands from his face. “You had no idea—”

“But I should have known!” Varian snaps, frustration boiling like hot lava under his skin. He remembers them talking about their families, remembers the plans they’d make when New Saporia rose—hell, Clementine even sent letters back and forth to her family. “This is—this is all my fault.”

That same old defeated self-loathing rises up in him, as it always does whenever he thinks about the things he did during that awful year cut off from Dad. His mistakes will always haunt him, no matter how much he tries to distance himself. Rapunzel coos to him, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders. She repeats the words she always does. It's not your fault. Varian hates how much she has to coddle him when he gets like this. Hates that he loves the feeling of being coddled.

But strangely, he finds himself craving someone else’s arms.

“I asked Hugo to stay in Corona.” He whispers it out into her hair like a secret.

“You did?” She pulls back enough to look him in the eye. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Varian answers honestly. The memory of Hugo’s surprised face is enough to send his stomach twisting with the unknown. “You guys came in before we could finish that conversation.”

“Maybe you could finish it at the party tonight.”

“I did technically ask him out on a date to watch the fireworks, so...” He shrugs and offers her a smile. “I feel like that’s progress?”

Rapunzel grabs his cheeks and smushes them between her palms. “Look at you, being so romantic! Who knew my baby brother had such game?”

“Oh god, not you too.” He baps her hands away from his face, but they both giggle. “But seriously, you sure keeping this party is a good idea? We still have no idea what the culprit looks like.”

Rapunzel looks at him with a clever glint in her eye. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve to help with that.”

 

 

 

Varian needs to have a serious conversation with Rapunzel about her ideas of stealth.

He really can’t blame her. Playing hide and seek with no one but chameleon and the occasional witch probably didn’t give her the best hiding techniques. It’s a good thing Varian had to hide his alchemical experiments and inventions for the better half of his developmental years. He knows how to disguise a piece of metal.

Irony in motion.

Still, it doesn’t stop him from nervously glancing at the curtains draped around the ballroom every five seconds. The deep purple fabric hides the wires that currently attach the contraption Varian threw together in the past three hours. It wouldn’t be hard for someone to look up and see it, but luckily everyone in this room is too occupied with, ugh, mingling.

Bodies push and pull in masses in the full ballroom. Glasses clink as toasts are made. There’s light music playing from a fiddle in the corner that sounds horribly out of tune. Varian has half the mind to go tell them, but it looks like Nigel is already on his way over, and what else was that guy good for besides nagging others?

The thrumming nerves of being in such a large crowd and looking for someone he recognizes makes him flit around areas of the ballroom like an overexcited hummingbird. He goes from corner to corner, to the dessert table, the punchbowl, the porch. The crowd is diverse with so many faces and kingdom colors. Finding a traitor is like trying to find one of Rapunzel’s blond hairs in a haystack.

“Why hello handsome stranger. Come here often?”

It is only by the thinnest shreds of patience that Varian doesn’t act on instinct and punch Hugo in the face. He turns to look at the other boy and immediately regrets it. He’s in that dress coat again, hideously attractive. Only now, he can think Hugo is attractive without trying to suppress it. Varian wants to tear off all those shiny buttons with his teeth.

“Can you focus, please?” His eyes sweep over the crowd again. “You’re supposed to be on the east side watching for—”

“Any suspicious activity, yeah I know. But consider this: it’ll be pretty obvious if someone tries to kill us. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the party for five minutes.” Varian startles when a hand is suddenly on his shoulder. Green eyes catch him in a gentle gaze. “You don’t need to be so stressed. We’re going to catch them.”

“You don’t get it.” Varian wants to shove him off, but can’t bring himself to. Hugo’s hand is so warm, the touch electrifying even over his clothing. “The Dark Kingdom’s reputation could be ruined because of me. Eugene got hurt because of me. These assholes nearly took over this kingdom the first time because of me. I need to fix this. If I hadn’t—”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself for something you were manipulated into doing when you were a kid,” Hugo points out. “None of this is your fault. Assassins are always trying to kill the royals. That’s just life. Hell, we go through that twice a month in Ingvarr. I have a second bed set up behind one of the walls in my workshop. ‘S pretty cozy.”

Varian snorts, the image of Hugo stuffing himself into a wall taking a little weight off his chest. 

“C’mon,” the blond goads, holding out a hand. “One dance isn’t going to kill you.”

Varian bites his lip, his brain coming up with a million and a half reasons why taking his eyes off the crowd was a bad idea. His heart counters this argument, fluttering at the idea of pressing so close to the object of his affections.

All the doors to the ballroom were still safely guarded…and it was a party. Taking five minutes to dance probably wouldn’t hurt.

As he’s led over to the dancers, he can’t help but think that Hugo was such a bad influence. He unironically loves it. He loves the way the other boy’s fingers feel within his own. Loves the way his eyes sparkle with mischief, loves how his whole face lights up when he discovers something new.

No, what he loves encompasses more than that. He loves Hugo.

The thought smacks him like Max just clocked him with a frying pan. He involuntarily stumbles, maybe even would have tripped had the other boy not been right there to catch him.

"You okay, Goggles?" 

Varian opens his mouth, but no words come out. He can't make himself speak. He loves Hugo. He's in love with Hugo. This revelation is the exact thing he's been pushing off, encompassed in one, singular thought that makes his entire body feel warm, face flushing a bright pink. 

The music hikes, and the crowd shuffles around them. People are switching partners. Hugo mutters an, “Incoming,” then spins Varian off to someone else. Varian stumbles, wanting to pull out of this dance to say something to Hugo, but stills when he's caught by the younger princess of Ingvarr. 

“Zaychonok,” Nadia greets him with a smile.

The insult is enough to snap him out of his rose-colored daze. Varian presses his lips together, his next movements going stiff in displeasure. “Please don’t call me that.”

Nadia blinks. “Oh. I’m sorry—I never meant to offend you.”

“I find that hard to believe," he mutters under his breath, the words bitter on his tongue. Louder, he tries to sound more polite. He's still talking to royalty, after all. "Hugo told me what it means, and I just really would prefer if you didn't refer to me like that.” 

Nadia looks puzzled. “It upsets you?”

Annoyance makes his brow twitch. Luckily, the dance makes them turn away from each other, so she doesn’t see the reaction. “Why wouldn’t it?” Once they’re back face to face, he can see that her puzzled expression still hasn’t gone away, which only annoys him further. “Look, it’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with someone making fun of my teeth. I just really don’t appreciate—”

“Your teeth?” Now Nadia looks really confused. “What exactly did Hugo tell you?”

Varian frowns. Clearly, there’s a translation error somewhere, but he doesn’t have the slightest clue where. “He said you’re calling me a rabbit.”

The princess rolls her eyes. “Such an ass,” Nadia mutters, making a dry giggle burst out of Varian’s throat. Her expression is one he recognizes—the exasperation of a big sister.

He doesn’t get to press her further before he’s swept away by a new partner. Someone from Nuru’s kingdom. He wonders where she is, if her mom is safe from the person who kept putting the royals in danger.

The dancers turn again, and he’s back with Nadia. “That word isn’t our word for rabbit. Zaychonok means little hare.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Is baby and infant the same term in your language’s romantic connotations?”

Varian gapes at her. “I—I mean—Not exactly.” He feels heat rise to the back of his neck. It was a term of endearment? “He also said you were saying it to make fun of him.”

Now this brings a wry smile to the princess's face. “Has he told you how we met?”

The question makes his feet fumble. Varian thinks back to that conversation they had on their rowboat. “Um…I know you found him on the streets?”

Nadia hums, twirling herself around him. Her eyes drift away from him and toward the crowd, gazing at the partygoers but seeing something much more distant.

“Ingvarr is a very financially divided country,” she starts. “It’s gotten better, but a decade ago, it was a very different place. We hardly ever left the upper city except for my mother’s political business. One day when I was young, I accompanied her, and got jumped by a skinny little street child. It was of no consequence—I’ve been trained on how to take down a man since I was four. But the curious thing was that this boy didn’t run. He stowed away underneath our carriage and snuck into the upper city, into the palace. He hid in the gardens and stole from our kitchens for nearly a month before someone realized it.”

“I knew he was there the whole time, of course,” she says with a smug turn of her lips. “I thought he was so clever, the way he could outsmart our guards. After a few weeks of watching him hide in our bushes, I lured him in and kept him. Hugo is my cunning little lisonok, and in all the years I’ve known him, the only person who has been able to run circles ‘round him is you.”

Running circles. Literally, as the dancers turn in circles again. Varian’s head feels like it’s going to spin off his shoulders. She turns to smile at him, face open and gentle. “Does it make sense now?”

“Lees-oh-nock,” he repeats slowly. “And I’m his hare. So, does that word mean…?”

“Fox,” Nadia confirms. “For the past four years, I’ve watched him chase you like a rapid fool, but you always manage to slip out of his grip.”

In that instant, the hands on clocks stop ticking. Birds stop flying, water stops pouring, and plants stop growing. The world around him freezes, and the earth drops out from under his feet.

“I—I need to go,” he splutters quickly, breaking the dance and practically sprinting through the crowd. His heart pounds like a jackhammer, he can feel every beat radiating through his entire body. That meant—that meant—

“Goggles, what’s wrong?”

He nearly jumps out of his skin. Of course Hugo would have followed him. His green eyes dart around the room, searching for something.

“Did you see them?” Hugo is still talking. He can’t hear the way Varian’s heart is exploding. Even though it’s all his fault. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna faint.” He reaches out to steady him, one gentle hand gripping his elbow.

“You—” Varian tries, desperately grasping at the words he needs to say. He wants to break Hugo's nose under his fist, but also, kiss him until he chokes on his tongue. “You—”

“Oh god, what now?” Hugo tries to release him, but Varian is quick to snatch his arm back, pulling him so close he can see those stupid beautiful golden flecks in his eyes.

“You fucker,” he spits, then kisses Hugo roughly on the mouth.

He doesn’t dare let go. He can’t bear to. Not with what Nadia’s just confirmed to him.

“Goggles, please,” Hugo pleads once Varian releases him. “You’ve gotta stop rage kissing me. It’s incredibly sexually confusin—gah!”

Varian doesn’t want to listen anymore. He grabs Hugo by the collar of his shirt and manhandles him out of the main ballroom, into a servant’s corridor that’s empty except for Shorty in the corner pretending to be a plant, for some reason.

“Four years, Hugo,” Varian hisses as he walks. “Four FUCKING years.”

“That is the period of time that I’ve known you, yes,” Hugo nods, still helplessly lost. He's so dumb it's cute. Fuck, Varian hates how much he loves him. “Are we going to get to the part where this makes sense, or…?”

It all bursts out of him in one breath, like an explosion of ammonium nitrate. “I love you and I think I've loved you for a really really long time and the idea of you leaving for another year tomorrow is making me go crazy.”

Hugo finally stills then, staring at him with open shock. “You love me?”

“Yes, asshole,” Varian snaps. “And it makes me furious because out of all the people in the seven kingdoms it had to be yo-mph!”

This time, it’s Hugo who grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and hauls him forward, and it would have been surprising if Varian hadn’t already been ready. 

He grabs Hugo by the sides of his face as their lips mash artlessly together. There’s lots of tongue and teeth and Varian can taste the fury and desperation and the tenderness on Hugo’s tongue. How he can taste feelings, he’s got no fucking clue, but who cares. The press of lips and feeling of skin make his thoughts clamber out like church bells in his head, a cacophony of noise and feeling.

“This whole time?” Hugo pants when he pulls away for air.

“This whole goddamn time,” Varian confirms, and Hugo laughs breathlessly.

“Shit,” he says with a giddy little grin. “Me too.”

“I know.” Varian lets out a growl of frustration and starts tearing at Hugo’s jacket, clawing at his dress coat and those stupid golden buttons and not caring if they get ripped off. “Fucking hate this thing, always hated this thing, makes you look so hot, not fair—”

Apparently, Varian has lost all higher brain power and is now just letting his stream of consciousness flow freely out of his mouth. Hugo doesn’t seem to mind, because he chuckles and makes no move to stop Varian from tearing his clothing apart.

“You think my jacket’s not fair? You’re the one who runs around in that stupid little apron.”

Varian pauses his assault, blinking at him. “You think my apron is hot?”

“Unfortunately, I think every part of you is hot. ‘S fucking infuriating.”

Varian snickers and pulls him back down with his now open jacket for another kiss. Hugo tastes like sunshine on the fields of Old Corona and cozy nights in front of a fire and hot chocolate during a late-night lab session. He tastes like lighthearted laughter and the smell of fresh-baked cookies and the thrill of a new formula working out. He tastes like everything Varian has ever wanted and needed. Like forever.

Even though their mouths are distracted, Varian’s hands have not stopped moving, still on their mission to find Hugo’s bare skin. The blond startles when Varian’s fingers start undoing the top buttons of his undershirt.

“Var—Varian,” the blond gasps, and Varian delights in the fact that he has to start again. “We’re in a hallway. We’re supposed to be looking out for that bad guy right now—?”

And Varian cannot BELIEVE that after all these years that Hugo has the audacity to be the voice of reason right now. In another time, he probably would have laughed, but right now, all he can think is that the boy he loves loves him back. There’s a heat that’s pooling in lower belly from the feeling of Hugo’s hands on his waist and the memory of Hugo’s voice dipping low in that alleyway. He doesn't know what to do but he knows he needs to do something because if his hands don't meet skin in the next five seconds he's going to explode.

“Closet,” he whines. “Five minutes.”

Hugo considers this for half a second. “They probably don’t need us for five minutes.” And then they’re both drunkenly stumbling into a broom closet, the door latching behind them with a click.

Varian dives toward Hugo hands first, but the other boy is faster, slamming him up against the door so hard the wood rattles on its hinges. Hugo’s sloppily biting at his neck, trailing possessive fingers across his abdomen and his hips and his ass. Varian’s hands flutter for a moment, wanting to grab everywhere all at once, but they settle around his neck to keep Hugo’s mouth firmly on his. Hugo dips, hands lifting him off the ground by his thighs as Varian’s legs automatically wrap around the taller boy’s torso.

Varian feels ravenous, dangerous, absolutely fucking frenzied, and it only gets jacked up to another level when Hugo finds a rhythm, rocking his hips in time with every heated kiss. He’s trapped in the most delicious way, heat pooling so much now it feels like there’s molten lava in his stomach, unable to do much except cling and arch back against the door.

When Hugo pulls back to breathe—rude—Varian takes the opportunity to pant, “I love you.”

The blond’s face, ruddy even in the dark, flushes impossibly redder. Hugo suddenly looks almost shy and open and—wait. Stop everything. Was that…?

Testing his hypothesis, Varian weaves his fingers into Hugo’s hair and pulls. “Don’t fucking stop until I say so.”

Hugo lets out a broken, whiney little moan, and something akin to power rushes through Varian’s veins. He can’t help but grin evilly. A hair-pulling kink and submission play? Moon above, this boy was made for him to ruin.

Hugo presses his face into Varian’s neck and obeys, panting openly as he presses their bodies together. Varian gasps at the friction, at the pain of the door ramming against his shoulder blades, the perfect mixture of pain and pleasure causing the heat pooling in him starts to build. He’s stuck with a sudden vision of Hugo writhing underneath him, of flushed freckled skin and desperate keens. He can almost taste it, this manifested future, but right now, he can’t see farther than the two of them frotting against each other like horny preteens.

Hugo licks at his pulse, panting into Varian’s skin, and Varian is trembling, holding on to Hugo’s shoulders like a lifeline as the pressure in him builds and builds and builds until—

He feels as though a thousand fireworks go off underneath his skin. He thinks he chokes out Hugo’s name, but he can’t be sure. The blond swears and shudders, and then they’re both slipping to the ground in a tangle of trembling limbs.

The front of Varian’s pants are wet and gross, and the closet reeks of sweat and sex. Still, it’s absolutely perfect…if not a little sticky.

“I can see the merits of your argument,” Hugo rasps, sounding delightfully wrung out. “Resignation might just be worth doing that all the time. Also, we just fucked in a closet. Does this mean we're boyfriends now?”

Varian snorts, still a little too breathless to find the air to yell at Hugo. "Heh, yeah. I'd say so."

They make use of some extra towels in the closet to clean themselves up, and exit the closet with fingers twined together.

“Heyooooo stripey,” drawls Shorty from where he’s now face-down on the floor. “Ya missed the sparkle lady.”

Varian frowns. “Sparkle lady?”

“Yerp.” Hugo steps closer and nudges the old man over onto his back. “She waz a’lookin’ for you. Had a sparkle stick.”

Hugo squints. “Okay, I’ll bite. The hell is a sparkle stick?”

Varian bites his lip, thinking only for a moment before the answer clicks. His stomach drops. “Wait—Shorty, was it a wand?”

“Sparkle sprackle! Everybody’s gonna die.”

Heart jolting, Varian rushes to crack open the door to the ballroom and gasps at what he sees. The ballroom was a mess. Almost every piece of furniture has been knocked to the ground or splintered to pieces. In one corner stands a group of cowering noble folk, surrounded by a halo of guards from several kingdoms.

A bright flash of green lightning zaps across the ceiling; people shriek and scream as the giant chandelier shakes and then falls into the center of the ballroom with an earth-shattering crash.

Standing in the center of it all was a young woman; she was short and freckled with platinum white hair split into two braids. Her face is round and her grin is wicked as she brandished a wand that held glowing green energy.

Varian swears, recognizing her instantly.

It was Cerise—Clementine’s granddaughter.

 

 

 

“Bad, bad, this is so fucking bad.”

“As you have said, for the twelfth time,” Hugo nodded. He’d stopped giving up trying to calm Varian down about three minutes ago, instead opting to watch him pace and panic like the helpful boyfriend he was. “But you’ve yet to explain to me what the hell is actually going on. Starting with, who is that woman and why does she have an explody stick?”

“It’s a wand,” Varian corrects mildly.

“Like, a magic wand?”

“Yes. And that girl is the grandchild of someone who really, really hates me.”

“It wasn’t hard to gather that, since she’s been screaming for you to come out and play for the past fifteen minutes.”

Varian scrubs his hand down his face. “Her grandmother was part of the Separatists of Saporia—that terrorist group that manipulated me into nearly destroying Corona? Clementine always had a thing for the occult—I never really understood that whole deal—but I guess that runs in the family. I remember her mentioning she had a granddaughter, and that was one of the reasons she was fighting for New Saporia, but I guess I just…forgot she existed after I arrested her grandmother?”

“Well, she definitely didn’t forget you.” Hugo glances back out through the crack in the door and his lips tighten to a line. It was by pure dumb luck that they hadn’t been spotted yet—these servant corridors ran all through the palace, even down to the Herz Der Sonne tunnels below the castle.

…Which the Saporians knew about thanks to their brief kingdom takeover while Rapunzel was gone. Those tunnels were probably how she got into his lab in the first place.

“Fuck.” Varian kicks at a wall, reveling in the pain shooting up through his toes. Andrew had been the one with the plan, but Clementine had always been the one watching him. Making sure he went through with it. She must have copied down his formulas when he wasn't in the lab and sent them to the rest of the Separatists just in case something went wrong. They must have been sitting on those plans for years, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. With all seven kingdoms here at once, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Start a fight between the kingdoms, get them distracted, then go for the throat.

Varian has to admit, it's a good plan. But of course, the five minutes he and Hugo leave to go canoodle is the moment Cerise chooses to launch her attack. His life is a joke.

No, this was good. If he was in the ballroom, he'd be a target. Right now she doesn't know where he is. This was an advantage. Now he just needs to think of a plan. “We have enough guards in there to overtake her, but no one can get close with that stupid wand!”

Hugo hums. “We need a distraction. A big one. Got any of those flash bombs on you?” 

"No," Varian mumbles miserably. He thought the giant contraption in the ceiling would be enough—plus, you couldn't fit anything in this tight vest. Varian gnaws on his bottom lip. “I could turn Ruddiger into his beast form, but that would take time to synthesize the formula…We need something faster than that! Something like—” The name comes to him like a jolt of lightning. “Red!”

Hugo raises an eyebrow. “You wanna throw a color at a witch? Hey wait! Where are you—?”

But Varian is already gone, dashing down the corridor like a madman to get down the stairs to the kitchens. If he was lucky, the Schnitz girls would be down there. They were always known to break into the kitchen to steal sweets during big parties.

His hunch is right. He nearly barrels over the Schnitz sisters and his aunt when he skids around the corner.

“Where’s the fire, V?” Kiera asks, arms full of stolen cupcakes.

Adira must notice his panicked expression because her hands immediately reach for the dagger at her belt. “What’s going on?”

“The ballroom, the nobles—everybody is being held captive by that witch,” he says in one breath. “Catalina, I need you to come with me. We’re gonna rush her. She’s got a destructive wand so we need to take her by surprise.”

“If she’s got a magic wand, what’s to stop her from blasting you into bits when you run at her?” Hugo’s voice speaks up from behind his shoulder. He’s carrying Shorty under one arm like someone would carry a limp dog. Varian probably should have told him to leave it.

Hugo does have a point. He taps on his chin as he thinks. “That wand looked like it wielded some kind of lightning..." Then, the brainstorm. “Copper can reflect that!”

Catalina frowns. “But where do we get a bunch of copper in a castle made of stone?”

Varian restlessly bounces on his heels, trying to get the blood flowing to make him think faster. “There’s not enough time to run down to Xavier’s, and I only have raw chunks of metal lying around. We need something that’s already been smoothed out into a shield, something like—”

He stops. Slowly turns to face his once rival/now boyfriend.

Hugo blinks at him. “Why are you looking at me like—oh no.” Hugo’s face morphs into an expression of pure rage as he picks up on Varian’s thought process. “No. Fuck you. Absolutely not.”

“The Ingvarrian ship is plated in copper on the inside,” Varian needles. “I’ve seen it! It would be perfect! We’d just need a few panels—”

“Fuck you, no!”

Varian pulls at his bangs in frustration. Time was of the essence here, and the longer they fought about this the more people would be at risk. “Your queen and princess are in that ballroom! Would you rather have Savni and Nadia die?”

“Yes,” Hugo snaps. “Not even a question. Murder the entire bloodline, see if I care! You are NOT touching my ship—”

Varian turns to face Kiera. “You should go to my lab and get as many goo bombs as you can carry. You remember what they look like, right?”

“The maroon ones?”

Hugo lets out a strangled noise of dissent at being ignored. “Excuse me, we are not done discussing—”

“Yeah, the maroon ones. Make sure to take the hidden tunnels, we have no idea if she’s got any partners. They could be swarming the castle by now.”

“Varian!” Hugo’s voice has gone from furious to annoyed to desperate. Varian turns to look at him, taking in the brilliant emerald eyes that now shone with a mixture of panic and fear. “Please don’t tear apart my ship.”

Varian steps closer, setting Shorty on his feet and taking Hugo’s hand in his. He lowers his voice into a calming and sympathetic tone. “It’ll just be a few panels. We’ll put them right back once we’re done, I promise. And once we make it out of this,” Varian lets his smile turn a little slyer, “as a thank you, I’ll…” He leans in to whisper exactly what he’d like to do with Hugo, a ribbon, and a vat of whipped cream.

Hugo chokes, pale skin flushing a deep cherry red. “You’re gonna kill me.”

Varian snickers. “This has been established, yes.”

“Fuck,” the blond groans, rubbing at his eyes to snap himself out of it. “Fuck, okay, fine whatever. But I’m gonna need help carrying over the panels.”

“Take Adira with you. She knows her way around the castle grounds.”

“What about you?” Hugo asks. “Won’t it be dangerous here if you’re just in the kitchens if there's more of them?”

Varian shrugs. “Catalina is enough protection if it came down to it.”

The blond looks at him, then at the fifteen-year-old redhead, then back to him. “Goggles, this is a child.”

“She’s got a mean bite,” Kiera cuts in snidely, causing her sister to burst out into giggles.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got a wealth of combat experience—”

Varian lets out an exasperated breath. They needed to get moving before Cerise got too zap happy and started killing people. “Hugo, Catalina is a werewolf. I’ll be fine.”

Hugo glances back and forth between Catalina and Varian in bewilderment. “A—a wha...? Wait, like, a literal—?”

“We do not have time for this.” Varian shoves Hugo toward Adira. “You have ten minutes to be back here, go!”

Adira gracefully scoops Hugo’s jaw off the floor and ushers him closer to the door. Just before they disappear down the hall, Varian catches something along the lines of, “…kingdom is absolutely unhinged…”

“Is he your boyfriend?” Catalina asks kindly. “He seems nice.”

Kiera is less impressed. “He seems like a blockhead.”

“He’s my blockhead,” Varian snaps. “Also, don’t you have somewhere to be right now?”

The dark-haired girl sticks out her tongue. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Nerd.”

“Brat!” he shoots back. Then, “Be careful!” Kiera slips away down the hall, leaving Varian, Catalina, and Shorty alone. They were, quite possibly, some of the only people not being held captive. They could very well be Corona's only hope.

And it was time to take their kingdom back, once and for all.

 

 

Notes:

WHEW it feels good to have this story going again!! I'm so excited to get back to this one. Thank you all again for bearing with me in the hiatus!

Chapter 5

Notes:

almost 2 months exactly since the last update LMAOOOO

i am also pleased to announce that this chapter is literally just Hugo saying 'what the fuck is up with corona' in many different ways.

There are many thoughts rattling around in Hugo’s mind at the moment.

One: in his haste to get back to his ship, one of his socks has fallen halfway off his foot and is now an annoying presence in his boot.

Two: the tunnels around the castle have fucking skeletons in them—didn’t these people ever clean underneath their castle?

The third—and probably the most prominent—is: the realization that everyone in Corona is batshit insane.

Like, sure. He had thought Varian was a little peculiar when he first met the other boy. The guy talked to a raccoon. His quirk charm was part of the reason Hugo felt so drawn to him. But he’s got to draw the line somewhere, and that line is now firmly in the dirt when it comes to tearing apart his ship.

His ship. His beautiful, wonderous, perfect construction of shiny metal and puffy steam and genius engineering. It’s now reduced to a husk as he tears it apart, because, unlike normal people who would want to flee during a coup, his Coronian boyfriend wants to fight.

Hugo would probably be much more upset if he hadn’t literally just been fucked.

There’s a shrieking of metal and a loud pop, and he whips around to see Adira, Varian’s insanely buff aunt, literally ripping panels off the side of the ship like they were layers of a pastry.

“Hey!" Hugo snaps. "At least use a screwdriver!”

Adira, infuriated, does not. She rips off another panel like it’s nothing, the metal curling toward her in a way that honestly shouldn’t be possible. “No time.” She makes a pointed look at his own significantly smaller pile of metal. “You’re taking too long.”

“I’m trying to salvage this,” Hugo protests.

She raises an eyebrow. “Like you’re going to salvage the corpses of your princesses?” Hugo…doesn’t have a response to that. Adira smirks at his inability to speak and tucks the panels she's holding under her arms like they weigh nothing. “Let’s go, Rat Face.”

“Rat Face?!” Hugo gasps, scorned and offended, but she’s already gone. With an infuriated growl, he grabs the panels he managed to unscrew and hurries to catch up to her.

This woman puts her muscles to good use, running faster and quieter than should be humanly possible. Hugo feels like he’s chasing after a shadow by the way she moves. He’s got a bad stitch in his side by the time they make it back through those spooky dungeons and—shit, he needed to work out. If, you know, he survived the next hour.

By the time they make it back, Varian and Catalina were already gone, even though that was not the plan! They’re standing in the center of that ballroom like fucking maniacs, the former already in the midst of a screaming match with Cerise. He really shouldn’t be surprised. Varian always liked to pick a fight.

He really doesn’t know what they were arguing about, or really, why he should care. All of Hugo’s thoughts have pretty much narrowed down to that annoying alchemist and the quickest way to get him the hell out of danger.

"Saporia isn't gonna happen," Varian is telling her. He's using that low, firm tone, and—hmm. Okay. Not the time to be getting those kinds of thoughts, Hugo. "We defeated you before, and we'll do it again."

Cerise sneers. "The only reason you managed that is because you had the help of your friends. I've spent this whole week undermining all of the goodwill that you've built up so no one trusts you or your pathetic ancestral kingdom."

"Yeah," Catalina says slowly, "but like. We know it's you who's been doing everything, not Varian."

Cerise's sneer doesn't falter. Hugo's gotta hand it to her, she didn't let the obvious shake her. "You do, but once I destroy everyone in this room, that won't matter! When the courts go home tomorrow, they'll never trust anyone from the Dark Kingdom or Corona because that's where the worst tragedy of the Seven Kingdoms occurred. And without any trade or support from the other kingdoms, Corona will fall, and New Saporia will rise from the ashes!" She waves the wand around as she laughs, sparks flying everywhere.

Insane. She's literally insane. And not in like, an evil way, but more like in the way of a child who was given too much power via an enchanted occult object and wants to go on a murdering spree. 

Varian seems to share the sentiment. He quirks an eyebrow and shares a dubious look with Catalina. "Yeah, uh, I think your evil plan needs work."

"Don't patronize me! I'll kill you all!" There's a flicker of sparks around Cerise’s ears, a hint at what's to come. Then, her cold eyes gaze past Varian to land on him, and a smile crosses her face. "Starting with him." 

A blast of raw power strikes the air, and a hand yanking him out of the way is the only thing that keeps him from facing the same fate as the flooring that explodes where he was just standing. Hugo’s ears pop with the abrupt pressure change.

Adira, his savior, gestures to the copper panels in his hands. “We brought these for a reason, remember?"

She’s already passed the majority of hers out. Varian's scary-looking uncle has one, and so do a few of the various kingdom guards. They use the panels like shields, falling into a formation as if they practiced it. They approach Cerise with ease and try to box her in by the fallen chandelier. She hisses a nasty curse and shoots some lightning out of her wand, but it goes ricocheting off the copper. The blast rebounds around the room like a runaway bouncy ball before finally exploding on the painted ceiling. Hunks of stone come crashing down and everyone scatters to avoid getting hit, Hugo included.

This is absurd. Six days ago, he came to Corona to flirt with a boy he loathed. He didn’t sign up for this magic bullshit. The guards and various warriors are mostly back on their feet. Cerise is keeping them at bay—that wand was good for causing general destruction and keeping everyone at a distance.

Hugo frantically searches the crowd until he spots Varian. He tries to run to him, but a blur of giant black fur goes streaking by him. Oh, right. There's a werewolf here too. When Hugo looks again, his boyfriend is gone, lost somewhere in the melee, plaster, dust, and magic.

Well, everybody else seems to have this handled.

Something nasty goes flying over his head and on instinct, Hugo bolts in the opposite direction. His feet carry him to where experience has proven is the safest place in this room: behind his princesses.

Sanvi wrestles one of the copper plates out of his hands and is off immediately, because of course she is. Nadia hangs back, face flickering with concern.

“You shouldn’t be here.” She jerks her chin back toward the servant’s corridor that they burst out of. “Go back to where it’s safe, we’ll come to get you when it’s done.”

And god—god, Hugo wants to do that. He wants to run away so bad. He isn't a warrior like them. He's just a boiler rat. He wasn’t built for this kind of epic magical warfare.

“I can’t,” he whines, “my boyfriend has a death wish.” He gestures vaguely to where Varian is sprinting around the ballroom, undoing the ties around the curtains where the spouts of his creation are hidden. He’s clearly one of Cerise’s main targets if the blasts she keeps throwing his way are anything to go by. Adira and that dark-haired girl with the goo bombs are doing a pretty good job at deflecting. Hugo should probably be helping too, but he really doesn’t feel like getting electrocuted today.

Nadia’s face lights up. “Boyfriend? ”

Hugo blushes so hard he can feel it. “We're in a life or death situation, Nads! Do you really want to badger me about that right now?”

Her grin is absolutely manic. "Yes! I've been waiting four years for you to catch him, Hugo!"

"Fuck you."

The princess cackles like the evil witch that she was. Then, she makes a break toward the center of the room, where the other evil witch was fighting the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms and somehow holding ground. A quick scan of the room tells him that Varian managed to get to three of the curtains, but not the fourth one. His boyfriend is still on the other side of the room. Hugo could probably reach it if he ran. Magic is starting to cave the roof in. This thing needed to happen, and it needed to happen now.

Hugo steels himself. Sucks in a big breath. Makes peace with his gods.

And then, he runs.

He weaves in and out of the rubble, the various nobility partygoers, the werewolf, and the literal lightning coming toward him. The things he does for love. He finally reaches the curtain where Varian's contraption is hidden, barely catching himself on a pillar before his trembling legs give out. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt this much adrenaline.

His fingers fumble undoing the curtain, but it gives. The purple fabric falls free, revealing a wide network of hoses and pipes crisscrossing across up the ballroom’s walls to the ceiling, then down on the other side and out the door. There should be a pump on the other side of the ornate wooden doors, standing at the ready—if Cerise hadn’t destroyed it already.

A second person comes running up to him.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Varian pants. “You got that one undone. Okay, now that the hoses are free the pump still should be active. All we need is the remote to turn it on.”

“Who has that?” Hugo asks curiously, because it certainly wasn’t him.

Despite the general chaos of crumbling rock, screams, and runaway magic, Varian has the gall to look a little sheepish. “Stan and Pete.”

Hugo almost chokes on his spit. “You gave it to those guys? ”

Varian scowls. “I didn’t really expect this to happen. It was Rapunzel’s—” There’s a zap, and a window explodes to their right. Varian makes a move to run back into the crowd but there’s no way Hugo is letting him out of his sight again. He grabs onto his boyfriend’s arm as though his life depends on it.

Seeing that Hugo isn't going to let go, Varian stands on his toes and yells, “STAN, PETE! PRESS THE RED BUTTON!”

There’s a tense beat where nothing happens, and then.

Sticky pink foam splurts out of the hoses. It’s like the ballroom becomes a bubble bath, but without the bath and ten times the bubbles. It's heavy foam, so it slows the guard's defensive movements—but it also slows Cerise, and would let someone get in close.

The bubbles make it hard to see, which is A) excellent for sneaking up and grabbing someone but B) also very dangerous because now the crazy witch can’t see where she’s aiming. There's a flash of a supernova, and then a hurricane of pure power erupts, bright and blinding. The floor rumbles with it like an earthquake. Fuck being the hero. Someone else can grab her. Hugo ducks to the floor and pulls Varian down with him.

After that, everything goes quiet.

“What happened?” Varian whispers.

“I—” don’t know, he doesn’t say, because the bubbles clear. Cerise is being held between two Coronian guards, her wand safely removed from her grip.

Hugo lets out a breath of relief and staggers to his feet. He makes to brush himself off, but in the span of an hour, he confessed his love to his crush of four years, got fucked, and then avoided dying. He’s bound to look a little rumpled.

“I totally know what you mean now.”

Varian tilts his head. “What?”

“About magic being annoying,” Hugo says. “I genuinely hate it. Corona is terrible and cursed and I’m never coming back here again.” Varian laughs, the sound bright and lovely like a morning bell. It makes Hugo forget how to breathe.

They wade hand in hand through the foam to regroup with the others near the fallen chandelier. Cerise is still cursing, kicking out at the guards holding her. Rapunzel is there, surveying the prisoner and the general damage with pursed lips. The ballroom is absolutely wrecked. Hugo feels bad for whatever poor schmuck servant has to break out the broom and dustpan for this one.

Rapunzel sees them approach and gives them a smile. “I think the ballroom was due for an architectural upgrade anyway.”

“Saporia will never die!” Cerise screams over her, still squirming in the guards' grip. “There’s more of us than there are of you! We always remember the traitors, and they—”

“Pay with their lives,” Varian recites in a monotone. “Yeah, we’ve all heard it before.” He turns his smirk to Rapunzel, the two of them sharing an inside joke. “I think she’s due for a family reunion.”

Cerise lets out a fiendish shriek that reminds Hugo distinctly of an irritated bird as she’s lugged away.

Rapunzel turns to him. “Hugo, you were really resourceful in handing out those copper panels. Where’d you get so many?”

A wounded noise escapes the back of his throat. Varian starts laughing again, but this time, the noise isn’t cute. It’s a noise of pure evil.

The next few seconds happen in just a blink.

Cerise elbows one of the guards in the gut, making him double over. The distraction is all she needs to grab her wand out of his hand and aim it. Hugo watches, as if in slow motion, as a beam of pure energy streaks across the room, crackling the air in its wake. It’s heading straight toward them. Toward Varian.

He has no idea what compels him to move his feet. Probably all this Coronian air, making him insane. His hands are on Varian’s shoulders, and then the world goes white.

 

 

 

 

 

Hugo doesn’t really read much poetry, but he’s aware that the analogy of getting struck by lighting. Apparently, it's supposed to be revolutionary. Riveting.

That’s such bullshit.

Mainly because, in reality, getting hit by lightning fucking hurts. He doesn’t really know how else to describe it other than electrifying. Every nerve ending in his brain has caught on fire, and he can feel the burn in his bones. In the cartilage of his joints. In his teeth.

“HUGO!”

The voice screaming at him certainly doesn’t help. The voice is loud, familiar, and annoyingly, it makes something in him flutter.

Hands are tugging at his face, at his body. When he finally opens his eyes, the world is blurry—shit, where are his glasses?

“I’m right here,” he tries to say, but really comes out is more like a “zekoorsaaah.” God, he’s in so much pain he can’t even speak his own language right. The person stops frantically tugging at him and grabs his face between their hands. Hugo’s head lulls, letting himself be maneuvered as the black spots swim in his vision.

Bright blue eyes peer at him through the fog. They’re like tiny sapphires. Pretty. “You’re gonna be okay,” Varian promises. “I got you.”

And then Hugo slips into unconsciousness.

The next time he wakes up, he’s back in his room on the airship. At first, he thinks it’s a dream. That he’s imagining the sweet hum of boilers and stench of motor oil. It’s particularly bad in his room—which, honestly, is more of a water closet—mostly because he opted to sleep near the engines just in case something went wrong mid-flight.

They weren’t flying right now, were they? He can’t remember exactly; everything in his brain is too fuzzy. It feels like his entire body is tingling with pins and needles. He goes to sit up but finds something tugging on his arm. He looks to his left to see Varian, knocked out and curled on the edge of his cot. His heart does a weird little flip in his chest when he sees that the other boy is holding his hand even in sleep. And then he notices that his fingernails have turned completely black, charred by the leftover energy.

No more fingerless gloves then. Ugh. 

He considers poking Varian to get him to wake up, but the other boy does look pretty worn out. His cheek is mushed into the side of the bed and his mouth is open, quiet breaths passing through buck teeth. He looks sickeningly adorable.

Not for long.

Hugo reaches across the bed to his side table to grab a spare bottle of ink and—oh! There are his glasses. The lenses are shattered and the frames are warped and melted. He's got an extra pair in the drawer for emergencies, but—sheesh, how much voltage did he take to shatter the glass on his face? 

He’s working on his masterpiece when Queen Anya slips through the heavy metal door.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Hugo whispers, half a dick already scrawled on Varian’s cheek. Anya rolls her eyes.

“Can’t leave him alone for five minutes, can you?” Her voice is monotoned with the air of authority, but Hugo’s known her long enough to pick up on the soft undertones of amusement that lie underneath. Like Savni, she’s all brisk exterior with a mushy inside. “How are you feeling?”

Hugo pretends to ponder this. “Like I got hit by fucking lightning. Very rejuvenating, you should try it sometime.” He lets the teasing tone drop out of his voice into something more serious. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”

“Cerise has been arrested by the Coronian guards. They want to give her a fair trial and sentence her with her family.” She snorts and leans against the other side of the wall, arms crossing. “A bit excessive for an assassin, if you ask me.”

Hugo has to agree with her there—the Coronian justice system seems so lax in comparison to back home. If there was even a whiff of an attempt on the royal family, the accused would be put to death swiftly and without trial. “At least they caught her before anyone got hurt. Well, besides me. Did you see she shattered my glasses? I could have died.”

“You’re going to drag that sympathy out for the rest of your life, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.”

“I should have cut your tongue out years ago.”

Hugo grins. “But ya didn’t!” His smile begins to falter. It was so rare that he was alone with his caretaker outside of him needing her approval on something. Now might be the perfect time to bring up his change in employment. He swallows past the nerves in his throat. “So, uhm. It’s actually good that you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She inclines her head. Hugo’s breath rattles in his throat. He’s never asked Anya for something that didn’t make him useful. She wasn't in the habit of being merciful, and Hugo wasn't in the habit of being needy. He could always build whatever he needed but...building a life with Varian might take some extra elbow grease.

“What would you say to me…taking a break from my position?” He tests the waters carefully, watching every line of her face for some indication of displeasure.

Anya raises an eyebrow. “A break?”

“A semi-permanent break. Just for a little bit.” The silence is chomping at his stomach, and he starts talking to fill it. “See, uh, Varian made a deal with the Queen of Bayangor and said I would help them build a giant magnet thingy and I wanted to say no but the little bastard is awfully persistent and I thought while we were out there we could travel around and—”

He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. Anya’s hard gaze doesn’t reveal anything, which only sends Hugo’s anxiety skyrocketing. He doesn’t think she’ll kill him after all these years, but who knows. There was a first time for everything.

Eventually, she cuts him off. Thank the stars. “Do you know why I tell my daughters not to waste their time with men?”

“Because we’re a disappointment to the human race?”

Anya’s poker face doesn’t falter. “It’s because falling in love makes you do stupid things. Makes you falter on the battlefield, and give up safety and security for something that has the potential to be fleeting. But I suppose,” she adds with a slight quirk of her lips, “you’re my son, and the same rules don’t apply to you.”

Hugo blinks and flushes deeply. She’s never called him that before.

She waves off the sentiment like she always does. When she speaks next, it’s with the voice of a stern ruler. “I expect you back every six months for a routine check of the castle mechanics. If you’re late, I’ll cut off your pinkie toe and feed it to you.”

Now that sounds more like the queen he knows. He nods solemnly and gives her a little salute. “Yes, Ma’am.”

She tells him she’ll send the doctor by shortly to check his vitals and leaves. Hugo settles back into the bed, mind already swirling with excitement at the idea of traveling the world with his boyfriend. His boyfriend who loves him.

His boyfriend who is awake, and staring at him with a smirk.

“Shit!” Hugo nearly jumps up high enough to hit the ceiling. “How long have you been awake?”

“Awhile,” Varian drawls.

Hugo narrows his eyes. “Eavesdropper.”

“If I’m already persistent, why not add that to the list.” Varian takes his hand and rubs an anxious thumb across his sore knuckles. “I’m sorry you got hurt. You shouldn’t have jumped in front of me like that.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have been standing in zapping range. Seriously, does literally everyone from Corona have a death wish? I’ve never known a whole entire kingdom to be this crazy. Usually, it’s only you.”

Varian flutters his eyelashes. “Maybe I’m just crazy for you.”

Hugo scoffs. “Cheap line, do better.”

"Well...I hear that the fireworks celebration got pushed to tomorrow. If you're feeling up for it..." 

Hugo hums and taps his chin. "I'll see if I can move my busy schedule around." Even as he snarks, he still leans forward to where Varian meets him. Baby blue eyes glisten with affection. It makes Hugo’s heart swell. Finally being with Varian was more than he had hoped for. It had always seemed like a far-off dream that would never happen, but now, over the course of a week, it was his reality. “Are you really sure you want to stick with me? Think you can stand to be in my presence as we travel the world as co-engineers and build stuff for other kingdoms?”

Varian weaves his hands around the back of his neck, pulling Hugo closer. “I think I'll manage.” He grins, and it's like the clouds parting on a storm day to reveal the sun.

When their lips are a hair’s breadth away, there’s a zing. Hugo sucks in a sharp breath at the feeling.

Varian giggles softly. “I think there’s still some lightning in you.” Then, blue eyes flutter shut, and their lips slot together in a kiss. 

 

 

Notes:

and YES they are making out while Varian still has half a dick scrawled on his face, thank you for asking

Chapter 6

Notes:

screaming crying wailing WE'RE FINALLY HERE FOLKS

Wow. Wowowowow. This chapter is long overdue and i am so very sorry. i started this fic in JANUARY and now it's AUGUST when i'm finishing it i should be exiled from the internet. fr thank you guys for sticking around i don't deserve you <3

This chapter comes with fanart!! the absolutely lovely babieshowclown drew Hugo being bullied by his princess sisters, i'm hootin' and hollering it's SO GOOD, go follow them!!!!! they have such fun headcanons and their art is seriously eye candy i could stare at it for hours

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Yeah, you are. Here, lemme show you the proper technique.” When a spindly hand reaches down to cover his own over the handle of the wrench, Varian has to resist rolling his eyes. He can feel the pleasant heat of Hugo’s body pressing into his back. The other boy’s breath tickles his ear, and when Varian involuntarily shivers, he doesn’t have to look at Hugo to know that he’s smirking.

Pretending to help him screw in a bolt just go crowd up closer. What a jerk, Varian thinks affectionately.

Hugo doesn’t pull back immediately once the bolt is tight. He also doesn’t move forward, either. He hovers there, his cheek less than a millimeter away from Varian’s, sending tingling waves down his spine.

He knows Hugo wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss Hugo. But they can’t—not here.

Varian moves away first, stiff and anxious. He focuses all of his attention on the project in front of him, because burying himself in work always made his feelings more manageable. The sleek metal of the solar panels wink in the afternoon sun. They’re not up and running yet, but with Hugo’s help, they should be ready before the day is over.

It seems like a lifetime ago that Varian had furiously crumpled Hugo’s equation in his hand. In reality, it had barely been three weeks. Building the solar panels to harness energy for Old Corona was a challenge that Varian gladly rose to. They had to get it done before they were scheduled to leave for Bayangor, but working on a time crunch was nothing new. He’d built a portal to another fucking dimension in less than 12 hours while a literal demon was threatening their walls. Building solar panels in a few days was nothing.

Besides, working with Hugo made everything so much easier. It was fun, just as Varian always suspected it would be. Sharing knowledge and tips between flirtatious teasing and kisses. The idea of doing this all the time, working together to create new and beautiful machines and advancements, has him dizzy with excitement.

They’re scheduled to leave tomorrow morning, which means tonight Rapunzel is throwing them a goodbye party. Old Corona is bustling around them, already decked out with streamers and balloons and other things Lance insists will make a memorable bash. It’s a dual celebration of goodbye and a thank you for the new power system. Normally, he’d be stressed about having all that attention on him, but right now, he’s stressed about something else.

Or rather, someone else.

The blond rises to his feet and dusts the dirt off his pants. The tips of his fingers are still wrapped in bandages, waiting for the nails to grow back. “Alright, we should be almost ready to go. All we need is somebody to test it. I can go get—”

“I’ll go!” Varian says quickly, voice pitched so high it’s manic. “You stay here. Stay here and look pretty.”

Hugo throws him a lazy grin. “That’s my specialty.” Even though the blond's expression is easy, there’s a glint of concern in his eyes, and Varian tries his damndest to ignore it. He knows Hugo wants to help. They’ve spent the past few nights staying up late discussing various scenarios, hypothesizing what might happen next so Varian is prepared for every scenario. He appreciates Hugo talking him through it, he really does, but this is something Varian has to do on his own.

He walks back to his childhood home on shaking legs. He somehow feels cold and hot all over at the exact same time. The last time he’d been this scared was when he was fifteen and literally dangling for his life off the side of a Saporian airship. His body is experiencing the same kind of helpless flight or fight—only now, he could do neither. Flight wasn’t an option, and there was no way he could fight Quirin, because his dad is an absolute shit brickhouse of an ex-knight.

Said ex-knight is currently wearing a cooking apron that was once pink but has seen its fair share of stains and alchemical explosions. It's less of a bright shade of flamingo and more of a watered-down rose. It used to be Varian’s—the thing he would wear as a kid doing experiments before Quirin caved and bought him a leather one for protection on his thirteenth birthday. Seeing Dad in it now makes his heart ache.

“Second batch done,” Quirin announces, dropping a metal tray of cookies onto the cooling rack. Even though Rapunzel is having the going away party catered at the castle, his dad felt obligated to pitch in and help. Village leader and all that.

“Perfect timing!” Varian swipes one of them off the rack, ignoring the withering glare of his father. Quirin should be used to his sweet tooth by now. It tastes incredible—stars, he’s going to miss Dad’s cooking when he’s gone.

The reminder that he’s leaving sends his anxiety spiking again. He wants to tell Quirin before he leaves. He does. He just has to actually do it, and Varian has never been good with words.

No time like the present.

“So, uh. Dad?” Varian says, trying not to throw up, “I kinda wanted to talk to you about something?” God, his voice has gone up three octaves. He’s well past puberty, but you wouldn’t know that now.

Quirin makes a small hum of acknowledgment as he mixes together the next round of batter. Varian feels like his soul is going to ascend into the stratosphere and he will drop dead, right here in his kitchen. He needs to get it together.

“I”—holy shit Varian, just fucking say it—“er. You know how chocolate chip cookies are my favorite? And one time I ate too many and threw up all over the rug in the living room? But—but that’s how I made that anti-stain serum that helped Old Man Mattias next door?”

Quirin doesn’t even bat an eye at the random change in conversation. Years of Varian ranting about complex topics has trained him to nod along. “I do.”

“Well.” He rolls the words around in his mouth. They press up against his teeth, aching to get out. “I think that’s because I didn’t try—I mean, heh. I recently discovered I like oatmeal raisin, too. I probably have my whole life, actually. I guess I just didn’t really know another flavor was an option. But Rapunzel helped me figure some things out and I…I think I like both equally—or maybe, there’s like a scale or something. A ratio. I could probably do more research and make a chart—”

He can’t make himself shut up, so he shoves another cookie in his mouth. It tastes like ash on his too-dry tongue, because now Quirin is looking at him. Varian’s heart does a triple axle flip in his chest.

Quirin sets down the bowl, attention fully on him as if he was a puzzle he was trying to put together. Fucking hell, when did it get so hot in here? “Varian,” he says, “you’re allowed to eat whatever cookies you want.”

Varian laughs, a nervous, wet thing. “It’s—I know. I know that now—I mean. Okay.” He weaves his hands through his hair and pulls, pretending the stinging in his eyes is from the pain. “It’s not about cookies, Dad.”

Time passes excruciatingly slowly until recognition eventually lights up in Quirin’s eyes. “Oh.”

Varian keeps his eyes on the floor. He knows his father—knows he’s strict and stern but also kind enough to look after an entire village like they were his own family. His heart was as big as the moon, and he loved Varian, even if it took years and several near-death experiences for them to learn how to communicate with each other. If Varian fucked this up again...right before he was going to leave...

His heart nearly leaps out of his throat when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Blue eyes snap up to meet warm brown. A fissure cracks open in Varian’s sternum when he sees Quirin has tears in his eyes.

Oh, hell.

“Son,” Quirin says, in a voice so soft it makes Varian want to shatter, “thank you for telling me. I love you, and I’m so proud of you for discovering yourself.”

Varian has never been a pretty crier. Like all other emotions, tears build and build in him until it cracks his resolve and everything comes pouring out of him like an uncontrollable cascade waterfall. So, logically, he shoves his face into his father’s barrel of a chest and weeps. Like a man.

Quirin holds him, steady and strong, so opposite of Varian’s spastic and flighty nature. There’s something poetic about it that Varian can’t really focus on right now. Dad coos to him, things like I’ve got you and my sweet boy and when did you grow up to be so smart. That one makes him laugh, an ugly noise that’s wet and snotty.

Once he’s finally done snotting all over Dad’s apron—yelch, they’d definitely need to burn that—he wipes his nose with the back of his hand in an attempt to clean up his face.

“Sorry,” he warbles.

“Don’t be,” Quirin responds. There’s a wry smile on his face, as if they were sharing some kind of inside joke. “For what it’s worth, I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

Varian gapes at him. “Come on—seriously? You knew I liked Hugo too? Did everybody know before me?”

“I knew you had a hidden Flynnigan Rider shrine in your lab when you were fourteen.” Mortified heat floods Varian’s face. Quirin doesn’t seem to notice, lips turned down into a frown. “Hugo? That Ingvarrian boy you’ve been feuding with for the past four years?” Dad’s brows lower even further. “The same one you’re leaving with tomorrow?”

Varian smiles innocently. He’s very much aware of how ridiculous of a person he is. “Heh. Maybe.”

Quirin sighs, long-suffering and wistful. “You’re just like your mother, you know? She always felt her emotions strongly, too.” There’s a certain sadness in his voice that always creeps in whenever Ulla is mentioned. It’s not the first time Varian has been compared to her. Adira once said they share the same fierce tenacity and drive for life—a life that eventually led her away from Old Corona.

Varian sometimes wonders if Dad worries he’ll disappear just like her.

“She’d be so proud of you too,” Quirin continues, voice far away. Then, he does something Varian hasn’t seen him do in years. He hesitates, as if debating on whether or not he should reveal a secret. They both know how well keeping secrets has worked for them in the past.

Quirin wisley seems to decide against it. “I was going to wait until the party tonight, but I suppose I can give it to you now.” He unties his apron and leaves the kitchen, returning only a few minutes later with a humble olive-green journal.

Varian takes it. It doesn’t look like much. The binding is worn so thin it’s almost falling apart. The pages aren’t much better either, as there are notes stuffed and sticking out of every corner. It’s got stains and smudges—it’s clearly seen better days.

“It was your mother’s,” Quirin answers his unasked question. “Before she lived here with me, she was a researcher. She traveled through all seven kingdoms in her studies. Her life’s work is in those pages.” A sad smile crosses his face. “I can’t do much with it, but if you’re already going out on your own adventure, it feels fitting to give it to you.”

Varian suddenly sees it—the same wild, untamed madness that lives in his heart is so evident in the way Ulla cared for this little book. It's an invisible thread connecting him and his mother together that no one can ever take away. His throat nearly closes up.

“I,” he blinks rapidly. He’s not going to start crying again, goddamn it. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome, son.” Like clockwork, Quirin goes back to the cookies. "Now, are you going to help your father or not?"

Varian suddenly remembers why he came in here in the first place. “Actually, I need you to do something first. The solar panels need testing. Hugo wants someone who will actually be here to do it since we’re leaving.” Not to mention, Dad had shadowed him enough over the years to do basic mechanical repairs. If a bolt needed to be re-screwed, he could handle it.

Quirin nods. “Good idea. I also think it’s time I’ve met the boy you’ve been complaining about all these years.”

Hysteria rises in Varian’s throat. Oh, sun—the things he’s said about Hugo over the years. Quirin must think Hugo is awful. And like, he is, but not in the way Dad probably thought. Before Varian can try to right this ship, Quirin is already out the door.

Well, it was nice having a boyfriend while it lasted.

 

 

 

It ends the way it begins: with a party.

This party, though, is much different than the one that happened three weeks ago. Instead of hailing in the various royal families, clinking crystal glasses and nibbling on caviar, the people celebrating in Old Corona are more lively, laughing loudly and dancing to the fiddle music without a care in the world. Varian still hates parties, but the parties where he gets to watch the people he loves have fun might just be acceptable.

Not to mention that this time, he wasn’t in an obnoxiously tight vest.

He sits back on one of the stone benches in the town square, grinning as he watches Catalina swing Lance around in a clumsy tango that’s so powerful the big man is stumbling to keep up. Werewolf strength. Who knew?

The trees have been decked out in tiny glowing baubles on strings that give the appearance of fireflies caught in the leaves. The moon is high in the sky, but no one seems to care about how late it is. Even though it’s his goodbye party, he should probably be getting some rest soon. He and Hugo had to get up early to start their trip.

His heart swells with melancholy and premature homesickness. It’s going to be hard to leave.

“Well, hello there.” Varian looks away from where Rapunzel is painting a few kids’ faces with bioluminescent paint. His worst enemy/favorite human has manifested at his side out of the dark, holding two cupcakes. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing all alone over here?”

“Barely restraining myself from kicking your ass,” Varian says, snatching one of the cupcakes as Hugo sits next to him on the bench.

“Your self-restraint is appreciated. We wouldn’t want to traumatize the children.”

Varian snorts. He would snark back, but his mouth is already singing with the flavors of lemon and blueberry. The day that Monty and Atilla decided to join forces and make their own shop was the best day of his life.

Across the fire, there’s a shriek of rage. It draws a few people’s attention—Kiera and Hector have been duking it out with fake wooden swords. Kiera must have lost again.

“I bet I could take him,” Hugo hums. He’s got a smudge of icing on his upper lip again. He’s adorably pathetic. Varian wants to smush the rest of his cupcake on his forehead.

Instead, a grin cracks across his face. “I love that you’re stupid.”

Hugo reels back, feigning offense. “Just for that, I’m not telling you how I’m going to beat you again this year in the interkingdom science expo.”

Varian screws up his face in disbelief. “You’re not seriously still entering that, are you? Won’t that be cheating if we go around helping other kingdoms advance their own technology throughout the year?”

Hugo grins wolfishly. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of some competition.”

“You know that I’m not.” He shoulder bumps his bastard of a boyfriend so hard that Hugo nearly falls off the bench. The two of them break out into giggles, the warm giddy feeling rising like the sun in Varian’s chest. He’ll never get tired of hearing Hugo’s laugh.

The blond finishes his cupcake, glancing down and rapping one of his knuckles on the thick binding of the journal in Varian’s lap. “What’s that?”

“My mom’s alchemical research.” He opens the book and offers up a random page to let his boyfriend see.

Hugo squints. “Am I crazy, or is that gibberish?”

“It’s written in a code,” Varian nods, turning back to the book. A frown is playing on his lips as it has been for the past hour. Even though he should be having fun with his friends and family, he can’t seem to tear himself away from the pages of his mother’s thoughts. “I don’t know the cipher. I’ve been trying to figure it out but she coded everything, almost like....”

He trails off, his thoughts getting the better of him. It was almost like she was hiding her research from someone.

Hugo closes the book gently, letting his hand curl around Varian’s. The small, intimate action makes his heart flutter. “We can figure it out. We’ve got nothing but time now, Goggles. The world is our oyster.”

Varian smiles, happiness bubbling in him like an uncorked bottle of champagne. He was always so certain that he’d live his life in Old Corona, helping Dad out around the farm and building the occasional giant robot, but with Hugo, he feels like he can go anywhere. Do anything. Become anyone he wants to be.

Hugo’s green eyes glitter like something precious in the firelight. Varian loves him so much.

But, he has appearances to keep. “You have frosting on your lip.”

Before Hugo can reach for it, Varian grabs him by the pointy chin and kisses him. Hugo tastes tart from the lemon and sweet from the sugar and all around perfect, the flavor bursting on Varian’s tongue. The blond hums in contented pleasure and relaxes into it, long fingers weaving through Varian’s hair.

They fit together like the gods intended. Hugo is his heart, his soul, his future. While part of him still quivers nervously at the thought of doing this in front of everyone, the larger part of him doesn’t care. He loves Hugo. That was all that mattered. Everything else fades into black around them, their world turning on its own personalized axis.

When they break apart, Hugo is wearing a smile so bright it could rival the glow of the moon. “You just wanted to kiss me, didn’t you?”

“No!” Varian’s protest is half-hearted. His smile betrays him as Hugo weaves their fingers together. “You really did have something there!”

“Uh-huh. Sure I did.”

Varian nearly rolls his eyes. “I try to do something nice for you and this is what I get. I hate you so much.”

The blond squeezes his hand, a pleased grin on his face. “You love me.”

Varian sighs, snuggling up closer to his boyfriend and resting his head against Hugo’s shoulder. The party continues around them, the laughter of his friends and family floating up into the heavens to mingle with the stars. The moment feels like a sincere ending, and yet, a profound beginning.

He would always love Corona, but the world was waiting for them. Varian squeezes Hugo’s fingers back, his heart overflowing. “Yeah, I really do."

 

 

Notes:

so i may or may not have written this based on the coming out experience i'll never have. if you have had a poor coming out experience with your family/loved ones guess what i'm your family/loved one now. i'd be a horrible mother but i'd be a dope-ass wine aunt. get in bitch we're going to chilis.

The longer this AU has been in my brain, the more I want to do with it because the boys being rival engineers is such a fun concept. hugo is immediately in love and nadia and savni bully him relentlessly about his crush on the tiny yet feral coronian engineer. hugo's love language is starting fights with people who can and will kick his ass. he's an idiot and i love him. maybe i'll be convinced into making the prequel montage of varigo fighting at every expo and having to be physically separated. one day.

anyway, hug your pet, soak up some sun, and stay hydrated!!

Notes:

how to tell your crush you like him, a guide by Hugo:
Step 1: Piss him off.
Step 2: Kiss him.
Step 3: Steal his chemicals.
Step 4: ??
Step 5: Profit.