#varun

Cihro found himself roused again, not by Varun’s voice but by the gentlest touch of skin. Fingers lightly traced the ring of a scar on his far shoulder from the gibbering mouther, then followed the flowing ink of his tattoos. He sighed. They came to rest, almost hesitantly, on the brand between his shoulder blades. Cihro tensed without meaning to, but relaxed when Varun traced the shape of that as well, soothing him.

Cihro rolled his head to look up at him. Varun’s eyes were unfocused, his brows furrowed as he caressed his back.

“Hun?” he prompted.

Varun’s gaze fixed on his spine. “Do you think if it’s possible for me to cut ties with my family, the same can be done with the Clasp?”

Cihro pursed his lips. “I dunno.”

“Think about it.” Varun carded a hand through Cihro's hair. “Humour me.”

Cihro sighed. “I mean, your family isn’t as big as the Clasp, for starters. They don’t have the same kind of influence all over Tal’dorei, either, or at least as far as I know.” He sunk into his arms. “I dunno if the Clasp is willing to make the same kinda deal your family is. And both have the possibility of going back on their word even if they do, so there’s no guaranteed freedom.” He smushed his cheek into the crook of his arm. “I dunno, I can’t just move like you did. They’re all over, and they act fast.”

Varun listened.

“But,” Cihro added, “I doubt I’m as much of an asset to them like you were to your family because of how big we are. I’m low on the food chain, so to speak. I’m disposable.”

“You’re not disposable,” Varun cut in.

Cihro shrugged. “It’s not meant to be self deprecating, it’s just a fact. I’m content with being a nobody in the Clasp. Less eyes on me.”

Varun reached over him to place his book on the bedside cabinet and resumed delineating his tattoos with a finger.

“So, do you think it’s possible?” Varun asked.

“Do you care if it’s possible?” he responded.

“Would I ask if I didn’t?”

“I guess not. But what I mean is, will any answer satisfy you?”

Varun smiled knowingly. “It’s not a question with a straightforward answer. I care about your opinion, not what I think the answer is. I already know what I think.”

“And what do you think?” Cihro asked.

Varun ruffled his hair. “You're better than them. But that's not just what I think—it's what I know."

Cihro chuckled. “I appreciate the confidence, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”

“Me? Get ahead of myself? Nonsense.”

Cihro closed his eyes in thought. Enough time passed that Varun poked his cheek to make sure he was still awake and he opened them.

“It’s impossible to know,” he said. “I’m too close to the problem. I’m sure others have tried, but I can’t exactly ask how successful they were. And I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life in hiding if that’s what it takes.” He propped himself onto his elbows and shot Varun a tentative smile. “Let’s focus on you for now, one problem at a time.”

Varun returned the smile. “I’m just thinking of the future, darling. There’s a lot of it ahead for the both of us.”

Warmth blossomed in Cihro’s chest and he smiled more genuinely. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Varun,” he heard as he raised it to his ear, and his heart seized. “I—I don’t know if you can hear me, I need you here—now. Cihro’s—he’s hurt. He needs help. I—“ He cut himself off, voice dashed over the last words.

Time stilled. His stomach sank into his feet and his budding smile dropped. If Cihro was hurt, he would have used the stone himself. In Day’s euphemism, he might’ve meant—

He swallowed thickly, the world in his throat, and released a slow, shaky breath. He was scared if he breathed too hard he’d blow himself over.

“I’ll find you,” he promised, sounding more resolute than he felt. “I’m on my way.”

He stored his stone, hastily rubbed off his quill, and stood. He threw on his cloak, his bag, his girdle with his rapier and spellbook, and tore out his key that connected him to Cihro’s plane. Every second mattered. He could explain to his superiors later. Exceptions for love, and all that.

He punched the key into the lock of his door and twisted. The sound was like a hundred keys turning at once as a hole tore open through reality. When he swung it open, there wasn’t a hallway, but a shimmering blue and purple vortex like clouds unfurling before him.

“Take me home,” he whispered to it, and stepped through the portal.

--

He arrived on the Brambleview’s front porch exiting the front doors. It was near sunset, and chilly—the wind pried a shudder out of him as he gained his bearings.

Where would they take him? He closed his eyes and thought. The Wildmother was the goddess closest to Cihro, but her magic was nature-based and bringing Cihro back meant reincarnating him into a new body. Sarenrae was Day’s goddess, but their temple wasn’t yet strong enough. His last option was Bahamut, who Elspeth had a connection to.

He searched within himself for the answer, tapping into the threads of fate around him. His eye confirmed with a hot flare of energy.

The acknowledgement, however, knocked the wind out of him. To admit that Cihro needed to be resurrected meant admitting he was dead.

He tore off running.

--

It didn’t take him long to reach Bahamut’s Rest. The deeper he ran into Westruun, the more commotion there seemed to be. Not an inordinate amount, but it led him towards the temple. Murmurs of unrest. A peaceful evening disturbed.

He received a few odd and startled looks on the way. He didn’t put much thought into why—he was fixed on his destination.

He slowed at the entrance, breath coming in short gulps and exiting in puffs of white mist. He threw open the door with more force than necessary, coming to rest on the threshold.

“—needs one more,” he heard as he stepped inside. It was a lot to take in. By the front altar, Kishore stood tall as a watchtower, Dayereth beside her, their backs to facing him. Kishore’s hands were knotted in fists and Day wrung his shirt, shoulders trembling. Elspeth ran to and fro, lighting candles and incense, her eyes hardened with focus. Simar was speaking. On the altar itself he spotted a crop of dark brown hair, but the others blocked the rest.

“Does anyone else wish to volunteer?” the dwarf priest finished.

He opened his mouth, but someone to his left called out, “I will help if none of the other friends will.”

His gaze snapped to the source. Sean Reeves stepped out of the shadows, hood drawn back. Varun knew his name and reputation, but he’d never met him in person. His name immediately sprung to mind when he laid eyes on his face, a wash of his past and future rushing over his mind as his eye fixed on him. Instances of an alternate reality of him approaching the altar and speaking, a bleak childhood, of threatening Cihro to fix his own mess.

He inhaled sharply and speared him with a steely look. The bastard.

“No,” he interjected, and his voice stepped above and onto Sean’s. He was feeling impertinent and impatient. “I think my fiancé’s responsibility falls to me, kind stranger.” He emphasized the last two words as if prodding him with the point of a knife. It was dangerous, but Sean gave a small bow and a wave of his hand, retreating without fuss. Varun would have loved nothing more than to turn his reality inside-out, but it wasn’t his place.

Varun strode up to the altar, but his step wavered closer to. Cihro was laid out on the slab, as still as the stone beneath him. All of his colour had vanished. Day’s hat obscured his face, and Varun gently pulled it back to his hairline. His eyes and mouth were closed, dried flakes of blood sitting by both. He looked burnt and—wrong. So very wrong.

It grieved him to look on Cihro knowing there was nothing behind his eyes. No heartbeat, no warmth, no cheekiness—no voice, no soul. No witty retort if Varun cajoled him. He drowned in a maw of despair, suffocated. Eleven years of history together snuffed out in an instant. And to him, more than a century.

He felt a pressure around his hand and flinched, but it was Kishore. The whites of her eyes were stained red and tears continued to dribble out. He squeezed her hand. Day nodded at him, eyes also puffy and pink, his throat wobbling.

The ritual began.

Varun went first. He brushed a loose strand of hair on Cihro’s head—it’d grown longer in his absence. He cupped both hands over one of Cihro's, hoping to transfer some of his warmth even if the body rejected it.

Varun avoided looking into Cihro’s future. He had tortured himself evading his gaze when he was first gifted with Barnok’s prophetic power. He didn’t have the strength to watch him die or get hurt even if it didn’t come true. It didn’t matter if there was an equal amount of joy and happiness to be found in that future—the risk was too much.

He almost did, once, when Cihro was asleep, but withheld. He didn’t want to obsess over his fate even though they were intricately woven together, and then worried about it anyway. He’d seen a hundred different people die a hundred different ways in his visions and it still never could have prepared him for this.

“Cihro, my dear,” he said, using his anxiety as a force behind his voice, “when one lives as long as I do, we inevitably think of endings. I avoided it, but it still caught up with me. I just never envisioned you dying without me by your side, but it was always of old age—not this.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said, tears brimming, “but I’m here now, and I’m pleading for you to come back. When I asked you to marry me, it was to be in sickness and in health, to love and cherish in life. I will not have our ending brought to us before we can have our beginning. I refuse.” He bowed and shook his head, lifting Cihro’s hand to his chest. “Please, please come back to us. To me.”

The runes circling the altar glowed and pulsed with a soft light. Something, someone, heard him.

Varun played his part. He stepped aside, resting a hand over Cihro’s forehead as Kishore and Dayereth took their turns.

--

A deep, rattling gasp broke the charnel silence of Bahamut’s Rest. Each candle extinguised by magic reignited. Cihro coughed and shifted, eyes creaking open. A collective sigh of relief left him, Kishore, and Dayereth. The three of them crowded around Cihro's head, bumping shoulders.

His eyes opened fully, unfocused before zipping behind them. His head rolled, confusion blooming over his features before switching to pain, then settling on a grim shadow of understanding. Colour began to trickle into his cheeks with each new breath, even laboured as they were.

His eyes finally locked onto his. Varun repressed his magic, saw Cihro as he was—alive. Whole. Himself. Present. His anxiety settled, laved in the warmth of his gaze. Cihro cupped his cheek, smiling thinly. Varun’s shoulders sunk with more than just the weight of his portal.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, all of you,” he croaked, nodding to the others.

“You know what I say about scaring me,” Varun replied, breathless.

He sat on his bedroll inside their tent, the bottom drawn up to his thighs. His and Varun’s bedroll, he corrected himself. They found an extra in Barnok’s tower that wasn’t completely devoured by mould and moths, somehow, and a sprinkle of magic cleared up the rest of the dirt and dust. They shoved them together and shared a blanket when they rested.

Varun was getting ready for bed, shedding his family’s robes once again and haphazardly tossing them aside. Normally he folded his clothes, but Cihro saw the relief on his face when they were gone and the grimace he made when he slowly donned them in the morning. Cihro would’ve loved nothing more than to lend him something else to wear, but no spare clothes fit him. The best they could do was toss a cloak over him and hide the webbed patterns.

Varun woke more frequently from nightmares than he used to and slept heavily when he didn’t, but he always climbed into bed with resolve at the start of each night.

He combed his hair with a content sigh and moved to join him in a loose undershirt and pants. He started to fluff his pillow when Cihro reached out to grasp his hand. Varun perked and stopped, eyebrows raised, but didn’t meet his gaze.

“Can I ask you something?” Cihro asked. His heart bounced wildly in his chest, hardly giving him any room to breathe.

“Anything.” Varun paused, tilting his head. “Though I can’t guarantee an answer if it’s related to the Order.”

Cihro nodded. He removed his hand now that he had his attention and lowered it to his lap. He was finding it difficult to meet Varun’s gaze, too, but that was true of any serious conversation he stumbled his way through.

“I should’ve asked this when we first got out of the Underdark and you explained everything to me. I was scared of the answer, but I shouldn’t assume. Is this,” he gestured between them with a finger, lifting his eyes to his face, “still something you want?”

Varun blinked, his expression morphing into one of deep concern. “Cihro,” he said, “have I done something to make you think it’s not?”

“No,” Cihro admitted. “But I—I dunno. A hundred and fifty years is a long time, at least to me it is. Maybe it isn’t to you. I just wanna be sure and make sure I’m not forcing you into this.”

Cihro felt the cool touch of skin at his temple. Varun’s fingers caressed his cheek, then settled into his hair, cupping the side of his head. Cihro leaned into his touch, lifting a hand to hold it there.

“I’m one-hundred percent, absolutely certain I want to be with you.” He let out a small sigh, then smiled. “Those years, some of them did fly by. Others were slow. Not a single one went by where I didn’t think of you. You were my anchor, someone to look forward to when I came back to now. Reminding myself of you got me through some difficult times.”

Cihro felt hot behind the eyes. He couldn’t fight a few tears and a watery smile. “I should’ve written more.”

“I wouldn’t have complained if you did,” Varun said, grinning, “but I understand if you weren’t exactly swimming in gold to do it. How much did you say that letter to Vasselheim cost you?”

“Thirty gold.”

“Thirty gold,” Varun parroted, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. "Ludicrous."

Cihro laughed and leaned forward, dipping their foreheads together. Varun’s hand slid over the back of his neck, cementing him in place. They sat in silence for a moment, Cihro relishing the breath on his face, the simplicity of being in each other’s space. It was nourishing, after everything.

“It’s a heavy burden, this thing you’re doing,” Cihro said at last, drawing back. “I didn’t expect it when I started dating you, but whatever you do with it, I’m here for you.”