"Warning: Explicit sexual situations
I do not own the song or lyrics included, they are Rewrite the Stars from the Greatest Showman.
Quirin part 1
It had been three days since Cassandra had laid eyes on Varian, and it had been a peaceful few day. She had spent time with her friends and family without having to thinking about Varian, his proposal, and how close she'd come to accepting in that gondola. The time had come to talk to him about it though, as Rapunzel had said, 'lover' could mean a range of things, she needed to find out what was on Varian's mind, before she could give him solid answer. If she didn't face this now then the decision would be made for her, either by an accident as in the kind that had almost happened in the gondola, or by Varian getting frustrated with waiting and moving on.
As she was walking down the maze of empty corridors down by Varian's room she heard a groan. She reached for her knife and slowly padded in the direction of the noise; it was coming from round a bend. She pushed herself against the wall and glanced around the corner, ready to take on anything she saw… except, what she actually saw.
Rapunzel was leaning up against the wall, her head thrown back, eyes closed, biting her lip. Eugene, at least she assumed it was Eugene, because whoever it is has his head under her skirts, Rapunzel's leg across thrown across his shoulder. She stared at the scene in front of her, shocked.
A hand grabbed her, she gasped and automatically raised her knife, lowering it again as she looked into familiar blue eyes as Varian's hand closed over her mouth. He raised a finger to his own lips showing her to be quiet and started pulling her in the opposite direction, a bemused look on his face. He led her back round the corridors and into the library, where he automatically burst out laughing.
"Always in corridors, it's like they want to be caught. You know one time I caught them at it pretending that they were a scullery maid and a stable boy? Dressed up and everything. I don't think a single person in Corona hasn't walked in on them. You'd think they'd know how to take it behind locked doors."
He looked up noticing Cassandra wasn't laughing.
"Oh, I'm sorry Cassie. I shouldn't embarrass you." He said, sounding tentative.
"Do people actually do that?" She hadn't mean to ask the question, it just slipped out.
Varian tilted his head to the side in a question manner, he kind of reminded her of a spaniel when he did that. It was clear he didn't understand what she meant, and she was beginning to feel very uncomfortable.
"Forget it."
"No, tell me."
"Kiss, I guess." Because that is what she guessed was going on under those skirts. "There."
"Oh, yeah. I don't think it's uncommon."
"Oh." Cassandra rubbed her hand across her arm. Why was she having this conversation with him? Why did she ask? It was stupid, but she had seen the expression on Rapunzel's face, and she hadn't actually ever thought that a man could, or would, do that for a partner. Part of her felt like she had betrayed her friend by witnessing what was supposed to be a private moment, but another part of her felt curious. It was that part that Varian seemed to notice.
"Hey, next time you and I get stuck in a gondola in the middle of a storm I could show you."
Cassandra lashed out to punch him in the arm but he darted out of the way laughing.
"That is never happening again." Except, wasn't that why she had tried to find him that morning, to organise for that to happen again.
"Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait for the next run-away horse then."
"If it's heading for you I'm not saving you."
Varian laughed.
"Oh, I thought I could watch you when you were aroused all day, the blush of your skin, the twinkle of your eyes, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But aroused and embarrassed, that's a whole new thing."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"And don't talk about me being aroused, how could you know what another person is thinking. You're not a mind reader."
Something flashed into Varian's eyes and he gave a small half smile. He walked up to her making her back against a table. He reached down and took her chin in his hand as he leaned in close to whisper to her.
"Arousal may begin in the mind, but it spreads through the body like an energy, leaving traces everywhere it touches."
"I'm not aroused, I hate Fitzherbert."
His hand was reaching down now, fingers delicately holding her wrist.
"It's not Eugene or Rapunzel turning you on. It's the idea, the idea of somebody kissing you there. The idea of lips there, the idea of a tongue licking you. You're almost panting Cass. I can feel your pulse beneath my fingers, your heart is racing."
His hand reached up and stroked down her neck, they deftly unhooked one of the buttons on her blouse and pushed the fabric apart.
"You're blushing all the way down your neck to your chest. "His fingers brushed downwards skirting the hot flesh above her corset. His warm breath continued against her neck. "Your eyes are glittering because your irises have widened, it's the opening of the capillaries, letting your blood flow faster." His thumb grazed her cheek under her eyes. "You're aroused Cassandra, your body is making itself ready for a man. It is beautiful. Tell me, are you getting wet?"
His voice was warm, his own breath hitching at the words. Cassandra could feel her heart racing, she felt dizzy, almost drunk. Then he was backing away from her and looking down at her.
"Are you sure you don't want to try it Cassie?"
Her chest felt tight because she was breathing too hard, and she felt a tingling in between her legs. How did he do this to her? They were joking a few minutes before. She licked her lips trying to answer, trying to tell him that this wasn't what she wanted, but it was a lie she couldn't bring herself to tell.
Varian put his hand on her hip. She stared, not moving away, she couldn't do this. She knew she shouldn't do this, but there was something in the way he was looking at her, the way he was moving towards her that she couldn't escape.
He put his hands on her waist and she gasped as he easily lifted her feet off the floor, sitting her on the table that had been pushing against the small of her back.
All joking had disappeared, his stare was intense, those blue eyes, they could express so much, and now they were expressing pure lust.
"You only have to say no Cassandra."
Her throat went dry and she opened her mouth as if to speak, but the words wouldn't come, she didn't' want them too. She hated that he was right, she hated that she wanted him like this, that she could still want anybody like this, it was a weakness she had thought herself rid off.
When she didn't speak he gave a mischievous grin. His hand grasped at the hems of her skirts and he pulled them upwards. As he knelt in front of her, she lost sight of his face, but she could feel his hands, sliding up her calves from her ankles to her knees. Gentle pressure, urging her to open her legs. She obliged.
She felt dizzy, this wasn't like her, this wasn't something that she did. She felt desperate, desperate to be touched.
Moist lips placed a kiss on the inside of her knee. She took a sudden intake of breath. Her hands reached out behind her steadying herself as she leaned back slightly on the table. The next kiss came a few centimetres further up her thigh, then another. His hands wrapped tightly around her legs as they began to tremble. She felt something brush against the fabric of her underwear, then a kiss against the skin where that fabric met her leg. A long lingering lick down the edges, a slim finger pulling at the material. Too intense, too much.
"NO!"
Varian jumped back as if scolded, he fell backwards with a loud thud and a wince, but he quickly scrambled to his feet. Backing away from Cassandra with his hands in the air and a weary look on his face.
He had stopped. He had stopped when she had wanted him too, he wasn't Duncan. She could say stop and he would. Something inside her clicked at that knowledge, however out of control he made her feel, if it were too much, she only had to say no, and it would all stop. She could trust him.
"Cassandra, I'm sorry, I went too far."
She looked down at the floor, trying to gain her breath, trying to slow her heart.
"It's okay, it wasn't wrong, it's just, my Dad comes in here a lot. Let's not talk about it."
"We could write a book about the things we're not talking about." Varian said with a soft smile.
She smiled back, letting him know that everything was alright between them. After all, she'd wanted him, he'd wanted her, things had got out of control for a few moments, that's all it was. That was the lie she told herself. She looked around trying to find a way to change the topic, she saw a pile of what looked like scientific equipment in the corner.
"What's that?" She asked straightening her skirts and trying to fix up her hair. Varian looked at the corner.
"Oh. Oxygen mask, fire retardant suit, a few other bits."
"What for?"
"My work mapping the Lava tunnels. It helps me breath and offers a little protection from the heat."
"Oh, why isn't it in your lab?"
"I have a set in my lab, but I'm keeping a spare set here, in case there's a fire in my lab, then I can use the stuff in here to help put out the fire."
"What about, just not setting anything on fire?"
Varian shrugged as if fires were just inevitabilities in his book.
"Is it time for that talk Cassie?
"What talk?"
"The one you've been avoiding."
She took a deep breath and nodded.
"Yes, it is."
"You know I want you
It's not a secret I try to hide."
Varian sung stepping towards her with his hands spread open in front of him
"I know you want me
So don't keep saying our hands are tied
You claim it's not in the cards
Fate is pulling you miles away
And out of reach from me
But you're here in my heart
So who can stop me if I decide
That you're my destiny?
What if we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing could keep us apart
You'd be the one I was meant to find
It's up to you, and it's up to me
No one can say what we get to be
So why don't we rewrite the stars?
Maybe the world could be ours
Tonight."
"You think it's easy
You think I don't want to run to you."
Cassandra answered.
"Then why Cassie?"
It was time to come clean, there was no avoiding it any longer.
"In my dreams I kill you. Over and over again I kill you."
"They're dreams Cassie. It not real, it's just your fears speaking. You're not going to actually kill me. Your dreams are just showing you what you're scared off."
"But it's only you that I see myself hurting."
"We do spend a lot of time together, but maybe what you're scared of at the moment is losing me? Maybe this is just how your dreams are interpreting that." He said it kind of hesitantly, maybe even hopefully.
"I…"
"Do you want to kill me? Stood here now?"
"No."
"Have you ever wanted to kill me?"
"NO!"
"Then accept that it is just a dream. I do."
Cassandra thought for a moment, he wasn't scared of her hurting him, and the dreams, could they just be as he said? Not her mind telling her that some small deep part of her wanted to hurt him, but instead that she was scared of losing him. She knew she feared losing him. She was even more scared that they would get closer and then she'd be even more hurt when they eventually and inevitably parted.
"Go on a date with me."
"No." She said startled at the change in direction the conversation had taken.
"Why not?"
"Well, why should we?"
"We have a lot in common."
"Like we both tried to destroy Corona?" She said sarcastically.
"That and other stuff."
"Other stuff?"
Varian looked around as if trying to think of something.
"Our mums are both dead." He finally suggested timidly.
"I don't know if villainous tendencies and dead parents is enough to build a romantic relationship on. Definitely not an emotionally stable one at least."
"But it's just a date, two people spending time together. Like the hours that we spent together in your room when you were recovering."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I couldn't run away."
Varian snorted.
"Don't pretend you didn't like having me around. We've sat and talked, we've eaten alone together, mainly sandwiches, but we've sat by moonlit pools, and danced together, and rode together, how is a date going to be any different?"
"I thought you said you wanted to be my lover, so why would we even have to go on a date?"
"Wait, what? Oh…oh, did you think I only wanted? No, I want all of you. I'm greedy when it comes to you Cassie, I want heart, soul, and body as well." He looked her up and down. "I really really want your body. Never mind. "He shook himself out of it. "I know you're not interested in marriage, but I want to be with you, always."
"I'm not made for dating."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want that life."
"What life"?
"I could never be a mother!" Cassandra shouted. She let out a deep breathe, the words she had always kept bottled up. "I could never let a relationship stop me from being me, not many men are interested in a woman who is stronger than them, or who enjoys fighting, and traveling. They want.. they want somebody like Faith, the meek and mild little housewife."
"That's the thing Cassandra, I don't want a meek woman, I want you. As you are, a fighter a wanderer, and whatever comes next for you. I just want to be there to see it. I'm okay with you being the strong one, really I am, because at the end of the day I can always invent traps and weapons and if I'm not the strongest person in the room it doesn't make me feel any more vulnerable, or any less of a man. Also, I invented a way to be lovers without the risk of pregnancy. "
"You'll want the settled life eventually."
"Maybe eventually I will. Maybe I won't. Look, if we're not still travelling around together when we're old and grey then it dousn't mean that we failed somehow, or that our relationship was a bad thing. It just means that there was a period of our lives when we grew best together, and that came to an end, and we entered a different period of our lives when we grew better on our own, or with other people."
"You think we'll grow best together?"
Varian nodded his head.
"We need each other Cassandra. Don't you see? We're the only ones who can understand each other, we're the only ones who can help each other move on and be free."
There was something true about what he was saying, but there was a lot more at risk if she took him on as more than just a temporary lover. In one case, with Varian's little gloves the only risk was that their love making was unpleasant and they became awkward with each other. In the other case, she was at risk of getting her heart thoroughly broken, Varian would worm himself into her life until he was her everything, he was already part way there.
"So, what does it look like to you, being together?"
"I've promised to be in Corona next summer, but other than that I'm free."
"Free to do what?"
"Whatever we choose, stay here, travel. I'd go with you wherever you wanted Cassandra."
"One date." She said giving in.
"YES!" He did a little victory dance. "I knew it, you like me!"
"Of course I like you, that's why I don't want to break your heart and crush your soul."
"You think a lot of yourself for a person with such chronic low self-esteem."
"Maybe I just think you're over emotional."
"Ha! Over emotional."
"Last time I didn't return your affections you tried to crush me to death."
"You pushed me out of a tall tower."
"That was an accident. You tried to lock me in amber."
"You destroyed my home."
"You kidnapped my Queen."
"Made for each other."
"It's one date."
"It's going to be spectacular."
"I'm already regretting this." Cassandra said as she walked off.
She arrived in her room breathless, feeling the ghost of Varian's lips on her thighs. Standing against the door she reached under her skirt to touch the place his fingers had been half an hour before, the slightest touch made her groan. Jeez, what was wrong with her? She had never felt this…what was the term Varian used… aroused, before. The fabric of her underwear was damp. There was pressure, and she needed to do something about it, she could not think straight.
He'd dared her to stop him, and she hadn't, well not at first. She could have, easily, but she'd wanted it, he could tell she'd wanted it.
Her finger pressed into that sensitive spot as she thought about the look that he'd given her. She just needed to release the pressure; she'd be able to think straight if she released that pressure. She threw her head back and groaned.
It had been three days again since she'd last seen Varian, though this time it seemed that none of their friends had seen much of him either. Though apparently this was nothing unusual, the young man could spend weeks at a time in his lab without seeing much of the sunlight if he got taken up with a project. Apparently people didn't usually start to intervene until the second week, forcing him to go out into the sunlight, eat a meal, and actually talk to somebody. After breakfast on the fourth morning Cassandra made him up a plate of food and headed down to the lab.
He didn't even look up from his notepad when she walked in, furiously sketching his tongue between his teeth and hair jutting up in every angle.
"AHEM!"
"Oh, Cassie, I um…" He ran his hand through his hair, probably in an attempt to tame it but the result was just that it stuck up even further. "I wasn't expecting you."
"I haven't seen you at dinner these last few days."
"I've uh, been keeping irregular hours."
Cassandra bent over to look at the sketches, some kind of wooden battering ram maybe. Varian quickly tried to tidy them away out of her sight.
"I can see that, have you actually slept at all?"
"Yeah, at some point, I slept…"
"So, that's a no."
"So, it's dinner time?"
"No, it's breakfast time."
"Hua, this place really needs more windows." Varian said looking around his basement laboratory.
"Eat." Cassandra ordered pushing the plate at him. Varian grabbed it hungrily, throwing an apple into the small den in the corner where Pen gave a happy little squeak.
"I hope you've been feeding her, even if you haven't been feeding yourself."
"Oh, she makes it known when she's hungry. She crawls up my back and sits on my head until I feed her, it's impossible to do anything until she's taken care of."
Cassandra went and knelt beside the little creature. It gave her a happy little chirp then continued eating.
"So…" Varian said between mouthfuls of pastries. "What have you been up to?"
"Not a lot, I spent some time in the library trying to find that second volume on my mother, but then I stopped."
"Oh."
"I get it now."
"What do you get?"
"That I have a father. I know who he is. He is the man whose been there for me since I was four, and I don't need a book to tell me that Rapunzel is my family. She was my family long before I knew we had a blood connection. I should have known that all along. I do not need to know who my mother is to know who I am, she may have brought me into the world, but I am not any part of her. Other people have raised me, other people have helped me grow into what I am. I have helped myself grow into who I am."
His mouth quirked into a smile.
"Have you only just worked that out?"
"Well, we can't all be geniuses."
"You're the only one who writes your destiny Cassandra."
She smiled fondly at him.
"So, what are you inventing?" She said giving Pen a quick scratch behind the ear before going back over to the table.
"Not, inventing, not really. Just planning."
"What are you planning?" Cassandra managed to find another sheet of paper and pulled int towards her. It was a picture of the pool that they had sat beside the night they had danced together, drawn in the centre of some kind of map, but she couldn't really make out what it was depicting.
"Wait. You're not doing all this for our date are you?"
"No." Varian looked pointedly at the floor. "Okay, yes."
Cassandra picked up one of the remaining pastries, placed it in Varian's hand and then shoved him towards the door. She was annoyed that he had been missing sleep, all because of planning for a date, and here she was thinking that he had been doing something useful down here.
"Hey."
"GO TO BED!"
"Alright, alright. "Varian started up the steps.
"You don't need to work so hard."
"But I only get one shot." Varian said shooting her a smile over his shoulder.
"Varian, you said it was just a date. I don't like how much weight you're putting on it."
"It just has to be perfect if I'm going to make you realize that you're in love with me." He said with a cheeky grin.
"Varian." Cassandra sighed.
"See you on Friday night Cassie."
Cassandra watched him walk away. The thing was she knew that the date wasn't going to make her suddenly realize that she was in love with Varian. Falling in love with him had not been sudden, it had been slow and creeping, like vines inching through her consciousness until it was undeniable, but undeniable dousn't necessarily mean unavoidable.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair, Varian had been clear when he'd given her instructions for their date, she was to wear clothes she could comfortably move in. She had gone with black trousers and a maroon blouse. She had tied her hair back, taking the time to do a few small plaits, and put in a pair of ankle boots.
She sat down nervously, opening a book. Surely it was close to the time he had said he'd meet her. She waited, fidgeting, and trying to distract herself. Twenty minutes passed, and Varian still hadn't knocked on her door. Perhaps, he had got distracted, she was starting to feel unsure of herself. Varian wouldn't stand her up, not when he had put so much effort into getting her to agree to go on the date in the first place.
Perhaps she had got something wrong, perhaps she was meant to find him when she was ready? Or maybe something important had waylaid him, and he hadn't had time to come and explain to her. Feeling a sense of trepidation she got up and went to seek him out. She quickly glanced down the steps of his lab but as everything was quiet and still she continued to his bedroom. She knocked, there was no answer, she gently pushed it open to see that it was empty. New clothes were laid out on the bed. Shirt, trousers, a dark green leather waistcoat. Though the clothes were suited for the outdoors he had obviously made some effort in preparing for their date, but where was he?
She headed back up the corridors feeling confused, she noticed a maid carrying laundry.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes Miss."
"I don't suppose that you've seen Varian, the scientist, around anywhere?"
"Oh, yes Miss. He's been called out to help with a medical emergency. The surgeon was called out of town this morning you see."
"A medical emergency?"
"Yes Miss, one of the girls in the town has gone into labour, the midwife is there but she sent out for help, apparently something is wrong Miss. Sophia, you know Sophia?"
Cassandra nodded.
"She thought to come and get Lord Varian."
"Varian is not a doctor."
"He's not Miss, but he saved your life."
"True." She conceded. "Thank you."
She went back to her room and sat on her bed. She felt a little disappointed, but she knew Varian, and if there was somebody in trouble then of course he was going to go and help, it's what Varian did, he helped people. She would just wait here and eventually he would rush through that door, looking all dishevelled and panicked, and he'd apologise, and she would tell him that she understood, and they would see if any of their date plans could be salvaged. She lay back on her bed, hand reaching for her book.
Advanced warning, minor character death in the next part