A New Mistake

Nightmares. Aren't. Real.

'Not this again.'

He was back, watching it all again. The Queen, the King, Eugene and Cass, all being suffocated, all dying. Rapunzel stood apart, watching, she was screaming something but he couldn't hear it over his own. Sinking further and further down to darkness.
'This is a dream.' He told himself. 'I'll wake up soon.'

But it kept going. He fell through the darkness, and landed heavily on sodden ground. He knew this place.
This was the cliff top, where he ran away. Cass and Eugene were trapped still, calling to him. He couldn't hear them either. One mis-step, and he slipped off the edge.
But he managed to hold on. One hand, clinging to life, to sanity, as the rest of him dangled over the cliff, with the rocks growing ever more sharp.
He blinked, and in front of him formed Rapunzel.
"I can help you." She said, and he heard it, but only briefly, as when she appeared he lost his grip.
He fell further and further towards the rocks, and she screamed his name, but it wasn't with her voice.
"VARIAN!"

He was in jail. The guards threw slop into his cell and laughed at his disgust, as he huddled into a corner, alone. Rudigger liked to leave during the day, once he discovered he could fit through the bars of the cell. He was always checked before they let him back in. No escape there.
The clack of heels, and the jingle of keys alerted him to someone coming to see him. The Queen. He immediately brightened, happy that she would be there. She opened the cell, a smile on her face.
A large shard of 'obsidian' shot in front of the door. It's tip glistened with a kiss of blood. The Queens scream pierced his ears, as she ran away clutching her gashed arm.
He leant back against the wall again, closing his eyes again.

He was in his lab. His father was in the amber in front of him. Just seeing it again got his breathing hitched.
The figure in the amber began to move, and twitch. His fathers head made a sharp turn and locked his eyes with Varian. They were angry, disappointed, betrayed. The figure twitched and shook more and more, his body becoming free within the crystal prison.
"ALL OF THIS!" His 'father' yelled, shaking.
"ALL OF THIS IS BECAUSE OF YOU!!"
All around them, rocks sprung up of every colour, moving closer and closer towards Varian. The trapped him, pinning his arms to his sides, as he was forced to watch his father struggle, suffocate, die, in a prison of Varian's own design.
Varians vision was becoming clouded, misted up with tears, and broken by the lack of oxygen as the rocks around him squeezed tighter and tighter. He blacked out.

"VARIAN!"
Someone in the real world was calling for him. But would he answer?
The answer was apparently yes, as he opened his eyes, sight still fuzzy, for some reason.
"Varian, oh my, you're okay." Someone pulled him into a tight hug, he wasn't conscious enough right now to tell who.
"Varian? Are you alright?" The one hugging him asked, more gentle this time. He knew that tone, that softness, that comfort.
He leant into the hug more, letting the Queen hold him safely, as he cried nothing again. He knew there were other people in the room, but didn't care right then. He just wanted her comfort for now.

Eventually, he pulled away. There was no point in avoiding the impending conversation any longer. He wiped his eyes, again out of habit, and looked at the Queen, her face an image of worry, panic, and slight relief. She held her hand to his face, and kept it there until he gave her the smallest of smiles.
"Are you alright dear?" She asked, even quieter than before. He just nodded.
"Are you sure?" He nodded again. He was lying, they both knew it, but that wasn't important right now.
"W-what hap-happened?" His voice shook on its way out.
"You were asleep, and started crying and screaming, it was almost like you were having a seizure. Some of those rocks grew in here, but they died down, just like the ones in your other room. We came in but didn't know what to do, I tried to wake you up, and it seemed to work."
"Oh, no, no, no..." he held his head in his hands, gripping just a bit to hard, so that it hurt.

"Ariana," the king spoke up, and Varian looked up at the others in the room for the first time. Just Cass, Eugene and the King. "I think in light of this development, Varian should be moved away from here, back to his old room."
"And I think no. He hasn't hurt anyone, or caused any major damage to anything. He's fine where he is. So unless this gets out of hand, he's going to stay here." Her tone was one that your weren't going to argue back to, and no one did. The king just hung his head, sighed, and left. The Queen signalled to the other two to follow, and then it was just her and Varian.
"Is, is he alright?" Rapunzels head popped around the door, and Varian's hair grew darker than the purple-red it was already. The Queen noticed this.
"Rapunzel dear, I'll talk to you about this later. Okay?"
"Okay.." the Princess left, downtrodden.

"I know that you're lying, and I know that you know that I know you're lying. What happened in there?" She tapped his forehead.
"Just, just a-a-a bad dr-dream."
"Want to talk about it?"
"N-not really."
"Alright. When you're ready to talk, I'll always be right here. For now, maybe get some rest." She stood up to leave, but turned round again. "Maybe not sleep, for now, if that's what happens when you have a bad dream, but just, rest in general. I've had some inks, quills and a notebook left on your desk, if you want to write or draw, or whatever." She smiled, and gave him a delicate kiss on the forehead, before leaving without another word.

***

"Is he okay?" Rapunzel heard her mother come into the room, walking to join her by the window.
"No." The Queen replied.
"What?"
"He's not okay. There's a lot going on in his head right now, and he needs time to figure it all out."
"He's still mad at me, huh?"
"Yes. But he's also mad at himself, if not even more so."
"I wish I could say something, but it's kinda hard to apologise when I can't even go near him. He lets Cass and Eugene near him..."
"In his head, they've both done nothing wrong." She noted the guilty face her daughter had.
"Give him time, dear. He's a bit lost right now, with a lot going on, but he doesn't want to talk about any of it. Until he learns to accept what happened, he won't move on from either anger, at himself, or at you. But know that he doesn't like being angry at you. He just is, and can't process it right now."
"Yeah, that's fair. I just wish there was something I could do."
"Giving him space is all you can do, really."
"I guess."
They sat, watching the view, Rapunzel laying on her mother's shoulder. It was a pretty moment, full of love. A far cry from the small, scared Varian, rocking back and forth on his bed, forcing himself not to think of anything, less it set off his 'powers'.

***

It was a few days before Varian actually left his room, which surprised everyone, considering how mad he was when he was forced to stay in his room the first time.
When he finally left, he went it to the library. Eugene was the one who saw him, sitting on a cushion in the corner, reading a Flynn Rider book. It filled him with a small sense of pride.

The next day, he was seen by Cass in the garden. Rudigger had been found, and brought home, which Varian was extraordinarily grateful for. They were sitting together, Varian teaching the small raccoon tricks, with apple slices as rewards. The creature caught on fast, needing only one or two tries before he got it.

Though he was still refusing to talk to anyone, the fact that he was actually doing things have everyone a feeling of relief. He was doing okay, for now.

In reality, he was only doing things to distract himself from himself. Reading, focusing on Rudigger, carefully and precisely slicing apples, anything to make sure his mind didn't wander. He wasn't sleeping much either, only long enough that he didn't fall into a dream. That was only an hour or so each time. He didn't mind though. Anything to not see that dream again, and again, and again.

While everyone else thought that Varian actually doing things was good, only the Queen noticed the broken, exhausted look in his eyes that grew each day. She tried to get him to talk, but he always refused, saying it was fine.
He wasn't. It was getting harder to ignore the sounds in his head, there were times where he had to physically stop whatever he was doing to force them away. But he was determined to keep them at bay, no matter the cost.