Varian x Reader Oneshots

The Song of Angry Men

It wasn't that Varian had intentionally stormed into the café that day and decided to sign up to some... backstreet rebellion, and it wasn't as if he had purposefully demanded to sit at the big table with all the adults.

Truthfully, all it took was the promise of alcohol and a pretty face, and Varian was hooked.

What that didn't mention was all the responsibility that came with the position he had filled. Solitary regular? More like group-appointed brains. For a group of seemingly smart people - hell, two doctors - they were blinded by their empty endeavour, deaf and stupid to all of the issues that their protests created.

Perhaps the halo of their leader caused spots to dance across their eyes, her passion and spark attracting its own orbit of admirers and, in one case, a Bonapartist. Not the oddest thing to wander into their harrowed club, but not the most common either. Most were usually blown apart by the quick tongue or intensive glare of the holy Athena that spoke of revolution upon her self-bestowed pedestal.

Although, Varian had to admit, the pedestal was low enough to see the slight, endearing curve of her lips as she talked the utter nonsense to her adoring crowd.

Nonetheless, Varian had come to see normalcy in the idealists and had most certainly come to care for them... which may have led to their current situation.

"I don't understand how you can be some apathetic about something so engrained into your life!" (Y/N) shouted, her body practically vibrating with the need to prove herself right. She stood tall, trying so desperately to tower over him with her drive and reasoning.

"I don't understand how you can risk your life for something that will never change," Varian argued, leaning forwards and kneading his hands together, wetting his lips as they dried quicker and quicker with every passing moment.

"How do you know it will never change?" (Y/N) practically shouted, her eyes brimmed with the red that seemed to swim in her future, clouding her vision.

Varian stood.

"Because every revolution in history - yes, (Y/N) even the successful ones - have always had one thing in common. Thrones built on bodies."

"We don't want anyone to die-"

"Except yourselves!" Varian suddenly interrupted, breaking her speech in two with newfound passion, "Jeez, (Y/N), Corona isn't going to be any more protected by a barricade of bodies than by walls. Especially not yours."

"Maybe we should take a different approach," a voice sounded, and Varian was pointedly made aware of more than them, more than (Y/N) and his little world. Turning around to see Cassandra, her face unreadable as she washed glass after glass, he ran his tongue over his teeth.

A quick click of the tongue at the same time caused Varian's attention to refocus back to the angel in front of him, whose lips were - upon slight glance, not intense inspection - a little chapped. Bitten.

"Like what?" The illustrious leader asked, if a little snappily, and Varian had to admit, he was a bit curious too, but it seemed that Cassandra's human contact timer had run out, and the women had turned back to washing up without even a second glance back at them.

"Maybe thinking a little inside the box, instead of living so far outside it you can't even see it," Varian mumbled, swirling the drained contents of his bottle around. He was vaguely aware of (Y/N)'s eyes trained on him.

"What's that supposed to mean."

"Why don't you, I mean - instead of thinking of extravagant protests and acts of rebellion, start small and work your way up. Be patient."

"Being patient," (Y/N) whispered, standing up slowly, her hands gripping the table with barely controlled rage, "is the coward's excuse for running away. Providing half-assed solutions to issues and picking faults in battles they aren't prepared to fight."

Varian laughed, the sound tickling his own bones, "so, a cynic."

"Varian that's not what she-" Rapunzel started, but was rudely interrupted when the visage of perfection stepped in front of her face; (Y/N) was seething, righteous fury.

"That is exactly what I meant, Rapunzel. That's right: a cynic. Varian, you are incapable of believing or thinking or willing or living or dying. You will never have a cause, because you're a copout. One foot always out the door and into the wine cellar."

There was a slight intake of breath, the subtlest of shift of chairs. Varian would have noticed them if he could hear over the pounding of his ears.

"You know what," Varian stood finally; he was tall, in this case rather imposing, and radiating a certain threatening presence that was unseen before, but certainly impressive, "I am sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen for voicing opinions that happen to clash with yours. For trying to help you. You know what, (Y/N)? You need a bloody cynic, because without a cynic do you know what you are? Idealistic revolutionaries who would jump headfirst into hell for a revolution that would die with them. Will die with them, if they don't change now."

"We are curing this country; we aren't the ones that need to change," (Y/N) growled, fuming.

"I'm done," Varian whispered, mostly to himself, the bottle a deadweight in his palm as he made his way to the exit, "I'm not going to be the one holding your hand, guiding you to your death, and I sure as hell won't be there when it happens."

The cobbled streets of Corona greeted Varian as he left the café, the darkness of night surrounding him as he made his way back to his tiny rooms, with the paint splattered walls and cheap port seeped into the floorboards.

And far in the distance, there was the cry of outrage as it was announced: the General was dead.

On his funeral pyre, the red flag of revolution rose in expectation, and Varian's chest ached with sympathy in anticipation of the bullets that would be soon lodged into his skin.

A smile started to tug at Varian's lips as his hand clasped around the hand of a ghost, the oxymoronic figurehead of the movement he was to die for.

Everything Varian had to live for, and the cause of his tragic demise.

And, despite the fights, Varian smiled.

He had glanced at perfection.