#Technically this is about Varigo but because I’m me it’s more about the freckle babies

[antiquepearlss]

Did I just listen to a song from West Side Story after months of forgetting it existed and immediately begin to think of the Freckle and Team Awesome Siblings? Yes. Yes I did.

Did I just spend and hour writing a small fic despite the fact that I have another wip I need to finish plus an inbox full of requests I said I would do? Yes. Yes I did.

Do I regret it? No. Because Freckle Sibs and Eugene angst.

Rapunzel clenched her teeth. For the first time in her life, she was angry at Varian, her little brother. Which she felt guilty for, none of this was his fault, he lost his brother, his closest family member, he was hurting too. She desperately wanted to feel anything else than anger at him. She just wanted to be angry at the boy, the monster that killed her love. But no, Varian, her sweet lovely Varian, was defending him.

“A boy like that, who’d kill your brother, forget that boy and find another.” She began to sing, overcome with grief and rage. She turned to the young ravenette who was standing still, grief plastered over his face. If the Saporians had never tried to take the Coronans turf this never would have happened. Eugene would be alive and she wouldn’t have to wipe her or Varian’s tears. Her scowl hardened. “One of your own kind, stick to your own kind.” 

Grief and pain flashed across her little brother's face, and he promptly turned his head as he clenched his fists. She could feel the mix of anger and pain and heartbreak emanating from him. The room was filled with it. But unlike her, he was being stubborn and idiotic. 

She forced back a sob, her grief being pushed back by her rage. Varian was being blind to young love. He wasn’t thinking straight. She once prided him on his optimism and big heart, as she shared it with him. But eventually reality had to set in. Why it sat with her and not her baby brother, she wasn’t sure. 

Well, she was. He was blinded by young love. Young love with a murderer.

“A boy like that, will give you sorrow. You’ll meet another boy tomorrow. One of your own kind, stick to your own kind.” 

She would never force Varian to be with someone he didn’t love, but why couldn’t he have gotten with Faith, or Jane? Not Saporian scum. Clearly, they were all cruel inhumans. Bent on destroying her life. They took away her Eugene, and now they were trying to take away her Varian. They murdered her love and used cunning and trickery to manipulate her second love.

Varian scowled and he turned away, unable to even face his sister in her grief induced rage. He had never seen her like this, he didn’t want to, he couldn’t stand it. And he couldn’t stand that in a way, he was perpetuating it. He had hurt her. By being in love.

He swallowed back a sob. He lost his brother and he was going to lose his sister. Over some boy he met 48 hours ago. But he loved that boy. He was in love.

Rapunzel didn’t understand. Varian loved Eugene and he was heartbroken, utterly heartbroken. He wasn’t sure how to even go on after his death anymore. But, his death was inevitable. This gang war, this cycle, someone was always going to end up dying. Eugene was always going to end up dying by a Saporian’s hand. It just happened to be Hugo who was holding the knife. But he knew Hugo, he knew he didn’t want to kill his adoptive brother. It was all just a horrifying, unfortunate situation. But Rapunzel was too wrapped up in her grief to see it that way.

She, like him, had been against the turf war, the separation, the hatred. But, after years of the fighting, and then seeing her fiancée’s body in the morgue, the hatred had gotten to her too. He couldn’t say he blamed her, but why couldn’t she see Hugo was just another victim too?

“A boy who kills cannot love, a boy who kills has no heart.” Rapunzel sang angrily over Varian’s thoughts. His attempts to, avoid her, in a sense, hadn’t worked. She angrily stomped over to him  and grabbed his chin. She was gentle, but the anger in her eyes was more painful than if she had clawed him. 

“And he’s the boy who gets your love and get your heart. Very smart, Varian. Very smart.” She spat. 

Varian glared at her and ripped his head away from her hand. He rushed through the curtain acting as a door, desperate to get away from her. But she was quick on his heels, her grief and anger lacing her melodic voice and cutting through his heart. He held his hands over his ears, clawed his hair, and grit his teeth.

“A boy like that wants one thing only. And when he’s done he’ll leave you lonely. He’ll murder your love; he murdered mine. Just wait and see, just wait Varian, just wait and see.”

Varian’s grief, and building anger, boiled over. How dare she. No, he understood why she was mad, he sympathized with her. He was mad too, but she didn’t understand. He needed her to just listen. He turned to her, the neon signs from outside the kitchen window providing enough light to see her, contrasting with the eerie shadows of the small, darkened, run down apartment. All of Rapunzel’s paintings, crafts, and thrifted decor did nothing to offset the darkness that was cast in the wake of Eugene’s death. The darkness of the evening seemed much darker now.

“Oh no Rapunzel no. Rapunzel no.” He sang back, trying to be calming and loving. He wasn’t mad at her. He desperately just wanted her to listen, to not let her grief blind her and for her to be her open-hearted self again. “It isn’t true, not for me. It’s true for you, not for me.” He walked up to her, face to face. He felt tears begin to burn in his eyes, Rapunzel’s glare softened very slightly, so he continued.

“I hear your words, and in my head, I know they’re smart.” Because he did. He knew Rapunzel had every right to be angry and to hate Hugo. He knew that he should be angry and hate Hugo. But he didn’t, because he loved him too much to blame him. And he couldn’t stand Rapunzel, his sister, hating him and trying to get Varian to hate him.

Didn’t she always say that hate was the root of the problem here? What caused this war? Didn’t she see she was perpetuating this cycle? That she will end up just like Eugene and Andrew?

He loved Hugo. He wasn’t going to end up like them, like she was becoming. 

“But my heart, Rapunzel, but my heart, knows they’re wrong. And my heart is too strong. For I belong to him alone, to him alone. One thing I know, I am his. I don’t care what he is. I don’t care why it’s so. I don’t want to know.” While he sang, trying to get through to her, she stubbornly repeated her earlier words. “A boy like that, who killed your brother, forget that boy and find another. He’ll murder your love and he murdered mine. A boy who kills cannot love. A boy who kills has no heart. And he’s the boy who gets your love and gets your heart. Very smart, Varian, very smart!”

Both of their voices cracked, and their respective dams broke. Rapunzel was giving him the most angry, hateful, pained look. Varian glared at her. Both, through their tears. 

Whilst singing, Varian’s nervous restless nature had backed the two of them into the nearly pitch black bedroom Varian had claimed.

“Oh no Rapunzel no, you should know better!” He practically screamed. “You were in love, or so you say!”

Varian panted, sweat and tears mixing down his face. Rapunzel looked about the same. They were standing toe to toe, two broken hearts. Two grieving hearts. Rapunzel was angry and hateful, she was hurting. And he was making it worse.

He never wanted to see the face she was making at his words again. The pain, the hurt, the betrayal. It hurt him. 

His glare softened and he took on a gentler tone. He took her hands and sat down onto the worn down mattress. She joined him, the dip brought them side to side, touching.

“You should know better.”

“I have a love, and it’s all that I have. Right or wrong, what else can I do?” “I love him, I’m his. And everything he is, I am too.” He leaned his forehead onto hers as he crooned. She leaned into him with a sob.

Because she could understand Varian. He fell in love easily but he had never fallen as hard as he had with Hugo. The two were practically made for eachother. One look at them and she had begun to plan their wedding. And she knew, down in her heart, past the grief induced anger, that Hugo loved Varian. That Hugo was a good person. He had left the Saporians. Sure he had a rivalry with Eugene, but he wasn’t a murderer. He had just happened to be holding the knife.

She didn’t forgive Hugo, she didn’t think she could yet, if ever. But she couldn’t blame Varian for loving him. And she couldn’t live with herself if she ever convinced him to abandon his love for him. They were made for eachother, they were deeply and madly in love, they were best friends. 

They had what she and Eugene had. How could she take that away from Varian? Especially when she knew Eugene could be a bad person, and had hurt her family? Not the same way Hugo had, but she didn’t want to be hypocritical. Eugene had hurt people and he had changed. He had invited his baby cousin to come live with him and doted on the young boy, treating him as a cherished little brother. He used to be a selfish thief, and had remained a gang member. But he was also a doting and loving fiancée, and a loving brother, with big dreams for their family.

They were the only family they had left anymore. She wasn’t going to leave him, she wasn’t going to hurt him. 

She couldn’t live with herself, and she didn’t want Eugene to look down from Heaven to see the two most important people in his life separated. To see that she abandoned his baby brother, their baby brother.

Besides, love changed a person. It changed Eugene. There was no way Varian’s love wasn’t going to change Hugo, if it hadn’t already. 

She knew that man felt remorse, guilt, for what he had done.

In a way, a very small way, that was enough for her.

She could feel their anger subside as she placed a hand on Varian’s cheek, and cried with him. She listened to him sing through his tears, she knew he knew she was listening to him.

“I have a love, and it’s all that I need. Right or wrong, and he needs me, too. I love him, we’re one. There’s nothing to be done. Not a thing I can do. But hold him, hold him forever. Be with him now, tomorrow, and all my life.”

Rapunzel let the words sit in and resonate with her. She understood. She absolutely understood. She opened her eyes along with Varian. She smiled weakly at him. Her eyes were pained, but loving. Varian reciprocated the look. 

Rapunzel loved Eugene despite all the pain he had caused, and Varian loved Hugo despite all the pain he had caused. 

And Rapunzel loved Varian. And Varian loved Rapunzel. They were best friends, siblings, family.

Rapunzel pulled her little brother into a hug which he gladly accepted, wrapping his arms around her like she was a lifeline, and burying his head into her shoulder, the shawl she wore still reeking of death from the morgue. She wrapped her arms around him supportively, protectively, lovingly.

The two sang in unison.

“When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong, the love is your life.”

[zenlesszonezero]

Join Zenless Zone Zero with Tsukishiro Yanagi, the deputy leader of Hollow Special Operations Section 6! Beneath her ordinary office lady exterior lies a meticulous, emotionally intelligent big sister to the team.