Mulan AU where she does get caught by the other fresh recruits while she's bathing but Mushu helps her spin it like the lake is cursed by an evil lizard demon and will turn men into women if they stay in it for too long.
From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.
Shang is... tentatively glad that the men are bonding and getting along, even if they continue to be deeply weird about it.
Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?
Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!
Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: Oh no! The spirit of the cursed waters!
Shang: ...is this why you've all been insisting we don't camp anywhere that doesn't have a lake.
Shang: and then none of you actually swim in it.
Shang: and you all keep jumping at shadows.
Shang: wait a second Ping did this happen before or after you became insanely good at fighting?
Shang: did you get better at fighting after you became a woman.
Shang: are women better at fighting than us.
Mulan: ....uh. well. maybe? no one's ever tried to find out.
Yao: [thinking very fast] y'know Captain it's just so hard to find recruits these days.
Chien Po: Real shortage of men.
Ling: Lots of women, though.
Mulan: [catching on] Without marriage prospects.
Shang: You're right, men. The spirits must have done this in order to show us that we should be recruiting women as fighters.
Mushu [from the shadows, seeing an opportunity to do the funniest thing]: EXACTLY, LI SHANG. I HAVE TRANSFORMED PING INTO A WOMAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE TOO LONG OVERLOOKED THE TRUE WAY TO WIN THE WAR.
Mulan [seeing an opportunity to get all the stories straight]: O Great Spirit, is it reversible?
Mushu: WHY WOULD YOU WISH TO REJECT MY GIFT? I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, CHILD, AND HAVE ALREADY ALTERED THE MEMORIES OF EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE ARMY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THEIR DAUGHTER.
Li Shang: Welp, the spirits have spoken. Ping - wait is your name still Ping if you're a woman now?
Mulan: Uh. Actually, I was thinking of renaming myself. How do you feel about Mulan?
BONUS:
Mulan [climbing out of the eleventh lake the men have arranged for her to swim in]: Yeah no, it didn't work. Still got boobs. [tries to appear dejected].
Chien Po: If it makes you feel better, they're very nice boobs.
So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?
I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we're acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it's actually meant to do.
OP I know that this is probably a different direction than you were going, but genuinely this advice would do so so much to help people not fall into secular political cults.
A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. Itâs absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the âmainstreamâ simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before itâs too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say âyou see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied onâ when, inevitably, that produces bad results.
Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just arenât any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no oneâs shown them how.
âŠBut sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.
I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:
Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if itâs by someone who you trust!)
Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?
Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?
Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?
Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?
These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.
In the words of Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton, âNobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group, a religious movement, a political organization. They change so gradually, by the time you realize youâre entrapped â and almost everybody does â you canât figure a safe way back out.â
this is a pdf detailing the BITE model of authoritarian control, a method for determining whether or not you're in a cult.
even if you feel confident you are not and have never been in a cult, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the signs, just in case one begins to sneak up on you in the future.
Ok, I actually want to talk about this for a moment.
Jonestown, one of the most infamous cults in history, with a mass suicide / mass murder that left more than 900 people dead of cyanide poisoning, hundreds of whom were children⊠was a leftist political cult. That fact is an unambiguous and completely undebatable matter of historical record.
This isnât a footnote in the story of Jonestown, and it isnât a weird anti-leftist gotcha either. Jonestown attracted people to their cause with anti-segregation and anti-poverty activist work, and they did actual, meaningful good for those causes. The Peopleâs Temple was a leftist org, unambiguously. They created mutual aid networks for food aid, and rent assistance, and job placement services, and clothing donations, and winter heating. They leaned heavily on the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in order to push desegregation, and led sit-ins and boycotts and protests. They participated in significant voter registration efforts. They led the fight against the eviction of tenants from San Francisco's International Hotel.
People joined The Peopleâs Temple because it was a good thing when they joined it. They didnât start out as brainwashed cultists, and they didnât gravitate towards the leadership of Jim Jones out of masochism, or inherent submissiveness, or a perverse love of creeping authoritarianism. They fell in line under Jim Jones because heâd built a community that was genuinely helping people, and was advancing a political cause that seemed worth fighting. They followed Jim Jones because he earned their trust.
Jim Jones then used the trust and the social capital that he had gained from all of the above in order to elevate himself to the status of a messianic figure, and abuse and profit off of his followers. Slowly but surely, he boiled the frog. It was all good â and then it was mostly good â and then, well there was some abuse, but it wasnât that bad, and it wasnât really his fault â and then there was a lot of abuse, but the outside world would destroy them if given the chance, so wasnât it the lesser of the two evils? And then, eventually, it got so bad that hundreds of people poisoned themselves and their children at his command, and murdered everyone in the compound who refused and resisted.
Your cause of choice is not immune from abusers taking advantage of it!
It doesnât matter if youâre right. It doesnât matter if your cause is just. It does not matter if your good thing really is a good thing, because there is always the possibility that it will one day be co-opted by a monster. And if the fact that it started good is enough for you to ignore that gradual, subtle change, you could end up in a truly horrible situation.
One of my best friends in undergrad got sucked into a cult. Years later, we talked about it, and he told me something that Iâll never forget which is, itâs only when you look all the way back at things that they seem crazy. You start off with things that are totally normal and innocuous: âweâre stronger togetherâ; âoppression is badâ; âyou can accomplish more if you believe in yourselfâ; âempathy is important and we should all try to bring more of it into our livesâ; etc. Then, you move to something thatâs just a little step away from that. And then again. And then again. And then again. But it never feels like a big jump, because itâs not! A -> Z is crazy, but A -> B wasnât, and B -> C wasnât, and C -> D wasnât, andâŠ
This friend was smart, and rational, and independent, and normal, and by the time he and his wife left, theyâd gone from just thinking that we should all practice more emotional mindfulness, to being terrified that leaving the cult and the cult leader would literally kill them, via the cult leader having magical powers.
If your only analysis is âWhere I started was good, and no single step since then has been crazyâ that is utterly insufficient to keep you safe.
âThis canât possibly be a cult, because when I joined it was a leftist political org and thereâs never been a single instance where it suddenly changedâ is literally the exact logic that kept people in Jonestown until it was too late.
My personal headcanon for Ash Ketchum has always been that regardless of if his dream ever came true he'd never truly stop traveling and learning. Because despite "becoming a pokemon master" being his goal if you actually sit down and watch like Any episode of Pokemon the thing that always holds true is his curiosity and desire to learn everything he possibly can related to pokemon. And he'll try anything to! He did contests and the battle frontier. He'd do those silly little shows with Serena if they'd let him.
So I like to imagine him continuing on in life as this nomad who people don't automatically recognize as anyone important ya know? Just this goofy guy going from place to place always lending a helping hand and hes got a cute lil pikachu on him. And hes often lost somewhere with a friend just exploring the woods to see if he'll find anything cool. Ya know, as hes always been, but older now. And its only once hes drifted once more do you maybe stumble into an article on the pokeweb about him and are like... that guy??
thereâs a dedicated ashandpikachuspotter account somewhere on some social media. You tag a photo or search for a term and boom, thereâs pics of this guy. this dude. this man. with his pikachu. and itâs thousands of strangers from across the globe coming on line to talk about some stranger that they met briefly and then never saw again. theyâve compiled their stories and their approximate locations and mapped his journey from continent to continent, a long snaking pathway that spans decades and thousands of miles. Heâs apparently one of those Kanto kids that the government let just drop out of school. Its working out very well for him.Â
Because under the post about giving minors the right to medically consent, people are spreading a ton of misinformation on this - largely because they just do not question the stuff they just assume are "normal". Which here is: "kids are all afraid of needles and therefore if we let them consent or not to medical proceedures, they would just not consent and not get vaccinations, because needles hurt".
And, look. Here is the thing: no, needles do not actually hurt a whole lot. And while, yes, certain procedures that involve being stabbed by a needle hurt more if you are younger for a bunch of reasons... that is actually not the main reason children fear needles. Because, again: the pain is not that bad. And most kids, especially young kids, whose motor skills are still developing, usually will have a bunch more hurting scratches, bruises and the like at any given moment than there will be pain from the needle.
No, from what research can tell, the main reason kids are afraid of needles, is more that for many of them needle procedures are very traumatizing. And that is largely because of the consent issue.
Imagine you are a person who is still pretty darn new to that whole human thing. So for one, yes, your brain is actually not that great in understanding what pain is dangerous and what pain is a safe limit of pain. So yes, someone intentionally hurting you (like with a needle) is really kinda scary. But then there is also the thing where this person hurting you is not telling you why they are doing. The people who you normally trust with keeping you safe (your family) is betraying you, by just holding you down and scolding you for crying over it. Or maybe it is not your family, but some strange nurse who is holding you. And while you are scared, because someone is intentionally hurting you, while someone else is restricting you, the adults around you are telling you, that your emotional reaction to this is actually bad and you are wrong for reacting that way. They might in fact lie to you and tell you that something that is insanely scary to you is "not that bad", instead of just understanding that it is super scary to you. And that is then what you start to expect whenever you see a doctor prepare a needle: people holding you down, hurting you without reason, and telling you that you are wrong for being upset, actively gaslighting you.
We have research on this. And this research is pretty clear: most kids are actually somewhat okay with needles, if you inform them why you are doing it, allow for them to have their emotions, talk to them about their emotions, and allow for them to set at least some conditions.
And frankly, I hate how many people just accept the framing of "kids are naturally afraid of this because it hurts". Like, folks, I know y'all are fucking Americans and that in your culture it is kinda normalized to like put kids into like some sort of fortified hamsterball to stop them from like doing typical kids stuff. But... let me tell you: if you do not do that, kids will actually very regularly engage in dangerous play that they know will often end up in injuries that are going to hurt. And, no, they are not to dumb to understand that. The kids know that this is what might happen because of their play. They actually just take the risk. Yes, they will cry if they get hurt, because - again - their nervous system is still calibrating how it relates to pain. But they will likely do that thing again and again. I can tell you: I fell down a tree so often during my childhood, and I still climbed it. Again and again. So did most kids I knew. Like, fuck, we lived next to a forest. We played "Tarzan", and tried to go along paths without touching the ground. And we fell. A lot. And we still did it.
It is not the fear of pain that makes kids afraid of doctors. It is the fear of the associated force, and gaslighting.
varhen. (previously) sick Lohen x (especially) sappy Varka. read on ao3.
Varka had always known Lohen was beautiful.
Alluring, handsome. An exquisite sight, even. Poems were more of Ventiâs strength, truly. He was a warrior, not a poet. But for this one Vice Captain of his, Varka tried the very best.
Varka remembered the first time he noticed it. It had been years ago now, an ordinary day of catching the new recruit in the middle of obliterating his enemies. Lohen had been grinning, dangerous, and completely enjoying himself. There was blood on his knuckles and wind in his hair. Yet, despite all that, he had caught Varka staring at him. He had then sent Varka a wink, cheeky, as though daring him to look closer.
The rascal. The very stunning rascal and his sparkling gleeâ because looking closer Varka eventually did.
There was something about the beauty mark framing Lohenâs right eye like a stray star, something in the dance of his movements amidst fights. Each detail tugged at Varka in a different way. Something about the red glinting within his eyes, too. They called the gemstone 'ruby,' didn't they? But to Varka, the way Lohenâs eyes shone and reflected what he felt inside; the red blazing with mania and gleaming with tenacity? Those were so much more beautiful. Rubies were just dull stones in comparison.
âLohen was beautiful. That was both a fact, or as close as ever to one, and also Varka's most beloved opinion. Even in a city that whispered about what he did with those sharp knives and sharper quirked lips, not a soul could deny it. Lohen was beautiful in blue, in nude, in red; in the red of his enemies' blood, and sometimes, in the blood from his own injuries, which bewitched and worried Varka all the time. The trails of violence that followed him, the half-shocked admiration people gave when his name was spoken, and the fear that undoubtedly rose right after, only seemed to highlight what made him striking.
âAnd, last week, even in the paleness of his skin as he lay strapped to the bed under Barbara's strict order for rest, Varka had still thought him the prettiest thing in his grasp. Varka had kissed his temple and the top of his head, the apples of his cheeks, and the backs of his eyelids. Lohen had smiled, a bit more subdued compared to his usual deranged smiles for enemies or his cheeky ones for teasing Varka. But always, and always, Lohen had been beautiful then.
Now, as he leaned gently on Varka's shoulder with eyes closed, the wind caressing their resting figures beneath the willowy treeâespecially now, as Lohen's cheek bloomed in health and rose-colored serenity; the red of him looked absolutely angelic. Varka would have called him heaven-sent despite knowing everything else proving contradictory about his beloved rascal.
â"You're quiet," said the angel-like being. Varka arched an eyebrow just as Lohen added, "You're not passed out, are you? I didn't lace our picnic food with poison this time, pinky promise."
Varka snorted in humor. So much for an angel, this man.
"I was just enjoying the peace," and your warmth, Varka replied, "and there you go shattering it with the mention of your hobby."
âLohen's small laugh was precious. Most people only heard the deranged version of it as Lohen drove whatever weapon he had in his hands into an unfortunate enemy. "Oh, really? But don't you also enjoy my hobby, right, Grand Master?" he asked in a sing-song voice.
Varka raised a hand to give Lohen's hair a tussle. A very soft tussle; it might as well have been the breeze. "Shut up, brat. You're lucky I love you," he groused.
âLohen chuckled. Oh, how Varka loves the sound after hearing only his coughs and sickly wheezes nonstop for the last week.
âWhen Lohen looked up, the red in his eyes reflected the warmth of Mondstadt's sunny sky and the affection they had lovingly nurtured for what must have been several lifetimes and in this one life. "Lucky I am, indeed,â he said, âI even got the Grand Master as my personal healer and caretaker, too."
Varka hummed in response, remembering. Lohen didn't get sick easily. In fact, Varka couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him confined to a bed before the Dragonspine rescue. One frozen lake, one blizzard, and several days of terrifyingly high fever later, Varka had become intimately acquainted with every cough and shiver his lover could produce.
Jean had practically thrown paperwork at someone else when Varka refused to leave Lohen's side. Even Venti had dropped by to chase away the lingering chill with a song. That was how bad it had gotten, really. No one in Mondstadt had questioned Varka abandoning paperwork for a week straight.
Now that Lohen was finally warm again, Varka intended to keep him firmly under the sun whenever possible. So there they were with a small picnic date, cuddling under the great tree in Windrise.
âVarka's answering grin was just as warm when he finally replied with: "You're mine to take care of.â Mine to love. Mine to embrace. Mine to cherish.
Mine, always.
The word settled heavily in his chest.
There had been a moment. Just one brief and terrible moment when Albedo stood in his office describing frozen water and blinding snow, when the alchemist mentioned in detached details how he arrived late but in time to see Lohen crawling out of the lake on his own, all fours, and his cryo vision keeping him aliveâthat one moment, Varka had wondered whether he would ever hear Lohen laugh again.
He had hated that feeling. Hated how helpless it made him feel. Hated the sight of Lohen shivering beneath blankets. Hated every cough.
Lohen, of course, had laughed at him for fussing.
He was laughing now, too. A small, merry chuckle. "Sappy old man."
â"Your sappy old man. Yours,â said Varka. The words stumbled out of his heart like a vow.
Lohen's smile softened. "You're still worried."
Varka snorted. "You fell into a frozen lake."
"And survived."
"Barely." Varka gave his lover an unimpressed look.
"Varka."
âLohen moved then, soft smile directly in front of Varkaâs lips. His eyes glowed warm instead of fever-bright. There was color in his cheeks again.
Beautiful. Always beautiful.
But right now, sitting beneath the tree and smiling at him with that ridiculous softness he reserved for no one else, Lohen looked alive.
Varka thought that was his favorite look of all.
"I like the sound of that,â Lohen continued softly. âMine and yours.â Yours to worry about. Yours to keep safe. Yours to go home to.
Everything, yours.
When Lohen's hand came up to cup his jaw, Varka nuzzled it with familiarity and intimacy only reserved for this one person. âGood.â
The corner of Lohenâs lips quirked up in teasing. âLike a puppy,â he commented cheekily, "Why are you looking at me like that now?"
Varka huffed in happiness. "Because itâs you."
"Still?"
"Still."
The answering smile was unbearably fond.
So Varka kissed it.
He kissed the curve of Lohen's mouth, slow and unhurried, with all the gratitude he hadn't managed to put into words. The wind stirred around them, gentle as a blessing.
Lohen laughed softly against his lips.
Alive. Warm. Here.
Varka kissed him again and again; long, soft, lasting. Until Lohenâs lips bloomed red in love, until Lohenâs lips only remember his name.
Beautiful.
His.
The wind around them carried with it the words neither of them needed to say aloud.
The I love yous. Thank yous.
The forever and always.
---
(âI made excellent soup, though, didnât I? Lisa gave me the recipe. You recovered faster after you stopped fighting me when I tried to feed it to you.â
âIâm more surprised you didnât use the wrong ingredients. I left some unlabeled bottles and jars of ⊠âsurprisesâ in our kitchen. I think some could pass as salt or sugar.â
ââŠâ âWhat nefarious purposes will you be using them for?â
âSuch an accusation. Like I said, âsurprisesâ~ Delightful ones, I promise on my honor.â
ââŠYouâre so lucky youâre pretty.â
âAw, I know you love me only for my body and not for my penchant for keeping you on your toes.â
âLohen.â
âVarka.â
âLohen.â
A laugh.
âGo back to napping, will you?â
âOnly after I finish feeding you this sandwich as a payback!â)
varhen. fluffy humor. possessive lohen x soft varka. read on ao3.
Lohen knew Varka.
He had known him for years, through legitimate means and very legitimate meansâ by which he meant years of stalking. Or, well, years of observing a target worth overcoming. That was back when he still wanted to challenge the Grand Master as a title and not as the man currently sharing his bed. The stalking had only become more acceptable once Varka started indulging him in it, which, Lohen privately maintained, did not actually make it less weird. It just made it weird in a way Varka had signed off on.
Stalking your own lover wasn't the same as stalking the Grand Master you wanted to poison. Right? Right. Though admittedly, both were still true: Varka being the Grand Master and being his lover; the stalking and the poisoning. Though they'd had more fun with the second one than Varka would ever admit, even at knifepoint.
Not that any of that was the point.
The point was: Lohen knew Varka. Lohen liked watching Varka: his sunny smiles, his absurdly wide shoulders, his annoyingly admirable strength, and even that infuriatingly kind face that people kept mistaking for an invitation to get handsy, which Lohen totally watched so he could dole out appropriate responses (usually something that would have Jean massaging her forehead in distress). Lohen also liked watching Varka so that he could catch him with his guard down and keep him on his toes, of course.
That was why, when Lohen noticed something off, he noticed it immediately. And what he noticed, recently, was bad. Catastrophic, even. The kind of catastrophe that would've made Mika (who was currently trying, and failing, to talk Lohen down from bloodlust over breakfast) start praying to several different Archons at once.
"You really cannot drag a Fontainian merchant to our interrogation room just because Varka is being friendly to her, Lohen," Mika said, for the third time in as many minutes. He'd tried distracting Lohen with reports, even pulled out the correct monster-camp map this time as a peace offering, but Lohen's eyes hadn't left the scene happening a few meters away. The Vice Captain's fork kept stabbing his salad blindly, as if the lettuce had a criminal record. Mika had never, in his short life, seen anyone eat something so harmless, so menacingly.
Kaeya, sipping apple cider beside them (because Lohen had threatened bodily harm at the idea of wine before nine in the morning), hummed thoughtfully. "Yeah, you can't," he agreed, and Mika's head snapped up with hope. "Unless we find something very suspicious inside her wares. Then maybe you can drag her in for a few hours before Jean inevitably finds out."
The hope died an immediate, horrible death. Especially when Lohen looked as though he was actually considering it.
Mika immediately considered begging the Anemo Archon to whisk him away. To Sumeru, maybe. He'd never been to Sumeru. He'd heard the landscape was beautiful. He could probably draw excellent maps there that wouldn't get stolen by sneaky vice captains with trust issues and a god complex about his boyfriend.
"She's a legitimate merchant," Mika pressed on valiantly. Or stupidly, thought Lohen not unkindly, for someone so smart. "We already checked her belongings. Even the personal ones. Her documents are in order. She's here for business. Please don't plant anything suspicious in her things just so you have an excuse to act on your jealousy." Mika nearly begged.
Lohen finally looked away from the woman in the absurd hat, currently beaming an even more outrageous air of delight at Varka. His gaze then landed on his own massacred breakfast.
The three of them: Lohen, Mika, and Kaeya had met up that morning to eat and gossip. Or, well, "gossip" was Kaeya's word for it. Lohen had only shown up because Kaeya dragged him. Mika had only shown up because Kaeya dragged him along, even though he had gone only to find Lohen, since his surveying map had gone missing for the second time that week. They'd been having a perfectly normal morning, enjoying the nice breeze, the warm food, and very much not discussing anything that would alarm a law-abiding citizen. That was right up until Varka wandered into the city square and, notably, didn't come over to join them like any sensible person fleeing Jean's paperwork would. Instead, they all watched him bounce on his toes to greet the Fontainian merchant who lit up like a firework show.
So, now here they were, with Lohen quietly assembling a conspiracy theory with the focus of a man building a siege weapon.
For the last several days, Varka had been acting strange. He had been unusually buried in workâ or that was what he'd told Lohen when Lohen asked why he hadn't found Varka sneaking into his office during work hours as per usual. Except when Lohen actually went to check in on him that one time, the Grand Master's office had been empty. Also, Varka had been smiling a lot. Not suspicious on its own, except none of those smiles had been pointed at Lohen. Instead, Lohen kept catching him grinning down at some papers that weren't about work for sure, which was, frankly, an insult to everything Lohen knew about this lazy, paperwork-allergic man.
So, Varka had been acting weird and lying about it. And no oneâ no one could argue otherwise because no one knew Varka better than Lohen did. When Lohen said something was wrong, it was wrong. Especially with evidence this damning: the merchant.
The second meeting with the merchant.
The third meeting.
And, most damning of all, Varka's flat refusal to say what they'd been discussing.
That alone was basically a confession.
"You know," Kaeya said, swirling his cider, the corners of his lips quirking up serenely, "most people would just ask their significant other what they're doing."
Lohen looked at him.
Kaeya looked back.
"..."
"..."
"You know what? Never mind. You're right. Continue on."
Mika buried his face in his hands. He was also muttering something that suspiciously sounded like a prayer under his breath.
Mika was ready with another argument when Lohen's attention snapped back to the square at the most ill-chosen moment ever. It was as though he was guided by a chaotic hand of fate because, at that very second, the merchant chose to laugh at something Varka said. Merrily. And Varka laughed back. The one laugh that came way too easily, way too brightly. That one big unguarded laugh that Lohen knew the way he knew the weight of his own spears, and that this one spear wasn't supposed to leave the house.
Catastrophe struck then, fresh and total.
His boyfriend. Being charming. At someone else.
"She touched his arm,â Lohen said, flat.
Mika made a small, strangled sound.
Kaeya leaned forward with the enthusiasm of a tavern bard sensing free material. "Oh, she did."
"Kaeya," Mika lamented.
"What? She did.â
âKaeya.â
âI'm just reporting. Accurately, if I might add."
"Kaeya, please."
"It's called journalism, Mika."
Lohen's gaze sharpened to a point. The merchant was still smiling. Varka was still smiling. Neither of them had spontaneously combusted yet, which felt, frankly, irresponsible of the universe.
"Maybe I should slip something into her tea,â Lohen noted amiably. The tone he used was of someone noting the weather.
Mika nearly went over backward in his chair. "No!"
"Just a little."
"NO."
"A non-lethal amount. Mildly debilitating, at worst. She'd probably enjoy the nap."
"THAT IS STILL POISON, LOHEN."
"You say that like it's an argument."
Mika looked, briefly, like a man reconsidering every career choice that had led him to this table. Kaeya just looked delighted, which helped no one.
Across the square, Varka glanced over like he'd felt the weight of being plotted against, which, fairâ and their eyes met.
He smiled. Immediately. Easily. Fondly, even.
That smile. The one with no edges to it. The one that existed, as far as Lohen had ever been able to verify through years of rigorous and entirely justified surveillance, was only for him.
Then he waved, bright and unbothered, like a man with absolutely nothing to hide.
Lohen's murder math dropped by maybe thirty-seven percent. Miraculous. Maybe Lord Barbatos was actively looking after them today.
"See? Everything's fine." Mika exhaled in relief.
Lohen narrowed his eyes anyway. "He's hiding something."
"How did you get that from a wave?"
"He used the smile."
"...The smile?"
"The smile."
Kaeya nodded along, gravely, like this was self-evident. "The smile."
Mika looked between the two of them, lost. "I don't know what that means."
Neither of them elaborated.Â
---
Three days later, the situation somehow got worse.
Varka met the merchant again.
Lohen knew because he had followed them. For investigative purposes. Purely professional. That was what he told himself, at least. In truth, there was a sharp, unpleasant twist in his chest every time he pictured Varka laughing too freely, or leaning in too close, or smiling that easy, sunlit smile at someone who hadn't earned it through years of bleeding for it the way Lohen had. It wasn't that he thought the man would actually be stolen. Varka was hopelessly, embarrassingly his, had been for years, and Lohen knew it with the same bone-deep certainty he knew the weight of his own Vision. He just couldn't help it. He never could. It was humiliating, honestly, how little control he had over something he already knew the ending to.
The investigation revealed absolutely nothing useful. The merchant sold antiques. Varka had, apparently, more patience for browsing chipped teacups than anyone had ever suspected. And Kaeya had started a betting pool on whether Lohen would commit a felony before the week was out.
The current odds were not in Lohen's favor.
"You're stalking him."
Lohen glanced sideways at Jean, who had, somehow, found him. On a roof. Which should have been impossible, except this was Jean, who Lohen privately suspected ran on pure spite and the will to suffer.
"No."
"You are standing on a roof," she stated like law.
Lohen didnât even flinch. "It's good for visibility."
"And thatâs a pair of binoculars."
âYes, thank you for noticing,â replied Lohen, before adding: "They're for work."
"You are not currently on duty."
"I'm always on duty," he countered with the airy dignity of a man who had, in fact, been lying flat on his stomach behind a chimney for the past forty minutes. "Knightly vigilance doesn't clock out, Jean."
Jean stared at him. The kind of stare that had once made three separate captains spontaneously confess to unrelated crimes.
Lohen stared back, unbothered, because he had been stared down by Varka mid-poisoning attempt and lived to tell the tale. Jean simply didnât have the range.
"...Fine," she said at last, sounding profoundly, spiritually tired. "Just don't kill anybody."
"That depends."
Jean had that look. The one that conveyed she was suppressing a migraine. "No, it doesn't."
"It depends on her."
"Lohen."
"I'm joking," Lohen said, in a tone that did not sound like joking at all.
Jean looked, briefly, like she was asking higher beings for patience. She then walked away at a pace just shy of fleeing.
Lohen returned to his binoculars. The merchant was holding up a chipped teacup. Varka was nodding along like it was the most fascinating object he'd ever seen in his life.
Lohen's faith in humanity dropped another two percent.
--
By the end of the week, Lohen had arrived at exactly one conclusion: the only way to uncover the truth was direct confrontation.
Unfortunately, direct confrontation required talking about feelings, which was, frankly, a worse prospect than the interrogation room plan, the mysterious substances people could slip on unsuspecting drinks, and the rooftop showdown combined.
Still. Sacrifices had to be made. He'd faced down the Wild Hunt with less dread than he felt walking toward the Grand Master's office that evening.
Varka looked up from his paperwork the second the door opened, and immediately smiled.
There it was. The smile.
Lohen narrowed his eyes on principle.
Varka narrowed his eyes right back, clearly enjoying himself far too much for a man under active investigation. "...Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I have questions."
"Gods help me." He set his pen down anyway, which Lohen concluded as evidence of guilt. An innocent man would have kept on writing. Probably. Certainly. âShoot, what do you need?â
With that, Lohen decided to be merciless from the start. "You've been spending a lot of time with a merchant."
Varka froze. Just for half a second. A flicker, barely there. The kind of thing only someone who'd spent years studying every twitch of this man's face would catch.
Lohen caught it.
Aha.
"I see," Lohen said, with the quiet satisfaction of a man watching his trap spring shut.
"You see what?"
"You hesitated."
"That's because you opened with the verbal equivalent of kicking down a door."
Lohen folded his arms, undeterred. "Are you hiding something?"
A pause. A long one. Long enough that Lohen's pulse did something unbearably annoying.
Then Varka sighed and said, "Technically."
Lohen's heart dropped. Not all the way (he refused to give it the satisfaction), but enough to be deeply, personally inconvenient.
"Oh."
Varka's brows shot up. "What do you mean, 'oh'?"
"You admitted it."
"I admitted I was hiding something."
"Exactly. A confession," Lohen said.
"That doesn't sound nearly as incriminating as you seem to think it does."
Lohen stared at him, searching his face for the shape of the lie. Varka stared back, entirely too at ease for a guilty manâ And then, infuriatingly, he started to laugh.
Actually laugh. The full, unfair, chest-deep kind.
"Oh," Varka said, wiping at his eye. "Oh, sweetheart."
The endearment landed like a physical blow. Lohen hated how it got to him, every damn time, no matter how many times he swore it wouldnât.
It wasn't even a word Varka used often. That was the worst part. He doled it out rarely enough that Lohen had never managed to build up a proper immunity to it, the way he had with âdearâ or the increasingly common âyou menaceâ; both of which had long since lost their teeth from overuse. âSweetheartâ he saved for exactly these moments: the ones where he'd already won, and knew it, and wanted Lohen to know it too. A precision strike.
"You're jealous," Varka said, grinning.
Lohenâs defense was too immediate to be true. "No."
"You are."
"I am a professional knight conducting a professional inquiry." There was nothing professional about any of this. Not even a little.
Varkaâs grin grew impossibly wider. "You're jealous, and it's adorable."
"I will poison you."
"You won't."
"I have before."
"And I forgave you," Varka said, far too fondly for the statement to make any sense, "which should tell you something about how this works."
Before Lohen could decide whether to be offended or smug about that, Varka pushed back from his desk and stood. He beckoned Lohen with an inviting arm. The arm Lohen loved circling his waist any other time. Now was not the time. Yet, Varka didnât seem to agree.
"Câmere."
"No."
"Lohen."
"Absolutely not."
"Lohen."
"...Fine," Lohen said, with the air of a man making an enormous personal sacrifice, and crossed the room anyway, because years into this relationship, he still had no spine whatsoever when Varka used that exact tone.
Victorious, Varka bent and pulled a wooden box out from beneath the desk.
Lohen's suspicion reignited instantly. "What is that?"
"A box."
"I know that. What's inside it?" he demanded.
"If I tell you, it defeats the purpose."
"You're being mysterious. Mysterious people are usually hiding bodies or affairs."
"It's neither," Varka said, and there was something different in his voice now. Something softer, a little uncertain, nothing like the easy teasing from a moment ago. "I was trying to surprise you."
That gave Lohen pause more effectively than any denial could have. He took the box when Varka held it out, turning it over once. The wood was old. Worn smooth at the corners from handling, but cared for. Oiled, mended in one place along the seam. Whatever was inside, it had been kept as if it mattered.
Something in Lohen's chest tightened before he even opened the lid.
He lifted it anyway. Inside sat the single ugliest bird he had ever seen in his life. A little automaton, wings set at uneven angles, paint chipped down to bare metal in places, its beak crooked like it had lost an argument with a wall. One eye was visibly, tragically larger than the other.
Lohen stopped breathing.
The office went very quiet.
Varka's teasing expression melted into something gentler as he watched him carefully now. It was as though he was bracing to read a reaction he couldn't predict.
"...How." Lohen finally managed. It didn't come out as a question. It came out cracked down the middle.
Because Lohen remembered this thing. A much smaller version of himself, running through the woods with this exact ugly bird tucked under one arm like the most precious cargo in all of Teyvat. His father's laugh, deep and easy, the kind he hadn't heard nearly often enough before everything changed. A gift hauled all the way from Fontaine by some merchant his parents had known. The only thing that had ever felt like his, that hadn't been a bow or a lessonâ just a stupid, ugly little toy that had survived exactly as long as childhood did, and then vanished the day everything else did, too.
He had never told anyone the whole story. He'd barely told Varka the whole story.
"I remembered you talking about it," Varka said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was actually, genuinely embarrassed, which on a man who'd once threatened a Fatui Harbinger without blinking was almost funny.
"I mentioned it once."
"You talked about it for twenty-three minutes."
Lohen blinked at him. "...You counted?"
"You wouldn't stop."
"I was making a point about Fontainian craftsmanship."
Varka snorted. "You were ranting about how ugly it was."
"It is ugly."
"It still is," Varka agreed, entirely too gently for the words.
Lohen looked down at it again. Mismatched eyes stared back up at him, hideous and lopsided and somehow, impossibly, exactly the way he remembered it.
His throat had gone tight in a way he didn't appreciate and couldn't seem to undo.
"I mentioned it once," he said again, like repeating it might make it less true that Varka had clearly gone looking, tracked down a merchant who dealt in exactly this kind of old, half-forgotten Fontainian craftsmanship, sat through gods knew how many meetings, all to find one specific, ugly little bird that meant nothing to anyone except a boy who didn't exist anymore.
That was what the merchant had been. Not charm. Not flirtation. A search party.
Lohen found himself confronted with the deeply irritating realization that his jealousy had been competing with a gift. Lohen would never hear the end of this if Kaeya found out.
"You mentioned one of the only things from your childhood that ever made you happy," Varka said, quiet now, all the teasing gone out of him entirely. "I wasn't going to forget that."
The words landed softly. Dangerously soft. The kind of soft that got past every single one of Lohen's defenses without even trying, because Varka never had to try. That was the whole unfair tragedy of loving this man.
"You remembered all of that. From one conversation. Years ago."
"Yes, I remember all of it," Varka said, like it wasn't even a choice he'd made, like loving Lohen thoroughly enough to remember every stray detail he let slip was simply a fact of the world, no more remarkable than the wind blowing west to east.
For once in his life, Lohen had nothing to say. No deflection, no joke, no clever angle to retreat behind. He just stood there with a hideous bird in his hands and entirely too much feeling crowding his chest, and let it happen.
"You remembered," he said again. And this time, it came out small. Younger than he'd meant it to. Just as disbelieving.
Varka looked at him like the question itself didn't make sense. Like there had never been a version of events where he wouldn't. "Of course I did." A beat. "I'd remember anything you gave me, Lohen. You should know that by now."
Something in Lohen's chest gave way completely.
He set the box down on the desk, carefully, the way you'd set down something that had survived a war, and crossed the last of the distance between them in two steps, fisting both hands into the front of Varka's shirt to drag him down to his level.
Varka made a startled sound, half laugh, half question, that died the instant Lohenâs lips met his.
The kiss wasn't a careful one, like most of their kisses tend to be. It wasn't measured. This was just want, plain and unguarded, all the things he didn't have words for poured into something he could actually do something with. Varka recovered fast, one large hand threading into Lohenâs hair while the other anchored firmly at the small of his back, and pulled him in like he'd been waiting all evening for exactly this.
Lohen tightened his grip in return. A sound tore from his throat, desperate and low and needy, as he kissed Varka deeper and deeper.
When they finally broke apart, Lohen didn't let go of his shirt. Didn't move back. Just stayed there, forehead pressed to Varka's collarbone, breathing hard, and fully embracing how much he needed the contact.
Varka didn't push him to move either. He just stood there and took the weight of him, one hand splayed warm between Lohen's shoulder blades, the other still loose in his hair, like he had absolutely nowhere else in the world that mattered more than this exact spot in this exact office.
The candle on the desk had burned low. Outside, someone was laughing in the courtyard and someone else was berating them. Knights finishing up evening drills, probably. The cityâs normal bustle carried on, oblivious to the subtle shift that had just occurred within these walls.
Neither of them said anything for a while. The silence wasn't uncomfortable; it simply felt complete in its own right.
"I hate you," Lohen muttered, muffled, entirely without venom. Maybe even something fond.
"Mm." Varka's voice rumbled warmly above him, the fingers in his hair gently threading through soft strands. "You said you'd poison me ten minutes ago."
"That offer's still open."
"Noted."
"I'm still angry about the merchant," Lohen added, because he could.
"You weren't supposed to find out this way."
"You should have just told me."
"And ruin the surprise?" Varka tipped Lohen's chin up with one finger, forcing him to look up. Whatever Lohen's face was doing made something in Varka's own expression go soft and a little wrecked. "Worth it."
That was, unfairly, a fair argument.
"I plotted three separate crimes over this," Lohen said.
"I heard. Jean mentioned finding you on a roof."
"Jean talks too much."
"Jean is the only reason I finished this in time. She told me you'd snapped sometime around Tuesday."
Lohen glared straight at him for that. "You had Jean helping you."
"She has excellent administrative instincts."
"She let me think you were having an affair for an entire week."
"In her defense, I told her not to tell you anything." Varka's mouth twitched, fighting a smile and losing. "She did suggest, several times, that I just tell you myself and skip all this."
"You should have listened to her."
"And miss that face you just made? Not a chance."
Lohen considered, briefly and seriously, exactly how satisfying it would be to bite him. He could do that later, for sure, a plan heâd save for bed, because Varka wouldnât be getting away with it this easily. For now, Lohen contented himself with a sharp pinch to Varkaâs hip, hard, which earned him an undignified yelp and absolutely no apologies from either party.
"You're impossible," Lohen said.
"You like that about me," grinned Varka.
"I tolerate that about you."
"Mhm." Varka slid his hand to cup Lohenâs jaw, his thumb tracing a gentle line along his cheek before he leaned in and pressed a slow kiss to the corner of Lohenâs mouth. Not quite where Lohen wanted it aimed at, and clearly on purpose, the smug bastard. "Tolerate me a little longer, then."
Lohen turned his head just enough to catch his mouth properly and kissed him again. This time, it was slower than before, no urgency behind it at all. Something he did just because he could, and because he always wanted to. Because the ugly little bird was still sitting on the desk, and because the man holding him had apparently spent weeks of his very busy, very important life hunting down a children's toy just to put something back together for Lohen.
"Thank you," Lohen said, when he finally let him go, low enough that it almost didn't sound like him at all.
Varka went still for a second. Really still. The kind of still that said Lohenâs words had caught him off guard. And then, he smiled. That smile. The one Lohen had spent years confirming belonged to no one else, no matter how many merchants or knights or visiting dignitaries got a polite, charming, perfectly ordinary version of it. This one was all tenderness, all warmth, and always just for him.
"Always," he said simply, and kissed his forehead like sealing something gently.
For a long moment, Lohen let himself just stay there, tucked against him, the ugly little bird watching them both from the desk with its mismatched eyes and its crooked beak and its general air of having weathered more than it should have.
Much like its owner.
Eventually, inevitably, Varka ruined it. "You should probably apologize to Jean."
"Absolutely not."
"She did help."
"She let an innocent woman get followed onto a rooftop's worth of surveillance," Lohen argued, not at all indignant whatsoever.
"You followed her, not Jean."
"Jean knew."
"Jean knows everything. It's practically her Vision's power."
Lohen made a noise of deep, dramatic suffering and let his head fall back against Varka's shoulder, which only made the man laugh. That big, easy, unguarded laugh. The one Lohen knew the weight of the way he knew the weight of his own spears, the one that wasn't supposed to leave the house.
It hadn't, in the end. It never had. The merchant had just been borrowing it for a good cause.
Lohen decided, magnanimously, that she could keep her teacups.
He was, however, still going to find some way to make Jean suffer for this. The merchant, too, on principle. Good cause or not, she'd still touched Varkaâs arm, still laughed at whatever charming nonsense Varka had said to keep her cooperating, and Lohen wasn't in the business of letting that go unpunished just because it had turned out to be useful. He'd think of something fitting. Later. After he'd finished deciding exactly where in their quarters the bird belonged. After some bites had been given. And after he'd stopped feeling like his own ribs were a size too small for everything currently sitting inside them.
That part, he kept to himself. Some things, even Varka didn't need to know the full shape of. Just that he was loved, apparently, down to the smallest, ugliest, most forgotten detail of him.
Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:
1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!
2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.
3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)
I hate when king arthur has all these fussy little steps in the instructions and you're like "no way do these fussy little steps matter" but you try it and they do. they matter so much.
I thought you meant Camelot quests and I was like "that's fair, 'never pick a four leaf clover on the last Wednesday of the month' IS a fussy little step that shouldn't matter" but then I was like "wait isn't that also a flour company"
