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They have a fight on Varian’s wedding night.
Well, technically they have a fight that starts the night after Varian publicly and loudly announces that he’s looking for a wife, and doesn’t end even after Bolvar has punched him in the face hard enough that Varian falls sideways into the crystal glasses pyramid.
They all break, but the staff has already run away the second Bolvar has furiously walked into the kitchens.
Varian straightens up, blinks with surprise at all the broken glass, then up at him. He doesn’t even seem to mind the red impact on his cheekbone. It’s not the first time they come to blows, but guilt still twists at Bolvar’s stomach – not enough to stop the fury over taking him though.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” he hisses through his teeth, certain that the second he unclenches them, terrible things with come out.
His hands are shaking, which is why he had them in tight fists in the first place, but Varian doesn’t care about this – has never cared about anything in his life, not when he's the king and Bolvar has taught him that he’ll obey like the dog he pretends to be.
Not tonight though. Not anymore.
“Bolvar,” says Varian, and he sounds less threatening than a minute ago. Maybe the punch has worked, or maybe he finally sees what Bolvar has been trying to tell him this entire time.
“Don’t,” he repeats, though he doesn’t know what he even means. This is all too complicated, and Varian’s cheek is red from where Bolvar has just punched him while his lips are from how he jumped at Bolvar in the kitchens and crashed their mouths together.
Bolvar can feel the beginning of a throbbing migraine coming, and he’s both too drunk to deal with this, and not nearly drunk enough.
“You need to hear me out,” says Varian.
“I need to get the fuck out of here,” replies Bolvar.
And he turns around and does just that, leaving Varian among the shattered remains of the champagne glasses, and their relationship.
***
The next day is worse, somehow. Bolvar couldn’t fathom anything more horrible and gutting than having to stand by Varian’s side in front of the Light and all of Stormwind while he promises to love and cherish some noblewoman he hadn’t known about three months prior, but somehow waking up with the knowledge that he has taken her to bed during the night proves him wrong.
He hesitates between drowning a bottle of the strong stuff or some health potion, and settles on water. He’s a paladin, he could take care of the headache and nausea and swimming stomach, if he really wanted to.
But he deserves to suffer.
He has punched Varian on his wedding night, and there is no forgiving that. He gets up slowly, the world pulsating around him, and promises to himself that he won’t even get mad when he inevitably gets sent to some stupid mission on the other side of the continent. This is all he deserves, after such a stunt.
He can only be mad at himself, is the hard truth he can’t face yet. He knew, the whole time, that Varian isn’t his. That loving someone and warming his bed almost every night and giving his life, heart and unending loyalty to him isn’t enough. Bolvar can’t give him an heir, and until some gnome comes up with a brilliant invention to do just that, Bolvar can’t have him, not really, no matter how badly he wishes things were different.
He dunks his head in cold water, the shock enough to stop his morose thought for a moment, and only comes up for air when his lungs start burning.
Drowning himself from shame and heartbreak wouldn’t be worthy of him, so he gets dressed instead, certain that everyone else in the keep will still be sleeping off the night.
He’s not wrong, the echo of his boots the only sound that accompanies him as he makes his way to the kitchen, lets a young servant prepare him a plate while never looking at him.
He plans on taking it up to his room and eating in private, but the doors to the informal royal dining room are ajar, and when he looks inside, he finds his king sitting there, looking pale and pushing his food around the same plate he was given.
He hesitates for a moment, but he’s an idiot, and already knows that. With a sigh, he walks in and closes the doors behind him, pretending he can’t see the way Varian’s eyes snap to him and how he immediately starts sitting up straighter.
Walking in a straight line is hard, but Bolvar manages, puts his plate down, sits in front of Varian while never looking at him, feeling how much his eyes burn on his face. It used to be a good burn, something that made his heart pick up during councils and important meetings, something secret, just for the two of them.
This morning though, it just seems bitter. They can look and stare and want, it doesn’t change the fact that they can’t have.
Bolvar breaks his bread, and just as he puts a piece in his mouth, Varian speaks up and turns it into ash on his tongue.
“I’m sorry for yesterday. It won’t happen again.”
“You mean attacking me.”
“I mean kissing you.”
That has Bolvar’s eyes snapping up to him while his heart shatters a little more. It’s funny, how much a heart can take. How broken it can be, and for it to still have some pieces that can still crack and splinter.
Varian’s eyes are hard, his jaw is tight, and he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. He looks like shit, but he’s still the most beautiful man Bolvar has ever seen – and the love of his life, unfortunately.
“What?” Bolvar manages to mutter between his teeth, everything in him pulling taut, like a bow about to strike.
He’s not sure if he’ll shoot Varian or break first, but it doesn’t matter, not when Varian is saying he won’t ever kiss him again.
“Loyalty is obviously very important to you,” replies Varian, and his words sound practiced, like he used to recite his speeches to Bolvar at night before going in front of his troops and tell them like it was a spur of the moment thing. He usually is talented, at pretending that his words are coming to him instead of carefully planned.
“I’m a paladin.”
“Yes, and you asked me not to approach you anymore.”
“I didn’t–”
He hasn’t, right?
For a second, as they glower at each other, the world spinning around Bolvar and his migraine, he tries to think back on the day before. Everything was a blur, and it still is. He remembers feeling empty and like none of it was real, and then he remembers the alcohol and the burning tears that wouldn’t leave the back of his eyes.
Mostly, he remembers the entire world righting itself for one, surprising second when Varian had entered the kitchens, grabbed onto his face and pushed his tongue in Bolvar’s mouth. Then reality had settled back around them, and Bolvar had pushed him away and–
“I didn’t,” he repeats, more sure of himself. “My loyalty hasn’t shifted last night, and it never will.”
It’s a bold promise, but it’s not like it’s the first time Bolvar makes it. He has made it a thousand nights before, naked and tangled up with Varian in a bed, or in the middle of a battlefield, or in the aftermath of a brutal fight, looking for him, always, his king, his best friend, his lover, something more, something there are no words for and now.
Now Bolvar blinks and abruptly looks away, down at his stupid plate that he has barely touched. The tears are back, and they are at the very edge of his eyelashes line, about to spill. It would be shameful, but they wouldn’t be the first ones since Varian’s quest for a wife has started, just the first ones he lets him see.
Would it even be that bad, to let Varian see them?
“Bolvar,” starts Varian, making him look back up, because Bolvar can’t resist him, no matter what, but he never continues. He just looks at him, his face even more tense than before, his eyes swimming with something Bolvar can’t begin to decipher, let alone name.
For a moment, that’s all they do, looking at each other without a word.
Then Varian moves, drags his hand closer to Bolvar on the table, and opens his hand, palm up, for him to take.
Bolvar looks down at his hand, then back up into his eyes. He’s hitching to take it, but it’s not his to take, not anymore.
Maybe it never was, but he refuses to think about it.
“What do you want?” he asks instead.
“I told Tiffin about us.”
***
Bolvar has never bolted in the face of danger. Never in his life, not even once.
He bolts at that sentence though, abandoning his food and the man he loves and his offered hand. He jumps to his feet, moves until he’s out of the room, and doesn’t stop until he’s in his office, of all places.
Too bad Varian runs into the room about three seconds and a half after him, banging the door closed behind him, looking at Bolvar with wide open eyes.
“Don’t you dare run away from me!” he screams, which is always the first sign of a fight, at least one instigated by Varian.
He always runs too hot, his voice getting too loud, his movement too big. He’s a passionate man, and that’s something Bolvar appreciates, up until they’re fighting and he suddenly feels cornered and like he should be feeling small.
He’s not small, and he will never let himself feel small again.
“I’ll do as I please,” he replies, glaring, hands in tight fists, trying to keep his cool in the face of the oncoming volcano.
“No you fucking won’t, not when I tell you something like that.”
“You mean when you reveal that you’ve just made a huge mistake and ruined my life?!”
“I didn’t ruin anything!”
“I can’t be the Highlord you’re fucking on the side, I won’t be, not in your wife’s eyes, not in anyone’s!”
“You’re not!” explodes Varian, but now Bolvar is getting hot tempered too, he feels it around his collar, that heat moving up from his guts, taking all the hurt and despair and turning it into something bitter that needs to come out.
He lets himself be overtaken by it, just this once, now that he doesn’t have anything left to lose.
“Fuck you!” he screams, which is pathetic, and gets Varian to take two steps closer, looking like he wants to punch him in the mouth. He should, by the Light, Bolvar wishes he would, that would make so many things easier, like hating Varian and deciding that he’s not a good man.
Alas, instead of doing this, Varian’s face suddenly softens, his eyes turn into something Bolvar can name, something that makes his heart skip a beat, and his voice turns quiet.
“I won’t let myself lose you over this,” he says as if it’s not gutting Bolvar on the spot, taking another step closer. “I told her about us because I couldn’t do what was expected of me on my wedding night.
But it’s too late. Bolvar is already fired up, has been for a while, and he has nowhere to put everything he’s feeling, except shoving them in Varian’s face.
“You should have thought about that before deciding to marry her. I told you not to do it. I begged you to stop before it was made official, but you didn’t give a shit.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he says, voice even quieter, eyes wet.
“Bullshit! You’re the king, you can do whatever you want, and I begged you,” his voice breaks, but he doesn’t stop, “but you still went on. You still married her, in front of the entire kingdom. In front of the Light. In front of me!”
“Bolvar,” tries Varian, coming even closer, grabbing his right hand in his, trying for soothing, but there’s a lump in Bolvar’s throat and his tears have started to spill, and he can’t stop even if he wanted to.
“I had to stand there and watch you become her husband.” He stops, tries to swallow, knows he shouldn’t say those words outloud, not when it wouldn’t help anyone. Not when it would just hurt them both even more, but he can’t stop. “It should have been me. You should be mine.”
Varian’s free hand immediately reaches up to cup his face. “I am,” he says, brushing his thumb over Bolvar’s cheekbone. “I am. I always will be.”
“Bullshit,” Bolvar bites back, trying to turn his face away, but Varian holds him right where he is.
“I am,” he repeats, looking deep into his eyes, “just like you are.”
“You shouldn’t have married her, then,” he replies, taking a step back, Varian’s hands drifting off of him.
For a second, they simply stand there.
Then Varian tries to kiss him, because he always does, and Bolvar has to take another step back, and another, just to make sure.
“You’re right,” he forces himself to say, but somehow it feels good to grab the knife in his heart and twist it himself for once, “we shouldn’t kiss anymore.”
“Bolvar, please.”
But Bolvar doesn’t answer. He simply turns his back to him, and waits until Varian leaves his office. Only then, does he collapse where he stands, and contemplates what he just did.
The fight is finally over.