[Viktor's smirk is assured, but he wobbles his head in a slightly bashful manner. This moles, huh? His body changed all over, turning such distinctive markings across his skin into freckles of gold or silver bolts. On his face, he still had the two most obvious marks, the one beneath his eye and the one above his lip. They're easy to pepper attention to, so very obvious in their placement. That Jayce appreciates them is sweet, that does make him feel... human, still. He likes that feeling, it helps ground him, holds him in place with the gratitude of still being able to feel fully.
He adjusts his legs and lifts up from kneeling besides that chair. Jayce is hoist up with him, held beneath his butt and braced between his shoulders by an open palm. The man does have some weight to him again, which is a good sign. That he's not so withered away to just skin and bone.]
Of course you like this. I get to carry you back to our bed.
[While they could just keep being grossly intimate with one another here, Viktor is sure that Jayce also needs rest. You know, after they have their fill of each other for affection. He will just begin walking on that way, this having become something of a pattern now. Because of that, he must joke,]
This time, we can stay a mess. [make a much worse mess of each other, even, who knows, such possibilities are endless]
[ there is a bit to unpack there and at the same time, it's been so long envisioned, jayce can only see viktor through a lovestruck lense. ]
I like this, [ as if viktor too, did not in some way bask in his new form and capacity. jayce shakes his head, all the while his lips lightly curl enough to flash his front teeth and gap during his own jest. our bed. well, yes, they've been sharing one since the very first night of their arrival. it's the first time it's been referred to as theirs and jayce's fondness over the fact shines through like rays of sunlight through the holes of tattered drapes.
viktor is just being . . . charming, and jayce cannot help the combination of smirking and staring, holding viktor over the shoulder and allowing his legs to hang off the carry. unnecessary. uncalled for. but jayce chews on the inside of his lip, looks far more enraptured than he does humiliated. ]
If you're not careful, I'll get used to this.
[ there'd been so much responsibility shoved to his shoulders over the years, so much leadership he'd never asked for— it was nice to be allowed some respite, featherlight in his most beloved's arms instead. ]
[Viktor says as a simple assertion. Do it. There's no effort stopping him. As much as Jayce wishes to get carried around, Viktor would outstretch both arms to indulge him.
Because Viktor does enjoy this, yes, the capability of this new body and all the strength it afforded. Viktor would have replaced every part of himself with machine to achieve this kind of outcome. Still himself, but no longer held back by circumstance and poor health. In some twisted way, this place had given him everything he'd wanted for himself, through horror and abrupt change.
He's not arguing with the results. Especially not with Jayce held up in his arms,]
I'm not letting you out of my arms for a while. As a fair warning to you. [he doesn't suspect Jayce wants to get far from him anyways. They have a bed to warm up together. One not far now, Viktor's now very long strides move them quickly to and through the Convoy.]
[ jayce lifts his brows in mock concern, but the shimmer stained slight show of teeth and gap is a giveaway to the sheer lack of it. oh, goodness him. perhaps viktor was right in that: he will gladly get used to this. they are the only arms that could ground him enough to experience something positive from this forced change to his biology. no matter, no matter— jayce had a tendency to loosened screws when his concerns amounted to viktor. waving off the hexcore's murder of skye in favor of viktor's life was a flag to his instability. the ravine penalized him for that. what of this, though—? is he allowed to overlook the reality of his shattering humanity for this?
just this once. he could clutch the reason he's even fought to stay alive all these years for a semblance of happiness. ]
Pretty sure that approximates to a hostage situation, V.
[ does he look like he's complaining? no. he looks absolutely smitten. ]
[Viktor, don't just say it like that. Come on, man. He's not really a literature guy, but he knows the one about the beast and the stolen bride. Or princess. Something like that.
He gets to their Convoy room door and just kicks it open with a smooth gesture. Truly Viktor has had the limiters on his entire life. He would have been such a menace to society if he'd been able to kick open doors before.]
[ good thing jayce was joking, but he has to push the remaining air in his lungs right out into a snort after that one. ]
I've always wanted to be held hostage by our work, you know.
[ back when the council had started to wrap their claws around him for funding and using his image. his stress was over top, then. how he wished to just go back to the lab and do something productive instead of, like. choosing presentation banner colors. or listen to them argue. and don't get him started on hexgate security, he'd barely had time to even fantisize about being back in the lab. in fact, it would sometimes hurt to think of it. to think of viktor. he should've allowed himself to feel more, even if it would be pain. pain makes it mean something.
right. but enough of that. present. not past. besides that, jayce grips viktor's shoulder plates and begins to chuckle under his breath. he's not daft enough to tell viktor to not. please. when's he eve kicked down a door? jayce supports his wrongs. keep going. he's not the fun police. ]
I'll just have to do as a substitute for our work, then.
[He's not so brutish to knock the door off it's hinges, but he did kick the door open- and he'll kick it right back closed! The lock jostles at that and clicks shut behind them. Viktor can only think good, glad the mechanism is on their side. He just wants to be locked up with Jayce a while, a mutual hostage taking and having situation.
Jayce is set very gingerly down onto the mattress. There's some hypocrisy in how Viktor is treating him so fragile and precious, when he'd have kicked Jayce for doing the same to him. They have different sensibilities, that's all. Viktor wants to dote on the man as much as he's allowed to, even if he's a bit clumsy at it. His hands aren't letting go of the man, shifting from where they were needed to keep him supported upright to trailing around his sides. Testing and exploring his newly revived form, so much less withered and ghoulish than it had been during his decline,]
[ for the sake of continued joking: he welcomes you, stockholm syndrome.
the plush hug of the cushioning under jayce welcomes his backside, and the view is . . . rather stunning. he enjoys looking up, just as much as getting shoved down the line. there's a time for everything, though— and jayce invites the proximate distance, spreading the fasten of his knees enough to appeal to slotting himself closer. he loops his hands under the curve of viktor's palms in a gentle brush until they find the lateral bends of his torso down to his hips. jayce does the same, looping arms around viktor's neck sloping down his arms. nodding, slow: ]
Never have been.
[ he's. brimming, with energy. he was hot and vibrating at his core. pulsing with renewed life force. hyperresponsive, alert— as if all of his senses have amplified to their topmost. even the inorganic matter the pads of his fingertips chart across had a sleek, echoing texture to it. it makes his eyelids twitch when the hum grows, but it's not . . . bad. just loud. smooth. blazing. ]
[Jayce's hands exploring his form is welcome, if curious to Viktor about as much as to the other man. There is an energy buzzing beneath the plating of his new skin. He answers as best he can, considering how to describe it.]
There is sensation, it is simply... different. There are sparks running below where you touch, reacting with slight delay. It isn't dull or numb, quite the contrary. Highly... electric.
[All very interesting, really. Viktor wonders what is so distinct about it, and thinks it might be that gentle and firm touch produce very similar sensations for him now. They are equalized at an odd middle, light touch is felt acutely and rough touch is felt without discomfort. He's tougher, sturdier, but also more sensitive to anything he touches.
Well, except for when he was being fed on. That was definitely intense and... definitely pleasurable. His inner workings have a broader range of sensation than his outer shell, maybe. Feels strange to think about.]
Kissing you feels just as it should. [no different in his face, after all. That's a blessing for the time being. If the mask returned, that would probably be a different matter, but for now he is still human there.
He double checks this claim by kissing Jayce again, lingering at the man's lips with careful consideration. He's studying. Yep. That's how a kiss should feel, alright. Noted.]
[ it is curious to consider but all the more thrilling to perform exercises on. it all holds about the same amount of charge they'd get from their early discoveries, if not more. how . . . fun, and simple, those were. jayce listens and takes his own notes, both on what viktor describes as much as what he personally feels (any sparking? thrums? he could feel it following his fingers). he's allowing his hands to tread lightly, but considers, just as lips approach his, that the pressure exerted from his palms could benefit from a change.
jayce feels now, eyes closed and kneading the bumps, dips and irregular grooves with lethargic, analyzing progress. the light click of parting lips has jayce knocking his head forward with low words and electric suggestion. ]
I think our data's insufficient.
[ they clearly need to kiss more. he needs another, and sneaks a second and third brush to the corners of viktor's lips, the last of the cluster upon his mole. they could vary weights and pressures, wet or dry, different angles, different spots. jayce's tongue swipes over the shine of his mouth and stray whiskers before he begins his next kissing endeavor: a languid, damp invite, face tipped sideways and inhaling the scent of his partner inside his cheek. he could count the gaps of space following viktor's canines on each side, and how he'd curl his tongue to him. phenominal, how it lights up every sensory synapse.
touch doesn't stop there, his palms have made it to his slender abdomen and narrowed hips, testing the bolts and bars on the way down. there are fissures, above and in the sockets of his femurs decked in gold and twined with purple— how far in did those go? what were the limits of the symmetrical golden rods of what used to be his hip bones? jayce's fingers test every slip he could find and probes within, carefully, gently, until the very last rim of space available to him is found. that, or if he's given signals to abort. ]
[Jayce, please, those pinch points are not going to be good if Viktor moves in the slightest. He stills very much to have Jayce exploring those joints. He bats rather fussily at Jayce digging fingers anywhere they might get stuck or, god forbid, sheered-]
You're being a hazard to yourself, Jayce.
[Viktor grasps both the man's hands by the wrists and pulls them up to his face. He leans into the touch of thumbs to his skin and Jayce's other fingers to where metal began. One of Jayce's palms will get a couple slow kisses, while they're guided there.
Viktor trails his lips to tentatively press to his wrist, where the acceleration rune was bonded into his skin, webbed by patterns of the anomaly. Even if it represented rot, Viktor will dote on it, because that same anomaly could heal Jayce if fed. He's as resentful of it as he is grateful.]
[ if there were any, jayce could count them on a hand. maybe shredding his hands in viktor was the true way he wanted to go. but, fine! he'll respect the fun police! (this is all a joke). despite jayce's quite desperate want to touch and be touched, he respects this limit once breached— and once he got to see, briefly, that little wrinkle at the bridge of viktor's nose that would've likely followed him getting lightly wacked with his cane. jayce's restless hands are successfully led back on course, distracted by devout kisses in his palms and to his embedded wrist. the chill of stone isn't found— its quite warm, in fact, as hot as jayce was, rooted in the veins saturated with nutriment. the bit of contact raises the hairs on his arms and goes up his neck, ripples across his chest under his simple garage-found clothes. a bit of anexaggerated response, but— it's nice. ]
You used to require some convincing. [of which Viktor provided, because he is also a risk magnet. Had to be, to get anywhere in his life. Push boundaries was for science, though, not for one another.... not when they already pushed back against death itself.
Viktor takes Jayce's hand and presses it to the center of his chest, where the brace he once wore for his back had fused into metal and gold. The metal stranding there have the illusion of sinewy muscle, but there were gaps giving way to the interior. Wiring and pumps, self installed, run by batteries he picked up from scavenging. It buzzes more than it beats, but there is a pulsing to what Viktor replaced his heart with. For some reason, he wants Jayce to hear it and feel it beneath his palm,]
I upgraded the replacement I made. Rechargeable batteries, easier maintenance. [he's running on scraps and wit and raw desperation, but when hadn't he been? Viktor thinks he should feel much more different than he does and yet he doesn't. Augmenting his body was routine for him, this is just more dramatic.]
If only I had a hexgem, I would have used that. Would have been... more fitting, perhaps.
[ may it serve you well, jayce. if only it were so fucking simple.
ever since his most recent retreat from having his hooves on the edge of a building's open floor eight stories up, jayce has crashed, and crashed, and crashed— every time from something he couldn't wrap his head around, and when he did, it came with a flurry of emotions that were too untamed to swallow and keep down before the bile rose to his mouth. for one, he is alive. lets start with that: a warm tan to his skin that nearly brings a sunny glow to him. no open wounds, no putrid stenches, no disgusting sound following him. just a small limp, and much more sensitivity to his nerves. they fire off at the smallest of stimuli, where brushes become grabs and temperature either feels too hot or too cold. he actually feels it. he still cannot enter the sunlight's domain, either, so night is when he continues his activities (which didn't really amount to anything other than pacing or hitting things, or.....). but the first time after the occurance that he catches his reflection while washing the stains and peeling away the now dry, anomaly-webbed velvet on his half-rack of antlers, he stares at it a good long while, and what remained of purple smudges under his beard . . . and feels sick. not enough to lose his meal, but enough that he must sit, and keep his head close to a container, just in case.
how he came to be was the worst offender, and something he thinks about for about two days straight, no pauses. minimal contact. frustrated pacing and moments of heated bugling, silent sobbing or just a numb sort of stare at the moon. he should be turning that thing inside and out. studying the history and racing down variables in equations to find a way to replicate what it had done. he can't. he fucking can't concentrate on anything else. because every beat within his chest was a ghost haunting him. every hush of the wind or the rattle of tree branches is a huff, or laugh, when he remembered how it was. every chill was a gaze that cut through him, and the pain within him an insurmountable hole that could never be replaced and ached at the absence just as much as the harm done. it made jayce feel insignificant. it made him feel like a project, like the very dead thing he was— with no way back. no salvation. no fixing. only the key to wind him up again and force him to clatter to his doomsdays being by being forcibly slammed into his back.
jayce would evaluate, flip it around, reevaluate, twist and turn it and wonders if he could've done anything differently to change the outcome. he mulls over his words over and over, overthinking as he does best. whether or not he comes to a reasonable conclusion is out of his grasp; what's done is done. he cannot undo viktor popping his own bloodbag open. he cannot undo his hope to linger rather than fall. he couldn't stop himself from consuming every drop of it like a starving animal. he could not have stopped viktor from stabbing his heart so much its wounds keep bleeding, in the form of distrust. in the form of making two choices for him— the same way jayce had done to viktor. he let him go, sent him off. hurt him in a way jayce never thought he'd hear with his own ears, and then— as if on schedule, he interrupts at jayce's lowest. he waited thirty fucking days to help him, or that's, at least, what jayce had thought it was. until viktor slid blades between his ribs and twisted the hilt.
is fate real, he wonders? did he run himself into a loop he couldn't escape from? is it laughing at them? playing this sick, twisted little game of turning tables and switching roles until either side was battered and bruised beyond proper performance? was this karma? did he deserve all of this? part of jayce comes to the ready denouement that yes, this was all somehow his fault. that yes, he deserved it. he deserved it for not letting viktor go when he had the chance to. he deserved it for making him into a walking anomaly, for taking his choices, for breaking his promises. the world could've been saved, then. they could've avoided everything, even this. so . . . why the fuck can he still not fathom that answer?
jayce knows why, even if his incredulity keeps him from personally seeking viktor out on his first, terrible, horrible, no good very bad day of soaking in the consequences of his love. he's not ready to look into his eyes without fracturing under his beauty, one more time, and running the risk of being ground into dust. so . . . when would he be ready—? on the evening of the second day, jayce sits in his truck, only a little calmer but getting crimped when he was trying to come up with schematics for a cane and couldn't stop thinking about viktor's as a base. because that also came with thinking about viktor.
are they better off apart? jayce thinks about it. the world would be safer. maybe. they wouldn't hurt each other so much. and he wouldn't . . . have this impassible urge to crawl back to him, either. it's fiddling with the radio and getting viktor's softspoken accent out of it that quiets him. what were only a few curious minutes became hours. of a nostalgia he wishes he could hug onto tightly. never let it go. go back to. it's hearing himself when viktor needed him, buring his face in his hands and squeezing his knuckles into his eyes. it's— hearing the mage, one more time, that he realizes something.
and so, without really thinking much of it, fingers twitching— he seeks viktor. ]
[The days disappear for Viktor. More time lost. What was once his most precious and limited asset, now time feels like an enemy to him. Time drags moment to moment, emotional emptiness clashes against spikes of intensity. There is no balance, only swings, nothing to overwhelming and back again in instants. Playing out in his mind in uneven gusts of wind, in storms that cannot be predicted. No pendulum, no carried momentum between moments, just chaotic highs and lows.
The first thing to bring him peace in those days after drugging Jayce is... Jayce. It's always Jayce, of course it is. Viktor was keeping his distance, whether that was out of respect or disrespect didn't matter. It was what he was doing. Then, trying to move his truck to a new spot to recharge the battery, it came on the radio.
Jayce's voice, youthful and enthused. Naive. Ecstatic. Viktor's in turn, arguing through hypothesis, interpreting data sets. They sound like different people, but they were. The them of the past playing out in sound waves and crackling interference would not recognize the them of the present moment. They are far too metamorphosized, changed, and twisted. They would be seen as devils to the men on the radio.
Yet, it is a strange comfort to remember being those men. Once, they were hungry merely with ambition. Viktor can disassociate himself back to that time. Can wear those clothes no longer quite his size. He can pretend and he can dream of their dream again.
His truck is quiet, but the radio is playing loud. Chattering. Yapping away. It doesn't matter what is being said, it's like rain pattering on windows, comforting noise. Viktor has the back of the greenhouse trunk wide open so the plants can get fresher air from the night beyond the windows. Viktor is laid out flat in the bed of the dirt, surrounded on all sides by the bits of nature he could sustain. It smells nice, like wet soil and cold greenery. A small oasis. He cannot sleep, but it is as mellow as he has been since his re-arrival. Listening to Jayce talk to him in another time, another place, another version of themselves... it's escapism. He just wants to escape.
He will cant his head when he notices an approach, but even for the Jayce of now, he only slumps back into place. Laid out on his back, looking upward at the night sky through a misty pane of glass. He speaks, quiet and trying to take on the character of his voice before he became so distorted. Viktor nearly succeeds,]
Jayce? Do you need a place to lay down? [there is room besides him, if Jayce isn't going to fuss about the chill or dampness of the soil. Viktor needs it, his body too warm as it overclocks itself trying to heal from so much sacrificed blood,]
[ at first, jayce doesn't say a word. first thought: fuck you. gods, fuck you. he should go off but his nose twitches from a frown. his shadow from the moon's near blue glow only hands in front of the open back seat, his own bleak hesitation being put on brazen display. it was too dangerous and far too soon to take him up on that offer. every part of jayce's intellect bellows at him to stay standing, at the very least take the edge of the vehicle to rest his hooves (there is no longer a particularly "bad leg", but two bad legs with one overcompensating for the worse one). he doesn't need to remain distant, but there does need to be a limit. a line drawn. after everything, the voice makes his ears flip low—
and his heart skip.
the crackling white noise of their past drifting in and out of frequency stirs another beat in him that squeezes his chest so tightly he doesn't know if he's seconds from prancing or screaming— that viktor had been doing the same thing he was was a daunting revelation to seal the doubt boiling as much as make the base of his own recent musings solidify under any more of it: they're both hurting. and he doesn't want this wedge between them.
another thing worth noting is jayce's inability to stay rationally mad at viktor on sight. he made the mistake of staring, perhaps too long at the curve of his cheekbones and the bob of his neck as he spoke in an almost familiar way. the pang of guilt when jayce could not see the beautiful gold he himself had taken away from such a sharp, striking gaze. with both mind and body at war, jayce forces discipline. firmness. he will stay where he is.
his brain is on high alert; it tallies his wounds. it replays betrayal, it replicates how it felt perfectly, to the point that the whispers ring true: this was a bad idea.
and yet, the body has been directly and seductively spoken to. it speaks to the yearning, the starvation he suffers not in blood but in familiarity and warmth. it targets the animal, the stag that begins to twitch at the waft of scents, of the half man's musk and the bed of soil, lush crispness of fresh greens. it's too heavy in the air. he can even feel his vision turn sharper as his pupils swell, as viktor's words keep repeating and bypass every warning signal jayce had put up, destroying every planned action he's meticulously routed on his way over. something deep and purring chuckles in his chest and up his throat with no humor attached. it's not a man-made sound.
jayce's body begins to move before he can even command himself to stop. his gut clenches and releases all at once— and he lays in the cool earthy bed next to his former partner, in surrender and self-destruction, all in one silent breath. it doesn't feel like a triumph, that, he can say with certainty. ]
[The greenhouse is crowded with the stunted plants capable of growing under such conditions. Water pipes are engineered masterfully to fit efficiently in the space, winding and creating a sprinkler system above and a filtration system below for water conservation. The electric engine doesn't make much for noise, but the water system babbles within the ducts and trickles from the ceiling, a simulacrum of brooks and gentle rain fall.
Voices chatter through the radio crackle, louder than all of it. Still, the peaceful atmosphere fills the gaps between words, speaks within the thoughtful pauses of the past.
Viktor's eyes alone follow Jayce, as he crawls his way into the space to join him. It had been quite a while, both back home and in this place alike, that they laid side-by-side. The roving greenhouse feels more like a glass coffin than ever, the two laid to rest as a pair. Something in Viktor aches at that idea, with yearning melancholy and loathsome desire. Why can't he be more rational than this-? Jayce had once inspired that part in him, only to now destroy it with his mere presence.
He breathes in despite not needing to, the instinct simply there. Jayce no longer reeks of rot. Not that the insectoid Viktor minded that one bit beyond how concerning for Jayce he found it. His shoulders were tense when the man first approached, but they slack at his sides, Viktor remains flat on his back and looks directly upward, through the glass ceiling, rather than to his partner at his side,]
... nice weather we're having.
[He might be molded into a being not fully machine, nor bug, nor man... but even that won't take Viktor's dry sense of humor from him. Some parts of him even death cannot steal away.]
[ oh, viktor. fuck you, too. twice over. thrice over. that pains jayce in a way that an almost surprised huff swiftly hushes past the spaces of his teeth. he doesn't think to speak his heart back, his hands folding awkwardly over his chest where his heart beats to remind him, of the bittersweet past that now weaves both nostalgic yearning and bitter harm that is slipping from jayce's death grip with each blaring trickle of water working through the pipes.
he couldn't let him go, he couldn't even bring himself to stay away, and now the warmth from jayce's body that felt like a radiating furnace against the cool earth embracing his back reaches out through his stiffness, a silent invitation he wants to take back in his hands and rip to shreds. hopefully, the air doesn't get heavy. it's too bad that it was already loaded with aura, tension and humiliating need. jayce can smell so much more than the plants. ]
Yeah. [ the cervid ear between them flips in viktor's direction, his voice curling dry, but also . . . wrapped in something else. ] You were always good at picking the scenery.
[ the compliment, if you could call it that, sat just like a bruise: soft along the edges yet exposed and tender, painful in the way jayce ears fold back quickly and the tail between his legs tucks in. he tries to shift his legs, one into a bend to hide the fact, hide his involuntary body language that speaks faster just as much as louder. a shadow of humor lays there, but the way his eyes slide to viktor’s profile ruins the joke.
the words hang, warm and wounded all at once, and he hates how much he means them. ]
Edited (im sorry i just woke up) Date: 2025-08-13 11:38 am (UTC)
[Viktor's eyes first shift to see Jayce tilt himself, to look back at him rather than the sky above. He thinks to not engage, to not indulge, but fails his own resolve. With a slow swivel and then a slack thud into the soil, Viktor looks fully sidelong to Jayce. His pearlescent eyes are dull in night time, the moon's glow filtered through foggy glass and the shade of leaves. Jayce might believe they're playing tricks on him, that color and illumination is conspiring to make them appear more honey toned than they are.
As Jayce understands it, as a bruise, Viktor's voice asks with tenderness,]
What do you mean by that?
[it sounds like Viktor, like the old days. The radio practically sounds like it's speaking through him, with less hiss around the edges. Perhaps so much listening to his old self could let Viktor mimic it, to act out a role he used to play well. A retired mask, the Assistant to the Dean of the Academy. It hadn't been enough for him, he had bigger aspirations, he could not be content as he was.
The tone is gentle, not accusatory, not harsh. Just curious. Prying. Hopeful towards the promise of knowledge, of understanding better how Jayce's mind works, of what he's thinking.
Viktor used to have a sense of wonder, after all. In this moment, it's not gone from him.]
[ jayce tries another time not to react as much as he does, but his entire rewired biology keeps him from doing such a thing. cervids are reactive by nature. his ears flip, both direct themselves forward in viktor's direction, the fur lining it quivering with his gaze caught in headlights before he could have the fighting chance at prying them away. it matters not how viktor's eyes were, whether they were reminders of the missed past or the bittersweet present— they would always enrapture him.
jayce breathes in, words catch on his tongue like they're not sure which way they want to cut, and losing the presumed edge they'd have by the minute. jayce breathes them out anyway, low and refined with a ghost of warmth that refuses to die. a briefly darting gaze sliding down and back up. something feels . . . bitter, on his tongue. he stares at viktor now with diminished distance, enticed like a moth to a flame— and knowing he's been caught in the pyre. or, perhaps, what he's always wanted: he just wants viktor back. his partner. his desire does not change. he wished he could be the same man viktor needed— but could he?
jayce was always a terrible liar. honesty, it is. ]
Means you can make anywhere feel like somewhere I'd want to stay. [ it sounds, for a heartbeat, like something tender. Like he's talking about those nights when the two of them made the most unremarkable corners of piltover into places worth remembering. a workshop floor littered with tools and half-finished dreams. but the weight in his voice says the rest: ] Even when I know better.
[ he's talking about now, too, about the places viktor's pulled him back into against his better judgment. things that he could not fathom pretending they didn't happen. it would hurt him all the more. his ears fold flat in the next breath, the tail's twitch betraying the fact he wishes he could swallow the words whole.
but if viktor is receptive to speaking with him, then . . . should they not try to speak? it's not as if jayce wanted this interference. it was more of an . . . inevitability, given their circumstances and choices. hadn't he, after all— done the same to viktor? ]
[Viktor's eyes follow after Jayce's, the rest of him unmoving, only watching and mirroring his partner's gaze. Viktor's arms are folded just beneath his ribs, just beneath hole still blown through his chest and out his back. The heart within doesn't beep with the sad overload or safety mode indicator. At peace, for the time being, at equilibrium of energy. It doesn't beat so much as hum with nearly silent battery operation,
The heart in Jayce's chest is louder, an organic reminder of the humanity they once shared,]
You can stay here a while, Jayce... as you like.
[Viktor had welcomed him, after all. A time and place to just lay down. A respite, an oasis in the desolate landscape around them. Perhaps more fitting, a terrarium for their cruel experimentation. It doesn't matter how one sees it, not really.
Metaphors fail to distract Viktor from the wrongness of his joy. To lay beside Jayce is ill deserved. Another thing he knows full well and yet does not care to uphold the righteousness of.]
We have much knowledge that our better senses ignore, don't we?
[ It is more a reminder of Viktor to Jayce, every single waking minute that drives him into an obsessing madness. His heart was Viktor's heart, pattering against his ribs and the most palpable against the spot where he lacked a sternum. it would take him back to that day his former pump was ripped from his chest. To the few days ago, when he'd rather die than give up on something . . . so hopeless. It wouldn't be the first time, that'd be certain. The thought cuts deep, feels cruel. ]
Yeah. I'm still here listening, for one.
[ And— Craving, to the point that he curls his fingers into fists and stiffles some sort of grunt. His damn tail flicks, and the most he could do is ignore it. Alas (or not?), he's not exactly known for giving up on questionable endeavors. But plenty of things feel cruel to him, as of late. But Viktor is not pushing him away. Jayce leans into it, trailing his eyes lower to the cups of Viktor's nimble hands. The air between them is not the same and Jayce fears it never would be again. Still— Jayce nods wordlessly, shifting his body sideways to adjust where his antlers catch, in dirt and a stray, leafy vine. To face Viktor meant that his broken antler was too short to scrape the bedding. It meant that he could challenge eye contact, even though his voice and gaze are nowhere near as severe as they could be. ]
[Jayce moves to look more sidelong at him. Viktor thinks he should remain as he is. Back to the truck, eyes easily up and away, distant and uneffective.
He rolls onto his side, the gesture a mirror to Jayce leaning in towards him. No helping it, it just happens to him. Viktor lays looking to Jayce fully, arching his elbows and laying both his hands close by his own face. One, knuckles down and fingers curled loosely. The other, fingertips sunk down into the soil, as if kneading it for comfort. He gives Jayce a look, a well trod one, a familiar one,
Flippant, his tone is that of "of course not",]
You don't listen to me.
[That same tone says "and you shouldn't", knowing his troublesome and reckless ways back in the lab, he was always the one insisting on the less reserved course of action. Jayce was the more hesitant one, wasn't he? The more measured one, in his own ways, if no less driven by scientific obsession than Viktor...]
[ jayce doesn't know if it's the retort that freezes him in place, or the way viktor lays before him. the pearly iridescence of his gaze, or the reminder of the promise he'd broken. both sink into his bones with devastating efficiency, until he was stripped bare, his lips barely holding together and his ears immediately pulling back. jayce was already expressive, but having ears and a tail just about dooms his chances of hiding what he feels. with his lungs witholding his breath, jayce's stare hangs between them— partially hurt from the truth that bore, and partially objective. ]
That's not fair, [ his voice wavers. rough. salt burns in his wounds. ] I did listen. When you explained things to me, when you gave me the chance— I did—
[ he listened when he was going to end himself the first time. he . . . didn't listen when the council started working in. when he was supposed to destroy the hexcore. when he wasn't supposed to weaponize hextech—
he listened when viktor, old and grey at the edge of the earth with only his jayce's statue still corpse to remind him of all his failures, rotting in an endless loop of time— he listened when the same viktor warned him of the arcane's seduction.
and now, jayce just finds himself in the same, messy ditch. in the same turbulence. his ears keep slanted back, folded as the background noise of their conversations fill the void in his chest. talk about naming their creations. hex here, hex there—
there's a pattern, in all of this. ]
I always made my worst decisions when we were apart.
We are well past fairness. We both made our choices, Jayce.
[for worst or for better or for somewhere in between, they've done what they've done. No erasing that, not without leaving the hurt for others to bare in their stead. Viktor turned away the chance to do that, would lay with the burden weighing on him. A phantom pain ever present within his empty chest.
Hex here, hex there... their voices of the past laugh through better and worse names for their inventions. Viktor's insisting on simplicity, four letter words where they can. Hex gate, Hex claw, Hex core... Jayce makes fun of him for being so basic. Atlas Gauntlets has so much more flare! ...]
I've been- trying to understand your decisions. I've always understood the fear of helpless inaction. We both prefer to regret what we did, over what we did not do.
[he thinks he knows you, Jayce. Is still grasping onto that knowledge, however hesitantly. Maybe he's lost sight of what he once knew. Maybe Jayce is also not the person that he thought he was...]
Better to try and fail than not try... and yet, we didn't consider the agony that success could bring.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
March- NSFW w/ @backshots
Date: 2025-03-17 04:11 pm (UTC)[Viktor's smirk is assured, but he wobbles his head in a slightly bashful manner. This moles, huh? His body changed all over, turning such distinctive markings across his skin into freckles of gold or silver bolts. On his face, he still had the two most obvious marks, the one beneath his eye and the one above his lip. They're easy to pepper attention to, so very obvious in their placement. That Jayce appreciates them is sweet, that does make him feel... human, still. He likes that feeling, it helps ground him, holds him in place with the gratitude of still being able to feel fully.
He adjusts his legs and lifts up from kneeling besides that chair. Jayce is hoist up with him, held beneath his butt and braced between his shoulders by an open palm. The man does have some weight to him again, which is a good sign. That he's not so withered away to just skin and bone.]
Of course you like this. I get to carry you back to our bed.
[While they could just keep being grossly intimate with one another here, Viktor is sure that Jayce also needs rest. You know, after they have their fill of each other for affection. He will just begin walking on that way, this having become something of a pattern now. Because of that, he must joke,]
This time, we can stay a mess. [make a much worse mess of each other, even, who knows, such possibilities are endless]
glorious backshots
Date: 2025-03-17 09:03 pm (UTC)I like this, [ as if viktor too, did not in some way bask in his new form and capacity. jayce shakes his head, all the while his lips lightly curl enough to flash his front teeth and gap during his own jest. our bed. well, yes, they've been sharing one since the very first night of their arrival. it's the first time it's been referred to as theirs and jayce's fondness over the fact shines through like rays of sunlight through the holes of tattered drapes.
viktor is just being . . . charming, and jayce cannot help the combination of smirking and staring, holding viktor over the shoulder and allowing his legs to hang off the carry. unnecessary.
uncalled for. but jayce chews on the inside of his lip, looks far more enraptured than he does humiliated. ]
If you're not careful, I'll get used to this.
[ there'd been so much responsibility shoved to his shoulders over the years, so much leadership he'd never asked for— it was nice to be allowed some respite, featherlight in his most beloved's arms instead. ]
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Date: 2025-03-17 10:12 pm (UTC)[Viktor says as a simple assertion. Do it. There's no effort stopping him. As much as Jayce wishes to get carried around, Viktor would outstretch both arms to indulge him.
Because Viktor does enjoy this, yes, the capability of this new body and all the strength it afforded. Viktor would have replaced every part of himself with machine to achieve this kind of outcome. Still himself, but no longer held back by circumstance and poor health. In some twisted way, this place had given him everything he'd wanted for himself, through horror and abrupt change.
He's not arguing with the results. Especially not with Jayce held up in his arms,]
I'm not letting you out of my arms for a while. As a fair warning to you. [he doesn't suspect Jayce wants to get far from him anyways. They have a bed to warm up together. One not far now, Viktor's now very long strides move them quickly to and through the Convoy.]
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Date: 2025-03-18 01:01 pm (UTC)just this once. he could clutch the reason he's even fought to stay alive all these years for a semblance of happiness. ]
Pretty sure that approximates to a hostage situation, V.
[ does he look like he's complaining? no. he looks absolutely smitten. ]
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Date: 2025-03-18 03:25 pm (UTC)[Viktor, don't just say it like that. Come on, man. He's not really a literature guy, but he knows the one about the beast and the stolen bride. Or princess. Something like that.
He gets to their Convoy room door and just kicks it open with a smooth gesture. Truly Viktor has had the limiters on his entire life. He would have been such a menace to society if he'd been able to kick open doors before.]
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Date: 2025-03-18 03:47 pm (UTC)I've always wanted to be held hostage by our work, you know.
[ back when the council had started to wrap their claws around him for funding and using his image. his stress was over top, then. how he wished to just go back to the lab and do something productive instead of, like. choosing presentation banner colors. or listen to them argue. and don't get him started on hexgate security, he'd barely had time to even fantisize about being back in the lab. in fact, it would sometimes hurt to think of it. to think of viktor. he should've allowed himself to feel more, even if it would be pain. pain makes it mean something.
right. but enough of that. present. not past. besides that, jayce grips viktor's shoulder plates and begins to chuckle under his breath. he's not daft enough to tell viktor to not. please. when's he eve kicked down a door? jayce supports his wrongs. keep going. he's not the fun police. ]
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Date: 2025-03-18 04:20 pm (UTC)[He's not so brutish to knock the door off it's hinges, but he did kick the door open- and he'll kick it right back closed! The lock jostles at that and clicks shut behind them. Viktor can only think good, glad the mechanism is on their side. He just wants to be locked up with Jayce a while, a mutual hostage taking and having situation.
Jayce is set very gingerly down onto the mattress. There's some hypocrisy in how Viktor is treating him so fragile and precious, when he'd have kicked Jayce for doing the same to him. They have different sensibilities, that's all. Viktor wants to dote on the man as much as he's allowed to, even if he's a bit clumsy at it. His hands aren't letting go of the man, shifting from where they were needed to keep him supported upright to trailing around his sides. Testing and exploring his newly revived form, so much less withered and ghoulish than it had been during his decline,]
... Are you still feeling much better?
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Date: 2025-03-18 08:24 pm (UTC)the plush hug of the cushioning under jayce welcomes his backside, and the view is . . . rather stunning. he enjoys looking up, just as much as getting shoved down the line. there's a time for everything, though— and jayce invites the proximate distance, spreading the fasten of his knees enough to appeal to slotting himself closer. he loops his hands under the curve of viktor's palms in a gentle brush until they find the lateral bends of his torso down to his hips. jayce does the same, looping arms around viktor's neck sloping down his arms. nodding, slow: ]
Never have been.
[ he's. brimming, with energy. he was hot and vibrating at his core. pulsing with renewed life force. hyperresponsive, alert— as if all of his senses have amplified to their topmost. even the inorganic matter the pads of his fingertips chart across had a sleek, echoing texture to it. it makes his eyelids twitch when the hum grows, but it's not . . . bad. just loud. smooth. blazing. ]
How much of this do you feel?
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Date: 2025-03-18 10:28 pm (UTC)There is sensation, it is simply... different. There are sparks running below where you touch, reacting with slight delay. It isn't dull or numb, quite the contrary. Highly... electric.
[All very interesting, really. Viktor wonders what is so distinct about it, and thinks it might be that gentle and firm touch produce very similar sensations for him now. They are equalized at an odd middle, light touch is felt acutely and rough touch is felt without discomfort. He's tougher, sturdier, but also more sensitive to anything he touches.
Well, except for when he was being fed on. That was definitely intense and... definitely pleasurable. His inner workings have a broader range of sensation than his outer shell, maybe. Feels strange to think about.]
Kissing you feels just as it should. [no different in his face, after all. That's a blessing for the time being. If the mask returned, that would probably be a different matter, but for now he is still human there.
He double checks this claim by kissing Jayce again, lingering at the man's lips with careful consideration. He's studying. Yep. That's how a kiss should feel, alright. Noted.]
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Date: 2025-03-19 10:13 am (UTC)jayce feels now, eyes closed and kneading the bumps, dips and irregular grooves with lethargic, analyzing progress. the light click of parting lips has jayce knocking his head forward with low words and electric suggestion. ]
I think our data's insufficient.
[ they clearly need to kiss more. he needs another, and sneaks a second and third brush to the corners of viktor's lips, the last of the cluster upon his mole. they could vary weights and pressures, wet or dry, different angles, different spots. jayce's tongue swipes over the shine of his mouth and stray whiskers before he begins his next kissing endeavor: a languid, damp invite, face tipped sideways and inhaling the scent of his partner inside his cheek. he could count the gaps of space following viktor's canines on each side, and how he'd curl his tongue to him. phenominal, how it lights up every sensory synapse.
touch doesn't stop there, his palms have made it to his slender abdomen and narrowed hips, testing the bolts and bars on the way down. there are fissures, above and in the sockets of his femurs decked in gold and twined with purple— how far in did those go? what were the limits of the symmetrical golden rods of what used to be his hip bones? jayce's fingers test every slip he could find and probes within, carefully, gently, until the very last rim of space available to him is found. that, or if he's given signals to abort. ]
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Date: 2025-03-19 04:21 pm (UTC)You're being a hazard to yourself, Jayce.
[Viktor grasps both the man's hands by the wrists and pulls them up to his face. He leans into the touch of thumbs to his skin and Jayce's other fingers to where metal began. One of Jayce's palms will get a couple slow kisses, while they're guided there.
Viktor trails his lips to tentatively press to his wrist, where the acceleration rune was bonded into his skin, webbed by patterns of the anomaly. Even if it represented rot, Viktor will dote on it, because that same anomaly could heal Jayce if fed. He's as resentful of it as he is grateful.]
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Date: 2025-03-19 05:46 pm (UTC)[ if there were any, jayce could count them on a hand. maybe shredding his hands in viktor was the true way he wanted to go. but, fine! he'll respect the fun police! (this is all a joke). despite jayce's quite desperate want to touch and be touched, he respects this limit once breached— and once he got to see, briefly, that little wrinkle at the bridge of viktor's nose that would've likely followed him getting lightly wacked with his cane. jayce's restless hands are successfully led back on course, distracted by devout kisses in his palms and to his embedded wrist. the chill of stone isn't found— its quite warm, in fact, as hot as jayce was, rooted in the veins saturated with nutriment. the bit of contact raises the hairs on his arms and goes up his neck, ripples across his chest under his simple garage-found clothes. a bit of anexaggerated response, but— it's nice. ]
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Date: 2025-03-19 06:13 pm (UTC)Viktor takes Jayce's hand and presses it to the center of his chest, where the brace he once wore for his back had fused into metal and gold. The metal stranding there have the illusion of sinewy muscle, but there were gaps giving way to the interior. Wiring and pumps, self installed, run by batteries he picked up from scavenging. It buzzes more than it beats, but there is a pulsing to what Viktor replaced his heart with. For some reason, he wants Jayce to hear it and feel it beneath his palm,]
I upgraded the replacement I made. Rechargeable batteries, easier maintenance. [he's running on scraps and wit and raw desperation, but when hadn't he been? Viktor thinks he should feel much more different than he does and yet he doesn't. Augmenting his body was routine for him, this is just more dramatic.]
If only I had a hexgem, I would have used that. Would have been... more fitting, perhaps.
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From:a few days into august, eventual nsfw im SORRY for how long this is
Date: 2025-08-05 04:19 pm (UTC)ever since his most recent retreat from having his hooves on the edge of a building's open floor eight stories up, jayce has crashed, and crashed, and crashed— every time from something he couldn't wrap his head around, and when he did, it came with a flurry of emotions that were too untamed to swallow and keep down before the bile rose to his mouth. for one, he is alive. lets start with that: a warm tan to his skin that nearly brings a sunny glow to him. no open wounds, no putrid stenches, no disgusting sound following him. just a small limp, and much more sensitivity to his nerves. they fire off at the smallest of stimuli, where brushes become grabs and temperature either feels too hot or too cold. he actually feels it. he still cannot enter the sunlight's domain, either, so night is when he continues his activities (which didn't really amount to anything other than pacing or hitting things, or.....). but the first time after the occurance that he catches his reflection while washing the stains and peeling away the now dry, anomaly-webbed velvet on his half-rack of antlers, he stares at it a good long while, and what remained of purple smudges under his beard . . . and feels sick. not enough to lose his meal, but enough that he must sit, and keep his head close to a container, just in case.
how he came to be was the worst offender, and something he thinks about for about two days straight, no pauses. minimal contact. frustrated pacing and moments of heated bugling, silent sobbing or just a numb sort of stare at the moon. he should be turning that thing inside and out. studying the history and racing down variables in equations to find a way to replicate what it had done. he can't. he fucking can't concentrate on anything else. because every beat within his chest was a ghost haunting him. every hush of the wind or the rattle of tree branches is a huff, or laugh, when he remembered how it was. every chill was a gaze that cut through him, and the pain within him an insurmountable hole that could never be replaced and ached at the absence just as much as the harm done. it made jayce feel insignificant. it made him feel like a project, like the very dead thing he was— with no way back. no salvation. no fixing. only the key to wind him up again and force him to clatter to his doomsdays being by being forcibly slammed into his back.
jayce would evaluate, flip it around, reevaluate, twist and turn it and wonders if he could've done anything differently to change the outcome. he mulls over his words over and over, overthinking as he does best. whether or not he comes to a reasonable conclusion is out of his grasp; what's done is done. he cannot undo viktor popping his own bloodbag open. he cannot undo his hope to linger rather than fall. he couldn't stop himself from consuming every drop of it like a starving animal. he could not have stopped viktor from stabbing his heart so much its wounds keep bleeding, in the form of distrust. in the form of making two choices for him— the same way jayce had done to viktor. he let him go, sent him off. hurt him in a way jayce never thought he'd hear with his own ears, and then— as if on schedule, he interrupts at jayce's lowest. he waited thirty fucking days to help him, or that's, at least, what jayce had thought it was. until viktor slid blades between his ribs and twisted the hilt.
is fate real, he wonders? did he run himself into a loop he couldn't escape from? is it laughing at them? playing this sick, twisted little game of turning tables and switching roles until either side was battered and bruised beyond proper performance? was this karma? did he deserve all of this? part of jayce comes to the ready denouement that yes, this was all somehow his fault. that yes, he deserved it. he deserved it for not letting viktor go when he had the chance to. he deserved it for making him into a walking anomaly, for taking his choices, for breaking his promises. the world could've been saved, then. they could've avoided everything, even this. so . . . why the fuck can he still not fathom that answer?
jayce knows why, even if his incredulity keeps him from personally seeking viktor out on his first, terrible, horrible, no good very bad day of soaking in the consequences of his love. he's not ready to look into his eyes without fracturing under his beauty, one more time, and running the risk of being ground into dust. so . . . when would he be ready—? on the evening of the second day, jayce sits in his truck, only a little calmer but getting crimped when he was trying to come up with schematics for a cane and couldn't stop thinking about viktor's as a base. because that also came with thinking about viktor.
are they better off apart? jayce thinks about it. the world would be safer. maybe. they wouldn't hurt each other so much. and he wouldn't . . . have this impassible urge to crawl back to him, either. it's fiddling with the radio and getting viktor's softspoken accent out of it that quiets him. what were only a few curious minutes became hours. of a nostalgia he wishes he could hug onto tightly. never let it go. go back to. it's hearing himself when viktor needed him, buring his face in his hands and squeezing his knuckles into his eyes. it's— hearing the mage, one more time, that he realizes something.
and so, without really thinking much of it, fingers twitching— he seeks viktor. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-05 04:51 pm (UTC)The first thing to bring him peace in those days after drugging Jayce is... Jayce. It's always Jayce, of course it is. Viktor was keeping his distance, whether that was out of respect or disrespect didn't matter. It was what he was doing. Then, trying to move his truck to a new spot to recharge the battery, it came on the radio.
Jayce's voice, youthful and enthused. Naive. Ecstatic. Viktor's in turn, arguing through hypothesis, interpreting data sets. They sound like different people, but they were. The them of the past playing out in sound waves and crackling interference would not recognize the them of the present moment. They are far too metamorphosized, changed, and twisted. They would be seen as devils to the men on the radio.
Yet, it is a strange comfort to remember being those men. Once, they were hungry merely with ambition. Viktor can disassociate himself back to that time. Can wear those clothes no longer quite his size. He can pretend and he can dream of their dream again.
His truck is quiet, but the radio is playing loud. Chattering. Yapping away. It doesn't matter what is being said, it's like rain pattering on windows, comforting noise. Viktor has the back of the greenhouse trunk wide open so the plants can get fresher air from the night beyond the windows. Viktor is laid out flat in the bed of the dirt, surrounded on all sides by the bits of nature he could sustain. It smells nice, like wet soil and cold greenery. A small oasis. He cannot sleep, but it is as mellow as he has been since his re-arrival. Listening to Jayce talk to him in another time, another place, another version of themselves... it's escapism. He just wants to escape.
He will cant his head when he notices an approach, but even for the Jayce of now, he only slumps back into place. Laid out on his back, looking upward at the night sky through a misty pane of glass. He speaks, quiet and trying to take on the character of his voice before he became so distorted. Viktor nearly succeeds,]
Jayce? Do you need a place to lay down? [there is room besides him, if Jayce isn't going to fuss about the chill or dampness of the soil. Viktor needs it, his body too warm as it overclocks itself trying to heal from so much sacrificed blood,]
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Date: 2025-08-09 01:01 am (UTC)and his heart skip.
the crackling white noise of their past drifting in and out of frequency stirs another beat in him that squeezes his chest so tightly he doesn't know if he's seconds from prancing or screaming— that viktor had been doing the same thing he was was a daunting revelation to seal the doubt boiling as much as make the base of his own recent musings solidify under any more of it: they're both hurting. and he doesn't want this wedge between them.
another thing worth noting is jayce's inability to stay rationally mad at viktor on sight. he made the mistake of staring, perhaps too long at the curve of his cheekbones and the bob of his neck as he spoke in an almost familiar way. the pang of guilt when jayce could not see the beautiful gold he himself had taken away from such a sharp, striking gaze. with both mind and body at war, jayce forces discipline. firmness. he will stay where he is.
his brain is on high alert; it tallies his wounds. it replays betrayal, it replicates how it felt perfectly, to the point that the whispers ring true: this was a bad idea.
and yet, the body has been directly and seductively spoken to. it speaks to the yearning, the starvation he suffers not in blood but in familiarity and warmth. it targets the animal, the stag that begins to twitch at the waft of scents, of the half man's musk and the bed of soil, lush crispness of fresh greens. it's too heavy in the air. he can even feel his vision turn sharper as his pupils swell, as viktor's words keep repeating and bypass every warning signal jayce had put up, destroying every planned action he's meticulously routed on his way over. something deep and purring chuckles in his chest and up his throat with no humor attached. it's not a man-made sound.
jayce's body begins to move before he can even command himself to stop. his gut clenches and releases all at once— and he lays in the cool earthy bed next to his former partner, in surrender and self-destruction, all in one silent breath. it doesn't feel like a triumph, that, he can say with certainty. ]
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Date: 2025-08-11 07:15 pm (UTC)Voices chatter through the radio crackle, louder than all of it. Still, the peaceful atmosphere fills the gaps between words, speaks within the thoughtful pauses of the past.
Viktor's eyes alone follow Jayce, as he crawls his way into the space to join him. It had been quite a while, both back home and in this place alike, that they laid side-by-side. The roving greenhouse feels more like a glass coffin than ever, the two laid to rest as a pair. Something in Viktor aches at that idea, with yearning melancholy and loathsome desire. Why can't he be more rational than this-? Jayce had once inspired that part in him, only to now destroy it with his mere presence.
He breathes in despite not needing to, the instinct simply there. Jayce no longer reeks of rot. Not that the insectoid Viktor minded that one bit beyond how concerning for Jayce he found it. His shoulders were tense when the man first approached, but they slack at his sides, Viktor remains flat on his back and looks directly upward, through the glass ceiling, rather than to his partner at his side,]
... nice weather we're having.
[He might be molded into a being not fully machine, nor bug, nor man... but even that won't take Viktor's dry sense of humor from him. Some parts of him even death cannot steal away.]
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Date: 2025-08-13 11:33 am (UTC)he couldn't let him go, he couldn't even bring himself to stay away, and now the warmth from jayce's body that felt like a radiating furnace against the cool earth embracing his back reaches out through his stiffness, a silent invitation he wants to take back in his hands and rip to shreds. hopefully, the air doesn't get heavy. it's too bad that it was already loaded with aura, tension and humiliating need. jayce can smell so much more than the plants. ]
Yeah. [ the cervid ear between them flips in viktor's direction, his voice curling dry, but also . . . wrapped in something else. ] You were always good at picking the scenery.
[ the compliment, if you could call it that, sat just like a bruise: soft along the edges yet exposed and tender, painful in the way jayce ears fold back quickly and the tail between his legs tucks in. he tries to shift his legs, one into a bend to hide the fact, hide his involuntary body language that speaks faster just as much as louder. a shadow of humor lays there, but the way his eyes slide to viktor’s profile ruins the joke.
the words hang, warm and wounded all at once, and he hates how much he means them. ]
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Date: 2025-08-13 03:47 pm (UTC)As Jayce understands it, as a bruise, Viktor's voice asks with tenderness,]
What do you mean by that?
[it sounds like Viktor, like the old days. The radio practically sounds like it's speaking through him, with less hiss around the edges. Perhaps so much listening to his old self could let Viktor mimic it, to act out a role he used to play well. A retired mask, the Assistant to the Dean of the Academy. It hadn't been enough for him, he had bigger aspirations, he could not be content as he was.
The tone is gentle, not accusatory, not harsh. Just curious. Prying. Hopeful towards the promise of knowledge, of understanding better how Jayce's mind works, of what he's thinking.
Viktor used to have a sense of wonder, after all. In this moment, it's not gone from him.]
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Date: 2025-08-15 05:12 pm (UTC)jayce breathes in, words catch on his tongue like they're not sure which way they want to cut, and losing the presumed edge they'd have by the minute. jayce breathes them out anyway, low and refined with a ghost of warmth that refuses to die. a briefly darting gaze sliding down and back up. something feels . . . bitter, on his tongue. he stares at viktor now with diminished distance, enticed like a moth to a flame— and knowing he's been caught in the pyre. or, perhaps, what he's always wanted: he just wants viktor back. his partner. his desire does not change. he wished he could be the same man viktor needed— but could he?
jayce was always a terrible liar. honesty, it is. ]
Means you can make anywhere feel like somewhere I'd want to stay. [ it sounds, for a heartbeat, like something tender. Like he's talking about those nights when the two of them made the most unremarkable corners of piltover into places worth remembering. a workshop floor littered with tools and half-finished dreams. but the weight in his voice says the rest: ] Even when I know better.
[ he's talking about now, too, about the places viktor's pulled him back into against his better judgment. things that he could not fathom pretending they didn't happen. it would hurt him all the more. his ears fold flat in the next breath, the tail's twitch betraying the fact he wishes he could swallow the words whole.
but if viktor is receptive to speaking with him, then . . . should they not try to speak? it's not as if jayce wanted this interference. it was more of an . . . inevitability, given their circumstances and choices. hadn't he, after all— done the same to viktor? ]
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Date: 2025-08-15 05:31 pm (UTC)The heart in Jayce's chest is louder, an organic reminder of the humanity they once shared,]
You can stay here a while, Jayce... as you like.
[Viktor had welcomed him, after all. A time and place to just lay down. A respite, an oasis in the desolate landscape around them. Perhaps more fitting, a terrarium for their cruel experimentation. It doesn't matter how one sees it, not really.
Metaphors fail to distract Viktor from the wrongness of his joy. To lay beside Jayce is ill deserved. Another thing he knows full well and yet does not care to uphold the righteousness of.]
We have much knowledge that our better senses ignore, don't we?
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Date: 2025-08-18 12:00 am (UTC)Yeah. I'm still here listening, for one.
[ And— Craving, to the point that he curls his fingers into fists and stiffles some sort of grunt. His damn tail flicks, and the most he could do is ignore it. Alas (or not?), he's not exactly known for giving up on questionable endeavors. But plenty of things feel cruel to him, as of late. But Viktor is not pushing him away. Jayce leans into it, trailing his eyes lower to the cups of Viktor's nimble hands. The air between them is not the same and Jayce fears it never would be again. Still— Jayce nods wordlessly, shifting his body sideways to adjust where his antlers catch, in dirt and a stray, leafy vine. To face Viktor meant that his broken antler was too short to scrape the bedding. It meant that he could challenge eye contact, even though his voice and gaze are nowhere near as severe as they could be. ]
Why wouldn't you trust that I'd listen to you?
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Date: 2025-08-18 01:07 am (UTC)He rolls onto his side, the gesture a mirror to Jayce leaning in towards him. No helping it, it just happens to him. Viktor lays looking to Jayce fully, arching his elbows and laying both his hands close by his own face. One, knuckles down and fingers curled loosely. The other, fingertips sunk down into the soil, as if kneading it for comfort. He gives Jayce a look, a well trod one, a familiar one,
Flippant, his tone is that of "of course not",]
You don't listen to me.
[That same tone says "and you shouldn't", knowing his troublesome and reckless ways back in the lab, he was always the one insisting on the less reserved course of action. Jayce was the more hesitant one, wasn't he? The more measured one, in his own ways, if no less driven by scientific obsession than Viktor...]
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Date: 2025-08-18 11:48 am (UTC)That's not fair, [ his voice wavers. rough. salt burns in his wounds. ] I did listen. When you explained things to me, when you gave me the chance— I did—
[ he listened when he was going to end himself the first time. he . . . didn't listen when the council started working in. when he was supposed to destroy the hexcore. when he wasn't supposed to weaponize hextech—
he listened when viktor, old and grey at the edge of the earth with only his jayce's statue still corpse to remind him of all his failures, rotting in an endless loop of time— he listened when the same viktor warned him of the arcane's seduction.
and now, jayce just finds himself in the same, messy ditch. in the same turbulence. his ears keep slanted back, folded as the background noise of their conversations fill the void in his chest. talk about naming their creations. hex here, hex there—
there's a pattern, in all of this. ]
I always made my worst decisions when we were apart.
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Date: 2025-08-18 04:23 pm (UTC)[for worst or for better or for somewhere in between, they've done what they've done. No erasing that, not without leaving the hurt for others to bare in their stead. Viktor turned away the chance to do that, would lay with the burden weighing on him. A phantom pain ever present within his empty chest.
Hex here, hex there... their voices of the past laugh through better and worse names for their inventions. Viktor's insisting on simplicity, four letter words where they can. Hex gate, Hex claw, Hex core... Jayce makes fun of him for being so basic. Atlas Gauntlets has so much more flare! ...]
I've been- trying to understand your decisions. I've always understood the fear of helpless inaction. We both prefer to regret what we did, over what we did not do.
[he thinks he knows you, Jayce. Is still grasping onto that knowledge, however hesitantly. Maybe he's lost sight of what he once knew. Maybe Jayce is also not the person that he thought he was...]
Better to try and fail than not try... and yet, we didn't consider the agony that success could bring.
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