[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.
[ it's all true; jayce has nothing to add to it other than silence. the distraction of hearing himself speak is foolish. was it foolish, to miss foolishness? ignorance is bliss, or something like that. jayce chews on his lower lip, fingers flexing in and out soil as his ears stay pinned back, making his doe eyes like prey pleading in a bear trap. he tries to keep that sorry gaze away from viktor's, for now. they might get a little too shiny for his own good. if he cannot hide it all, then perhaps, with a slant of his brows, he'll do a little of it. ]
It's not just about inaction, Viktor . . . [ calling it that felt too clinical, a rationalization of the acts themselves. jayce's voice raises, only a touch, before his words even into a low grunt. his eyes are back on him, and this time, they plead to be seen.
he is raw again, nerves exposed— he can feel it in the way he aches without even being touched. jayce looks for words, his lips soundlessly parting and pursing, before the harsh press and slanted brows express his frustrations long before he can put it into coherency.
interference comes through the radio: something of a ghost. jayce's brittle, worn, helpless voice: why did you ever give me this? why? the drop in his gut when the silence stretches brings him to his wrist, the acceleration rune still there, scarred and forcibly making its home in his veins. would it kill him again—? would viktor have to go through all that one more time—? he could only sigh, tipping his head forward and rubbing the pad of his thumb into the crystal's uneven surfaces. ]
The hexcore, that shot . . . Was all I had left. To keep you here. Even if it hurt, and if you'd hate me for it. [ and in what felt like an instant, jayce goes back to the edge of the building, when all he could smell and taste was viktor's blood and the painful, jagged edge of betrayal that had made him shed tears in a way he had only when he was rushing viktor's corpse into the lab. ] . . . Is that what you felt? When you saw me up there?
[ a voice in his head asks, with anguish: did you think i would just endure it? did you fail to expect that i'd rather die than live like this?
I'm losing track of what it even is, anymore. We are fractured into countless broken topics...
[It is difficult to focus on any one thing with clarity of vision. One pain leads to another, bounces to a betrayal, reflects off a love felt so deeply, on and on... Viktor feels like he's chasing after his own nerves, biting towards an itch he cannot reach. Emotions he cannot sort into place and cope with without outburst or numbness,
He can at least answer a direct question, that's something of a focus to latch onto,]
I felt pity... and guilt. The usual. [what's another dark joke about now? He hates to see Jayce looking at him like that, so at his wits end. Still so vulnerable and scarcely guarded. Surely not as guarded as he should be, with Viktor. This only invited more hurt, yet Viktor has welcomed him to lay besides him and is looking back, with his own weak willed yearning on display,]
To save me, rather than destroy the Hexcore... that I understand. I understood once we returned here and I fully remembered doing much the same to you. Taking away and then forcing the life back into you. Making you live like this... I didn't stop to ask myself if you would want to return.
[Rather, he might have thought it, but it didn't stop him. He made the choice for Jayce and wouldn't let him go even now. For that, he's violated a similar pact between them that Jayce had, reviving Viktor with the hexcore. It didn't need to be spoken, it should have been understood. In that, they're surely "even"... well past fairness or not.]
What I don't understand is... shooting me down. I felt I had- finally been doing good work. The work we always wanted to do. Which is why I welcomed you. Then, you turned your weapon upon me, I fail to grasp why. I fail-... to understand you, Jayce.
[he still doesn't understand the mission Jayce was on. He doesn't understand his future self, confronted each and every moment of infinity with the devastation he wrought. It remains a dead end to him, a missing piece he cannot deduce from surrounding information. Rage and betrayed hurt towards Jayce is all he can see as the greater picture, what should one lost part matter?]
[ pity. he felt pity. the usual. guilt, jayce could understand. but pity? it felt like a slap in the face, and the stunned, deer-in-headlights look remains until jayce finds it better to roll onto his back again. his ears may as well be pinned for life against his skull, but what accompanies is a harsh slant of his brows instead of vulnerable doe eyes. jayce's silence to recompose says enough, and he wonders, briefly, if it was said to wound him on purpose. some freak test to confirm or deny his true feelings, to push him away, or to see just how long he'd bear the pain of his love. it makes him fill his lungs and breathe harder, albiet slowly— they almost sounded like snorts, as one single ear directs itself to viktor.
what's worse is that an outburst isn't the first thing on jayce's mind. it's the lips his gaze wandered to with occasion. it's his neck. overthrown by his scent. it's the angry, wild thought of crushing into him. to taste something, to feel something that will override this ache. something that will prove himself. that would take this all away and make them forget, for a while, that there was a divide to begin with.
that's awful, and he knows it. but he can't help missing him and everything about him. his antlers drag into the dirt as if they could feel the weight, too. he's going to try, one more time.
he was doing good. it was only the magic that would twist his work. jayce swallows, jaw tight, fingers twitching against his leg as if the instinct to reach for viktor is a live wire disguised as a flower bed. ]
Every timeline where I don't take the shot . . . Fails early. Every single one. I die, and you're at the edge of the world forced to shoulder that burden alone. [ jayce ears go from perked up with agitation to flattened again. no matter how fucking frustrated or angry he was, his heart breaks when he remember the clarity of those sad, prismatic eyes. the eyes of a man who has seen his beloved die so many times he's gone numb and would not, could not, let it happen one more time. ] You, from the future . . . Told me this was the only way for us to make it, for us to survive together. Only you could convince me to do something like this to you.
[ jayce's body quivers, every muscle taut, ears flicking, antlers brushing against the space between them, and heat rising beneath his exhaustion. ]
I know it looks like betrayal. I know it hurts. But please . . . Understand. I'm not asking for forgiveness— I just— did it for you. For us. [ his breath catches, hangs with tiny croaks at the back of his throat. even his voice raises a pitch, cracks— ] And the fucked up thing about it is that I would do it again.
[ if it meant he'd save him, and they'd die together rather than alone— he'd break himself and viktor, over and over again. ]
[Jayce rolls away, just to his back, but it says everything to distance them. The impulse to chase is there, spinning up in Viktor like his lured in prey might escape a well crafted web.
He hates that instinct. Resents the inhumanity deeply. Jayce has never been prey to him, nor the other way around. They were so long equals, partners, even when one could have tried to usurp their project they never did. Such respect feels like a long lost memory, but Viktor bites back against himself for such an intrusive thought.
There is no chase. He remains where he's at, slumped to his side, watching Jayce as he speaks. Watching his lips in turn, the flash of his teeth in the mist of the terrarium, lit by only the moon's light filtered through layers of foggy glass.]
Different timelines... that is what the anomaly showed you?
[If they were not literally, right here and now, thrown into a different world then... well, Viktor might dismiss that as a mere delusion. Madness spun up to comfort Jayce when he fell into the pit to starve, alone and forgotten. Self serving fantasies where he got to be the hero, where every issue is a nail and he's the one holding the hammer-
But then, why take such ownership-? Wouldn't a deluded mind wish for absolution, for forgiveness and affirmation of righteousness? Viktor doesn't know. His mind spins in other directions aside from raw instinct now. Calculating different outcomes, interpretations, motivations...
Silent a while in thought, he finally speaks again,]
I would do all I have done to you again. We are the same... Jayce. Inextricably bound by our choices.
[These shared hearts of theirs are guilty, not remorseful]
[ jayce nods; he'd seen it, with his own eyes. the mage would remind him over and over of the outcome if he were to bend to viktor as easily as he does. as much as it is a burning brand on them both, it is truth that jayce cannot fight, cannot hate and certainly cannot feel unforgiving toward. viktor's gaze on him feels like lasers, seers holes into him to the point that he could feel beads of sweat forming at his temples. the boney branch of his tallest antler almost feels like its quivering, pulsing to the beating of his heart that feels harder by the time jayce is lured to turn his head and gaze back, eyes an intense gold and nostrils flared, words pushed through his tooth gap like a harrowing climb forced to divulge. jayce cannot help the slight loom forward, the angle of his antlers catching in rays of moonlight to make himself seen. ]
Am I something to be pitied to you?
[ it is not angry, not accusatory, but more searching, probing, hoping it is not true. low and said almost like a growled whisper, interluded with a guttural snort that seems to call to viktor. his mouth twitches as it pulls down, and unconsciously flexes his arms where his fingers grasp for his own wrist, to rub at the tingling a touch harder. ]
[Viktor's lips press together at the question, at the return of Jayce's gaze onto him. Twitch in conflict with what expression to make. That question should be accusatory, should hold more rage than it does. Viktor already hurled the insult his partner's way, to twist the knife would be easy enough.
Perhaps that is what it will feel like to receive an honest answer. Viktor isn't going to demean him further by playing pretend, masking the feeling he had seeing Jayce ready to do what he wanted to do,]
Only when you're standing on a ledge.
[when Jayce is choosing to forge onward, to fight in ways that don't require a weapon, then Viktor no longer feels such lowly pity for him.]
Wasn't it the same for you-? To find your long ailing partner near to stepping over the aqueduct, as you did...
[ it's immediate, almost defensive, almost another whisper, but it still lands guttural and solid. another chance that jayce has to face him again, sideways, prepared to challenge his view. take the damn knife and sink himself into it. what else would he do when it was viktor who held it? ]
I'd never . . . Look at you like that. Not pity. Not ever.
[ jayce hesitates, searching for the shape of something harder to name, something that had been easier to mutter before, but felt too strong for something so brittle and dangerously edged the way it was (they were) now. his throat works around it before the words finally fall, laced with . . . more. ]
If anything, I— [ jayce stops, breath hitching, and starts again softer, steadier. ] I was upset you'd came to that conclusion. But it wasn't . . . Lesser. Never lesser.
[ the realization of what this means comes in layers. he's hurt by the difference. he's ashamed, humiliated. it could've been anyone, but viktor— gods. his downcast gaze wants to hide in the hole he once fell down. was he too small, up there? unworthy of his partnership?
viktor doesn't always know how to best express himself.
was that jayce's wishful understanding, or the truth, though? his hand curls at his side, like it wants to reach out but doesn't dare. still, there's something unspoken lingering in the air— an ache, a tether, waiting for viktor to give him reason to react to the pooling, fizzing heat under his skin that could blow at the most subtle triggers. jayce drops his hand between them now, palm up and runestone exposed, knuckles sinking into dirt. ]
If it were you in my place the other day, I would've been terrified, too. Even if I were angry.
[ he's . . . starting to understand.
because they are a mirror. because they are two sides of the same coin. because they are each other's favorite regret. ]
Viktor's expression slips, anger washes out like a poorly built structure meant to hold too much back. The mask always slips with Jayce. There is no maintaining composure when faced with his mirror and the well meaning nature his partner upholds even in his darkest hours. They remain a sun and a moon held in too distant an orbit. Viktor wanted to shine with his own light, but was content to do so with what he was given. A humbling metaphor, perhaps, perspective that Viktor cannot function as the center of his own universe. To impose that upon all that is around him is to simply collapse into an all consuming black hole.]
I misjudged, then... I'm sorry.
[Jayce's hand turns to the sky and Viktor slowly reaches out for it. He'll stop if the man flinches away or gives any other indication not to touch him. If not for that, he lays his palm to Jayce's, resting fingers to lace between, intertwine, and lay his hand and wrist to rest upon his partner's. There would be a slight wince to feel his arcane energy spark against that stone, but he'll not pull away from that. It will settle like so much static electricity,]
[ jayce only meets viktor's gaze for a moment before dropping it, his brows worrying a kink, but his hand does not move. he stays at a standstill, his fingers only twitching in response. part of his coherency rings an alarm, but his body, instinct, flips a different switch. his heart skips and trips on its own beat, and what he says next is low, heavy. there is weight on it like an anchor. it doesn't come clean, nor easy, but it does because jayce needs this to begin on a path going forward and not backward. ]
I forgive you.
[ quiet. almost forced through his teeth. it is genuine forgiveness, but it does not come lightly. for one, jayce is increasingly frustrated with himself, crumbling like paper to the static brush of fingers that sets his whole frame on fire and alert. he shouldn't want this. not now— but even his own wants and needs betray him. both on edge and undone, he takes viktor's hand in a tight, coarse grip, every patch of fur on him standing, and his pupils engorging enough to nearly eclipse the honey hazel within them.
his breathing has picked up from the way the rythmic blows of air pull in and out with the rise and fall of his chest. the way his presence fills the back of the car, the way bruised, purple-black battered knuckles protrude and sting with his squeeze. this was animalistic, and jayce is at a crossroads of incertainty, to whether this is his own desire or his new biology— and which one made it worse? does it matter? ]
. . . I—
[ he catches himself. it's the very last of his restraint. ]
[Viktor interjects, knowing the limits of such forgiveness and wishing them stated. He'd held and begged Jayce to never forgive him his many trespasses, despite being sorry. The burden of his choices is something he needs to carry, they cannot merely be shrugged off with pretty words and sentiment.
He feels this way largely because he cannot forgive Jayce what he's done. For all his talk of being past fairness, Viktor still has that balance in mind. He cannot forgive and so there need be limits to his own absolution.
Perhaps out of fear that he'd buckle beneath the strength of Jayce's persistence,]
Jayce, [he'll interject when Jayce catches himself, speaking that name firmly. The look in Jayce's blow out eyes is clear as day, even in the night. Viktor's expression sweetens towards him, slipping out from his own resolution in turn. Oh, that looks says so much... Viktor puts it much too simply,]
[ jayce fixes his jaws tight, feels them grind under the buffer of his molars. it is clear and true, that jayce's forgiveness did not come with a free pass. it did not make things good and well again, especially not by his own sentiment of betrayal and wounded self. it meant that he wanted to try. he wanted to work through it, no matter how long it took for his scars to heal.
he wanted viktor.
and how that rings so very prominent now, of all times. denial would be another sentence. hungry, he was. not enough to feel the stuttering madness that makes his body contort and beg, fall apart, but it is hunger all the same. a start. a fuse, wishing to be lit. a dryness at the back of his throat and an emptiness at the pit of his stomach, isolation in his heart. it is a heat set to boil even lower at the hips, knowing what was to come of it, making his ears pin forward and his tail flag embarassingly behind him once the wires cross. if he tastes, he will lose all sense of discipline. he'll crumble.
and it will make this all so much worse. so much more complicated and like treading across a minefield. but can he resist it? resist him? his lips move without pulling apart, a scowl in the making, brows arched low, and an unconscious presentation of his broken rack, bone white and pearly, cleaned— still formidable. still worth something. still strong.
he can't even think clearly enough to answer what mattered most— their lines in the sand to be respected, until they are ready to shorten the distance, and already— something too primal in jayce wants to breach it. and it will.
he's ruining everything before they truly get started, and viktor isn't doing much to help in how his observation dips honey sweet. jayce hesitates for as long as he can, but he continues as carefully as he could before the stag throws caution to the wind.
he breathes his words out as if they could shatter him. like he hates that he wants. and gods, help him. this wasn't what they needed and yet, his whisper scrapes the very floors: ]
[There's doubt in what that means, but only in the details. The tumultuous this-and-that of their unsorted emotions will bite back at them. It will crowd and possibly consume them. Viktor understands the danger in such chaos, but there is also thrill to such danger. He feels alive, hearing it. He knows what it means in the broader sense, in the bigger picture of them. Jayce wants him; heart, body, soul. He wants to feed on Viktor and fuck him and feel the love in their connection. To get lost in the overwhelming carnality of what they share.
Viktor lifts his hand from Jayce's grasp on it. He reaches forward to cradle his jaw, to push his metallic thumb through his beard and along his cheek with tenderness.
Shepherding him forward, to roll his way over top of Viktor, if only Jayce will be guided along. Submitted and yet still in control, still holding firm to anchor Jayce despite how often that idea sank him,]
[ jayce had been doomed from the start, but now? he was a dead man touch broke free from his grasp to remind him of how weak he was to him. jayce's ears shiver to the contact of his fingertips, great, perked satellites. before he realized just what he was doing to restrain himself, jayce was already pushing the curve of his face into viktor's palm to generate a claiming, scenting rub. whatever words, speeches or banter that crackled through the radio was no more to jayce's focus. everything from sound to smell to taste in the very air he now breathed harsh and flared, could only target viktor.
all there was needed was new intention, an opening, for jayce to spring himself with the guidance as if set loose to buck around in an arena. his legs and hooves struggle to bend and sit, especially where his knee does not comply (something about a living body being more painful than dulled where rusted), but he hurries his angles and bears his weight upon the herald, his hands already a mess of loose soil and long locks of platinum and chestnut. they should close this thing if its still open for the convoy to bear witness. jayce will regret it later, but not now. it's of no concern to him, now.
he is vivid, his heart wild, stuck in this enticing wallop like a trap. like a meal. like his ultimate desire. he hangs so pressed into viktor after his single, tallest antler threatens to scrape the heights of the cybertruck, every curve and bulge clasps against viktor's with urgency— and still a damn perfect fit. the snarl that becomes of him is befitting for a stag in rut, digging fingers into metalic flesh and bone not to hurt, but to absorb, to smell, to press his nose, to meld with— become one with. it's hardly words until the syllables slip into addition, low and like a prayer to war. he has been thinking about him and thinking, and thinking, and imagining, until he went mad with it in his solitude— ]
That's a lie.
[ jayce cannot physically live without him. viktor cannot resist him. the same can be said of one another when the coin's sides are flipped. ]
[Viktor returns to being flat on his back, sinking into the soil behind him with the added weight of Jayce over top him. A moment met with a sigh of relief, of desire being fulfilled. The pressure of his partner returned, at last. That has always been as profound as it is burdensome, to be a part of a pair. To not just be himself, but expand beyond to another man, if only for a moment.
Jayce's nose and mouth paw at his metal shell, while the air around them growing heady with energy, tension, and the musk of animal and ozone clinging to fog. Viktor isn't thinking of decency, of the trunk side remaining rolled up for any to wander by and see them again at one another's throats and so much more. All that he's thinking of is how good it feels, that Jayce is with him again.
His hand falls from Jayce's jaw to his curl, opposite his other hand, around the man's sides to his back. Embracing him with both, pressing all ten fingertips into the plushness of Jayce's muscular back. No wounds, no melted and rotted away skin, the man no longer a corpse. Viktor's grip lightens, having gotten near bruising, realizing he could very well hurt the man beyond his intention if he's not mindful of his strength. His fists bundle up with frustration into whatever clothing Jayce is wearing up top. One hand remains, twisting and pulling up his shirt, so the other can reach to exposed flesh down his lower back. Can expand his palm flat and possessively feeling his partner's skin directly. Viktor's splayed fingers trace firm over curves and musculature, his middle finger bounces as a train upon a track might, following the ridges of Jayce's spine towards his tailbone. There, he finds fluff and his newer addition, which had been so expressive throughout their conversation,
Then, Jayce is growling at him with challenge and Viktor's passion spikes ever further to feel the offense of it, answering with controlled anger,]
Shut up, Jayce- [he'll do this for him, angling to meet Jayce in a forceful and commanding kiss, open mouthed and hungering himself.]
[ it's the most jayce has been freed from the shackles of their greivances. so fucking good. pleasure by viktor's hands unmakes him, there is no one else he wants. unbound by their stacking distrust when they belonged together, it's that togetherness that shapes the illusion of intimacy that sinks into jayce like claws: when they are so coiled ready to spring, when they are all breaths and moans, flesh and blood, membrane and layers sinking into each other. there is nothing that he doesn't want, here. jayce wants what they had, and he is so desperate to chase it that even this— the one thing that would make their climb to consensus and reprive even more riddled with pitfalls is his last resort to feeling that passion, that love— and he is so frantic to seize it anyway, despite the human warning drowning at the back of his mind, strangled by an animal too hungry and a man too desperate to keep the one thing he loved cupped into the containment of his ribs.
it is a relief, to not think of anything else. jayce feels pain from too-tight grips, but he does not object to it, forcing his flesh further into squeezes as it floods him with the sting of intoxicating pleasure. one of the buttons of his buttondown pops from the force, coaxing jayce to rise and pry the rest off. his loins ache, his erection is terribly odd, sudden and uncomfortable in comparison to . . . what it used to be, pushing against fabric until it causes an unbearable shifting against viktor's hips. it's a relief when they dive for each other's mouths, when viktor shuts him up with both lips crushed, teeth scraping and jayce gasping mid lap, his own rough hands yanking at his childhood blanket wrapped as a toga around his nimble frame to take claim. his. all his, the smell on him jayce's and screams mine. even that a proof in the midst of uplifted soil and greens that viktor has not let him go. he does not diverge his mouth to his body yet, exploring viktor's to taste and swallow him whole while fingers push and test the boundaries of the purple-gold crevices like he'd fuck those, too. his tail—
it twitches under viktor's vice, but not to snap from it. no objections. the tuft is raised high, flagged to the side to expose his readiness. his neediness. his obscene want that makes his own scent all the more enticing when he pursues viktor's hand with an arch of his back, all garbled groans and fired demands. ]
[Viktor's not relenting his kiss, not letting Jayce peel away and explore elsewhere. No, he's commanding and chasing Jayce to stay, to entangle their mouths over and over again. To bounce lips off another's between nips and drags of teeth and lashes of hot tongue and breath unneeded. Jayce might need to catch his own, now that he's not so undead, but he'll barely have the chance between how aggressive Viktor's demands for attention are. Unspoken, but full acted out demands.
The shirt his fist was bundled up in is cast aside and Viktor only helps with that. His own garment is unbuckled and unwrapped from his form like he's some present awaiting Jayce's eager acceptance of the gift being given. There's just Jayce's pants left to separate them, which still bundle up Jayce's arousal so much it appear nothing if not painful for the man. Viktor's hands have always been skilled in all things, but they both of them are frantic and feeding that back into one another with each moment. Fumbling to unfasten what is keeping Jayce's bare form from him, Viktor might rip them rather than ease them off his partner with any grace. Who cares, sew them back up later, that's the least of their concerns...
The moment the other man has his pants below the bend of his hips, Viktor's hands are wrapped around him, front and backside. One hand to his cock and the other encircling the base of that fuzzy tail. The latter of which he strokes along first, dragging the pleasing scratch of mechanical fingertips at the furthest underside. Testing out the sensitivity of that new part of Jayce, of what Viktor had yet to handle and needed to understand before proceeding, because he's always curious, always, always seeking to Jayce better, fully, and more completely than he has. A futile endeavor, maybe, but Viktor cannot help his impulses when it comes to Jayce.
[ one may say that jayce is willing to give too much, and isn't he—? he does need to breathe but he does not stray from the shower of immersion in viktor's exgencies. he wants? jayce provides. he is the only one that can match his necessities, the only one who can actually take them without falling apart. jayce puts himself back together at an alarming rate. he crawls back every damn time because he is needed.
he is wanted.
at the expense of a gasp pulled through his gaping lips each time he can, jayce crashes forth the way viktor orders, no qualms when their wants align, with tongue ablaze and teeth beginning to sink a little deeper with each push and pull of their kissing. not enough to break, but certainly teasing the thought, edging himself to a crazed brink of hunger at the sound of a moan an octave higher, coaxing viktor to grab at him taut and unyielding. let it out. let it all out and let him take it like he should. viktor unravels and jayce sinks his wandering hands deeper into him. on him. around him. everything from back to sides to risingjust enough to reach behind him, between them for whatever it was that he would find. if it would give to the pressure of his fingers, it would be brief. it would be because it is jayce who gives in first, jayce to yelp a sound he's yet to have heard from himself.
his cock is out, at least, nearly popping free from its confines and presented in a way that viktor may not recall— it is longer than before, slender and tapered, spearing out from a flacid, furred sheath that startles him with blown eyes. pale rather than red and swollen with blood, he hasn't seen it like that before, and in honesty he had not the mindspace to explore on his own earlier. he's now built for efficiency rather than display— but perhaps it could still provide something of a spectacle.
jayce barely has time to consider it when viktor's clever fingers draw an unexpected tremble in his legs that rattles his chest. the damn thing has a sensitivity he is both unused to as much as heightened, quivering, bouncing and flagging to each stroke. with hands planted on either side of the other man, jayce's focus scatters, and his throat works both soft and corrugated vocals like a melody in the wild. ]
P— Pull, [ he doesn't demand it in tone. the drawled timbre and eager, frenetic blowing from the nose that is more stag than man, ] please—
[ but the man still in there begs of him, begs to pull the mantel off him, too heavy, pass the torch to someone who deserved control from the start. this way, jayce too has the most control of his own fate. ]
[The new cock is... surprising, but not unwelcome. Being dismayed would be rich and utmost hypocritical of Viktor, given the strangeness of his own changes. And how Jayce so eagerly accepted every part of him, no matter what. Jayce also seems obscenely sensitive to the grasping touch, Viktor having him held by that furry sheath at the base.
Viktor's mouth is separated from Jayce's as the man mutters his desires, Viktor dragging his teeth along his lower lip to hear him gasp that please. He should uphold his anger better, but a playfulness strikes him because it's Jayce. it's Jayce, again, over top of him, whining and pleading. It's Jayce... and he is wanted,]
Pull-? [The hand at the base encircles the member and drags downward, toward the end of the long taper. Is that the pull Jayce was yearning for? He won't stroke backwards, just let go and restart at the base, doing the motion again, other arm still playing with the boney base of Jayce's tail,]
Not crank-? [teasing, at a time like this. Viktor's truly a cruel, cruel man]
[for a split second, jayce even stops breathing. the silling little word is like a poison. the terribly long stroke downward on his cock, couple with his tail has jayce pinning viktor by the fistfull of hairs]
Oh, fff— [ that hits like a blade between the ribs, but the sheer pleasure of the touch hits him first as much as hardest. that damn old joke from when things were simpler. better. missed. that was before they broke each other and pretended, for just a few painstakingly wonderful moments, that none of it happened enough to sink into harsh and complete avoidance, with his back arched and moan shrilling into annoyance, jayce chokes on the sound and whatever words would have come, the half-growl knotting the frustration behind his teeth and whisking right past the gap between them.
it's too much. it's always been too much with him. jayce's fingers curl tighter in viktor's hair, pulling just enough to drag his head back until their faces are close, breath mixing in the charged air between them. his forehead presses to viktor's temple, harsh and grounding, his voice wrecked and shaking when he gets it out: ]
Don't— ngh, don't fucking do that. [ jayce gasps it, cracked and breathless, but it serves as nothing. quite the actuality, when jayce's hips now ground down in following viktor's hand, forward, to rut into the space of his palm, wet with dribbled precum, and especially back, where the flagging tail twitches wildly to be used. ]That's— That's cruel— I meant my, [ gods, he has to say it, doesn't he? ] my tail—
[ he hates how wrecked he sounds. hates that viktor hears it. hates more that viktor smiles against him in smug victory. the worst part is, jayce knows he'll let him. he'll let viktor tease, let him play, let him drag out every last fraying nerve until jayce is trembling and aching and begging for whatever he chooses to give. because this . . . the wanting, the hurting, is all they've got left, and neither of them has ever known how to stop either way. ]
[That playing smile drops from Viktor's features when scolded. Smooths down into reservation, the expression neutral and yet the motion into it distilled rejection. This is not about having fun, he sees, it's all too desperate for that.
Foolish of him, to slip into the mood of such games between them. They're long passed that, as well. He can be cold if that somehow grants Jayce what he wants. (Yet, Viktor already knows, he'll slip again...)]
As you... wish...
[Viktor's hair is gripped into and pinned to the soil, so he reaches out to grapple Jayce in turn. His hands are busy, so that leaves his third arm to do the trick, craning around to the back of Jayce's neck and practically scruffing him. The claw doesn't dig into skin, the blades lay smooth, threatening at their edges and yet inert. He'll tug Jayce's tail as he removes his hand from the man's dripping cock. Slick with precum, his fingers travel to his own groin, bulged from the smooth front. He's splitting without revealing his own arousal, leaking some of the blue lubrication his body made for such mating. That's what Jayce's instincts are telling him to do, aren't they? To breed for the season, to sooth his rut.
Viktor can suit that purpose. He presses his slicked fingers inward, expression on twitching around his eyes, curiously. Not allowing his anatomy to emerge, pressing it inward, inverting the purpose. Ah, as he thought, his body adapts quickly. He will always evolve to what is required of him,]
I said have me, Jayce... go on- sink into me, [coaxing with words as well as motion, Viktor will not be pulling on Jayce's tail. Instead, he hand flattens at the lowest curve of his spine, pushing down. Guiding Jayce's hips so his cock presses to rub at the split, wet and throbbing to be fucked,]
[ the sharp whine from jayce's lips resounds, strangles within his throat from both tail to the back of his neck being seized, yanked and setting his nerves aflame. his cock twitches as he's roughed up, at a high angle now that he's endlessly aroused, and when he looks between them—
the draugr's nostrils flare wide, pupils eclipse color as he is caught watching viktor's body inverse, pool with slick, aroused blue that has a gasp catch behind his teeth. his fingers only briefly untangle to plant on either side of viktor in search of stable ground in the midst of near dizzying lust, panting before him— the worst of both worlds had been jayce wanting him and any instinctual impulse only exaggerates it. part of him thinks, remembers: he would've wanted this to be special. he would've wanted to drink this all at a snail's pace, worship the body it came from until he'd drive himself insane with want and enter. it's the first time he'd be fucking viktor's . . . slick. hell they hadn't even the chance to explore properly or even know and yet—
jayce is not strong enough to object to him. he's starting to think he never is, never will be. hesitation is the farthest it goes, a tremble fixed at his lips and words building behind his tooth gap. wait, a part of him still urges. but then— the gentle encouragement. the impossible heat. wet. inviting, sliding at the tapered tip of his dick enough to make his eyes nearly roll, flutter and gape. then came everything else, with the impact of a train losing its breaks: the frustration. the pent up energy. the anger. the revolt. the remorse. the maddening want. possessive want. the love that made him so crazy he couldn't live without him. the passion, the blotch of irrational hope that this could somehow fix a part of what they've broken together, however small a fraction it was. jayce, like many times before this one, commits an error that would later cost him.
he looks into viktor's eyes, roots his knees with only a scowl of complaint when the joint disagrees, takes viktor's hand above his head and aligns with his slit. he has to adjust backwards to, he's . . . long, as it were, and part of him thinks— will this hurt him? will he even fit? girth wasn't the problem, but—
he wants to. they both want, to drown this all out. it speaks louder. so jayce squeezes his partner's fingers within his hold, breaks his hesitation and goes under, sinking into sweetly soaked membranes until enveloped. his tail shivers and flags as he does, testing the heat of it and quickly finding himself absolutely hypnotized.
[Jayce's hand grabs one of his and pins it up over his head, into the layer of soil. Deep, sinking, until the metal of Viktor's knuckles hits the bedrock his the truck lining. His fingers link into place, finding their teeth in the cogwork of Jayce's hand. Fingers interlock and it feels like they belong together, one unit, built to match. Viktor holds tight, pinning Jayce to him, making him unable to pull away as much as Viktor is pinned down with weight and pressure.
His legs pull away and then find their new, better placement, in turn. Spreading, lifting over Jayce's still broad thighs. Hooking around him, a spider's embrace of too many limbs. The kind of embrace that would be a mates very last, with a widow like Viktor. This would all be such ridiculous heartache to suffer, just to kill Jayce once more. Viktor doesn't wish such destruction in the slightest, he wants to hold Jayce safely in his hold. Possessive and yearning to be sought after in the ways only Jayce does for him.
There's just one last way they need to connect-]
Yes, yes- Jayce... aa- haa... [Viktor mutters encouragement and gasps to be entered, unable to close his mouth fully as he shudders out panted, eager gasps. It feels strange, splitting, but profoundly satisfying. His slit oozes around Jayce's tapered cock, spilling over with blue. Pulsing and urging Jayce in until it can accommodate no more so quickly- yet it will begin again momentarily,]
Some- patience... Jayce... I feel myself molding to you. To fit you just.. the way you are. And I will take all of you. [love drunk confidence on display, Viktor moans as his body adjusts, melty and slowly working to be more pliant. The metalwork of his frame doesn't shift with great speed, but it will react to Jayce like his forge work, begin yielding to his heat and persistence.]
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timeasmymeasure
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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...]
no subject
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.
no subject
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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Date: 2025-08-18 10:33 pm (UTC)It's not just about inaction, Viktor . . . [ calling it that felt too clinical, a rationalization of the acts themselves. jayce's voice raises, only a touch, before his words even into a low grunt. his eyes are back on him, and this time, they plead to be seen.
he is raw again, nerves exposed— he can feel it in the way he aches without even being touched. jayce looks for words, his lips soundlessly parting and pursing, before the harsh press and slanted brows express his frustrations long before he can put it into coherency.
interference comes through the radio: something of a ghost. jayce's brittle, worn, helpless voice: why did you ever give me this? why? the drop in his gut when the silence stretches brings him to his wrist, the acceleration rune still there, scarred and forcibly making its home in his veins. would it kill him again—? would viktor have to go through all that one more time—? he could only sigh, tipping his head forward and rubbing the pad of his thumb into the crystal's uneven surfaces. ]
The hexcore, that shot . . . Was all I had left. To keep you here. Even if it hurt, and if you'd hate me for it. [ and in what felt like an instant, jayce goes back to the edge of the building, when all he could smell and taste was viktor's blood and the painful, jagged edge of betrayal that had made him shed tears in a way he had only when he was rushing viktor's corpse into the lab. ] . . . Is that what you felt? When you saw me up there?
[ a voice in his head asks, with anguish: did you think i would just endure it? did you fail to expect that i'd rather die than live like this?
did you think i'd come back to you earlier? ]
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Date: 2025-08-18 11:07 pm (UTC)[It is difficult to focus on any one thing with clarity of vision. One pain leads to another, bounces to a betrayal, reflects off a love felt so deeply, on and on... Viktor feels like he's chasing after his own nerves, biting towards an itch he cannot reach. Emotions he cannot sort into place and cope with without outburst or numbness,
He can at least answer a direct question, that's something of a focus to latch onto,]
I felt pity... and guilt. The usual. [what's another dark joke about now? He hates to see Jayce looking at him like that, so at his wits end. Still so vulnerable and scarcely guarded. Surely not as guarded as he should be, with Viktor. This only invited more hurt, yet Viktor has welcomed him to lay besides him and is looking back, with his own weak willed yearning on display,]
To save me, rather than destroy the Hexcore... that I understand. I understood once we returned here and I fully remembered doing much the same to you. Taking away and then forcing the life back into you. Making you live like this... I didn't stop to ask myself if you would want to return.
[Rather, he might have thought it, but it didn't stop him. He made the choice for Jayce and wouldn't let him go even now. For that, he's violated a similar pact between them that Jayce had, reviving Viktor with the hexcore. It didn't need to be spoken, it should have been understood. In that, they're surely "even"... well past fairness or not.]
What I don't understand is... shooting me down. I felt I had- finally been doing good work. The work we always wanted to do. Which is why I welcomed you. Then, you turned your weapon upon me, I fail to grasp why. I fail-... to understand you, Jayce.
[he still doesn't understand the mission Jayce was on. He doesn't understand his future self, confronted each and every moment of infinity with the devastation he wrought. It remains a dead end to him, a missing piece he cannot deduce from surrounding information. Rage and betrayed hurt towards Jayce is all he can see as the greater picture, what should one lost part matter?]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 03:26 pm (UTC)what's worse is that an outburst isn't the first thing on jayce's mind. it's the lips his gaze wandered to with occasion. it's his neck. overthrown by his scent. it's the angry, wild thought of crushing into him. to taste something, to feel something that will override this ache. something that will prove himself. that would take this all away and make them forget, for a while, that there was a divide to begin with.
that's awful, and he knows it. but he can't help missing him and everything about him. his antlers drag into the dirt as if they could feel the weight, too. he's going to try, one more time.
he was doing good. it was only the magic that would twist his work. jayce swallows, jaw tight, fingers twitching against his leg as if the instinct to reach for viktor is a live wire disguised as a flower bed. ]
Every timeline where I don't take the shot . . . Fails early. Every single one. I die, and you're at the edge of the world forced to shoulder that burden alone. [ jayce ears go from perked up with agitation to flattened again. no matter how fucking frustrated or angry he was, his heart breaks when he remember the clarity of those sad, prismatic eyes. the eyes of a man who has seen his beloved die so many times he's gone numb and would not, could not, let it happen one more time. ] You, from the future . . . Told me this was the only way for us to make it, for us to survive together. Only you could convince me to do something like this to you.
[ jayce's body quivers, every muscle taut, ears flicking, antlers brushing against the space between them, and heat rising beneath his exhaustion. ]
I know it looks like betrayal. I know it hurts. But please . . . Understand. I'm not asking for forgiveness— I just— did it for you. For us. [ his breath catches, hangs with tiny croaks at the back of his throat. even his voice raises a pitch, cracks— ] And the fucked up thing about it is that I would do it again.
[ if it meant he'd save him, and they'd die together rather than alone— he'd break himself and viktor, over and over again. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 03:55 pm (UTC)He hates that instinct. Resents the inhumanity deeply. Jayce has never been prey to him, nor the other way around. They were so long equals, partners, even when one could have tried to usurp their project they never did. Such respect feels like a long lost memory, but Viktor bites back against himself for such an intrusive thought.
There is no chase. He remains where he's at, slumped to his side, watching Jayce as he speaks. Watching his lips in turn, the flash of his teeth in the mist of the terrarium, lit by only the moon's light filtered through layers of foggy glass.]
Different timelines... that is what the anomaly showed you?
[If they were not literally, right here and now, thrown into a different world then... well, Viktor might dismiss that as a mere delusion. Madness spun up to comfort Jayce when he fell into the pit to starve, alone and forgotten. Self serving fantasies where he got to be the hero, where every issue is a nail and he's the one holding the hammer-
But then, why take such ownership-? Wouldn't a deluded mind wish for absolution, for forgiveness and affirmation of righteousness? Viktor doesn't know. His mind spins in other directions aside from raw instinct now. Calculating different outcomes, interpretations, motivations...
Silent a while in thought, he finally speaks again,]
I would do all I have done to you again. We are the same... Jayce. Inextricably bound by our choices.
[These shared hearts of theirs are guilty, not remorseful]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 05:36 pm (UTC)Am I something to be pitied to you?
[ it is not angry, not accusatory, but more searching, probing, hoping it is not true. low and said almost like a growled whisper, interluded with a guttural snort that seems to call to viktor. his mouth twitches as it pulls down, and unconsciously flexes his arms where his fingers grasp for his own wrist, to rub at the tingling a touch harder. ]
cw: attempted suicide mentions
Date: 2025-08-19 05:48 pm (UTC)Perhaps that is what it will feel like to receive an honest answer. Viktor isn't going to demean him further by playing pretend, masking the feeling he had seeing Jayce ready to do what he wanted to do,]
Only when you're standing on a ledge.
[when Jayce is choosing to forge onward, to fight in ways that don't require a weapon, then Viktor no longer feels such lowly pity for him.]
Wasn't it the same for you-? To find your long ailing partner near to stepping over the aqueduct, as you did...
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 06:27 pm (UTC)[ it's immediate, almost defensive, almost another whisper, but it still lands guttural and solid. another chance that jayce has to face him again, sideways, prepared to challenge his view. take the damn knife and sink himself into it. what else would he do when it was viktor who held it? ]
I'd never . . . Look at you like that. Not pity. Not ever.
[ jayce hesitates, searching for the shape of something harder to name, something that had been easier to mutter before, but felt too strong for something so brittle and dangerously edged the way it was (they were) now. his throat works around it before the words finally fall, laced with . . . more. ]
If anything, I— [ jayce stops, breath hitching, and starts again softer, steadier. ] I was upset you'd came to that conclusion. But it wasn't . . . Lesser. Never lesser.
[ the realization of what this means comes in layers. he's hurt by the difference. he's ashamed, humiliated. it could've been anyone, but viktor— gods. his downcast gaze wants to hide in the hole he once fell down. was he too small, up there? unworthy of his partnership?
viktor doesn't always know how to best express himself.
was that jayce's wishful understanding, or the truth, though? his hand curls at his side, like it wants to reach out but doesn't dare. still, there's something unspoken lingering in the air— an ache, a tether, waiting for viktor to give him reason to react to the pooling, fizzing heat under his skin that could blow at the most subtle triggers. jayce drops his hand between them now, palm up and runestone exposed, knuckles sinking into dirt. ]
If it were you in my place the other day, I would've been terrified, too. Even if I were angry.
[ he's . . . starting to understand.
because they are a mirror. because they are two sides of the same coin. because they are each other's favorite regret. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 06:56 pm (UTC)Damn Jayce's earnestness to all hell.
Viktor's expression slips, anger washes out like a poorly built structure meant to hold too much back. The mask always slips with Jayce. There is no maintaining composure when faced with his mirror and the well meaning nature his partner upholds even in his darkest hours. They remain a sun and a moon held in too distant an orbit. Viktor wanted to shine with his own light, but was content to do so with what he was given. A humbling metaphor, perhaps, perspective that Viktor cannot function as the center of his own universe. To impose that upon all that is around him is to simply collapse into an all consuming black hole.]
I misjudged, then... I'm sorry.
[Jayce's hand turns to the sky and Viktor slowly reaches out for it. He'll stop if the man flinches away or gives any other indication not to touch him. If not for that, he lays his palm to Jayce's, resting fingers to lace between, intertwine, and lay his hand and wrist to rest upon his partner's. There would be a slight wince to feel his arcane energy spark against that stone, but he'll not pull away from that. It will settle like so much static electricity,]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 01:38 am (UTC)I forgive you.
[ quiet. almost forced through his teeth. it is genuine forgiveness, but it does not come lightly. for one, jayce is increasingly frustrated with himself, crumbling like paper to the static brush of fingers that sets his whole frame on fire and alert. he shouldn't want this. not now— but even his own wants and needs betray him. both on edge and undone, he takes viktor's hand in a tight, coarse grip, every patch of fur on him standing, and his pupils engorging enough to nearly eclipse the honey hazel within them.
his breathing has picked up from the way the rythmic blows of air pull in and out with the rise and fall of his chest. the way his presence fills the back of the car, the way bruised, purple-black battered knuckles protrude and sting with his squeeze. this was animalistic, and jayce is at a crossroads of incertainty, to whether this is his own desire or his new biology— and which one made it worse? does it matter? ]
. . . I—
[ he catches himself. it's the very last of his restraint. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 01:44 pm (UTC)[Viktor interjects, knowing the limits of such forgiveness and wishing them stated. He'd held and begged Jayce to never forgive him his many trespasses, despite being sorry. The burden of his choices is something he needs to carry, they cannot merely be shrugged off with pretty words and sentiment.
He feels this way largely because he cannot forgive Jayce what he's done. For all his talk of being past fairness, Viktor still has that balance in mind. He cannot forgive and so there need be limits to his own absolution.
Perhaps out of fear that he'd buckle beneath the strength of Jayce's persistence,]
Jayce, [he'll interject when Jayce catches himself, speaking that name firmly. The look in Jayce's blow out eyes is clear as day, even in the night. Viktor's expression sweetens towards him, slipping out from his own resolution in turn. Oh, that looks says so much... Viktor puts it much too simply,]
You're hungry.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 04:49 pm (UTC)he wanted viktor.
and how that rings so very prominent now, of all times. denial would be another sentence. hungry, he was. not enough to feel the stuttering madness that makes his body contort and beg, fall apart, but it is hunger all the same. a start. a fuse, wishing to be lit. a dryness at the back of his throat and an emptiness at the pit of his stomach, isolation in his heart. it is a heat set to boil even lower at the hips, knowing what was to come of it, making his ears pin forward and his tail flag embarassingly behind him once the wires cross. if he tastes, he will lose all sense of discipline. he'll crumble.
and it will make this all so much worse. so much more complicated and like treading across a minefield. but can he resist it? resist him? his lips move without pulling apart, a scowl in the making, brows arched low, and an unconscious presentation of his broken rack, bone white and pearly, cleaned— still formidable. still worth something. still strong.
he can't even think clearly enough to answer what mattered most— their lines in the sand to be respected, until they are ready to shorten the distance, and already— something too primal in jayce wants to breach it. and it will.
he's ruining everything before they truly get started, and viktor isn't doing much to help in how his observation dips honey sweet. jayce hesitates for as long as he can, but he continues as carefully as he could before the stag throws caution to the wind.
he breathes his words out as if they could shatter him. like he hates that he wants. and gods, help him. this wasn't what they needed and yet, his whisper scrapes the very floors: ]
I still want you.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 05:15 pm (UTC)Viktor lifts his hand from Jayce's grasp on it. He reaches forward to cradle his jaw, to push his metallic thumb through his beard and along his cheek with tenderness.
Shepherding him forward, to roll his way over top of Viktor, if only Jayce will be guided along. Submitted and yet still in control, still holding firm to anchor Jayce despite how often that idea sank him,]
Have me. Just once more.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 12:59 am (UTC)all there was needed was new intention, an opening, for jayce to spring himself with the guidance as if set loose to buck around in an arena. his legs and hooves struggle to bend and sit, especially where his knee does not comply (something about a living body being more painful than dulled where rusted), but he hurries his angles and bears his weight upon the herald, his hands already a mess of loose soil and long locks of platinum and chestnut. they should close this thing if its still open for the convoy to bear witness. jayce will regret it later, but not now. it's of no concern to him, now.
he is vivid, his heart wild, stuck in this enticing wallop like a trap. like a meal. like his ultimate desire. he hangs so pressed into viktor after his single, tallest antler threatens to scrape the heights of the cybertruck, every curve and bulge clasps against viktor's with urgency— and still a damn perfect fit. the snarl that becomes of him is befitting for a stag in rut, digging fingers into metalic flesh and bone not to hurt, but to absorb, to smell, to press his nose, to meld with— become one with. it's hardly words until the syllables slip into addition, low and like a prayer to war. he has been thinking about him and thinking, and thinking, and imagining, until he went mad with it in his solitude— ]
That's a lie.
[ jayce cannot physically live without him. viktor cannot resist him. the same can be said of one another when the coin's sides are flipped. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 02:41 pm (UTC)Jayce's nose and mouth paw at his metal shell, while the air around them growing heady with energy, tension, and the musk of animal and ozone clinging to fog. Viktor isn't thinking of decency, of the trunk side remaining rolled up for any to wander by and see them again at one another's throats and so much more. All that he's thinking of is how good it feels, that Jayce is with him again.
His hand falls from Jayce's jaw to his curl, opposite his other hand, around the man's sides to his back. Embracing him with both, pressing all ten fingertips into the plushness of Jayce's muscular back. No wounds, no melted and rotted away skin, the man no longer a corpse. Viktor's grip lightens, having gotten near bruising, realizing he could very well hurt the man beyond his intention if he's not mindful of his strength. His fists bundle up with frustration into whatever clothing Jayce is wearing up top. One hand remains, twisting and pulling up his shirt, so the other can reach to exposed flesh down his lower back. Can expand his palm flat and possessively feeling his partner's skin directly. Viktor's splayed fingers trace firm over curves and musculature, his middle finger bounces as a train upon a track might, following the ridges of Jayce's spine towards his tailbone. There, he finds fluff and his newer addition, which had been so expressive throughout their conversation,
Then, Jayce is growling at him with challenge and Viktor's passion spikes ever further to feel the offense of it, answering with controlled anger,]
Shut up, Jayce- [he'll do this for him, angling to meet Jayce in a forceful and commanding kiss, open mouthed and hungering himself.]
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Date: 2025-08-21 04:20 pm (UTC)it is a relief, to not think of anything else. jayce feels pain from too-tight grips, but he does not object to it, forcing his flesh further into squeezes as it floods him with the sting of intoxicating pleasure. one of the buttons of his buttondown pops from the force, coaxing jayce to rise and pry the rest off. his loins ache, his erection is terribly odd, sudden and uncomfortable in comparison to . . . what it used to be, pushing against fabric until it causes an unbearable shifting against viktor's hips. it's a relief when they dive for each other's mouths, when viktor shuts him up with both lips crushed, teeth scraping and jayce gasping mid lap, his own rough hands yanking at his childhood blanket wrapped as a toga around his nimble frame to take claim. his. all his, the smell on him jayce's and screams mine. even that a proof in the midst of uplifted soil and greens that viktor has not let him go. he does not diverge his mouth to his body yet, exploring viktor's to taste and swallow him whole while fingers push and test the boundaries of the purple-gold crevices like he'd fuck those, too. his tail—
it twitches under viktor's vice, but not to snap from it. no objections. the tuft is raised high, flagged to the side to expose his readiness. his neediness. his obscene want that makes his own scent all the more enticing when he pursues viktor's hand with an arch of his back, all garbled groans and fired demands. ]
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Date: 2025-08-22 12:14 am (UTC)The shirt his fist was bundled up in is cast aside and Viktor only helps with that. His own garment is unbuckled and unwrapped from his form like he's some present awaiting Jayce's eager acceptance of the gift being given. There's just Jayce's pants left to separate them, which still bundle up Jayce's arousal so much it appear nothing if not painful for the man. Viktor's hands have always been skilled in all things, but they both of them are frantic and feeding that back into one another with each moment. Fumbling to unfasten what is keeping Jayce's bare form from him, Viktor might rip them rather than ease them off his partner with any grace. Who cares, sew them back up later, that's the least of their concerns...
The moment the other man has his pants below the bend of his hips, Viktor's hands are wrapped around him, front and backside. One hand to his cock and the other encircling the base of that fuzzy tail. The latter of which he strokes along first, dragging the pleasing scratch of mechanical fingertips at the furthest underside. Testing out the sensitivity of that new part of Jayce, of what Viktor had yet to handle and needed to understand before proceeding, because he's always curious, always, always seeking to Jayce better, fully, and more completely than he has. A futile endeavor, maybe, but Viktor cannot help his impulses when it comes to Jayce.
He's still kissing the man, through it all.]
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Date: 2025-08-22 05:46 pm (UTC)he is wanted.
at the expense of a gasp pulled through his gaping lips each time he can, jayce crashes forth the way viktor orders, no qualms when their wants align, with tongue ablaze and teeth beginning to sink a little deeper with each push and pull of their kissing. not enough to break, but certainly teasing the thought, edging himself to a crazed brink of hunger at the sound of a moan an octave higher, coaxing viktor to grab at him taut and unyielding. let it out. let it all out and let him take it like he should. viktor unravels and jayce sinks his wandering hands deeper into him. on him. around him. everything from back to sides to risingjust enough to reach behind him, between them for whatever it was that he would find. if it would give to the pressure of his fingers, it would be brief. it would be because it is jayce who gives in first, jayce to yelp a sound he's yet to have heard from himself.
his cock is out, at least, nearly popping free from its confines and presented in a way that viktor may not recall— it is longer than before, slender and tapered, spearing out from a flacid, furred sheath that startles him with blown eyes. pale rather than red and swollen with blood, he hasn't seen it like that before, and in honesty he had not the mindspace to explore on his own earlier. he's now built for efficiency rather than display— but perhaps it could still provide something of a spectacle.
jayce barely has time to consider it when viktor's clever fingers draw an unexpected tremble in his legs that rattles his chest. the damn thing has a sensitivity he is both unused to as much as heightened, quivering, bouncing and flagging to each stroke. with hands planted on either side of the other man, jayce's focus scatters, and his throat works both soft and corrugated vocals like a melody in the wild. ]
P— Pull, [ he doesn't demand it in tone. the drawled timbre and eager, frenetic blowing from the nose that is more stag than man, ] please—
[ but the man still in there begs of him, begs to pull the mantel off him, too heavy, pass the torch to someone who deserved control from the start. this way, jayce too has the most control of his own fate. ]
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Date: 2025-08-26 06:17 pm (UTC)Viktor's mouth is separated from Jayce's as the man mutters his desires, Viktor dragging his teeth along his lower lip to hear him gasp that please. He should uphold his anger better, but a playfulness strikes him because it's Jayce. it's Jayce, again, over top of him, whining and pleading. It's Jayce... and he is wanted,]
Pull-? [The hand at the base encircles the member and drags downward, toward the end of the long taper. Is that the pull Jayce was yearning for? He won't stroke backwards, just let go and restart at the base, doing the motion again, other arm still playing with the boney base of Jayce's tail,]
Not crank-? [teasing, at a time like this. Viktor's truly a cruel, cruel man]
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Date: 2025-08-27 03:49 am (UTC)Oh, fff— [ that hits like a blade between the ribs, but the sheer pleasure of the touch hits him first as much as hardest. that damn old joke from when things were simpler. better. missed. that was before they broke each other and pretended, for just a few painstakingly wonderful moments, that none of it happened enough to sink into harsh and complete avoidance, with his back arched and moan shrilling into annoyance, jayce chokes on the sound and whatever words would have come, the half-growl knotting the frustration behind his teeth and whisking right past the gap between them.
it's too much. it's always been too much with him. jayce's fingers curl tighter in viktor's hair, pulling just enough to drag his head back until their faces are close, breath mixing in the charged air between them. his forehead presses to viktor's temple, harsh and grounding, his voice wrecked and shaking when he gets it out: ]
Don't— ngh, don't fucking do that. [ jayce gasps it, cracked and breathless, but it serves as nothing. quite the actuality, when jayce's hips now ground down in following viktor's hand, forward, to rut into the space of his palm, wet with dribbled precum, and especially back, where the flagging tail twitches wildly to be used. ]That's— That's cruel— I meant my, [ gods, he has to say it, doesn't he? ] my tail—
[ he hates how wrecked he sounds. hates that viktor hears it. hates more that viktor smiles against him in smug victory. the worst part is, jayce knows he'll let him. he'll let viktor tease, let him play, let him drag out every last fraying nerve until jayce is trembling and aching and begging for whatever he chooses to give. because this . . . the wanting, the hurting, is all they've got left, and neither of them has ever known how to stop either way. ]
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Date: 2025-08-27 04:11 pm (UTC)Foolish of him, to slip into the mood of such games between them. They're long passed that, as well. He can be cold if that somehow grants Jayce what he wants. (Yet, Viktor already knows, he'll slip again...)]
As you... wish...
[Viktor's hair is gripped into and pinned to the soil, so he reaches out to grapple Jayce in turn. His hands are busy, so that leaves his third arm to do the trick, craning around to the back of Jayce's neck and practically scruffing him. The claw doesn't dig into skin, the blades lay smooth, threatening at their edges and yet inert. He'll tug Jayce's tail as he removes his hand from the man's dripping cock. Slick with precum, his fingers travel to his own groin, bulged from the smooth front. He's splitting without revealing his own arousal, leaking some of the blue lubrication his body made for such mating. That's what Jayce's instincts are telling him to do, aren't they? To breed for the season, to sooth his rut.
Viktor can suit that purpose. He presses his slicked fingers inward, expression on twitching around his eyes, curiously. Not allowing his anatomy to emerge, pressing it inward, inverting the purpose. Ah, as he thought, his body adapts quickly. He will always evolve to what is required of him,]
I said have me, Jayce... go on- sink into me, [coaxing with words as well as motion, Viktor will not be pulling on Jayce's tail. Instead, he hand flattens at the lowest curve of his spine, pushing down. Guiding Jayce's hips so his cock presses to rub at the split, wet and throbbing to be fucked,]
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Date: 2025-08-30 08:03 pm (UTC)the draugr's nostrils flare wide, pupils eclipse color as he is caught watching viktor's body inverse, pool with slick, aroused blue that has a gasp catch behind his teeth. his fingers only briefly untangle to plant on either side of viktor in search of stable ground in the midst of near dizzying lust, panting before him— the worst of both worlds had been jayce wanting him and any instinctual impulse only exaggerates it. part of him thinks, remembers: he would've wanted this to be special. he would've wanted to drink this all at a snail's pace, worship the body it came from until he'd drive himself insane with want and enter. it's the first time he'd be fucking viktor's . . . slick. hell they hadn't even the chance to explore properly or even know and yet—
jayce is not strong enough to object to him. he's starting to think he never is, never will be. hesitation is the farthest it goes, a tremble fixed at his lips and words building behind his tooth gap. wait, a part of him still urges. but then— the gentle encouragement. the impossible heat. wet. inviting, sliding at the tapered tip of his dick enough to make his eyes nearly roll, flutter and gape. then came everything else, with the impact of a train losing its breaks: the frustration. the pent up energy. the anger. the revolt. the remorse. the maddening want. possessive want. the love that made him so crazy he couldn't live without him. the passion, the blotch of irrational hope that this could somehow fix a part of what they've broken together, however small a fraction it was. jayce, like many times before this one, commits an error that would later cost him.
he looks into viktor's eyes, roots his knees with only a scowl of complaint when the joint disagrees, takes viktor's hand above his head and aligns with his slit. he has to adjust backwards to, he's . . . long, as it were, and part of him thinks— will this hurt him? will he even fit? girth wasn't the problem, but—
he wants to. they both want, to drown this all out. it speaks louder. so jayce squeezes his partner's fingers within his hold, breaks his hesitation and goes under, sinking into sweetly soaked membranes until enveloped. his tail shivers and flags as he does, testing the heat of it and quickly finding himself absolutely hypnotized.
he hasn't gone all the way. ]
O-oh . . . Gods—
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Date: 2025-09-14 09:54 pm (UTC)His legs pull away and then find their new, better placement, in turn. Spreading, lifting over Jayce's still broad thighs. Hooking around him, a spider's embrace of too many limbs. The kind of embrace that would be a mates very last, with a widow like Viktor. This would all be such ridiculous heartache to suffer, just to kill Jayce once more. Viktor doesn't wish such destruction in the slightest, he wants to hold Jayce safely in his hold. Possessive and yearning to be sought after in the ways only Jayce does for him.
There's just one last way they need to connect-]
Yes, yes- Jayce... aa- haa... [Viktor mutters encouragement and gasps to be entered, unable to close his mouth fully as he shudders out panted, eager gasps. It feels strange, splitting, but profoundly satisfying. His slit oozes around Jayce's tapered cock, spilling over with blue. Pulsing and urging Jayce in until it can accommodate no more so quickly- yet it will begin again momentarily,]
Some- patience... Jayce... I feel myself molding to you. To fit you just.. the way you are. And I will take all of you. [love drunk confidence on display, Viktor moans as his body adjusts, melty and slowly working to be more pliant. The metalwork of his frame doesn't shift with great speed, but it will react to Jayce like his forge work, begin yielding to his heat and persistence.]
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