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Six months pass like an eon, a second, a cast wasteland fit for their shapes, hands melted together not of forced tendency, but careful consideration of intent.
A mug on the table, a cold palm the lid, he imagines it to burn, and the thought of that feels good, important.
Grateful, is he?
The corner of his mouth is numb. Does that matter? He can’t feel his smile, but his counterpart sees it, knows it, feels him. Gold liquid ripples as a door opens, closes, an entrance of yearned presence. Rings in his tea like rings in a tree, aged, timeless, a development cut short from axe.
A tome on the table, leather worn, opens.
«Did you find out anything?» Viktor asks, for he has curiosity intact. The table is warm in the sun, dust on the sill, untouched. «Jayce?»
He sits opposite of him, not for distance, but due to the importance of a full view, clear perspective and- and gold lighting touching his dark hair, a half halo reminiscent of a certain someone else. It touches his nose as he leans forward, framing, attachment to the ethos.
«I did,» Jayce says, opening the leather to the page of vital importance, the medical journal dedicated to a shared mission, a pursuit of the right way of life. The page smells of charcoal, there’s no ink in this cabin. Rough, scarred fingers point to his drawn thigh, his free hand reaching into his jacket pocket. Holding the small, round package the size of his palm.
Jayce smiles.
«You want to give it a try?»
For he is home.
The paste is ice cold, despite its dry, course texture. It’s not quite gravel or salt, and more like paper crumpled together, ideas disregarded and thrown away to the floor. Their bed is not soft, not kind, not warm. Viktor forms no opinion, but he trusts Jayce’s complaints whenever sleep is attempted. His leg is pale, arcane pulled from his veins, an unforgiving process of ice and fire across his nervous system a price to pay for his release. Every breath is a prayer, he a false prophet.
«It’s local,» Jayce informs, propping Viktor up against the headboard, slowly lifting his leg over his own. Intimate violence, Viktor thinks, how painful it is to be close like this. To be forgiven for his sins, to be seen as human, ill and weak and tamed. No collar on his throat, a cage on his heart, affection tying him up. «No magic involved, just some good old fashioned herbality.»
«You make up words,» Viktor sighs, Jayce’s warmth too much, he reaches his melting point and relaxes against all instinct and reason. His counterpart initiates a protest, Viktor denies, corrects, «You’re confusing it for heritability.»
«Okay dictionary,» the corner of his eye blinks with gold, it seems no matter where they stand in this forsaken cabin, the sun always finds them. «Your heritability is here.»
Viktor’s heart doesn’t hurt. The tips of his fingers do. Sorrow and grief a part of his genetic makeup now, buried deep and so far away he cannot undo himself to remove it. «Your jokes are funny,» he says, and it’s genuine, true and bold. Warm – or he imagines them to be – fingers massage the weakened muscles of his leg, from where his hip bones protrudes and down to his sharp knee, feeling and moving the aching tendons, acknowledging his sorrow and the horror of an Achilles heel.
«Or the crowd is easy to please,» Jayce mumbles, watching Viktor with half-lidded eyes, soft and tender and too caring, too adoring, too accepting of his faults.
A split second passes, Viktor exhales, it comes out like smoke held in lungs too long, suddenly unsure if Jayce is particularly wicked and cruel, or adoringly naive and forgetful. «I am one person.»
Their eyes are the same color. Were they always?
«You’re my person,» Jayce corrects. «Do you feel this?»
He seems to squeeze the flesh of Viktor’s calf. He holds his breath to focus, biting the inside of his cheek. His skin now covered in herbal horrors of local superstition. It doesn’t smell like anything.
Is it superstition to believe in ones own reality?
«It feels like wasted effort,» Viktor says, empty. Hollow. Depraved of something he always wished to rid himself of, how cruel his irony is. He’d accomplished the unfeeling, and now they are attempting to undo it.
Jayce sighs, Viktor is glad he has not lost his hearing. At least when he’s mean, he is allowed to feel the repercussions of that, to hear disappointment and sorrow and anger and regret Jayce expresses in his exhale. It doesn’t quite reach his heart, but the pain in his throat feels good, it’s only in his head, it’s not real, he deserves to feel bad.
«Do you want to stop?»
Viktor looks down where Jayce holds him. Fingers tenderly circling his skin, his flesh, his soul. Anxious to dig deeper, to figure him out.
They never go past this point; Viktor is aware of the line they both toe. A deep respect, a galaxy of connections and clusters of feeling.
Viktor observed the universe, held the power of omnipotence. Spoke through atoms, seeing past creation.
Nothing is as enlightening as Jayce’s affection. «Do you want to continue?»
Jayce bites his lip. Eyeing his body. «I want to fix this.»
«…I always wanted that,» Viktor says. He has mourned his existence since the day his blood connected to the arcane. He has denied himself this since the day they met. Anger and desperation paired well with the thought of oblivion. He wished to die, it’d make it more bearable. It is not death he wants anymore. He bargained, he fought, he fell desperate. «I must accept that this is what I get. We cannot fix this.»
«Viktor-»
«Look where it brought us.» He is undeserving of feeling. «Can you tell me what you see?»
Jayce hesitates, fingers stopping. Viktor imagines dully that their hearts have always beaten together like this. Since before they met, since before they were born. Souls intertwined and seeking.
«I see you,» Jayce says like it’s final. «I only see you, Viktor. Nothing else.»
«That is… deeply disturbing,» Viktor says. «The things I’ve done… Those I hurt. I see it all.»
«Then close your eyes,» Jayce demands, leaning down and breaking their walls, shattering the reflective glass around Viktor’s existence.
It is a privilege to feel the lips touching his own.
The universe allows him to feel sparks. His stomach suddenly warm, ribs caving in, he truly melts. All of what he is fades away, he’s brought back to where stars touch his skin, cosmic dust tracing his outline in the sky, he melts, boils, freezes, goosebumps on his skin, kindness above him. Mercy and release, acceptance and… detrimental breach of workplace professionalism. A second passes as slow as an eon, of which he has experienced infinites. None of them compare to final peace and an ascension only given by mortality.
Jayce pulls away, Viktor sees the pulse on his throat, his heart beating wildly in his chest.
«You’re— you are not your suffering,» he manages to say before pushing close, adjusting himself on the bed until they’re both laying on their sides, and for the first time Viktor feels the warmth of his hands, he feels the callouses, the scars, the strength, the press of fingertips.
Suffering.
Viktor has known it since he took his first breath.
«Then what am I?» Viktor asks weakly, throat tight, a dam of emotions and grief pressing behind his eyes, he has not felt tears like this before. «I am broken.»
«You’re beautiful,» Jayce holds his face, jaw tight like he’s fighting the urge to knock some sense into his counterpart. «Imperfect and all mine.»
«I- I f…» he chokes on his own disbelief, speaking into Jayce’s skin, sensitive nerves burning with… something repressed and buried. «I can feel you.» He lifts his leg. He feels rough, worn bed sheets against his skin.
Jayce’s eyes widen. «Viktor—»
He smiles, his lips dry and cracking, he licks them and it hurts. It hurts and he feels it and the pain is good. He pushes himself up, higher, higher, «You speak too highly of me,» their eyes are matching suns, ambitious and unaware of their combined strength, their power and intellect a danger to their existence. They are creation and ruin, desolation and residents of oblivion. There are no herbal mixes, no cold tea in the kitchen, no grass outside the window, only the universe’s patience to their fated connection.
«You were right,» Viktor grins, hearing the frame squeak, «this bed is awful.»
Clean air is a privilege, alongside pain relief, a steady leg, and peace.
Privileges he has been denied since birth.
Jayce is his privilege and peace. He is the key to his chains, the ice to his wound, the breach of his walls.
«You’re so stupid,» Jayce speaks like it’s the first time he’s ever opened his mouth, mind clear, his sights set, laughing into the crook of Viktor’s neck, nosing his pulse. Viktor’s breath hitches as Jayce’s hand traces the outside of his thigh, his hamstring, lifting under his knee until he kneels between Viktor’s legs, «Do- do you feel this?»
«Yes.» He doesn’t care to wait for a response after that, letting Jayce in, grabbing his neck and pulling, no, forcing him in and not letting go, lips moving, teeth clashing, Viktor has never allowed himself to dream past this point, this was a distraction to his work, a painful reminder of what he could never have – but he has it now, he owns the hand on his stomach, the pulse under his fingertips, all his, all mine, all ours, they are counterparts united in greed, primal want and persistent, unwavering loyalty.
It was always about this. Had they not been blinded by the arcane, this might’ve come sooner.
Impatience holds their hands, guides their flesh together, they are each other’s boiling point, they were always meant to be this, here, now, forever. Beyond logic, beyond timelines, they are doomed to fall like this, slow and fast, hard and soft. Souls bound by the discretion of the universe. Holding tight.
Jayce’s love saves him. Divine intervention was never their salvation. They only needed time.
And it is with that conclusion, Viktor accepts he is not his suffering, he is not his violence, he is not his regret and he is not his failures. He is an entity guided by absolutism, Jayce’s spirit touching his.
«Jayce,» Viktor speaks, and now it is his turn to feel like it’s his first words ever spoken; he has surfaced after eons underwater, never known clean air, never known what the privilege of affection feels like, never brave enough to explore what could’ve been if he were only bolder before this all derailed, before their pain became unrecognizable; only they have seen it all and felt it all, and now he is empowered to ask for what has been rightfully his since the beginning of the universe, guiding hands to his hips, their chests pressing together, he’s crushed under his counterpart’s weight and is grateful, opening himself up to the universe’s acknowledgement and acceptance. «Make me feel.»