[ jayce barks his words in return, but rather than angry, he just sounds as desperate as he looks as he watches the hexcore's touch eat up what remained of viktor's human skin. that— that's not supposed to happen, none of this is supposed to happen—
he's not supposed to be whithering away, either.
when viktor drops, it's the last straw for jayce. he drops with him, whincing painfully as his own knee takes the brunt of his fall, hooking both arms under viktor's to help secure him before shuffling his legs in a way where they could kick out and handle having viktor in his arms. he doesn't keep put as he does this; jayce moves a hand to viktor's favor while one has him bound under the shoulders, prying his shirt away with the same desperation, quickening his breathing and his words: ]
I've always left you when you needed me most— I'm never, doing that again— [ he promised. he promised so many things within a singular, encompassing vow that he would not fail viktor again. but the more he tries to help, ] I'm right here, I-I'm—
[ he doesn't know what to do. he doesn't know what's happening—]
[Viktor pries his vest and shirt free, having just enough time to shrug the fabric off each arm before his hexcorified arm goes completely limp on him. It makes a noise like powering down and Viktor slacks to that side from the sheer dead weight of it. Jayce has leaned down to hold onto him and Viktor would fall over if not for that. For no reason other than distress, he pounds the outer ball of a bundled fist against Jayce's chest. His working arm is clearly too weak for it to hurt in the least bit.
Maybe there's some anger in the two hits he can manage before losing even that much strength, jumbled up in the agony and Viktor's terrible stubbornness.]
I didn't- need you..! I needed- to save myself..!
[Needs and wants are terrible things. Viktor hated needing help, he tried to do everything, including believe in himself more than anybody else could. Needing Jayce was a weakness he had to overcome- better to just want him-
This isn't the time to be thinking about this. Viktor pushes his face into Jayce's collar, his fist unbundling to grab at the man's back. He's cold. It's the only relief Viktor can find, burning up beneath his skin, buzzing with energy as his skin morphs to hexcorize across his chest and back. It devours the brace and melds it into his ribcage with purple and gold inlay.
The changes get to his back, metal crawling beneath his spine. He feels the joints fuse and go rigid in places. Anchor points turn into swivels. The flesh melts and peels away with a release of steam. His tailbone separates from where it was embedded, the top opening into three prongs. The rest of his spinal column lifts upward, attached to Viktor between his shoulder blades. Metal fills in the empty space it leaves. The third arm jitters and convulses without purpose,
Viktor sighs in relief, like that was somehow a purging experience and he's feeling better.]
[ how it makes jayce's heart ache to hear that. not because he wasn't needed, but perhaps what viktor desperately needed above everything else— and what jayce would follow blindedly with. he already had, in fact. keep viktor alive. save him no matter the cost—
the cost was great and yet jayce couldn't ever do it differently. he could never let him go, would think night after night that he should be the one in his place and not the other way around.
(but the universe conspires in a funny way, doesn't it?)
even now jayce cannot fathom what he'd do if viktor expired in his arms right then and there. he could hear the broken voices from time to time, beckoning the fractures filled in deepest crevices of his mind to a juttering maddness only he would know. the kind he'd hear at night and what would keep him awake, the kind he'd ask to, please, just talk to him— because there was something wrong about him now.
but there is little to nothing that jayce could do to actually make it stop. he can't, but he's holding viktor in his arms anyway, over his legs for cushioning, absorb his fists (he thinks he does deserve them, in part)— viktor's face dips into his collar and jayce's hand cups the back of his skull to pull him in further into the curve of his icy neck, the coil across his broad back only serving to urge his hold on viktor's, squeezing him as tightly as he could manage. his strange hypothermia could be of some use to cool the lava-hot ripples pouring from viktor's hexcorization— in the same way viktor's heat brings jayce his own twisted relief and symbiosis that he tries not to think about. the heat warms his bones for once.
he hugs viktor in a way he'd wished for quite a while, hunched into him and nestled neck to neck, clinging as if his blunt, oversized fingers could pry the discomfort away from him. there is something in viktor's spine, he sees it swelling under skin and clattering through inorganic matter— ]
I've got you, I—
[ an ugly crack interrupts. jayce does not know how to describe what he sees as a third arm emerges from the lower slot of his spine. the sound and sight are sickening. it jostles jayce into a trembling, quietly gasping shock. since then, he hasn't let go of viktor and doesn't think he will, his now stinging, wet eyes losing focus.
maybe this was just another nightmare. jayce talks in whispers, but it's hardly anything comprehensible. ]
[With his spine freed, reincorporated into him in a new evolution, Viktor's body is suddenly unbound. No longer contained by such a restraint on itself. His skin continues to pulse, overtaken all across and beneath his remaining clothing by the shimmer purple metal. It isn't done shifting, hasn't been fully forged yet. Jayce will recognize the sound of metal creaking and expanding, changing shape.
Viktor's head is slumped at his shoulder, breathless because he suddenly feels no need to breathe at all. A blissful sensation, to him, to have something so arduous for him removed entirely. No longer burdening him. He doesn't know how he manages speaks without air to do so, but he can. There is a buzzing vocal fry overtop his usual accent, though he still has such a soft tone,]
Don't worry- Jayce... [this is THE MOST worrisome scenario possible, but sure, Vik........]
I've never felt... better... [the high has settled in, Viktor thinks, a byproduct of the shimmer. What most people would take it for. To feel powerful, to break through their limits. That's all this is. His limbs lengthen and a new spine forms where the old, fragile one was. Extends out in an arch, Viktor remaining hunched around Jayce despite growing several feet taller.
He's becoming his best self.
Viktor's hands fall over each side of Jayce's shoulders, scaled as proportionally large now to Jayce as Jayce's hand usually fell over Viktor's slim sides. He leans in and of all, inappropriate time and place, it's a near thing to kissing the other man. Instead, Viktor presses his forehead to Jayce's.
It only lasts a moment. A rift forms and his face splits, peels to each side, and is overtaken by a flat mask. The eyes light up, staring back at him with an unreadable expression.]
[ viktor grows and grows, much bigger than the frame that's trying to hold him together like a porcelain doll falling apart, except . . . he was being put together.
his partner leans in, twists just a touch, the pressure of their foreheads pushing together spurrs a leap in jayce's rattling heart, that he thinks it is a response, at last, to words quietly confessed some weeks ago and never spoken of again. he is desperate with fear, that viktor would evaporate from his hold forever, that he'd never know how much . . . he meant to him. how the world outside could be falling apart and the only one who'd really matter over them all was viktor. he'd choose viktor. he'd choose to bring humanity to the brink again, and again, and once more, if it meant he'd have a life with viktor.
jayce does not hesitate; he does not waste the time he has after doing so for so long. hand to the back of his head, the space between their mouths splice and jayce crumbles into the kiss he places on viktor's spluttering lips. for a moment, just a moment, where it felt like sparks could've popped off like explosives—
instead, the sickening snap of viktor's face splintering apart is what startles him back. this wasn't supposed to happen. he still cannot think, cannot parse how anything could be alright when it felt like this world had torn away from him the one thing that was still keeping him together.
jayce croaks as he stares back at two remote golden spheres, adjacent to closed, sleeping eyes he felt he'd never see open again. stuck, in time. time he'd wish could loop back. he could only feel his lips puff together with a tightness as he strangles hot tears that come sliding down lukewarm cheeks, skin that would just go cold again, soon.
he feels like he's being hollowed out, iced from the inside, and can't look up anymore. ]
[The last thing Viktor really feels is Jayce's lips pressing to his. IIcy cold against overheated. Practically sizzling from contrast, sparking, before they're split from each other. Sensation dulls at that. Not gone completely, but crushed down and smothered.
Viktor is so densely packed within his own body, nerves and tissues all condensed into a core somewhere inside his chest. No longer within his own head, every end of him more like a piece of a marionette to be puppeteered by his command,
He has no mouth capable of screaming, of speech. Eyes that do not blink, have unbroken focus. Jayce is so close, Viktor can see his horror and dismay in full clarity, yet there's no mustering the same emotions in turn. The man was clearly robbed of a brief glimpse at happiness. Even with his emotions stomped down to their lowest of lows, there is a twisting of Viktor's own yearning into a more rational motivation.
Logically, it would be an inconvenience if Jayce became dead weight, whether from despair or shock. That should be avoided.
The answer to Jayce's adverse reaction is a poor excuse for an attempt to sooth him. Something the Herald is truly no better at offering than Viktor might be in his right mind.
The third arm twists and cranes forward, latches ingraciously to the back of Jayce's hair to lift his head back upward where he looked down. Meet the unyielding eyes of the Herald again. The creature leans forward, mirroring Jayce's earlier action as best he can. The flat front of the mask nudges to Jayce's mouth, presses awkwardly against and past lips to bump into the front of the man's teeth.
An unfeeling attempt at reciprocating that so desired kiss. That should calm him down, right? Simple cause and effect, wanting and receiving.]
[ startled by the pull, jayce gasps, yelps through locked teeth and is forced to stare at the disquieting glow of the creature's gaze. for a split moment, fear courses through him, his hands shooting to the claw on his shaggy hair to fruitlessly paw at, grip, at the very least to keep it from squeezing anymore than it already was. his breathing picks up, he anticipates danger, but . . . he's even more stunned into unmoving tension when the masked herald mirrors his earlier attempt. a stiff and inept excuse for it. maybe—
he tries again, out of desperation, out of sheer heartache and perhaps an inkling of useless hope that somewhere in there, viktor really was trying to reciprocate. just as awkwardly, jayce . . . tries, pressing his lips and bumping his teeth to sweltering metal, but it immediately falls flat and plummets his heart into a pit of loneliness as cold as zaun's noxious crevices. so terribly flat, and it's not even because there are no lips there, because god if it was still viktor, careful and kind, sharp tongued, awkward and calculating, jayce would find a way. he'd gladly be the only one doing any kissing if there had been genuine encouragement along his back, his limbs, anywhere that he would imagine late at night and dream of how their first kiss would be. the problem lied in there being no reciprocation. it was too calculating. no heart. he is not being cradled, with sentiment that felt the same. he's literally being grappled by the back of his head like a scruffed pup. he's being conducted to a cause for an effect.
jayce suddenly wishes he were in danger instead of this. he would've preferred to be attacked and physically mauled, laser beamed, eaten— than to have his heart torn to shreds. he is a formula being cracked, a problem being solved. he doesn't . . . mean anything, anymore. not the way jayce wanted to be, anyway. he forcefully turns his head away and wedges an arm between them, feeling— so many things at once that he could only feel listless. did he fail, just now? did . . . he lose everything? was that why he was dying? would this make accepting death easier?
he has no purpose anymore. death might as well come faster. ]
S— [ he sputters, croaks just like the clicking of his brace trying to connect gears into place and secure an angle. jayce's heart is already cracked and falling apart, but he asks, perhaps, to keep whatever remained of his psyche for long enough to just return to his truck and wait for death to come. if there was anything left. ] Say something.
[Every interplay of their temperatures is flipped and backwards. Jayce, full of desperate warmth and passion, while his body is an icy corpse. Viktor, metallic form practically steaming with the excess energy of so much change so rapidly, while his emotions are completely frigid. The pair clash in every way there is.
Their kiss is a meaningless display of mismatch parts. An engine too inert for a combustion spark to fuel it. He lurches away from the gesture as Jayce shoves an arm between them, though the man isn't being let go from the hold on him.
The Herald is Viktor, the way he imagines himself as ideal. Strong, logical, and of use. His mind holds only a single motivation, narrow focused and precision made. He is a tool fit for a specific function. He answers, his voice not resonating out from his face, but from the claw grasped at the back of Jayce's head still. It will rattle in the man's skull as a result. Viktor's voice, but thoroughly vocal fried as if being filtered through a beehive,]
I promised to protect you.
[his legs move, get one foot beneath him and then leverages upward to stand. Viktor's new form is massively tall, would tower over Jayce by well over a foot if, well, he didn't pull Jayce up with him. The Herald is hoisting the man over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes. (About as romantic as their kiss...)]
[ it's hard- no, impossible, for jayce to fight back; he has no strength to, it's barely enough to get a grip, even less for him to pull himself up— so it's there that he hangs: useless, wrecked, and despondent. he'd never be able to get out of there with his leg in the situation it was in, feeling brittle even with no weight but the pull of gravity.
his head feels like it could crack open as he shudders at words that bring a painful truth to his reality. he promised. he promised he wouldn't fail. he's failing. he has failed so terribly. ]
I—
[ i failed you. i'm so sorry. i'm sorry. i failed you— i'm sorry.
but not even that, he could bring himself to say outloud. he just wants it all to stop. ]
[The Herald answers, reaching with his free hand to take up the Talis forged crutch from the ground. A useful item. One that has served him well. It should not be left behind. There is no sentimentality in the gesture, only practical understanding. A sturdy weapon he could swing at any assailants who dare stand between Viktor and returning Jayce to the Convoy.
His mission and purpose, for now, driven now only by an indescribably instinct.]
I will prevent that. I will find a way, through any means necessary, to preserve you. That is my promise.
[ was this irony or punishment or both—? what does he even do? he's lost him, he can't see or feel viktor anymore, just a senseless husk that makes him spiral every time that puzzing voice rings the fractures of his mind encased in his skull like a bell. ]
P-Please, come back, Viktor—
[ he's begging. he needs him. without him, and without a path he could see to bring him back from the brink— jayce had done it all for nothing. and that is what he's feeling, right now.
a deep, harrowing hopelessness that was swallowing his will to survive one more day. viktor of the future was probably so indescribably disappointed in him. would he understand? would he hate him for this?
he mumbles, to himself as he cradles his own head: it's not my fault, this was an accident, we shouldn't be here, i promised, my promise, no, no i, failed, failure, i'm a, no . . . take me back, i want, to go back, i promised you— ]
I am right here. Don't you see? This is my best version.
[His hold on Jayce is secure, carrying him down the cabin steps three at a time, strides cracking the wood paneling beneath them. Viktor's tone is hollowed and empty, the only thing there is recognition devoid of awe. Pride without humanity. Speaking to an accomplishment, yet holding no elation and no dissatisfaction.
Speaking truth, without any meaning.]
Free of pain, free of emotion. My mind has full clarity, I am unclouded by weakness. I sought this.
[His pursuit has ended. This is all he could have hoped for, a version of himself that can complete his goals, unburdened by all that held him down in his life.]
[ if he's dying, if he's going to die soon— then he wants these to be his last words to him. not i'm sorry. not his fractured babbling. through his worn breathing, jayce musters up the energy, a last dance to cling, to twist his head, to do something— ]
You never needed to be perfect, Viktor.
[ would he hear him? would he be able to touch that concentrated core somewhere beneath that purple matter? if jayce has one last hope, it's this one, and he seizes it like a lifeline, like an angel pulling him out of the depths he was drowning in. if it's going to snap anyway, well . . .
at least it was telling him more. more than maybe he could've said, explained, at another time, another place. another life. he's not getting through the day and he's serving him his heart— with all of his own flaws. ]
—I- I loved you for every imperfection. They're what make you.
Your intellect has always been undercut by your sentimental passion, Jayce. You love deeper than you think.
[While Viktor... Viktor is free of such passions. Of his loves and hates. He has been purged of all the unnecessary clutter of human experience. The messiness, cleaned up and organized into objective truths. It is so blissful, to be free of so much complication, so many clashing wants and impractical concerns.
All he has now is a goal. A promise to keep, a commitment to uphold.
Jayce will live, because Viktor's purpose is wrapped too far up in their dream to ever be separated from him.
Being the Herald, he cannot comprehend why he has this as his purpose, it merely is. A fact, fixed and unable to be changed nor altered. It may as well have been programmed into him, his ordained function, the reason for this form.]
You will understand when given proof. I will demonstrate my worthiness. Free you of the burdens I have caused. This is progress.
[ jayce hung on until the last minute, but even with his heart divulged, finishing its rupture, only logic reverberates back to him. he doesn't want to argue about this— it's a struggle without end. if he pushes, jayce will always be met with pulls. he's already out of breath as is . . .
jayce feels the strain overcoming his features, the burn at the base of his nose burdening the muscles surrounding his mouth. where the herald holds him is where he hangs in silence— the occassional strangled sob may slip, but he says no more. ]
[Viktor walks with Jayce on a shoulder back to the Convoy. The shield is up and while he's unsure if Jayce can go through it, Viktor feels a certainty he cannot breach to the convoy in this form. Or perhaps, he merely should not. He looks no different from any of the monsters assailing their fellow travelers. Illogical to cause a panic.
He hoists his broken down partner off his shoulder once they find his butterfly engraved truck, just outside the shield's boundary. Viktor... passes the man his crutch, so he can use it for once. The Herald no longer requires such a tool.]
Take shelter. I will return for you when this matter is resolved and the shield is lowered.
[ jayce has gone from a hanging sack of potatoes to a slanted sack of potatoes. the herald still towers over him as he leans against the framework of his pick up for support, staring at the uncanny form before him, its metal slopes and curves, bolts and graceful asymmetry, searching for viktor in cold, gold garnished eyes and finding nothing but suffocating emptiness.
the crutch— he takes it. jayce clutches viktor's crutch as if its the only thing he has left of him— a symbol of his strife and accomplishments, of his rise in a world that was so split, of all of his hard work, of his beautiful imperfections that jayce did love, with all of his heart and soul. he helped make this crutch for him.
jayce allows the herald to leave in the same way he'd ended up here: in a dreadful silence of quiet nods and simple gestures (not that it matters, to viktor). he needs to think, to scrape up what he's gathered— maybe do a little more digging as a final drive. his heart skips in places that feel uncomfortable. his limbs ache with cold, until it devolves into a gradually creeping, painful numbness.
he finishes up, gives his papers all to serph, eventually, and waits for either the herald to return or for death to pay him a visit. he thinks he's more prepared for the latter. ]
(2/2) cw: gross infection stuff and imminent character death
[ he's not, for the record, and for some reason he'd thought he'd pass away as fast as his onset. he thought, foolishly but perhaps hopefully, that it would be quick after what felt like the harshest of pains mangling his heart. it's everything but, starting with his earlier, numbing pain dissiminating through the rest of him: chest, torso, abdomen, back, shoulder, his left leg and arm are the absolute worst of it. he stops writing his letter on the dash board when there's a smudge of blood on it, uncertain of where it came from and searching— until he finds it's from his nails. every blunt bed is bleeding. it dawns on him that his clothes are wet where they hug his hextouched scars. back, shoulder, leg— a look and touch at that— bleeding. something wet splashes his shaking hand. blood from the nose. the aches turn to stabs, and before jayce could get out of the car on his own, his leg crunches under his weight, and he falls sideways with a sodden yelp.
his vision is swimming, his heart thumping so unbeleivably fast he could hear the racing in his ears, feel that it could pop out of his chest at any moment and he'd die that way. from a broken, overworked heart. but it is not stopping there. jayce's lungs try to keep up, give him air, but no matter how quickly he tries to bring the oxygen in, it wasn't enough to soothe his invisible suffocation. it burns. the faster he breathes, the more the fire catches, and he cannot seem to slow it down.
he feels— an energy. a flow. pulsating and invading and wrong, and jayce scrambles for the front seat door swung open, for anything he may have left in the compartments or pockets to cut open the fabric under his brace. he finds— he doesn't even see what it is, only that he could use the edge of it to pull apart seams in his rush. under his soaked pants leg is the nasty concoction of iridescent decay touched by the anomaly. strings of pus stick to cotton as he peels it away, or tries to, the dribbling blood from it mixing with bright greens, blue and pinks like gasoline. it smells god awful. the bone jostles inside and jayce feels like he could vomit and expire right there.
his consciousness dips, the blackness of his vision spreads at the edges, but he's thrown back to awareness by god knows what. his body doesn't want to stop. he realizes in his desperate heaving that he doesn't want to die, because— he still has something to do. send me back. he needs to go back. he wants to go back, there's a chance, there's still a chance there. where he actually needs to be.
his attempts are futile, but he hasn't come all this way just to give up. he hasn't. his own words thrum deep in his mind with each batter of his irratic pulse: i won't fail. he takes the leather straps of the top of his brace and squeezes as hard as he can to form a tourniquet. it still bleeds and the anomaly crawls higher. his arm— it's juttering on its own.
hiking his sleeve up his forearm to catch the webbed throbbing from the embedded rune overtaking his veins, jayce could feel the last of his strength being sapped. he sinks backwards against the truck's step up, trying to stay upright with useless gasping— the anomaly claws up his arm, plows a byway of multicolored nets up the left side of his neck and leaves a perfect pattern of holes crawling under his skin and boiling up to the surface.
now comes the panic. he's tachypneic, dyspneic, every shallow breath is painful and useless and still he's trying, writhing at the wheels of the truck and frantically raking at the footwell for viktor's cane on the passenger side.
The Herald returns after the battle has concluded and the Convoy is powering down from the crisis. Jayce will feel the abrupt grab of an overlarge hand at the back of his neck, scruffing him once more to lift away from the door. He's lifted clear off his feet, not that he's in any state to be on them, as the Herald looks him up and down in such a dire state. Bleeding through his clothes, infections boiling over. Jayce is practically falling apart at the seams.
Jayce is carried around and laid to the bed of his truck. Flat. With Viktor stepping over him and looking down with a cant of his head. Best done before any piece can fall off of him. Viktor's regard is as cold as ever, not emotional enough to even be scolding,]
How did it come to this, Jayce? What failure point do you have that we did not predict? You were simply not meant to die before I was.
jayce's brows crease with dolor and mourning as he's cleaved from the prospect of retrieving viktor's cane, hardly having the energy to kick, to smack— he barely has it in him to keep reaching as he's hoisted by the herald's claw and haphazardly placed on the cargo bed. his labor to breathe is about to get worse when his lungs contract from the extended pooling within it when laid on his back, he sputters— and blood spurts from his mouth and nose like a fountain, foamy and bright red with the stains of colors that were contaminating his flesh as is. he can't even turn over by himself, arching his neck and back as he coughs and violently asphyxiates on his own fluids.
his heart, his wheezing, his garbled cries— it's all too loud. he could barely hear him and make sense of words, his consciousness as bleak as a thread ready to snap. jayce looks to his spasming wrist anyway, as if it were an answer, where the acceleration rune glows, ripples— and the arcane's touch raids the left side of his face.
the guttural sounds that spewed off his wet lips might as well just be frantic nothings twined with his soaked panting. from his usual bronze he's as pale as paper, blood from his back and leg forming an oozing pool of pearly gore at the back of the pick-up. jayce points his eyes up, passenger seat as his organs fail him one by one. he stares in that direction, not the herald, eyes rolling back and fighting to keep craning, to stay awake through the searing that ravaged his chest from the inside. back window. the pretty curve of a personalized golden-red handle. the flip of chestnut curls twirled to one side when he was deep in thought. a mole above his lip, another just under his cheek like stars in the darkness of his vision failing. it might sound like he's squeaking, weeping:
vik, trr. viktr. vik. v. v. v.
how he manages to drag his hand up to brush his bloodied knuckles at the window was the result of a perishing delusion, but at least he . . . didn't feel alone. ]
[The Herald commands, as if words will change the fact of things. Jayce is sputtering his last breaths in blood soaked gurgles and whimpers. He falls heavily to both knees overtop of Jayce, the bed of truck denting down where his weight lands. Hands cross over one another and press palms to Jayce's chest. Even, rhythmic pushes follow. One, two, three- One, two, three- the beat of a heart. What beat that should be there.
There is nothing there. Jayce's body fails, protesting his death is of no use.
Not supposed to be. Hands tear away his shirt to bare Jayce's chest, ravaged by sickly flesh and the creep of anomaly infection. Viktor tries again. One, two, three- One, two, crack- Jayce's breastbone gives sickeningly under the continued attempts. The failure strikes at the core of the Herald, but he cannot reckon with it. There must be another step. A more drastic measure. The claw on his back whirls and pushes forward, digs into the broken center of Jayce's chest. It cuts into him with precise motions, scalpel sharp, a cross pattern to peel quarters of skin open.
Revealing the man was already rotted inside, impossibly alive before his death.
He has no purpose without Jayce. Accepting his death is not possible. The claw plucks delicately at broken bones, casting them aside. Muscle and sinew is peeled away, until he can reach Jayce's heart. With care, the three prongs grasp the organ directly, forcing the pulse to return. The action does no good. Even if it could drag Jayce's body into a state of "life", forcing his blood to run only means Jayce's body will be bled out dry. Red pools at Viktor's knees long before it's clear this is pointless.
The heart eventually tears in his grasp, unable to withstand the further abuse and strain. It's fully broken.
Reality hits Viktor. Jayce is dead beneath him. There is no question and no denying the fact.
He feels nothing about this.
No sorrow, no joy. He merely recognizes a failure. It doesn't feel like his own. It doesn't feel like anything at all. The numbness is so pure and distilled, there is no ache to it, no memory nor illusion of pain. Ego death follows. The light inside the Herald simply goes out. A machine unplugged, robbed of its energy source. He slumps, upright on his knees, an inert tower of metal too well balanced to simply collapse in any direction.]
[ jayce is only semi-conscious as his rib cage caves. he knows there is pain, but there was just so much of it at this point he'd barely register more. his heart fibrilates under every pump, the rest of him slowing down, from the crazed breathing to his terrible convulsing. his lungs work their last breaths to stagnant, filled to the brim with bleeding tissue that puffs out through the chest cavity being sliced open. his body could only react now, twitching and grunting, his eyes truly rolling back with a flutter and gaping lips. there is . . . someone above him as his quivering heart is forced to pump a few more times. it gives his brain a few more useless sparks of warmth he needed to mask the horrors currently keeping his body on a thin thread. a hooded figure he could see so clearly after seeing his world go indistinct and overcast is what dots the beautiful nebulae behind him. a pointed face and whistful smile of a mage who's eyes flash red with passion.
it seems we did not anticipate this detour, did we, jayce?
jayce reacts to seeing him hovering above his head, kneeling down to pet his sweat caked hair, placing him in between his lap in an elegant swoop of colorful fabrics: his brows twitch upwards, the smallest of whines creaks from behind an compulsory gasp as blood stained tears slide down the curves of his cheeks. the mage cups jayce's face and shakes his head with deep condolences, nimble thumbs brushing away at the wetness that clings to his beard.
hush, my heart. i know you tried.
it is everything jayce wanted to hear. if he could lean into the warmth of his deathbed vision, he would— but he can't move. not a single inch. if he could cry more, he would. his brows only twitch, and his lower lip tremors. he has so much to say, but . . . he can't find the words, he thinks . . . the mage gazes ahead for a moment, jayce's eyes attempt to follow— but the mage steers his chin back up to watch him. he did not have to look. he shouldn't.
within the current restrictions, he tried, too.
jayce knows that. he'd never blame viktor for this. he'd never forsake him for something he didn't have control over. even back home . . . jayce had never left him then. he wouldn't turn his back now. the mage studies jayce's wandering face for a moment, and nods to him.
we'll go back. we'll try again.
that's all he wants to hear as the weight of his head dips sideways, and moist eyes go dim and opaque.
until the next possibility, jayce.
it is there where even the involuntary spasms of silt-caked fingertips cease, and jayce talis fully succumbs to the fate he chose. ]
[The shut down of the Herald, of Viktor's whole sense of personhood, collapses like a dying star. Of course, that implosion is met by an equal opposite. Everything within Viktor sparks and combusts, outward, outward, and outward. His body is filled again with consciousness and he struggles within the husk of himself. Nerves flare and sensation cannot be distinguished between anguishing pain and peak pleasure. There is no good nor bad, there is only the intensity of feeling. Feeling does not always mean hurt.
He remembers who he is, he reaches for his face and presses down the mask there. Viktor knows it will not pull off, it has to return from where it came. Somehow, he knows this, it is instinctive, an animal impulse. He writhes his head, thrashing against himself, and the mask begins to crumple by his force of will for it to retract. It is like a bundle of tin paper being balled up and retreating. His face peels back into place, fuses together once more, and he tears at his mouth and nostrils. Suddenly, he needs to breathe-
Both peel and pop open, flesh unfusing. He gasps, ragged and suffocated. Eyes pop open next, vision blurry and purple, shimmer-shot from burst vessels clouding his sight. Blinking that away, letting it run down the sides of his face in tears, he remembers.
He looks down and sees Jayce. Dead. So obviously dead. And yet, he calls out to him, as if there is some sliver of a chance he'll get a response,]
Jayce..? [he knows there will be no answer. It crushes Viktor to know this. The depth of heartbreak he feels is worse than any pain he's felt in his short, agonizing life. He failed himself, he failed Sky, he failed Jayce. Yet, completely overwhelmed with despair more vast than any he's ever known, Viktor feels so grateful to feel anything at all.
Numbness had been worse.
At least like this, he can scream. He does so, loud and broken, clutching his forehead. Tears roll down the sharp angles of his nose and cheekbones and chin. They fall into Jayce's open chest. In his grief, Viktor loses track of time, it could have only been seconds or it could be hours. He just mourns overtop Jayce's lifeless body until his eyes finally peel open and... he sees the shimmer of his blood mixed with Jayce's wounds.
The anomaly within. It reacts. It reacts in patterns that Viktor recognizes. It grows. Self replicating in the same way it was also self destructive. His mind, it buzzes, it comes back alive. He tears into his own bottom lip with his teeth, drawing as much blood as he can as quickly as he can. The rest of him is winding metal, but inside- he has blood. Shimmer. Variant shimmer- Evolved shimmer-
Another test. He lets it drip from his mouth onto Jayce's wounds and they react further. Flesh grows in sinewy patterns, webs with circles between. Is this can heal his body to a working state-
Then all Viktor needs is to replace what he broke and reignite the whole engine.
If it's madness or delusion, Viktor can't care, not anymore. He stands from Jayce's corpse and rushes away. He needs some basic supplies. Tubes, pumps, and jumper cables-
[Viktor formulates his plan on the fly, but it's a spiral of brilliance and insanity. The logic goes:
Jayce needs a transfusion of Viktor's blood so the anomaly infection can revert from rot to growth. He needs a working heart to pump that blood. Viktor is some manner of bug, which really only need a heart the same way a machine needs an engine. His human heart is serving that purpose, but it should be replaceable in him with mere engineering prowess. If he can give his organic heart to Jayce, it should pump the shimmer transfusion to everywhere the man needs healing.
All that in order, a sufficient spark of electrical force should kickstart him back to life.
Viktor has jumper cables, a conductive metal body, and an electric vehicle. All he really needs to make for himself is a mechanical heart. How difficult could that be? It's just an automatic pump, when all things come down to it. He can build something passable from scraps and upgrade it later on. There's no knowing how long he has before Jayce is truly, really, too far gone. Viktor does what he's always done... he gets to work.
Having a third arm really helps his productivity speed. Monstrous as his transformation feels to him, that part he would keep given the choice.
If there is one thing to be said about Viktor's persistence, it is that nobody believes in Viktor as much as Viktor does. He leaves no room for doubt that this will work. Ultimately, he is the Herald and the Herald is an extension of his obsessive core. He will do this. He has nothing more to lose.
The scene around Jayce's truck grows increasingly elaborate. The cybertruck is parked, engine roaring at full electrical output, brick left on the gas pedal. Viktor has cracked open his own chest cavity and installed inside himself a new core, capable of pumping the shimmer blood as an insect's heart does. His own, still organic heart is severed with the help of that scalpel sharp third arm. He gasps at the transition of relying upon natural organ to reliance upon a machine, but he's so close now. Pain and discomfort are nothing, Viktor has long been at the threshold of how much agony he can even process at once.
All he can think of is how worthwhile this accomplishment will be.
He severs and removes Jayce's torn and shredded heart. It is replaced with Viktor's own, the organ still beating. Viktor connects it to transfusion leads into his own arteries, releasing valves and letting shimmer flow freely through him and into Jayce. There should be no rejection, this way. No incompatibility between transplantation and donor. They are all of the same.
That reaction occurs just as Viktor first witnessed. Replication. Growing. Healing. The divine opposite of rot and decay. He's struck by the profound beauty of it before him.
Jayce will live. He will. Viktor grab the sparking jumper cables charged to his truck and attaches them to the root of his third arm, upon the metal anchor points that once braced his degenerating spinal column. His entire body buzzes with electrical energy, it conducts through his metal skin with ease of energy flow. A rub of his palms together to work the charge. No further hesitation.
He pressed both hands to Jayce's chest and defibrillates him.]
[ in death there is nothing. no presence, no existence. just quiet. peace, if one recalled what came before. loneliness, if one could recall who was missing. a hooked up heart spreads its shimmering drug through jayce's inert veins and arteries, causing a compulsory reaction across sickly tissue beginning with his open chest cavity: contraction. reaction. the surprise purple gleam of it glows from underneath jayce's pallor and fuses with the anomaly's uncanny coloring at their very edges. they curl, twine, it's only a touch, a greeting— magic and chemistry shake hands and wait for the perfect catalyst, while deep within jayce's consciouness, something . . . stirs. in that dark quiet speaks a voice that felt like home, accent thick and inviting:
are you ready to try again, jayce?
the shock erupts through his system, surges through his bones and decaying tissue until his veins bulge purple from the chest out, webbing and merging with the anomaly's rooted patterns from within jayce and spreading until shimmer and arcanic infection are one and the same. the rot welcomes the stimulus and feeds on it, uses it as potent fuel to repair what was needed of it. self-propagating. self-destructive.
rise up, jayce.
there were some things that this mad experiment couldn't override, or fix, but it would have to do; there were changes this world has marked him with, just as its marked viktor. jayce's open wounds do not heal in full. his chest remains splayed, the bone that's been plucked from the case of his ribs, gone. he is as cold as a corpse and would remain that way despite the concoction of chemicals in his system, but at least the pus-leaking holes are filled with symmetrical blooms that do not bleed his newly forming blood, a now viscous goop of arcane rot and shimmer kept tucked and pulsing within his circulation.
with each apparent thump from his donor's heart clearly seen through the window the herald had carved, jayce's cells reanimate. with every ripple, fingers and muscles lurch. he is unconscious, for now, but technically— he's alive.
perhaps undead is the better word for it. ]
Edited (now I'm not sleeping lmao) 2025-02-23 11:23 (UTC)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vibrating in my seat chanting Bug
[ jayce barks his words in return, but rather than angry, he just sounds as desperate as he looks as he watches the hexcore's touch eat up what remained of viktor's human skin. that— that's not supposed to happen, none of this is supposed to happen—
he's not supposed to be whithering away, either.
when viktor drops, it's the last straw for jayce. he drops with him, whincing painfully as his own knee takes the brunt of his fall, hooking both arms under viktor's to help secure him before shuffling his legs in a way where they could kick out and handle having viktor in his arms. he doesn't keep put as he does this; jayce moves a hand to viktor's favor while one has him bound under the shoulders, prying his shirt away with the same desperation, quickening his breathing and his words: ]
I've always left you when you needed me most— I'm never, doing that again— [ he promised. he promised so many things within a singular, encompassing vow that he would not fail viktor again. but the more he tries to help, ] I'm right here, I-I'm—
[ he doesn't know what to do. he doesn't know what's happening—]
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Maybe there's some anger in the two hits he can manage before losing even that much strength, jumbled up in the agony and Viktor's terrible stubbornness.]
I didn't- need you..! I needed- to save myself..!
[Needs and wants are terrible things. Viktor hated needing help, he tried to do everything, including believe in himself more than anybody else could. Needing Jayce was a weakness he had to overcome- better to just want him-
This isn't the time to be thinking about this. Viktor pushes his face into Jayce's collar, his fist unbundling to grab at the man's back. He's cold. It's the only relief Viktor can find, burning up beneath his skin, buzzing with energy as his skin morphs to hexcorize across his chest and back. It devours the brace and melds it into his ribcage with purple and gold inlay.
The changes get to his back, metal crawling beneath his spine. He feels the joints fuse and go rigid in places. Anchor points turn into swivels. The flesh melts and peels away with a release of steam. His tailbone separates from where it was embedded, the top opening into three prongs. The rest of his spinal column lifts upward, attached to Viktor between his shoulder blades. Metal fills in the empty space it leaves. The third arm jitters and convulses without purpose,
Viktor sighs in relief, like that was somehow a purging experience and he's feeling better.]
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the cost was great and yet jayce couldn't ever do it differently. he could never let him go, would think night after night that he should be the one in his place and not the other way around.
(but the universe conspires in a funny way, doesn't it?)
even now jayce cannot fathom what he'd do if viktor expired in his arms right then and there. he could hear the broken voices from time to time, beckoning the fractures filled in deepest crevices of his mind to a juttering maddness only he would know. the kind he'd hear at night and what would keep him awake, the kind he'd ask to, please, just talk to him— because there was something wrong about him now.
but there is little to nothing that jayce could do to actually make it stop. he can't, but he's holding viktor in his arms anyway, over his legs for cushioning, absorb his fists (he thinks he does deserve them, in part)— viktor's face dips into his collar and jayce's hand cups the back of his skull to pull him in further into the curve of his icy neck, the coil across his broad back only serving to urge his hold on viktor's, squeezing him as tightly as he could manage. his strange hypothermia could be of some use to cool the lava-hot ripples pouring from viktor's hexcorization— in the same way viktor's heat brings jayce his own twisted relief and symbiosis that he tries not to think about. the heat warms his bones for once.
he hugs viktor in a way he'd wished for quite a while, hunched into him and nestled neck to neck, clinging as if his blunt, oversized fingers could pry the discomfort away from him. there is something in viktor's spine, he sees it swelling under skin and clattering through inorganic matter— ]
I've got you, I—
[ an ugly crack interrupts. jayce does not know how to describe what he sees as a third arm emerges from the lower slot of his spine. the sound and sight are sickening. it jostles jayce into a trembling, quietly gasping shock. since then, he hasn't let go of viktor and doesn't think he will, his now stinging, wet eyes losing focus.
maybe this was just another nightmare. jayce talks in whispers, but it's hardly anything comprehensible. ]
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Viktor's head is slumped at his shoulder, breathless because he suddenly feels no need to breathe at all. A blissful sensation, to him, to have something so arduous for him removed entirely. No longer burdening him. He doesn't know how he manages speaks without air to do so, but he can. There is a buzzing vocal fry overtop his usual accent, though he still has such a soft tone,]
Don't worry- Jayce... [this is THE MOST worrisome scenario possible, but sure, Vik........]
I've never felt... better... [the high has settled in, Viktor thinks, a byproduct of the shimmer. What most people would take it for. To feel powerful, to break through their limits. That's all this is. His limbs lengthen and a new spine forms where the old, fragile one was. Extends out in an arch, Viktor remaining hunched around Jayce despite growing several feet taller.
He's becoming his best self.
Viktor's hands fall over each side of Jayce's shoulders, scaled as proportionally large now to Jayce as Jayce's hand usually fell over Viktor's slim sides. He leans in and of all, inappropriate time and place, it's a near thing to kissing the other man. Instead, Viktor presses his forehead to Jayce's.
It only lasts a moment. A rift forms and his face splits, peels to each side, and is overtaken by a flat mask. The eyes light up, staring back at him with an unreadable expression.]
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his partner leans in, twists just a touch, the pressure of their foreheads pushing together spurrs a leap in jayce's rattling heart, that he thinks it is a response, at last, to words quietly confessed some weeks ago and never spoken of again. he is desperate with fear, that viktor would evaporate from his hold forever, that he'd never know how much . . . he meant to him. how the world outside could be falling apart and the only one who'd really matter over them all was viktor. he'd choose viktor. he'd choose to bring humanity to the brink again, and again, and once more, if it meant he'd have a life with viktor.
jayce does not hesitate; he does not waste the time he has after doing so for so long. hand to the back of his head, the space between their mouths splice and jayce crumbles into the kiss he places on viktor's spluttering lips. for a moment, just a moment, where it felt like sparks could've popped off like explosives—
instead, the sickening snap of viktor's face splintering apart is what startles him back. this wasn't supposed to happen. he still cannot think, cannot parse how anything could be alright when it felt like this world had torn away from him the one thing that was still keeping him together.
jayce croaks as he stares back at two remote golden spheres, adjacent to closed, sleeping eyes he felt he'd never see open again. stuck, in time. time he'd wish could loop back. he could only feel his lips puff together with a tightness as he strangles hot tears that come sliding down lukewarm cheeks, skin that would just go cold again, soon.
he feels like he's being hollowed out, iced from the inside, and can't look up anymore. ]
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Viktor is so densely packed within his own body, nerves and tissues all condensed into a core somewhere inside his chest. No longer within his own head, every end of him more like a piece of a marionette to be puppeteered by his command,
He has no mouth capable of screaming, of speech. Eyes that do not blink, have unbroken focus. Jayce is so close, Viktor can see his horror and dismay in full clarity, yet there's no mustering the same emotions in turn. The man was clearly robbed of a brief glimpse at happiness. Even with his emotions stomped down to their lowest of lows, there is a twisting of Viktor's own yearning into a more rational motivation.
Logically, it would be an inconvenience if Jayce became dead weight, whether from despair or shock. That should be avoided.
The answer to Jayce's adverse reaction is a poor excuse for an attempt to sooth him. Something the Herald is truly no better at offering than Viktor might be in his right mind.
The third arm twists and cranes forward, latches ingraciously to the back of Jayce's hair to lift his head back upward where he looked down. Meet the unyielding eyes of the Herald again. The creature leans forward, mirroring Jayce's earlier action as best he can. The flat front of the mask nudges to Jayce's mouth, presses awkwardly against and past lips to bump into the front of the man's teeth.
An unfeeling attempt at reciprocating that so desired kiss. That should calm him down, right? Simple cause and effect, wanting and receiving.]
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he tries again, out of desperation, out of sheer heartache and perhaps an inkling of useless hope that somewhere in there, viktor really was trying to reciprocate. just as awkwardly, jayce . . . tries, pressing his lips and bumping his teeth to sweltering metal, but it immediately falls flat and plummets his heart into a pit of loneliness as cold as zaun's noxious crevices. so terribly flat, and it's not even because there are no lips there, because god if it was still viktor, careful and kind, sharp tongued, awkward and calculating, jayce would find a way. he'd gladly be the only one doing any kissing if there had been genuine encouragement along his back, his limbs, anywhere that he would imagine late at night and dream of how their first kiss would be. the problem lied in there being no reciprocation. it was too calculating. no heart. he is not being cradled, with sentiment that felt the same. he's literally being grappled by the back of his head like a scruffed pup. he's being conducted to a cause for an effect.
jayce suddenly wishes he were in danger instead of this. he would've preferred to be attacked and physically mauled, laser beamed, eaten— than to have his heart torn to shreds. he is a formula being cracked, a problem being solved. he doesn't . . . mean anything, anymore. not the way jayce wanted to be, anyway. he forcefully turns his head away and wedges an arm between them, feeling— so many things at once that he could only feel listless. did he fail, just now? did . . . he lose everything? was that why he was dying? would this make accepting death easier?
he has no purpose anymore. death might as well come faster. ]
S— [ he sputters, croaks just like the clicking of his brace trying to connect gears into place and secure an angle. jayce's heart is already cracked and falling apart, but he asks, perhaps, to keep whatever remained of his psyche for long enough to just return to his truck and wait for death to come. if there was anything left. ] Say something.
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Their kiss is a meaningless display of mismatch parts. An engine too inert for a combustion spark to fuel it. He lurches away from the gesture as Jayce shoves an arm between them, though the man isn't being let go from the hold on him.
The Herald is Viktor, the way he imagines himself as ideal. Strong, logical, and of use. His mind holds only a single motivation, narrow focused and precision made. He is a tool fit for a specific function. He answers, his voice not resonating out from his face, but from the claw grasped at the back of Jayce's head still. It will rattle in the man's skull as a result. Viktor's voice, but thoroughly vocal fried as if being filtered through a beehive,]
I promised to protect you.
[his legs move, get one foot beneath him and then leverages upward to stand. Viktor's new form is massively tall, would tower over Jayce by well over a foot if, well, he didn't pull Jayce up with him. The Herald is hoisting the man over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes. (About as romantic as their kiss...)]
I won't fail.
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his head feels like it could crack open as he shudders at words that bring a painful truth to his reality. he promised. he promised he wouldn't fail. he's failing. he has failed so terribly. ]
I—
[ i failed you. i'm so sorry. i'm sorry. i failed you— i'm sorry.
but not even that, he could bring himself to say outloud. he just wants it all to stop. ]
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[The Herald answers, reaching with his free hand to take up the Talis forged crutch from the ground. A useful item. One that has served him well. It should not be left behind. There is no sentimentality in the gesture, only practical understanding. A sturdy weapon he could swing at any assailants who dare stand between Viktor and returning Jayce to the Convoy.
His mission and purpose, for now, driven now only by an indescribably instinct.]
I will prevent that. I will find a way, through any means necessary, to preserve you. That is my promise.
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P-Please, come back, Viktor—
[ he's begging. he needs him. without him, and without a path he could see to bring him back from the brink— jayce had done it all for nothing. and that is what he's feeling, right now.
a deep, harrowing hopelessness that was swallowing his will to survive one more day. viktor of the future was probably so indescribably disappointed in him. would he understand? would he hate him for this?
he mumbles, to himself as he cradles his own head: it's not my fault, this was an accident, we shouldn't be here, i promised, my promise, no, no i, failed, failure, i'm a, no . . . take me back, i want, to go back, i promised you— ]
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[His hold on Jayce is secure, carrying him down the cabin steps three at a time, strides cracking the wood paneling beneath them. Viktor's tone is hollowed and empty, the only thing there is recognition devoid of awe. Pride without humanity. Speaking to an accomplishment, yet holding no elation and no dissatisfaction.
Speaking truth, without any meaning.]
Free of pain, free of emotion. My mind has full clarity, I am unclouded by weakness. I sought this.
[His pursuit has ended. This is all he could have hoped for, a version of himself that can complete his goals, unburdened by all that held him down in his life.]
I have achieved perfection.
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You never needed to be perfect, Viktor.
[ would he hear him? would he be able to touch that concentrated core somewhere beneath that purple matter? if jayce has one last hope, it's this one, and he seizes it like a lifeline, like an angel pulling him out of the depths he was drowning in. if it's going to snap anyway, well . . .
at least it was telling him more. more than maybe he could've said, explained, at another time, another place. another life. he's not getting through the day and he's serving him his heart— with all of his own flaws. ]
—I- I loved you for every imperfection. They're what make you.
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[While Viktor... Viktor is free of such passions. Of his loves and hates. He has been purged of all the unnecessary clutter of human experience. The messiness, cleaned up and organized into objective truths. It is so blissful, to be free of so much complication, so many clashing wants and impractical concerns.
All he has now is a goal. A promise to keep, a commitment to uphold.
Jayce will live, because Viktor's purpose is wrapped too far up in their dream to ever be separated from him.
Being the Herald, he cannot comprehend why he has this as his purpose, it merely is. A fact, fixed and unable to be changed nor altered. It may as well have been programmed into him, his ordained function, the reason for this form.]
You will understand when given proof. I will demonstrate my worthiness. Free you of the burdens I have caused. This is progress.
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jayce feels the strain overcoming his features, the burn at the base of his nose burdening the muscles surrounding his mouth. where the herald holds him is where he hangs in silence— the occassional strangled sob may slip, but he says no more. ]
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He hoists his broken down partner off his shoulder once they find his butterfly engraved truck, just outside the shield's boundary. Viktor... passes the man his crutch, so he can use it for once. The Herald no longer requires such a tool.]
Take shelter. I will return for you when this matter is resolved and the shield is lowered.
(1 / 2)
the crutch— he takes it. jayce clutches viktor's crutch as if its the only thing he has left of him— a symbol of his strife and accomplishments, of his rise in a world that was so split, of all of his hard work, of his beautiful imperfections that jayce did love, with all of his heart and soul. he helped make this crutch for him.
jayce allows the herald to leave in the same way he'd ended up here: in a dreadful silence of quiet nods and simple gestures (not that it matters, to viktor). he needs to think, to scrape up what he's gathered— maybe do a little more digging as a final drive. his heart skips in places that feel uncomfortable. his limbs ache with cold, until it devolves into a gradually creeping, painful numbness.
he finishes up, gives his papers all to serph, eventually, and waits for either the herald to return or for death to pay him a visit. he thinks he's more prepared for the latter. ]
(2/2) cw: gross infection stuff and imminent character death
his vision is swimming, his heart thumping so unbeleivably fast he could hear the racing in his ears, feel that it could pop out of his chest at any moment and he'd die that way. from a broken, overworked heart. but it is not stopping there. jayce's lungs try to keep up, give him air, but no matter how quickly he tries to bring the oxygen in, it wasn't enough to soothe his invisible suffocation. it burns. the faster he breathes, the more the fire catches, and he cannot seem to slow it down.
he feels— an energy. a flow. pulsating and invading and wrong, and jayce scrambles for the front seat door swung open, for anything he may have left in the compartments or pockets to cut open the fabric under his brace. he finds— he doesn't even see what it is, only that he could use the edge of it to pull apart seams in his rush. under his soaked pants leg is the nasty concoction of iridescent decay touched by the anomaly. strings of pus stick to cotton as he peels it away, or tries to, the dribbling blood from it mixing with bright greens, blue and pinks like gasoline. it smells god awful. the bone jostles inside and jayce feels like he could vomit and expire right there.
his consciousness dips, the blackness of his vision spreads at the edges, but he's thrown back to awareness by god knows what. his body doesn't want to stop. he realizes in his desperate heaving that he doesn't want to die, because— he still has something to do. send me back. he needs to go back. he wants to go back, there's a chance, there's still a chance there. where he actually needs to be.
his attempts are futile, but he hasn't come all this way just to give up. he hasn't. his own words thrum deep in his mind with each batter of his irratic pulse: i won't fail. he takes the leather straps of the top of his brace and squeezes as hard as he can to form a tourniquet. it still bleeds and the anomaly crawls higher. his arm— it's juttering on its own.
hiking his sleeve up his forearm to catch the webbed throbbing from the embedded rune overtaking his veins, jayce could feel the last of his strength being sapped. he sinks backwards against the truck's step up, trying to stay upright with useless gasping— the anomaly claws up his arm, plows a byway of multicolored nets up the left side of his neck and leaves a perfect pattern of holes crawling under his skin and boiling up to the surface.
now comes the panic. he's tachypneic, dyspneic, every shallow breath is painful and useless and still he's trying, writhing at the wheels of the truck and frantically raking at the footwell for viktor's cane on the passenger side.
he can't reach it— ]
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The Herald returns after the battle has concluded and the Convoy is powering down from the crisis. Jayce will feel the abrupt grab of an overlarge hand at the back of his neck, scruffing him once more to lift away from the door. He's lifted clear off his feet, not that he's in any state to be on them, as the Herald looks him up and down in such a dire state. Bleeding through his clothes, infections boiling over. Jayce is practically falling apart at the seams.
Jayce is carried around and laid to the bed of his truck. Flat. With Viktor stepping over him and looking down with a cant of his head. Best done before any piece can fall off of him. Viktor's regard is as cold as ever, not emotional enough to even be scolding,]
How did it come to this, Jayce? What failure point do you have that we did not predict? You were simply not meant to die before I was.
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jayce's brows crease with dolor and mourning as he's cleaved from the prospect of retrieving viktor's cane, hardly having the energy to kick, to smack— he barely has it in him to keep reaching as he's hoisted by the herald's claw and haphazardly placed on the cargo bed. his labor to breathe is about to get worse when his lungs contract from the extended pooling within it when laid on his back, he sputters— and blood spurts from his mouth and nose like a fountain, foamy and bright red with the stains of colors that were contaminating his flesh as is. he can't even turn over by himself, arching his neck and back as he coughs and violently asphyxiates on his own fluids.
his heart, his wheezing, his garbled cries— it's all too loud. he could barely hear him and make sense of words, his consciousness as bleak as a thread ready to snap. jayce looks to his spasming wrist anyway, as if it were an answer, where the acceleration rune glows, ripples— and the arcane's touch raids the left side of his face.
the guttural sounds that spewed off his wet lips might as well just be frantic nothings twined with his soaked panting. from his usual bronze he's as pale as paper, blood from his back and leg forming an oozing pool of pearly gore at the back of the pick-up. jayce points his eyes up, passenger seat as his organs fail him one by one. he stares in that direction, not the herald, eyes rolling back and fighting to keep craning, to stay awake through the searing that ravaged his chest from the inside. back window. the pretty curve of a personalized golden-red handle. the flip of chestnut curls twirled to one side when he was deep in thought. a mole above his lip, another just under his cheek like stars in the darkness of his vision failing. it might sound like he's squeaking, weeping:
vik, trr. viktr. vik. v. v. v.
how he manages to drag his hand up to brush his bloodied knuckles at the window was the result of a perishing delusion, but at least he . . . didn't feel alone. ]
cw: character death and dissection gore
[The Herald commands, as if words will change the fact of things. Jayce is sputtering his last breaths in blood soaked gurgles and whimpers. He falls heavily to both knees overtop of Jayce, the bed of truck denting down where his weight lands. Hands cross over one another and press palms to Jayce's chest. Even, rhythmic pushes follow. One, two, three- One, two, three- the beat of a heart. What beat that should be there.
There is nothing there. Jayce's body fails, protesting his death is of no use.
Not supposed to be. Hands tear away his shirt to bare Jayce's chest, ravaged by sickly flesh and the creep of anomaly infection. Viktor tries again. One, two, three- One, two, crack- Jayce's breastbone gives sickeningly under the continued attempts. The failure strikes at the core of the Herald, but he cannot reckon with it. There must be another step. A more drastic measure. The claw on his back whirls and pushes forward, digs into the broken center of Jayce's chest. It cuts into him with precise motions, scalpel sharp, a cross pattern to peel quarters of skin open.
Revealing the man was already rotted inside, impossibly alive before his death.
He has no purpose without Jayce. Accepting his death is not possible. The claw plucks delicately at broken bones, casting them aside. Muscle and sinew is peeled away, until he can reach Jayce's heart. With care, the three prongs grasp the organ directly, forcing the pulse to return. The action does no good. Even if it could drag Jayce's body into a state of "life", forcing his blood to run only means Jayce's body will be bled out dry. Red pools at Viktor's knees long before it's clear this is pointless.
The heart eventually tears in his grasp, unable to withstand the further abuse and strain. It's fully broken.
Reality hits Viktor. Jayce is dead beneath him. There is no question and no denying the fact.
He feels nothing about this.
No sorrow, no joy. He merely recognizes a failure. It doesn't feel like his own. It doesn't feel like anything at all. The numbness is so pure and distilled, there is no ache to it, no memory nor illusion of pain. Ego death follows. The light inside the Herald simply goes out. A machine unplugged, robbed of its energy source. He slumps, upright on his knees, an inert tower of metal too well balanced to simply collapse in any direction.]
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it seems we did not anticipate this detour, did we, jayce?
jayce reacts to seeing him hovering above his head, kneeling down to pet his sweat caked hair, placing him in between his lap in an elegant swoop of colorful fabrics: his brows twitch upwards, the smallest of whines creaks from behind an compulsory gasp as blood stained tears slide down the curves of his cheeks. the mage cups jayce's face and shakes his head with deep condolences, nimble thumbs brushing away at the wetness that clings to his beard.
hush, my heart. i know you tried.
it is everything jayce wanted to hear. if he could lean into the warmth of his deathbed vision, he would— but he can't move. not a single inch. if he could cry more, he would. his brows only twitch, and his lower lip tremors. he has so much to say, but . . . he can't find the words, he thinks . . . the mage gazes ahead for a moment, jayce's eyes attempt to follow— but the mage steers his chin back up to watch him. he did not have to look. he shouldn't.
within the current restrictions, he tried, too.
jayce knows that. he'd never blame viktor for this. he'd never forsake him for something he didn't have control over. even back home . . . jayce had never left him then. he wouldn't turn his back now. the mage studies jayce's wandering face for a moment, and nods to him.
we'll go back. we'll try again.
that's all he wants to hear as the weight of his head dips sideways, and moist eyes go dim and opaque.
until the next possibility, jayce.
it is there where even the involuntary spasms of silt-caked fingertips cease, and jayce talis fully succumbs to the fate he chose. ]
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He remembers who he is, he reaches for his face and presses down the mask there. Viktor knows it will not pull off, it has to return from where it came. Somehow, he knows this, it is instinctive, an animal impulse. He writhes his head, thrashing against himself, and the mask begins to crumple by his force of will for it to retract. It is like a bundle of tin paper being balled up and retreating. His face peels back into place, fuses together once more, and he tears at his mouth and nostrils. Suddenly, he needs to breathe-
Both peel and pop open, flesh unfusing. He gasps, ragged and suffocated. Eyes pop open next, vision blurry and purple, shimmer-shot from burst vessels clouding his sight. Blinking that away, letting it run down the sides of his face in tears, he remembers.
He looks down and sees Jayce. Dead. So obviously dead. And yet, he calls out to him, as if there is some sliver of a chance he'll get a response,]
Jayce..? [he knows there will be no answer. It crushes Viktor to know this. The depth of heartbreak he feels is worse than any pain he's felt in his short, agonizing life. He failed himself, he failed Sky, he failed Jayce. Yet, completely overwhelmed with despair more vast than any he's ever known, Viktor feels so grateful to feel anything at all.
Numbness had been worse.
At least like this, he can scream. He does so, loud and broken, clutching his forehead. Tears roll down the sharp angles of his nose and cheekbones and chin. They fall into Jayce's open chest. In his grief, Viktor loses track of time, it could have only been seconds or it could be hours. He just mourns overtop Jayce's lifeless body until his eyes finally peel open and... he sees the shimmer of his blood mixed with Jayce's wounds.
The anomaly within. It reacts. It reacts in patterns that Viktor recognizes. It grows. Self replicating in the same way it was also self destructive. His mind, it buzzes, it comes back alive. He tears into his own bottom lip with his teeth, drawing as much blood as he can as quickly as he can. The rest of him is winding metal, but inside- he has blood. Shimmer. Variant shimmer- Evolved shimmer-
Another test. He lets it drip from his mouth onto Jayce's wounds and they react further. Flesh grows in sinewy patterns, webs with circles between. Is this can heal his body to a working state-
Then all Viktor needs is to replace what he broke and reignite the whole engine.
If it's madness or delusion, Viktor can't care, not anymore. He stands from Jayce's corpse and rushes away. He needs some basic supplies. Tubes, pumps, and jumper cables-
He needs his stupid fucking electric truck.]
2/2 jayce is currently offline
Jayce needs a transfusion of Viktor's blood so the anomaly infection can revert from rot to growth. He needs a working heart to pump that blood. Viktor is some manner of bug, which really only need a heart the same way a machine needs an engine. His human heart is serving that purpose, but it should be replaceable in him with mere engineering prowess. If he can give his organic heart to Jayce, it should pump the shimmer transfusion to everywhere the man needs healing.
All that in order, a sufficient spark of electrical force should kickstart him back to life.
Viktor has jumper cables, a conductive metal body, and an electric vehicle. All he really needs to make for himself is a mechanical heart. How difficult could that be? It's just an automatic pump, when all things come down to it. He can build something passable from scraps and upgrade it later on. There's no knowing how long he has before Jayce is truly, really, too far gone. Viktor does what he's always done... he gets to work.
Having a third arm really helps his productivity speed. Monstrous as his transformation feels to him, that part he would keep given the choice.
If there is one thing to be said about Viktor's persistence, it is that nobody believes in Viktor as much as Viktor does. He leaves no room for doubt that this will work. Ultimately, he is the Herald and the Herald is an extension of his obsessive core. He will do this. He has nothing more to lose.
The scene around Jayce's truck grows increasingly elaborate. The cybertruck is parked, engine roaring at full electrical output, brick left on the gas pedal. Viktor has cracked open his own chest cavity and installed inside himself a new core, capable of pumping the shimmer blood as an insect's heart does. His own, still organic heart is severed with the help of that scalpel sharp third arm. He gasps at the transition of relying upon natural organ to reliance upon a machine, but he's so close now. Pain and discomfort are nothing, Viktor has long been at the threshold of how much agony he can even process at once.
All he can think of is how worthwhile this accomplishment will be.
He severs and removes Jayce's torn and shredded heart. It is replaced with Viktor's own, the organ still beating. Viktor connects it to transfusion leads into his own arteries, releasing valves and letting shimmer flow freely through him and into Jayce. There should be no rejection, this way. No incompatibility between transplantation and donor. They are all of the same.
That reaction occurs just as Viktor first witnessed. Replication. Growing. Healing. The divine opposite of rot and decay. He's struck by the profound beauty of it before him.
Jayce will live. He will. Viktor grab the sparking jumper cables charged to his truck and attaches them to the root of his third arm, upon the metal anchor points that once braced his degenerating spinal column. His entire body buzzes with electrical energy, it conducts through his metal skin with ease of energy flow. A rub of his palms together to work the charge. No further hesitation.
He pressed both hands to Jayce's chest and defibrillates him.]
AND WE'RE BACK
are you ready to try again, jayce?
the shock erupts through his system, surges through his bones and decaying tissue until his veins bulge purple from the chest out, webbing and merging with the anomaly's rooted patterns from within jayce and spreading until shimmer and arcanic infection are one and the same. the rot welcomes the stimulus and feeds on it, uses it as potent fuel to repair what was needed of it. self-propagating. self-destructive.
rise up, jayce.
there were some things that this mad experiment couldn't override, or fix, but it would have to do; there were changes this world has marked him with, just as its marked viktor. jayce's open wounds do not heal in full. his chest remains splayed, the bone that's been plucked from the case of his ribs, gone. he is as cold as a corpse and would remain that way despite the concoction of chemicals in his system, but at least the pus-leaking holes are filled with symmetrical blooms that do not bleed his newly forming blood, a now viscous goop of arcane rot and shimmer kept tucked and pulsing within his circulation.
with each apparent thump from his donor's heart clearly seen through the window the herald had carved, jayce's cells reanimate. with every ripple, fingers and muscles lurch. he is unconscious, for now, but technically— he's alive.
perhaps undead is the better word for it. ]
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