It makes sense. [ That is to say, they've seen it happen before. Hextech involved science and formulas and machinery to pinpoint a location of travel, the monolithic Hexgates an obvious testament to the fact that a lot of work went into steering the arcane power and focusing it. Though it was possible that the future version of Viktor had been the reason for Jayce traveling to that alternate reality, the wild rune was still involved—and had sent Ekko and Heimerdinger elsewhere.
As Viktor ponders all of this, he leans further and further into Jayce until his shoulder bumps against him. It feels so nice, grounding in a way that doesn't make sense when Jayce is... astral, like a ghost made tangible, and that thought sends unpleasant shivers through his bones. They had intended to die, and as much as he had hoped for Jayce to leave and live on, he'd also been grateful to have someone with him in the end.
An end that, potentially, hadn't really been an end. If Jayce was real and they had been sent somewhere together, Viktor had to take responsibility. ]
That's why my running theory is still that you're not real.
[ jayce can get why, but that doesn't mean he could swallow it clean. frustrated and clearly objecting with his eyes flicking upward without actually saying it, he brings a closed fist over his mouth before unclenching, rubbing his palm across his face and letting his sigh run out deep.
have patience. have patience.
but jayce talis has hardly ever practiced such a thought. one second in and he shakes his head, voice flat and edged in the way jayce would get when his attempts at solving a problem on his own came out begrudgingly unsatisfying, in the way his fingers begin to tap on his wrist and his jaw goes square(r)— especially when he was supposed to be the fixer and things weren't fixing. the metal wasn't bending. ]
Jayce. [ He says it with a heavy drag on the first half, turning the single syllable into two. ] I've always been stubborn. You know this.
[ Still, he doesn't like to make Jayce look like this, so tired with the situation and yet wired to find a solution. He taps on his wrist which had been adorned by a shining blue runestone for longer than Viktor had known him—it makes his stomach turn to remember the last time he'd seen it embedded in the skin. ]
Tell me something I don't know about you. [ It stands to reason that a hallucination of his own mind wouldn't have access to information that Viktor himself didn't know. He wouldn't be able to verify the information, but certain things had to be believable. ] Something I wouldn't think of.
[ he knows this but he'd still wished he could've been a little less galaxy bodied to be at the very least concincing. or mellow viktor's ice cold logic into acceptance. not that . . . it mattered much anymore, right at this second. jayce's frustration has compacted into mushy pile of a hopeless sight that glances upward. all it took was his name, said that way, in that drawl, in a pause he's misses so much that—
how can he stay upset? one look at his and he's warm as tea.
that all gets jayce to go still, absolutely quiet. there were quite a few things viktor didn't know about jayce, even with their minds opened wide and touching the ends of their souls together before the big bang— one thing in particular crawls its way to the forefront of it all, and jayce is found watching his fingers dig into his palms. ]
I never told you about the kid from the Shimmer factory.
[ Viktor leaves Jayce to think in his silence though it feels surprisingly difficult to pull himself away from the fuzzy warmth of his side. Standing and finding he doesn't wobble nor wince nor want for his cane, he tucks this away as further evidence that none of this is real. His body is whole and good, working as it always should have rather than being weighed down by flaws.
There is beauty in imperfections. Shaking his head to clear it, he reaches up to pluck two fig-like fruits from a tree. One plum can't have been enough to satisfy Jayce—even Viktor is still feeling a little empty—and it will give him something for his hands to do other than dig into his own skin.
Returning to their perch on the fountain, he sits as Jayce speaks up. His voice is grave, and for a moment, Viktor feels foolish for offering him the fruit. ] What were you doing in a Shimmer factory?
[ jayce takes a longer time to respond. the breath he lets out with words is a quiet one, and he doesn't meet viktor's gaze. he only raises his shoulders, a brief question at his own whirling descriptions of what he was doing when he'd agreed to do what vi had proposed. ]
. . . Looking for something I could fix.
[ but he just made things worse. per usual. ]
Or to blame, or— [ he sighs out and takes the fruit, if only to occupy the scratching. he doesn't have it in him to take a bit, now, but the pressure between the spaces of his fingers quells the sizzling burn he leaves inside his dull-glow palms. he shakes his head as if no word could carry the weight in his chest. ] I don't know anymore.
[ Rolling the fig between his hands, absentmindedly fascinated by the translucent skin, he listens to Jayce dancing around the heart of the memory. He understands the desire to find something that could be fixed, a nail to be hammered or a bolt to be tightened. They were both problem solvers by nature, whether through careful study or trial-and-error, and Viktor knows how afloat he felt when he lacked a solution—or a problem. ]
You were restless. [ He gravitates closer again, pulled by invisible strings between them. So many times, Jayce had reassured him with a hand on his shoulder, and Viktor mirrors the motion now. Thin fingers dig into the static of Jayce's back, thumb brushing the edge of where a collarbone would be. ] What happened?
[ jayce hadn't looked, but he'd felt it, only shifting further under viktor's grounding touch. the truth is stuck in his throat. it felt like . . . such a meaningful touch to recieive from the other that he couldn't let it slip free from him; jayce set his hand on top viktor's, and soft sparks fly between the connection. ]
We went in to neutralize the factory. Shut it down, to hit Silco where it hurt.
[ and give them a chance to do something about zaun. it was a step closer to coming to a truce, but jayce hadn't known the price, then, that that red-haired ginger boy would haunt every day of his life. ]
There were enemies, so I just . . . Started blasting. Destroying everything, and, [ he gestures, relinquishes his hold on viktor to do so. wordlessly, because the knot in his throat just became an uncomfortable lump. the source of the croak under the shiver of his voice and haunted gaze stuck on the grass their feet rest upon. ] I hit a kid in the middle. He couldn't have been older than twelve.
[ Viktor struggles not to let his focus wander to their hands stacked atop Jayce's shoulder, the gentle warmth of it, the way Jayce's fingers subtly curl around Viktor's to hold on to them. Physical affection has always been so easy for Jayce to dish out, and Viktor is wondering if he should have made more of an effort to return it in those moments when his partner needed support.
Listening to the story certainly serves its purpose; Viktor never would have imagined Jayce doing such things. So much had happened while he'd been unconscious, most of it still a mystery of which he hadn't been able to fill in all of the blanks. Still, Jayce choosing to pursue violence is a shock, and the devastating result of it doubly so. Viktor's hand falls away from Jayce's shoulder to gently cover his mouth to hide his shock. He knows that there was no excuse of questioning why a child had been present in a Shimmer factory, not when so much that happened in Zaun was so easily questioned by the privileged standards of Piltover. Even if he knows that Jayce would have assumed that only adults would have been present, that doesn't absolve him of the guilt. ]
Jayce, I— [ He swallows down a lump in his throat thinking about how there were just as many dead children of Zaun as there were orphans roaming its streets. ] I'm sorry I brought it up, but thank you for telling me.
[ jayce wasn't sure anymore, if it had been all of his frustrations pent into a dangerous bomb, or the easy sway of a devastating power in his hands. that he built. he created, against his better judgement and especially against viktor's. it didn't feel much like violence when there'd been a detachment surrounding who he was attacking— monstrously changed shimmer addicts in sturdy armor, no different than attack dogs. there were hardly any "men" left in them to account for.
so it'd been easy to pull the lever with no remorse. it was easy to swing and shatter their bones. he was doing the right thing. he was protecting all those people looking up to him for reprive from literal monsters, and jayce had a hard time saying no when what he knew how to do best was provide. he could never not pay back what the mage did when he called, and he could've indeed just let him die. the world would have been better off.
he still keeps seeing that child's face, and his gut wrenches when he remembers all of them, the child workers— viktor could've been one of them. ]
—I didn't mean to.
[ it's what he could manage to say, a quiet mutter pressed against a hand propping his face up from a lean into it, his elbow on his leg. when the switch happened, jayce himself was not aware of it: despite a younger appearance with a considerably lesser amount of facial hair, he looks bedraggled. viktor didn't need to apologize for anything. he asked. jayce would give him everything he wanted, within his reach. ]
You were right all along. [ jayce rubs his face, doesn't realize neither question that he no longer sparks or glows, as if he's always been llike this— a tired mass clutching viktor's arm like he'd hold his cane. ] A vision wouldn't tell you that, would it?
I know. [ Even if he hadn't been there, even if he's just hearing about all of this for the first time, the one thing that Viktor knows is that Jayce would never intensionally harm a child. The strain in his voice just solidifies that fact, the obvious weight of guilt in Jayce's tone, the shame in having to share it.
Jayce leans away from him, hides in his hand, and Viktor's chest clenches. His light dims literally to reflect the figurative cloud hanging over him now, and Viktor leans against his side to wrap an arm around his waist. Resting his cheek against Jayce's shoulder, he gently rubs his side with one hand as the other reaches for Jayce's to pull away from his face. ]
A painful but effective solution. [ He doesn't need to say it aloud, but he would never invent a situation like that for Jayce to have experienced during the time they were separated by Viktor's coma. ]
[ his chagrin is obliterated upon a touch that stuns him out of his own immersion, to find viktor comforting him and it's— it certainly feels surreal. was he, perhaps, the one seeing visions this whole time? was this his dream? how terribly cruel, if he could think to consider this a dream at all.
jayce gazes sideways toward viktor until their eyes meet, and once they do, he can't exactly pull them away. he takes a good long look, the nimble fingers prying his hand from his face now at the reception of the curl of jayce's fingers around them. and just . . . settling there. until, upon the surface of both their legs, jayce is cupping the side of viktor's hands into a gentle hold. the last time he held it in any way, he was holding on for dear life.
it feels like it's been so long, since he's seen him this way. it makes jayce painfully nostalgic, and as if . . . he shouldn't take it for granted. not even the mole under his eye, or the one above his lip. his line of vision flutters quickly to burn it to memory, down and up, almost too quick to notice if one weren't also hypervigilint, or staring back, or both. ]
[ The physical affection certainly seems to do the trick in distracting the both of them from the tragic story. Jayce is so warm everywhere they touch, that same dreamy fuzzy quality spreading through points of contact like the feeling of his foot falling asleep, only far more pleasant. Maybe they're sharing a dream together, then, if Jayce is made up of colors that seem to react to his mood and Viktor is in a body of picture-perfect health that he'd never had. It could be a different part of arcane space, one that he'd never found on his own, one shaped by both of them together.
Humming softly, pensive but also absentminded, he turns his hands over in Jayce's to thread their fingers together. The color is returning to him, pinks and oranges like the clouds of a sunrise, maybe showing that he's not so lost in the sorrow, a little more hopeful. When Viktor looks up from their hands, his eyes widen at the way his partner is staring as if... as if memorizing something that he's scared of losing. If they wake up from this dream, Viktor fears losing this feeling, too. So he straightens up a bit, sliding along Jayce's side, so he can get close enough to press his forehead to that glowing warmth of Jayce's, noses bumping slightly, and then—
The plunge back into dark waters. Sinking. Drowning. Sleep. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
As Viktor ponders all of this, he leans further and further into Jayce until his shoulder bumps against him. It feels so nice, grounding in a way that doesn't make sense when Jayce is... astral, like a ghost made tangible, and that thought sends unpleasant shivers through his bones. They had intended to die, and as much as he had hoped for Jayce to leave and live on, he'd also been grateful to have someone with him in the end.
An end that, potentially, hadn't really been an end. If Jayce was real and they had been sent somewhere together, Viktor had to take responsibility. ]
That's why my running theory is still that you're not real.
no subject
have patience. have patience.
but jayce talis has hardly ever practiced such a thought. one second in and he shakes his head, voice flat and edged in the way jayce would get when his attempts at solving a problem on his own came out begrudgingly unsatisfying, in the way his fingers begin to tap on his wrist and his jaw goes square(r)— especially when he was supposed to be the fixer and things weren't fixing. the metal wasn't bending. ]
You picked a damn good time to be stubborn, Vik.
no subject
[ Still, he doesn't like to make Jayce look like this, so tired with the situation and yet wired to find a solution. He taps on his wrist which had been adorned by a shining blue runestone for longer than Viktor had known him—it makes his stomach turn to remember the last time he'd seen it embedded in the skin. ]
Tell me something I don't know about you. [ It stands to reason that a hallucination of his own mind wouldn't have access to information that Viktor himself didn't know. He wouldn't be able to verify the information, but certain things had to be believable. ] Something I wouldn't think of.
no subject
how can he stay upset? one look at his and he's warm as tea.
that all gets jayce to go still, absolutely quiet. there were quite a few things viktor didn't know about jayce, even with their minds opened wide and touching the ends of their souls together before the big bang— one thing in particular crawls its way to the forefront of it all, and jayce is found watching his fingers dig into his palms. ]
I never told you about the kid from the Shimmer factory.
no subject
There is beauty in imperfections. Shaking his head to clear it, he reaches up to pluck two fig-like fruits from a tree. One plum can't have been enough to satisfy Jayce—even Viktor is still feeling a little empty—and it will give him something for his hands to do other than dig into his own skin.
Returning to their perch on the fountain, he sits as Jayce speaks up. His voice is grave, and for a moment, Viktor feels foolish for offering him the fruit. ] What were you doing in a Shimmer factory?
no subject
. . . Looking for something I could fix.
[ but he just made things worse. per usual. ]
Or to blame, or— [ he sighs out and takes the fruit, if only to occupy the scratching. he doesn't have it in him to take a bit, now, but the pressure between the spaces of his fingers quells the sizzling burn he leaves inside his dull-glow palms. he shakes his head as if no word could carry the weight in his chest. ] I don't know anymore.
no subject
You were restless. [ He gravitates closer again, pulled by invisible strings between them. So many times, Jayce had reassured him with a hand on his shoulder, and Viktor mirrors the motion now. Thin fingers dig into the static of Jayce's back, thumb brushing the edge of where a collarbone would be. ] What happened?
no subject
We went in to neutralize the factory. Shut it down, to hit Silco where it hurt.
[ and give them a chance to do something about zaun. it was a step closer to coming to a truce, but jayce hadn't known the price, then, that that red-haired ginger boy would haunt every day of his life. ]
There were enemies, so I just . . . Started blasting. Destroying everything, and, [ he gestures, relinquishes his hold on viktor to do so. wordlessly, because the knot in his throat just became an uncomfortable lump. the source of the croak under the shiver of his voice and haunted gaze stuck on the grass their feet rest upon. ] I hit a kid in the middle. He couldn't have been older than twelve.
no subject
Listening to the story certainly serves its purpose; Viktor never would have imagined Jayce doing such things. So much had happened while he'd been unconscious, most of it still a mystery of which he hadn't been able to fill in all of the blanks. Still, Jayce choosing to pursue violence is a shock, and the devastating result of it doubly so. Viktor's hand falls away from Jayce's shoulder to gently cover his mouth to hide his shock. He knows that there was no excuse of questioning why a child had been present in a Shimmer factory, not when so much that happened in Zaun was so easily questioned by the privileged standards of Piltover. Even if he knows that Jayce would have assumed that only adults would have been present, that doesn't absolve him of the guilt. ]
Jayce, I— [ He swallows down a lump in his throat thinking about how there were just as many dead children of Zaun as there were orphans roaming its streets. ] I'm sorry I brought it up, but thank you for telling me.
no subject
so it'd been easy to pull the lever with no remorse. it was easy to swing and shatter their bones. he was doing the right thing. he was protecting all those people looking up to him for reprive from literal monsters, and jayce had a hard time saying no when what he knew how to do best was provide. he could never not pay back what the mage did when he called, and he could've indeed just let him die. the world would have been better off.
he still keeps seeing that child's face, and his gut wrenches when he remembers all of them, the child workers— viktor could've been one of them. ]
—I didn't mean to.
[ it's what he could manage to say, a quiet mutter pressed against a hand propping his face up from a lean into it, his elbow on his leg. when the switch happened, jayce himself was not aware of it: despite a younger appearance with a considerably lesser amount of facial hair, he looks bedraggled. viktor didn't need to apologize for anything. he asked. jayce would give him everything he wanted, within his reach. ]
You were right all along. [ jayce rubs his face, doesn't realize neither question that he no longer sparks or glows, as if he's always been llike this— a tired mass clutching viktor's arm like he'd hold his cane. ] A vision wouldn't tell you that, would it?
no subject
Jayce leans away from him, hides in his hand, and Viktor's chest clenches. His light dims literally to reflect the figurative cloud hanging over him now, and Viktor leans against his side to wrap an arm around his waist. Resting his cheek against Jayce's shoulder, he gently rubs his side with one hand as the other reaches for Jayce's to pull away from his face. ]
A painful but effective solution. [ He doesn't need to say it aloud, but he would never invent a situation like that for Jayce to have experienced during the time they were separated by Viktor's coma. ]
no subject
jayce gazes sideways toward viktor until their eyes meet, and once they do, he can't exactly pull them away. he takes a good long look, the nimble fingers prying his hand from his face now at the reception of the curl of jayce's fingers around them. and just . . . settling there. until, upon the surface of both their legs, jayce is cupping the side of viktor's hands into a gentle hold. the last time he held it in any way, he was holding on for dear life.
it feels like it's been so long, since he's seen him this way. it makes jayce painfully nostalgic, and as if . . . he shouldn't take it for granted. not even the mole under his eye, or the one above his lip. his line of vision flutters quickly to burn it to memory, down and up, almost too quick to notice if one weren't also hypervigilint, or staring back, or both. ]
no subject
Humming softly, pensive but also absentminded, he turns his hands over in Jayce's to thread their fingers together. The color is returning to him, pinks and oranges like the clouds of a sunrise, maybe showing that he's not so lost in the sorrow, a little more hopeful. When Viktor looks up from their hands, his eyes widen at the way his partner is staring as if... as if memorizing something that he's scared of losing. If they wake up from this dream, Viktor fears losing this feeling, too. So he straightens up a bit, sliding along Jayce's side, so he can get close enough to press his forehead to that glowing warmth of Jayce's, noses bumping slightly, and then—
The plunge back into dark waters. Sinking. Drowning. Sleep. ]