Chapter Text
Building a whole life from scratch isn’t easy.
The amount of possibilities is both overwhelming and intoxicating at once; suddenly, Viktor gets to choose. He gets to choose when he wakes up. What he wears. Where he goes.
How he takes his tea.
And there is no-one to watch him, no-one to tell him he’s late, no-one to tell him what to do.
He takes you up on that offer to learn to bake those sweet little pastries he liked – together – as soon as the dust settles down from smashing the old systems to pieces.
It took a while for the problems to unravel, and for people to get used to how things worked now, but he had never been foolish enough to think the world could be changed and rebuilt overnight or with no mess leftover. He knew it’d take time for everything to fall into place.
But he wasn’t worried about it. With Caitlyn overlooking the reforming the guard, and a governing council made up of people Viktor trusted, people the people trusted, he could finally take a step back from everything. Viktor had stayed as a board member, too; to oversee things, and to make it clear he was serious about changing things and not just trying to run. And unlike occupying the throne, this doesn’t take up his every waking hour; he was only needed at the castle some days, now, here and there for meetings.
And in the meantime?
In the meantime, he gets to have a life.
He’s well aware that it’s still not a normal life – people that recognize him around town still struggle to treat him like any other citizen, and he’s still learning how to do all of it, how to be just a person – but it’s a life, and it’s his, and he gets to do whatever he wants with it.
He takes a deep breath as he walks through the castle gates. Leaving still felt strange, and he suspected it would for a while. He wasn’t sure what it was supposed to feel like, but he had never been allowed to just go, like this, and he knew some of the guards still watched him more closely than they were told to, but...for the first time in his life, he could come and go as he pleased. And really, even with the eyes on his back and with something strange swirling just beneath his lungs every time he stepped out, being able to leave like this felt like a weight lifted from his shoulders.
Even with the street dust in his hair and his eyes and his mouth, he could breathe more freely than what he was used to.
Viktor had never been just a person. Ever since he could remember, being human had been less important than being first the prince and then the King. Being a person had always been an afterthought; the roles he had to play had always been more important than who he was underneath.
He didn’t really even know who he was, underneath.
But he was excited to find out.
Seeing life outside of the castle is a good start, and he keeps being surprised about how much there is, even as you show him what seem like completely ordinary things on one of your trips to the market.
“There is so much life here,” he’d said one time, almost breathless about it. It felt like being dropped in an ocean after living in a fishbowl for your whole life; ike seeing how big the sky can be for the first time.
It was a lot for him, you knew. Living in a predetermined box of a life and then suddenly having everything at your fingertips. Some days, he stays home and gets so focused on one of his projects that he doesn’t even talk much, and that’s fine. You assume it’s a part of the process. That it’s a part of him. And you're happy to help any way you can, even when it means just being there at the end of the day and still being there in the morning.
On those days, he often disappears at the crack of dawn and comes back with newly acquired bits of metal, new tools, something broken that he’s planning on fixing. Smiling and smelling of smoke.
On those days, he doesn’t always even realize the day has slipped by until the sun is setting and his eyes start to strain.
On those days, he crawls into bed with his hair messy and his muscles aching but his thoughts clear and his breaths deep.
He was building a life on his own terms, and –
Before this opportunity had been at his fingertips, he really hadn’t even dared to think what it was that he would want. He hadn’t dared to really look that in the eyes.
But when this all started unfolding and he suddenly found himself in the position to want things?
Viktor does something that he didn’t have much practice with but was cautiously learning;
He follows his heart.
He moves out of the castle, and into a small cabin with an overgrown garden and a big, old willow tree in the yard. It’s still within easy walking distance from the castle – if you happen to know a few shortcuts through the gardens, at least – and it is quiet, and peaceful, and his. He moves in his most important possessions, which isn’t much, but he’s excited to get more. Build a life there.
He returns most of the library books he's stolen. He keeps a few of his favorites, but he figured he's owed that much.
His friends help him move – something that he did not ask for and, before, he wouldn’t have even known how to deal with. Whenever someone did something for him before, he could never be sure if it was because they felt obligated to do so, and, really, there weren’t that many people he could even loosely consider friends. That list had been very short; for the majority of his life, it had only consisted of Jayce, and even with him, he had sometimes wondered. He had sometimes wondered if he even knew what friendship was supposed to be like.
But now –
Now Jayce carries boxes into the cottage without being asked, and he brings Caitlyn with him, who brings Vi, who brings some of her friends, and you’re there, and suddenly there are people there, helping Viktor without any obligation to do so. Suddenly, there is life there; the dusty corners of the cabin aren’t dark and cold anymore, and someone is laughing outside, and his hands are warm from holding yours. It's habitual, now, and it's one of the new observations he's been happy to make.
Vi pushes the door open with her shoulder and drops a wooden crate of something on the table, something that sounds heavy and like it's made of glass, and Viktor furrows his brows a bit.
"Don't you know you're supposed to have something to drink at these things?" she asks, digging out a glass bottle for herself, and Viktor mentally checks off the content of the crate in his head.
"Didn't they teach you anything in that place?" She continues, "it's like, the first rule of this, kid."
Kid. She called him kid, despite him being fairly sure he's older than she is. He doesn't care though, not really, because mainly he is marveling at how casually she takes all of this.
Before he can respond, Caitlyn comes through the door too, also carrying a wooden crate and placing it down much gently than what Vi had done.
Caitlyn only has to look at Vi before she lifts her hands up a little in defeat and lets her change the subject.
"We brought food," Caitlyn says, and people start gathering around the table without being told to do so. They start eating without being told to do so, too, and quietly, Viktor's nerves settle a little.
It’s not the first time life washes over him like this, but it certainly is a strong wave. It’s like he’s submerged in it, in being a part of something like this, so real and ordinary and wonderful.
For the first time, the place he occupies feels like a home.
There is life in this place.
There’s enough room for him to have a space for tinkering with things, a lot of natural light, and those purple flowers Rio ate growing in the garden. Enough surface space to bake in the kitchen.
There’s also enough space for two.
Viktor still isn’t used to asking for things for himself, but he makes it clear that he’d be more than happy to share the space with you.
And – when you spend the night there for the first time, you know there’s nothing you would love more.
Because this little rundown cottage instantly feels more like home than anything you’ve known before.
You can feel it; in the way it just…slowly seems to seep into your bones, like sunlight slowly warming up a dark room.
It’s like – Oh. This is it.
This is what it’s supposed to be like.
We can rest, here.
And something falls into place, in the quiet, warm room. Inside your chest.
That first night, you cook together, with ingredients you’d gotten in town earlier that day. In the small-ish kitchen, it’s an unsure dance of learning to move together in this new space, not being used to where anything was stored yet, and teaching him to cook, but as the golden-yellow sunlight streams in through the windows and you can see the willow tree sway in the wind and he gently puts his hand on your waist as he moves behind you –
It is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
It is the first steps of something new.
It is perfect.
He places aside some chopped vegetables, quietly explaining the plans for his newest project – the possibility of getting crystals to spread natural light through careful cutting and calculated reflections – and after you’re done placing a loaf of bread into the oven, you turn around and kiss him. Softly, gently; like you have all the time in the world. Because, here, you do.
For a split second, he is surprised. He still often is, when you kiss him, but it doesn’t take him long to melt into it, and kiss you back. He’s a lot more confident about it than he used to be, knowing that he truly was allowed to want this, allowed to have this. Knowing that he didn’t have to hide. Knowing that he could spend all night doing this, and nobody could come tear it out of his hands in the morning. Nobody was going to burst through that door and call him foolish for wanting something like this, nobody was going to tell him that his life wasn’t his to live.
He kisses you back with a gentle hand on your waist and with his body pressing against yours, pinning you against the table you’d been working on.
You’re pretty sure you’re getting flour on his shirt, the way your hands are on him, but you don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
He takes his time, and you’re glad to let him.
In this new life, he has all the time he wants.
Eventually he leans back, but only as much as he absolutely needs to, keeping his forehead on yours, your breaths intermixing in the quiet kitchen. The old floorboards creak under the movement a little, some birds are quietly singing to each other outside the window, and in response, Rio chirps back.
“So how are you going to cut the crystals?”
“Eh,” he breathes, and you can hear the small smile in his voice. “Jayce has some ideas. And significantly more muscle mass than me.”
You exhale a small laugh. “You’ll point where and he’ll hit a rock with a hammer really hard?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” He answers, then shrugs with one shoulder, “we’ll fine-tune it when we get there.”
You smile, and settle better against his chest. He wraps one arm loosely around you, and then he smiles. Softly, gently, and without thinking, Viktor smiles.
“I think,” he says, now more serious and so soft the words float in the air between you, “that I like not having a plan.” You can hear him swallow, and he’s quiet for a while.
“I think,” he repeats, “that I probably won’t get used to…living like this for a while, but…” he takes a breath, slow and a little bit shaky, “I am thankful that you got me here.”
It’s heavy, the way he says it. Like it’s the most important thing in his life, like he’s unfurling those words straight from his heart.
“You got yourself here.” you remind him, gentle, but knowing where he’s coming from.
“I couldn’t have done it alone.” He counters, but it’s gentle, too. Not really an argument, not really a counterpoint; just a fact. “You opened this door for me, you…showed me there was a way out. That I could...” he exhales, "have this."
He takes a deep breath, “I know this whole thing was…a mutual effort, but…”
“I know.” you offer quietly, and he leans a bit closer to you.
You just stay there for a while, breathing together, and you can feel his heartbeat. The moment is quiet but full of life; the warm sunlight, the food slowly cooking, the birds singing somewhere outside your window. His body pressed against yours, like it belongs there. This small space, yours, and the whole world around you, gentle and warm and waiting.
He exhales softly. “In case I forget,” he says quietly, breathing the words into the space between you, “can you remind me that this is real?”
You know what he means.
“Yes,” you breathe back, and it settles to the bottom of your heart like the solid truth it is.
It settles in his, too.