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“Viktor is with who, now?!”
”You heard me,” Jayce corroborated, remaining adamant in the face of Vi’s disbelieving expression.
”No, that’s crazy,” she denied, waving the notion away with the flick of her wrist and a shake of her head. “What would my sister even want with him, anyway?”
”That’s what I’m concerned about,” he sighed, turning away and taking a moment to soak in the unimpressive shack Vi and Caitlyn called a safe house. And that really was all it was: a barren, wooden shack, with nothing in it but a few sparse pieces of furniture, sleeping bags, and a make-shift stove that looked like it was about to fall apart at any given moment. Add to that the disorganised heaps of food and resources, and it was basically just a housing unit for survival essentials.
It had been a weird couple days. Mel had thought that Viktor's return (especially in the form of a heist with the Undercity's most dangerous criminal) was going to send Jayce off the rails, but instead is seemed to yank him abruptly back on track. He supposed it had something to do with the lack of uncertainty he felt now, knowing Viktor was alive and well, and apparently thriving if he was able to pull off a robbery. Granted, it had taken him a few days to refresh the focus he'd lost, but now it was back with more vigour and clarity than ever. His mind had started to pull itself back into place again, not enough to make him happy, but certainly an improvement over the torturous sorrow he'd been feeling since abandoning his friend.
Oh, yeah. Friend. That.
There was that.
With his emboldened hope had come another emboldened feeling as well, and that had brought confusion. Hazes. Longing. Holy shit, the longing. It wasn't unfamiliar. He'd felt it before, slinking in the back of his mind and heating his heart like a microwave whenever they were in the lab together, alone, doing what they do best and talking as naturally as they ever had. But it always ran away when a girlfriend came along, and since Mel it had been drowned out completely.
Not now. Now it had resurfaced with a vengeance, flooding every crevice of his brain, to the point where he sometimes felt a twinge of disgust toward her. He felt guilty for that. She deserved better, and he knew it, and he tried for her, tried to drown it out with his love - only to discover that what he felt for her was eerily similar to what he felt now.
So was that it, then? Love he had displaced all this time? No doubt, the feeling had its subtleties, for although its pull was strong, its sensation was soft, as though it was more perhaps the beginnings of love, or love lain dormant and now only waking up, groggy and befuddled in the early morning.
It was this softness that, when Mel breathed heavy beside him. led him to close his lazy eyes and examine old memories with a fresh lens. Oh, sweet lens, that made the lines and contours of Viktor's face so pretty, lines and contours and perfect flaws that he had always been to afraid to indulge in before. The voice that used to make his heart merely tingle now made it fluctuate in patterns he didn't understand and didn't need to. In came the yearning, the painful, the beautiful yearning...
”I don’t know,” enjoined Caitlyn, breaking him out of his shell of thought. She was sitting off to the side and running her fingers over Jinx’s homemade cane that Jayce had brought as evidence. "By the looks of it, she's rather supportive," she commented, squinting at the messages plastered in between the drawings.
"Gimme that," Vi demanded, snatching the cane from Caitlyn and sending an apologetic look her girlfriend’s way. She scrutinized it doubtfully, but soon her mouth gaped open, and her eyebrows rose in sad shock. "Holy shit..." she whispered solemnly. "You're serious."
"As I'll ever be."
Caitlyn shifted in her seat, face scrunched up thoughtfully. "So... now what?"
"I'll tell you what," he pushed in, pressing his index finger on the round table. "We're gonna help each other, that's what. Now, I can't do everything," he threw up his hands in surrender, "But I can come down here more often now, with the right excuses. From there, we can search for them together."
"For what?" Vi broke in belligerently. "Me and Cait have been tracking my sister for months, the-the only way we even found anything is because she robbed your fucking lab!"
"I have tech that can track her, in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. I'll bring it with me."
Caitlyn snorted unconvincingly. "Hextech is heavy stuff to lug around, Jayce. Besides, I don't see how you'd get past security without the council's permis-"
"Fuck the council," Jayce snapped. "They've been nothing but shitty to me lately, anyhow."
From across the room, the pair heard Vi give a languid, sarcastic clap. As they turned to her, she seemed to look at Jayce with a nod of newfound respect.
"That's the spirit," she praised, venerating him with her clapping.
Jinx had always had days like this.
That is, not the bad days, but the worst days. The days where her body sunk like lead and her brain ached with the strain of battling demons that haunted her from her past, washing over her like a typhoon, unrelenting, merciless.
She could fight them at first, wrangle with them like she always did, crawl off to sequestered places where she could shoot and punch and destroy without consequence. Then her body would fail her, beaten down by the duress, pushing the hopelessness on top of her with the weight of an anvil. She'd fall to the floor of wherever she was, hands entangled in her hair as sweat dripped down her body, pattering to the floor alongside the tear droplets that dripped from her face.
There is a saying: if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Well, Jinx would say no, for just as that tree made no sound, neither, it seemed, did her screams.
For this reason, she kept away from Viktor all day, for while part of her desired those screams to be heard, the other strangled Powder part of her still didn't want to be seen as weak. It wasn't even that he had laid any expectations on her (as Silco had inadvertently done), but rather a force of habit, a sense of shame imprinted on her for even thinking the things she felt on these days - more still for the times she enacted on those thoughts. It caused a frenzy, a tumultuous scramble, a wrangle to get her back indoors and alone with Silco, where he would coax out the emotions before they were any where near ready to be divulged.
It wasn’t even as though he was cruel about it. As characteristic of him, he was endlessly patient, offering affirmations and reassurances until she was ready to talk. “We all feel these things sometimes,” he would say. “It doesn’t make you weak,” he would assure her. “Do not be ashamed of the darker parts of yourself,” he would advise.
“We all carry our scars, Jinx,” he told her once after a particularly bad incident. “It just so happens that sometimes we feel them there more than other times. The important thing to remember is that they are just that - scars. And I know that won’t always be easy, but it might help you. You know I will always be here for you, but I fear someday I will catch you too late. So I ask you: remember they are scars. Remember it for me, and know that if you forget - as all our minds are prone to do - I will be there to guide you through.”
It wasn’t his fault, then, that she felt such shame, but rather the looks and rumours that would follow. The Undercity ate vulnerability up like wolves; Silco’s goons were no different, and though he encouraged her not to care what they thought of her, it was in her nature to do so anyway. The treatment was always different after. The looks, the whispers, the avoidance. The side-stepping, tip-toeing, condescending and ultimately demeaning way they addressed her. It made her feel weak, and being weak made her feel ashamed, and being ashamed made it feel wrong.
Wrong.
Learning through association, the wrongness conditioned itself and grew worse as more attempts occurred and more rumours spread. The worst part was the wrongness made it worse, made her want to end it all the more, because why would anyone want to spend time with someone selfish enough to throw away everything they knew.
“Ungrateful brat… after all he’s done for her…”
Worse still, was that the wrongness extended insidiously to the few occasions she mustered the courage to carry it out.
Look at you, Mylo would hiss at her trembling, sobbing body, abhorred at having to bear witness to just how very, extremely pathetic his adoptive sister really was. You can’t even kill yourself right!
She didn’t understand. She just wanted him to go away!
That was all she wanted then, and all she wanted right now, in the middle of the night, with Viktor fast asleep. This part always came at the end of the day, the transition that transformed her from a crying ball of hopelessness, to the very epitome of it; when her mind lost its free will, became puppeteer to her aching body; when the voices hounded her still, but she had nothing left to fight them with; when she became detached, emotionless, heart pushed beyond its capacity to feel and then was stomped on for good measure.
She meandered over to the balcony (if you could even call it that) that poked out the cannery, destroyed along with everything else she had ruined here. Even under her light, floaty steps, it was rickety, swaying mildly as the floorboards creaked underfoot. The wooden railing was splintered all over, some of it beyond recognition. Her palms drifted over it, and she enjoyed the prickling sensation it gave her skin. Impulsively, she put one foot on it, not bothering to test it before the other followed and a second hand gripped the creaking wood.
Faintly, she felt the inkling of a breeze against her skin, coaxing her to come further out along the length. She rose then, arms wavering in balance, feet wandering tentatively yet recklessly further along, eyes wide with alacrity - this balancing act felt like a bittersweet game to her. The breeze became more forceful as she ventured further out, but also provided more cold comfort. It blew, and she wobbled, catching herself with a giggle.
Crouched on all fours now, she froze, took in the soft, icy sensations that the air graced on her skin. Her eyes wandered and landed on a supporting banister, haphazardly holding up its little segment of undamaged roof. She lunged for it, the thrill of almost falling chilling her and making her breath come out in soft cloudlets of fog. Latching onto it, she smiled, looked at the ground below. The drop was obscured by fog, and that was a good sign. Pulling herself upright, she squeezed her eyes shut, head pounding as the back of it made contact with the frail banister. With her hands behind her back, wrapped around the wood, feet set down precariously on the quivering railing below, a long, deep sigh escaped her, a piteous substitute for the whimper that wanted to come out.
You think anyone would notice if you were gone?, Claggor asked her, torturously indifferent as usual.
Of course not!, Mylo chortled in response. In fact, I bet they’d throw a party.
You always liked parties, commented Silco fondly. And it gets lonely up here. Come and be alone with me. It’s only us.
It was so tempting. So devilishly tempting. Her body swung forward, catching itself on her arms still gripped behind her. Her feet moved insecurely as they struggled for balance.
Come, child, Silco whispered lovingly. Come to the sky, and I will keep you safe.
No one would know, encouraged Claggor.
She believed both of them, let herself go, loosening the releasing the grip of her left hand so she drifted to the right, readjusting her feet. In this new position, her braids dangled across her shoulder, her right hand gripped to the pole as she tilted her head to breath in the inviting air that graced her nostrils through the fumes.
The hell are you waiting for?!, Mylo broke out violently. Just do it already, no one cares!
She winced against him, but did nothing.
She was tired. Tired of fighting a battle that could never be won, tired of being alert to a hunter she couldn’t sense, tired of springing traps she knew would be sprung. She was tired of waiting for a love the world couldn’t spare her, tired of the lonely crying girl in the back of her head she could never appease, tired of her fleeting joys being marred by elongated sorrows. She was tired of ruining the good things she did get, tired of the few certainties she did have being ripped out from under her feet, tired of the cycle of abandonment that followed her like a whiny hound-dog.
She. Was. Tired.
Her body sagged. Her grip slackened but didn’t release. Her left arm swayed freely in the open air, and she relished the sensation of near death, of dangling literally and figuratively by a thread (or in this case her hand). In the sky, puffy white clouds and wispy, fatherly whispers - as a backdrop to the stage of guilt - promised her a rest, a release.
Don’t feel bad. Everyone else betrays us, Jinx, Silco soothed, drip-feeding familiarity to his tone. Vander… Vi… Viktor, eventually.
Like we all don’t know it!, screeched Mylo.
Let go, Silco coaxed. Let go of it all, and come to rest where you’ll feel safe.
And she did: body slipping forward, feet sliding off the wood, fingers loosing their grip until only the tips brushed the surface.
"Am I interrupting?"
With a start, she stumbled backward, feet straggling for security as her hand reattaching itself like a lifeline. Her eyes snapped open and shame washed over like the most horrific conceivable nausea. She yanked herself upright, face pulled in a grimace as her gaze remained outward, awaiting the unintentional scolding.
Needless to say, it didn't come. Instead, she heard the thump of his boots and the clink of his new cane as he came alongside her, and watched surreptitiously as he glanced over the edge she'd just been contemplating.
"That's a long way down," he commented. "You would hurt yourself if you fell.”
"I know," she uttered, unable to repress herself effectively from the shock.
"I know you know," he replied insouciantly, stunning her enough with his indifference that she whirled to face him. "But you don't know. In fact, I think your intention was to do a little more than that."
She flushed, looked away, but his unreadable eyes still bore into her with deliberate intensity. He sighed, recomposed himself. Calmness was key, and it was apparent she wasn't used to it.
"You...want to come down from there, or...?" he queried, offering his gloved hand. She took it wordlessly, eyes still averted, and he helped her gently down. Her body, evidently emotionally fatigued, slipped into his arms and onto the floor, back pressed against the right wall. Clearly, she would not be moving a while. New cane of her design in hand, he set himself down opposite her, brought his knees up as she did and set his cane down with a huff.
The toes of their boots touched and stayed there comfortably.
”…Do you remember how I was when you found me?” he prompted, carefully twirling the words around his tongue.
It was no surprise to him that she was perplexed, but what she needed would come out one way or another. He just needed to let her find the words.
“I was broken and bleeding, and I collapsed in your arms like a lost little puppy,” he recounted, chuckling darkly. His golden eyes glazed over with something mournfully spectacular. “I’ve thought back on that day often - not because I wonder why you took me, you told me as much - but because since then I’ve always tried to work out my relation to you.”
He shifted his position as he eased into his monologue. “I thought for a while maybe father, but then fathers don’t have their daughters inject them with Shimmer when they just met, and cry in their arms from the pain. Then I thought uncle, and then brother, which especially didn’t seem right until I realised why it kind of did.” He inclined forward, clasped her knee with a tentative hand. “My whole life, I have grown up knowing I am less than everybody else because my body was broken. I never had the luxury of a relationship where there wasn’t a clear imbalance in my dependency on the other person. I was always the weaker one, the broken one. But now… with you… another broken one… I feel… equal.”
She finally looked at him, eyes hollow and plaintive under her furrowed brows. He reclined away from her, pulled into his lap the second cane she had made for him.
”You see this?” he asked, lifting it a little. “I look at this and I see everything I need to see. All of your wonderful mind in one place. The little drawings, the formulas, the sentimental notes telling me how much you believe in me,” he whispered, his voice lilting with fondness. “All the facets of your personality, right here where I can see, and yet to so many who don’t look close enough, they only see the worst of it - the broken parts. And the funny thing is,” he laughed gently, “I like those parts just as much as the rest.”
Her lips rose in a pout. He pressed on, went to rise.
”Find your release if you want to,” he gestured to the balcony, “I don’t blame you for it, I have craved it too. But know that I will join you quickly. I need you.” Jinx made a choked sound. “You are my dearest friend, klever. Wherever you go, I will follow.”
”Wait!” she cried out suddenly, latching onto his wrist. “Viktor…” she mewled decrepitly, eyes bulging and scintillated with suppressed tears
“Come,” he cajoled, settling down again and beckoning her into his arms. “Come come come come, come.” With supportive hands, he guided her, crawling between his legs and nestling into his chest, arms encasing his waist.
He pulled his arms over her shoulders, crooned to her in soft tones and rocked her from side-to-side, as foreign nursery rhymes passed through his lips. With one hand, he caressed her plaits as she weeped meekly, unable to give her usual sobs and screams in her vulnerability and exhaustion. To him, the snivels and the whimpers were an indicator of the lost little girl that hid behind Jinx's traipsing displays of chaos - he would take care of both of them at all costs.
”Now…” he started, testing the waters before diving in. He’d beat around the bush for long enough; time to get to the root of the problem. “What’s troubling you?”
”I just thought…” she sniffled, surprised at how easily she articulated herself. “You would leave me in the end. If you got better. Then, you wouldn’t need me anymore.”
”Oh, malen’kiy klever, that’s not true. I would always need you.”
”How?”
”The same way you need me, right now.”
Her embrace tightened around him. “I guess I didn’t think of it that way.” She snorted. ”It’s funny, all that stuff you said about being dependant on everyone, it’s exactly what I’ve always been thinking. I guess I…” she chuckled darkly at the irony, “I guess I didn’t want to be a burden to you either.”
She felt his chest rise in a deep sigh. “Do you see it the way I do, now? We are equals. You are no lesser than me.”
”I do,” she answered truthfully. “Let’s be broken together, Viktor.”
In unspoken companionship, he wiped the snot of her nose with his sleeve and kissed the top of her head.
”It just gets too much sometimes,” she proceeded, the kiss easing the clamps off her heart. “I just want to make it go away.”
”I understand,” he corroborated. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter what’s at stake. Feelings are feelings, and they must be felt. Sometimes it’s a lot to feel. It is only human.”
”Sometimes I don’t feel human at all, with all these voices.”
”I know.” He combed his fingers through her hair. “I’m here if you ever want to talk about it. It will help it stop building up so much.”
”…Like releasing pressure from an air valve?”
He giggled lightly and respectably at her scientific analogy. “Yes, umnitsa, exactly like that, but only when you are ready. To keep the pressure balanced.”
Now it was her turn to say nothing, burying her face into his tie as she wept still.
Viktor had never anticipated that this might become a habit.
He could anticipate a lot of things. Since his earliest days at the academy, his hypotheses had been found to be inexorably correct. It was on odd talent, but one all parties appreciated for its infallible usefulness. The success of his predictions had exceeded many bounds.
And with memories of the academy came memories of Jayce, the pain renewed itself like a membership. Sagging in the metal chair, alone in the underwater basement they called a lab, Fishbones wallowing behind the glass grumpily, there was nothing stopping it’s flow to his heart. Nearby, the Hexcore snarled vindictively, fuelling his harrowed recollection. With this thumb, he rubbed the base of his wrist as if to assuage the hurt, occasionally venturing under the glove to where his regular skin turned purplish metal. Almost without him knowing, it eased off as his fingers caressed his stony palm.
Perfect. Flawless. Smooth.
Standing in direct contrast to the rest of him.
Imperfect. Flawed. Jagged.
Every inch of him, impure, marred, not one part of it good enough for anyone.
The agony of betrayal punched him in the face just as Jayce had, and he ruminated in the unfairness of it all. Wasn’t it bad enough his bones ached with every movement? Wasn’t it harsh enough that he had to be dosed, by someone else, with artificial chemicals just for a taste of normal life? Wasn’t it cruel enough that that same medicine caused him an inexplicable amount of pain? Why did he have to have all this loving-torture as well?
It was so unfair. He was tired of it all. Tired of his intellect being dismissed for the confines of his body. Tired of his roots in the Undercity leading everyone to garner him as inferior. What did he have to prove?! What - if anything at all - would be enough for them?
What would make him good enough?
Dejected, he hugged himself, a few tears cascading down his face. He wanted out of this body. Wanted to cut it all off him until only his mind and heart remained - even if the latter Jayce had beaten to a pulp as of late. Then, he would give them new life, in something that suited them, something that gave them the freedom to roam in a manner where only his imagination was the limit.
But he couldn’t do that. He could make a start, though.
Robotically, he picked up the scalpel, positioned it along the joint of his wrist just before flesh became metal.
Three little cuts, perfect straight lines, all the way across.
They were no runes, but they did the trick. With a relieved sigh, threw his head back against the seat and again rubbed the base of his wrist. Dark blood from the fresh wounds smeared his thumb and the skin surrounding the wound. It reminded him of smoking: such a bad habit, but so horrendously good.
Just a few more, he decided. Enough for the blood to flow freely as a compensation and displacement for the restrictions of his mind. It was a little cathartic, having his own tainted biological matter drip to the floor in a level of liberation he couldn’t comprehend. He slashed through his veins in sharp motions, blood spewing openly done his arms, seeping through and staining his sleeves. Every indent flooded his brain with dopamine just enough to briefly assuage the pain, but not enough to prevent him from continuing.
But he did stop. He knew by now that when the dizziness set in, he ought to instantiate some self-control.
What a mess!, he groaned internally, registering properly the splatters of blood that littered the chair and the floor. His arms hovered midday in dismay, his mind still fogged over with the dopamine rush combined with intense grief and newfound panic. He had to clean it up, but he felt aimless and lost, and began to whimper forlornly like a tearfully frustrated child.
”Viktor, what are you doing?!”
Immediately, instinct caused him to recoil, not needing to look up to see who had burst in.
Jinx dropped everything, sprinting toward him and dropping to her knees.
”Oh God, Vik, what did you do?” she whimpered haplessly, eyeing the various locations of blood with horror.
He said nothing. The time and strength for words had disintegrated from him a fair way into his evening. Everything he was became reduced to rubbing his bloodied wrist. Some spilled onto his trousers. God, it was everywhere.
Jinx returned quickly (though frankly, he hadn’t noticed she’d left), producing with her a shamble of cloth and a first aid kit that looked like it had emerged from the dark ages, utterly encased in dust.
”You’ve made a right mess of yourself,” she quipped, but her humour lacked conviction and her deadpan face gave it all away.
She tried to uncoil him, but he stirred viscerally, bringing his knees up in a defensive position. However, he was weak, and the chair was unbalanced under his full weight. His knees buckled swiftly, and she pried his arm away with ease, dabbing some of the massacre away with the cloth. Unnervingly, her face was totally indeterminate, lips parted and eyes disconcertingly wide and gleaming with anxious uncertainty.
”Why’d you go and make such a mess, silly?” she teased unconvincingly, wiping off some red patches that had pooled on the chair. “Why’d you go and make such a mess of yourself?”
He ignored her, not in any way out of rudeness, but rather a translucent state of emotional overload, letting survival instincts take the wheel as he reached for the disinfectant inside the opened first aid box. When had it been opened? He couldn’t be sure; he couldn’t be sure of much of anything right now.
Instantaneously, she ceased with the cloth. “Let me help you with-“
”No-no, it’s fine!” he refused fervently, incapable of hiding the wobble in his words. “It-it’s just a scratch, it’s just a little scratch. A little bad habit, that’s all! It’s-I’m not-I…”
She furrowed her eyebrows: despite his best attempt at composure, Viktor sounded heart-breakingly near to hysteria.
”Viktor…” she cooed pleadingly, brushing her thumb across the dip in his cheek. “Vik, what’s wrong? Please tell me. I want to help you, please…”
He waved his hands vehemently in front of him, mouth producing utter gibberish. Apparently, whatever numbness he had felt during the ordeal had now faded, causing all his feeling to overwhelm him all at once. The result rendered him jittery, frantic, and inarticulate.
”Ok, it’s alright. You don’t have to talk,” she soothed, rubbing his forearm. He fell still at this, and she took the opportunity to slide her hand tentatively down to his injuries. When she arrived there without protest, she set to treating the wound, flinching herself at the winces and jerks it caused him.
Mid-treatment, he began to bewail horribly: “I’m sorry! I’m-I’m sorry, I-“
”Hey, shh, shh,” she hushed, stopping everything to comb her fingers through his indelibly soft hair in a way not unlike the time she first met him. “Don’t worry about it. I get it, I do.”
For some reason, the light that had gone from his eyes in the last five minutes returned again. The hysterics died down a little, and he tilted his wrist to give her better access to his wounds. She was coming out of her shock now, the adrenaline dying down and her heartrate settling. For the first time, she marked the glove absent from his hand, enamoured by the contrast of the coruscating purples against his pale white skin - or what was left it, for what hadn't been neatly shredded was coated in a thin layer of blood.
"These cuts are really deep," she commented involuntarily, using her arbitrary vocal commentary as a coping mechanism. What she received in response was an ambivalent, impartial hum. It was a good, prolonged moment before either spoke again.
"It's fine," he reiterated brusquely, though making no move to cower away from her. "It's not a problem," he denied vehemently. "I don't do it often, and-"
"You 'don't do it often'?" she interjected, enunciating his exact words to emphasis the issue of them. She raised a cynical eyebrow at him as she disinfected the wounds.
"It's not a big deal. Just a bad habit. I'm fine, rea-"
"Viktor, look at you!!" she broke out ardently, arms waving incredulously at his blood-stained clothes. "Look at your clothes, look at your skin! You can't look at all that and tell me you're fine!"
"It's not your concern," he responded coldly, heart hammering against the truth.
"Not my-" She pinched the bridge of her nose, marvelling at his ludicrous ignorance. "You made it my concern when you decided to be my best friend!" She was fuming now, teeth set like a bulldog and eyes ablaze. "God, why do you have to be such a big baby?!"
That snatched his attention. He rose abruptly. "I am no such thing!"
"You are!" she persisted. "You're a silly boy, a silly little boy who doesn't let anyone help him no matter how much they care!"
"That... That..." he hesitated, drooped, knowing it was true. Certain as anything, Jinx was using her brutal, insistent honesty to snap him out of his delusions. The difference was until now it had only ever been about his physical health. His face twisted in anguish, as the anger faded and was displaced by the lamentable cause of his feelings. Tears streamed down his face.
"Oh Viktor, I'm sorry," she placated, hugging him and running her fingers through his hair. "I didn't mean to make you cry. You're not baby or a silly boy, really. Hey, come on, I mean it!"
He knew she meant it. He just couldn't help the sobs. His quivering body fell increasingly lax and they descended to the floor together.
"It's not you," he reassured her, returning the hug and rubbing circles into her back.
"What's on your mind?"
He sighed, leaned into her. "I just... when I met Jayce," Jinx tensed, "I thought, maybe this time it would be different. Maybe I'd finally be good enough for someone.” He exhaled dejectedly, his voice raspy as the heartbreak came back to him. "But... he left too, so... who am I enough for, really?"
There was a long silence. Jinx was thinking.
"You're good enough for me," she said finally.
"I know," he admitted. "I just... really wanted to be good enough for Jayce, too."
She laughed grimly. "Sorry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just funny."
"What is?"
"How you always manage to say exactly what I'm thinking, more or less."
This bewildered him. "Care to elaborate?"
"I just mean that..." she obliged, picking her words judiciously. "Silco always made sure I knew I was good enough for him, but it never stopped me from wanting to be good enough for Vi, even when I thought she was dead."
He understood then, resettled in the crook of her neck. Suddenly, he cried out.
"I'm getting blood all over you!" he exclaimed, pulling back from her. At the swift motion, he winced and swore. "Dermo, my head..."
"Easy, lay down..." Jinx sprung back into action, setting the back of his head down on the freezing floor. "Hmmm, you've lost a lot of blood," she observed, pulling out some stitches and bandages from the first aid pack. Recalling Silco's teachings, she readied the stitching needle. "Little pinch," she warned.
It didn't stop him from wincing, nor from hissing through his gritted teeth as the thread tugged his skin back together. In comfort, she brushed her hand over his forehead, praised for his resilience as she always did. The familiarity calmed him a little. Once it was done, she bandaged him tenderly, and offered as politely as she could to wash the blood off him.
"Please do," he acquiesced, remembering his mantra about them being equals.
Moments later, she returned with a bucket of warm water, and tenderly scrubbed the dry blood off his skin. In that time, they shared an impassioned conversation about his cyborg hand, Jinx chortling delectably as Viktor satiated her burning curiosity with detailed descriptions about the Hexcore and how - he believed - it worked.
"So, it could transform all of you?" she queried enthusiastically.
"Theoretically. But the risk of harm is..." He grimaced as he unintentionally recalled Sky's death, "...immense."
She pried no further, understanding his tone.
Instead, she changed the subject slightly. "So... what can we do with it?"
"Right now, I want to properly test its responses to Shimmer, and perhaps remerge it with Hextech," he explained delicately. "As of now, it's mostly pure Shimmer, and I need the runes to track the learning process."
"Runes.. like.. these..?" she questioned carefully, tracing her nail over some scar tissue that had been revealed as she rolled up his sleeves.
He smiled lamentably at her. "Yes, just like those."
She clasped his shoulders, then, pressing her forehead against his. Like that, they were united. Equals, as it were.
"Viktor! Viktor!! Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up!"
Viktor groaned at the jerking of his shoulders, rolling over begrudgingly on his creaking bed frame. Above him, the lamplight they’d implanted swung excitably. He was bewildered: Jinx had ordered him unwaveringly to bedrest after washing the blood off his skin, chucking him some weathered clothes she had stolen and demanding she wash his bloodied uniform.
"Malysh, what is it?"
"I have a surprise for you!"
This woke him up. He sat up with a grunt and some assistance, and received with bemusement the squeaking monkey she dropped in his hands.
"It's a stress toy!" she exclaimed in response to his stunned expression. "Every time you feel like hurting yourself again, just squeeze." She demonstrated, adding sheepishly, fingers twiddling. "I made it special for you. I hope you like it."
Viktor's heart swelled. "I love it," he told her sincerely, resting his forehead against hers. With an impish smirk, he added with a poke to the nose: "I have something for you, too."
"For me?!" she squealed ecstatically, clasping her hands together.
At that, he pulled out the gadget he'd been hiding under his pillow the last 24 hours. The idea had originally came to him when he bared witness to one of her hallucination, noticing how her own gadgets seemed to help her calm down, and was then actualized after the suicide attempt of the evening prior. Though he was more than happy to ground her through these times, he deemed it healthy that she have access to her own (reasonable and non-destructive) coping mechanisms. Plus, he figured it might assuage her dependency issues, for even if she saw them as equals now, he know the likelihood of doubts preying on her was high.
"What is it?" she interrogated impatiently.
"A spinning top," he replied, holding the trinket up for her to see. On the palm of his right hand (which now stayed ungloved) he demonstrated its function. "Whenever, you're visions are bothering you, I want you to focus on this spinning, and nothing else. If you concentrate hard enough, you might just find you'll forget they were there."
"Oh, thank you!" she chortled, engulfing him in a hug. "It's so pretty! You're the best!"
"I do try," he said, patting her shoulder. Had she looked at him awhile longer, she might've seen the way has eyes sparkled at her joy. In his heart, a summersault occurred, and his reckless boyish side determined that he would have to find or fabricate more Piltovian treasures, if it meant bringing the poor girl that much more joy. "And thank you, umniy. It means… so much more to me than you think."