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Viktor is not alive.
That is the first thing he knows when he opens his eyes. The world is shimmering, a kaleidoscope gone off center. He’s stuck in place, his velocity directionless and yet he is accelerating. There is no longer any intrinsic parts to him– no temperature, or taste, or feeling. His body that was once lagrangian has switched to Eulerian– dragged itself to be defined by more than his origin point, more than the boy and his toy boat in the fissures. He is particles being captured at a snapshot in time, deciphered by his nerve firings as he pushes through the fluid that is not a fluid at all. It is not a fluid but it is not a solid as well. It’s not anything science could explain.
He is not anything science could explain.
Jayce hugs him. That is the first thing that happens and his body acknowledges it as if it were being done to a thing and not him. His body would hurt; the brace would dig into his skin, his leg would twinge with the unexpected weight. His body would be elated; his heart fighting against his brain in desire, his palms sweating.
None of it happens.
What have we done, he thinks. He looks at Jayce and knows a grim reality: he is meant to be dead and he will spend the rest of his life rectifying that. The price for his life is not one the world could afford to pay and Jayce added it to their long list of credit.
The wild runes call to him and they are not happy. Sky lurks behind his eyes in a mirage. He can not be here. He is on the ledge about to jump and he welcomes the water greedily.
“Our paths diverged long ago,” his back is turned to Jayce. He used to wonder what Jayce saw when he was like this: if his brace caught the light like one of Mel’s necklaces. If that would make Jayce finally look. “It was affection that held us together.”
He does not look at Jayce as he breaks his heart. Now that he is not alive but not dead he sees it all so clearly. This was always love. The wondering, the coy glances, the shy touches. Jayce loves Mel like a hammer loves fire: needs fire to shape it, to give it purpose. But Jayce loved Viktor in the way one loves their thoughts: capturing every detail so as to not forget, not noticing how much you need them until you’re left with the silence of their absence, and holding on too hard as they slip away.
Jayce was always a scientist at heart. How much Viktor wished for that before. How little it means now.
Jayce grabs him and Viktor does not feel it. How can he not feel it? What exactly is he? Not human but too defunct for godhood. A being stuck in stasis while moving. He’s Schrödinger’s cat: dead and alive and neither at the same time.
“I don’t know what my path is Viktor,” Jayce says or begs. Sky teeters outside the door. “And when I lost it the first time, when I wasn’t sure what to do or who to follow. You were there.” He says, “You are still here.”
But I’m not, Viktor thinks. He is as here as he is alive and that’s not at all. Not enough to matter and somehow Jayce still believes it is.
He puts his hand against Jayce’s cheek. The warped purple standing stark against tan. “You have never needed me,” he says. “All of the speeches, the founding principles of hex tech, the politics— that was your path and I followed it as best as I could. I held onto you so much it almost killed me,” he looks down at himself, “it should’ve killed me.”
“I saved you,” Jayce argues. He grabs a strand of Viktor’s hair, the only part that’s still normal. “You’re alive because of what we created.”
He smiles at Jayce, small and sweet. He does not say the obvious. Jayce crumbles regardless. “Just stay with me,” Jayce begs. “I don’t know what to do without you.”
Viktor looks at him: the eyes that captured him in a wrecked apartment all those years ago. Gold that he thought could not compare to anything yet pales to the shimmering iridescence of the arcane. An object in motion remains so unless stopped by an outside force: his love for Jayce is not a thing he ever tried to stop. He feels the remnants of it in the last of his humanity. The arcane is calling, but Viktor pulls away, resists it like a stray electron firing through aluminum.
What pointless suffering he thinks as he looks at Jayce. Easily resolved by something utterly in his control. He will spend the rest of his life repenting for not dying. He may as well have something worth living for. The only part of him not covered in the organic rot of the arcane are his hair and his face. The only parts of him that can still feel; the air against his dry eyes, the moisture gathering in his mouth. He is rooted in a place again, not drifting, the kaleidoscope stilling and Sky dancing out of his view.
He kisses Jayce.
It is not the sweet kiss he imagined in their first few years working together nor is it a kiss of passion he imagined in their later. It’s a kiss of a thousand words said too late: I love yous and I need yous. He threads his fingers in Jayce’s hair. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. He spent years dreaming of this. Holding himself and pretending. It’s too late to mean anything and too soon to be forgiven. He would’ve never done this: surging up on his toes to connect them, his cane rattling to the ground as Jayce rushes to support him. He was too timid, too weak. Held back by the very same humanity that has abandoned him. His body does not react. His heart does not speed or his toes tingle, but the phantom weight of it rests on his brain and clouds over.
Jayce pulls away, “Viktor, I-“
“Don’t,” Viktor says. The end of it doesn’t matter anymore. Viktor, I love you. Viktor, I’m sorry. Viktor, I need you. There are millions of things that could be and all are so important they loop back to mundane. He knows how this ends and it’s not what Jayce wants.
The blanket drops off his shoulders and Jayce trails his fingers over him. The metal that’s been lodged into him glinting like knives. His skin has turned plum purple with shimmer in his veins and it fascinates Jayce. “You’re beautiful,” Jayce whispers, but he’s not looking at Viktor, he's looking at the mess of his creation splattered across his skin. The hexcore come to life. He is as always egotistical. Viktor returns the touch, trailing his not-quite-there fingers across the bandaging of Jayce’s chest. He is so human Viktor can no longer feel it.
“You have always been beautiful,” Jayce says and this time he is looking at Viktor, at the minute parts of him left. “I didn’t notice it, it took years— but I always knew.”
“If given a map you’d memorize the shape of the land,” Viktor says. “You have always been so devoted to understanding, to knowledge, that you miss everything that is not right in front of you.” He tugs at Jayce’s hair and breathes into his mouth. “If given a man I’d always wonder what you’d do. Do you explore or do you memorize?”
Jayce rests his hands against Viktor’s hips. The protrusion of his bone sculpted out of foreign material. Not skin but still alive. He pulls Viktor closer by his hips and walks them back until he rests against the desk. “If that man is you,” Jayce trails off, planting barely there kisses against his barely skin. “I’d do everything.”
“Bit egotistical no?” Viktor asks. “One man can’t do everything.” He’s watched Jayce try. He’s watched him fail. This will not be different.
Jayce doesn’t respond, instead pressing into Viktor like a man possessed. He kisses with greed, taking what’s left of Viktor and sliding it into his skin like it was always his. In a way Viktor has always been his. In a way he doesn’t want any of him to be left after this: he’s cutting the last of his heart out and placing it in Jayce’s palm. He’s made himself into Theseus' boat, replacing himself piece by piece until there's not much left and he’ll gladly let Jayce scoop out the rest.
It is a goodbye as much as it is a rebirth.
“Let me,” Jayce says. His hand against Viktor’s cheek. Viktor would let him do anything.
The cot in the lab is not big enough for the both of them. Viktor lies on top of Jayce, their bodies melded together so tightly Viktor wonders if Jayce may attach to him like the hexcore, drag himself over Viktor’s skin until the purple is replaced by tan.
Viktor knows that will not happen. Jayce is just a man and Viktor... He’s more and less at the same time. Too much of a man to not say no to this. So little of one that he could finally get it. There’s no lube safe to use on humans in the lab but they use the lube made for machinery anyway. Jayce slathers it on his fingers and thrusts them into Viktor with a too dedicated reverence.
“You do not have to be gentle,” he says in between kisses. “I am not fragile anymore.”
“I want to be,” Jayce answers back, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth.
Humans and their wants, Viktor thinks. “So impractical,” he mutters against Jayces mouth.
“When have we ever been practical,” Jayce laughs and it makes Viktor scowl. If they had been more practical the wild tunes wouldn’t be a mess. He takes the fingers still pressing into him and tangles them with his own pressing them by Jayce’s head against the pillow.
“I’m ready,” Viktor says. He doesn’t wait before he adjusts himself, settling onto Jayce’s dick so they’re flushed together. He could’ve never done this before. That’s one of the things that goes through his mind as he moves against Jayce, wriggles his hips as he moves up and down. Before his leg would’ve given out.
He dreamt of this with Jayce– the heavy breathing, the smiles in between thrusts, and lips ghosting each other– but never this position. Even in his dreams Viktor tried to be realistic, now he can bend reality in the palm of his hand, adjust it to the wrinkles of his skin until he’s able to play and meld it like water.
Jayce doesn’t quiver under his palms. He’s solid, too real in a world that Viktor can feel is teetering on the membrane of that which is fantasy– of the arcane. He is steady as Viktor moves, hands guiding and covering Viktor. “Can you feel me?” Jayce asks.
“Your hands are rough,” Viktor says, confirms when he traces Jayce’s palm with his, “but I’m not sure if it’s a placebo of the past, if my brain is working in past or future.” Everything about him is non-linear, past and future dreams appearing and tainting the present.
“Ok,” Jayce says. He grunts when Viktor comes down against him, sharp and fast. “We can work on that,” he assures.
Viktor doesn’t have the heart to tell him they won’t– that there’s nothing to work on.
It’s over as quick as it began. Jayce cums and it doesn’t take Viktor much longer after to splatter Jayce’s ribs and bandages. His cum is iridescent, looking far too much like the fluid but not that saved his life.
Jayce stands up and grabs a test tube, scooping what landed on him into the small vial, “We will figure this out,” Jayce assures him. “I’ll analyze this and we can see what’s happening to you.”
“It’s not something a microscope will enlighten you on,” Viktor says. He’s become something beyond analysis– what happens when the experiment is over and results are typed. He’s a thing abandoned by what could be explained by any human metric: scientific or philosophical.
“There is little we haven’t been able to figure out together,” Jayce reminds him. He crawls back into the cot and wraps his arms around Viktor.
There’s no more together. Viktor knows that, the last of who he was is content and that’s enough for him to move on and say goodbye forever. The arcane calls to him, is inside of him more than any love could be.
He lets Jayce drift off to sleep. He takes three things when he leaves: his old notes, his cane, and the blanket that Jayce draped around him. If he was still alive he would’ve taken Jayce too, woke him up from his slumber and told him to come with.
He doesn’t.