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There’s a mark in the center of his palm.
It was one of the first things Viktor noticed about this reborn body. A mixture of both old and new.
He felt the novelty of it, like life itself dancing under his skin—a gift from the arcane, perhaps. To say he had experienced enough magic for one lifetime, that itself felt like an understatement.
In actuality, Viktor was just thankful to have skin again. To touch and feel the world around him as he once did. Until it was taken from him, he hadn’t realized how much he missed the warmth of others. Of Jayce, specifically. Viktor had to resist the newfound urges to reach out to him, to brush his fingertips over the prickly ends of his beard and brows, to rest them against the tiny scar beneath his lips.
Viktor could learn to be patient.
Then, there was the past. Viktor felt it heavy in his leg. A familiar discomfort, but one he had grown to manage.
Jayce, however, had not.
Viktor knew the way he moved. He could have picked out the sound of Jayce’s steps in a crowd, the rhythm as familiar to him as his own breathing. Ingrained in his memory after years of listening to him traverse their lab as he worked.
These steps were not the same. Jayce lingered too long on his braced side, half-stumbling into every other next step. He moved with the same energy as before, his body not given the chance to catch up. Jayce laughed it off, masked it with a smile, took Viktor’s hand to guide him. Repeating patterns. Always something left unspoken.
It was predictable, Viktor thought, that Jayce would go through all the effort to craft such an intricate brace, only to refuse the same level of care to his own body. As if his value began and ended with what he could build.
Jayce didn’t say anything at the end of the day when the inevitable strain caught up to him. But Viktor knew. He saw it in the fine lines between his brows, and the slow, deliberate drag of his fingers on the side of his calf.
Viktor wondered if Jayce would feel foolish. You’ve lived with this your entire life, he might say. I have no right to whine. His Jayce, always so worried about anyone but himself.
The thought would almost make Viktor smile, if it did not make him ache.
“It helps if you elevate it,” Viktor said, watching Jayce from the doorframe of their room for the night.
This inn was one of his favorites so far, with oak floorboards and quilted blankets. Their window even had a view of lanterns from the street, delicate and honey-gold.
Jayce looked up from his hands, brows raised. Viktor mirrored the expression, and waited. Feigned innocence was not a skill either of them possessed. A moment passed, quiet enough to hear the rumbling chatter from the tavern downstairs.
Jayce’s shoulders lowered. “I’m alright, Viktor.”
In response, Viktor came closer, pulling over the chair from the room’s work desk to the side of the bed. He held out a hand to assure Jayce, easing down to sit. Jayce merely watched Viktor adjust his own braced leg, and swallowed loud enough for both of them to hear.
“What part is hurting the most?” Viktor asked him.
Jayce ran a hand over the back of his neck, as he always did. They could have been anywhere, and Viktor would still find comfort in these small, insignificant motions.
“It’s the bone,” Jayce said, gesturing with his hand to a spot just above his ankle. “Here.”
Viktor’s eyes snapped to the source, though there was not much to be seen through the fabric of Jayce’s pants. He frowned.
“May I take a look?”
“Viktor,” Jayce repeated, and then softer, again, “I’m alright.”
Viktor sighed. “I don’t believe that’s what I asked.”
In the tension, Jayce let out a nervous laugh, and Viktor blinked, unimpressed. He could tell the exact moment Jayce relented, his cheeks growing darker, the hand on his neck dropping to his lap. This look of defeat—it did not suit Jayce, Viktor thought. For the first time that day, Viktor let his urges overtake him, and he placed his hand against Jayce’s wrist. Feather-light, patient.
Jayce moved swiftly, after that
Viktor helped Jayce lift his leg into his lap, the weight surprising, but not unwelcome. He could see the way Jayce tensed, perhaps worried about crushing him under all that muscle and tempered metal. Viktor was familiar with being treated like he was breakable, or already broken, but this was not the same. Jayce’s actions were laced with concern, not pity. With steady hands, Viktor rolled the bottom hem of Jayce’s pants towards his knee, exposing the old wound.
His breath caught. He had never seen the injury before, but he had not imagined it like this. He wasn’t even sure what this was.
Just below Jayce’s knee, on the outside of his calf, his flesh was dented. Dark skin interrupted by fractaling scars, hairless patches, a cavern of unknown problems hidden beneath. A wound that had grown agitated, infected, refractured, before ultimately settling into a shape his body could accept.
Viktor recognized the pattern of the scar. He knew it like he knew his own nightmares.
“It’s not pretty,” Jayce said with a wince. He trained his eyes to the side of it, deliberately, as if looking directly might remind him it was real.
Viktor, in another moment of firsts for that day, couldn’t find the words. He just pressed his marked palm against the side of Jayce’s calf, and wondered, for a fleeting moment, if something might happen. A spark of arcane energy, of healing magic, of anything.
But Viktor felt nothing. Nothing but the heat of Jayce’s skin and the rhythm of his pulse.
The reality should have relieved him—the influence of the hexcore was truly, undeniably gone. Yet something dark lurched in the back of his mind. A reflex. An impulse.
Viktor clenched his jaw. The memory snuffed out of his mind like a pinched flame. He suppressed a wave of frustration, ran his hand towards Jayce’s ankle and focused on the way he faintly jerked away.
He thought, this is what is real.
“Viktor, are you alright?” Jayce asked, ducking his head, searching Viktor’s face. Minutes had passed without him noticing. Without Jayce bothering to pull him away.
Viktor blinked, the world around him coming back into focus. He was nearly startled by the look in Jayce’s eyes. Concern and thinly veiled adoration. Oh , he had to look away.
“You are asking me?” Viktor said with a distant, tired smile. “You never did tell me how this happened.”
A sound escaped Jayce that startled them both—halfway between a laugh and a gasp. Viktor looked up to him again, tilted his head, hoping he could sense his intent. You don’t have to.
But Jayce said, “It was my hammer.”
“Your hammer?”
“Yes.” Jayce exhaled a soundless laugh. “It’s a really long story.”
Viktor hesitated, eyes flickering between Jayce’s leg and his face. Given the memories Jayce had once shown him, Viktor could fill in the blanks.
The air was tense, and Viktor swallowed. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful with heavy machinery?”
Jayce’s next laugh was audible, sudden, and the most beautiful sound Viktor had heard since they awoke in the meadow. It sent a spark up his arm and through his spine. Viktor found it difficult to regain his composure, especially when Jayce’s eye crinkled in the corners, a flash of his canines showing as he grinned.
“I’ve never been the best at lab safety,” Jayce said, his voice growing softer, fonder. “But I’m serious. This is nothing I can’t manage.”
Viktor shook his head, heart in his throat. “I don’t doubt it, Jayce.
“Today was just,” Jayce chewed his cheek, “ long. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“I never implied you wouldn’t,” Viktor said again.
Silence fell between them, and Viktor wondered if he should feel bad for the way Jayce seemed to squirm across from him. Always so easy to rile. Viktor knew it was the only way to get him to say what was really on his mind.
And so he waited.
“You’ve lived with this your entire life,” Jayce began after a brief moment. “I have no right—“
“To whine,” Viktor interrupted, the corner of his lip quirked. Word for word. “Yes, yes.”
He absently traced his fingertips over Jayce’s leg where it rested in his lap. A pang of distant guilt as he followed the lines of the hex-scaring.
“But what about you?” Jayce asked, his voice catching. He cleared his throat. “You’re the one dealing with an entirely new body.”
Viktor held his other hand towards the lamp on their nightstand, tilting and rolling his fingers against the dusty yellow light. Jayce watched the motion, enraptured.
“It’s not all new,” Viktor sighed. “But I’m thankful to feel like myself again.”
Viktor was uncertain if he deserved rebirth. He was uncertain of a lot of things, but one thought rang clear in his mind.
“What was it you said to me?” Viktor began, drawing his eyes down to Jayce’s leg once more. “This is a piece of you, now.”
Jayce did not speak. Viktor took a breath, trailing his thumb over the scar. Delicate and slow.
“I will love every piece of you, Jayce.”
Love. The word felt so foreign, yet so natural on his tongue. It had gone unspoken for so many years, and to hear it out loud drowned all of the sound from the world.
It was not a secret. Only a promise.
Viktor did not feel the energy of the arcane against his palm. What he did feel, however, was the faintest hint of a heart beating. Clenching. Bursting with adoration.
Strange.
Viktor paused. That feeling… it did not belong to him. At least not at this moment.
When he looked up from his hand, Jayce was watching him with the widest eyes—the look both a question and answer.
You felt that?
Viktor nodded, just barely.
“I felt you too,” Jayce whispered.
Viktor’s world tilted on its axis, and he took a breath. “What did you feel?”
“I’m not sure,” Jaye admitted. He carded his fingers through his hair, his eyes dropping to Viktor’s hand. “Your emotions, I think. Or maybe your thoughts, I don’t—”
In an instant, the rush of adrenaline Viktor had felt collapsed. He pulled back his hand like he had been burnt. Like he had burnt Jayce. Dread overtook his thoughts.
“This is not good,” Viktor said, low. “Jayce, this is not good.”
“Viktor.” Jayce was able to look at him again, steady. “Don’t panic.”
Viktor felt far beyond that at this point, but Jayce’s words helped tether him to the room. The center of his palm felt like static. His throat tightened.
Jayce was reaching for his marked palm before Viktor could pull away. The skin of his hands calloused, warm, almost enough to distract him. Jayce observed the lines where their fingers met in the same way he studied an unsolved equation, and Viktor’s mind filled with newer, more alarming thoughts.
Jayce’s eyes caught the lamplight, so rich, so achingly soft. Another spark of something passed between them, Viktor close to biting off his own tongue.
“Fascinating,” Jayce muttered.
Viktor’s face felt hot. “What is it?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Jayce began. “Whatever we experienced… it connected us, somehow.”
Whatever I did, Viktor thought, bitterly. Whatever I did, robbed you of this freedom.
“Does it not make you uncomfortable?” Viktor asked, quiet.
It’s an invasion of privacy, Viktor thought. To see inside your mind.
Another prickle over his skin. Jayce’s eyes widened in response, receiving the message without words.
“No,” Viktor said, shaking his head. “ No, I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Stop.” Jayce clasped his other hand over Viktor’s, cradling it tightly against his own chest. “Just listen.”
As if it could be as simple as that. Viktor would never cease to be amazed by Jayce’s boundless curiosity, or his own perilous urges to explore the unknown. He supposed that was what made them so compatible. So inextricably bound.
Viktor hesitated before shutting his eyes. He focused the whole of his mind on the feeling of Jayce’s hands around his own, and listened.
Darkness, and silence. A sensation of calm.
He felt Jayce’s mind, like warm silk threaded around his fingers. Weaving, grazing, dancing in a constant, impossible rhythm. Viktor could make out the impression of a thought, here and there, like the blotches of color in the corner of eyes after a bright flash. Intangible, fleeting. There was no denying this presence was Jayce, but Viktor was merely an outsider.
Like standing in the tide, trying to understand the sea.
Viktor focused on his own tension, of the rigid muscles of his neck and back. He registered himself letting out a deep breath, somewhere distant, and pushed his thoughts against the threads of Jayce’s.
I see now, Viktor thought, and leaned closer. You have to let me in.
A ripple against the threads. Viktor felt the impressions of thought grow sharper, brighter, until the threads were pressed so tightly against him, he felt the warmth seeping down to bone.
Then, clarity.
It’s alright, Jayce’s presence seemed to say. Don’t you see, Viktor?
Viktor felt a rush of something weightless push him closer to that intangible warmth, and he focused his energy on weaving his own threads alongside Jayce’s. He felt the planes shift, bend, a tapestry both familiar and foreign, but undeniably them.
When Viktor finally opened his eyes, they had shifted.
Viktor had been pulled—or perhaps, moved himself—to sit on the edge of the bed beside Jayce, their thighs and braces pressed together in a long line of metal and bolts. Their foreheads were touching, Jayce’s stray hairs tickling the edges of Viktor’s cheeks.
He met Jayce’s eyes, wide and golden and filled with idiotic delight.
“That’s incredible,” Jayce said. He still held Viktor’s hand against his chest, shook it, grinned ear to ear. “I felt you, Viktor.”
Viktor made no move to pull back. Just kept watching Jayce in his bout of wonder, that gold light in his eyes. The tips of his own ears felt molten.
“It will certainly be of use,” Viktor said, slow, calculated. “You’re sure this doesn’t…scare you?”
Scare was not the right word. The look on Jayce’s face only confirmed the thought.
“This new existence is… strange,” Jayce said. “I’m not sure we’ll ever fully understand what happened to us, or why. I’m not sure it even matters.”
Viktor studied him, curious, eyes narrowed. Jayce’s voice grew quiet.
“I know you still feel guilt, over everything that happened. You still don’t believe me when I tell you there’s nowhere I’d rather be than by your side.” Jayce squeezed Viktor’s hand once, letting the bundle drop into his lap. “So no, Viktor. It doesn’t scare me, because you don’t scare me.”
Viktor opened his mouth to speak, snapped it shut. This man.
“See?” Jayce smiled. “I didn’t have to read your thoughts for that one.”
Viktor exhaled. “You put too much trust in me.”
“Viktor,” Jayce began, “I would do anything you asked of me.”
Jayce was staring at him like he was the only thing in the world. Like they were back in the void, bound only by the light of each other. And gods, Viktor wanted Jayce. He wanted him. He needed him.
“Jayce, you can’t be saying things like that to me,” Viktor said, his mouth suddenly dry. His fragile restraint showed through his trembling hands. “My heart cannot take it.”
In response, Jayce only laughed—a loose, comforting sound. Perhaps it was payback for all the moments he had made Jayce squirm, Viktor thought. Jayce was so easy to tease, easier to love.
Viktor glanced down to their legs, catching the lamplight against the metal of their braces.
“Promise me you will take care of yourself,” Viktor said. “Support means nothing if you don’t use it.”
Jayce followed his gaze, trailing one of his hands towards his leg. He rubbed a thumb against the metal, his eyes filled with an emotion that Viktor could not quite place.
“I promise,” Jayce said, barely above a whisper.
Viktor released a breath he felt he had been holding all day. Like he could finally ease into the warmth of the man beside him without any worries clawing the back of his mind. He could feel the way Jayce shifted beside him, chest dipping, forming the perfect mold for Viktor to fill. It was always so simple with him. To feel like they were built to fit together.
Then Jayce asked, “Can I kiss you?”
Viktor's eyes snapped open. He looked up at Jayce, a broad hand on his cheek guiding him closer. From this angle, he could barely see the four opal divots at Jayce’s hairline. Charming, if not a big odd, to think they each left an impression of themselves against the other. The heat at the tip of his ears spread down to his neck.
It seemed insignificant now. It all seemed so insignificant.
Viktor could have just said what he was thinking, but he was feeling bold. He pressed his palm against Jayce’s chest.
Why do you even feel the need to ask? Viktor thought to him, fond. The answer will always be yes, Jayce.
Jayce let out a soft, quiet laugh, Viktor felt a spark. A plucked thread.
I like to hear you say it, came his response.
So, Viktor said, “Please, Jayce. Kiss me.”
When Jayce first kissed Viktor in the meadow, it was a slow, careful motion. Adrenaline shook through them both, threatening to break through their reborn flesh. Jayce kissed Viktor the same way now. Like they were both teetering the ledge of something greater, afraid to discover what it might be.
Something sparked under the surface. Jayce’s thumb brushed over his cheekbone, and a smile curled at the corner of his lips. His Jayce, always so careful with him, as if it didn’t send Viktor spiraling closer to that ledge.
Viktor could learn to be patient, yes.
But loving Jayce Talis was like loving the sea, and he could do nothing but let it pull him under.