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Three years after the end of everything, they'd both become a little complacent.
Not that that was entirely a bad thing. It meant neither of them were looking over their shoulders at the wrong kind of sound, and the nightmares where one or the other failed, died, or annihilated the world were becoming only occasional blips in their overarching peace. Their house was warm and dry and safe. They tinkered, played with mechanics and surprised each other, built increasingly clever toys that they sold in town; they took turns in the kitchen, tangled on the sofa, bickered over the laundry, kept semi-private diaries with similar entries — picnic at the waterfall. more raspberries than we know what to do with.
Jayce hadn't thought about the depths of Viktor's ill health for a long while. He hadn't forgotten it — it was impossible to forget those hacking, gagging coughs; the bloodshot eyes; the pinch of pain between his eyebrows — but Viktor's lungs were good here. Whatever miracle or accident of the arcane had spat them out into a field some three miles away from their cottage had simultaneously whisked away the worst of their internal injuries. They shared mirrored limps and anomaly-webbed scarring, but when Jayce laid his head on Viktor's chest and shut his eyes, all he heard was a soft bellows-like rushing and the steady thud of his heart. It'd taken him years to stop fussing openly about Viktor's health, particularly in winter, and even then, the only thing that'd ever changed was that he'd learned to keep his worries to himself. Viktor was a grown man who knew his own body better than Jayce ever would — and if Jayce, a lifetime ago, had wanted to hold Viktor's hands between his own while they'd waited for a streetcar in the snow, that had been something he'd have done wordlessly with a flash of a smile.
Terror could snap those bonds of self-control in an instant.
They were supposed to have had time to get back home. Everyone, everyone had said the snows weren't coming until tomorrow at the earliest; impenetrable clouds had descended lower and lower over the treeline, but they were still a looming threat, not an immediate one. The first sign of trouble was a change in the wind. The second was a scattered, unspoken contingent of merchants who began to pack up quietly, efficiently, dismantling their stalls out from under their customers. Jayce watched them for a moment, uneasiness settling in the corners of his eyes as the impromptu movement caught on.
"I think we should head home," he murmured, standing just behind Viktor with a hand curled against the small of his back; the other was occupied with a crutch, and he leaned on it a little heavier while he glanced at the sky. The entire world from horizon to horizon had gone flat grey.
Viktor smiled, passed coins into the merchant's hand, and nodded while he tucked yarn into Jayce's backpack alongside the rest of their shopping. "I was about to say the same." He tugged his scarf back up and over his nose, pulled his gloves on, and caught Jayce's hand to squeeze it before they started to move.
Ten minutes into a thirty-minute walk, the snow crashed down on them. At first, the wind was the worst part; it lashed at woefully underprepared ears and noses, forced their eyes to narrow, found its way under any loose hem it could find and seared their skin. The snow itself, not to be outdone, welded itself into clumps wherever there was hair to cling to. All they could do was bend into the torrent. The path to the cottage was obliterated almost instantly under whirling drifts; the only relief was that fenceposts from long-neglected properties lined both sides, and as long as they stayed between the rows, they'd stumble home.
Eventually.
Forty minutes into a thirty-minute walk, Viktor had such a tight grip on Jayce's hand he thought he might find bruises when he peeled his gloves off.
An hour in, Jayce knocked his shoulder up against their door and shoved past the threshold. For a moment, the only sound in the cottage was the wet slap of sodden outer layers being removed, trembling breaths, and the thud of Jayce's backpack hitting the floor followed by the twinned thumps of cane and crutch as they both headed for the fireplace. Viktor hauled a blanket off of the back of the cramped sofa; Jayce went down to one knee and fought with numb, trembling fingers to light the stupid fire; some god or another took pity on them and allowed his fumbling to work the first time, and while the nascent glow caught and strengthened itself and licked its way through the kindling, Viktor returned (when had he left?) with two blankets from their bed. Wordless coordination had been a function of their partnership from the beginning, and both of them had long since ceased to wonder at it, but there was still something in Jayce that flickered with gratitude as he shuffled back towards the blanket Viktor had spread out onto the rug — only to be met with a soft hum of denial and a hand in his face.
"Off." Viktor hitched his chin upward, half-undressed and raking his gaze significantly over Jayce. "All of it."
That might have merited a joke under any other circumstances, but Jayce's sense of humour had blown away in the blizzard. He stripped, kicked his clothes into a heap with Viktor's by the fire (to be sorted later, later, once the cold had leached out of their bodies) and laid back to yank the blankets over them, hardly waiting long enough for the fabric to settle before he was reaching for Viktor and winding himself into his partner's open arms.
There was silence for a little while.
"We're safe," Viktor murmured eventually, fingers in Jayce's hair.
"I know." Jayce was muffled against Viktor's throat, holding on slightly too tight, trying very hard to think of nothing.
"I'm sorry we were caught in it."
"Not your fault."
"Jayce."
"I know."
"We're warming up. See?" Viktor's hand curled against Jayce's cheek, sweeping his hair from his eyes. "We're home. We did well."
"I'm okay, Viktor."
There was a disbelieving hum, but Viktor didn't push the matter. He pet Jayce's hair, listened to his breathing while it slowed to a manageable rate, then past manageable and into dozing; Jayce was slack and heavy against him several minutes later, sleeping silently as he did when he was frightened. They would both be wretchedly sore tomorrow, and they'd be cut off from town for days, and they would both come down with cabin fever well before there was any point in venturing outside, but the blizzard couldn't penetrate their home, and the fire was healthy, and when they woke, Viktor would make soup and Jayce would start in on his yarn. He'd seen a stuffed toy at the market a month ago and wanted to recreate it, which meant Viktor got to listen to not only the soft click of wooden needles, but Jayce's muttering and problem-solving, and he'd never heard anything else that sounded so much like home.
Viktor dropped off unexpectedly, tumbling into sleep all at once. Neither of them moved much in the flickering gloom; they'd secured their limbs around one another, and it was impossible for one to so much as turn over without alerting the other. They breathed more or less in tandem, dreamed of sense-memories that would fade the moment they opened their eyes, let their arms go prickly and numb where they'd tucked them underneath each other.
Neither stirred when Viktor's breathing began to thicken in the dark.
Jayce woke alone in the blankets. He no longer panicked when Viktor's side of the bed was cold, so he shifted slowly in the cocoon, grunted softly as he stretched, discovered with a flash of relief that his extremities hummed with warmth, and shut his eyes to luxuriate for a while, lulled into semisleep by the moaning blizzard. A little clatter from the kitchen located Viktor; a heavy-bottomed mug thumped softly onto the countertop, and when Jayce squinted his eyes open again, their kettle was above the fire. They'd slept later than he'd thought they might. Maybe soup would be tomorrow's project, and tonight would be better served by bread and cheese and cold chicken —
There was a hard, chesty cough from the next room and a hiss of frustration to follow it.
Jayce levered himself up, pulling a blanket over his shoulders as he went, but by the time he'd come through to the kitchen, Viktor was already holding up a hand to ward him off. "I was coming down with something anyway," he said firmly, catching Jayce's gaze and holding it. "It's okay. This probably just accelerated things."
"Sure, but V." Jayce sighed, looped around the counter, and touched the back of his hand to Viktor's forehead; he was clammy, sticky with a thin sheen of sweat, and altogether too warm for his distance from the fire. "You already sound terrible."
"Well, I feel terrible." Viktor made a moue of discomfort, sneering gently as skin met damp skin, but he submitted to the five seconds it took for Jayce to assess his temperature, and his weight sank a little heavier against the countertop once it was over. "As will you in short order. Save your pity," he added, mock-ominous, which landed flat in the face of Jayce's worry. "Where's your crutch? Your leg must be killing you —"
Jayce put both hands on Viktor's shoulders, turned him around, and steered him back into the hallway, steadfastly ignoring the stiffness in his limp and Viktor's quiet groan.
"There's nowhere to go, anyway, so you might as well sleep it off." Jayce's comment was punctuated by the soft thump of a blanket from the living room being returned to its home on their bed. Viktor glared up at him from beneath several quilts, having been reduced to eyes and a nose peering up from a swaddle of pillows, but when Jayce perched on the open half of the bed, he softened perceptibly and squirmed onto his side to face him.
Viktor heaved a little sigh. "Maybe." His gaze wandered away, briefly taken by the snow-reflective glow filtering around the edges of their curtains, and returned to Jayce several degrees more exhausted. "Will you come and stay with me?"
"Yeah, of course. Just try and get rid of me." Jayce bent forward over Viktor's forehead, pressed a kiss to his overheated skin, and was rewarded with a broad, sleepy smile when he straightened up. "I'm gonna get something together for dinner, okay? We should both eat something." Viktor nodded, watching Jayce hazily as he got up and disappeared down the hall, nestling his face into the pillow with a quieter, muffled cough. He let his eyes drift shut while he tracked Jayce around the kitchen by sound: mugs, tea, bowls, larder, icebox —
By the time Jayce came back to him, Viktor was snoring wheezily into the blankets. It was, judging by the bleary mutter Jayce got out of him when he prodded him awake, actively cruel to make him do anything but sleep; nevertheless, he submitted to half a bowl of leftovers and most of a mug of tea before he begged off, and Jayce finished his portion hurriedly once Viktor had gone still again, setting their dishes aside so he could crawl his way under the heap of blankets.
He hummed with displeasure once he'd gotten his arms around Viktor. "You're shivering."
"I have a fever." That'd clearly come out more harshly than Viktor had meant it to; he turned his vaguely glassy gaze up to Jayce with an apology written in his eyes. "It'll pass. I'm alright, Jayce."
"The last time I saw you this sick, you were dying." Jayce had a similar apology in the tight line of his jaw; it thinned a little as something unnameable flickered through Viktor's expression. "I'm not — I know you're not dying now, but that's —"
Viktor folded a fist gently against the middle of Jayce's chest. "Don't do that to yourself." He paused, weighing something. "Or me," he added, softer, flattening his hand against Jayce as if to pre-empt the sting. "You can't hover as if I'm going to break every time I catch a cold, my heart. Janna knows I love it when you dote on me, but this —" He shook his head a little, eyebrows drawn gently together. "You have to trust that if there ever is anything more serious, we'll confront it together. You can't take on a burden that doesn't exist yet. It'll just make us resent each other in the end."
You didn't tell me last time, something petulant in Jayce whined. I had no idea about the shimmer, the blood you were losing, the hours you spent alone with the hexcore —
But neither had he been paying attention.
(They'd been through this back-and-forth more times than either of them cared to count; their first year had been one long discussion-argument-defense-acquiescence wherein they'd gone around in circles and fought with what could have been. It'd amounted to peace between them and an end to those conversations, but no great revelations. That raw wound in Jayce flared occasionally, no matter how he tried to bandage over it.)
"I got it." Jayce drew a hand up Viktor's spine, cupped the back of his head and leaned in to press a slow, soft kiss to the mole under his eye. Viktor had unwound himself slightly by the time he broke away. "I'll try. I mean it. I'll work on letting go of all of — that."
Viktor nodded, tucking himself more comfortably against the pillows and tugging on Jayce's shirt to coax him to do the same. "But if you wanted to wait on me hand and foot over the next few days…."
"Yeah, yeah." Jayce smiled as Viktor muffled a snort into his arm. "Point taken."
"Just a suggestion. If you need something to do while we're snowed in."
"Mm. Read to you at your bedside?"
"And pet my hair until I fall asleep, yes."
"Uh huh." Jayce nestled a kiss onto Viktor's forehead. "I'll get to work in the morning."
Unsurprisingly, Viktor was worse by then. Jayce woke with his partner's trembling worse than ever, and he had to gently unstick himself from Viktor's sweaty cheek before he could turn over to look at him. Tension had gathered at the corners of his mouth and between his brows, his skin had somehow flushed and paled at once, and every few breaths were marred by quiet, throat-deep coughs that turned Jayce's stomach. Viktor didn't stir as Jayce shuffled himself out of bed, and he still hadn't moved by the time he'd cleared their dishes and returned with a pitcher of water; it was only a couple of hours later, once Jayce had tucked back in next to him and begun tinkering with his yarn, that Viktor finally drew a deeper breath and began to lift his head from his pillow.
"Guh." Viktor attempted to crack his eyes open, failed, and squinted them shut again with a little wince. "Mm."
"Hello to you too," Jayce murmured, setting his needles aside and stroking Viktor's hair back from his forehead. He had to be warmer than he'd been the night before. Was there a thermometer in the first aid kit? "S'okay. There's water when you want it."
"Mh."
"Hungry?"
"Nn—" A cough wracked Viktor's body, and he winced as he drew into himself, pushing a hand over his face once it'd passed and chancing another look up at Jayce. "No. What time —"
"Doesn't matter." Jayce turned his hand over and touched it to Viktor's skin again, his mouth twisting with vague displeasure. "We're gonna get you cleaned up, and then you're going back to sleep until you're ready to eat something."
Viktor glanced down and seemed to notice the dampness in the sheets for the first time. "Ah. I like this plan." He started to scrape himself out from under the blankets with another chesty cough, but his body didn't seem to agree with being upright; he'd only barely grasped his cane before he had to grab the bedpost with his free hand and catch himself before he could sway too badly. He was silent for a moment, breathing as slowly as he could while Jayce fought to disentangle himself from the sheets, and straightened up enough to sag into Jayce by the time he'd gotten a hand on the small of Viktor's back.
"This is awful." Viktor rarely whined unless it was to piss Jayce off or (once in a very long while) complain about something particularly horrible — a mouse infestation, maybe, or the family of snakes under their back porch. Or when his sinuses plugged the second he was vertical and made an already pointed headache approximately a million times worse. He groaned, gathered himself back together with a halfhearted roll of his shoulders, and gave Jayce's good leg a tap with his cane. "Got it out of my system. Where's your crutch?"
Jayce blew out a laugh that wasn't quite at peace around the edges. "Getting déjà vu, V."
"I'll keep asking until you show me."
"It's here, look —" Jayce took a half-step and retrieved it from where he'd leaned it up against their bureau, fitting his arm into the support with a pointed thump.
Viktor managed to roll his eyes. "You're a grown man, Jayce; I shouldn't have to remind you —"
"You don't! We're just going a little way."
"Yes, and what difference does that make —"
It took ages for the water to run warm. Viktor, already clingier here than he'd ever been in their past life, glued himself to Jayce while they waited, shutting his eyes in the low light and lifting his arm to his mouth every time he had to shudder through a wet cough; gradually, the steam soothed a little of the harsh edges of his breathing, but what was left of Viktor's good humour had been eradicated, and he grimaced after every new wave of hacking he muffled into his wrist. He accepted the support of Jayce's hands as he lowered himself into tub, twisted his mouth at the lukewarm chill, and huddled into himself for a moment while his head stopped spinning, slumping gently to the side as he glanced back up at Jayce. "Do I look like a stray cat?"
Jayce shook his head, leaning over him to retrieve the soap from its shelf and pass it down to him. "You look beautiful. I'll be back in a minute, so please don't drown."
"I'll take it under consideration." Viktor squeezed Jayce's fingers and let him go, but Jayce felt his eyes on him as he slipped away, and it was difficult not to look back over his shoulder before he turned the corner.
Having a to-do list was good. Jayce moved checkmark by checkmark: strip the bed, layer new linens, put some tea together, check the fire, do a sweep to make sure nothing had suddenly caved in under the blizzard. The world wasn't howling and creaking like it had been when they'd come home, but snow pattered against the windows, and when the gusts ebbed, there was a wide, white landscape where miles of fields had been. It was by far the worst storm they'd seen since they'd landed here. Jayce could only watch it for a couple of breaths before he let the curtain swing back into place. Never mind. When they were in bed, it was as if the rest of the world didn't exist at all.
Naturally, it was only when he was coming back to Viktor with clean clothes that he realized there was a heaviness in his throat that hadn't been there before — and he was getting a sinus headache, come to think of it. It would've been impossible to avoid catching whatever'd taken Viktor out, but he had hoped that it might come later, once they were through the worst of Viktor's symptoms. Right now was a slightly inconvenient time.
Viktor had slid right down in the bathtub by the time Jayce let himself in, leaving only his face and knees above the sudsy water; he opened his eyes when Jayce set down his sleepwear, flickering into and out of a sharp-edged smile. "Feels familiar," he murmured. "Very soothing."
"There's that déjà vu again." Jayce grinned easier as Viktor barked out a laugh. It was a process to get Viktor up and out and dry, but eventually they sank into the clean sheets with twinned relief, pressed together shoulder to shoulder and talking into their tea until Viktor's head began to drop. He shuffled down as Jayce set their cups aside, and was half-dozing when he nestled himself back into Jayce's arms, his clammy forehead laid heavily against his chest. All told, Jayce thought, it hadn't been a bad period of wakefulness — Viktor might not have eaten, but he'd gotten up and joked a little, so that had to count for something. It was entirely possible that this was the worst it'd get, and both of their concerns had been wildly overblown. Jayce would make the stupid soup tomorrow, and the wind had to stop blowing by then, and —
Jayce's memories came in fits and snatches.
The day-night cycle had ceased to have much rhythm or meaning; he slept when he could, and he woke when Viktor needed him. He'd pulled the blankets from their bed when he'd stumbled awake that second night and found Viktor pushed as far away from him as he could manage, writhing weakly and semiconsciously in his wrappings, drenched in sweat all over again, no longer trembling. When Jayce had touched him, he'd had the bizarre thought that his skin wasn't registering temperature correctly, and then Viktor had made a noise, and Jayce had leapt out of bed.
Water formed a new cycle. Viktor into a lukewarm bath, supervised; Viktor out of the bath, back onto a dry blanket or towel or whatever Jayce could find to cover their bed; lifting Viktor's head to press a cool cloth to the back of his neck; catching Viktor in moments of near-lucidity to spoon off-warm oatmeal into his mouth or help him drink; the sheen of Viktor's skin in the light from the bedside lamp, turned on low so Jayce could watch his chest rise and fall. Time passing. Jayce waking sluggishly in a chair beside the bed, wrapped tight in one of their last clean blankets to fend off the chill (he remembered complaining about an open window when he was a boy, and his mother telling him a cold room was better for a fever, and he missed her to the point of talking to her in the dim quiet, asking what do I do, he's not getting any better).
Viktor talked too. Jayce gave up trying to parse his words after a while; it was delirious mumbling, most of it dying before it left Viktor's cracked lips, some of it in another language, all of it incomprehensible. The worst times were when he curled into himself in his sleep, pressed both hands tight to his face, and pushed them together towards the centre, like he was trying to keep himself intact. Trying to pull his arms away was fruitless — he locked up somehow, as if he'd gone to stone — so Jayce settled for a hand around Viktor's wrist and another sliding fingertips over his hair, steady and watching and horrified until Viktor began to unfurl after what felt like hours.
The blizzard had stopped, but the wind hadn't. When Jayce could tear himself away for long enough to glance out of the window, cascading waves of snow eliminated any separation between land and sky. Even if he'd been able to convince himself that he was capable of leaving Viktor alone for the better part of the day, he knew without testing that stepping foot into that snow was tantamount to suicide — he'd never have made it to the next property over, let alone the middle of town. He gave up all hope of fetching a doctor almost as soon as he thought of it, and then the curtains stayed shut. There was no change. There was no point in checking.
He started to cry once exhaustion cracked him into a thousand splintered pieces. It was dark out, and Jayce was coughing halfheartedly (Viktor's cough had vanished around the time his fever had spiked, which was, Jayce supposed, something to be grateful for), and he'd been bundled in his chair for long enough that his tailbone was starting to complain, and Viktor was quieter and more still than he'd been for a couple of waking periods. He'd come to rest flat on his back this time, his head tilted away from Jayce, and there was something in the angle of his jaw and looseness of his shoulders that wrenched cruelly at Jayce's gut. He couldn't bring himself to look away. He couldn't stop thinking of rubble and smoke; he couldn't stop feeling a cold weight in his hands and phantom pain in his leg. Viktor was breathing, but for how much longer? He was boiling from the inside out and they were trapped in the goddamned snow, and they were supposed to have fifty more years and they'd only had three.
He didn't know how many more times could he live through his heart being destroyed in front of him.
Jayce wasn't wholly aware of when he'd dozed off, but when he woke, there was light from the window that was either early morning or a stormy afternoon. He scrubbed away tear tracks with a bleary hand and began to unfold himself, let out a warm breath that scraped at his throat on its way out, turned his aching head towards Viktor, and met his eyes.
He focused on his eyes. The glassiness had vanished. They were reddened, and there were enormous shadows under them, and Viktor's eyebrows were drawing together like he was about to dissolve into tears, but they were steady —
"Oh, Jayce."
Viktor had an elbow underneath himself as he turned over, but Jayce was faster; he all but tumbled onto the open edge of the bed, propped himself on one hand and rested his other palm on Viktor's forehead, let out a sobbing laugh and dug both arms under and around Viktor. It'd broken. Just like that — overnight, while he hadn't even been awake to watch it happen. Viktor crushed himself into Jayce's arms, shivering, then lifted his head enough to thread his fingers into Jayce's hair and coax him into pushing his face into Viktor's neck while he came apart.
There wasn't much to say. Whatever needed saying could be said later. Eventually, they'd both get out of bed; they needed food, water, air, a shared bath, a survey of their supplies, a plan to free themselves from what was now a silent wasteland. They needed to sleep for about a thousand years. One or both of them would have to go for medicine and painkillers; aches and injuries were going to flare with a vengeance. Jayce would ask Viktor about his dreams. Viktor would insist on fetching and carrying for Jayce long after they'd both recovered. Eventually, as they tried to do every winter, they would carve some joy out of the snow: sculptures, if they'd hold, or Jayce's sketches, or cuddling on the porch once the world began to return to life so they could watch dazed-looking animals emerge from their homes.
That was later. In days to come. For now, it was enough to cup one another's faces and touch their foreheads together, listening to their breathing and the thundering of their hearts.