Chapter Text
There are two versions of this story.
They are not really all that different, not in the big things.
It is only the minute, the inconsequential, the tender mundane.
It is only in the longing.
~~~
When he is a boy,
he and his mother are saved
by a mage who says nothing.
~~~
(When he is a boy, he and his mother are saved by a mage.
"Your mother is safe."
The stranger says, and the boy lights up with glee.
"It's you! You're my person!" He says, hands waving.
The man startles, leans back.
"I... Yes. I am. But I have to leave now."
Tears fill his eyes.
"But I just got you!"
The man relents.
Bends down, very carefully, and pulls the boy into a hug.
"Yes. I'm sorry. Time is a strange thing."
And then he does as he says, and leaves.
The memory grows with him.
It is a worry stone, a touchstone.
Years and years and years later,
a man pulls him back from the ledge and all he can say is
"it's you.")
~~~
(His quest or his penance.
On his arm, for years and years and years, is some variation upon variation of
"Help me! Please! Help me!"
It shows up somewhere after the end of the world, somewhere when his mind has begun to return.
It is gray and raised until it is not.
Sometimes he hears the same words, over and over again, and knows that they are new each time.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, one he can not bear to drag himself out of.
And then.
An ageless eternity later.
A question.)
~~~
Sometimes the words of your Mark are not the first words they say, but the first words you are both ready to hear.
You can pass by a stranger for years only to one day realize you have found something together.
They speak once, before.
~~~
Jayce stands in the ruins of his life's work, a careful distance from the edge.
He had considered but...
He rubs his thumb over the words on his arm.
Marks are a promise.
Even if he has nothing, he has this.
A promise from fate herself, that one day someone will understand him.
He is already about to turn back, when he hears;
"Am I interrupting?"
"Here to... Oh. It's you."
He says, anger turning to pleasant surprise.
In every world it is Viktor's words that save him.
~~~
(Jayce stands in the ruins of his life's work, on the very edge of the gap he created.
A thumb runs over his words.
Marks are a promise, yes, but it is a promise already fulfilled.
Perhaps that one meeting with the mage was all it was meant for.
Perhaps this was all it was meant for.
He has already failed.
(He ignores that the words changed.)
And yet.
"Am I interrupting?"
Sounds from behind him.
"It's you." He whispers, awe filling his voice.
In every world it is Viktor's words that save him.)
~~~
They have seven glorious years.
Things come between them but they still walk in step,
finding ways to balance and rejoice in each other and what they have made.
It is so obvious why they are Marked, this physical proof of their Bond.
But when Viktor is diagnosed, it doesn't stop him from hiding it.
It doesn't stop Jayce's manic desperation when he finds out.
It doesn't stop the bomb.
Jayce's world collapses on an ordinary morning.
He doesn't have time to look at his words when he races to the lab,
when he fuses the Hexcore to Viktor.
It's only after, that he looks.
That he sees them still black, not the grey of death.
It is still a bittersweet comfort,
to read the constant reprimand during those long weeks of waiting.
"Jayce, what have you done?"
(It is seven strange yet glorious years.
There is something manic to Jayce,
when Viktor first truly meets him.
He mumbles 'thank you' over and over,
and Viktor is nearly put off before he remembers this is apparently his Bond,
and more importantly, the man's brilliant work that is soon to be destroyed.
There is a difficult period of adjustment.
Jayce nearly worships him, to begin.
It is uneasy.
He explains the mage who saved when he was a child,
how it could only have been Viktor.
There is the slow yet terrifyingly amazing realization this means they will perfect hextech,
will invent time travel.
(In some ways, it only makes everything worse.)
But as they work together it is so obvious why they are Marked,
their Bond so strong they would feel it even without a sign.
Despite this strange, shared knowledge,
it seems time is the thing they never have enough of.
When the bomb goes off,
some part of Jayce expects he will die as well,
a time loop coming undone at the seams.
It is a strange comfort, if it would mean a world where Viktor doesn't die.
He fuses Viktor's body with the Hexcore.
Despite the belief this would save his own existence,
it is only Viktor's that he thinks of as he does.
That doesn't change his Mark from haunting him, though.
"Jayce, why have you done this?")
~~~
(In between, as he waits and mourns in the dead world, his words hurt to look at.
They are less than gray, almost translucent,
and dance with wild runes,
as though the corruption of the arcane has crept into their very Bond itself.)
~~~
When he lies in the ravine.
(When he lies in the ravine.)
"I have been expecting you.
Hello, Jayce"
"You already know the answer to that, Jayce.
Hello, Jayce"
It is strangely out of order.
"Who are you?" He demands of the stranger.
The grief is almost overwhelming.
How strange to mourn a living man.
("Is that you?" He asks the familiar stranger.
The grief is overwhelming.
He knows how this story goes.
How strange to mourn a living man.)
One set of words vanishes, the other remains.
Two sets for two meetings.
~~~
After he leaves, Jayce's words are a balm on his soul, the joy.
"Viktor, you're alive."
He had said it like a psalm, the memory a spot of light.
(As the magic flows through him, he begins to accept it.
There is something right about this.
He is finally becoming the man Jayce would see when he looked at him.)
And then: the words change on a random day.
He doesn't know what's happened to Jayce, but something has changed.
(His Mark changes on a random day.
Something has happened to Jayce.)
"I won't fail."
Sprawls across his arm.
It shifts strange colors in the light.
He is a dreaming god.
Surely he is beyond this.
But still, his Mark carries Jayce's words on his body, and still, it is a comfort.
~~~
He fires.
Viktor falls.
Outside, the followers wail.
~~~
The next time Jayce looks at them, his words are not just gray, not just changed.
They are translucent, and strangely painful to look at,
emotionally but also physically.
There is something horribly unstable about them.
The colors of wild runes dances across them,
like the corrupted magic of the arcane has crept into
their very Bond.
~~~
Here, at the end.
(Here, at the end.)
Viktor's voice speaks like a building.
The words flit across his skin as they are said.
In the arcane, in the place between places,
their Marks are not bound to their bodies.
The words begin on their skin but curl into the air around them.
A constant trail pouring out from their wrists.
It is only when Jayce truly breaks through to Viktor that they settle down,
changing as they speak but bound to skin once more,
looping script that shimmers on their bodies.
It is a strange and unusual twist of fate for them,
that the last words their Marks write
are also the last words they speak to each other.