Chapter Text
And there may not be meaning,
So find one and seize it,
Do not waste yourself on this roof.
Hear those bells ring deep in the soul,
Chiming away for a moment,
Feel your breath course frankly below,
See life as a worthy opponent.
Today of all days, see
How the most dangerous thing is to love.
(Gang of Youths – Achilles Come Down)
Viktor has always had a feeling that he wouldn’t grow very old.
He wouldn’t have been able to explain it if he tried.
Just that there has somehow always been this sense of creeping unease, as though there was something just around the corner that he couldn’t see, something that was just waiting for the right moment to devour him whole.
The few times he dared to really think about it he always disregarded it as simple paranoia born from a mind born in the undercity—where the idea of an early death is an ever-present reality, so of course he would have absorbed it as something of a promise, an inevitability. A pesky trauma response, nothing more.
But even if he didn’t consciously believe it—because as a man of science he knows that premonition does not exist—there has always been a part of him that could feel it come closer.
When he learned in his twenty-fourth year of life that he was dying, it was almost like a twisted kind of relief. Like the other shoe had finally dropped and he could relax, because his nameless pursuer was finally close enough to see its face.
And ultimately, its face looks like the few drops of blood that he spat into his handkerchief the morning of a routine medical appointment.
Banal, really.
There’s nothing heroic to it, nothing worth telling stories about, just another poor, unnamed soul from the gutters getting wiped out because don’t they all, without leaving behind so much as a mention in a history book.
Even footnotes are still only awarded to those who have done something worth noting.
And that is the truly maddening part of it all, the one that really keeps him up at night.
Because Viktor, at twenty-four, has precisely no reason to be relevant enough to write even a footnote about.
“You have so much to offer to the world, my dear boy,” the dean of the academy told him when he became his assistant, and at the time the sentiment was welcome and appreciated; it fed all the lofty hopes and dreams he had at twenty-one.
Now though, all Viktor can think about on those nights—the ones where he lies awake because just the sound of his own breathing makes him too anxious to sleep—is that he didn’t work hard enough to prove him right when he still could, that he let the years run through his hands carelessly and now he has nothing to show for it.
Now, when the beast finally catches up to him, he will be lowered into an unmarked grave, and in a few short decades of the dean’s immortal life he will snap his fingers trying to remember his name.
“Vincent!” he may say. “My assistant Vincent, back in the day. Poor boy. He was from the undercity, you know, died so young. I can’t recall of what exactly.”
And that’s somehow so much worse than dying itself.
Things change very abruptly when he meets a man named Jayce Talis.
Had someone asked Viktor that particular morning where he would see his day going, he may have said a variety of things.
None of them would have included floating just under the ceiling of Heimerdinger’s office, bathed in blue light, with real arcane magic suspending him weightlessly as though he’d never felt pain a day in his life.
And not alone, but along with quite possibly the single most brilliant and fascinating human being Viktor has ever come across, whose name he only ever barely heard in passing before today, with his bright eyes and his bright grin as he pushes a single cog through the air toward him.
Who tries an awkward impression of a somersault in his weightlessness and doesn’t quite manage the momentum, so he hangs head-down for a moment.
Who Viktor can’t take his eyes off.
Pages and pages of hand-signed notes that he came across almost by accident. The idea that he may have easily missed it if Heimerdinger hadn’t been too busy and instead sent him to collect the illegal research materials from the site of the explosion makes something cold run down Viktor’s spine.
He wouldn’t have felt inclined to attend the trial if the strange items and the almost manic scribbles left behind on the chalkboard hadn’t intrigued him.
If Jayce Talis himself hadn’t intrigued him.
He wouldn’t have been there to hear the man’s speech, his words animated, his gestures much too wild and open. Jayce wore his heart on his sleeve and he allowed everyone to look inside, right there on the council floor.
He seems foolish, Viktor thought then. Beyond privileged if he had somehow never had to learn how dangerous that kind of sincerity is. And also possibly absolutely insane, if his research is what he claims it is.
Viktor wouldn’t have immediately gone to see said research with his own eyes.
And, worst of all, he wouldn’t have climbed the stairs back up to that ruined study a few hours later, overflowing notebook in hand, to take another look at the scribbles on the board, and frozen in the door with only a second to analyze the scene in front of him.
He wouldn’t have been there to speak up and keep Jayce Talis from following an awful, desperate impulse that Viktor himself is only too intimately familiar with, and that thought is what truly scares him.
This man was so willing to throw it all away, his work and his own ingenuity with it, and Viktor would have lost the chance he felt at his fingertips before he had time to grasp it.
But all the ways in which things could have turned out differently only make this moment feel all the more exhilarating, all the more impossible.
It feels like just for a moment the beast has given up its chase on him and he gets just this one small respite, this tiny space where time and the concept of running out of it can’t touch him.
It coaxes a laugh, a real laugh out of him.
This right here is his invitation to history, floating all around him in tiny, brilliantly blue particles and quick zaps tickling his fingertips. This can change, on some level maybe already has changed the world, and the possibilities are endless.
It’s quite possibly the greatest gift he has ever received.
One day, Jayce may look back at tonight as that time when a stranger stepped in to save his life before he even knew his name, but he may never know just how desperately that stranger had also needed that lifeline thrown to him.
And as they slowly come down between the commotion of enforcers and members of the council all speaking over each other, and Jayce rushes forward so Viktor can lean on him instead of the broken pieces of his cane, he thinks that maybe strangers is not quite the right word anymore.
“You’re really sure this is okay?” Jayce asks and rubs the back of his neck as they enter the courtyard. It’s the second time tonight he has done that.
Viktor smiles, because they don’t know each other well enough for him to feel comfortable openly rolling his eyes.
“Yes, Jayce, quite. Your rooms got blown up, as I’m sure you recall, and I have a perfectly acceptable couch. Unless you were planning on sleeping in a broom closet?”
Jayce laughs and visibly relaxes. Good. He said the right thing.
“Fine, fine, point taken. Thank you.”
Viktor shrugs. “Eh, you’re the one substituting my cane.”
The walk to Viktor’s academy dorm is not far—like Jayce’s, his rooms are on campus, although in a different building. Still, Viktor is grateful for the arm he has been given to lean on.
It allows him to avoid either an undignified hobble or putting too much weight on his leg and cursing his tomorrow self with a nasty muscle ache that’ll take days to subside.
It’s the least he can do to offer the man a place to sleep for however few hours remain of the night, and if he were being entirely honest with himself he might even admit that part of the reason he offered is that he doesn’t want to cut their conversation short just yet.
This is the first time in his life that Viktor has felt so completely intellectually matched by someone he’s speaking to, to the point that it feels like his own mind has been expanded to two heads, and he doesn’t need to slow down or simplify.
It’s not really arrogance if it’s true.
He’s getting as much back as he’s putting in. And he’s simply not quite ready to set that experience aside yet and retreat to the dark corner of his empty dorm, where inevitably all the darker thoughts come back out to play.
“No, seriously,” Jayce says, and he stops them a few steps before reaching the door to Viktor’s building. “I have…so much to thank you for, not just the…you know, letting me crash at your place.”
He hesitates, mouth working soundlessly as though trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. The silence stretches for a moment.
Then it stretches too thin and becomes uncomfortable.
Viktor makes an awkward “eh” sound before Jayce can say whatever it is that he’s trying to phrase in his head, and waves his free hand. “You’re welcome.”
And he really does mean that wholeheartedly.
Jayce nods and rubs the back of his neck again, for the third time, and it’s enough for Viktor to conclude that it’s a habit associated with embarrassment or nervousness.
It has absolutely no business being as endearing as it is.
By the time they arrive at Viktor’s dorm both of them are too wired to sleep right away, and Viktor is grateful for it. He feels like the small blue zaps of arcane power are still running over his skin, and Jayce doesn’t seem much more settled either. He hangs up his jacket, sits on Viktor’s small, run-down couch, immediately gets back up again and makes for the little kitchen corner.
Viktor lowers himself on the couch, carefully stretching his leg and pressing into the tight muscles with his fingertips, and points toward a cabinet.
“There should be drinks in there, if you want.”
Gods know Viktor hasn’t felt much like celebrating recently, so he might as well make use of the one occasion where he feels inclined to drink for any reason other than to forget.
Not that he does that.
Not often, anyway.
“Sure, great!” Jayce says, and a childlike giddiness is still audible in his voice.
There’s some rummaging around in the kitchen, and what Jayce ends up bringing back to the couch is an unopened bottle of cheap champagne. Viktor bought it for a birthday, or a promotion, but those occasions seem to pale in comparison to tonight.
“How about this?” Jayce says.
“Looks like a good start to me.”
Viktor is not entirely sure when and why things change that night—if it’s just the late hour, the sleep deprivation, Jayce’s narrow brush with death or his own dramatic shift in trajectory that has him reeling, or if it’s simply the rather impressive amounts of champagne (and then whiskey) they’ve had.
But as they sit and talk animatedly about their ideas and plans and even just pure tipsy dreams that even with the brightest minds in science wouldn’t be a possibility, Viktor begins to notice some things.
He finds himself making eye contact more often. He generally doesn’t like to do that, especially with someone he’s only known for a few hours.
He also finds Jayce sneaking more than passing glances at him when he thinks Viktor is busy refilling their glasses and not paying attention, and they burn on the side of his face, on his neck.
At one point Jayce gets up to get them some water (“Wouldn’t want to give us a hangover, right?”, as if they aren't a little past that point) and when he returns and sits back down on the couch, they’re suddenly noticeably closer than before and his knee is pressed to Viktor’s nonchalantly, as though coincidentally.
And Viktor is not stupid. Nor is he blind.
But this is also a terrible idea. As quick-witted and intriguing as Jayce Talis is, as much as he finds his eyes getting stuck on his lips for a second longer than they should as he talks, or tracking the movement of his gesturing hands, making him wonder, Viktor knows it’s a terrible idea.
He blinks. Jayce is staring at him.
For a moment Viktor fears he may have missed a question, but he doesn’t think Jayce even said anything, he just…sits there and stares. And gods, how does this man carry all his feelings and desires on his face so easily, so fearlessly. Viktor watches his eyes flicker down to his lips for just a second, almost as if by accident.
He swallows.
Jayce’s eyes follow the movement in his neck.
This is a terrible idea.
“Viktor.” His voice sounds low, deliberately even.
A terrible idea.
“Viktor, can I kiss you? I…I’d really like to, if you… May I?”
He should definitely say no, because this man is the key to Viktor having something to leave behind in this world and it’s the one thing he can’t afford to risk. And also because they’re sort of colleagues now and you definitely should not fuck your colleagues, no matter how badly you want to.
But gods, does he want to.
He should say no, but he doesn’t. He blames the alcohol when he thinks about it later.
Viktor has barely managed a nod when Jayce leans into him and slots their lips together and his hand comes to rest on Viktor’s leg to support his weight. His other flies up to fist into Viktor’s hair, nails scraping over his scalp, and Viktor could lose himself in this.
He makes a sound somewhere in the back of his throat that has a tongue pressing at the seam of his lips in response, and Jayce sighs into his mouth as he opens, his insistent fingers digging deep into Viktor’s thigh, and he gives his all into this kiss, because Jayce Talis apparently does everything he does with every single part of him.
And Viktor almost manages to let go.
Where Jayce’s body leans over him he presses into it, fingers splayed against his sides, arches up to meet him with a soft whimper that Jayce swallows down hungrily, and truly the only thing he wants is to forget, just for tonight.
To chase his pleasure on this beautiful, brilliant man’s tongue and the tips of his fingers and to give the same back to him, to give everything he has left, until he’s too spent for a single coherent thought before he falls asleep.
To worry about the consequences later and just give in to the hand that now hungrily wanders up on his thigh, the lips that leave his to instead press hot, messy kisses to his jawline, the side of his neck, the hollow of his throat.
Jayce is offering him the here and now, and all he wants is to be allowed to take it. It doesn’t have to mean anything, they can just write it off as a drunken mishap tomorrow.
But as Jayce’s other hand drops down to the buttons of his academy vest, Viktor can feel the familiar burning and stinging deep in his chest and freezes. It claws its way up his throat painfully, and Viktor at least manages to turn his head and raise his hand to cover his mouth in time before he coughs.
It’s only a short coughing fit, and when he opens his eyes there’s no blood on his hand, but it’s enough to cut through the haze and break the spell.
“Are you okay?” Jayce asks, his hand now rubbing soothingly on his thigh, from heated to comforting within the blink of an eye.
He wishes he could just say yes, just take this and have it not mean anything, but he knows it’s not that simple.
Viktor is a man with a looming expiration date, and those doe-like eyes in front of him are so genuine and so openly caring that it makes his chest hurt in an entirely different way.
Of course it would mean something.
The idea of dragging another person into his suffering, of passing it on like some fucked-up inheritance, makes him feel sick to his stomach—and, even worse, he’s seen the dark places that Jayce specifically can go to when he loses something that’s important to him.
And so the equation is simple, really, and it comes in the form of a sinking feeling as their eyes meet. Viktor can’t get around the part where he becomes something that Jayce will lose, sooner rather than later.
So the only thing he really can do is to make sure that he’s not something important when he does. As much as he can, at least.
He refuses for his legacy to be someone else’s pain, especially not the man that as of tonight he owes just about everything to.
And that means…a lot of things, but right now it means that Viktor draws his arms into himself and carefully shifts away from Jayce, trying to stare at his nose or his forehead instead of meeting his eyes.
The look on his face is something between confusion and worry and a brief flash of hurt as he too draws his hands back and sits back on the couch to give him space.
Viktor thinks he might be able to read every single tiny thought that passes through Jayce’s head in real time if only he looks hard enough at his face. It’s disorienting.
Jayce rubs at the back of his neck again.
“Sorry,” he says. “Too much? I’m really sorry, I—”
“No,” Viktor says. “Well, yes. I’m— I think this is not a good idea. I…would rather stop this here. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Oh, uhm. Right, no problem! I get it.” Jayce smiles, and he still looks a little taken aback, a little disappointed and trying very hard to hide it, but also so kind and reassuring that it makes Viktor hurt. “Don’t worry about it.”
Viktor nods silently, because he doesn’t trust his voice to be sufficiently neutral right now, as unaffected as he needs it to be to sell his change of mind.
There’s a very long, very awkward moment of pause where Viktor watches Jayce fidget with his hands and his ears slowly turn red as he seems lost on what he’s expected to do now, until Viktor is the one who finally breaks it.
“I think,” he says, “we should probably head to bed. It’s quite late.”
“Yeah, sounds good! I’ll uh.” Jayce points toward the bathroom.
“Of course. I should have a spare toothbrush in the cupboard under the sink.”
Viktor’s eyes absently rest on a small wind-up boat that sits on his windowsill as he listens to the tap flick on and then off.
When Jayce comes back he offers to help him to the bathroom, but Viktor declines. He’s fine, it’s his own home.
And it is only a few steps to the bathroom, but even when he gets there Viktor can already feel his leg cramping—it’s been a very long day.
So he does allow Jayce to lend him an arm on his way to the bedroom.
“Good night,” Jayce says from the doorframe as Viktor sits down on his bed, and the smile on his face looks a little less awkward and more genuine. It does little to alleviate Viktor’s tension, but he appreciates it nonetheless.
He does his best to smile back, but it feels like a mask. “Good night, Jayce.”
The tension still doesn’t leave him when he takes off his leg brace and crawls into bed, and it doesn’t leave him when he shuts off the light, either.
Viktor lies still in the dark and quiet of his room and can’t stop himself from drifting, because he never can.
Even sleep-deprived and only half-coherent, his mind still manages to spin, but this time it’s not so much about the looming imagery of ticking clocks and blood and unmarked graves.
It’s mostly Jayce. His eyes, his hands, his lips, all the things he offered and Viktor can’t accept.
It’s knowing that it isn’t even about Jayce, it’s about the many things Viktor already loses just because he knows where he’s headed, the many ways in which he’s already forced to bury himself before he’s even dead.
It makes him want to scream, but what good will that do. It is what it is.
It takes more than two hours for Viktor to finally fall asleep.
It was supposed to only be a short visit to his doctor’s office, to have her check out the oddly persistent cough that had recently snuck up on Viktor in addition to the occasional one he’d always had. Maybe prescribe him a pill or a spray for it. No big deal.
When on the morning of the appointment he had rolled over in bed and had to blindly reach for his handkerchief because the cough in his throat felt so wrong and wet, and it had come away with little splatters of red, that was when Viktor had begun to feel uneasy.
He still hadn’t expected to spend several hours in the doctor’s office that day, to be sent on to the hospital the same day for further tests, and to finally have a doctor he had never met before sit next to him with a stack of papers and a grave expression.
“I’m sorry,” they said to him, and Viktor wondered if you still do feel sorry for every single patient when it’s your job to tell people they’re dying every day. Or if it gets too emotionally draining at some point and then you have to shut it out, but you still say the words and wear the face because you’re supposed to.
“Thank you,” he said, even though he had nothing to thank them for. The doctor flipped through his papers.
Degenerative lung disease, they told him. Inoperable. Caught too late. Probably been slowly eating his lungs for years.
“There are a few treatments we can try, but I have to be honest with you and say that none of them have shown consistent results in the past. There are always new things in development, though, and it’s important for patients to stay positive.”
Viktor didn’t feel very positive.
He went home that night with his first prescription of pills that would end up making him throw up every time he took one. He couldn’t sleep for a week, and during that first week he lost count of the amount of times his mind wandered to very, very dark places in the dead of night.
It was an odd feeling, to be on the razor’s edge between the blind, desperate determination of an animal to do anything and everything to live, to try every option there was even if they held little promise, even if they would make the remainder of his life hell…and just wanting to open his arms and scream, “fine, take me then!” and end it on his own terms.
During that first week, that first month even, Viktor oscillated between the two extremes almost on an hourly basis, and it was dizzying.
Ultimately, he settled on determination.
The first round of pills didn’t work, neither did the second. The third treatment was intravenous and he would need to be at the hospital for an hour a week.
He was greeted by the same doctor who had given him his diagnosis, and they smiled and told him not to give up yet, and they asked if he had anyone who they could send for when he was done and ready to be taken home.
Viktor hadn’t even told anyone in his life about his diagnosis, simply because there wasn’t really anyone left to tell, not since the woman who had raised him had succumbed to her old age a few years ago. And maybe that was the one part he was truly grateful for, at least his grief wouldn’t be contagious.
He shook his head.
He had to sign papers that confirmed that he had been given the express medical advice to have someone accompany him home after these treatments, and that he understood this and he chose to disregard it at his own risk.
And even on those days when the way home took him three times as long as it usually would and he had to stop halfway to sit down on a bench, or—sometimes—found himself stumbling to vomit in a bush, he couldn’t help but feel relieved that no one was there to see him.
The third treatment didn’t work either. But there were still a few more to try.