Chapter Text
Jayce remembers falling.
He wished he didn’t.
He was breathing hard, but in a good way, he could feel his muscles working as he climbed higher. He pushed up, finding the bolt, securing and testing it, before pulling himself up. Caitlyn was above him, he’d watched her climb up beyond him a while ago. This was her trip, her hobby. He was content to be last, to work his way slowly. Push up, find the next bolt… he grabbed for it, and felt it give way. He shoved himself hard against the cliff wall to try to make up for it, trying to make up for the momentum that his jump had given him, that was starting to pull him down. He braced himself for impact on his shoulder, and the tug still caught him by surprise, unable to take the weight, he fell.
Jayce started to slide, fast, his hands catching on the rock as he tried to find purchase, and failed. He couldn’t shout out, his breath catching in his throat.
He became aware he was tilting back, getting further away from the rockface. They’d been climbing on an angle, he realised, tilting up – something that he’d barely noticed until gravity started prizing him off it.
His breath came in gasps as his fingers scraped the rock for the last time, and he became aware he was falling.
His mind was moving fast, turning things over and over. A spasm of everything at once.
Caitlyn won’t know what’s happened, I need to let her know. If I go limp I stand more of a chance. I had projects in planning and I didn’t tell anyone. I need to see my students next year. Mom can’t lose someone else. I had so much more to do. I can’t fall on my back or my head I won’t survive it. I wasn’t ready.
Viktor.
That last thought was singular and complete on its own. It summoned a face into his mind that he knew like he knew the scars on the back of his hand. It surprised him, the strength of the thought.
It was possibly why he found himself so calm as he hit the bottom.
He didn’t go unconscious. He thought he would. But he didn’t. He screamed. The pain was intense. Everything hurt, everything was warm, burning hot. He screamed again.
‘Calm down.’ The voice was louder than the wind, so matter of fact. Jayce opened his eyes, looking around. ‘Don’t move.’ It was confident, the assured tone. Jayce gasped for breath, his eyes searching the sky. ‘Slow your breathing down, keep it steady.’ The lilting accent so familiar to him. He took two gasps and then he sucked a long breath in. His chest screamed at him. He groaned, the world started to fade at the edges. ‘Stay awake.’ The voice was harder now. He sighed, shaking his head. He was tired. ‘You’re losing blood, Jayce. You go to sleep I cannot guarantee you wake up.’ He didn’t care. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. He kept trying to deep breathe, as much as it hurt. He winced, opening his eyes, trying to look up, but the world was getting dark. ‘Caitlyn’s coming,’ the voice said, so certain. ‘She’s coming, but you have to be awake to meet her.’ He felt like he might be able to hear her calling, but he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
The wind closed in on him, and he felt things fade.
Jayce had surgery, once. There was no sense of time lost, between going under and waking up.
That wasn’t what this was like. Sometimes he had problems sleeping – getting to sleep, and then staying asleep. He woke up but not fully, trapped in a world that was similar but not quite the same. He would sit up, unable to move, his brain making jumps in time. He would picture himself moving and then come to in the same spot. Life seemed to stretch longer and longer monstrously.
That was what it felt like. He remembered the cold, and he remembered voices but not the words they were saying. He remembered a face in front of him, peering down at him. Wanting to move, feeling himself shouting but knowing nothing was happening.
There were moments of pain and suffering of choking, of being held down.
It felt like he was there for years. Shadows moved against the side of him, brushing up his body, and he couldn’t fight them off. He wanted to scream, wanted to shout and cry, but nothing was coming out. He felt in danger, knew he was in danger, but he couldn’t make anyone hear it.
And then suddenly he woke up. It was too bright to keep his eyes open. His body felt like he’d been hit by a two ton truck.
Jayce groaned, his throat raw.
All he had was the memory of the fall, of climbing. He tried to move his head and couldn’t. It was too much. But he tried to look around.
Hospital. He could figure that much out.
He tried to twitch his body, see what he was working with. His hands were there, burning, in pain, but there. Arms too, and shoulders, slowly. It was the lower half he was struggling with. He tried to shift his hips, and he got a shooting pain through his spine.
That wasn’t good.
He heard a shuffling, and then a clicking sound that he could pinpoint anywhere in the world. But it couldn’t be.
There was a face peering over his bed. ‘Ah.’
He had longer hair now, and glasses, but his face was the same. ‘You’re awake.’
Jayce tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He couldn’t call his name.
Viktor.
He was leaning over Jayce’s bed, his eyes fixed on something else, and all Jayce could do was look up at him and wonder what the fuck was going on.
‘I’m calling your doctor in,’ Viktor said quietly. ‘You were sedated three days ago. They’ve been reducing your medications to wake you up, this was planned and expected.’ He spoke in a very calm voice, standing over him, looking him in the eyes. It answered some questions, but not a lot of them: Why was Viktor there?
His doctor came in to check him over, there was a lot of talking at him, a lot of talking and checking and things he didn’t fully understand. His brain, normally so quick, so fast, was tripping over all these words.
His voice was cracked and raw. It took him a long time to formulate words to interrupt his doctor.
‘What happened?’
He had some idea, of course. He remembered the mountain, and the fall. Mostly it was what he couldn’t feel below his waist that was concerning him.
‘You fell during a climb.’ He didn’t appreciate the very patronising tone of voice.
‘What injuries?’ he asked again, his voice barely croaking out.
‘You have broken bones, and you had some internal bleeding. You’re stabilised. You have fractures to your spine – one of your vertebrae, and your pelvis. You’ve had two compound fractures to your leg, some soft issue injuries. But you’re okay.’
He stared up, trying to put things together. ‘Paralysed?’
The doctor didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no. ‘We’re checking on some things, but we’ll see you through this.’
His mind was clearing slowly, as he lay there. He tried to move his neck, and was told off by the nurse.
All the while, he was trying to figure out what exactly had happened. What he was doing now. He tried to tune out how impersonal the checks were. He could hear them whispering observations to one another while he lay there. He kept trying to meet their eye, and they wouldn’t do it.
He had almost (almost) forgotten about Viktor, could have written it off as some kind of confused hallucination at the end of a dreamlike experience. But as they went to leave, they spoke to him briefly again: ‘We’ll leave you alone now, but make sure you get your partner to call for us if you need anything.’
Partner? They hadn’t been that for a long time now.
They left the room in silence. Jayce breathed out. It was uncomfortable, that was what he couldn’t manage to sort out. Laying in that bed, it was uncomfortable.
He heard shuffling again, as Viktor pops back into his view. ‘Do you need anything? Water?’
Jayce wanted to ask about a million questions, first being what was he doing in his room, but instead he nodded for the water. Viktor disappeared from his view, but he could hear the sound of a water jug being lifted, of water being poured.
‘Do you want the bed up a bit?’
Jayce nodded again.
It was with a practiced ease that Viktor knew how to locate everything in a hospital room. He moved the bed carefully enough, slowly, not to aggravate any of his injuries.
‘Holy fuck.’ Sitting more upright allowed Jayce a view of his legs. His left leg was wrapped completely up to his hip in plaster, and was elevated above the bed at an angle. The toes he could see were purple. The other leg was hidden under his blankets, which didn’t feel him with any ease. He moved his hands to see that they were covered in scrapes and cuts. Skin torn from his fingertips.
‘Here.’ Viktor held out a cup of water with a straw. He was staring at him with those eyes that Jayce found so striking. He realised Viktor was holding it up to his mouth, not meaning for Jayce to take hold of the glass at all. At once he had two feelings, a feeling of embarrassment at not being able to hold his own water, and déjà vu that he had done this for Viktor, before.
He took the sip of water, his throat screaming for hydration. He’d never wanted water so badly. He drank quickly, before Viktor moved the empty glass back. Jayce swallowed, trying to make his throat less dry.
‘You have questions, yes?’ Viktor asked.
Jayce could see him a little better with the bed moved up. There was an arm chair at the side of the bed, which Viktor had seated himself in. His crutch leaning against the side of it. Viktor was dressed in a sweater and trousers, dark colours, formal looking. Jayce kept looking back at his longer hair, searching his face. He looked like he’d gained weight from what Jayce remembered. He looked less gaunt.
‘Where is Caitlyn?’ he asked first.
‘Caitlyn is fine. She’s been in to visit you, she’s home at the minute, getting rest.’ Viktor produced a notebook from the side table, scanning over it. ‘She wanted to let you know she’s sorry, she feels responsible, that she’s going to make it up to you.’ Jayce felt her pain, even through Viktor’s stunted reading back of notes.
‘In terms of your injuries, you were airlifted here, you were in surgery for most of the first day. There was major bleeding from the main artery in your left leg as well as significant muscular bruising, and internal bleeding they managed to bring under control. Miraculously you managed to get away with some minor whiplash injuries and a concussion, they were anticipating a brain bleed and skull fracture from the height you fell. So, congratulations.’ He reads it off like it’s just another piece of research. ‘Your left leg is in bad shape. In the run down they gave me, they used the term ‘torn’ to describe some of the muscle and tendon injuries to that leg.’ Jayce winced. ‘Your mom has been by. She was actually here to trade off with me a couple of hours ago. She will probably be unhappy to have missed this.’ He turned the page. ‘We made some notes of what happened during the days you were out. It’s been two days in coma, three days since your accident.’ Viktor read out some things: lists of tests run, and medications given, as well as real world events. At the end of it he’d gone through two or three pages of notes, and then he sat back quietly, staring at Jayce.
Jayce swallowed, trying to take it all in. His brain was fuzzy still, and focussing was hard. He closed his eyes, trying to formulate his first question.
‘Why is…why are you here?’
Viktor doesn’t take the question as insulting. He sits back in the chair. ‘You neglected to change your emergency contact information, it seems.’
‘Oh.’ It really was that simple. Viktor hadn’t really been there when he’d crashed, he hadn’t known what was going on, hadn’t sensed it.
‘But you came,’ Jayce said softly, turning to look at him
Viktor stared at him. ‘Yes, I did.’ He looked away. ‘I would hope if you ever got a call from the hospital that I was catastrophically injured you would also come. But… maybe not.’ He shrugged, like it truly didn’t matter, either way. ‘I visited your home, to get some things.’ Viktor shuffled. ‘Is there a reason your apartment is an accessible one?’
‘Is it?’ Nearly every apartment he’d had as an adult had been shared with Viktor, he didn’t know what it was like to have apartments with high shelves, even as someone who was breaking on six and a half foot. Wide walkways clear of obstructions, plenty of places to perch or sit to rest, shower seat, no stairs. It was almost second nature to him. ‘I don’t think I ever updated my preferences…when you left.’
‘Ah.’ It’s all Viktor said, leaning back on the chair. He seemed to settle.
‘Why?’
For a moment, Jayce wondered if he’d heard the question. Viktor continued to sit there. ‘I had wondered… whether perhaps you had a type.’
It took Jayce a moment to realise what the implication was there, and then he winced. ‘No, there isn’t anyone else. I just prefer my space a certain way.’
Viktor nodded. ‘Well, it will be very easy to set up for your recovery, anyhow.’
There was silence. Jayce was slow, his brain foggy. He knew there must be smarter, better ways to ask the questions he was considering. But he couldn’t think, it was too much, he was almost half asleep.
‘Why did you come, Viktor? Why did you stay?’
Viktor watched him. Those eyes bored into him, staring down to his soul. He smiled at last, tilting his head. ‘Would you believe it if I said I missed you?’
There was a time when Jayce would have found himself flawed to hear those words, to feel a flush on his cheeks. But now? He felt a twitch of something, but otherwise he stared back. ‘Really?’
‘I thought I would be able to help for your recovery. After all, I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to care. And lots of new things to talk about. It can be very tiring, trying to have conversations with people you see every day.’ He flicked his eyes towards Jayce again, and he saw… a hesitancy in those eyes? ‘Of course, it’s your choice. If you ask, I will go. And I’ll remind the nurses to change your emergency contact information. It probably should be your mother, anyway.’
Viktor was giving him an out. A way to tell him to leave that would spare any embarrassment for either of them. But he was back. After years. Years of silence, after Jayce felt like nothing was ever going to be okay again.
But Viktor was back, and all it had taken was him falling nearly to his death.
Jayce wasn’t sure what he felt. But he knew he couldn’t bear letting him walk away.
‘No, it’s probably good to have someone else there to help.’ He sighed, already feeling like he wanted to sleep again.
‘Very well.’
He fell asleep with Viktor in the chair next to him. He was faintly aware that Viktor was reading, he could hear the sounds of the pages turning occasionally.
When he woke up, Viktor was gone. There was a nurse there, to take blood pressure. ‘It’s nice to see you awake! I’ve been doing your checks the last couple days, it’s lovely to actually talk to you now.’
‘Nice to meet you, I’m Jayce Talis.’
She smiled at him. ‘Very polite. We don’t get many patients in who are athletes, it’s a nice change.’
He hadn’t noticed people trying to flirt with him until Viktor had pointed it out once, so now any kind of flirting comments made him think of Viktor. He took a breath in.
‘Is your man not with you now?’ she looked around. ‘He’s been here practically since you came in. Very polite.’ Jayce winced as the blood pressure cuff tightened. ‘We’ve been trying to figure out what relation he is to you, but he keeps avoiding our questions.’
No one ever believed them when they said they were married. People seemed to think they were an odd pair together. Big, small, both men, Jayce never looked ‘queer’ enough to outside eyes, never looked like the type of man who would go for Viktor, apparently. So he was used to this weird questioning, the poking and the prying. It hadn’t happened for a while, though.
Jayce sighed. ‘He’s my ex-husband.’ The words were bitter on his tongue, being forced to say them. That Viktor used to be the most important person in his life. And now they were nothing, apparently.