Shortly after this post we'd end up dating for three and a half years, breaking up about a month ago. Don't let blue spoons fool you into sucking cock.
author's note: It's Sunday where I am lol. No real notes, just thank you for coming with me on this journey, it's very weird to bear your soul like this and people reacting well, never happened to me before. Moments like this, I love internet. @rennethen beta read 🖤
Cross-posted on AO3
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It took a long time for you to part on Sunday evening. You stood in the hallway, arms wrapped around Viktor, his arms wrapped around you, and only the sound of breathing surrounded you both. He pulled away first, placed a hand on your cheek, and said, “Think about everything. And let me know.”
You nodded, and a question—the answer to which you so desperately needed—was resolved before you even mustered the courage to ask.
“Come on Friday. I’ll text in the meantime? Or call?”
“I would like that,” you admitted with a relieved sigh, and Viktor offered you a kiss on the forehead. When you finally stepped out through his door, he lingered in the frame until the lift swallowed you.
The week passed in a diluted blur of working, eating, and sleeping, interrupted by little earthquakes in the form of Viktor’s messages and brief calls. Nothing with significant push or pressure—just simple, casual chats that let you know he hadn’t forgotten you, and made sure you wouldn’t forget either. And each one made your face beam in a way that earned you silly and curious “Who is that?” questions, until you were red-faced with a juvenile blush.
It happened every time your phone buzzed. You’d be in the middle of scanning through data, only half-listening to a coworker’s offhand remark, when you’d catch a glimpse of his name on the screen, and suddenly, the rest of the world blurred at the edges.
I am convinced my students are attempting to end me. I asked one of them to justify their methodology, and they said, “I just had a feeling.”
A barely suppressed laugh slipped out before you could stop it. You masked it with a cough, ignoring the glance your colleague shot you from across the table.
Another time, you’d been elbow-deep in paperwork, eyes dry from staring at the screen too long, when your phone lit up with another text:
I hope your day is going well. Eat something before you get grumpy.
You scoffed but still reached for the protein bar you’d left untouched beside your laptop.
And then there were the messages that made your stomach turn weightless, that left you pressing your lips together to fight off a giddy, ridiculous smile.
I dreamt of you last night. It was... pleasant.
It was impossible to focus after that. You stared at your screen for a full five minutes, rereading the words like they might change or disappear. Your mind whirred with possibilities, until the sound of your name snapped you back to reality and you scrambled to act as if your brain hadn’t just short-circuited.
Not once had he asked what you were thinking. Not once had he pushed beyond a sweet Goodnight call in the evening and a Good morning text when you woke up. It made the days more bearable, but it also made new questions rise. Is this trust already? Or just caution?
You faltered on Wednesday, when there was no message to greet you. And then no message to remind you to drink water.
You told yourself it was fine. That he was probably just busy. That this wasn’t some sort of test. But by lunchtime, the silence had settled too deep, turning over thoughts you didn’t want to examine. What if he’d changed his mind? What if he was waiting for you to make the next move? Or worse—what if this was a quiet way of pulling away? Your sanity was wearing thin.
You weighed your options, over and over. If you texted and he didn’t answer, would calling be too much? If you called first and he didn’t pick up, at least you could still send a text after. But would that make you seem desperate?
It took another ten minutes of pacing before you finally pressed the call button, cringing at the way your heart was thundering in your chest. The dial tone felt impossibly loud. One ring. Two. Three—
“Hello?”
And just like that, the breath you hadn’t realised you were holding slipped out of you. “Hi! Oh, um… why are you whispering?” You blurted out the words in a rush, voice pitched higher than you intended.
There was a pause, followed by Viktor’s voice, low and steady, tinged with quiet amusement. “I’m in the middle of a lecture—”
“Oh shit, Viktor, I’m so sorry!” you gasped and started to whisper yourself, as if the class could hear you. You winced, clasped your hand to your forehead and hoped that Viktor didn’t hear the sound of the slap.
“—but I am happy to hear you,” he continued smoothly, the warmth in his tone easing some of the tension gripping your chest. “Let me call you after?”
And he did. And you talked about nonsense until Jayce caught Viktor twirling his hair, hunched over his desk like he was trying to hide.
This was your week—full of insignificant, annoying events that conglomerated into something called life, interrupted by small Viktor moments. And for Viktor, it was small you moments.
And even though a massive weight had been lifted off your chest during that session of helpless sobbing on the couch, nuzzled into Viktor’s neck, you still feel a pang of guilt each time you replay the events of last weekend in your head. It’s hard to pinpoint where it comes from, but it’s ever-present.
Now that it’s Friday, finally, you write it down on a piece of paper filled with bullet points for later this evening. Absolutely convinced you won’t use it, you still write every single invasive thought down—just in case you gather the courage to tell him.
Before leaving, you make a few critical last-minute decisions—hair up or down, skirt or trousers, or a dress? Makeup or none? Take extra underwear, or not tempt fate to make a joke out of you?
You end up in a dress, with no makeup, your hair gathered into a loose updo, and a wishful-thinking extra pair of knickers stuffed into your purse.
You walk to make yourself less giddy. You stop to buy some food for later, glancing nervously at your watch, only to see that you are, in fact, too early. Sitting on a bench to read is futile—you just end up staring at your phone, willing the time to pass.
And when you finally, finally buzz his door, it’s like last time—you are immediately let in, without him checking the intercom. But this time, you almost run to the elevator, jabbing the button over and over for the doors to close and carry you upward. When you step out, Viktor is already waiting by the entrance to his flat, greeting you with a quiet, sweet, “Hi,” as soon as he sees you.
You open your mouth, but nothing comes out at first, not even the breathless hi yourself you’ve prepared. The week of waiting, of uncertainty, of second-guessing every moment—was it real? Was he real? Or was this just a fragile illusion, something too good to hold? The part of you that has spent too long in doubt tugs at your resolve, asking if you’re just imagining the warmth in his voice, the way he’s looking at you like he wants you here.
But then his fingers brush against yours as he plucks the bag from your hand, and the heat of his touch travels up your arm, quieting the noise in your head. The doubts don’t stand a chance once his hands slide up your thighs, wrapping around your waist, anchoring you to him. Your back thuds lightly against the door as he kisses you. You don’t even get a proper look at him before his mouth is on yours, his hand pulling your updo apart, fingers tangling into your hair.
Your palms clutch at his shirt and slide up his neck, pulling him closer. He muffles a quiet ah against your lips when you tug his hair and nip at his lower lip. His hips press into you, your chests flush together, and he breathes in deeply, catching up with your scent—the one he’s been missing for five days.
When he finally pulls away, he says again, “I said hi.”
“Hi yourself,” you reply, smiling sheepishly against him. You brush your thumbs over his beauty marks, and his eyes flutter closed. Your foreheads touch. Viktor looks relieved.
“I missed you,” he says, feeling stupid for admitting it—five days is nothing compared to the six months you spent apart, yet it still felt like agony. “You smell nice,” he adds, nosing at your neck, his lips curling up at the sensation of goosebumps rising under his touch.
“Thank you,” you whisper, dumbfounded by this unfiltered flood of affection. Viktor chuckles, realizing he’s overwhelming you. He moves away, and you would protest—if not for the fact that he’s still holding your hand. You squeeze it tightly, letting him lead you into the kitchen, where you watch him make tea.
“So,” Viktor starts, setting a cup in front of you before taking the seat opposite. “How was your week?”
“I—” Horrible. A blur. A very long blur. Long. Painful. “Painfully long,” you finally huff out with a chuckle, feeling the warmth of a blush creeping up your neck. You lower your gaze to your fidgeting fingers, and soon, in the periphery of your vision, Viktor’s hands creep in, cradling yours across the table.
“And why would that be?” he asks quietly. You don’t have to look up to know his eyes will be hooded and his mouth quirked into a sweet smile.
With a pained sigh, you pull your hands back, stand up, and in a heartbeat, you’re kneeling between his legs, resting your head on his lap, arms wrapping around his hips.
“And whatever is that for?” Viktor giggles, startled by your clinginess, unaware of the quiet, pathetic truth that you feel safest like this—between his legs, wrapped in his warmth. You breathe in the scent of his clothes and whisper, “You smell nice too. I missed you too.”
He places a hand on your head, fingers threading gently through your hair, and you inch your hands toward his belt. Slowly, his palm comes to rest over yours, halting your movement. When you lift your gaze to meet his, Viktor almost melts into a puddle at the sight of you—kneeling at his feet, eyes pleading—but he has to ask, “What is this about?”
“I just really missed you,” you say quietly, fingers twitching at his fly. “May I?”
He studies you for a moment, swipes his thumb over your lips and says a breathless, “Yes,” reinforced with a nod. And then his eyes glue to your fingers undoing his belt and tugging at his pants to slide them down all the way to his ankles, to finally discard them. And then—
Viktor’s breath hitches, but you cannot help yourself. You press your face to his boxers, breathing in his scent and it’s a gesture so full of adoration, he whimpers despite himself. You unroll his waistband and kiss him softly with your mouth open, leaving a slick trail all the way up from his base to the tip. He is still soft, his skin is warm and silky, and he shudders at each and every one of your pecks.
You slide his underwear down and make your way up, starting by kissing his knee, up his inner thigh, to finally take his balls into your mouth and hum at the contact. Viktor’s fingers curl in your hair, his legs straighten out in front of him, head falls back, and he gives out a deep, long moan.
It’s almost crushing to feel so worshipped. You’re being so gentle with him—it reminds him of your first time together. Back when things were easy, full of possibilities. Now, things are a little harder, but the possibilities keep slipping back in, one by one, with each passing minute.
He sags in the chair, eyes glazed, and cheeks reddened when he looks down to you—rubbing your face against his cock with reverence that makes him want to pull you up and kiss you until you can’t breathe. And you hum, and kiss and lick off his pre-cum for the longest time before you give him as much as an actual proper lick to his underside, tracing the prominent vein with the tip of your tongue. And Viktor twitches and writhes under your touch, his cock resting heavily across your face.
When you finally take him into your mouth he shudders, his legs jolt and he scolds himself for acting like he’s being touched for the first time. But after a second, he decides he feels safe enough—to let you touch him like this, to give you this power over him. And as if you catch that split-second hesitation in the way he tastes, you release him with a quiet pop and ask gently, “Is this alright?”
“More than alright,” Viktor slurs, his thumb sweeping over your lip again. The string of drool connecting his cock to your mouth now clings to his hand. He leaves it. “Please, don’t stop,” he adds, a blush creeping beneath his shirt.
With a smile, and God help him, another hum, you take him back in, placing your hand on whatever you can’t fit into your mouth. Viktor sighs, the sensation of being enveloped in warmth flooding over him, when you do something that nearly makes him come on the spot—your hand flattens at the base of his cock and you push him past your throat, releasing a fresh wave of spit to drip down his length, while you gag, and the sound makes him go insane. He looks down, and oh, there it is—the first tear you shed today as you disconnect from him to catch a breath and stroke him with a slow movement of your wrist.
It’s a small tear that dries out somewhere in the middle of its journey between the corner of your eye and your chin, but it’s there nevertheless and Viktor commits it to memory. So when you kiss his tip again and open your mouth for him, he cradles your face and gives you one, languid roll of his hips. He stops to ask, “Can I?”
Your eyes flutter open, then closed, then open again. You nod, mumbling a sound as close to yes as you can manage with your mouth full, and you hope Viktor won’t retreat because you don’t want to lose the feeling of his hands cradling you and the feeling of his cock pulsing between your lips.
And, oh God, he takes it as it is. And he gives it back to you, with another thrust, careful and slow, his mouth falls open and eyes are fixed on yours. You see the vein in his neck pulsing, and you take your quick breaths through your nose each time he retreats to push back again. His cock keeps hitting the back of your throat, gently, just a touch, just enough to make your thighs clench and your knuckles go white on his thighs.
And you watch him becoming progressively prettier and prettier as sweat pearls up on his forehead and his mouth loses restraint with all the sounds he is giving you. “My good girl,” he keeps whispering. “Fuck, you are so good,” falls out next. “I love you so much, I missed this so much,” is your favourite one and makes your heart jump all the way up to meet the head of his cock in your throat.
He pants out your name, his grip tightening and the last thing that tips him over is when he sweeps your hair away from your neck to gather it in his fist. And he sees them, his own fingertips already yellowing on your skin, a faint memoir of bruises that were once there, from when he had forced you to look him in the eye while you admitted to still loving him.
“Oh, fuck,” is all Viktor can say as he spasms between your lips and spills himself inside and over, even though he wants to tell you how amazing it feels. How amazing you are, how amazing it is to fuck your mouth. How amazing it is that you shed another tear for him and that you swallowed almost all of his cum, and to convey it, he pulls you up just as he wanted earlier.
And you sit across his lap where he is still warm from your touch. And his mouth is on yours, and oh, it’s almost like the first time. The taste of him still lingers heavily on your tongue and he sucks on it with love and care and gratitude, humming and licking into you, caressing your hair and your shoulders. He kisses you like you are worthy of redemption. Finally his head falls into the crook of your neck, skin clings to skin, as he mutters, “Thank you.”
"You taste just as I remember," you say absently, the words bouncing off the shell of Viktor’s ear. Just when he thinks he cannot possibly come undone any further, you take him apart.
"What have I done to deserve this?" Viktor asks weakly, and you huff a quiet laugh at how dramatic he’s being over a blowjob. You take his face in your hands, guiding his gaze to meet yours.
"There are things I have no idea how to tell you. But you deserve this every day," you whisper, resting your forehead against his.
Viktor sits there, dumbfounded, with you perched over his naked lap, foreheads touching, his pants and underwear crumpled in the middle of the kitchen. And as if your thoughts have seeped from your mind into his, understanding dawns.
"Is this your way of repenting?" he asks, trying to catch your gaze.
You say nothing, only scrunch your nose.
"Hey, look at me, please," Viktor says firmly, his fingers tilting your chin up. The warmth of his touch is steady, grounding, but not forceful. His eyes search yours, full of something unknown. "What are you trying to atone for?"
"For… everything," you sigh, pressing yourself down until you sag against him, your body moulding into his like you could dissolve there. The warmth of his skin on yours should be comforting, but it only makes the ache deeper, and you wince at your inability to express yourself.
"And yet, there is nothing," Viktor replies without hesitation. His fingers remain at your chin, keeping your gaze locked to his, as if he won’t allow you to look away, won’t allow you to slip into this spiral.
"Viktor—"
"I do mean it," he interrupts, his voice unwavering. "I do not want any of this. We start anew, sins not forgotten but cleansed. We learn, and we start over. Nothing to repent for."
"But—"
His other hand tightens around your waist, a small squeeze that grounds. "What do you feel?" he asks, softer now, but still insistent. "You have to tell me."
You hesitate. The words feel thick in your throat, soaked in self-doubt. "I—" You inhale sharply, then admit, "I feel shame. Or guilt. Or both, all the same."
"And whatever for?" Viktor presses, patient, his thumb brushing idly over your skin, a subconscious motion of reassurance.
"For how this went before, Viktor," you say, voice strained. "I see it now, and I just can’t—"
His brows pull together in concern, but he doesn’t let you trail off into silence. "What do you need to get over this?" Ever the problem-solver.
You huff out a mirthless chuckle, the sound brittle. "I don’t know. Punishment?" you say, half-joking, half-serious, but the weight in your chest doesn’t lighten. A punishment seems fitting. The insistent heat of tears pricks at your eyes, and you try to blink them away.
"I don’t think you deserve that," Viktor says immediately, voice firm, as if the thought alone is ridiculous. His hand moves to swipe the tear from beneath your eye while he does his best to remain unaffected.
"Hey—" He moves in by an inch, your stuttering breath fanning over his face. "I really don’t," he murmurs, quieter now, more to himself than to you. His grip tightens, like he needs to keep you close to not break. "We’ve changed, and it’s alright. Oh, God," he exhales, as his thumb swipes the tear from your cheek and his expression shifts from worry to adoration in an instant.
Your brows furrow, confused. "What?"
A flicker of hesitation crosses his face. He swallows. "I have my share of shame in me as well, love."
Your stomach twists at the admission. "What? Why?"
He exhales sharply, pressing his forehead to yours. His voice drops lower, as if he is giving away his best-guarded secret. "I… seem to enjoy it when you cry," he admits. "Not in the sense of enjoying your suffering," he clarifies quickly, "but somehow, being cried for, or in front of, makes me feel… loved."
"Oh, Viktor," you whisper and pull away, your hands moving instinctively to cup his face. His skin is warm beneath your touch, the sharp angles of his cheekbones softening under your fingers. "I am doing a terrible job with love confessions if you have to seek confirmation like this," you mumble, a self-deprecating huff of a laugh dancing under your nose.
Viktor shakes his head, pressing his forehead against yours again, unwilling to let you part. "I disagree. I felt just as loved a minute ago." Then he exhales, long and slow. "I think… it’s just a byproduct of everything," he says carefully. "A change." He pauses, then asks, voice softer, "Does it repulse you?"
"Of course not," you answer instantly, faster than a blink. Your thumbs brush over his cheekbones, gentle, reverent. "You could never repulse me."
His eyes flutter shut for a moment, like he’s soaking in your words, like they’re something sacred. When he opens them again, there’s a softness in his gaze that crushes you completely. "The feeling is mutual," he murmurs.
He studies you for a moment longer before speaking again. "So tell me—what do you need to overcome your shame?"
And you hesitate again. It still lingers. Creeps up to coil somewhere around your throat and you can’t possibly bring yourself to say this, can you? The most obvious stupid cliché. Not because of the act itself, but because of the nature of it. Because of the reason for it. You crave to shed it, to start anew, to get all dressed up in your fresh new skin, old one feeling to tight around your bones. But this is Viktor. And of all people, he’s the one you would ask.
So you lean in to whisper your undisclosed desire straight into his ear. "Spank me."
Viktor stills, his mouth falls open, and he covers it with his hand. Not in shock—just to think. He doesn’t let the moment linger, as his brain works fast. He cups your cheeks and sweeps his thumbs under your eyes. Takes a deep breath.
"This is your wish?"
You nod, lowering your gaze and fixing it on the space between you, but Viktor tsks at you. "I will need you to use your words for this and all the way through. Is this what you want, for sure?"
"Yes," you answer, quietly, but audibly enough for Viktor to accept.
"Alright," he says firmly, then smiles and places a kiss on the corner of your mouth, sweet and lingering. "Will you pass me my pants?"
You huff out a laugh but scramble up from his lap, helping him get roughly dressed—underwear left in the kitchen—when he leads you back to the bedroom. And it’s all so very sweet. He leans on you, just like last time. Kisses your cheek and neck all the way through. You manage not to look at the empty spaces this time.
He leads you to the bed, where he sits down, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Holding your hand, he guides you to sit beside him. Without question, you do, heart all the way up in your throat.
"Alright, let’s go over this, yes?" Viktor states, as if this is a project. Safety rules, roadmap, scientific approach. He gives your thigh a gentle squeeze and smiles softly. "I will check how you are doing constantly. If you tell me to stop, I stop immediately. If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel like you can tell me, you tap my thigh three times. If you don’t like it, we never do this again. If you do, we will explore. What do you think?"
"You don’t think it’s weird?" Do you think I’m weird is truly what gnaws at you, but you can’t bring yourself to ask it. You just look at him, waiting, excited and scared.
"Of course not. Peculiar, at best," Viktor smiles again and places a flurry of kisses on your face. "Do you wish to continue?"
"Yes," you answer with more confidence now.
"Then lay across my lap, please," he says, leaning back, hands still on you—grounding and reassuring.
Air gets momentarily knocked out of your lungs when your belly presses across Viktor’s thighs. He runs a hand down your spine, finding himself strangely excited about this. The trust he asked you for last week now lay splayed across his knees—he couldn’t help but think. All he has to do is indulge you.
His hand slides down, cradling your ass. He lifts the skirt of your dress, draping it over your lower back, and runs his fingers under the hem of your underwear. Gently, soothing you with soft sounds as he does, he pulls your knickers down to your knees. Your face burns, heat prickling across your skin in goosebumps with every touch—nails grazing over the inside of your knee, up your thighs, stopping at your core. He palms your naked skin and hums once he realises you are wet.
“Good,” he murmurs, playing between your legs for a while. Your mouth parts and eyes close, while you give him quiet gasps. He spreads the wetness onto your ass cheeks and cradles your bum one last time before starting. And then, without warning, the first slap lands—firm, of medium strength—but still, you yelp in surprise.
The sensation is alien—it both hurts and doesn’t. With the mild pain comes something else, something fleeting, but you can’t quite grasp what it is. Warmth spreads across your skin, and you dig your fingers into Viktor’s thigh.
Viktor, however, receives something entirely different. Nothing flees him—something grows. Both between his legs and in his chest. He has to take a second before he asks, “How was that?”
“Good,” you reply immediately.
So he continues. Another slap echoes through the room, and Viktor watches as the imprint of his hand whitens against your skin before dissolving into pink a second later. How pretty it looks. He checks in with you again. And again, you encourage him.
Slowly, slap after slap, each one interrupted by Viktor’s questions, you feel lighter, warmer. A strange feeling of relief washes over you. At some point, your skin begins to sting, and even that is welcome. Your mouth loses restraint, and you moan each time Viktor’s palm connects with your ass. Your back arches, ribs pressing into his legs, and you feel a drop of slick rolling down your inner thigh.
So debauched. So pretty, Viktor thinks.
He can’t help himself and runs his fingers down between your legs. Gasps at the wetness pooling there. “More?” He asks, voice breathy, eyes completely transfixed on your reddened skin and he almost drools at the sight. All his doing. His hand did this. This, and the drenched state of your cunt, it’s all him.
“More,” you say weakly. The burn feels good. You feel the doubt seeping out with the warmth radiating from your skin. With each touch, something inside you feels lighter. Bigger. Like there is more of you and less of whatever had been gnawing at you.
Viktor gives you three more slaps, and when your thighs quiver with the last one, his hand comes to rest at the base of your spine. “How is that?” he asks, admiration seeping into his voice.
“I think it’s enough,” you reply in a small voice. His hand returns to your bum, a gentle caress spreading from the tops of your thighs to your hips. Slowly, you rise from his lap, only to straddle him and wrap your arms around his neck.
“Thank you,” you breathe into his skin. Viktor pulls you close, inhaling deeply through his nose.
“Thank you,” he murmurs in return. “Please, lie down on your stomach. I’ll be right back.”
You blink in quiet question but obey. Crawling onto the bed, you curl up on your side, fingers ghosting over the heat still lingering beneath your dress. When Viktor returns, the soft tap of his cane against the floor announces him, and you wonder how he got all the way to the kitchen without it.
“I said on your stomach,” he says gently, placing a hand at the small of your back. You roll over, propping your head on your crossed arms.
“Good girl,” he coos before exposing your reddened ass. The mattress dips on each side of your knees and once again you feel Viktor’s hands on you. Soft, gentle. Callouses gliding over your tired skin with care and love. He presses his face against your cheeks, holding them firmly, hums in appreciation, making your toes curl and your back arch, belly pressing into the bed. Then his mouth joins, as he licks you with a flat tongue. Lips grazing over you, the trail of open mouth kisses spreading all the way from the crease of your ass to the small of your back. You press yourself into him and bury your nose in the sheets, trying to muffle your whimpers.
And then comes the coolness pressing against you, making you wince at the first touch. A cold compress.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Viktor whispers. His free hand comes to thread gently through your hair. You feel safe. Whole. That sense of belonging blooms within you again—stronger this time—and you are so, so glad it’s with Viktor. You sigh and close your eyes.
He lies beside you, his hand running up and down your spine. When you blink, your eyes meet. “How are you feeling?” he asks, and he looks so in love your heart is about to burst.
“Very good,” you say quietly, offering him an honest smile. You turn onto your side to face him, the compress slipping off. “Better. Empty and whole at the same time,” you murmur against his mouth, kissing him with reverence. “You?”
Viktor thinks for a second before answering. "Knowing you trust me enough to let go like this makes me feel irreplaceable," he says finally, and you are left speechless. Because he is. And it feels great that he knows.
“It’s all very new, isn’t it?” you ask finally, and Viktor gazes at you, a soft smile tugging at his lips.
“No,” he murmurs, pulling you closer, your name falling softly from his mouth. “Nothing’s new. It’s still love.”
You nuzzle against his neck and sigh, your eyelashes tickling his skin. The last question gnawing at you slips past your lips before you can catch it.
“Do you hate me less now?”
Viktor scoffs, outright appalled. He pulls you back by the neck, forcing you to look at him, his eyes full of intent as he replies simply, “No.”
Your heart beats only once before stopping entirely. Then Viktor’s expression softens, and he speaks again.
“I never hated you. If anything, I only love you more.”
And your heart resumes beating—hard and erratic. You wrap yourself around him, letting out a shuddering breath. “God, how can this be so good now when we’ve fucked up so badly?”
Viktor picks up what you’ve put down. “Change is inevitable. Sometimes abrupt. Maybe this is where we were supposed to be to get here, miláčku.”
Oh, God. There it is again—dragged up from the pit you were hoping to forget. The one thing that once felt most dear, a treasure Viktor gave freely, only to let it slip into someone else’s hands. Now it’s tarnished, dulled with grime. It doesn’t sound sweet anymore. It tastes bitter, feels wrong. Feels like it doesn’t belong to you.
Your heart drops again. Your voice shrinks to almost nothing as you push him away and plead weakly, “Please, don’t call me that again.” Tears are already pricking at your eyes, and you wonder when you became so quick to cry.
“Wha—Why?” Viktor chuckles, trying to wrap his arms back around you, but you keep your distance, splaying your palms flat against his chest in quiet defiance. And then he sees it.
“Oh, darling. It never happened, I promise you. The note, I—”
“What do you mean?” you ask, as if you don’t already know. Your brows knit together, a tear clinging to your lashes. “It was on the note,” you try again, your voice frail with disbelief. Your lips press into a tight line, and Viktor looks so remorseful that you fear what’s coming next.
“It was on the note,” he says carefully, “because I was fully lying to you.”
It’s so quiet you almost don’t hear him. Your eyes flick between his eyes and his lips, your mouth parting—but nothing comes out. A couple of imaginary pins drop on the floor, the sound echoes in your head.
And then a sob slips through as you blink rapidly, trying to hold back the tears. “No. Viktor, I thought—”
“I’m so sorry.” He tries to cradle you, but you resist. “I knew it was horribly wrong as soon as I saw you that day. I regretted it in an instant, and oh,” he murmurs, pulling you against his chest. He holds you tight through this last, stupid display of jealousy, doing his best to reassure you.
“I would never. I would never call anyone else that. You are the only one, I promise. It’s all yours. Please forgive me. Miláčku, please forgive me,” he pleads, pressing his face into your hair, into the crook of your neck.
You don’t respond—not with words, not yet. Your breath is shaky against his collarbone, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt like you need something solid to hold onto. His heart hammers against your ear. You know he’s afraid.
Viktor shifts, pressing a kiss to your temple, lingering like he’s willing you to believe him through touch alone. His hand cradles the back of your head, his thumb brushing small, rhythmic circles at your nape.
“Please,” he whispers again, softer now, like he’s running out of words, running out of ways to reach you. “I promise it’s yours. Forever.”
“How do you know it’s forever?” you ask, voice hollowed out. That would be a gift too good to be true. Yet. You dare to have your hopes up.
Viktor winces. Your body grows pliant against him. He hooks his leg over your hip bone and nestles you close, his arm wrapping under your waist, his palm resting between your shoulder blades. His other hand cradles your cheek, his face inching closer. Your noses press together, and when Viktor speaks his quiet truth, your lips brush.
“Because loving you isn’t a feeling that fleets,” he murmurs, pouring the words into you. “It’s a condition. And I will carry it with me always, no matter what happens between us.”
Your breath hitches, and you shudder. You squeeze your eyes shut, searching for something—anything—to say. But instead, you press your salty lips to his, not in a kiss, just a press. Just to steal a breath from him.
“Come back to me,” he coaxes, his knuckles paling against your skin. “Miláčku, come back to me.”
And Viktor doesn’t really believe in any higher form of consciousness controlling the universe. The only thing he believes in is the void, that we scream into like an echo chamber, questions bouncing back to anyone who’s asking. That we only get one life and have to make the very best of it. He doesn’t believe in God, that he has called upon too many times already in the spirit of figurative speech. But if there was one thing he would pray for, it would be this.
To tether himself to you, bind himself to something real, something beyond the desperate loneliness he’s learned to live with before he’s met you. He’s been waiting and waiting for this love to fleet, and it never fucking did, no matter how hard he’s been trying to squeeze it out of himself. So, instead of praying, he offers himself to you, tries to prove in the only way he knows how that he is yours, that he will always be yours—with his needy hands that chased away your shame, with his loving eyes so honest they pierce right through you, with his hot mouth that needs, needs, needs to suck on you so his lungs could expand, and his heart could beat.
And as if gears slowly begin grinding against each other in your head, you give it all back. You kiss him—deep and messy, snot mingling with drool. Viktor sighs in relief, the taste of your tears on his tongue sealing something unspoken between you. He murmurs sweet things between breaths, hands tangling in your hair, legs hooking you closer. And he needs, needs, needs to show you how much he wants you to come back. How nothing else could ever compare. How the thought of anything else is harrowing and empty.
“So we start over,” you slice through his thoughts, stating more to yourself than to him, as if the matter has nestled in your head securely only just now.
Viktor nods brushing his nose against yours and whispers a quiet, “Yes.”
“Yes,” he says again as his shaky fingers begin to unbutton your dress. “Yes,” he breathes when his thumbs brush under your breasts and palms twitch to cup them. “Yes,” comes another murmur when his tongue meets your skin, tits squeezed together so he can lick between them, and then a moan escapes him as you slide your hands to the nape of his neck and tug at the short hair there.
Your back arches, excited and willing when the sensation of his tongue on you mingles with the sounds he makes echoing in your mind, and you breathe out a needy plea, “Do it again.”
Viktor cocks a brow, hums into your skin as he takes one of your nipples into his mouth, and asks a playful muffled, “Which one?"
“Oh, God, both,” you whine, squeezing your eyes shut and buck your hips against thin air, Viktor’s knee too far for you to reach. Your fingers pull at the base of his skull, and Viktor chuckles, a flush creeping up his body underneath the layers of clothing when he sinks his mouth into your breast and obeys—letting out a quiet, wrecked, “Oh, fuck,” somewhere around your heart.
His thigh finally, finally, comes to your salvation, sneaking between your legs and pressing on your core with a quiet obscene squelch. The thought of a wet stain he will get to see there makes his cock twitch painfully against the half-assed job you did of buttoning up his trousers earlier on. You breath grows short as you rub yourself on him and when a stuttered whimper escapes your mouth, Viktor huffs, “Please, do it again,” through a sharp exhale.
You tug at his hair, forcing him to look at you. "Give me a reason," you whisper in a strangled breath.
Clearly, you have no idea what you’re asking for. The cry that escapes you when his knee retreats is, to say the least, embarrassing. The sound transforms into a quiet gasp, when his hands leave your chest, one finger slides through your slit and Viktor hums, so, so pleased with you, “Baby, look how wet you are.”
“So wet for me, my girl,” he coos, and he sounds almost too grateful as his lips come back to kiss you, and a gush of cold air fans over your nipples. He palms your sickly heat, grinding the heel of his hand against your clit and you blink rapidly as your eyes roll back in your skull. Your hands fumble blindly to unbutton his shirt in a need press yourself flush against him.
And you do a very poor job, jolting and pulling at his buttons whenever Viktor’s hand parts you and his fingers tease your entrance, so his other hand comes to help you, undoing what you can’t with an ease that has you huffing. It’s annoying that he can do two things at once, while you clearly cannot. Your sulking doesn’t last very long, because as soon as his naked chest is free to be roamed, you leech yourself to his collarbone and suck a red glaring love mark into it.
Yours. All yours.
And Viktor slips, figuratively and literally, as his head instinctively falls back to grant you full access to his neck and his two fingers push inside you, where you are so, so hot it almost burns him. As if the mark on his neck wasn’t red enough, you bite on it, trying to muffle a groan. Viktor has nothing to muffle his groan on, so you can feel it crawling up his throat and vibrating under your lips.
When his fingers push in further, the only gesture you can muster is to hook your hands over the waistband of his trousers, mouth choking on his neck. You pull his pants down and he hisses as the material hooks over his cock before it springs back to slap heavily against his lower abdomen. You try to distract yourself by sliding your palms flat up and down the slope of his sharp hips, but it’s futile once Viktor buries his fingers knuckle deep and curls them brushing the sensitive spot within you. He twitches as you moan. Precum leaks out of his slit. No thoughts cross your head, only impressions. Only want and need.
You can’t decide which one it is—want or need—when your fingers wrap around his length and rub whatever weeps at the tip all over the head. He’s silky and heavy in your hand as you trace your favourite vein with the tip of your finger.
“Oh, God,” Viktor whimpers to the imaginary being again, pumping you with a stuttering rhythm of his wrist. Feeling every crevice of your cunt, he pulls you in for a kiss and you no longer know where he ends, and you begin. Attached by the mouth, his hand deep inside you, your needy wanting hands on him, just drawing gasps and moans from each other.
He has to retreat to pull his pants further down and has an audacity to chuckle when you whine in protest. His hand leaves you drawing a wet sound and your thighs fall back together with a sticky smack. “So impatient,” he hums, while doing a shitty job of undressing himself, kicking off one leg of his pants, while the other still entangles around his calf. He hooks his freed leg over your hip, takes his cock from you and aligns it at your entrance. You are completely wrapped around each other—leg pressing on leg, arms hooked around necks, fingers adding to already damp hair.
“Do you want me?” he asks, pressing his cock against your clit, hard. You tie up into thousands of knots, trying to suck him in by the force of your sheer will when you see the question is honest. He really wants to know. Eyes pensive, hooded, mouth parted. So you kiss this mouth, bite his lips until he hisses and breathe into him, “I want you, fuck, I want you.”
A silent moan rips through him, as he enters you, inch after painful inch until you can feel every ridge, every vein, every pulse of his cock against your walls. At this point you are just clashing mouths and teeth in something that once was a kiss. He fills more of you than was empty as you lose control of the clenching and unclenching of your own muscles. A quiet ah falling from him dies in the sound of a slap as your hips slot together.
He stills for a moment, buried deep, and you swear you can feel his pulse inside you, thrumming in time with your own. Chest to chest, forehead to forehead, he exhales heavily through his nose, his grip on you tightening. And then he moves.
Your mouth falls open so wide your jaw aches, breaths intermingle, brows knit together. Viktor's hands anchor around your ass as he thrusts into you, slow and deep, each movement pounding the shape of his cock into your core. You arch against him, offering yourself, giving him everything you have. Your fingers twist in his hair, and the moment you tug, he groans—a low, breathy sound that coils something filthy at the base of your spine as your skin slaps against his.
And Viktor feels himself melting against your lips, inside you, as your walls squeeze tighter and tighter around him. He loses control of his hands—they just roam, fisting at your dress, kneading the soft flesh of your thighs as he sinks deeper, hitting a spot that has you gasping hiccupped breaths straight into his mouth. He pants, struggling not to be the one who falls first, trying not to look, not to think about your clumped eyelashes, the tears that he is fucking out of you. He tries not to think about how every slap of his hips against yours must echo across your poor ass, how pleasure and pain must be bleeding together inside you.
But it just feels so fucking good for you. Every roll of his hips is a reminder of how his fingers sank into your skin not long ago, heat pouring out of you in waves. You don’t move anymore—it’s only Viktor’s sloppy, determined thrusts guiding you toward the edge. You cross your eyes to focus on his parted lips, the beauty marks dusting his cheek and lip, and when his breath fans over your face, you let your lashes flutter closed, surrendering to it. Letting it build, slow and aching, every deep stroke tightening the coil inside you until you’re cramping around him.
“Fuck,” Viktor pants as you curl into him, whining his name into the crook of his neck, fighting the urge to bite down on his tendon. Your thighs squeeze tight around him, and your cunt grips him like a vice, milking him as you finally break apart. You spasm and clench around him, neck wrenched and jaw tight as you try to catch a breath through your silent shout and it’s almost impossible for Viktor to move in the tightness you’ve created. His sweat drips onto your cheeks, and, at last, he can stop holding back.
He curls his arms around you and rolls you over, pressing you down with his weight. Adding gravity to every snap of his hips, his stomach cramps more and more with each desperate thrust as he fucks you through the aftershocks, chasing his own undoing. His mouth hangs open against yours when he holds you tight enough for his fingertips to whiten, bruises already threatening to bloom where he grips. “I’m so close,” he whispers on a breath, and you thought it impossible, but you clench even tighter at the sound of his strained voice. And when he cums, it’s with a wrenched-out grunt, his head buried in your neck, his body trembling against you.
A few stuttering jolts of his hips, spilling his seed deep inside you, and the sensation of being filled, of being utterly his, has you moaning one last time, spent and breathless. Eyes unseeing, mouth touching mouth when he falls on top of you and just stays.
And then, nothing, for a moment, only your damp stomachs rising and falling against each other.
Until Viktor is the one to move first. He pulls out, his cum spilling from you onto the sheets with a wet spurt, and rolls onto his back, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. A shuddery breath escapes him as he presses a hand to his chest.
“Viktor?” you say softly, gliding an open palm over his stomach.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what—” he croaks, then pulls you in, guiding your head to rest against his chest. His heart pounds beneath your ear, his breath uneven, and when you lift your chin to look at him, you catch the glistening trail of a tear slipping down his cheek, barely visible.
And Viktor has no idea what came over him. He has no idea whether this is a stupid way of paying back his debt to you or is it just a surge of affection that he cannot hold in, but it feels strangely freeing to pour all this fear into a wet breath. Or maybe his fucked out brain just can’t keep up with the bliss, he doesn’t know.
Gently, you tug his arm away from his face, nuzzling into him as you whisper, “It’s okay. You’re okay.” You press a soft kiss to his lips, and he exhales shakily, like he’s been holding something in for far too long. And to come undone like this is completely unlike for Viktor. You are fairly sure you’ve never seen him cry before, though you’ve heard the legends. And now they all come true, before your very eyes and even though you feel nothing close to arousal watching him spill his emotions over, the feeling you do have in your chest is about to make it burst, nevertheless.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, kissing you back through an embarrassed chuckle. “I guess something is new after all.”
“Don’t apologize, please,” you whisper, nuzzling your nose into the hollow of his cheek. “I love this.”
Viktor offers a smile and a squeeze to your neck. Wordlessly, you fall into each other, arms tightening, bodies entwining. The roam of your hands slowly dying to settle on each other’s hollows. The scent of sweat and warmth heavy between you, intermingling, blending—just as you do.
And even though all of this looks hurried and disorganised—your dress half undone, his pants tangled around one leg, brace slid down from his knee, shirt twisted around him, cold compress melting away, dampening his sheets—it feels right. And as you rest against him, your heart slowing in tandem with his, you think of how this is both familiar and new. How you’ve shed the bad and kept the good. How it’s all very fucking new and exciting and frightening, but it’s good, because it’s with Viktor.
At some point, the sun has set as you both drift into sleep. Heavy breaths, calm, bodies still half-clothed. Your dress has rolled all the way up, exposing your lower half, and Viktor, with sleep-ridden hands, pulls it down before throwing a blanket over you both. No dreams interrupt you, only the damp cloister of your shared aftermath.
He’s closed his eyes a second ago, and when he opens them again, the night has turned into a blue morning. No sun yet, but the dark already pales. Carefully, he shuffles from between your legs, pressing the soles of his feet to the wooden floor, blindly reaching for his cane. Then, takes a long breath. His knee is aching—a faint, but present feeling. Slightly annoying. Managable.
He discards his pants to the floor, the outline of the fly buttons pressed into the skin of his calf after clinging to it the whole night. He glances over his shoulder—you, fast asleep, hair clumped into a tangled mess spilling over his pillow. Mouth open, soft breaths coming in and out, the faintest sound nestling in his mind. His hand hovers over your cheek as he dusts away a stray eyelash. Moments pass as he just looks.
Quietly, he stands and expands himself into a slow stretch. Breathes out long and heavy. Then, half-naked, walks toward the kitchen. And there—his underwear on the floor. Two cups resting on the table. He puts his cup in the sink and reaches for yours—half-drunk tea, a once-wet, now dried-out ring left behind. He smiles.
author's note: The next update will be on Sunday. Other than trigger warnings, I can only say that this chapter is mostly conversation and 'conversation'. @rennethen beta read 🖤
Cross-posted on AO3
—
You stay. And the longer you do, the more awkwardness seeps in. At first, it’s all tender—Viktor bathes you with hesitant hands, silent until you gasp at his fingers between your legs.
“Sore?” he asks, his expression a mix of worry and fascination.
You nod, and he nods back, placing a kiss on your temple. “It’s okay,” he murmurs constantly as your fingers clutch his arm.
You get dressed in his boxer shorts and sweater. The further the two of you move from what just happened, the more alien everything becomes. His smiles grow more rehearsed. His touch turns hesitant. Your hands fidget as the familiar feeling of being a guest creeps in. You want to say so many things, but none of them will pass the barrier of your mouth.
By the time you both sit on the couch, the distance between you feels vast, every grunt and uncomfortable cough echoing within it. You hug your knees and pull his sweater over them. Viktor winces, knowing this will stretch it into a shapeless rug, and passes you a blanket instead.
You glance around, but the empty shelves glare back at you, so you keep your eyes low. Viktor exhales slowly, rubbing his fingers together as if debating whether to speak at all. When he finally does, his voice is quieter than you expected.
“I don’t really know where to begin.” The sentence sounds pointless to his ears, but he needs it to hear his own voice and confirm it’s still present in his throat. You watch him carefully, searching for any sign of certainty in his expression, but all you find is measured restraint.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For everything,” he says, avoiding your eyes.
Your chest tightens, but you force yourself to keep your voice steady. “That sounds very finite.”
His lips twitch, not quite a smile. “That’s not what I was intending it to sound like.” He shifts slightly, fingers tightening where they rest on his knee. “But if I were to apologize for every single thing, you wouldn’t get out of here for a week. So… I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to run. And for making you uncomfortable… later.”
Your stomach knots. There’s something unsettling about how carefully he chooses his words, how he holds himself so still, as if afraid of what he might do if he lets go. A stark contrast to what was barely an hour ago. God, I love you, falling from him, unfiltered and unguarded already feeling like a stranger.
“Are you apologizing for dating Julia?” you ask, forcing yourself to look at him.
He doesn’t flinch. “No. It felt natural when it happened. So I’m only sorry for being a… dick about it.”
You press your lips together, your fingers curling into the fabric of the blanket. His tone is frustratingly even, revealing nothing beyond what he wants you to hear.
“Is that why you broke up?” you ask, your voice quieter now. “Because it stopped feeling natural?”
His reaction is small but noticeable—a brief clench of his jaw, the subtle shift of his fingers as if suppressing an impulse. He hesitates, his silence stretching long enough that your heart starts beating harder against your ribs.
“Yes,” he finally says, but there’s something else there. His throat bobs, his poise wobbles and you could swear you saw something. Having your eyes drilled into him, he adds, “And… I technically cheated on her.” His voice doesn’t waver. “With you.”
Your breath hitches, but Viktor doesn’t move. He’s watching you now, studying every flicker of emotion that crosses your face.
“And?” you press, barely above a whisper.
For a moment, he does nothing. His fingers twitch, his lips part, and then he exhales through his nose, shaking his head slightly—as if at himself, as if he already knows that you know, but it has to be said anyways. “And… it felt like the right thing to do.”
Your pulse stumbles. “Breaking up with her or cheating?” You wince at yourself, so fucking needy and stupid you have to get everything spelled out for you. But the moment is so cramped, you cannot pack it with a bunch of half-truths, there has to be one, honest-to-God truth or you will burst.
His eyes lock onto yours, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate. “Both,” he says. His voice is quiet, but firm, like a confession that for once he isn’t ashamed of. “Both felt right when they happened.”
You tear up, but will your eyelids to hold the wetness in. Your hand shoots up to rub your face in a weak attempt to disguise how your feelings are threatening to overspill again. Viktor takes notice but continues, his voice measured, deliberate.
“How did it feel for you? To break up with him?” He will not say that name again, he decides.
“Awful. But necessary,” you admit, the words scraping your throat. Then, before you can stop yourself, you add, “You hate him, don’t you?”
Viktor exhales, his fingers pressing briefly into his knee. “Oh, I hate him, yes,” he says without hesitation, his eyes flick to yours, sharp with intent. “But would I be wrong if I said you hate Julia too?”
Your breath stutters. The air inside you compresses into a void. “N-no,” you manage, your voice smaller now. “I suppose not.” And it’s not rational nor fair but hating her allows you to not hate Viktor.
He shifts, just barely, like he’s testing the distance between you. His gaze lingers, dark and unreadable, before he speaks again—softer this time, uncertain. “So… it means we still care about each other then?” Lots of breaths taken between the words and Viktor settles on one, unsteady inhale at the end.
You swallow, hard. If the kissing and the sex and all the crying hasn’t been enough of a testament to your shared sentiment, then this definitely gives it a final weight that tips the scales. You nod, and with the movement, a tear slips out of its prison and rolls down your cheek, to your chin, falls onto your hand.
“Why are you holding back?” Viktor asks, his gaze following the tear to where you try to hide it. Eyes glimmer and his expression falls apart from composure to wonder. He will have to check it a million times before it’s confirmed, but the feeling is undeniable. A sharp pang, there, where his cock grows out from his groin and the cramp low under his stomach and it’s so uncanny that the sensation of being cried for wakes it, he almost scolds himself. But his gaze doesn’t waver, and his fingers grip his knee tighter.
“W-what?” A hiccup distorts your voice, as the fear of being seen creeps back in. Your breath stumbles, hands tightening on the blanket. Your body tenses as Viktor’s relaxes. There’s a shift in his posture, a quiet but undeniable pull in the way he looks at you now. His expression isn’t one of pity, nor discomfort. His breathing slows, his eyes—sharp, fixated—drink in every trace of wetness clinging to your lashes, every twitch of your mouth as you try to keep it from trembling.
“You want to cry, I can see that. Why are you holding back?” His voice is gentle, but his question digs deep with genuine curiosity.
“Oh, I… I don’t know, I just… I’ve cried so much today already,” you murmur, blinking rapidly as if that alone could chase away the evidence. You sniffle, wipe at your cheeks with the sleeve of his sweater and look anywhere but at him. You feel stupid, falling apart again.
“It doesn’t matter. If crying will make you speak, then cry.” He says too fast and winces. Too much. Too revealing. His stomach knots, his chest tightens with something weightless and hot that makes his head feel lighter than it should. He doesn’t move, but he feels it, the way his breath shudders through his ribs, the way warmth pools at the base of his spine.
“Oh, Viktor,” you sigh, voice fragile, burying your face in your hands.
He moves before he can think better of it. A slow drag across the couch, the hesitant pull of his body closing the space between you. He reaches out—not to comfort, not exactly—but to uncover, to claim. His hands slip over yours, peeling them gently away from your face, and before you can protest, he leans in. His forehead brushes yours, then the damp curve of your cheek. His breath is warm, uneven, as he nuzzles into you, his skin meeting the slick, salty trails of your tears. A sigh leaves him, quiet, almost relieved, like something inside him has settled. In a whisper, sounding dangerously close to hopeful, he asks, “Are you crying for me?”
Your lips part, a sharp inhale caught in your throat. “I’m… scared that I will blow this somehow,” you admit, the honest-to-God truth slipping free. “I miss you. Every day I miss you and chase you away and then miss you again.”
He’s so close you can whisper now. So you do and each one of those confessions gets progressively quieter, progressively bigger as these are the truths you wouldn’t say out loud even to yourself. “I am… so lonely without you.”
“Do you want to try again?” Viktor asks between heavy breaths. His face doesn’t leave yours as he bathes in your tears and his cheeks are warm and hands already grab your neck with thumbs pushing into your throat gently. His lips catch against yours and brows knot and he knows that he is begging but he doesn’t care.
“What if it doesn’t work again?” You say, nodding and your eyes squeeze shut at the thought of what it would feel like to be there again. Chests ripped. Hands scratched, stomachs aching.
“We will survive,” Viktor lies through his fucking teeth. “We will be better,” he vows. “I will be better, you will be better. Promise me, we will be better and that we will try harder, because I can’t—” he cuts as he takes a breath.
His lust confuses his sadness. The simple act of being cried for makes him feel so clean. As if he is not replaceable. As if the fact that he is difficult to love won’t stop you from loving him anyway. As if choosing him means your truly are choosing him over something secure, something easy and comfortable and it makes him grow a little taller, a little broader, a little better.
“I will be better,” you say quietly, even as your insides are crying, screaming, kicking for him.
“I missed you,” Viktor sighs, pulling you closer to his chest. Your legs swing over his, and your arms cradle his waist. His palm rests on your thigh, while the other snakes beneath your hair, fingers wrapping around the back of your neck. He breathes in deep, measured breaths, trying to calm himself.
You let your tears dry as you rise and fall with the steady rhythm of his chest. “I’m sorry too,” you finally say, and Viktor squeezes your neck in recognition.
“Hmm, whatever for?” he asks, brazen. His fingers tangle in your hair, tugging gently, coaxing the tension from your forehead in a familiar gesture.
“God, I’ve missed this,” you hum, and Viktor takes the cue, pressing his thumb between your brows and tracing a firm line across your arch to your temple. He repeats the motion on the other side, and slowly, you feel the tightness in your face and throat begin to ease.
“I’m sorry for being such a coward,” you confess, and for the first time in what feels like forever, your voice doesn’t waver. You feel safer. “For disappearing. And I mean before I actually disappeared.”
“And what else?”
You swallow and blink. “What else?” you echo, hesitant. “What else do you want me to say?”
Viktor exhales sharply through his nose. “Anything that you are holding back.” His voice is steady, rawness lingering beneath it as if he is asking for something he is not exactly ready to hear.
You bite your lip, shaking your head. “I thought leaving was the only way to make you see me. To make you care enough to stop shutting me out.”
His fingers tighten slightly at the base of your neck. “So you left to punish me?”
“No,” you whisper, but you don’t sound convinced. “I—I left because I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t let me in, Viktor.” Your breath catches as you force yourself to meet his eyes. “I was always waiting. For you to look at me, to see me. And when you finally did, I—” You huff out a bitter laugh, pressing your forehead against his chest. “I didn’t want to hear it. I was so angry. I wanted you to feel how I felt.”
“And did it—” he asks, low and measured. “Did it make you feel better?”
You squeeze your eyes shut. “No,” you admit. “It didn’t. It just made me feel alone.”
Viktor is quiet for a long moment, fingers tracing absently against the back of your neck. Then, finally, he speaks. “I was selfish.”
Your head snaps up, startled. “What?”
“I was selfish,” he repeats, a mirthless smile tugging at his lips. “Not because I shut you out—I did that out of habit and complacency. But because I still expected you to wait.” His hand slides from your neck, settling against your cheek. “I thought you’d understand. That you’d know without me having to say anything.” His thumb ghosts over your skin. “But that is not how love works, is it?”
Your breath shakes. “No,” you whisper.
He nods, and you feel the need to trade one confession for another. “Sometimes... I was so angry with you that I would make you start a fight,” you offer quietly. His fingers still, a silent question painted on his face. “I would go out of my way to piss you off. Just so you would interact with me. And so it would be your fault that we had a fight in the first place.” You recoil as you hear yourself saying it.
“Was it intentional?” He gives you a window. And he sounds so hopeful that it twists your guts.
“Not really. I realised it once I did it to… Paul,” you mutter, cringing at the admission. Pieces fall into place as you uncover something about yourself, and Viktor is the first person to witness it. “God, that’s just awful, isn’t it?” you sigh, clasping a hand to your face.
“Eh, a little awful, yes,” Viktor chuckles, trying to uncover your face. “But also weirdly insightful of you.”
For a moment, he looks like he wants to say something more. He wants to tell you about the note but bites his tongue—too much in one sitting. He speaks your name softly and sinks down a bit. “I’ve done awful things to forget you as well.”
“Like what? Save for the obvious, like changing the locks,” you shift, grateful for the change in attention.
“Ah, that,” Viktor sucks in a breath and scratches his head. “I… haven’t changed the locks exactly. Just made a new set—” He trails off as your eyes drill into him in disbelief. You shake your head, but a smile tugs at your lips.
“And what else?”
“Well, you already know I sold our bed.” Your heart jumps at our. “What you don’t know is that I might have ended up burning a first edition of Naked Lunch in the whole process of the bed exchange,” he blurts in one breath, bracing himself for a smack. But you only stare, your mouth hanging open as you sit up to kneel next to him.
“Viktor—” you speak more to yourself, disbelief colouring your voice as you search his face for any sign that he’s joking. He’s not.
“I’m so sorry,” he says with a small, embarrassed smile, his brows knitting together in apology, hands reaching for your face.
You seize them and kiss his knuckles, startling him. He doesn’t realise what he’s just admitted yet—a confession worth more than any I love you. “Please, forgive me. I had no idea,” you whisper against his skin.
Viktor laughs, trying to cup your face, but you don’t let him. To do something so desperate, so romantic—to try and rid himself of you in such a way—makes you ache with shame.
You climb onto his lap and kiss his face, over and over, murmuring I’m so sorry between the pecks.
Viktor laughs through it, startled, embarrassed by the sudden surge of affection, yet something blooms in his chest at the familiarity of the gesture. “Are you not angry?” he asks, bewildered.
“No,” you half-chuckle, half-sigh. “I love you so, so much,” you breathe out, and it’s the first time you’ve said it out loud.
Viktor’s face does something utterly strange—like he’s about to cry—but in the end, he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you. Grateful. Deep. Full of breaths and tongue. And it feels like coming home.
And you sit there for a while. Kissing, laughing, fetishizing each other’s flaws until your stomach gives away a loud growl and Viktor chuckles straight into your mouth. “Food, yes?”
“Such thing was promised,” you smile and allow him to take your hand. And he keeps it in his as he abandons his cane on the sofa and leads you into the kitchen, his thumb absently stroking over your knuckles. The warmth of it lingers even when he lets go, moving toward the counter. The space looks the same, mostly—same chipped tiles, same half-broken cupboard door that never quite shuts—but the air feels different. Lived in, but not by you.
You hesitate near the fridge, gaze flicking over the notes tacked haphazardly to its surface. His scrawled handwriting crowds the scraps of paper—grocery lists, half-legible reminders, a date circled twice with no explanation. Your stomach clenches when you skim over them, hunting for something, anything. Another Miláček meant for someone else. A new name creeping in where yours used to be. But there's nothing. No Julia. No stranger. Just Viktor’s usual chaos.
“Tea?” he asks, already filling the kettle.
You nod, slipping onto a stool, watching him move. He retrieves bread, some cheese, and a tomato from the counter, methodical but oddly cautious, as if remembering how to exist in this rhythm with you. It should be simple—slicing, assembling, waiting for water to boil—but something about it feels… off. The gaps of silence stretch too long. His hand hesitates on the knife.
You rub at the edge of the counter, feeling the grain of the wood beneath your fingertips. “You eat like a student,” you remark, a weak attempt at normalcy.
Viktor huffs a small laugh, shaking his head as he plates the food. “I am a student.” He sets a mug in front of you. “Still. Always.”
The steam curls between you. You should reach for his hand again. You don’t. It’s awkward. He passes you the sandwiches and a cup and you both eat in silence.
Once your plate is clean, the weirdness settles deeper in you—there is nothing left to do, at least not for now. The wise thing would be to bid Viktor goodnight and go home. And as if reading the thought, watching it write itself across your forehead in glaring letters, Viktor beats you to it.
“Will you stay?” he asks.
“The night,” he adds, in case you thought he was already pleading for forever. “Will you stay the night?” His voice is steady, like he’s just confirming something he already knows the answer to.
You nod, and he smiles, muttering okay under his breath, again and again. Then Viktor limps toward you, takes your hand, and gently urges you to stand. When you do, he wraps his arm around your shoulders, leaning into you like a secondary cane as you walk together to the bedroom. A tiny flutter of fear stirs in your chest at the thought of what’s in there—what has replaced your beloved, cursed bed. The empty shelves, the hollow spaces in the cabinets where your things used to be—little signs of your absence foreshadowing the dread.
As if he feels it too, Viktor’s hand tightens around your shoulder as you step through the door, stopping you when he sees your eyes wide and wandering.
“Is this alright?” he asks quietly.
You study the bed before answering. The words aren’t fully formed until you take in the dark wooden frame, the still-crisp mattress, the sheer size of it making the room feel significantly smaller. It’s just an object, you tell yourself. It’s probably not worth mourning every single bit of the past, playing a game of sentimentality.
“What do you think?” Viktor prompts, and your bubble bursts. This is all very silly, but his anticipation warms you—his silliness matches yours.
“It’s just a bed. It’s all good, Viktor,” you say.
He exhales, visibly relieved. His chest sags, and his fingers loosen their grip on your shoulder. He presses a kiss to your temple, then walks you gently to the edge. Your calves meet the frame, and you sit before he presses his hands on your shoulders, urging you to lie down.
Then he clumsily crawls on top of you—needy, grateful—his keen fingers tracing your skin, his sharp hip bone digging into your side until you wince. But the awkwardness is gone. It’s almost as if your bodies speak better than your mouths, and your mouths are only useful for kissing apologies and remorse into each other’s throats. The wound keeps sealing and opening, each next rip smaller and smaller, the scar uglier and uglier. But still, a testament to healing.
Viktor mumbles a lot of sweet things to you—half-words, all of them cut off by your mouth invading his. His voice grows harsh, dropping into a breathy whisper as he repeats your name over and over. His lips grow impatient, wandering down your throat. His hands slip beneath the sweater you’re wearing, tracing your stomach, cupping your breasts—so full of wanting that it clouds your mind.
And soon, it’s only Viktor there.
His toes tickling the soles of your feet, his thighs between yours, one pressing there where you are already soaking through his briefs, stomach bellowing into your ribs, breaths catching against each other in stutters, his drool leaking into your mouth with a lewd sound of wetness spreading around the room. And his fingers, hooking beneath your waistband and yanking the underwear down with one hand, other resting firmly around your neck. Keeping you in place, as he disconnects from your mouth with a loud smack and the string of saliva stretching between you finally breaks off, once his head hovers over your stomach to place a kiss there. And then lower, on your hip bone. And then a lick across your navel, as he shimmies himself down to splay his chest flat between your spread thighs, knees bent, his ankles playfully bumping against each other. He flattens his palms on your abdomen and gently kisses your clit.
Your body jolts, you almost kick him in the head, but he catches your shin, bites it and licks it before throwing it back in its place. His tongue parts you lazily and you feel yourself buzzing, the urge to grab a fistful of his hair and guide him overwhelming, but Viktor is faster again. When he notices your fingers creeping toward his face, he grabs them, entwines them with his and pushes your palms into your lower belly, making a soft sound of, “Mm-mm” to scold you.
And to know that this man’s worship of you ever became doubtful in your heart—it’s unthinkable. Having him here, now, completely devoted, quite literally kissing your feet and your cunt, humming in appreciation, makes everything else feel distant. And you wonder—had you only imagined the distance between you? Or is it a fluke that you found your way back to each other with so little sacrifice?
Which, of course, was anything but little. And yet, compared to how monumentally your love swells in your chest right now, it seems like nothing but dust.
It’s strange, sharing something so grand with only one other person—one who also recognises it as grand. Both of you are just specks in the vast web of the universe. And yet, there is nobody else to witness this.
Only you and Viktor know how this feels—to be like this, with each other.
Your own thoughts distract you, when Viktor is torturing you with the slow pace of his flat tongue, his mouth occasionally sucking, his soft lips easing your sore and you feel yourself gradually melting, dripping straight into his throat. He murmurs and chuckles into your core when you give him strangled whimpers and he finally allows your fingers to tug at his hair when he sees you need to hold onto something. And when you can almost touch it, when the cramp in your guts is an inch from release you curse yourself for all the corny thoughts that swept through your mind a moment ago. Because Viktor retreats. And you whine, the sound stretching your neck, close to ripping it in half.
“Fuck, why?” you almost growl, and he dares to smile like a five-year-old.
“Just… trying something out,” Viktor says, resting his chin on your pubic bone, an innocent grin tugging the corner of his lips down. It’s an experiment. Well, of course.
“Now? You’re trying something out now?” Completely exasperated you glare daggers at him. Having your orgasm dangled in front of you only to be snatched away at the last minute is, to say the least, a dick move.
“Shh, lásko, patience,” he tuts, placing a peck on your clit. “Can you trust me?” he coos, throwing you the bedroom eyes to die for. That look from under his lashes—no bad bone in his body—the let me love you plea that leaves you with your mouth hanging open.
So you groan and nod obediently.
“Good girl,” he hums, eager, and your skin prickles at all the pet names. Amongst the hums in your head, you’re thankful he hasn’t dropped the one that was tainted.
And then his mouth is back on you again. Hot breath washing over you as his tongue resumes the work and soon he joins one finger to tease you from the inside. So delicate, to keep you there on the edge of pleasure, he drags it and curls it to explore every crevice. A bunch of pretty whimpers drip from your lips when you try to push your hips lower to meet his hand, but he holds you tight. He whispers sounds of appraise into your flesh: so wet, so good for me, good girl, trust me. And when you finally do and let your hands fist the sheet and your head fall back, eyes squeeze shut as your breath hitches and stomach curls into another cramp, Viktor fucking stops.
“Viktor, I hate you!” An undignified cry escapes you as your body jolts upright, eyes wide in disbelief, tears prickling in the corners.
“Ah, and whatever happened to trust?” He fixes you with a glare.
“This… this is cruel.” You gasp for breath, almost hyperventilating at the audacity of his behaviour. Something crestfallen flickers across Viktor’s face—like he’s disappointed you didn’t trust him blindly.
“No, my heart. This,” he murmurs, crawling back up until his face is level with yours. You feel his cock pressing against your entrance, his breath tickling your cheek.
“This is mercy," he says, voice low. "Because I really want to fuck you again, and I don’t want to hurt your poor pussy further. So you see how important it was for me to prepare you.”
And just like that, shame washes over you. What kindness was that, that you so eagerly discredited.
“I’m sorry,” you mumble, the words spilling out faster than you can think. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, trying to pull him into a kiss of apology. But Viktor tilts his head just enough that your lips land on his chin.
“We’ll see about that now, won’t we?” he murmurs, dipping lower. His whisper fans over the shell of your ear, his breath burning. “Because as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have to make you cum tonight,” he chuckles darkly as the head of his cock slides inside you with ease, and indeed, you are so wet it doesn’t hurt.
“Viktor, I’m sorry, ah—” you gasp, as his cock hits the spot, a tear rolls down from the corner of your eye, and you catch something in Viktor’s expression. As soon as it happens, he presses his sweat-slicked forehead to yours and begins licking into your mouth. His tongue pushes past your lips so greedily you could choke, hips roll into yours, making a lewd sticky sound each time he retreats to push back again, and again.
Viktor’s arms cage around your face, his fingers anchor into your hair as he tilts your head up to look at him, his eyes draw up to yours with a gaze full of intent.
“Will you behave now?” He states more than asks. The world becomes soft at the edges, when he looks at you like that. When he fucks you like that. When his fingers curl around your hair and his thumbs press gently into your temples.
“Yes,” you breathe, voice nearly absent. Your eyebrows knit together more and more with each slow slam of his hips between your legs and the tightening in your stomach comes back, stronger than before. You spread your legs further apart, lifting your pelvis to meet his, your toes curl and muscles tense up around him.
“And will you do as you are told?” he asks, and his voice gives way to something hopeful and needy.
“Yes,” you reply, this time audibly with a full vocal moan and try to snake your hands between the two of you to cradle his neck, cup his face. He keeps the angles fixed, slapping your clit with his pubis in a steady rhythm.
“Good,” Viktor coos, giving you a wet drooling kiss. And then another, before he thinks for a bit. His lips brush yours, when he whispers, “Be my good girl and cum on my cock.”
And if that wouldn’t break you completely, the bite on your neck would and it does. You feel it down to you marrow, surging through, as your cunt clenches around him and Viktor pants and grunts into your skin. You come pressing your nose against his with a loud fuck, knuckles paling on his arms. Tears start pushing themselves through the corners of your eyes again and when you think he will come too and stop, he doesn’t.
He sucks his stomach in and snakes a hand between your sticky navels, fingers finding your clit when he rasps, “Again.” You yelp, startled, your cunt going numb before you feel his touch and you try to jolt away, hypersensitive and swollen. “One more time, for me,” Viktor mutters into your ear, voice dripping heavily from his tongue. You can feel he is close too in every little spasm of his cock, but he holds back. He batters your lips with his, swallows the heedless sounds you make. Like a reward for your struggle, he caresses a hollow of your cheek and whispers quiet praise in between kisses.
And when you regain the feeling in your womb, a new tension builds itself on top of the previous one, ready to snap you in half. You clasp your thighs around him, fingers still digging into his flesh to the point of bruising and when you cum again your vision goes blurry from all the tears welling down your cheeks, and Viktor, oh, he rubs his face against yours, purring, as if you have just given him the most precious of all gifts. The orgasm lasts forever, fucks you out completely, breath rips out of your lungs when you finally find a way to grab his neck and moan everything straight into his wet mouth.
He swallows all of it and seconds later gives it back with his own completion—a couple of ragged hard snaps against you, while he spills himself inside you with a strangled groan falling from his lips. Before you can say or think of anything, he jams his tongue back into your mouth and kisses you deeply, gratefully, moaning and whimpering at the last twitches of your cunt milking him dry.
Then he nuzzles into your neck and takes a deep breath, his belly pressing against yours. In this soul-crushing moment, all words feel like strangers to you, and Viktor grants you another little mercy when he asks, “How are you?”
You swallow before replying. You have no idea. Fucked numb? Sad? Happy? Full? Empty? All those things at once? In the spirit of trust, you say quietly, “I don’t know.”
A warm chuckle reaches you as he pulls out and up to cradle you. You look at his face, convinced the exact opposite of his expression is painted on yours, when he tries to soothe you with a quiet, “It’s alright.”
Gentle hands bring you closer, and he places a kiss on your temple, breathing in deeply. “Just tell me if anything aches.”
“It doesn’t,” you say quickly. And then a stupid question pops into your head, bounces around, and rolls out through your mouth. “Did you plan for this?” This could mean so many things, but Viktor, by some uncanny intuition, knows.
“To sleep with you? Oh no,” he laughs, shaking his head. “My nearly perfect plan to really tell you and then see you out failed miserably.” Viktor murmurs while stroking your hair, and you wrap your arms around him tighter—both happy and sad. Happy that his plan failed, sad that he had one in the first place, and it wasn’t about winning you back.
“But that’s not new,” he sighs, and you raise your eyebrows in question. “We haven’t done the best job keeping away from each other.”
“Viktor,” you start, disbelieving the sound of your voice. “I am terrible at keeping away from you. I think if I have to do this again, I’ll die of cancer. I won’t survive if we do this again, I swear,” you mumble, wincing at how pathetic your first words sound. But you maintain, reinforcing your confession with a nuzzle into his touch. At least it’s not awkward anymore.
Viktor’s fingers trace absent-minded shapes on your shoulder. His voice is soft when he finally says, “Some things will need to change.”
You shift slightly, tucking your face closer to his neck. His warmth is comforting, but the words sting a bit. “What do you mean?”
His hand stills. “We cannot fall back into the same rut. We have to—” He exhales, shaking his head like he’s unwilling to phrase it too neatly. “Do better.”
You swallow around the lump in your throat. It’s the answer you expected, but still, something in you balks at the finality of it. The If not, then nothing feels heavy. “Do you want to forgive me?” you ask, your voice quieter than intended.
Viktor hums, considering. “I already have.”
Relief floods you—but before you can lean into it fully, he adds, “That does not mean I trust you.”
Your breath catches, and you lift your head to look at him. His expression is unreadable, and you search his eyes for something that might tell you how deep the wound still runs.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, gaze steady.
You open your mouth, then hesitate. You do. But not fully. Not in the way you used to. Not in the way that feels effortless. The hesitation speaks louder than words.
Viktor smiles, not unkindly. “Exactly.”
A prickle of shame rises in your throat. But he doesn’t pull away. His hand finds your back, rubbing slow circles as if he knows you need reassurance.
“It’s good,” he murmurs, as if it’s a promise rather than a question. “We’ll take it bit by bit.”
You nod, pressing your forehead to his. It’s terrifying, starting over like this—unsure, tentative—but then again, when have either of you ever done things the easy way?
So you take a breath. “Alright,” you whisper. Things have already changed, and Viktor is already someone else compared to a mere week ago. So far, so good. Your mind swells with thoughts of the last four hours, and you catch yourself staring at him, searching his face for answers to questions you haven’t yet put into words.
He opens one eye and cocks a brow. “You’re still trying to figure me out,” he murmurs, more amused than accusatory.
“Yeah,” you admit.
He huffs a quiet laugh and closes his eyes again. “Good.”
You guys will see any disabled man and decide that he's a sub.
Lmao?? Hello?
I usually don't entertain this shit but I will not be accused of being ableist and stay quiet.
I have written men that could bench press me as subs. His disability has nothing to do with the dynamics I enjoy. And I enjoy *both*. I've written both.
And also out of a sea of sub!vik fics you literally found mine where he's not even half as submissive as in the fics I've read💀 I also dislike when he gets overly babied, so I understand that but I feel like my writing was very clearly not like that?
I'm not disabled so I actually would listen to those who are, but absolutely not when it's something this absurd?
And Im actually v disappointed that without fail, in all of today's fandoms, someone, somewhere is always upset about smth.
Anyways, his knee could be better than mine, and he could have lungs of steel, and I'd still write him whining half the time. Leave me alone, pls & ty
(apologies in advance for the oversharing, it's necessary to make my point)
this also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of kink and power dynamics in BDSM (on anon's part, just to be clear)
a person who actually knows how BDSM and kinks in general work understands that submissions is not weakness, or a literal surrender of control. subs are a 100% in control of the scenarios they participate in thanks to this handy little thing called consent ✨
a lot of the times kinks are a coping mechanism and/or stress relief. a person who has to make decisions and take charge all the time in their everday life might want to let go sometimes and pretend as if they have no choice but to be pleasured and dominated.
a friend of mine who's active in the local BDSM community told me that the way they experienced it is that doms can be so painfully shy and socially awkward that the subs have to basically pounce on them and spell it out for them that "yes, I am pursuing you, please tie me up and spank me!".
that's the simplified picture, but the point is that yes, while there's usually a correlation between a person's everyday life or trauma and their kink, it is not a universal correlation.
a disabled person could very well be a sub, a dom, or a switch, and all of those can make perfect sense in relation to their disabled experiences, or have nothing to do with it at all.
it actually makes plenty of sense that Viktor, disabled sass master extraordinaire would be dominant in bed. he's a Zaunite too, so his disability most likely meant he was an easy target for those who meant to exploit or harm him (that is until he learned how to whoop ass with his cane, or at least that's my headcanon, lol) AND topsiders are condescending dxcks about both his origins and his disability.
so it would come as no surprise that a man like that would become frustrated with being treated as inferior (also a sense of loss of control over his own body) and would like to take that out on a willing participant (Jayce, according to me).
I myself am disabled (medium support needs neurodivergent specifically), and I am without a doubt a sub.
a kitten in the relationship dynamic, because I love being treated precious and lovely without also being infantilized (a core aspect of ableism is that people believe a need for support/dependence also means that you don't deserve autonomy), and a sub with a bit of a preference for pain, but mostly tenderness (because sensory issues) in the bedroom.
I want to give up control, because unless I pretend I'm a 100% sure about everything in life, I forfeit my right to autonomy in a lot of people's eyes. and I like the idea that someone takes control over me, only to give me exactly what I need in the first place.
both of these come from very similar places, especially when it comes to a sense of inferiority and the loss of control over one's body (autistic inertia is a bxtch).
a lot of people definitely do have a tendency to infantilize Viktor, but don't perpetuate the harmful (patriarchal) idea that dominance is strength and submission is weakness.
Viktor can be the softest of subs, because maybe he wants someone who he can trust with his body, who he can trust will only give him pleasure and the tenderness or roughness he craves. maybe he wants to be pinned to a wall, or held down and pounded into the mattress, choose his own pain for once.
he can be a dom, because maybe he wants to alleviate the sense of helplessness that comes with disabilities (especially in an ableist environment). maybe he wants to rule over a Piltie for once, wants to let go and humiliate and berate the fxck out of someone after a day of pretending he's just fine with being pitied and looked down upon. maybe he wants someone who will worship him and give into his every whim and demand.
I generally prefer a more submissive/pillow princess Viktor because of obvious reasons, but all above mentioned scenarios are completely plausible. I'd even portray him as such, if I knew how to write.
also, like OP mentioned there can be a million other reasons to write a character as a sub than thinking they're a passive uwu baby just because they're disabled, and it can do everything OR nothing with the author's own sexual preferences.
have some imagination, people, it's really disheartening to see so many of you seeing malice and potential bigotry everywhere.
overcompensating to the point where you reduce every minority character to what they represent politically is just as dehumanizing and harmful as when bigots do the same. we're still people, and we can be toxic, we can have harmful coping mechanisms, struggle with internalized bigotry, and I think Viktor's character is no exception.
For every character that i liked , i explored both sub and dom themes in fics equally. One of the reasons is because of my own preferences (being a switch, but dom leaning ) and the other is because i just like making headcanons and having fun with character exploration in general.
I have full understanding of people being upset about making viktor an "uwu baby" just because he is disabled. However you can't know why an author wrote him as such.
I would not get upset if someone asked me for the "why" even though my fic still had him being bratty and in control while simultaneously showing trust to be 'taken care of' sexually. For JayVik specifically, Vik will almost always appeal to me as a dom based on my views of their dynamic. (however i am not jayce and i CAN dom that sassy jesus where Jayce can not😌/lh)
I had similar accusations when i made a character that is headcanoned as latino enjoy being a sub/being degraded.
Ableist or racist things never ever crossed my mind. Im not blaming people for being 'on guard' in fandoms when it comes to their representations but it does still upset me a little when im being blatantly accused of things that aren't in my heart. I do tend to get defensive and might even appear as dismissive when I'm being attacked for such things because of the simple fact that fandom spaces have become so toxic to the point where idk if someone is being genuine with their accusations or they r just a person hiding behind anon that might not even be a part of the group that they r accusing people of being unfair to.
Ontop of it all, i have a plethora of friends that are disabled, different races, sexualities etc , whose opinions i hold to a higher importance than those coming from anonymous asks.
And all of them told me that they just want people to treat their representations as they would any other character. Which I personally know I do. Disabled people have sex, all races have sex, and all sexualities can have all of the dynamics that your "regular", abled bodied, white cis het characters can have.
All in all, for a statement, i did not write Vik as a sub because i think he cant dom, nor did i write him as a sub bc i pity him and have a savior complex and the need to infantilize him. I wrote him as a sub because I like domming attractive characters in fics 💀
On the contrary, If I held back from writing what i enjoy with all of the other characters, that would be an actual sign that i view him differently.
in circles (running down) / viktor x gn!reader, character study, yearning, angst, seriously too much angst, hurt/comfort, implied past relationship, season 2 spoilers, s2 act 2 viktor, astral intimacy, (you follow the rumors of a healer to the commune, and viktor allows you to teach him what it means to be human.) word count: 15.7k
read on ao3
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Metamorphosis begins with kaleidoscopes of colors, an ache between your ribs, and your hands tightly gripped around Viktor's wrists.
You have him pressed underneath you, pinned in place, like a butterfly's specimen; unearthly gaze pliant, gazing up at you as though you're something worth observing. A sea of stars. Infinite possibilities. Or perhaps he can see the intricate pattern of every notion you've tried to keep hidden.
There is a distant, fragile outcome somewhere, blissfully free of the strife he's been attempting to cure, where the both of you are guided only by the present. Where stumbling inside the elysium he's made for himself means falling into familiar, waiting arms. It means whispered confessions of, Viktor, I missed you. It sets itself into motion with your arms around his neck, while your mouth remembers the shape of his. Blurring moments upon days upon years into a worshipful, mortal culmination.
Somewhere. It isn't this reality.
Your temple forms a near painful knot, your breathing is weighty in your tired lungs, but your old partner's expression remains blissfully passive; Schrodinger's, some kind of paradox. Not dead, not alive. It should be easy to keep him pinned underneath you, despite the newfound weight to his form. Your arms shouldn't be shaking. Viktor eyes you calmly, as patient as he is unreadable.
His hands twitch slightly — you're binding his wings — less akin to a human's natural irregularity. Instead, more like a complex system, thumbing through and testing its limits. Still, he doesn't attempt to break away from you. He has no need to.
"I am certain you have recognized," Viktor begins, his voice familiar, despite the odd steadiness it carries, like the calmness of a frozen, still lake. Despite the distant rumble of monotonous vibrations that manifest between his words, "I need not delve into your mind, in order to unravel it."
Understanding one another comes naturally, when you've long since held his shape in your soul.
Your grip tightens on his wrists. The soft satin of his makeshift clothing brushes your skin when your knee prods into his stomach.
You've seen what Viktor is capable of. The rumors were everywhere, from the moment you fled into the Undercity. Deciphering thoughts with a mere touch, examining the minds of those he pries into. Sensing emotions and evolving them, eclipsing them. Healing ailments that shouldn't be fixable; accomplishing the future you once dreamed of, one way or another. No matter the consequence, whatever it takes.
He isn't the man you remember. This new boundary of existence is something near-eternal. Something more star-bound, boundlessly fate-defying.
The utopia he's prospered runs cold, when the vessels within it lack heat. Cool air, clean and sharp, nips at your skin, carried on its own phantom breeze. Viktor's chambers are quiet, more ghostly than peaceful. He's lined the floor of his cocoon with flowers. Brilliant blooms of purple hydrangea and blue wolfsbane, petals rustling, whispering prayers to the deep night sky.
Flowers, in the Undercity. Gods.
Viktor's hair fans out around him, messy and unkempt. Longer than you remember, chestnut strands tapering off into hues of vanilla. His gaze swirls, in shades of sunset and petroleum, polychrome like the rainbow of oil on water. His eyes remind you of a summer storm. Clouds covering the sun, before it begins to shine again.
You shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have let his doe-eyed acolytes lead you in. But when one of them murmured in a voice you'd almost forgotten, a voice you were sure you'd never hear again — when Viktor spoke through them, to sweetly promise he'd been expecting you, how were you ever meant to escape?
You could fill an ocean with your doubts and shouldn'ts — it was foolish. Stupidly, terribly irrational, to follow the rumors that Viktor was still alive. Looking at him now fills your veins with nothing and everything. A cataclysm of sensations, compounding all at once.
Grief echoes in the hollow chamber of your chest. Viktor can't be real, he was supposed to stay dead. Your hands shake, fingertips digging firmly into the hard edges of his synthetic wrists.
Viktor, on the opposite spectrum of emotion, barely falters.
"It must be all-consuming. Irrefutable. An… anomaly, burning within you. What epitomizes the worst burden to bear?" He murmurs, resolute. Gaze examining you, submerged in tender oblivion. "Resentment? Regret? Misery?"
Are those words an attempt to unequivocally define love, or an admission, an echo of what he is sure you are experiencing, because he once felt it in turn?
You resent the reverberation of his voice as it throbs through your mind. You've come to regret every wasted moment, each swallowed confession. Finding him again feels like a curse — and he knows. There's a gaping, empty maw in the pit of your stomach, and you can't keep it from destroying you. You've sacrificed yourself on his altar, without realization. Twin flames are destined to find one another. They were born from the same wildfire.
"It doesn't matter, not to you," You're gritting out. They're the first words you've spoken in ages, and they're all-too sharp when they spit from the edges of your teeth. "You don't feel anything."
Viktor's chest heaves gently, faint breaths that contrast the mechanical thrum of his shell.
"Your accusations are turning bold," He hums, not denying, not quite acknowledging. His voice isn't what you remember, but it's close enough, accented. Warm, when directed towards you. Enough to kill. "There is a persistent numbness, that emanates from a lack of humanity. But it is not infallible."
Your brows pinch. "So that's- that's it? I was some kind of afterthought, I meant so little and you were so numb you couldn't think to tell me you were still-"
"No," Viktor interrupts. Tone gentle, dream-like. Eyes softening, as his words become perfectly and paradoxically earnest. "You were the reason I felt alive."
He watches you, observes the conflict in your shifting expression. Flexes his fingers, clenches his hands. Idly thinking. The mere sight of you is an anchor within him. Returned pieces, notches clicking into place. Radiancy, bursting with light within him like a sacred heart — a final brush of his fingertips, to the fading edges of mortality.
Figments of sensations, the qualities he'd assumed were lost on him, are made to surge through him with the strength of a dull current; this is your doing. He can sense the faint warmth of your hands, nearly chokes on your name in his throat when he swallows. There's pain in your expression, a desire to falter, and it feels — reminds him of a gaping hole to the chest.
Viktor opens his mouth to speak, and your free hand opts to harshly wrap around his neck.
"The hurt, you are experiencing- when it is able to be sensed, examined," Viktor takes a harsh breath, as you tilt his chin up with a firm, bruising grip. "It begins to resound." His jaw grinds. Strands of his soft hair tickle your knuckles. His pretty, familiar mole follows his mouth when his lips briefly press into a hard line. "It is innate. Engrained memories, amidst fleeting desires for connection. Knowing how deeply you are broken vexes me."
He waits for your eyes to meet his own. Your gaze is practically piercing.
"And nothing is stronger than this ache."
The ache he can sense, because you are caught in it. Shared, entwined pain; two complements, sewn together.
Viktor believes part of you exists within him. It's inescapable: one's ties to another.
Simplicity was a circumstance he took for granted. Days in the Undercity, before it became this. Evenings spent researching or collaborating or re-learning how to breathe, when your dreams hovered just out of reach. Now, you're masquerading as a God and an apostate.
His mind hasn't quieted, since he felt your presence in his sanctuary. How could so much hurt stem from a once endless abundance of fondness? Tossing aside all past restraints seemed to be the most sensible option, the arcane's chosen option, but you are such an oddity.
Your very existence defies and redefines reason. You are… unforgettable. A sweet, exceedingly tempting obstacle. An inevitable destiny, worthy of any sacrifice. Irregardless of if the threads of fate decide they should will it. You were the missing piece to this theorem. And yet, my ignorance aspired to push you away.
I have you, now. I can reach you, I could begin to quiet the pestilence within you.
So why do you refuse?
Viktor's jaw clenches ever-so slightly. His gaze flashes with a hint of resolve, or tenderness, or something in between.
"I understand you have… missed me," He murmurs, his tone fraying around the words when he reaches their sore spot. To have each other as something to miss is so very human, so very quaint. "There is so much tension, hidden behind your eyes. Volatile. Yet still so… gentle. I remember the times when I would call out to you, simply to watch the way they softened."
They're softening now; your gaze can't help but melt, every single time you look at him. Despite the pain, despite the anger. The memory digs at you, it pries into your chest with sharp, thorned roots. Irreplaceable murmurs of your name in his voice. With his accent, with life in his tone, before the world sought to take it from him. With the cadence he clings to each time he goes through the syllables, your syllables, that screams, you are something I covet.
For a brief moment, you swear Viktor shifts from his ever-endless calm expression, chapped lips tilting to form the slightest, melancholy ghost of a smile.
"I fear I have long since owed you many apologies, little spark. There isn't much to offer, in the way of consolation. But, I-" Viktor's gaze weakens, flickers over you with dying sparks like a candle-lit flame; his hands clench, his sharp breathing echoes.
"I would have never forgotten you. You were irreplaceable. As was the life we once shared together. For every moment spent in my solitude, I lost myself, in the certainty that we might meet again."
Your throat tightens. An ache forms in your chest, threatening to spill over, like an overflowing chalice.
There's a distinct weight to his wrists, as you continue to hold them in place. A heavy, but still hollow chassis, his hands are criss-crossed with various mechanical patterns. The Hexcore's corruption is beginning to envelop more of him. It isn't like carving runes into delicate skin. That, at least, was a choice. A desperate, self-destructive, self-saving choice.
Bright, purple veins surge across what remains of his skin. They knot into his forehead, they curve underneath his tired eyes. Energy thrums from inside his hands, reminiscent of sparks rippling through electrical wire. The glow is faint, perhaps weakened. Ornaments trail down his neck, beneath his robes. Outlines of steel and amber carved into his figure.
Unconsciously, you long to reach out and touch. To trace your fingers along his intricacies: golden, godlike. To decide if his skin, if the smallest shred of what remains of him, is still as soft and lovely as you remember.
Your palm slips from his neck first.
It trails across his chest, in between the silhouette of collarbones. He isn't cold, nor warm. Empty, more like. Pulses of distant magic meet your fingertips, like pressing your hand to a static-filled television screen. He weakens underneath your touch, body going limp as a silent acknowledgment. There is no heartbeat. But you can feel the repeated ricochet of his breathing, however fake, however practiced.
Viktor's body feels powerful, reflecting the extent of his talents. It is a strong, complex, restrained prison. It must be freeing, in some ways; to breathe without the choke of rot in your lungs. To run, with the wind at your back as the ground meets your feet. You should be happy. Grateful. Viktor is alive — but he isn't able to be saved.
The objective you arrived with is already starting to crumble. Oh, you knew this wouldn't be a quick affair.
You didn't follow him for information, or for evidence. You weren't led by the wishes of the council's remains, or by the ambitions of your once-shared lab partner — or by anything else, besides your own heart. Nothing else matters. Just your own wavering strength, and the echoes in your mind to do something. Just each shaky step you took, traveling further into Zaun despite the smog that filled your chest. Just the plea in your mind, and the rumors at your feet that Viktor hadn't fully left.
Finally, when you stumbled into the commune with tired legs and weary lungs, you could breathe. And you couldn't decide if it was because of the plants, the trees, the fresh air, or if it's because of him.
You failed. You weren't meant to stay, weren't meant to trust him. But the moment your eyes locked with his, it was over. (Viktor smiled, you swore you saw amber, and he beckoned you close, without hesitation.)
It's crushing, to feel so much. You're suffocating in the wake of your own pounding heartbeat. Throbbing in your chest, echoing in your eardrums. Pulsing in your throat.
There's no use reconciling with your partner's shadow. And yet, in spite of it all, your partner, your reflection, rests underneath you. Gazing up at you with eyes that whirl in endless, lifeless shades. The silence stretches, and he doesn't fight the enveloping sting.
Yes, he was right, you are burning. As bright as the sun, with a fierce fire in your chest; caught between your ribs, as the flames attempt to escape through the gaps. It's reminiscent of the sticky-warm suffocation of bleeding out. Blood made to pour onto his chest and his clothes and his hands, as Viktor would press his palms to your side to stop your wound from spilling.
Love is a promise to pursue. To covet a name underneath your tongue. To swear to be doomed from the start. Like tying a string around two fingers — the path was set, you only needed to follow.
Your shoulders become tense, before they start to shake. The grip you've been holding on his wrists loosens. Viktor allows his hands to flex, now freed, but you're stumbling, collapsing in on yourself.
Uselessly, clumsily, you hide your face in your hands. It hardly helps. Your chest stings, your cheeks are wet. Your tears fall onto him like rain, droplets gently hitting his cheek.
"Oh," Viktor's lips quiver, as he tries to find words, but there's only one solution: "Come here."
And as though every reality led to this moment, as though embracing you is less of a conscious choice, and simply what he was made for, Viktor reaches for you, without hesitation.
The simple movement of his palm warps reality around it. His hand hums, buzzes mechanically, thrums with an otherworldly glow. His fingers are shaky; they haven't trembled this much in ages.
Careful fingertips brush up your arm. Your shoulders slump, and he grabs onto your wrist with little force. He feels your pulse. Each dull thud reverberates in his own chest, twisting up his spine as a surge of fire. His eyes can't help but flutter closed.
That's when natural intuition takes over, a pulse resounds throughout the entirety of Viktor's system, and all at once, he is touching your soul.
Your pent up emotions are an aurora in his mind. A vast array, everything complex, knit together so tightly, he doubts it's unwindable. He attempts to search through each individual spark, between every luminous flicker of starlight. Your very essence is rich with a sense of longing; it tastes like sugar on his tongue.
Slowly, carefully, you unfurl, as if your petals were exposed to the sun. Your heart hears him, you recognize it is Viktor's touch. Soul to soul, hands threading over you, within you. And like running into a waiting embrace, you vividly let the layers of your mind open.
There are beautiful rays of loving light, warmth that feels like the sun on his face, and subsequently feels like you. Affection burns into him with the heat of fierce, dripping candle wax. Then, there's fragile echoes that pierce through him, like pulling your lover in by the wrists, while they plunge a knife into your heart.
And there are deep, dark depths of drowning water. An endless, barren abyss to be swallowed into; you sit at the very bottom, curled in on yourself, untouchable. He reaches out to you, extends a palm for you to take, but you won't come. From here, you won't even look at him.
When he dives further, he sees himself.
Feels himself, sensing and tasting and experiencing his own image through your perception. He is the warmth underneath your skin, you are the celestial glow in his ribcage. It's a rebound, a ripple, a pulse of sonar. Touches and affections that he can feel on his skin, within his own body, and then through you, with your palms.
A touch to the small of one's back, or to a tensed shoulder, to a protruding spine. A palm between the butterfly-wing shape of his rigid shoulder blades, soft caresses to calloused knuckles and fresh wounds. His hands to the weakest parts of you, and your fingertips, tracing the still-human parts of him, before they were lost to his reunion with fatality.
Hands finding one another, fingers brushing, fingers interlacing — and Viktor remembers how it felt to wish your hand could be in his forever. He memorizes the shape of your heartbeat, as if it were his own.
Drowned in vivid color, painting-like and hazy, he reaches stretches of your imagination. It's easy to become lost in your dreams, within the places you wanted those touches to lead. Where you wanted him to touch. Your reveries are so bright they're blinding.
In your dreamscape, caresses travel. Your hands become bolder than they should, when they're massaging and soothing the ache in his shoulders. The press of skin to skin is a gentle connection, between soft, hesitant, dangerous pleas for more. There are confessions in a thousand different ways, countless almosts and bitten tongues.
Every instance is simple. Blissfully mundane. You replay and reimagine a sudden profession, while your head is resting on his shoulder, and it feels good instead of terrifying to let everything change. And when your hand finds his own, his thin fingers lace with yours naturally. And the academy is quiet, but your voice as you mumble his name is infinitely quieter.
You imagine mutual desperations to pull each other closer.
(Gentle brushes led by quickened breaths, exploring pallid skin, skimming the details you've mapped out in your mind. There's faint freckles on his arms, when he rolls up his sleeves. He has a mole on the back of his neck, only noticeable when his collar gets loose. A palm traces his spine, and you're picturing pressing your mouth to the scattered trail of moles on his back. Your breath is hot enough to burn, to leave behind marks of your own.)
Oh, and you wanted him so close. Closer than he knew. Closer than you could ever be, not now, not anymore.
Viktor sees his own image more clearly than ever; vibrant, when filtered through your eyes. Every moment shared between you plays on repeat. Looping, convening together.
Everything he achieved — the complexities of his discoveries and innovations amazed you, but they begin to blur in your vision, when you can't help but be drawn to the thrilled, pretty look on his face. All of his details — down to the most minute. The routine fidgeting of his fingers when he's lost in thought. The specific swirl he adds to a select few letters when he writes.
Your heart cradles each of his subtleties. Gods, how you adore him. You have all of him memorized.
Heavy and encapsulating, the warmth left by you is so much worse, when he is pressed in between all of your pieces. He remembers himself in a much kinder way. In the way you remembered him: intelligent, remarkable, enthralling. Edges blur together and clutter the horizon where he ends and you begin. He's lost in soft greetings, and gentle farewells, reverberating in his own voice. I missed you, I was thinking of you, I'll see you.
He walks through cathedrals of everything you admired. Your shared dreams, and his budding ambitions. Promises to make his home a better place. Hallways of framed stolen glances. Quiet utterances of the smallest assurances, and swears to achieve great things together. Embraces that molded you into one another's muse. (Something fulfilled, and something lost.)
And deeply, strongly, he aches. His chest burns, explodes with light. To you, he represents a spark, the sun, the moon, the stars. He radiates in echoes of everything at once. And he is —
Alive, he is irrefutably, relentlessly alive.
Your fondness forms around him as palpable rays of radiance; glimmers surround his stratosphere, small suns and brilliant meteor showers. You are a thousand beautiful colors, smashing and blending together. You are as exceptional as he always knew you to be, you are the definition of devotion. As if your hand is at his arm, guiding him to touch the edges of the sky and the sea. Together, you are one in the same.
It transcends corporality. Viktor reaches into the spiral of your mind. He finds you, he drags you from the depths you've tried to hide yourself in, and he pulls you into the cosmos. He embraces you. Palms pressed to your back, arms around you, as the phantom edges of his figure merge into yours, like paint blending together on a palette.
Viktor clings onto your starlit particles at his fingertips, he savors every flickering memory and vivid emotion. You're unraveled in his palms completely, deciphered down to your faintest atoms. Your limbs entwine with his; without strife, utterly weightless.
Time fades, combines itself into a single thread — until, for a brief moment, it's impossible to tell if minutes have passed, or hours, or centuries.
Until he feels your touch, and realizes it isn't within the confines of your shared mind. It's real.
All at once, he returns to reality.
Viktor's eyes flutter open abruptly. His own soul careens back into him with the force of a freight train. His breath comes in hard pants that half-fill his makeshift lungs, and shake the entirety of his chest. The back of his throat is rough and raw. He blinks, to refocus his misty vision.
Oh. He's cupping your face in his hand.
Your palm has decided to press itself to the back of his knuckles, determined to keep him there. Absently, your fingertips brush the sharp angles of his metallic joints, his gold accents. The flowers surrounding his chambers rustle. Their soft petals tickle his cheek.
Dull energy thrums from his touch — sparks of the arcane, briefly buzzing on your skin like static. Touching the scars within your deepest layers. Your presence has pulled him back onto your plane. His magic tapers off, slowly and steadily.
Now it's just him, just his hand at your cheek. Blissfully simple.
Your tears have stopped. Your breathing shakes. With merciful, trembling touches, Viktor caresses your face, as though it's the first time. His thumb gently brushes away a stray droplet.
The intricate texture of his hand is irregular, almost metallic. Far from what you remember, far from the familiar softness of skin. It isn't anything you could consider human — and yet, you still lean into him, your cheek practically nuzzling into the hard edges of his palm. Brazen and affectionate, desperate and cat-like.
Viktor's jaw clenches. His harsh gasps echo throughout the vastness of his hollow chambers.
No, this isn't- it's not possible, he thinks, in his own stupidly weak voice, barely able to form the words. It can't be. The arcane would not allow it.
He feels like his head might pound out of his own skull. The warmth of your cheek is the only thing he can focus on, radiating against his palm like your skin is made from stardust.
All at once, he has been carved down to his most basic components, until what remains is pure, raw emotion. His emotion, not the residuals of yours.
He is himself, no longer on the outside looking in. Not the shell of what remained after the fire, the hunger, the waves of corruption. A soul returning to the body feels nothing like how he'd imagined — it's sudden, unexpected. It's a swell of fire, like kindling familiar flames in the depths of your chest.
And his complex theories should prove that this shouldn't be happening. This body feels in tessellations, with precise, predetermined, machine-like processes. Everything within him must work in harmony. The arcane possesses, as much as it aspires to synchronize.
His own quickened breathing resounds in his eardrums mockingly. He's grown used to what became of his body and the Hexcore, and the fusion between them: the thrumming in his veins, sparking impulse, potential.
Yet, within him now, there's nothing but silence. Endless, persistent silence.
It scares him.
Countless cycles of inner contemplations led him to this. His thoughts and functions are supposed to click into place, to be understandable. Distance is meant to be placed between the inner self and the surface. Separating the body from the mind is how he was able to foster this community in the first place, how he's managed to help so many — his own sense of self needed to be secondary. His own desires, his emotions. Like a covetous God, the greater good demands sacrifice.
But there was an outlier. A contingency. A chance, a small stir amongst his faded, longing ashes, that promised it could metamorphose him. Viktor considered every possible option. In every prediction, within the web of this reality, it doesn't work.
His reunion with you was inevitable, but in his predictions, when you arrive to see what the arcane has made of him, everything begins crumbling down. The soft embrace he'd share with you is limited only to his imagination. Your fingertips press to numb metal, and Viktor can't feel your touch when it finds him.
He foresaw your arrival. It wasn't part of his plan; it meant little to the overarching design, to his hopes for the Undercity. It was — you were — a fated tie. He'd hoped for this. Lost himself, in the inevitably of finding you, just to have you torn from him once more.
Every intricacy in the array before him gave the same response. He knew this was written to be a tragedy, but Gods, none of it would matter once he saw your face, one last time.
But this? This, he could not predict.
The intense radiance in his veins, the fire in his ribs, the warmth of you underneath his own palm; you've flipped everything on its head. Somehow, someway, you've proved him wrong. You have proven fate wrong. You are the cause of his newfound light, and you are the lighter to his innermost match.
You've made him return to humanity.
Viktor pulls his palm away from your cheek. His chest heaves. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, and runs his purple-hued fingers through his hair, over his forehead, somewhat surprised by the lack of sweat.
Then, he examines his hand. Turns it over, flexes his shaky fingers. Vividly ascertains that yes, these are his own eyes that he's looking through. He attempts to steady his breathing, he tries to send power thrumming through his system. Nothing answers. Magic fails to reach his palm, aside from a few faint buzzes, like the sparks that would linger after cutting a power line.
"Impossible," Viktor grits out, half in wonderment, half in panicked disbelief. His own hand continues to shake in front of him. He can't think, now that he has you, and he has no idea what to do with his own soul; "How could this- how could you-"
With a dull, echoing sob, you're tipping into him.
Viktor feels your arms clumsily wrap around his shoulders. Your weight rests comfortably against his fake body. He sees in hues of amber and gold, basking in the honey-rich glow of the sun as it fills his iris, before the sky darkens, and the colors around him go wild once more.
You embrace him. So, so tight. As though he might disappear, slipping through the gaps in your arms and the cracks between your fingertips, if you ever were to let go.
A hand grabs a fistful of his rumpled clothing, a palm staggers down and finds where it's loose, to let your fingers feel the back of his neck. They trace down, unsteady. You brush your fingertips over the first bolt embedded into his makeshift spine. Grazing it repeatedly, feeling the defined notch. Caressing the smooth, metal surface underneath your thumb.
It's an anxious, idle motion. Viktor listens to the shake in your breathing. He remains still, half-limp in your weak arms.
This is unnatural — the press of soft human limbs, to an ever-present mechanical body. Yet, Viktor can feel all of you. Every gentle fan of your breath on his neck. He senses your fingertips when they move, and with another sad little sob that has his heart splintering, your hands are getting lost in his long hair. Grasping, trembling. Viktor feels electricity race from his scalp, down to his back.
A thousand connecting sensations come to life within him: constellations of memories, once-dormant hopes that bud like wildflowers. And he realizes, fiercely, abruptly, within what has become of him, he still remembers the shape of your name in his chest.
Holding you is an action he wasn't meant for, it embodies everything he isn't. But Viktor expels a soft sigh. He allows himself to pretend. His arm slowly wraps around you, and his palm gently finds your back, when your head buries itself into the perfect crook of his neck.
This body has been re-made, sculpted in the image of the arcane, and yet it cannot rid itself of the most basic human subtleties. The curve between his neck and his shoulder was made for you to rest there. He caresses your back with smooth, slow motions, and your frames fit together like two pieces of the same inseparable, destiny-drawn puzzle.
Faint thrums of power emanate from the entirety of his shape. Weak, constant. An enveloping throb, to substitute a quickly beating heart. You sniffle against his nape, and Viktor holds you just a little bit tighter.
Deep down, with the desperation of a man too entwined in the eternal threads of fate, he wishes he'd have the strength to bring about change. Not for this, not for him. For you.
If the auroras he's touched and the light he encompasses could press into you, he would eclipse your darkness in radiance. If his hands could be capable of more than healing — of adoring, of remembering, he would let his palms memorize the statue of your frame, so he might carve it into himself. He'd take your strife and make it his.
When you finally pull back from him, it's only slight; you stifle another weak noise, and your forehead falls against his own. The moment your head meets his, he collapses into your soul. He feels your pain ricochet through him, sharp and unpredictable.
Anguish shakes your entire system like stormy waves. Guilt and devotion and lovely past lifetimes paint the surface of his skin, the center of his chest bleeds itself raw — and then, he's gone. Pushed out of your mind, unable to fight as the hold of his weakened magic slips.
Swallowing thickly, eyes fluttering open again, Viktor wills his breath to stop faltering. It was so brief, his second brush with your emotions. But the ache you've been struck by is utterly palpable. It stings the corners of his eyes, sinks sharp teeth into his insides.
He places his palm on your cheek, and he carefully guides the both of you apart, so he can finally look at you.
"All of this pain. This emotion," Viktor murmurs; his voice shudders, resounding like the distant rumble of thunder. His gaze on yours floods with soft colors, reminds you of the surrounding sea of pastel florals. His index tilts your chin, to keep you looking at him. "My poor, resplendent beloved."
You've essentially fallen into his lap; Viktor shifts, props himself up further. Gods, is he captivating. Stupidly, terribly captivating. The gnawing ache within you pleads for you to turn away, to run, but the pained pinch to his thick brows is more familiar than ever. So is the way he looks at you. Reminiscent of the one you once loved, despite the swirling shades that shine beneath.
As you admire him through misty vision, you can almost trick yourself into believing nothing has changed. Almost. The distance in between you and Viktor begs to be closed, it mumbles promises in your ears like the way the edge whispers before a long fall. It won't hurt, as long as you close your eyes.
Compromising, your palms shift to weakly hold his face. They push his messy hair from his eyes, and caress the edges of his jaw, where his skin tapers off into the Hexcore's corruption. Your thumb strokes lazy circles over the mole above his mouth. His skin is soft, his jaw is rigid, silky with a labyrinth of smooth, swirling patterns.
To see his face is one thing, to be able to touch him and hold him, and know he's still here — they're privileges you never thought yourself worthy of earning. You hold him warmly, tenderly. The way you wanted to before he was gone. Like he is yours, or a deity worth worshipping.
"Viktor-"
You can't help it. You're starting to sob. Every heave of your chest is dry, your eyes sting with tears that won't come. You take your bottom lip between your teeth and bite hard, but the temporary pain does little to quell your all-consuming heartache.
Trembling thumbs brush his skin, and you shake your head, you sputter, "I'm sorry, Vik, I'm so- s-so sorry…"
Viktor is a servant to the sickening shudder that laces through him. His brows form a knot, his gaze drowns in clear sadness. Refracting in shades of autumn and azure.
"But you have no reason to be. I have you," Viktor murmurs gently, the edges of his tone deliciously smooth. Your arms weakly drop down to his shoulders, and he gives your still-wet cheek a slow caress. "Shh, shh. You do not have to apologize. I know. I know. Your emotions are still so grievously tender."
His tone is warm, like how you remember. Ages ago, you would've done anything to hear it again, filling the silence left by his absence. When you're able to see through the otherworldly rumble, the distant reverberation, you're able to hear just him. As though no time has passed at all, like he never left.
"Viktor-" You hiccup, "Please- I'm sorry- Viktor."
His name was designed to meet your voice. You make it sound maddeningly tender, as though it's something to covet, even when your heart is aching and you wish that it wasn't.
As though you've flipped the meaning. To conquer can be something soft, it can be a gentle checkmate, a hopeful spark between ribs and an ambitious fire at the edges of fingertips. A promise to prevail, with hands intertwined.
He feels like he's going to be sick.
"I'm here. Breathe," Viktor answers, "Talk to me, zlato. Tell me how you are feeling."
"I thought you- thought you were gone," You're sniffling, slurring your words together. Viktor's expression weakens. You are falling apart in his hands, and he feels so unbelievably useless. "When I- when they told me you ran off to Zaun, I was… angry. But I can't- I can't stay mad at you, I just can't."
Viktor softens. His gaze flickers over you, as he fruitlessly attempts to find the right words to fix this. But you're already continuing.
"I grieved you, Vik. So much." You take a slow, shuddering breath. Your words come out one at a time. "Part of me thinks I still should."
The choice to use his familiar nickname, usually spoken so joyfully, so exuberant in his memories — I'm here, I missed you, you're so sweet, Vik. To hear it sputtered, instead, his own name chewed up and spat out short-hand; it's like a kiss to the cheek, in between a punch to the face.
Viktor recalls what it felt like to be lost inside your mind. So much fondness, a dense galaxy of longing, was crammed inside a small, beating heart. Endless implosions of love and loss, with nowhere to go, had no option but to dig themselves deeper. He felt the weight on your shoulders, like the heaviness of rain. The icy pain in your ribs: bleak coldness, where all you can see is your own breath. Once pleasant dreamscapes were twisted and tugged into knots, because this is the end — and Viktor knows he wasn't meant to be granted an epilogue.
"No one could have blamed you," He says, words soft enough to cushion your fall. You clumsily lean back into him, resting on his shoulder, and Viktor calmly pets the back of your head.
Your hands quiver. "I did- I blamed myself."
"And what choice did you have?" Viktor counters, speaking through an almost-sigh. "You were frightened. Alone. You were inconsolable, deprived of respite." And he left you. He wandered astray when you needed him most. "Affection and pain are-" He tenses, quiets. "An antithesis, forming an equilibrium. Fond memories begin to die, as fractured stars do, when such dreams encompass all you have left."
A pause. You savor a few more moments in his arms, debating. Waiting for your resolve to return to you, before you're drawing back, and sitting up. Hastily, you wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. When Viktor tries reaching for you, you're swiftly pushing his palm away.
"I- I should leave," You're choking out, "I can't be here."
Viktor's brows furrow.
"Why not?" He questions, and there's a broken edge to his voice, a weakness that nearly sounds hurt. He hurriedly grasps your wrist — faint energy pulses from his touch, weighty enough to make you shiver — but you stay still, not moving, not yet. "You, out of everyone, have always been welcome."
"They were talking about setting up a barricade, back in Piltover," You're mumbling weakly, although it's clear to him you're dancing around the true reason.
"You can stay here," Viktor interrupts.
"No, I can't."
"Yes, you could. There is another reason for your avoidance." His tone softens, lays itself before you like a lamb to be slaughtered. "Let me in. Please."
"There isn't anything, Vik. It'd be better if I wasn't here. That's all. I'm sorry, I just-"
You sniffle, your heart breaks, and Viktor brushes a tear from your eye before it has the chance to fall. His knuckles caress down the length of your jaw, he softly coos a few words of reassurance. Shh, shh. Don't cry.
Bleeding into him distantly, melting against his hand and within his veins; easily this time, as though reaching into the depths of your existence is purely natural — he feels you.
Your soul has decayed to a dull, dying flame. You embody the convergence between warm and cold. Your mind longs to find its place within his arms, to fall into him once more and never return, as much as it believes you should push him away. There's a conflicting, swords-crossing battle inside your own heart. He experiences each of your sensations, tastes and samples them: the pleasant, and the painful. Echoing, exhausted, whispered in your own voice, he hears what you are thinking.
Please, Gods. Why can't I forget him?
Oh. Your mind doesn't lie.
The boundaries of your psyche begin to crumble — toppled bricks, chipped stone, and he can't help but tense. He feels sharpness stab into every part of him, like the closing walls of an iron maiden.
Look at what has become of him. Why must you hold on, when it would be infinitely easier to just let go? Viktor understands. He is well-acquainted with the strife of forgetting.
It must be torture, to hold someone so close to your heart. To remember them as the sun, when all that remains is their shadow. A half-dead symbol of divinity.
Everything would've been easier, more simple, better for the task he sought to accomplish, if he was able to cast his affections aside. This body should make it trivial, but it is still Viktor's body. It is still his vessel, and his mind, and his memories.
Emotions hinder progress. They killed countless Gods before him, and yet love digs in deep and persists. Consumes, from the inside out. It sets fire to your soul, and makes you watch as it burns itself out. The whims of the heart are impossible to stifle. He was correct, to predict your return. But what of a body without a heart, what of him, what of the future?
I believed I could untwine fate, Viktor thinks, as his palms brush the intricate stars laid out before him. Yours, mine. But my attempts were not conceivable. Enlightenment was never strong enough to predominate over devotion. A revival cannot undo the basis of human nature. I can never unwind myself from you, but in this, I was complacent. I was prepared to let you become my ruin.
And your mind resounds. There's a voice, unable to hear him, speaking with itself. Shouting through a storm to harmonize with the whispering wind. Recalling pain, loss, and ashes.
Why was it you, when it could've been me?
Part of you envisions going back. Imagining yourself in his place, threading through options to come up with one that might save him. Or perhaps, in a blind stupor of sadness and frustration, you would've returned to the Undercity. You would try to find yourself and change your path, assuring your younger self to stay, you weren't cut out to be a scientist — to undo the outcome of ever meeting him.
Regret eclipses you, the moment the thought crosses your mind. He overhears your internal struggle, your own voice fighting with itself. No, that isn't true. It can't be, you couldn't bear it.
But perhaps, he thinks, for you, it would have resulted in less pain.
He witnesses every thought, feels every regret and all of your uncertainty. As sharp as a blade, twisting within you; pressing inside him, in turn.
Until Viktor's shaky fingers trail the back of your neck, his eyes fluttering open. He realizes you've collapsed into him, as his own weakness forces him back to the present.
Viktor holds you, for a long stretch of time. You promised you'd leave, and yet, here you are, running into his arms once more. It's still sublimely surreal. Your palms trace his open sides, examining the golden bands, the deep indentations where ribs might sit. When his arm around your back grows loose, you're prying yourself from him hesitantly. He meets your gaze, and his lithe fingers delicately find your jaw. Admiring, thinking.
You are terribly beautiful. Wonderful. There is nothing comparable. Not the sea of vivid flowers, not the sun, not the countless collisions of stars that he's witnessed. If he could go back, he would hold your pain in his hands. He'd make it his.
It would mean more to him than anything, more than all of this, to see you happy, smiling, and free. You've always been so lovely. An inspiration. A dream.
The arcane could strip him of himself, but even as it's pulling his bones from his body, it could never take away the devotion he remembers. Your touch, your voice. Your atoms and your particles, falling like rain at his fingertips, forming every retained, held-onto expression of you.
Soft letters, exchanged between the margins of messily sketched blueprints. Tearing the paper, to keep the note you'd left, because your handwriting felt like home. Drowsy words, shoulders pressed too close together, and almost falling asleep, but trying to stay awake to talk for just a little while longer. Even though hindsight would tell him he's acting a fool. Even though the night is melting into morning, and you have projects to complete by tomorrow. None of it ever seems to matter, when the two of you are lost in each other.
He remembers smiles like sunflowers, bright and radiant. Giddy laughter and naive wishes. Hands brushing when they shouldn't; finding one another under tables, between meetings. Fingers interlacing to swear promises, palms pressed to a quickly beating heart.
Further, there are gentler sentiments, moments that could only come with age and years of understanding. Sitting together in silence, because it helps, when sleep refuses to come. Lessening pain wherever you can. Soothing tired muscles, holding shaky hands. Knowing where it hurts without the need to ask, and when to encourage, but also when to rest.
Falling apart, in the ways no one else gets to see, because he knows you will be there to put back his pieces — and Viktor realizes every memory, every recollection, every death begins and ends with you.
Gods. He breathes soft shushes, and little murmurs of, It's alright. All it takes is one brush with your heart to bring his humanity circling back.
Your expression weakens, your heavy gaze stays steady on his own. For a moment, he expects you to collapse again. He knows he will catch you. But you breathe deeply, and when he caresses your cheek, nice and gentle, your eyes take on a dull sparkle — the same light he remembers, from countless lifetimes ago.
"No," Viktor coos softly, with a shake of his head, "No, I believe this is precisely where you were meant to be."
He holds your chin delicately, between his thumb and forefinger. "Stay. Please." He murmurs, continuing. I need you to stay. "Spare me a few more moments."
His voice sounds impossibly human. There's less of a rumble, more of a tremble. Uniquely him, decidedly weak.
It's fruitless, and he knows it. A few more moments is hardly enough, it won't make up for everything you've needed. But it's all he can have. Because in every reality, this doesn't work.
There are mistakes he can't take back, pain he can't reverse. Humanity is a vice he can no longer hold onto. And you — once again, at the center of everything — you do not deserve this. After the boundaries you've crossed, the lengths you've travelled, you must be so, so tired. You, his dream, for all of the radiance and light in your heart, do not deserve to be drowned in more darkness.
For every almost, for each soft touch and pained reminder of his fragility — the warmth of your arms around him, dulling the sharpness in his leg — he should have pulled you closer. From the very start, he was running out of time. He should have died. Yet, he must continue to live, with the same weight in his shoulders, with the knowledge of his failures. And with the palpable reminders of the twin flame he lost.
He's strayed too far to make things right, now. You're two ships on different currents.
If you were to change course and crash together, hands grasping one another tight, soft skin entwined with unnatural fingers made of violet; close enough to let heavy breaths meld into one; close enough to taunt the forces that made him, the result would prove catastrophic. Shattering his goals, the hold the arcane has on him, and your wavering heart.
Viktor knows he cannot put you through this. His new purpose, his curse, perpetuated by the Hexcore's distant, inexplicable itch, surmises that he is destined for rebirth. Over, and over, and over again. You've already grieved him, and for your sake, this needs to be the final time.
"Okay," You breathe, exhaling heavily, inhaling weakly. He holds your cheek in his familiar hand, and you tremble, struggling not to lean into his touch. "I… Okay. I'll stay."
Your warmth radiates against Viktor's palm. Low and soft, tired and grief-stricken. Then brilliant, burning.
You already know what it's like to lose him; how it feels to watch light slip from his gaze, either as a slow descent into torment, a faint snuffed out flame. Or as a vivid, scorching implosion. Forcing you to remember blood and fire, as smoke overtakes the edges of your vision.
Ash chokes your lungs. Pain thrums in all of your joints. Muffled screams echo in your ringing eardrums. Panicked breaths, and shouts of, he's not breathing, between Jayce grabbing your shoulders, trying to shake you awake, but you just —
Viktor pulls his hand away from your cheek, as though he'd been burned. Dull remnants of your pain linger in his chest, sharp, strained, and ashen. His index finger presses to the side of your jaw, gently guiding you to look at him.
"Don't imagine such things," He mumbles gently; his color-rich gaze finds yours, as naturally as the moon finds the Earth, locked within the same orbit. "You are only going to exhaust yourself further. What happened that day was- it was not your fault. Not in any capacity. You know this, right?"
Right? The soft lilt in his voice — pleading for confirmation — makes a tingle trace your spine.
"I know," You answer dryly, your voice a little sore. "I'm fine."
Your eyes have long since dried up, but you still sound deeply numb. Distant, as though your soul is somewhere far away.
"You are not," Viktor counters quickly. Like you're two rival schoolmates, arguing once again. Not two inseparable souls, on the verge of the end. Close to collapsing and crossing an edge neither of you could come back from.
"I am. I promise."
"You have not slept. You have been following the trail to the commune for days, now. And the moment you try to rest, to let sleep find you, your mind is plagued by fits of nightmares. I do not think you need me to tell you this, but you are pushing yourself to the brink."
It hurts, somewhere in his fragile system, to see the pain he has caused you. He hasn't merely witnessed it, he has felt it. All of your guilt and your emotions, surging through his filaments. Nearly as strong as the passive waves of magic.
"The nightmares started long before this," You're arguing on impulse, mumbling under your breath.
They began when he was dying.
And he knows the nightmares, the visions he saw through your eyes, of embers and death and destruction and fragility — they are all because of him.
You swallow, before you sigh, and your tone quiets when he places a reassuring hand on your tensed shoulder. "I wasn't asking you to pity me. It's just- it isn't anything I'm not used to."
Viktor pauses. Then, he gives a small, amused huff.
"You are as stubborn as you were when we met."
He recalls it vividly: your very first meeting. You were both young, immature, and terribly eager to prove yourselves. Determination and stubbornness were traits you unfortunately shared.
You argued. Over some unimportant invention, and then over your notes, and the ways they differed. Viktor can barely remember the assignment. But he recalls the pinch in your brows, the fiery heat in the back of your gaze. Convinced you were right, and unable to get Viktor to budge, you left, tossing some remark over your shoulder as you slammed the door shut behind you. We should ask the professor if we can change partners. It's clear we'll never get along.
"Am I?" You mutter; it's rhetorical, obviously, made evident from the half-hearted roll of your eyes. He's sure you're dwelling on the very same memory. You breathe something of a feeble, fatigued laugh, "You really think I was the stubborn one?"
"Mmm," Viktor hums. His lips twitch into the faintest imitation of a smile. "Possibly. You haven't told me to shut up yet. I suppose we could consider that an improvement."
Ambitious and tender, alive and in front of you, is a part of him you'd thought you lost.
"And you somehow still remember."
Viktor's temple forms a knot, but his gaze is entirely unreadable. He brushes an exploring palm down the small of your back, keeping himself propped up on his elbow. You're leaning into him naturally, as though you've hardly planned to. Your arms rest on his shoulders, your weight settles gently and tangibly in his lap.
"I told you," He says, voice barely more than a whisper, a plea, a prayer. "Regardless of what is taken from me, you are far too precious to forget."
Your breathing is unsteady. It echoes in his ears, becoming all he can focus on. Sharp in, shaky out.
"I didn't know I mattered so much to you." You're glancing away, while you brush his long hair from his eyes; your breath shakes, you twirl an ombre strand around your finger. "I mean, not after- not when you're- fuck, I don't know."
"Not as you remember?" Viktor completes.
You reply with a shallow nod. "You're just… different."
Alive. Anew. A vessel, not a man, not the one you admired.
Viktor's jaw tenses. His chest stings, it pulls at him like there's a black hole where his heart should be. And this time, he isn't caught between the residuals of your emotions. He is feeling his.
He gives a low, quiet, simple answer. "There is much between us that differs, now."
You're silent, for a few moments, caught chewing on the inside of your cheek.
"The Hexcore," You start, "You… absorbed it, right?"
"In theory."
"Our studies made it seem alive. I wasn't sure if something like that was even possible. I read your notes, Vik, I saw the runes and your leg, and I didn't- I should've been there."
Viktor takes a breath so quiet it nearly goes unnoticed. "I should have made you stay out of it."
He sees the heartache on your face before he feels it — Viktor's fingertips, rough and metal-like, trace the gentle curve of your jaw. But his power is weakened. Your emotions thread through him as faint pulses, and he can't dive deeper.
Even when he closes his eyes, there's a barrier; a wall, for him to bang his fists against, despite knowing there's no way to reach you. Your soul manifests in his horizon line. Admirable and bright, unable to be touched.
When Viktor's eyes flutter open, they're whirling in dizzy, wild shades, like the colors beneath have been mixed and shaken. They shift from crimson, to cobalt, to citrine. Impulsively, he cups your face to keep you close, to make certain you won't disappear. To remind himself that he can still feel your soft skin against his blasphemous palm.
"You have blamed yourself enough for my atrocities. So much of your pain could have been circumvented, but then I-" Viktor softens. He brushes his thumb over your cheek slowly, over and over, like an anxious, desperate tick. "Perhaps I should have turned you away the moment you reached the commune."
Your hand finds his, grasps it tight and keeps him pressed to your cheek; and your pain bleeds for him, inviting him in. Foggy and infinite, covered in thorns. Curling in on itself, an infinite fractal of warm tenderness and icy, bitter melancholy —
"Viktor- that isn't-"
"Your mind crumbles, in all cases, each and every time you look at me." He speaks carefully. Chews through every word, before he spits it out. His voice rumbles, reverberates like an earthquake, "Why?"
He supposes he already has his answer. Delving inside your mind left him with no room for doubt. This is his fault. It's a form of self-sacrifice, a familiar brush with endless destruction, he thinks, to hear you say the final words. The ones he already knows. You are allowed to let go. Fate will embrace you in the ways I could not.
"Because, dammit, I still care about you," You're blurting out, "More than anyone, or anything else."
"I do not deserve it. Considering what I have-"
"I don't care, Vik. And every time I see you, when I feel this," You squeeze his hand hard, enough to incite the rigid surface of his faux fingertips with transcendent sparks of the arcane, "I remember your notes, the fire. The days I spent following you into the Undercity. I see the empty look in your eyes when you first saw me, and I keep thinking this isn't real. That I'm going to wake up, and you… you'll be gone."
Viktor's gaze flickers over your face, wide and iridescent, a perfect contradiction. His breathing runs quick, his palm shakes. But within the dance between your soul and his, he's daring to reach for you.
Bright, vivid light washes over. It blinds him, for a moment. Bathes his figure in radiance. A force within him is gnawing, whispering in runic words that he shouldn't be able to understand, telling him he isn't supposed to feel this, isn't meant to have a place within him carved to fit your shape. The best option is to turn you away, to listen to his head. Evolution requires a steady mind, an unwavering resolve. An inhuman herald.
Viktor refuses. He listens to his non-existent heart, instead, and he feels your petals, closed yet delicate. He lets himself become your sun, so he can watch you bloom. A figment of his own humanity shimmers before him. The light obscures his vision, it burns his eyes. But he holds on — pallid palms pressed together with all his might, containing his bursting luminescence and the flowery resonance of you.
A gentle thumb brushes your cheek, and you're sighing, confessing, "I shouldn't. But I missed you, Viktor. So much."
Your thoughts echo inside him like a ripple in water. I wish you could be more than just a memory.
Nothing exists for him to promise. Your breathing shakes, your eyes flutter. Your body subtly arches into his touch, when he comfortingly caresses the back of your neck.
"I missed you more than words could express," He admits, voice low, close to cracking like the edges of old stone. Everything blends, in a haze of his own making, as his palm clumsily returns to hold your face. As he gently guides you, tilting you towards him by your jaw.
"Look at me. You meant everything. For so long, so deeply, I treasured you- do not ever think otherwise. But I was powerless. Over and over, I perpetually imagined the last time I saw you. The soft sound of your voice, and the mundane instances in between. I would have done it over again, in the same order. To be frozen in time, with this memory of you."
Stars fade, the galaxy around him chips and splinters. But he knows this is the truth. The arguments, the introductions, the pain, the softness, the falling, the fading — history would repeat itself infinitely, and he would gladly lose himself in its spiral with you.
Your hands clench on his shoulders, your gaze grows lost in his own. You drown in the gentle nebulas of eyes that still feel so remarkably his.
Every outcome before him weaves into the same ending, every star carries the same grim message. He cannot go back, that's the crucial cusp of it all. The strings of fate pull him along, igniting a sharp taste in his throat. They seek to make him into the arcane's chosen puppet.
"Viktor," You're sighing, and oh, the syllables of his name are more than a plea when they're breathed from your lips, they're a washed-out memory, a poem and a promise between his ribcage —
"But you have me right now."
"I know," Viktor says, because it's all he can say, "I know."
When you trail off into silence, Viktor finds that the abyss of your soul echoes with a single unfathomable sentence.
I still love you.
So this is the tragedy.
His faithful step in the universe's eternal return. An infinite expression of his fleeting, useless affections, strung throughout an inseparable existence.
Viktor realizes now, the truth was merely a means to the end he expected. This is the predetermined resolution, where he finally gives in, and recognizes he cannot escape the path laid before him. He was always going to break you, perhaps from holding on too tight.
Once again, he is powerless; this time, to his own body. He can sense the thrumming in his limbs, glowing through every vein. This can't last forever. He knows you are his focal point, and once you disappear, the arcane will take your place. In his hands, in his chest, in every breath he takes. Blotting out the last of his humanity.
You smile, and it's a crooked, broken, undeserved thing — but it captivates him just the same. A flicker of heartache catches the light in your eyes. He believes he is watching you think, seeing the cogs click into place as your jaw grits uncomfortably, as your eyes threaten to well up again, as you come to the same conclusion. This is futile.
Then, let this moment at least be yours.
Viktor places both palms on your face. He guides you to follow him, when he falls back. The weight of your body presses his chassis into the ground. His head rests against the flowers. His hair fans out around him, faint blonde strands interwoven, like a painting's highlights: the finishing touches.
But you aren't staring at him. Not at his eyes, your gazes don't meet. You're staring at the pretty mole, placed perfectly above his mouth — and he knows, because this isn't the first time.
It's where you would focus when he found you lost in thought and drowsy, coming up with excuses not to stare at his lips. He remembers feeling you touch the corner of his mouth, close but not quite, before your fingertip brushed down the length of his nose; the space between you barely leaves room for accommodation, and Viktor brings a palm to your chest to push you apart, despite wanting to drop his cane and use both hands to —
Dangerously, you stop yourself by leaning close. Viktor's eyes flutter shut, as your forehead comes to rest against his own.
His voice is barely audible. Accent thick, low, and familiar.
"However this may end, I need you to realize," He exhales, slow and shakily. "There was never a moment where I did not adore you."
Those words press into you like an arrow in your chest, a hot knife lodged between bones. You breathe in deeply, you sigh carefully, and Viktor feels your breath as it fans against his mouth.
It's merely the surface of what he wishes he could say. There is so much more, I admired you since we met. You were smart, radiant. Gods, was it the most egregious combination, because you both intimidated and captivated me. You were effortless to adore. I thought I made myself obvious. Requiring your help for every insignificant invention, stealing you at every turn because it felt delightful, to have you all to myself. Those moments are distant, yes, but they are not blights. They were brilliances.
An infinity would not be near enough time to fall for you. I would wish to alter fate, but I can't, I cannot save you from myself. From this… inevitability, this expectation that we are doomed for ruin.
You unfurl, you blossom. The sparkle of your soul follows the glow in his palms, eclipsing his body, shining over the rot; two lighthouses glimmering towards one another, communicating in their own code — and your mind pleads for him, one last time.
Prove it. I need you to show me.
And he almost does. Really, truly, almost. He nearly pulls you in, denies destiny to follow impulse, and veers both your courses towards destruction.
The simplicity of a kiss would prove this is real, prove his humanity. It would be something for him to have, not a token for the arcane to take. No, the arcane would weep, as he ignites his new body's first experience with selfishness. The intensity he's longed for would no longer be numbed, he'd feel it surge and shine and breathe through him. Pooling at his fingertips, as he pulls you in, guiding heat to draw itself into you.
It'd feel good, to press his mouth to yours, and discover what your lips feel like in the ways he's imagined for ages. He could hold you as if you'd never have to leave. He could pretend, as though the coolness of his sanctuary is just the evening draft in the lab, and he isn't making up for past regrets, he is fixing them.
Warmth would return to his figure, his soul would converge into his body, and fate, as cruel as it is, would be forced to do nothing but watch.
Viktor allows his eyes to open. His palms are still on your face, your gentle weight is still pinning him down. The light of the moon above you creates pale, hazy crescents in the edges of his vision. You are so close. Your heart is its own entity. Pounding so hard in your chest, he can practically feel it as his own. His gaze flickers to your mouth, as his hands faintly caress your skin.
Prove it, prove it, prove it.
For a few moments, he debates the repercussions.
It could be swift, fleeting, an accident. Barely more than a brush, a taste, before he drags himself away. Or, it could be more.
A point of devotion, expressed with closed eyes and soft lips. Admiring you without seeing, confessing without words.
Would your lips feel plush, would you hesitate, would you send him spiraling down along with you, as you pulled him in and whispered his name?
Perhaps it might escalate, into a feverish mess of your hands in his hair and your lips at his throat, and would he still feel them there? Against the gold notches embedded into his neck, kissing down to admire where his body meets magic. Could either of you manage to stop if you tried, or would time bleed together, until he could die like this — until he's convinced he is dying?
Viktor's thumb brushes your lips. Shakily, mechanically.
Gravity threatens to drag him in, steady on your pull, strong like absolution. Centimeters stop him from closing the distance, from pulling you close and colliding so softly, so vividly. In one simple, fluid, perfect movement. He dreams of it. But still, still.
Still, Viktor struggles to catch his own breath, although it hardly makes sense for his perfected system. Still, he allows himself the small privilege of caressing your cheek, feeling your skin beneath his ruined fingertips. Your gaze widens — he can't help but wonder, but foolishly, uselessly hope, that you might've been expecting more — and he finds your chest with his palm, to repeat past actions, to carefully push you away.
It isn't the choice he would wish to make. But for once, it will be his choice, all the same. There is strength, a grounding sense of responsibility, a misguided tenderness, in this. Even if it hurts.
Even if Viktor is already regretting it, the moment he sees the softness fade from your eyes. A wavering gaze stares back at him, as dark as a knot of storm clouds. His hand steadies on your chin to keep you in place.
His last tie to humanity is a knot he can't undo. The one of few left to mourn him deserves more than empty words, or false promises. You deserve to heal. You are his greatest mistake, and his most lovely exception.
You were worth every moment, every word, every star. He can feel you, in the chasm of his chest. Guilt runs thick in his makeshift veins. Newfound pain pushes out from his shoulder blades like wings, and he knows you may have been unable to change his fate, but you have changed him. Every piece of you will always press together to form a part of his entirety — with the same soft edges, amongst familiar galaxies of convergences.
This isn't the end, not yet, not quite. Viktor hopes he can show you. The sun will rise again; you will bask in its glow, warm and unburdened. You'll rediscover your spark. Your soul was meant to burn on a pyre that reciprocates, and logic dictates an inhuman vessel cannot. For you, for your gentle, beating heart, this is only the beginning.
There will be no more nightmares, no more exhaustion. He can be of use, he can help you rest. His power has limits. However faint, however controlled. But this, the science of dreams, leading their way into passages, establishing connections and fateful meetings — considering his experience with magic and the astral, it should be relatively easy to grasp.
And he knows it will hurt hard. To see you, to lose you. Though, unlike him, you cannot force your emotions into silence. Viktor harbors a hint of envy. A flourish of frustration. You have never deserved the world's blind cruelty. He would have torn the universe apart to at least keep his pain, so the sharpness in his chest and the blood stained into his palms could serve as final reminders of you.
One last pleasant memory won't fix what's broken, but it could save you, where he can no longer save himself.
He supposes it's worth a try.
"Viktor," You're murmuring, and he hates the way his own name makes your bottom lip quiver, how your shoulders tense as though you could curl in on yourself. "Sorry, I-"
"No, no, please don't apologize. There is…" Viktor starts; he attempts to keep the words from stammering, but it's difficult when you're still so close. You are all he can see, as your moonlit gaze matches his, like it could guide his waves without trying.
He grinds his jaw, glances away, and tries again. "There is something I've wished to show you. Could I sit up?"
Your palms, pressed to either side of his head to prop yourself up, fidget and clench, fingers trembling. But you nod, you shift. He feels your weight leave his lap when you finally slide off of him.
Viktor pushes himself up. The metal decorations that fix his clothing into place clink together faintly. He carefully folds his legs. He glances towards you, gives a coaxing tilt of his head, and gently pats his palm to his knee.
"Come."
The whispering meadow in his elaborate space leaves you plenty of room to sprawl out, as you rest your head in Viktor's waiting lap. Blades of grass tickle your arms. He is firm, rigid underneath you. Not quite the most comfortable pillow, but it hardly matters to you, because your eyes are already growing nice and heavy.
You're losing your battle with exhaustion, he figures. Resting against him is especially potent at making your tiredness shine through. (He recalls somewhat-sleepovers, sharing the same dorm, your head falling against his shoulder as your breathing echoed into his ear.) He assists the endeavor, brushing his fingertips down either side of your face, adjusting you to make sure his lap is comfortable. You shiver, and he toys with your hair, continuing until you're sighing, relaxing.
Viktor smiles. His gaze above you meets yours, shines with devotion. There's a new color in his eyes. Some cross between amethyst and crimson, like a swirling red wine, like drops of blood in water — sickeningly sweet. His hair frames his face. Strands brush the faux edges of his jaw.
A few more moments to admire you is all he allows for himself. Then, he breathes deeply, calmly. He reaches beside him, into the grass, to delicately snap the stem of a tiny, almost-hidden white daisy.
"I want you to picture," Viktor tucks the flower behind your ear, continuing slowly, the words spoken with a calm, yet melancholy edge: "A place where you can be at peace."
"Mmm," You hum, hands clasped, resting neatly on your stomach, "Like a memory?"
"It could be one, yes."
"Like when we snuck out of our classes to go look at the stars, to see the autumn meteor shower. We missed an evening lecture, and the professor made us write lines…"
Viktor distantly recalls the way his hands cramped for weeks, how his knuckles ached. His palms had thick calluses from where he tightly held his pencil, his skin was stained with graphite from where he rested his hand against the paper — but vividly, as though he could close his eyes and be transported there, he remembers your excitement.
Your pure elation, as you hurriedly climbed the endless stairs to the very top of the viewing tower, mumbling about how you didn't want to miss it. You never stopped grinning, as you guided his hand to show him where the stars would fall, pointing to every distant shimmer in the sky. Although, to him, they never seemed to shine brighter than the look in your eyes.
Ages later, you both returned to that same spot on the outskirts of Piltover, perhaps in an attempt to relive your youth. The viewing tower was rickety and silent. The stairs to the top were long and grueling. The fancy lights shining from various new buildings made the stars impossible to see, now.
The Hexgates were conceptualized the next year. Viktor's doctor recommended a crutch and a brace. So it was your last attempt, in the end.
Your tired eyes flutter open, and Viktor gazes down at you, lips upturned into the faintest hint of somber amusement.
"It only occurs every two hundred years. The professor warned us, he said the meteor shower was a waste of our precious time," Viktor recounts, with a small, playful huff. "He had already seen it, and it failed to impress him."
"We would've seen more elsewhere, he said, which is true, but…" You shrug lazily. "It was so quiet up there. With just us, and the stars."
"The calmest place in all of Piltover," Viktor replies in agreement.
"After that, we talked about getting out of the city. Maybe vacationing somewhere once we graduated, just for a while."
There were late night talks, sleepy confessions, foolish dreams of far-off places. Much like this, really. Your brows pinch, you stifle a yawn. Viktor can't help but find it adorable.
Then, your head tilts back, as you gaze at him again. "Remember?"
Viktor softens. "You dreamt of seeing the flowers in Ionia."
Your smile widens. "I'll try to picture that, then."
Moonlight burns in the back of his gaze. Magic returns to pulse through him — connecting threads to the minds of hundreds of followers, casting a line to hook into the arcane. The sort of pain that becomes a new heartbeat, offering to seal itself within him. His fingers shake, as he hesitates to bring them towards you. He forces himself to steady, to meet your tender expression, and commit the depths of it to memory.
Everything must come to an end. Viktor cups your face in both palms, and prepares for his last dance with mortality.
"Imagine a field of endless, untouched blooms. Culminating in stunning magic, able to be sensed within the ground itself, thrumming underneath your feet." Viktor's voice is a low, level, comforting murmur. Like he's reading straight from an Ionian textbook; in another life, it would be enough to put you to sleep.
"And the air smells lovely," You're mumbling, tired. "And the sky is full of thousands of stars."
"Yes, but," Viktor ever-so gently brushes his fingertips over your eyelids, guiding you to close them. "You must close your eyes, little spark."
Your expression is perfectly, wonderfully peaceful. For a few moments, he savors it. He brushes his thumbs over your skin and relishes the softness. He watches the gentle heave of your chest. The slow, mortal intake of every breath. Heavy with exhaustion.
Viktor feels his heart crumble, although he knows he does not have one.
He swallows, he holds your face tenderly. Energy surges from his palms. Crisp, reality-warping fragments of light. Vivid paradoxes. Sparkling against your skin, in prickles of dull static.
The warmth of your soul is a small, kindled flame, held weakly in his palms. This time, you can feel it. Touches reaching between your ribcage. Tracing your bones, leaving bright flowers and pockets of starlight wherever his fingertips brush. It is a gradual, languid sensation; like a baptism, hands cradling your edges to carefully lower you into deep, warm water. It consumes, distorts and collapses, connects the two of you in a haze of entwined hands and twisted-together veins. Blood and magic, pain and healing.
Viktor allows his voice to echo through your weary mind — though he is sure his words will be forgotten, by the time you awake.
Rest, now. Perhaps, in another reality, or within a distant, rewritten future, we will be offered the chance to begin again. If you and I will it. Not fate, nor the infinite tides of entropy.
His voice sounds clear, undistorted. Rich and enveloping. There's hints of hesitation. A clear shake. Deep traces of a faltering, human-like weakness.
Thank you, for the opportunity to appreciate you one final time. Your mind and your emotions were lovely to be lost in.
And I must apologize. I know our time was meant to be impermanent, yet, I cannot help but believe it was not enough. I am not myself. Your memories showed me this — they reminded me of who I was before I'd lost you.
I'm sorry. There is a revolution I must lead. Burdens I am destined to bear alone.
Viktor's palms leave fingerprints on your soul. The light he presses into you is glittering, hopeful. As bright as a cloudless summer's day. Waves roll over your figure, tenderness and exhaustion running thick like honey — akin to a warm hearth, like the sun in full-bloom.
It perplexes, does it not? The very crux of humanity. I could have held every conceivable universe in my hands. And I would have traded it, to do something good, to earn the privilege of coveting you.
The entire false, star-bound sky shakes with the weight of Viktor's trembling exhale.
But our old sentiments hardly matter to the present. A tragedy claims itself as such, because it is certain, in its irreparability.
Every end merely led me to your beginning.
Your vessel drinks him in. You taste the arcane in your throat, you choke on the way his name blossoms inside your chest, and you allow yourself to drift. To be swallowed in his gentle, heartsick shadow.
I loved you. For as long as I have known you. As immensely as a soulless body is capable.
The last sensation to grace you is Viktor's lips, ever-so gently ghosting your forehead — and then, his fingertips, pressed subtly against your skin, to form a silent goodbye.
Please. Do not come back.
Then, everything concludes. The world pops like a bubble, covering you in mist. Your mind runs blank. A vibrant chalkboard of thoughts and equations and colors, erased. You collapse, even though there's nothing for you to collapse against. You're unsure if someone — if Viktor — caught you, or if you were left to descend, disappearing beneath the earth.
Sleep comes to you in a large, encompassing swell.
And you dream.
—
A meadow manifests before you.
Flowers trail as far as the eye can see. White roses. Red carnations. Puffs of pink and purple hydrangea. Flecks of pollen drift into the air, glittering with magic, shining like little stars. Soft grass tickles your bare feet. Energy surges from the ground, threading through your every limb. Your body feels weightless, warm, and free. The air is crisp, allowing each breath to be deep and clear. You can see distant trees, and above you, intricate galaxies, spread across a dark blue sky.
But you aren't alone.
A figment of luminosity, an anomaly, a hazy spark of pure magic shifts, nearly blinds you, and then convenes into a figure. With a palm cupped over his eyes, to shield himself from his own light, before it finally begins to simmer down.
The phantom edges of his shape shimmer with starlight. His slender frame — astral, seemingly untouchable — shifts in endless, vibrant colors. Faux moonlight shines through his hair, short and tousled, pure white; like soft snow, like the foam at the edges of waves. Swirling with faint whispers of blue, the fluffy tresses remind you of a cloud-filled sky.
Your gazes meet, and it feels familiar; it isn't the first time. When he sees you, he glows, his figure alighting in shades of sunlight and gold. The amber in his eyes catches the moon's low rays, his cheeks soften into a shade of rose. His skin is warm, less pallid. The stress present on his features has changed into soft eyes and smile lines.
Memorized, pretty moles greet you. The one on his cheek stands out like the guiding north star, shining amongst a clear night sky. The mole by his mouth follows along when his lips tip into a carefree, radiant smile. Wide and euphoric and foolish. It shows off the small gap between his teeth.
He looks just like you remember. Just as you wanted to remember. The same handsome features: thick brows, a sharp jaw, eyes that shine as brightly as they once did, when he was lost in his passions. His expression carries a familiar sense of warmth. It reflects the same tenderness he'd reserve just for you, beloved and beckoning. The sight of you is enough to make his eyes well up with tears.
And Viktor walks, strides, runs to you.
He's pulling you into an embrace before you have the chance to breathe; arms holding you tight, squeezing you desperately. Pressing you into his blurry, stelliform shape.
Your palms find his back, feeling where the cosmos meet his skin. He buries himself into your shoulder, brings a shaking palm up to lovingly cradle the back of your head. Breathing you in, he fills with tenderness, spilling over. His nose brushes your nape, weak droplets tap your skin like rain. A heavy throb works its way into every inch that you touch — his back, his shoulder, his neck, like bruises hued in shades of lilac. Your bodies fit together as though they were meant to.
When he finally pulls apart from you, it's slow, gradual. He places both hands on your shoulders, so clumsily it slightly jostles you back and forth. His brows pinch, his hands clench until his knuckles are strained. He takes you in, gaze weakening as it flickers over your form. A palm finds your cheek to hold you tenderly; he can barely believe he is touching you.
"There you are- oh, look at you." Viktor's voice is lovingly fragile, yet perfectly, utterly enamored. Brushing his thumb over your cheek, he can't help but choke on a weak, worthless sob. "Finally, you came, I thought- I was sure it wasn't going to work, but it- I can-"
He cannot think, can barely talk; dizzy, his chest heaves with every sharp, quickened breath he takes in. Viktor tapers off, his palm slips from your face and his hand on your shoulder goes loose as he falters.
Head pounding, chest aching, the very figments of his body burn like dying stars. His own pulse thrums in his throat until he can taste blood, until he believes he might cough up his own heart. He gazes at you like you might fade out, brushes his palm from your neck to your jaw like you aren't real.
But you merely smile, and stare at him as though he holds the entire universe in his eyes.
"Vik," You're mumbling sweetly; your hand blindly reaches for his, your fingertips brush in a clumsy waltz, before you're grabbing, squeezing, steadying him. "You're so beautiful."
Oh. Viktor feels your hand in his, he melts in the heat of your light, and he believes heaven is here, right at his fingertips. He reflects your words, as his figure shimmers brighter than the luminous sky above — he is more than a memory. He is yours: a star incarnate.
"You-" Viktor murmurs, lacing his fingers with yours. Warmth washes over his cheeks and his shoulders; he feels foolish, like he's young and stupid and crushing again. "-rival the divine."
Tension briefly buds in your shoulders. "You won't… you aren't going to disappear, right?"
Index drifting underneath your chin to keep your gaze tilted towards him, Viktor grins, putting the both of you at ease.
"Attempting to get rid of me already?" He asks, a little confident, entirely playful.
When your palm teasingly pushes at his chest, hardly trying to guide him away, your touch ricochets through him. It makes his vessel surge with energy, as though he'd touched a live wire. He can actually feel it. Hues of scarlet and sunset and the sea swirl down from his neck to his shoulders. Glowing fiercely, rippling incandescently.
"No, never," You answer, "I just- I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be worried. It's just been… difficult. Without you, I mean."
There's a hazy cadence to your words. It rivals the intricacy of flower buds opening, revealing themselves to the waiting moon. Familiar to him, by now. In this pocket of the arcane — free from strife, some dreamy recreation of the Garden of Eden — your minds can be blissfully one.
Viktor breathes something of a sigh: a tender, understanding revelation.
"I will stay here for as long as you need," He's cooing, guiding you to look at him again with a soft hold on your chin, even though his radiance in your vision is dazzling. "I promise. We can talk- there is so much I have waited to tell you. Or we can simply lie here. There is time for anything you prefer, my light. My sweet, little spark."
Gaze never leaving yours, Viktor admires you with a look that cradles; palms gentle, when they hold your wings. Your hand reaches up to mirror his, your thumb gently caressing the mole placed onto the apple of his cheek.
He's staring, and you can't help but stumble out a laugh. "What?"
Viktor doesn't answer.
Suddenly, the depths of shared pain and the regret tied to his chosen goodbye barely matter. They are forgotten when you are right here, finally. A thousand emotions thrum through him, thick and overwhelming: fear, regret, hunger, devotion. He can't speak, he couldn't possibly explain everything your warm smile does to him. It reminds him of moments stretched through years, times where you almost pulled him close, and he knew you were just friends but Gods, did he want more —
And perhaps, here and now, in this dream away from reality, the both of you can have it.
Carefully, his palms hold your face: soft skin against the ethereal. Pulled in by gravity, mere inches separate you. Viktor's nose brushes yours — slightly awkward, all-too human. He breathes slowly, for a moment, before he exhales a heavy sigh, that feels like finally letting go of everything. His hesitation, his weakness, his destiny.
And when Viktor kisses you, the infinity before you slips away.
The surrounding galaxy becomes finite, flourishing and existing for only the two of you. It's only a kiss, but it is the implosion of stars, and the formation of new ones — energy explodes in between you with thousands of colors, smearing out from Viktor's form like paint. As though he can't contain his own resplendence.
It is everything you have ever wanted. He makes you feel alive.
Head tilting, he guides you close and keeps you there. Magic sparks within him from the inside out. And yet, this is the closest he's ever been to humanity. In the eyes of a distant astronomer, the press of your figure against his could be mistaken for one singular shape. A puzzle, a paradox. A supernova of affection.
One of his hands remains steady on your cheek, the other confidently reaches for the curve of your waist. Every brush of his lips against yours feels like electricity, tastes the same as palpable desire. He's softer than the ground beneath you as you fall, weightless, landing on your back. Pressed against the flowers and the grass, as if they're made of clouds.
Your thoughts fade out, they burn, becoming fuzzy, unfocused. All you can think about is him. Viktor's touch and his mouth, and every moment where you needed this, desperate to learn how his lips might feel against yours —
Perfect. They feel perfect. Simple, guiltless, and lovely. Like biting into an apple, like giving in to sin. As though this moment was destined in time, and every reality has converged, so the stars and their higher powers could turn to watch it take place.
Viktor laces his hand with yours. The flowers surrounding you tickle your skin, they blossom from his hands. Threading into you when his palm traces your side, intimate petals sweet enough to taste on his tongue. Every kiss brings you closer, igniting past memories. Frustrations you wished to take out, by slamming your mouth against his. Promises and pleas, stifled farewells. Held back tears, silent confessions.
This feels earnestly real. Not a goodbye, nor a useless prayer. But a kiss meant to be shared between two destiny-bound lovers.
Your free hand desperately clings to his shoulders, his back. His body feels radiant, like if a shooting star was tangible. Your fingers thread through his hair, and it's akin to touching waves, or playing with the wind, or sinking your hand into fresh snow.
Viktor curls into your touch; he chases it, as desperately as his lips seek yours. You're sighing, when he shifts to kiss your jaw, your throat. Then, you're arching into him, blurring the outlines between your body and his, sealing his fate, as he presses his mouth to yours once more.
He only pulls away when you're both breathless and panting.
Slowly, gradually, he shifts back to place his figure above you. The light of the sky's faux, anomaly sphere shines onto him. It gives him a halo, bathes him in radiance. You can't decide if it's moonlight or sunlight, or if he is reflecting every ray from within.
Viktor breathes in heavy gasps. The meadow dims, smudges, losing detail. It becomes hazy, and although he knows deep down this won't last forever, the thought hardly crosses his mind. He can only focus on you; a fallen angel, underneath him. The keeper of the love he sought to chase and possess and drown in, until the rest of the world has faded away. An arm braces beside you, while his free hand curves to hold the small of your back.
"Your lips are even softer than I once pictured," He murmurs; his eyes sparkle, tender and loving and jewel-like. "Should… should we stop?"
"No, please," You answer. Your voice is beautiful, unforgettable. Curling into him like a fated spiral. Your fingertips trace the back of his neck, before they re-tangle in his pearlescent hair. "Don't, Vik."
So Viktor doesn't. He pulls you in, he pretends destiny is within his grasp. He guides you with a hand on your cheek and stars at his fingertips, to kiss you again, and again, and again.
—
When you wake, you are far from the Undercity.
Your eyes flutter open, slowly and reluctantly. You recognize the softness of a bed underneath you. The surrounding room is simple, with empty grey walls, and a plain white ceiling. The vents make a low clicking sound as they struggle to choke out warm air. Familiar, the sounds of Piltover hum. An echoing train bell. The tick of gears on the side table's clock. Unfamiliar voices are kept low, just beyond your quarters.
Tingles rake down your entire body once you sit up. Sparks trace your spine, your shoulders, your face, like a phantom touch. But they fade into nothing, as quickly as they came.
It's strange for you to be this well-rested. Your mind feels clear. Relaxed. You were free from nightmares, for the first time in ages; as far as you can remember, at least. You recall sneaking out of Piltover, to descend into Zaun. You were exhausted, stressed, but you reached the commune, and —
Oh. You're throwing your blankets aside, then.
You toss on your old clothes; they smell like magic and citrus. A nurse finds you before you can leave. You've been staying at an old, run-down infirmary, on the outskirts of Piltover. Established to provide care to the Undercity, ages ago. It takes longer than you would have liked to convince her you're fine, you don't need to stay. You have somewhere you need to return to.
You were carried here, she explains, as she walks you to the exit of the infirmary.
There were a few people. Strange garments, they hardly said much. You slept for nearly a day, but otherwise, your condition is stable.
Your heart twists; carried? Why and when and how would you be carried out of the commune? Your mind is still hazy, you suppose. You can barely remember where you were, or if you even reached your destination in the first place.
Perhaps you collapsed just outside of it. Perhaps you failed, and the rumors were wrong, and the one you were searching for wasn't there after all.
Dead men aren't supposed to come back.
Despondent, you offer the nurse a few small words of thanks, shaking her hand before you turn to leave.
She stops you first, though.
Oh, she says, and as for the marks on you, I wouldn't worry. There's been plenty of cases similar to yours, with the same sort of scars. They seem like nothing to fret over.
You freeze.
Reaching up, you shakily brush your hand over your own face. Inscribed onto your skin, marble and metal-like, rests four unmistakable marks to your forehead — the lingering outline of Viktor's fingertips.
