The first thing Jayce is aware of is the inconfoundable feeling of Viktor. Next to him, around him, intertwined atom for atom.
Anything else would be secondary.
When the rest of reality coalesces back into something his brain can process and quantify, his senses come back online like circuits, lighting up one by one and instantaneously.
Touch, hearing, sight, smell. Viktor, solid in his arms, still wrapped in the soft blanket Jayce had draped over his new body, his arms around Jayce's shoulders, hands clenched in the fabric of his coat. Viktor, breathing quick and quiet next to his ear. Viktor, the pale curve of one mole-dotted shoulder peeking from his covering, and his hair gleaming under sunlight, long and fading into that pale color, like sweetmilk poured into coffee. Viktor, clutched so close in his hands, Jayce can taste the faint ozone crackle of the Arcane lingering on his skin.
Viktor, his honey eyes looking at Jayce, wide, disbelieving, alive.
"Jayce," he says, in his soft voice. The slight stretch of the 'A', cradled tenderly. The silky softness of the 'C', sibilant, always - somehow - sensual, even when Viktor was calling his name for the fourth time from across the lab at three in the morning.
Jayce has Viktor in his arms and they are alive.
"It worked," Jayce whispers, and his hands are already cradling Viktor's face. A laugh bursts out of him from some place he thought had been buried in a gulch forgotten by the apocalypse. "IT WORKED!"
He ignores the jolt of pain his knee sends shooting up his spine as he goes jumping up to his feet, fists raised and a howl of incredulous, manic triumph shouted up to the clear skies overhead. He remembers the first prototype for the Hexgates, the hellish trial phases, and he remembers the day they got an apple from one side of the room to the other. Jayce had screeched and jumped and paced, babbling like a maniac while Viktor stood, silent and awestruck, holding the apple in his palms like it had just been placed there by the hand of a god. When Jayce finally collapsed onto the floor, half laughing, half crying, Viktor had wheeled his stool over, flicked open his little pocket knife, and wordlessly split the fruit in two, handing half over to Jayce. He'd been certain he could taste the magic they had harnessed. That day pales in comparison to this moment.
He wants to sprint a mile. He needs to scream, he wants to laugh, and cry, and he needs to make a plan to orient himself and find food and get Viktor some clothes, he's still only wearing that goddamm blanket-
"It worked! Viktor! Viktor, we did it, it worked!" He shouts, hands clasped around Viktor's cheeks again, and he smacks a kiss off Viktor's forehead because he can, because Viktor is here, and they're together and alive, they're alive, they're alive-
His body allows him a few more moments of frantic, unrestrained celebration, before it starts warning him, Alright Talis, you've had your fun, now lay down, you're about to pass out, because that sure is a head rush he's feeling isn't it?
He stumbles to the ground the same way his laughter trails off from a manic giggle to heaving gasps, giddiness fizzing in his chest, his head, his whole goddamn body, and he stares up at the clouds, floating unbothered overhead. They might as well be in a different universe. It's entirely possible that they are.
It doesn't matter. Especially not right now. Jayce forces himself to breathe, even as he can't stop smiling, arms splayed out over his head. There's a soft shuffling sound, bare feet trekking uncertainly through the soft grass. He raises his head from the grass, because he would recognize Viktor's gait anywhere. There's a moment, suspended from the rest of reality like a crystal hanging in a window, that Jayce swears he will preserve in his memory to his dying day. Of Viktor, of course, and the way he's looking down at Jayce in this moment.
Haloed by the sun, even more beautiful than when he had towered over every soul in creation, wreathed in magic and might - because this is Viktor, his Viktor, with his thin, uneven shoulders, and the slight crookedness to his nose from a fall as a little toddler, and moles everywhere, and untamable hair, and his beautiful golden eyes that can only be outshone by his beautiful golden heart, full of kindness and curiosity and ruthless drive to do good.
Had it seriously taken the apocalypse for Jayce to realize he loves this man above anything and everything?
It must be written quite plainly on his face, because Viktor's eyes widen as he realizes something, and takes a step forward, to-to what?
With that thought lancing his chest and lighting up his brain in bursts of color, he very nearly rockets to his feet, knee be damned, when Viktor's wide eyes go even wider as his knee buckles and the bubble bursts a little.
"Ngah!" he sputters, arms flailing, the blanket flapping a little as he instinctively reaches for a crutch that rudely neglected to materialize on the other side with them. But Jayce is already moving, arms outstretched. Viktor reaches back, and he is caught in broad hands that immediately pull him closer and squeeze him to Jayce's chest. They fall back onto the grass, Jayce giving a little oof! as Viktor's weight lands atop him.
For a second they're nose to nose, and Jayce looks up at Viktor with all the love in every atom in his body. Viktor looks back with the same love written plainly on his own face.
They don't say a word. They don't need to - Jayce tugs him close once more, presses his cheek to the top of Viktor's sun-warmed head, and Viktor listens to Jayce's heart thunder under his ear. He's lifted, ever so slightly, by Jayce's breathing, a gentle rocking that provides a steady countermeasure to his own rabbit-fast pulse. Jayce holds Viktor like he'll never let go again, and he might just not. Viktor tucks his head under Jacye's chin and he starts laughing as it hits him too.
That they're here, together - and no matter what's waiting for them beyond this meadow, beyond this moment - that will never change again.
Participating in Dracula Daily has reminded me of how throughout the initial portions of the novel the Count repeatedly makes back-handed references to the fact that he’s a vampire, seemingly for absolutely no reason other than to fuck with Jonathan, and it’s strengthened my conviction that you can’t have a faithful modern adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula unless Dracula is just constantly spouting shitty vampire puns – which everyone around him unaccountably fails to pick up on – like a gaunt, bemoustached Hannibal Lecter.
The Funniest Possible Star War: an AU where the Kaminoans get wise just a LITTLE earlier.
Like. Instead of waiting until the inhibitor chips are activated and the Empire is already ascendant to realize that the Galactic Empire absolutely will not allow there to be a planet that mass-produces clone armies for the highest bidder, they have this realization BEFORE Order 66 goes out.
AU where the Kaminoan government looks at their position, looks at the likely fallout, and weighs their futures under a Galactic Empire to whom they are a threat that has outlived its usefulness VS a grateful but still slow-moving Republic, with all its factions and legalities intact, its social mores primarily unchanged….its army filled with thinking, feeling men to whom Kamino is their homeworld and who are in control of their free will and thus capable of refusing orders that strike at their own hearts…its main enemy in the form of the Separatist Alliance neutralized but not utterly annihilated, ripe for both sides being played against the middle…
And quietly, about six weeks before Knightfall, without telling anyone, just…..deactivates the chips. Sends out a pulse via comm channel designed to fry or alter them. Remote killswitch. Something like that.
So Palpatine like. He’s WON. He’s TRIUMPHANT. He kills the Jedi strike team, gets Anakin to kill Mace Windu, names his new apprentice Vader, has him swear allegiance, sends him to wipe out the Jedi, goes all “COMMANDER CODEEEE”
“exEcUtE oRDeR SIxtY sIx”
and
nothing
happens.
Cody politely asks for clarification because that’s not a term in the GAR manual, sir, apologies. Long pause. Cody equally politely apologizes and explains that he’s in a pitched battle, sir, but I’m sure the General will contact you when we’ve taken the planet.
[Palpatine voice] “Hwat.”
He hits the next button on his carefully-curated Order 66 contact booklet for the high-priority targets he wants taken out before the general transmission so they don’t get any warning. He sits impatiently through the tinkly elevator music.
“COMMANDER REX EXECUTE ORDER 66″
Rex blinks, explains he’s not familiar with that code, sir, but Rex is a little less polite than Cody due to long-term exposure to Anakin Skywalker, and has the presence of mind to also point out that the Supreme Chancellor isn’t even technically IN the GAR chain of command, he’s a CIVILIAN leader, what’s going on–
Palpatine hangs up on him.
Okay, fine, whatever. Annoying but not unsurpassable, those two were ALWAYS an irritant, their clone commanders must have done something to the chips, it WAS a clone from Skywalker’s battalion who nearly discovered them after all. He’ll take out the rest of the Council and the all-call general transmission will take out the rest of the Order, he can deal with the treacherous 501-B and 212th later–
Shaak Ti’s clone commander asks in abject bewilderment how the Supreme Chancellor even got his personal comm number. He’s not even on duty. It’s 3am. Half the Council’s clones don’t even respond. Those that do just promise to have their Jedi call back about this Order 66 thing when they’re available.
He sends the general transmission with significantly less gravitas than originally planned.
He immediately starts getting confused email notifications. Unduli sends a TEXT from some random rank-and-file clone’s comms politely reminding him that she was present for the most recent strategy meeting and there was no operation codenamed Order 66, and reminds him coolly to respect the chain of command. Depa Billaba’s commander not only calls back but actually GETS HER ON COMMS to ask if she knows the term. They patch her padawan into the call to puzzle it out. The padawan asks Palpatine what happened to his face. He sits through three full minutes of playful banter before screaming and cutting the line.
Anakin gets downstairs to kick off Knightfall. The 501st blinks at their orders, exchange long looks, agree wholeheartedly, and stun him in the back the moment he turns around before dragging his ass to the Temple medical wing.
Look, guys, you need to know something really important about Batman.
The whole traditional English butler thing? Yeah, “master ____” is a form of address used for children. Alfred has been lowkey calling Bruce a manchild for decades.
i always assumed that when bruce got older, alfred called him ‘mister wayne’ exactly once, because the look on bruce’s face when alfred called him what he’d previously always called thomas wasn’t one he ever wanted to see again
Third take: Alfred is essentially Bruce’s parent, and this is both of them’s weird, bat-ly way of acknowledging that without ever (god forbid) talking about their feelings.
Yes, because when Trump dies and thinks he’s going to be king shit in the afterlife, ea-nasir is going to one-shot him with a shitty copper ingot upside his empty orange fucking head
It's come to my attention that a good portion of the younger generation has not been made aware of one of the greatest and most hated PILLARS of millennial society.
So I apologize, but I must take on this task. A new hand must touch the beacon. The knowledge must be passed on. The chain can not be broken.
So.
The Game.
The following are the rules of The Game:
there is no winning The Game
once you know of The Game, you are always playing the game
the point of The Game is to not think about The Game
if you think about The Game, you have lost The Game, and must announce this to those around you - causing them to also lose The Game
A "reset period" of roughly an hour or two before loss announcements is common in colloquial rules to allow yourself and those around you to properly temporarily "forget" about The Game, however that is not an official rule.
I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch
