aims with imprecision
Arcane | Jayce/Viktor | T | read on ao3
Summary: The good news is that a last-ditch, experimental treatment cures the 'terminal' part of Viktor's terminal illness. The bad news is the 'illness' part sticks around.
Excerpt:
The morning sunlight is an insistent thing, creeping between the tight seams of closed blinds and draping golden stripes along their entangled bodies. Jayce turns his head further into Viktor’s neck, crooked nose to wiry collar, and hides from the new day.
The hum of Viktor’s ventilation system buzzes with each of his breaths against Jayce’s chest. When Viktor exhales, his ribs pull away from Jayce and his heart presses back against his skin like it’s trying to escape. In, out. In, out. Jayce twists, reaches up a palm and presses it to Viktor’s sternum. His heartbeat is weak and fast under Jayce’s fingers, like a hummingbird beating its wings.
“Good morning,” he murmurs, when he feels Viktor’s breath hitch beneath his hand. Viktor always wakes up reluctantly, every morning a battle to rouse from the pressure of his drowsy medication from the night before. Ever since he started ventilation overnight, CO2 retention also slows him down in the mornings.
Jayce lifts his head, pressing a small kiss to Viktor’s jaw as he pulls himself away. The sheets are warm and difficult to leave. As he extricates himself from them, Viktor’s hand snaps out to clutch at his wrist. Golden eyes peer up at him, heavy with sleep. The mask over the lower half of Viktor’s face is foggy, and the pale lips beneath it frown. Jayce reaches over with his free hand to smooth the wrinkle in between Viktor’s brows.
“As much as I’d love to lounge with you longer, I need to piss,” Jayce tells him, gently removing his hand from Viktor’s grip. “I’ll be back for your morning meds. Get a few more minutes of sleep.” A kiss to Viktor’s forehead mollifies him, and he curls up in the spot of body heat Jayce leaves behind.
When he returns, Viktor’s eyes are shut and his ventilated breaths are even with sleep. Jayce doesn’t want to rouse him from the comforting doze of the morning, so he changes from his sleep clothes and gives Viktor a little more time to rest. He’d crawl back into bed with Viktor all day if he could, but Viktor’s morning medication requires a meal to go with it and if Viktor sleeps after breakfast, his stomach will violently make him regret it. Conversely, if he waits too long to take his morning medication, the pain and tremors will seep in and the rest of the day will be a battle against his own body.
It’s with this quiet, helpless regret that Jayce wakes Viktor up for real. He sits on Viktor’s side of the bed and rubs circles into his bare, bony shoulder until he groans and opens his eyes. Jayce is sent a sleepy glare that he brushes off with a small smile.
Every morning that Viktor wakes up is another day they didn’t think they’d get. Viktor’s original prognosis said he would have been dead five months ago. That date came and went with little fanfare. The lesions in his lungs have been gone for about that long. Jayce used to wake up in the middle of the night with the relief of it; he used to turn over and press his hand to Viktor's chest just to feel his lungs expand and contract. Five months is nothing and it is everything. It is less than a baby spends in a womb, but more than the number Viktor was given when he was diagnosed. They don't actually talk about the number because neither wants to jinx it, but with every passing day the constricting fear around their hearts marginally loosens its grip. If clinical trials of the treatment prove true, Viktor and thousands of other native Zaunites should live reasonably long lives. Viktor's not 'healthy' compared to an unaffected person's standards, but he's doing incredible compared to himself half a year ago. That's what Jayce clings to.
Viktor removes the ventilation mask himself, undoing the straps with nimble fingers and pulling it off with a careful gasp of unassisted air. Jayce is ready to trade with him for the nasal cannula, and Viktor loops that around his ears and into his nose before he pulls himself up to sit. Once vertical, he pauses and takes a few deep, self-sustained breaths.
Viktor described it once like ‘catching up’ on air. Even though the ventilation keeps him alive it doesn’t allow for natural sighs or deep breathing. When he transitions off of it in the mornings, his body demands full use of his weak lungs as soon as he’s free of the respiratory pressure support.
Viktor reaches under his bad knee and swings both of his legs over the side of the bed with a wince. Jayce waits a second, watching for signs of dizziness or breathing difficulties, but Viktor just sighs and rolls his head around, cracking his neck. Jayce stands, wipes the inside of the mask, then detaches it from the circuit and tucks it away in the sterile drawer of Viktor’s medical shelf.
Jayce returns to the bed as Viktor’s stretching. He looks rather like a cat, making lithe lines with his body in the shadows of their dim room. He reaches for the ceiling and yawns as his contorted back pops. His eyes screw shut with the pain that elicits, but he’s told Jayce it’s a sore type of pain and not a problematic one.
Jayce doesn’t want him feeling any pain at all—but it isn’t up to him. He’s learned not to push.
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