he was a bird, I was an arrow [jayce + viktor]

[hexsteel]

for hexera

both of us sure we were sword and a sparrow
still, when we flew, we never knew

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[hexera]

His senses are still struggling to catch up to the moment, but he's vaguely aware of movement. The sound of footsteps, the click of a crutch. A crutch. It's that sound that seems to kick his mind and senses back into full gear, and Jayce feels like his heart seizes in his chest at the smell that reaches his nostils.

His body is tired, sore, feels as if he's been ripped apart and put back together again. But that doesn't stop him from hastily pushing himself up, ignoring the scream of his muscles that protest. It's just in time for him to see Viktor - younger, softer around the edges, alive - hitting the ground. He's up and on one knee, hands shaking as he reaches out, placing them on Viktor's shoulders to keep him upright. In his reach. As if he's scared this is all some dream or a hallucination that'll be snatched away from him at any more.

"Viktor," he breathes out, voice shaking, as he stares into those golden eyes. The same color they'd been before he'd become another version of himself. His hand lifts from Viktor's shoulder, gently cupping the back of his head as he leans forward. Resting his forehead against Viktor's.

"You're here." He'd expected that would be it - that they'd destroy everything and themselves in the process. That that moment would be their last one together. Except now he's here and here he is.

[hexsteel]

"I'm here?" Viktor sputters, baffled and beyond shock, because that's just about the only response he can come up with. "My presence isn't the shocking variable, here!"

Has it really been a year since Jayce died? Because as he's gathered close and brought to rest his forehead against Jayce's, it feels like both an eternity and no time at all since he last saw him. Suddenly, that memory of their last day together -- nothing out of the ordinary, just a typical day in the lab, a casual kiss exchanged as Jayce had left for the night -- seems extraordinarily vivid. It's his scent. It's exactly the same, and yet--

He's not the same.

Viktor puts his hands on Jayce's shoulders and eases him back, enough so that he can look at him properly. And as he does, his expression crumples, because what the fuck has Jayce gone through? There's a new scar through his lips, haggard lines at the corners of his eyes, his hair is longer than it's ever been, and the beard-- that's new, to say the least. But how can Jayce have gone through anything? He was dead. That typically marks the end of one's life experiences.

"You died," he stresses. "How can you be here? Why do you look so different? How is this at all possible?"