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piscesnebula2024-12-29 08:41 am
wildrune) wrote in piscesnebula2024-12-29 08:41 amEntry tags:
wildrune) wrote in piscesnebula2024-12-29 08:41 am
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No, that's not an option. I already took that off the table. For all you know it'll kill them too.
( By refusing to shoot him when he thought he should have, so Jayce has already decided that is not an acceptable choice. He isn't going to change his mind on that now. And it is true that he has bonded this group of humans together like a hive, they probably would not survive the loss of their center. There has to be another way.)
You don't know yet how to withdraw it, but you can learn. The hexcore may be a part of you but it's not all of you.
( Jayce cups Viktor's face in his large palms.)
You have the strongest mind I know. It misled you, but now that you can see it, you can change it. We're not strangers to doing what seems impossible.
( Jayce doesn't have the answer either as to what Viktor should do here though. He's not in his body, in his mind. He just took them to some kind of astral plane where he can see everything all at once, that's far beyond what Jayce can fathom let alone control. So in this case he has no real power outside of trying to convince Viktor that he's capable of handling this.
His lover has always been so certain of himself and independent so this may be new and uncomfortable to him, but he can push past it. Jayce is proof that doubting oneself doesn't have to break a person unless they choose to let it. He's full of doubt, or at least he was, until right now. Now he's confident. This was the right path. Viktor will stop it from happening and he fulfilled his role that mage-Viktor told him.)
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What did he do with it? Is their emotion still within their minds, just suppressed? Or did he rip it out entirely? Will returning it be a simple matter of unblocking, or will he have to rebuild them? Is he even capable of that?
(For the briefest of moments, Viktor viciously misses the simplicity of being he had had just moments before. Now that he's able to snip away the strands of the hexcore tangled up in his mind, everything is so much more... difficult.)
He has no lungs anymore with which to take a deep breath to steady himself, so Viktor does the next best thing, closing his eyes for a moment. There, he can see all the souls he's linked to, bright golden lights stretching out into the distance. It's not a reassuring sight, but at least he knows they're there. Within reach. Forcibly shoving down some of that emotion, he can hear the lessening of the cries of the commune, devotees getting up from where they'd fallen in the dirt or on the floor of their dwellings, slowly recovering. And when Viktor opens his eyes again-- ]
I am... so sorry that you had to go through all of that. Just to point me in the right direction.
[ Viktor's hand comes up to wrap around Jayce's wrist, dark metal curling over olive skin. ]
Your leg. [ He falters. ] I could heal it, but... it would remove your mind. Your emotions, and passion. I do not think I am capable of healing without doing that, not while the hexcore still works within me.
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( It is, too. Jayce led a privileged life compared to Viktor or anyone else from the Undercity. He did suffer and go through his own struggles, but he learned from first-hand experience how difficult it was to rise from the bottom to the top, sometimes crawling on his hands and knees to do so. Jayce has been humbled, he's left behind his arrogance and self-pity and come out the other end stronger for it. Less sane, more damaged, a little broken, but stronger and focused.
Viktor was always the one who managed to steady him. Jayce with his intense emotions and being, usually the one with all the nerves, who needed a person to tell him to punch it instead of doubt himself on their original great invention. Now he can be that person, sturdy and true, for him.)
No. Leave it.
( It'll heal someday or it never will; probably the latter. He could never reset it the way he needed to. He'll live with a limp for life if he has to. Viktor did. He tilts Viktor's head up toward him and leans in to kiss him very gently. It's insane how many times he wanted to do that over the years, thinking about it when he looked at Viktor. How easy it would have been to lean over when they were working and act on his feelings, and how afraid he was to do it. Now he kisses him to reassure him, one of his hands remaining on his cheek and the other to his hip, solid as he holds him there.)
I love you. We'll figure this out. We have to do some tests, right? Like we would with anything else.
( They never did any tests with human subjects, is the thing, but they will be very careful in what they do next. Jayce feels a moment of guilt over killing Salo before he had any chance to maybe undo what happened to him, but at the time, he thought he was going to kill Viktor so why not anyone who got in his way? He has regrets but they're not going to help them.)
You bring in one and we test out if there is a way to detach from them. You might need to go into that ... astral projection thing you just did? Maybe you'll be able to see more clearly.
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The thought that Jayce had to suffer that much just to be able to bring him these memories to shake him loose from the hexcore-- it is intolerable. If he in every world needs a Jayce to show him the way, is that just his destiny? To make every Jayce suffer, just so every Viktor doesn't destroy their world?
How can Jayce still look at him? Still kiss him with such tenderness? Viktor's half-tempted to throw some kind of fit and kick Jayce out, just in the hope that he'll make his way back to a cushy Piltover life where he might suffer the least. The urge to push him away is, for a moment, all consuming. Viktor puts a hand to Jayce's chest, metal fingertips curling over bare skin, and thinks about it -- thinks about exactly what poison he can spill in Jayce's ear to make him leave and never look back.
But in the end, he is too selfish to go through with it.
He... thinks he needs Jayce's help to set things right. And he cannot bear the thought of making Jayce leave, not when they've finally acknowledged things between them. A stronger man would cut Jayce loose, perhaps. In this moment, Viktor is not feeling particularly strong. ]
Will you help me?
[ He sounds hollow. Lost. Jayce may not have an innate understanding of that arcane space like he does, but he will still be invaluable. ]
I always did do my best work with your help.
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If every version of Viktor needs him, he'll be there. Anything can happen to him in the meantime. His devotion is unquestionable. Despite the fact he nearly killed him, that was because another Viktor talked to him. It's still all about him. Jayce let his priorities shift once before and look how that turned out.)
I am never leaving you again, Viktor. This is where I want to be.
( It feels so clear to him now that he has shaken off enough of his trauma to see better. He was sick before and some of him remains that way, but it took feeling like a human again for him to settle. Rebalance. Apparently sex with the love of his life can be very healing, but the food and the bath did almost as much for bringing him back to his humanity.
He is sorry that Viktor sounds hollow, that he's had to suffer emotionally for the truth. It might be necessary, for both of them, but it still feels bad to him. He pulls Viktor to him and into a warm embrace, his large body wrapped around him. His cheek rests on top of Viktor's hair and he is home. They never got to embrace like this before, not fully, not until that day in the lab.)
We'll do this together. Your followers will make it out of this. We've done the impossible before.
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Tentatively, Viktor's arms creep around Jayce's waist. There is so much bare skin on offer, warm against the metal of this form.
With his cheek pressed against Jayce's collarbone, he theorizes: ]
I am unsure if I suppressed their emotions and personalities, or if I did away with them entirely. I suspect the former to be true, as I can see their souls in the astral space I showed you, so my theory is that I removed the bulk of their souls and shifted them to reside in the arcane rather than the physical. If that assumption is true, returning them to themselves should be a relatively simple process.
[ He sighs, the metallic resonance to it heavy. ]
If, however, I obliterated their emotional self, then I would have to construct it again from memory and whatever echoes reside in their mental space. That process would be lengthy, and highly prone to error.
no subject
Viktor lets him too. He's folded into Jayce's embrace and rested his cheek against him, and Jayce lifts a hand to run soothingly through his hair. The sex they had was intense and necessary to get them here, but he finds this intimacy just as satisfying. It's not a question for him how he could still love Viktor after everything he saw and now knows. He just does. It's simple in the end. This is the man he's loved for years, who has been everything to his heart. His partner and best friend and the love of his life. How to stay angry at him was the hardest part.)
Let's run with the theory that it was just suppression first. I don't think these were their final forms, they didn't look like people at all when I saw them, so there was a step in between now and then.
( Jayce doesn't know what that was, since all he saw was the aftermath. The robotic beings that chased him didn't look like people at all, unlike the corpses that were made of trees. So whatever wiped everyone else out, they didn't really seem human anymore. It would make sense that there was a secondary change to get them to that form. Who knows, maybe his actions would have caused it, if he chose a different way. They'll never know now. Viktor's seen for himself what Jayce envisions so he knows his creatures were different.
He pulls back but still keeps Viktor in his arms, leaning down to press their foreheads together, staying close within his embrace. Viktor needs him, he needs to lean on him and know that he can come back from this. Viktor's done this for him too, that's what partners do.)
I should have told you all of this before we had sex. It wasn't right of me to prioritize my desire over the truth.
( And yet, he can't find it in him to regret it. He should have told him but at the same time, Jayce needed it to remember being human. Their time together brought him back to his body and to his heart, made him more than the feverish survivor he became. He can know intellectually that he was doing the wrong thing while emotionally being thankful for it.)
But if we figure all this out, if we fix it ... maybe we can try again?
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[ Because Viktor has always been a man with a one-track mind, no matter what he turned that mind to. Work, usually. His commune, now. Last night, it had been getting his hands on Jayce as quickly as possible. He finds himself drawn back into those sweet memories, a tempting distraction from everything else that has unfolded before him. Viktor sweeps his hands down Jayce's sides, settling on his hips, one thumb idly stroking the crest of bone. ]
You will, unfortunately, have to get dressed before we begin fixing this. You are a terrible distraction, on display like this.
[ His returning emotions feel so horribly unstable, flipping wildly between guilt and want and horror and desire. He wants to march outside and shove everybody's souls back in their bodies. He wants to push Jayce back onto the bed and ride him until he can't think anymore. He wants to exile himself to some far off land where he can never hurt anybody ever again.
Viktor bites back a sigh, and separates himself from Jayce, stooping to pick up his robe.
He has to fix these people first. To do anything else would be unconscionable. ]
If these are not their final forms, then let us hope I can fix what I did. What will become of this place after that, I do not know. I can hardly imagine they will want to stay.
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It's true, neither of us was in the mood for talking.
( They crashed together with a fervid energy that came from equal amounts of pain and love. He only wishes that they could still be in bed together, enjoying the aftermath of finally getting something they both deeply wanted, but he had to ruin it this morning with his paranoia. But then it brought them here, which is where they have to be. They have to stop what could happen. It is more important than their personal wants.
He's still surprised when Viktor points out he's a distraction and he glances down, having forgotten entirely that he's naked. The touches of Viktor's hands on him should have reminded him, but it's been an overwhelming few minutes.)
Oh ... right. We'll ... circle back to that.
( The nudity. And distractions. Maybe. If they're lucky. Jayce goes over to where Viktor brought him clothes earlier and starts tugging them on. They fit, of course, Viktor knows his size, although he's thinned out from lack of food and he's less bulk than pure muscle at this point. He feels more like a person when he does that though, so he thinks it was probably for the best. It's amazing what food, a bath, and some clothes can do for a person who was lacking in all of them only a day before.)
It's not, they were completely inorganic when I saw them. There was nothing human left of them. The way the other you talked, at some point he thought he was ridding people of imperfections by changing them.
( And that doesn't seem to be the case here. Currently Viktor has changed and healed people, yes, but he isn't trying to dominate them entirely. Or pinpointed the human things within them that have to go. They're not that far gone. That's the important part, and what he'll keep reminding them both.
Now fully dressed, he returns to Viktor and reaches out to snag his hand, threading their fingers together. )
I told him I had to find a way to stop it. We're going to do that, the two of us.