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[ Continuing this. ]

Tearing his gaze away from Jayce, he stared at the now desecrated little cake with a complicated look on his face, somewhere between surprise and regret. He hadn't actually meant to do that. But the result was the same anyway, regardless of his intentions. So much of his life could be summed up that way. Viktor wished to do good for once, though sometimes he wondered, in all his efforts to the contrary, if he was truly only destined to destroy.

He reached out with a hand and carefully, delicately summoned the card up into the air, a small bit of magic that lit the arcane living under his skin with a glowing, golden light. Then he plucked the card out of the air, wiping the frosting off with a thumb. "It should still be edible," Viktor mused about the dessert, while setting the sign back neatly in its original place. "Though I would not advise consuming more." He tried to inject a little humor into his tone, but the moment had passed. Like so many of the moments they had let slip in their partnership, here they were, doomed to repeat their mistakes.

I'm sorry wasn't enough. Not for either of them. But as Viktor closed his eyes, savoring that old nickname he thought he might never hear again, he wondered whether an apology might make for a decent beginning. "I am sorry, Jayce," he murmured, opening his eyes again to search his former partner's face, his own gaze shifting between a cool blue and a light pink. "I should have kept searching for you. It is one of my greatest regrets." There would always be a larger one, looming with the face of their old assistant, but he focused on this instead.

Viktor watched and waited as Jayce stepped closer, holding his breath. He didn't move an inch. "I didn't say that," he returned, a tiny smirk tugging at his mouth.

Edited 2025-02-25 17:20 (UTC)

Viktor might have looked away, but Jayce's eyes were fixed on his partner—former? partner—like a man possessed. Jayce felt it. Possessed. Not necessarily in a bad way, more like in the way he used to be with the things he loved; hyper-focused, the rest of the world falling away to nothing. This was the way he was when their lives were simpler, long nights in the lab, pouring over their work until the sunrise bathed the room in a warm glow that chased away some of the aches and pains of sitting up for hours, tinkering. Jayce missed the sounds of Viktor puzzling away at something, his steady, comforting presence quieting all the doubts in Jayce's head. These last few months... year? Doubts were all Jayce had.

"It looks fine," Jayce offered, picking up a fork to smooth out the slice left by the card. "I won't tell if you don't." Warm and doft, Jayce's voice sounded the most like it used to then, the harshness bled out of it, replaced by concern and a little awe. Knowing what he knew now, that the mage he'd spent his whole childhood obsessed with was Viktor, he found that casual display of magic even prettier because it came from someone he loved. "Consuming what?" Jayce absently rolled the candy, now nearly gone, around on his tongue. "I only had that one thing. I don't think it had a sign."

Nevertheless, his cheeks burned.

"I'm sorry, too, V. For everything. For not being there for you, for... being selfish." That covered a few sins, but the apology still didn't feel like enough. He could have wallowed in that, but Viktor's admission finally settled into place in his head, the words tangling up in his ribs until he could barely suck in air. "You were looking for me?" Jayce didn't know if he wanted to latch onto that or to the fact that Viktor had given up, so he waffled between both.

Quirking a brow, Jayce wrapped his fingers around that staff and stepped closer. "What did you mean to say then?"

A stab of regret sliced through him. He'd carried this sensation since he left their lab, and Viktor felt it again now, pressing further between his ribs, making a home within his chest. There was no denying that he craved Jayce's attention. He'd fought and clawed to keep it, and when he left everything behind, Viktor realized just how much he'd relied on his former partner's approval. How desperate he'd been to stand in that sunlight for just a fleeting moment, greedy for recognition from the one person he actually wanted to impress.

So when Viktor felt the beginnings of that again now, the warmth creeping over him as though a spring thaw after a long winter, he contemplated giving in. Perhaps he already had, and he was just deluding himself.

Viktor curled his fingers around the handle of his staff to keep from reaching out, contenting himself with a small noise of amusement as he continued gazing at the man in front of him. "I know," he returned softly, because he did. He knew Jayce had regrets. He could see it in the dark circles under his eyes, the harsh lines across his face, the desperate way he seemed to cling to the knowledge that Viktor regretted, too. "Of course I was," he replied, voice a little sharper now, brow knit. "I'd hoped to entice you to leave with me, if such a thing were possible." Foolhardy, maybe, but Jayce would understand the impulse.

The warning voice in his head was growing quieter. "That you look confident," Viktor murmured, voice a little rasping. "And comfortable."

— action, viktor & jayce

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