[ they've - well, he's - been here once before. an empty lab haunted by the ghosts of what could have been, frenzied scribblings on a chalkboard, the silence suddenly broken by the single utterance of his name. the uncertain lilt in viktor's voice as he calls out is so startlingly familiar that in the heartbeat before jayce turns around, he nearly expects to see metal, magic, his madness manifested--
it's not, of course. flesh and blood and mundanity - or as mundane as viktor could ever be to his eyes, which is to say not at all - and the relief that floods his system literally staggers him as he steps forward. it's almost, almost, enough to drown out the sharp bite of anger that accompanies it, that this whole ordeal must be necessary at all, that a force so powerful as to reset the biological clock post-mortem somehow still isn't enough to prevent it from happening to begin with.
no. deep breaths. this place, strange and unnatural though it may be, has at the very least given them the gift of time - a resource they had so precious little of back home. time to learn, to experiment, to chart the steady course of progress and stop this from ever happening again.
( he has never wanted to learn grief, nor the acceptance of the inevitable. what is the point of genius, of magic, if not to devise a solution to the greatest problem of them all? what is there to accept when instead he could fix? ) ]
Viktor! You're back!
[ variables change. people, less so. for all the differences between now and then, jayce's reaction remains exactly the same - he stumbles forward and reaches out, drawing viktor in for a tight hug. ]
no subject
it's not, of course. flesh and blood and mundanity - or as mundane as viktor could ever be to his eyes, which is to say not at all - and the relief that floods his system literally staggers him as he steps forward. it's almost, almost, enough to drown out the sharp bite of anger that accompanies it, that this whole ordeal must be necessary at all, that a force so powerful as to reset the biological clock post-mortem somehow still isn't enough to prevent it from happening to begin with.
no. deep breaths. this place, strange and unnatural though it may be, has at the very least given them the gift of time - a resource they had so precious little of back home. time to learn, to experiment, to chart the steady course of progress and stop this from ever happening again.
( he has never wanted to learn grief, nor the acceptance of the inevitable. what is the point of genius, of magic, if not to devise a solution to the greatest problem of them all? what is there to accept when instead he could fix? ) ]
Viktor! You're back!
[ variables change. people, less so. for all the differences between now and then, jayce's reaction remains exactly the same - he stumbles forward and reaches out, drawing viktor in for a tight hug. ]