Who: celen's boys (aka charles and viktor), you?
Where: viktor's lab, lupin, the farm
What: viktor finally loses the battle against his illness and comes back. meanwhile, charles is learning magic (badly).
Warnings: death and dying, mentions of child abuse
PROMPTS IN COMMENTS.
▷ charles.
▷ viktor.
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runeing) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
expiationlogs2025-02-01 08:24 pm
i
the thing is, he shouldn't have been surprised to find viktor's corpse in the lab one cold winter morning. he's a scientist, he's observant, he'd been already worriedly tracking viktor's deterioration as much as he'd (badly) pretended otherwise. it's certainly less out of the blue than a sudden explosion, and at the very least he knows that death here holds far less permanence than back home. it would be no different than a medically induced coma to promote healing, he'd told himself on the rare occasions where he'd been able to bear thinking about it at all. he'd be more prepared for it this time.
(he hadn't been prepared for it at all. there is no ease in the familiarity of the sight of viktor's lax expression, the stiffness of his limbs, the deathly pallor of his skin - and for a moment, jayce chokes on the stench of smoke, his eyes gritty with ash and tears, heart drumming a million beats per second and breath caught in an unvoiced scream as he clutches the body to him tight and searches for a miracle, any miracle--
anyways. there's a couple pages of notes in the lab now missing thanks to coming into contact with a truly unfortunate amount of vomit. )
still, initial (and entirely reasonable) freak out aside, he thinks he's handling this fine? viktor's body lies untouched by magic or science, aside from drawing the blankets up and fluffing his pillow to make sure he's as comfortable as can be. and sure, maybe jayce hasn't left the lab since the incident, but that's nothing unusual for him and it's not like he can just walk away from a potential breakthrough when it's something this important. he's running multiple experiments and theorems at once, after all - a chalkboard covered with magical runes here, a design for an iron lung there, multiple blood tests that he really needs to keep track of in the corner - he can hardly be expected to just leave. or eat. or sleep, for that matter. he can sleep when he's - well.
the point is, he really doesn't know what caitlyn is so fussed about when he's doing frankly a lot better than the first time around. but she does eventually manage to drag him into civilization and a nap, and when he comes back to the lab - the body is gone.
( there may have been another freak out at this point wherein in his sleep deprivation, jayce immediately leaps to the assumption that someone stole viktor's corpse, then after a frantic search for clues realizes that's insane and instead panics that somehow the resurrection's gone wrong and viktor's been deleted from this simulation entirely, before finally landing on the much more reasonable conclusion that viktor just probably woke up and left of his own volition.
there may also be a hole in the wall now being guiltily covered up by the chalkboard. he'll fix it later. )
and really, that shouldn't have been surprising either. he's well aware of viktor's proclivity to disappear and reappear without warning, and by now he's long used to squashing down the instinctual surge of anxiety. while jayce's mind can follow his partner's down any road when it comes to matters of intellect, he knows there's still certain areas he may never be able to understand. viktor can more than take care of himself - and if there's somewhere in this town he can retreat to for whatever solace he needs, if he can just nonchalantly walk away from his death as if there wouldn't be people worried sick about him, then. that's a relief. really, it is.
( he thinks about laughing hysterically. he thinks about screaming. he thinks about maybe finally taking that long-delayed plunge off a roof just to see what the fuss is about, since that club seems to be so fucking popular these days. )
in the end, jayce just bites his tongue hard, rolls up his sleeves, and gets back to work. what else is there to do while he waits? ]
no subject
viktor wakes, and doesn't know — anything, really. not the time of day, the date, or where he has been. there is a blanket over him, but that could simply be... a coincidence? has his body really been here the whole time, or has he disappeared, only to reappear here once the simulation finished rebooting his body?
as he rises, there are signs in the lab that jayce has been there — he is as certain it is jayce and no one else as he is of the heart beating in his chest. but jayce is also, notably, no longer there; which is a good thing, he thinks, because it means he's... doing alright? enough to be elsewhere?
yes, that's good. and so he leaves; because, indeed, there is someone who he knows is worried sick about him, who he promised to go to the moment he'd wake. the only person he knows with certainty had known of his death; after all, if his body simply disappeared... then everyone else might simply think he'd gone back home, like vi and caitlyn had.
he almost hopes that's what's happened.
still; it is the next morning that he returns, the door clicking shut softly behind him, and as quiet as he is, the sound of his crutch against the floor is impossible to mask. but there's a light on, and so he calls out, hesitantly, ]
Jayce...?
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. ]
no subject
and so, his own reaction is certainly different from what jayce will remember; there is the moment of hesitation, yes, but none of that cold detachment to be found in the way viktor lifts his hand and clutches jayce back, tips his head forward to rest against his shoulder. ]
I'm sorry, [ he says, when he finds his voice again from the overwhelming relief that jayce is here, that, based on his notes he'd seen, he doesn't have to fight this battle against what this place can do alone. ]
I never wanted... to cause you pain. Or worry. And I fear I've done both.
[ because if it had been jayce who had found him, as he suspects it to be... yes, he's certainly done both. ]