Chapter Text
To say he was fuming was an understatement. Though Jayce could claim a list of accomplishments from his continuous years as a pioneer of both science and magic, being cucked by your alternate universe self was never supposed to be in the cards. Viktor was chuckling in the way he did when he knew Jayce was irritated, the kind of laugh that scratched his throat and wheezed on its way out. It wasn’t the nervous laughter of someone who was caught frenching their lab partner’s parallel universe self, or whomever it was. Something, something, devil in the details.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Jayce,” Viktor chortled. “He’s cute, and he asked politely.” Viktor knocked their shoulders together. “You know that consent gets me all hot under the collar.” Jayce wasn’t in the mood for laughter (he would, however, file that away for later, after he got over himself).
“What, so all it takes is for some stranger to ask you to makeout with them, and, and you do it?”
Time ceased for a moment. In that moment of whence time ceased, Jayce’s cognizance clicked back on to belatedly alert him of the crock of shit he just spewed. He watched Viktor’s face twist in disgust and anger and sadness and shame. There was no sick satisfaction of dragging Viktor down, only the omnipresent jealousy sticking to his stomach like honey, and the heat sucked from his limbs and transplanted to his face.
The mirth in Viktor’s eyes subsided. “What are you saying?” He stepped back. Jayce could imagine his hair bristling, hackles raised. “If you’re implying that I’m easy, or dirty, or something stupid like that, that only you could justify to yourself to say-”
“Wait a minute, I didn’t mean it like that!” But what other way was there to take it?
Viktor turned away from him. “No. You simply meant to suggest that I’m some kind of whore for kissing someone who isn’t you.” Viktor’s eyes cut to Jayce, his withering anger crushing his chest. “If you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than to argue with you about something this meaningless. When you want to talk like adults, let me know.” His cane clunked down the hall, every step echoing their words in a terrible feedback loop.
“That could’ve gone better, no?”
He shrieked, though more out of obligation than actual fear. He whipped around, ready for a fight, and every thought died, aborted before they could escape to his tongue. Behind him, imposing and regal, stood a… man? A robot? Someone with a suspiciously familiar Slavic accent. The stranger was far enough removed from his Viktor to temper his anger into tunnel vision. He needed an outlet. He swung, belatedly realizing the man was covered in sheet metal and was a good foot taller than him.
The stranger let his fist connect with his chest. It let out a hollow ding, nothing compared to the sickening crack in Jayce’s wrist. “Fuck!” He howled, cradling his hand. The stranger sighed, but it was off, like it went through a voice modifier that was cooked in a microwave before being installed.
The stranger gestured to his hand. “Give it.” Jayce whimpered as he took his wrist and turned it over. “Touch your fingers together.” He did, with a groan. “It’s just a sprain.” The stranger dropped his wrist to rifle through the desk drawers. “I see you still lack self-preservation. My Jayce was always one to fight first, ask questions later, much like you.” The voice oozed with sardonic glee.
“Is this some kind of joke? I feel like I’m getting played,” Jayce said, backing away.
He unclasped his mask with a roll of steam and gave Jayce a look of pity. “No. Sorry, kid. You are no Giopara, that much is obvious.” Viktor pulled out a roll of bandages. It was the kind used for sprains, the kind that they used for haphazard support on towering experiments when they were just delirious enough to trust it. He beckoned Jayce over.
This cyborg Viktor didn’t feel familiar at all, even doting on him like this. It was like he had been put through the uncanny valley. It was him, undoubtedly: same hair, same look of disdain, same odd golden eyes that were begging you to get lost in them. The same mole near his eye that Jayce had ached to kiss. “I’m not a prick, if that’s what you’re trying to say.” He sidled up to the man, resting his sprained wrist on his shoulder and struggling to push him down into a chair with the other. “And,” he huffed, “I’m not a kid.” His knuckles went white from where he was pushing.
Viktor laughed, and it sounded hollowly of his lab partner. But it lacked something, and Jayce couldn’t comfortably piece out what it was. “As obvious as Giopara is with his affections, even he wouldn’t be so bold.” Viktor let himself be manhandled into the seat. “Give me your wrist.”
He dropped it gently into Viktor’s lap, letting him get to work. “What about you?” he mumbled.
“What about me, Jayce?” Viktor grunted, pulling the wrap tight around his wrist.
“Ow- I mean, how do you feel about Giopara?” He bit his lip. He wasn’t sure exactly what their relationship would mean for him, but they felt inextricably tied. The doom in his chest thudded along to a silent beat.
“I try not to feel anything for him as a sort of code of conduct for myself.” Viktor handed him back his wrist. Jayce let it swing down.
“Oh.”
Jayce turned the other chair in the lab away from Viktor before heaving himself into it. And maybe he let his head thud petulantly onto the desk.
“Could it be…” Viktor began. “You believe that my relationship is hinged with yours?” Jayce gurgled, incoherent, but decidedly forlorn.
“Jayce, I need you to understand that our lives are separate continuities. Our worlds are entirely discrete, as far as we know.”
“I just don’t want any more evidence that we’re destined to fail, no matter how implausible the proof is,” he mumbled. “I want a world where your Jayce stayed away and didn’t make me feel so conflicted.”
Viktor mused. “You do understand why that’s a problem. correct?”
“Yeah,” Jayce nodded numbly.
Viktor sighed. “You two have far too much power over me.” He relaxed into the chair. “I have complicated emotions about Jayce Giopara. He is cocksure, arrogant. He alienates himself from his peers because he worries he’ll never find someone who truly understands him. He’s a snitch. He’s one of the smartest men I know.” Viktor paused to look at this world’s Jayce. He looked lost. “I don’t have the answers. I’m not even sure of my own emotions, most of the time. I try to keep them as stunted as possible. But even through this,” he tapped his chest, “I know that, on some scale, Jayce Giopara means a lot to me.”
Jayce blinked, dumbfounded. “What do I do with that?” he pleaded.
“What I mean is, use your head. Think about your feelings for once, and decide if your Viktor is worth the heartache. It’s a decision you’ll inevitably have to make, anyways.” He appraised Jayce. “I had to make it, too.”
Jayce’s face hardened. “I’m not as dense as your Giopara. I know.”
He latched his mask. “Good. Some of us should be happy.” Viktor didn’t look imposing anymore. He looked strung-out, propped up by machinery. He was a skeleton fused with its coffin.
Jayce watched the blue envelope Viktor, leaving behind only an afterimage and a vague recollection of the entire ordeal.
He’d never be able to prove it, but it seemed that something ineffable controlled the universes, making sure alternate versions of each other never met. Not that he was inclined to do so in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, there’s his Viktor. His lovely Viktor, engulfed in the dying light of the sun from the window behind him, eyes trained so completely on Jayce it was menacing.
“I’m waiting for my apology,” Viktor finally said.
Jayce deflated. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Viktor. Not just for today, but for everything before and everything later.”
His face wasn’t softening. “I’m not asking for any retroactive or future apologies. I want you to feel some remorse for how you treated me today.” His breath shuddered when he sucked in. “That’s all.”
Jayce’s demeanor shifted and crumbled, exposing the nerve on his chest: the one that held the ball of emotion he couldn’t untangle. “Viktor, I’ve been in love with you since we met.”
Viktor blinked, his jaw clicking shut.
“This is just a preface,” Jayce said with a hand up to placate. “There’s a lot about myself and other people in general I don’t understand. Because of that, I tend to keep it all shoved down and out of sight.” He held his breath. Oh god oh god oh god- “Including what I feel for you.” He clenched his hands in his hair, looking at the floor. It was swirling. “Seeing you kiss someone who looked like me but wasn’t, I don’t know. I was mad.” That wasn’t the whole truth, though. He’d felt the entire cosmos collapse inside his chest and leave him with a space vacuum for organs. “It was none of my business,” he acquiesced. “And I shouldn’t have lost control of my feelings.”
Viktor looked bewildered. And uncomfortable. Oh.
His nerves ebbed away as the tide pushed in misery to replace the fraying livewire in his veins. “I didn’t mean to make this weird.”
“You are so lucky you’re handsome because your people skills are atrocious.” Viktor scoffed. “I want to walk you through this one, Talis. To make sure you understand.” He grabbed Jayce’s face.
“Viktor…”
He squeezed Jayce’s cheeks together. “No talking. You listen.” Jayce’s eyes were downcast, but he allowed himself to toil under Viktor’s control. “I kissed the other Jayce because we both agreed we’d never have a chance with people we love.”
“But I thought I was so obvious!”
Viktor choked on a laugh. “Jayce, neither of us are good at interpersonal relationships! I was barely suppressing my crush on you, how could I have ever given myself the opportunity to look for signs?”
“I don’t know!” Jayce wailed. It was too much for him, at this moment; Viktor’s fingers were clenched too tight on his jaw, he was about to pass out from relief, and he couldn’t seem to breathe right. He scrabbled uselessly at Viktor’s arm. “Please,” he choked.
Viktor unclenched his fingers, Jayce’s nerves abating. He didn’t allow the pressure from his fingertips to escape entirely, stroking lightly along Jayce’s jaw. And it felt so good, like an itch being scratched in his brain. Viktor’s fingers were made to trail Jayce’s jaw.
“Will you kiss me?” Jayce asked. He could hear the desperation, the shame tinged in his voice. Like wanting Viktor was still too candid, like his heart and brain were separate entities. In this sense, he supposed they were; his heart was Viktor.
Viktor’s chuckle pounded a rhythm in his chest. “You know, consent gets me all hot and bothered.”
“I faintly recall,” Jayce murmured. He looked up, tentatively. Viktor’s fingers grabbed his chin again, his grip softer. His chest ached fondly. The ever-present slush of roiling emotions quieted. For once, it was silent.
“I’m going to kiss you now, Jayce Talis.” And he did.