Chapter Text
“You did it,” the voice says. And Viktor barely has any time to register where he is before it hits him that he’s back. “Lucky for you too, that was the last life.”
The mountaintop isn’t the same as it had been before. Now, it’s covered in snow, the wind is blowing harshly, and somehow, despite all of that, he feels warm. There is no aurora above him, nor is there the familiarity of the lazy clouds drifting through the sky. It’s empty, void, and much like staring at the abyss beyond each of the doors when he has to make his choice between lives.
He flexes his fingers, no longer sore from arthritis, and he marvels at the smooth skin of his now much younger hands. He’d forgotten in his age.
“I did it,” Viktor repeats quietly. He looks up and says again with a little more conviction, “I did it.”
The wind slowly starts to pick up, swirling dangerously with the threats of the beginnings of a storm. A bit of a chill runs through him, although it’s not from the cold.
“Are you upset?” Viktor asks, scoffing a little towards the end. “Throwing another tantrum?”
And the wind drops, stopping altogether.
“You’re not particularly talkative today,” Viktor continues, “on what occasion? I didn’t take you for a sore loser.”
With the wind gone and no longer obscuring his view, Viktor is shocked for a moment by the sheer number of stars in the sky above him. Far more than he had ever seen before in his life other than what he’d seen in books.
“Have you ever heard the idea that your fate has already been written in the stars?” The voice asks.
Before his eyes, the stars slowly start to blink. They gradually get brighter and brighter before dimming suddenly and repeating the process.
“Of course, I have,” Viktor responds as he leans his weight onto his cane. “Would that make us star-crossed lovers?” After a moment he corrects himself, “I mean- until we weren’t.”
The voice chuckles, “until you weren’t.”
Viktor raises a brow at that, “not upset over your loss?”
Stars begin to fall, streaking across the sky in flashes that disappear before his eyes can fully follow their path and the wind starts to pick up again. This time it’s strong enough to make the snow begin to swirl around him, occasionally tickling the exposed skin of his forearms and face.
“Always so melodramatic in your responses,” Viktor sighs.
He watches as the fallen stars begin to form stairs, allowing him to descend the mountain. It’s surreal to leave, to watch as it goes from snow to stone as he gets further from the peak and closer to the base. And he takes the journey in stride, letting himself think back to all of the lives that had led him to this place. To this time. To this success. To this victory.
“I’m impressed,” the voice tells him as he goes. It sounds further away, a little distant as he walks down the steps illuminated by starlight. “Not just anyone can gamble with a celestial and win.”
“I’m not just anyone ,” Viktor reminds it. “Regardless of your aversion to the idea, I’m special to you. You wouldn’t have allowed me this far without that.”
This time when the voice laughs, it sounds like it’s coming from another room; muffled and as though it were coming from far away.
“You’ve got a point there,” it says, “but can you fault me? Who wouldn’t be interested in a man with the capability to rewrite the stars themselves?”
When Viktor corrects it this time it’s not without a smile on his face, “with help.”
“With help,” the voice concedes.
“I still don’t understand,” Viktor says, “why you would take this gamble in the first place. What was in it for you should you win? What happens to you now that you haven’t?”
“I got to witness something new,” the voice tells him, and it’s hard to hear now without straining for it. “I got to see something exciting .”
“And that’s it? That’s all you get? You were going to gamble the existence of two souls for a moment of entertainment?” Viktor asks. He can’t help the way that his stomach churns at the thought, to hear directly to what extent his life had been considered a source of entertainment. Reducing him to an actor on a stage he did not ask to audition for and his tragedies to mere scenes.
“I knew you would succeed.” The voice tells him as Viktor reaches the base. “Of anyone, I knew that you’d be the one to do it.”
At the base of the mountain is a single wooden door, standing alone and looking terribly out of place. If the door were clean, not rotting, and maybe 100 years younger, Viktor imagined that this is what the doors in the hallway would look like if they’d been tested against centuries of neglect.
“And what is this?” He asks, gesturing towards it with his palm upturned.
“Your prize.” The voice tells him.
“I thought the last life I just lived was my prize?” Viktor asks skeptically. He stays frozen on the bottom step, eyeing it suspiciously. “What sort of game are you playing now?”
This time the voice doesn’t respond. When Viktor looks back up the way he came he realizes that the stairs have disappeared behind him, leaving him stranded where he is now with no way to return.
Like he would with any project, he walks to the door skeptically. He walks around the perimeter and gives it a good and thorough examination. He finds ivy and moss growing through cracks in the door upon further inspection and he can see where the white paint has begun to chip away to reveal the brown bark underneath. The handle is rusted, the once intricate designs reduced to bumps from the damage.
“My prize?” He questions out loud when he’s satisfied with what he’s seen so far.
He rounds back to the front, keeps one hand firmly gripped on his cane and the other on his chin as he thinks about what he wants to do next.
“Hello there,” and Viktor nearly screams when hands wrap around his waist. He jumps out of his skin, letting his cane clatter to the slightly muddy ground below with squelch. It isn’t until he realizes who it is that he lets himself relax into their hold.
“And what might you be doing here?” You ask, poking your head around the side of his torso and grinning cheekily up at him.
“No, what are you doing here?” Viktor asks, his smile wide enough that it hurts his cheeks. He grabs you lightly by the wrists, guiding you into a proper hug that has him crushing you into his chest with a high-pitched laugh wheezing out from you in his grip.
You fall into the embrace easily, let him spin you around in his giddy haze, laughing alongside him as you two spin and hold each other.
“As if I would ever let you go anywhere without me,” you joke, laughing all over again when he loses his balance and lands flat on his ass- taking you with him as he falls.
“I see my escape attempt has been thwarted,” he quips back with a pretend roll of his eyes.
You gasp, punching him lightly before helping him up and off the ground. As you hand him his cane, you point to the door that he had been looking at so intently just moments before you’d arrived.
“So this was all real,” you breathe, watching from the corner of his eye as he nods. “I can’t say I’m particularly surprised because it was you who said it after all.”
Viktor laughs at that, “and you’re not mad?”
You tilt your head at that, “why would I be mad?”
He shrugs his shoulder sheepishly, a little bounce of his head to punctuate his reluctance. “I did gamble your existence-”
You scoff at that, leaning into him a little so that your head is resting on his shoulder. “I probably would have done the same if I were given the opportunity. Besides, you won, right? How could I ever be mad at you for wanting to be happy with me?”
Viktor smiles down at you at that, pressing a small kiss to the top of your head.
“What’s this?” You ask as you gesture to the door in front of you two.
“My prize ,” he tells you.
“Well… that doesn’t really answer my question,” you tell him as you tilt your head to squint at it.
“To be fair, I’m not sure either… but if I had to take an educated guess,” Viktor starts, holding your hand and squeezing it gently, “I would assume this is supposed to be my final- sorry- our final choice. Possibly, our final life together.”
“That’s terrifying,” you say, eyes not leaving the door in front of you. “You didn’t work out what you wanted as a prize beforehand?”
He shakes his head. “I thought that the life we just spent together was rewarding enough.”
You lean your head to rest on his shoulder, smiling at his words.
“Although, if it is another life together then it is probably guaranteed a happy ending,” Viktor says. “And this time I don’t even have to gamble the cost of our souls to even have an attempt at making that happen.”
“Still- if you’re right and that’s our last- isn’t that kind of sad?”
Viktor squeezes your hand again, bringing it up to his lips with a smile as he presses his mouth to the back of your knuckles. “It is… I will concede that to you… but if this entire experience has taught me anything it’s that I will gladly take any life so long as you’re in it.”
You smile at that, turning to look at him. “Even if it’s the last one?”
“Especially because it’s the last one.” He says.
And he guides you to the door, opening it with a loud and prolonged creak as the hinges squeal with misuse. Beyond it, there is the familiar abyss that every other door had held between every other life leading to this one.
“Together?” He asks.
You move so that your arm is woven into his, resting your head on his shoulder as he bends down to kiss you along the hairline.
“Together,” you tell him.
And step through the door, together.