Chapter Text
It slid - coiled really - in the very back of his mind. Viktor couldn’t quite remember when it happened first, what exactly was the catalyst moment for the surge, the break, the crack, whatever you would call it. Singed looked at him with curiosity when he spoke of it aloud, in whispered breaths with a stuttering chest. He had asked questions that Viktor had no answers for, could not explain with words only sensations he couldn’t entirely grasp. In a strange way, it helped, the wave of warmth that seeped through him when walking by dark alleys, past thugs with poorly concealed knives, blinking and realizing he wasn’t sure how he got home.
Some days were cloudier than others, which he attributed to hunger. It gnawed at him, made his mother’s face weary, made him want to swallow his tongue and disappear because life here wasn’t fair, wasn’t really a life. He attributed the numbness of his limbs at times as just another thing about living in the fissures. There were times he built, piece by piece by piece, his boats, and his little machines, absorbing information like a sponge from the textbooks he managed to get his hands on or the machines in the factories he helped fix as long as he could study them, where something slunk through him. Just in the back of his mind, a certain special awareness that felt strange, almost alien inside him.
There were things he couldn’t explain. A sudden distaste for sweetmilk, dumped on the floor in a fit of tears, boats smashed on the rocks of the polluted river with longing gazes at the children playing in the distance. Aggression toward his mother, toward Singed, both met with patience and a steady hand at his back. There were gaps in his memory, curled fists out of his control, a rage that was hard to control and felt all-consuming.
There were moments when things felt wrong.
Viktor learned the language to describe it as time went on, as he aged, as he grew and became a bit more aware that what was happening to him wasn’t typical. There was a coil that lived in his chest, snuggled deep between his ribs, that would stretch and slink and purr at specific moments in time that he felt stress. It was a destructive force that consumed him, blinking back to awareness with a project held above his head, cheeks stinging with heat, ready to break and destroy.
It became easier to soothe this thing, this strange presence that lived alongside him, and Viktor learned when it was most likely to appear through the process of elimination. This thing would stir around enforcers, around dangers that had become so ingrained in him he no longer thought of them, around his peers that expressed femininity, and when his brain simply could not imagine the next step in a project.
Other things became apparent the older he grew.
Perhaps he was experiencing some sort of sexuality crisis, he mused while thumbing a soft and well cared for underskirt, perhaps one he couldn’t remember due to stress? Heeled boots he didn’t remember buying, but in which the quality matched the missing funds he’d been panicked over.
When his mother died he expected it to lash out.
Cremating her was a strangely lonely experience, the weird entity in his chest absent leaving him feeling cold and empty. He didn’t cry, didn’t feel the rage or the overwhelming grief he expected to feel, and left with a plain urn, slowly making his way through the streets back home. He sat in an empty home, the urn innocuously sitting on a shelf, staring at his hands. He waited for the thing to come back, to unfurl in his chest and seep through him with a warmth he’d come to know that meant destruction and gaps in memory and trembling hands.
He felt nothing at that moment.
Somehow, that felt worse than anything he’d done in the years he’d been alive.
A new feeling developed. Viktor would blink and he’d be in the kitchen, cooking something bland but cost-effective for his dwindling funds. He’d blink again and be washing with efficiency. Blink, climbing into bed thoroughly mindful of his leg, blink, washing the few clothes he owned, blink, in the process of fumbling through fixing a machine he felt he should know perfectly by now but was just confused enough to be alarming.
His days seeped away like a slowly draining cup, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
He supposed he should have expected something like this, being stopped by the Dean of all things when he blinked and glanced down, dazed and confused at the uniform he was wearing and the shaking at his elbow as he clutched his cane with a white-knuckled grip. The yordle before him watched him quietly, allowing him a few moments to collect himself, before guiding him to his office. Viktor’s tongue was thick in his mouth, glancing around with poorly hidden wonder and fascination as he realized he was in the academy, dread sinking like lead within him as he also realized he had no idea how he got there.
“It’s impressive really-”
Viktor cringed as Heimerdinger dragged a chair over for him to sit on, the back legs screeching across the floor. He sat, gingerly, upon the yordle’s enthusiastic insistence.
“-apologies, very impressive that no one managed to catch on about you before now!”
“Oh, I-”
“High marks! In all these classes you managed to convince teachers that there was an error on the roster. Not entirely perfect, mind you, no one surely is.”
Heimerdinger chuckled as Viktor blinked at him sluggishly, sweat beading on his brow. He couldn’t remember a single thing he’d done, or what day it was, or what time it was.
“A few professors approached me actually, saying they had suspicions about you, but also mentioned you were such a studious young man that they felt no harm in letting you stay. You seem to have really swayed some people here!”
Heimerdinger paused, seemingly waiting for any response on Viktor’s part.
“I-I uh, t-thank you professor, I-”
Viktor fumbled, taking in a shuddering breath, and Heimerdinger raised a hand to stop him. They sat in silence for a moment, Viktor averting his gaze to the window, attempting not to stare in awe at the colors swirling in the setting sky.
“You’ve been up here for several months now.”
Viktor’s gaze turned back to the yordle sharply.
“Excuse me?”
Heimerdinger plowed on, ignoring the crack in Viktor’s voice.
“I have heard concern from some of your professors. There are moments that you struggle, it seems, with awareness in your surroundings. Looking further I understand you managed to sneak your way in by purchasing a uniform, and bravely making your way all the up topside from-”
He shuffled through some papers, Viktor’s gaze focusing on a thin file sitting on the tabletop.
“-Emberflit Alley?”
Viktor nodded numbly, wondering briefly if he was either asleep or dying and this was his brain’s fucked up way of giving him a moment of joy in his otherwise colorless life.
Heimerdinger stared at him and Viktor looked away, gaze drifting across the room idly as he waited for… he wasn’t sure. Something, surely, to happen. Hysteria rose briefly in his chest, filling the gaping space that had been left behind what only felt like days ago.
“Well color me impressed. You managed to get up here, and stay up here for quite some time! You clearly show talent… how would you like to become my assistant?”
Viktor felt like he was going to get a concussion, the way his head was snapping toward the yordle so much. Heimerdinger stared at him with something Viktor couldn’t pin down, but the bottom of his stomach dropped out at the thought of wasting such an opportunity. He blinked rapidly several times and nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again and leaned forward.
“Yes! Yes, of course, I would love that-”
“Wonderful! As such you will get new living quarters, of course, and I will have the paperwork sent to your current dorm to request any accommodations you may need from such a thing.”
Heimerdinger nodded toward Viktor’s cane, Viktor holding it loosely in his hand with close to zero recognition of where he’d gotten it. There were other details to finetune but Heimerdinger assured him they could be done later, it was getting late, and Viktor should eat and rest after his long day of testing. Viktor was left feeling distinctly unbalanced, not sure where he should be or what he should be doing. He managed to fish out a keyring from inside his vest pocket, the small key there stamped with a 349 on it, assumedly his dorm number. He turned it over in his palm, taking breaths that were measured and as deep as his heavy lungs would allow. He moved slowly through the quickly emptying halls, confused, alone, wondering if and when he would wake up.
Unlocking the door to his dorm room he gazed around inside, sparsely decorated with furniture splayed out for moving efficiency. A few plants well taken care of and books stacked in neat piles on many, but not all, surfaces. Clothes neatly folded, bed made, a neat desk overlooking a view of the city. He removed his shoes in a daze, moving to the small couch set against the wall, and sat as gingerly as his body would allow. The aches and tension from the day drained from him in a motion that was practiced, but not one that Viktor himself had actively practiced.
He glanced down, catching sight of dark green polish decorating his fingernails.
Something welled within him, and Viktor began to cry, hiccuping in his efforts to stop.
Viktor’s favorite color was red.