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Viktor walked down the familiar route to Mordecai’s apartment. He knew his way like it was ingrained into his mind with a branding iron. Currently, his mind was like his own personal Hell. It was getting hard to hide everything, he didn’t want to love Mordecai in secret anymore, but Viktor knew if they ever dared to show affection for one another outside the sanctuary of their bedrooms they’d potentially lose one another. Viktor couldn’t live with himself if Mordecai was put into danger because of his selfish desires.
He lazily fixed his hair before he knocked on Mordecai’s door. It was a signature knock that only Mordecai knew. Their own personal signal that it was safe. It wasn’t rival gangsters coming to pull a hidden gun, it was just the other coming over for the night.
Mordecai opened the door and pulled Viktor inside. He shut the door quickly and hugged Viktor tight. Viktor let the tension release from his muscles as he hugged Mordecai back. Not as tight, but secure enough to comfort Mordecai.
“Come on, let’s lay down,” Mordecai mumbled.
Viktor nodded and followed Mordecai to the couch where they fell into the familiar embrace of one another. Viktor was on his back with his bad leg stretched across the couch, and Mordecai beside him curled into his side with his hand resting above Viktor’s heart to feel the rhythmic beating.
Mordecai’s head moved to look up at Viktor. His ears perked forward to signal his focus was entirely on Viktor. He knew when his little killer’s focus was entirely on him when he could see the soft white fur of the inside of Mordecai’s ears.
Mordecai gently broke the comforting silence by asking, “How are you? Is everything okay?”
It was such a gentle question. So sincere in his concern. Viktor didn’t want to talk about the stresses weighing him down, but a part of him realized he had been craving the questions. Viktor sighed and held Mordecai securely. He pressed his nose to the top of Mordecai’s head to breathe in his scent.
“It is hard to hide us. I vant to love you more than we alveady do, but that vould get us both hurt. It is just-Hard . Especially vith Atlas. I think he is catching on. He is uh… Inquisitive?” He looked at Mordecai for a silent clarification that he used the right word. When Mordecai nodded that yes, he did use it right, he continued on with, “He keeps trying to pry truth from me. I don’t vant to tell him, but he just von’t stop.”
It felt good to get everything off his chest. Something had lifted a weight from his shoulders, but he still felt weighed down by the stress of his unfixable anxieties. He gently rubbed Mordecai’s back in a self-soothing gesture. He relaxed further when Mordecai pressed gentle kisses to his neck and shoulder. He didn’t want to think about his lingering, unspoken thoughts.
He didn’t want to think about how this touch wouldn’t last forever. He didn’t want to be alone.
After Atlas had died, Mordecai asked Viktor to talk. They stood together in the garage. The door was locked, it was just them. Viktor was focused entirely on Mordecai, curious to know what he wanted to talk about so badly.
“I’m leaving the Lackadaisy, Viktor,” he said.
Viktor’s ears pinned straight back. Leaving? He seemed so confident in his tone, as if he had made this decision forever ago. Why didn’t he tell Viktor sooner? Didn’t he care about how his partner felt? What would happen to their love?
He took Mordecai’s tiny paws in his own massive ones. “Please, stay. I don’t vant you to go,” Viktor pleaded.
Mordecai looked so torn and emotional. “I can’t stay. I have to go to the Marigold- But you can come with me, Viktor. Please,” he said.
Viktor’s expression changed at the mention of The Marigold. He would never work for the likes of them, Mordecai should know this.
“No,” he stated firmly.
“Fine, then retire. You can’t work here anymore, not with Atlas dead. There’s nothing to stay for anymore, please, Viktor. I-I don’t know if love can keep us together. Please leave this place,” Mordecai begged.
Viktor let go of him, his tail lashing as he growled. “ No . I vill not leave!”
Mordecai ended it with one impulsive bullet.
Viktor fell to the ground screaming in pain as he held his knee tight. He couldn’t move it without a stab of pain spreading through his body like a disease. He looked up with a furious look in his good eye as Mordecai stood there with a smoking pistol. Mordecai looked the same way he did when he had to leave for the night: standing with his shoulders down and his ears pinned back. Of course this wouldn’t last forever, of course Mordecai would leave, but did he have to be so violent about it?
Viktor was bleeding from more than just his knee now. It was more than a physical hole in his body. Mordecai had torn a hole in Viktor’s heart that could never be repaired. He had taken everything from Viktor just as easily as he had given it.
He stared at Mordecai with heartbreak tugging tears from his eye. “I- I vill never forgive you, Mordecai!” He roared.
Mordecai flinched away, slowly moving to the door. He kept opening and closing his mouth as if he wanted to say something, anything. But no words came out. Instead, he fled. He ran out the door and left Viktor alone.
Months later Viktor’s knee healed enough where he could walk again. He couldn’t bend either knee anymore, but the pain wasn’t as bad. The real pain was in his heart as he stood in the same spot where his knee had momentarily stained the floor with blood.
Part of Viktor wishes Mordecai had instead put him in the grave. Then he wouldn’t have to live knowing he’s not as angry as he should be. He wouldn’t have to live knowing his lover had so brutally maimed him and left Viktor with a broken heart that still yearned for his embrace.
Viktor knows it’s Mordecai’s fault. He’s mad at him. He’ll never forgive him. But there’s still the part of him that wants to so badly let Mordecai off and make an attempt at being friends again. The part of him wanted to pretend as if Mordecai never caused Viktor any pain. But he was in pain, a lot of pain at that.
His heart tightened with an ache he could never mend when he thought of how easily Mordecai left him. His body was just a host to the rage that had infested him like a parasite. He wanted to rip that bloodsucking feeling from his chest every time he remembered the day they parted.
Viktor wanted to know how it would be to see Mordecai again. What would he do? What would he say? He’s changed since that day. He’s become pearlescent as a ghost. Mordecai had killed the Viktor he used to know. He’s faded into someone Mordecai used to know.