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It’s in the late hours of night, when Viktor is asleep, weighed down by pain medication after too-long fighting it, that Jayce is forced to think.
Viktor is wasting away before his eyes; has been for the last few years. Jayce can still remember being young, the unsteady gait that belonged to Viktor but still steady inside. Filled with wonder. Confident of his path.
Sometimes, Jayce missed his own youthful arrogance. It had to be, to fall for Viktor, knowing the outcome. Believing he could stop it.
Not to say that Jayce wasn’t still just as arrogant as before. He did still believe he could fix — all of this. Everything, still right in his grasp.
That, that was foolishness. But when he looked at Viktor, he had to try.
Anything for the catlike, too-stubborn scientist who couldn’t take care of himself to save his soul. The same one who stayed awake with Jayce in the wee hours of night, just the two of them.
The intimacy of the moment had never escaped him, being the only two awake for miles, sitting in companionable silence, hands and shoulders brushing as they worked around and with each other on the technology that had been their home forever.
Jayce would do anything to keep that. So, he watched Viktor sleep his boneless sleep, and when Jayce could no longer keep his own eyes open, he closed them, reaching out to hold Viktor’s bony wrist, counting his pulse.