Work Text:
jayce’s entire body freezes as his eyes land on his partner in the rubble. viktor’s body laying against a few stones and his face muddied with dirt. jayce’s eyes fill up with tears. he was honed in on viktor, looking at his chest, hoping to see it rise then fall.
jayce practically flails over to viktor, grabbing his partner’s head and checking for blood. there wasn’t any coming from his head.
jayce hurriedly took off viktor vest then shirt and looked for injuries. nothing. nothing besides small cuts and bruises. did viktor hit his head? maybe not hard enough to draw blood? breathing…is he breathing???
jayce leans down and tries to listen for viktor’s breathe, or some soft puff of air. nothing.
jayce shakes now. the tears escaping his eyes and he picks up viktor’s body, wrapping his arms around his back. jayce presses his head against viktor’s chest. heart beat. there has to be a heart beat, right?
that’s when jayce feels it. the warm trickle of blood down his hands.
viktor’s spine.
jayce gasps as he carefully turns viktor and looks at his back. blood. viktor must have hit his spine during the explosion.
it was split open, blood pouring out of it. jayce could see viktor’s bones, it was fusing to viktor’s skin. viktor’s skin was cracked and almost completely torn out of his body most likely because of an impact against some rubble.
jayce suddenly feels mel’s hand on his back. her warm, comforting touch that he always yearned for. it felt like nothing in this moment.
he could hear her voice through the ringing in his ears.
“he’s-“ mel’s voice barely reaches his ears. “we can’t save-“
jayce didn’t want to hear it. he always has to save viktor. not because viktor needed saving but because jayce had to. he wanted to. he needed to.
“we have to help the others.” mel’s hand rubs against jayce’s back. “viktor is…beyond saving. he’s not breathing..”
jayce didn’t want to hear it. viktor was alive. maybe he’s not breathing, maybe his spine is broken and poking out of his skin. he’s…alive. he has to be. he can’t leave jayce like this. he can’t. he can’t. he can’t.
without much thought, jayce picks up viktor runs to their lab. along the way, jayce takes off viktor’s pants and sees his purple leg…his swallows thickly and shakes his head. why wasn’t he there for his partner?
why did he survive the attack? why did he come out unscathed? why did viktor-
jayce puts viktor down roughly on the workbench. he opens viktor’s notebook, there had to be something. something about what viktor was doing to himself and how jayce can help him.
why did jayce survive? why him? why viktor?
why viktor? why vikyor? why viktor? why his partner?
in his panic, he didn’t notice how the hex core across the room was reacting to viktor. his eyes shift across the notes until the purple light from the hex core was too much to ignore.
“promise me you’ll destroy it. you must.” viktor’s rings throughout his mind as he sees the hexcore. how it reacted to viktor.
jayce gasps as he sees viktor’s body move and jolt because of the hexcore. alive. viktor’s alive, right? jayce didn’t have much time to think about it before he was grabbing the hex core, he hesitated. he stares at it as he remembers his partner’s words again. but how could he live in a world without viktor? viktor saved him, and jayce owned him.
no, it was more than that. viktor was his friend, his best friend. probably the only friend he will ever have again. viktor saved him, wouldn’t viktor want jayce to do the same?
jayce didn’t know. he knew viktor wanted the hexcore destroyed. he only knew that. and now he was about to go against the one thing viktor wanted.
but it would save his life, jayce thinks. he could have his…viktor. he didn’t have to lose him. a tightness in his chest formed.
he can’t live without viktor. so he made a choice. a choice that viktor never got a say in, even in death. even if jayce broke his promise, he can’t live without viktor.
it’s just a broken promise, right?