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The putrid smell of smoke, burning flesh and blood sours the air. There is a loud, persistent ringing sound and muted screams somewhere in the distance. The world is shaking, unsteady and his body is numb as he floats weightlessly for a moment.
The first thing Jayce sees when he forces his eyelids to open is a blinding shine of gold as it slowly fades to darkness.
There are arms around him, holding him steadily as they keep the world from disappearing around him again. The shape of a person in front of him rolls their head weakly from one side to the other, struggling to hold the weight of it. Jayce blinks dust and smoke from his eyes, his blurry vision slowly becoming clear until he recognizes the person in front of him is Mel. She has her eyes closed but is breathing evenly, half-conscious.
He calls out to her, but his voice comes out muffled, barely audible. The ringing in his ears is too loud, it hurts his brain. Mel reacts nonetheless, blinking weakly as her eyes fight to focus, but she can barely keep them open.
Jayce tries to recall what happened but his brain can’t quite catch up to the sensations yet. Everything is too loud and too bright and the curl of the smoke around them makes him dizzy and nauseous. He tries to focus on Mel instead, scans her body carefully to see if she’s wounded, but only dust darkens her white dress. She’s okay.
“Are you okay?” he asks, in case there are injuries he can’t see yet. Mel frowns, gives a weak nod of her head as she’s finally able to meet his eyes and a bit of clarity returns to her. She looks just as confused as he feels, clearly still trying to process the situation but not yet knowing where to start.
Jayce wraps his hands around her arms to steady her and slowly rises to his feet, pulling her up carefully. They stumble a few steps but catch themselves relatively quickly. They stand still for a moment, eyes to the ground, waiting to see if their legs will give out. When they don’t, Jayce deems it safe to let go of her arms, one hand at a time, allowing her to adjust her feet to see if they can carry her without support. She stays upright, starts looking around the red smoke that surrounds them.
Jayce follows her gaze, but he can barely make out the shapes of people in uniforms stumbling blindly among the rubble. The floor under his feet is cracked beyond recognition and he can’t quite tell where he is yet. Someone is coughing, or maybe choking. It sounds rough and painful.
The next face Jayce recognizes after Mel’s is Councilor Shoola’s. She’s staggering past them like they’re not even there, one open eye wide, distant and unseeing, then she disappears back into the smoke. It’s only then that Jayce begins to recall the last thing that happened.
The council, the peace proposal, the vote, the joy. And then, a bright flash of light paired with a boom so loud that every other sound was drowned out entirely, overpowered. The effects of the volume still linger in the form of a persistent whistle in Jayce’s head.
He shifts his gaze and startles at Councilor Hoskel’s still form among the broken shards of rock. His face is turned away but Jayce can clearly see the many wounds on him. Those weren’t there before. He can’t tell if it’s because of the distance or the tremble that shakes Jayce’s body, but Hoskel’s chest does not appear to be moving.
Jayce’s focus shifts to another part of the room where he can just barely make out Councilor Bolbok under the debris that hides most of his body from view. He makes no attempt to free himself, shows no sign of discomfort or anything else. Jayce shudders, the calm of his confusion fading as he realizes the severity of the situation. People are injured, severely.
He forces himself to look away. Piercing shrieks draw his attention to Councilor Salo, who is alive and screaming in agony as an enforcer attempts to lift large pieces of concrete off of his crushed legs. He cries for help that is already there, but is unable to free him. The horror of the scene burns itself into Jayce’s memory.
Then, everything falls apart.
He sees Cassandra Kiramman’s unmoving body on the ground. Jayce can barely feel his own legs as they carry him to her side. Please be okay, please, oh gods, please, he begs as he drops to his knees and realizes that the dark stain on the floor around her is not ash and dirt, it’s warm blood pouring out from somewhere underneath her. Jayce feels sick.
“No,” he breathes, raises a shaking hand to her shoulder and gives a careful but firm shake. She gives no reaction, not even the slightest twitch to indicate she’s still alive. Jayce tries to meet her eyes but they stare straight ahead, empty and void of light.
He can’t breathe. “No,” he pleads again, voice breaking, but there’s nothing he can do and she’s dead and he’ll never be able to talk to her again.
He can distantly feel Mel being pulled away from his side but pays it no mind. It’s okay, he thinks, she’s safe, she’s okay. But Cassandra is not. She’s not and he lost her and he thinks of Caitlyn and then there’s another sharp pull at his heart. His head snaps up.
Where is Viktor?
Mel was right next to him when it happened and she’s fine and so is Jayce. But Viktor was also right next to him, always right there by his side, and now he isn’t. There is no trace of him among the death and destruction, but Jayce needs him now. He needs Viktor and he needs him to be okay, please let him be okay.
Jayce searches the room, begs whomever, whatever, is listening to please let Viktor be safe.
But no one hears his plea. Jayce spots the familiar shape he immediately recognizes as his beloved partner, his best friend, his—
Something inside him shatters at the sight. It squeezes the last bit of air out of his lungs and shallow gasps try to make their way through his open lips. This isn’t real, this can’t be real, it can’t.
Viktor is on his back, torso propped up by the destroyed, stained concrete underneath him. His head is tilted far back against it and there is a large fallen pillar ruthlessly trapping his fragile body in place.
He looks dead, Jayce thinks, and the absolute sorrow that washes over him snaps him back into motion, has him crawling desperately toward his partner’s broken form.
As he gets closer, Jayce can see Viktor’s slack face, mouth loosely hanging open, surrounded by deep, angry cuts. They stand out against the pale of his skin that now carries a grayish tint.
Jayce can see thick drops of red rolling down the rock under Viktor’s head, proof of how devastating the impact must have been. How would he even survive that?
He tries not to imagine what his partner’s body must look like under the weight that’s crushing it. The slow rise and fall of what is visible of his chest is enough to give Jayce hope. He can still save Viktor, he has to.
Jayce can see now that the dark color covering his partner’s leg and hand is not blood. They’re deep purple, completely void of skin and emitting a weak glow that seems to be flickering darker with every passing moment. What could have caused such damage to Viktor’s body? Why hasn’t Jayce seen anything like it on anyone else in the room?
His head spins but he wills himself to focus, he can’t afford to waste precious time, not when Viktor is running out of it. Jayce gets back on his feet, wraps his arms as far around the large pillar on top of Viktor as he can and then pulls with all his might.
The position is awkward, the piece is too big and it hurts Jayce’s back to try lifting it. Worst of all, despite his best efforts, the thing doesn’t even shift. He’s not strong enough to remove the concrete from Viktor’s body.
“No, no, no, come on!” he hisses, tries again, but the result is the same. Behind him, the enforcers are tending to the other councilors, Mel’s mother is barking orders at them to bring order into the chaos. People are lifting pieces of the broken building and helping anyone they can find underneath. Salo, now freed from where he was previously trapped, is still screaming as he’s receiving first aid. Nobody but Jayce is at Viktor’s side despite the weak but still very present movement of his chest, a life that can still be saved.
Jayce cries out in frustration, kicks at the debris so hard it hurts his foot, then bends down to try again. “Hang in there, V. I’m getting you out of there, just— Please hang in there.” He clenches his teeth as he pulls once more, screams with effort as his arms start shaking from the effort. He’s about to let go again when he feels the thing shift, just barely.
“Yes!” he cries, steadying his feet and giving another strong pull. “Come… on….” And then, another small movement. Jayce carefully lets go to catch his breath, taking care not to do more damage to Viktor’s already broken body. He can see the spot where the pillar was smashed into two pieces, the smaller of which being the one that has landed on Viktor. He’s lucky it broke off like that, if it hadn’t, Jayce would not have been able to move it at all. He would have been forced to watch his partner slowly bleed out and die, unable to even hold his body close with the pillar keeping them apart.
But it won’t come to that. Jayce looks back up at Viktor’s face, still unmoving and slack with unconsciousness. He hopes to see any small movement, a twitch of the eyebrow or a jolt of pain. Anything that isn’t this haunting stillness that makes it hard to tell if he’s even still alive at all. But nothing comes.
Jayce can barely see the movement of Viktor’s chest anymore. He wonders if the strange purple wrist would let him feel Viktor’s pulse, but the uncertainty of what the nature of the discoloration is keeps him from trying. He doesn’t want to risk causing more unnecessary damage. Jayce moves closer to his partner’s face instead and tilts his own head to the side to listen as he holds his breath.
It’s faint, but he can hear the weak puffs of air coming from Viktor’s mouth. Jayce relaxes. He leans back to get to work again. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you out of there in no time. You just relax and keep breathing for me, okay? Just keep breathing.” He doesn’t wait for an answer he knows he won’t get, grabs the pillar closer to where it broke off and pulls again.
The concrete shifts more easily this time, sliding slowly over Viktor’s thighs. Jayce can feel the tension tear at his muscles. He holds his breath as he pulls, ignoring the protest of his arms against the weight of the pillar. It hurts so much, but he can’t stop now, not when he’s so close to freeing Viktor. The thumping of his heart is loud in his ears, beating fast with exertion, until a sick snapping sound cuts through it and Jayce lets go in an instant. He falls back and lands heavy on his ass, eyes wide with panic. Silence.
The sound was loud and ended quickly, but Jayce can still hear it repeating in his head. Snap, like a dry branch breaking off of a tree.
His eyes are on Viktor’s face again, scared of what he might find there, but he hasn’t so much as twitched. Jayce is not sure if he should be concerned that the breaking of a bone didn’t wake Viktor or if he should just be grateful his partner doesn’t have to be conscious to experience it. The slow inhales and exhales continue. Jayce doesn’t even know what bone he just broke, can’t even check because this damned pillar is still in the way. He sobs out a frustrated noise. He needs to get this over with so he can tend to Viktor’s wounds. Time is running out.
He closes his eyes, struggles to steady the tremble in his breath as he braces himself to further break Viktor’s body. Then he gets back to his feet.
Jayce shifts his feet further apart, distributing his weight evenly as he grabs onto the pillar. “Last one,” he promises and then he’s pulling again. The wet crunch of bones doesn’t scare him off this time. He apologizes in his head, vows to fix it properly when Viktor is out of immediate mortal danger. He can feel the pillar slide further off of his partner until it slips from his grip and hits the ground with a thud.
Jayce collapses, panting heavily as sweat drips from his forehead and into the cracks in the ground. He did it.
He sits for a moment, catching his breath, then crawls closer to Viktor. He’s not done yet.
He leans in to examine the damage and his heart sinks. It’s worse than he thought. Viktor’s shirt is torn to shreds on one side of his body, exposing the bleeding gashes all over his torso. There is a puddle of blood growing larger underneath his partner’s body. The pillar must have pressed down on at least some of the cuts and slowed the bleeding, but now it was flowing freely. Viktor’s entire body, as far as Jayce can see, is covered in dark blue bruises, blending into an aggressive black so unnatural looking that it’s hard to see if it’s all underneath the skin or if some of it is just dirt from the rubble.
With the weight lifted off of Viktor’s strange metallic thigh, sparks of purple fly unrestrained from the cracks. He still can’t tell if this is a good thing. Viktor still isn’t moving, but now Jayce can rip the rest of the tattered shirt off to properly care for him.
With the cloth out of the way, Jayce can see many more angry cuts in pale skin, some of which coloring the area around it red with infection. Not all of them are bleeding and their shapes seem too deliberate to have been an accident. He thinks he can make out some of them, familiar from their shared research on runes. Jayce swallows around where nausea constricts his throat. They’ll have to talk about this at some point later.
For now, though, Jayce tries to make use of the ripped shirt by tying it tightly around any bleeding wound he can, hoping to slow the blood loss. He puts an ear up to Viktor’s mouth again. He thinks he can feel a weak breath against his ear but it’s so faint he’s not sure it wasn’t just his imagination. “Don’t do this to me, Viktor. Please not you, please don’t do this,” he begs as he folds one hand over his other and places them on Viktor’s chest. “Stay with me, V.” He starts with chest compressions in a steady rhythm and tries to ignore how easily the ribcage gives way under his palm.
In one fluid motion, Jayce moves back up to Viktor’s face, gently placing a hand on his forehead while pinching his nostrils with the other. He takes a breath, leans closer and places his mouth on Viktor’s, sending air into his partner’s lungs. He repeats the motion two more times, then moves back to chest compressions.
“Come on, come on,” he cries frantically. His vision is going blurry with the hot sting of tears behind his eyes. “Not like this, V.” He gives Viktor air again until a soft whine tickles against Jayce’s mouth. It’s the first noise Viktor has made this whole time, the first indication that he’s not gone and waiting for the rest of his body to shut down.
Jayce whips his head back to give him space. “Viktor?” he asks, hopeful. He gets no verbal response but Viktor’s eyebrows are pulled together for a moment before going slack again. It’s enough for Jayce. The movement of each breath is now visible, undeniable, in Viktor’s chest. The sheer relief of it is what sends the tears that have gathered rolling down his cheeks. He sobs out a shaky string of thankyouthankyouthankyou as he grabs a desperate hold of the cold purple hand. Jayce brings it up to his lips, pressing soft, grateful kisses over the palm, the fingers, the back.
“Get him to the hospital!” calls a voice somewhere behind Jayce and it startles him so bad he whips around in an instant. Enforcers are preparing to lift Councilor Salo and carry him out, seemingly done with their first aid. Jayce relaxes around an exhale. They’re still not paying attention to him.
He rubs his thumb over where he’s still holding on to Viktor’s hand, then looks down at the discolored leg. As if responding to his attention, gentle zaps of electricity emerge from some of the glowing spots and Jayce suddenly gets the feeling that this is not a result of what happened in this room, and it’s not something anyone else should see. Viktor would be devastated if anyone saw.
Jayce clenches his teeth, turning once more to the rest of the room to see if anyone is looking back at him. No one is. He needs to get Viktor proper medical attention, but a hospital is out of the question unless his condition unexpectedly worsens. Their laboratory comes to mind, maybe he can check Viktor’s notes on his deteriorating body to figure out what to do. Maybe the runes on his torso are a result of recent experiments. Maybe Viktor thought they could save him somehow.
Jayce can handle this.
He picks Viktor up, holds him close to his chest so he can feel the warmth against his own body, reminding him that Viktor is alive. He keeps an eye on his surroundings, making sure no one sees them as they leave the room and then, Jayce breaks into a sprint.