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Planes of yellow tulips. Spiraling anomalous structures. Dreamless solitude.
“So you prevailed.”
Jayce turns. Viktor, ancient and immortal, peers down at him. His irises swirl like galaxies.
“Jayce.”
His voice echoes like a thousand resounding bells, ethereal, godly. To any other being, it would’ve sounded commanding. But Jayce knows Viktor like he knows his own soul. He smiles, soft and sad.
“Are you here to say goodbye?”
Viktor shifts, like a ray of sunlight filtering through stained glass. In the next blink, he no longer spans the universe. He is simply a man.
“How is it that you continue to surprise me?” He murmurs.
His eyes crinkle with the slightest wonder, framed by hair silvering like starlight. Jayce’s heart leaps. Viktor is, as always, beautiful.
A quiet exhale, faintly amused. The smile tucked in Viktor’s eyes deepens, as if he’d read Jayce’s mind. Perhaps he’d done just that. He’d definitely done just that. Jayce swallows, cheeks warm.
“I..I just know you,” he says, breathier than he should sound.
Viktor’s expression shutters. A dozen passing emotions. Joy and grief, at once.
“I know.”
Now he turns, gazing off into the distance, at the infinite fields of ruin. Dreamless solitude. Jayce’s heart constricts.
“Do not feel sorry for me, Jayce,” Viktor says, sensing his turmoil. “These are merely the circumstances of my own making. I have had eternity to make peace with it. And eternities more to acquaint with.”
Viktor waves his hand, affecting indifference. Jayce knows better. It is lonely.
“I could…visit you? Maybe?” He tries.
Viktor laughs. A shower of stars across his astral figure, bursting to life amidst the cosmos. It’s terribly beautiful. Jayce’s cheeks flush. His heart aches.
“No…I’m afraid this shall be our final meeting, Jayce,” Viktor says gently.
His eyes sweep across Jayce, over and over, as if committing him to memory. Jayce resolves to do the same, drinking in Viktor’s every precious detail. For a long while, they don’t speak.
“It is selfish,” Viktor finally says, considering. “Your role is fulfilled. The cycle is broken. You have no need for me, nor I, you. Yet I simply had to see you for myself.”
An admission of guilt. Still so unforgiving towards himself. Jayce loves him.
If there were a god, Jayce would ask them to spare Viktor. But there is only Viktor. Jayce tries, anyway.
“You deserve to be selfish. I wish you’d be more selfish.”
Viktor shakes his head.
“Only you, Jayce,” he sighs. It should sound exasperated. Instead, it sounds fond, and terribly sad.
Jayce squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to cry. He won’t ruin this for Viktor. He won’t grieve yet. Viktor deserves to remember this moment without Jayce spoiling it with tragic weeping. This doesn’t have to be tragic, or painful. This memory can be kind. Jayce can make it so, if only he……
“I will…miss you,” Viktor admits, with apparent difficulty, “though perhaps that is strange to say, for we have only met once, or twice now, you and I.”
“I’ll miss you too,” Jayce returns, as easy as breathing.
And Jayce knows it to be true. There’s not a version of Viktor Jayce cannot, does not love. This one is no exception.
“You need not lie to spare my feelings, Jayce.” Viktor looks away. “Though I do appreciate the sentiment.”
“And you wonder how it is I still surprise you.” Jayce laughs, bittersweet. “Don’t you know by now? I never lie to you, Viktor.”
Viktor hums, noncommittal. He does not look at Jayce.
And then it hits.
Jayce knows exactly what he must do, how to unmake the tragedy of this moment and reshape it into kindness.
“Come here.” A pause. “Please,” he tacks on.
Viktor tilts his head, curious. He hesitates. In the next blink, he materialises like a misty mirage, a little nearer, but still a polite distance away from Jayce.
“Closer.”
A single step. Jayce shakes his head, exasperated.
He steps forward into Viktor’s space.
“I said closer,” he whispers, pushing himself up on his toes, leaning in until they are barely a breath apart.
Viktor’s eyes widen, startled. He dares not move, or speak, or breathe, simply stares at Jayce, transfixed. Jayce smiles, overflowing with fondness. He kisses him.
It’s a soft thing, featherlight. Chaste and sweet. Simply the gentle press of his lips against Viktor’s. Achingly, effortlessly tender. Lingering.
Viktor is still. Viktor is trembling. Beneath their feet, flowers blossom out of lifeless matter, petals brushing at their ankles. Jayce lets his eyes flutter shut. The moment lingers and lingers and lingers.
Slowly, reluctantly, Jayce pulls away.
When he opens his eyes, he catches Viktor tipping forward, ever so slightly, as if to follow after him, as if caught in a spell. He stops himself.
All the while, he never takes his eyes off Jayce. He stares at him, shaken, full of terrified longing. He looks achingly human. Jayce’s heart trembles.
“I might not be able to save you. But I can give you this. Something to dream about, other than solitude.”
A breeze brushes past. Around them, the flowers swivel, like little tinkling bells.
“When you’re lonely, just remember this moment. Be selfish. Think of me. And know that I think of you too.”
Viktor touches his fingers to his lips. The tulips tremble.
“You won’t remember this.”
“Maybe. But I don’t need to.” Jayce smiles. He can’t help it. Tears slip from his eyes. “I’ll think of you anyway.”
The breeze is a gale now, whipping around them like a storm. Jayce knows. Their time is almost up.
“I’m sorry I can’t save you too.” It spills out of him, a helpless confession.
Viktor shakes his head, incredulous with awe.
“But you did,” he declares, wondrous and revering, “you already have.”
Then he smiles, really smiles, earnest and beautiful. It almost seems like he’s young again, because something in his eyes has lifted like a veil. Now they gaze at Jayce, alight with gratitude, and adoration, yes, that’s what it is.
“Sweet dreams, Jayce.”
The wind swirls. A hurricane of petals. Jayce laughs, sweet with relief. A final gift.
“With you, Viktor? Always.”
Space collapses upon itself.
For Jayce, it is the end of this dream. He will wake into another.
And for Viktor?
For Viktor, it is merely the beginning of a new dream.
Viktor stares at the circle of petals, settling where Jayce had come and gone. His presence is made all the more fleeting by the limitless nature of Viktor’s existence—to Viktor, it was shorter than an instant.
It is everything.
Viktor sets his staff aside. He kneels down before the bed of flowers. A tulip winks at him, whole and intact. Viktor brushes his fingers against its delicate petals.
“It appears,” he tells it, overwhelmingly tender, “that I have more, still, to learn, about existence.”
In a different world, Jayce wakes up.
He was dreaming, he knows he was, but he can’t remember. It felt important. A shame, he thinks, to forget a good dream.
He turns his head, gazing out the window. A butterfly, pale and delicate, settles upon the windowsill. He watches it, thoughts wandering. Absent-mindedly, his fingers brush the bandages on his wrist. He thinks of desolate ruins. Planes of yellow tulips. Spiraling anomalous structures in fields of dreamless solitude.
He thinks of Viktor, of Viktors, his Viktor and more, and he wonders, he wonders……