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Itched.
His skin itched.
Or, well… what counted for his skin now.
Viktor had his pantleg pulled up as high as it could go and dragged his nails up and down the metallic purple. Screeches tinged from where he scratched. His nails bent and chipped, nearly to the point of hurting. Occasionally a silvery trail appeared, gouged into the tendon texture his leg now sported. But those scratches quickly faded, much faster than if it had been in flesh.
Still, the feeling never ceased for long. Whenever he thought his nerve-endings satisfied Viktor would return to the work he was supposed to be doing— didn't have the time to be distracted— only for the accursed itch to return.
Now he gritted his teeth as he dug his nails harder into the unrelenting magic. The back molars echoed their complaining creaks up into his ears, but now wasn't the time to care about them. They were old anyway. And worn.
Viktor needed to care for his new limb. It was a blessing. If only he could rid himself of this damned—
"V?"
He scrambled to yank his pants-leg down and sat up just as Jayce entered the lab. The man looked harried and half put together, and about as tired as Viktor felt.
"My tie, have you seen- Ah."
Viktor watched with his teeth on edge as his lab partner scooped up the abandoned fabric from it's temporary home with the dish towel drying with the beakers. Jayce grimaced at the feeling, but still put it on with a rushed knot.
Viktor inched his legs further under the desk. Already under the cotton of his slacks his metal calf began to tingle. As if bugs were scittering over his flesh. Digging in to their hearts' content. To distract himself, he chewed on his chapped lower lip.
It was fine. Jayce didn't know. There was no way he could. He had been so busy recently, what with being on the council now on top of their own work.
But what if he did?
What if he did?
Was Jayce simply luring him into a sense of calm? Letting him only merely think he wasn't found out? What if Jayce had already alerted the council of Viktor's experiments on his own body, and they were just waiting to catch him in the act, or with some viable proof?
Like his magically morphed, healed, metal leg on full view.
'Oh how his leg itched…'
No. Jayce wouldn't do that. Viktor shook himself as he forced his hands to shuffle through the scattered notes and books to hide how they trembled to scratch.
Jayce wouldn't.
They were partners. A word muttered reverently by the man himself that first time they had met face-to-face. Viktor had helped Jayce with his own law-stretching experiments, surely he would do the same.
But… Jayce was on the council now.
And he had been so focused on rooting out illegal activity recently. Would he consider Viktor's leg to be similar?
Viktor scuffed the toe of his loafer up and down the wriggling, annoying leg outside the fabric. He probably was smudging dirt all along it, but the relief was so worth the chase that he nearly moaned.
"…-fingers?"
Jayce's concerned timbre broke through the haze of the good scratch and Viktor glanced up.
Jayce was standing in front of his desk, council jacket half on, concern wrinkling the skin between bushy eyebrows as he stared down. The gap of his pretty white teeth caught Viktor's attention instead and he got sucked into the space until Jayce waved his hand to call him back to the question. What had it been?
"Eh? Sorry, what was that?"
"What did you do to your fingers?" Jayce repeated, motioning to where they sat on ruffled papers. Viktor looked down. "They're bleeding. Do you need help?"
Indeed they were. His nails were broken jagged and short, the skin of his nail bed puffed over the top with irritation. Where the edges of keratin met that fragile flesh it cut for bright red blood to line and smear. Lines of the stuff stained matching, frantic spatter over papers and research important to their work, easily absorbed into the thirsty fibers and quickly turning rusted.
'What a waste,' Viktor thought as he fluttered his now stinging fingertips over the mess. There were better uses for the gore.
"I must have been picking," he offered as he pulled the offending digits into his lap and out of view. "Or cut myself. Nothing of note, Jayce. Did you need something?"
He watched Jayce's brows furrow further before those haunting eyes of his flicked back up to meet Viktor's own. "How are you? That treatment you mentioned, is it—"
"Coming along," Viktor interrupted, turning away in the pretense of searching for his coffee cup. It was easy to find, it's edges crusted and filthy where his mouth had sat to drink late into the previous night. Forgoing a good wash, Viktor stood and remembered to grab his cane last second to limp over to the coffee pot.
Healed leg or not, he was still dying from illness. What did a few germs mean, in the end?
"Is there anything I can do?"
The well-worn question squirmed up Viktor's spine to scoff in his throat. It rankled his stomach, snarled his face into a scowl. Whether Jayce meant good on it or not, Viktor was so tired of the pity.
"You were getting ready for a meeting, yes? Don't be late on my part," he spat back.
The air behind him grew cold and stretched, until Jayce was miles away and analyzing him. Viktor could feel how his partner's eyes scanned over his frame. Surely, he was looking for some sign, some evidence, of Viktor's sins.
"See you, then, Viktor…" Then Jayce turned and walked off back to the door. Viktor let out a soft sigh of relief.
When the door to the lab clicked back into its latch, Viktor had already slumped against the wall, sore fingers already moving.
Scratching.
Oh, how his leg itched.