abraxaslogs | [open] january/february catchall

Entry tags:

[open] january/february catchall

Who: Viktor and special guests and YOU
When: January through early February
Where: Cadens, the Horizon
What: open stuff, closed stuff, dangerous and illicit magical surgery, the usual
Warnings: the usual references to terminal illness including a steep decline and medical procedures/surgery. will list additional warnings as needed.

[open and closed starters in comments! This is also a general catch-all for Viktor’s do-or-die attempt to cure himself, and the events leading up to it, and his recovery (to come later). If you want a custom starter or something specific, just hit me up. full horizon details are here for any and all wildcarding needs. For everything else, I’m on plurk at

whitticus and on discord at whitticus#8139.]

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Considering the weight of what they did together, the fact they managed to struggle through to something mirroring polite conversation is a lot. Maybe it's because Jayce has changed over the past ten months. The last time they saw one another they were in dark spots, and unfortunately Vi's even more so right then. But he's had all this time. He made a new life, and while he'll never really be over what he did, he has made strides to try and do better. So maybe she saw that change and it's why she decided to open up. Maybe they're very much alike, something he already suspected, made of feelings more than logic sometimes.

Jayce doesn't know how to phrase it. It's not that Vi said it was for sure, she didn't see his body, but there was something so final about it too. Final to the point where Jayce isn't sure he wants to get into denials on this. The possibility of him being alive is real, but it's not the kind of thing to put money on.

He reaches out to take Viktor's hand, threading their fingers together. Because despite everything, the insane part of this is, it's going to be a loss for others. At this point, Jayce has no reason to think Viktor was anywhere near the Council. Why would he be? He hasn't met with Silco yet.

"She said she thinks I'm dead, V." What strange words to come out of him. "Silco died and Jinx took revenge by using our gemstone to power and shoot a weapon. Apparently one that could take out the entire council." Jayce doesn't know the exact details of how Silco died, only that he did. It doesn't ultimately matter. He told Vi he's not sure he even blames Jinx. Aren't they already enemies? Wouldn't it have been possible for him to kill her too, if he went down that path?

"I believe her." And all that entails.

Edited 2023-02-14 21:57 (UTC)

For all of his rumination on the summoning ritual--how it takes people from the same worlds, but different moments in time--it's possible Viktor never actually considered that there might be others from their world, arriving past the last moment Jayce remembers. Now that it seems like this is the case, he doesn't know what to do. Jayce seems to be accepting of this information, but Viktor immediately finds himself distressed as he takes it all in. A weapon, yes, they were preparing for--but killing the Council? How did she do it? Is Vi sure? What did she see?

He can't bring himself to ask of those questions, grasping for Jayce's hand and then his arm, instead.

"No, that's not--" He wants to say possible, but they both know that isn't true. Still, Viktor tries to grasp at any evidence to the contrary. They can't know that Vi saw what she said she did. "She must be mistaken. Making--making assumptions, based on incomplete information."

Jayce isn't supposed to die. Viktor has never even considered such a thing. He just says it--doesn't seem to feel the same distress. Seems almost at peace with it. Viktor can't accept that.

"We don't even know if she's from the same timeline as the rest of us. You can't know this."

"No, I can't know." Jayce allows that denial. It could be true. She could be mistaken, she didn't say she saw his body. She could be from a different timeline. These are all facts, but it's not what he feels. Jinx attacking the Council after Silco's death, completely reasonable. What she's already managed to make out of the gemstones could absolutely lead to a weapon they can't fight. He made a hammer no one could fight. With Jinx's mind? She could blow up all of Piltover.

"But does it matter? Let's say it's a 50-50 shot it's true. Are those the odds I want to play with my life? No." Jayce is not talking about them intentionally going back because he never had any plans for that, although he knew Viktor felt differently. Maybe that is why he is so calm now. If the Singularity sends him back, it's out of his hands, but he feels better, in a way. He's already embraced this life as the one he wants, and now he doesn't have to wonder, if he doesn't want to.

That is why he is showing more comfort to Viktor than him. Jayce has already been here. The fact he's probably dead is just a literal nail in the coffin. "I told Vi this is a place for second chances. I have to go with the assumption this is it for me, Viktor." Jayce has been saying that about Viktor this entire time, he is going to die back home, there is no hope. Now it's done for both of them.

"You can't know." Viktor is insistent, grip moving up Jayce's arm to his shoulder, as if that's somehow going to shake Jayce out of this tacit acceptance of his own death. They've avoided speaking about it, especially recently, given the urgency to complete the Hexcore, but Viktor hasn't necessarily given up on a desire to go back home. There's too much unfinished--yes, he can improve lives here, but he will never stop dwelling on his failure to help the Undercity. He owes it to his people, to do what he can for them. Just because Jayce has seen a terrible future doesn't mean it's set in stone. They've proved that.

"Just as you can't know that we share the same future."

They already know they aren't the same versions of each other. Mismatched, given the days between them. But it's always been impossible to argue the point that going home would mean losing their memory of this place and the knowledge of his cure. Now that he is cured, it's even harder for him to counter. Would he give that up? Could he trust himself to reach the same conclusion? To complete his research? He likes to think he can, but how can he convince Jayce of that, when he seems to have resigned them both to inevitability?

He has the uncharitable thought that of course Jayce finds this easy to accept. It provides him a convenient excuse to leave his mistakes behind. Can Viktor blame him for seizing that opportunity? Maybe not, but he can't so easily resign himself. His eyebrows furrow in frustration for a moment before he leans over to his beside table, rummaging for a particular notebook which he tosses between them, letting it fall open to a random page. Jayce will be able to figure out what it is with just a glance, he's sure of that.

"I haven't given up on the summoning ritual." It's a confession, though he tries to sound more confident about it than he is. "If I am to make a life here, it will be my choice. Not theirs."

"I lived that future, Viktor," Jayce says sharply. They have been avoiding this particular argument for a long time and this is not the time he wanted to have it. He internally rebels, wanting to pacify and stop, but he is too far into the frustration now.

"You are being stubborn because you don't like to admit that there are things you can't control, but I was there, you just saw it like a recording. I experienced it. You told me to let you die, that is real." It's given him PTSD, that memory, that promise he made on the worst day of his life. Recently just talking to Dean set it off, and he thought once Viktor was cured, it would stop haunting him. Apparently, that isn't the case. "That is where I come from, my timeline, my version of things. That is what I'd go back to."

Maybe he is either in shock or to acceptance of his own fate, but he does have a whole lot of emotions, and they're simmering through him at a rapid pace. Jayce has to get up and pull away, he has to take deep breaths because he doesn't want to have this fight. He really truly does not. Except Viktor mentions the summoning ritual and the look he shoots him is both angry and pained.

"Of course, it's all about your pride, you needing to be in control. You'd pick that over your life? Over my life? Over our life together?" Jayce's jaw is tight, his eyes flashing. "We don't have a future in Piltover, Viktor!"

This was going to happen eventually, but Viktor, too, hates the circumstance. He hates that Jayce can stand up and take some distance while he's still confined to the bed. He hates that they should be basking in their achievement and celebrating the potential of their future together, but instead, he's already on to the next project, the one that's been in the back of his mind the whole time. There's a part of him that knows he has to let it go, for all of the reasons Jayce is listing, to say nothing of his own wants, but there's also a part of him that compulsively rejects the selfish normalcy he's dared to imagine for himself, and has only recently become possible. He can't quite get there. Not when there's still work to do.

"You don't understand," he whispers, though his voice is more angry than despondent, a hiss through grit teeth. "I can't just give up on my home."

Which is, as they both know, not Piltover. He tries to follow Jayce up, bracing himself on the headboard and easing off the mattress, even though it's certainly much more exertion than he should attempt. The thought of a world where Jayce dies is still unbearable to him. Unacceptable. An outrage that compels him to do something, anything, besides sit uselessly in his bed.

"It doesn't have to be like that. If they can summon from different timelines, and universes, and--and versions of people, why can't we? We're smarter than them. Who is to say we can't find a way to go back exactly like this? With our memories? Create our own timeline, and change things to be the way we want them? Please, Jayce--"

There's another possibility that he hasn't dared to voice--the fear that he might one day be unwillingly ripped away from all this, thrust back where he came from, where Jayce is distracted and wrapped up in politics and loving someone else. Viktor can't possibly choose between their life together and his obligation to the Undercity, and he knows he shouldn't have to. He wants it all. He thinks, with all of the time he now has, that he can grasp it. Let him try.

Edited (finding typos 12 hours later) 2023-02-15 16:05 (UTC)

"And you think I'm arrogant. We have proof of people who have gone and come back, they went exactly back to the same moment, they remembered nothing of this place. The people who brought us here didn't even mean to do it exactly, why would we be better at magic than they are?" Jayce looks at him and scowls. "Don't move, you'll hurt yourself." They may be arguing but it doesn't change that Jayce's first priority is Viktor's safety. That's a huge part of this. He steps over to the bed and very carefully tries to usher him back down.

"Is it our place to create a new timeline? You don't think that's selfish too, making things how you want them to be? If that's even possible, it's still a risk. One that is not worth it to me." Even if they somehow get the spell, if they can attempt to mess with the way it works, which he doesn't think is possible, there is no foolproof assurance. There is no perfect promise here.

Jayce does sit back down on the bed if it's the only way to get Viktor to do it, knowing that by putting distance between them he was basically asking for it. It's difficult, he is angry and upset, but running away from Viktor isn't the intention.

"V. You're acting like I don't love Piltover either, as if I don't know where my responsibilities lie, that I don't have unfinished business. We shared a dream." To do things better for their people, to change the world like they already had. Jayce knows there is a trade-off. "I will never see my mother again. I'll never have Hextech. I won't be able to fix what I broke or even try." They have a poor substitute here, for his most beloved creation. As if it wasn't his life's work like the Hexcore was for Viktor.

"I know where my priorities are. They're with you, with us. You'd really destroy everything we have for this?"

"How can you say this? They don't know what they're doing. We've done the impossible. If anyone can learn the intricacies of it--learn to weild those magics--we can do it."

It's not arrogance, from his point of view. It's fact. Viktor is, perhaps, riding a little high on their success. He's literally eliminated his own terminal illness. and even with the Hexcore destroyed, his mind is buzzing with possibilities. He can't stop here--there's so much unfinished, and without an understanding of the summoning ritual and their existence in this place, they're fully at risk of vanishing without warning, like so many others. Jayce says it himself, what that means. Returning to the exact same moment, with no memory of their time here. No memory of their time together.

If Viktor can change that, he'll do it without a second thought.

"We have to learn how it works, and change it if we can. Otherwise, we'll just be at the mercy of the Singularity--sent back at any time, without warning. Then, all of this will be just a dream."

Maybe it already is. He's painfully aware that it's the unique circumstances of this world that allows them to be together--even moreso, now that they've cured him. He lets Jayce ease him back down onto the bed, but there's still fervency in his voice. A desperation, to make Jayce understand that this isn't Viktor giving them up or destroying everything they have. It's insurance, against the worst.

"This is for us, Jayce."

Edited 2023-02-15 19:08 (UTC)

"No. This is for you. If it was for us you'd be listening to me. If you are always fantasizing about going back, about making this spell work and making that your priority, you aren't living here with me anymore." And Jayce knows that intimately well, being someone who did the same thing. Fantasy was often his life, and it was ambitious too, it led him to the places he went to. He understands the lure of imagining the best, of seeing the possibilities rather than the reality. Viktor was the one who helped him ground himself in the now instead.

Strange, how they've swapped mindsets so thoroughly. Viktor's thriving from making the impossible happen, curing himself, much like when Jayce proved Hextech and all his dreams seemed an inevitability rather than a possibility. Jayce has become the skeptic. What a strange situation.

Jayce sighs and reaches out to take Viktor's hand. "Let's say you manage to figure out the spell. Let's say you think you can make it work, but you aren't sure. There is still a risk that you're sending us back to our deaths. Are you asking me to give up what I have here for a chance at a life I don't even want?"

Viktor recognizes this for the impasse that it is, and he also recognizes that he's the one at a disadvantage, here. Of course he's not asking Jayce to go home to his death, but there's no guarantee Viktor will be able to accomplish what he's describing with one hundred percent certainty. It's unfair, and it seems like Jayce doesn't even want that, anyway.

"You never wanted to leave, even before this. You'd have to face your mistakes, then. Did you just assume that I could sever my ties so easily? My ambitions?"

Viktor has complicated feelings on the subject. He wants to be with Jayce, but he can't abandon the Undercity. Instead of forcing himself to choose, however, Viktor is trying to reason his way around it, like a math problem he can solve. A solution he can cheat his way into, where he gets to have everything he wants.

"I would never ask you to go if I wasn't sure." But that's not really the issue. Jayce seems to take umbrage with the morality of it, too. If it's right to alter the spell to carry over the things they've learned here back into their world and change their own destinies. He thinks it might be possible--Tony arrived back in Abraxas physically changed, carrying over real, tangible damage from his experience in his own world. Viktor can work with that, but he also knows he can't do it alone. If Jayce doesn't even want to try, he doesn't know where to go from here. He only knows how to react as a trapped animal would, lashing out because he's backed into a corner.

"But what happens if I agree, and then one day I disappear regardless? All of this will have been a fantasy." Something they could never have, otherwise. Fleeting, after everything. Even if they never use the ritual to go home, Viktor thinks it's worth knowing how it works, solely to prevent one or both of them from vanishing. "I've spent so long trying to outrun my own death. I finally have a life to look forward to. I get to decide what to do with it."

Edited 2023-02-15 23:08 (UTC)

"Maybe it was that in the start, but I'm not afraid to face my mistakes now. I'm not the same person I was ten months ago, and definitely not a year ago." That person seems very far away to him sometimes. Before the Council, when it was still just them and it was good and the whole world seemed so exciting and possible. But the problem with that is now in hindsight he understands this was all happening as their city was fracturing. It was inevitable, for war to come to them.

The man who walked out to cheers on Progress Day is still him, but he's someone else now too. Viktor told him to figure his shit out and find a way to live with what he'd done, and he did. It's why Jayce is not so quick to jump into things anymore. He doesn't let his instincts drive him. Being here and being with Viktor has made him a better person, in his opinion.

"Viktor, I love you. I have wanted to spend the rest of my life with you since the day we met, I knew right away. And if I really believed you wanted to learn the spell solely to keep us from disappearing, I'd help you. Because the first thing I thought when I got here was how I needed to find the spell to get back to you." So Jayce understands the impulse. If Viktor disappears, logically, he would want to go with him, or find a way to get him back. It's not the spell or learning it in essence that's the problem.

"But I live here. I'm not going to have one foot in two worlds. This is where we have a future, and that's what I want." In many ways he's incredibly focused on a new type of dream. He has spoken this entire time very calmly, because he has thought about this, and he knows how he feels, and where he is. Hearing he was dead from Vi only made everything become cemented in his mind.

After a beat though, some of his calm drips away, and there is a heavy weight of sadness to his shoulders. His eyes. "I thought I was what you wanted too."

"No, you aren't." Viktor turns slightly, as if suddenly realizing that Jayce is much more self-assured than he was even a few short months ago. He can't ply him with carefully-placed words or guilt him by appealing to his softer side. If it wasn't so frustrating, he might be proud--and maybe he is, because he sounds steely, but not disappointed.

He's known, on some level, that it was always going to come to this. Being together has never been without sacrifice, or the underlying knowledge that taking this for himself means giving up on something else. Viktor just has to decide if letting go of his promise to the Undercity is worth what they have. He's not sure. Not yet. He's only had his new lease on life for mere weeks. He needs time.

It would be easy to lay back down on the mattress and put his back to Jayce and sulk. To punish Jayce emotionally for being able to target him so well and see right through his attempted altruism into the selfish desires that prop it up. The prospect is more than a little tempting, but just as Jayce is a better person because of him, Viktor is changed, too. He can't close himself off and disregard this so easily, not anymore. So, after a moment, he uncurls himself, gingerly moving closer to Jayce, sliding an arm around his waist, pressing up against his back.

"I do." Seeing Jayce like this never fails to strike something within him, an overwhelming desire to take back the harsh words and offer comfort, even if his own anger still churns in the pit of his stomach. "You are. What I want. Do you think my goal is to return to a place where you're with someone else? Where you're dead? No. I just thought, that, if there was a way to change it...for us to have everything...I would want to try."

Maybe even Jayce didn't entirely realize how much he's changed until he said it out loud. Because Viktor can't guilt him. He sees that now, in only the conversation back and forth, that he isn't going to bend easily just because someone else wills him to. Not even the love of his life. It's as if everything he's been told by Viktor and his friends over the past few months have actually soaked into his mind.

It isn't that Jayce is without pity or understanding. Viktor's always wanted to make the world better for his people, Jayce has always known that. It was part of their deal together, part of their dream. But in a way, it's those last words from another Viktor that stay with him. Instead of great, maybe they can do good. And that's what he's been doing, bit by bit.

He leans back into Viktor's embrace, although very lightly as he's ridiculously heavy and Viktor is still fragile. Just enough to lean into the affection and soak it in. Jayce drops his hand to run along Viktor's arm around his waist. It's Viktor's constant love and support that has helped get him to this place where he isn't afraid that one disagreement or fight will mean the end of everything. They're stronger than that. He knows it. So he doesn't have to bend or beg.

"You're sounding like my particular brand of delusion." Jayce has reached a point where he can be dry about that. It's not that he has no dreams anymore, or he doesn't think they can accomplish incredible things. In fact, he has a lot of dreams, a lot of ideas. He is hopeful about what they can have here. It's just different from reaching for realistic goals instead of insisting that he can just will the perfect life into existence.

"What are you willing to give up in exchange for chasing that dream of everything? Because even if we can't have everything, we could have enough." Jayce turns his head so he can nuzzle at Viktor, pressing their foreheads together. "I love you. I'm sorry I can't give you what you want. But I'm not going to change my mind."

"It's not a delusion," he argues weakly, resting his chin on Jayce's shoulder, arm curling around him more protectively. "We've really done these things. We could do it again."

But by this point he's just reassuring himself. Jayce has made up his mind, and he doesn't need to say as much for Viktor to know this is the end of the discussion. That hurts, still--that Jayce would so thoroughly put his foot down, when he knows how important the Undercity is to Viktor, and how he might never be fulfilled, if he can't make things better for the people there. Improving lives here is objectively good, yes, but in a world that doesn't belong to him, it's not the same.

He'd spent so much time focusing on his own ticking clock that he hasn't really had the chance to grapple with Jayce's question. Everything is a different calculation now. Viktor allowed himself this relationship as an indulgence, to make the most of the time he had left. Now, he has all of the time that he wants, and he needs to reconsider almost everything about himself, in turn.

Maybe it is better, to think of all this as just a dream, and that eventually, one day, he might wake up from it.

"You can't ask me to choose. That isn't fair." Not when Jayce can have everything he wants, up to and including a relationship with Viktor uncomplicated by their social status and previous entanglements. "I wish it were as simple as you make it sound."

"Me trying to have everything and fix everything is part of why things went where they did. All actions have consequences. Just because you mean well doesn't mean it'll end well. I think Heimerdinger proved that." Their mentor always meant well. His complete brand was condescending kindness and brushing conflict to the side. Jayce thinks he was right when it came to some things. Not all things though. He can see Heimerdinger clearly (and critically) as well as himself these days.

"I'm sure you think it'll be different because it's you doing it, but you also wanted to keep the Hexcore despite all the reasons not to." Viktor gets blinded by his own arrogance, same as Jayce sometimes, and his certainty somehow he can do better than everyone else. Jayce just knows it's false. And he'd rather Viktor not have to actually experience the full from grace that he did in order to get there. It's not fun.

Jayce unravels from Viktor's grip but only so he can turn to face him, pulling a leg up onto the bed so he can look at him more directly. He cups Viktor's face in his hands, brushing his thumb against the mole over his mouth, like always.

"I really hoped that it wouldn't have been a choice." And that is definitely the most unfair part, which he understands. Of course on an emotional level, Jayce wanted Viktor to just pick him. Them over anything else. It had been that simple for him, and it is difficult not to feel pain over that. Rational understanding or not, it hurts.

"I love you. Never forget that. But maybe you need to take some time to think over everything. You just had a huge life change. And some heavy news." Jayce's death should be heavy to him too, but it's complicated. "I'm not giving you any ultimatum. Rest and consider it."

Edited 2023-02-16 17:16 (UTC)

Jayce is being much more understanding than he probably deserves, but Viktor knows him too well for him to hide the hurt that he really feels. If it were that simple, there would have been no hesitation. Even now, Viktor wants to reassure Jayce that he will never be without him again, though he can't quite bring himself to do that, because he's not quite ready to give up on home. There's a part of him, too, that resents the lecture, like he he can't make his own decisions about what he thinks is vest, but it seems pointless to argue when the Hexcore turned out the way it did.

Next time, he always tells himself. Next time he'll get it right. That's what scientific progress is--improving with every new iteration, inching always towards perfection. That Jayce could be content with him and only him, at the expense of everything else, is all at once infuriating and deeply affecting.

"I know, Jayce." That love for him has never been in question. Viktor allows himself to lean into the hands against his face, and it's only another moment before he's squeezing his eyes shut, cheeks wet. A scenario where Jayce is dead is not one he wants to entertain--it's an overwhelming thought that hits him all at once, now that his own anger has ebbed. "I'm sorry. I need to think. About--about everything. But I'm not going to leave you. I promise."

Jayce kisses his cheeks gently and then his forehead. He puts an arm around him and pulls him into a hug, nuzzling his nose into Viktor's hair. He simply holds him. They've gotten through a lot together, and what he's learned recently is that they can get past even the roughest parts. The news of his death is harsh, he's not entirely certain he's figured out his feelings about it yet either, so Viktor isn't the only one who has to think.

"Neither am I. I promise." They may have found themselves at an impasse, but it isn't breaking them up. Jayce didn't say these things to force a choice, he was simply drawing his own line, for now. For both of them to know. "I brought the papers you wanted. Maybe doing some work would be good." A distraction. They're both so good at those.

Viktor allows himself to sink into the embrace, leaning into the kisses and offering some in turn, searching out Jayce's mouth with his own and relishing their closeness even in this terrible moment. He's starved for it, after so long in recovery and with so much more to go that he jumps at the chance, feeling Jayce solid and real and alive under his hands.

He lets it go for as long as he's allowed, pulling away only when Jayce does. There are no real answers yet--he doesn't know when he'll be ready to give one, but in this moment he resolves to treasure what they have for as long as he can.

Jayce brings his attention to the papers, and Viktor swallows hard and nods. He reaches across the bed, to his book full of notes about the summoning ritual, and he closes it, returning it to the bedside table with all the others. Out of the way, but no guarantee he won't return to it later, the possibility there should he choose.

For now, he'll work on something else--something they can work on together.

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[open] january/february catchall

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we can wrap on this one here or on yours!

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