[ He can pick the wisp of a laugh beneath the rest of the overlapping sounds, as relief seems to echo faintly between them through that lingering thread that connected them.
Jayce lets out a long breath, shaking his head when Viktor says you did it. There's too much of their history that can't be untangled, too much of a hand they've each had in making and unmaking each other. Jayce is who he is because they met - in the snowstorm, at the broken ledge of his flat. They did this together - he's fine with the rest.
What he's not fine with, what he doesn't want, is this - ]
I'm sorry too.
[ If Jayce takes the credit for ending this, he takes the blame too.
They can each say it once, but otherwise they might never stop. He can sense a ledge on his periphery, a gaping maw and guilt like weights on his ankles, his chest. He remembers finding Viktor, after the shimmer factory. He remembers first hearing him say I should have died. He thinks of Sky, and feels that guilt very suddenly - and behind her, rows of faceless automatons like corpses.
Jayce closes his eyes and leans forward, pressing his forehead against a hard, metal sternum, still gripping one forearm and the same tightness in his throat. ]
Viktor - don't walk out on me again, okay?
[ Don't find some reason to wander out into the storms and disappear.
cw: suicidal ideation
Jayce lets out a long breath, shaking his head when Viktor says you did it. There's too much of their history that can't be untangled, too much of a hand they've each had in making and unmaking each other. Jayce is who he is because they met - in the snowstorm, at the broken ledge of his flat. They did this together - he's fine with the rest.
What he's not fine with, what he doesn't want, is this - ]
I'm sorry too.
[ If Jayce takes the credit for ending this, he takes the blame too.
They can each say it once, but otherwise they might never stop. He can sense a ledge on his periphery, a gaping maw and guilt like weights on his ankles, his chest. He remembers finding Viktor, after the shimmer factory. He remembers first hearing him say I should have died. He thinks of Sky, and feels that guilt very suddenly - and behind her, rows of faceless automatons like corpses.
Jayce closes his eyes and leans forward, pressing his forehead against a hard, metal sternum, still gripping one forearm and the same tightness in his throat. ]
Viktor - don't walk out on me again, okay?
[ Don't find some reason to wander out into the storms and disappear.
He doesn't want to be alone again. ]