[ Jayce can hear himself accusing Viktor in the council room everything you've done to these people, you did alone. He can hear himself say my partner died in this room. Scared, angry, disoriented and half convinced he'd been betrayed by the two people closest to him, guilty over his own mistakes - the cost of failure was too high to do anything but steel himself that day.
The air smells like their lab when they're in the middle of work - like ozone, like electricity sparking, like a gemstone activating. He realizes not the air, but Viktor himself.
He swallows, shakes his head again. ]
It's still you in there.
[ He already should know how Jayce sees him. He saw it himself, in what should have been their last moments.
(it doesn't escape him that Viktor holds back, promises nothing just then)
He takes a half step back, craning his neck to study his broken face plate with a wince, like he's only just noticing it now. Inside, there's no bone or muscle or anything recognizable as tissue. It's more like the inside of that structure in the commune, honeycombs of the same texture, all one system. Jayce reaches a hand up toward the wound, hesitating. ]
no subject
The air smells like their lab when they're in the middle of work - like ozone, like electricity sparking, like a gemstone activating. He realizes not the air, but Viktor himself.
He swallows, shakes his head again. ]
It's still you in there.
[ He already should know how Jayce sees him. He saw it himself, in what should have been their last moments.
(it doesn't escape him that Viktor holds back, promises nothing just then)
He takes a half step back, craning his neck to study his broken face plate with a wince, like he's only just noticing it now. Inside, there's no bone or muscle or anything recognizable as tissue. It's more like the inside of that structure in the commune, honeycombs of the same texture, all one system. Jayce reaches a hand up toward the wound, hesitating. ]