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player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5
WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.
This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.
At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.
For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.
For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.
At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.
For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.
For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.
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But those hands -- their pressure against his body is sweeter than either. The smell of his hair, foreign and familiar -- a scent persistently him despite adjusting to an entirely other world. The subtle push and pull of his chest with each breath taken like the politest fuck you to that which erodes him. The manner in which they stand together is perfectly complimentary like the rest of them, and if Jayce pulls back just a little further, adjusts his angle just a little further, burrows into Viktor's sphere just a little further--
He doesn't crush him, but he buries -- buries his face into the curve of Viktor's neck and breathes in deeply, salt and sweat, leather and persistence. He holds onto it, then releases it in a steady sigh, heat sinking through the layers of fabric separating them. Drawing back, his arms relax, but linger.
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And it's like blowing on a cinder. Like warming hands in the cold. Jayce draws him in, and breathes him back into himself, imbued with a life renewed. His breath washes over that old, gentle thing, shrouded in nacreous layers of doubt and grief and yet still gleaming after so long. Hope comes up swiftly to mantle over it—a febrile hope, honed to white-hot ambition, a very recently necessary state that has yet to fade. This is what stirs him at last.
"Your own work saved you," he says, into the space between them as it grows, and then meets his partner with water-bright eyes. "Our work."
(His work.)
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This is something he's been missing dearly. This look, this particular rising of voice, elation held in suspense—it's like watching the morning sky warm for dawn's arrival. Watch him summon the sun:
"Hextech. Here."
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Nearly bursting with delight, Jayce grasps Viktor’s arms. “Here! Without the crystals?” But he is and isn’t asking, plowing on as he takes a half-step back, hands flying outward. “That’s— That’s remarkable! How? How can— without a catalyst— there must be some overlap, the magic, it—“
Having been pacing a tight circle, he abruptly comes to a stop and stares at the ground for a second before glancing up at Viktor. Awe softens his enthusiasm. Stepping closer, hand returning to Viktor’s arm, he leans forward to place a chaste kiss on his partner’s forehead.
“You’re incredible,” he says again, drawing away with an affectionate smile, because he cannot share what his heart wishes to say. “You all are—but take some credit this time, all right?”
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Jayce conveys the magnificence of now with the whole of his body, grabs him, flings off joyful fragments. His answer is a soft outburst of breath—it brings with it an open smile, shakes him in little pants of laughter, all but silent. He's nodding, yes, without the crystals, yes, the overlap.
He's— stunned, for one fluttering moment.
Jayce has always shown affection through self-starting entitlement to his personal space. This is a nudge beyond, yes, but Jayce has a lot of feelings—big ones, all the time—and what he's feeling now must vastly outstrip simple gratitude. How else could he express it? These notions arise and resolve themselves in a snap of static. Understanding arcs between them: this moment transcends everything.
Still, he is, as ever, himself: "Oh, I don't, eh... you know it's not about that..."
The crookedness of his lingering smile says he's feeling pretty damn good about himself right now (and the blush pink of his ears doesn't not support this).
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"Reputation opens doors," is his mirthful retort, stepping away. "You gotta tell me all about it, V."
And Viktor does -- tell him quite a bit about it, anyway, as they gather their little inventions and make their way to Viktor's room, though not without several detours along the way (and Jayce eventually excusing himself when the air feels thick, nerves humming with the threat of unraveling -- a simple I'll meet you there that sounds more composed than he feels). They manage to talk for hours and hours with an excitement that borders on nostalgic, hands moving this way and that, precious paper scribbled upon until no viable surface remains. Jayce extracts himself only long enough to grab them food and drink, though he barely touches the former. Apprehension lingers in the periphery; lively discussion keeps it at bay.
If he tells Viktor that he's just closing his eyes for a moment, then it's just because he's tired. They've been talking for hours. The information is dense and wondrously complex. If he falls asleep, then it's only because he's already comfortable sharing his space with Viktor for nearly a decade. It isn't because he's uncomfortable with being alone.
It isn't because he's dreading when his own thoughts fill the space instead.