Work Text:
Everything is still. A cold wind blows across his face. A plink of something wet hitting just above his brow. It is bright past his closed eyes, he’s sure. Just moments ago, his vision was consumed by white light, the shadow of his… friend –partner– imprinted against the backs of his eyelids. Just moments ago, surrounded by the cosmic space of eternity and nothing. Another wet drop hits the corner of his eye, he flinches reflexively then opens them. Grey and white clouds blanket the sky. More wet drops begin to fall making the ground and his skin grow cold around him. His face scrunches against the drizzling of rain. Jayce hears a groan to his side, tilts his head to see his partner lying next to him. Viktor brings a hand to his face to wipe away the water gathered there. He opens his eyes, goes through the same realizations.
They’re alive, they’re alive.
Jayce watches him, the astonishment in his eyes, the hesitation in his movements as he rubs his face again. Jayce looks back to the sky above him, he feels his body shake with cold, then something else. Something new and old, felt everytime he and Viktor created something they were proud of tinkering away in the lab, the first time they’d succeeded with the hex-core floating in a sea of blue and white stars, receiving his acceptance letter to the academy. The times his mother would make him laugh when he was crying, saying grieve now, Jayce, but not for too long. This too will pass. And there is still joy in our world.
A wet laugh escapes his lips, he feels wet and rough and burnt along the edges. He’s laughing and they almost died. Hell, they might be dead for all he knows. But the skin on his stomach trembles with something warm. Viktor rolls onto his side and stares at him in bewilderment, his lips curled back into smiling until he gives in too. Wet sobs and teeth and spit and crinkled crow’s feet. Mirth wracking their bodies in the absurdity of it all.
Boisterous laughter fades into hiccuping laughs, to heavy exhales. By the time they come down, Jayce is laying on his side too. Like it’s his natural instinct to be turned towards each other this way. Jayce meets Viktor’s eyes, still closed, then looks to the curve of his neck, the dip in his collarbone. Somewhere near the solar plexus he realizes neither of them are clothed. Sometime during their days working together he had seen Viktor in some state of undress. And Viktor has certainly seen him at least shirtless whenever he’d gotten back from the forge.
Jayce feels another giggle bubbling beneath his chest. A blush crosses Viktor’s face as he realizes their nudity. He wishes he could raise a green blanket of grass and let it fall over them, let them stay here forever in each other’s presence as the world around them passes by. Wishes they could wait out the storm again and again to see another bright sky.
Viktor sits up, Jayce gets to his feet. Leaning on his good leg he hauls Viktor up, wrapping an arm over his shoulders and Viktor’s to his waist. They’re interlocked like this, bad leg to bad leg, dependent on each other.
They hobble off like a three legged beast, siamese twins. Broken skin and matching scars. And maybe they don’t deserve it for all they’ve done to the world. But they’re certainly not giving it up.