Chapter Text
For a very, very long time, consideration of his identity wasn't really the kind of luxury he afforded himself. Chronic pain makes most people feel alienated from their bodies, as far as he can tell. It isn't a unique experience to feel a certain disdain for one's corporeal form when said form is so often the source of discomfort.
When he and Jayce move in together, he starts hydrotherapy. Three times a week, low impact exercise in a specialized salt water pool. Viktor had never learned to swim, but Jayce teaches him with sure hands and adoring encouragement, and the buoyancy feels like freedom. This is the lightest he can ever recall feeling. Their regularly scheduled floating is non-negotiable, and Viktor still hurts, but there’s reprieve where there once had been none.
So something new occupies the space of his previously all-encompassing pain. An awareness of his body and self that isn’t familiar. He pulls shirts over his head, tugging down the hem and lingering on his waist, smoothing over narrow hips and feeling…something. Not quite as distinct as dissatisfaction. It’s nebulous, and foreign, and unsettling.
He is a visitor within his flesh, with no home to return to.
What would home even look like?
He banishes the thought before it can take proper root, and learns to dress himself more efficiently. It solves the problem.
At least for a little while.
*
*
*
It's burning a hole in his pocket.
A deep, burgundy gloss that Jinx had dropped in the car when he gave her a lift to her shift at the bar. The wet shine of it had caught the low lights of The Drop in a way that held his attention enough to stress him out. He can't quite recall the last time a woman had held his gaze for anything longer than what was required for politeness, and the thought makes him extraordinarily uncomfortable.
…Perhaps it was something about the color?
Maybe if he were to test it, he could figure out what exactly the draw was. It feels like the only solution. It's that, or wait for her to wear it again, and that thought is so thoroughly distressing he pushes it aside near immediately. Jinx is a good friend and a colleague, and the prospect of waiting around for her to use a particular lip product again just—well. Is actually unacceptable.
He makes his way to the bathroom and locks the door. Washes his hands once. Then again. Sits at the stool beside the counter to keep himself from washing them a third time and stares a bit too long at his reflection, wondering what the fuck it is he's doing—
Not knowing will drive him mad.
He unscrews the gloss with shaky hands, and wipes a generous amount of it on the top of one of his extremely clean hands, watching with curiosity as the color blooms, some of it leaching off into the microscopic patterning in his skin. It's…interesting. But not anything nearly so transfixing as he thought it might be.
The next test is obvious, but twists uncomfortably in his gut.
Tentatively, he presses his lips into the cherry-dark color on his hand, feeling the wet mess of it cling to his mouth. He spends a full minute just experiencing the sensation of it. Slightly tacky, the vague ‘berry’ scent soft and pleasant to his nose. After another minute or so, he realizes he's stalling. Presses his lips to his hand once more to refresh, and finally turns his eyes back to his reflection.
A soft gasp leaves his lips as he stares, and something…clicks, somewhere. He's not sure what he had assumed would be looking back at him, but apparently it was something like a stranger. This, though—it's just Viktor.
But.
Viktor looks…pretty.
He's never considered himself to be unattractive. That isn't it—he's just. Sharp. Angular in a way he's never really associated with prettiness. Striking, maybe. Handsome enough. Beautiful in the way that glaciers can be. This feels…
Different.
The gloss highlights the curve of his bottom lip, the warm undertone softening him at the edges. A gentle flush paints his cheeks, and he stares, utterly stricken by the fluttering feeling in his chest.
It feels extraordinarily similar to joy.
The front door of the apartment clicks shut and he freezes, panic icy in his veins. Whatever he's experiencing right now, he's barely had a moment to process it, let alone enough time to figure out how to explain it to Jayce. Frantically, he stuffs the gloss into the very bottom of one of his bathroom drawers, then flips the shower on, hot as it goes. Locking the bathroom door has never been a habit of his, so he weighs his options.
Leave it locked and raise suspicion? Or unlock it and race to clean himself quickly enough to not have to explain this experiment when Jayce inevitably ambles in to join him?
He's still fully clothed, braces on, hand and mouth stained. He's not even certain if it will come off with soap and water alone without the type of rigorous scrubbing that will leave him tender and itchy for hours after.
He glances back to the mirror. Something lovely and frightened looks back.
He takes a deep breath.
And unlocks the door.
*
“...Hi baby.” The steam swirls adoringly around Jayce when he enters the bathroom, welcoming him in even as Viktor picks anxiously at a cuticle. A manifestation of Viktor's desire even as his fear keeps him rooted in place. Jayce looks…confused. But there's a flicker of something in his eye that Viktor is simply too stressed to decipher. A flicker of something warm.
“Uh. Hello.” The elevated cortisol has begun to take its toll, his joints aching with the urge to flee. He doesn't, of course, but he does grant himself a small mercy and sits back on the sink-side stool. Jayce moves toward him with a near comical amount of care, like a handler at a wildlife rehab center. Viktor supposes the comparison is fairly apt, all things considered.
“Am I—am I interrupting?” Jayce is…observing. Eyes dark and adoring. The fear still remains in Viktor's body, but his mind at least is starting to process: he is safe.
Jayce takes a cautious seat beside Viktor on the closed toilet lid, his gaze far more intensely inquisitive than he's allowing his words to be. Searching for answers Viktor doesn't have, but demanding nothing of him.
He tentatively reaches out with his unstained hand, linking a few fingers with Jayce's as he rushes to meet Viktor in the middle. Jayce presses a reassuring kiss to his knuckles and Viktor tries to breathe.
“I'm. Not quite certain. I—I had a curiosity that I was trying to ignore. I was…unsuccessful.”
Jayce hums, peppering more kisses over his hand before asking, “Why were you trying to ignore it, love?”
Viktor sighs, frustration bleeding through at his continued confusion. “...I don't think I have an answer yet,” he confesses, studying the grout lines.
“Okay. That's okay—uh. Can I—am I allowed to make an observation?”
“Well I certainly won't stop you.”
“That color really suits you, V.”
A strangled little noise escapes him, his fingers tightening around Jayce's, a violent flush burning his cheeks. Warmth wends its way through his body, and he has the sudden urge to disappear that directly contradicts how pleased he is to be seen. Jayce chuckles softly, leaning closer to press a little kiss to the corner of his mouth, just beyond the reach of the gloss. Jayce mutters something about not wanting to ruin it yet, and Viktor is grateful and maddened, too confused about it all to initiate anything more intimate himself, but yearning to stain Jayce, too.
Viktor does what he can to center himself, the thick humidity of their steamy bathroom complicating an already difficult task. Jayce tucks a stray lock behind Viktor's ear, placing another kiss on his jaw before pulling away (thankfully, unfortunately) to ask if he wants company in the shower.
He does.
There's a comforting familiarity to the way they undress together, steady and unhurried as they remove their respective clothes and braces. Viktor gathers washcloths for them before they shuffle in, settling beside each other on the built in bench. It's all very standard fare until he reaches the point at which he usually washes his face, and hesitates.
Jayce sees the hesitation.
He angles himself toward Viktor, lathering a washcloth in facial cleanser, and takes Viktor's jaw in a gentle hand, eyes impossibly dark.
“May I?” he asks, voice barely audible above the hiss of the hot water.
Struck dumb, Viktor just nods.
Jayce leans closer, slowly, cautiously, and presses his lips to Viktor's.
Viktor's brain goes blank.
There's something so strangely right about the tacky cling of their mouths sealed together, sticky with steam and sweat and sickly sweet gloss. It should be a sensory nightmare, but all Viktor can feel is devastating warmth, all around and inside him, pooling in his gut and raining down on his torso. Jayce's other hand still has the washcloth, held up and away from the spray, tucked against Viktor's throat and awaiting its turn with his mouth.
Viktor decides it can wait a bit longer, but as they continue their kissing, more and more blood pools lower, and a sudden feeling of dread rips through him. It's jarring and unpleasant, cold shame and discomfort that locks up in his joints, so bizarrely juxtaposed by the soft mouth against his own and blessedly hot water. He's half hard and horribly anxious again, worse than before by far, and he breaks their kiss with a panicky gasp.
“Shit—Viktor, you okay? Did I do something?”
God. How does he even answer? Jayce didn't do anything wrong. Jayce is just loving him, same as always, achingly tender and affectionate. It's Viktor that's wrong. Somehow, inexplicably, the tacky feeling on his mouth is a crime scene. A wretched urge to erase the evidence bubbles back up in his throat, choking him. He cannot find his voice, so he shakes his head, and reaches for the washcloth frantically.
“Heyheyhey shhh—it's okay, baby,” Jayce tries, relinquishing it to Viktor only for a few moments until he sees the abrasive, vicious scrubbing that Viktor uses to abuse his poor lips. “Here—wait, I've got you,” Jayce tries again, gently pulling the washcloth from Viktor's white-knuckled grip so he can resume with a much kinder cleansing.
Viktor thinks it is too gentle to be what he deserves.
He cannot fathom why he feels that way.
Viktor stares past Jayce, into the shadowed corner of the shower stall, shoulders tilting just slightly away from his lover, arms tight across his chest. Jayce is careful, like Viktor's skin is tracing-paper thin, delicate as insect wings and horribly precious. Neither of them speak for a while as Viktor tries to calm, breathing heavily through his nose and counting in his head.
Somewhere around forty-five, he risks a glance at Jayce.
Jayce is gut-wrenchingly beautiful, eyes wide and shining with concern, lips still messily stained from their kisses. Viktor studies his partner for a moment, stricken by how lovely he is, and the tears he'd narrowly been avoiding finally spring forth in shallow little sobs. Why can he afford Jayce this prettiness but not himself? What precludes him from…whatever this is?
Jayce grabs the cloth that's yet to be soaped up, soaking it with warm water before softly wiping away salty tears, then the remaining cleanser and gloss, before rubbing the remnants from his face, too. Viktor lets himself cry and be cared for, let's Jayce wrap arms around him at this terribly uncomfortable angle, and kiss his hair, murmuring sweet little ‘it’s okay’s and ‘I’ve got you’s’ to him just above the sound of the water.
When they finally leave the shower, he fails to properly avoid his foggy reflection. His mouth is still red, rubbed raw from his panic and shame.
He thinks the gloss had suited him better.
*
It's hardly time for bed, but Viktor finds himself gravitating there, having been carefully wrapped in a fluffy robe and fastened into a softer compression brace. A strange, buzzing, dissociative haze settles around him as he props himself up in bed, leaning into the cushioned headboard and studying imperfections in their ceiling. He's incredibly grateful to have a pillow to prop below and between his knees so his skin will stop sticking to itself. His pain is settled somewhere in the background, a low hum, while his wrongness jitters through him like TV static.
He's damp, and raw, and if he thinks too hard on any one thing he's certain it will push him into another spiral.
Jayce settles in beside him, phone opened to the menu of one of Viktor's favorite restaurants, and wordlessly hands it over. For a moment Viktor is filled with the silliest of despairs, overwhelmed completely by the prospect of needing to pick something out, to have to decide right now, but then he checks the screen to find a digital checkout cart with both their standard orders, ready to be finalized. Viktor leans into Jayce's side and finalizes the order, so thankful and so, so exhausted.
Jayce takes the phone back and immediately opens a YouTube video, something from his ‘Watch Later’ that’s a no-commentary long-play of one of Viktor's favorite games. A knot forms in his throat, but he just snuggles in closer and lets himself mentally check out as much as he can manage.
When the food arrives, Jayce carefully extracts himself, leaving the video in bed with Viktor while he goes to retrieve their order. He returns with everything on a tray, setting it between them so they can comfortably dig in. After a few dumplings, Viktor finally starts to settle a bit, not necessarily feeling well, but better than before. He knows Jayce won't prod at this anymore, that he's leaving it up to Viktor to address when he's ready, if ever.
He doesn't know where to start.
“I'm sorry,” he says, the words sour in his mouth, because they're true but he doesn't know why. “I cannot figure out what's wrong. I just. I felt—I felt nice. Alone. Then scared when you got home. There is nothing you've done to make me feel like I should be, but I was. And when you looked at me like something lovely, somethin— like I was pretty, I liked it so much it was almost unbearable.”
He forces it out as best he can, hoping it makes sense but knowing Jayce will do his best to decode it regardless.
Viktor continues before he can lose his nerve.
“In the shower, I wanted you. But to want you while—god, I don't know—it just felt like something I was not supposed to have. Like I had done something wrong by letting you see me that way at all.”
Jayce watches Viktor intently, chopsticks poised stock-still above a dumpling, gears almost visibly turning in his mind as he parses through his partner's disjointed admission. The silence is thick for a few moments, but Viktor decides to push past it to snatch up another dumpling, hoping it breaks the rigid spell of awkwardness and stress that's permeating their meal. The tactic is marginally successful, and Jayce goes to reach for another himself so he can meditate on Viktor's words for just a bit longer.
“You said it felt nice,” Jayce starts, his free hand reaching out to rub soothing circles into Viktor's back. “Right? Before you started to worry about me, or us?”
The question is almost confusing in its simplicity.
“Well—yes, I suppose so—”
“Then I can help,” Jayce says. “You don't need to worry about me, or us. There's nothing you could possibly physically do that would change how into you I am. Literally. Nothing. But it's okay if it isn't that simple, either. We can figure this out together, V. Even if part of figuring it out means me giving you time alone to feel beautiful without anyone else to worry about.” Jayce punctuates the sentiment with a gentle touch to Viktor's face, palm cradling his cheek, thumb softly smoothing over the beauty mark below his eye. The knot in Viktor's throat tightens, but with overwhelming gratitude and love.
“I still don't know what I need yet,” he admits aloud, greedily leaning his face further into Jayce's touch, eyes slipping closed in cautious contentment.
“You don't need to yet. You have time, Viktor. We have time.”
Viktor allows himself a small, hopeful smile, lips still tender but no longer so incriminating. Jayce is right.
They do have time.