[Jayce catches Viktor's hand and Viktor squeezes his hold right back. A bracing hold, a silent I got you, which quickly grows more intense. Viktor grits his teeth at the thought of what Jayce had to go through. Just to live. Just to make it through to another day. Viktor had been there, though he had been born broken and trapped in the fissures. His crawl up was partway metaphorical and partway literal, taking Viktor a lifetime.
He sets the soap aside and then wraps his other arm fully around Jayce's shoulder, looping around his collar. A hand over his heart, flatly laid. Embracing him from Viktor's seat on the ledge of the tub, not wanting to put his weight onto the man's terribly tender back. Viktor holds close, buries his forehead to nudge the back of Jayce's wet and still oil caked hair. Viktor confides, with strength and earnestness,]
If anyone I've ever known could make it out of that alive? It's you, Jayce... [what would the Jayce he knew want to hear most? Viktor knows. He knows the man so well.]
... I have always believed in you.
[Viktor isn't letting go of him, not unless he's pushed away with force. His arms are still weak, but he holds fast and firm. Especially if Jayce begins to sob. Viktor isn't going anywhere.
He couldn't imagine a version of himself willing to abandon his partner in his grief... but if things had gone as differently as Jayce said? That is a too flattering self assessment. A naive misjudgment of Viktor's own capacity for disdain, his own capacity for anger towards betrayal.]
no subject
He sets the soap aside and then wraps his other arm fully around Jayce's shoulder, looping around his collar. A hand over his heart, flatly laid. Embracing him from Viktor's seat on the ledge of the tub, not wanting to put his weight onto the man's terribly tender back. Viktor holds close, buries his forehead to nudge the back of Jayce's wet and still oil caked hair. Viktor confides, with strength and earnestness,]
If anyone I've ever known could make it out of that alive? It's you, Jayce... [what would the Jayce he knew want to hear most? Viktor knows. He knows the man so well.]
... I have always believed in you.
[Viktor isn't letting go of him, not unless he's pushed away with force. His arms are still weak, but he holds fast and firm. Especially if Jayce begins to sob. Viktor isn't going anywhere.
He couldn't imagine a version of himself willing to abandon his partner in his grief... but if things had gone as differently as Jayce said? That is a too flattering self assessment. A naive misjudgment of Viktor's own capacity for disdain, his own capacity for anger towards betrayal.]