willowlevulett

[willowlevulett]

This is so dumb but I kind of hate the "oh hes so girldad coded" "oh yeah he would be a great boydad"

Not to be a bitch about it but like you mean a dad? They would be a good dad? Why the fuck do we need girl and boy attached to fatherhood?

I was a very much a tomboy growing up and was given all the "boy" experiences these posts talk about. Because my parents didn't raise us gendered, they just let us do the things we liked and didn't bitch when we picked things not in our 'gender'.

Even my conservative father just shrugged and bought me pocket knives for my birthday and didn't blink when I only wore flannels and cut my hair off in highschool.

[willowlevulett]

After all these years, after largely leaving Marvel behind, after disappointment and disappointment, I still feel Steve Rogers in my bones.

I miss him. Sam Wilson, one day when I have the fortitude to dip back into Marvel, I know that you will fill my bones just like he did.

For now, I just dream of the blonde hair Brooklyn punk who never got the ending he deserved. The ending he would've wanted. In my heart, he never left. In my heart Sam, Bucky and Steve smile at each other as they gear up to support each other in the next fight.

Always the next fight, my dear Steve Rogers.

[willowlevulett]

Just to remind yall, Sam Wilson is:

1. Also a Veteran- He served 2 tours in the Middle East

2. Was also hand-picked to participate in a special project due to his physical prowess and aptitude

3. Did NOT have his special title/project taken away from him cause he did something cruel and unusual

4. Was an official Avenger alongside the ogs

5. Fought in the Infinity War and Endgame

6. He was picked by Steve Rodgers himself to be the next Captain America

John Walker is not "cooler than him" nor has he accomplished more than Sam. Let's not pretend here.

[willowlevulett]

something that makes me scream is that steve didn’t know bucky had gotten his orders and was leaving the next day. he’d gone to the film, saved bucky a spot (if you notice there’s an empty spot next to him in the theater), and gotten in a fight. bucky knew to find him in the alleyway behind the theater, bc he was supposed to meet him there. steve is taken aback when he sees bucky’s uniform. when he hears he’s been assigned to the 107th (the same infantry steve’s father died serving for). this isn’t jealousy -- this is fear. bc bucky is really leaving for the warfront, and steve is stuck in nyc. all bucky wanted for his last night was steve by his side, but the only thing steve wanted was to find a way to go with him. 

[willowlevulett]

If anyone thought I was sane, here's a fun fact for you.

I track every dice roll for the DnD campaign I play in. For every player. Every. Single. One.

Before you say "oh that sounds like it would annoy your fellow party members," my group loves this so much they will happily tell me every roll that transpired while I was in the bathroom/downstairs or just not paying attention.

I have data on hundreds of rolls. I have a detailed google sheet document with the breakdown of Nat 1 and Nat 20 percentages. I have charts that show how often each player rolls a number. I have one player who cannot roll a 17. It's been 12 sessions of tracking they still haven't rolled a 17.

I post updates on everyone's stats in our discord and it's usually met with horror and elation. One player has a 9.7% chance of rolling Nat 1s. Absolutely insane.

It's the weirdest and most nerdy thing I've ever done. I started doing it because we rolled FIVE Nat 1s back to back in session 3 and nearly killed our entire party before we even started the adventure. I made a blood pact with our DM to save our lives. I had to know if our adventuring party was just particularly unlucky.

Anyway, I wouldn't suggest most groups do this. And if you do, congrats you're insane.

[willowlevulett]

Absolutely being a bitch, I'm entrenching myself on this hill. I'm not going full swing gatekeeper only because Vessel said "music is for everyone" and I agree. But if you cannot FUCKING BEHAVE, I DON'T WANT YOU ANYWHERE NEAR ME.

If I meet anyone at LTL who was rude to the weatherman, or has just been rude in general about this experience, I'm suplexing you in front of everyone. There is not a single excuse on this fucking planet for the negativity that's being running rampant, and I have full-tilt beef with anyone who was involved. This was supposed to just be a game, but some of you were so embarrassingly expectant of results that when you didn't get what you wanted you threw a goddamn tantrum. Shit like this is WHY things gets gatekept, BECAUSE YOU ASSHOLES DON'T HAVE PATIENCE, HUMILITY, OR ACCOUNTABILITY.

I will hold you accountable to your actions, just as I expect to be held accountable because I have my moments of getting ahead of myself. Freedom of voice does not mean freedom from consequence.

[willowlevulett]

There's discussion about making kind characters mean because people in fandom don't know how to handle dynamics/characters who don't have a mean streak but I also think is in tandem with "things fandom people can't handle" is the annoying tendency to make any mistake a character makes into a simple "this character is dumb".

There's this urge in fandom and in life that if someone doesn't do exactly what they should, when they should and say it how they should, they are stupid and failures. That if they don't react textbook perfect to a stressful situation, they are a bad person and a failure.

This is why I can't personally find enjoyment in the arcane fandom labeling Vi and Jayce as "dumb girl-fails who only fail together".

This is why I straight up can't read discourse on Vi. This is why I bear my teeth in conversation about either character.

They are not dumb, they are not failures, they are not inherently bad people. They made mistakes and didn't react perfectly but damnit did they love with their whole fucking hearts and try their fucking best.

But great yeah, make the millionth joke that Vi is a failure and a bad sister or that Jayce is an idiot.

[willowlevulett]

When Bg3 came out and everyone was saying that Gale Dekarios was disabled I was like "what how?" And then they responded with "well his chronic pain".

Then Arcane came out and everyone talked about how a part of Viktor's disability would be his chronic pain.

Anyway, it took two fictional characters to make me realize that having chronic pain qualities me as disabled.

[willowlevulett]

Punk Divorce Era Jayvik teaser.

This AU slams Jayce and Viktor into my particular taste of West Coast punk. A teeny tiny Jayvik interaction plus some angst.

Vi is one of my favorite characters, so I also added an excerpt that I have written of Jayce and her. I think they would've been lovely friends so that will be reflected in this fic.

-

"What happened to your leg, Jayce." It was unfair of him to keep saying his name. Especially like that, saying it like he always used to.

"I fell."

"You fell." Viktor says the words as if tasting them, 'fell' rolling around on his tongue.

"Yes, fell. My altitude rapidly changed. An unconsented descent" Jayce brings up his hand above his head and gestures sharply downwards to belabor his point. He realizes too late that he's trying to get Viktor to laugh, like he used to. To get Viktor to scoff at any old ridiculous thing Jayce was doing at the time, his eyes alight with a smile all the same. But it's all wrong. It's been 5 years since they've seen each other, his tone is too harsh, and Viktor only looks annoyed.

The corspe of who Jayce once was rolls over in its grave. The man who survived stares hollowly forward.

-

Viktor is visibly trying to reign his emotions in. Jayce bets that the temptation of learning what happened to crack him down the center is enough to stay his tongue. For now.

Jayce takes the opportunity to drink him in. People like them tend to change visually faster than others, so he catalogs all the ways Viktor now differs from his memory of him. He has an eyebrow piercing on top of the new throat tattoo. Jayce can see the same tattoo lines that cover his back now lick up and over his shoulders. He now wears simple smoked out eyeliner. His clothes are still earthy tones with a splash of red but he now wears purple. It weaves through his outfit. A little in the bandana tucked in his back pocket. A lot in the array of earrings and rings that decorate him. Some in the eye shadow he smoked out his water line with.

He wants to say that Viktor looks good. Jayce stays silent.

-

Before he can reach the blessed front door, a hand grips his shoulder and yanks him to a stop.

"Viktor, I can't -"

"What are you doing here, pretty boy?"

The playful blue of Vi's eyes comes into view instead of the heated gold he expected.

"Oh god, Vi" He pulls her in for a brisk, tight hug. He can feel her muscles tense under her leather jacket. He takes a moment to inspect her face. She has a new scar just under her eye, cutting across the roman numerals there. There's three more piercings tucked into her left ear. She's favoring her left side like she always has, but it's not any worse than last he saw her.

"You look good."

"Ah, you're looking pretty good yourself. The haunted look, suits you. Rugged." She emphasizes the last word by planting her hands on his shoulders and giving him a small, rough shake. One of her hands then moves to tug on the long hair that hangs over his forehead now.

"The old you would've fucking hated this."

Jayce huffs a laugh. "That's the point."

Vi gives him a strange look at that. She simply stares at him for a long moment, the pulsing music of the grungy punk band on stage washing over them both. Whatever she finds in his eyes in the low light makes her scrunch her nose. Before Jayce can offer a platitude, she pulls him forward into another hug, this time threading her strong hand into the locks at the nape of his neck.

They figured out early on in their friendship that they both craved touch beyond normal people required. When he was younger, Jayce couldn't help himself. He would reach out and clasp his hands on shoulders, lean down into someone's space while they talked, drag his hand down their arm while pulling away from a hug. Vi on the other hand, tends to suffer in silence. Every part of her begs for touch, but she only touches those who work for it. But once you've earned it, once the dam is broken, you are awash with the joy that is Vi's sturdy touch.

He realizes all at once he has missed her terribly. He collapses into her arms and buries his head into her shoulder. She still smells like motor oil and cigarette smoke. He can feel a rumble of her saying something where their chests touch but he can't hear it over his desperate attempt to not burst into tears and the crashing crescendo of the music. He pulls away before this can get much worse for him.

[willowlevulett]

Trying my hand at writing divorce era Jayvik is so much harder than I thought it would be. Jayce is such a yearner that these scenes keep ending up with him going "I miss my wife". How do you keep him and Viktor away long enough in a story to get good tension out of it???

Also, I think Jayce is a chronic almost crier but rarely fully cries. Or at least boy is he in the fic I'm currently writing.

[willowlevulett]

Jayvik, the missing years 1\2

[willowlevulett]

I know why Viktor looks so clean cut even though he's from Zaun. I know why he looks like he could be from Piltover. I know it's so he has half a chance of surviving in the bland, uptight society that is Piltover.

But it does still make me sad. I want Viktor to look like a punk.

In my heart, Viktor had a fuck ton of piercings when he lived in Zaun and had to do the staring at yourself in the mirror, slowly taking out your piercings so you won't get your shit rocked by high society assholes.

I rarely conform to the spaces I'm going into anymore, but I used to, so I guess it's just another thing I can relate to Viktor on.

[willowlevulett]

Hey, where did the conception that Viktor is straight up mean to Jayce come from?

I've DNFed so many fanfics for having the dynamic of 'Jayce is hopeless and kind of stupid' and 'Viktor is borderline cruel and treats Jayce like he is in fact stupid'.

I know fandoms will grow past canon and there's nothing to stop that but what is this rooted in???

[willowlevulett]

I think part of why I find all the posts talking about how Campaign 3 supposedly had no consequences deeply tedious is because 1) they don't engage with the way consequence was embedded into the character arcs and motivations, and 2) they often treat outcomes that were the result of the players working really hard to prevent a worst case scenario as evidence that everything was handed to them.

The reason most of the Hells survived the campaign is because their battle strategy prioritized protecting one another above everything else. Laudna died and they put everything they had into getting her back. They CHOSE to not accept it. It took them five episodes, a huge boss battle, and a roll-for-it res ritual to get her back, and each of those things barely worked. They were so traumatized by the experience that they were trying to give her just about every potion and protection item even til the end, when she hadn't even gone down for something like what, 60 episodes? Because they chose to save her, they lost their patron to Otohan, and they became less tied to one city. Because Otohan terrified them so much, they never faced them on their own terms, and only finally escaped her with FCG's sacrifice. It is not a removal of consequence that Laudna was able to come back; it is a consequence of how much they were willing to pursue it, and it had consequences that echoed forward and forward and forward. It impacted the way they moved throughout the story a great, great deal, and it is just one example.

We don't know all the consequences of the god situation because they are, quite frankly, too big for an end of campaign. But of course there are HUGE consequences—the order of the world and the cosmos has been changed! We saw some glimmers of what that means on a personal and political level, to be explored later.

"Consequence" unequivocally does NOT mean "punishment." You may be disappointed that a character/group of characters is not punished for what you perceive to be their crimes, but that does not mean that the narrative is without consequence. And if that is the specific kind of consequence you think is necessary for a good story, if you think that it is superior storytelling to punish characters, that is your prerogative, but I personally do not agree and think that viewing the story through that lens deeply misunderstands the ethos of Critical Role.

[willowlevulett]

The second part of my self-indulgent Jayce smokes sadly on the balcony drabble. Truly, this man can not be written without a desperate longing for his lab partner. Small CW for a small reference of Jayce's canon attempt.

-

The balcony door clicks closed. Jayce feels his throat close along with it.

The freezing air wraps like a wreath around the soft brown hair of his partner, puffs of white smoke from his lips. Puffs of white smoke from Jayce's. Despite everything, all he wants is to know what it tastes like if those clouds meet in the middle.

Despite everything, he wants to press his palm back to the side of his throat for the entirety of whatever was to come. He wants to feel the words Viktor was about to press into the distance between them. If they are to be seperated, deathly final and with a flourish, Jayce wishes he could enscribe each syllable to the harsh callouses on his fingers.

Dramatic, Caitlyn would tease him.

Viktor, despite the surely audible thrash of Jayce's fast beating heart, simply sits and does not speak for several minutes. He stares forward, his eyes focused in a way Jayce knew that he was not on this balcony. Not really. He was a million miles away, dissecting and ripping apart something with his teeth. Savoring each mouthful before he would even think to bring it to Jayce. So he waits, like he always does.

He busies himself with straightening out the mess he made. The one he can at least. The ash tray, now chipped but intact, returns to its spot on the small side table. He scoots his chair back into the position it was before and tosses the chip of glass from the tray into the small trash can where he throws his cigarette butts. It is finished woefully fast and Viktor still isn't looking at him.

He lights another cigarette, angling his chair away from Viktor and blowing the thick smoke out over the side of the balcony. The freezing wind whips it away and ushers it off to better things. His sighs through his teeth. This was stupid. He should just shatter this silence between them. He usually does whenever he messes up bad enough for Viktor to have to gut and clean the imagined Jayce in his head. Looking for clues in the bloodied carcass of his imagined partner of how he could be so stupid. Usually, Viktor would give up, hands buried deep in his spectral innards and demand that Jayce give him the taste of the real thing. And Jayce does, every time.

Jayce would let Viktor rip him open from sternum to hip hone. Would let him dig through as he pleases, caress organs and sinew with the methodical care only Viktor is capable of. Precise and calculated movements, laced with warmth and that small smile Jayce loves so dearly.

Jayce wants to scream 'tell me what to do and I'll do it. I would tear myself apart to keep you warm'.

He keeps his goddamn mouth shut and takes another drag.

"I hate that you got an apartment with a balcony."

The silence stretched for so long, the statement said so briskly that Jayce once again startles.

He huffs a humorless laugh, smoke bleeding through his lips as he repsonds.

"Come on, Vik. You know I'm too dramatic to settle for my own balcony."

"That's not funny."

"It's a little cold to be funny. What did you need? I know you need something. You got that look in your eye like your knee deep in my fucking brain stem." Viktor doesn't turn his head but his eyes shift, giving him an incredulous side eye like Jayce should have no idea that he does that. Feeling bold, Jayce steadily meets his sideways gaze, dares him to deny the assessment.

"I can guess but I always prefer to get my dress downs directly from your mouth." This makes the side of Viktor's mouth quirk. Jayce almost hopes he takes the bait that statement creates. At least it would make this conversation more bearable.

He doesn't.

"What you said." The pause afterward makes Jayce want to tear his hair out. God, he could feel that this conversation was going to be a sputtering engine. Roaring to life and then choking out black smoke, stuttering to a stop in painful stalls.

"You can't just," he bites down onto his lower lip, running it between his teeth before releasing it, "say things like that."

Jayce wishes Viktor would take him between his teeth. Leave dents and marks in him until Viktor was satisfied.

"But it was cruel of me to send you away like that. I apologize."

Cruel is how Viktor still hasn't fully looked at him. Cruel is the unsteady breath Jayce is taking and the pinprick of tears behind his eyes. Cruel is the freezing night air that rushes in the space between their bodies.

The conversation sputters black smoke.

Finally, after one long drag, Jayce rubs his temple and manages to push the words out, "Okay, well, thanks for that. And I am sorry that I made you uncomfortable. I'll keep my feelings to myself from now on."

Viktor seems to crumble in on himself at that. The side of his face looks pained which confuses Jayce. Is this conversation not a continuation of the rejection he received last night? What did Viktor want from this? It certainly wasn't what Jayce just said.

He could feel the cogs slipping in the machine but he couldn't see where it was misaligned. He needed to tear the hatch cover off, get his hands dirty, and potentially mangled in the process.

Well, if there's anything Jayce is good at, it was certainly throwing himself into the blazing heat of forward motion. What were a couple more scars anyway.

"Why does it make you so uncomfortable? Is it truly so horrible that I feel this way for you?" He meant to sound firm, maybe even stern. Instead he sounds petulant, small. The last part of the sentence whispered with a mortifying crack in his voice. He also realizes he hasn't said what he means. Not really. He knows his eyes poured out the truth like a weeping wound, staining Viktor and the couch below them both. But there is a misaligned cog here.

"Viktor, I-"

"I can't." Black smoke, a click of a tongue in frustration, the restart of the engine, "You can't play with me like this, Jayce. You can't look at me like all the hookups you sweep off their feet in bars. I can't be that for you." It was his turn for his voice to drop down into quiet and small. The voice crack sending painful shivers down Jayce's spine.

The statement is so confusing to him at first that he simply stays still for a second, his cigarette dropping ash between his thighs. Can't be that for you and all the hookups you sweep off their feet.

What?

"What?" The misaligned cog in the conversation catches him in the meat of his thumb, ripping out a chunk and sending his heart into a painful squeeze.

"You think that I- oh gods Viktor please look at me."

Finally, oh finally, Viktor turns and his molten honey gaze burns into Jayce. If he was a funeral pyre, Jayce would light the wood himself.

"You think I want a quick, messy fuck?" He huffs out a laugh at the thought. Gods, no. Jayce wanted to bash his skull open and leave his cerebrum as an offering at Viktor's feet.

"Well it makes the most logical sense. You were inebriated and looking at me like-" he clears his throat awkwardly, "like you wanted to eat me alive. After all these years? Of me quietly- well it made the most sense. And I got, emotional. Angry." He shakes his head as if this was the most ridiculous part of the situation, him being angry at Jayce.

"Quietly what, Viktor."

"Please, Jayce."

"Quietly what?"

The wind stills, as if holdings its breath along with the two men on the balcony. Jayce was and always will be reckless.

Jayce slides down onto his knees, the cold ground immediately biting through his jeans and into the bone. He puts his hands forward, clasped as if in prayer, onto Viktor's lap. When the other man startles and looks down at him with a wild look in his eye, Jayce slips his prayers between them, grabbing firmly onto Viktor's hands. His breath, tinged with cigarette smoke and the heat of his emotions boiling over in his stomach, puffs up into the face of the man he's so desperately in love with.

"I am in love with you. So painfully, so wholly that those words aren't enough. If I could tear out my heart and let you inspect it for defects, for a lie, I would. If I could carve your every breath into my ribs, I would. Whatever you want. Whatever you need." He shifts on the ground, pain pulsing up from his right knee. A crunching noise reaches past the pulse pounding in his ears, and he realizes that there was a tiny shard of glass under that knee. He hopes the wound scars.

"I don't care what you have 'quietly' been feeling this whole time. If it's a fraction of what I feel or simply tolerance. I don't care. I'm done folding this away and trying to be normal. I will be whatever you want me to be. A lover, a partner only in the lab, your bed warmer on cold nights. Whatever you want. If I could hand over my soul for you, I would"

As soon as he finishes his dramatic speech, he realizes he means it. More than anything, he means it. He feels insane. He is insane. Those are insane words to say to someone, no matter how entwined you are with them. Despite this, he wants to say more. Needs to say more.

"I don't want to eat you alive." Jayce presses a kiss reverently to Viktor's red tinged knuckles. "I want you to eat me alive."

Black smoke clears, the engine clicks into gear. Viktor's hand snakes out from Jayce's grip and latches onto his chin, a mirror of last night but flipped on its head. Last nights grip was stilling, horrifying, causing him to beg for forgiveness before even knowing the sin. Instead, this touch was electrifying, a potential. A spark for a wildfire that Jayce's mouth stretches open to catch on his tongue. Viktor's thumb sweeps to the side, catching on his lower lip and staying there like it was always meant to.

"You mean it." His mouth is apage in awe, his breath ghosting past his lips and puffing over Jayce's face. "Fuck, you really mean it, Jayce."

And like god sending rain down to parched earth, Viktor presses his freezing, chapped lips to Jayce's. The spark alights on Jayce's teeth and burns through him in a blink of an eye, a gasped breath pushed against a closed mouth.

The kiss descends quickly from the press of lips Viktor might have meant it to be into Jayce desperately angling his head upwards, greedily sucking Viktor's bottom lip between his. Determined to feel where his teeth had sunk into it just a couple minutes earlier. It tastes like smoke, like hot iron, like day old coffee. He drinks it down and begs for more, pressing upwards so his hands can slip from Viktor's lap and into his hair. It's sweaty at the nape from a day in the lab and tangled from his incessant play of the strands there. It's everything Jayce thought it would be. Viktor gasps against his mouth, and that too is everything Jayce had hoped it would be and so much more. Hot and humid breaths passed between mouths. Teeth clicking in a desperate attempt to get closer. Viktor's hand tangling in the fabric of Jayce's sweater, tugging insistently forward, forward, forward.

They break for air out of necessity, but Jayce doesn't let them separate. He buries his face into that column of throat he so desperately wants to map with his tongue.

"I fear more talking will be needed." Viktor out of breath, chest heaving panting breaths that Jayce can feel where his lips brush his neck.

"After. Whatever you need. But after." And Jayce pulls his face down to his once more.

[willowlevulett]

I have no idea if I'll finish this but here's a little drabble that's been in my drafts for weeks.

-

The freezing air nips painfully at his bare arms as Jayce slides his balcony door closed, his lighter heavy in his hand.

"I would suggest you review and give the board alternative suppliers or materials by Monday. You would do well to remember why we all do this, Jayce"

He sighs, sinking into the frost covered cushion of a rickety lounge chair. He breathes through the ache of the cold, through the panic that still prickled up his spine even after all these years. It was a game he played. It was dumb and he kept his mouth shut about it. How long could he last in the cold before his nervous system became convinced he was freezing to death all over again. The answer everytime was not long. He slides his jacket roughly over his shoulders.

He was a weak man after all.

"I would strongly suggest you leave, Jayce"

His name has been tossed around quite frequently as of late. It felt nowadays more common than not that someone knew his name before he had a chance to say it. How odd of an existence, your own name ripped from your mouth before you have a chance to form it. This, too, was dumb. He knew that. Many people begged and pleaded for his very privileged, cushy life. Hell, when he was young and bright-eyed, he gazed up at the faces of the titans of industry and progress and hoped beyond hope that he would join them one day.

Well, here he was. The life he clawed and prayed for. And he was smoking on his balcony because of it. A shameful habit, this he also knew. Jayce could name a million other things he'd rather tell his mother than the small fact that he smoked. He'd rather look her in the eye and say he had a praise kink before he let her even got a whiff of smoke on his clothes.

The click of the lighter was a comfort. The warmth of the smoke in his mouth was like an old kiss. The cigarette balanced between his fingers was grounding. All of it was very simple. He could explain why he smoked. He knew why. The scientific and biological explanation shoved violently to the wayside. No, it wasn't the inherent addictive properties of nicotine, though he wouldn't deny that is a huge part of it. The reason he would say with a guilty, teeth barring smile is that he feels like himself when he's doing it.

So many of his choices in life have been reckless. He broke his arm at the ripe age of 9 because he figured out how to open the second story window and had always wanted to see the stars on the roof. He crashed his first car while trying to go back roading with his first boyfriend tucked in the front seat. He has a scar that snakes across the entirety of his back that he got into a bar fight when he was freshly 19 and snuck into a seedy bar with a friend he doesn't even remember the name of now.

Professionally, it has been no different. When his work at upper grad became increasingly worrying to his professors, they banned him from continuing his research into renewable energy in his school lab. Explosion risks were cited, but mostly, it was the risk of their oil grants being threatened by the continuation of the testing he was doing. Well, they weren't wrong about the explosion risks. The shrapnel that caught him in the right rib speaks to this all too well. The doctors said they couldn't remove it all and would only try in the future if it migrates too close to his lung. Jayce runs his hand over his rib cage and almost feels like he can feel it. A piece of his own invention nestled safety inside. He takes a long drag and thinks of the man who helped him bring it past that violate point and into something real. Something useful. Not just reckless.

Viktor. Sharp lines, sharp wit, sharp words, and sharp golden eyes. Viktor slid into his life with the grace and finesse of an assassin's knife. The wound he cut was clean, healed well, and could've been deadly if he so chose.

He was not reckless. He was calculating to a fault. The perfect pairing to a perpetual fuck up of an engineer that is Jayce Talis.

Jayce slips his hand under his shirt, pressing his chilled fingertips to the scars that litter his skin. He feels himself take a long shuddering breath.

No, no, let's not think about it, he begs himself. But like with all things, Jayce never listens.

Viktor, as beautiful as light shining through a shard of glass, had held his jaw in a vice grip last night. Jayce, as smooth as a train wreck, had gasped and sputtered an apology before he even registered what might be wrong. He was always making mistakes with Viktor. Drinking three too many beers at the mans apartment surely resulted in at least one.

Viktor had simply stared at him for a moment before releasing his jaw like one would release a bird back to the wild. With a flick of his fingers and a pushing forward motion that seemed to suggest to Jayce that he should flee out the window.

"I'm sorry. What was it? Am..am I too drunk? I've been drunker with you. I don't-I don't understand. Vik-"

"Jayce." His name. Always his name. Viktor always says it like it's made of honey. Jayce wants him to drip it on his tongue.

"What you just said." Oh lord, what he said. Jayce crumbles in on himself, one hand still clutching the burning cigarette, the other wrapped around his ribs.

"You just said," the specter of Viktor in his head continued, "that I am the most beautiful thing you've ever seen."

And Jayce had. They were discussing the stained glass of the cathedral they had passed on their work trip to England. It had been breathingly gorgeous when they decided it was worth the detour and went inside. The colors played like giddy children across the stonework floor. The high ceilings held the ribs of gorgeously carved wooden beams. But despite all that, Jayce found himself looking at how the light played in Viktor's hair. How his pupils dilated. How he licked his lips before he started to ramble about 18th century philosophy.

He was the most beautiful thing Jayce has ever seen. He shouldn't have said it. Viktor was not reckless. Starting a relationship between them was everything Jayce was and Viktor wasn't. He was no fool, Jayce knew enough about himself to know he was far too open with his emotions for Viktor to not at least have a guess that he habored more than work appropriate feelings for the other man. They had been working together three years now and he still couldn't figure out if Viktor returned those feelings. After last night, Jayce thinks with a bitter, painful swallow, he got his answer.

The answer was no.

No. Oh gods, it was no.

Jayce was hopelessly head over heels in love with him and Viktor's answer was no. Jayce, ever the fool, had taken one more risk and had gently set his hand on the side of the other mans neck. He had felt the rabbiting pusle of him, could feel how soft the skin was. He had touched him here before. All casual and never in this intimate manner where his palm pressed against the column of his throat. It was heaven, it was the cold depths of hell. Something in his face must've showed how much he felt for Viktor. It must've betrayed him like it always does. Too expressive, everyone always told him. And Viktor told him to leave. So, he did.

He had a painfully awkward progress report with their investment board earlier this afternoon. Viktor rarely ever showed up to those, but his absence ached worse than the hangover anyway. It went horribly. The board wasn't happy with the cost of materials and was demanding they either rework what metal they are using in the generators or bring the cost down in other ways. Jayce wasn't looking forward to bringing this all to his partner tomorrow.

He lights another cigarette, finally uncurling his fingers from where his nails have bitten half moons into the skin.

"Those will kill you."

Jayce startles, his chair clattering backwards, knocking his ash tray clear across the balcony. A string of curses tumble from his mouth as he whips to lock eyes with none other than the ghost who's been haunting him all day.

Viktor has one hand curled around the open balcony door and the other on his cane. How Jayce didn't hear the door slide open or the click of his cane, well, he'd rather be embarrassed about one thing at a time.

"Hey." It was meant to sound casual, but it comes out sounding absolutely wrecked. His throat suddenly hoarse, his voice thick. He clears it and tries again.

"Hey, buddy! I was just going shoot off a text that we'll need to meet in the morning. Lots of demands from the board. You know how it is." Too much. It was too cheery and over the top. Jayce grimaces and drops his head into his smoke wreathed hands. Hiding, a cowards move. God, could this be any worse.

"Can I sit?" No. Yes. Always. Please leave and let me suffer alone.

"Of course."

[willowlevulett]

vox machina are beloved heroes.

mighty nein are the heroes nobody knows about.

but bells hells are the heroes to face disdain and derision - despite how public their actions are, despite how everyone knows they saved the world.

they really drew the shortest straw on exandrian good will.

and yet.

and yet they’re also the perfect party to handle that. because that’s who they’ve all always been as individuals. they’ve always been the ones to be outcast for no reason, to be second-guessed, to be ostracized, to be vilified.

the difference is that now they at least have each other.

bh found family of all time. i love them.