[Atta boy. He takes Lucien's hand and lowers them both together, scattering more butterflies which had returned, then he leans in and presses a kiss to Lucien's forehead.
He's not sure if there will be any way, and he's not sure what Lucien would do if they found that out. Hell, he's not sure they won't all end up dead anyway. But it's fine for now.]
[ lucien's opinion on the surviving endgame problem is thus: if they all die horribly or suffer a fate worse than death, they won't have to be concerned anymore about anything. so might as well start planning. ]
I... just don't want to go back. I would hate... [He frowns, unsure, but the trickle of a cough tries to rise up.] I wouldn't like to never see them again, I mean.
[ don't just declare yourself special, lucien. he tilts his head at him, considering. he isn't sure whether he means home or the graveyard or both, but he gets it either way. ]
I don't believe it has to be a never. We know it must be possible. We're here, aren't we?
I meant... I'm with you because you're not people.
[Don't just declare yourself special.
He curls his fingers over Lucien's hand.]
Oh, the others? No... I want them back with us here. All of them. But... in general, too, yes. Everyone. I'd be a little sad going somewhere else, knowing I might not speak to them ever again.
[ letting him take the hand, turning it slightly so the red eye on the palm faces up. ]
Might be so. [ going somewhere - anywhere - will require sacrifice, won't it? but fresh starts often do. pulling the hand up to kiss the knuckles again. ] But it might not be. But we can't stay still forever, and we won't know until we get there. Sort of the problem with giving up the gift of future sight, hm? Things will be left behind, and we don't know what's coming. Have to live with that.
[Carefully, he tugs his hand away, but only so he can twine both arms around Lucien's neck and hug him. He rests his face in Lucien's hair right near the base of a horn.]
I'm glad I can see you again. [Not as boobed Owner, or 20(3) Questions, or Ratus.] I'll protect you from the Eyes.
[what's he gonna do cough on them]
I'm going to get rid of them somehow. Without you having to do something foolish. [...] ...I found the Hex Core in my locker.
[ people do keep saying that they will simply solve the eye problem which is pretty funny considering that it is an intentionally very difficult problem to solve. it followed across two deaths and three personalities. but lucien has a hard time not believing viktor when he says things with conviction. that is the entire Viktor Problem with him. lucien thinks this little bastard really can do anything if he wants to.
pulling his arms around his waist to tug him closer, because it is the best part of him being back. not as owner with boobs or a ghost that his arm goes through or rat-shaking him.
the mention of the hex core makes him stiffen for a moment though, not pulling out of the hug or moving, just. reacting a bit. it took him weeks of cajoling to finally throw the journal away, and now viktor's creepy haunted obsession object has returned too. ]
[He doesn't mind the startle. It's valid. When he opened the locker and saw it, he immediately shut it again.
He watches a butterfly sun itself on the outer curve of Lucien's horn, opening and closing its wings.]
I'm going to feed the Eyes to it.
[He says this with that same sort of casual conviction of being able to do anything. As if this act isn't as equally as dangerous as anything Lucien had planned already. He is just going to let the Core eat nine mages out of Lucien's mind and body.
Does that mean it would eat Molly, too? Molly instead. He will be the Nein's greatest enemy.]
[ i feel like this is more of a commitment for insane types than agreeing to move to any world together. hey can i feed your creepy haunted possessed brain to my creepy haunted orb and then we can watch them fight. it’ll be so fun please please please please please
anyway this is the most insane thing he’s ever heard and there is definitely a long moment where it seems pretty obvious he’s having a heated discussion in his head. molly (who would probably not be destroyed by this unless something is going VERY wrong because he’s less a creepy posession ghost and more just a part of lucien’s soul he’s gaslit himself into believing is soooo different and distinct) has OPINIONS. The opinion mainly being the is also the most insane thing he’s ever heard but as opposed to lucien, he is not turned on by it.
but yet, it intrigues. ]
We can’t tell anyone we’re doing that. They’ll try and stop us.
[The critique is fair. It is extremely fucking insane.
Of course Molly has opinions, thank you, Molly. Viktor allows this heated discussion to take place as needed without interruption. It's a lot to have your unstable boyfriend tell you that he is going to make you do something incredibly stupid to try saving you from nine powerful mages.
His arms loosen, and he leans back so he can look at Lucien's face.]
Especially Throné.
[She is going to skin them both alive if this doesn't work out the way it should. He reaches up to cup both sides of Lucien's face.]
The Core... isn't active right now, but... if... it becomes active again when this is over, I'm going to feed the Somnovem in you to it. It's... extremely dangerous to try. I don't know if it'll work, or if it'll... [Shaking his head.] I do know it needs... some kind of exchange for the transmutation. When I couldn't figure it out before, I went to my old mentor, and he said... maybe the problem was with my subject. That nature made us resistant to change, but we could... always change our nature. That's why I had to use Shimmer. To change myself for the exchange.
I think... the same will work with the Eyes. I'm confident it will take the Eyes as the exchange.
[ molly has opinions on everything he can shove it. lucien looks as if he’s thinking but it isn’t distrust. he does trust him, foolishly or not. he hasn’t steered him wrong so far. ]
Sounds perilous at most.
[ also i think its fair to say throné will skin them both alive if it DOES work the way it should. shooting your unstable boyfriend full of drugs and sucking the eyeballs out of him is a wild plan. but hey it has benefits over launching yourself into the astral sea with a bunch of bombs to try and pull a coup on them? i think? ]
I trust you.
[ he probably wouldn’t trust any plan even slightly less insane than this, because he doubts anything safer would even work.
anyway viktor is being the most romantic anyone has ever been by kicking in the door from the grave, grabbing his face and declaring his mad science plans, so he is going to lean in and kiss him now. ]
[This is the most ridiculous, insane thing either of them could ever think is okay to do, and they have done some fucking insane things. Maybe the Core just won't work anymore, and Throné won't have to kill them.
A small, lopsided smile comes to his face about the joke and the trust. More the trust.
He should expect the kiss after all the other kisses, but it still surprises him. His hands drift down to Lucien's neck, but he returns the kiss with something a little less timid and unsure now and a little more possessively fervent.
Just something about being able to kiss someone without being a demon with boobs or a mirrored Tiefling. Only yourself.]
[ one day he will stop being surprised but apparently today is not that day. it is almost cute how shocked he seems every time. the possessive edge to it really drives him insane (positive). it’s nice to feel wanted in return when he’s been separated by one strange barrier or another for so long. he stops after a moment though, making a disgruntled sound. ]
I should probably ask you— questions or whatnot. About the other side.
[ instead of just being intense about mad science-magic and kissing him but everyone else is probably doing the information interrogation already and so, what is the point really. they could be talking about anything else. or kissing.
pulling away, but only so he can take him by the hand and start leading him off. bossy … ]
Unfortunately for Lucien, Viktor digs his heels into the ground and pulls on the hand that has taken his own. There are some words he has had to consider recently, and maybe he is still very afraid of what the future holds for either of them... but it doesn't mean he can't give in to the present while it's here.
The best thing he liked about Lucien was how normal Lucien made him feel in the chaos.
He tugs Lucien's arm to get Lucien to turn back to him again, and he reaches up with the other hand to put it on Lucien's neck like before, careful not to lose the crutch under his arm. He pulls Lucien in toward him and gives him another possessive kiss.]
I love you.
[Because he did not say it in person before... like an idiot. And that needed to be remedied. He smiles a bit sheepishly afterward.]
[ he has not said it outloud yet - though that is partially lucien’s fault for barreling right past it during the seance and not exactly allowing him to.
he’s actually surprised himself when viktor pulls this extremely romance novel move on him, and hearing things outloud is always a little different than reading them - viktor might miss it because he’s too busy kissing but lucien’s face does go the tiniest bit hot at that. that’s the thing for him too, how strangely normal he feels when this is happening. at least, more mortal and fallible and like his old self rather than the divine aspirant with a severe haunting issue. it is probably okay to want to stick around and see what happens with this instead of scattering himself to the astral sea in ten thousand pieces. ]
I love you. [ because his mean streak refuses to be that sincere, adding: ]
Don’t say sorry and “I’m ready” like I’m leading you off to eat you like a hag.
[His chin ducks down slightly, and his expression is kind of a version of hehe in a way. Why is he, like, thirty, but feels sort of like an idiot teenager...?]
Well, I never know. You might be leading me off to wrap me in a cocoon so I can become universal soup.
[Kidding.
He bumps Lucien's gently in the chest with both their hands. He's ready to be lead away and asked a thousand questions about plot...]
[ it's cute. maybe it's nice he gets to get an idiot teenager for a little while because he didn't get to be when he was an actual idiot teenager. and sure, plot is what gen z is calling it these days ...
[A bird is going to swoop down and snatch Lucien's horns off. Viktor follows along after, still refusing to let the hand go, not that Lucien would let him probably.]
I think so, yes. I definitely don't feel the weird tugging and tickling I felt the other day before I got... birthed. Whatever that was.
[ he would deserve that. shooting him a look at birthed, but he also does not let the hand go. ]
Use any other word. [ that's just by far the worst one!!!!!! ] So you were ... placed on this side by surprise? You felt a sensation and then simply showed up?
[Both shoulders hunch ever so slightly for a second under the weight of the look. He smiles nervously, like when you know you said birthed, and your boyfriend hates it with all parts of his being. And yet, you want to say birthed again just for the hell of it.]
Parturition.
[He looks thoughtful for a moment.]
Yes. Later in the evening, it felt like... I was being grabbed? Sometimes. Or like someone was touching me. And then... I don't remember anything except... I was... [He thinks again about Lucien's explanation of the metamorphosis.] I was inside... something.
Um... Flesh. Organic. It was very dark, and it could move. And I couldn't... remember anything it felt like. I kept struggling to remember... anything. People, memories. It tried to keep me, but I could hear voices, and I kept fighting.
and then I woke up in the stasis pod with the senior crew pulling me out.
[See!! IT WAS BIRTH. He was in the womb. Gently, he makes a face.]
I don't really want us to converge at that point, you know.
[Less flesh or not, he doesn't want them to share resurrection as yet another terrible, dark theme in their list of shitty circumstances.]
The senior crew said it... They said they were going to try for the others, but they weren't sure how it would do yet. Amalthea said there was a very high probability of them pulling a rat into my body.
We converge on a great deal of other points, Mr. Viktor, so I don't see what the objection is to that one.
[ he does actually have to let go of his hand by the time they reach the rooms - fiddling with his I.R.I.S. at the room door, and doing a dramatically sweep of the hand to gesture for him to head inside. ]
Don't look very rat-like to me at the moment, but if you were I certainly wouldn't shake you around and threaten you.
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Okay. Alright.
[ relaxing, or at least, forcing himself to unwind from the tight coil of anxiety he'd curled into over that. ]
Then we'll go somewhere nice. With only the occasional Calamity.
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He's not sure if there will be any way, and he's not sure what Lucien would do if they found that out. Hell, he's not sure they won't all end up dead anyway. But it's fine for now.]
Then we'll go somewhere nice. Together.
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Had enough of people pestering you for a while?
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I am here with you, aren't I?
[He's joking.]
I... just don't want to go back. I would hate... [He frowns, unsure, but the trickle of a cough tries to rise up.] I wouldn't like to never see them again, I mean.
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[ don't just declare yourself special, lucien. he tilts his head at him, considering. he isn't sure whether he means home or the graveyard or both, but he gets it either way. ]
I don't believe it has to be a never. We know it must be possible. We're here, aren't we?
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[Don't just declare yourself special.
He curls his fingers over Lucien's hand.]
Oh, the others? No... I want them back with us here. All of them. But... in general, too, yes. Everyone. I'd be a little sad going somewhere else, knowing I might not speak to them ever again.
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Might be so. [ going somewhere - anywhere - will require sacrifice, won't it? but fresh starts often do. pulling the hand up to kiss the knuckles again. ] But it might not be. But we can't stay still forever, and we won't know until we get there. Sort of the problem with giving up the gift of future sight, hm? Things will be left behind, and we don't know what's coming. Have to live with that.
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[Carefully, he tugs his hand away, but only so he can twine both arms around Lucien's neck and hug him. He rests his face in Lucien's hair right near the base of a horn.]
I'm glad I can see you again. [Not as boobed Owner, or 20(3) Questions, or Ratus.] I'll protect you from the Eyes.
[what's he gonna do cough on them]
I'm going to get rid of them somehow. Without you having to do something foolish. [...] ...I found the Hex Core in my locker.
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pulling his arms around his waist to tug him closer, because it is the best part of him being back. not as owner with boobs or a ghost that his arm goes through or rat-shaking him.
the mention of the hex core makes him stiffen for a moment though, not pulling out of the hug or moving, just. reacting a bit. it took him weeks of cajoling to finally throw the journal away, and now viktor's creepy haunted obsession object has returned too. ]
What are you going to do with it?
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He watches a butterfly sun itself on the outer curve of Lucien's horn, opening and closing its wings.]
I'm going to feed the Eyes to it.
[He says this with that same sort of casual conviction of being able to do anything. As if this act isn't as equally as dangerous as anything Lucien had planned already. He is just going to let the Core eat nine mages out of Lucien's mind and body.
Does that mean it would eat Molly, too? Molly instead. He will be the Nein's greatest enemy.]
I guess that's still sort of foolish, huh?
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[ i feel like this is more of a commitment for insane types than agreeing to move to any world together. hey can i feed your creepy haunted possessed brain to my creepy haunted orb and then we can watch them fight. it’ll be so fun please please please please please
anyway this is the most insane thing he’s ever heard and there is definitely a long moment where it seems pretty obvious he’s having a heated discussion in his head. molly (who would probably not be destroyed by this unless something is going VERY wrong because he’s less a creepy posession ghost and more just a part of lucien’s soul he’s gaslit himself into believing is soooo different and distinct) has OPINIONS. The opinion mainly being the is also the most insane thing he’s ever heard but as opposed to lucien, he is not turned on by it.
but yet, it intrigues. ]
We can’t tell anyone we’re doing that. They’ll try and stop us.
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Of course Molly has opinions, thank you, Molly. Viktor allows this heated discussion to take place as needed without interruption. It's a lot to have your unstable boyfriend tell you that he is going to make you do something incredibly stupid to try saving you from nine powerful mages.
His arms loosen, and he leans back so he can look at Lucien's face.]
Especially Throné.
[She is going to skin them both alive if this doesn't work out the way it should. He reaches up to cup both sides of Lucien's face.]
The Core... isn't active right now, but... if... it becomes active again when this is over, I'm going to feed the Somnovem in you to it. It's... extremely dangerous to try. I don't know if it'll work, or if it'll... [Shaking his head.] I do know it needs... some kind of exchange for the transmutation. When I couldn't figure it out before, I went to my old mentor, and he said... maybe the problem was with my subject. That nature made us resistant to change, but we could... always change our nature. That's why I had to use Shimmer. To change myself for the exchange.
I think... the same will work with the Eyes. I'm confident it will take the Eyes as the exchange.
If you trust me.
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Sounds perilous at most.
[ also i think its fair to say throné will skin them both alive if it DOES work the way it should. shooting your unstable boyfriend full of drugs and sucking the eyeballs out of him is a wild plan. but hey it has benefits over launching yourself into the astral sea with a bunch of bombs to try and pull a coup on them? i think? ]
I trust you.
[ he probably wouldn’t trust any plan even slightly less insane than this, because he doubts anything safer would even work.
anyway viktor is being the most romantic anyone has ever been by kicking in the door from the grave, grabbing his face and declaring his mad science plans, so he is going to lean in and kiss him now. ]
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A small, lopsided smile comes to his face about the joke and the trust. More the trust.
He should expect the kiss after all the other kisses, but it still surprises him. His hands drift down to Lucien's neck, but he returns the kiss with something a little less timid and unsure now and a little more possessively fervent.
Just something about being able to kiss someone without being a demon with boobs or a mirrored Tiefling. Only yourself.]
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I should probably ask you— questions or whatnot. About the other side.
[ instead of just being intense about mad science-magic and kissing him but everyone else is probably doing the information interrogation already and so, what is the point really. they could be talking about anything else. or kissing.
pulling away, but only so he can take him by the hand and start leading him off. bossy … ]
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Unfortunately for Lucien, Viktor digs his heels into the ground and pulls on the hand that has taken his own. There are some words he has had to consider recently, and maybe he is still very afraid of what the future holds for either of them... but it doesn't mean he can't give in to the present while it's here.
The best thing he liked about Lucien was how normal Lucien made him feel in the chaos.
He tugs Lucien's arm to get Lucien to turn back to him again, and he reaches up with the other hand to put it on Lucien's neck like before, careful not to lose the crutch under his arm. He pulls Lucien in toward him and gives him another possessive kiss.]
I love you.
[Because he did not say it in person before... like an idiot. And that needed to be remedied. He smiles a bit sheepishly afterward.]
Sorry... I'm ready.
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he’s actually surprised himself when viktor pulls this extremely romance novel move on him, and hearing things outloud is always a little different than reading them - viktor might miss it because he’s too busy kissing but lucien’s face does go the tiniest bit hot at that. that’s the thing for him too, how strangely normal he feels when this is happening. at least, more mortal and fallible and like his old self rather than the divine aspirant with a severe haunting issue. it is probably okay to want to stick around and see what happens with this instead of scattering himself to the astral sea in ten thousand pieces. ]
I love you. [ because his mean streak refuses to be that sincere, adding: ]
Don’t say sorry and “I’m ready” like I’m leading you off to eat you like a hag.
[ the firing squad ……… ]
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Well, I never know. You might be leading me off to wrap me in a cocoon so I can become universal soup.
[Kidding.
He bumps Lucien's gently in the chest with both their hands. He's ready to be lead away and asked a thousand questions about plot...]
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snorting, going back to leading him then. ]
Feeling more solidly on this side?
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I think so, yes. I definitely don't feel the weird tugging and tickling I felt the other day before I got... birthed. Whatever that was.
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Use any other word. [ that's just by far the worst one!!!!!! ] So you were ... placed on this side by surprise? You felt a sensation and then simply showed up?
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Parturition.
[He looks thoughtful for a moment.]
Yes. Later in the evening, it felt like... I was being grabbed? Sometimes. Or like someone was touching me. And then... I don't remember anything except... I was... [He thinks again about Lucien's explanation of the metamorphosis.] I was inside... something.
Um... Flesh. Organic. It was very dark, and it could move. And I couldn't... remember anything it felt like. I kept struggling to remember... anything. People, memories. It tried to keep me, but I could hear voices, and I kept fighting.
and then I woke up in the stasis pod with the senior crew pulling me out.
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Not dissimilar to how my resurrection felt.
[ less flesh, though. ]
So at least we're even now on that front.
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I don't really want us to converge at that point, you know.
[Less flesh or not, he doesn't want them to share resurrection as yet another terrible, dark theme in their list of shitty circumstances.]
The senior crew said it... They said they were going to try for the others, but they weren't sure how it would do yet. Amalthea said there was a very high probability of them pulling a rat into my body.
Which I hate.
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[ he does actually have to let go of his hand by the time they reach the rooms - fiddling with his I.R.I.S. at the room door, and doing a dramatically sweep of the hand to gesture for him to head inside. ]
Don't look very rat-like to me at the moment, but if you were I certainly wouldn't shake you around and threaten you.
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