Chapter Text
Afterwards Viktor knows what he means; of course he knows what he means. The stilted way he walks, constrained little steps, the hesitant way he holds himself, the burning copper in his eyes.
So Viktor opens his arms and Jayce comes to him, slumps into him, a slow-moving collapse. He curls against Viktor on the couch, taking up as little space as he can, his head resting on his partner’s shoulder. A little wetness creeps onto Viktor’s shirt.
“Sólnyshka,” Viktor says. He tucks Jayce’s big body into his arms, threads his fingers through his dark hair.
“They don’t get it,” he chokes. “They’re never gonna get it.” His voice cracks. “Or me. There’s something wrong with me, Vik.”
Viktor kisses the top of his head.
“Deep breaths,” he says.
Violation. Viktor knows it. Another night of fundraising, another night of hands he doesn’t want patting his back and shoulders, laying proprietary claim to his arms, laughing at things that weren’t jokes, not to Jayce. Never to Jayce.
“I’m so tired,” Jayce breathes. “I’m tired of feeling like the only one in the world who—” he sucks in air. “The only person who makes sense to me is you.”
He cries wetly into Viktor’s shoulder for a while, in the darkened room. The lights are low, just the softness of the table lamp, and Viktor’s paperback is wedged open on his knee, and the man he loves most in the world is crying in his arms. Viktor kisses his ear, breathes in his comforting scent. Even like this Jayce is comforting.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says, running his knuckles down the sharp line of Jayce’s jaw.
“I’m gonna feel this way forever,” Jayce weeps.
“Oh sweetheart,” he says.
Viktor loosens his tie, kisses a bit of exposed neck. Jayce whimpers. His cool lips on Jayce’s hot throat. Carefully he unbuttons Jayce’s jacket.
“I’m here,” he says. “Even when I’m not with you I’m here.”
These nights are no good for his leg, his back, hours on his feet pacing the ballroom, chatting up sponsors, bent over canapés. The rare blinding flash of Jayce’s smile across the room: a rescue signal, but also a plea to be rescued. And Viktor could never rescue him enough.
He braves it for them both. This sweet, trembling man, too human, soft parts too exposed, translucent, a pear too easily grasped and bruised. Manhandled in these crowded rooms; mauled by eyes. Viktor can almost see the impression of fingerprints on his skin. He traces little circles in the short hairs at the nape of Jayce’s neck, feeling him shudder, breathing out, giving way. “Sweet boy,” Viktor murmurs. Delicate, his Jayce, an invisible kind of delicacy.
A crowded room; his frantic eyes.
“You do so much for us,” Viktor says, kissing the tender space under his ear, then his warm sweaty temple.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, ragged. “It doesn’t make a difference. We mean nothing to these people. They make me feel like—” his lips are parted, dry, searching for words. “Like no one loves me at all.”
And Viktor knows what he means; of course he knows what he means. Not I wish I was admired, but these people care about me so little, misunderstand me so profoundly, that I feel like no one has ever understood me, ever.
And he knows what that’s like. He’s felt it a thousand times, in the years before they met.
Viktor eases his jacket off his shoulders, kisses his shivering face. He traces a soft line between Jayce’s shoulder blades, up and down, watching his back rise and fall, slower, less pained. “When I’m with you, I’m quiet,” Jayce told him once. He kisses the nape of Jayce’s neck.
“God, V,” Jayce breathes. He kisses Viktor back, nuzzling the crook of his shoulder.
He’s starting to let himself into Viktor’s touch, drunk with it, the pink flush of his cheeks from love and champagne. Senseless people; but then the two of them, the only sense left in the world. Viktor wants it to be enough.
“I love you,” he says. “In the middle of a crowded room I love you, Jayce.”