june catch-all

[mehanizovati]

Who: viktor and others, open to all with some closed prompts in comments
What: june catch-all, some tdm prompts
When: june
Where: various

content warning; terminal illness, arcane season 1 spoilers



misc lab stuff and various fruits.

[viktor's lab in the willful machine is usually left unlocked when he's working inside. friends or acquaintances have likely been told they're welcome to stop by if they like, either to say hello or to get help with whatever a vaguely sketchy lab could handle. of course someone he doesn't know can just walk in too or knock. maybe there's a sudden downpour and that ajar door is tempting? go for it.

the lab has been slowly filling with all sorts of nonsense on the various tables- lasers! tasers! some weird machine hooked up to a blood gem? it is not unlikely to be walking by and hear some minor booming noise and either a curse in czech or a satisfied 'a-ha!' feel free to investigate.

this month there's something else too, a bowl full of fruit. all the fruits mentioned in the tdm in fact, there to be tested on though it looks more like they're just for guests if people are unaware there's some weird shit going on.]

Just a moment, make yourself at home. [he might say to guest. that would include eating some fruit, right? enjoy. probably not the raw lemon though, that's weird.]

[ooc; if you want to memshare i am game, my only hard limit on memories is no suicide stuff please. self sacrifice is fine! feel free to ask to make sure one is okay. if you'd like a viktor memory let me know any hard limits and what sort of memory you might prefer!]


gaze and time loops.

[having lungs mostly working for the moment is pretty great, in viktor's humble opinion. it means walking around the trench doesn't come with the risk of coughing up blood and attracting beasts and generally having a bad time, along with added perks like not getting so easily winded and going for longer. it also means he finds himself out longer than he usually would, which maybe isn't the best, as it turns out.

for example, making his way home through gaze and hearing the chilling cry of a beast, sighing and trying to make his way around what turns out to be the wrong corner. maybe that's where he sees your character before the snarling of a too close beast starts in earnest.

and then snap! they're both back about an hour, where they passed on the street. the look viktor gives is somewhere between resigned and 'fuck this, actually.'] There is a term for this. 'One of those days,' I think.



[ooc; if you'd like to wildcard or do something else you can pm me here or find me at dichotomy]

Comments

[tealeafs]

He didn't hurt you, did he?

[ Sure, Viktor is saying a lot of other things here. But this time - this time!! - it's actually not an effort on Chizuru's part to avoid having to deal with any compliments, or just people telling her that she deserves better.

It's just that the moment Viktor mentions that the man she saw in the memory didn't only have pure intentions, Chizuru just can't help but worry. Especially since Viktor had still been so young back then.. what if something bad had happened to him beyond the memory she saw?

Hence why she instantly asks that question, looking at him with worried eyes. ]

[mehanizovati]

[he can't help a chuckle, mostly because chizuru's focus on that is very like her.] He never hurt me, no. But he hurt others, in ways I could not bring myself to truly forgive.

[not that he didn't go back in the very end, in desperation, but he lets that thought flicker away to regard her.] ... your father did not hurt you, did he?

cw: non-consensual implications, though nothing that actually happened

[tealeafs]

[ She shakes her head, even as her thoughts linger on Viktor for a moment. Relieved, at least, that he wasn't hurt by that man, but.. still a little worried all the same that he was relatively close to someone who might not have been the best person ever.

At least his rejection of what that man did does further cements Chizuru's view of Viktor as a good person.

But his question.. ]

It's just.. [ For a moment Chizuru's voice trails off, and she makes a nervous gesture with her hands before she manages to continue. All of these things are hard to talk about - if not mostly because she constantly hides them from everyone. ] My father and mother.. apparently they died when the village was lived in was attacked. Everyone who lived there was like me [ a little vague, especially since Chizuru does know the word for something like her, it's just hesitancy on her part to actually use it ] and that's apparently why it was attacked. Why.. [ She swallows. ] Why everyone there was killed.

My adoptive father saved me from it by taking me away with him while it was happening. He.. He seemed to think it was important for our kind to live on no matter what since there were very few of us left, and he thought I was important for that, since it's really rare for girls to be born among our kind.

[ One can see where this is going, right. Especially with what Chizuru told Viktor before about what her father wanted for her, with him forcing a specific man onto her and all.

Sometimes you're just seen as a potential special babies machine. ]

[mehanizovati]

[there is a lot to unpack there. 'like me' answers some questions as much as it raises many more. so it's genetic, in some way, not likely a magic or a gift. the fact they were persecuted it does not surprise him, even if it disgusts him. the world had a tendency to try and weed out anything it saw as 'other,' one way or another.

that the trench natives didn't turn on the sleepers still surprises him, in truth.

all of that though isn't what strikes him, what has a cold pit growing in his stomach is what chizuru is saying between the lines. that bit about 'marriage' before, when she walked him home so many weeks ago, it is suddenly so much more sinister than he could have imagined.

(and in this moment he has a rather important shift in his own way of thinking. because when he went back to singed he tried to see the reasoning behind his cruelty, tried in his desperation to save himself to understand and accept the need for unrelenting progress. he looked at rio in her vat and tried to weed out the childish, grieving emotions that came with it, because it was inefficient. because he didn't have the time.

but here, now, he can easily see it. the mutation must survive is just another it was important for our kind to live no matter what. it is too easy to see singed now, in chizuru's father, how he would have likely done the same. the price of progress being chizuru herself, as a person, as such a kind girl who sat with him as his lungs rebelled and made him medicine to try and help.

it snaps into place in his head relentlessly, this understanding that there were indeed prices too high for progress, prices he'd never pay. that when he told singed he understood now he was trying to to crush a part of himself he thought too sentimental, too halting.

something he'll think about later, settle into. for now, there is this.)

after a quiet beat he offers his hand out between them, unsure of it's welcome but too comforted himself by simple touch not to offer it.]

I am... very glad you got away then, to your friends back home. He is wrong, there is no 'no matter what.' You are a person, not a legacy.

[tealeafs]

[ Truthfully, Chizuru's feelings on what she is, and what it means, and whether or not she ought to have some duty towards others like her because of it.. they're still murky. She found out too soon ago, and the chaos back home left her with no time to sort any of those feelings out.

But it doesn't matter. Regardless of how she feels about it, or regardless of how little she knows how to feel about it.. She knows that Viktor's words in this moment make a warmth blossom inside of her all the same. Because she knows that the words come from a place of care. It's a little similar to what some of the Shinsengumi men back home might have told her, she thinks..

Chizuru stares at that hand, held out to her like that. Even without knowing any of the thoughts going through Viktor's head, just the words he says out loud are enough to make her smile and put both of her hands on both sides of his hand, clasping it between her two hands like that.

She smiles up at him. ]

You know.. Those kids were wrong too. Even if you might not have been able to keep up with them if they'd run, there's so many things you can do. You're so smart, and thoughtful, and you're one of the most kind-hearted people I've met. [ She may sound a tad choked up as she speaks.

His words just seem to mean that much to her.

But she manages to speak on all the same. ]

They may have missed out on that, but.. I feel so grateful that I'm able to call you my friend, Viktor.

[mehanizovati]

[he curls his fingers around hers, a crooked smile back when she smiles to him. a touch relieved, because these sentimental matters never feel natural to him, insofar that he always half expects to make some grave error or cross some line.

it is rewarding though, when he is met halfway like this. good to say something that seems to have an impact despite his uncertainty it could.

admittedly her words in turn are a lot to take in, the kind of thing he'd usually try to avoid or dismiss but- well, difficult, when here they are on something like common ground. he can't help ducking his head, a quiet chuckle despite the fact his chest aches in a pleasant way.

hm. he squeezes her hands as way of an answer at first, just a touch overwhelmed before glancing up again.]

I... I truly appreciate that, Chizuru. In truth I've always found it difficult with people, there are so many angles to consider. You have always been so sincere, it is- I admire that, a great deal. It makes it very rewarding to be your friend.

Perhaps we can agree all of those children did not know what they missed, eh? Or at least... I am glad we did not miss each other here.

[tealeafs]

Me too.

[ That's a sentiment she doesn't even have to think about. Of course she's also glad about that, especially given how little chances either of them had to form a whole lot of connections before.

Chizuru lingers like that for a moment, but then slowly lets go of his hands - even though she didn't quite realise how overwhelming this was for Viktor, this small action might coincidentally help a little. ]

I also hope that you don't have as many.. um, angles to consider. With me.

[ It's a little difficult to imagine, because Chizuru's own meekness is never born from that as much as she just has an inherent wish to be polite and kind to everyone, never wanting to be the overpowering voice in any room.

But she hopes that she can at least make the interactions with her as easy for Viktor as possible. ]