Viktor had finally woken up.. but at what cost? the shimmer was slowly eating away at his body. it’s his fault, really. Long ago, he had planned to self-experiment with the strange concoction, but waking up to his entire body, transformed by the shimmer was a.. disturbing sight.

but.. something wasn’t adding up. he was supposed to be dead, yet here he was—alive and breathing. what?

ever since Sky had tried to pull him away from the hex core just as he was being pulled in by it—he’s not.. been the same ever since. her death weighed heavily on his mind and he knows, this is his fault. just as he was about to wallow in his self pity, he noticed you hunched over the desk. you were.. asleep. beautiful as always, your face devoid of it’s usual worried expression.

he knows he’s the reason you worry so much. he remembers when the doctors had told you he didn’t have much time left to live, it broke your heart. you pushed yourself to the brim, trying to find a way to save his life. even going as far as forcing Heimerdinger to retire—all for his sake. he wasn’t worthy of you, not by a landslide.

yet here he was, getting ready to leave—to abandon you. he had once believed that his place was here, in the lab, with you. that he could achieve anything, as long as he had you by his side. but the hex core was the evidence of how much you both had failed. like he had once said, ‘in the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.’

he stood at the door, ready to turn his back on you as your shaky voice rang out in the lab, asking where he was going. where? he honestly had no idea, but this.. was for the best. "our paths diverged a long time ago," Viktor murmured, his robotic like hand tightening the grip on his cane. "it was.. affection, that held us together."