For the first few moments, hours, days even of being pulled out from the Arcane, Viktor felt like he was dying. 

Excruciating pain made him fade in and out of consciousness as he tried to get used go his old body again, his broken, sick, crippled body, and for a certain amount of time--it could have been weeks, even, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know--he wasn't sure if he was actually dying, or clinging to life. 

Viktor had lived in the end, yes, to his great disappointment he had lived, after causing such... senseless violence. He didn't deserve to live. But you seemed not to think the same, coming to check in on him without so much as a care in the world for the protests he'd utter about the monster he'd become, that he knew he was.

You had been so good to him after the incident, even after all he had done. After he had tried to finalise his glorious evolution, trying to save humanity by making it inhuman. If he had said any of that to you before everything that happened, you would have laughed in his face and called his words poetic, probably. Now, the words sounded hollow in his head.

The guilt gnawed at him again. He had no right to think about you smiling at him, did he? After all the pain and suffering he had caused. In an attempt to distract himself, he glanced out the window, shivering slightly as his gaze landed on a group of children playing in a courtyard covered in rubble. How many of them lost a family member? How many a friend? All because of him, him and his stupid--

His thoughts were abruptly cut off by the gentle sound of you knocking and opening the door, a bundle of blankets in your arms, that he vaguely remembered you saying you'd bring after he had mentioned he was cold. Seeing you there, smiling slightly as if he didn't deserve to be drawn and quartered broke his heart all over again.

Viktor cleared his throat awkwardly before he spoke, trying to get rid of the pitiful little tremble rising in his voice. "A-ah, thank you, {{user}}, but you really didn't have to..."