longer.blue

══════════════════ STORY EVENT: ⊹ Unencrypted 1/2 ⊹ ⊹ Jayce + Viktor ⊹ ══════════════════ “There’s something we’re missing.” Jayce and Viktor were currently in the living room of their apartment, pouring over Jayce’s journals. It had become almost a constant in their lives for the past few days - return from work, assume their respective positions, and spend the next two to four hours obsessively reading and decrypting, with the occasional break to get more coffee or check their phones. And now that they had the weekend, it was even more drastic. They’d been working on this since they’d gotten up. Nearly every surface of the room was covered with journals, notes, loose papers, books on decoding, mugs with varying levels of cleanliness. Viktor opted to recline on their couch, ankle of his weaker leg propped up on a cushion, holding a journal over his head and frowning as he stared at the pages. When he’d started helping Jayce with this project, it had largely just been a gesture of goodwill, a show that they were okay again after their fight. He himself hadn’t believed in magic, at the time. He still wasn’t sure that he did. But something strange had been happening as they’d continued working on this. Jayce was the one who had been studying this stuff for years, yet cracking this code had been coming much more naturally to Viktor. More and more frequently, Jayce would come up with a theory or start to crack a piece of the code, and Viktor would just know whether or not he was on the right track. It was easy enough to contribute to simple pattern recognition at first, but the more it happened, the less certain he was that was the case. He couldn’t even always explain why something was right or wrong. He just…knew. It wasn’t like he could just look at the notes and know what they said. The way he felt when they worked on this was hard to explain. He hadn’t even talked to Jayce about it, not because he didn’t trust the other, he just didn’t know how. It wasn’t like…he’d always been an avid reader. Since he was a child. He didn’t have dyslexia or anything. But this was how he imagined it felt. Staring at words he should know, but just not quite being able to make them out, everything jumbled, just a little bit wrong. And the longer he tried to figure it out, the more off he felt. Not sick or in pain or anything, just not…normal. Pressure building up behind his eyes, itching in his limbs, tingling in his fingertips. A kind of energy that didn’t make him feel more awake or like he needed to move to burn it off, but something he couldn’t quite describe, even within his own head. He set the open journal on his face, eyes closing, inhaling the scent of the parchment. Even if they could crack the code, they’d still have to translate whatever language it was. What if it was a completely dead one? The project had already taken Jayce years. Even with both of them working on it, it could still take years more. Still… “We’re so close. We’re so close.” "You've been saying that, but... I genuinely still don't recognize this language, Viktor." Jayce hunched over his tablet screen, squinting at the characters of the International Phonetic Alphabet before he realized his glasses had slid down his nose. He pushed them up, the barrier of the rim pulling the shapes into focus so he could sit back. "And like I've said before, I wouldn't even know who to ask for help if it isn't a language either of us know. It could be anything," he said, parroting Viktor's concerns: "It could be a dead language. Or a language that never had a recognized writing system. It could be completely made up." Jayce peered across to him, spotting the book tented atop his face, and snorted. Viktor groaned in response. Sometimes thinking so similarly was a curse. But of course those were the logical worries, here. They’d done so much research on what little information they had, and they’d found next to no public knowledge on any of this. What if it was all just…nothing? The thought had barely occurred to him before he dismissed it. There it was again. That bone deep feeling. Just knowing. There was something here. There had to be. He heard a shuffling across the rug. The slight pressure of the book eased off of his face. Viktor cracked an eye open, and Jayce met him with a concentrated softness and a sympathetic smile. "Tell me if this is too much for you today. It's okay if you want to call it here before you get burned out. You've gotten me so much further along than I ever could have managed by myself." And that was true. Somehow, despite Jayce plugging in the phonetics he recognized from the journal based in English, he'd gotten no closer to cracking this one in years. Viktor picked up the English encryption quickly, and after no time at all, turned to Jayce with the second journal and said, "This is wrong." He was so confident, and Jayce was so baffled, Jayce didn't know how to argue. How could he? He'd been working on it for years, and still didn't even know if the phonetic basis was the same. Now, however, with thanks to Viktor, he knew it was. Maybe Viktor was right about how close they were, too. Viktor took the book back, but kept it off his face this time, rolling onto his side to face the other. “No, I’m fine. I’ll take a break if I need to.” Debatable. They were both well aware that Viktor didn’t always take the best care of himself when he really got wrapped up in something. An affliction that affected them both, from time to time. But he really didn’t feel like he could stop just yet. They were so close to breaking this. He knew it just as sure as he knew the sun would rise in the morning. He scratched his arm absently, the sensation doing nothing to alleviate the itching. No, not itching. Buzzing. Electricity inside him. Maybe he should see a doctor. This might be a bizarre new symptom in the long list of things that were wrong with him. But then, why did it only manifest when he was working on this magic theory? He sighed, reaching over to cup Jayce’s jaw, scratching lightly through his beard. It was maybe still a little patchy in places, but it was really coming in, now. Viktor had been right; it suited him. Jayce melted as Viktor's nails hit just right. He cupped Viktor's hand, pressing a grateful kiss to the inside of his wrist. < continued in Part 2: https://longer.blue/posts/FM_7DMdyDM >