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Some days, the Herald visits their little cottage. Not in body, because the power to rend his flesh into new forms has been burned out of Viktor along with so much else, but as a ghost.
Jayce knows the ghost is there because Viktor no longer speaks so he can hear. Sometimes his voice is an unintelligible plea, so quiet that Jayce could miss it if he wasn’t watching his mouth. Sometimes Viktor speaks in his native tongue, hard consonants forming new shapes on his lips as he asks for things Jayce cannot understand and doubts he can give. On these days they stay in bed. Jayce holds Viktor against him, letting him speak his sorrows into his chest, unheard but acknowledged all the same.
He hates this loss the most, more than the ability to track where sounds are coming from or the ability to hear the birds Viktor swears are always so loud. He wishes he was still the person who could hear what Viktor is saying when all he can manage is a whisper and give him a response that would make everything better. Instead, he falls back on physical affection, curling around his partner as though he can keep the horror from seeping in if he just covers enough of him with his body.
Some days Viktor says nothing at all, the ghost of the herald taking even his voice. Jayce doesn't mind the silence, he’s gotten used to quiet now that he hears so much less. Sometimes he talks to Viktor, hoping that if he can fill the space between them with enough words his partner will find a way back to himself. Other days he’s silent himself, letting Viktor know he’s there with a soft touch to the shoulder or a kiss against his hair.
He worries that Viktor must resent him, that he must hate the way Jayce tilts his head so he can read his lips and makes him repeat himself when the Herald’s ghost finally leaves and Viktor is himself enough to ask for what he needs. When he asks, Viktor just shakes his head.
“How could I resent you?” he asks Jayce. “You’re the only one who ever really heard me.”
When Viktor forgets himself after the ghost is gone, climbing out of bed as though both of his legs still work, Jayce is there to catch him. His own badly-healed leg makes it awkward, and they stumble like newborn deer as he tries to right them both. It’s then that Viktor is the most frustrated, and that Jayce is the most happy to hear him be loud. They trade swears in three languages as they trip over each other and they both try to remember the last place they saw Viktor’s cane.
Later, when the color has returned to Viktor’s cheeks, Jayce takes him out to the stream behind the cottage and they wade in up to their knees, both using walking sticks to navigate the rocks and sand. Their shouts echo off the mountains as they coordinate how to best catch enough crayfish for dinner, loud enough to banish any lingering ghosts.