Work Text:
One by one, each of the council members rises. Jayce watches as the lights turn on, one by one, and feels a jittery sort of energy rising in him. This is really happening- he’s going to stop a war. He’s going to give that bastard Silco what he wants but in return, he gets to avoid the disappointment in Viktor’s eyes, the creation of a rift that will split them onto opposite sides of a bloody war, more cold nights of the two of them on opposite sides of the bed.
He’ll get Jinx. He’ll get the stone. He’ll get peace. He can fix what’s starting to break between him and Viktor, and they can establish some sort of deal with Zaun so they can help her people. He thinks about Zaunite children no longer having to work in horrid factories, a dark country slowly catching up to her neighbor thanks to the help of a man that was once her’s.
He looks down at Viktor and something in him hurts .
The past four years were magnificent. Man and man, husband and husband, true partners . It was the two of them against the world with the rings on their fingers shouting that to the world.
And just a few hours ago, he saw Viktor’s back, he saw him drop his crutch and raise his arms in a mockery of how they met. It was only then, after helping his husband from the edge of a deadly fall, that he saw the changes: already pale skin is just a shade off from death, his eyebags are so dark they look like bruises, his hands resting on top of his crutch shake, and he just...he looks like he could die any minute now.
How long has Viktor been hurting for? How lonely must he have felt?
Jayce knows that it’s his fault. Ever since he became a Council member he’s been different. He voted Heimerdinger out, of all people! His mentor, Viktor’s mentor! He allowed violence to occur, he made a weapon. It took killing a child for him to realize that he’s strayed from who he truly is. He’s been spending less and less time with Viktor, choosing politics over inventing. He doesn’t even remember the last time he picked up a brush- maybe two months ago? He feels like clutching his head and crying but he can’t be weak now- Viktor needs him more than ever now and he’s never going to let him feel alone again.
Mel stands from her seat, still basked in the voting light, looking over her shoulder and out the grand window. Jayce hears Viktor inhale, a rough, painful sound that moves his gaze from his fellow councilmember to his love. He places a hand on the Zaunite’s shoulder, gently squeezing, as the last council member raises his hand; it has been agreed: Zaun will be allowed to be its own sovereign nation. He feels Viktor’s tense shoulder relax and with that movement, Jayce also relaxes. It’s done- the peace will be kept. It’s true, everything Viktor said: they lost their way in the pursuit of greatness; now, it’s time to return to the good. He already knows that Viktor has ideas for making light prosthetics powered by Hextech- maybe helping him along with that project can help them move on.
“We did it,” Jayce says so quietly that nothing other than Viktor’s sharp ears could catch his words. His love looks up and smiles a smile that looks more happy than tired. Viktor’s face seems to glow and it’s only seconds that he realizes that something is actually shining enough to light up Viktor’s face.
The window explodes and in less than a second, so many things happen: he hears people scream; he hears the boom of an explosion and feels the tingling of magic dance across the back of his neck. He feels an intense heat at his back and he instinctively moves to cover Viktor as pain and heat are all that he feels, the force of the explosion pushing him and Viktor to the ground. He cracks his head against the ground but all he can think about is the pain, the heat, Viktor-
A hand covers his, metal rings clinking against each other, and suddenly it’s Jayce on the ground, a body on top of his for a nanosecond before the light pressure is no longer on him. Jayce’s back arches against the quickly heating floor, eyes squeezed shut, toes and fingers curling in pain. He expects to feel more but the heat has muted to just a slightly uncomfortable level. Fighting the pain, Jayce opens his eyes-
Viktor’s face hovers inches away from his, brown hair sweaty but beautiful in how it curls slightly and frames his worried face. His eyes shine violet, a flickering, transparent dome of energy covering the two. Jayce watches as pieces of Viktor’s clothes flake away from the heat but his skin remains unharmed. His arm...it’s not human anymore- it looks like his skin has been replaced with metal, light that looks similar to the Shimmer he saw in the factory gleaming through the cracks and seams.
“ Viktor,” he weakly gasps.
“You were not supposed to find out,” Victor says, voice cracking. Jayce tastes blood in his mouth. He hears something start to crack.
“Viktor...get….” he weakly raises an arm and ignores the burnt cloth seared to his skin. “ Get out of here .”
He passes out as the ceiling falls down on them.
Counselor Kiramman’s funeral was a week ago. Two other councilmembers survived: one is on their feet while another remains in a coma. Mel had been seriously injured and once she had been stabilized enough to be released from the hospital, she had quickly thrown herself back into work to keep the city together. She also went ahead and appointed Viktor as a council member .
As Viktor grasps Jayce’s hand with his gloved inhuman hand, using the other to lovingly stroke his face while holding back the tears.
Viktor has found that the Hexcore grew quiet once the doctor told Viktor that they can’t be sure when Jayce will wake up. The Hexcore was made by both Viktor and Jayce- Jayce who came up with the idea, whose deft fingers assembled it, while Viktor provided the blood to feed it. It’s almost poetic that the Hexcore seems to care for Jayce enough to help Viktor save Jayce. It feels like a silent exchange: I took your arm, so take my silence
Severe burns cover the whole of Jayce’s back, and they’ve considered summoning a mage from one of the nations they’re friendly with to help his healing. Jayce throwing himself to protect Viktor fractured his skull and possibly did some damage to his brain. The only thing that’s going well for Jayce is his lungs, which quickly recovered from the mild smoke inhalation that couldn’t be helped when Viktor dragged him from the rubble and called for an ambulance.
Filling up the Council again is a slow process as the people are more insistent than ever that competent and understanding people be appointed. Heimerdinger had been found and graciously accepted becoming a member again. One of the new appointees is a woman who’s fantastic in politics but is too serious and rigid for Viktor’s taste. It has been three weeks since the explosion and only a few days since Zaun’s independence had been granted. The public believes that the explosion had been the work of one of the dead council members to avert possible violence between the two nations.
Sighing, Viktor stands and leans over to place a gentle kiss on Jayce’s forehead before easily walking to his crutch leaning next to the door. Securing his arm in it, he gives Jayce a final loving look before leaving and closing the door behind him.
Viktor sits in their bedroom, sitting with his legs crossed while he etches designs on a gold and silver pocket watch with a tiny Hextech crystal embedded in the center of the hidden watch face.
Jayce’s birthday was the day before yesterday. Viktor had finished making the watch the day before the explosion and had been planning to finish the decorative engravings by Jayce’s birthday. But then the explosion happened and Viktor became even busier since there’s nobody to force him to sleep or eat something or do anything other than enveloping himself in his work and Jayce hasn’t woken up yet -
Viktor drops the watch as if it burned him right after he finishes the final engraving and hugs himself, head bowed. He watches as his sight grows blurry with tears.
“I do not know what I’m doing,” he whispers with a quivering voice. He stares at the blurred watch and with a surge of anger, snatches it from the bed and rears his arm back as if to through it. A shudder runs through his body and Viktor falls onto his side, curling around the hand that clutches the watch. It’s been too long. Why couldn’t Jayce just wake up already? All he did was hit his head! Humans are so complicated, so flawed. A machine can easily be fixed, even the most delicate of machinery- it just requires more skill. Humans, on the other hand...it’s not the same. He thinks about the Hexcore, how it can help Jayce wake up.
But he can’t do that to Jayce. The core is supposed to be destroyed anyway, but now Viktor is having his doubts about that course of action. He wants to stay with Jayce. He wants to keep on living. Viktor loves Jayce but he knows that Jayce has a bleeding heart and loves so much more than Viktor thought anyone could. If Viktor hurts this much because Jayce is being lazier than usual, then how would Jayce feel if Viktor could never wake up because he’s dead?
Viktor rolls onto his back and stares at the mural on the ceiling. He reaches up and stares at the gold ring on his hand with a little gemstone the same color as Jayce’s eyes embedded into it.
You know that it was someone who hurt our Jayce the Hexcore whispers in Viktor’s head. The doctors here are hopeless anyway, too attached to older ways of healing instead of finding new ones. Viktor gets off the bed and walks to where he knows Jayce keeps a collection of different types of papers and sketching fountain pens. You can also find the people who killed Caitlyn’s mother, who almost killed Jayce if it weren’t for us. Viktor settles at the small dining table in the kitchen and gets to writing, all the while the Hexcore whispers its plans to Viktor. And Viktor...he finds himself agreeing. The core isn’t persuading him of something, it isn’t manipulating him- this is what he wants.
Viktor finishes the letter and signs it off: Viktor Talis. After the ink dries, he puts it in an envelope along with the pocket watch.
He leaves the apartment and walks to the hospital. His crutch remains in the bedroom.
The hospital is near deserted in the middle of the night. Leaving the envelope next to Jayce, he leans over his husband and kisses his husband on the lips one final time. Pulling away, he brushes Jayce’s dark hair and sadly smiles at him.
“I’ll see you again, my love, when the both of us are safe. I hope you know we had everything.” He holds Jayce’s limp hand, their rings grazing. “I’ll always love you, my dearest, and I cannot help but fear that you might not love me the same once you know what I might do in the future.” His voice shakes and he doesn’t want to leave his Jayce but he has to . Viktor saved Jayce ten years ago ( it’s been so long ). A few weeks ago, Jayce saved Viktor. Now it’s Viktor’s turn. “Don’t forget me, dearest.”
In the cover of the night, Viktor makes it to the remains of his and Jayce’s workshop. Upon crossing the doorstep, he removes the jacket and waistcoat that associate him with Piltover’s Council. He tosses his tie to the side, skin cast with a purple glow as the distance between him and the Hexcore shorten. The object pulses like a pet eagerly awaiting the return of its owner. He grabs a dusty, dark traveler’s coat that Jayce never bothered to put away after returning from a weekend conference in Ionia a month ago. After clasping it over his collarbone, he reaches out to the Hexcore and watches as it pulses even brighter along with his arm. His sleeve starts to disintegrate until the entire inhuman arm shines and his fingers touch the Hexcore.
There is no explosion. There is no overwhelming suppression of Viktor’s consciousness and his thoughts. No- he grits his teeth and makes sure his fingers touch certain runes.
Your power is mine he thinks as he feels a refreshing power run through his body. It feels just like Piltovan drinking water did the first time Viktor had it. He stares the core down as it shifts and sparks, condensing, until instead of a geometric structure a metal mask sits in Viktor’s hand- the slits for the eyes glow the same dark orange-gold as the gem in Jayce’s ring. His arm glows the same color and that’s when Viktor knows that he’s in control of the Hexcore, tamed into a mask that Viktor can wear and control.
He puts on the mask and exits into the streets of Piltover, walking in the direction of Zaun.
When Jayce wakes up a week later, it’s to a dark hospital room, the edges of a ragged cloak silently exiting the window, and a bulky envelope and half-empty vial on the bedside table. At first, he’s scared and confused as to why Viktor’s not in the same room as him. His body doesn’t hurt except for the skin of his back pulling uncomfortably and his fingers and feed prickling as the nerves wake up.
The letter, dated for a week ago, he later learns, answers his questions. It also brings about new questions as a mildly horrified sensation fills his mind. He can imagine what the canvas would look like if he were given one and a collection of paints: a random splattering of dark colors with the vague shape of Viktor in the middle. His fingers itch, not for a brush, not for a pen, but for the body of the one he loves so he can make sure that he’s safe and alive and knows that Jayce will always love him and that whatever’s happening right now is making his heart ache.
When he’s released from the hospital, the first thing he does is resign from the Council then run to the nearest newspaper stand, having to buy two since he accidentally rips the first one before he can read it. Although Zaun and Piltover are no longer two cities of a single country, Piltover still likes to know what’s happening in Zaun, especially now that they’re on their own. And it looks like Zaun and its neighboring cities have someone knew who’s both a threat and a hero. Someone who helps the poor of the cities, aiding hospitals and appearing in times of emergencies while bringing down crime bosses and the corrupt in bloody, horrific sweeps:
The Machine Herald.
Jayce doesn’t know whether he should cry or thank the old gods, so he laughs instead. He only cries when he returns to their apartment and sees the fountain pen on the dining table and the crutch in their bedroom.
One week later, Jayce Talis sends a letter to Heimerdinger and his mother explaining that he’ll be traveling with Caitlyn to Ionia to help her heal from losing her mother. In reality, Jayce puts on a disguise and straps his hammer to his back, Caitlyn a step behind him with a Hextech rifle. They meet with Vi at a hidden, long-abandoned elevator shaft linking Zaun and Piltover. Vi nods at the two and kicks a ladder down the seemingly endless shaft.
“After you, cupcake,” Vi fondly tells Caitlyn. Then she turns and glares at Jayce. “I’m keeping my eye on you, muffin.” Jayce somehow finds the energy to smile at that.
He anxiously feels for his ring hidden under a glove and wonders how Zaun looks like now.