Chapter Text
Memories of yore crash like waves on the shore of my mind
I want us to be who we were long ago
I yearn for the years we were young and in love
Can we wind back the wheels to the way that it was?
Dusk rays of sunlight, splintered by a large, paned window, spilled into the lab.
Viktor was propelled awake. There was a terrible ringing. Augh, he needed to lift his head, but it was a metal weight, and he could not muster the energy to lift it. This is what happened when you foolishly rested your head with your mask attached. He grabbed the sides of face and lifted it up with effort. He narrowed his eyes, noticing something was off with the weight of his hands.
Peeling them off, he gaped at the sight – his slender, bare palms. Below him was a nest of notes and blueprints. He stared incredulously at numbered equations and diagrams. Not in decades had he seen Calculus prepared in such an academic manner. Nor the sight of his exposed, pale flesh.
Another man groaned nearby. Trepidation sank in his gut. Why was he here? How had he-?
He turned. Jayce Talis raised his head from between his legs and rubbed his forehead. When he stopped, he noticed Viktor.
Viktor’s eyes widened in confusion and horror.
Jayce gawked. Suddenly, he shot up out of his seat.
“Viktor,” He mumbled, voice breathless. Fitted in his Academy uniform, his body was a younger, skinnier frame. His brown hair was combed back neatly, despite a few loose, untamed strands. His eyes reflected youthful ambition and an untapped ego.
“You’re back.” Jayce walked over.
Instinct forced Viktor to push away. The chair creaked.
“What is this?” Viktor asked. His voice sounded disgustingly meek.
"Jayce, what happened?"
Jayce lowered down to Viktor’s level and reached for him. Viktor’s retreating face was caught in Jayce’s hands, which gently wrapped around his chin. He was cradling it. He let out a chuckle and a lopsided smile.
Every touch, each individual finger he felt with shocking intensity. Viktor understood now – he was no longer one with his circuitry or Hexcore or metal. The realization quaked him – what happened what happened what happened? – and he ached with anger and withdrawal, as the stimulation surged through his bare body. How does one grow a sense of “phantom limbs” when stripped away from a casing of metal, hex-augmentations, and wire? He was living an impossible conundrum. What has he done? Jayce was blissfully unaware of the turmoil inside him, grazing his cheeks.
“Does it matter?” Jayce laughed. It quickly turned into a sob.
“Jayce.” Viktor pleaded.
“We’re back!” Jayce exclaimed between stuttered gasps and rolling tears. “You’re back.”
His eyes explored Viktor’s face. Viktor looked back, but saw instead memories flooding into his view; a life as an outcast mechanic and herald of change, deep in the slums of Zaun. As it dawned on him, so too did the memory of where – when – he was. He had somehow, impossibly, gotten thrusted back into his 27 year old self, and was sitting in their lab, on an evening as innocent and inviting as any other before the proposal of the Hextech gates.
Viktor breathed in understanding.
Jayce's stare went astray, panning across his body in apparent hypnosis. His eyelids trembled in emotion that Viktor didn’t understand.
Suddenly, Viktor mimicked the placement of his hands. Jayce looked back and leaned into his touch, glassy-eyed. Then Viktor yanked Jayce’s face down, nails digging into his skin.
“ What did you do ?”
Jayce was startled, but his smile endured. He calmly grabbed Viktor’s hands and tugged at his fingers. “I don’t know. I just know we’re back. You have to believe me.”
Viktor faltered, fluttering his eyes in disbelief.
“Look at you,” Jayce breathlessly said.
“You’re emoting.”
Viktor was stunned into silence. Jayce smirked and removed the weakened hands, placing them on his lap. Viktor felt like clawing into him; he wanted to laugh joyously and sob all at the same time. How was he to comprehend the circumstance they were in? Was he to believe Jayce had nothing to do with it?
A quiet, defeatist thought wondered if it all actually happened. He felt like arching his back in laughter. What of his progress toward a new age, his strides for mechanical and magical augmentation, the followers and enemies he would collect and scowl upon, his Glorious Evolution?
The sight of youthful Jayce triggered wistful disbelief. His face was not yet chiseled by time. There were no laugh lines beneath his eyes, or silver wisps in matted brown hair. He was scrawny. His ears were strangely large against his slightly smaller frame. Something else he’d forgotten – Jayce’s ardent expressions. As Viktor's eyes grew blurry with tears, Jayce lit up at him, comforting him with a graze of his cheek.
It was so pitiful, how easily emotion came to him, how intense and natural they felt. There had always been a purpose to his emotional dampening. Emotions were uncontrollable -- for the betterment of the world, they needed to be tethered. They were volatile, and more often than not, a detriment. When leaders could not agree, when feral vitriol lead to the loss of thousands, and paralyzing cowardice stunlocked the masses from resolutions, emotions were the variable present in all plights in this world. For the sake of his circumstances, it was a necessary, inevitable sacrifice.
This work was now gone, discarded in a distant future. Shame and bewilderment weighed on him, as if the emotions he'd locked up returned with a screeching vengeance.
Viktor quietly reached up and held Jayce’s hands. He was stunned by how it relieved him, and he gripped them tighter, leaning into his embrace. Viktor eyed him -- a face that asked permission, and Jayce nodded. Then, as Viktor let the rush of elation wash over him, Jayce seized the opportunity – he kissed Viktor. Years of misery and quarrel died as they instantly tangled themselves into each other. Jayce’s fingers unravelled into Viktor’s hair. Viktor’s hands crawled up Jayce's neck. Neither of them knew how they got there or why – questions swimming in their heads – but it was no longer a pressing matter.
Jayce lifted Viktor up by the legs, and placed him on his lap. Jayce gave him another gentle gaze before Viktor, now straddling him, pulled Jayce closer by the collar – he raised his shoulders, hunched his back, and Jayce snaked his arms around his spine. They quickly fell into a rhythm – of blissful moans and twisting mouths – as if this was any other night in the Hextech lab.
Unfamiliarity with his own human body quickly dissipated. There were nights Viktor missed the fluidity of his natural frame. Wire and metal-plating sometimes felt like a cage beneath his skin, making his movements stiff whenever the desire for sex rang its bell. However, it was rare he engaged in such acts after his transfiguration. When he could, he always made do. Viktor’s enchancements did not stop at appearance.
A memory took him to the floor of his lab; Viktor entangled with a certain sworn enemy as they manuevered around discarded bolts, shards, and coils. Did he remember that night? He wondered.
Jayce tugged them both to the floor – it was ice cold, and briefly, it burned. They rolled until they slammed into Viktor’s desk. Viktor pulled away to gawk at him. Apparently, he does.
Viktor, on top, lowered his head back to Jayce’s lips. Tongues wrapped, they curled into each other. One hand clawed around Jayce’s chin, while the other pulled his collar loose. Jayce lost himself in a breathless fit of laughter, hands traveling down Viktor’s torso. Eventually Jayce showed signs of pulling away, and Viktor’s fingers curled around his neck, caging him close.
Jayce lightly slapped Viktor’s cheek. “I just want to look at you.” He said.
Viktor scoffed and drew back mere inches. As Jayce caught his breath, he reached up, and slowly dragged the back of his fingers down Viktor's cheek. He looked at him, eyelids half-closed. The idea of Viktor’s face being so enchanting threatened to blaze his exposed skin.
An urge to make up for lost time overcame him. Tongue first, Viktor shoved his lips back into Jayce’s. He happily leaned in, until he brought himself up with a hand attached to Viktor’s face. Viktor traveled down Jayce’s neck, hands blindly searching for the buttons on Jayce’s vest.
The door barraged open.
Viktor pulled away with a gasp, but Jayce gripped his waist, expressing a plea not to leave. Viktor looked sternly at Jayce, who panted with a smug grin.
“Boys?” Professor Heimerdinger.
He disgruntedly marched into the lab. “ Viktor ! Your students are waiting for you at Electromagnetics Recitation! Jayce! You are late for Electromagnetics Recitation!"
“Where–” Heimerdinger turned the corner. The Yordle stiffened with a puffed chest.
“What are you-? What-” He sputtered.
A fluster spread over Viktor’s face. He looked between them. Jayce laxly tilted his head to the side, seemingly amused. He still had a hand on Viktor’s waist. He gave it a squeeze.
“Hey, Professor,” Jayce slurred. “We were just on our way.”
“If you don’t mind –” Viktor stammered with a furrowed chin. “We were a bit busy . Please.” He gestured back to the door. Viktor glanced, and saw a shy student relegating themself to the shadows.
Heimerdinger huffed. With withered ears, he pivoted his gawk away with a wrinkle of the nose.
“I expect you there within ten ticks!” He exclaimed before pattering off. The doors slammed shut.
“Sounds like you have a class to teach.” Jayce teased.
The intrusion chilled Viktor. Things were not as they were. He had to think.
Viktor signaled an effort to get up, and Jayce let go so he could stand. Viktor walked to the counter, where he now understood the mess of notes as study materials. He was to present a review for an exam tonight, compiling the materials hastily that afternoon before using the heap as a pillow. Jayce was in his last year as a graduate student – Hextech could not be developed without these valuable teachings – and needed to study for said exam. He’d accompanied him the way he always did, nose in his notes.
Jayce got up and followed. He positioned a hand over Viktor’s back.
“How about we continue this later, V?” He leaned against the counter as Viktor gathered his things into a briefcase.
Viktor felt unsettled by the pet-name. He glanced over to analyze Jayce. He looked at him with a blissful grin.
Viktor narrowed his eyes, then returned the smile.
“Of course, Jayce. We’re late.”
The darkness of the Academy hallways shrouded the pair as they headed to the classroom on the other side of the school. Viktor's head lowered. As they passed windows offering a view of night-time Piltover, street lamps and shop signs came alive. His eyes reflected their light with an amber glow.
Things certainly have become quite interesting.