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It's Progress Day.
It always seems to be, somehow, creeping up in that surprising sort of way as if it comes sooner and sooner every year, the day itself lasting twice as long as the last. This year has been no exception to the rule in that regard — in the approaching dusk, it feels like the past day has been an ordeal from the beginning of history, a draining climb grating like static under Viktor's skin.
Like clockwork the air had begun to feel tight like a drawn breath from the first sun-kissed shaft of light that had filtered into the Entresol. There’d been something different about the world, something thick and syrupy sweet, something heavy and hollow that had settled in his lungs — it had been the sounds of the parade echoing down through the arching spires, the happy static murmur that settled through the crowds above. It felt like a knot in the set of his shoulders, out of reach — it felt like something Viktor pretended he didn’t know the name of, something that competed with the sensible ticking of his heart for territory in the cavity of his chest, warm and empty and languid and terrifying. He had hated it. Hated it with the weight of quenched steel and bloody promise. The day's end would be a welcome reprieve from this strange state, this strange thing — or so he’d believed in the rational part of his mind.
For whatever absurd reason, he’d found himself following it in a trance: all the defenses he’d built up now rubble at his feet at the hands of a song, filling his body and leading him among the clusters of people on the shuddering Howl upwards to the Promenade and beyond, idiotically, irrationally, to the City of Progress.
His mask he’d tucked away in the folds of his cloak, and he’d left unarmed; not for lack of foresight, still having recognized the danger posed unto himself by returning to this accursed city even through the haze of hesitant wistfulness — the silhouette he cuts with a tertiary mechanical arm mounted on his shoulder is not exactly an unknown one, but plainly he is swept into anonymity with the sheer amount of people flooding the streets, though it’s not like it mattered, Progress Day crowds or not — it had been a long time since anyone topside has known him, anyhow.
It almost startles him, then, when the static murmur lifts from his eyes and ears and he realizes where his legs are taking him, out through thinning crowds to the edge of the city, out to the shoreline, but as soon as the thought clicks into place he knows that it couldn’t have been anywhere else.
He’s coming up on the docks now, just as the sun touches the horizon and the water bleeds orange and gold. Here, the ground is nothing but gravel, small stones rendered smooth by the churn of the waves that sound almost like marbles clicking together under his boots. The air is fresh and clean, and a welcome relief to the thickness that had settled into his lungs; cool, with the gentle lull of the tides. He sits gingerly on the top of a half-sunk picnic table, the remaining evidence of some carefree day at the beach or what-have-you, the underside of one seating bench just barely kissing the waves.
Sitting like this, his mask presses insistently into his chest, neither having any give to them; steel-on-steel. He thinks about putting it on, some cheap platitude to his principles, maybe — some small comfort to the fact that he’s being completely idiotic by coming here, by letting himself come here, losing grip, composure. He pulls it out, looking at the thing against the lapping of the waves as the light bleeds red and then awash to the dark and the blinking lights of the city.
It’s jarring how such a familiar thing feels so incongruous in a place like this. He touches soft human fingers to the grooves in the steel, warm against his skin from his own body heat. It’s a stupid sentiment, he knows. This whole foray has been stupid, has been idiotically feeding a weakness; needlessly risky, needlessly chasing — what, exactly, he doesn’t even fucking know. He grips the mask tersely in his lap and breaths out a slow sigh. Closes his eyes. Opens them.
The stars are as beautiful as they were every other time he has seen them. It’s been a while now; he can’t recall the last time he’d been somewhere with a sky in the nighttime, let alone without the constant light of the city drowning out the darkness. Certainly, it is the first venture for this, whatever it’s called — whatever it is to stare up at the twinkling pinpricks of light, looking for something to put in the hollow of his chest.
The barrier between the past and the present seems so thin here under the unchanging night sky, the way the stars and constellations are constant in their presence, the very same backdrop to memories that flicker over Viktor's eyes with ease and a summer-tinged sweetness so pronounced he could taste it on his lips.
The first time he'd seen the stars…
They’d taken his breath away, truly. Textbooks and constellation charts, little boys’ dreams from below the blanket of the Gray — they were nothing to the expanse of lights that had shimmered above him. Though topside, it was only over the water that the stars would come into view; too much pollution, even unto the night sky. The first time Jayce had brought him here it was some party or another like it always is; not the one where they’d met, but some months down the line — Piltover loved its unnecessary social functions, much to the annoyance of the both of them. They’d sat on the shore in their stuffy suits (both too expensive for such an act to be a good idea but doing so anyway) and watched the sun go down to Jayce’s gods Viktor, just give your eyes some time to adjust, they’ll come out just give it a fucking second — any moment now. And then: Viktor’s impatient complaints dying on his lips as he takes in the universe for the first time in his life — boyish glee tugging at the corners of his mouth without him realizing, drawing a breathless laugh out of his lungs. Jayce, laughing as well at Viktor’s reaction; Viktor, not even finding the space within him to mind.
And he’d said something then, Jayce — something buried in the cadence of his voice, something about his I’ve never seen you so that betrayed words far softer — far warmer — of which neither of them had cared to acknowledge. Neither of them had cared to acknowledge much of anything in those days, on those nights, back when nothing in the world had mattered.
Viktor sits alone on the banks and wonders how to bottle the sky.
Any moment now.
In the cool and quiet there is silence, only the gentle lapping of the waves to keep him company, an infinite and somber stillness out of time. Then — there. A small flare streaks upwards over the bay with a sharp, piercing whistle, blooming into a burst of reds and yellows and oranges. A cheer goes up in the distance, accompanied by several more fireworks that fill the sky with color. Piltover, for all its faults, knows how to put on a light show.
That tangible hollowness presses once more at the inside of his chest, stronger now than it was before as the light dances across the waves and the dark, glassy sclera of his eyes. It settles heavy into his bones, his blood, souring at the edges into an uneasy guilt. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be feeling this way — can’t afford to, not with what’s to come. Not as the figurehead of something that’s become more than himself now. It’s sickening in its own right, this weakness: this inability to stick to his principles that he’d look down on with disdain at anyone else, yet letting himself do so all the same. He doesn’t want this.
No, he doesn’t want this, he wants change — he believes in his movement. He believes in his principles, believes in his philosophy because it’s more than raw feeling, it’s fact, it’s logic, it makes sense and has structure and control in all the ways that none of this does. Really all the turmoil should lend credence to his ideology — look where he is now, weak and wanting, having let himself give in to the baser instincts of the human mind. Nostalgia. Longing. Loneliness. Addictive substances to be denied, nothing more.
Yet who ever blamed an addict for the struggle?
The last city-run demonstration ends with a loud, almost thunderous crack across the sky that bursts into a sparkling display of Piltover's crest, and he watches the smattering of stars fade back into view as the fireworks settle and the quiet returns. It is well into the night by now, the inky black between the stars as dark as it ever gets around here, but breathing in the cool night air he can't seem to find in himself the will to return to Zaun just yet — can't seem to get his accursed flesh to move. Perhaps just for a little while longer. Perhaps he can live in this liminal moment, no future, no plan. Just for tonight.
Evidently the universe or what-have-you hates Viktor’s guts — or maybe it was always going to come to this, the inevitable outcome of all the years. Maybe gravity just wins in the end, one way or another. It happens like this:
The telltale marble-click of gravel cuts through the quiet. Viktor turns, no more than a slight glance over his shoulder.
And there on the banks stands a ghost.
It's a perfect picture of nostalgia, white suit almost glowing in the half-light reflecting off the bay. Hair a mess, the unintended victim of some great escape, surely; some stupid plot Viktor and he had cooked up to play hooky on those academy galas. And — no, that's not quite right, is it? It's off by an inch, all of it, a picture developed so slightly wrong. There's gray streaking his hair, the creases in the furrow of his brow familiar to his face. But it's close, it's so close, even in being so very far away. Viktor wonders, distantly, if there really is some sort of thinness to time here — that if he pressed hard enough he could step through the veil. He wonders if he is dreaming.
The apparition speaks, Viktor's name slipping out of his mouth like some barely believed in prayer and Viktor jolts awake, turning back towards the water. Of course this would happen, of all the fucking days why go topside Progress Day — no, of course it would be Progress Day, he should have known that he would feel this way, would be affected this way and been on guard— no, he should never in the first place have even let himself be susceptible to such whims, gods, the idiot he is, coming here like this, unarmed, vulnerable. The knuckles on his still-human hand flex white around his mask as he makes to put it on — at least then he’ll have some sort of composure, whatever dignity he can try to piece together explaining why he’s here of all places. But before he can fully secure the clasps, he is interrupted:
“Wait, don’t—” cut off, as if he were surprised to have said anything at all, as if he realized where he was, who they were now. “I…” Viktor hears him attempt to begin again, but it fizzles out in the empty night air. He lets it steep.
What to do? He considers the mask, considers the orange-tint of the world as he looks carefully through its lenses. He shouldn’t be considering this. Why is he considering this? Any other day he wouldn’t have listened — hells, any other day he wouldn’t even be here to begin with, let alone think about any option other than walking away. He looks to the sky.
The stars have disappeared. Through the shaded glass there are no more twinkling lights, no more cosmos, only a smothering, inky dark. It presses down on him, the vast emptiness above, crushing the air from his lungs. How ever did he live without the stars? Viktor purses his lips and brings the mask back down to his lap with a hesitantly accepting sigh. The stars will not judge him for his sentiment.
He shifts, then, to one side of the table, fingers tensing imperceptibly around his knees. An invitation, an olive branch, however foolish the reason. He fights the urge to look back as the seconds stretch with the reaching of the water towards the shore.
Finally, the marble-click of gravel — the creak of old wood as Jayce climbs up onto the table beside him. The things in Viktor’s chest seem to all have gotten caught in the back of his throat, too big to fit in his mouth, and even still, now, Viktor wants to touch him, just to confirm that he’s real. He settles for this:
“What are you doing here?” Quiet, softer than he’d realized he was still capable of. Time is not the only barrier to have thinned in this place, he's beginning to understand.
Jayce almost laughs, some startled off-guard thing to fill the space. “What do you think?” he says, bracing his elbows over his knees. "Another year, another godawful party to bail out on." He reaches down, drags a hand through the cool water. "You’d think you'd learn the song and dance eventually, but they're always figuring out new ways to make themselves miserable. Well. Not like I particularly care to fit in with that crowd. But you knew that."
A part of Viktor wants to argue the point, make some cutting remark rehashing old grievances — something about Jayce, the bastard, always acting like he's above the trappings of the elite yet oh, how he loves to be wanted by those same people — but the words seem almost stale here, dry in his mouth, as incongruous as his mask. Like the drive behind them is muted, hollowed out, dampened by a near-oppressive peace that he perplexedly doesn't quite seem to mind. He looks out over the flat line of the horizon, the light on the water. "How was it, then?" he says.
"The party? Fucking terrible," he sits up and runs a hand through his hair with an almost shaky sigh, and Viktor thinks he's about to elaborate but he only says again, "Fucking terrible." Viktor doesn't ask.
"What about you?" Jayce starts. "What are you doing here?"
"... Progress Day." Viktor says, and Jayce does laugh here, one sharp cut through the night air: harsh, pointed.
"Ha! You hate Progress Day. You hate Piltover ."
"I didn't hate — " Viktor cuts off, catches Jayce's eye for the second time that evening, once more barely a glance. I didn't hate you. He blinks down at his hands. "I didn't hate the fireworks."
He waits for the blowback. It's a flimsy excuse for sure, an open door to slip back into old habits, the pattern script: Jayce, For once in your life can't you just let yourself feel things, can't you stop fucking hiding behind your words and your composure and your stupid fucking image and just say how you feel , Viktor, gods; Viktor, And where has that got you, red in the face over some stupid little ______, whatever it was at the time, Rich, coming from you, Defender of Tomorrow, what was that you said about image?; Jayce, At least I'm not doing some half-assed job method acting some godsdamned machine so my weird little robotfucker groupies will still respect me, and Viktor will composedly walk away while pretending that he's not itching shut this asshole up, and it won't matter that they won't see each other for another two years or four or ten because it never mattered, none of it, ever. Really he should spare himself the hassle, really he should just get up and leave right now, but then, Jayce is—?
Laughing? He's laughing again, not sharp or mocking as before but almost like he’s taken by surprise, like he can’t think of anything else to fill the liminal half-an-inch between their knees knocking together and never seeing each other ever again. He’s laughing like he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he stops.
Viktor gives a little laugh of his own, barely an exhale — barely a laugh, really, the way his tiredness seeps into the night air. “Gods, Jayce,” he says, “what happened to us?”
It's a pointless question, one both of them already know the answer to.
“Does it matter?” Jayce says, and Viktor turns to look at him, then, watching the tip of his head up to the sky. There’s a terseness to Jayce’s shoulders that his pose tries to downplay, a sort of artificial lackadaisy like muscle memory, like it’s the only thing he knows how to do.
Of course it matters, Viktor wants to say, wants to elaborate into an itemized list of exactly why everything has led up to this — but again the words die on his lips. It feels like it would be wrong to say them here, in this place — not in the sense that he can't, but in the sense that if he does it will all fall apart. Fragile, tenuous. A part of Viktor wants to let it happen. Let it splinter further into innumerable shards of glass, sharp fragments bloody on his lips, his cheeks, another reason to seek out the reliable nothing of steel. A part of Viktor wants to wade out into the quiet and never leave.
"Not tonight," he says instead. In the morning this place will be nothing more than a strip of gravel off the side of the pier, all its magic bleached away in the light of the sun. In the morning they will be locked in place once more, Defender and Herald, the game resumed. But tonight they've managed a reprieve — tonight things get to be as they were back when they were 19-year-old gods of a little patch of shore and an infinite sky, and the world didn't matter.
"Not tonight," he says, and Jayce believes him.
There is something to be said about the inherent magnetism of some people — the like-polarity of eyes fixed on the same dreams, the same stars, repelled from one another; never locking for more than a second before skimming off each other's fields like asteroids bounce off the atmosphere — yet trapped in a gravity well, pulled in all the same, never closer than an arms' length. Viktor wonders if it is worth the effort to reach out and touch him; worth the eventual, inevitable split.
It almost surprises him, then, when he feels a knee knock softly into his own and a head leaning onto his shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asks, a puzzled tone almost bordering on worried, yet distant — like an afterthought to the fact that he should be questioning it more.
Viktor feels the flexing of Jayce’s throat against his shoulder as he swallows and makes to speak. "I'm tired," he says after a while, the words' heaviness betraying a weight far older than just the triviality of the evening party. Viktor presses his lips into a thin line, but after a moment, lets the crease in his brow smooth. What's there to say? He's tired too. He gives a little sigh, lets his head fall against Jayce's in kind, and wonders if it is not doom for them both.
A quiet palm lays itself skywards on the seam where their bodies meet. Viktor gives pause, if only for a moment, but allows his hand to slip into place in Jayce's. Jayce idly examines the mechanisms of the thing, plays with the easy movement of the joints, the flexing of the palm.
“I never stopped coming here, you know,” he says coolly, like he’s not baring his whole chest with that one statement.
This, too, gives Viktor pause. Anywhere else he’d have laughed at the admission. Taken it and sharpened it into a point, fought dirty with it, the way their clashes always go. But not here — not when he, too, has let the gravity of this place draw him in. Tonight, he comes up blank. “Huh,” he says, and looks out over the sea and the stars.
Perhaps it’s foolish. Things like this, they're never worth having in the first place. That's all this is, this place. This night. A hiccup in the script. And yet… Somehow they will always be each other's exceptions to logic, to sound rationale. The reason to give in to something you just want, because your heart is in your throat, and your chest is full to bursting, and who cares about silly things like reason, or consequence, or the world.
"The stars are beautiful," says one, and the other agrees.
They sit, and they breathe, and they count the seconds until morning.