Chapter Text
There are very few things in the world that would be considered unexplainable.
Most things can be measured, studied, and rationalized. However, soulmates are one of those aforementioned “few things” to those who live in Runeterra- unexplainable.
Just because it cannot be explained, does not mean that it is not real. In fact, it’s the one constant that people can always depend on.
Many would spend their entire lives waiting, hoping that someday the person meant for them would show up and change their entire world. There was always a gentle reassurance that no matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve been through, there’s someone meant for you out there. Waiting.
You were just like everybody else, waiting patiently for the first signs of who you knew would someday be yours.
*****
“Sharing a dream is special,” your mother had told you when you were young.
You were barely six at the time. Standing on a stool next to your mother in the small, worn-down kitchen so that you could mostly clear the countertop enough to see.
She kneaded the dough of the cookies you were making together, the soft sounds of the oven pre-heating and your little fingers tapping on the countertop filling the silence that followed.
“What was it like for you?” You asked as you rummaged in the drawers for the cookie cutters.
Your mother hummed at the question, lip tugging into a nostalgic smile as she thought about what to tell you.
“Well,” she began as she started to select some shapes from the box you had unceremoniously plopped onto the counter. “For your father and I, it was like we were awake.”
“How?” You pressed, taking a roller and starting to flatten out one of the balls of dough in front of you.
“It wasn’t like a normal dream. We could control what we did and what we said.” She’d let out a breezy laugh before continuing. “We were sitting in a cafe, one that we’d both go to all the time.” She sprinkled some flour onto your mound as she saw the dough start to stick to the wood. “I knew I was in a dream right away. I sat down, ordered myself some tea, and then suddenly- in walked your father.”
“Did you know he was your soulmate right away?”
Again, your mother hummed in response. She picked up a small star-shaped cutter and started to press it down methodically. Strategically placing it around her flattened pile.
“And then what?” You’d dropped your roller onto the counter, standing up on your toes to try and get a better look at your mother’s expression as she stayed in her content quiet.
“We talked.”
You huffed a little, small hands dropping to your sides in mild disappointment at the response.
“Talked? About what?”
Your mother smiled, handing you the star-shaped cutter she had just been using, and gestured gently with her chin towards your abandoned dough.
“We talked about a lot of things,” she started again as soon as you resume your rolling, “our names first. Then where we were from. Our families, our jobs, and anything else we could think of.”
“That’s not very exciting…” you mumbled as you haphazardly started placing your stars.
“No, it’s not.” Your mother started to peel away the excess dough, “but we didn’t need to talk about much else because we already knew we’d be perfect for each other.”
“What does that mean?” You asked. “To be perfect for someone?”
“Perfect is different for everyone. That’s why each relationship is special.” She started to place her finished cookies onto the baking tray before coming back over to check on how you were doing with your own batch.
“What if mine isn’t perfect?”
Your mother smiled, taking the cutter gently from your hands and placing a soft kiss to the top of your head.
“Then you work until it is.”
*****
You weren’t sure if you were still asleep at first when it happened.
Your first dream caught you off guard at the ripe age of ten. Most people didn’t have their first until they were well into adulthood. Only those who were extremely lucky had it happen in their youth and you marveled for a moment at your luck.
When you opened your eyes you weren’t in your bed anymore. You blinked a few times as you took stock of your surroundings.
The room is dark and small, and the bed you’re now sitting up in is definitely not yours. The blanket’s texture is entirely different and you’re pretty sure you didn’t have a pillow under your head when you were still laying down. There’s no window in the room you note, putting two and two together as to why it’s so dark.
As your eyes adjusted, you could start to see the details of the room you’re now in. It definitely wasn’t your room but you could see items that did belong to you.
In the corner is a bookshelf, not yours, but half of the books on the shelves were from your collection. Next to it is a desk, completely littered with papers and miscellaneous pens. Some of the notes belonged to you, you could tell your handwriting from a mile away. The others were definitely not yours. Most of the other notes were illegible to you, the chicken scratch scrawl looked like it had no rhyme or reason to its organization other than just getting the words written down.
It took a moment for you to realize that you aren’t alone as someone shifted in the bed beside you.
You flinch, hard. Jolting out of the bed and slamming the back of your thighs into a crate which knocked the lamp that had been sitting on top to the ground.
The other figure jolts up at the sudden noise, you can see in the dark that their hair is splayed wildly from sleep and you can’t help the giggle that bubbles out.
“Is this your room?” You question, leaning back on the crate that you’re now realizing is a makeshift nightstand. You bend down and set the lamp back on top, watching as they sit up, the blanket falling away as they do. You think they nod but in the dark, you can’t be sure.
“Can you turn on the light?” They ask. A boy, you note based on the voice. He has a bit of an accent that you can’t pinpoint but it gives his words a subtle lilt that you immediately decide that you’re fond of.
You fumble for a moment before realizing that it’s a little button on the inside of the shade that turns the lamp on. As light floods the room you finally get an actual look at both your surroundings and the boy in the bed.
He looks like he’s about your age. Maybe a year older. His chestnut brown hair, still wild and sticking up from sleep, looks soft and you wonder how his hair can maintain its supposedly gravity-defying shape. His eyes, however, capture your attention completely. They’re near gold in the low light and sizing you up just as actively as you were to him.
He breaks the silence first. “Is this really happening?”
You gulp down the lump in your throat and shrug your shoulders sheepishly in response, trying to keep your stance nonchalant but you’re sure the nervousness seeps through the edges.
“Is this your room?” You repeat and this time you can clearly see the short nod of his head.
“Some of this stuff isn’t mine though,” he says as he pointedly holds a familiar stuffed animal up. He looks at it quizzically, before he turns his gaze back to you with a brow raised.
You huff, reaching a hand out to him. You waggle your fingers at him until he places the doll into your outstretched palm. You place it gently next to the lamp, a little embarrassed.
“I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen until we’re older.” He says more of a thought to himself than it is towards you.
“Guess we’re lucky,” you say with a small smile. Your heart drops a little when he doesn’t return it and your anxiety starts to make your breathing shallow.
He doesn’t look nervous, in fact, as he starts to try and tame his hair by running his fingers through it, he looks more like he’s been inconvenienced by your presence in his dream.
‘It’s supposed to be our dream’ you think a little bitterly.
You move away from him, wandering over to the desk and picking up some of the stray sheets. “What is this?” You ask at what looks like a diagram.
“It’s supposed to be the prototype for a mask,” this time it’s his turn to hold his hand out to you. You hand him the paper and he sighs slightly as he tries to make out his own notes. “It was meant to help block out some of the toxins- filter through them and lessen the blow… but I had to put a hold on this idea because I don’t have the means to build it.”
“Why not?” You ask as you reach for another page of his notes to look through.
He huffs, a soft and defeated sound. “There isn’t much you can build with scraps.”
As you sift through a few more pages, you realize that you’ve seen some of the places marked down in his notes for where he seems to go and gather supplies.
“Do you live near the ravine?” You ask, placing his notes back down.
He hands you back the sheet that he was holding and you place that page with the others. “I do.”
You hum in thought, the gears turning wildly in your head as you read the supply list. “I think I know where to find some of these parts.”
He perks up considerably at that, the roughness in his posture ebbing away in the motion.
You turn a page over, the scrawled list of supplies he had scribbled down staring back at you. “If I wake up early enough and get down to the docks I’m sure no one would notice…” You start to mutter to yourself as you try to draw out this scheme in your mind.
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
You snap out of your thoughts and look over at him. He’d shifted in the bed so that his legs dangle over the side of his bed. He has patches on his pajamas, mismatched and hand-stitched and you want to ask if he did those himself but you hold the question for the moment.
“I’ve made the trek a couple of times,” you start, a little touched at the sudden concern. “It wouldn’t be difficult but it’d be hard to get them to you.”
“Where are you from?” He asks.
“I’m near the Lanes, just outside of them but it’ll be tough to snag them and then get them to you before work.” You sigh a little, lips pressed into a line as you try to work out the schedule in your head. “I think no matter how I’d try to get it done, it’d have to take me a few days.”
He tilts his head at you, golden eyes sizing you up again. You fluster a little, the intensity of his gaze is a little much. It made you feel small, or like a specimen under a microscope. “Why would you do that?”
Now it was your turn to tilt your head at him. “Why would I- what?”
“Why would you go through so much effort,” he gestures vaguely at the space between the both of you. “You don’t even know me.”
You open your mouth to respond but then promptly shut it again. You do that once, twice more before taking a deep breath.
‘Because you’re my soulmate’ you think about saying but you shut that thought down.
“I’d like to get to know you.” You say instead. And this time you’re sure you’ve done a terrible job of keeping your voice from shaking.
He stares back at you, the silence hanging over you uncomfortably.
Again, his posture softens, his jaw unclenches and you realize that he’s been gripping the edge of his bed tightly enough that his knuckles are white. He’s just as nervous about this meeting as you are, you realize.
“I’d like that,” he finally whispers after a few more moments of awkward tension.
You smile, feeling your own shoulders relax at his confession.
He reaches for something under the bed, a cane you realize very quickly. When he looks back at you he looks embarrassed, his cheeks flushed pink when he catches you staring.
“Did you make that yourself?”
He furrows his brows in confusion before realizing. “My cane? No, my parents bought it for me.” He stands up and shrugs a little before adding, “I did add onto it a little though… just for fun.”
You laugh softly and his cheeks darken further. With a little wave of your hand, you beckon him over to his desk where you’ve laid out a few papers that you think are a good starting point for his project. “So what do you need me to grab?”
And you’re so engrossed in trying to memorize the list he supplies you and his immediate excited ramblings of the project that you miss seeing the way his eyes light up at the realization that you were just as invested in it as he is.
By the time you notice that you’ve started to wake up it’s too late. You hope he catches your “goodbye” as the edges of the dream slowly melt away and you open your eyes once more to a familiar ceiling. Your ceiling. In your own room.
The giddiness stays with you, however. You nearly jump out of your bed to get ready to make the trip to the docks. You tug on some fresh clothes, wash up, and just as you’re about to head out the door you realize-
You never asked him for his name.
*****
Unfortunately for you both, setting a meeting time doesn’t work out as smoothly as you had hoped with both of your schedules. Instead, you gathered the supplies he had asked for you to get and left them in a hiding spot between two rocks in the ravine that you knew would be near his house.
“This is more than what we talked about,” he said the next time you shared a dream.
You were still in the same room- his room- but more of your things could be seen scattered around. The most noticeable difference was that your window had now embedded itself above the desk, your small trinkets decorating the sill.
He had all of the tools and scrap parts scattered on the floor in front of him where he’s sitting with his legs crossed, the bag you had gathered them in haphazardly discarded on the makeshift nightstand. “Where did you even find some of this stuff?”
You grinned at him proudly, leaning back on your hands from where you’re sitting on the bed. “What can I say,” you start, “I’m just really good at getting what I want.”
He huffs a little at that, turning his attention back to sorting through your haul. Despite his feigned annoyance, you can see that he’s excited as he carefully goes through each item and examines it. He turns each piece over in his hands, studying them as he does. You’re not sure if he’s checking for quality or what he’s looking for really but your chest swells in pride as you see his excitement build.
“Wait, what is that-” he starts, suddenly turning towards you and sitting up a bit.
You tilt your head, trying to follow his line of sight. “What? What is what…?”
Before you can register him moving towards you, he has a hand on your calf and is staring intently at your knee. Well, more specifically, the wet spot on your right knee that you realize is blood.
“Oh.” You pull your leg up and out of his grasp so that you can inspect it. “I guess I’m rolling around in my sleep…”
He frowns at you, “did you hurt yourself?”
You shrug, letting your leg fall back over the side of the bed. “It’s fine, I’m used to it.” You try to sound relaxed but now that you’re aware of it you’re suddenly anxious about what kind of stains your knee is probably leaving on your blankets in the waking world.
“How did you do that?” he asks. He’s still frowning at you but there’s a softness to his tone that you think might be worry but it’s hard to tell with him.
“I’m not entirely sure,” you shift your gaze away from him, “it was probably as I was dropping off the bag. I tripped on the way down to the hiding spot.”
His frown deepens.
“It’s okay, I swear!” You flash him a smile but you’re sure it doesn’t hold the reassurance you had hoped it would. “My mom already disinfected it for me before I went to bed, I’ll just slap some more gauze on it when I wake up in the morning.” You make a mental note to not bring up your skidded elbows based on his reaction.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” he mutters and it’s so quiet you barely hear it. “And thank you for getting all of this for me.”
“You’re welcome…” and you leave the sentence dangling as you realize you still haven’t asked him the most important question.
“Viktor,” he tells you and now that he’s looking up at you, from the sudden close proximity, you can see he has two little moles decorating his face. One just below his eye and one above his lip.
Viktor quirks a brow at you, an unspoken expectation following the gesture.
You laugh a little, jokingly holding out your hand for him to shake and tell him your name in return.
He repeats it quietly to himself as he takes your hand in his, mulling it over as he had the pieces that you had brought him. Then he’s back to thinking about all of the possibilities that now come with all the supplies you’ve brought for him.
“I can’t believe you found some of this stuff,” he says in awe. Viktor holds a couple of the different screwdrivers that you’d managed to steal directly from one of the offices with an impressed look.
“If you know where to look it’s actually pretty easy getting past security,” you tell him cheekily, “I’m pretty sure they’re asleep half the time anyway.”
He laughs at that, the sound contagious enough to draw a small one from you as well.
“So is it still a crime if you’re just utilising their negligence?” He asks.
“Yes... but it’s for a good cause. Does this officially make us partners in crime?” You ask him jokingly.
He laughs again at that, shuffling a little to the side to make room for you to join him on the floor. When you’ve joined him, sitting close enough that your knees are touching, he mutters, “this isn’t how I thought meeting my soulmate was going to be like.”
Now it’s your turn to look at him quizzically, anxiety rearing its ugly head. “Do I not meet your expectations?”
He shakes his head, chuckling to himself a little more. He mimics your posture from where he sits on the ground, staring at you with a look that you can’t quite place what it means.
“Quite the contrary.”