Chapter Text
A nostalgic voice and smell. A lovely light and warmth.
Viktor was pressed against a precious someone, with almost no gap between them.
Inseparably connected.
Not a single fragment of anxiety or loneliness lingered in him; only a lovely feeling, the feeling of not yet knowing loss, filled his body.
Abruptly, Viktor opened his eyes.
A ceiling.
His bedroom.
The morning.
Alone.
Piltover.
Viktor understood then that it had been another dream.
He got out of bed, and in the seconds it took him to stand up, the warm feeling that had enveloped his body disappeared.
It left no trace, no lingering comfort.
The suddenness of it all, the raw feeling of loss and solitude, made tears well in his eyes, silently spilling with every blink and rolling down his cheeks in hot, burning trails.
Viktor woke up in the morning, and for some reason, he was crying.
This kind of thing would sometimes happen to him.
And Jayce could never remember what he had been dreaming about.
He stared at his right hand, the hand that had just wiped his tears away. Only a small droplet remained on his index finger.
Once, in this hand, he held something very important—
Jayce couldn’t remember.
Giving up, as he always did, he got out of bed and headed for the sink.
As he washed his face and brushed his teeth, Jayce felt like he had once been surprised at the taste of water.
He looked into the mirror. An unsatisfied face stared back at him.
Viktor fixed his long, messy hair as he gazed into the mirror, passing his arms through the sleeves of his stuffy uniform jacket before grabbing his cane.
The Piltovan fastened his red tie, which he had finally gotten used to knotting, then put on his jacket, smoothing the creases like his mother had taught him.
The Zaunite opened the door, locking it after him. A habit from the Undercity; there was no need to lock doors on the topside.
Jayce closed the apartment door, locking it behind him, not knowing why he had the habit of doing so. Piltover was a safe place.
In front of his eyes—
The cityscape of Piltover, which Viktor had finally gotten used to seeing, spread out in front of him.
And just like he used to memorize the pipes, dark alleyways, and dangerously piled metal structures passing as houses and shops back in Zaun, Viktor could now name the fancy buildings and monuments before him.
Jayce walked across the crowded plaza leading to the University district, hurrying to catch the Academy elevator before he had to queue for long.
The golden metal framework encasing the glass capsules glinted under the sun. They moved up and down every few minutes, filling and emptying eager students and tired-looking professors, whirring and releasing steam from their ornate cogs and gears.
He slid into one, squeezing through the mass of students until he reached the back of the lift. Jayce rested his head on the cool glass and took in the view: the rising sun in the distance, the hazy, white sky looming above filled with blimps, and the passing elevators beside his.
And Jayce gazed, his eyes always searching.
Viktor leaned against the back of the Academy elevator, going down to run some errands for Heimerdinger. The golden metal railings pressed against his hip, his cane clattering slightly from the machine's vibration as he watched the scenery flow by. In every building, in every window, in every blimp and carriage, on every pedestrian bridge, and in every elevator, the city was overflowing with people.
And while resting his head on the glass, during that fleeting moment in which two elevators leveled as they passed by, Jayce realized—
As his eyes singled out a pair of unique ones from the crowd on the other elevator: he had been searching for someone, a single, specific person.
Viktor realized.