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“In my memory, it doesn’t end. We just stay there, looking at each other, forever.”
The grass brushes gently against his arms and bare ankles, tickling his skin.
With each breath, fresh air fills his lungs. It smells of flowers. Magnolias and wild jasmines and white gardenias. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Above, the blue sky stretches infinitely, embracing the edges of the firmament, unmarred by buildings or airships to taint the periwinkle of the new day.
Jayce exhales. In a reflex derived from the moment, he thought he would not see another sunrise. That the light might fade behind perpetual clouds in a world drained of life. But against all odds, lying on the tall grass, listening to the murmur of the wind rustling around him, he watches as the first fingers of sunlight spreads through the pale dawn.
There’s a lightness in his chest, a lifting of the weight that once dragged his shoulders down like a cursed Atlas, bound to endless responsibilities, bearing an infinite burden. His thoughts seem clear for the first time in ages, unclouded by the noise that used to fog his discernment. Jayce inhales.
Something glimmers in the corners of his mind. A memory that feels like a dream. Darkness speckled with stars. The void where everything connects through fragile golden threads, glimpses of colors, of lives, stretching endlessly, rippling like gentle waves across a black ocean. The sensation of finally holding Viktor in his arms. A perfect fit, the turning of a cog made to function, pieces rearranging to complement each other into a cohesive whole.
The realization, the understanding that, oh, Jayce had been foolishly chasing dreams of smoke and grandeur, while what he wanted most had been right there, within reach. Funny how, at no point, had he considered this a possibility, that there could be a variant whose end result was Viktor in his arms, a version of reality where they could be connected by more than a common thought. Yet nothing felt more certain, the way everything clicked into place, gravitating and settling, how Jayce’s frantic, destructive thoughts dissolved in the certainty that, no matter what happened, they would be together .
He had been ready to give himself up, ready to give in his future. At least he would do so by Viktor’s side, comforted by the cosmic certainty that this was exactly where he was meant to be.
Jayce breathes in and out, feeling the air in his lungs as the first rays of sunlight paint the sky. It feels like magic. The kind Jayce has been searching for his entire life. A type that overflows with possibilities, that melts the feeling of loss in his chest, that fills his throat with soft air scented with honey. Magic, pure and untamed, something no hextech could ever replicate because it transcends calculations and science. It toys with the threads of fate like a weaver at a loom, intertwining and unraveling, breaking apart and reuniting.
Jayce shivers when the hand he’s holding tightly, afraid to let go, squeezes him back, softly, almost imperceptibly, but undeniably there. Real. Jayce tears his gaze from the blue above, slowly turning his head to the side. The soft grass caresses his cheek, colorful petals from wildflowers scattered amidst the vivid green.
He looks at Viktor, heartbeats steady and calm, a quiet rhythm humming in his ears.
Viktor has changed. He is always metamorphosing, reinventing himself, a quantum calculation Jayce cannot solve, an equation crafted like a sarcastic joke, numbers inverting each time Jayce thinks he’s reached the answer. But there is always one constant, one essence that remains the same, something that draws Jayce to this person, no matter the form he takes, something that makes him want to uncover what lies behind Viktor’s carefully constructed structure, makes him want to dig through arteries and muscle to bare the pulsing core of it all.
Jayce eyes the opalescent veins glimmering across Viktor’s pale chest. Rivers of mother-of-pearl winding down his arms like exposed veins, refracting sapphire blue and amaranth. He is breathtaking, glistening in the morning dew, concentrated magic in human form. Everything Jayce has ever wanted and never allowed himself to realize, until Viktor was gone, and his absence felt so absolute it was as if the stars had fallen from the sky.
Despite the obvious changes, when Viktor meets Jayce’s gaze with his own, his eyes are the same, golden depths hiding an abyss of pain etched into flesh and bone, a sharp wit unmatched by anyone else Jayce has ever known. There’s guilt there too, regret, a million conflicting emotions dissolved in amber.
The relief flooding Jayce is visceral, overwhelming. Viktor is alive, here with him, breathing, and the sun is rising and nothing is broken beyond repair. Jayce closes his eyes to contain the warm surge of tears threatening to take him over. For a few moments, he just feels. The gentle wind on his skin, the warmth of Viktor’s hand. Honeysuckles and lilies fill his chest. Everything is sweet, everything is exactly where it should be.
“I…” Jayce breaks the silence, opening his eyes. His voice sounds too loud, hoarse from disuse. “I…” Jayce struggles against everything he wants to say, millions of whys, hundreds of unanswered questions fighting to be spoken. “I…” Jayce doesn’t know how to continue. Viktor looks at him, resignation chiseled in his golden eyes, waiting for condemnation. His white hair spills across the green fields like snow, billowing over a face so familiar Jayce could recognize it even with his eyes closed.
“I love you.”
It falls from him easily, unexpectedly, running out as though afraid to remain trapped any longer. Three words that mean more than anything else he could say.
Understanding blooms across Viktor’s face, disbelief mingling with surprise because Jayce isn’t saying this as a friend or a brother. He’s no longer fooling himself into thinking having Viktor by his side is enough. It isn’t. Jayce wants him completely, without barriers or self-imposed limitations, as more than a partner, more than a best friend. He wants to give Viktor his heart because he knows Viktor is careful with fragile, half-broken things.
And after everything, all the hatred and the anger, the pain, the radiant darkness of their minds, love feels so easy to admit, so obvious. Jayce can’t imagine doing what he’s done for anyone else but him, can’t see himself saying these words to anyone but him. Only Viktor.
“I love you.” It's even simpler than the first time, a whisper that passes through Jayce's lips, free of doubt, free of reiteration: a certainty.
Viktor closes his eyes, shrink as if waiting for a mercy blow that never comes. Jayce doesn’t let go of his hand. He had been foolish enough to almost lose him to countless dives that could have led to the end. He didn’t let Viktor fall before, he won’t start now.
"I don’t—" Viktor begins, but he stops himself, trembling with something Jayce can’t feel. "There are better people to love, Jayce." He opens his eyes, irises swirling with a kind of knowledge Jayce can’t comprehend, a power he doesn’t even dare to dream of possessing. Then, softly, so quietly the wind threatens to carry it away: "I don’t think there’s anything left in me to love."
The blue sky gleams. Low clouds drift over fields of flowers, white fading into green. Snow-capped mountains rise above them, distant and solid, fissures carving through their gray stone walls. Here, where it all began. Where they first met in an encounter Jayce always thought was spontaneous, the eerie luck of fate, but now realizes was deliberate, because everything about Viktor is intentional, thought out and calculated. A predestined meeting.
"That’s not something you get to decide alone," Jayce says, gently, reaching out his free hand to touch Viktor's chest. Starlight pulses beneath his palm, the white skin of Viktor’s sternum laced with streaks of liquid amethyst, refracting light like the soap bubbles children used to play with during Piltover’s festivals. "And I choose to love you."
They look at each other. Jayce feels like eternities pass before his eyes, the rise and fall of nations, cycles, beginnings and ends. The sun warms the grass, and the scent of flowers rises into the air. Tiny green flecks dance in Viktor’s eyes, glimpses of worlds immersed in honey. Jayce could spend the rest of his life like this, one hand intertwined with Viktor’s, the other resting on his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his breath. He could be a flower among many, rooted in this ancient land, far from any kind of civilization. No exhausting expectations, no human complexities that, at the end of the day, don’t matter. No inscrutable separation between above and below, war and peace, death and life.
A dive into a tender reality.
"You’ve always been a bit too stubborn for your own good." Viktor sighs, a shade of sarcasm that Jayce has learned to cherish, affection hidden in his lilting accent. Viktor squeezes Jayce’s hand, slender fingers interwoven with Jayce’s larger ones, looks into his eyes, searching for something invisible.
And Jayce lets him search, gives him everything he has. His hand rises to cradle Viktor’s cheek in a tender gesture.
"All of my dreams," he touches the mole just beneath Viktor’s right eye, one he could find even without sight, "everything I’ve ever wanted," magic, electric-blue, shaping itself in the same hands he now holds. This field of flowers, the cold grip of death dissipated, a nascent dream that had driven him his whole life. A distance of nearly twenty years separates him from that awestruck boy, but the feeling in his chest is the same, something too vast to be contained in the small space between his ribs, "was to find you."
There is no truth greater than this.
Their gazes are magnetic, locked together. Jayce leans in; Viktor rises. They meet halfway. It’s a soft kiss, tender, a meeting after a long time of waiting. Sunbeams and yellow magnolias, sparks of color, sweet, sweet, sweet.
Jayce exhales against Viktor’s lips, releasing his hand in favor of cupping Viktor’s face in both palms, carefully, an insecurity rooted in his own concepts that vanishes under the touch of their mouths. Viktor’s white skin ripples beneath Jayce’s hands, luminous waves spreading along his forearms and clavicles, eddies in a sea of shimmer. Jayce feels euphoric, a purple fullness filling every space between his vertebrae, the comfort of falling into an embrace after dizzying turns through a labyrinth of doubts.
He rests his forehead against Viktor’s, still close enough to share the same breath. Clouds unspool lazily around them. Flowers, sunlight, a gentle breeze. Jayce could live in this moment and never look back. The prospect of war feels so distant, the reality that, even when he tried to hate him, Jayce still needed Viktor and is so obvious now, smiling faintly before his eyes.
They look at each other as if seeing one another for the first time.
"And now?" Viktor murmurs, not uncertain but curious, a reflection of the man Jayce met so many years ago, moments before jumping. His words tickle against Jayce’s cheekbones, a voice that held him alive.
And now? Jayce doesn’t know. But infinite possibilities are opening before them, a million alternatives to discover, an exponential array of futures Jayce can allow himself to dream of.
"We’ll figure it out," Jayce replies, inhaling, letting life fill his body. His next words are spoken against Viktor’s lips, halfway to a warm kiss: "Together."