Archive of Our Own ^beta

The last thing Jayce could remember feeling was the buzzing energy of Viktor’s body. 

His forehead pressed against Viktor’s, one hand cradling his neck while the other gripped the hex crystal between them. A blinding light was bursting out through their fingers, and he felt Viktor bring up a hand to gently rub his forearm.

He had been shaking so badly. He had been so afraid of whatever was coming next. But he refused to make Viktor do it alone.

And maybe that soothing motion from Viktor meant that he didn’t want Jayce to feel alone either.

An indescribable electricity passed through him. Energy, both magical and technical, surged around at an impossible intensity. He no longer could feel his own skin except where he and Viktor were connected.

Parts of his body were glitching away into the starry void that surrounded them both, but his grip on Viktor never faltered.

Jayce curled his fingers against Viktor’s neck as the blinding light coming from between their palms overtook them. He felt Viktor doing the same with his arm and let out one last breath.

And then there was everything.

And then there was nothing.

And then it was the end.

Except the end wasn’t nothing. 

Because if it was nothing, Jayce wouldn’t be able to perceive the darkness he felt engulfed by. Or feel his eyelids fluttering. His eyes cracked open and… he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. 

It wasn’t like wherever he and Viktor had been during their final moments, although there was a similar energy running through his bones. There was no way for him to even describe what his eyes were looking at with the words he knew. 

Fields upon fields of… chaos swarmed around him, beneath him, above him. Impossible colors he had never seen before swam in kaleidoscoping patterns, pockets of light and darkness scattered throughout it all.

Is this death?

Jayce looked down at himself. His body was there, brown skin outright foreign to the images around it, although his leg brace and clothes were nowhere to be found. He shakily reached a hand down to feel his stomach.

Solid. Warm. Normal.

Nothing about this is normal , he thought, but he couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief at the touch of something comprehensible. He couldn’t help bringing his hands up to his face to feel, just to make sure there wasn’t just nothingness there. Just to be sure .

After verifying that he had all his facial features, he traced his hands back down to his shoulders, grasping them to huddle his body into itself.

He’d never really thought about death before. Jayce had heard tales from his family, seen plays throughout his life, studied summarized mythology in history classes. As a man of science however, he had always concerned himself more with the tales of the living as opposed to the tales of the dead.

The most mystical thing he focused on his life was the magic that saved him and his mother’s lives when he was young– the magic an alternate Viktor gave him– which was hardly something that would make him think about the afterlife and what came next. 

Why focus on an inevitable future when you could focus on the things happening now?

Except death was happening now. Death was his new reality.

He had hoped, in vain, that Viktor would have also been there to greet it with him.

Jayce felt more numb than anything. Blankly looking around at his surroundings, he saw silhouettes of creatures flying through clusters of stars; some looked more human than others. 

It was a while before he even attempted to move from his position, but he didn’t feel any of the usual signals or strains or whatever that indicated his body wanted to shift to be more comfortable. There was only a healed scar over his leg injury where bone had previously ripped through skin to indicate any kind of lesion, but the bone was still twisted at an odd angle even though there was no pain.

Despite the fact that there was nothing to stand or walk on, he felt some kind of solid under his feet. Jayce pressed his good foot into the invisible force keeping him upright. He wanted to get an idea of what he was working with, what material existed in this plane. 

But there was no texture for him to identify, just a present upwards pressure against his soles.

He tentatively took a step forward, then another. Even though there was no real matter there, he saw ripples in the space expand out from where he stepped as if it was liquid.

As the confidence to actually move around in this mysterious place built up, so did his pace. There was no friction against his skin like there would have been from the air and wind in the living world, no cold or heat to stop him. His gait was clumsy, still getting used to the limp that now slowed his movement, but it was persistent nonetheless.

Soon he was running. Ripples under his feet became splashes of cosmic dust as his feet hit the ground (or whatever it was) harder. 

He had no idea where he was running to, because there was nowhere to go. 

Something in his gut was telling him to keep going though. 

As he ran, the environment around him shifted. Silhouettes of people faded in and out of the clouds of chaos and light and darkness, flowers grew and died and grew again, images of his own life shifted in and out of focus. He didn’t stop running for anything.

The pull in his gut got more intense the longer he ran, only encouraging him to sprint faster, as fast as his legs could take him.

There was no telling how long he had been at it by the time he skidded to a stop, an endless river filled with stars and shapes and creatures stretched out before him.

There was nowhere left for him to go except back where he came or into the cosmic river.

The river, compared to everything else, seemed to operate within the normal bounds of physics from what Jayce could see. 

Relative to the type of place he was in, of course.

It moved in one direction, waves crashing against each other as the contents rapidly tried to be the first to reach wherever it ended.

The pull in his gut was telling him to dive into the tides of stars, but a shadow of something seemed to lurk just beneath the surface. Maybe he was supposed to go inside, maybe not. The dark shape underneath didn’t give him much confidence even though he somehow knew in his heart it was inevitable for him to go in.

Jayce glanced behind him. It all looked the same as it had when he first opened his eyes. 

If he really was dead, he had nothing to lose by going further. But if he wasn’t… well, where would I go here anyway? .

Before he could think more about what he wanted to do, a small tickling sensation brushed against his neck.

“Ahg?!” he clamored, jumping forward and away in surprise. Whipping around, he found himself face-to-face with a butterfly. Again

Another yellow and brown one. Again.

“What?” he exhaled. His breathing was heavy and confused as the butterfly fluttered about in front of him, never going low or high enough that he needed to move his head.

How was this one here? 

Jayce didn’t even know what type of butterfly it was, despite it clearly being the same one he saw in the alternate future Piltover and the one in the background of his and Viktor’s picture. He mentally cursed himself for never checking what the species might be.

The first time it appeared was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise desolate situation. The second time was a coincidence that reminded him of how much he tended to overlook details in his everyday life.

This third one though… 

His thoughts were broken when the butterfly decided to fly right up to his face and land on his nose.

He felt his breathing even out as the butterfly stayed perched, occasionally flapping its wings ever so slowly. His eyes traced the ridges on its wings down to its fuzzy brown head.

Its black eyes seemed to stare into his for a few seconds, before it finally flicked its wings back into quick motion and flew back towards the river.

On instinct, Jayce pitched forward, reaching an arm out after it. The butterfly flew just out of reach of his finger and dipped down towards the cosmic river.

Before he could try to catch it again, it dove into the starry liquid flowing out in front of him. 

The feeling that he needed to continue his path into the river had never left, even as the butterfly distracted him for a few minutes. The small insect almost seemed to be guiding him in, urging him to listen to the intuition now screaming at him to follow.

Jayce knelt down before the river, his knees causing more ripples in the space they settled on. He took a deep breath in and reached a hand out to the coursing starry tide.

As the tips of his fingers brushed the surface, he felt that same energy from when he and Viktor were connected last surge through him. 

He didn’t let that stop himself as he continued to submerge his hand into the river. There was less of a liquid sensation on his skin than there was the feeling of a dense cloud of gentle static. 

By the time his arm was wrist-deep, the fear of whatever shadows lurked beneath had dissipated. 

Jayce let go of the last of his resolve and leaned forward with the intention of dipping his body in.

Gravity, or whatever force existed there, did the rest of the work and without so much as an opportunity to change his mind, Jayce let himself sink into the endless cosmic river.

Jayce didn’t even know he had been asleep (again) until he came to awareness, something soft and warm touching the sides of his face. 

It felt so comfortable that he didn’t want to open his eyes yet. He wanted to sink into the comfort of the warmth, of the only thing that felt tangible to him other than his own skin.

“Jayce.”

His breath hitched. And he finally opened his eyes.

Gentle gold was the first thing he saw. Beautiful moles were the next, with that sharp, handsome jaw following right behind. Brown and yellow specks flittered above it all and Jayce realized a kaleidoscope of butterflies was flying overhead.

Jayce’s eyes focused and unfocused as they moved to capture every bit of the figure leaning over him from behind. He didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything for fear that the image above him would too fade away into the clouds of chaos.

He realized the warmth cradling his face were hands.

“Hello,” Viktor said, smiling above him. 

For the first time since he’d arrived in this strange afterlife, he felt too much emotion welling up in his chest. He had been holding it together relatively well given the situation, but the sight of his partner, of the man he loved, of Viktor filling his vision snapped through the tension he had built up internally. Wetness stuck to his lashes whenever he blinked and he couldn’t stop the choked noise that came out of his mouth.

Without a word, Jayce shot up and wrapped his arms around Viktor, burying his nose into the crook of his shoulder. He felt arms tighten around his back as Viktor settled his chin on the top of Jayce’s shoulder blade.

It was a stark contrast to the awkward, unsure way Viktor had returned his hug after emerging from the hex core cube-cocoon-thing he had been stuck in. The last time they had ever been able to embrace in the real, living world.

“Viktor,” was all he could manage to get out as the dam broke and tears fell. He wept into Viktor’s skin, body heaving with sobs. 

He felt Viktor begin shaking too and wetness ran down his back from where his chin was connected.

Jayce had never seen Viktor cry before. It’s not like Jayce had cried that much in front of Viktor either, but there had been times that he lost his composure. He never felt uncomfortable doing so when it was him that was there.

But even when Viktor was frustrated, even when he was receiving the worst news imaginable, even when he was on the verge of jumping, even when his body was warped into a fusion of flesh and hextech, he never cried.

Seeing Viktor break down now only had more tears flooding past Jayce’s own eyelids.

They stayed there for what felt like eternity. They cried and gasped and bawled into each other’s arms, their grips on one another never loosening. The tickle of butterflies brushed all around them as the kaleidoscope continued flying.

Jayce didn’t want to let go ever. He didn’t want to face this strange and incomprehensible new plane of existence when the warm caress of Viktor’s beautiful hands were wrapped around him.

Everytime it seemed a lull in the crying was about to happen, one of them broke down all over again and sent the other back off the edge too.

But finally. After several false lulls that always turned back into bouts of sobs, Jayce finally managed to compose himself enough to speak.

“I thought I was alone,” he whispered into Viktor’s shoulder. “I woke up here and then it was just me even though we had gone together and… and…”

He felt Viktor nod against his back. “You will never have to be alone ever again, as long as I’m here.”

They lifted their faces up so they could look directly at each other. Jayce brought a hand up to brush his thumb across the mole sitting above Viktor’s lip. “Is this death, then?”

His eyes still wet, Viktor let out one of his usual “eh”s. “What gave it away?” he said, tone almost joking. Jayce could see a smile quirking at the edge of his lips.

Jayce rolled his eyes. “Well I don’t know, this place looks pretty similar to wherever your Machine Herald took me to.”

Viktor’s small smile disappeared almost instantly at his words and Jayce wanted to take them back just to see that smile again. “Yes…” he said, voice sounding contrite.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jayce rushed to say, immediately rubbing Viktor’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort him. “You did the right thing in the end, okay?”

But Viktor pulled away. His lips pulled into a solemn frown and he kept his eyes looking down. 

“Just barely,” he lamented. Viktor looked around at the space surrounding them, eyes seemingly unfocused. He jutted a hand out to motion up and down at Jayce’s body. “And look what it cost. You got dragged into the mess I made.”

With Viktor now having pulled away, Jayce finally took a good look at him. Viktor’s skin and hair, like his own, was back to its usual color instead of the shimmering white. The dark circles that had been under Viktor’s eyes throughout the last year before fusing with the Hexcore had faded, leaving light indents where his eyelids folded. The sickly pale his skin had taken on was now flushed with vibrant life. 

The irony , Jayce thought to himself.

His right leg was still twisted at a slightly awkward angle though, just as his own bad leg wasn’t magically fixed. Jayce supposed death agreed with him that the imperfections they had were beautiful.

And beautiful Viktor was.

“And what would I have had to go back to?” he said quietly, unable to stop drinking in the image of Viktor in front of him.

Viktor’s eyes flashed and Jayce could see a hint of… anger? “What did you have to go back to?” he repeated, face incredulous. His dark eyebrows furrowed together. “You cannot be serious, Jayce.”

Despite not wanting to admit it, Jayce knew Viktor was right. He left behind his city, his life, Caitlyn, Mel, his mother . 

But he didn’t want to say that Viktor was right. That would mean having to acknowledge all the people he would never get to see again. 

He felt forcibly laid bare before him, and couldn’t stand to think of everything he did leave.

A large part of him still felt justified either way though. 

Leaving Viktor to die in the full force of the collapsing hexcore alone meant leaving to go back to a world where Viktor wasn’t there.

“Is this really the first thing you want to have an in-depth conversation about?” Jayce finally said, wrapping his arms around himself. “Did you think I had even a moment to really consider what staying with you until the end meant when we were in… in wherever the hell it was we were?”

Viktor looked away. “This is what I’m talking about, Jayce.” He motioned around at the infinite chaos stretched before them. “You gave everything up. For this? For a senseless, unnecessary death?”

Jayce pulled his legs up to his chest so he could rest his chin on his knees. “I did it for you.”

Viktor scoffed, but Jayce just shook his head. “Nothing for you is senseless,” he murmured, cheek squishing against his leg as he tilted his head. “We don’t even know if you would have been able to do it alone anyway.” He paused to look up, catching Viktor’s eye. Viktor just stayed silent, meeting his gaze.

“You don’t always have to do everything alone. You never have.” He stretched a hand out to grasp one of Viktor’s hands. This time he didn’t pull away. “That’s why we’re partners.”

He couldn’t help bringing the hand up to his lips, pressing them lightly against a faded mole tucked in the lithe curve where his knuckle met the end of his hand. Jayce peeked his eyes up to make sure Viktor was okay with the touch. “To the end and beyond.”

Viktor looked more unsure than anything, but the tension in his face seemed to smooth out just a little bit at Jayce’s touch. He let Jayce pull him closer once again.

“We have a lot of time to talk, I think,” Jayce said against Viktor’s knuckles. “There’s no need to focus right now on everything we just lost.” He let out a shaky breath. “Can we just be here together, address the things that need to be addressed later?”

Viktor pursed his lips together tightly in response, but he finally let out the smallest of nods. “If that is what you want.”

Jayce felt his smile pressing into the skin of Viktor’s hand. Ever the stubborn scientist , he mused to himself.

One of the butterflies flying around them landed on Viktor’s wrist and Jayce gently let go so they could look at it. Viktor let the butterfly crawl onto his finger, bringing his hand up to his face.

“Hm.” Jayce watched as Vikor analyzed the butterfly in interest, watched as Viktor’s eyes flicked around to take in the shapes and pattern of the butterfly.

“How did you find me?” Jayce asked, once again leaning his head forward against his knee.

Viktor nodded, not taking his eyes off the butterfly. “When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw were these butterflies. Meadow browns, did you know?”

Jayce chuckled. “You were always the butterfly expert between the two of us. I don’t think I could identify a butterfly species if my life depended on it.”

With a shrug, “Eh, these were the most common butterflies in the undercity. I think it would have been odd for me to not know what species they were.”

“I mean, I don’t know any of the butterfly species in Piltover,” Jayce pointed out. “Never used to be one for studying living things.”

“Neither was I. And yet…” Viktor flashed Jayce a small smirk, motioning to the butterfly in his hand Jayce just rolled his eyes, smiling.

Viktor raised his hand to let the butterfly fly away. “There was something like a, a pull? If you will. That encouraged me to follow where they were going.”

“I think I was feeling something similar. Although there weren’t any butterflies.”

Viktor brought a finger up to tap his chin. “Curious.” 

Jayce held up a hand realization. “No, sorry, there was actually one butterfly.”

“Just one?”

“Just one.” Jayce looked up at the butterflies flying overhead. “They were the same butterfly as this kind.”

“Meadow brown.”

 “Right, a meadow brown.” Jayce braced his hand behind him so he could lay on his back, eyes focused on the kaleidoscope of butterflies above.

Viktor followed suit, laying down in the opposite direction such that his head was upside down next to the top of Jayce's abdomen. “I followed them for a long time, until I came across a river of sorts.” Jayce felt soft hair brushing against the top of his leg as Viktor shyly leaned his head against him. “I waited even longer, until…”

“Until?”

Viktor shrugged. “Well, until there you were. Floating up to the surface of the river.” 

Jayce reached up a hand to brush against Viktor’s forearm. He seemed to get the hint and lithe, calloused hands intertwined with his own. 

“They led me to you,” Viktor said after a few moments, voice soft and low.

“Evidently, mine led me to you too.”

The warmth of their bodies against one another seemed to sedate them, and Jayce closed his eyes. “Only you,” he breathed out, gripping Viktor’s hand tighter.

He felt Viktor sit up beside him, but before he could protest the movement, the warmth was no longer at his side but above him. He opened his eyes to find Viktor leaning over him again, this time from the front.

“To the end and beyond,” Viktor finished. Before Jayce could say anything, Viktor pressed his head down so their foreheads touched again.

Jayce met Viktor’s eyes and saw the affection, the longing, the love bursting out of them. “It was selfish to leave everything behind, maybe,” he murmured, hoping his own eyes conveyed his own feelings. “But I’ll never regret being selfish if it means I get to spend eternity with my partner.”

Viktor hummed softly. “Just partners, hm?” There was a twinge of uncertainty in his voice, and, well.

Jayce couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have Viktor holding even a trace of doubt about his feelings, especially not in death.

He pressed his forehead into Viktor’s with more strength and closed his eyes again. “Whatever you want to call us. Whatever label you want to use,” he said, his hands reaching up to wrap around Viktor’s shoulders and card through his hair. “I love you.”

Jayce heard Viktor’s breath hitch and hands reached up to cup his cheeks. “Those are some powerful words, Jayce,” Viktor whispered, finger brushing against the crease in Jayce’s closed eyes. “But, you must know that I love you too.”

It really took them death to admit this to one another, Jayce couldn’t help lamenting to himself with a bittersweet pang in his heart. 

But even death couldn’t stop the swelling in his heart over Viktor’s words, over the confirmation , over the breathless admission while they held each other so tenderly.

And so hold him Jayce would. 

To the end and beyond.

Somewhere in Piltover and Zaun, where the cities connected adjacent to the bridge, in the steel oasis where Viktor had found himself frequenting often as a boy, two pale specks stood out against the beige of the wall.

Right off the edge where both Jayce and Viktor had stood long before– one talking the other off the ledge while they both wordlessly admitted their failures to use Hextech for good to one another–, two chrysalides were illuminated by the morning sun.

The smaller chrysalis twitched. A thin crack slowly formed on the side as the butterfly inside pushed and pushed and pushed .

The material finally gave way and a Meadow Brown crawled out, shuffling his still-folded wings. 

As the butterfly stood on the remains of his chrysalis, new wings drying in the breeze, the much bigger chrysalis began to shake. The butterfly began stretching his wings out while the second slowly worked his way out of his old home.

Even though it only took a few minutes for the first to leave his old home, the second took longer crawling out of his.

The first butterfly flapped open his wings for the first time just as the second emerged fully from his own chrysalis. 

They both stayed on their respective chrysalides for hours, letting the wind straighten their wings. It became apparent that no amount of waiting would uncrumple the first butterfly’s right hindwing, but he continued stretching his wings regardless.

Just as the sun reached its midway spot in the sky, both butterflies began beating their wings rapidly against the air.

Through the rays of the sun, the butterflies lifted off for the first time.

Together.