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He did not recognize himself. He did not feel like himself. There would be no forcing Jayce to see him as a person. Jayce would try. He was always so eager to please, but the fact was that he wasn't the same man. He wasn't even sure if a man was the right term for what he was anymore.
Was he more hextech or human?
He knew he must have retained a sliver of his original anatomy. The hextech had changed him forever, and yet even after all of that, the pain of his illness was still in him. Transformed but ever present, not striking but lingering. It was as if the new technology had tried to bind itself to his humanity, and all it found was his pain.
There was an energy coursing through him. It hummed like white noise, and when he focused on it, he could hear the whisper of potential. Living technology, as they had sought to create willingly or unwillingly.
They had always seen the possibilities hextech held, but it's hard to imagine an ocean when looking at a bucket of water. Was he an ocean now, or just a much larger bucket?
He missed the early days of their partnership when their questions begged for unobtainable answers with no promise of a reply. When every discovery was a success and not a lingering moral quandary.
Viktor closed his eyes and let himself live in those now precious memories.
"I don't think we've tapped into most of what hextech can do!" Jayce said, adding numbers to his formula so quickly that he nearly snapped the chalk in half in his exuberance. "For all we know, we could use it to live forever!"
His enthusiasm came off the back of another breakthrough. He was untouchable when this happened. So full of fire and possibility. No endeavor was too small.
"Why would you want to live forever?" Viktor asked, turning his chair and looking at the work Jayce had plotted out.
With a smile, he staggered to his feet, erased the last several lines, then took the chalk from Jayce's hand and rewrote the formula correctly.
"You make mistakes when you get over-excited," Viktor said affectionately.
"Which is why I always have you here to look over my work." Jayce smiled and gave his arm a light squeeze before letting his hand fall to hover over his hip. This was a precautionary measure, a way for Jayce to try and help him feel more stable when standing. He had grown accustomed to how prone the man was to touch. He once found it presumptuous, but now he found it comforting.
"I will not always be here. You should be more careful or at least choose between celebrating and working. Not both." Viktor finished his corrections and leaned back against the desk, propping his cain next to him.
"Why wouldn't you want to live forever?" Jayce asked, adding more things to the formula before facing him. "Think of how far we could take hextech if we had a lifespan like Councilor Heimerdinger!"
Viktor shook his head. "For you, that would sound thrilling, but for me, not so much. Being in this much pain is hard enough to bear for one lifetime."
"But what if hextech could fix that? Cure your pain for good? That’s always been one of our goals," Jayce said.
"As far as we know, hextech does not interface with biology in that way," Viktor corrected. “Getting my hopes up at this junction is fruitless.”
"Maybe not, but it can be used to create things. I created your brace using it!” Jayce grabbed Viktor's cane and smoothed his hand over it. “It’s about time I started upgrading your cain too-"
He put his hand on Jayce’s, lowering the cane from his eye level. "Temporary measures, Jayce. Not something you would want to live forever with."
With an audible huff, Jayce put his cane back and pushed his hand through his hair, grumbling. "You're right...I just don’t feel like we have enough time to do everything we want to. We've just skimmed the surface of its potential. I know we have!”
"So your first thought was some sort of perpetual youth machine? Ehhh, It may be a little far-fetched even for your dreams.” Viktor's chuckle turned into a hiss as his leg twinged painfully.
He grabbed the table with both hands and squeezed his eyes shut, only to open them again when he felt Jayce snake his hand around his waist and help him into a chair.
“Thank you, I'm fine. Just a spasm.” Viktor preemptively answered the question he knew would be asked and took a deep breath. Jayce’s lingering hand on his shoulder was, solid and grounding. He was an ever-warming presence. An ironic companion for someone so widely regarded as cold. “Who knows? With all we’ve managed to accomplish, perhaps that is not so outlandish. I shouldn't doubt you.”
“As it turns out, a machine like that would be useless to me even if it did exist." Jayce started to occupy himself by taking measurements of his cane. Even when celebrating a victory, he could not help but keep charging forward. A precisely brutish form of scientific research.
"Why is that?" Viktor said, rubbing circles into his thigh to relieve some of the pressure. He was forced to grip the seat suddenly as Jayce used his cane to hook his chair and wheel it closer to him so they could face each other.
"There's no point living forever if I can’t have my partner with me."
He was pulled from the pleasant memory as he heard footsteps running through the tunnel. He should have anticipated his persistence. Going as deep into Zaun as possible was no obstacle for the unstoppable Jayce Talis.
Jayce rounded the corner and stopped dead when he saw him sitting crumpled against a series of tubes that led to vents far above them. He was looking out over a broken city that built him.
“This time, you are interrupting something.” He said, turning to meet his eyes.
“Good. I’ve been told I’m a disruptive force and a bad influence. It took me almost a week to find you, Viktor!” Jayce’s clothing was unwashed, his eyes were darker, and he hadn’t bothered to shave. He was leaning against a support beam as if he had run all the way from Piltover without stopping.
“You were not supposed to find me, so I did a poor job of hiding,” Viktor said, and as much as he wanted to look back out over the city, his eyes couldn't leave Jayce’s person. “Did you not hear what I said to you in the lab? Whatever my place is in this world, it is no longer with you.”
“I don't accept that!” Jayce shouted, pounding his fist against the support beam. He hung his head while catching his breath before approaching him. “Is it because I was too involved with the council, or is this all because I broke my promise to destroy the hexcore?”
Viktor looked at him, tired but bewildered, and watched unmoving as Jayce crouched in front of him. With a frustrated grunt usually reserved for after spending hours on a project with no progress, he started to pull him from his slouched position until he was propped with his back flat against the wall and not at an angle.
“What are you doing?” Viktor questioned, but didn’t stop him.
“You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep sitting like that. It’ll put too much pressure on your brace and leg.”
“Jayce, stop,” Viktor commanded, and without question, his hands stilled, but they didn't pull away.
“I no longer have a brace. What was there has fused with me as you saw in the lab.” Viktor sat back and held his hand up in front of them, watching as the dust filtered through his skin. “I think…I am the hexcore now. I can feel its power coursing through me. All of the dangers that it posed, the murder it has already committed, all intertwined into the fabric of who I am.”
“You’re saying that like you think you’re some kind of monster.” Jayce reached out to trail his fingers over his palm and down his wrist with gentle reverence.
“Maybe I am not right now, but it means I have the potential to do much harm. I can not risk that.” Viktor lowered his arm and, against his better judgment, rested his head on Jayce's shoulder. “We have been on the precipice of something for a long time, but I will not drag you any further than this. You have…other people who can take my place. You will not be alone.”
Jayce's hand met his lower back as he brought them close enough together that Viktor was nearly curled into his lap. He threaded his fingers through his hair and sat silently for seconds that stretched into hours.
“You’ve already given me a taste of what it’s like without you. I hated it. I don’t regret my choice to break my promise and save you. I refuse to apologize for it.” Jayce’s arms tightened before his next words. “You were dead. Your back, it was…” he started to run his hand along the dip of his spine. His brace was now a plate of metal fixed to his chest, and the rivets on his spine still stood out on his changed skin.
“You are thinking with your heart. Not your head. I am a danger to you, to Zaun, and to Piltover until I figure out what I am.” Viktor sighed and started to pull away.
“We've been a part of this journey together from day one. Every experiment we did, every risk we took was dangerous. I’m begging you, Viktor. Don't block me out now when we have so much more to learn.”
“Circumstances are not what they once were. This is bigger than both of us now.” Viktor grabbed his crutch and planted it on the ground so he could stand. He wasn't sure it was necessary for his mobility anymore, but it was an odd comfort.
It was a single broken please that stopped him from walking away for a second time. It vibrated through his core and resonated with him in a way that felt as debilitating as his disease had.
He pulled the robe tighter around him and tried to take another step. He couldn't. Whatever he had become, it was still human enough to know that his affections were too deeply rooted to leave, knowing the outcome would be Jayce shattering himself on his guilt. When he left before, Jayce was angry. He could live with that reaction. Rage was productive, but sadness, loss. Those were ever-lingering feelings.
He was a man who lost everything and still managed to have one thing left to lose. A walking contradiction to the laws of basic nature. Viktor closed his eyes and stepped off the precipice they had teetered on for so long.
“What…am I to you, Jayce?” He turned as he asked and found the man in question standing a hair's breadth from him. Viktor gripped Jayce’s tie and looked into his hazel eyes, waiting for an honest answer.
His reply came in the form of rough, hungry lips on his. Jayce’s hand was on the back of his neck, his arm cradling his slight frame as if he might break. Always so gentle, always so overly cautious.
He dropped his crutch to put his arms around him, trusting him to keep his weight, and kissed back with fervent need. Their passion created a link, and for a moment, he could feel what it was like to be Jayce. He could see his mind and sense his thoughts as they wheeled around him. His own words echoed in his ears.
It was, affection that held us together.
He felt the pain of those words. He felt the agony of the next few days as Jayce traded in every favor he had ever gained to find him. He would have ripped apart Zaun and Piltover alike to lay eyes on him again. Every night, his mind scripted what he would say when he found him. Would find him, not could, because he didn't let himself believe there was any other outcome. Whatever it took.
Yet, in all his yearning and worry, there were no thoughts of forcing his hand. Jayce would have let him walk away if he persisted.
When the kiss broke, they made no move to let each other go.
“Does this mean you’ll come back to the lab?” Jayce asked, caressing his cheek.
“This is still foolish and dangerously ill-advised,” Viktor replied, leaning into his hand.
“But you will come back with me?” Jayce urged.
“I will come back with you after we take a second to rest. You don't look like you can stand up for too much longer.” Viktor finally pulled away and sat at the edge of the room, looking out of the gaping hole one could call a window.
Jayce made himself comfortable next to Viktor by resting his head on his lap and sighing as if it were the best pillow he had ever used, even though he knew that his current anatomy would not offer such comfort.
Viktor let out a stuttering breath and pushed the hair back from Jayce’s eyes.
“I wonder if there is a world where we never make it this far. Where we lose every part of our humanity in the pursuit of becoming something more,” Viktor whispered.
Even in that lifetime. I'll still be there to remind you who you are.” Jayce pushed himself up just long enough to press their foreheads together. “Does this mean that your illness is gone? Or is your life span greater than it was before?
“I’m unsure. My disability is not gone; only changed. It doesn’t matter either way. I still don't want to live forever,” Viktor replied, smiling as he watched his hopeful face.
“Why not?” Jayce replied defensively.
"Your lifespan is still unaltered. There is no point living forever if I can not have my partner with me."