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Viktor experienced one single, glorious moment of unification before everything shattered. Then, there was Jayce. And then there was nothing.
The blackness seemed to stretch onward in an infinite, smothering curtain of velvet. It was nothing at all like the sparkling cosmos of the realm of the arcane. Here, there was no kaleidoscope of possibilities folding into each other in a symphony of starlight; no luminous souls dotting the landscape of his destined evolution. It was not even– what was it– the dreamless solitude, the immense loneliness that his other self had warned him about, via proxy of Jayce. There was no one and nothing here that was capable of lacking dreams. Only blackness.
No. There was something else there– gripping, all-consuming– shards of sensation along his being. His being. The horrible shape of him crashed through the darkness at once, an awareness of flesh and form and breath. And movement. His body was vibrating, threatening to come apart at the seams, arcing painfully away from the inescapable sensation pressing along his skin. Shivering, he realized. He was cold.
Humanity followed the slow realization, blazing through the darkness as a harsh, icy supernova of animal sensation. The baser realities of human existence which Viktor had shed months ago assaulted him: the rattling stretch and pull of his lungs as they filled with the chill air, the rush of pulse in his ears, the twinge of his knee radiating along his tendons with the warmth of an old friend. How easy it had been to grow unused to the pain that had been with him his entire life. He longed for the metallic numbness of his altered body, or, barring that, the numbness of the cosmos. He knew that neither was an option. He felt overwhelmingly, devastatingly sure that all traces of the arcane had been stripped from his being.
Through the barrage of senses, he was dimly aware of another feeling. Concentrated, rather than encompassing– distinctly not cold. He was shaking again, or being shaken, and at last the final layers of the curtain parted to blinding sunlight.
“– tor. Viktor!”
He blinked, unable to move much of anything else, as the world around him came into focus. Bright– so bright– except for one lovely shadow consuming the center of his field of vision. He took shelter there, squinting as his pupils adjusted. The shadow was not a shadow, but a face– Jayce. Of course, it was Jayce.
“Oh, thank god. Are you– are you alright?”
The meaning of the words swam sluggishly through Viktor's brain, delayed behind the audio, a semantic echo. Alright. What a hilarious, stupid concept. He was in no way alright– how could he be? He was entirely overwhelmed– fatigued– torn apart and remade and unmade. He felt so impossibly, microscopically small. Engulfed in the circle of Jayce's arms, with one warm palm cradling the back of his head– but his self was gone, collapsed into the singularity of his limiting humanity, with no greater awareness extending beyond his own body. He was so incredibly alone. The web of souls he had surrounded himself with throbbed like a phantom limb.
Viktor did not have the ability to put this into words, nor was he sure that would be a wise thing to do, so he said, “Yes."
It came out as a halted, dry croak. He swallowed and tried again. "Yes.”
While Viktor was grimacing at the sensation of the reverberation of his own voice, Jayce pulled him close, buried his head against his chest, and sobbed. Jayce’s hair– longer than Viktor had ever known him to keep it– tickled along his collar bone, and the scruff of his beard scratched against his sternum. On top of everything else, it was too much feeling. Viktor flexed his fingers and, finding himself able, pushed meekly at Jayce. It was entirely ineffective, but Jayce acquiesced and raised his head.
“Sorry– sorry,” he said, hoarse through the tears that were now flowing freely down his cheeks. "I just– I can't believe I have you back. We're alive," he laughed weakly, his mouth pulling into an incredulous smile to reveal the gap in his front teeth. A curious imperfection that Viktor had always taken as proof that not even Jayce Talis, Piltover’s Golden Boy, was above the mercy of biology.
“Jayce," Viktor remembered, “I am cold."
“Oh. Oh! Of course," Jayce stammered, sliding his hands around to hold Viktor by his shoulders. The feeling of his thumbs over the bony joints caused Viktor to realize that he was nude. He registered that there should have been some shame associated with this, but was unable to summon it through the cacophony of everything else. He had become accustomed to nudity in his inhuman form, choosing to cover himself not out of modesty but rather for the comfort of his commune, who still bore human attachments to concepts such as shame. Or, they had, until Jayce had blown the remaining reserves of his power out through a hole in his chest.
The same hands that had wrought that destruction, the same hands that grasped so tightly to his own in those final moments in the astral plane– the same hands that had always seemed to hover instinctively for support around his shoulder or back– now smoothed a blanket around Viktor's shoulders in a parody of their interaction when he had first awoken, fused with the hexcore and irrecoverably changed (or so he'd thought). Now, he was changed again. He was beginning to grow tired of change.
Jayce, it seemed, still bore some human attachments to shame. His face flushed as he looked down to unfurl more of the blanket from the crumpled heap in the grass to cover Viktor's lower regions, then very pointedly looked up at the sky as he finished his adjustments. “Sorry, I– sorry.”
The weight of the blanket (Jayce's blanket, always Jayce's) was comforting– warm and heavy, a dampener over Viktor's raw nerves. It, like Viktor, had been restored to its mundane glory: no longer the billowing cloak of a god, neither fresh and new. It had the same pilled texture as always, weathered with use, and the same frayed edges where Viktor had habitually worried his fingers against the fabric. Viktor wondered if Jayce saw him in the same light– if he noticed the threadbare patches where his soul was worn down, distended to the size of divinity, set ablaze, and then extinguished. Perhaps he saw the bits of himself sewn into the tapestry, threaded among years of collaboration and easy partnership. Perhaps he saw the tattered, raw edges from their conflict– still fresh.
How infuriating that Viktor should have to wonder about Jayce's thoughts at all.
He pulled himself from Jayce's grip, managing to hold himself upright with his own febrile strength. They knelt, knee to knee, in an alpine field, the brisk valley breeze weaving through long grass and wildflowers as it came down the mountain. Viktor supposed that this was not the ending he probably deserved. Or maybe it was; maybe being confined to this form was the punishment. He could hardly bring himself to care for the morality of it.
“You're angry," Jayce noted, because he had long ago developed the frustrating ability to read Viktor's expressions as easily as the meandering chickenscratch of his own notes. Viktor longed for the mask, feeling more naked for the lack of it than his lack of clothing.
"You are the one who should be angry,” Viktor said flatly.
Jayce's eyebrows pulled together, the crease between them deeper than Viktor remembered. “How can you think that, after– after what just happened? Viktor, we did it. We changed the timeline– saved Piltover. And the hexcore’s gone. You're you again.” His fingers twitched in his lap, as if he itched to reach out but thought better of it.
"Yes. But I still did those things.” Enumerating those things was too daunting a task, so Viktor left it at that.
“No," Jayce protested. “I know you. That wasn't you. You've only ever wanted for us to do good. You're– you're better at staying true to that than I ever was. It was the hexcore, whispering to you, wasn't it?”
“In part," Viktor admitted hesitantly, and it was true. He could see that now; Sky was never really Sky. A part of him had always known that. He had allowed himself to be manipulated by guilt, by anger for his fate and the cruel world, by his desire for healing and legacy– puppeteered by the strings of his own humanity until he severed them entirely.
But he did sever them. And though there had been another will at work within him, the root of the problem was still his own desires. Even now, he could see the logic of his glorious evolution. A world without conflict would be a beautiful thing. The problem, as the mage had shown him, was the loneliness that came with being everyone. The dissolution of all chaos was a solitary thing.
“In part?"
Viktor had always been lonely. Until Jayce.
We can be of one mind. United.
Viktor pulled the fabric tighter around himself, shuddering. "I never wanted– I don't believe, now, that choice should be removed from the equation. It is as you said: people should be free to choose their own fates.”
“But…?” Jayce asked, urging him to continue. His face was concerned; patient. Withholding judgement. Far too kind.
Viktor didn't know what to say. But I do not see the beauty, as you do, in imperfections. But our humanity makes us flawed. But I am so alone. But I still want to consume you.
There had been an instant, before the device halted his progress, when he had touched Jayce's mind. And, oh, to have tasted Jayce Talis– it was almost worth ending the world.
Viktor wanted to taste again.
“But… I still allowed this to happen," he eventually settled on. “I was a willing vessel for the arcane. I still hurt you."
Jayce swallowed, and said thickly, “I hurt you, too." He raised a hand and pressed it softly to the blanket, over Viktor's chest.
It was not an apology. Viktor did not need one. "I was the one who asked you to destroy the hexcore in the first place,” he shrugged.
“And I didn't listen when I should have. I- I couldn't let you go."
"Yes, well. It seems you are destined to always pull me back from death’s door. For better or for worse.” The ledge at the pump room; the explosion; the end of the world. Always Jayce. Only Jayce.
“You saved me first," Jayce said with a small smile. “For better or for worse."
Always for the better, he wanted to say. There is no world worth existing without you.
It was Jayce's turn to shiver as the breeze ruffled the lengths of his hair. "We should, uh. Try to find shelter.” He stood and lumbered a few steps away, shielding his face against the sun as he scanned the horizon. Viktor's gaze caught on the brace clamped around his left leg– the way the knee no longer had the same range of motion, the off-balance lilt it lent to his usually smooth gait. How cruel, that in order to save Viktor, he should have to suffer the same affliction that had always plagued him.
Viktor didn't know the full extent of what Jayce had experienced these past months. He wanted to reach into his mind, to pull it from him– to take from him the fear and the roughness he had sensed through their connection in arcane. He had changed so much, and Viktor was afraid he did not know him anymore.
All at once, Viktor felt exposed and terrified. The open horizon spanned too large, too far in all directions, and he couldn't sense Jayce's mind, and Jayce was still walking away from him. The world seemed suddenly so vast and empty, and Jayce was the only thing in it that mattered. He took another step away. Would he come back? Viktor had wronged him– he knew that. With his heart thundering in his ears and his breath coming in short gasps, Viktor lurched to his feet. Pain shot through his right leg without the support of his brace, and he stumbled like a newborn deer before the limb gave out.
“Viktor!"
Jayce rushed forward, only just managing to catch him as Viktor collapsed against his broad chest. That warm, sturdy expanse was suddenly Viktor's only anchor to the earth; he feared that without it, he would be truly and well alone. "Stay,” he gasped between starved breaths, his fingers twisting in the fabric of Jayce's shirt.
“Okay," Jayce placated, winding his arms tightly around him for support. “Okay. I'm here. As long as you need, I'm here."
“Speak to me," Viktor begged, muffling his voice as he turned his face into Jayce's chest, pressing as though he could melt into it. “Your thoughts."
"Okay. I, uh. Well, I'm worried about you. I just wanted to find somewhere safe for us to sleep tonight. I hadn't really thought about anything beyond that. I just– fuck, Viktor, I feel so lucky.”
Lucky. Lucky? They'd nearly ruined everything– Viktor would have ruined everything. Simmering beneath the panic was a growing rage at the fact that he could not simply read Jayce's mind to understand him. He was too far away, even with their bodies meshed against one another. “Why?" he sobbed. “Why did you stay with me?"
“I meant what I said,” Jayce said, the gruffness of tears entering his voice again. He pressed his mouth to the hair at the crown of Viktor's head and spoke. "I just wanted you back. Even if it meant the end. Just those few moments– they would have been enough.”
"I cannot have been worth it– I am broken– I have done unforgivable things–”
"God, Viktor, I was ready to die with you– for you– what else do I have to do to prove it to you?" Jayce pried his face off of his shirt, turning his chin to pin him with the smoldering hazel intensity of his eyes. “I love you."
Viktor felt as if another anomaly had been thrown at his face. Time stopped– bent inwards on itself– rewound.
He's twenty-five and Heimerdinger’s made him trudge halfway across the academy district because some idiot student has blown the Kiramman’s workshop wide open. Jayce's utter conviction and altruism at his trial stir something in Viktor; he finds a jewel in the rubble in the form of Jayce's notebook. He returns to the scene of the crime, intending to exhume the place for more research, but winds up pulling Jayce back from a very literal ledge. How stupid, how selfish to consider throwing such a mind away. Viktor wants to berate him; Viktor wants to water the seed of greatness in him and watch it flourish.
It's three in the morning that same night and he's broken into his boss’s lab for a man recused to the care of his mother on an insanity plea. He's only just met the man. Enforcers are banging on the door. The math looks like it's going to hold, though, and Viktor can't remember feeling so alive before in his life. Together, they make starlight and he's weightless with the wonder of this impossible dream.
He's twenty-six and still can't quite believe how attached at the hip Jayce seems to be with him. They have funding now– a real lab– investors, academy support, council contacts, even– and yet it's Viktor that Jayce chooses to spend the vast majority of his time with. Viktor's never been one for collaboration, but Jayce has so easily folded him into the work (their Hextech dream, he'd said). And they work astoundingly well together, minds like twin engines turning at the same speed. Of course, they have their disagreements; but having someone capable of pushing back at him is exhilarating. Viktor finds himself surprisingly enamored even to his quirks: little sketches in the margins of pages filled with equations, a sleep schedule as unstable as his own, even the way Jayce's erratic genius manifests itself as chaos cluttering every surface of the lab. So polished for the others; only ever Jayce with him.
He's still twenty-six and their proof of concept wins the Distinguished Innovator's Competition. He throws up before their presentation. Jayce buys him a sweet drink, the expensive kind with bubbles to settle your stomach. They loft the trophy together for the photograph; it's the only one Viktor has of himself.
He's twenty-eight and Jayce builds him a leg brace, forges the parts by hand. It took a lot of convincing before Viktor allowed it. It makes the bad days better.
He's thirty-one and everything is perfect, but suddenly, he's dying. He should have known better, really. He doesn't tell Jayce; he doesn't want it to end. Doesn't want Jayce to look at him like he's a corpse. They're making a difference, but there's so many more people to be helped. By the time he leaves this world, he hopes, no one will die of sump-sickness again.
He's thirty-three when things start to unravel. Politics and blood and Jayce at his hospital bedside. Their beautiful dream teasing a cure, but bringing only death and rot– and yet, he can't bring himself to end it (coward, coward). He almost ends himself instead. Jayce makes a promise he knows he can't keep. Viktor lets himself believe him.
Then– an inflection point.
He's ageless, beyond biology, superceded the confines of humanity. He should be happy. He’s perfect. But there's someone missing.
And, fuck, when he finally touches Jayce's mind, it's a better high than any he's had in his life, before or after his transformation. All those years in the lab are nothing compared to this perfect unity. He's always known Jayce's mind was beautiful, but he's nonetheless struck with awe. He tangles himself in it, weaves through the golden threads like lovers' legs beneath the sheets; oh, the sheer intelligence, the creativity– newly calloused on the exterior by fear and guilt and the weight of the world– wrapped around the childlike hope and naivety and need for approval that comes from a soft upbringing. And throughout all of it, this choking, staggering love. So much love. And–
And it's gone.
And Jayce loves him.
Viktor lets himself believe him.
"I want to devour you, Jayce Talis.”
Jayce released a shaky sigh, curling into him and sinking them both to their knees. The new lines of tension in his skin smoothed out, and his lips pulled into a smile that could drive out even the darkest storm clouds. "Please,” he breathed.
“I don't think you understand," Viktor warned, his tone measured. “I want to consume your mind." He carefully lifted a hand, wrapping feather-light fingers around the hollow beneath Jayce's jaw; Jayce leaned into the touch like a dog seeking its master's hand. “I want to peel back your flesh and burrow inside. I want to crack open your ribs and make a home in your heart. I want us to be one."
“I felt it, too," Jayce rasped. “For just an instant. You're so beautiful."
“Does it scare you? To know that the Herald will always be a part of me?"
Jayce grasped Viktor's other hand; lifted it to his face. “No," he said, resolute.
“It should."
“I don't care." Jayce placed reverent kisses at the bony apex of each knuckle, turning pleading eyes to meet his.
Experimentally, Viktor turned his thumb and pressed into the plush flesh of Jayce's lower lip. He opened willingly for him, taking the finger into the wet heat of his mouth and waiting obediently for further instruction.
Viktor was mortal again, and Jayce was going to be the death of him.
The cracked dam of his reservations broke free, and Viktor surged forward, pulling his hand free and replacing it with his own lips. The kiss was tender, starved; heavy with the ache of lost years and the thrill of discovery. Jayce moaned, his breath mingling as his hands tangled in the lengths of Viktor's hair, holding him close. The bestial sensation of it all was overwhelming to Viktor, only just readjusting to his human body, but it was too intoxicating to stop. Viktor decided that he would make Jayce his in every manner still afforded to him by this cage of a body. He could endure this prison with Jayce. For Jayce. A beast and his keeper; Viktor had the possessive urge to wish himself the keeper, but he had no delusions. He knew he was the beast.
It was not divinity; it was not perfection. But it was enough. That night, they kept each other warm, and Viktor did not feel so alone.