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They stare at each other with an almost uncomprehending horror, trying to understand what the other has become.
Jayce had thought he was ready, was the thing. But he’s never been ready for Viktor, and he figures that’s one of the defining features of his life. His hammer is so very heavy in his hands; his head aches.
“Jayce,” Viktor murmurs.
And Jayce lets his hammer hit the ground.
He knows he can’t fail. He refuses to fail, and yet – yet, this isn’t the way. His mind fissures with all that he knows, all the possibilities that stem out of this pivotal, important moment. It’s only the fate of their known world, the fate of all humanity –
“Jayce,” Viktor murmurs again.
Jayce’s eyes snap open. He hadn’t realized that he had closed them. He’s trembling, but Viktor is suddenly much closer, directly in front of him, feet planted on the floor. He’s reaching for Jayce, a hand outstretched.
Jayce flinches.
“Don’t!” he snaps. He heaves the hammer back up between them, putting distance between himself and Viktor. Viktor goes preternaturally still, and Jayce can see that mind working in all of its beautiful complexity, calculating the actual risk that he is to Viktor.
But other Jayces have fallen in this moment, the Jayce of now knows. They’ve let Viktor touch them, and Viktor has changed them, healed them, tried to perfect them. They slide blissfully into oblivion. No. No, that option is a failure.
“Don’t,” Jayce says again, his voice even despite the fact he’s panting. Gods, his body hurts. “Don’t touch me.”
“All right,” Viktor agrees, holding up his hands in front of him. Jayce stares at them, entranced by how they’re still the same shape, still the same slim, dexterous shape, despite now being enmeshed with metal and magic.
“What is your plan here, Jayce?” Viktor asks.
To stop you, Jayce wants to say. But, no, if he says that, Viktor will shut down; Viktor will get defensive; Viktor will not listen to him.
Jayce carries the weight that the Jayces fail more often than not when trying to stop Viktor. Violence and power are the easiest solution, even if they set off a terrible chain reaction of events. Few Jayces try talking to their Viktor, which the Jayce of now doesn’t understand. But it’s what he’s going to do, because he doesn’t want to see the cratered hole of Viktor’s chest, to watch the light drain out of his eyes.
“I need you to listen to me,” Jayce pleads. He puts the hammer down – fully down – and straightens, also holding his hands out in placation.
Viktor takes him in all over again, updating his appraisal, his gaze lingering on Jayce’s ill-mended leg, the aggravated rune in his arm, his unkempt beard and hair.
“I am listening,” Viktor promises. He means it, Jayce thinks. His words are slow and intentional. He has all of Viktor’s attention. His voice and eyes are the same in a way that makes Jayce ache for the simpler days of toiling around in the lab with one another. He hadn’t known how important that time was. He hadn’t enjoyed it enough.
Because despite the similarities, he’s achingly aware that there’s something other to Viktor that is unknowable to him, that has demarcated a difference between them. That Viktor is threatening to spill over into entirely.
“I’ve been to another world,” Jayce says, quiet. He sees the flicker of interest and intrigue in Viktor’s gaze. The desperate curiosity that has always been there, the reaching for the impossible.
“A world that ours could become,” Jayce continues. He sees the flickers of mechanical faces beneath his eyelids, even though his eyes are opening and he’s still looking at Viktor.
“I met you there. And you asked me to stop our world from becoming like that one. But only you can help me.”
He reaches out slowly and presses a hand to Viktor’s chest. Viktor’s face spasms with surprise, the most emotion that Jayce has seen from him since he entered the room. He wonders when the last time anyone touched Viktor as a friend. Too long, he suspects.
“What was this world like?” Viktor asks.
“I can show you,” Jayce says. His pulse is pounding in his throat. He can’t deny that he’s not scared. He is. Scared for himself, scared for the whole damn world. Scared for Viktor.
“Like this?” Viktor asks, moving slowly to press two fingertips to Jayce’s temple. Jayce doesn’t flinch this time.
“Yes,” Jayce whispers.
“Very well,” Viktor agrees.
Jayce closes his eyes. He feels the brush of Viktor’s mind against his own. It’s terrifying. Some fundamental part of himself is still quaking, afraid that this will be the moment that Viktor changes him, unmakes him. That he fails.
The moment and Jayce’s reactions contradict themselves, though; he’s primally afraid. This is unnatural to the cores of humanity. And yet, touching his mind to Viktor’s is the most natural thing in the world. It’s what they were always striving toward, wasn’t it? A melding of thoughts to create something beautiful.
Jayce opens his eyes and in front of him is Viktor, iridescent and glowing, hair ablaze with white light.
They’re in the ruins of the world. In front of them is the original fallen Jayce, distorted beyond any possible recognition, forever bowing to Viktor’s will.
The Viktor of now automatically steps toward the figure. There’s a crease of a frown between his brows as he reaches out to touch, his fingers sliding across the smooth metal face.
He looks back to Jayce.
“This was you,” he says, coming to the correct conclusion, as always, with alarming speed.
“Yes,” Jayce says.
Viktor looks out across the rest of the world. The crumbled buildings, the hints of the anomaly. The legions of machine people who have gone mostly still, their facial patterns a mimicry of the work that Viktor has already started.
Jayce gives him time, letting him pull the pieces together.
“Why would I do this?” Viktor asks finally, and Jayce is so goddamn relieved to hear more horror in his voice than curiosity. He wants to hug Viktor so badly in that moment, and his emotions bleed through in the moment, pulling at Viktor’s awareness.
“You were trying to ease everyone’s suffering,” Jayce says. And that’s the tragedy of it, isn’t it? He knows that Viktor never went into any of this with malintent. He’d just wanted to help people – to make it so that they didn’t have to go through what he was going through, with a body that he felt was betraying him and restricting him, that had been marred and limited by the virtue of the place he was born.
Viktor pauses for too long.
And then says, “Ah,” in a way that frightens Jayce, in a way that makes him worry that he’s handed Viktor a piece of understanding that might be dangerous. That might invite him down the very road they’re trying to avoid. He panics, and the memory of the world ripples and distorts around them.
Viktor takes note, because of course he does. How can he not? He rests a hand against the curve of Jayce’s forearm.
“Hush,” he says gently. “We are working on how to avoid this fate, yes?”
“Are we?” Jayce asks, voice splintering, tears streaming from his eyes in torrents of light. “Are we working together?” He needs the affirmation – needs to hear Viktor say that this isn’t the ending that he wants for them and the world. He needs to hear that Viktor is on his side once again.
Jayce drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around Viktor’s slim waist, burying his face against his navel.
“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m sorry. I lost sight. I lost my way. I let you walk away too many times. Don’t go again, please.”
Through their bond, Jayce can feel how startled Viktor is – by the intimacy of the touch, by the desperation of Jayce’s words. But Jayce means it. The work might have been what brought them together, but Jayce had lost sight of Viktor in the turmoil of Hextech’s ensuing consequences. So, he’ll grovel, he’ll beg, he’ll apologize, if it means that Viktor understands that he’s what is important and anything they create is secondary. The scope of what they can make is seemingly infinite. But Viktor is not, and Jayce is now terribly aware that he has been careless with him.
Viktor rests a hand against the top of his head and pets at him gently.
“I do believe we have a responsibility to try and heal the world, Jayce,” Viktor murmurs.
“I know.” He shoves his face harder against Viktor’s body, wishing that he could feel the warmth of human skin, instead of vagueness of touch that comes with the ephemeral plane and knowing that Viktor is not fully human anymore anyway.
“I know,” Jayce repeats. “But this isn’t healing the world. It isn’t. Can we agree on that?” He turns his tear-laced face up to Viktor.
Viktor sighs. He presses one thin fingertip to the top of Jayce’s cheek.
“No,” he agrees, looking about, “this is not healing the world. If people are no longer people at all, that is not helping them.”
Jayce chokes on a sob of a relief. He grasps Viktor to him more tightly, letting himself weep until he’s spent and exhausted. All the while, Viktor just strokes his hair gently, making soft noises. Jayce knows this is far from over, but this is the first time that he hasn’t felt like Viktor is slipping through his fingertips. This is the first time, in a long time, that he feels like he might have a tangible hold on him.
He knows there are no simple solutions waiting for them on the other side of this moment, back in reality. He knows they will hurt and struggle, and he’ll continue to fuck up. But Gods, it’s infinitely easier to know that he’ll be beside Viktor throughout it all.
“Our Hextech is capable of great and terrible things,” Viktor says. He’s looking at the world again, and his voice is full of so many things: wonder, sadness, longing. It connects them to the exhilaration of their past, and it connects them to the unyielding, perfect wasteland of the Machine Herald. It connects to them to the multitudes of what could have been.
“We have to take accountability for it,” Jayce says, his voice steadier. He climbs to his feet to look Viktor in the eye again. “We have to take responsibility for what we put into the world.” There’s limitations to what they can do. In their world, in their timeline, Hextech can’t be unmade. It’s forever there, forced to integrate into the messiness of humanity. But for what they can do, they should. They’ll try.
“Yes,” Viktor agrees. He reaches for Jayce again and strokes his face. Jayce can hear the thrum of his thoughts: he’s thinking about the white metal face of the fallen Jayce near them.
“You saw many versions of how our meeting played out,” Viktor observes. The memories slide, unfocused, around them. “You failed more times than you succeeded. Killing me, or attempting to, yielded the most successful results.”
Jayce’s brain flares with pain, because, yes – yes, there had been times, just a few, where he succeeded in killing Viktor entirely. Where he bashed Viktor entirely, where he stayed behind and made sure that Singed didn’t finish his terrible work, where he burned the commune down so that there was nothing left of Viktor at all. Where he died alongside Viktor rather live with that what he’d done.
He's trembling again. Viktor’s touch steadies him.
“So, why did you try this tactic?” Viktor asks. “You did not know if it would work.”
“Because I didn’t want to kill you,” Jayce gasps. “I didn’t even want to try. I wanted to save you while you were still my Viktor.” He cups Viktor’s face in between his hands. “Because you have always been perfect to me, just as you are. And I love you for that, for all that you are. You were never something that needed to be fixed. You deserved less suffering, but, Gods, everything you went through made you into the person you are, which is smart and witty, relentless and empathetic. The best person I know. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to figure out. But I love you, Viktor, for who you are.”
Viktor’s eyes are wide. In most other circumstances, Jayce would be somewhat proud for so thoroughly overwhelming Viktor, for bringing that brilliant mind to a near stop. As it is, he still just wants Viktor to hear him – to feel that everything he’s saying is true.
“Sweet Jayce,” Viktor murmurs. He presses a kiss to Jayce’s temple.
The memory around them cracks, and they’re back in their world, standing in front of one another.
The buzzing in Jayce’s head finally quiets.
“What now then?” Viktor asks. There’s a slight curve to the corner of his mouth, the quip so implicit that Jayce almost starts weeping again. He’d missed this. Fuck, he had missed this part of Viktor.
“I don’t know,” Jayce admits sheepishly, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “This is our version to create now, I guess.”
Viktor considers his words and then nods.
“Yes,” he agrees. “That is fitting.”
He looks slowly around everything he has created and sighs softly, shoulders turning in a little.
“I suppose I am done here then,” Viktor says, looking up at Jayce, the grief palpable on his face. “This work is not sustainable.”
“No,” Jayce agrees softly, gently relieved that he won’t have to point it out to Viktor. The work he’s done here is miraculous, but, no, he can’t keep going at this pace. He’s a person, not an infinite resource. And these people cannot remain solely reliant on Viktor; it risks bringing them back down the path of the Glorious Evolution.
“There is one person left, though, that I still have to finish healing,” Viktor says, “who deserves to have his humanity returned to him. Whom I think will heal some of the continued strife between Zaun and Piltover.” His look is distance as he considers the work ahead of him. But then he refocuses on Jayce.
“But he will be the last,” Viktor promises him. “We will find other ways to go do good. I also cannot abandon the people here to the likes of Ambessa Merdarda.”
“No,” Jayce agrees. “We have to deal with Ambessa.”
Viktor wrinkles his nose suddenly. (The expression, so remarkably human, so distinct, quietly delights Jayce.)
“I cannot believe that I form an alliance with that woman in so many worlds,” Viktor remarks. “What a telling warning sign.”
Jayce laughs, perhaps a touch raggedly.
He reaches out to brush some of Viktor’s longer hair behind his ear.
“To be fair,” Jayce says, “I’m sure you were manipulating her.” His words are light, even though he can’t help but agree. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have never believed that Viktor would be capable of joining forces with Ambessa and Singed. He knows that Singed was an influence on Viktor, but he’d also thought that Viktor was different from his former mentor, who would worked selfishly in pursuit of science without limitations, not caring that his creations harmed literally everyone around him.
He knows it had been a slippery slope, of Viktor slowing ceding his personhood, with his goal becoming dangerously focused.
But maybe, hopefully, not here. Not in this world.
His fingertips are still resting on the gentle curve of Viktor’s ear.
“You love me?” Viktor says suddenly, looking up at him. The words, his expression – they’re shy, almost uncertain. Achingly vulnerable, and astonishingly human.
“Yes,” Jayce breathes. “So much. Always.”
Viktor moves a hand over top of Jayce’s, shifting so that he can press his cheek into Jayce’s broad palm. He closes his eyes for a moment while Jayce just takes him in.
“All right then,” Viktor says with determination when he opens his eyes again. “Let us move forward together then.”