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Jayce trudged the seldom walked path down Emberflit alley, his head hung low and his posture defeated. He had been down here once, maybe twice before, but always kept his visits to the Undercity few and far between, especially to such a place like this, so close to the fissures that each step along the dim dirt road he walked the more each deep breath became a burden.
He packed light, the only things on him being a well used hip flask in his house colours and a small pocket knife he keeps more for peace of mind than actual weaponry shoved into his jacket pocket. He frankly didn’t look like someone worth stealing from, was his reasoning for leaving his hammer at home; and though he knows he’s partially just lying to himself and hoping he wouldn’t need to use it tonight, he does admit that it is partially true. His large overcoat was rough and worn, an old thing from his academy days, used to battle harsh cold and bitter fights many times over; his boots were scuffed and caked with dirt; his hair greasy and long; and his beard was grown far more than he had ever previously let it. Last time he saw Cait she had mentioned how much he’d let himself go, and though at the time he had laughed his typical obnoxious laugh and waved it off, the truth was that he really had; he’d simply stopped caring about his appearance some time ago. Which shocked him, really, because it was such an out of character thing for him to do- but he was nearing forty, went home to a bitter and empty apartment every night, and had found that keeping his pin-up worthy physique and roguish charm was getting harder and harder by the day. Almost as difficult as sucking up his pride and placing both feet firmly in front of his nemesis’ door.
He kicked aside heaps of scrap metal and glass to clear the doorstep, his lip upturned at the small scuttering things that scurried from the piled-up waste as his boot made contact. Why such a brilliant man would condemn himself to such a hellhole was beyond him, and why Jayce himself was there was a question he was having a hard time answering; but if he thought about it too long he would start considering himself a such pathetic thing that the possibility of running head-on into the fissures seemed like a much more favourable option compared to facing the reality in front of him.
Taking a breath, he rested his fist gently against the rotted wood and knocked once. What the fuck was he doing, demeaning himself like this? He really had stooped as low as he could; Gods, if a younger Jayce could see him now. He winced at the thought of it.
His forehead was shaken from where he had absentmindedly rested it by the door harshly opening just enough to reveal a single mechanical eye glaring at him sharply from the other side, the cold metal perpetually wide-eyed and judgemental as the golden glowing Iris considered his disheveled appearance. The man behind the door scoffs.
“You’re getting awfully bold these days, defender,” sneers the machine herald. Jayce cannot muster a reply. “If you really want to get your ass kicked so badly, I suppose I could obli-”
“I don’t want to do this tonight, V,”
“…Jayce?”
“I just- I don’t want to do this tonight.” He repeats, his voice wavering and his shoulders sagging as whatever’s left of his put-together image crumbles. The door opens slowly to reveal more of the man behind it, his brow creased and thoughtful and his metallic body bare save for a piece of familiar blue fabric fastened around his shoulders. Refined and so very unhuman the Herald stands and considers the defeated man on his doorstep, the way he looks at him with such a miserable look in his eyes so that if Viktor still had a heart it would be breaking.
He wordlessly moves aside, a silent invitation to enter, and Jayce briefly considers his last chance to abandon this horrible plan before stepping over the threshold.
“…would you like a drink?” The man asks, and Jayce nods. It’s scary how fast they slip into quiet domesticity after being at each other’s throats for the better part of fifteen years, but it’s almost as easy as breathing for Jayce to hang his ragged coat off one of the many hooks drilled into the wall and sit himself down on a threadbare couch, hands nervously grasped in his lap and his eyes tracking Viktor’s every movement. The slightly jarring mechanical steps of his legs as he flits around the kitchen, the curl of his fingers around the pot handle as he heats milk on the stove. The tender care with which he measures out spices and sets aside two matching mugs. He can feel Viktor’s eyes on him, sometimes, knows he’s peering over his shoulder and observing him like Jayce is another broken thing to fix, but neither of them say a word.
He blinks and suddenly Viktor is done, sitting next to him with enough space for another between them and a steaming mug in his hands. Jayce simply stares at his own sitting on the table in front of him. He blinks again and Viktor is now studying him.
“Why are you here?” The herald asks, and Jayce isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to answer. The question means many things. Why is he here now, as Piltover lays down for the night and the Undercity really starts to feel alive, when somebody such as Jayce should be at home turning in for the night in his penthouse suite. Why now, after their near constant fights, after so many years of hating each other and attacking each other and finding any way to make each other’s lives a living hell. Why he is here without his mercury hammer, without his self righteous smile and his constant shit-taking and his perfectly gelled hair. Why he’s here at all.
He doesn’t answer, instead choosing to reach out and pick up the mug placed before him with gentle hands, feeling its warmth for a moment before bringing it to his lips. He tastes a familiar taste that brings him back to nights spent awake in an academy lab, his partner pressing a random mug of warm spiced milk spiked with whatever liquor currently in their possession into his hands as he rambles on about whatever project they was working on at the time. The corner of his lip twitches up fondly at the memory and the herald takes note of this.
“I’ve missed you,” Jayce finally says, so soft it makes him sick.
“I crashed your lab just last week,” Viktor scoffs, but his heart isn’t in it, and they both know what Jayce means. Both know that isn’t what he really meant.
“Can I stay here tonight?”
Viktor’s face makes him immediately regret ever opening his mouth at all, with the way his eye widens ever so slightly and his mouth forms a surprised line. The worst part is the affection in his single still-human eye, the way he softens and makes Jayce’s stomach turn. He’s not too sure what he’s doing it all for anymore.
They stare at each other for a second longer, drinks now forgotten on the low table in front of them, and Jayce is the one to finally break the stunned silence.
“I’ve been thinking, a lot, about things. The past. What I did. To you,” he forces out through gritted teeth. Turns out late nights spent repeating apologies to a cracked bathroom mirror don’t quite live up to the hardship of saying it all for real. For the expression on Viktor’s face. “I’ve really-”
“Just stop, Jayce,” Viktor forces out, cutting him off, and Jayce nearly sighs in relief. Nearly swoons at the sound of that accent curling around his name again, not ‘Defender’ or ‘Giopara.’ “I don’t forgive you,” he says. “And don’t say you’re sorry and that you regret it all. You aren’t, and you don’t,” and he’s partially right; though he would never truly admit it Jayce is, and he does. “All you came here for was someone to pat you on the shoulder and absolve you of your sins. You just want me to say it’s all fine so you can sleep easier at night. Well it’s not, and I don’t care enough right now to lie to you.”
Jayce cringes, but doesn’t speak. He gets the sense it’s not his place to right now.
“…and this is so very out of character for you that if I did care, I’d ask if you’re doing alright. But I don’t and I already know your life is probably shit right now.”
He pauses, breath caught on the end of his sentence, and Jayce waits for him to deal the final blow, more devastating than any of their previous scuffles. For Viktor to cast him out, warn him to never return, and for their endless vicious cycle to continue as it always had. Instead Viktor stands.
“You don’t deserve my forgiveness, and as I said, you’re not getting it,” He sighs, the hiss of air expelling from somewhere in his mechanical chest rattling through his body, “But you can stay. It is true I’m getting tired of beating you into the ground so very often,”
He picks up their discarded mugs and leaves them by the sink, flicking a massive switch on the wall to cut the lights to the cluttered space. He looks back over his shoulder to see Jayce still perched on his couch.
“Come on, then, Defender,” he calls, and Jayce comes.
-
His bedroom is less of a bedroom and more of a smaller extension of his lab, machinery everywhere and tools always within hands reach, but it’s so very Viktor that anything else would have seemed shocking. Jayce nearly giggles at the concept of the Machine Herald’s bedroom being a neat, minimalistic space, and finds the permeating scent of machine oil somewhat comforting.
“I don’t use the space often. Lay wherever you wish,”
He gestures vaguely to the large messy bed in the corner of the room, pushed to the side to take up as little space as possible, and Jayce sits on the corner nearest to him. The matress is a bit too soft for his liking and the blankets are rough and scratchy, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. Viktor makes his way around the room to shove things into boxes and click things into other things and press buttons on machines Jayce has no hope of comprehending from afar, so he instead observes the room from his perch on the bed. Jayce gets the sense that the room really does spend most of its time unused if the thick layer of dirt is anything to go by. The only place he can see the otherwise omnipresent dust wiped away was a collection of drawings, messy and childish, carefully pinned above a desk by the wall; most of them depict a scribbled rendition of a child and what he assumes to be the machine herald’s menacing form, but he makes out some flowers and animals amongst the pages, too.
“You got a kid now?” He asks, dumbfounded. Viktor had children? A partner? Girlfriend? Wife? Could Viktor have gotten married? Could he even still have children?
The concept felt so horribly unnatural it disturbed him and seemingly Viktor too, because he looks at Jayce with horror in his face and shakes his head.
“Janna, no,” Jayce lets out a breath and knows deep down he shouldn’t be pleased. “There’s a kid who comes around every so often. Nice enough. Smart, for his age,” He gestures at more drawings sitting in a neat pile on another desk. “He brings one for me every time he comes over. He’s a sweet kid,”
There’s a fondness in his voice Jayce hasn’t heard in years, the usual harshly modulated sound softening, and Jayce finds himself with a smile to match Viktor’s.
“I never took you for the ‘father figure’ type,”
Viktor raises a brow with a snort and goes to sit down next to Jayce on the bed, unwrapping the blue blanket (unmistakably the one Jayce gave him one late night in the lab, but he isn’t even going to consider that right now) around his shoulders and folding it with care to leave it beside the bed. Jayce realises he hasn’t seen his fully mechanical body without armour obscuring his view, so seeing it fully bare is a first; he can tell apart the parts of himself he augmented recently compared to the more miss-matched experiments of his youth, places where dark worn metal meets shiny smooth advancements. It’s a sophisticated mess of wires and metal plating, no skin left besides mere glimpses along his forearms and calfs. Jayce takes a second to mourn the many moles the man used to have.
Neither of them knowing what more to say, Viktor swings his legs up to lay properly on the bed and Jayce follows suit. He vaguely realises he’s still in his outside wear but considers it a much better alternative to stripping to his boxers right now. He keeps his arms as tight to his side as physically possible, dreading the mistake of brushing against Viktor, and simply stares up at the uneven ceiling and continues to stare into darkness when Viktor blows out the sole candle illuminating the room.
There’s silence for long enough that Jayce assumes Viktor was asleep- or whatever thing close to sleep he does nowadays- and so deems it safe to roll over and face the man, only to be met with his dimly glowing eye staring wide awake into his own, making him jump.
“I don’t bite,” Viktor whispers, voice warbling and sounding more human than usual in the dark. Jayce’s fingers twitch to reach out and grasp the hand laying across the bed.
“I know,” Jayce replies softly.
Uncharacteristically hesitant, Viktor reaches a hand out to pull one of the many blankets across Jayce’s shoulders, cold metallic fingers softly dancing across his cheek. Jayce goes to grasp it before he can pull away.
“Thank you,”
Viktor doesn’t respond but relaxes his hand, curls gently towards him, and looks into Jayce’s eyes with his forehead resting softly on Jayce’s own.
The machine herald closes his eyes, and the defender of tomorrow falls asleep by his side.