Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery.
But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red?
It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

— Carl Sagan, 1997, The Pale Blue Dot

The universe as we know it, was born of a single point of unfathomable density and heat. The point expanded outward in an explosion whose ripples still stretch and pull at the fabric of our universe further and further into a vast unknown.
The Big Bang, we call it.

Humans are fond of new beginnings, the inherent romanticism of cataclysmic events that reset the playing field.

A clean slate, a new leaf, a new chance.

1 hour, 23 minutes, 15 seconds

Bright, piercing yellow behind eyelids

Cool and damp prickling against skin

A soft breeze cutting through the constant of warmth, undulating like ocean waves

A distant hum of crickets, of wind in trees

Smaller sounds of rustling, whirring, buzzing around and above

Scent of grass and soil, the sweet perfume of lavender, of blooming flowers he knows not the names of

The first time Viktor awakens, his senses instantly flood with information. He lays sprawled on his front, limbs strewn about, weak and achy, a crick in his neck and a steady pressure building behind his eyes, the beginnings of a headache.

Feeling queasy and disoriented, he snaps his eyes open to ward off panic that is beginning to churn in his stomach and grip at his windpipe. He is reassured by the gentle motherly advice to a child several lifetimes ago - that he need only open his eyes to escape nightmares and monsters lurking in the dark. Only that trick has not been working for quite some time, and Viktor almost regrets trying until, that is, his frontal lobe catches up with the input from his various sensory organs, and supplies him with the pertinent piece of information that he is lying face down in soft grass with the sun on his back.

This realisation spurs on a maelstrom of follow-up observations, most notable and shocking of which, that Viktor finds himself in a body that appears to be made of flesh.

He doesn’t get to linger on his unexpected rebirth into a human form for long though because another matter swiftly takes precedence.
Jayce. Jayce.

Viktor's mind is a confused scramble of disparate images and noise, his understanding of where and how and why, shoddy at best. The only constant, the only distinct feature, standing apart in the racket is Jayce, and though Viktor knows very little at this moment, he is certain that Jayce should be here.

He blinks at the bright light, eyes watering, eyelashes catching a blade of grass next to his face. As he adjusts to the blinding daylight, he spies another limp form, shaped like a human, on the ground, almost close enough to touch. Summoning every ounce of strength he can, Viktor crawls towards the figure.

It is a pitiful attempt and his advance negligible, but he manages to lift his head off the ground just high enough to make out the familiar, yet changed features of his…partner. Partner. Even the thought of the word that always came with unspoken baggage when spoken in reference to Viktor and Jayce, and is now charged with a set of entirely new meanings, makes his guts twist into knots. Untangling all of that will have to wait, Viktor decides, and turns his attention back to Jayce.

He looks peaceful if rugged, dirt and blood smeared across his face and hair, fine clothes in tatters and smudged grey with dust. He is breathing, which eases the suffocating tension around Viktor’s lungs, and there don’t seem to be any catastrophic injuries in need of immediate medical attention, which is just as well because Viktor is doubtful of his ability to get upright, much less to play nursemaid. He reaches out his left hand, tentatively brushing his fingertips against Jayce’s upturned palm. He can feel the warmth radiating from his skin, and watches in rapt attention as Jayce’s fingers gently twitch and curl around his in an unconscious gesture. An instinct so quintessential to humanity that even a helpless newborn knows it. An iron grip, signalling vulnerability that demands protection.

Viktor’s throat constricts and he lets his head flop back down, burying his face against the cool grass, hot tears flowing into the earth. Exhaustion soon overtakes him, taming both his sensory and cognitive overdrive and lulling him back to a deep, dreamless slumber.

9 hours, 9 minutes, 34 seconds

The second time Viktor awakens, the sun has fallen lower in the sky, its light taking on a soft golden hue, easier on the eyes than the unforgiving morning rays that had roused him earlier.

An ancient looking oak tree casts a long shadow over half of Viktor’s body and although the air still feels pleasantly warm, in the shade he shivers slightly. He lifts his head from the bed of grass and looks around, blinking slowly. Bees and butterflies still buzz around him, diving from flower to flower, following the scent of sugar. A warm breeze makes the leaves of the oak whisper softly as a squirrel darts up the tree trunk with a hurried scratching sound. It is an utterly peaceful scene, and of a kind Viktor scarcely recalls seeing before. He imagines it would be wonderful to simply stay right here and bask in the day’s gradual turn to night - moon and sun trading places as the lushious warm tones of the afternoon make way for the deep velvet blue of the night. Somewhere a bird calls, receiving a chorus of responses mere seconds later, their shrill squeals rendered soft and melodic as they drift far off into the distance.

Abruptly, a wave of nausea crashes over Viktor, making his body convulse. His stomach cramps as his vision blurs for a few seconds. The world tilts on its axis before righting itself again. Unlike the surrounding scene, his mind now reels with an unrelenting stream of nightmare images, burnt into his retinas. Like a flipbook of endless horrors it replays the worst things he has witnessed, done, overlaid across the picturesque meadow. It’s unsettling and Viktor has the distinct sensation of floating somewhere above his body, one step removed from its physicality, disembodied and other.

He becomes aware of breathing, of the movement of his diaphragm, of air flowing past his nostrils, down his trachea, into his lungs, chest expanding and contracting. It’s a lot of work to focus on every inhale and exhale and soon he's dizzy and out of breath. Panic starts to build as stars dance in his vision but then he remembers that this body, his body will autonomously see to the vital exchange of gases, oxygen to hydrogen, that breath is not something he has to consciously monitor and direct. He clutches a hand over his breastbone and feels the rhythmic thumping of his heart easing.

A butterfly lands on a daisy and Viktor is momentarily distracted by the black and orange of its wings, the bold coat of a monarch. It balances on butter yellow stamens, antennae twitching, sucker pointed down in hopeful search for a sip of nectar before the day is out. In a blink, it flutters away and Viktor is left staring at the white and gold flower that morphs sickeningly into the face of Salo, then of a dozen others.

The faces of his followers - for he remembers each one, bearing the glimmering ovoid fingerprints of the Herald upon their brows.

Singed and his sacrilegious concoction, and Viktor - or the Herald, who was Viktor but not, all too easily severing himself from his humanity to become god and machine.

Viktor shakes his head vigorously and pushes himself up to sit. The world lurches as his overloaded senses struggle to keep up. He sits, hunched over, trying to steady his breath and settle his stomach. He’s simultaneously hyper-aware of his body, and detached from it, as if stuck behind glass that slightly distorts everything on the other side, causing a delay in sensory processing between body and mind.

He looks at Jayce, still fast asleep on the ground, and feels the sting of tears under his eyelids. He blinks against them and sees the serene face twisted in agony and anger.
He blinks again, furiously trying to dispel the image but failing.

Jayce, haggard and broken, eyes blazing with such fury, and yet not daring to look as the beam of arcane energy shoots through his hammer and into Viktor’s chest.

Viktor gasps, flinching.

'Jayce,' he whispers and his voice sounds hoarse in the gentle buzz and hum of the meadow.

'Jayce,' more urgently this time. Without thinking, he leans toward the slumped form and takes hold of Jayce’s hand, the warm weight of it comforting in his grip.

Jayce stirs, brow furrowing as his eyes flutter open. Viktor hastily withdraws.

'Viktor?' Jayce mumbles, rubbing his eyes with the clumsiness of one barely awake. He goes rigid, arms braced against the ground, eyes snapping to Viktor in alarm. There is a beat of silence as realisation hits him, a million emotions flash across his face in rapid succession, and then, Viktor is nearly tackled to the ground as Jayce lunges at him, arms engulfing his thin frame in a crushing hug.

'Viktor, Viktor, gods— You’re— I didn’t— Oh, Viktor!'

He sobs incoherently in the crook of Viktor’s neck, trembling violently all around him like an earthquake. Viktor, somewhat belatedly, reciprocates, wrapping a careful arm around Jayce’s waist, entranced by how his body feels pressed against him.

He tries, in vain, to stay focused on the touch, the broken stream of half uttered words in his ear, the scorching heat that radiates from his partner’s body but his mind still spews forth image after terrible image.

Miss Young, Sky, face twisted in agony and fear, being pulverised, her life erased, merely a thin echo of the idea of her remaining in the vast ether of the Arcane.

The errant rhythm of Jayce’s breath begins to calm, his arms relaxing into a more comfortable embrace, still holding on tight, thumbs rubbing idly against Viktor’s skin.

Viktor sits ramrod straight, and feels like a stranger in his body.

Glimpses of the twisting, honeycomb pattern of the arcane membrane. Milky white exploding into violent pinks, greens and oranges. An unholy union of magic, blood and alchemy, seeping in and corrupting the genetic code of all things living with its own, perverted purpose. The final glorious evolution.

Jayce hauls himself up on his feet, taking Viktor with him like he weighs nothing. He holds Viktor’s face in his hands and studies him, eyes flooding with warmth and joy, apparently pleased at what he finds.

Viktor stares back numbly, and forces himself to feel the warmth of the palms on his cheeks and see the faint smile turning brilliant, lighting up Jayce’s face.

Jayce, beautiful Jayce, looking at him, speaking to him, frantic, scared, exhausted, relieved. And Viktor simply observing and cataloguing the changes in his body, newly formed in the suffocating embrace of the Hexcore, unfeeling.

Viktor is pushed an arm's length away as Jayce surveys him. Viktor looks at him looking and catches his eyes darting up, then down again.
Jayce flushes to the tips of his ears and stammers, 'You— your body. It’s human again?'
There’s a high note of a question at the end but Viktor feels too dazed to contemplate an answer. Jayce scratches at his neck, eyes downturned, cheeks alight with that deep rosy hue.

He’s nervous, Viktor thinks, or embarrassed. He looks down at himself.
'Oh,' he says, realising he’s naked while Jayce is fully clothed. For what could be a second or several minutes, they both stare at his groin.

Jayce snaps out of it first.
'You must be cold!', he exclaims, shrugging off his tattered jacket and wrapping it around Viktor’s shoulders.

There's a jarring pause as time grinds to a stop like the gears of a rusty mechanism.

'You must be cold', Jayce says and wraps a blanket around him. And Viktor doesn’t feel cold, doesn’t feel anything except for—

A sick, amorphous lump of something sticky and shaped like betrayal and regret, anger and grief, is lodged inside his ribcage, right next to where his heart should be. He feels it, all of it when his gaze meets Jayce’s. He must leave, go where those puppy dog eyes brimming with affection and longing can’t shake his resolve.

The image warps, its shimmering outlines meeting the sharp ones of reality, blending the two together. Jayce is looking at him, brow furrowed with concern, beautiful. And Viktor, the observer, one step removed from the world that Jayce inhabits, is abruptly yanked through the invisible wall of separation he hastily built out of delusion and terror as soon as he awoke to humanity again.
If he is not human, he cannot be hurt by pesky human things like expectations and disappointments and emotional attachments.

Oh, he thinks as his throat constricts around a hundred thousand words unspoken and an ocean of tears unshed. Oh no.

Jayce’s jacket hangs loosely on Viktor’s slight frame and he pushes his arms through the sleeves that are too long, suddenly self-conscious of his nakedness.

'I can’t believe you did that', Viktor whispers, voice unsteady from the torrent of unnamed something that is fighting, kicking and clawing in his chest.

Jayce stares at him with a confused expression.
'Wha—?'

Viktor doesn’t let him finish. A fire now burns inside him, white-hot and angry. He glares at Jayce, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched.
'You— I was supposed to die! And you,' he spits out, tasting venom and rot on his lips, 'you were supposed to— You promised to destroy it!'

In fits and starts, Viktor grinds out each word as if uttering them is painful. The abrasive tone feels unfamiliar on his smooth tongue and sounds all the more biting for it. His hands ball into tight fists, shaking with the effort to maintain some degree of composure.

Jayce looks at him, mouth opening and closing like a shored fish.

'What were you thinking, Jayce? How could you? Out of all the irresponsible, ill-conceived, ludicrous,—' he is faintly aware of the shrillness his voice is taking on, the tinge of hysteria creeping in, but he can’t stop the flood now that the dam has been broken.

'I couldn’t let you die, Viktor!' Jayce looks at him, a growing distress plain on his features.

Viktor begins pacing, trampling over flowers in the dying light of the day.
'I told you it had killed Miss Young. And you just had to go and— and do it anyway. What if it had killed you too? What if...?'
Viktor’s mind races as he rambles on.
'And that’s not even the worst of it. You made weapons, Jayce! And I— Whatever it made me into. I was a monster, I am a monster! I killed all those people. I thought I was helping them. I thought—'

Jayce takes a step toward him, then stops in his tracks with a frustrated grunt. He looks like he wants to grab Viktor and shake him, only barely restrained by his self-control.

'You are not a monster, Viktor', he says, voice urgent and trembling with suppressed emotion.
'Be angry at me - I deserve it. But don't—,' he swallows hard. 'You just said it yourself - it made you into something else, something that wasn’t you.'

Viktor stops pacing and tries to inject as much sting in his stare as possible but Jayce is upset and it's muddying his righteous anger. He can’t give in, can’t look at the pleading hazel eyes, the frustrated angle of the creased brow, the downturned corners of chapped lips.

'I did those things. You can’t just— You shouldn’t— It’s unforgivable. I’m unforgivable, Jayce! How do you not see that? After everything I’ve put you through.'

Anger, guilt and shame roil inside Viktor, tossing him around like a hurricane would a ragdoll. He wants to scream. He’s angry at Jayce, angry at himself.

'I wish I was dead', he mutters instead, facing away from Jayce, unsure if he truly means it and afraid to find out.

'No you don’t,' Jayce counters levelly. Viktor feels his gaze searing into the back of his neck.

He turns around, ready to bite back but is thrown off balance by the quiet intensity in Jayce's eyes. For a moment it's as if Jayce sees right through him, into the hidden thickets of his soul. For a moment he looks old and wise, steadfast and unshakable in his belief - just like he always was.

Then he blinks, bottom lip quivering ever so slightly.

'If you’d wanted to die you wouldn’t have used the rune to send us here.' There is an edge of defiance in his voice and a hint of insecurity. It makes Viktor irrationally furious. First because how dare Jayce explain to Viktor what he is supposed to think or feel? Second, because he is right. It would have been easy to let the arcane torrents rip him and Jayce into shreds to rain down upon Piltover and Zaun. Instead, Viktor saw a flicker of a possibility to have another chance with life, with Jayce, and he’d seized it without hesitation.

Jayce is right and Viktor will absolutely not admit it to him.

He needs to change tack.

A distant voice in his mind politely questions why it is essential to keep the argument going when he could just as easily go to Jayce, push the greasy strands of hair off his face and kiss him. On the mouth. Like you’ve always wanted. Viktor tells the voice to shut up.

He scoffs irritably, and bites down on his tongue so hard he tastes blood. He knows he’s not being rational or fair but the anger twisting his guts and making his jaws ache thrashes like a caged, rabid animal and Viktor is just about ready to let it rip open his chest and lunge at Jayce, all teeth and claws.

'I’m not a good person, Jayce', he says petulantly and hugs his arms around himself, pulling the ridiculously oversized jacket tight against his body.

'And I don’t need you coddling me.'

Jayce snarls wordlessly and looks even more like he wants to hit something. In the absence of a suitable target for his anger, he instead lets out a startlingly loud and gravelly yelp, making both of them jump. He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, like he too is trying to hold something in.

Viktor stares at him.

'If you’re going to blame someone for all of it you might as well blame me,' Jayce says through gritted teeth. 'We agreed to never use Hextech for weapons but I did. You told me to destroy the Hexcore, and I didn’t.'

He turns to study his hands, scratched and covered in dust.

'You said it yourself,’ he goes on, 'I was reckless and stupid and— and I betrayed you!'

The crazed look that Viktor feels pulling his own features is now taking over Jayce too. His eyes are just a little too wide, cheeks a little too flushed, frantic energy fizzing and popping in the staccato of the words he grinds out.

Maybe this is it - maybe they are both finally losing it.

Viktor starts pacing again.

'If I hadn’t started experimenting with the Hexcore in the first place, if I had been strong enough to destroy it myself... My motivations were selfish. I shouldn’t have given in on the temptation for an easy solution—'

The sound that rattles out of Jayce is somewhere between an exasperated cry and a startled, cackling laugh.

'An easy solution?!' he barks out in disbelief, the tail end of his question reaching such an unnaturally high note that his voice breaks.

'Well perhaps not easy but it was the only solution I had!' Viktor responds, throwing his hands dramatically, in a manner alien to himself but somehow fitting to how unmoored he feels, grasping at anything resembling reason to anchor himself into. He distantly realises how unlike themselves they both sound, voices pitched abnormally high and ringing with off-key notes of hysteria.

Jayce mirrors him, arms gesticulating wildly, nonsensically.

'You should have come to me. Together we could have—'

'You weren’t there, were you?' Viktor’s shout rings in the peaceful meadow like an echo in a cathedral.

Jayce visibly deflates, face twisting with regret.

'I should have been there. You shouldn’t have had to be there alone. Viktor, I should have been there with you,' he says, nearly sobbing, looking desperate enough to fall on his knees to beg for forgiveness.

Viktor can’t stand it. The image is too tempting, too hallowed, too blasphemous, and he doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t deserve Jayce’s compassion and understanding. He wants to argue, to be angry, for Jayce to respond in anger.

He knows it’s petty before he says it, and he doesn’t care.

I will drag you down to my level, Jayce Talis.

'Well, I wasn’t alone. Miss Young was a perfectly capable assistant, and pleasant company besides.'

A shadow passes over Jayce then, wiping away the despair, replacing it with something dark and wild. It surprises Viktor. He expected to provoke resentment, not whatever...this is.

Jayce stares down at his hands and mutters something inaudibly.

'What was that?' Viktor demands, almost forgetting his anger in lieu of curiosity.

Jayce snaps his eyes back to Viktor, lips pressed into a thin line, cheeks glowing scarlet and boyish in a startling contrast to his deep frown and the severe angle of his clenched jaw.

'I’m sure Miss Young also found your company perfectly pleasant,' he says, voice clipped.

Affronted by the incomprehensible, accusatory tone, Viktor defensively crosses his arms.

'What’s that supposed to mean?'

Jayce shoots him a dirty look and scoffs, rolling his eyes.

'Viktor, please, the way she always looked at you,' he grumbles.

Something shifts.

Viktor blinks at him slowly, realisation gradually dawning. He feels a trickle of something thick and viscous and warm, like molasses pooling at the bottom of his belly.

It has been such a long time since Viktor has inhabited a body capable of or interested in such things that he doesn’t recognise the feeling at first but as the warmth spreads and intensifies and the initial wave of nausea dissolves, he recognises the distinct taste of desire, of want. He averts his eyes, not trusting that they won’t betray this sudden lapse.

'Jealousy doesn’t suit you Jayce,' he hears himself saying.

Well that’s a fucking lie, hisses his inner voice and supplies him with a series of very unhelpful images of Jayce's hands on his waist and ass, grabbing at him possessively, Jayce's voice, low and rumbling, breathing in his ear, “mine, mine, mine”.

Viktor shudders, trying and failing to curb the growing, inconvenient flame of arousal that only burns hotter when he mistakenly lets himself catch the look on Jayce’s eyes. Dark and frustrated but uncertain as if he’s teetering on the edge of something monumental.

'And it’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?' he snaps, feigning nonchalance.

He takes a step toward Jayce and sharply pokes at his chest, unsure if he’s more annoyed with him, or himself.

'You were the one warming a councilor’s bed as I recall.'

Jayce blushes harder than Viktor has ever seen before, the weathered, tan skin turning dark maroon all the way up to his ears. He stares intently at the ground, tries to clear his throat and ends up choking a little. It’s horribly endearing, and Viktor is starting to forget that he’s supposed to be angry at him.

'So you never…?' Jayce asks, almost timid, barely louder than a whisper, still not looking at Viktor.

Viktor gapes at him and feels anger rearing up once more.

His body and mind are awash with all these contradicting and ever-changing emotions, and Viktor is fighting to stay afloat, not to be sucked into the whirlpool of terrible unknown. He clings on to anger because it seems like the safest option in those murky waters but even that is beginning to bleed into a complicated soup of fear, sorrow, love, gratitude, guilt and innumerable unnamed emotions that tug and pull at him every which way.

'You. Cannot. Be serious.'
His voice shakes with the effort to keep it down, to not yell or laugh or cry.

Viktor moves before he realises it, hands gripping fistfuls of Jayce’s shirtfront, pushing him, downright manhandling the wide and firm and imposing shape that is Jayce Talis, up against the solitary tree that stands proud in the middle of the field.

'I never what, Jayce?', he snarls, slamming into him. 'Fucked her? Is that what you mean?'

Jayce’s breath hitches at the profanity and he stares at Viktor, wide-eyed, pupils visibly dilating and that ridiculous flush high on his cheeks.

Their faces are so close that Viktor feels the brush of each shuddering exhale on his skin, sees how Jayce keeps glancing at his mouth, smells the tang of sweat on him. His newly formed body betrays him by responding with a roar of arousal.

'If you truly mean to tell me that this is what you have believed then let me make something very clear,' Viktor spits out. He sees a drop of saliva land on Jayce’s parted lips, how his eyelids flutter, how his throat bobs as he swallows. The temptation is growing and Viktor is losing the fight to resist it.

'Vik…,' Jayce gasps, pleading.

It’s as if Viktor’s sensory dials have been cranked up to maximum sensitivity, his emotional landscape in constant flux. The cool and uncomplicated clarity of the Herald is a distant memory amidst the cacophony of conflicting desires raging in his mind, in his body. Anger is beset with lust, relief with exasperation, and all of it, even resentment vibrates at a frequency of something old and unwavering.

Love.

'I only ever wanted you, you idiot.' What starts as a growl, comes out more like a purr, but Viktor doesn’t care anymore. He unceremoniously slams his mouth against Jayce, kissing him hard and desperate, biting and groaning into it like an animal. He wants to scratch and bruise and devour as a decade’s worth of pining and longing and yearning is violently expelled from his body and poured into the kiss.

Their first, Viktor’s mind muses, awed and appalled that it has taken this long.

Jayce stands frozen for less than a heartbeat and then he’s kissing Viktor back with equal force, making deep, throaty sounds into his mouth. Viktor drinks them in, savouring the intoxicating sweetness on his tongue.

A flurry of hands, roaming, grasping, pulling, mapping undiscovered stretches of skin fierce and tender all at once. Sighs and gasps and small needy sounds spilling out, overflowing - a lament for every second wasted in pursuit of anything but this.

The jacket, Viktor’s only article of clothing, lands on the ground at his feet and he shivers as Jayce’s palms, broad and rough and eager, travel up and down his torso in an endless caress. He mouths at Viktor’s jawline, the interplay of soft, wet lips and the coarse hair of his beard against skin making him dizzy. Viktor pants, eyes unfocused, a hand in Jayce’s hair, the other undoing the buttons of his shirt. Belatedly he notices the dampness on his cheeks, a tear sliding past his ear and down along his neck where Jayce is licking and sucking bruises into tender flesh.

'Viktor?' Jayce rasps, detaching himself. He glances at the abused skin now surely blooming in the reds and purples of ardent devotion and brushes over it with light fingertips. It makes Viktor's breath tremble. Jayce cradles his cheeks in his huge palms, soft and warm like home, but his eyes are worried.
'You’re crying, Viktor. What’s wrong? Did I do something? Do you not want this?'

Viktor should say something but it’s so very hard when his skin tingles with excitement and his chest heaves from trying to contain the tempest within.
'No, it’s alright, Jayce,' he chokes, voice gravelly and thick, the lump in his throat threatening to collapse into a sob. He takes in a shaky breath, still gripping into Jayce’s shirt like a lifeline.

'It’s… overwhelming,' Viktor fumbles for words. 'I can feel everything. It’s like I’m drowning, like I’m flying, like I’m burning from the inside out.' None of it makes sense but Jayce listens attentively.

More hot tears gush out and then both of Jayce’s hands are back on his face, collecting each teardrop with a tenderness that makes Viktor ache all over. Lips press softly against his forehead.
'It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you,' Jayce promises, and maybe it’s the casually intimate use of the endearment - so new but so natural, or the soothing circular motion of thumbs where Viktor’s tears keep falling, but in that moment something long-shackled dislodges in Viktor’s chest, sending shiver after shiver down his spine.

Once more, he surges into Jayce, tiny, desperate sobs escaping his chest, muffled into the firm, warm press of Jayce’s mouth.
Viktor wishes he could climb inside Jayce’s body and make himself small and secure within his ribcage, ear pressed against the steadily beating heart. He claws at the mostly unbuttoned shirt, ripping it off Jayce’s shoulders and scrambles to unfasten his belt in a frantic rush even as the tears keep falling.

Belt and buttons out of the way, Viktor’s hand easily slides down the front of Jayce’s trousers and cups him through his underwear. They groan unison at the contact. Arousal pools deep inside Viktor’s core as he runs his hand along Jayce’s hard length, marvelling at the dampness already forming at the tip, the cotton of his briefs clinging to it. Viktor rubs and squeezes him with fervour, getting drunk on the deep grunts and high-pitched whines the steady pressure of his palm is dragging out of Jayce. He sounds better than all of Viktor’s wet dreams combined and Viktor makes it his mission to keep hearing more.

'Ah, ah, Viktor,' Jayce gasps, voice ragged and pleading and wet with tears of his own.
'Are- are you sure about this?', he asks - stupidly, Viktor thinks - gasping when cool fingers pinch and twist his nipple. Viktor plasters himself against Jayce so they’re touching from head to toe, no space between, and rubs his own naked erection against Jayce’s hip, feeling delirious and increasingly unhinged.

'I don’t know— ah, many things, Jayce but I know that I want you. Always have.' This seems to be a satisfactory answer because Jayce’s hands find the curve of Viktor’s buttocks and grab on, pushing him, urging him to keep grinding on his leg.

'Viktor,' he groans, 'Viktor.'

'Show me. Show me you want me too, Jayce,' Viktor demands in between hungry kisses, rubbing himself against Jayce’s thigh like an animal in heat.
'Make me feel like I’m real.'

It’s hard to think let alone speak when Jayce’s hands burn like coals on his skin, when he shudders and moans like he wants Viktor as much as Viktor wants him. And oh, does Viktor want.
Quite frankly, Viktor doesn’t think he’s experienced lust of this magnitude before. He likes sex - likes seeing confident, strong, put-together men crumbling in front of him, begging for release, likes how his own body, as broken as it is, is able to make him feel good every once in a while. He even likes being the object of another’s desire, if only for a fleeting moment when their head is swimming in blissful carnal haze.

This all-consuming need to get close, to feel Jayce with every inch of his body, to taste and touch him until they fuse together, is a revelation. His desire for Jayce rages like wildfire, scorching hot and out of control. And perhaps he would shy away from it if Jayce wasn’t looking at him with such unbridled lust too, hazel eyes turned black with it, a persistent flush high up on his cheeks, visible even in the soft glow of the evening sun, under the canopy of leaves.

Jayce slides his hands underneath Viktor’s thighs, hoists him up and turns around, sandwiching him between himself and the tree trunk. Viktor’s arms and legs wrap around him like vines and he imagines ivy, slowly curling around a tree in a permanent, strangling embrace. He lets his eyelids fall for a moment, basking in the barrage of physical sensations coursing through him. Jayce rocks against him, cursing and groaning as their groins press together. Viktor rolls his hips in turn, back arching as sparks erupt in his vision. The tree bark scratches at his bare skin uncomfortably but it barely registers through the fog of desire. It’s becoming clear that neither of them will last for much longer like this.

A helpful tidbit of knowledge surfaces from the depths of Viktor’s lust-addled mind.

'I don’t suppose you thought to bring petroleum jelly with you?' he says, lips ghosting the edge of Jayce’s earlobe. Jayce always used to have a small jar of the stuff in his pocket for a quick treatment of burns from the forge. He’d sometimes use it on his lips too, when they were particularly chapped, making them glisten very distractingly under the artificial lights of their Piltover lab. If anyone apart from Viktor was around when he reached for the tub Jayce would make a point to mention that petroleum jelly also made a decent lubricant that could be applied very precisely to the delicate mechanical components of Hextech devices - as if keeping his lips moisturised was a vanity he felt too self-conscious to admit to.

Looking dazed and charmingly dishevelled, Jayce produces a familiar tin container from his back pocket and blinks at Viktor confusedly.

Viktor huffs out a breathy laugh.

'I want you to put me down and then I want you to fuck me, but first I will need to, uh, prepare. Hence the lubrication,' he explains, brushing his fingertips along Jayce’s throat. On a whim, he presses his thumb against the pulse point and feels a dizzying surge of arousal when Jayce gasps and swallows thickly, throat working underneath his fingers.

Viktor looks up and is met by Jayce’s half-lidded, glassy eyes and the sight of his parted, kiss-bitten lips. He cradles Jayce’s face in his hands and licks into his mouth with gentle determination. They stay like that for a little while, lips and tongues gliding together in a wet, sloppy tangle. Jayce takes a step back from the tree, giving Viktor room to slide to the ground and sink on his knees in one fluid motion.

A distant part of Viktor’s mind observes with interest his ability to get on his knees with little effort and no help from a support brace of any kind but that can be a consideration to be puzzled over at another time. Without further preamble, he takes Jayce in his mouth, humming with satisfaction at the choked sounds from above. Fingers entangle in his hair and Viktor can’t stifle his own wanton moans as the sharp tang of sweat and salt fills his mouth. He keeps bobbing his head as his hands deftly unfasten the latches of Jayce’s leg brace. Its design is nearly identical to his own, and the mechanism familiar enough to decipher by touch alone.

Jayce all but collapses on the ground, kicking off his trousers and shoes, and pins Viktor under him. He’s hot and heavy and his mouth and hands are everywhere, tracing over the bony contours of Viktor’s torso, licking and biting into his flesh with unrestrained hunger. Viktor writhes, drunk on touch and smell and taste, fingernails digging crescent moons across Jayce’s arms and back. It’s heavenly and not enough. Panting, Jayce leans back to regard him. His expression is unbearably tender, even a little shy. The ends of his hair tickle Viktor’s cheekbones.

'I’ve, uh, never done this before. With another man, I mean,' he quietly confesses into the nominal space between their lips. He’s so close that his features distort and blur as they swim in Viktor’s vision.

Viktor cups his cheek gently.
'That’s alright, I can get myself ready.'

He pushes himself up, urging Jayce to move aside and comes back to sit on his knees, snatching the tub of ointment from the ground. Jayce is perching awkwardly a step away, focused but clearly unsure of what to do with himself.

'This shouldn’t take long,' Viktor says, facing the tree and bracing an arm against it. 'You are welcome to ah, watch. If you like.'

He reaches behind himself, bending at the hips and sees from the corner of his eye as Jayce’s eyes bulge and jaws go slack. He smirks to himself and rocks against the first digit as it breaches him, moaning, mainly for Jayce’s benefit for he’s not above theatrics in this moment. It must have been aeons since the last time Viktor touched himself like this, and the stretch makes his toes curl in the grass. He adds a second finger too fast, the burn having him cringe a little. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, coaxing his body to relax.

He doesn’t notice Jayce move closer until he feels the work-worn hands rubbing up and down his thighs. Pain melts into pleasure and soon Viktor is clenching around his own fingers, breath hitching as Jayce’s thumbs knead into his hips and graze his tensing abdomen, not teasing but grounding, soothing. He’s about to add a third finger when Jayce carefully touches his hand.

'Let me. Please?' His voice is hoarse, edged with desperation and he squeezes Viktor’s waist with his other hand, radiating heat like a burning forge.

'Oh-okay,' Viktor stutters, suddenly unsteady.

Jayce manoeuvres him around and on his back like a weightless puppet, and next, to Viktor’s horror, bends his legs at the hip and stuffs a pile of discarded clothing under his lower back for support, effectively folding Viktor in half. He then has the audacity to look at the indecent display in front of him with something akin to reverence.

'You’re just…breathtaking, V.,' he whispers and massages Viktor’s inner thighs with maddening tenderness. 'Beautiful, perfect. Let me worship you.' Viktor squirms, feeling absolutely mortified and treasured in a way he has never dreamed possible. His hands grip onto grass, pulling out patches of it, nervous energy trickling out in search for release, making him twitchy.

A part of him wants to turn away, to avert his eyes and deny that the intense look of devotion, overflowing with everything he feels in his chest, is meant for such an undeserving, pitiful creature as him. A bigger part, the more insistent one, wants to bathe in the blinding light and sweltering heat of Jayce Talis until his bones turn brittle and to dust.
His train of thought is cut short when Jayce bends down, presses the flat of his tongue on the rim of Viktor’s hole, and licks all the way across his taint up to the base of his cock.

Viktor’s brain short-circuits. He gasps as if punched in the gut, mind once again torn between two extremes: the urge to shirk from the sheer intimacy of the touch and the desire to push Jayce back down there and rub against the tantalising wetness of his mouth. He ends up doing neither because Jayce repeats the scandalous gesture twice more before burying his face firmly in Viktor’s ass and proceeding to eat him out with the single-minded focus Viktor has only ever seen him reserve for complex engineering problems.

Viktor is wholly unable to stifle the guttural, gasping sounds that Jayce’s clever tongue wrings out of him, and at some point he simply stops trying, sinking into a pleasant stupor and letting himself melt into putty for Jayce to mould and shape into whatever his heart desires. When Jayce’s fingers join his tongue, and eventually find Viktor’s prostate, Viktor’s boneless form tenses into a tight bowstring, his hands flying into Jayce’s hair, gripping him hard and pressing him down, chasing after the touch with a force that briefly surprises them both.

Startled, he quickly releases his hold and croaks out an apology for nearly suffocating Jayce - into his perineum of all things. Jayce merely responds by taking his wrist and planting the hand back on his head with a satisfied hum, mouth never leaving its spot between Viktor’s hips. He keeps licking and sucking and probing like a man possessed, unrelenting in his endeavour to take Viktor apart. Every time Viktor pulls his hair and arches into him, Jayce moans against his skin, the reverberations travelling through Viktor’s body, amplified in his bones, making his blood sing.

'Mmmhh….! Enough, Jayce. It’s enough.' Viktor’s tongue feels like a useless thick lump in his mouth sticking into words like syrup, rendering his speech slurred.

Jayce peeks at him through lashes clumped up with tears and sweat, and after one last, deep thrust, removes his fingers with a lurid squelching sound that makes his flushed cheeks blossom with an even deeper rosy hue. He plants soft, wet kisses on Viktor’s abdomen, travelling up to his chest, and as soon as he’s within reach, Viktor pulls him close, plunging his tongue past the swollen lips, slippery with the lubricant and saliva. It’s an open-mouthed and sloppy kiss that quickly devolves into ragged panting as Viktor manoeuvres a greased hand between their bodies and strokes Jayce with an air of urgency.

No words are spoken before Jayce is lining himself up between Viktor’s legs, breath catching as he starts to push in, face scrunching up as pleasure floods his senses. Viktor braces himself for the burn that is sure to come because Jayce is big and it’s been so long since he had anything except his fingers inside him, but all he feels is a heightened sensation of delicious fullness as his body, made pliant and soft in Jayce’s hands, opens up.

Jayce bottoms out with a shuddering exhale and drops to his forearms, head coming to rest against Viktor’s. His breath fans over Viktor’s lips, hot and short and Viktor can feel the size and heat of him pulsing deep within his body. It’s intoxicating. He lets his hands wander along the expanse of smooth, sweaty skin, scaling the width of Jayce’s back, caressing the dip of his waist and squeezing the rounded shape of his buttocks, teasing a slick finger between the cheeks. Jayce whimpers, hips jerking, sending brilliant sparks of pleasure across Viktor’s body.
Viktor hooks his ankles together around Jayce’s back and takes his face in his hands
'Move, Jayce. You’re not going to break me,' he whispers, feeling too many unnameable things. If you don’t move, I might break.

Viktor had never considered that making love could be anything but a less vulgar term for fucking. He’d always preferred uncomplicated language when it came to sex - never cared for poetry in the context of naked bodies writhing together while secreting various fluids and producing animalistic sounds, chasing pleasure in all manner of undignified ways. But when Jayce moves against him, dragging his hips out slowly and slamming back in - relentless but not too rough; not careful but attentive to every noise Viktor makes, honing the angle of his hips until it’s just right, Viktor is briefly dismayed by the inadequacy of all his prior sexual engagements.

He has often imagined what fucking Jayce would be like. Would he blush as Viktor whispered filthy words in his ear? Would there be a touch of bravado, a need to perform, or would his composure break at the first lingering touch? He’s imagined bending Jayce over a worktop in their old lab and taking him hard and fast, thrilled by the thought of someone walking in at any moment and getting an eyeful of Piltover’s Golden Boy taking it, begging for it from his sickly Zaunite partner.
Oh, the depraved scenarios Viktor has pictured in the lonely, small hours of the morning, a frustrated hand on himself tugging impatiently, hoping to expunge himself of the obsessive thoughts and inconvenient feelings regarding his dashing and universally wanted lab partner, by way of an orgasm. It never worked of course, and so Viktor’s mind kept conjuring more salacious images to grudgingly get himself off to.

None of his lewd imaginings had prepared Viktor for the reality of being made love to by Jayce Talis however. The gentle kisses laid on his cheeks and jaw; the broken ohs and Viktors sighed into his skin; the tenderness that bleeds from Jayce’s every look, touch and breath, and gets absorbed through Viktor’s pores, saturating him with warmth and light, that burn ever hotter, ever brighter.

Viktor almost doesn’t notice it at first, the subtle twitch of Jayce’s left hip joint, followed by a stifled grunt, more pain than pleasure; the diminished depth of his thrusts as he favours his right side.
'Jayce?' he says, brushing sweaty hair from Jayce’s eyes. 'Your leg — are you in pain?'

Jayce huffs, frustrated, and tries to adjust himself again. Another spasm has him wincing.
'Yeah,' he sighs, pouting indignantly. It’s adorable. Viktor scratches at his jaw, smiling sympathetically.

'Can you flip us over?' he asks and feels warmth flood his chest as Jayce nuzzles into his palm, humming softly, pressing a kiss on the tip of his thumb.

'My leg feels fine. I can ride you,' Viktor says, voice dropping into a low purr while his hips grind up and clench around Jayce, still embedded deep inside. Jayce swallows, pupils dilating impossibly wide.

'Y-yeah, gods, Vik, please,' he garbles and captures Viktor’s lips in an ardent kiss before snaking an arm under him and swapping their positions in one fell swoop.

They keep kissing, perpetually distracted by each other until Viktor remembers his mission.

'Move up a bit,' Viktor instructs in between kisses and crawls up on all fours, beckoning Jayce to where he wants him. 'Sit against the tree.'
Jayce complies easily, scooting along, chasing Viktor’s lips, hands aimlessly rubbing against skin wherever he can reach. Viktor finds Jayce’s shoes and places them under his left kneecap to ease the strain on the joint and nerves and gathers his discarded clothes into a bundle to support his lower back.

'Better?'

Jayce shuffles and leans back, frown melting away.

'Mmm… You’re very good at this,' he hums, drawing Viktor in.

Viktor snorts and squirms as Jayce peppers his face with kisses.

'What, bedroom ergonomics?'

Jayce releases him, beaming.

Viktor rolls his eyes and positions himself above Jayce, taking his cock in hand and teasing the tip against his entrance. Jayce whines, hips bucking up.

'Let’s just say that, ah, I have a lot of firsthand experience in dealing with musculoskeletal dysfunction in the context of sexual intercourse,' Viktor says breathlessly as he slowly sinks down. He looks at Jayce, intently tracking every minute change in his expression: the way his brow furrows and his eyes squeeze shut as he’s enveloped in the tight heat of Viktor’s body once more, how his jaw goes slack in the wake of pleasure, gasps tumbling out erratically; the heated glare he trains at Viktor as he takes the bait in his words.
Jayce bites and growls into Viktor’s mouth, hands possessively clutching at his waist. Viktor can't help but smile against his lips.

'You know I lied,' he says, rubbing his palm over Jayce’s nipple, fingers playing with the smattering of dark chest hair as he moves to suck a bruise on his neck.

'Huh?' Jayce grunts, breath catching as Viktor’s hips begin to roll in lazy, tantalising circles.

'Jealousy suits you exceptionally well.'

Jayce moans his name in response, fingers digging into his waist, stinging and hot.
Viktor braces himself against Jayce’s shoulders, lifting up almost all the way before slamming back down.

'Fuck, V., you feel so good,' Jayce groans, voice strained. 'Want you, need you so bad.'
He sounds wrecked and more than a little delirious, words getting jumbled up in strangled moans as Viktor moves up and down on him.

'You have me, Jayce. I’m yours. For as long as you want me,' Viktor pants, tightness returning to his chest as playful teasing is replaced by that raw current of emotion from before. Somehow it doesn’t feel so scary any more and Viktor lets the hot tears fall. Jayce sobs too, forehead pressed against his.

'Say it again, please, Viktor. Say you’re mine.'

'Yours, I’m yours, Jayce.' Viktor repeats it like a mantra.

Jayce’s hands move under his thighs and support him as he bounces in his lap. Viktor feels lightheaded at how effortlessly Jayce manoeuvres him, and wonders what it would be like to go limp and let Jayce use him however he wants. He files that thought for another time when Jayce’s fingers wrap around his length and start to stroke in concert with the rhythmic slapping of their hips. Their bodies move against each other in an urgent rush, muscles tensing and starting to ache from the strain.

'Good, Jayce, you’re so good,' Viktor gasps and comes suddenly, stars dancing in his vision, pleasure sparking into fireworks all across his body. As if triggered by Viktor’s climax alone, Jayce immediately follows, spilling in hot spurts, buried deep inside, hips jerking with the aftershocks, brushing against Viktor’s prostate and nearly making him black out.

They sit there, sticky from various fluids, panting, foreheads pressed together and for a split second Viktor is transported back to the astral plane of infinite space and eternal time, to the moment that changed everything.

He’d told Jayce to leave, could have forced him to, for that realm was his to command then. Instead, Jayce had looked at him with open, unburdened, unconditional love in his eyes, and held him in what could have, what should have been their final moment. His love was undeniable, unshakeable and Viktor had felt it everywhere around him, like an electric charge in the air before a storm, sparking with possibility.

In the hours that followed, for it can’t have been more than hours, the knowledge of this love, their love, got pushed aside, usurped by a myriad of horrors and ancient tendrils of insecurity. Now, in the sweaty embrace with aching limbs and heaving chests, Viktor allows it to sink in, to make room for itself in chambers of his heart, in the pathways of his nervous system, deep in his bone marrow. He vows to never forget it again.

'I love you, Jayce. I love you,' he whispers, and no more tears fall.

They fall asleep like that, naked and entangled in the shadow of the old tree and not a single other soul, save for a scarce few nocturnal animals, in sight.

Just before Viktor drifts off he says, 'I’m still angry at you.'

'Mmkay…love you', Jayce mumbles in response.

20 hours 42 minutes 54 seconds

The third time Viktor awakens, it is perhaps an hour till dawn. The world is veiled in soft blues and all around is quiet. Jayce is wrapped around him and the heat radiating from him is comforting in the chill of early morning. Viktor’s body is sore and his mouth parched but his mind is already springing to action.

Where are they? And when? The landscape is not one Viktor recognises but then again he's spent his entire life in a city. Even if he'd retained any information from school history and geography, it's possible the teleportation rune has sent them into another reality entirely. Viktor's belly whoops with excitement. He still feels the oppressive pressure of guilt in the periphery of his consciousness. It pulses at his temples and itches like ants skittering under his skin, ready to plunge him into darkness if he lets it. But Jayce is like a radiant shield keeping the ghosts at bay. He sleeps soundly and Viktor burrows deeper into his embrace, making himself small against his chest.

They will need food and water most urgently, and shelter of course. And clothing. Viktor's pulse quickens and he feels his face heat with pleasure as he remembers what they did the night before. He feels the telltale soreness between his legs, the ache of tired muscles all across his body. That's almost enough to stir the embers of passion back aflame despite how tired he is. Viktor presses his mouth on Jayce's throat and sucks lazy kisses along it, lapping at the salt of his skin indulgently. The dewy grass tickles his skin and he buries his nose into the crook of Jayce’s neck, telling himself he'll bask in the warmth for just a little while longer.

He falls asleep in seconds.

Chapter Text

368 days 21 hours

On the mountainside, where the lush temperate rainforest becomes sparser and the leafy canopy of beech, maple and oak gives way to conifers, stands a cottage. A year before, the spot housed an abandoned shack, overgrown with sprawling vines, ferns and mosses. A scraggly old mountain ash leaned heavily against one wall as if reaching for its long lost siblings - the rotting planks still clinging onto the vague outline of a building.

The new structure started off from the bones of the old one, gradually claiming space both upward and out. It’s an unusual building with its curved edges and rounded windows expertly worked into stone and wood. Moss covers its roof, and the vegetable garden outside seamlessly blends in with the surrounding woodland. Beyond a line of saplings, courses a stream, carrying icy water from the mountain down towards the valley.

In the bedroom upstairs, Viktor stirs, eyelashes fluttering against the light. It’s an early spring morning and the sun has just started its trek across the sky. Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment longer, he clings to the edge of sleep - more out of habit than genuine tiredness. The steady pace of his new life, consisting of chores around the homestead, studying the local flora and working on repair jobs that range from fixing old sewing machines and mechanised children’s toys to a complete overhaul of a nearby sawmill further down the stream, has afforded him with better sleeping habits than he’s ever known. Outside, the chorus of birdsong grows ever more enthusiastic as the days stretch longer towards the summer. Every now and then, the chittering and chirping is accompanied by a shrill cry of a hawk flying overhead but otherwise it is quiet in this corner of the world.

Through the skylight directly above the bed, Viktor sees feathery clouds passing by, driven by biting northerly winds that still carry an aftertaste of the rainy winter even as plantlife all across the forest is eagerly starting to awaken and bloom. Soon the fruit trees in the garden turn into exuberant bouquets of pink blossoms, enticing a variety of creatures to dive in after the sweet scent of nectar - life propagating in an endless cycle.

A year has passed since Viktor, as the Herald, nearly brought all organic life to a sudden, violent hault. The thought is sickening, still twisting his guts into tight knots when he dares to linger on it. An image of the barren wastelands of a future that almost was, looms in stark contrast to the world that Viktor now inhabits - one crawling with living things, vibrant and messy and wonderful.

It was different in Zaun, certainly in Piltover. Life carried a different weight back then, inextricably linked to time, and the lack thereof where Viktor himself was concerned. Life was an ever-ticking clock, racing faster and faster towards the inevitable end as Viktor’s body, forged in the Fissures, decayed and crumbled, his mind fraying at the edges with each desperate attempt to cure, to fix, to steal more than had been allotted to him.

A deep, contented sigh breaks through Viktor’s contemplation, turning his attention to the warm, heavy weight sprawled across his chest. Jayce is fast asleep, his large frame curled up against and around Viktor. Shifting closer he slides a muscular thigh over Viktor’s hips, now almost entirely covering the lithe body with his, seemingly unbothered by sharp elbows and knobbly knees digging into his flesh. Viktor suppresses a chuckle, feeling the unmistakable weight of an erection pressing against the side of his thigh.

A good dream then.

Showing no sign of wakefulness, Jayce merely huffs and mutters incomprehensibly, burrowing his face deeper into the side of Viktor’s neck, beard tickling and scratching at the sensitive skin, and keeps on dreaming.

In their first year, post the near-apocalypse, restful sleep was a rarity. Almost every night Jayce would wake Viktor up by thrashing in his sleep, tormented by an invisible enemy, only finding peace ear pressed against Viktor’s sternum, listening to the beating of his heart, Viktor’s hands tracing soothing circles onto his skin, softly murmuring ‘it’s alright, I’m here, I’m alive, you’re safe, nothing will ever hurt you again’.

In time, the nightmares had abated, startling Jayce awake only on occasion. It has now been a whole month without a single night terror, and the difference in Jayce is remarkable. It’s in his posture: relaxed and confident and more at ease with his injured left leg; in the radiant smile that makes his hazel eyes sparkle; in the way he looks at Viktor less like something he’s afraid to lose and more like something he’s ecstatic to have.

He looks younger now, some of his many burdens shed.

Viktor cards his fingers into his partner’s hair, gently scratching at the scalp with blunt fingernails. He presses his cheek against his head, inhaling the familiar scent. It’s a strong and earthy smell with musk, sweat and oil mixing together, not unclean if a little musty with sleep.
My Jayce, he thinks, the thought still sending a swarm of butterflies in his belly.

The old Viktor was laser focused on cerebral pursuit, his mind his most valued asset, his passion burning bright and fast. He had no time for distractions.

The new Viktor dares to revel in the mundane and the unremarkable. He treads with care, like a newborn deer taking its first steps, knees trembling, unbalanced. Instead of equations that push the limits of his understanding, he turns his gaze closer, to things that defy reason in an altogether different way.

Why is it that dewy grass under his bare feet makes him smile?

Why do raindrops, clinging on to the underside of naked tree branches evoke an image of translucent strings of pearls, and why does that conjure a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia for something Viktor has never known?

These intangible but somehow intrinsically human phenomena now drive his curiosity and Jayce is his favourite research subject - the contrast between smooth and coarse where Jayce’s beard meets his neck; the salt of his skin and the sweetness of sun-ripened fruit on his tongue; the scent of sawdust and earth that cling to him, making him more irresistible than any luxury perfume ever could.

It’s not a novel idea, of course, to become fixated on the object of one’s desire but Viktor is no longer concerned with the groundbreaking potential of his topic of study, though he wouldn’t be opposed to writing a thesis on the topic of Jayce. He has a decade’s worth of hypotheses regarding his partner - the sounds he makes, what he smells like, the way his body looks from different angles. And once he’s catalogued every aspect there’s still the question of why some of the findings provoke feelings of grief or joy in him while others turn his core molten with want.
His own humanity, and that of Jayce’s entangled in an everlasting dance.

When they escaped the arcane explosion Jayce had materialised more or less the same as he had been seconds before. Meanwhile Viktor had found himself in a new body, made entirely out of flesh once again. Faint, sprawling scars now cover his skin, a reminder of the magic and metal shell of the Herald, but otherwise his physique looks and feels mostly as it did before his melding with the Hexcore.

Curiously, his bad leg is no longer…bad. That is to say, he can’t find anything functionally wrong in it, nor in his back for that matter, and yet the pain lingers like an unpleasant smell he just can’t seem to get rid of. It flares up seemingly out of nowhere and the intensity of it ranges from a dull ache, easily ignored, to a sharp throbbing, like his entire leg had a tooth cavity. Lacking the advanced medical technology of Piltover, Viktor can’t say for sure that his condition is different from what it was before. All he knows is that it hasn’t continued to deteriorate despite his more active lifestyle, and that somehow it just feels different.

There are certainly stranger things than sourceless pain, and Viktor has resolved to treat this new-old condition as just another perplexing puzzle piece of his unlikely existence.

This morning, he is glad to note that none of his usual aches have crept in overnight despite all the manual labour he’s ended up taking on in the garden over the past couple of days. Whatever force reconstructed his body on his way out of the ethereal plane of the arcane, did not extend the same courtesy to Jayce whose injured leg will at times act up and entirely refuse to carry his weight, or become so inflamed that the sharp pain on its own threatens to knock him out. Not only that, but the pain seems to be indelibly linked to Jayce’s psychological trauma and in flaring up, triggers a cascade of hallucinations and emotional turbulence.

To keep those waking nightmares at bay, it’s sometimes Viktor huffing and puffing outside their cottage, wielding a shovel and a rake almost his size to turn the soil so that new crops may be planted. The work makes his muscles sore but it is a soreness he welcomes - afterall, he has always known to separate the pain of injury and disease from the pain that is a side effect of purpose or pleasure.

The sound of Jayce’s voice breaks through Viktor’s musings again. His breath fans across Viktor’s neck and he moans softly. His hips move in a shallow, uncoordinated grind where he’s hard against Viktor’s thigh. It’s oddly endearing how deep in sleep he clearly still is, body instinctively drawn to seek pleasure from a familiar source. Viktor has been half hard himself for a while already - it’s almost impossible not to be with Jayce this close, all warm and pliant with sleep - his mere existence in near vicinity, the most potent aphrodisiac Viktor has ever encountered.

On the one hand, Viktor is dying to see if Jayce could actually reach his climax just like this, rutting against his thigh in his sleep, unconcerned with anything but chasing his own release, unaware of Viktor, awake and watching. The thought sends a rush of heat down Viktor’s legs and his pulse speeds up. Tempting.

It is then that Jayce mumbles Viktor’s name into his neck, a soft whining sound that turns Viktor’s insides to jelly. By instinct, his hips respond by thrusting up against the thigh splayed over his body, his grip in Jayce’s hair tightening.

Startled awake, Jayce quickly comes to a stop.

35 days 18 hours

It’s past midnight but dawn is still hours away when Viktor jolts awake to the sounds of panicked cries. At first he thinks he must have dreamt it but then he hears the sound again right by his ear.

‘Jayce?’ he says, voice thick with sleep, and turns to his side. Jayce does not respond but writhes in his sleep, arms tensing and head jerking from side to side, wordless, ragged sobs spilling out his throat.

‘Jayce,’ Viktor tries again, louder and clearer, ‘it’s only a dream.’

He smells the sharp tang of sweat, of fear.

‘Mama,’ Jayce whimpers, ‘Mama!’

Viktor’s heart shatters into a million pieces and he swallows thickly. He pushes a hand in Jayce’s sweat-soaked hair and leans in closer.

‘You’re safe, Jayce,’ he says and adds, ‘I’m here,’ doubtful that it will help.

It takes a moment but gradually Jayce starts to settle down, still making those horrible pained noises though not with as much urgency. His chest rises and falls as his gasping breaths find calm again. Viktor drapes a careful arm across his chest and presses a kiss to the corner of his eye, the skin there salty and tacky with tears.

‘Hush, Jayce,’ he murmurs, feeling the steady drumbeat of Jayce’s heart under his ribcage.

‘Viktor?’ Jayce slurs sleepily.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ Viktor tells him.

Jayce mutters something unintelligible and shifts and turns until his head is resting on Viktor’s chest, ear pressed to his heart. Viktor’s eyes well with tears, which he blinks away, willing himself to lie absolutely still until he feels the relaxed weight of his partner sink into him. Threading his fingers in Jayce’s hair, he stares up the ceiling.

A little over a month has passed and at last there’s a roof and four solid walls sheltering them from the elements. There is no bed - only two worn spring mattresses pushed together in the corner of the room and topped by a heaping assortment of mismatched, moth-eaten blankets and cushions, charitably gifted to the two lost and confused wanderers by sympathetic villagers from the settlement nearby.

That’s what almost all of Viktor and Jayce’s earthly possessions are now - hand-me-downs and cast-offs, things held together by loose screws and frayed stitches and the stubborn belief that they are still fit for purpose. Much like us, Viktor thinks.

Jayce is breathing deep, steady breaths, each exhale ticklish as it brushes over Viktor’s chest. Only the cooling layer of sweat coating his skin remains from the nightmare. That and the oppressive weight of directionless guilt that threatens to crush Viktor’s lungs.

It’s the fifth night in a row that this has happened. Sometimes Jayces calls out for Mel, sometimes for Caitlyn, sometimes Viktor can’t make out any words amidst the breathless sobs. He can no longer access minds outside of his own but Viktor has a good idea of the nightmare that has Jayce in its grasp. He saw a glimpse of it, of what Jayce endured clawing his way out of the corrupted version of Piltover. He felt an echo of the fear and pain and hopelessness that very nearly destroyed Jayce. In that pit of despair, he had been stripped of the glossy surface of Piltover’s Golden Boy and left with only a husk of his former self to fend with.

Worst of all, it was Viktor who put him through it all; a different version of Viktor, but Viktor all the same. It was Viktor’s blood that unlocked something terrible and uncontrollable in the Hexcore; Viktor’s selfish pursuit of a cure that concealed its true power until it was too late; Viktor’s misguided efforts to help his people that created an army of mindless puppets; Viktor’s arrogance that almost doomed them all.

Without Viktor, Jayce wouldn’t have had to profane his dream, to get dirtied in politics and war, to drag himself through hell to do Viktor’s bidding.

If anyone deserves to rest undisturbed it’s Jayce.

He himself has been sleeping like the dead - dreamless and exhausted, which is a relief for Viktor’s waking hours are still intermittently plagued by vivid images of remembered horrors elbowing their way to the forefront of his mind, blurring his vision and bleeding into his reality like ghastly apparitions. Closing his eyes at night is a solace.

As he tries to go back to sleep now, all he can hear is Jayce’s desperate plea for his mother repeating endlessly like a broken record - distorted, jarring and wrought with pain.

Viktor thinks of an infinite number of versions of himself, each fated to cast a long dark shadow over the sun that is Jayce, each finding a new way to become the undoing of the brightest star in Piltover. It’s to these uneasy ruminations that he drifts to a fitful sleep.

Morning comes and Viktor wakes with a start. The sun is still low on the horizon and Jayce nowhere to be seen. The warm imprint of his body lingers in the sheets and across Viktor’s chest, and Viktor surmises he can’t have been gone for longer than minutes. A dull ache on his crown forewarns of a headache and his eyes sting with fatigue but he pushes himself up to sit.

Their accommodations are hardly luxurious but neither one of them was ever destined to be a homemaker to begin with, spending long days and nights in the lab and only crashing on a bed or a couch for the mandatory few hours before doing it all again the next day. Out of reach of the conveniences of city life, they've now been forced into a daily schedule that follows the sun. There are gas lamps and candles but neither fuel nor candle wax is infinite so artificial light is used sparingly. An old wood burner and a cast iron pan serve as a bare-bones kitchen and a rickety table with two chairs, one of which is coated in chipped, yellow paint, make up both the dining room and the study. There’s no running water but the stream rushing down from the mountains is close enough that its rumble can be heard underneath the sounds of the forest. Even so, carrying water from it every day is more manual labour than Viktor is used to, the ache in his bones a constant companion.

Water, sleep, food, warmth. The laundry list of things a body needs to stay functional seems long and demanding.

The body of the Herald had been an interface through which interacting with the physical world was possible. It had its own demands and functioned much like any machine - by processing inputs, calculating outputs, executing its function with precision. Observations arrived in Viktor’s consciousness like test results of a clinical trial - factual, concise and devoid of emotion. Inhabiting that form revealed how shockingly imperfect human perception is with every nugget of new information arriving already muddied with meaning. When Viktor looked through the eyes of his own shell and those of his followers everything seemed clear, uncomplicated.

Five weeks on, he’s trying to remember what it is to be human.

Reality still overwhelms him like on that first day - too sharp and bright, a barrage of sensory information dividing his attention between endless threads. He often feels untethered, stuck behind a translucent barrier that warps his perception. Viktor is not sure if the wall is of his own making or if it springs up around him on its own. Oddly, pain is the thing that grounds him. It reminds him that he is human, anchors him in time and space when he feels like he might either drown or float away.

Pain and Jayce. Although centering himself on Jayce is sometimes more painful than the pain in his physical body, like looking directly at the sun.

He finds Jayce outside, leaning on an axe, a pile of chopped firewood at his feet. He doesn't announce himself right away, stopping in the doorway to watch, two mugs of coffee in hand. The stretch of restless nights sits on Jayce’s broad frame like a leaden cloak, weighing down his shoulders, bending his spine into a tired inward curve. He looks weary and washed out, the rich caramel of his skin dull in the early morning light. To Viktor he is perfect regardless.

In moments like this, the absurdity of life hits him square in the chest. He nearly destroyed Piltover and Zaun, possibly all of Runeterra only weeks ago. Now he stands in a forest, gets to fill his lungs with clean, crisp mountain air and is building a house, a home with the object of his daydreams, the love of his life, with Jayce - Jayce who left behind his mother, his childhood friend and his lover, a life of comfort and inevitable success. Somewhere, somehow something must have gone awry for Viktor to have all this.

He goes to Jayce, who greets him with a toothy smile, not quite bright enough to hide the dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes.
‘Hey,’ Viktor says. Jayce sets the axe down and pulls him in for a kiss. It turns Viktor’s knees into two loose hinges that threaten to buckle under his weight.

‘Hey yourself,’ Jayce responds, voice rough, eyes soft.
They haven’t talked about the nightmares because Jayce never brings them up and Viktor doesn’t know how to. He feels the weight of them on his temples and the cold tendrils of insecurity that creep further in with each passing day.

‘You’re up early,’ Viktor says, handing Jayce a steaming cup, and takes a seat on a log.
The stream that can’t be seen from here but there’s a thick mist hanging over the water this time of day. Viktor stares into it, pitching his ears to pick up the steady thrum of the current. Jayce joins him, the proximity of his body a welcome source of warmth in the morning chill. He takes a sip of coffee and heaves out a contented sigh.

‘So are you,’ Jayce points out with a shrug. ‘Couldn't sleep.’
They sit quietly for a while, watching the first sun rays peek through the trees. A woodpecker awakens somewhere in the forest, filling the silence with the sound of drumming.

‘Is it the nightmares?’ Viktor hears himself say.

Jayce turns to look at him. ‘Huh?’

‘Your nightmares. That’s why you can’t sleep, yes?’

Jayce looks at him like he’s just spoken in a foreign language.
‘I don’t have nightmares,’ he says almost defensively, brow furrowed.

Now Viktor is confused. ‘Yes you do. Every night for a week now.’
Jayce’s eyebrows jump, startled. ‘You really don’t remember?’ Viktor asks him.

Jayce shakes his head. ‘Huh…’
‘Wait, so I’ve woken you up every night for a week? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Viktor turns away. ‘Eh, I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,’ he mutters.

Jayce is looking at him intently. ‘Have I— did I say something?’

Viktor glances back at him, swirling the cooling remains of his drink around, the fine grounds swishing in the liquid. He throws it back like a shot of some ungodly moonshine at a Zaun back alley and makes a face at the bitter taste.
‘Mostly just gibberish. Sometimes you cry out for Mel or Caitlyn,’ he says.
‘Tonight you called for your mother.’

They’re quiet again but it’s a silence that prickles on the skin like an itch. Jayce clears his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly.

‘For what?’ Viktor asks, arching an eyebrow.

‘For waking you up.’

Viktor huffs dismissively and feels something dark and oily bubbling up inside him. His throat aches and the pressure around his crown is an iron grip.

‘You left them behind,’ he whispers. ‘Your mother, all of them. Why?’
He tries to keep the wet swell of emotion from his voice but feels a telltale burn in the corners of his eyes. He feels pitiful, pathetic.

‘V…,’ Jayce says and his tone is too gentle and warm. Tears turn Viktor’s hands and the chipped white mug in their grasp into a blurry mess in his vision. It starts to morph into porcelain armour, adorned in gold filigree. An army of faceless faces. Viktor’s heart hammers in his chest and he can’t hear what Jayce is saying. He needs an anchor, something to remind him that he’s real, that this body is his and his alone.

Viktor doesn’t notice standing up, doesn’t remember letting the mug fall on the ground amidst wood chips and moss. He stumbles a few paces and presses his forehead against the thick trunk of a tree. Its bark is rough and Viktor grips onto it with both hands, fingers digging into the coarse texture. The sting is only mild, not enough to dispel the nausea and the flickering shadows of a memory, the tinny sound and the taste of blood.

Viktor’s fingers clench into a fist and slam into the tree trunk once, twice, three times. Just as the bark scrapes his knuckle bloody he’s pulled back into something warm and solid, large hands engulfing his sore fists. In an instant, Viktor goes limp, sinking into the comfort of Jayce’s body. He hears his own ragged, sobbing breaths and a soft murmur in his ear.

They stay like that for a while.

The day doesn’t wait for them and it’s not until the sun has crept behind the mountain, painting the world in shades of blue and teal, that they have time to talk.

Viktor is trying to review preliminary plans they’ve sketched out for an indoor plumbing system, in the flickering light of a candle but he can feel Jayce staring at him from across the table. The numbers and shapes on the sheet of paper refuse to resolve into clear answers and the dull throbbing on Viktor’s temples endures.

He shoves the pile of drawings aside with a sigh and rubs his eyes. Jayce shifts in his seat like a restless child torn between obedience and an urge to open his mouth.

‘What is it, Jayce?’ Viktor asks wearily, leaning his chin on his undamaged knuckles.
Jayce scratches at his neck in the way that he always does when he’s nervous.
His amber eyes glint softly in the candlelight. ‘You asked why I left everyone behind,’ he says, glancing at Viktor through his eyelashes. Viktor’s jaw clenches.
Jayce's voice is soft. ‘I thought it was kind of obvious.’ His eyes crinkle as he smiles.
He extends a hand and Viktor takes it, helpless to resist the pull. ‘I wanted you, Viktor.’

He looks at Viktor with such naked adoration that it hurts and Viktor has to cast his eyes down lest that gaze burns right through him and strips away his armour, leaving nothing but a frail, bleeding heart behind.
‘We could have been blown up,’ he says, trying to stitch together an argument.
‘You risked everything for me. You couldn’t possibly have known that we’d survive.’

Jayce’s fingers melt around Viktor’s hand.
‘And I’d do it again, V. Even if I only got to hold you for one moment before being atomised, it would have been worth it.’
He says it with such conviction that Viktor has no choice but to believe it. ‘But your mother—’

‘I won’t lie - I miss her. A lot. Every day,’ Jayce cuts in, voice breaking. He draws Viktor’s hand to his lips.
‘But I don’t regret choosing you. Not for one second.’
His eyes brim with tears as he presses a kiss on Viktor’s knuckles, the ones he cut in tree bark to keep his mind tethered to his body.

‘Jayce,’ Viktor says thickly, swallowing past the lump in his throat. ‘Surely I’m not worth—,’ but Jayce doesn’t let him finish, eyes burning like the candle flame between them.
‘No, V. you don’t get to decide that. I made my choice and I’m only sorry that it took me almost a decade to make it. I should have known from the moment we met that it was you. That it was always gonna be you. There’s nothing you can say or do that will make me doubt it now.’

He takes a slow, shuddering breath, brow creasing slightly.
‘Unless you don’t feel the same.’
His voice wavers though his eyes still shine with stubborn determination.

‘No, Jayce, you are everything to me,’ Viktor says. He tries to keep his eyes on Jayce but the depth of affection he feels in his bones and blood, in every sinew of his body makes him ache. He wishes he could be brave and let go, let himself fall and trust that Jayce will catch him and that he won’t just keep falling endlessly through an abyss with no beginning and no end.

‘I see them sometimes,’ he says hoarsely, staring at the candle flame.
‘My followers - victims. Those people came to me for help and I bound them, made them into puppets. I still remember all of their faces.’

It’s quiet in the cottage as darkness falls.

‘I wish I could do something to help,’ Jayce says after a long silence, frustration carving a sharp edge into his gentle voice.
‘You do,’ Viktor breathes out before he can clamp his mouth shut.
The outside world has shrunk into an indigo rectangle on the wall. That with Jayce’s firm grip and his warm eyes loosens Viktor’s tongue.
‘When you hold me, it’s easier,’ he whispers.
His instincts bristle when he dares to be this vulnerable but here, in the dark with Jayce, he feels safe.

They fall silent again, only the rustle of leaves reminding them of the forest that stretches far outside the cottage walls.

‘So, these nightmares…,’ Jayce says slowly. ‘I honestly don’t remember a thing. But do they keep you up?’ He chews on his lip pensively.

‘No, it’s—,’ Viktor mumbles. ‘You always calm down when I touch you and—’
His lips quirk into a half-smile. ‘You put your ear against my chest. It’s really sweet actually.’

Jayce’s cheeks flush and he coughs.

‘Mostly I keep myself up,’ Viktor confesses quietly, suddenly feeling tired all the way down to his bone marrow.
‘I want to believe you, Jayce. I want to believe that I get to have all this.’ He gestures vaguely around them and squeezes Jayce’s hand. ‘But when you cry in your sleep, it feels—’
It’s hard to talk when the fear and insecurity lurk just beneath the surface, watching him like birds of prey, ready to strike.
‘It feels like I can never be enough. Like I can never fix what I’ve broken.’

Jayce gives his hand a tug, beckoning him over and Viktor goes to him; allows himself to be pulled into his lap and be tucked against his chest. His body curls into Jayce like it’s meant to be there, embraced by strong arms, held close like a small, fragile thing.
‘I know this is hard,' Jayce says. 'But I swear to you as many times as you need me to, that I won’t ever leave you. I love you, Viktor, more than I’ve ever loved anyone and that’s not going to change, ok?’

The words rumble beneath Jayce’s breast bone. Viktor tries to press his ear closer to cling to their comforting echo. He lets his tears roll and barely finds enough strength to whimper a broken “ok” in assent.

Jayce hugs him tighter.
‘And even if I’m not lucid enough to say it when my nightmares wake you, you are my comfort, V. It doesn’t matter if I don’t remember it. I need you. I never expected to have a second chance at life with you but I want it. I want all of it.’

Jayce’s voice is thick with emotion but his heart is a steady drum against Viktor’s ear.
‘I want it too, Jayce,’ he says and realises it’s true.

They breathe together as the candle burns low. The world through the window has vanished into the blackness of night.

Jayce pulls Viktor away from his chest and gently holds his face in his palms.
‘I need you to promise me that you won’t hurt yourself again, V.,’ he says intently, glancing down at the bloody knuckle.
‘You can always lean on me.’

His eyes are dark and there's a line of worry on his brow. It’s a sensible request but if he wasn’t pouting Viktor might try to argue. He’s only been able to resist that face one time and even then he was less himself and more something else.
‘I promise,’ he says and Jayce’s forehead turns smooth again.

When Jayce kisses him, Viktor thinks he might be able to fall.

Chapter Text

368 days 21 hours

Jayce’s mind is fuzzy and disoriented, and for a moment all he can do is blink and wait as reality reconstructs around him. He finds himself halfway spread across Viktor, body pulsing with arousal. Viktor’s fingers grip his hair as two sets of heartbeats drum in concert. The skin of Viktor’s neck is damp where Jayce has his nose pressed against it.

'Viktor?' he croaks, voice thick with sleep, not entirely sure what his question is exactly.

You are Viktor, aren’t you? Am I still dreaming? Did I fall asleep while having sex with you or did I start having sex with you while I was still asleep? Do you mind your partner humping your leg like a dog in heat? Your dick is poking my leg so I don’t think you do but thought I’d check anyway.

None of his follow-up questions have time to materialise because Viktor is tugging at his hair and urging him to properly move in between his legs. The sound of his voice pours over Jayce like warm water.
‘Good morning Jayce', he purrs, his accent wrapping around the name like a filthy endearment. 'Come here.’
And who is Jayce to resist?

As Jayce comes face to face with Viktor, he’s still processing the fact of being awake in his bed, and not in their old lab in Piltover with a collar around his neck. His face flushes at the colourful imagery of the dream - Viktor, some kind of a controller in hand, sending power currents through the collar, with Jayce, helplessly writhing from a heady mixture of pleasure and pain under his intense gaze. It had felt so real. Jayce briefly wonders if it might be, on some other timeline, in the vastness of the universe.

Embarrassment and arousal make him squirm as he blinks at the very real face of his very real partner eyeing him with amusement and soft affection.

Jayce still can’t believe he gets to wake up beside - or sprawled atop Viktor every day, to hug and kiss and hold him whenever he likes (provided that Viktor is not in the middle of peering at plant samples through his microscope or cataloguing the various bugs that call the surrounding forest their home) and that Viktor frequently looks at him like this - through half-lidded, darkened eyes, lips slightly quirked into a playful, confident half-smirk.

Viktor gives him a moment to shake off the remnants of sleep, then experimentally rolls his hips. A whimper escapes Jayce’s throat before he has a chance to swallow it down. He suddenly feels a little raw and more than a little needy in this hazy in-between of sleep and wakefulness where his vivid dream blends into reality. He drops his forehead to lean against Viktor’s, feels a hand come to cradle his cheek, legs wrapping around him.

'It’s alright, darling, take what you need', Viktor whispers into his lips, coaxing him into a kiss with teeth and tongue. Jayce responds, kissing Viktor back with open-mouthed eagerness. Their bodies find a rhythm, grinding against each other in the warm cocoon of tangled blankets and limbs. Viktor’s ankles are hooked together behind Jayce’s back, keeping him close as the wet heat between them builds. And it’s tempting, the offer to let go and rush toward a release. But Viktor’s fingers are gentle in his hair and on his jaw, his wiry body cradling him, rocking against him, purposeful and sure but unhurried, undemanding.

Jayce feels the overwhelming urgency of his need cooling down to a low simmer in the comforting circle of Viktor’s arms. There is an undeniable thrill in moments of passion which sometimes have Viktor dragging him by his belt loops into a barely shaded corner of the garden, pushing him down on his knees where really anyone could see - or hear them should they be walking by. It is intoxicating to feel that young again, desperate for touch and impatient, the hunger for one another never truly sated.

There is another kind of thrill in moments like this, where desire feels less like fire and more like water, warm waves softly rolling over them, the world going soft at the edges until it feels like their bodies have melded into one. And so Jayce does what he often does - follows Viktor’s lead and lets himself be slowly dragged through pleasure with languid kisses, the maddeningly steady glide of hips against hips, cool fingers caressing his neck, making him shiver.

The thing with gradually warming water is that when it eventually begins to boil, it is already too late to jump out. Jayce’s back arches, his hips jerking as he suddenly comes with a surprised cry. Release crashes over him and he gasps into Viktor’s mouth before falling boneless against him. Viktor smiles against his cheek, fingers playing with sweaty strands of hair plastered on his neck. For a moment, they just breathe.

'Fuck, I love you,’ Jayce rasps, and pushes himself up to his elbows to look down at Viktor. He traces the curve of Viktor’s bottom lip with his thumb, and says it again.
'I love you.’ Viktor’s amber eyes are soft as he presses a kiss on Jayce’s thumb, and he smiles when Jayce says it for the third time, against his lips, 'I love you'.

Jayce kisses him tenderly, then sits back, good leg bent under, bad one hanging over the side of the bed. He takes Viktor by the shins, bending his legs and dragging him closer, splaying him out in front of him like a work of art to be appraised.

'Beautiful', he murmurs with awe, more to himself than to Viktor, whose cheeks, nevertheless, take on a rosy shine that travels down his neck and across his chest. He regards Jayce with a hint of anticipation, molten gold of his eyes swirling into black. He looks almost angelic like this, hair falling around his face, shining in the morning sun like a halo, the moles and freckles standing out against porcelain skin, forming constellations Jayce knows by heart and never tires of retracing. Of course there is nothing angelic in the intensity of Viktor’s gaze; in the way he bites his swollen lip; in the myriad of bruises and bitemarks that dapple his neck, his chest, his thighs; in the arousal still heavy and straining between his legs; in the smudged ropes of Jayce’s release traveling from his groin up to his chest glinting in sunlight, all at once obscene and sensuous. A picture of elegant debauchery.

Jayce takes Viktor in hand, slicking him up with his own spend and earns a satisfied moan in response. It doesn’t take long to bring Viktor over the edge, and Jayce makes sure to squeeze out of him every last drop of pleasure he can. He looks on as Viktor’s mouth falls open and eyes roll back, hips thrusting into Jayce’s grip, riding out his climax before flopping down on the rumpled sheets with a deep, contented sigh. Jayce admires the long, delicate lines of his body as he stretches out, limber and cat-like. He pulls Viktor up to sit in the circle of his arms and peppers his face with kisses, the wet smacks making him giggle and squirm until both men are breathless again.

'Come on, I want to hike down to the hot spring. I’m sure I can find new fungal samples around the grove there that don’t grow this high up,' Viktor says with a level of pep that tells Jayce the time for morning cuddles is over. He sighs a little wistfully but smiles. It is good to see Viktor like this – inspired, driven, sparkling with excited energy. It reminds Jayce of the early days of Hextech.

'We’d better get cleaned up then,' he says and carefully gets to his feet, reaching for the cane by the nightstand for support. It’s funny, really, the tentative process of getting out of bed every morning as if both of them are in their twilight years instead of mid- to late thirties. At first, Jayce had been quietly envious of Viktor’s reconstructed body, free from injury if not pain, while he remained stuck with his poorly healed, unpredictably bothersome leg.

He knows he cuts an impressive figure, broad-shouldered and tall as he is. In his younger years, when he had a whole lot to prove to the upper echelons of Piltover’s society, even more so when he became the face of Hextech and a councillor, he’d paid a lot of attention to his appearance. His hair: combed back neatly, his face: clean-shaven and smooth, not a wrinkle in his crisply pressed clothes. It was never for him; always for them, the people he needed to convince, impress and dazzle. It didn’t hurt that years of working the forge had sculpted Jayce’s body into a shape either envied or desired by most.

He’d been more than happy to shed the polished doll-like mask of Piltover’s Golden Boy, of The Man of Progress - even if the process was less of a conscious unmasking and more of a violent shakedown of ego in the corrupted nightmare land of the almost-future. Reinventing himself had been almost too easy. What hadn’t been easy was inhabiting a body that was broken.

86 days 23 hours

Jayce lifts the axe and slams it down, sinking the blade that could be sharper, into a treestump where it sticks. His arms shake from effort, and sweat dripping from his brow stings in his eyes. It’s early in the day but the sun is already beating down through a faint cover of clouds and moisture clings to the air, making it feel sticky and oppressive. It’s going to be another muggy day with not a whiff of a breeze from the glacier beyond the mountains.

On the ground beside Jayce, lays an impressive pile of chopped firewood that has nowhere to go – the shed is already overflowing and it will be months yet before the woodburner needs to be lit up for warmth again. The proliferation of firewood in the past several days reflects not the current level of need but that of frustration, which wants to be expressed primarily through violence.

Catching his breath, Jayce stares at the fruits of his labour with unseeing eyes. He does not think about the dull ache in his left leg. He certainly isn’t brooding over it. He clenches his jaw, digs the shorn edges of his fingernails in his palms and tries to breathe slowly. It’s like hammering a square peg into a round hole, although that’s a problem Jayce could absolutely muscle his way through. It’s more like trying to use a sledgehammer when what one needs is pliers – completely useless.

Impotent anger flares in Jayce’s stomach and behind his eyelids like grease bursting into flames, white-hot and sudden. He kicks at the stump, stupidly, petulantly with his left foot and winces at the sharp jolt of pain that shoots up from the point of impact.

‘Fuck! Fuck!’ His vision whites out for a second and a wave of woozy nausea threatens to break over him. Cold sweat prickles along his spine and he hears the throb of blood in his ears. Defeated and muttering a litany of curses he limps over to a wooden bench and slumps down, head buried in his hands.

The only sounds Jayce can hear, once the tinny noise and the rushing of blood abate, are those of birds and crickets. Eyes closed he could easily believe he was somewhere in the eastern jungles instead of the edge of a Skaggorn forest that climbs up the side of the mountains that eventually lead to The Freljord. While generally temperate, the entire Central Valoran has been bathed in an unusually intense heatwave for a fortnight and even up here, on the mountainside the humid heat has been unforgiving.

Jayce begrudgingly adjusts his position and manoeuvres his bothersome leg up on the bench to inspect the red welts left by the metal brace chafing against sweat-dampened skin for multiple days in a row. There are blisters where flesh has swollen in the heat, a near constant itch flavouring the soreness of raw skin and the jarring pain of poorly healed bones with a helping of pure, unrelenting irritation. At this point, getting rid of the entire limb is starting to sound preferable, Jayce thinks gloomily. If the weather would only return to its normal range of temperature and humidity he could at least stand to wear full length trousers and put a layer of fabric in between skin and metal. As it stands, Jayce is clad in well-worn denim that used to be a pair of work trousers but has been shorn above his knees into shorts in order to maximise uncovered surface area in case any type of breeze, gust or waft decides to make an appearance and blissfully brush over his skin.
No such luck has been forthcoming.

‘Jayce?’ Viktor’s voice carries a hesitant note to it as if he was carefully approaching a wild animal. It grates on Jayce’s nerves even if he rationally understands the reason – namely that he, Jayce, has been acting like an irritable bear prematurely roused from his hibernation for approximately a week, which incidentally is also how long his leg has been bothering him.
He takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, trying not to make it sound like an exasperated groan.
‘Yeah?’ he grunts in response, dragging his hands over his eyes and through the sweaty strands of his overgrown hair. His leg keeps throbbing vindictively. Jayce glares at it.

Viktor appears in the periphery of his vision and Jayce reluctantly meets his eye. He wishes it was easier to simply live this storybook life with Viktor without the weight of – well, everything. There are innumerable unnamed, shapeless hurts that surface on a daily basis. They turn Jayce’s innards into volatile compounds, easily combustible at the slightest irritation. Jayce half-expects to wake one day with thorns and spikes protruding out of his skin.

Viktor’s pain builds a wall of stone around him. He retreats behind it, body curling inward, mouth pressing into a tight line, but his eyes betray him every time. The well of grief, hurt, guilt and shame in them can suck the air out of Jayce’s lungs and leave him winded, chest aching. That’s why Jayce can’t always look into them. He despises himself for his weakness.

Viktor searches him now, probably running calculations on how many and which exact words he will be allowed to say before setting off the perilously short fuse of Jayce’s temper. That too is grating – being looked at like a math problem.

Viktor squares his shoulders and takes two steps into Jayce’s pace like a fighter facing his opponent in a ring, and shoves a stack of papers in his direction. They’re filled with sketches and formulas for—

‘What’s this?’ Jayce snaps, leafing through the pile. It’s entirely obvious what the notes contain.

Viktor’s expression is a careful arrangement of neutrality. ‘A leg brace. You need a new one.’
He says it with a dash of cool authority that Jayce immediately wants thrash against, for no other reason than to be contrary.

He says, ‘We don’t have the materials for this,’ aiming to match Viktor’s tone and sound professionally blasé. It’s a leg brace. This is a practical consideration, not a personal one.

‘If we do some work for Lucky I’m sure they can start sourcing titanium in small quantities as payment,’ Viktor says, starting to gesture animatedly at the prospect of a new project.

Lucky is an odd sort - a nomadic trader and smuggler of all kinds of goods from rare materials to drugs. It was by happenstance that their path even crossed with Viktor and Jayce but when they learned about the pair’s engineering proficiency that far surpasses that of any inventor or artisan in at least a hundred mile radius, they didn’t hesitate to propose collaboration - whatever that would entail. In the interest of keeping a low profile, Viktor and Jayce have stayed clear from shady dealings of any sort no matter how unlikely it is that someone with enough of a grudge would be able to track them here based on one or two bespoke gadgets, crafted for morally dubious purposes.

The risks are small, practically non-existent if Lucky is to be believed - it does them no good if any of his contacts are discovered by the wrong people. Nevertheless, caution has won so far. This life is precarious enough as is.

Viktor eyes Jayce’s leg critically and moves closer, fingers tracing shapes in the air above it, sketching invisible schematics. ‘And we can definitely repurpose a lot of this.’

‘No.’ Jayce swings his leg down on the ground and stands up, swallowing the grunt of pain.

‘What?’ Viktor looks at him perturbed, hands frozen in mid-air.

Jayce crosses his arms and looks anywhere but in Viktor’s face.
‘We have more important things to focus on. The plumbing—’

‘Can wait!’ Viktor says testily. ‘I know your leg is bothering you Jayce and it doesn’t help anyone if you keep being brave about it.’ There’s a shrill edge of frustration in his tone now.

A beat of tense silence follows, in which both men know that if they keep going there will be a shouting match that will resolve into one of them fucking the other against whatever stable surface is most convenient at the time. It’s not bad per se; it’s really good in fact but it also solves precisely nothing, and after a while the argument will simply resurface.

‘I can’t do this right now, Vik,’ Jayce says, voice strained. He has that awful feeling, the violent desire to lash out, to scream, to punch something, and he doesn’t have the energy for it. He turns his back on Viktor and starts trudging up towards the stream.

For a moment it looks like Viktor might protest or follow. He doesn’t.

Chapter Text

87 days 9 hours

Viktor paces back and forth in the kitchen. He feels restless and uneasy and all too aware of the time. It’s late afternoon and he hasn’t seen Jayce since the morning; since he stormed off after their argument. Well, that’s not quite right — he heard Jayce stomping in about three hours ago, then caught the back of him as he went out again with a bucket and a fishing rod. Viktor has chosen to interpret that as a positive sign and a confirmation that keeping out of the way has been the right course of action, even if his motivations to make himself scarce had less to do with what Jayce might want and more to do with Viktor’s own inability to do anything with the obvious pain written all over the other man’s countenance.

He’s good at tackling practical problems, Viktor. That’s why he’d put together those blueprints for an upgraded leg brace in the first place. He’d seen Jayce struggling, and approached him like an engineering challenge. Of course he’d guessed that the physical discomfort from the ill-fitting brace was only one part of a greater whole but fixing it had seemed as good a place to start as any.

Evidently he’d been mistaken.

It’s hardly the first miscalculation of Viktor’s career — the cutting edge of science is an unmapped, treacherous bog of trial and error where failure is a constant companion. When mistakes occur, one simply lets out a string of profanities, takes a step back and tries again.

Regretfully, it’s not as simple as that when one’s project is shaped like a particularly obstinate human who can’t easily be stabilised after a failed experiment. The obvious way to proceed would be to ask his subject where Viktor went wrong but that is a challenge in its own right. Viktor would vastly prefer to pry open the top of Jayce’s skull and peer inside to reveal the inner workings of his head.

In his indecision and uncertainty, Viktor has retreated to a safe distance, treating his lover like a volatile substance, prone to spontaneous combustion.

That’s why he’s pacing and looking out the window and clenching and unclenching his hands into fists as he waits and wonders when is an acceptable time to go after Jayce to ensure he hasn’t slipped and fallen into the water, hit his head or somehow managed to catch the fish hook in his eye.

Fifteen minutes later, Viktor has classified a dozen ways in which Jayce may have hurt himself, and is considering which rescue attempt to prepare himself for first. He’s chewed his lower lip raw and the inky black shadows that lengthen as the afternoon wears on, are making him twitchy. Thankfully, he sees Jayce approaching through the trees, shoulders hunched and arm straining from the apparent weight of the bucket. He looks tired but no worse for wear, and he isn’t limping any more than usual.

Viktor lets out a breath and hurries to the door, pauses, swallows, and then turns the handle. He doesn’t step out, doesn’t say anything — only watches as Jayce sets down the day’s catch and his equipment and takes a seat on a bench carved into a thick tree trunk by the fire pit they’ve been using for cooking outside.

The forest is getting more lively as the lazy heat of the day relents. In a couple of hours there will be an exuberant concert of birdsong all around. For now, there’s the occasional cry somewhere deeper in the thicket but otherwise it’s quiet.

Grabbing a matchbox and dry kindling, Viktor makes his way to the modest barbecue setup and wordlessly sets out to build a fire. The silence isn’t exactly comfortable but neither is it hostile. It’s sore like a fresh bruise, still tender from the morning’s quarrel.

It’s only after both of them have finished a plate of grilled fish and fresh greens from the garden that Jayce looks up over the fire that has faded to embers, and says, ‘Viktor, I’m sorry.’ His voice is strained and the look in his eyes remorseful.

‘It’s alright, Jayce,’ Viktor says gently, meeting him with a tired smile. Jayce shakes his head, body tensing unhappily. ‘It really isn’t. I—’ He huffs, frustrated, and buries his face into his hands as words that fail to materialise hang suspended in mid-air.

Viktor stays still, quelling the urge to go Jayce’s side and chase away the tension pulling taut the muscles of his arms, the line of his jaw, his fingers clawing at his hair. When it becomes evident that no more words are forthcoming, Viktor pokes at the hot coals with a stick, sending sparks flying, and suggests softly, ‘This is not just about your leg.’

It’s not a question but it succeeds in prompting a response.

‘No,’ Jayce sighs at last and lifts his head up. Weariness has deepened the lines of his once-boyish face and set all of his features on a downward trajectory, gravity pulling him down, making his spirit droop. ’It’s just so unfair,’ he says bitterly. ‘This - all of it… And I’m angry. At myself, you, Piltover - the world. We fucked up and left Piltover and Zaun in chaos, and now we’re hiding here when we could be there helping, fixing things. And I don’t know…I guess I feel guilty for not being there to face the consequences…’

Viktor’s chest tightens as he listens, the sharp claws of his own guilt digging into his flesh the more Jayce rambles on. He feels cold despite the warmth of the dying fire and the embrace of the balmy summer evening.

‘…but I know if we had gone back - if we were to go back, they would snatch me up as soon as we walked in. They’d make me into their fucking mascot again, put words in my mouth and polish me up like some trophy. And you—’ He swallows thickly, eyes hardening in fury. ’They’d lock you up, V. They’d want a scapegoat, someone to hate, and they wouldn’t think twice about it being you. Maybe they’d give you a hearing, a trial, to uphold an image of justice.’ He spits out the last word like it’s personally offended him, startling Viktor from the numb despair that has slowly been dragging him under. Jayce’s eyes burn with fierce stubbornness, a familiar spark momentarily shining through bloodshot exhaustion. It makes Viktor’s chest tighten for entirely different reasons and the chokehold of guilt around his lungs loosens.

‘Yeah…’ It’s all Viktor has to offer and they both deflate in shared resignation. A moment passes in silence before Jayce gets up with a soft grunt and slides down next to Viktor. Viktor’s body instinctively leans into his warmth, melting as Jayce brings an arm around him.

He feels as Jayce’s chest expands, hears the intake of air signalling that the man is about to say something. ’Jayce,’ he says, sotto voce but stern.

Jayce’s breath catches, interrupted. ‘Y-yeah?’

‘You made me promise I wouldn’t hurt myself. I need you to do the same.’ Viktor is surprised at how tight his own voice sounds, at the dark lump of fear in his throat.

Jayce becomes absolutely still, the arm cradling Viktor as solid as an iron rod. Viktor hears his throat working, feels the tremors that begin from his extremities and travel inward. He pulls back and takes Jayce’s face between his hands. His eyes are wide and wet and his mouth is a severe line. He looks at Viktor for a heartbeat before his composure crumbles. He buries his head in Viktor’s lap and whimpers like a small child.

Viktor, feeling very inadequate, does his best to soothe him.

He hopes that time will do the rest.

304 days 9 hours

It’s late afternoon and the last of the sun, before it sinks down below the treetops of the forest, paints the modest living room of the cottage in vibrant gold. Jayce is absently skimming through a battered romance novel - one of many he’s picked up on their rare visits to the nearby village downstream. He reclines on the too-small sofa, head in Viktor’s lap, legs hanging over the armrest.

Viktor is reviewing his notes on the pain-relieving properties of several local plants. For all that Valoran is home to both creatures and plants, touched by the arcane, there really aren’t that many species of flora or fungi that compare to the humble willow bark and the milk of the poppy when it comes to pain management. Hallucinogens, however, seem to thrive wherever magic flows through the ecosystem. In a previous life Viktor would undoubtedly have dabbled in mind-expanding substances; now the prospect of deliberately warping his own perception sounds about as enticing as laying naked atop an anthill. He frowns and sighs, feeling only mildly dejected.

'Viktor…?', Jayce says, stretching the vowels into a tentative question.

Viktor hums in response, squinting at his own handwriting. It’s almost impressive how the legibility of his notes always deteriorates towards the bottom of every page until they read as utter gibberish. He scoffs and crosses over an entire paragraph — may its contents ever remain a mystery to humankind.

Jayce squirms in Viktor’s lap, stealing his attention from the notebook.

'When did you know?' he asks, a little breathless, twisting the book in his hands. His eyes flick up to Viktor and away while his front teeth worry his lower lip.

Viktor looks at him quizzically, unable to stop the fond smile, tugging in the corners of his mouth. Somehow, Jayce still manages to look as young as the day they met nearly ten years ago, even with his full beard and sun-beaten skin, with the myriad horrors he has witnessed hiding in the depths of his eyes.

'Know what?', he asks, setting down his notebook and pencil and sinking his fingers into Jayce’s soft, tangled hair. Jayce leans into the touch, eyelids fluttering close as Viktor deftly massages his scalp.

'That you know… you liked me?', Jayce mutters, peeking through his lashes and smiling sheepishly. Viktor chokes on an incredulous bark of laughter. Even after everything they’ve been through, it’s the smallest of things that catch him off guard and flood his chest with salt water that wants to spill out in rivers of bewildered tears. There have been confessions of all sorts, delivered in words and touches alike; and yet nothing makes affection swell as painfully as Jayce being, well Jayce. The way he sings little melodies to himself while doing the dishes; the awestruck look on his face when the night sky is clear and glittering with millions of stars; the barely contained excitement with which he once pointed out a hedgehog family in the garden to Viktor — and these endearing, self-conscious questions he sometimes blurts out as if the two of them were like all those guileless youths falling in each other’s arms across the pages of his romance novels.

Jayce may even have been like that once, all shy smiles and trembling hands.

Viktor was brought up on the streets where betraying such innocence would have been as good as carrying around a sign proclaiming: ‘Fresh meat free of charge!’

No, the first time Viktor jerked another boy off, the act had far less to do with liking him than it did with proving that he’d done it before and wasn’t fazed by the prospect of doing it again.

He regards Jayce with a sly smile, fingertips tracing his cheekbones, his jaw, his lips. Jayce’s breath is hot against Viktor’s skin, his pupils dilating as he lets himself be looked at and touched.

'Well,' Viktor muses, walking his fingers down the side of Jayce’s neck, scraping a thin line along his throat with the edge of a fingernail, the tender skin turning first white, then red. 'I knew I wanted you from the first time I laid eyes on you', he says, delighting in the faint colour that immediately rises to Jayce’s cheeks.

This man. How does he blush like an adolescent?

'Then I read your notes', he continues softly, 'and much as I wanted to write you off as another privileged Piltie with too much money and no idea what he was doing, I saw that you were a kindred spirit.' It seems several lifetimes ago but Viktor remembers his first few meetings with Jayce like they happened yesterday. He never lingers on those memories for long — the bitter edge of infinite could haves and should haves, of how simple things might have been, cutting through the sweetness like a stinging spoonful of vinegar.

Jayce smiles wistfully but doesn’t say anything. He’s learned to give Viktor space to think, allowing silence to stretch as long as it may. They do have time now.

Viktor turns to look outside where the orange glow of the setting sun casts long, deep blue shadows across the garden.

'I think,' he says quietly, eyes resting on the scene, 'I fell in love with you the night we broke into Heimerdinger’s office and made magic for the first time.'

There are no secrets between him and Jayce anymore, not really. Even so, Viktor feels his face heat at the confession. Then Jayce makes a pleased, purr-like sound and rubs his cheek against Viktor’s thigh like a very content, very oversized cat.

'So when did you know?', Viktor asks him when the familiar discomfort of emotional vulnerability starts dragging its claws across his skin.

Deflection, distraction, denial — strategies that have been etched into his bones over the course of decades so that they may be deployed reflexively whether the situation calls for them or not. It mostly does not these days but as it turns out, extracting bad habits and replacing them with better ones isn’t quite as straightforward and surgically clean as Viktor would prefer. He knows his heart is safe, held as it is, between Jayce’s caring hands, but old fears and insecurities are never far. They stalk in silence and lurk somewhere in Viktor’s periphery just in case he bares a bit of raw flesh that they can latch onto.

So, deflection…sort of — he did answer this question after all, even if he’s now sending it right back at his partner like a pingpong ball.

Jayce swaps his book to Viktor’s hand and starts playing with his fingers, the casually proprietary touch that claims without asking, sending tendrils of soothing warmth through Viktor’s veins.

He blinks up, doe-eyed and thoughtful. 'Um, well, I liked you straight away,' he says, smiling sweet as cherry blossoms in spring.

'You were the first person who understood me and you were so brilliant and like…real', he sighs feelingly, cradling Viktor’s hand like it’s made from porcelain.

Unlike Viktor, whose mouth knits itself shut as soon as he’s managed to portion out a morsel of carefully considered truth, Jayce keeps pouring out secrets from his heart like it’s an inexhaustible well. Viktor sometimes has an urge to slam a hand over his mouth and scold him for so lavishly giving away pieces of himself - even if they’re only given to Viktor who will treasure them eternally. ‘Not safe!’ his hackles, that are always ready to rise, want to protest.

He does his best to smother the impulse to freeze and duck behind a wall of defences he’s built around his own heart, and laps up Jayce’s confessions like they’re the finest summer wine.

Jayce says: 'You didn’t sugarcoat it when you found inconsistencies in my work. But you weren’t belittling. You made me want to do better.' There’s a touch of intensity in his earnest honey-brown gaze, a deep furrow between his unkempt eyebrows, as if it’s of the utmost importance that Viktor understands this.

Viktor squeezes Jayce’s hand and keeps rubbing soothing circles into his scalp, telling him skin-to-skin that he is heard. Jayce’s forehead becomes smooth again and his eyelashes flutter. His face is a living painting whose contours and lines Viktor could study for a millennia and always find something new to fixate on. Right now another flood of scarlet is rising up along his neck and ears and turning his cheeks boyishly pink beneath the scruff and pale scars. It’s fascinating, the striking contrast of man and boy.

'I never… ' Jayce mumbles, the fever-red glow deepening until Viktor can feel the flustered heat where his hand rests near Jayce’s temple.

'I never considered that I might like men this way. So the way you made me feel, or how I sometimes thought about you…', he trails off, biting his lip and vehemently avoiding eye contact. It’s so incredibly cute that Viktor has to bite the inside of his cheek to stifle a laugh or a groan - he’s not sure which.

Every cell in his body is in love with this ridiculous, wonderful man. He would learn every language and invent a dozen new ones just to rhapsodise about Jayce and his perfect face, perfect ass, perfect, beautiful, radiant mind. Viktor wants to tie him up and worship him, to kiss and caress and lick and bite, to ruin Jayce for anyone else, to make him only ever his.

There’s a darkness around this all-consuming devotion, a blurred vignette edge of an old photograph. It’s possessiveness and it’s a desire to dominate and command — and it makes Viktor queasy with self-loathing and desire. Worse still, he can see the mirror of his own urge in Jayce’s eyes, a longing to roll over and bare his throat in a gesture of absolute submission — tempting, always tempting. And perhaps Viktor would dare to give in and venture further toward the unmapped borders of his desires with Jayce if he couldn’t see himself directing an army of puppets whose agency he’d taken away under the guise of giving them what they wanted.

Better not think about that.

'Wait,' he says, deflecting his own thoughts, and brings the hand from Jayce’s hair to dramatically clutch at his own chest. 'The way you thought about me? Jayce Talis, are you telling me that all the time I was pining for you, you,' he exclaims, feigning shock, and pokes sharply at Jayce’s chest, 'were entertaining lurid fantasies about me, your respectable, professional lab partner?!'

Jayce’s eyes widen even as he grins. He looks mortified and a little guilty, which is an entirely ridiculous notion because if anyone should be ashamed for the contents of their lustful daydreams, it’s surely him, not Jayce.

It’s so much fun to tease him though.

'Oh, um, when you put it that way…,' Jayce says weakly.

They stare at each other for a heartbeat, smiles widening, eyes twinkling, then dissolve into a fit of helpless giggles. It’s all so ridiculous, the unintentional game of chicken, the years of sexual tension, unresolved because neither of them was inclined to go poking around a thing that couldn’t be dissected and broken down to equations and blueprints.

That the force of their combined stubbornness resulted in a mass extinction event of unfathomable magnitude across several timelines — granted there were at least some alternate universes where their ineptitude to communicate was not the crux of what doomed the world. It’s mostly semantics though, and the fact remains that here and now, hysterical laughter is the only viable way forward in this absurd reality where, as each looks upon the face of their beloved, both a destroyer and a saviour look back.

Viktor is still chuckling, the corners of his eyes wet with childlike mirth, teeth flashing in the evening sun. Jayce keeps playing with his long, delicate fingers, another question taking shape at the tip of his tongue.

He clears his throat, drawing Viktor’s sparkling gaze back to himself. 'Were you ever… close to making a move?' Jayce asks.

Viktor considers, weaving his fingers in Jayce’s hair again. His eyes glaze over, chasing distant memories that only he can see. His mouth softens into a crooked smile.

'The Distinguished Innovators Competition. When we got drunk after, just the two of us. Everything felt possible then.'

Jayce sighs, nostalgia washing over him, sweet and blurred into a soft haze by distance and time. His mind is flooded with images from that day - the nervous energy that had been building up for weeks as they got ready for the presentation, the taste of burnt coffee and dry biscuits served in the competitors’ waiting area, the excited flush on Viktor’s cheeks when they walked off stage, the sound of surprised gasps and cheers from the audience as their victory was declared. He’d seized Viktor in a bear hug, lifting him off his feet and twirled him around, half-hearted protests and breathless laughter ringing in his ears. The tingle of sparkling wine on his tongue, its warmth spreading through his limbs and making him loose and relaxed, magnetising him to Viktor in a way that should have been an obvious sign of his growing attraction.

Viktor continues, that faraway look in his eyes, voice unbearably soft.

'A week after, when the all-nighters finally caught up to us. You fell asleep on your desk one afternoon. You were drooling a little on top of your notes, and the sun made your skin look golden.'

Startled, he blinks and looks back at Jayce like he’s only just remembered that he’s there, only just heard his own words. He blushes and swallows with some effort but the smile never leaves his eyes. Jayce smiles back, tenderness swelling beneath his ribs, a warm, sweet ache.

'I just stood there, staring like a creep, imagining what it would be like to kiss you,' Viktor says, cloaking his discomfort in humour. There’s a hint of pain underneath the self-deprecating laughter, the sharp edge of want and the ghostly echo of yearning that persists even with its object in reach. Jayce recognises it, intimately familiar with its shape, lodged next to his own heart in a time now passed. He squeezes Viktor’s hand, bringing it to his lips. A reassurance that despite the odds the two of them made it, found their way to each other’s arms.

They are quiet again, Viktor lost in thought, Jayce lost in the play of light and shadow on Viktor’s face. Viktor’s brow slightly furrows as he speaks again, slow and hesitant. 'I…uh, when you started seeing Mel… A part of me wanted to fight for your attention. I was jealous.' He shudders and makes a face, and falls silent again.

Jayce averts his eyes — his own feelings on Mel are still a confused mess that he avoids untangling. It hurts to know that the relationship drove a wedge between Viktor and himself, that it caused Viktor pain no matter how insignificant or unfair. It hurts to know that though genuine affection did blossom, the affair started as little more than a strategic move on Mel’s part.

'But I was also dying,’ Viktor says matter-of-factly, interrupting Jayce’s thoughts. His face is deliberately impassive. ‘You deserved someone with a future.'

Jayce wants to dispute the statement but finds he has no strength for this worn-out argument. Instead, he hugs himself against Viktor’s stomach in silent protest. They’ve talked about it, fought about it at length - about who gets to decide what Jayce deserves; about life and death and giving up; about Viktor’s misguided urge to reduce himself, his impact to a mere burden for others.

'What stopped you? Before Mel, I mean,' Jayce mumbles into the soft cotton of Viktor’s shirt, brushing against his abdomen with the tip of his nose. He smells like earth and pollen and salt. Jayce wants to untuck the shirt from Viktor’s pants and taste his bare skin — but he also wants to hear what Viktor has to say, so he turns away from the temptation. Later, he promises himself.

There is a pensive crease on Viktor’s forehead as he thinks. 'Ah, cowardice, I suppose,' he shrugs, placing a gentle hand on Jayce’s cheek. He’s so much more tactile these days and Jayce relishes every touch, leaning into them like a zealous disciple. He is certain that in some other timeline, if not many, he became just that in Viktor’s commune. Iron resolve crumbling to dust the second he laid eyes on Viktor’s ethereal figure, raised as it was above him, god-like, gentle eyes beckoning him to his knees. The image sends a thrill of heat down Jayce’s spine, his mouth going a little dry.

‘You were totally out of my league…,’ Viktor muses with a low chuckle, eyeing Jayce with an impish smirk. Jayce tells himself to stop thinking about kneeling. ’Out of your—?’

Viktor snorts, his eyes rolling all the way back to his skull. ‘Oh, come off it — as if you weren’t all of Piltover’s wet dream, Man of Progress!’ he groans, exasperated.

Jayce’s entire face burns like he’s been standing in front of the fires of his old forge for an entire day. Sure he knows he’s handsome and whatnot, knows even how to harness the desire and envy his looks once inspired in the Piltover populace to his advantage — but the thought of being the object of wet dreams, let alone for people he doesn’t even know, makes him want to shrivel up like a raisin. ’Viktor!’ he says, trying to sound reproachful but managing only to appear scandalised, which, to be fair, he sort of is.

’Are you serious?’ Viktor cackles. ‘You put your tongue in my a—’

‘Viktor!!’

‘In. My. Asshole. On a regular basis,’ Viktor intones and Jayce glares at him in mute indignation, cheeks aflame with embarrassment. ’But accepting that a large portion of Piltover’s adult population was imagining you doing it to them is a step too far?’

Jayce has a strong inclination to say something incredibly prissy like, ‘There’s no need to be vulgar’ but that would only earn him more relentless mockery. Besides, Viktor does have a point — Jayce is not particularly restrained in bed, that is to say, not in the least. What he’s also not, is as blasé about sex as Viktor is; about describing acts in crude terms, which is probably why Viktor is grinning like a cat with a mouse caught in its claws. He does enjoy wearing Jayce down into a blubbering mess with words alone and toying with him, the bastard.

Jayce harrumphs but can’t deny the effect the good-natured needling has on him. So what if he gets off on being teased and belittled; on Viktor looking down at him like he’s a little pathetic — and then soothing the scrapes with praise? Yeah, that’s between Jayce and his dick.

And now Viktor’s face is performing a very complicated shuffle of emotions so Jayce should probably not be thinking about his dick or any of Viktor’s effects thereupon.

He watches as a rueful shadow of a smile takes to Viktor’s lips. It’s a dejected expression, devoid of any genuine joy and it makes Jayce’s own face scrunch up in response.

‘There was also the fact that had we been romantically involved, many would have assumed that my contribution to Hextech was merely to, eh—,’ Viktor says, nose wrinkling as if he’s smelled something foul. ’To be your exotic plaything or accessory, only marginally better than the average Undercity whore. But not by much.’

‘But—,’ Jayce says, seething with righteous outrage over such a preposterous proposition. Viktor shakes his head, silencing him. His eyes flash with razor-sharp anger that fizzles out almost immediately.

‘I know,’ he says tightly and with a note of finality.

Yes, this Jayce has learned through numerous rounds of trial and error: not all things are worth poking at. It’s enough that he knows the truth and that Viktor knows he knows it.

Sometimes though, Jayce still wonders if Viktor fully believes in everything they both know.