Chapter Text
“We do this together.” A voice reverberated across the cosmos, more felt than heard, scratchy white noise spilled from chapped lips instead of words uttered in any human language. Its cadence is undefinable as if spoken into the vacuum of space. As if spoken to the universe itself.
Two beings were entwined in an epicenter of strange geometry, dizzying constellations flickering in and out of existence. Flashes of vivid golds and blues swirled in response to the disruption of its splendid solitude. Twin stars accelerating toward the vast unknown. There is no name for this, no name for them.
Just shared breaths.
A feeling of devotion and love so deep it swelled around them.
The sensation of being ripped apart and pulled together as if by magnetism. By fate.
A warm hand, a soft gaze, then nothing.
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A young boy jerks awake, eyes blindly staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He gasps for air as he attempts to twist away from the blanket trapping him to the bed. The boy's legs and arms tremble and shake, panting with exertion as his heart hammers within his chest; his body feels three sizes too small, foreign. A lamp crashes to the floor as he continues to spiral, spiral, spiral. We do this together .
A light flickers at the edge of his awareness, then a gasp, “--ce! –ayce!”
A looming figure rushes over to him, stepping over the fallen lamp. It feels wrong, he feels wrong. A hand suddenly shoots out of the darkness, going to touch his shoulder. He feels bile race up his throat. It’s all wrong. Something is missing. It’s not the right hand. A warm hand –
“Don’t TOUCH me!” He shrieks instinctively, “s-stay back!” His throat chokes on the words as if ripped from him. It feels like he has swallowed glass. The hand jerks away. Ripped apart and pulled together. He thinks the figure in the room is speaking but he can’t hear words. He can’t hear anything over his panting, all the oxygen in the room absent. He has no name, he is a constellation, a half of a whole, he is starlight–
“Jayce, breathe, you are having another nightmare.” A voice soothes in the dark room. The boy, no, Jayce, has a name and he is scared. “Shhhh…Jayce, this will pass. Just breathe and focus on my words.”
Jayce opens his eyes, uncertain when he closed them. A blurry form is sitting beside him on the bed, careful hands pulling the tangled sheets away from his flailing legs. The hands do not touch him again. His heart throbs, bereft. He aches. Something is missing, he is missing something–
“You are Jayce Talis,” A woman’s soft voice patiently starts to explain, grey eyes carefully searching his, “you are currently in Piltover, dehydrated but otherwise uninjured.”
Jayce swallows a sob down, ears listening to the woman, but not seeing, not hearing . He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to make sense of anything. He pulls stiff legs up to his stuttering chest, burying his face in shaky knees as she continues. “You have been here for three weeks under observation. The only thing expected of you is rest–you need deep rest. You have been through a lot in a short period of time–these nightmares that plague you are just nightmares, Jayce. They cannot harm you. You are in safe hands here at Janna’s Infirmary, that, I can assure you.”
The words fall over him like snowflakes on a quiet winter’s night. The lady speaks in hushed tones, her accented voice settles over him like soft static, comforting, but empty.
Jayce tightens his grip on his legs, feeling small and alone despite the stranger’s company. His face is damp where it presses into his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks uncontrollably. The woman’s words are clear but difficult to follow. His chest throbs in response to his growing confusion. Piltover….they made it to Piltover? Two beings entwined . He was with someone. Jayce is certain of it. There was something else too, something equally as important but lost to him–far, far away. Then it hits him all at once.
The blizzard. Growing cold, so so cold. The desolate mountains. His mother slumping over, her hand slipping from his, her lips blue blue blue–his mother— his mother.
Jayce jerks forward, eyes locking on the woman who is now bending down to pick up the fallen lamp. His left hand reaches out to her but freezes, awkwardly hovering near her shoulder. “Where is she? W-where’s mamá?” He needs to know. He doesn’t want to know.
She pauses at his stricken expression, setting the lamp back down on the bedside table. The woman kneels down beside the bed so they are eye level, voice even and soft. Everything about this woman is soft. It reminds him of his mamá. His heart freezes at the thought. A cold sweat drips down his spine as he reaches out to the stranger.
“Jayce, I can see you have questions but it is important that you rest. You and your mother were found near the outskirts of Piltover after that blizzard. You were brought to my doorstep half frozen to death and delirious, feverish. The man who brought you here, the guards on shift that night….nobody was certain why you were caught out there, but I suspect it had something to do with your illness. Your mother must have been very worried about you to walk through that storm. You were very sick when you were brought to my doorstep, muttering strange words and lost to hallucinations. As for your mother…” Her voice cuts off, suddenly hushed and quiet.
She looks down at the blanket. Jayce’s breath hitches in his chest. Ripped apart .
She doesn’t say anything more, just slowly places her hand atop the blanket beside him. Her grey eyes swell with an emotion Jayce can’t process. Doesn’t want to see. He feels as cold as the blizzard howling through his broken heart. Jayce’s chest hitches as she says something to him but his head is underwater–under snow. He feels his center of gravity collapse in on itself, like a collapsing star. Doesn’t know when he fell into the woman’s arms, into the abyss. The world around him becomes dark as night, darker than that night in the mountains. A dizziness overtakes his senses, his head too heavy to lift from the woman’s neck. The neck that should be his mother's. Her warm hands in his . A sob rips from deep within his chest, an unforgivable loss.
A soft gaze, then nothing.