Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So many things swirl around in Viktor’s mind: knowledge, curiosity, the connection of each and every one of the people he’s saved. They all live within him now, nestled deep in the endless space that his mind now stretches into.

Jayce has killed Salo. Jayce is different; there is something else within him.

All these things are interesting, but it's the chaos that takes up more of his mind than anything else—that little spark of the Arcane that could change… everything. The potential feels endless.

Viktor allows himself to meditate, to settle himself. Untangling Vander takes up a lot of his energy, and he needs to conserve some for himself.

There’s a part of him that is looking forward to seeing Jayce. Him killing Salo is only noteworthy in the way that it’s surprising—not like the Jayce he knew. They’ve both changed, and Viktor is excited to see what they can accomplish together now that they’ve both shed who they used to be.

It doesn’t take long for Jayce to slip into the commune, attempting to be stealthy, even though the attempt is wasted. Greedily, Viktor watches his progress through multiple views. Jayce is twitchy, obviously fighting against something as he winces in pain at nothing. The Arcane swirls within him restlessly. Viktor aches to touch, to reach out for him and soothe his pain, make it all go away.

He even turns his hammer on a child, yet just as quickly puts it down as if embarrassed with himself. Viktor urges the child to lead Jayce to him. He doesn’t open his eyes and blocks his view from all of his connections. When he sees Jayce for the first time like this, he wants it to be through his own eyes, and nothing else.

It takes a moment, but at last, he disengages from everything else, letting the connections fade into the background so when he opens his eyes, he will be utterly focused on one thing only. When he lets his eyes open, he does so slowly, wanting to take in this new and different Jayce.

His hammer is already lit up and pointed at him. Viktor doesn’t get the chance to speak before he sees it—a vision of pieces of his home floating away with the force of the blast, him, a carcass on the ground with a hole through his chest. His people, all dying, the thread tying them to him lost, cut, severed forever.

A flash of light. A blink. And then—

The pain Viktor is expecting doesn’t come. Instead, the light fades away, and Jayce is still standing there.

Only… it’s not the Jayce he’s expecting to see.

Wide golden eyes stare back at him. “…Viktor?” a clean-shaven Jayce asks, voice filled with doubt. All of him is clean, pristine, and looking as if he just stepped out of the lab, not the dirty, torn street rat appearance he had just a moment ago. He looks young and new, as if it were back before the council, before…

Lowering himself to the ground, Viktor fights to get his thoughts under control as his feet touch the floor and he stands up straight, eyes never leaving the other man’s. “Jayce,” he greets with a small, confused smile. “I wasn’t expecting you. Did something happen?” He reaches out a hand and watches the way Jayce follows the motion, mouth falling open when he takes in the metal his skin has become, the purple that shimmers beneath, pulsing like a heartbeat.

There’s a pause where Jayce keeps glancing between Viktor’s hand and his face. He takes a step back, as if unsure, brows furrowed. For a moment, Viktor’s heart spasms—Jayce has never, ever shied away from him.

“Is it really you?” Jayce demands, looking around sharply as if trying to place where they are, though Viktor’s empty rounded single room has very little to look at. For the brief moment his attention is pulled away, Viktor feels a familiar longing, the one that has dogged his every step for years and years. It’s familiar enough that he almost pushes it aside, tempted to ignore it completely like he has so many times before. The desire that always sits heavy in his chest for Jayce’s attention that never feels like he is worthy enough of it. Then he remembers that things are different and decides to try something new, tries to instead lean into the feeling.

“Am I interrupting something?” Viktor waits until Jayce jerks back to face him again, his face so transparent with emotion—relief, guilt, a little bit of shame at the reminder—Viktor feels like he wants to lock him away so he can only look at him before continuing, “I said that to you to stop you from jumping. Now, come here, let me look at you.”

Immediately, the unease and tension falls away, and Jayce comes closer, close enough to be crowding into Viktor’s space, the motion easy, as if Jayce has done it a thousand times before. It makes Viktor deeply nostalgic. How long has it been since Jayce has crowded into his space like this? Jayce reaches out for the hand that Viktor still has suspended in the air between them, taking it in both of his; his face full of awe as he flips the hand back and forth, letting his fingers run over it.

Now that Viktor is more in control of his body—while he doesn’t feel sensation exactly the same as before—he’s aware of the touch, and more than anything, he can register that Jayce radiates warmth, just like he always has.

“Viktor, what happened to you?” His voice is filled with awe and amazement. 

He chuckles. “You first, Jayce. How are you here?”

The explanation is interesting. The situation Viktor remembers from his own timeline—a day in the lab where they were working on solving the issue with the gates, experimenting with swapping the location of two objects to see if that would work better than simply teleporting one-way. Only Viktor and his Jayce had realized that one-way was easier than swapping, and nothing had really happened except to explode a few boxes. 

Whereas this Jayce had been swapped with his Jayce, apparently.

"What about you?" Jayce demands, though it's edged with familiar excitement. "Tell me everything!" His eyes are bright, eager to learn and to know. 

How Viktor has missed him. The feeling is strange. Though he's felt it often enough, ever since he's been changed, it was distant. Easily brushed aside. With everything else that he's been doing—there's so many things that take his attention—that missing Jayce, though constant, has been something he's barely thought about. 

Now, with a version of the man in front of him—the one that Viktor had first fallen in love with, all those years ago—he feels a bit of giddiness that he gets to show Jayce all that he's accomplished.

"Jayce, you will love this. Let’s walk and talk.”

As expected, Jayce marvels at the commune. He talks a million a minute, thinking about ramifications, the possibilities, what else Viktor could accomplish, what Hextech could be capable of, and so much more.

Jayce turns to him at one point and says, nearly breathless with wonder, "V, this could change everything."

Yes. This is the Jayce that Viktor expected, one enthralled with what he's doing here. His original Jayce had been... tainted by some other presence. Though he doesn't know exactly who or what it was, he decides it hardly matters now. His Jayce might have wanted to cause him pain, to cause his death, but Viktor has been granted a gift. This other Jayce sees things the way they are—all the good that can be done, all the good they can do together.

There's a pang in his chest at the thought. If only his Jayce had been willing to see it. Still, he won't let this opportunity go to waste. He walked away from Jayce before; Viktor would be a fool to do so again. 

No, after living without him, even if he was so busy he didn't dwell on the missing presence at his side, now that he has it back, he won't let go of it. 

Not for anything. 

The days pass in a blissful haze. He continues to work with Vander, attempting to detangle his soul from the beast. Jayce, meanwhile, wanders around the commune, taking notes and figuring out new ways to help out.

It’s lovely. As time goes on, Viktor can walk around the commune or see it through his people’s eyes, and there are pieces of Jayce everywhere. Things to make life easier, things to help people.

Not everyone who come to seek Viktor’s healing joins the commune. There is never any pressure; those who need it will join them eventually. Others, like Vander’s daughters, who come for someone else but don’t need healing themselves, will leave eventually, or they will join if only to stay with the family member(s) who won’t leave.

Still, now that Jayce has made his own mark on the place Viktor has begun to call home, he realizes how much he’s been relying on the Arcane to fix things. Jayce, for all his belief in the Arcane, in Hextech, defaults more often than not to pure science. Building things with his hands.

A forge will have to be built. Viktor has already put in the plans. Jayce has been making due with the scraps that accumulate, but he knows that Jayce can do better.

He wants to make this a home, one that Jayce will never want to leave.

Viktor has to expand his own dwelling, create more buildings behind the main pod that are better suited for Jayce, for them. Even so, their home is small, quaint. He doesn't mind—it's nice to be so close to each other, especially as they spend most of the day apart. 

In the evenings, they talk over dinner, and it feels just like before. Bouncing ideas off each other, falling into side-tangents that have nothing to do with the original topic, and arguing over which method would be better.

Other times, they delve into deeper topics than simply science—things they've never really had reason to speak about before. It's these discussions that make Viktor realize that while they agree on many topics, they have very different understandings of how and why things are the way they are.

Jayce has always wanted to help people, including those who live in the Undercity, a thing that Viktor admired and appreciated when they first met. So many living in Piltover look down on those from the Undercity, as if they had any choice in the matter about where they were born.

Still, he's realizing as they talk, the topic has never been touched on so directly before. Though they've gone into the Undercity together before for various purchases, Jayce has never seen so much of it. Even if the commune is a little pocket of sanctuary, it would be impossible for Jayce not to see the people who arrive every day for help—the vast amounts of suffering they experience. 

Now that Jayce has the time, he actually sits down and talks with actual civilians about their experiences. More than once, while he relays the conversations with Viktor, Viktor has found himself gently correcting Jayce's understanding and worldview, a thing he'd never bothered to do before. 

In the past, he'd largely ignored whatever random classist thing Jayce had let loose, thinking that he wasn't that bad and that the comments were largely harmless. Viktor had certainly heard worse over the years.

But now, Viktor takes the time to untangle Jayce's baked-in beliefs. Sometimes, it takes a while. Sometimes, Jayce gets bullheaded and stubborn, as he is wont to do, and leaves the room entirely in a huff.

No matter how bad the argument is though, Jayce always comes back in the end, and that's the only thing that matters to Viktor. It even seems at times that Jayce prefers it here, in the Undercity, working alongside Viktor. 

It also gives him a private kind of thrill to see Jayce's lack of interest in this version of Piltover. Oh, sure, he'd asked about his mother, about how Hextech and the gates came out, and a few colleagues of theirs, but that's all. He'd seemed happy at the responses and let it go, already focusing on what more could be done here, at the commune.

So different from the Counselor Talis that his Jayce had become. If it were his Jayce, only a few years removed, then the state of the city would matter. There would be more discussion about the implications of what Viktor is doing here would affect Piltover and a dozen other concerns.

Now, Jayce is content with the knowledge that his mother is safe. This is a Jayce before he got poisoned by the Counsel, by all the expectations he thought he needed to live up to.

Viktor is unsurprised to find that he prefers this simpler Jayce, the one not yet misshapen by the endless selfish problems of Piltover. He’s never liked that Jayce went into politics, and though it might be selfish, he’s glad to have gotten a Jayce from Before.

It feels right. It feels like a redo of sorts. It's as if the universe has given them both an opportunity to become what the other needs.

Tonight, as Viktor sets the table for them both, Jayce comes in looking uncharacteristically nervous.

"Hey... Viktor? Can I talk to you about something?" 

Intrigued, Viktor finishes laying down a plate. He gestures to one of the two chairs at the table. They may interact with others in the commune, but never here, in their home. So it's only ever set up for the two of them, and no one else. "Of course, Jayce. You know you don't have to ask." 

After they both sit, Viktor reaches out with a hand that Jayce takes without looking at his face, his roughened fingers trailing against the side of Viktor's hand. This is a somewhat new thing that they do. Though his Jayce had always been more touchy than Viktor himself, this other Jayce seems to crave it even more than the Jayce he’s familiar with. Frequently, he explores Viktor's skin with his hands, muttering under his breath about the way his body moves now, how the shimmer has interacted with Hextech to make his new skin. Viktor has even found drawings in Jayce's sketchbook, pages of his hands, his legs, his feet, drawn in perfect detail.

Though if he's being honest with himself, his favorites are always the ones of his face. Those too fill up pages and pages.

"For the people that you heal, how... different... do they become?" The words are stilted, awkward. Jayce looks up just enough to catch his eyes before glancing away again, as if worried about Viktor's reaction.

What remains of his heart gives a little anxious flutter, but he doesn't let it show on his face. He wants to be honest with Jayce, but he might not like the answer. He decides to attempt to side-step and see if Jayce will be pacified with that. 

"My healing takes many different forms. Though the recipients have some metal detailing, it is not as extensive as my own. Haven't you been running experiments? Surely you know this already."

Jayce pouts and shakes his head. This time, when he looks up, his gaze remains on Viktor, his eyes burning. 

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

He sighs and goes to withdraw his hand. Jayce tightens his grip. The silence is tense between them. Viktor doesn’t want to upset Jayce, but he is also sick of all the lies that were able to build up between them previously. He wants to bare himself to this new, fresh Jayce and be accepted as he is.

“When I heal someone,” Viktor starts slowly, attempting to find the words, “it forms a connection within the Arcane. We are… melded, in a sense. They exist in a space that I can feel.”

“And you have access to them, don’t you?” Jayce asks.

Viktor doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing. They stare at each other before he dips his chin down in a slight nod. “I do. How did you know that, Jayce?” It’s information that this Jayce shouldn’t know. While he showed his Jayce that he could overtake the bodies of those who follow him, it’s not an ability he showcased to this Jayce, in order not to scare him.

Jayce shrugs, their joined hands jostling against the table at the movement. “Took me a while to figure out, but sometimes, I could feel something looking at me.” He chuckles low. “It’s hard to explain, but you… You look at me differently, V. Than my Viktor did, back home.”

Viktor wrinkles his nose at that word. Home. As if this isn’t Jayce’s home. But Jayce continues talking, so he drops the thought. For now.

“More fond, maybe? Something like that. Either way, it’s familiar. And sometimes, I would notice that different people around here would look at me the same way. It’s subtle, but after I realized it looked like you, I couldn’t unsee it. It’s never the person I’m talking with; it’s always someone lingering on the sidelines. Whenever I spoke to them, the look would drop from their eyes immediately. But I still felt watched. It’s you, isn’t it? I’m not going crazy?”

“Oh, Jayce, no. Of course you’re not.” Like magnets, they pull towards each other, the legs of their chairs squealing against the floor as they move close enough to hug. Warm hands wrap around Viktor’s waist, and he runs his hands soothingly up Jayce’s wide back, propping his chin up on the other man’s shoulder. “You’re not going crazy. You are correct, it’s me. How can I resist not looking at you?”

This time, when Jayce chuckles, it sounds a little wet. They separate just enough to look at each other, and Viktor smiles as he watches Jayce rub at his eyes with the heel of his palm. Jayce is smiling too, his slightly crooked teeth a sight Viktor can never get enough of.

“Sorry, don’t know why I’m getting all emotional here,” Jayce says, and Viktor runs his fingers through Jayce’s short strands. “I always… I always wanted my Viktor to say something like that. Guess it got to me.”

His fingers twitch, but he manages not to pull Jayce’s hair. He forces his smile wider. “In that way, I suppose we are the same.” At Jayce’s questioning look, he explains, “I always wished my Jayce would want me to say something like that. Perhaps I can be your Viktor? I would gladly tell you things you’ve always wished to hear.”

Jayce’s eyes go wide, and Viktor can see the absolute want within them, the hope that shimmers in those honey-gold irises.

It’s manipulative. He knows that it is. Wherever this Jayce came from, he has no doubt that the Viktor there loved him just as much as he loved his own Jayce. Maybe, if this Jayce also loved his Viktor, who's to say that his own Jayce didn’t feel the same for Viktor at some point? Though if that’s the truth, then it seems the love has transformed into something else, if his Jayce was so willing to end Viktor’s life.

Still, he did speak the truth to this Jayce. How could Viktor resist the pull of a Jayce that wants him? It is a gift he never expected to get—Piltover’s Golden Boy wanting broken Viktor as more than just a friend and a partner, wanting him as a lover. It’s every fantasy come to life. It’s something that he doesn’t think his Jayce would have been able to give him, as much as the thought pains him to admit. His Jayce was too caught up in everything else to really focus on Viktor.

So when Jayce leans in to kiss him, Viktor meets him gladly. He wants to fill himself up on this other Jayce, this Jayce that could become his. A Jayce that belongs only to him; no Mel, no Counsel, no Piltover.

He'll be just for Viktor.

Like everything else that Jayce is, the kiss is warm. Gentle. Quickly, it gains heat as Jayce makes a noise against his lips, a groan like he’s in pain, before a clever tongue laps at his closed lips. Opening his mouth, welcoming Jayce in, it feels like something clicking into place.

Finally, it feels as though Viktor is radiating warmth. Though that could easily be Jayce’s intense heat consuming him as he all but gathers Viktor into his arms, pressing them as close as possible, as Jayce works to utterly devour Viktor’s mouth.

By the time they break apart, they’re both panting.

Viktor isn’t sure who started it, but they begin to laugh, foreheads pressed together, sharing puffs of breath as they hold each other.

It should feel silly—embracing at the dinner table, a meal laid out and waiting, but it’s not. It feels like a connection being made, like being reforged into something new.

All discussion gets dropped as they forgo dinner and mutually decide to explore this new thing between them.

It isn’t until the next day, when Jayce is on his knees behind him, combing Viktor’s hair while Viktor sits on the ground, meditating lightly, that he brings up the topic again.

“So, V, when you said you make a connection with someone. It changes them too, doesn’t it?”

It takes a moment to process, to pull himself fully out of the Arcane, to come back to his own body and be entirely present. Jayce waits without comment, likely understanding Viktor isn’t trying to stall.

When he finds himself back, all in one place, Viktor replies, “Mm. When people are connected to the Arcane, it alters them slightly, yes. There is always a price to be paid.” Viktor turns slightly to smile up at Jayce, lifting up a metal hand as if to demonstrate. “Do you think it is worth the price?”

Jayce takes his hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it, and Viktor turns so they can face each other. “Viktor, I’ve seen the good that you can do. It’s what we’ve always dreamed of doing. What you dreamed of doing.” Jayce pauses and bites his lip. Viktor tilts his head to the side and sends him a smirk.

“But…?” he trails off meaningfully, knowing that Jayce has something more he wishes to say.

“Why haven’t you done it with me?” Jayce asks quickly, his words almost running into each other in his haste. He looks down at his knees, as if embarrassed.

He pauses, surprised. “Jayce… you are not injured. What if I did not manage to return you correctly?” If you came back not all in one piece, he privately adds. “I would never want to risk you like that.” Viktor reaches out and cups Jayce’s cheek, subtly getting the other man to look at him.

Jayce places a hand over his. “But what if I want it? Viktor, I’ve seen the Arcane, seen what it can do. I want to experience it. I want to feel it the way you do; to understand it like you.” Viktor hums as he gets to his feet, holding out his hands to get Jayce to stay on the ground.

Fetching a chair, he drags it behind Jayce, who watches over his shoulder with a puzzled look on his face.

“I see what you mean,” Viktor says, and feels terribly fond of the way that Jayce lights up at his words. “So I’ll do this for you, Jayce. It would be an honor to be able to be with you within the Arcane. The experience… it is like nothing else. Words cannot even begin to describe it.” He sits and points at the space between his legs. He doesn’t need to say anything before Jayce scooches backwards until his shoulders are hitting Viktor’s thighs.

“Should I turn or—”

“No,” Viktor interrupts. “Stay like that. Just lean back a bit, my love. Ah, there you are, perfect.”

Jayce’s face looks slightly darker with a blush as he looks up. “Love?” he repeats. Viktor runs a loving hand over his head.

“Why sound so surprised? Surely you know. Ready?” He places his fingertips on Jayce’s forehead, and the other man closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath.

“Ready,” Jayce confirms.

What follows is just as indescribable as Viktor had said it would be. They meld together, collapsing in on each other, sharing every thought, every feeling, every want and desire.

Eternity spins out before them, as they live in a bubble all their own. Time means nothing when they have each other. When they can finally see each other as they truly are, when they can finally accept each other completely.

Anytime Jayce seems to want to shy away from something that Viktor has done, has had to do in his journey, in his role now as the Harold, Viktor simply pushes back, gives him a tiny, microscopic shove, and Jayce settles once more.

By the time they separate, Viktor feels better than he ever has before. Jayce has accepted him, every part of him, with no restrictions. Viktor feels free in a way that he’s never been able to experience before.

“Viktor?” Jayce’s voice is rough, and Viktor wraps his arms around Jayce’s shoulders, leaning over his head, taking on the other man’s weight as he sags in his arms.

“Jayce, how are you feeling?”

“Fine. Wait, better than fine. Great, really. I’m just still processing. That was… wow.” Big golden eyes peer up at him, through the curtain that Viktor’s hair makes around them. “It was incredible. You’re incredible, V.”

Viktor chuckles at how awestruck Jayce sounds. He kisses his forehead, right over where the shape of his own fingertips now gleam.

“We are incredible, Jayce. We can do so much together. We’re going to change the world for the better.”

A few days later, after Viktor finishes working with Vander, he feels a nudge at his consciousness, a familiar tug that has him smiling already.

Jayce wants his attention.

Winding through the commune, Viktor waves and nods at various people but doesn’t bother to stop, and none attempt to intercept him. They know he is not to be disturbed.

He finds Jayce in the greenhouse, surrounded by flowers and light. When he catches sight of Viktor, he smiles, and the rush of love that Viktor feels is indescribable.

Jayce looks like one of them now, wearing his white commune robes. Handsome and free, and when Jayce reaches out for him, Viktor reaches back gladly.

They come together naturally, as if they have always done it.

“Jayce,” Viktor says warmly. And it’s all that needs to be said. Jayce pulls him to the ground, rests his head against Viktor’s legs, and gazes up at Viktor like he’s the only thing he’d ever want to see. “How has your day been, my love?” Viktor asks, just to hear Jayce’s voice.

Jayce snorts, like he’s heard the thought. Maybe he had. They tend to bleed into each other nowadays. Jayce tucks a flower behind one of Viktor’s ears, letting his finger trail slowly along the shell.

“It was good. Missed you, though. I was trying to encourage some of the kids to get into mischief.”

“Oh?” Viktor asks, laying his hand on Jayce’s stomach so he can feel the way his stomach rises and falls with his breathing.

Jayce doesn’t need more encouragement than that to launch into his tale. Viktor listens idly as he plucks at their connection and considers an idea he’s been toying with recently.

This Jayce, not his original Jayce, but the one he has now, has another connection. It leads out into the ether, a string tied around this Jayce and which leads, Viktor assumes, to the other Jayce. To his Jayce.

Severing it would likely mean that the two could never be swapped back. That they would be stuck in whatever universe they ended up in.

Viktor thinks about this Jayce leaving him, and the decision is made almost without conscious thought. He reaches out in the Arcane with one hand and tears the string apart. It disintegrates more easily than he expected it to, like it was no more than a spider’s web.

“Everything alright, V?” Jayce’s voice is concerned, and he pats his stomach.

“Everything’s perfect, Jayce,” Viktor reassures. “How can it not be, with you here?”

“You’re just saying that,” Jayce says with a laugh.

Viktor shakes his head with a small smile. “I mean it completely. Now, what were you saying?”

As the sound of Jayce's voice once more fills the room, Viktor muses on what he's done. Perhaps it’s wrong to hold onto so tightly to someone that is technically not ‘his’, but Viktor has made this Jayce his in all the ways that matter. They love each other, and whatever happens now, they will face it together.

He just hopes that wherever the other Jayce ended up, he is happy. That he doesn’t begrudge Viktor this choice.

But in Viktor’s heart of hearts, he knows that it doesn’t matter. The other Jayce will either be happy or he’ll be miserable, but Viktor has learned to be selfish. He’ll cling to what he wants with both hands, with no reservations or considerations.

He’ll exist together with a Jayce that loves him, completely and utterly.

And that’ll be enough.

Chapter Text

It feels impossible, what Jayce is doing. Picking his way through a village that's so bright that it hurts to look at it. Some part of Jayce is intrigued, looking at all these people who go about their lives, actually happy in the Undercity, but he knows it’s all a faux.

The Arcane spreads like an oil spill over this place. Oh, it masks itself well enough—the people living here in harmony, with their too-bright eyes that command attention. But the swirling colors of the Arcane are here, and once you know what to look for, it’s hard to miss. They make him queasy; it feels like the start of a plot to something he’s already seen the ending to.

And he knows this won’t last; this happy ending Viktor has created in this little pocket of the Undercity. Soon, it’ll grow—feeding on itself, and everything else. Until nothing remains.

Nothing except Viktor.

Jayce is responsible for that, he knows, and it’s a guilt he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life. He doesn’t want to do this—to kill his best friend, his partner. Not after all that he went to get him back.

But… Viktor changed—has come back different. And while Jayce is different too—months of living alone in a hole would do that to anyone, he assumes—he has to correct what he’s done.

It just might kill him, after the fact, but at least he would have fixed something. Jayce will deal with his own feelings about it all afterwards.

Because he’s seen what will happen if he doesn’t do this.

Jayce doesn’t let himself linger, once he makes it inside of Viktor’s—shell, home, cage?—place. Instead, he glances up to see Viktor’s form, eerily floating in the air, and braces himself one final time to pull the trigger. He’s afraid that if he lets himself look for any longer, he won’t be able to go through with it.

His finger twitches, and it’s almost as if he hears the boom before everything shatters into pieces.

Landing heavily, Jayce’s leg twists painfully, making him curse as he stumbles, trying to keep his balance. He’s so distracted that he forgets himself, hammer almost falling to the floor, the light at the end of it fading away.

A soft voice, heavy with incredulity, asks, “…Jayce?” and his head whips up, eyes wide. His hands tighten on the hammer, and his heart skips a beat as he begins to raise it. He can’t let Viktor try to change his mind, can’t give him the chance to—

Viktor, a healthy Viktor, a human Viktor, stares back at him, looking like he had, so many years ago now.

The hammer clatters to the ground.

“V-Viktor?” Jayce says. He looks around, though his confusion only mounts. He’s in their old lab, the first lab, smaller than the one they eventually end up in. It practically oozes with familiar coziness: the tables are filled with experiments and paperwork, and the smell of old coffee and dust fills his nose. Sunlight streams in from the windows.

It’s like it’s been cut out of his memory, some of his fondest, if he’s being honest.

“Did you do this?” he demands, voice harsh, eyes landing on the younger Viktor.

Viktor pauses from where he’d been sliding out of his chair. His brows furrow. His brown hair is so short, like how it was when they first met. “Do what? I haven’t done anything. You were the one who was fussing with things while my back was turned. Which, may I just say, I told you not to actually run any experiments until I had finished my equations.” As he speaks, he picks up his cane and walks closer, his leg brace noticeably missing.

Familiar brown eyes look Jayce over, and he can see the calculations happening behind them. All at once, Jayce's hostility drops. If this is really Viktor from the past, and not just a trick done by that other Viktor, then…

Then there are so many other things wrong, and panic snatches the breath from his lungs.

He lunges forward, grabbing onto Viktor’s shoulders, not really registering Viktor’s hiss of pain. “Jayce, what—”

“Viktor, V,” he says, eyes wide and frantic, “we have to stop. We can’t make the Hextech. It’ll just destroy everything. V, you gotta believe me. We can’t, it’s—”

And how can he encompass everything? How can he tell Viktor all the horrors his childhood dream has wrought? How them trying to do a good thing, make people's lives easier, results in the end of the world?

It sounds like a fantasy. It sounds like a story told to children, some attempt at teaching morality.

There’s a ringing in Jayce’s ears, his breaths are coming too fast, and it feels like something is trying to claw its way up his throat. He can’t get enough air. Distantly, he thinks he hears Viktor calling out his name, but he can’t respond. All he knows is panic, panic, panic at the thought of everything he has to do, everything that must be done.

His heart races and races, and the last thing he sees before the darkness overtakes him is Viktor’s face leaning over him, lined with concern.

Jayce wants to comfort him, wants to say he’ll be okay; that whatever is happening, it’s not the worst thing he’s faced.

But the darkness swallows him up before he can do anything else.

Later, much later, when Jayce is calm enough to actually talk to Viktor, rather than simply ranting with fear, they’re able to figure out what happened.

The Jayce from this world was attempting to get the technology for the Hexgates to work, and, somehow or another, managed to switch the two Jayces.

Pouring over the other man’s notes, Jayce wants to tear them all to pieces. It’s all garbage, not a single thing that can help to explain how this is even possible. Likely, the other Jayce was just tinkering and managed to have a one-in-a-lifetime accident.

Jayce remembers this experiment, remembers that it failed fantastically with a fire in the lab that was swiftly put out. It was only memorable because of the way Viktor had been so mad at him afterwards for trying something without him watching and being able to help if the need arose, which it obviously had. They had become closer after the incident, figuring out ways they could work together more smoothly.

It’s been a long time, Jayce realizes as he thinks it over, since the two of them had actually been able to do science together. The Council had taken over so much of Jayce’s life. With Viktor’s health suddenly failing, it felt like Jayce was losing so much all at once before he was left in that hole to rot.

Viktor isn’t happy about Jayce’s insistence that they stop working on Hextech, but of course, Jayce hadn’t expected anything else. Still, at least this Viktor can listen to reason. Once Jayce showed Viktor his wrist, the crystal now embedded within it, and the way that the Arcane sinks into his skin, spreading out over his forearm and leg, Viktor quietly concedes the point. So, while Viktor isn’t happy, Jayce at least trusts him to listen. It’s the other Jayce he’s worried about.

He knows his own pig-headedness, the desperate need to prove everyone wrong, to show that he was right, that magic can truly help people’s lives. Jayce isn’t sure what the other man would need to give up that dream.

After all, it took him a whole other universe, alone in a hole for months, and Viktor being the only remaining survivor on a barren earth before he could contemplate letting go.

Somehow, he doesn’t think Viktor’s words alone, or any evidence he might leave himself, would convince the other Jayce once they swap back. Especially not if they swapped places, and that other Viktor has had time to pollute him. Viktor’s little village is beautiful to look at, and Jayce can imagine a world where he could fall into temptation to believe it at face value, to not look deeper than the surface level beauty that it shows.

To be unable to see the way it rots from underneath.

So he throws himself into research, trying to figure out a way back.

This world’s Viktor is incredibly helpful, and every time Jayce looks at him across the lab—illuminated by the light streaming in from the window, looking just as handsome as he remembers, whole and healthy, he’s hit with such yearning he almost wants to puke from it.

He doesn’t deserve it. This other Viktor who, when he looks up and meets Jayce’s eyes, smiles at him like Jayce has never done anything wrong, like Viktor is happy to see him.

Viktor looks so good like this, his hair cut short, no leg brace to speak of, though he’d been able to help Jayce remake the one he’d shoddily put together for himself in that hole.

Staring thoughtfully at Viktor’s leg, idly, Jayce puts down the notebook he’d been writing in.

“V?” he says, getting off his stool, wincing a bit with pain as he forgets himself and lands on his bad leg first. Limping slightly, he crosses to the other man’s desk. When he gets close enough, he can hear Viktor muttering under his breath, in a language Jayce still doesn’t understand, but can recognize bits and pieces. It’s charming, it’s always been charming. He has to swallow against the want that chokes his throat with all that he can’t have.

“Viktor?” Jayce repeats, and that finally gets Viktor to look up. His eyes are so very bright, his skin pale, yes, but not sunken in. There are no deep bags under his eyes, just Viktor’s straight lines, the jut of his jawline, the pinpoint straightness of his nose.

How could Viktor have gotten so sick without Jayce knowing? Bile threatens to rise up from his stomach at the thought because he knows the answer. Jayce was so distracted with things that just didn’t matter—the Council, Mel, and a thousand other things that he felt like he had to do in order to keep their Hextech dream alive.

And all the while, Viktor was suffering. He didn’t trust Jayce with the truth, hoping against hope that perhaps Hextech could help him if they only had enough time.

If Viktor had just told Jayce then maybe… but he shies away from the thought. He shouldn’t blame Viktor for this. What difference would it have made? Perhaps Viktor was worried that Jayce would solely focus on Viktor’s health, when by that point, there was nothing to be done.

Or, more terrifying to think about, maybe Viktor expected Jayce to ultimately do nothing. That he would let his other obligations take precedence over Viktor’s life.

He’ll never really know the answer to that, and he knows he won’t ever get the courage to ask this Viktor what he thinks. Jayce doesn’t know if he’d even accept it, whichever way this Viktor would answer, so all the more reason to never ask. Instead, he focuses on what he does want to know. 

“Yes, Jayce?” Viktor cocks his brow at him as he turns his stool to face him.

He purses his lips. He knows this conversation isn’t going to be easy. “In my timeline, Viktor got really sick. Do you know if…?” he trails off, but with the way that Viktor’s eyes widen with surprise before the expression on his face forcibly shutters closed, he knows the answer. Viktor has always hated talking about himself, and especially anything related to his disabilities. “I just want to help!” Jayce is quick to offer, trying to plead. “Isn’t there anything we can do? Why not focus on that instead of Hextech?”

For a moment, Jayce can see the way that Viktor’s hackles rise, ready to be cutting, the way only he can be, before he exhales, his posture softening. “There’s nothing to be done, Jayce.” His long, bony fingers play with each other in his lap. “My spine and leg issues are birth defects, but the issue is my lungs. The air in the Undercity.” Viktor shrugs. “It’s no good. It leaves a scar that will never heal.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to deny that, to ask if Viktor has tried everything, to demand that surely more could be done, before he bites hard enough to taste copper filling his mouth. That’s exactly the kind of attitude that made Viktor unable to trust him the first time. And he needs this one to trust him, so that when he leaves, Viktor can make sure they never use the Hextech, even with the other Jayce returns sprouting nonsense about it.

“Can we… do you think we could look into it?”

Both of Viktor’s eyebrows fly up in shock. “Jayce… we are not doctors. We’re scientists.”

He smiles, a wobbly, small thing. “Isn’t that what doctors do? Science? Besides, we wanted to help people.”

“Help people, yes,” Viktor agrees, voice a little shaky. “But we meant the vast majority, not… not just me.”

“Helping you would be helping others!” Jayce argues, warming to the subject now, as he spins away and starts to pace, mind running ahead as he starts thinking about the possibilities. “You said it yourself, it’s the air in the Undercity, right? Surely that means more people have this problem than just you. We can work to figure out how to repair your lungs, and also research the ways we can try to improve the air. It could be something actually helpful!” Something more impactful than thinking he can forge a hammer and literally smash the problem into bits.

A flash of a young boy’s terrified face fills his mind, and he flinches away from it, instinctively searching for Viktor instead.

Viktor’s face is stunning, the indulgent smile making him feel breathless; Viktor’s backlit by the sun, making his hair shine, and he looks radiant, like something other than human.

No, he almost snarls aloud at the thought. No. He looks human. He looks like home.

He looks like everything Jayce can’t have, not anymore.

“I did not know you felt so strongly about my health, Jayce,” Viktor says, tone gentle and teasing, and maybe just a little bit shaky, like he doesn't quite believe it. He smiles back weakly.

“Of course I do. You’re my partner.”

There’s more to the sentence: that this is a good subject to turn their attention to that isn’t forwarding Hextech, that Jayce knows how much Viktor’s death would break him—has broken him. That he can’t let these two younger versions of themselves make the same mistakes that they did.

He voices none of it because Viktor beams at him in a way he’s rarely ever seen, happy and grateful, and Jayce swallows down all the other reasons. At the end of the day, what does it matter?

The important thing is Viktor; he’s learned that the hard way.

Still, as time passes, he gets more and more frustrated.

Not at Viktor, never at Viktor, but at himself, for being unable to solve this.

If the other Jayce could swap them accidentally, then it means that the sequence to do it again shouldn’t be that difficult. Why then, can they not figure it out? They keep hitting a wall, again and again, and Jayce is panicking.

About what the other Viktor is doing, what lies he might be telling the other Jayce, about what ruin Viktor could cause to the world, yes. But also… also, about finally realizing his own feelings about Viktor, after being locked in a hole and being forced to confront himself with no other distractions, and Jayce hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to have his relationship with Viktor reset.

They were both young when they met. And while Jayce had been familiar with the ways that women looked at him, it had taken him much longer to recognize the way that men did the same. And by the time he could recognize it, it was so deep into their partnership that Jayce convinced himself he was making it up. Seeing things that weren’t there. That surely, he was just reading the signs wrong, that Viktor wasn't interested in him like that.

Jayce hadn’t been able to admit at the time that the reason he tried to convince himself it was nothing was because he had, on some level, been desperately searching for it. But even if he had been tempted to go for it, he had been more attached to their friendship; he'd been too afraid of losing it if he tried for anything more.

That’s all to say that now, with his own feelings realized and the experience that age brings, Jayce can clearly see the ways that Viktor is attracted to him.

If the thought of killing his Viktor felt like tearing his heart into pieces with his bare hands, watching the way this Viktor looks at him—only skittering away when he realizes that Jayce notices his stares, his cheeks darkening with a blush—feels like ripping apart his very soul. If there’s a higher being out there, it’s definitely laughing at him. Why else tempt him with this perfect redo? This chance at another shot?

It’s painful, realizing how different their lives could have been if only Jayce hadn’t been so blind by his dream of Hextech, and then his own fears about ruining things between them.

Frustration about all of it, the inability to go back home, and this Viktor being a vision of all he can’t have makes him lash out, and then feel intensely guilty for doing so.

He’s hiding after a particularly bad argument. Not even an argument, just Viktor voicing something and Jayce yelling back, and it had been over nothing, but Jayce couldn’t bear it anymore—the familiar flash of anger on Viktor’s face, and the way he knew exactly what the other man was going to say. He rushed out of the lab before things could escalate further.

Jayce sighs, his body hitting the side of a brick building and letting the brick scrape at him through his clothes as he lets gravity take him until he hits the ground none-too-gently. Burying his head in his hands, elbows braced on his knees, he grabs onto his hair, tugging until it hurts.

Stupid, he’s so stupid. He hasn’t been sleeping well, too distracted by an unsolvable problem and the nightmares of another universe and ivory blank faces.

He’s so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn’t know how much time has passed before he hears the familiar sound of a cane hitting cobblestones.

Jayce doesn’t uncurl from his position, shame swirling through his stomach at being seen like this. That is, until something whacks against his hip.

“Ouch!” Jayce hisses as he instinctively flinches away. “Viktor, what—”

“You are tired,” Viktor interrupts. “I understand. However, we cannot make any breakthroughs if you look ready to collapse. Come.”

Then, without sparing Jayce another glance, he begins to walk away. Jayce blinks after him. It seems to him that Viktor walks a little slower than usual, but he doesn’t look back at Jayce, as if confident that he’ll be followed, no matter what.

Jayce sucks air through his teeth, making a clicking sound with his tongue, before he gets up to his feet and hustles to follow.

He’s nothing but predictable, he supposes, but Jayce has never claimed to be anything more than what he is.

They end up at Viktor’s apartment. Jayce tries to protest—he doesn’t know how much more temptation he can rightfully resist—but Viktor’s glare has always been effective, and in what feels like no time at all, he’s stripped down to just his pants, shirt, and socks, sitting on the side of Viktor’s bed.

“V, I really don’t need all this. I’ll just go back to my place” —Well, the other Jayce’s place, but he’s been borrowing it— “you don’t need to give up your bed for me.”

“Who says I’m giving up my bed?” Viktor counters, waving a hand at Jayce until he moves over enough that Viktor can sit down next to him and bend to deal with his shoes. “We are both taking a nap. Perhaps we will feel better afterwards.”

One shoe goes off without much issue, but Viktor straightens and takes a deep breath, as if preparing himself for the next, and Jayce instantly swoops down and does the other shoe for him.

“Jayce,” Viktor reprimands with just a single word. He grins before tossing the other shoe away.

“What? I can’t help you, even if you’re helping me?”

Viktor huffs, but lets the matter drop, instead focusing on getting Jayce into the bed proper, under the blankets and everything.

Ending up with Viktor in his arms, his fluffy brown hair tickling under Jayce’s chin, feels a lot like a knife getting wedged into his guts. He has to swallow against the burn of tears gathering in his eyes.

“Comfortable?” Viktor asks. He grunts with agreement. “Good.” Viktor sounds pleased, satisfied even, as he does a little wiggle, as if getting more comfortable, before letting out a little sigh of relief.

Jayce shouldn’t be here; he doesn’t deserve this, has done things that mean he absolutely deserves the opposite of this—having Viktor so warm in his arms.

He’s trying to control his breathing, to not give away the fact that he’s panicking, when he feels something like a tug. It's not from Viktor, still in his arms. Jayce’s brow furrows as he focuses on the feeling. It’s… inward, like something brushing against his core, almost like a tug against his very soul. The crystal in his arm itches.

There’s no time to do anything. Jayce barely feels it, barely gets time to think about it, before something snaps within him.

It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like much of anything.

Yet he knows. For some reason, the knowledge burns through him with certainty.

Whatever that was—whatever connection he felt that is gone now—it was the only thing tying him to his own world.

Jayce can never go back. He could spend the rest of his life searching, but he knows he’d find nothing.

He sags into the mattress, releasing the tension he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding. Jayce can feel the way his hands are shaking, and he clutches Viktor tighter.

Maybe with this, he won’t have his terrible headaches, he won’t have whatever sickness he’d experienced in that hole, as if reality itself was rejecting him for not being originally part of that world. He’s experienced it here, too, little zaps of pain. This Viktor had even described what it looked like—a horrible scratching of colors over Jayce’s body, as if attempting to erase him. Somehow, he doubts he’ll ever experience it again.

“V?” he says into Viktor’s hair, heart clenching with pain.

“Mm?” Viktor replies, voice already sleep-soft.

“I think… I think I can’t go back.” He wants to add more, wants to explain. Wants to ask if that’s okay, even opens his mouth to say it, because if Viktor only wanted his original Jayce, then he’d understand. He’d go, someplace far away, disappear into the wide world and never darken Viktor’s door again.

Jayce is gearing up for rejection when a hand wraps around his, where it’s braced atop Viktor’s stomach, their fingers intertwined.

“Then stay, Jayce,” Viktor says, like it’s easy. Like there's nothing more natural in the world. “Just stay.”

He makes a little hiccup sound, burying his face into Viktor’s hair as he cries. Viktor doesn’t say anything, just mumbles soft sounds, running his fingers up and down Jayce’s forearm.

And he’s not quite happy, not really. Jayce feels more scooped out, unable to feel anything but gratitude that, despite everything, this Viktor accepts him.

Jayce vows that this time, he won’t disappoint him. Oh sure, they’ll make blunders, they’ll fight with each other. But Jayce decides that if he’s been given a second chance, even if it wasn’t what he would have chosen for himself—he’s still so undeserving of it—that he’ll dedicate himself to this Viktor.

He’ll spend every day making amends by doing anything he can do to make this Viktor as happy as he can.

And it’ll have to be enough.