Chapter Text
Jayce hadn’t meant to lose his patience. He hadn’t meant to act like a bratty teenager, but sometimes when it feels like the entire world is against him, it was difficult to avoid.
Which was just another bratty teenager thought, Jayce realised as he groaned in frustration into his pillow.
He was twenty-five, he shouldn’t be acting this way, he knew that. But his presentation at the Academy hadn’t secured the funding he needed and had instead led to an hour’s worth of inane, useless questions that the Academy Board would have known the answers to if they’d just listened to his presentation.
Then, it had rained, and he’d forgotten his umbrella since he’d fully intended to use the bus. Only, he’d left his bus pass at home and he didn’t have enough change for the fare so he’d had to walk home.
Walking home had made him late by an hour, and his stepfather had made his own disappointment and frustration known the second Jayce had trudged through the front door.
“You were supposed to be home an hour ago,” he’d said.
“It wasn’t my fault—”
“Your mother and I don’t ask you babysit very often—”
“You go out every weekend!”
His mother’s new husband was…fine. Jayce didn’t know him very well, as up until recently he’d been living on his own; but then his rent was increased and he couldn’t afford it anymore and had been forced to move back home. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his mother remarrying after the death of his father, which was just another source of frustration.
Jayce knew his mother deserved to be happy, and if she’d found happiness in her new husband then Jayce had no place to complain. His stepfather was just…trying too hard to win Jayce’s favour, but then he’d turn around and get angry, telling Jayce all the things he’d been doing wrong.
Such as not being present for the birth of his new half-brother, despite it being one in the morning and no-one contacting Jayce to tell him that his mother had even gone into labour, back when Jayce wasn’t living at home.
“---Only if it doesn’t interfere with your plans,” he wasn’t listening to Jayce, per usual.
“How would you know if I had any plans? You don’t even ask me anymore!” Jayce snapped, his frustration and agitation reaching the breaking point.
“I assume you’d tell us!”
Jayce stomped up the stairs to his room, brushing past his mother, who held his half-brother in her arms. “Jayce, there you are,” she said, but he just kept walking. “We were worried about you, mijo—”
Jayce had slammed the door and landed face-first onto his bed, letting out an angry scream into the pillow. He would apologise for his behaviour later, but for now, he just needed to wallow.
There was a gentle knock on the door. “Jaysi? Would you like to talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jayce rolled onto his side to free his face from the pillow.
He heard a soft sigh. “We’ve fed Tobías and put him to bed,” Ximena said. “We should be back around midnight, okay?”
Jayce didn’t reply as he heard his mother’s footsteps retreating. He couldn’t fault his mother for wanting to go out with her new husband, for wanting to enjoy time alone with him and go on dates, but Jayce supposed he was just jealous.
Jealous that Ximena had found love again and married and had another child. The twenty-five year age gap between Jayce and Tobías made Jayce wonder if he’d ever truly bond with his brother, despite always longing for a sibling. The nature of Tobías’ existence—a half-brother from a different father—made Jayce think he might never be the good older brother that the kid deserved.
Jayce was also twenty-five and unhappily single. He’d had partners on and off in high school, but hadn’t dated since he started his undergraduate programme at the Academy some five or six years ago. If he wasn’t at home, he was at his lab at the Academy, trying to impress the Board enough for them to accept his project and grant him funding to get Hextech off the ground.
Hextech. The merging of science and magic, of mechanical engineering and the arcane. Jayce had been told he was a dreamer many times during his life, and usually it was not meant as a compliment. His bedroom was still filled with the fantasy toys he’d collected as a child, and the various glittering gems that lined his window sill and most available shelf space.
Looking over his gem collection, he noticed that something was missing—an empty space on a shelf, where the plush dragon he’d gotten from his father usually sat.
“Goddammit,” Jayce pushed himself out of bed and made his way to the master bedroom where, sure enough, his dragon was miserably abandoned on the floor.
Tobías was standing up in his crib and crying—more like wailing or shrieking. Jayce did not have the patience for this.
He snatched the toy from the ground. “This isn’t yours,” he said to the baby, who just started screaming even louder. “What’s wrong with you now?”
Jayce tossed the dragon onto the bed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress and watching Tobías for a moment. The child wasn’t shrieking anymore, but he was still crying. Jayce wondered if the heavy rain was bothering him—he was pretty sure there was thunder in the forecast too.
Any other day, Jayce would pick up his baby brother and soothe him back to sleep. Any other day, Jayce would tell Tobías some fantasy story he’d made up, or read him a story from a book. Any other day.
Any. Other. Day.
“What do you want?” Jayce said, ignoring the way Tobías’ lips quivered as he continued to cry. “You want a story? I’ll tell you a story.”
Jayce rose to his feet and started to pace the length of the room. “Once upon a time, there was an inventor. He tried really hard to succeed, because he knew his inventions would make the world a better place,” he stopped, glaring at his own reflection in the mirror.
“But no-one else believed in him,” he continued. “Not even his own mother. Magic and science, what a ridiculous idea. It can’t be done. So instead, the inventor was stuck living at home with his mother and a man he barely knew, reduced to babysitting the brother he didn’t want.”
He felt cruel, he felt mean. Tobías was crying louder, and even though Jayce knew the baby didn’t understand what he was saying, it was beginning to cut through his frustration and anger.
“There was one person who believed in him, though,” Jayce turned away from the mirror, getting lost in his own story for a moment, one that had come to him over many vague, distant dreams. “A mage who lived in a far off kingdom, who could wield the arcane as easily as you or I can breathe. The mage was in love with the inventor, and granted him special powers.”
Jayce looked at his brother, who sniffled sadly and flinched when a bright flash of lightning briefly lit up the darkened room.
“All the inventor had to do was to say the magic words, and the mage would take away all of his problems,” Jayce strode over to the crib and crouched down, looking up at Tobías. “All he had to do was ask, and the mage would take away the crying, screaming baby.”
Tobías just started wailing again, and Jayce sighed. He rolled his eyes before standing up and picking Tobías up out of the crib, bouncing him gently.
“Okay, Tobías, I’m just joking,” Jayce said half-heartedly. “It’s just a story, so you can shut up now.”
The baby kept crying, no matter how long Jayce continued to rock him and hold him. Tobías was probably just upset because Ximena was absent, and he wouldn’t calm down until he cried himself to sleep or their mother returned.
Their mother.
“Mamá will be home later,” he tried. “Just get some sleep, okay? You’ve been fed, you’ve been changed, what else do you want?”
Tobías’ only answer was another ear-splitting wail.
Jayce set him back into the crib and tried to tuck him in, but Tobías kept squirming. Jayce was tired, he was sure the baby would wear himself out eventually.
Before heading out of the bedroom door, Jayce glanced over his shoulder. “I wish the mage would come and take you away,” he muttered to himself, walking out of the room. “Right now.”