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The lab wing is dark save for one window looking out over Piltover streets. This window burns fiery blue, a nova in the night causing much concern for old Professor Heimerdinger sitting on his windowsill and none whatsoever for the two renegades behind it.
“Hey, V?” Jayce calls from where he is slumped over their workbench, watching Viktor as he works at the circuits Jayce’s own hands are, apparently, “too clumsy” for. Jayce declined to fight him, just this once, mostly because he enjoys watching Viktor solder. His partner’s tight lips loosen when his mind is hovering elsewhere.
“Hm?”
“Name one scientist who was happy.”
Viktor’s lips part slightly, though his eyes do not waver from the delicate board he is working on. The burning where solder meets iron casts dark shadows across his features, pooling in his sunken cheeks and beneath his eyes. He looks marmoreal, Jayce thinks with a smile he knows Viktor can’t see. A divine statue, though a sleep deprived, self-starved, hollowed-out one at that.
“What?” Viktor asks when he at long last notices the unabashed staring.
“My question, V.”
“Eh, sorry, I did not catch it.”
“Name one scientist who was happy.”
“Happy. Let’s see.”
Viktor sets aside the iron and pushes up his goggles, blinking against the sudden swarm of darkness. His brows gather like thunderous clouds as thought ensnares him, eyes flicking this way and that as if he can see the entire river of time meandering before him.
“There is always Professor Heimerdinger, I suppose,” he says slowly.
“A man of politics. I don’t think he counts, not anymore.”
Viktor chuckles, amused. “He will not be pleased to hear you speak of him like that.”
Jayce waves a dismissive hand, though he knows shame has dusted his face a sunset shade of red. That much is evident from the way Viktor is smiling at him.
“Stanwick?”
“A lonely man whose spotlight came far too late and found a casket.”
“Or maybe… Singed.” Viktor now sounds a lot less certain.
“Singed?”
“An old mentor of mine. No, he is— was not happy, not when I left him many years ago.”
Jayce nods and refrains from prying. “Anyone else?”
Viktor shakes his head.
“You can’t, see?”
“Is there a proof by contradiction here I am missing the point of?”
Jayce laughs, handing Viktor a stack of notes the latter was reaching for. “Not quite, though it is true they never let you be a top-notch scientist and happy.”
“I hope not.” Viktor shrugs, his nose already buried in chaotic heaps of calculations. His voice grows vacant as his mind floats away, and Jayce seizes the moment.
“I’ll tell you a secret.”
“Hm?”
“I’m gonna be the first.”
Viktor’s hands pause. He looks puzzled.
Jayce presses on, grasping Viktor’s wrist, all bony angles slicing at his palm. “Swear it.”
“Have you been stealing Miss Kiramman’s novels again, Jayce?”
“That’s not the point. Swear it.”
“You are not making much sense, Jayce. Why me?”
“Because you’re the reason.”
“The reason you will be the first scientist to be happy?” Viktor sets down his notes and seems to sink into deep thought. “Why, it is an honor, I think. I swear it.”
You are the reason.
The reason I saved.
The reason I killed.
The reason my body held on even as my mind fractured.
The reason I came back and blew it all to hell.
And as you fall, my wound carved into your chest, you smile at me.
And then I realize, I have failed too.
I have lost my reason.