Work Text:
“This,” he began, “this is not what we agreed to.”
“I know, God, give me a break.” Jayce lamented, hand rising to his brows, massaging it. “You think I want to do this?”
“Seems to me you aren’t quite opposed to it, either.” Viktor stepped away from him, arms crossed and back resting against the wall.
“What do you want me to do, Viktor?” he turned around, a bit too furiously than he’d liked, “we waited just like you wanted us to do. And look where that’s gotten us.”
“Just like I wanted to? As if you were eager to weaponise Hextech?”
Ah, that was where it all began, the sparkle that set off the fire. Numbed by its heat, Jayce had forgotten. He spoke again.
“Obviously not. But I have to protect my people first and foremost, Viktor.”
“Your people, and what about the undercity? Our whole reason for doing all of this to begin with.”
“They just attacked us. You can’t expect me to simply sit by and watch them take Piltover down.”
“As if that’s likely” he scoffed. “They have made it sure it wouldn’t happen.”
“And yet, it just did.”
“And you think fighting fire with fire will take us anywhere? Change a thing?” he wasn’t facing him anymore, now. Instead, his hand was steady on his crutch, gaze averted from Jayce’s, fixed in the ground, and his voice even lower. “Especially not when it was Topside that lightened it up.”
Jayce let out a deep sigh, hand going all over his hair now, to then return massaging his eyes, furrowing and shut in an expression of pain.
“God, you’re starting to sound like them.”
Initially , he was met by nothing more than silence. A profound, sharp and cold silence. Then,
“…like who, Jayce?”
“God,” he started, tone a complaining one, “you know what I meant, Vik.”
“Oh, no, I’m afraid not.” Viktor turned around, and with great effort but with as much resolve, moved his body and walked closer.
“Enlighten me.”
It occurred only now to Jayce that, in the midst of that chaos, he might’ve dropped the bomb. He bit his tongue, knowing he had, once again, messed it up. Unable to take his words back, and regretfully so, he tried to damage control.
“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what did you mean? Who am I starting to sound alike, Jayce?”
He keeps on doing it. Calling his name with that quiet and camouflaged rage piling up inside him. It made Jayce feel small and so, so stupid in his ignorance. He couldn’t keep his gaze up.
“Like those uncivilized animals, you meant to say? Like those terrorists?”
“Would I even be wrong to call them that?” he bit back.
“Right, because they are inherently dangerous, are they not?” that stung. “One should head down there and proceed to simply eliminate them. Based on this mere assumption. What makes me any less dangerous than those animals, then? Aren’t I from the undercity as well?”
“Vik, I—“
“Which is it?” He stepped even closer, face now in such proximity he could feel his hot breath, wavering. He knew he had truly done it. He could do nothing but stare incredulously as the man before him glared at him, face hot with burning fury boiling in him. Still, he spoke calmly, almost chillingly so.
“Is it because I don’t “look threatening enough “ by your standards? Is it because I’m educated and well spoken? Is it because I’m fragile?”
Then came another bomb.
“Is it because I’m a dying man?”
Silence.
“Why am I no threat to you the way they all are?”
There was something else dwelling inside him, now. Something Jayce couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it reddened Viktor’s eyes and threatened to spill any moment.
“No, I…” he was dumbfounded. “It’s. It’s because you’re my friend.”
“….”
“I know you….wouldn’t do that.”
Viktor’s brow softened, and, for the first time Jayce had memory of it, his stare had a deep sadness to it. Close to disappointment, but not quite—a melancholy rooted deep in his body; Viktor couldn’t help but swallow a sob down. Jayce burned the memory of such sight far in his mind, like something precious.
He stepped away, head slowly turning from Jayce, who followed his movements carefully, stuck in the silence of a moment he was scared to break.
“You know nothing.”
He had said, tone barely audible— and almost shaking —, Jayce had commented to himself.
Then he left, and that was the end of it.