Work Text:
She burned Viktor’s name. No one else would. He was cursed now. A bad omen. A villain to scare children. If you don’t go play outside every now and then, you’ll end up like the Machine Herald. Don’t go too deep into the Sumps. That’s where the Machine Herald lives, waiting to take your soul and turn you into one of his puppets. That was not the Viktor she knew.
The Viktor she knew had an expressive face. A brilliant mind she had thought of cultivating before Jayce came and they snatched each other from her. She remembered him as he was. The young man who would roll his eyes behind Heimerdinger’s back whenever he mistook a deadline by months. The man who broke every law, pretended to be sneaking Jayce Talis into his bedroom, and changed the world. The man who fought against his death with all he had and who Jayce loved. Like a brother, he’d said. Like something else, she’d thought.
She wondered if he would approve. She nearly hadn’t done it, wrote her mother’s name instead, but her mother wasn’t from Piltover or Zaun. Viktor was. He did not like her much, the feeling was mutual and complicated with respect, but she thought he might have liked to know his name had joined the others, flying into ash over the harbor. Jayce’s mother had written his name, otherwise Mel would have done so herself. Perhaps put both their names on the same, small scrap of paper. She did miss Jayce, though, a small, dull ache.
“He loved you,” Ximena had said when she’d paid a visit.
“I was very fond of him too,” she’d said, and took her hand, formal and stiff.
Ximena had cried a bit. So had Mel. The loss was still fresh then. Caitlyn was there too, more sure in her grief, more sure of what to do with Mrs. Talis, who had known her since she was a girl.
“Isn’t it strange?” she’d said later, when they were standing on Mrs. Talis’s doorstep, waiting for their carriages. “I half expect him to appear, call me ‘sprout’, ruffle my hair.”
Mel squeezed her arm. Neither of them was good at big shows of emotion. Her girlfriend, Vi, who had also known Jayce, who had declined the invitation, saying it was family only, had been a help. Mel was glad she had someone. She, herself, was alone.
“What do you think happened to them?” Caitlyn asked after a moment.
“They’re gone. I don’t know if it much matters,” Mel replied.
Caitlyn nodded. Her carriage arrived. She looked like she wanted to hug Mel, settled for an awkward shoulder pat, and left. They were friends now, in a strange way. In a way forged in battle against her mother. She liked Caitlyn. It was good to have someone to remember Jayce with.
Caitlyn didn’t talk about Viktor. Mel had tried once, but she had shaken her head with a sour look.
“I can’t believe he would do all that,” she said darkly.
Mel didn’t say anything. The thing about Viktor was that she always thought he was capable of such things, great and terrible things, but things so far removed from their reality that only a genius would even think of them.
Not helping Noxus, though. Not agreeing to war.
Ekko was the only one who saw what happened. Mel had interviewed him and immediately wished she’d known him earlier. He would have been a great asset. Then she thought of her last argument with Jayce and guilt washed over her. He was a young man with wide, haunted eyes, grieving his own losses, not an asset, not an investment.
“They killed each other, then?” Mel asked, surprised it would have gone any other way.
“I don’t…they looked like they got taken by something. There was a flash of blue and it all went…I tried to rewind time, see it again, but I couldn’t make anything out. Wherever they are, whatever happened, I think they’re together,” he said with a shrug.
“Oh. Well. Good,” Mel said, a weird flare of jealousy in her gut.
Jayce was gone. He would have chosen Viktor anyway. He had, in fact, the first time he heard he was dying. She knew it then. She refused to acknowledge it. Jayce loved her, cared about her deeply, wanted to be with her, but there was a complication. She’d have let him have them both if he’d just asked back then. It was not such a bad compromise.
“Good?” Ekko asked, voice hard.
“They were close. They…you knew Jayce a little?”
Ekko nodded. “Kind of a…not what I expected. Less full of himself, less…aware.”
“He could be oblivious, yes,” Mel said with a small laugh.
“But I liked him. He was pretty okay for a Piltie,” Ekko said with a smirk.
“And Viktor?”
“Never met him. Heard of him, though. Undercity kid who made good and made Hextech,” Ekko said with an edge of sarcasm. “Look what he became. He’s not Undercity anymore, not as far as I’m concerned.”
Mel didn’t say anything to that. Viktor would have been sad. Jayce too. What had happened to those two brilliant boys?
She was a mage. She should have been able to find them or what was left of them. But nothing worked. She reached out, feeling for Jayce who she had a closer connection to, feeling for Viktor who was more entwined with the Arcane. There was only emptiness. Neither of them had left a body. The remains of their battle remained on top of the Hexgate, the handle of Jayce’s hammer, the remains of Viktor’s crutch turned staff. Twisted bits of metal and the strange corruption left by Viktor the city was trying to scour away. That had been Mel’s doing. Let there be a monument to them, the men of science who put Piltover on the map. She refused to let Viktor’s name be taken off the Hexgates. A reminder of who he had been. A warning of who he had become.
Almost a year after they disappeared, she was thinking of leaving Piltover. Going to Noxus, taking her place there. The wounds of the city had healed. She felt like she was no longer needed. The night before she made her announcement, she dreamed.
Her hair was white and her body was starlight. She was on a different plane. The gold in her tattoos was blinding. It was quite beautiful. Somewhat familiar.
She screamed when something ran into her. Large, warm, familiar. Jayce. Holding her, breathing in her ear. He still smelt like him, if a little magic now. He still had his beard, but he looked ethereal, like her. White hair, starlight body.
“Jayce, what—” she said.
“We found you,” he replied, pulling back, looking at her with tears in his eyes.
“What?”
“You were looking and we, well, we’ve been busy. There’s so much to…how are you?” Jayce said, giddy, boyish again.
“Well,” Mel replied automatically, caught off guard. “Jayce, is Viktor here?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t sure if…if you wanted to see him,” Jayce said.
“I…if he wants to see me. We…there was a ceremony. For the dead. I burned his name.”
“You did?”
Viktor appeared behind Jayce. His face was younger, like when he’d first discovered Hextech. Somehow, he was more ethereal than either of them. She smiled when she saw him. He was himself again. Whatever happened had passed. He was not to be forgiven, he was not hers to forgive, but she was glad he was alive.
“It only seemed right. You died in the battle too,” she said.
“I caused the battle, Councilor. And…died is not quite the right word,” he said, voice playful, eyes sparkling.
Jayce put an arm around his shoulders. That, she had been expecting from the moment he had appeared. They had figured that out, at least.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Right now…what did you call this timeline?” Viktor asked.
“Magic Bird Timeline,” Jayce said with a sigh.
“Magic Bird?” Mel asked with a grin.
“The world’s run by this giant magic thing that looks like a bird. He’s kind of a dick. Turns people into…birds, I think? Not Viktor though,” Jayce said.
“Yes, well, we won’t stay long. Just long enough to make sure…to make sure we will not mess it up again,” Viktor said.
Mel was silent. There was a lot unsaid. Viktor understood what he had done. Jayce did too and was staying by his side anyway. Mel supposed whatever had really happened was beyond her understanding or care. They were alive. A feeling swelled within her. She knew she’d be thankful if she found Jayce, somehow whole, somehow still himself. She hadn’t expected it to extend to Viktor.
“Mel, look, about what happened—” Jayce said, looking between the two of them, the first to talk, to smooth things over. It was a familiar dynamic.
“I should atone. I am trying to. Our world, I—” Viktor started, looking at her with a kind of desperation to him.
“I cannot forgive you for everything, but I hold no ill will against you,” Mel said. “I am trying. To keep the person you were from vanishing entirely. For both of you to just stay men, not become…gods.”
Jayce laughed, relieved. Viktor nodded, more serious. He understood. Jayce, her dear Jayce, was a little naïve still, despite it all. He kissed Viktor’s head, a natural gesture, easy as breathing. Viktor’s eyes went wide and flicked from him to her. Mel shrugged. It had been a year. They had really only been together a handful of months. She was over that part of it. She had suspected this was how it might end anyway.
“See, V? It won’t be so bad, when we go home,” Jayce said softly.
“Home?” Mel asked, heart leaping despite itself. She has missed him. Both of them, if she were honest. She and Viktor did not get along. No one pushed back against her like he did. She missed that too.
“One day, perhaps,” Viktor said cagily.
There was something unsaid there. It was not Mel’s business. She wondered if she would ever see them again.
“I doubt I can stay much longer. I…I miss you both, I think,” she said.
“We’ll find you again,” Jayce said, steadfast as ever, letting go of Viktor to grab her hands and that was what she remembered. What she loved about him. She wished she could build a monument to that, his warm, calloused hands, his inability to let either of them go.
“Then I look forward to our next meeting,” Mel replied, smiling.
“I will…I will give the two of you a moment. I think you need it, but can I ask for something?” Viktor said, nervous.
“Yes, but I might not grant it,” Mel replied.
“I had some money. I barely spent what Hextech earned. If it has not been taken, will you start a scholarship fund for Undercity students with it? Some good, I think, to leave behind.”
Mel nodded. It was an easy request to grant. There had been some discussion on what to do with Viktor’s belongings, what he left behind. Most of it remained untouched, sweaters and coffee mugs now talismans of a darker time.
“Thank you,” Viktor said, twisting and becoming just a little transparent. “Goodbye, Miss Medarda.”
“Mel. Don’t…don’t be ridiculous. Mel,” Mel said.
“Mel, then. Thank you for all you have done for me. I hardly deserve it,” Viktor said and was gone.
Mel stared at the space where he had been. She wished she had gotten to know him better before. She doubted it would change anything, but it would have been better, perhaps. At least when she wrote his name, she’d have more to think about than the quiet, passionate young man forever in Jayce and Heimerdinger’s wake, which hardly seemed to fit him at all.
“Your mother misses you. Caitlyn too. Even Vi, I think. She speaks of you fondly, at least,” Mel said once Viktor was gone.
“I miss everyone too. But you should see what we’ve seen, Mel! Worlds made of gemstones and animals I can’t even describe. I’m trying to sketch them, but I’m running out of room. Viktor says we can’t drag a million notebooks with us and maybe he’s right, but gods, you should see it. You’re there too sometimes, when we aren’t…when the world is different. We were all mice in one. Viktor liked that world. And in another, it was all concrete and steel and there were these things called ‘computers’ Vik is still trying to recreate. We were, um, we were all together in that one. It was…nice, actually,” Jaye said, unable to contain himself.
“It sounds amazing,” Mel said.
Jayce was holding her again, tender as the first time, but it was different. The heat was gone and all that remained was a warm fondness. She rested her head against his shoulder for a moment. She would find him again. His absence, now that she had seen him again, felt like too big a hole to fill.
“You’re happy, aren’t you? You aren’t…”
“Pining for you? No. Don’t be so egotistical, Jayce Talis,” Mel said with a grin.
“Viktor says that too,” Jayce said, laughing. Then he turned serious and sighed, letting her go and meeting her eyes. He had always had such warm, hazel eyes. “Can you tell my mom I’m okay? Cait too.”
“I’ll…try. They may not believe me.”
“That’s all I ask, Mel. And…I’m sorry. For how it ended with us. I did love you. A lot. There was another timeline, one where V…where V died before he could create the Hexcore. We were married. I think I was happy. I think I still missed him, though.”
“You would. You two…it doesn’t matter. I loved you too. Quite a bit. I think I still do, but it’s not so bad. I am not pining for you, I am busy. I have a city to rebuild and a family legacy to…fix. No more wolves. Only foxes.”
Jayce smiled. Mel met his gaze. In at least three realities, they had been together, been happy for a time at least. That was something.
She could feel herself stirring in her bed in Piltover. She was going to leave, but maybe not quite yet. She had to meet with Ximena and Caitlyn. She had to keep Jayce and Viktor mere mortals. There was something poetic in it, though. The brave knight in love with the monster, going with him into every world, every reality, to make sure things were right, to see the wonders the universe had to offer. Maybe she’d paint it one day. Maybe she’d give it all up and become an artist, the best reality maybe.
As she woke, she raised herself on her tiptoes to kiss Jayce’s cheek. He held her close for a moment more and then let her go, back into the ether. She watched as he turned, calling for Viktor, and vanished. Poor Mel of over a year ago. She had never really stood a chance.
She woke. She met with Ximena and Caitlyn. Ximena believed her. Caitlyn did not. Vi, who was also there, seemed torn, but she had her own grief to carry, and her sister was not granted so gentle a life as Jayce and Viktor had been.
Viktor’s request was met with much argument, but she pushed it through anyway. He wanted to do some good after all the bad. If more Undercity children came to the Academy, it would be good for everyone. No more Jinxes. More Viktors. Ekkos who had easy lives and didn’t grow old before their time. She started her own funding to study the effects of the Grey on people and how to treat it. If Piltover was her city to protect, then so was Zaun.
For Jayce, there was little to do. She gave money in his name to the Academy for a new library. She put Ximena in charge of his image, telling her to come to her with any problems. The Man of Progress mugs began to dwindle. His face stopped peering at her from every corner. She visited his mother at least twice a month, once a week if she could manage it. That was all he really wanted, for them not to be alone.
At night, she dreamt and waited for them to find her. There were strange dreams. Worlds like she’d never imagined, beauty and terror. A million different versions of herself. Jayce. Viktor. All three. Sometimes just one. She found her way to them every time. When she saw Jayce again, she would tell him. She had seen some of what he had seen. Or imagined it at least. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was worth leaving for.
One night, she was in the beautiful starry place again. Her hair was white, her body was starlight. She heard her name, a familiar voice warming around the syllable. She turned and ran towards it, smiling, throwing her arms around the both of them. It was good, for a moment, to feel their warmth. To feel their life. To be together, just for a little bit, once more.