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Will you do as I ask, old friend?
I won’t fail. I swear it.
Jayce crashes onto the ground, his bad knee twinging and causing him to hiss in pain. His trembling arms use the hilt of the hammer as a brace, standing up slowly. Salo, again.
“I can’t let you do that,” he hears himself say, and he winces at the images he sees–Salo, head crushed like an egg, blood spilling around him. Viktor, eyes empty, floating above him as Jayce begs, as someone grasps him around the throat and everything goes dark.
Again.
“Would you like to speak with him?” Salo asks and Jayce listens, exhausted, as Viktor speaks of partnership, of wanting to show him all the things he’s discovered. Jayce pleads at him—he knows the promise he made but surely there’s a way to accomplish it without death, without seeing Viktor’s lifeless body on the ground and knowing he put it there. He’s seen that once already and he can’t do it again.
Viktor through Salo is unmoved by Jayce’s tears, and in his distraction he misses when Salo takes over and lifts the tube and–
Again.
He tries again. He kills Salo. He makes his way to the ‘paradise’ Viktor has set up. He sees what has become of Vi’s father, Vander, the creature with fangs and teeth, and he lets Viktor speak with him.
“Join me,” he says and Jayce wonders if he should. When Viktor gently glides down onto the ground, when Viktor takes his hand, and Jayce sees the blanket he gave Viktor, wrapped around him like a toga.
“I was a bit hasty, my friend,” Viktor murmurs. “When I said we were finished. All of this would be better with a partner at my side. With you joining me.”
Jayce is wary, Jayce is wincing, Jayce shudders out a breath at the kaleidoscope of images running through his mind. The broken city, full of metal and flesh carcasses. The mutated creatures whose meat kept Jayce alive. His brace, modeled off of Viktor’s, parts pillaged from his original hammer.
“You have been touched by the Arcane as I have,” Viktor murmurs, then he cocks his head like a bird, eyes flickering different colors. Jayce briefly sees the familiar amber before it shifts away. “But it has hurt you. I can take the pain away, if you let me.”
Jayce wants. He wants to let Viktor put his fingers on his aching forehead. He wants Viktor to erase his troubles, to chase the images away. He sees it—the simplicity of believing Viktor’s words, of joining the Herald and his people.
He sees it play out in front of him like a storybook—Vander back with Vi and her sister, Ekko’s tree flourishing under the healing environment.
Except—it wouldn’t. The tree is dying because of him, because of Hexcore and how it seeks to control the arcane, a thing that does not want to be told what to do.
His hammer vibrates, shakes in his arms and he shudders as he sees himself, gone, metal and flesh bound as one, in a field of flowers and green grass, the only green in the entirety of Piltover.
“I can’t,” he rasps. “Viktor, if there’s any of you in there, please let this go. Please come back home. You have no idea what this will lead to.”
And, there, a flicker of something in his eyes, an emotion that twists his features for a brief moment—is it fear? Is it rage? Viktor is unreadable to him like this, so distant, so unlike the man he once knew.
A boom rattles the ground they’re on, and he whirls around, gripping his hammer tightly, and there’s chaos, Ambessa roaring and Jayce automatically shifting to cover Viktor but in his panic he misses the creature who was Vander’s snarl and—
Again.
There is another timeline where they didn’t become this. Maybe they never met. Maybe Viktor went to school in Zaun, became a scientist there. Maybe Jayce’s apartment never exploded.
Maybe Jayce’s apartment did explode, but Viktor wasn’t there to stop him from throwing himself over the ledge. Maybe that was a better world, one where Hextech and the Hexcore didn’t exist.
Again.
Maybe there’s a world where they did meet. Maybe Jayce stopped his own self-imposed isolation enough to interact with the other academy students. Maybe he met Viktor benignly. Caught his eyes when he asked Heimerdinger to be his advisor.
Maybe Jayce would’ve asked him out, like a normal person. He could’ve learned about Viktor without the fervency of their man-made magic. Without Hextech haunting their every move.
Jayce can see it—learning Viktor likes more sweetmilk in his coffee than is reasonable by asking him to join him at the cafe near campus and having the pleasure of just being able to watch him. Seeing the way Viktor would study him like he was one of his curious science experiments, vexing and thrilling in equal turns. Why are you interested in me? He wouldn’t ask, but Jayce doesn’t know, has never known, how to tell Viktor that there isn’t anything about him that doesn’t interest him. Viktor’s brain, so sharp, so like his own, the only one who has ever been able to keep up with him. Viktor’s eyes, gleaming burnt amber and so, so clever, Viktor’s strong hands, the way his tendons used to flex when he gripped his cane and then crutch.
His cheekbones, his voice, the way he can knock Jayce down a peg with a single biting word, and at the same time bring him up to unimaginable heights when he doles out his rare praise.
Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, through it all. Staying himself, staying human. Jayce misses him so much it’s a constant ache behind his ribs.
Again.
There is a timeline where Viktor died in the explosion, and the Hexcore rejected him. There is a timeline where Jayce collapsed in on himself without him, where he had to bury him and give a eulogy. Where he and Mel fractured and burned, because who was Jayce without Viktor, but a shell of the man she had been interested in. She has always deserved better than him, and has always been able to see when something is well and truly over and cut her losses.
A timeline where he found another ledge.
Again.
“It’s the same every time!” he yells. I fail every time, he doesn’t say. There is no answer, except for the pain beating behind his eyes and the rune glowing, embedded into the skin of his wrist. Salo is dead. Jayce falls in the carnage, body heaving and trembling, the smell barely bothering him anymore. His hands are slick with it; his knee aches and diseased blood fills his veins. I can’t kill you, he thinks desperately. Please don’t ask me to kill you. Please let me try one more time.
Jayce limps to Viktor’s strange, peaceful commune and he can’t do it, he can’t go up to him and do it and—
“Jayce, I have been waiting for you,” a child says to him in Viktor’s voice and Jayce shudders, lets the child take his hand. “I have so much to show you,” Viktor-as-child says and Jayce feels bile in the back of his throat as the child walks him into the orb, where Viktor stands, his gaze gentle but alien, those eyes, those amber eyes gone.
“You may go,” Viktor tells the child, who gives a short bow and disappears behind Jayce.
Jayce just watches Viktor, waiting, and Viktor gazes back at him serenely. “It’s small,” he says. “But I’m making this part of Zaun a peaceful place, a refuge. The Hexcore has shown me the things I need to do and Jayce, you were right, this should never be hidden away. It should be given to anyone.”
“Not like this, Viktor,” Jayce whispers. “These people—they have no will of their own. They’re connected to you and they do what you say. What happened to helping people make their own choices?”
“Emotions happened, Jayce. You showed me that, when you put me into the Hexcore. It healed me and made me realize what was blinding me—us—this whole time. Emotions. Humanity will never be at peace when they can feel things like anger, fear, hate. They will make the wrong choice again and again.”
He pauses, looking at him. “I am helping them. I am helping Zaun. There is no bloodshed here, no anger, no pain.” He tilts his head, bird-like, familiar. “You have touched the arcane too, but it has hurt you, deeply.”
And Jayce can see this playing out, it has played out like this once before. Viktor’s pretty words, which have always weakened Jayce, playing on his sad, pathetic beating heart that he wears out on his sleeve in its full, bleeding glory.
“The Viktor I knew…the emotions fueled him,” Jayce says and this Viktor gives him a pitying look.
“And he failed at every turn. I am better now. And I want to make you better with me. Having a partner equal to me would…please me, I think.”
And Jayce’s heart jerks in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry that I failed you so much, Viktor. I never should’ve made you feel like you couldn’t come to me. Like you couldn’t tell me what was going on.” His voice breaks. “I should’ve let you die in that bombing. Like you told me to. I should’ve destroyed the Hexcore when I had the chance, like you asked.”
Viktor gives him a quizzical look. “You saved my life with it.”
Jayce shakes his head, and he hears it outside, the commotion he knew was coming, the bomb he knows will kill him again. “I just prolonged your death instead.”
Again.
Jayce falls out of the anomaly. The rune burns in his wrist. He sees the tired, multi-colored eyes, the older, lined face. Only you can show me this. His head hurts, pounding against his skull and behind his eyes.
Salo, again. Viktor’s voice, beckoning, beguiling.
“I thought you were done with Hextech,” he hears himself say. “And me.” He hisses out a breath when the wild magic thrums through his body and his breath comes out ragged in the cold air. Only you can show me this.
Salo, hoisting the tube. Him, gritting his teeth, gripping the hammer. Skull crushed, blood leaking out of his ruined eyes.
Jayce steps over the body, over the blood, and makes his way to Viktor.
I can’t do it, he thinks, eyes wide as he stares at the path to where Viktor is, the strange, pulsating orb that looks so much like the anomaly he touched, fell through, that destroyed him and turned him inside out.
There is a child who looks at him, a child with the same glowing eyes as Salo, a child like the one he killed in his hair-brained scheme into the Undercity, back when Silco was alive, what seems like years ago. A child who takes his hand, gentle, gentle, leads him to the pulsating orb, a small smile on his face. They watch him, the others, hushed. Expectant. Jayce avoids their blank gazes as he comes to a stop and the child takes a step back, dropping his hand.
After it’s over, everything seems muted, far away. There’s commotion outside, but Jayce steps over to Viktor’s body, the hole in his chest, and cradles him close. He closes his eyes tightly and allows himself a desperate sob, pressing his face against Viktor’s hair. Hysterically, he thinks, At least I know what you would’ve looked like had you grown old with me.
He lets go of him. He walks away.
It didn’t work. Viktor who is not-Viktor who speaks in a mechanical burr, who reaches for his neck with those long, synthetic fingers and grips, who Mel attacks and he twists away only for not-Viktor to pin him again, and for a moment Jayce is distracted, because Viktor is speaking to him, he wants to be partners again but he’s dead. He killed him, he’s gone.
“My partner died in this room,” he snarls and the inhuman face makes no expression but Jayce swears he can feel the palpable way this not-Viktor pulls back and dark spots dance in front of his eyes and he thinks to the older version of Viktor, to the mage who saved his life and Jayce can’t even return the favor, I’m so sorry, this was not the timeline, this didn’t work, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, except then Mel attacks again with her strange, beautiful golden magic and together they kill the thing that houses whoever this version of Viktor is.
Jayce looks at Mel and sees the magic he so desperately wanted to make available to everyone and he laughs a little because she deserves it, she deserves to feel that power at her fingertips because she will use it right, she will not fall into the heady rush of ambition like he did, like Viktor did. She is not for him and he is not for her, but he loves her all the same. He knows in another lifetime he was happy with her, for a time. But not this one.
In this one, he feels himself yearning for the other half of his soul, and he shakes his head as more visions flicker, of lifetimes where they failed, where he failed at curbing Viktor’s desire, at his own greed for attention and praise and power.
The Herald in all its graceful, shocking glory is beautiful, Jayce thinks dizzily, as he falls to his knees in the place that will soon be his grave, as the Herald caresses its fingers to the ridge of his hairline and he’s plunged into the cosmos with him, and it’s hard, so hard, he almost gives up, but even at the height of the Herald’s power, this perfect form, Jayce latches onto one thing—the blue blanket he gave Viktor when he saw him step out of the Hexcore for the first time, fluttering behind him like a cape in all its tattered glory.
At the end of it all, Jayce shows him. “I promised you,” he says and lets Viktor reach into his mind, see it all, the way Jayce has always seen him. Their first meeting, their next one, and all the countless ones after, making magic together.
It’s been you this whole time, he doesn’t say but he knows Viktor can hear it, can see it, and he sees Viktor shudder, gasping, the mask gone and his face, his dear, dear face with those familiar amber eyes in front of him as he holds himself together. Jayce waits. He can be patient now, he thinks. He can wait forever, if Viktor needs it.
And at the end of it all, they grasp at each other, and Jayce finally feels it—fear, bone-deep—but he grips Viktor tighter, curls his hand around the back of his neck and slides the tips of his fingers through that hair he’s always wanted to touch, and he feels Viktor rub gently at his arm and Jayce tips their foreheads together and they clutch at each other until the end of things, until their atoms burst and there is no Jayce and Viktor but it’s JayceandViktor and then jayceviktor or viktorjayce just one being, one entity, one single explosive emotion and he gasps, no they gasp, we gasp and we see it all, clarity, the universe and all its forms, all timelines collapsed into one and then torn apart and we are one and we are everything and we will be in every raindrop, every speck of dust, every snowstorm and tree bark and blade of grass and
we are all
and we
are
nothing
There is an astronomy tower near a small university town by the sea. It is cold there, and the population dwindles when the academy students leave on school breaks. The tower is in its own space, away from lights and people, and always has a clear view of the stars. On this winter night, a man scribbles out notes as he keeps an eye on the satellites. He winces, back aching, and shifts to get more comfortable.
The door to the tower opens and another man steps inside, juggling two thermos and a notebook of his own. He has broad shoulders and dark hair, and a leg brace around his left knee.
The man places the thermos in front of the other, slighter man, and he looks at him in surprise.
“You always forget to eat,” he says, squeezing his shoulder. “My mom says hi.” The slighter man huffs a little laugh, cupping his hands around the mug, and he inhales the scent of Ximena’s comforting caldo de pollo, taking small sips as Jayce limps over to the scope to take a look.
“Vik,” he says, voice hushed. “Vik, come look at this.”
Viktor looks up, carefully placing the thermos down, and he grasps his cane to make his way over.
Pressed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, Viktor peers up at the stars. In the scope, a kaleidoscope of light bursts into view, and, thousands of lightyears away, a supernova burns.