Chapter Text
In the bottom of a pit at the end of the world, Jayce lays out the pieces of his corroded hammer, one by one, and thinks about Viktor.
(It feels like he’s always thinking about Viktor, now. Can’t breathe without thinking of him.)
He thinks about that morning years ago—before Jayce joined the Council, before Viktor started coughing up blood, before everything fell apart—when Jayce had walked into the lab and found Viktor sitting in a chair, a dozen curious-looking metal parts spread on the workbench in front of him like the skeleton of a mythical animal. Viktor’s shoulders were hunched unevenly over his work. He was attacking something with a pair of pliers, frowning viciously at it.
Jayce raised an eyebrow. He’d never seen Viktor look so frustrated before.
“Have mercy on the poor thing, Viktor,” Jayce said. “Glare any harder and it’ll melt.”
Viktor startled. He blinked up at Jayce, his eyes huge, his hair wild. His tie was just a little bit loose. It was such a delightfully rare sight to catch Viktor even slightly off his guard, that Jayce had to pause and take it all in.
Viktor scoffed, face souring. "Oh, don't laugh at me."
"I wouldn't dare," Jayce promised, turning away to hide his smile. He walked over to see what Viktor was doing, and realized that he recognized the metal parts on the workbench. He’d never seen them laid out like this before, but he knew each familiar piece—the buckles, rods, straps, plates.
“Oh. You’re working on your leg?" he said, and touched Viktor casually on the shoulder.
Viktor froze. Jayce felt the lean muscles under his hand bunch and tense, taut as a violin string. He could see, from this angle, the way Viktor’s jaw clenched.
Jayce had a moment of panic—did he say the wrong thing? Overstep his bounds? They’d been partners for months now, but sometimes it still felt like he didn’t know a thing about how Viktor’s mind worked.
And then Viktor relaxed, letting out a long sigh. He set down the pliers and stretched out his hands with a grimace.
“Yes,” Viktor said. He frowned down at his hands, kneading at them. “It's—well, it's not dignified to admit. I was working on my mechanical propulsion design and may have miscalculated how much stress the frame could withstand. It went..." He made a phweet sound with his mouth, and did a vague gesture with his fingers that Jayce translated as flew completely off the rail. "My leg brace was damaged."
Jayce winced. He looked over Viktor more closely. He didn’t seem hurt, but Jayce knew how well he could hide an injury when he wanted to. “It hit you? Are you alright?”
“Perfectly fine,” Viktor said tersely. But his body was angled slightly away from Jayce, like he was trying to hide his weaker, unbraced leg in the shadows. "The brace got the brunt of it, luckily. I've repaired most of the damage now. It’s just the boot, it…” Viktor turned the metallic object in his hands. Jayce could see where the toe of Viktor’s boot had been dented, bent out of shape. Something had smashed into it violently. “...Pinches.”
“Pinches,” Jayce said.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “That is the word, I believe.”
Jayce opened his mouth, and closed it. That smashed-up metal looked significantly worse than a shoe that merely pinched. But getting Viktor to admit he was in pain was like pulling teeth. He was always in some level of pain. If he said it pinched, then anyone else would probably call it agony.
Instead of arguing semantics, Jayce pulled up a stool and sat next to Viktor.
“Can I see? Maybe I can fix it.”
Viktor narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously.
“I do not require your assistance. I built this on my own; I can repair it on my own.”
“I never doubted that. But we’re partners, right? I’d like to help. Besides, you know I’m good at beating metal into shape.”
Jayce gave Viktor his best winning smile.
Viktor sighed, and rolled his eyes skyward. He seemed to be debating with himself about something. But he caved in the end, just like Jayce knew he would. If Viktor really didn’t want his help, he wouldn’t have been working on the brace out here, in the lab, where Jayce could see him.
Viktor handed Jayce the boot.
"I just can't get it to bend back," he said, frustrated.
Jayce tried not to show how giddy he was to hold the boot. That he was getting to touch this little piece of Viktor, something he had made with his own hands for his own body, that Viktor trusted him with this—it was a heady feeling. He was ridiculously desperate to impress this man, to show him that his trust wasn’t misplaced.
“What’s the material?” he asked.
“Aluminum alloy. Silicon.”
“Wrought?”
“Of course.”
Jayce hummed to himself. He set the boot on his metalworking station and tapped at it with a small hammer, testing out its give.
“What were you trying to do with the pliers, anyway?”
Viktor sounded deeply irritated. “I had hoped to, somehow, torque it back into shape…”
Viktor had the hands of a concert pianist. Long-fingered and dexterous, they could build all manner of intricate devices, and they never shook. But he didn’t have much strength. Whenever Viktor needed to brute force anything, he’d rely on sheer determination and spite, and his hands would cramp for days afterwards.
Jayce couldn’t help the fond grin that spread over his face. “There’s your mistake, Viktor.” He twirled the hammer in his hand. “But that’s what you’ve got me for.”
The room filled with the rapid, staccato sound of the hammer striking the metal parts of the boot. It was an awkward shape if you didn’t know what you were doing; but Jayce had been practically born with a hammer and scrap metal in his hands. He molded the boot as easily as if it were clay. It didn’t take long before it was pretty much in its old shape again.
Jayce held it out triumphantly to show Viktor.
“The simple utility of a lump of metal on a stick. How could I forget,” Viktor said drily. But his eyes were pleased.
“Sometimes all you need is a blunt instrument. Like me,” Jayce said, sunnily. “Here, could you try it on? I want to check how it fits.”
He dropped down to one knee and held out the boot.
Viktor froze again.
The room held its breath.
Jayce had that feeling, the second time in five minutes, that he had done something wrong. He had no idea what, though. His offer to try on the boot was easy and instinctive; it had felt perfectly natural. He looked up at Viktor in confusion.
Viktor’s eyes burned as he stared down at Jayce. He looked almost angry . The morning light through the window glanced against his sharp cheekbones and carved his face into view like the snow-capped crest of a mountain.
“Jayce,” Viktor said. “What are you doing?”
Jayce’s entire body flushed hot in embarrassment. His hands wavered, lowering the boot to the ground.
“I was just—” he stammered. He didn’t understand what was wrong. “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”
Viktor was still staring at him, like he was a specimen under a microscope, like he was taking him apart with his mind and examining the pieces from every angle.
“I’m sorry,” Jayce said, quickly, tripping over his words. “Sorry. That was stupid of me.”
“No,” Viktor said. He gripped the edges of his seat. He took a breath, then swung his body around to face Jayce. His weaker leg trailed slightly on the floor before he corrected it.
“Forgive me. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I’m acting irritable because of it. This is…kind of you. To do this for me.”
Jayce perked up again. He looked hopefully at Viktor. “It’s okay?”
“Yes, Jayce. It’s okay. Though I assure you I can put my own shoes on.”
“Well, I want to do the honors this time. If—if you don’t mind.”
Viktor’s face softened. He hesitated for one more moment. And then he shifted in his seat, and raised his right foot toward Jayce.
“Go ahead,” he said quietly.
Jayce hadn’t thought much of it when he’d kneeled down on the floor. Really, he hadn’t. This was just something partners did for each other, right? He was just a friend helping Viktor repair his boot, just checking to see how it fit.
But now he felt self-conscious, and that magnified the sensitivity of his perceptions. Everything suddenly had a strange charge to it. He could hear each faint rustle of cloth as Viktor adjusted. When Viktor slid his foot into the boot, Jayce’s hand automatically came up to hold the back of Viktor’s ankle and help support his leg, and then all Jayce could focus on was the sensation of muscle, tendon, and bone under the compression sock. If he really concentrated, he could feel the sinews subtly shifting, could feel every micro-movement of Viktor’s body against the width of his palm. Viktor’s ankle was so thin Jayce could wrap his hand around it and press thumb to forefinger.
Jayce felt his face flush. He hoped Viktor didn’t notice.
“How,” he said, and his voice cracked embarrassingly. He cleared his throat. “How does it feel?”
Viktor looked at Jayce. After a long moment of contemplation, he said:
“It’s a bit roomy around the toes.”
So Jayce went back and forth between the metalworking station and Viktor, making small adjustments wherever Viktor told him to. He kneeled in front of Viktor and put the boot on for him again, and again, and again. Viktor let him.
There was a feeling growing inside Jayce. Something green, with deep roots, and reaching for the sun. Every time he turned and saw Viktor watching him, the green thing spread its leaves a little wider.
Jayce was so happy he felt dizzy with it.
Viktor noticed, of course.
“I wouldn’t have thought a man as proud as you would enjoy bending the knee like this,” he said. His voice was light and teasing; there was no trace of irritation left. “But it seems I was wrong. Perhaps in another life, you could have been perfectly happy as a humble shoeshiner. Or a cobbler.”
Jayce had to laugh at that. “You think shoeshiners are humble? Those guys are as proud as they come. Trust me, in that other life I’d be founder of a whole House of shoeshiners. They’d call me Jayce Polish. My symbol would be a horsehair brush.”
Viktor smiled at him. His first real smile all day. It was amused and genuine, and Jayce glowed.
“You are a ridiculous person.”
“But I’m right, which is the important thing.”
He slid Viktor’s boot into place. “Okay, how’s it feeling now?”
Viktor put his foot on the ground. He shifted some of his weight onto it, testing out how his body filled into the shape and how the boot flexed at the joints.
“It’s perfect,” he said. When he looked at Jayce, his golden eyes were bright and warm. “Thank you, Jayce.”
And Jayce had the insane thought that he wanted to kiss that mole on the side of Viktor's mouth, wanted to kiss the spot where his tie was loose and the dip of his neck was peaking through, wanted to kiss both of his knobby knees. It was kind of overwhelming. Jayce pressed the back of his hand over his mouth.
Viktor cocked his head. "Yes? Did you want to say something?"
"Hm?" Jayce mumbled into his knuckles. "Um."
He lowered his hand. Viktor was still watching him so closely, so curiously. Jayce swallowed, and plucked up the courage to ask something he’d wanted to know for months.
“Can you show me how the brace works? The attachment mechanism, the welding around the joints? Your engineering is always a marvel.”
And wonder of wonders, Viktor indulged him. He explained the way the brace helped support his weight, kept his knee and ankle in alignment, took some pressure off his hips and spine. He showed him the attachment mechanism. When Jayce reached out curiously, Viktor let him fiddle with the gears and screws that made up the joints. He wondered if Viktor had ever let anyone else touch his brace like this. He doubted it.
“Can I see how you put it on?” Jayce asked.
Viktor moved with breathtaking grace and self-assurance. Everything clicked into place smoothly, with no wasted movements. The design of the brace was functional first and foremost, but it was also sleek and elegant and perfectly Viktor. It was—
“Beautiful,” Jayce breathed, before he could stop himself.
He was sitting on the stool, staring up at Viktor. Viktor stood before him, leaning on his cane. His eyes darkened with pride. He gave Jayce an amused, superior look, like he knew something Jayce didn’t.
“My philosophy of design is that a form, when perfectly matched to its function, must as a rule be aesthetically appealing as well. I am pleased to know that this design had the intended effect.”
Jayce blinked stars out of his eyes. Yes, the design of the brace was beautiful. But that hadn’t been what Jayce was talking about—or rather, it wasn’t the whole of it. Jayce had been talking about the gaunt, wiry body underneath. He had been talking about the mind that had imagined a device to support that body, and the will that had brought that device into reality. He had been talking about the sum of his parts, the totality of everything that made him who he was.
Viktor was beautiful. That was what Jayce had meant.
It wasn’t a new realization; Viktor’s beauty had struck Jayce almost as soon as he’d first clapped eyes on him. He had saved Jayce's life and given his name, all with incalculable grace and intelligence, and Jayce had been immediately smitten with a sort of schoolboy crush. But the urgency of his feelings was new. That green thing spreading its leaves in his chest was new.
A week ago, Jayce would have found it inconceivable to voice such thoughts. Hextech was the most important thing in Jayce’s life, and if he and Viktor succeeded, it could be the most important thing in Piltover’s history. Jayce couldn’t afford to muck that up by offending Viktor, or causing drama, or getting tangled in messy feelings.
But now, suddenly, sitting here in front of Viktor and feeling the warmth of his eyes on him, Jayce found it inconceivable not to say something. He had to try. If he didn’t tell Viktor how he felt, he might simply explode.
Jayce didn’t stop to question it, or think things through. He just opened his mouth.
“Viktor. Can I ask you an unprofessional question?”
Viktor cocked his head. “Well, that’s intriguing. I have to wonder what even you would consider unprofessional. Ask away.”
Jayce licked his lips nervously. His heart galloped in his chest. “Would you like to be my partner…in more than just hextech?”
“You mean,” Viktor said. His forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Are there…other projects you are working on? Other than hextech? I thought—”
“No, no,” Jayce said hastily. “I mean—romantically. Would you like to be my partner, romantically?”
Viktor stared at him blankly.
Jayce dropped his face into his hand and tried not to groan.
“I’m sorry, I’m not saying this right. What I mean is—”
“I know what you mean,” Viktor said, mercifully cutting him off. “You are trying to proposition me, yes? In this roundabout and yet very forward way of yours?”
Jayce peaked up at him through his fingers. “...Yes?”
Viktor frowned at Jayce.
“Where is this coming from?” he said.
“No, don’t answer that,” he said before Jayce could respond. “I think I can guess.”
“You’re actually serious about this,” he said. “Of course you are. It’s you we’re talking about.”
“Give me a moment,” he said. “I need to—I need to think. This is a lot to process.”
Viktor sat down heavily in the chair. He was silent for a long time. With each second that ticked past, Jayce’s heart sank closer and closer to the floor.
“Jayce,” Viktor said, slowly. Delicately. “You know that I hold you in…very high regard.”
Oh, god. Jayce pressed his palms into his eyes.
“I did not mean to, eh, lead you on, as they say. I may have let my guard down more than I should. But I don’t think I need to tell you why getting romantically involved with your science partner is not, in general, a good idea.”
“Maria and Pierre Kuriy were married when they invented chrystology,” Jayce responded, and god, why did he say that? Why? He wasn’t asking Viktor to marry him.
“And then they both died in a chrysto explosion,” Viktor said bitterly. “Jayce. Look at me, please?”
Reluctantly, Jayce lifted his head. Viktor was looking at him with an expression that was horribly close to pity.
“My friendship with you is something I cherish beyond compare,” he said softly. “More than I even thought I could. But you should not seek other forms of companionship from me. I am not…interested…in such entanglements, at the moment.”
Jayce swallowed. So this was it, then. Viktor was trying to let him down gently.
He knew that Viktor was lying. Viktor was incredibly discreet about it, but he knew Viktor had invited at least two men to his apartment since Jayce had met him. (Jayce had run into the men when they were on their way out and Jayce was on his way in, hoping to ask Viktor a scientific question that couldn’t wait until morning.) So it wasn’t that Viktor didn’t want companionship at all.
He just didn’t want it from Jayce .
And that was—fine. That was fine.
There were plenty of reasons why one wouldn’t.
Jayce fiddled with his bracelet, and tried to keep his face under control. “No, I understand. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you out of nowhere. Sometimes I just get an idea in my head, and…I say things I shouldn’t.”
Viktor’s lips quirked up in a smile. “You do have a tendency to—what’s the phrase? Shoot from the hip?”
Jayce laughed without humor. He kind of felt like his heart was breaking, and he was starting to panic that he might have just ruined his friendship with Viktor, and he was having trouble focusing. He gestured helplessly at himself. “Well, you know. Like I said. Blunt instrument.”
Viktor paused. “Is that really what you think you are?”
“You don’t have to mince words," Jayce muttered. "I know how I am. I know that I shouldn’t—that I’m too…”
Much. He was too much. Went too far, shot too fast, needed too much attention. He’d lost count of how many relationships he’d ruined because of it. Why did he just proposition Viktor all of a sudden like that, what was wrong with him? Viktor was too smart to ever touch this mess with a five foot pole.
Humiliatingly, he could feel tears starting to well up in his eyes.
“Jayce. Look at me,” Viktor said, a sharp note in his voice.
It stopped Jayce from his downward spiral. He blinked back the tears, and looked up at him.
Viktor leaned forward on his cane, holding his gaze. “I think you are a most marvelously sensitive and complex machine, Jayce,” he said, in a low voice. “Don’t ever apologize for that, for your great capacity for feeling.”
Jayce took a breath.
They stayed there in this fragile moment, looking into each other’s eyes, for what felt like a long time. Jayce’s heart trembled.
“Will it help you feel better if we start building the prototype hex launcher together?” Viktor said.
“ Yes ,” Jayce said, massively relieved. “Please, yes. Let’s.”
Viktor smiled at him kindly.
They didn’t talk about it again. Viktor never let Jayce touch his leg brace again, either. But their friendship remained, and only strengthened as the years went by. Jayce was unspeakably grateful for that.
Jayce thinks back to his words now.
A most marvelously sensitive and complex machine .
For all his failures, that has to still be worth something. Even if Viktor has lost all faith in him. Even if he can’t bear to look at his own reflection in this polluted water.
He takes inventory of the stripped pieces of his hammer. It won’t be pretty, but there’s enough here to make the skin and bones of what he needs; he can use the long handle as a support for his shattered tibia and fibula, can use the gears to make knee and ankle joints, can tear apart his jacket to make leather straps.
He still remembers every detail of Viktor’s leg brace.
There is something terribly romantic, Jayce thinks, about reshaping himself in Viktor’s image. Even though the end result will look nothing like him. Despite it all, he thinks this might be the closest he’s ever felt to him.
He gets to work.
They land in a field of flowers.
There is a version of the Herald who knows this place. Who has walked a thousand iterations of this field, in a thousand worlds and a thousand lifetimes. The same Herald who is/hasn’t yet/will always had carved that pattern into the blue crystal, knowing what it meant, knowing it would lead the keeper of his heart back to this place.
This Herald, the Herald of the right-here-and-now, knows only that he has found an unexpectedly soft landing.
Energy crackles in prismatic colors around him, slow to fade. His mind rattles in his consciousness like a box of loose screws, rolling queasily about in the sudden empty space where a thousand other souls had just been. Perception comes in fits and starts, a flickering lightbulb. His body does not have the capacity to feel pain. But there is no other word to describe this state of being.
It hurts. He hurts. He has the celestial equivalent of a pounding headache. The Anti-Rune had reacted with the Hexcore and exploded in his face, taking a chunk out of it. And then his soul had been flooded with power and slingshotted through time-space and deposited here, now, because of the Acceleration Rune that Jayce had given him.
Jayce lays spread-eagled on his back in the field next to him, still wearing his armor. The hammer is some distance away—spat out by the teleportation spell like something distasteful. The ugly thing flickers when the Herald turns his attention to it. Their conflicting realities repel each other.
Jayce, though. Jayce is solid. Constant. A weight that cannot be denied, more real than anything.
His body is still. He breathes. His eyes are closed. His long, dark lashes flutter. He doesn’t wake.
The Herald has marked this man’s flesh in so many ways. His forehead bears a crown in the shape of the Herald’s fingerprints, iridescent as the wings of a butterfly. Around his throat, layered bruises darken purple. His left arm is discolored in the pattern of the Wild Rune. In the center of the pattern, over the veins of his wrist, the Acceleration Rune is tattooed into his skin, white like a scar.
The Herald examines his own left hand. It shares the same pattern of discoloration where the purple flesh has corroded, faded almost to skin-pale. On his palm, the Acceleration Rune is tattooed here, too, where Jayce had pressed it into him. The mark glimmers faintly in the sunlight.
He reaches his hand toward Jayce.
There is an electric charge. A hum of potential energy. The Herald understands—the power of the rune has been absorbed inside them. He can activate the teleportation spell anytime he’d like. It would be as simple as closing a circuit.
The Herald contemplates leaving.
This place is beautiful. The sun is bright. The sky is a deep, pristine blue. The grass is spring-green, and dotted with wildflowers. In the distance, he can see white mountains rising above the clouds, full of impassive majesty.
A breeze sighs over the grass. Jayce’s hair whispers over his face.
The Herald recognizes the impulse in him to leave. It is part of a pattern of self-imposed exile, the same pattern that he had repeatedly withdrawn to throughout his multiple lives.
He closes his left hand into a fist. He settles into a cross-legged pose, arranging his hands in his lap.
He watches his partner breathe.
He waits.