Chapter Text
"No sleep of the innocent. Not for you. Did you forget? You have blood on your hands. On your lips. On your teeth. Smile for the cameras."
- Isaac Marion, 'warm bodies'
----
He wakes up in the fissures. Right where the commune had been.
He wakes with a gasp, and he is suddenly violently aware of himself. Of his body.
In those last days, he'd been barely concious of it. Viktor hadn't had to worry about such trifling things such as flesh; he was more than his body ever would hope to be, and no number of reformations or transformations would rise up to the presence that he'd become. That vessel he'd used, twisted out of his broken and mended and broken body, that was nothing but a puppet, and he was just pulling a thousand strings. It seemed so inconsequential, the divide between soul and body.
But now. Now, Viktor is so unbearably small. And yet at the same time, he feels pulled apart, spread out.
Shoved back into this.. this thing he'd previously called a body, he's aware of every plated bone, every twisted, reinforced muscle, every molecule of his being and how it has changed.
Viktor is aware of how his legs have been elongated, his previously deteriorated one plated with silver and gold, with ball joints where his knee and ankle and hip had been. He's aware of how his back-brace had fused with his spine, mended and straightened it with the durability that only steel could afford. His hands are bigger, now, still slender, still clever, but now he could palm a tome that he'd previously struggled to open with two hands.
He is big. For the first time in his mortal life he is tall, and his bones won't break, and he can breathe.
And he is aware. Of everything.
Aware of how the rocks and the dirt, the shards of glass and metal dig into what should be his skin. He's aware that it does not pierce it. He's aware that he still has the blanket, how it curls around his shoulders and shields his back. He can feel it, feel its softness. He'd never been able to do that, when he came back the first time. He's aware of his face, painfully human, and of the pieces of his mask laying at his knees.
He doesn't pick it up.
He stumbles as he gets up. Something beats in his chest, but it isn't a heart. It sounds more like a piston, thumping at a rhythm he could count with a metallic certainty.
Viktor heaves, and his staff is at his side, and he leans onto it like it's a cane again and he just breathes.
It's all too much. He thought, when he was human, that he'd never escape such things, never forget the way that air passed through his throat or blood flowing through his veins felt. How could he forget something that important?
He's surrounded by dust. By the remnants of the place he built.
He shouldn't be alive.
That's his first thought: Viktor shouldn't be alive.
His second, unwillingly vocalized, is "Jayce."
Jayce. How could he forget? How could he forget the man who was the reason he now could feel again, with horrid, blessed humanity.
Where was he? Viktor couldn't see him. Perhaps he'd appeared somewhere else. Somewhere far away from Viktor, from the fissures, from the Lanes, from all of Zaun.
The thought of Jayce being anywhere else but beside Viktor hurts in a way it hadn't in so long. As his chest heaves, and his mind turns, he hurts and he hurts and he hurts because his partner isn't anywhere he can see, anywhere he can feel.
He is afloat, a spider without his web. He can feel nobody but himself.
He is no longer the Arcane's chosen Herald, he's just Viktor.
He shouldn't be alive.
Not after what he's done.
The realization of it all comes creeping up his metal spine, sinking its claws into his head and tearing at the willpower keeping him upright.
He chokes.
He needs Jayce.
Where is Jayce?
-----
They find him at the apex of the Hexgates.
He was holding his hammer in a vice-grip, slumped against its mass like it could save him. But he was breathing, and his face was lax like he'd fallen asleep. He was completely knocked out.
He had little shimmery scars crowning his forehead, ovals. Fingerprints.
And yet, he hadn't crumbled like the rest of the Assimilated.
They moved him to the infirmary, treated his bruises and cuts, re-adjusted his leg brace, and waited for him to wake up.
Mel waiting vigil at his bedside when she heard him sit up, quicker than a shot. He gasped, and she jumped to her feet, gravitating toward him with concern.
"Jayce? Jayce, it's alright- Whatever you did, it worked, we won, we won-" She tried to soothe, but his breathing stayed at a rabbits pace, his eyes fixed into the middle distance until they weren't.
They flicker to Mel, and there's confusion and relief and fear in them, so much so that it hurts, and then he's looking all around him, and he's shifting off of the cot as if he wants to get up.
It's almost as if he's looking for someone.
Mel has a sinking feeling about who he's looking for.
"Did- Did you-" he starts, words tumbling over each other, before his mouth clicks closed and his jaw works around the question. "Where.. Where's Viktor?"
Mel grimaces. "There's no sign of him. Not where we found you."
And then the tears start.
Normally, Mel would expect Jayce to be messy with his emotions- loud, unapologetic. And perhaps she'd expected his grief to be the same.
But there was none of that. No dramatic fanfare, no screams, no violence, no desperate need to be comforted.
Instead the tears welled, and they fell silently. She could barely see him shaking. From there she witnesses Jayce- reliable, tall, broad Jayce- wrap his arms around his middle like he's covering a wound, and bow his head. She watches as his hair hides his eyes, hide the way the tears start dripping in earnest, how he curls impossibly into himself. There's a gentle rain to it, an asynchronous rhythm as tears patter against the hospital blanket.
Jayce's sorrow is quiet, but not any less momentous.
"I had him back." He whispers to her. He doesn't list towards her, not anymore. Not for a while. She pretends it doesn't hurt.
She sets a gentle hand on his back anyway.
"I had him back. And we did it. And it killed us, and I've lost him again." His voice cracks around the words, teeth grinding into eachother in an effort to not crack further. "I shouldn't be alive. I shouldn't be alive. I should be with him. " His eyes turn to Mel, hazel eyes imploring and bloodshot and a violent tug at her heartstrings.
So this was the grief he'd never been allowed. Not after the council room blew up, not after whatever the hell transpired that molded his hammer into something that hummed with the Arcane and that put his leg in a brace. Not even when faced off against the man he held so dear.
"I had him. I had him in my arms. It was him, you have to believe me, it was Viktor. Not the Herald, no, no, it was my Vitya." He pleads with her, as if she'd said anything to doubt him, as if she'd said anything at all. Mel couldn't. She had a feeling he needed this.
"He has to be alive. He has to. There shouldn't be a me without him, shouldn't ever be.." He's coughing with the momentum of his sobs. Mel shifts closer, a weight at his side, and he abandons all pretense of words to sob silently into his own lap. His shoulders jump with every ragged breath he takes.
Mel sits with him as he breaks, and she breathes his agony.
She doesn't interject. She doesn't leave him.
He needs this, Afterall.
----
Piltover and Zaun mourn in tandem. It's the nearest commonality they've had in the entirety of the twin cities lives.
They care for their dead. Celebrate those that lived, the soldiers from Zaun and Piltover alike sharing drink.
Jayce can't celebrate with them. Not only does he not feel as if celebrating his own sorry life is productive, but this council-meeting is mandatory and reparations have to be organized by someone.
If Jayce doesn't do it, he's going to lose his goddamned mind.
They barely even wait a day after he wakes up to demand his presence at the table.
It's an unspoken thing, he re-joining of the Council. With the majority of the past council killed, only Mel and Shoola remaining, they need all the people they can get. At least, without having to work on Hextech, he can put all of his weight into serving his city.
He throws on something black and bronze, unable to pick up the white coat he used to wear. It feels wrong, like he's stealing the face of a boy that had previously died. He adjusts his brace, reaches for the cane that supposedly belonged once to his father, and he's off to the council room.
His boots and his cane click succinctly on the marble, and his appearance causes a hush to fall over the atrium. The windows are all revealed, the mended cracks in the table lit up by the light of midday. Jayce wishes he could go back to bed. He straightens his spine, and greets Mel with a smile that feels like a shadow of his former one.
There are eyes on him. He does suppose he looks quite severe, quite different than the Man of Progress most have known. The beard, the loss of weight, the new scars, the black attire. It's kinda funny, really. they always shut up when Viktor walked in beside him, too.
He catches the eye of the Zaunite-elected councilor, and he remembers her vaguely. Sevika, the left-hand of the Underground. She was a part of the crowd he'd spoken to before it went to shit.
They make eye contact, and he's aware that she is sizing him up. She's evaluating him, gathering data, debating whether he's more of a threat than a potential ally. He'd caught Viktor watching him like that in the early days of their partnership. Jayce isn't particularly surprised. Zaunites aren't exactly renowned for their friendly attitude, especially towards topsiders.
He limps toward her anyways, and extends a hand in greeting. "Sevika. I heard you conducted the last stand against the Noxian regime." He says, remembering Viktor telling him about Zaunites and their preference to keep things blunt.
She huffs a laugh through her nose, taking his hand with her flesh one. "That was me. Councilor Talis, was it? I didn't see you fighting." She says, and Jayce hears gasps at her insult echo.
He doesn't really care much. The mocking tone is refreshing compared to the soft and respectful words he gets lately. "Jayce, please. I would've been there if I wasn't busy trying to kill a god." He says right back, letting a bit of that black humor leak through where his grin turns unforgiving and sharp.
She matches it, eyes sparkling. There was intrigue there, now. "Oh, so You're the reason we didn't get turned into whatever the fuck those things were."
Jayce sweeps his hand out, emphasizing his lame leg and the bags under his eyes. "At your service, Councilor." he snarks right back.
She laughs. Tension bleeds out of Jayce's back slowly, and she claps him on the shoulder. "Keep that shit up and you might be the least insufferable bitch here."
"High praise to a Piltie, don't you have a reputation to uphold?" He shoots back, and they're walking to their seats.
She shrugs. "I've been hearing that we need to be more tolerant of eachother, some shit like that."
He snorts. "Yeah, we really do." He agrees, falling into his seat beside Mel. On her other side was Shoola, who nodded to Jayce with a quiet little smile that spoke of relief.
Jayce stares down the councilors he's unfamiliar with, all reeking of privilege and gold. They stare at Sevika with unveiled disgust, they look at him like he's gone insane for talking to her.
Alright, he thinks, jaw tightening and teeth grinding. That shouldn't last long.
The crowd was spread out evenly in a neat circle around the council, separating into little sections that corresponded to their allegiances. A few of Mel's confidants, Jayce's mother and representatives for other Artisanal houses, Caitlin and Vi standing next to eachother, watching with apprehension. Jayce makes eye contact with the both of them, and he knows they need to talk later. He's relieved that they made it out, at least.
There were also a splattering of big-names in one industry or another, and the little group of Zaunite representatives that came up with Sevika. Ekko was there, watching with a hawks eye and fading bruises, along with a couple other Firelights with their masks put firmly in place.
There were a couple of Sevika's ilk, one in particular with a severe face and a scar bisecting his top lip was parked right next to a Firelight with a cracked bunny mask and a patch on his shoulder denoting him a medic. They were almost comical, the Firelight a tall willowy man while Sevika's man was short and stocky, yet they were side to side, inseparable.
Jayce wishes everyone would intermingle like that. But it's unrealistic, he knows.
Alright.
Jayce was placed at the head of the council-table, to his left those he was more familiar with, and to his right were the newer Piltie councilors.
He stands, and a hush falls.
"Now that we're all here; we must discuss reparations and relations." He announces, his voice projecting just as he knew it would, and drawing many, many eyes.
And so it begins.
The council-meeting lasts the rest of the day.
They're barely thirty minutes into discussing the repairs to be made before someone starts yelling.
Surprisingly, it's not Sevika. But it is in response to her listing the damage that had come to Zaun, and ways to improve quality of life.
She'd been listing a plan to repair the pipe system and general infrastructure, and when she began to voice the costs and manpower it'd take long term, one of the newer Councilors, a round man who dressed in purples and silver, had protested, and it all went from there.
"The Undercity has always been ungrateful for the kindness we've afforded them," He spouted over his glass of wine, his face red. "And besides, they've persisted fine on their own, what need do we have to interfere?"
Oh, Janna, Jayce thinks, he's one of them.
Sevika narrows her eyes at him. Her jaw tightens and works, before ultimately she turns her head and calls, "Ekko!" To which the man promptly appears at her side and opens a messy, over-filled book, speaking aloud cleanly:
"Our infant mortality rate is 79% higher than Piltover's, due to our lack of stable healthcare. We do not have an education system, creating a lack of opportunity. We do not have children's protective service. Our people are 85% more likely to die before 40 than Piltovians. Shimmer has killed thousands, and continues to hurt thousands more. The ventilation shafts have been deteriorating without proper upkeep, leading to our mines to be flooded with the Grey more often than not. A child is 9 times out of 10 going to be malnutritioned if they are born in the undercity." He finishes, and claps the book closed. He stares the man in purple down, standing tall by Sevika's side. "But sure, what need do you have to interfere with people dying and suffering?"
"Thank you, Ekko." Sevika says, nodding his way. He nods back, and stays by her side to survey.
There's murmuring throughout the crowd, and several Councilors faces have gone pale. Jayce folds his hands together and leans his face against them, watching.
Shoola takes the opportunity to speak next, voice measured. "And no doubt these problems are made worse by the war?" She looks perturbed.
Sevika nods, turning her gaze towards her. "Yeah. With how many casualties there were, not to mention injured, we're down a whole lotta manpower that'd usually hold us up." It's grim, the way that she delivers it. "And I'm not sayin' that topside doesn't have those issues either, I'm just sayin' that with our economy as reliant as it is on those same people, we're fucked."
"Unless you can get assistance from topside." Jayce finishes softly, his voice carrying.
Mel hums at her seat. "We do have more resources than Zaun." She puts in softly, diplomatically. "Perhaps it'd be a worthwhile investment. After all, Zaun has its mines and its people are resourceful."
It isn't the only topic debated that day, but goddammit does it feel the most important to Jayce. Piltover would always recover, could always bandage their wounds and take care of themselves with the cushy layer of wealth the city had built. But Zaun had no such safety net, and things were already precarious as is. He hated that things like this were controlled by the people that needed convincing.
Not for the first time, Jayce wonders how topside hasn't fallen to revolution from their undercity yet. Gods, he's so incredibly tired.
The meeting goes on like that for hours. Proposal, objection, evidence, debate, and either signing off on it or putting a pin in it for another day.
Jayce has to speak up. It's his duty, really, to give input, to plan, to speak his peace plainly. He's tired of being subtle with it. They're emerging in the dust of war, they can't afford petty politics that cater only to egos.
Clearly the rest of the council notice his impatience. Mel looks at him with something like shielded apprehension, like grief. The newer topsider councilors look scandalized, uncomfortable. Shoola's face is pinched but she doesn't interfere, and Sevika only looks at him appraisingly, with that half of a shark smile.
They all notice. They say nothing of it.
In fact, they listen. They lean foreward, they fall silent, they straighten when he starts talking.
It's weird, to be fully listened to.
They'd done the same, right before the siege. When he'd spoken of the war.
When the council disperses, they have their own tasks and plans to put in motion immediately, Jayce included.
Sevika finds him as the sun sets, in the lab that'd previously housed Hextech and the dreamers that made it happen. It hurt to be here. But Jayce needed the reminder.
She walks in, footsteps unfamiliar and heavy against the hardwood. She whistles at the space, at the scraps of prototypes and the layer of blueprints and notes covering any flat surface. He's lit candles to allow him to work.
Sevika pulls up what was once Viktor's chair, and leans over the table to survey the blueprints he's drawing up, the calculations and dimensions he's making on the side.
"Never took you for an architect, Mr. Defender." She drawls at him. Jayce can smell acrid tobacco and something chemically rancid, and he's suddenly aware that she's lit a cigar. He can't really bring himself to tell her to put it out.
"Yeah, well. Needs must." He replies, lining up his straight-edge. "And what do you mean, 'Defender'?" He hadn't heard that moniker before. Golden Boy, Man of Progress, Kiramman's dog, all that he knew. Defender was new.
"It's what they're calling you down in the streets. 'The Defender of Tomorrow', they say you saved our world." She's sarcastic, but there's a resigned, amused look to her. "You work fast but gossip works faster." She says. "But that isn't what I'm here for."
Jayce groans, leaning back and straightening up. His back and his neck crack. He'd taken off his coat a while ago, and now he was left in the plain black shirt and slacks he'd worn under it.
"Alright," He says, looking at her properly, "I'll bite."
"I want to make a council of Zaun."
"Naturally."
"I want you on that council."
That, now that gave Jayce pause. "You did just say Zaun council, right? And you realize I'm not from Zaun. Right?"
She rolls her eyes at him, exhaling a mouthful of smoke into his face. He coughs once, and scrunches his nose, but he had worse to deal with in those months in the hell-scape of a failed future. He might've inhaled some Gray, but it was like eating dirt when you're a kid. Probably.
Something to worry about later.
"Yeah, dipshit, I know you're not from Zaun. But you got me all the way up here, didn't you? It stands to reason that I could use a topsider to drag down into the trenches." She reasons, flexing her prosthetic absent-mindedly. There was a hitch in the movement. Jayce made a note to ask to do maintenance.
The logic is sound. There's a kind of equilibrium to the idea that Jayce appreciates on principle. As above, so below, or something as such. "And I'm the most tolerable out of the bunch."
"It was either you or Medarda, honestly." She throws out. "But I think having another nerd on board would be good for us."
"Ekko's onboard, too?" He's started flipping his pen around his fingers in thought.
"He'd kick my goddamn ass if he wasn't." She retorts, grinning all the while. "The Firelights are too big of a group now to be excluded. Hell, they might be the most constructive one."
Jayce hums in agreement. "You sure you want a topsider down there? You're gonna have to suffer through my burgeoning ignorance." He tries for a teasing tone.
Sevika tilts her head. "You'll get educated either way. Besides, weren't you sayin' shit about learning from eachother?"
He sighs, and leans back, dropping his pen on the table. "I did say that, yeah. You've boxed me into a corner, Councilor." He grins at her, a tired sardonic thing.
She returns it. "Glad to have you aboard. First meeting is next week, Saturday, we'll be in touch."
She stands, her business finished, and Jayce prepares to return to his work before-
A hand on his shoulder. He jumps at it. "You're no use to your people if you kill yourself with work. The day's done, Talis, go home. Eat something. Pass out."
He sighs.
She leaves.
The writing on his blueprints looks fuzzy, like gibberish.
He's exhausted.
Jayce goes to his mother's, she fusses over him like old times, like he hadn't gone to war and died and survived but without His Viktor and falls asleep with a cup of tea on his lap on her couch.
----