Chapter Text
Jayce Talis was known for his enthusiastic participation in any social gatherings. He had a party animal reputation back in the academy. He had drank enough not to remember his name or his whereabouts the next morning. One could say he was well familiar with massive hungovers.
But the pain that ripped from the core of his brain was nothing he had ever imagined was possible.
Poisoned needles pierced through the back of his eyes, his vision barely making sense to his mind. He pushed himself up with his hammer (which thankfully was still with him). Hands grabbed his hair unconsciously in a desperate appenpt to crash his own skull in order to make it stop. The colours of the Arcane flashed before his eyes before slowly clearing like a lazy current. He groaned in pain and frustration. No coherent thought could express how he felt at the moment.
Back hutched, panting for air. All of the sudden he realised he could breathe. He sucked in harshly and the cold of the hall hit his lungs like a newborn‘s first breath.
He blinked twice before his vision came back. Slowly but surely he made out the shape of the hexcore behind him, the shiny floor beneath and another figure...
'Salo?‘
There he stood. That man. The one Jayce remembered distinguishly in a wheelchair. The one he once called an ally. Standing before him, white robes covering his body, his legs caught in the spiderweb of the arcane.
'How are you walking?' his breath caught in his throat as the kaleidoscopic mess flashed in front of his eyes again, sending his brain on fire.
'Who do you think could mend such a broken creature?‘ he said, gave averting 'Would you like to speak to him?‘
Before Jayce could process what he said, salos head shot up and twitched as if in pain. Jayce clenched the handle of his hammer. He stood still when...
'Jayce.‘ The tenderness of his partner‘s voice was unmistakable. 'I feared I wouldn‘t have the chance to speak to you again‘
'Viktor?‘ Horror and relief fought against each other as he cautiously took a step forward hammer dragging behind him. The next moment another feeling flooded his senses. 'How are you doing this?‘
'I suppose this is somewhat beyond where we left off...‘ Viktors voice trailed off as he (not him... His voice in Salo‘s body) turned around gazing at the core.
'I owe Viktor... Everything!‘ Salo was back the next second breathless (and unharmed...) before the glitch took over again.
'Very kind, Salo...‘ Jayce ignored the low uncomfortable heat in his chest as his partner spoke softly to the other. He had better things to occupy his mind with. Like the cold or his tearing wounds or the walking guy that had his partner‘s voice and glitched like a broken vinyl whenever he wanted to speak or the fuckin arcane that was basically in front of him.
'I have so many breakthroughs to share with you, Jayce‘ said Viktor as he circled the shapeshifting core slowly. Couldn‘t he at least speak to him directly? He was floating in some world on his own, careless of his partner who just emerged back from hell, and dared to speak of breakthroughs? After their last conversation?
'I thought you were done with hextech.‘ He spat out '... and me...‘
The bitterness of his words earned him a slapping headache.
'I was clouded by emotions. Come. Visit me.‘ He said low. ‚See what i have accomplished. I helped so many... ‚
'You‘ve given hextech to the people?‘ Jayce almost snarled at that
'As we always promised we would...'
He felt his breath coming in short. What was Viktor talking about? Anger rose from deep withing his system. His voice sturdy despite the shaking frustration that seeped through.
'Hextech isn‘t a miracle. It‘s a curse. We have to end it Viktor! We have to.‘
The expression on Salo‘s face shifted. He (his partner) grimaced and took a step to him.
'Now I see it... You‘ve too touched the arcane.' he examined his face. That look he had when he stared at an equation that he was trying to figure out. The expression of a scientists seeing the issue with his creation. Confusion. Disappointed.
'Your mind suffered...'
And just like that he was gone. Gone again. Leaving Jayce alone like he did last time after their conversation at the lab. If he could really call it a conversation... It was more of emotional outbursts and rushed confessions and urgency that came from the fact that he did not have time to even speak to him. His back turned to Jayce, staff in his hand ready to leave without even hearing his partner. After everything he went through to keep him alive. After everything he went through to bring him back. After all the worry and anxiety and frustration and the sleepless nights he spent there next to Viktor, ready and alert if something happened. If he woke up and found the lab empty. His poor partner who went through so much, having no one to see or speak to or touch after being in that thing... He didn‘t want to leave him alone. So he stayed. Prayed.
Ironic... Men of science didn‘t pray. Yet Jayce caught himself sending silent prayers to whoever could hear him during those nights next to Viktor. He didn‘t know if there was a divine intervention in their doomed world but he hoped that at least the universe is listening. So he prayed...
And now he realised that his prayers were heard. In an unexpected sick and twisted way. There was one that heard him...
As Salo muttered something and took what he came for from the core he spun around and began walking to the elevator.
The dull knife twisting in his temples steamed hot. He had a promise to fulfill.
'I can‘t let you leave... ' he warned the other.
'I‘m sorry you feel that way.‘
The next thing that was heard was Jayce‘s hammer coliding with the floor making Salo a part of the interior.
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As Jayce dragged his feet through the underground and cursed the immense weight of his hammer no one bathed an eye at him.
He never liked the undercity. It was dark and dimmed with gases (and the hygiene level was under any bar). He had been here a couple of times in his life, the last time being their independent mission with Vi. Which... Didn‘t end well.
So he tried to avoid it as much as possible.
The pain in his leg burned like Hell‘s fire. Although his vision was better, occasionally the world would flash and tear his skull open. He tried ignoring everything else. His wounds, the anger, all these other emotions. He couldn‘t let them cloud his mind right now. He knew what he had to do. Tunnel vision and surge forward.
He never visited the undercity with Viktor tho... Never got to see the places he grew up, the river where he used to play with the boats he made himself. The young genius building fully functioning little boats from scraps he found dumped around the trash. Always so inspired and optimistic. Always looking forward at any small opportunity.
He never got to meet that teacher his partner, so rarely, mentioned with distress in his eyes. He knew they didn‘t part ways on great terms. He wished he could find out more. He wished to know. He wanted to crush anyone capable of leaving such a scare in his partner‘s amber eyes... He wished he could have come back on a better occasion. He wished he didn‘t have to do it this way. But there was no turning back...
He had made plans to take a big break once the conflict was over. A big break in which they could sit back and unwind after everything that happened. He would take Viktor to that fine place they so often wished they had time to go to, spend an entire evening talking about new ideas and projects and opportunities, despite them being on a break from it all because that was just how they were. He‘d walk him home and just before saying goodbye he‘d propose him they make a trip to the Undercity. He‘d coax it in a way he wouldn‘t be able to say no. He‘d say something about research and first-hand experience or whatever to hook him. He‘d agree if he could excuse it with some kind of work.
Although, it was not about the work. With him it never felt like work honestly...
Sleepless nights felt like sleepovers but in a more exciting way. Sometimes they‘d talk and come up with ideas that kept them awake late after everyone else was sleeping. Some other nights they‘d bash their heads on the chalkboard unable to move forward with some complicated equation. But they didn‘t do it because it is their job. No... Something else kept them up. At least for Jayce... The way the fire in his partner‘s eyes would burn maniacally during the second all nighter, fueled by caffeine and adrenaline alone. The way he‘d move around the lab so gracefully,despite his limping, crafting and putting parts together. The way he‘d find him asleep on the desk after lunch time, exhausted and peaceful...
Woah..
Even with a broken body, a scared mind and a burning spirit he found himself lingering on those old memories. Why was he like that? He just got out of hell and all he could think about was what could‘ve been? Wasn‘t the torture and the dragging able to dull those sentimentals?
Unsurprisingly he couldn‘t care less about what was right and wrong to think right now. After all it was these thoughts that kept him sane back there. These and many others. Memories and ideas and faces spinning around. Although one particular expression kept emerging from the fire over and over again, driving Jayce mad in a not so familiar way...
He pushed the thoughts out of his head painfully before it was too late, ignoring the burning sensation in his eyes, giving the credit to the headache. His breath quickened as the unbearable pain filled his entire being. Did his chest ache more or his leg or his head? He couldn‘t know anymore.
He limped towards his destination. He had a personal invitation to a mindfucked tea party after all.
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It was all a blur at some point. He didn‘t remember getting to the commune. He didn‘t remember how he sneaked in despite there being so many people guarding. He didn‘t remember bumping into tents and boxes nor he remembered stumbling a couple of times. He didn‘t remember when the angry flashes stopped and new ones began. It was all a wave of a torturous high and blinking colours and his promise. He didn‘t remember lifting his hammer and charging a blast towards a helpless child.
He remembers freezing into place at a familiar memory.
All of the sudden the colours normalised. He looked at the child in front of him. It just lowered its little hand, looking up at Jayce with unsettled face. Something about it‘s eyes was off.
Jayce knew the child wasn‘t there anymore. After a quick scan of the group around him he could say the same about every last one of them. There was something uncanny about their eyes, their marks, the way they almost floated around. Robotic... Like puppets. Sucked out of their true human essence. Salo was marely a ghost of who he was before. A vessel for Viktor to utilize. A string in his enormous web of souls...
It would be merciful of Jayce to end this humiliation with their lives.
But he couldn‘t neglect the fact that this child had the look of someone scared to lose the life it didn‘t truly possess. Who was he to take it when it hadn‘t actually began to live it in the first place.
The child reached its tiny arm out offering his hand to Jayce. He took it gently and the kid lead him towards the giant sphere in the middle.
His final destination.
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Jayce talis went through hell. He knew what a demon looked like.
But oh the one in front of his eyes was awefully angelic...
He stared at the sight in front of him eyes wide.
This place was a work of the arcane that was for sure. Kaleidoscopic glass walls made the spherical space look like a temple. The sand floor made a pyramidic formation in the center where a few feet from the floor...
Long glowing strings connected to the back of his partner who was levitating in the middle. He was covered with the blanket that Jayce put around his shoulder on that day he woke up. The very same blanket rested now on his hips leaving his upper part exposed. His skin was darker than when he last saw him. There were more golden traces on his flesh oddly connecting like veins but not exactly. He looked better than before. The painfully gaunt gaps that were between his ribs were now filled a little. His hip bones were not so prominent and had a slight softness despite the dark flesh that had conquered his body. His cheecks were not as hollow but too had been overtaken by the darkness.
His hair had grown longer. White underlayer had formed framing his face and contrasting with the dark of his shoulders so exquisitely.
His face was relaxed in a focused trance floating above ground. Sharp edges giving him an air of elegance and divination.
The face of his partner.
The face of a godlike creature.
Was this what his partner had become here? A living God among mortals? The saviour of the doomed souls? The embodiment of power and mercy? A dominating force of nature? A creature that the poor dirty earth souls should not be allowed to breathe the same air as?
An anomaly.
He couldn‘t take his eyes off him. His mind quiet like the eye of the storm. His heart screaming in the back, locked behind a solid door. He watched awestruck and mesmerised. Bewitched by the sight in front of him. He imagined a possibility. His legs would give out soon letting him fall on his knees. The weight of his hammer would become too heavy to hold. He would let it fall. He would let the sharp sting behind his eyes run free. He would reach out for the relief that seeped from the God in front of him. He would let him take whatever he wanted. His life, his mind, his soul... He would carve his heart out with a knife if he asked nicely. He would embrace whatever his partner offered him. He would be free, he would be at peace finally, protected by the divine power that stood in the air before him. How big, how blue, how beautiful...
How bewitching... How tempting...
But Jayce did none of that. He had made a promise. And he would not fail again.
His selfishness placed them in this place to begin with. If it wasn‘t for his ignorance, egoism and apathy he wouldn‘t be here now. His partner wouldn‘t have had to go through this all. All because he couldn‘t let him go. Let him know... All because Jayce Talis was a weak man that could not bare the pain.
So he tried to prove that wrong.
His hammer lifted from the ground he charged the final blast as his target (his partner) opened his eyes slowly, a soft smile before the realisation.
As their gazes locked Jayce found something he wished he never has to witness again. True fear coulded Viktor‘s eyes flashing in different colors. Jayce was the reason his partner looked like that. His partner (his Viktor) was afraid of him. Of the shameful sin he was about to commit, the damage about to get done.
Jayce screamed as he closed his eyes, the world glitching once again, his voice ripping through every fiber of the universe. That is what the deal was. The condition of the promise he made. No turning back now.
He is scared.
Of you.
It‘s your partner in there.
What the fuck are you doing?
You are hurting him.
How could you?
You are hurting your Viktor?
How could you?
...
...
Is saving the world worth killing him?
...
The charge was gone. The world was quiet. There was nothing for a mare millisecond.
Jayce‘s eyes snapped open. He could swear he saw his partner‘s lips twisted in a smirk before everything turned to black.
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Death. Darkness. Colors and light smeared in between. Nothing and everything all at once. Immense pain and a blissful high. He was himself and nobody. He was and wasn‘t. He felt everything and nothing. Simplicity and madness.
Was that the final destination?
Is that what awaits them all?
Was that it?
Was it worth it?
His body was morphing and twisting in unimaginable angles. His brain was in front of him staring at his soul.
...
He wanted to scream but he found out he had no mouth to do so.
...
It was so dark...
The head (supposedly on his shoulders) was empty. Incapable of forming a single thought or processing.
Only one name.
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‚Viktor!‘