Chapter Text
Viktor's only confusion upon waking was why. One moment he was staring into Jayce's eyes for what he'd thought would be the final time, power swirling around them as they were torn apart into the finest motes of stardust; one with the arcane and with the universe, and with each other. It was more than he expected, far more than he deserved, and a fitting enough end all things considered. The arcane, nothing, then this. He was instantly aware, pushing himself up to his knees and soaking in the sights and sounds around him; people shouting, wind whistling through broken walls and roof with how high they were above the city. The HexGates, without the pleasant hum of energy and the rush of ozone scent when an airship was directed to its destination.
The broken HexGates, then.
His second realization was that absolutely nothing hurt; his body whole and hale, if not precisely human. The hands he looked down upon were myriad purples and gold; the form he had loved dearly until Jayce had said there was beauty in what he had been. His third realization was that he felt the wind on every part of his naked body, reconstituted from the matter that he was not that which he carried. That answered… some questions, not all, and definitely not why. That he could find out later.
The shouting in the distance had faded so, slowly, Viktor stood up to better survey his surroundings outside the… well, the best term for where he was would be a crater in what had been the HexGate control room. Noxus must have retreated, there had been industrial noise, voices, but no explosions, no guns, and there were none of the ascended nearby - or what would be left of them. Had they also returned from the arcane? Had… where was Jayce?
~!~
Being torn apart, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, was not an experience Jayce could have ever imagined going through, but as it happened, with the weight of Viktor’s forehead against his, and hand on his arm, it was one that felt like freedom. Freedom and benediction, all at once. He did deserve to die after what he’d done, they’d done, after all.
Which is why the sharp, agonizing inhale of fresh air felt like fire burning through him.
Jayce muffled a shout into his arm, into the all-too-familiar arcane rot near the gem embedded in his wrist and sucked in another breath, exhaling a shaky sob. There was shouting that was getting louder by the second and he grunted, forcing himself up, planting both of his hands into the cratered stone beneath him.
He threw his head back and forced his eyes open, blinking against the bright sunlight. He managed one breath, then another, the fire in his lungs slowly receding, even as the pain his leg made itself apparent, and his lack of clothing shortly thereafter. Jayce swallowed and turned his head enough to see that he was tower that had once housed the Hexgates. He blinked a few times more and the rest of the shapes around him began to solidify.
There was a whisper of Viktor’s voice in the back of his mind, but whether that was a holdover from the future he’d gone to, or their last moments together, Jayce shook himself and looked around, properly, meeting the eyes of two people standing on the edge of the enormous crater that probably hadn’t been there a few seconds ago. “Blankets,” he snapped at them, his voice a rough growl.
That, at least, sent them scurrying, and Jayce was able to turn his attention to the rest of the crater. There was a body, a familiar body, a body he’d once put a hole in the chest of, lying too still and serene, and Jayce would have climbed to his feet, had his leg not abruptly reminded him of the wound that had never properly healed. Instead, he started to crawl towards Viktor’s body, his chest heaving. Had he come back without Viktor? After everything, had he died?
He crawled forward, ignoring the increasing pain radiating out from his leg, even as the sound of shouting grew around the edges of the crater. “Viktor,” he breathed, but there was still no movement. He pressed his fingers tighter into the stone beneath him and forced himself to crawl forward. “Viktor,” he managed, loud enough to silence some of the voices in the room. Still no movement. Jayce forced himself to breathe, even though he wanted nothing more than to collapse, to fall and let himself die at last if he was going to be alone again.
He took another breath to try and call Viktor’s name, only to watch as Viktor abruptly pushed himself upright. Jayce stared in shock, his mouth dropping open, before he shoved himself up onto his feet, ignoring the violent lance of pain down his entire side, and fumbled forward. He needed to see Viktor’s eyes. Not the Hexcore, not the Machine Herald, Viktor, it had to be Viktor now, didn’t it? It’d been them at the end, he’d seen it, he’d felt it.
“Vik, Viktor!”
~!~
Viktor froze upon hearing Jayce's voice. He'd knelt, then stood, then stepped forward to the edge of what had been the control room without looking behind, his only thought moving forward, discovering, finding out what had happened. Where was answered, what was, well, himself. How and why were mysteries. His breath caught in his chest and he found himself too afraid to turn around. Fear was not an emotion he had felt since he'd emerged from the hexcore, but it was an old, familiar friend. At least now he was, should be, strong enough to face it. Still, he didn't turn around, still shying away, but he looked over his shoulder with an expression of trepidation plain on his face.
Jayce was wild-eyed, disheveled, but there wasn't madness there now, or anger. Instead he saw his own emotions mirrored; confusion, disbelief, and behind it all a little fear although likely not for the same reasons as his.
"Jayce," he whispered, barely audible even to himself but Viktor only had to convince himself that Jayce was real, no one else.
Despite the disarray around them, what could only be described as an impact crater, Jayce had no new marks on his body; some that Viktor didn't know, never had the opportunity to see, but no blood, no immediate injury. The rune in his wrist glowed uncannily bright, casting Jayce's warm skin in cool shades of blue. Viktor was caught frozen again, staring at him; beautiful, strong Jayce shaking, panting, afraid. Of him, or for him?
The rhythmic thud of boots on the stairs told him they would soon be interrupted, and all his instincts told him to be wary of whoever was coming. They couldn't be shut out, the doors long since blasted open in the battle. Viktor glanced to them, hanging off their brass hinges, then back to Jayce. Words left him, if he'd ever had them. All of this was his fault, after all.
"Jayce, I…" he stammered, looking away, looking down. Debris and detritus lay strewn across the pocked stone floor, but one piece in particular caught his eye - a common thing, but one that pulled at his heart. Viktor knelt smoothly and picked up the little gear, stained slightly with what looked like rust but proved instead to be the blurry red of arcane rot. It wasn't his; the one he'd carried in his pocket since the night they met, truly met, could be anywhere by now, but it had been special only by the moment that made it so. If anyone would understand, it would be the man who must be the other half of his soul, if such things existed. If he still had a soul, after all of this.
Viktor turned and held his inhuman hand out to Jayce, gear pinched between thumb and forefinger gently.
~!~
The shouting on the edge of the crater, the call of his name by more than one person, none of it mattered, because Viktor was there, he was standing there, looking at him, the mix of fear and trepidation making him stutter to a stop, especially when he realized what Viktor was holding out to him. The familiar reminder made his heart ache, and it was in that moment that his body gave out on him, sending him crashing to his knees again, shouting through the pain of his leg and side that was enough to have his head swimming in pain.
Jayce fumbled, grabbing for Viktor’s hand, wrapping both of his hands around it and the gear, a broken sob of pain and heartbreak escaping him. Viktor was here. The Viktor that he’d killed, not the Machine Herald that had wanted to ascend them all, it was Viktor. Viktor who looked afraid, and scared, and worried, and a thousand other things that Jayce wanted to soothe, but everything hurt too much to do anything more than cradle Viktor’s hand closer, the notches of the gear biting into his palm.
His tongue felt too big for his mouth, and his vision was starting to swim harder and harder, Viktor’s image going blurry, his fingers starting to slip around Viktor’s hand. “Viktor, Viktor, please, please don’t…” There was more shouting beyond them, and Jayce was aware of boots moving closer, and the gear slipping out of Viktor’s fingertips and into his as he pitched forward, the pain and exhaustion catching up with him in a violent rush.
Jayce fell forward, and didn’t feel the strong arms catch him, or the shouted orders for him to be released. Viktor was here, but he was going to leave again, he didn’t have a reason to stay, Jayce had never given him a reason to stay, not after what he’d done. Why would he? Jayce had killed him, had tried to kill him, again and again, he’d be better off far away where he could be safe and…
The world went black all over again.
~!~
Viktor pitched forward to try and catch Jayce, or more likely break his fall; the bigger man would topple him easily, but as he did so several of the enforcers at the door trained their guns on him. The weapons weren't standard issue, still new and shiny and their power cores glowed very faintly blue - hexgems, robbed of much of their power by the core's destruction, but not all of it until they wound down like batteries. At low power they were still lethal, and one cosmic second chance was improbable, a second would not come. So his leap for Jayce instead became dropping to his knees, hands raised in surrender, but his eyes were still locked on the man crumpled before him.
Jayce's broad shoulders rose and fell in steady, if slow, breaths. Alive. Beautifully, painfully alive. He wanted nothing more than to touch him again, Jayce's large hand engulfing his as they walked to the lab, or an excited hug that erred toward too tight for comfort when they solved another runic equation. Not touching him, not reaching out, took all of Viktor's not inconsiderable willpower. The hand Jayce had touched still tingled, perhaps it was his imagination, but Viktor would cling to that feeling until he had it again.
Enforcers surrounded him, roughly forcing his hands behind his back as those wicked guns that should never have existed poked mere inches from his face, jumpy fingers on triggers just looking for an excuse. They blocked his view of the others swarming Jayce. Trying to lean around and see was rewarded with the stock of a rifle cracking against his cheek, the mere shock of which startled him into complacency. Finally he saw Jayce once they'd hauled him to his feet, half guiding and half dragging him down the ruined and poorly patched stairs. Down, ahead of them, was Jayce carried by several burly men whose uniforms bore the white arm band of enforcer medics. That gave him peace, for a moment, at least.
He was held with HexTech weapons trained on him in a room he didn't recognize until he watched the patch of light from one high window move slowly across the room, up the wall, then fade into nothingness while his mind swirled with questions. How. Why. Where is Jayce? On a loop, interspersed with closing his eyes and seeing the swirling galaxies of the arcane. The final question was the only one he managed to verbalize, met only with a disgusted huff from one of his guards - not that he'd expected an answer. Not after everything. Viktor wanted to scream even though he felt almost eerily calm, the same sort of calm he felt when he'd been told he would die, and soon. Not so much calm as… blank. But still, he felt. Fear, and calm, and cold. He felt cold. That nearly made him smile until a guard snapped at him for it, and he schooled his face. They would not know what it meant. Jayce would have understood.
They came for him at the changing of guards in the wee hours; pulled a bag over his head and bound him more thoroughly with chains that made his body ache to carry. Stumbling hallways, then a coach, then a train of some sort, his bare feet dragged over the metal floor until he was pushed down and told to stay. So stay he did, not sure if he was waking or sleeping. The bag over his head was pure darkness which his mind's eye filled with nebulae and sparkes of blue and gold; the gold turned into Jayce's warm eyes until he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Immediately the cocking click of rifles reverberated in the train car.
After what felt like hours the train shuddered to a halt and he was half-helped, half dragged again. Metal grate, stone floor scraping his toes, jeering, haunting yells from near and far. The creak of a gate before he was pushed. No, kicked; a boot in his back that had him pitching forward. A hand had grabbed the bag over his head as he fell, not that it would do him any good. Stillwater was a cruel place at its best, and there were levels of darkness and solitude here that were too cruel for any living thing. The only light left along with the retreating enforcers.
~!~
Exposure.
That’s what they said he was suffering from, what had made him feel like every breath was pain, and after they had to break and graft the bone in his leg for the fourth time, Jayce had growled at them to stop bothering, and to just get him a brace. He’d make a better one as soon as he could stand upright for more than a handful of minutes, but he didn’t need to tell them that. He might never run again, but he would be able to walk, and that would be enough.
His mother had been the most painful visit (she’d buried him, mourned him, and yet here he was, and all he could think about was Viktor, who they refused to answer any questions about), but they’d hugged and he’d cried in her arms. For what, exactly, he didn’t know anymore, but it felt so good to be held for a few seconds, to relax and sag into her arms that he didn’t question it.
Then he remembered that Viktor was nowhere to be found and no one was telling him where.
Not even Cait, when she’d stepped in for a brief moment to check on him. Her eyes had been haunted, and even when he’d teased her about the eye patch, it had garnered him barely a twitch of a smile. There was something there, something dark hidden under all of that pain that he suspected wasn’t just about Vi, or about the war that they had fought. There was something darker that she was carrying, he recognized it. But at least she’d told him that his seat at the Council was still there, if he wanted it, and though he had no intention of keeping it, being a Councilor would give him the chance to know where Viktor had been put.
It was also why he dragged himself out of bed a full two weeks before the doctors were recommending, shoving his injured leg into the ill-fitting brace over the clothes that they had brought him. They seemed like clothes from a lifetime ago, but Jayce managed to put them on, to cut his hair so it was long, but kempt. He kept the beard for the same reason. He was not the same, and he wouldn’t ever be the same. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
He made his way up to the Council chamber, his foot clanking with every single step. There were new eyes at the table, ones that he recognized. Sevika was a welcome sight, and Jayce nodded to her, clearly surprising her, before he limped his way to his seat and sank into his chair, the rest of the room startled into silence. Jayce heaved an exhausted breath and looked around at all of them.
“Debrief me,” he ordered, his voice soft. “And I’ll try to explain what happened in the other place we all went to, when Viktor and I tried to end it all.”
~!~
At first, Viktor was certain they'd forgotten about him entirely. In the dark it was nearly impossible to tell hours from days, or minutes, and only the fact that he could now see somewhat in the dark kept the frazzled remains of his sanity intact. It wasn't much; shapes and outlines mostly, but more than he would have been able to see before…. Everything. Distant, muffled sounds like the foghorn of a ship reached him occasionally but not with a pattern he could discern to tell time. All he could do was sit, and think, so he did. At first it was trying to fill in gaps, of which there were any; his time as more god than man felt like a fever dream too distant to touch, and for that he was thankful. It came back to him when he pressed at the back of his mind, memories flowing in snippets of sound and flashes of color, a jigsaw puzzle he wasn't sure he wanted to see back together. As he placed the pieces carefully in his mind, it still felt like a haze, like everything he'd seen through that time was covered in a shroud of golden light, obscuring faces, details, motives - his, or the hexcore's, he couldn't be sure.
The arcane had cradled him, held him close and whispered two lies to every truth, but the truths were too beautiful to deny. He could be great, he could be powerful. No, he had thought then, I only need to be good enough to spark change, to be remembered. Now he would be remembered, but for those things he barely could envision when he had walked past good deeds and embraced something greater and far more terrible. But…. hadn't it been beautiful, in the end?
Now when he closed his eyes he no longer saw galaxies, merely a deeper blackness as the cold seeped into his bones. Slowly he left his careful, meditative posture to instead lean back against the wall, legs splayed in front of him, then from there he slumped, then lay on his side unmoving for what felt like aeons as he thought. Why. How. Where was Jayce. Hopefully somewhere much warmer. Any initial delight at feeling such sensations as cold had fled him quickly when he realized how he struggled to warm himself from inside, much as he had before the change when he was nearly skin and bones. The organic, metallic flesh of his body felt cold both from within and to the touch; feet like blocks of ice, the dank cold creeping up his extremities. They hadn't given him clothes, perhaps they thought he didn't need them - a nicer idea than it being an intentional slight.
He heard footsteps first, then saw the bobbing shadow that lightened until it became the beam of a lantern. Quickly he sat up from his stupor, scrambling to the gate of his cell.
"Jayce?" he asked, ragged hope in his hoarse voice.
The answer came in the form of an enforcer turning the final round of the stairs, lantern in one hand and a tray in the other. He said nothing, just unceremoniously dropped the tray by the door slot and kicked it through to Viktor's side before turning away. One the tray was a clay cup of water, and a sickly looking meal of fish and something that purported to be vegetables. It was cold. Viktor ate it anyway, ravenous in ways he could not quantify and in which the meal did not satiate. Had it only been a day? Hours? He'd always been one to lose track of time when his mind was working, but that skewed toward uncounted hours on end, days, not the shortening of time. Had they perhaps been seeing how long he could go without food? If anyone had checked on him, Viktor wasn't sure he'd have noticed if his mind had been elsewhere trying to unravel what it didn't want to remember.
~!~
By the time the Council meeting was finished, Jayce was wrung dry and exhausted. He’d explained everything he could, and gotten caught up on not only what had happened after the battle, and how it had finished, but the following six months. Zaun had achieved its freedom, two members of the Council were from Zaun, and they were continuing to move forward, away from Hextech and toward a future they could support together.
They had refused to answer his questions about Viktor, and Caitlyn had refused to meet his eye, even as she sat in her mother’s former seat, well-within range to meet his eyes. Mel’s empty seat was now occupied by Ekko, and it made him more relieved than he expected at the sight of him, healthy and doing well by the looks of things.
He watched them file out, one by one, until only he and Cait were left, and he looked at her, waiting her out. “Where is he?”
Caitlyn scoffed. “Jayce, he is a danger-”
“Where,” Jayce repeated. “Is he? He isn’t in the hospital. I checked the records. Where is he?”
Caitlyn tipped her chin up. “Stillwater, with the other criminals.”
A chill ran down his spine as Jayce thought about all the time that had passed since they’d returned. All of that time, and Viktor hadn’t been in the hospital, healing like him, he’d been in Stillwater, locked up and alone. Bile rose in his throat and he forced it down as he stood, locking his knees as he swayed in place, reaching for the cane that was ill-fitting, just like his brace. He’d have time to make a new one, eventually.
“Jayce, you cannot go see him! You don’t know that he won’t try to do it again!”
Jayce thought of the hard press of their foreheads together, the fearful way that Viktor had looked at him, the way that he deserved after how he’d killed Viktor. He tightened his hand on his cane. “He won’t do it again,” he told her. “And besides, you all spent over an hour debating the Arcane rot problem. If you want me to solve it, I’m going to need him to help me.”
Caitlyn scowled. “He would never help us.”
Jayce laughed sadly and tossed his hair out of his face. “All he ever wanted was to help people. And all we ever did was get in his fucking way.” He heaved in a breath and started to walk around the geared table. “You going to tell me why neither of the Zaunite Councilors can look you in the eye?”
She stiffened, clenching her hands into fists. “It was war,” she whispered. “You were, you weren’t there, Jayce. You were gone, Mel Medarda was gone and…”
Jayce thought of the body of the child that he’d killed with the Mercury Hammer and stared down at the floor for a long moment. “Committing an atrocity, even with the best of intentions, is still an atrocity, Cait. Rationalize it to yourself all you like, but it still is. But at least be brave enough to admit to yourself.”
“You weren’t there!” Caitlyn snapped.
“Can you take it back? What you did?” Jayce asked her, looking over his shoulder at her. “Can you undo it?”
Caitlyn grit her teeth together. “I’ll send the authorization for your visit to Stillwater. He cannot leave.”
Jayce stared at her and nodded once. “He will be leaving with me,” he told her, and ignored her shout of protest as he made his way to the door.
–
The trip down to the darkest, and deepest cells of Stillwater was agonizing, and Jayce’s heart was pounding his throat. They’d brought Viktor down here? He shivered and tightened his hand on his cane as the elevator, at last, came to a stop and the guard led the way to a cell in the corner with no light. Jayce glared at the guard and waited for the nearby torch to be lit and the cell unlocked, before he stepped in.
“If you die-”
“Lock it behind me then,” Jayce snapped, and turned his full attention to where Viktor was leaning back against the stone wall. He looked emaciated, more than usual, the material of his body no longer shining with gold and vibrant colors, instead dull and dark, and if it weren’t for the soft breaths escaping, his mouth, Jayce wouldn’t have assumed he was still alive. There was no comfort here, in a cell like this, but that was going to change right now.
“Viktor,” Jayce breathed, stepping closer to him, kneeling slowly, carefully, wincing through the pain of the brace, before he was kneeling next to Viktor, reaching out to take his hand, squeezing it carefully. “Viktor, can you hear me?”
~!~
Viktor hadn’t really internalized the sounds of what was happening around him until his icy cold hand was enveloped in searing warmth that woke him from his stupor. Light, little as it was and blocked by the man leaning over him, blinded him after so long in the dark that he only cracked his eyes open briefly before pressing them firmly shut again. He didn’t have to hear Jayce’s words to know it was him; he had a presence, a familiar scent, and a warmth that was unmistakable.
“You know… saying it louder and slower does not help to understand, and I am still fluent,” he said wryly, though his words came out more as a gasp than the lighthearted teasing he had aimed for. Nothing was alright and acting otherwise could hardly help, but he wanted to reassure Jayce that he was himself, again. What better way to do that then be his worst.
Even so, Viktor squeezed Jayce’s hand back with all of his meager strength and tried to smile. “I knew you would come,” he whispered, “but I feared….”
A part of him had started to believe Jayce hadn’t understood what he’d tried to say when they’d awoken. Viktor had cursed himself over and over for not shouting the first thing that came into his mind; I love you, I’m sorry.
But he hadn’t thought to then, and again now, even as he tried to say the words they tangled up in his chest until all he could do was gasp in a breath and hold it for what felt like aeons. “Jayce,” he said instead, wistful and breathy and almost like a prayer.