Chapter Text
I could not stop myself from loving you, in all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection.
“Send me back.”
Jayce pleaded with the mage — his best friend, his partner, gazing at him aged yet divine — to return him to his universe. But he could not know when or where that meant.
Would Viktor send him back to the day he’d left Jayce in their lab, betrayed as the affection that held them together finally broke apart? To the crimson night when he asked his partner to represent Zaun and be with him at the council, announcing his deal with Silco for the undercity’s independence? …To the day everything changed, when his apartment exploded and he met his future partner, who would soon save him from jumping off his own ledge?
The mage had connected his being with visions of the apocalypse, what he needed to do to save both the world and himself from the madness they had created, and for a second as his very atoms were disintegrated and stitched back together by the Anomaly, Jayce thought he knew where he was being teleported —
“V, step back!”
Until Jayce fell to his knees, the Anomaly fading around him as a billowing cloud obscured his vision. The Mercury hammer given by his Hexcorized self resonated with a glimmer as his support.
“What was that?” He heard a familiar cough, the scent of smoke and brimstone permeating around him. Then it hit him as his blood chilled, that accented voice —
“Did it work, Jayce?”
The cloud dispersed, and as the Hextech lab became clearer around him…
Viktor, young and sharp, caught his gaze the same time he did, original amber eyes widening in shock. His eyes were so warm and golden, just like how he remembered them to be.
Jayce took in Viktor, like he was plucked directly from his memories. Dressed in a variation of his white vest where the ends tapered off down to his thighs, the scientist wore an umber pinstriped shirt with looser ended sleeves and an elegant piano pattern at the edge of his cuffs, that went with his knee high piano socks, mainly visible on his left leg. His right leg brace, forged and designed by the both of them, was snug over his dark pants. He recognized the cane Viktor was using still here, an alternate of his crutch depending on the day, but both were made by him as a gift for his partner after it broke in Heimerdinger’s lab.
And lastly, just like he used to in bearing his family’s colors, Viktor wore his scarlet necktie, gifted to him by Jayce.
A sharp serrated blade stabbed through his heart, as this beautifully healthy and alive, alive Viktor stared at him with several emotions on his face, looking at the rough frayed man that had teleported suddenly into their lab.
Confusion, then shock, then disbelief. Then, a sharp exhale. Then a dawning expression of realization, that despite his mangled rough state…The white gold jacket with the Talis emblems, the teardrop crystal now embedded in his skin…And those hazel eyes, haunted and desperate…
“...Jayce?”
His heart ached terribly at the sound of his name, said in just that way only his partner could say it. Like it was a unique precious word in a language only they knew.
“What is it, Viktor?” A younger voice, his own yet foreign to him, called out in the wake of his partner’s shocked silence. He was still clearing away the white smoke, and walked into view.
“Who are you?”
It was so strange to look at himself, before everything changed. Moving autonomously from any memories he had, as surely he’d remember this moment. This younger version of him wore his normal dress shirt and white-grey vest with his scarlet necktie, that he usually wore on days where he wasn’t going to the forge and needed to put on his Talis blazer for formal events. Unbeknownst to them, the teardrop crystal on his worn leather cuff resonated and glowed slightly, feeling the presence of its twin embedded in Jayce’s wrist.
It dawned on the younger Jayce’s face when the smoke cleared and he finally took a good look at who he was. The identical face marred with scarred lips, a rough beard, and longer scruffier hair, that back then he had religiously kept cleanly cut and shaven.
He saw those same hazel eyes, almost innocent and round in shock, take him all in. The unmistakable Talis blazer, now heavily dirtied with its collar up. The remnants of his red necktie wrapped around the strap across his chest. The makeshift left leg brace mirroring Viktor’s now…and the young Jayce tensed, at the sight of the Mercury Hammer in its Hexcorized corruption.
“Are you…”
“...I think our small-scale Hexgate worked a little too well, Jayce.”
There lies the difference, as the older Jayce Talis realized. This was not his original universe.
He remembered this idea, to make a smaller, more accessible Hexgate, so people could teleport much faster and with greater range, like from the heights of Piltover to the depths of Zaun. Jayce realized he was standing on a metal platform, with great complex arches etched with runes encircled above him. One of their prototypes, with several crystals powering the round arches in a different design.
But in his world, they never got the time to pursue it, not when Viktor had excitedly found a way to fortify the hex crystals, and they focused more on creating those alongside the Hexclaw and Atlas Gauntlets for their people.
The Anomaly screamed in his mind, making Jayce flinch as kaleidoscope visions burst in his eyes — The Hexcore fusing with Viktor’s body in the darkness of the lab, Leaving him, Piltover and Zaun petrified in the aftermath of the apocalypse, thousands of decrepit transformed figures always watching him in the cave, The Cave, The mage always watching him, Jayce promised, he promised —
Jayce slowly lifted the Hexcorized hammer, and pointed it at Viktor, who never broke eye contact in shock.
“No — ”
Immediately horror and fear made the younger Jayce stiffen, only held back from putting himself between because of Viktor’s hand shooting up to stop him, and oh he remembered, he remembered the blissful ignorance he had, that they would always be together, that nothing could harm Viktor and he wasn’t sick, that naive fond notion that his partner would always be by his side, alive, alive —
If Viktor dies now, before he could make the Hexcore, the world would be saved from the apocalypse.
Jayce powered up the Hammer, feeling anomalous energy crackling the very air as it activated.
“Viktor — ”
He kills Viktor now, and none of it happens. Kills the both of them, stops any chance that he could resurrect him, because he knows himself. Jayce knows he wouldn’t have stopped back then if there was even the slightest, most delusional way he could bring his partner back. Put him out of his misery now, before desperation and grief turned him insane. They both die now, so Piltover and Zaun live.
“Viktor stop, please —” The familiar sound of a cane’s click on the floor, as without ever looking away from him, Viktor took a careful step forward, then another…Coming closer, until he was right in front of his weapon.
This is the chance Jayce pleaded the mage for.
…
So why were his hands shaking, the Hexcorized Hammer’s trigger untouched…?
Why had he not pressed it yet, screaming in anguish as he killed who he once desecrated the world to bring back?
“Oh…Jayce…”
His breath shattered, as Viktor closed the distance.
With warm and slightly rough hands, Viktor pressed his palms to his bearded cheeks. The first human touch he’s had in so long, as the Anomaly torturing his mind quieted.
Tears threatened to escape from his eyes, staring at intelligent concerned gold, and Jayce let them fall with his hammer in a heavy damning thud.
He can’t do it.
His best friend looked at him, lost and worried, as his younger self sharply inhaled, barely held back by Viktor’s own silent request —
“I can’t do it.”
Jayce spoke it to the world, to the mage watching over him. To this Viktor now, whose expression softened in confusion and sadness, hearing how broken he sounded.
The words were raw and heavy like stones in his chest, and every word after that escaped his mouth, as he broke down, sobbing in Viktor’s gentle hands.
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry —” Jayce said again and again, shattered and gasping —
“It’s okay, Jayce…It’s okay.”
As Viktor took him in his arms, hugging him close. His partner rarely showed physical affection, happy to let Jayce do most of it before, but this time is different.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I can’t…”
Jayce grasped his partner close, feeling the metal his back brace underneath, holding tight and inhaling the faint scent of sweetmilk on his collar, dragging them down as he sobbed and cried…and the euphoria painfully lit up his world, as he felt like he destroyed it all over again, willingly and happily.
“I’m here.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Viktor could feel his partner’s incredulous gaze behind him, as he folded some clothes he kept for himself when he slept in the lab and packed some other essentials to bring over.
“Yes, I am.” He calmly responded, folding a red blue blanket that Jayce often brought from home in the suitcase. “The apartment they gave us next door was meant for use, and I only stay there when we’re working late nights. No one will see him there. You have nothing to worry about.”
He’d brought Talis over there, telling him as gently as possible that he stank, and needed a bath. The harrowed man only nodded, numbly staring into nothing as he let himself be guided into the spare apartment given to them when they constructed their lab. For the sake of not getting confused, he referred to this older version as Talis, and his own original as simply Jayce.
“Nothing to worry about? Viktor, he pointed a freaking weapon at you!”
The Zaunite turned back to look at him, logical and calm. “And he didn’t do anything after. He must be scared, Jayce.” A concerned sigh escaped him, thinking now on what he realized earlier.
“There is a great possibility that he came from another universe.”
It was already pretty late at night when Talis arrived through the prototype small-scale Hexgate they’d been working on for a few weeks now. Now that their biggest project was finished and thriving, the two creators of Hextech considered what would be their next big venture, with formulations on reinforcing the hex crystals or streamlining tools for progressive production. Jayce had even excitedly pitched anti-gravitational aids to enable a person to fly, while Viktor thought it an intriguing way of alleviating pain for disabilities like his.
The potential of Hextech being capable of interdimensional travel, or even through time, did make Viktor a little excited to explore all of said possibilities. That their small-scale Hexgate could accomplish such a feat, even by accident…Could the main Hexgates do this as well, all this time?
A resonating boom echoed outside, as though the Hexgates answered.
“That doesn’t make him any less dangerous, V! What if he hurt you? What if he —” Something caught in Jayce’s throat, and he closed his eyes, letting out a hard exhale.
Viktor blinked, approaching his friend in surprise. “I would think you’d have more compassion for yourself.” He approached Jayce, saw the conflicting emotions running through his face. “I thought you of all people would want to help.”
Jayce sighed, running a hand through his face in frustration. “I do, it’s just…I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
“Like what?”
Soul consuming, longing and grief etched into the features of his own shattered self —
“I don’t know how to describe it. Just…off.” Jayce muttered under his breath, looking away. “Even so, you don’t have to fuss over him. You’re not his babysitter, or, or —” He groaned, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
As adamant as he wanted to stay, Jayce couldn’t stay as he had an early morning with his family’s factory on proposals to go through with the other guilds in Piltover. Being the Talis clan head figure as the Man of Progress, if he wasn’t there and focused on his family, they would lose grace among the guild heads. It took Viktor chastising him to remember that, and he was only watching over one man, for Janna’s sake.
His partner’s hesitation to help his own future or alternate self made an empathetic scowl rise in Viktor. Something protective welled in his chest thinking of Talis, and how he clearly hadn’t had help in a long time.
There was no doubt the man had gone through something. He carried it like a weight on his shoulders that were normally pulled back strong, in the darkness within those hazel eyes he secretly found pretty. In his scarred lips, and leaner frame…In the makeshift brace Talis wore on his left, constructed with pieces and cogs and scraps of cloth, a thick bandage wrapped tight around his leg. It tugged at Viktor’s chest, his own bad leg heavy with his own brace they had made together.
What happened to this Jayce?
“...If it were me, would you help?”
Jayce sharply looked at his partner, and said without hesitation.
“Yes. Of course I would.”
The brunette adjusted his grip on his cane, and let Jayce place a hand on his shoulder. He continued, steel in his accented voice. “If it were me, broken and alone, lost in this world, and you could take care of me…wouldn’t you?” Jayce’s silent frown and heavy sigh of frustration, said the truth without a word.
Viktor put his hand on top of his partner’s, before putting it down from his shoulder. “You don’t have to help if you do not wish to, Jayce. But you cannot stop me from doing so for you.”
Water dripped down Talis’ head where he sat, slow and hot as he numbly stared at his dark reflection.
This world’s Viktor had taken him to their spare apartment. He hardly used it back then, only for quick naps and getting ready for the next investor’s events Mel always made sure he went to, for Hextech’s sake. The bathroom was just like he remembered it. Bronze decorated tiles, ornamental steel in the lining of the mirror. His stock of his favorite aftershave and cologne were still there, yet Jayce couldn’t care less about it anymore when he used to religiously douse himself with them after a long day at the forge.
The bathtub was a small alcove away from the toilet and sink, rectangular and surrounded by the same bronze-colored tiles with Piltovan inlays. There was a long handle installed by the side of the wall that the bathtub hugged, and a stool next to it. Viktor’s shampoo was well used by the corner, along with a fresh bar of lavender soap.
The showerhead above rained down on him, not at full strength, but enough to slowly fill the bathtub. Steam billowed from the water that had fallen, and a normal person would have flinched, then stood up to adjust the temperature.
Jayce let the boiling water cleanse his body, naked and scarred by the Anomaly.
After Viktor had left, saying he’d just go get some fresh clothes and amenities for him, Jayce had just stood there in the empty apartment, like he’d walked into a memory. His partner’s Man of Progress mug, that he teasingly used to make him groan in embarrassment. The open kitchen cabinet stocked with sweetmilk ingredients and easy to heat foods. Little gemstones and rocks they collected together on their travels around Runeterra when establishing the Hexgates.
He’d peeled the layers of the clothes he’d worn for ages, that desperately needed to be washed. They were thrown at the side, and Jayce knew he’d need to wear it again after. He didn’t know how long he had here, but he couldn’t imagine not wearing them again when they’d weathered the apocalypse together. For now, his leg brace laid haphazardly in a half-disassembled state by the bed when he’d have to wear it again, and for the first time since the Mercury Hammer smashed his leg and broke it, Jayce took a good look at the wound that kept him trapped in that cave.
The disgusting webbed anomaly over his gaping infected wound was thankfully gone. It triggered a part of his brain back then, instinctual and feral, that needed to scratch and tear at it until it became worse, to make it go away. Now, what used to be a multi-colored open maw of his muscles and blood being eaten away by the infection had fleshed over, the scarring wrapped around his leg. His shin still ached terribly, and there was a sharp pain when he ran his hand over the bump where the break had been, likely to never heal properly again. It was awful and hard to look at, and Jayce wanted to scratch at his scar until it bled again, until he was nothing but blood and bone.
The water was murky now, toxic colors swirling from all the Anomaly residue on his skin and the remnants of his wound. His reflection stared back at him, distorted and pained.
“I never asked for this!”
He remembered the countless days watching his reflection in the pool of water in the cave, his own voice echoing with the last words he said to Viktor. Watching his beard grow as droplets rippled down just like now. Hallucinating the voices of Heimerdinger, Mel, his mother, and all those who were likely all dead. Here, they were all alive, and none of them knew of what they would go through in the future.
He never heard Viktor’s voice. Only hallucinated holding him close, as they laid down together upon the cold ground.
His eyes were raw from breaking down in Viktor’s arms, and he remembered. By the fire, crying in despair of his life at that point, begging the universe for the reason this had happened to him. Alone and on the edge of survival, barely sane and throwing up from starvation, forcing himself to eat mutated pixamanders when hunger made him into a monster.
The toxic water swirled, covering his legs and reaching up to the start of his knees, about to overflow…
Wading through what was once a steel oasis, a water purification plant that was now filled with yellow flowers and toxic waste. Climbing through floating debris of the Hexgates all the way up to the mage. To Viktor, who needed Jayce to understand what saving him truly meant.
Overwhelmed at finally being able to reflect on all that had happened, Jayce looked at his hands, staring at his palms, wet, shaking slightly. He felt like his hands would never be clean again, no matter how many times he washed it. Not after what he’d done, and will do again and again.
His partner’s blood coating his skin, when he carried him desperately to the lab. To the Hexcore. All those dead in Piltover and Zaun, because he damned the world unable to handle his partner’s death.
How after the storm, clear skies and a heaven above hell was blissfully quiet against the chaotic winds below. Where he kneeled down before his Hexcorized self, as the mage who saved him as a boy revealed his face…
And still, he loved Viktor too much to save the world from him.
“...Jayce? Are you alright?”
A tentative knock on the bathroom door, then a faint cough. “You’ve been in there a while.”
He didn’t know when he’d curled in on himself, face pressed to his knees as the hot water continued to fill the almost overflowing tub. His throat felt raw and scratchy when he finally spoke up. “Come in.”
The bathroom door creaked open after a moment of silence, as Viktor walked in, respectfully looking above shoulder level. He had a fluffy towel in his arms and some spare clothes that definitely were owned by his younger self. “Thank you.”
His partner gently closed the shower, stopping it before the bathtub would spill, and laid the towel and clothes nearby. “I’m sorry I did this without asking first, but I soaked your clothes in detergent to try and launder it manually. They’re drying now by the heater, but it will likely take till tomorrow.” Jayce nodded, not minding at all. He was just planning to wear them again, but there was still a part of him that realized maybe he did stink.
His head still rested on his knees, when he turned to face Viktor and saw him staring at his back.
Renni the Zaunite Chembaron had caused the slash on his back a lifetime ago back in the memorial, but Jayce could feel more than see that the scars had also become Hexcorized. When he, Ekko and Professor Heimerdinger were consumed by the Anomaly, the wounds were still fresh under his clothes, so it made sense that it became affected as well.
As though instinctively, Viktor raised his hand not holding his cane to reach out, but recoiled at the last minute. He could see it was not in disgust though, but in remembering that it was disrespectful to touch without permission. “...You can touch.” They no longer hurt, just stretched against his skin like scars tend to do.
Delicate and careful, Viktor’s fingertips met his spine, stroking down. Jayce fought the shiver of heat different from the water around him, looking back at his partner’s empathetic expression in softly tracing his scars.
“What happened, Jayce?”
His memories swirled like the toxic waters in his head, overwhelming and blinding. “Please…”
Viktor caressed his back again, palm now flat on his marred skin…and the visions faded, quiet in the wake of a caring touch. He pleaded quietly, closing his eyes. “I…I can’t. Please don’t ask. Not yet.”
“Why?” The other man asked, and his skin felt more sensitive, raised in a shiver.
I thought I could bring an end to the world’s suffering…
In all timelines, in all possibilities... Only you... can show me this.
“Because it will plant a seed in your mind that I can never take back.”
“...Oh.”
Whether this is truly the past or an alternate world, Jayce knew that anything he could say or do could affect the timeline. If he had to guess, this was the year before everything changed. Just when they opened the Hexgates, and Piltover boomed with progress. Before Jinx, before Silco. Before he became a Councilor, and started being with Mel. Before the two cities were at war with each other, and Jinx’s attack against peace…
Before the Hexcore, and Viktor’s fatal illness.
“Not yet.” His head now that it was clear of ghosts parsed through what he could reveal, and what he couldn’t. “I…not tonight…Maybe tomorrow.”
Viktor let out a breath, understanding. “Of course. You do not need to tell me, if you believe it is dangerous. It can wait, whichever you decide.” Whatever I decide, it will change you forever.
His hand settled on Jayce’s shoulder, and he felt like falling. The traveler closed his eyes, lifting a wet hand to eclipse his partner’s, and they just breathed like that for a moment as he whispered. “Thank you…for everything.”
For saving me countless times, and giving me life when I wanted nothing but to die.
He didn’t see Viktor’s gaze soften, leaning closer as his breath matched his…As traitorously, heat pooled in his lower half, and he thanked the mage that the water was too murky to see his erection at such gentle touches.
The doors had barely closed after Viktor left, quietly saying he’d wait for him, when Jayce wrapped a fist around his cock, masturbating with the ghost of his partner’s touches on his back and shoulder. The water sloshed above violently as Jayce sped up —
He was a horrible person. He’d done the same, on the brink of losing it and needing something to cut through the agony, turning to this when he had the energy.
The pleasure contrasted with the pain of his leg, and he pumped faster, panting —
Semen mixed with the toxic fog of the water, as Jayce pressed the side of his temple to the tiles and covered his mouth when his eyes rolled back as he helplessly came.
Viktor returned to find Talis sitting at the foot of their shared bed, looking down at his hands. This spare apartment’s construction had one downside, in that they accounted for only one bed. Which now that the two of them were here did he realize it was a problem for him and his Jayce, seeing as he used it more.
Jayce had begrudgingly given some of his spare clothes he kept here for the older man’s use, a long-sleeved gray henley shirt and loose ankle length pants for sleeping. The clothes he arrived in were drying by the heater until the next day. Viktor adjusted the grip on his cane and slowly approached until he was right in front of Talis, who looked up at him like a repentant sinner.
He’d taken the time to think deeply about the traveler, and what it could all mean. If this was through Hextech, then their work had such untapped potential they had never realized. If time travel or interdimensional travel is possible, not just through space as they have done with the Hexgates but across different timelines, what could they do to intentionally achieve the same?
“Because it will plant a seed in your mind that I can never take back.”
There was a hidden story behind those words, and the Zaunite could see it in the way Talis held himself, breathed this tragedy yet to come.
So Viktor asked the one question he had since Talis broke down in his arms, holding onto him like it was the end of the world to do so.
“What happened to me, Jayce?”
Where am I?
Talis’ expression tightened, and something like anguish passed through his gaze. “I...”
Had he died in the future, as everyone would inevitably do?
“...I hurt you.”
Viktor inhaled, and he couldn’t look away as Talis spoke his confession. “You were sick. You were going to…to die. I promised to let you go.” His partner’s voice was raw, heavy. “There was something that could have saved you, but you made me vow to destroy it.”
Deep down, Viktor had always known he would die first. Growing up in the Sumps and in the time before the Grey’s toxic gas was contained, his lungs were likely damaged even as a child. He had never said it aloud, not when it was commonplace for most Zaunites, and not when Piltover liked to forget about the Grey as though it was nothing but a bad memory. To ask when this would happen…
An illness, a miracle cure…what could it have been that his other self would rather let himself die than use it?
“I couldn’t.” Talis bowed his head and covered his face with his hands, as he gasped. “My best friend was bleeding out in my arms, and I couldn’t…”
Viktor’s eyes widened as he recognized the signs of hyperventilation and the beginning of an anxiety attack. He’d had them a few times in the course of tackling Hextech, but this one stemmed from a pain greater than he’d ever seen on Jayce’s face, even more when he was about to jump and kill himself.
Talis’ breathing became erratic, and Viktor set aside his cane next to them then pulled him into his embrace once more, feeling strong arms wrapped around his waist like an anchor. The man gripped him close, steadying himself against the memories resurfacing of his likely death.
“Breathe. In…” He inhaled, and felt Talis shakily do the same, then exhaled. “...Out. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Slowly, the man’s breathing went back to normal, or as normal as he could get it to be. Viktor caressed his still slightly wet locks, feeling his future partner breathe the scent of him. They stayed like this for a few minutes, when Talis brokenly choked.
“It was affection, that held us together. Then I broke my promise to you, changed you…And you left me. I drove you away, because of what I did, and you…” He felt more than saw tears sink into the fabric of his clothes, as his heart tore envisioning this future. “You left me.”
Every word dripped with regret, sorrow and anguish. He felt Talis’ grip around him tighten at his last sentence, like he would disappear at any moment.
He imagined himself in this world, on the brink of death and ready to let go. Of his partner forcefully keeping him alive, to the point of hurting and changing him. If Viktor knew more, of his alternate future self’s side, there was a chance he may have left for his own safety. Betrayal in his chest, and yet a deep sadness that it was all he ever wanted, to have Jayce love him so externally, but the damage was done.
Viktor imagined himself in Jayce’s place, and if he had died…
“I’m here…it’s okay, I’m here.”
It was different, here in this world. Viktor could feel Talis’ palpable pain from his actions, silently pleading for absolution after everything he’d done.
Then, Viktor’s heart stopped and his body stiffened.
“I saw…I saw how much you loved me.”
Jayce whispered, pressed close to his chest. “All you did for me, when I never knew…” A rough callused hand reached to intertwine with his, and Viktor’s breath hitched. Only seeing it now, the man’s signature teardrop crystal from his childhood, that inspired Hextech, had fused to his wrist in a scarred pattern like his back. The crystal glowed imperceptibly, then returned to being dormant. “You love me.”
Viktor was at a loss for words, staring wide at the man prostrate before him, laying bare what he’d kept a terrible secret in his chest for so long. “I…” He swallowed, not knowing what to say.
It was as normal as breathing to him now, to recognize that he loved Jayce. To repress it and keep their partnership just the way it is, not just for Hextech’s sake, but for the friendship he was terrified to lose, knowing Jayce would never feel the same way.
His love for him was just there, underlying everything he did. Like a word never spoken, only to be finally said by the man he could never say it to.
Hugging Viktor’s waist still as he looked up at him, those pretty hazel eyes gazing into his very soul, saying it like he’d known it for a thousand years.
“You love him.”
He said him, as though he was an altogether different being, yet those three words together felt universal, painful and euphoric. Staring at this alternate version of Jayce now, changed greatly by all he went through, yet deep inside was still the man he fell in love with…
“Yes.” It felt like damnation, to finally say it. In this paradox of an irony, that he would confess so to Jayce, and yet also not.
“I loved you.”
…What?
Viktor’s brain fogged for a second, trying to understand what he just said. Talis took their intertwined hands, pressing his lips to the back of his with no pressure, only in supplication.
“I hate myself for not realizing sooner. I hate him,” Talis hissed through his teeth, a tear escaping his eye, “for never even trying to understand what we truly felt for you. I was an idiot. Taking you for granted all these years, not being grateful for every minute of every day we got to be together…”
Slowly rising, Talis now took both of his hands, reverently kissing each pulse point on his wrist. “You made me who I am. A better person, a better man. All I ever wanted was my partner, and you have always been everything to me.” Viktor’s heart raced, feeling like it was going to explode, and he shakily inhaled as his partner from the alternate future said those words again, sure and determined.
“I love you, more than I ever realized.”
How much did he want this, for so long, that Viktor couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t look at Jayce and know he loved him…But this…
“I’m not your Viktor.” He whispered, afraid to believe. It tore at his chest, the logic that he can only hear this about someone else, even if it was himself. But the traveler only shook his head.
“I’m not your Jayce.” Talis reasoned, gaze impossibly soft. “But you love me.” Like it was a fact of every universe, he broke down the last of his defenses against the possibility of being cared for back. “Wherever we are, you love me in so many different versions, and I love you for who you are no matter which form you take.”
“I don’t know how long I have here…I don’t know if just by being here, I doom your world.” Viktor felt Talis rub his thumbs soothingly across the back of his hands on his bearded cheeks. “But things can be different here. Things don’t have to go the way they did before, and there’s still a chance.”
Jayce would give this Viktor what he needs but thinks he can never have. While he was here, the greatest change he could start with is caring for his partner, listening to him, and getting it through his younger version’s thick skull to do the same, before it was too late.
“Let me love you the way I never did.”
A second passed, his walls finally shattered —
Viktor forcefully grabbed the front of his shirt, breaking the distance and kissing Talis with a hunger that was equally given back.
His cane clattered noisily to the floor as Talis fell into bed with Viktor, losing himself in the feeling of their lips finding each other…
When they finally parted, Talis trapped him in bed, he couldn’t help but pull the lost man close…as their kisses softened. Slow, sweet and grief-stricken, a tear sliding down to fall on his partner’s neck…
It felt like damning heaven and relief to indulge in loving Jayce the way he’s always wanted to, as Talis fell asleep in Viktor’s ardent embrace, safe and sound after a lifetime in the apocalypse they had created together.
In the privacy of their lab, Jayce sketched out on the blackboard the equation he was working on. Focusing his attention on Hextech and their current research on how to refine the crystals…
“I need to work, Jayce.”
And not at the…Interloper, behind him, resting his head on Viktor’s lap for what has felt like one torturous hour.
“Mhm…”
Jayce tightened his grip around his chalk so hard it might break, fighting every nerve not to look at them, knowing what he’d see.
His future alternate self, mangy and rough, on his knees for Viktor, laying his head on his partner’s lap, like a…like a stray clingy dog that’s been lost in a storm and missed his owner.
How could this version of himself be so brazen with Viktor? So touch starved and unafraid, when Jayce had always held back from being so greedy?
“Five more minutes, please…”
That soft airy chuckle his Viktor only gave him, and the barest sound of elegant fingers carding through long hair.
“Okay, five more minutes, that’s all.”
Jayce glared at the chalkboard, feeling a dark roiling upset in his chest as he muttered under his breath. “Pf, that’s the third time you’ve said that…”
The two didn’t hear him, and Jayce could see what they were doing like an out of body experience — Dirty bandaged hands roaming his partner’s hip, holding the other’s hand down like an anchor, nuzzling shamelessly into his Viktor’s lap, that should be me, that’s my Viktor —
By the makeshift leg brace on his other self’s side, it must definitely be painful to be kneeled that long, and yet he barely moved, content and just breathing in his partner like a fucking pervert.
Jayce genuinely doesn’t know what he’s been through, to have let himself go in appearance, no longer the pristine Golden Boy but something altogether different and dangerous, and when this alternate universe version of him suddenly teleported in the lab the other day, pointing a fucking giant hammer at his best friend —
The lack of his Viktor when he teleported here worries him, but any empathy he had for the other man vanished when his own Viktor took this broken foreign version of him in his arms, haunted and desperate, and cared for him.
Like Jayce wasn’t even here, like he didn’t have a Jayce already —
Viktor always indulged him, so much so that it was beyond normal friendship (but they were just that close, and V’s always been like a brother to him), and it’s biting him in the ass now, because apparently that rule applies even to a Jayce from another universe.
They don’t know how long he’ll be here (something about an Anomaly caused by Hextech that they needed to look out for now, honestly Jayce wasn’t listening at the time because the other man had his arms all over Viktor), but Jayce was beginning to suspect he could leave any time he wanted to, and just didn’t want to yet. He can’t prove it, but knowing himself, and if he had gone this long without human contact, much less this long without Viktor…
A soft chapped sound like a kiss —
Jayce turned around as fast as he could in alarm at the sound —
Only to catch Viktor suspiciously withdrawing, carding his fingers through the other’s dingy hair, while this Survivor Jayce melted further, breathing a deep sigh.
Snap.
The chalk in his hand snapped in two, and white hot jealousy, anger and an unknown darkness threatened to overtake him at what he thought he just heard.
Viktor wouldn’t have done that. They weren’t like that. Jayce loved him as his best friend, like a brother, and Viktor did too, he knew that —
So why did he feel this way, to violently push this Jayce away and take his place, right where he belonged and be given the same care and affection?
As Jayce’s hand trembled, fighting back the turmoil of emotions in him, to kick out this forsaken version of himself, Viktor had maneuvered himself to both start working on the blackboard like they were supposed to, while still having the other man’s head on his lap.
An unbidden memory resurfaced, of the hostile conversation they had when V left them alone for a while…
Then Jayce saw the other’s face turn to look at him, bearded cheek still pressed to Viktor’s thigh…
And Jayce snarled as the Interloper fucking smirked at him, smug contentment radiating from his identical face.
…
“Where’s your Viktor?”
Jayce glared, watching the repressed yet heavy emotions that crossed the other man’s face.
“He wants nothing to do with me. Or Hextech.”
The survivor clenched the handle of his corrupted hammer. The same one Jayce recognized he’d kept a secret from Viktor, of a Hextech weapon blueprint, to protect them one day.
“I did something to him. Something I shouldn’t have.”
What did you do?
“But even now, I don’t regret it.”
The other Jayce stood straighter, and the difference in their bulk, the darkness his alternate future self carried, made him scowl.
“You’ll understand.”