Chapter Text
The pain stung in divided shards behind his eyelids and through the back of his skull, the weight of it so heavy Jayce could barely blink without a sting of nausea washing over him. Any thought wouldn't stick for more than a fleeting second and fell away just as quick. The harder Jayce tried to formulate a coherent response, the worse the ache became.
What was he trying to respond to?
Someone was talking. Or—Gods, what is that? It sounded too self-resonant to be organic, layered in frequency but it had to be a voice—
Fuck, ow.
The world spun, strobing through shattered panes of glass.
Jayce wasn't sure where the noise was coming from. His senses seemed to sabotage him on purpose: balance undoubtedly shot, the light of day blinding, the sounds in his ears a garbed, indistinct mess. He tried to shuffle away from the source of noise that made his head throb harsher in time with his heartbeat, but it only got closer.
Someone—something is talking.
Ow.
Jayce put a hand to his head to cover his eyes. He was sweating. The layers of his clothes felt suffocating and Why is it so fucking hot. He struggled against the compulsion to drop to his knees as he swayed, a cloying urge to let go and sink, to allow the calm to claim him and drown.
What happened?
Fuck, that hurts.
There must have been a wall, because Jayce’s hand batted over a vertical surface as he reached for anything to steady himself. Brick, cool against his clammy palm. His eyes fluttered open, but the world was far too bright to properly make sense of his surroundings. His head ached, his limbs were sluggish in relation to his will, and Jayce continued to strain against the sweeping current that threatened to pull him under.
The noise that could have been a voice was on him, now. He was unable to process what it said.
“Help.”
Jayce heard the whimpered sound and realized, at a delay, that the broken plea had come from him. It seemed the only word he could utter, an appeal to anyone, anything, because Gods it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—
It hurt even more when his body was slammed flush with the wall he’d been trying to lean up against, pushed by his chest so his head knocked back into the brick. Sparks flashed behind closed eyelids.
Rude.
The voice was near enough now that Jayce knew the words were meant for him, but he still couldn’t wrap his brain around what was being said, only that the tone was harsh and demeaning. Why? He needed help, he’d asked—
Ouch.
“Help me,” he slurred again to whatever was holding him fast against the wall. His head felt like an anvil attached to his neck by fraying cords, so he let it drop. The shooting pain behind his eyes receded slightly—a short form of relief, as his knotted stomach churned in a sharp twist. He tasted bile in his throat, acidic, aggravating his already piqued senses. His breathing staggered into heavy gulps as he tried to keep the sick feeling at bay.
The grating noise was back, but it sounded different this time: slower, questioning.
Jayce could not reply because he wasn’t sure what had been asked—and, in turn, was certain the next thing coming out of his mouth would not be words.
His face flushed as a thorough heat seared up his body, a cold sweat breaking out over his skin, the sudden rush overwhelming. Jayce pushed weakly at the force against his chest—it retreated, surprisingly enough—and he sank to his knees, barely catching himself over the ground with his hands as nausea overtook him.
Jayce heaved and gagged and spat out the contents that rose from his stomach. It tasted awful, his throat raw from the burn and intensive reflex. He wanted to wipe at his mouth, but the worry he wouldn’t be able to support himself with a single arm kept him from moving. The ache in his brain shifted to a lightheaded daze.
Something happened to me.
Ow.
A firm touch settled on his shoulder. It wasn't necessarily kind, but the hand gripped in a way that confirmed its owner meant to keep it there. The attempts to reach Jayce continued, a steady stream of grating resonance that rang strange and artificial in his ears, the rush of blood muffling any clarity he might have found.
Why did it sound so familiar?
Jayce stayed in the comfort of darkness with his eyes closed, lashes wet, breathing heavily. The hand adjusted over his back, and Jayce became aware of a presence knelt by his side, that voice now trained to his ear.
The recognizable accent echoed as if channeled through a deep trench of water.
“V...?”
Jayce tried to open his eyes. The swirling hex of colour and light forced them shut again before he was able to make a proper judgement. The voice became more insistent, and the hand moved back to his shoulder to shake him, causing Jayce to sway with the movement on his hands and knees. The pain in his skull throbbed as he tried again to squint at the figure next to him.
Shit.
It wasn't a person. It couldn't be human, not looking like that, it wasn't—
On instinct Jayce tried to put distance between himself and the thing inside his guard by pulling away, but the sudden struggle made his head hurt tenfold, and Jayce knew the pitiful, animalistic whine in his ears had slipped from his own lips. He collapsed backwards onto the ground, shifting his lead-filled limbs and blindly throwing out a hand to shield himself from whatever he’d allowed to get too close.
The creature avoided his attempt at denial easily. Jayce flinched as cold hands gripped his face, turning and tilting before prying one of his eyelids up, exposing him to the light again. He only winced, too weak to fight back otherwise. Jayce let himself be guided to slump against the wall, and a chill touch roamed over his limp form. It brushed over the back of his skull, the base of his neck, his forehead and lightly over his mouth, oddly reserved in contrast to the antagonistic shove from only a moment earlier.
Some sort of commotion drew closer. More voices, ones Jayce knew he was supposed to recognize, accompanied by the jarring slap of boots on pavement. Raised dialogue caused Jayce to curl into himself; the hand that lingered on his face promptly disappeared. What followed was a series of snaps and bangs and the shrieking scrape of metal on metal.
They were being too loud, whoever it was. The ache in Jayce’s head swelled with each sharp cut of sound. He sat with his arms draped languid over spread legs and heaved dryly over the ground, nothing left to gag out. His sight faded in with blurry shapes and away to flickering darkness.
More shrill questions in the form of garbled trash in his ear, hands on his shoulders, shaking him again. He wanted to ask them to stop, but with his jaw slack and head heavy, all Jayce could do was sit, sway, and try to stay awake.
Leave me alone.
I want—
I want my partner.
Jayce didn't have any time to process the thought.
He passed out with the sounds of scattered panic ringing in his ears, succumbing to an unconscious state as a quiet means of escape.
Giopara always feinted right.
Always.
The Machine Herald topped off the contents of his chemical suppressant in an irritated haze, reminiscing over the inconclusive result of that morning’s scheduled conflict.
Their style of combat was a coordinated dance, easily calculable, the outcome so consistent after years of performance it almost bored him. If the Defender dropped his weight and turned his foot out slightly, the Herald would step back with his right to dodge the upward swing. When the Herald created distance, the Defender would deflect the incoming ray thirty degrees down and to the left, destroying the pavement in front of him. Consistent. Predictable.
Needless to say, the force the Herald had put behind his extra appendage wasn't meant to make contact. His anticipation for catching his own weight once the blow missed had been entirely for naught as his opponent took the full brunt of the strike. The Defender of Tomorrow had not feinted right to avoid the mechanical augment. Instead, the champion had absorbed the force and was proportionately thrown ten feet backwards into a waiting brick wall, unarmed and defenseless by the time his body cleared the distance. The Herald initially equated the resounding dull crack to collapsed armor, the snap of metal under strain... but with how his enemy struggled to stay standing as he stumbled away from the wall, then towards it, disoriented....
Giopara was far from a stranger to injury. Unexpected or not, the champion hadn’t bounced back from the hit like he should have. Their calculated exchange of weaving blows usually resulted in a clipped strike, the occasional fracture, a burn from a barely deflected blast; ripped and singed or crunched and sparking. Rarely did either rival take the full damage of an attack head on. When it did happen, the event was met with a pitched laugh, a predetermined lash of wit, a proportionate swap of degrading ridicule in spite of blood or splintering metal.
This time, the Defender hadn't responded with anything the Herald was ready to hear.
The last thing he'd expected was a pathetic plea for assistance.
A hiss of machinery sounded as Viktor felt a rush of chem douse his system in artificial ice.
Fighting around a man in a state of disarray would only worsen the injury, so the Herald had conceded to deflecting a few bullets and blows from the oncoming train of Piltovan reinforcements before retreating. He didn't have the time nor generosity to relay the situation. He could only speculate whether those who had picked Jayce up from the broken pavement had known the extent of care their champion required.
The chemical compound ebbed through the Machine Herald’s veins in an attempt to quell the unsolicited unease that had risen like rushing floodwaters up to his neck.
It had been a fight. Standard. One of them had been injured. Again, another standard, as the iterative altercations between their warring cities only ended with the exhaustion of one side.
And yet... Jayce’s broken request for help continued to echo in his mind.
Not standard.
Unprecedented, in fact.
Had the blow really been so intense, the crack of his skull against the wall so debilitating that Jayce readily considered asking him for something so intimate on the open battlefield? Like there was a possibility he would ever willingly turn a blind eye to their feud in the context of war? Years and years after their initial fallout, an age of bitter heat and constant resentment that drew them together just as much as it pushed them apart—Had Jayce truly expected Viktor to set it aside where anyone could have borne witness? The Machine Herald had proven himself above that kind of thing. The riding, weak sentiment that anything could possibly suspend the priority of his Glorious Evolution, what he’d worked so hard for, the manner it had been taken from him before he resolved to rely upon himself and no other...
So why, in the midst of battle, had he dropped to his knees when Jayce called out for him like that?
Unacceptable.
His own offense was worse than his former colleague’s. Whether it was a premeditated trick or momentary lapse of resolve didn't matter: Viktor had fallen for it regardless, and now, he was paying the price. The Defender had not slunk down to the fissures of Zaun to seal their contract in the ways they'd agreed to. The Herald sat idle, wasting his own time pacing his lab and seething over the unsatisfying result of their match. He'd anticipated at least the consolation of confirming his suspicions when Jayce came to see him, but Viktor was given no such clarity, no pleasurable relief scheduled in the hours post-conflict, as his unlocked door had not been taken advantage of. Giopara was missing in action. And again, Viktor found himself criticizing his own overly emotional response. He shouldn't have been nearly this strung out by a jolt away from their routine.
Truly unacceptable.
Another ripping hiss rang through the air as a sixth dosage of chem flooded the Herald’s veins with liquid suppressant, administered intermittently over the course of the day. At this rate, the drug would override his precariously balanced nervous system and poison his blood. He needed to stop dwelling on an issue he currently had no power to remedy. Rip something apart instead. Put it back together, stronger, more resilient than before. Like what he'd done to himself, over and over, an unending sequence of reiteration in pursuit of avoiding the terrible weight of emotion he now felt.
The weave of wires within the confines of the Herald’s left arm seemed a predictable choice.
He settled into his chair to unseal the bolted panel and tear at the rubber-wound tendons hidden beneath his shell of armor.
“Are you awake?”
Jayce certainly didn’t want to be.
“Unfortunately,” he groaned, a low, weak string of syllables that was met with enthused relief despite the implication he was far from pleased about being conscious.
“Good, oh, thank goodness...”
Hands on his face.
Get off.
He stifled another moan as he blinked back towards full awareness. The face near his blurred into existence before his eyes, dark hair and pearly skin.
“V?”
“What?” The pleased tone dipped into something with more of an edge. “No—no, Jayce. It’s me.”
“Caitlyn,” Jayce confirmed in a mumbled breath. The rest of her form and the space he inhabited sharpened, enough that he could focus in on his current state of affairs.
Propped up in a hospital bed, the sheets a clean, crisp white that burned his retinas if he stared too long. His house sponsor’s child, who sat back in a chair positioned close to his side. Reality settled as he reacquainted himself with the passive weight of his body, a dull ache radiating in his skull.
“I wasn’t sure how much longer it would take for you to fully return. How do you feel?” Caitlyn asked, her tone laced with worry just as much as relief.
“Amazing.” Jayce winced as he flexed his tired muscles. The rest of his senses returned in waves: the simple garment he wore, the thin sheet pulled up to his waist, the stream of light pouring through the far window. Stale air and the way it burned his dry throat. “Never better,” he slurred into an irritated laugh.
“You’ve been drifting in and out for two days,” Caitlyn said. “We secured a medic as soon as humanly possible, and—well, you weren’t responding in any consistent capacity, so it seemed the best option was submitting you into extended care.”
Jayce pursed his lips. That sounded weak.
He tried to raise his left hand to his head, but a thread snapped taut. He looked down at his arm, the intravenous tube just barely hanging on. He let his hand drop.
“What happened?” Jayce asked bitterly. This was embarrassing, above all else.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. My line of sight was compromised, I do apologize for that... The Machine Herald cornered you away from everyone else. He retreated back to Zaun once I found you, don’t worry,” she explained with a huff. “Several medical technicians confirmed your injury. It's clear you’ve suffered a severe concussion and further rest is in order. They suggested another day in hospice under supervision, now that you're awake.”
It sounded like a forcefully contrived joke.
“The fuck is a Machine Herald?” Jayce muttered, almost to himself. He squeezed his eyes tight before forcing them open again in an attempt to recalibrate his vision. “Besides, why are you here, Cait? Are your parents paying for this stint?”
He took in the rest of the medical suite with a cringe. Pristine white accented with gold. Granite tile. Unnecessarily spacious. Expensive. The Kirammans couldn’t be happy about this, if they were indeed shelling out funds for his inpatient stay. Why else would Caitlyn serve as a witness to his condition? If his clan were covering the fee they would have sent a representative, plus a strongly worded letter condemning his many faults.
Jayce let his gaze roam over the machinery hooked up to his bed, the arrangements of flowers (they couldn’t be for him, most likely a previous patient), a clunky-looking hammer the height of the door propped in the corner. He ended his observations at the girl in front of him, who—
“Whoa,” Jayce laughed weakly. “Don’t look at me like that, kid. You’ll get wrinkles like your mother.”
Caitlyn was wearing something that looked eerily similar to an enforcer's uniform. Funny, she had recently mentioned how her sharpshooting skills had earned her a preliminary ranking, an impressive feat for a cadet so young. The getup was jumping the gun a bit, though, and that in relation to her hair being so long, the sharp angles of her face, Caitlyn looked... older.
Jayce cocked his head. “You’re growing up on me, aren’t you?”
Caitlyn stood again and put a hand to Jayce’s forehead, testing his temperature.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked hesitantly.
“Cait, I’m okay, really.” The ache in his head was a bearable throb. “If I’ve been out of commission for a couple days like you said, then I’m definitely behind schedule. Call a nurse. Tell them I should be discharged.”
Caitlyn pulled away to cross her arms, hugging herself tight. Her gaze flicked over him, visibly disturbed.
“What schedule, Jayce?”
Why does she sound so nervous?
“We're on the cusp of a breakthrough regarding the articulation beam, I told you that. The deadline is coming up and Viktor wants to crack it with a couple days to spare.” Jayce sucked in a hiss as he plucked the tube from his wrist and flicked the needle away, blasé as to where it landed. He used the side of the sheet to apply pressure to the spot. “V knows I’m here, right? He’ll be livid under the assumption I just took some time off from the project.”
Jayce considered what could have possibly caused such an injury, and his mind replayed the latest experiments they’d been conducting in their joint laboratory.
“He hasn't reached out at all?” Jayce asked.
Caitlyn shook her head, but from the way she looked at him, Jayce wasn’t so sure it was meant as a response to his question.
“Whatever happened was a contained incident, yeah? The lab is still in one piece?”
“I don't...”
Caitlyn trailed off almost as soon as she'd started, seemingly unsure how to continue. Which was incredibly irritating. Nothing about what he'd asked had been anything but straightforward.
When Caitlyn’s lips pressed firm instead of answering him in full, Jayce rolled his eyes.
“You’re gonna age so fast scrunching your face like that,” he reiterated under his breath.
With the tube untethered, Jayce ran both hands over his face and felt the unfortunate length of his trim. Damn, he needed a shave. His fingers lightly grazed his forehead and he finally realized the source of the ache, a tightly wound bandage.
He started to pull at it.
“Jayce, stop.” Caitlyn broke out of her trance to swiftly reach over and grab his wrists. “I don’t think you should leave this bed.”
“I said I’m fine,” Jayce retorted sharply as he shooed her away. “Seriously, I need this off. Botched job. It’s way too tight.”
“I’ll call for a nurse, then. They’ll adjust it for you. Please, I think it would be best to adhere to their opinion on this.”
Jayce considered the way her voice wavered, her bluebell eyes glassy with mounting anxiety. His annoyance faded in the realization her worry must be from some lingering, youthful frailty.
He didn’t want to freak the kid out.
“Make it quick,” he said, although his tone had shifted towards an amicable softness. “Every extra minute I spend here only adds to a debt I can’t afford to deal with right now.”
“Don’t move,” Caitlyn warned. “If you so much as twitch, I’ll know.”
Her eyes didn’t leave him until she had backed out of the door and shut it behind her.
Jayce immediately ripped the bandage from his head. The relief from removing the wrap cooled him instantly. He tossed the clean gauze to the floor; it wasn’t bloodied or anything, his recovery period was obviously sufficient enough to warrant his release. He hated the thought of wasting even more time just lying around.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and flexed before planting his weight on the chill tile, the sudden movement causing air to waft under his thin gown. Jayce shivered, crossed his arms, and looked over the suite for clothes that might belong to him.
It didn’t matter if he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d landed himself in the hospital. All he knew was that if he’d been injured, it was most likely from a lab experiment, one where Viktor was involved. He needed to get back as soon as possible to confirm the truth for himself.
Jayce tested his balance by shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His body was responding properly, the ache in his head almost imperceptible as he grew accustomed to it.
The kid in a costume returned with two medical practitioners in tow before Jayce could take a step forward.
“Get your arse back in that goddamn bed,” Caitlyn snapped at him, but the aggressive command was delivered with a telling note of distress. “Do not make me strap you to it.”
“That’s rich. Calm down. I’m fit for dismissal, see?” Jayce raised his hands over his head and shook them, exasperated. “I’ve got an ungodly amount of work to catch up on. You can’t keep me here if I’m not willing, right?” he contested towards the stationed nurses.
They both looked to the girl, who glanced desperately between them.
“Repeat to them what you just told me.” Caitlyn stepped in front of Jayce, radiating authority with her hands on her hips. “What you said about your partner.”
She really had sprouted up recently.
“What, that he’s probably fucking fuming?” Jayce rubbed at one shoulder, then the other, tuning in to how his muscles felt unused. The fatigue from inactivity would only worsen if he agreed to stay in the facility. “He’ll put me right back in here if I sit on my ass for another day.”
Caitlyn had her hands on him again, pushing him back by his shoulders. Jayce hated that he was surprised enough to let it happen. “You’re not leaving, Jayce, that’s an order. I can't let you walk out of here in your current state.”
An order. Gods above.
“How many times do I have to tell you I’m fine?” Jayce batted her arms away and gestured aggressively towards the nurses. “You’re right, though, I can’t leave looking like this. You got anything else for me to put on? No offense, this cut isn’t exactly my style—”
“Listen to me,” Caitlyn suddenly steeled. “You’re not yourself.”
“Who else would I be? You're talking nonsense, Cait. Don't piss me off.”
“I'll explain. Give me five minutes of your time.”
Jayce scoffed. Like she had any authority over what he prioritized. But it seemed the only way out, so he sat back on the bed with his jaw set. “Clock’s ticking.”
Caitlyn closed the distance to stand in front where Jayce had settled, cutting off any chance of a prompt exit. “Your concussion resulted in a distinct lapse of memory. The world you mean to return to no longer exists.”
Jayce raised his eyebrows.
Caitlyn continued.
“Piltover has changed, as has Zaun. Our cities clash in a consistent sequence of matches to claim territory and supplant power.”
“Okay,” Jayce mumbled. “Things aren't great, I'll admit, but—”
“The partner you speak of has long been exiled for crimes against nature and illegal experimentation.”
That made Jayce throw up his hands and laugh, the idea absolutely absurd. Viktor?
“He might be a little odd, but V isn’t—”
“The Machine Herald did this to you,” Caitlyn cut in. “Your former colleague. He attacked the city, and this time you sustained an injury you cannot just walk off.”
Jayce considered the way his partner lashed out from time to time, if only when caught up in a passionate debate. Jayce was guilty of pushing the boundary until Viktor snapped. The last time they'd seriously fought was the week prior, ending in a heated exchange of insults and unnecessary degradation, loud enough that the inhabitants of the adjacent workspace had pounded on their locked door in an attempt to quell the argument. They had both buried the hatchet the next day with half-assed amends and gotten back to work.
Viktor, through all their ups and downs, was waiting for him. Jayce was certain of that.
“He is your sworn enemy.”
Jayce felt a throb course through his head and tried to blink the pain elsewhere.
“There's no way,” he said flatly, wincing from the sudden influx of pressure in his skull. “He wouldn't do something like this. Not on purpose, at least.”
“You fight him almost every week, Jayce. You are a champion of the people, a symbol of Piltover’s prestige. Our community relies on your strength to keep Zaunite warlords like him at bay—”
“Stop.” Jayce closed his eyes and shook his head. “I'm not in the mood for... whatever this is.”
One of the nurses took a step forward. “Officer Kiramman,” she said in an urgent whisper, “I doubt this method will relieve his amnestic state. It isn't conducive with recovery.”
Caitlyn ignored the advisory statement and bent slightly to level her gaze at the patient who would not meet her eyes. “Snap out of it. We need you in this fight, Defender.”
“I'm a scientist, not a soldier,” Jayce argued as he rubbed his forehead. “I don't—”
“You're not listening to me.”
“I am, I just... Cait, please.” Jayce was less sure of himself now that the throb had returned with a vengeance. “What you're saying doesn't make any sense.”
A hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder broke the building tension. The nurse’s second attempt at reason was amended in its assured resolve. “Monitored rest may be the only way to ensure the return of his memory isn't harmful to his already weak condition. You can't force it.”
Caitlyn turned away from the man sitting glumly on the hospital bed and ushered both nurses to the other end of the room. They began to confer in overlapping discord, one whisper far more shrill than the others.
Jayce caught bits and pieces as the ache subsided.
No way to confirm... Extensive recovery... Further complications... Delegate security... Public outcry...
“I'm right here,” Jayce said loudly over the conversation. “Could you at least get me something to wear with a little more coverage?”
Jayce left the hospital wing in a set of clothes he did not recognize, adorned by the presence of a certain headstrong Kiramman attached to his hip.
“Would you prefer an entire squad breathing down your neck?” Caitlyn asked, raising her brows with a tilt of her head. “Consider yourself lucky. We're keeping this quiet.”
“You're killing me, kid. I'm not a danger to myself, others, plague rats, nothing.“ Jayce pulled awkwardly at the fur hem of his collar. He needed to change. This look wasn’t much better than the hospital gown. “I just want to get home.”
“And where would that be?”
The housing area of the Academy that Jayce was adamant on visiting was unrecognizable to him, the slew of buildings much taller and more intricately detailed than what he remembered. Polished metals and flagged towers, glass and gold and marble. Muscle memory had guided him, and yet nothing he saw matched his ingrained recollection.
Jayce frowned. “I guess I was wrong,” he admitted, although his irritation was substantial enough to smother any sense of panic.
“Can you stand to reason your old laboratory exists in a similar state, or will you need to confirm that for yourself?” Caitlyn asked, her patient tone slightly clipped. She was clearly still annoyed with him, but possessed enough maturity to set it aside.
She wasn't the kid Jayce remembered.
He had started to accept half-truths that were only confirmed when he begrudgingly allowed himself to submit a question. Time had passed, that much was obvious, but Caitlyn was under advisement to avoid divulging any further specifics. She had risen through enforcement ranks and come into the prestige her House name commanded. Jayce had assumed a new position within the elite council of Piltover and held agency over his role.
The rest was bullshit, obviously.
“Reason is subjective, Cait. We're going.”
Jayce wished he hadn’t forced it.
He should have known from the stark restructuring of the layout that he held no presence in this area of Piltover Academy any longer. Not in practice. The placards he decided to avoid surely said otherwise, as he’d seen his own appropriated surname engraved on one before looking away. Everything inside the designated laboratory he and his partner once worked in now belonged to someone else. Odder still was the way the students looked at him, even saluted or nodded with formality, when they passed within proximity to the pair.
Jayce fidgeted with the cuffs of his jacket in a quietly contained swell of discomfort.
“Where’s my shit, then?” he asked with a forced note of humor. “Don't tell me the Academy dumped our projects in the Sump over some inane, arbitrary premise."
“It's all around you, Jayce. Hextech sustains the city in the hands of the people.”
That should’ve been a good thing, right? But without the memory of achievement tying it together, Jayce felt as if his life’s work had been stolen and distributed without his consent. He let out a series of huffs and scoffed nothings before running a hand over his face and into his hair, for a moment entirely blank on witty responses. The idea that his ambition had been realized in what Jayce could only perceive as an overnight success had caught him off guard.
“Let me help,” Caitlyn said gently. “I’ll hail a carriage. Your current research isn't done under the supervision of any academic collective.”
“Is that so?” Jayce wet his lips as he took another glance across the grounds, uncomfortably bitter and agitated by his own lack of clarity. What else did he have left to lose? “Fuck, fine. Lead the way, Sprout.”
Caitlyn’s expression was softer now, a considerate look of sympathy. “You know you haven't called me that in quite some time.”
Jayce was unable to contend with the one-sided nostalgia. “Sheriff Kiramman doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.”
The place she steered them to couldn't possibly be his home, although one of the ringed keys in his pocket did fit in the lock. The humble mansion was cordoned off from the rest of the community by a tall gate, gaudy with designed motifs, and boasted an abundance of space unreasonable for a single occupant.
The bedroom Jayce was escorted to proved more acceptable in decoration than the exterior of the house. Years of perfectly aligned buttons on closely-tailored shirts were hidden towards the back of a walk-in closet. His uniform was too tight around his torso, pinching in all the wrong places. Even though the rest of the clothes in the closet fit better, the style wasn’t something that appealed to him. He resolved to scrap together pieces he believed looked similar enough to his outdated uniform, settling for something simple, light, and unassuming.
Gods, this jacket is a nightmare, Jayce thought, and tossed the gaudy thing into the corner of his locked bathroom (again, with much more square-footage than one person could ever fucking need). His newly selected getup was folded on the marble countertop, and he eyed the rest of the space while stripping to wash the grime of hospitalization from his skin. The glass knobs in the shower squeaked as he adjusted the temperature when the water started too cold and bumped way too hot over the span of several minutes. The experience was more akin to discovering the quirks of short-stay accommodations than the familiar conveniences of home. He avoided looking too closely at his own body as suds of warm soap slid down his skin and disappeared through the drain.
Don't think about it. If you look too long, it'll become real. Every healed-over scar. Every twinge in your back.
The internal reassurance faltered as he toweled dry and came face to face with himself in the mirror. He continued his routine by shaving off the overgrown stubble in controlled strokes and rapid taps on the porcelain sink. The bags under his eyes weren’t exactly attractive, but given he’d just left the hospital, it wasn’t anything some sleep couldn't fix, right? And if the grey in his hair had sprung up recently, Jayce could easily place blame on the stress of a major hextech deadline. Everything he saw was entirely remittable with enough mental gymnastics.
He looked through the various cabinets, curious as to what might be tucked away out of sight. Old and new bottles, pills and lotions and gels… The only aspect that threw Jayce off was a drawer of sexual items, including ones used for preparation (which he was intimately familiar with, but it wasn't like he remembered the last time he'd indulged that way).
His current self must have quite the agenda with all this, though. And the subtle feeling of heat in his gut had yet to fully subside since he'd exited the shower....
All things considered, Jayce spent a little more time in the bathroom than previously anticipated.
Caitlyn caught Jayce idling at a desk in the corner of the bedroom as he rifled through drawers and picked through the chaotic mess on the tabletop. She eyed her friend intently, fresh and clean and much more comfortable in his chosen wear, before clearing her throat.
“You look better,” she said evenly, leaning against the doorframe in a self-assured manner.
And you look old, Jayce almost bantered on instinct. But that would be an admittance to himself, and the implication was far too heavy.
“I feel better.”
“Glad to hear it.”
His private laboratory was scattered with schematics and machinery he recognized his signature on, literal and figurative, but the intrinsic feeling of proprietorship over any of it was missing. Jayce regarded the space with an uneasy sense of ignorance. Each and every project was new to him. Worse still was the evidence that this lab was used solely by one mind. No edits to his notes, no documentation with two distinctive styles of handwriting, no extra stools or sets of hardware.
It wasn't right.
It wasn't theirs.
His focus settled on a dark blue trunk tucked away in the corner, inconspicuous to anyone else.
“Is there a chance you could detach yourself from my side for, I don't know, thirty seconds?” Jayce asked his nonessential chaperone, for a moment unable to tear his fixed gaze away from the box. “Something in this dump might jog my memory.”
Caitlyn obviously considered denying him with the pause she took before responding.
“Of course.” Her terse tone suggested Jayce would be granted a few minutes at most, that she did not believe his newfound acceptance of a vehemently denied concept. “This dump is your home, after all.”
Even if it was, that didn’t mean anything else Caitlyn had stated was true.
He was under no obligation to believe anything she said.
It pained him to feel this way towards his friend and confidant, but Caitlyn was no longer the same delightful little terror he once knew. She'd grown in both stature and experience, changed for the better, and... Jayce had not changed with her.
Part of him fought to maintain the reality he’d been so sure was waiting for him, hidden behind a door he’d been tricked into skirting around. The memories were still fresh, his life was still reachable somehow, if he found the right place or the right person.
“Thanks. This whole thing has been quite the trip,” Jayce said, turning towards her. “What’s a solid reversion for ‘memory lane’? Repression trench?”
“Retrograde amnesia,” Caitlyn supplied, level and stern.
Jayce gave an exaggerated nod and snapped his fingers in her direction. “That's the one.”
“Gods, you're insufferable.”
“Most people call it charm.”
Jayce didn’t want to come off as impatient, and it took everything he had to refrain from sliding a snide comment criticizing her lack of urgency. He distracted himself by pretending to take in more details of the room with interest, looking up and over and around as he walked to the cluttered desk, planted his hands, and waited for her to leave. When he heard an even clicking of boots against marble flooring, Jayce spared a quick glance to watch Caitlyn exit the lab. The door eased shut behind her, slower than Jayce would have liked.
He waited a beat to ensure she wouldn’t poke back in.
Ten seconds of buffer.
Jayce then rushed to the trunk and tried to throw it open—the box only rocked, deftly latched shut. He fumbled with the other keys in his pocket and attempted to match one to the shine of brass on the lock. The third combination yielded the desired result, and the deep trunk yawned wide.
While the box itself was something Jayce had recognized, only a small percentage of the contents inside sparked the same feeling. Relics from his past, a barren childhood and potential-filled adolescence: forgotten prototypes, letters of recommendation, sentimental notes left to gather dust.
A bound album caught his attention, unmarked and swathed in a dark fabric cover, faded by age from an unspecified period of usage.
He pried the book from the disorderly pile, stood up, and flicked it open.
There wasn’t much to brag about preserved in the first few pages. The next held a little more promise, memorialized ceremonies and fake smiles and handshakes. Then—what he knew was organized over several pages, what he’d been looking for—photographs of completed hextech projects, of Viktor, of him, of them together.
Caitlyn had refused to talk about his partner any more than what she’d initially blurted out. Jayce hadn't pried, as he didn't want to hear it.
Not from her.
Jayce gently pulled one of the photos out from its rightful place, pocketed it, and snapped the album shut before bothering to check whether the following pages were still as blank as he'd left them. He deposited the book, shut the trunk, and glanced over his shoulder—the door was still closed, he had time.
He skirted to the desk, turned over one of the many schematics he had no connection to, and scrawled a quick note in big letters across the paper.
Getting some air. I’ll be back. Don't worry about me.
Then, after half a moment of consideration, he added:
Love you, Sprout.
Jayce found himself strangely in tune with the self he had yet to meet, thankful for his own apparent forethought in making an escape like this almost effortless. His lab was located on the ground floor, the wide window opened outward without so much as a creak, and a convenient ledge let him easily clamber over the sill. A clear wear on the grain confirmed just how often he must open it to the exact angle.
Oh, I’ve definitely done this before, Jayce mused to himself, and smirked while carefully stepping down.
He shut the window behind him and took off in the direction of the rumor, towards an entity he believed could bring him the profound understanding he craved.