Archive of Our Own ^beta

***

When Jayce wakes, the war is over.

And when Jayce rolls over, coughing up blood and pushing away debris, he sees the prone figure of Viktor lying in ash, chest moving as indisputable proof that he is alive; and in that moment, Jayce realizes that war has just begun.

He scrambles across the broken floor of the hexgates. Adrenaline turns all his aches into a hard drug pulsing in his veins. He drops to Viktor’s side, rolls him to his back, and lets out a choked breath of air.

Somehow, someway, they were ejected out of the rune. Their mortal forms weren’t anywhere near the gates when they destroyed the core – but Jayce doesn’t give a damn about logistics right now.

Viktor’s body is no longer made of magic metal, but of (bleeding) flesh and blood. He’s out cold, his eyes shut in peaceful slumber, long hair stuck to the side of his pale neck, clumpy with magical residue. The new scars of the hexcore make his skin look iridescent, like light through a prism. Jayce can’t even spare a thought to aesthetics right now.

War is settling outside the broken windows, and the council will demand answers. There’s no doubt in his mind what he must do.

“You’re leaving Piltover,” Mel says.

She catches him red handed. Or, Viktor-handed. Limp in his arms, that same blue cloak draped around his thin, human body. Jayce feels like a child with his hand in the cookie jar (or a young man caught stealing research he had no business messing with).

“You’re alive,” Jayce exhales.

Mel braces herself up against the doorway. A little worse for wear, but still beautiful, and still alive.

“It’s over.”

Jayce can’t even enjoy the taste of victory. Viktor is growing cold in his arms, and Jayce holds him closer, protectively, from Mel’s critical gaze. Sun spins through the busted glass of the gates, sending jittery shadows across the dark floor, and it gives him the same stomach-turning feeling as that celestial plane inside Viktor’s hexcore.

“We have to go.”

Mel processes this. He can see her weighing the scales; duty, or friendship. If they stay, Viktor will be put on trial, likely sentenced to life in prison – and at worst, executed. Every second he stands here feels like a wasted hour.

“Between the both of us, we could petition a pardon,” Mel offers. It’s a weak one.

Jayce looks down at the man in his arms. For a moment, in the arcane, he could feel what Viktor felt. He became one with his omnipotent consciousness – and no matter how warm and buttery and wonderful it felt, it was also cold, and lonely, and sad.

“He isn’t that kind of guy,” Jayce says. Mel’s eyes sadden. “He won’t forgive himself.”

“So you’re running away.”

“As far as this bum leg will take me.”

Mel sighs, and rubs at her sore shoulder. She has a new glow about her. Also, a cloud of grief that needs no explanation. She steps closer, and once in arm’s reach, she sets a hand at his elbow, and wears an expression that means no-nonsense.

“There’s an old farmhouse two miles outside Holdrum. Plum in the middle of nowhere – gold shingles, and red paint on the door. A local named Perci is holding the house key. Find him, and tell him I said it’s yours now.”

Jayce nearly blanches. He readjusts Viktor’s weight in his arms in fear of dropping him.

“Are you serious?”

She rolls her eyes. “I spent summers there as a child. As the new head of the Medardas, it’s mine to give away as I please.” Mel looks up at him, really looks at him, and Jayce knows in this moment that it is goodbye. “If you choose him, you can never come back.”

Shouting echoes up the stairs; the guards are calling Mel’s name. Viktor’s chest expands, then sinks, curling closer to Jayce’s body heat like an animal seeking shelter. Jayce gives Mel a small, fleeting smile.

“I know.”

Mel nods. Then, she briskly turns her back, and walks towards the stairway. “Yes, yes, I’m here. Stay where you are, it’s dangerous.” She looks over her shoulder one last time. “The hexgates have been destroyed.”

Jayce slips out the back door.

***

Viktor sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps. Not once does he wake on their long journey to Holdrum. He stirs for water, will swallow the food Jayce struggles into his mouth, but fades in and out like a zombie. Like a part of his consciousness is still stuck in that other world.

Jayce would be lying if he said it didn’t scare the shit out of him. Nevermind the terrible deja-vu, he doesn’t know how he’s alive, how they’re both alive. This could be Viktor’s life, this could be the price he paid for destroying the hexcore – and yet, Jayce simply can’t accept that outcome. He didn’t before, and he won’t start now.

It takes him two days to find this ‘Perci’ in Holdrum, and another two to convince him that yes, he really did receive permission from Mel Medarda. Grumpy, crotchety old fisherman that he is, blue rubber boots and a knotted beard that smelled like bad trout. In the end, it’s a Medarda emblem on the inside of his broken pocketwatch that earns him that key. And after a long, exhausting journey, Jayce finds himself on the steps of that farmhouse.

“See Vik? It’s all gonna be okay.” Jayce sets a sleeping Viktor on the dusty old couch. He mumbles a sound, and rolls towards the pillow. Jayce takes a look around at the eerie covered living room, and sighs. “Bet you no one will come looking for us here. Pretty roomy, too. Lots of potential for new experiments, right partner?”

His mouth tastes bad just saying it. Maybe their combined knowledge should be laid to rest in those broken hexgates. Maybe they’re cursed, a tragedy not meant to be.

Jayce fixes Viktor’s long, mousey hair. He pins it behind his ear, props him comfortably on the couch, and sets about looking for a way to turn on the lights.

It’ll take some work, but Jayce isn’t afraid of elbow grease. What he’s most afraid of sits prone on the couch, dreaming in a world far, far away.

***

Jayce cannot for the life of him imagine someone as prissy as Mel roughing it out in this farmhouse. It must’ve been years since it’s seen use; only a few family heirlooms are left on display, the rest covered in tarps and dirty with spiderwebs. He finds a box of children’s toys in the spare bedroom. Jayce pushes it back under the bed.

He cleans the sheets, fixes up the room, and moves Viktor in. Sometimes, when Jayce talks to him enough, Viktor mumbles in his sleep. Jayce would give fucking anything to hear him say his name one more time.

But if this is forever, then so be it. Jayce is in it for the long run.

“I cut some firewood,” Jayce says, taking a wrench to the socket at his bad knee. “Turns out the heater runs on the old-fashioned stuff. I also poked around town a little more, asked about some odd jobs so we can afford a decent meal. Sold all my gold buckles already, and I’m damn close to ripping that heirloom clock off the wall.” He watches Viktor’s face for any movement. Slim, elegant features still as porcelain. Jayce fixes his hair again, tucking it behind his ear to better see his face. “Anyways, the town blacksmith is going to let me hammer horseshoes for some change, seeing that I’m good with metal.”

Maybe it’s wrong of him, but Jayce pets his hand down the side of Viktor’s neck, appreciating the soft flesh there. He bathed him, clothed him, nursed him for weeks, but he hasn’t dared caress him like this. Just beneath his ear. Just to feel his pulse under his fingertips.

“God, I miss you,” Jayce whispers.

Viktor is beautiful in his peaceful sleep. Jayce wonders if it’s better this way. So Viktor never has to face the memory of what he’s done.

“It’s my fault.” Daringly, Jayce presses his thumb to that mole on his lip. His hands shake, like he’s touching the fuse of a bomb. “I didn’t listen. I couldn’t let you go.”

Jayce follows lines of scarring that rolls under his shirt. There are four similar indentations still scarred across his own forehead, though Jayce hasn’t cleaned the bathroom mirror good enough to really take a look at it.

Viktor’s lashes flutter. Jayce rips his hand away and holds his breath in shock. But it’s a fluke, as Viktor simply rolls his head the other way and sighs. Jayce rubs hard into his own eye sockets.

“I’ll um. I’ll be back.”

He stands, and his knee brace creaks louder than the floorboards.

***

The blacksmith he hammers for is a tough, six foot tall minotaur woman named Bossman. Jayce doesn’t know if this is her real name or not, and he’s not stupid enough to ask (especially since she never questioned his). 

The forge is small, and supports most of the town’s daily needs. Anything bigger is imported from Piltover. The irony is not lost on Jayce; that he still ended up where his family legacy expected him to be — holding a hammer over an open flame.

“I’ve got special orders for a six-inch cog replacement on a crankshaft, and five steel toes for an artisan guild,” Bossman says. She wipes her hands on her apron. “But my sister’s gettin’ married tonight. An elopement sort of thing, that dumb bitch. Can you handle it?”

Jayce releases the clamp, wipes the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, and nods. “Mhm, no problem.”

Bossman squints. “I never taught you how to make none of those.”

Jayce freezes. “Uh, well. You see, I thought I’d…wing it?”

“Apprentice my ass,” Bossman huffs. She goes to take off her apron, then gets annoyed when the strap catches on the tip of her horns. “Ugh. Whatever you’re runnin’ from better be worth it, ‘cause if those steel toes ain’t perfect I’m shoving ‘em up your ass tomorrow.”

“How do you know I’m–” Jayce stops to swallow the foot in his mouth. Bossman levels an unimpressed glare. 

“You smith like it’s a goddamn science, like you’re doin’ math in your head. Comes out pretty, but there’s no love in it.” She shrugs, slipping on her coat. “If the job gets done, the job gets done. Just don’t let Piltover know you’re here.”

Shit. 

“Yes ma’am.”

***

Viktor wakes on a random Tuesday.

Jayce just figured out how to restore plumbing to the kitchen, when he bangs his head on the sink, and curses himself to high hell. The sink starts to pour out water, and he sputters as he’s sprayed up the front of his shirt, before he can blindly pat for the spicket.

“Stupid old house,” Jayce huffs. “All the money in the world, who would spend summers in such a piece of shit, dump of a –”

When he wipes his face, Viktor is sitting straight on the couch.

Jayce freezes entirely in place. Water drips from his hair, down his neck, to the floor. Viktor stares neutrally.

“Vik?” Jayce croaks. He drops the wrench, jumps as it makes a ruckus. Viktor shows no reaction. Jayce scrambles around the kitchen island. “Viktor, hey, Vik.”

Nothing. It’s like Viktor stares straight through him, as if he’s seeing nothing but shadows. Jayce approaches slowly, crouching gently in front of him so he won’t spook. “Vik…” Jayce swallows the knot in his throat. “You’ve been asleep for – for a while. It’s me, Jayce. Do you remember me? Your partner?”

Vik’s eyes track him, but he doesn’t speak. Jayce feels like a hole has ripped through his chest. He blinks slowly, and doesn’t twitch when Jayce grabs for his arm.

“That’s…it’s okay if you don’t remember.” Jayce squeezes, imprinting all the affection overflowing in his chest. “You’re okay. You’re safe here.”

No reaction. But Viktor’s eyes are open, he’s looking at him – he’s alive. Jayce counts his blessings.

“You hungry?” Jayce stands, swallowing his nerves as he wipes his palm on his damp shirt. “I uh, fixed the kitchen sink.”

Of course, no reply. But Viktor sits there and watches attentively as Jayce attempts to scramble some eggs he bartered off a woman in town, and when offered on a matte gold plate, Viktor picks up a fork and eats on his own. Jayce sits across from him, sets his head in his hand, and just watches.

“Sorry I’m no cook,” Jayce mumbles. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop talking. He always put his foot in his mouth around Viktor – and now that those honey eyes are staring at him again, his heart races into his throat. “I wish I spent more time in the kitchen with my mom. Always hoped I’d get rich and keep one of those fancy cooks around.” Viktor spoons one bite at a time. Slow, calculated, but with good manners. Jayce just can’t stop looking at him. “Kinda sucks, starting all over again.” Viktor’s long, brown lashes kiss against his cheeks. Jayce wants to hold him so bad. “God, somehow us knuckleheads earned a second chance. Who woulda thought.”

Viktor sits in mummied silence when his plate is empty. With Jayce’s gentle prodding, he climbs into bed on his own.

***

It takes him a solid week to get the hall bathroom in working order. Dumb central plumbing, old as hell and the piping doesn’t make any sense, shitty cross-connections, too many couplings, rotted sealant; it’s no wonder everything’s leaking all over the place.

Jayce makes just enough money blacksmithing to feed them two square meals a day. Viktor put on a little weight – a little, not much – because he can eat on his own now. He seems to remember his most basic functions; how to eat, shower, dress himself; but anything more is like talking to a wall.

He floats around the house like a ghost. Sometimes Jayce finds him standing in the hall, or the porch, or the doorway, simply watching him. Jayce will never, ever tell him to go away.

He tried getting him to indulge in reading, writing, drawing – but the pencil falls limp from his fingers, dropping to the floor along with Jayce’s heart. So Jayce reads to him at night; whatever he can find packed up in the attic or in the back of the town library. It’s barely a library – nothing like the treasure troves back in Piltover.

“You’d find this so boring,” Jayce sighs, flipping the pages. “Elementary. I wish I could’ve brought our books with us, Vik.” He wishes for a lot of things.

Viktor sits on the couch, knees to his chest, eyes staring into space as he pulls a blanket close around his shoulders.

Slowly but surely, Jayce is making this farmhouse inhabitable. It’s much bigger than the home he grew up in, definitely roomier than his dorm at the academy. He got so spoiled feasting on the grand halls of the Piltover capital. How fat he was, playing politics in that palace. He was so blind to what he had right in front of him.

Jayce sets down the book with a sigh. Viktor’s eyes follow the movement, but it feels like an involuntary reaction. Like muscles in dead frog legs, jumping when they’ve been boiled.

“I don’t know if you even want this,” Jayce mumbles. The fire pops. “What kind of life is this? I just keep making decisions for you. Always the wrong ones.”

Viktor stares at him. Jayce is too ashamed to stare back. But as the blanket drops, Jayce’s attention is yanked back by the hand that lifts between them. Shocked, his mouth falls open as Viktor reaches for him.

He holds his breath, sits perfectly still, so rigid that his bad leg starts to ache. Slowly, carefully, as if reaching across realms, Viktor’s hand comes up to press against his forehead. Jayce’s mind scrambles, until he realizes that Viktor is tracing those hextech scars.

“You’re in there,” Jayce whispers. “I see you.”

Viktor’s hands are thin and cold, and yet the most incredible heat rushes down the back of his spine. He presses his fingertips to each scar, fits them where his hand once was, and then finitely pulls away.

Without a word, Viktor rises from the couch, and walks upstairs. Jayce drops his head back to the couch, and rubs away the tears in his eyes.

***

Jayce is one snip away from cutting off a chunk of his shaggy hair, when Mel’s words hit him like a train.

You can never come back.

His portrait used to be plastered all over towers and airships. The old him, with his shaved face and his trimmed hair. The world will recognize Jayce Talis, but not this shell of a man in front of them. He leaves his shaggy hair, but neatens his beard a little, on principle of not looking like a man living in the woods.

He washes his face, then looks up into the cracked mirror, and presses his fingers into the divots of those scars. If he stares too long, he can see the sick webbing of that other world, the bottom of a cavern, the insides of his own leg spilling all over the ground. 

Jayce can barely even recognize himself. 

***

Holdrum really isn’t much. A small town on a rocky shore, cloudy and rainy and more humble folk than the rich clans back in Piltover. Trade ships come in off the sea, giving just enough life to this place to support a small population of locals. 

He’s been meaning to stop at the tailor for a few days. It’s three blocks down from the blacksmith, and by the goods in the window, all done by hand. No fancy factory-made clothing this far out in the mountains. Just an old lady sitting at a sewing machine behind the counter.

“Welcome, love. What can I do you for?”

Jayce lowers the hood of his cloak, and pushes back his hair to appear a little more respectable. The shop is quaint, cottagey, and overwhelmingly yellow.

“Hello ma’am. I need some new clothes made. Trousers, shirt, and a coat if you can.”

A bitter voice speaks up from the back. “We don’t take payment in belt buckles.”

Jayce blinks, peeking sideways. “Mister Perci?”

Perci huffs and puffs down the back hall, kicking aside a box of fabric along the way. “Won’t find no better seamstress than my wife Neena. It’s real cogs, or none at all.”

“I have money,” Jayce chuckles. “Been saving up, promise.”

Perci narrows his eyes, but Neena waves him off. “Oh shoo, you. Such a handsome young man, stand up and I’ll take your numbers.”

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Jayce waves. “It’s for my partner. But don’t worry, I have his measurements memorized.”

“Awww,” Neena coos. She reaches over and smacks her husband on the arm. “And you can barely remember my birthday, you old coot.”

Jayce feels his face get hot. “Wait, I mean, we’re not –”

Perci scoffs, yanking his arm away. “I’d be a damn fool to try and memorize your numbers, they change by the fuckin’ scone.”

Neena takes the sewing ham, and chucks it across the shop. Smartly, Perci ducks away down the hall. Jayce notices their wedding photo up on the wall, and it makes him smile.

“Alright dear,” Neena pats her desk in search of paper. “Read me those measurements.” Jayce does, approximating the stuff he’s not so sure about (and using math for the rest). Neena makes him confirm three times before she tuts around her shop going dear me, skinny little thing, gonna need a lined coat to stay warm, poor child doesn’t eat enough, take this home, this’ll fatten him up to fit a proper pair of pants –

And that’s how Jayce returns with a handwritten receipt, and a breadbasket.

***

In his boredom, he finds a record player collecting dust in the attic. Some of the vinyls are broken, but with a little fiddling, Jayce is able to get an album to spin. Unfortunately, Mel’s family only collected boring classicals and opera ballads.

“Ugh,” Jayce groans, lifting the needle. “What a waste of time.”

“Aira of the Clockwork Tempest. Not their best work.”

Jayce’s neck nearly snaps off his shoulders. Viktor stands in the doorway of the living room, one hand clutching his arm, his eyes peering up and around the room. Jayce’s mouth works through a few failed sounds, before he rises off his knees, and clutches the mantle of the fireplace to steady himself.

“Vik…?”

Viktor looks at him with an inconsolable amount of sadness.

“Jayce.”

His legs almost give out. Viktor extends a hand as if to grab him, but hesitates, and tucks it back under his armpit. All that sleeping, and he still looks exhausted.

“Do you…” Jayce clears his throat. “What do you remember?”

Viktor peers out the window, checks for good weather, then says, “Let’s take a walk.”

Ironically, they both hobble at the same pace. Jayce has made some further adjustments to his own brace, but has been at a loss for what to do for Viktor. With no manner of asking, Viktor has moved around the house slow and sore, and Jayce couldn’t tell what hurts were old, or what was new.

“My illness is gone,” Viktor explains, reading his mind. “I have not suffered it since the hexcore turned my body to metal. But after being revived once again, my sickness has been replaced by a new one. The arcane has wreaked havoc on this body, reconstructing it from magic. I don’t know my new limitations.”

“So it hurts,” Jayce frowns.

Viktor doesn’t deny. He looks down at Jayce’s leg, and frowns. “What happened?”

Jayce scratches his beard and sighs. “Doesn’t matter. God, I’m so happy to hear your voice again. Were you still…” He struggles for the words. “Stuck? In that place?”

Viktor’s eyebrows push together in thought. No paved roads out here, only fields of grass and imperfect lines of overgrown trees. One step at a time, they stroll closer to the shoreline. Far, far away from their cities made of metal; grief, pain, suffering, envy and hatred – it’s all been left behind. Just mud in his boots, and a cloudy sky.

Viktor slows to a stop, his eyes disassociating once more. Jayce’s blood runs cold until Viktor speaks up again.

“Yes…and no. After the hexcore was destroyed, the Rune reassembled my consciousness, and I found myself in a battle with the will to live. I could hear you, sometimes see you, but I wasn’t…ready to accept the truth.” Viktor studies his hands for a long moment, as if he still expects to see violet molten metal. “That I was indeed alive.”

That’s a big pill to swallow. Heart thumping, Jayce says, “But you’re here. You came back.”

Viktor begins to walk again, one sluggish step at a time. “I knew you were working hard to save me. Though I couldn’t fathom why, I felt – I couldn’t leave you here alone. Not yet.”

Jayce exhales slowly.

“I’m here for you. In every universe – you know that.”

Viktor turns to him with a surprising amount of passion. “But you’ve given up everything, Jayce. If you stayed in Piltover, you would’ve been a hero, not hiding in some backwoods town, harboring a criminal –”

“Vik –”

“Why,” Viktor pants. Increasingly distressed, he runs his hands through his long, streaky hair. “Why choose this life? After all I’ve done. All your research, your friends – you can never see Mel again. Why, Jayce?”

He can’t stand this. Jayce grabs his hand, pulls him around, and forces Viktor to look him in the eye. Too many emotions swell up inside him; the fact that Viktor is here, looking at him, speaking to him – Jayce doesn’t waste one more second.

“Because I love you.”

Viktor stares through him. The whole galaxy once sung in those eyes, and now they stare with an empty void. Jayce holds his arm tighter, begging him to understand.

“You don’t owe me anything. I know this living situation is temporary until we – you, decide what you want to do from here. But you have to know why I did what I did. You held my soul, you saw me, felt me join you in the arcane. I’d die a hundred fucking times for you, Vik.”

Viktor shakes, and at the first tug, Jayce lets go of his arm. He turns away, wiping a hand over his mouth.

“I am the most undeserving of this.”

Viktor is physically shutting down. Jayce looks around, checks the setting sky, and sighs. “We don’t have to talk about this now. Just…come eat with me. One day at a time. Can we do that?”

Shrinking further and further into his shell, Viktor manages a shallow nod. Jayce leads him back to the house with a careful hand on his back. Slow, limping footsteps left in the dirt.

***

“Your hair,” Viktor says.

Jayce pats around his head, expecting it to be on fire. To be fair, that happened once. Now he finds nothing but greasy strands in need of a wash.

“Sorry, it’s all soot from the forge.”

“No.” Viktor shakes his head. He’s been playing around with the bread on his plate for ten minutes, like he’s struggling for an appetite. “It’s long.”

Jayce smirks, and dries his hand on a red kitchen towel. “So is yours.”

Viktor feels up into his own hair. He studies it like a foreign specimen.

“Disguises,” Viktor assumes.

“Nobody has come knocking yet. But it keeps me from getting recognized in town.”

Viktor’s eyes lift, sharp with skepticism. “What do they call you?”

Jayce rubs the back of his head. “Jay.”

“Clever.”

“Oh shush. I’ve been winging it, okay?”

The corner of Vik’s mouth twitches. He finally fills it with that last wad of bread, and Jayce stifles a sigh of relief.

He catches Viktor staring again as he washes a dish and sets it on the rack. He dries his hands, then subconsciously scratches along the edge of his jaw as he realizes what Viktor is staring at.

“It’s the beard, isn’t it.”

“Mmm.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I didn’t say that,” Viktor replies. He sets his head in his hand, like he’s too tired to keep it up on his own. “It makes you look like –” a yawn. “Sexy lumberjack.”

Jayce cracks a laugh. “You think I’m sexy?”

“I don’t think anything. Do I ‘think’ grass is green? No, it just is.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Viktor nods off on the kitchen table, and Jayce checks his reflection in the wet dinner plate.

***

Viktor is back, but not really. He sleeps a lot, and only shuffles between his room, the kitchen table, and the settee by the window. In the evenings, Jayce sometimes persuades him into a walk. He is sore, but movement is good for him. For both of them.

Jayce has chosen to ignore the raw feeling left from his open-ended confession. It’s almost as if it never happened. Or, that Viktor hasn’t processed it yet. He has bigger issues than Jayce’s feelings; Vik damn near ascended to a form akin to godhood, and nearly destroyed the world with it. Jayce doesn’t have a bandaid for a wound that deep. Nothing he can make with his hands will ever fix it, and that makes him even more bitter.

Every time he leaves for work, he spends hours panicking that he’ll come home to an empty house. Or worse.

But Viktor hasn’t left him yet. The selfish part of him hopes he never does.

He stokes the fire to keep Viktor warm. Those clothes he ordered will be done by Wednesday, and Jayce is counting the hours until he can finally dress him in something warmer than rags.

Viktor has that far-away look in his eyes again. He struggles the most when the sun goes down, like the stars bring bad memories. It’s sad to see something so beautiful become a demon on his shoulder.

Jayce hangs up the poker by the fireplace, then sits next to him. His weight dips the couch, and Viktor’s lashes flutter in acknowledgment.

“Talk to me,” Jayce begs.

Viktor’s eyes lift, and observe all the corners of the room. “You smell like paint.”

“I found an old tin under the house. Was trying to freshen up the rot on the back door.”

“You care for this place,” Viktor says. Jayce makes a face, then shrugs.

“Trying to make something out of nothing, I guess.”

“And I’ve been no help in this,” says Vik. Jayce frowns, opening his mouth to argue, but Viktor continues. “I don’t deserve a happy ending.”

Jayce blinks, stunned. “You consider this a happy ending?”

“Yes. Being here with you. It's a better afterlife than I could ever hope for.”

His heart jumps. Jayce swallows it back down. “We left a big mess behind us. The world has changed, for better or for worse. But there’s people out there that have suffered more than this. I don’t want to waste this second chance, when so many others didn’t get one.”

Viktor’s expression shifts. It’s sour, almost, until Jayce recognizes it as grief.

“I killed so many. Lured them under the sweet temptation of healing, then took their souls when it suited me. I preyed on the very people I once was – the sick, the vulnerable. I am unforgivable, Jayce.” 

Jayce can’t stand it. He wraps an arm around his shoulders, and to his surprise, Viktor allows it. 

“I brought you back to life with the hexcore, and it tainted you. It was my fault, Vik. I couldn’t cope with living without you, and I was too selfish to destroy the core when you told me to. You were right.”

“No.” Vik frowns. “In my quest for peace, I lost sight of what perfection really meant. Without the free will of humanity, there is no such thing as living. Without sadness, there is no joy, and without suffering, we can never know peace. A miscalculation that took the lives of hundreds.”

“Don’t you dare shoulder this alone,” Jayce scowls. “Do you hear me? Partners doesn’t mean just you. Don’t drown in this, please, Vik.”

A soft head of hair lands on his shoulder. Jayce sucks in air through his nose and holds it.

“I can’t be who I once was,” Vik says. 

Jayce thinks of a lifetime ago, all those late nights scribbling math on the chalkboard of his dorm room, full of naivety and hope that their research would bring greatness into the world. Maybe in the right hands, it would have. The divides of classism blinded him – and when he thinks about it, Jayce doesn’t want to be his old self either. 

“I think that’s okay,” Jayce says. 

Viktor goes quiet for so long, Jayce begins to wonder if he nodded off. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him, and when he looks down, he sees Viktor hazily staring into the fire. For his own sake, he pretends he’s asleep anyways. 

***

Out of boredom, or maybe desperation, Jayce is growing a taste for classical music. He can’t stand sitting around in the creaky silence of the farmhouse, and it gives him something to sing along to when he strips the screw in his brace. 

“Fuck, fuck fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck fuck fuck.” Jayce pulls out the screw, and examines the shredded tread. “Shit, shit shit, shitshitshit shitshit shit.” 

“Not sure those are the lyrics,” Viktor says. 

“They are now. I don’t have the resources to fix this stupid thing.” 

“When I lived in the undercity, my family had very little,” Vik says. Jayce straightens at attention. He watches Viktor float slowly across the room, then settle in the chair next to him. “I used old rubber bands and steel wool, and broke apart a pair of pliers to create the spring. Hurt like none other to walk on, but it got me to school.” He holds out his hand. 

Shocked speechless, Jayce gives him the screwdriver, then the top half of the brace. Viktor turns it over easily, studying the shabby craftsmanship, before peering into the socket. His hands work as if on autopilot, his eyes jerking back and forth with the same vehement passion he once had in the lab (which meant that his mind was working very quickly). 

“Here,” Viktor points. “The angle of the metal is putting excess pressure on the joint. A flat bracket at thirty degrees will stop you from wearing out the screws.” 

“Oh,” Jayce ponders. He sees the math in his mind, numbers floating around (like magical runes). “I was trying to keep the pressure off the back of my heel when I built it. Though I see why that’s running grooves in the plate.” 

Viktor’s eyes sparkle as the problem is solved. He hands it back over. “Drill out the stripping, perhaps your blacksmith will let you use the furnace to weld a patch.”

“I’ll ask tomorrow. Thanks.”

Viktor stands up slowly, and drifts back to the kitchen. 

When he finds him in the afternoon, he’s curled back up against the window, his eyes sad and grey again. Jayce feels lucky to have seen that spark in him one more time. 

***

Jayce comes home with a gash the size of an allen wrench ripped up the side of his cheek, and he can’t even give a shit, because Viktor is standing in the kitchen, dressed in the new clothes Jayce snuck in his closet. 

“They fit,” Jayce whispers. 

Viktor nearly drops the mug in his hand. “Jayce! You’re bleeding!”

“Yeah, horse threw a shoe, told Bossman I was going for stitches but god knows I can’t afford that right now.” 

As Viktor approaches him, Jayce’s eyes run up and down his body, nearly speechless at how good he looks. Tea green and floral brown, Neena sewed those trousers to perfection, fitting every long line of his legs. She even made an extra waistcoat; the tight buckles show the tantalizing curves of his body, and it makes Jayce wonder if he held around his waist, if his fingers would meet in the middle. 

“You look good,” Jayce croaks. Viktor holds a handkerchief to his bloody face. 

“And you look like hell. Come.” 

He pulls him into the kitchen. Jayce hasn’t seen him move so quickly in a long time. Viktor pushes insistently until he sits, and when he begins to rummage through the cabinets, Jayce’s brain turns back on. 

“Old medkit is under the sink. But I can stitch myself, won’t be the worst thing I've done.” 

Viktor shoots him a scathing look, and Jayce shuts up before he’s forced to explain what really happened to his leg. Vik doesn’t need to know he broke it trying to escape the alternate reality of his ‘perfect world’. 

“I will fix it. Sit quietly.” 

Don’t have to tell him twice. Or maybe he does, because cleaning the wound hurts like a motherfucker. Viktor finds a needle and medical thread, sterilizes the tip on a candle, then pokes right through his skin. Jayce hisses through the sting, and Viktor pulls the thread like he’s stitching a hole in his coat. His hands are surprisingly steady; an improvement already. 

“Why did you do this?” Viktor asks. 

Jayce blinks. He flinches again at another poke, and resists the urge to curse. “I – agh – just trying to make a quick buck.” 

“A great waste of your brilliant mind,” Viktor says cruelly. “But not what I meant. You had clothes made for me.” 

“Oh.” Jayce’s eyes drop again, like a carrot on a string. He studies the fitted collar, the curves of that silky waistcoat. It’s not overly extravagant, but it suits him. “Well, it’s not like I got to pack a bag, and those farm clothes were eaten to hell and back by moths.” 

Viktor’s hand slows. The next poke is a little gentler. He uses his other hand to steady him by the forehead, and Jayce’s stomach flutters when he realizes his fingers have aligned on those hextech scars again. 

“Sitting around this house, playing dress up...” Viktor’s voice drops to a mumble. “It’s like you want me to be human again.”

“I don’t want you to be anything,” Jayce blurts. The look on Viktor’s face makes him think he said the wrong thing, so he scrambles to explain. “Look, I – you probably don’t want to hear this, but you’re stitching my face back together, so you don’t have a choice.” He reaches out for his hip, and Viktor jolts under his touch, even through layers of fabric. “I don’t love just one ideal version of you. When I say that, I mean every side, good or bad. I just want to be with you.”

Viktor’s expression is unreadable. He pulls the wound fully closed, and ties off the thread. 

“You lost your mind in that hexcore.”

“Possibly. Or maybe I finally woke up.”

Gold eyes flash with an anger so sudden, it stuns him in that creaky kitchen chair. 

“I tried to kill you, Jayce. In many realities, I succeeded. You are chasing the end of a knife.”

Jayce grabs the front of his waistcoat and pulls. Viktor’s hand shoots out to brace himself on the back of the chair, and Jayce screws up his face in a sneer so bad, it pulls at the stitches. 

“Then stab me with it.” 

Viktor pulls away violently. He turns, wobbles slightly, then marches up the stairs. Jayce wipes across his face in frustration. It comes back tacky with dried blood. 

***

Jayce leaves to chop firewood, builds a dry pile, and returns to an empty house. 

Vik isn't in his room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the couch, the settee, the nook, or the porch. He’s gone. Jayce goes through every stage of grief at once, and settles on sitting on the floor and staring at the wall until his eyes dry out. 

No note, not even a simple goodbye. Just…gone. Shoes, new coat and all. Jayce expected this would happen, but it feels as if a hammer has sledged itself straight through his chest –

The door creaks open, then shuts. Viktor is halfway through shuffling off his coat when he looks down, and pauses. “Oh. Are you alright?”

Jayce stares with wide eyes. “Uhh…” He looks up Viktor’s body, all the way to his skeptical eyes. “...Yes.”

Viktor hangs up his coat with increasing suspicion. “...Okay.” 

“Where uh,” Jayce clears his throat. “Where’d you go?”

“Into town. I went to see the Holdrum library.”

“Ah.” Jayce manages to get himself back on his feet. “Bit of a sad thing, isn’t it.”

“Yes. I spoke with a mother there, apparently the school children aren’t much better off. Any dream they have of a proper education lies in hopes of a transfer to Noxus or Piltover. God knows how hard that is.” They both can intimately relate. 

Jayce is still reeling at the idea of Viktor leaving the house on his own. Well, it’s not like he’s a prisoner here, he can leave whenever he wants – but to see him willing to step out in public again; he feels proud. 

“You’re practically sparkling,” Viktor deadpans. 

Jayce turns away. “Sorry.”

A gentle hand presses to his shoulder in passing. Jayce whips back around to look down at him, and his eyes glint with fleeting amusement. “I would not leave without goodbye, Jayce. You know me better.”

Jayce exhales a little too harshly. “Um. Okay, thanks.”

Viktor drifts away towards his bedroom with a short stack of books under his arm. Jayce wants to follow him like a fucking dog. 

***

Neena waves him down at the farmers market, a little yellow umbrella shading her pepper grey hair from the sun. “How’s the suit fitting, dear?” 

“Perfect,” Jayce says too quickly. A smug look crosses Neena’s face, and Jayce feels himself get hot. “It’s not – we’re not like that.”

“Right, yes. Do come by sometime next week, this coat you’re wearing is atrocious. A fine young man like you shouldn’t drown in such a drab little thing, not when your partner is walking these streets like a beautiful showpony.”

Shit. Jayce sighs. “You met him.”

“Wearing my clothes,” Neena preens. “He is such a darling. Wonderful taste, dear, just wonderful. Come see me when he’s put on enough weight, I’ll let out that waist.”

“One step at a time, Mrs. Neena.”

“Yes – speaking of, have you seen a cobbler lately? Those boots have seen better days.”

Yes. Yes they have.

***

The more Jayce looks at him, the more he finds that the long hair really does suit him. 

Those natural highlights give him a feminine contrast against the sharp slope of his jaw. His cheekbones have always been angular and model-like, and now that Viktor isn’t actively dying (as far as they know), Jayce feels a little less bad about appreciating how smooth and porcelain he is. He likes that his hands are long and shapely, likes his bushy eyebrows and his adams apple, likes that he looks like someone chucked him right in the middle of the gender spectrum and left him there.

Jayce realizes he’s been staring a minute too long, when Viktor address him without looking up. 

“Can I help you?”

No. You’re perfect as you are. 

Jayce sits in the free chair on the porch. Viktor has made himself at home on the swing, lightly rocking it with his heel as he skims through another book. 

“From the library?” Jayce asks, gesturing. Viktor shakes his head. 

“No. I found this in a bin beneath my bed. Journals, written by a young prepubescent Mel.”

Jayce’s heart nearly falls out of his ass. “She’s going to materialize out of the air and kill you, Vik! Put that back and fucking sage it before you die!”  

Viktor starts to laugh, and places a bookmark on the page. “Not diaries, journals. Her school studies. Though, some personal details were noted that I found most interesting. Her mother would send her here as punishment to alienate her from her family, urging her to grow tougher from the isolation.” 

Jayce frowns. “That’s…terrible.” It also makes a lot of sense, the state of this place. 

Viktor nods. “Any books from the town library are as you said – too elementary. Though even as a child, Mel’s studies were rather advanced. I might have some respect for her after all.”

Jayce snorts, and crosses a leg over his bad knee. “You never liked her.”

“That isn’t true.”

“C’mon. You turned into a wolf whenever she walked into a room.”

“Did I?” Viktor ponders. “Maybe it was deserved.”

Jayce’s smile drops, the more he thinks on it. “She used us. But I don’t think she meant for it to end this way.”

“Intention or not, it didn’t matter to me.” The sudden attitude draws Jayce’s attention. “Her usefulness ran as deep as her sponsorship. Unlike you.”

Ouch. 

“I don’t have feelings for her, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

“I’m not hinting at anything,” Viktor lies. The sunset has created a halo out on the tree line, and for a moment, it makes Viktor glow like the herald once did. Jayce scuffs a boot on the wood deck. Viktor coughs once. “But you did have feelings.”

Jayce wipes a tired hand down the side of his face. It stings as it pulls on his stitches. “Maybe – I don’t know, I was confused, compensating for shit. Does it really matter?”

Viktor’s index finger rubs down the worn spine of the notebook. He looks sad as he says, “Nothing matters anymore.”

That one hurts. Jayce runs his lip through his teeth, sucks on it as he tries to find the words. He used to be good at this. Politics, saying the right thing. It’s all useless around Viktor.  

“I’ve only got excuses. That I was crumbling under everyone's expectations, that there was no perfect solution to every problem. I’d never…you were the first man I ever felt…something for. I was confused.”

This earns Viktor’s attention again. “You’ve never been with a man?”

Jayce stares back. “You really find that surprising?”

Viktor turns away. “No.”

“Hm. Keep making me spill my guts, why don’t you.”

“You’ve done that all on your own,” Viktor accuses. Jayce makes a face. He supposes that’s right. 

“Then I’ll keep doing it,” Jayce says, standing. “Till you believe me.”

Viktor looks away. Jayce walks off chop firewood, and Viktor doesn’t reopen that journal. 

***

Jayce’s room is nothing special. It’s up in the loft, with vaulted ceilings and a bed just big enough that his feet don’t hang off the edge. He never expected to stay here this long, but as the weeks went by, he collected more or less things to fill the shelves with. Mostly tools, clothing, and a couple books. At least the bed is comfortable. 

The clock strikes midnight, and he nearly falls off the mattress at the sound of shouting. 

Jayce hits the ground running. Clunking down the stairs, rushing so fast through the hall that his knee nearly buckles. When he throws open the door, he finds Vik face first over a waste bin. 

“Vik!” He looks around the room, checks the windows, the ceiling, before approaching him at his bedside. “Are you okay? What happened, do you feel sick?”

“Go away,” Viktor hisses. He gags again, but nothing comes up. 

Jayce hesitates. His guts feel like a bag of rocks. “Is it…” 

“No,” Viktor snaps. Jayce lets out a relieved breath. “Just go. Please.”

“Okay.” Jayce swallows. He takes one last look at him, his bare chest, all those complicated webbings of hexcore scars running up and down his body like veins. He wants to pull back his silken hair, hold it for him as he dry heaves. Jayce shuts the door, and sits on the other side of it. 

Viktor’s muffled voice follows. “That is not leaving.” 

“Yes it is,” Jayce argues. The drop in adrenaline makes him yawn. He stifles it, and props his head back against the wall. “I dug out the termite nest under these floorboards, I deserve to sleep on it.”

Viktor doesn’t answer. Jayce lays there for a while, listening for any further distress. He hears footsteps, then rushing water as he turns on the sink in the adjoining bathroom. Jayce watches the moon float over the circular window in the hallway. When he’s half asleep and nodding off against the frame, the door suddenly yanks open, and Jayce damn near has a heart attack. 

Viktor steps over his legs. Dressed in flannel pajamas and a fresh undershirt, he plots down next to him, and joins him in stargazing through that window. The blue moonlight makes him look so damn beautiful, the guilt isn’t enough to stop him from looking at him instead. 

“I still see their faces,” Viktor says. “Every single soul I strung into the hivemind. I took their memories, their wants, their dreams, their very essence. Then snuffed it, like a flame.”

“I remember them too,” Jayce replies. Viktor tips his head in question, so he attempts to clarify without choking up. “The ones I…” He can’t do it. Viktor nods in understanding. “Maybe I don’t see them the same way you do. But I’ll always remember their faces.”

He’s not sure if this brings Viktor any amount of comfort, but they settle into a placid silence. Viktor looks small and cold sitting stiffly against the wall. Jayce wants to reach for him, to hold him. He keeps his hands between his knees. If Viktor will accept the company, then Jayce would bolt himself to this floor, if that’s what it took.

“The stars are a cold comfort,” Viktor whispers. “Even in all the vast knowledge the hexcore had to offer me, I still don’t know where souls go when they die.”

“I guess that’s what religion is for,” Jayce shrugs, bumping his skull back to the wood. “A cold comfort. A lie to keep moving forward.” 

“I hoped to be that comfort for people. But I wanted to be more than a fantasy. I truly wanted to help them.” 

“I know, baby,” Jayce says. It slips right off his tongue. He freezes into a statue, horror dropping flat in his stomach – and when Vik raises his hand, he thinks this is it, this is how it ends – but Viktor simply reaches into his lap, and takes his palm. 

It’s nothing but a gesture, but it means the world to him. Jayce takes his hand, threads their fingers together and squeezes with all his might. Skinny, cold fingers, much smaller and paler than his own, but once again a rancid heat washes through him, an affection so thick he could choke on it. 

Jayce might be a jackass, but even he knows it would be selfish to read too hard into a moment as vulnerable as this. 

***

The house smells like chicken marmalade, and Jayce cannot for the life of him figure out why the house smells like chicken marmalade. They don’t have chickens, and they don’t have marmalade, and he’s been working over a forge for eight hours, so who –

“Welcome back,” Viktor says. 

Jayce can’t believe what he’s seeing. He drops his coat, and misses the hangar entirely. It flops on the ground, but he doesn’t give a damn. Viktor is walking around the kitchen with his nose in a cookbook, muttering instructions to himself as he seasons the pot. He recognizes the sticker on the book as borrowed from the library. 

“How…” Jayce croaks. “Why?”

“I traded with the farmer down the road,” Viktor says. “His omnitractor needed fixing, and I was in need of a chicken. I have never plucked one myself, it was an enlightening experience.” 

Feeling out of place, Jayce begins to pull down dinner plates for the table. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

Viktor doesn’t pay him much attention, too involved in what he’s reading. “Sure. But you work all day, and I felt useless. I’ve never cooked before, but it’s simple instructions, cause and effect, chemistry. Easy.”

Jayce stifles a laugh. “I guess you did survive off of coffee and takeout.”

“None of which we have. I never thought I would miss the grease of Pizza Plaza.”

Jayce takes a second just to look at him. It’s a small glimpse of his Viktor, the mouthy know-it-all assistant that turned his world upside down. Total black and white to the moment they had in the hallway last night. Jayce is grateful that his scruff hides most of the flush on his face. He’s also grateful for the mask it gives him when he takes his first bite. 

“Ah,” Viktor says, staring at his plate. “It is bad.”

“Not bad,” Jayce says, then has to cough. “Just…”

“Salty,” Viktor finishes. He frowns at the slice of chicken on his fork, as if it's a particularly complex formula in front of him. “I do not understand. I followed the instructions precisely.” 

“I guess not everything is by the book,” Jayce stands. Viktor’s eyes flash up at him, and there’s a hint of disappointment there. Jayce reaches for the cabinet, and he melts into puzzlement. 

“What are you doing?”

“I should’ve listened to my mom more growing up,” Jayce says, pulling down a jar. It’s very small, and was sent along with the basket Neena gave him. “But I remembered her trick about sugar.”

“Sugar?” He sounds appalled. Jayce laughs. 

“Just trust me.”

Viktor is skeptical as Jayce sweetens the sauce. But once he tries it, his expression lightens. “Oh. You’ve used the sugar compound to reduce the detection of salt with a higher concentration of dissolved molecules. Clever.” 

“Well, sugar is non-ionic,” Jayce ponders. “But my mom just used to say when in doubt, sweeten the pot.” 

Viktor doesn’t smile, but his eyes shine with amusement. His good mood is infectious; it makes Jayce feel light on his feet, makes him forget all his aches and pains and the terrible smell of his clothes. 

“Thank you,” Jayce says. Viktor looks at him from under his lashes, hair halfway tucked behind his ear. “For cooking,” he clarifies. 

Viktor stands fluidly from the table. While he is slow-moving, Jayce notices a distinct lack of a limp. It was a trait Jayce had come to fondly associate with him, as it was also a mark of death over his shoulders, a sign of lifelong pain that (for the very same reason) Jayce couldn’t stand. He’s relieved to know, at the very least, Viktor won’t die from the sickness Zaun had given him. From something as uncontrollable as the place you were born. Jayce still has too many regrets when he thinks about his time on the council.

“I will remember the trick with the sugar,” Viktor says. “Tell Mrs. Neena thank you.”

Too quick on the uptake, that one. 

“Mmm.”

A small, quiet meal without the glitz and glamor of the capital. It’s the best he’s had in a long time. 

Viktor pulls back his hair, rolls up his sleeves, and works his dish in the sink. 

I love you, Jayce thinks. I love you, I love you. 

***

Viktor agrees to walk to town with him, on the condition of buying some new spices. 

Jayce knows what he’s doing. Someone like Vik doesn’t grow a new hobby overnight. He’s using it as a distraction, something to throw his focus into. A puzzle he can fiddle with until he solves it, then gets bored. Jayce won’t discourage him. 

It’s nice to see Vik get some sunlight. His hair glows honey-brown in the light, and he looks like a proper gentleman in his sleek, tailored clothes. Neena made Jayce a new shirt this weekend, and it fits like a glove. Comfortable, too. Not sure how she managed that, but Viktor stared at him two seconds too long this morning, so he assumes he noticed. 

“I’m going to look over there,” Viktor points. Jayce peers around the market crowd, and spots a booth selling books two stalls over. Jayce gets a little excited himself. 

“You go, I’ll catch up.”

Viktor politely makes his way across the lane. A long time has passed since he’s seen Viktor walk down a street at his full height, unassisted by a mobility device and not seething in pain. Now Jayce is the one with sores from wearing his brace too long. It’s hard to consider that anything good could have come from this, but in the end, Viktor did achieve what he first set out to do; he found a way to live.

Jayce is just putting down the last of his cash for a sack of coffee grinds, when he sees it. A silver and gold faceplate hanging on the wall of a merchant’s booth. 

“Goods from Piltover!” The man shouts. “Jewelry straight from the city of innovation!” 

Jayce’s blood runs fucking cold. That white mask stares right at him. 

These people don’t know that the face of a once-human hangs on that wall. They don’t know the man, woman or child that ascended into a higher being, turned to metal by a manmade deity. These civilians only see what shines in the sun; rare metals to be smelted down and sold as ornaments. 

Jayce spins to grab Viktor before he can see, but he’s gone. 

“Vik?” Jayce calls. He turns in every direction, growing increasingly worried. “Vik!!” 

His heart races. The crowd moves like liquid around him, children running and laughing, a blur of faces that aren’t his partner. Jayce fights his way out of the market, swimming his way to the open square. With each unanswered call of his name, the panic settles in. 

Desperation makes him run. He doesn’t know where, but something hooks in the pit of his stomach and yanks, leading him out of town and up the old dirt road. It’s like the universe is grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him forwards. This unexplainable feeling that tells him exactly where to go. 

The trail leads up the mountain. He starts to notice footprints as the terrain gets sandier. Jayce runs, gets caught by the brace, and rips it off in frustration. As he approaches the cliffside, he notices a figure standing at the very edge. He nearly sobs his name. 

“Viktor.” 

Wind blows up through his hair. Viktor’s grey gaze stares down at the violent waves below. The water smashes along the rocks so hard, it sends up a white wall of seaspray. He looks like a destructive angel. 

“I can’t live any longer, Jayce,” Viktor says. His tone is distressingly void of emotion. 

Jayce approaches slowly. 

“I know. I know.” He drops the bag he was carrying. “You stopped me from doing this, once.”

Good days, and bad days. God, he hoped today would be a good day. It’s funny that he started to have hope at all. 

Viktor doesn’t look at him. “As you did I. Are you going to stop me again?”

Jayce steps closer, a foot from the edge of the cliff. The ocean roars below.

“No. But if you jump, I’m going with you.” 

Viktor is not pleased by this answer. “I deserve to pay for what I’ve done. I should be in Piltover, kneeling on the execution block.” 

“Then as your partner, I deserve to be there with you.” 

“Stop that,” Viktor snaps. He grabs at his hair, lets out a noise of frustration. “Stop it!” 

Viktor is hurting, and it rips through Jayce like a canon. 

“We both made mistakes we can’t fix, but we were willing to die to make it right. I know you’re a good person, Vik –”

Viktor tears further into his own hair, clutching so hard it very well might pull from the root. “I have failed at being good!”

“Failure is a fucking test result!” Jayce shouts. “Not the sum of the experiment. If you stopped at failure you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

A loud wave crashes. The sun slips further away under the cover of grey, miserable clouds. 

“I already hated so many things about myself,” Viktor pants, out of breath. Like he’s psyching himself up to jump. Jayce might be able to reach him, but if he failed, they would both fall. “And then, you said my imperfections were beautiful.”

“Everything about you is fucking beautiful,” Jayce snaps. “But who gives a damn if we’re throwing our lives away.” 

“You don’t even want to live,” Viktor accuses. 

“No,” Jayce agrees. “But I didn’t find you in every reality of every universe, just to end it here.”

Viktor steps away from the edge with a shout, jerking violently, as if an invisible force has pushed him away. Jayce takes the opportunity to grab him, yanking him into his arms and hugging tight so he can’t escape. He’s shaking so hard his teeth are chattering, and it prompts Jayce to hold him even tighter. Viktor’s knees buckle, so Jayce follows. 

“I cannot control it,” Viktor sobs. “I can’t carry the weight.”

“I know,” Jayce soothes. “It’s okay, I know.”

Good days, and bad days.

***

Viktor is quiet. He shrinks back into his shell, goes through the motions. Jayce doesn’t push him. 

It’s like he’s battling with something dark within himself. A war that Viktor will have to choose to fight on his own. He wishes he could fly back into that astral plane and slay all his demons for him. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. No more manmade magic. Not for them, anyway.

Jayce catches snippets of the news when he’s in town. Piltover is recovering well from the war, and the hexgates are underway of repair. Jayce figured it was a matter of time; Piltover has all their research, all the specs and blueprints to make a hundred hexgates. The world relies too heavily on magic for economical trade. Still, Jayce wishes he had blown up that research along with himself. He doesn’t tell Viktor any of this. 

His axe cuts through a dry log. Jayce feels eyes on him from the house. He shields his face from the sun, tries to peer over to the porch, but sees nothing. 

Jayce doesn’t want to hover so badly that Vik feels like he’s on a watch list, but that doesn’t dismiss the compulsive desire to check on him every few hours. He really tries not to. He just…needs to know that he’s breathing. 

He sits on the flat stump of a tree, and rests his axe against his metal brace (found it back in the bushes yesterday). Sighing heavily, he wipes his face with the collar of his shirt. In the neighbouring tree, a robin cocks its head at him, as if it’s waiting to dig into the tree stump for worms. 

“I just want everything to be okay for once,” Jayce mumbles. The robin offers no therapeutic advice. 

He misses the industrial smell of Piltover. The sight of the city through his window, the sounds of carriages on cobble and airships flying overhead. He misses his friends, and his mother. And he can’t go back. 

He won’t go back.

“I’m not giving up on him,” Jayce tells the robin. Poor bird flies off, and Jayce takes that as a sign to stop speaking to wildlife. 

***

It’s not until he’s dressing down for bed, peeling off his dirty boots, that Viktor appears in his doorway. 

His shirt is unbuttoned, and he’s missing his waistcoat. Jayce is caught off guard; his gaze lingers too long on his body, those curves, the bones under soft skin. When he finally meets Viktor’s eyes, he’s staring at him. 

“Um,” Jayce starts. He begins to stand, “Do you need –”

“Stay,” Viktor says. “Don’t move.”

Compulsively, Jayce listens. His heart races as Viktor stalks closer, backlit by the hallway. 

“Are you okay?”

He waited days for Viktor to initiate a conversation with him, yet Jayce wasn’t ready to have it here, right now, half dressed in the warm lamplight of a bedroom that’s barely his. 

“I will be,” Viktor mumbles. His eyes are heavy, and Jayce struggles to sit still under his gaze. He steps closer, then kneels on the fur rug. Jayce nearly jumps out of his skin, prompting Viktor to snap, “Don’t move.” 

This feels strange. It has to be a dream, there’s no other explanation; but when Viktor looks up at him, his eyes are so clear and real, it stuns him into silence. 

“It seems,” Viktor says, hands creeping towards him. “I can only think clearly when I’m around you.”

His first touch sends lightning up his spine. Two hands on the outsides of his thighs – a clear indication of where this is going. Jayce starts to get light headed.

Viktor is kneeling at his feet. Looking up at him through those amber eyes, clever and articulating and everything that turns Jayce on. Realization dawns on him.

“You really, really don’t have to do this,” Jayce croaks. 

This is all out of sequence, not at all how this was supposed to go. Vik touches up the front of his thighs, skims over his belt, and finds the last button of his shirt. He works from the bottom up, one by one, clever fingers popping his shirt open with intent to touch. Jayce reaches for his wrist, and Viktor stops him with a single look. 

Don’t move. 

The last button is like a broken lock on a chain. Viktor’s fucking eyes, he never imagined he would look at him this way, so focused and hungry. One palm presses to his stomach. It caves under his fingertips. 

“Vik,” Jayce exhales. 

No response. Viktor swoops upwards, feels over his chest, and strokes along his side. Each touch carries intent. Each caress sends shivers up his spine. 

He didn’t want it to be like this. He wanted to take his time, kiss him into bed, strip him slowly, hold him in his arms and bathe in his earthy scent. 

Viktor reaches for his belt buckle. Then, he waits. 

“May I?”

He is powerless to stop him. Too shocked to believe this is really happening. He wants it so badly, like a drug he shouldn’t taste. Maybe they’re too fucked up for romance. Maybe this is the only way he can have him – on Viktor’s terms, on a random evening, of a random month they stopped counting. 

“Yeah.”

Viktor’s lashes dip as he caresses the bulge in his underwear. Of course he’s hard for him. 

Viktor looks up at him, innocent and evil, and Jayce offers no more objections. He pulls him out, sizes him up in his palm, and strokes hard and heavy. Jayce works to memorize every second of this. If it’s all he’ll ever have, then so be it. 

Vik shows no hesitation in leading him to his tongue. He’s done this before; Jayce can’t think about when, where or who. His only focus is Viktor’s warm, wet mouth, soft lips pressing a kiss to the head before he pulls him deep. A groan rips out of him involuntarily, and Viktor’s eyes snap to him like a bird of prey. Jayce has no time to be embarrassed about it. 

He flattens his tongue, closes his eyes and breathes through his nose as he bobs his head and sucks. Jayce squeezes both fists in the comforter, so he doesn’t reach for the hair falling in his pretty face. He bites his tongue, so he won’t say how beautiful he is. He tenses his thighs, so he won’t come immediately. 

The wet sounds from Vik’s mouth are especially lewd in this creaky, quiet bedroom. Each bob of his head stirs a heat in his core, each stroke of his lips a wretch in his chest. He’s shaking, torn apart by this overwhelming need to touch him. It’s almost embarrassing how badly it’s wreaking havoc on his self-control. Viktor feels him get harder in his mouth, and looks up at him again. Jayce bites on a groan, and looks away. 

Viktor uses his hand for what doesn’t fit in his mouth. Each swallow is somehow elegant, making it look so easy, even though Jayce is very aware that it isn’t. 

When Jayce twitches again, Viktor’s lashes flutter. The high points of his cheeks are pink from exerting the effort. Jayce wants to pretend it’s because of him. 

His breathing gets shorter, shallower. Viktor pulls off to take a breath too, soft hand stroking him up and down. Jayce doesn’t want to break whatever spell they’re under, but he feels the need to warn him. “I’m close.”

Viktor follows the underside of his erection, all the way down to the seam of his sac. A thumb there almost sends him over the edge. “Viktor!” He gasps. 

“You,” Viktor begins. His voice is like something out of his wettest dreams. “You are my life’s greatest temptation.”

Jayce can’t process what that means. He’s seconds away from losing his effing mind. Viktor shifts on his knees, and Jayce’s gaze tries to follow the movement, but Viktor’s free hand blocks his view. He has no idea if he’s enjoying this (who is he kidding, why would he – Jayce can’t even touch him). 

He’s embarrassed. Sitting here hard, helpless, flushed under Viktor’s critical eye. Gently, Viktor brings him back to his mouth. He gives his tip a deep, long kiss, then sucks him down with all the reverence in the world, and Jayce comes with a choked shout, biting down to save his pride. 

To his amazement, Viktor swallows through his orgasm. He doesn’t hack, gag or pull away like any of his partners before. Viktor simply closes his eyes, swallows down and rolls his tongue, like he’s savoring it. 

“Fuck,” Jayce hisses. 

Viktor pulls away slowly, like he’s reluctant to. He takes care to tuck him back in his pants, then rises to his feet. His expression is so unreadable, it’s like looking back at that silver herald’s mask. Jayce remembers what it was like to feel so far away, to feel like Viktor was unreachable. It’s a memory that turns his stomach.

“Vik,” he croaks. “Let me –”

“Thank you,” Viktor says stiffly. He turns away, crosses the room, and carefully shuts the door behind him. 

***

Jayce doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to pick up and move on like everything is okay. 

Who is he kidding, everything is not okay, and it’s been ‘not okay’ for a long ass time. Back when he would stay up all night running experiments in the lab, there would be a very distinct straw that would break the camel’s back. Jayce might as well have been whipped with the straw. 

Viktor isn’t acting strange one way or another. He greeted him over breakfast, then chose to read out on the front porch, sated with the company of the red foxes that dart in and out of their holes. Jayce feels like a big, dumb idiot. 

“To work, then?” Viktor asks. 

Jayce doesn’t know what to do with this massive hole in his chest. Viktor looks better, is acting better, but now Jayce feels like the one with cement in his shoes. Blanketed by such overwhelming self-loathing, he can’t even look him in the eye. 

He would have given him the heart out of his chest. Would love him until there was nothing left of himself. But it’s too late for that now. Viktor took the part of him that he wanted. Jayce is a fool.

“Mhm.”

“Don’t forget your mended shirt at Neenas.”

Jayce steps off the squeaky porch. 

“Yeah.”

Viktor flips a page in his book, and Jayce trudges into town. 

***

They manage some normalcy. Viktor hasn’t had any major episodes; he mastered cooking two different dishes before he got sidetracked on a book on alchemy, and holed up in his room. 

Jayce keeps busy trying to patch up the place. Half the time it feels like he’s digging out sand while someone fills it back in. The sink breaks again because his new fitting was a cheap repair on a non-existent budget; so when he goes to fix the leak that afternoon, he finds it’s already been fixed. 

“Oh, that,” Viktor says, reading the confusion on his face. “Sorry, the drip was annoying me.”

“No, it’s uh. Thanks.” Jayce scratches his head.

“I found a box with a full set of Dragon’s chess. Have you ever played?”

“Not since I was a kid.” Jayce sets aside his toolkit, and works off his gloves. “I’m going for a bath.”

Viktor snatches his wrist, and Jayce nearly jolts out of his skin. 

“Play with me,” Viktor demands. 

The heat in his gaze sends Jayce reeling. In an instant, his mind supplies him with memories of Viktor kneeled between his feet, eyes damp and lips stretched around him –

He pulls away so quickly, Viktor startles in surprise. 

“No,” Jayce snaps. 

Viktor squints. “Why?”

“You –” Jayce stops himself. “No, nevermind. Goodnight.”

Viktor grabs for him again, this time sliding up his arm in a way that’s undeniably sensual. “Are you not happy? Is this not what you want? Company and a warm bed?”

Jayce spins with fury on his heels. He rips his arm away violently, losing his filter. 

“What is wrong with you?!”

Viktor flinches. “Too much, apparently. My efforts to please you are not enough.”

“Plea–” Jayce can’t even complete the word before he sputters. “Don’t, do not do this to me, Viktor. I would do anything for you, but I won’t… God. I’m so fucking serious about you, and you’re just playing games with me.”

Viktor looks genuinely surprised. “Wait, Jayce. That’s not…”

“I’ve told you I’m in love with you.” Jayce waves his hand around. “You fucking saw it in your magical astral plane, and you think I just want some half-assed sex? Newsflash, Vik, but I don’t want anything from you. Nothing, not a damn thing. If you sat your ass on this couch for the rest of your life I’d still be happy, because I just want to be with you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“I’m broken, Jayce,” Viktor hisses. “What if this is all I can give?”

“Then keep it,” snaps Jayce. “Spare me the fucking heartbreak.”

Viktor’s mask cracks down the middle. Jayce grabs his coat, his shoes, and marches for the door. Viktor starts after him, but Jayce stops him, huffing, “I need a minute.”

The hinges rattle from the slam. 

***

The sea is a hissing mass of pitch black fury. He can see white on the waves only by the reflection of the moon. Jayce dangles his feet over the edge, and watches the stars. 

He hears footsteps approach slowly through the grass. By intuition, or a greater power of the universe, Jayce already knows who it is. He knows those footsteps, considered himself lucky to ever hear them again. 

Viktor is stiff as he settles himself next to him. Wooly coat pulled up around his ears, he tucks his hands under his arms, and follows Jayce’s gaze up to the sky. 

“I’ve put you through hell,” Viktor whispers. 

Jayce sighs. “No, you haven’t.”

“I know I’m not myself,” he says. Voice low, beneath the waves. “Though, that’s no excuse. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Why did you come to my room that night?” Jayce begs, “Please just tell me the truth so I can get over it.”

Viktor’s face twists with internalized frustration. “Since I awoke, my mind has been at war with itself. But when I’m with you, like this, I can think clearly again. It’s easier to forget…everything. I become consumed with thoughts of you – and the more I drank of it, the more I craved that peace of mind. I conducted an experiment, though I realize now how in poor taste that was. I am sorry.”

That hurt about as bad as he expected. Jayce stares at the ocean below.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Jayce,” Viktor says. He looks at him with clear, shimmery eyes. “I felt your affection in the hexcore. The force of your emotions, your love – it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It was the most brilliant, most beautiful phenomena that I most certainly do not deserve.” Jayce looks at him with newfound shock. Viktor is staring back at him; not the demons, the monsters or the ghosts under his bed, but his beloved partner. “I crave you like the air we breathe. Like a necessity to live Jayce, and that is no life for us. Me, sucking all the life force out of you, until you have nothing left. We are doomed to fate.”

Jayce moves without thinking. He reaches for his hand, takes his fingers and squeezes until their bones creak.

“There is nothing you can take from me that I wasn’t already willing to give. God, Vik, haven’t we defied fate already?”

Viktor’s mind is racing, Jayce can see it through his eyes. Dark as all hell out here, and he can still find those gold eyes like a star in the sky.

His other hand raises, and presses to the side of Jayce’s cheek. He thumbs his newest scar, that dumb flying horseshoe, but the tenderness of Viktor’s touch is what really takes his breath away.

“I love you so much it scares me,” Viktor whispers.

The world stops spinning. It’s like they’re back in the astral plane, surrounded by a galaxy of stars, nothing but limitless potential and a promise to finish this together.

“I really thought we were going to die,” Jayce mumbles. Viktor blinks, trying to follow along. Jayce cups the side of his neck, and is greeted by a pulse racing under his fingers. “I was ready to die with you. But I was scared, too. Scared of what comes next, but even more scared of losing you again.”

“I felt it too,” whispers Viktor. His eyes drift, reliving the memory. “Fear, and love. Strong enough for the arcane to deem us worthy of a new life.” Viktor palms the side of his ear, sweeps away the wavy strands stuck in his face.

“What do you want, Vik?” Badump, badump. Blood pumping beneath his fingertips. “Tell me everything that hurts, and we’ll fix it together.”

“I want…” He lets out a breath. His eyes begin to water, and suddenly, it’s as if Viktor’s emotions become his own. Like an empath, this wave of turmoil and humanity that is in a way, tragically beautiful. “I want to be with you. I want to stay here, and live one day at a time.”

“Okay,” Jayce chokes. “We can do that.”

Viktor’s hand trembles to the back of his neck, then fists with a surge of determination that flips his stomach in circles. He leans in, and Jayce is ready to meet him right in the middle, two unstoppable forces crashing together at the seam of their lips. It’s Viktor that parts his mouth, that pulls Jayce in and clings to him as if he needs him to breathe; being wanted like this, it's everything he could ever need. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, sustained by the soft, shaky sounds Vik makes against his tongue.

Jayce wraps an arm around him, pulls away from the edge of the cliff and sits Viktor straight in his lap. Viktor climbs right into his chosen seat, both hands diving for the crown of his hair. They kiss to the rhythm of the waves crashing at the bottom of the cliffs. In, and out.

His lips are chapped, his teeth are crooked and he feels like velvet against his skin, like a delicacy. He kisses are clever and articulated. A riddle for Jayce to solve against his tongue – God how he’s waited for this.

“You cruel, cruel man,” Viktor whispers. Mouth moving furiously, hands combing up his short beard. “Making me love you, then hate you, then love you again.”

“I’m sorry.”

Viktor kisses him again, teeth full of possession, and Jayce sits back and lets him do whatever the hell he wants. His hands roam wherever he can fit them; under his coat, between his ribs. His hands do meet around his middle, and when he squeezes, Viktor lets out a groan. It’s so attractive, it turns off his brain right off.

“It’s freezing cold and I can barely see you.” Viktor hisses, “Let’s go home.”

Jayce can barely stifle the joy that surges out of him at the very thought of –

Home.

***

When Jayce finally gets Viktor into his bed, he’s quick to stop him from unbuttoning his own shirt.

“Please,” Jayce begs. Viktor looks up at him in alarm, then softens when he sees the desire on his face. “Please let me. I need to do this.”

He looks genuinely surprised. Hesitantly, he parts his legs for Jayce to climb between them, then averts his eyes when Jayce takes his hands, and kisses each of them. “You don’t have to be gentle,” Viktor tells him. Jayce works his shirt open carefully, parting it over his shoulders. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“I know.” Jayce puts his mouth right center in his sternum, and Viktor shivers as he works up his collarbone. The hexcore scars are a tragic beauty, just like the rest of him. “I just want to touch you.”

Viktor’s mouth twitches in amusement. He begins to relax as Jayce sucks into his throat, even offering a pleased sound when he pets a heavy palm down his stomach. “Most men are not like you.”

Jayce doesn’t like the insinuation of that. The mental image of these losers that used Viktor for their own pleasure, then threw him away. The random oral sex suddenly makes a lot more sense; that’s what Viktor thought he wanted of him, a quick blowjob with no obligation to reciprocate.

Jayce bites into the soft flesh of his throat, and Viktor’s hips lift right off the bed. “Oh!” The claw in his hair sends goosebumps down his back. Jayce groans, and pushes Viktor’s thighs apart, one fitting neatly in each palm. Their belt buckles click obscenely together. “Fuck, Vik. You are so stunning.”

“It unsettles me that you genuinely mean that,” Viktor mutters. He pets back his hair, humming pleasantly as Jayce grinds them together. Jayce wants to punch him. He sits up, stares him down. Those mousey locks fanned around him, bright eyes and long, dark lashes.

“How can you say that?”

“Before my sickness wasn’t so severe that I could no longer kneel, the boys in the dorms would say similar things. To get what they wanted, sure, and I was young and gay and starved for affection, so I enjoyed it. But the pleasantries stopped as my condition worsened, and that’s how I knew I was running out of time.”

Jayce plucks his hands out of his hair. Viktor watches hesitantly as he takes both palms, and holds them.

“Viktor. I’m saying this because I love you. Please shut the fuck up.”

Viktor barks a laugh so sudden, it shakes the bed.

“Sorry.”

Jayce dives in, pins his wrists to the bed and kisses him. His lips, his chin, that mole beneath his nose.

“I have had some atrocious dreams about you –”

“Oh really?”

“— up against walls and all manners of furniture –”

“That sounds promising.”

“I want you so damn bad,” Jayce hisses. “So no more of – that.”

Viktor looks up at him with an overwhelming amount of affection. He gestures for Jayce to return to him, so when he does, their kisses are slower, more purposeful. “You can have me,” Vik says. Jayce takes that to heart.

He discards their belts, pulls Viktor out of his pants, and is only reminded about his own clothes when Vik starts to pitch a fit about it. He needs to touch him, and with Vik sprawled out in his bed like this, everything else is a variable he needs to discard immediately. Jayce strokes his hands up long thighs, dipping into soft hips and a narrow waist. His cock is hard and pretty, and Jayce strokes that too, totally delighted by the way Viktor squirms in his arms.

He remembers the runes that once littered Viktor’s skin. A desperate attempt carved into his own flesh – now gone, taken by the arcane as if it was a worthy sacrifice. Jayce pets up into his creamy inner thighs, and begs,

“Tell me what to do.”

Viktor lets out a breath, and gestures over at the side table. Jayce takes a second too long to understand why – Viktor snatched oil from the kitchen on their way through the house. As Jayce momentarily self-destructs, Viktor reads the helpless look on his face and laughs. He leans over, grabs the bottle and settles himself back in the pillows. “I can do it. Just give me a moment.”

Jayce wakes up. “No, no no no, no. Let me, please.”

Vik’s skepticism is legitimate, but Jayce won’t rob himself of this chance. He did this with a girl back at the academy, it can’t be that different. 

But oh, as he slicks his fingers, rubs up against his entrance and sinks a finger inside, he realizes he couldn’t be any more wrong. It is so, so different, the way Viktor’s body clenches and relaxes, arching, gasping, eyes flying up to the ceiling as he presses a hand to his own navel, as if trying to direct Jayce where to go from the outside. He tells him deeper, lower, harder, and Jayce listens, stroking in and out until he accidentally presses into something that makes Vik seize. 

Hands grab at his forearms with a surprising amount of strength. Jayce pauses in silent shock while Viktor shudders, gasping out a whimper that sets his entire world on fire. 

“Sorry,” Viktor blurts. “This body, albeit mine, is still genetically new.” A roundabout way of saying he’s extra sensitive. Jayce is going to die. 

“Fuck.” He waits until Viktor tells him to keep going. When he works in two fingers, Viktor groans at the same time he does. He’s just so – “Fuuck.”  It’s not a matter of stretching him physically, but relaxing his body for what’s soon to follow, and the more Jayce touches him, the more Viktor melts in his arms. Autopilot takes over; he hitches one leg into the crook of his arm, folds him up so he can plant a hand in the pillows and kiss him while he works him open. The angle has Vik shaking again, sucking in air rather than kissing back, but Jayce doesn’t care. 

“You,” Viktor croaks. His cheek rubs up against his stubble, one heel caught in the back of his thigh. “You touch me like you would a woman.” 

Jayce pulls away from his throat, slowing the vigorous pace of his fingers. “Shit.” 

Viktor smiles at him, slipping down to hold one of his wrists. “It’s hot, Jayce.” With a little prodding, Jayce sits back and pulls out. “Hurry up, before I do it myself.” 

Oh, oh oh. 

Jayce had almost forgotten about that part. Viktor starts to pet beneath his smallclothes, and Jayce is so embarrassingly hard, he pulls his hand away before he can make a real fool of himself. 

He grabs more oil, yanks Vik a little closer. Viktor takes a pillow with him, propping himself up like he’s going to watch. Jayce feels hot under his gaze, slicking himself slower than necessary so he can get a grip. Viktor shifts lower into his lap, eyes carving across every inch of Jayce’s naked body. He sighs contently. 

“You are just gorgeous.”

“Shhhh.” Jayce starts to push in, eyes squeezing shut at the wicked heat of his body. “I’m trying to focus.”

“You do many things, when you focus.” Viktor makes a hiccupped sound as Jayce enters him, his voice going thin, “I remember those long nights together. Humming to yourself, clicking your pencil, chewing your nails –”

“Vik–!” 

“I loved them all,” Viktor sighs. Nimble hands scope up his forearms, squeezing into his biceps as Jayce allows him a moment to adjust. “All the parts of you, even the pieces that drove me insane – oh god, Jayce, you are big.”

The world is spinning. Viktor is small and tight and really fucking good at this; every word spoken in that silken accent is a dagger in his self control. Jayce still worries.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Viktor moans. “Move.”

He immediately obeys. Jayce puts all his concentration into filling Viktor’s every need, because if he doesn’t, he might crawl inside him and never come out again. He’s soft and tight and perfect, every sound, every tremor. This is his best friend, his partner, his everything. The emotion threatens to swallow him whole. 

“You’re so good,” Viktor sighs. Holding his face, his shoulders. His nails are sharp, and they cut thin indents into his skin. “Harder please, ah – Jayce please.” 

He gives it to him harder. Skin slapping skin, the old headboard smacking against the wall. Jayce has to hide his face in his shoulder to keep himself from floating away, and Vik cradles him in his arms like he’s something precious. 

“God, you feel amazing.” Jayce begs, “Don’t let me hurt you,”

“I won’t break.” Viktor holds him, arches into him, has enough strength to clamp down around him and pull him in. “You keep me strong, Jayce. You undo me, and you put me back together. Give me all your strength.”

Maybe gentle is for another time. The harder he goes, the louder Viktor gets – and they both start to forget themselves. The script of whatever he was supposed to say, the plot to follow, the recipe written by fate. It doesn’t matter anymore. 

He touches him, kisses him, and Viktor finally comes undone – not a moment too soon, just enough for Jayce to really see his face, to tell him how beautiful he is, how much he loves him. He sinks into the wet heat of his body, feels him arch and squeeze around him, and follows over the edge. Viktor stops him from pulling out, yanks a hand so hard at the base of his hair that it sends aftershocks down his spine like a livewire.

A moment across infinity, timeless in the making. 

***

Neither of them have any interest in lying in the wet spot, so they wrap a blanket over their shoulders and perch in the reading chair by the window. Viktor feels perfect in his lap, like he was always meant to be right here, arms wrapped around his neck as he dozes comfortably, dry and soft and warm. 

“You smell good,” Viktor mumbles. 

Jayce squeezes him even closer, a feat barely possible with their human flesh. For an infinite moment, they melded together in that astral plane – and as terrifying as it was (and as wrong as it is to say) Jayce still finds himself chasing that feeling of one fused being. He inhales deeply. 

“So do you.”

Viktor smiles against his shoulder. He’s playing with a strand of hair that curls at the nape of Jayce’s neck. “That is not what you used to say.”

“After a week straight in the lab, no,” Jayce teases.

“Do you remember when we first started working on the hextech teleportation prototype?”

Jayce laughs, rolling his head back against the cushion of the chair. He stares at the ceiling as he relives the memory. “Oh yeah, Zed-Beta-Eleven. About brained myself when that anchor node destabilized off the flux modulator.”

“The cinch popped you straight in the forehead,” Viktor nods.

“I just remember waking up to that worried expression on your face.” As he attempts to imitate it, Viktor limply slaps along his cheek. 

He laughs. “The first thing you said was ‘your hair smells nice’. Like it was a surprise.”

“Look, we were working long hours,” Jayce chuckles. “I’m amazed we didn’t pass out from our own fumes.” Viktor leans up to get a look at him, and Jayce finds himself straightening, hoping he passes inspection. 

Viktor’s eyes turn hazy as he settles on the hextech scars webbed over his forehead. He puts his fingers there, then gently sweeps down the side of his cheek. Jayce begins to worry about his shift in mood, but when Viktor speaks, it sounds reverent. 

“I wanted you so badly back then. But in the way someone envies for the impossible. Like yearning for a prince in a fairy tale. You were something I simply couldn’t have, and I accepted it.”

Jayce frowns. He wishes they hadn’t wasted so much time, that they could’ve been together all along – but even he isn’t that naive. Jayce sweeps his hands up Viktor’s naked back, feeling the wiry muscle that curves along his spine. Viktor inhales, and it fills his palms. 

“I wasn’t good for you. Trying to balance so much bullshit at once, I just would’ve made things worse.” The blanket slips off of Viktor’s right shoulder, and Jayce fixes it for him, pulling him back into their cocoon. “But life’s made time for us now. Kind of ironic, isn’t it.”

“Yes,” Viktor ponders. He looks at Jayce’s scar, then over his eyebrows, down his nose, and lingers on his mouth. “But for the record, I would still want you even if you were bad for me.”

Jayce kisses him, wrapping him close again as Viktor flattens their bodies together. The fireplace crackles, the metal groaning from the expansion of heat. It’s all down to a science; dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and serotonin. But there’s no chemical to describe the way Viktor’s mouth tastes like home. 

***

This new way of life suits them. 

At first, Jayce felt out of sorts; a city boy trying to play house, fumbling through this idea of being on the run, no plans for the future, living day to day, life turned upside down. 

Now, it’s not so bad. He’s good at blacksmithing; hard, solitary work that lets him daydream of new projects all day until he gets home and remembers to scribble his notes down. Sometimes the porch is swept clean, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there’s dinner, sometimes there’s not. But Jayce is always excited to see Vik sitting on the couch sleeping or reading or writing or living; just Viktor, ready to open his arms and greet him. 

“I made adjustments to your brace,” Viktor says, kissing him. “You forgot it today.”

“Yeah, the –”

“Suspension broke, yes. Are you in pain?”

“It’s not bad.” Jayce tries for another kiss, but Viktor is more interested in fitting the brace on him. He kneels, using a screwdriver to improve the fit. He’s moving around better than usual today. He wonders if the illness of the hexcore is a temporary thing. He sure hopes it is. Vik deserves to feel good. To be happy. 

“Is it good?” Viktor asks. Jayce looks at the couch, at all the open notebooks scribbled with sketches. Some are ideas Jayce has entertained over meals. Some are studies of his own health. Jayce smiles.

“It’s good.” He bends his knee for show, then helps Viktor back to his feet with a hand under his arm. He finally gets his second kiss, and this time Vik is more attentive, parting his lips and tangling a hand up into the damp strands at the back of his neck. He hums, and it purrs through him. Jayce kisses over his mole. “Hey baby.”

“Hm?”

“How about I shower, you put on a coat, and we go out somewhere.”

Vik tenses. “Into town?”

He hasn’t been out much since the incident. Jayce catches his hand in his hair, and brings it around to kiss his knuckles. Dark lashes flutter under the attention. 

“Yes. Call it a date.”

Viktor clicks his tongue in distaste, but his face betrays him. The flush is adorable. 

“You do not need to seduce me.”

“Yes I do,” Jayce grins. He smacks him on the side of the butt, and Vik yelps. “C’mon. Just a little fun.”

Vik looks skeptical. After some more gentle prodding, he eventually marches upstairs. 

The spare bedroom still houses Viktor’s stuff, but they sleep together in the loft. It’s warmer that way (and those nights spent hunched over their research are long behind them). 

Jayce showers quickly, too impatient to let the water get hot before he scrubs off the dirt and dries his hair with a towel. He puts on his good clothes, and he knows they’re his good clothes, because when he steps back downstairs, Viktor stares down the front of his body like he’s deciding if he wants to buy them right off the rack. 

“Ready?” Jayce asks, shrugging on a coat. 

Viktor runs a hand down his chest, his pointer finger stopping one the stretched fabric right between his pecs. “Neena is a perverted old woman.”

“How dare you?”

“She knows what she is doing,” Vik squints. He pulls Jayce’s coat together, and zips it up for him. “This date better be worth it.”

“Sheesh, no pressure.” Jayce snatches his hand, and forces him to hold it back by threading their fingers. Vik stares flatly, and Jayce grins at him. “C’mon, before it gets cold.”

They walk the dirt road into town. Jayce waves to a couple familiar faces, and when they’re greeted kindly, Viktor starts to come out of his shell a little. Jayce leads them to the barn doors of the local pub, and Vik bristles in protest. 

“Really, Jayce?”

“We haven’t shared a drink in forever,” Jayce whines. “Please? Live music and a scotch won’t kill you.”

Viktor sighs, relenting to follow. “I suppose the opera is getting old.”

A guitarist is singing at the open mic. The bar is half full, yet cheery with social chatter. Jayce pulls out a chair, waves at the bartender for a round, then sits in his own chair once Viktor has made himself comfortable. The hanging lanterns and the red jukebox reminds him of that little dive in Zaun. He was an outcast there, but he wonders what it’s like now. 

Viktor glows pretty under the neon lights. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself; fiddling with his nails, tracing the grooves in the table. The bartender brings their drinks, and he pets the rim of his glass with astute focus. Jayce is just so in love with him. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m super in love with you.”

Viktor’s expression cracks. His mouth twitches with amusement, and he finally takes his first sip. 

“I guess I walked into that one.”

“Why, reading my mind again?” Jayce regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. Whyyy did he have to bring that up –

“Not anymore,” Viktor teases. “Though it’s not that difficult.”

Thank God. Jayce suppresses a grateful sigh. 

“Tell me about what you were drawing.”

“Ah, just passing the time. I began taking notes of the anomalies in my own body – seeing that we have little research on organic material created by the hexcore. For all we know, this flesh could be entirely synthetic.” Viktor looks at the front of his hand, then the back. 

Jayce hums. “You remember what it’s like to be made of metal. I think you’d know. B’sides, you felt pretty real last ni–” 

“SHUT up.”

He smothers a laugh in his cough. Viktor always got like this, when they stepped out in the spotlight. The charismatic, flirtatious, arrant scientist that would sink into the floor and make himself so small that people would look him right over. They’re a little like oil and water that way. It was also a symbiotic relationship – because whenever Jayce needed out of a social setting, Viktor could whisk him away like a ghost. Unseen, no trace but the feint hobble of his cane. 

Jayce won’t allow him to slip away this time. “I saw some structural sketches lying on the couch.”

“Oh,” Viktor blinks, coming to life. “I was experimenting with designs for a fortified sea wall. I noticed how poorly the current break is – a few bad storms, and half this coast will flood.”

Jayce grins, “You noticed that too.”

“Duh. Structural engineering was drilled into me by –”

“Mrs. Sorsburry,” Jayce nods. “That class –”

“Was miserable.”

“Terrible.”

“Yet strangely enlightening.”

“Show me your blueprints when we get back,” Jayce says, sitting back. “I met the Mayor’s daughter the other day, she had a long laundry list of shit to complain about, but I think it’s because she cares. Maybe I’ll ask her what she thinks of the sea wall.”

Viktor stares at him. Jayce catches himself on the back two legs of his chair and goes: huh? 

“What are we doing, Jayce?” Viktor whispers. 

Thirty-two years old, sitting in a bar, dreaming of how to make the world a better place.

Jayce purses his lips together, then finishes off his drink, and shrugs. “What we were made to do, I guess.”

Viktor seems to consider this. By the second drink, he doesn’t look so grumpy, and even allows Jayce to rest his leg against his knee in the saddest excuse of PDA. Jayce is happy anyways. 

It’s not overly romantic, but it’s a step in the right direction. 

***

An hour into the evening, Jayce gets caught in conversation with one of the local farmers he shoes horses for. Viktor goes up to the bar to get more drinks, and when too much time passes, Jayce looks over to see him speaking with a woman at the bar. Jayce tenses for all of three seconds, before he realizes she’s here with her husband, and the conversation is friendly. 

“Well, the missus will be lookin’ for me,” Nix says, patting his shoulder. “Catcha Thursday.”

“Sure, but don’t let Sunday throw any more shoes,” Jayce teases. With good timing, as Nix walks off, Viktor returns to the table with two drinks in hand. “Thanks,” Jayce says, taking a fat sip. 

“I think,” Vik says, sitting. “I might have a new job.”

Jayce chokes. 

“Wh-what?”

“A teaching position opened up at the school,” Viktor mumbles, stirring his glass. Long, pretty fingers to match the rest of him. 

“Babe, I mean – that’s awesome, but you hate kids.”

Viktor snorts a laugh, shaking his head. “Teenagers, not children. But thank you for remembering.”

“Oh. Do you think you’ll take it?”

“I don’t…” Viktor pauses. His eyes go hazy, focusing on nothing at all; the expression he gets when he’s shrinking back into himself. “I don’t know. I’m not…” He takes a moment to find the right word.

“Ready?”

“Mentally stable.”

“Ah. But is anyone?” Jayce shrugs. Viktor shoots him a look, and Jayce dares to stare back. “Look, do what you want to do, work, don’t work, I don’t care. But you are capable, Vik. I know you don’t agree with me, but you deserve happiness.”

Viktor’s eyes grow big. He looks around the bar as if he’s searching desperately for something (maybe an escape route). He must find what he’s looking for, because he grabs Jayce by the front of his shirt, and yanks him over the table for a kiss so sudden, it knocks their teeth together. 

Jayce laughs before he gets with the program. They kiss twice, three times, until Jayce settles Vik back in his seat. 

“You’d be a hot teacher,” says Jayce. 

“You are stupid,” Viktor tells him. “A downright fool.”

The door to the bar swings open. Three men in Enforcer uniforms stalk inside with Piltover weapons tucked under their arms, and Jayce freezes in place. 

“You, barkeep – we are looking for these wanted men,” an enforcer says to the bartender, lifting a poster. 

Vik kicks him under the table. 

“Shit,” Jayce whispers. “We need to –”

“There!” The tall one points. “You two, freeze!” 

The live music stops as Jayce yanks Viktor behind him. He has all of three seconds to raise his fists, before they come grabbing for him. 

He pops one in the eye, knocks the goggles right off his face. Another swings back and punches him in the jaw, and the third goes to restrain his arms. 

“No!” Viktor shouts. “It’s me, take me –”

“Don’t touch him!” Jayce hisses. He shakes off the enforcer holding his arm, and uses that freed hand to grab the back of his hair, and smash his face into the bar table. One down, two to go – until he gets kicked in the back of his bad knee, and is thrown over that same table, now covered in blood. 

“You are under arrest,” the enforcer sneers. “Algo, get the scientist.”

Jayce spits at their feet, “Fuck! Vik, run –” Jayce coughs as he’s kneed in the ribs. Punched in the back of the head, both arms yanked behind his back –

The enforcer is ripped off him. Then, to his shock, thrown across the room, and choked up against the support beam by Viktor’s hand. 

Viktor is glowing with fury. No, literally – glowing out of those hexcore scars, eyes ablaze with stinging light. 

“Leave him alone!” Viktor snarls. The enforcer gargles and chokes. 

Jayce is forced to shake off his surprise due to more pressing matters, but he will most certainly be putting a pin in this. He finally grabs the last enforcer by the arm and bends it around his back, subduing him with another arm around his throat. 

“Take your men and leave, and we’ll let you live,” Jayce hisses. He would let them live anyways, but the threat is enough to startle the Enforcer into nodding shakily.

Viktor drops the other man to the floor. The glow subsides, but his fury remains. “Tell whoever sent you, the men on your little poster are dead.”

“Yes, yes sir.”

They pick up their friend with the smashed nose, and scramble out of the bar. Jayce catches his breath, and as silence settles, Viktor looks at his own hands in shock. The entire bar has frozen over, all eyes on them. The door chimes as it shuts. 

“Shit,” Jayce mutters. He picks up the chairs off the floor, and sets them right. “Uhh, sorry about that, sir.”

The bartender stares, narrows his eyes, then shrugs. “I didn’t see nuthin’. Did y’all see nuthin’?”

The bar patrons turn back around, nursing their drinks again. “Nope.”

“Nuh huh.”

“Really?” Viktor croaks. Jayce is about to give him a serious lecture about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but the scruffy bartender just laughs. 

“Anyone on the run from enforcers is good in my book. Can’t stand those righteous pricks.”

Ah. Jayce coughs awkwardly. Viktor looks like he’s having an out of body experience, so as the music picks up again, Jayce waves, “I’ll take my tab, please.”

***

Jayce hangs up both their coats, and Viktor sits stiffly on the edge of the couch. One by one he flicks the hanging lights on the farmhouse, and one by one Viktor becomes illuminated in grief. 

“I struggled to lift the cast iron pot this morning, and yet I picked that man off the ground like he was nothing. How is this possible? The hexcore was destroyed.”

“Maybe it isn’t the hexcore,” Jayce offers. “Or maybe, a piece of it is still stuck with you. Could be the reason you’re alive.”

Viktor wipes his hands over his face, and exhales. “Whatever it was, it depleted all my energy reserves.” Yeah, Jayce practically carried him home. “Though, I can confidently say I’ve felt worse.” As Jayce takes a seat, Viktor subtly shifts closer. 

“Thank you,” Jayce says. “For saving me.” The sight of him pinning that man against that post will stick in his mind for the rest of his days. 

Viktor looks at him, and flinches. “Not all of you.” He touches his jaw, and Jayce cringes at the sting. “This handsome face always gets the worst of it.” He sweeps his thumb under his eye, and furrows his eyebrows in thought. “Do you think Medarda sent them?”

“No. They weren’t wearing their badges, they were sent by someone paying them under the table.” 

“Hmm. Maybe a suspicious counsellor.”  

Jayce rubs under his chin. “If I could get a letter back to Caitlyn, I might be able to warn her. Though I’m not so sure if she’d come hunting me down next.”

“She wouldn’t,” Viktor affirms. 

Jayce takes his turn checking Vik for injuries. His only hurts are self-inflicted, though he still leans into Jayce’s palm when he cups his cheek. A sudden swell of pride curls inside him. Today, Viktor fought to live. 

“I’ll be ready next time,” Jayce says. 

Viktor huffs, defiant once more. “They will not take you from me so easily.” 

Jayce swoons into him, then scoops him up and falls back on the couch. Viktor pinches and pokes him, but ultimately allows a kiss. 

***

“Well,” Viktor mutters. Flat on Jayce’s bare chest, firelight glowing up the sharp valley of his cheek. “That wasn’t the worst date I’ve been on.”

“Ohh, do tell.”

“Blind date, orchestrated by Heimerdinger of all people. He meant well, but for all his extraordinary intelligence, could never get the hint that I didn’t like women.”

Jayce laughs until his sides hurt. 

***

They lie low for a few days, just in case the Enforcers decide to come back. When quiet days turn to quiet weeks, Viktor goes into town and takes that job.

On good days, Jayce finds him and meets up for lunch. They sit out on the seawall and watch the fog roll in, playing Dragon’s chess until the timer on his pocket watch begins to rattle. On those good days, Viktor walks around on air; less sore limping, and more excited babbling, taping notebook pages to the kitchen walls and sitting on the counter when Jayce is too tempted to kiss him. 

On bad days, Jayce loves him just as much. 

The amount of magic left in Vik’s body is a mystery, but the demons that haunt him are not. When the depressive weight is especially heavy, he finds him standing in the kitchen, eyes lost in their haze, fingers stuck to the edge of the counter, clinging to it as if it’s his old crutch under his arm. 

Jayce carefully sets down his bag, and removes his gloves first. 

“Hey.”

Viktor replies without looking at him. “Where were you?”

Jayce told him before he left, whispered in his ear as he slept. “The Neilroys needed help with a broken water heater. They gave me some veggies off the farm.” 

When Vik looks at him, it’s icy cold. “Are you busy now?”

Jayce approaches him slowly, watching his face as he carefully plucks his hand off the counter. “What do you need, baby?”

The physical touch makes Viktor flinch, but he doesn’t pull away. He presses closer, fisting that same hand in the front of Jayce’s shirt. His eyes are so devoid of color, he’s nowhere near home. He yanks roughly, and Jayce goes okay, okay, I’ve got you. 

They stand face to face in the shower. Jayce, with his back to the spray, carefully keeping his hands away as Viktor takes what he needs. He looks at him over and over, traces the muscles from the top of his neck, down his shoulders, his biceps, his elbows, his wrists. Touches over his chest, mutters the name of every bone and organ inside, as if he’s checking they’re all still there. Jayce allows it for as long as Viktor wants. 

Water drips off the ends of their hair. Viktor holds at his waist, puzzles the muscles in his face, and mutters something intelligible. His eyes are moving quicker, so Jayce tries to nudge him again.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Vik.”

A hand presses flat to his stomach. Then experimentally, lower – though there’s no sexual intent, Jayce is hard for him naturally. Jayce wants so badly to touch him back, just to hold him in his arms, but he hasn’t passed Viktor’s inspection quite yet. 

“I woke up,” Viktor says. “And you were gone.”

A phenomenon that has happened many times by now. But this morning, of all mornings, flipped that switch in his brain. 

“I’m sorry.” Jayce exhales as he squeezes him once, then pets back up his navel, scraping his nails beneath his belly button. Jayce presses a hand against the tile to steady himself, and Viktor’s eyes flash up at him. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”

Finally, Viktor’s expression cracks. He tips his head, twitches his fingers against Jayce’s hot skin, and that’s his permission to finally touch. Jayce grabs him, yanks him close and breathes against the top of his skull, and Viktor finally sinks into him, letting it all go. 

“Sorry,” Viktor whispers. Face first in his chest, nails sweeping up his back. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Viktor looks up at him, and his eyes are swirly with different colors, like he’s fighting the urge to crawl back in that dark place again. He holds Jayce by his cheeks, then goes to sink to his knees – but Jayce catches him in a panic. 

“No, no no – you don’t have to do that, baby. Not with me.”

“It’s not for you,” Viktor huffs, shutting him up effectively. There is an undulation to his voice that sounds sassy and familiar enough to put Jayce at ease. “I need it, please, please Jayce –”

Shit, fuck, “Okay. Okay. Take what you want.”

When Viktor looks up again, his eyes are on fire. Practically vibrating with a heated desire that rushes through him (and nearly burns him on the way out). 

Viktor caresses him, kisses him, swallows him. Jayce digs his nails into the grout of the tile and tells him every dumb thought that runs across the front of his mind. How perfect he is, how beautiful, how much he needs him, wants him –

– and when they’re warm and dry, wasting away the rest of their precious daylight in the protective cradle of his bed, Vik clings to his back and breathes against the nape of his hair, exhaling a grateful, “Thank you.”

***

Viktor walks with him at the farmers market, one arm looped around his elbow, sweet and handsome with his hair pulled back and new shoes on his feet.

“Fresh bread!”

“Jewelry from Piltover!” 

“Weapons from Noxus! Best in Runeterra!” 

“Oh, look,” Viktor points. “That secondhand store is selling old vinyl.”

“Oh my god,” Jayce laughs. “They have Considered Lizards.”

“I have not heard of them.”

“Their best album is Dayview, hold on, I’m buying this.”

Viktor raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Is this not a misuse of our limited budget?”

“I’m considering this a necessity.”

“Mr. Jay! Mr. Vector!” 

They both turn at the sound of their terrible codenames. Neena waves from her market booth, ushering them from over the crowd. Jayce quickly finishes up with the pawnsman, while Viktor drifts over to greet her. 

“Hello Mrs. Neena, Mr. Perci.”

Perci tuts, puffing around a fat cigar. “Haven’t gotten in any more trouble, have you?”

Viktor rubs under his nose. “Ah, no sir.”

Neena lifts a bag, “I have your trousers, darling. Just finished letting out the waist, should fit quite nice. Also threw in a belt, don’t ask how I got it.”

Viktor takes the bag with a grateful nod, “Thank you. I appreciate this.”

“The weather’s getting warmer,” Neena beams. “We ought to fit you two in something lighter, I just got some summer stock shipped in from Demacia.”

“You’re just trying to squeeze every last dime out of us,” Jayce approaches, grinning. 

“It’s not every day I get to dress such beautiful dolls,” Neena teases. Viktor shifts awkwardly under the compliment, but Jayce throws an arm around his shoulders to keep him close.

“Flattery and coercion. You’d make a good politician.”

A sparkle glints in her eye. “And you’d know?” Jayce has about three seconds to panic, before she laughs it off. “Keep your head low, boys. Or don’t, this town eats drama for breakfast. You’d be surprised how quickly rumor spread that you two were off the market. Oh, the ladies at the salon were in mourning, I told them, didn’t I tell them, Perci?”

“Hm? Whatever.”

Viktor is wearing that expression he gets when he wants to teleport out of a social situation, so Jayce takes over with a warm smile. “Thanks, Neena. You’re the best.”

“Yes,” Vik adds. “Thank you for the – yes.”

She waves them off, then pats her husband to do the same. Viktor sticks a little closer to his side until they get further out of the crowd.

“I need a bigger stick,” Viktor mumbles. “Used to have my cane, crutch was satisfactory, but I don’t have a need…”

Jayce leans down to try and hear him better. “What now?”

“A stick,” Viktor explains, deadpan. “To beat the women off of you.”

Jayce digs his knuckles into the top of his skull, and Viktor honest to god smiles. Their bags go swish swish all the way home.

***

Jayce wakes up with death between his fingertips, sweat stuck to the back of his hair, and Viktor’s worried face staring down at him.

He jolts from the sudden shift in environment, and Viktor leans in closer, studying his face. “Jayce, you were calling my name.” As Jayce struggles to find his grounding out of the nightmare, Viktor further comforts him. “You’re alright, love. Breathe. It’s two-fifteen in the morning and we’re two miles outside Holdrum.”

Right, that’s right. It’s their bedroom, their vaulted ceiling, their blanket that smells like them. The hand against his cheek is Viktor’s. There’s no war here, no explosions, no cavernous walls caving in all around him. He opens his eyes to make sure Viktor is really alive.

“Sorry,” Jayce mutters. The adrenaline makes him a little shaky. “I woke you up?”

Viktor doesn’t answer that. He sweeps Jayce’s bangs from his face, pets down his beard and over his eyebrows. It’s tender.

“What haunts you more?” Viktor asks. “The past, or the unknown?”

Jayce attempts to get his breathing under control. Vik continues those long, sweeping strokes across his face.

“Both,” Jayce decides. “But without either of ‘em, I’d never have you.”

With the curtains half open, Viktor is surrounded by all the infinite stars in the night sky. Like they’re once again floating together in that astral plane, ready to die in each other’s arms. Viktor looks over every square inch of his face; his eyes molten amber, warm and inviting, alight with unfiltered fondness. They have no scientific explanation for Viktor’s powers, nor an understanding why they appear at random, but Jayce is prepared to spend the rest of his life looking for answers. If it means Viktor will stay in his arms like this, count him in.

Jayce brings a hand up under the covers, and blindly finds the dip of his waist (the spot that fits his hand just right).

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Viktor’s mouth twitches.

“I’m just in love with you.”

Jayce isn’t awake enough to hide his impulses. He filters a hand up through the curtain of his hair, sweeping it over one side of his neck, so he can cup along his skin and pull him close. Viktor falls right into his mouth, giving him a kiss that blows his world apart at the seams. 

Literally. 

Their hair bleeds white, infecting up the strands and into their skin. All at once, Jayce can feel the entire force of Viktor’s affection – and likewise – creating a continuous feedback loop that turns him upside down. Love in a klein bottle, inside and out and over again, endless and infinite, beginning where it ends, connecting their consciousness inexplicably. 

The stars become them. Jayce tries to breathe, but there’s no air. Falling into panic, he desperately reaches for Viktor. Eyes peer down at him, glowing gold against the eternal night sky – and when Jayce tries to speak, Viktor caresses his face with a tenderness akin to sadness. 

“Not yet,” he whispers. “Go back to sleep, Jayce.”

He wakes to sunlight in the farmhouse window. 

FIN