Chapter Text
Viktor claws into the earth, fingernails raw and digging into the wet sand and stone as blood fills his body. Drawing first breath is an overwhelming, blinding sensation. Salty air blooms in his lungs, brushing against his bare skin, raw and burning against the sand and salt.
As far as resurrections go, it’s not his favorite. Gentle waves roll over him but the tide is neither cooling nor forgiving, it licks at his skin like the blade of a knife, and the grit of the sand against his bare flank burns like open flame. Nakedness seems to remain an unfortunate mainstay of birth.
The warm arm clinging to him burns like hot iron, singing his flesh. “Viktor?”
Jayce winces and attempts to uproot himself from the ground, face contorting the way it often would when he was particularly hungover. “We’re alive?”
It’s not a question meant to be answered. Jayce was there when Viktor built them new bodies, ripped through the universe to hold them to the mortal plane and sewed new flesh out of the dirt and stardust.
Viktor thought he had been ready to die.
Floating together in the absentia, a spinning, fluid mix of mind and soul free from their atomic bonds, stretched out to the far reaches of the universe and skipping between realms like stones across water in a mess of never ending entropy running back on itself, no beginning, no end. The delineation between their beings abandoned with the shedding of their mortal skin. They were everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing.
And Viktor thought he had been ready.
Clinging to Jayce as the world collapsed around them he’d more than deserved it, had long stopped fearing it. But here they lay: a living testament to Viktor’s unwillingness to go quietly into the night, again. He’d like to say he did it for Jayce but if that were true Jayce would be back in Piltover celebrating a victory, not washed up naked on an unknown beach like a piece of driftwood.
Viktor studies him as Jayce repeats himself: we’re alive, with awe instead of questioning, elation slipping out before twisting into concern, brows knit together in confusion. “Fuck… um-“ Jayce stagnates, as though he isn’t quite sure what the next step is when one finds themselves naked and lying in the surf. The beach is wide and empty in all directions: rough terrain and rock spotting the coast line, dense forest closing them in on the other side. Not at all like Piltover’s harbor.
He tries again. “Where are we?”
It’s an equally useless question. Because beyond the obvious beach element to their awakening, Viktor hasn’t got any more of an idea than Jayce.
It is perhaps a good thing: that concerns about their immediate survival take precedence. It distracts Viktor from thinking about everything he’s done, how he’s damned both of them to this empty world, how underneath it all he’s still furious with Jayce, how it really isn’t fair that they’re both naked right now.
His leg has reverted back to its original state. He really should have thought about that when he was knitting his body back together, but in the moment he had reached for the familiarity of his old shell. As always, it’s a nuisance.
Jayce scouts ahead, stumbling up to where the tree line begins, shouting vaguely for anyone else who might hear them.
Viktor does his part by lying in the sand and trying his best to dissolve back into it.
“Vik! Hey Vik-“ Jayce comes bounding back and he’s still so painfully naked. Not that Viktor expected any different but it diverts attention as he tries desperately not to stare at his partner’s dick. “There's an abandoned- well what I’m hoping is abandoned- cabin just through the trees, guess we can thank your good aim.” The reminder that Viktor is the one who put them here settles like curdled milk in the pit of his stomach. Still, it’s nice to know that there are other people in this world. Or that there were. Viktor is fairly certain that’s a good thing, but the jury is still out.
He waivers upon standing, not used to the lack of stability. He’d grown complacent during his stint with godhood, and the flux of the sand beneath his feet certainly isn’t doing him any favors.
“Needa hand?” Jayce is extending his hand, palms smooth, free of all the callouses and nicks, wrist and unblemished ochre, no trace of where the rune was once embedded. (Because it never had been, not in this body.)
”I’m fine, Jayce.”
Jayce frowns but drops his hand. Age old argument they’ve been circling around for the better part of a decade threatening to unspool.
“Okay.” It’s like all the bite has drained out of him, it makes Viktor want to gnash and claw at him until they’re both breathless and bleeding.
Viktor doesn’t like it when they fight.
The cabin, when they reach it, is rotted to the studs, door that nearly falls from the hinges when Jayce nudges it open. The stench of dead fish radiates from it. Inside, every surface is dust and mud covered. It’s only one room, crammed with a blackened sink, a table and chairs that have been half withered away, a wood stove that Viktor desperately hopes works. A bed frame with the remnants of what once might have been a mattress. There is an axe in the corner that Jayce grins at.
“You wouldn’t believe how far a man can get with just an axe.” Jayce says, the ridiculous man. Viktor is less sure, it looks moments away from falling off of the wood handle. There’s a moth-eaten blanket that Jayce wraps around Viktor’s shoulders and it’s only now that he has the decency to blush. Either from the imbalance in their states of bareness, or the memory it elicits, Viktor emerging from the hexcore, and Jayce, blood-soaked and trying to comfort a ghost.
Jayce does seem more aware of his nakedness now, shuffling around the cabin and opening cabinets, pulling out miscellaneous jars and loose tools while Viktor finds relief in the wobbly wooden chair. Jayce swears upon finding a stack of fabrics in the decomposing dresser, and settles for a pair of trousers, worn and dusty as the rest of the house and revealing to be a smidge too tight when he yanks them on. He delivers the rest of the garments to Viktor to sift through, not bothering with a shirt.
“Okay, first priority should be to find fresh water, I didn’t see a well spout but I’ll check again, if we can get a fire going we could make some out of ocean water, but that’s a pretty tedious process, it shouldn’t be to hard to find a stream or something though since we’re at sea level. Assuming any of that food is still good it should hopefully last us until we’re able to set up some traps or nets, and- there’s a rifle too, but I’m not a very good shot so we should avoid that if we can.-”
As Jayce rattles on, another overwhelming wave of nausea comes over Viktor. The little house by the sea, conveniently abandoned and filled with just enough necessities that they won’t have to hunt through the woods naked like a couple of wildmen. It’s idyllic, nearly, even with the dust and the mold that will surely have him hacking in no time. It’s just the kind of twisted fantasy Viktor would dream up in the depths of his own mind. And here he’s gone and created it, ripped them from the edges of oblivion to play out some perverted version of house.
For all he knows, Viktor manifested this cabin also, just like he carved himself and Jayce out of the ether, for all he knows that isn’t even Jayce, just an empty puppet that he’s built for himself. The thought doesn’t feel true but it needles at him anyway. Especially as Jayce goes on and on with his survivalist planning, a strange calm to him, as if Viktor hadn’t just been trying to kill him minutes before. As if Viktor hadn’t ripped him from his body and his home and deposited him in some fucked up empty world for his own amusement. As if all those survival instincts weren’t Viktor’s fault also, a version of him anyway, his head is still reeling from that revelation, reeling from chemical reactions rattling around his skull that he’s now confined to. He thinks he hates the feeling of being alive.
“-and we should probably test that stove before nightfall, it’s not too cold now but I’d rather not be stumbling in the dark if the temperature drops too rapidly and then, I’ll see if I can go find you a crutch, there’s plenty of fallen branches around which I know isn’t ideal but until I can fashion something better and- we should probably work on getting all the dust and mildew out of here, hopefully, those windows are still operable, but that can wait until after we’ve solved the immediates, food, water, cane-“
“Jayce.” His voice comes out unexpectedly harsh, it stops Jayce mid breath, mouth stuck between syllables. “You should leave me.”
Jayce’s brow contorts then he jerks like he’s been slapped. “What? No! Are you insane?“
Perhaps he is, but that’s beside the point.
“This cabin is a sign we can’t be that far from civilization, you’re better off looking for the nearest town, or village, and we both know I can’t go traversing across this terrain, so you should go on without me.” Viktor makes a good point. He knows he does by the deep frown that has settled into Jayce’s face.
“I’m not leaving you again. I-I’ll carry you if I need but I’m not leaving you behind.” Stupid, noble Jayce.
“No, I’ll just slow you down, it’ll be safer and faster if you-“
“No! No, I'm not doing that.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’m being unreasonable? Vik, we just died, or… didn’t die, and we’re god knows where with hardly any food, no water and- for all we know this entire planet is an empty wasteland and you’re telling me to just leave you here?” Good. There’s that spark of anger, Viktor wants to coddle it like a bellow to a fire.
“Yes.”
“I can’t.” Jayce presses the heel of his hand into his eye and Jayce’s terror is palpable, Viktor feels it as though it were his own, like a vestige of a connection that doesn’t exist anymore.
“I can’t. I won’t.” Jayce’s voice turns harsh, final, and Viktor hates that. Hates that Jayce is disagreeing with him. Hates the way he wants to reach into his head and make him agree. Hates that he can’t. Hates that he’s pretty sure he would if he still could.
“Fine.” Viktor says instead, petulant like a child.
“Good.” Jayce says, victory clearly spoiled. And it doesn’t please Viktor like he thought it might.
Jayce takes half a step to turn away from him then doubles back. “Look can we just… take a beat? Just for the night? We can figure out a long term plan in the morning, you can even go back to trying to kill me, if you want, but I’m just so tired, Viktor.”
Viktor studies the crinkle around Jayce’s eyes, the faint curve of crow's feet, for as well as Viktor knows that face, he isn’t completely confident that he put it back together right. Viktor traces the curve of Jayce’s lips and wonders if he’s made them a little too even, eyes too bright? He’d left his hair long, which Viktor would like to say is simply a consequence of that being the way he’d seen him last but if he was being honest with himself, he just liked the look of it. Jayce had always been so infuriatingly well kept, grooming practices that bordered on neuroses, even by Viktor’s standards. And it made something in him itch, to see Jayce unraveled, like pulling at a loose thread.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision, of course, any of it, flesh and bone all pulled into existence within a fraction of a second. But that excuse doesn’t seem to hold water anymore. Viktor has lost the luxury of claiming unintentional mistakes.
“I was never trying to kill you.” Viktor finally says, true as it is meaningless. Death had never been the pursuit, only the cost.
And then, because Viktor just can’t help himself. “If anything, you were the one who, multiple times in fact, with varying success I might add.”
“Oh fuck you.” It snaps out so quickly, Viktor flinches.
“Ah, sorry was that ‘too soon’?”
“I didn’t- I had to-“
“Of course you did, noble Jayce Talis always doing what he thinks is right, you always did like to play hero.”
Viktor doesn’t like it when they fight.
“Stop, stop it. I know what you’re doing, it’s not going to work.”
Viktor sighs, clever boy.
Before he can protest, Jayce is crowding into Viktor’s space, settling into his lap, hardly a stable choice for the little chair they’re now both occupying but Jayce is careful to hold himself steady.
Jayce’s hands come up to Viktor's neck, thumbing at his jaw, eyes boring into him as though trying to impress words directly into his mind. It’s worked before after all.
“I’m not leaving you.” Jayce says and Viktor once again finds himself overwhelmed with the sensation of having a body. Even as Jayce holds most of his own weight up off of him, the press of his bones into the stiff wooden stool bites and bruises. Blood pulsing in his neck under the press of Jayce’s thumb.
“I’m not leaving you.” He says again. “You can’t run me off.” Forehead falling against Viktor’s as Jayce’s nose slots next to his, nuzzling into the ridge of his brow.
Viktor hums. “We’ll see.”
Despite the overwhelm of it all, Viktor allows Jayce to cling to him, pressing a cheek into his neck like he’s trying to meld them back together. Viktor allows a moment to get lost in the fantasy of it, of how much easier it was when it wasn’t just him alone and barricaded in the isolated confines of a body. If only Jayce could press a little further and slip back into him, stitch the edges of their flesh together until the boundary between them disintegrated entirely. If Viktor still had the dignity for it he might be embarrassed by the weight of the desire. By how much he liked it when they were of one mind, how cold he feels now that they are no longer.
Anyway, Jayce must feel the same. Bare chested, cheek pressed into Viktor’s exposed shoulder, lips dragging across the crook of his neck. It’s indecent. A degree of intimacy they’ve never broached with their physical bodies and yet it feels forbearing. Casual, in the face of what they have both shared: souls stripped down and blending into indistinguishable parts of a whole.
Viktor would rather let time lose all meaning, but the horror that is occupying a body continues. Muscles turn stiff and throbbing as the sun begins to wane. Jayce had a point about preferring not to stumble in the dark.
He unlatches from Viktor carefully, committing to his mission of collecting whatever vagrant dry sticks and branches might be lying about. It gets Jayce to leave the cabin at least. A small victory. It hurts to look at him, hurts to think about him. Without Jayce’s overwhelming presence grounding him to the earth Viktor can almost forget he’s a person and not a floating part of the cosmos.
Almost.
His skin bristles as Viktor trades the blanket for a more appropriate chemise, all too aware of muscle and sinew sliding and stretching across bone. It would be a waste of a shiny new body to put a bullet in it so soon, but Viktor can’t help eyeing the forgotten shotgun leaning against the wall.
He dismisses it quickly, if only for Jayce’s sake.
The wood stove does work, or at least, it doesn’t burn the cabin to ash in the first fifteen minutes. Viktor knew it wouldn’t. The part of him that still suspects this might be some rueful purgatory was sure of it.
Jayce watches over the fire and Viktor can feel the words he’s repressing on the tip of his tongue. Viktor ignores it. If Jayce wants to speak to him he can, but Viktor isn’t going to do the work for him. Instead, he busies himself investigating the tattered book left behind in one of the drawers.
“Anything interesting?” Jayce asks.
“I wouldn’t know, it’s not in any language I recognize.” Viktor doesn’t consider himself a master of languages but if he had to guess he would say it isn’t one that exists on their Runeterra.
Jayce pulls the book out of Viktor’s hands without any hesitation and examines it, brows knit together and sucking on his lips. “I don’t even recognize the alphabet.”
The firelight turns Jayce warm and glowing, it reminds Viktor or the forge, how often he’d find Jayce there only to get lost watching him work. Jayce catches the incredulous look Viktor is giving him and his cheeks turn warmer.
“Um, sorry.” He returns the book with a nervous smile. Years and years of living in each other’s pockets, sharing ideas and lab space and sentences, have etched deep habits into both of them.
Viktor doesn’t mind.
“It does seem to suggest that we are… somewhere else.” To put it lightly. Not Runeterra, not their Runeterra, no chance for return. It doesn’t matter to Viktor, there isn’t any home that would welcome him back anyway. But Jayce, Jayce, has things left behind, people to miss, a life worth mourning.
The guilt comes in like a sudden tsunami overtaking him and dragging him back into the depths of the ocean. Guilt, and terror. Because Jayce may feel confident in his grand self sacrificing gesture now but it will wear. This unlife Viktor has sentenced him to will grow stale and tiring: a reckless decision made in youth for a man who could never be worthy of it. Not in the face of everything Jayce has given up. Resentment and guilt will chase each other like a snake swallowing its own tail and it will ruin them. And even after Viktor gives Jayce everything he possibly can to atone for such selfishness, he’ll die, leaving Jayce alone in this unworld with nothing but endless, unforgiving regret.
Viktor is overwhelmingly aware that he's begun to sob. Chest convulsing as acid tears track down his face, as though he’s trying to break free of his little cage. It hurts. Everything hurts. He feels like he’s submerged under too hot water, stinging pain into every surface of his skin, but no matter how he flails he can’t lift himself out of it. It’s in the air, in his skin, unrelenting, unending chemical burn he can’t escape from.
Jayce is speaking to him: alarmed and desperately trying to settle him as large hands come up to his shoulders. Viktor clings to him, continues to wail like a colicky infant.
Which is how they end up on the floor. Jayce holding Viktor firm in his lap and murmuring kind platitudes as Viktor continues convulsing and sobbing into his shoulder.
Eventually, his body becomes too exhausted to keep up with the exertion and Viktor comes to a still point, face still buried in Jayce’s neck in both shame and exhaustion.
“I’m sorry” His voice is gravelly and burns when he finds it. “That was… unexpected.”
Jayce’s face is tear soaked also, glittering under the glow of the fire and harshened into a concerned frown. “I think it was probably a long time coming.”
“Yes.” Viktor agrees. “Still I-“
“It’s okay V, I know.”
Viktor supposes he does. Jayce saw everything just as Viktor did when they were in the Arcane. Saw all of Viktor’s- all of Viktor. The knowledge of it spreads like cold shame in Viktor’s belly.
“As long as we’re together, everything is going to be okay, I promise.” Viktor would have thought Jayce had learned by now not to make promises he can’t keep. Still, he lets it wash over him like a warm blanket, false comfort he can cling to in the cold of night.
Jayce has grown diplomatic in his old age, so he allows Viktor the dignity of disentangling from their spot on the floor and the abrupt change in conversation. It’s a kindness Viktor doesn’t deserve but appreciates all the same.
“This seal still looks good.” Viktor examines a jar of… something? It might be pickled fish, he’s rather hoping it isn’t. Thumbnail sliding under the seam of the metal seal, Viktor pops the lid off, bright salty smell assaulting him: pickled fish.
Still, their new bodies have never eaten, and the hunger washes over Viktor is alarming as they split the jar of oily fish. It’s repugnant, it’s far from the worst meal Viktor has had. If Jayce shares in his revulsion he keeps it to himself, eating without complaint.
“It beats raw salamander.” Is all he says.
Viktor saw that too. He also saw the fire that Jayce had made by sparking together the wrecked pieces of his hammer, which he kept a continuous flame and definitely could have been utilized for cooking. Viktor doesn’t bring it up. Jayce lost his mind in that cave, because of Viktor, no need to rub salt into the wound. (Truthfully, Viktor had always considered himself the sort of man who if the opportunity presented itself, would meet an alternate version of himself with curiosity and excitement, but now he thinks if he ever came face to face with that version of himself who started this he wouldn’t hesitate to reach for the sword.)
“My mother used to boil catfish that washed up off the river in salted vinegar, it was like eating a sour eraser.”
Jayce pulled a face. “I didn’t think the fish in the Pilt were edible.”
“They aren’t, but we ate them anyway. My mother would boil them for hours to kill all the bloat, still tasted like sewage and made me sick half the time anyway.” Viktor is laughing mildly even as Jayce shoots him that stupid Piltie look of pity and mild horror. Viktor doesn’t shy away from it, never has, never wanted to spare Jayce the discomfort even if it comes with his own share of embarrassment.
Instead of commenting on Viktor’s less than ideal childhood, Jayce says. “Remember that time I did actually eat an eraser?”
Viktor laughs brightly. “How could I forget?”
They slip back like that, trading memories of all the stupid acts they pulled out of exhaustion and delirium back in their early days of miracle working. Viktor clings to it like a fly to honey, almost able to forget the reeking cabin and fall back into familiar patterns. It’s as sweet as it is false.
The mattress, all but disintegrates when Jayce tries sitting on it, folding in the center and leaving him caught feet up in the fractured bed frame.
“O-kay, nevermind.” He says, shaking as he stands. “Worth a shot.”
They curl up on the floor in front of the fire instead, spare clothes bundled up in a heap as a pathetic stand-in for pillows. The ridged wood floor digs harshly into Viktor’s hip and shoulder and he nearly thinks he’d be better off sleeping outside in the sand. It’s too cold for that though so he stays put, lets Jayce wrap his arms and legs around him like he’s trying to build a cocoon around him.
Viktor hasn’t slept properly in nearly a year. Instead flitting in and out of meditative states but never quite losing consciousness. He worries he’s forgotten how.
“V?” Jayce’s voice prickles at the back of his neck, light and tired.
“Hmm?”
“I just- you know, right?”
Viktor doesn’t need to ask what he means. “Yes, Jayce, I know.”
“M’kay.” Jayce mumbles, “Good.” And then his breath is slowing into steady sleep.
And for the first time in months, Viktor follows him into a dreamless slumber.