Chapter Text
It felt wrong before anything even happened, and that was Viktor’s first sign that something that night was absolutely amiss.
It didn’t start amiss — the only thing amiss was Jayce these days, joining the echelons of Piltover’s finest during the dark hours, cozying up with the councilors in the light, ever the charming wordsmith they all so loved to look upon and prod with greedy fingers, the scientist made to sing and dance for connections, for funding.
Funding for their dream.
Their dream.
Viktor winced, hunched over a long desk of blueprints, exhausted, tired, staring across the swirls and scribbles and Jayce’s sturdy script left behind on a new notepad.
Be back later, V. Don’t stay up all night again!
Hah.
You are not here, Viktor wanted to reply, running shaking fingers across the paper, across the initial of his name, across the words Jayce Talis had written when Viktor had been on his mind, even if it had only just been for a moment. You cannot tell me what to do this night, Jayce.
Lightly, Viktor coughed, his vision blearing for a moment, swallowing hard around a tight lump in his throat and felt a shift inside the laboratory. Strange, a fraction of a second or perhaps even less than that, a blanket across his shoulders in weight but not in materialization, a cold that permeated his bones and rotted his pale skin — but only for the fraction of a second, less than that, lesser and lesser even than that.
If Viktor wasn’t himself, perhaps his mind would have conjured a ghost as a possibility. A being that once was lingering near, maybe even trying to crawl inside him, that weight back against him, an odd shrill ringing starting from the middle of his skull and crawling outwards.
Another cough, and Viktor gripped the ledge of the desk, pinching his brows, feeling sweat bead at his hairline and drip down, slow over his cheek, sprinting down his throat, his heart accelerating, wondering if perhaps another episode was oncoming, if his sickness had come to drag him to the grave that night.
He was getting sicker, after all. But Jayce didn’t know yet. Didn’t need to know yet.
If we crack this, I might never need to tell him.
Our hextech dream… the wonders it will do.
Jayce musn’t be distracted, I musn’t let him worry—
Mel Medarda had been paying attention to Jayce increasingly lately.
Sweat ran down the nape of his neck, like fingers, like a familiar touch, and Viktor tried not to let emotion cloud him. Along with the anomaly of the night, of the air, of their laboratory in the academy where they were partners and Jayce was sometimes his and not theirs, jealousy swirled like their blueprints, rings of black and blue within Viktor’s chest.
Black and blue and green, rings and rings spinning inside his atoms, part of him, wishing to discard it, hating that he wondered if Jayce Talis was having a wonderful time in golden rooms as his Golden Self, welcomed back into good standing because their breakthrough was close.
Imminent.
“Come with me,” Jayce had said with that smile that was always pinned to his warm skin, his eyes butterscotch and bright, filled with the sort of hope that got Viktor drunk and optimistic. “I don’t wanna go alone, and you explain everything so much better than I do.”
“I’d rather not,” Viktor had shrugged, leaning against his cane, trying to be aloof, carefree. “And who explains better matters not at all — these people don’t know what any of it means regardless.”
Viktor was right.
Jayce had big, beautiful eyes that seared like a brand in his disappointment.
“I’ll not stay long then.”
“You can stay as long as you like. I’m sure Councilor Medarda would be bereft without your company.”
It was hard to hide the envy Viktor felt for Mel Medarda. It was worse because she wasn’t hateful or spiteful, seemingly sharing in their want for progress, to make Piltover grander, to shift the divide between Piltover and Zaun for all to benefit from whatever it was their Hextech dream could and would one day achieve. Mel, over their shoulders with a smile that only shone through gold lidded eyes, always beautiful, always choosing her praise carefully, Jayce like a puppy dog for it, lapping it up like milk in a bowl.
Mel wanted Jayce, and Viktor couldn’t hate her for it. He understood her, sympathized with her, no one unaffected by the boyish charm of the young scientist brimming with ambition, with love. But Viktor couldn’t compete with her, couldn’t and wouldn’t make her his rival — what a pathetic defeat that would be.
Again, the air felt like it was charged with something, this anomaly, and Viktor was becoming unnerved, eyes darting across the room, eyeing each corner, each dark nook between desks and shelves and the giant equipments, reaching for his cane to stand and perhaps call it a night, clearing his throat before another cough could rattle its way up his lungs. The metal of his cane was cold, startlingly so, his breath coming out in harsh, visible puffs.
What… is happening?
He’d planned to work more in Jayce’s absence, but all he’d done was ruminate on his jealousy, on his feelings, on Jayce and how Jayce wasn’t here and Viktor wished he was but also wished he wasn’t. All his workings had been shoved across the table as Viktor let fantastical daydreams overlap the logic that pinned him in place, logic that held him captive as if a specimen beneath the slides of a microscope.
Daydreams of healing, of needing to rely on nothing and no one, no cane to hold him upright, no Jayce to keep him tall in the face of Piltover’s finest who looked down upon him like the Undercity rat he still was to them all. A strong body not confined to his illness, a body that could work endlessly, that could walk miles and climb high and see the world from where the gods saw it. A body that could be touched without pain, could endure the things Viktor yearned for, hating himself for wishing it but never able to deny his own nature.
Laid against the desk in their laboratory, Jayce in front of him, behind him, dark hair mussed from their carnal activities, no pain in his leg, up the ridges of his spine as Viktor gave himself to Jayce Talis, his Jayce, his partner, his friend. And Jayce would look at him with no pity, no concern, would break Viktor like a ruined experiment and put him back together so that he worked perfectly, without flaw. Fantasies, fantasies—
A sharp crackle of light flickered before him so fast that Viktor wondered if that was fantasy too.
It shocked him, the air cold, charged, the anomaly, falling backwards and feeling the floor slam into him, the pain there but not able to contend with the sight before him. The crackling sphere of light buzzing, whirring, blue to pink to a rainbow of muted colour, smaller but growing, Viktor’s eyes slamming shut in terror as the sound of it, the sight of it, was too much to bear.
What is happening—
Jayce—
His cane was at his side, the cane Jayce had reforged for him after it snapped into pieces that first night together, their first night together, floating in the warm air of magic and laughing, swimming towards one another with the sort of giddy joy that only came to children. Viktor reached for his cane blindly, unsure of what was happening, the light behind his closed lids burning, a yell echoing out from somewhere, familiar, familiar —
So familiar that Viktor braved this anomaly and opened his eyes to witness what could possibly be his demise — Professor Heimerdinger had warned them, after all.
Maybe this was all their tampering, knocking on the door of magic, the Arcane answering angrily and that would be just his luck, dying alone in their laboratory as he pined for Jayce, beautiful Jayce who was dancing beneath crystal chandeliers with a woman no one in the realm could ever outshine.
Whatever it was, it was terrifying and enchanting, an orb of metal, of flesh, coloured like steel, like stone, like meat and like the heavens, stars interwoven in its fabrication, spinning slowly like its own world on its own askew axis. Viktor desired to touch it despite his fear, but he refrained and just stared at it, the frozen handle of his crutch burning his shaking palms, lips trembling, not daring to move, to breathe.
The Thing, the Anomaly — it was… becoming alive.
Spinning, glitching, fragments of light and more guttural sounds deep within in, shrinking in on itself and shaping into a more recognisable form.
Human.
It's… almost like its becoming a person—
One last spasm from The Anomaly, a deep scream of anguish ringing off every surface in the room, and Viktor was flung backwards from the force of The Anomaly materializing, the shape of a man hovering over the work desk, a giant weapon in his hands. It screamed in pain, in agony, dropping to its knees, the weapon thunking to the floor, shattering the wood boards as Viktor trembled before it.
It was a man.
Groaning, growling, head in a dirty hand, long, dark hair shadowing his face, and from where Viktor was on the floor, he could see blood, the weapon glowing strangely, coated in the membrane of The Anomaly. A leg brace, so similar to the one Viktor once found in the scramble of Jayce’s notes, hidden blueprints, a notion that had had Viktor’s heart singing at the discovery.
Tattered clothing, so familiar, so… familiar—
“Viktor.”
The blue crystal embedded into flesh and held tight with veins sent nausea through Viktor’s bloodstream, his heartbeat pulsing painfully in his neck despite the room feeling normal once more, The Anomaly gone, Jayce remaining.
This man was Jayce.
But… how—
The weapon was raised with strong arms, metal and matter shaped both like a hammer and yet like a butterfly, opening its wings and crackling with power, aimed at Viktor without mercy. Hatred burned like fire inside brilliant gold iris’, hatred for Viktor, eyes big and filled with horror, anger, with determination.
Determination shifted into something else, something heartbreaking, tears welling, tears spilling, this Jayce, whoever he was, shaking his head, another grunt of anguish.
“Viktor —”
Jayce groaned, another shake of his head like he was trying to rattle something out his ears, and Viktor could see Jayce, four, ten, twenty five frames of Jayce like a flipbook illustration, reality glitching violently in colours not of this world. It didn’t make sense.
It couldn’t.
“This is wrong,” Jayce rasped, his voice strained with torment, so unlike the Jayce that had left mere hours ago to dance and drink and make merry and maybe even make love to the beautiful Mel Medarda. “This is too far back, I shouldn’t be here —”
It sickened Viktor to still yearn, perhaps even more so to this version of Jayce, whoever and whenever he was. Never once had the Jayce Talis he knew let his appearance venture into unkempt territory — Jayce took clippers to himself every two weeks to keep his hair close and neat, a straight blade to his straight jaw everyday, unable to escape the shadow of stubble no matter how many times skin was accidentally nicked.
Even after time in the forge where sometimes Viktor would hover and talk experiments just for the glimpse of bare skin under the guise of work, Jayce never let himself leave with even a smudge of effort to show for it.
This Jayce was like a wild animal, bearded and shaggy, furious and heartbroken.
The huge weapon thudded to the floor once again, and Viktor finally dared to speak.
“Jayce, is that… you?”
The bracelet he’d given to Jayce was gone, a part of his body now, enmeshed with tawny skin, and Jayce was breathing heavily, another groan, another glitch, dropping to one knee, the good one not held strong with metal rings and bars.
Viktor wasn’t sure he could call himself a brave person in a traditional sense, but he always felt brave inside the laboratory. This was his territory after all, where he belonged. Standing on his crutch he felt brave, brave to approach this strange Jayce, brave to reach out, but never brave enough to touch.
“What… what happened to you?”
Raising his head, their eyes locked to one another, and Viktor could see where lips had cut, where scratches raked down into Jayce’s beard, the nick in his brow opened once more and desperately trying to heal, and it pained him to look at Jayce like this, Piltover’s Golden Boy no more.
Something quivered in the yellow rings of Jayce’s haunted gaze.
Waterlines flooded, and thick lashes clotted with unshed tears.
“Did we make them yet?”
Jayce’s scent was strange — not the rich cologne that he usually wore, the one Caitlyn Kiramman often gifted him as Jayce didn’t earn enough for it just yet on his own. This Jayce smelled almost the way he did when in the forge, when every muscle in his back rippled from exertion, when sweat made the young scientist glimmer like a glorious, distant star. Like hard work, like metal and fire, and Viktor’s stomach was tight and tense from it, his throat bobbing, confused.
“Make what?”
Plans had been drafted for all the potential Hextech could give birth to.
But they still had yet to crack it open, to make sense of the chaos that was the magic they were desperate to harness.
“The… Hexgates.”
Viktor shook his head, a shiver beneath his clothing at how scared Jayce sounded when the word left his chapped lips.
“We… we haven’t made sense of the runes yet,” Viktor tried to assure this Jayce, this Anomaly. “Jayce—”
“Gods, you are so, so beautiful.”
Viktor tensed, the words more of a shock to him then The Anomaly of this strange night taking form in Jayce.
Jayce didn’t blink, he didn’t hide his tears, the water splashing to the table, to their notes and blurring the words, a shaking hand reaching out tentatively to cup the side of Viktor’s cheek. He was hot to be touched by, his palm burning and Viktor didn’t understand.
Perhaps this was a dream.
A manifestation of Viktor’s desires, crawling their way into a nightmare as he once again slept in their lab, discarded and alone.
“I’m so stupid,” and Jayce huffed a small almost-laugh, his dark brows pinching together, looking at Viktor like he was beyond comprehension, like Viktor was all Jayce had ever wanted. “How could I have been so stupid, Viktor, how —”
This Anomaly Jayce is from the future, surely, that had to be it. If this wasn’t a dream, that is.
“We figured it out,” Viktor filled in the void with his theory, doing his part as Jayce’s partner, his mind whirring like cogs and gears as he tried to suppress what was happening to his body as Jayce continued to look at him like that. “The hextech… these Hexgates, as you call them… Professor Heimerdinger was right.”
Something bad will come of us, despite all the good we set out to accomplish.
And then Viktor realised Jayce had been ready to kill him, when The Anomaly materialized him to this moment. Held his mutated weapon and raised it against Viktor, looked at Viktor with determination and fury, ready to see through the murder of his partner.
Water fell from Viktor’s eyes too, and he jolted in surprise, held still by the strength of Jayce’s hand.
“Oh... It is my fault.”
Of course it would be.
Of course it would be Viktor to corrupt their cause, for whatever reasons the future would maybe reveal, if This Jayce took mercy and let him live another day.
Viktor sniffled, just once, and then nodded sadly, his gaze to the floor.
“Kill me, then. Stop me from doing whatever it is I do that… leads you to what you’ve been through.”
He could die for Jayce.
That would be the easiest thing he could ever do.
Jayce winced, twitching, letting Viktor go as the abnormalities once again shredded the reality and made Jayce splinter and groan.
“I… I always thought I knew the way of things,” Jayce huffed, fighting it, fighting so hard. “But I was confused.”
“You are not making sense,” Viktor argued, stumbling, almost tripping as his cane caught in the smashed flooring from Jayce’s arrival. “If you’ve seen it, if you’ve touched the Arcane and it’s my fault, Jayce—”
“It’s not your fault.”
Jayce was no longer on the desk, no longer towering Viktor from above their scribblings and complications, the notepad of Jayce’s letter on the floor, stepped over by dirty boots as Jayce advanced towards him.
“It’s mine.”
Another shock as Jayce kneeled, as if begging for forgiveness.
He was beautiful on his knees, even if it must have been so painful.
“I should have been by your side, Viktor.”
“You are,” Viktor replied, and Jayce shook his head, no glitching this time, but the horrors of what he had endured remained.
“I remember this night,” came the sad reply, reaching out, upwards, taking Viktor’s hand, exposing the pale skin of a trembling palm. “I was at a party. I wanted you to come with me. I should be here with you now, but I’m not.”
It was a contradiction, Viktor almost pointing it out until warm lips pressed to the center of his palm.
“I’m thinking about you right now, as I’m asked to dance and play pretend for the sake of funding our beautiful dream.”
Another kiss to his hand, and Viktor’s breath was ragged, panicked, unworthy of this.
“I’m wishing I was in the lab with you, Viktor. That I wasn’t scared to tell you that you’re so… perfect. But I chose wrong because I’m at the party without you, and you’re in here, without me.”
Another kiss, and Jayce was crying again, his face wrinkling with the agony of it, brows knitted so tightly together that Viktor almost reached out to smooth the crease like an iron would.
“I have always made the wrong choice.”
A sniffle, and Viktor didn’t know what to say.
Didn’t understand.
Was it true?
Was it?
“I just couldn’t bear to be without you, Viktor.”
Another press of lips, creeping up Viktor’s wrist, his pulse like electricity, every part of his being charged and burning.
“I couldn’t let you die.”
Another kiss.
“Couldn’t let you live.”
Another sob.
“Couldn’t let you die —”
“You do not have to do this,” Viktor managed to breath, pulling his hand away, horrified as if This Jayce was just giving Viktor what he wanted, unable to comprehend the words said to him, to understand that Jayce was speaking plainly, not a riddle like the runes, like the Hextech dream, like the Arcane, not nonsensical but entirely human.
“I made the wrong choice,” Jayce came to stand, so much taller than Viktor and so much bigger than even Viktor’s Jayce, Jayce at the party, Jayce in Mel’s arms, Jayce who smelled like sharp cinnamon cologne, Jayce who had never done anything remotely close to this. “Please, let me do it right this time.”
Bravely, because they were in their laboratory, Viktor let Jayce do what he needed to do. Didn’t fight away the hand at his waist, even though Jayce was trembling violently. Didn’t wince from the way Jayce gazed at him, closer, closer, even though gold eyes glimmered with yearning, with pain.
Didn’t argue when his face was caressed carefully, the blue glint of Jayce’s embedded crystal suddenly beautiful and not horrifying to behold, dancing in his peripherals, unable to tear his eyes away from the man he would die for if that was the only, final choice to be made. A thumb across his sharp cheekbone, running over the mole that sat above Viktor’s lip, so gentle and so intimate, Jayce’s breath shuddering on the exhale.
“I promised you that I would destroy it.”
Viktor’s exhale was a shuddery, shaky thing too.
“I don’t… understand—”
“I wish I had been braver.”
Closer.
“I wish I had just been honest, right from the start.”
“Jayce—”
“Why couldn’t I have told you how much I care for you, instead of throwing those feelings into our beautiful, cursed dream?”
Their lips were so close to pressing together, Viktor feeling the tickle of Jayce’s beard.
“Trying to accomplish our Hextech goals to make the world a better place, a place to heal you, to give you the credit you deserve. All I wanted was to please you, Viktor, to make you proud — I thought loving you through those means was enough because I was scared, but I was wrong, I chose wrong —”
Even now, despite all his words, This Jayce still seemed terrified.
Viktor was brave when he was in his lab.
Their lab.
Destroying the sliver of space remaining between them, Viktor pressed his mouth to Jayce’s and felt The Anomaly again, the heavy blanket across his back that didn’t exist, the strange non-cold in the air, and Jayce gripped him like he was worried Viktor would shatter to pieces, rough hands that had endured things Viktor prayed they would never endure again.
Their kiss felt cosmic.
Meant to be, Viktor’s cane falling away, preparing to brace back against the countertop behind him but not needing to because Jayce was pulling him from the floor, into his warm body as if trying to merge them together, Viktor not protesting, somehow finding his hands tangled in the new length of Jayce’s hair.
They both gasped in unison against one another, chasing another kiss, another chaste press of lips, and The Anomaly made the room swelter, Jayce almost growling, nails sinking into the curve of Viktor’s spine, fighting off the tremors.
“What did you see?” Viktor pushed the hair from Jayce’s eyes, a startled sound leaving his mouth as his backside met the countertop, Jayce guiding slender thighs to wrap around Jayce’s hips.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jayce looked ruined, a flush to his skin, thumbing across Viktor’s lip before claiming another endless kiss. “You kept me sane in the horror of it all, I fought so hard to come back to you and try to set things right—”
This kiss was different, fiercer, Viktor’s moan embarrassing, returned politely by Jayce sighing and dragging his tongue against the seam of Viktor’s lips. Heated and desperate, Viktor granted entry, not inexperienced with a kiss like this but finding himself drowning in the reality of this kiss being with Jayce Talis.
Not His Jayce Talis, but Jayce Talis nonetheless.
“I have loved you since the start,” Jayce rasped into the wetness of Viktor’s eager mouth. “I never wavered in that, I never will—”
Kisses traveled down his jaw, down his throat, calloused fingers ripping Viktor’s collar open, his waistcoat, buttons scattering to the floor.
“Jayce,” Viktor wanted to weep again, wanted more, wanted to understand but understood that he would never be able to. “What should I do?”
“Tell me I’m stupid, when I come back tonight from that party.”
Kisses were soft and light, a maddening contrast to the scratch of facial hair nuzzling collarbones, cradling Viktor to keep him safe from falling, to keep him comfortable on the counter.
“Tell me I’m selfish, that I should have been with you, that we can achieve all we want through love. Not with weapons, not with war, not with the Hexgates, not through evolution.”
Jayce glitched for a fragment, panting, grimacing, tucking his face into Viktor’s chest and fighting through it with kisses pressed across pale skin.
“I will listen to you if you tell me we can make the world a better place without the aid of magic, I will believe you, Viktor, I’d do anything you told me—”
It sounded so much like His Jayce.
Viktor only nodded, a promise to do his best, to assure The Anomaly, no longer able to stop his body from reacting to touch and heat, his hips shifting into Jayce’s with a stuttered groan.
“I love you,” Viktor had to finally say it, the words that were spiraling about in his head all night, coming so easily after all that fuss. “Since the start—”
Since the explosion that almost had Jayce exiled.
Since walking in on Jayce almost leaping to his death.
I will try and save you again.
I will do whatever I can—
“You are everything,” Jayce was shifting into splinters again, the fear in his gaze, the way he gripped Viktor so tight, as if it would anchor him to this moment. “Viktor, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—”
No.
Don’t go, please—
“Jayce—”
Jayce staggered backwards, groaning, weeping, glitching, the hands that had touched Viktor with a tenderness he never thought he’d feel now wrapping back around the weapon, colours melting, spiking, splintering, Jayce letting out a grief-stricken cry before The Anomaly took him back in a devastating flash of light.
Gone, just like that.
As if it had never been.
“Jayce,” Viktor called out, the panic settling in, still feeling the heat of his kisses, his buttons still littered across the damaged floorboards. “Jayce, come back, I still… do not… understand.”
“Understand what?”
Just like that, His Jayce, his Jayce Talis was back from the party, looking proper, perfectly put together, if a little sheepish and maybe even a little drunk. Any other night, Viktor would have rolled his eyes at Jayce’s red cheeks and the way Jayce got giggly after his indulging… but tonight he had seen what he had seen.
A Jayce that had been tormented, for Viktor, because of Viktor, for their dream, because of their dream.
On his hands and knees, he wept and looked at me with admiration and utter terror.
With the love I now know him to have.
Do as he told me.
Do not be scared.
“Understand how you can be so stupid,” Viktor shouted, his cane ignored, struggling to make his way to his partner, His Jayce, almost stumbling but feeling the adrenaline drive him forward. “So selfish —”
Jayce’s eyes were wide and scared, but still full of so much life, joy, love.
Shoving Jayce’s chest, Viktor felt his tears escape him.
“You… You should have been here with me, Jayce—”
“I’m sorry,” Jayce apologized instantly, reaching out to support Viktor, his hands soft and clean, his skin bright, unblemished and perfect. “You’re right, I… They wanted to talk about what to do with the Hextech once it’s stabilized, like tools to help the miners, hammers and gauntlets and I just thought—”
Weapons.
“No, we cannot —”
“I know. I know. I said no, don’t worry—”
Viktor was in his laboratory, and therefore he was brave.
Their laboratory.
Viktor kissed Jayce.
Time was endless in that moment, familiar lips in a familiar kiss, but in this lifetime, it was their first.
Jayce gasped into it, and then Viktor was gasping too, pulled up into strong arms and feeling fine fabric beneath his hands from where they found Jayce’s shoulders, kissing again, again, Jayce carrying him towards their work desk, almost tripping on the huge dent in the floor.
“W-what… What happened in here?”
No point in lying.
The Anomaly Jayce already said that His Jayce would listen to everything Viktor ever had to say.
“We made a mistake.”
Jayce’s face fell, heartbroken.
“Oh, I… I thought you wanted this…”
“In the future,” Viktor clarified, pulling Jayce back towards him, no longer nervous about Mel Medarda or how he couldn’t compare. He didn’t need to compete, and he didn’t need to be complete either — Jayce had loved him from the start. “We made a mistake. With our dream. Our Hextech.”
Beautiful, clean Jayce was sobered, serious, brows pinching, but still crowding Viktor to the table.
“How?”
“That… is what I didn’t understand.”
Jayce looked scared, but he didn’t look like he’d been through hell and back, and Viktor never wanted him to, no matter how beautifully he had worn his trauma.
“How do you know this?”
Like a wild dream that he’d only just awakened from, Viktor recalled it with a tremor.
“You… appeared to me. From the Arcane. But you were different. Older… You had seen things that were beyond comprehension, and you… Jayce, you begged me on your hands and knees to not let us realise the potential of the Hexcore.”
Jayce was frozen, watching, waiting for more.
“You came with a hammer. With your crystal, merged into your skin, flesh and matter and infection, your leg was strapped into the brace that you designed for me.”
The hammer, like the help for the miners discussed at the party.
The brace, like Jayce’s secret blueprints, sketched out in hopes of helping Viktor when one day the cane would not be enough.
“Please, believe what I am saying—”
“I do,” Jayce was honest, if still confused, unsettled. “I… How could we let it reach levels like that, to where… Time itself loops backwards—”
“I don’t know.”
“We just wanted to help people, Vik.”
“We still can. Jayce, we will accomplish whatever we set our minds to, but… we must give up on the Hextech. We’ve been warned twice now… I cannot become what I become if it leads into that fate.”
A short nod, and Jayce was settling, his hands on Viktor’s waist, tilting his head curiously.
“Why… did you call me stupid?”
“You told me to.”
“Ah.”
“You…” Viktor paused, reaching once again for his bravery, courage pulsing beneath his skin as Jayce watched him with brilliant, sparkling eyes. “You told me I was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.”
Jayce was scarlet, cheeks and the tips of his ears, his throat a handsome shade of peach.
“Well, y-you…are.”
Brave.
They leaned in at the same time to share another kiss, soft and sweet, Jayce tasting like cherry wine, and, like earlier, Jayce’s kisses ventured downwards, Viktor fighting away the smile of the comparison from mere moments earlier.
“What happened to your buttons?”
Jayce realised immediately after asking the question, looking annoyed, possibly even jealous.
“Don’t be like that,” Viktor liked the thought, jealous Jayce, possessive over his lab partner, but the wound of earlier was still open and bleeding, The Anomaly Jayce still this Jayce, still the man he loved and yet changed with tragic circumstance. “He was you.”
“Did I still look like me?”
Yes.
No.
Viktor felt his eyes water, cupping Jayce’s jaw, feeling stubble, rubbing against it.
“You were in so much pain. Despite it all, you—”
“Don’t tell me,” Jayce whispered, guiding Viktor close, sitting on the desk edge and wrapping his thighs around this Jayce, smaller, leaner, yet so much happier than The Anomaly. “I don’t want to become him if it puts that look in your eye. Let’s set things right, Viktor. Let’s go back to the start.”
The start.
I have loved you since the start.
Hands were trembling as they worked at one another, the remaining buttons on Viktor’s waistcoat slipped from the catch, Jayce panting as he mouthed at the apple of Viktor’s throat, and Viktor wanted to help but found himself useless. His mind was his constant usually, a stable thing, but now it was a mess of pleasure that lapped at him the way Jayce was, overcoming the sadness of Their Dream sinking to the bottom of an endless sea.
Was this really it?
Jayce murmured his name, over and over like a prayer, hips slotting together, Viktor arching his back with a low whine.
How could we have done so wrong?
“I have loved you,” Jayce was above him, looking down on him with affection, Viktor understanding that this was and never had been anything but the truth. “Since the start.”
Wrapping strong arms around him, Viktor was held delicately, their kisses searing, Viktor squeezing his legs as tight as he could to keep Jayce between them, even though his bad leg quaked.
“You’re my best friend, my teacher,” Jayce had been made bold by the sounds drawn from the depths of Viktor’s body, laying him gently to the table, blueprints and their doomed equations serving as their bed for tonight’s endeavor. “My saviour.”
Viktor’s shirt was opening carefully, soft fingers dragging down his chest, his ribs, Viktor stunned into silence by Jayce Talis undressing him with a nervous grip but a voice that didn’t waver for a second.
“My partner, Viktor, we were meant to find each other.”
Like The Anomaly from before, Jayce’s words carved into Viktor’s flesh like a blade.
“I should have been braver.”
Viktor shook his head, speechless.
“I should have just been honest, right from the start.”
“I never let you,” Viktor replied, allowing himself to finally touch Jayce the way he’d always dreamed, brushing up the back of Jayce’s neck, into the cropped hair that he never, ever let grow out. “I didn’t feel worthy of your love, in any of the forms it came in.”
A cripple from the Undercity, afflicted and stumbling, weak and pallid and all of it so much more stark when next to beautiful, perfect Jayce.
“Then you’re the stupid one,” Jayce laughed against his mouth, inexperienced as he fumbled their belts apart, Viktor reaching down to help. “Do I have to show you how worthy you are? Is this how I repent for making you feel as if you weren’t my very reason for living?”
I saved him from that ledge.
I saw him that night, his drive and determination, the good in his soul.
Without Jayce Talis, I too… would have no reason to endure the Tomorrows of life.
“Repent,” Viktor agreed, finally, finally caving into his needs, his lusts and his overwhelmingly painful love, pulling at Jayce’s jacket, his shirt, licking the cherry wine from the depths of his eager mouth. “Make me understand.”
It was so late in the night, but Viktor had never felt more awake.
His trousers, pulled down his thighs, his calves, Jayce so careful with his bad leg, kissing his knee with a soft smile. Jayce, stepping out of the remnants of his own clothing as Viktor allowed himself to touch more, fingertips following the lines of defined muscle, Jayce carved out of honeyed marble, more god than man until the goosebumps trailing Viktor’s fingertips reminded him otherwise.
In that late night, like all the fantasies Viktor tortured himself with, all of it became real.
Jayce, naked, between his legs, guiding an arm beneath his weak knee and supporting it as their skin merged from the heat.
Jayce, looking at Viktor, taking in the vulnerability of being stripped bare, neither scared despite the nerves, neither better than the other, insecurities and envy’s just as discarded as their garments.
“Perfect,” Jayce rasped, his voice low, deep, tense with desire as he pressed a palm to the jut of Viktor’s pelvis and admired the sight Viktor knew he must be for Jayce to look at him like that. “You are so, so beautiful.”
I believe you.
Jayce, I must be.
No more words were exchanged after that, not until they’d finished their most daring project of all. The experiment of making love, working out the delays, making sense of the reactions, recorded in their minds for reflection, the conclusion impending, predictable and yet also splintering out small surprises.
It surprised Viktor that Jayce’s desk drawer homed a bottle of lubrication, as if this outcome might have one day materialised as it currently was.
It surprised Jayce that Viktor was impatient when it came to preparation, that Viktor wasn’t scared of pain, that maybe the older scientist even revelled in it if nails digging into his waist could be considered a signifier.
Viktor was surprised by the way Jayce was gentle and slow as his cock carved through Viktor’s body, Jayce surprised that Viktor told him to be faster and not worry, and once the surprises petered into known certainties, their experiment found a smooth course to sprint onwards.
To be held by Jayce was everything Viktor knew it would be.
But he had not considered the heavenly outcome of what it was to be fucked by Jayce.
Attentive and strong, keeping Viktor’s leg raised so it didn’t bang against the desk edge, lips against Viktor’s throat and sucking colours of claim, red and pink, lust and love. Viktor pulled into what he could of Jayce’s hair and groaned and sighed and let a rare tear spill, the ache of Jayce within him and against him maddening, wiping the slate of his mind into something blank.
The hand around his own cock, Jayce’s palm firm and smooth, was the breaking point for Viktor, groaning, curling himself into the way Jayce blanketed him, murmuring in the language of the Undercity, his accent non-existent in the words of his mother tongue.
“What’s that?” Jayce’s hips stuttered, the muscle in his stomach contracting, the hair leading from his navel to the base of his embedded cock glistening with their efforts.
“I’m close,” He translated, forgetting that of course Jayce wouldn’t know much Shuriman, let alone Viktor’s branch of it. “Please, do not stop—”
“Say it again,” Jayce punished Viktor with his dragging, purposeful thrusts, the sweat down his pectorals making Viktor hungry, starved. “It’s so pretty when you talk — ah, like that—”
Permission was given, and so Viktor rambled things he wasn’t sure he could in Piltover’s common tongue.
It feels so good, Jayce, and Jayce recognised his name, groaning, fucking roughly, all while giving that gentle look of yearning that never left The Anomaly of Jayce, still Jayce, His Jayce.
I knew you’d be good at this, I knew.
I knew you’d have a big cock, of course you’d be perfect everywhere.
I love you, love you, love you.
I’m so close, close, Jayce, Jayce, Jayce—
“Fuck,” the cursing was unlike Jayce, and Viktor liked it, slick with sweat and using one hand to hold onto the ledge of the table so they didn’t slip away, the other hand pulling Jayce deeper by his backside, absolutely not letting him leave. “Viktor, wait —”
“This is fine,” Viktor tried to command, but he knew it sounded like he was pleading. “Inside is fine, please—”
“Vik—”
They came together, a mass of skin and muscle and perspiration and lips pressing to lips, Viktor trying to devour Jayce with the last of his energy, Jayce matching it, outdoing him, forcing Viktor to succumb. Their blueprints were wrecked, smears of ink across the white table to meet with the white droplets that leaked from the side of Viktor’s heaving chest from his dramatic release, and Jayce was beaming, smiling so warmly, handsome and happy and Viktor hoped this way he would always remain.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Viktor sat up slowly, his back sore, a light cough tickling in the back of his passion-stained throat.
“Ruin the blueprints to our life's work?”
“Mm,” Jayce’s gaze narrowed, sultry and teasing and yet still so soft. “I guess you could put it that way.”
Shivering, Viktor let the small cough happen, and Jayce kissed him once more before dashing away in all his nakedness to fetch a blanket.
It draped over Viktor’s shoulders, and for a moment, one brief, familiar moment —
Viktor felt The Anomaly.
For a fraction of a second, or perhaps even less than that.
The blanket over his shoulders.
Finally there, manifested.
He hoped that meant that wherever That Jayce was, he was saved from the torment.
“Shall we make a start tonight?”
“A start?”
Jayce, in his own blanket, taking Viktor’s hands and grinning, his Golden Boy, his forever love, from the start of it all.
“I feel a shift in the universe, Viktor, my blood is buzzing — What better use of that energy than putting it towards our New Dream, don’t you think?”
The New Dream.
Our… new dream.
“Yes,” Viktor let the tears well, let a smile curl the corners of his quivering lips. “You’re right, Jayce. What a grand idea.”
Our New Dream.
“Do you want coffee duty, or cleaning duty?”
Viktor kissed Jayce, laughing.
“Coffee. You made the mess. You can clean it up.”
“Flawless logic, sir.”
Our… new dream.
It will be so, so beautiful, Jayce.
Let us begin.