Work Text:
When morning comes, and golden light bathes the streets of Piltover, two things will be true: Silco is dead, and Zaun is free.
“You have to destroy it.”
Jayce is staring at it. The tips and grooves of laced pyramids, the wide, empty spaces where runes were once carved into a smooth surface, a pulsing glow from within. It’s grown more unstable. More hungry.
It seems to know why he’s here, and it won’t allow him to touch it.
“You know, I can’t— I can’t leave here until we sort this out. I promised him.”
He speaks to it like it’s a living thing, but only because he’s quite sure that it is.
The Hexcore pulses.
“He hasn’t told me much, but I know that you’ve taken pieces of him. That you’ve hurt him. You weren’t trying to, though. Were you?” he asks. “You’re trying to save him. Just like me.”
Its non-response is predictable, and yet, Jayce still deflates with a sigh.
“I have to do this. For him. Maybe you don’t have a— a consciousness, but I hope you can understand that. In some way. In whatever way you can.”
The Hexcore’s light wavers. When Jayce is silent, and the world is silent, he can hear something like a low hum. Like it’s breathing.
He swallows, then rises to find his hammer. No more hesitating.
The apartment is dark, and Jayce finds Viktor in bed. His cane rests against the nightstand, where medications litter its surface. All given to him at the same time as his diagnosis, none life saving. Viktor is facing away from him. He doesn’t say hello, or anything at all.
Jayce doesn’t, either. He sheds his clothes quietly and climbs into bed next to his partner, slinging an arm over his waist and pressing his forehead to the nape of his neck. Viktor exhales. His body relaxes under Jayce’s touch.
“Did you do it?” he asks it like he doesn’t truly want to know.
Jayce cannot lie to him.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “It’s gone.”
I killed it. And you.
Viktor hums. He leans further into Jayce’s touch, and Jayce responds in kind. Warmth is the only comfort he can offer. The only promise he has left.
“I think—” Viktor hesitates, “—that I am done. With… Hextech.”
It should feel like a blow. Like abandonment. Like Viktor is taking a hammer to everything they’ve built together. Their legacy.
But it doesn’t. It hits Jayce so suddenly: they’re allowed to stop. He’s allowed to stop. They’ve created so much. A sturdy foundation for future scientists to build upon.
He can make a new promise, now.
Jayce runs his fingers through Viktor’s hair. It’s soft and cool, freshly washed. He smiles to himself.
“I’m going to cure your disease,” he says.
There’s a pause. Viktor shifts. He turns, slowly, to face Jayce. He doesn’t look hopeful, but there’s no inkling of disbelief on his face, either.
“It will take a long time, Jayce. And I am dying now. Quickly.”
Hearing it has gotten no easier. Jayce’s stomach curls. His heart is pinched by the words. He feels the pain of it and touches Viktor’s cheek. Smooths his thumb over the cool skin of his cheekbone. He’s become gaunter, but he remains Jayce’s Viktor. His partner.
“There’s still time,” he says. “I have to try, V.”
“I know you do. But, please…” Viktor trails off. He clears his throat, stifling a cough.
“Please what?” whispers Jayce.
Viktor sits up, turning to grab a handkerchief off the nightstand and cough into it. Jayce follows him, rubbing his back. The knobs of his spine have become more pronounced. His illness is eating him.
Jayce swallows his grief and holds Viktor until the fit has passed and the bloodied handkerchief is returned to the nightstand.
Voice raspy, Viktor says, “When I am gone, please keep trying. Do this, Jayce, for the undercity. Not just for me.”
The backs of his eyes are hot, but Jayce will not cry. Not now. Not when his partner is here, in his arms, talking and breathing and believing in him like he always has.
“I will,” he says. “I promise.”
His life happens in two places: their home and their lab. Jayce works from dawn until dark and, on the days when Viktor is too weak to accompany him and offer his ideas, returns home to take care of him in whatever ways Viktor will allow.
Weeks pass, and the quiet days, without Viktor by his side, are becoming more common. Days when Jayce returns home to find his partner already asleep, perhaps having been asleep all day, are regular. He swallows his fear, his uncertainty and distrust, and he keeps working.
“Do you think,” Mel asks him one day, watching as he toils away at his workbench, “that maybe you should take a break? Spend some time with him?”
Jayce frowns, not turning away from his work when he replies, “No, Mel, I can’t take a break. I have to figure this out. I think I’m getting close to something. Something that could work.”
“Jayce,” Mel sighs, “even if that’s true, you know that you’re still months, if not years away from human trials. It— you don’t have time.”
You’re too late.
Her voice is full of pity, and something sparks in Jayce’s chest. His frown turns into a scowl, brows furrowed as he tries to keep the majority of his attention on the sample he’s examining.
“I can get a special authorization. I’m a councillor,” he snaps.
“Are you?” asks Mel. “Because you could’ve fooled me. I haven’t seen you at a council meeting in over a month. You just brokered that deal to give Zaun independence and then left the rest of us to deal with the fallout. They never lived up to their end of the bargain, by the way. Jinx is still out there.”
Jayce turns to face her.
“Did you actually need something, Mel?” he asks, “Because I’m busy. Kick me off the council if you want, I don’t care, I’m not the one who wanted that seat in the first place. I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”
In the silence that settles after his words, Mel looks hurt. The scowl falls off of Jayce’s face, and he drops his gaze to the floor. The fire is doused by cold shame, by an ache in his throat.
“What I’m trying to say,” she speaks slower, more thoughtfully, now, “is that I think you should go home. Be with him, Jayce. I think that if you spend what time he has left locked up in this lab, instead of at his side, you will regret it. He needs you, now, more than he needs your promises of a cure.”
“How do you know what he needs?” Jayce tries to sound bitter, angry, but he just sounds petulant and defeated.
“Perhaps I don’t,” she admits. “You know Viktor better than anybody, and certainly much better than I do. But we all share the same experience of being human, and I’ve known no human in my life who said they were alright with going through their darkest moments alone that truly meant it.”
Jayce shakes his head, eyes welling. It’s over-warm and sharp, this pain. He shudders and tucks his head into his hands.
“I have to save him, Mel,” he says. “I have to.”
He hears the click of her heels echo as she moves towards him, then feels the warmth of her arms coming around him, cradling his back. She rests her head against his and exhales.
“Oh, my dear friend,” she says mournfully, “what a heavy weight you’ve chosen to carry.”
Viktor is awake. He is slumped in bed, propped up on a mound of pillows, and Jayce is beside him, smoothing a salve gently into his chest.
It’s nothing but pain relief. Something to ease the course of his breathing. Jayce watches closely, massaging the medication into Viktor’s skin as thoroughly as he can. He can’t bear to look, but he knows Viktor is watching him.
“How is your research coming along?” Viktor asks. His voice is hoarse. It always is, now, from coughing and coughing and coughing.
Jayce bites his lip and shrugs.
“We started animal testing today. It’s a small sample size, but that’s to be expected. It was hard enough convincing the council to let me hire a couple of assistants. Resources are limited,” he explains it like an apology.
Under his hand, Viktor’s chest expands and contracts in a deep breath. Jayce glances up at him. His eyes are barely open, but they’re trained on Jayce. Within his fatigue is something like contentment. Maybe relief.
“That’s good, Jayce,” he says, breathes, continues, “I am glad it’s going well.”
“Well, we don’t— exactly know if it’s going well, yet,” Jayce murmurs. He finishes applying the salve to Viktor’s skin and withdraws his hand, wiping off the excess with a tissue from the nightstand. “We’re just barely getting started.”
“You are making progress, though, no?” Viktor says.
Jayce shrugs. He stands, reaching for a bulky machine that rests on the floor beside the nightstand, nestled beside the cane that Viktor hardly ever stands up to use anymore. He grabs it by the handle and carries it back to his spot on the bed, resting it in his lap.
“I don’t know if just starting a trial counts as progress, V,” he mutters, grabbing a box off the nightstand.
Viktor watches every move Jayce makes. He always seems to, with little energy to do anything else; to read, or write, or draw.
“Of course it does,” he argues. “Because even if this trial yields unfavourable results, you will learn from it. You will have some idea of what you have to do next.”
Jayce continues preparing the machine as he thinks of how to respond. He opens the drawer of the nightstand and removes from it a plastic mask and tube, carefully attaching both pieces to the machine. From the box, he rips open a blister and withdraws a clear tube of liquid. Sliding the nebule into the machine, Jayce turns to Viktor. His partner is eyeing him skeptically.
“You ready?” Jayce asks.
Viktor nods, ducking his head so Jayce can pull the straps of the mask around him snugly.
“You’re avoiding the subject,” Viktor observes. His voice is dampened by the mask.
“I’m not— I,” Jayce sighs. “I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know how you’re always so… optimistic. How you can keep believing in me when I’ve hardly made any progress.”
He switches the machine on. The silence of their bedroom is filled with the whirring of all its parts working to deliver a medicated mist to Viktor’s lungs that will do so little. Viktor breathes it in deeply anyway, and Jayce wonders what it feels like. How it tastes on his tongue.
“You made it to animal trials in under two months,” Viktor tells him. “I have to disagree with your claim that you’ve made little progress.”
“Don’t talk,” Jayce replies, tempering his voice so it sounds more like a gentle request and less like a demand.
Narrowing his eyes, never one to just do as he’s told, Viktor speaks anyway. “I would enjoy it if you’d lie down with me, Jayce.”
His nerves are buzzing, bones shivering with restless energy, and Jayce wants nothing more than to keep moving. To stand and get Viktor water, to cook him a meal, to find him a cure, to deliver him more medicine, to bring him flowers and gifts and the exciting kind of science, to find him a cure.
Jayce shuffles around to Viktor’s other side and lies next to him. He watches every breath he takes.
For twenty long minutes, minutes that Jayce clings to, minutes that drip through his fingers like water, they don’t speak. There’s only the machine whirring and the raspy click of Viktor’s breathing.
It’s late, and neither of them can fall asleep.
“Do you miss it?” Viktor asks.
“Miss what?”
“Hextech.”
Viktor’s head is on his chest. He’s clutching a handkerchief close to his face, and Jayce is stroking his hair. It’s been a night of coughing and hacking and gagging and pain. Viktor’s eyes are bruised and pink, but Jayce knows never to draw attention to his tears.
“Jayce?” Viktor prods him, and Jayce inhales sharply.
Does he miss Hextech?
Yes. He misses it. He misses the exhilaration of discovery. He misses pulling all-nighters in the lab, hearing Viktor’s delirious laughter when an equation finally revealed itself to them. He misses the early mornings when he would bring coffee and breakfast, and Viktor’s expression would melt with starved, exhausted gratitude. He misses those moments when all the pieces came together in blue light and shuddering walls and floors, when, in his excitement, he would scoop Viktor into his arms and they would celebrate together. He misses the gentle feeling of falling in love, over and over and over again.
Jayce swallows the lump in his throat.
“Parts of it,” he admits. “Sometimes. What about you?”
Viktor opens his mouth to speak, but finds himself coughing into his handkerchief instead. Jayce rubs his back. He knows it doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t even help at all, but it’s instinct. It’s desperation. Only when he feels Viktor’s body relax again can he relax as well.
“I suppose I would also say that I miss parts of it,” Viktor tells him.
“Mm, like what?”
“Working with you to make the world a better place,” he says. “It was the most alive I have ever felt.”
Jayce smiles softly.
“But, I feel that…” Viktor trails off.
They rest in the silence for a bit. Jayce doesn’t push him. Sometimes, Viktor changes his mind halfway through a thought, and never finishes it. Jayce feels no need to force him. Other times, he just needs to consider what he’s trying to say long enough to feel comfortable saying it.
“I was losing my way. Experimenting with the Hexcore in unsafe ways. My fear of death put other people in danger,” Viktor explains. “I can’t forgive myself for that.”
“What do you mean?” Jayce frowns, “I— we never hurt anybody, V.”
“No, you didn’t. But I did. It killed Ms. Young.”
The admission makes Jayce tense up.
He should have known. Sky hasn’t been around for a while now, but her absence never nagged at Jayce enough for him to question it. His focus has narrowed to a fine point over the last few months, so that nothing else can break through but his pursuit of a cure and his thoughts of Viktor. Silently, he admonishes himself for that, guilt bubbling in his gut like curdled milk.
Weakly, Jayce says, “You didn’t know it would.”
Viktor shakes his head. “I am responsible. My actions were foolish and selfish. Sky believed she was helping me, and she paid the price for it.”
“Does anybody else know?” asks Jayce.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“So, her family…?”
“I would assume they’re aware of her absence, and that they worry for her,” Viktor’s voice is laced with shame, “but I don’t think they know she is dead.”
Jayce looks up at their ceiling. There’s a crack in it, slowly crawling from the corner towards the light fixture in the centre. They rarely turn that light on, instead relying on their lamps and sunlight flooding through the windows.
I should have that looked at, he thinks.
“Maybe it’s better if they don’t know,” Jayce murmurs.
For a while, Viktor doesn’t say anything. He alternates between drawing patterns on Jayce’s chest, fiddling with his handkerchief, and resting in stillness.
He says, “I’ve written her family a letter. Would you deliver it when I’m gone?”
Jayce clenches his jaw and closes his eyes. He takes an unsteady breath.
“You’ll deliver it,” he says, “when you’re better.”
Viktor doesn’t reply. He presses a kiss to Jayce’s collarbone.
For tonight, they’re done talking.
In the third month, Viktor has a good day. They go for a walk. It’s slow and meandering, and Jayce thinks about his ongoing trial the whole time.
He wants to be there, overseeing everything, pushing things forward—but he can’t deny Viktor anything. So they wander the streets of Piltover, and Viktor eyes everything with a sense of wonder, like he’s seeing it all for the first time.
They find themselves, eventually, in a nearby nature reserve. The grass is soft, bright green, caressing countless trees old and young. On a bench, Jayce watches Viktor close his eyes, listening to the birdsong.
“I never really took notice of it, before,” Viktor says. “How the birds all sound so different.”
Jayce hums, but he’s hardly listening. He scans the trees and bushes and flowers, watches a squirrel bound up the trunk of a tree. He thinks about the lab, full of rodents in cages and books and drug samples and his two assistants. They’re competent, and yet, he worries about leaving them unsupervised.
“Jayce.”
Turning, Jayce sees Viktor watching him. Their eyes meet, and Jayce’s chest aches.
Viktor is so tired. Still, his lips quirk up in a smile.
“I love you,” he says.
And, oh, it shouldn’t hurt him how it does. It shouldn’t make his eyes burn and his throat close. Love should never hurt like this. Jayce leans closer, resting his forehead against Viktor’s. Tenderly, he holds his face in his hands.
“I love you, too.”
The Kiramman house is quiet and warm, but Caitlyn cannot sleep. She lies on her side, covers up to her shoulders, and watches the window.
It’s raining. Little droplets pattering against the glass, chasing each other down to the sill. She usually doesn’t mind the rain, but it feels far too on the nose tonight.
She inhales slowly and tucks her face into her pillow. Her heart is heavy and sore.
There’s a shuffle outside, followed by the sound of her window sliding open, but Caitlyn doesn’t startle or look up. She can only sigh with relief.
“Hey, Cait.”
“Vi,” she mumbles.
More shuffling: the sound of Vi discarding her jacket and kicking off her boots. She moves about the room comfortably. Caitlyn hears her wardrobe open and shut, fabric sliding on skin, footsteps back towards the bed. The mattress dips, and she finally glances up from her pillow.
Vi looks down at her, hair glued to her cheeks and water dripping from her chin, clad in dry, borrowed clothing.
“God, you’re drenched,” Caitlyn says. “Are you cold?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Vi flops down beside her, tugging the blankets over the both of them. “I’ve got a human furnace right here.”
Caitlyn huffs, but can’t bring herself to roll her eyes or bite back like she normally would.
Vi notices. Of course she does. Her hand on Caitlyn’s cheek is cool, but grounding all the same. They watch each other in the moonlight.
What they have is still so new. There’s a sustained uncertainty about it; a Piltie and a Zaunite, topside and undercity. Caitlyn feels hesitation pulling at her so often, but it’s always quelled the moment Vi is at her side again.
“What’s going on, Cupcake?” asks Vi. “You look sad.”
“…Viktor died yesterday,” Caitlyn tells her.
Vi’s brow furrows. “Viktor, that’s… Jayce’s partner, right?”
“In more ways than one.”
The crease in Vi’s forehead smooths, brows lifting with realization.
“Gotcha.” Her hand glides from Caitlyn’s cheek down to her shoulder, then further to slide their hands together. “How, uh— how’s he doin’?”
Caitlyn worries her lower lip, squeezing Vi’s hand.
“Honestly, I don’t really know. Devastated, I imagine. He isn’t seeing anyone right now. I tried visiting and he just… wouldn’t answer the door,” she says.
Vi strokes the back of Caitlyn’s hand, her expression coiled with sympathy. Caitlyn sighs.
“I don’t know if this is true, but I heard from my mother that it took the medics over an hour to convince Jayce to let them take Viktor’s body. That he just… couldn’t let him go,” she turns into her pillows again. The thought of it, just picturing it in her mind, leaves her feeling pulled apart and frayed. She says, “I never knew Viktor as well as I could have known him. I think a part of me is sad because I know that’s true of many of the people who met him. He was often disregarded as just… Jayce’s undercity sidekick.”
“You can leave the undercity, but the undercity never leaves you,” Vi mutters.
“And Jayce has his prejudices, but he saw past all of that. I think that he’s part of why…” Caitlyn halts, peeking up at Vi.
“Why what?”
Embarrassed, Caitlyn rolls onto her back, just to put a modicum of distance between them, even though she clings to Vi’s hand, still. “Why I believe that you and I have a chance. A real one.”
She hopes that her room is dark enough to hide the warmth in her cheeks. Vi huffs a soft laugh.
“Guess I owe him an edible arrangement, then, hm?” she says. It’s a joke, but there’s little amusement in her voice. Caitlyn smiles softly, anyway.
“…What strikes me the most about it all is Hextech.”
“Hextech? Why?”
“In all the time I’ve known him, Jayce’s dream has been magic. To create it and make it accessible to society. He always told me it would be his life’s work,” Caitlyn shakes her head in disbelief. “And then, after years of building it, he just gave it up. Just like that. Left it for someone else to carry on with. He’s spent the last few months doing nothing but trying to find a cure for Viktor’s disease.”
Vi shifts, propping herself up on her elbow and looking down on Caitlyn. She lifts their entwined hands, pressing her mouth to the back of Caitlyn’s hand.
“Jayce must have really loved him,” she says.
And maybe that’s why this hurts so much, even though Caitlyn barely knew Viktor. Maybe that can explain why her chest feels like it’s been pried apart, her heart beaten to a bruised pulp.
“He does,” she says. “And I never took the time to learn exactly why.”
Mel Medarda is well known for her steely grip on her composure. Nobody ever sees her emotions get the best of her; not the council, not the public, and not even her closest friends.
Today, more than any day in recent history, she needs that composure. She needs every last bit of strength she can call on.
It has been a week, and Jayce still remains locked away in the home he shared with Viktor. He’s seen no one. Hasn’t even followed up on his research. Mel instructed his assistants to carry on to the best of their abilities in his absence.
Now, here she stands on Jayce and Viktor’s front step, carrying a stack of pre-cooked meals and a sympathy card from the council. She’s rung his doorbell and knocked several times. He won’t answer.
“Jayce,” she calls out. “It’s Mel! I know you don’t want to see anyone right now, but I can’t leave until I speak with you.”
She waits another minute. No answer.
“Like I said! I’m going to keep talking until you let me in!” she hears voices behind her and turns to narrow her eyes at a gaggle of teenagers walking by. Clearing her throat, Mel faces the door again. “Jayce, this is quite rude of you, you know! I’m standing here with about fifteen pounds of food and I’m getting a lot of strange looks! This will be a lot easier on both of us if you just open the damn—!”
The door flies open.
“Door…”
Jayce’s eyelids are round and swollen. His hair is unkempt and he clearly hasn’t shaved all week. He’s wearing a loose, wrinkled shirt and sweatpants.
He doesn’t even look at her, gaze unfocused and empty.
“Please just go home, Mel,” he croaks.
She realizes quickly that her sadness is beginning to show, and Mel steels herself, forcing her expression back into something mild. Hopefully the familiarity of it is more comforting to him than her pity would be.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” she says. “Not until I’ve seen you eat something. And we have a couple of things to discuss.”
“I’m eating fine. We have nothing to discuss,” Jayce protests.
He makes to shut the door, but Mel wedges herself partway into the apartment, glaring up at him defiantly.
“It’s about Viktor.”
Jayce pauses. He heaves a pained sigh, then opens the door again and steps aside to let her in. Blessedly, he takes a few of the containers out of her arms, lightening the load.
Together, they carry all of the food to his kitchen. Its cleanliness is all the confirmation Mel needs that he hasn’t been eating much, if at all. She leaves one of the containers on the counter, placing the rest in the freezer.
“These can all be heated in about thirty minutes. They’re from your assistants and some of the academy students,” she explains.
Jayce sinks into a chair at the dining table, rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger. Mel turns on the oven and moves about, grabbing a couple of plates and filling a glass with water that she sets down in front of Jayce.
“I’m not really up for a dinner date,” he grumbles.
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“Breakfast, then. Whatever.”
They don’t talk. Mel rests on the countertop while the casserole bakes, graciously averting her gaze from her grieving friend. She hears him pick up the glass of water and take a sip, and she is quietly glad.
She dishes up a large helping of food for Jayce, and for herself, a much smaller piece. Joining him at the table, Mel smooths her hands over her dress and picks up her fork. She points it at him.
“Eat. Then we’ll talk.”
With obvious reluctance, Jayce does. Mel tries her best not to watch him; or, at least, to be covert about it when she does. He doesn’t scarf it down like a man starved, but he eats it all. Scrapes up the last few crumbs and washes it all down with the rest of his water. She’s pleased, but she forces her lips not to curve into a smile.
“Okay,” Jayce says, pushing his plate away. “What do you want to talk about?”
Mel clears her throat, stacking their plates and cutlery together and leaving them in the centre of the table.
“I’m aware,” she starts, “that you were Viktor’s only family. Which means that his funeral arrangements fall to you.”
Jayce stiffens, brows knitting as his eyes blow wide with anger. Mel wets her lips and carries on anyway.
“I’m also aware that you’re not well right now, Jayce,” she softens her voice, hoping it will be enough to keep him calm. “I’d like to offer my help. I can plan it with you, or, if you’d prefer, I can plan it myself.”
“It’s been a week, Mel,” Jayce snaps. “A week.”
She folds her hands in her lap. “I know. But he deserves a proper burial. A chance for the people who knew him, like you and I, to say goodbye.”
“You barely knew him,” Jayce says, glowering at the table. “He was just an investment to you. We both were.”
Mel twitches with the effort it takes to conceal her hurt. She swallows around an ache in her throat.
“Jayce.” She breathes, “Viktor was my friend.”
Jayce scoffs. “Oh, was he?”
“He was. I met him when he was just starting as Heimerdinger’s assistant, and while I admit that we weren’t the best of friends, I still knew him. I still cared for him,” she can’t conceal the thickness of her voice as tears threaten to cloud her vision. Mel squeezes her hands together tightly. “I can’t imagine the pain you’re in right now. But I want to say goodbye to my friend. And I want to help make this less— less horrible for you, however I can.”
Jayce finally looks at her, then. For a moment, his eyes are blazing, his face twisted in a sour rage. The next, he deflates, and all that’s left is exhaustion.
“I can’t do it,” he admits. “I can’t.”
Dabbing at the corners of her eyes, Mel sniffs. “Then let me.”
He slumps in his chair, silent. He nods.
“Keep it small,” he says, voice quivering. “I don’t want the public making a spectacle out of him. He liked… calla lilies. And, uh, not too much black. A depressing atmosphere would annoy him.”
Mel nods, looking around the kitchen to see if she can find a box of tissues anywhere. She doesn’t see any.
Returning her gaze to Jayce, Mel says, “Thank you. I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop when it’s all sorted.”
Jayce dips his chin. He’s fiddling with his hands, shaking his leg. Mel wants to embrace him. To hold him as tight as she can until the worst of the pain passes. But she knows that the only arms he wants right now are Viktor’s, and she is no miracle worker.
“One more thing, and then I’ll leave,” she says. She reaches into the small satchel that’s wrapped around her waist, withdrawing from it two envelopes.
Mel sets the first one on the table and slides it toward Jayce.
“This is from the council. You’ll do me the courtesy of not throwing it away until I’m gone, I hope.”
He huffs, something like a dry, humourless laugh, and Mel smiles ever so slightly in turn.
“And this,” she holds the other one up. Jayce looks at it, then at her, puzzled. “This one is from Viktor. He came to see me a few weeks ago and asked that I deliver it to you.”
Gingerly, she places it on the table. Treats it like the precious thing that it is: Viktor’s final words to his partner. Mel fights, again, not to cry, because Jayce is looking at it like he’s just been shot. Like his world is a shaken snow globe and he’s anchored to nothing.
“I’ll leave you, now,” she murmurs.
Jayce doesn’t reply, still staring at the envelope. At the middle of it, where his name is written in Viktor’s elegant handwriting. Mel rises. The groan of the chair seems to shake Jayce out of his stupor. He clears his throat and stands.
“I’ll, uh. I’ll walk you out.”
Mel nods. They go in silence. On her way out, she turns to him one last time and squeezes his shoulder.
“Try to take care of yourself,” she says.
She makes her way down the steps and onto the pavement.
“Mel.”
Pausing, she turns to face him. Looking back at her is an utterly broken man.
“You were right,” he says. “I did it all wrong.”
Mel opens her mouth to speak, but he’s already closed the door. On her way home, she lets herself cry.
It’s been too long since Heimerdinger last walked these halls. Yet, relative to all of his life, it feels like no time has passed all the same. He is wandering, taking in the sculptures and paintings, taking his time. He knows his destination, but feels no rush to get there.
A vice of his, always has been, that encountering a grieving face is so hard. Still, he won’t forgive himself if he leaves without speaking to him.
It’s an educated guess that Jayce will be in the lab he and Viktor once shared; their first one, before they graduated to something larger to contain all of the wonders Hextech had become.
Heimerdinger lets himself in and is greeted by the sight of Jayce’s broad back hunched over the old workbench. He’s sitting on a high stool, fingers twirling a bottle of alcohol by the cork, something in his other hand obscured by his head. He stiffens when the door opens, but doesn’t turn or speak.
“Hello, my dear boy,” Heimerdinger says. He makes his way around to Jayce’s side, standing at a far enough distance to see his face. “I thought I might find you here.”
At this angle, Heimerdinger can see, now, that what Jayce holds is an envelope. He stares at it intently. Conflicted.
“I’m not really good company right now, Professor,” Jayce tells him.
“Mm, well, very few are when they’re grieving,” Heimerdinger says. “I wanted to come see you regardless. I thought it was quite a beautiful service. You honoured him well.”
“Mel did it all.”
“Ah. I see.”
Jayce grunts softly. He flips the envelope backwards, then forwards again. Pops the cork off his bottle and takes a swig. He wipes his chin with his sleeve and sets the bottle down.
“Y’know,” he says, “you were right, Professor. About everything, right from day one. I don’t know why I ever thought magic would do any good for us. We call it the arcane for a reason.” He scoffs, slapping the envelope down and resting his forehead in the palm of his hand. “If I’d been focusing on this disease at twenty-four, instead of chasing some stupid pipe dream, and playing government and being the ‘Man of Progress,’ maybe I could’ve… I could’ve figured it out by now. Could’ve fixed him.”
“Do you think Viktor would agree that your pursuits were fruitless?” Heimerdinger asks.
Jayce turns his head, eyes piercing.
“Viktor is dead.”
“Indeed he is,” Heimerdinger replies. He clasps his hands behind his back. “And his loss will be felt deeply, even by those who don’t realize what’s now missing.”
He watches as his former pupil lets his arm fall heavily onto the workbench. Jayce looks out the window ahead of him, out at the darkened streets of Piltover. There are streetlights twinkling and boats bobbing in the harbour, families walking their children home and students hunched over their books as they cram for their next exam, birds resting in their nests and rodents burrowing into their hollows. Life bustles through Piltover’s streets, and Heimerdinger watches Jayce watching it all go by.
“My boy, I have learned much in my long life,” Heimerdinger tells him. “And what I’ve learned about grief is that there is nothing I, or anyone else, can say. I’m not here to try and cheer you up or ease your burden, because I know that I can’t. I’m here to say hello, and to tell you that I, too, will miss him dearly.”
Jayce takes another drink.
“If you ever need anything,” Heimerdinger says, “I now live in Zaun with the Firelights. It’s a wonderful little community. Almost entirely self-sustaining. I think Viktor would have been quite taken with it.”
He gives a parting nod, even though Jayce isn’t looking, then turns to make his exit.
Behind him is the sound of an envelope tearing open.
My Dearest Jayce,
I have been watching you work yourself to the bone for weeks, now. Watching you throw yourself at this task with everything you have. You are a marvel, and yet you have never been able to recognize it.
I know that I won’t live to see my disease cured. I wish I could. I wish I could work alongside you for decades to come. But I can’t, and I know you aren’t ready for this conversation, so I’ve chosen to write to you instead. I hope that having this after I’m gone might offer some comfort.
My favourite memory of us is hard to choose, but at least in this moment, it’s probably the first time you kissed me. We were both so confused. I remember being a bit tipsy, still running on pure nerves and adrenaline after our first ever Progress Day presentation, and I initially thought it was a mistake. That you’d just lost your balance and fallen into me. You looked so startled. But then you asked me if you could try again, and I realized that you had meant it. It’s a beautiful memory, Jayce. I hope it won’t be stained by your grief forever.
The truth is, I’m frightened. I want to live. I want to see what else we can create together. I want to see what you look like when you’re old and smelly and grouchy. I want to take walks with you and travel with you and help you fix that crack in our ceiling. I want to hold your hand and kiss you and have sex with you and hold you in my arms every single night. I want to meet new people and discover new things and listen to music and eat new food. I want to see what it looks like when Piltover and Zaun are truly at peace with one another.
But I’m tired, Jayce. I’m in pain. More pain than I’m used to, more than I think I can handle for very long. I know it offers you no peace, but when I am gone, it will be the first time in a very long time that I’m not in pain anymore. That is the only thing about my impending death that comforts me.
You take care of me so well. It does ease the pain, more than I think you realize. All your salves and balms and nebules and inhalers and pills. But mostly, it’s you. Your touch and your voice and your love. I used to wonder if I truly deserved it, but I don’t have the energy for such a tedious insecurity anymore. I’m simply grateful for it, now. I only wish I could offer the same comforts to you in your grief that you offer to me in my decline.
When I’m gone, please care for yourself as I wish to care for you. Please do everything in your power not to be destroyed by my absence. I hope we will be reunited someday, but not too soon. Not before your time.
I also want you to know this: if continuing your research into my disease is too painful for you, you have my permission to stop. You aren’t required to complete every task you set out to do, especially if it’s to your detriment. The weight of our world doesn’t belong solely on your shoulders.
I love you deeply, Jayce Talis. I have loved you all these years, and I love you now, and wherever I go next, I will love you from there just the same. Thank you for the beautiful life you’ve given me.
Sincerely,
Viktor.
A month after Viktor’s death, Jayce’s body still feels like it’s constructed only out of cotton balls and tape. He’s never been so detached. A boat without an anchor, floating listlessly on a vast, empty ocean.
He stands in the cemetery, hands in his pockets, looking down at a newly planted headstone. The engraving was done beautifully. Jayce is certain Mel must have spent a fortune on it.
“Thank you for your letter,” he whispers. “It’s… I don’t feel better, but I’m glad I have it. I hear your voice when I read it.”
He clears his throat awkwardly, peers at his surroundings to ensure that nobody’s watching him. Jayce scuffs his shoe in the grass and soil.
“I’m, um, I’m staying with my mom right now. I just can’t be alone, you know? I can’t,” he sighs. “It feels wrong, but I’m letting her take care of me. A bit. Because doing it by myself wasn’t working, and you… you don’t want that for me. I know you don’t.”
Crouching down, Jayce traces the curves and lines of Viktor’s headstone with a critical eye. He sees no mistakes. Nothing out of place.
His eyes are sore and dry. He’s still so emotionally volatile, and just looking at this headstone brings the tears to the surface. They burn against sensitive sclera.
“I delivered the letter to Sky’s family, like you asked. I-I can’t tell you how they reacted to it. I just chucked it in the mailbox and left. I couldn’t stick around to talk to them about it, you know? I’m still, just…
“Anyway. I apologized to Mel for being a dick. And I’m considering going to Zaun to talk to Professor Heimerdinger. I think I owe him the biggest apology of all for what I did to him. And I didn’t make it much better with how I acted when he came to see me.
“God, V,” Jayce chokes, twisting to sit with his back to the headstone. He wipes his eyes and rests his head on cool granite, “I miss you. I still can’t believe this is real. You deserved… so much more. I’m sorry.”
His chin quivers, and Jayce ducks his head, hiding his face in his hands. He sobs.
“I’m so sorry.”
Grief creates something of a time warp. There are days that disappear with a snap of the fingers, and others that carry on for years.
Jayce goes back to work. He visits Caitlyn and doesn’t resist when she wraps him up in her arms. He lets her hold him, lets her rub his back and stroke his hair while he falls apart on her shoulder. She gives him a tin full of cookies, telling him bashfully that Vi helped her bake them just for him. They’re a bit overdone, but Jayce eats them gratefully.
He finds Professor Heimerdinger in Zaun, spots him strumming a guitar and singing to a small crowd of teenagers and young children, and he watches the performance. Jayce never knew he could sing like that.
He apologizes, and is astonished at Heimerdinger’s easy forgiveness. They sit together and talk about Viktor.
“He was the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,” Jayce tells him. “Everything he disliked about himself just made me love him more.”
And Heimerdinger nods solemnly.
“Quick-witted and highly intelligent, that boy was. Very efficient with paperwork, too!”
Jayce snorts. Then, for the first time since Viktor left, he laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs, and then he cries. Heimerdinger makes his way up onto a stool so he can pat Jayce’s shoulder.
“You will always miss him, Jayce. But a day will arrive when these moments of laughter don’t always turn into tears.”
Jayce nods, wiping his eyes and sniffing, and he carries on.
He helps his mother cook and clean, and they talk about his research, about her work, and about Viktor. She kisses him good morning and goodnight and brews him tea, ruffles his hair and hugs him so tightly it almost pulls his floating pieces back together.
He encourages his assistants when their first sample doesn’t pan out.
“We just have to adjust,” he tells them. “This doesn’t mean we’ve failed. We can learn from this.”
Jayce begins spending entire days with Caitlyn and Vi. He spars with Vi, and he always loses, but he finds that he can easily do it with a smile. The exertion is relieving and, for as long as it lasts, pulls his mind into singular focus: don’t get beat up too badly.
After three months, he starts attending council meetings again. He doesn’t participate at first, but he sees Mel’s relief and the sympathetic nods of a couple fellow councillors, and knows that it’s okay for him to take his time. A part of him is surprised at their patience, but he doesn’t care to question it. He knows who’s to thank.
He visits Viktor every week and talks to him. He visits Viktor and cries. He visits Viktor and asks him to please, please come back. He visits Viktor and tells him it’s okay, I’ll be okay.
Grief is a cloak that Jayce wears through his life, and he finds a way to carry it without tripping on every step.
A year goes by. Then two. Research continues, more funding comes in, and two assistants become four.
Then, one day, Jayce is thirty-eight, and he’s sitting next to Viktor’s headstone watching the clouds roll by.
“I know it’s been a while,” he says, “but I also know you aren’t mad. Life’s been busy. I’ve been doing a lot of babysitting, Viktor. I’m an uncle, now.”
He laughs softly, picturing his sweet nephews hanging from his arms like tree trunks.
“Cait and Vi have two little boys. Mylo and Claggor. I guess they named ‘em after Vi’s brothers. To be honest, I didn’t even know she ever had brothers. I wonder what they were like, sometimes. If their kids are anything like them. And, before you say it, yes, I know I’m not technically an uncle. But they call me uncle, so I’m their uncle.
“Man, V,” he sighs, “so much has changed. Jinx came out of hiding about… six months ago, now? I met her. Y’know, ‘cause she’s Vi’s sister. And, I don’t know what she was like when she was running around wreaking havoc, but she is a character, that one. Picks up strays all over the place. Just a gaggle of kids. I’ve kind of taken to covering for her with the council. I dunno, Viktor, maybe you’d feel differently, but I honestly like her. She’s a lot, for sure. I just… I don’t see a terrifying war criminal when I see her.”
Jayce turns to examine the flowers he’d brought along. He strokes their petals, shifts and adjusts them so they look as nice as Viktor deserves.
“We’re making some progress with a cure,” he says after a while. “With any luck, we should have approval to start human trials in the next year or two. As soon as we have something… I’m going to make sure it’s free. I don’t know how, yet, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll make sure everybody who needs it can get it.”
Somewhere, a bird starts singing. Jayce looks around, but he can’t narrow down where it’s coming from. He breathes a long sigh, then turns and lets his lips rest on the top of Viktor’s headstone. Pushing himself to his feet, Jayce brushes the dirt and grass from his pants.
“I love you,” he says. “Miss you everyday, my love.”
Then, one day, Jayce is fourty-four. He is surrounded by family and friends, embroiled in work that matters, and the crack in their bedroom ceiling has finally been repaired.
“It’s been twenty years since you saved my life,” Jayce says, amazed, back resting against Viktor’s grave. “There’ve been… moments, ever since you left, where I’ve thought about following you. About jumping, now that you aren’t here to stop me.”
He listens to silence and birdsong.
“But it wouldn’t be fair to you, V, I know. I know that. You’re not even here and you’re still saving my life,” he chuckles wetly and wipes his eyes. “Every dream I’ve ever had came true because of you.”
Jayce turns to face the smooth granite of the headstone. He traces the words engraved there. The years of life and death, and the line in between. A line that says everything and nothing at all.
“Every dream except for one.”
When the day finally arrives, Jayce is fourty-seven years old with silver in his hair. Viktor is still thirty-two.
He stands in the cemetery with a vial in his right hand. The liquid inside of it is an amber hue that glints in the sunlight. It’s small and unimposing, the glass so fragile between Jayce’s fingers.
“We did it, Viktor,” he says. “It took about a decade and a half longer than I promised you, but… we did it.”
Jayce sighs, rubbing his beard and staring at the tiny little bottle.
“Three patients, now. All in full remission. I’ve seen their scans and listened to their breathing myself. Their lungs are all working beautifully.”
Jayce lowers himself to sit. He’s close enough to touch Viktor’s headstone, and he does. It’s hard and cold like always.
“I’m calling it Viktory. With a K. I know you’d get a kick out of that, probably tell me to choose something different. But I did this for you. I know I promised I would do it for the undercity, but— it was always for you. I’m sorry I lied about that, but I think you already knew,” he says.
Raising the vial of medicine, Jayce dips it towards the headstone. Like the tip of a hat, a cheers over drinks, a chivalrous greeting.
“Anyway,” he says, “this one is for you. You take it twice daily for thirty days, then increase the dosage and take it three times daily for another sixty. That seems to do the trick.”
In the grass, against cold stone, Jayce sets down the vial. He returns to standing.
“Well, Viktor,” he sighs, “that was my last promise to you. What am I supposed to do now, huh?”
…
Live, he hears. It sounds like Viktor’s voice, even though Jayce knows that it’s not. Live long and well, and when we are together again, you can tell me every wonderful story and beautiful discovery.
Jayce smiles, eyes wet. “Okay, my love. I think I can do that.”
With one last glance at the vial, Jayce turns away. He tucks his new promise into the softness of his heart and makes his way home.
In his mind’s eye, Viktor is walking right beside him, smiling all the way.