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The scientific method goes as follows: first, you make an observation about the world. Then, you form a question surrounding that observation. You then form a hypothesis, and make a prediction based upon that hypothesis. The last step, the very last step, is to test the hypothesis, and either find it proven correct or return to the drawing board.
Jayce knows he's skipped a few steps.
You're supposed to run a lot of tests. Tests in incrementally increasing intensity. That's how they did Hextech, he and Viktor; they started small and kept testing and trying and figuring things out until they got to things like the Hexgates. They did it often enough for Jayce to know when he's cut corners.
His observation was that Viktor was dying. Dying, painfully, and with increasing speed, and Jayce powerless to stop it, not able to do anything or even offer much comfort while his favorite person wasted away in front of his eyes. He didn't have a hypothesis, just a prediction: he was going to stop it. He'd figure out a way to stop it no matter what, because the idea of Viktor just not being here anymore, because of nothing more than Piltovan neglect and the circumstances of his birth, wasn't an option. Not to Jayce. But he hadn't done much testing, much experimenting, before going to real world applications. He hadn't tested anything at all before doing what he did.
It's dark in the lab, when Jayce enters it. The light in the window was only ever artificial, and Jayce had asked for it to be dimmed as much as it could be after he'd seen Viktor's squinting like he was in physical pain, so most of the corners are in shadow now. For Jayce's eyes, it makes everything a bit hard to see, and he's taken to keeping a lantern on one of the tables whenever it gets to be too much and he needs to see. He's calibrated it so that it's more like the lamps from before Hextech, soft and yellow and hazy.
It's on the lowest setting now, and that's just enough for Jayce to make out Viktor, sprawled on their old couch. He has one of his notebooks in his lap, a pen in his hand, but he's not working. He's just staring up at the ceiling, tapping the pen rhythmically against his thigh.
"Stuck?" Jayce asks. It feels weird, sometimes, behaving as they normally do even with everything. As if Piltover isn't falling to pieces outside, as if there isn't a stale element to the air in the lab that only comes when there's just one living body in it, as if Viktor can't see him crystal clear even in the gloom when he rolls his head to meet Jayce's eyes.
"Hm." That's the answer he gives when he's stuck and doesn't want to admit that he's stuck. Jayce half wants to tease him about it, but instead settles for grabbing the lamp and dragging a stool over to the couch. He doesn't share the space with Viktor like they used to over the past decade; Viktor shies away from touch a lot more now, from all forms of contact more often than not, so Jayce has found it easier to just sit facing him and let him set the pace of what is and isn't allowed.
It's the least he can do.
"Can I?" Viktor nods, and lets Jayce take the notebook from him as he lets his head fall back again, blinking up at the arches in the lab's ceiling like they hold all the secrets of the universe.
It's not a particularly hard set of numbers to figure out; it doesn't take Jayce more than a couple of minutes to find the issue and fix it, which is concerning. That, and the languid way Viktor's acting, just draped around, not moving much, letting Jayce take the pen from his hand rather than just handing it to him. Jayce doesn't like it.
"It generally takes more to stump you," he says cautiously, setting the notebook to the side.
"Eh," Viktor mumbles, though he does make an effort to sit up and actually look Jayce in the face. In the lamplight, it almost seems like his eyes are the same color they were before. "My head's a bit fuzzy. That's all."
"Have you eaten?" Jayce asks.
Viktor shrugs. "I helped myself to some of your leftover noodles," he says.
"That's not what I meant." He's probably a bit blunter than he should be, because now Viktor has enough energy to sit up fully, and Jayce can tell that he's glaring at him.
"I know what you meant, Jayce," he snaps. "And I've told you, I'm not doing that. Food still serves me adequately, and so long as I replenish it with something like a rat, I will manage just fine."
"Where the fuck are you going to find rats, V?" Jayce bursts out. "There's no rats here, and last time you said you'd go to Zaun but that's not an option right now." It's not going to be an option for a while, and Jayce should be out there helping calm things down, doing his job as a Councilor. It's probably what everyone else is thinking, people like Cait and Mel and even Heimerdinger, wherever he is. Except Jayce can't fathom the idea of leaving the lab, not when Viktor's here, talking and breathing again, and there's still so much to figure out. Even if that means arguing about the merits of eating rats.
"I am not entertaining the other option," Viktor tells him hotly. "Shall I skulk about the halls like some monster? Kill someone else for my own sake? No, Jayce, no."
"Viktor, you didn't kill Sky," Jayce starts, even reaching out to touch his shoulder, but Viktor bats him away with a sharp tcha! sound. He lurches to his feet to get away from him, but he must be hungrier than Jayce realized, or even he himself knew. He sways alarmingly once he's upright, stumbles, and Jayce is up in an instant to grab him by the arms and hold him up so he doesn't collapse.
He can tell that there's not going to be any hiding this the second Viktor wakes up. He can feel it, when he rushes to the sound of Viktor's voice and gathers him up in his arms, holds him tight and already regrets when he'll have to let him go. Viktor is too cold. He's never been particularly warm to the touch, always ran more on the cool side, but if it were even a couple of weeks ago, Jayce would have been alarmed if he'd touched him and felt this kind of chill.
And he'd seen Viktor's body too. He's healed, but there's dark scarring, unnaturally blueish-purple and shimmering faintly like starlight, where every injury was. On his hands, his neck, the corner of his jaw, his torso, his back, his legs. Anyone can look at Viktor and know that something happened, that something changed about him, within him even.
So Jayce relishes the feel of Viktor's free hand coming up to his back, holding him gently, for as long as he'll have it. Until he hears Viktor gasp, sharp and high in his ear, and push him back with far more strength than he usually has, practically doubling over as he shoves Jayce away from his body. Jayce goes and grabs at their blanket and drapes it around Viktor's shoulders, tries not to panic at how erratic his breathing is.
"Are you hurt?" he asks hurriedly.
Viktor shakes his head. "Hurt, no," he says. His voice is slow, like it is when he's solving a problem in his head. "I'm...hungry." He looks at Jayce then. His eyes are pale, closer to white-gold than the deep amber Jayce has known all of these years, and ringed with burnished red. "The Council," he says softly, and Jayce can't help the way he cringes. "What did you do?"
What he had to, Jayce thinks to himself. The only option that was even possible, when he noticed Viktor, pinned under the rubble, when he saw all the blood spattered on him, in a pool under him, bubbling in his mouth with each wet death rattle. When he'd felt Viktor's broken bones under his hands, how light he felt in his arms, seen the way Viktor's eyes were rolling back in his head, it felt like nothing at all to use what he'd been given, the dark, swirling blood, heedless of the cost.
"I saw someone," Jayce says. "After I met with Silco." He could tell that Silco wanted to leave, once he made it clear Jinx was non-negotiable, was staring at Jayce like he would rip him to shreds with his bare hands if he could, but he'd still asked. Still said I need to know if you have someone. Anyone who can help a friend of mine. He's from Zaun, and he's sick. Hadn't said dying, but Silco had stared at him for a long while, enough for Jayce to fight the urge to cower, before he'd given Jayce a name. "A man, Reveck." That gets a reaction. Viktor flinches, hard, and he looks horrified.
"No." He's still holding onto his crutch, and Jayce can see his grip tighten. Can hear the whine of the metal under the strain. "Jayce, that man is not going to give you anything you could need, anything good. He's not capable of it."
"Not even a cure?" Jayce dares to ask.
Viktor makes a harsh noise, not quite a laugh. Too bitter for it. "Is that what he calls it?" he says sardonically. "More palatable, I suppose, than to be honest about what he does and its consequences. Did he tell you that, what his cure comes from? The horrors he makes others endure? The ones he's hurt, tortured, for it, heedless of their suffering or anyone else's, all because it does what he needs them to do?"
"I had an inkling." Jayce isn't stupid; Reveck handed him a vial full of magical blood in the dark of his creepy workshop, telling him about the sacrifices made for progress, that everything he did had a purpose no matter how barbaric the process, and Jayce had known that he'd probably done unspeakable things to get to where he was. To be able to hand Jayce something that could save Viktor's life. "I never thought he was a good guy, Viktor, believe me, but if he had something that could save you, I'm sorry but I was willing to take it, no matter how bad a person he is!"
"He's a monster," Viktor says, half snarling. "He's cruel and everything he does has a dual purpose because he is vile and he never should have been anywhere near you." Viktor spits the last word like he can't even handle the idea of the two of them in the same sentence, let alone the same room together. Like he wants to physically herd Jayce away from him. "Jayce, what were you thinking?"
"I wasn't." It's so quiet that he almost worries that Viktor doesn't hear him. But he goes still, impossibly still, and Jayce knows he has. "I wasn't thinking, not really. I just knew that you were dying, that you'd be dead if I didn't, so I..." His voice trails off pathetically, and he spreads his hands. Because that's it. It was either this, or Viktor dead, and Jayce's brain couldn't allow him to imagine what it would be like if Viktor was dead.
"Jayce." Viktor's hand twitches at his side, like he wants to reach out and just barely stops himself.
"He said you'd understand," Jayce whispers. Viktor will understand the necessity. He hadn't liked how Reveck had said it, voice harsh and almost smugly self-satisfied, some proprietary look in his eye. Like he enjoyed saying it. And Jayce really doesn't like that telling Viktor this makes him shudder.
"I can understand why he would," he says thickly. His eyes glaze over, going far away, as if imagining something else. "But you," Viktor shakes his head, looks at Jayce again. "I can imagine you had different motivations." It's not a question, but there's a look on his face that Jayce can only describe as hopeful. "For keeping me alive. Beyond...utility."
"Utility — God, Viktor, no!" Jayce takes a step forward, and can't help the sag of relief when Viktor doesn't move away. "You're my best friend, my partner, the most important..." He takes another step forward. "It's not about necessity. Never. I love you. I — I couldn't watch you die." His voice is small in the space between them. "Viktor, I couldn't." He's ashamed of the way his voice cracks, if only for the devastated look it brings to Viktor's face.
"Oh Jayce," he says softly. "You will regret this." He says it with such certainty that Jayce balks. "Whatever you've done here has mutated me. In a thousand different ways, I can feel it."
"I don't care," but Viktor is already shaking his head.
"You don't understand," he insists. "I can hear you. Your heart." His eyes flicker down, from Jayce's face to his neck. "Your blood."
I'm hungry, Viktor had said, while backing away from Jayce as if his touch burned. Oh. Oh, well, of course there would be some side effect like this. Save Viktor from certain death, cure his disease, even alleviate the pain in his leg, but now he wants...
"Okay," Jayce says, low in his throat. He lifts his arm carefully, slowly, like trying not to spook a startled animal. Viktor is as still as a statue as Jayce brings his hand up, palm facing skyward, level to Viktor's mouth. "If you need it, Viktor." Viktor's staring at his wrist, and Jayce can see how ravenous he is. Not just in the stark jut of his cheekbones, the tired dark circles under his eyes that still remain, the knot in his jaw, but in the look in his eyes, the pulsing red ring in them that seems almost to burn. "Please," Jayce adds, and that seems to do the trick.
Viktor grabs at his wrist, almost hard enough to bruise. His eyes flick to Jayce's for a second, and when Jayce nods, there's no more hesitation. His mouth opens, and Jayce can see that his canines are longer, far sharper, glinting almost like knives in the light of the lab, before he brings Jayce's wrist to his lips and bites down hard. Jayce sinks his own teeth into his bottom lip to avoid making a sound; it hurts. It feels like someone's stabbed him there with a a razor's edge scalpel, and there's an odd pulling sensation where Viktor is sucking the blood out from the wounds he's created.
The room blurs, and Jayce thinks that maybe he's about to faint, before he feels himself pressed up against the desk, the edge of it digging into the knobs of his spine, the hand not currently against Viktor's mouth bracing him against it. And huh, that's a side effect he didn't see coming either. His brain starts trying to catalogue them, the increased strength, the speed, and obviously the hunger. He doesn't get very far into hypotheticals because he hears Viktor moan against his skin, the hand not holding Jayce's wrist lifting to interlock their fingers. Jayce lifts his hand from the desk and brings it up, almost dazed, to pet at Viktor's hair. It feels soft, under his fingers, and there's no tackiness of blood or bits of stray rubble from the debris in it.
Jayce has only just started feeling dizzy when Viktor pulls back with a gasp. He's a sight, his lips red with Jayce's blood, a high flush in his cheeks. His face looks more filled out, and the dark circles are gone, and his eyes are back to their usual color, the beautiful amber gold that Jayce has been staring at for so many years now. And because Viktor is alive, that even though Jayce has noticed that there's no pulse jumping in his throat and that the only reason he feels close to his former temperature is because someone else's blood is in his veins, Jayce can't help but kiss him.
It's a bit sticky with the blood on his mouth; Jayce can taste himself and that nearly undoes him right there. Their hands are still intertwined where Viktor is frozen against him, and Jayce squeezes his fingers around his partner's as tight as he can, as tight as he dares. That seems to break some sort of spell. Jayce hears Viktor's muffled groan against him before he's kissing him back, grabbing at his shoulder and dragging him close until there's no space between them. When he licks along the seam of Jayce's mouth, Jayce opens it for his tongue. Even through his own blood, and even after everything, Jayce can still taste what's intrinsically Viktor. He can taste the scent of paper and wood that clings to him, the sugar from his sweetmilk and his horrible coffee, the things that still make Viktor himself.
When they break apart, Jayce keeps his grip on Viktor's hand. "Stay," he whispers. Because he's so scared that Viktor will just walk away from him, now that he's healthy, after what Jayce has done. "We can figure the rest of this out together."
Viktor's sigh is heavy, and tinged with sadness, but but he still squeezes Jayce's hand back. "All right." Jayce breathes a sigh of relief. "I love you," Viktor adds in at a soft murmur. And it's not the first time they've said it, they've been too close and too intertwined for the better part of a decade to not say it, but it still feels so good to hear, when Jayce thought he might never hear it again. "I'll stay."
Now, Jayce feels Viktor jerk in his hold. His head is bent close to Jayce's heart, and he must hear the blood rushing to and from it. He makes an agonized noise behind his teeth, and Jayce's heart breaks.
"Viktor, you're starving," he rasps. Viktor shakes his head, but his nails are digging into Jayce's arms where they clutch at him for balance. And in the lamplight, his eyes are practically platinum, and that ring of red around them almost seems to glow. Has even had blood again since he fed from Jayce after waking up? "God, Viktor, you can't do this to yourself. You need to eat."
"There is a reason we do not allow predators to roam free wherever they please," Viktor groans. "The lives of others are not a worthy price just to sate hunger. I will not allow either of us to think that."
"Predators are still fed," Jayce insists. He doesn't really like that Viktor's calling himself that, as if he's some sort of feral animal, but he needs to pick his battles right now. "You deserve more than to just make yourself waste away." Jayce maneuvers them both so that they're sitting on the couch. He still has his hold on Viktor, and Viktor leans into him ever so slightly. "Eat, V. Please."
"Not on innocents," Viktor insists.
"All right then," Jayce says simply. He pulls back, and holds Viktor's gaze when he blinks blearily at him, makes sure Viktor sees him undo the top buttons of his shirt and pull his collar to the side. Exposes his throat, the jumping vein in his jugular. "I'm not an innocent." He's the least innocent out of anyone in this building. He's not some random passerby or bystander, and he's not Viktor, who didn't have a say. Jayce is the one responsible for the predicament they're in now. He's the one who brought Viktor to that room and put him in harm's way; he's the one who shoved the contents of Reveck's vial under Viktor's skin, in his veins, in order to keep him alive whatever the costs.
"Don't say that," Viktor whispers. His hand is shaking where it reaches up to brush a strand a hair away from Jayce's face.
"I won't if you drink," Jayce says, fighting past the sudden tightness in his throat. "For me, Viktor? I want you to." There's a long stretch of silence where Viktor is just looking at him, eyes jumping from Jayce's mouth to his throat, a war on his face. Then he drops his head and sighs defeatedly, before he nods. Jayce shuffles back so that he's leaning against the couch, only to stiffen in surprise when Viktor clambers into his lap and straddles him.
"If I must suffer, so do you," Viktor says by way of explanation.
Jayce wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him tighter against him. "I don't want you to suffer," he says softly. He never has. It's why they're stuck in this position now. Why Viktor hungers in the dark and doesn't risk venturing out near sunlight, near other people; why Jayce holes himself up with him and lets his responsibilities to everyone and everything that isn't Viktor burn.
Viktor's face softens, and he traces a hand on Jayce's jaw. "I know," he says. He leans forward and kisses Jayce gently. "I know you don't."
Jayce doesn't have a response to that, so instead he tilts his head to the side, offers Viktor better access to his neck. Viktor breathes in sharply; Jayce can see his canines, his fangs, extending, nearly slicing into Viktor's own bottom lip as he parts his mouth with a rough pant. One slender hand curls around the back of Jayce's skull to angle him better as he leans down, and Jayce shivers in anticipation.
He also nearly bucks Viktor off of his lap when Viktor, instead of biting down, licks a long, hot stripe along his carotid artery, laving at his skin with his tongue. He twitches at the sensation, and in response Viktor shoves himself down harder against Jayce, pressing them tighter together. Jayce makes a low, punched out noise.
"Viktor..."
"Hush," Viktor says, words slightly slurred around his teeth. "I'm testing a hypothesis." He manhandles Jayce's head some more, licks at his neck again as Jayce gasps, and then sinks his teeth in without further preamble. Jayce can instantly understand what he's doing; there must be some special properties to his saliva now. He doesn't feel that searing pain from the time Viktor fed on his wrist after he awoke, but instead a faint stinging prick that then fades to numbness. Jayce feels himself go limp in Viktor's hold as he starts to drink, bringing a hand up to pet through his hair. The pulling sensation of something sucking his blood out of his veins is odd, but not unpleasant. Jayce can handle it, especially if it means Viktor is getting nourishment.
He only has the one time as baseline, but it feels like significantly less time has passed before the pulling slows, as if Viktor is already tapering off. Jayce is ready to admonish him for it, to tell him to take his fill, whatever is necessary, when he feels Viktor trembling against him. His shoulders are shaking under Jayce's touch, and when he stops feeding, Jayce feels wet droplets on his neck that aren't blood.
He gnaws on his lip and doesn't say anything when he hears Viktor start to sob against his neck, choked sounds and small cries that rip at Jayce's chest like claws. Jayce wants to comfort him somehow. He wants to make it better. He wants to say he's sorry, but.
He can't, can he? It would just make him an unbearable hypocrite. Jayce is the one who did this, all of it, and it's not as if his motivations or thoughts about it have changed. He hasn't suddenly seen the light and realized that it would have actually been a good thing if Viktor was dead. It's not, it never would be. He can't even fathom a world where Viktor is dead. Knowing what he knows now, he can't even say that he'd make a different choice. If he thinks about it, he might make the same one.
"It's okay," he says instead. He still strokes Viktor's hair, and deliberately doesn't wince when Viktor's hands hold him tighter with a devastated noise, wet with misery. "I want you to do this, I want you to feed. Take what you need, Viktor, please. Please." Repeats a variation of that over and over, as Viktor weeps quietly against him, muffles his anguish against Jayce's still bleeding throat. Eventually, his shoulder stop jumping, and the cries taper off with a sniffle. "Please," Jayce says again, and Viktor's teeth sink back into him with a low, broken moan.
Jayce breathes deep and even as Viktor drinks and drinks and drinks. He'd let Viktor drain him dry, he knows that. It might be fitting recompense. Let him be Viktor's first victim, happily submitting to him; it's likely the only apt apology for playing at godhood with his life the way he did. He almost feels a perverse sense of disappointment when Viktor pulls off, licking errant drops of blood from Jayce's neck.
Jayce doesn't say anything about Viktor's damp cheeks when he sits back up, just swipes a thumb across his lips to catch the last remnants of himself. On a whim, he sucks that same thumb into his mouth, watches Viktor's eyes go wide. They're gold again.
"I taste good," he says.
Viktor chuckles slightly, a bit mirthless, but still. "You have no idea," he says, voice hoarse, leaning forward to card his own hands through Jayce's hair, face unreadable. "Like electricity and oil and smoke," he tells him, and Jayce doesn't tell him that this sounds like an absolutely disgusting combination when Viktor surges forward and kisses him.
It's deep, open-mouthed, Viktor licking into him like he wants to eat him here too. Jayce all but mewls against his tongue, hands grabbing at the sharp cut of Viktor's narrow hips to drag him closer and closer. There's barely any space between their bodies but it still feels like too much. Jayce wants to crawl inside him, wants Viktor to devour him whole. Viktor is grinding down in his lap in short, abortive movements, tangling his fingers in Jayce's hair and tugging.
"Jayce," he gasps, thrusting himself down like he can somehow take Jayce inside him just like this. "My Jayce." Jayce feels half mad and desperate as he rolls up his hips to match him, thinks about ripping both of their clothes off and fucking into Viktor right here, on their couch, the wounds on his neck still aching and Viktor tasting of tears and blood.
He whines just a bit when Viktor pulls away from him, breathing harsh against his mouth. "Viktor, Viktor," and he tries to chase his lips for more. The kiss Viktor gives him is infuriatingly chaste before a hand is on his chest, pushing him back.
"Not while you are still dealing with blood loss," Viktor says firmly. Jayce huffs, but nods all the same, leaning his head back. Viktor's touch is soft again, rubbing a small circle just over his heart. "I won't risk you." He leans forward, dropping his head against Jayce's collarbone, and Jayce wonders if the fact that Viktor can hear his heart means that he can hear the way it throbs and aches. "Oh, I do understand," he whispers. "I understand you."
Jayce can't lose him. He won't lose him. And even in spite of that, it seems like Viktor doesn't want to lose Jayce either. So Jayce stubbornly ignores the twin heat of tears streaking down his temples, and presses a kiss to Viktor's hair.