Chapter Text
Jayce Talis thought he was ready for death.
He’d told himself as much, over and over, on that sleepless night before the war. The thought had echoed in his mind as he sat by the dim light of his workshop, his thumb running absentmindedly across the rune embedded in his wrist. There’s a very good chance he wouldn’t make it out alive—and he thought he’d come to terms with it.
But it was one thing to know you could very well die, and wholly another to know death was coming for you as surely as the tide enveloped the shore. If he could only have died in the war, fighting the Noxians valiantly til his last breath! If he could only have died like the hundreds of soldiers on the battlefield, his death so swift he would not have known it had happened! Or if he could have launched himself in front of an attack to save a friend…
This cold blooded acceptance of his death would require a completely different kind of courage. Why had he never managed to appreciate the miracle he was, brain and nerve and beating heart? It would all be gone in a blink of an eye…or at least, he would be gone from it.
However, a million times worse was the thought of leaving Viktor here to die alone. Jayce grit his teeth, and reached out with trembling hands to the one thing anchoring him. His fingers found the nape of Viktor’s neck, and he leaned forward until their foreheads pressed together. It was an intimate gesture, one he’d seen before—etched in shadows and fire, in the crumbling remnants of what was once the Undercity. He could only hope Viktor felt it too.
Viktor’s hand, cool and firm, settled on Jayce’s forearm. The gesture was simple, but it was enough. A surge of reassurance flooded through Jayce, steadying his shaking hands.
The light around them flared brighter, blinding and all-encompassing. Jayce saw a myriad of shapes and colours swirling around them as they began to fall. The wind roared in his ears, a deafening rush that drowned out everything else. Viktor’s grip tightened on his arm, pulling him in as they plummeted.
Just as Jayce thought he couldn’t take another second of the freefall, a strange shape began to materialise in the abyss below them. A pearlescent rectangle shimmered into existence, its surface rippling like water catching the moonlight. Jayce barely had time to process what he was seeing before they were hurtling straight into it.
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They emerged through the frame, six feet off the ground, and crashed into what seemed like an enormous pile of trash.
Jayce landed safely, or at least cushioned himself well enough to suffer only a few bruises. Viktor lay sprawled in a heap nearby, stirring feebly.
“Viktor!” Jayce scrambled to his hands and knees, ignoring the sharp jab of glass beneath his palm. “Viktor, are you—”
His voice caught. Jayce’s trembling hand hovered over Viktor’s face before finally brushing against his jawline. Viktor looked…different. Not quite how he was before he fused with the hex core, but not as young as when they first met. The lines were fainter, and his cheeks fuller. His hair still fell just beyond his shoulders, streaked with wisps of white-gold. Jayce’s gaze lingered, almost hesitant, until Viktor’s eyelids fluttered open.
Amber. The familiar, piercing colour that had always held a brilliance of thought and conviction, now dulled slightly by confusion but unmistakably Viktor’s. Jayce had never imagined how much relief he would feel at the sight of those eyes again.
“Jayce?”
Jayce let out a choked breath of air. “You’re alive.”
Viktor groaned and pressed the heel of his palm—very human and made of flesh, Jayce couldn’t help but note—against his eyes. “It does certainly seem so, yes…But where is this place?” He struggled to sit up, his movements stiff but less laboured than Jayce remembered. He glanced around, eyes narrowing as they took in their surroundings.
Jayce shook his head. “I have no idea.”
They seemed to be in a dark alley that was deserted, which was fortunate, because someone was bound to call the enforcers if two men spontaneously landed on top of them. Not to mention the fact that Viktor, doing what he did, would most certainly be demanded by the council to provide answers. He would be sentenced to life in prison, or worse, execution.
But speaking of which… The town they landed in didn’t seem like a war had just taken place. The cool evening air here smelled of petrol and fried food, not the acrid smoke of a war-torn city. Bright lights flickered outside of the alleyway, zooming past them in dizzying swirls of colour. Wherever they were, it certainly didn’t seem like Piltover.
“Are you hurt?” Jayce’s voice rose with worry as he turned his attention back to Viktor, his hands hovering uncertainly over him. “Your leg? Your chest? Are you—?”
“I am fine,” Viktor cut him off, though his tone was faintly perplexed. “At least, I believe so. The hexcore… it turned my body to metal. I have not suffered my illness since then.” He paused, flexing his fingers experimentally. “Even my leg… it does not seem to be failing me. I think the pain I feel now is simply residual from our—eh—cra—Jayce!”
Before he could finish, Jayce had already flung himself onto Viktor with such a ferocity that knocked the air from his lungs. Jayce shuddered and gasped, relief after what seemed like eons of anxiety flooding through him in one great wave. They were alive. Viktor was alive.
It was a miracle. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. They were supposed to die in the arcane, but were somehow given a second chance.
He buried his head in the crook of Viktor’s neck and wept.
Jayce’s shoulders trembled like paper in the wind, tears spilling freely down his cheeks. The overwhelming relief, the joy of it all, had him losing all control.
Viktor stiffened, clearly unsure of what to do. His arms hung awkwardly at his sides for a moment before he tentatively reached up and patted Jayce’s back. The gesture was stiff, hesitant, but it was enough to shatter what little composure Jayce had left. He buried his face deeper into the dip of Viktor’s neck and wailed.
“You’re alive,” Jayce sobbed, his words tumbling out in a torrent. “I— I thought we were going to die. I thought I’d lost you. ‘M— ‘M so sorry— I couldn’t let you—”
“You have nothing to apologise for.” Viktor’s voice was soft. His hand continued its awkward, repetitive motion on Jayce’s back. “I was the fool. I deserved to die.”
Jayce’s breath hitched. He drew back, his eyes shining. “Don’t you dare say that. I put you in that thing against your will. It was my fault. All you ever wanted to do was to help those poor people. And whatever happened, we’re here now. We’re alive. That has to mean something.”
Viktor stiffened in his arms, his breath catching ever so slightly, but he didn’t pull away. Slowly, hesitantly, his hands came to rest against Jayce’s back. The embrace was awkward, uncertain, but Jayce clung to it like a lifeline. He never wanted to let him go.
“We’ll figure this out,” Jayce murmured, his voice muffled against Viktor’s shoulder. “Whatever this is, wherever we are, we’ll figure it out. Together.”
For a long moment, Viktor said nothing. Then, with a shaky sigh, he nodded.
“Together,” he echoed.
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After somewhat regaining their composure, they eventually decided to venture out, hoping to make sense of their surroundings before deciding on their next step. They needed answers. This could very well just be a flashback—or maybe one of the fleeting hallucinations that accompanied the edge of death that Jayce had once heard people describing in their near-death experiences. This all still felt awfully unreal.
Jayce stuck a tentative head out of the alley, and was immediately greeted by one of the most bizarre views of his life.
They were in an alleyway that broke off from a massive pedestrian thoroughfare that extended in both directions beyond the distance he could see. The crowds were thick— Piltover Progress Day thick—and both sides of the street were lined with buildings shining with enormous, brightly lit signs. Every wall was flooded with neon color and vivid advertisements. Large vertical signs in characters he couldn’t decipher mixed with the occasional Piltovan hung from each building into the streets, painting the walls in an electric rainbow of blue, red, and green. Strings of red lanterns hung from wires stretched across the buildings, their soft glow casting an ethereal haze over the scene and obscuring most of the night sky.
Jayce ducked back into the alleyway. “I don’t think this is our world at all. I can... feel it. Can't you?"
“I can see it,” Viktor deadpanned.
A sound broke from Jayce’s chest, half laugh and half sob. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “This place is… intriguing,” he admitted, glancing back towards the street. “I think we should ask someone about where we are.”
“And what if they don’t speak our language?” Viktor asked, his voice low. “This is an entirely different world. We cannot even decipher half of what these signs are saying.”
“Well,” Jayce replied, squaring his shoulders, “we won’t know unless we try. Come on.”
With hesitant steps, they made their way towards the bustling street. After scanning the crowd, Jayce approached an elderly woman with a kind face, hobbling along with a cane. He plastered on his most winning smile, one usually only reserved for patrons, trying to appear non-threatening.
“Hi! Really sorry to bother you, but my partner and I are kind of… lost?”
The woman looked at them with an apologetic smile, waving her hands in a fluttering motion. Jayce’s heart dropped. “Bàoqiàn ā, wǒ bù huì shuō Yīngwén—”
“Ma!”
A younger girl sprinted up, her haphazard brown hair flying everywhere as she skidded to a stop beside the older woman. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes landed on Jayce and Viktor. Her mouth fell open in a perfect, comical “O.”
“Whoa! I’m loving the cosplay, gentlemen! You’re really selling it,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know there was a con today. Would’ve gone if I’d known! Anyway—can I help?”
Jayce blinked, glancing at Viktor, who similarly had a look of utter bewilderment on his face. The girl spoke flawless Piltovan, but there were words interspersed between that he could not for the life of him make sense of. Still, Jayce chose to focus on the important part: she could understand them.
“Yeah, we’re kind of… lost,” Jayce said hesitantly. “Do you know where we are?”
The girl looked at them in a funny way. “You’re in Chinatown. Leicester Square is just down there if you need the tube station.” She gestured to her right.
Jayce exchanged a quick look with Viktor, then sighed. Yet another string of words that he felt like he should understand, but didn’t. “It’s not just that.” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “We’ve sort of… lost everything. Like…”
Before he could continue, Viktor stepped forward,“Our house burned down in a fire, and we were robbed shortly after. Do you know if there is an organisation who could assist us in… getting us back on our feet?”
The girl cocked a single eyebrow, scepticism evident in her face. Jayce could practically hear the gears turning in her head. She glanced at her mother, then back at them. After a moment, she said something to the older woman in a tongue Jayce couldn’t understand. Its tone sounded vaguely reminiscent of the dialect spoken in Ionia, though he couldn’t be sure.
Finally, the girl turned back to them, her lips quirking into a small smile. “So, here’s the thing,” she began. “I run a coffee-shop-slash-bar nearby, and we’ve actually got an empty single bedroom flat right now. Our last tenants just moved out. If you two are willing to help out—hosting, or, like, bartending or whatever—I could let you stay there rent-free. Hours will be brutal, mind you. What do you think?”
Jayce stared, momentarily stunned. “You’d… do that for us?” he asked, his tone thick with disbelief.
“Look, I’m not one to pry,” the girl said with a shrug, her eyes twinkling. For a moment, Jayce had the strangest feeling she was sizing them up—measuring something she wasn’t saying aloud. “Anyway, it’s a win-win, right? You help me, I help you.”
Jayce exhaled, relief washing over him like a flood. “That would be perfect. Thank you—thank you so much.”
The girl waved him off with an easy grin. “No worries! Follow me. You two look like you’ve been through hell.”
Jayce glanced at Viktor, whose expression was unreadable, but he nodded faintly, as if to say, Let’s do this. A second chance. After everything they’d endured—after everything they’d lost—they had been given a chance to rebuild. It seemed too good to be true, but Jayce wasn’t about to question it.
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They settled into an odd sort of routine after that. It was strange—unfamiliar, yes—but it worked. They quickly learned just how drastically different this world was from their own.
For one, there was no magic. The Arcane simply did not exist here.
Second, despite the complete lack of magic, this world was somehow far more advanced.
The fundamentals of maths and physics seemed to work the same way in both worlds, but the inventions of this place left Jayce utterly dumbfounded. Vacuum tubes, transistors, microchips, optical fibres—names that, at first, sounded like gibberish to him but became clearer as he learned more. These technologies made near-magical applications commonplace, accessible to nearly everyone.
The most fascinating discovery, however, was the "smartphone"—a sleek, pocket-sized device capable of doing what would have required a council of Hextech engineers in Piltover.
When Jayce first encountered one, he fumbled over the word like a child. “Sm-aht-phones?” he repeated, only for Leo, their new employer, to stifle a laugh. These devices could communicate with someone across Runeterra—no, Earth, as they called it—and provide access to what seemed like the entirety of human knowledge. Information here traveled at the speed of light, and it wasn’t even a luxury for the elite. Everyone had one.
It was miraculous. And yet, sometimes, Jayce would catch Viktor retreating into himself. Hours would pass where Viktor wouldn’t speak, his amber eyes staring into the sea of bright lights beyond the restaurant windows, lost in thoughts Jayce couldn’t reach. Viktor was never one to be open about his feelings, and Jayce was never one to pry. But Jayce knew better than anyone that Viktor’s scars ran deeper than his metal limbs ever had.
Their work at the cafe helped distract them. Leo, the energetic girl who had taken them in, ran the place with her girlfriend, Clarissa. It wasn’t exactly what Jayce had envisioned as their second chance at life, but it was something. For that, he was grateful.
Jayce had been forbidden from shaving his beard—Leo insisted it was "good for business" and “literally the only reason” she had offered him the job. He didn’t entirely believe her, but he played along. Clumsy but earnest, he did his best to adapt to the rhythm of the cafe. It was different from forging metal or designing Hextech. Slower, simpler. It wasn’t anything the him from the past would have envisioned himself doing. And yet, he found himself feeling absurdly thankful for it.
Viktor, on the other hand, had slipped into the role effortlessly. He didn’t seem like a waiter taking down notes when he took a customer’s order. He looked almost ethereal, his shoulder-length hair pulled back in a small ponytail, the golden flecks in his hair catching the light as he offered small smiles to whoever came here. He was clad in a black button down, with little white and red pinstripes stitched in vertical lines down the sides. The taupe dress pants he had on clashed slightly with the top, but somehow, Viktor made it work. He always did.
“Dude, you’re drooling.”
Leo’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. She was passing by with a tray of drinks, smirking at him. “You two a thing or something?”
Jayce nearly dropped the glass in his hand. “What? No! We’re not—” He stumbled over his words, feeling the heat rise to his cheeks.
Leo laughed. “Relax. I’m just messin’ with ya. Customers have tripled since you two started working here. We should totally do an Arcane event or something. You guys would crush it at cosplaying Jayce and Viktor. I mean, you two are exactly like what they’d look like in real life.”
Jayce blanched. “What did you just say?”
Leo raised an eyebrow, pausing mid-step. “What? Arcane? You’ve seriously never heard of it?”
Jayce’s mind raced. He had never told anyone in this world their real names, fearing some inexplicable connection to their past might decide to surface all of a sudden. And yet, here Leo was, casually throwing out not only their names, but the existence of the Arcane like it was a casual point of reference. How could that be possible?
“No,” he said, his tone carefully neutral. “I haven’t. What is it?”
“Oh, dude, you have to watch it,” Leo said, oblivious to his growing unease. “It’s a show. Super popular. You guys look exactly like two of the characters—Jayce Talis and Viktor. Like, it’s uncanny. And the accent?” She nodded towards Viktor, who was in the middle of serving a table. “Spot-on.”
Jayce forced a laugh, though his heart felt like it was trying its darndest to claw its way out of his chest. “That’s… interesting. I’ll be sure to check it out.”
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When they got home that evening, the first thing Jayce did was to do a “Google” search (it truly was mind-boggling how any information you want is literally at your fingertips). What he found, however, left him speechless.
It was an animation—a “show,” as they called it—depicting Piltover and Zaun. Their world. Their lives.
“Vik,” Jayce ventured, his voice tentative as he glanced toward the other man. Viktor was seated at the table, a pile of borrowed physics books in front of him, their spines bent from hours of meticulous study.
“Mmmh?” Viktor responded without looking up, absentmindedly scribbling notes in a worn notebook.
Jayce swallowed and walked over, holding the tablet out like it was something fragile. “I think we’re… characters. From a fictional show. In this world.”
Viktor’s head snapped up. “What?”
Jayce sat down beside him, placing the tablet carefully in Viktor’s hands. He watched as Viktor’s hand—flesh and bone, Jayce found himself noting with relief again—trembled slightly as he gripped the device. Viktor’s amber eyes scanned the screen, narrowing as he read the synopsis of Arcane. His fingers moved cautiously, scrolling further, revealing detailed character profiles. Jayce’s name was there. Viktor’s. Heimerdinger’s. Mel’s. Each laid out with unnerving accuracy, as if someone had recorded every moment of their lives and turned it into entertainment.
“This…” Viktor said slowly, “cannot be real.” His lips pressed into a thin line as he continued scrolling. His fingers stopped when he reached the shots from the show—one in particular, from the finale. It was him, floating midair, his eyes ablaze with arcane energy, a swirling harbinger of destruction. Jayce could hear Viktor's breath still.
Jayce hovered over Viktor’s shoulder, his voice quiet, careful not to spook him. “It’s like someone recorded everything we’ve been through. The war. The…you know…” He gestured to the image of Viktor as the Arcane Herald, unsure how to put it into words.
Viktor stared at the still, his expression unreadable. Then, softly, he muttered, “Who would watch this? Why would anyone choose to relive such devastation? The pain…” His voice trailed off as he scrolled further, finding a sea of fan theories, detailed analyses of their decisions, and debates about whether his actions—their actions—were justified.
Jayce scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh, apparently…a lot of people. Look at this.” He tapped on another tab, revealing videos from something called a “Tiktok”. Fans were debating Viktor’s motives, sympathising with him, and even…shipping him with Jayce.
Viktor blinked. “…What is ‘shipping’?”
Jayce flushed, yanking the device out of Viktor’s hands. “Not important! The point is, they think we’re fictional. That none of it was real.”
Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was real. It is real. Perhaps not in this world, but everything we suffered—our choices, our losses—was not some story for the amusement of others.” His brow furrowed in disgust, lip curling to show his jagged teeth. “If this world sees us as entertainment, then it is grotesque.”
Jayce nodded slowly. “Yeah, I… get that. But maybe it’s not just entertainment.” He picked up the tablet again, scrolling to find something that might ease Viktor’s growing frustration. He pulled up a post—one of many—of someone moved to tears by Viktor’s story, talking about how it inspired them to fight for change in their own life. Another described how Jayce’s mistakes taught them the weight of responsibility and leadership.
“Look at this, Vik,” Jayce said, pointing to one of the posts. “Some people… they see us. They see the pain, the hope. It matters to them.”
Viktor hesitated, his gaze flicking over the screen. One post caught his eye: Your show reminded me to keep fighting for the people I care about, it read, signed by someone apparently named ellie1298. He read it twice, his expression softening ever so slightly.
“…Perhaps,” Viktor admitted, his voice quieter now. “But it is difficult to reconcile, knowing our lives have been laid bare for such voyeurism.”
Jayce sighed, setting the tablet down and sitting beside him. “We’re in a strange place, Vik. Nothing about this world makes sense. Maybe we just… figure it out as we go. Like always.”
Viktor studied him for a moment, his sharp features softening. A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. “That seems to be your solution to everything.”
Jayce chuckled. “And has it failed us yet?”
Viktor raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer, turning his gaze back to the tablet. “I will need to study this further. If this world knows so much about us, it could be… useful. Or dangerous.”
“Agreed,” Jayce said, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. “But at least now I know why Leo needed me to keep my beard. The people on there are insane, man.”
Viktor snorted, shaking his head. For a moment, the weight of their discovery seemed to lift, replaced by the strange absurdity of their new reality. Whatever this world was, they’d face it together.