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The hit to Viktor’s abdomen was a surprise—he’d been focusing on the sheriff, and hadn’t expected Jayce’s Mercury hammer, swung with the full force of gravity due to the rocket-like thrust the gemstone provided. Of course he heard it, metal colliding with metal and screeching as both refused to budge… but the crack and whir that followed from inside Viktor’s chest was a sound only he could hear—a dire warning that something had just gone critically wrong. But, with Sheriff Kiramman leveling her weapon at him as he stumbled from the impact, he didn’t have time to worry about it right now.
He just barely managed to dodge the bullet that whizzed past his ribs by using the Hex Claw to shove himself upright. In a fit of reactive rage, he fired the claw’s laser at her, full blast, and she yelped as she threw herself away, her rifle barrel taking the brunt of the blast and sizzling as it was sawed right in half. The nose of the barrel clattered to the ground, the scope breaking free and the cauterized metal sizzling against the cement of the bridge.
Fairly confident that he wouldn’t have to worry about her, at least until she figured out how to fight him without the use of her weapon, Viktor spun to face the Defender of Tomorrow…
That thing in his chest whirred and clicked again, and suddenly he felt it—arrhythmic palpitations in his augmented heart valves. His chest was sore, likely from the hit from the hammer, but… there was something more than that. He took a small, analytical breath, and that was when he felt it—the whir and click, followed by his left lung, fully augmented, beginning to collapse.
“Shit,” he murmured to himself, stumbling slightly as a lack of oxygen began to make his mind go hazy. This shouldn’t have been possible—his steel breastplate and spring-loaded shock absorbers should have dissolved the impact before his organs were ever even effected… unless… unless something inside had broken free and punctured the mesh of his augmented lung… that… that would definitely do it…
“Leave her out of this, Viktor, your fight is with me!” Jayce snapped, levying the hammer and holding it aloft, ready to attack.
Viktor growled, using his staff to prop himself up straighter and noting that, yes, something was definitely puncturing his lung. He could feel it shift, now that he thought about it; whatever jagged piece that was embedded into his lung scratching against a grafted rib.
“If she would stop shooting at me, I’d be more than obliged to leave her out of it,” he snarled, thankful that the modulator in his mask disguised the pain in his voice. He made a mental note to adjust the moderator on his pain receptors once this was over—pain was a necessary tool for self-preservation, but he’d much prefer if it registered as a dull warning than this.
Jayce scoffed, taking a tentative step forward and tightening his grip on the hammer.
Viktor responded in kind, aiming the Hex Claw, its spindly fingers spinning as he mentally chose a middling level for the power output…
Red flashed in his vision, white-hot agony flaring from his lowest rib all the way back to his spine. Despite the image filter in his mask and the horizon-line corrective capabilities in his augmented eyes, the sight before him flickered and began to spin, and he knew immediately what was happening. Of course he’d done all in his power to avoid this, to ensure that, no matter the damage, his augmented parts would run unaffected… but it all hinged on brain power. Everything was routed to his brain stem, ensuring he had control over every facet of his body, even those a normal human wouldn’t. He could regulate his body temperature, he could correct for adrenaline and toxins in his bloodstream. But… due to the collapsing lung, his brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen—a massive oversight he would definitely need to correct in the very near future.
But, with Sheriff Kiramman and her finest at his back and a very perturbed and battle-ready Jayce standing before him… that was looking unlikely. So, the best course of action was to wrap this up as quickly and efficiently as possible, and bow out so that he could lick his ego-induced wounds. How could he have been so stupid? Of course he was going to lose oxygen at times, why hadn’t he thought of this earlier?
“Well?! Come on then, Machine Herald,” Jayce hissed, spitting the name like it was vinegar on his tongue. “I haven’t got all day, let’s finish this.”
“Oh, so sorry,” Viktor drawled, taking stock of his highest-functioning systems and noting with a mad sort of glee that the strongest part of him currently was the Hex Claw. He leveled it at Jayce as he went on, “the last thing I want to do is disrupt the very busy schedule of Piltover’s coveted Man of Progress.”
He delivered the name with an equal amount of venomous disdain, and Jayce rolled his eyes, but still didn’t advance—that was Jayce’s MO, one that Viktor had initially respected about him. Jayce never made the first move, instead choosing to pause, to analyze, to ensure he had superior footing. Which, if he’d bother to look just a little closer, listen for the rasping breaths escaping Viktor’s modulator like an overheating engine, he might notice just how superior his footing actually was.
And it was becoming increasingly clear that Viktor did not have time to wrap up this fight, might not even have time to make it back to his lab before his primary systems began to fail. Stupid, frail, weak human brain. He had half a mind to replace the useless thing entirely… if said half a brain managed to survive the day.
The palpitations in his heart turned from a mildly annoying thrumming to a pulsating burn, the racing pulse making his internal machinations work that much harder; his damaged lung expanding and deflating, raking that jagged metal across his rib and threatening to send him into a coughing fit. And how utterly humiliating that would be, descending into the kind of debilitating fit that used to send him crawling into his bed for days on end, body exhausted from the spasms in his diaphragm and aching to just fall unconscious.
Well… there was a time for triumph, and there was a time for defeat. And if he wanted to fix this before he suffered permanent brain damage that not even augmentations could rectify, he needed to accept defeat, however aggravating it guaranteed to be.
“Jayce…” he started, but the breath he’d taken to speak sent a shockwave across his rib, and he felt every organic muscle in his chest seize up. His breath caught, and he stumbled, only barely managing to throw his weight onto his staff, propping himself up as he tried not to double over. His vision began to spin worse, out of control, nausea following as he frantically tried to take another breath… and nothing happened.
Abstractly, he was aware of his auxiliary systems abandoning non-essential functions—the Hex Claw powering down and collapsing against his back with a hard metallic trill, the hydraulic piston in his leg brace hissing as it released.
He cried out as his knees hit the hard ground, still attempting any kind of relieving breath, but only managing short, manic, miniature inhales that weren’t nearly enough to stymie the staticky spots crawling through his periphery like firelights. In a last ditch effort, he reached up and ripped the mask off, hoping maybe clearing his airway of the modulator might provide some relief, and that was when he saw it.
The Mercury hammer hit the ground a mere foot away from him, resounding through the suspension bridge like a thunderstorm, its azure glow slowly fading as it powered down.
“What’s wrong? What do you need?”
Jayce’s voice was painfully gentle, all hint of anger eradicated, and Viktor felt a flash of heated rage—I don’t need your pity now, I don’t need your concern. I needed it then, when my world was ripped from under me, and you stood by and watched. How dare you. How dare you give it now.
And Gods, how many times he heard those exact words, delivered in exactly that lilting, doting tone. What’s wrong, when Viktor stumbled, muscles in his back seizing up and sending him crashing against his desk in the lab. What do you need, when his throat closed up from the pain and he couldn’t do anything but whine and grip desperately at his leg. And Jayce, always close, always rubbing a hand so tenderly across Viktor’s back.
But he didn’t have the breath for all of that. He didn’t have the breath for anything.
Frantically, he leaned up, shoving Jayce’s hand away where it had been resting on his back, and started ripping off pieces of his armor. What he was about to do required a sterile environment, not to mention a non-hostile environment, but… it was this or pass out in front of a throng of enforcers and hope Jayce figured out what needed to be done before his circulatory system failed entirely.
Before long, his chest was exposed, the metal of his left breastplate actually dented from the hit from the Mercury hammer. Despite the mania and desperation, he spared a moment of focus to toss Jayce a seething glare, to which the Defender of Tomorrow grimaced slightly, following it with a barely-mouthed ‘sorry.’
Before Viktor could begin to parse together how he was going to operate on himself on this fucking bridge without the use of the Hex Claw, he clocked movement in his periphery…
The troop of enforcers was closing in; fanning out into a semicircle to begin surrounding him, and the simmering dread turned to panic—he didn’t have time for this. They would likely arrest him, cuff him, and that would be it—he wouldn’t make it to whatever temporary cell they would put him in before the inevitable trip to Stillwater. His brain would suffocate, slowly shutting down his systems one by one… he would lose all motor functions, his circulatory and nervous system augments would begin to fail, and then it would just be a long, agonizing wait as he became just a mind… a mind trapped in the prison of a failed body… before that died too.
He couldn’t spare the energy, but it was better than the alternative, so, with a barely suppressed whimper, he kicked back away from the enforcers, away from Jayce, landing hard on his back and pushing toward Zaun. Perhaps if he could signal Renata… or Singed…
“Hey! Cait, keep those men back!” Jayce barked, his words aimed at Sheriff Kiramman but his body and focus following Viktor.
“But… Jayce, we were just…”
“Look, I know, okay? I know. I just… I can’t, I can’t let them…”
In the minimal time their argument provided, Viktor took stock—he needed the Hex Claw. He had no problem using the dagger stashed at his hip, but it wouldn’t cut through the layer of metal grafted beneath the skin. He had to sacrifice something to redirect power… but what of his remaining systems could he afford to lose?
“Fuck,” he hissed as realization hit him—he’d never operated blind before, but it was either the eyes… or something far more critical. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He didn’t waste a single second more—redirecting the power from his augmented eyes into the Hex Claw. The world before him flickered for a moment before it went dark, plunging him into abject helplessness. He needed to keep a level head if he was going to pull this off, but… blindness was not something he’d calculated for. Especially while surrounded by enemies and slowly suffocating on his own hubris.
“Viktor?”
Jayce’s voice was much closer than he’d been only seconds ago, and Viktor startled, scrambling away again and cursing the waste of energy.
“It’s ok, it’s just me,” Jayce said, and Viktor felt a hand come to rest on his forearm, which had begun to shake, to Viktor’s supreme dismay. He could maybe operate blind. But blind and unsteady?
“I won’t let them get to you,” Jayce continued, his hand still gripping at Viktor’s arm. “How can I help?”
Viktor growled, frustration and desperation melding as he threw his head back against the bridge, the steel plate at the base of his skull connecting and sending out a shrill ting through the bridge.
“I-I have t-to fix th-this,” he choked, only now realizing the gargling, liquid quality on his voice, which signified that there was blood or oil leaking into his failing lung. He trailed the fingers of his non-augmented hand across the suspected rib, pressing as he followed the curvature and noting that, just this once, the sensitivity of human flesh was actually working to his advantage—there, protruding against his finger just above the seventh rib… something jagged and loose. Whatever it was had shifted perpendicular to the rib, likely embedding into the mesh of his lung and causing the leak and collapse.
“Fuck!” he cursed again as he mentally directed the Hex Claw to hover above him, the laser beginning to hum menacingly as it charged, while he attempted to aim it blindly at his seventh rib. He needed his eyes; this had to be a precise incision. It had to cut through his melded metal and flesh exactly over the steel portion of the grafted rib cage… otherwise, it would go straight through, slicing his lung in half.
“Jayce, I c-can’t… I need you to aim it. Right here,” he said, a haggard cough escaping, and he felt moisture fleck his lips as he gestured with his hand to the length of his rib.
“No,” came Jayce’s clipped response, but before Viktor could shriek angrily at him, his hand was on Viktor’s—clutching tight and reassuring, and Viktor was helpless against the way it calmed him, the way a decade of suppressed memories came flooding back. Jayce’s hand on his as the Hex Gate’s resounding boom met their ears for the very first time. Jayce’s fingers weaving through Viktor’s to reassure him as they both trembled with nervousness before the judges of the Distinguished Innovators’ Competition. Jayce’s palm, large and hot and heavy, pressing Viktor’s into the bedsheets…
“You’ve always been better at this part,” Jayce said, his tone surprisingly calm. “Turn your eyes back on.”
The calm was quickly washed away with frustration—Viktor didn’t have the time, energy, or oxygen to explain that he’d rerouted power to the Hex Claw. It was one or the other, and his eyes certainly weren’t going to perform surgery…
Before he could even attempt to say any of this, however, he heard a metallic click, followed by a surge of immense power flowing through the Hex Claw and down his spine, making his entire body jolt, as if with electricity. He gasped, immediately diverting just a taste of that power back to his eyes…
The bridge came flickering back into view, the high sun momentarily making him cringe and blink rapidly. When it cleared, he found Jayce hovering over him, and that familiar soft, worried, puppy dog expression that used to make Viktor’s stomach flutter with butterflies. Fortunately for him though, his stomach was now fortified and totally automated, so no butterflies would be appearing today.
It was immediately clear where the power had come from—high atop the Hex Claw, embedded where it was always supposed to go, was the Mercury hammer’s gemstone.
Viktor’s pride wasn’t about to allow him the ‘thank you’ that careened to the tip of his tongue, so he merely nodded in Jayce’s direction before peering down at his exposed chest once more.
Anxiety flooded him momentarily at the thought of how badly this was going to hurt, without the use of Shimmer, but he quickly remembered he had access to unlimited power currently, so he reactivated his limbic modulator. The anxiety dulled like a smothered flame, and he took a deep, steadying breath as his mind finally felt clear enough to begin.
He reached to his hip, where Renata’s gifted dagger was sheathed, and he noted the brief flash of doubt, of fear, on Jayce’s face, reminding him of just how fragile the current stalemate was.
“I’m not about to s-stab the only person that’s h-helping me,” he grumbled bitterly, keeping the knife clutched in his fist for later. “I need you to h-hold me down while I make the incision. I’ve s-streamlined most everything, but without p-painkillers… this isn’t one of them.”
Jayce grinned at him, somehow both bitter and sentimental.
“I did not see you asking me to hold you down in the cards today,” he joked, shuffling on his knees until he was above Viktor’s head.
“Shut up,” Viktor snarled, his heart beating harder; definitely not in response to the image that bubbled up unbidden of Jayce on top of him, hands pressing Viktor’s against the pillows as his body moved like the ebbing tide, rhythmic and measured and slow.
Viktor viciously shook his head of the memory, crossing his arms high on his sternum so that Jayce could hold down both his arms and his torso. He really needed someone to hold his legs, too, but given that he didn’t trust any of the enforcers as far as he could throw them, this would have to do.
Jayce’s weight came down on his arms, but it was ginger and careful, and definitely wouldn’t stop him from flailing once the pain started.
“Harder.”
Jayce chuckled again, and Viktor decided to head off this particular comment.
“Don’t.”
Jayce nodded, clearly mentally chastising himself, if the rapidly falling facial expression was anything to go by.
It was slightly awkward, with Jayce trying to put his full weight on Viktor’s arms and chest, while also making room for the Hex Claw to curl up and around. But they made it work, and not a moment too soon, because the next breath made the shrapnel shift, and Viktor spasmed at the shock of pain that flared up his entire left side.
“Do not let me move,” he growled, angling his head down so that he could place the hilt of the dagger in his teeth.
He knew he couldn’t hesitate—he’d done this numerous times, and every time he hesitated, he made crucial errors. It was all a mess of what he hated most about the human limbic system—fear, anger, pain… it affected better judgment, made people act irrationally or just plain idiotically. The calculations of the machine were much cleaner, smoother; see the problem, fix the problem.
Almost before he’d even told it to, the Hex Claw fired. He tried to do it fast, faster even than the pain register could reach his brain—slicing along the line of his seventh rib with surgical precision, and careful not to waver even a single millimeter to either side.
He wasn’t quite fast enough, screaming and biting down against the dagger as white-hot searing agony overrode everything—the harsh cement against his reinforced spine, the pressure of Jayce’s heavy, strong hands, the awful thrumming of his overworking heart as it slammed in his ears. He desperately fought the urge to seize up, knowing it could cause a catastrophic Hex Claw error, but he was helpless against the way his every muscle began to tremble from the effort.
The five or six inch incision had only taken seconds, but it felt like hours, and now Viktor’s brain was hazing over with both lack of oxygen and pain. It was odd, the way his vision only seemed to clear when he closed his eyes—a frighteningly sharp, swirling matrix of black and purple, something achingly familiar and beckoning him forward, down… down.
“—ktor? Viktor?!”
Jayce’s voice sounded panicked, and Viktor absently registered that he must have momentarily passed out.
“Mm…m’here,” Viktor slurred, disappointed with how weak he sounded, and distantly wondering where the knife went.
“Viktor… y-you’re… you’re moving a little slow on me, come on, stay awake…”
Now that he mentioned it, sleep was extremely tempting. And perhaps it would help… just let all of his motor functions shut down, let everything shut down for a little while… what had been the downside to that again? Machines needed rest just like people, though far less often, or they would overheat. Maybe that was it… he was just overheating, just needed an hour or two to cool off…
“VIKTOR!”
Viktor jolted, opening his eyes to find Jayce’s face mere inches from his own, terror written clearly in every taut line of his handsome features. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why… why was Jayce afraid? There were only a few things that truly scared the Defender of Tomorrow, and to Viktor’s knowledge, he wasn’t on that list.
“Not like this, Viktor, please, not like this,” Jayce was practically sobbing, his hands clasped on either side of Viktor’s steel-plated neck and cheekbones. There was a strange sound beginning to take over his hearing, drowning out Jayce entirely, and with something like detached panic, he noted that he could feel the sound—a rumbling coming from his chest and throat every time he inhaled.
Right… his lung… he needed… something. He needed to fix something…
Feeling sluggish and lethargic, like every muscle had been weighed down with lead piping, he started to move—bringing his augmented hand to the incision. He barely registered the sting as his fingers trailed the open wound, the slick that soaked his digits as he slowly pushed them inside his flesh. He groaned as he felt the tug and pull of torn skin, made a mental note to either completely remove flesh from his torso, or deactivate the nerve endings. He did occasionally revel in a light touch, a tongue or teeth on delicate, sensitive skin, but if that was the sacrifice he had to make to avoid ever feeling this again, then… so be it. After all, those were fleeting; a moment of weakness, of bending to a carnal need that still plagued his human parts. They’d only ever meant something once, and that was long gone, now; a slowly fading patchwork of soft touches and tender caresses that he would one day entirely replace, if out of spite alone.
With a jolt and muted cry, he found it—a jagged piece of something, rammed between his rib and lung and lodged there firmly. He tried to grasp it, but his fingers were trembling and slick with blood or oil or both, and they slid off, making another spike of pain flare up his spine and behind his eyes.
He should have known better—the human form was inefficient and lacking, in this regard. He needed precision movement and the cold, hard, unforgiving surface of metal. He attempted another deep breath, but managed only to make himself spasm and shudder, and the worrying realization hit him that he could hear his struggling lung as it tried to expand, failed, and gurgled wetly where it was slightly exposed by the incision.
The Hex Claw responded sluggishly, but only because Viktor’s mind was making it so. As usual, the weakest part of an otherwise flawlessly executed procedure… was his human brain.
“J-Jayce…” he murmured, not reassured by how much liquid buildup he could feel in his lung and the base of his throat.
“Yeah?? What is it, I’m here. What do you need?”
In any other situation, he might have chided Jayce for his eagerness to help, and perhaps he still might. Later. When the stakes weren’t so high.
“Th-there’s b-blood… or oil in m-my lung. I need you t-to prop me up, before I d-drown in it…”
He’d barely finished speaking before Jayce was rearranging; rocking back to kneel and sit on his own ankles, hands wrapping beneath Viktor’s armpits to pull him up onto his lap.
Viktor tried very hard not to think about all those mornings, when the pain had been so bad that he couldn’t even rise from bed… when Jayce had noted his absence and never hesitated to stop by Viktor’s place. How he’d brewed some chamomile tea, cradled Viktor’s head in his lap, and idly read whatever research or calculation he’d been working on to Viktor as he stroked through his hair.
Blinking was becoming a tiring affair, the weight of his eyelids feeling like anvils and the effort of clinging to consciousness monumental. He let his eyes slide closed, but this time it wouldn’t matter—he could feel his way around the wound.
Positioned as he was, lifted slightly and resting against Jayce, the Hex Claw was granted freer movement, unobstructed articulation, and Viktor distantly wondered why he hadn’t done this sooner…
Oh. Right. Because it was humiliating and nostalgic and far too vulnerable for his liking.
He steeled himself, using his augmented hand to hold the wound open, and for the first time, the familiar tug of torn flesh began to make bile rise in his throat. Just perfect—if it wasn’t the blood and oil buildup, it would be vomit. Damned imperfect, flawed, shitty little…
He must have been controlling the Hex Claw subconsciously, because it shocked him from his thoughts when it breached the wound—its wide a-frame design forcing the incision open and making him gasp.
Giving this his last iota of conscious focus, he directed the claw to angle down and around his rib, to where the obstruction was, latching on with the far superior strength of the claw. Without even realizing he’d done it, his free hand flew up to grip at Jayce’s wrist, and before he could think twice, he ripped the shrapnel free.
The scream that tore from his throat rocked his entire frame, excruciating pain flaring through every muscle and sending him arching up off of Jayce’s knees. Everything in his body cried out to just stop—to give up and succumb to the encroaching darkness, consequences be damned. But he wasn’t finished—there was still a gaping hole in the mesh of his lung, and if he didn’t close it up, the whole thing would flood, and then he’d have a far bigger problem on his hands.
So, a bit loathe to do so, he released Jayce’s arm, reaching out his horribly trembling hand to take the shrapnel from the Hex Claw—after all, he’d need the evidence if he was going to deduce where the failure had occurred, and rectify it for the future.
Weakly, he blinked his eyes open as he mentally directed the Hex Claw back to the wound, raising the shrapnel up in front of his face…
Or he’d thought it would be shrapnel… but it was bone. Because of course it was. He could picture it all so clearly now—the shock absorbers in his armor had done their job, the metal grafts on his ribs had held against the impact, even the far weaker mesh of the lung would have been fine… but the godforsaken bone… his weak, brittle, useless fucking bone had shattered on impact and lodged into the mesh, slicing through it and sabotaging him from the inside out.
“Bone… fucking bone!” he screamed, rage making him toss the bone shard away and slam his augmented fist down against the bridge, the cement caving easily into a tiny crater.
His tone must have worried the onlooking sheriff and her officers, because every single one leveled their weapons on him and began advancing.
Before Viktor could even react, however, it was Jayce who spoke up.
“Hey! No, stay the fuck back, I mean it Cait. Please.”
Sheriff Kiramman paused, her face somehow melding annoyance with understanding, and she threw a hand out to motion to her officers, murmuring a quiet ‘stand down.’
Viktor didn’t wait for Jayce to turn back to him—he simply plunged the Hex Claw into the wound, and used two of its digits to pinch the split mesh of the lung back together. He held his breath then, firing the claw’s laser straight into his chest cavity, soldering the mesh back together.
The heat seared any nearby organic matter—the smell of boiling blood and cooking muscles mixing with hot oil and threatening to make Viktor gag again past his gritted teeth.
He managed to swallow it down; keeping the laser on until he was absolutely certain the hole was patched. It wasn’t a clean job, and he’d definitely be redoing it later (as well as removing every worthless rib and replacing them with fully cybernetic and steel-reinforced structures), but for now, it would hold long enough for him to limp back to his lab with his tail tucked.
Now it was only a matter of cauterizing the wound, and for some reason, it was the hardest to steel himself for—the knowledge that it wasn’t medically necessary anymore making his aversion to the pain much higher… could he walk all the way home with an open wound in his side?
Jayce leaned in over him, his eyes finding Viktor’s and making it impossible to look anywhere else—so much understanding and care and support brimming from them with glittering tears that the words weren’t even necessary… I’m here. And Gods, Viktor tried not to let the sentimentality get to him, but it did, it did. So many lazy mornings blinking awake to that wondrous gaze. So many long nights spent watching as youthful joy and excitement flared through those eyes, magic sparking in the air around them. Viktor loved Jayce’s kind eyes, that had never changed, and he used them as an anchor now, burrowing into the depths of them like a familiar blanket and carving out the support he so desperately needed—firing the Hex Claw a final time. He held Jayce’s gaze, however blurry it was with red-hot pain and tears, as his body seized up again, the scent of charred flesh and hot metal meeting his nostrils for what he hoped would be the last time in a while.
He collapsed back hard against Jayce, taking an experimental series of hyperventilated breaths as he did, and still noting the liquid within as it bubbled—he would be able to hack and cough that out once he was upright. His lungs both expanded, the rest of his grafted ribs seeming sturdy enough, and he inhaled several more times as relief and oxygen flooded through him to deliver an almost drug-like high.
He not only heard but felt it as Jayce did the same—his sigh of relief so heavy Viktor felt it, hot and dense like late afternoon petrichor on his face, and that was when it hit him, how exposed and vulnerable he currently was.
So, on weak and trembling muscles, he shoved himself to the side, utilizing the Hex Claw against the cement as a counterweight to prop himself on all fours, and the shift sent the liquid in his lung directly into his modified trachea. Despite his best efforts, he descended into a desperate and rasping coughing fit, the mixture of oil and blood coming out in copious amounts and shimmering iridescent as it splattered against the cement. And even though he should have thrown him off, screamed that this is your fault you inconsiderate ass… he actually leaned into it when Jayce’s hand started rubbing and patting at his back.
And finally, when the liquid discharge slowed, leaving him with a bitter, metallic taste on his tongue and a shivering, exhausted body, Viktor sighed, bringing a hand up to bury his humiliated face in it. If he’d learned anything today, it was that he still had a lot of work to do… but he could do it—eradicate every flawed part of him until he was a bastion of the perfect human form. A blending of superior design and mechanical function.
“Can you stand?” Jayce asked, voice still hushed and private—speaking only for them.
Viktor honestly didn’t know. Most of his power was currently coming from the gemstone installed in the Hex Claw, and Jayce certainly wasn’t about to allow him to take it.
“There are likely two answers to that,” Viktor said, his tone returned to one of only slightly aggravated passivity. He reached for his staff where he so haphazardly disregarded it, propping it heavily against the bridge and pushing upright onto his knees. “With or without the gemstone?”
Jayce only sighed, pushing to his feet and approaching, holding his hand out in a tentative offering; an olive branch that Viktor now had to decide if he wanted to take… or slice in half.
Ultimately, he opted for civility, as it would have been truly bad form to accept Jayce’s aid when he was desperate for it, only to turn on him moments later. No, that kind of snakelike behavior was reserved for Piltover’s finest.
That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it though, so Viktor grumbled a half-assed insult in his native tongue as he took Jayce’s hand. Jayce scoffed as he pulled, yanking Viktor up to his feet with much more effort than it used to take.
“You forget you taught me what that means,” Jayce said with a crooked grin as they were now eye-to-eye… physically, at least.
“Who says I didn’t mean for you to understand?” Viktor asked with an equally crooked grin, ignoring how shaky and unstable his knees were as he pulled his hand back as soon as he could.
“You owe me a new shotgun, asshole,” came sheriff Kiramman’s voice as she approached, the two pieces of her ruined weapon clutched in one hand, and Viktor’s mask held out in the other.
His entire body ran hot as he recalled the night he was expelled from Piltover—then officer Kiramman, still reeling from the loss of her mother and taking it out on the world around her, escorting him across the bridge none-too-gently, and roughly frisking him for smuggled notes or gemstones… not even allowing him to turn back… to look on the city he’d come to love, to look on the face of the man he’d come to love—standing on the other side of the bridge and watching it all happen.
Utilizing the Hex Claw like a striking snake, he violently tore the mask from her hands, causing her to flinch and take a step back. Off in the distance, her unit thrummed with anticipation and worry, but they held their ground.
“Consider us even, Caitlyn,” he snarled, her name dripping from his lips like venom. “Of the things we’ve taken from one another, I think I’d measure this paltry, if I were you.”
She at least had the decency to look properly scolded, her eyes falling to the ground and silence coming over her. Jayce looked like he wanted to reply—his always-loaded magazine of defenses for his friend, but upon seeing the look of sheer explosiveness that was likely staining Viktor’s features, he clearly decided against.
“I… I need you to let him go, Cait,” Jayce said, his voice so small and soft that it was barely audible over the nearby hum of Zaun.
She sighed, idly toying with the pieces of her gun.
“I know you do,” she said, the minimal nod almost going unnoticed. “But I won’t be able to explain it away to my superiors, to the council. It’ll be up to you to tell them why.”
Jayce simply nodded, pursing his lips and finally looking back to Viktor.
That look was a more effective gunshot straight to the heart than anything the sheriff could have ever delivered—years of friendship, years of collaboration and hope, years of love hanging on the pools of unshed tears glittering on Jayce’s offensively long lashes.
Viktor swallowed, raising the mask to his face before Jayce could see just what he did to Viktor, what that one simple look had always done to him. With a final, surrendering sigh, he reached up and removed the gemstone from the Hex Claw, despite everything in him screaming to take it, just take it. You have every right, you snuck him into Heimerdinger’s lab that night, you helped him stabilize it, you agonized years of your dwindling life away trying to direct this power toward the improvement of the Undercity, rather than the purses of greedy councilors.
His entire frame wobbled dangerously as the power surge left him in a rush, his breath punched out of him like a fist to the gut and his legs giving out beneath his own weight.
Jayce’s hand flew out, not to take the gemstone, but rather to grab Viktor’s arm, to hold and support him as he adjusted to the major decrease in power. And Viktor hated to admit it, but he definitely would have crumpled to the ground without it.
He simply breathed for a moment, bitterly redirecting what minimal power he had left to stabilizing himself, and shoved the gemstone into Jayce’s chest.
“I… I’m so sorry, Viktor,” Jayce’s voice was shattered and wavering, so far beyond the booming, confident Defender of Tomorrow. It was barely familiar, this weak and tormented thing; a byproduct of a man that no longer existed… a man that lived on only in the slowly fading memory core of Viktor’s deteriorating human side… the side that would eventually cease to exist entirely.
“I didn’t think I could… I didn’t think I could hurt you… anymore…”
Viktor scoffed, a caustic, acrid sound pushed out through the modulator in his mask, and angled his face toward the sky to inhale, long and deep, of the fleeting, fresh Piltover air.
“Oh Jayce,” he sighed, turning to finally meet those eyes he’d spent years trying to erase from every dark, cobwebbed corner of his half-metal mind, and the mask did nothing to disguise the look of wounded sorrow on Jayce’s handsome features. “Of all the people in all the world… it’s only you who’ll ever be able to hurt me.”
Jayce deflated, his shoulders falling and a look of pure defeat pulling in his brows and dousing his rich, honeyed eyes in darkness.
And there it was again, just beyond the machinations and scar tissue; that tug, that pull—Viktor’s marionette strings leading him back, back to Jayce, always to Jayce. Those strings, harder to break than steel and clawing at his soul, if he still had one—at his unfortunately still very human heart.
You hurt me… but I hurt you too.
“Chin up, Defender,” Viktor said, glad that the modulator turned the emotion staining his voice into a flat, disinterested hum. “Next time I won’t be so breakable, and who knows… perhaps I will be walking away with that tech that’s rightfully mine.”
Ours.
Jayce tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and it only served to give him the appearance of a broken, barely stitched-together man. Which, Viktor supposed, they both were now, and they’d likely never be whole again.
“Yeah. Maybe,” Jayce murmured, a single tear finally breaking free and streaking down his cheek as he rolled the gemstone in his fingers.
And before the biting impulse to reach up and swipe it away could take hold of Viktor, he turned, leaving his former partner standing on the bridge and watching him go.
Again.