Chapter Text
No words are sufficient to describe what Jayce feels the moment he touches the weird object. Was it an object? Or maybe it was a creature? Some weird anomaly in nature, something between living and not, that has somehow replaced the Hexgates’ power source.
He feels like he’s in two places at the same time, like all of his atoms are being split into two and accelerated, like he no longer has a corporal body, but instead, just loose electrons spinning in an endless Möbius strip.
There is a burning underneath his skin, or under what should be his skin, an excruciating pain that somehow also crosses the bounds of what physical pain should feel like and morphs into a sort of abstract version of pain, one humans can’t usually feel.
Lights flash before his eyes, and then everything goes black, then lights again, and the cycle continues until there is one last pulse of energy and an explosion of brightness blinds Jayce, knocking him unconscious.
–
He wakes up with a choked gasp. There is a ringing in his ears, and his head throbs as if someone hit him over the head with his hammer. He opens his eyes and then closes them swiftly, still too sensitive to the outside light.
Wait. Outside light?
Jayce timidly cracks open one eye, takes his time adjusting, then opens the other. He looks around.
People. Normal people buzzing around a market of sorts, just going about their day. Not cultist, not Noxian soldiers, but people running errands in— Zaun?
He looks around once more, noticing the people and the shops and vendors, and everything says “Undercity” but this isn’t the Zaun he remembers.
Laughter can be heard from different corners of the market, children are running around, playing and chasing each other. The scene is even illuminated by the glow of the sun, like some idealistic painting of what could be, of a better and brighter future for the Zaun Jayce knows.
The people around the market aren’t the scruffy Zaunites Jayce used to see when buying parts from shady sellers. No, gone are the Chembaron technologies, gone is the Shimmer and the gang affiliations, gone is everything someone from Piltover would associate with Zaun.
Instead, Zaun looks like Piltover, like it’s finally living up to the name of Piltover’s sister city. Jayce even notices some Academy students walking around, chatting, eating, returning home after a long day.
It all makes his head throb even harder, confusion mixing with whatever the Hexcore did to his brain, scrambling his thoughts even further, making him lightheaded.
A child runs past Jayce and knocks into him, making him lose his balance. He feels his knees buckle underneath him, but he’s stopped from falling in the last second by a hand wrapped around his arm, straightening him up.
“Whoa, you okay there, Mister Talis?” A young girl, no older than twenty asks him, helping him stand. She’s wearing an Academy uniform that strains around her well-muscled arms, and her goggles and work apron tell him she surely shares his passion for the forge. Who is this girl? How does she even know Jayce? He swears that he has never seen her in his entire life.
Unless… this isn’t his life.
They’d theorized about it before—him and Viktor—alternate universes, an ocean of possible outcomes and combinations. It had been just a theory, something even more impossible than their dream of creating magic. But they did create magic—destructive, world-altering magic. So maybe…
“Hello? Do I need to bring you to a doctor or something?” the girl says in a cheerful tone, almost teasing. What kind of relationship does he have with her? Better yet, what kind of relationship does this version of him have with her?
“Sorry, my head’s killing me,” he says trying to sound nonchalant and not like his entire body is hurting and he feels like his brain is on fire.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting sick! I heard there’s a flu going around but you can’t get sick now! I’m almost finished with my prototype and you need to look it over before I turn it in for grading!” Definitely an Academy student then. And Jayce is what? A mentor, a friend, a colleague?
“I’m sure there are others who can also help you with it,” he says carefully, testing the waters.
“Well, sure there are. But you’re the chillest prof in the whole Academy! The others are all old snobs who still have undisclosed biases against students from Zaun,”
Oh God. Jayce is a professor? At the Academy? How? Is he older in this universe? Or is he a professor at thirty? And what about Hextech?
“Okay, you really don’t look good. I’m bringing you home,” she decides and then starts dragging Jayce down some alley. He’s too shocked to protest, and if he were to do so, he’d just alert the girl that something is very wrong, and attract even more attention.
Wait, she said she’s bringing him home ? He lives in Zaun? And this girl knows where he lives?
Jayce has never been so confused in his life. Fuck his head hurts.
–
They walk for maybe a few minutes, the girl excitedly babbling about her project, and while he isn’t paying much attention, Jayce can admit that she is certainly bright. The ease with which she jumps from topic to topic is enough proof of that.
A few more minutes and they stop in front of a tiny, cozy house with smoke coming out of a chimney and flower pots decorating the front door. This definitely isn’t the Zaun Jayce is familiar with.
The girl barges into the house without knocking, without a care in the world, like she owns the place.
“Hello?” she calls in a sing-song voice that echoes around the living room. It’s crowded in a way family homes often are, clothes thrown over chairs, a dining table covered with mugs, papers, and books; a toy squeaks under his foot as Jayce steps on it.
Jayce lives here? And there are children’s toys around? Does he-
“I have brought the husband home!” Husband?
“Miss Hawks, how many times have I asked you not to burst into our home,” a heavily accented voice sounds from the hallway on Jayce’s left. The voice rings in Jayce’s ears like a chime, familiarity sinking deep into his stomach, a strange feeling washing over him before he realizes, that the voice belongs to-
“Yeah, yeah, but it’s so inconvenient,” she says in the direction of the voice, looking at the person speaking-
Viktor.
Viktor in front of him, alive; breathing; alive ; his hair long, tied back loosely; alive; cane in one hand, but moving faster than he used to; alive; dressed in a cotton button-up and soft pants, an apron tied around his waist; alive; alive, alive, alive .
“It is also polite,” Viktor is in the living room now, maneuvering around the many things on the floor. “It is also for your own sake. Our house is rarely clean,” he says with a small laugh, bending down to pick up a stuffed rabbit.
“I don’t mind it. In fact, I find it quite endearing,” Miss Hawks announces, looking quite pleased with her answer.
“Yes, because I feed you for free, and I correct your math for you,” Viktor smiles, a smile so soft and warm it makes his features melt, no longer sharp and cold, but elegant and inviting.
“Precisely why you’re my favorite professor,” she says and plops down on the couch in the middle of the room, which creeks underneath her weight like any well-loved piece of furniture would.
“Is that so? I do remember Jayce being your favorite last week,” Viktor says with an amused tone, as he makes his way over to Jayce.
“Semantics,” Jayce hears her say, but he’s not even sure if he actually heard it, not when Viktor is standing in front of him now, Viktor, his Viktor, stubborn and intelligent and gorgeous, and human, oh how delightfully human , with his moles and his crooked nose, and his golden eyes, and his full lips, and with a healthy flush over his cheeks. Undoubtedly, miraculously, Viktor.
Jayce takes a shaky breath, his eyes filling up with tears. He lunges forward and hugs Viktor with inhuman desperation.
He buries his face into Viktor’s neck and breath in his cologne, rubs his cheek against the soft skin there, cries his heart out, hiccuping and gasping for air like a small child, wetting Viktor’s clothes, his hands wrapped so tightly around the other man he feels he might crush him.
“Jayce, what happened?” Viktor asks, concern heavy in his voice, as he pushes at Jayce’s shoulders, making him move back so that he can look him in the eyes.
“What happened, darling?” Viktor asks so gently, so kindly, placing one hand on Jayce’s cheek, wiping away the heavy tears with his thumb. Jayce just crumbles again, grabbing the hand in both of his, placing kiss after kiss on Viktor’s soft palm.
And Viktor just lets him. He keeps his hand in place, and with the other rubs soothing circles into Jayce’s back, while he cries his heart out, while he chokes on his tears, and gasps for breath, while his knees buckle again, and suddenly he’s on the floor, Viktor following him down.
“Jayce,” Viktor’s soft voice fills his ears, muffled by the sound of his hysterical sobbing. “Jayce, please look at me,” he raises his head automatically, like it’s a reflex, a reaction instilled in him by nature—to always follow Viktor, Viktor’s voice, his guidance.
“There you are, handsome,” this must be a dream. This can’t be an actual universe, it can’t be that there is a universe where Jayce deserves this, where Jayce deserves Viktor’s kindness, where he deserves Viktor.
“Viktor, Viktor, I-” he can’t even form the words, he doesn’t even know what to say to him, how to articulate the thoughts pulsating in his shattered brain, the apologies, and the questions, and the feeling overwhelming him, like a river overflowing with water.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, everything’s okay,” and he just doesn’t know how wrong he is, how not okay everything is, because of Jayce, because of Jayce’s arrogance and his ignorance, how blind he was, how blinded he was by the faux-power politics promised to give him, by his dream, his foolish , naive dream.
“Come, let’s sit,” Viktor gets to his feet and offers Jayce his hand. He takes it and moves to the couch timidly, like a prey animal scared of the nearby predator. Absent-mindedly Jayce notes that the girl is no longer there, no doubt having left after Jayce broke down in gut-wrenching sobs.
“Should I make you something to drink?” Viktor asks, voice gentle, gentle, gentle, so gentle , as if Jayce is a precious crystal in his arms, delicate and paper-thin, a breath away from breaking.
“I don’t think I belong here,” Jayce says instead of answering the question, voicing the one thought that has been swirling in his mind the entire time, the only one that rang clear enough for him to understand in the mess of his brain.
“Pardon?” Viktor says, taken aback by the statement, uttered by Jayce with a raspy pain-filled voice, with his eyes red and puffy, his face tear-soaked. Even worse, from Viktor’s perspective it is not Jayce saying it—not this Jayce—but his-
His husband.
They got married in this universe.
Jayce grabs Viktor’s left hand, examining it. He looks at his own.
Twin rings adorn their fingers, Viktor’s golden, Jayce’s silver, both holding a fragment of blue crystal in the middle.
They’re married . They vowed their life to the other, they promised themselves to one another, they actually acted upon the deep-rooted emotions that coursed through the garden that was their relationship, that stubborn weed called love, that always came back no matter how many times you plucked it.
Viktor is his husband . They live together, they work at the Academy, they nurture the new era of scientists and inventors, they nurture the progress and the development of Piltover and Zaun, they aren’t fighting a useless war, they aren’t making choices no human should have to make, they aren’t murderers , they’re-
“Daddy?” a small voice rings through the room like a jingle bell. Jayce and Viktor both turn their heads toward it.
In the doorway of the hallway Viktor came from stands a small blonde girl, no older than five, hugging a rag doll and sleepily rubbing at her eyes with one hand.
“Is everything okay?” she asks looking in Jayce’s direction.
“Yes, yes, nothing to worry about, Amaranthine, Daddy just had a bad day, that’s all,” Viktor is quick to rise to his feet, grabbing his cane, and walking over to the girl, placing a soothing hand on top of her head.
“Let’s get you back to bed, hm? You need energy for later, or I’ll have to go to the market all alone,” she seems to consider what Viktor says, nods her head, and lets him lead her back to what is probably her room.
Jayce sits alone in the silence, staring at the empty space where the two used to be.
He- They -
They have a daughter . In this universe, Jayce has a daughter . He’s a father to this beautiful little girl and he has a family that he comes back to every day, a family filled with warmth and love, and—
He has a home .
Viktor returns after a few minutes and Jayce’s eyes follow his every move as he makes his way back to the couch, like the moon following its orbit, an unshakable gravitational pull, a force no one can undo.
His lashes are heavy with tears again.
“Am I right in assuming you do not know who she is?” Viktor asks, because Viktor has always been so, so smart, and it’s only logical that every version of him is just as brilliant as Jayce’s. No, not his , not really, Viktor was never his . Jayce shakes his head no.
“I thought so,” he nods in understanding, long bangs framing his face moving as he does so, their swaying in the air hypnotic to Jayce.
“I’d assume you’re not— my Jayce ,” he pauses before he says it, and Jayce’s heart shrinks when he hears it, the reminder that no, no , this isn’t where he belongs, this isn’t his life, he doesn’t get to experience this , this happiness .
“You have a daughter?” he asks instead of affirming Viktor’s suspicion, he asks instead of breaking down again, he asks instead of falling to his knees and begging Viktor to let him stay here, with him , with her .
“She’s turning five in two months,” Viktor answers, a soft smile blooming on his face, like the prettiest of spring flowers. “We adopted her three years ago. Some months after–after the wedding,” he swallows in the middle of his sentence, clearly unsure if he should be saying this, if it will somehow break their universe, or worse, be Jayce’s final breaking point.
“How are you here? Where did you come from?” It’s Viktor’s turn to ask questions, his eyes filled with concert, but also with that twinkle of scientific curiosity that always decorated his eyes when they worked on something.
“I don’t know. One moment I was standing under the Hexgates and the other,” he gestures vaguely with his hands.
“The Hexgates? You managed to create them in your universe?” Viktor’s eyes widen with shock at Jayce’s words, his eyebrows rising up, and then scrunching together in thought. That face, his thinking face, the one that always overtook his features while working, the one Jayce had thought about countless times, too blind to understand exactly why he kept thinking about it. How blind he was, for so long, unable to see what was standing right in front of him, his soulmate that had always been there , there by his side, with a piece of chalk in his hand, aiding in the creation of Jayce’s wildest dreams.
“You don’t have them here?” he asks, confusion evident in his voice. He thought that the crystal in their rings was a symbol of it, of their progress. But then again, why would the inverters of Hextech be living a cozy life as professors? Why when they can instead turn into monsters of their own creation, into humans no more?
No, the creators of Hextech had been doomed from the beginning, doomed to fail, doomed to destroy all the good they created, doomed to destroy themselves and all of Piltover and Zaun.
“There was—an incident. Some kids snuck into your rooms. One of the girls, she-” Viktor can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Jayce can only imagine it, Viktor talking about the undeserved loss of somebody’s daughter, while his own slept a few rooms away.
“After that, the Council decided the crystals were too dangerous, almost had you banished,” Viktor recalls the story, his voice heavy with the memories of it, with the tragic feelings surrounding them.
“But you convinced them not to, I assume,” it was always Viktor saving him, always, always, even when Jayce thought he didn’t deserve saving, at his lowest, standing on that ledge in his room that night and then— “Am I interrupting?”
“I was Professor Heimerdinger’s assistant back then. I had found your notes, and even if what you were trying to create was now outlawed, it still showed a level of genius the Academy desperately needed,” Viktor’s features change again, and now it’s pride illuminating his eyes, deep and loving affection for the man he is describing.
“I convinced him to give you one more try, as an assistant, a tutor, anything really. To this day I still can’t believe he actually did,” Viktor shakes his head, the edges of his mouth curved in a smile.
“Your world is so different,” Jayce says when Viktor is done, looking around the room, this family’s living room. He notices pictures on the walls he didn’t pay attention to before, of a man who has his face and his body but is somehow different, who looks lighter, happier, his hair longer, his eyes brighter. He must be older than he is in his universe, but somehow he looks younger in the pictures, full of life and hope Jayce lost a while ago.
His eyes find a mirror and he looks at this version of himself, this version where he leads a real and purposeful life, where he’s not consumed by man’s vices: his hair is longer than he’s used to, but shorter than it was in the picture, just past his ears now, and he has a beard, and crow’s feet dance around the corners of his eyes. He looks like a dad, he realizes, like a man who works a normal job and leads a normal life, who goes to work, who takes care of his daughter, of his family .
Bile rises in the back of Jayce’s throat at the realization that he could have had this . That this had been an option. He feels as his breathing picks up, as his heart begins to race and his skin begins to overheat, because this reality was so simple, so domestic and easy, and yet. It was perfect .
It was everything Jayce had ever wanted and more.
All this time he had strived for perfection, for power, for change, for a legacy to be remembered for generations on end. But now he realizes, none of those things really matter.
What truly matters is the man sitting in front of him, the band resting around his finger, the pictures adorning the walls, the quaint house tucked away from the rest of the world, the little girl sleeping in one of its rooms.
Jayce understands it now. He finally understands.
All of a sudden, a shock wave of pain washes over his body, a ring echoes in his ears, and his head spins.
Ah, looks like the universe is trying to right itself.
Viktor’s hands are immediately on him, his voice a lullaby in his ear asking him what’s wrong. He wants to answer but he can’t. The pains become more persistent with every passing second to the point that Jayce falls from the couch and on the floor, doubled over.
Viktor is on him again, his voice now frantic, eyes blown wide with worry and horror.
But he has nothing to worry about, Jayce thinks as he feels the atoms of his body split again. In a few minutes, Viktor will have his husband back, and Jayce will be back home, given one more miraculous chance, one more attempt to fix everything .
Jayce feels as his body starts turning into particles and shifting, going somewhere in a process he still doesn't understand.
With his last specs of power, he turns to Viktor, this beautiful and untouched version of Viktor and simply says:
“Thank you. For everything,”
–
A white light flashes and ringing echoes through the room.
After a few seconds of blindness, Viktor opens his eyes and looks around, his ears ringing.
There on the carpet in front of him lies Jayce, unconscious.
Like a man possessed, Viktor crawls over to him and starts frantically shaking him, saying his name over and over again, begging him to wake up.
Tears are already spilling from his eyes, when Jayce finally takes a gasping breath, stands up and starts coughing roughly, while Viktor lets out a string of curses and thank yous addressed to every god and deity he can think of.
“God, V, what happened to me?” and Viktor simply laughs because he knows that the man in front of him is who he’s supposed to be. He kisses his husband and the kiss tastes like the sea after a storm, salty and electrified.
–
In another world, maybe at the same time, maybe not, there is really no way of knowing, Jayce is wiping Salo’s blood from his face, headed to the lowest level of Zaun in search of a deity of his own.