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Jayce Talis is on the tail end of the longest week of his life. Seven long days since the bombing of the council hall, a week that quickly filled with non-stop efforts to scrape together the remnants left behind in the rubble. He attended a different funeral each day, a war council after that and when he finally gained a moment to grieve, Jayce found himself tucked away in the lab late into the night, packing up the fragments of their shared dream. All while trying to avoid the blood soaked veneer of his own desk. In fact, that was the only corner of the lab that remained completely untouched. Even his late partner’s grime covered shirt still laid over the back of his desk chair.
But, no matter how hard he chased denial, or ran from reality, he still awoke to the same tilted world he’d started to dissociate from. Which led him to stand in front of a lead coated box with his retired mentor.
Jayce had reached out, asking Heimendinger to assist in the destruction of the hexcore. Only fueled by Viktor’s last request to get rid of the thing before it caused further harm.
“I believe that should have worked, my boy.” He says as he pulls off his goggles. The metal has warped unnaturally under the core’s wild and destructive nature. All that was left to do now was to dispose of the remains, “I’ll have this taken care of.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jayce replies with a strained professional looking smile. He starts to pull off his gloves as Heimendinger hops down from his stool.
“Any-way I can help.” He nods before pausing near the door, “That does remind me…”
“Yes?” Jayce prompts politely. Internally the idea of one more demand of his time rears an ugly, loathing head- He was beyond exhausted, and certain he has nothing left to possibly give.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the obituary section of paper-“ the yordle starts with hesitation only to be cut off immediately.
“Respectfully sir, I don’t think I can handle one more funeral,” Jayce interjects with a withered gaze, “it’s been non-stop for a week.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I haven’t seen anything posted about Viktor.” Heimendinger offers, “I also don’t believe anyone has come forward to claim his body from the morgue.”
“But- his family…” The young inventor’s detached calm starts to slip as he’s once again reminded of his own loss in the matter, “Shouldn’t they have come by?”
“I don’t believe he has any remaining living family members.” Heimendinger confesses as gently as he can, “And Miss Skye has all but vanished into thin air.”
“You’re… asking me to take care of this?” Jayce repeats back to the yordle, brushing a hand down his face in hopes of hiding the sting of tears the topic seems to consistently summon.
“I fear the council will handle the disposal… indelicately.” His teacher explains, “And who knows where his ashes may end up.”
The thought alone is enough to form a weighted pit in his stomach. Heimendinger wasn’t wrong, if he left it up to the remaining council members to honor his memory- They would undoubtedly bury it in favor of maintaining his own glorious Piltover-born legacy. Tuck Viktor’s existence away into a dingy record book and leave it there to rot.
He’s forced to shakily clear his throat as Heimendinger produces a stack of forms, “Just fill these out and they should release him no problem, my boy.” The yordle gazes up at his pupil with a deep rooted empathy, no doubt picking up on his poorly masked breakdown. “Take care of yourself.”
And without another word, the retired scientist grabs the contained remains of Jayce’s- no, their life work and leaves.
As the door shuts between them, a guttural bubble of grief builds in his throat. He swings around, clearing the desk in front of him with a careless sweep. Things crash to the ground, shattering and clanging- all dwarfed by the scream that tears from his throat. An entire lung full of air, choked to the brim with every emotion he’s swallowed in the past week. Every moment he had to look at the distant family members of victims with their crocodile tears and half hearted well-wishes. Jayce had wanted to throttle each one who dared to look him in the eye and pretend they had even an inkling of the grief that tore his soul from his body.
His fist comes crashing down on the desk top and something cracks. Jayce can’t tell if the sound came from the table or his knuckles, only able to weather the overwhelming involuntary trembling as he runs out of air to cry out any longer.
Jayce sinks to his knees, tears blurring in his vision. It was almost comically ironic, the way his gaze centers in on the blood-stained hem of Viktor’s shirt. An exact call-back to the way he collapsed in defeat seven days ago.
The memory itself is hazy, fogged over with an unprocessed cocktail of emotions.
He’d lied to himself initially, pulling Viktor’s thin body from the rubble- Lied that there was still a chance, pretended he didn’t feel the shattered pieces of his partner’s vertebrae shift as he lifted him into his arms. Lied that there was still a hint of a pulse to strive for, because believing anything else in that moment would’ve fully disabilitated him.
Sounds crowded his mind, chaos surrounded him in a deafening ring. Jayce can barely recall the way he tore down the block or how he managed to get into the lab. The next clear memory is the way he’d torn his partner’s shirt open to start compressions. Constant quiet words of assurance and safety in his care spilled from his lips. If only to keep himself from halting long enough to realize his delusions. He couldn’t stop because that meant giving up and giving up meant admitting that he was already gone.
Determination fueled each timed shove into Viktor’s sternum. The routine blurred together after the first insistent breath he’d forced into his partner’s lungs. Something in the consistent cooling of his companion’s flesh beneath his hands had knocked his composure off its shaken feet. His entire frame shook with a sob and his vision doubled with tears. Jayce pushed more insistently, losing his rhythm completely- ‘Crank it’
Isn’t that what he had said the first time they met?
His blood rushed in his ears, drowning out the noise of the world outside their lab, outside their meticulously constructed nook of safety. Viktor’s abandoned mug from breakfast still sat haphazardly on the edge of his desk, his writing mixed with Jayce’s looping penmanship, partially covering their chalkboard. There were too many intrinsic ties that kept them in each other’s orbit. Too many things he’d have to cut off, pack up and bury so he could not just die on him like this-
Jayce felt something shatter beneath his fingertips, giving under the strain of his flattened palm. His composure ripped away as he’d registered the unnatural concave of Viktor’s ribcage. He didn’t hear the scream that tore up his throat over the rush of blood in his ears, or notice the bodies scrambling into their sacred space to pull him off Viktor’s shambled body. The inventor, in that moment, had fully given way to his protective instinct, clawing and pushing against the static-faced arms that held him back. He’d pulled free a few times, surging forward towards the only thing focused in his vision until multiple people joined forces to hold him back.
If he was just given a moment to think, Jayce could save him. If they just let him close enough, he could drag him back- call out his partner’s name gently and brush against his chestnut hair; the same way he would wake him from a desk-top nap. There was no way he’d never get a chance to do that again. No way that something he’d held between his palms this morning was lost to him so permanently only a mere hours later.
He’d protested violently enough to break an enforcer’s nose as they’d dared to pull a plain white sheet over Viktor’s sunken features.
The mental image alone is enough to shake Jayce back to reality. Both hands trembling in his lap. One still clutches the paperwork, crumbling it from the sheer force of his grip.
Facing these emotions head-on has taken every bit of reason and sense from his overworked mind. He reaches up, brushing his fingertips through the well tracked damp paths that curl around the swell of his jaw. Jayce hadn’t even realized he’d been crying.
His body seems to resort to muscle memory as he pulls himself to his feet. The mess could wait- he just wanted to feel safe in a space untainted by the reminders that consistently kicked the breath from his chest.
Jayce starts to walk, the world around him fading into a white-noised haze. The hazel of his gaze traces the lines in the cobblestone, connecting it like a trail. He keeps this up the whole aimless walk- if only to keep his mental faculties running without the risk of triggering that steel trip-wire of adrenaline that too much thought tends to lean on.
He finds himself staring up at his childhood home, tucked comfortably in the suburbs of Piltover. How long has he been walking to make it all the way here?
Exhaustion tugs his thoughts to a slow crawl, and he doesn’t get much of a chance to think further before the door swings open.
Ximena Talis regards her son first with confusion which is quickly dwarfed with concern as she registers the haunted aimless gaze that lifts to acknowledge her. She is far from a stranger to the tragedy her son had endured, but she may have overestimated how strong he was through his pride and dependability.
She doesn't break the quiet shell-shocked silence that drapes over her child like a blanket, and instead just ushers him inside.
Jayce lumbers forward, climbing the front stairs and stopping in the doorway. The papers are still gripped in his hand. She pulls him into a hug, which he responds to without his usual strength.
Ximena leads him into the living room and sits him down in one of the armchairs. Voices softly whisper around him but his mind jumbles the sound, leaving him with an incomprehensible mess of mumbling. It takes him a moment, but he registers more than one. Jayce glances up, suddenly aware of Caitlyn on his mother’s couch with a cup of long-chilled tea between her palms. She dips down to catch his gaze, “You in there, Jayce?” She asks softly, mirroring his mother’s furrowed brow.
“Yeah.. sorry. Just a rough day.” He dismisses quickly.
Caitlyn sets her cup aside and stands. She crosses the living room before kneeling to catch his downtrodden gaze once more, “What happened?”
The ex-inventor’s breath hitches in his throat and the muscles in his jaw shift. No matter how he tries to pull the words from his lips, they stay lodged within that lump in his throat.
Caitlyn sighs and reaches over to pull the forms from his grip. She glances down, gaze shifting over the contents of the first page.
“These are for..” she pauses, considering the delicate manner before clearing her throat, “Viktor?”
Jayce’s shoulders shudder and the tremor returns to his hands with a vengeance, but manages to mumble a quiet “yes” in response.
He is met with a look of pained understanding from his near-sibling. She reaches forward to cover his shaking hand with her palm, “Why don’t we help you figure these out?” Caitlyn offers softly.
She pulls him to his feet and he’s led to sit at the kitchen table. His mother sets a teacup in front of him and takes a seat across from him.
Caitlyn already has a pen in hand, sharp cerulean gaze darting through the required information that sits on the veneered glossy table in front of him.
Caitlyn leans over his shoulder to start filling in blanks. After a moment, she pauses, “Did Viktor have a last name?”
That’s all it takes for the damn to break again, Jayce pitching forward with a crumpling pitiful expression. In that moment he’s reminded not only of his companion’s roots, but the segregation of treatment from the elite who had held him in such low regard. It turns an ugly coil in his gut, mixing inexplicitly with his refreshed tears.
“He does.” Ximena interjects and Jayce’s gaze shoots up. He watches as his mother takes the pen ever so gently and goes to write ‘Talis’ in her familiar curved penmanship.
She pauses to hand the pen back and gazes down to acknowledge the lost look on her son’s face, “I have been thinking. Your father left you two plots in his will, with the hopes that one is used to bury the woman you spend your life with.”
“But-“ Jayce interjects but stops as his mother’s voice cuts through his.
“I have never seen you look at someone the way you regarded Viktor and I know you will never forgive yourself if you felt his legacy would be left in disregard.”
The retired inventor’s protests die on his tongue after he takes note of the knowing glint in his mother’s gaze.
“I spent so many nights worried that your pursuit of passion may set you astray and in your rush to change the world, you’d end up alone on that podium. I only started to sleep well when you introduced me to Viktor.”
“Mom, I introduced you to Mel first.” Jayce reminds her.
Ximena’s gaze does not falter, “Mel warmed you like a fire. But…My dear, you gazed at Viktor like you’d burn the world to keep him comfortable.”
“He was certainly firey enough for the Talis name.” Caitlyn chimes in gently, taking up the pen to fill in more of the blanks, “I was.. confused at first when you started seeing Mel. From the moment I saw how your dream melded with Viktor- the way he’d spur you into action, I thought it was… obvious.”
It isn’t any form of holy revelation, Jayce is smart enough to recognize the nature of the deep thrum in his own heart. Instead, it fills him with deep rooted regret. Inaction had once again robbed him of warmth. The one thing Viktor had so vehemently, tediously and meticulously untangled in him by instilling him with unwavering trust- all radiating from that intense, familiar amber gaze. But now, he sits here, hazel eyes in hand realizing it had led to his undoing once more.
He will no longer be granted the right to carry him to bed, no longer able to gaze at the softness of sleep on his partner’s face. Sickness turns his stomach, rooted in the white-knuckles grip he’s holding on his composure. But in all honesty? Jayce is tired. He’s tired of holding back tears, pretending for the sake of other’s battles that he has not been viscerally torn in two, one part cold and blue.
“I never told him.” Jayce finally mumbles out, immediately bursting through the damn of his self control. Ximena is there to catch him when he crumbles and sobs. No longer is the Man of Progress in her arms, but instead her child, crying over his first true heartbreak.
Her hands come up to pet through his unbrushed hair, head tucking into the crook of her shoulder, as Jayce’s miserable wailing fills the kitchen. Each haggard breath stricken with raw grief and expended until his lungs empty. It is truly a sound no mother ever wants to hear from their son.
Jayce’s arms circle his mother’s waist, and if he had the breath to spare, he would beg her to make the suffering stop.
Ximena comforts him gently, grateful for the fact that he could not see her own silent tears. This is a wound not even she could cure.
The first funeral in the Talis house had been a beautifully, meticulously planned event. Jayce had spent the last week dodging meetings and war councils in order to pour his heart and soul into the memorial. He knew what he was avoiding. The insistent topic Caitlyn brought up every time she stopped by to offer help.
But all had fallen into the wayside as he hunted for a tie to suit Viktor’s complexion, leaning of course towards their house colors. He had always loved draping the other in gold and red for that very reason. The flowers had been a two day debate, and when he finally settled on the final detail, sat plain as day in front of him was a love letter. A reflection of every detail he had internalized, every small detail that painted a complete picture of his partner’s beauty and genius. He couldn’t confess in life, so instead Jayce chose to announce it brazenly to the world in memoriam. There would never be a vacant space beside him, on paper or in death. Viktor’s legacy would not fall into disrepair.
He could avoid his reality until the event was over, until he was the last one sitting beside the fresh carved granite marking out the name Viktor Talis.
He hears Caitlyn approach before she speaks, “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“As ready as I can be.” He offers, finally dropping his hand from the gravestone.
It would be well maintained in his absence, he’d made sure of it.
It wouldn’t be long either before he rested beside his partner. The front lines of war demand blood, after all.
In memorial of Grayson Cole (2001-2021)
Forever my Partner in Crime