Chapter Text
“Send me back”.
The hooded figure he knew to be Viktor raised his hand. The familiar bubble with sickening holes and horrible colors sprouted around them. Jayce tried to swallow the bile in his throat, but his stomach was spent, so he just dry heaved, never tearing his eyes away from Viktor’s dear face, older than Jayce had ever known him to be, older than he had ever hoped to see it become. Viktor softly and sadly smiled at him, working his long fingers around some complicated magical gesture.
Oh, how Jayce wished to go way, way back. To start it all over, to return to their lab, to the only home he had ever known, besides his Mom’s place, to hug Viktor one more time, see him smile and gesture wildly ranting about some theory… To just hear his soft voice not filtered through some robotic speaker, see the golden sparks in his honey-colored eyes, not those…those cold, unnatural eyes on a frozen face.
Jayce had begged this older Viktor, asked, argued, raged and wept, till he lost his voice.
“I can’t kill him, I can’t!”
“Then you must let him die in the explosion. He will not suffer”.
“No! No! There must be some other way! There must be!”
Viktor had stayed silent. Jayce had stayed steadfast.
He closed his eyes now, as the colorful sphere swirled around them.
I had no benefits of a patron or a name. I simply believed in myself… When you’re going to change the world, don’t ask for permission.
***
Viktor coughed and sat up on the couch. His leg twitched, he groaned and gently lowered it on the ground holding it in both hands. Great. Now it was going to be numb till noon of the next day at the least.
Whatever. He’d had it worse.
It was the dead of night, and Jayce actually had to go to sleep at a reasonable hour or, to be more precise, Viktor had him banished from the lab due to the speech Jayce had to give at a fundraising event tomorrow morning. Viktor chuckled affectionately when he recalled that Jayce had looked like a kicked dog having to leave in the middle of a riveting discussion about the capability of the crystals to power airships that could go beyond Runeterra’s sky.
Viktor was just about to head home too, since he was already dozing off, when a loud crash and a blue flash of the Hex crystal startled him fully awake.
The next thing Viktor detected was the obscene smell and ragged breathing. Someone else was in the laboratory. Someone very, very smelly and having trouble breathing. That was impossible, since no one opened either the door or the window. The smell strongly reminded Viktor of his childhood - some people and places in Zaun smelled exactly like that… Perhaps this was the reason he did not feel as much fear as he was supposed to, merely the morbid curiosity of a scientist presented with new data.
Viktor hastily limped to the light switch and turned it on. He saw a big man curled on the ground, with matted dark hair and a jacket that used to be white. Now it was covered in dirt, slime and gods know what else. A large hammer, also covered in dirt and some torn plants, lay by his side. The man coughed and shielded his eyes from the harsh white light. He stood up, slowly, groaning in pain, gripping in his hands his strange hammer. Viktor stepped back, when he saw a light and heard a sound, as if a mechanism was slowly turning itself on. Was the man going to attack him?.. Kill a cripple? An assassin from Zaun called forth to stop the Hextech progress?.. Well, Viktor made sense as the obvious first target. Oh, if only he could warn Jayce!..
Viktor winced and stepped back, as the hammer slammed into the ground with a loud bang. The man slumped against the wall, exhausted, barely standing. Some assassin…
“Who are you?” Viktor tried to call to his voice all the authority and severity he could possibly muster to keep it from trembling. “How did you get here?”
The strong smell of a human body unwashed for weeks was so bad, that it made Viktor’s eyes sting. He squinted. That jacket looked oddly familiar, white and gold…
“I’ll call…”
The man was staring at him with golden eyes, familiar, beloved eyes, glistening wetly through a curtain of bangs and unimaginable distant horrors. Beaten, but undefeated, with weary lines, this face…Viktor knew that face.
“No”, the man croaked, a barely audible sound, as if he had a sore throat or had been screaming for a good long while. “No, don’t call anyone, please… I won’t hurt you… I won’t hurt you…”
He slapped his hands over his ears. Viktor uncertainly wobbled closer.
“How did you get here?” He asked, more calmly.
The man gave a sharp nod at the blue crystal, now glowing innocently, and slowly stood straighter, using the handle of the ancient hammer as a prop. His leg was cast in a support very similar to Viktor’s, but much more crudely assembled. Viktor stumbled and nearly fell backwards, but a strong hand caught him and pressed against the man’s chest. Viktor tried not to breathe in the foul smell, but he had to ask…
“Jayce?!”
It can’t have been him. Jayce Talis would have to actually die before he let himself go like that. Jayce Talis was safe and sound in his bedroom, unless, of course, he ran into Councilor Medarda on his way back, in which case, he might not be alone in his bedroom, was all. And finally, it was physically impossible to grow such a beard and hair, not to mention the stress lines, within the span of a few hours.
Unless…
“Yeah”, the man croaked and laughed bitterly, “you’re looking at what’s left of him”.
Viktor stepped back and coughed so forcefully that it shook his whole body. Jayce winced, held out his hand, as if afraid that Viktor might fall again, but instantly let it drop.
Viktor looked straight into the man’s eyes, past the dirty hair and a haunted gaze. He knew those eyes better than his own heart.
“Jayce”, he whispered softly, as if confirming the impossible truth for himself.
With a loud metal bang of his leg brace, Jayce fell to his knees in front of Viktor and started violently sobbing.
***
Viktor insisted they detach the handle and leave the horrible looking hammer in his closet., covered with a cloth. Heimerdinger would barely blink an eye at some new tech, as long as it didn’t look like a weapon.
“Also, we’re definitely burning these clothes. I’ll give you some of Jay… Well, yours, he always keeps a spare lying around, but you knew that”, Viktor had to fill in the silence. Jayce, usually so bright, passionate, emotional, talkative Jayce now followed Viktor around like a severely beaten dog, in complete silence.
Viktor already had a theory of what happened, but it was incomplete. It didn’t explain everything. At some point in the future he and Jayce would test the ability of the stones to teleport, but in space or time? Viktor could not see a point in the latter beyond useless hubris. What use was there in changing history or going into the future? It had to be built here and now.
The initial stages must have gone smoothly, they grew bold, and then the Hextech acted up, as it was so often wont to do, and Jayce got misplaced in time and, perhaps, also in space. He spent some weeks there, trying to survive, then something else happened (what?), and he ended up misplaced again, but closer to his original point in time…
Viktor tried not to think too hard about what happened to his own future self. Honestly, it would be enough for him to have some future at all.
“There”, he opened the door to his apartment and let Jayce inside. Talis stood in the doorway, slightly off to the side, and stared at the apartment as if he's seen something beyond a cave for the first time in his life. Viktor swallowed.
“I suggest you take a shower first”.
“That bad, huh?” A faint smile appeared on Jayce’s chapped lips, like a stray ray of sunlight. Viktor weakly returned the smile.
“Well, you always cherished the unabridged truth, as a scientist, so…”
Jayce kept staring at him as well, as if he’s seen him for the first time in his life too. Viktor cleared his throat awkwardly.
“The bathroom is…that way”.
Jayce nodded and stepped into the bathroom. Viktor anxiously sat down on a stool, tapping his cane on the floor. He heard the sound of the clothes being removed, then a familiar metal clank. Shit, the leg brace…
Viktor’s face reddened. True, they often stayed over at each other’s places, fell asleep in the lab on the same couch, but this?.. No way he would go in and see Jayce naked. Even in these highly unusual circumstances. Even if Jayce needed help getting into the tub. It would be most improper. It…
A splash of water. Oh. Viktor released a breath.
Guess I won’t have to after all.
He stood up, put a kettle on, anxiously prepared some half-assed dinner from the leftovers. Viktor was brimming with questions, but to answer them eloquently enough, Jayce would have to shower, eat, sleep…
“Viktor”, Jayce rasped quietly from the bathroom. Viktor nearly jumped out of his own skin, but limped to the door.
“What?”
“I…need a little help. I'm sorry”, Jayce coughed. His voice sounded like he's forgotten how to speak.
Viktor was pretty sure he'd never been more embarrassed in his entire life. He gingerly stepped inside. Jayce didn't smell anymore, thank all the gods. The bathroom was filled with steam, as if Talis wanted to boil himself alive. Viktor could barely see his dark head poking out of the bath because of the choking hot steam. He felt a sudden, almost violent surge of affection. Jayce actually, truly needed his help…
He pulled a small stool and sat beside the bath, decidedly not trying to stare anywhere but at Jayce's face. His time-displaced partner was alarmingly gaunt, his eyes still darkened, haunted and frightened, like those of a hunted animal, but he managed to give Viktor a tremulous smile.
“I can't wash all this off my hair. I tried twice, but…”
His hand fell at the edge of the tub. Jayce sighed, exhausted. Viktor nodded and moved closer, rolled up his sleeves.
“It’s okay”.
Fuck. It was not okay, not by any account, but Jayce needed him to be calm, just like on this fateful night, when he was standing on the edge of despair and death, so Viktor pushed his fear and his very confused boner aside and started gently massaging Jayce's head. Talis closed his eyes and smiled with pure bliss, his darkened face clear and quietly happy.
“Please”, Jayce coughed again, “please, say something. Wanna hear your voice…”
What the actual fuck?..
“I'd say you did a decent job of washing your head…considering”, Viktor said quietly. Jayce hung onto every word, as if Viktor was explaining to him a very important theory instead of saying nonsense. “I kind of want to ask you where you have been and what happened to you…”
Talis’ shaking fingers gripped the edge of the bathtub so tightly that his knuckles went white. Viktor hastily added:
“But that can obviously wait”.
His anxiety growing stronger, Viktor rinsed Jayce's now clean hair. There was nothing else to do but leave him alone. Viktor slowly stood up.
“All done. I'll leave you to it then…”
“No!”
For the second time this night Viktor startled so much he nearly jumped. Jayce sounded like a frightened boy who nearly lost his mother in a crowd and now refused to let her out of his sight. His hoarse, passive voice suddenly gained energy. He was terrified.
“What?..”
“Please,Viktor, don't leave!”
Viktor blinked.
“Okay”, he said slowly and turned around. Blood was pounding in his ears. Since when had Jayce become so nonchalant about his own nakedness? It's not like they would have that sort of relationship in the future, would they? Ridiculous…to even entertain such a notion…
He swallowed, rubbed his ear and nervously twirled his hair. Jayce slowly rose from the bathtub. A groan of pain made Viktor slightly turn his head in worry.
“Jayce?”
“Leg”, he said as an explanation. Oh fuck. He probably needed help getting out. Jayce was unused to having parts of his own body painfully resist commands of his own brain. Viktor braced himself and turned around. Jayce had a towel around his hips, but that helped little. Viktor quietly gasped.
Jayce's body looked like a crime scene. Every rib sticking out, stomach caved in. The bracelet that held his rune disappeared: the rune was embedded in his skin. There were scars all over his body, healed with some sort of magical substance; colorful veins and splots stretching around the damaged skin, like the start of a mutation process. Jayce leaned forward, gripping the prop on the wall that Viktor himself used on especially bad days. He didn't seem to pay any mind to his partner’s abject horror. He swayed forward so dangerously that Viktor had to drop his cane and rush forward to catch him. The leg screamed in protest, but Viktor just gritted his teeth.
One cripple holding up the other. Hilarious.
Jayce grabbed him like a lifeline, pressed Viktor against his chest with one hand, buried his face in Viktor's hair and gave a shuddering breath. His whole body started trembling. Viktor managed to help him get out, but no power in the world could tear Jayce away from him.
“Jayce, come on”, Viktor tried to speak as gently as he could. “You need to put clothes on and food in your stomach. Come on…”
Talis shook his head and pressed Viktor to his chest tighter, painfully squeezed, as if Viktor was the single most precious person in all of creation, the last treasure. Very deliberately Viktor said:
“…ow”.
Jayce immediately let go, anxiously pulled away.
“I'm sorry, Viktor, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you, are you okay?”
“I believe that's my line”, Viktor signed and picked up his cane. “Sit down, I'll help you with the brace”.
Jayce obeyed, but Viktor could still feel the weight of his anxious, pleading gaze on himself. It was like Talis asked him for something, but Viktor had nothing to give. What could he possibly want from him, the Man of Progress, the healthy and strong one, the brave one, who thought nothing of going on stage and giving a rousing speech with barely any preparation, the golden boy whom everyone adored?..
Viktor touched his leg. It had obviously been badly broken and healed wrong. It needed to be broken again and straightened with metal pins drilled into the bone. If left alone, this crooked bone would leave Jayce with permanent limp. And nothing, absolutely nothing would help with the chronic pain, which was going to stay for the rest of his life.
No. Please, no, not him. Not Jayce.
He didn't try to grab or hug Viktor anymore for the rest of the night, but as soon as he had eaten a small bowl of boiled vegetables and chicken, Jayce violently threw up right on the kitchen floor.
“I'm sorry, Viktor”, he coughed. “I’m sorry. What a mess…”
“Stop saying that, for goodness’s sake”, Viktor wiped the floor and tugged Jayce by the sleeve. For how long had he been starving?..
“You are going to bed, Jayce. And as soon as we both wake up, you are telling me everything”.
Talis' own clothes, which he had filled perfectly only a week ago with his healthy strong body, now hung off him like a rag off a hanger. Viktor felt almost physical, real pain, watching him. Jayce went into the bedroom and lay on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Viktor asked, feeling rather stupid.
“Going to sleep”, Jayce sounded just as confused as Viktor felt.
“…on the floor”.
“…yes”.
Viktor made his way to the bed and slowly sat on it, rubbing his bad knee.
“May I ask, why?”
“Because…well, because…” This unfamiliar Jayce Talis finally started resembling his old self. He stared at Viktor, mouth slightly agape.
“Um… Because you need somewhere to sleep and I can sleep on the f. . .”
“Get up here”. Viktor rubbed his eyes. “It's nearly dawn, and I don't have any strength left to argue, Jayce. You had no problem sleeping next to me on the lab couch, why should this time be any different?”
A heartbeat. Then another.
“You're right”.
Viktor closed his eyes, when the bed creaked under the additional weight. Jayce burned hot as a furnace - at least this didn’t change. For a few minutes both lay beside each other in silence as the new dawn was slowly spreading its light on the Academy’s roof. Viktor had blindfolds on his windows, so only one stray ray of light made his way to his bedroom. He watched it stop at his desk, illuminating a small golden trophy - a bunch of gears artistically arranged to resemble a human shape. What an irony.
“What day is it, Viktor?” Jayce whispered.
“The day after the Distinguished Innovators’ competition”.
“Which one?”
Viktor got confused for a second.
“The second one we participated in?..”
Jayce chuckled softly.
“Got it”.
Viktor promised himself he wouldn’t ask questions till he let Jayce rest, but his curiosity got the better of him. He turned his head.
“What happened, Jayce?..”
Jayce lay on his back watching the fan slowly turn on the ceiling. He opened his mouth, swallowed, and his face crunched into the expression of absolute misery. He pinched the bridge of his nose trying to hold tears at bay, attempted to say something, but no sound came out. Talis heaved, blinked and fell silent again. Viktor felt a pit form in his stomach.
“If it’s something really awful, all the more reason to tell me, - he prodded as gently as he could, - so that together we could…”
“You’re so beautiful”, Jayce choked out. Viktor’s mouth snapped shut, and he felt his ears burn.
“What”.
Jayce never talked like this, even that one time when he stumbled into the lab drunk as fuck after a presentation with the councli and stakeholders and got way too excited to see “his favorite science partner in the whole wide world”. There had been even obnoxiously annoying hugs involved, but not this! Viktor truly was at a loss for words. He decided to leave his interrogation for some better time. Clearly not only Jayce’s body, but his mind suffered a trauma, there was no other way to explain this sudden, fully unprovoked and illogical phrase.
“S’beautiful”, Jayce mumbled. The bed creaked and shifted again: Jayce turned on his side and touched Viktor’s face with his knuckles. Viktor would like to move away, but he was stuck between Jayce’s body radiating heat and the cold wall behind him. He cleared his throat.
“Jayce, I think you should… Uh…”
Talis’ gaze pinned Viktor to the bed like a pin would a butterfly. Jayce had tears in his eyes again, but he wasn’t exactly crying, they were just glistening in his golden eyes, and he was staring at Viktor with such obvious, blatant adoration, that the latter felt his whole face burn down to his neck. Jayce looked like a happy madman. He looked like…like he was in love. And what was infinitely worse? Viktor did not want it to stop.
Long fingers caressed his cheek, brushed his hair from his forehead. Viktor’s breath caught in his throat as he kept staring back at Jayce. How long has it been since someone touched him so tenderly?.. Must have been Mom right before she’d become too weak to even hold her boy’s hand…
“Look at you, you’re still so…“ Jayce mumbled something unintelligible, smiled lovingly, bitterly, threaded Viktor’s hair through his fingers, touched a crease between his brows, and it disappeared. Viktor’s breath hitched, and he closed his eyes, unable to withstand this gaze, full of loving happiness. People were not supposed to look at him like this. Not at him. Not Jayce. This must’ve been all a dream. That was it, yes. He fell asleep in the lab, and the rest was just his lonely brain supplying him with oxytocin.
The thought made Viktor bold, and he turned to face Jayce, opened his eyes. Talis caught his gaze and smiled wider, caressed his face again, staring, staring, drinking the sight in. Jayce felt the curve of Viktor’s jaw, caressed his nose, brows, as if trying to preserve his face not only in visual memory, but also by touch. When Jayce’s fingers tentatively lowered to his neck, Viktor flinched, and Jayce immediately withdrew his hand.
“Sorry…”
“No”, Viktor managed to choke out, “no, don’t… Don’t apologize…”
Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, please, please.
It was pathetic to be so touch-starved. Viktor was sure he was all right without any contact with others, until he had this contact with the only person he craved it with, and damn it, he’d take what he could get, even if it was only a dream.
The gentle, calloused hand returned to his neck. Shit, Viktor had no idea it was so sensitive. He shuddered again, but this time Jayce did not stop. He caressed so carefully, barely brushing the skin, as if he was also afraid this was a dream, and if he squeezed too tight, Viktor would disappear. But his touches grew bolder. Jayce lowered his hand at Viktor’s collarbones, then shifted slightly, lowered his head and pressed a searing-hot kiss to the light beating of Viktor’s pulse on his neck.
Well, shit, if it wasn’t a goddamn arousal in Viktor’s goddamned pants! Mortified, he swallowed, trying to slightly shift away, but their legs bumped, and Viktor saw that Jayce lay on his left side, deliberately hurting himself just so he could face Viktor.
“Jayce”, Viktor whispered, “your leg…”
Instead of an answer Jayce chuckled and gently put Viktor’s leg between his own, alleviating pressure on his hips. Viktor always tried to put a pillow between his legs while lying on his side, so that his hips wouldn’t hurt or go numb the next day. How did Jayce know that?..
“Now your injured leg has to support our combined weight”, Viktor whispered, “in case you haven’t noticed".
He entered some sort of trance, a strange place with endlessly shifting colors and muffled sounds, where waking reality seamlessly blended into strange dreams. Must have been severe lack of sleep, stress, a close contact with the Hex anomaly and this Jayce, this strange man whose sole focus was Viktor. It was severely uncomfortable. It was the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to Viktor, except for his acceptance to the Academy. He observed his own behaviour with the detached curiosity of a scientist, documented mentally every thought, slight change in temperature, movement. Viktor touched the back of Jayce’s head, felt the soft hair there, tugged him closer. Jayce gave a quiet tearless sob and pressed a necklace of hot kisses along Viktor’s collarbone. His heart beating like a terrified caged animal, Viktor pressed his lips to Jayce’s temple. It was like they both were working up the courage to kiss properly, but it never happened. Sheer exhaustion did Viktor in. At some point he almost woke up, when strong hot arms wrapped around him almost painfully, but it was Jayce, his warmth, his familiar smell mixed with Viktor’s cheap soap, his hoarse voice whispering something Viktor didn’t understand. He mumbled Jayce’s name and fell asleep again, safe and against all logic - happy.