Chapter Text
i. BEFORE
“ You love him,
you do,
and here’s the miracle:
he loves you too.
You are allowed
to lick off the colour from his lips
to listen to the hymns in his pulse
to bask in the sunlight of his voice
You are allowed
to have him. ”
Sometime ago, Jayce had embraced Viktor and it had felt like a supernova setting off in his body. He remembers it as one of those impossibly gauzy summer afternoons—the ones that litter childhood like weeds and dissipate like smoke in adulthood, the ones that are golden and perfect and immune from Time herself.
Viktor had buried his face in the crook of Jayce’s neck. Jayce remembered the scent of Viktor’s hair, something like smoke and burnt oil and coursing wind. They had stayed like that for a while in the laboratory, their cups of coffees half-drunk with the rims stained auburn.
“I’m scared for the future,” Jayce had told Viktor, hesitantly cupping the back of his partner’s head. To his relief, Viktor had leaned into the touch, breathing out contentedly. “But it looks promising. And you’re here, so really, I’m fine.”
Viktor had laughed breathlessly in that whispery chuckle of his and Jayce had wanted to bottle the laugh up so he could be drunk on it. Instead, he had stayed quiet as Viktor replied with, “Then do not be afraid, for there is at least a future.”
Jayce had wanted to say words. Words that would be suspended in the silence of the warm air. I love you . Sacred words. Terrible words. Words Jayce wanted to worship the floor with, peeling his ribcage back to show his heart to Viktor.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
I can’t lose you. Not here, not now, not ever.
Words that truly hurt the longer he folds them back into his throat like tiny pieces of origami paper. There’s an awful understanding that had flashed across Viktor’s eyes as if he knew their story would end in tragedy—a flash so brief that Jayce had missed it back then. But now, looking back, he knows it had happened and that somewhere underneath the stars and the galaxies of their intertwined hands and bodies, the darkness festered in them—the darkness that had accompanied the fear of unlasting.
But it’s not like they could have siphoned the darkness from themselves, because how else would the light have remained in existence?
Jayce doesn’t remember when the memory happens. In fact, maybe it’s better he doesn’t remember its exact place in the timeline of his life. The less details, the easier it is to forget it even happened.
Somewhere, in some specific time and place, Viktor has placed feelings in the dregs of his list of priorities. In effect, apologies have become simply… words seeking some sort of forgiveness. A means to an end. A bandage on an impossibly deep wound. Love confessions, threats, pleads—the fragile cogs and gears that make up the organic machinery of humanity—all of these are simply textbook concepts to him now.
Feelings are fatal.
This is what Viktor has told himself from day one after the successful open heart surgery he did on himself with one assistant that’s been buried long ago. A shame. The assistant was concise, but housed fear that eventually led him to being shot and robbed. Viktor almost liked him. Maybe give it a few more years and they might have been laboratory colleagues.
Colleagues …maybe that’s not a good word. That title is reserved for a traitor whose name brings acrid bile to Viktor’s tongue; the only traitor in Viktor’s life that still sparks such vulgar emotions in his heart.
Zaun still teems with the poison and debauchery it had trembled with years ago. It’s on an unassuming morning when Viktor shuffles out of his discrete apartment and feels his shoe crumple something underfoot. A piece of paper, impossibly white to have originated from Zaun. Already his mind is blanking, erasing every semblance of its usual chatter. He picks it up, flips it. Golden trim. Neat, scrawled handwriting.
river. Wed/0430. -j
His hands warm. In seconds, the paper is reduced to nothing but a tapestry of crumbled, multi-toned ash. Viktor looks down at it with mild interest. He’d have to tweak the evenness of his heating technology.
Through the filter that clasps itself on the mask that’s affixed to his face, Viktor takes a deep breath of the morning air. It is not as fresh as Piltover’s, but it is heresy to compare Zaun to Piltover when they are mirrors of each other. Here, heroes are not forged.
Here, everyone seeks their own vengeance, Council be damned.
Viktor finds he likes it much better than Piltover. After all, vengeance is best served away from the gilded arches.
Somehow, for all the inventions Jayce has constructed with his own two hands, it’s surprising how shit he is at fixing things. People. Relationships. Then again, people are not like clockwork—relationships cannot be fixed with a spritz of oil and elbow grease. Nor can he use tweezers and snap things back into place. Oh , if it were that easy, he’d be a deity of humanity by now or something.
The man plasters on a smile. His reflection in the mirror grimaces, and he brings his hand up to brush the beard that had begun to grow like wildfire on the cusp of his chin. Mel’s a much earlier riser than him, which makes sense because Piltover is on one of her shoulders; her mother on the other. Jayce does truly admire the woman’s grit—she squares her shoulders and steps forward with her chin tilted upwards, her gaze like liquid fire.
She’s the type of woman to absolutely demolish men underneath her feet or crumble armies with a single nonchalant gaze, and Jayce likes that.
Except she’s much different from Viktor, and every time Jayce sees Mel, it’s almost like a reminder of his old Hextech partner. The quiet strength. The fire in their eyes. He wishes he can forget the fact that one of the two most important people of his life is now his enemy. Not just his enemy, but Piltover ’s enemy.
His morning coffee is as astringent as he remembers it. He drinks it without cream or sugar, savoring the way his tongue recoils at the taste. Good. He doesn’t deserve to get used to things like that. Drinking coffee in the mornings is usually a way for Jayce to unwind before the day propels him into the shitfest of politics, but now it’s something that allows his mind to wander into places he shouldn’t be in. Things like, how is Zaun doing? Should we call off this war? And the most traitorous thought of them all: Did the note reach him?
It shouldn’t matter. Viktor deserves to hate Jayce.
Jayce keeps telling himself that in an attempt to appease his stupid, aching chest. It would have been nice if it worked.
It didn’t then, and it still doesn’t now.
Something twinges in Viktor’s chest at the sunrise. It’s cold, yet the landscape aboveground is awash with a palette of warmth that doesn’t quite reach his cheeks. He feels out of place with his obsidian gray mask like some sort of structure jutting out of the golden mines of Piltover. There’s a part of him that’s still confused, numb; why should he even be here? Viktor has no obligation to meet… him . There’s nothing logical about his choice.
Does it always have to be logical ?
The thought is intrusive. Viktor stomps down any flicker of weakness and instead watches the yolk of the sun pop along the clouds, spilling its contents like fast-falling water among the puffs of the clouds. It’s almost like blood—lazy, viscous, terrifying in its saturation. It’s a hue more akin to molten fire than a soft glow of a faraway dream. For a moment, he wavers.
And then the silhouette of the man he hates breaks through the terrible golden glow.
Jayce doesn’t speak, but he stops a good few paces away from Viktor. His eyes are filled with wariness—something that isn’t often present when Jayce speaks face to face with Viktor. Maybe it’s justified because Viktor had polluted Piltover’s water supply in retaliation for Piltover purposefully causing Shimmer leaks in the factories. The claws on Viktor’s back instinctively shift at the change in the air. Viktor assesses Jayce coolly, shoving his own hands in the pockets of his trench coat. He had opted out of his armor for today. Maybe he should have opted to don himself in steels, make his position against Jayce very , very clear.
“Nothing about you is organic,” Jayce says in wonder.
Viktor does not flinch. Long ago he might’ve. Jayce doesn’t react at the lack of reaction from the man and instead smiles wearily. Now Viktor flinches. It’s almost identical to Jayce’s old smiles, but that should be impossible. They were no longer friends or lovers or even acquaintances. There is no reason for Jayce to express such intimacy for a connection long severed. And yet…
“Do I know you?” The Herald asks calmly.
The golden boy of Piltover gazes back, cheeks scorching. “Do I?”
The question drops silently and shrivels on the pavement beneath their feet. Nearby, the river roars like the galesong of a thousand crows—a harbinger for doom. It builds threateningly against Viktor’s eardrums until he twists something behind his ears, filtering out the noise. Judging from Jayce’s lack of reaction, he is used to the noise pollution.
“I’m doing this for the good of Zaun,” Viktor says, unprompted.
“And what of those in Piltover?”
“You take care of them. And leave us alone.” Us . He had once been a part of them . When had it come to this, where he’d have to choose between us and them when he had been a part of both?
Jayce steps forward. Viktor stands his ground. There’s a certain pain in the man’s eyes. “I wanted to apologize.”
“You can’t apologize.”
“We don’t have to fight.”
“It’s too late to turn back.”
“I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”
“The most optimal outcome comes from a conflict’s resolution, and in order to have that, conflict must be present.”
“Vik, people have died for this—”
“So did I!”
Jayce winces. So does Viktor. When Viktor regains his voice, he stares coldly at Jayce. The cybernetic implants have elevated him to a height taller than the man, and it feels foreign looking at him from an upper angle. “You had left me to die in order to save Piltover. In doing that, you chose Piltover over me. And I decided not to be a part of something if that meant I had to die. Do not think of me as Viktor. He died a long time ago.”
Jayce reaches out and decides against it, his fingers hesitantly unfurling and furling back into his palm. “So…to what name can I perhaps call you by?”
“The Herald,” Viktor spits out. There’s no flame in his chest. He wishes there was some sort of anger instead of the coldness of an empty heart. As if sensing his agitation, the metal limbs from his back flicker back and forth restlessly. “You have come today to parley as Piltover’s Council Head? Or are you coming as Jayce Talis?”
“J…”
“Approach me again as Jayce and I will not hesitate to strike you right where you stand,” Viktor evenly says, clasping his fingers together. They scrape past each other. Jayce flinches at the sound. “Goodbye, Mr. Talis.”
“I loved Viktor,” Jayce whispers, almost engrossed in a random afterthought. “I just…I just wish none of this happened.”
For a moment, Viktor softens. “I think humans do wish for the better times for a reason, Mr. Talis. Goodbye.”
As he turns, Jayce calls out again. “Wait!”
Viktor doesn’t turn around. “What?”
“If…if you run into Viktor, tell him I’m open for amends, alright?”
There’s a sunburst of sharp aching that blooms beneath Viktor’s ribcage. Perhaps once a human, always a human no matter what. He’d need to fix that, maybe with newer parts? Eliminate the emotional synapses of his brain? For a fleeting moment, Viktor remembers the warm embrace of a fuzzy memory.
“No,” Viktor says, and walks away. For the first time since his surgery, every step feels laborious and agonizing once again.