Archive of Our Own

When Jayce was six years old, his leg gave out underneath him with pain that made him scream out and his mother rush towards him. His leg had been hurting most of his life but on that day it had been particularly bad. There were few consistencies in his existence - his mother loved him, he hated spinach and sometimes his leg flared up and it was more uncomfortable to walk on it. Adults always ignored their own pain though, so he never thought to mention it even when nothing made the pain go away, even if it didn’t follow the law of cause and effect for there was no reason for this ache.

“It's probably his soulmate,” his doctor, a bored looking man wearing a hat to hide his thinning hair, said.

“Soulmate?” Jayce repeated surprised. He knew of soulmates of course, had been raised knowing people had been created with bonds between two or more who had been selected as parts of one, whose fates would be fused, wound around each other. While most were romantic, some soulmates were platonically linked or even enemies, finding each other on the battlefield again and again. And all soulmates would share each other’s pain, for pain was how to understand your other half the most. Their struggles, their hardships, their traumas. “I have a soulmate?”

“You're lucky, little guy.” The doctor smiled and patted his knee. “The gods have decided to give you someone who shares your soul. That's not common nowadays.”

Jayce swallowed thickly and looked down at his rough hands, still scratched up from where he had played with his friends, wrestling with them on the ground. His soulmate. Someone who shared his soul. Who shared his pain. Had she felt every time he had been pushed to the ground, every sharp stone against his skin? Had she felt when he had run into a glass door last year, earning himself a concussion? Did she feel the fire of the forge, the calluses on his hands?

“So, his leg-?” his mother asked, wringing her hands.

“Nothing wrong with it. And if the pain’s always been there but only sporadically appears every now and again, getting worse with time, I assume his soulmate is… challenged with their mobility.”

Jayce, six years old, having no idea what those words meant, only vibrated with a new resolve: His soulmate would not feel any pain caused by him. If she was already suffering from a bad leg, she didn't need to have his clumsy feet on top of that.

He held out his hands. “Can you bandage these, doc?”

-

When Jayce was seven years old and he was holding his unconscious mother, knowing deep in his heart he was going to die, his first thought was I hope I die quickly. Not for his own sake but because he knew his soulmate must be suffering right now, fingers numb, feet about to fall off, aching in the deepest part of his bones.

His soulmate wasn’t very careful with her body but Jayce saw every scraped knee, every scratch as a sign there was someone out there who was meant for him - he had no idea what his soulmate thought of that though, so until they would meet Jayce had decided to treat his body as hers too. His pain was hers, his injuries were hers and if he wouldn’t carve into her body, he wouldn’t do so to his either.

I'm sorry, he thought as his vision faded. His skin was screaming in agony, his clothes barely able to do anything against the overwhelming pain of pure coldness. He forgot how warmth felt, forgot any other sensation besides this. White snow, blinding brightness, nothing in front of them beside the storm that had grabbed them out of nowhere.

And then, in front of him a figure appeared. They were walking slouched, stiffly as if they were in pain, coming to a stop in front of Jayce. Of course - they weren't at all dressed for a snow storm. It was a wonder they were able to walk at all! The person extracted a hand, almost looking like they wanted to stretch it out towards him before opening their trembling fingers. Pure magic glowed before Jayce.

And with strong motions in the air, confident strokes of art, the mage changed the trajectory of his life.

-

Jayce’s soulmate was not in any way careful with her body. Did she even know she had a soulmate? On top of his hurting leg and the near constant ache in his joints, his hands always itched with the phantom pain of scratches and burns, he was feeling bruises over his entire body and his soulmate seemed to love stubbing her toe. She must know he existed - while he was careful with his body, there was no way to go through life without any injuries. Broken arm at eight, constant burns in the forge, fingers getting hit with a ruler at school. And, of course, almost dying of hypothermia all those years ago.

Maybe she didn't care. Jayce rubbed his aching leg and stretched it. Someone in so much constant pain probably didn't care for any additional occasional pain. Ahh. It must suck. It already sucked for him.

Did she manage to concentrate with that constant pain? Or was she lying in bed, trying to find any kind of relief. Jayce certainly had trouble. It ached and ached, and only the normality of it, only the familiarity with this pain made him not break down in frustration. He went to school, to the academy, he laughed with friends, started doing his research into the arcane, studied and studied, all the while carrying the pain of his soulmate. Wherever she was, he hoped she also had an amazing mother who understood, was able to take off a few days, he hoped her doctor was competent enough, her work not aggravating her injury.

Then the spinal pain started.

-

“Mom, I’ll study medicine.”

His mother froze, gaze bewildered as she gazed at him. The spoon was raised to her lips, leftover amusement in her eyes from the story Jayce had told her about Cait’s unfruitful and continuous endeavor to impress her crush. Understanding replaced shock as she looked down at Jayce’s thigh which he was gripping subconsciously. “Because..?”

He nodded and looked away. “She’s got back pain too. And- and her joints are always hurting, there’s the migraines and I don’t know if they’re mine or hers and- Mom, she’s always in so much pain. I just- if there's anything I can do to make it better, I want to find it!”

His mother smiled, so proud, so affectionate, and Jayce was overcome by the sheer love and patience she had for him. Truly, he had no idea what he had done to deserve such a mother. Did his soulmate have someone like her too, did she have good parents? Ones that empathized with her pain?

“What about Miss Kiramman?”

Jayce shrugged. “She might stop funding me. Or maybe I can convince her I’ll be more valuable studying medicine.” He rubbed his neck. “That's okay with you?”

She took his hand, their dinner long forgotten. “You haven’t needed my permission in so long, Jayce. You're old enough to know what you want to do. And whatever it is that makes you happy, I will support you.” She patted his hand, an indulgent smile playing on her lips. “And if it doesn’t work out, you know you can always return to the forge.”

He laughed and gave her a quick hug. It would work out. Failure wasn’t an option, not if his other half was suffering.

-

The human body was so much different than machines and yet remarkably similar. Compared to machines however, every body was different and needed to be treated differently. Carrying the responsibility of another’s life in your hands was also something he wasn’t looking forward to. Bettering the world from above, with magic and his inventions- that was so different from being face to face with a patient, hearing their stories, meeting their family.

Jayce studied pharmaceutical science but decided to elongate his study time by apprenticing under a surgeon. If it wasn’t medicine his soulmate needed but an operation, he needed to have that covered.

“Here again?” his classmate asked with a dry grin as he walked past Jayce in the library. His name might have been Rona or maybe it was Runa. Jayce hadn’t found the time to interact much with anybody. “At this point they should just put up a bed for you in here.”

“What can I say,” Jayce muttered as his vision swam over his textbook, “I heard next exam’s gonna destroy us.”

Rona or Runa let out a drawn-out groan. “Fuck, still haven't started on that yet. I got no idea if I'll even pass this year. You don't have to fear that. I think even if you fail this exam, you'll pass.”

“Passing isn’t enough,” Jayce said and dug his fingers into his aching thigh. He needed to be perfect. Better than every damned pharmaceutical scientist or biotechnologist out there. If his soulmate was still in pain after so many years she must have some kind of condition even Piltover’s finest couldn't solve.

“Why?” Rona asked. He looked perplexed. “Why all… this?” He gestured vaguely at Jayce’s entire form.

“People need help,” Jayce just said. “And I wanna help them.”

“Sure,” Runa muttered. “Guess you don’t wanna grab a drink with us then?”

“Maybe next time,” Jayce lied.

“Uh huh,” Rona said, aware.

-

Sometimes he looked for his soulmate. It was stupid of course, soulmates met when they were meant to meet and a meeting couldn't be forced, but it didn't stop Jayce from searching for any girl with a leg injury, anyone who complained about leg pain, who had trouble walking or was limping. He walked through the city of Piltover again and again, developed a habit of going on a jog at the most random hours of the day and looked out for anybody who could be his soulmate, no matter what age.

There weren't a lot of people with leg problems and most of them were old women. Even if it was far-fetched (even if he really did not want his soulmate to be someone’s grandma), he pinched his arm when he got close enough and observed her face, observed if she felt any pain. Part of him wanted to break into the hospital’s filing system and look for anyone with his soulmate’s symptoms but even he could recognize when things got too far.

“You’re way too obsessed with this,” Caitlyn once declared when she joined him on a jog, helping him look for his soulmate. Maybe he was (and it was probably embarrassing his only friend was ten years his junior and the daughter of his patron - on the other hand he never had much time nowadays anyway to spend on caring for such thoughts), but then again-

“You're not any better.”

Her cheeks grew red and she accelerated. He grinned and followed her, ruffling her hair as he overtook her to her obvious dismay, as if her tiny legs could keep up with his.

“You stopped looking for your soulmate,” he added quieter. “Did something happen?”

She pursed her lips, wiping sweat off her forehead. By now he had stopped actively looking for his soulmate, though passively a part of him was always observing the people around them.

“Don't tell mother, but- I think my soulmate might be from the undercity.”

He stumbled. Fell forward, already feeling his nose crunch against the pavement. Only his quick reaction and his experience of doing his best not to get hurt made him slam his hands forward, tucking himself into a safe roll.

“Jayce!” Caitlyn yelped and came to an abrupt stop. “Are you alright?!”

“The undercity!” he gaped.

It made sense. From how it sounded, Caitlyn’s soulmate often got themself in a lot of trouble, a lot of brawls. Caitlyn was the opposite of Jayce - instead of trying her best not to get hurt she seemed to take her soulmate’s pain as a challenge, to show them she could take it, she could deal with everything the world threw at her. Hell, her parents would not be happy with that.

A thought came creeping up in him, insistent and, well, calling him stupid in several languages. Until now he had assumed his soulmate was Piltovan. Had access to doctors and medicine, to everything Jayce could get. Fucking idiot. Gods, he wanted to bash his head in.

She might not even be on the same continent. Soulmates mostly were in close proximity, but then again, Jayce had been the one to move away and into Piltover. Maybe they would meet when he was old.

Or maybe his soulmate was from the undercity.

It wasn't impossible. The people from the undercity often had some form of physical disability, from the few people Jayce had met. Most didn't have enough money for medicine or painkillers. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to assume Jayce’s soulmate was from the undercity, and he felt incredibly stupid for not thinking about that earlier.

Caitlyn was leaning over him, poking his side with her shoe.

“Cait, I think mine might be too.”

She looked around, a sparkle in her eyes. “Does that mean we can go and look for them in the-”

“Absolutely not!” He jumped up and crossed his arms, pulling at every thread of his authority- though that had disappeared the moment they had first met when little Caitlyn had looked at him, on two hours of sleep, an unfinished report sticking to his cheek, and with stains of coffee in his hair, however that had gotten there. As if he would bring a tiny ten year old with him to the Undercity. “Your mother would murder me!”

She pouted and stood to her full, tiny height. “Oh come on, we both wanna meet our soulmates, right?”

“Nope. No. Nah. Absolutely not. Forget it. Over my dead body. Should I say it in other languages too- ouch!”

He raised his hands when she lifted her fist again. “Ask me again when you’re sixteen!”

She pouted but crossed her arms, stepping back. “Promise?”

He sent a silent apology to Cassandra Kiramman. “Yeah, sure, why not.”

-

Jayce awoke screaming.

There was a piercing pain in his back as if someone was ramming a knife into it repeatedly, and he sobbed as he curled up, his fingers desperately trying to reach the spot despite knowing it wouldn't help. It felt like his skin, his flesh, his bones, were being peeled away, as if someone was reaching into his spine and yanking it out.

“Jayce?!” His mother ran into his room, carefully grabbing his shoulders. By that time he was repeatedly punching himself, trying to distract himself from the feeling.

“Mom,” he sobbed, “mom, I think she's dying, I think she's-”

“Oh honey,” she whispered but he felt her relax at the realization he wasn’t the one hurting. “Come, breathe with me. It's not real pain, it will fade. Come on, baby.”

He was trembling, his head on his mother’s lap as she gently guided him through the breathing exercises his doctor had taught him to get rid of that phantom pain, as tears fell off his cheeks, as he clawed and scratched at his skin, as he sobbed for his soulmate, somewhere out there, suffering.

-

“My boy, are you quite alright?”

Professor Heimerdinger looked worried. Jayce lethargically blinked down at him, feeling more like a walking corpse. His eyes were crusty and bloodshot and he knew he didn’t make the nicest picture at the moment. He had only felt pain in the last days. Which was good- it meant his soulmate hadn’t died. But here he was, cursing that pain medication didn’t work on soulmate wounds and still wanting to tear off his back.

“All good, professor,” he croaked out. “I wanted to look into the current state of medical help for back pain.”

Professor Heimerdinger’s moustache twitched. “Well, it all depends on the cause, naturally! Take my dearest assistant for instance, the poor lad just underwent a rather… indelicate operation to help straighten his spine! A remarkable procedure, truly remarkable! Why, back in my youth this kind of operation would have been unthinkable!”

“Uh huh,” Jayce said, head drifting more than actually listening. He tried to focus on the conversation. Something about the professor’s assistant? Something about an operation? An operation. Was that what his soulmate had gone through too? So it wasn’t an attack, it wasn’t her worsening symptoms. Maybe. Maybe, gods, hopefully. Hopefully that was it, hopefully it was just her being able to get rid of some of the chronic pain. “That- that operation, is it- is it good?”

“Jayce, are you certain you aren’t coming down with something? You’re swaying, come, come, sit down!”

Jayce waved him off. No time, I have to- wait, out loud. Lips, move. Jayce opened his mouth with difficulty. “No time- have to- have to research. She’s in pain, she’s- gods-”

“She?”

“My soulmate,” he said and allowed himself to sack against the wall. “Always- always in pain. Need to- need to stop it.”

Professor Heimerdinger looked at him with his big, empathetic eyes. Jayce almost reached out to pet him. “Ah, I quite understand. Well, let's strike up a deal then, yeah? Come along, accompany me to my office. You can lie down on my couch for a little snooze and I shall gather every book and paper at my disposal on the current advancements in medical spinal assistance, alright?”

Jayce felt himself sway in place. Okay, maybe he wasn’t quite alright. He nodded and pushed himself off the wall, following his professor who seemed to slow down his steps for him- how funny, usually Jayce was the one who had to slow down for him.

By the time they reached Professor Heimerdinger’s office Jayce’s eyes were falling close every few seconds and he was pinching his arm to stay awake. He slumped onto the professor’s couch with disrespect he would have never allowed himself to display if it weren’t for his clouded mind, and immediately passed out. Well. So much for doing research.

When he woke up a new sunrise was painting the dark sky in hues of gold and blue. A blanket had been thrown over him, soft and fluffy, almost enough to make him sneeze. On the coffee table beside a dim lamp was a stack of books and papers, all pertaining to the spine, back pain, braces and medical assistance from hundreds of years ago to the current time.

There was a plate with a sandwich, protected by a glass cloche and beside it a glass of water. A note was placed in front.

“Dear Jayce, it appeared you were in dire need of a restorative nap! I do hope you won’t harbor any ill feelings towards me for not waking you. You are quite welcome to stay in my office however long you require. And, by all means, help yourself to any of the material I have gathered for you. I look forward to seeing you walk the path you’ve made for yourself. And remember - To use one’s mind to the maximum one must first tend to the body!”

Maybe it was his exhaustion, maybe it was the pain he was still feeling. Something made his eyes feel hot and his throat swell up. He grabbed the sandwich and bit into it, wiping over his face.

-

If possible, Jayce’s obsession with magic became even bigger than before. Nobody besides him understood, nobody believed in it, in him, but he knew fully - if he had the power the mage in his childhood possessed, if he could wield the arcane, then his soulmate would never have to suffer again. And maybe, just maybe, this god damned pain could finally lessen.

So he threw himself into his research. The arcane. Medicine. Mobility impairments. It was harrowing.

Operations for anything deemed “unnecessary” were expensive for anyone but the rich, and what was deemed necessary were only ailments nearing death. Whatever his soulmate had, especially if she was in the undercity, would never be affordable for her. And she wasn’t the only one. How many were suffering, how many could be helped if it wasn’t for their financial status? The only reason his mother had been able to afford finger prosthetics was because she forged them herself. It was maddening, it was- it wasn’t fair.

He watched the massive golden, mechanical necklace on Councillor Shoola’s neck and wondered how many lives could be saved with that. He kept shadowing his mentor in the hospital and wondered how many weren’t even able to come here. He wondered if his soulmate felt as hopeless as he did, if she ever looked up to Piltover and screamed at the unfairness of it all.

“Why does it have to be this way?” he asked.

“We worked for our money,” his mentor shrugged. “What, you’d rather not be able to afford this?”

He’d rather not feel guilty knowing there were so many who couldn't. “I didn't work for this,” he said. “I don’t deserve it.” His soulmate didn’t deserve the constant, chronic pain either.

“Well, nothing we can do,” his mentor shrugged. “It's the way the world works.”

“Well, then maybe it shouldn't.”

She snorted, bitter. “Good luck changing it then. Now come on, back to work. We’re understaffed as is.”

In the back of his mind his life goal changed, slow and gradual but firmer than any desire he had ever felt before.

-

Jayce was twenty-two when he created a painkiller that could be produced with a fraction of the price the common painkillers required. It used ingredients that could be commonly found and was made with a distillation apparatus, a centrifuge and many things that could be found in one’s home. Compared to most other painkillers on the market it didn’t cloud one’s mind and, as far as he could tell, didn’t damage the liver, nor did they have any traces of addiction. He refused to sell the patent no matter how tempting the offers were, and bit his tongue when Councillor Kiramman smiled at him in pride when they were celebrating his creation over dinner with Caitlyn frowning between the two of them.

“Of course, we shall start production immediately. It’s best to reveal ourselves as competition immediately.”

“I’ll make it available for anyone to recreate.”

It got silent immediately. Even the buzz in Jayce’s ear turned into nothing. Councillor Kiramman was staring at him with wide eyes. Caitlyn’s lips curled up and she hid her face behind her hair. Tobias Kiramman blinked at him in surprise, wine glass raised to his lips in pause.

“Absolutely not,” Councillor Kiramman said, her voice calm but sharp. “I haven’t taken you in to operate at a loss.”

“The Undercity can’t afford to pay for your operation.” He stood up and bowed. “Thank you for the food, Councillor.”

“Jayce,” she exclaimed when he turned around. Her knees banged on the table when she stood up but she didn’t follow him.

Finally, Caitlyn broke out into laughter.

The following day Jayce wrote down the recipe and distributed it for anyone to read, attaching the Kiramman name to it with a silent apology to Cait. The next few days would be chaotic for her. Name was everything in Piltover though, and having the Kiramman name attached next to his ensured it was taken seriously. The recipe spread like a wildfire. It only took about six months until he saw his painkillers on the shelves of every apothecary, until he saw them being used at the hospital he worked at, until he heard it reach the Undercity. Until he felt the pain in his joints lessen. He spent that night sobbing into his mother’s arms, knowing he had made a difference in people’s lives. It was one thing to know it. It was another to feel it.

And fuck, this just proved his soulmate hadn’t been taking painkillers, didn’t it? Why, he wanted to know. Was it the price? The availability? Was it the liver damage? The brain fog? Whatever it was, he just hoped to hell and back she wasn’t allergic to any of the ingredients.

-

“Mom’s really mad,” Caitlyn said a week after Jayce had walked out of the Kiramman estate. She was visiting him at his lab since he was currently avoiding Councillor Kiramman whenever he could.

“What’s she gonna do?” Jayce asked with a grin that felt too cheeky. He had never allowed himself this kind of disrespect for the councillor that had taken him in, had funded him, and yet the knowledge she wanted to capitalize on something meant to help his soulmate made the quiet anger that had constantly simmered in him for the past years bubble up. “Throw me out? While my medicine is the talk of the town?”

“She might try to blackmail you by holding her funding over your head.”

“Maybe,” Jayce said but knew in his heart Councillor Kiramman wouldn’t. He had seen it, as brief as it had been, when he had brought up the topic of the Undercity. A softening of her eyes. Empathy. Councillor Kiramman was a business woman, seemed as uncaring towards the Undercity as most Piltovans were, as Jayce himself had been before the veil of ignorance had been lifted off his eyes. But even she could sympathize. “We’ll just have to see, don’t we?”

Caitlyn twirled her thumbs, bumping their shoulders together. “You think it’ll reach my soulmate? Yours? Whenever they need it?”

He patted her head. “I’m sure it will.”

-

Jayce thanked the weirdly giddy looking Undercity kid as he handed him the money, hefting up the scraps and parts he had managed to snag. He sometimes came to the Undercity to look for his soulmate or to buy parts for any equipment he was building, but there were simply too many people with leg problems and only few valuable, destroyed medical parts that weren’t too far gone could be found in the shops he frequented.

Just now he had been able to find an oxygen concentrator and a tangential flow filtration, not in the best shape but he had trust he could repair it.

“By the way,” he said, almost out of the shop. The kid looked up from where he was throwing a coin up and down with shining eyes. Poor kid, maybe he didn’t have enough to live on. Next time Jayce would bring more money. “Do you know any, uhm- any girl with a leg disability? Or who’s limping? And also has some spinal injury? Preferably my age but doesn't have to be.”

The kid looked at him in pure judgement and disgust. “What, you're searching for a woman who can't run from you?”

“What?! I- no, no, no- what the fuck?! No, I- oh god, no, no, no, no!” He gasped for breath. “No. No! No. No, no. No, no, no, nooooo, gods, no!”

If possible, the kid looked even less impressed. “Just look around. Not like there's a shortage of people like that here.”

Jayce nodded in embarrassment, deciding to stop himself before he could dig himself a deeper hole. He hesitated. “It’s… is it hard to be treated here?”

“Treated like shit? No.”

“No, no, I mean-”

“I know what you meant. Now stop asking me stupid questions.”

“I want to change it,” Jayce said.

The kid snorted. “Good luck with that, Piltie.”

“I will change it,” Jayce swore and finally stepped out of the shop. “Just you wait!”

---

“Hey Vi,” Ekko said. “Just met this weirdo Piltie. Guy didn’t even haggle- anyway, please, please rob him, he seems to have money and stuff but pleaaaase, he was such an asshole and-”

Vi raised her eyebrows, wondering who the hell had managed to make this bad of an impression on her friend.

---

There were voices behind his door and Jayce knew with terror shooting through him he was being robbed. Gods, please, the crystals were right there, they couldn't have found them, they couldn't have-

It was his only shot to figuring out how to heal what modern medicine couldn’t, and they’d have to take them out of his cold, dead hands.

“Hey!” he screamed as he tried to kick in the door. “Who’s there?!”

Only his year-long experience with evading injuries made him instinctively throw himself to the side, over Caitlyn. The world exploded. The sound was deafening, heat scorched his back and he heard Caitlyn scream, curling up in agony.

“Cait?! Cait, are you okay, are you-”

“My soulmate! That’s- that has to be my soulmate!” She threw Jayce off herself with more power than he expected, and ran towards the destroyed door frame. “Wait! Wait, come back, come back! You’re my soulmate!”

She looked towards Jayce in uncertainty, eyes roaming over him to make sure he wasn’t injured.

“Go!” he yelled. It must have been fate, for them to meet like this. It was all Caitlyn needed. She ran downstairs to follow her soulmate, leaving him to stay on the ground, groaning.

Fuck.

All his research. His equipment. Everything he had accomplished. Gone. And now, with a gigantic explosion alerting every enforcer in the area, his hex crystals would be gone too, if the thieves hadn’t taken them all. He was left in the rubble of his destroyed lab as around him his life’s work was going up in flames.

-

They gave him first aid before questioning him, unnecessary since he had come out unscathed. Then the questioning began. About his restricted items. About the explosion. About the thieves. About whatever was missing. He hesitated.

“I only had two crystals,” he said, hoping his resigned face didn’t let through any of his nervosity. The god damned thieves really just had to steal his most valuable items. Cait owed him after this. “One is still in my possession and the other shattered on impact when it caused the explosion. The thieves seemed to only have stolen minor things. Hey- hey, be careful with that, please!”

“I believe someone should have said that earlier.” The man looking around his destroyed home was lithe. He was leaning on a cane, his leg limping behind him as he approached Jayce. “What happened here?”

Pure habit made Jayce pinch his leg. The man didn’t even twitch. Well. “Science, I guess?”

“You are a medical student, aren’t you? What kind of research would require anything of this… destructive caliber?” One of Professor Heimerdinger’s books was in the man’s hands, his thumbs absent-mindedly brushing over the cover. Spinal Orthoses in Pain Management: The Role of Spinal Braces in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation. It had been a chore to go through.

“You wouldn't believe me,” Jayce muttered, too done with everything to deal with yet another person who’d scoff in disbelief. “Listen, I just- I just wanted to help people. With my research. I never- I never wanted all this! And- and who are you anyway?”

“I'm assistant to the dean of the academy. Who-” The man’s gaze caught on the paper in front of his feet, only the first page surviving. Biomechanics of Spinal Braces: Modern Applications for Pain Reduction. “You suffer from back pain, Mr. Talis?”

“No, I- someone else.”

Something in the man’s gaze softened. “Jayce Talis,” he muttered, and his name sounded so smooth in his voice. “Hmm. Your name was on the patent for the Kiramman painkillers, wasn’t it?”

“I- uhm, yes. What of it?”

The man shook his head slightly as if to shake himself out of his thoughts. “Be it as it may, I was sent here to ensure that anything dangerous is removed safely. Which, according to my list, includes you.”

“I'm not dangerous! I- I’m doing all this to help people! Because this damned city can’t be arsed to do it!”

The man genuinely looked regretful when he nodded towards the sheriff. “Well, that's for the council to decide.”

--

“Did you find your soulmate?” Jayce heard how brittle his own voice was. Cait was trying to look empathetic but her smile returned every time she forced her lips down.

“I- yeah. I did. Punched myself in the stomach when I ran after her and threatened to keep doing it if she didn’t take me with them. You missed a lot, Jayce - the entire city thought I was kidnapped and was ready to go to war! My soulmate’s dad had to personally bring both of us up and we cleared that misunderstanding. Then- then she admitted to the robbery! Her dad tried to take responsibility but she was adamant. Because she’s my soulmate they left her off lightly with a hundred hours of community service. She thinks it’s unfair she was given a light sentence because she’s my soulmate, and I think nobody should be carted off to Stillwater! Everyone forgot the explosion by now and if they're aren't spinning some bullshit about Romeo and Juliet, they're all like ‘oh nooo, a Zaunite with the Kiramman heir, what a disgrace!’, euch, as if I cared! … Mum does care of course but she can’t keep me from seeing her!”

Jayce forced a smile on his face and tried not to feel any resentment. Caitlyn had found her soulmate while he had doomed his. “I'm glad you got to find her.”

“She’s sorry. For- well.”

“Robbing my apartment and blowing it up?” Which very easily could have taken him and Cait in the blast too. God, maybe it had been a tremendously stupid idea to keep the crystals in his home.

“Yeah.”

“Well. Tell her I'm glad she’s okay. And to bring me back my damn crystals.”

“About that.” Cait didn’t even look at him. “She said her sister threw the loot into the water when they were being threatened by a rival gang.”

Jayce’s forehead smashed against the bars of the gate. He was gripping them and wished he possessed the strength to dent them, to let out any of the rolling anger inside of him.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlyn whispered. “I could have stopped her, I didn’t think- I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he muttered and could hear how obvious the lie was. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“My soulmate, she’s also-”

“I said it’s okay.”

She stopped, her lips pressing into a fine line. There was only pity in her eyes and he wondered how he must look.

“Come inside, Caitlyn!” Councillor Kiramman called from inside. “Now.”

Jayce walked away before Councillor Kiramman could turn towards him, his heart beating as hopelessness fought with the everpresent desire to push past what the world deemed possible that had been in him his entire life. Maybe- maybe he could still find something in the rubble of his apartment. Maybe he didn’t have to start from zero.

-

He made sure to stay far away from any loose floorboard and the yawning abyss. Soulmate deaths were amongst the most painful things someone could endure, so he’d make sure his soulmate would die before him at the wonderful, ripe age of a hundred and not a day earlier.

They had stripped his entire apartment of anything important. Even the loose papers had been swept away, every single book Heimerdinger had given him. Even the chalk on his damned blackboard had been washed off. What a joke. This would set him back years, and without the support of a patronage, of the academy, of the hospital- how much would it take to get back to where he had been before?

“Am I interrupting?”

Jayce stumbled, yelping when he almost stepped into the gaping hole. He stopped, shocked at what had almost happened. “The hell’s wrong with you?!”

The man, the same who had confiscated his items, stepped closer, cane rhythmically tapping against the floor, and he wondered if his soulmate was also using one. There was a book in his hands and Jayce pursed his lips in annoyance. This was the guy who had made sure every single last piece of his research was gone. “What’s that, another list with my name on it?”

“Actually, yes. But only because you signed your notes. Every page, I might add. Ehh, a little egotistical, don't you think?”

Jayce almost stumbled again in his haste to reach the man. "My notes! You- why- you have them?”

“Yes, well, I wanted to talk about your work- this hextech theory of yours.”

“It’s not a theory!” Jayce said, heated. “I saw with my own eyes what magic can do. The lives it could save! I wanted to use it, to save people! To- to save my soulmate. I know it can be done but… well, no one believed me.”

“Nobody’s ever believed in me.” The man looked at him, his gaze intense, and Jayce felt something in him stir at the expression of pure determination. “A poor cripple from the Undercity? I was an outsider the moment I stepped foot in Piltover. I didn’t have the benefits of a patron, or a name. I simply believed in myself. Which is why I’m here. Because I think you’re onto something. I want to help you complete your research.”

“You- you want to help me?” Jayce whispered. His entire life he had been surrounded by people who told him no. They didn't believe in his dream to create magic. To ensure everybody, no matter how poor, now matter who, had access to medical aid. And here was this man, swooping in and telling him everything he had always wanted to hear, everything he hadn’t even realized he needed to hear until now.

“No one thinks it can be done,” he said.

And the man smiled. “When you’re going to change the world, don’t ask for permission.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Jayce whispered, feeling the weight of the man’s trust in his very bones.

“It’s Viktor.”

Something in Jayce’s heart screamed in joy.

-

They cracked the code of stabilizing the hex crystals.

“We’ll need more than promises, we need proof,” Viktor said.

“Not without the crystals. The enforcers took the last one”

“Yeah, locked away in Heimerdinger’s lab.” Viktor raised a bundle of keys. They clattered against each other in an enticing song of wind chimes.

“You-” Jayce gaped at him. Absolute madman. Clinically insane. His first instinct was to reject that idea. Then he reconsidered. If his research was to be destroyed tomorrow, they were working with a narrow time frame if he didn’t want to lose it all. He needed it. Needed the crystal. The equipment. It was his only chance to prove their hextech dream.

Wait for me, he begged his soulmate in his mind. His leg was hurting more than usual, his back was uncomfortable and he wondered if the human body would ever be able to get used to pain. Wait for me.

“Alright,” he muttered and felt himself flush at Viktor’s delighted smile.

“Quite the rulebreaker, aren’t you?”

“Well, a wise man once told me not to ask for permission to change the world.” Jayce was brimming with excitement as he walked towards the door, waiting for Viktor with a grin. Somehow, falling into step with him as they made their way to the academy was easy, as if they had walked a lifetime side by side. His partner. The only one who ever believed in him. The man who shared his dream. Their dream. This day had been pure misery but somehow it was shaping itself into a great one.

“You're doing all this for your soulmate,” Viktor asked as the academy building loomed in the distance.

Jayce subconsciously grabbed his leg and squeezed. Soulmates weren’t common - it was a wonder he and Caitlyn both had soulmates. They were often romanticized and more often envied while scientists wanted to desperately find out what caused them. It was one of the reasons he didn’t often talk about his soulmate. Viktor was a scientist but in the short time Jayce had known him, he knew he wouldn’t show anything but a slight curiosity. “She’s always in so much pain. I just- I don’t know. Thought I could make it better?”

“She?” Viktor asked. “You've met?”

“No, I-” Jayce stopped, lips parted. Yeah, right, he had absolutely no idea who his soulmate was. Usually they were romantic but they didn't have to be. They didn't even need to like each other. Jayce’s soulmate could be some stuffy dude next continent over. He deflated, slightly disappointed. He wanted to love them. He wanted them near him, wanted them to like him. Part of him wanted to present them everything he’s done, everything he wanted for them, wanted to see their eyes light up, wanted them to rest easy in the knowledge he would do everything to ease their pain. “We haven’t met. I guess I just assumed.”

“So, all the medical textbooks, your equipment- your mentorship in Piltover's finest hospital, the- the Kiramman painkillers, our goal to create magic, it’s all for your soulmate?”

Jayce didn’t hear the threads of disbelief, of bewildered indignation in Viktor’s voice. He couldn’t help the smile overtaking his face. “From the very start.”

Viktor stopped and Jayce halted too, confused. There was a frown between Viktor’s brows like he was seeing Jayce in a new light and Jayce didn’t like it, the euphoria of discovery drained out of him at the way Viktor’s unwavering faith had made way for doubt. “Jayce,” he said. “Without your soulmate - what are you?”

“I-” Jayce blinked, hands raised as if he was defending himself. He didn’t understand, the sudden displeasure. “What?”

“If you’ve done everything for your soulmate, what is left of you? What are your dreams, what is your future? Dedicating your entire life to someone you don’t even know-” He broke off, troubled.

“That’s not- what’s wrong with that?!” Viktor didn’t understand, couldn’t possibly. Jayce felt his soulmate, every single pain of theirs, everything they went through. Of course he’d want to make it better. He wanted to open his mouth, to defend himself, to tell Viktor he was wrong, he didn’t know anything, didn’t get it. Instead, the part of him yearning for Viktor’s approval, won. “When I was a child my mother and I almost died in a snowstorm. A mage saved us. It made me realize I wanted, no, needed, to figure it out, this arcane power. It’s- it’s always been mine. My dream. Our dream.”

Viktor took a deep breath, not looking at him. The hard edges of his face softened. “I apologize. I overstepped. Come then, let’s not dawdle.”

“I just want them to stop hurting all the time," Jayce called after him, staring hard at the tense lines of Viktor’s back. “They’re- we are always in so much pain. They’ve never not been in pain. I just want them to live without this- this constant ache. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No,” Viktor muttered without turning around. He was gripping his limping leg. “I suppose not.”

They were able to break into Heimerdinger’s office with only one hurdle when Councillor Medarda caught them. Fortunately she seemed willing to give them a chance and Jayce felt himself pulled in by her effortless charm, her trust. He stared at her leg when she left, in the slightest chance she might be hiding a disability, an injury, and sighed in disappointment at her impeccable gait. Just to be extra-extra sure he pinched his arm, harder than he usually would in his haste. Nothing. Well, it was a longshot anyway.

“Come on,” Viktor said as he opened the door. He was shaking out his arm, muttering a curse under his breath. There was a slight irritation in his voice. Maybe he didn’t like Councillor Medarda. It wouldn't be surprising for a Zaunite to dislike their leaders, if Jayce already had his grievances.

“This isn't my bedroom?” he grinned when he closed the door behind him. “That was your excuse?”

Viktor shrugged but he was smiling again as he led them towards the door in the back. “It was worth a shot.”

From there it wasn’t hard to set everything up with their additional calculations. And then- magic!

Pure, beautiful magic was swirling around them and they were flying, gods, they were flying! Viktor before him had a face of euphoria, his calm mask cracked to make place for only a childlike joy that suited him. What a beautiful smile, this unguarded glee. Jayce was laughing as he snapped his finger against a gear, watching as it teleported through the middle of the room, continuing to float towards Viktor.

Magic- they had created magic! Magic! Real, actual magic! For the first time in his life Jayce forgot about his soulmate, forgot about everything. They had accessed magic! What would his seven year old self think of him now, knowing they had cracked it? He was giddy, face hurting with the force of his smile.

Professor Heimerdinger, Councillor Medarda and the guards were on the ground, equally in awe, but Jayce only had eyes for Viktor. The first person to believe in him, his dream. Who helped him. Who had saved his dream. Viktor was laughing, waving around his arms to steady himself as his body floated upside-down and Jayce chuckled, realizing with surprise that the pain in his leg had lessened.

“Will you please stop hovering?” Professor Heimerdinger called up to them.

“I'm not sure how to do that, sir!” Viktor said.

Jayce couldn't keep it in anymore. He was laughing, unrestrained happiness bubbling up in him. If there was a device to bottle up this moment, to live in it forever, he might just spend his entire life creating it. He floated downwards and jolted when his back suddenly hit the hextech machine.

“Fuck- SHIT!” The crystal got knocked out and he hastily grabbed it out of the air in panic. No way did they need another incident. The arcane around them held up for a brief moment. Then they plummeted to the floor. Jayce landed on his feet, anticipating it, and quickly jumped towards Viktor who had been floating dangerously high up, desperately holding out his arms for him. He was too late.

Viktor crashed to the floor with a pained yelp. Jayce went down at the sudden pain in his back. He landed beside Viktor, cursing and groaning as they both held their aching limbs.

Oh.

Oooooooooooooooh.

Oh, Jayce was an idiot.

Oh, he was unimaginably stupid.

This was-

Gods, this was-

This was so much better than everything he had fantasized, everything he had hoped for. His partner, the first to ever believe in him, his dream, the only one of his peers who was able to keep up with his quick mind, Viktor with his dry wit, Viktor with his confidence, Viktor with his steadfast belief, Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, Viktor-

“You're my soulmate!” Jayce exclaimed, feeling his face flush, feeling the fullness of how right that was deep in him. His soulmate. Viktor was his soulmate. The faceless girl he had imagined, he had constantly summoned in his dreams disappeared into embers, replaced by this man made purely out of sharp edges and an intellect he wanted to dissect, a voice he wanted to drown in, hair he wanted to tug at, tantalizing lips and Cait’s gonna laugh at me for not realizing I’m gay and wait, I also like women though and not the time, Jayce you just found your soulmate! “You're my soulmate! You're my- gods! We’re soulmates! You're my…”

Jayce’s voice drifted off. In front of him Viktor’s face had transformed into an expression of pure devastation.

-----

Viktor was born with a leg that didn’t work and a mind that didn't stop racing. He was born in between people certain he’d die early, swallowed by the Undercity’s cruelty, in between his parents who were always crying, always looking at him in sorrow until he had built his first mechanical ship, until he showed them his mind - the sorrow transformed into tentative hope, then determination, and he knew they would do everything to make sure he would survive in this cruel world. He didn't just want to survive. He wanted to thrive.

Viktor was five when he realized the scrapes and bruises he was feeling weren’t his own, too frequent, not in places he had banged against. At that age he hadn’t known yet what being in this body would mean not just for him but also the person connected to his soul.

He was six when his leg flared out in pain, worse than before, and he had to use a cane to move around, one built from scraps and parts lying around, when moving along hurt deep in his joints, when the constant migraines started. He was a little child when the first drops of dread filled his heart. Would his soulmate feel this? This constant ache? Or was it only reserved for new pain, new bruises, new wounds? Having a soulmate should have been a happy occasion, should have been celebrated. Instead he was sitting in his room, arms around his legs, as he hoped and prayed to whatever deity existed, that his soulmate would not feel the body he had been cursed with.

When he was seven it felt like his skin was being peeled off his flesh. Everything hurt, his fingers and toes were numb and he was whimpering on the ground, rolled up in a fetal position as his parents worriedly asked him what was going on, as they tried to help him.

“Soulmate-” he choked out, needing them to know he wasn’t the one hurting. They couldn't afford dragging him to a doctor. “They're- they're being burned, they’re-”

His mother was carding her fingers through his hair as his father held him close. Viktor was shivering and trembling, barely able to move his body in what he later would recognize as hypothermia. It lasted for what felt like hours, getting more and more painful until the numbness took over and he sobbed at the thought his soulmate was dying. He hadn’t even been able to get to know them! He hadn’t even met them! This wasn’t fair- he hadn’t wanted them to feel this pain, but knowing his soulmate was out there, dying- gods, it was a fear unlike anything he had ever felt before.

The pain lessened all of a sudden, and he whined, thinking the worst had happened. But no, he still felt it, pain and numbness in all his limbs. Had they been saved then? Ah. What a relief.

He closed his eyes and drifted off. My soulmate is not allowed to complain about my leg after this.

-

He didn’t feel much from his soulmate over the years. Sudden, spiking pain in his arm at eight. Often some stinging pain on his fingers (a kind of punishment? Then again, punishments in the undercity usually were different-), some bruises, pain that felt like burns, sometimes he felt his soulmate hitting their head or their elbow. It was nothing compared to the myriad of bruises littering Viktor’s body every day. He didn't do it intentionally, then again he didn’t go much out of the way to prevent it. It was his body after all, even if his soul was for some reason connected to someone else.

His parents put together all their money to buy him a uniform for Piltover’s academy and he snuck inside, determined to become the best damned student these stuffy professors had ever seen. They were put off by his behavior, his accent, but their biases against the undercity prevented them from ever assuming anything. By the time he was caught it was already too late. He had proven himself, had steamrolled over all of his peers, and Professor Heimerdinger himself saw his potential. He would rise above them all and show them.

He lost most of his beginning friendships at the reveal and the rest with his inability to tolerate stupidity, and so he accepted being the cripple from the undercity. It was okay. One day they'd all see, one day he would write his name on the papers of the most influential inventions that were bettering the world.

He was fifteen when the spinal pain started.

“It's the way you walk on your cane,” his doctor said, a man who barely looked at him, and Viktor hadn’t yet grown into the impudent resistance that would make him argue. He knew his body and that wasn’t it.

“So what should I do?”

“I’d suggest pain-lessing smoke inhalation but you people are probably immune to these drugs, eh?” The doctor shoved a pack of painkillers towards him as he resisted the urge to bite back. “Take one of these whenever the pain starts up. Use the cane on the opposite side of where you’re walking. It will feel a bit weird at first but just try it out.”

“And if it doesn’t get better?”

“Then come back later. Try this for now, okay? I've been doing this for a while, trust me, kid.”

It didn't get better.

Was his soulmate feeling this? Whenever Viktor was lying in bed, eyes wide open from the pain, were they too? Were they cursing this bond between them? Were they wishing he just up and died so that they didn't have to feel this?

Viktor just wanted to stop feeling like a burden.

He took the painkillers. They numbed his mind, made him feel like he was floating through the days, and he hated taking them. Sometimes he had to. Sometimes it was impossible to get out of bed, sometimes every movement hurt, sometimes he wanted to cry from the bitterness of knowing there were people around him walking around in perfectly healthy bodies, who didn’t even appreciate what they had. He got out of bed even if the pain made him want to vomit. He refused to take the painkillers unless he was more useless without them than with them. He continued.

He was sixteen when he realized his soulmate was Piltovan. If they even were on the same continent as he was. There certainly wasn’t any place to catch hypothermia in Piltover or the Undercity. But slapped fingers were a punishment done by teachers to unruly students in Piltover and he hadn’t felt a lot of pain from his soulmate, no punches, no shoves, nothing, only the occasional pinch on his legs, his arms, sharp and sudden every time. His soulmate had been a rowdy child but now that they were older they had the privilege not to be hurt. It was… nice, he supposed. Something about that realization made him feel weird, the same feeling he got staring at his ceiling at three in the morning, acknowledging his own mortality. The people from the undercity saw him as a traitor and Piltovan’s only sneered at him. Both sides didn't see him as one of their own but the fact even his soulmate wasn’t from the Undercity, it felt like his birthplace was pushing him away.

Feelings towards his soulmate were complicated. It should have been a happy thing, should have been comforting, knowing there was someone out there the world had deemed his. Instead every second of his life was filled with guilt, the knowledge he was pulling someone down with him.

Viktor was seventeen when he buried his parents in the mass graves the Undercity kept for their dead for the ones who didn’t simply throw their corpses into the water. He paid one gold for the space and another gold for the labor of digging up a free spot. By the time he returned to his childhood home their place had already been ransacked, news of his parents’ death enough to make the vultures descend on anything that might have been valuable. He collected any keepsake he could find, any picture that was left, one of his earliest inventions, and walked back up to Piltover, knowing it was the last time he would visit his childhood home. He hadn’t cried when he had received the news of their passing. When he had buried them. On the trip back up. He didn't cry when he walked to the dormitory, the bag on his back heavy and his steps clumsy. When he sat heavy on his bed, watching dust dance in the air.

Only when his gaze fell onto his academy uniform did all his emotions suddenly bubble up, did the tears spill from his eyes, did the sobs escape his lips. Viktor grieved quietly and wanted to scream.

And he wondered if his soulmate felt this too, this soul-crushing pain, this all-consuming grief.

-

When Viktor was nineteen his back was hurting to the point he could barely walk straight and no amount of painkillers helped.

“There's a few procedures we can do,” his doctor told him, another one, who was equally as uncaring as his last. “I’d suggest the Vertebral Stabilization Implant. We’ll place small, specialized screws into your spine which will connect to a custom-fitted brace designed to stabilize and support your back. It's a minimally invasive surgery but there is a long healing period and you will always have to take care not to get them infected, got it?”

Viktor felt his fingers tighten at the pictures of the operation she was showing him. Screws, placed in his spine. Minimally invasive, as if. It looked painful.

“That is the only operation available?”

“The best one for your… financial standing.”

Viktor should be given a medal from the effort it took to keep his sneer off his face. “Elaborate.”

“There's two operations that would be more suitable, however they are quite pricey. Don't get me wrong, I myself could only afford them if I saved more than two entire years’ worth of salary. It won’t be pleasant but hey, at least you'll be able to walk straight again.”

He looked down at the pictures again, closing his eyes at the next wave of pain. Going home would be hell, he had barely managed to get here. “Okay,” he muttered, then paused. “Hypothetically. Can soulmates feel pain under anesthesia?”

And she looked at him with an expression full of pity, lips tightened. For someone who had looked like she wanted to much rather do a crossword than talk to him she managed to have a pretty convincing face of empathy. How funny, how much emotion could be brought up when it wasn’t just about the disabled undercity rat. “They do. Ethically we aren’t allowed to operate on a soulbond-”

“I don't have a soulmate,” Viktor lied as easily as breathing. “I was interested in it from a scientific perspective. I’m a scientist after all and such soul bonds are rather… magical, wouldn't you say? And yet they have been granted to us humans. Curious, isn’t it?”

She settled down again, still a furrow between her eyes. Now that just wouldn’t do.

“I've always wanted a soulmate. Well, then I realized they’d feel all… this.” He gestured towards his entire body. “The gods wouldn’t be so cruel to someone.”

She nodded as if that was in any way a compelling argument. The gods caused so much pain and suffering in the world, but beam that towards a bystander and suddenly it was unjust. The doctor would accept a reality where the gods gave Viktor a body that was already falling apart from the moment he had been born, but not one in which someone else was feeling his pain. He wanted to laugh.

“I will think about it,” he said as he stood up, curling up over his cane when his back protested.

Living normally was impossible. He tried it, and oh, how he tried, the thought of his soulmate, some innocent bystander, feeling as his back was peeled open, as screws were inserted into his spine, was almost enough to make him throw up. For a moment the thought came to search for them. If both of them were under anesthesia it shouldn't be a problem. That thought quickly disappeared; he couldn't even walk right now, much less search for anyone, and if his soulmate wasn’t even in the same city it was basically impossible.

Viktor was forced to lie in bed for a week, missing out on his classes, when he decided it was enough. He couldn't live his life, pause on his health, for his soulmate. It was cruel, it was abhorrent, but if his soulmate had an issue with him undergoing the operation they could take it up with the gods that had cursed them. He wanted to go back to his life, didn’t want to be bedridden, didn’t want to feel like every movement was killing him, didn't want to feel this constant pain anymore, and he was sure his soulmate would appreciate the lessened ache too. He would do the gods damned operation even if the constant guilt continued to crush him.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered into his breathing mask as the sight of the surgeons and the hospital room around him disappeared.

-

I’m sorry, he thought the following days when he was bedridden in the hospital. I'm sorry, he thought when they showed him how to put on and take off his brace. I'm sorry, he thought as he walked home, endlessly relieved when he could stand straight again, when the pain had lessened to the point it was only a slight ache. I'm sorry, he thought as he came back to the academy, greeted by a lively Heimerdinger. I'm sorry, he thought as he returned to his normal life.

I'm sorry, he thought as he couldn't find it in himself to regret it, too high on the euphoria of being able to walk straight again.

Whoever his soulmate was, Viktor knew with certainty they despised him.

-

Viktor was twenty-four when he met a man by the name of Jayce Talis and found himself utterly infatuated by him. The man was incredibly smart and had dreams bigger than the world with enormous confidence and self-belief, it made something in his heart accelerate. He had started out as an inventor before suddenly going into medicine, the reason why he had needed Viktor to help him with the stabilization calculations, but everything he was doing was to help people. A noble goal, one Viktor obviously understood. Jayce Talis had created the painkillers that Viktor religiously took, amazed at the fact they didn’t cloud his mind and allegedly weren’t damaging to the liver- which must have been a relief for his poor organs. Jayce Talis was researching joint pain and medical braces, and if Viktor in any way cared more about himself than the hope he could one day help other people, the Undercity, he might have walked the exact same path.

Jayce Talis was a madman who believed in magic, who was so ready to share his dream with him and Viktor would not let him slip through his fingers. There was a certain disappointment in knowing he was doing it all for his soulmate (and what were the odds, both of them meeting another person tied by their soul), but Viktor was nothing if not pragmatic. Still, the thought of living for another person, someone Jayce didn’t even know, solely because the heavens declared them soul-bound, made him uncomfortable, uncertain as he walked side by side with him.

Viktor had lived his life in selfishness. He hadn’t tried to minimize any pain brought onto his body, not when he kept stubbing his toes, when he kept studying bent-over his research despite knowing it wasn’t good for his back, when he refused to take painkillers before the Kiramman ones, not when he knowingly caused them pain. His decaying body had affected not just him but another person, and yet if he had been forced to live his life over again, he would do it all the same. And here stood Jayce, his equal in intellect and yet his complete opposite in how they treated their soulmates.

Jayce’s soulmate must be happy if they were able to overlook the way Jayce had pushed his own life away for them.

They accessed the arcane, high up in Professor Heimerdinger’s office, and Viktor only felt joy when he felt himself float in the air, the pressure on his leg gone, his body light and weightless as all his thoughts disappeared besides the moment right here. They had done it, truly done it!

Jayce was smiling at him, carefree and open and Viktor couldn't help but answer in kind, feeling his heartbeat quicken. It had been a long time since he had felt this kind of happiness- he struggled to come up with any moment he had felt like this before. Viktor was a man of science but he thanked the gods for putting this man into his path, for changing the trajectory of his life.

Then he fell to the floor.

-

“We’re soulmates! You’re my…”

Jayce was looking at him with only joy, only happiness as if Viktor hadn’t caused him pain for his entire life. As if he hadn’t dedicated his life to him and gods - the research on spinal assistance, on cheaper ways to make prosthetics, the fucking painkillers that had made existing so much easier for him-

Jayce was his soulmate.

Jayce was his soulmate and had dedicated his life to Viktor’s health. Jayce was his soulmate and Viktor had changed his life, years before they had even met. Jayce was his soulmate and he barely had any goals outside of his bond. Jayce was his soulmate and Viktor’s fucked up body had changed him.

Viktor was his soulmate and he had only given Jayce pain and suffering. Viktor was his soulmate and Jayce wasn’t looking at him in anger.

It was too much, it was all too much.

Viktor held out a hand, waiting for a confused Jayce to grab it before shaking it mechanically. “I look forward to our partnership. I do hope this… bond won’t affect our work.”

“Our-” Jayce choked on air, growing more confused by the second. “Viktor, we just found out we’re soulmates, you-”

“That doesn't change anything. We barely know each other. I'd prefer if we continued in a more professional manner.”

Jayce deflated. He stepped back. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. “Okay,” he whispered and it felt like a noose was tightening around Viktor’s neck. “If that’s what you wish.”

-----

They had been given their own lab and were backed by Councillor Medarda’s and Councillor Kiramman’s funding for now. Jayce should be over the moon with happiness, for finally reaching the goal he had been striving to for so long, and yet it was all muted by the fact his soulmate barely even looked at him.

Working with Viktor had been so natural, so wonderful, had felt like his soul was finally whole again, and now it was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over him. Rejected by his soulmate. Somehow this was more painful than anything he had ever experienced before.

Instead of smiling and joking with him, Viktor’s behavior was muted, tense and he was watching Jayce as if he was dangerous, as if he expected some kind of attack. It stung in a way he had never felt before, and he wondered if Viktor could feel this emotional pain too, could feel the way his heart ached every time Viktor stepped away from him when he came close.

Was it truly that awful to have Jayce as his soulmate? That Viktor couldn’t even meet his gaze? Or was it the concept of soulmates in general? Viktor hadn’t seemed too keen on the idea of them. Or maybe- maybe he didn’t like the way Jayce felt towards soulmates. Didn't feel the romanticism, the pull to the idea of a fated soul.

Jayce had dedicated his life to bettering his soulmate’s life and of course he didn’t expect anything in return for it, was happy merely with the fact they would be better, but somehow after all these years, after the year-long fantasies he had of them seeing what he had done for them, smiling at him, feeling grateful, after all that he felt wrong-footed like he had somehow woken up in the wrong universe. Viktor didn’t owe him anything, but- was Jayce wrong for feeling this frustrated disappointment Viktor was obviously seeing their soulmate bond as a burden?

-

“Have you… asked him?” Caitlyn was looking at him as if he was making his life infinitely more difficult than it had to be. Well, that's what he got for going to a fifteen year old for relationship advice. Then again, who else would he ask? His mother would love to help him, sure, but Cait was the only one he knew who also had a soulmate she just met. She had been spending almost every minute with her soulmate (to her parents’ frustration since a lot of that time was spent in the Undercity), so catching her alone for once was a miracle.

For her it just seemed to have worked out despite everything - the fact her soulmate had blown up Jayce’s apartment, almost killing them, her being from the Undercity while Cait was from Piltover, both of them having almost started a war between the cities (though that one had then led to a tentative peace decided between the councillors, strong-armed by Councillors Medarda and Kiramman, and the father of Cait’s soulmate). It should have been the opposite. Viktor and Jayce had hit it off instantly, everything should have been smooth sailing for them.

“I can't! Every time I try to approach with some non-work related topic, he switches! It’s like he doesn’t even want to acknowledge my existence outside of hextech!”

He leaned his head against the bench Caitlyn was sitting on, slumping further on the ground, and watched the flower petals float around them, the open sky bathing the area in sunlight. It was an entirely too bright day for the turmoil he was feeling.

A sudden voice piped up beside him. “Geez, you’re a trainwreck.”

“MOTHERFU-” he glanced at Caitlyn. “Fudge.”

Both girls looked at him with faces of unimpressed disgust.

“I'm fifteen, Jayce, I’ve heard worse.”

“I've heard worse before I was even born.” Caitlyn’s soulmate stared him up and down as if he was a piece of gum she had found stuck on the underside of her shoe. “Been wondering why a pretty boy like you’d have difficulties wooing his soulmate. I think I know now.”

“Hey,” he said. He should be the mature one and not argue back. She was Cait’s age after all and what were teenagers but insufferable pieces of work. On the other hand, she had blown up his apartment and stolen his work. And then thrown it into the lake. “Not like you're any better. You almost killed your soulmate.”

“Jayce,” Caitlyn hissed but her soulmate only laughed.

She held out her hand. “Vi. So you're the guy cupcake’s constantly talking about. For some reason she really wants my sister to meet you.”

Jayce went to take her hand but she yanked it away with a cheeky grin. “Too slow, old man.”

Had he mentioned he hated teenagers?

“Anyway, back to your soulmate problem!” Caitlyn said. “I think it’s best if you just approach him and ask for a conversation. Tell him he's creating an- an uncomfortable work environment, yes.”

“I should guilt-trip him?” Jayce questioned.

“It’s not guilt-tripping if it's the truth.”

“Or you could stalk him to his home and repeatedly punch yourself until he acknowledges your existence. Worked for cupcake here, didn’t it?”

Caitlyn’s face grew red. “Hey,” she said but didn't argue further.

Well. Jayce rubbed the bridge of his nose. That's why he probably shouldn’t ask teenagers.

“Hey, pretty boy.”

Jayce looked up, only to stare in confusion at the small drawstring pouch Vi was holding out to him. She let it fall onto his hand. When he unraveled the strings he came face to face with the hextech crystals that had been taken from him. He gaped at them, incredulous. The only reason they had broken into Heimerdinger’s lab was because he had thought them lost and here she was, just- just giving them back! He couldn’t even be mad. Or happy. Or- well, anything. He was mostly shocked.

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t trust you with what these things can do. Maybe I should have just drowned them in the river. I want them even less with my sister though. But do anything other than build your fancy inventions or whatever and I’ll come for your head, got it?”

He huffed a laugh and pocketed the crystals as he decided to let go of any anger he still harbored. “Got it.”

-

The pain in his leg was a steady companion. It got worse when Viktor was walking, his back hurt more when he was standing for longer or was bent over his research, his joints kept hurting, had never not been, and Jayce found a strange comfort in the ache, in the sudden spike of pain when Viktor burned his tongue on his coffee, when he stubbed his toe, when he pinched his arm to stay awake. Jayce still was careful not to get hurt, too used in his habits. And no matter how Viktor was treating him, he didn’t want to be so petty to give him an additional second-hand pain.

He decided to forego Vi’s advice with the stalking and instead follow Cait’s, trying to ask for a conversation, but Viktor’s evasion maneuvers were as frustrating as they were impressive. He was a slippery bastard for someone who couldn't even run.

“I don't owe you anything just because you're my soulmate,” Viktor hissed one evening when Jayce approached him, before he could even open his mouth. Viktor’s face was turned away from him, his jaw set and Jayce only wanted to reach out, to know what the fuck was going on in his head.

“You don’t but- we're partners, Viktor! That has to count for something, right? Even if you think soulmates are stupid, even if you, I don’t know, hate having your soul bound to someone!”

“That's not it.” Viktor stood up to walk towards the door and Jayce stepped in between, doing his best to look as non-threatening as possible in case the fearful glances Viktor sometimes threw at him were caused by his presence. Viktor however didn’t look scared, only irritated. It reminded Jayce distinctly of a hissing cat.

“Then what is it? I don't- did I do something wrong, did I- did I offend you in any way, have I done anything? We can talk about it, Viktor, just please, don’t shut me out.”

“Step aside, Jayce.”

Jayce slumped. He stepped away letting Viktor walk past him. Viktor stopped at the door, his back to him.

“If it's any consolation, it's not your fault. You were simply unlucky to be bound to me.”

Jayce choked. He walked in a circle, needing to get rid of the sudden energy coursing through him. “Unlucky?!” Anger rose up in him, offended at Viktor’s behalf. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Viktor turned, seemingly calm in comparison to Jayce’s flailing limbs, his pent-up adrenaline, his flushed face. A sneer was on his lips, a cruel grin. “Don't play stupid. You've dedicated your entire life to somebody you don’t even know - and what a tremendously idiotic thing that was. Your bargain didn’t work out though, did it? Are you cursing the fates, Jayce, or are you hoping through all your research to fix me?”

Jayce felt like he had skipped a part of this conversation, as if he was reading a script with half of it cut away. “Hah?”

Viktor walked closer again, his eyes wide in a manic craze, his face still forcibly calm and collected as if it wasn’t blindingly obvious his composure was holding onto the thinnest thread. He was looking down at Jayce even though he was a head shorter. “Come on, don't play stupid now. I've lived this body, Jayce, I know intimately the depths of unfairness and bitterness it can make you feel. So come on, we can stop this charade now. You don't have to like me solely because I am your soulmate.”

And oh - Jayce hadn’t realized Viktor’s behavior wasn’t motivated by anger or disappointment. No, for some reason he had decided it was Jayce who should be angry at him? “You’re kind of full of shit, aren’t you?” he asked, not with any maliciousness in his voice but a stunned wonder.

Viktor momentarily was thrown out of his anger. His lips parted in surprise, shock overcoming his face.

Jayce continued. “Why should I be angry? It's your body, you were dealt a bad hand. It's not my fault but it's not yours either.”

“You-” Viktor looked at him in disoriented fury. “You have to be angry. Because of me you've been in pain for all your life.”

“Not because of you! Did you- did you really avoid me this entire time because you thought I’d hate you?!”

Viktor’s expression fell into grief. “How couldn't you?” he whispered and Jayce wanted to wrap his arms around him, wanted to hold him until it would transform into the joy he had expressed when they had created magic together. “How could you not hate me?”

“I don't understand why I should,” Jayce said truthfully. “When I was seven my mother and I were caught in a snowstorm and almost died of hypothermia. Do you hate me because of that?”

“You can't compare these two! That was just a one-time thing, this- this is my body! It's- it’s decaying, it’s only getting worse from now on, and you’re going to feel every second of it, you're going to suffer all because-”

Jayce took his hands and leaned close until they were standing almost nose to nose. “I don’t see any decay. Only you. I- fuck, Viktor, I thought you were disappointed that I'm your soulmate, I didn't realize you were just being stupid!”

“Stupid?!” Viktor leaned away but he didn't yank his hands back. “You're being the unreasonable one.”

“What, because I'm happy my soulmate is you? The first to believe in me, in my dream, the only one who can keep up with me?”

“You can't-” Viktor was looking moments away from hyperventilating. “I- I got an operation on my back, knowing full well it would hurt you.”

Oh, that explained the excruciating pain he had felt all those years ago. “It was for your spine, right? The back pain kinda lessened afterwards. You got the Vertebral Stabilization Implant, right?”

“Yes! And I knew my soulmate would feel it even if I was under anesthesia!”

Jayce nodded. “I’m glad to see the operation is working.”

“I- I refused to take painkillers because of how they would cloud my mind!”

“Then it’s good I made a new kind?”

“I don’t take them sometimes because I don’t want to rely on them and- and- and I can see you wince!”

“Viktor, are you… arguing against yourself?”

Viktor threw his hands in the air as if he wanted to strangle him and Jayce missed the feeling of them between his palms. “You're impossible!”

“Then explain it to me,” Jayce demanded and leaned even closer until their foreheads touched. Viktor looked brittle from up close, like a machine about to give up its last life. He was trembling minutely, eyes filled with manic energy, lips quivering, limbs held painfully still, and Jayce could feel the strain it put on his spine. “I'm not angry at you. I want to be your soulmate. And you don't seem opposed to me being your soulmate.”

“You dedicated your entire life to a person you didn't even know!” Viktor burst out. “You- because of me you became a doctor instead of an inventor!”

“Oh no,” Jayce said drily. “The horror.”

“You have no idea what kind of pressure that puts onto someone, do you?” Viktor’s anger was slowly draining, with no target to point it towards, like a balloon deflating. “I never wanted to- to be responsible for changing your life. I never wanted to be the reason you changed your path.”

“It’s not like I'm just living for my soulmate,” Jayce said gently, remembering the conversation they had that first day when they had walked towards Heimerdinger’s lab. “But living with your pain- it made me aware of how fucked up this world is, that it refuses to help those who need it most. You were in pain all this time and it never got better, even here, even in Piltover! You've opened my eyes years before I even got to know you, so- so you could never be a curse for me, V! All this time I just wanted you to stop hurting so much.”

Viktor’s lips stretched into a disbelieving grimace of pure stupefaction. His face was scrunched up like he was rearing up for something. But as quickly as it had come did it disappear again, leaving him slumped, leaning closer towards Jayce. “I do not understand you, Jayce.”

“That's okay. I don't understand you either.” He held out a hand, pushing his forehead further against Viktor’s. “We can try to understand each other together? Fuck, Viktor, you have no idea what you’ve already done for me, have you? You saved my dream, you saved my research, you wandered into my life and it felt like my soul was finally complete, and not just because we’re soulmates. You complete me in a way I’ve never felt before. Screw soulmates, I think we were destined to meet in every world, every time, soul-bound or not.”

A choked noise escaped Viktor, which might have been a laugh. He kept laughing, more of incredulity than amusement, before those noises turned into heaving breaths. “I’m sorry,” Viktor finally choked out, all emotions dripping over to the surface. “It must have been such hell- I'm sorry, gods- I'm so sorry-”

And Jayce cradled his face between his palms and pressed his lips to his forehead. “Stop that or else I’ll start apologizing for every injury I got. Sorry for the broken arm, the burns from the forge, that one time I smashed a hammer on my thumb, when I cut my finger slicing vegetables, when I hit my head on my desk-”

Viktor grabbed his collar and pulled him down, silencing him with a kiss. Jayce let out a muffled sound of surprise, immediately kissing back, his entire soul screaming with joy and gods, this felt right, this was the way it should be, Viktor in his arms, Viktor against him, Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, Viktor-

Viktor separated, frowning. “I apologize, I should have asked- if you do not wish for a romantic relationship-”

This time it was Jayce who interrupted him with a kiss.