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Jayce has lost track of how many days he’s been trappedcoldinpainalone here.
Well, not truly alone, he supposes.
The strange humanoid figures continue to scuttle up and down the walls of the chasm that rise around him, like a gaping maw threatening to swallow him whole. Their presence is unsettlingly empty, as if anything human in them had been ruthlessly scraped out, leaving them hollow and lifeless. He shivers at the sight of them every time, though they’ve left him alone for the most part. Once they chased him down here, it seemed they had no interest in further pursuit. He doesn’t know if these things eat, but he can’t help but feel like cornered prey at times, like he’s already sprung the trap and they’re just waiting for his pained, panicked movements to stop.
Sometimes he feels…another presence. It emanates magical force in quiet tendrils that he can never quite track to their source. The Arcane, but more concentrated, and laced with something timeless, sentient, and almost…sorrowful. It’s an imposing presence, but it never lingers long. It just watches. Jayce can feel eyes burning through him, as if the presence sees his inner machinations clear as day. It’s an anxiouswarmintriguingachinglyfamiliar feeling.
But it’s probably nothing.
His lucidity is fickle, burning away when the pain in his leg flares bright like a supernova. Jayce had done his best to splint it with the broken remnants of his hammer, hands moving through the motions of fashioning a brace as if it were second nature.
He’s grateful for having forged a brace before. He’s guilty for feeling grateful.
Still, all the physical support in the world can’t mend infection, and something is clearly festering in the wound in his leg. There are times when Jayce screams himself to silence in pain and horror at the sicklywrongbadbadbad feeling emanating from his own body. There are times he is caught in a morbid, scientific curiosity at seeing the natural, wild Arcane fuse with and corrupt human flesh. It’s familiar but different from how Hextech’s manipulation of the Arcane has manifested.
He violently shoves those memories away. Their pain is worse than his leg.
(Jayce imagines violet and gold streaking his flesh and prays that it never felt like this for him.)
He scratches his fingernails to raw and throbbing stubs trying to catch purchase on the sheer cliff face that surrounds him. He’s like a caged animal, clawing futilely at the walls of his prison as if ragefeardesperation alone will free him. He huffs a self-deprecating laugh at the thought of what Piltover would think of its precious golden boy now, shattered and broken, unkempt and feral, sad and scared and so fucking alone.
Always hated being alone, ever since he was a child. Reminds him of wandering aimless in the blizzard, his mamá too cold herself to offer any warmth. Loneliness has always felt like freezing to him. A bone-deep ache that crushes and drains, leaving him shivering and longing for something he can’t quite name.
Fire helps, somewhat. It’s for the lizards, sure. He can’t afford food poisoning or a bacterial disease so he has to cook them somehow. Even if it makes them tough and bitter. Even if he can’t always ignore the feral urge to rip into them raw. He’s not sure if it’s the Arcane humming in his veins or some sort of desperate desire to feel something alive.
But at least the fire is warm. The smoke curls around Jayce like a blanket…like a presence. Of course there’s nothing really there, his mind rattling off chemical reactions to explain the light, the heat, none of it actually living. Logically, he knows this, knows there’s no company to be found in the flames, and yet…
He scoots a little closer, tattered boots nearly melting in the embers.
Jayce’s mind conjures Mel first. Shockingly beautiful when fire dances across her features, red like Noxian wine and gold like Piltovian jewelry. She looks almost divine, just as gorgeouspowerfulinvincible as she always appears to the people, to their investors, to the Council, even to him, still. There was never a facade with Mel, no curtain to peak behind that would reveal her vulnerabilities. She was simply that confident, that capable, that…incredible.
Mel has always been captivating, and he gladly watches the image of her his mind conjures up, just as untouchable when bathed in fire as she is in reality. But every glimpse of her is fleeting. He begs her not to go, wants to watch the flames glint off her lovely edges just a little while longer, just to remember what it feels like to be held in her regard.
Just to keep him away.
Pleasepleasepleasedon’tgoIcan’t.
When Mel disappears in a shower of golden sparks, it isn’t long before another figure takes her place. He melts out of the shadows and into the light as Jayce always wished he would in their youth, taking up space on stage, front and center and basking in the light of Piltover’s favor. But Jayce is the only audience member left to admire him. Finds himself stunned by the glare of light he casts off, blindingly brilliant and absolutely breathtaking.
Jayce squeezes his eyes shut, even turns his face away, but he can’t bring himself to shift out of the warmth of the fire. In fact, he finds himself shuffling closer each time, caught between his impulses to fleerungetawaydon’tgetanycloser and to staystaycloserstayherealwayswithhim.
He sighs, bites his lip, and looks up. Viktor is there to greet him. Not the Viktor he’d last seen, body warped and enhanced in equal measure by the Hexcore. It’s the Viktor he knows as intimately as he knows himself, the man who saved his life, the man he shared his dreams with, his partner in…everything.
He’s beautiful, wreathed in golden flames, and he looks so alive. Jayce almost doesn’t believe that this is the pathetic manifestation of his own memories and desires. It has to be Viktor, he’s right there, Jayce could almost touch him…
Embers flare up in a shower of sparks around Viktor’s face, highlighting the gaping black holes where his eyes should be.
Jayce lowers his hand. Grips his thigh to keep from reaching out again.
He sighs and stares into that emptiness, wishing desperately that his hallucinations were fully-formed. He misses Viktor’s gaze on him, those amber eyes glowing with mirth, sparked with intellect, warming Jayce with the gift of their regard. But no, it’s better this way. He’s sure he’d burn his fingertips right off if Viktor looked any more real than this. Clothed in his typical suit, hair flipping up at the ends to frame his sharp and angular features, the contrast of his strong brows with the delicate scattering of moles under his eyes and just to the side of his lip, his cane propped up on his shoulder, as intrinsic to Viktor as his limbs, or his accent, or his snark.
Janna, Jayce misses his snark, his wit. The downright bitchy little comments he’d make (barely) under his breath at any display of topsider classism or Counselor pigheadedness (or often both). The arrogant, condescending tone he’d take when correcting Jayce’s work, always so sure he was right (and, to Jayce’s fond annoyance, he usually was). The way he’d toss out comebacks, quips, insults, and all manner of filth in his native tongue and in Piltovian alike.
Jayce tries to imagine what Viktor would say if he were to see him in this utterly pitiful state.
“I told you to destroy the Hexcore, did I not, ‘Man of Progress’? What does that bring our tally to, 24 to nothing? But no matter how many times I prove you laughably wrong, you still never listen.”
(23 to 1, actually, but Viktor would never admit that Jayce corrected his equation for the hexcells when the power circuit was running inefficiently.)
“Your work is a mess, Talis. You will never be able to climb with that brace if you do not expand the angle of the knee joint.”
(Jayce is already sketching new configurations in the back of his mind, trying to figure out how to give his brace a broader range of motion.)
“By Janna, Jayce, you look like a feral stray. Is this what Piltover’s Golden Boy looks like without his constant primping?”
(Jayce has no idea what he looks like right now, but he’s sure it’s not pretty. …He can’t help but wonder if Viktor would like the beard.)
“How does it feel? Knowing what it is to rot in the Lanes, starving, in pain, restless yet trapped? Not so easy being a Zaunite, now is it?”
(It’s horrific. He understands more than ever what Viktor went through as a child, how strong he must’ve been to reach the heights he’s climbed to.)
Jayce sighs, pulls his knees up, and wraps his arms around them in a feeble attempt to hold warmth and comfort. He looks longingly at the image of Viktor and feels tears cut through the grime on his face. It’s pure torture, everything he wants shimmering in a fiery mirage just out of reach. Everything he once had, but took for granted. Everything he selfishly clung to when it was already too late, and ruined forever.
He wishes he didn’t waste the time they had together by dabbling in politics at Mel’s behest. He wishes he hadn’t allowed his role as a Counselor to eclipse his role as a scientist, as the co-founder of Hextech, as Viktor’s partner in all things. He wishes he’d paid more attention to Viktor and caught the progression of his illness, maybe they could’ve figured out a cure together, one that didn’t involve dangerous experiments with the Hexcore. At the very least, Jayce should’ve been there to support him, to care for him, to stand with him through everything and share his burdens. That’s what partners are supposed to be for, and what sort of man does that make Jayce? The kind who left his best friend to suffer alone. The kind who abandoned the real work of their shared dream and lost himself in the stupid, petty details of everything outside their lab. The kind who broke a promise to the love of his life because he refused to let him go.
…Jayce wishes for a lot of things, but he can’t wish that he’d kept that promise. Even if Viktor hates him, even if it destroys the world, Jayce can’t say he regrets using the Hexcore to bring Viktor back. He just can’t imagine a reality where Viktor simply isn’t. The guilt of Jayce’s betrayal might haunt his steps, but the relief of knowing Viktor is alive somewhere out there is sweet enough to dull the pain. He made the right choice. He knows he did.
…right?
Without eyes, Jayce can’t tell if Viktor is looking at him with the disinterested pity and disappointment he probably deserves, or the soft forgiveness and affection that he craves like a shimmer-addict.
“You know I’d have done anything for you, right? I still would,” he whispers, throat scraped raw from his screams and cries alike.
Jayce suddenly feels that presence again, itching at the back of his skull, familiar with the sensation of eyes on him (watchingjudgingwantingsomething) but not when he seems to be so alone. His head whips around, trying to pinpoint the source, but he still doesn’t see anyone. He can’t get the idea out of his head that he knows those eyes, has been assessed by them time and again.
He ignores the feeling in favor of turning his attention back to the fire and the tortured comfort it offers.
As Jayce watches his conjured image of Viktor, losing himself a bit in pathetic fantasies of what could’ve been, the image warps. He’s struck by simultaneous terror and relief that the specter of his partner might disappear again. But instead, Viktor stands, hand gripping tight around his cane for support. Embers spark around him, flying up to follow his movements, and Jayce is struck dumb.
They’ve never moved before.
Viktor steps further into the fire, lizard bone fragments cracking beneath his heels. It brings him closer than ever before and Jayce’s breath hitches in fear and anticipation. His partner gazes down at him, still with those empty sockets, but Jayce can’t tear his eyes away. Slowly, Viktor reaches out his left hand and Jayce finally flinches back, some functional part of his brain reminding him that this isn’t real, that he’s probably about to burn himself terribly, that he can’t afford further injury and infection in this place.
...but.
Viktor’s hand stills, as if waiting for permission. He didn’t pull back, so confident in his actions, but he’s making adjustments and waiting for Jayce to push through his anxious spiraling. It’s so painfully familiar that Jayce tips into it, third-degree burns be damned.
Gently, Viktor cups his cheek, thumb brushing against his jawline and scraping through the scraggly beard that Jayce has never let grow this long before. Jayce can’t help but sob and lean into the feeling, which is warm and solid in his muddled, manic state. He couldn’t possibly care less about how pathetic this looks, how the only thing he’s probably touching is fire and smoke, he’s so desperate for human touch after all this time that he’ll take any decent approximation of it.
“Shhh, calm yourself, Jayce.”
Jayce hears Viktor’s voice in his head, clear as day, and it’s so wonderful it makes his chest ache.
“You’ll need your strength and quite a bit of that boneheaded Talis stubbornness in the coming days.”
He almost laughs, not giving a single shit that this progression in his hallucinations cannot possibly mean good things where his sanity is concerned. Viktor feels more present than he ever has and Jayce is going to savor it while he can. He pushes lightly into the feeling of Viktor’s hand on his face, anchoring himself to that calm and steady caress. He looks up to meet Viktor’s empty gaze, easily imagining the amused glint of his amber eyes as he witnesses his partner desperately soaking up his attention.
Jayce doesn’t care that it’s not real, he just stares into the flames and lets his mind slip a little further from his grasp.