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Jayce Talis has a love-hate relationship with butterflies.
They always seem to crop up in the important moments of his life– when he and his mother nearly died on their excursion to Piltover, when he had been accepted into the Academy, and the day after he and Viktor had cracked Hextech and celebrated at a nearby cafe. They’re beautiful, yes, and sweet in their own way, but also a constant reminder of the tattoo stretching across his back.
His soulmate mark is nestled in an unfortunate spot, simply because of how often it is hidden by clothing. Just across his lower back is a pair of butterfly wings, ornately adorned, shimmering in an odd silvery-blue color that shifts to rosy pinks and golds under the sunlight. It’s beautiful and fills him with as much heart-filling hope as it does soul-crushing dread.
The same way actual butterflies do.
Because Jayce Talis has not found his soulmate yet. And, of course, he knows that you don’t have to be soulmates with someone to be in a relationship with them, but it almost always ends up not working out too well. There’s always a lingering sense of “you are not the one” that ends up maiming relationships, breaking them apart. So, Jayce hasn’t really… tried too hard.
But he is lonely. He is so, so very lonely.
Of course, he has friends– he has Cait and his mom, and as of late, he has Viktor. They indulge in his need for physical touch (for the most part), and they care for him better than any partner could. They make him laugh, cry, and smile, and keep him happy. Keep him floating.
But every time he sees a soul-paired couple, or someone with their mark in a more obvious place, or a butterfly, his heart twists and empties out again, an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the One.
His perfect partner.
He had put in effort, of course. Plenty of people wore clothes to show off their soulmarks, and Jayce owned half a dozen of his own. Cropped tops, open-backed shirts, backless tank tops. But that had been a habit more of his younger self. As he got older, it felt increasingly more embarrassing, more childish, something that only teenagers and kids did in their endless, naive hope to find their soulmate. Besides, it could be seen as a little… promiscuous. Inviting unwanted touch. Soul marks tended to be more sensitive than the rest of the body, and touch there was intended for soulmates.
So, it was back to regular shirts and longing looks at the small of people’s backs for Jayce Talis.
“Jayce?”
Maybe he would find his soulmate if he joined a nudist colony– he winced at the thought. He hoped his soulmate wouldn’t be a part of a nudist colony.
“Jayce? Hello?”
Come to think of it, why didn’t everyone just walk around nude? Soulmates were so damn important, why wouldn’t they maximize their ability as a species to find their true match? It made no sense. Maybe he could make an X-ray Hextech device to see through cloth– no, definitely came off the wrong way.
“Runeterra to Jayce!”
The slam of a notebook in front of his face finally snaps him out of his daydreaming, Jayce jumping nearly out of his seat, the already tilted back chair tilting further at his motion, threatening to dump him on the floor– but a cane wedges against it last minute, stopping his fall. With his body tilted back, his head follows, and meets the half-irritated, half-fond grin of his partner.
“There you are.” He rocks Jayce back upright, finger tapping on the notebook he had just dumped in front of the other man. “Now that I have your attention– I am taking up another… project, so here are my notes.”
Jayce blinks up at him owlishly, then squints, trying to puzzle out all the pieces of Viktor’s face. “Project?” They always shared projects. Even personal ones– hell, the cane Viktor was using was one that Jayce had helped to design. “What project?” Without even thinking about it, his lower lip started to curl over in a pout, body twisted in the chair to straddle it, fully facing the other man. “What are you hiding from me, V?”
Viktor averts his gaze– just for a moment, but a moment long enough for Jayce to clock him. His knuckles are white on his cane, and his lower lip is clamped between his teeth like he’s trying to physically hold something in. It’s a hesitation, a pause, but it’s more than enough for Jayce to know Viktor is hiding something.
He’s never been good at concealing his emotions.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
Viktor sighs at his accusation, but doesn’t deny it, his cane flicking out and dragging a stool over for him to sit on, hands settling in his lap once he settled himself down. “Maybe.” He draws out the word, muses over it, and looks away from Jayce, and Jayce can feel his heart rate jump. Fear. Viktor never kept things from him.
He stays quiet, though. Watches the gears in Viktor’s brain turn.
“My body has been…”
Sick. Jayce feels sick.
“...developing pains.”
Bile. Maybe he was going to throw up?
Clearly, it showed in his face, because Viktor started rushing his words, waving his hands around freely, cane tucked between his legs. “Not– not like that, Jayce. Not like that. Just… my back. It is having… issues, to say the least, and I need to develop a, ah, brace of sorts for it. Potentially involving surgery.”
His jaw unhinges a little, and Viktor’s speed doubles.
“Nothing extreme! Nothing extreme. Just a few screws in my back, like, eh…” A little chuckle that should not be coming from Viktor’s mouth right now. “Like a rusty chair. Tighten things up. Make my spine more… adjustable. It’s not a big deal, Jayce.”
“Let me help.”
“What?”
“I helped you with your cane, Viktor. And your leg brace. I can help you with this.”
Jayce doesn’t miss how Viktor’s face twists at the request. “That won’t be necessary, Jayce, really.”
“Please. Let me–”
“No.”
“Vik–”
“No.”
Jayce isn’t expecting Viktor to get up and stalk off– but he does, taking his cane with him and step-click-stepping away from him, a scowl painted all over his face. There’s nothing but confusion on Jayce’s; why would he leave like that? Why would he get so pissed off at the offer of Jayce’s help? It was just a back brace– and Jayce's helping may be able to prevent spinal surgery.
It was just a case of his stubbornness, surely. Just more of Viktor’s typical ‘I can help myself’ attitude. He’d come around. He would.
And, in the meantime, Jayce could work on it on his own, so that when Viktor eventually came to his help, he would have something ready for him.
As expected, Viktor folds.
It takes a few days of uncomfortable, burdened silence, only ever interrupted by scientific collaboration. Jayce doesn’t dare mention the back brace, and Viktor seems to like it that way.
But, he brings it up. Eventually. Not… in the way Jayce had wanted it to happen.
He wanders into the lab after a short coffee break, both their orders in his hands– black with sugar for Jayce, and so much sweetmilk and creamer that it’s barely even coffee for Viktor. Viktor is… oddly, at his desk, and there are some familiar blueprints pulled out that Jayce had intentionally been keeping hidden. Well– shoved in his desk drawer, but certainly not out in the open. Not like they were now, Viktor’s fingers dragging over a mock-up of a back brace, designed with as much artistry as it was functionality. Jayce swallows, and Viktor’s head turns towards him.
He expects Viktor to be angry. Upset. Frustrated. Instead, he looks… introspective. His eyebrows are drawn together, lips pursed the way they are when he’s puzzling out a particularly tough equation, considering starting from scratch or approaching it from a new angle. He looks at Jayce like he’s such an equation, fingernail tapping repeatedly on the blueprint, opening his mouth at the same time Jayce does.
“I didn’t–”
“Why does it–”
Jayce’s cheeks color pink at their overlapping voices, and he immediately butts in with a, “You first.”
“Thank you,” Viktor hums, straightening up, turning away from the blueprints to fully face Jayce, hands coming to his front, both holding onto his cane as he leans back, Jayce’s desk supporting his weight easily. “Why does your design have a butterfly filigree?”
Jayce blinks. That was… of all the questions Viktor could have asked, he hadn’t been expecting that. He doesn’t think it’s serious, for a moment, but Viktor is staring like he expects an answer, like it wasn’t some odd, off-beat joke to ask. Like he was serious. Okay. Jayce could do serious. Sure.
He swallows, and then explains, “It’s ah… butterflies, I guess, are important to me? And you’re important to me. I don’t know– it’s a stupid sketch, it can have whatever design you want on it. I just figured it didn’t have to be… super industrial, y’know? You appreciate some art, yeah?” Jayce fumbles over his words, and feels his cheeks heat hotter at his explanation, but he doesn’t shy away from it– other than the small fact of his soulmate mark. It doesn’t feel… necessary for the conversation.
“So you… have not seen my mark?” Viktor questions, eyebrows furrowing a centimeter further, and Jayce blanches.
“Your– your soulmate mark?” Jayce receives a single nod in response and shakes his head quickly. “No– no, why? Is it– what’s your mark?”
Jayce can feel the adrenaline pumping frantically, making his heartbeat, making the room gain a pleasant fuzz around him, making his vision tunnel into Viktor, who’s turning around, turning around, to face his back to Jayce, and untucking his shirt, and Jayce’s heart is pumping so loud he can hear it, and Viktor is lifting the bottom of his shirt to reveal the oh-so-familiar bottom markings of butterfly wings, and it lifts up, up, up, exposing:
A delicately, ornately patterned pair of butterfly wings, colors silvery-blue, a bolt of sunlight illuminating it rosy-pink, placed in the exact center of his lower back.
The same mark on Jayce’s back.
There’s coffee on the floor. It wafts up to Jayce’s nose, sugar and bitter mixing in his senses, and it spills over his shoes and the bottom of his dress pants, slowly making a lake of brown in the entryway of the lab– but Jayce doesn’t care.
“Jayce? What–?”
Viktor turns around just in time to see Jayce tearing off his shirt like a madman, and Viktor flushes, about to protest the indecency before Jayce turns around. Jayce turns his head, looking over his shoulder, just barely catching Viktor’s reaction– if Viktor were any shorter, his jaw would be brushing the floor. As it is, his mouth is open, eyebrows up high on his forehead, eyes nearly popping out of his socket.
Then Jayce is rushing forward, arms barreling around him in a hug that has Viktor’s spine uncomfortably pressing back against his desk, and he can’t do anything other than wrap his arms around Jayce, still stunned into silence.
“Viktor.” It almost sounds like a sob in the way Jayce says it, so heavily overwhelmed with love and adoration and joy and relief that it makes Viktor's own heart soar in his chest. “You’re my soulmate,” Jayce says with so much conviction that Viktor would have believed it, even if he hadn’t seen the twin butterfly on Jayce’s lower back. Without thinking, Viktor’s hands drift downwards there, feeling the ever so slightly raised skin, and Jayce stifles another gasp against his shoulder.
Jayce pulls back then, smiling so wide that it hurts his cheeks, and his hands come up to clutch Viktor’s face. “I’m dreaming,” he says, eyes already brimming with tears.
Viktor scoffs, despite the fond smile on his face. “Must be one hell of a dream, then,” he jokes, and Jayce is crashing his lips against his in a millisecond, Viktor letting out a soft, surprised sound.
Half a dozen supernovas explode as they collide. Timelines collide. The world implodes and is reborn, and a butterfly flaps its wings to make a snowstorm happen on the other side of the world.
And when they part, they both smile like idiots, before clashing burning stars together again.