Chapter Text
Jayce couldn’t do this.
Here he was, possibly the luckiest man in all of Piltover, being carefully guided by the most beautiful and inspiring woman he had ever laid eyes on toward her very own bedroom.
The gorgeous, wonderful, intelligent, witty, kind Mel Medarda wanted him. Had been kissing him. Wanted more from him.
And here Jayce was, Man of Progress, with a pit more gaping and dark than the deepest caverns of Zaun in his roiling stomach. His head was spinning, his skin clammy and hot. He didn’t know what to do. He was confused, excited, upset, guilty – he was missing something. He was sure of it. Something important.
Mel squeezed his hand, turning her head to flash him a calculated, honest, confident smile as she led him down the corridor to her quarters. Jayce’s breath stuttered and he nearly fell over his own feet.
He was with Mel Medarda – the woman he had sort of had eyes on since he had met her – and all he could think about was the subtle spark of tired, sunken, golden eyes and feathery, tousled hair and pale skin embellished with those damn beauty marks that never failed to catch his eye.
He felt sick.
They reached Mel’s door: a looming, red and golden framed thing with intricate bronze carvings at the base. Jayce’s heart was racing as Mel turned to him, reaching up to thread her gentle, slender fingers through the hair at his nape. She leaned in once more, the now-familiar ghost of her breath tickling his chin.
But Jayce panicked and jolted backwards, eyes closed as he desperately tried to focus on her and not him. The fingers in his hair faltered and loosened as Mel stepped back. Her cautious, assessing eyes scanned him. He could feel her examination of him even through his closed eyelids as she waited.
Jayce’s throat had gone completely dry, tongue like sandpaper. But he opened his mouth to speak anyway.
“I’m- I’m sorry, Mel,” was all he could manage, shaking his head minutely and pointedly avoiding her stunning hazel eyes. She nodded, hands gliding down his arms to rest in his palms.
“That’s alright,” she said evenly, quietly. “Talk to me, Jayce. Do you not want this?”
“No! I—” Jayce cleared his throat, uncomfortably aware of the mortifying voice-crack that had just been ripped from him. He took a breath and closed his unsure hands around her steady ones. “No, I do. I really do – I’m so sorry. I just—”
Viktor’s gaze flashed through his head again and a prickling warmth sparked up his neck and to the tips of his ears. He couldn’t do this.
“Jayce. Jayce,” Mel soothed him like a child, fingers brushing his cheek. “It’s okay. We don’t have to go any farther.”
But a part of Jayce was still screaming at him, pounding it his ribcage to get over himself, get in that room and have the night of his life with this woman he adored. At least, he thought he adored. He wasn’t so sure anymore what adoration really felt like.
Or where the line between adoration and friendship faded.
Jayce let his head drop between his tense shoulders, resting his thrumming, torn skull against Mel’s.
“I’m sorry, Mel,” he breathed. “I don’t think I can do this. I… Vi—”
“I understand, Jayce,” she cut him off, cupping his jaw with a hand and staring deep into his eyes, gaze piercing and stern, yet somehow still so caring and understanding. And he was seriously saying no to this.
“Maybe another time?” he lied between his teeth. Mel saw through that instantly (because of course she did), but she had the courtesy to nod; the only inclination of her disappointment was the brief second her eyes fluttered closed, nostrils flaring subtly with a quick sigh, before the meticulously crafted front of controlled, perfect Counsellor Medarda was back in all its picturesque glory.
She stepped back, all professional smiles and insightful eyes. Jayce, for the millionth time in the last ten minutes, stumbled over his own line of reasoning and seriously considered taking everything back and falling into her arms again.
But he couldn’t. Maybe he would have a few years ago. Months, even. But not now – not now he could see how equally fascinating and beautiful someone else in his life was.
“Thank you,” he murmured honestly, gingerly taking one of her hands in his and bringing it to his lips. She watched him with an indistinguishable look as he lightly kissed her knuckles, lingering for just a moment too long, before dropping it and stepping away.
“I’m here if you need me,” she said simply with an intuitive smile. Jayce grinned gingerly, walking backwards down the hall a little too frantically, breaths still that a little too shallow.
Then, he turned and awkwardly jogged the rest of the way down the dim hall.
He needed to speak to Viktor.
***
He skittered around the final corner to the corridor that led to his and Viktor’s lab, heart hammering behind his ribs, beating at its cage. His skin still felt too hot, too tight, and his gut was still roiling.
But he was thinking more clearly. This was the right thing to do – he couldn’t have done that to Mel. To himself.
Mel was wonderful, but he had been thinking. Probably a little too much, recently. About his feelings and shit, as much as he kind of hated to say it.
And even if, after all this time, he was still a little confused; if the last eight years had taught him anything, it was that all his best, most logical conclusions came from thinking out loud with his lab partner.
Which was where he was headed now. Viktor could help him figure this out.
Sky was walking down the corridor toward him, head bowed and research-book clutched close to her chest as if she were worried it would grow legs and run away from her. Jayce put on his best smile and nodded to her, trying to look a lot more put together than he felt.
She only noticed him when they were feet away, and startled with a little yelp. Jayce reached out to steady her where she stumbled backwards, and she laughed a little wetly, sniffling as she righted herself.
“Sorry, Mr. Talis. I wasn’t looking.”
“No, don’t say that. Nothing to apologise for,” he assured her, pulling his hands behind his back formally and pretending not to peer nervously over her head at the door to his lab. “Is Viktor still working?”
Sky’s eyes shifted minutely, before she tweaked her golden glasses and cleared her throat with a very obviously forced smile.
“Yes. He seems very committed to this particular project of yours,” she said politely. Jayce couldn’t help the genuine smile that pulled at his lips: possibly the first genuine one of the evening.
“The Hex-core, right? Yeah, it’s quite the puzzle.”
“Viktor likes puzzles,” Sky mumbled quietly, eyes darting to her shoes sadly. Jayce cocked his head a little, smile turning a touch bewildered despite himself. But she quickly straightened her back and shook her head.
“Good night, Mr. Talis,” she dismissed herself, bowing a little. Jayce watched her rush away, a little at a loss for words. If he weren’t so consumed by his own worries, he may have paused to try and unpack whatever the hell that was. But his nerves and feelings and thoughts were gnawing incessantly at his insides and it was becoming a nuisance.
So, Jayce turned his attention to the lab door and marched toward it with a renewed confidence he hadn’t realised was still residing in him after his previous, embarrassingly pathetic display with Mel.
He was okay. This was good. This was what he needed. To talk it all out with Viktor, get his emotions and affections in line, for his and Viktor’s and Mel’s sakes. Then maybe he could actually focus on being a counsellor and developing the Hex-core and—
An electric blue flickering trickled out from under the door. Jayce smiled fondly and ran his hands through his still dishevelled hair.
This was good. He needed this.
Finally reaching for the handle to the door, Jayce froze. He heard something.
Amongst the not-unusual hum of the Arcane’s power that was all too common to hear around the lab, there was another sound. Something harsher and more guttural, drowning underneath the ethereal hum of what he guessed was the Hex-core.
Something painfully human.
Jayce’s blood ran cold, all that meagre confidence dissipating, and he wasted no more time in yanking the door open.
“Viktor?” he called, head whipping from side to side, eyes squinting to adjust to the inky blackness and blinding blue that was strobing jarringly. The sounds of Viktor’s harsh, choking cough was only amplified without the barrier of the door, yet Jayce couldn’t make out anything in the strange flashing of the room.
Through the darkness and whirring and blinking light, Jayce’s eyes crawled along the scattered, crumpled papers covering the floor.
Then the stool, tipped on its side, a little way away from the dull glinting of Viktor’s cane – cast aside, alone. Jayce’s heart sank as he pointedly ignored the flashing Hex-core, and his eyes at last fell on his partner.
Viktor was crumpled on the floor, curled terrifyingly small, seizing, as the most awful, hacking coughs were torn from his shaking frame.
“Viktor,” he breathed, running to him and dropping to his knees in an instant, not caring one bit for the bruising sting that shot up through his knees when he landed beside him. Viktor was shaking violently, skin so pale and translucent in the eerie light from the uncontrolled Hex-core that was still doing whatever it was doing.
As a scientist, he should probably get on figuring out what had got it so riled up and fix it. But as a friend, all he could see was the crimson splattering the pristine tile of the floor, trickling from Viktor’s mouth. The red stark against the grey of his sallow face.
Scooping him up into his arms as effortlessly as if he were a pile of books, Jayce darted to one of the desks lining the walls and swiped all of its contents off it. Pencils and papers and books and gadgets clattered to the floor. Even in his frenzy, he laid his convulsing partner down as gently as he could and rolled him onto his side.
For just a second, hardly even noticeable, Viktor’s sunken eyes opened a crack. Jayce stared at the hint of weak amber that locked onto him, staring in horror as his entire body seemed to finally just freeze, and all he could do was watch as Viktor hurt.
He was so caught up in his own stupid fucking head that he almost missed Viktor’s trembling bony hand pointing to the drawer in the desk across from them.
Jayce gasped and whirled around to sprint across the small space. He tugged the drawer open and began rifling through it like a madman. It was their first-aid drawer: full of bandages, tape, scissors, rubbing alcohol, medication. So much medication – had there always been this much? Had Viktor been needing more recently? Had Jayce not noticed?
He shoved that thought away and tried to focus. He eventually found what he was looking for – the little makeshift oxygen-mask hidden at the back that they had created three years ago for this very scenario. It was meant to be a hypothetical one.
Back at Viktor’s side in seconds, Jayce bit back the burn of tears welling in his throat and his eyes as he placed the mask over Viktor’s mouth and nose. Viktor seized and grasped at Jayce’s wrists, eyes rolling back like a corpse. Jayce could hardly watch.
“God, Viktor,” he uttered stupidly, head hanging down as he listened to Viktor choke and wheeze into the mask, able to do nothing but hold it there and offer a useless hand to cautiously clamp over Viktor’s. It was so cold.
How had he been getting that bad without Jayce’s knowing?
Had he really been so blind to it?
Jayce’s knees threatened to give out beneath him as Viktor’s body began to slow its convulsions, and his guttural gags filtered into mere dry coughs. The rattles of his meek inhales between each one wracked at Jayce’s heart, and he found himself squeezing at Viktor’s fragile hands even harder.
He never should have been out tonight. That concert; the inconsequential business deals that meant so little now compared to the crushing gravity of them a few hours earlier. He should have been here.
After what felt like hundreds of long, terrifying, dragging minutes, Viktor fell quiet. Jayce opened his eyes and looked over him as he gingerly took the mask away from Viktor’s face. He looked so frail and thin – had he always been that thin? Had his skin always looked so worn? The etches of age beyond his years; had they always been there?
Or had Jayce missed all of that, too.
“Jayce,” a husky, hardly audible voice whispered. Jayce nodded tautly, a sad little excuse for a laugh falling from his lips as he crouched down beside the table, tossing the mask aside to hold both of Viktor’s hands in his.
Those gorgeous, ill, hazy, amber eyes.
“I’m here, V. I’m here,” was all he could say.
Viktor huffed a tragically miserable chuckle that nearly had him spluttering his guts all over the floor again. “What would I do without you?”
“Alright, drop the attitude,” Jayce laughed unsteadily, forehead resting against the biting cold of the table’s edge, the chill scorching Jayce’s searing headache. He found solace in just listening to Viktor’s patchy, insufficient breaths, no matter how raspy they sounded. At least he was breathing.
“The Hex-core,” Viktor breathed. Jayce squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head over and over again like it would make the damn thing disappear.
“We’ll figure it out later. Not right now.”
“No, Jayce—”
He was cut off by another cough. Jayce opened his eyes and willed himself to turn back and look at the Hex-core.
It was glowing a fierce purple, flickering dangerously, challengingly.
Maybe Jayce was going insane, but he accepted all too quickly. Grinding his teeth, Jayce got to his feet and stalked over to the shitty thing that had somehow caused whatever that was. He stopped short at the grotesque sight of thick blood splayed across the worktop, before scowling and shoving his hands into the controls of the mechanism.
“It is… purple,” he vaguely heard Viktor mumble behind him; always the scientist at heart, taking notes even on his deathbed, apparently.
He roughly pushed the hand-controls inwards and twisted the handles, and the glow of the Hex-core stuttered, then went dark. Jayce hurriedly strode to the light switch on the wall, flicked it on, and rushed back to Viktor’s side. He was staring, transfixed, at the Hex-core.
“Viktor,” Jayce said, voice unbearably wobbly, almost as if he was the one who’d just had a horrible coughing fit. Before he could think better of it, Jayce gently tipped Viktor’s chin up with his trembling fingers to wipe away the cruel stripe of blood drying on his lip. “What happened?”
Viktor looked up at Jayce, brows knitting as Jayce didn’t stop his tender, overwhelmingly concerned caress of Viktor’s lip.
“I got… frustrated,” was all he said. Jayce looked at him incredulously, thumb stilling.
“And it resulted in that?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Viktor’s eyes flashed and he reached up a hand to swat Jayce’s away, turning his head pointedly from his gaze. Jayce faltered, stepping back a little as Viktor put all his effort into propping himself up on his elbows. He winced at the movement, jaw visibly clenching and breath coming raspy and laboured.
Jayce opened his mouth to say something and reached out to help, but the glare thrown his was unmistakeable.
“Do not look at me like this.”
“Viktor, I—”
“I do not know what happened. Perhaps the stress got to me. Please do not think of this anymore.”
Jayce could have barked a laugh.
“Don’t think of this?” he repeated, bewildered. Viktor continued his futile endeavour in hauling himself upright, visibly shaking so violently, Jayce was tempted to try and reach out for him again. “Don’t think about the fact that I just walked in on you almost choking to death? How am I supposed to just brush over that?”
“Jayce,” Viktor snapped, voice venomous and eyes sharp. Jayce sighed gruffly, absently wandering backward to grab Viktor’s cane from the floor.
“I just don’t understand what happened. Why didn’t you tell me you were getting sick? How long has this… this coughing thing been happening?”
His eye caught on another splatter of blood and he shivered.
“I do not know. A while,” Viktor strained, finally upright with his legs dangling off the desk. Jayce walked back over and handed him his cane.
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” he rounded on him, gut twisting and heart throbbing. The thought hurt.
“Perhaps I did not think I had to,” Viktor hissed, pushing himself off of the desk and landing with a precarious wobble on his good leg. Jayce steadied him with an impulsive hand around his waist, leaning him up against his side. Viktor nodded at the couch across the room with an angry jerk of his chin, and Jayce began the task of hobbling them both in that direction. “I assumed the Man of Progress would be more observant. I suppose I assumed wrong.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not.”
“That’s not fair. I have had a lot going on, V.”
“Oh, have you now?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Viktor fell back onto the plush cushions of the couch with a grunt, wincing as his leg bent at an angle. Jayce bent down to smoothly lift it up and rest it on the tiny coffee table, seething.
Viktor didn’t say anything. Simply looked away, burying his chin in his palm. Jayce forced himself to take a moment to look away, breathing heavily through his nose as he dragged a hand down his face.
Memories of the past few weeks – maybe months – flashed through his head. Viktor had been leaning more heavily on his cane than usual. His skin had turned from that pretty, milky colour to patchy and grey. His chiselled face had turned sallow, his eyebags deep and gaze hollow. He had been coughing more.
All of this had registered in Jayce’s mind. He just hadn’t thought anything of it. Why hadn’t he thought anything of it?
He just needed to calm down. To sit and figure some of this out, then take Viktor to a doctor. He doubted the stubborn asshole had taken himself.
Jayce looked back over to Viktor slouched weakly on the couch, and stepped forward to join him.
“I don’t want to fight,” he tried, nudging Viktor’s good leg with his knee to make room for himself. Viktor sighed, eyes falling closed.
“Neither.”
“Okay. Okay, so let’s not,” Jayce nodded, still speaking too disjointedly, but feeling some of the terror and frustration simmer away into a meek steam inside him. Viktor still wasn’t looking at him, but that was okay. They were okay.
The silence hung thickly over them, but neither scrambled immediately to shove it away. Jayce just sat, listening to Viktor’s ragged breaths, trying to breathe himself. Absently, he placed a jittering hand on Viktor’s knee, index tapping mindlessly away at the joint as it so often did whenever they were working on something that had them both stumped. Viktor never commented on that – Jayce’s strangely natural seeking of contact whatever the situation. He always just let Jayce’s finger tap irritatingly on his knee until the equation was solved or the mechanism was fixed.
“What happened?” he found himself asking after a while. Viktor’s shoulders twitched in a way that could only loosely be described as a shrug.
“I was trying to figure out why the Hex-core was not responding to my teachings.”
Jayce leaned forward. “Your teachings?”
“Yes. What I said earlier about it learning. Responding to outside stimuli. I was—” Viktor cut his quickening ramble off with a dry cough, leaning forward with a grimace and thumping roughly at his chest. Jayce moved to help, but was waved off. “I am fine. I was trying to get it to learn a certain rune pattern that corresponded with the outburst we saw from it last week.”
“Right,” Jayce said slowly, rubbing at his chin. “And it wasn’t working?”
Viktor hummed, face scrunching.
“I got angry,” he admitted quietly. Jayce nodded, finger slowing its tapping. “I am getting more and more angry these days.”
Jayce’s breath caught. When he next spoke, it was quiet; sad.
“You’ve been getting sicker. V, why didn’t you tell me?”
Viktor looked away.
“I do not know.”
“You know I’d never judge you for it. Or pity you or— or think any less of you, right?” Jayce said with a desperate little laugh, hoping desperately that his partner found the idea as ludicrous as he did. Viktor didn’t move. Jayce felt that gaping pit in his stomach widen.
“Viktor,” he said hoarsely, pushing himself off the cushions to crouch down on the floor before this incredible, intelligent, beautiful person, peering hard into his sullen eyes. “I have so much respect for the work you do and the person that you are.”
Viktor cringed, face twisting as he looked away. Jayce shook his head, willing him to just listen.
“You are the most extraordinary man I think I have ever met, and I need you to understand that. To believe me.”
Viktor looked back into his eyes – just for a brief moment.
“Yes well, that is hard to believe when I cannot stop hacking up a lung every time something does not go my way,” Viktor grumbled, voice clipped. Jayce bit his lip, hands resting gingerly on Viktor’s outstretched leg. It tensed under his palm.
“Nothing you could do would ever make me respect you any less. Or like you any less,” Jayce said around the lump in his throat. He hoped, by the look in Viktor’s eyes, wide and evaluating, that he was picking up what Jayce was trying to shoddily lay down.
“I like you so much, V.” He swallowed with a terrified smile. “I love you. I’m alive because of you.” Jayce fidgeted with the warmth at the back of his neck, glancing down as he forced his voice to remain steady. He didn’t need another mortifying voice crack to ruin whatever breakable, petrifying, hopeful kind of atmosphere he’d somehow managed to design.
“You have been here for me since day one— and I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you when you’ve needed me.”
He heard the teardrop plink against Viktor’s leg brace before he even knew he was crying. Viktor saw it to, but didn’t say anything about it. He just stared at Jayce, eyes wide but still so closed off. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.
Jayce waited. He would wait until the end of the world.
“Jayce, I do not—” Viktor finally began, voice rough around the edges. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I do not know why I have not told you. I am sorry.”
“That’s okay! We’ll go to the doctor this evening and get you checked out. I’m sure we can—”
“No,” Viktor cut him off sharply. The words died on Jayce’s lips. “No, not that.”
Before Jayce could move to dig deeper, Viktor was leaning down. His long, trembling fingers curled around Jayce’s dishevelled lapels and pulled him upward with more force than a sickly, skinny, post-coughing-fit guy should probably have. Jayce’s breath caught, completely freezing as he zoned in belatedly on Viktor’s eyes, a mere inch from his.
Serious and scared and honest.
Then flicking down to his thin, chapped lips. He could feel Viktor’s cold, faint breath mixing gingerly with his own. Could smell the delicate, metallic tang of blood on his lip. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the rapid rapping of a heartbeat – from who, he couldn’t tell.
Viktor waited for a moment more, hesitating as he swallowed, eyes darting uncertainly down to Jayce’s mouth in a silent question.
And if the way Jayce surged forward to meet him the rest of the way wasn’t a very clear answer, he didn’t know what was.
He felt Viktor gasp softly under his lips, before all but melting into the tender touch with a wobbling sigh. A surprisingly sure hand cupped Jayce’s jaw, thumb running sweetly over his cheekbone, still damp with sweat and tears. Jayce tilted his head into the palm, kissing gently at Viktor’s bottom lip with all the caution and care he had left in him.
This is what he had been missing with Mel.
It wasn’t her fault – she was stunning and tempting and very good at everything she did. But she wasn’t Viktor.
She wasn’t sarcastic and witty in her cynical quips, tongue sharp and quick to point out any flaw with zero tact. She wasn’t irritable when she got tired and frustrated, or hilariously delirious when the exhaustion hit and she’d start making ridiculously unfunny jokes that she’d predictably roll her eyes at later.
She didn’t drink coffee by the barrel, or roll and twirl pencils around her fingers with the impressive artistry of a magician. Her face didn’t scrunch adorably into a little pout when she was stuck on something, or split into that blinding, radiant grin when she figured it out.
She wasn’t vulnerable and truthful when they spoke about their pasts or their futures. She wasn’t that perfect blend of sympathetic and hopeful and realistic and never too patronising.
She didn't have that serene, peaceful look washed across her features when Jayce finally convinced her to take a nap on the lab couch. The delicate flutter of eyes closed in a light sleep, lips cracked open, breathing softly, revealing that crooked little front tooth.
Mel Medarda was a lot of astonishing things. But, Jayce decided, as Viktor swiped at another tear that slid quietly down his burning cheek, mouth moving so tenderly and languidly against his own – fitting perfectly, like the missing piece to his ongoing puzzle – she could never be this.
This was what Jayce had been missing, for so long now. He had no idea how he hadn’t realised sooner.
All too soon, Viktor pulled back a little; he chuckled as Jayce knelt up to chase his closeness. Resting his forehead against Jayce’s, his eyes remained lightly closed as his croaky breath still faltered. Jayce rubbed small, comforting circles into his knees, gnawing at his own lip to stop it from quivering so much with the restrained force of the stupid tears still prickling at his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Viktor breathed. Jayce huffed a short laugh, nodding tightly.
“More than okay,” he managed, opening his eyes to look at his partner. “Promise.”
He found Viktor’s dazzling, sharp, ochre eyes already studying him, flitting between both eyes in a desperate search for something Jayce couldn’t decipher.
Jayce just turned his head into Viktor’s palm, pressing a kiss to the frigid, smooth skin there.
Viktor sniffed, looking away with a grim look.
“I hate that it is inevitable that I will disappoint you.”
Jayce watched his face flick through about a million different complex patterns and emotions, a sense of dread dripping into his stomach. But after a long moment, he smiled and shook his head, lifting his hand to card his fingers through the overgrown, feathery hairs at the nape of his partner’s neck.
“Viktor, you are my favourite person,” he stated. “You could never disappoint me.”
Viktor’s eyes sharpened.
“Not even if I were to die tomorrow? Or in a week?”
Jayce blinked, at a loss, stomach dropping.
Viktor sighed.
“Never mind. Silly thought,” he murmured bitterly. Jayce couldn’t help but feel he’d missed something. Something important.
Viktor kindly but clearly pushed Jayce away a little, stretching his leg with a small groan. Jayce sat back on his heels, mind reeling, but didn’t say anything as Viktor hazily moved to stand. What did that mean? Tomorrow? In a week? Was that some kind of badly timed joke?
But Viktor just grabbed his cane and leaned heavily on it with a yawn, face falling back into one of practised nonchalance as he cocked a small smile down at Jayce.
“Thank you,” he said, holding out a hand. “This has been… eventful. And eye-opening. Let us go to the doctor. Get a diagnosis on this.” He tapped vaguely at his Adam’s apple. “Then we can figure out how to move forward.”
Jayce nodded, taking his hand and pulling himself up, mostly by himself. The hand didn’t help him in that tiny endeavour – but sue him for just wanting to hold it for the sake of holding it.
Thankfully, Viktor didn’t let go either.