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Chapter Text

Viktor woke up with a throbbing head and the desire to throw up all over himself. The ground he was lying on was cold and rusty and the air was almost enough to make him fall into a fit of coughs. It was dusty and heavy and reminded him so painfully of his childhood, for a second he was seven years old and had simply hallucinated his life. Being picked up by a rich Piltovan who saw your potential had been a fantasy of many children.

There was somebody else in the room with him, light snoring and faint mumbling and Viktor risked leaning up to look around.

They were clearly in the Undercity (he had just been in Piltover on his way back to his room, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the-), the ceiling was leaking, the structure of the room seemed instable as if everything was about to fall into itself and the ground looked like it had never been clean before. Viktor was lying on a ratty pull-out couch, springs digging into his back and he held back a hiss when his spine complained.

There, at a desk that looked like it had been made from randomized parts, slept a man with his head on his arms, his eyebrows furrowed. Viktor remembered him, the brief flash of his half determined, half panicked face, before he had rammed a syringe into Viktor’s neck, knocking him out cold. At least the lack of bruises on his body meant that he hadn’t let him fall to the ground.

Well this was certainly a development. If the man hoped to kidnap an academy student for ransom money he had chosen the worst target. Viktor almost laughed at that. Though, maybe Heimerdinger would pay his ransom. Had it been a targeted attack then, to kidnap the undercity cripple whose disappearance wouldn’t cause any waves?

He quietly swung his legs off the couch before realizing that his ankle had been handcuffed to the leg of the couch. He watched the man who had kidnapped him for any movement before digging his hand into the fibers of the couch until he could feel a spring. With deft fingers he pulled it out and straightened it before turning towards the lock of his handcuffs. It was a piltovan pair, looking like an enhanced version of the ones Enforcers carried, which were harder to crack than the ones found in the undercity. Viktor had never opened a lock like this before. In his childhood he had enjoyed picking small locks from abandoned houses though, just to see if he could. It shouldn't be too hard.

The lock didn't open. Frustrated, he twisted and turned the spring, nervosity growing. Great. His kidnapper had given him the best chance to escape and here he was, fumbling it. Not only would running away be much harder for him on account of, well, not being able to run, but he also had to go and suck at lockpicking.

“Are you quite done yet?”

Viktor startled so hard, he dropped his makeshift lockpicking tool, feeling very foolish. His kidnapper had woken up, god knew how long ago, and was staring at Viktor, chin on his hand and a weary exhaustion around him, very different from the man who had kidnapped him. He looked bedraggled, greasy hair hanging in his eyes and a beard that desperately needed a shave, but there was something familiar about him that tickled at the back of Viktor’s mind. His cane was in the man’s hand as he absent-mindedly drummed his fingers along the wood. His most striking feature were four gem-like spots on his forehead, an opulent accessoire that didn't seem to fit the messy state he was in.

“If it’s ransom money you want, I can assure you, you have selected the wrong person.”

The man stood up and came closer and Viktor flinched, scrambling back on the couch at the closing proximity.

“Calm down,” the man said gruffly and raised the hand holding his cane- there, dangling on his pointer finger was a bundle of keys.

He knelt down and grabbed his leg and Viktor held painfully still when he felt his restraints loosen and fall away. The man released the cuff from the pipe and clipped it to his belt, Viktor’s leg still in his hand. Only when he looked up and met Viktor’s wide eyes, his pinched face, did he let go, raising his hands. There was an air of grief around him as if he was seconds away from bursting into tears. He held out Viktor’s cane which he took carefully, relieved to have the familiar weight back. Maybe plan Run Away was not a complete bust.

“Sorry, I panicked when I saw you, I just- fuck, look at you! You're so- so healthy!”

It unsettled him that the stranger genuinely meant that. Healthy had never been a word used to describe Viktor. Maybe he needed glasses.

The man’s hands raised, framing Viktor’s face without touching him and Viktor leaned away, all muscles tense at the gentleness of the gesture. The stranger looked crushed, fingers twitching uselessly in the empty air before sacking back to his sides, motionless. His lips were trembling, his eyes unfocused.

“What is it you want from me?” Viktor asked, confused and disturbed at the man’s behavior. Freeing your kidnappee was not usually how these situations played out.

The stranger frowned. “You don't recognize me?”

An eyebrow raised, Viktor observed the man, his shaggy appearance, his dirty, bloody clothing, his overgrown beard, the slight mania in his eyes. “Am I supposed to?”

The stranger leaned closer and Viktor stood up from the couch, as straight as he could, refusing to cower. In the undercity being pitied didn't save your life, it simply made you an easier target.

“It's me. Jayce.”

His second eyebrow joined the first. “You seem to confuse me with somebody.”

For a moment the stranger seemed to stop completely, his erratic movements, his breaths, even his heartbeat. Life flowed back like a siphon.

“Fuck,” he screamed, punching the wall beside him and Viktor took a step away from the couch, disturbed by the sudden outburst. “What year is it- how- how old are you even?! You don't remember me? You don't know- you don't know me?! Why?! Why would you send me here when you didn't even know me?!”

Viktor inched away, eyes not leaving the panting form of the man as he approached the exit. “You got the wrong person. I've certainly never done anything to elicit this kind of… greeting.”

His cane slipped and a metallic echo rang through the room. In dismay he watched as the man unfurled to look at him, eyes narrowing when he saw how close he was to the exit. Viktor raised his hand as a show of defeat.

The stranger reached him in just a few, long strides and grabbed his arm, hauling him close. Viktor cursed internally when he landed on his bad leg and he glared up, hand curling around the handle of his cane in case there was a perfect moment to knock out the man.

“How old are you?” the stranger asked again and shook him slightly. Clearly insane. Viktor had been kidnapped by an insane guy.

Someone must have noticed the shaggy man carrying around his unconscious body. Someone must have seen him, must have recognized Viktor. Even if everybody saw him as an undercity rat that didn't deserve his position, he was still a student of the academy. Heimerdinger would be notified, so even if Viktor wasn't able to escape on his own, help couldn't be too far away.

“Twenty-two,” he replied evenly and watched the color drain out of the man’s face.

“Why?” he whispered, broken. “Why did you send me this far back?”

“What is this about?” Viktor asked, curiosity brimming despite the situation. The man didn't carry himself like somebody from the undercity and his clothes were too finely made, too expensive. He didn't look like any of the older students from the academy Viktor knew or any of the professors. There was something familiar about his features but nothing he could put a finger on.

“I- the future- you sent me back to- to I don’t know, fix everything I guess, I don't know why you did it, I thought- I thought you were happy with me but you sent me back to fix everything and you sent me back too far and- no, it shouldn't matter, right? I can still change- I can still-” Something in his gaze hardened in resolution as his grip on Viktor’s wrist tightened. “The world as we know it is going to be unrecognizable in a decade. War, destruction, Piltover razed to the ground. And you're in the middle of it. I was, as it seems, sent back to fix everything that went wrong and you're going to help me save the world.”

He was serious. This man, Jayce, was serious. Viktor felt his mouth dry at the pure certainty in his voice. He raised his eyebrows. “Bit dramatic, don't you think?”

“Bit-” Jayce let him go to run shaking fingers through tangled hair. “God, I forgot how infuriating you could be.”

If anything, Viktor could endeavor to be more infuriating. As a kidnappee he felt surprisingly calm. He should be more scared, a kidnapper with a nonsensical motif was more dangerous than someone who only wanted ransom money.

“Listen,” he said and put his palms together, looking up at the tower of a man in front of him. As if the gods were laughing in his face that he couldn't run anyway, his kidnapper had to be a guy who looked like he could bench press him with one arm. Which meant he had to rely on his words, which equally was a nightmare. Viktor was as much a man of words as he was of athleticism. If Piltovans didn't find him abrasive and rude then they thought his dry wit mildly amusing in the way one smiled at a dog chasing its own tail. “There seems to be a misunderstanding. If it's a specific academy student you’re searching for, I can help you find them when you bring me back.”

Jayce only looked even more annoyed. Well, there went plan Use-Your-Words.

“I've been searching for you. For a guy with a cane you're slippery as hell.”

“So,” Viktor drifted off and tapped his fingertips together, “ransom money then? A dig at Heimerdinger? Did he refuse to sponsor some unethical experiment and now you're searching for revenge? Rather cliche if you ask me.”

“Since when were you so mouthy,” Jayce muttered and looked down at him through squinted eyes. He straightened and crossed his arms, much too regal for a man who looked like his shower missed him. “Magic can be harnessed through science.”

Viktor tilted his head, interest piqued despite the implausibility, despite how clearly insane his kidnapper was. “You can't harness magic. It's an innate power you have to be born with.”

Jayce stepped back and reached for his weapon, a butterfly-shaped hammer with intricate carvings. It was unlike anything Viktor had ever seen before, somehow organic despite its sharp edges as if the creator had been inspired by a hornet’s nest. The direness of the situation kicked back in full gear when Jayce raised his weapon, pointing it in his direction, and he stumbled back. It opened up, revealing a rainbow core, pure power gathering inside, sucking air like a tornado. It was a beautiful sight, raw energy, magic, summoned by the hand of a human.

“Wait,” Viktor yelled. He threw himself to the side, landing heavily on his arm as magic tore past him, ripping a hole into the wall behind him. Viktor was left with his hands over his head, staring wide-eyed at the hammer that powered down again, heavily breathing and heart pounding like galloping horses, hard enough to hurt. There was a tingle in the air that smelled of power and knowledge, static so strong, it made his metal braces vibrate.

Jayce let it fall to the ground and leaned onto the handle, looking down at him with the most punchable face Viktor had ever experienced, and he had seen a lot of punchable faces in his life. Mainly ones that couldn't be punched without consequences.

“There. Believe me now?” He waited for Viktor’s answer but only got heavy breathing and choked noises. “Oh come on, V, I didn't even aim for you! I just… wanted to show it to you. I thought you'd want to- to see it.”

And despite his fear, strong enough to make him nauseous, there was an excited thrum in his chest, amazement that made his head feel hot and his fingers tingle, his entire body screaming to see it again, this magic, this science thought impossible.

“Astounding,” Viktor breathed, gasping from the near death experience. He got up on trembling legs, hand squeezing his cane dangerously, and stepped towards the stranger who looked more confused the closer he came. Viktor knelt down, keeping weight off his bad leg and studied the hammer, rubbing his chin in concentration. “An object that can harness the arcane, controlled by human hand. This kind of feat- it's groundbreaking! The creations that could be made to help humanity-”

A broken chuckle sounded above him and he startled when he realized that he was kneeling right before the man who had kidnapped and almost murdered him. It would be smart to get out of eyesight, not set him off again, but on the other hand- this hammer was the most interesting thing he had ever seen in his entire life.

“You haven't changed at all.” Something in the man’s voice was wrecked.

“The future,” Viktor mused, now more inclined to believe him. He could simply be a crazy man who had managed to unlock powers never witnessed before, then again, the familiarity of his face nagged at the back of his mind. “You claim to know me. In your supposed future.”

“You like sweet milk,” Jayce said and Viktor startled. “You hate taking off your leg brace because it takes so long and forces you to bend forward too much and when it rains your back starts hurting more which puts you in a cranky mood. When you were young you once built a boat because you became obsessed with fixing things because you hoped to fix yourself one day, you take way too much sugar in your coffee and then complain about how it makes your teeth hurt, you hate eating, showering and going to the toilet because it interrupts your work, you snore really loudly, you click your pen several times when you get an idea or when you're thinking, you have a recurring nightmare in which you can't move for several hours, in about five years you'll try some Holdrum food and you'll love it, you hate the theater because you think it's a waste of time even though you've never seen a play and in ten years you'll find out that you don't have long to live.”

“Ah,” Viktor said blankly, his mind reeling. His hand dropped off the hammer. Death. He shouldn't be surprised. Kids from the undercity with his condition did not survive for long, if anything he had overstayed his welcome. He was a pale ghost walking around, only dissolved hopes and dreams keeping him breathing. “Some of that sounds correct, yes. However, most simply make you sound like a very determined stalker.”

“Stalker-!” Jayce rubbed his face, fluffing up his beard. “I tell you you’re going to die and that the world is ending in the future and this is how you react? Incredible, just- god!”

“Well, you did kidnap me.” Viktor stood up with a grunt and leaned on his cane. There had been a man with Jayce’s exact face shape, about a decade younger, vaguely in his memory. A Talis boy, around Viktor’s age. Incredibly confident and arrogant- though that was understandable from what Viktor had heard of his skills. Arrogance was only foolish if there was nothing to back it up. That boy could have been Jayce’s younger brother. Or his younger self, if Jayce wasn’t just madly raving. “What does this have to do with me anyway to the point you thought it necessary to take me? Out of all the scientists and inventors you could have gone to, your own younger self, why me?”

“Because we both invented it together,” Jayce said, looking over his shoulder into the past. “In two years.”

Oh. He had harnessed the arcane. They both had reached into the impossible and had managed to bend it to their will. Viktor had always felt stagnant, even as the Dean’s assistant, even as one of the most promising pupils of the academy, he had felt useless, like he was simply floating through the motions. And here Jayce was, telling him that he had accomplished what nobody else ever had. It sounded too good to be true.

“So you got me here to- what? Recreate what you already built? What help can I provide, what knowledge, that you don't have yet? I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I did most of the work.”

Jayce lifted the hammer and came closer until they were standing almost chest to chest. Viktor regarded him with forced calmness, raised his head so that he didn't have to look up too much and didn't blink under Jayce’s scrutiny. Finally Jayce huffed and looked away. He reached behind Viktor and let the hammer fall onto the metal table behind him.

“You're right, I could probably rebuild the hexcore in my sleep. You ended up fusing with it, and- fuck, our inventions almost destroyed the world, Viktor. So I need you. You and I are going to make sure magic can never fall into the hands of humans again. We’ll analyze the wild rune and create a magic barrier that leaves all of the arcane untouchable by anyone who wants to harness it. The arcane chose you. As its conduit, for some- for some godforsaken reason. I won't let it have you.”

“So what was the problem?” Viktor asked. “I seemed to have possessed powers beyond our wildest imagination. Was that not enough to stop the war? Why stop innovation?”

A choked laugh escaped Jayce, mocking and shrill. He leaned forward until he could corner Viktor into the table, both hands caging him in as he grinned at him with manic energy. Viktor’s breath stopped for a moment, reminded again that this wasn't just a chat between two scientists.

“Vitya,” he said, the endearing nickname making Viktor flinch, “you're the one who destroyed everything. You're not the savior here.”

Ah.

Well, that was unexpected. Viktor tried to imagine himself as a harbinger of destruction and pulled a blank. From the day he had been born he had only wanted to better people’s lives and now here was a supposed time traveler who told him the opposite. Destruction. War. Death. Had it been his diagnosis, only having little time to live? Had that sent his future self over the edge, the fear of mortality, of a life cut short right in the middle of it?

Viktor didn't want to die. A future version of him, drunk on the high of harnessing magic, probably wanted to die even less.

Everyone had always treated him like he would die soon. Some had treated him like he was fragile for that. Others had treated him as if he was expandable, not worth remembering, as if existence was only noteworthy if it meant to stay.

With a deep breath he took all his turbulent emotions and pressed them down, down into a box in his mind until he was ready to deal with them later, and if that was never then that was only his business alone. He lifted his cane and pushed Jayce away with it, his closeness, his assessing, calculating gaze too much to bear.

“What if I say no?” Viktor asked, already aware that he would do everything in his power to prevent the future this harrowed man had come from, that the thought of magic in the hands of humans was too tantalizing not to follow.

Jayce gave him a tired grin. “It's cute you think you have a choice.”

-

The lab was run down and dirty, the place seemingly abandoned by everything except for the few rats scurrying around. Viktor had become too used to the luxury of Piltover. This place was uncomfortable, somehow leaving him feeling exposed and claustrophobic at the same time.

The equipment however was new and expensive and probably stolen. It looked out of place, shiny and white. Jayce had been busy before he had kidnapped him.

“When did you arrive here?” he asked, tongue burning with the desire to know more about time travel. Magic. The arcane. So much knowledge, at the tips of his fingers and only an impatient madman standing in between.

“Two days ago. Took a while to set this up.”

Viktor let out a pensive noise as he sat down gingerly on a chair, his leg aching from his short tumble to the ground.

“How?” he wanted to know. “How did you come here? How could you bend time to your will?”

Jayce studied him for a moment before heaving the hammer in front of them. Its engravings were mesmerizing, patterns nonsensical at first but arranged in a way in which he knew there was a mathematical sequence behind it. Their first goal was to study the weapon, apparently having emerged from the wild rune changed, its form adapted.

“How about this,” Jayce proposed, “after every small discovery we make, I’ll answer one question of yours.”

Viktor raised his brows. “You're dangling knowledge in front of me as a reward?”

“Is it working?”

Viktor made a so-so gesture with his hand. “A little bit.”

“Great.” Jayce grabbed a chair and sat down beside Viktor, close enough for their thighs to touch. “Then let's start.”

-

Research was slow and Jayce was everything but a comfortable partner to work with. Sometimes Viktor could see the glimpses of the man his future self had seemed to like, at least enough to work with him for several years. It was in the way they could work together in tandem, in which Jayce sometimes seemed to be able to read his mind. In other times however he was pure poison, whatever this future Viktor had done enough to turn him into a boiling pot, a constant heat underneath his skin that threatened to flow over.

Viktor knew, when Jayce looked at him, he didn't see him, not really. He saw the man who had destroyed the world, the man who had once been his friend and then his enemy. It made it easier to ignore his barbed comments, his pained bitterness. Viktor wouldn't turn into the monster Jayce had seen.

“Your strife for perfection caused all this. You became a monster, Viktor.”

“You were a fool who didn't know to hold back until it was too late.”

“You attacked me. Threatened my loved ones.”

“Your illogical drive turned you into the loneliest creature.”

“You're nothing but a man afraid of his own body.”

Viktor could deal with contempt, he could deal with veiled insults and not so veiled ones. But whenever Jayce remembered that the other version of Viktor had once been his friend, when he became soft and fond and warm, then it became harder to dislike him. Pity described it more, whenever Viktor found him staring, whenever Jayce caught himself standing too close and immediately forced himself away from Viktor, whenever he absent-mindedly snorted at one of Viktor’s quips, whenever his fingertips lingered a bit too long on his arms, his shoulders. Whenever he slipped up and called him Vitya.

The first day of research was rough and Viktor in his twenty-two years of living felt woefully inadequate beside Jayce, a decade older and with swathes more experience. Jayce had to explain concepts that were probably basic for him, and while Viktor knew he was smart, knew he soaked up every piece of knowledge Jayce provided, it still made him feel restless, his pride burning. Being mentored by Heimerdinger was different- Jayce was meant to be his equal. Viktor didn't feel like an equal, he felt like an inexperienced student with no reason for being here.

Jayce stayed patient, not one bit annoyed when Viktor asked another question. While explaining scientific concepts he seemed at his calmest, most genuine. All sarcastic bitterness dropped, instead revealing a man who loved science and discovery as much as Viktor did. If this was how it had been for his older self he understood why he had chosen this man as his partner. Passion. The one thing binding all great scientists together.

So he grit his teeth and continued. He would catch up to Jayce in no time and could actually start trying to figure out the secrets of the hammer.

-

The room had no windows and the sky of the undercity was too consumed by smog and smoke anyway to see the sun, so he only realized it was probably night when they both were swaying on their feet, barely able to keep their eyes open. A loud grumble disrupted the silence they had been working in and Viktor realized suddenly that his stomach was trying to gnaw a hole through him.

“I'll get us actual food tomorrow,” Jayce said and passed him a granola bar. He stretched, cracking all bones in his back. “We should sleep for now.”

Viktor chomped down the bar in two bites and loosened from his hunch, slowly uncurling his shoulders to allow his spine to move. He massaged his leg and shook out any numbness.

“You'll let me go back home?” he asked.

“And risk you running?” Jayce was still stretching and Viktor caught a glimpse of something shiny on his wrist.

“Running is a nice word.”

Jayce rolled his eyes. “I can't risk you backing out. Or Heimerdinger finding out.”

Viktor looked around the room, the ratty couch, the moldy walls and felt distinctly piltovan at his disgust. In his childhood the state of this room wouldn't have made him flinch, but the thought of the mold in the air made his lungs contract.

“I'm too invested now to escape. If we really were friends you would know that.”

Jayce kept shaking his head, more frantic. He stepped closer as if proximity would make Viktor understand his side. “I can't risk it. I can't- I can't risk you leaving again.”

Great. “So you'll keep me here until we figure out how to keep magic away from human touch? A feat that might take years? Are you sure you thought this through?”

“Viktor.” Jayce’s eyes were unblinking, staring right through him. He was leaning over him, close enough that Viktor could feel the warmth radiating off his body. “Please.”

“Why even hide in some undercity room? I could get us into labs that won't give us toxic mold syndrome-”

“I said no.”

Viktor tensed and grit his teeth, feeling anger flare at the sheer audacity. “Jayce. Am I your partner or your captive?”

Jayce stepped behind him and Viktor flinched violently when there were hands on his back, his waist, pulling him up. He hissed at the sudden movement. The worst thing was that despite the manhandling, his touch was still gentle as if he didn't know how not to treat him with softness.

“You are whatever is needed to keep the future safe.”

How reassuring. Call him naive, but despite the kidnapping, the threats and Jayce’s general unhinged aura, he had thought that there was enough affection left for his future version not to be treated like cargo, like a machine one could put into the corner of the room and turn it off and on whenever it was needed. There was something distinctly dehumanizing about that thought.

Jayce turned around, Viktor in tow and began to walk towards the couch. “He died to send me here, I won't ruin this.”

“Hey-” Viktor cursed, involuntarily leaning more weight against Jayce when he was forced to walk on his bad leg. He reached his hand towards the desk, “my cane!”

Jayce stopped. His eyes were wide, looking blankly into nothing. He turned around and grabbed the cane in quick steps that would have taken Viktor much longer and pressed it into his fingers, the gesture hasty, apologetic. His hands lingered over Viktor’s, his breath was shaky and he shut his eyes, bending forward until their foreheads touched.

“Sorry,” he whispered, feverish. “My Viktor, he rid himself of all that made him human, but you- you’re imperfect, humanity is imperfect-”

Viktor hit him across the head with his cane, interrupting his speech. The closeness had felt too intimate and he wanted no part of it. “Thanks,” he said, sarcasm as a shield against the suffocating air. “I’m very well aware of that.”

Jayce flinched back and ripped his eyes open as if remembering where he was. Wild irises flittered over Viktor’s form, his still raised cane, before coming back to a rest on his eyes. Something in him looked disappointed, grieving. It hardened into bitterness.

Jayce pulled him towards the couch, letting him use his cane, and unceremoniously pushed him and he fell into the cushion with a yelp, coughing when dust exploded around him. “You,” he said with teary, dusty eyes as he held his sleeve in front of his mouth and nose, “are the worst.”

“I've seen the worst the world has to offer,” Jayce said as he grabbed his non-damaged leg and snapped the cuff around it. Viktor let himself slump into the couch, defeated. He suddenly felt tired enough to sleep for several days. “Believe me, I don't even rank top ten.”

“Good night, Jayce,” Viktor snarled.

A blanket hit him in the face. He didn’t push it away, staying there to lie in his misery.

“Get some sleep.” Jayce’s voice lost the edge, becoming more awkward, hesitant. As if any supposed regret could make up for his treatment. He sighed. “Tomorrow will be another long day.”

Whatever. Jayce couldn't possibly intend to keep him here for longer and for now Viktor was content to stay here and work on figuring out magic anyway. It was okay.

”Good night,” he repeated.

Steps receded. The light flickered out.

-

“I'm sorry,” Jayce whispered into the darkness of the night. “My Viktor, he- he didn’t need a cane or a crutch anymore. And you're less reliant on it than my Viktor before I- before he merged with the hexcore. I forgot- I forgot how he used to be those first days. My Viktor- in his search for perfection he never realized that his imperfections were what made him Viktor. What made him the man I-” Jayce broke off.

Viktor didn’t reply. He let the air fill with suffocating silence, until Jayce’s awkward shuffling stopped, until his breaths evened out.

When he was sure that Jayce was asleep he turned to his side and grabbed his bad leg, bitterly digging his fingers into it. A crutch. Not a cane anymore. It would get worse, so much worse, and the only certainty in his future was death. His body would fail him, even worse, decay while he was still alive.

With shaking fingers he ran his hands over his face, his hair, and pulled until the pain was able to bring him back from the brink of a panic attack.

-

Viktor woke up, his back aching, and rolled his shoulders, groaning in pain. His spine had gotten worse recently which might have been due to the long nights spent over his books and inventions. It wasn't like lying down and resting like his doctors suggested was in any way possible for his constantly racing mind though.

When he looked around the only light came from the faint glow of the hammer. The lack of sunlight made it impossible to know what time it was but he felt well rested enough to assume it had been more than seven hours.

“Jayce?” he called. Nobody answered. Frowning, he sat up. “Jayce?!”

The room was empty. Jayce had slept in the same room (somewhere on the ground even though Viktor was very sure he could easily get another mattress inside), he had heard his light snoring before falling asleep, but now he couldn't hear anything except for his own, heavy breath.

“Jayce!” he yelled and rattled at the chain on his ankle. It echoed throughout the room and Viktor held still, suddenly scared to gain the attention of anyone else from the undercity who might be around. If someone broke in and took the hammer, there was nothing Viktor could do about it.

Jayce couldn't have left him, couldn't have left the hammer, right? There was no way. Viktor pulled at the chain and felt distinctly pathetic.

He reached towards the makeshift lockpicking tool he had dropped yesterday and began his attempts to free himself again. When that didn't work he tried to destroy the pipe. When that didn't work he tried to reach any of the tools on the desk, unable to keep weight on his bad leg and instead falling to the ground. When that didn't work he tried to bash in the cuff with a piece of metal.

By the time heavy footsteps sounded, the door opened and the light flickered on he had somehow managed to work himself into a frenzy, paranoia making him throw the piece of metal right into the face of the man.

“Hey-!” Jayce ducked, arms filled with bags, staring wide-eyed at Viktor. “Did something happen, what-”

“Where were you.”

Jayce straightened at Viktor’s cold tone and studied him, lying on the floor, fingers gripping at the chain trapping him. “I went to get food from Piltover. I've eaten insects, salamanders and worms for nearly a year and really needed some actual food.”

Deep breaths. In and out. Put it in a box and push it down. Jayce was just feeding them. No need to get angry over that.

“If you leave again without telling me,” Viktor breathed through resentment building, “I will be very displeased.”

Jayce had the decency to look guilty. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn't wanna wake you. My Viktor- he had problems sleeping the last years.”

Viktor deflated and sighed, hating himself when he felt his resentment drain. “Am I going to be punished for my future self’s actions for the rest of our partnership?”

Jayce looked stricken. “I'm not punishing you.”

Viktor gave him a thin smile. “In all the times you've looked at me, spoken to me, have you ever not been clouded by a vision of the future?”

Jayce didn’t answer. He put down his bags and closed the door. In a few strides he was beside Viktor, immediately freeing him from the cuff. Viktor pulled back and got onto his unsteady feet, watching Jayce with wary eyes. Jayce stayed wordless.

Viktor sighed, tired. “Let's just start our work.”

-

“Did you get me a toothbrush-”

“Bottom of the bag. Bathroom is the room to your right. If you want hot water we have to heat it first though.”

“And-”

“Yes, I also got you floss, you hygiene-obsessed freak. The minty one you like.”

Viktor rummaged around a bit before taking one of the toothbrushes in hesitant fingers. Soft bristles and electric, just like his own. The dental floss was exactly the one he preferred. Now that was just annoying. Being so intimately known by someone who still eluded him.

“You don't know the pain of growing up with bad dental hygiene. Teeth don't have the habit of healing.”

“No,” Jayce admitted quietly. Then, hesitantly, as if it was the first time he spoke about it, “I have, however, not been able to brush my teeth for several months recently. Honestly, I'm shocked they're fine.”

“You need the floss more than I do then.” Viktor let out a huff. “Eating salamanders and not being able to brush your teeth? What happened?”

Jayce ran a hand through his long hair. “Got sent into the future. Fell into a ravine. Couldn't get out for a while.”

The future and then the past. Time seemed to like using Jayce as a paddle ball. “The future’s future sounds terrible.”

“Tell me about it,” Jayce snorted. He grabbed his toothbrush, frowned, then picked up the floss.

-

“Your back brace isn't calibrated correctly,” Jayce muttered when Viktor stretched, grunting at the pain in his spine. He clarified at Viktor’s blank look, “We realized a few days after we met each other. It's strung too tightly and shifted wrong and now it's not supporting your body enough. Back then I had no idea what I was doing but you still trusted me enough to help you.”

With a considering hum, Viktor reached behind himself, under his shirt, to feel along his brace. It didn't feel different than usual, but if he concentrated enough, it wasn’t perfectly aligned to his body. “I had a checkup a few days ago.”

Jayce snorted. “And we all know how much piltovan doctors care about you.” He gestured with his hand. “Want me to, you know, help you?”

Viktor wouldn't be able to reach the adjustments in his back. Jayce seemed to be in his gentler mood now, so he gave him a curt nod and turned around, taking off his shirt after only a moment of hesitation. How disconcerting, to show this much trust towards somebody who had kidnapped him. By all means, turning his back to him, letting him adjust his brace, was idiotic bordering on insanity.

Jayce’s hands were hesitant at first, fingertips lingering a moment too long, not enough to tell him to knock it off. Viktor held still, eyes focused on the dirty wall before him. He felt the screws loosen before Jayce raised the plate slightly, pushing it further up his body until it was snug against his spine.

“Lean forward,” Jayce murmured and Viktor followed, trying not to tense at the contact. Tensing would change the position of his brace and he did not want a repeat of this. The screws tightened, just enough to keep his spine in place but not enough to be uncomfortable, as if Jayce had done this many times before. “Tell me if it starts hurting.”

“It's good like that,” Viktor said, his voice like a crack of lightning in the quiet between them.

Jayce’s thumbs traced the curves of his shoulder blades and he shuddered at the gentle touch. It wasn't the assessing gaze of his doctors or the fetishizing one his one night stands sometimes had, it didn't linger on his prosthetics but also didn't shy away. It was obvious that Jayce was seeing his partner and Viktor felt distinctly selfish for not putting an end to this immediately.

“Jayce,” he said but couldn't bring himself to lean away.

The fingers caressing his back paused. Slowly separated from him. Jayce took a step back, inhaling a shaky breath. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“Me too,” Viktor said, almost too quiet to hear.

They didn't mention it again.

-

Viktor figured out how to break his cuff on the second night. He grabbed his cane and silently, very, very slowly walked past a sleeping Jayce to the exit door. With satisfaction he hung the cuff on the handle and turned around to go to sleep.

When he woke up the cuff was gone from the door and Jayce was sitting at the desk, deep in his notes, only greeting Viktor with a nod when he joined him.

The cuff stayed gone. They didn't mention it again.

-

Jayce was a man who was gentle as he was bitter, and which side Viktor would receive depended on the memories haunting him. It was like playing a game of roulette, only winning brought him confusion and guilt over enjoying the warmth meant for another while losing brought hatred falsely directed at him.

“I killed you. At your strongest.”

Sometimes Jayce would lean over him in some sort of display of dominance, of intimidation, and would say what were probably meant as threats. He would look at Viktor, wait for his reaction, eyes moving miniscule over his face as if waiting for something, anything. Viktor didn't let any reaction show, didn't give him the satisfaction. He could recognize a front when he saw it, would find it quite pathetic had it not been for the fact that it was Viktor’s future self who had turned Jayce into this manic, paranoid being.

“I killed you,” Jayce said. “Three times.”

“Very ineffective if you had to do it more than once. Are you sure your heart was in it?”

Jayce took a shuddering breath. “I killed you,” he repeated blankly.

It didn't sound like a threat anymore.

Viktor pointed at the hammer. “There are little etchings along the edges that remind me of the runes you drew. Tell me if they are the same.”

And Jayce nodded, lost, and sat down again.

-

It was obvious that Jayce and his future self had been extremely close, close enough to make Jayce look like he was having a conniption every time he even simply glimpsed at Viktor. Sometimes his gaze would soften, inexplicably, at mundane actions, when Viktor grit his teeth at a calculation he couldn't figure out, when he couldn't help mumbling while working, when he stretched, when he complained, when he clicked his pen at a discovery.

And sometimes he would turn around to look at Viktor with a smile before it fell, replaced by grief. It was a horrible feeling, being responsible for that sadness, and he hated his older self a little bit more each time Jayce would forget he wasn't in his own time before reality came crashing down again.

Then again, his older self must have done something right; this friendship, this trust, Jayce’s eyes filled with affection- he must have done something right to put that in there.

Every time he smiled at Viktor with love that spoke of years of history between them, it felt like he had missed a step in the stairs, was looking into a mirror without a reflection, was trying to tighten a screw with a wrench, like he was having a conversation with somebody but could only hear every other word.

“Come on, V,” Jayce would say with such familiarity, Viktor felt himself tense every time his tone dipped into it.

And how could he do anything but follow.

-

Jayce kept working on the room, to make it more comfortable. Soon there was no more dust, the hole he had torn into the wall that first day had been repaired, the dirt had been cleared as best as possible, he had turned on the heating and there was a succulent on the desk. Viktor’s favorite plant. He had brought books, all with summaries that sounded interesting and Viktor knew that his older self had probably enjoyed them. Shampoo and soap were odorless, like he preferred, and there was a wooden chair in the bathroom, so that he didn't have to sit on the floor or risk losing balance when bathing.

There were several small chairs with cushions placed around the room for Viktor to put up his leg, and he couldn't even delude himself into thinking Jayce had brought them for himself since he never used them despite his leg injury.

Soon enough the room started looking more piltovan instead of the run-down undercity place it had been, filled with objects Viktor liked, things that made it easier for his leg, his back.

Something about that made his skin itch. It wasn’t quite the uncomfortable fact that someone knew him so intimately - maybe it felt like he should have been there, at this man’s side, and instead it was like he had paused in his life as Jayce had continued living, and now there was a hole in his memory that should have been filled with a research partner who cared about Viktor’s favorite brand of honey.

It wasn't really for him though. It was for his future self, a man who had been so monumental in Jayce’s life, he had ripped a hole in his heart. The succulent, the shampoo, the accommodations - they were all for a man who shouldn't exist.

-

“How did you get to know each other?” It was obvious that science and magic, their shared desire for knowledge, had brought Jayce and his future self together, but it still eluded him how exactly they had met. Until now his and this time’s Jayce’s path had only crossed whenever they walked past each other, whenever Talis was holding a speech or others talked about him.

Jayce’s gaze softened as a small smile played on his face. “He saved my life,” he said. “My work was about to be destroyed. I lost everything. Wanted to end it all. And then he came in, with an annoying “Am I interrupting” and he changed my life. Saved my work. My dream. The only one who ever believed in me.”

“That's not how I sound,” Viktor muttered at Jayce’s terrible impression of his accent.

“Ehh, came pretty close.”

“Not even a little bit.” Viktor leaned back, smiling slightly. “Your me helped you a lot, huh.”

“You have no idea.”

Had death really been a strong enough catalyst to make his future self change enough to desire the end of society around him? He still didn't know a lot about the future, and Jayce was tight-lipped and skittish.

“Why did he do it? Destroy Piltover I mean.”

“He wanted perfection. But by searching for perfection, he took away humanity. And it left him all alone.”

The worst was that Viktor could understand him. He could understand this future version of him. He drummed his fingers along his bad leg and looked down at his notes. “You said my future self didn't need a cane anymore?”

“He saw himself as broken. Thought I’d be impressed by his enhanced body.”

Viktor looked down at Jayce’s metal brace. He was walking without a cane but when leaning he would leave weight off it. Still, it was more motion, more strength, more stability than Viktor had ever had in his entire life. Somebody like Jayce, born in Piltover, would never understand.

“He just wanted to live,” Viktor said, defensive of his older self.

Jayce looked down at his hands, scarred and calloused. “I know,” he said. He turned towards Viktor. “I never realized how he felt, I- all these years ago I thought he was the most confident man in the world. He was radiant and witty and didn’t let anyone put him down. Only now do I see the mask he put on. You’ve been suffering all alone your entire life, haven't you?”

Viktor couldn't look at him. The pen twirled in his fingers, a nervosity he usually didn't allow himself to show.

“What kind of friend were you,” he asked, “to only notice when it was too late?”

Jayce flinched. “A horrible one. You don't even know the half of it.”

Viktor didn't feel victorious at his admittance.

“I never told you because I didn't know that you of all people needed to hear it- but you don't need to be perfect, be different than you are now to be worthy of love, Viktor. There was never anything wrong with you.”

Viktor’s heart hurt. His fingers were shaking. He pressed harder against the pen in his hand to hide it. “Okay,” he whispered and hated how wrecked his voice sounded.

-

Viktor felt a piercing poke in his arm. When he looked down, there was a syringe in his flesh, drawing blood.

“What.” He glanced up at Jayce with an unimpressed look. Moving now would destroy the tiny inscriptions he was etching underneath a microscope. Jayce must have known that and planned for the optimal time to strike.

“Sorry,” he said, “just- last time- you stopped asking for my help to heal you. I don't- I can't risk it.”

“This is to heal me?” Viktor should not feel touched at that. “You could have asked. I would have agreed.”

Jayce pulled out the full syringe, a guilty look on his face. “Oh,” he said.

Viktor rolled his eyes. Idiot. “Just ask in the future. I’ve had enough in my life of people treating my body, me, as if I don't have the right to my own autonomy.”

“I’m sorry,” Jayce whispered. His eyes were zeroed in on the syringe on the hand before slowly trailing up to Viktor. “You- you just accept that? Just like that?”

Viktor couldn't shrug, too focused on his work, so he simply let out a hum. “What else am I meant to do?”

Silence met his question. “I don't know. Be angry?”

“Jayce, do you want me to be angry at you? Is that why you went over me to get my blood?”

“No! I just- I didn't think. I'm sorry. I'm just surprised.”

“Because I’m not screaming and crying?” Viktor couldn't help the sardonic grin from spreading over his lips. “Believe it or not but I've had much worse than somebody drawing my blood to keep me from dying.”

“You shouldn't have to. You- you shouldn't have to take it.”

“There are many things one shouldn't have to go through. I've never had the privilege of choosing not to ‘take it’.”

“I'm sorry.” Jayce raised a hand to Viktor’s arm, wanting to wipe away the drop of blood. Instead he let it drop back. “I’ll ask in the future.”

“Sure,” Viktor said, absent-mindedly, uncaring to Jayce‘s growing discomfort. “So, how do you intend to heal me then?”

“I don't know yet,” Jayce said. “But I will do everything to make sure you won't die young, alright?”

“Alright,” Viktor said, fully believing his words despite himself.

-

A loud thud echoed through the room and Viktor blinked at the prone form of his captor. Still breathing. Lightly snoring. Idiot had overworked himself again. For a moment Viktor’s eyes rested on the exit before he sighed and continued with his notes. This was the most useful he’d felt in years, the most fun he'd had.

Soon Jayce started to mumble incoherent words that became more panicked, more labored. Viktor approached him when he began to whimper, his dream seemingly painful.

Jayce often seemed to have nightmares, mumbling of marionettes in the dark, a ravine, isolation, praying to a god to be saved, but usually he was able to snap himself out of them, instead staying awake for the rest of the night. He would shy away from Viktor whenever he decided to stay up and join him in their research, as if any kind of human warmth burned. On those days he flinched whenever Viktor moved in his periphery, head snapping towards him in an expectation of attack, hand reaching towards a weapon that wasn't there, and he would keep that fearful, wild look until hours later.

Jayce wasn't waking up. His hands reached up to his hair, tugging, pulling painfully and Viktor decided to take action.

“Jayce,” he said and put a hand on his shoulder to shake him.

His wrist was captured in a grip strong enough to cut off his blood. Wild eyes stared up at him and Viktor held very still, fearing any kind of movement could set him off. He didn't seem to be quite there entirely.

“Jayce,” Viktor tried again and Jayce’s trance seemed to break.

A heartbroken expression ripped over Jayce’s face. “Viktor,” he choked out and suddenly he was standing, wrapping Viktor into a tight embrace. Viktor halted, confused what to do. They weren't friends, were barely acquaintances and Jayce seemed to despise him sometimes. But something about this hug spoke of such familiarity, such longing, it was impossible to push him away. Jayce hugged him as if he knew exactly how to place their limbs, as if hugging him was as familiar as breathing, an act done thoughtlessly.

Jayce’s hand was in his hair, pressing his head into a broad shoulder and he was curling up, forcing Viktor’s body to bend back until he was wholly consumed by him. He raised his hands to pet Jayce’s back, somehow needing to give him the comfort he seemed to yearn for. He felt wetness in his hair, his body shaken by heavy sobs, by the constant, quiet chant of “why, why, why” dripping off Jayce’s lips.

“You didn't have to,” he cried. They sank to the floor, Viktor gently being laid down as if he was precious as Jayce knelt over him, hugging him closely, trying to merge their bodies into one. “You didn't have to- why did you- why, Vitya?!”

Viktor could only card his fingers through his hair, wordlessly accepting the grief of this weary traveller, this man who didn't belong here. Jayce didn’t seem like he was going to let go anytime soon, so he shifted his legs into a more comfortable position and relaxed his muscles, humming a little song he had learned from his mother. If anything, it only made Jayce hold him closer, his breathing more ragged as he buried his head into Viktor’s neck.

Somewhen he stopped humming, simply staring up at the ceiling, and wondered what his future self had done with the world, that turned Jayce into this pitiful being.

“Could you- could you continue?” Jayce asked with a small voice. “Humming. I mean.”

And Viktor continued as he ran his fingers over Jayce’s scalp, scratching at his nape before leaving his hand over his neck, lightly squeezing. They stayed there until Viktor’s voice got hoarse, until Jayce’s breaths evened out, until exhaustion gripped them and forced them into a deep slumber.

The next day they awoke with limbs entangled. They didn't mention it again.

-

Jayce was rubbing his leg, supported by his brace. He was frowning, face pulled into a grimace.

“You should put it up,” Viktor said. He looked down at the thick leg, the bump in the bone, visible even underneath the layer of clothing. “What even happened? I don't remember your younger self having a leg injury.”

“Remember the ravine I fell into? Got hit with my hammer on the way down. Couldn't get medical help for a few months so it healed wrong. Apparently it's also fractured too much to ever return to how it once was.”

“Wow,” Viktor said, horrified. “You never learned how to take care of it, did you?”

Jayce shrugged. “Only from watching you.”

Well, he hadn't watched close enough then. Viktor rolled his eyes. “Here, sit down, I’ll teach you some things…”

-

“What do you mean your pain isn’t bad enough to use a cane, you stupid excuse of a-”

“N- no, I just mean, I don’t think my injury is bad enough-”

“Jayce Talis, I will end you if you continue talking.”

-

Viktor pressed a newly finished cane into Jayce’s hands.

“You don’t have to use it all the time,” he said when Jayce looked like he was going to protest. “Just when it gets bad, when you feel like it might help. I know you can walk well most of the time, but I see you limp when your injury is acting up. Just use it. Or do you think it’s embarrassing? Were all your pretty words just that?”

Jayce took the cane in shaking hands. “You made this?”

Dark brown, with thin rainbow accents running over it like the gems embedded into Jayce’s forehead. He had embellished it in the hope that Jayce wouldn’t just put it aside.

“You’ll use it?”

Jayce nodded gently and carefully held the grip, slowly putting weight on it. “Can you teach me?”

-

They discovered the meaning of a rune on the hammer. It was one Jayce hadn’t known yet, one whose meaning Viktor uncovered.

He gave Jayce a triumphant grin, victorious and sharp. “You promised a secret.”

Jayce seemed to be in a lighter mood. He only let out a soft laugh, his smile swiping the smug grin right off Viktor’s face. “Alright. I did promise.”

He immediately shot out, “How did you bend time to your will?”

“Technically I didn’t,” Jayce said and only laughed when Viktor gave him an annoyed pout. “It was you actually. You destroyed the world. But in doing so you realized your wrongs. You wanted to change everything. So you brought me into your present, my future, to show me what was at stake if you won, to show me that you were just lonely. In my childhood my mother and I were saved by a great mage who gifted me a gemstone, inscribed by a rune. Later I would find out it was you. Later I would find out that this entire thing had happened again and again, the rune you gave me changing and changing until we found the one rune that would enable us to stop the you from my time. A rune with the power of time. So we stopped you. I stopped you. And I thought-” he sighed, weary. “Another time. That's your answer.”

“Then I-” Viktor’s mind was reeling, something ugly in him stirring. There was an unexplainable hurt in his chest. “He helped you fix everything. He tried to atone. You made me believe I became an unrepentant villain.”

“You still destroyed the world in my future,” Jayce said but he wasn't looking at him. “Many died. We prevented that- you prevented that. I don't know what happened afterwards. I don't know what happened to that world now that I’m here.”

It didn't make any sense, the casual anger he had been treated with, if his future self had stopped, had come back to himself. How unfair, to be blamed for actions he hadn’t committed yet, especially if those had been in a future already prevented.

“What happened to my future self?” he wanted to know. “He sent you here, didn't he?”

Jayce stared into the nothingness of his memories. “He died,” he said tonelessly.

“How?”

“That's for another time.” Jayce stood up, rubbing his leg, his metal brace. “Let's continue.”

-

“Someone will notice I'm gone,” Viktor said, not as a threat but a simple reminder. He was more than content to stay with the tantalizing enigma that was figuring out magic even if it meant being prisoner of a mad man who didn't seem to know if he liked or hated Viktor sometimes.

Jayce snorted. It was a mocking one, a deprecating one. Ah. So he was in the hate-Viktor mode for now then. He almost missed the crushing embrace. “Who will? I don't remember you having any friends beside me and no family to speak of. Heimerdinger would be the only one and he wouldn't lift a finger if it meant causing any ripples.”

Something uncomfortable churned in Viktor’s stomach. Jayce’s words weren't necessarily wrong, they were just- well, incredibly rude to tell someone to their face. A childish instinct awoke in him, a desire to hurt the other as he was trying to hurt him. “Are you sure we were friends?” he asked, eyebrows raised at the vitriol in Jayce’s voice. “You don't seem to like me very much. I can see why my other self left.”

He already knew the answer. This kind of familiar bitterness, of pained longing, could only come from a relationship that had at one point been close.

Jayce choked, shutting his eyes to hide the pain in them and Viktor did not feel satisfaction at his victory over this argument. He still opened his mouth, unable to keep the words inside.

“When you recounted everything you knew about me, I was very well aware of the things my older self didn't tell you. You didn't know me as well as you thought you did, Jayce.”

“Viktor,” Jayce said, begging, and Viktor stopped, wondering what the hell he was doing.

Sighing, he let himself untense. He shouldn't stoop to this level to hurt a man who was clearly already hurting. “Let's go back to work.”

-

There were medical textbooks on Jayce’s side of the desk, ones he only opened at night after their research, in the dim light of a lantern. Viktor didn't know how much sleep he actually got, but if the deep circles under his eyes, even worse than his own, were any indication, it couldn't be much.

-

“You really think we can figure this out on our own?” Viktor asked, several days later when no other breakthrough had happened. He was growing frustrated, restless in the constant sameness of the room. “Why not get the help of Heimerdinger?”

Jayce growled. “I’ll never trust them with any decisions. I’ll never trust Heimerdinger with your life.”

“He is my mentor, you know.”

“And he was just happy to let you die! Heimerdinger, everyone- they were eulogizing you to your face! While you were still alive!”

Harsh. Viktor felt his lips curl, his fingers press into the screwdriver he was holding. His own mentor, the only person he had left, had already written him off. “Why?” he demanded to know, something ugly that reeked of betrayal pooling in him.

“Because he’s a coward.” Jayce slumped. “He- he was right. I guess. Our science caused Piltover to be destroyed. But- it wouldn't be worth your life.”

And Viktor suddenly felt himself all but crumble at the weight of that statement. “The fate of this entire city,” he whispered, “doesn't matter if I'm not there?”

Jayce turned to him, raised his hands and cupped Viktor’s face and he let him, too stunned to think.

“Never,” Jayce said, steadfast, voice like a spell, a promise. “Never, Viktor.”

“Okay,” he muttered, almost numb. There had never been someone who had loved him as deeply, as feverishly, and suddenly he found himself jealous of this other version, this future version of him who had gotten the loyalty of this man and had still decided it wasn’t enough. What had caused him to turn his back on this kind of devotion?

Jayce’s thumbs trailed over his cheekbones, his gaze so unimaginably soft, it was impossible to move away. For a moment Jayce froze before slowly moving away as if it was the hardest thing he had ever done.

“Sorry,” he whispered and Viktor kept himself back from telling him it was fine.

-

Viktor coughed. It was a cough pulled from deep inside his lungs, wet and painful, and he barely kept himself from doubling over.

Jayce was watching him, something lost, something desperate in his gaze. He stood up abruptly and walked out the room, leaving Viktor alone without a cuff, without any restraints. Huh, so he had finally realized Viktor was more than happy to stay here and figure out magic together.

Jayce returned several hours later with a bleeding nose, a swollen cheek and a tank in his hands.

“What in the world did you-” Viktor stopped when Jayce reached towards his face and roughly pressed a mask against his lips, hard enough to push him back against the desk. He gasped several times, first in surprise then in realization that the air was breathable again.

“It’s okay now,” he said after several deep breaths, still pressed against the desk by Jayce who didn't look fully conscious. Viktor grabbed his arms, then his face, stroking the skin of his cheeks. Like this the crystal spots on his forehead looked suspiciously like finger tips. “Jayce. It's okay. I'm okay. You can let go.”

Jayce took a shuddering breath. Then another. Slowly, as if he was fused to the mask, to Viktor’s face, he let go, his skin sticking until the last moment.

“Thank you,” Viktor said. Then, with dry humor, “Even if you are the reason I am down here.”

“I'm sorry,” Jayce whispered, broken. Viktor let go but Jayce caught his fingers, keeping them pressed against his face. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Something stung in the realization that he wasn’t talking to Viktor. A future version, one he would never be. One Jayce was doing his best to prevent. Viktor had never been loved as much as he was now, and yet it was a second-hand love, one not caused by his own actions, by him, not by a bond strengthened by years, but by another, future version of him.

This touch, this love, wasn’t his to keep.

And yet he let Jayce lean forward to press their foreheads together, let him lean on him.

-

“Tell me more about your life. My changed future.”

They were almost lying on the desk, delirious with sleeplessness. Viktor thumbed the rim of his coffee cup but didn't feel it in himself to raise his head and drink. Until now it must have grown cold already and the thought of lukewarm coffee made him scrunch up his face in distaste.

“Hrmmgh?” Jayce asked.

“Your life. You know. How this entire thing started.”

Jayce let himself fall off the chair, rolling over until his head came to a stop between Viktor's feet. His gaze was fixed on the ceiling. “You sure? Could take a while.”

“I don't think my brain can analyze any more magic runes.”

“Alright then.” Jayce let out a deep breath. “So it all started when my apartment blew up…”

-

“It would have been easy to kill me to avoid the future,” Viktor said one day. He turned slightly to observe Jayce’s reaction.

Jayce’s face scrunched up.

“But you didn't. You’re risking the future. Because you hope to change my path?”

“Is that so wrong to hope?” Jayce asked.

“It’s… illogical. Not that I'm not grateful to be left alive. Affection truly makes us do the most irrational things.”

Jayce froze, the tool in his hand tumbling to the ground. With a lurch he jumped up and stumbled towards the door, his cane forgotten. Viktor stared after him, wide-eyed, and slowly got up on unsteady feet when he heard the sound of retching.

“Jayce?” he called out, unsure. He grabbed a bottle of water and his cane and walked towards the door leading out, for the first time going into the outside since he had been kidnapped. They were in an abandoned industrial complex, dirty and dilapidated, no other human soul in sight. Jayce was kneeling further away, leaning over a pile of broken steel. His entire form was trembling.

Viktor slowly approached him, hesitating when he stood behind him.

“Was it something I said?”

Jayce had stopped throwing up his insides and leaned back, slouching into himself. He looked wrecked, long hair falling into his eyes, as he rubbed the vomit from his beard. Viktor held the bottle of water towards him.

Jayce stared at it, then at him, through him, as if Viktor was a ghost. Trembling fingers reached out and grabbed the bottle. Jayce rinsed out his mouth, before pouring the rest over his face, wiping away all the remnants, aggressive, like he was trying to scratch away his memories.

“Nice area,” Viktor casually said. “Did you know this from your time, or-”

“I killed you,” Jayce rasped out, through the bile, the sick and the pain, voice wrecked like it hurt to speak. He looked up at Viktor as if he expected to be cursed at, as if he needed his anger. “Three times.”

It had long stopped sounding like a threat.

“I killed you and you left me, I killed you and you still loved me, I killed you and you- you left me. And this time there's no going back.” Jayce leaned forward to grab at his legs, pressing his forehead into them and Viktor had no idea what he was meant to do now. “I killed you. I revived you despite your wishes because I was fucking selfish and- and turned you into this creature and I killed you- I killed you-”

“You didn't kill me. You killed my future self. I'm not the one you want to apologize to.”

The words felt cruel as they dripped off his lips and yet Viktor couldn't hold them back. He had no idea where this bitterness was coming from. Jayce had no obligation towards him. And Viktor had no bond with this man. Maybe it was jealousy, of this future self that had experienced how it felt like to be loved, be accepted, so thoroughly.

Jayce let out a sob and Viktor sighed, hating himself a little bit more. It wasn't fair to treat Jayce as if he was in any way responsible to like Viktor the way he had his future self.

“I apologize,” he said and knelt down in front of Jayce with some difficulty. “If it’s any consolation- the way I know myself, if I still loved you after you killed me, I would not have stopped loving you afterwards.”

“And you died for it.”

“My future self died because of his ambitions. You kept him from losing himself. I can only imagine how grateful he must have been.”

Jayce’s gaze was lost, pleading. Viktor couldn't give him what he wanted. So he pushed aside the hurt of being a second-hand love and opened his arms, allowing Jayce to fall against him.

Chapter Text

Jayce had made him a new leg brace. Its movements were smoother than his old one, it didn’t dig into his flesh, didn’t chafe against his skin, it didn’t constantly need to be adjusted since it didn't slip as much as his old one did and it enabled him to put more weight on his foot. It was also much easier to take off than his old one, something his back would eternally be grateful for. Jayce had given it to him rather unceremoniously, in that Viktor had woken up and it had been there beside him, and they had continued in their dance of unmentioned things.

Sometimes he reached down though to glide his fingers over the smooth metal and Jayce watched him and they both knew what it meant to Viktor.

-

“I need a CT-scan of your body. Your lungs. For that we have to break into a hospital.”

“And you want to do that without Heimerdinger getting suspicious of my continuous wellbeing?”

Jayce threw a cloak at him which he caught with an involuntary smile. “I can- I could carry you if you don’t mind? If we need to run. If you're okay with that. My leg hasn’t given me any problems these last days so I probably won’t drop you.”

“Reassuring.” With a huff Viktor stood up and stretched, grabbing his cane. “Not scared at all to get caught?”

“In my time you were the one who suggested breaking into Heimerdinger’s office to commit illegal experimentation, you know? I've learned from the best.”

The smile on his face turned into a full-on grin. “Then let's break into a hospital.”

-

Viktor didn't like the way Jayce smiled at him. It was filled with longing and pain, with history that Viktor wasn’t part of. He was used to being looked through but not like this - usually the gazes glided over him as if he wasn’t even there, now however it was with so much love, Viktor started doubting he truly was the younger version of the man who had been Jayce’s partner. Viktor wasn’t meant for love so colossal, it transcended space and time.

“I'm not your Viktor,” he said into the quiet of their work, an evening spent mostly in silence. There were dark circles under Jayce’s eyes. Viktor had heard him gasp out his name the night before, coming to wakefulness violently, and Viktor had known he had dreamt of the moments before his future self had died. Their eyes had met and Jayce had watched him with a haunted look, trembling and grief-stricken before getting up and throwing himself into work. Viktor hadn’t joined him, not with the oppressive atmosphere of desired solitude.

“I know,” Jayce said.

“Your future is gone. The destruction, the war. But also the man you loved.”

“He's been gone for a while.” Jayce slipped when he tried to tighten a screw and cursed. He wasn't looking at Viktor and yet it felt like his attention was entirely on him.

“You can't replace him with me. That will only lead to misery.”

“I know,” Jayce repeated, more heated, more bitter.

“Do you?” Viktor asked and turned around to look at him. He tilted his head, a thin smile on his lips. “You won't have a meltdown if it turns out I don't like Holdrum food? If I do like the theatre, if I don’t have the little quirks your Viktor had?”

“I’ll be happy if you don't turn out like the Viktor I knew.”

Something about that made Viktor press his lips together in dissatisfaction. “Then stop treating me like this.”

“Like what?” Jayce asked, genuinely confused.

Viktor was used to people looking through him and seeing something else. A cripple. An animal from the undercity. But somehow only being seen as his older self, as if he himself was a mere prototype of the real thing, rankled much more than that. “Like I'm hurting you.”

Jayce flinched back, violently, the screwdriver dropping out of his hands. “That's what you think of me?” he asked, pained.

“You didn't hate me because of what my future self did,” Viktor said, feeling distinctly pathetic. There was a certain vulnerability in this, like he was opening up his ribcage for Jayce to see. “You hate me because I'm not him. Because you came back. And he didn't.”

“I don't hate you,” Jayce rasped out, eyes gaining back the wild edge. “I- why would you think I hate you?”

“You haven't been the most-” he tapped his chin, “-hospitable after you kidnapped me. And then it felt like you were trying to keep away. For the longest part I thought my future self did something unforgivable. Killed a loved one. Hurt you. But no. What he did was worse for you, right?”

“Viktor, I could never hate you, I-”

“I was wondering about some things you told me when we first talked. You were mad, at my future self. Because he left you. The worst thing he did to you was not destroy the world but leave you. And the only thing he left behind for you was me. A version of him with no memories of you.”

Silence fell over them, loud enough to press against his ears. Tick-tick-tock, without a clock in sight, and Viktor only belatedly realized it was the beating of his heart. What a joke.

Jayce was looking at him, pain written clearly on his face, and Viktor didn't want to feel this guilt, this anger, that he had again made him look like this, as if Viktor was slowly squeezing his heart right in front of him.

A tear fell from the corner of Jayce’s eyes, then another. Hastily he wiped them away, turning around as if Viktor hadn't already seen his stricken expression.

“I'm sorry,” Jayce whispered. “I never wanted to make you feel like you should be something you're not. You're- you’re perfect the way you are, you know that, right? You don't- I’m just a man with many regrets.”

Something in Jayce’s voice made him frown, scratching at the back of his mind. “Then, if you didn't dislike me - you were pushing me away, when you made me to be a villain in your story, weren't you? Because you don't want to get close to me.”

In the time right after being brought to the Undercity by this man who wasn't a stranger, he had walked a tightrope between love and hate, only to now realize that both sides were fueled by love. Jayce had wanted him to keep away and yet was woefully struggling to do so himself.

With tiredness pulled deep from within his soul, Jayce rubbed both hands over his face, his beard, and Viktor could see the traces of the wars he had experienced.

“How come you don't really know me and yet you can read me just as well?”

“You don't hide your emotions,” Viktor said.

Jayce turned back towards him, looking at him, his entire form. “I met you when we were both twenty-four. In two years. You aren't much different from the Viktor I got to know. It’s- I know it isn't fair to you, I’m sorry- you don't know me, not like I know you. I see a friend and you see a stranger who doesn't even look at you. He saved my life. My dream. And then he continued saving me by just being there by my side.”

Viktor’s mouth was dry. Somehow it felt like he had been given an ideal he could never live up to. An entire life lived in front of him, shoes already filled, like a child wearing their parent’s shoes only to find them slipping and sliding, only to stumble and fall. A monument of memories, adoration and expectations that weren't his, that he could only observe from the outside.

He couldn't look at Jayce and felt foolish for having started the conversation.

“Are you disappointed? That I’m not him?”

Jayce almost fell out of the chair to reach him, stumbling and having to catch himself on the desk. He was leaning close enough for his hair to brush Viktor’s cheek, to count every single eyelash. With trembling hands he reached up to cup Viktor’s face in both of his palms, gently tilting upwards as he pressed their foreheads against each other. It was a tender gesture, but by now Viktor had stopped being surprised that such a gentleness could come from a man like Jayce, who always looked like he was walking through hell.

That gentleness almost hurt. The last people to have touched him like this, like he mattered, like a veil of protection, had been his parents; only they had held him with the utmost confidence that he could claw and scrap his way up and survive, while Jayce was holding a dead man between the curves of his palms.

“Never,” Jayce whispered feverishly. “Never, got that? I'm- I’m grieving for my partner. My world. I'm- I may not do so well right now. But you got nothing to do with that, okay? You're- you’re the only thing that makes sense in this god forsaken world. Please, I don't ever want you to feel like you have to be someone, something, you're not, yeah?”

Viktor was frozen, wide-eyed and heart beating so strongly, Jayce must have felt it against the fingers on his pulse. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, stuck in his throat in the vulnerability of the moment.

“Okay,” he whispered, for a lack of anything else to say. Jayce’s thumbs were stroking over his cheeks, his gaze was unimaginably soft and Viktor felt a stab of pain knowing that he would never experience the history that had brought it there.

His future self had been side by side with a friend who loved him despite everything, who loved him even after seeing him at his worst.

Slowly he leaned back, away from Jayce’s warmth. Jayce’s lips were shaking, his fingers hanging uselessly in the air for a moment before they fell to his side. He rose to his full height again and stepped away. When he sat down on his chair he was curled up, facing away from Viktor. His shoulders were shaking.

Viktor’s insides were churning uncomfortably and he was drumming his fingers against his leg in a nervous beat. His lips parted but no sound came out and he felt like a machine that had stopped working, malfunctioning at the worst moment. He should have just never opened his mouth.

-

The next day there was a box of chocolate candies on his side of the desk, from a place he had always eyed but had never wanted to splurge on.

As a child he had only rarely sat foot in Piltover, the city nice to look at but beckoning only sneers and uncomfortable glances from its citizens, and his mother had warned him of strolling there too often, especially the older he got, not under the watchful eyes of bored enforcers seeking for problems to fabricate. Viktor didn't remember much - he had stopped visiting Piltover after he had watched several enforcers descend upon an old man from the Undercity who was only begging for money, and he hadn’t stayed long enough to know if the man had survived - but he did remember a shop he had often walked by, entranced by its glowing colors and colorful exterior, displaying chocolates and parfaits that had made his mouth water and his mind yearn. Even when growing up and coming in possession of money, he would never spend such a brazen amount on an ostentatious, needless delicacy. Money was spent on only necessary things and the rest had to be saved.

His fingers rested on the box and he wondered if his older self had allowed himself to indulge in them or if he had only gotten a taste any time Jayce wanted to apologize. He wondered if his older self had gotten used to the taste of chocolate, of raspberries and apricots. He wondered if his older self had ever gotten used to spending money, to not having the tightening noose of poverty hang over him anymore, if he had ever allowed himself to splurge on frivolous, needless luxuries.

And then he wondered how the hell Jayce had gotten this, since this version had neither a job nor any money as far as he could see. Stolen probably, like everything in this room. Viktor couldn't find it in himself to care.

“You know, this doesn't really make it better,” he said with raised brows but already felt his bitterness recede. What a weak man he was, to make him reconsider so easily.

“Ah, I'm- sorry.” Jayce didn't turn around from his side of the desk but he had paused in his writing. “It's hard to treat you like I don't know you.”

“That's not what I asked from you,” Viktor muttered. His fingers drummed along the box and with a sigh he sat down and opened it. “Here. Catch.”

When Jayce turned he threw a chocolate at his face and hid a grin when he hurried to catch it, cursing when it bounced on his open palm and landed on the desk. He picked it up with careful fingers and looked at Viktor, lips unable to suppress a fond smile.

Viktor popped a chocolate into his mouth and turned towards his own research. It was delicious, bittersweet with a hint of liquor, melting on his tongue and enveloping it in a gooey, sweet filling, and he almost let out an indecent noise. How strange. He had expected to be disappointed, after all how could anything meet your expectations after years of buildup? And yet, he found himself delightedly surprised.

This was a horrible apology for being kidnapped and treated like this. He should really mind more.

Viktor shoved the box into the middle between them. “Thanks.”

-

“The smog in the undercity deposited dust into your lungs which stayed and hardened. In the future it will cause tumors to grow and spread, so the best thing to do is to cut and flush them out before that happens.” Jayce pointed at a few spots on Viktor’s CT-scan as if Viktor had any idea what he was looking at. “I think the procedure already exists in this time, it was just too late for my Viktor when he got diagnosed.”

“When did you become a doctor?” Viktor asked with raised brows.

“When I came here,” Jayce said and Viktor found himself strangely touched.

“All the medical textbooks, the long nights- were all for me?”

Confusion lined Jayce’s face. “Who else would they be for?”

-

Jayce had, as it turned out, not killed him three times. He liked to claim so for some misplaced feeling of guilt, but even with the biased way he told his story, it was obvious to Viktor that he simply carried around an unfounded self-hatred. Two of the times his future self had died hadn’t even been caused by Jayce’s hands, and the one time it had, it had been requested by his future-future self. It was all very confusing.

“You don't understand,” Jayce whispered. “You weren't there, you can't- it was my fault. All of it.”

“Our fault,” Viktor shrugged and bumped their shoulders together. “A version of me gave you that gem, didn't he?”

Jayce looked down at his wrist and slid up his sleeve and for the first time Viktor could see what he had only caught in glimpses until now. There was a gemstone embedded in his skin, surrounding it were veins like spider-webs in the same colours as the gemstones on his forehead. There was a strange beauty in it; it was hard to look away, as if it was calling out.

“It's in your flesh?!” Viktor exclaimed in horror. He grabbed Jayce’s wrist and twisted it around, pressing his fingers into where the stone met his skin as he shuddered. His scientific curiosity came back in full force. “Does it hurt?”

The gemstones on Jayce’s forehead looked like they were stuck on top, skin only rippling vaguely around them. This stone looked like it was fully inserted into flesh, like it was slowly syphoning blood and life away from his arm. The colorful veins around it looked like a marking.

“It did for a while. But after my Viktor- after we shared the pain, it disappeared.” Jayce was smiling when he looked at the gem. “It's the only thing I have left of him.”

Hesitant, Viktor let go.

Was it wrong of him, to feel this jealousy over a person that didn't even exist, a person that was technically him? This other, future version of him had a partner who didn’t care about his imperfections, who didn’t care that he couldn’t run, didn’t care for the things he provided, who only cared about who he was as a person. Look at me, he didn’t say. Not through me, at me. See me. Please, just see me.

Sometimes, in the deepest caves of his heart, he wished this Jayce had never returned to save the world, that he’d let Viktor have this, a friendship so deep, they would choose each other over and over again. It was selfish, so selfish, and he made sure to never voice that thought out loud, not in front of the person who had lost everything to save him, to save his world.

-

“I went to see my mother,” Jayce said and Viktor blinked at the personal conversation before he remembered the time traveler didn't have anybody else to talk to except for Viktor.

“You didn't reveal yourself to her, did you?”

“Of course not. I just- I don't know, I neglected her in the last years. I guess I just wanted to make sure she's okay. At least before this time’s Jayce can fuck it up.”

“That's harsh. Did she die in your time?”

Jayce shook his head. “I just wasn't the best son.”

“If there's anything I know it's that parents just want their children to be happy,” Viktor said and stroked his thumb over his cane. His parents had done everything in their power to give him a good life, as unlikely that was as a disabled child in the undercity, and he would always be grateful for that. “Do you want to talk to her?”

Jayce stayed quiet for a while. “Yeah,” he finally admitted. “Later. Somewhen. When I don't look like I just crawled out of hell.”

His beard had grown, as had his shaggy hair, enough to tie it up now, the bags underneath his eyes were looking like they were trying to escape his face and there was a constant manic energy in his eyes that might scare a nice, older piltovan lady.

Viktor nodded. “Good call.”

“What does that mean?” Jayce asked, offended. The pout on his face made him look years younger and Viktor couldn't help but laugh at his expression.

“It means that she’ll burst into tears if she finds out her son kidnapped an academy student.”

“You're here voluntarily!”

Viktor leaned to the side to grab his mask and took a deep breath from the filled oxygen tank. In his haste to make a joke he choked on his own spit and promptly coughed his lungs out, immediately waving away Jayce who had jumped up in alarm.

“I'm not dying this quickly,” he reassured him. “Your Viktor did raise my standard for my expectations of death.”

Jayce let out a laugh, sudden like a bark and pulled from deep within his stomach, a laugh that sounded unpracticed like he hadn’t laughed in years. It turned into involuntary giggles, a nice sound that made Viktor smile, laughing quietly along. Jayce looked surprised, helpless at the sounds escaping him, like a man relearning what joy was. It wasn't even funny and yet Jayce was laughing as if Viktor was a comedian on a stage.

Viktor reached forward when Jayce almost fell out of his chair and thought to himself that he wouldn't mind if this comfortable bubble stayed for a little bit longer.

-

Jayce left sometimes. Viktor didn’t ask, knowing Jayce would tell him if he wanted to.

So when he came back one day and declared, “I’m stealing from private hospitals in Piltover,” Viktor couldn’t do anything but blink at him.

“Alright,” he said.

“I started giving out medicine to the people of the undercity and- there’s this girl. She has a spinal injury like you from the way she used her crutch and I was wondering if maybe you could talk to her about what you went through so that she won’t be too scared when I give her a brace.”

Weirdly touched, Viktor looked at him, mouth slightly agape. “You- you’re healing the people from the undercity?”

“Well- at first it was to find a cure for you, right? But- like, I didn’t want to treat the people here like they were just prototypes for you, I wanted to put a hundred percent into their treatment and- and it’s horrible! These people, they’re suffering and nobody in Piltover is doing anything!”

“Yeah,” Viktor said, still reeling. “Is that a surprise to you?”

“I mean- not- not completely a surprise, but- yeah? Kinda? I never expected it to be this bad, not before Silco even took over! These people, they’re responsible for so much of our exports, our manual labor, and we can’t even do right by them! They’re dying from things utterly preventable in Piltover! A little boy almost died of pneumonia- Cait had it when she was young and she recovered from it in a week!”

“You saved him?” Viktor asked.

“Yeah, I- I guess. One boy. Out of so many others.”

Viktor suddenly felt useless in his research of wild runes. What was the point, researching something so far away from the common man, it barely touched their lives, while they were out there dying? He had always strived to improve lives, to help people, but what had he accomplished until now?

“You okay?” Jayce leaned over him, concern written in the furrow of his brows. Jayce who had spent every minute not working on the runes bent over his medical books, Jayce who had broken into hospitals for medicine, Jayce who was going out into the streets helping people.

Viktor grit his teeth as he grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close, ignoring his surprised yelp. “I want in,” he said. “We’ll still work on the runes but- whenever you’re helping people, searching for cures, for treatments- I want in.”

“Viktor, I-”

“All my life I wanted to help people, and I thought I had been powerless, I’ve always had some excuse, that I didn’t have enough money, enough influence-”

“Viktor-”

“And here you are, casually saving people as if it’s as easy as breathing! You- you made me a new brace and now you’re just- just saving people!”

“Vik-”

“We’ll still prevent magic from falling into human hands, but in the time between, I want to help too! Please. I need to- I have to-”

“Yes.” Jayce grabbed his face and squished it between his broad palms, interrupting his speech. “Of course you can help. I never wanted to keep this away from you, I just- I didn’t want you to overwork yourself.”

“I won’t!” Viktor promised, heart beating in resolve. He could help people, he could actually have a positive impact on the people of the undercity.

Jayce was smiling, a helpless thing, with shining eyes. He looked so different from the usual weary traveler. Carefully he bent down and Viktor froze when he felt chapped lips against his forehead, calloused thumbs rubbing against his cheeks. His touch left burning imprints on his skin, an inferno that spread over his entire face.

“Great, put on your shoes then! The girl lives a bit further away and…”

Jayce continued rambling, unaware of the way Viktor’s entire face had grown warm. He rubbed over the bridge of his nose and let out a quiet sigh. This really was the last thing he needed.

-

After six months they were able to crack all the runes inscribed in the hammer. Wild magic, at their fingertips, for them to use however they wanted.

They both were too tired to properly celebrate.

“I can only imagine how much this could help our people,” Viktor whispered in reverence at the energy crackling in front of him.

“No,” Jayce said. “That's what we’re here for. To keep magic from falling into human hands.”

“What if we only created tools? Not weapons.”

“That's what we did in my time. But give them an inch and they want a mile, give them tools and they ask for weapons.” He scratched his head and let out a massive yawn that split his face. “Besides, there was someone who was able to figure out our hextech. She blew up the councillor’s building and killed several of us. She killed you, Vitya.”

Viktor swallowed dryly and turned off the machines. “Oh,” he said.

“Come on.” Jayce got up on wobbly legs and stretched. He looked ready to fall unconscious. “We'll continue tomorrow.”

He turned to the direction of the spot he usually slept in and Viktor hooked his cane over his shoulder, pulling him back. “It is getting a little bit hard, seeing you sleep on the cold ground every day.”

“I'm used to it. Spent months sleeping in a ravine, this floor is honestly an upgrade.” Jayce looked confused at Viktor’s unimpressed expression. “I'm too tired to bring another mattress in here.”

“The couch is big enough for both of us. Come on. That can't be healthy for your back.”

“Are you calling me old?” Jayce blinked down at him, then scratched at his beard as if only now realizing the decade between them. “And- I can’t- I mean, it’s fine. I don't mind.”

“I don't mind either.” Viktor clapped his hands and let himself fall onto the couch, spent. His eyes closed automatically. “Come on then.”

“No- I mean, I don't mind sleeping on the-”

“Jayce, I don't like feeling like I'm above you. We're equals. That means you get to not sleep on the floor. Or would you rather we both sleep on the floor?”

“But- your back.”

“Punish yourself if you're so insistent, just leave me out of it.”

“I'm not- I’m not sleeping on the floor to punish myself-”

“Evidently.”

“Viktor-”

Viktor let out a drawn-out groan.

Jayce didn’t move for several moments. Viktor didn't push. Slowly, like a statue breaking out of stone, he stepped closer until he stood before the couch. Viktor didn't move, didn't open his eyes and felt distinctly like he was waiting for an abused dog to approach him. Jayce’s brace creaked as he gingerly sat, then lied down, keeping his limbs close to himself. Viktor threw the blanket over both of them and ignored Jayce’s flinch.

“That's okay?” Jayce whispered.

“Has my older self ever gotten into the habit of lying to you?”

“Not lying. Per se.”

“Great. Now let's close our mouths and go to sleep.”

“Alright,” Jayce said. The cushion moved as he let himself untense. Their arms brushed together, first their shoulders, then their forearms, then the backs of their hands. His voice was high-pitched when he spoke. “Good night. Viktor.”

-

Jayce’s and his little medical escapades had grown into a full on underground doctor stint and neither of them could begrudge when it took a bit of time away from their research. They had taken over a little shed-like house close to their research-lab-apartment-living-place and had built it into a makeshift infirmary. It had at one point been a restaurant with a counter for take-out, which made it easier for their more skittish patients to walk up to them and grab their medicine without even setting foot into the house. They had spent an entire day refurbishing the inside, cleaning and setting up a lab in the back, and Viktor had spent half of it gritting his teeth through the pain in his leg and his spine, aware of Jayce’s worried eyes on him. Jayce had never offered to take over while he rested, and Viktor had found himself slowing down, going at his own pace, hackles lowering again the more he worked while Jayce stayed silent.

Word had spread fast and soon they had relegated research to the night while the day was spent creating medicine, stealing medicine and giving out medicine, creating prosthetics, tearing through every medical book they could get their hands on and helping people.

The people from the undercity who didn’t know Jayce yet were wary of the obviously piltovan stranger but relaxed when they talked to Viktor while the ones who had been previously helped by Jayce adored him. He was good with people, had an effortless charisma that surprisingly translated well into the usually suspicious undercity, and Viktor found himself sometimes simply looking at him as he talked with the children, soothed their worries when he gave them vaccinations or instructed them how to consume their medicine. What an addicting sight, to see him lower his guard. It wasn't surprising he was good with children; he had often talked about the Kiramman girl who was like his little sister, but it hadn't prepared Viktor for the flutter in his chest when Jayce managed to distract a child from a vaccine by just recounting a story.

Viktor talked to people with disabilities who hadn’t had the privilege of aids or braces or prosthetics, who were cautious about the free help from two people who had appeared out of nowhere. He talked them through the procedure, what to be careful of. He stayed with them as they got their prosthetics fitted, as they held their aids for the first time, and found his heart beating happily each time suspicion grew to a tentative hope, to a painful joy. At one point this had been him, when he had gotten his spinal brace and the pain had transformed from a constant screaming into a dull ache. Looking around, seeing these people, their suffering, he was hit with the realization that he had lost his way, his goals.

Helping people. His people. That was what it should have always been about.

“Take this three times a day and her ear infection should disappear soon without any lingering side effects,” Jayce said and pressed a bottle of the medicine Viktor had just created into the hands of a hesitant mother. He gave her a gentle smile that made it impossible to look away from. “If it’s still there in a week, come back here.”

She thanked them profusely as she left with her daughter, out the creaking door Jayce had to repair when they had taken over this abandoned place. She had been their last patient and Viktor turned off the machines, feeling weirdly melancholic.

“This is so… easy,” he said, frustrated with himself, with the world. All this time, all these lofty ideas of helping the undercity- and this was it. All this time, all these excuses from Piltover- and this was it.

“Wouldn’t call it easy,” Jayce said with a small grin. He was turning the last screw on a prosthetic he had been working on, for a tiny boy that had lost his arm to an infection. “I did steal a lot of resources from Piltover. Really do hope no enforcer finds this place.”

“If the resources were there then it was easy,” Viktor said. He came closer and looked over Jayce’s shoulder to watch him carefully place the arm in a drawer for the next day. “If two people with no medical background whatsoever, with no political power or funding could do it, then it was easy.”

“We wanted to help people in another way,” Jayce said, able to read him so well. “What we did- hadn’t we created weapons, hadn’t we ignored the actual issues- our tools would have helped people. Hextech would have helped them.” He leaned back, a faraway smile on his face. “You know, it was my Viktor who reminded me of this. Helping, not from high above in a councillor’s office, but right in between the ones we wanted to help.”

“I like doing this,” Viktor admitted quietly.

“Yeah,” Jayce said. “Me too.”

Viktor leaned forward and placed his chin on Jayce’s shoulder, turning his head until he could bury his face in his neck as he hugged him from behind. Jayce froze, stopped breathing for a moment. It was the first time Viktor extended such a physical gesture.

“Thank you,” Viktor said. “For reminding me what I’m doing this for.”

“Viktor,” Jayce whispered breathlessly.

Viktor straightened and before he could talk himself out of it, he pressed a kiss to the top of Jayce’s head. He walked away and turned off all the lights, ignoring Jayce’s spluttering behind him as he closed the door, leaving him in the dark room.

-

They had crashed into the couch, limbs intertwined in their exhaustion after another long night of research when Jayce spoke.

“I wasn’t fair to my Viktor. To you.” Jayce stared at the ceiling. “He was possessed because of me. Kind of. He saw himself as imperfect and desired to share perfection with everyone. With me. He saw the errors of his ways. He changed it, kept the bad future from happening. I would always forgive him for that, in every lifetime.”

“But you won't forgive him for leaving you.”

“Our souls were intertwined,” Jayce whispered. “Then he ripped me away. Sent me here. And he was nowhere to be seen.”

A thorough rejection. At least that was how Jayce saw it. From where Viktor was looking in, it was quite obvious that his future self had simply not wanted to bear the burden of his death.

“I'm sorry,” Jayce whispered and Viktor rolled his eyes.

“I'm not the one you want to apologize to-”

“No. I'm sorry. For kidnapping you and being unfair to you. For cuffing you and treating you like a prisoner. For not seeing you for who you are. You're not just an echo of my past. You're- you're you. Just you. Viktor. And- and my vision has been clouded for a while. So I'm sorry, Viktor.”

An involuntary smile crept on his face, and it felt wrong, being so pleased about this, about not being seen as the man Jayce had so adored.

A realization hit him, sudden and brutal.

“You loved him,” Viktor said, torn out of his throat. He leaned up on his arms to look down at Jayce. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. Jayce wasn’t very hard to read if you looked for it, yet he was left gaping at him. “My future self. You were in love with me.”

The realization shouldn't feel so monumental; Jayce’s behavior had been all but subtle and it was surprising it had taken this long to comprehend his feelings. Something about being wanted, being desired, body and mind, made him reel, made him yearn.

Jayce was quiet, looking to the side.

“Did he know? Did he-” Viktor paused, discomfort at the vulnerability he offered Jayce, “- did he love you too?”

Finally Jayce broke out of his frozen stupor.

“I told him I loved him,” he quietly breathed. “That I’d be in an endless void for eternity if it meant staying with him, that I’d take the burden of his loneliness if he stayed by my side. He threw me away.”

A love so all-encompassing, so strong, Viktor could feel it still even if he wasn’t the man Jayce loved. He couldn’t imagine it, being loved so whole-heartedly and rejecting it. Despite everything his future self had done, Jayce had loved him. And he had been thrown into the past for it.

“He had his reasons,” Viktor said.

Jayce deflated. He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “Yeah,” he choked out. “I’m being unfair. I know I am. But I can’t help but see what he did as a rejection. How else am I meant to see it? Our souls were intertwined, we were one. He could feel me, knew how I loved him. And then I woke up. And he was gone. He knew that I would do everything for him, I'd do everything if it meant staying by his side and he- he didn't want me.”

“You know that's not true.” Viktor felt weirdly protective of his older self. His lips pressed together. “It was his mess to clean up. He didn't want to bring you down with him.”

“It was our mess. From the moment we decided to create magic together. We should have perished together. So why?! Why did he decide to send me back without him?! We could have fixed it together! Why did he disappear, why did he leave me?! In every single timeline, every time, I chose him, I thought- I thought he chose me too! So why?!”

With more force than he realized Viktor grabbed Jayce by the collar and lifted him until he had to lean up on the couch, snapped out of his despair by pure shock.

“Because he loved you, you idiot.” Ragged breaths escaped Jayce’s mouth. Viktor continued. “Would you have let him die if there had been a chance to give him a better life?!”

“I don't want to continue living without him,” Jayce whispered.

A cold shiver ran down Viktor’s back at the empty eyes in front of him. Rage built up in him and only his strongest reign on his composure kept him from hitting him. “He sacrificed himself and gave you a second chance, another life. That is his love: your existence, you living here- it’s proof of how much he loved you! Don’t you dare throw that away, you hear me?”

“I can’t,” Jayce rasped out. “I just- I can’t anymore. You have no idea how much it hurts to look at you.”

It was a decidedly helpless feeling, holding someone in your arms, living and breathing, while they were wishing for the opposite. Viktor didn’t know what to do. He never had to deal with people who didn’t want to live, had no idea how to breathe back life into someone not dead yet. Their pharmacy, his inventions, even magic - none of that had taught him how to fix this. Though, maybe fixing Jayce wasn’t the right way to go on about this. Maybe Jayce didn’t want him to fix him.

Slowly he let go of Jayce and let him slump back onto the cushion. He pushed himself forward until he was lying on top of Jayce’s chest, let Jayce hold onto him, let him curl around him.

“Talk to me,” Viktor said. “I’m not him but I’m still here for you. So talk to me.”

“You wanna listen to me whine?” Jayce said, self-deprecating, a poor attempt at lifting the mood.

“Is that so hard to believe? You already managed to make one version of me care for you.”

And Jayce took a long, shaky breath. And he started talking.

-

Love was a complicated thing, and starting to love a future version of a man he hadn’t met who was in love with his future, dead version, complicated it even more, so he elected to ignore it. It wouldn’t feel fair anyway, to use Jayce’s love for his future version, neither to himself or to Jayce. So they kept tiptoeing around each other. Lingering touches, forehead kisses, short side-hugs. Only at night, sleeping side by side, sometimes waking up on top of each other, did they allow whatever feelings they might have to take hold and not let go. In the morning if Viktor was the first to wake up, he’d stay there, beside Jayce, on top of him, underneath him, pressing himself closer until he felt the other stirring, and he knew it was the same for Jayce.

Jayce held him like it would be the last time, like Viktor could disappear from his arms at any moment. And Viktor held him knowing this love wasn't for him.

Neither of them said anything.

-

Sometimes Viktor wondered about Jayce’s present version. The man hellbent on proving even humans born without the arcane could use it, a man who would accept Viktor with open arms, who would share his dream with him. Before he even realized he had built an image of that man in his head, both of them two sides of the same coin, side by side, unstoppable.

He imagined showing him their research, his joy, his admiration, unrestrained and without the bitterness attached to his older self. It didn't feel quite fair to this Jayce, and so he kept it behind closed teeth, behind every wall he kept up. On rare occasions he was weak though, weak for his daydreams, his imaginations.

“Have you seen how your past self is doing?” Viktor asked, forced apathy in his voice. “You said we'd be partners. I must admit, hearing the way you talked about my future self- it did sound nice.”

“He can't have you.” Jayce didn’t even look up from the bunsen burner, watching the antibiotics slowly drip into a flask. His voice was flat.

Viktor leaned back to look at him, unimpressed. “It appears you are under the impression you can decide things in my life simply because you knew another version of me.”

Jayce’s brows were furrowed and he looked up, startling at Viktor’s close proximity before automatically leaning closer as if magnetized by him. “He can't have you, he's- he's a- a naive idealist who does not know how to keep anything he loves safe.”

Viktor thought back to the piltover student who always looked busy, deep in his own thoughts, he often didn't seem aware of the world around him. He was Viktor’s age, full of eagerness and hope and something in him rankled at the vitriol in Jayce’s voice. “He isn't you. Just like I am not the man in your future. Isn't that why you sought out my help? I deserved a second chance. Why doesn’t he?”

“Because he’s a fool who ruins everything he touches. I know how I was all these years ago- blinded by desire, my strife to do good without knowing how, without asking any of the people I wanted to help. I had to go through hell to finally understand.”

“Am I not the same?” Viktor leaned his cheek on his palm as he regarded Jayce, the hair he had tied back, his scruffy beard, the manic intensity a constant in his eyes. “At that moment in time when both of us met - we created hextech for progress’ sake and told ourselves it was to better people’s lives. You're trying to rid my blame, but aren't you just erasing me from history?”

Jayce let out a pained noise, the low whine of an animal caught in a trap. He grabbed Viktor’s shoulders. “No! You- you tried to warn me, you were against it! You never wanted to create weapons but I- I was a fool. I promised you to destroy the hexcore, and instead when I got you killed, I fused you with it. Everything- all the bad things that happened, to the world, to you, they were all on me.”

“Jayce,” Viktor said. “No version of me would enjoy being put on a pedestal. I know myself. I've- learned a lot. These past months. Thanks to you. And I'm not the man in your memories. He wasn’t the man you clearly think he was.”

Jayce kept shaking his head. “It was all my fault! It wasn't- I turned him into that- that creature. And he still forgave me.”

“Because he knew it was something you and him both started. Why do you insist? Why do you want to be a bad person?”

Jayce leaned forward until his head was lying on Viktor’s lap. He hugged him around the waist. “He can't have you,” he repeated instead of answering. “He will only hurt you.”

Viktor sighed and ran his fingers through Jayce’s shaggy hair. He shouldn't feel pleased at this, to be wanted so whole-heartedly. He shouldn't like the way Jayce was clinging to him, the way he was watching him as if he was his entire world. Maybe both of them were deeper in this than he had thought. “You've also been suffering silently, haven't you?”

Still on his lap, Jayce shook his head. “I deserved it.”

Viktor pulled on a strand in warning before continuing to scratch at his nape, behind his ears, over his head. “Nobody deserves that,” he said. He leaned over Jayce, as if to hide him from the rest of the world. “I won’t push. Just- promise me that one day you'll meet your past self. I learned from you, didn't I? Allow him the same courtesy.”

For a while only silence was heard as Jayce tightened his grip around Viktor. “Okay,” he whispered. “Somewhen. Later.”

Well, that was the best he could get for now. Viktor leaned back and pulled Jayce against him. Until then he could just enjoy this. He hoped wherever his older self was, whatever had happened to him, he would forgive Viktor, forgive him for using Jayce, using this love not meant for him. He would understand though. The loneliness, the all-consuming need of being accepted, all of him, as if his body was in any way worthy of desire. He would understand.

-

There was a little boy in front of their pharmacy. He was frowning but it was clear that there was a nervosity in his bones, his fidgeting hands, the way he rolled back and forth on his feet.

“I heard you’re the ones who make the prosthetics and the medicine!” he said, loud voice almost a yell.

Jayce’s breath hitched and he was staring at the child as if he had seen a ghost, so Viktor reluctantly took over the role of talking. “That would be us, yes.”

The boy slammed a machine onto their counter. It was an ingenious little thing, one that spoke of a deep understanding of machinery. It sputtered to life and started floating above the wood, unsteady and loud, but Viktor was in awe at what this young boy had already created at his age.

“My name is Ekko,” the little boy said as if he dared the world to disagree. “And I will be your apprentice!”

Jayce choked again, louder, and Ekko threw him a frown before turning back to Viktor, apparently deciding that he was the safer option.

Viktor remembered being a young boy, remembered his parents putting all their money together to buy him an academy uniform. He had been sneaking into classes and by the time he had been discovered, he had already amazed everyone important. He remembered mapping out the places Heimerdinger liked to frequent and taking his most impressive invention for the chance to prove himself. It had never been a coincidence that they both had been at the same place at the same time. In the undercity chances had to be created, and this boy before them very much wanted to take his chance. Viktor was utterly enamored.

“We're medics,” he said instead of the immediate acceptance. He turned towards Jayce who was still staring at Ekko, and shook him by the shoulder. Jayce startled. “Why come to us?”

Ekko scuffed the ground with his shoe. “You guys are doing good. I have friends- they always get into trouble, into fights. And I wanna be ready when they get in over their heads. I know how to build things. How to repair machines. I don't know how to repair people.”

Viktor and Jayce shared a look.

“Okay,” Jayce said, having already read the expectation in Viktor’s eyes. “But we run a tight ship. No playing around. Think you can keep up?”

The boy gave them a sharp smile, all confidence. “You betcha!”

-

“Typically antibiotics like penicillin or amoxicillin are used for pneumonia. So, what would be the first step?” Viktor smiled down patiently at Ekko who was frowning at the notebook Viktor had provided him.

Ekko’s nose twitched. “To obtain a sample of Penicillium chrysogenum?”

“Correct. Later. But your first step should be to see if the cause is bacterial, viral or fungal. Now, how do you know what the cause is?”

Ekko gave him a victorious smile, already answering before Viktor had even finished his question.

-

Nobody except for Jayce and Viktor ever entered their research-lab-apartment-living-place which was why Viktor frowned when Jayce stepped inside one day, a man behind him. He was big and burly but there was something about his expression that was soft. It grew confused when he saw Viktor.

“Who’re you?”

Viktor looked from him to Jayce who looked sheepish under his unimpressed stare. He hadn't even bothered to tell this man about him and then paraded him around their research-lab-apartment-living-place without asking him first? Well. Fuck that. “His prisoner.”

The man turned towards Jayce in accusation who could only roll his eyes.

“He wants to be here! I know you could have left ages ago if you wanted to, V.”

“Without my cane?” Viktor asked and dramatically grabbed his leg brace.

“You stole a disabled man's cane?!” the man asked, growing less impressed by the second.

“I did not! It's right there! And- and I also use a cane!”

Viktor gave him a grin, finding it strangely endearing how flustered Jayce was. “He kidnapped me and cuffed me to a ratty couch.”

Jayce groaned. “You're insufferable.”

The man looked between them, relaxing when he picked up on the joking tone. His eyes shone in realization. “This is your partner then? I apologize, I heard the other half of the miracle Topsider doctor was one of ours and when I saw you- well…”

Viktor waved him off. He was as much a stranger to the Undercity as he was in Piltover, a double life where he didn't really belong to either. His people saw his clothes, the behaviors he had veiled himself in to conceal himself between the Piltovans, and saw an enemy, a stranger. Piltovans saw missing manners, behaviors he couldn't and didn't want to rid himself of and only saw a dirty street dog that didn't belong. “A miracle, how appearance alone can camouflage us, isn't it?

“You are from the undercity then?” the man asked. “Haven't heard that accent in a while.”

Viktor closed his notebook, annoyed to be taken out of his research. “How much did Jayce tell you?” Why are you here, he didn't ask.

The man scratched his jaw and looked at Jayce from the corner of his eyes. “A lot of things that sounded fantastical. Terrifying. He knew things he shouldn't. Told me about my future. This thing is also otherworldly.” He pointed at Jayce’s forehead, the crystals embedded in his skin. “It took a bit of convincing but I eventually believed his tale about time travel. Magic is known to cause the strangest of experiences. He didn't quite tell me where you come into play.”

“I'm only his research partner, two lifetimes over,” Viktor said. Maybe ‘I’m the one who'll destroy the world’ wasn’t the first impression this man should get from him. “You on the other hand- who are you?”

He spoke to the man but looked at Jayce with narrowed eyes. This was a massive amount of trust he was extending towards a stranger. Maybe he had known him from before.

“My name is Vander.”

Viktor’s breath stopped. Everyone in the undercity knew about the man behind the bridge revolt. So Jayce wasn’t simply trying to keep magic away, he wanted to fix the grim future, the grim present. Did he want to save the entire Undercity? Not just the people they were healing?

“Your ambitions will be the death of you,” he said but couldn't keep the grin from crawling over his face.

Jayce grinned back and led a confused Vander inside, now sure Viktor wouldn't throw a wrench at them. “What else is new?”

-

Directly after Vander left, Jayce turned to him. “I apologize for clueing him in without asking you first, I suddenly met him when he chased some bastards away from me with one single command, and then we started talking and he seemed really nice and I remembered his fate in my old world and so- so I tried to warn him? I guess? But he kept asking how I knew everything and if I worked for Silco and-”

“Jayce,” Viktor said, no idea what the hell he was talking about and who Silco was. “Breathe.”

Jayce did. He continued, calmer but not making any more sense. “For- for some reason he became a monster in my time- at least from what Cait told me. And then you used his corpse as a weapon against us. But that was after I went against your explicit wishes and fused you with the hexcore and then shot you through the chest after your future-future self told me it was the only way. Guess I felt guilty about that.”

Viktor put his palms against each other and looked up at Jayce diplomatically. “Jayce, I say this with my utmost love and appreciation: What the fuck?”

-

The next time he saw Vander it was two months later when they received an invitation to a party at his bar. Jayce was keeping close to him, a hand always on a hidden weapon while Viktor was thumbing the taser he had quickly thrown together but any caution was needless - the people of the undercity kept their doctors safe.

Behind them Viktor could hear a punch and then a scream, followed by a “All clear, doc’s, just a robber, nothin’ t’worry ‘bout!”

“Tell him he can come to the pharmacy if he needs it when he wakes up!” Viktor called.

“Yessir!”

“This is strange,” Jayce whispered, somehow even more suspicious as he walked closer to Viktor.

“We're the only trustworthy doctors who help people for free. Obviously we would be protected.”

“Very strange,” Jayce repeated.

The bar was lively when they entered. Spirits seemed to be high and people were already drunk. And there, in the middle of the bar, giving out drinks, was Vander, a slim man with dark hair and a pitch-black eye in front of him. There was a tension between them that spoke of a charged history but they seemed to tentatively reach out to each other.

“Fucking hell,” Jayce breathed and grabbed Viktor’s arm, keeping him from greeting them. “He’s actually done it.”

“Do you know that man?” Viktor asked.

Jayce nodded. “That's Silco. In my time he was a crime lord responsible for the drug cartels and the spread of a drug called Shimmer in the Undercity. He wanted its independence. I think he killed Vander. Cait wasn’t making a lot of sense when she told me though so I'm not really sure what happened. Later his daughter would blow up the councillor’s building, killing you.”

“Hmm.” Viktor bumped their shoulders together. He watched as Vander and Silco continued to talk to each other, even eliciting a quiet laugh from the dark man. “I think I prefer this timeline.”

“Yeah,” Jayce said. “It wasn’t nice. He died. By his daughter’s hand no less. Fuck, V, when I told Vander about it all, I thought he'd go hunt Silco down to kill him, not to- to befriend him!”

“They seem to have history together.” The unspoken leader of the Undercity and a man who had fought tooth and nail for its independence. There was something unbelievably tragic about Jayce’s time, something he did not want to dwell on lest he lose himself in the what ifs.

Jayce kept his grip on Viktor’s arm and Viktor huffed at the realization that he really did not want to speak to Silco. So he turned his hand and grabbed Jayce’s, pulling him to the edge of the bar. They could greet and congratulate Vander later for making up with his friend. Or, well, in Jayce’s case glare holes through him.

A little “pssst!” made them look up at the ceiling. Ekko was grinning at them from a gap in the wood and pointed them to a door that led downstairs. “Come, I want you guys to meet my friends!”

Viktor already walked towards the room, Jayce following less certain. There, down below the bar, Ekko met them again, grabbing Viktor’s arm to pull him along. “Come on, you'll love them! Powder is also an inventor like us!”

“The friends who’ll one day be in over their heads?” Viktor asked with a grin and laughed when Ekko nodded vigorously.

“Vi’s a beast but one day I'm sure she’ll take on a battalion of enforcers!”

Jayce coughed, the arm in Viktor’s grip trembling. “Vi?!” he said.

“Yeah,” Ekko frowned. “What of it?”

“Nothing! Just- cool name?”

They arrived at a door that Ekko threw open. Four children’s heads turned towards them as Ekko grinned with pride. “There! I told you guys that the docs took me in as an apprentice!”

The children stared at them with wide eyes.

“Wow,” Jayce rasped out. “You guys are young.”

“Wait!” the child with thick eyebrows and hair that looked like it was defying gravity yelled as he pointed at Ekko. “I thought you were making that up! Aren't you already working for Benzo?!”

“Compared to you I can do more than one thing,” Ekko grinned.

“It's really them.” A girl with pink hair looked at them in surprise that quickly turned to anger. Jayce made a dying sound. “Why the hell did you bring them here?!”

Ekko deflated and Viktor put a hand on his head, smiling at the children. “We heard one of you is also a little inventor?”

A tiny girl with blue hair perked up. Jayce swayed on his feet when he saw her. “I like to make bombs,” she said and got immediately shushed. The older girl threw a hand over her mouth and glared at Viktor and Jayce.

“They never work anyway!” the boy with the thick eyebrows yelled.

Jayce swayed even harder. Viktor beamed at them. “Ahh, I remember my first bomb like it was yesterday. Here, why don't you show it to us? Maybe we can get it to work!”

“Viktor,” Jayce protested feebly.

But the blue haired child was already staring at Viktor as if he had hung the stars.

-

“I have a friend. She’s like a little sister to me.” Jayce looked at the pink-haired one, Vi, as they watched the other children surrounding Viktor being taught how to disable a bomb. “I think you two would get along.”

The girl’s face scrunched into disgust. “A Piltie as a friend?! No thanks!”

Jayce nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Don't let that keep you away from friendships though. It worked between Viktor and me after all, didn't it?”

“You're a weird Piltie,” Vi said. “Helping us and all without asking for anything. Some kinda ego-trip or what?”

“More fixing the shit I caused.”

Vi nodded. “You can start by giving us some money.”

“What, Vander doesn't give you guys enough pocket money?” he side-eyed her. “Say, you got any desire to break into a piltovan apartment?”

Her eyes went wide. “Can you teach us-”

“Absolutely not! I'll tell Vander!”

She threw herself back with crossed arms. “Traitor,” she muttered.

-

That night Jayce was staring at the ceiling, his entire body motionless. They were lying on the couch which had been rebuilt to be more comfortable, and Viktor didn't want to feel this warmth at the fact that Jayce hadn’t taken the chance to build two separate beds. “I knew I was vaguely changing the future, but- I guess it hasn’t really hit me.”

“You knew these children, didn't you?” Viktor pressed himself closer and turned his head to look at him.

“I- vaguely. I met Ekko before, you know? He- he became Heimerdinger’s new pupil. I fought side by side with Vi. Claggor and Mylo- I don't want to assume the worst but I’ve never even heard them mentioned and Vi only ever spoke about her sister. And Powder, she-”

Jayce broke off and Viktor thought about the little, shy girl with the bright mind who had looked at Viktor with reverence for treating her inventions with respect. As if nobody had ever told her how smart she was.

“She killed you.”

Viktor let out a sigh. “Silco’s daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“The man who probably killed her current father?”

“Yeah.”

“And then she killed him?”

“Yeah.”

“That is messed up.”

Jayce laughed, broken and raspy. “Yeah.”

-

“The other Jayce- tell me more about him.”

Jayce grit his teeth in annoyance. He pressed a button on their machine and watched as the runes came to life, immediately flickering out. “Why are you so obsessed with him anyway? He knows less than I do. You don't even know him.”

“I like the thought of a blank slate,” Viktor said in a bout of openness. Jayce was amazing, and Viktor could see why his older version had followed him into his dreams. But there was so much history, so much bitterness, so much love, attached to him, the thought of being looked at without all of that, without being in the shadow of his other self, was tantalizing.

And Jayce barked out a laugh, bitter and sharp. “I lost my partner,” he said, through lips pulled over sharp teeth, like the snapping of a wolf hunting its prey. “Why does he get to keep his?”

“What a childish way to look at the world,” Viktor said, not unkindly. “To punish your former self for something he has not done yet. What is it you hope to accomplish, Jayce? Or is it, your self-hatred runs so deep, you do not wish happiness upon any version of yourself?”

“Bit presumptuous of you, to think I’d be unhappy without you,” Jayce said, deflecting.

Viktor narrowed his eyes. “Do not take me as a fool, not when you’ve been crying in my arms last week. I’ve heard your words, I can read between the lines. You and my future self, you were partners, two sides of one coin, and without the other there will always be a part missing. The only explanation I have for your behavior is if you’re punishing your past self. Or…” He drifted off, frown softening. “Is it you’re jealous? That he might have a partner, have me, while you will be left again?”

Jayce’s lips twisted with bitter fragility. He let his head sink. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I- you’re not mine to keep, you’re not- you’re not a possession, you’re not my Viktor. I don’t want to push you into a fate you weren’t meant to have. I don’t- I don’t want you to hate me, to hate this. But- just for a few moments, can I have you? Sit beside you, work with you, be your partner? Even if it’s just for a few more days, weeks, can I delude myself into being back with the man I loved?”

Viktor sighed, a bone-deep exhaustion suddenly overtaking him. “Jayce, look at me,” he ordered and grabbed Jayce’s face to force him into meeting his eyes. “Aren’t you pushing me into something right now? By forcing me away, by assuming I wouldn’t stand by your side anyway? Let me make my own decisions, understood?”

Jayce’s eyes were wide. “But- my other self-”

“I’ll meet him one day. I hope we’ll have a good partnership like you did with your Viktor. But just because I want to meet him doesn’t mean I will leave you behind. You’re my partner too, Jayce. We've been working together these last months and they've been the most fun I've ever had. You- you opened my eyes. Made me feel like I'm doing something good. Besides, it might do you well to meet him. Maybe then you can let go of some of that hatred you harbor for yourself.”

There were tears in Jayce’s eyes. “I don’t want to replace my Viktor. I- I don’t want you to feel like you’re a replacement.”

“I don’t,” Viktor said. He tightened his hold on Jayce’s face. “I’m not your Viktor. I’m me. How about we start from the beginning again, hm?”

“What do you mean?”

Viktor let go and stood straight, holding out his hand. “Hello. My name is Viktor and I'm assistant to the dean of the academy. Or, well, was. I do hope my replacement is competent enough. Hmm. Let me rewind - Hello. My name is Viktor and I’m a doctor of the Undercity. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

A tear slipped from Jayce’s eye, then another. A trembling hand grabbed Viktor’s, shaking hard enough to vibrate through his entire arm. “I’m Jayce Talis,” he choked out. “Doctor of the Undercity. I hope to have a great partnership.”

“As do I,” Viktor said with a soft smile.

Jayce let him go and instead threw his arms around him and Viktor found himself pressed to a warm body, his head pushed into Jayce’s shoulder who held him as if he was about to fall apart. And Viktor laughed quietly and hugged back with all the strength his arms possessed.

-

The feeling in the Undercity had changed, it felt like a new wind had taken over. Viktor stretched and realized that he hadn't even thought about going back in a while. Did Heimerdinger think he was dead? Or that he had run away?

For a moment he thought about sending him a letter but then he remembered his future self, abandoned by his mentor, the only close person he had in his life. It wasn’t fair, to punish this Heimerdinger for actions he hadn't committed yet, felt hypocritical and illogical in a way that itched at his skin, and yet the thought of talking to him made him nauseous.

While their little pharmacy grew, research on the arcane stayed stagnant. They had figured out the wild runes, knew how to use its magic, but creating a barrier over all of it felt impossible. If Viktor had been any other man, he would have given up already. But he was as stubborn as he was confident, same as Jayce, and so neither of them would give up

-

There was a man in front of their pharmacy when Viktor and Jayce arrived. Only when they came closer did Viktor recognize the slim form of Silco, accompanied by two muscular goons. Nobody else was around. They must have scared away their patients. Viktor balled his hands into fists, scoffing internally. This was a man used to throwing his weight around.

Jayce stepped in front of him and Viktor wanted to protest, when he realized Jayce was trembling, faintly, all his muscles tense. He was scared of Silco. Viktor could only imagine the things he had gone through because of this man’s future version.

“Silco,” Jayce greeted and the man looked up, acting as if he had only noticed them now.

“Doctors,” he greeted with a thin smile. His eyes wandered from Jayce to Viktor who shuddered at the assessing gaze. “The two wonders of Zaun.”

“What do you want?” Jayce growled.

“What an accusatory glare you have.” Silco stepped closer and Jayce flinched back, bumping into Viktor. “You were the one who made Vander come to me, weren't you?”

“I just spoke to him about friendship and love and forgiveness and such and he suddenly decided to make up with you on his own. We’ve got nothing to do with that.”

Silco huffed a laugh. “Strangers appearing overnight, trying to fix Zaun, with ties to the most influential man.”

Jayce reached behind to grab Viktor’s arm, looking ready to run. Viktor didn't quite understand what was going on but he knew even now, a decade before Jayce’s present, this man was bad news.

Silco leaned back and just like that the threatening aura dissipated. “But I digress. I'm here for business.”

“No,” Jayce said immediately and Silco rolled his eyes.

He grabbed something from his pocket - a motion that made Jayce flinch - and held it towards them. A liquid sloshing inside a syringe, its neon violet standing out in the dusty streets. “This is Shimmer. How interesting, you seem to recognize it.”

“I've seen what it can do,” Jayce said quietly. “We're not making drugs for you, Silco.”

Viktor reared up, spying from behind Jayce to glare. “Absolutely not! We're medics, not- not drug dealers!”

“Believe me, I would not need the help of a Piltovan who seems to exist twice and a traitor to Zaun to create a drug I already possess.”

Jayce stumbled back, pushing Viktor with him. “How did you-”

“You're carrying around the same name as your other self and aren't trying to hide your face.” Silco’s voice had become snide, reproachful. “No, I want you to create a better version. One that has no… side effects. It had once been created to heal, you know? Its addictiveness was an unforeseen quality.”

“You want us to- to create a cure?”

Silco wordlessly waved the syringe in Jayce’s face. It was Viktor who reached out to grab it, hating the man’s self-satisfied smile.

“I expect speedy results, doctors,” Silco said and turned around, the goons right behind him. For a moment he looked back at them. “One more thing, Mr. Talis. Keep your affections close to your chest. The walls have ears down here. And you, traitor - make sure you know where your loyalties lie. It would be a shame to lose such a bright mind to Piltover again. For them you will always be a dirt-blooded mutt, staining their pristine white walls and no amount of forcing yourself into them will change that. Don't forget that.”

Jayce stepped in front of Viktor, this time hiding him from sight completely. Viktor’s face bumped against Jayce’s back and he huffed.

“Are you threatening us? I thought you and Vander were on friendly terms.”

“Not threatening. Merely giving advice to such promising inventors.”

He walked into the smog of the city, disappearing from sight. Jayce waited, until it was clear that he was gone, before sacking into himself, panicked breaths escaping.

Viktor turned him around to look at him. Jayce wasn’t just scared, he was terrified. That man had carried himself with power and confidence and it was obvious from Jayce’s behavior that he knew how to wield it. Quietly Viktor opened his arms as an offer, let him fall against him and bury his face in his shoulder. Jayce liked physical touch, and even though Viktor didn't care much about it most of the time, he would offer it readily if it meant chasing that terrified expression off his face. Jayce’s arms came up to hold Viktor, first loosely, then almost suffocating.

“I fucking hate that guy,” Jayce whispered.

Viktor could only pat his back.

-

Viktor could easily read the traces of his former mentor in the drug. Singed had been busy it seemed.

Maybe it was the memory of Rio that made him throw himself completely into the research of a better Shimmer. He wouldn’t need to hurt an innocent creature to the point of death, wouldn’t need to stoop so low.

“Is this really a good idea?” Jayce muttered. “To do what that guy wants us to do?”

“He may be suspicious but there’s nothing bad in what he asked of us.” Viktor looked up at him through his goggles from where he was leaning over a microscope.

“I don't know. This drug - in my time it caused so much pain. There were children, working for Silco’s drug productions, Piltover almost went to war. I- I did unspeakable things, all to stop him.”

Viktor looked at the liquid, innocuous and yet so dangerous. But as cold, as uncaring as Singed was, he was skilled, knowledgeable in a way Viktor wasn’t, and he knew that this drug could be the solution to the illness haunting his future.

“It might save my life,” Viktor said quietly. He stared up, into Jayce’s eyes, imploring, searching for any amount of understanding. “I can’t do this on my own. I need your help in this. Please.”

And Jayce nodded immediately. His eyes were wide, doubt replaced by a new hope as he glanced at the drug. He sat down beside Viktor, notebook ready. “Of course.”

-

It had been months and they still hadn't figured out the magical barrier. Compared to their Shimmer research and their pharmacy, magic stayed elusive. They had reached a standstill that made both of them frustrated.

“It would be smart to bring in more heads. I don't mean Heimerdinger,” Viktor rushed to say when Jayce already opened his mouth to deny him. “I mean your younger self.”

A pained expression grew on Jayce’s face. By now Viktor could read him well enough to see he knew he was right. And Jayce knew him well enough to realize he couldn't fool him with lies. So he sighed and looked at Viktor, pleading. “Can we stay like this a bit longer? Just a little bit. I just- once everything changes there's no going back.”

And how could Viktor deny him like this. “Okay,” he said and found he didn't mind at all. There was a warm flutter in his chest, a desire to stay like this for longer too. “Just a little bit.”

-

“Viktor?!”

“Hello, Professor.”

Heimerdinger gaped at him as he gave him a wave and a dry grin, Jayce awkwardly behind him. He had never seen his mentor so shell-shocked, it was amusing to see him fight to find any words. They had cornered him at the bottom steps of the academy, Jayce wearing a cloak in case they would meet his younger self.

“I thought- I assumed- this is highly unusual! We were searching all over the place for you! Are you quite alright, my boy?”

“I decided to go back to the Undercity for a while. I apologize if I made you worry, professor.”

Heimerdinger deflated and gave him a relieved smile and like this it was hard to still feel any resentment for his future self. “But- you’re back now! And with a friend?”

Viktor looked between them. He coughed. “Professor, this is… Jay. My partner. We established a pharmacy in the Undercity. To help people.”

"Marvelous!" Heimerdinger exclaimed. “I always knew you were a bright pupil!”

Jayce nodded. “We came here to ask for a doctor. We might have a cure for Viktor’s lungs.”

“His lungs?”

“Oh yeah,” Viktor said. “There’s tumors in my lungs. But we created an all-cure that could save me.”

Heimerdinger’s carefully constructed calm broke again. “What?!”

-

They had decided to search out a specialized surgeon to cut him open instead of Jayce trying his best, which Jayce seemed much too grateful for. Still, they both insisted he watched the procedure, would jump in with the newly changed Shimmer to ensure there wouldn’t be a relapse later in life.

“I need to observe and learn in case one of my patients suffers from a malignant tumor,” Jayce said when the surgeon argued against them.

“If one of your patients suffers from cancer, they should go to a trained surgeon! You aren't in any way trained for this!”

“They’re from the Undercity,” Viktor hissed. He felt hypocritical, having run up to Piltover for his own medical treatment, but that got overshadowed by the hopeful joy of finally not being a walking dead man. “We’re the closest some of these people have to trained surgeons.”

“I still can't let you just- just use an unknown substance on my patient!”

“Even if I consent?” Viktor asked. “We tested it on plants, insects and then mammals. It's stable.”

“Yes! It's highly unethical! Human experimentation is still human experimentation even if the subject agrees!”

“Well, if you won’t do it, I’ll let Jay cut them out. Come, partner, I trust you in this. We might want to get some anesthesia first though.”

The woman stayed quiet when they walked past her.

“Good idea,” Jayce said, sagely nodding. “I'll make sure my hands are steady. Oh, on that note, we probably need more sanitizer. Can't rummage around in your lungs with my dirty nails.”

“Eh, I’m sure soap and water will be enough.”

Finally, when they were at the door, she acquiesced with a growl. “Fine! But I need you to sign a waiver!”

-

The procedure took five hours after which Viktor stayed unconscious for six more. When he woke up, Jayce was at his bedside, leg tapping against the floor in a constant rhythm.

“Did it work?” was the first thing that came out of Viktor’s mouth.

Jayce’s head shot up and he rubbed a quick hand over his eyes before giving him a smile so bright, Viktor was shocked it didn’t blind him. “Our Shimmer - it got absorbed into your body where she cut away the tumors and healed it over. It also seems like it's acting like a barrier against all future relapse! You’re expected to make a full recovery!”

Viktor took a deep breath and then doubled over in pain, cursing and spitting. Still, there was a grin on his face and tears in his eyes. He wouldn’t die young. Jayce wiped over his cheeks, first alarmed, then in relief when he heard Viktor laugh, happy and unrestrained. Tears continued to drip off his face but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop the overwhelming tsunami of emotions. He wouldn’t die young. He wouldn’t die young.

Viktor had defied the fate befallen so many children of the Undercity and wouldn’t die young.

-

Despite the use of their New-Shimmer it took several weeks until it stopped hurting when he took a breath, until he could feel the effects of the procedure. Breathing was easier, didn’t feel like it was pressing against his chest, he didn’t have to cough, didn’t feel out of breath after few steps. He had never felt so free, had never felt this much like his body was actually his, like he could run and run and never stop.

He took a breath, unrestrained, and knew his illness was gone, knew not with the careful observation of a scientist but the optimism and hope of a human.

“Thank you,” he told Jayce when they were bent over their research at night. It didn’t feel enough, couldn’t possibly encompass all the turbulent feelings inside of him. Two words that could never convey what he wanted to, and yet were the only things he could give.

But Jayce looked like he understood, like it was enough. “We did it together.”

“I’m healed because you came back. Because you decided to stay. So thank you.”

“No, I-”

“Jayce. Stop talking. Just let me thank you. For once I want you to know how much you mean to me, alright?”

The smile on Jayce’s face was gentle, so soft Viktor could almost feel it. “I’m just happy you’re okay, V.”

Viktor couldn't understand it. Maybe he never would. How could his health be worth all that trouble, all the work, the effort? How could he possibly measure up to a love that conquered time and space? Every time Jayce looked at him it was with such softness, such love, and Viktor did not understand.

“That's enough?” he asked, helpless in the tidal wave of emotion.

Jace tilted his head, having the audacity to look confused after making Viktor feel like his head was spinning. “Of course. It's more than enough.”

-

Viktor triumphantly placed down the syringe on Vander’s countertop and pushed it over to Silco. Jayce was behind him, arms crossed, still wary of the man.

Silco’s brows raised as he picked it up, looking at the pink, shimmering substance inside. “This is… Shimmer? Without the side effects?”

“It’s pretty much an everything cure!” Viktor said, excited. “No addictive qualities whatsoever.”

“As long as the injuries aren’t already healed,” Jayce said. “Didn’t do anything to our legs.”

“You tested it out on yourselves?” Vander exclaimed.

“Of course,” Viktor said. “Who else would we test it out on? Obviously we used plants, insects and then mammals first. We used it on an operation I underwent too and it healed an illness that would have killed me.”

“And we used it every day to test for any addictiveness,” Jayce added. “Until now everything seems good. Obviously we haven’t tested any long-term effects but we're both positive.”

Only curses could be heard from where Vander had buried his face in his hands.

Silco huffed. “What sentimentality,” he muttered snidely. “To use your own bodies, your own minds instead of the canon fodder of scum and-”

“Uncle Silco!” Powder jumped down the ceiling, almost crashing into Viktor as she threw herself into Silco’s lap. “My hair got tangled again! Can you braid it for me?”

Silco’s eyes were wide, embarrassed, and Jayce snorted softly.

“Keep your affections close to your chest,” he mocked with a grin smug enough to hurt.

Silco smartly kept quiet. With a scoff he started running his fingers through Powder’s hair to untangle it. Like this he didn’t look as threatening anymore, not like the drug boss he had been in the future.

Viktor pushed the syringe closer, then two more vials. “Your eye might need several shots. All depends on how your body reacts to it.”

Silco inclined his head. “I thank you,” he said, eyes contemplative as they rested on the vials.

With a nod Viktor stood up. He paused. “One more thing.” He leaned close to Silco. Pressed another syringe into his hand. “Tell Singed I hope he found what he was searching for. But we won't let him use our home as a testing ground anymore.”

Chapter Text

There was a certain amount of patience every scientist, every researcher, had to possess, else they crumble underneath the pressure of frustration and failure. Viktor had been raised with patience, with blood-curdling self-restraint - too impatient and you might blow yourself up, you might give up on your hopes and dreams and where does that leave you except just another undercity rat staining the academy’s floors. Shoot your shot and make sure it’s worth it, because only the top will make up for where you were born. But even his patience had its limit: just above listening to Professor Zovar’s disjointed ramblings over Viktor’s manners and just beneath working on a magical barrier for one and a half years and having nothing to show for it besides the runes Jayce had already figured out in his timeline.

Viktor tore out a page of his notebook, crumpled it up and threw it at the wall with an angry yell when the door opened.

“I see you had a breakthrough,” Jayce said drily as he led another man inside, and if Viktor wasn’t already high-strung enough to punch someone with his cane, he would have reined in his tongue.

“For the love of god, ask me first before you bring someone else into our home-” Viktor stopped, recognizing the man immediately. How could he not, he looked into his face every single day. Jayce Talis, a decade younger, with no beard and short hair, without the tiredness, the lines on his face, the self-hatred in his eyes. Jayce Talis, handsome and tall, wide-eyed, walking through the halls of the academy like nothing existed except for his racing thoughts, head full of ideas and hope. Jayce Talis with two functioning legs who hadn’t gone through hell to save his Viktor. Jayce Talis, who looked at Viktor as if he was a stranger.

Talis waved. “Hi,” he said, uncharacteristically shy. He cleared his throat and stepped closer, reaching out a hand. “Jayce Talis. But you… already knew that. I guess.”

“Viktor,” he said and took his hand. It was broad and calloused but was missing several scars, was softer than Jayce’s. The same stone embedded in Jayce’s skin was attached to a bracelet on his wrist. “Jayce already briefed you on the situation?”

Talis’s eyes darted between them. There was something approaching hero worship whenever he looked at his older counterpart. “Yeah! It’s- it’s crazy, it’s insane- but I believe it. This is- it’s pure insanity, isn’t it?!”

Despite his words there was a big grin on his face, a young excitement that made Viktor smile too. It seemed Jayce had possessed that effortless charm even when he had been younger.

There were people in life who were like a magnet, pulling you into their orbit, sometimes without even noticing. Councillor Medarda wielded her charm like a weapon, used to her advantage, and Viktor knew he would fall for it had she even the slightest bit of use for the Dean’s assistant. Jayce’s awareness of his was situational, using it when he needed something, when he was standing before people, like when he announced new medicine they had in stock, telling everyone to spread the word of their pharmacy. Other times he didn’t seem to realize his pull, the way his voice commanded you to listen. Even when he was whispering, even at his messiest, after waking up from a nightmare, eyes red and blotchy and wild, limbs trembling, staring at Viktor as if he was a mirage, he didn’t lose any of his charm. Talis on the other hand didn’t seem to register his one bit. He was beaming, an openness on him that didn’t feel fake, face pulled in an effortless smile, looking at Viktor without any preconceived notions, eyes glancing to his cane but not lingering, like he was trying to form the most objective opinion on him. It made him look much younger than his twenty-three years.

Viktor had never gotten into the habit of liking people right off the bat - nobody in the undercity did. Fondness came after years of vetting someone, of careful consideration, else you found yourself at the other end of a knife. And yet here he was, answering Talis’s smile with his own, honest and real, not at all like his usual quirked lips, amused smirks or smug grins.

“You don't mind?” Viktor asked. “The dream you've reached for your entire life- impossible to accomplish.”

“Not impossible!” Talis argued. “Evidently it is possible! I know I was right, that magic can be harnessed! And I don't need everyone else to know, to see what I saw, not if it means the end of the world.”

Viktor truly couldn’t wrangle the smile off his face. Talis was so much like his older version, just without the scars and the hurt. It was endearing, seeing the man hidden underneath the pain, and even though he didn’t know this man, he already liked him as if he was a close friend. Not that Viktor had much experience with those. He might understand Jayce a little bit more now, the way he had treated him, seen the man he had loved in him.

It was impossible to separate both versions completely. Hell, maybe he owed Jayce an apology.

Viktor nudged his cane against Talis’s ankle. “Well, I'm looking forward to working with you.”

“As am I!”

“Let’s get to work then,” Jayce said and clapped both of them on the back. “Come on, younger me, I’ll show you what we figured out until now.”

-

It was obvious that while Jayce knew him like the back of his hand, Viktor was but a stranger to Talis. Years of memories filled with friendship, love and joy erased, never to come to fruition in this world, and Viktor refused to spiral back into bitterness over that, too content working side by side with two Jayce’s. Being told about a future soulmate bond was quite different than building it naturally, and Viktor felt himself distinctly thrown into Jayce’s role, as someone yearning for a man who didn't know him.

Talis was awkward around him, more so than around his older self, and didn’t seem to quite know how to treat him, Viktor’s casual touches, his quips, his expectant looks, and Viktor tried to rein himself in. He shouldn’t come on too strong. It was all too frustrating. He had only known Jayce for one and a half years, while Jayce had known his future self for ten. And here he was, already feeling disappointed that there was no recognition in Talis’s eyes. Weak. Embarrassing even. He vowed to never tell Jayce.

It was a special kind of hurt, to look at someone and expect warmth, affection, and only receive a blank friendliness in return, a surprised confusion that wasn't averse, and yet stung in the mountain of expectation Viktor hadn't even been aware he had built for this younger version of his friend. It shouldn't be surprising with how much Viktor had wished to meet this man, wished to have the same bond Jayce had had with his future self. Not after the way Jayce had spoken about their partnership, the pure love emanating from him whenever he had recounted a memory. It was an unfair weight on Talis’s shoulders, one he hadn’t even been aware existed before yesterday, before Jayce had come to him.

So Viktor held himself back, desperately wishing not to fuck this up. Jayce’s treatment all those months ago had already shown him how unwanted these kinds of expectations were. Natural - he needed to let it naturally proceed, needed to let Talis warm up to him first before he could even think about any kind of potential friendship. Viktor’s only friend had been an old scientist, uncaring of the sacredness of life, who had apparently gone and created a drug that would ravage the Undercity, and now he had been thrown into the cold water of socialization. How wonderful.

And, he thought with a glance towards Jayce, it wasn't like he would be completely alone anyway. He already had a partner, didn't he? Despite the charged history, he and Jayce had built a friendship, with unsteady planks, brick and mortar, held together by grief, hope and expectations, by time spent together in a home they had patched together, by their mutual desire to help the Undercity.

So he let himself relax, let his brain be consumed by their research before him and decided to let go, let go of the hope, the fantasies, the image of Talis he had built in his mind, and to take him in as the confused newbie he was. It must have been a bewildering day for him after all.

He, Jayce and Talis worked amazingly well together and Talis slotted into their duo easily as if he had always been there. It was nice, Viktor realized with a smile, working side by side with him, with Jayce, three scientists bound together by an incessant desire to mess with the impossible.

-

“If we invert the lattice structure of the crystals here, it disrupts the arcane frequencies,” Talis said.

“It might cause a feedback loop,” Viktor said. “The feedback-”

“- collapses the magic into harmless entropy! It doesn't suppress it, it-”

“- erases it!”

“But the lattice destabilizes the moment we reach a critical threshold.”

“You’re thinking too linearly! Magic doesn’t obey conventional entropy laws - it exists as a waveform outside of standard physics. And runes are a form of communication. So to make sure nobody can access it-”

“- we have to delete the language, not the root!”

“Yes!” Viktor smiled, delighted. “That might just work!”

Talis put a hand on his shoulder and he leaned in, both beaming at each other. He turned towards Jayce to share their breakthrough. His joy wiped out of his mind when he saw the pained smile on his face, clouded by nostalgia and memories.

Viktor held out a hand towards him. With a startle Jayce came back to life, like a child’s least favorite wind-up toy - sudden and halting, like the mechanism was rusty. He stared at Viktor’s outstretched hand, hesitating, then carefully taking it. Viktor interlaced their fingers and pulled him closer until he was barricaded between Viktor and Talis.

“If we time it right, the magic collapses into pure arcane nullification,” Jayce said, his voice quiet. “Whenever hextech is being used, the arcane is a harmonic oscillator, so if the waves deviate even slightly-”

“- it could trigger an energy implosion,” Talis finished, eyes wide. He swallowed drily, swaying slightly, shoulder bumping against Jayce’s.

“But if we do manage to stabilize it-” Jayce continued, now smiling.

“- then there is nothing for magic to cling to!” Viktor clicked his pen several times, grinning widely. “It wouldn’t just render hextech inert but sever every arcane tether!”

He held up both his hands. Jayce and Talis looked at each other, then at him, before high-fiving him with big grins.

-

“I do look pretty good with a beard,” Talis muttered and rubbed his stubble. “Should I also-”

“Yes,” Viktor said.

Talis blinked at his quick answer. “What?”

“What?”

-

Talis stretched, a yawn separating his face. “I think I’ll go back home to sleep. You guys could come with me, this place doesn’t look all too comfortable and we have enough space-”

“No.” Viktor and Jayce spoke at the same time and refused to look at each other.

Talis slowly lowered his arms. “O… kay then.”

-

There was no appropriate gift to give as an apology that could convey “Sorry, I was kind of cruel when you saw me as my older self, I now understand how you felt, but on the other hand, you did kidnap me and weren't exactly nice”, so instead Viktor rolled his chair close to Jayce that night, when the man was tinkering with his leg brace, and held out his hand for the wrench.

“Let me.”

“Something seems to be stuck,” Jayce muttered, annoyed. “This sucks. How did you deal with this your entire life?”

“With grit teeth and much patience.” Viktor grabbed Jayce’s leg and carefully placed it on his lap. Jayce leaned further on top of the desk and let out a sigh of relief. “I've spent my entire life with my leg, Jayce, this isn't anything new to me.”

“I never realized how much effort it takes just to exist.”

“Nobody does unless they experience it. I don't fault anyone for ignorance.” He loosened the brace and searched around for anything stuck between the metal, the feeling of its cold, smooth surface familiar, like being a child and rummaging around the trash for parts to use, like coming home to show his parents his creation and watching them glance at each other in what he would later realize were looks of hope, hope that he could claw himself up to Piltover, walking over any barricades as if he possessed two working legs. “What I do fault is the academy making me go up three flights of stairs every day. I had to wake up half an hour earlier and by the time class started I was sweaty and ready to hit someone. A wonderful way to start the day.”

Maybe this was one of the reasons he had been immediately smitten by Ekko’s invention - a way to fly, to hover in the air, without having to rely on his body, to feel wind in his hair and imagine this was how it felt to run. The boy had started building a bigger version of his hovering device, with Powder’s help, and Viktor hated how much he was looking forward to its completion.

Jayce winced. “Oh.”

Smiling, Viktor finally managed to dislodge the pebble that had managed to disrupt the brace. He adjusted the metal and instructed Jayce to hold it in place until he could screw it back tight. His thigh was large and Viktor could feel how hot he ran even through the thick layer of his pants. His hands lingered a bit too long, more often on Jayce than the metal of his brace, but Jayce didn't call him out on it.

“Your younger self is nice,” Viktor said apropos of nothing.

“Yeah,” Jayce whispered. By now Viktor was done but he didn't let go of his leg, wondering if he should make up an excuse to adjust the other part of his brace. Jayce didn't move away though, so he kept quiet too. “I forgot how much excitement I had for everything. Seeing myself, young, it’s- it’s weird.”

Viktor’s lips twitched into a smile. “Is he everything you hated?”

“He is less of an asshole than I expected.”

“You were less of an asshole than you expected.”

Jayce let out a laugh. It settled into a smile, warm and fond. “Thank you. For convincing me to bring him on board. I think- maybe I needed that. A reminder that I wasn't always a fuckup- ACK!”

Viktor jabbed him in the side, grinning lazily when Jayce let out a string of curses. He leaned more onto Jayce’s leg, keeping him from slipping away. “Your thanks is meaningless if you insult yourself in the same breath.”

“What, are you some kind of self-help guide now?”

Viktor jabbed him in the side again,more a tickling motion than an attack, and Jayce laughed, jerking to the side. It would be laughably easy for him to escape but he didn't. “Say it correctly now!”

“Ow- ow- okay! Thanks! For convincing me! And nothing else!”

Satisfied, Viktor let go of Jayce’s leg. “There, wasn't too hard now, was it?”

Jayce leaned over him, arms braced on his backrest. He raised a finger and poked Viktor’s side. An undignified, high-pitched noise escaped him. Jayce blinked, surprised. It quickly turned into a delighted grin Viktor did not like at all.

“Don't you dare,” Viktor hissed and tried to roll his chair back. Jayce only followed, grin widening at Viktor’s rising panic. His hands wandered to Viktor’s sides.

“No- Jayce, I swear to god- JAYCE!”

-

Silco was leaning over the outdoor counter, their last patient of the day. It seemed he had waited for everyone to leave before approaching.

“What exactly did you tell Vander?” he asked when Viktor handed him another New-Shimmer dosage.

“Why?” Jayce wanted to know, still suspicious of the man. He was hovering over Viktor, hands flexing as if he was preparing for Silco to strike.

Silco rolled his eyes. For once he was alone, not surrounded by his bodyguards or Vander. It suited him, let his confidence fill the room. Silco felt like a card trick- keep your eyes on the deck, sure the magician wouldn’t be able to deceive you, not when you looked so closely, unaware that the trick had already been done at the start, and like a true magician Silco never let you spy between the curtain of his illusions, never revealed what was hiding in his sleeves. Only what he allowed you to see. “You do not know any of what has transpired between me and Vander, do you? The only thing you know of him is he’s a dead man. And the only thing you know of me is that I killed him. I presumably hurt you.”

“Did Vander tell-”

“I don't require Vander to tell me anything as obvious as that. When he isn't treating me like a ticking time bomb he acts like I will crumble to pieces. And you are looking at me as if I was holding a gun to your head.”

Jayce looked away. “I told him everything that happened in my time. Didn't expect him to… well.”

“Not kill me?” Silco’s smile was as sharp and precise as a sword. He tapped at his eyelid, underneath the black eye. “Do you know how I got this? Toxins from the river. They like to claw and tear at your flesh, bite at you until only a bloody shell is left. Vander once tried to drown me, in the backwaters between Piltover and Zaun. Held me down, even when I struggled and fought.”

Viktor felt slightly nauseous. All that and they still managed to laugh together.

“You wonder how Vander can greet me with open arms after what you told him, don't you? Maybe now you wonder how I can stand beside him after what he has done.” Silco pocketed the New-Shimmer dosage. “Violence only beckons violence. We were simply caught in a circle. And to break that the first step is forgiveness. For the ones who are trying to do better and for ourselves.”

“Why are you telling us?” Jayce asked, voice faint. “You don't even really know us.”

Silco made to turn around. He paused, leaving Viktor a complete view of his infected eye. “I harbor no delusions about my own morals. I know I would do anything, walk over anyone, to accomplish my goals. And those will always be the independence and betterment of Zaun. But I do admit, there is a certain… displeasure. At being seen as a man who did actions I have yet to commit.”

Jayce took a quick breath, surprised, and Viktor equally was floored at the sudden openness from a man who looked like he was keeping all his secrets, all his thoughts, in the pockets of his suit. Shake him upside down and they would all tumble out- or maybe, sit by his side as a listening ear and get to hear them freely.

“Come back in a week for your next dosage,” Viktor offered. “Maybe we can get that eye to have its full vision again.”

Silco inclined his head in thanks. “I will take my leave then.”

Jayce leaned over Viktor, bracing himself on the counter to call out to Silco before he could leave. “In the future you rejected the independence of Zaun, of everything you strove for, for the life of your daughter. You're not as wretched as you think, Silco.”

The man stopped, froze. And just like that the calm man had made way for the dangerous overlord. “My daughter.” He looked back, eyes narrow. “Will your existence here stop her from being born?”

“No, I meant Jin- Powder. I meant Powder. In my time you took her in and raised her as your own.”

Silco’s lips were parted. For the first time since Viktor had seen him his carefully crafted composure had cracked, leaving only shock in its wake. He turned his head, not quick enough to hide the disbelieving smile on his face. “After all that and I raise his daughter. Your world is quite amusing, Mr. Talis.”

“Jay,” Jayce corrected. “I think if more people figure out I’m a time traveler, soon scientists will start knocking at my door, wanting to dissect me.”

Silco gave them one last wave as he left, still chuckling in the quiet before him.

Jayce slumped, on top of Viktor’s back, head hanging over his shoulder. Viktor patted his hair. “This timeline is so weird, V.”

-

Being back in Piltover was awkward and foreign, like a gear that hadn't been oiled in a long time, like the makeshift replacement piece of a machine that had long been discontinued. Viktor had never fit in, had always been seen as an outsider, but there had been times where he would have considered it his home. Now, after so much time back in the Undercity, in the place he and Jayce had built, being back top made his skin itch, his clothing feel wrong.

“You didn't have to change clothes,” Jayce whispered as they walked behind Talis who had a nervous jump in his step. “Mother wouldn’t have judged you.”

“Have you looked in the mirror?!” How hypocritical of Jayce to say that when he had bought new clothing, sponsored by Talis, decorative in a way he usually didn't allow himself to be, not in the darkness of the Undercity. They didn’t hold a candle to the materials, the needlework seen on Piltover’s upper class, but compared to the Undercity’s clothing they were luxuries. They looked nice on Jayce but also out of place, awkwardly fitting despite being tailored to his form, as if he had unlearned how to wear fine materials. He had cut his hair and trimmed his beard, now looking more put together than his usual shaggy self. Viktor resisted the urge to run his fingers through his beard.

When Talis had offered Jayce to meet his mother, it had been obvious to everyone that Jayce had wanted to more than anything in the world. And also that he was scared of the meeting to the point he had begged Viktor to come too. And how could Viktor refuse that?

It hadn’t quite occurred to him that he would meet his partners’ mother, their only remaining family, until they were standing in front of her home. He straightened his tie and tried to wipe any dust from his clothes while Jayce beside him was desperately trying to fix his hair, however messing it up more and more until it was hanging in his eyes instead of carefully slicked back.

“Hey, guys.” Talis put a hand each on their shoulders. “It’s okay. She’ll be happy to see you, older me. Not sure if she quite believed me, I will be honest, but she’ll love you. Once she gets over the shock. And she might want to feed you, Viktor, but she hasn’t got one judgmental bone in her body.”

“Okay,” Jayce breathed. “Okay. I’m- I'm ready.”

Talis opened the door to an older lady whose expression was warm and welcoming, who greeted them as if they belonged, and Viktor realized as his nerves calmed, that this was where Jayce had gotten his smile from.

“Mother,” Jayce whispered, in disbelief.

“Jayce,” she said softly.

She raised her hands to Jayce’s face, looking at him lost and sad, probably able to read the grief in him. Live with someone long enough and you'll be able to read them like a book, even with a decade of separation, there will be threads of familiarity, spun into silks of the person you love.

“Look at how you’ve grown, my darling,” she murmured, awed. “I've always known you were something special. Time travel, Jayce, really?”

“Mom,” he choked out, trembling.

“You’ll always have me as your home, you know that, right? In the future, in the past, always. I hope in your time it was the same.”

“Yeah,” Jayce sobbed with tears in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around his mother and pressed her to his chest. “I'm sorry- it was never your fault, okay? I'm sorry, I’m-”

“Oh, my darling,” she said as she guided his head down to press a gentle kiss to his crown. “Your life hasn’t been the easiest, has it? I apologize if I caused any of your suffering.”

And like that Jayce couldn't do anything but cry. Viktor tactfully turned away. He and Talis left them, closing the door of the living room behind themselves as the noises of pain, the desperate sobs, cries that had been kept inside, echoed in the hallway behind them.

-

“Here, dearest, you should get a second serving.”

Viktor frantically waved his hands. “Er- no, it’s quite alright, Ma’am. Thank you-”

“Please, I insist. You've been my son’s partner in two lifetimes-”

“Really, I’m rather full-”

“- and I would really like to thank you-”

“No, really, I can't-”

“I insist-”

“Mom!” Jayce and Talis exclaimed.

Viktor silently pried his plate out of Ximena’s frozen hands.

“Two sons,” she muttered under her breath. “I have two sons now. Oh dear.”

“Let me,” Talis said and started clearing the table, starting first with Viktor’s plate.

“You're right,” Ximena said. She nodded, determined. “There's still dessert after all. Viktor, dearest, would you like-”

-

Viktor and Jayce stumbled out of the Talis residency, completely full.

“She was nice,” Viktor remarked and leaned more on his cane when his stomach started giving him a piercing pain. Jayce had told him a bit about his life before meeting his future self, before Hextech, before the Kirammans became his sponsors. When money got tight sometimes, when all they could afford was porridge or potatoes, and sometimes not even that. Even with Talis’s monetary support, with the forge they had built in Piltover, the feast Ximena had prepared for them had been extravagant, and Viktor felt guilt rise in him at the thought of taking any money out of this woman’s pocket. Maybe he could work on a little something for her - her finger prosthetics had limited movement, he could spend a day or two to make her new ones, which could mimic the movement of her other fingers.

“Yeah,” Jayce whispered. He was looking back at the house where Ximena and Talis were waving at them, and he waved back with a pained smile, watery eyes not leaving his mother’s form.

“You know, we could have taken her offer and stayed for a night. I wouldn't have minded.”

Shaking his head, Jayce put a warm hand on his back as he turned around, walking back to the Undercity. “She sees me as her son but I’m not. My mother is gone.”

“She sees you as her son because you are. By all logical means, you are her son who came from the future.”

“People only exist once. Maybe I look like her son. Behave like him. Speak like him. But this world isn’t mine. It wouldn't be fair, expecting her to treat me like a son.”

“Well, have you asked her what she thinks before you go and make decisions for her?” Viktor’s voice was harsh but he couldn't help it. The world was filled with people who thought they knew better, who decided for others.

Jayce stayed quiet for a while. “It wouldn't be fair to my mother either.”

Viktor’s defensiveness evaporated immediately. Of course. This Jayce had lost a mother together with his Viktor, his world. One that would only exist in his memories. “This entire time thing is quite complicated, isn’t it?”

“And yet at the same time somehow confusingly easy.”

Viktor nodded. “Want to see New-Shimmer heal an infection? There's a little dog with an eye-wound near our pharmacy that I've been feeding and I think it trusts me enough now. The eye should be salvageable.”

Jayce perked up. “Absolutely!”

When they fell into bed that night, Jayce turned until he was lying completely on top of Viktor, burying his face in his neck, and Viktor enjoyed the nice, weighted blanket. He could feel Jayce’s frown against his skin, knew the way he was gripping him meant he was being haunted by his past.

Viktor drummed his fingers against Jayce’s head. “I must admit, I despise your perfume. You really didn't have to, your mother does not seem like the type of woman who would care for such.”

“Despise is a strong word,” Jayce said and sniffed at himself. He made to lean up but Viktor pulled him back forcefully, regretting it immediately when Jayce’s entire weight came crashing down.

“It's a really bad perfume,” he croaked out.

“Shit, did I hurt you, are you okay-”

“Shut up and stay. You're comfortable.”

He could feel Jayce blink against his neck as he relaxed again, slumping into Viktor.

“Except for my perfume?”

“Jayce. Stop talking about your damn perfume.”

“You brought it up first!”

Jayce laughed and Viktor couldn't help the tiny, satisfied part in him bloom when he finally managed to chase that heavy, lost look from his gaze.

- - -

A thump sounded in the quietness of the lab, followed by light snoring. Jayce looked up, ripped out of his notes, and met his younger self’s eyes, before he stared at Viktor in surprise. Viktor, both his and this version, didn't usually work until sleep took him. He either worked through the night or he stumbled into bed, or simply slept on the floor. He must be exhausted, from the two jobs they were doing day-in and day-out and Jayce would feel a bit worse about that if all this work wasn’t responsible for making Viktor beam with pride every time they helped a patient, every time they got closer to figuring out the magical barrier. A picture from his youth, cast in bitterness but retouched with life and joy.

Talis got up to grab a blanket but Jayce waved him off, stepping towards Viktor to shake his shoulder. “His spine is gonna get numb if he sleeps like this,” he explained at his younger self’s questioning look. I know him better than you do, he refused to say, knowing how incredibly childish that thought was. With a smile he coaxed Viktor awake and helped him stand up.

“Wait,” Viktor slurred, interrupted by a yawn. “Just one more equation, I can- I can feel a breakthrough-”

“Come on, it can wait until tomorrow. You need sleep, Vitya. Can't have you fall unconscious over your patients.”

Viktor stretched out a hand towards the desk but ultimately slumped against Jayce. “You cruel, cruel man,” he whined.

“There, there.” Jayce helped him walk to the couch and leaned his cane against it, throwing the blanket over Viktor when he fell into the cushions, not dissimilar to a brick, falling back asleep immediately. A content flutter filled his chest when he saw Viktor’s peacefully resting face, nose scrunched up slightly. What once only had been a painful reminder of the old days, when everything had been less complicated, less difficult, only felt like the warmth of everything he had built in this time.

Would his Viktor be proud of him, of what he had accomplished? Jayce tried to imagine his dry smile, the way he couldn't keep the fondness from his expression. It ached in the deepest parts of his heart, an uninterrupted grief that would never fade.

His younger self’s voice brought him out of his musings and he realized that he had kept hovering over Viktor, brushing the hair away from his face.

“You and Viktor were pretty close in your time, weren’t you?”

Jayce stepped away, back to the research. His own tiredness was gripping at him in demand but he ignored it, not yet ready to sleep. If he closed his eyes now he would only see Viktor, his Viktor, disintegrating into the cosmos around them. Had he smiled at the end? Or had he been scared? Jayce hadn’t seen his last expression, too blinded by the lights around them, and it didn't feel fair, that Viktor would elude him until the end, slip through the cracks of his mind.

“We were partners,” Jayce whispered.

“Can you tell me more?” Talis asked. His eyes were wide, naive, and Jayce found it difficult to bring up any of the hatred he had felt for himself, not for this man who was staring at him as if he was carrying all the answers of the universe. He had been so young, so naive, once, but instead of anger it only made him feel exhausted.

Jayce hadn't known what to expect when he had gone to get his younger self. Truth be told, had it not been for Viktor, he might have never done so, seen no reason to ask a halfway experienced version of himself for help. But Viktor had grown, still so similar to his Viktor, and yet developing in ways he would have never seen coming. Guess that was the way things were. You pour molten metal into a bucket of ice water and watch as it hardens into an organic, spiky structure, you do it again and you get two different metal figures, shaped by the water and the ice, by different and yet similar experiences.

Maybe he could keep his self-hatred just for himself.

He had been angry at the start. Thought he would fly off the handle, poke a finger in his younger self’s chest and yell out everything wrong he would do in the future. But when he had stepped into the lab of the academy, ready to confront him, he had only been met with a face he hadn’t seen for years in the mirror, fresh without the demons haunting him, helping one of his underclassmen on her project. He had forgotten how willing, how ready, how eager he had once been to help everyone. And so instead he had waited for his younger self to be alone, had stepped before him and had simply greeted him, tired of the constant anger and frustration rolling in him.

He hadn't told his younger self a lot. He had told him about Hextech, about their research, about a dark future ahead. About being sent back in time to fix their mistakes. It had been told in short, clipped sentences, before he had offered his younger self to help them. But they had always been too curious, and Jayce would rather tell him what he wanted him to know rather than have him ask Viktor later and get a second-hand retelling of memories neither of them had experienced. Or god forbid, Viktor telling him about becoming a god and wanting to change all of humanity. That would certainly not be the best start to their partnership. Definitely would be a different impression than saving his life and his dream before breaking into a councillor’s office and committing illegal experimentation.

So Jayce leaned back and talked. He told his younger self in detail about his research and their mutual need to prove magic could be harnessed, an explosion that had changed the trajectory of his life. He told him about standing before the council, being expelled. Not about their mother and her lack of faith in them though, that was one thing he kept behind closed teeth. He told him about losing everything he had built, about a young, fearless man who had pulled him back from the ledge, who had saved him along with his dream. He told him about long nights in the lab, pouring over research together. And that was where he stopped, before everything went to shit, before everything changed, wanting to indulge in the warm memories for just a while longer.

“A lab partner,” his younger self whispered in amazement, hanging onto his every word. “We- he saved us? Believed in our dream?”

“When nobody else did.”

“That sounds nice.” His younger self was smiling, a painful yearning on his face as he looked down at the bracelet around his wrist, and Jayce couldn't fault him for it. When he had been young he hadn’t been unpopular, quite the opposite, but an obsession with magic, impatience with denseness and a mind that often drifted away led to more surface-level, shallow friendships rather than an actual bond. The thought of a friend, a partner, in those lonely times would have been a lifeline.

Jealousy rose in him at the thought of his younger self and this time’s Viktor getting closer, but it was almost drowned out by a bone-deep exhaustion. He had enjoyed his time while it lasted, had enjoyed the delusion of being back with his Viktor. He had enjoyed his time with this Viktor, past and present intermingling into a confusing blend of grief and love every time he saw him. But all good things had to come to an end and Viktor wasn’t his to keep, was free to slip through his fingers whenever he wanted. Jayce had no claim over him, not as his partner or any other kind of relationship.

It was painful, the thought of letting him go, but so were many things in his life involving Viktor.

“What happened then?” his younger self asked. “You keep dodging my questions why you're here and how you came here.”

“Just an accident,” Jayce said and leaned back.

His younger self tipped his chair back, balancing on the back legs and swaying back and forth absent-mindedly. He didn't push despite how much Jayce knew he wanted to ask, and so he gave in with a sigh.

“I did something… unforgivable. To Viktor. Changed him despite his wishes by merging him with the hexcore - kind of a heart combining magic and science that also has the ability to learn? I’m still not quite sure, Viktor was the one who figured it out.”

His younger self’s eyes were wide. “Fuck.”

A snort escaped him. “Yeah. Fuck. Aren't you gonna ask me why?”

“I'm sure we had a good reason,” his younger self said, including himself as if it was in any way his blame to share. Jayce felt his eyes grow warm. There was a reason why Viktor had loved him too, and it was staring Jayce right in the face. Earnestness. The belief that there was good in people. The desire to do good, so strong, even confronted with atrocities committed by his older self, he was self-assured.

“He died,” Jayce said and looked towards Viktor. “And faced with a world without him I realized I would much rather have him hate me than lose him. So I changed him. And when he came back, he wasn’t himself. A lot of shit happened. I got thrown into the future, the world desolate and dead. I met Viktor’s future self who told me how to stop a great evil. Viktor and I prevented it. I came back. The end.”

“Wait- you can't just skip over all that! What- what’s the great evil?!”

“Already prevented that in this time.” Jayce stood up and stretched before rubbing his aching leg.

“And- and what happened to his future self?!” he pointed at Viktor who was still loudly sleeping despite all the commotion.

Jayce gave him an empty smile. “He died. And saved my life to get me here. Get me stuck in here.”

“That's- shit man. I'm sorry.”

“Not your fault. He’s died several times now. Guess this time it stayed.”

His younger self looked slightly nauseous. It quickly turned into an expression of determination. “Well then, I hope you can build a new home in this time. Until it doesn't feel like you're stuck anymore.”

What a nice sentiment. Jayce smiled at his younger self. “Yeah,” he said and looked around their lab. The metal parts, bolts and screws Viktor kept scattering around and then not cleaning up. The dirty mugs they left overnight because they were too tired to clean up. The little equations Viktor kept writing into any surface whenever he ran out of paper and was too lazy to get up. His clothes, haphazardly thrown onto a chair, beside Jayce’s neatly folded ones, the habit impossible to break even after months going crazy in a ravine. Jayce looked around and only saw home. As accidental as it had been, confusing and painful at every step. “You know. I think I have built myself a home here.”

- - -

It took another year, the inclusion of Ekko, Powder and a reluctant Heimerdinger (“You are a future version of Jayce Talis who was sent back in time by Viktor to prevent magic from falling into people’s hands?!”, “Well, you see, professor, you did warn us about using magic, this is just the next step of what you would have wanted!”, “What I would have- we’re still tampering with powers beyond our understanding! Highly dangerous and…”) until they were able to crack the code of the magical barrier. The inclusion of the two children had been hotly debated over with Viktor and Jayce vouching for their potential while Talis and Heimerdinger were more hesitant. That easily got solved when Ekko burst out from the ceiling (“Seriously, you got to stop doing that, I don’t wanna feel watched in my own home!” Jayce yelled) and demanded to be included. They didn't have the experience or the knowledge but they were able to bring in an entirely new perspective neither of the four scientists had.

In all honesty, Viktor had mainly vouched for their inclusion to get them on board any scientific endeavors as quickly as possible, knowing the good they could do with their skills, meanwhile Jayce knew full well how gifted they had been in his time.

Their lab had been built out, making space for more people, for explosive magic, but their little couch had stayed, pushed further away, as had the plants, the decor, the mobility aids Jayce had brought in all these months ago. It was still theirs, their little research-lab-apartment-living-place, the place that had turned from a run-down industrial studio into a space that felt more like home than any place before. Sometimes Viktor thought of his parents, the little room they had lived in, cramped together. He wondered what they would think of him now, living in a place too big for him alone, a pharmacy that helped his people and the blinds finally taken off his eyes. He didn't need to wonder if they would be proud - he knew they would.

In the time they had researched, their pharmacy had also grown, from a shed into a whole little store. In the back was their lab which Ekko had gladly taken over when they had spent more time on their research, and they had started employing several volunteers to teach how to create prosthetics and aids - Progress wasn't sustainable if it relied on the survival of a handful of scientists who were at risk of blowing themselves up with magic at any time after all. To everyone's surprise it was Vi who took to that the most.

“Vander said you guys are helping and uniting our people with this,” she just shrugged. “That Silco guy Powder likes so much has a fake eye from the river toxins, right? Shit like that happens constantly. I just wanna make sure I’m prepared when it does. Especially you, Mylo!”

“Hey, Powder is more likely to blow herself up!”

“She’ll blow you up,” Vi grinned.

Viktor patted Powder’s head. “She's gotten much better. Her bombs can now sense movement!”

Jayce groaned. “Viktor, for fucks sake, stop teaching her how to make weapons-!”

The pharmacy had become known throughout all of the Undercity and by the less well-off Piltovans who came searching for affordable healthcare.

“They can pay for it,” Ekko grumbled when a piltovan mother and her son left the pharmacy. “Why’re they coming to us?”

“When I was younger a couple gold every few months would have meant the difference between eating for a day or not. Between sending me to the academy or not.” Jayce leaned over Ekko and nudged his hand to the correct welding spot. “Yeah, we had a good place to stay, but we weren't the rich royals you think every Piltovan is.”

“Here having a bit less money would kill you,” Ekko said. He glared at Jayce. “I had a friend once. She fell into the river. Died a few days later. She wouldn't’ve died if she was Piltovan.”

Jayce leaned back, rubbed his neck. “Yeah. I'm not saying it's not shit here. But that's what we're here for, right?”

“And some Piltovan doctors are rather,” Viktor tapped against his chin, “rigid in their thinking. I don't think anyone would accept our New-Shimmer as readily. Heimerdinger is already sceptical of it.”

“Well, it's Heimerdinger,” Jayce muttered. “He's sceptical of everything. Work on it for a decade more, lads, it might be ready in a decade, I don't care if Viktor doesn’t have a single year more because I'm an immortal being with no idea what the fuck time means for everyone else!”

Viktor patted his back.

“Yeesh,” Ekko said. He coughed and leaned back on his chair, balancing precariously. “Hey, do you guys think we can create something to flush the toxins from the river?”

Somewhen, Viktor realized, he liked this. He wanted to stay like this, working in the pharmacy with Jayce and the kids during the day and pouring over research with the two Talis’s, his old mentor, Ekko and Powder during the night before falling into the couch with Jayce, completely drained. He liked the acceptance the people of the Undercity had greeted him with, the easy comradery, the directness, much less labyrinth-like than talking to most Piltovans. He liked the trips to Vander’s bar, the short conversations that became less and less tense with Silco who was filled with dry wit and knowledge the more he warmed up to them. He liked getting to know Talis more, gaining an actual friendship with him, more real, more tangible than the hope, the yearning he had placed on him. He liked working with Jayce, being side by side with him. He liked being in a healthier body, not fearing that he would die young. He liked helping people, seeing his direct effect on them. He liked watching the Undercity slowly transform into a warmer place.

“Befriend Councillor Medarda,” Jayce told Talis one day. “She’s scary smart and will spin your head until you don't know what's up and down, until you play to her tune, but she’s a good person. She wants to help people. We can trust her.”

“A councillor?” Ekko asked and scrunched his face.

“She’s a Noxian. Has seen war. She would fight for peace, for the Undercity. And- I would like to talk to her about something. Later.”

“Alright.” Talis nodded. They had slowly started to introduce their New-Shimmer to Piltover under Talis’s name which had garnered him a lot of scrutiny but also acclaim and admiration. It was a hit on his pride since he hadn’t worked on it, but Jayce didn't want to reveal himself and nobody would listen to a cripple from the Undercity who had, as rumours said, been kicked out of the academy, so he just had to swallow his pride and take credit.

“Better get used to it,” Jayce muttered snidely, “I know I had to.”

Viktor elbowed him.

The medical breakthrough of an all-cure without any apparent side-effects had given Talis a stipend which he immediately used on more medical equipment for their pharmacy and research-lab-apartment-living-place.

“They want me to do more,” he muttered, slightly manic. “It’s an all-cure! What more do they want?! I'm not- I’m not even in the medical field, I have no idea how you guys did it! They kept asking me questions about its creation and I had to dodge ‘em all!”

Viktor clicked his pen several times, thinking about what Ekko had said. “How about something that can filter out toxins from the rivers?”

“They don't really care about the people from the Undercity,” Talis said with an apologetic look.

Viktor shrugged, already aware. “But you do, right? So why care about what they think?”

“I could lose our stipend?”

Jayce knocked a knuckle against Talis’s forehead. “Then make them care. Come on, we’ve always been good at the talking stuff, haven't we?”

“We?!” Talis looked wide-eyed at his older counterpart. He cleared his throat, preening under his confident smile. “Yeah! I can do it! Probably.”

Viktor held out a fist towards him. Talis blinked down, surprised, before knocking his fist against his with a grin.

So after all these months, one night, when they saw runes swirl around them and a bright barrier rose, when the runes suddenly stopped responding to them and instead dissipated and nothing could get them to reactivate, Viktor couldn't bring it in himself to feel happiness. Relief. Any feelings of success.

He watched Talis, Ekko and Powder exchange high-fives, he watched Heimerdinger sigh in relief, he watched Jayce slump against a desk, and only felt an overwhelming emptiness. This was it now, right? The reason Jayce had come back. Magic would be inaccessible for humanity, Viktor’s lungs were healed. What would Jayce do now?

He watched Jayce and didn't find one trace of joy in his expression, only pure tiredness in the slump of his shoulders, resignation in the lines of his downturned mouth.

Viktor knew the feeling of emptiness after accomplishing a long-term ambition, but for Jayce it must have been even stronger. After all, the man he had loved had sent him to accomplish these goals. And now there was no mission to follow anymore.

He hadn’t realized he was beside Jayce and had grabbed his arm until Jayce looked down at him and he was suddenly so close, close enough for their noses to brush. Jayce’s eyes darted over his face. He gave him a smile that looked like it took effort. His eyes were empty.

“That wasn’t so hard, huh?”

I don’t want you to leave.

Please stay.

Stay here.

Stay with me.

Viktor tried to smile but he knew it looked more like a grimace.

He swallowed down all the words that wanted to bubble up. “Not at all. So what now?”

“Now?”

“You know. Our research is done.” Please don’t go.

“Yeah,” Jayce agreed. He looked around, at Talis who was now carrying both children on his shoulders, twirling them around, at Heimerdinger who was joyfully laughing. “I guess I’ve accomplished my mission.”

“We still have to create the filters for the Undercity rivers!” Viktor pulled him closer, didn't like the way his heart contracted. “And- and our pharmacy! People are still relying on us!” I’m still relying on you.

“You, Ekko and Vi got it pretty covered.”

“Jayce.” Viktor didn't like how much it sounded like he was begging. “You won't leave, right?”

Jayce took his hand and turned it, massaging his palm with his thumbs. Carefully, not looking away from Viktor’s eyes for any rejection, he lifted it up to his lips and pressed a chaste kiss to the inside of his wrist before nuzzling his cheek against his palm. “No,” he sighed. “Where would I go?”

Viktor nodded. For the first time this evening since accomplishing their year-long goal, his smile grew honest. “You'll stay.” With me, he didn't say.

“Yeah,” Jayce whispered. “I'll stay.”

-

They solved the toxins in the rivers, creating a system that transformed the toxic waste into renewable energy. Their team had grown, now made out of about fifty undercity and ten Piltovan researchers who had joined them in their endeavor to turn Zaun into a better, livable city. Silco and Vander were suppressing any wannabe uprising that wanted to take over control, and Talis had somehow managed to become Mel Medarda’s student, shadowing her at every meeting, being raised into a future councillor to his continuous confusion.

Jayce and her had spoken, hidden away in a councillor room where nobody could spy on them, after which both of them had left for several days, returning with singed clothes, absolutely drenched, scratched to hell and back and a wild look in their eyes.

“We might have started a war in Noxus,” Jayce whispered feverishly.

“No, my mother is smarter than that.” Mel was practically glowing - and not in a metaphorical way.

“Is the light a noxian thing?” Talis asked, voice pitched in shock.

Mel looked down at her fingers, the golden veins running through them, and spun them in the air, a heavy expression on her face. “I am not what I thought I was.”

Talis put a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever is going on - we’re here for you, alright? You're not alone in this.”

And she nodded gratefully, once to Talis then to Jayce. “My future self must have been a great ally if you went so far to help me.”

Jayce startled, the towel Viktor had thrown over his head falling to the floor. “How did you-”

“Oh, come on, Jay.” She smiled, mischief in the quirk of her lips. “It is quite obvious, I am surprised nobody else has figured it out. You two are practically twins. Do you think I would have followed a stranger’s mad ravings about magic? I trust my student and I trust your intentions, whatever horrors must have brought you back in time to bring peace to our world.”

Nervously chuckling, Jayce glanced towards Viktor.

Yeah, Viktor thought, as he looked at the woman, cast in magic and political power, an effortless charm that made people look at her. He was so glad she was on their side.

Until now she had barely acknowledged him - something he was used to from his days as Heimerdinger’s assistant, and he saw it as a triumph that she knew she couldn't use him - so when she stopped before him, a frown on her face, he couldn't help but be cautious. “You feel… touched. By the arcane. But you don't possess any arcane abilities.”

“The future and the past have a funny way to intermingle,” Viktor said with a dry smile. “Once apparently I had been chosen as a vessel. It appears the arcane carries memories from that timeline.”

“It what?!” Talis exclaimed, worried. “But- you're okay, right? Vessel sounds bad, like possession?! Older me, was Viktor possessed?! You told me you changed him, not- not that he was possessed by the arcane!”

Jayce rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I mean, he wasn’t not possessed. It's complicated. I might have shot him through the chest.”

“What the fuck does that mean?! Hey, wait, don't leave, elaborate?!”

“My clothes are soaking, I need a bath.”

“And we have to check up on the pharmacy. The kids don't want to admit it but they missed you.” Viktor said as he walked past a gaping Talis. He really did not want to have any conversations about how his future self had started a cult, taken over people and had desired to change all of humanity. Certainly not in front of the woman who guarded Piltover like a dragon its hoard.

“Wait, you can't just drop that and leave! Hey!”

“I trust you to keep that at bay,” Mel called after them.

“I can assure you, it’s nothing to worry about,” Viktor said.

“What do you mean we shot him?! Hey, wait a damn minute!”

The door fell close behind them.

The better the Undercity looked however, the worse Jayce did. His eyebags became heavier, he started holding Viktor closer each night and the exhausted slump in his shoulders was more pronounced every day.

“It was so easy,” he whispered one day as they sat in Vander’s bar, side by side in a quiet corner. His head was on Viktor’s shoulder as he listlessly looked at Silco and Vander drunkenly arguing. “Everything in my world- it could have been so easily prevented.”

“Not so easily,” Viktor said. “It took a time-traveller and two destroyed futures.”

Jayce took his hand and intertwined their fingers and Viktor squeezed back. “Am I weird for- for being angry at this world for being so damn peaceful? Even if I helped to fix it. I’m just- sometimes I hate it here. Seeing Silco happy. Powder having her dad and a new uncle. Ekko having you. Talis being so fucking accomplished without having suffered anything. Even- even you, seeing you have everything my Viktor never could and I'm- fuck. I’m sorry. I'm a jackass.”

“I think it's natural.” Viktor leaned his head against Jayce’s. “Thank you though. Even if it hurts. This world- I could have never thought to see the Undercity like this. And that's because of you. Because of my future self. All this happiness is because of you. So be as angry as you want to be, you deserve to feel anything you want to feel.”

“Sometimes I fantasize about destroying it all,” Jayce admitted quietly.

“Will you?”

Mylo ran past them, chased by an angry Vi while Powder and Claggor laughed in the background. Vander defeated Silco in armwrestling, both men stumbling in their drunkenness. Benzo shoved two more shot glasses towards them, grinning. The bar was lively, filled with laughter and joy, openness the likes the Undercity had not experienced in such a long time. Certainly not since Viktor had been born.

“Of course not.”

“Then fantasize as much as you want.”

Here's a secret: If Viktor had to be honest, he would admit he hadn’t truly thought the Undercity would get better. He had hoped so, desperately, nights filled with creating blue prints of creations that could help, but hope wasn't belief, it was the childish scrambling of a kid that hadn't given up yet when it would have been smart. Now however there was belief in him, true belief, and the proof was right before them.

Here's a secret: Viktor would be thankful to his older self until the day he died, for sending Jayce here despite his wishes to stay, for ripping him away from his world and giving him to Viktor.

Jayce curled up, leaning down until his head was lying on Viktor’s lap. The alcohol swam in the flush of his cheeks, his unsteady eyes. Viktor pushed Jayce’s glass further away and took a swig from his own. He had never been allowed to indulge in it since it messed with his medication, but now after his lungs had been healed he had finally been able to see what the fuss was all about. It was disappointingly okay.

“I feel like an outsider,” Jayce said. “Like a- a stain on a white piece of paper. I don't belong here.”

Viktor brushed his fingers over his cheeks and tipped his head to the side until he looked at him. He wiped over the circles underneath his eyes, the exhausted lines of his face, his beard, and let his hand rest against his warm skin. “You helped so many people. If anyone belongs here, it’s you. I'm sorry it took your world as a sacrifice.”

“I'm tired,” Jayce whispered.

And Viktor couldn't do anything but stroke his face, hold him, keep him in his arms. Somehow it felt like he would fade away if he let go.

“I know,” he said.

Here's a secret: Viktor now understood what had led Jayce to reviving his older self to the point of changing him completely. He understood why his older self had decided to send Jayce to another world instead of allowing him to die. And if push came to shove, if Jayce succumbed to the listlessness, there was no guarantee Viktor wouldn't jump over all scientific ethics to get him back. He could only hope it never had to come to this point.

-

Viktor found Jayce in a quieter part of the Undercity Ekko led him to. The boy had simply patted his back before rushing away, leaving him to wade through the shallow water until he arrived at a peaceful clearing. High above him a tree reached towards the sunlight, its nature, its green so foreign in the constant smog of the Undercity, and for a moment Viktor was frozen, only able to stare in awe at the marvel.

“Amazing, isn't it?”

Viktor couldn't yet rip his eyes away from the tree but he approached the place Jayce’s voice had come from, careful not to stumble over anything. “Astounding. I wasn't aware something like this could exist down here.”

“Ekko showed this to me when I asked for a quiet place. Funny, his older self once came to me for help when this tree got infected by the arcane. Or, well, not really to me specifically. I was just there.”

Jayce was sitting further away from the tree, without a shirt as he worked on something Viktor couldn't identify yet. He suddenly found it very easy to look away from the tree.

“Why this place?” he asked as he came closer.

With one powerful smash of his hammer, Jayce carved out part of the rock in front of him. The completed part had been polished to a glossy finish, its surface reflecting faint glimmers of sunlight, dancing through the leaves of the tree. Embedded into the rock was a delicate, handcrafted metal figure, welded seamlessly into the rock and Viktor stepped forward to inspect it. The metalwork was intricate, spoke of countless hours spent, of love and dedication.

It was the figure of a man, standing confidently as he leaned on his crutch. There was a notebook in his other hand, a smirk on his cold metal lips as he looked down at his notes. Not towards any onlookers, anybody he might have been conversing with but at the book, overflowing with papers and notes, painstakingly crafted to include every little bookmark, every sticky note. He almost seemed alive like this, the metal chosen warm in the sunlight. He looked sick, heavy eyebags, hollow cheeks, bony and weak, slouching as if his own weight was a burden too heavy to bear, his body decaying, and yet it was achingly obvious he had been perceived through a lens of devotion, metal infused with a love so consuming, it transformed frailty into something breathtakingly stunning.

For Jayce his future self had been the most beautiful thing in the world.

How confusing, knowing when Jayce looked at him he didn't see weakness, didn't see deformities that needed to be fixed. He saw imperfections, saw Viktor the way he was, loved him for them, not in spite of them. Somehow seeing this statue felt private, like he was looking directly into Jayce’s mind, through his eyes, and he wanted desperately to look away.

It was an imposing yet intimate monument and for the first time Viktor didn't feel any jealousy, only a deep sadness at the suffocating grief emanating from every crevice of the metal. Until now his older self had only been a vague figure, a person that had once existed, that would never exist in his time, but seeing his face, seeing him brought into this time, made him feel much more tangible, turned him into a human who once had been loved, who once had loved, who once had impacted the world around him.

Had he been scared when he had died? Had he been wrecked by regret, by shame? Viktor tried to imagine it, his last moments. His future self and Jayce, clinging to each other, knowing they would die. Fear must have turned into determination as he had decided to be selfish one last time, to breathe life into the man he had loved. What a karmic joke - his future self had also been brought back to life against his wishes because Jayce had been too selfish to live without him.

Despite how much he had insisted, it somehow only hit him now that his future self was separate. That his future self‘s life would not be the same as Viktor‘s future, their paths diverging at the most pivotal moment. They were different. And Viktor would lead a better life. Better but without the experiences that had shaped his future self, good and bad.

Ahh. He was being stupid, wasn‘t he? He was making this much more complicated than he had to. Viktor looked at the monument made for another him and decided to let go, let go of the hopes and expectations he had placed on Talis, to follow in the footsteps of their older selves, to let go of his own internal comparison to a man who had died. There was no need to emulate a future that had already passed.

With a deep breath and an exhale he felt much lighter.

Jayce rolled his shoulders with a groan, letting the scars on his skin dance in the light falling through the leaves. “I thought about making graves - no, memorials - for the others too. My mom. Cait. Mel. Hell, even Vi. Would have been a bit hard to explain though if anyone found them. At least with you I can just claim I wanted to make a statue of my partner.” Jayce picked up a fallen rock and threw it into the tunnel Viktor had come from, holding the pose until he heard the satisfying sound of the splash of water. “I wonder if they made a grave for me in my world. If they think I’m dead. If they think Viktor killed me.”

Viktor wanted to say words of comfort, anything, but somehow any sound was stuck in his throat. Instead he gave Jayce a nod, allowing him to talk if he needed to, and if his watery eyes were any indication he really did.

“I couldn't get his nose right,” Jayce said. He wiped the sweat off his brow and gave Viktor a self-deprecating grin.

Viktor trailed his fingers along the metal crutch as he looked at his older face. This was how he would have looked in a decade, if the illness in his body had been allowed to continue.

Jayce grabbed a chisel and continued working on the podium. “Hell, I don't even know if he would have hated this. He never liked big, public displays or being watched by others. Always preferred to stay behind curtains, always hated the galas, the festivities.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.” Viktor’s voice was wrecked when he finally found it again. He looked at Jayce, needed him to listen. “He wouldn't have minded. I think he would have appreciated it. Probably wouldn’t have understood why you decided to carve him like this - dying. Weak.”

“It's just him,” Jayce said. “Not weak. Never weak.”

“Yeah,” Viktor said. He stepped back, beside Jayce, and looked at the statue. “Why now?”

Jayce shrugged. He rubbed over his tired eyes. “Maybe I hoped it would finally get me to accept.”

“Lofty goals. Is it working?”

A barking laugh escaped bitter lips. “Not really. Just made me sad.”

“Well, for what it’s worth I think he would have been grateful. People from the Undercity don't often get graves. Sometimes we get honored through paintings. Often we have to continue in other's memories. And more often than that we don't even get that much. A little statue in a place one only discovers when stumbling into, kissed by sun in the city he tried so hard to help- I don't think he would have minded at all.”

“Oh,” Jayce whispered, voice thick. “That's nice to hear.” He turned away, rubbing an arm over his eyes, and Viktor allowed him the feeling of privacy as he deliberately looked away.

They stayed silent for the next hours as Viktor watched Jayce chisel at the stone, weld metal, perfect his memorial. And he hoped, wherever his future self might be, whatever had happened to him, that he had died knowing how much he had been loved.

-

If you were to stumble into a little, hidden clearing with a beautiful tree, you might find it already touched by human hand. There, further away, almost out of sight, you will find a statue, calming in its serenity. On its podium you will see golden and blue flowers, impossible to find anywhere near the clearing.

And if you were to return the next day, the day afterwards, the next week, you would always find fresh flowers.

-

Jayce stepped in front of him the next morning when it was only them in their home. His hair was rumpled, his beard messy, the circles underneath his eyes still dark but he looked more present than he had the last weeks.

“Can I ask for something? It’s- it’s stupid and I apologize in advance-”

“Out with it.”

Jayce looked like it hurt to talk. “A kiss,” he said and then opened his mouth to continue, only he didn't. His lips trembled, he looked at Viktor as if he was holding a knife to his throat. Nobody had ever been scared of him, and here Jayce was, always treating him as if he could be his undoing.

Viktor leaned back. “Alright.”

Jayce’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. He choked. “Al- alright?!”

“Yeah,” Viktor said. He pushed his notes away and stood up, standing right before him. He raised his hand to Jayce’s face and trailed a finger down his jaw, tilting his head to the side, smiling at the panicked, yearning look in his eyes. So Jayce was done tip-toeing around whatever was going on between them. “Alright. Though- is it me you want to kiss or the shade of my older self?”

Jayce’s face was pulled into a pained grimace. He leaned against Viktor’s hand, turning his head to press his lips against his palm. It sent a flash of lightning through his body. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I'm sorry.”

Viktor nodded and ran his fingers through Jayce’s beard.

“But,” Jayce hesitantly started and looked down at him through his lashes, “it’s not like you love me, right? - Wait, let me talk. I know you probably like me enough, the magic and science we did. What I did for the Undercity. Your lungs. But it's not me you like. Not- not the guy who kidnapped you and can't even fucking see you for who you are. You like the idea of being two halves, of being completed because you don't feel complete enough, even- even if that's bullshit because you don't need to change, you don't- you don't need anything to complete you, Vitya.”

“For someone who claims to know me you are breathtakingly wrong,” Viktor said with a humorless smile. “Or are you just talking about my future self again?”

Jayce shook his head. He leaned forward until their foreheads met. “Sometimes I had no idea what my Viktor thought. He was- I think sometimes he didn't trust me which I do understand. He was in the right not to trust me. But I think I got to know you well enough by now.” Jayce raised his hands and cradled Viktor’s face like he was a precious gem, as if he had never before laid his eyes upon him.

“It’s not like I don't love you,” Viktor said. “If anything, there is nobody I ever loved as much as you. Not just the fantasy of you. You have no idea what you mean to me, do you?”

Jayce shook his head. “My Viktor had walls built around him so high, I think he only started actually trusting me after several years. I can't expect love from you after we’ve only known each other for this long.”

“Stop using him as a shorthand to know me. I'm not him.” Stop talking about him when you’re asking to kiss me, he didn’t say.

“But he was once you. And even back then, that version of you, I loved. As I do this version of you. I don't think there will ever be a version of you I wouldn't love.” His gaze was so soft, it made something stir in Viktor. “I don't expect anything from you you're not willing to give. I'm just happy being by your side.”

God damn smooth-talker. It was no wonder his future version had fallen for him. Viktor rolled his eyes to distract from the warmth crawling up his neck. “Are you going to kiss me or merely talk at me?”

“Stop me if you change your mind,” Jayce whispered and closed the final space between them. His lips were warm and chapped, the feeling of skin to skin like an inferno, and Viktor kissed back, forcefully pushing against Jayce. He buried his hands into Jayce’s hair, enjoying his surprised noise, the way he breathed into the kiss when Viktor tugged slightly, not enough to hurt.

It was unthinkable, that he could feel Jayce shiver underneath his hands, could feel how he slowly got more confident, carefully pressing Viktor’s lips open. Big, calloused hands wandered towards his waist, holding him in a steady grip as his fingertips glided underneath Viktor’s shirt, simply staying pressed against his flushed skin, warm and assuring. Jayce leaned back, instead trailing butterfly kisses along his jaw, on his nose, his forehead, the corners of his mouth. It felt like a worshipping prayer, gentle in a way that almost hurt. Viktor shuddered, heavily breathing in Jayce’s hold.

Jayce let go to hold his face in both of his hands and simply looked at him, gaze open as if he was seeing Viktor for the first time. There was a question in his eyes, to make sure Viktor was still okay and Viktor huffed. He did not want to be treated as if he was breakable but Jayce made it feel so human, so reassuring, he found himself not minding at all. He let his hands glide towards Jayce’s neck, thumbs pressing into the flesh of his jaw and pulled him close again to answer Jayce’s unasked question. And it shouldn't feel so amazing, the way Jayce easily followed.

Viktor’s body was warm as he leaned close, so impossibly close, merging their bodies into one, his face grew hot as he moved against Jayce’s lips in an unspoken dance of push and pull. It was an intoxicating feeling, an addicting touch, and Viktor was already mourning the moment they parted.

Jayce let his hands trail down Viktor’s face, underneath his shirt, pressing over his back, his waist, like he was trying to burn the feeling of him into memory. Viktor could feel him thumb his hip bones, the skin over his ribs, his shoulder blades. His touch made Viktor take in shaky breaths, gasp between kisses. Jayce kissed like a starving man eating his last meal before his execution, all-consuming and desperate in his gentleness.

The moment of bliss snapped like a bubble when he felt wetness against his lips. When he opened his eyes and looked up, Jayce was crying.

“Am I such a bad kisser?” Viktor tried to keep his voice light but it felt hollow.

A choked laugh escaped Jayce, then a sob. “Sorry,” he said. “This shouldn't- I don't need to put this on you.”

With gentle force he pulled Jayce’s head down to press his lips over his cheeks, kissing away his tears. They left salty imprints on his tongue.

“I'm sorry,” Jayce said and held him closer.

“Are these your favorite words? You seem awfully attached to them.” Viktor pressed his lips against his forehead and Jayce slumped, melted into him. Viktor almost buckled underneath his weight, needing to lean against the desk to hold him.

“I'm sorry.”

“I know. I'm sure he knew too.”

Jayce pressed his face into Viktor’s neck and breathed in, arms wrapped around him like he was trying to shield him from the world around them. Lips brushed against his skin, resting.

“I do love you,” Viktor said. “It's okay if you don't. If you can't stop loving your Viktor. I'm happy having you with me, alright?”

And Jayce nodded and tightened his hold around him.

-

Jayce couldn't stay away from him throughout the entirety of the day, likewise Viktor rejoiced in finally being able to touch him without feeling like he was taking advantage of Jayce’s love for his future self. Jayce kissed him on the way out, held his hand as they walked to the pharmacy, hugged him when they were working and nibbled at his neck when nobody was around to see them, and Viktor pressed himself against him in the back of the lab, kissed his knuckles one by one, ran his fingers through his hair and held his hand at any free time. Nobody could judge a dehydrated man who had finally reached a river.

Vi was staring at them in judgement whenever they kissed while Ekko’s face was screwed up in disgust even though he didn't say anything, so Viktor couldn't find it in him to stop the public affection.

“Finally done dancing ‘round each other?” Vander asked when he picked up another Shimmer dosage for Silco. It wouldn’t be long until his eye was healed and he wouldn’t need to be medicated anymore, though most of its sight would stay gone forever.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Viktor said and didn't twitch when Jayce pressed a kiss to his cheek on the way to the lab in the back where the two children had sought refuge from their constant kissing. He was carrying the empty vials Vander had gathered for them from his people, ready to fill them with a new dosage.

Vander only snorted. He leaned closer when the back door closed behind Jayce, growing serious. “Hold onto that one. He feels like he's ‘bout to fade away.”

“You noticed?”

“I think even the kids noticed.”

“I don't know what to do,” Viktor admitted, frustrated, with the world, with himself.

“Sometimes the best thing we can do is just be there for each other. I think most people would benefit from taking a deep breath and listening, you know?” Vander smiled down at the vial of Shimmer. “If any of you two ever need an ear to listen to - my bar is open. At any time, you hear? If either of you need anything, a place to crash, a favor to do, protection, anything, come to me.”

“Thanks,” Viktor said, surprised. The unofficial chosen leader of the Undercity extending such an offer was unusual.

“He told you, didn't he? The future, what would have expected us. What we- what I might have lost. Honestly, offering you a vague favor does not feel enough.”

“I think being able to change our timeline is already enough for him.” A smile tugged on Viktor’s lips, involuntary and fond, and he turned his head when Vander gave him a knowing look.

When he took a breath the air was clearer than ever before, and tomorrow it would be clearer than today. After fixing the rivers they had started a new project of chasing the smog from the streets, its effects only observable after several weeks. Viktor had pushed for it, for monetary support, had worked day-in and day-out on blueprints and suggestions on how to solve the issue to the point Jayce had to claw him from his desk each night, until Talis had finally been able to convince the council to fund them, surprisingly fiercely supported by Councillor Kiramman.

A week ago it had been clear enough for the sun to reach the ground of the Undercity for the first time in ages. On that day he had decided to stay away from the pharmacy for a few hours and had simply sat down on a crate in the market, observing the people stare at the sky in wonder, enjoy the feeling of the sun rays on their skin. He wasn't one to need self-congratulations, but there was something about seeing their inventions’ direct impact on people’s life that was validating. This was why they were working so hard, this was what everything was for. No child would ever suffer the disease that had pushed his future self into desperation.

In the first time of his twenty-four years he looked at his home and only saw hope.

Viktor took another breath and enjoyed the way his chest didn't hurt, the way he could take a lung-full without a twinge of pain.

“I saw many souls fade in the pressure of life,” Vander said as he unfolded from his lean and stepped back. “We people from the Undercity protect each other. That extends to him too.”

Viktor’s throat was dry as he gave Vander a nod and a wave when he left. Jayce would probably not understand the significance of those words but as someone born in the Undercity, he was very well aware of how heavy they were. Not that Jayce would agree with that sentiment, self-blame too strong to live without shadows.

With a sigh he turned towards their next patients. What a shame, that even in the most peaceful timeline, he had to fear losing a loved one.

-

Viktor pushed Jayce roughly against the desk when they returned home. He kissed him, pulled at his hair and grinned when he heard him yelp in surprise.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Jayce asked, leaning back when Viktor went to kiss him again.

Viktor wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled himself closer. “Was my first yes not strong enough or have you developed memory problems?”

“No, just- you have a Jayce Talis in this world, I'm just an interloper-”

“He hasn't worked with me for two years. Hasn't been with me almost every single hour.” Hadn’t healed Viktor’s lungs, hadn't reminded him of his dream of helping people. “Don't get me wrong, I like him. He's a version of you after all. But- I understand you now. When you first met me. You and your younger self are so similar and so different, it's disconcerting.” Viktor loosened his grip, uncertain. “Is this okay with you?”

“Yes!” Jayce rushed to say. “I'm- sorry, I’m a mess, but never because of you, okay?”

“You know the same counts for you, don't you? That I don't expect anything from you you're not willing to give.”

Jayce nodded. He bent forward to kiss Viktor, to press his lips open, to touch him, hold him. His hands felt like worship on his skin, his body was warm against his, and Viktor let himself fall completely into him, body and soul, his entire mind consumed by him.

“I love you,” Jayce whispered against the skin of his neck. He bit, lightly sucking, and Viktor let out a sigh of contentment. “You. This version. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

And Viktor couldn't do anything but smile against the brightness of love encompassing him, warm and happy in its embrace. He helped Jayce out of his shirt, used him as a crutch when they both stumbled towards their couch and laughed when Jayce impatiently worked to get his brace off.

“Let me,” Viktor said and waved his hands away. “You deal with your own, it's much more annoying to take off than mine.”

“Vitya, I fear I’m going more insane every moment I'm not kissing you,” Jayce said as he hastily tried to take his brace off. His chest was heaving, the roll of his muscles tantalizing with the way he was leaning over him.

“Cute,” Viktor grinned and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “But I'm not going to get distracted by the creaking of your leg.”

“Creaking?! It's not creaking! I oiled it last week!”

Viktor rolled his eyes and twisted them until Jayce’s back hit the cushion. He helped him snap off the brace and slowly slid it off his leg, followed by his pants. Gently he pressed a kiss to Jayce’s thigh and smiled at his hitched breath. “Come on,” he said and grinned at Jayce’s openly yearning face.

“Are you sure?” Jayce asked again, doubt like a weight on his voice.

“Never been more sure.”

-

The next morning Jayce was gone. It wasn't out of the ordinary; Jayce often left to get more medical substances, to talk to Vander or Silco, to Talis, the children, but somehow the air was charged with uncertainty. They should have gone to the pharmacy together; in the afternoon there would be a little girl whose father had made an appointment for a foot prosthesis fitting. Jayce had previously built her hand and she was more comfortable with him than with Viktor or Vi.

Viktor put on his clothes and waited a while before he became antsy. He grabbed his cane and stomped out of the room.

Ekko was waiting for him at the pharmacy, talking with a patient while Powder was in the background, tinkering on the hoverboard the two of them had started to build. Vi looked up from where she was screwing the final touch onto the foot prosthetic. Mylo and Claggor were sitting against a wall on the ground, listening to a record from the gramophone one of their patients had gifted them, startling at his frazzled appearance.

“Have you seen Jayce?” Viktor asked before they could greet him.

Ekko waved at their patient who gave Viktor a nod as they walked out, and shrugged. “Should I have?”

“He’s not with you?” Vi asked. Her voice dipped into something more humorous. “I almost thought you two were attached at the hip.”

“Something feels weird. Please do tell me if you see him.”

Ekko jumped up. “I can rally the others to find him!”

“Ohh, I wanna join!” Powder exclaimed. “We could use the hoverboard!”

“Absolutely not,” Vi said. “Not before we test it out!”

At first Viktor wanted to protest - it wasn’t that serious, he was just paranoid. However, the tight feeling in his chest only made him give Ekko and Powder a nod. “Please do. I have a bad feeling about this.”

He walked out of the pharmacy, thinking of any place Jayce could be, and cursed his bad leg for being so damn slow when a ring sounded behind him.

“Hey, doc!” A teen yelled, her prosthesis shining in the light. She was riding a bicycle made for a much taller person with a little machine on the back that gave her enough power to drive over any hill. It was one of Ekko’s inventions, one he had created with Jayce’s help. “Got somewhere to go? I can bring you!”

He swallowed down his first instinct to say no and instead nodded. “Could you take me to Vander’s bar? I'm searching for my partner.”

“Mr. Beard?” She tapped at her chin as Viktor carefully sat down behind her. “Yeah, I think I saw him walk in that direction! Hold tight, doc!”

He wasn’t in Vander’s bar and nobody had seen him around. Drunkenness drained, replaced by honest concern as the people of the Undercity gathered around their troubled doctor. Vander put his hands on his shoulders as if he was one of his children and leaned down to give him a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find him,” he promised.

Silco behind them raised a glass. “Leave the Undercity to us.”

“I think I saw him walk to Piltover,” someone said and offered to bring him up. By the time Viktor had reached Talis’s home, heavily breathing and leaning on his cane, it had become afternoon.

Talis grabbed him by the arms to steady him, worried. “Hey- wait, sit down, you look like you're about to fall.”

Viktor waved him off. “Jayce- have you seen him?”

“Who?”

“Jayce! Other Jayce I mean!”

Talis shook his head. His lips pressed together at Viktor’s anxious expression. “Did something happen?”

“No- no, just a bad feeling.”

Nodding, Talis closed the door behind him. “I’ll go search for any places I would have gone to if I wanted to think. And you go to any places you would have gone to.”

Oh. Viktor felt unimaginably stupid. “You're a genius,” he said and turned around to leave.

It was idiotically easy to find him. The waterhole had always been Viktor’s place of refuge, it was obvious that at one point his future self must have shown it to Jayce.

He found Jayce standing at the edge, slowly inching forward. There was a scream stuck in his throat.

Am I not enough, am I not worth enough to stay- but that didn't feel fair, was a thought he carefully kept contained behind grit teeth. Instead he stood straight as he came closer, the sound of his cane echoing in the room.

“Am I interrupting?”

Here’s a thought experiment: If someone wished for death, truly wished for it, was it wrong to continuously deny them if their life felt like suffering? The mutation must survive Singed had told him, keeping a creature alive past its lifespan to extract from it like harvest, and Viktor hadn’t understood back then. Why extend a creature’s lifespan if it only suffered in life? Now, knowing what his future self had done for love, what Jayce had done for love, he finally understood. It was nauseating, knowing how quickly your convictions could crumble.

But Viktor looked at Jayce’s back, his slumped shoulders, and realized that no- no, he had seen what it had done to Jayce, to have his life extended beyond his own desire. He had seen what it had done to Rio. Had heard what it had done to his future self. If Jayce died, no matter how much it would hurt, no matter how much he would desire to, Viktor wouldn’t revive him, wouldn’t desecrate his body like that.

For the first time in his life Viktor let go of his science and decided to use his words. They would be enough. They had to be enough.

Viktor had never been as terrified as he was now.

Jayce turned around with a flat smile, somehow looking more tired than when Viktor had seen him the first time, when he had only been a manic stranger. He deflated as if he had expected him. Maybe, a little voice in Viktor’s mind provided, he had hoped for Viktor to come. To keep him from ending it.

“How did you know?”

“You had the look of a dying man when you fucked me. A bit morbid, isn't it, to bed me and not tell me it was to say goodbye?” Viktor couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. “How cruel of you, to make me care for you, knowing you wanted to die.”

Jayce rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I would have regretted it to my last breath had I not asked. I'm sorry- I didn't want to leave like that, I just… I couldn't get myself to ask before.”

“But you could get yourself to have sex with me right before dying.”

Jayce looked away, uncomfortable.

Viktor sighed, finding it hard to stay angry for long. “The entire Undercity is looking for their missing doctor, you know?”

“You asked them for help?” Jayce looked genuinely surprised and Viktor huffed a laugh. He wasn’t that bad at seeking help.

“Would it stop you from jumping if I told you my future self wouldn't want you to?”

Jayce rubbed his face, exhausted lines deeper. “And what about what I want? I've- I've been doing what he wants, why he sent me here, for so long- I can't keep living in his selfishness.”

Viktor joined him and looked at the city they had worked so hard to protect. His heart was beating frantically against his chest but he tried not to let it show, tried not to reveal his terror. Jayce would try to comfort him and this wasn’t about him. “And what if I told you that I don't want you to jump?”

“Exchange one selfishness for another?”

“Is it truly so selfish to wish the person you love not to leave? And if it is selfish, is it wrong?”

“Love?” Jayce rasped out.

“That's why my future self did it too, you must realize that, right? He did not want you to die. He did not want you to suffer for his mistakes. To feel his guilt. So he sent you into a time where you could still change everything. He gave you agency. A time where I don't know you yet, to give us both a fresh start.” A time where Jayce could have decided to stay away, to keep Viktor and Talis from meeting from afar, to prevent their hextech dream from happening. Jayce probably couldn't see the tendrils of self-hatred the future Viktor had felt when he had made the decision to save him, but for Viktor it was as clear as glass. Something about that hurt, the realization that his future self, even after being in Jayce’s head, feeling his love, hadn’t felt worthy, lovable, enough to know that in every lifetime, Jayce would never stay away.

“He gave me a mission.”

“And I thought you knew him.” Viktor gave him a smile. “I did tell you. You don't know me as well as you think.”

“I'm tired, Vitya,” Jayce whispered.

“I can help,” Viktor offered. “I would like you to stay. If you want. There's a place for you here. By my side, if you so desire.”

“You're not mine to keep.”

“That's not for you to decide.” Viktor let out a breath and knocked their shoulders together. His heart was slowing down again. Jayce wasn’t giving him reasons he wanted to go. He was telling him reasons why he couldn’t stay. And those were always much easier to change. “Besides, maybe I don't want to be kept. Maybe I just want a partner. You won't ever get back what you lost. But you can try to create something new.”

“I'm tired of creating.”

“Not from what I have seen. But even if you never want to pick up a hammer ever again, there is still a place for you here.”

“And if I'm tired of research and science?”

“We built an entire pharmacy to help people.”

“And if I'm tired of helping people?”

“Then I will encourage your artistry. But I don't think you're the type of person to ever get tired of helping people.”

Jayce laughed, sharp and bitter. “You make it sound so easy.”

Viktor shook his head. “Living is the hardest thing we are enduring. In the end only you can make the decision to continue. But you should know that this world accepts you with open arms. I accept you with open arms.”

“I don't know how to continue living,” Jayce admitted. “I’ve- I've accomplished my goal. I've healed you. There's nothing more to do. I've been a walking dead man ever since I was sent here.”

Viktor held out his hand. “Let me show you?”

And Jayce looked at him, at his hand. Slowly, carefully, as if he was lifting a heavy weight, his arm rose. His fingers pressed against Viktor’s hand, up, until they were gripping each other's forearms. “Okay,” he choked out. He sniffed as he wiped his eyes. “Okay. Okay, I- okay. Show me.”

- - - - -

They returned to an Undercity in chaos. Somehow almost the entire city had come together to search for their missing doctor. People were running in the streets, yelling for him and there were already missing posters with a very quick and yet somehow accurate drawing of him.

Viktor coughed. “They are… very efficient.”

Jayce stayed silent, wide-eyed and lost. His hand was limp in Viktor’s.

“I really made them worry, huh?” Viktor muttered, slightly embarrassed. Not like the worry wasn’t unfounded. “I only said that I had a bad feeling, what happened?!”

“Oh, hey, Vik!” Ekko flew past him on his newly finished hoverboard and almost crashed into a house. For a moment he lost control and fell to the ground, jumping up to grab his hoverboard before it could fly away. “You found him! He's okay! Hey, you're okay, man!”

“Nothing but unfounded fear,” Viktor said and raised his free hand placatingly. “I apologize, it seems I made you all worry.”

Ekko put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, loud enough to make his ears ring, to make everyone stop in their frantic search. “We found Doctor Beard!” he yelled.

“Doctor Beard?” Jayce repeated in disbelief.

The street broke into screams of joy.

“He’s okay!”

“Mr. Jay, you're fine!”

“Fuck yeah, I thought some bum had kinapped ya!”

“We were lookin’ all over the place for you, Doc.”

A man, who had once kneeled before them, his limp son in his arms as he had begged for their help, broke into a sprint and slammed straight into Jayce, toppling him. Others followed soon, whooping in delight until a mass of people had formed over a pitifully croaking Jayce.

Viktor decidedly stayed out of it.

-

Vander clamped a hand on their shoulders and gave Jayce a nod. “Happy to see you safe, son.”

Silco clapped him on the back, making him flinch. “The Undercity was in quite an uproar.”

“What,” Jayce said.

Vander pulled him into a hug. “If you ever need to talk, if you ever need anything, if it ever feels like too much, you can come to us, aye?”

Jayce’s hands slowly settled around Vander, fingertips barely touching on his back. His eyes were wide, filled with disbelief as they sought out Viktor’s like his first instinct for help was to find him. Viktor gave him a reassuring smile. And Jayce untensed like a hot air balloon deflating, slowly, gradually, losing all shape before melting, only Vander’s strong grip keeping him from sinking to the floor.

“Okay,” Jayce choked out.

-

Powder refused to let go of Jayce. Vi gave him a glare that was less severe than her usual glares. Mylo gave him an awkward fistbump and Claggor stood closer, giving him puppy eyes.

He sent Viktor a look that screamed for help. Viktor gave him a thumbs up.

“You wanted to leave us, didn't you?” Powder asked, voice small.

“I-” Jayce rubbed a hand over his face. He ruffled her hair. “I won’t leave.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

-

“They were all so worried,” Jayce whispered when they walked home, the sound of two canes in the silence of the evening. “And they- they didn't even know I wanted to die.”

A loud bang sounded when Ekko burst through a pipe, frantic and offended. “You wanted to WHAT?!”

-

“No, no, I won’t calm down, he wanted to die! Who does that, who wants to-?”

-

“Ekko, calm down, I’m not dead, right?”

“Yeah, but you wanted to! That's crazy, that's-”

-

“How about we all take a deep breath and calm down, yeah? A deep breath and then we stop yelling.”

Ekko took a deep breath, still glaring at Jayce who looked uncomfortable.

“God, kill me now,” he whispered, looking like he wanted to rip out of his own skin and run.

There were tears in Ekko’s glare.

Viktor slapped Jayce lightly over the head.

-

“I don't need you to reprimand me too!” Jayce yelled when Talis ran up to them, relieved. “You would have killed yourself in a year!”

“Reprimand?” Talis shook his head. “No, I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“Oh.” Jayce looked weirdly touched as his younger self pulled him into a tight hug. He hesitantly hugged back. “Oh, that's- that's nice to hear.”

“Of course.” Talis drew back to look at him, full of concern and anxiety. “We were all worried for you. Glad to see you safe.”

Jayce looked like swallowing hurt. “Oh. Alright. Thanks. For- for checking up on me.”

Talis squeezed his shoulder and gave him a Jayce-Talis-patented blinding smile.

-

“Why do I feel like I have to comfort people even though I'm the one who wanted to die?” Jayce muttered with a pout when they finally were alone again, on the way to their research-lab-apartment-living-place.

“People are sad about you dying,” Viktor said.

“Doesn't, you know, the one who wanted to die deserve to be comforted?”

Viktor leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek and grinned when his skin grew red. “Just say the word and I’ll comfort you whenever you want.”

Jayce, if possible, grew even redder as he gaped at him.

“Not like that,” Viktor laughed as he opened the door. “Though- maybe like that. If you want.”

“This is going really fast,” Jayce said in a high-pitched voice and Viktor laughed.

“Jayce, we had sex yesterday,” he said drily.

“Yeah, but- I didn't think there would be an after,” Jayce admitted.

Viktor became serious again. He grabbed Jayce’s hands, holding them tight. “I'm here for you, yeah? Everyone with us, everyone you’ve built something with, wants you to be happy. Wants you here. You belong as much as I do. This world, it carved a place for you and would leave a hole if you disappeared.”

“You too,” Jayce said as he intertwined their fingers. “Both of us, we deserve to be here. To be happy. None of that not belonging bullshit, none of that perfection bullshit. I like you the way you are.”

It was pitiful how these simple words made his heart flutter, made warmth rise up his neck, his ears. “The same counts for you. You are no interloper. This world deserves to have two of you.”

A snort escaped Jayce.

Grinning Viktor turned to grab something off the desk. “Here.” He threw Jayce a notebook and a pencil.

“What, you have a new project in mind?”

“Draw something.”

Jayce paused. “Huh?”

“We’ll find you a nice hobby, yeah? I saw some sketches in your notes, you like drawing, right? So let’s start with that. We’ll get you enough tethers to this world that you won't ever think about wanting to leave.”

There was something pained in Jayce’s face as he looked down at the notebook. With shaking fingers he opened it from the back so that it looked like a brand new sketchbook. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them there was only resolve to be found.

“Sit down, I’m gonna draw you.”

“Me?” Viktor asked in surprise but followed, sitting on the desk to look at Jayce who sat before him, eyes darting around his figure.

“Of course,” he said and smiled. “Who else?”