They woke up in a field of wildflowers.
The dawning rays of the sun gently roused Jayce into consciousness, and his senses began buzzing to life, hazy but growing clearer with each passing second. Some sort of bird chirped in the distance. The endless sky stretched far above his head. A breeze rustled the meadow, and vivid stalks of green shivered around him, their blooms bobbing like festival lanterns. The dirt cradled his form and cushioned his leg like silk.
Lying on his back, Jayce entertained the thought of closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the fertile ground beneath him. The sweet pollen and butterflies scattered around him would settle, and he’d be buried amongst their fleeting memories before long. Maybe they would vaguely recall him as a sturdy perch on which to rest their delicate legs. He liked the thought of being remembered fondly.
The dull throb of his leg morphed into a crushing pain, and the phantom pressure had him shooting awake with a gasp. He attempted to sit up, but, despite his struggling, his muscles remained rigid and unmoving like he’d never used them in his life. Panic began to well.
Then, for the briefest of seconds, he could’ve sworn he felt every atom in his body thrum all at once. It was as if the very molecules of his being suddenly recalled how they were supposed to fit together, and they were scrambling to reclaim their places in the wake of the realization. Something like static rushed from head to toe, snapping from nerve to nerve and leaving behind a prickling sense of fizziness in his bones.
Just like that, the numbing stiffness disappeared, along with the odd, biting sensation that had shot through his body. Amazed, Jayce managed to get up on his forearms, but something in the corner of his eye had him freezing before his mind could begin flooding with theories. Pupils blown wide in fixation, he took in the visage before him:
Perpetually furrowed brows. Precious beauty marks. Unrelenting eye bags that persisted beyond sleep and, apparently, beyond cosmic disintegration. Even in such a rarely witnessed state of relaxation, the sight was unmistakable.
It was the face he had seen at the end of the world.
Now, it was the first he’d seen in rebirth, and wasn’t that a poetic thought? Their lives ended and began face-to-face. Once the other finally awoke, it would be an experience only shared by the two of them. Something secret and entirely theirs.
As he ogled, Jayce felt a pinprick of unease jab at him. Something was off, and the horrible, dreadful realization struck him like cold lightning.
He’s too still.
Peripherally, he wondered if this was what it felt like to take a blow from his hammer. Or to have a heart attack.
Jayce ripped his gaze from parted lips to scour the rest of the man. All over the body before him, shimmering patterns were distributed like remnants of popped soap bubbles or maybe oil on water. Iridescence sealed the cracks that traversed a landscape of pale flesh. Alabaster, not amethyst, Jayce noted in the back of his mind. But, in all honesty, he would’ve taken him either way.
Breathless, Jayce rushed to stretch out a trembling hand, his palm sliding under the achingly familiar blanket to seek out a slim chest speckled with moles and the glimmering inscriptions of a brace long absorbed.
His other hand sought limp fingers to interlock with his own, and the meeting of bronze and quartz caused him to flinch.
Cold. Colder than he had ever been and ever should be. Was it just Jayce’s memory, or was he paler, too?
No.
The pain in Jayce’s leg was long forgotten, eclipsed by a suffocation that sapped at his very will. He didn’t dare breathe. Each second that ticked by was another Councilroom explosion, another endless blizzard, another unwieldy laser fired into an unexpecting chest. Once again, it was him and a body. No, not just a body. His body, rigid and freezing and beautiful regardless.
Was this the fate of every Jayce Talis? To be left behind by him?
It can’t be, he scrambled to reason, because there’s at least one reality where it’s the other way around. He thought of the cliff, the corroding statue, and the Mage so lonely he set out on a journey across time and space to prevent the creation of more lonely Mages.
But that only made Jayce feel worse. And guilty. He almost let that future become theirs. Instead, the roles were reversed; he was alive. But if Jayce was the living one, then…
He refused to finish the thought. Instead, he wriggled closer still until they were nose-to-nose, and he did something he hadn’t done since before he was accepted into the Academy and moved to the dorms.
Jayce Talis prayed.
He doesn’t know to whom or what. Maybe to everything. Maybe to the old gods and goddesses his mother had kept a shrine for before they uprooted and came to a city whose only religion was progress. Maybe even the Mage, still standing on that hill with a sack of runes tied to his robe. Even though he’d been granted so much by him and it’d be greedy to ask for more, Jayce hoped he was listening.
He prayed that some of his life, his energy, his matter, his very soul would seep through his pores and into the man before him. Jayce would give everything if he could. Otherwise, he’d lie here and do nothing but stare at his partner’s face until the end. He’d let himself sink into the ground and count his favourite moles as his organs devoured one another and his cells drained his blood of water until nothing remained.
Because he was too selfish to do it all alone, and that’s where he and the Mage differed. Pursuit mattered little to him without the one person he would’ve delighted in it with.
“Please,” he rasped, and the plea came out as a choked thing. “All I want…”
He doesn’t know how much time passed. It could’ve been seconds, a minute, an hour, a day, or even a week. Whatever it was, he would’ve been willing to wait a lifetime.
The rise and fall beneath his hand was near infinitesimal. But it was there.
He rejoiced in that gentle crest just as the starfish and the anemones relished the return of the tide. Jayce lunged forward with what strength he could muster, enveloping both arms around his partner in a crushing embrace and tucking his face into a cool neck. Through the blanket and the fabric of his own shirt, he could feel a pulse beat against his chest. It was a thready, gorgeous flutter that strengthened and sped up to meet his own pounding breast.
The first touch of rain on this reborn, ashen flesh was not of the sky, but of Jayce’s lacrimal glands.
A faint puff of air had him looking up just in time to see amber eyes crack open, their pupils shrinking at the full force of daylight before settling on him and dilating. The vocal cords beneath his lips hummed to life, and there was a disoriented grumble that took Jayce back to nights spent at the lab, passed out in their chairs and waking up with blueprints plastered to their cheeks with drool.
“Mhrm…Jayce?”
“Viktor,” he whispered into the pulse, “you’re here.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Using one another for leverage, they clambered to their feet and stumbled to the lush treeline. Jayce broke off some branches for them to use as walking sticks, and Viktor plucked berries from the shrubs they passed.
The nights were warm enough for them to sleep without a fire, but they huddled together anyway, making conversation and bypassing the topics they couldn’t even begin to unravel just yet. It felt good, albeit both of them were aware of what lingered in the background.
It didn’t take long for them to find a stream, and that stream led to an old, abandoned farmer’s cottage, complete with a well and a very overgrown yard with a stone walkway and a swing hanging from fraying rope. Ivy scaled the grimy walls, the floorboards yearned to be stripped and refinished, the plumbing needed a rework, the woodstove groaned menacingly, and the chimney played host to a nest of very belligerent birds and, bewilderingly, a fruit bat.
Jayce’s brain stirred longingly as he imagined what they could do with the place, and he shivered at the notion of finally being able to pick up a tool and work with his hands after going so long without. The last thing his hands had made were weapons to be used against Viktor’s home. Now, he could use them to build him another.
When he glanced at Viktor, he saw eyes that glinted in anticipation of a challenge, perhaps already performing calculations and putting together drafts for questionably achievable upgrades. Without a word in exchange, they nodded at each other and set to work.
Within the month, they completed all the major repairs, repurposing old elements of the cottage as they saw fit and sneaking in whatever modifications they could manage with the materials on hand. They became as well-versed in the mechanics of wood, stone, and clay as they were in those of metal. A sheath of paper and an untouched bottle of ink had been tucked away in a drawer of the woodworking table, and they set upon them eagerly. Paper meant blueprints, and blueprints meant upgrades.
This meant that the bathtub and one of their sinks could spit out heated water at a moment’s notice, and it worked wonders on their aches and pains and stresses, especially when Viktor tossed in the herbs and flower petals that he’d set out to dry when the sun was at its peak. The hearth roared in its cradle, casting dancing shadows over new floorboards and freshly laundered rugs as smoke escaped through the chimney and into the night sky.
Once the work was done, they settled into a routine that was part domesticity but mostly survival. While there was no council to satiate and no more lung affliction to contend with, their days weren’t without trial.
Among their top concerns was the fact that they didn’t have a reliable, year-round source of food, nor a decent variety in what they did have. Their diets consisted of berries and fruits, seeds, herbal and floral teas, syrup tapped from the trees around their cottage, and the occasional fish or root vegetable. They were without meat, grain, or dairy, and they would be for the foreseeable future. What would they do when winter came?
Not only that, but their wardrobes lacked winter clothing. In fact, their wardrobes lacked clothing in general. What they’d been reborn with was all they had. Viktor’s supreme sewing skills (and, to some degree, Jayce’s clumsy crocheting ability, courtesy of his mother) mattered little when one didn’t own extra fabric, nor the knowledge necessary to make more.
In one of the bedrooms, Viktor had discovered an old child’s toy carefully sat up against the dresser. The doll was made of cloth and yarn and bore the wear that only a well-loved companion could possess. He told Jayce he was loath to take it apart when it had been so clearly cherished, but the fabric would maybe be enough for a set of gloves. Jayce rubbed his back and told him they’d find another way.
Then, there was the dwindling supply of the tallow soap that the cottage had come with. It wasn’t something either of them had given much thought to until Jayce’s weaker leg gave out on him while spearfishing.
Although he caught himself with his hands, he’d managed to slice his left palm open when he dashed it against the slimy river rocks. He merely looked at it and shook his wrist with a sigh, but when he returned home, Viktor took one sight at his dripping pants and bleeding hand and paled impossibly further.
He dragged Jayce to the hot water sink with unexpected urgency, eyes flitting about before landing on the half-used bar of tallow off to the side. “Quick, remove your shirt.”
Warmth rushed to Jayce’s cheeks as he followed the command, and he stuttered a little. “A-ah, V, it’s not that bad. Really, it just stings a bit—“ He hissed as Viktor stretched his hand beneath the faucet and the heated water ran over his wound. “I’ve gotten cuts on my palm before. They’re usually gone by the end of the week.”
“Yes, but this is not Piltover,” Viktor clicked his tongue before lifting his head with a meaningful look. “We are in the wilds, Jayce, and though that river probably doesn’t branch from the Pilt, it is best to act as if it does until we know where it comes from.” He squeezed the hand, and they watched as blood attempted to pool, only to be washed away under the force of the water.
“What do you mean?” Jayce asked, squeezing back. “What’s the Pilt?”
“The Pilt.” Viktor emphasized it as if it explained everything, and Jayce realized this was another cultural difference they’d somehow yet to stumble upon until now. Seven years, and there were still things they didn’t know about one another’s lives…
Feeling the weight of Jayce’s perplexed stare, Viktor must’ve reached the same conclusion, for he awkwardly elaborated, “The, ah, water that runs from Piltover’s industrial sector to the Undercity. It is filled with infiltrates.”
“Factory runoff?” Jayce chanced. Viktor squinted at the laceration to judge whether it required more flushing.
“Eh, among other things.” Blindly, he reached for the tallow soap, fingers grasping at air in the general direction of the lump. “Toxins, bacteria, waste, smog in water. It delves into the wound and infects the blood. Left untreated, the limb rots, and then it must be removed—“
Jayce used his other hand to slip the tallow into Viktor’s, and a beat passed before he jolted, nearly slipping from the other’s grasp. “Removed? Is that, uh, common? In the Undercity, I mean.”
He thought of all the prosthetics he’d seen in the handful of times he’d gone down there. With a start, Jayce realized he’d never taken the time to question just why there’d been so many in the first place. He thought of his mother’s fingers, lost to the blizzard and replaced with metal so she could continue working.
Necessity.
Viktor hummed in appraisal. “Relatively. As youths, we are warned to not let blood and Pilt mix. Eh, it’s the reason why amputation is one of the most widely practiced skills by Undercity healers.” He grabbed the tallow soap and rubbed it into a fierce lather against his thumb before pressing it to Jayce’s skin and gently rubbing it into the wound. “It was less common when I was growing up, but the children of today are not so fortunate.”
Not so fortunate. Jayce imagined a tiny Viktor, and then he tried to imagine anyone in his life who could’ve been less fortunate than that little boy. Was such a thing possible? “That…that’s awful. And there’s no one cleaning it up? Filtering the water or anything?”
Viktor’s grip faltered, and the soothing motions froze as he averted his eyes. “Ah…no. W-well, I made drafts for filters whilst working under Heimerdinger. With his support, I was able to make a few prototypes, but each one broke under the weight of the Pilt. The project was discontinued.” Silence lingered as he returned to scrubbing. Having been on the backend of many failed prototypes, Jayce tried to think of something to say to commiserate. For some reason, nothing that came to mind sounded good enough.
Viktor shook his head, perhaps sensing Jayce’s hesitance, and continued, “It would take an entire structural renewal to purify that water, Jayce. Filters are not enough to cleanse a system so blighted; they are only the beginning.” He turned off the faucet and let their hands dry. “Besides, who would’ve been willing to plunge their hands into the muck with me?”
I would’ve helped you, Jayce thought to protest. Just like how you helped me. Partners, remember? Then, he thought of everything he’d done as a councilor, and he felt sick.
The sensation of rough fabric on his skin interrupted his maudlin line of thinking, and he belatedly realized they were now sitting at their little table with its wobbly chairs that they kept swearing they were going to fix but never got around to working on. Viktor wrapped the wound tight with a linen strip that looked suspiciously like a piece of their tablecloth. Jayce thought more about the polluted waterway.
Was it possible that his family’s industry had contributed to it when they first began expanding? Dependable hammers and collapsible pocket wrenches and waterborne infections for children and parents…He’d never considered it. Maybe his mamá knew, but he’d never bothered to ask. He’d probably never get to.
He blinked, and the wrapping was done. When Viktor stood to wash his hands, Jayce stood up with him on shaky legs and pulled him into a hug. “Viktor, I’m so sorry.”
Lithe arms wrapped around him, hands carefully held away from tan skin as a nose was pressed into the crook between his neck and shoulder. “What for, Jayce?”
“For not being there.” He tried hard not to let his voice waver, but something must’ve given him away regardless. The other’s hands came down to clutch tightly at the expanse of his back, heedless of their previous goal. Viktor pulled back slightly to look at him face to face, tender understanding clear in the slope of his eyelids and the angle of his chapped lips.
“Jayce?”
“Mhmm?”
“…I am sorry for leaving.”
They put their foreheads together and stood there, swaying in the middle of their kitchen until their stomachs rumbled. Chuckling, they separated and went to prepare dinner, standing hip to hip at the counter. Jayce talked Viktor through scaling and gutting the fish, and Viktor teased him about taking a bath.
~~~~~~~~~~
Beyond the physical, there was everything that rustled beneath the skin, moulded by the past and lingering in their psyches. It lay dormant, haunting the recesses of their cerebrums and rising to the surface whenever they thought too hard or let their minds linger in silence for too long.
Those were the nights where Jayce woke up snarling, grasping at a hammer that wasn’t there and gazing unblinkingly at Viktor through sleep-ruffled hair. Wide-eyed and hopeful, he’d reach out as if to touch him, but just before making contact, he’d pull away as if he would be burned for doing so. Jayce would clutch at his own leg, squeezing it tight and hissing through the pain in hopes of forcing already-healed bones to heal faster. He’d mutter under his breath, too, endless apologies spilling from his lips interspersed with sobs and sandpaper pleas for forgiveness and understanding.
Viktor granted both to him every time, and though he well and truly meant every word, Jayce refused to believe it.
There were the mornings where Viktor would shy away before Jayce woke, slinking to the floor and concealing every inch of himself with their blanket. By the time he bound his hands, no sliver of skin could be seen, and he’d refuse to let Jayce near him. The four faint, iridescent patches decorating Jayce’s forehead would burn under the weight of his gaze. Other times, he’d stare at the scar left behind by Jayce’s rune.
Viktor doesn’t trust Jayce when he says he’d do it all over again for him.
A million moments all came to a head when they decided to forage somewhere between the cottage and the meadow they’d woken up in. One moment, Viktor had been at his side. At sundown, Jayce found him whispering under his breath and kneeling before a patch of golden blooms, starlight tears welling as he whispered individual apologies to those who he’d failed (Rio, Sky, Vander…) and those who’d worn the glimmering marks of his fingertips.
With a heaving exhale, Jayce sat down, grabbed Viktor’s palm, and began laying out all of his own regrets for the world and the dead to hear. Breath hitched, Viktor listened in silence and squeezed his hand whenever Jayce’s words faltered. Clutching each other, they took turns releasing their remorse and sorrows and sins and other things longing to be said into the open air.
Hours passed. They talked, they cried, and they even screamed a little before collapsing into one another. By the end of it, their heads pounded from dehydration with all the tears shed and confessions pried from their souls. They stumbled to their feet with exhaustion weighing on their muscles and their legs aching in protest. But as drained as their bodies were, their hearts and minds felt relief.
Come morning, they found that maybe their souls were a little lighter, too. The guilt was more manageable with the burden split between them, and it settled in their chests, far from forgotten but tucked to the side and no longer dominating the quiet moments. Bad days still happened, of course, but they began appearing with less frequency.
Eventually, bad days became less like days and more like hours, and those hours were often resolved with nights spent gazing up at the astral sky.
~~~~~~~~~
It’s under those same stars and limitless universes that there’s eventually a whispered declaration. A gasp. A soft meeting of lips follows not long after. Again, and again, and again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Life was hard, but they acclimated to the change.
They found hope in the field, peace in the walls of their cottage, and reassurance in front of the golden flowers.
They didn’t find love beneath the cosmos, but that was because they already had something that was more than love. That indescribable thing was in every partner and every Viktor and every Jayce, and love fell within its bounds by default.
They simply never named what they had, and they don’t name it now. Why should they deign to do so when it transcends any possible label? The closest either of them could come to was “atomically, celestially, endlessly interwoven,” and even that didn’t cover it.
So, partners it is. They don’t owe anyone an explanation; all one needs to know is that they come as a pair. In endless lifetimes and in infinite ways, Viktor had said, and Jayce couldn’t agree more.
(That is not to say that they spend every waking and unwaking moment together, of course.
Viktor will occasionally cite needing time away from what he refers to as Jayce’s “endearing yet overbearingly accurate imitation of a particularly stubborn limpet.”
To which Jayce’s response is to pout, latch onto his waist with an iron grip, and say, “That’s because you’re my rock, V.”
Viktor can’t blush anymore, but the way he huffs and leans back into Jayce’s arms is a near thing. The meeting of their skin just feels right, and Jayce strives to make it happen as often as possible.
Needless to say, their bodies are well-acquainted with one another in all sorts of contexts.)
So, as impossible as it may seem after everything he’s done and failed to do, Jayce would argue that he’s found something he can call happiness.
He bears glorious witness to it whenever he wakes up to tepid feet pushing against his own and chestnut hair streaked with iridescent silver and platinum sprawled lazily over the pillow beside his. As stars loom far above their home, he hears it in the lullaby of croaking frogs, popping fire, and light snores blessedly free of rasping coughs. Morning and night, he counts moles he knows by heart until either he falls asleep or honey eyes open to meet his own.
Maybe it’s selfish of him, but he hopes this joy is something they can keep eternal.
Author’s Note: The bond between these two is so incredible that it convinced me to post for the first time after years of writing for the void. For anyone curious, the full version can be found on Ao3. Cheers to the happy couple, and may there be many more!
(Submitted by pigeon_in_progress. AO3: pigeon_in_progress)