Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Imagine every memory, from every timeline, every possibility, crammed into a single moment, while being catapulted through the eons and multitudes of time and space. It was indescribable, incomprehensible. Far beyond what Jayce’s mind could handle.

He barely noticed the moment it all stopped. Reality seeped back into the frayed edges of his mind, as he gasped himself awake. It felt much less like waking up from a nap at a poor, uncomfortable angle at his work desk, and much more like someone had stolen all concept of time and sense from his mind and tossed it in a blender.

Jayce rubbed his forehead with a groan, his other hand unseizing itself and reaching out on instinct. Something that sounded like a mug of pencils was knocked over, clattering to the floor. He blinked profusely, as his vision faded back in.

Where was I? What happened?

Another late night in the lab…? Sketching prototypes for the next joint-stabilizer…?

But there were many such nights, some of which he felt had not yet even come to pass…

He stood from his chair, his legs shaky and his stomach churning. The room was dark, an organised mess. He recognised none of it, yet it was familiar. Like he poured his life and soul out within this space despite never having been here. He stumbled over to a wall of research, notes and sketches pinned in his own handwriting, and in another. One he knew, but his brain was too much of a soup to discern exactly whose. 

There were prototypes for numerous inventions; advancements in air travel, tools for mining the fissures. But it seemed most of the research surrounded mobility aids, prosthetics, and other tech for medical enhancements.

None of them, Jayce noticed, involved a single ounce of Hextech.

His stomach gave one final warning growl, and he spotted a sink in the corner of the room just in time to empty its contents down the drain.

Where was I?

Jayce squeezed his eyes shut and racked his brain once again to remember. Memories swirled and fused together. A pulsing, spherical web… Hextech… the Hexgates… there was an anomaly… Heimerdinger was there…

The door to the room creaked and Jayce’s eyes shot open.

“Am I interrupting?”

There was a click. The dim, warm glow of a lightbulb flickered to life.

“You know, the sofa was your idea.” Viktor stepped into the light, a small, wry grin playing at his lips as he approached Jayce with the soft thunk of his cane. “I still think it takes up too much space. What’s the point if you’re not going to use it, hm?”

Forget space-time travel. Jayce couldn’t move. His breath was trapped in his throat at the sight of his partner, his partner, standing before him looking… well, nothing like he’d ever seen him.

Viktor’s hair was longer than it had ever been, but soft and well-kept, tied over one shoulder. His build was no longer pale, malnourished, overworked. Rather, slender and healthy. His perpetual purple eye bags were gone, replaced by visible laugh lines that did the opposite of aging him. His eyes were bright, burning gold and passion, the same passion Jayce remembered, floating in a room of blue runes and laughter. A lifetime ago. A lifetime ripped away by a single moment, eyes of shifting colour and a cold goodbye…

With a gasp, Jayce remembers. And realises Viktor, this Viktor, is starting to look at him funny.

“Are you alright?” Viktor asks, slowly, tentatively reaching a hand out.

Without missing a beat, Jayce reaches back to him. He almost cries when Viktor’s fingers curl around his wrist. A million thoughts race through his head.

Viktor reached out. He’s not my Viktor. But it’s the first time he ever reached out to me. Not like this. He’s not my Viktor. Can I relish this? He’s not my Viktor. Never thought I would have this. I don’t. He’s not my Viktor--

“Fine,” Jayce says. His voice cracks. He panics, clears his throat. “I’m fine. Just. Yeah. Fell asleep.”

Viktor clicks his tongue, but his gaze flits over Jayce’s form where he’s leaning against the rim of the sink.

“The science will still be here tomorrow.”

Despite himself, Jayce lets out a disbelieving chuckle. “Yeah? Who said that?”

“You did.” Viktor meets his eyes, smiling. “We promised no more late nights, remember? Going back on your promise, Talis? I didn’t take you for a liar.”

I’ve never seen him smile this much. He’s not your Viktor. I broke my promise. To the other Viktor. Not you. Not you. Not you.

“I wasn’t. I’m not.” Jayce mutters.

Viktor goes over to the work desk, shuffling through the papers Jayce had apparently been sleeping on. “I must admit, the joint-stablizer’s coming along quite well. We can look over the others after the sun comes up.”

“Ah. Okay.” Jayce pushes himself upright and tries not to be disappointed.

It sinks in that this is probably just a shared workshop in Viktor’s apartment, and he’s about to get kicked out. He’s hit with a pang of guilt, that he’s probably overstayed his welcome in his partner’s own home, he probably has to go find Heimerdinger and Ekko, wherever they ended up, and they’ll probably have to find a way back to their own universe before their presence here makes things worse--

All for his train of thought to vault off a cliff when Viktor takes his jaw, leans in, and kisses him.

He does it so easily. Like he does it every day. With a jolt of realisation Jayce thinks, he probably does. His lips are so warm and soft.

Jayce’s eyes widen as he catches the reflection of himself being kissed in the sink’s mirror. Slightly longer hair, slightly fuller beard, freckles dusting his cheeks and matching laugh lines in the corner of his eyes. He’s never seen himself this happy.

Viktor pulls away too soon. Too fast. Too chaste. But he doesn’t go far. In this universe, it seems, there are no shattered affections or diverged paths.

In this universe, Viktor stays, fingers still skirting along the line of Jayce’s jaw, molten eyes regarding him with the same familiar fondness from the early days of their partnership. It’s so simple, yet it’s too much.

Not my Viktor. Not my Viktor. Not my Viktor.

“What’s going on in that big head of yours, hm?” Viktor murmurs, gently burying a finger into the hair at Jayce’s temple.

No, Jayce decides. He may not be my Viktor. But he’s still Viktor.

Oh, fuck it.

He surges forward and Viktor meets him halfway. Viktor kisses him like this is very very far from their first kiss, and the thought sends a delighted shiver down Jayce’s spine. The idea that Viktor, this Viktor, was always his to kiss. His hand slides up to cradle Viktor’s cheek, the other supporting the small of his back. There’s a loud clack of a cane being dropped and Jayce feels himself guided, maneuvered backwards until the back of his calves hit a sofa. Viktor shoves him down on it with surprising strength, then dives back in to reclaim Jayce’s lips.

Their mouths slot together and come apart like cogs in a machine, Viktor’s hand coyly slipping underneath Jayce’s collar, Jayce’s fingers rucking up the bottom edge of Viktor’s shirt and vest to savour smooth, Hexcore-untainted skin, until the breaths between them start dissolving into soft laughs. 

Jayce manages to press a kiss to the beauty mark over Viktor’s lip, then another to the one under his eye, before Viktor finally extricates himself.

“Eager tonight, are we?” he hums, hand smoothing down the front of Jayce’s shirt. “Did I do anything in particular to deserve such special treatment?”

“No. Well,” Jayce huffs, brushing a lock of hair from his partner’s face. “For just being you, I guess.”

Viktor smiles. For what seems to be the millionth time tonight. Jayce finds himself wanting so badly to get used to that.

“Always the charmer, Talis.” He kisses the side of Jayce’s neck, his pulse point, then nestles his head there. Jayce can feel his breaths against his collarbone, rising and falling in tandem with his own. “I’m glad I talked the council out of your exile.”

“Yeah,” Jayce whispers. He wraps an arm around his partner’s shoulders, the way he always does. “Where would I be without you?”

Viktor curls closer into his embrace, closing his eyes.

Suddenly, Jayce really, really doesn’t want to find Ekko and Heimerdinger in the morning.

Chapter Text

Three days go by, and Jayce still can’t get over just how easy everything is here. He discovers several new things and catalogues it in his mind for reference:

1. To his poorly-veiled shock, he finds out Vi had been the one to break into his workshop all those years ago. Except in this universe she had been killed in the blast, so Jayce can’t find it in himself to blame her for his expulsion and near-exile.
2. Because of that, Hextech never existed. This Jayce had never completed his research. But Viktor had still seen the spark in him, his wanton desire to help people, and they had been partners ever since.
3. The last discovery burns his heart to think about, and he sees it on every street he walks on, every smile he passes, every bridge he crosses -- both Zaun and Piltover were inextricably, and undeniably, better off without Hextech.

He sees it too, in the way Viktor carries himself. Jayce notices the way he’s able to put more weight on his leg than he did in the other universe. The way he can walk short distances now without the aid of his cane, the way it never evolved into a crutch or the sickening, warped spiral of a purplish, metallic staff. The way he’s coughing less, without a single trace of blood, because his disease had been staved off by something as simple as a healthier lifestyle.

Jayce learns they had moved in together several years prior, a joint apartment, a joint workshop in the city. It’s a cozy, humble space, just enough room for two. Their homemade lab is so brimming with ideas that Jayce manages to speedrun three new prototypes of prosthetic legs in the span of two hours. He learns that’s his current job; designing gadgets and devices for both Piltovians and Zaunites in need. Viktor is with him every step of the way, and Jayce finds out that this version of him had apparently talked his partner into becoming a tech ambassador in the Council. And boy, does he take it in stride.

Jayce watches with pure, unbridled awe during their meetings, as Viktor lays out blueprints and discusses with the senators about which parts of Zaun to install their latest ventilation turbines. It’s a side of Viktor he had never gotten to see, as if something had been unlocked about his demeanor, the curtains of his insecurities drawn back to reveal his desire to make a difference.

It takes just three days to fall into a routine, in a body that is Jayce, but also not, and a part of him still twinges with guilt whenever Viktor places a gentle hand on his back, or climbs into bed with him, or kisses him goodnight and good morning. He shoves the thought away every time, because damn it, it has been years since he has felt bliss like this, if not ever. He deserves this, he thinks. Just for a little while.

They spend as much time in the lab as they do out and about in the city. Sometimes Viktor drags him out just for an aimless stroll under the sun, and Jayce catches the habit to return the favour, whenever he spies Viktor starting to hunch a little too much over their work desk.

Sunlight is lovely. It explains his freckles.

When they get back, Viktor sits on the desk while Jayce paces back and forth, tossing out endless ideas to each other, twice as inspired as they were before.

“If we made the design sleeker, more streamlined, maybe we could make them for people of different professions!” Jayce is rambling, too excited to realise that Viktor has gone silent, watching him fondly. “Our current designs are made for amputees in general, but what about artists? Chefs? Even athletes! Just a simple customization feature could benefit everyone!”

Viktor hooks the handle of his cane around Jayce’s waist and tugs him close. “The world is really waiting for you to change it.” 

Jayce goes willingly. “For us to change it.”

When he kisses him, it’s sweeter than sunlight.

In the end, it’s Ekko who finds him.

Jayce is bartering for new materials on the bridge between Piltover and Zaun when a hand grasps his shoulder. He turns to look into wide, uncertain eyes, and he knows his time is up.

On the fifth day, he reunites with Heimerdinger, and discovers that they’re already halfway done inventing space-time travel. They all but beg him to help, and out of rising regret and obligation, he agrees.

When he gets home that night, Viktor already asleep in their bed, he sinks down next to him and takes a moment to just watch…

Viktor can’t know, Jayce decides, resolutely. Hextech ruined his life before. I’m not doing that again.

But it’s only a matter of time before Viktor starts noticing he’s been coming home late. He needs to get this done, and he needs to get this done fast. The impending decision ascends like an engulfing wave, looming ominously above his head as the days go by.

He helps Ekko and Heimerdinger till the end of the week, before hesitantly breaking the news.

“Are you kidding me?” Ekko hisses, dropping his wrench with a loud CLANG. 

Jayce winces.

“I’m sorry…”

“First we find out you’ve just been casually living your life up in Piltover, while we’ve been slaving away at this machine for days ,” Ekko jabs an accusing finger in his chest. “Now you’re telling us you’re not even coming?”

“My boy--” Heimerdinger starts.

“No! I wanna hear it from him!”

Jayce feels himself shrink under Ekko’s glare. “Look, things are good for me here.”

“Yeah, me too,” Ekko says, and Jayce doesn’t miss the way his eyes flick towards where Powder is cranking the other end of the machine. “But there are people back there who need us. You’re one of Piltover’s councilors. One of the better ones, and that’s coming from me.”

“I was going to resign,” Jayce remembers, all of a sudden.

Goodbye, Jayce.

He swallows the lump in his throat. “They don’t need me anymore.”

Ekko scoffs. “Is this about Viktor?”

Jayce looks up, immediately, instinctively, and catches Ekko’s unsurprised expression.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I’m not going back, Ekko.” Jayce stands, and starts to leave. “I’m sorry.”

He knows he’s in for it even before he enters their bedroom.

Viktor doesn’t even look up from the book he’s reading when he asks, “You going to explain where you’ve been, or do I have to drag it out of you?”

Jayce runs a hand across his face in exhaustion and collapses into bed next to Viktor.

“Trust me, I’ve been trying to drag it out of myself too.”

Warm fingers wrap around his wrist to pry his hand away from his face. He opens his eyes to meet his partner’s concerned, golden gaze.

“I am asking because I have not seen you this stressed in a very long time,” Viktor says softly. “I would like to have a share of whatever’s plaguing you, if you don’t mind.”

“You’ll send me away,” Jayce whispers back.

“I would never--”

“You will after this,” Jayce swallows hard, searching desperately in Viktor’s eyes for any shred of understanding he can find. “I’m not… who you think I am.”

Something in Viktor’s expression twitches. “I have my theories. But I want to hear it from you. Please, Jayce.”

And so Jayce squeezes his eyes shut, rolls over, and mumbles it all into the side of Viktor’s hip. It’s a lot harder to explain than he thought, but Viktor doesn’t move an inch until he’s finished.

There’s about two seconds of silence, before Jayce feels him shift, leaning back into the pillows. He cracks an eye open to gauge, and is met with Viktor’s signature thinking face.

“Fascinating,” is all he says.

Jayce raises his eyebrows. “You’re not… creeped out?”

“Why would I be?”

“Because I’m not your Jayce!”

“Nonsense.” Viktor’s voice is inquisitive, matter-of-fact, as if they’re merely discussing a challenging math equation. “If what you’re saying is true, you are still the same Jayce I know. Just a different version. With different memories.”

“You’re not exactly proving your point.”

“What, that I’m not creeped out?” Viktor looks at him, amused, “Should I be creeped out?”

“I lied to you, Viktor. About myself, about reinventing Hextech... it didn’t feel right.”

To his astonishment, Viktor laughs. “Always so dramatic. Why would we need Hextech,” He reaches out to caress Jayce’s cheek. Like a moth to a flame, Jayce leans into his touch. “When we have everything we need right here? We’re helping people without it.”

“Helping people…” Jayce recalls the early days of their partnership, back when life in his universe was as simple as this. Our Hextech dream. Oh, how spectacularly it had failed. “That was always our endgame. Our goal.”

Viktor shrugs. “Well, things aren’t so different here. That was our dream too, at first. But eventually, like all things, it evolved.”

“Into what?”

“Each other.”

A breath catches in Jayce’s throat. Viktor speaks now as if it’s his turn reminiscing, “We could not imagine achieving what we achieved without each other. That too evolved beyond just scientific ambition. Instead I began researching what made you happy, scared, how to hold you, how to touch you…”

He leans closer with every word, taking Jayce’s hand, tracing shapes into his open palm with a grin.

“…how to say your name in a way that gives you butterflies, Jayce.” 

He says it deliberately thicker in his accent. Electricity sparks down into Jayce’s very core. Gods.

“How to love you well . The way you want to be loved. I think that is the key to every successful partnership, no?”

Jayce blinks away the moisture gathering in his eyes, holding Viktor’s hand a little tighter, as if he might slip away at any minute. Our paths diverged long ago.

“My Viktor--” Left me. “--is gone. He’s… someone else now.”

Viktor deliberates on this. “If a Jayce from another universe loves me just the same as my own Jayce, then theoretically, your Viktor is still in there.” He crooks a finger beneath Jayce’s chin and lifts his gaze. The rest of the world seems to fade away. “I am still in there. Would you give up on me?”

“No, never.”

“Then you must go back. You know, you are his Jayce too.”

Jayce meets his partner’s eyes, one last time, and knows he’s done for.

The next day, he brings Viktor to see the machine, and together, they make the final adjustments. There’s something in the way Viktor rattles off about space-time theory with Ekko and laughs at Powder’s jokes, that convinces Jayce once and for all, things might be alright. The twinge in his heart remains, though, paired with uncertainty for the future awaiting him in his own universe. Endless possibilities indeed.

When the machine activates and manifests the awfully familiar, glowing churn of the Hexcore, Jayce turns to Viktor, not-his-Viktor .

“Do you think…” he asks, voice low and quivering over the sound of the machine, so only Viktor can hear him. “We’re like this in every universe?”

Viktor takes him by the nape of his neck and presses their foreheads together. “I think in every timeline, in every possibility… our fates are sealed, Jayce Talis.”

They stay together, for a moment, before Jayce forces himself apart, tears streaming freely now. He has to say it. He has to say it now or else--

“Look, in case I don’t… or he doesn’t… I just…”

Viktor quickly places a finger over his lips. “You deserve to hear it from the right Viktor. Save it for him.”

Ekko is calling to him now. He steps back into the circle. He opens his mouth to shout one final goodbye over the noise, but what arises within him is a newfound, violent determination.

“I won’t fail,” he promises instead.

Viktor smiles, easy as ever.

“I know.”