Chapter Text
Viktor was already dead. No technology, no medical miracle could save him. Jayce accepted this on some level, but that didn't stop him from heaving the enormous pillar fragment off of him or attempting CPR, nor did it stop him from gathering his mangled body and rushing three blocks to the lab in the hopes that anything would bring him back.
Almost anything.
Dark magic, sacrificing himself… he was willing to do whatever it took, regardless of the cost. Trying not to hyperventilate, he flipped through their research in frantic desperation, as if there was still a time limit, but then he noticed that the Hexcore was acting very different from when he last saw it. He knew it was evolving, but this… It seemed to beckon Jayce, like it wanted Viktor and was reaching for them. It managed sparks of contact and Viktor's augmented limbs moved in response as if controlled by it, but they resisted its pull, his face briefly reanimated only to immediately become contorted in an agony Jayce had never witnessed before. Everything left of Viktor was fighting back and suffering. It was hurting him. Even in Jayce's panic and hope at seeing him "alive," he felt uneasy, like a sinister, possessive force strained towards them. If Viktor had already trusted it with part of him, perhaps it could save his life… but Jayce could still see the haunted look on his face when he begged Jayce to destroy it, when he promised he would. There must have been a reason, one that Viktor nearly willingly took to an early grave. They had drifted apart ever since he became a councilor, but when they'd looked over that second ledge together, when they later advocated for Zaun, it was like nothing had really changed between them. All they ever wanted was to do good, and they weren't alone when they had each other.
Jayce didn't want to live without him, but he didn't think he could live with himself if he didn't trust Viktor's judgement about his own project — one he barely recognized anymore — and betrayed him in such an intrusive, harmful manner.
Jayce wasn't the best at achieving desired results from anything, to the point that he was almost convinced he himself was hexed, but he always wanted to help people, Viktor most of all. He was conflicted about his options right until he faced the thing and knew in his gut that he needed to protect Viktor — what remained of him — from it. Despite being suspended in place, it was continuing to draw Viktor towards it against his will, trying to ensnare his corpse in its foreboding energy. It had made substantial gains by the time Jayce finally made up his mind. He grabbed the Mercury Hammer and brought it down with all of his strength, grunting from the effort. It shrieked — a piercing, otherworldly drone — as its forcefield shattered and electrocution attempts failed. It targeted his arms, and upon impact it electrified his entire hammer with the blindingly bright explosion-turned-implosion, purple lightning funneling towards him as all surrounding energy was miraculously channeled into his wristband, saving him but draining the hammer's gem as well.
The rune was overcharged, white hot and sparking. He dropped the dead hammer in a hurry to rip off his wristband, fearing it was now a bomb. He went to throw it and shelter Viktor, but then he noticed that Viktor was gone. He hadn't been paying attention while he was fighting the core, and there was no indication of what happened… but the sparks in the carved stone gave way to fissures, and he realized its physical integrity, like Viktor's, couldn't survive. Acceleration was in the subcategory of Teleportation, so it wasn't entirely farfetched to think Viktor might've been taken into it with the rest of the disconnected magic, like electrons from a cloud. But if he was both dead and teleported or transported into it, then losing it would mean losing any chance of revival. He thought of the mage, of Viktor's slight smile when he handed the wristband back, and clasped it tightly between his hands with thumbs interlocked, curling around it like a shield and gritting his teeth as the rune seared itself into his palm. Instead of another volatile magic release, it gradually disintegrated and fell through the gaps like ethereal sand, ceasing to exist before it could even hit the ground. All of its energy became assimilated with Jayce, and then the tension and heat ended in a flash, leaving him staggering forward. He slid to the floor with a soft groan and just sat there for several minutes, slumped against the wall recovering as he got used to its recursive impulse. Once he caught his breath, he dared to loosen his grip, then tentatively peeked into his hands.
The only sign that it had ever been there was a mirror image of the rune, shimmering blue and set in his palm. There were no burns, but it felt tender.
He couldn't tell if Viktor was even in there. For a moment, he just examined it shakily before murmuring his name and then feeling stupid when there was no response. He considered taking the opportunity to have a one-sided heart-to-heart with his hand while he was at it, but he was exhausted and couldn't find the will to. He pressed the mark to the center of his chest, blank hand atop it, and pretended he was holding him. It zapped him lightly but he didn't care. The tears he'd managed to stave off until then with adrenaline were finally getting through. He hung his head and choked out a strangled sob.
The grief was debilitating, crashing down on him all at once and roaring in his ears. He felt like a hole had been ripped through his chest, leaving a wound that would never heal and taking with it what could never be replaced. The overwhelming emptiness ached to the point that he couldn't think about anything else, just the pain of it, but by shifting his focus to it fully, he found the faintest ember of hope. There was something resonating deep within his core. It felt weak, barely perceptible and seeming to flicker out of existence in an erratic manner. He knew he needed to stabilize it before it could get extinguished or lost in him forever.
The hammer's gem had probably given it the energy to appear at all. He hauled himself up and frantically searched the lab. There were few gems just laying around these days, so he went to pilfer the one from Viktor's Hexclaw glove, feeling a little guilty despite remembering Viktor saying that their work needed to be destroyed. Before he could remove the gem, though, his rune palm latched onto it like a powerful magnet upon contact, eliciting a yelp from him as he drained it of all energy. He wasn't able to break free until it was empty, but the terror was being replaced by slightly stronger hope. He hurried around, collecting and draining every single gem he could find. They seemed to be giving him energy he could use, too.
He knew he needed substantially more— he needed to take down the Hexgates along with their research, anyway. He couldn't let any Hextech remain operable. If they had managed to figure out how to mass-produce the gems or even just stabilize them outside of their own lab, he would've been boned, but they were the only people who prepared each crystal, hence the Hexgates taking that much longer to be ready.
They were worth the investment if they could bring Viktor back.
He didn't have to sneak or lie or argue. He didn't even encounter anyone nearby for the duration— which had to have been almost a day, because he caught a glimpse of the sunset when he returned from Zaun. Everyone was preoccupied with the aftermath of the attack.
The warmth of each energy transfer had sunken into his bones, keeping him from freezing— he naturally ran hot, but he found himself needing to shed his jacket until it was over. It was comforting to sense that Viktor was growing stronger. He had no idea what to expect, if he himself would end up dying, but as long as Viktor survived, he didn't care.
Only the gems stolen by Jinx and Vi remained usable once he finished. By that time, Viktor's essence was stable but still unresponsive. He wasn't sure what sorts of responses he could get or if he'd ever find out, but he could feel him in there — somehow unmistakably him, just existing — all the same. It made him a little lightheaded to think about, but it remained a sort of odd comfort. He hauled himself back to the lab and dragged his cot out of the closet, exhausted, then fell asleep with a hand over his heart, knowing that his body would keep him as "alive" as possible.
When he awoke, it was to a blue glow in the center of his chest, so bright that it shone through his shirt and blanket. Viktor felt even stronger. He cried quietly from relief and held the rune palm to the side of his face until he fell back asleep, dreaming of spongy, iridescent matter dissolving into floaty blue specks with that hand. The rune was white there and he himself appeared to have the same consistency as the gems under his transparent skin, eternally swirling. He was assnaked but didn't seem to even have an ass or tits anymore, just vague, smoothed outlines of them. He realized that he was lucid dreaming for the first time, which startled him more than anything else happening until he saw Viktor unconscious.
He looked like he did when they first met, but with the same hair he had when he died. He was… suspended in the spongy stuff and bound by silvery gold and dark purple metals like a web all the way up to the sides of his face. Every fiber of Jayce's being screamed that he was trapped, that it was the remnants of the Hexcore. He raced — drifted, really, as if they lacked anything resembling known physics — over as fast as possible, yelling his name at the top of his lungs over and over, which was barely above a normal speaking voice. When he finally reached him, he cupped the sides of his face and started subconsciously radiating the warm, blue light. The materials began to dissolve away in ripples, pulses, from the touch, revealing healthy skin underneath. His “body” aside from his head was the same blinding white as the rune and as undefined as Jayce's, still floating in place after he was freed. Jayce continued to cradle his face, crying once more, and rested his forehead against his.
“Please come back,” he whispered, thumbing a cheekbone.
There was no response, but he stayed like that until he woke up, then curled around himself, closing his damp eyes and hugging his chest as he focused on feeling his heart beating under the glow. His breaths evened out with time.
“... You're going to be ok,” he murmured after a slow exhale, placing his hand over the spot. “I promise.”