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Chapter Text

With his ears full of the scratch of chalk on slate and his mind buzzing with theories, Jayce failed to notice Viktor arriving at the laboratory. 

The tall, ornate lab door closed with a loud ka-thunk, and Jayce started, knocking into the blackboard as his chalk skittered to a stop. The blackboard wobbled, so he grabbed it before it could topple backward and spun on his heels to face his partner.

“I did not mean to scare you.” Viktor’s wry smirk transformed his solemn face into something impish. He leaned hard on his cane, half of his body slanted up and the other slumped. A bad day, Jayce guessed by the posture, though Viktor would never admit as much. 

Rubbing his hand over the stubby hairs at the nape of his neck, Jayce chuckled sheepishly. “Sorry. I was in my head.” Too late, he realized there was chalk all over his hand, and thus, all over the back of his head.

“What are you working on?” Viktor approached the board, his limp more pronounced. Jayce knew Viktor only asked out of politeness, already able to surmise from a distance which part of their process Jayce was working through. Without comment, Viktor dusted off the chalk on Jayce.

“Remember what we talked about yesterday? About a cooling system? I thought about it last night, and I think I might have a solution. Here, come look at this.” Jayce gestured Viktor over to his desk, sifting through the city plans he’d requested from Councillor Kiramman’s archives. 

As Jayce explained his jumbled thought process, Viktor nodded along, sliding in to fill the gaps in Jayce’s theorizing with his own suggestions. He picked up his own nubby piece of chalk and began writing over, in, and around Jayce’s equations, his square lettering mixing in with Jayce’s scrawl. The lines between their work blurred, becoming some amalgamation with no discernible seams, something natural and right. 

Since meeting Viktor, Jayce felt as if they’d begun one long discussion that never ended. When they parted, the discussion paused, only to be picked up again when they reunited. He could not recall if they’d ever said “hello” or “goodbye” to each other, having skipped past simple pleasantries to arrive at the meat of their partnership—discovery. Progress. 

They’d worked together for three years, nowhere near the completion of the Hexgates and yet so deep into the process it had consumed them. In a distant corner of his psyche, Jayce knew this wasn’t healthy or sustainable, especially for Viktor. 

While Jayce developed social anorexia and a caffeine dependency, Viktor developed braces and surgeries, the youthful plump to his cheeks fleeing as they approached thirty. The sharp cheekbones highlighted Viktor’s harsh, foreign beauty, made him look distinguished and elegant, but Jayce only saw that Viktor was not eating enough.

Still, their work was, for lack of a better descriptor, fun. Despite the dark circles ringing both their eyes, they grinned at each other like schoolboys and got lost in the joy of creation, the joy of overcoming their own ignorance to push beyond the bounds of possibility. 

Their discussion petered out into comfortable silence, both incorporating the new avenues they had introduced into their work. 

Viktor seemed reserved that day. Hunched over his work, he supported his head with one hand, using the other to write. 

Watching from the corner of his eye, Jayce could see Viktor lift his head on occasion to stare into space. A really bad day, Jayce guessed, but he said nothing. If Viktor wanted to work, Jayce could not stop him.

During lunch, the only time they emerged from the lab, Viktor spent his time scowling at his sandwich as if it had insulted him by existing. Jayce could swear the lettuce withered beneath his scrutiny. 

They sat shoulder to shoulder on a ledge in one of the Academy's many courtyards, a soft breeze blowing through the trees above them. An underclassman sprinted by, panting and desperate to reach whatever class they were late for. A pigeon lighted on the stone tiles in front of them, and Viktor absently tore off a piece of his crust and tossed it to the bird, who snatched up the offering with a coo.

Jayce leaned against Viktor, and when Viktor did not rebuff him, Jayce gave him a gentle nudge. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Are my thoughts worth so little?” Outside the bounds of his sarchasm, Viktor smiled, his attention leaving the sandwich and turning to Jayce. 

Feigning coyness, Jayce shrugged. “If I had to pay you the full worth of your thoughts, House Talis would be left destitute for generations.”

Viktor laughed, his expression softening for a moment before giving way to worry. “Jayce, is it…” He paused, frowning at the courtyard tiles. A little weed sprouted between two, worming its way up to reach the sun.

Concerned, Jayce set aside his own half-eaten sandwich. “What?”

“Is it normal for people to take pictures of you?” Viktor worried at one of the leather straps of his leg brace. The doctors said the outer brace would not be enough, soon. He would need surgery for a more permanent solution. 

“Pictures of me?” Confused, Jayce pointed at his own chest.

“No, no. People. In general.” Viktor waved his hand, as if gesturing to the general people in question. 

“I… suppose? Did someone take a photo of you?” 

“I’m not sure.” Viktor plucked off a larger chunk of sandwich bread and tossed it to the pigeon. “I went to the market this morning, and I thought I saw…” Sighing, he shook his head. “It was probably nothing.”

“Well, now you’ve got me interested, so you can’t just leave it at that.” Jayce tried to keep his voice and demeanor jovial, but what Viktor said worried him. Most people did not carry around cameras in public places.

Viktor hesitated. “There was a man there with a handheld camera. I saw a flash, but there were a lot of people there. He could have been taking a picture of anyone. Any thing. But I almost felt like he was following me.”

“Hm.” Leaning back on his hands, Jayce let his fingers tickle a patch of grass. Caitlyn was the only person he knew who owned a handheld camera, and she wouldn’t dare take pictures of strangers in a public place. “Maybe he was a paparazzo. Since we won the Distinguished Innovators Competition and are seeing more buzz about the Hexgates, they’ve been getting more interested in us. I’ve seen some when I go talk to the Council.”

A detestable group of people, the paparazzi. One followed him from a meeting with Mel, demanding to know the nature of their relationship. It flustered him.

“‘Us.’” Viktor scoffed. “They are interested in you. Why would they bother with me?” 

“Because you’re the other half of Hextech.” Jayce often suffered Viktor’s delusions of invisibility, but in this case it seemed prudent to point out that he was as much in demand as Jayce, just less prone to accepting invitations and attempts at networking. 

Viktor looked unconvinced and no less worried, so Jayce continued, “I’ll speak to the Council. Mel can—”

“No.” With a violent shake of his head, Viktor stuffed the remains of his sandwich into the paper bag it had come in. “That won’t be necessary.”

“But—”

Launching to his feet, Viktor snatched up his cane and tossed the paper bag in a nearby trash bin. The sudden motion startled the pigeon, its wings flapping frantically as it escaped. 

“I will be fine,” Viktor insisted, something dark in his expression. “Please do not bother Councilor Medarda with this. We should go back to work.”

Jayce watched as Viktor stalked away, heading back toward the science and engineering building with his posture even more crooked than before. Examining Viktor at a distance and from behind, he decided it must be Viktor’s back that was giving him trouble, not the leg as he’d initially thought. Perhaps when Viktor cooled off, he would let Jayce take a look at the brace they’d fashioned for him, make some adjustments to the alignment. 

Appetite lost, Jayce dissected his sandwich and crumbled up the remaining bread, which he left in a neat pile on the ledge in case the pigeon decided to come back. Then, he hurried after Viktor.

✦

Viktor did not cool off. As the day wore on, the sun dipping lower in the sky, he grew agitated, snapping at Jayce, at the man who delivered their mail, even at Heimerdinger, who popped in for a quick look at their work. 

Outside the door to the lab, Jayce could hear people shuffling about. It seemed the workday had concluded. A glance at the clock confirmed his suspicions. Of course, he and Viktor eschewed a proper work-life balance, toiling well into the night and only returning to their respective homes after midnight—if they returned at all. 

Time held little meaning for them, weekends just two more necessary workdays, leading to a seamless stream of work in the lab. The only day Jayce kept track of during the week was the day he had dinner with his mother, which would have been that day, but she’d had to reschedule. While he missed her cooking and her company, he had to admit the rescheduling was convenient for him as well. He needed to concentrate on the Hexgates. 

“Will you stop that incessant tapping?” Viktor snarled, cracking his cane against Jayce’s shin. 

Jayce yelped, his hands shooting down to both defend against another strike and massage the pain from the appendage. He hadn’t realized he’d been tapping his foot while he thought. 

“That was uncalled for,” he mumbled, breathing through the sting in his shin. 

Viktor sniffed. “I disagree.”

Giving in to a vengeful urge, Jayce whacked the back of his hand against Viktor’s ribs, striking at a weak place where the brace was more leather than metal. The impact should have been little more than a nuisance for Viktor. Jayce hadn’t even struck him hard enough to bruise, but Viktor cried out and doubled over in pain, clutching at his side. 

For a moment, Jayce studied Viktor’s hunched form, tracing the imprint of his spinal bolts as his shirt stretched tight over his back. He’d discarded his waistcoat some time ago, and Jayce wondered if he’d been sweating more than normal. 

“I thought so,” Jayce hissed. 

Viktor snapped his head up, his eyes full of fire. “Thought what, you fucking—” He let out a squeak as Jayce hauled him up by his armpits, setting him on his feet. Jayce released him for a moment, allowing Viktor to stand on his own. When Viktor almost buckled under his own weight, Jayce caught him again. 

“You need to go home, Viktor.” The anger left Jayce’s body and his voice, replaced with a bone-deep worry. “Rest. Take something for the pain. You can’t work like this.”

Because Jayce was the closest solid object, Viktor leaned against him, his hand clutching at Jayce’s shoulder. “I don’t want to.” 

For someone so mature and well-spoken, Viktor sounded strangely petulant, as if he were begging to stay up past his bedtime. 

Jayce sighed, and he ran his hands over Viktor’s side in apology. “I don’t think what you want really factors in at this point. Your body is talking, and you have to listen.”

Silence stretched between them. The setting sun shone through the window, warming Jayce’s side while Viktor warmed his front.

“I don’t like the medicine. It makes me…” Viktor gestured at his head. 

“Is the pain that much better?”

Closing his eyes, Viktor admitted, “No.” The fight left his body, and he slumped against Jayce, who supported him without protest. 

Pressed to Jayce’s chest, Viktor sighed.

“Okay.” When Jayce nodded, his lips brushed against Viktor’s hair. “Let’s get you home.”

“No.”

“Viktor—”

“ I will go home. You will stay here.” To illustrate his point, Viktor drove his pointer finger into Jayce’s chest. “Our next presentation before the Council is in a week, and we are not ready. Both of us cannot be spared.”

Jayce shook his head, his arms tightening around Viktor. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to send you out alone during rush hour when you can barely stand!” 

“Jayce,” Viktor said, the confidence returned to his voice. “Do not argue with me. You know I am right.”

Jayce took a breath, pressed his fingers into his closed eyes until he saw amorphous shapes, and relented. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “But you’re not going alone. Wait here.”

Before Viktor could open his mouth for an inevitable protest, Jayce planted him down in his chair and sprinted out of the lab, bobbing and weaving around the staff and faculty and students trying to escape the building and go home to their lives. It did not take him long to commandeer Harold, clad in his guard uniform and in the middle of his regular afternoon patrols. 

Affable as usual, Harold agreed to find someone else to take his shift so that he could escort Viktor home. 

“It would be my pleasure, Mister Talis,” he said as they walked back to the lab.

Opening the lab door, Jayce found Viktor waiting where he'd left him, his forehead resting on the handle of his cane, which he held upright between his knees. He lifted his head when Jayce arrived, face exhausted and drawn. Craning his neck, Viktor peered around Jayce to inspect the newcomer. 

“Oh, hello, Harold.”

“Good evening, Mister Viktor!” Harold tipped his cap. “Mister Talis says you need some assistance getting home.”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “I do not need it, but I will accept it.” After a moment, he added, “Thank you.”

With Viktor safely in Harold’s care, Jayce showed them out of the lab, his hand lingering on Viktor’s shoulder. Though the work needed to be finished and the consequences would be dire if they did not produce the final mock-up of the Hexgates by their next Council meeting, Jayce wished he could drop everything and take Viktor home. 

What kept him in the lab was not his duty to the Council, but the feeling that Viktor would respect him less if he abandoned their work for anything, even Viktor himself. 

Hextech meant as much to Viktor as it did to Jayce, and for Jayce to abandon it would be tantamount to abandoning their child. Jayce didn’t know Viktor's feelings and philosophy surrounding fatherhood, but he imagined Viktor would place his child’s life above his own. So, he remained, watching Viktor take Harold’s arm. 

Viktor spared one last indecipherable look at Jayce before Harold ushered him out and the lab doors closed behind him. 

Left alone, a chill ran through Jayce. 

The lab felt more like home to him than his own apartment, but it seemed strange without Viktor in it, like looking at seemingly identical spot-the-difference illustrations in a magazine. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss, but his hind brain registered an inconsistency and grew uneasy, eager to either remedy or remove.  

Shaking off the ambiguous sense of unrest, Jayce returned to his desk, picked up his pen, and fulfilled his duty. Not to the Council, but to himself and Viktor. 

✦

Freed from his waistcoat and cravat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the first few buttons around his throat undone, Jayce plotted the finishing touches on the blueprint for the main rune matrix for the Hexgates. Soon, he would pass it off to the structural engineers and contractors who would be responsible for the large-scale build—one of many blueprint collections he and Viktor had to complete for all the parts that made up the gates.  

Much of what they required had been designed specifically for the Hexgates, drawing inspiration from existing inventions but tailoring them to the peculiarities of the Arcane. It culminated in a beautiful, bespoke, and inconceivably expensive project that would take years to complete. 

With a groan, Jayce threw himself back in his chair. He ground his palms into his eyes and allowed himself to slide down into a slump. Though admitting it, even to himself, made him feel like a failure, he would need to take a nap, his eyes too bleary to read his own handwriting. 

Summoning saliva to his dry mouth, he reached up and turned off the lamp on his desk. His eyes adjusted to the moonlight streaming in through the windows, and he stood, stretching his arms high above his head until his back popped. 

The ratty mattress they’d slept on during the initial days of Hextech had been exchanged for a rather nice sleeper sofa—one of Mel’s additions after she’d seen the state of the place. Viktor opposed the change in furniture, despite holding no love for the mattress, which he referred to exclusively as “that piece of shit.” After one night of sleeping on the sofa, however, Viktor admitted it was, in fact, rather nice. 

Jayce stepped toward the sofa, where his blanket and Viktor’s pillow waited for him. 

Something clinked against the floor. 

Frowning, Jayce turned toward the sound. One of the supply rooms. 

Perhaps the air conditioning had unbalanced a loose bolt, the collected potential energy finally giving way to the kinetic as it tipped over the edge of a shelf. Or perhaps a rat found its way in and knocked over a gear, though Jayce doubted it. Rats didn’t venture up that high, unless it was an escaped subject from another lab, in which case he would have heard about it. 

Some said the building was haunted, but Jayce figured people said that about every building at some point. 

Changing his trajectory, Jayce took a step toward the noise. In the silence, the heel of his shoe clicked against the floor. He debated taking his shoes off and walking on silent, socked feet, then chastised himself for his paranoia. 

It’s probably nothing, he told himself. But I should still see if something fell over.  

Hyper-aware of the noise accompanying each footstep, Jayce approached the supply room door and wrenched it open. If it was a rat, it was a brave one, as he heard no sudden scuttling. Letting out a breath, he searched for the light switch on the wall, but found that flipping it did nothing. One of his and Viktor’s experiments must have knocked out the power, and they hadn’t remembered to flip the breaker switch back on for that room.

The moonlight provided enough light to see by, so Jayce stepped inside and gave the room a cursory inspection. Finding nothing amiss, he shrugged and turned around.

Something rough and thin wrapped tight around his throat, crushing his esophagus. A hard yank wrenched him backward, his back hitting something warm and moving. Jayce gurgled, his hands scrabbling at his throat on instinct. 

When that offered no relief, Jayce twisted his body, slamming his elbow into his attacker, who let out a pained grunt, the tightness around Jayce’s throat slithering away. A rope, he guessed, by the feel of it garrotting him. 

The door slammed shut behind him, and the room went dark. Still, he knew the closet’s contents well and made an educated guess as to where he should swing his fist. His punch connected with something hard and sharp—a person’s cheekbone. That person stumbled back, colliding with the table in the center of the storage room. Something metal clattered to the floor. A wrench, perhaps. If he could—

“He’s strong,” a man’s rough voice wheezed in front of him. 

“The gas,” another voice said behind him.

Blind, Jayce grabbed for the man in front of him. Finding fabric and flesh, he twisted his fists and tossed the man toward the sound of the voice behind him. Something happened, and neither of his attackers seemed happy about it, judging by the noises they made. 

“Gas, now!” the second voice demanded, more winded than before. 

A new voice chimed in, nervous and trembling, “Give it a second!”

Jayce registered a faint bitter smell, like meat just gone off. Seeking air, his lungs expanded against his will, but they found no oxygen. As if a riptide had spun him so thoroughly he could no longer tell up from down, he lost his grasp of direction and stumbled, only able to reorient himself when he hit the floor. 

Gasping, Jayce resisted the darkness creeping up on him. Not the darkness of the room, but the frightful darkness of unwilling unconsciousness. Despite his best efforts, his mind sunk into the blackness like a lead weight.

In the moment before nothingness, Jayce was grateful—grateful it was him and not Viktor.

✦

Hand braced on his front door, Viktor summoned a weak smile. “Good night, Harold.”

“Sleep well, Mister Viktor. I hope you get to feeling better soon.” Harold tipped his cap, his moustache rising and falling with his mouth as he returned Viktor’s smile. 

“Mmhmm.” Viktor hated when topsiders called him “mister.” Without a House or surname, it sounded patronizing, something a teacher might call a student. They were only trying to be polite, he told himself again and again. Still, it grated on him, the unintentional mockery just one more humiliation Piltover forced him to suffer for the sake of propriety. 

Viktor gave Harold an aborted wave and slammed the door.

Hidden from the world’s cruel eyes, Viktor collapsed, his cane clattering to the floor as he slumped against the door, his hand still clutching the knob. The impact sent pain ricocheting through his torso, and he whimpered, curling in on himself until he reverted from a man to a wheezing, trembling ball of skin and bones on the foyer mat. 

Allowing himself a few moments of self-pity, Viktor laid there, taking in shallow breaths, each more painful than the last.

Jayce was right. He couldn’t work like this. And he hated Jayce for being right, hated himself and his weak, withering body. He should have taken Jayce up on his offer. Jayce would help him. Jayce would—

Enough of that , Viktor chastised himself, wiping away the tears that had collected on his lashes. Summoning the last of his strength, he dragged himself to his kitchen, crawling on a fours like an animal. He panted out of his mouth like one, too, scrabbling for the drawer handle that stood between him and the blissful release of opioids. Sitting on the hard kitchen tile, he blindly felt around in the drawer above him, feeling for the two bottles he needed. 

A pressed pill and an injection. The doctor wasn’t supposed to let him self-administer the latter, but at least she’d had the decency to acknowledge he was the preeminent expert on his own suffering and more skilled with needles than her average patient.

The pill tasted bitter, but it disappeared in an instant with the help of saliva and a strong gulp. Bracing his pinkie finger on his arm, Viktor slid the needle into a prominent vein in the crook of his elbow. With a steady press of the syringe plunger, the medicine entered him, running cold as it passed through the injection site but quickly warming when exposed to his hot blood. 

Even he had hot blood. 

Viktor pulled out the needle and discarded the metal syringe on the floor, some blood droplets splattering against the cracked tile. He used the rolled sleeve of his shirt to staunch the bleeding, applying pressure through the fold of his arm. 

On three limbs now, he crawled to his bedroom and slithered up onto his bed. Soon, he would fall asleep, and he needed to remove his braces while he was still cognizant. With fumbling fingers, he unclasped the leather straps around his thigh and calf, letting the frame clatter to the floor. Not a good way to treat his things, he knew, but he didn’t care much for anything at the moment. 

Peeling himself out of his clothes until he was in nothing but his undergarments, he settled onto his stomach and began undoing the laces, straps, and bolts of his back brace, clicking open the mechanism that released its hold on his spine. 

The brace fell away, allowing him to take a deep breath for the first time that day. Pain radiated through him as his lungs expanded, but he paid little attention to it. Soon, he wouldn’t feel anything at all. 

Viktor rolled onto his back and wiggled the brace out from beneath him, shoving it off the bed to join the other brace and his clothes. Drawing his threadbare blankets around him, he closed his eyes and let himself sink into a warm, thoughtless haze. 

For hours, he languished, dropping in and out of sleep but never quite waking. 

Trapped in strange, syrupy dreams, he relived Jayce’s arms around him—sure and strong. He imagined big, rough hands squeezing him, hurting him, until the pain popped into pleasure. Pain could be a delicacy, one he would suck from Jayce’s fingers with glee and return in equal measure. He dreamed of carving himself into Jayce, never to be forgotten. 

In his dreams, Viktor could indulge in the desire he denied himself when awake. In unconscious fantasy, he could be the object of desire himself, the center of Jayce’s attention, those intense eyes on him, puzzling him open with a single-minded enthusiasm that bordered on madness and greed—the same dangerous zeal that glinted in Jayce’s eyes when he looked into the runes. In those delusions, Viktor might even be loved. 

Then, he woke up. 

A bright light pulled Viktor back to cruel reality. He blinked, squinting at the beam of sun shooting through his window. It took him a few seconds to remember who and what he was. 

Viktor lurched up, scrambling around to find his clock. His flailing knocked it off his bedside table, which was really more of a spare stool, and he swore, searching for it on the floor. When he finally located it, his brain could not read the little hands for a moment. 

Late. 

“Fuck!” Viktor shouted, because he could. He tossed the clock onto his bed and reassembled himself in the reverse of the previous night. 

At almost mid-day, he emerged from his Academy housing, disheveled and clad in yesterday’s clothes. It only took him ten minutes to hobble to the lab, but it could have been an eternity, as far as he was concerned. 

Viktor had never been late before. Jayce only arrived late once or twice, always after a particularly strenuous function where he’d gotten a little too drunk. 

So much time lost. Viktor cursed himself. I should have only taken the pill, he thought. At least the injection lasted a bit longer, the ache in his leg and back less prominent, allowing him to move faster than usual. 

Panting and sweaty, Viktor burst into the lab, the door already unlocked.

“Jayce, I am so sorry! I—” His voice died in his throat when he realized he was alone. 

Their desks were a mess. Jayce wouldn't have left a mess, not like Viktor, who reasoned that another mess would be made so he wouldn’t bother wasting time to clean up the first one. Jayce always cleaned up before he left.

Drawers left pulled out, papers scattered over the floor, ink spilled over blueprints. 

“Jayce?” 

Viktor walked further into the lab. The supply closet door hung open, so he approached, hoping to find Jayce inside. Instead of his partner, he found more mess. He searched for the switch on the wall, but flipping it did nothing. They must’ve forgotten to reset the breaker. 

No, he realized. He remembered resetting the breaker not three days ago, after they cranked it a little too hard and the electricity generated by the runes took out the lab’s power. 

Though he knew he would receive no answer, he called out again: “Jayce…?” 

As Viktor shifted, so did his shadow, allowing the light from the larger lab to illuminate different parts of the floor. Something brown had dribbled onto the tiles near the center table. 

Oil? he wondered, kneeling to investigate despite the protests from his knee. Up close, he could see that the stain was dried and crusted. A shudder passed through him, a sudden lurch of fear sending his heart pounding. 

If Viktor knew anything, it was the sight of blood. 

Chapter Text

“How is it,” Viktor snarled, “that a physically imposing, well-known individual can be carried off without even a hint of where he might have gone?”

Sheriff Marcus’ lip twitched. “Please understand, sir —”

Contemptible man, Viktor thought. He disliked Enforcers on principle, but Marcus grated on him more than most. Perhaps because he was the sheriff, the head of the snake. Though Viktor suspected that if, instead of law enforcement, Marcus were a pâtissier or door-to-door vacuum salesman, he would still be an irritating prick. 

Before Viktor could open his mouth and voice his thoughts, Councilor Medarda glided closer to the sheriff, placing her elegant, delicate hand on his arm. “There are unusual circumstances, Sheriff. Surely you would agree?”

“Ah, yes, Councilor.” Marcus shied away from her hand, more uncomfortable than charmed, but either way, he was on his back foot, exactly as she wanted.

“Viktor.” Mel’s piercing eyes turned to him. “May I have a word with you?”

“Of course, Councilor,” he said with as little tension as possible, his grip slipping on his cane. A nervous sweat had gathered on his palms, and he resisted the urge to wipe them on his pants. 

Everything disordered, strangers poking around his laboratory, Jayce gone. If Zaun hadn’t hardened him to stone, he might have dissolved into a screaming fit. 

Sensing the dismissal, Marcus gave Mel a courteous nod, Viktor a haughty glare, and stomped away to join the collection of Enforcers examining the laboratory under Heimerdinger’s verbose supervision. 

Herding Viktor away from the group, Mel leaned in close, her faint but pleasant perfume caressing the inside of Viktor’s nose. He fought a sneeze. 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Like I told our esteemed sheriff, I do not know.” Viktor huffed, frustrated with himself and the situation. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, the slight stubble above his lips rasping against his fingers. In his haste to leave, he’d neglected to shave. “When I left, he was here. When I came back, he was gone. Just gone.”

Mel hummed, unruffled by his terseness. “There must be more to the story. I hope you know that anything you tell me will remain in confidence.”

“Looking to protect your investment, Councilor?” Viktor sneered. 

She blinked and raised an eyebrow. “Yes. And looking to find Jayce—a goal you share.”

Viktor took a breath. He appreciated her frankness, though he’d previously found it lacking when she was in Jayce’s presence. While he and the councilor differed in their approach to Hextech’s ends and in their approach to Jayce, she was not a malicious person. Just a self-interested one, as most people were, himself included.

“I apologize for my tone. I am… This is very worrying.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an Enforcer reaching toward one of their rune matrices, and he snapped around. “Don’t touch that! Unless you want to be halfway across Runeterra with only some of your parts.” 

The Enforcer shoved her hands in her pockets, and Viktor turned his attention back to Mel. “I would normally have been in the lab as well, so I feel…” He sighed. “Partly responsible.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Her voice was kind, as were her eyes, but she made no attempt to reach out and touch him, as she often would with Jayce. Viktor appreciated the distance. “If you don’t mind my asking, what was different about last night?”

“Eh, I was…” It took effort for Viktor to share with a mere acquaintance, but his pride could not keep him from helping Jayce. “I was not feeling well, and Jayce insisted I go home. Harold accompanied me.”

“Not Jayce?”

Viktor bristled a bit, though there was no passive aggressive double meaning to her words. “He offered, but I told him to stay here. We are preparing for the presentation next week.”

“Well, that will be delayed now, I suppose, unless Jayce turns up in a few hours.” Mel sighed, and Viktor imagined a number of calculations flashing through her mind, money leaking from the hole Jayce had left. Thoughtful, she tapped her finger against her chin. “Have you received any threats? Any unusual mail?”

He shook his head. “If we have, I haven’t seen it. Jayce usually handles that, but he would have told me.”

“Perhaps there was something Jayce did not pick up on. Something innocuous at first glance. I’ll have Elora revisit your recent mail, if you don’t mind.”

Viktor remembered Mel’s assistant, always haunting her steps, serving as the eyes on the back of Mel’s head. 

“Be my guest. Councilor Medarda—”

“Please, call me Mel.” She smiled, and this time she touched him—a light tap to his elbow. He wondered if she did it on purpose to unsettle him.

“Eh, Mel,” he said, “do you think this has to do with our work? Jayce did not seem to have any enemies.”

Giving it some thought, Jayce did not seem to have many friends, either. Many acquaintances, certainly. People knew his name and said hello when their paths crossed, but the only people Jayce regularly spent time with were Viktor, Caitlyn Kiramman, and his mother. 

“He does have many jealous eyes on him, though,” Mel replied. “Did he do or say anything unusual as of late?”

“No, but—” Viktor paused. “I did have an odd interaction in the market yesterday morning.”

“Odd?”

“Yes, a man took my photo. At least, I believe that was what he was doing.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. In fact, he wore a hat that shadowed his face,” Viktor realized. “I could describe his clothing, but I imagine that would be of little use.”

“Hm.” In a flash, her attention changed to something more pressing, her expression urgent. “There will be an inquest. I imagine you will be called to speak before the Council by the day’s end.”

Viktor raised an eyebrow. “Am I under suspicion?”

“Not by myself. Or Heimerdinger, I imagine. But not all of my colleagues are as… open-minded.”

“Because I am from Zaun,” he supplied, and she inclined her head, lips pursed in a sympathetic frown. 

It would not be the first time Viktor had been on the receiving end of a pointed finger, but this in particular rankled him. Though he supposed the Council could not know the depths of his feelings, could not know of his devotion to Jayce and their work. And they would not be finding out, no matter what they asked of him.

✦

Jayce came to in pieces. 

Pain in his wrists. A bone-deep chill. Distant voices.

“—ing idiots! I told you, ‘Skinny one with the cane.’ Does that fucker look—”

Six-eyed rats squeaking, circling him.

“—esearch. Don’t know what all this bullshit means, Boss, but—”

A drip. Steady. Drip, drip. 

“—ilco can’t know anythin’. If you squeal, I’ll bleed you like—”

When Jayce could hold onto consciousness for more than a few bleary seconds, he was alone. He blinked, slowly coating his eyes. Tight cuffs restrained his wrists, his arms suspended above his head and attached to a chain that clinked when he moved. His knees rested on the floor. When he tried to shift, he realized his bare ankles were also restrained. They’d taken his shoes. And his socks, too, the bastards. 

The they was obvious, as he could not have accidentally found himself in the situation. Someone put him there. 

He’d been attacked in the lab’s storage closet, he thought, thought he couldn’t quite remember.  

Craning his head to see behind him, Jayce located the source of his hampered movement—shackles bolted to the ground, encasing both his ankles. 

As his vision adjusted to the low light, he could see a small, concrete room with three walls. On the wall in front of him, there was a steel door. To his side, where there would be a fourth wall, a jagged, almost natural hole revealed a sheer drop into a stone crevasse. A fissure. 

Jayce catalogued himself and his possessions. Along with his shoes and socks, they’d taken his belt, waistcoat, and cravat. And his wallet, of course. To his surprise, his bracelet remained on his wrist, the rune stone glimmering just beneath the cuffs. He’d gained a pounding headache behind his eyes, an itchy nose, and a chill. 

If he had to guess, he was somewhere deep in Zaun, somewhere where the light couldn’t reach. Not for the first time, Jayce wondered about Viktor’s past. Had he grown up in some place like this, cold and alone in the dark, his skin pale not because he spent his time indoors, but because there was no sun, inside or out? 

With a loud crash, the door in front of him careened open, rust flaking from it when it hit the stone wall. Jayce squinted as light poured in. Two silhouettes, dramatically different in height, stood in the doorway.

“Piltover’s Golden Boy ain’t lookin’ so shiny now, huh?” said a rough voice. The other person laughed. 

The door creaked closed, leaving him in the low light with a scruffy, wild-eyed Yordle and a tall, burly human man in a cheap suit. At first, he didn’t recognize the Yordle as a Yordle, his fur patchy and his features distorted. His appearance differed so vastly from Heimerdinger’s that it seemed absurd for them to be of the same species. Jayce supposed the same could be said about many humans. 

“How are you findin’ your accommodations, Mister Talis?” the Yordle said with a chuckle. He flicked his wrist, which Jayce realized was part of a prosthetic arm, and his hand spun in a circle. 

Jayce licked his chapped lips. “I wouldn’t mind a better view,” he croaked.

“Oh, hear that? Our guest wants a better view.” Feigning cheer, the Yordle turned to his companion and clasped his metal hands together in mockery of an accommodating hotel manager. His fingers clinked against each other.

The big man chuckled and banged his fist on the steel door twice. Jayce broke out into a cold sweat, unsure of what to anticipate, when the shackles around his ankles and wrists released. He collapsed onto his hands, given only a second of relief before the big man’s meaty hand closed around his neck. 

Choking and scrabbling at the hand around his throat, Jayce thrashed as the big man dragged him over to the hole in the wall. The big man thrust Jayce’s body out of the hole, holding hip upright by his neck. Jayce struggled to keep his toes on the platform, wheezing in panic as he confronted the depth of the fissure. 

Though narrow by fissure standards, the two rock walls were hundreds of feet apart from each other, the mouth above so far away Jayce couldn’t even see a strip of light. Beneath him, an abyss waited. Strange howling sounds emanated from the darkness below, echoing off the craggy, unforgiving stone walls. 

If the big man dropped him, Jayce would be lucky to hit his head on a stony outcropping and die before he reached the bottom.

The Yordle popped up beside his goon, ratcheting his metal legs up to be equal in height with the big man. Absently, Jayce wondered how much of his body was prosthetic. 

“So’s this more to your liking, pretty boy?”

Jayce grunted, huffing out of his nose. 

The big man tossed him back into the room, and Jayce crashed against some empty crates in a corner. To dissuade him from retaliation, the big man pulled out a pistol, which he leveled at Jayce’s head. 

“I’ll cut to the chase, hot stuff,” the Yordle said, shrinking back down to a more normal height. “There was a bit of a mix up. See, my associates were supposed to grab that spindly little partner of yours, and yet somehow you ended up down here. Crazy how that happens, huh?”

Jayce rubbed his neck, his lips forming into a snarl at the mention of Viktor. An image of Viktor chained as he had been, strung up by his wrists, popped into Jayce’s mind, and bile rose in his throat. Viktor’s slender, fragile body put under such strain, forced to endure needless strife… It was the kind of thing Jayce would kill a man over. 

Staring down the barrel of the big man’s gun, Jayce contemplated grabbing for it, leveling it on the man and the Yordle, seeking revenge for an act that had not even transpired. No, that would be stupid. Hasty. The kind of thing Viktor would chastise him for. So, Jayce listened and waited. 

The Yordle continued, “Now, some trencher-on-trencher crime is pretty excusable, but stealing away the Academy’s favorite topsider? That puts me in a bit of a pickle.”

“Good for you,” Jayce mumbled.

“Funny guy! I like him. Anyway, good thing you’re also useful or I would’a already had you rolled up in a rug at the bottom of the harbor by now.” The Yordle sidled up to Jayce and spun his hand again, but when it stilled, his fingers were replaced by a procession of blades, each more nasty than the last. “You’re gonna make me a weapon.”

Jayce kept his eyes away from the knives growing closer to his face, instead leveling the Yordle with a glare. “No.”

“No?” The Yordle looked genuinely taken aback. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this ain’t a conversation.” He drew one of his knives down Jayce’s cheek, his touch so light it was almost a caress. The knife lingered just below Jayce’s lip. “Wonder how much attention the pretty boy would get if he wasn’t so pretty any more. A couple’a moments with me, and even your momma wouldn’t recognize you.” 

A swift flick, and the knife sliced through Jayce’s top lip. Though shallow, the cut bled well, running into Jayce’s mouth. His dry tongue saw no difference between blood and saliva, eager for the wetness all the same. 

Unafraid, Jayce maintained the Yordle’s gaze.

The Yordle’s mirthless expression broke into another false, cheery grin, exposing his crooked teeth and overbite. “Why don’t you think on it?” He withdrew, jerking his head to command the big man. “And if your answer’s still no…” With flourish, he gestured to the opening in the wall. “Then the door’s right there.”

The Yordle turned to leave, then stopped and spun around, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “By the way, name’s Smeech. I look forward to working with you, Mister Talis.”

The big man charged at Jayce, cracking him across the face with his gun. 

✦

Without Jayce by his side, the Council chambers were cavernous and cold, seven sets of eyes directed only at Viktor. He reminded himself to breathe, reminded himself that he did not fear these people. The sweat running down his back clearly didn’t get the message. 

Pretending to belong worked well for him as one of many Academy students. As long as he performed the right rituals and said the right things, eyes glossed over him as if he were part of the scenery, allowing him to receive his stolen education in peace. 

There was no belonging to be found in the Council chambers, where he was one of one. While being the only Zaunite in a room usually made him a novelty, before the Council, he was a pariah. Heimerdinger’s kind, encouraging eyes and Mel’s calm neutrality did nothing to lessen the blow of being called a trencher as if it were his name, Salo and Hoskel having already decided the inquest was actually a trial.

“He’s obviously got something to do with it!” Salo gestured at Viktor without looking, addressing only his social equals. “How else could they have gotten so far into the building?”

“Viktor is a respected member of the Academy!” Heimerdinger squeaked, smacking his little hand on the table. “Please, show him some respect.”

Salo rolled his eyes, the rings on his fingers clinking against each other as his hand formed a loose fist, his elbow propped on the table.

“There’s no evidence or motive to prove his involvement.” Shoola looked up from the papers she’d been reviewing. Though she showed only polite interest in Hextech, recognizing it as a boon to the city, she appeared to be more engaged by discussion of law. “And he has an alibi.”

“Technically,” Bolbok butted in, his deep, mechanical voice commanding attention, “he does not. He could have returned to the laboratory at any time, though he would not be physically capable of overpowering Talis.”

“Accomplices,” Hoskel hissed, like it was some great revelation. “Trencher loyalty.”

For the first time, Cassandra Kiramman raised her voice. “As Councilor Shoola said, there is no evidence or motive to lend credence to these accusations. I have had Viktor and Jayce as guests in my home many times and can attest to their close friendship. Jayce speaks highly of him.”

A slight flush crossed Viktor’s cheeks. He had not realized Jayce spoke about him when he wasn’t there.

“Even more reason to suspend him!” Salo cried. “Clearly, he has grown jealous in Talis’ shadow.”

Viktor suppressed a snarl. How dare this man assume his feelings and motivations. Still, he remained silent. Speaking up would only hurt his case. After standing for over an hour, his leg ached, and he found it difficult to think of anything else.

“Councilors.” When Mel Medarda spoke, the room fell silent. In the end, she commanded them, and they would do as she said. “I have spoken personally with Viktor and have no reason to suspect he is in any way responsible for the disappearance of Jayce Talis. In fact, I believe he may have been the intended target of this attack.”

Confusion spread through the room, reaching even Viktor, who blinked at Mel in surprise, his eyebrows flying up. 

“Kidnapping a man who is both the head of a Council-backed research project and the head of a House, even a small one, causes a scene, as evidenced by these proceedings,” Mel continued. “But a disabled immigrant from Zaun would be a much easier target—a target who is just as, if not more, capable of producing scientific wonders as his partner.”

Despite the complement of his scientific prowess, Viktor did not appreciate being spoken about as if he were a character in a second-page news story. 

“From the information I’ve gathered, Viktor, not Jayce, was to be alone in the lab at the time of the crime. Anyone canvassing the two would know that Jayce usually has dinner with his mother on that day, and his plans just happened to change, leaving him in Viktor’s place.”

Hemerdinger hummed. “That is concerning, indeed. Do you have any idea who might want to target you, my boy?”

Addressed for the first time, Viktor cleared his throat. “Ah, no, I am afraid not. Much of my life is Hextech. I am not going out making enemies.”

“Precisely why,” Mel said, “an interested party might target you, seeking access to Hextech.”

“This was sloppy, though.” Shoola shook her head, once more reviewing the papers strewn in front of her. “Not something I’d expect of a foreign power looking to steal our technology.”

“I’m telling you, it's the damn trenchers!” Hoskel slammed his fist on the table. 

“Perhaps,” Mel said, her expression neutral. “Or perhaps not. More investigation must be done.”

The others nodded, as if the matter were settled.

“That’s it?” Viktor blurted, rage burning up his esophagus and flooding his mouth with vitriol. All eyes, once more, returned to him. “I have not heard a single suggestion as to how Jayce is to be rescued. It does not matter much who has done this and why if Jayce is dead by the end of the day. You must do something!”

“A ransom—” Shoola began.

“Will not be coming!” Viktor cracked his cane against the ground, the sound echoing against the room’s hardness. “If what Councilor Medarda says is true, and they mistakenly took him rather than me, then they cannot afford to leave him alive for long. They will take what they can from him and kill him so he cannot give away their operation. After all, he has no trencher loyalty,” he sneered, glaring at Hoskel, who paled. “I know how these types work. They will have expected to be able to either bully or buy me into silence. If that failed, what’s another dead sump-rat, eh?”

“What are you suggesting, Viktor?” Mel leveled him with an interested, if patronizing, look.

“I am suggesting you act. And fast,” he snarled, leaving unspoken, Or I will.  

Unwilling to wait for a dismissal, he twisted around and stormed out of the Council chambers, ignoring the calls for him to return. They could request his presence, but he determined when he arrived and when he left. 

To his surprise, Viktor hobbled through the Council’s halls unimpeded. Though the Council seemed intent on yelling at him, they did not send out Enforcers to collect him and return him to their chambers for a proper dismissal. Perhaps, once he left the room, he returned to being invisible. 

Reaching the lobby, Viktor took a moment and collected himself. He ran a hand through his sweaty, unwashed hair and breathed out the stress of the inquisition he’d stumbled into, his heart still pounding in his chest. 

“Viktor!” 

He glanced up to see Caitlyn Kiramman running up to him, the heels of her boots clicking against the marble tile. It seemed she’d been sitting in the lounge, waiting for either him or her mother.

“Viktor,” she repeated, puffing from exertion, “how did it go?”

He grimaced. “Eh…”

“Not well, I imagine?” She cocked her head and gave him a tentative smile, her long, pin-straight hair cascading over her shoulder. In her deep blue dress, she was the picture of fresh Piltovan fashionability, but the notebook she clutched to her chest was worn and well-loved, stuffed fat with photographs and mismatched pieces of paper, tabs of various colors sticking out from it like the many legs of a centipede.

Viktor sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, attempting to smooth away an incoming headache. “Not as well as I would have hoped.”

Though he would not say he knew Caitlyn well, they had spent time together with Jayce as a buffer, and Jayce thought of her as something of a little sister, though her mother seemed to have different plans for their relationship. Caitlyn herself seemed dazzled by Jayce, but treated him as one would treat a beloved young uncle, not a potential suitor.

Despite Caitlyn’s idealistic insistence on becoming an Enforcer, Viktor liked her. She meant well, which was more than could be said for most Pilties, and she was young. She had time to learn the harsh realities of the world, and he would not be the one to teach her. 

“They never—!” Caitlyn huffed in frustration, her arms tightening around her notebook. “All they do is sit and argue, even when it's—” She bit her lip, silencing herself. After a moment, she leveled him with a serious look. “How bad is it?”

Viktor thought of the blood on the tile. “It is not… good.”

Over the years of working with Jayce, Viktor observed many things. Primarily Jayce himself, all his intricacies and peculiarities, but also those around him. 

Of the two of them, Jayce received the most outside attention, and in many ways Viktor pitied him for it. They named Jayce a genius and a savior, women and men alike fawning over him as if he were a fairytale prince come to save them from the monotony of their daily lives. To outsiders, Jayce was untouchable—an idea. Ideas never grew hungry or tired or irritable. Ideas did not weep or vomit or have bad hair days. Ideas could never die.

To Viktor, Jayce was a man. An emotional, fragile man with a penchant for dramatics. Viktor met that man at his lowest, their first meeting a brush of raw and ragged edges and their first substantial conversation centered around a hangman’s noose of Jayce’s design. Sometimes, Viktor woke in a pool of his own sweat, panic thumping in his chest until he remembered it was only a nightmare—arriving just too late, seeing Jayce tip over the edge.

On days following those nightmares, he made sure to be particularly indulgent whenever Jayce touched him, encouraging rather than avoiding errant hands. The warmth of Jayce’s palm on his shoulder helped remind him that Jayce was there, alive and excited to live.

Despite Jayce overcoming his despair, Viktor remained vigilant. Everyone else, including Jayce, had forgotten that Jayce was a man—vulnerable and mortal. Viktor remembered. 

Caitlyn watched him as he thought, her eyes as shrewd as her mother’s. “You’re going to do something, aren’t you?” 

“I am.” He could not afford to give the Council the benefit of the doubt. 

“Let me help,” Caitlyn demanded. “I snuck into my mom’s office and copied all her papers on the investigation.” 

She shoved the notebook into his free hand. Curious, he began to leaf through it. Indeed, she had made meticulous reproductions of the sheriff’s report on the crime scene, adding in her own notes in the margins. She had even attempted to recreate some of the crime scene photographs in sketches. 

Made nervous by his lack of response, she continued, “I could help! I’ve been studying to—”

“No need to convince me, Miss Kiramman. I would appreciate your assistance.” Feats of athleticism he was not capable of might be involved, and while Viktor had his prideful moments, he would not let his ego hinder his search for Jayce. 

Even if he had told her to stay, she likely would have snuck after him. At least this way he could keep an eye on her.

She blinked. “Really?”

“Yes,” Viktor said, stifling a chuckle. “As long as you promise to be wary and listen to me. We will be venturing into the undercity, and I know the location and norms much better than you do. If I tell you to do something, even if it doesn’t make sense, I need to know you will listen.”

Eyes bright with determination, she nodded. “I will. I promise.”

“And one more thing. When your mother has me arrested for bringing her teenage daughter along on a vigilante manhunt, could you please put in a good word?”

She laughed, some of the tension in her shoulders releasing. “I will. And if we bring him back, she can’t be too mad.”

“When we bring him back, Miss Kiramman,” he corrected. Viktor knew in his bones he would see Jayce again. 

Chapter Text

Jayce awoke, once again, in chains. 

Great, he thought, staring down at the cracked stone floor. 

They were going to kill him. Once they got what they wanted from him, there was little reason not to. He’d seen their faces.  

His stubble itched, so he rubbed his face against his raised arm in an attempt to scratch it, but the itch only returned worse. His bangs tickled against his forehead, the pommade he’d applied having long since abandoned its post. Both thirsty and in need of a quick piss, he tried hard not to think of liquids, but the faint dripping sound behind him made that impossible. He sighed. 

“They are going to kill you, you know.”

Jayce lurched at the sound of the voice, the chains above him clinking. In the room’s corner, near the opening to the fissure, a small figure perched on one of the stacked crates. Squinting in the low light, Jayce realized the figure was a young boy with tousled hair. 

“Who are you?” Jayce croaked. 

The boy kicked his left leg, tapping rhythmically on the crate beneath him. He shrugged. “Nobody.” His accent made each of the consonants stand out. 

“Okay, Nobody, what’re you doing here?” Jayce spoke slowly, his brian foggy with pain. 

The boy snorted, and something about the sound was familiar to Jayce, setting him at ease. “I am here because you are here.”

That gave Jayce pause. “What… does that mean?” He wondered if Smeech had picked up some random kid off the street to threaten harm to if Jayce didn’t comply. From what little he knew of Smeech, that sounded plausible. 

The boy hopped off the box, landing only on his left leg. He grabbed something leaning against the box and propped himself up with it. A cane, Jayce realized. 

Using the cane, the boy hobbled closer to Jayce. As he walked, his right foot dragged behind him, the ankle twisted inward. The boy made his way to the other side of the room and plucked an unlit lantern from an upturned box. Judging by the creak of the lantern’s hinges, it was old and rusty. 

From the pocket of his vest, the boy produced a matchbook. With his arms unencumbered by the malady plaguing his leg, the boy struck a match in one swift flick and plunged the lit end into the lantern’s interior compartment. Feeding off the lamp’s oil, the flame blossomed on the wick, pulsing blue for a moment. Or so Jayce thought, as the moment was so brief he might have imagined it. Gripping the lantern by its skinny handle, the boy turned to face Jayce. 

Jayce sucked in a sharp breath. Skinny and filthy, the boy wore stitched-together rags, a valiant effort put into preserving the clothes’ structure despite the mismatched materials and layered patches. His dull, scuffed boots looked a bit too big for him, which did not help with his gait as he limped across the floor, lantern swinging back and forth in his little hand. 

Lamplight splashed between them, shadows playing on the boy’s face, sweet and plump despite his obvious malnourishment. The boy’s sharp golden eyes studied Jayce as he drew to a stop in front of him, setting the lantern on the floor. 

“Viktor?” Jayce whispered. 

Everything matched—the limp, the thoughtful purse of his lips, the wild hair. Everything was different—the filth, the timid way he looked through his lashes, the awkward position of his foot. And of course the age, as the boy could not be more than twelve years old.

If Jayce were a sane man, he might have concluded that this was Viktor’s son or much younger brother, but he could not imagine Viktor fathering a child only to abandon him, nor had Viktor ever mentioned any family. In fact, he’d teased Jayce about being an only child before admitting that he himself was one.

Jayce was not a sane man, and the boy bore too much a resemblance to Viktor to be anyone else—a mole beneath his eye and another above his lip.

Already hallucinating, Talis? he thought with some level of hysteria. It hasn’t even been a full day yet.  

At least, he assumed so. Without a clock or the sun, and having spent much of his time unconscious, he could have been in the cell for days.

The boy reached out, and Jayce couldn’t summon enough self-preservation to flinch away. He waited, and when the boy pressed his cold pointer finger to Jayce's forehead, his headache melted away. Some of his exhaustion abated, but his thirst and full bladder remained an irritating constant.

“You’re never alone, Jayce,” he said softly, and gave Jayce a peck on the cheek, the gesture reminiscent of Ximena Talis’ greetings. Despite being much larger and much older than the boy, Jayce felt small and cared for.

Pulling away, the boy patted Jayce's head the way one might pat a sleepy old hound and began to limp toward the back of the room, circling around Jayce.

Jayce tried to twist in his chains, but he could only turn so far, his ankles pinned down by the shackles on the floor. “Wait!” 

The boy did not respond, the tap of his shoddy stick-cane disappearing as he left Jayce’s line of sight. 

Breathing in deep through his nose, Jayce sighed and slumped, allowing the chains to take his weight. He wondered why his brain supplied him with a Viktor he had never seen, a version of his partner that he could imagine, sure, but who he had no connection with. The child-Viktor apparition did not fit Jayce’s previous imagined image of Viktor as a child, however, his clothes more ratty and his leg in a worse condition. Did that reveal something about Jayce’s unconscious prejudices? 

“You think too much.” The deep, accented voice curled around his eardrums, the sound soothing and familiar, a slight teasing edge to it that made Jayce want to smile. 

Two hands—a grown man’s veined, long-fingered hands—wrapped around his torso, one coming to rest above his navel and the other above his heart. 

“Viktor?” Jayce squeaked, though he probably shouldn’t engage with the hallucination. It would only encourage his mind to trick him further.  

A slight weight came to rest between Jayce’s shoulder blades—someone resting their head on his back. Viktor hummed, and Jayce felt the reverberations like a distant rumble of thunder. 

Yes, this was a hallucination. Viktor had never touched him this much before. He tolerated Jayce’s touch, but he rarely, if ever, initiated it. Jayce remembered Viktor leaning on him for support in the lab the day prior, how Viktor had to be in excruciating pain to seek out his touch. Though it hurt, a thousand little rejections coalescing into one big knife in his heart, he accepted it. Viktor cared for him, he knew. They just didn’t show affection the same way. 

“So helpless,” Viktor cooed, and something about his tone of voice made Jayce flush, the skin over his chest growing hot.  

“You’re… not real.”

“Of course not,” Viktor said matter-of-factly. “I am also more real than you could ever know.”

The hands on Jayce’s torso began to move, feeling over his chest and stomach, smoothing down his sides. They explored with no intention, mapping the planes of Jayce’s body with the unhurried reverence of a long-time lover. Jayce trembled, his bound hands clenching and unclenching, rattling the chains above him. 

Perhaps it was better that the real Viktor did not touch him, because this made his heart hurt in an entirely new way, stealing his breath and turning him to something molten and malleable. 

Jayce laughed humorlessly. “Okay, subconscious, you can stop torturing me now. I think I’ve got it bad enough as it is.”

“Oh,” Viktor purred. “You have no idea how bad this can get.” 

Jayce never knew how much he craved Viktor’s touch until he had it taken from him. The hands withdrew from his body, and Jayce almost whined, breathing hard out of his nose like a dog denied a treat he’d been promised. 

His mind had truly betrayed him.

Appearing in the corner of his sight, Viktor circled him again, this time as the partner Jayce knew, accompanied by the simple but elegant cane that had become like a fifth limb, an inalienable part of him. Viktor saw it as a hindrance, a visual reminder of his disability, but Jayce saw it as a benevolent force—as the thing that helped his partner stand tall. It clicked against the stone floor, solid and sharp in comparison to the light, wooden tapping of the boy’s cane. 

Bathed in the flickering lantern light, Viktor knelt in front of Jayce’s hanging body and placed his cane over his thighs, regarding Jayce with academic interest. 

“They hurt you,” he murmured, reaching up to ghost his fingers over the dried blood on Jayce’s lip. The pad of his finger followed the shape of Jayce’s mouth to reach his bottom lip. Pressing down, Viktor exposed Jayce’s bottom teeth. “Hm.”

Jayce allowed himself to be inspected like a horse, holding still, not even breathing. The warm lantern light deepened the sculpted contrast of his face, shadows pooling in the hollows of Viktor’s cheeks. His long lashes cast long shadows that moved in time with his slow blinks, his eyes less golden and more silver. A trick of the light, perhaps.

Something about those eyes disquieted Jayce, but set in Viktor’s face, they could not be too unnerving. 

Even hunched over a chair, watching as Enforcers collected his life’s work, Jayce had the wherewithal to notice Viktor’s beauty. Then, Viktor had been an antagonist, but soon after, he became the greatest ally Jayce had ever known, made more beautiful by the depth of the connection between them. As Jayce learned more about Viktor, unraveling the tangled web of him, his beauty grew from something superficial to something substantial. 

Somehow, Viktor managed to look beautiful with bags under his eyes and three days out from his last shower, working feverishly to complete a theorem. Under strain, Viktor went from a beautiful man to a mysterious, tortured academic who lived on passion alone. 

In his weakest, most petty moments, Jayce wished he’d never shown Viktor Hextech, because he knew he could never inspire that level of passion in Viktor, never be the object of his devotion. Jealous of his own creation—how pathetic. 

Kneeling before him, more fantasy than reality, Viktor was beautiful. 

Jayce’s heart pounded in his chest. This wasn’t real. There would be no consequences. He could… He could…

He couldn’t do much of anything chained in place. Fortunately, he didn’t have to do anything.

Viktor reached out and placed his palms on Jayce’s chest, his slender fingers curling into the fabric. Using his hold on Jayce to pull himself up, he lifted on his knees and pressed himself against Jayce. 

Head tipped down, Jayce met Viktor’s eyes. Unable to do much else, he nudged Viktor’s nose with his own. Viktor looked up at him, a desperate, naked longing in his eyes that twisted the knife in Jayce’s heart. The real Viktor would never look at him like that. Jayce hadn’t realized he’d wanted Viktor to look at him like that, and now that he had, he knew he would never have it. At least, not outside his own delusions.  

Viktor surged forward and kissed him, his mouth rough and demanding. As if he’d been made to kiss Viktor, something slipped into place within Jayce, a lock finally penetrated by its key, and his eyes fluttered closed. 

Flooded with euphoria, Jayce’s thought dissolved into white noise and he submitted to the kiss, returning it with equal vigor even as the cut through his lip reopened, filling both their mouths with blood. 

Jayce might have pulled back and apologized, but Viktor seized his face with both hands and forced him to hold still, licking the blood from his teeth and lapping at his cut as if it were something sensitive, hidden, and wet. Goosebumps skittered over Jayce’s skin and he groaned, straining against his restraints, desperate to touch Viktor. 

If Jayce could hold Viktor in his arms and feel every ridge of his brace and knob of his spine, then he might feel at peace even in the dark and the cold. Jayce could be alone—he’d been alone much of his life, at least in the ways that mattered. He could not be lonely—at ate at him, made him ache. If Jayce could meld into Viktor, find a home within his flesh and lend Viktor his strength, then he would never be lonely again. 

Except there was no flesh, because there was no Viktor. 

After what felt like an eternity and a second, Viktor drew back, his lips stained red and puffy. He smiled. “Such a sweet boy.”

Jayce shuddered, realizing just how hard he’s gotten from the kiss. 

Though he’d known for a long time that he was attracted to men, few appealed to him outside of the pages of the magazines he kept hidden beneath his bed, so he’d never acted on it. He did not do much to pursue women, either, preferring the bold ones who pursued him and required very little of him in return. Though his life lacked many hallmarks of fulfillment, he was content. He had his work, his friends, and his mother, and that was enough. 

Not anymore. Jayce needed Viktor like he needed air, no longer content to admire his beauty from afar. A desperate, grasping thing grew in his chest, pleading for Viktor to want him, to think him worthy. The knife inside him twisted, shredding his organs and veins and tissues, cutting through his meat. Jayce sobbed, tears spilling out onto his cheeks. 

“You’re not real.” He choked on the thought, breath hitching. “He doesn’t really…”

Jayce couldn’t help being a little mad—mad enough to hallucinate his partner making welcome advances. He’d always been off, different, uncontrollable. His mother called him passionate, and everyone else called him crazy. Still, he was sane enough to know he should shrug off Viktor’s wandering hands or shy away from another rough kiss. But he didn’t.

In his perversity, he was desecrating the sanctity of his and Viktor’s partnership, the relationship that felt most like home, and yet he couldn’t stop, his brain too steeped in its own madness. In fairness to himself, he couldn’t move, but he possessed enough self-awareness to know that even without the chains, he would let any version of Viktor, real or not, do anything to him. 

“Does it matter what I am?” Viktor murmured, his hand travelling down Jayce’s chest to the bulge in his pants, ghosting over the buttons and seams. 

Jayce whimpered as Viktor’s long fingers trailed along the outline of his cock. “Please…” Even he was not sure what he was begging for.

Leveraging the only movement he could, Jayce thrust forward, seeking more friction, but Viktor snatched his hand back as if he’d been burned. 

“Ah, none of that,” Viktor tutted, nipping gently at his jaw. “Be good and hold still.”

Jayce let out a shaky breath and nodded, letting Viktor maneuver his head to the side and lick up his tears, tongue rasping against Jayce’s stubble. 

Viktor hummed, and Jayce feared the sound meant displeasure. “Say it.”

Swallowing hard, Jayce whispered, “I'll be good. I promise.” 

He had fantasized about many things over the course of his life, but never in such detail. A day ago, he would not have known to want this—to be bullied into pleasure. Now, he could not conceive of a world in which he was not a toy for Viktor to use. This would certainly have an interesting impact on their working relationship, if he got out alive. 

Something in Viktor changed, his face falling into a pained grimace. His eyes flickered—silver, gold, silver again. A trick of the light. 

“No, no promises,” Viktor ordered, voice heated, almost frantic. His eyes scoured Jayce’s face with something that might have been fear. “Just be. Just be.”

Trying to soothe whatever had upset Viktor, Jayce gentled his voice. “Okay. I’ll be good.”

Viktor let out a long breath and seemed to settle, his hands returning to Jayce, running unhurriedly over the length of him through his pants, like a poor man savoring every bite of an expensive dessert. Jayce whined, but he remained still, suppressing the urge to writhe. 

As a reward for his docility, Viktor began to press his hand harder against Jayce, concentrating the pressure of his palm on the head of his cock. Despite the two layers of fabric between them and any satisfactory friction, Jayce found pleasure in the denial.

While he worked his hand over Jayce, Viktor left delicate kisses on his neck, his other hand reaching around to run up and down the back of Jayce’s thigh, massaging at the crease where his ass met his leg. 

“Oh, Jayce.” Viktor sighed, almost wistful. “You were right. It always should have been just the two of us.”

In the throes of his arousal, Jayce summoned enough sense to be confused. He didn’t remember ever saying something like that to Viktor.

Viktor kissed him, their mouths making wet smacking noises, and he closed his eyes. As he did, the touch against his lips and cock disappeared, leaving him bereft and gasping, the crest of orgasm slipping from his grasp.     

Dazed, Jayce blinked, searching around for Viktor’s familiar shape, but there was no one. Just him and the lantern resting on the floor by his knee. 

“Vik…?”

The only answer he received was the sound of approaching footsteps. Enough time passed for Jayce’s erection to wilt, preserving his dignity if not his sanity, before the lock clicked and the door slammed open.

“Alright, Talis, here’s—” Smeech stopped, frowning at the lantern. “Who brought that in here? Anyway, considering that you haven’t taken a long walk off a short pier yet, I assume we’re in business.”

The shackles released, and Jayce fell to all fours. Unlike the first time, he prepared for the slump, his body tensed, poised to strike, but the big man pulled out a gun before he could leap forward. Jayce didn’t have much experience with guns beyond watching Caitlyn’s shooting competitions, and he found himself coming to dislike them. 

“No funny business, Talis,” Smeech warned. “I’ll keep you off-leash, even return you nice and whole to your family topside, if you make me one of these.”

He tossed a rolled blueprint out, and Jayce caught it. Immediately, he recognized the Academy seal on the back, and when he unrolled the paper, he found the schematics for Viktor’s Hexclaw. They must have stolen them when they kidnapped me, he realized. 

Relief washed over him.

“I can’t.” Jayce rolled the blueprint back up, careful not to crease it any more than it had been. “You don’t have the necessary power source.” Since they hadn’t yet figured out how to stabilize the crystals, Viktor had shelved the design for a later date. 

Smeech crossed his mechanical arms over his chest, leaning forward in an attempt to loom over Jayce. “One of your fancy ‘hexcrystals?’” 

Jayce assumed his goons had stolen other notes, since the crystals weren’t public knowledge yet. At least not to non-mages, and Smeech didn’t strike him as the sorcerer type. 

“Not exactly lying around, are they?” Smeech continued, shrugging. “See, I’ve got a bit of a problem sticking my nose in things. I wanted to know what the Council was cooking up, so I had one of my guys look into you and your partner. Found some interesting information on your whereabouts around, eh, three, four years ago. Remember then?”

Jayce did remember—standing in a mine, trying to communicate with the foreman through hand gestures as they were bathed in the glow of a crystal vein. 

Smeech snapped his fingers and a mousey man appeared in the open doorway, a small case clutched to his chest. When Smeech pointed at him, the man unlatched the silver clasps holding the case together, releasing a cold blue light that warred with the lantern’s orange glow. Laying on a velvet bed inside the case, a rough hexcrystal sparkled with untapped potential. 

The crystal captured Jayce’s eyes and the inside of his skull buzzed with a dread that nearly deafened him. The sound of Smeech’s smug crowing came to him as if through a wall—dull and distant.

“Amazing what a little bit of money can buy, hm?”

✦

For as long as Viktor had lived, there was always one person in Zaun everyone turned to. As a child, that person had been Vander, who had given Viktor and his mother a free meal more times than he could count. As a man, that person was Silco. Though their methods differed, the goal—and the location—was the same. 

“We cannot go to the Lanes with you dressed like that.” Viktor gave Caitlyn an appraising look. Her shoes alone were worth more than what most miners made in a year. 

Caitlyn looked down at herself and fussed with the end of her skirt. “Oh, should I put on pants?”

That would be more practical, but Viktor imagined Caitlyn’s worst pair of trousers were of superior make than most Zaunites’ wedding best. They didn’t have much time, but…

“Let’s take a detour,” he decided. 

Despite Piltover’s best efforts to belittle him, Viktor felt no shame regarding his status as a Zaunite without a House or name, nor did he think much about his own wealth beyond practical concerns. As he beckoned Caitlyn into his modest Academy-supplied apartment, her wide, curious eyes reminded him of the cavernous gap between them in that regard.   

Leaving her to gawk at his modest living room, which was probably smaller than her bathroom, Viktor went into his bedroom and shifted through his dresser to find a pair of simple trousers, a rumpled shirt, and a waistcoat. They were about the same height, so he assumed she would fit in some of his older clothes from back when he’d been younger and marginally plumper. 

When Viktor returned with a bundle of clothes pressed to his chest, Caitlyn was where he’d left her, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. She had the decency to look ashamed to be caught staring at his kitchen, where dishes piled high in his sink. 

“Put these on,” he said, shoving the clothes into her arms. “The bathroom is over there.” 

While she dressed, Viktor returned to his room, shucking his Academy uniform in favor of darker, more casual clothing. Since moving to Piltover, his wardrobe had transitioned to include much higher-quality materials, but they could still pass for wealthier Zaunites. Perhaps a tradesman and his apprentice. 

He waited in the living room for Caitlyn to emerge. The process took longer than he thought, and he wondered if she was having a harder time taking her dress off than putting his clothes on. Eventually, she bounded out, a smile on her face.

“This is really comfortable! Though it's kind of tight in the hips…” She plucked at the pockets of the trousers, which had tented to accommodate her fuller figure. 

“Good.” Wouldn’t want to look too put-together. “Now, let’s establish some ground rules.” He gestured to the couch, and she sat, her posture loose and slouched now that she was out of her corseted dress. Her long hair, which she had tied up in a ponytail, swished behind her.

“We’ll be going to see a powerful man in the undercity. He works out of a bar, and I will see him in his office alone.” She frowned, and before she could protest, he raised a hand to silence her. “He and I have a… mutual acquaintance, but I doubt the meager trust gained from that will extend to you. It’s better for me to speak with him alone. But this means I will have to leave you for a little while, and I want to make sure you’re prepared.”

Caitlyn straightened her back, and Viktor saw the beginnings of an Enforcer in her. He did not like that. “Okay, I’m listening.”

There was much to know, but Viktor began small. “Do not make eye contact. If someone tries to speak with you, ignore them. Better yet, tell them to fuck off.”

She snickered, like swearing was novel to her. Ignoring that, he continued, “Listen to everything. Never let your guard down. You will see things that you have not seen before. Do not stare. You will see people that you will want to help. You cannot help them. Not right now.” Later, she could affect change, but at the moment, empathy would only serve as an obstacle.

After a moment of thought, he added, “And though it’s counter-productive to the situation at hand, a word of advice—do not follow strange men home.”

She cocked her head, her expression open and trusting. “You’re not a strange man.”

“Still, even an acquaintance.” 

“I appreciate the concern, but you're obviously—” She stopped herself, discomfort and embarrassment flashing over her face, as if she’d spoken before thinking. 

Viktor frowned. “I am what?”

“Well…” Tucking her shoulders in, Caitlyn made herself smaller and rubbed her knees together like an anxious grasshopper. “I knew you were safe because you wouldn’t have any, um, unseemly intentions.” It sounded like the verbiage her mother might use.

Surprised, Viktor raised an eyebrow. He thought she might have meant something about his physical condition, as many people underestimated his abilities, but it seemed she’d instead focused on his… disposition? Which still seemed awfully trusting.  

When Viktor remained silent, she stammered, “You know, because you’re—At least, I assumed —”

“Oh.” Viktor cleared his throat, a flush rising to his cheeks. He wondered what had given him away and how much she had assumed. “I see.”

“It’s not—” Caitlyn said hurriedly, waving her hands. “I just—I know the look. Because I’m also…” It was her turn to flush. 

“Ah.” Viktor relaxed, remembering his own teenage tumult. “Is this a recent realization?”

Letting her hands fall back into her lap, Caitlyn shook her head. “I’ve always known, I guess.” Releasing a big breath, she smiled at him. “It actually feels good to say to someone else. I mean, Jayce knows, but he kind of doesn’t count.” 

“I’m glad you feel that you can confide in me. I promise I will not share without your permission.”

“Thanks.” She smiled wider, and for the first time, he felt they had truly connected beyond their love for Jayce. “You know, when this is all over, we should get coffee.”

“We should. But first, we have much to do.”

Caitlyn nodded, her expression resolute. “Right.”  

Someone knocked on the front door. 

They both froze, turning toward the sound. Viktor put a finger to his lips and gestured for Caitlyn to run to his bedroom, just down the hall. Not a great place for her to be found, if Enforcers barged in, but she could at least hide under the bed. 

Leaping to her feet, Caitlyn rushed to the room on the balls of her feet in an attempt to lessen the noise. 

Viktor ran a hand through his hair and prepared an innocent expression, then walked to the door and unlocked it. Easing it open, he found not Enforcers but a slender older woman with gray-streaked black curls, her back curved into a slight hunch. Hands clasped in front of her, she worried at her prosthetic pinkie finger, rubbing it the way one might rub a lucky charm. 

“Missus Talis,” he said, unable to hide his surprise. 

She smiled, though there was no joy in her face. “Hello, Viktor. May I… speak with you?” She hesitated as she spoke, just as his own mother had despite years spent speaking the common tongue. 

Guilt clawed at Viktor’s gut. If Mel was correct, it should have been him, not Jayce, in peril. 

Viktor opened the door wider and stepped aside, holding his arm out in welcome. “Of course. Please, come in.”

Bowing her head in thanks, she stepped over the threshold and shuffled into his living room. Though he hadn’t cared much what Caitlyn thought of his home, shame crawled up his spine as Jayce’s mother stood in the middle of his organized chaos, little care put into neatness. 

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, because that was what a host should do, though he could only offer her water or coffee. 

To his relief, she said, “No, thank you.” Mouth twisting, she looked up at him, and Viktor saw Jayce in her eyes and the way she lifted on her toes for a moment, soothing herself with the motion. “Have you heard anything?”

Viktor swallowed. “No, I’m sorry. I just spoke to the Council, but…” His grievances with the Council would not make her feel better, so he pivoted. “They are committed to finding Jayce and bringing him home, as am I.”

“Mm.” She glanced down at her hands, voice soft as she said, “My son told me you were as kind as you were brilliant. He does not speak of people like that often.” Glancing back up, she offered him a genuine smile. “Thank you for being his friend. For helping his dreams come true. I wish… I wish I’d thanked you earlier.”

“I…” Viktor struggled to speak, all sound catching in his tight throat. He gripped his cane tight, as if trying to wring his ability to converse from it. 

Unable to think of anything else, he confessed, “He means very much to me.” Despite the crack in his voice, he continued, “I will find him, Missus Talis.”

Reaching out, she clasped his free hand in both of hers. She was younger than his own mother, who had already been middle-aged when she’d taken him in as a baby, but she had the weathered hands of a much older woman, speaking to a life of hard work. 

“We will have dinner together—the three of us. Soon.”

He nodded. 

“You will tell me, if you hear something about him, yes?”

He nodded. 

“And please,” she said, patting the back of his hand, “call me Ximena.”

He nodded.

As he showed her out, she leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, her lips dry against his skin. “You are a good man.”

Though Viktor disagreed, all he said was, “Good night, Ximena. Get home safe.”

Closing the door behind her, he leaned against the wood and let his head fall against it, his forehead landing with a hard thunk. He sucked in air through his nose, letting his lungs expand to their full capacity, fighting against the pressure of his brace. 

“Is she gone?”

Viktor jerked at the whisper and turned to see Caitlyn peeking around the corner that led to the hall. Pulling his sleeve over his thumb, he rubbed at his eyes. “Yes. Let’s go.”

As the sun’s light faded, they took the tram down to the undercity, sitting silently next to each other. When they reached their stop, Viktor motioned for Caitlyn to follow him, resisting the urge to keep hold of her by the arm to ensure she didn’t get lost in the crowd. 

Miners ending their shifts pushed by, eager to find either drink or home. Peddlers hawked their wares, which included everything from strange mushrooms to stolen watches to illegal butchery. Beggars sat by empty bowls, and Viktor forced himself to avert his eyes, as he had told Caitlyn to do. 

Keeping Caitlyn tucked behind him, Viktor made his way to the Last Drop. 

They passed through the two burly, identical bouncers and emerged into a den of revelry and chaos. The change in ownership had shifted the atmosphere since Viktor’s last visit, lights flashing and pulse-pounding music emanating from the jukebox. He narrowed his eyes, trying to block out the overwhelming sensations.

Reluctant to yell over the loud music, Viktor elbowed Caitlyn, who seemed equally overwhelmed, her wide eyes reflecting the flashing lights. She looked at him, and he pointed at an empty booth near the door and mouthed, “Wait.”  

If he were being charitable, he could describe her expression as a frown, but it was more of a pout. Still, she shuffled over to the booth, weaving around uncoordinated drunks as they stumbled around in a fashion that could have been dancing, but Viktor couldn’t be sure. 

Satisfied, Viktor sauntered up to the bar, trading the stiff-backed posture he affected in Piltover to something more natural. 

When he reached the counter, the bartender didn’t bother looking up from the glass he was drying—the same glasses Viktor remembered from his childhood. At least that much hadn’t changed. “What’ll you have?”

“Silco.” Viktor placed his hand on the counter to stabilize himself, but he hoped it looked casual. 

The bartender froze, and he glanced up, his eyes flicking over Viktor. “And who are you?”

“An acquaintance of the doctor’s.” Upon the mention of Doctor Revek, the bartender paled. After the accident—at least, the doctor had framed it as an accident in his letters, but he was often purposefully obtuse—many began to refer to him as Singed, Viktor heard. “Tell Silco I have information for him. Information and a… business proposal.”

The bartender examined Viktor again, trying to ascertain the truth of his claims. Coming to some unknowable conclusion, he grabbed a skinny blond man wearing too much eyeliner and whispered something in his ear. The skinny man glanced at Viktor, raised his eyebrows, and shrugged, walking away toward the back of the bar. After a few minutes, he returned, jerking his chin up.

Viktor nodded his thanks to the bartender and followed after the man, who led him up a flight of stairs to a large door. Pausing before the door, the man turned back to Viktor.

“Don’t know who you are,” he said with a sigh, “but whatever you’ve got to say, make it good. I hate it when he makes me clean blood off the floorboards.”

Offering no further comment, he pushed open the door and gestured Viktor inside. Stepping over the threshold, Viktor found himself in an office that would be considered lavish by Zaun’s standards and a hovel by Piltover’s. 

Light spilled into the room through a large, round window, its green glass tinting everything within, including the man behind the large mahogany desk. 

Silco reminded Viktor of a beautiful rat—the kind people kept as pets. His sleek, black hair was interrupted by a single tasteful gray streak, as if nature had gifted him a fashionable flaw. Despite the marred skin and unblinking red eye on the left side of his face, he was handsome, if a bit skinny for Viktor’s taste. Still, he had a roughness, a clever rattishness to him that marked him as a Zaunite—as vermin. 

If Viktor had to guess, Silco prided himself on his roughness as much as his vanity. 

Sat in a stately but worn leather chair, Silco ran his long, slender fingers over an unclipped cigar, only looking up once the door shut behind Viktor. 

“The doctor does not have many friends. Especially not ones that would openly admit to it,” Silco mused.

As Viktor stepped closer to the desk, his cane made a hollow impact on the old floorboards. “I see no reason to deny it.”

“How… sweet.” Silco sounded both genuine and patronizing, as if the notion was both surprising and beneath him. “Sit.” 

He gestured at the opposing couches set up on one side of the room. A coffee table spanned the distance between the couches, its glossy wooden face covered in a child’s chalk and wax-pencil doodles. Splotches of bright paint clung to the ornate rug beneath, crusting over a faint botanical pattern that had already been dulled by time and the soles of dirty shoes.

Eager to take some weight off his leg, Viktor slid into the couch nearest the door while Silco stood and made his way out from behind his desk. He sat opposite Viktor, his presence even more intense without the desk dividing them. 

“Lucky for you,” Silco said as he snipped off the end of his cigar and lit it with a stray match, “I know exactly who you are, Viktor. Otherwise, I might not have believed you.”

Viktor kept a tight grip on his cane, but while he knew he should feel nervous, he was strangely at ease. Unlike his experience in the Council’s chambers. Perhaps because he knew Silco would not harm him so long as he was useful. And Viktor was very useful. Or perhaps it was because they were both Zaunites, and at the end of the day, Silco worked for the good of Zaun, with “good” being a matter of opinion. 

“Wonderful. We can skip past the pleasantries. My partner has been kidnapped, and I have reason to believe someone from Zaun is responsible.”

Silco raised an eyebrow and took a drag from the cigar. “Your partner… Talis?”

“Yes. I have no interest in disturbing you or the undercity. I just want Jayce back. The sooner that happens, the less likely the Enforcers will get involved.”

“Jayce.” Silco rolled the name around in his mouth like he couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. “Rather close, are you?”

“He is my partner. And my friend.”

“Hm.” Drawing in another breath of smoke, Silco regarded Viktor thoughtfully, his blue eye intrigued and his red eye unknowable.

Viktor almost squirmed. He’d forgotten how it felt to draw such focused attention from anyone but Jayce.

Opening his mouth, Silco exhaled, the smell of tobacco saturating the air between them. “Do you recall the Lost Five?”

Viktor nodded. A real tragedy turned urban legend. Decades ago, before Viktor and perhaps even Silco had been born, a mine shaft collapsed, trapping five workers in a dead-end tunnel. The collapse released a pocket of toxic gas, making it impossible for rescue workers to begin excavating for days. Once the gas dissipated, they began the laborious task of restoring the mine’s support structures and digging out the miners. Most only dared to hope for a body to bury. 

When the rescue workers successfully opened up a large enough cavity to send a volunteer through, they found only one survivor. Trembling and covered in filth, he shied away from the rescuers’ light, cowering in the farthest end of the tunnel. After thirty days in the dark, he refused to respond to his name or tell the rescuer where the others’ bodies were. 

On the other side of the blockage, the rescuer found that the collapse had uncovered a much older abandoned mine shaft beneath the original shaft. In an attempt to save him, the rescuer tried to drag the survivor to the opening they had made, but he escaped from their grasp and ran down into the abandoned shaft the way a child might run to hide in their mother’s skirt. 

Confused, the rescuer was left with no choice but to turn back. 

The rescue team completed reopening the shaft, allowing more rescue workers to search for the five in the abandoned tunnel. Inside, they found four corpses in differing stages of decay. Two had died in the collapse. Another had been bludgeoned to death with a pickaxe. The last had been strangled, though they could not be sure, as the head had been crudely sawed from the body post-mortem. All had been gnawed on by a desperate, starving animal. 

They never found the fifth miner. Some said he was still down there, digging new tunnels. Some said he crept up to steal lone miners, dragging them into his tunnels to feed on. Some said Janna had cursed him to wander endlessly beneath the earth as punishment for his sins, never able to feel the warmth of an embrace or the cool touch of wind on his skin, facing eternity alone and unloved.

“There's some truth to the old mine shaft. One of the chembarons, Smeech, runs his little operation” —Silco waved his hand in the air, as if he didn’t think much of this operation — “out of the supposed tunnel from the tales. He seems to be laboring under the assumption it makes him look brave, but all it does is make him more of a rat, scurrying around in the sewers.” 

Leaning back on the couch, Silco tapped out the ash that had collected at the end of his cigar into an ashtray covered with the same chalk and wax-pencil doodles as the coffee table. “This kidnapping sounds like his particular brand of stupidity.”

“Not yours?”

Taken aback, Silco stared at him for a moment, then the corners of his slender lips curled, and he chuckled. “Bold, boy. Watch that sharp tongue of yours, or I might have to cut it out.” He seemed almost pleased. 

Viktor said nothing. He had been threatened many times in his life and had grown bored with the concept. Instead of speaking, he concentrated on Silco’s wide, red eye, and tapped his fingers on his cane, as if he were impatient. Because he was. 

Blinking only with the blue eye, Silco continued, “I’ll have someone bring you there.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t decided.” Silco put out his cigar in the ashtray, avoiding contact with any of the doodles. “But you seem like a very useful man.” When Silco smirked, a shiver ran up Viktor’s spine. “I’m sure I can think of something.”

Silco extended his hand. The pinkie finger was painted a bright blue that clashed with the rest of his clothing but matched the doodles covering random parts of his office. Viktor gathered that Silco must be a father, and an indulgent one at that. 

As their palms met, Viktor wondered what horrors he would come to make and if Jayce would hate him for it. If it means keeping him alive, Viktor decided, he can hate me as much as he wants.  

Chapter Text

Sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor of his prison, Jayce tore into the stale bread that had been passed to him through the steel door. He searched for worms or mold or razor blades, and finding nothing, he shoved the lumps of bread into his mouth. Not that any of those contaminants would have changed the end result, but he liked to be prepared. 

The bread sucked up all the moisture in his throat, so he washed it down with the tin cup of dirty water that had been slid in alongside the bread. It tasted metallic, little granules of something floating over Jayce’s tongue before he swallowed. 

Laid out on the floor before him, the blueprints for the Hexclaw formed a monochrome quilt that mocked him for his lack of ingenuity. Alongside his designs, Viktor had suggested potential materials based on tensile strength, and Smeech had done his best to cobble together things that might be comparable. Jayce had arranged the mess of bolts and gears and sheet metal dumped on him into little piles around the blueprint quilt, each pile categorized by which part of the design he thought they might best fit.

After years of working with the Council’s coffers rather than his own, Jayce had become rather spoiled, it seemed, unable to conceive of “making do.” Frustrated, he scrubbed at his face, his hand dragging over the beginnings of a beard. 

Of course, he had no intention of creating a weapon for Smeech, but he could engineer his escape. If he could manage any engineering at all. 

Prior to his dismal meal, he’d attempted to sleep, tossing and turning on the stone floor until he gave up and just laid still on his back, staring at the ceiling. One of his acquaintances at the Academy had attempted to get him into meditating, and vaguely recalling that experience, he tried to empty his mind. A task that proved impossible. His mind was a busy thing, always churning, and if he somehow emptied it, he feared he might be driven mad by the silence. So he laid there, staring up, until his meal was delivered.

Now that his stomach wasn’t empty, he could think more clearly. Still, even basic engineering eluded him, as his thoughts were consumed not by ingenious escape plans but by…  

“I know you’re there,” he said to the empty room, his voice low, almost a whisper.

He could feel it—a presence. Something real and tangible, not conjured by his mind. 

He felt it as he laid against the stone floor, as if someone were laying down beside him. Rather than unsettle him, it soothed his nerves, but he’d grown tired of being watched by an unseen visitor. He wanted to lay eyes on it—to see it for what it really was. 

The shadows in the room shifted, and at first Jayce attributed it to the lantern’s flickering flame, thinking the visitor would require more coaxing. Then, like water filling a vessel, the shadows coalesced into a slender form. As if it were a normal day in the lab, Viktor stepped from the darkness. Crooked posture, well-kept clothing one size too big, a shiny metal cage around his right leg—all achingly familiar to Jayce. Viktor paused, leaning lightly on his cane, and opened his mouth. 

Jayce leapt to his feet and surged forward to close the distance between them. With one hand, he seized the apparition by its jaw. It gasped with Viktor’s mouth, its hands scrabbling at Jayce’s arms.

“How dare you,” Jayce snarled. Though the simulacrum was good, it could not be Viktor, who was safe above in Piltover. “How dare you wear his face. I don’t know what you are, but—” He stuttered to a stop, his throat closing around the words.

Golden eyes brimming with tears, the apparition gazed up at him. It resembled Viktor even in its expressions, and Jayce could not bring himself to maintain his vitriol. He breathed hard out of his nose, his lips pressed together as his mouth twisted with anguish.

Like water draining from a basin, the gold faded from the apparition’s iris, replaced by a bright quicksilver that seemed to shift and change, remaining in a constant state of flux. Viktor’s short hair grew long, white strands sprouting from the nape of his neck to tangle with dark waves. His skin paled to a porcelain white, wispy lines of iridescence curling around his gold-capped joints like veins of gemstones in rock. The familiar Academy staff uniform gave way to a tattered blue robe that barely covered the sharp planes of his body. 

Around his wrists, simple metal bangles clinked against each other, the bands dripping with luminescent blue crystals. The cane by his side clattered to the ground, its shape morphing and elongating to an elegant, twisting staff.

Too perfect to be real, but still, it was Viktor. 

“What…?” Jayce did not relinquish his hold on the apparition’s face, but he loosened his grip. 

“I thought you would prefer a more… familiar appearance.” The strange Viktor sighed, his warm breath ghosting over Jayce’s hand. “It seems I was wrong. As I have been about much.”

Releasing him, Jayce stumbled back, his arm still outstretched. “Who are you?”

“I am Viktor. Just not the one you know.” Viktor took a step forward, his arms hanging at an odd angle, as if he were unused to them. The posture reminded Jayce of a wounded animal trying to disguise the extent of its injury for fear of opportunistic predators.

Naked desperation twisted Viktor’s face as his eyes scrubbed over Jayce, his gaze hungry and wild. “I’m sorry to appear to you like this. I didn’t mean to—Yesterday, I…” He huffed, his hands curling into fists. “I got carried away. I’ve been so—” Dipping his head down, he sobbed, the sharp inhalation raw and human. “So lonely.”

Biting his lip, Viktor kept his eyes averted and wrapped his arms around himself. Curled into his core like that, he resembled the dirty, malnourished child he’d shown to Jayce more than the proud man Jayce knew. 

What was Viktor? Even before the inhuman apparition, Jayce often wondered it. Sometimes, late at night when he thought about all the ways in which his life hinged on Viktor, Jayce wondered if he was an angel. Then, the next day, he would walk into the lab and find Viktor with his hair in disarray and chalk all over his face, fervently scribbling on their blackboard, reminding him Viktor was a man. A great man, one who Jayce idolized and sought to emulate, but still tangible and human.  

After a brief moment of indecision, Jayce closed the distance between them and held his arms out, offering an embrace. Viktor’s eyes snapped back to him, confusion and an implacable terror flashing over his face. 

Jayce couldn’t bring himself to smile, but he did try to convey an expression that he hoped seemed open and comforting. 

Like a battered old street dog wary of offered food, Viktor examined him as if he were trying to ascertain whether the gesture was some trick or falsehood. Jayce couldn’t be sure if Viktor found something trustworthy in his examination, but like a dog, his hunger won over his suspicion.

With a soft whimper, Viktor threw himself at Jayce, his bangles jingling as they collided. His fingers clawed at Jayce’s back, bunching up the fabric of his loose shirt. He clung with a ferocity that seemed so at odds with the Viktor he knew, but Jayce welcomed it, holding him close. 

As Jayce’s arms tightened around Viktor, his hands brushed patches of exposed skin—cool to the touch, like marble, but soft and pliant. When he pressed his face into Viktor’s long, dark hair, he smelled the same as Jayce remembered, only with a metallic tinge. 

They remained entangled for a long time, Jayce’s body heat seeping into Viktor, warming his cold skin. Jayce pulled back first—unusual for him, but his curiosity won over his desire for prolonged closeness. 

Keeping a grip on Viktor’s slender arms, Jayce asked, “You’re from… an alternate dimension? The future?” 

Science had not yet progressed to that possibility, but magic … Jayce had studied a great deal of magical principles in his pursuit of Hextech, and sorcerers meddled with time and space almost as much as they did with life and death. His Viktor was a scientist through-and-through, but this Viktor could easily be mistaken for a shaman or wandering wizard. 

“Mm, perhaps both.” A faraway look in his silver eyes, Viktor’s hands wandered up Jayce’s torso to reach where he’d unbuttoned his shirt. Viktor’s cold fingers skated over the exposed skin of Jayce’s chest, dipping over his collar bones to rest on the sides of his neck. It took Jayce a moment to realize Viktor was feeling his pulse. 

“How did you get here?” Jayce swallowed, trying to ignore the steady pressure of Viktor’s hands. 

“I made it so. I was searching for a way to go back—back in time, back to before it all started. But I got lost along the way.” Viktor pressed closer to Jayce, nuzzling at his chest. “I reached out for something bright, something nearby that called to me, and it was… you.”

Heart pounding, Jayce once again wrapped his arms around Viktor’s narrow waist, so thin it seemed almost impossible for organs to exist within him. 

“I’m a little lost,” he murmured into Viktor’s hair. “How do you have the ability to do any of this?”

Viktor chuckled. It was a dark sound, almost cruel and patronizing, like an adult laughing at a child for not understanding why their beloved pet had gone away and would never come back. “It’s quite a long story.”

“I’m not busy.”

“Mm.” Squirming in Jayce’s arms, Viktor weaseled out from his hold enough to look up at him and kissed his jaw. He peppered kisses down Jayce’s throat and sucked on the skin, breaking enough blood vessels to leave him bruised. Which would be difficult to explain, if Smeech or one of his goons came back, but Jayce didn't care to explain himself, anyway.

As the thumping of his heart grew deafening, Jayce huffed. “Come on, Vik.” Viktor wasn’t even disguising his attempt at distraction. 

A gasp against the hollow of his throat. “Say it again.”

“Wh—?”

“Call me Vik. Viktor. V. Tell me I’m your partner.”

“You…” Jayce swallowed, and Viktor licked at the apple of his throat as it bobbed. There was an edge of danger in the air, an unseen gun to his head, and he found he didn’t mind it, his body electrified by unknown possibility. “You’re my partner, V.” 

“You want me to answer your question, but don’t you already know?” Viktor breathed, lifting on his toes to brush his lips against Jayce’s. “Can’t you feel it?”

Viktor’s fingers circled Jayce’s wrist, brushing over the skin rubbed raw by the shackles, where scabs had begun to form. Unblinking eyes locked on him, Viktor drew his hand up to press against his sternum, where a heart should beat. Beneath Jayce’s palm, there was no steady ba-dump , no muscle pumping blood . Instead, there was a continuous thrumming not unlike an engine’s hum. 

“Can’t you feel your creation inside me?”

He could. Against his palm, the electric tingling. 

“Within me, I carry your Hextech. Your child that I can neither birth or abort. The damnation that you cursed me with.” Viktor’s pleasant, almost sensuous expression distorted into a snarl, but tears welled in his eyes. “Why did you do this to me?” he cried, fisting his hands in Jayce’s already loose shirt and shaking him. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “Why did you leave me all alone?”

Dread dripped down Jayce’s spine. Inside him, something tapped on the windows of his mind, reminding him of its presence like an irritated visitor left on the doorstep too long.

Jayce opened his mouth, but whatever words he might have uttered remained lodged in his throat. 

A flash. A stone. The warmth of Viktor’s hands, trapped between his own.

Face twisted in what could be either disgust or frustration, Viktor lunged up and wrapped his hands around Jayce’s throat. Jayce’s surprised gasp was cut off by the force of the constriction, Viktor’s hands crushing him with inhuman strength, his touch as cold as steel. Vision hazy and spotted with dark shapes, Jayce grasped at Viktor, both wanting to clutch him closer—never let go—and shove him away.

As Jayce’s consciousness dimmed, the air crackled with arcane force, the smell of ozone filling the room. Outside the hole in the wall, the strange, distant wails from the fissure grew louder, the sound almost like the echoes of a tormented man’s screams.

And, though Jayce had little awareness to recognize it, his cock twitched in his pants. 

“We can keep playing this game as long as you’d like, partner,” Viktor sneered, wringing the life from Jayce. “I have time. You made sure of that.”

Then, breathless and aching, Jayce was alone. And perhaps he always had been. 

✦

When Silco had said he would have someone show them the way, Viktor had not expected a child. 

He waited with Caitlyn—who peppered him with whispered questions—outside the Last Drop, only to have a teenage girl even younger than Caitlyn skip up to them from the alley behind the bar. 

“Are you the freaks I’m taking to Smeech?” she chirped, cocking her hip out and crossing her arms. Sucking in a quick breath, she blew her long bangs out of her face. Her nails were painted the same bright blue as the doodles in Silco’s office, the enamel chipped from wear. Glossy, new things didn’t last long in the Lanes.

Viktor smiled. “That would be us.”

Behind him, Caitlyn let out a soft huff.

“I’m Jinx.” Pursing her lips, the girl—Jinx—blew out a pink gum bubble, popping it with her tongue and sucking it back into her mouth. Her eyes, which were ringed by smudged eyeliner, flicked to Viktor’s cane. “And I guess we’re going the long way.” 

Twisting to face one of the narrow streets leading away from the Last Drop, Jinx whistled a jaunty tune as she resumed her skipping, and Viktor took that as the cue to follow. Caitlyn matched his pace, squinting suspiciously at the back of Jinx’s head, where two braids sprouted. 

Viktor made a point of returning to the undercity every few months. Sometimes, he ventured down with purpose, searching for materials or purchasing the sort of pain relievers that were illegal in Piltover. He’d yet to try Shimmer, but knowledge of it lingered in the back of his mind, tempting him to eschew his better judgement and embrace a radical solution.

Every time he visited the undercity, it changed. Like a perpetually evolving organism, Zaun adapted to suit the needs of its inhabitants and to dodge the watchful eyes of Enforcers. Businesses and people shifted around, some disappearing and reappearing and others lost forever. When one was not an inhabitant, word-of-mouth served as the only reliable source of information regarding what had changed and when. 

Viktor had once prided himself on keeping abreast of developments in Zaun, but he had not returned in a long time, too consumed with Hextech. As they walked through the Lanes, he saw many signs and faces he didn’t recognize and found himself gawking at their surroundings almost as much as Caitlyn. 

Dodging and weaving around the crowd, Jinx seemed at home, unfazed by caged beasts that lunged at her, only to be choked by their collars. She waved cheerily at a group of older teenage chempunk boys smoking in front of an alley, and the blood drained from their dirty faces.  They fled into the darkness behind them, chased by Jinx’s smug grin. 

Jinx led them away from the bustling streets, weaving through dark alleys that led to the old mining quarter. 

There were many abandoned mine shafts peppered throughout Zaun, with some of the oldest deep in the Sump. When Viktor was a boy, the last of the shafts in the old mining quarter closed, and everyone migrated away, moving toward the center of the Lanes in search of work and safety, creating the new mining quarter. In the over twenty years since he had last seen it, the old quarter had been completely abandoned, save for a few Shimmer addicts huddled under makeshift shelters.  

As they passed, Viktor tried not to look, but he couldn’t help it. His eyes fell on an emaciated old man with pink growths sprouting from his face and the backs of his hands, and pity welled in his heart. When the man managed to take more than a short, wheezing breath, his ribs pressed taut against his skin like a parasite eager to burst from its host. 

No one, no matter what they’d done, deserved to suffer so, to endure the worst of the world alone in the dark.

The man did not meet Viktor’s eyes as they passed, staring off into the distance.

Steeling himself, Viktor tore his eyes away and yanked Caitlyn closer despite her having not wandered far, his grip tightening on his cane. 

“Taadaa!” Jinx announced cheerily as they came upon an abandoned mine shaft, its mouth covered over with boards. She spread her arms wide, presenting the shaft to them. “It’s a great…! Big…! Hole in the ground!” she said, pausing for emphasis. 

Without waiting for them to react, Jinx planted her hands on her hips, nodded at the hole with finality, and spun around on one leg. “Anyway, toodles!”

Caitlyn scoffed, attempting to catch Jinx’s arm. “How are we supposed to get these boards off?”

“Not my problem, princess.” Jinx dodged her hand and breezed past them, then twisted to walk backwards as she spoke. “Why don’t you try getting your hands dirty?” Waggling her fingers at them, Jinx snickered as she whipped around and resumed whistling. 

Like evaporating morning mist, Jinx disappeared into the shadows, the sound of her thick-soled boots on cobblestone retreating into the distance, a slightly off-key tune trailing behind her. 

“Ugh.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Caitlyn frowned at the boarded-up entrance. Her breathing had grown louder and more labored the lower they’d gone, her lungs unused to the thinner air, though conditions were much better than they’d been when Viktor was a boy. Silco gave as much as he took, maintaining an equilibrium of cruelty. 

Viktor sighed. “Best get to it then.” He hobbled up to the entrance and hooked the handle of his cane around his arm so he could grasp a board with both hands and yank. The nails creaked as they gave way, but they parted from the entrance’s frame without much protest. 

“Here, let me do it.” Caitlyn almost shoved him in her haste to help, tearing at the boards with much more speed and strength then he could manage. 

Stepping aside, Viktor huffed. “I am disabled, Miss Kiramman, not an invalid.”

“I know,” she said, her tone a bit defensive. “But Jayce told me to look after you if he ever wasn’t around. Make sure you didn’t overwork yourself. And he’s not around, so…” She shrugged, planting her foot against the frame and giving a stubborn board a hard pull. Part of the old board cracked, raining splinters onto her clean, shiny hair. 

“He… said that?” Viktor thought of Jayce, respectful yet always insisting he go home, rest, take care of himself. It was what had gotten them into this damned situation in the first place.  

“Yeah.” Once she’d dusted off her head, she resumed dismantling the boards. “He told me to ‘be discreet’” —she mimicked Jayce’s deeper voice and flatter accent— “but I think you deserve to know. He always thinks he knows what’s best for people, but it’s easier to work together toward the same goal if you both know what you’re working for, in my opinion.”

After tearing down the last board impeding their progress, Caitlyn turned and wagged a finger at Viktor, her expression stern. “So don’t go doing anything dangerous! You’ll get me in trouble with him!”

Viktor snorted, amused by being chastened by a child, but he smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” Dusting off her hands, she regarded the dark opening before them. “Uh, do you have a light?”

“No, but…” Viktor proceeded into the darkness, feeling along the wall until he touched something smooth that gave slightly beneath his prodding fingers. Once again hooking his cane on his arm, he brought his hands together in a clap, and the space filled with a cool blue light, revealing the mushrooms lining the walls. “These grow in the abandoned shafts that still have access to consistent airflow. The spores blow in, and the caps grow in complete darkness.”

“Oh, my…” Eyes wide, Caitlyn gazed at the mushrooms. “They’re so pretty.”

“Yes. The undercity is not without beauty.” Viktor clapped again. “They react to sound, so if you wouldn’t mind…” He gestured at her with his clasped hands. 

“Oh! Of course.” She took up the job of clapping, freeing up his hand for his cane.

Once again, they resumed slow forward progress. Viktor kept his eyes on the ground, careful to avoid tripping over the old rail lines for mine carts. “According to Silco, this tunnel should lead to a door.”

“And that’s where we’ll find the guys holding Jayce?” The light from the mushrooms tinted Caitlyn’s pale skin blue, painting her in monochrome. 

“I hope so,” Viktor said with more hope that he felt. “But our main mission is reconnaissance. We don’t know for certain if they have Jayce, and if they do, we need to locate him before making any moves.”

Regardless, the plan was incredibly risky. A cripple and a teenage girl sneaking into a chembaron’s base of operations and stealing a hostage from under his nose… Even if their infiltration succeeded, they could be barking up the wrong proverbial tree, finding nothing where they had hoped to find Jayce. 

Though illogical, something in Viktor told him he was headed in the right direction. To survive in the Lanes without money, physical prowess, or power, he’d learned to trust his gut. 

“What if we get caught?” Caitlyn glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She almost sounded eager, like she was itching for a fight. He should have checked her for firearms before they left.

“If we get caught, you will run and I…” He sighed. “I will figure something out.”

Caitlyn stopped and whirled to face him, her long ponytail almost slapping him in the face. Scowling, she hissed, “I’m not going to leave you down here.”

Nostrils flaring, Viktor pressed his lips together in displeasure. “Then I suppose we had better not get caught.”

Satisfied for the time being, she took up clapping again, filling the dimming space with blue light.

The further they proceeded into the tunnel, the closer together Caitlyn's claps grew, the mushrooms responding less and less to the sound. As the light around them faded, Viktor reached out to touch the tunnel wall, his fingers brushing against roughly-hewn rock and soft mushroom caps. 

Caitlyn’s claps increased, becoming individual applause, yet they were plunged into darkness. 

“Miss Kiramman?” he said, pausing to lean on the wall and reach out for where he knew her shoulder to be. His hand fell into darkness, meeting nothing. 

Still he could hear her—the clapping. But another pair of hands joined in, then another. No longer individual, the applause crescendoed into a cacophonous tirade that made his ears ring.

“Caitlyn!” he shouted, but his voice drowned in the wave of celebratory claps. 

A blinding light banished the darkness. Flinching away from it, Viktor raised his hand to shield his eyes. Something warm grasped his waist, pulling him in. He recognized the sensation—one both familiar and longed for—and the faint smell of expensive cologne. 

“Jayce?”

Blinking, Viktor looked up into Jayce’s blinding grin. “We did it, Vik!”

Viktor’s eyes roamed away from him, turning forward to gaze across the shadowed forms of an audience. Above them, the banner for the Distinguished Innovators Competition waved, disturbed by the room’s air ventilation. He and Jayce overlooked the audience from a stage, and before them stood a podium. On the podium, a familiar golden cup basked in a spotlight, etched with words he’d never dreamed of reading so close. 

Right, of course. They’d just won. 

A microphone found its way into Jayce’s hands, and he said something, the audience quieting down, but the ringing in Viktor’s ears drowned out whatever got the audience to cheer. There were so many people, more eyes on him than there’d ever been. His stomach rolled. 

Still plastered to him, Jayce held the microphone in front of his face, and he realized he was supposed to say something.

“Th-thank you all for your support. Together, with Hextech, we will make the world a better place.” As he and Jayce bowed, the audience cheered and whooped, seemingly for the sake of it. 

The emcee strode onto the stage, performing her role in wrangling the audience, and a harried production assistant snatched the microphone from Jayce, who continued to beam like the sun. Stunned and uncertain, Viktor let Jayce cart him away from the spotlight, and once they were in the wings, he took a breath for the first time in what felt like hours. 

“Come on, let’s get some air,” Jayce said into his ear, never once letting him go. 

Viktor nodded. He would have agreed to anything if it meant getting away from all those eyes. 

Jayce dragged him out onto a back balcony where the grips and gaffers went to smoke. At the moment, it was empty, allowing Viktor a modicum of peace. 

“You okay?” Jayce peered down at him. 

Viktor bobbed his head in both a nod and a shake. “Eh, not a big fan of—of public speaking.” The nerves of the day had caught up to him, and his body rebelled against the stress. He clutched at Jayce like he was the only tree in a storm, uncaring of how obvious and pathetic it might seem. 

“I do not think I am—” Viktor began, fully intending on completing the sentence until the contents of his stomach decided to make a sudden and unwelcome reappearance. 

With the grace of a cat coughing up a hairball, he curled forward and vomited on his and Jayce’s shoes. 

“Oh, boy,” Jayce said, holding him through it as he coughed and sputtered, tears in his eyes. 

Viktor whimpered, but Jayce just rubbed his back and supported his weight by his arm, murmuring, “It’s okay. You’re okay,” over and over again. 

Once the initial wave of sick had left him, Viktor felt empty but better. “‘M sorry,” he mumbled as Jayce eased him into a rickety wrought iron chair. 

“It’s okay,” Jayce said again. 

Though he was flush with humiliation, Viktor dared to crack open his eyes to witness Jayce’s pity. Instead, he found an open and honest expression on Jayce’s face, something too kind and sweet for a man with vomit-covered shoes, so Viktor closed his eyes again—blinding himself. 

And then someone slapped him. 

Startled, Viktor lurched away, only to find not Jayce but Caitlyn standing in front of him.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” she babbled, gripping him by the shoulders as blue light began to fade around them. “But you were just standing there, and you wouldn’t answer, and I tried to shake you, but—but—”

Viktor took a breath, glancing around her head to find the tunnel continuing on behind her like the open throat of a great beast. 

“It’s alright, Miss Kiramman,” he said, his voice distant to his own ears. “Let’s keep going.”

“But—”

Viktor shook off her hold and stepped past her, ignoring the panic rapidly rising in his chest and the distinct sensation that something was wrong, the animal instinct inside of him trying to claw away from an unseen evil in the dark. Still, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be. The animal would have to be caged, though it howled at him to flee. 

He could not go anywhere but forward. Jayce was waiting for him.