Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Deep within Zaun, in the Sanctum they made their home, two beings eternally connected through the Arcane made forbidden love.

“Viktor…”

Gasping into each other’s mouths, Viktor cupped his creation’s sharp cheek, transmuted metal caressing soft skin that was meant to feel real. Strong devoted hands intertwined their fingers together, pinning their hands against the cotton-warm blanket of the bed.

The face of his long-dead partner in Hextech stared ardently at his creator. Perfectly cut dark hair that never changed even after a year, down to the cut on his eyebrow, and his smile. The only difference was in his crystal blue eyes, illuminated in heavy devotion. The Herald moaned breathlessly and locked his ankles around the other’s waist, keeping their bodies imperceptibly close as his Hexcorized pussy trembled with every deep thrust.

“Jasio…Jas, ah—”

Glowing, the teardrop hex crystal embedded in his creation’s sternum resonated with magic.

When he first felt the crystal’s soul one year ago, in his grief, Viktor nurtured the rune that had once adorned the original’s wrist for most of his life, long before they met. A dormant potential that had been with his partner most of his life, a life that was now gone.

I had no idea. No idea I was alive. Until you found me.

“I love you, Viktor…”

A sob held back by a fervent kiss, against the wave of emotions Viktor felt permeated his transformed body. The body Jayce had forced on him through the Hexcore to save him, when he made the man promise to destroy it after the Shimmer-corrupted matrix almost killed Sky.

Yet he could not condemn Jayce for breaking his promise, when he created Jasio in his likeness, and helplessly fell in love with him as he once did for his best friend. What had always been unrequited, could never have been inherited from his original Jayce, to confess…

Jasio felt Viktor’s cry as he fucked his creator through his orgasm, face pressed to his neck, shooting deep inside with ethereal cum made from magic and said the words again, soft yet true.

“I love you.”

Even when you cannot say it back. Not yet.

Viktor could always feel him, the thoughts and emotions his creation was truly capable of, more than any of his people here in the Commune. Their bond was special, a knot woven by the Arcane that flowed through them, and to connect with Jasio was a blessing. A bastardization of what he had always craved from his partner, who died because of him, from the death he was fated to have, and the life he was never meant to live on.

Tears falling from iridescent eyes, as he closed them in surrender when their lips found each other again tenderly, Viktor couldn’t hold back all that he felt anymore.

How can Jasio, a living rune crystal he made in the shape of his long dead partner, ever love someone like him?

Where did this all begin?

Rapid desperate breaths escaped Jayce, running as fast as he could with his lifeless best friend bleeding out in his arms, to the lab, there had to be something there to save him, there had to — Placing Viktor on cold metal, cradling his head carefully, mouth slightly parted and slack in unconsciousness, not death, he can’t be, he can’t —

Papers of research and notes on Viktor’s transmutated leg, somehow Jayce tried to comprehend them in mere seconds where every moment counted, the blood on his shaking hands staining the parchment —

Then the Hexcore sang, calling to his partner’s body that resonated in answering back, and Jayce’s heart leapt wildly.

It took less than a second for Jayce to break his promise, and rather than destroy the only hope of curing his best friend.

Jayce willingly brought the Hexcore closer as it screeched wildly for its creator, the arcs of purple energy illuminating their lab —

In these crucial seconds, Jayce did not see the Hexcore’s energy slash through him, nor did he feel the rune crystal on his wrist glow urgently, wholly focused on saving Viktor from dying —

In the midst of the chaos, Sky found Mel in what was left of the council room next to her mother coordinating the aftermath of the attack, as she approached them, carefully cradling something. She had never been particularly close with the other councilor, but kind hazel eyes softened in worry and confusion, seeing the visibly distraught assistant.

“Miss Young? What happened to you?” Mel approached her, concerned. Covered in dust, yet helping her people still. Then, her gaze followed to what Sky had cupped hidden in her hands.

“...Where are Jayce and Viktor?”

Mel’s heart dropped listening to Sky, as she revealed with slightly shaking hands, Jayce’s crystal leather bracelet that she had never seen him take off, that could only mean…

“I…went to look for them. To speak with Viktor, after what happened.”

Viktor stared at her despite his state, hand glowing grey and purple after trying to fuse with the Hexcore, that had forcefully pushed her away with magic. His eyes wide at seeing Sky on the ground next to where he had fallen also. How Sky was looking at him not in fear of him, but fear for him, her childhood friend and the man she was deeply inspired by.

“Sky…I…I’m…I’m so sorry…I…” His expression shattered, Sky’s heart racing in adrenaline and empathy as tears fell from them both, taking in the bloodied rune marks all over the other man, alongside his transformed limbs. She was left stunned, taking in the experimentation he did to himself…and realizing that they almost died because of it.

“Viktor…what did you do?”

He tried to answer her, lost and broken in immediate guilt. But what gave away through his sob, was a flash of rage, as he shakily stood up to face the Hexcore, now lined in gold and even more mutated —

His creation screeched, backing away slowly, and Sky tried to stand up as fast as she could to stop him again, what if it hurt him worse —

A shuddering energy passed through his leg and Viktor seized, crashing down on the ground.

“Viktor!”

Then, he curled in on himself, shaking and grasping the edge of the table where the Hexcore continued to resonate. It was clear he needed help, that something was deeply wrong. It hurt her seeing the man like this, and the words she wanted to form, of comfort and the understanding of something she was terrified by, were on the tip of her tongue as she tried to reach out.

But before she could, Viktor looked back at her, making Sky pause. The weight of his exhausted golden gaze made her hesitate. It slid off her, and onto the strewn about clothes and shoes around the lab, his crutch on the ground. She watched him unsteadily pick each abandoned belonging, leaning heavier on the mobility aid (maybe due to being metal now?), and in that time as clumsy as it sounded, she tried.

“I…I don’t know what’s going on, Viktor. Please, what…” Sky bit her lip, not knowing how to phrase it, and took a step towards him, now holding his bundle of clothing like a child in one arm. That made the other scientist pause, and the miserable guilt on his face lessened for a second, then returned. She put a hand on his arm, wanting to work whatever was happening with him.

Yet Viktor pulled away, heading towards the door and farther from the Hexcore, and only mumbled. “I’m sorry, Miss Young. Please, stay away from me.”

Helpless and stricken by what to do, whether to honor her friend’s words or go against them to help, but how she did not know — Sky ended up watching Viktor leave her.

“I’m sorry.”

After recovering, processing her near death experience, Sky cried. She left the lab and the Hexcore with it. Blaming herself for not knowing what to do, or how to feel.

That was when she bumped into someone on her way out of the Academy building, and serendipity happened.

“Sky?”

Lest, in all her beauty and sharpness, realized it was her with surprised and concerned golden eyes.

Her childhood best friend who Sky grew up with. Who studied together with her back in Zaun on botany and herbology, where the vastaya branched out to become a healer. The last time they spoke was when Lest spoke of taking on work with Shimmer, and Sky suppressed the feelings towards her, redirecting them back to her old crush with Viktor.

Altogether, the maelstrom of emotions felt from what happened with Viktor, the familiar warmth of her friend who had always listened to her, made Sky break down in Lest’s confused hug.

They talked in Sky’s home in Piltover, spent the night together, just like they always used to. Lest was there for her, working through what happened. It gave her the strength to find Viktor, talk with the man who inspired her to try just as hard as he did to make the world a better place, and be clear she was there for him, even after. Sky looked everywhere for him, to hear of the attack against the council…only to find Viktor encased in a glowing cocoon…

Surrounded by ashes, and the blue crystal bracelet she recognized belonged to Jayce abandoned near him.

Overwhelmed by death, Sky cried as Mel fell to her knees, uncaring of the dirt that stained her already ruined white dress, and she followed the other woman to the ground, echoing Viktor’s last words to her.

“I’m sorry.”

Mel was the one to tell Ximena Talis, Jayce’s mother, with the help of Sky. She deserved to know what happened to her son, no matter how painful.

The older woman collected the ashes together with them, and only then did Ximena break down in anguish, seeing the state of Viktor in his unknown stasis that Jayce had died for.

It was still a mystery to them what truly happened, but the one inconceivable thing they could see was that in a desperate act of madness, Jayce had fused the Hexcore to Viktor in order to save him.

They took turns watching over the comatose man in his cocoon, as Mel held the fort with a grieving Caitlyn and Vi on handling Piltover while Ambessa hovered over the crisis with Jinx and the undercity. Commissioning a statue of Jayce Talis, Hoskel, Bolbok and Cassandra Kiramman in memoriam. As Sky safeguarded Hextech from those who wanted to claim the powerful magic-recreating technology for themselves. Trying to keep up against the Hexcore’s rune combinations in what it was doing to Viktor. As she reluctantly helped repair the Atlas gauntlets and use Jayce’s hidden designs for a Hextech rifle, in the wake of an attack at the memorial for those lost.

As Ximena buried her son’s ashes in the Talis cemetery, processing her own grief and pain while the world was in chaos outside.

The rune crystal remained in the lab, silently watching over Viktor as well, where Jayce would have been if he were alive.

Ximena, exhausted in the lab on her turn to watch over him, head resting on the crystal bracelet of her son on the table, was sleeping when Viktor came to life, gasping as he escaped from his cocoon.

“...Mrs…Talis…?”

The older woman startled awake, and as she looked back, her eyes widened in shock at the sight of intertwined grey and gold steel where pale skin and bare muscle had been.

“Viktor…my god…”

Where once vibrant gold shone, a swirl of colors in Viktor’s eyes stared back, disoriented and scared, holding onto his crutch that was transforming under his touch. He looked at his hand, breathing quietly, as he asked her.

“What…am I?”

Ximena slowly stood up, not knowing how to answer. “You’re…” Then it hit her, and her heart tore apart again at the thought of how Jayce would react, after what he had done. “You’re alive!” 

A breathless laugh escaped her, and nothing prepared Viktor for the hug she launched at him with a surprised oof.

After what happened, Ambessa had come up to her in the lab to give condolences. She empathized, and Ximena said the same in turn when the Medarda matriarch revealed her vulnerable pain, that she knew what it was like to lose a son. Then, Ambessa asked her, gesturing calmly back then, if she blamed Viktor for killing Jayce through the incident, and if she wished to avenge her child’s death as well.

That was the only time Ximena felt rage, realizing Ambessa never understood her son at all. It would be so easy and simple to hate. But the elder Talis had known Viktor longer than the other woman did, and knew Jayce his whole life. 

Ximena had seen how they were when together, building the dream she thought impossible. How Jayce brightened every time when he talked about his best friend like he hung the stars in the sky. How she invited Viktor over for dinners with them, seeing the affection and soft smiles the brunette gave her son when he wasn’t looking. How Ximena learned later on that he was the one who talked Jayce down from ending his own life.

To her, Viktor was like her second son. It took everything in Ximena to calmly say she did not blame him, and politely asked Ambessa to leave.

In her arms, the newly awakened man made an embarrassed sound as she hugged him tightly, and Ximena pulled away from her thoughts and realized. “Oh!” Decades of being a mother reactivated, and Ximena fretted, seeing his oh goodness — very naked metal state. “You must be cold, dear.”

Going to her son’s old chair, she went to work covering him in Jayce’s old childhood blanket that he liked to bring here on all-nighters. Ximena fondly remembered when he was a young boy, hopping and jumping about his bed with a toy hammer, and said red-blue blanket tied around his neck like a cape.

“You must have so many questions, mijo. It’s been a while since what happened, and oh dear, you must be starving.” Viktor stared at her in quiet confusion as she securely wrapped the blanket around him. “Hot soup would be best with some water, I think. Mel and Sky will be overjoyed to see you awake as well, though I know they’re busy at the moment.” Ximena put the back of her hand gently to the other’s forehead, stray hair pushed away in the movement as she felt for a fever. “How are you feeling?” The Hexcore, as much as she understood it, may have also negatively changed the young man. Perhaps that’s why he felt so cold under her touch?

“...”

Something passed through Viktor’s gaze, looking at something past her shoulder as he remained silent. Ximena knew she had also been sleeping on the blueprints they worked on for Caitlyn and her lovely partner Violet. She frowned, the memory of Sky hating making weapons to be used against her people, and Mel’s struggle in honoring the two scientist’s wants for their work.

Viktor asked her in a quiet voice, and Ximena felt like she had lost her son all over again as her heart dropped to her stomach, remembering the rune crystal bracelet resting on the table, without the man who had worn it every day since he was saved by it.

“Where is Jayce?”

…

“Jayce is…Jayce is gone. I’m sorry, Viktor…He died, saving you.”

Viktor did not leave the lab.

Resting in the darkness wearing nothing but the blanket Ximena gave him. Catatonic, staring emptily. The rune crystal bracelet in the palm of his hand, as he absently rubbed his metal thumb against the stone’s surface, again and again. Heavy rain could be heard outside, yet nothing mattered.

Mel had visited him, tears falling from beautiful eyes as she explained what happened, mourning together the man they cared for deeply. In his numb grief, Viktor did not have the words to tell her of the faint golden aura emanating from her tattoos, or what it could mean.

Sky had visited him, freckled cheeks pale and streaked with tears as she said she forgave him for what he did, and was here for him. They could work together to protect Hextech, honor Jayce through his legacy. He never deserved her as a friend, nor a person to be admired.

Viktor’s last memory of Jayce beside him, smiling as the council voted for Zaun’s independence, for peace between the two cities…The first time they met, as Jayce glared at him in his exploded apartment, while Viktor could not suppress his curiosity and intrigue at the potential of magic written in chalk before him…

“Viktor…”

The Hexcore lived inside his veins, connecting to the Arcane, and haunted him with the memory of his partner, who died because of him.

Ximena visited the catatonic man this morning. Gave him piping hot squash soup and freshly baked bread with tea, concerned he wasn’t eating. He likely did not need to any longer. Viktor only numbly stared past her shoulder, looking at Jayce smiling at him gently while writing something on their chalkboard, saying he had a new idea they could use to stabilize the Hexgates.

“Viktor…Viktor…my partner…” He felt an echo of a weight on his shoulder where Jayce once often liked to touch him, but when Viktor slowly looked to his side, there was no one there. There was nothing left for him here.

He was the one meant to die.

All his pursuits for Hextech, the possibilities of the magic he felt and could explore, to help his people down in the undercity in need…

None of it mattered anymore, in this dreamless solitude he had created.

Then, in his eternal grief, Viktor felt him.

He memorized every etch on the rune crystal’s surface. Distantly, he remembered Jayce’s story of the mage who gifted it to him. What would the mage think, if he ever learned the little boy they had saved that day would only end up dying from the magic they inspired in him. That the man who helped him crack their shared dream, would years on be his undoing.

Lying down on the ground, Viktor slowly blinked, and Jayce was resting in front of him, just like they used to on sleepless nights toiling on the internal machinations of the Hexgates. Cheek smushed against his crystal bracelet, snoring…Waking up, and smiling crookedly at him with bleary eyes and a good morning.

Then he blinked again, and the ghost was gone.

Every moment they shared came back, and what he could have done to save him. To understand why Jayce did what he did. That maybe, the affection that held them together for years despite their divergent paths, should have been severed long ago.

So long as Jayce lived, and Viktor died, like it was always meant to be.

Slowly, he raised the crystal to his eyeline, gazing at the engraved acceleration rune. The foundation of the Hexgates, and one of the most primal runes in the Arcane. For the nth time, his thumb rubbed against the familiar stone…

And to his quiet surprise, the rune faintly gleamed.

In the tomb silent darkness of the lab, the glow passed as soon as it came, with the most imperceptible resonance.

For the first time that night, Viktor sat up, and confused curiosity cut through the haze of depression since he had awoken. He rubbed the metal of his thumb again on the surface, this time more gently, and the rune resonated louder with an otherworldly hum.

Jayce had told him the crystal given by the mage had remained dormant since that day in the snowstorm decades ago. However, the other scientist always theorized that even when drained of all its power, the remnant of something lingered all this time.

This lingering remnant, the proof as the crystal hummed again, that something was alive within. Perhaps they were all alone, like him. After being with Jayce who’d taken care of it so devotedly for as long as Viktor had known, so much so that the leather was worn out from how many times the man rubbed his thumb against the stone in comfort, a soothing habit since he was a child.

Cupping the rune in his hands, and closing his eyes, Viktor concentrated. The fusion of the Hexcore to his body, or as he deemed the terminology to be Hexcorization, had unknowingly granted the vision and connection to the Arcane. A manmade mage, with veins and sinew polluted by metal and magic. It was both daunting and unfamiliar territory, yet in a strange way, it also felt intuitive, as though he had been connected to magic for lifetimes longer. He did not need to utter a word, nor etch any rune combination like they had configured in every iteration in Hextech.

All Viktor did was feel, and channeled his newfound connection into the crystal…To try, to reach out…

As a soft gasp escaped him, feeling the dormant energy within reach back like a warm embrace.

Runes are sacred, ancient and ever-shifting. Wild or created, to be a rune is to be the divine essence of magic that permeates in every universe, the language of the Arcane.

This iteration, a sapphire blue teardrop crystal, engraved with the Acceleration rune of eternal potential of teleportation, did not realize it was alive. It had only felt a strange anomaly course through itself, then it was thrown away. Sacred runes do not feel pain, nor betrayal at being abandoned after being with the man for most of his lifetime.

Its bearer’s dying moments, the desperation it felt, and the unspoken love of defying nature, defying death…

What does death mean, to something eternal like a rune, a constant of the universe? To something that could only feel, remember, and simply be? To understand why a being would go to such lengths, all for another to live?

Time passed when the rune felt metal emanating magic hold it close, and slowly, in constant embrace with the familiar man, they connected.

It felt his sorrow. A grief so deep and inescapable, that had not been released. Of such palpable affection and unspoken love for its bearer, that could now never be said. Unbearable guilt and the remnants of an aching dream, to help those like him, to help his people in need. A catatonic solitude, and a dying will to live.

The innocent rune did not know what it meant, to be alive. But something within it stirred. A recursive impulse.

A potential.

It could help the familiar man formed from magic, just like him. Give him hope, the strength to carry on, and a partner once more. To embrace him warmly against the cold.

He did not know how, but he would try, and be there for him.

“...Hello.”

The resonance hummed, and echoed back its very first word.

“...Hello.”

The crystal’s voice sounded soft, yet familiar. But it was there, and Viktor did not know if grief had finally broken him, to be speaking back to the only thing he had left of his partner.

“You’re alive.”

Innocent confusion coursed through their connection, and the word triggered something within, making the transformed man’s breath hitch —

And through the bond he felt with his dead partner’s rune, Viktor witnessed Jayce’s final moments.

In these crucial seconds, Jayce did not see the Hexcore’s energy slash through him, nor did he feel the rune crystal on his wrist glow urgently, wholly focused on saving Viktor from dying.

The Hexcore escaped from his grasp and merged with Viktor in a deafening explosion of magic, blinding everything.

For the second time that night, Jayce came to the floor, disoriented, not surrounded by smoke and dust with Mel in his arms, but in the deafening silence of their cold lab. Coughing, feeling a pain in his ribs, Jayce grasped by the table, feeling the staff of the Mercury Hammer he’d abandoned for support. Then when the scientist unsteadily stood up, his eyes widened in shock.

What had once been the table where he had placed Viktor faintly glowed, morphed into some kind of cocoon that enveloped his partner’s body except for his face. Hexcore-like patterns and tendrils ever shifted within and on the surface.

Lifeless before, Viktor was now breathing. Slow and shallow, the imperceptible flare of his nose, and the exhale from his lips, like he was sleeping.

But alive.

“...Viktor…?” Breathing hard in contrast to his cocooned partner, Jayce reached out with a slightly shaking left hand to touch the only exposed part of Viktor, wanting to feel the proof that he was alive…

When a sharp pain lanced through his wrist,

“Ahgh!” Clutching his left hand, Jayce seized and cried out, fire torching his nerves. Looking down, the teardrop crystal he’d worn since he was a child dangerously glowed, wisps like Hexcore magic emanating from the stone, and to his shock and horror, began to glitch in duplicates, then an infinite number of iterations, spreading to his arm —

He grit his teeth, and with an agonized shout ripped the bracelet from his wrist to stop the glitching miasma from taking more of him. The crystal bound in leather was thrown away on the ground near Viktor’s side, but the pain only intensified, near paralyzing him —

In pure horror, Jayce could only watch as the fingers of his left hand glitched, and  began to disappear in the wake of ashes, disintegrating his arm like pillars of dust.

Stepping back and bumping into his Mercury Hammer, the glitching grew worse and extended to his weapon, as multiples of himself reaching out for Viktor in his cocoon through the agony, and his life flashed before his eyes, so fast he could only recognize few.

Freezing snow teleported into wildflowers, a butterfly flying away as the mysterious mage who sparked his obsession with magic gave him the acceleration rune that saved him and his mother —

His birthday after returning from the Freljord, his mother’s metal prosthetic fingers at his shoulder as she sang with him, Jayce toothily smiling in excitement, to blow on his magic-themed cake and wish to get mage powers too and save people —

The hollowness he felt, a few inches away from jumping at the top of his ruined apartment, his dream of Hextech dashed to pieces and everyone had turned their backs on him, alone. His suicide letter sealed next to his abandoned crystal bracelet, then —

Floating above the constellations of Heimerdinger’s lab, laughing in exhilaration and wonder as he passed a gear through the glowing orb of their Hextech dream realized, Viktor smiling back at him and floating closer to accept the gear teleported successfully to the other side —

Sleepless nights and every hard day building the Hexgates with Viktor, proving themselves to a world that had been beaten them down again and again, but it didn’t matter when they were together —

His hands shaking as he sat in the corner of the hospital room where Viktor rested, the doctors somberly telling him the condition his partner’s lungs were in due to the Fissures where he grew up, and to prepare themselves for the death that would happen, one day or another —

The blooming partnership he had with Mel, becoming a councilor to protect his family and Hextech, the proud tears in his mom’s eyes morphed into understanding and comfort as she hugged her son —

The horrified disappointed look in Caitlyn’s gaze, asking what happened to him, Vi fighting by his side with the Atlas gauntlets, the child he had killed as the light left his eyes —

“Come with me.” Jayce remembered asking his partner, back in the steel oasis. Golden eyes, gaunt and exhausted, looked at him with equal determination to make things right for both cities, for Zaun and all the ways they failed to do good in the pursuit of great. To make the announcement with him on trading Jinx with Silco for the undercity’s independence, and stand together, that peace is possible.

The painted on shark-like grin of the bomb that destroyed the council room, smiling on as Jayce stared in terrified shock at the sight of Viktor laying in the rubble, unable to comprehend what he was seeing —

Viktor, he needed to be with —

“Viktor—”

An anomaly corrupting reality bloomed in his vision —

Then nothing.

Viktor held the rune crystal, breath shuddering. His vision that had sharpened since his awakening now grew foggy, unfocused.

Less than a few seconds passed experiencing the memory, which confirmed the horrible truth he couldn’t hide from any longer.

Jayce died, because of him.

Because of…

“Viktor…” Unlike the past hallucinations, the voice was real. Feeling out his name, learning it from the memory they now shared.

For all his genius, there were no words he could say. Not even tears, for Viktor hadn’t cried yet since Ximena told him of her son’s death. What was there to say? What would tears do, other than give him the hope of a solace he did not deserve? Viktor felt only a terrible hollow in his chest, that felt endless and visceral. Had there been emotions he could express, that threatened to destroy him in all its agonizing grief…

“What does it mean…to live?”

What does it mean to live? The crystal asked a question Viktor didn’t know how to answer, when his life was a patchwork of existing despite everything. A warm energy gently prodded their connection, to the core of his memories. His own life flashed slightly before his eyes as well, and he let the rune’s curiosity explore his sordid past that eventually overlapped with Jayce’s own.

Mateusz and Jagna, his Papa and Mama, hugging a young Viktor close, singing a native lullaby together as they got ready to sleep for the night in the small shack of their home.

The shack empty and dusty, orphaned like so many down in Zaun.

Rio, trilling as the pixamander accepted more treats from him as a child, the first time he met her and Singed, his toy boat in the elder scientist’s hands. Then just as soon as he’d collected many of the glowing purple flowers even when his leg was straining, running in horror to hug the painfully whimpering creature experimented on by Singed to keep the mutation alive no matter what.

Rising in Piltover as the assistant to the dean of the Academy. Stopping Jayce from killing himself with an understanding gaze, and the simple action of being there for him. Believing in his dream of giving magic to the world, that soon became real and shared as they floated wonderfully above Heimerdinger’s ceiling.

Jayce with him in every sleepless night as they created the Hexgates, every smile and warm touch, and Viktor felt like he was falling, repressing the feelings in his chest for the best and closest friend he has ever had in his whole life —

The blood escaped from Viktor’s coughing lungs and dripping down to the Hexheart, envisioning the Hexcore.

His body eroding while his spirit fought to change his fate, to sacrifice love and legacy for the progress that stagnated under his affection for Jayce that would never be returned —

Guilt and grief that grew at almost killing Sky, trying to make things right, to help give independence to Zaun with his partner, his only good impact on the city he cared for deeply —

The last time he saw Jayce alive, smiling beside him at Mel, as the council room’s grand windows suddenly exploded.

The aching hollowness in his chest tore him from within, and Viktor softly rasped. “I do not know. I do not think I will ever know.”

“...”

It felt like forever passed, reliving memories in the self-made tomb that was the Hextech lab, when the rune crystal spoke back.

“I…I want to live. I want to try and live.”

Viktor stared at the blue stone glowing in hope, that potential. To explore existence, even after seeing all the pain and anguish of his and Jayce’s lives…The joy and happiness, grateful for every moment.

That no matter how agonizing existing can be, no matter the risk of loss, to be alive is to try.

“I want to try, with you.”

Jayce died for him to live. He may still not understand why. But right here, right now, is the choice to honor his partner’s sacrifice, and give life back. And Viktor would rather go through a thousand years of solitude than waste the second chance Jayce had given back to him.

“I want to live, with you.”

For the first time in days, Viktor picked up his transformed crutch, and finally stood up.

First came the eyes. Then came the internal organs, the inner structure shaped by his hands, metal corroding in divine essence, in swirling patterns that solidified in joints and enchanted sinew.

Then, the details. Memorized from years together, of a deep love with every freckle and scar, the cute gap in his front teeth. The way his hands felt, warm and strong. The eyes may be different, yet the same face, the same body…

…

There would be no turning back, if Viktor did this. If he crossed the line. To create as he did before, and yet so completely different…

Jayce…

“Viktor…”

The rune’s voice in his heart, like a warm embrace after lying on the cold floor of his crushing grief…

They could never go back, and that was both the pain and joy of life’s nature.

Viktor softly lifted the once dormant hex crystal from his hold, levitating above his palm. The stagnant air crackled with divine energy, and his eyes glowed like two bright stars —

Hexcorized magic erupted in an explosion of light —

Magic magnetized and pulled towards a rapid whirlwind of energy —

…

Then it was quiet.

…

Eyes, crystalline blue yet soft, slowly opened.

Viktor carefully held his creation’s face as the rune took its first breath, and faintly smiled.

Chapter Text

Crystal blue eyes opened to warm sunlight breaking through the cavern.

A single blink, and in a being that had become sentient and alive, of all the million words, questions or feelings one can think of first in the morning, he only thought of one.

“...Viktor.”

Light not quite from the sun, but from an altogether ethereal energy shone on his face as he reached the doorway, and Jasio shielded his face for a moment. The rune crystal made human stepped out of the Sanctum that was their home, to search for his creator and reason for living, as Jasio simply reached through their Arcane connection to find him.

Jasio.

A name in the Old Zaunite tongue, meaning God’s gift.

I won’t let my trauma waste me or take from me anymore.

“Here…And here.”

In the depths of Zaun, the Commune thrived, as it had day by day.

Viktor, adorned in Jayce’s blanket with his metal-twisted staff in one hand, calmly guided Huck and his new followers as they carried metal and seedlings alike to the beginnings of a greenhouse structure, clanging sounds echoing in the distance from around the cavern slowly coming to life after being buried in the dark for years.

“Where do we dig the well, Herald?”

He raised his finger to point near the greenhouse in construction…

When a warm solid hand intertwined with his own metal sinew, making him blink slightly in surprise, then relax with a fond smile.

“Jasio.”

Something in his chest stirred, complete.

The rune crystal, embedded in the automaton Viktor had created in Jayce’s likeness, tilted his head in quiet curiosity, as he tended to do in this new life. Dressed in a red fabric with blue lining that contrasted his old owner’s blanket, paired with parchment-colored leggings and a looping belt made of recycled gold, Jasio asked his first question of the day.

“...Automaton. What does that mean, Viktor?”

Since the day Viktor created him, Jasio learned and learned and learned, his curiosity for knowledge near endless. Questions of everything from what a fruit was, or the meaning of metamorphosis, or how many dimensions can a polytope have.

Viktor hummed. “A moving mechanical device, made in imitation of a human being. Like you, my Jasio.” And through their intertwined hands did their connection flow to aid his answer.

Like an invisible layer of the past, the memory of his techmaturgical creation Blitzcrank came to the surface, golden and gentle. The sentient automaton he had created in his youth in the early days with Jayce using a hex crystal. Yet unlike Jasio, Blitz was made with a mere shard, and was recycled from an already manufactured golem meant to help clean the undercity’s fatal pollution. It had been some time since they had last seen each other as Blitzcrank pursued their dream of helping Zaun’s wastes, and certainly not since the council attack. A soft frown graced the transformed man’s features, that though he did not know where his creation is now in the undercity, he could only hope they were safe.

The memory of Jayce’s exhilarated smile, his awed expression, at the sight of Blitzcrank extending their hand to say hello.

“Like me…” Jasio stared at their hands together, raised still where Viktor had been pointing. Huck and the other villagers respectfully continued about their business, though not without hiding a few smiles, knowing how their Herald had a deep soft spot for his creation. “Similar, but different, and created by you. A rune as our lifeforce…” Then, he broke out in a toothy awed smile as he breathed. “Incredible.”

The grief that threatened to cloud his mind receded, feeling Jasio’s curiosity bloom into amazement and a further drive to learn, and Viktor lowered their hands, still connected together with a nostalgic smile.

So much senseless pain, healing.

Viktor remembered being in a fugue state, as he arranged the red-blue blanket into a makeshift hood, and walked down the path back to Zaun, returning to his once home. His malformed gold and steel crutch in one hand, and Jasio gently guiding him in the other. Sorrow filled his frown as he walked by so many, starving and poverty-stricken. The very people he sought to help with Hextech, that he never reached. The Sumps, where the destitute and the lowest of the low lived, forgotten by Piltover like a bad memory. How withered and poisoned by Shimmer, Huck and other addicts tried to rob him, only to be healed.

Jasio in the first days was like a puppy, endlessly curious about the world around him and all its unknowns, with Viktor teaching what it means to be human in every small way. Yet sometimes there was an ancient aura emanating from the dormant potential awakened in the automaton, and of discovering abilities that Viktor developed in his own right after being merged with the Hexcore, among many other Hextech capabilities the two had yet to truly explore or identify in.

The android’s head rose, his heightened hearing picking up footsteps approaching them, before relaxing.

“Viktor, there you are!” The Herald turned, and greeted their visitors with a nod and a hug.

“Sky. It is good to see you, and your partner.”

Jasio smiled at their neighbors, glancing at the crate of plant life in her hands. “Hello Sky! How’s progress?”

Fully returned to Zaun, Sky’s curly hair was loose in her bun and seemed to glow with her freckled smile back, with Lest next to her, the purple dressed vastaya nodding in return as she inhaled from her crystal pipe. His former assistant’s old Piltovan clothes had long been replaced with undercity fashion, striped chestnut pants and soft leather boots, alongside a cream colored top layered with an intricately embroidered purple blazer hinted in gold to match her glasses.

“You left, without saying anything! There are people who care about you, Viktor!” A sob, and a defiance that shone in her eyes. “I care.”

It took exactly two days for Sky Young to find her childhood friend back in their old home, after spending said days panicking thinking Viktor had killed himself in his grief. And when she found him, making a new home and using his Hexcore powers to help heal the sick down here, where her blood drained at the sight of Jasio wearing a dead man’s face — She had every right to be angry at him in a mixture of relief and berating the other man for not telling anyone where he went.

His brief disappearance was the last straw for Sky, with the weight of Ambessa trying to take Hextech for her own wars, the horrible treatment Piltover was taking down on their home, and the rekindling love she had for Lest all making her decide for the best that she disappear as well back into Zaun.

There was nothing for them there anymore, and the disappearance of all who could understand Hextech fully were out of reach from those who wished to weaponize it.

Moving in an apartment with her now partner near the Commune, Sky had been doing botanical research of her own alongside Viktor, and would soon be donating plant samples to use for their next projects in the greenhouse to engineer air-purifying flowers and nourishing fruits.

“Here, I have the latest batch!” In Sky’s hands was a wooden crate filled with glass tubes of propagated seedlings and pots with yellow flowers, that she passed down to Jasio. “I think these will work, but I’ll need your help testing them.”

Lest gave a fond snort. “Our little garden balcony will thank you, not to mention our bedroom, and our bathroom, and our kitchen…” Sky kissed her fur-spotted cheek in light apology with a giggle, and Viktor smiled at the exchange, seeing them happy.

“Thank you, Miss Young.”

Jasio grinned, squeezing Viktor’s hand before helping take the crate like it weighed nothing. “I’d like to help, if I can. There’s an empty field we haven’t used yet, we can try planting them there in the meantime.” While the greenhouse was still being built.

Then…the two women shared a silent glance, an unspoken exchange going between them, before Sky smiled again and separated from her.

“Lead the way, Jay—” Sky coughed, clearing her throat awkwardly, before gesturing to the open path of the Commune in progress around them. “—Jasio.”

Barefoot, the automaton didn’t seem to hear the slip-up and led the way, leaving Lest and Viktor alone amidst the greenhouse construction.

Once the two were far away enough, Viktor’s staff shifted as he went closer to the vastaya, lowering his voice in a serious quiet tone when he asked what he always had with every visit.

“...Has Mel been found yet?”

That seemed to deflate Lest, a tension in her brow as she frowned. “...No. Sevika’s looking for her, as is her mother. They think they know who took her, but that’s all I know.”

It was a pleasant yet intriguing surprise to learn about Mel and Sevika, a friend of Lest who was once Silco’s right hand woman. Viktor did not know all the details, only that they had a romantic history before she and Jayce, and that by the vastaya’s musings, Sevika had never stopped loving the golden councilor on opposite ends of politics even after they separated.

Shortly after Viktor and Jasio went down to establish the Commune, there was an attack on Piltover, a colorful explosion of the Grey rerouted back to the upper city, and in all the chaos, Mel had vanished from her office alongside her assistant Elora, without a single trace except for investigations into her mother. It had only emboldened the Noxian warlord to take over Piltover alongside a grieving Caitlyn, and since then the turmoil between the two cities had only gotten worse, with no sign of Jinx either.

Viktor exhaled in quiet worry. He held guilt that Mel went missing around the time he left, and that he had been too lost in grief to help alleviate all that she was going through. He wasn’t the only one to lose…and she handled the weight of everything on her shoulders with loss after loss and pain after pain compounding on each other. And with Mel gone, her mother’s desperation grew and Piltover was no longer a safe place for their people.

It is why the only way Sky could contact Ximena was through letters, telling her with relief that they were safe and had found Viktor (Though did not have the heart or ability to explain Jasio yet to her). Guilt deepened in his Hexcorized heart, after everything she did for him, all while mourning the death of…

There had been a string of strange disappearances lately, a continued pattern throughout both cities. Mel. Elora. Heimerdinger. One of the resistance groups prevalent here in Zaun, whose leader also appeared to have vanished into thin air. Whether it could be blamed on all the chaos happening above, or something else unknown entirely…

A thinly clawed yet soft hand laid on his shoulder, and Viktor felt Lest’s worry for Mel mirrored in him. Her memories flashed for a moment, of kissing golden tattooed skin and silvery blue scars, of freckled warm skin cuddled close to her in a plant-filled and crystal adorned apartment. Then they were gone as soon as they came, and the Hexcorized man breathed, assuring the vastaya to the best of his abilities.

“We will find her, and alive. Have faith, and we will.”

Lest pulled her hand away, sighing deeply with a nod. “I do.”

A second of silence passed. Viktor could tell there was something else on her mind, and his patience was rewarded when she spoke up again, taking an inhale from her crystal pipe.

“Salo’s not said anything either. He’s been getting more…” She waved the pipe, and a trail of purple smoke wafted in the air. “...depressed. More reliant on Shimmer ink cocktails and asking to see me weekly.”

In what felt like a lifetime ago, Viktor remembered how the once snooty councilor shouted at him to get out, when he announced to the council of Jayce’s deal with Silco for Zaun’s independence. He had heard of Salo’s inability to walk due to the explosion from Mel, and knew what it was like to suffer when your own body is against you…Jayce was not the only victim of the attack back then, and if there is a way to alleviate his pain, past or no…

“I would welcome him into the Commune.” He leveled his rainbow chromatic eyes to feline gold, who pursed her lips in hesitance, and in turn the Herald gave a hint of a smile. “I’m sure his favored healer could give a recommendation.”

That made Lest huff, purple smoke flitting away at her breath, then a nod. “I’ll try.” Tall velvet ears flicked, and the vastaya stood up straighter as she brought one hand to reach inside a side pouch of her dress.

“One more thing. I got this for your little robot boyfriend.”

Viktor’s eyes brightened in interest, as Lest handed over a leather-bound book, weathered with age and the scent of old paper. Prince of Key, from an island far away. An unfamiliar tale, but one that promised an adventure. “Sky picked it out. Said he goes through these like a sponge with water.” That made his smile become more genuine, and thanked her.

“Thank you.”

Jasio loved books, from childhood fairy tales to murder mysteries, romantic dramas to academic research. A rarity in Zaun, but a growing collection donated by the community with the little they had. It had become a small quaint library, with a few squashed old chairs given new life for those who wished to peruse its contents. If his partner was not by his side, often did Viktor find him tucked in one of said chairs, intently flipping through pages reading in a near inhuman speed with such a familiar focused expression.

Your boyfriend.

Lest’s last word then fully hit Viktor, and his expression smoothed out as he clarified, calm and without emotion.

“Jasio is my partner, and nothing more.”

Metamorphosis. “A change of physical form, structure, or substance especially by supernatural means. The metamorphosis of humans into animals. A striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances.”

Jasio tilted his head, squatting low to the dirt where one of the flower samples held a small cocoon upon one of its branches.

With one curious finger he touched the fragile shell, feeling the life inside.

But the second they made contact, the cocoon shuddered, cracked open from within, aging at an impossible heightened speed —

Candlelight pale wings, translucent and unimaginably fragile made contact with the world, and fluttered.

The automaton stared, watching the being beat its newfound wings rapidly, with a curious expression that did not understand mortality yet.

Sky warily watched the whole quiet exchange, the both of them distracted from their work planting the yellow air-purifying flowers in the expanse of barren land outside the Commune. She realized that this was the first time she was fully alone with Jasio, Viktor being busy with her partner.

Time acceleration, she quietly noted in her head. She’d been keeping a mental list of the abilities noted of Jasio, which surpassed her expectations of what the Hexcore can do when enhancing a body (or more like a body made entirely through Hextech by Viktor).

Speed, inhumanly so to the point Jasio blurred when reaching one room to another. Eidetic memory and speed reading, when Sky saw him tucked into the Commune’s makeshift library flipping pages intently on an old thick novel like it was a children’s picture book, and finishing in just a couple minutes. Enhanced strength, able to pick up impossibly heavy scrap steel and forgotten debris down here like they weighed nothing. Floating, a shared ability he had with Viktor, making her blush remembering seeing them float together in the Sanctum, in the embrace of sleep as they laid in the air.

Then finally…Teleportation. The ability, just like the Hexgates, to travel through space in the blink of an eye, with no limit to the distance. Just a mere thought and desire, and Jasio could teleport from Zaun to Piltover in a second. Sky expected it would show one day, with Jasio being an Acceleration Rune, the foundation of Hextech. The first ever prototype of the Hexgates teleportation function was made through mimicking it, so it wouldn’t surprise her that the automaton was able to.

It still amazes her to think that Viktor created Jasio, this android in Jayce’s likeness powered by Hextech, and made from grief.

Grief is a sign of love persevering, of love with nowhere to go.

Jasio’s crystalline eyes caught in the warm light that emanated somehow from the once dark cavern, staring in wonder as the butterfly he helped hatch landed on his forehead, then calmly flew away.

Sky hid it, but Jasio did scare her a little.

Viktor found Jasio endearing, yet to her something just felt…off. He looked exactly like someone meant to be dead. Why make the rune crystal in the likeness of Jayce? And to breathe like a human, speak like one, blink like one. Heck even ate like one, by his love for the new Hex fruits they’d been able to grow down here. Lest in private said Jasio smelled like wild lightning. Something unnameable of nature that was never meant to ever really be tamed or kept in a physical form.

She met Blitzcrank once, and the sentient golem while endearing and clearly had a closeness with Viktor, was miles different from Jasio in both make and raw power. To her, Blitzcrank viewed Viktor as a parental figure. How Jasio saw the other man, who in all essence seemed to be his entire world…

“Miss Young?”

The gentle voice next to her spoke, and startled Sky out of her thoughts.  “Yes, Jasio?”

“...Do you remember Jayce?”

That made her blink, at the sudden question. “...Why do you ask?”

He furrowed his eyebrows, and unconsciously played with a delicate leaf  of the latest plant dug into the earth between his fingers.

“Viktor thinks of him. Remembered him, a while ago.” Telepathic bond, Sky offhandedly noted down, but continued listening to the thinking automaton. “...He thinks of him often.” He paused, then quietly murmured.

“My only memories are of his death, saving Viktor.”

Sky felt her heart drop in her stomach, and she turned her head away slightly.

Viktor had told her in a moment of vulnerability, eyes distant. The mystery of Jayce’s actions that day finally solved, and yet the pain remained, and somehow grew worse knowing the real reason why.

“I remember Jayce.” She gently started, memories resurfacing. “He was my friend, and my boss.” A nostalgic smile escaped, at the memory of when they first met, Viktor introducing his childhood friend to his lab partner in their need for an assistant. “Jayce was a genius, and kind-hearted. A little awkward, did his best with people.” Sky chuckled, confiding in a curious Jasio. “I used to silently think of him as a rival for Viktor, when I had a crush on him. It’s a bit silly, when I think back on it now.”

She remembered how Jayce and Viktor looked at their partner when the other didn’t notice, and sighed, her smile turning sad.

“Him and Viktor talked in that way all the time, like being with each other was the most exciting thing in the world.”

Sky remembered the suicide watch for the transformed man, between her, Mel and Ximena. At this time, Viktor barely ate or drank water. He hardly spoke, and when he did it was quiet. Just hollowly staring at the darkness of the lab, never letting go of his dead partner’s rune bracelet.

Honestly, Sky didn’t know how long they could have kept it up. Her rekindled relationship with Lest clashed with Hextech being used against their people, Mel was hard at work with Elora investigating her mother, and Mrs. Ximena looked like she was already mourning him. Said she was similar when her husband died, and it was only a young Jayce with the support of her family that brought her out of the grief of losing her loved one.

But no matter what they tried, they weren’t Jayce.

She’d known this, long ago. Sky had harbored a crush on Viktor for so long, how everything he did inspired her, to be an amazing compassionate scientist just like him, when she joined them as their assistant. But over the years, she had to have been blind and deaf to not see how Viktor looked and talked to Jayce. She only realized later on, it was quite like how she and Lest talked when they were young, bright and a language of their own. Swallowing the heaviness in her throat at the thought of losing Lest the same way, Sky only hoped that Viktor’s remaining ties to this world, with his and Jayce’s legacy in Hextech, gave him enough reason to keep going.

And in a way, her hopes were answered. Just not in the way she could have ever expected.

Sky turned to Jasio, and gave him a question of her own. “What would you do, Jasio, if Viktor dies?”

That made Jasio frown, confused. “I don’t understand.” That made her chest squeeze. To the automaton, whose life had never experienced danger nor pain, nor fear of death, for himself or his loved ones around him…

A curl fell from her bun, and Sky tucked it behind her ear to now fully face him, as the face of a dead man stared at her back, not realizing Viktor was meant to die long ago. “Jayce sacrificed himself because Viktor was in danger. He almost died, until Jayce used the Hexcore to save him.” Sky patiently explained. “I don’t know if you’ll die, but…”

The one thing she feared, that she could not control nor help with, is the eventuality that Viktor would die one day, and leave Jasio to face the world. When they would all age and be dead in the future, and the Hextech automaton would still be here…alone.

Handing Jasio a seedling to plant, Sky caressed the fragile leaves, the delicate yellow petals, and stated gently. “Death is part of life. Plants live, and thrive, and they die too.”

And Jasio, with all his curiosity and newfound knowledge, and this idyllic life he was building with his creator, needed to start thinking about it now, or Sky fears grief will destroy him, the way it almost did to Viktor.

A moment of silence, Jasio holding the seedling in his hands, as it blossomed under his touch, when he finally answered, and Sky couldn’t blame him for his response.

“…I…I don’t know.”

What would you do, Jasio, if Viktor dies?

Deep in the darkest hours of the night, in their Sanctum, the automaton watched as Viktor slept in his arms, resting after a hard day’s work, all the while pondering Sky’s question.

The life Viktor had given him, this real one rather than being a sentient passive piece of rock for millenia, would live on, with or without his creator.

His palm subconsciously had made its way to the center of Viktor’s chest, on top of the blue-red fabric of his robes, feeling his creator’s heartbeat through metal sinew. Deep in slumber, Viktor breathed out a quiet exhale, relaxing as his own hand reached to curl around Jasio’s.

Oh.

“...”

Jasio felt helpless, with the weight of everything. The sudden need to awaken his world, and plead for the answer.

Viktor, what is love?

What does it mean, to love? To protect?

Slumber, in every sense of the word that the rune android could sleep, took him before Jasio could ask the final question that terrified him to his very core.

What will I do one day, when you die, and I wish to be with you again?

Jasio dreamt that night, in what he believed to be his first dream, not realizing it to be his first memory.

The warmth of skin on stone, being roughly hewn into the shape of a teardrop. He felt no pain as the symbol of an Acceleration rune was etched into him, as Jasio did not know the meaning of pain eons ago.

Magic surged into the newly engraved crystal, and Jasio could only stare in awe at his god. Iridescent eyes, a faded hood, and a greying beard with a gentle smile filled with hidden pain.

How can I live without you, when I’ve known you all my life?

Months after, when Viktor was expecting visitors that would challenge everything, did Jasio continue to ponder his answer to Sky’s question. Days and weeks growing ever closer to his partner, and learning what it means to be human.

Jasio went with Viktor to greet the new arrivals, two daughters and a young child bringing their father transformed beyond recognition, whose psyche was lost inside the mind of a beast. One scented of iron, the other of magic electricity, and the smallest smelling of chemicals.

“We hear you can heal people.”

Who seemed to be the eldest, pink hair hiddenly streaked black with silently desperate blue eyes addressed the Herald, seeing him first. Through their connection, Jasio could feel Viktor’s faint recognition of her, but nothing more. He could feel what his partner wished to do next, to place his fingertips upon the transformed father’s forehead and seek out the man within…

…When the eldest finally looked at Jasio, wearing a dead man’s face, and she sharply gasped.

And Vi’s reaction was what one would normally react like.

“What, in the actual fu—”