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[beautifulimperfection]

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The Lab

[beautifulimperfection]

Jayce has almost forgotten about the pain in his body from the multiple slashes he got at the memorial. There's blood still on the bandages wrapped around him but half the time all he can do is stare at Viktor and wait. The Hexcore, whatever it was doing, has had him in stasis since the attack. He left the lab only to make the Hextech weapons for Caitlyn, and the entire time he still only could think about Viktor. In that case, how disappointed he would be with him for agreeing to her request. He thought the hammer would be the only one, that he would decommission it as soon as possible, putting to bed the danger it represented. Now it's out there, doing whatever Cait needs it to.

Jayce is aware that it was the wrong thing to do but it also felt like the only thing to do. And that way of thinking is also why Viktor is in that cocoon or whatever it is, because some part of him knew the Hexcore was wrong, but he had to save Viktor. In the shock of the attack, seeing his body in the rubble was too much for Jayce. He doesn't know the consequences yet but it would take a lot to convince him it was anything but the right choice. Viktor is still alive. That's all he cares about.

He has passed out because he has been non-stop for days now, even with his enormous energy and strength he's still human, in a deep sleep until he hears a voice he was afraid he'd only hear again in his dreams. For a moment it feels like a dream as he blinks and shakes off sleep, his gaze shooting over to Viktor when he turns. And it seems like something of a horror at first glance, what Viktor's become, how he looks now, as vastly different from his frail form as he remembers. But he is standing. He is moving. His face is the same.

"You're alive." He says after a moment of hysterical laughter and then he pulls Viktor into a desperate hug. His own pain forgotten, every miserable moment since the attack left aside, and he only exists in this minute. With Viktor in his arms, even if he feels cold to the touch. Viktor's hand touches him back and right then this entire world could fade into the background and Jayce wouldn't care. He has his partner back.

looks perfect tysm!

[slutwaist]

That is definitely not the answer Viktor expected to what am I? Not spoken with such desperate and earnest relief. Then, even more to Viktor's surprise, he's hugged. Excitable as always, that's the Jayce he knows so well. Viktor's hand falls softly over the man's back as he notices bandages. Blood seeped through, meaning they were fresh. Having no sense of lost time, Viktor can only presume Jayce was also injured in the rocket blast. That he is so much in one piece does seem like a miracle.

As for the miracle that has saved Viktor...

"I was supposed to die," he states, sooner than Jayce can become concerned over him being cold. His fingers dig into the soft and uninjured portion of the man's back, holding him in place. He realizes he doesn't know his own strength, the feeling of touch... not gone, but altered. Emotions feel the same, but he cannot parse if that is purely from shock. What is the appropriate emotion for this scenario? There cannot be one, can there?

Sadness, regret, disgust...

His fingers are going to bruise Jayce if he doesn't ease up.

Anger.

His hand slips away, slumps at his side. The other remains clutching the crutch Jayce made for him so long ago. Viktor's cane... it had broken when they blocked the door with it. An apology gift, in the Talis colors, forged just for him. And it is ruined, just like that. Twisted beyond recognition, by mere proximity to Viktor. He pulls away from Jayce abruptly, wanting distance out of caution. Not wanting the same corruption to spread to the man embracing him so eagerly.

[beautifulimperfection]

Jayce clings to him like Viktor is the only raft in an endless restless sea. The one good thing that has happened in so long. He couldn't do anything right for a long time now, but he saved Viktor. That means everything to him. Viktor feels different against his skin, he's not made of any himself, and he did see how different he looked, but it's just not something he can cope with yet. All he wants to feel is this relief because it means he didn't lose the person who matters most to him. The only one he's ever loved, something incredibly obvious to him now on the other side of the near-death experience.

He would probably keep holding Viktor forever if he didn't slump away and Jayce allows it because he knows Viktor doesn't like physical contact as much as he does. He's always been warm and close and took advantage of touching Viktor whenever he was allowed. Just gestures of a hand on his shoulder or his back, trying to tell him with gestures that he cared, when precise words failed him.

"No. No, the Hexcore, it saved you." Viktor didn't have to die. He did find the answer through the Hexcore like they had both hoped. Jayce wasn't there enough for him toward the end there, so he could make up for it now, he could give Viktor everything he deserved. It was all going to change now. "I took as many notes as I could for when you came back." Because Jayce had to believe that he would, he was too panicked otherwise. "I found your notes on your leg so I tried to thread the two together. Obviously we'll know better now that you're awake."

Viktor can now say out loud how he feels and what the Hexcore did and they can take all the notes and put them together. A project, just for the two of them, like it used to be. He feels a pulse of adrenaline as he talks, almost a streak of hysteria in it, due to being excited this worked out. It's been trauma after trauma lately, he needs this.

"I know I didn't do what I promised but Viktor, I couldn't. Half of the council is dead, I saw you there and I ... couldn't." Jayce was in the moment and he wasn't thinking, he wasn't capable of rationality. He lost his mind entirely and now it seems like maybe it was the right thing in the end. He doesn't know what's right or wrong anymore. He's been mixing them all up these days.

[slutwaist]

"You could," Viktor corrects, firmly, his lucidity beginning to take full focus. There is always a choice, he nearly repeats, but it rolls back in his throat, a hollow echo of no real resonance. Jayce didn't listen to him the first time he said it. He wouldn't hear it now. He winces as an electrical spark shoots through him, one of many random jolts and arches of energy. Aftershocks. They are... discomforting, rather than painful.

For the first time he realizes that hurt isn't something he's feeling. This new body fresh, powerful, and so alien to him.

"I didn't want this. The Hexcore-" he closes both eyes, centering turbulent emotions, there is a storm within him and it is more desperate to rage than ever before. Fury need be tempered.

"-Heimerdinger was right, Jayce. This magic consumes everything it touches. It needed to be destroyed. So. What... does that mean for me?" Either he's doomed to wither, half-lived like their experiments... or he is now a force of devastation made manifest.

[beautifulimperfection]

Jayce opens his mouth to argue but then closes it. Of course he could, technically. But he was never going to. He would have destroyed the Hexcore as Viktor requested if the worse hadn't happened to the Council, when he was faced with Viktor's broken body and the immediacy of his death. "I had to," he says hollowly. He doesn't know who he did it for. For both of them? Viktor told him to let him die and if it was a slow but eventual death, he would have allowed that. It was different in the moment.

He steps away from Viktor and sits down heavily. Heimerdinger can't be right about this. All his warnings were wrong, right? "It didn't consume you, it healed you." Viktor's proof of that right now, the damage done to his body from the attack and from his illness is gone. He clings to the notes like a lifeline. It's difficult to tell himself he did the right thing when Viktor is now burdened with being permanently combined with something he wanted destroyed. There's no going backward on his choice.

"You're ... you. It's still you. Maybe the Hexcore was destructive but you aren't. Maybe you can use its power now for good." Jayce needs to believe that this can be good. That he didn't just mutilate and torture his best friend because of his own selfishness, because this can be worked out, it has to be. "We can go over the notes."

[slutwaist]

He's still him... yes. Viktor can tell this, he feels his interiority well intact. Even if the shell around him is different, his self is the same.

Or, rather, going through a natural metamorphosis. As any would when faced with reckoning with such a drastic change. He looks to his hand and rolls his fingers, turns his wrist over to see both sides. Shimmer purple. Metal. Flesh that looks more like raw tendons. Energy glowing and pulsing beneath rather than the flow of veins and blood. The whole rest of his body much the same, a naked display of magic. Viktor isn't the type to feel shyness over, only fascination as a hand trails his own chest, feeling along the ridges of where his back brace seems to have fused into and fortified his ribs cage.

"I'm afraid... you are still the only one who will see me for who I am, Jayce."

The still is important. It had been a lifetime of people underestimating, looking down on, and pitying Viktor. He ignored it, did not let it deter him from his pursuits. All he had needed was belief in himself. Then, he had Jayce, who saw beneath the exterior factors and circumstance, to who Viktor really was. Only Jayce understood with full faith, seeing Viktor as a brilliant mind and a good soul. Now, what will others believe he is? A monster? Dangerous?

A weapon?

"A constant in a sea of variables." He mutters, still speaking of Jayce. He is reliable, when everything else swirls out of control. At least, Viktor would believe so, if he hadn't had his wishes betrayed.

"Until now..." It stings something in him to consider that no, even Jayce is a messy, wild, inconsistency. Looking again to the crutch, it has twisted fully into something else, more a staff. Riddled with natural pattern, than the precisely measured and crafted, man made implement it was before.

"... I don't think... I should touch anything here,"

[beautifulimperfection]

Jayce now really does look at him. Fully. He isn't horrified by what he sees, he's only fascinated by it. The metal, the glow and pulse of magic within him, the complete reconfiguration of his form. It's still him but it's not, physically at least. In a way, it's beautiful to him. Magic in a form that he could never imagine, the combination of magic and technology in the way they always dreamed about, but it wasn't a choice for Viktor. This wasn't designed by him, not like the leg.

"I don't care what other people think of you, I never have." Jayce only cared what they thought about him. It's one of his greatest weaknesses and he's never been able to get past it, or grow over it. He just lets it weigh him down, make him compromise and twist around to suit what other people need of him. He's always admired Viktor's ability to be himself wholly.

He feels like his heart shatters with the way Viktor says until now and it's there plain on his face and in his eyes. "No," he whispers, horrified. "I still am. I'm still your constant." Isn't he? How could he not be? If he's not that for Viktor, he doesn't know what he is. He moves off the chair and reaches out to touch his shoulder, cupping Viktor's cheek, clinging a little.

"So we'll go. I'm done with the Council, I'm done with ... let's just go. We'll study on our own."

[slutwaist]

He hates that horrified tone in Jayce's voice. It is clear he's so scared, so distressed. Viktor feels an emptiness forming in him, like a pit in his core, but that tone still shakes him with emotion. He cannot deny he feels so terribly for Jayce, as he had for Sky-

He's reached towards and looks back at Jayce with terrible guilt. Pushing him away would be better, to protect the man from whatever Viktor now is. He's changed and is now influencing what is around him. Viktor doesn't push him, though, he just... hangs his head and tips his forehead into Jayce's shoulder. Though defeat is sinking in him like a stone, he confesses,

"It killed Sky, Jayce... she only wished to save me," his voice shakes, grief stricken and burdened by what could very well repeat, "I cannot take you down with me. Not you, too... Not everything we built."

[beautifulimperfection]

Jayce is barely holding on by a thread at this point. The traumas have been adding up recently and he's in pain and highly emotional at the moment. The loss of Viktor at this point could break him. It is why he clings more than he might have in the past. When Viktor's forehead touches his shoulder, he immediately runs his fingers into Viktor's hair, holding him there. Jayce is the one who typically initiates physical closeness between the two of them, respecting Viktor's boundaries, but it makes him feel better to have him near.

He doesn't know how to react to that news right away. Sky is a friend. She's been an amazing assistant, and while she was closer with Viktor, he respected and admired her mind. They got along well when they did engage. To hear she's dead is a shock. That the Hexcore did it is an extra layer of it. Would he still have done this to Viktor if he knew? Probably. That's just the reality. He would do anything for Viktor. He can't be trusted to make logical choices when driven by so much emotion.

Jayce puts an arm around Viktor's waist, doing the opposite of pulling away, not when he has Viktor willingly close to him. He feeds off it, needy to a fault. But Viktor needs reassurance. "Nothing you can say can push me away." Nothing Viktor can do or be or appear as would do that, at least not now. "I'm sorry about Sky, but it's all the more reason for us to stay together. We can't stop now."

[slutwaist]

"Our paths diverged, Jayce," Viktor says, about to continue on that train of morose thought, but then... Jayce grabs him by the waist to hold close. A short gasp would escape Viktor, but there's no air in his... lungs?

Does he still have lungs? His body is so different. He was so used to... feeling the aches and pains in so much of him. Lungs, back, hip, down his leg. Now he feels so little. So little, save for Jayce's touch and warmth against him. That's a sensation he cannot deny. It sends sparks through him, makes his body whir like some overworked machine.

The arm not hold his crutch snakes upward between their bodies, loops over Jayce's shoulder on his uninjured side, and cradles the back of the man's hair. Viktor should have held Jayce more often, when things were not so dire? Why hadn't he..? To avoid complications? To not break the man's heart in an even more complex and difficult way when Viktor died?

So much for keeping things clean and simple.

"... so much sunk cost," he mutters, not wanting to sink Jayce, all they build, all their dreams, but... there's no other way, is there? Viktor can see all the ruin they've caused, but he cannot see the fallacy in continuing. All he knows is he doesn't want to lose Jayce, too. He would rather lose himself, than that.

"We need to leave this place, walk a new path." Perhaps it can be one together, if Jayce will come with him? Viktor's hands falls away from the back of Jayce's hair, fingers pulling forward and resting his palm flat to Jayce's heart. His racing heart. No wonder he's so warm.

"There is no explaining, nor justifying, what we've done here." What he did to Sky or what Jayce did to him. Nobody will understand. Nobody should.

[beautifulimperfection]

"No," he whispers harshly, shaking his head. "I ... I lost my way, I made mistakes, I know that, but it led back to you. It always leads back to you." Their paths diverged because Jayce stepped off and went into the path of politics, fed by the attention and glory, and his urge to fix things in any way he could. But instead he made things worse. He wasn't meant for that and it never fit, it felt wrong from the start. Yet he was boxed in, he was manipulated by Mel and Heimerdinger, well-meaning though they were (mostly) by putting him into power. The idea of them diverging, of him no longer being with Viktor, is too much.

Viktor only holds him closer so he must not mean it, and they're closely intertwined now, touching in ways they never fully allowed themselves to be before. Why, he doesn't know. They probably had reasons but he can't think of any right then that made sense. His fear of losing Viktor defined his existence recently, everything else seemed so unimportant next to it. Now he has him. He's not letting him go.

He puts his hand over Viktor's on his chest, his heart racing, wondering why it took so long to be so clear about what he needed. There are reasons he should stay. He has responsibilities. But Jayce lifts his head to look at Viktor's face and he knows nothing else matters. "I don't care where we go as long as it's together." Jayce will leave it all behind. Viktor's eyes are a different color now, his body has morphed because of Jayce's actions, but he still sees his partner clearly there.

"I love you. I can't believe I've never said it. I love you. Please don't leave me."

me, laughing "sorry, he got real mad"

[slutwaist]

What a confession to hear now. Of all times. Of all places? No, the place feels like it is correct. The lab. If ever Jayce were to say "I love you" it would be in the lab... Viktor normally would have denied him, told Jayce he was just having a panic response. He doesn't say anything, because there is too much earnestness for even him to dismiss it out of hand. That look in Jayce's eyes, he's a man desperate in the way only such pure and true devotion causes.

Why does that feel worse to reckon with?

Viktor's fingers roll beneath the hand Jayce pinned them with, not fighting him, moving curiously. It feels... like he could reach right through Jayce's chest cavity and clutch around the man's heart. Whether through raw strength now coursing through him... or magic or the emotional hold he has on Jayce. A disturbing potential Viktor's mind now contends to have. Whether he intended to or not, he's been given Jayce's heart.

Such a responsibility... he didn't ask for any of this. It's too much. It's too overwhelming. He is going to hurt Jayce.

Better to burn him now, so he doesn't reach for the fire again. And oh, how Viktor feel like he's radiating.

"That's why?" Viktor sounds angry, his soft spoken tone warping around strange, mechanical tones, "Such selfishness, Jayce. All your caution, all your restraint, all your broken promises- for what? To spare yourself the heartache of an... unspoken, untested love!?"

Viktor pushes his fingers into Jayce's skin. It will immediately feel painful, like he'll puncture right through the man's clothing, flesh, muscle, and then breastbone if Jayce refuses to flinch. For once, Viktor's feet are the ones more firmly and unyielding planted, his form locked into place like he may as well be welded to a floor. Jayce should be more afraid of what he did here, is what Viktor is really trying to demonstrate.

Jayce should definitely... let him go.

jayce is a sad kicked puppy rn

[beautifulimperfection]

The pressure on his chest down lead to him flinching because he's already in pain from multiple slash injuries. It might not seem obvious given they're wrapped and he's ignoring it, but a push like that only makes him more aware of his aching body. He lets Viktor go as it seems that's what he wants but he doesn't back away, he just lets his hands drop on either side of himself.

The look he gives Viktor is pure pain, full of undeniable hurt. Viktor may as well have pushed his hand into his chest and ripped out his heart. He can't deny the words he's saying. It was selfish. He is selfish. He is weak. He broke promises and lost his head and he couldn't let Viktor go when he should have. Because he loves him, he damned him. His expressive eyes and face tell the story of the guilt and pain pointing that out causes him and he can't bear to look at him, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"Yes," he whispers, broken. "That's why." Viktor is angry and disappointed in him and he deserves it. His own love may be pure and genuine but it is far from unselfish. And he can't claim Viktor's heart back, not after all that he's done. He isn't owed Viktor's love nor does he probably deserve it. There are tears shimmering in his eyes, held onto long lashes as he looks down dejected.

"I'm sorry." It's quiet. He's ashamed. "I've done a lot I'm not proud of. Things ... you couldn't forgive. And this is one of them." Viktor doesn't know about all his bad decisions lately, he was too horrified to tell him. Jayce is weighted down, shoulders slumped, with all the ways in which he's failed.

drop kicks that puppy straight into his divorce era

[slutwaist]

There is a terrible impulse in Viktor to literally do just that. To reach into Jayce and just tear his heart right own. It might even be a mercy, given how absolutely destroyed Jayce appears at this moment. The impulse fades, the crueler feeling being that of coldness, the only kind Viktor can feel about now. He curls his fingers away from Jayce and severs their connection there. A connection he didn't realize was more than skin deep, leaving marks behind. Next Jayce changes his bandages, he's find four, glittering fingerprints forever impressed over his heart.

Viktor can't help in leaving Jayce marred by the memory of him.

"It was affection, which held us together..." emphasis on the past tense, "... goodbye, Jayce."

He can't help losing his anger and saying his farewell with all the tenderness of a bruise. Viktor moves to leave, grabbing the blanket they kept in the lab off a nearby chair. How often they both used that over the years. How many times had Jayce put it over Viktor when he fell asleep at the desk..? It should be all he takes with him, that and the twisted remains of his crutch. He shrugs the blanket over his shoulders and then head. Better nobody recognize him as he leaves. The fewer questions to what had occurred here, the better.

[beautifulimperfection]

Only moments before Viktor was touching him, was allowing him to be close and intimate and do the same, so to use past tense like that feels like a real slap in the face. Jayce thinks maybe he's trying to hurt him on purpose, and maybe he should do that, given what Jayce has done to him and his body, and his free will and autonomy. He may as well be bleeding out at the moment from the way he feels and he puts his hand over his heart, where those fingers reside.

"Where are you going? Viktor, you can't just walk away. We need to figure this out together." This can't just be a goodbye. Jayce isn't going to let him go without a peep, he has to at least struggle to try and stop that from happening. Viktor's angry at him but he's logical too, and they have notes, they are scientists, he shouldn't do this alone. "I know I messed up, at least let me try to ...." Fix it? There is no fixing it. He struggles for words but he follows Viktor a few steps, not simply letting him go.

He reaches out toward him but stops before he touches, letting his hand drop away instead. He has no right to do that right now. And Viktor shouldn't be forced to stay, he'd not appreciate that. Jayce feels painful on the inside and the outside right now, it's not a great time. He is only a few feet away from him though, not willing to shut up quite yet. "Viktor. Please."

[slutwaist]

Viktor turns fully away from Jayce, hesitating in his exit only to hear the man's last remarks. A demand for knowledge and then desperate pleas. His heart feels numb from betrayal and bitter as a sudden snowstorm. If he stays or allows Jayce to come with him, Viktor knows it will be the end of the man. Jayce has no tolerance for the cold... and it would be cruel to make him suffer the chill of how Viktor feels towards him.

"Let me go, Jayce. I will be where I should have stayed," he answers, firm and determined as he always was, that steeliness of his will unchanged, "the Undercity. My purpose... is in Zaun."

His feet carry him forward, away from Jayce and all the made together, not able to stay a moment longer. Perhaps there is some salvation for him down below, where he was born, where he was forged. He won't tell Jayce where to find him. Viktor doesn't even know where that will be, precisely. It is something he needs to discover for himself, build with his own hands.

If their paths converge again, Viktor hopes it will not be in a collision.