#jayce angst

"What have you done?" You scream as you blindly lunge towards Jayce, a random weapon tightly clutched in your hands — no doubt discarded by some, now dead, Noxian soldier. You could barely see an inch in front of you due to the surging chaos, but you were sure about Jayce, you would never mistake him, his silhouette, his scent.

It had been months since Jinx's attack on the Counsil. Months since Viktor emerged out of the Hexcore changed, taking you to Zaun with him and leaving Jayce behind. You were a chemist, Viktor's childhood best friend that stuck by him since the very beginning. You and Jayce had a brief, intense, spark. It happened before him and Mel, before it became hard to grasp his attention, being Piltover's golden star and everything. It hurt when you left him, standing at the laboratory, his pleading brown eyes boring holes into yours and Viktor's backs. But Viktor was right, your paths, your visions, had long strayed, being held together only by lasting affection.

In Zaun, at Viktor's — The Herald's — growing community, you acted as a chemist again. Helping the newly cured zaunites, researching to improve their lives as much as possible. You had been specially busy since Vander's arrival, severely mutilated by Viktor's former teacher and in desperate need of help. You were working in your makeshift lab, absent mindedly humming a familiar tune when hell broke loose.

A loud, sharp sound echoed, followed by more crashing sounds and piercing screams. Smoke rose in the air, making it almost impossible to inhale. For a split second you could hear Viktor's voice in your head whispering, "Jayce", you ran as fast as your legs permitted, desperate to locate the origin of the sound, to locate Viktor. When you finally did find them, you wished you hadn't. The starking image of his limp and dead body made your breath hitch, mind speeding so much to make sense of things it made you dizzy. Blood rushed to your ears, making a deafening ringing sound, you rubbed your eyes, squinting to adjust, then you saw another figure, a tall and dark frame.

Jayce looked, different, but your brain had no time to process that information as you grabbed the first weapon you could find thrown on the floor, lunging at him. "What did you do?" "How could you?" "I hate you!" you breathlessly shout, aiming for Jayce's head with your stray weapon, then again, you never were much of a fighter, that was Jayce's job. The last thing you heard before the world went complete black, was his voice, a cry of your name, sounding so broken and lost.

"Sorry for knocking you out like that. I hope your head's not hurting too much." you heard Jayce's soft voice, distant at first as you were regaining consciousness, then close, right at your ears. You slowly woke up, blinking the throbbing pain away you were at last able to recognize your surroundings.

Jayce had brought you to your old laboratory, right at Piltover's heart, where you had last seen him, where you had left him. You were sitting in a chair, your mechanical arm resting on the table beside you, laying alongside dirty, well-worn tools. "I fixed it. Your arm. It looked broken and I-" Jayce blurted out, stopping with a nervous chuckle when you looked at him. "My technique might not be as delicate as Viktor's but it's fixed, working. I promise!". When Viktor's name left Jayce's lips, a haunting image of his corpse flashed in your mind, compelling you to leap forward and forcefully grab Jayce's collar, gripping so tight your knuckles turned white, drained of blood. You were trembling horribly, fueled by an ugly mixture of grief and hatred, your words came out hoarse, stinging like a whip.

"You promise? Ha! You killed him Jayce! You- you just disappear and then when you finally come to us, you go and kill him? What's wrong with you? I don't know you anymore, you've become someone else entirely and I- No!" you were panting, tears angrily threatening to spill "That's too gentle for you, you're a murderer, Jayce, a monster!".

Jayce's mind was racing, spinning with the force of your words and then it finally snapped. "Shut the fuck up!" he tore your hands away from his shirt, holding your wrists and pulling you close, pressed up against his chest. "You have no idea Y/N! You can't possibly begin to understand what I was put through!" "I was in there, while you and Viktor were out here playing house!" "I kept my promise!".

Jayce's eyes were red, frantically shaking looking into your own, in desperate search of something. He was so close, you could feel his heartbeat and his breath fanning your face, his scent was attacking your nostrils mercilessly, engulfing you in his presence. Like this you could almost see the old Jayce inside there, somewhere — untainted, full of promise — the one you fell hard for. All it took was a single look from him. A single, meaningful, glance down to your mouth from his so pretty brown eyes. He was so, so close. Next thing you knew you and Jayce were in each other's arms, kissing so forcefully it almost broke skin. Kissing like your very lives depend on it, like you'll die of asphyxiation if you stop.

Jayce hoisted you up the table, sending tools and papers flying, both of you couldn't care less right now. He positioned himself in between your legs, leaning some of his body weight on you, forcing your back to meet the cold surface beneath. "Jayce!" you breathed out, talking into his mouth, gasping for air and breaking the kiss for a second too long. Your hands, firmly resting on the back of his neck, wandered to the hem of your shirt, fidgeting with it, trying to lose it. Jayce noticed and made quick work of your shirt, hurriedly sliding it over your head and tossing aside to a forgotten corner.

"Don't stop" you huffed against him again, voice dripping with want, you struggled blindly to unbuckle his belt, too busy reciprocating his fervent kisses to bother to look down. "I got you" Jayce urged, going crazy with the way your lips felt on his, even more addicting than he remembers. He reached down, tugging off your pants and underwear in one precise motion. Your senses were completely overwhelmed, all you were able to think, see, hear, smell and feel was Jayce.

You were both pouring everything into this kiss, into this very moment. Bleeding years of bottled up love and regrets into each other's systems. Even still, you harbored feelings for him, and him you. Despite the hurricane of emotions and thoughts swirling inside your head, a small, nagging voice coming from the darkest dephts of your mind, kept quietly chanting "What have you done, Y/N?"

His days were spent trying to please everyone, while losing himself more. Every expectation from him chipped at his will to live. As the days became weeks, he realized that he just couldn’t please someone without hurting another. The more he tried to make good, the more he spoiled and complicated things.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he slept soundly, the cogs in his mind never stopped.

Hextech, the Council, the question of Zaun’s independence—they never left his mind.

He was absolutely sure that if it wasn’t for his sleeping pills guaranteeing him a good night’s sleep, he could have easily ended up in the hospital.

However, it all changed when you popped into his life.

To him, you were a breath of fresh air, a safe place he could always hide away in.

You were the electric impulse that kept his heart beating.

When with you, he felt like nothing was impossible.

Your gentle petting made him sleep like a bear. That good, dreamless sleep that he desperately craved.

For more than a year, you kept him from going insane. However—nothing lasts forever.

One day, it all came back to him.

His own mind constantly torturing him. The pressure.

Again, he could only rely on those little blue pills, which only added to his guilt. He was so lucky to have you, and he still depended on them.

Before, when he passed by a mirror, all he could see was a successful and brilliant, and a fool endlessly in love.

Now, all he could see were the heavy bags under his eyes, the constant line between his eyebrows, the everlasting frown on his lips, the slump of his shoulders and the worst of all…

That dull empty look in his eyes. Gone was the young scientist with big dreams. For a while, it was affection that held him together, but he lost sight of what was important along the way. The person in the mirror made him want to shatter it into tiny pieces. His insecurities soon found their way to him. Jayce felt ugly, like a beast, on the outside and the inside. He hated the scars on his face, the gap in his tooth, the pudge on the bottom of his stomach.

He hated himself.

Even your touch couldn’t soothe him, and those were big words. Your presence didn’t brighten his day like before. He was still deeply in love with you, it was his declining mental health at fault, not as if he saw it that way. He couldn’t stand the thought of hurting you. He would rather bash in his own skull with a hammer, than breaking your darling heart.

He thought that no one saw his suffering. Not the people of Piltover, not the Council, and not even you. He mastered the art of acting like he was happy, even you believed it. You had no idea how many tears he shed while holding you in his arms.

However, you happened to notice that you saw him less and less. Rainchecks started occurring more often than not. While it saddened you, you knew how hard he worked and tried to accept that. And you were more than aware that trying to talk to him about it was no good. Whenever the topic of his mental health came up, he shut down. He either became mute or angry, at himself, of course.

But, since he barely saw you, Viktor was the one seeing his declining mental state. He, too, tried talking to Jayce, but got the same behaviour. The scientist figured that it was a phase that would pass by. Boy… how wrong he was.

It happened on a rainy night. Viktor just couldn’t fall asleep for the life of him, especially after working on a calculation all day, with no direct answer. Once he laid in his bed, an idea popped into his head, a potential answer to the rune combination that nagged him the whole day. He quickly got dressed and made his way back into the lab. As he got closer, he could hear it. It was so unexpected that, for a second, he was sure it was his exhaustion. A moment later, he heard it again.

The sound of Jayce Talis sobbing.

He peeked in and his eyes widened. The decorative mirror in their lab was shattered to pieces, and Jayce was kneeling before it. His sobs made his whole body shake, his knuckles were bloody.

Viktor knew that he couldn’t do anything, he wasn’t what Jayce needed at the moment. He couldn’t provide the gentleness that the golden boy needed, but one other person could.

He rushed back to his room and dialed your number.

After a bit, you were nearly tearing the lab door down.

You ran all the way to the Academy, fearing that if you got there later, Jayce would harm himself. As you stepped in, your heart tightened. Your sweet boy was looking up at you, but he wasn’t the Councilor Talis that Piltover knew… No, he was a scared boy, whose walls finally came tumbling down.

There wasn’t a second wasted, you fell on your knees beside him and immediately cradled him into your arms. In a flash, a pair of strong arms were clinging on to you, the head buried in your chest seeking comfort. Your shirt got wetter and wetter, due to his tears that were refusing to stop even for a second.

“Oh, my darling…” Your fingers caressed his hair. Just the loving and gentle touch he needed.

“I…I—Please, forgive me…” he half-said and half-sobbed.

“It’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“It’s just… all of it. This… pressure.” His body grew more limp and tired with every cry. “I never asked for this!”

You held his face in your hands and lifted it, so his puppy eyes could meet this. You smiled gently at him, which caused his expression to slightly relax. “I know. I cannot imagine being in your shoes. But admitting that this pressure is making you crack… makes you the strongest person I know. No one else could do what you do, and take pride in that. Also, take pride of the fact that you are a person, and as a person, you are allowed to feel like everything is too much. It’s not shameful to take a break. It. Does. Not. Make. You. Weak.”

After some silence, he spoke.

“Thank you, Y/N.”

“Come on.” You helped him up from the ground. “Let’s get you home.

Once you were home, you cleaned up the cuts on his knuckles, and helped him into bed. Eventually, his cries stopped. His body left the tension behind. Finally, he could let himself rest, the world could wait.

As he laid in your arms, felt that healing touch of yours, he could only think about one thing.