#the mage

NOTE: So this began as a short, fun what-if scenario, but I seemed to get possessed and turned it into a fully fleshed out one-shot :) Here is the original post that inspired this piece. And HERE is the work uploaded on Ao3 if anything prefers to read over there.

The end of the world was cold. 

The wind seemed to scream with a thousand ghostly voices as it eagerly tugged at your clothes, forcing you to pull them tighter to your frame, or risk losing them. What little food you could scrounge up, was tasteless and dull; necessary fuel more than an enjoyable meal.

This new ‘perfect world’ was dark, and quiet and devoid of all of the colours that had first drawn you to the glittering City of Progress. You hated it. Even though a small part of you, not consumed by the desperation to survive and a burning rage, could still see a twisted beauty to this new, lonely world you inhabited. You had to squint hard to see it of course, but it was there.

There was an eerie beauty to the statue-like mechanical dolls dotted throughout the cities. Stood like sentries on both ends of the collapsed bridge, dotting the streets by the dozen, or perched upon dilapidated structures. They were uncanny, in all honesty. Machines playing at citizens. Specks of pure white in a world that was all shadow and gloom.  Motionless without the invisible hand and genius mind of a benevolent god to keep them vigilant. 

A god you were currently hiding from.

If there was one blessing that came out of the end of the world, it was that you had come out of the war with the ability to go unnoticed by the very man who had brought about its end. 

Even brushing shoulders in a crowd of his personal soldiers, you went unseen. Unnoticed. Unrecognised.

The figure striding uneasily along several paces ahead of you, was not so lucky. 

He did not notice, but those porcelain heads turned as he strode past. Held at bay by the will of their puppeteer.

Dressed in an overcoat of Piltovern white, this ghost from your past still walked with a certainty to his set shoulders that this world would eventually crack and break down. His journey into the city had stained his councilor’s jacket with flecks of mud, a hint of corruption already beginning to claw its way up one of his coat tails. 

The hammer perched on one broad shoulder had only just begun to erode from the force of the magic undetected in the air, but still held most of its original structure. It too was achingly familiar to you, and yet had been lost to time. Its presence brought back memories of long nights spent in a laboratory amongst friends who were on the verge of becoming even more precious to you. It reminded you of naps stolen on a couch too small for three people, and a chalkboard constantly brimming with new thoughts and ideas, alongside tiny doodles scrawled in the corners by your own hand.

Blinking back those bitter phantoms, you watched the figure struggle to navigate the crowd of dormant hivemind dolls. You could see from the paranoid toss and turn of his head, that he had begun to realise that the humanoid figures were not as statue-like as they seemed. In his peripheral vision, he would no doubt be seeing them stir and twitch jerkily, only for them to fall still again the moment he looked at them directly.

It was a necessary but cruel trick, played by the Mage who controlled them. A means to drill home the message that this ending was to be avoided at all costs. That this version of things could not be allowed to come to fruition again.

You trailed him at a distance. Close enough to keep him in view, but far back enough that he would not notice you. They never did. 

Far above him, and a whole, empty river ahead, the spire of Piltover’s Hexgate column shone in the sunlight as it cast a heavy shadow over the rest of the city. Even from so far down on the ground, you could just barely make out the hint of greenery growing across the dome’s surface.

Your quiet musing cut off at the sound of a scuffle up ahead. The unmistakable grind of metallic joints popping and spinning. You heard a panicked yelp, hurried footsteps, all before the silhouette of the man suddenly vanished from sight with a shriek of terror that promptly dissolved into sharp agony. 

The sound made your body instinctively lunge forward. The hivemind dolls had no use for cries of pain, let alone lungs. Their suffering had been erased alongside their identities, so there was no need- 

You wove under mechanical arms, skirted around marble bodies, and came to a sharp stop at the sight of a ravine. Far below, you could hear as another yelp and grunt abruptly cut off into a sharp, desperate whimper of pain, alongside the metallic crack of metal hitting stone. 

The trench was so deep, you could not see him in the darkness. Nor detect the glow of his hammer.

Damn it! 

Damn! 

It! 

Why did everything always have to be so difficult? How did all his alternate selves manage to throw you through a loop instead of following the blasted Mage STRAIGHT to the Hexgate dome like they were supposed too?

Idiots! The lot of them!

Jayce woke up. 

And that in itself was a miracle. 

His head throbbed as he lifted it from the cold, unforgiving stone floor. Wincing at the twinge of his neck, he felt a bruise already forming on the right side of his face, spanning from his temple down to his chin. Vision swimming, he tried to push himself up onto his elbows. The cold had seeped into his fingers from how long he’d been laying there, and had turned his toes numb. 

Unfeeling fingers dug down into the grainy dirt as he tried to heave himself up onto his knees, only for a bolt of pure agony to shoot up his leg when he tried to use his left leg. The following shout of pain ripped out of his throat before he could think to stifle it. It echoed out between the tight walls of the cavern, chasing itself up towards the surface far far above. 

Teeth ground tight against further sounds, Jayce ducked his head and peered down under his torso to find his pant leg bloody and the bones of his fibula tenting his trousers out at a weird angle. It was obviously broken, and had no doubt burst through his skin in the fall. Just the sight alone, had bile rising sharply up the back of his throat.

As his initial cry finally faded, the sound of rhythmic, dripping water reached Jayce’s ears. The damp stench hit him next, forcing itself up his nose, as the reality of his situation began to sink in.

He was at the bottom of a ravine. Injured. And stuck in some alternate reality, that was not his own. A reality where Piltover and Zaun alike had been destroyed. And worse of all, he was alone. 

No one would find him down here. 

The hooded Mage he had followed into the city hadn’t seemed to hear him when he called out. And apart from those humanoid creatures, he had not seen another soul throughout the entire trip into the city from the very outskirts-

“Jayce.”

His entire body went rigid at the hissed whisper. His head pounded from the tightening of his jaw. His leg cried out as every muscle seethed. He waited. Breath caught fast in his throat. 

Nothing but the sound of dripping water replied. He let his breath ease out of his mouth. Maybe he should have been a little concerned that he was already beginning to hear things-

“Jayce.” The same low whisper repeated. Closely followed by the sound of tiny pebbles dislodging from rock. To his right, he heard and then saw the soft click and patter of the tiny rock crumbs falling to the stone not far from where he lay.

Blinding panic slammed into Jayce, as his broken body twisted around with a snap.

The ravine echoed his panicked movements back to him. The slap of a clammy palm against unforgiving, icy stone. The whisper of his filthy clothes sliding against each other. The scrap of his boots along the jagged stone floor as they failed to find purchase. His leg protested all of the movement, but the feeling of being watched made Jayce’s panic all the more consuming and rabid.

"Who-who's there?" He demanded, his voice coming out cracked and uneven. A mockery of the confident ‘Man of Progress’ he pretended to be back home.

His mind unhelpfully supplied him with the featureless faces of the dolls far above. Terrifying suggestions of them having followed him down here. Of them creeping closer in the dark, undetected until it was too late for him to hope to stop them-

The shuffle of shoes on stone had his head snapping upwards so fast that his neck popped with sharp warmth. His entire body seized as he spotted a humanoid figure perched on a ledge a few feet above where he laid. Back lit by the surface, far, far above, the figure was crouched, and peering over the lip of the ledge. From his vantage point, Jayce could just make out the curl of their fingertips over the edge of the platform.

Somehow, it did not resemble the rest of the jerkily moving puppets on the surface. For starters, it actually had the vague shape of features on its face, ears and the suggestion of a nose, where those other creatures had been smooth, marble-like masks-

It has several eyes, Jayce realised with a sickening lurch of horror. Two in the normal places that humans had eyes that shone subtly in the poor lighting. And then five points across its forehead, that glowed with an unnatural, inner light. If Jayce had not been so terrified, he may have thought they were arranged like the points of a crown, but in that moment, every instinct in his screamed how unnatural the sight was. How much like prey he felt, looking up at it.

"Impossible." The thing whispered to itself, which was a testament to just how silent the ravine was that Jayce could hear it. The two glowing points where its human eyes were, flickered as it blinked slowly.

Then its shadow abruptly disappeared from view. Jayce’s brow furrowed as its fingers remained in his line of sight, where they flexed. Then its head appeared again. Before disappearing once more. It was being indecisive. For why, Jayce couldn’t tell.

And then it hissed out a quiet, “damn the Gods,” before it swung its leg over the edge of the ledge and began to climb down TOWARDS him.

Jayce’s heart leapt up into the base of his throat as his eyes blew wide at the speed in which it moved. He was unable to tear his eyes off it, as the thing fluidly found foot and hand holds in the seemingly smooth rockface. It moved with the surety of an uncanny mountain goat down the uneven terrain. Clearly, it had been navigating this habitat for some time. 

All too soon, its booted feet slammed down into the ground and it straightened up like a man.

Jayce’s eyes promptly leapt over to his hammer, embedded face down out of reach, then he dragged them back to the thing. The lighting was poor this deep in the ravine, but his eyes had adjusted enough to make out ruined, Piltover style clothes, worn shoes and scraggly, unkempt hair. 

Its head tilted, studying him as he studied it. And then, fearlessly, it approached him. 

Jayce yelped, his fingernails scraping against stone, as he tried - and failed - to scramble away.  The creature froze in place. Jayce rolled onto his back, his leg protesting every motion as he threw up his arm to shield his face."S-stay away!" He ordered, mentally cursing the wobble to the words. 

For a moment, it didn’t move. He could just hear it breathing. Slow and calm.

“Oh. Oh my Love." It whispered with audible gentleness to its hissed words. “What has he let happen to you?” Jayce’s brows furrowed at the odd phrasing, before he flinched as the thing smoothly lowered itself closer to his level. Its knees hit the stone with twin thumps, before it shuffled closer on all fours. A failed attempt at being nonthreatening.

His entire body tightened up defensively as it drew nearer, but it seemed to pay his reactions no mind. "I'll throttle that bastard the next time I lay eyes on him." It continued to mutter to itself, an underlying fury to its words now, although Jayce somehow knew he was not the cause of it. "Allowing you to suffer in the name of learning. As if you haven't had a rough several days already."

It let out a frustrated little huff as it continued to mutter to itself. A sound so weirdly familiar, that Jayce realised with a snag that he recognised the voice. His breath stuttered as he realised he hadn’t noticed before, because of how rough the words sounded, as if the creature hadn’t had use for human sounds for a long time.

Unaware of his slowly dawning realisation, he watched as it crawled closer to his leg. A small part of him sighed in relief that it hadn’t taken an interest in his head or anything vital, whilst another part screamed at him to defend his new weakness. 

He was so torn between the two, that he ended up with no time to react either way, as the figure stopped approaching a healthy hand's length away, and simply leaned over the bloodied limb with a sharp tut. “Definitely broken.” 

Jayce would have laughed at the dry analysis, if he were anywhere but trapped in the bottom of a ravine with a seven eyed stranger.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Jayce asked, like an idiot. 

And its seven, glowing eyes snapped up to his face. 

 In truth, he already knew the answer to his question, but he also didn't. This person may have sounded like his partner. May have shared similar speech patterns, and mannerisms with someone he held dear. But this person before him was foreign to him. They moved differently to who he was expecting. Acted differently to the person he knew so intimately.

"Oh." They said again, voice creaking. Head tilting in the bizarre way his partner’s never would have. "You do not recognise me." And oh, the sheer sadness laced between those words as good as sucker punched him. It awakened a knee-jerk reaction in Jayce that instantly made him want to smooth over the hurt. To offer sweet words in reassurance. 

He only barely managed to bite his tongue in time.

Not like this. He wanted to say. I know you, but I do not recognise you. Not like this.

“I cannot see you very well,” he said instead, words chosen carefully. 

And they hummed, sitting back on their hunches as their glowing gaze pinned him in place. 

“Perhaps,” they said quietly, more to themself than Jayce. “Maybe I can…” they trailed off, a grunt of effort escaping their lips.

For a heartbeat, there was only the drip of water in the background. Then the five points on their forehead flickered and burned with such an intensely white light that Jayce cried out and shielded his eyes. 

“Sorry. I do not tap into the magic very often.” They told him, sounding genuinely apologetic, before quickly adding in explanation, “it gives me a headache.”

Behind his clenched eyelids, Jayce watched as the light dimmed to a more manageable level. Slowly, he lowered his arm and peered over it, to find the figure before him was certainly more visible, the eyes on their forehead offering a soft output of light.

No, wait, those were not eyes. 

With a grunt of effort, Jayce lifted himself up into a sitting position, his own eyes narrowing as he realised that those glowing points were in fact runes. Runes that were now acting as their own light source, like a miner’s headlamp. They emitted a glow similar to the light of the Hexcore. Specifically, how the magic had glowed when it had been infused into Viktor’s limbs when he had reawakened and stumbled his way across the lab. 

Gods, that felt like a lifetime ago now, when it had merely been a matter of days.

The runes- which, now he was looking, seemed to have been carved into their forehead - tilted with their head to that unnatural angle again as the figure asked seriously, “better?”

The word instantly banished the lingering uncertainty from Jayce's mind as with a jolt, he registered the rest of their appearance outside of the runes. As he gazed upon a face he knew intimately, and yet looked alien to him now.

They looked tired, was his first thought. However long they had been here, the years had worn into their skin, adding weight beneath their eyes, and grey streaks to their hair. They were older than the person Jayce knew back home, and yet, there was still that light of mischief in the glint of their eye, beneath the exhaustion.

"What happened to you?" Jayce found himself asking, the words slipping out before he could fully register them.

They huffed out a laugh. As if his concern was amusing. “I could ask you the same thing, Love." They return easily, eyes dropping back to his broken leg. "You look like you've been through the ringer." 

There was a deep, heavy sadness to their voice. A grief that startled Jayce.

Jayce and his unlikely Companion swiftly realised that he couldn’t move very far with his leg busted up; not with any dignity at least. But between them, they managed to find the driest corner of the ravine to rest in. Jayce dragged himself over on his three working limbs, whilst his Companion disappeared into the gloom in search of something burnable to begin a fire.

They returned soon after, a dead lizard hanging by its tail in one hand, and a handful of plants and twigs in the other.

“It’ll smoke something awful,” they explained to Jayce as they sank down to their knees opposite him and began constructing a feeble campfire between them. “But it’ll burn.”

With quiet efficiency, they set to getting the fire going, hands practiced and certain, where in another life, they only knew how to hold a pencil. Jayce fondly remembered having to teach that version how to turn on the oven in the lab’s kitchenette. And here they were, starting sensible fires and skinning rainbow lizards in preparation for cooking. 

He was not even entirely sure where they had been keeping the knife, having not noticed it on their person earlier, and was even more surprised when it turned out that they knew how to use it. 

“How long has the world been like this?” Jayce found himself asking, hoping that a conversation would help take his mind off his still very broken leg.

The smooth slicing of the knife blade through scales halted as their eyes flickered up to him. Their eyebrows drew together in thought, causing the runes across their forehead to distort. “Hard to say.” They told him evenly, their expression weirdly unreadable. “The years began to blend together after a time.” Which wasn’t really much of an answer. 

The conversation trailed off as quickly as it had begun, and before he knew it, Jayce was smelling the lizard beginning to cook, and had blinked, only to realise that his Companion had at some point risen from their spot on the opposite side of the fire. He snapped his head round, only to find them reemerging from the gloom again, their knife cleaned and dripping with water, whilst their sleeves were visibly wet. At least neither of them would be dying from dehydration any time soon.

“We need to set your leg.” His Companion said by way of greeting, and Jayce grimaced, and sat up a little straighter.

The fever crept in quicker than Jayce had anticipated it would.

It wasn’t really much of a surprise, considering the injury, and the environment in which he had been injured in. But he and his Companion had tried their best to fend it off with what they had. 

Jayce tried to keep himself warm the first night by curling up as close to the fire as he could get without setting himself alight. He kept from worsening the injury by moving around with his other limbs, and upon his Companion’s firm insistence, remaining by the fire.

Wordlessly, they took it upon themselves to keep the flames stoked with burnable things. And disappeared off into the gloom beyond the light whenever Jayce’s stomach rumbled with hunger. They returned without fail, having caught some small, weird creature to cook for him. 

Vaguely, as the fever pressed in, Jayce noticed how they rarely ate anything they brought him unless prompted. He was not certain if it was because of the runes, or simply because they wanted him at full strength, but he had to practically force food into their hands. And then refuse to eat his own portion unless they ate with him. It never failed to put an exasperated smile on their face, which in turn filled Jayce with a little flicker of warmth. 

They were worried about him, he could tell. Could see it in the way they helped him clean and wrap his leg. Could see it in the careful way they handled the limb, eyes raking over the corrupted infection beginning to eat its way through his skin. Thick strings of sickly green and unnatural blue clung to the damp cloth they used to wipe the wound clean, to which they grimaced and Jayce simply tried not to look.

Instead, he occupied himself by theorising ways to get out of the ravine. His Companion even found him a stone with which to use the walls as a makeshift chalkboard. They kept the fire stoked, whilst Jayce theorised and scribbled all over the rock faces. Mapping out runes and scribbling down equations. Scrambling to find any possible way he could return home. 

The entire time, they withheld any suggestions that might have helped him figure out a way to help them both escape their current prison. Offering quiet hums or simply shaking their head when he tried to rope them into the conversation. 

At first, he found the avoidance weirdly endearing. An echo of late nights spent at the chalkboard with Viktor by his side as they tried to figure out an equation, whilst Y/n lingered by their desk, carefully sketching out the newest illustration for an assignment. Back then, both he and Viktor had tried to rope the Illustrator into their brainstorming, only to get unsatisfying hums in response, or the blank stare of someone who had not been paying attention.

But now, their lack of assistance quickly began to weigh on him, and Jayce at one point demanded at the height of his desperate attempts, for them to help him.

To which they had glanced up from the fire, regret swimming behind their eyes as they replied with obscure things like, “he’s testing you,” and “he won’t allow me to remain here if I make this too easy for you.”

The repetitive reference to some mysterious ‘him’ had been another piece of the puzzle that Jayce hadn’t been able to crack. They seemed to always be referring to some nameless ‘him’ with a tone of annoyance and sometimes hostility, but had failed to ever actually name ‘him’. Instead muttering about how if ‘he’ wanted Jayce to know ‘him’ yet, then ‘he’ would have already shown ‘himself.’

Jayce’s fever swept him under with a determination and intensity that left his mind scattered and foggy before he could truly get to the bottom of that one. 

In seemingly random intervals, Jayce burned. And then he froze. He would sweat, and he would shiver. And all the while, his leg festered. No amount of cleaning or rebandaging the wound with new, dirty pieces from either of their clothes would sooth the fire burning through his veins. 

With the constant presence of the pain, his paranoia seethed. He found his feverish gaze constantly flickering up to the top of the ravine, always expecting the humanoid forms of those machines to be peering back down at him.

Sometimes, he would snap awake from a nightmare and forget where he was. He would come to and see a figure sat on the other side of the low burning fire, and he would foggily register the seven glowing eyes and immediately sink into a blind panic. He would fumble for his hammer out of instinct, and then later be eternally grateful that it was always out of his reach. 

His Companion would startle in the face of his terror, only to flare their runes brightly with a wince to banish the darkness for him. Their face would come into focus, and Jayce would find himself relaxing every time. Regardless of the changes in their appearance from the familiar face he knew, Jayce still found comfort from just looking at them.

Once he had stopped panicking, they would then dull the lights back down to their usual glow before shuffling forward. They would call him ‘Love’ in that achingly gentle voice, and offer him grounding touches to further soothe him. And Jayce was so desperate for a kind hand that he melted into it every time. 

Panting from the dream, and still clammy and shaking, his body would automatically surrender to their concern, as they pressed cool rags to his burning forehead, and allowed him to lay his spinning head down in their lap, their fingers gently raking through his messy locks. He was in desperate need of a haircut, but wasn’t yet desperate enough to trust them to take a knife to it.

Once or twice, whilst he was dozing in their lap, he would come to, to the sound of them talking - snarling - at someone Jayce could not see. 

“I cannot fight this infection on my own.” He heard them grumble, their fingers still in his hair, massaging away the lingering headache with firm, soothing rolls of their fingertips along tense muscles.

There would always only be silence and the drip of water in response.

“If he dies again, you know I’ll never forgive you. Right?” They threatened the air, to which more silence would allow the words to fade into nothing. Unacknowledged. 

The only full-proof way to keep track of the days was to listen to the prickle of the temperature dropping. When night fell on the surface, Jayce could see his breath fogging in front of his face. The stone he sat on would begin to leech his warmth from his skin, and the warmth of the fire would begin to fail to reach him, regardless of how well stocked it was.

When those hours hit, his Companion would wordlessly sidle up to his side and huddle closer to him, offering a solid line of warmth along one side of his body. And Jayce, like the weak man he was, would curl into the offered comfort, like a cat luxuriating in a sunny spot.

Wordlessly, he would wind an arm around their back to draw them close, and in return, they would lay their head back on his shoulder, and curl their fingers tightly into his ruined jacket. Tucking their knees up close to their chest, they would lean into him, and in return Jayce would lean his head down against their hair.

Between bouts of fading fever, Jayce would flit between slumber and staring into the fire, whilst his Companion kept him warm. They remained stiff at his side for hours, shifting and shuffling whilst Jayce tried to recover.

Only rarely did he notice them actually falling asleep. But when they did, they went limp against his side. Dropping down hard into slumber. 

Their head would become heavy on his broad shoulder, but those fingers would never completely untangle from his coat, as if they subconsciously feared him slipping away whilst they rested. 

They seemed to completely trust Jayce when they were at their most vulnerable. And in this small way, Jayce was able to repay them for their kindness. For their willingness to help him, even if it meant clambering down into a freezing cold ravine with no real hope of being able to climb back out again.

It was in situations like this, that sometimes their rune riddled forehead would lightly rest against the exposed skin of Jayce’s throat. And sometimes, whilst he was still glaring into the flames of the fire, the magic residing within would offer glimpses of events that Jayce had never experienced.

The latest of which, he saw snapshots of the lab back home. Of it, as it was after Viktor woke up from his coma and broke out of his Hexcore-made chrysalis. He vaguely caught sight of the structure itself, the imprint left behind by Viktor’s body still darkening the centre of it, before the dream steered his focus to a desk.

He watched through someone else’s eyes as frantic hands slammed down a pile of notebooks. He recognised his own handwriting, alongside Viktor’s as the hands tore open the notebooks, flipping frantically through the pages until they came across the rune indexes in each. 

A pointer finger slid along carefully copied rune illustrations, drawn by the lab’s Illustrator, whilst Viktor of Jayce’s handwriting beneath accurately named the symbol and explained each of their hypothetical uses.

“Warding.” The body’s voice muttered aloud. “Protection. Exceleration. Shielding. Fuck. Fuck! Speed- oh, yes! Repel! Okay, okay, Repel. Warding might be useful. Probably can’t go wrong with Protection either. Shit. Fuck. Pen. Pen!”

He felt the weight of the marker pen in his dominant hand, and startled at the sight of someone else’s terrified face staring back at him in the reflection of a small, hand-held mirror. He felt the cold ink from the pen spreading across his forehead, as the body began to hurriedly scribble runes across it. 

In the back of his mind, Jayce felt dread bubbling. 

He was coming.

Jayce had no idea who ‘He’ was, but the terror crawling up the back of his throat felt like an instinct. As if what was to come was inevitable. Inescapable. Somehow, he knew that there was no way to calm the pounding of this body’s heart or soothe their frantic breathing or racing mind. There was only desperation, and the terror of a lone person clawing at a chance of survival until their fingernails cracked and bled. 

He blinked, and for a moment, he was back in the cave glaring into the fire. The deep seated terror closing his airways lingered, and then he blinked once more and was thrust back into the lab. 

The body he was in flinched hard as the lab doors behind him were slammed open. He heard the familiar gait of his partner’s footsteps, and knew in his soul that the ‘he’ who had come, was Viktor. And that the metallic after note of each step, was a byproduct of the man’s new body. 

Jayce felt sweat break out on his forehead as his eyes darted from Viktor’s approaching form in the mirror, to the useless ink marks standing out on his forehead. His stomach twisted into knots, although Jayce did not yet know why. This was Viktor after all. His Viktor. 

Jayce felt his body outside of the runes’ influence shiver when Viktor finally spoke. His accent was heavily woven between his vowels as he called out a low greeting, an unnatural, unsettling undertone altering his voice ever so slightly. If Jayce did not know the man as intimately as he did, he would never have noticed the difference. 

In the dream - no, the memory - the body that Jayce was hijacking, turned to meet Viktor as he rounded the Hexcore-made frame and approached the desk. Dressed in a navy robe artfully wound around his unnatural limbs, the man kept his footsteps slow and terrifying. His eyes shone with the light of the Arcane as he tilted his head alluringly. The staff he walked with tapped rhythmically with every step. The ticking of a bomb countdown.

"Join me." He coaxed sweetly, a mockery of the sweet words he used to utter when inviting one or both of his lovers into bed after a long day spent in the lab. A smile tugged at his thin lips, too tight to truly be a warm one.

The body Jayce was in firmly declined his offer. Shaking their head and clinging to their pen as if it would be a suitable weapon against the man cornering them. 

Viktor frowned. “You are certain of this?” He asked.

“Yes.” Viktor frowned. “I am sorry to hear that.” He said, like a warning. Jayce’s eyes darted down to the man’s hand, to his palm which had begun to subtly glow. The body he was in lurched, as if to run, but Viktor was faster. His hand shot out, like a snake’s unhinging jaw, and all five of his fingertips touched the body’s forehead. 

Jayce felt frozen, forced into submission, as he felt the magic flow out of Viktor and dig into his mind. His thoughts. Probing. Trying to force a connection.

Only to run into a wall. Abruptly, the useless runes etched across his skin ignited with a cutting, siring warmth, forcefully converting Viktor’s magic into a power source. It pushed back sharply against him, and Viktor recoiled with a shout, ripping his hand away.

There is a weird, iridescent light in Jayce's peripheral vision, as Viktor's form stumbled back, his once glowing hand grasping hard onto the edge of the desk to keep his footing.

Jayce's head snapped down, and his eyes connected with the little mirror on the desk, and he realised with a start that the simple pen marks had sunk down under his skin; having carved a permanent presence into the flesh.

"You- you shut me out." Viktor whispered, his voice oozing with hurt.

The words that shot forth from Jayce's mouth were not his own, as anger and betrayal coated them thickly. "You tried to erase me!" The body he was in snarled, "you wanted to turn me into one of your mindless puppets!"

"Not erase, no! I would never erase you!" Viktor tried to reassure, looking horrified at the mere suggestion. "I just wanted to help you see-" but the dream slipped away before Jayce could be convinced.

The head resting on his shoulder abruptly snapped upwards, severing the connection, and forcing Jayce back into the cave. The echoes of what he had just witnessed followed him back to the smell of damp, and the crackle of the fire. 

The warmth at his side retreated as his Companion sat up and pulled away from him. They were breathing hard, hands shaking as shrunken pupils stared unseeingly ahead. Air sawed in and out of their mouth at a rapidly accelerating pace. The runes on their forehead burned with light. The beams they gave off were so strong, that they shone dancing iridescent light across the opposite cave wall.

Stomach sinking, Jayce carefully reached across the gap between them to lightly touch their shoulder. They flinched away from him; hard. Their hand instinctively scrambled for their boot where he now knew they kept their knife. 

“Hey.” Jayce tried to soothe, his voice too loud amongst the popping of the flames and their quiet, desperate breaths. “You’re not in the lab anymore. You’re in the ravine. Remember? With Jayce?”

They blinked, and their eyes suddenly came into focus, their pupils widening rapidly before shrinking back to their usual size.

Jayce remained frozen where he was, his hand still raised, and his expression open and understanding.

“Jayce.” They repeated quietly in a long breath, rolling the name over their tongue. The tension bled from their shoulders with the exhale, as their hand slid back out of their boot to instead flop onto the stone beside their thigh. 

“Yeah. Jayce.” He repeated, carefully shuffling closer without jostling his bad leg. “Can I touch you?” His hand still hovered, but he did not touch them yet. His partner was not like him in that regard. Where he was the type to throw himself into a hug and allow his mind to catch up later, they seemed to respond better to grounding themselves in their surroundings before searching for comfort. 

“Please.” They whispered quietly, barely loud enough for Jayce to hear. But he did. And he was ready for them when they slid closer to him and sank into his waiting arms. He wrapped them tightly up in his grip, hating how they felt so small compared to the person he knew. Not fragile, mind you, but smaller as if meals were scarce, which they might well be considering the kind of world they lived in.

Scrambling to pull his mind away from the bleak thought, he rubbed their back and said tightly, “that was some dream.” 

They went stiff in his arms, and then pulled back, expression searching. Jayce tried to keep a hold of his easy going smile, but the way their face shuttered with realisation told him he was failing. “Wait. You saw that?”

Sheepishly, he nodded, to which they groaned and sunk back down to hide under his chin. 

He could feel his stubble catching on their hair as they went, and mentally mourned his clean shave. The first thing he was doing when he got home was locking himself away to deal with all this unnecessary hair.

“It wasn’t a dream.” His Companion quietly admitted into the front of Jayce’s shirt.

To which he simply continued to run his hand up and down their back. As steady and comforting as he could manage. “Oh?”

“It was a memory.”

Jayce’s hand fell still as their breath stuttered. “Viktor?” Jayce said aloud, feeling the way his Companion tensed at the softly uttered name. “Viktor did this to you? The runes?”

They did not correct him, and Jayce’s stomach sank. “But that isn’t like Viktor at all. That man looked like him but he wasn’t Viktor.” Jayce tried to argue. 

“I’m not lying.” They tried to argue, beginning to push against Jayce’s chest in retaliation. “I wouldn’t lie about something like this.” They repeated with more conviction. 

“I’m not saying you are.” Jayce tried to soothe, loosening his grip so they could pull back, but not entirely letting go. “But what you’re saying doesn’t line up with what I know about my Viktor. Maybe yours is different?”

Their expression turned pained, and those eyes flickered away. “Maybe.” They said neutrally, and Jayce felt his heart clench.

“What? What did I say wrong?” He asked automatically, but they were already trying to pull away again. And this time he let them go. 

They rose on silent feet and rounded the fire. Movements fluid with a bite to their step that just further confirmed what Jayce had feared. He had offended them. Somewhere along the conversation, he had put his foot on something fragile, and they had raised their hackles to scare him off.

Absently, he wondered if they would turn tail into the darkness and leave him alone here as punishment.

“He wasn’t in his right mind when he tried to do it.” Their voice argued, as they pointedly reached a stretch of flat stone directly opposite Jayce on the other side of the fire, before sitting down heavily. Something tight in Jayce’s chest loosened at the middle ground. A silent ask for distance without outright abandoning him. “And when he was like that, no, didn’t seem to be a word he understood.”

“I believe you.” Jayce easily agreed to which they hummed, and turned their attention down to the flames.

Come morning, they seemed to have forgiven him for whatever his misstep was.

“We need to refresh the bandages.” They said by way of explanation, before rounding the smouldering fire to offer Jayce a hand up. 

With a lot of grunting and readjusting, they managed to loop an arm around his waist, whilst Jayce slung his own over their shoulders. They quietly cursed as he used them as a glorified crutch to hobble over to the water pool a little ways back from their camp. 

It was a glorified puddle rather than an actual pond, with a tiny stream feeding into it from a smaller pocket of water higher up in the far wall. 

He was lowered down with care, his bad leg stretched out in front of him. His Companion dropped into a crouch at his side, their runes flaring once more with a poorly concealed wince, before they leant over his leg. With steady hands, they carefully began to unwind the strip of their shirt that had previously been the bandage. Strings of green goo clung to the underside of the fabric when they pulled it back, causing Jayce to wince and turn his head away.

“Well, it’s not worse.” His Companion helpfully informed him, to which Jayce let out a tense laugh.

“So we don’t need to cut it off yet, Doc?”

They hummed thoughtfully, tossing the soiled rag aside, before sliding their knife from their boot to begin cutting a fresh strip off. “Not yet. The infection is remaining close to the entry wound. If it gets into your blood, then we’ll talk about hacking off your leg with my butter knife.” “Gods, that is a horrible image.” “Then don’t imagine it.” They dryly informed him. Jayce watched them with a fond little tug at his lips, so engrossed by their chatter that he almost didn’t notice the weight of eyes on him.

Almost.

The hairs along the nape of his neck began to rise, as goosebumps prickled beneath his sleeves. Tensing, Jayce instinctively glanced up, his fever dreams of the dolls silhouettes staring back down at him making his heart leap. But of course, there was nothing there. Aside from his current company, nothing had followed him down into the ravine.

Then he saw a flash of dull white standing out against the gloom on the opposite side of the lake, and his mouth went dry. Eyes widening, his eyes fell on a figure shrouded in a simple cloak, grasping a staff. The same hooded figure he had followed to the city from the wilds. The figure that resembled the Mage from his childhood. 

The sound of fabric being sliced through, abruptly cut off.

"Oi!" 

Jayce jumped at the almighty bellow that punched its way out of the person beside him. 

Unbothered, the figure across the lake slowly turned their hooded head towards Jayce’s Companion. 

"Fuck off!" They spat venomously. 

The figure did not move. 

Jayce blinked, and the other side of the water was suddenly empty. 

They huffed out an angry breath. "Nosy bastard." They muttered sharply, tucking the knife away before bending forward to wet the cloth. "Keeping fucking tabs on me."

“Wh-who was that?” They huffed. “Already told you, ‘he’ll’ introduce him when ‘he’ deems it time, the prick.” 

Jayce needed his mobility back. 

He needed out of this ravine, and he could not do so on a leg that threatened to rebreak itself every time he put his weight on it.

He had mapped out every equation. Had brainstormed every possible scenario. And the answer he had reached, was the same way he had ended up here. He needed to be able to climb out. But to do that, he needed a brace for his leg. The materials of which, he decided he would simply take from his hammer. Simple. He had created more complicated things with worse materials before. 

It just so happened that his Companion had wandered off to mutter to themselves again when he began, so they returned to find his leg mostly encased in various pieces of metal with torn off strips of his shirt barely holding it all together, whilst the remainder of the hammer lay scattered around him in parts.

“What’ve you got on the go here?” “What will hopefully become a mobility aid.” Jayce replied simply, torn between watching them sink into a crouch at his side, and tightening the latest fabric strip.

“Ah, like Viktor’s leg brace.” They mused, making Jayce’s hands falter. Outside of the weird memories, that was the first time they’d mentioned Viktor by name in front of him. It made his stomach sink to think why that was. 

“Hold this steady for me.” He instructed instead of dwelling on the thought.

They raised their brows and tried to back out. “You know I do not have the hands of a mechanic.” They tried to dissuade him, to which Jayce simply pushed the metal pieces into their limp hands. They grasped them obediently, but continued to be weary as Jayce turned his attention to his ankle. “If you handed me a pen however.” They trailed the sentence off into a tight laugh that led nowhere. “Gods, I never thought I’d miss pens of all things. Or paper.” Jayce frowned. “Do you not draw anymore?” “Not as much as I would like to.” They replied, “the spark kind of died when everyone else did. And the world has lost its colour.” And beat of silence, to which they promptly added, “which you saw a few days ago, of course. There literally feels like there’s no colour anymore, which of course is half of the fun when you’re drawing. Besides, my sketchbook did not survive the test of time.” They rambled before promptly adding, “I have charcoal at least. Keeps my hands busy.” Closely followed by yet another beat of uncomfortable silence.

Jayce had nodded along through the whole ramble, having had more than enough practice in doing so back in the lab. As he listened, he finished off binding his ankle into place, before he gave his knee an experimental roll to see if the knee joint was aligned. It clicked along the gear joints but seemed to be holding.

The soft click of metal had drawn their attention back to the present, and they quietly muttered, “I forget how smart you are sometimes.” That startled a flush onto Jayce’s cheeks and his eyes into looking up at them, and oh, oh no. The grief was back in their face. 

“Book smart.” They quickly added. “Just to clarify. No offence, Love, but street smarts were never truly one of your strengths.” Jayce let a small smile cross his face at the words. They brought back fond memories of venturing into Zaun with Viktor to haggle for machine parts, only to end up getting charged three times the actual price. He had never really mastered that particular skill, and had simply relied on Viktor’s common sense to see him through.

His Companion cleared their throat when he did not immediately respond, and slowly withdrew their hands from the metal parts they’d been holding in place. They held together beautifully, much to Jayce’s relief.

“Do you need anything from the surface?” They asked, eyes flickering up and down the brace. “It would take a day or two to hunt down tools not fully corrupted, but I’m sure I could find something?” 

Jayce frowned back at them. Genuinely at a loss for words. 

“What?” They asked, glancing over their shoulder as if the hooded figure was back.

“You- you could have left this entire time?”

They narrowed their eyes at him. “Yes?” 

“But you didn’t?” “Of course not.” “Why?” Jayce demanded with more conviction and surprise than he had anticipated feeling on the subject. “Why would you waste days down here? With me?” They huffed and rolled their eyes at him as if he were the one being unreasonable. “Because you don’t do well in the cold, Jayce.” They told him simply. 

And Jayce couldn’t help but think of the fire that they had kept constantly burning. Of the nights spent huddled up together. The countless times he had woken up shivering, panic bitter on the back of his tongue, only for warm hands to soothe him back into slumber. Effortlessly banishing dreams of snow and mages, beneath rune infused memories of the lab and all the chaos he used to get up to with his partners, back before everything went so horribly wrong.

Within the hour, they began the long climb out. 

The brace held, and Jayce couldn’t help but take that as a win, despite the loss of his weapon.

True to their word, his Companion did in fact navigate the climb up easily. As agile as they had been when clambering down to assist him that very first day. They were attentive, whilst showing him the easiest footholds to use. Constantly glancing back down at him, as Jayce huffed and puffed and struggled to put one hand above the other. 

The long days spent resting had zapped his stamina. Whilst his bound leg offered constant protests to his every move. But Jayce forced himself to persist.

“Come on, Love.” His Companion encouraged for what felt like the hundredth time, having found a ledge wide enough to take a rest break on. They had already leaned over the edge to offer him their hand. “We will catch our breath here for a moment.” “I can keep going.” Jayce tried to insist as they caught his wrist and began hauling him up. He pushed with his good leg, his unoccupied hand grasping firmly onto the lip of the ledge. “I do not doubt that,” they reassured him as his knee hit the rock, and he was guided away from the drop. “But it will be a more pleasant climb if it is not out of desperation. We have time.”

Jayce’s good leg slipped as a foothold caved under his weight. He cried out. Nails digging into the rock as he body lurched dangerously. 

Above, there was a flurry of movement. The blur of glowing runes leaving trails of light as their owner slid back down the rockface to grab him before he tumbled back down into the darkness.

They grunted from his additional weight, fingers like a shackle around his wrist. Keeping him from slipping further. Jayce somehow knew they wouldn’t let him fall. Even if it were out of sheer stubbornness rather than available strength.

“Love.” They strained, and Jayce shook his head as he scrambled for new handholds and somewhere to put his dangling foot. “I am NOT spending any more days down there.” They informed him firmly. “We’re so close. Come on, one last push!”

And they were. Jayce could actually see a sliver of sunlight along one of the cracks. Could smell fresh rain, alongside the damp of the stone. The sound of raindrops felt like music to his ears. A fresh melody after the maddening tempo of dripping stalactites.

The pair climbed out of the ravine, and then continued upwards. 

The mechanical dolls had already begun to shift and turn their heads towards him, as Jayce panted and scrambled to find his legs. Only for the machines to promptly fall still as Jayce’s hand was promptly snatched up and tightly intertwined with that of his Companion. The touch sending a sharp but pleasant tingle down his arm.

“They will not be able to sense you, so long as you hold onto me.” “A byproduct of the runes?”

They nodded, and then began dragging him through the crowd, following Jayce’s original path. How they knew what direction he planned to head in, he was not certain, but the warmth of their hand in his helped him to think past it.

Together, they climbed and scaled and clawed their way up to the only part of the world seemingly untouched by the bleakness of the corruption. A stretch of greenery that spanned across the top of the Hexgate dome, cracked and fractured but no less beautiful. At the far edge of a platform, knelt a lone figure clutching what at first glance, looked to be a long stick. Head bowed as if in prayer.

The warmth of the hand in his abruptly slipped away as Jayce’s Companion let out a soft sigh and began making their way towards the figure. The surety in their step spoke of time spent in this patch of sunlight before. A thought given evidence when they approached the statue and greeted it like a slumbering sweetheart.

“Good Morning, my Love.” They whispered, voice swimming with warmth and fondness. Jayce followed half a step behind, watching with a frown as they leaned down to press a light kiss to the temple of the statue. They withdrew just as quickly, trailing tender fingers down the figure’s marble cheek, to its shoulder, before trailing light fingertips around its back. The plants growing out of its back bent easily to their touch, before seeming to bloom and reach back.

It was an odd sight to behold. Plants did not act like that when disturbed, or at least they shouldn’t. But then again, this dimension was full of mechanical dolls instead of citizens. And Jayce currently stood before a person who wore his lover’s face. So, putting everything else into perspective, the plants seeming to arch into a gentle touch, wasn’t all that strange of a sight.

“Who was he?” Jayce found himself asking, eyes sliding back to the face of the bowing figure. To the metal flecked hands wound around the handle of what Jayce realised with a sickening drop of his stomach, was a perfect replica of his hammer. As it was after being corrupted from the ravine; warped and uneven.

His Companion smiled sadly at his question. “Look closer, Jayce.”

His eyes flickered up to their calm expression, and then back down to the statue. To the echoes of a face almost entirely erased beneath the white marble. To the tiny garden of plants thriving within the broken crown of its skull.

It was the first mechanical being Jayce had seen so far, that still clung onto its past identity. Its facial features have not entirely been erased or consumed by gleaming gold or purifying white.

With a tired groan, he lowered himself down to his knees, his bad leg throbbing from the angle change. 

It turned out that kneeling down, had him at the perfect height to stare straight ahead into the statue’s blank, half-opened eyes, the suggestion of lax pupils and irises staring back at him. His gaze trailed up, to the arch of a brow before sliding in towards the inner eye and down the slope of a nose. A nose Jayce had spent a lifetime scrutinising in the mirror-

In his peripheral vision, a flash of blinding white had Jayce’s head snapping away from studying the statue. 

As before, his Companion stood over the statue’s shoulder like some imitation of a solemn angel, but it wasn’t them that had Jayce’s body startling. 

It was the ominously hooded figure looming just behind them. Under the weight of his gaze, that hooded head turned towards Jayce. Stood so still and silently, the Mage oozed power. The very galaxies appeared to have been caught in the shadow of their hood. Whereas tendrils of the arcane had sunk into the fibres of their hooded cloak, bleaching bursts of pink and blue in arching webs across the fabric.

The spell was abruptly shattered, when Jayce’s Companion suddenly rounded on the hooded figure, hands clenched into fists at their sides. “You know,” they sharply lectured, back straight as the robed figure jumped. “Normally, people say, hi, instead of just appearing soundlessly!”

The hooded figure seemed to fumble for a response. Head snapping to them as if the Mage had not been expecting his Companion to address him at all. Undeterred, Jayce watched as their shoulders remained tense as they pointedly looked the Mage up and down. “And what the hell are you wearing?” Jayce winced at the venom in those words. 

The Mage’s shoulders slumped dramatically, before they motioned theatrically to Jayce, which just earned them a humourless huff.

“Really? You’re trying not to scare him?” They dryly asked, making Jayce question how they had managed to get all of that from a simple look and gesture. “Well, you could’ve fooled me.”

The Mage sighed tiredly, fingers tightening around their staff. “Y/n, please.” They huffed, and the familiarity of that accented voice sent a pang of intense longing through Jayce. So much so that his stomach physically twisted at the pleading undertone to those raw words.

“...Viktor?”

Both dimensional variations of Jayce’s lovers stiffened at his quiet question.

“Uh, Jayce, I-” The Mage looked at his Companion for support, his hood obscuring his features, but somehow his exasperation shone through just as well. 

To their credit, his Companion just shrugged. “It’s not my fault you changed everything but your voice.”

The Mage huffed audibly. “Well if you hadn’t been here to mess up my introduction, then we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

Jayce watched as Y/n’s shoulders bunched, their knuckles tightening as they opened their mouth to snap back, but thankfully Jayce was the first to speak.

“Look!” He said loudly, startling both of them into holding their tongues. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I’m in the city, or why you’ve both guided me up here. So will someone please start explaining?”

His questions earned him another exchange of looks from the pair. A tense shake of the head from one, and a shrug from the other. 

Jayce did not like the heavy tension drawing tight between the two. The worst disagreement he’d ever witnessed between his Viktor and Y/n had been a ten minute back and forth where Y/n had misplaced one of Viktor’s notebooks and he had blown up at them for it. The notebook - thankfully - had been found mere moments later, but the fight had been terrifying for Jayce to witness all the same.

Clearly, whatever had fractured the bond here and left the two of them snapping at one another, had been far more significant than a simple misplaced notebook. And something told Jayce that the figure currently knelt before them was the main cause of it.

With a sigh, the Mage with Viktor’s voice stepped forward and tilted his head up just so. The sunlight finally penetrated the starry darkness collected beneath his hood, gently curling over his cheek and breathing warmth into his magically iridescent eyes. Jayce’s breath got stuck in his throat at the sight those familiar eyes turned soft with an untold emotion, of facial hair and clear signs of age on Viktor’s face. 

It was then that the Mage finally began to explain.

"Send him back." 

Stood a little ways back from the pair of them, Y/n had their arms wrapped tightly around themself as they flicked their frosty expression over to a tense Viktor. When the Mage looked back at them, their jaw tightened and they raised their chin. Preparing for a fight. 

“It is only fair." They added.

"I was always going to." Viktor snapped back, just as sharply.

To which Jayce couldn’t fully conceal his wince. He had scarcely been in their collective presence for more than half an hour, and it had taken every molecule of councilor decorum to keep from sitting the both of them down for a much needed conversation. Whenever the Mage wasn’t looking, Y/n kept shooting him sad, uncomfortable looks, as if they wanted to add their input, but couldn’t quite find the right words. Whereas, Viktor had just seemed to keep his expression smooth and his head constantly turned away from the human. And it was honestly painful to watch.

Despite their differences, they were both so clearly similar to the people Jayce knew and loved that he almost didn’t want to leave them here with the petrified version of himself for silent company. But unfortunately, with a world to save, and his actual partners to track down, he was already stretched pretty thin.

So when the Mage turned back to Jayce, a silent question in his eyes, Jayce hardened his eyes, clutched his borrowed hammer tighter and firmly told him to send him back.

Viktor had complied readily. A hand emerged from the folds of his cloak, the fingers tattooed with blue runes and elegantly spaced lines encircling his fingertips. The runes on his knuckles began to glow, his hand raising in front of him to focus his magic towards Jayce.

Y/n shifted away from him as the tattoos along his arm began to light up as well. Their mouth was drawn into a tight line as they crossed their arms. Jayce caught a glimpse of the hesitance in their eyes. Noticed the way their own runes dimmed when sitting in direct comparison to the magic Viktor wielded with ease.

The sight had a stray thought slamming into Jayce, as his mind jumped to a dream shared in the darkness of the ravine. The panic the memory had brought on, and the stilted answers he’d failed to pull from them. The unease that settled low in his belly was unbalancing enough for him to throw out a panicked, “wait!”

Both Mage and human startled at his sudden declaration. The hand of the former freezing mid-cast, causing the swirling sphere of light that had begun to flash around Jayce to still. Whereas the latter took several concerned steps forward, a question already on their lips.

“Y/n, do not get too close.” Viktor warned evenly, to which they shot him a sharp look.

Before the pair could dissolve into another sharp spat, Jayce licked his lips and caught the human’s attention. “Your runes,” he said desperately, “can you give me the combination so I can help my Y/n?”

Their expression eased at his words, as it often did when they were about to call him ‘Love’. Only this time, the look was tinged with regret as they began to shake their head.

Jayce’s stomach dropped.

“I could,” they told him carefully, “but it would not help you.”

“What do you mean?” Jayce demanded, feeling a sharp stab of panic rip through him.

The human and Mage exchanged another tense look. Viktor inclined his head. Whether granting permission or offering them the choice to answer, Jayce was not entirely sure.

Y/n took another small step towards him, keeping him from picking the action apart for too long. "You see, that interaction between them and The Herald happens whilst you're stuck in this universe. By the time we send you back, you won’t be able to do anything, correct runes or not. It is down to them and luck if they manage to find the correct combination to remain separate from the hivemind."

"So there is nothing I can do?"

The Mage shook his head, and offered his own input. "Sometimes they are lucky. But in most timelines, they fall to The Herald like everyone else he attempts to cure."

Jayce was gone. Again. Returned to his own dimension to hopefully have a better chance at a happy ending than this world had.

The light had scarcely dissipated from Viktor’s fingertips, before his lover was turning to him with a sharp look in their eye. “Drop the illusion.” They ordered him flippantly, eyes flicking across his robe and bearded face. 

Viktor almost smiled back, almost teased that the form had grown on him, but he could tell from the way they held themselves that their patience was thin today. 

So instead, he allowed his form to flicker, and then change. His white robe shrunk and stretched to become his typical two tailed cloak wrapped around his shoulders. Whilst the galaxy previously trapped beneath the fabric stretched out to cover his skin, which began to erode and return to its unique combination of metal and tendons. Between one blink and the next, his face split and his mask unfolded over his slumbering expression like a mushroom cap emerging from the stem.

“Better?” He asked humorlessly, glancing down at his Lover, who was now significantly shorter than him. They did not flinch away at his distorted voice in this newer, taller, stronger form. It had been so long since the end of everything, that now, they barely seemed to acknowledge the difference between his forms. And he had not sensed fear in the air when they looked upon him like this for years. A small mercy. 

They looked him up and down judgmentally, before shrugging. “Sure.” They said impassively, “whatever helps you sleep at night.” Viktor decided with great self-preservation to not remind them that he did not in fact sleep anymore. Which of course earned him another light jab.

“You couldn’t even grow a beard in that body,” his Lover commented absently, “so why did you give yourself one this time?” “I thought it would look dashing.” He replied simply. “Do you not agree?”

They rolled their eyes with a ghost of fondness in their face. “You forgot the mole under your right eye this time.”

“Oh. Then I am lucky Jayce did not notice.” Viktor relented easily. After so long, the details of that original body had begun to evade him after all. Sometimes it was the eye colour infused with the power of the Hexcore that he forgot. Other times it was the shade of his hair, or the exact length of his nose. Tiny, meaningless things that his Lover seemed to notice every time regardless.

“Speaking of Jayce,” Viktor began slowly, “you spoke to this one.”

“He was injured.” They returned sharply, avoiding his gaze. “He could have died down there.” “I would not have let him.” “And how was I to know that?” They demanded. “Our paths have not crossed outside of this ritual for decades, Viktor. We have not spoken properly since you destroyed everything.” “Because you hid from me. I could not find you. I tried to find you.” They swallowed audibly. “I had nothing to say to you.”

The usual routine of the world fell back into step the following dawn.

Viktor waited on the dome of the Hexgates to watch the sunrise with Jayce’s statue, as the pair waited for their human Companion to find them. The Mage was not entirely sure where they went when they were not visiting Jayce and pointedly ignoring him, nor could he really find out on his own thanks to those blasted runes, but it was enough that they turned up at all.

There was no dimensional traveller to guide today, so they turned up an hour later than usual. Freshly washed and dressed in clean attire after so many days spent down in the cave tending to the latest Jayce in the depths of Zaun. It would have been a sweet thought if Viktor hadn’t been tearing the world apart trying to locate the both of them.

But they were fine. And they were here now, crossing Jayce’s blooming resting place to drop a kiss to the statue’s cold forehead and sink to their knees before him. From his spot on the grass a short distance away, Viktor watched with quietly amused eyes as they pulled a stick of charcoal out of their pocket and began carefully drawing out a series of runes across Jayce’s forehead.

It was a daily tradition by now, for them to do so. And for Viktor to watch them try for hours on end. They had grown so familiar with the runes, that they no longer needed to consult a notebook or Viktor’s extensive knowledge to accurately draw the symbols out. 

He had tried fruitlessly in the beginning to dissuade them from wasting their time. After all, what Viktor had done to their lover was permanent, and could not be reversed. To which they had turned on him with a burning fury and not so kindly told him to stick his pessimism back up his ‘cosmic ass’.

So Viktor had stopped offering his input. And they had stopped talking to him unless absolutely necessary. They carefully drew out the rune combinations, and Viktor lingered nearby. Quietly watching and regretting everything that had the three of them to where they were now.

What he hated the most however, were the runes on his human love’s forehead, which prevented him from offering so much as a glimpse into his thoughts. That kept him from honestly showing them just how remorseful he was. From showing them just how many times he had tried to reverse his mistake. How many times he had tried and failed to bring Jayce back for them.

"Hand." They demanded then, snapping him out of his thoughts with a start. They withdrew their stick of charcoal from Jayce’s cracked, marble-like forehead and held out their own hand expectantly.

Used to the routine by now, Viktor obediently leaned across the short distance and gave them the limb. His hand dwarfed their’s worse than Jayce’s ever had. A twisted mass of purple tendons and metal, which they gently wrapped their fingers around as far around his wrist as they could go before they guided his outstretched fingertips to the charcoal symbols.

They were always gentle with him in that regard. Despite how furious they were at him for ending the world. In spite of how powerful and imposing he was now, and how difficult he’d actually become to hurt - ridiculous pain tolerance aside. And somehow, the gentleness just made everything so much worse.

The marks did not flare to life. They dropped his wrist, and Viktor pulled back as they wiped away the old runes and set to writing down a fresh set.

"Though your determination is admirable, have you not grown bored yet?" He asked, as he asked them everyday.

"No."

"This isn't working."

"It will."

"There are hundreds of thousands of possibilities. Endless conceivable combinations. There is no way you will be able to try them all."

But instead of ignoring him as they always did, they turned to him today. Their eyes burned with a new found determination. With a light that had Viktor’s tongue going dry.

"Jayce wouldn't give up." They told him sharply, and oh, Viktor hadn’t heard that tone in years, and he hadn’t even realised he’d missed it. "If our roles were reversed, he wouldn't give up on us. Or did that Jayce's determination mean nothing to you." They finished, motioning to the place the other Jayce had been standing just yesterday, having been freshly prepared for the hell he would have to deal with upon returning home.

Viktor lapsed into silence. Eyes distant as he glanced from his blank faced Lover to the meadow of flowers he has cultivated for their late love.

“What?” They pushed an ounce of venom oozing into the word. “No witty quip about how you preferred the silence? How you would have preferred I remained out of your sight, allowing you to revel in the peace a little longer?” “No.” Viktor replied carefully, suddenly wrong footed. “You know I wouldn’t. Prefer it, that is.”

And something cracks open wide in their expression. A loosening to their tightly knotted eyebrows. A widening of their pupils as if something had just clicked into place. Shock perhaps? Realisation? 

“Oh.”

They turned away from him instead of elaborating, some of that hostile wind leaving their sails. 

Viktor could only watch on, a nugget of relief sitting low in his chest, as he was once again silently grateful for the luck of that rune combination working out in this timeline. That he hadn’t succeeded in erasing them. That their sharp tongue and fierce determination outlived his short-sighted thirst for power and submission.

"Hand." 

And like clockwork, Viktor offered it to them.

Their grasp on his wrist remained careful, but firm. So small compared to his much larger form. But fearless in the way they directed him.

Viktor’s fingertips smudged the charcoal when his fingers lightly touched Jayce’s forehead, as the Mage carefully reached inside in search of that thread within Jayce's dormant subconsciousness. He never quite knew what he was searching for when they did this, but he did know that the first time, the wall of resistance had come out of seemingly nowhere, and had shut out his probing touch with an unapologetic firmness. 

But as it always seemed to, Jayce's mind opened up to Viktor and his fingers sank in. Jayce's memories and emotions swirled beneath his fingertips, so fragile and so precious. With a bittersweet smile, Viktor offered him a parting burst of love and adoration before withdrawing. Jayce slumbered on, if not a little easier with the magical nudge.

There was a huff beside him as he withdrew his hand back to his staff. Viktor glanced down at his Companion, whose shoulders were drooping as they tenderly reached up with a damp, charcoal smudged rag to wipe the old runes away, before they took up their charcoal stick and began to draw new ones on.

There was a set to their brow this time. The subtlest of wobbles to their lower lip that made Viktor's stomach twist with guilt and longing. He wanted to reach out and gently pull the charcoal from their hand. To murmur that they needed a break before gathering them to him, but he knew from experience that he would just end up getting shoved away, and they would run from him. That they would use their runes to their advantage to conceal themselves from him.

"I miss him." They whispered under their breath, and Viktor's eyes closed tightly against the sheer pain in their tone.

"As do I." He reassured them, and they smiled tightly at him.

Wordlessly, they reached out for Viktor's hand, and he readily gave it to them. What stunned him however, was how instead of simply placing his fingers for him, they instead brought it to their lips first, and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Their eyes shone when he stared at them in shock, the affection so deeply missed, that for a moment, he was rendered speechless.

His eyes studied their expression, their posture, the magical void produced by their runes. Trying and failing to figure out what had changed. What had induced the whisper of affection he so desperately craved.

"I am still mad at you." They clarified wetly, "but I miss you too, Viktor."

And oh by the Gods, he almost caved right then and there. Just the quiet utterance of his name said so sweetly, so sadly, almost had him losing his cool. Almost had him throwing caution to the wind and hauling them into his lap regardless of the consequences. It was only sheer stubbornness that kept him seated where he was.

He wanted instead to reassure them that he was still here with them. That he had been here the entire time, despite being a little different. Despite having changed. That deep down, he was still their Viktor, and no amount of magic or Hexcore influence could truly take him from them.

But he ended up voicing none of those things to them, because they had already turned away and lifted his offered hand to Jayce’s forehead.

Viktor's fingertips made contact, and sank down into Jayce’s consciousness, all before jolting to a sharp stop. The Mage’s attention flickered fully to the forehead of the statue, where he felt a resistance beginning to bubble. All before the runes under his fingertips burst to life. He let out a pained cry, as his magic was snatched from his grasp, and turned to repel him. 

The grip on his wrist suddenly tightened, and his hand was torn away, severing the connection before the runes could take too much, but not before a sickening crack echoed out across the meadow. For one nauseating moment, Viktor thought he’d finally done it. That he had somehow managed to destroy Jayce’s statue. 

But no, it wasn’t the crack of Jayce’s statue body crumbling to dust. It was the sound of his hands - still outstretched towards his absent hammer - suddenly dropping to his sides as if all the solid particles in his limbs had turned to liquid molecules.

Viktor shot to his feet in moments. 

Regardless of the consequences, he lost no time in scooping up his Lover and hauling them out of the way. One arm wrapped tightly around them and bringing them in to his chest, he levelled his staff defensively at the statue as he began to back up.

The statue that was beginning to look less and less like a statue by the moment. Its smooth, white exterior had begun to flake and twist, whilst the various plants growing around it were beginning to slide right off it, as if their roots had been pushed cleanly out of it. Sheets of marble flaked off of the figure’s ribcage, as its chest began to rise and fall. 

More of the material began to fall off the thing's face, revealing gently closed eyelids and flaring nostrils. Then, the marble around the blown out portion of its head began to grow and round out into the shape of a skull, before it cracked like an egg and hair flopped out. Familiar, deep brown locks.

With a gasp, and a jolt, Jayce came back to life.

His eyelids flew open, and his mouth unhinged in a gasping breath. The runes etched into his forehead solidified and sunk down under his skin in the mockery of a crown, as his hands flew to his throat, and then his bearded cheeks. Curious fingers patted along his nose, up his cheeks, checked to ensure he still had ears. And then he was bending forwards, to glance down at his body, clad in the very same outfit he had worn on the day Viktor absorbed him into the hivemind.

"I'm… I’m alive?" He said breathlessly. And there was bewilderment in his voice. And relief. So much relief. His voice was rough and tired. Weak and barely there. But it was Jayce. And it sounded like home. And by the Gods did it make Viktor want to weep with want and relief. 

Viktor kept his arms loosely wrapped around his human lover as the pair watched Jayce come to himself, and begin to take in his surroundings.

"I told you." Y/n whispered triumphantly, pulling Viktor’s attention down to them. They were practically vibrating in place, one tiny hand wrapped around the back of his hand. Then their face split into a grin, and they tilted their head up and back to catch his gaze. "I TOLD YOU!" They exclaimed in a victorious yell, blessing him with the widest, most excited smile he had  ever seen them muster.

A few short steps away, Jayce had struggled to his feet. He scrambled to get his weakened legs under him, his hands sinking into the soft soil as his knees shook with the effort. He seemed to have not noticed his company yet, as he turned his back to them, to stare out over the destruction of the world sprawled far below. His shoulders heaved with his fast paced breaths as he no doubt took in the dilapidated buildings, the empty river with the corpses of ships resting on their massive sides. The broken and collapsing spires of the bridge, covered in thorny spikes of arcane corruption.

Against it all, Jayce’s Piltovern white jacket was a stark contrast. A nugget of the past, preserved and allowed breath once more. 

With a start, Viktor realised what form he was currently residing in, and the visceral reaction Jayce would no doubt have upon turning and seeing him. Of having his world destroyed, only to turn and find the creature that had done it standing a couple steps behind his turned back. 

The Mage pulled his human disguise on like a cloak, feeling himself shrink down to a variation of his old height. It was the disguise he had been using for every Jayce that had stumbled into this world, allowing his age to show in the lines of this new mask, and the blanket of starlight caught in the fabric to conceal the parts of his old self he could not fully recall. 

Now on more even footing with him, his Lover turned back to him in his loose hold, a tight smile on their face. “You forgot the mole again.” They told him simply, reached up to rub their thumb over a spot just below his eye. Viktor smiled back, pulling the mark into existence beneath this touch, and watching with a lick of satisfaction as the tightness around their eyes loosened ever so slightly when they noticed its presence. 

The urge to close the distance and offer them a kiss in thanks was almost too powerful to ignore. In this form, he certainly had the lips to do so, but he could still feel the tension lingering between them. Although slack with Jayce’s revival, it still remained beneath the surface. Fragile and in desperate need of strengthening. So that kind of affection could wait. Viktor was a patient man after all.

A soft gasp from Jayce had the two of them pulling apart, although Viktor noted with a bittersweet tug that Y/n did not yet withdraw nor they loosen their hold on his arm. As if using Viktor as an anchor.

Jayce was glancing back and forth between the Mage and human with a slack jaw. The weariness in his face was coated in a generous dose of curiosity, which was so obviously a Jayce quality that it made Viktor ache. He wanted to see the weariness slip away entirely though, so he slowly reached up to pull back his hood, allowing Jayce to fully come to terms with who he was in the presence of. 

“Viktor.” He breathed, with such an open expression of grief and relief that Viktor could not tell where one began and the other ended. Then Jayce was scrambling forward, his leg brace creaking ominously from so long without use. 

It was Y/n, who had the foresight to lunge forward to stabilise him before he went down. The absence of their warmth left Viktor suddenly cold, as they darted forward to wrap their hands around Jayce’s forearms. 

Jayce finally tore his eyes off of Viktor’s face, expression falling slack as he stared into a new, achingly familiar face. He whispered their name, like a prayer, and practically tripped over himself, again, to bring a hand up to their cheek. Viktor chuckled softly at the way they blatantly melted under the touch and kind eyes, as Jayce’s gaze flickered up to the runes glowing across their forehead. The wonder that flickered across his eyes was in no way forced, as his thumb lightly traced their cheek. There was not an ounce of fear polluting the air as he looked upon them. 

“You made it.” He whispered simply, all before hauling them close, and forcing them to stumble back a step in order to keep their balance. Faster than expected, the human stilled their flailing hands to tightly curl their arms around Jayce’s broad back. Immediately, shaking fingers clenched tightly into the dirty material of his jacket, holding tight. The pair moulded together perfectly, as they always had. 

And the sight made Viktor's heart ache. He lowered his staff, and took a hesitant step forward, a private, relieved smile tugging at his own lips.

All too soon, Jayce pulled back. Arms still wrapped tightly around the human, he ducked down to press a firm kiss to the skin between their brows, just beneath the lowest rune.

“Careful.” Y/n warned wetly, words waterlogged with emotion.

To which Jayce just kissed them again, more desperately. Almost playful in his relief. “Beautiful.” He complemented, although Viktor was not certain if it was to the runes or simply for them.

And then he turned to Viktor, who felt himself stiffen under the weight of those eyes. Of the sheer relief and love reflecting back at him. They were shocking emotions to find on Jayce’s face. He had expected fear or resentment, or at least caution, but no, Jayce exceeded his expectations once more.

Unwinding one of his arms, he grabbed the Mage by the sleeve and yanked him closer with more strength than Viktor recalled him having. Viktor was so stunned by the sudden motion, that he could not predict Jayce’s intention until he’d already been folded into the hug. 

“It- it is good to see you.” Viktor said hesitantly, patting Jayce’s back as the man squeezed him tightly into his side.

This form fit perfectly under Jayce’s arm, slight and small as it was. It was a far cry from the big, lethal form Viktor had come to favour in this ruined world. But somehow, he knew that Jayce would not take kindly to that face after having just woken up from being sealed away by it in the name of ‘perfection’.

And that was fine. It was enough that Jayce did not look upon him with open horror or suspicion. It was enough that he would instinctively reach a hand out to Viktor, even now, when he least deserved it. Even if he may not truly want Viktor’s touch after everything he had done.

“Jayce,” and oh, it has felt like an eternity since he has been able to say that name so fondly, “you need not-”

Jayce simply turned his head and pressed a tender kiss to the knot between Viktor’s eyebrows. Just as he had kissed Y/n. Light and adoring. And by the Gods, had Vitkor yearned for the warm touch of this man. So much so that he could not help but lean into the second kiss, his eyes slipping closed as his staff fell to the ground with a clatter and he finally returned the hug with both hands.

There was still so much left unsaid between them. Apologies that needed to be offered, and mistakes that needed to be talked out. But for now, this was a start. A very hopeful, good start.

Jayce ran straight from the Commune. Going as fast as his heavy hammer and ruined leg would allow him.

His heart was in his throat as he crossed the bridge. His breaths were sharp and shallow as he ran up the steps to the academy, dodging past bewildered looking students and ignoring the concerned calls of colleagues. 

His mind kept leaping back to the image of the thing shaped like Viktor collapsed on the floor of its home, dead and lifeless. He watched the unnatural glow of magic behind its eyes flicker and die. He could hear the metallic sound of the cog it had been holding rolling across the sand before running out of momentum and collapsing onto its side.

He had done it. He had completed his mission. And yet, it had not felt like a victory.

Viktor had made no sound when the hammer’s beam had ripped through him. Had offered no dying words as he looked at Jayce with what he could only describe as detached acceptance before his eyes had gone blank.

The thud of Jayce’s shoulder colliding hard with the laboratory doors slammed him back into the present. The door banged hard against the wall from how fast he had shouldered his way inside, having expected a barricade or at least a locked door. But there was nothing. He skidded to a halt in the middle of the room, panting hard as he wildly snapped his eyes around the room.

It looked like it had in the other Y/n’s memories. Viktor chrysalis still stood in the centre of the room before the window. The desk beneath said window was strewn with notebooks depicting rune translations. There was an uncapped marker pen on the floor, and a shattered, hand held mirror beside it. 

But there was no Lab Illustrator. No Y/n. Jayce felt his heart rate begin to kick up again. Even once touched by Viktor’s magic, the dolls still had physical forms. Once they had deactivated, they had screamed and gone limp, but they had still been there. If luck hadn’t been on their side in this universe, there should at least be a body to bury. Unless of course, Viktor had taken them back to the commune with him. Unless they had laid dying amongst the rest of his cult followers, and Jayce had simply run past them. 

His boots were filled with lead as he dragged his hammer deeper into the laboratory. 

Of all his luck, he seethed that this was the one element that had been entirely out of his control. He hated that he hadn’t been here to give them the right combination. Wasn’t here in time to get them out of the lab before Viktor found them.

He let out a furious yell, and with his emotions fueling his strength, he was hauling his hammer up off of the ground. Muscles charged by fury and grief, he brought the corrupted weapon down on the desk, to which the wood split with a satisfying crack. All of those useless notebooks clattering to the floor as Jayce watched. He was half tempted to burn them for all the good they had been. All those countless, irreplaceable hours of research, only for it all to mean nothing when it had truly mattered-

Behind him, in the depths of the gloomy lab, Jayce heard something shift.

“You should not be here.” A voice growled. Which was all the warning Jayce got before he heard the hiss of clothing. The shuffle of a shoe readjusting against tiles.

His hammer was back in his hand, fingers wrapping around the handle that would open the four points and expose the charging core. He spun on his good leg, widening his stance.

Across the room, he saw a silhouette. His breath stuttered and his eyes widening at the ominous glow of seven points on a humanoid head. 

Then the glow of his weapon illuminated the shine of something metallic soaring for his head. With a yelp, Jayce ducked. The wrench hit the wall behind his head with a heavy thump, before it fell to the floor with an unnerving clatter.

Eyes wide, Jayce glanced from it, back to the figure, his hammer lowered unconsciously. He barely dodged the screwdriver that had been sailing for his eye next. 

“OUT!” Came the roaring command from the shadowy figure. 

Jayce let out a choked shout, dropping his hammer in favour of using his hands to scramble away as they darted forward to snatch up a new projectile. 

“Wait!” He tried to reason, hands flying up. The little hammer was thrown at him regardless. Spinning head over handle straight for his face. He ducked that one too. “It’s me!” He bellowed, arms braced on either side of his head, as he ducked and threw himself out of the way of hammers, and screws, and seemingly every tool in the lab that those frantic hands could wrap their fingers around. 

“It’s Jayce!” He yelled, “it’s me! It’s me!”

He rounded the desk and watched as the light from the window slid over him, hopefully strong enough for some part of him to be recognisable despite the destroyed clothes, long unbrushed hair and the horrible beard. 

The figure stilled with a second hammer already drawn back over their shoulder.

“Jayce?” Came the whispered question, as if speaking too loud would cause him to disappear. For a brief moment, Jayce was back in the darkness of the ravine, staring at a shadow with seven glowing eyes. Only this time, he felt no fear. Just all consuming relief. “Yeah.” He croaked, “it’s me.”

The shadow fell quiet and shuffled closer. Clumsy and uncoordinated. Clearly watching Jayce rather than checking where its feet were being placed. Closer and closer those iridescent runes came, until their ominous glow became legible symbols, and Y/n’s pupils retracted as they stepped into the sunlight with him.

There was blood on their face. Curling down their temple, and dried over the curve of their cheeks. The fresh runes glowing against normal skin. Angry and raw as if someone had used a pocket knife to create them instead of a pen and a magical hand. The flesh had split deeply, the iridescent ink having sunk down to replace the blood that would have otherwise welled there. A sharp difference to the neatly, healed over symbols on the other Y/n.

“Oh… Gods-” They murmured, a hand rising up to cover their mouth as they looked at him. Taking in the cuts, and deep exhaustion lines. The unkempt, greasy hair and tangled beard. Jayce tried to smile, but he knew it fell short. “What happened to you?”

There was pen ink on their fingertips, Jayce noticed. Dry now. But there nonetheless. Further evidence of the scene that had occurred here. Of what had led to them hiding alone in a dark laboratory of all places.

“Too much to tell you here.” He replied, “besides, it looks like I should be asking you the same question.”

The hammer slipped from between their slack fingers, and then they threw themselves at him. Arms snapping round his neck to drag him closer with a desperation that Jayce couldn’t help but mirror. The familiar weight of them in his arms finally eased the unsettled fluttering in his chest, as he ducked his head and pressed a grateful kiss to their temple, the fresh runes buzzing pleasantly against his fingertips. 

His companion gave no indication that the action hurt, nor whether they could even feel it. Not that it mattered just yet whether or not the area was numb. 

They were alive. He was alive. And that in itself was a miracle.

Masterlist