Chapter Text
He barely closed the last journal when he hears the door opening, the familiar click-clack of a cane accompanying it, and he thought he would be prepared for it after hours of reading. Would be ready for it, but he should have known better.
The second he hears Viktor calling for him, an ugly sob claws its way from his throat. Before he even has the chance to cover it up, to pull himself together, Viktor is already in the living room.
“...truly annoying, but at least Heimerdinger listens, it’s more than those other…”
His voice.
It’s the same.
He looks just like when Jayce met him all those years ago, maybe a bit tired but alive.
He looks alive.
Looks like his Viktor before everything fell apart.
Wants to reach out, but he doesn’t deserve it.
Doesn’t deserve to be here.Not after what he has done.
Another sob, this one shaking his whole body.
“Jayce, what is going on?”
Oh, to hear him again.
To have the voice he has been missing be directed at him once again.
He wishes he could react, but no words want to leave his lips.
The tears he had been holding back ever since his Viktor finally woke up, finally came alive again, drowning him.
Overwhelming him.
And he can do nothing but allow the waves to take him under.
How could he have ever dared to believe he would be prepared for this?
Naive.
He had been naive to think anything could have ever prepared him to see Viktor again.
To see this version of him that had been lost to Jayce years ago.
A Viktor that belonged to him in another life.
That he has stolen.
Thief.
Taking something from himself he doesn’t deserve.
Would never deserve.
Not after all he has done.
All that he has allowed to happen.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
It’s all his throat allows him to verbalize.
Words warbling out over and over again, shaky and teary. Barely audible over the sobs that wreck him.
A hand in his hair makes him cry almost harder.
Carding through his thick hair that is longer in this universe than it had ever been. Fingers getting caught in tangles from where he had been gripping it too tightly while reading, carefully untangling them so as to not hurt him.
“Shhh, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re fine, we’re fine, everything is okay.”
Arms carefully slide around him, a body pressing close.
The scent.
The warmth.
It’s all so familiar.
It feels like coming home.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He can’t stop apologizing. Can’t stop trying to atone for all he has done wrong, even if this Viktor has no idea of his wrongdoings.
Doesn’t know about any of the crimes he has committed in the name of trying to save his Viktor. Of making their dreams come true.
The blood on his hands.
He’s all wrong.
The arms around him grow tighter, pulling him even closer. There’s so much strength hidden in Viktor’s small frame. People always underestimated him.
“I’m so sorry."
Humming is Viktor’s only acknowledgement of the apologies spilling from his lips, a kiss pressed to his by now surely sweaty hair.
He does it like it’s the easiest thing in the world, something he has done a hundred times, like it isn’t world-shattering to feel Viktor’s lips pressed against him.
Like it doesn’t tear Jayce apart to be the recipient of the easy affection he has wished for whenever he was on his own, but knowing that it isn’t for him.
It isn’t his.
It’s meant for the version of him whose place he took.
“I’m all wrong, please don’t…”
He doesn’t know how to say it. How to tell Viktor that he shouldn’t touch him, that he doesn’t deserve it when it is all he wants.
When it’s the only thing that seems to soothe the hurt that has been festering.
“No, you’re not, you’re good. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
The words are murmured into his hair, affirmations that leave Viktor’s lips as if they are nothing unusual, as if he’s used to whispering them over and over again.
And Jayce wonders.
Wonders.
Wonders if the other Jayce felt like him some days.
Like he doesn’t deserve it.
Even though he does.
Because this is his Viktor.
This is his life, and he deserves the comfort.
Deserves all the love.
Because he never did something unforgivable.
Not like Jayce.
He deserves all the pain.
Has destroyed everything.
Can only shake his head, and continue letting out a stream of apologies that will never reach the ears of the person who would deserve to hear them.
Wonders if his Viktor would have ever forgiven him, if maybe one day they would have reunited. If one day Viktor would have come back, or Jayce would have found him, and they would have gotten a chance to start over.
Or if they would have stayed just a memory.
A ghost of the past.
Haunting every moment.
A ‘What if…?’ Jayce would have never been able to let go of.
“C’me here, you idiot. I love you, but you’re being very uncooperative. Worse than some of the assistants Heimerdinger made me hire.”
I love you.
The words hurt even if they are meant to do the opposite, they hit a chord deep inside Jayce, the desperate desire to be loved by Viktor in return, but it’s not for him.
The love is not for him.
Nonetheless, Jayce allows Viktor to drag him up, unconsciously leaning into the hands holding his face, shuddering, and feeling even more tears falling when he is face to face with Viktor the first time.
“Good, and now, deep breaths.”
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
It’s hard taking a full breath, and it keeps shuddering, wavering, fresh tears flowing where old ones had dried, but after a while his breathing finally calms, and it earns him a soft smile.
The likes he had rarely earned, more often than not only brought forth by sweetmilk, or when Jayce finally figured out what his favorite pastry was.
His favorite smile though had been when they were levitating, bathed in the blue light of the Hexcrystal, weightless, laughing, nothing to lose but everything to gain.
That first night that had changed everything.
“Now…”
Viktor’s voice pulls him from his thoughts, and there’s a glint in his eyes that tells Jayce what is about to happen, which story he will have to bring out in the open, or rather which decision he has to make in a second.
Will he tell Viktor the truth, or will he try, and come up with a lie on the spot? Something that has never been Jayce’s strong suit.
“What is going on? You were doing fine when I left this morning, but I come back, and you’re surrounded by your journals, spiraling worse than I have seen in ages.”
Jayce doesn’t know what to say, sitting there, face still wet with tears he had been holding back for months, being faced with the person he never thought he’d see again. Worry clearly visible in those amber eyes, the depth of his concern and love in every action, and Jayce can’t help thinking ‘but it’s not for me’.
There are only two options, tell him the truth and hope to be believed, or tell a lie and risk pushing him away, and being found out later on. It’s not a hard decision in the end. There is no universe in which Jayce could stomach lying to Viktor.
No universe where he would be able to hide an important truth from Viktor for long.
“I… I don’t belong here. It’s…”
Viktor shakes his head, a sad smile on his face, reassurances falling from his lips, trying to make Jayce believe that yes, he does belong here, but no he does not.
“No, not in that way, I… I just woke up here. Hextech, it was, or rather is, real where I come from, and we fucked up. It became unstable, and it… There was an Anomaly, it sucked two other people and me in, and spit me out here.”
The hands that have been holding him pull away, and being stabbed would have been less painful, there’s suspicion in Viktor’s eyes, and Jayce can understand it, would struggle with being told that the other comes from a different universe, nonetheless it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I was… I checked the journals after realizing what must have happened to see what the differences were, and… Violet never died in my universe. It seems to be the occurrence that has changed this world’s timeline.”
For the better, is what remains unsaid, hanging heavy in the air between them.
“Oh."
What else is there to say when someone tells you they took over your love’s body?
When someone tells you they came from another universe that somehow is worse than your own?
He’s waiting.
Waiting to be told to leave.
To be told to go figure it out on his own.
For Viktor to demand he return to his own universe, to not taint this world with his darkness.
The tears are building again, and he turns his face away, can’t take Viktor’s eyes on him anymore. Not when he knows what is going to happen.
When he knows that he is about to lose Viktor all over again.
“Tell me everything.”
Jayce’s head whips back around, staring at Viktor, eyes wide, surprise easily readable on his face.
“You didn’t expect me to send you away now, did you?”
The man across him has his eyebrows raised, and shakes his head in amusement when Jayce flinches guiltily, grimacing.
Viktor’s hands reach out again, carefully taking Jayce’s own into his, carefully studying Jayce’s expression while he does it.
“This okay?”
Jayce can do nothing but nod, looking between Viktor’s face and their hands.
It’s world shattering that Viktor still wants to touch him, doesn’t just throw him out but rather wants to know everything.
It seems in this world Jayce had never given him a reason to doubt his word, never gave him reason to believe he would lie, or Jayce thinks bitterly break a promise.
Of course, he ends up telling him the complete story, only leaving out the way he feels, but he knows that it doesn’t have to be verbalized to be obvious how he feels about Viktor.
It is in the way he speaks about him, the way he knows he grows soft when mentioning him.
It is in the way the pain is evident in his voice when he speaks of losing him.
It is in the way he stares in wonder at their still intertwined hands.
And of course, this Viktor knows the second Jayce mentions his name, if not even the moment he saw Jayce earlier that night.
—
“Will you be fine with us sharing a bed, or would you prefer separate ones? Or well…” Viktor chuckles, gazing around the flat, the two doors, one going to their home lab and the other to their bedroom. “...sleep on the couch until we can organize a second bed?”
Jayce knows that it’s meant to be a kindness, that Viktor only wants him to be comfortable, but the thought of being away from the other man almost makes him whimper.
The thought of waking up in an unfamiliar place without Viktor by his side is a truly horrifying one.
The constant aching in his soul flares up again, the loss he hasn’t been able to process.
“No, please, I…”
He doesn’t know how to say, ‘please don’t let me wake up without you there’, ‘please don’t make me go through this alone’, ‘please don’t send me away’, without being too much.
Wonders if maybe it isn’t only for his comfort.
If Viktor would prefer not having Jayce by his side, if the thought of having another version of his love sleeping next to him makes him uncomfortable.
If he would prefer Jayce to stay away, to keep his distance.
“Unless you would rather I…”
Viktor looks at him, eyebrows furrowed as if trying to read between the lines, and he hums. Nodding to himself once when he seems to be sure he has figured the unspoken words out, Jayce can feel them hanging heavy in the air.
“Come on, time for bed, it’s late, and I definitely prefer sleeping with my personal space heater rather than without.”
‘You’re not him, but I want you there all the same.’
A sigh of relief leaves Jayce’s lips as he follows Viktor into their bedroom, unable to look away as the other man sits on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt with ease.
A smirk on his face, and raised eyebrows when he finds Jayce looking.
But he doesn’t stop.
Rather keeps eye contact as he slowly undresses, sitting there in only briefs for a moment, allowing Jayce to take in the expense of pale skin, the scars on his chest, the moles, no back brace yet, no bolts in his spine needed to keep him upright.
He can feel the urge to step forward and touch, feel the warmth of Viktor’s skin and make sure he is real swell up, only halted when the man speaks once more. Smirk clearly audible in his voice: “As much as I enjoy this, you should be changing too, rather than ogling me.”
It feels like being pulled from a dream, and Jayce can feel the flush staining his neck, quickly changing into the shorts that lay in waiting on the bed, and disappearing under the covers. Almost immediately greeted by a body pressing close, making him tense before forcing himself to relax and instead pulling Viktor closer.
Marvelling at the feeling of holding him, hearing him let out a happy sigh when his body relaxes after a long day, and he can’t stop himself from pressing his lips against Viktor’s hair, feeling the softness of waves he had always longed to touch.
Can’t help but wish that he could stay in this moment forever.
“This is definitely better than sleeping on the couch.”
The words are soft, as to not disturb Viktor who seems to already be drifting off, only giving a sleepy hum, and burying himself deeper in the arms Jayce has around him.
Sleep doesn’t take long to drag Jayce under that night, not with Viktor so close, and his breathing lulling him under better than any medicine ever had.