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The news about your illness fell over Viktor like a spilled bucket of ice water.
You might not be one of the founders of HexTech, but you were one of the authorities regarding the revolutionary amalgamation between technology and the arcane forces.
One could only imagine Viktor's surprise when reading in the Iron and Glass Gazette , he found the header line:
HexTech pioneer diagnosed with terminal illness: a lawsuit for patents incoming?
He had to stop soldering momentarily, take a breath so deep he swore he heard his mechanical lungs rattle, and sit down.
Incapable of feeling pain, he still could swear his head felt as if an oncoming headache was announcing itself.
He hates reading the news these days. They were always stupid happenings not worth mentioning, yet most of them had front-page relevance. This? He wished this wasn't relevant, but a renowned scientist working in Piltover, and involved during the first years HexTech was starting was news.
Especially speaking about their untimely demise.
For weeks, he tried to shake off the feeling, to keep repairing and correcting his automats, upgrading Blitzcrank, and receiving more patients in his lab at Emberflit Alley… But one night he couldn't just go on. He couldn't pretend he felt nothing because, in fact, he was feeling every emotion so strongly that, if someone were to ask, he'd need a list to help himself and name them all.
Melancholy, helplessness, and yearning were among the strongest ones.
And so, one night, he decided to visit you.
For Jayce, the news about your illness was something he comprehended but then put on the back of his mind. His responsibilities, although not the ones of a councilor anymore, were still of utmost importance to keep this city running smoothly, like clockwork with well-oiled engines.
A few days later, though, it dawned on him.
Your life was coming to an abrupt ending.
Ten years had since passed since Viktor, you, and he parted ways, in a messy, cataclysmic manner. So strong Viktor was trialed, and you ended up in the middle of the conflict. Suffice it to say you did search for them after the accident where Viktor's first lab blew up, but you were received with tired sighs, side-eyeing, and rotund negatives to speak about what happened between them that was so catastrophic an entire building exploded.
And so, you never went to them again. They never went to you. Of course, Jayce and Viktor never went to each other.
Until the night they both decided to visit you.
The sky was strangely unpolluted that night, you were able to see the stars very clearly. The balcony door was open per request, and curtains were set aside.
Despite exhaustion sitting in your bones and emanating from your aura, you weren't able to sleep. Not the tossing and turning kind of sleep, but rather the kind of insomnia where you couldn’t even lie down on the bed, because the blankets themselves itched and felt like a heavy anchor pulling you further and further into the mattress.
After your prognosis, thoughts and memories you haven't remembered in a long time came back with full force.
Pancakes done by your mother and nighttime stories told by your grandparents. Hide and seek among the trees with your friends. Your little town, a satellite village of Piltover with barely six houses. Your first time with one of your childhood friends, a clumsy but fun event where no feelings were involved, only curiosity. Your acceptance letter to the Academy of Piltover. The excitement felt by the whole village, upon hearing of your achievement. Gifts from everyone, despite not being able to visit in more than a decade after you went.
Meeting Jayce and Viktor in one of the Academy Balls.
The way all pieces fitted effortlessly, as a customized puzzle. Their reverent touch. The kisses you shared with them. The kisses they shared with each other. Love confessions, hands holding as if it was the end of the world, caresses through cheeks, cheekbones.
A fight about diving suits and bioethics that changed your whole world. A trial, for a break of the ethos . A banishment.
Reading through newspapers about an explosion. You , searching for Jayce through a Piltovan hospital. Him, refusing to speak about the whole ordeal. Then you, searching for a lonely lab where it was said a half-human lived, performing augmentation and questionable experimentation on those who presented themselves at his doorstep. You, receiving yet another silence, this time from Viktor, or rather someone wearing the face of your once-lover, for you didn’t recognize a single piece of his mannerisms in that monotone voice.
Never speaking of them again.
Until these last few days. Your kid, bless his heart, asked questions about your young days. And you told, you revealed, no shame and no doubt in your voice.
You had no qualms stating that Jayce and Viktor were the loves of your life. You also had no qualms in saying that it was too late and that there was no way to repair your relationship.
Until a very eventful night, when you heard a knock on your door.
You sighed and slowly started to get off your bed and see who it was. Parsimonious movements from the rug of your bedroom, to the ceiling of wood in the hallways until it reached the first floor, bare feet against the tiles.
Another knock, this time more insistent.
"Coming!" You exclaimed, voice as strong as you could manage in your delicate state.
When you opened the door, the image that greeted you was something out of your dream and reveries. It was so improbable that you almost thought your eyes were lying and what you witnessed was a mirage, a sleep-deprived hallucination fueled by your yearning, like oil that fuels a lantern and creates distorted shadows around the wood.
Jayce Talis in the flesh.
Sure, you have seen them other times. But never interacted, never talked, and tried to avoid each other's eyes if possible. There was too much a gaze could do, and neither of you couldn't dare to deal with how vulnerable and raw it would leave your souls with just one simple look.
Tonight, though, he searched for your eyes.
"Talis… What brings you here?"
"Can I come in?"
That answered absolutely nothing .
"Jayce, why are you here?"
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Do you really want to have this conversation at your doorstep at two in the morning?"
“Did you really just come in and knocked on my door at two in the fucking morning?”
Your next exhale came out shaky, exhausted. Not giving him even a few seconds to answer your question.
Not that you really wanted an answer, anyways.
Against your better judgment, you opened the door further to let him in.
He was about to plop on the couch, but your voice interrupted.
"My kid's asleep. I don't want to wake him up. Follow me."
Climbing upstairs to your room, Jayce noticed your movements were clumsier, slower, and very careful. You minded about where you stepped, if there was a rail nearby or something you could slip with.
Finally, on the threshold of your bedroom, you sat on your bed and Jayce searched for the nearby chair.
You noticed you weren't alone.
On the balcony, a tall figure stood. The only light provided was that of the moonlight, and those yellow, almost orange lights that came in a pair.
Viktor's eyes.
A distorted, mechanical voice spoke before you could even begin to ponder whether or not you would watch Viktor and Jayce have a fight. In your fucking bedroom, in front of your beloved collection of crystallized flowers.
"Do not fret, little one," he says, your heart skipping a beat when you heard the almost forgotten nickname, nostalgia stinging in your eyes and obstructing your throat. "I came here to visit. I don't wish to cause you any problem."
With your hand, you pointed to another chair he could sit on.
The three of you, now sitting together once again.
Not even the cold of the night nor the snow you have been feeling in your whole being for years could quell the fire that your riotous heart decided to ignite.
"You're here because I'm dying," you state, very nonchalantly about it.
You didn't even need to hear their sighs, you knew you were right.
"And what about it?" you speak once again. "I'm dying, so what?"
"I wanted to see you," a voice breaks the silence, mechanical rumbling cutting the harmony of your old-house aesthetic.
In a past lifetime, that would have been a statement so painfully, undeniably Viktor, that your heart would ache and you would invite him into your arms immediately. I wanted to see you too , you would say.
That was in another lifetime. Because in this one, this same man had given you a blank stare, a vacuum that not even memories could fill, a void so empty that no matter how many talks with him you remembered, how many days together you kept close to your heart, you couldn’t replace anymore. For Viktor was more wires and steel than heart and flesh.
“You saw me, now. You may now leave if that’s what you want.”
You once had promised yourself that you would welcome Jayce and Viktor back with open arms if they ever decided to go back to you. A foolish promise, because now the mere sight of them brought, besides a conflicting turmoil of nostalgic sensations, a feeling of resentment so strong it twisted your gut. Every candle you lit for them now wanted away, melting in the back of your heart. Every bit of hope now laid aside, under the dirt of the passing years.
"That's not–"
"Then why did you come here? Both of you."
Your pointed stare was the action that pulled Jayce out of his own thoughts, noticing the way your voice broke despite the fieriness in it.
“You’re dying, aren’t you?”
Jayce.
You were sure the explosion in Zaun from fifteen years ago took a piece of his brain in the process, along with whatever was left of his gentle nature, evaporated in its majority by that damn missile incident. A flame extinguishing, hope forgotten and left to rot.
“Yes, Jayce. I’m dying. I thought I have said that before”
But not even the now brash and careless Jayce could fill in the silence left after it, and the cruelest part of you basked in the sharp look he showed on his face, if only for a few seconds.
And then, you laughed.
This entire situation was all crooked and twisted, its own little contained parody of whatever was left of yourselves.
You were dying.
Not Viktor, whose life you watched whither away in a hospital bed. Hollow cheeks and protruding bones, emancipated but not defeated. Seemingly so, because you could now hear the mechanical rattling of his artificial lungs, providing what you think is a never-ending stream of prolonged, unnatural life. His last words to you before this night were: I won’t let myself follow whatever illusion a heart provides. I can’t, not anymore, not without what the rest of humans keep inside their chests. I suggest you do the same… I’m sorry, my love.
Not Jayce, who after the council attack almost died from blood loss. His normally sun-kissed skin was now pale, a sharp contrast against the dark circles under his eyes, from all those weeks of poor sleep trying to solve an unsolvable situation between two nations. In a comma for five days after that horrible explosion, and after that, whatever love was left inside him, whatever hope you could have of still trying to build a life with him, boiled and evaporated in an instant: Viktor’s not who he used to be. He’s not human anymore. I’m not myself anymore, what shit use we could have together anymore? You should go, and never come back. Whatever the hell was left of us after Viktor’s exile now’s gone.
So you went and never came back.
Jayce flinched, and you guessed he was slightly unnerved at least.
“I could fix it,” says Viktor.
He takes off that mask, letting you see his new face.
You hated how his cheeks didn’t seem filled in anymore, wiring and iron replacing what was left of flesh. His eyes shone eerily in the middle of the night, yellow contrasting against darkness. But you loved how he kept his moles. His droopy lids are still in place despite the fixtures he made on himself.
His gaze was still gentle.
“No, thank you.”
There was no bite in your voice this time.
“I don’t think trying to change this will be useful. Science already tried to save me, but there’s no use.”
“Science could save you too,” he countered.
“Viktor’s right.” You both loved and loathed the words that came out of Jayce’s mouth. “He could at least give you more time.”
“I could replace what is trying to kill you.”
The giggle that comes out of your mouth is everything but innocent.
There they were, for a moment. Your silly boys.
“We could help. You have a son, yes? You would like more time with him, perhaps?”
Your son. Your boy. Your light and your hope.
You detested the idea of leaving him behind, of robbing him of his protector, his guardian. But you also detested the idea of slowly losing yourself into augmentation, into unnatural prolonging until you couldn’t recognize what’s human and what’s not.
“You really want to help me?” You asked, offering them something, anything .
They both nodded.
“Have a dance with me first. Give me the wedding dance that never was.”
In a heartbeat, they both forgot whatever enmity existed between them, and Viktor pressed the button that turned on the radio.
Say where is my shame, when I call your name? So please don’t set me free, I’m as heavy as can be.
You used to imagine a wedding in full gala clothing. Black, gold, red, silver, and white. A fancy dinner with three times the number of guests in champagne bottles. Dancing. laughing. A silly speech from Professor Heimerdinger, a heartfelt one from Jayce’s mother. A touching one-on-one conversation with Viktor’s mom. Kisses shared in between cake bites.
I would like to shame you, I would like to blame you. Just because of my love to you.
Viktor was right behind you, and despite his mechanical body, you could still feel some form of heat behind you, on your back. You supposed the cold and your own illness could also be contributing. Jayce was in front of you, both hands positioned on your waist while Viktor’s were gently placed on your hips, your head slightly turned to watch his unmasked face.
And love itself is just as innocent as roses in May, I know nothing can drive it away. But love itself is just as brief as a candle in the wind, and is greedy, just like sin.
You used to imagine a future with both of them. Shared laughter over a brief breakfast, night huddled together for warmth in front of the fireplace. The steps of children inside a centric house, nearby the Academy district. Milestones achieved and said children pursuing things they loved, showing you stones found on the side and picking the insects off the plants. Growing old with them.
Alone, but sane. I am a love suicide.
But that could never be. The hope died a long time ago, and it would be fruitless to cry over something that never was, never could be, never could have been.
‘Cause love itself is just as brief as a candle in the wind and is pure white just like sin
The song ended, giving you a semblance of peace.
Without attempting to move, you uttered lowly your next words.
“The second thing you could help me with is my son. I don’t expect you to but look after him. A close friend is going to take him in, but… Please don’t let him go to an orphanage. Please. If you ever loved me, just a little…” You felt both pairs of hands gripping a little more tightly at your body. “Look after him. Don’t let him forget that I love him.”
Moments passed without a care in the world. If you kept your eyes closed, you could still pretend that this was your wedding. That they solved whatever differences they had, that you let your own rage aside and kept your promise of welcoming them back with open arms.
You could pretend that nothing was ever broken between you three. You could pretend that this was your first night together, instead of the last.
On the day of your funeral, there were lots of known characters of Piltover and Zaun coming to pay their respects.
Some representatives, owners of techmaturgical companies; other politicians, or even artists.
Professor Heimerdinger left a bouquet of tulips, your favorites, and mourned silently his own incapability of ever forgetting anyone in the world. He saw many people die over his long life, but few would leave the impression you did. He offered some words for your mourning child, and silently promised to do all he could if he ever wanted to pursue a career inside the Academy’s walls.
Some people swore they saw the Defender of Tomorrow mournfully leave a bouquet of yellow tulips on the casket, sorrow weighing on his tired features.
Others swore they saw the Machine Herald himself, leaving a metallic box on your cold hands. No one knew what the box had.
There was a person that said he saw them both. But only someone talked to them both.
When your son watched the casket with your body slowly descend into the dirt, he was holding tightly two pieces of paper. Both held different names and addresses but had the same sentiment behind them.
I will fulfill a promise made.
Unlike the broken promise of undying love they made to you a lifetime ago, they would try to keep this one.