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The smells of blood, gunpowder, and metal mixed in the air. The war had broken out.
Shadows moved slowly across the battlefield, the chaos of a country in agony, delivered to the pain of death. The ground was nothing but a mass of earth, dark mud, and dried blood. Destroyed machines burned under dancing flames, their light casting eerie silhouettes on the shattered buildings of Piltover. Trails of smoke darkened the starless sky. The air was heavy and suffocating, the atmosphere oppressive. Sounds mingled—distant screams, explosions, gunshots, and the grinding of metal against metal.
Bodies, human or mechanical, lay scattered. Their carcasses cluttered the ground, their rigid stillness making them almost indistinguishable from one another. The humans, twisted into improbable positions, seemed frozen in their last moments, while the machines emitted dying sparks. Everything was nothing more than a vast disaster.
At the center of this chaos, a half-collapsed building seemed to serve as a rallying point. Its bullet-riddled walls and shattered windows bore witness to the fierce fighting that had taken place. A flag, half-burnt, fluttered at the top. In front of the half-open door, a figure stood out against the shadows. He held a powerful hammer in his hand, and his gaze was filled with determination. There was no more obstacle, nothing separated him from what remained to be done. And though it tore his chest in two, he had no choice. He had made a promise. More than one, in fact. He had come to finally keep his word. The glowing red lights danced on the polished steel of Jayce's hammer, and with every step he took toward the collapsed building, he felt the unbearable weight of his decision.
The howls had faded into the distance. Only the dull rumble of dying machines and the creak of metal under his boots remained. He knew where he had to go. Everything had led to this moment. Every fiber of his being screamed that Viktor was here, in the heart of this dilapidated building, surrounded by his creations. The Machine Herald, as he was now called.
Where had their paths finally diverged like this?
Jayce paused for a moment in front of the gaping doors, or rather, what was left of them. The metal had melted, twisting under the heat of the explosions. He inhaled deeply, trying to find a semblance of calm, but it was nothing more than a breath filled with ash and pain. His hammer weighed heavily in his hands as he crossed the threshold. In his throat, he felt his breath twist, catch, burning like dust under his eyelids.
Inside, everything was dark, silent, oppressive. The walls, blackened and cracked, seemed to whisper echoes of a shared dream between two former partners. Jayce moved slowly, his hammer dragging behind him, leaving a trail in the dust and ash. With each step, the regrets intensified, bitter despair that made him want to scream across the room, just to hear his own cry tear at his ears.
And then, he saw him.
Viktor stood there, in the midst of a tangle of cables and machines, his frail body almost swallowed up by the mechanical augmentations that now covered him. His metal legs cast a cold light, his hands had become tools from another world, and his face, partly obscured by a glowing visor, had almost nothing human left. As Jayce observed this inhuman figure standing in flickering light, he swallowed with difficulty.
"Viktor," Jayce called, his voice trembling, nearly breaking on the syllables of this once familiar and comforting name.
The Herald turned toward him slowly, as if he weren’t surprised by his presence. Jayce could not see his face or his eyes, but he knew who was behind the mask and wondered if regret filled his gaze, too.
"You’re finally here, Jayce," Viktor replied. His voice was almost unrecognizable, dissonant with mechanical echoes. Yet, Jayce knew he would have recognized its inflections anywhere. "I knew you would come."
Jayce gritted his teeth, feeling his fists tighten around the handle of his hammer. It had to end today, now, but he couldn’t act without trying to speak to him, without trying to put an end to what had become pure madness. He couldn’t just abandon his former partner like this.
"So, this is it? All that we dreamed of... Reduced to this?" he asked in a barely audible whisper, a broken murmur against the strength of his despair.
"Jayce, look around you. What we built was imperfect, what we dreamed of was nothing more than a mirage. I understood that before you did."
The mechanical inflections in his voice struck Jayce harder than he had expected.
"Imperfect?" His anger erupted, burning with despair, and his voice reverberated through the room. "We wanted to help people, save lives, Viktor! Our dream didn’t look like this..." An unspeakable chaos.
"You’re clinging to a fragile ideal, you no longer understand the necessity for change. Where you stayed frozen, I chose to move forward. If you could see things as I do, Jayce, you’d agree with me."
A crushing silence fell over them, broken only by the hum of the machines surrounding Viktor. Jayce felt himself waver, for a moment overwhelmed by the desire to drop his hammer, to abandon this confrontation. He felt his legs weaken, already envisioning himself falling to his knees to beg for forgiveness. But the one in front of him was no longer truly Viktor. His partner was dead, and Jayce had never saved him. Could he try now? His hands tightened on the long handle of his hammer.
"I understood you," he finally murmured, his throat tight. "I understood you, Viktor. But I no longer recognize you. You’re no longer... You’re no longer my partner."
These words filled the air with unbearable pain. Viktor tilted his head to the side, as if taking the time to contemplate the words. Jayce would have given anything to rip off that mask, to see the face of the one who had shared his vision of the world and his dreams, to try to read, in his amber eyes, the emotions hidden behind his transformation.
"Emotions govern your heart, make you weaker, less open, and more rigid. This world can still be saved, Jayce. But not if you continue clinging to these outdated ideals."
"You’re the one who’s outdated!" Jayce screamed, his throat burning, his heart in pieces. "You’re breaking the world even more, that’s all you’re doing! Open your eyes!"
Jayce tried, he tried with all his soul to bring back to reality the one who was no longer there. And the terror of the necessity of his act consumed him. Viktor would never have accepted this. It wasn’t his vision of the world. Suddenly, Viktor stepped toward him, one hand reaching out in his direction. By reflex, Jayce stepped back several paces, his hammer raised in front of him like a shield, breath ragged.
"And you, Jayce, are you ready to kill me?" The silence thickened for a few more seconds. "Do you really believe that striking with your hammer will fix anything? You don’t have to do this. Not like this. Join me, Jayce, and see."
"Stop! Shut up..." Jayce whispered. "Control is not a form of freedom. Viktor knew that better than anyone. And you?"
His eyes burned with an all-consuming fire, a new determination. The Herald slowly lowered his hand. He seemed to be contemplating Jayce’s words, and an ember of hope flickered in Jayce’s chest at this realization. He straightened slightly, lowering his hammer a little. His breath left a white trail in the air. Finally, Viktor shook his head.
"I’m still Viktor. An improved version of the one I once was. Less weak, more persistent."
A strangled laugh escaped from Jayce’s lips.
"But Viktor didn’t need to be improved! And you’re no longer him," Jayce murmured.
"Then do it, Jayce. End all of this, if you’re so sure of yourself, cloaked in your usual arrogance."
Jayce’s hands began to tremble; his gaze lifted to Viktor, whose expression he couldn’t read. His heart felt like it was about to burst, each beat another strike against the cage of his chest. Viktor’s voice, so mechanical, showed neither regret nor anger.
"I’m sorry," Jayce whispered. "I have no choice."
"There’s always a choice."
The words rang like a sentence within the enclosed building, echoing what Viktor had once tried to tell him, in their lab.
"Then I made mine... And you made yours."
The hammer struck Viktor with terrifying force, a flash of energy tearing through the air around them. Viktor was thrown backward, crashing into his creations. For a moment, everything was silent. The hammer slipped from Jayce's hands and hit the ground, the sound of metal swallowed by the war raging outside. His knees hit the ground, his hands trembling. He remained there for long seconds, motionless, frozen, his eyes fixed on Viktor’s lifeless body. Slowly, very slowly, he crawled toward him to slowly remove his mask, as if hoping to avoid the inevitable. Beneath the metal appeared a face far too familiar. Tears slid down Jayce’s cheeks before he even realized it, falling onto Viktor's cheeks, almost as if he were crying along with him.
"Viktor..."
A burning scream tore from his throat.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
A hot breath escaped his lips, a muffled sob at the back of his throat. His vision blurred, images fuzzy, colors mingled, as bitterness filled his mouth. Against him, he held the lifeless body of his partner, his friend, his soulmate, as if trying to gather what remained of them in one piece.
“Jayce!” A distant, hissing voice. “Jayce!”
The shock pierced through him, and when he opened his eyes, there were no more ashes, no corpses, no smell of blood and metal, of burnt flesh. There was only the calm of the night, the warmth of the blankets, and the wetness of the tears burning his cheeks. With a trembling hand, he wiped them away, trying to regain his bearings in this warped reality. A cold hand rested on the skin of his bare arm, and he turned abruptly to face Viktor. He began to search the features of his face, shrouded in darkness, discerning his worried, tired expression, his slightly furrowed brows… And the way his chest rose and fell steadily. A wave of relief crushed Jayce’s body, and his arms immediately wrapped around his partner. Tears threatened to spill again, a burning sensation at the corner of his fluttering eyelids.
“You’re alive,” he whispered, his voice rough.
“Oh, Jayce…” Viktor sighed, almost a broken murmur in return.
When Viktor closed his arms around him, Jayce took a deep breath, absorbing his scent, his movements, and their embrace. They stayed like that for long minutes, unmoving. Viktor didn’t ask questions; in this increasingly peaceful and reassuring silence, Jayce regained his composure. He closed his eyes, his head resting on his partner’s shoulder, craving the touch, the closeness.
“Another nightmare?” Viktor murmured into his hair, inviting him to speak if he wanted to.
Jayce took a slight breath before nodding. His hands gripped Viktor’s clothing. His heart exploded in his chest, but the smell of his partner always soothed him. They each had their own demons to face as they healed slowly, together, step by step. They learned to live with the past events, to move forward together, far from everything and everyone. From their experience in the arcane, in that void, that cosmos, they both carried scars. Long golden streaks ran across Viktor’s arms and legs, now human again. Strands of white still streaked his brown hair, and Jayce always gazed at them with awe, while on his own forehead, there remained very fine scars, like an almost invisible crown of jewels. The psychological damage was heavier; different traumas, the weight of regrets and guilt sometimes gnawing at their minds in the darkest hours of the night. But at least, they no longer left each other, living side by side, two souls reunited, whole again.
Jayce was often haunted by the images of the universe he had witnessed. Those gaunt bodies, frozen in place, amidst the flowers. His mind torn, split in two, he sometimes had trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, and only Viktor could bring him back to the present moment. The nightmares were often difficult. He saw himself in different universes, different existences, different versions of reality, and often, he killed Viktor. Sometimes, Viktor killed him. And all that remained was the pain of loss, the agony of betrayal, and the shattered trust pulverized by the force of the magic they had created.
“I was…” Jayce cleared his throat to chase the tears from his voice. “You were… You weren’t really you, again. There was… A war around us, and I came. I always come… And I was… filled with such anger. I’d never felt that, in any other dream, in any version of my realities. And then I faced… Someone. The… The Herald. I killed you. Again. I’m… I’m sorr-”
“Sssh. What’s the point in apologizing for something that isn’t your fault, Jayce?”
At his words, Jayce’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces, tiny fragments that lodged in his chest and made it hard for him to breathe. Viktor’s hand became even more soothing. Jayce kept his head resting against that shoulder, that pillar, that anchor. He could still feel the hammer he held in his hands, the metal pressing against his palms. The smells still filled his nose, invigorating the memories of that nightmare. A sigh escaped his lips. He sat up just enough to meet Viktor’s gaze, and the latter gave him the faintest of smiles.
“If you need to hear it, I forgive you, Jayce, just as I’ve already forgiven you, just as you’ve already forgiven me.”
That faith shook Jayce. He saw the face of that Machine Herald again. He saw Viktor, frozen, yet with an almost serene look. A peaceful acceptance. The certainty that this choice had to be made, that it had to happen. In that unrealistic nightmare, Viktor hadn’t stopped him from killing him. Jayce cupped Viktor’s face with his hands, caressing his features, letting his thumb trace the line of his jaw.
“You were so serene in that dream. As if… As if you accepted my choice without fighting it.”
Viktor listened attentively. It was never easy to stir up that past, but they both knew the necessity of listening to one another in order to heal, to move forward, to reassure each other, to mend their wounds. That night, Viktor was listening to Jayce, soothing him. Perhaps tomorrow their roles would be reversed. Viktor, too, was learning to open up. He was learning to show himself to Jayce in all his aspects, not to be ashamed of his vulnerability, of his fragility. He was always warmly rewarded with Jayce’s arms, his embraces, his strength.
“In all these nightmares, in all these realities, I know that’s the only way out, Jayce. Of course, I will always forgive you, no matter the dimension you’re talking about.”
A shiver ran down Jayce’s spine. These recurring dreams sometimes made it hard to believe that Viktor was safe, with him. Yet, he knew, deep down, he would never cross that line again. If things were to spiral out of control again… Jayce knew, in his core, that he would let Viktor do what he had to do, unless his partner directly asked him to stop. If he asked him to stop.
“And what if I really killed you, V?” Jayce whispered. “What if you never came back?”
Viktor shifted slightly against him, grasping his wrists firmly, as if to pull him out of the spiral of his thoughts.
“That’s not what happened. What’s the point of feeding on what ifs? We’re here. Together. We survived together, and we’ll continue to do so.”
Their foreheads met, a gesture of profound affection between them. A symbol of trust, forgiveness, acceptance, renewal, and love. They closed their eyes, savoring each other's presence. Minutes passed, increasingly calm, until Jayce felt a smile forming on his lips, more relaxed.
“I love you, V,” he whispered, as he had often done lately.
The silence that followed didn’t disturb him. He knew Viktor had struggled to believe his words the first time, despite all they’d been through. His partner sometimes fought against himself, against the insecurities still rooted deep within him, but Jayce knew the feeling was, and would always be, mutual. Especially when Viktor held him like this. He could still feel Viktor’s breath against his lips when the latter whispered lower than ever:
“Me too, Jayce.”
In that simple promise, the horrors of the night slowly dissipated, like the rising sun chasing away the darkness. Jayce closed the distance between them and placed a kiss on his lips. They breathed each other in, their pain, hope, and love responding to each other. When they parted, they were smiling.
“And what if you go make that disgusting tea you love so much?” Viktor finally asked.
A laugh escaped Jayce’s lips, relieved. He would do anything for Viktor. Anything. He had become the other half of his soul, and he couldn’t imagine being without his presence at his side. He would likely face even death itself to keep him close.
“I’ll make the tea. And a sweetmilk for you,” he murmured against Viktor’s lips.
“Oh, you know how to talk to me.”
Jayce slowly got up. His muscles were sore, tense from his restless sleep. He rubbed his face to fully wake up, and once in the kitchen, he stood for a long moment, staring into space. He still felt shaky, nauseous, but he clung to the reality he had returned to. Taking a deep breath, methodically and at his own pace, he began preparing their drinks. Without meaning to, he kept glancing through the door to their bedroom, checking that Viktor was safe. And he was. The water began to boil, as did the milk. He added an extra pinch of cinnamon to the hot milk, knowing full well that Viktor would never mind, before setting the two cups on a tray and returning to the warmth of their bedroom.
Viktor had half-fallen asleep again, curled in the blankets, and Jayce couldn’t help but smile as he looked at him. He set the tray on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss his partner’s cheek.
“Your sweetmilk, Master Viktor,” he teased.
Viktor opened one eye, mumbling a few words, but still sat up, probably aware that Jayce needed his presence. Jayce settled back beside him and let his head fall against his partner's shoulder. He closed his eyes, savoring the comfort of Viktor's arm around him. Snuggled against his partner's body, he sighed, allowing his vulnerability to surface:
“You are everything to me, V.”
“And you’re annoying,” Viktor teased softly. Jayce couldn’t help but laugh. “But you’re my annoying Jayce, never forget that.”
Jayce nodded gently, the weight of the nightmare lifting just a little more with each passing second. This moment, this simple exchange, was enough to chase away the shadows.
As long as Viktor was there, he could face anything.