Work Text:
The gigantic orb that stood before him felt haunting, eerie to such a degree that he felt a chill run down his spine as he gazed upon it and his surroundings with a innate astonishment. It was the kind of feeling that made him want to hesitate. After all, the child that led him to it didn’t even hesitate to help him even when he had nearly blown off his head a few minutes earlier. This place didn’t feel at all like the hellscape he had just been released from, warm and bright as he was bathed upon with sunlight and gazed out at fields of yellow flowers and was led gently along the path by a small, smooth hand, cold but comforting. A part of Jayce wondered just how much of this picture was built out of Viktor's own head, his Viktor, and how much of it was created by something else entirely. To some extent, it looked like almost exactly something Viktor would envision, albeit twisted and bent into something evocative, ethereal even. If only it had stayed this way, or could have been achieved, literally any other way. Viktor spoke of this- advancement, as if it was a dream, heaven on earth as he spoke to him through Salo’s body. It felt- off, seeing it in person, seeing everything Viktor ever could’ve wanted, corrupted in such a way, to see what he knew was only the beginnings of a nightmare, like the calm before a storm. The path to hell was paved with good intentions, and the path to the Herald, paved with hesitation.
Even as he let go of the child’s hand to stand right on the front doorstep of where his mission entailed, he didn’t know whether to abandon his mission altogether and leave the man that sat within be, or whether he should go through with it. At least until the voices and images within his head pushed him to go in, beckoning him forward to look around for his prey, the man he was obligated to kill.
No, I won’t fail. Not this time.
After all. Wasn’t it Viktor who guided him here to begin with? That was but waiting for him to make his presence known? And waiting for him he was, a figure equal parts horrifying and ethereal as he floated above, tethered to the Arcane, his face at peace for a moment as if asleep. But to Jayce, he didn’t see who was before him, rather what. Jayce didn’t know whether or not to feel pure full blown horror at what laid before him, or some semblance of bewilderment, tied in with the anger and the sorrow that has been bonded to his very soul from the moment he had been released from his archaic prison. He looked so calm, almost- beautiful in a sense, but the longer he stared at Viktor’s face, the more he saw glimpses of the corrupted vision of Viktor he’s been fed for what felt like years. A horrific being, indescribable in appearance, born of metal and corrupted sinew and bone, warping the very body and visage of who was once his best friend into a horrific creature born from the unorthodox union of science and magic.
No, that is not him, that is not Viktor. No, you promised. You won’t fail. No, you won’t fail.
He saw a skeletal corruption of humanity and technology in between glimpses of the beauty, the serenity. He saw horrors beyond human comprehension, fed to him in palpable horrific glimpses forever burned at the back of his mind. A mistake he had to make right before it was too late, before he lost Viktor forever. No, he had to stop him now, when he was still this serene being of their own collaborative creation before him, quiet and asleep and unaware of what’s to come, before he turned into a monster. He had to swallow up the bile rising to his throat and the leaden weight holding him down to pick up the guts he needed to prep the hammer, and pull the trigger. No, it had to end.
I won’t fail. I swear it.
No. Not this time.
But then, as he continued to stare, convulsing and mentally preparing for what he was about to do, taking on his stance as if he was about to shoot a monster, not a man, Viktor opened his eyes and silently met his gaze.
Those soft, distinctive eyes, pearlescent now in comparison to the ambery gold that first met his gaze when he uttered his name. As gentle as it was then still he gave him the same look he did then, before Viktor’s eyes took on the look of horror. Of fear in itself in its purest form as what he looked down upon wasn’t his friend, but rather the other end of a weapon touched by the arcane, and a broken man. But by the time Jayce saw the fear frozen in his eyes, it was too late.
I won’t fail. I swear it.
The bolt of energy that went off reverbed off the walls of the sphere with such a potency he could feel the nauseating hum of it in the depths of his soul, like the crack of a cosmic whip that echoed off the canyon walls. At first he didn’t know whether or not he had indeed met his mark, dazed and disorientated between the ringing in his ears and his tainted visions. A major part of him wanted to throw up or cry but he found that he could do neither, for his insides felt like stone and his body dry. Jayce didn’t even know if, through his hesitation, if he missed or not, but it wasn’t long until with the sound of a thud hitting against the floor that he saw that he had succeeded. There he lay, in a crumbled heap, leaned up against the wall of the sphere, gaping hole in his chest where his heart otherwise should’ve been. Only then did Jayce feel compelled to come out of his defensive stance, letting out a hushed shaky gasp over what he had done as his widened eyes looked upon his own doing. Viktor was still alive but barely, breathing in quick, shallow breaths that quieted and slowed, all the while his gaze still remained on him, on the man who killed him, the man he had once considered a friend, more than a friend. Jayce didn’t have the heart to part from his gaze as he watched those pearlescent, fearful eyes dull in colour and life altogether before Viktor finally closed his eyes, before Viktor’s hand fell to the ground to drop the cog he held in his hand as a memento from times long gone. Times better than whatever it was then. The fact he had kept it all those years, from the first breakthrough there ever made, there was just something about it that shot a pang through Jayce’s heart, thicker than the one that first came.
The longer he stared, the more he couldn’t bare to see the life leave his best friend behind, the more he couldn’t tear his eyes away from what he just did until he heard the echoing gasps and screams of a collective amalgamation of souls that erupted there after when the Kindred finally stripped Viktor of his corrupted body. Only then, did he find it in him to force his leaden legs to rush out of the sphere entirely. To where, he didn’t know. There was no where left to go from here.
I won’t fail. I swear.
And fail he did not. But at what cost? In amidst the chaos that erupted from the moment he took the life of who he sought, he couldn’t help but stand within the field of flowers as they wilted and crumbled, paralyzed.
Then, there came another scream of anguish, one that was different from the eerie echoing chorus that erupted out of the now non sentient husks that remained of the commune. No, this cry was distinctively human, a raw human sound that reverberated deep from within the soul, the sound of inexplicable loss. It was the kind of scream that one could hear once in their life and have it haunt their dreams forever with just how painful it is. It took a while for anyone amidst the chaos to comprehend where it even came from, between the death that was happening among them, and the death that had happened before him.
He killed Viktor.
No. Not the Viktor that he had been convinced was a monster, a abomination born of his mistakes and tamperings with things he didn’t understand. No. He killed Viktor. Or whatever it was that wore his face, turned his best friend into what laid before him now. And it was all his fault.
You should’ve destroyed the Core earlier. When he told you.
You should’ve let him die.
I should have died. Jayce.
No, he couldn’t have let him die. Not then, As desperate and as unwittingly selfish to his best friend’s desires as he was. All he wanted, was his best friend back, no matter what the means, what the odds, and stupidly he thought the very thing his best friend feared to the point of asking for its destruction was Viktor’s salvation. But had he just let him die then, bleeding out in his arms, broken, but with eyes closed as if he was simply asleep, perhaps he would’ve known peace. Sure Viktor was going to go either way whether Jayce tampered with the Hexcore or not but at least Viktor would’ve gone in peace, not like this, not with fear still palpable in his dull eyes.
He was so afraid of seeing that fear in him again when he forced himself to go back into the sphere, dropping his hammer by the entrance as he lingered, as he took one heavy step after another to his dead body. His knees made contact with the organic floor with a thud as he sat there, staring at his old friend’s face frozen in peace yet in a silent anguish. Jayce was too afraid to even touch him at first, be it to disturb him in his final resting place or to corrupt him even further with his own presence. But still, he took him in his arms, cradling his head and his figure to his chest as he ran his fingers gingerly through his entangled hair, heaving in silent, dry grunting sobs as he shakingly embraced his friend one last time. He wanted to see Viktor’s face one last time, but Jayce averted his gaze from Viktor’s lifeless face, gazing out at the walls, the air, at anything that wasn’t him. He couldn’t take the guilt any longer.
This is all your fault. You killed him. You killed Viktor.
He had killed his friend, who now lay bleeding out in his arms once again, staining his dirtied coat not red, but black with his blood. If only he hadn’t turned him into what he was now, laying in his arms, if only he had destroyed the Hexcore, and let him die in peace as a normal man, not as- this. A part of him sorely wished Viktor had reciprocated his embrace once again, like he had back in the lab when they last spoke in person. A delusional part of Jayce thought he had been, feeling a cold, metallic hand on his arm as he pulled Viktor a little closer. But he was wrong. As he stifled a breath and looked into his face, Viktor was still as lifeless as he was when Jayce initially left him there. To which his gaze lingered in amidst the dry sobs that occasionally raked his body, staying there for hours as he kneeled with his corpse. It wasn’t until the moment a blue haired woman in uniform finally took to investigating what had happened within the sphere in the aftermath of all the chaos that he stirred, barely registering the shocked exclamations elicited by his return. He wasn’t even fully there to register her face as she quickly pulled him away and forced him to detangle himself from Viktor’s corpse, giving barely much more than a stifled hushed out scream as they parted before Caitlyn had to take him away, shooting him question after question a mile a minute as she trudged out with his arm thrown over his shoulder.
The only sound then, was exchanged words he could barely remember at all the moment she had him in the presence of others, blanket draped over his shoulders just like how he had draped the lab’s over Viktor’s all those months ago. The blanket that Viktor had clung onto to such an extent, it became his robes. It all happened so fast. To where Jayce wished it was all just a dream, a senseless nightmare that he could wake up from in the lab, any moment now. Hell, who knows, maybe he’d wake up right next to him, to Viktor, head nestled in his arms on the table as he muttered quietly in his sleep, just as he was the day before it all happened. But everytime Jayce tried to wake himself up, he realized he couldn’t, that it wasn’t just all a nightmare, but rather that this nightmare, this nightmare was real.
No. He didn’t have time to bury him. To memorialise him.
But then again, the cold, metallic body he had been cradling in his arms, it was not his Viktor, just some being using his body and wearing his face. Or was it? What if Viktor was still in there? What If he could've reached out to him?
No. You can’t reach out to a monster. Even if that monster is possessing the body of your friend. Not when it was he who asked you to kill him. Before it corrupted what was left of his partner into a mindless husk like those that laid outside. Before it was all too late.
He thought back to that day, at the Steel Oasis, and the hushed conversation that fell between moments of silence among moments of reminiscence. How Viktor had turned to him to speak that fateful sentence, and how Jayce should've actually known where exactly it should’ve led.
“You have to destroy it.”
‘…I know.”
“The Hexcore. I- can’t do it.”
He spoke again after a moment of hesitation, turning to him with a urgent pleading in his eyes then.
“You have to. Please.”
“What about your disease- the Hexcore.”
“Promise me.”
“Okay. Okay. I promise.”
Jayce breathed a shaky breath as he thought back to that moment, replaying it over and over again, to which he uttered finally, under his breath.
“I should've kept my promise- to vows kept, and vows broken.”