Chapter Text
Honestly,
I thought I was fully prepared for
The threshold in store
Stay your pretty eyes on course
I guess I never really faced my fears before
So stay with me
X
When Viktor was little there were very few things he wasn’t good at. And he found the irony deep within the list of things he could not do, rather irritating. Such a list consisted of; running, two foot hopscotch, sleep without pain, walk swiftly.
That last one would have been exceptionally handy while growing up in Zaun. Such is life though, and still, the list of things he was quite good at kept growing. Would he say he overachieved? No, no matter how many times the other children believed he did. The amount of knowledge he attained throughout his many school days was entirely attainable by his peers, as well.
He lost track of time since he’d found someone equal to him, most were hardly ever able to surpass him. Yet he was inclined to hold himself humbled every now and again.
And he waited. Everyday, Viktor waited for that person to walk into his life.
His climb out from Zaun was expected, then the dawdling, oh gods the dawdling. He remembered it well, but not thoughtfully. These were the days until Heimerdinger hired him. Most filled with laughter from peers, never with him, maybe at him, he’d never been sure.
The apprenticeship with that Yordle—strange little chlapec—was a much welcomed gift. Some may call it fate, he wasn’t so sure he believed in such things.
To have faith would be to look toward a horizon at which a new dawn would rise. Viktor never had this beautiful dream, the notion that things move on with only the devotion to one's own prayer. No. He instead was working toward creating his own dawn, through his equations and scientific breakthroughs. Things that he could almost hold in his hand.
“Y-you’re, What?! Professor, you’re leaving?” Viktor hated being caught off guard like this. Heimerdinger did not seem to sense his frustration that sounded akin to floundering too.
The little man clicked his tongue while he scuttled away from Viktor, leading him somewhere at a pace he was not comfortable at, “Mmm, seems so, lad. I’m sorry. But there’s something I need to make sure of. And I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“Gone. What am I going to do? Pick up my studies at the Academy I left years ago. I do not think they would take too kindly to, no offense, even your great word.”
That stopped the Yordle, turning with a look of sorrow on his face, “I’m not leaving you by yourself, my dear boy. You mean too much…to…this…me.”
Viktor knew the Yordle lied. But he only nodded in response, “Right. But where am I going?”
“You’re familiar with Councilor Medarda, yes?” Heimerdinger started up his painful pace again.
“Yes, and? ” If he understood, that was to be his new station. To become another councilor’s assistant, and not a very scientific one at that. Though she did have great, uh how would one say, progressive attitude, he supposed. Better than someone like Salo, or worse Bolbok.
“She’s interested in your inventions, has a few new ideas she wants your help with! I volunteered you right away!” Heimerdinger was overjoyed at the thought of getting rid of him it seemed. Viktor only rolled his eyes in a means to be playful, though his scowl painted his true feelings.
“When does this, uh, assistance start?” Viktor leered, wrist aching from the pressure he applied on it to keep up to the Yordle.
“Right now, M’boy.”
Heimerdinger pushed open a set of Doors the scent of what could only be the finest Piltovan incense wafted over Viktor’s infinitesimal pallet. There were drapes of dark brown tool that hung like feather’s over bannisters. Lounges and lavish carpets littered the floors. It was by far the most over done room in the building he’d ever laid eyes on. Yet that smell made his heart swell, as though it reminded him of someone.
“Viktor! It’s lovely to officially make your acquaintance!” Mel said, one hand reached out for him to embrace he assumed. But he was on the hunt for what those aromas were.
“What is that? Amber? And…hmm, there is something else, yes?”
Mel’s eyes were alight with something he did not bother to decipher, waiting for her to tell him that last one.
“It’s ginger.”
“Ginger! Of course!” His fingers snapped with recognition and he pressed further into the room. Viktor inhaled another deep breath, sensing there was another note not yet found, “Nothing else?”
“No, just amber and ginger, exquisite isn’t it…”
And from then on, that incense would only make him think of Mel. Who came close to someone who could maybe have surpassed him, he knew it was not in the cards however. The smell of ginger and amber sat heavy in his clothes and he found himself sniffing it. Still looking for that third scent, but he just couldn’t quite place a finger on it.
X
Over the next year. Viktor ran into the answer to that impossible smell, but to his recollection there was never any aromatic sample that surrounded him. Unless he counted memorial candles, or maybe somewhere amongst the greasy street food in Zaun, or the dusty pawn shop he regularly found himself at in the Undercity.
Sometimes he found scrawled notes about it in the margins of his work, like an itch located deep under his back brace that needed to be scratched. He hoped his subconscious would give up.
X
“...That will take years, Councilor Medarda!”
“...Salo. Lower your voice. I don’t care how long it takes, the health of my people is what matters most…”
Viktor thought he was fully prepared for what death brought, it was something he’d been waiting for from such a young age. His mother told him that it was okay to cross the line when his time came, and to not be afraid. Everyone came to their end one way or another, and that when she died he would be left to carry on what she did in the world. From that moment on, death was never the end in Viktor’s eyes. Not if he left a giant mark scarred into the very crust of his existence.
But the pain under his thighs proved that the end was more painful than peaceful. That was always his problem, hoped for too much. And was it wrong for Viktor to ask for this simple mercy? To be allowed to die with feather light fluttering on his cheek, a reminder of the butterfly kisses his mother used to leave on his face.
As his lungs constricted painfully, he assumed this was where it became unbearable. A deep breath in and out, Viktor braced himself for the worst.
A light touch that sent a shock wave of sensations up an arm he wasn’t supposed to have. Painfully, his eyes fluttered open and a picture of gold, blue and swimming faces collided rolling in turmoil through his rocking head. An evening sunset poured in from behind him as he tried to gather his bearings.
Somewhere on the outside, there were muffled sounds of someone calling his name. That did not matter. What mattered was…What did matter?
“Viktor?!”
A warm grip grabbed his face, pulling his spinning gaze away from the horrible worm hole before him. And there in front of him was three Mel’s, her mouth moving in the what he imagined were the shapes of his name, but his hearing kept breaking in and out. One part, what sounded like people under water and the other part he realized was his own heart beat.
“What’s wrong with him?” Councilor Salo’s voice was sharp and clear.
No. That could not be, Viktor’s memories rushed back all at the sound of that voice.
Do you believe in fate, Doctor?
There was a simple life of one who continued to live in ignorance. One who’s never enlightened. But if that is opened. Oh how the endless possibilities will eat away at the very will of one human will, let alone an entire commune of souls. And that’s just what Viktor had done. He’d taken soul after soul, so his mind and body could better understand something that was a cosmic enigma. And it should’ve stayed that way. He’d seen things, and now he knew things. Things that would make any mortal burn from the inside out.
“Jayce?” His voice sounded like it came from the hallway, quiet and gone unheard.
His vision stopped spinning, everyone quiet like they waited for a pin to drop.
Viktor choked at the renaissance painting that sat before him. There he was, in the Council room, Mel on his left and dead men and women to every other side. They stared at him with motionless faces. And below him was the very chair that once marked his grave.
“Where’s Jayce?” He tried again, an utterly disgraceful way to try and break this loop from hell.
“Viktor? Are you okay?” Mel’s face at least changed from one devoid of emotion to one of worry.
“Jayce, Mel.”
“Well, at least he knows who you are—”
Mel’s hand snapped out to silence the person to Viktor’s right, “Salo, call a doctor. Meeting adjourned.”
Viktor opened his mouth to ask for Jayce once more but he felt his head becoming lighter, something he was very attuned to from some of his past fainting spells in the lab. All he did was lay his head to the cold table surface, allowing for the darkness to sweep him away.
X
An aroma he recognized filtered into his sleeping mind, one that brought tears to his eyes. The amber and ginger were heavy and strong as he awoke.
“Jayce,” He croaked, eyes opening and then falling shut when Mel’s alert face appeared at his side.
“Gods, you’re awake!”
So he pretended to sleep. For a long time, most of the time he wished to never wake again. But something wasn’t letting him. And finally on the third day of refusing to stand or speak to anyone night fell. Viktor was alone, with nothing but large windows that overlooked Piltover. A sight he knew all too well. Yet, his home goods were here and there was no second desk. No sign of Jayce anywhere. An orb of nuclear energy built in his heart, not accepting that he’d been given another chance and not the man who’d seen him off, the only one who could've brought him back from that edge.
At that thought, Viktor stumbled to the floor and sobbed. They wracked through him like paper cuts on his throat, crying out for someone who would never come back to him. Viktor cried like that for hours that felt like forever. The ground of the lab was so cold it made his knees feel like they were on fire. He stayed there, accepting the numbness it caused.
“Ow!”
“Shh, shut up!”
Viktor’s ears perked up at the faint sounds of two people. He sat, waiting for another peep but none came. It would be no surprise if he’d tried to fill the silence with som-
CLANG
Viktor’s breath halted, eyes transfixed on the drain lid that was just tossed aside. Then two shadows pulled themselves out of the vent with the stealth of two Heimerdinger’s combined.
“W-who is there?” Viktor struggled, reaching blindly for wherever he’d left his cane. Once he had successfully gotten it under his arm, he painfully pushed himself onto wobbling knees. Steeling his face into one of conviction and anger.
The shadows moved in closer, it sounded as though one was scrambling to find a lamp. Poor person, Viktor wasn’t even sure where the damn lamps were in this room. The large figure that still approached took a breath, but before a word slipped out. A heavy aroma filled Viktor’s nostrils. One with Amber and Ginger, but no one could ever replicate the smell that was just so;
“Jayce?”
X