Chapter Text
The bed is soft. It bends, swallows his weight, like it's welcoming him.
Outside, the city lights hide the stars. He hadn’t bothered to close the curtains. He likes the reminder of where he is, and the way the light spills into the mostly dim room is nice. Warm. He’s sort of afraid to go to bed, afraid that if he falls asleep and wakes up again, everything will change again.
Maybe he never left the cavern.
He takes a breath, closes his eyes, focuses on the feeling of the sheets below him.
He’s here, in Piltover, in bed, with Caitlyn. Vi was stable a few rooms over. Jinx was in prison somewhere far, far beneath them.
In the Undercity, someone was picking up the ruin he left behind.
“Jayce? Are you alright?”
Tomorrow. He could figure it out tomorrow.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m alright.”
He pulls the duvet up, tucks it under Caitlyn’s shoulder, and then falls beside her. She burrows against him like she’s nine years old again and crying about being odd, being different.
Jayce didn’t know how to comfort her then, and he doesn’t now, either.
She reminds him of himself so much. Her eyes were wild when he found her on the battlefield, as wild as he had felt in that moment. Blinking, unfocused and afraid. Her whole body had been shaking. So had his.
“Come on,” he’d said, and Caitlyn had stared at him with something akin to awe. Like she was seeing a ghost. And maybe she was.
He hated yelling at her. He couldn’t remember ever, ever raising his voice at her before, except as a joke. Never like that. The way she turned away from him, shaking, made his gut twist in discomfort. It was all wrong, everything he was doing felt so wrong, but he had to.
He had to.
He hadn’t known what else to do, so he just… turned it all off. Got her up, collected her companions, and marched right out of the Undercity. It hurt to carry Vi, it hurt worse to keep turning his back on Caitlyn and Jinx. He tried desperately to trust that when he stopped and looked back, they’d still be there.
Everything had been falling out underneath him lately. He couldn’t let that happen again.
It had been a relief to see the Academy again. The last time he had seen it, it had been in complete ruin, overgrown with plants, rotting with the arcane from the inside out. Somewhere deep in his mind, he wishes he could forget it all. Forget his mission, forget that world, forget the devastation his own inventions had caused.
Forget the pain. All those people, wiped out like it was nothing.
He crushes the feeling into the bottom of his heart and hopes he can ignore it for long enough to follow through with what he needs to do.
There are things to get done, after all, and if he just follows through, follows the steps until he can finally slow to a stop, then it’ll be fine.
That’s what he’s been telling himself, anyway. Easier said than done.
Besides the mounting anxiety, he hadn’t been able to turn his mind back on until Caitlyn had started to pry at his shell. It was easier that way. Following the steps of a plan instead of trying to figure it out as he went.
Sometimes, more often now, he feels like he’s piloting his body. Like he’s a soul or a mind or something simply driving his physical form to get things done. Build, fix, invent. Walk, talk, eat, sleep, do what you need to survive. Feel trapped.
Drag your sister away from the fight, if you have to. Keep her alive. Keep everyone alive. Complete the mission.
Go take a fucking shower, Caitlyn had said, and Jayce had watched her leave and could only follow through with the order. It was something to do. A task to complete. Another step on the staircase toward the end of it all.
Caitlyn shifts in his arms, now, her sharp nose digging into his shoulder, and he closes his eyes and thinks hard about what he has to do.
He knows he has to tell her eventually, probably in the morning, but he couldn’t bring himself to spit it out earlier. I saw another universe. I rotted in a cavern for weeks. I had to kill my best friend.
What is anyone supposed to say to that?
Viktor is gone, or, at least, hidden so far inside himself that Jayce can’t find him. He imagines the way Viktor looked at him, in the camp. Had he smiled? Jayce thought he might have. It makes it so much worse.
He knows it's all part of the plan. He had to stall Viktor, had to provoke him, too. It isn’t worth thinking about, debating over. He had to.
He thinks about it anyway. Viktor’s eyes, iridescent, multicolored, closing. The gaping hole in his chest where Jayce had aimed his hammer. He had gone out without any sort of fight, and Jayce couldn’t guess in a million years what he would have said had Jayce given him the time to speak.
He isn’t sure he wants to know.
He loves Viktor. Jayce hates himself for only realizing it after he already lost him.
“Jayce.”
“Mm.”
“You awake?”
He opens his eyes and is met with the view of Piltover in the window. Quietly, he gives a sigh of relief. “Yeah. I’m awake.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I missed you.”
She takes this little breath in, like she’s going to continue, but nothing else comes out. Jayce rolls onto his back and tugs her with him until her head rests on his chest.
“I missed you, too, sprout.”
Years ago now, when Jayce had been maybe eighteen years old, the Kirammans had become his sponsors. At first, that meant regular presentations, showcasing what he was working on under Cassandra’s steady gaze. Soon, though, he was getting invitations to dinners and parties and he’d trail behind Cassandra with his latest invention under his arm, nervous as all hell.
It was a year into the sponsorship when Caitlyn sought him out. She had been eight years old, and was far more interested in his work than he had guessed. Or, well, she acted like she was. After a couple months, she had dragged him to her favorite spot in the gardens and told him, “You’re my best friend.”
Jayce had been taken aback. “Oh. Really?”
She’d kicked him in the ankle for that, clearly embarrassed. “Yeah, stupid. You’re my only friend.”
“Well— Well, I’m honored, sprout.” He’d ruffled her hair, and then promptly distracted her with the idea of a shooting competition. She won, of course.
They were both so lonely then, it was easier to be a pair. Years into their friendship, Jayce heard her call him her brother for the first time, and was able to keep it to himself for a solid two hours before using it as a comeback for her endless teasing.
She’d been embarrassed, again, but Jayce had never forgotten that. He was her brother. She was his little sister. And he had promised her that everything was going to be okay, so it would be.
It would be.