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Jayce Talis was aware that he had a problem. He had been aware, actually, for some time, but now he felt that he could no longer push it to the side.
Distractions had kept his mind on other things for a long while; after all, there were so many things to keep him distracted, he had a whole world he needed to change. There were so many people who relied on him. He couldn’t call his blossoming relationship with Mel Medarda a distraction, but the exciting possibility of a life at her side, a future with her, had certainly preoccupied him for some time.
Tonight should have been a revelation for them both. He and Mel had finally allowed themselves to get lost in their own carnal desire for one another after months of flirtation. The sex had been good, great even. But as he laid in Mel’s bed, awake while she slumbered peacefully beside him, staring at the ceiling that seemed so far overhead it might as well have been the sky itself, he felt an emptiness that made him restless.
Jayce had a problem he could no longer ignore.
He was in love with his research partner.
Viktor’s face swam before him in the darkness. After spending nearly every day together for the past seven years, Jayce knew Viktor’s face better than he knew his own. It was a face that hadn’t initially stuck out in his mind when Viktor had first approached him with interest in his work, offering him a very literal lifeline. But in the intervening years, he had found his eyes unexpectedly drawn to him. He fixated on Viktor’s expressions, cataloguing each one carefully in his mind. He went out of his way to touch him, patting him on the back or laying an encouraging hand on his shoulder, just to feel his warmth. He craved Viktor’s approval to an embarrassing degree, more gratified in his praise than in the esteem of the Council. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that what he felt for Viktor was more than academic partnership.
But he had kept his mouth shut for years, resigning himself to being contented with their comfortable friendship, keeping one another at arm’s length. He had let himself be distracted by all the politicking because it was easier than acknowledging the painful reality of never getting what he truly wanted.
Jayce realized that he’d probably spent the better part of an hour lying awake in the dark beside the beautiful, intelligent woman he had just had sex with, thinking about someone else. He was definitely an asshole. And he was about to be even more of an asshole by leaving her.
Slowly so as not to wake Mel, Jayce slid his legs over the side of the bed, his bare feet silent on the cold floor of her bedroom. He padded across the room in the dark, collecting his discarded clothing and dressing as quietly as he could. He spared Mel one last look as he cracked the door open, letting in a thin sliver of light from the hall outside. She looked like a goddess made flesh, her tranquil face framed by the braids of black hair she had let loose from her updo earlier, gold accents on her skin glimmering in the low light of the room. Jayce knew he was a fool for this, and he might very well be sabotaging his future by leaving her this way. He said a quick apology to her in his head before he closed the door behind him and slipped out into the hall.
The Medarda home was a massive, sprawling thing, even bigger than the Kirammans’ estate. It was built almost entirely of white marble and seemed to glow even in the darkness of the hour. As he made his way into the enormous front room of the house, he passed by a housekeeper who was relighting an ornate blown-glass sconce on the wall.
“Is there anything I can get you, Councilor?” he asked.
“No, no,” Jayce said, ready to take his leave with that, but thought better of it. “Actually, would you give a message to Mel for me? Something came up and I have to go.”
The housekeeper listened politely to his feeble excuse and wished him a good night.
The Medarda estate was across town from the lab, situated conveniently close to the family’s illustrious opera house. The night was warm and clear, and the moon hung full over the roofs of Piltover. Jayce descended the front steps of the stately home and set off.
He didn’t have a plan. Viktor might have admonished him for this; his lack of forward thinking had been the subject of more than a few arguments over the years. Maybe he would help Viktor with whatever he was working on now. Maybe Viktor would be sleeping at his desk and Jayce would drape a blanket over his shoulders before falling asleep at his own. Maybe he would tell Viktor he was in love with him. Jayce didn’t know. He just knew he had to see him.
The auxiliary academy building where their lab was housed was deserted this late into the night, but he knew that Viktor had been spending an increasing amount of time there since the symptoms of his illness had been worsening. Sure enough, one window several floors up glowed with a familiar light that meant Viktor was poring over the hexcore. A tight knot had taken up residence in Jayce’s stomach for the past several years as Viktor implored him to direct the council’s attention to the potential medical applications of hextech. But the council was much more interested in the fancy gadgets that could get their laborers to work harder and transport their goods at ever cheaper costs. Health was of little concern to them when they themselves had access to the best physicians in Piltover. What did it matter to them what a Zaunite from the fissures needed?
Jayce knew he could be doing more, had to resolve to do more. He was a councilor now and he had access to the deepest pockets in Piltover. Viktor was his partner. His health had to come first.
Jayce entered the building, finding his way up the stairs in the dark with practiced ease. He opened the door to their lab quietly in case Viktor was sleeping. The room was bathed in the eerie blue glow of the hexcore he had seen from outside and Jayce watched it turn slowly in the air over the worksurface at the back of the room. Every few seconds, it shuddered ominously. Had it always done that?
It took a few seconds for the scene to fully register. Papers scattered haphazardly over the floor. Viktor’s cane, lying discarded on the ground. Viktor, collapsed in a crumpled heap before the table.
“Viktor!” Jayce sprinted across the room to kneel beside him. A cold finger of dread slid down his spine as he gingerly lifted Viktor into his arms. He was so light he felt almost insubstantial, like he might crumble to dust if Jayce handled him too roughly. Even in the cold light of the hexcore, it was obvious that his skin was pale, so pale. The perpetual shadows beneath his eyes were so dark against his pallidness that they looked like bruises. His head lolled to the side and Jayce saw the blood on his face where it had streamed from his nose and mouth. Dread gripped his spine with all five fingers.
Jayce gently pressed two fingers against Viktor’s neck just below his jaw and nearly cried out when he felt the thin, fluttering pulse there. Alive, alive, alive.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you,” he said quietly. He rose to his feet, pulling Viktor against his chest. Viktor’s head rested in the hollow between Jayce’s collarbone and the bulk of his shoulder. He stirred slightly with a quiet groan but fell silent and still again.
Jayce tore from the building with Viktor clutched tightly in his arms. There was a medical clinic nearby, he just had to hope it was open. He felt like he could collapse with relief when he rounded the corner and saw a dim lantern flickering in the circular front window.
The front door swung inward without resistance when he pushed against it. The man sitting behind the front desk looked up at him sleepily but shot to his feet when he saw Viktor.
The next hour was a whirlwind that Jayce was only physically present for. His mind felt far, far away, watching everything happen. He watched himself be brought into a room by a nurse and lay Viktor down on an empty bed. He watched himself sink into a chair at the bedside while a physician ran a battery of tests, pricking skin, drawing blood, testing reflexes. He watched himself bury his face in his hands as the physician gently told him Viktor’s prognosis before leaving the room.
Jayce didn’t cry. His mind was too busy working overtime trying to come up with a solution for this impossible problem. Viktor wouldn’t die, he couldn’t die. They would find a way to use the hexcore or the hexcrystals or even shimmer to save him if it came to that, there had to be a way. He would table their hextech research to focus on helping Viktor get better. The council would understand, he would make the council understand.
He looked up when the door opened again. A desperate hope flared in his chest that the physician would come back in, apologizing profusely for wrongly diagnosing Viktor. They had to be wrong.
“Sir, I’m afraid we can only allow next of kin to stay overnight with patients,” said the night shift attendant softly. She adjusted the thick glasses perched on her nose and blinked owlishly at Jayce.
“He’s my partner,” Jayce snapped. “I’m staying.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the chair for good measure.
The attendant stared at him for a moment, likely gauging whether or not this was an argument worth having, before she decided that she’d rather not press the issue. She sighed with a dismissive wave of her hand and left the room. The door closed with a quiet click behind her.
Two years. That was all they had, at most. He reached for Viktor’s hand. How had he never noticed how delicate his hands were? Slender and fragile, Jayce was sure that if he held that hand up to the light he would be able to see each individual bone though the papery skin. Viktor’s breathing was even but Jayce could hear how labored each breath was, accompanied by a terrible rattling sound that seemed to echo in the otherwise silent room. Had he been oblivious the whole time to how far Viktor’s illness had progressed?
He always thought that there would be more time. They could work on achieving their dream and once it was close enough to reality they could seek a way to stop Viktor’s illness from progressing. But between the hexgates and securing the city and courting Mel, he had allowed himself to be distracted because there would always be tomorrow. He and Viktor would always have tomorrow. It was a future that was rapidly slipping away through his fingers.
He squeezed Viktor’s hand. The I love you he wanted to say got caught on the lump in his throat and he pressed a kiss to the back of his hand instead. He swallowed.
“We’ll find a way to save you. I promise.”
Jayce hoped it was a promise he could keep.