Chapter Text
A flash.
A sharp pain in the temple.
Followed by a nauseating blur of the senses. Sight - everything out of focus and too bright. Sound - a dull, droning voice with words yet incomprehensible overlapped by incessant ringing. Smell - perfume, book pages, pencil lead. Taste - copper coating the back of his tongue.
It's overwhelming for several long seconds before the vertigo subsides and everything culminates into one clear picture.
A classroom.
No.
A lecture hall.
The man at the podium below circles something in chalk, the motion quick and confident as his voice booms out, loud enough to be heard by the crowd in the risers above him.
Strangers knit their brows in concentration while others stretch their jaws in boredom. Pencils scratch. Pages turn.
Why am I…?
Another flash of pain, worse than the last.
Viktor palms at his head, teeth grinding as he tries to will the sensation away.
“I know right? It's a headache for me, too.”
With that statement, the pain vanishes, receding as suddenly as it had come. Viktor’s head snaps to the source of that familiar voice to find precisely the man he hoped it belonged to.
“Jayce,” he chokes out, a sound almost akin to a sob of relief.
The man's brow furrows, a look of mild perplexion.
“Where have we ended up?” Viktor whispers, leaning in so as to only be heard by his companion.
“Uhhh,” the perplexion yields to confusion, though softened by amusement, “well, for me it's second period. For you… I’m not too sure.”
And like the snap of fingers the relief is gone, replaced instead by a knot forming in his stomach. A defeated sigh heaves from Viktor as he faces the possibility he was transported to this place alone, “...You are not my Jayce.” He speaks it as a matter-of-fact statement, no malice or disdain in his voice, only rueful acceptance.
“Is there…?” the man looks around the hall as if searching for an explanation or perhaps a doppelganger “another Jayce?”
Yes, and you are not him.
Viktor lets his heavy head weigh down, eyes resting on the lined notebook beneath his fingertips. He traces the scrawled handwriting - certainly his own but currently nonsense to his foggy mind. “Sorry… I am… not in the right space at the moment.”
“It’s okay - we all have those days.” Though he can't see it, Viktor can sense his companion's pitying smile.
He begins to dip his chin in a solemn nod but only makes it halfway through the gesture before that booming voice directs itself to address them. “Mr. Talis, Mr. Viktor, is there something you would like to share with the rest of us?”
All eyes.
A dozen.
A hundred.
Faces unfamiliar, then almost recognizable for a split second before they melt back into blank facades - the only one with detail rapidly losing its color.
Jayce raises a hand, a bid for his peers’ forgiveness, and issues a mortified but unwavering, “Sorry!”
Viktor keeps his head low, eyes not daring to dart up as he shrinks into himself.
With his pupils subdued, the professor nods in satisfaction and returns to his chalkboard, picking up where he'd left off without need for pause.
Somehow, Viktor manages to compose himself, or at least sufficiently mask his growing panic, long enough to make it to dismissal. At the professor’s final word, Viktor leaps to his feet.
And crumbles.
It isnt just pain this time - it's agony.
Not in his head, but his body as it fails him. The metal of his back and leg braces bite his skin, reminding him that the flesh he occupies is only that - flesh. The hexcore has never graced this Viktor.
“Woah, woah, hey!” A firm hand catches him before he makes it to the ground, arm stretching across Viktor's back to steady him. “Aren't you forgetting something?”
Bleary eyes search in vain for the answer, eyelids fluttering as the pain slowly ebbs. It isn't until it's pressed into his hand that he recognizes what error has been made.
“Thank you,” Viktor breathes as he finds purchase on his cane - a piece of driftwood keeping him from drowning in a murky void.
The hand at Viktor's back recedes as Jayce takes a step away, giving Viktor his space but keeping a concerned eye on his classmate. “Take it easy,” he advises, “there's no rush.”
Such an ironic thing to say.
He needed to find Ekko and Professor Heimerdinger with haste.
With renewed resolve, Viktor steadies himself before nodding his goodbye to this universe's Jayce and turning to leave.
“See you tomorrow?” The question hangs in the air, uncertain.
Viktor turns only his head, replying with even measure, “Today, I hope,” before he begins his trek to the door, ignoring the students as they veer around him like an obstacle to be avoided.
A wry smile curves his mouth as he hears, even above the murmuring crowd, “What time? And where? Are we talking lunch or-?!"
—
A voice echoing through the fog. “Viktor.”
The strange and horrifying landscape with twisting spires reaching up to the sky, begging whatever Gods be in power for mercy.
No.
Not reaching for the hand of God.
Reaching for him.
“Viktor!”
Grabbing his ankles.
Dragging him down.
Down.
Down.
Crawling over him like maggots. Raking their gnarled fingers over his skin.
“Viktor!”
With a gasp, he shoots upright, only to regret the action immediately as his spine twinges. “Ah-augh!” He stiffens, waiting it out like he's done so many times before.
“Your back would probably hurt a lot less if you slept in a bed instead of at your desk,” his friend playfully chides.
“Jayce…?” Viktor opens his eyes to a blurry, dim-lit room, both familiar and foreign at the same time.
He looks first up at the man who'd awoke him, then down at the desk he’d claimed as a bed.
His desk.
His office.
But wrong, somehow.
Furniture slightly off from where it should be, his pen holder on the opposite side, knick knacks missing and in their place ones he doesn't recognize.
Wrong.
Mmm… maybe not wrong - but not right.
“Why are we at the academy…?” he wonders aloud.
Jayce scoffs, but his eyes betray amusement, “Because we - … well, you, work here.”
“As Heimerdinger’s assistant?”
“Now you're with the program!” Jayce slaps Viktor's shoulder in congratulations. “Get cleaned up, I'll make us some coffee.”
Having regained clarity, Viktor sits up, careful of his back this time, and takes another survey of the room. “Jayce…”
“Mmh?” his friend hums in acknowledgement as he dumps old coffee grinds into the trash bin.
“Where are your notes on Hextech?”
Viktor watches through narrowed eyes as his partner visibly freezes, body stiffening.
“... I destroyed it, remember?”
Unease creeps into Viktor as a faint buzz tickles the edge of his consciousness. “Why?”
Jayce closes the lid of the bin with excessive force, his motions jerkish as he pours filtered water into the coffee machine. “Because it killed a little girl, Vik,” he grits out.
Viktor watches on, almost too afraid to ask but more afraid of the unknown. “...What girl, Jayce?”
He winces as Jayce’s hand slams onto the table and the man whirls to face him, face and eyes growing red. “The pink-haired girl from Zaun!” He pauses, searching his memory “Violet! Her name was Violet.” His gaze returns to Viktor, but it's unsteady. “Dammit Viktor, what is wrong with you?!”
His words sting, but Viktor powers through as he hauls himself out of his chair. Weight heavy on his cane, he moves closer to his friend.
Jayce regards him with a cold stare, arms locked rigid at his sides.
“I have upset you-”
“No shit.”
“And I apologize,” Viktor continues. “I… am having trouble making sense of things lately.”
“Yeah? Well me too!” spits “My research got a child killed, and just when I think maybe I’m doing something good for once, you start interrogating me like you don't know what happened?” For a moment, the anger concedes to hurt as Jayce lowers his voice, “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
Viktor inches ever closer, ignoring the rising tension in Jayce's body language - the way he backs into the wall like a cornered animal about to lash out. But it's fear in his eyes, not rage, and it breaks Victor's heart.
Are you afraid of me…?
He stops only when he's close enough to force the other man to meet his gaze. “Because I need your help.”