1.
Somewhere deep underground, Mel Medarda opened her eyes. Golden light dissolved around her in a shower of sparkles that touched her skin soft as a feather. It reminded her of Jayce’s touch on her skin, it reminded her of the glint of Viktor’s back brace when the light in her room hit just right, it reminded her of the golden pigment that would stain her fingers whenever she had a moment to paint her scientists. Because no matter what was going on around them, her scientists would always be surrounded by the same golden light warping around her.
She looked up and —so far away it might as well be another world— she saw the stars. Unable to tell how much time had passed, Mel wondered what they were doing: if Jayce was still sleeping in the lab, if Viktor woke up, if they knew she was missing, if they felt the same emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.
With a sigh, she averted her eyes. The memory of Viktor’s wiry arms wrapped around her while Jayce’s excited voice recounted his mother’s stories of the stars, a bottle of wine forgotten on the floor, made the sight of the sky painful. Her hands itched for another hand to hold, someone to guide her out of this mess, yet she was alone in the bowels of the earth.
The floor was cold underneath her feet, the cave dark and unwelcoming around her.
Mel walked.
2.
Salo’s blood still stained his hands, but Jayce didn’t stop walking.
His head throbbed with a headache so intense that keeping his eyes open was an effort. Images blurred, multiplied, divided behind his eyelids. The hammer was heavier than it should’ve been, heavier than Jayce remembered. He wasn’t sure if it was an effect of gravity pulling him down to the ground once again or if his time inside the bowels of Hextech had changed something about it.
Maybe he was exhausted. He’d been running for so long, an eternity almost, from forces that threatened to pull him apart at the seams the moment he lowered his guard. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see it again: the emptiness, the nothingness, the Void. A place where there was nothing until suddenly, there was everything. But he was never there long enough to give up and stop fighting. The moment he felt his grip on the fight slipping, reality would split again, throwing him into a new plane where the fight started all over again.
In there, he saw glimpses of something else, potential futures that went from a bad time to complete annihilation.
No matter what, Viktor was there.
But it wasn’t their Viktor.
It was a twisted version of the real thing. Someone whose eyes were devoid of all emotion, of all hope. The Viktor that Jayce saw was not the person who would pace around the room trying to crack a particularly difficult problem, he wasn’t the one who grabbed Mel’s hand offering comfort after a nightmare.
Jayce needed to stop that version of Viktor at all costs. He swore he wouldn’t fail.
And he didn’t.
He didn’t.
He saved the world.
Then why was it that the moment he was above ground again —Piltover’s silhouette darker than he’d ever seen it against the starry night sky— Jayce fell to his knees, sobbing, yearning for the nights where he’d fall asleep between them, holding both of their hands, reveling in the warmth of their bodies against his?
3.
I understand now.
Viktor’s eyes looked at the fragments of Hextech warped by the beam of pure Hexcore magic and thought of the stars. He could see it then, the message hidden within the pattern. Somehow, it reminded him of a very specific night ages ago. Or, at least, it felt like it happened an eternity ago.
They had drunk Mel’s expensive wine and kissed until their bodies became one, until they were mixed down to their very atoms, inextricably bound.
Instead of parting ways, they opened a second bottle and retired to the balcony, where Viktor sat on a soft sofa leaning heavily against the back, Mel’s warm body lounging across his lap, his arms around her, as they listened to Jayce recount stories from his childhood, the stories his mother told him about the stars.
Neither Viktor nor Mel grew up listening to that kind of stories and as such, they were fascinated by the ingenuity and love woven in each of them. But Viktor would be lying if he said that was the only reason he couldn’t keep his eyes off Jayce’s hands, his hands off Mel’s shoulders. There was something there, a buzz of energy that tightened his stomach and made the hair at the back of his arms stand.
Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was his new connection with the Hexcore, maybe Jayce’s stories got to him, but in that moment, Viktor knew he was in love.
His eyes found a pattern in the fragments hovering above him, a pattern that looked like Mel’s eyes when she saw Hextech in action for the first time. Viktor realized that he would never get a chance to say goodbye, that she would go on without knowing how much she meant to him.
For a moment, Viktor considered holding on, fighting for his life, if only to see those eyes once more.
Jayce’s silhouette came into focus, his bearded face looked at him in despair one final time before turning away.
Viktor let go.
+1.
“...she used to say Aurelion Sol would drag the very stars from the sky in order to regain his freedom,” said Jayce, his arms moving outward, his hands pointing at the brightest star in the sky.
Mel’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, right on top of Viktor’s, feeling his pulse beat faster on her skin. She sank deeper on his lap, still tired from their tumble in her sheets, and sighed.
“Jayce,” she called, reaching out for him. He glanced between Mel and Viktor for a brief moment. Whatever Jayce saw in them, stopped the words flowing from his mouth. He held her hand and Mel felt it again, that buzz that seemed to flow between the three of them whenever they touched. It was addictive. Dangerous.
Mel knew better than to let emotions cloud her mind, yet there she was: reveling in the warmth of her scientists —her lovers— the night before standing in front of the Council to fight for what was right.
Jayce sat next to them and Mel took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips, dropping a soft kiss on his knuckles. Then she turned around and kissed Viktor’s shoulder, feeling the man shudder under her lips.
At least she had this: even if she lost everything, she would always have them. She had the most important thing, the one thing no one could take away from her.
Love.
Their love painted in gold, a tattoo on her skin.
That was all that mattered.