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“This web of time – the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries – embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not.”
Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths
Now
Reality unspools before Viktor like an endless fracturing path. There are so many directions the future can go in that each potentiality may as well be a thousand; each future may as well be infinite futures, a countable number of infinite futures, all beginning here, all beginning now.
No. Not now. In a few minutes.
Viktor comes back to himself a little. Just enough to feel the passing of time in its linear sense. He can’t feel his own body, but his mind reaches out and looks through other eyes, eyes which he’s touched, eyes which he’s healed. There’s Jayce. Jayce is furious. Jayce is so torn up inside by love and confusion and duty and desperation that his heart is like a thing made of silk battered by sandpaper. It’s torn up, rucked into shreds, unspooling.
Viktor watches Jayce approach. Each footstep he takes sends another thousand realities into life and kills a thousand others. There is so much death in the world already that what Viktor has done is really nothing at all. Viktor tries to believe that. There must be a reality in which he believes that.
Jayce is at the mouth of Viktor’s sphere. Viktor opens his eyes. Seeks out Jayce’s face and can’t help but smile, because Jayce is always the same, no matter how much he changes, and he’s always the same because he always comes to Viktor.
Jayce’s hammer is pointed at him. Interesting. The two branches from which reality springs are now reduced to dual certainties: either Jayce will kill him, or he will not. Viktor thinks he will not, so he unfolds his legs and moves to the ground.
Jayce lets out a noise like a man felled. It’s guttural. A rictus of horror spreads on his face and he drops his hammer, letting it topple over like a tower. It hits the ground once and bounces. Viktor steps over it.
Jayce is crouched on the ground. Viktor places a hand on top of his head, then runs his fingers through the strands. Wherever Jayce has been, time has passed. He’s been in another reality. Viktor isn’t sure which one. There are so, so many. When he tries to think about how many his head hurts, his leg, his back, so he stops thinking and keeps stroking Jayce’s hair, lifting the silky brown strands and dropping them again.
Jayce’s hand is on Viktor’s ankle. He’s apologising, shaking his head. Viktor isn’t sure if he understands or not. He understands that Jayce is upset because he’s broken a promise. There is probably more to it, but there are so many potentials: he could keep stroking Jayce’s hair. Jayce could pick up his hammer and kill him. Viktor could put his finger beneath Jayce’s chin.
Viktor chooses that one. So Jayce lifts his face and Viktor smiles again to see it, its familiarity. He goes to his knees and tries to pull Jayce into a hug but Jayce sinks as though he can’t support his own weight, ending up with his face pressed into the gap between Viktor’s thighs; with his hands gripping Viktor’s waist and hips. Viktor keeps stroking his hair.
Jayce is still apologising.
Memory 1
It’s the golden years of their invention. Heimerdinger hasn’t yet told them how long the hextech will take to perfect; Zaun has not begun to shake the bedrock of its own oppression; Viktor can still ignore how sick he is.
Viktor has been looking for Jayce for nearly ten minutes, which is ten minutes wasted when Viktor could have been crunching numbers and staring at the hexcore. But he’s found him. Jayce is in the forge.
He’s shirtless. His shoulders are impossibly, ridiculously broad. From behind he looks like some futuristic breed of man, some glorious evolution of humanity. Then he turns around to grin at Viktor and he’s all ears, all boyish teeth, all uneven lips and heavy eyebrows.
‘Don’t stop on my account.’
‘Were you looking for me? Sorry. I borrowed the notebook you left on your desk because I wanted to try making a prototype for that design you drew. The laser. Come look at this.’ Jayce gestures Viktor over with the boyish exuberance that Viktor can never, ever say no to.
So he joins Jayce by the anvil, and Jayce smells of sweat and heat and something so impossibly unique to Jayce that Viktor thinks it comes from his skin, his pores, his hair. He feels as though he can’t breathe without breaking in Jayce; he can’t move without moving through Jayce’s heat.
Jayce slings an arm around Viktor’s shoulder, gesturing at his work. ‘I mostly followed your design, but I took some liberties because it can’t be this delicate, Viktor. It has to be able to withstand more pressure. And I moved where you had the runes. What do you think?’
Viktor thinks if anyone else in the entire world tried to improve upon his designs he’d have to assume they were insane, because Viktor’s designs are always perfect. Except, as he’s learning, for when Jayce touches them. Jayce touches Viktor like Midas touched the world; he turns things to gold.
Memory 1: Variation 1
‘So what do you think? Is it good?’
‘’Good’ is never a sufficient descriptor, Jayce. Try to be specific,’ Viktor says idly. He looks at Jayce’s improved design which lies still smouldering from the heat of the forge. He’s pleased. He feels an almost-smile quirk across his face and reaches down to the object.
Jayce grabs his wrist. ‘It’s hot,’ he says. ‘Be careful.’
And then he holds Viktor’s wrist, and holds it, and holds it, and then—finally—drops it.
Something crackles between them with the certainty and weight of thunder. Jayce is all skin and Viktor feels stifled, overdressed, choked. He swallows.
‘Are you alright?’
‘It’s hot in here.’
‘You can take your shirt off. I do.’
‘I am not you.’
Jayce’s fingers are at Viktor’s shirt collar. Viktor is gripping the railing, white-knuckled, heart running a marathon in his chest. He can’t meet Jayce’s eyes—the certainty that he cannot look at him is the same certainty that comes over him when he thinks about reaching out to scoop the embers from the forge bare-handed. It’s too hot, his mind tells him. You’ll burn.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Only that I don’t prance about shirtless in front of certain wealthy councillors.’
‘I don’t prance about.’ Now Jayce has bracketed Viktor against the railings. Now Jayce is around Viktor on every side.
‘You do. You know they eat you with their eyes. You know how much they desire you. You know what you look like, and you know your mind is brilliant. You signed your notes because you know you’re brilliant. You walk about like everyone wants to fuck you because you know it’s true. Am I wrong?’
‘Everyone?’
Viktor puts a hand lightly in the centre of Jayce’s chest. Jayce is burning, almost feverish, and Viktor is surprised his fingertips don’t scorch. He pushes Jayce back and Jayce stumbles, sits heavily on the low anvil, sending the laser prototype clattering to the ground. He braces himself, sitting with his legs sprawled wide, low enough that his head is at the height of Viktor’s torso. ‘Everyone,’ Viktor says, and puts his hand on Jayce’s shoulder, his knee on the anvil between Jayce’s legs and grinds there, hard.
Jayce groans, the sound loud above the crackling embers, a drip of sweat sliding down his throat like oil. He tilts back, his neck long and lovely, his shoulders rolling with muscle and sweat as though anointed, and Viktor leans over him, bites at his neck and marvels at the noises he makes. Jayce isn’t quiet. Viktor’s barely touching him and yet he’s panting, moaning, bucking onto Viktor’s knee.
Viktor brings a hand up around his back and grips the nape of Jayce’s neck, scraping blunt fingernails up into his hair. Jayce gives a high-pitched gasp and his eyebrows draw together and up in the middle. His mouth is slack and Viktor kisses it, makes it his, is harsh and bites Jayce’s lip. He draws it back with his teeth then lets it go, listening to the quiet smack of it against Jayce’s teeth. Jayce slides his hips forwards on the anvil, looking up at Viktor with desperate, pleading eyes.
Viktor draws back his leg and puts his good knee up on the anvil next to Jayce, just on the outside of his leg. Then he hooks a hand under each of Jayce’s knees and pulls, dragging his hips to the very edge. Jayce understands and his breath is ragged in his throat, coming out in shreds. He braces himself, leaning back, and kicks his trousers off, his shoes, his underclothes. They collect in a pile, and then Jayce is naked under Viktor’s hands: naked, flushed up his brown chest, dew-dropped with sweat, feather-dark curls of hair beneath his arms and between his legs.
Viktor pushes Jayce’s already-hard cock against his lower belly with the heel of his hand and Jayce bucks up against him. His breath is coming as fast as a man at the end of a race. The light of the forge’s embers turn his skin a bright bronze, and each crease of his skin is shadowed like a secret or a promise.
The forge’s items are scattered on a bench within arm’s reach, and Jayce leans forward to scrabble there, finally pressing something into Viktor’s hands. Viktor unscrews it. Coats a finger with grease and watches as Jayce moves further forward until the small of his back rests on the forge and his legs splay wide in the gap beyond it. He lifts a leg and crooks it, resting his heel against the anvil’s edge.
He’s lovely like he is. An expanse of perfect brown flesh dotted with diamond sweat. His mouth is still slack and Viktor presses a thumb between his lips, pushing down on Jayce’s tongue. He keep it there as he brings a finger to Jayce’s crease, pressing in gently, firmly.
Jayce groans deep and long in his throat. The inside of his body is impossibly hot, as though his insides are burning out some corruption. Viktor presses in a finger, then two, working them steadily and twisting them in a way which makes Jayce gasp.
Soon, Jayce is leaning back on his elbows. His hands fist uselessly against metal and Viktor wishes he were taller, larger, better evolved—that he could lift Jayce and move him about at will, that he could heft Jayce against the wall or in the air so that the only point of solidity in Jayce’s gravity was Viktor holding him, working inside him. But he can’t, so he presses in a third finger and takes his thumb from Jayce’s mouth.
‘Tell me how that feels, Jayce.’
Jayce shakes his head, eyes closing and opening intermittently, as though he can’t decide whether he wants to look at Viktor or lose himself to sensation; as though Viktor is the only thing worth keeping his eyes open for.
‘Tell me or I’ll stop.’
‘Please, Viktor, no. Don’t stop. I’ll…it feels so good. I swear, it feels so good. I don’t want to be doing anything else, ever. I don’t know why we do anything else. I’m…please don’t stop. Please. Oh fuck. Viktor. Please.’
‘’Good’ is not sufficient, Jayce. Be specific.’
Jayce groans and one of his hands lifts from the metal of the anvil, snaking towards his cock which is red and dripping against his thigh, drops from it beading in the thick, dark hair between Jayce’s legs. ‘Viktor, fuck you. Fuck you. Keep going, please don’t stop. It feels like…it feels like when we first got hextech to work. Like success. Like magic. Perfect, it feels perfect.’
‘Like magic.’
‘Fuck you.’ Jayce grins at him and then Viktor twists his fingers and Jayce’s head falls back and he lasps into incoherence once again. Viktor takes pity on him. Takes Jayce’s cock in his hand—long, he notes, and heavy—and jerks him hard, twisting his wrist each time.
Jayce comes in long streaks across his own chest, his hole contracting around Viktor’s fingers, his thighs shaking, his head thudding against the anvil.
Viktor withdraws his fingers slowly, working them out, and hoists himself over Jayce’s body, wincing slightly at the pain in his leg. He holds his head close to Jayce’s. Kisses his jaw and pushes the hair, heavy with sweat, from Jayce’s forehead.
Jayce reaches down between Viktor’s legs and squeezes, palming along the hardness he finds there. His eyes catch Viktor’s own like a sun flare. ‘Do you want…?’
Viktor shifts away and bites at the skin of Jayce’s neck. Then again, harder. Jayce shudders beneath him.
Memory 1: Variation 2
‘So what do you think? Is it good?’
‘’Good’ is never a sufficient descriptor, Jayce. Try to be specific,’ Viktor says idly. He looks at Jayce’s improved design which lies still smouldering with the heat of the forge. He’s pleased. He feels an almost-smile quirk across his face and reaches down to the object.
Jayce grabs his wrist. ‘It’s hot,’ he says. ‘Be careful.’
And then he holds Viktor’s wrist, and holds it, and holds it, and then—finally—drops it.
Something crackles between them with the certainty and weight of thunder. Jayce is all skin and Viktor feels stifled, overdressed, choked. He swallows.
Jayce opens his mouth to speak. Then he doesn’t.
Viktor leaves.
Now (again)
Jayce’s hands knead at Viktor’s body as he apologises, and he burrows his head against Viktor like an animal, like someone in love. Viktor strokes his hair, whispers how glad he is to see Jayce, how glad he is that Jayce has come to him.
When Jayce looks up, his face is streaked with emotion. What he seems to be feeling is so raw that Viktor almost jerks back as he would from a septic wound. Jayce reaches up for Viktor’s face. His fingers dig in as he kisses Viktor; he is possessive, desperate, barely breaking off for breath.
Viktor falls back into a sitting position and Jayce is on top of him, hands everywhere, hands beneath his robes, beneath the belts holding them on. Viktor lets him. In most universes—almost all universes—Viktor lets Jayce do this. Only in some, he doesn’t. He could follow those paths to their conclusion and find out why, but: Jayce’s hands on his legs, Jayce’s mouth on his own, Jayce’s fist in his hair.
‘You never used to let me…you never let me…with you. Remember?’
Viktor remembers. Sometimes he thinks he does nothing else.
Jayce’s hand is on his thigh, inching inwards. Viktor tilts his head back and lets Jayce at his neck, lets him mouth and bite. Viktor’s heart—which still, against nature, beats—runs a tattoo in his chest. ‘Jayce,’ he says, though he doesn’t mean to.
Jayce’s other hand is creeping up his sternum. Around his neck. Jayce’s hand is so large and Viktor’s neck is so narrow that his fingers meet at the back and Viktor holds Jayce’s wrist, and holds it, and holds it, and doesn’t let it go. He’s leaning back on his elbows; he’s thinking about all the possible futures of what they can do together. He’s thinking how glad he is that Jayce has finally seen what Viktor sees; how glorious the future can be.
Jayce’s hand is squeezing tight. Viktor’s hand tightens in answer and he tries to say, Jayce, but the name doesn’t come out. He opens his mouth to take breath and can’t. Jayce’s eyes are the eyes of a furnace; his mouth is twisted. He squeezes.
Viktor has been treading a path without looking at his feet. In this future, in this now, Jayce fails to kill him with the hammer and succeeds with his hands.
It’s only one possibility.
A different now
Jayce has just told Viktor that they’ll finish this together. Their foreheads hot as starlight against each other; their bodies suspended in space.
When they hit the ground, reality unspools before them like an endless fracturing path. There are so many directions the future can go in that each potentiality may as well be a thousand; each future may as well be infinite futures, a countable number of infinite futures, all beginning here, all beginning now.
Jayce turns to look at Viktor and cups a hand around his jaw. ‘You choose,’ he says.
‘Can I be trusted to? After everything I chose before?’
Jayce takes Viktor’s hand. He nods.
They turn to look at the futures. In some, the hexcore turns garlands to ashes and mountains to wax. In others, Jayce dies, or Viktor dies. But they always meet. Viktor riffles through realities, casting some aside, pausing on others.
Here’s one. There’s no hextech; no hexgates. He and Jayce work at the Academy. Medical research. Helping people. Distantly, from an independent Zaun, music plays as people dance and invent and love, over and over again.
Viktor weighs the future in his hand and Jayce’s closes over the top.
‘This one?’
Viktor nods.