Chapter Text
Jayce was surprised that Caitlyn hadn’t found him standing behind one of the bookshelves in their family’s personal library yet. During their current round of hide and seek, he had heard her come in and poke around the room looking for him twice already.
But he had still remained hidden.
Then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, Caitlyn was only seven years old.
Jayce’s ears perked up as the doors to the library squeaked open for the third time that day. Caitlyn called out into the room, “Jayce? Are you here? Come out, I’m done playing.”
Jayce huffed—he wasn’t falling for that trick again. Well, it was less of a “trick” and more so “Caitlyn claiming that she was done with hide and seek, Jayce coming out of his hiding spot, and then Caitlyn insisting that ‘since her fingers were crossed she didn’t really mean it and that means that she won’”.
Jayce was a whole eight years older than her. That trick should never have worked on him.
Caitlyn’s voice shook as she tried again. “Jayce? I’m tired, I want to stop now. If you’re here, please come out.”
Jayce mindlessly took a half-step forward to come out from hiding, but stopped himself just in time. Wow, he thought, shaking his head, when did she get so good at acting?
Then from beyond the bookshelves, the sniffling started.
Oh no, oh—she’s being serious.
Guilt prickled at Jayce as he stepped out from behind the bookshelf, and it stung even worse when he saw the redness in her eyes and the blotchiness in her cheeks. “Cait, I’m here.”
Her head whipped around, almost embarrassed to be caught crying. The flush in her cheeks darkened as she asked, “Did you hear me when I called for you? I asked you to come out. I said please.”
Jayce made his way over to her and crouched down to her eye-level. “I did, but I wasn’t sure if you were joking or not.”
A strangled little noise came from Caitlyn’s throat as she crossed her arms and pouted, “I said I was done!”
“You said that the other time too, and then when I came out you were crossing your fingers so you won, remember?”
“Oh,” she said quietly, and for a moment Caitlyn’s expression softened. But it quickly hardened again, and the wrinkle between her brows came back with a vengeance. “But you should’ve known that I was telling you the truth! I wasn’t crossing my fingers!”
“How was I supposed to know that? I was hiding. I couldn’t see you.”
The gears turned in her head as she tried to find a way to prove him wrong, but they ground to a stop as she quickly gave up. “Oh,” she said timidly, “I really was tired of playing though.”
Caitlyn stared at her feet, scuffing her shoe against the carpet as she continued to sulk, with tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
So Jayce gave her a light flick to her forehead.
Caitlyn gasped, and her hands flew up to shield her brow. “Ow! What was that for!”
“I poked all of the sad out of you. It worked, right? Do you still feel sad?” It was a trick that had always worked on Jayce when his birth dad would do it to him. All of the times that he still remembered, at least.
Caitlyn rubbed at the spot he flicked. “No, not anymore.”
“I’ll tell you what—the next time we play hide and seek? If you tell me to stop hiding, I’ll come out. But you have to be telling the truth when you say that you want me to come out. Game’s over. We’re done. Neither of us win. How does that sound?”
Caitlyn brightened, and her smile nearly split her face into two. “Any time we play hide and seek. Not just next time!”
“Any time we play hide and seek.” Jayce held out his fist with his pinky finger outstretched. “Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise,” Caitlyn parroted, mirroring the gesture.
The two hooked their fingers together and shook on their new deal.
Before Jayce let go of her finger, his face turned grave. “Remember. We never, ever break a pinky promise. No matter what.”
“No matter what,” Caitlyn echoed.
Jayce grinned, hauling her into a hug. “Love you, Cait.”
She hugged back, and squeezed him with all of the strength her tiny body could muster. Her reply came out muffled as she spoke into his shoulder. “Love you too, Jayce.”
Jayce stared out of the boat cabin window, watching the world outside bob gently as their boat floated down the water. There wasn’t much to see aside from the other boats that sailed around them, and the limestone walls that loomed above them all, lining the man-made river they were currently navigating.
Yet Jayce still stared at the wall, dreaming of the city beyond it—Zaun.
Zaun was a city-state that had conducted a referendum to gain independence from its upstream rulers in Piltover in the nation's far, far away past. Nowadays, Zaun was known as one of the most beautiful cities in Runeterra. The terraced city’s three enormous tiers were nestled in the land that sloped between both Oshran Falls and the rivers Pilt and Va’Zaun, and the trademark multi-level, intra-city canals and classic architecture of the city had given Zaun a reputation as a romantic, historical masterclass in civil engineering that had a charm few other places in the world could even come close to.
Despite the amount of times Jayce had already been here, he always mourned the fact that he had never seen most of it.
“—ayce. Jayce. Are you even listening right now?”
Jayce snapped out of his thoughts and looked to where Caitlyn sat across from him, not even attempting to hide the fact that she was thoroughly unimpressed.
“No,” Jayce said, knowing that it was pointless to lie to her. She would have seen right through him—and he was never good at lying to her anyways.
Her eyes narrowed before turning towards their head of security, Grayson, and her second-in-command, Marcus, who stood at attention a few feet away from them. “Grayson, I apologize, but could you please repeat the itinerary for today again? My brother was not paying attention.” Her eyes darted back to Jayce. “But he will be this time around, I’m sure.”
Grayson gave a polite half bow in Caitlyn’s direction. “Of course, Your Highness.” Shifting towards Jayce, she bowed again. “Your Highness.”
Grayson cleared her throat and glanced down at the papers in her hand. “We will be arriving in Zaun shortly. Our point of entry will be at the Main River Pilt Gate at 0630. From there, accounting for canal traffic, we should be pulling into the Promenade Docks at 0705. You will make your way to the motorcade—”
Jayce allowed himself the luxury of letting his thoughts wander again as Grayson detailed the rest of their agenda for the day. Of course, the proper thing would have been for him to pay attention as Grayson rattled on, especially since Caitlyn had already called him out.
But being aware of the details of their itinerary would have made him infinitely more anxious—although he couldn’t really fault Caitlyn for her reaction. Jayce forgot, sometimes, that she was not in on the open secret amongst their parents and staff of how exactly he handled their royal obligations. And even if he had wanted to correct her, any discussions about the topic would have needed to have been saved for after their trip—since Jayce’s official role on their trip was to be her chaperone.
They were in the middle of Caitlyn’s coming-of-age tour that each member of the main royal family of Piltover went on for their twentieth birthday, traveling between a select group of countries to strengthen the bonds between their nations and Piltover.
And in comparison to his own tour six years ago, there was much more at stake.
Jayce’s tour had merely been conducted as a formality. An observation of tradition. By that time Caitlyn was fourteen, and the Kiramman family had always been led by a matriarch. As the Kiramman’s eldest son, Jayce had been nothing more than a foreign dignitary to welcome into different country’s capitals and entertain for a few days, before they politely bid him a lukewarm goodbye.
This time around, the nations they were visiting were well-aware that they were hosting the heir apparent to the Piltovan royal throne. That when their mother chose to abdicate—or gods forbid, pass—Caitlyn would be at the helm of one of the foremost political and economic superpowers on this side of Runeterra.
Caitlyn’s tour had been so vastly different from Jayce’s own—calling them by the same name felt fundamentally wrong. Every stop so far had left Jayce reeling, with politicians and officials worming their way out of the woodwork every step of the way, begging for any amount of time with Caitlyn in paltry efforts to sway her under their influence before she ascended to the throne. But Caitlyn had handled it all with a cool head, and even cooler demeanor.
Jayce still couldn’t quite believe that the tenacious young woman that was in front of him was the same person as the little girl who used to cry and come to him for comfort in the middle of the night during thunderstorms.
“—scheduled to end at 1425. However, your Queen Mother, knowing the propensity of the members of the Piltovan Trade Guild that reside in Zaun to be somewhat wordy at times, made sure that your schedule allowed for the discussion to continue until 1530 without any major interruptions to your itinerary. There will be a short break for you two to refresh yourselves until 1535, when you must make your way back to meet the barons of Zaun and the Baronial Council building, along with a handful of the other ambassadors from some of the countries that will be missed in the rest of the tour.”
“A five minute break,” Jayce said dryly. “How generous.”
Grayson chose to take the thinly veiled barb at face value by simply replying, “It is.” She reshuffled the papers in her hands, and began again. “The meeting with the other ambassadors will start at—”
“Thank you, Grayson.” Caitlyn interjected. “I believe that should be enough for now. Those extra fifty-five minutes might not be enough for the members of the Piltovan Trade Guild to provide their boundless insight regarding the current trade regulations, so perhaps we can wait until that meeting is done to cover the rest of the day’s agenda? In case there are necessary changes to the schedule that need to be made?”
Grayson opened her mouth, obviously about to object, when Marcus pointedly cleared his throat. Relenting, Grayson gave a polite nod of her head. “Of course, Your Highnesses. We can review the rest of your itinerary, and any unexpected changes, later.”
Caitlyn gave the two officers a slight nod. “Both of you are dismissed.”
The officers gave them both one last deep, formal bow, and they made their way out of the room.
The moment the door was shut, Caitlyn sighed, “Jayce, you cannot get mad at the captain for explaining to us the agenda that was set by our mother.”
“I’m not mad at her, I’m just pointing out that that’s absurd. I think we can both agree that only having a five minute break, in what—over nine hours from now?—before going onto our next commitment is not much time, Sprout.”
Caitlyn grimaced. “I don’t disagree with you, but I’ve already reviewed the schedule for tomorrow too. It’s an earlier start and a later finish than today, and with no breaks.”
“Of course it is.” Jayce leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes. The ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner of the room made the dull headache that had settled in throb against his skull.
This is fine, he thought in between each pulse of pain. I am fine.
There was silence for only a couple more moments before Caitlyn asked, “We’re a little halfway done with my tour. Do you think…. have I been doing a good job so far?”
Jayce’s eyes flew open. “What?”
It was Caitlyn’s turn to stare listlessly out of one of the cabin windows, propping her chin up with a single hand, as she spoke softly. “Sometimes, I find myself unsure of how it appears I handle these long days and run-on meetings. I am afraid that I come across as impatient and short.”
“Sprout, you don’t act like that at all. Do you remember how Lord Hoskel reacted when his recent proposal to our mother for the redistribution of Piltovan national funds was turned down?”
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Caitlyn’s mouth. “I do.”
Jayce laughed. “The point is, if you think you’re doing a bad job, the rest of us should be considered lost causes.”
But Caitlyn remained quiet, and as quickly as her smile had appeared, it faded. “I don’t know, I get—I suppose snippy would be the polite way to put it. It’s not very becoming of a member of the Piltovan Royal Family.”
Jayce sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, silently cursing when he realized he would need to take a few extra minutes that they didn’t have in their schedule to make sure he looked every bit of the “Golden Boy” the public expected of him before they disembarked. “I never told you too much about my own tour, did I? You were younger back then, so I didn’t want to bore you too much with the details.”
Caitlyn cocked her head, curious. “No, but I know that it went well.”
“Not in private,” Jayce winced as he distilled the truth into something easier for her to hear. “I cried myself to sleep over how drained I felt coming back each night, and my schedule back then was nowhere near as wild as yours is now. Grayson had to make sure that our security detail didn’t let any person that wasn’t part of our entourage get too close to our rooms, or else they’d hear me wailing from down the hall. And in one meeting, I outright snapped at an official from Freljord.”
“You did not,” Caitlyn gasped, aghast.
“I did.” Jayce shook his head at his past behavior. “But look at how it all turned out—you said it yourself, the public thinks my tour went ‘well’. And if mine went well, yours is going to be considered perfect. I promise.”
Caitlyn’s eyes took on a more watery shine than they had before, and she smiled again. “Thank you, Jayce.”
“Don’t mention it.” Jayce waved a hand dismissively. “You may be Crown Princess, but I’m still your big brother. If you ever want to talk through things more, let me know. It’s what I’m here for.”
“Maybe later?” Caitlyn asked hesitantly.
Jayce’s face split into a grin. “I’ve got about five minutes later this afternoon that I can pencil you in for, if that sounds good to you.”
Caitlyn fondly shook her head at him. “If you think this stop in Zaun will be bad, I can’t imagine how you would feel when we get to Noxus. I know some of the details, so I know our days are absolutely filled to the brim. I don’t know if your betrothed would find it too endearing if you threw nightly tantrums after meeting again for the first time in years—you’d make an awful king consort for the new queen.”
Jayce’s eyes widened in panic, but thankfully something through the boat windows caught Caitlyn’s attention as she was already looking away.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be good by then.” Jayce said with a sickeningly artificial kind of ease that rang hollow in his own ears. “I’d hate to disappoint her.”
Today had gone too well for Viktor’s liking.
He had woken up to a blessedly quiet morning as the baby two doors down from his apartment had decided that it would like to try sleeping past three in the morning, without screaming at the top of its lungs. Both his bad leg and his back felt as normal as they could be, and his coffee maker had barely needed any banging—or percussive maintenance, as Ekko liked to put it—before it had worked. There had barely been any traffic as he took his scooter from his place in the Sumps to one of the lower boat locks, and when he boarded one of the ferries moving up-level he didn’t even have to fight for a spot to park. And miraculously, getting off of the ferry was somehow easier than boarding it.
So Viktor was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Very rarely did the universe ever grant him a day without something going wrong.
But as Viktor arrived and parked in front of the building for The Zaunite Gazette, he still felt a lightness in his step. In the elevator ride up to the third floor of the building, Viktor felt brave.
He dared to think that the day would be a perfectly fine day. A good day, even.
When Viktor stepped out of the elevator, he was greeted by the typical chaos of the office. The shrill ring of landlines echoed—once, twice, sometimes thrice—before one of the tip line operators picked up with a cheery, “This is The Gazette, how can I help you?” as they scrambled to grab a notepad and paper, jotting down the information from the other side of the line. The keys of multiple typewriters clacked with a frenzied precision, only interrupted by the mechanical zing of a carriage return or a swear at a misclicked key, followed by the flutter of paper as it was wrenched away from the register and a fresh leaf was shuffled into its place. Conversations were shouted even if the participants were right next to each other, because roaring over it all was the loud, persistent thrumming of the printing press as it spat out the pages of the next edition of the paper.
Yet somehow, Powder’s voice still rose above the din of it all. “Morning, hot shot!” she called out, waving to him from her desk. “Left something at home?”
“Good morning, Powder,” Viktor said as he plopped his messenger bag on his desk. “And no, I haven’t. How would you even know if I did? I’ve barely walked in here.”
“Nah, you definitely left something at home,” Powder said, tapping at the skin right under her eyes. “I think you forgot your designer eye bags before you walked out the door. You actually look like you got some sleep last night.”
“I must have left them right next to where you left your more original commentary.” Viktor said without any real bite as he shrugged his suit jacket off.
“Me? Original commentary? There’s a reason you’re a journalist and I’m not!” she said cheerfully before she leaned in, dropping her voice so only Viktor could hear. “Speaking of, you’re not gonna love what Silco has you on next.”
Viktor’s heart fell, and he swore he could hear the other shoe he had been waiting to drop clatter to the floor. “What is it?”
“Viktor! A word, please.” Viktor turned to see Silco waving him down from the door to his office. He crooked his fingers, beckoning Viktor to come over, before retreating out of sight.
“I’ll let him tell you that,” Powder muttered before turning back to her desk. “For what it’s worth, I tried to get him to put you on something else. Really.”
Viktor nodded, swallowing down his rising apprehension as he made his way to Silco’s door. Crossing the threshold of his office, Silco had sat behind his desk, scanning through some drafts of upcoming articles. Viktor moved to close the door behind him, but Silco stopped him. “No need to close the door, this should be quick. You’re covering the Piltovan Royal Family visit for The Gazette.”
“Absolutely not,” Viktor said flatly, bristling at the assignment that had just been dropped into his lap. “Wasn’t Babette supposed to be covering this?”
“Babette will be out for the foreseeable future due to a family emergency, and someone needs to cover for her.”
“There are nine other reporters in this office.”
“And of those nine, none of them are in between assignments, unlike you.” Silco sighed, and he let the papers in his hand flop onto the desk, pinching the bridge of his nose as he screwed his eyes shut. “Viktor, I am not asking you to write the next Great Valoran Novel. I am asking you to make a puff piece over some foreign royals after their press conference tomorrow. That is all.”
Viktor knew he looked like a gaping fish, struggling for air as he searched for something—anything—to get out of this particular assignment. A royal press conference, really? Is this what he had been reduced to?
But he hadn’t worked this long at The Gazette without learning what hills he should choose to die on. “When is the press conference tomorrow?”
Silco glanced up at Viktor. “Tomorrow. Nine in the morning, at the press reception area at the Baronial Council building.”
Viktor still took the time to measure out his answer, as if he possibly had any other choice but to accept. “Fine,” he seethed, struggling to refrain from pouting like a child as turned on his heel to make his way back to his desk. “You owe me for this.”
“No I don’t,” Silco said smoothly. “I forward your paycheck advances enough without complaining as is. Close the door on your way out.”
Viktor didn’t bother to reach for Silco’s door knob as he stalked back towards his desk.
“Gods,” Caitlyn gasped the moment the door shut behind her and Jayce, not sparing a glance behind herself as she stumbled further into the room. “I think today has to have been the worst day of the tour so far—or should we call it the next day already, since it’s past midnight? I’m absolutely exhausted.”
The two of them had just been shown to the drawing room that connected their quarters in one of the chateaus clustered in the complex that hosted visiting ambassadors in Zaun. And, for the first time since they had stepped off the boat, they finally had more than five minutes to breathe.
Although Jayce was not sure if he was able to. He wanted to say something, wanted to start chatting with Caitlyn, to take her mind off of the day—like a good big brother should —yet he remained rooted in place.
Because the tremors in his hands let him know that it was happening again.
No, no, no, Jayce begged himself. Not here, not now. Please.
Please.
Caitlyn grabbed one of her heels, carelessly tossing it deeper into the foyer, before starting to toe off the other. “The aides said that both rooms were practically the same, but do you have a preference for what room you’d want? Left or right?”
The trembling had moved its way up his arms and into his chest, and Jayce’s lungs struggled to fill themselves on shakier and shakier breaths.
“Jayce? Did you hear me?”
She hasn’t noticed what’s happening still, just say, ‘I don’t care’. Just say that I don’t—
But he had already taken too long to respond.
“Jayce?” Caitlyn asked, turning around quizzically. Jayce wished that the moment she had realized something was wrong was not so clearly evident on her face. In a panic, she rushed towards him, grabbing at his shoulders as she frantically scanned him over. “Jayce! What’s wrong, are you okay? You’re shaking.”
Tell her that it’s okay, he pleaded with himself in a last ditch effort, Tell her that you’re fine, it’ll pass.
Instead a hoarse whisper crawled out of his throat. “Get Lest here. Please.”
Shock flashed across Caitlyn’s face, but it was quickly replaced by determination and a fire in her eyes. “Okay,” she said soothingly, “okay.”
She stepped around Jayce and she wrenched the door open, barking out orders at the security detail Jayce knew was stationed just feet away down the hall. “Go get the nurse, now. Tell her my brother needs help, and has requested her.” Caitlyn’s eyes flicked back to him, full of uncertainty, before she added, “And be discreet. Go.”
Of course she knows that this is something to be hidden, Jayce thought bitterly as he turned away, clumsily shuffling over to sag onto the nearest chaise.
The door clicked shut behind him again. “Jayce?”
He couldn’t bring himself to respond as he held his head in his hands. All he could do was shake his head, hoping that Caitlyn would understand that there was nothing else that could be done for him at the moment.
And it seemed that she did.
“Alright,” Caitlyn said with a wavering voice. “She should get here soon.”
Jayce heard her begin to pace back and forth. The worry that radiated from her did nothing but cause his own anxiety to swell, and time slowed down to a trickle and sluggishly oozed by, before the door hinges creaked open again.
He looked up, and a fraction of the tightness that had been strangling his heart loosened when he saw Lest and her familiar worn leather satchel, her eyes starting to pick him apart as she analyzed the situation at hand.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” Caitlyn babbled in his periphery as Lest strode over to where he was sitting, before taking a knee to kneel in front of him and setting her bag on the floor by her side. “He was fine when we walked in the room, and then he suddenly wasn’t—”
“Were you fine when you walked in the room?” Lest asked him. Her piercing eyes and calm voice cut through the noise raging in his head.
“What do you mean?” Caitlyn said bewildered. “We were attending our engagements for the entire day, of course he was.”
But Lest’s eyes did not leave him as she waited for his response.
Jayce struggled to get his answer out, with his throat constricting around his words. With a small shake of his head he somehow managed, “No. I’ve been terrible the entire day.”
Out of the corner of his eye Caitlyn froze, stunned into silence.
Lest asked, “Do you think you’re able to tell me what symptoms you’ve been experiencing?”
“Racing heart, clammy hands, the breathing, all of it. It’s the worst it’s been in years.”
“Okay,” Lest nodded and opened her bag, rummaging through it as she called out behind her, “Is there any water for your brother to drink with the medication I’m going to give him?”
Caitlyn was already making her way towards one of the bedroom doors. “I requested that pitchers of water be left for us in both rooms. I’ll pour some right now.”
Lest found what she was looking for and pulled out a glass bottle filled with off-white, oblong pills. Her voice dropped as she twisted the cap off and tipped some out of the bottle and into her hand, murmuring, “It’s been some time since you’ve taken this specific medication, so your body’s tolerance to this has gone down a significant amount. Tonight will be more like the first time you started taking medication, and not like the more recent ones, alright?”
“Got it,” Jayce mumbled. This will be over soon then, thank the gods for that.
Footsteps rushed to his side, and Caitlyn thrust a full glass of water in his face. “Here.”
Jayce nodded, accepting the glass and pills that were offered to him. He took a wobbly breath to steady himself, before tossing the pills in his mouth and chasing them with a long swig of water. He only choked a little bit as he swallowed it all down, before placing the water on the floor beside his feet. “That never gets easier,” he gasped out.
“At least you’re done already,” Lest said, and reached up to Jayce’s arm to give it a comforting squeeze. She closed the pill bottle and stowed it back into her satchel, before snapping the whole thing shut shut. Moving the bag to her side, she tucked her legs underneath herself on one side and leaned on an arm for support. “I’ll wait for a little bit, just to make sure that everything’s okay—alright?”
“Thanks,” Jayce whispered.
From his side, Caitlyn spoke. “Thank you, Lest.”
It suddenly dawned on Jayce that he couldn’t remember the last time that someone else besides Lest had remained in the room for so long during one of his episodes. Typically, by that point other people would have already left or would have been shooed away by Lest, declaring that they were doing him more harm than good.
Caitlyn choosing to stay in the room, even though he clearly heard her fretting over him, felt odd. But it was also very, very comforting—enough to make him wonder why he ever agreed with his parents that Caitlyn should be kept in the dark about any of this.
Over the next few minutes breathing started to come just a little easier to Jayce, and his frantic heart rate began to slow. “The meds haven’t fully kicked in yet," he croaked, "but I’m starting to feel better already. I think I’ll be fine.”
Lest shot him a skeptical look, but Jayce nodded. “Really, Lest. I’ll be fine. It’s been a long day, and I just want to go to sleep.”
“Alright, if you’re sure,” Lest stood up, and once she was on her feet again, she looked over to wherever Caitlyn presumably was behind him. “I think we’re finished here then.”
“Is… is that it?” Caitlyn said incredulously. “Will my brother be alright now?”
Lest sighed. “He will be as good as he can be, I think.”
“‘Good as he can be’,” Caitlyn echoed disbelievingly. “That can’t be it, he needs to be ‘perfect’—there has to be something else that can be done?”
Jayce caught Lest’s gaze as her eyes flitted back to his, and the countless counseling sessions that he had had with her hung heavily between them. With a sad smile, she said softly, “Well, the best thing I know for him to do is to do exactly what he wishes for a while.”
Jayce barked out a bitter, ugly laugh before he was able to stop himself.
Caitlyn’s voice was strained with worry as she asked, “What does that mean?”
“That is a question for Jayce to answer. I would also recommend that he increases his visits with me, but that decision is ultimately up to him—” And for the first time since Jayce had seen her tonight, Lest’s face became uneasy. “—as well as your Queen Mother.”
The confusion in Caitlyn’s voice was clear as she asked, “Why does it matter what my mother thinks about my brother—”
“Thank you, Lest,” Jayce interjected. “I’ll go to bed and let the meds finish kicking in. You can go now.”
Lest paused, and for a moment it seemed as if she was going to protest. But her eyes softened before she rose from her position on the floor and said quietly, “Get some rest, Jayce.”
Without waiting for a reply, Lest gave a quick bow before turning to make her way out of the room and shutting the door behind her.
When the click of Lest’s heels against the hallway tile faded into nothingness, Caitlyn moved to stand in front of him, asking uncertainly, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“You heard her,” Jayce said hoarsely. “I’ll be as good as I can be.”
Caitlyn gnawed at her bottom lip, a nervous habit that Jayce knew their mother had reprimanded her for being unable to get rid of. She considered her next words carefully before she settled on, “This wasn’t the first time this has happened.”
Jayce’s face burned with shame and he looked away as he couldn’t help but notice how she was dissecting him in a manner that was far too reminiscent of their mother. “No.”
Jayce stared at the walls and went over the swirling brocade pattern of the wallpaper plastered around the foyer in his head. Repetitive, mindless tasks had always helped him calm down before, and it seemed to work this time around as well; each abstract leaf on the wall that his mind traced over was a step taken closer to feeling like himself again.
“And our mother knows,” Caitlyn said quietly.
Jayce’s heart thudded dangerously in his chest, his head whipping back around to Caitlyn as the progress he had made in soothing himself was gone in a flash. “Yes.”
“What would she do, whenever you would get panic attacks?”
Jayce’s pulse thundered in his ears, and heat crawled up his neck as he barely restrained himself from snapping at her, despite the fact he was desperately thankful that Caitlyn was willing to call them by the kind—no, right—term for them. “Why does it matter what she would do?”
“Because I want to help,” Caitlyn said hesitantly. “And she’s not here with us at this moment, so I want to do whatever I can.”
Caitlyn doesn’t know. Caitlyn doesn’t know. Caitlyn doesn’t know. “Then don’t bother.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘don’t bother’,” Jayce gritted out through clenched teeth.
“It’s not a problem at all, I really don’t mind,” Caitlyn insisted, continuing to push. “What would she do?”
“Caitlyn, please—drop it.”
Her voice took on a stubborn edge as she said, “Let me help you. I don’t understand what the issue is. What would she do?”
The anger that had been simmering underneath his skin boiled over, and the words spilled out from him in a bitter torrent. “What she would do is tell me to get over it. That I need to get over my tantrums. That I am a prince, and I need to pull myself together because she expects better from a member of our family. And then she’d nag Lest over the next few weeks to ask if she was absolutely sure I didn’t need stronger meds.”
With each sentence, Caitlyn had grown more and more horrified, and she was left pale with shock and her mouth agape. “She…she shouldn’t be able to make inquiries with Lest about your medical treatment. She wouldn’t. She took the concept of medical privacy to Piltover and codified it into law.”
Jayce shot up to standing, with the suddenness of the movement causing Caitlyn to stumble a half-step backwards. Out of everything he had shared, that’s the information she was taking issue with? “Right. Try telling that to the regent of your country when she’s breathing down your neck, demanding to know why her son is crazy, and that she needs him fixed yesterday.”
Tears sprung to Caitlyn’s eyes as she cried out, “That doesn’t—that doesn’t sound like her at all.”
“But it is, I’m telling you that right now!”
“Are you absolutely certain that’s what she said?” Caitlyn pleaded. “That you didn’t misunderstand somehow?”
“This has been going on for over a decade. There’s no way that I’ve misunderstood what’s been happening for twelve years.”
“No, no there has to be some kind of confusion.”
“Caitlyn, what—there’s no way that I’m wrong about this. I—”
From within the dark, deep recesses of his mind, a horrifying thought clawed its way to the forefront, overwhelming everything else until it was all Jayce could think.
“I can’t be wrong about what I’ve lived through for most of my life,” he said slowly, terrified of the conclusion his mind has arrived at, “unless you think I’m just crazy too.”
The deafening silence that settled between them was all that Jayce needed to hear.
“Caitlyn…” he trailed off, watching as his little sister stared, growing more and more—
Scared.
Suddenly, there was no longer enough air in the room to gasp down his lungs, and Jayce needed to get out. Out of this room, this wing of the palace, the entire building, it didn’t matter where, just—out.
Distantly, Jayce remembered the answer to why he had agreed to keep all of this a secret in the first place.
The reason Jayce had worked endlessly for years to manage everything—his royal duties, his appointments with Lest, his own precarious mental health—was so he would never have to see how Caitlyn was looking at him.
His feet had already begun mindlessly carrying him towards the door, Caitlyn flinching out of his way as he stormed past her. When Jayce reached the door, she called out in distress from behind him, “Wait—Jayce, please, let’s talk about this, I—this is just a lot to process—where are you going?”
Jayce froze with his hand on one of the doorknobs. He turned his head just enough to make sure that he can be heard, refusing to see how Caitlyn was looking at him. Refusing to see how similar she would look to their mother. “‘Exactly what I wish to do’, like Lest said. Don’t follow me.”
He wrenched open the door and stormed into the hallway, turning right towards where their wing connected to the rest of the chateau. He was met with a surprised set of guards at attention, and repeated himself to them without stopping. “Don’t follow me, that is an order.”
One of the guards called out after him. “But, sir—”
“That is an order,” he barked out, the command echoing sharply in the hallway as he kept his eyes trained forward. “Make sure that is communicated to the rest of our detail.”
The clicking of dress shoes against tile started to follow him when, although he could not make out her words, the noise behind him suddenly halted at Caitlyn’s command.
Jayce left their rooms behind and let his feet carry him towards the outdoor area that their delegation had been shown earlier. The massive garden complex that sprawled across a couple of hectares in between all of the chateaus seemed like the appropriate place to let himself fall apart, since, despite the fact that he may be having a panic attack, as a member of Piltover’s Royal Family, it wouldn’t ever do, to have one where people could see. That had been drilled into him since roughly the second or third time this had happened.
Soon, Jayce arrived at the top of the grand staircase that descended to where multiple paths that snaked off into the different sections of the gardens began, and he scanned over his options for privacy.
None of the areas he could see seemed to be any good. The pond area was completely in the open with no spot to duck away from prying eyes, the artistic-looking topiaries had taken on an unnervingly sinister look in the nighttime, the greenhouse was most likely locked up, and—
Jayce remembered the hedge maze.
He had almost entirely forgotten about the landmark on the far side of the gardens that had been pointed out earlier today. This late into the night, the light that emanated from the buildings could only illuminate so much, and it left the maze in the furthest section of the garden shrouded in complete darkness. Despite being able to recall exactly what direction to look, the distant hedges were no more than a single, almost indiscernible silhouette stretching across the grounds.
They were absolutely perfect.
Jayce hurried down the stairs and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, pushing forward until he was past the threshold of the maze.
Turn after turn, the deeper Jayce delved into the hedges, the larger the shadows loomed above him. For a moment he was blindly stumbling through pitch black, until a final turn around a corner opened out onto a small, square rock garden that was lined by a few stone benches around its perimeter. Judging by the other openings in the surrounding hedge walls, Jayce had reached the center of the maze.
He staggered over to a bench and sat down roughly as the adrenaline fueling him up until that point dissipated, and he caught his head in his hands as he curled in on himself.
Finally, well and truly hidden away from the rest of the world, Jayce let himself cry.
Sobs wracked his body, his chest heaving as tears streamed freely down his face and onto his hands, before they plopped wetly onto the ground below. It took some minutes before he felt coherent enough to think again, and only one thought came to him.
Caitlyn thought that I was crazy, just like they do. Like they always have.
Yet something about that didn’t sit right for Jayce. The more he turned it over in his mind, the less it made sense.
Then suddenly, it struck him.
When Jayce told Caitlyn that she thought he was crazy—sure, she didn’t say no.
But she didn’t say yes, either.
It made sense that Caitlyn hadn’t given him a straight answer. Jayce had just told her that Cassandra, her mother, was not the kind, benevolent queen that she had always known her to be. That she had a vicious, cold, and cruel side to her that she had only ever shown to him and not even a whisper of to her daughter. And gods, that information had come straight on the heels of his breakdown—which she had handled better than anyone else had outside of Lest—and the bombshell that Jayce had, in fact, been desperately struggling with his mental health in silence for most of her life.
To say that Caitlyn might have been too overwhelmed to come up with an eloquent answer while Jayce refused to let her get a word in edgewise, would have been, putting it lightly, an understatement.
He couldn’t truly fault himself for not thinking of these things at the time, but he still shouldn’t have immediately snapped at her. He was supposed to be the more mature, more experienced one between the two of them, for crying out loud. Gods, he needed to apologize to his sister yesterday.
Jayce rubbed at his nose and wiped away the remaining tears on his face, taking a moment to collect himself, resolving to go back and, at the very least, apologize for not hearing Caitlyn out. To tell her that he knew that their conversation about him, their mother—everything— needed to be continued soon, but obviously not that night. Not when he was still coming down from the vile, sludgy, adrenaline high of a panic attack.
Squinting up at the sky, it occurred to Jayce that while he did not need to walk back nearly as quickly as he did on his way over here, he was a long distance away from their chateau. Unless he wanted to be up until the small hours of the morning, he should probably start to head back to their wing sooner rather than later.
With a shaky sigh, Jayce stood up and—
Huh.
That was odd.
Crying alone had always been somewhat cathartic for Jayce, but the feeling of relief that had somehow sunk into his muscles, but had also brought a light, floaty feeling to his body that left him fighting to maintain his own balance, was strange.
With a lurch, Jayce attempted to look for the pathway he had taken to arrive at the rock garden. He was certain that that opening in the hedges was the one he had come through, until his eye caught on the opening in the hedge wall to the left. That one definitely looked like the one he came through.
Or was it the opening in the wall to the left of that one? It could have been, or it could have been the opening in the wall to the left of the one he was just looking at.
On second thought, it was definitely the one that was only one more to the left. That certainly seemed right.
Wait.
Wait.
Jayce was in a square area. If he had started at one wall, and had looked to the left, and left again, and left again, and left again, that would be the wall he had started at, and—
What entrance had he gone through to get there?
But whatever path he picked to get out probably wouldn’t matter that much; they should all lead to the same exit, right? He just needed to pick one to start getting out of there.
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a—ah, fuck it. That one. That one seemed good.
Stumbling into the inky darkness in the path that he had chosen, fatigue began to seep into Jayce’s body and it settled bone-deep. All he could focus on was how deeply exhausted he was, and how nice just laying in bed sounded to him. Even if he could only sleep for less than an hour, he would gladly take whatever time their schedule allowed. He just needed—
Sleep.
Although even as tired as he was, the turns that he took through the hedges hadn’t felt familiar at all. His own spatial awareness was something Jayce had prided himself on, and while the day had obviously taken its toll on him, he shouldn't have been so exhausted from it that he couldn’t remember a few turns through a simple maze.
But the more he blindly groped through the hedges, the more he became aware of a feeling that rankled at the back of his mind.
Something was wrong. But he had become too hot under his collar to properly think through the problem at hand.
He mulled over how strange this particular part of the maze was compared to what he had remembered from before, as he shed his outer shirt and vest and hung them over his forearm before… hold on.
Jayce never ran warm.
The last time he had felt his face flushing like this, was the first time he had taken one of his meds from Lest.
Oh.
Oh no.
Lest had said that the side effects from the meds tonight would be more similar to the first nights he had taken them, and if that was the case—Jayce needed to get back to the rest of the Piltovan delegation. Now.
Jayce stumbled forward, tripping on his own foot and catching himself on the slight branches of the hedge that snapped in his hands. Jagged points of wood dug into him, leaving small cuts and splinters in his palms.
But Jayce barely felt any of it.
Distantly, he knew that those cuts would ache later—but he had to ignore them. For the moment, Jayce needed to focus on getting out of these hedges, before he—
Jayce blinked, and he had already exited the maze.
There were no longer any hedges in front of him, but the open space that was in front of him looked completely wrong. The stone railing seemed too close, and the shadows of the buildings were shifting with the wind and were so, so much further away. But then again, the world had tended to liquify and swirl together the first few times he had taken these meds too. Jayce simply needed to focus on pushing forward to the stairs.
Another step forward, and—
Jayce was already more than halfway through the stairs.
But the stairs felt wrong.
He was certain that he should be ascending the stairs, so why had the stairs felt so… not-up?
Maybe he had tried to walk too far too fast, maybe he just needed to stand still for a minute?
All he needed to do was steady himself on the stone railing next to him, and breathe.
Yet with a deep inhale, the world completely shifted yet again, and the earthy scent of the River Pilt was heavy in Jayce’s nose as the steps underneath him swayed. The railing creaked in his hand, almost like it was made of wood.
Squinting at it, it looked an awful lot like wood too. In fact, a lot of the things around him seemed to be made of wood. Interesting.
And, hold on—where did his jacket go?
Anyways, the stairs in front of him were much narrower and more steep. But they were not-not-up, so that seemed to be the way to go to get back.
But more and more often, every sluggish blink of his eyes slotted another strange frame of the world into his view.
Blink. A patchwork of buildings lined themselves along an old cobbled road.
Blink. Water lapped gently against some kind of concrete levee that was at his feet.
Blink. The horizon that was nothing more than a streak of ink smeared across the distant depths of the night, rose higher, and higher, and higher.
Blink.
Jayce was so very, very tired. Taking another step forward was about as feasible as…taking another step forward.
He should lay down and close his eyes, right around…there.
It would be embarrassing if he was caught dozing off out in the open like this by a passerby on the grounds, but he could say that he had nodded off stargazing again, just like he did when he was younger.
Yeah. That’s it.
He just needed five minutes.
To sleep.