Zaundad’s Au Where Vander Is Taken By The Enforcers After Turning Himself In For The Explosion.

jayvik au where jayce keeps getting sent back in time to fix what happens to viktor instead of killing him. (mage viktor met kid jayce, why couldn’t jayce just go back?? (and maybe i CAN think of a couple reasons why not, but i’m ignoring them))

so over and over again (similarly to ekko preventing jinx from pulling that pin) jayce is brought back to the day of the explosion in the councilors room.

it gets worse before it gets better. either jayce dies in the explosion because mel couldn’t get to him, or viktor gets upset with him because he abruptly cancels the meeting to bring peace to zaun and viktor just ends up growing more distant from him, or viktor dies anyway because he was getting sicker by the day before the explosion killed him, or viktor gets addicted to shimmer and bad things happen between that and the hexcore all over again (this specific outcome nearly makes jayce go insane, because he had been SO close before it all went to shit), or (most common) NOTHING he says will make viktor stop from leaving after using the hexcore to save him.

he. just. keeps. walking. out.

jayce can’t figure out why, but keeps trying. it’s incredibly debilitating watching your soulmate die dozens of times. but he keeps going, getting more and more desperate each time he wakes up to a new dying viktor.

it might be easier to have been brought back farther. before viktor’s collapse, before sky dies, before viktor was already fused with arcane and shimmer. before he’d made the mistake of choosing fame over his purpose. basically, before viktor started to realize that he was all alone. but who said changing fate was supposed to be easy?

what it comes down to is an au where jayce has to trial and error his way into getting the life back to viktor’s very destroyed soul in…like…three days. and he has to learn that he c— sorry i can’t say what the lesson would be! because that would be spoiling it!! you silly goose!!!

it’s basically a love story :D

bonus: (meljayvik bonus: because we know i love mel too much not to include her) she senses something going on through her empath powers. and at some point she’s unintentionally being dragged into it. power of teamwork to save their doomed dying partner!

part 2 of my moses!viktor au - part 1 here

Ideas for a title: "Bitter Water Made Sweet" or "She Named Him Viktor" Which are just a couple of my favorite lines from Exodus (I have a lot though, so these probably won't be the only contenders) Thoughts and opinions are appreciated. I think I’ve officially leaned into meljayvik (as seen quite obviously in this segment), and I’m quite content about it.

Mel’s hands were soft and warm. The caverns of her palms lined up with his own, and her nails dug into the back of his hand every time his right knee faltered and caused him to sway away from her.

They watched each other through the corners of their eyes, catching themselves at similar times and fastening their gazes onto the lanterns and murals along the passing streets instead. Viktor had pretended to find a particular window very interesting, not noticing the woman behind it sensually waving her crooked fingers at him until Mel was pulling him along a little more hurriedly. He slowed them down when she had gotten a little too overzealous, and his cane had begun to drag behind more than it assisted his mobility. She made a slight huff out of her nose, but politely and gracefully stepped to his own slow pace.

He eyed her again, admiring the way her hair curved around her back, the shiny tendrils like a veil as the strands billowed behind her by the breeze. Her eyes shun green again under the warm glow of the lanterns, and her lips were red instead of the black they had seemed by the stream. He felt has jaw slacken as he admired the color that had returned to her aura.

“It is impolite to ogle, Viktor.”

“I am not ogling,” he ripped his line of sight away, instead pointing a glare at half-erased hopscotch markings in the path coming up beside them. What was left of the yellow chalk was almost orange, saturated from the runoff water dripping from the gutters above it. She did not respond to his petty reply, so he changed the subject. "Where are we going again?" She hadn't told him in the first place, but he felt the urge to pretend that he had a say in their exhibition. He caught the corners of her plump lips twitch up before she bore a more neutral expression. He squinted as his eyes lingered on the changes.

"We had not thought it wise to spring this onto you all at once." She did not give him any assurance before pulling him down a side street.

He dug the heel of his good leg into the cobbled road, causing them to halt. "In case you did not notice, I seem to have missed the memo on bringing my minecart for you to push me around in!" His sarcasm filled the air between them as he heaved a deep breath and she finally looked at him with the clarity of a dirty coin run through fresh water. He glared at her wide, dolesome eyes, sighing when her grip loosened and her fingers linked with his own in a more intimate, comforting manner.

"I'm sorry, Viktor," she drew closer to him, her hip inches from brushing against his own. Her shawl was extremely soft when his wrist rubbed against it. It was warm, even with the strong wind blowing against them. While being so close, he realized that she was unnaturally warm, like a personified flame. Small, but fervent enough to make you extract your hand immediately in fear of being scorched.

She paced herself better as she led him along in the direction of a lonesome bar.

It was one of the only dwellings that still had its lights on so late at night. Late enough for the mine and street vendor workers to get off of a shift and still pretend that they had a life. It was bigger than The Last Drop, but it was not better. On the outside, the grout between crooked and graffitied bricks was cracked like a double-paned window, there were shattered lanterns on either side of the door, and the sign was held at a crooked angle by a single chain on the right side. The name was indistinguishable from the grime covering it. Viktor considered falling down like a sack of potatoes into the mud and excrement from animals pulling carriages, if only to prevent their future murders. Less by the inhabitants of such a building, and more so by the indescribable alcohol sold.

Inside was not much better. While Vander kept his bar swept and lit, this one was littered with coal dust and heavy shadows. Each tiny table had a dying, flickering candle. While it could have set a romantic mood, the muscled women in the corner throwing punches, the bartender sending a empty bottle flying at a singing man attempting to climb the counter, and the five or six knives that laid on tables of card players, caused all image of such to die.

Mel did not flinch when more than one pair of eyes landed on them, but she did step in front of him as she continued to the darkest corner. Her grip tightened, nearly strangling his hand's circulation. She tossed warning glances with her chin up, and Viktor watched her with amazement as she made the atmosphere return to normal. No one said a word to them.

"How did you do that?" he asked as they sat down. He very briefly felt embarrassed when she made it a point to help him sit comfortably in the booth, not letting go of him until he was surely planted.

"Do what?" she asked, beguile. As she flowed into the seat opposite of him, her smirk returned. She sat straight as an arrow, but he could tell that it was out of habit and not in a tense manner. She seemed relaxed, never more on edge as she had been when daring the other patrons to interrupt her. Even Vander had to do more than look at his clientage to get them to knock it off. And he'd witnessed Vander punch someone through a window on more than one occasion. Which made him wonder….

"Can you move things with your..." he searched for a word to describe what he had caught her doing just barely an hour beforehand. He made vague swishing motions with his fingers, attempting to mimic what she had done with the golden sparks. She giggled into her closed fingers, eyes flickering to something on Viktor's left. He smiled marginally, following her gaze. He had expected to find a funny painting on the wall, or possibly a crude remark etched into the fake leather of the seat. Instead, he was flailing in an attempt to escape as he met a new set of eyes.

His scream was cut abruptly and effectively off by a salt sweaty hand over his mouth. He made a muffled sound of affronted anger, twisting roughly to at least get a better look at the stranger. The man had dark hair, slightly tousled from what had once been a neat slick back. His skin was beautifully healthy tan, but he had silvery scars along his hands and arms as a result of some type of physical labor. He didn't have a beard, but he was not clean shaven either. Finally, Viktor seethed at ale-colored eyes, wrenching his jaw out of the offenders hold and biting down on the flesh of his thenar eminence.

"Fuck!" The heat around the back of his neck and cheeks was gone, a string of saliva breaking once the man's hand was clutched to his broad chest. Viktor grunted and wiped away the moisture across his lips, all while keeping an unrelenting glower on him. The man laughed after a moment, his cheeks blowing up like a balloon and his eyebrows lifting in shock. His head flung backwards as his boisterous rumbles carried across the room. Viktor slowly turned to gawk at Mel, who was almost as amused as the other.

Viktor felt a furious, revengeful urge to hit them both in the head with his cane. But when Mel lifted a brow, he kept his fingers back from reaching for the stick at his side.

A hand in his peripheral vision made him begrudgingly look over. And his annoyance abruptly dropped, his mouth parting just slightly when the man tilted his head in a much sweeter acknowledgement. He hummed at Viktor's lack of requite, none of his pleasantry dropping as he took Viktor's free hand in his own. He had large hands, which was what he took note of immediately. It wrapped his own like a gift, a span of callouses digging into delicate bones.

"I'm Jayce."

He blinked, "Vik-"

"-Viktor." The way Jayce said his name felt like how the sun warmed your skin on a breezy day. He said nothing back. "I know who you are." Jayce didn't let his hand go. He noticed that their hands had only held each other's in a frozen grasp, and the thought made Viktor look back at Mel.

She smiled at him, the motion capacious and delightful. "Now that you two have been acquainted, let us discuss why we brought you here, Viktor."

Viktor looked between them, at Jayce's glee and Mel's pride at a job so far well done. Jayce's hand broke from the professional grasp they had adhered to and instead tucked his fingers under Viktor's palm. He regarded Mel with the same simmering excitement as he had Viktor.

"Go on," he nodded to her, attempting to ignore the broadening smile on the other man's face. It really was distracting. He found he didn't hate it as much as he normally would have. Or, the way he should have.

"I want to prevent war," Mel's sound dropped significantly. Viktor had to crane his neck closer to hear her clearly, brows pinched in concentration. "In order to do that, I have compiled a series of warnings to frighten Piltover into letting Zaun go. They will refuse, but we will punish them until they are burdened with guilt too heavy to carry further." She leaned in closer, elbows folded neatly on the greasy table. "It will take time, but it is my goal to manipulate the city in preventing further deaths."

Viktor bit back his wave of inquiries, sieving through them to find an easier one to portray his interest. He barely noticed the way his silence made concern flicker across his companions faces, or how Jayce's hand constricted around his own.

"How do I play into this? I do not hold any significant power."

"Of course you do," Mel held her chin up with one hand as she stared prettily at him. She was unrelenting, that was for certain, and was full of enough spirit for an army. He couldn't help but believe her.

Jayce nudged him, "Well," he whispered into Viktor's ear, "Are you in?"

He thought of Vander and his daughters, of Benzo and Ekko, of his entire block that protected him from being dragged back to Piltover for exile. In the back of his mind, he recalled memories of Cassandra and Caitlyn doing the same. He shuddered at the memory of the heartbreak they had observed him with before he had fled.

"Are you aware of my connections to the council?" They nodded, respectfully solemn. He sighed, the hairs in his face flying up like a broken parcel.

Jacy scooted himself even closer, "If we pull this off, you'll be able to see them again. In the sunlight, without the fear of getting sent away."

Mel reached a hand out, fixing his crazed whisps of hair that had fallen back into his eyes, "We will protect you, Viktor. But you have to trust us as much as we do you. And if that is too much to ask, you have to ask yourself if you can at least give us the chance to gain it ourselves." He felt his head grow heavier as he caught himself leaning into her touch. He straightened, weighing the options over again.

He could let it go. He could leave like he had never met these people before in his life. He could watch as Zaun fought for their own freedom, just as history naturally went. He knew he would have to watch his friends die, and that that would be inevitable in the case.

He had never delt with loss well. When Cassandra had told him the story of his real parents, how they had sent him down the Pilt in a last-ditch effort of saving his life, he had hidden away and ignored his own health for so long, that they had kept him in private, consistent company for weeks afterwards. Just the loss of people he had never met weighed heavy enough to cause a spiraling case of grief. He feared what a war would cause him to do. And, even as the lingering light of his family up in Piltover turned grey, he had his answer in mind.

"Can we get out of here?"

part 3

zaun’s hand

viktor disappears. his apartment is untouched, his desk is the same mess of papers as it usually was, and sky had seemed to have gone with him.

jayce is in disarray. he’s blowing off counsel meetings. he’s either ignoring mel, or giving her fake assurances he had little intention of following through with. he spends every waking minute trying to piece together what happened.

there weren’t any notes, letters, or clues. they had just gone. and people didn’t just disappear in piltover. that was the whole point of his mother almost dying when he was a child. people don’t vanish in a city of gold and government order.

he eventually hears whispers. he sees posters here and there pasted to the walls of zaun’s alleys. an inhuman hand shading a horrific looking eye.

and he laughs at how viktor would have hated to hear about another idiot trying to “fix” his home. so, he keeps looking for the only think that hasn’t been left behind.

the crutch.

…do you get it? (can you imagine it??? 😭 the idea has been eating me away)

The concept of paranormal Meljayvik. Viktor who has an obsession with ghosts/the afterlife (and is unknowingly susceptible to spirits.) Jayce who is intrigued by the possibility of an afterlife but terrified of any attempts to contact spirits. Then Mel, the healthy skeptic who indulges Viktor’s interests because she likes him and his company. One night Viktor talks them all into using a ouija board, and it seems to be not working at first, until spirits start to talk through Viktor rather than the board. Mel and Jayce leap to shut it down and close the portal and the coast is clear. Until Viktor starts acting strangely. Withdrawing. Growing paler by the day. Lashing out and fainting at odd times. Mel and Jayce have to put aside fear and disbelief to help wrangle Viktor from the grasp of ghosts.

@ali-kaaaay @riotroast @littlemeangreen

LINK TO CHAPTER SIX

zaundad’s au where vander is taken by the enforcers after turning himself in for the explosion.

something about miscommunication and saving violet from turning herself in.

after the fact, vander’s territory is crumbling and benzo is holding water in his hands trying to pick up the pieces. silco hears and quickly catches on that maybe vander had a point in what he was doing. because at least his betrayal of cahooting with grayson was buying them time. and now zaun is dividing itself into shards of shattered pottery. and every thing is going to shit because there’s no one keeping all the ducks in a row.

and silco doesn’t really forgive vander, but after getting a tip about how he’s fighting for his life in stillwater, it makes him get a little crazy and protective. so much so that he actually finds himself considering forgiving the bastard. which ensues a ton of loathing and journal worthy emotions as he plans to save his stupid fucking soulmate that he literally hates with every bone in his body.

but he has violet knocking at his door just when he’s about to make the decision to either leave the hound to the wolves, or take vander’s place himself. and she’s so much wiser than her years, and she’s so blunt and courageous, that it reminds him of the way vander would protect them in the mines and during protests. using his brute strength and tuff demeanor to steer away danger. how he would shield them and barter their way through problems.

here was this young girl trying to act ten times her size and fill the same hole the silco himself had been trying so hard to fill. she was so angry that vander had chosen her over everything, and THAT made silco stop for a while. it made him almost jealous.

because vander has chosen everything over him. vander had chosen to act on his violence and guilt and he’d chosen felicia and piltover and the kids over silco.

so, anyway, just silco being pulled in two opposite directions as he tries to save vander from deteriorating in prison for protecting his daughter.

James knotted the rope as tight as he could. The fraying fibers cut into Peter’s shoulders like twine making a hay bale bulge, but he couldn’t help the urge to check that Harry was still asleep upstairs.

His eye twitched the longer it was trained on Peter’s pale, sweaty face. And his fists clenched tightly around the wands in each hand. He didn’t miss the way grey eyes flickered down to ebony wood. He was scared, James realized with a bit of a start. He was shaking in the chair like a cornered animal.

His sandy hair was choppy, like someone had taken shears to it as a punishment. His face was breaking out, splotches of red like hives throughout his skin. His teeth were yellowing, and his nails were caked in dirt and overgrown.

He began to cry, and James’ curiosity quickly changed to fury.

“What are you weeping about?” he demanded, watching his volume. Peter wailed, only stopping when he bowed his head at James’ pointed wand at his nose.

“I’m sorry!” he stammered through each syllable.

James thought of Snape and Regulus answering vaguely whenever he asked about Peter. Saying he was serving Voldemort from one manor to the next. Staying hidden for the sake of keeping Sirius locked away. He briefly wondered if they’d held back more information to spare him the feeing he had in that moment.

Lily’s face appeared in front of him, the walls of their old home like blurry shadows behind her. He didn’t hear anything when her mouth moved, but he recognized the terror in her eyes. The tears that had fallen as she’d said goodbye.

“How could you do it?” he asked, hollow to Peter’s wide, fretful eyes.

“He made me,” Peter pleaded. The fingers of his left hand wriggled. “He made me vow to serve him until my death.” He shivered, as if the memory he’d conjured up made him weary. James felt like he was back in front of the television. “An unbreakable vow.”

James felt his heart break. It caught him off guard, and he sought to figure how it could have splintered even more. Instead, he stuffed a cloth napkin in Peter’s flapping mouth.

“I hadn’t asked you to do so much,” he waved his wand and watched as thin strings of silvery magic wrapped around Peter like cords of wire. He looked his betrayer in the eye, “Funny how you’ve made everything worse for yourself just on your own.”

He heard light taps above them, signaling his son’s rise.

the “fic” mentioned in the tags

Fuis Moi

Jayce Talis x Viktor - Arcane (League of Legends) - 1 Chapter - 36,806 Words

new thoughts for this post

i really want to do an alternating chapter fic.

i’ve already started said fic here.

and it starts with james escaping with harry, and kickstarting an au where harry grows up with his father while voldemort survives halloween night.

BUT

imagine if the even numbered chapters were an au where lily survives. she doesn’t flee upstairs, she RUNS. she takes her son and she doesn’t look back. she thinks james is behind her, but eventually realizes that it was peter chasing her.

and, basically, at the end, the au’s connect in some way. in as close to a happy ending as possible (😬). i don’t want to spoil everything i have planned so far. but i’m so excited lolol.

just— two alternative universes where both parents are single handedly trying to raise their son in a failed world. trying to stay alive when every corner they turn could be the end.

i love them :,) tragically

based on this post of mine

link here

is it smart to work on three projects at the same time? maybe not!! but that won’t stop me.

i saw a post with this scene the other day. ⬆️

a lot of people had commented this and that about their depictions of vi being jealous and shocked that jinx was up there with vander instead of herself.

and (as a troubled eldest daughter myself) that broke my heart a bit. although, i think it is realistic for vi to have shown a moment of vulnerability with the audience and then be ripped to pieces by individuals declaring it resentment and selfishness. no shade.

personally, i latched onto that tiny moment where her face falls. the animation of such a flicker of something akin to disappointment is astonishing.

i do think she’s seeing the mural for what it’s lacking. because it is lacking her. but, i think it has more to do with the fact that jinx and vander are there, but she’s not with them. not even necessarily including the political context. just the fact that even a random painting on a random wall lacked her presence just as much as real life.

she should have been right next to her little sister, but she wasn’t. she had both lost that choice, and then made the wrong one.

i can’t help but wonder if the years of being an imprisoned child so incredibly scared that she’d never get another chance for see her sister flashed before her eyes.

i think that mural shackled her to the fact that her world had continued on without her. and she wasn’t needed around to make it function anymore.

vander and their parents’ deaths had instilled in her that her sole purpose was to keep the earth spinning and to keep jinx safe. but, in the end, jinx had adapted. vi hadn’t.

lol

sorry for ranting! i could be entirely wrong, don’t take this to heart. it’s just what i took in and reflected on, and i wanted to share my thoughts. i find it so strangely comforting to see an oldest daughter go through so many punches and such heavy emotional strain and still keep her head up.

she’s so imperfect and i love her.