[There was, and there shouldn't have been. Affter everything he'd done, everyone he'd killed (or worse, honestly), and there was still going to be one person who accepted a damaged, ruinous monster wearing a human corpse. Because I promised you rang unpleasantly in his head; not because it felt wrong to hear, but because that damn stubbornness in spite of everything defied all logic and reason.]
[Viktor leaned back in his chair and pressed a cybernetic hand to his eyes, making a frustrated sound in his throat like misaligned cogs threatening to snap. I'm not a fucking Piltovan, he wanted to say, even if that small annoyance was the least of the problems here. It was just another reminder Viktor had made himself an outsider for life the second he left home; in Piltover, Zaun, now all of Runeterra.]
...You say that like that life was ever easy. You did not know me before I was this metal abomination, but I was not-- [His hand fell from his face to push his hair from his eyes in irritation.] ...There was only one person who ever looked at me like I was more than a broken stray Zaunite. Despite everything I did after I became this thing, it is just as you say. He picked me--over everyone, over the world I almost destroyed and even over one I did.
[A corpse-laden field of dreamless solitude, and still Viktor was worth forgiving? It made no sense, but all the same Jinx had landed enough of a direct hit to get Viktor to evaluate the matter a little more calmly.]
But what, then? We just...keep going, even without them? Act like anything either of us do can rectify the damage we've caused?
we're so fine here
[There was, and there shouldn't have been. Affter everything he'd done, everyone he'd killed (or worse, honestly), and there was still going to be one person who accepted a damaged, ruinous monster wearing a human corpse. Because I promised you rang unpleasantly in his head; not because it felt wrong to hear, but because that damn stubbornness in spite of everything defied all logic and reason.]
[Viktor leaned back in his chair and pressed a cybernetic hand to his eyes, making a frustrated sound in his throat like misaligned cogs threatening to snap. I'm not a fucking Piltovan, he wanted to say, even if that small annoyance was the least of the problems here. It was just another reminder Viktor had made himself an outsider for life the second he left home; in Piltover, Zaun, now all of Runeterra.]
...You say that like that life was ever easy. You did not know me before I was this metal abomination, but I was not-- [His hand fell from his face to push his hair from his eyes in irritation.] ...There was only one person who ever looked at me like I was more than a broken stray Zaunite. Despite everything I did after I became this thing, it is just as you say. He picked me--over everyone, over the world I almost destroyed and even over one I did.
[A corpse-laden field of dreamless solitude, and still Viktor was worth forgiving? It made no sense, but all the same Jinx had landed enough of a direct hit to get Viktor to evaluate the matter a little more calmly.]
But what, then? We just...keep going, even without them? Act like anything either of us do can rectify the damage we've caused?