"Please Stay" - Arcane Viktor x Reader

Chapter 39

Timeskip description (about 3-4 months)
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Day after day had gone by and with a heavy heart you were forced into going back to your mantles. Since your dormitory room was soon to be repurposed for other students usage, you had to make a quick decision regarding your apartment.

Two choices had presented themselves before you. Renting one of the guest rooms at the Academy and having to deal with constant presence of Council members, Professors and students, or finding an apartment outside of the Academy grounds. A bit less convenient, as your lab would still be at the Academy grounds, but a much cheaper option nonetheless. Even though you were certain Heimerding would be more than happy to pay off some of your rent until you would start making actual good money, you didn't want to scavange on his generosity. If you were to make it, you had to do it on your own.

With the help of your partners, you had managed to settle on a small studio in the Arts District. The flat was well litten and already furnished. The trolley line was relatively nearby, so the communiaction wasn't a problem either. To top it all off, the lessor turned out to be quite the fan of Jayce's and Viktor's work, though his admiration mainly focused on the first boy rather than the second one. He offered the first two months free of charge, clamining that: "It's an honour to guest pioneers of science in his humble thresholds", which had sealed the deal for you.

As for the lab, you had recieved one as a 'welcoming gift' from the Council, similarly to the way Jayce and Viktor did after discovering hextech. It was a way to ensure, that no matter what you created, it would always be associated with the Academy, reminding the citizens where all the brilliant minds come from. But hey, at least it was free, and already provided with the most of the necessary equipment you needed, so you were more than happy to take it.

After a couple of weeks and a very long and sleepless night during which Amity was being operated, you were finally allowed to visit her. The first time you saw her you cried, but not out of grief or sadness like you expected to. You cried out of joy, that although she was deeply injured and her condition was still severe and highly unstable, she was there, laying before you, connected to various machines keeping her alive. If the next night was to be her last, you at least had a chance to say goodbye.

Even though she was in a coma, as her body regenerated from the toxic burns it had endured, you still came to visit her daily during lunch, a tradition the two of you had started very early into your friendship. Everyday you would eat lunch together and vent to one another about both the silly and heavy stuff, gossiping and joking around, forgetting about the world around you.

You were determined on keeping that habbit alive, sneaking the food into her room under the surveillance of nurses. You would eat and talk to the sleeping girl, firmly believing that she could hear you over the loud beeping and buzzing of machinery she was attached to.

Jayce was handling the situation much worse than you were. The first time he came into the room, he vomited violently into the nearest garbage bin. Amity was naturally taped up, all the wounds covered by clean, white bandages, but they still invoked painful memories in the poor boy. He never spoke of what his lover looked like when he had found her, but one night, when the two of you were up late drinking in the lab, he did confess, that images of her burned skin haunted his dreams from time to time, making him wake up in cold sweat.

With time he got used to the looks of her though, visiting her almost as frequently as you did. Sadly, as more and more work fell onto his shoulders, his visits became irregular and much less common.

You didn't hold it against him though. You couldn't imagine what it was like to love someone who might never even wake up. Rejecting admirers time and time again... Staying loyal to a girl, who not only had accidentally killed two people but could also be tied to a hospital bed for the rest of her life. Jayce seemed to age more and more with each day, the nerves clearly taking a heavy toll on his sanity.