Jayce is an academic at heart so when in a bad place, learning and working seem to be the only things he's capable of doing. He's not going to stop going to classes just because he is having an existential crisis, although it is obvious something is up from anyone who is used to him. Jayce is often someone who asks questions in class or talks to his fellow students afterward, he takes very thorough notes and gave Nadine a whole collection of them after her trip, but he seems almost zombie-like in medical class today.
He is someone who usually takes care of himself so for his hair to be tousled, unshaven for at least two days, and taken to staring off into space instead of listening, it's different from his usual eager friendly dog personality. He is a little bit on autopilot though, having at least seemed to take notes except when he looks down they're just scratches of his pencil, not anything of substance.
Class breaks and he glances over to Nadine as they pack up, now his regular study buddy, one of the kindest people he knows. "I think I only got ten percent of that class, can you share notes this time?" He is usually very prim and proper in his clothes with a vest and tie even in the heat, but the vest is gone and his tie is undone.
"Yeah, sure. I don't blame you, that was the weirdest lecture on the gastrointestinal system I can possibly imagine. Talk about putting the 'gross' in gross anatomy."
But it's more than that, which is clear to Nadine. She may not have known Jayce for more than a couple of months at most, but he's a relatively consistent person. Talkative, inquisitive, well groomed.
Today, he's not any of those things.
"You okay? Sorry, it just looks like maybe you haven't been sleeping great. I have a tonic for that, if you need it."
"Was it? I'm glad I wasn't paying attention then, I have a really weak stomach." Jayce smiles wryly. "It's the one part of medicine that was probably always going to be a problem." This is pretty much an understatement, although he doubts anything in here is going to be the same as seeing a bunch of dead bodies, which sets him off. But he can admit to being a little squeamish. He'll get better with experience, although he hopes to never be good at corpses.
"I might take you up on that, I haven't seemed to be able to do it on my own." His mind is racing too much. Jayce isn't sure he wants to sleep, but it currently isn't because he is choosing it. So it's a problem. He gets up and gestures for them to head out of the class, rubbing at his eyes.
"My partner and I are having a break and I'm co-dependent." Jayce feels like if he attempts to have a sense of humor about it, it'll make it easier, but he is co-dependent.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we dissect organs later in this class. You might want to skip those days."
Nadine can't imagine anything she'll confront in medical school will be any worse or more upsetting than what she's seen back in her old world. If nothing else, plague-ravaged America had prepared her for this.
"Oh, Jayce, I'm sorry." Yeah, that would do it. No wonder he looks so worn down. "Why don't you come over? I have cookies and tea, too."
Ice cream might be more traditional, but cookies are what she has on hand.
"No, I'll just have to adapt, it's important to know those things if I want to keep going. Even if I'll probably turn green a few times." He may have a weak stomach but he can strengthen it. His love of academia and becoming the best student will always win out. He might just need to take breaks or prepare for waves of nausea. No big deal. He can laugh about it, honestly.
That kindness and sympathy really goes straight to his heart and he slumps, his shoulders dropping, smiling wearily at her. "I'd appreciate that. Lee's been shoving food at me so I don't pass out." She's a good boss (and natural mom) and he's been doing a lot of great work for her. But Jayce gets tunnel-vision.
"Does it help that I'm very self-aware of how pathetic I am when Viktor's mad at me?"
"There's ways to learn and understand it all without that kind of hands on practice, though. Unless you're planning on opening up your own surgery office in the future, you can get away with cutting out some of the directly gory parts and studying the notes."
One of the great things about medicine is the various ways it can be learned, and as far as Nadine can tell, Cadens doesn't require a full medical education for everything involving medicine. Hell, she's been making medicine since before she first opened a medical textbook.
And she'd hate to see Jayce struggle with his own comfort - that can be a detriment to learning altogether. He shouldn't need to compromise himself when there are other options.
It's the eternal teacher in her, forever looking to ensure everyone is learning in the way best suited to them.
"Hey, it's fine. I, uh, I know some things about dependent relationships. Don't worry about it. I don't know if you're a talk about it person or a needs distractions person, but I can offer either."
"Oh no, surgery was never an option. I'm good with a hammer, not with a knife. You're right, it's not required for all fields." Jayce isn't planning on becoming an actual doctor either. He did all this so he could possibly find some good medical solutions for Viktor at the same time as healing magic. There was a better chance of coming up with some kind of temporary if not permanent solution if he had multiple avenues.
Jayce looks at her with naked gratitude, all of his emotions playing right out there on his face. Sadness, guilt, grief, internal struggle, he is not someone who will ever have a good poker face. "I'm a talk about it person, but only if you don't mind." Boy is he a talk about it person. But as usual he is hesitant to not be a burden for others. He is getting better at accepting people offer because they want to, and he should let them do that.
Jayce isn't going to talk openly about it anywhere public because he doesn't want any chance of eavesdropping. Viktor is already going to be sour that he talked about it with anyone, so he can bring down the level of disapproval. He follows Nadine home looking pretty much like he could drop at any moment, despite being healthy as a horse. Some things weigh heavier than others.
"Thank you, seriously. Anything I can make you in a forge is on me."
"Oh, yeah, if you're not planning on going that far in a medical career, we can probably get you up to snuff on it using models in the Horizon." Much less visceral than actual organs. And Nadine has plenty of experience with models, she'd had one of those anatomy displays in her classroom, the sort with the hollow torso and all the organs were removable.
"And I don't mind. I'm a pretty good listener." Better listener than talker, that's for sure. And she's used to being that person, the one the people in her life Talk To.
"Don't worry about it." She leads him up the stairs and to the little 'apartment' style rooms she and Julie share. "It's like I always told my kids, it's better to talk about something than let it build up even worse on the inside."
"No, I mostly took up medicine because I thought it would be a natural partnership with the healing magic I've been training in. And I think it's working, understanding the way the body works and how to treat it has made my healing more focused."
Or it was, when Viktor was still letting him heal him. He could tell the difference healing his lungs and how his magic was moving throughout the organs but around it too. He thinks given more time, he'll become very skilled at it, and Viktor will be able to tell a marked difference. If he ever lets him do it again.
"Besides, I like all the sciences."
Jayce is a high-level nerd. He loves learning. She can probably tell since he's very engaged in class, takes excellent notes, and seems so connected to the class and the professor while around. It's why his exhaustion and distraction today are very out of character. Working hasn't helped, science hasn't helped. He's run out of hobbies.
When he heads into the apartment he very carefully sets his book bag down, making certain to keep it out of the way, he's tidy. Jayce normally would wait until Nadine offered him a seat to relax, but frankly, he's not doing well, so he wavers a bit before just giving in and sitting. He rubs a hand across his jaw, it's very bristly currently thanks to not shaving.
"For the record, Viktor has every reason to be mad at me right now, that's part of why this is difficult. I have to keep stopping myself from finding reasons to bump into him." That impulse is tricky but he's managed so far.
"Hey, every kind of relationship has arguments and differences of opinion."
Nadine sets about getting a pitcher of chilled sweet berry tea out of the ice box and pulls a tin of cookies from the cupboards. It's a clearly homey and lived in little set of rooms, touches of Nadine and Julie both dotting the common areas.
"Sometimes a little space and cooling off is the best thing. Just....don't get in that pit, you know? Keep yourself busy, explore new hobbies. Take some you time."
She isn't privy to the details of whatever it is between the two men, but she has noticed how focused Jayce seems on Viktor. The circumstances might suck, fights are never good, but maybe he could use some time to focus on some other things.
Jayce likes homey places, he used to have one before it was blown up, and after that so much of his time was in the lab he didn't make his new fancier chambers that special. He is trying to do a little more with the apartment they share, more books, more small touches that are his, but it's a work in progress.
"We were spoiled, we pretty much never argued until the week before we came here, and we went back to peaceful since I arrived. But I guess that means we really were just shelving our issues."
They dealt with some of them, but nothing could really be dealt with as long as Jayce held such a huge secret to himself. And he knew it was bad, that he couldn't keep hiding it, that he had to tell him. Every time he was resolved to try, Viktor would touch his arm or look up at him with gold eyes that didn't yet know, and he cowardly put it aside.
"Me time?" That sounds strange. Selfish. Why should he be able to feel anything other than terrible? He frowns and she's right, he is very fixated. There is not a single thing he's done since coming that hasn't been about Viktor. "I don't ...." Jayce is sort of having a light bulb moment about that. "Have anything of my own." Where would he even start?
Nadine sets everything out and joins Jayce, pouring herself a mug of the chilled tea.
"Look, I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a ton of experience with any kind of relationships. I never had normal ones of any kind until recently. But I know a lot about people, and I know a lot about how people interact with each other." She's been observing people her whole life, and she did go to college originally for childhood development which spent a lot of time on emotional and social development.
"But it's normal and natural and healthy to have disagreements. It's normal to get annoyed, to not like something that somebody in our life is doing, to get frustrated. That's just human interaction. And it's good to communicate that stuff, otherwise...when you don't, and you never disagree or argue, when you finally do it can blow up really badly." And it sort of sounds like maybe this is what happened.
"And it's the same for taking time for you. Take it from me...living your life for someone else entirely is..." She shakes her head. "It'll burn you out."
That's a safe way to put it without getting too deep into her own issues. But she knows what that's like. Most of her life she lived it for one man and one man alone, and look where it's gotten her. Almost forty years old and just starting something resembling a normal life.
How long has it been since Jayce did anything for himself, technically? Before the Council, for sure. When they were creating their inventions, the gauntlets and the claw, that was them finally making their own ideas. But since Viktor's illness, it's the only thing that has filled his mind. And coming here has only made it more imperative that they stop it, so he can enjoy the life he's building here, for longer than a few months.
He takes some of the tea, a little floored by what he just thought of, and listens to her advice. Jayce is usually very observant about people himself, but only to an extent. It's true that this separation is happening because he made a terrible mistake, but it's also piggy-backing onto a lot of other problems. There is a gulf between them about a lot of what they didn't say to each other. He believes her, what she's saying. He understands that she is speaking from a true place. And maybe she understands exactly what it is like to live for someone else.
After some thought, he decides to go for the heart. "I almost lost him, Nadine. Really lost him. I was out playing politician and ... enjoying my life, I guess you could say." Ahem perhaps getting into bed with a certain someone at the moment ahem. But that isn't really what Jayce means. He felt good that night, strong, like anything could happen, like this was just the start of good things. Until.
"I was woken up in the middle of the night and told he almost died. I sat by his bed for hours, not even sure if he'd wake up." They said he would, but it seemed like everything was touch and go that night. Jayce almost remembers it in a fever. "The terror I felt then, and every minute since, it never goes away." He is talking around the reality of Viktor's condition, not stating it, but it's obvious what is there. That sort of urgency is unmistakable and the fear is always with him.
There's thick emotion in his voice, pain and grief, grief when nothing has happened yet, but it's still there. Hanging over him. Tears sting his eyes, always a problem for him. "Even now all I can think about is what if something happens while he's mad at me, and he won't let me be there." Jayce looks at her, a little haunted. "What if I get distracted by doing something else for myself, and that's when it happens?" Like that night.
Nadine nods as he speaks, her expression defaulting into the attentive one she used so often in the classroom.
"I understand," she says, once Jayce has finished his outpouring. "That kind of guilt is normal, we blame ourselves for things. All kinds of things. Human beings are hardwired to look for explanations and causes. Places to assign blame. And we put it on ourselves. Even for things that aren't our fault. And of course we want to be there for our loved ones."
That's another natural human response and need. Combine them, and this is what happens. It makes sense.
"But...we can't live our lives based on 'what ifs'? What if you're hit by a runaway cart in the street tomorrow? What if a ball of fire comes out of the sky and burns Cadens to the ground? We live in a magical world full of weird, dangerous things...anything could happen at any time. And if you sit around worrying about 'what ifs' you're never going to live your own life."
Somewhere in that little speech Nadine's started talking about herself as much as him. The words hit close even as she says them, a part of her bristling over the fact she so often ignores this very advice she's offering.
"What could you do right now, just worrying about it? What good is that doing anyone? It doesn't change the situation, it doesn't make any difference."
"Intellectually I know that it's not my fault. I didn't know anything was wrong. I would've acted differently if I did." You know, like he has here, making everything about Viktor. It started to turn that way in Piltover too, although he had more things on his shoulders to distract him. Nothing seemed possible to juggle. If he focused on one thing, the other would fall, and vice versa. It was an unwinnable situation. Jayce doesn't actually miss that part of his life. In a lot of ways he's glad to be here, far separated from it, able to focus on what matters to him on a personal level.
"I was making a difference. I've learned medicine and healing for him, and it was working. He was doing better." Viktor would argue that it was more pain management other than an actual fix, but Jayce feels otherwise, he just needs a little more time to prove his theory. It isn't a cure, but it is more than pain management, he knows that much. Except this threw a huge wrench into the plan. "He's so mad at me he'd rather suffer than let me help right now."
Viktor lives with his pain all the time, every day, so it's probably not hard for him to go backward and accept the life he's known over dealing with Jayce and their falling out. But it's still difficult for Jayce who finally felt like he was doing good, that everything he'd been focusing on was paying off for them. He sighs and leans back in the chair, rubbing a hand across his eyes.
"I'm a fixer. I don't know what to do when there's no way for me to fix what went wrong. So I just feel useless and pointless."
"Look at it this way....how can you fix anyone else if you're broken? Not that I'm saying you're broken, just...we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else. Otherwise we're not going to be up to taking care of them right."
You have to put your air mask on before your kid's for a reason, but Nadine isn't sure if Jayce would get that reference.
"You owe it to Viktor to be your best. To be emotionally healthy and able to be there. So fixing things...taking care of yourself is part of that. That's how you start fixing it."
Maybe she ought to put out a shingle for counseling, along with medical care. She certainly seems to be offering a lot of it these days.
"No, I am broken." Jayce sighs and rubs a hand through his hair. "I really want to be a good person, but wanting to be isn't enough. I guess the only answer is to stop trying and just ... be. Whatever that means." Maybe him constantly trying is too much about trying as defined by other people. What other people think is good, what he thinks he should be rather than what he is. It's complicated.
Jayce is breaking down a lot of things that's always been hanging over him. He looks up at her abruptly and frowns, anxiety filling him.
"I'm sorry to burden you like this. I know you didn't exactly sign up for it when we became friendly." Jayce really does prefer to be the bright and warm friend, delighted to chat about classes, take notes, carry bags, do whatever it is that makes him better as a friend. He doesn't have a lot of them, much like Viktor he's surprisingly found a lot more here than he had at home. All the more reason for him to be nervous that he's become annoying.
"I don't miss being a celebrity at home, that amount of attention isn't good for anyone, I don't think."
"I think wanting to be a good person is the first step. And the next one is trying. So you're already on the right path. Look. I don't know your past. I don't know all of what you carry with you. But I do know that this world...? It's a chance to do things differently. To be different."
Nadine is living proof of that. Here, she's actually living her life. Here...maybe she's more than a nice person, maybe she is a good person here. If nothing else, she's trying, and things are better for her.
"Don't worry about it, I'm used to it. I'm a good listener. Part of the whole teacher thing."
"I think part of the problem is I've always had a very set expectation of what being a good person entails. My parents were extremely good people, my father was well known and loved for his good heart, and for working to help people. My mother is the kindest person I've ever met." His father died when he was young so he did always have a child's view of him, not able to see any flaws if there were any, only the inspiration he gave for Jayce to be altruistic and give back. His mother's gentle heart made the Council allow her to take him.
"There's a sort of ... purity to it. How I saw these things." Good is good and bad is bad. Jayce isn't a child, he understands nuances, he knows it's not so black and white, but he does think fundamentally you can lean one way or the other. Technically people would say him aggressively pushing Hextech was bad, he could have gotten himself and other people killed. But he was doing it to help everyone, so in his brain, it was acceptable. "And I've done something bad, which made me wonder if there's any way to come back from that."
So it's his own morality dichotomy that's haunting him at the moment. "Do you think people can come back from making a really horrible choice?"
Nadine stands and goes to an overhead cupboard and pulls out her bottle of wine. This is a conversation that needs wine. Or at least she needs it, for this conversation. Because she does understand. Oh lord does she understand.
"I don't know if you have Catholicism or nuns where you come from, but I spent a lot of time being raised in a Catholic children's home by nuns. They're religious women who've joined a holy order to dedicate themselves to God. And...yeah, the purity in goodness and importance of both was hammered into my head when I was little."
And yet she'd gone and married a demon king anyway. Not that she'd quite realized that's what he was, at first. In the Bible, angels are as terrifying as demons. And either way, for most of her life, she'd played by the rules. So many of Flagg's were also the church's.
"For most of my life, I did what I was supposed to. I never had a boyfriend, I never drank, I never gambled, I dressed modestly, I didn't party in college, I dedicated myself to a career in selfless service...and awful things happened to me anyway." Yes, some of them she'd brought on herself. She reaches up to briefly touch one of the horns poking out from her hair. Some things she'd brought on herself.
But not all of them.
"I've...done some not great stuff, too. And now I'm here, getting a chance to start my life all over, with...all these things I was never allowed to touch in my old life. Maybe...it's just my church upbringing, but...I think if a person is truly repentant and truly and honestly tries to make up for the bad....yeah, they can come back from it."
Jayce sees her go for the wine and frankly, good call. He is not much of a drinker, but this is a fairly difficult topic for anyone, and he's tired and why not at this point.
"No, we don't have those." Catholicism, nuns, religion's a bit of a vague subject where he's from. There are a lot of cultures, including in Piltover. And as a man of science, he's always been more focused on that. He knows enough about it to understand what she's saying though and nods. Purity in a religion makes sense; Jayce is getting it from his family internally and externally from what his colleagues, superiors and civilians think. That's enough to torture him day by day.
He gets that what she's listing must be thought poorly of by her religion, but it sounds very restrictive, and he feels for her. To have that sort of thing constantly hanging over her head, like a weight, must be difficult. "I'm sorry you went through that. I'm really glad that you've found more happiness here, Nadine. For whatever it's worth, you have always been so good and kind to me and everyone else I've seen you around. Everything you went through, you came out of it a person well worth knowing."
Jayce has an immense ability to show compassion and understanding to other people, it's to himself he has a near-impossible time. He looks down at his hands. "I led an attack on the Undercity, and people died. I regret it, I would take it back if I could. I've never been an angry or violent person, or at least I didn't think I was." He certainly doesn't seem like it now or really ever. He seems like a fairly gentle soul, outside of the passion that crops up when he talks positively about something, or when he ends up at the Abraxan equivalent of the DMV demanding answers.
Nadine wonders if, maybe, enough people tell her she's a good person, she might be able to accept it.
But she thinks there's a very big difference between nice and good. She's a nice person. Good...well, who knows?
"Sometimes good people make mistakes." That much is true. A single mistake can't be enough to tarnish someone's soul forever. Everyone screws up or makes a wrong call or gets in over their head at some point. It's what they do next that matters. If they change, or just keep going the same way.
"It's part of being a person. Doing something bad doesn't make a person bad. Just like doing a good thing doesn't make a person good. We're the sum total of our actions, not a single one."
"Even when we were fighting, Viktor said he still believed I was a good person who made mistakes. He's just not sure if this is one he can forgive me for." Jayce was so desperate for Viktor not to think he was bad, but at the same time, it was hard for him not to think the same of himself. He's always harder on himself than other people.
"He's mostly mad I didn't tell him. I avoided talking about it entirely until he had to press me for answers." Jayce knows that was the real problem. Maybe if he had expressed it and explained himself, Viktor would have been crushed but not furious at him. "I told myself I would do it eventually, I'd find the right words, but I'm not sure anymore that I would have." It was easier to let them be as they were before, close and working hard together. It's difficult to admit this because Jayce hasn't really, that he might have never admitted to it himself.
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End of Mayish
He is someone who usually takes care of himself so for his hair to be tousled, unshaven for at least two days, and taken to staring off into space instead of listening, it's different from his usual eager friendly dog personality. He is a little bit on autopilot though, having at least seemed to take notes except when he looks down they're just scratches of his pencil, not anything of substance.
Class breaks and he glances over to Nadine as they pack up, now his regular study buddy, one of the kindest people he knows. "I think I only got ten percent of that class, can you share notes this time?" He is usually very prim and proper in his clothes with a vest and tie even in the heat, but the vest is gone and his tie is undone.
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But it's more than that, which is clear to Nadine. She may not have known Jayce for more than a couple of months at most, but he's a relatively consistent person. Talkative, inquisitive, well groomed.
Today, he's not any of those things.
"You okay? Sorry, it just looks like maybe you haven't been sleeping great. I have a tonic for that, if you need it."
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"I might take you up on that, I haven't seemed to be able to do it on my own." His mind is racing too much. Jayce isn't sure he wants to sleep, but it currently isn't because he is choosing it. So it's a problem. He gets up and gestures for them to head out of the class, rubbing at his eyes.
"My partner and I are having a break and I'm co-dependent." Jayce feels like if he attempts to have a sense of humor about it, it'll make it easier, but he is co-dependent.
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Nadine can't imagine anything she'll confront in medical school will be any worse or more upsetting than what she's seen back in her old world. If nothing else, plague-ravaged America had prepared her for this.
"Oh, Jayce, I'm sorry." Yeah, that would do it. No wonder he looks so worn down. "Why don't you come over? I have cookies and tea, too."
Ice cream might be more traditional, but cookies are what she has on hand.
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That kindness and sympathy really goes straight to his heart and he slumps, his shoulders dropping, smiling wearily at her. "I'd appreciate that. Lee's been shoving food at me so I don't pass out." She's a good boss (and natural mom) and he's been doing a lot of great work for her. But Jayce gets tunnel-vision.
"Does it help that I'm very self-aware of how pathetic I am when Viktor's mad at me?"
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One of the great things about medicine is the various ways it can be learned, and as far as Nadine can tell, Cadens doesn't require a full medical education for everything involving medicine. Hell, she's been making medicine since before she first opened a medical textbook.
And she'd hate to see Jayce struggle with his own comfort - that can be a detriment to learning altogether. He shouldn't need to compromise himself when there are other options.
It's the eternal teacher in her, forever looking to ensure everyone is learning in the way best suited to them.
"Hey, it's fine. I, uh, I know some things about dependent relationships. Don't worry about it. I don't know if you're a talk about it person or a needs distractions person, but I can offer either."
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Jayce looks at her with naked gratitude, all of his emotions playing right out there on his face. Sadness, guilt, grief, internal struggle, he is not someone who will ever have a good poker face. "I'm a talk about it person, but only if you don't mind." Boy is he a talk about it person. But as usual he is hesitant to not be a burden for others. He is getting better at accepting people offer because they want to, and he should let them do that.
Jayce isn't going to talk openly about it anywhere public because he doesn't want any chance of eavesdropping. Viktor is already going to be sour that he talked about it with anyone, so he can bring down the level of disapproval. He follows Nadine home looking pretty much like he could drop at any moment, despite being healthy as a horse. Some things weigh heavier than others.
"Thank you, seriously. Anything I can make you in a forge is on me."
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"And I don't mind. I'm a pretty good listener." Better listener than talker, that's for sure. And she's used to being that person, the one the people in her life Talk To.
"Don't worry about it." She leads him up the stairs and to the little 'apartment' style rooms she and Julie share. "It's like I always told my kids, it's better to talk about something than let it build up even worse on the inside."
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Or it was, when Viktor was still letting him heal him. He could tell the difference healing his lungs and how his magic was moving throughout the organs but around it too. He thinks given more time, he'll become very skilled at it, and Viktor will be able to tell a marked difference. If he ever lets him do it again.
"Besides, I like all the sciences."
Jayce is a high-level nerd. He loves learning. She can probably tell since he's very engaged in class, takes excellent notes, and seems so connected to the class and the professor while around. It's why his exhaustion and distraction today are very out of character. Working hasn't helped, science hasn't helped. He's run out of hobbies.
When he heads into the apartment he very carefully sets his book bag down, making certain to keep it out of the way, he's tidy. Jayce normally would wait until Nadine offered him a seat to relax, but frankly, he's not doing well, so he wavers a bit before just giving in and sitting. He rubs a hand across his jaw, it's very bristly currently thanks to not shaving.
"For the record, Viktor has every reason to be mad at me right now, that's part of why this is difficult. I have to keep stopping myself from finding reasons to bump into him." That impulse is tricky but he's managed so far.
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Nadine sets about getting a pitcher of chilled sweet berry tea out of the ice box and pulls a tin of cookies from the cupboards. It's a clearly homey and lived in little set of rooms, touches of Nadine and Julie both dotting the common areas.
"Sometimes a little space and cooling off is the best thing. Just....don't get in that pit, you know? Keep yourself busy, explore new hobbies. Take some you time."
She isn't privy to the details of whatever it is between the two men, but she has noticed how focused Jayce seems on Viktor. The circumstances might suck, fights are never good, but maybe he could use some time to focus on some other things.
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"We were spoiled, we pretty much never argued until the week before we came here, and we went back to peaceful since I arrived. But I guess that means we really were just shelving our issues."
They dealt with some of them, but nothing could really be dealt with as long as Jayce held such a huge secret to himself. And he knew it was bad, that he couldn't keep hiding it, that he had to tell him. Every time he was resolved to try, Viktor would touch his arm or look up at him with gold eyes that didn't yet know, and he cowardly put it aside.
"Me time?" That sounds strange. Selfish. Why should he be able to feel anything other than terrible? He frowns and she's right, he is very fixated. There is not a single thing he's done since coming that hasn't been about Viktor. "I don't ...." Jayce is sort of having a light bulb moment about that. "Have anything of my own." Where would he even start?
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Nadine sets everything out and joins Jayce, pouring herself a mug of the chilled tea.
"Look, I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a ton of experience with any kind of relationships. I never had normal ones of any kind until recently. But I know a lot about people, and I know a lot about how people interact with each other." She's been observing people her whole life, and she did go to college originally for childhood development which spent a lot of time on emotional and social development.
"But it's normal and natural and healthy to have disagreements. It's normal to get annoyed, to not like something that somebody in our life is doing, to get frustrated. That's just human interaction. And it's good to communicate that stuff, otherwise...when you don't, and you never disagree or argue, when you finally do it can blow up really badly." And it sort of sounds like maybe this is what happened.
"And it's the same for taking time for you. Take it from me...living your life for someone else entirely is..." She shakes her head. "It'll burn you out."
That's a safe way to put it without getting too deep into her own issues. But she knows what that's like. Most of her life she lived it for one man and one man alone, and look where it's gotten her. Almost forty years old and just starting something resembling a normal life.
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He takes some of the tea, a little floored by what he just thought of, and listens to her advice. Jayce is usually very observant about people himself, but only to an extent. It's true that this separation is happening because he made a terrible mistake, but it's also piggy-backing onto a lot of other problems. There is a gulf between them about a lot of what they didn't say to each other. He believes her, what she's saying. He understands that she is speaking from a true place. And maybe she understands exactly what it is like to live for someone else.
After some thought, he decides to go for the heart. "I almost lost him, Nadine. Really lost him. I was out playing politician and ... enjoying my life, I guess you could say." Ahem perhaps getting into bed with a certain someone at the moment ahem. But that isn't really what Jayce means. He felt good that night, strong, like anything could happen, like this was just the start of good things. Until.
"I was woken up in the middle of the night and told he almost died. I sat by his bed for hours, not even sure if he'd wake up." They said he would, but it seemed like everything was touch and go that night. Jayce almost remembers it in a fever. "The terror I felt then, and every minute since, it never goes away." He is talking around the reality of Viktor's condition, not stating it, but it's obvious what is there. That sort of urgency is unmistakable and the fear is always with him.
There's thick emotion in his voice, pain and grief, grief when nothing has happened yet, but it's still there. Hanging over him. Tears sting his eyes, always a problem for him. "Even now all I can think about is what if something happens while he's mad at me, and he won't let me be there." Jayce looks at her, a little haunted. "What if I get distracted by doing something else for myself, and that's when it happens?" Like that night.
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Nadine nods as he speaks, her expression defaulting into the attentive one she used so often in the classroom.
"I understand," she says, once Jayce has finished his outpouring. "That kind of guilt is normal, we blame ourselves for things. All kinds of things. Human beings are hardwired to look for explanations and causes. Places to assign blame. And we put it on ourselves. Even for things that aren't our fault. And of course we want to be there for our loved ones."
That's another natural human response and need. Combine them, and this is what happens. It makes sense.
"But...we can't live our lives based on 'what ifs'? What if you're hit by a runaway cart in the street tomorrow? What if a ball of fire comes out of the sky and burns Cadens to the ground? We live in a magical world full of weird, dangerous things...anything could happen at any time. And if you sit around worrying about 'what ifs' you're never going to live your own life."
Somewhere in that little speech Nadine's started talking about herself as much as him. The words hit close even as she says them, a part of her bristling over the fact she so often ignores this very advice she's offering.
"What could you do right now, just worrying about it? What good is that doing anyone? It doesn't change the situation, it doesn't make any difference."
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"I was making a difference. I've learned medicine and healing for him, and it was working. He was doing better." Viktor would argue that it was more pain management other than an actual fix, but Jayce feels otherwise, he just needs a little more time to prove his theory. It isn't a cure, but it is more than pain management, he knows that much. Except this threw a huge wrench into the plan. "He's so mad at me he'd rather suffer than let me help right now."
Viktor lives with his pain all the time, every day, so it's probably not hard for him to go backward and accept the life he's known over dealing with Jayce and their falling out. But it's still difficult for Jayce who finally felt like he was doing good, that everything he'd been focusing on was paying off for them. He sighs and leans back in the chair, rubbing a hand across his eyes.
"I'm a fixer. I don't know what to do when there's no way for me to fix what went wrong. So I just feel useless and pointless."
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You have to put your air mask on before your kid's for a reason, but Nadine isn't sure if Jayce would get that reference.
"You owe it to Viktor to be your best. To be emotionally healthy and able to be there. So fixing things...taking care of yourself is part of that. That's how you start fixing it."
Maybe she ought to put out a shingle for counseling, along with medical care. She certainly seems to be offering a lot of it these days.
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Jayce is breaking down a lot of things that's always been hanging over him. He looks up at her abruptly and frowns, anxiety filling him.
"I'm sorry to burden you like this. I know you didn't exactly sign up for it when we became friendly." Jayce really does prefer to be the bright and warm friend, delighted to chat about classes, take notes, carry bags, do whatever it is that makes him better as a friend. He doesn't have a lot of them, much like Viktor he's surprisingly found a lot more here than he had at home. All the more reason for him to be nervous that he's become annoying.
"I don't miss being a celebrity at home, that amount of attention isn't good for anyone, I don't think."
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Nadine is living proof of that. Here, she's actually living her life. Here...maybe she's more than a nice person, maybe she is a good person here. If nothing else, she's trying, and things are better for her.
"Don't worry about it, I'm used to it. I'm a good listener. Part of the whole teacher thing."
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"There's a sort of ... purity to it. How I saw these things." Good is good and bad is bad. Jayce isn't a child, he understands nuances, he knows it's not so black and white, but he does think fundamentally you can lean one way or the other. Technically people would say him aggressively pushing Hextech was bad, he could have gotten himself and other people killed. But he was doing it to help everyone, so in his brain, it was acceptable. "And I've done something bad, which made me wonder if there's any way to come back from that."
So it's his own morality dichotomy that's haunting him at the moment. "Do you think people can come back from making a really horrible choice?"
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Nadine stands and goes to an overhead cupboard and pulls out her bottle of wine. This is a conversation that needs wine. Or at least she needs it, for this conversation. Because she does understand. Oh lord does she understand.
"I don't know if you have Catholicism or nuns where you come from, but I spent a lot of time being raised in a Catholic children's home by nuns. They're religious women who've joined a holy order to dedicate themselves to God. And...yeah, the purity in goodness and importance of both was hammered into my head when I was little."
And yet she'd gone and married a demon king anyway. Not that she'd quite realized that's what he was, at first. In the Bible, angels are as terrifying as demons. And either way, for most of her life, she'd played by the rules. So many of Flagg's were also the church's.
"For most of my life, I did what I was supposed to. I never had a boyfriend, I never drank, I never gambled, I dressed modestly, I didn't party in college, I dedicated myself to a career in selfless service...and awful things happened to me anyway." Yes, some of them she'd brought on herself. She reaches up to briefly touch one of the horns poking out from her hair. Some things she'd brought on herself.
But not all of them.
"I've...done some not great stuff, too. And now I'm here, getting a chance to start my life all over, with...all these things I was never allowed to touch in my old life. Maybe...it's just my church upbringing, but...I think if a person is truly repentant and truly and honestly tries to make up for the bad....yeah, they can come back from it."
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"No, we don't have those." Catholicism, nuns, religion's a bit of a vague subject where he's from. There are a lot of cultures, including in Piltover. And as a man of science, he's always been more focused on that. He knows enough about it to understand what she's saying though and nods. Purity in a religion makes sense; Jayce is getting it from his family internally and externally from what his colleagues, superiors and civilians think. That's enough to torture him day by day.
He gets that what she's listing must be thought poorly of by her religion, but it sounds very restrictive, and he feels for her. To have that sort of thing constantly hanging over her head, like a weight, must be difficult. "I'm sorry you went through that. I'm really glad that you've found more happiness here, Nadine. For whatever it's worth, you have always been so good and kind to me and everyone else I've seen you around. Everything you went through, you came out of it a person well worth knowing."
Jayce has an immense ability to show compassion and understanding to other people, it's to himself he has a near-impossible time. He looks down at his hands. "I led an attack on the Undercity, and people died. I regret it, I would take it back if I could. I've never been an angry or violent person, or at least I didn't think I was." He certainly doesn't seem like it now or really ever. He seems like a fairly gentle soul, outside of the passion that crops up when he talks positively about something, or when he ends up at the Abraxan equivalent of the DMV demanding answers.
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But she thinks there's a very big difference between nice and good. She's a nice person. Good...well, who knows?
"Sometimes good people make mistakes." That much is true. A single mistake can't be enough to tarnish someone's soul forever. Everyone screws up or makes a wrong call or gets in over their head at some point. It's what they do next that matters. If they change, or just keep going the same way.
"It's part of being a person. Doing something bad doesn't make a person bad. Just like doing a good thing doesn't make a person good. We're the sum total of our actions, not a single one."
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"He's mostly mad I didn't tell him. I avoided talking about it entirely until he had to press me for answers." Jayce knows that was the real problem. Maybe if he had expressed it and explained himself, Viktor would have been crushed but not furious at him. "I told myself I would do it eventually, I'd find the right words, but I'm not sure anymore that I would have." It was easier to let them be as they were before, close and working hard together. It's difficult to admit this because Jayce hasn't really, that he might have never admitted to it himself.