Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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The first time Jayce truly breaches Viktor's sphere of what he once considered unassailable personal space, it is, in typical Jayce Talis fashion, with absolute gusto.

Their first two weeks as partners are a flurry of constant progress, breakthrough after dizzying breakthrough. After their initial adventure, they lock themselves in the dusty office temporarily allotted to them, hypothesizing feverishly for hours upon end; when Jayce goes hoarse, they’re forced to communicate only via notepad and chalkboard. Even this inconvenience barely impedes them. How could it? For the first time in his life, someone finally speaks the same language as him. He and Jayce are evenly matched, minds interacting like a whetstone upon a knife, sharpening each other even and especially when they disagree. The intellectual high is better than anything, better than drugs, better than sex; it’s like they’re still floating amongst the rafters of the Professor’s office, buoyed by blue glittering light.

Though eventually, inevitably, they get stuck.

It’s late, the sun having long since dipped beneath Piltover’s gilded skyline and blanketed them in darkness, with only a single dim lamp to work by. They’ve stopped for naught but more coffee, Viktor holding court with notepad and a pencil at the only desk in the huge empty room, while Jayce paces back and forth in front of the chalkboard, muttering increasingly unintelligible strings of hypotheticals to himself.

From across the room, Viktor can barely catch the flood of words. “If [Transportation] activates with more stability at below freezing temps...current hypothesis that adjacent rune, [Transmission], will be similarly stable when cooled, however, [Circulation], two steps removed from [Transportation] in our most recent codex shows more efficient activation at temps above boiling, mmmm but last time we combined those two in a sequence, it exploded. Mmmm. Again. Cracked Viktor’s goggles, mmm need to replace those—”

He’s halfway to hoarse again, at this rate, Viktor thinks with a wry smile. “I thought we settled on ‘compendium,’ Jayce,” he says, louder than normal, to interrupt the harried stream of consciousness. “‘Codex’ is a bit, eh, archaic, da?”

Jayce spins around like he got electrocuted. “Oh. Uhh-hm. I mean…” Jayce doesn’t quite pout, but it’s a near thing. “But, V… it rhymes—” How so much hope can be expressed by one man’s eyebrows, he doesn’t quite understand.

“—With Hextech,” Viktor finishes, looking back down at his notepad.

Jayce nods so enthusiastically Viktor wonders how his neck doesn’t ache. “With Hextech! And you said that it was way better than calling it a ‘grimoire.’”

Viktor lets out a small sigh. “Yes. Well—” He’s about to launch into their well-worn debate as to why both ‘codex’ and ‘grimoire’ are unnecessarily imprecise and, connotatively charged, terms for the dataset they’re compiling. However, another quick glance up reveals Jayce beaten down and downright pitiful, his hair is sticking up in at least two directions from running his hands through it all night. Truly, Viktor’s eyeballs are starting to itch from how long they’ve been awake.

Viktor pinches his nose, the argument dying in his throat. “I suppose I did say this,” he allows.

Jayce flashes the million-watt smile of a boy given free ice cream on a scorching summer day. Correspondingly, the room is suddenly awash with heat and Viktor reaches up to loosen his tie with an awkward cough. He flaps his other hand distractedly at Jayce to return to problem-solving.

“So anyway, in the current codex, we've defined [Transportation] as…” Dutifully turning back to the chalkboard, Jayce rambles for another half-hour to no avail, circling the same point in an exhausting spiral, and Viktor is tempted to call it a night. However, experience dictates that leaving on a poor note will bother both of them to the point of sleeplessness anyway, so they might as well keep at it.

Viktor shuffles his notes, hunting for a fresh page: he’s been documenting as many of Jayce’s rambling hypotheses as possible so that they may properly test them tomorrow when they have more light. The running “codex” is a masterlist of existing runes and their designations, definitions, activation conditions, singular functions and then known modifiers runes and subsequent reactions. He quirks another little smile, seeing Jayce’s beautifully detailed sketches of each rune next to Viktor’s more utilitarian scrawl detailing their functions, a study of contrasts. As Viktor shifts the notes, he notices one of the pages is askew and pauses, staring at [Circulation], upside down. He hums interestedly under his breath.

“Jayce, a moment,” he calls. “It seems [Transportation] and [Circulation] are the unruly siblings in the chain as of now. Though, I wonder, what if we reverse [Circulation] in the sequence? Before activation?”

A pause. “You mean. Flipped it upside down?” The responding voice is much closer. When Viktor peers up, Jayce is near-looming, having crowded in without making a sound. Viktor finds himself pinned beneath what would be unnervingly intense scrutiny from anyone else, Jayce’s eyes locked onto him like an owl watching a mouse, the gold iris rimmed in bloodshot red: quite sleep-deprived, a touch insane.

“Mmm, then it may correspond the way we have predicted, I believe,” Viktor confirms, unfazed.

Jayce is staring at him with the same expression as the first night: wide-eyed breathless astonishment, verging upon reverence. The novelty has not yet worn off.

A sotto voce utterance, Jayce repeats, “We— We can flip them.”

“Eh, we must first test them,” Viktor hedges, pulling at his collar again. “It is only a hypothe–”

Jayce barrels over his quibbling. “V, we can flip them, V, we can INVERT THE RUNES TO CHANGE THEIR FUNCTION. PROBABLY.” Before Viktor has a moment to respond and attempt to set more reasonable expectations, Jayce has surged forward to fully pluck Viktor out of his chair. “You solved it! Gods, V, you’re brilliant, you’re a genius, you’re the smartest man I’ve ever met—”

Viktor dutifully registers the surrounding details: the sheafs of his notes fluttering down through the air like moths, his cane clattering onto the floor from where it was perched next to him, the overwhelming scents of coffee, chalk, and something floral Mrs. Talis must use to launder Jayce's uniform. And oh, further, the way Jayce’s gigantic hands splay over Viktor's waist is as familiar as a lover, completely encompassing the span, as Viktor is lifted up with laughable ease—just like flying again—enveloped in all-encompassing warmth. He is clutched in that firm scorching embrace and held to Jayce’s chest for but a moment, suspended in time, all the while Jayce keeps murmuring into his hair with unhinged glee how Viktor is the smartest, most clever genius to ever exist and Jayce is so lucky to have been found by him.

It is not unlike being pitched into the sun. Viktor must have held his breath, perhaps? It’s coming shorter. Either a few seconds or an eternity passes and then, with a whimsical little spin, Jayce sets Viktor back down just as easily, next to his chair, still grinning broadly, punchdrunk.

Viktor blinks rapidly up at him, reaching backwards shakily to grasp the desk for the comfort of stability. Everything spins, or he’s still held aloft? His heart hammers in his chest like a rattling mechanism, perhaps nothing moves except his pencil still rolling across the office floor.

“Uh…” Jayce’s eyebrows furrow, hesitancy and sheepishness finally creeping in. He rubs the back of his neck. "Oh, I– Sorry, I— got, excited, heh. You good?"

Viktor attempts for long moments to claw back some shred of composure, though he can feel his ears fucking burning. He— He. Well. He notes the facts: No one has ever done that. Quite like that. Mostly because Viktor simply doesn’t allow it. He’s no stranger to the occasional bed partner, a diversion between like-minded men. He’s slept his way through most of Piltover’s engineering department, in fact. Discreetly, of course, but for a certain flavor of academic, it’s not so difficult to find someone to fuck. Nothing complicated, just physical pleasure that he craves every once in awhile, a way to escape his head and treat his often ailing and perpetually aching body with some old fashioned pain relief.

However, when he has sought out bed partners previously to work off steam, he's chosen men more… similar to himself: in looks, in stature, in disposition. To put a finer point on it, none of those men have been Jayce fucking Talis, the only person who has ever matched Viktor in ambition and intellectual pursuit, his equal, most definitely the first actual friend he has ever made, and oh yes coincidentally also, tall, dark, broad, unfairly handsome, with gargantuan, capable blacksmith’s hands. Well of course he’s attracted to him, anyone with eyes can hardly avoid that, but it isn’t supposed to matter—

The silence has gone on far too long during the flurry of mental processing. Viktor comes back to himself only to find Jayce’s expression has transmuted from exhausted but triumphant to exhausted and worried and embarrassed, biting his lip absently, probably about to apologize again.

Well, that simply won’t do. Viktor looks down at himself quickly, assessing, brushes down his vest. “Eh, no harm,” he declares. “Though a warning would be appreciated in future.” Why did he say it like this? Why is he thinking about next time?

It’s already out in the air, and in response Jayce smiles huge and relieved back at him, the worry chased away. “Okay,” he breathes, “Yeah, you got it.”

“All right then,” Viktor says unnecessarily. “Hand me my cane, if you will. Potential breakthroughs aside, it is now past time to turn in.” Viktor tacks on a small reassuring smile, one that, more and more, he dusts off for Jayce alone. He does not think of himself as someone who smiles often.

Jayce Talis, it seems, is quickly becoming the exception to every rule.

Chapter Text

The real problem, Viktor thinks while staring at his reflection in the mirror—struggling in vain to tame his loathed cowlick which continues to defy gravity no matter how much water he uses to tamp it down—is that it isn’t a problem.

Jayce, in his sphere. Touching. Constantly. The impropriety, the audacity. It should be unacceptable.

He shouldn’t be so… unconcerned by Jayce’s flagrant disinterest in the concept of personal space.

It quickly became apparent that the other night wasn't a one time fluke. Rather, it seems that Jayce is simply a physically affectionate person. Each day together finds Viktor pulled into an enthusiastic side-hug when they solve something tricky, Jayce always leaning over his shoulder, standing directly next to him, brushing his hand when passing a mug or a tool… and a million other small moments. That larger-than-life presence radiating warmth and filling up previously cold, dark, and musty corners of Viktor’s life that he hadn’t noticed had grown so empty.

It’d be easier to tell him to stop if it was clearly done with some design in mind, some game, some trick at Viktor’s expense meant to unbalance him. But no, the same bombastic levels of emotional response Jayce displayed in their first meetings persists without a sign of waning. Viktor is forced to conclude that the other man is simply this excitable and free with his expressions as a function of personality. The careening sway of Jayce’s moods could almost be called neurotic in their sudden intensities, the peaks and valleys, but Viktor is quickly learning how best to steer the tempest: a gentle suggestion here, a nudge there, a quiet tch of his tongue. It is not difficult if one simply pays attention to the current.

Though he’s also deduced that perhaps no one else has ever paid particular attention to Jayce Talis’s emotional patterns before.

None of the further gestures have been quite as outrageous or undignified as being picked up like a sack of potatoes. Viktor remembers the sensation of those hands around his waist, steady and strong, searing him even through the layers of clothing, and fights not to flush beet red once more. He can barely meet his own gaze in the vanity. He does not, as a rule, enjoy being manhandled, or touched without cause.

This declaration feels like a lie somehow, even in his own mind. But no, that is nonsense—he frowns at himself harder, cheeks still flushed, mouth scrunching up as his eyebrows scrunch down—he has evidence.

When he’d first snuck into the Academy, Viktor had made a game out of procuring meals from a casual lay, and was far less exacting in his choice of partner for the sake of free food. He’d practically stalked up to upperclassmen in the Academy lounge, demanding crisply that they escort him to lunch. Frankly, it was child’s play; many men, while they may not wish to be perceived so in front of their peers, practically yearned to be told what to do. As a result, he’d slept with men noticeably larger than himself more than once.

The experience was unsettling to say the least. He’d despised the slow, careful hands on his body, their reticence to use an ounce of strength raising his hackles as surely as a doused feline, the touches from those large hands practically coddling, as if he were made of wet tissue paper instead of flesh, blood, and bone. The delicacy of the entire affair killed any arousal; on the contrary he’d wanted to scratch the man’s fucking eyes out for the trouble. He cannot abide being treated as fragile and the effect seemed to be pronounced with larger men.

One memorable time a man made the mistake of expressing aloud that “oh shit you look like I might snap you in half, are you sure you're up for this?” in a deeply dubious tone as soon as they were fully naked. He’d been summarily kicked out of bed, erection and all. Though almost worse was the bravado of “yeah baby let me take care of you, I know what you need” and then having the gall to do everything, from kissing to cocksucking, poorly.

Men simply shouldn't speak in his bed unless told.

Viktor had just about lost his taste for the whole pursuit in the last few years: as the Professor’s assistant he’d been far too busy to spare time for personal frivolities. He is even more so presently, the new ground he and Jayce break each and every day with their Hextech research is far more consuming than anything he’d been responsible for under Heimerdinger.

If he is honest with himself, though, it wasn’t just about work. Even when he’d had more time, despite the ease, there has always been a persistent distance between Viktor and his conquests. As he told Jayce the first night, he’s marked as an outsider on multiple counts—the cane, the cough, his accent. The interest of those men always came tainted with a thirst for something… exotic. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he found himself despising his bed partners more each time.

However, when it had been a frequent diversion, Viktor demanded to be touched only in the precise ways he specified, a white-knuckled grip on the reins of each encounter. Unexpected touch, with warmth attached, someone who wants to be near to him simply for the pleasure of his company, has simply never been a part of Viktor's life.

Thus, Jayce Talis is… a conundrum. A study in contradictions. As they have settled into each other’s orbit, inhabiting a shared workspace as well as a shared dream, he perplexes Viktor more and more. The same man who squawks in disbelief at Viktor’s table manners will leave their work surfaces strewn with piles of detritus without seeming to notice the mess. He is, by turns, charismatic and clumsy, in front of councilors and investors, like a rickety seesaw. (Though far better equipped than Viktor in those matters, it must be said.)

And, evidently, Jayce Talis also barrels past Viktor’s carefully curated, lifelong “do not fucking touch” sign as spiritedly as an Undercity orphan hopping a fare gate.

Viktor sighs heavily. He’s spent far too long fussing with his hair and it has not gotten flatter. It does this every day though, why should today be any different?

In any case, Jayce may be overly permissive, yes, overly familiar, possessed of an inconsistent sense of decorum, but… he also doesn’t treat Viktor as if he will break at a single touch. The combination is more intoxicating than Viktor can quite reckon with this early in the morning.

He straightens his already perfect tie for good measure, cataloging the intractable questions neatly into a box labeled “Further Study Required” and packing it away onto a back shelf. A consideration for his future self.

–

In the present, there is more than enough mystery and mayhem to fully engross him.

Their budget requisition for proper lab space is finally honored, lightning-fast by Academy timelines, and their days become consumed with the packing up of materials and migrating of spaces after three weeks working furiously from the non-optimal spare office.

Viktor's typical pattern of work is carefully designed to reduce pain, but the increased and unpredictable physicality of relocation shatters his routine, thrusting him into a caustic mood. While the pain is a stubborn companion, one he’s learned to manage well enough, coping with an abrupt break in routine similarly breaks his methods of coping with pain, bringing flare-ups, setbacks. And forced breaks from progress, from work, make him even grouchier.

Jayce, however, is so utterly euphoric at the prospect of “Imagine, V, Hextech as a legitimate field of study! Being taken seriously, with an official lab, and a budget, and it’s all for us! Real scientists!” that Viktor finds it difficult to complain overmuch, the cheer revitalizing his own despite the miserable aching fatigue plaguing his entire body.

It’s truly a sprawling space, complete with a suite of tools, equipment, an enormous rolling chalkboard, a dedicated boiler, and a brand new generator. Anything they might ever need. It’s close to the dining hall, just a few halls down from the Council Chambers and the Professor’s office. Best of all, it’s only one flight of stairs down from his living quarters.

Jayce’s giddiness is infectious; he all but races from corner to corner of their new space, boisterously narrating as he goes:

“There’s space for several workbenches along this wall!” and “Oh, look, V, there’s a little room with a sink back here!” and “We should keep the books awayyyyy from the main lab.” He swings back around to meet his gaze from across the room, that same wide-eyed breathless grin stretching his mouth, paused mid-flurry for Viktor’s review.

Viktor fights a smile as he appraises the space. “Yes, this will do nicely.” The multitudinous aches running down his lower back and right thigh nearly fade into the background, burned away by a sense of glowing satisfaction.

As the moving begins in earnest, Jayce somehow intuits the reason for his bad temper as if by magic and eagerly volunteers to carry their combined belongings to the new lab. They work out an efficient system—Jayce ferries the boxes; Viktor unpacks and organizes their contents.

It becomes a new routine—if less exciting than their Hextech research—simple, meditative. Viktor hums to himself, content with the familiar task of sorting his tomes into stacks by subject matter; the persistent brrzzt of the drill is almost soothing as Jayce installs new shelves for their collection.

Brrzzt, brrzzt. “Wow, V,” bright hazel peers down at him from the step ladder. “How many books do you have? That’s at least three times as many as mine!”

“Well,” Viktor counters, feeling an awkwardly abashed smile stretching his mouth. “I was squandering much time going to and from the library, you see.”

“No, no, I’m just impressed! Can’t wait to dig into these!”

–

Many days hence, they are at last marginally resettled, at least enough to continue their compilation of the Hextech Rune Codex.

The morning after their whirlwind hypothesis and ahem, The Incident, they had proven that reversing the position of [Circulation] prior to activation did indeed cause it to react positively to colder temperatures. As a result, it also no longer exploded when sequenced with [Transportation]. Jayce did not pick Viktor up and spin him around after this revelation, but he did clap him on the back heartily and grin so hard his cheeks must hurt.

With the confirmation of their inversion hypothesis, they now had two entire datasets to record for each rune. Their new and improved Hextech Rune Codex compilation is going excellently. They’ve been systematically reversing their list of known runes to document the new effects and assigning reverse designations for clarity. However, testing reached a stall due to the finicky nature of their equipment. They’ve been using the apparatus Jayce had soldered back together since before the move and if they wish to sequence more than three runes at a time, they need a more sophisticated and, ahem, sturdier, Rune Activation Apparatus.

Today they’ve been working mostly separately, addressing different hurdles. (“An efficient two-pronged approach, Jayce, divide and conquer!” Viktor announced that morning, attempting to infuse it with some cheer in the face of The Glum Eyebrows.)

It’s working. Jayce has been absorbed in drafting prototypes all morning for the “Shiny New Sturdier Better Bigger Not Glued Back Together Hexite-Rune Activation Apparatus!” Last Viktor glanced in, their main work table was covered in sheafs of paper—Jayce’s previous blueprints, graph paper, and more writing utensils than Viktor fully understands the need for—as he sketched out variants, refining the designs to perfection before Jayce begins assembling the prototype builds down in the Talis forge.

Viktor idles near the sink in the smaller backroom attached to the main lab, leaning against the counter and staring at his notes. It has become multi-use, a combination kitchenette-library-nap station all shoved together, the small pantry and beverage area sharing space with a shitty futon and as many shelves as Jayce could possibly install that they could both reach.

The coffee percolates with a gurgling sound like a dying frog as Viktor chews on the end of his pencil. He considers the other issue they’re facing: the next step, once Rune Compilation is complete, will be to pressure the Council for further funding; in order to achieve this, they must demonstrate some amount of progress in a way that can be explained as such.

The Codex will become a vital reference for potential investors (and whatever future research assistants they can beg the Academy to loan them.) And Viktor himself, of course. For Jayce, it seems their discoveries imprint indelibly upon his brain. He can rattle off any known rune’s designation, properties, and reactions with pinpoint accuracy, but cannot remember for the life of him to pick up their correspondence from the front office. Viktor is in charge of this, and of any of their notetaking that will see the light of day. As he discovered that first night, Jayce’s approach to documentation is… creatively frenzied, to state it kindly.

His original Hextech notebook—the one that so captured Viktor’s attention—is brilliant, bold, and passionate. It is also filled sporadically with doodles, personal asides, at times despairing diary entries, the occasional shopping list, a confusing deluge of information sprinkled intermittently amongst the breakthroughs and actual science. In their first few days as partners, Viktor had very carefully extracted the methodology from Jayce’s notes into a coherent order and copied it into the master Hextech research binder he’s been compiling. Even though Viktor himself was able to translate the notes without much issue, eventually, people besides the two of them need to be able to make sense of it.

Thus Viktor has spent his day attempting to rearrange their existing data into something more legible, tweaking the language into something that can be understood by a layman. Namely, The Council as a unit.

Truthfully, he is not making progress. He is not particularly skilled at the dumbing down of language, if anything the methodology has become more impenetrable and overly formalized, not less. This is precisely why they need a technical writer. However… there is no funding to hire one, and they need to demonstrate progress before being given more funding—a bit of a frustrating paradox. He chews the pencil harder, leaving crunching teeth marks, waiting for the percolator to finish its job.

Jayce swans in just as the gurgling stops, the potent aroma seeming to summon him—it’s a tight space and they had previously discussed a way to navigate around that—and Viktor is fully wrenched from his train of thought as Jayce presses his entire body flush against Viktor’s back in order to root around in the cabinet above his head.

He pulls down a cracked ceramic mug, as well as the sugar and powdered creamer, doctoring his coffee—two spoons of sugar, one spoon of creamer—humming under his breath distractedly, and all the while his whole body pressed flush to Viktor’s, swamped by the sheer heat of him and firmly hemmed against the counter with nowhere to flee. Their height difference is such that Jayce’s hips nestle just against Viktor’s lower back, and that huge godsdamned hand has reached in, easy as he pleases, to grasp Viktor at his waist just above the hips, both to signal position and stabilize him. He cannot help but note once again that it nearly engulfs the span of his waist, like a farcical repeat of a few weeks prior.

"Sorry, one more sec, V,” Jayce murmurs, quite belatedly, as he continues to hold Viktor with one hand and rifle through the cabinet with the other.

As close as they’re pressed, his chin just brushes the top of Viktor's head and he feels the puff of heat from the exhalation when Jayce must find what he seeks, issuing a happy little sound of triumph. Jayce at least doesn’t seem to mind the everpresent unruly cowlick, he thinks in a daze, unable to do much at all beyond holding himself stock still, leashed back from the insanity that would be leaning into the pressure.

This touch is somehow even more intimate than being lifted and embraced—it's gentler, slower, honeyed like the golden sunlight trickling through their brand new window, familiar and sticky warm. Like… being accosted by an overly amorous steam cloud made flesh. Or something. He's not a poet.

There's a protracted moment of separation as Jayce closes the cabinet above his head, his hand practically caressing Viktor’s waist as it is dragged away with a little squeeze of intent. He can all but read the, ‘Hey there, thanks, I’m going,’ just from the touch.

Something in Viktor seizes like a jammed motor. It would be so simple to— it would be so easy— To what? To do what? He clears his throat with disproportionate volume before he even realizes.

"Uh, yeah? Vik?” Jayce pauses, his body stilling behind him. “You, want me to fix yours too?"

Viktor mulls this new diminutive while struggling to locate a response through what feels like molasses gumming up his synapses. He despises endearments or the shortening of his name in any fashion. He does. He used to. Today, he notes, Jayce smells like charcoal and paper and some sweetness. Honey?

“...Ne. Just. While you are— there. Fetch the anise from the spices. If you would.” Viktor states it as neutrally and naturally as possible. He is unsure as to the success of the attempt.

“Mkay.” Jayce happily grabs the little jar and hands it to Viktor with a bright smile that crinkles his eyes. Then he takes his mug of coffee and his prize—a crinkly bag containing some cheese-flavored snack that he favors—and exits the room seemingly without a care. As if there were nothing of note, nothing at all strange about the encounter.

As Viktor refamiliarizes himself with the shape of his body absent another, he eyes the offending box in the back of his mind. The one labeled “Further Study Required Jayce Talis and The Touching.” The one he has been unable to ignore. Torn open, considered, and re-taped shut each morning.

Perhaps it is a problem after all.

Chapter Text

Saturday, 8pm:

By the dim light of a single lamp, lounging near-boneless in his beloved leather armchair, Viktor strokes his stiff cock with brutal precision, biting back what is frankly an embarrassing moan given it is merely the treatment of his own hand.

It’d taken much preparation to get to this portion of the evening, some might say an unnecessarily arduous amount, and even having drawn the shades tightly, he’s still afraid someone will peek in and discover just what he’s up to.

Many evenings have been spent nestled in this very armchair with a glass of clear spirits, eyes traipsing along the curves, bows, dips, and angles of the pimpernel wallpaper. He finds the sight of its faded and peeling floral trellis a tether, a comfort; hours whiled away tracing the swirling patterns in deep thought, pondering a thorny problem, work-related or otherwise.

Most recently, considering his distinctively Jayce Talis-shaped…

Distraction? (Imprecise.) Obsession? (Hm… no.)

Issue.

Well, regardless of the term, Viktor cannot spend every day driven to distraction as he has been, mind wandering from their work at every turn, it seems, the anticipation of the next Incident, the next Touch, carving a hole in his stomach.

The core of his frustration, he believes, is due to the false positives generated by the situation. His brain automatically interprets this manner of input from Jayce in a very particular, very predictable fashion.

Jayce doesn’t mean anything by it, of course—his innocent affection, his wandering hands. He engulfs the young Miss Kiramman in the same boisterous hugs as he does Viktor, gaily kisses Mrs. Talis on both cheeks in greeting the few times she has visited them.

It’s not about Viktor. He knows this and thus should be able to shake it off. But therein lies the other angle of the problem: to be fair to himself, he hasn’t gotten laid in quite awhile.

It is merely what a body does when presented with another warm, seemingly available and objectively desirable body. It has been months since he’s properly fucked anyone—he mentally tallies it—and he hasn’t the time for it now, it’s too much hassle, and it’s raining besides.

But needs must be met, the primal drive for pleasure must be sated. This is simply a side-effect of a warm-natured and earnest person like Jayce catching Viktor off guard; the proximity has caused a reaction that is easily, clinically addressed.

Friday, 8pm:

The Plan commenced at the stationary store. (No, no, that’s not entirely correct)

Friday, 6pm:

He started planning when he noticed large dark storm clouds gathering on Friday evening.

(Mmm. Negative. Wind further backwards.)

Friday, 10am:

It became a capital P, Problem—not in the kitchenette where Viktor should have finally acknowledged that fact—but the very next day when he dropped a mug to shatter on the floor, startling preemptively when he thought Jayce was about to touch him again.

(Jayce had then fussed at him, checked him over, grinned brightly, and swept the whole mess up, in that order, while Viktor was banished to sit, after having made some excuse of a headache for the accident.

After the mess was cleaned up, Viktor took the opportunity of forecasted inclement weather to call for a long weekend break. At this assertion, the expression Jayce treated him to was nothing short of a dog kicked.

“Come now, Jayce, the mind needs time to recharge.”

“You’re one to talk,” Jayce muttered.

“Yes, well. It will be too damp for our experiments. You know this.”

“We could still work on other things.” The Mutinous Pout.

“Jayce.” Versus The Sigh.

And the other subsided, reluctantly.)

Friday, 10:15am:

A solution presented itself. A definitive course of action. In many ways, a simple answer.

Viktor has become fixated on Jayce Talis’s hands?

Then he will follow that fixation to every conceivable end. More simply put, he decided he’d take the weekend and ruthlessly work himself to completion until he was too sore to get hard anymore.

The slightly sunken worn leather armchair is one of Viktor's two concessions to personal indulgence—obtained from a secondhand store in the most affluent section of Piltover, along with a mismatched ottoman—the other being a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

However, generally speaking, his living quarters are small, functional, ascetic. A one-bedroom apartment with a water closet attached, located on Academy grounds and provided as part of his compensation.

His other furniture consists of a twin bed and the largest compartment desk he could fit. Bookshelves commandeer the remaining space. His personal library, gathered painstakingly over many years, is by far his most prized possession. Though many of the shelves lie bare now, the tomes having migrated, one by one, to their lab.

Some might term his living quarters barren, joyless, perhaps even pitiable. He’s heard all and more. But. It’s all he needs. Easy to keep, easy to clean, easy to inventory each night before bed.

Viktor enjoys tidiness, everything in its place. It declutters his thinking space. In addition, items nestled into compartments and kept out of the walkways is essential when one must navigate spaces most often with a cane.

Besides, it is not without light. Viktor has one small window right next to his desk. Partly covered by reference pages taped to the glass, the rest is occupied by a common ivy plant. A Hedera helix, color variant Goldchild, a thank you gift from a former student he'd tutored. The once-small houseplant, having long since overflowed its ceramic pot, continues to aggressively colonize his outside view by climbing up and around the frame.

(“Tsk, tsk. You are a most unruly window hog, Miss Ivaka,” Viktor often says to the plant while testing the soil moisture, fussing with the arrangement of the tendrils, misting the leaves. “What will I do with you?” Clicking his tongue in disapproval. It is truly obscuring his view these days, and could stand to be pruned here and there. The cutters remain in the bin of gardening tools, unused.)

As the sky growled menacingly outside, he had prepared an entire station in his private quarters, intending to be here awhile. A pillow propped behind him allows easy adjustments so his back doesn’t complain overmuch, a fresh towel laid on the seat ensures the chair will be kept unstained. He’d stripped efficiently down to bare skin, folding his clothes neatly atop his bed, for ease of access.

Set upon the desk right next to his chair: a tall glass of water, freshly sharpened pencil, and a brand new journal, the leather binding massaged to lie open and ready. He’s mapped out several different test cases to execute during the experiment, with space left beneath each item to track variables, results, and observations.

(Viktor had chosen the plain black journal. His mouth twists at the memory: it is not the correct color. But he’d taken too long already, having rushed to get to the stationary shop Friday evening before it closed. The shopkeep had squinted at him impatiently as he deliberated over the color options for nearly forty minutes.

The most beautifully-crafted journal in the selection had been a marvelous crimson red with handtooled roses adorning the cover. It was magnificent, it was perfect. He absolutely could not buy it. Even considering its purpose, it would be too… provocative… too florid… too… something…

And, if godsforbid Jayce ever saw, he'd pluck it off the workbench without a second thought. He cannot help himself, the greedy little magpie, having purloined Viktor’s red-handled screwdriver many a time. Red is, after all, his favorite color.

Contents encrypted or not, the idea summons a full body shudder of mortification.)

Though perhaps the shudder has other origins, Viktor thinks dizzily, as he massages his hardness with an exacting pressure, as if he could extract every ounce of arousal from himself like juice from a lemon.

He allows his mind to wander. If this is to truly flush the temptation from his system, he must manifest the fantasy in full color, allowing it to melt in his mouth like a rich dark chocolate truffle, savoring every intricacy of flavor.

The way it could have happened, the way he wanted it to happen.

(He can admit the truth, there is nothing shameful about desiring Jayce Talis’s body. After all, he is a perfectly-formed man, an unfairly infallible specimen of male beauty.)

Viktor traces the fantasy over and over again in his mind like a worrystone. Jayce looming behind him, skin singing with the sheer pleasure of being pressed against something hard, trapped between that wall of heat and the counter, one enormous hand at his waist, enveloping him, gods what those hands could give him if he… if they only…

On the next downward stroke, grip tight and punishing, he pulls the foreskin back to expose his flushed cockhead, groaning as he roughly sweeps a thumb over the sensitive bundle of nerves, the resulting slick weeping down over his fingers.

A gust of air puffs out of Viktor in exertion as pleasure surges through him. But then the fantasy stutters and shame heats his neck. In quick succession manifest second, third, and fourth thoughts: It is… obscene to think of Jayce this way. Is this allowed—? Should he—?

Yes. It is necessary. He is simply… letting the distraction run its course.

Well. At an accelerated rate, perhaps. He is merely providing the needed catalyst.

This manner of… attraction… must be rooted out methodically. Drastic measures taken. Otherwise it will fester and grow rampant throughout his life.

He has the entire weekend at his leisure, and by Janna he will tackle this experiment from every possible angle, addressing every variable. Until there is no more data to be gained and both mind and body, satisfied.

Viktor doesn't have time for any more distractions—his work, their work, has already suffered for it. This needs to be dealt with now. Decisively. Ruthlessly. Nothing less will do.

In an instant, Viktor is once more pressed against the counter in his mind's eye; he imagines he can feel Jayce hard and wanting behind him this time, his head tilted down to nuzzle into Viktor’s neck, leaving kisses and nips just under his jaw, both arms coming around him, swamping him in heat, groping his waist and pinning Viktor in place, the unrelenting scalding line of Jayce’s arousal rutting into him from behind and—

Viktor digs a nail near brutally into his cock slit, milky fluid meeting his thumb pad and weeping in spurts as he nears completion; he throws his head back against the chair cushion, eyes clenched shut in reverie, teeth gritted and—

Jayce would groan breathily in his ear, moaning Viktor’s name just so, those hands would twitch at Viktor’s hips, overwhelmed, undone, before clutching around him hard in helpless pleasure, huge and scorching and undeniable.

He imagines the violet handspread of bruises that would bloom on his skin the following day, of being marked, and Viktor’s cock jerks in his hand, the orgasm taking him out at the knees, coming so hard that his ears are still fucking ringing many seconds later when he blinks the black stars from his eyes.

His reservations return. He could have had someone, a stranger. Tonight or tomorrow night, or both, with ease. It might have been better than… what this has transmuted into.

No, no, it’s… too much effort, too much time, and he didn’t want to go out in this weather anyway. This is far simpler. Isn’t it? Viktor cuts that thought off before it even has time to sprout leaves, flopping back in his armchair and taking himself in hand again.

Hands that he wishes were twice the size.

Viktor snatches up a small glass vial from his desk and upends oil over his twitching cock, soaking the entire affair til it drizzles in lazy rivulets down his bollocks. He does not wait for full rigidity before returning to hard pumping motions, strangling his sore cock with such roughness the head floods a deep desperate purple, veins bulging up the length of the shaft.

Gasping into a fist from the intensity, whole body tingling, Viktor continues massaging his sensitive flesh, biting his bottom lip raw, abusing the organ in the service of thoroughness.

He hisses at the overstimulation, it aches like a pressed bruise. Truthfully, Viktor craves intense sensations: a counterpoint that deepens the pleasure as well as a distraction from pain. The gasping ache becomes something else to focus upon. He is always in some form of pain, and it is a respite to dive headfirst into a varied sea of sensation for once.

By Monday morning, Viktor will simply be too sore to be aroused by anything to do with anything. Including and especially Jayce Talis.

A promise. A certainty. A godsdamn oath. He all but spits in his palm and shakes his own hand.

He releases his grip on the locked door of his fantasies, surrenders self-control, all but tearing open the locked vaults of Jayce Talis, yanking open every drawer, every cabinet, every hidden urge, every lustful thought. Observations, thoughts, and images he has never allowed himself to linger on before. To touch, even in the sanctity of his own mind.

He gorges the way a starving child might upon a sudden feast, scooping up greedy handfuls until he will make himself sick from the rich indulgence. He will overload his receptors until every part of him is bored with this.

With the idea of... Of having— Of taking— Of being held down and manhandled and groped and catalogued and roamed and squeezed and— By those fucking hands.

He vividly remembers the time he kicked a man out of bed for fetishizing his size, but something about Jayce— Jayce's hands wrapping around the span of him to easily move Viktor, to put him exactly where he wants…

That is… It’s…

Viktor fists his throbbing cock with both hands to simulate one of Jayce’s, the slick and needy head popping up through his fingers on each stroke. A keen erupts from his mouth that he barely recognizes as his own as he reaches orgasm a second time, biting his lip so hard that he tastes blood this time. Come and oil combine into a wet mess, dribbling down his shaft to soak into the towel.

In the aftermath, Viktor floats, the chemical rush flooding his system making him loose, lolling against the chair. His mind is as untethered as a balloon floating drunkenly through the summer breeze. He licks the blood from his lip, relishing the copper tang, and once more grasps his softening flesh with a fevered clutch, groaning deep in his chest as it pulses weakly.

His cock refuses to fully harden again, but Viktor continues to palm himself mercilessly, groping and squeezing and pressing. The oil prevents the friction from chafing overmuch but he still trembles at the overwhelming sensation, bright and raw and aching like a stab wound.

Drunk on a cocktail of endorphins, dopamine, and a fair amount of liquor, Viktor giggles to himself, the fantasies beginning to blur in a haze of heat. The rigorously-organized test cases that he set out ahead of time begin to bleed into one another, disconnected and implausible.

In a flash of images he is—

Pulled into Jayce’s lap, straddling his thighs, riding those thick fingers in this very chair—

Hoisted up on the lab table, Viktor’s legs spread so Jayce can grind their arousals together, only their trousers undone. Just enough for Jayce to stroke both of them at the same time in his huge tawny gorgeous fucking hand—

If this is the only time, he'll let himself enjoy his most illicit fantasy. Viktor moans loud and unfettered and conjures Jayce fresh from the forge. Covered in soot and skin glowing from exertion. What lovely little expression of shock he might wear, what deep blush, if Viktor were to reel him in with a glance, the room over a thousand degrees and sweat pouring from them both and Jayce without his shirt—

Viktor reaches up to grasp his own hair, pulling tight, the bright hot sensation a counterpoint, enhancing the pulsing honeywarm sweetness in his groin.

Jayce on his knees, those hands anchoring around Viktor's waist as he face-fucks Jayce mercilessly, thumbs digging into his hip bones, feeding his cock down Jayce’s throat in vicious thrusts. Viktor gasps roughly as his hand blurs on his cock, leg kicked up over the arm of the chair as he strains into his own touch. He can feel the pleasure surging up through his bollocks, and just as the heat flares into a supernova strikes the thought—

Would Jayce even enjoy that?

A torrent rushes in after the first, as suddenly as a summer storm—

Has Jayce ever sucked a cock before?

Has Jayce ever had sex before?

He must have, right?

He has passed the moment of no return, and Viktor shudders through another intense orgasm, spasming, clenching, the whitehot molten pleasure flooding his body, but right on its heels is a dark cloud of shame. The pleasure sours almost instantly.

Jayce did not ask for this, did not agree, would not want it, would draw back in disgust at the depths of depravity. The sweetness of him, the unassuming warmth, he does not seek this from Viktor, does not touch him with this in mind. To separate the body from the mind from the heart of the man… How dare he use his partner like this, imagining Jayce as some doll for his sordid whims? Even in the privacy of his home, even if Jayce will never know, it feels like a grievous betrayal. The thought is a shock of cold water and Viktor is well and truly through for the evening.

He sighs, wiping the mess onto the filthy towel beneath him. He drags a hand over his face and through his hair, both soaked in sweat, fatigue sinking in quickly as any remaining pleasure drains away.

Discomfort is writ into every part of his body, his back spasming from remaining in the chair for several hours, the pillow squashed into a ball. Viktor’s shoulders bunch up around his ears, a line of fire running down his neck, the tendon taut as a bowstring. His cock is nearly rubbed raw and his stomach growls in complaint. Oh. He neglected to have dinner, it seems.

For all his meticulous preparation, this experiment was... perhaps ill-thought out. Miscalculated. Ridiculous. A bit of a farce, really. Though he cannot summon so much as a chuckle.

The worst offence is that even after all that, after three staggering orgasms, frustration still burns in his core, stoked for a long winter it seems, and his brain a hearth crackling with vexation.

Godsdammit.

He rubs his aching neck muscles. Well, where were Jayce Talis and his gargantuan fucking hands now? he grouses internally. They would be quite useful as massage tools.

Nausea churns his stomach. Hm, frustration and guilt. Jayce would help him. If Viktor asked. If Viktor would ever allow it. If only it were an even vaguely appropriate request. If Viktor weren’t fucking obsessed with… this preoccupation.

But it is over now, at least. He has explored it. It's out of its box, laid out across the floor, itemized:

“Jayce Talis And His Beautiful Golden Hands”

He's mapped it in totality. All known variables. No longer temptingly forbidden or taboo or unknown.

Viktor picks up his notes for confirmation. He has scrawled a page or two at most, half legible, variables left unaddressed, a glut of unanswered queries, his test cases a chaotic mess, blurred and tangled and fluid… the cipher abandoned halfway through. And a damning stain smeared on the last page.

He grimaces. Who was he to criticize Jayce’s methodology, honestly? Disgust, shame, and bone-deep exhaustion war for supremacy within Viktor.

Well. Tomorrow will be better, at least. It rings in his head, uneasily, like a question.

–

Sunday, 9:30 am:

Woke; breakfast.

10 am:

Attempted to reconcile notes from Saturday’s test cases.

11 am:

Started drinking.

12 pm:

Attempted to review notes again. Not enough data.

12:30 pm:

Attempted to salvage the experiment. Attempted repeat was a nonstarter. Subject unfit.

12:45 pm:

Left home for pain medication. Apothecary closed on Sunday.

1 pm-???:

Drinking. Wallowing. Staring into the abyss. Viktor, if you’re reading this later, you are a fool.

Monday, 3am:

Slept??

(Addendum; Monday, 10 am:

Further, you entirely forgot to iron and hang up the laundry. A bouquet and a thousand laudations to the most brilliant man in Piltover, topside or bottom.)

–

Viktor enters the lab Monday morning, twenty minutes late, hungover, hair frazzled, sleep-deprived, and to truly salt the wound, his fucking uniform is wrinkled. He cannot bring himself to meet Jayce’s eye for over an hour.

Out of his peripherals, he sees the other frown at him, worry scrunching the ever-expressive brow. “You okay, V? Sick or something?”

Viktor mutters an excuse about the humidity and barometric pressure and pain levels in a practiced rush. Then he begs off to the other side of the lab, claiming he needs quiet to focus on their notes. It is not entirely untrue: the presentation to requisition more funding from the Council is this week. He does promise to help Jayce test the new Rune Activation Apparatus prototype in the afternoon to assuage disappointment and ward off any further nosiness.

Hopefully he’ll have pulled himself together by then.

–

The gods must be laughing at Viktor.

Hours pass as he desperately attempts to focus on the presentation for the Council to no avail. Any time he peers down and begins to read his binder, he will hear Jayce make the slightest sound from the other side of the lab and is promptly yanked once more away from anything else. It’s as if Viktor is magnetized to his movements, utterly fixated like a moth to a flame, hyperfocused upon his every displacement of air. He begins leaving the room for moments of respite, to increasing anxiety radiating from Jayce, an Aura of Concern.

“Lunch did not agree with me,” Viktor finally offers. It is a common complaint between them and Jayce nods immediately in solemn understanding. Well, it’s not technically a lie. His stomach is certainly roiling with something.

When Viktor returns from the restroom after his fifth break, he nearly stumbles over his fucking cane, finally just… looking at Jayce for more than a moment. Unable to resist drinking in the entire damnable picture.

He sits at the workbench oblivious, engrossed, tinkering away on the final model of the new apparatus. The light loves him, every hour is golden hour for Jayce, his honey-bronze skin drinking the sunlight, it limns every edge—his jaw, his forearms, sleeves rolled up, the back of his neck a touch pink from where he’s been rubbing it in puzzlement, and of course those massive hands deft and sure on the prototype as he adjusts the rigging.

The scenarios from the night before slam into him like a deluge from a broken embankment, the cracked vessel of himself split open to fill their lab with waves of helpless lust so tangible he imagines Jayce must be able to feel it lapping at his ankles.

Viktor must blink rapidly to recalibrate, dazzled. His hand tightens around the handle of his cane so hard he can hear it creak warningly. Worst of all, his cock thickens in his trousers with such embarrassing speed it’s as if he’s once more an untried fucking adolescent.

He’s made a grave error. Viktor’s misguided efforts have not lessened the fixation. No, if anything, it is now much worse. These are the rewards of his injudicious experiment. Evidently, all he succeeded in doing was to condition himself to look at Jayce Talis and immediately start thinking about fucking. Bouncing around his skull, a chorus of cupids ridicule him into the afterlife.

Viktor excuses himself to the restroom for a sixth time before Jayce can even finish getting the commiserating “Stomach again, Vik?” out of his mouth.

–

Somehow, the day has been both an endless grueling torment and simultaneously passed in the blink of an eye—the promised hour arrives to test the final version of the apparatus, to join Jayce at the workbench, and Viktor is not the least bit prepared to face him.

Jayce beckons him over with a little flourish of pride, a touch of grease smudged right on his cheekbone not helping Viktor’s distraction in the least.

“Okay so, as you know we’ve expanded this model to be double the size in order to account for longer sequences—”

Jayce briefs him about the finalized prototype in an excited ramble, handing Viktor a clipboard with the schematics, and it’s all truly so impressive and elegantly done, but also his brain is a fried egg floating in a bucket of sump-slop dumped into a malfunctioning carriage chugging right off the side of the Bridge of Progress.

And so Viktor merely hums, making the appropriate affirming noises, all the while staring hard down at the clipboard as if that will somehow convince it to bestow its information upon his frazzled and strained psyche, but it is blurring before his eyes. Viktor pushes a hand through his hair. He’ll… he’ll simply absorb this in more detail later, when he’s had more than two hours of alcohol-poisoned sleep, (when Jayce isn’t in the room, more like.)

And then,

“I know in our previous tests, I’ve taken lead on the rune input, but I thought for this brand new model well it might be fun, well, it would be really cool if—” Jayce is nearly hopping in place and broadcasting The Hopeful Eyebrows, so excited to get the request out that the words are tumbling into each other.

“If what, exactly?” Viktor asks with a growing dread.

“I thought you could lead this time,” and now the grin cannot be contained, stretching his mouth, color high in his cheeks, the joy and anticipation emerging a little jittery, but that is Jayce, after all. “You haven’t gotten to yet!”

This may be the worst day of Viktor’s life, up to this point. Well. He is a professional, he is a Piltover Academy graduate, summa cum laude, he was Assistant to the Dean, and he is the co-Founding Father of Hextech, and thus, he will persevere. Somehow.

Viktor nods. “That is. Very thoughtful of you, Jayce,” he forces out, trying not to sound like he’s walking to his own gallows.

Jayce beams, handing over the list of their current potentially useful rune sequences—those that were not able to enter testing until the upgrade was constructed. There is a Viktor somewhere in the back of his mind, the competent and focused version, who knows this procedure like the back of his hand, who would be bursting with enthusiasm to test the improved apparatus, and who truly appreciates Jayce gifting him the first opportunity to play with the shiny new toy. That particular Viktor, however, is many, many iterations removed from the one standing in front of the workbench.

The present-Viktor powers up the apparatus in a daze, mostly following muscle-memory. The Hexite crystal slots in, the rings spin up, the oscillations flicker and then stabilize: all is as expected.

He glances at the first sequence that Jayce has written down. Five in a row.

[Transportation]. Fzzzt. He locks the first spinning rune-key with a crackle of power.

[Transmission]. Fzzzt. Locked.

[Conduction]. Fzzzt. It’s actually proceeding fairly well, Viktor is surprised to note.

[Acceleration]. Fzzzt. The apparatus oscillates in purring harmony, happily accepting the fourth rune.

A little whoop of triumph puffs right at his ear, audible even over the sound of the mechanism, and Viktor makes the mistake of glancing back to find Jayce right behind him, of course, nearly pressed to his back again, and alight with a combination of rabid awe and arcing electric-blue magic that is far more beautiful than the experiment, the most beautiful view in all the city perhaps. The scene is so uncannily similar and yet entirely dissimilar to his fantasy from the other night that a sharp tug of terrible want wrenches through Viktor so powerfully that his fingers trip over the dial as he makes the stupidest fucking error possible.

Locking in…. [Circulation.]

At once, the new Rune Activation Apparatus trembles, shudders, fizzles, angrily spitting a burst of sapphire static as it rejects the sequence, and, then overtaxed, spins wildly out of control. Just before Jayce can punch the dial to disengage, the momentum rips one of the gold rings from its rigging. It explodes into fragments, a piece flying off to puncture their canister of machining lubricant on the shelf above, which then, with comically-perfect trajectory, splatters all over Viktor's head.

It’s really a miracle that it didn’t take someone’s eye out, the many-iterations-removed Viktor comments drily. You know, we indeed ascertained over a month ago that [Circulation] explodes in that sequence. It was formative. Just a reminder, he tacks on with great disdain. But current-iteration Viktor ignores him, can barely hear him, in fact, over the buzzing swarm of wasps in his ears, the pure blackout rage.

Just— just—

Something in him snaps as surely as the apparatus had, bits of shrapnel detonating in every direction as he rips his goggles off his face and hurls them at the workbench, or the floor, who knows—

“EBASI MAIKATA KURVA SHIBAN GLUPAK DEN,” he snarls. Then for good measure, punctuates it with a “Fuck!” Just to get the point across.

Viktor swivels in place, stalking over to the other side of the workbench with deadly focus, his cane stabbing the floor with each step like a man possessed. Barely registering his partner’s panicked exclamations in the background as he snatches up the scissors.

The godsdamned… HAIR. EBASI KOSA… Well he'll sort the fucking cowlick once and for all…

Finally, Jayce bodily steps in front of him. “What are you doing?!”

“Dealing with this,” Viktor intones darkly.

“Viktor, V, please, please just—”

“There is no need for a fuss,” he grinds out, accent curdling around the words. That swarm of wasps that began in his ears has grown to cloud his eyes and fill his throat. “It is my hair and I will cut it off if I wish.”

There is that hand on his forearm just as he lifts the scissors, prohibitive, and Viktor snaps his eyes up in a glare, ready to stab someone—

Only to catch the full devastating brunt of The Pleading Eyebrows, and what is worse, real worry in the droop of Jayce’s mouth. “Let me help?” he begs.

The tantrum sluices down and out of Viktor as quickly as it arrived, dissolving into exhaustion. He heaves an irritated breath, dropping the scissors unceremoniously back on the table with a clatter.

With one hand on each shoulder, Jayce gently guides him to sit on a stool at the workbench in front of the window, motions slow and firm, as if he’s herding a spooked sheep. “Here, V. Just… wait here a sec. Please. No scissors.”

If he were less tired, less Over being himself, Viktor might feel a spiteful contrarian urge to just prune the gummed-up hank of hair while Jayce has left the room. However, he’s already seated and his body does not relish the idea of being upright again. Truly an underrated activity, sitting down.

The sounds of water running, clanking, and rummaging reach Viktor from the other room as he stares out the window. His hands twitch around his cane settled in his lap, becoming numb by the second, shamefaced from the outburst. His throat hurts from yelling, his body hurts because it is his body, and bonedeep fatigue sets in from the cursed day, no, the weekend. The previous week. His whole life.

Jayce returns, setting a bucket on the workbench. He glances over—it's full of hot, soapy water. He's also retrieved a stack of terrycloths and a comb. Jayce sits on the other stool and faces Viktor.

"C'mere." Jayce beckons him scoot closer, legs opening to make room for Viktor to roll his stool forward between them. His knees gently bumping against Jayce's as he complies, silent. The only shield between them is his cane, his hands clenched around it, knuckles white.

Jayce leans over him, greater height making it a simple matter. He gently taps the back of Viktor's neck. “Tilt forward for me, Vik,” he murmurs.

He begins by separating the sections of Viktor's hair into more manageable layers using the comb, but switches to just his fingers when it catches in the matted lubricant. He then drapes a terrycloth over Viktor’s neck, tucking it into his shirt collar to catch any droplets.

Jayce handles him so easily, as familiar as ever, like it doesn't burn to touch him so intimately. The moth diving headfirst into the scorching flame as if it isn’t annihilation. Viktor envies Jayce his confidence in this, the serenity, as if it is second nature to reach out and connect and comfort. As always, Viktor allows it to continue, paralyzed, unable to resist. Unwilling to give it up.

Jayce dunks a cloth into the bucket, wrings it out, and then begins to methodically massage soap into the sticky mass of gunk spread through Viktor’s hair. He alternates rubbing strands between his fingers to thoroughly coat the substance in soapy water and using the cloth to remove the dissolving gunk with careful motions.

Long moments pass as Jayce works through the sections of hair, the same rhythmic motions would be calming in another circumstance. He doesn’t pull, tending to Viktor as gently as one might bathe an alley kitten infested with vermin.

As gentle as he is, the touch is neither patronizing, nor coddling. Those hands card through his hair as he works to remove the multiple spatters, warm fingertips brushing against his scalp, the sensation both soothing and dizzying. Yet another different iteration of Viktor wishes he could simply lean in and enjoy this. His shoulders and neck yearn for those hands to knead out every tense knot.

“Never heard you curse like that, V,” Jayce says, breaking the silence with a conspiratorial giggle. “Well… I mean. I’m pretty sure it was cursing.”

Viktor flicks a glance up at him. “It was cursing.” He clears his throat, cheeks heating. “Jayce. I— I apologize. For. The prototype. You allowed me to lead and. I ruined it.” Viktor looks away, he doesn’t want to see the judgement in his eyes, disappointment in his partner for fucking up such a simple task. [Circulation], for Janna’s sake. As far as their experiments go, this one should have been child’s play.

He feels Jayce shrug. “Oh it’s fine, really, I’ll just build another one,” he chirps back. “Wanted to test out a different alloy anyway. Can’t make an omelette without breaking some wrenches, or whatever the Professor says.” Once again, Viktor envies him, the ability to brush off setbacks like they are inconsequential, to maintain the cheer and forward momentum, the belief that anything is possible.

Jayce soon has to use some elbow grease and the efficient motions turn to accidentally tugging Viktor’s hair. Jayce cringes, murmurs apology. Viktor barely feels it, just moving where he is beckoned.

After several more long moments of dabbing with the cloth, Jayce broaches the silence again. "Out of sorts recently, huh?” It emerges quietly. Knowingly.

Viktor keeps breathing as steadily as he can. He simply nods at his own lap. If he looks at him again…

"Are you nervous about the funding proposal?"

It would be easy to lie again, some excuse about this or that nonsense… but Viktor finds he's sick of the taste. He does not answer, mouth twitching. It pulls at the raw skin from the other night.

Jayce continues regardless. "Me too. But I've seen your proposal, V, and it's brilliantly outlined. I'll try to do it justice." A self-deprecating laugh. "We'll get through it together, just like everything else. Partners. That's what I always think, that you'll be right there with me." Viktor can hear the smile now, softer, the way it must crinkle his eyes.

He startles slightly as Jayce stops fussing with his hair for a moment, one hand dropping to squeeze his shoulder instead, the span engulfing it in warmth.

“So there's nothing to worry about.” It’s so painfully earnest that Viktor's heart clenches.

Finally, barely audible, he manages, "Thank you, Jayce." Despite it all, Viktor feels a little better, the reassurance a balm upon his frazzled nerves, a comfort he does not deserve.

He’s been all but useless for days, drowning in this preoccupation, in this reckless attraction. It’s unprofessional, it’s— He does not deserve Jayce’s kindness, his understanding. Jayce who does not understand what he’s doing, the torment, who doesn’t mean to tease, who is not a cruel person.

Viktor should say something. He should explain. He should put a stop to it.

But Jayce will not understand. It wouldn't be fair to him. (Nothing about this situation has been fair.) After all, Viktor is the pathetic one who cannot get himself under control. Jayce is affectionate with those he deems friends. Selfishly, Viktor does not want to lose that.

Jayce seems to reach a stopping point, dropping the rag back in the bucket with a splash. Soft laughter huffs out of him, then increases till it shakes his shoulders and, by extension, Viktor.

He bristles. “What could possibly be funny, Jayce.”

“Your. Your hair— looks like you got caught in the rain. Just… a bit less put-together than usual. Sorry ‘bout that.”

The absurdity of this apology is such that Viktor has to fight to keep himself from gawping at him. (He looks like shit. He knows he looks like shit. He’s looked like shit all day.)

“But I did it!” Jayce trumpets, he leans impossibly closer and reaches up to cup Viktor’s cheek, still giggling, warmth seeping in, a contrast to his cold wet hair plastered flat to his skull. The skin on skin contact, those large calloused hands, his face— it finally shocks Viktor enough to peer up and truly meet those eyes for the first time all day.

Surely, by now, given his efforts, and the regularity, the wealth of examples, logic would dictate that he should be inured to Jayce’s hands, to his touch.

That is… patently untrue. And besides, it's not just the hands anymore. This dangerously close, Viktor can see everything, and just like his trespassing ivy, a vast field of details wind through him, tangled inextricably in his memory.

Viktor’s traitorous mind has been caching everything and it wraps him up into a knot of stunned realization as surely as a carnivorous trap-plant snapping closed—

The patch of skin just under Jayce's rune bracelet, peeking out, barely visible, lighter than the rest of his forearm.

The everpresent stubble, growing darker, thicker as the day lengthens.

The strands of hair falling down from his coif (due to all his bustling), daring Viktor to reach up and ruin it completely, til it might fan over his forehead like black silk.

His ears, sticking out just a bit too far from his skull to be symmetrical, so godsdamn endearing.

The divot of a scar that sections his eyebrow, rendering his expressions even more vivid, and the newer cheek scar just underneath, from their first night as partners.

The gap in his teeth that breaks the illusion of portrait-perfect handsomeness. The sharp canines peeking out, somehow just drives him more insane for the difference, the perpetual boyish sweetness given a hint of danger.

The way his large callused hand, a powerful tool, is still cupping Viktor’s face so tenderly, as if he’s forgotten to drop it, and the contrast in their skin tones out of the corner of Viktor's eye, that lovely golden-bronze set against his own sickly milk-pale.

His eyes. Oh, they… The brightest, clearest hazel. Large, earnest, passionate. Butterscotch. Goldenrod. Presently? Soft, too soft. Jayce is still smiling at him, too close—

“Told ya I could,” Jayce gloats, eyebrows waggling. "My mom taught me that trick.” Then oh-so-gently he tucks a damp strand behind Viktor’s ear as if it’s nothing, his knuckles brushing Viktor’s cheek. “See? No reason to chop anything off.”

The touch sparks along Viktor’s skin, stunning him, freezing his blood as the sheer Jayceness slams into him like several consecutive Piltovan freight trains.

Today he smells like dish soap and grease and… flowers. (Jasmine. It's jasmine. Like the ones from the Academy Gardens that grow thick and fast in summer.)

No. It is not simply his hands; it is all of him.

Another fatal deduction rises up through the mire of contradictions: Despite the ill-thought out experiments and the attempts at distance… There is nothing clinical or austere about his feelings regarding Jayce Talis. There never will be, there never could be. The realization is heavy, a yoke across his shoulders, sinking in his stomach like a stone, weighing him down with the inevitability of it all.

Awash with feeling that might very well drag him to the depths of the ocean, Viktor must break off from looking at Jayce before he does something unwise, something he cannot take back.

Instead he stares back down at the fabric of his wrinkled trousers, and burns.

Chapter Text

After his blunder with the improved Rune Activation Apparatus and subsequent tantrum, Viktor attempts to shove his feelings back into their box, both unable and unwilling to examine them further. Even as he does it, he can feel the timer on this stopgap ticking at a quicker pace, as if a fuse has been lit, the box becoming an explosive.

Thankfully, there is always more work.

Jayce builds another prototype (with a sturdier alloy), and they resume the task of testing longer rune sequences. Most of these sequences conclude uninterestingly, the rune combinations dividing into each other neatly until the output is zero and the created energy neutralized; the apparatus whirs down with little fanfare, blue static dissipating harmlessly. However, they work through the exhaustive list of iterations until finally stumbling upon something that does something, something as definitive as buoying them up into the rafters that first night.

They’ve been circling it for months, a way to reliably replicate the manipulation of gravity, with control this time. The three-rune inputs were not enough information to direct the crystal’s energy with any real finesse. However, five-rune sequences are sophisticated enough for more complex commands. The sequence of [Transportation], [Transmission], [Conduction], [Acceleration], and then [Gravitation] yields an extraordinary result.

“It’s a Sending Spell!” Jayce cries, watching with eyes like saucers as another piece of chalk disappears and reappears across the lab in a cluster of brilliant sapphire sparks.

“It’s a Sending Sequence,” corrects Viktor, though he is no less awed. It’s just that they’re wading uphill through mud against the stigma surrounding the Arcane as it is.

“It’s technically both,” comes the muttered reply, Pouting Eyebrows Engaged. (This too is an uphill battle, through honey, if not mud.)

“All right, fine.” Viktor taps his pencil to his mouth. “Hm. A Sending String?”

“A Sending Spell-Sequence-String.”

He snorts. “Surely you do not intend to say this every time.”

“Hah, watch me.” Jayce’s shit-eating grin is somehow as charming as it is annoying.

“Eh, S to the fourth power is less of a mouthful,” he shoots back, unwilling to be outdone.

“Pssht. Marginally.”

Viktor hums serenely. “And, once again, it turns out that being marginally correct is still being correct.”

—

The exhilaration of success is short-lived, overshadowed by the dreaded Council meeting where they must sing for their supper, aka more funding. Rather, Jayce will do the singing—following the proposal outline Viktor has written and rewritten obsessively—while Viktor quietly runs the experiment in the background. (He sketches a quick prayer to Janna that neither of them throw up on anyone’s shoes.)

The updated proposal now centers heavily around the Sending Spell/Sequence, showcasing the viability by teleporting an envelope from their apparatus to float down dramatically before Professor Heimerdinger on the other side of the council table. Well, that’s what they intend to do. In actuality, the envelope smacks the Yordle in the face, his bushy mustache frizzling from the leftover static.

Jayce slaps a hand over his mouth and Viktor can practically see the nervous sweat break out on the back of his neck. Viktor feels the blood drain from his own face. Thankfully, the Professor just huffs and smooths his mustache over with a, “Great leaps from accidental hovering, I see!” It’s as good as praise.

Councilor Medarda inclines her head approvingly, though she is not the first to speak. (Avoiding the appearance of favoritism, perhaps.) Surprisingly it is Councilor Salo, who asks with keen-eyed interest,“What else could you transport in this manner?”

“Well, virtually anything!” Jayce rushes to answer. “Assuming we had enough Hexite crystal. Right now we just have the one crystal since the rest were stolen, so the mass we’re able to test is limited. But I know exactly where to find more! I’ve been on expeditions to Shurima with the Kiramman mining crews. That’s where I gathered the initial materials.” Viktor is impressed Jayce gets it all out without stammering, as that familiar fervor overtakes his speech, words running into each other.

The other Councilors murmur interestedly, batting suggestions back and forth for long nerve-wracking moments. Finally, Councilor Medarda’s smooth voice cuts through the chatter. “Then we are agreed. We will sponsor a geological survey for further materials. For more of this Hexite crystal.”

As the vote proceeds, Jayce turns back to meet Viktor’s eye. Pride suffuses Viktor even as his stomach churns, his limbs are as light as air. The feeling is only amplified by the huge grin that scrunches Jayce’s cheeks as he gives Viktor a cartoonishly excited thumbs up. His giddy triumph is infectious, as always, and Viktor grins back at him. Jayce’s eyes get even brighter somehow. For one shining moment of joy mingled with relief, the future unfurls before them infinitely and Viktor floats.

Jayce was right. There is nothing they cannot achieve together.

And then, as he keeps gazing into sparkling amber, another thought drifts in, unbidden: I could look at him every day and not tire of the looking.

Viktor’s stomach drops again, smile faltering. The feeling that he has been dodging swells up and threatens to sink him. His eyes dart away as Jayce turns back to answer a query from the Professor.

Fucking fuck.

—

Noon the next day finds Viktor perched on the roof of the main Academy research building—when he should instead be in the lab, many floors below—aggressively sucking down a hand-rolled cigarette.

It’s sweltering, the sun at its apex, though the perpetual breeze rising up from the Pilt alleviates some of the thick heat laid across Viktor’s shoulders and crawling under his uniform; the air cools the sweat on his neck and ruffles his hair playfully. Despite the heat, it is a halcyon day, pillowy white clouds and a cerulean sky. It’s too bad he is not in the mood to appreciate it.

Viktor leans heavily against the parapet, his cane hanging from his arm, peering down over the Academy Square at the gaggle of students and professors amiably bustling with a narrow-eyed peevishness that is perhaps undeserved.

There is no one else around, blessedly. No one is supposed to be up here at all, besides the occasional maintenance worker. Viktor’s first week as Dean’s Assistant, he’d made copies of the Academy masterset of keys for his own use and, quite remorselessly, forgot to turn them back over when he vacated the position. It has proven useful time and again to have access to various back rooms, supply offices, and freight elevators.

He inhales harshly, until the cherry-red tip of the cigarette nearly meets his fingers. Jabbing the butt out on the stone, he automatically lights another and takes a hard drag as if he’s holding a grudge against it. Or as if the curling smoke might have the answers to the questions stewing in his mind.

Namely, what to do with the box in his mind now marked: “Emotions Regarding Jayce Talis.” The revelation he can no longer ignore. Viktor has feelings for Jayce unlike any he has held for another person. It is more than a mere matter of the flesh, a point which was underlined heavily following his ill-conceived experiment, unignorable. No, instead, it is a matter of the mind, the heart, the soul, even. For Jayce he feels every emotion, in neon technicolor, it seems.

This is, to put it mildly, rather inconvenient.

For, what do they actually matter, those feelings? Even if Jayce were to return the sentiment, of which there is little proof, their partnership functions as it is. It functions exceptionally well, in fact. Viktor has never worked so frictionlessly with someone else, in a lockstep so synchronous it is as if Jayce has always been there to fill in the gaps in Viktor’s own expertise. The monumentality of that fact is already terrifying enough. To introduce this new variable could mean to unbalance them just as surely as locking the wrong rune input into their apparatus, sowing the seeds of disaster.

For as much as they complement each other intellectually, their work is a sequestered space, outside of the bounds of their identities as individuals. In the lab, they are a unit. Partners. A balanced scale. But, beyond the lab, they live in entirely different worlds. They have only known each other a few bare months, and spend all of their time working. They know few personal details about each other. To escalate intimacy on those sandy foundations? Foolish.

(This is not true, a many-iterations-removed Viktor scoffs. Jayce chatters to him about his personal life, inextricably from Hextech talk, at every opportunity. Viktor is less given to divulging, but has answered him in kind more than enough times to form a rapport beyond that of work colleagues.)

He shakes off this assertion like waving away an annoying fly. Besides, there are hard truths about Viktor’s life that he copes with just fine alone, systems he’s set up for himself, for his needs. Things Jayce does not know about and does not need to know about. Whereas further intimacy would force Jayce to reckon with those needs, force them into the spotlight, and Viktor does not want to find out if he would shrink away. It would be dangerous to even broach it. And, frankly, Viktor does not relish hanging the burden upon him, nor the complexity of fitting another person into his routines.

Of course, Jayce has been nothing but conscientious and kind and attentive. That is the person that he is, easily given to warmth and the desire to help, to please. He's also easily distracted, and that is the last thing Viktor wants, to have his feelings or his needs interfere with the flow of their work. He is simply not worth the fuss, not worth the time wasted when Jayce could be focused on Hextech’s development. That must always come first. Viktor refuses to kick over that rock without knowing where it would lead, without knowing if a nest of hornets awaits them.

As much attention as Viktor pays to Jayce’s needs, he thinks of it simply as his duty. It's different. Viktor took responsibility that night, on the ledge, to safeguard this life, this brilliant mind, this precious whirlwind in his pocket.

Therefore, they will continue on as they have been. Viktor will serve as a fixed point. Now that he has acknowledged the futility of wanting Jayce, he can crush that troublesome desire, swallow it down like a bitter medicine. His feelings for his partner matter not in the grand equation of what they are set to accomplish.

Two cigarettes quickly become three until Viktor’s lungs burn from the acrid smoke and he must stop. He gathers the crushed remnants in a handkerchief and shoves them in his pocket to dispose of later.

Jayce was in the lab when he left, hard at work drafting logistics and binders of geological information for their prospective survey team. It is cowardice to hide from him in this manner. Viktor heaves a breath and makes his way back to the freight elevator.

—

As soon as he enters the lab, Jayce is upon him in a red-faced panic. His hair is pleasantly rumpled, likely from running his hands through it. Viktor braces himself for terrible news.

“So you know how exams were, uh, at the end of the quarter?” Jayce is somehow more nervous than when he was on trial, wringing his hands in a motion that would look performative on anyone else.

“I am aware, yes. I graded them.”

“Right… And I…” Jayce mumbles something.

“You…? What?”

“I sorta… skipped them?”

“You skipped your… you skipped your senior exams?” Viktor’s voice is a bit too sharp in his surprise. “To graduate?”

Jayce winces, dragging both hands down over his face. “I know, I know. Fuck. But there was the explosion and the trial and then you and Hextech and all of it. And to be honest I hadn’t studied anyway…”

Viktor keeps staring at him, letting the ramble run its course while trying to keep incredulity from his expression.

“And well, Hextech works! And the Council were pleased, overall, and so I thought it would be fine but, uh, the Professor just called me into his office and, you know how he is, he’s so cheery about it but—” here Viktor nods shortly and Jayce carries on “—Yeah super cheery but with absolutely no wiggle room he told me I had to sit for the makeup exams next week because I have to have my ‘official credentials as a Piltover Academy graduate’ if Hextech is going to proceed.”

(“Well actually he said it more like—” here Jayce does an impressively good imitation of Professor Heimerdinger: “Well, how can we assign you as the head of this new field if you haven’t formally graduated, my dear boy? How would you apply for grants or patents through the Academy or be provided compensation and living benefits?” A little tut-tut. “Illogical for you to skip them. Viktor has already earned his credentials, simply turn the Hextech research over to him for a spell while you finish out your final year. Easy peasy!”)

“So. Uh.” Jayce keeps rubbing his face, the skin turning pink under the abuse. Viktor wants to reach out and stop him. He shifts his weight instead. “I know we’re completely slammed right now preparing for the Hexite survey on top of retrofitting the apparatus to transfer greater mass but— I. Have. To study.” Jayce grinds the last part out, eyes slightly unfocused as if he’s staring into an abyss.

Off Viktor’s look, Jayce gloomily passes over a clipboard with the exam schedule. “I’m… I’ve missed almost every class of this one.” Jayce points. “Anything that wasn’t Hextech research or adjacent really… uh, slipped through the cracks.”

Viktor stares at the paper instead of Jayce’s expression for the sake of his own composure. But it’s there, in his peripherals, The Pleading Eyebrows.

“ViktorWouldYouHelpMeStudyPlease?” And there it is, emerging in a slurred string of anxiety, barely intelligible.

(Well, honestly, how could he possibly say no to him? As dear those expressions, as beguiling the face, as haltingly anxious the requests are to make it past his lips.

It has become perilously difficult to deny Jayce.

Though this situation is truly case in point regarding their differences. Jayce Talis leaps before looking every time. It makes him bold and brilliant and magnificently compelling, it is precisely what drew Viktor to him in the first place. However, it also means he does not consider the consequences. Whereas all Viktor can see are consequences, his dreams fill with flowcharts and contingencies in every imaginable direction.

Well. He will simply hold the burden of considering the consequences for both of them and bury the rest as irrelevant. Including his silly little crush.)

Viktor hums. “Yes, fortunate for you that I once tutored for this course.”

“What, really?”

“Don't sound so surprised. I read broadly.”

“No, no, of course— I just meant… why?”

“As Assistant to the Dean I was often called on to fill absences, and the previous tutor took ill. Thus,” he gestures vaguely. “A week or so of assisting with Literature Studies.”

Some hours of explaining concepts later, Viktor has grown increasingly irritable. In addition to the frustration of trying to teach, the process pushes them into even closer proximity than usual. They sit nearly shoulder to shoulder at the table, which is not helping his rampant distraction.

“Jayce, I confess, I don’t understand how you are having such trouble with this. It is your first language.” In fact, Viktor feels the words thickening in his mouth as they emerge, crackling with unearned ire.

“Yeah sorry, V, I don't know either.” Jayce lets out a strangled little laugh. “The words just… swim in front of my eyes.”

Viktor inhales deeply, closing his eyes. When he opens them, he speaks more gently. “No need for apologies.” The soft rustling of the pages soothes him. “We shall simply return to the beginning of the chapter, da?”

—

Given Viktor’s new parameters, his urges put firmly back in check, work largely continues as it has been. The fevered lust of the weeks prior has crumbled to ash under the weight of cold, hard reality, as surely as a cigarette beneath his heel. Instead of being continuously flustered, Viktor descends into a thick fog of melancholia. He pours himself into the work almost seethingly as a result, glad to at least be able to focus.

The survey prep is progressing, in fact it’s chugging along like a well-oiled machine given that Jayce has been on several previous ventures. Together they pore over resumes sent from the Kiramman archives, thick sheaves of paper bundled in key-embossed folders, and discuss the requirements of the seven allotted positions.

Jayce passes all of his exams, even Literature Studies (by the skin of his teeth.) Afterwards, he hugs Viktor tightly, encompassing him in warmth, profuse thanks chorused into his ears. Viktor fights not to cling to him in return, simply accepting the gratitude with a murmured, “You are welcome, Jayce.”

Time will pass and Viktor will normalize. The dull ache of despair pulses only occasionally. (Only daily. Only that.)

No matter. He is an expert at ignoring pain.

—

Sooner than seems possible, all of the selections for the survey team have been made and the prospective crew fill their lab, gathering for an unofficial meet-and-greet. The team can begin to form a rapport and Jayce and Viktor can lay out specifications for locating and safely gathering the Hexite crystal.

However, it turns out to be more of a party than a briefing. The majority of the survey team are miners or factory workers, alongside whom Jayce has gone on previous excursions, and they’ve brought food and drink and cheer. In fact, Jayce seems to know the entire team already, down to the squeaky-voiced Yordle who will be their geologist.

Viktor hovers on the edges of the merriment, shuffling his notes awkwardly. He’d set his expectations to give a lecture on crystallography, mostly. Perhaps answer a few questions. He is entirely unprepared for this manner of gathering. Being the odd one out is not a new or unfamiliar feeling in his life, but it’s not one he’s experienced before in their lab. He swallows the taste in his mouth, which stings with something like bitterness. (Worse, perhaps, like jealousy.)

Somehow the crew manage to shove three huge metal pans and several cases of candied soda in chilled glass bottles into their tiny kitchenette, the limited counter-space converted into a buffet line. When the crinkly foil is peeled away, the pans are revealed to be stacked with steaming tamales, wrapped in cornhusk to keep them piping hot.

A long foldout table is dragged into the center of the lab, along with wooden picnic chairs, procured from somewhere, the lab transformed from a workspace to a banquet room with speed and efficiency. All the while boisterous chatter fills the room, echoing off of the vaulted ceiling, most of it in a language Viktor does not understand. (Ixtali, a distant part of his brain supplies.) Jayce does understand, it turns out, and slips into the language effortlessly.

The mountains of tamales smell marvelous, fragrant spiced meat and chilies wrapped in a fluffy dough. Viktor would typically inhale as many as humanly possible, and take some home besides, but this afternoon he finds himself without appetite.

Amid the bustle of setting up, Jayce tries to catch his eye—he has clearly saved a seat right beside him—but Viktor pretends not to notice. The idea of infiltrating that close camaraderie seems impossible, his stomach winding into knots at the thought. The dynamics are completely unknown to him. He doesn’t know how to fit; he doesn’t have enough data to even begin to try. Instead, he avoids Jayce’s gaze, tracking his feet and cane as he shuffles to a seat down near the end, dodging what is most certainly a look of disappointment.

Sitting beside Viktor is dusty old Professor Lymere, the only person he recognizes. They haven’t met but the once, at Professor Heimerdinger’s 304th birthday. Lymere used to teach Shuriman Archaeology and Cartography when Viktor was a first-year Academy student, but has since retired. Frankly, Viktor is surprised he is going along on such a journey at his age.

Viktor wants nothing more than to leave Jayce to this realm, to the art of charming others. But if he were to leave, Jayce would likely follow. He would be upset. Better to simply put in the time politely, quietly, out of the way. Thus, Viktor sips the sugary drink and exchanges awkward pleasantries with Professor Lymere.

(Though, he is mostly watching Jayce.)

From the sidelines, he observes as his partner slots into a dynamic that Viktor has never seen before. He comes alive around the five Ixtali laborers brought on to be their mining team—three men and two women. He’s blossoming with good cheer and ease such that Viktor notices all at once how much Jayce typically tends to shrink into himself. Making himself smaller, unintimidating, more palatable.

For as open and affectionate as Jayce can be, he shies from the raucous Academy parties just as Viktor does, visibly uncomfortable amongst their prospective peers. Like Viktor, he flounders at bridging the gap between himself and others, with anyone who is not already on his wavelength. Viktor thinks of Jayce’s affection like a spout which flows freely into a predetermined vessel. The tap may be endless, but the scope is small, contained.

Viktor thought he knew that scope, and has documented the shortlist of Jayce’s close companions in his mind: his mother, the young Miss Kiramman (somewhere between a sister and a charge), and now Viktor.

That list, it seems, is incomplete. He cannot decide what is more bothersome—the miscalculation due to incorrect data, or the slithering coil of possessiveness that accompanies it.

For, in this moment, Jayce is unburdened by the usual mantle of anxiety he wears when he must address the Council, or Professors, or students, or shopkeepers… He is comfortable, joking and occasionally even roughhousing, jostling elbows and nudging shoulders, smiling broad and easy. His hands gesticulate as he tells a long, rambling story, reaching out, free with his touch in a way that makes Viktor’s chest burn.

What he wouldn’t give to slip away to the rooftop and have a smoke or three. Instead he weathers the merrymaking as quietly as possible, fingers drumming his thigh under the table.

—

Selfishly, Viktor still hoards every moment of Jayce’s touch, affectionate as ever. Even as it hurts to be near him, the ache is welcome. It is still Jayce, after all. Being with him is akin to sipping at the very sun; Viktor, a plant given vital nutrients.

His hands always find their way to Viktor—clapping onto his shoulder, tapping his arm for attention, folding him into excitable embraces—as if to do so is second nature, their expected resting place.

It is as if Jayce carries the heat of the forge with him everywhere, and Viktor has grown to crave that warmth in whatever form. It is a respite from his self-pitying, a welcome distraction from physical discomfort, and a reminder that Jayce enjoys his company, treasures his presence, despite the constant strangers in their space these days.

Every touch is a bright spot momentarily banishing the clouds of his foul mood, but he is discovering the rebound simultaneously makes the difference more stark.

It is never enough. He always misses his touch as soon as it ends. Viktor has always been skilled at subsisting on crumbs, but living in Piltover must have truly softened his resolve, the starvation, the lack, now amplified, aching worse upon its resumption.

It’s fine. He can manage. (It is only hunger. Only that.)

—

Another day of preparation has the survey team congregating in their lab. Jayce has his entire mineral collection spread out across the workbench, eyes bright and excited as he addresses the crew. He holds each sample up in turn, explaining what minerals they might find, their properties, which ones most often appear in proximity to the Hexite, how they interact, and safest methods for extraction of the delicate mineral.

Viktor works quietly on the other side of the lab, annotating Jayce’s draft for the apparatus retrofit. Soon, though, he finds himself with the notes abandoned on his desk, his stool swiveled to observe, soaking in the waves of passion emanating from Jayce. It’s impossible to ignore him when he gets like this, a force of nature that draws in everyone around him. His fervor returns him to something luminous and larger than life, the meekness and anxiety shed.

“Now this lace agate and this amethyst,” Jayce pauses to hold the geodes up high, the blue and purple crystals twinkling with sunlight pouring in from the window. “These may at first blush LOOK like Hexite crystal, in color and composition, but while they’re really pretty, they’re not what we need.” He sets them delicately back in their display stands. “So, to get in the right neighborhood of Hexite, you’ll wanna look for less silica-based surrounding rock and more carbon-based. We want limestone, not sandstone. Okay, yeah, and here is what those look like—” He hoists up two chunks of rock, a bit of stray sediment crumbling onto the workbench.

Jayce’s hands talk as much as his mouth, flourishing, gesticulating, fingers tracing the stratifications and crystalizations of the minerals as he explains. It's hypnotizing. Jayce never stops moving, not really; even when he falls asleep across the workbench, his face twitches with his dreams.

The sound of Jayce’s voice has become a comfort, a welcome companion, even when Viktor cannot quite follow the subject matter. That animated cadence is a living thing that imbues the room with energy, making every space he occupies feel fuller. Something briefly pierces through the clouds of Viktor’s recent gloom as he allows himself to bask in Jayce's enthusiasm, the warmth radiating outwards, as if he were again clamoring for a spot near the hearth in the orphanage.

After the nearly forty minute geology lecture, it finally appears that Jayce will turn the floor over to their actual geologist—a diminutive woman even by Yordle standards—who has been standing beside him patiently, blinking owlishly behind her huge spectacles.

“But perhaps more important than all of that—” Jayce sucks in a huge breath mid-stream “—is to watch out for those goddamn ornery camels.” His face is set in absolute solemnity.

However, there are always tangents yet on the horizon, Viktor thinks fondly, idly fiddling with his pencil, glad that no one can see the smile pulling at his mouth.

The mining crew start snickering amongst themselves, and one of the men responds in Ixtali. Viktor doesn’t understand, but the tone is dripping with sarcasm.

Jayce forges onward, undeterred. “I’m serious! One of them almost took my finger off last time! You gotta watch the bastards.”

“You are the expert,” a different crew member replies with amusement. “But why are you telling us all this, jefe? You will be there to protect the team from esos camellos jodones, no?”

Viktor jolts in his chair. What? He sits stockstill, hunching back over notes that he hasn't been focusing on for some time. His ears hone in on the conversation so intently that if it were physically possible they would have swiveled. He waits on tenterhooks for Jayce to tell her that she is mistaken.

But Jayce switches back to Ixtali to answer, his voice dropping soft and wondering. As he speaks, at length, he rubs his rune bracelet with a longing look in his eyes. Finally he flashes one of his rueful little expressions to the woman who asked.

No matter. Viktor needn’t be able to understand what is spoken, because Jayce’s body language speaks volumes to Viktor.

Jayce would… go with them? Oh. A hurt lances through Viktor, altogether unexpected in its severity.

A response is bandied back and the mood shifts again, the group dissolving into what seems like a round of playful ribbing. Viktor cannot catch anything further in Piltovan.

Viktor stands from his desk, his head spinning. Perhaps Jayce hasn’t noticed him and he can slip out, escape to the roof and crush down his emotions. He cannot risk another outburst.

No such luck. Jayce catches his arm, just as he is at the door. Gentle, so gentle, always so careful not to unbalance him. Today the gesture only makes the wound in his chest tear a little wider. “V? Are you all right?” A little frown, worry radiating from him.

“Just taking a break to get some fresh air,” he says as evenly as possible, aware of the audience in the room.

“Oh, okay…” Jayce trails off, as if there is more he wants to say. “See you in a bit.”

Viktor gives a short nod, pulling away and opening the door without looking at him.

—

Viktor rides the elevator to the roof in a daze, his mind spinning like a top, a static fuzz building up between his ears until the roar drowns out everything else.

He draws a cigarette out of his vest pocket mindlessly and lights it before he even exits the elevator. Something awful is building in the pit of his stomach, clenching and coiling, traveling up into his ribcage and strangling his heart like some malevolent serpent.

As miserable as Viktor has been these past few weeks, there is some amount of predictability and safety in misery. Once one hits rock bottom, there is peace in that realization. If there is no further to fall, there is nothing new to anticipate. One can prepare for each subsequent day of the same black mire, and act accordingly.

He’d been mistaken. This is far worse, this is bedrock, this is something akin to a detonating star, he thinks, a bit hyperbolically. Viktor should have known better than to think of the night they cracked Hextech as a promise, rather than an anomaly. The return to earth, the return of gravity, is just as jarring in his heart today as in his body, all those months ago.

He stands at his familiar parapet and stares out over the setting sun further gilding Piltover’s magnificent skyline, but it brings him no comfort to perch in his nest above it all and privately disparage the ostentation today.

He glances down at his perfectly shined shoes, at the geometrical patterns embroidered into his uniform vest. Neat, sleek, just like the architecture. The Piltovan style. A cloak, a studied camouflage. He sneers, flicking ash over the side of the roof. It has always been a fool’s effort to fit in here. Always an outsider, it seems. An imposter. Even in his own lab, even with Jayce.

Viktor had thought… No, he’d known, despite all of the other confusions, despite his feelings twisting like a labyrinth, he’d known that Jayce loved their work together, loved collaborating, loved developing Hextech as a duo. It was an inarguable axiom, foundational, not a doubt in his mind. The lab had become a place in which they were both allowed to exist as themselves, absent performance for once. A place where Viktor would be understood and respected as a given instead of being forced to claw any recognition from the world via obstinacy and guile.

But, no. Partners was a word deployed only as lip service, to placate. Decorative.

This is exactly what he’d been trying to avoid, by keeping their relationship away from deeper intimacy. And yet, here he is regardless. Viktor has allowed himself to become naive during his time topside. Too optimistic, his expectations set incorrectly.

He takes a hard drag, the chemicals surging through his bloodstream making him lightheaded. He feels like a gyroscope torn off its mooring, knocked completely off its axis. Jayce would go with them. Jayce would leave Viktor in the lab, alone.

The same man who did not want to be separated from Viktor even for the time it took to study for his godsdamned final exams, that man will be gone for months?

It makes a terrible sort of sense. Perhaps this is who Jayce Talis is. Viktor has been charting the slew of contradictions, after all. His reservations about how little they truly knew each other in contexts beyond work are being validated. (Oh, Janna be praised for his excess of prudence.)

He flicks his lighter impatiently, lighting another cigarette. (He’d built it out of spare parts for fun. He has four more, all of different designs, all built out of recycled lab remnants. It’d been an easy project. Diverting. It felt like being a child again, building toys from scrap metal, but without the crushing feeling of being trapped.)

Perhaps he’d been too distracted by other matters to put the pieces together, but it coalesces now into something conclusive: The familiarity, the camaraderie, the little asides in Ixtali prompting laughter. The ease that Viktor had come to claim as his.

The way Jayce relaxes around Viktor, the way his shoulders unhunch, his smile loose and real, lopsided, the motormouth ramblings, absent compulsive apologies—these are gifts, hard-earned.

Their running tally of who could concoct the worst pun without groaning, the points marked in a corner of the chalkboard next to a reminder of “REMEMBER TO WEAR PPE!!!” The chemistry, the connectivity of their minds, the treasured friendship developing hand in hand with the work, with discovery, with his cursed overflow of feelings.

Touches are bestowed upon that shortlist of companions and no others. Precisely why it is so difficult to give up. But, no, that Jayce is not as exclusive as he thought.

And now Jayce would leave. Travel somewhere that Viktor could not follow, with others, with the survey crew. He would make memories that Viktor would not be privy to.

Viktor is again a child isolated on the shore of the polluted reservoir—where the borders of Piltover and its Undercity blur—watching the others play and swim, hearing their laughter, excluded one way or another, pursuing his own activities in solitude, crafting his own diversions, because no one else would entertain him, after all.

Finally that thing strangling his chest disgorges bile from its maw, a poisonous anger which floods his veins. How dare he. How dare Jayce make him feel this small.

(If a many-iterations-removed Viktor chides him in this moment for being so uncharitable to think such things of Jayce, he ignores it.)

Perhaps he is being unfair. He has not asked for clarification. But Viktor also refuses to ask a question as dire as this while unsure of the answer. It would destroy him to hear it spoken aloud.

Regardless, his bitterness cannot hurt Jayce here, the swirling miasma of doubt and despair kept quarantined within Viktor’s ribcage, unexpressed.

—

As the days drag on, Viktor drives himself into perilously fouler moods, dark clouds of ire surging forth thicker, angrier.

So he disengages, focusing on other projects that need doing. He finalizes the annotations for the apparatus retrofit and then moves directly to the modifications, working through the nights, alone.

Whenever the survey crew show up for the day, he vanishes to the roof until he can slip into the back of the lab, unnoticed. Some days he even works on the roof instead, sitting down and leaning against the parapet, notebook in his lap, crunched into increasingly more terrible positions.

He leaves Jayce to lead the survey logistics, who meets with the team almost every day as their date of departure approaches. Viktor’s absence will not be noticed.

He has studied the survey map, a hollow feeling carving into him. The desert, the caverns, the mines, the prospective camp sites. Even discounting sleeping rough and the limited access to his many medications, the terrain itself would be completely impossible for Viktor to navigate. He'd be a constant hindrance.

There is no world in which Viktor would be able to accompany them. That bitter creature seethes in his chest, reminded anew of the limitations of his body, the inability to participate in those pursuits he cares about.

He internally censures himself for getting excited in the first place, for hoping that he would be able to participate this time.

Of course this is the same. Of course there would be parts of Hextech's development that he would be excluded from. Why did Viktor allow himself to think this would be different?

(He knows why. Because Jayce has never treated him as less, as incapable. So he allowed himself to live in a fantasy, to forget the facts for a moment. It only makes it hurt worse. It only makes him more resentful.)

—

On the eve of the survey crew’s departure, Viktor locks himself in the lab, finally empty and absent of its recent commotion, settling in to work through the night.

He feels like some feral thing, snappish, brittle, poised to break along the faultline just like one of Jayce’s minerals. Full to the gills with poison and vitriol that he doesn’t want to overflow onto his partner. Which is easily achieved, since Jayce is not here. Since Jayce is leaving.

Viktor hunches over his desk with their Hextech Rune Codex, a fountain pen, and a stack of calligraphy paper. He is attempting to create a stencil masterset comprised of all their existing runes. When finished, it will allow them to chemically etch the runes onto the brass keys used for their apparatus, instead of painstakingly scratching them onto each one. It will be more precise, easier. Eventually.

Viktor has worked with these types of chemical compounds before, a variant on the one they use to produce blueprints. The vials are already set up in meticulous order, ready to be used. Chemistry is not the problem here.

That he knows intimately, along with the mechanics, the physics, the mathematics… but the fucking runes are fickle things, unfamiliar, and he swears the Hexite crystal itself has moods. The most polite way to describe it would be temperamental on the best of days; the decision to activate and to what degree seeming to depend on the position of the fucking stars. Though, it responds most predictably if the runes are drawn precisely, not a stroke out of place.

Thus, a masterset of perfect stencils. Which he is attempting to create. It would help if he could draw them correctly the first time. Or the second. Or third. Ionian ink is rather expensive and must be imported by ship.

Twirling a lock of hair over and over, Viktor scowls fiercely at the calligraphy paper. It’s not the paper’s fault, however. It’s lovely material, thick absorbent sheaves, handmade in the Artisan District and sold at his favorite stationary store. (The same as the ill-fated black notebook.)

No, unfortunately, though his pride is smarting, this is user error.

When manipulating tools, delicate mechanisms, or chemicals, Viktor's hands serve him perfectly well, deft and steady. He can even rough out prototype schematics without issue. He forced himself to learn, because he had to, leaning heavily on the lines of the graph paper, though he has no formal art training, but this…

This is an art. Jayce is far better suited for this. Calligraphy is a skillset that Viktor has no business bastardizing in this manner.

Hextech keeps pushing him out of his comfort zone, often exhilarating in its novelty, in its discoveries… Sometimes, however, it instead finds him blotting the fifth sheet of stencil paper with another glob of expensive ink, miscalculating the stroke again.

Viktor is only marginally better at drawing the runes than he was a few months ago, the symbols emerging wobbly and scratchy.

His forearm spasms miserably and he curses under his breath, setting the pen back into its ink well to massage the muscle. The tendons are snarled up into a hard knot of tension from strangling the fountain pen for hours. (He has a mint and camphor salve that would dull the pain, but it's at home and if he takes a break now he will simply give up for the night.)

Viktor snatches the pen back up, hissing through his teeth as his hand cramps, but he continues regardless. It is a mere drop in the bucket of his myriad pains. A sharp stab of agony makes itself known along Viktor's spine as he shifts. His lower back is a tangled mess of tension from slumping forward over the work, body as tense as an overwound mechanism. He's been sitting in the same position for a protracted amount of time, hours sliding by in a blur. Being upright would help alleviate his back pain, but it will inevitably make his leg and hip worse. And he'd rather not lose the mobility in order to be able to walk home later.

(His balance has been… persnickety, lately, to the point that he will need more support soon, for both his leg and his back. Sooner than expected. Just one more tickmark on Viktor's ledger of annoyances and inconveniences. One more thing to manage in order to continue working. His pain is like a system of interconnected pressure valves: when you ease one, another blocks up as a result. A forever balancing act he is doomed to fail.)

The pain only exacerbates his lack of precision. Distantly, Viktor knows he will not be making progress tonight. He should take a break, step away for a while. But what else does he have to work on? What else is there to occupy him?

The tantalizing promise of smoking a pipeful of medicinal herb and curling up around a hot water bottle keeps Viktor pushing through, perhaps longer than he should, but who is around to criticize, who is around to notice. The lab is silent except for the humming of the generator. This needs to be done before Jayce returns.

Viktor works doggedly for twenty more frustration-laden minutes, until Jayce unexpectedly swans through the door. Viktor startles in his seat, head swinging around to stare at him.

Jayce enters in a rush of motion, noise and life, as he always does. He's singing jauntily under his breath. (Viktor identifies it as from the Ixtali dance record that has been on repeat in the lab for weeks.)

He's wearing a white undershirt, heavy-duty trousers, and a towel slung casually around his neck, absent the usual workcoat, gloves, and toolbelt. He's clearly just come from the forge: his hair is a tousled mess, the product having been obliterated by the heat; his cheeks are flushed, a rosy tint glowing beneath the bronze. The thin fabric of the undershirt clings to sweat-dampened skin as if Jayce threw it on immediately after finishing his project and rushed back here as soon as possible.

He is a vision manifested directly from Viktor's fantasies. A most distracting and unwelcome temptation, the sight of him is like pressing on a bruise.

“Aren't you supposed to be preparing for departure?” Viktor asks with an edge he doesn’t intend, borne of frustration and surprise. He thought he was alone to wallow in private at last, uninterrupted, and without any need to curb his moods for company.

“No?” Jayce replies, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. The bridge of his nose is smudged with soot. “I was in the forge. I made you more brass plates for the rune-keys.” He lets them fall from his palm and they clatter pleasantly onto the workbench, reminiscent of a wind chime.

Viktor stares at him openly, his frown deepening. “Do you not have more important items to prepare? For tomorrow?”

“No?” Jayce repeats, giving Viktor an increasingly strange look. The silence stretches uncomfortably, Viktor feeling like he has missed a stair.

“You are not… going with them?” It emerges awkward and stilted.

“Uh. No?” And now Jayce has said it a third time and Viktor still does not understand.

He tries again. “You have spent weeks preparing the crew. Building rapport. Leading them.” Laughing, chattering, making merry, rambling about his rock collection…

“Well… yeah, of course. Because they needed to know what they were looking for. But…” Jayce's mouth is downturned in bafflement. It makes Viktor’s skin itch. “I was never going with them though.“

“Why not?” Viktor hates how strained his voice sounds. He has a sinking feeling that he already knows the answer, but for some reason he cannot make himself stop digging for something that will hurt.

“I’ve seen plenty of the desert already. It’s hot; there’s a lot of sand,” Jayce snarks, flashing a toothy grin. When Viktor doesn’t so much as smile, Jayce’s expression drops back into a puzzled frown. “Are you joking right now?”

“But, you—“

—But you were so excited and you love it so much and you want to be out there and I don't want to keep you from being out there just because I can't do it—

It is no use. His mouth works, but Viktor cannot force out the words. The dark ruminations from earlier die in his throat instead, cowering away from Jayce’s sincere confusion.

“Okay V, seriously, what is your deal lately?” Jayce huffs, his cheeks puffing out from the force. “Explain it to me, cuz I really don’t get it. We figured out the Sending Spell, our proposal got approved, we’re funded for a Hexite survey, and they’re probably gonna let us hire some research assistants in the meantime so you can have that technical writer…” He paces in short lines before Viktor as he speaks, hands on his hips. “Tons of good news, by my account, but instead of celebrating you’ve been…” Jayce pauses to locate the right word. “Sulking.”

“That is not fair,” Viktor retorts, defensive. Even though Jayce is correct, of course. “I’ve done as much work as you these last weeks. I am working as we speak.” He gestures sharply to his desk, stupidly drawing attention to the mess of ink before him. His cheeks heat in humiliation.

“Okay…” Jayce raises an eyebrow at him. “And you’ve been avoiding the survey crew like the plague, because?” Avoiding me, he doesn’t say, but Viktor hears it regardless.

“I briefed them on the crystal resonance theory.”

“You terrified them,” Jayce says flatly. “Your eyebrows were summoning storm clouds. You were channeling Janna's dark aspect. You sounded like you were handing down F grades on final projects."

Something in Viktor finally snaps. “Well, my apologies that we cannot all be as effortlessly charming as you are.” He swivels his stool away from Jayce, a clear dismissal, and begins scribbling at another terrible-looking rune.

Jayce barks a surprised laugh. The dismissal does not work, of course it wouldn’t. Viktor can feel Jayce staring at him.

Jayce hums, then states with uncomfortable clarity, “So, it is me then. I’m the problem. All right, tell me what I did wrong and I’ll fix it.” His voice brims with earnestness, and something else underneath, a tired understanding.

“It is nothing,” Viktor says, eyes flicking back to him. “You’re right, it will be better once we have help in the lab. I’m just… tired.” An excuse as weak as tissue paper, but he persists, mouth set in a firm line.

Jayce rolls his eyes. “C’mon Viktor, don’t fucking give me that.”

Viktor keeps his tone as neutral as possible. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Jayce pins him with a shrewd look, followed by, almost conversationally, “Did you know you sigh a lot when you're unhappy? You also lurk in the shadows like an irate ghost. And you never speak first in the mornings. Oh, and you also smoke a lot more, which by the way I have no idea where you go, but the smell sure lingers.” Jayce ticks off the points on his fingers, laying out the damning evidence with a mortifying precision.

Ah. Viktor has miscalculated yet again.

“Not to mention, the day the crew asked if I would supervise, you made a face like you'd swallowed a hot pickled frog, vanished for an hour, and when you came back you went into your little Viktor corner for the rest of the day.”

Viktor opens his mouth to protest this point, at least, about his corner, but Jayce barrels onwards.

“Sure, you didn't say anything to me, you never say anything, but I have fucking eyes and I notice when you’re unhappy. So yeah, don’t give me that shit, V. What’s the problem?” He’s worked himself into a froth, aggravation bleeding out of him, hands gesturing wildly to match the spikes of pitch and volume.

How futile, Viktor muses, his attempts at playing invisible, at squashing himself into smaller and smaller corners to avoid becoming a nuisance or a hindrance. Because Jayce, as distractible as he may seem, is paying very close attention.

He is also treading uncomfortably close to the truth: that Viktor’s feelings have grown teeth, become predators circling him in the depths, their terrifying eyes flashing with despair and jealousy and bitterness.

If Viktor admits to the real root of the issue—the touching, the affection—then Jayce will simply accept it as his due, twisting the facts until the situation becomes Jayce’s fault, and then he will stop. The warmth will recede, the casual intimacy will be no more.

Every single one of these conclusions is unacceptable.

But, similarly, he knows Jayce will not be put off by further deflections and half-truths. He has that mulish gleam in his eye like he does when he talks about Hextech, a deranged stubbornness to rival Viktor’s own. He will have to give him something real, then. Not the entirety, no, but… something.

Viktor reaches up to rub his temple, a migraine creeping in on top of everything else. “It is…” he begins, draws in a breath and starts again, as brusque and plain as he can. “I cannot go. I will never be able to go. I will never get to see the crystals as you have, raw magic, in the wilderness. It chafes, I suppose. The missed opportunities.” Viktor mutters this last part to the floor, the words extracted like rotten teeth.

“Okay,” Jayce says slowly. Viktor can almost hear the gears in his mind turning with great intensity, connecting the pieces. “And, so,” his voice gentles as he goes on, “You just... assumed I was going without you? That's why you’ve been avoiding me, and the team?”

Viktor reluctantly meets Jayce’s eyes, the too-soft, too-understanding hazel. “I… misheard,” he admits, something inside him seizing in embarrassment at how he’s blown this entire situation out of proportion. It is unlike him. “But, you were… excited. You seemed happy. I would not want you to miss out.”

Jayce huffs in exasperation, shaking his head. “Viktor, I admit, sometimes I really don't understand you.” He rubs a hand over his face, a habitual fidget when stressed. “So let me see if I have this… You would just accept you missing out, but not me. Did you ever consider, with that big brilliant brain of yours, that maybe that would also make me feel like shit? Did you ever think maybe I wouldn’t even have any fun if you weren’t there?”

No. Not really. Viktor looks back down at the desk pointedly, silent. It is answer enough.

“Of course I’m not going without you,” Jayce repeats patiently. Too soft, too earnest, too resolute. “We're partners." He says it like he always does, like it explains everything. “So, we'll send the team, and stay here to work on other things. Divide and conquer, right V?”

Viktor looks back at him mutely, reeling now in an entirely different way, unsure what the right response is.

“Also,” Jayce continues, tone shifting, rescuing Viktor from having to respond. “That camel fucking spit on me for six days straight. I am not eager to return.” He scrunches his nose in distaste in a way that shouldn't be so endearing. “It had some kind of preternatural ability to know when I'd just laundered my clothes and then—” Here he makes a truly awful hocking sound.

He knows Jayce is playing it up for humor, to cheer him up, but Viktor still cannot help the snort that escapes him at the exaggerated look of disgust.

“Camel spit, V!” Jayce stresses. “We had to wash everything by hand, as a reminder. With a washboard. So fuck that very much.”

Viktor holds a hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter. This ridiculous man.

Jayce flashes a triumphant look, moving closer. “Now, what are you working on, partner?”

Viktor scoffs. “The masterset of rune stencils. Poorly.”

Jayce leans over him to peer at the desk, his hands settling onto Viktor’s shoulders. "Wow, no wonder. You're super tense,” he comments, squeezing the muscles in a comforting motion, fingers wrapping around to touch Viktor’s collarbones, those broad hands enveloping him in warmth.

The motion causes Viktor to tense further, which then prompts Jayce to squeeze harder, his thumbs digging deep into the cramped muscles of his shoulders even through the layers of clothing. It aches fiercely for a moment, but Jayce keeps working the knots and some of the tension releases, deliriously good. Viktor smothers a relieved groan. He cannot resist melting into his chair a bit, leaning back into pressure. It has been a rough month, and the massage he has fantasized about has at last manifested. He might as well enjoy it.

“Okay, so, I see your problem,” Jayce hums as he leans further over the desk, practically draping himself over Viktor like the cosiest heated blanket. “It’s the choppy little lines, yeah? You’re drawing from the wrist and it’s making the strokes of the rune sort of… shaky, instead of smooth.”

“You are the artist, not I,” Viktor mutters, embarrassed by his failures, shifting underneath the scrutiny. He is unable to look at him, but it doesn't crowd out his voice, nor his capable hands continuing to massage firmly as he speaks. Viktor doesn’t tell him to stop. He cannot.

“I do warmups before drawing, actually,” Jayce says cheerily. “I used to get frustrated with the linework, too. Then I sat in on some of Cait’s figure drawing lessons. It was… well, it was kinda babysitting, really,” he laughs. “But I picked up some stuff.”

Viktor feels the poison of his own thoughts drain from him little by little, like lancing a wound. Each and every time, Jayce manages to follow some impossible set of instructions, smoothing Viktor’s prickly spines until they again lay flat and relaxed. Why was he avoiding him, again?

Jayce breaks off with a final squeeze. "Anyway, yeah, c'mere, I wanna show you something." He moves to the chalkboard, taking his warm hands with him.

Viktor stands gingerly, levering himself up with his cane. His back gives a warning twinge at the shift in position. He follows Jayce like a foolish moth to the flame. (Again. Always.)

Jayce wipes a section of the chalkboard clean using the towel from his neck, and begins drawing unbroken lines from one side of the board to the other. “The warmup exercise is to start with long, smooth lines, always leading from the shoulder. Just… let them flow out of you.” Jayce demonstrates as he speaks, settling into a meditative instructional cadence. He’s good at it, easy in this, confident. “‘Couple repetitions and then…” He transitions seamlessly to sketching. A few smooth strokes form the [Acceleration] Rune. It’s perfect.

“Okay, now,” Jayce murmurs, repositioning them. He guides Viktor with a hand on either shoulder to stand in front of him. “Now you.”

Viktor keeps finding himself in this same position—Jayce pressed flush to his back, hemming him in—as if his life has become a skipping record, a recurring dream that he cannot does not want to wake from.

Viktor can never seem to keep warm on his own, even wearing three layers of clothing in late summer, whereas Jayce radiates heat, furnace-like. Today, it pours off of him in tangible waves, even underdressed as he is. His bare arms come up, one to place a piece of chalk in Viktor’s right hand, the other to settle at his hip for stability. The intimacy of the act makes Viktor's breath catch as the chalk is folded gently into his fingers.

The bulk of Jayce wrapped around him is frustratingly comfortable, his chest makes for the perfect support, the ideal resting place, godsdamn him. He is simultaneously dwarfed and sheltered, but not trapped. Viktor updates the growing list of contradictions absently. Bracketed in Jayce's sturdy embrace like this, Viktor hardly even needs to lean on his cane.

Notably, a position that would make him claustrophobic in any other context, overtures he would repudiate anyone else for, feels instead akin to sinking into a steaming bath. (Or perhaps akin to downing a shot of liquor on an empty stomach, the way his head is swimming.)

Suddenly, Viktor remembers what Jayce said earlier about the smell of cigarettes. A bolt of self-consciousness strikes him. They are so close that it must be unavoidable.

"Do I truly smell bad?" He asks with a wry self-deprecation. “From the cigarettes?”

In a heartstopping, breath-stuttering moment, Jayce immediately turns his head to nuzzle into Viktor's hair, inhaling deeply, gathering data.

Well. He asked. (Had known exactly what Jayce would do and asked anyway.)

"Mmm, no, not too bad,” Jayce reports. “More like ink and paper. What about me? Do I smell like soot?”

Viktor resists the urge to turn his head. Instead he simply breathes in slowly through his nose, absorbing. Today Jayce smells…. elemental. Iron and soot and musk. It swamps him, dizzying. All at once his body remembers what it wants.

“Eh, a little,” Viktor replies, voice rough. “Not too bad.”

“May I?” asks Jayce, his right hand cradling Viktor’s, poised to direct him manually, he realizes.

There is something utterly absurd about the question. That, molded to Viktor’s back like liquid, holding him like a lover, hand already clasping him, this is the moment that Jayce Talis has chosen to ask permission to touch him.

He merely inclines his head in assent.

Jayce hums and firms his grasp, gently, kindly, his palm slightly damp from sweat, so fucking warm, his fingers sliding over Viktor’s obscenely intimate, mirroring his own grasp around the chalk, overlaid. His nails are bitten down brutally, cuticles scabbed from anxious picking. The pads of his fingers are calloused, and this close Viktor can see small nicks and burns dotting his knuckles, the back of his hands.

How convenient, we are at the perfect height difference for this manner of demonstration, Viktor notes in a daze. He lifts his eyes to the chalkboard in a trance as Jayce begins speaking again.

“Just like before, V.” Jayce begins to guide Viktor's arm as he speaks, from the shoulder. “Repetitions of flowing lines. Practicing the motion, committing it to muscle memory. Until it’s second nature.” This cadence is different from the others, from the rambling, from the spinning out of theories. The thread of Jayce’s voice is softer, warmer, passion banked rather than roaring. In fact, he sounds as calm as Viktor ever hears him, piping the words directly into Viktor’s ear. It is meant only for him, an audience of one.

Viktor focuses on breathing, on staying present, on not drowning in molten heat.

Just as Jayce maneuvers his arm through another long line on the board, Viktor clutches the piece of chalk too tightly and his forearm spasms in pain, still a gnarled lump of agony from before. He hisses involuntarily and nearly drops the chalk, jerking against Jayce, who steadies him automatically.

“Hm, hurts?” Jayce doesn't wait for an answer, already taking the chalk from Viktor, setting it back in the tray. Both hands come up to inspect Viktor's offending forearm, deliberately and carefully mapping along the muscle, identifying tension with probing thumbs. “Here, yeah? Shit, you're all locked up, Vik.” His tone is a blend of concern and exasperation as he begins to knead the hard knot with uncompromising pressure.

Viktor grits his teeth against the intensity of the sensation. “I have… overdone it. Perhaps. Lately,” he manages in a stuttering exhale.

“Mmhmm,” Jayce responds, the sound knowing and amused and sarcastic in equal measure. “Stubborn-ass.” The hands rubbing relief into Viktor take the sting out of the chiding. Methodically, unerringly, Jayce locates the pain points all down his forearm, as if by magic, and massages them into submission, thumbs applying steady luxurious pressure.

“Tch. Look who is talking,” Viktor breathes. He was aiming for indignation, but frankly cannot even muster a faint annoyance. “You have barely slept the last two weeks.”

He feels Jayce shrug. “I napped on the futon a bit.” He's moved to grasp Viktor's bony wrist now, swiping along the joint in soothing strokes, then continues massaging downwards, cradling Viktor’s right hand in both of his.

“You are only proving my point.” Viktor sounds fucking drugged to his own ears, barely keeping up the thread of banter.

And Jayce is definitely rolling his eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah. Pot. Kettle.”

Viktor doesn't have the wherewithal to be embarrassed at this point. He's tired of resisting something that feels so good. He lets himself lean back, lapsing against the perfect pillowed surface of Jayce's chest. A couch of a man, Viktor thinks nonsensically. He somehow keeps himself from giggling hysterically at the thought.

Jayce squeezes the meat of his palm, the knuckle of each finger in turn, the pain and discomfort being chased away patiently by his strong gorgeous hands.

It feels so wonderful that Viktor might as well be floating. Immersed in pure sensation, overwhelming and comforting all at once, Jayce’s everpresent warmth thawing the last chips of ice that had built up in his heart.

Frankly, a bomb could go off in the lab and Viktor would not notice, brain fizzling like champagne. There is nothing except this moment, a private universe where only they exist, here, at the chalkboard, wrapped up in each other and this quiet conversation. Forever.

Viktor lets himself have it. At least for now.

Sometime later, Jayce speaks again. “Better?” His voice is low, barely a murmur.

Viktor blinks, surfacing as if through molasses, drowsy, luxuriating in the novelty of the pain receding without a double dose of his medication. “...Yes,” he answers at length. “Thank you, Jayce.”

“Mine get like this too. Deathgripping the tongs in the forge.” Jayce chuckles. He retrieves the chalk and moves to take Viktor’s hand as before, to demonstrate. “They also shake, sometimes. I'm sure you've seen.”

Viktor has. Jayce has a slight tremor that manifests when he is nervous, which is often, and only worsens when his blood sugar is low.

(Viktor has found himself purchasing pastries and savory snacks from the market stalls in the early morning before work, setting them quietly on the workbench when Jayce is otherwise occupied for him to find later, unobtrusively. This never works, of course. Jayce acknowledges the treat each and every time, flashing wide pleading eyes at Viktor until he agrees to take half. Viktor never knows how to respond to Jayce’s bountiful gratitude. It is a small gesture, practical. But at least they are both eating more regularly as a result.)

Jayce keeps talking, low and rumbling, as he maneuvers Viktor’s hand. Viktor fights to pay attention to the lesson, Jayce’s voice the only anchor in a vast sea of overwhelming sensation.

“Hard to do any precision work until it goes away. So I understand the frustration. But massages help, hand stretches help, practice helps. I’m, uh, bad about remembering the stretches,” Jayce admits sheepishly.

He puppets Viktor gently through the Sending Spell. Five runes in a row. “From the shoulder, see,” Jayce murmurs. It’s a different kind of magic to watch his own hand render the strokes perfectly.

The feeling of their hands wrapped together, fused into a single tool, is both novel and devastating, far more intimate than what has come before. Somehow, Jayce continues to find new and unpredictable avenues of touch with which to surprise him.

As Viktor’s responses come slower and clumsier to his tongue, thick in his mouth from their continued proximity, he remembers something. A realization that was buried beneath his jealousy and depression.

“You did not correct me,” Viktor says quietly. “When I said Piltovan was your first language.” It is a criticism ignorant topsiders have often levied against Viktor, questioning his grasp of the language. Shame creeps under his skin. He has unknowingly done the same to Jayce.

Jayce pauses his motion, humming, thinking back. It was over a month ago. “Well, it is, kinda. They both are. I learned them at the same time. My dad is from Piltover and my mom is from Ixtal. So.” He shrugs. “Actually, that's why I'm so close with our mining team. They're cousins, on my mom's side. They came around a lot after dad died. Helped out.” His tone is far away, tinged bittersweet. "So… yeah, when I was going on the Kiramman expedition I put in a good word for them. They knew mining already from working with House Talis and, well, it was nice to have friendly faces around, even if they do tease me a lot.” He chuckles. Then pauses. “Sorry I didn't mention it before. You just.” Jayce pauses again, silence hanging heavy. When he speaks again, he sounds smaller, resigned. “You didn't seem like you wanted to hear any more personal details.”

Viktor's stomach drops like a stone in a bottomless well. Despite trying to corral the foul moods, he has instead given this impression. His actions have made Jayce feel self-conscious, like he needed to close off or apologize for something. It's unbearable.

“I always want them,” Viktor blurts out. Far too loud for how close they are.

Jayce freezes, stops guiding his hand, Viktor can feel him holding his breath. Then comes, “Really?” His voice is thready, unsure.

“I always want to hear what you wish to tell me, Jayce.” Unquestionably firm. Inflexible. He wants it to sound the way Jayce did earlier when he told Viktor he'd never go without him.

Jayce squeezes him a bit tighter, burying his face in Viktor’s hair again, an approximation of a hug in their current position. “I-I’m glad—” His voice cracks, relieved and unbearably raw.

After a moment, Jayce startles, as if catching himself. He clears his throat. "Oh, um, now you try.” He releases Viktor's hand at last, slowly, as if reluctant.

Staring studiously at the chalkboard, with Jayce an unending wall of heat at his back, Viktor’s hands do not shake as he makes a few fluid lines, mimicking Jayce’s technique, from the shoulder, and renders the Sending Spell in precise and impeccable form.

Then Viktor continues drawing, sketching new lines around the [Acceleration] Rune, shading sharp jabs for texture marks, and finishing with a flourish. “Like so?” he says with dry humor. He’s transformed the rune into a caricature of the Professor’s prized poro.

It is only partially successful in breaking the meaningful tension. For when Jayce chuckles brightly, he is still pressed closely enough that the sound vibrates from his chest into Viktor.

"See? Perfect.” Jayce makes another little chuff of pleased laughter, warm and intimate, right into Viktor's ear. “Nothing you can't do, V." Jayce proclaims it with such naked admiration, such sheer conviction, that it almost feels like it could be the truth.

At least for the moment, Viktor allows himself to believe him.