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Chapter Text

Viktor had never doubted the existence of a god above. He'd been raised in the religion of his family that went back generations, branching through every aspect of his life down, perhaps, to his genetics and the way his brain worked. He'd been a man of science but a mind of belief, a cognitive dissonance he spent many years trying to unravel and ignore until it became something in the background. Something he could subconsciously draw upon even as the logic of his medical teachings admonished him for it. 

Like the utter coincidence that the planet was the perfect distance to experience total eclipses. Or that the moon was the right size and distance to make the tides. Had something been out of balance, king tides would have been the regular or great floods could have taken over the world. Was it not the hand of something powerful up above keeping the world's head above the water and away from the eddys of a dangerous existence?

Viktor spent much of his adolescence studying the burgeoning sciences of biochemistry, evolution, and mechanics of living organisms. His own shortcomings when it came to his body and physical functions spurred his young curiosity and drive to make himself better- and to make the world better as a result. Therefore, he knew much of the biomechanical functions of living creatures: apes and primates, dogs, aquatic creatures like the whale. 

In spite of all the evidence for science and all the lack of evidence for religion, the roots grew and connected the two all by the study of evolution. While on paper, Viktor understood the beginnings of life and how it all worked, but without the all-knowing hand to guide it, without the will of something beyond it all, how could it be?

His mentor was in deep disagreement. The doctor never believed in something above guiding the steps of all life itself. Even in the first few moments they'd met, long before Viktor's family fell ill and there was no one else to turn to, the doctor never allowed anything but his own will to guide his actions. He believed all things came to be by chance, just as Viktor meeting him in a tide pools cave watching salamander eggs hatch was a moment of chance. 

In spite of their fundamental disagreement, the doctor and Viktor got along well, following the chains of conversation and the bridges of evolution found near fortnightly. They both hungered for the new knowledge and the way it would impact their medical practices, how evolution could guide the treatment of humans and their animal cousins. 

Over all their discussions about the movement of time and its effect of nature, there was one creature in particular he and his mentor agreed were disproportionately affected by evolution to a heinous degree that which their function made them seem unlikely to even survive. 

The horse and its equine cousins. 

Made out of paper mache and pure prayer, those creatures could barely breathe without some evolutionary jiggery pokery that boggled the mind and perplexed the intelligent. Balancing on their toes and partially hollow bones fit to pump blood at incredible speeds, the creatures were meant to live fraught and anxiety-filled lives before dying in some dramatic fashion that would traumatize a crowd of onlookers. Yet they could live more than half the span of a human's. Fascinating. Horrific. A spit in the face of evolution putting many eggs in many more baskets for sometimes those eggs came out seemingly wrong.

Viktor had these thoughts in the split second his world turned sideways, the split second his own horse turned tail and dumped him most ungracefully. And he should have seen it coming because he'd stolen her, and if the mare had any sense about her, she would have thrown him much earlier in their journey, but alas, she was quite dumb. Hence for her spooking and throwing him to the ground. 

Horses. God, he couldn't stand the damn things. 

The blazing hot scrub lands went on for miles and Viktor was getting quite tired of limping past half-dead bushes. The mare must have dropped him not long before mid-morning and by his estimations it was a few hours before sundown. The dry meat of his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he could only thank the heavens that he'd had the sense to cut his hair a few days before absconding the city, though his neck felt the relentless burn of the sun above him. 

The sweat beaded its way down his neck, down his shirt, wicking to his skin, and then dissipating back into the air with pitiful speed. In the rising heat of the day, Viktor had shrugged off his heavy coat, held it for a mile or two before dropping it with a huff so as to free his cane hand from its heavy heat. He deigned not to roll his sleeves, he feared the burning touch of the sun. His old and insistent cough tightened its hold around his throat until he hacked and wheezed in the dryness of air around him. The familiar tang of blood settled in the back of his throat.

Regret began to swamp his mind around the time that it ached from dehydration. Would the consequences of his actions truly been worse than what he currently suffered if he had remained in the city? It can't have been. Not when Viktor was sure to die in a manner of hours, rather than the few days of due process and judgement he would have received. The path before him he unwittingly chose when he mounted that stupid red horse was instead the judgement of God himself, and if Viktor remembered correctly from his early school days, God was not one to stay his hand in the manner of punishment. 

He was being too harsh on the horse, he supposed, trying to distract from the all-mighty fear of a God who may or may not have existed. She didn't want to be out in the scrublands. She was a city horse, born and trained to pull a carriage without a fuss. Sometimes ride as his mentor’s, the Doctor's, horse in the streets when he wanted to appear stately without the fuss of a carriage. 

Of course, he was a much more talented rider than Viktor, given the healthy physical abilities he possessed that Viktor had been denied upon birth. The Doctor was also a cruel rider, forcing his horses down to his will until their rush to buck and fright all but vanished. He had yet to exercise his whip on the mare, and perhaps Viktor was both the savior and victim of that in the end. 

A bead of worry held in his chest. There must not have been a soul for miles. He hoped she found a watering hole or came across a good Samaritan to take her in. He'd hate for another soul to perish by his doing. All in the pursuit of his own survival. 

He was wrenched from his morbid thoughts with the breaking of the earth below him and the stumble on the edge of a broken ledge. A laugh from the god above if Viktor could give the effort of acknowledging it so. 

A sheer drop of fifty feet, not enough to kill, but enough to maim. He settled his fingers on the ground before him where he slid, clutching his cane with sweaty fingers, and breathing most shakily into the air. A bead of sweat curled down his nose and dropped to the ground, staining the orange dirt dark. 

His story almost ended there, it would have cut off hours more suffering as the liquid evaporated from his body and left him a lifeless husk of bones. Both ends seemed horrible, but only one gave him hours more worth of chance. 

He scrambled to his feet away from the hill's edge and continued on, coughing as lightly as he could from the dust he'd inhaled.

The sun started to set and his hope began to truly leave him. He searched for an overhang or some kind of cover, and in the distance, a lonely tree stood. He bent his head, made the grueling walk in the dying sun, and avoided all the waylaid rocks that wished to trip up his wavering cane hand. 

But upon reaching the tree, he found it occupied. 

A large dark man, a large dark horse, and the rope he held loosely in his palms below the large dark and solitary tree. Viktor must have been losing his mind, especially as the dark of the night began to creep into his periphery and he couldn't keep his sights set on one spot for the life of him. 

Viktor stepped forward, close enough for the large dark horse to take notice and wicker. He muttered something he thought was clever enough for someone of his standing, then promptly fell to his knees. His resolve cracked like the hillside from earlier in the day. 

The large dark man took notice, and with his hazel eyes flashing in alarm as he swept towards Viktor, the whites of his panicked eyes bled into the rising moon and then faded all together. 

Then, Viktor was truly lost. 

The following night became a feverish blur. The man used his precious drinking water to wake Viktor and then promptly hoisted him to the top of the large dark horse. Viktor did not loosen his grip on the saddle for a moment, even as the man teased him. 

“You can let go of the horn,” He suggested, softer than Viktor expected his voice to be. The whole interaction had been much softer than Viktor had expected it to be. Light slapping on his cheeks, a face so close to his and so filled with concern. The man had sharp features that became rounded with kindness. His mouth was a severe line that, upon opening to a gasp, rounded at the edges and revealed a tooth gap. He supported Viktor's own weight as he had boosted him into the saddle and now led him… somewhere. The man had probably mentioned where, but Viktor immediately forgot in his febrile state of mind. 

“No, thank you,” Viktor muttered, his stomach flipping with each step of the horse. His legs hung uselessly on either side of the stirrups, too disoriented to find their steadying hold. “I am quite pleased to keep holding on in this way.”

The man's eyes crinkled in light amusement, a quiet smile revealing that surprising tooth gap. Viktor looked down at the coarse rope the man led the horse with. It was not the same rope he had been holding upon Viktor's entrance, this one was attached to the dark horse's face with a thin leather harness and large rounded nosepiece. No bit held the horse within the man's power, merely the soft push and pull of the coarse multi-colored rope reins in his hands. A third, seemingly useless, rope hung from the end of the nosepiece and attached itself under the horn of the saddle. 

Yes, Viktor would be hanging on quite tightly if that was the set up the man used for the powerful beast. 

The walk was a long way, and with the poison of the sunburn Viktor sustained coursing through him, his reality began to slip and a cough tore through him. His grip on the saddle loosened and the world turned sideways for the second time. The man caught him with just the slightest jump of surprise from the horse.

Viktor felt beyond humiliated as the man eased onto the horse behind him and bracketed Viktor into place with the strength of his arms. An elbow slipped around Viktor's middle and if he weren't sapped of all his energy, he would throw himself underneath the horse's pounding hooves and let the great beast trample him to death. 

Viktor was not used to being taken care of- of being found within the periphery of a medical incident with the kindness this stranger had shown him. Usually it was the Doctor who found him, and that always spelled another experimental treatment that Viktor would spend days recovering from. Viktor was used to flinching from what was supposed to be help. But he supposed, perhaps this time, it truly was kindness and help that he was receiving. 

The heavy cadence of the horse's gallop kept Viktor within himself, instead of floating away into the softness of unconsciousness. His breath pounded into his lungs with each footfall, his head began to loll against the stranger's shoulder, and his legs bounced harmlessly against the horse's side. Time turned to melting tendrils, like the dripping of wax, fast and then slow and then fast again before joining the pool of its usual state of being. Of course, Viktor began to lose the edges of himself again as his view drew up a structural shape in the growing darkness of the plains. 

He could feel the stranger slow the horse with a deep and heady command, rumbling low in his chest where Viktor's ear laid. Then, those strong arms that had bracketed him in place were holding him steady as they both dismounted the creature. And then Viktor became cradled in the outstretched darkness of the night sky as the horse's run no longer held him to the earth. He may have been coughing. He was probably coughing. That was usual for him after all. 

Reality slipped again and through a series of flashes (early morning where the severe man bent over him with soft concern in his eyes, another night of a coughing fit and a bucket below him catching the drips from his open mouth, heat clawing its way up his neck and throwing the sheets from his body as his sweat clung to his skin), he became aware that time had passed. And as he blinked open his eyes, he could see the light of mid morning glowing around his surroundings. 

Viktor was in a single room home with four sets of windows on one end and none on the other. A kitchen took up the back of the home with a door leading to somewhere beyond its windowless section of the house. The bed sat uncomfortably close to the front door with an ancient settee facing it on the opposite wall. A small bookshelf stood guard next to the settee and a well-worn notebook lay face down on the cushion. Dirty dishes, scraps of paper, and an open chest of clothing pointed to the occupier of the space not being of cleanliness. The whole room smelled musty and dry, like rotten hay. If Viktor hadn't spent quite a while unintentionally fasting in the tight hold of his illness, he'd be at risk of feeling ill once more. 

To his right, on the lean-to bedside table, a finger-smudged glass of water waited for him, alongside the head of his cane balanced at the edge. His cravat and his sleeve garters sat in an oddly neat pile around the rest of the knickknacks, books, and paraphernalia that dotted the one-room house. Care had been set in his things and it made his chest feel a little tight with embarrassment. The tightness expounded as he sat up and realized his clothes had been removed at some point in his unconsciousness. He slept in someone else's nightshirt- likely the stranger in all of his massiveness. He blushed at the realization of his own impropriety. 

At the end of the bed was his clothing, fresh and washed, though the collar of his shirt bore the pink circular stains of blood, smudged as if its washer had tried to remove them by force. Viktor's skin continued to heat in embarrassment as he dressed, still sitting on the bed. Next to it, his leg and back braces, the latter folded neatly in half. He blanched at the thought of the stranger seeing his naked body so close as to undo his back support. He shuddered at the image. 

Finally came the moment of truth: attempting to stand with his shaky legs. He held his cane tight in one hand and stood, wobbling across the room until he had to collapse against the settee. His legs needed a moment, the circulation made his senses feel dull and tingly. 

In his rest, Viktor occupied himself with the worn face down book, finding it to be a journal. And though at first he tried to set it back down, exploratory sketches of oil rig designs, water pumps, oil lamp repository basins, and more held his attention. Engineering designs he wouldn't imagine a ranch hand would have time for. Each page was signed with the same signature, JT, written in a logo-style design. Viktor scoffed at each page when his eyes reached that area. Pompousness that did not befit a ranch hand as well. 

It was a little while later that Viktor finally could stand, his braces secured on, and walk without feeling like a freshly-born foal. Though his head still pounded with each motion deemed too quick by his central nervous system. He tried the front door and found nothing but expansive fields and a dirt road leading away. Looking at the rest of the building, it seemed attached to a small barn with stall windows shut tight to the heat. Seeing that, Viktor turned around, walked through the living space, and entered the stalls. 

The main hallway was empty, but the shuffling and general… horse noises, Viktor supposed, showed that there were some signs of life: the equine type. No people so far, though. And Viktor was not one to yell. He'd either find the stranger and thank him before getting on his way on foot, or he wouldn't and he would leave without saying goodbye. But he figured he should try before the latter option. 

Viktor crept among the stalls, creeping about as well as a man with a cane could. He felt the eyes of the horses, especially as he drew closer. A yellow one whickered happily, a dark brown one copied the sound. Then it was infectious, another unseen horse down the way called back and it rumbled about the barn as every horse decided to make itself known. 

Then, Viktor heard the scrape of a rake against the ground and a tuneless whistle of someone quite tone deaf further down along the barn. Sure enough, a stall was slightly slid open, a bucket outside, and a heap of sawdust, hay, and horse excrement flew through the opening. Viktor hesitated for just a moment until a dark head of hair popped out of the entrance and caught notice of him. 

Severe features turned soft and excited as that gap-toothed smile bloomed across the stranger's face, bright against his dark beard. The notebook owner, JT, Viktor assumed. “You're up!” He called, exiting the stall carrying a wooden rake with him. “And you found your clothes, I hope you don't mind that I washed ‘em for you while you were out.”

“No, it's-” Viktor blushed furiously. “It was very kind, thank you. And, um, thank you for saving me as well.”

JT's smile shrank a bit smaller as he leaned against the stall door. “It was the right thing to do,” He said, setting the rake to the side and shoving his hands into his pockets. “I mean, it was pretty lucky you found me when you did.”

“I would not call nearly dying in the desert lucky,” Viktor replied. “More foolish.”

The man nodded, his eyes glazing over in the distance. Viktor took the opportunity to really get a look at him. He was a massive man, towering almost as tall as the stall door, massive hands that spoke to a craftsman, long curling hair that touched the nape of his neck, a beard that seemed unkempt and patchy towards its edge. He looked like a wild man, a man meant for the land he lived on. Viktor suddenly wanted to leave from his presence as heat grew below his collar. 

“I must thank you,” Viktor said, snapping JT out of his stupor, “Yet again. But I must also be on my way.”

“On your way?” He smiled quizzically. “Not six hours ago, you were vomiting blood and, even now, you look like the wind could blow you over at the slightest breeze.”

Viktor blushed, a frown pulling his lips taut. “I will be fine-” 

“‘Sides,” He added pointing to the other end of the barn, “Ain't that your strawberry roan?” 

Viktor turned, but in his turning, he lost his fraught balance. His head pounded- the movement must have been too quick- but before he could fall onto the admittedly soft ground, strong hands caught his midsection and held him upright against a wall of a body. 

“Woah, careful,” JT cautioned, his voice rumbling through his chest to Viktor. “You're still pretty weak-”

The undeniable shame and embarrassment became so heady, it made Viktor want to claw his skin off. The debt he owed to this poor man would be insurmountable by the time he managed to crawl away and set on his original path to somewhere other than where he was at any given time. 

“It's fine,” Viktor muttered, his lips feeling thick and dumb. “I just need to sit.”

The stranger sighed and pulled Viktor's arm over his head to brace his walk. “Okay, come on, let's get you back inside for a bit,” He gruffed. Normally, Viktor would argue, but with his head turned to mush and his brain threatening to melt out his ears, he didn't have the energy to. 

What he did have the energy for was a little bit of needed decorum as he whispered a “Thank you,” barely even discernible through the shuff of their clothing together. But the stranger took it in stride, if he even heard it at all. 

When Viktor was rearranged on the bed, his back against the iron wrought headboard and the weaker of his two legs stretched out, he glanced at the notebook. “So, you must have quite a lot of time on your hands around here, sir,” He started, holding the glass from earlier demurely in his hands. 

The stranger looked at him oddly from the kitchen, using the sink pump to fill a large pot of water. Viktor tried not to stare at the man's muscles and failed most stunningly. He distracted himself with a small sip. 

“Not really,” The man replied, a grunt from the thick pressure of the pump catching his voice. “I mean, I'm still mid-stalls and it's noon- pretty slow movin’ for my tendencies. Then I gotta start on the three year olds, then the hackemore group, then I gotta ride out and check the fences…” He paused. “Usually, I'm half done by now, guess it's gonna be a long day.”

Viktor hummed, his gaze drifting back to the journal. In his slush-like mind, he hadn't returned it in the spot he'd originally found it, and it was bookmarked for a far deeper spot than JT had left it. The man followed his gaze, but Viktor spoke up before he could.

“I hope you pardon my curiosity,” He said, fiddling with the edge of the glass. “But your designs were quite fascinating.”

“No, it's um-” 

But Viktor's loose mind made for a loose tongue as he interrupted his host.

“However, signing every page? A little egotistical, no?” Viktor joked, lifting the glass to a curled lip. 

It could blow up in his face, but like many of his past experiments, Viktor was used to that kind of reaction. But it did not go the way he expected. It went the way he hoped. And that was a fragile thing to witness. 

The man's severe confusion turned back to that softness. Like the melting of ice in spring's warm embrace, he became a new man with that glow about him. 

“Leftover from my school days,” He admitted, his face darkening a shade. 

“So what did they call you in your school days?” Viktor asked. “Or is your full name JT as you write it on every page?”

The man scoffed, hefting the pot from the deep sink onto the stove top. “Ha! You make me sound more like a bumpkin than I really am.” He straightened so Viktor could see him across the room better. An easy smile rounded his face as sweetly as a cherub. “It's Jayce,” He replied. “Jayce Talis.”

“Jayce Talis,” Viktor repeated, feeling the syllables across his tongue like smooth dance. “Then, I shall thank you again, Mr. Talis.”

“Pleasure's all mine,” Jayce replied easily. “But I have to counter that I don't even know your name, and I carried you in here twice now. Bad manners is what that is.”

There was that embarrassment again, heating his cheeks and making it hard to look the man in the eye. “It's Viktor,” He choked out eventually. 

“Just Viktor?” Jayce asked. “No surname to know you by?”

A self-loathing grin took over any of Viktor's lasting amusement. No low-born like him possessed a last name, not when they called Piltover's undercity home. “Bad manners is what it is,” Viktor repeated.

Jayce quirked a brow and turned to the stovetop with a loud breath. “I guess so, Mr. Viktor,” He chuckled. “You are a strange one, ain't you?”

“As are you,” Viktor shot back, “What ranch hand has the time to think up designing a better oil lamp repository?” 

“Are you saying folks from the sticks can't be smart enough for it?” Jayce retaliated, but it was light and playful. If it were Viktor in the hot seat as Jayce was, he would have started lashing out.

“I- no-” 

Jayce laughed, taking it in stride. “I'm just messin’,” He admitted, looking back down at the boiling water. He pulled a jar full of grain from one of the open shelves above him and dumped in two full scoops. “I had a formal education before my time out here. I was an engineer- and you can't just switch off a mind like that with idle work.”

“So, why are you out here?” Viktor asked simply, his question slow and prodding. 

Another thing Jayce took in stride. He glanced Viktor up and down, lingering his gaze over him in slow, halting movements. Viktor felt analyzed and exposed. “The fresh air,” Jayce answered after a long pause. 

“Hm,” Viktor hummed, but he left it at that. If he were to be asked why he had fled to the countryside, he wouldn't be able to answer in such an easy way. He'd be arrested, really.

“So, that mare of yours,” Jayce said, changing the subject. “You wouldn't happen to have your papers with her, would you?”

Viktor blinked. In his mad rush to leave his mentor's house, he had missed one of the most important aspects of taking an expensive beast such as the one he stole. If he were to be stopped and searched or if he tried to sell her, it would lead him into quite the problem. Horse thievery, and fraud as well, were quite looked down upon in civil society. 

His mind scrambled for an explanation, but he had little to grasp. He could play that he'd had the papers then fantastically lost them. He could forge them later on with a little bit of niftiness. But Jayce was looking at him expectantly and he needed to answer. 

“They were in my coat,” Viktor answered. It sounded false in his ears. “I didn't even think when I dropped it out on the plains.” 

“Uh huh,” Jayce replied. There came a wafting scent of whatever he was working on, it smelled grainy and thick, with the added tang of butter. He grated a salt shaker. “She must be awful young, still has a bunch of tooth caps that need to come out.”

Viktor stilled at that. He supposed she was young, he remembered the Doctor purchasing her about a year ago to start her training, but Viktor, who knew only enough about horses that he didn't want to experience incredulity each time he was around them, assumed that was normal. Maybe it wasn't. After all, the Doctor was a one of a kind horse trainer, meaning that even those with little knowledge could tell that such a heavy hand was too much for a creature to bear. 

“Honestly, it's kind of amazing she's so far along in her training that you've got her in a shank bit, but personally, I woulda kept her at a snaffle for her age,” Jayce chided. 

Viktor shrugged. “It was, uh, not my choice,” He decided to admit. “I did not train her and her tendencies were told to me by another.”

“And who're they?” Jayce asked, pulling a set of mismatched bowls from one of the creaky shelves above him. 

“A not so good man,” Viktor admitted. “But my dealings with him are over with.”

“Shoo,” Jayce whistled a breath between that gap in his teeth, shaking his head and scooping the bowls from the table top. He handed the bowl off once he crossed the room to sit beside Viktor, warm and heady, both the man and the bowl in his hands. “You speak in so many riddles, I half expect you to start rhymin'.” 

Viktor smirked, feeling the bounce of Jayce beside him creep the two bodies closer in the weight of their masses on the mattress. “Be glad that I am a scientist and not a poet. I would be twice as hard to understand.”

Jayce picked up the spoon, taking a precautionary taste before smiling with a glint in his eye. “I’m quite glad, I like parsin’ out what you say,” He replied, gesturing to the grits Viktor had made no move to consume. 

Warmth radiated around Viktor, making him feel at ease and far more comfortable than he'd felt even minutes before. With a thankful grin in reply, he took up the utensil and bit. 

Eventually, Viktor made it out to see the stupid strawberry roan horse, and though he nursed a bruise on his ego (and ass), a rush of relief ran through him. She wickered upon the stall door opening, a mouthful of hay caught in her mouth, but ignored the pile behind her to step curiously towards the door. Jayce stopped her with a kind hand on her snout and a pat on her neck. 

“She really is a beauty,” Jayce said, looking her up and down. “She came thunderin’ over the hillside and I almost forgot to grab my rope to stop her, she caught me so off guard.” He rubbed down her nose, ticking her lips until she gummed towards his fingers with loud popping sounds. “She must have smelled the horses, she came running here from wherever she dropped you, I guess.”

Viktor raised an eyebrow. “She came here? But, this isn't where I found you,” He pointed out.

Jayce glanced towards Viktor then away just as fast. He was hiding something. “I was, uh, out in the scrublands, checking for loose cattle.” That was a lie, but Jayce pivoted before Viktor could ask again. “Honestly, it's been a bit since I've seen such a pretty-lookin’ mare. You can tell she ain't a stud when you look at her.” 

Viktor took a good glance at her as well. A small horse, her height betrayed her age, though Viktor doubted she would get much taller- maybe a bit broader if her stocky muscles carried any genetic weight. Her coloring was mostly a pinkish-grey with the tops of her neck, back, and rear speckled with darker flecks of red. The blaze on her face bled to her cheeks, turning her eyes blue in their all-encompassing reach. Her forelock, streaked with white from her odd coloring, stretched halfway down to her nose and the texture was curlier than he'd ever seen on a horse. 

Her blue eyes flicked to Viktor outside of the stall and she pushed her nose over Jayce's arm to get to Viktor. “Woah,” Jayce cautioned her, keeping her from escaping the stall. He glanced at Viktor, quirking a brow. “You know, you can come in here and pet her. She's your mare.” 

Viktor took a small step forward but hesitated without lifting his hand. “She has always been attention-starved. She will be alright.”

Jayce scoffed, but continued his evaluation of her. “She's a good size for her age- I mentioned the tooth caps but those won't be an issue for a few more months. They might come out on their own.” He gestured to her legs. “Looks a little pigeon-toed, nothing too bad, though.” 

Viktor tried to see what Jayce mentioned, but the bottom of her hooves were covered by the hay. Maybe there was the tiniest twist to her knees. He, who was also pigeon-toed from his poor leg, felt an odd sense of kinship with the young mare. 

“She ain't deaf, thank goodness,” Jayce added, snapping behind her ears which caused her to tense her back and her eyes to widen. “Kinda amazing she's got you this far when she's this jumpy.”

Viktor shrugged. “Is it so hard to believe that she likes me?” 

Jayce squinted, a grin overtaking his credulity. “No, you're very likeable.” Jayce smiled a moment too long at Viktor, just long enough to make him shift against his cane, before Jayce turned back, his words a little quick. “Anyways- uh, I can work with her- if you want that is-” 

Viktor stepped back and the horse jerked with his sudden movement. “Why would- I'm not expecting-”

“I know, I know,” He soothed, stepped more into the stall doorway and closer to Viktor. “But, I mean, you're a cane user-” 

“Yes, and-” 

“But she's terrified of it,” Jayce said, waving to the mobility device in Viktor's hands. “Everytime you move the thing, she jumps away. She probably thinks it's a whip or a crop- something you could hit her with.”

Viktor reeled back in shock. “I would never-”

“I'm not saying you would,” Jayce said, “But if that ‘not so good man’, who put her in a shank bit years earlier than he should, had a reason to get mad at her, he might have tried something like that.” 

Viktor paused. The truth was clear: the doctor was no good man. His animals bore the brunt of his iron grip. Viktor bore the brunt of his curious mind. More than a few scars from the doctor's impromptu experimental operations lingered on Viktor's leg and spine. The doctor's dogs would cower when he stepped by. He once threw one of the alley cats Viktor fed into a pen with a rabid creature to see how quickly the disease spread. The doctor never gentled his hand, never made a kind action without some selfish endeavor behind it. Though his words were soft, his retaliations were cruel. 

The poor mare flinched again as Viktor tightened his hand over the cane pommel. “That is true,” He said, his expression feeling heavy. “Though, I did not witness it. I figured she was free from his cruelty being so young as she is,” He sighed leaning against the door frame and pulling the cane out from her view. “But I still must leave as soon as possible.”

Jayce glanced him up and down. “You're in no condition to travel even in the best of circumstances. Stay here for a while- until you're better, at least. I can take care of her.” 

Viktor shook his head. “I also have no money-” 

“I don't need compensation,” Jayce replied easily, turning to start braiding small sections of her curly pinkish mane. 

“But we'll be taking your resources, your food, your labor, your time-”

“And I don't care,” Jayce replied. He looked over his shoulder. “I'm paid quite well by the owners of this ranch. I don't need your compensation.”

Viktor felt floored. This kind man, this selfless man, barely knew Viktor more than two waking hours and already offered a space in his home for him? What kind of fool was he to do such a thing? 

“You are too kind,” Viktor said, a critical and cautious tone taking over. “Someone will take advantage of your kindness one day.”

Jayce smirked, turning his attention back to the braiding though his smile glowed brightly at Viktor. “Let's hope it's not today then.” 

Viktor took to his new lodgings furiously, moving back into the attached cottage once Jayce returned to mucking the stalls, and decided he too would muck up a stall. In a way. 

Piles of clothing, bowls full of food attracting flies, an unmade bed, and floors caked with dust and tracked-in barn excrement. He started with the clothing, building a pile on the kitchen table and then moved onto the unorganized knickknacks. A cough raked its way through him with each up and down motion, but Viktor didn't care. He had a silent debt to pay, and damn it was he going to make his amends. 

Viktor found no trace of cleaning supplies throughout the entire house- and he didn't want to trek through the barn and let his lack of resting be known. Jayce gave him specific instructions to go inside and lie down to ease the lightheadedness. It was better to have his dishonesty caught later after the work was done. Without cleaning supplies, Viktor strode to the kitchen, deciding to make do with what he had. The floors and surfaces wouldn't be clean but they wouldn't be as dirty. 

Jayce walked in at sundown, wiping a bandana over his eyes then paused with a start once he noticed the change. In the darkening house, lit by the glow of the western sky, Jayce blinked at its cleanliness, the made bed, the dirty clothing bundled away in a cloth bag, the bowls set to dry on the kitchen table over a cloth. When Viktor popped up on the other side of the bed, smudged dirt on his face, Jayce came trundling over. 

“Viktor!” He cried. “You're s’posed to be resting!” 

Viktor smothered a cough, it would do little to help him. He swallowed tightly. “You cleaned my horse's stall, I cleaned yours,” He replied, quirking his lips as Jayce blushed. 

“Come here,” He uttered, bracketing Viktor up and over to sit on the bed. “Let me finish, you've done more than your fair share.”

Viktor sighed at the relief of his knees, massaging each cap. “It is only fair,” He argued, but did not argue about Jayce taking over. “Equivalent exchange and the like.”

“Equivalent exchange only works when both parties agree to it,” Jayce argued back. “Especially when one of the parties is not in good health.”

Viktor frowned, swallowing back another cough. “I'm fine,” He blustered, his lips pulling taut. “And I wanted to do it. Take that as a gift or however you like.”

Jayce set his hands on his thigh, looking like a monk in prayer. Except for his frustration, clear and targeted towards Viktor. He sat in a paused silence, stewed in the knowledge that Viktor had outwitted his altruism with a false flag of altruism of his own. Jayce was no fool, Viktor knew he would take this not as a gift but as a near slight against his kindness. But Jayce puffed out a long breath. 

“Fine,” He sighed, bending over to continue scrubbing at the floors. “But this is not going to be a usual thing, okay? You don't need that kind of stress as you're healing.”

“Okay,” Viktor hummed, pleased he got his way. He would clean again when the time allowed it. 

“And thank you,” Jayce added, keeping his gaze down. “This was very kind.”

Viktor felt frozen for a moment. Taken aback by Jayce as he scrubbed at the final few feet of scuffed up floor boards, Viktor threaded the bed sheets between his fingers. He hadn't done his cleaning for thanks, only to satisfy the unspoken debt that was bracketing up between them. But, he felt a twinge of guilt, a twinge of affection, a twinge of want. He wanted to clean again, not for the thanks, but for something else entirely, something foreign to him. 

“It was, um, nothing,” Viktor stammered. “I can get dinner started-” 

“Oh my god, Viktor, if you don't sit down and relax,” Jayce growled, but when he turned, his grimace became a grin, “I will actually lose it.” 

Thus, the cleaning ended, dinner began, and Viktor sat on the bed, feeling that silent debt racketing higher. Jayce stirred a newly-cleaned pot of beans and heated a set of toast on a fork over the stovetop. Viktor got to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane for the stress of the past few days, but ignored it to limp into the kitchen. 

Jayce glanced over his shoulder and smiled, but continued stirring. “It's almost ready,” He said. “Go sit, I'll bring it to you.” 

Viktor made no move from where he stood, next to the open shelf that held the cans of beans, tomatoes, and pickled sausages. Next to it was the aforementioned jar of grits and another filled with oats. 

Astonishment flooded Viktor. This man lived like a complete bachelor, even down to his cooking. Pork and beans, salted over-cooked grits, pickled meat? It was a wonder he had any muscle structure at all for his diet. 

“Not a single fresh ingredient,” Viktor sighed, grabbing a can of diced tuna. “It is as though you have been deployed to war and you will not see land for weeks.”

Jayce shrugged. “The ride to the general store is six hours round trip. It can be a lot for the young horses, and I don't want to exhaust my older man Mercury several times a week. I try to limit it to only a couple times a month, therefore,” He took up the toast fork and gestured with one of the bread towards the jars and cans, “Preserves.” 

Viktor quirked a brow. “You do not have a single jar of actual preserves, mind.” 

Jayce laughed. “Naw, but maybe next spring,” He said. “There's a wild orchard of peaches not a mile away, they'll be ready then.”

“Mm,” Viktor hummed, leaning a hip on the wooden counter. “Good thing you have warming up food as a talent.”

“Mastered it over the last while,” Jayce replied. It sounded a little more hollow, a little more empty. He kept his eyes trained on the open pot as he stirred, but something in the movement dragged. A little less alert, like a memory pulled his attention away. 

Viktor considered him, considered his sudden listlessness, too. “How long were you alone, Jayce?” He asked, a hand reaching only a few inches from his body, but it felt like the full-body lunge from someone falling over an edge. “Before I came along?” 

Jayce shrugged. His smile drifted away, going from round to severe. “A few months?” He guessed. His hand jerked where it grasped the handle of the pot. “I've worked out here for a few years, but… haven't talk to anyone in a while- Anyways, it doesn't matter. We can make a trip to the store soon, once we run out of grits.”

Viktor bit his lip to keep an admission out of his mouth. He wouldn't be here long enough to warrant a trip to the general store. He'd be on his way as soon as that roan mare was broke to the cane, and not in his mentor's definition of the word. When he could shuffle around her with his mobility aid and she could handle that it would not hurt her in Viktor's kind hands, then they could leave the ranch. 

But something pulled at Viktor- a betrayal of himself he did not think would happen. A little piece wished to stay for as long as Jayce would have him. A kind stranger willing to give the shirt off his back. He did not need a free-loading pair of leeches in his home and stalls. 

“Say,” Jayce started, ripping Viktor from his thoughts, “What is your mare's name anyway?” Not sensing Viktor's sudden panic- the thought that all this time, he never even thought of naming her, that across the year she'd been in the Doctor's service, he'd never once heard her name uttered- Jayce laughed. “I've been callin’ her ‘pretty girl’ and ‘sweet thing’ in the meantime.” 

Viktor stuttered and started, and then latched on that little bit of info to buy himself time. “You like nicknames?” Viktor asked, his throat feeling torn to pieces. He sounded hoarse, like he'd screamed for twenty minutes. Every other brain cell he had the pleasure of owning rifled through all the memories Viktor had of the doctor with the strawberry roan, but nothing came of it, she didn't have a name in Viktor's memories. 

“Love ‘em,” Jayce said, cutting off the heat on the beans and grabbing two plates. “You got any I can try out?” He glanced at Viktor, his eyes shining with affection and laughter, dual pools of crystal and hazel that gleamed in the dying sun. 

Viktor's mind went haywire for an entirely different reason now. “Any what?”

“Any nicknames!” He urged. “C'mon, it's gotta be something like Vik, or V, or Vikki?” 

Viktor wrinkled his nose at the last one. “I've never had a nickname,” He admitted. 

“Could I call you by one?” Jayce asked.

Viktor almost laughed in his face. What a concept, him with a nickname given by someone who barely knew him, who would forget their interactions a week after his departure. But Viktor steeled himself, doing his best to remain somewhat stoic around the cracks of affection Jayce kept unintentionally beating into him. 

“I suppose I will allow it,” Viktor said, taking a plate of beans, dubious meat, and toast without butter. “But I expect you to come up with the nickname, I am choosing not to be creative on this matter.”

“Are you?” Jayce said, his eyes twinkling. By god, Viktor's pulse felt like it was racing. 

Viktor nodded, turning back to the small lean-to table next to the door that led into the barn. Jayce followed a moment later.

“I'll think of a nickname, something you'll like,” He said, shoveling a spoonful of beans into his mouth. He thought for a moment, chewing around his spoonful. “So what is the mare's name, you never said.” He grinned and leaned his face on his hand, almost condescending to Viktor. 

Viktor took him in, only pausing long enough to make him squirm. Though it was only a farce, Viktor was still scrambling for a name, anything that could realistically represent the poor horse. Jayce finally nodded, beckoning and begging him for some kind of answer. 

“Rio,” Viktor finally said. And to cover his pause, he added, “Her, uh, original trainer did not like the name and called her something else.” A lie, she did not have a name under the doctor's ownership. “He changed her name from what I wanted.” 

“What a douche,” Jayce commented around another mouthful. It came out muffled and Viktor felt a sweet sense of annoyance. “Changed your own horse's name.”

“She was not mine yet,” Viktor replied, passing a napkin over when a small stain dribbled onto Jayce's chin. 

Jayce accepted it with a small and embarrassed smile. He took a pause while he cleaned himself. “So, what is your story with this guy?” He asked, training a stare directly into Viktor as if he could parse out every little nuance of his story, every little lie he'd uttered. 

Viktor chuckled but it held no amusement. He dug himself deeper and deeper. He had to get out of the grave he'd made before he became buried in his lies. “It is a long story, and not a good one,” He deflected, ducking the expectation. “I'd rather not speak on it now.”

Jayce sat back, taking the toast in his hands and tearing it in two. “I understand, but you gotta forgive me for my morbid curiosity,” He said. Despite his movement backward, he handed a piece of the toast to Viktor, nodding towards his untouched plate. “I mean, y'all two crash landed onto my ranch without an explanation, some weird vague hints that somethin’ ain't right, and a rush to get away.” He chewed thoughtfully while Viktor fingered the bread crust. “Do I need to have my shotgun ready for y'all?” 

Viktor spluttered a breath and a cough came hacking up his throat. Jayce moved forward like he intended to help, but Viktor swallowed the pain down before it became too bad. “No,” Viktor gasped, lifting up a hand to keep Jayce in his seat. “No, I do not think so. I sincerely hope not.”

“You hope not,” Jayce repeated. “That ain't no firm answer there, Vik.” Viktor wrinkled his nose at the nickname though it struck like a bullet of affection. “No to that one? Damn,” He chuckled, smiling around his spoon. 

“One always hopes to not have a legion of men chasing them with violent intentions, Mr. Talis,” Viktor said. Jayce wrinkled his nose at the formality. “I cannot be certain, as most people cannot be, that someone isn't chasing after me- as I'm sure any number of offenses across a single person's life could lead to a chase. I'm sure you have chasable offenses in your past.”

A wrong turn of topic, Jayce's eyes darkened again. “Maybe,” He grunted. His plate was bare and so the only task left to occupy his hands was the washing. He took his plate to the sink. “Not hungry?” He asked as he passed Viktor on his way. 

Viktor shrugged. “Perhaps it is the illness,” He said. “I feel hunger, but I cannot seem to swallow it down.” 

“Make sure you're drinkin’ something then,” Jayce said, pumping the faucet in a way that made Viktor completely forget what the man just said. God, what a specimen. Viktor observed as a scientist would, and then as an anatomist, and then as a man with regular needs. God, he needed a grip- he needed that grip-

“V?” Jayce called, turning back from the faucet. 

Viktor was so startled, he could barely even form a faux response of disgust to the nickname. “Sorry, I drifted off, what did you say?” 

“I asked if you needed anything before bed?” Jayce repeated. His beard dripped with a light sheen of water- he must have cleaned his skin in the time Viktor let his imagination run wild, too wild to be quite honest. 

“Oh-” Viktor looked at the single bed across the room, points of previously ignored data suddenly clicking together and connecting across the folds of his brain. If Viktor slept in that bed the last few nights, where was Jayce…? He spoke his thoughts aloud, catching the darkening blush in Jayce's face. 

“I slept up in the barn rafters,” Jayce stated, looking away. Viktor, in spite of his rapturous attention on Jayce's… god, on his everything, noticed the man set his bowl in the sink without washing, other than a quick splash of water. Chunks of beans and meat floated in the liquid, sure to rot soon. 

Viktor raised an eyebrow. “This is your house, Mr. Talis, and I'm well enough I can climb a ladder. Take up your bed again, I'll sleep fine.” He waved a dismissing hand and went back to debating if forcing the food down was necessary or if he should give up. His stomach ached dubiously in response. 

Jayce rolled his eyes and leaned over a chest of drawers, starting to pull clothing from its lower doors. “I'm not making an ill man sleep on exposed hay,” He retorted. “And sometimes I sleep there in the summer, when it's too damn hot in here.”

“We are in the highlands, though,” Viktor replied. “It is not hot enough to warrant it.” 

“And you will wake up aching. I am not forcing you to sleep on the ground.”

“It is not compulsory if I choose it.”

“And I'm not letting you choose it.”

“So you are forcing me into another option,” Viktor pointed out, his scowl turning true. 

“No!” Jayce cried. But then he paused. “Okay, maybe, but this is my house, and you will sleep in my bed, I demand it as your host.”

Viktor scowled deeper. “You just admitted you wake up aching.” 

“Fine!” Jayce said, his hands coming up in surrender. “We'll share the bed, how's that?” 

The room turned to ice as Jayce realized what he had suggested. His blush deepened, Viktor stared, and neither said a word for several heartbeats. It was Jayce who stammered the silence away. 

“Uh, it's um- We don't have to-” He looked anywhere but at Viktor. A rebellious part of Viktor wished he would turn his gaze on him, the full force of it, even if it made him sun poisoned for a second time. 

Caught at a crossroads, Viktor agonized over the choice he had to make. Choose the bed with the beautiful, selfless man that carried him to safety in those gorgeous big arms of his or send him away to sleep in the hayloft, cold and uncomfortable but far away from Viktor and his wandering thoughts. The host of the house he was staying in. The man who saved his life. 

Forcing the words out felt like biting into a towel, awaiting the surgeon's scalpel. “I do not want you to be uncomfortable,” Viktor said. “I will not mind sharing.” He wondered if his face had the grimace of a man without painkillers, cut open and bleeding for the operating theater audience to see. 

Jayce finally, finally, looked at Viktor then, his eyes shining in the dying light. “Okay,” He breathed, quirking a small smile. The strange reverie broke as he touched his neck, moved his eyes to the side, and chuckled. His body language ached with relief. “Thank you, the loft really ain't the most comfortable spot.”

Viktor scoffed. “You have made my point for me.” 

Nonchalance would be the best work around for this matter, he decided. If Viktor pretended to simply not care, perhaps it would bleed into the rest of him- replace his pitiable attraction with something that sucked away its saturation. Perhaps it would become less egregious and demanding within him. Perhaps it would muzzle his desires. 

He dressed for bed with nonchalance, donning the same sleeping shirt loaned to him that smelled like Jayce. Viktor did his best to ignore that information with all the nonchalance within him. He slipped under the covers, nonchalantly, and waited for Jayce to enter back into the room from his trip outside to use the facilities. And he was very nonchalant about it. He measured out his portion of the bed (only about as much fit his rear end), and bundled the covers up to his nose. It would be easier to mask any part of him feeling chalant if he covered it. 

Laying down was unhelpful to his poor aching lungs. The minute his back hit the mattress, he could barely breathe without the slightest throat-clearing. His lungs felt like soaked cotton, and he was certain the mucus that had taken up residence so long ago slid to the prone end of his lungs’ lobes. Though, it was better to get all the coughing out now before Jayce came in. This type of illness was one of little help and Jayce seemed to injure emotionally whenever he couldn't give his all to Viktor's comfort. 

The moment of truth came when Jayce burst back through the front door, his cheeks slightly rosy from the fall of the mountain air's temperature. The year was sliding from summer to autumn and the foothills always took the change the hardest. The late summer nights when the temperature dropped to shocking low degrees for the month in its recording did little to ease Viktor's chalance. It was unnatural, a summer night where one would shiver. His home in the undercity rarely had refreshing nights, let alone nights in the summer where one could use bedsheets without melting from sweat. 

Jayce stripped his threadbare coat, his jeans, and his dusty work shirt, leaving only his small clothes beneath. He did not make a move to reach for a sleep shirt or any kind of covering. Viktor could see rippled mountains of bronze-sculpted muscles, a broad upper back with a field of wild hair, a dimple where his ribs met his dorsal muscles. Scandalous, depraved, and breath-taking, Viktor lost all sense of the freezing summer night outside his neighboring window. His face felt warm enough to heat the plateau outside. 

“I'm sorry if I snore,” Jayce said, breaking the thick silence like he wasn't aware of it. He slid into the bed, his big amber eyes meeting Viktor, earnest, sparkling, and ringed with a flush. A leftover from the cold, surely.  “Or if I kick you. You can wake me at any time-” 

“I sleep like the dead,” Viktor replied. Nonchalance coursed through his veins. Nevermind his warm face or his lingering stare, or the way he played with the edge of the bedsheets. “You will not bother me.” 

Jayce nodded and that was that. He lifted up out of the bed, the springs groaning at his movement, and blew out the final candle. 

They lay in pitch darkness. Viktor listened to Jayce's breathing, felt the jostling of Jayce's rolling around, trying to find a comfortable spot, and did his best to school his own breathing into something silent and unnoticeable. 

Jayce's heat infected the blankets they shared, becoming something heady and comfortable. Viktor could hardly care. The springs on the mattress were stiff and out of alignment, so that every movement sent the headboard shaking and the room filled with awful metallic screeching. A weight in the bed next to him, warming and comforting, lulled Viktor to sleep. And he slept, as he had warned, like the dead. 

Chapter Text

Viktor completed his first full-body cow dissection in front of a small audience of his mentor's colleagues when he was fifteen and managed to stump them by identifying the cow's exact reason for death (clostridial disease combined with too much physical exertion) within the time of his examination. The doctor gave him only an hour to complete it. Viktor narrated the whole time, his findings and his personal theories, and bloodied his clothing so badly he had to throw them out and shill the money to replace them. 

When Viktor was nineteen, he completed his first human autopsy, in which he focused upon the cranium and the lungs, identifying a fellow infectee of their shared disease. He bisected the lungs and examined the lobes, looking among their planes and valleys for the source of the rot and the greyness. Like a limb frozen in the cold, no color saturated the lungs, attributing to its apt name. 

He was awarded among undercity scholars, commissioned for studies and contracts which his mentor shooed away. The doctor had too much for young Viktor to carry, and if he were to take one of the jobs begging before him, Viktor would lose any semblance of respect among the doctor's crowd. Except for the few who stood tall against the old man's threats, Viktor would have been blacklisted and left to rot by himself. 

Later, he saw living subjects. He was one of the unique few who could walk among them without proper protection. After all, there was no way to make his illness worse by being around others afflicted the same as he, so why not try to help them?

The doctor identified Viktor's illness not too long after Viktor's parents died from the same disease. The doctor, in the few years of their quiet mentorship, housed the newly orphaned boy once he'd learned the boy was on his way to the foundling house. Viktor became the doctor's scout, the one on the frontlines compiling data among the invalid and dejected from society. He learned through experience what true suffering was like and the depths and dredges of poverty and squalor. Sick, shit, and piss did little to sway him. Many intense stinks hardly affected him anymore.

Then, not too long before his hurried expulsion from the undercity and Piltover, he was on track to take over the doctor's lab, to take his place as a renowned mind among the sumprats. He had his own medical study, a wing in the lab, inventions to help operate the lungs in a safe and healthy manner for those too far gone in their illness to breathe manually, and a bright future ahead. He managed the doctor's estate when he had time and fixed the boiler all by himself one week. He worked on the plumbing and improved the oil lamp system among the house, set up a sound-based calling system through a series of metallic tubes, and all this while juggling his thrice-weekly open clinic in which any number of diagnosable issues could walk in. 

Needless to say, Viktor was a brilliant mind. He was wicked smart, quick to problem-solve, and confident in his own talents. He knew he was smart and he wasn't afraid to let others know as well. 

That did little to help him as he realized his brains did nothing to match a ranch horse's brawn.

Viktor gripped to the horn as tight as possible, his legs holding just as tight to the fenders and his toes practically curling in his boots around the stirrups. Jayce- the fool, the prat- let out a guffaw from across the arena, his laugh bouncing with Rio's trot. 

Viktor glared down at the tall bay stud he sat on. ‘Mercury’, Jayce had called him, the same great dark beast he'd stumbled upon the night he met Jayce. So far, the horse did not seem mercurial, but Viktor had little trust left for equine creatures. There was still time for him to show his true colors. 

“Would you walk him already?” Jayce called in the midst of pulling Rio into a tight circle, her nose following her tail. “He ain't gonna do nothin'!” 

Viktor turned his glare back to the man across the arena and sighed. With a little kick, he waited for Mercury to step lazily forward, hopefully. What he got instead was a raucous movement, a lunge forward into a jog that had Viktor scrambling for a tighter hold on the horn with his fingers caught in the leather reins. He let out an uncertain yelp, and suddenly there was a small roan horse beside him.

The wanker was still laughing. He reached across the divide for the stretch of reins tangled in Viktor's fingers before the horn and pulled it back while humming a low command. Rio and Mercury slowed to a stop. 

Viktor couldn't contain his fury. “Will you remind me what you last said, Mr. Talis?” He spat.

Jayce clearly tried to smother his delight, but one look into Viktor's fury got him giggling again. “Would you relax?” He said. “I mean that literally,” He added as Viktor drew in a breath to let him have it, “You're squeezing your legs too tight. Merc was trained to move forward on a leg squeeze. Just a little will make him walk. Squeezing as hard as you are tells him you want to go fast, even if that's the exact opposite of what you actually want.” 

Viktor frowned and adjusted his grip, moving his legs forward so his tailbone sat a little more under him and he kept his balance distributed across Mercury's back. The stud relaxed, shaking his head and breathing a snorted sigh of relief. 

Jayce nodded to the body language. “See? Even he wanted you to relax.”

Viktor let out a similar heavy sigh. “I apologize. Riding was never in my interests- not that I had time for it.” 

“You rode this lovely girl way out here,” Jayce pointed out. He lifted his hands, the split reins held lightly between his fingers and walked her away. Mercury followed out of habit, his ears flicking forward after her. “Clearly you're not as bad as you think.”

Viktor fought the urge to tighten his knees, instead letting Mercury walk even, getting used to each shift in weight, the way he could feel each movement through the supple leather of the saddle. Viktor's hands began to loosen around the horn. 

“You're doing good!” Jayce called. “Don't forget to keep your weight in your heels.”

Viktor looked up from where he was admiring Mercury's shoulders and how they slipped upward and downward with each step to catch Jayce's delighted grin. Viktor smiled back. Mercury stumbled for half a step, forcing Viktor's gaze back to the shoulders of the horse and leaning his weight on the horn. Jayce's laughter rang out again as he jogged off. 

Later, once Viktor got a handle on the slightly faster-than-jogging speed of a trot, Jayce took them out of the arena and out towards the expansive fields. The late summer air lingered around them, damp and heavy, and only the chilling winds of the mountains could move its suffocating heat. Autumn was threatening to arrive and the wind smelled crisp. Viktor took a deep breath in and then promptly coughed it out. Mercury paused beneath him as he regained his breath. 

Jayce trotted Rio back to Mercury's side, grinning with the ease of a man meant to be at that exact moment doing exactly as he was. Viktor smiled, smaller though, back, reaching across the divide to attempt to push Jayce out of the saddle. He gave too easily, much to Viktor's dismay, sliding halfway out of the saddle and bracing his other foot in the stirrup. He looked ridiculous. 

“Show off!” Viktor gasped, kicking Jayce's leg as it stretched out between the horses. 

Rio stuttered a few steps nervously. This circus-style move was clearly not something the doctor had trained her on, but Jayce held her tight as she threatened to bolt. He sat upright and moved her around in a tight circle until her body language relaxed. He patted her neck as she walked in front of Viktor and his mount.

Jayce glanced back, mid-pat, a wry grin on his face. “Your little mare is smart- real easy going, too.” 

Viktor rolled his eyes. “Not so easy-going when she threw me off.”

“I'm more than sure you just fell off,” Jayce replied, rolling his eyes in a mocking response. “Don't hold it against her, she's young!” 

Viktor grinned back. “My grudges do not soothe so easily. I will hold it against her as long as I see fit.”

Jayce reached down and fluffed her mane. “Oh, but she's just a little baby,” He cooed, “She can't help it.”

Viktor watched as Jayce leaned over her neck mid-walk and scratched up and down her hairline, making sure to tussle her ears as well. She threw her head in protest, but never once pinned her ears or drew back her lips. Her eyes shone and she glanced around at the surrounding meadow without a trace of fear. Mercury kept an ear towards her as she slowed to nip at strands of tall grass.

The two mounts wandered the fields just before the ranch, a wild pasture untamed by fencing and growing more luscious grass than the scrub lands usually produced. The sky stretched above so deep a blue, it rivaled cobalt. Clouds floated by, wispy and touching the reaches of the atmosphere. A flock of birds soared far above them, nearly scraping the heavens. Viktor watched for several moments until he dropped his head and caught his own watcher. 

Jayce looked away quicker than it took Viktor to realize he was being watched to begin with. Viktor's stomach felt as weightless as those birds way up ahead. 

“So, do you like the ranch?” Jayce asked, keeping his gaze firmly ahead. 

Viktor nodded. “I have never been outside of Piltover and the undercity. It is beautiful out here.” He glanced towards the distant mountains as they crested a small hill. A few miles ahead, the idyllic pasture faded into the rough ground of the scrublands and the tiny patches of trees dotting the meadows faded away into singular skeletal forms. Viktor wondered how far Jayce's employers owned. He asked as much without pulling his gaze from the distant hills. 

“Oh, miles and miles,” Jayce replied. “Technically, the edges are fenced off in certain areas. Their cows are way out there grazing in one of those sections. ‘Round mid-autumn, before the snow hits, I gotta go get ‘em.”

“Is this something you've always done?” Viktor asked, watching the wistful distance in Jayce's eyes. They glimmered in the late afternoon sun. 

“What?” Jayce turned and grinned. His smile was unfair- it threw Viktor off kilter so easily. “Working as a cattleman? Naw, my dad was the Kiramman's farrier. He'd come way out here to doctor their horses. When I was old enough, I came with him and met the Kiramman family- started working summers here. They were able to sponsor my schooling when I went off to secondary, and then they gave me this job a few years back.”

The Kiramman name held many accolades among Piltovan society- given that they built a large portion of it. Viktor shivered under the weight of such a name, a legacy of women who built the finest weaponry known to man, owned thousands of acres of farmland that Viktor currently rode over, farmed layers of earth to steal its precious oil. No wonder Jayce had sketches of oil rig machinery. He worked for the very people that designed its first iterations. 

“Do they visit often?” Viktor croaked. Despite the punishing heat, a cold sweat ran down the back of Viktor's neck. If he were discovered by the Kirammans, recognized for the crime he committed by such powerful figures, his life would be ruined. He would never see the light of day. Even Jayce could face consequences of harboring a criminal. 

Jayce shook his head, looking away and missing the deep sigh of relief Viktor released. “They ain't been out here since before I took the ranch hand position. They're gettin’ outta cattle.”

“Why?” Viktor asked. It seemed they had more than enough space and money to make it work. 

“Cattle take up rig space,” Jayce sighed. “Cattle also cost a pretty penny. And ranch horses are much more time consuming these days than they used to be.”

Viktor glanced at Rio, at her languid stroll and ease. “Are they?” She nibbled at a tall blade of grass, pulling it free from the earth as they walked along. “Seems like an easy ride to me.” 

“Someone's already put a lot of effort into this heifer,” Jayce replied. He patted her neck and she shook her mane. The blades stuck in her mouth around the bit. “I can tell she's got a good base in spite of what that not-so-good man did with her. It takes several months of work to make a filly ride like this, and even if he hit her and set her back a bit, with some effort, she'll be back to what I think she was.” He glanced up and blinked at Viktor in a way that mimicked a wink, through a wrinkle on one side of his eyes. “She'll be a good ride for you, I swear it.” 

Viktor ignored his hind brain that wanted to say something entirely inappropriate to the man who housed him and saved his life for nothing in return. He swallowed down the flagrant thoughts. “So, do you like it out here?” Viktor asked, looking back out towards the distant beauty. 

The silence stretched for a moment while Jayce followed Viktor's eyeline and ran his gaze along the spine of the mountains, craggy and lavender in the light of the sky. If Viktor squinted, he could see distant snow, blending into the light of the sky as the atmosphere muddled the view from the distance. 

A hawk flew overhead, crying out into the air, and Jayce finally answered. “Sort of. It's gorgeous, of course. But it's so quiet sometimes.” Viktor turned and took Jayce in, watching his profile as he watched the hawk. The smile he wore didn't meet the rest of his expression, leading to an odd dissonance that made Viktor's heart ache. A lot of Jayce's smiles held a quiet discomfort, something lurking below the surface. Like he bit back what he really wanted to say and screwed the severe line of his mouth into something less than what it was. 

“There were some weeks where I didn't say a word,” Jayce admitted. “Back when I first got here the last time. I started talking to the horses, but they ain't much for conversatin’.” 

“That must have been difficult,” Viktor said, “To be alone for so long.”

Jayce shrugged. “It's not so bad now. You're here to chat with,” He said, but Viktor couldn't tell if the smile was separate or not. Jayce had turned to look in the opposite direction. “Should we head back? I gotta get started on feeding these beasts.”

He turned Rio without Viktor's answer and kicked her into a jog back home. Mercury paused, waiting for Viktor to decide, turning his head towards Viktor's shoe and nuzzling softly. Viktor had been too hard on the stud, he realized as he threaded his fingers through the stud's mane. He was less reactive than Viktor thought. 

Viktor watched as Jayce jogged along, digesting what the man had said. Alone for weeks, months probably, with just this job to keep him going. Out here in the scrub, not a single soul except the quiet horses. Viktor thought back to the night they met, the solitary dark tree, the waiting dark horse, and the lonely man with a bundle of rope in his hands, standing on the ground below an outstretched tree limb. A stone dropped in Viktor's stomach as he wondered what Jayce had been doing out there. 

Jayce paused on the next hill, turning Rio enough to look back and call Viktor over. Mercury flicked his ears to them and Viktor looked at the dark horse. Did he know what his owner had planned that night? Where would Mercury had gone if Viktor had never shown up? 

Viktor squeezed his legs, soft enough to signal Mercury without startling him, and they jogged off, slow and steady. 

“I think Mercury likes you,” Jayce said as he pulled the saddle from the bay horse's back. 

Viktor frowned from the entrance of the tack closet, holding two bridles in his hand loosely. “I've ridden him once, how could he possibly like me already?” 

Jayce grinned. “Is it so hard to believe that he likes you?” He repeated from a few days earlier. “You are very likable, Viktor,” He said, scooting past Viktor and hefting the saddle onto a wall rack. 

Placing the bridles onto a row of hooks, he realized there was no sense of organization. Shank bits mixed with snaffle bits and rawhide sets precariously. He made a mental note to come in and reorganize it eventually. “How long has it been since someone other than you rode him?” Viktor asked, turning around from the bridle rack and pinning him with a stare. 

Jayce breezed past before answering, stepping out to take the saddle pad next. “I've known this boy a long time, I can just tell.” 

Viktor leaned against the doorway, arms crossed and legs joined at the ankle. He looked at the bay stud who stood quietly, ears relaxed, tail swishing at flies. When Viktor moved, adjusted to ease his aching hip, the horse turned an ear in his direction, and his lips twitched. 

That was certainly not enough evidence for Viktor. 

“I do not believe you,” He retorted. He shuffled towards Rio, who stood at the opposite side of the aisle, tied to the wall by an o-ring. Jayce had yet to take the saddle off, but the temperature had not been so cruel that she was exhausted. She still had a flicker of mischief in her eyes as Viktor walked close to her, though she shied with every step of his cane. Damn, he'd forgotten. 

Jayce walked up behind, laying a hand at the small of Viktor's back. Suddenly, he felt like Rio, shying away, skittering from something unknown and terrifying. Foreign touch that could easily become something wrong. 

If Jayce felt Viktor stiffen and shy from his touch, it was only for a moment as Jayce moved by to begin unsaddling Rio. Viktor gripped his cane, even as Rio shifted her ears towards him, and retreated back to Mercury, still standing tied to the opposite o-ring. Viktor ran his knuckle along the bay's nose ridge, feeling the skull and musculature beneath. Mercury pushed into the touch, blinking his dark eyes slowly. With his heart rate easing, Viktor petted along his neck with growing confidence, brushing his fingers through the tangles of the horse's mane as he went. 

“See, what did I tell you?” Jayce called from across the aisle. Viktor jumped and pulled his hand away, feeling that foreign sensation come back, the one that always followed Jayce's amber gaze, or his wandering hands. “He likes you,” Jayce sang, a grin on his face. 

The saddle had disappeared from Rio's back and Jayce rubbed the sweat stain away with a cloth. He handed it off to Viktor who self consciously kept petting Mercury. 

“This'll make him like you more,” Jayce teased, cloth held out. 

“His standards are very low, then,” Viktor replied, taking what was offered. 

Jayce shrugged. “Or he knows what he wants.”

Viktor began to get the idea that they were speaking in double meanings. He shook it off with a frown and ran the cloth along Mercury's back. Jayce scoffed behind him. 

A flash of indignation took over Viktor as he turned to spear the man with a glare. “If I am doing something wrong, I would prefer instruction- not humiliation.”

Jayce lifted a hand in surrender. “I'm sorry, it's not you,” He explained. “Well- it is you, but you're so stiff with the horses. You can be a little more aggressive.” 

Viktor's frown deepened and an eyebrow raised. “‘Aggressive'?” He repeated. 

Jayce rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and reached his hand forward. It took half a second later for the touch to register as Jayce placed his hand over Viktor's. Like sticking his hand into a pail full of ice (or fire, the man was a damn furnace), Viktor felt the shock of strong fingers curling over his. He swore every single atom scraped against each other, threatening to tangle their electrons. Jayce hefted his weight down, heavy enough to swath the cloth below Mercury's hair and clean the sweat from his skin. Viktor felt every single sensation in his hand and the rest of his body dulled in comparison. 

“Like that,” Jayce said, releasing his hold. Viktor felt dizzy and almost asked for a second example. But that would be foolish. 

“Ah, I see,” Viktor breathed. His sense of self stayed firmly at the edges of his hand holding the cloth. “I understand, thank you, Mr. Talis.” He drifted away, not looking at Jayce as he went, face burning in shame. 

On the other side, he tried to use Mercury's withers to block his view of Jayce, but no luck as he followed Viktor to the other side as well. “You don't have to be so formal, y'know,” Jayce said, leaning against Mercury's flank. “Just ‘Jayce’ is fine.”

Viktor's hand stilled, and then began again. He drew the cloth higher up towards Mercury's neck to buy himself some time from having to turn around. “I will keep that in mind, thank you.” His words came out stilted and awkward. Viktor just wanted to retreat and stay away from Jayce and his easy touches and his informal name and his half-honest smiles that made Viktor's stomach ache. 

What if he had Jayce saddle up Rio again? He could hop in the saddle, faster than Rio could realize he held a cane like he did in the city, and make for the hills. He'd be able to leave behind whatever strange cocktail of feelings turned Viktor's stomach into a coupe glass and overturned his sense of propriety. 

Jayce shifted again, something Viktor was far too aware of, and sighed. “You're ridiculous, V,” He chuckled. His footsteps plodded away towards Rio. “I'll get Mercury if you want to head inside- in case your leg is bothering you.” 

That pulled Viktor out of his strange headspace. Pity, even pity Viktor deserved, was a blight upon Viktor's sensibilities. He drew himself tall and tried to lean on his cane a little less as he moved towards a concrete block in the center of the opposite side, a water pump along its back wall. “I will do as I please,” Viktor replied, his tone sharp. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Talis.” 

A guffaw echoed from Rio's stall, muffled by the door. Jayce reappeared and crossed towards Mercury while Viktor rinsed the cloth. “You are a delight, Mr. Viktor,” Jayce said, his tone teasing at the edge of mocking. 

Viktor was glad that Jayce couldn't see the amused smile that spread upon his face. He cleaned the cloth far longer than he needed to, just to be sure the blush receded before he turned around. When he did, Jayce came into the wash stall with a bucket. 

“Is there anything I can help with?” Viktor asked, still holding the dripping cloth limply. 

Jayce shook his head. “Naw, watering is always a pain, and you need two hands for it. Same with the hay. But you can throw them some grain, just a handful or two in the smaller bucket in the stall.” 

Viktor watched Jayce pump the bucket mostly full and then hefted it with both arms. Jayce glanced at him almost nervously as he stepped by, his breathing already labored from the weight he carried. “‘S there somethin’ on my face?” He asked, meeting Viktor's critical gaze. 

“No,” Viktor replied, following Jayce to Rio's stall where he dumped the water into a hanging bucket. “But there's likely a better solution to this job.” He stayed by the door as Jayce returned to the wash stall for another partially-filled bucket. “Perhaps if you had a watering system, something pressurized that you could control from the main pump.”

Jayce shook his head. “I ain't got the time to build something like that,” He said, his voice strained from the weight of the water. 

“I do,” Viktor replied, following Jayce to the next stall. “If you could provide the materials- I am sure you have something that can facilitate the design around here- I can do the building.” 

Emptying the bucket, Jayce looked up with a grin. “This ain't a plan to absolve yourself of some made up debt you owe me, is it?” 

Viktor scoffed. Of course it was. “Of course not.” He gestured to the walls. “Your barn is built with open ceiling stalls, it would be easy to thread a line along them. We could set it up so the buckets without need for water could close the siphon and those that needed it would only need to open it. When all buckets are sufficiently filled, you could unhook the system from the source to keep any leaks from going in the middle of the night.” Viktor followed the line of his dialogue, winding up back in the wash stall. It, too, was ceilingless- the only problem being the stalls on the opposite side. But a longer siphon could still lead to those stalls and hang up on the wall on the other end. 

Viktor's dialogue went silent as he retreated into his mind. He sorted through his checklist- what materials, potential setbacks, if the lines broke. He was so lost in thought, he didn't notice Jayce's approach until a hand landed heavily upon his shoulder. Viktor started and turned, looking towards the man. 

“I thank you for the idea,” Jayce said, “But I can't have you doin’ that kinda work. You're here to recuperate and wait for your horse to train. I can't set you to work without compensation.”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “I believe we ought to retire that word from our vocabularies. Clearly neither of us wish to owe each other in any way.” 

Jayce chuckled, his grip squeezing affectionately. “I guess not,” He conceded. “But I still don't want you feelin’ like you gotta do this for me. I'm fine with how things are, I don't need you to build me a fancy watering system.” 

“Maybe not,” Viktor sighed, crossing his arms. “But I want to build you a fancy watering system.” He let the idea of it wash over Jayce for a moment before dampening the kindness with an added, “Also, it would help my horse as well.” He couldn't let his actions go by themselves, he had to shackle it to another motivation. He felt too exposed without the adage. 

Viktor's eyes must have been playing tricks on him, as Jayce turned away, his face darkened. Reddened, really. His eyes turned shiny and a strange half smile made a home on his face. But not the same half smiles Viktor had come to expect from Jayce- the ones that made a quiet barn feel deafening or a meal of grits turn to sand in one's mouth. This one Viktor couldn't parse out. 

“Thank you,” Jayce choked out, lifting the empty bucket and rushing back into the wash stall. “I'll find you the materials tomorrow, so long as you tell me everything!” He called, turning around enough for Viktor to see the half smile gone and an excited grin taking over. 

“Afraid I'll ruin your barn?” Viktor teased. 

“No, I'm afraid you'll do some magnificent work without me,” Jayce replied, bumping Viktor's shoulder as he passed with another half-full bucket. “This used to be what I cut my teeth on, I wanna see it work.” He stood at the door, looking Viktor over, his face thoughtful, hand caught on the latch while balancing the bucket against his hip. “Y'know, we can talk shop anytime. Weren't'cha s'posed to be graining?” 

Viktor sighed and waved a hand. “Your job is quite the mood-killer, I suppose I shall do the task I asked to do.” Jayce's laughter followed him to the grain bag. It made a wonderful sound. 

Viktor woke one morning to find Jayce's arm sprawled across the mattress, and, subsequently, across Viktor's waist. A groan rolled through him, and then Jayce rolled over at the noise, pulling his arm away and eased the moment of tension. 

The next morning, the touching progressed. Suddenly, Jayce's legs were tangled among Viktor's, and Viktor woke to a bleary feeling in his ankle. Viktor rolled over, and unceremoniously kicked Jayce away. He still didn't bring it up. It was only twice now and a small bed. It was a fluke. 

The next morning, Viktor woke to Jayce's nose against his neck, breath puffing in his ear, and arms wrapped around his ribs. The heat was suffocating, the touch even more so, and Viktor could feel the tight rolls of Jayce's body against his back. He wanted to crawl out of his skin, run away and never see Jayce again, and then die. 

The closest thing to dying he could do was pretend, and thus, he stayed deathly still until Jayce awoke by his own circadian rhythm. The sleep-filled groan of a mind waking up made Viktor want to drop the guise, rip his eyes out, and tear his brain to bits- but he stayed still and silent. 

Jayce realized what he'd done a heart beat later, his body stiffening against Viktor's back. A hissed ‘shit’ tickled the hair by Viktor's ear, but he ignored the sensation and just tried to keep Jayce's embarrassment from expounding by mixing with Viktor's. Slowly, and ever so carefully, Jayce slipped himself from around Viktor. His movement was so soft, Viktor could believe he would not have felt it so deep as he slept. 

Jayce's absence made the temperature drop against Viktor's back and the rebellious part of him that thought scandalous thoughts and stared at the man's musculature for anything other than scientific appreciation missed his presence. Jayce, hunched at the end of the bed, sighed hard enough that it turned almost to a growl, then plodded through the kitchen. 

A routine of theirs from the last few days was a shared waking. Viktor would roll over or Jayce would yawn, and the other would catch up from the throes of sleep. Then, Jayce would roll out of bed and drag himself into the kitchen, shoving a tin of coffee over the stovetop and a pot of grits to steam. They would eat in conversation, slow and dogged by their waking brains before entering the barn and feeding the hungry beasts inside. Viktor would help of course until Jayce shooed him away to work on the plumbing. 

This morning, Jayce skipped the coffee and walked straight through the door. A sense of rejection fell heavy over Viktor, laying stock still where Jayce had left him. A few minutes turned into several, and then several turned into a dawn that had long broken. Viktor finally rolled from the bed, the sunlight outside higher than it usually was when he finally greeted the day. Jayce never returned. 

Viktor set to the coffee, placing the blue tin carafe over the open flame and letting the crushed beans percolate. He cooked the grits how he liked them, heavily salted with a touch of fat from the cooking grease, and plated two bowls. He balanced them carefully, along with a full cup of coffee, and started his careful route into the barn. 

The sound of a pitchfork scraping against the dirt floors pointed Viktor in the right direction. Jayce was halfway done with the barn already, and the wheelbarrow was almost full from the stall he occupied. His back was turned and a grullo colt stood between them, though stepped closer with a curious whicker towards Viktor in the doorway. 

Jayce worked with vigor, sweat running down his neck and gathering at the ends of his hair. He was lost in thought, staring somewhere down at the floor, somewhere that wasn't the end of his pitchfork. A concentrated look took over his face, turning it severe once again. 

Viktor eyed the colt sniffing the plates and cleared his throat. Jayce finally turned with a start. “Missed breakfast, did you?” Viktor joked, leaning against the doorway so he could pass the mug to his now empty cane hand. 

“Viktor!” Jayce stammered, his face turning red. “Hah, I, uh, wasn't hungry when I woke up-” 

“Even for coffee?” Viktor asked. He sniffed the mug, ignoring as Jayce crossed around the colt and blocked the young horse's path. “I tried to make it to your taste, but if you aren't going to drink it, I will just have to use half your sugar stores, I suppose.”

Jayce smiled, finally melting that horrible tight expression. “I'll take the coffee, thank you,” He said. His fingers brushed Viktor's just enough to make his nerve endings light on fire. 

“And not the grits?” Viktor asked. “Oh, well, I suppose I shall have to eat alone then.” 

Jayce rolled his eyes good-naturedly and set his pitchfork to the side. “I can take a break, I guess,” He faux-whined, stepping past Viktor to shut the stall door behind him. He took the two bowls from Viktor in spite of his protests and gestured to follow. They exited the barn, away from the living quarters, and out towards the field. 

The morning was still fresh enough that the sun's cruelty hadn't yet baked the air and turned it stifling. A breeze blew, insects chirped out in the grass, and a thrush made its mocking song to the wind. Jayce led the pair to a tree on the opposite hill. It was massive, surely tens of years in the making, with thick roots snaking along the ground and threatening to trip a man with a cane. But Viktor stepped carefully and smiled gratefully when, after Jayce deposited the bowls and mug of coffee to the ground, he turned back to help with the navigation. 

They sat together under the shade and ate in silence- a peculiarity for their habits. They rarely spent a morning without conversation, whether it's Viktor's project or Jayce's observations or something to do around the ranch. Viktor watched Jayce carefully, but the man was avoiding his gaze and avoiding his intellect it seemed, looking anywhere but to the right where his opposite sat and waited for his usual topics of conversation. 

Viktor knew why he was quiet, but a small embarrassment like that surely wasn't enough to warrant such a reaction, right? 

“Are you feeling alright, Mr. Talis?” Viktor asked once he'd swallowed another spoonful of grits, deciding ignorance was the best option. 

Jayce grimaced, his foot bouncing against a tree root. “Perfectly fine, thank you,” He answered, his gaze drawn downward.

“You are not usually so quiet,” Viktor prodded yet again. He wanted to spear the conversation at its heart, but he did not want to cause Jayce anymore undue embarrassment. If Jayce wanted to bring it up, he would himself, but Viktor could only take so much tension. 

“I have a lot on my mind,” Jayce replied. “I just wanted to get right to work.”

Viktor paused his chewing. The breeze blew against the leaves, one dying leaf falling down between them. He set his spoon back in the bowl with a loud clink. “Is… is this your usual routine? Or are you doing it for me?” 

Jayce's brows knit together as he finally turned to look at Viktor. “I- I mean, when I was by myself, I didn't really… yknow, sit down and eat- I'd get right to work, but-” He balanced his bowl on his knee, reaching up to scratch his neck. “I guess, in a sense, it is for you, but I like it, too. I like talking to you in the morning and making breakfast before going off to do chores. It's nice.” 

“So, why not this morning?” Viktor prodded again.

It could have been a trick of the shadows, but Jayce's face turned rosy. “I, uh, I don't know,” He lied. “I just- old bad habits, yknow?” 

Viktor tutted. He ran a finger along the uneven edge of the bowl, following the line of its maker's finger and catching on the cracks and chips in the clay. He did not look up as he admitted something close to his chest. “I enjoy breakfast with you, too,” He murmured. He hazarded a glance up and caught Jayce watching. Viktor glanced back down. “It's nice,” He gritted his teeth through the words, feeling exposed. 

Jayce let out a breath through his nose, like a chuckle but something with less teeth, something softened from its severeness. He shuffled closer so their shoulders touched, sharing the same tree root and breakfast. 

“Good to know,” Jayce murmured back, the tension disappearing into the strengthening sunlight, like dew on the grass, rising into humidity and accumulating into the air. Clouds bubbled in Viktor's chest, dark and ominous in their depths, but light and sunkissed in his throat. He savored the touch, the warmth, and they finished their breakfast and started their day together. 

The next morning, when Viktor awoke to Jayce extracting his arms from Viktor's chest, he listened for the door to the barn opening and instead heard the click of the stovetop lighting. Viktor smiled into the pillow and gave himself five more minutes of peace before starting his day. 

It took a few weeks of scavenging to find the materials around the barn for Viktor's usage, as well as a trip for Jayce to the general store for a costly few adapters to fit the water lines. Viktor had already assembled the piping needed for the first set of stalls, but his day of work was interrupted by a summer storm. 

The day started bright and sunny- humid, but nothing out of the ordinary. The humidity usually felt like a punishment from God above, so another grueling day meant nothing to Viktor who had yet to acclimate (and did not see the point of acclimating). Jayce took his few rides of the day out on a trail, each ride only lasting about an hour, and he was on his fourth trail ride of that day when dark, heavy clouds bubbled out of the sky and thundered distantly. The air previously still and agonizing, fluttered in warning. 

Viktor hadn't realized the change until it rumbled closer, enough to shake the ladder he perched on to hammer a piece of rubber tubing into one of the weight-bearing posts. He scrambled down, as fast as he could, iron nails bitten between his teeth, and hobbled to the barn door. The sky towered above him, the light of the sun swallowed by a great cumulonimbus cloud leering overheard. 

Jayce was still gone, and Viktor scanned the hills for a rushing horse and rider, but other than the horses turned out in their short pasture fences, nothing raced home to Viktor. Another rumble threatened in the distance, and he set to work, catching the grazing horses as they nibbled the grass without a care in the world. 

Viktor sped as fast as he could, breathing heavily and leaning on his cane. The dusty ground made his knee twitch in their tendons and he wondered if the joint would give him a warning before it gave out or if he'd have to hope the horse in his hand would be kind not to bolt away at his collapse. Sprinkles began to dot the ground around him and the palomino he led into the barn. Not a moment after the palomino slid between the doors did the sky let loose. 

He hurried the horse into what he hoped was its stall and rushed to the front porch. Still no sign of Jayce as the cloud overtook the sky, turning the world around into a state like night, and the rain curtained enough to hide even the closest hill. Viktor's heart jumped to his throat as the worry closed around him. Perhaps the thunder had spooked Jayce's mount and he fell and got hurt? Maybe he was lost somewhere, drenched and scared, hobbling his way home in a downpour hard enough to sting his skin. Viktor began to pace. 

Lightning struck near enough to make him jump, and that was when he heard it. A distant rhythmic beating, different from the rain on the tin roof. Viktor turned from his pacing, seeing a shadow far in the distance darting through the rain. His heart beat with the distant sound, his hope rising like wind as it roared above the treetops. 

“Viktor!” The voice was so distant, but so clearly Jayce. Viktor waited at the edge of the porch as he raced his horse down the nearest hill, still too far. “Viktor!” He shouted, closer, a laugh in his voice. 

A laugh! Viktor could strangle the man. How could he laugh at a time such as this? 

“Jayce!” He shouted back, hanging off the porch with only a hand on a beam to keep him from the roof's heavy runoff. Jayce was close enough now, close enough to see his hair hanging in thick strings, his gap tooth and his delighted smile, his flushed cheeks and the drip of water from the edge of his stetson. “Where were you? I thought you got hurt!” 

Jayce laughed, dismounting from the horse with a speedy wrapping of the reins around the horn. He let it loose to wander the grass and nibble in spite of the rain. He rushed up to the porch and up into Viktor's space like he was always meant to be there. “Feel it! It's so warm!” 

In a stunning display of his flagrant physical affection, he threaded his fingers through Viktor's, pulling him gently from his perch at the edge. Viktor protested, “Are you insane? You are soaked!”

“It feels so good,” He urged, pulling the flat of Viktor's hand into the runoff stream. “The humidity broke, it feels like relief.” 

It feels like relief. Viktor let the water dance through his fingertips, but it wasn't fast enough for Jayce. Jayce rewound their hands together and tugged hard enough for Viktor to fall against him, gasping as the rain pounded against his head and shoulders. 

“Jayce!” Viktor screeched, trying to break free, but Jayce only laughed and held on tighter. The rain ran down Viktor's forehead and caught in his eyes as he looked up to glare at Jayce, but found himself frozen in the warmth. Both Jayce's arms and the rain felt like an embrace, light and careful in its touch. Just a degree above its normal cold. It stuck to Viktor's skin and he stared at Jayce's mouth as he laughed and pulled Viktor in deeper. 

He set Viktor down, but refused to let go. Instead, Jayce held tight to Viktor's shoulders and tilted his head back, letting the rain pound onto his screwed up smile, his eyes squinted shut, his nose wrinkled. Viktor let himself fall into the rapture and the bubble of delight Jayce brought about him, chuckling at his strange expression. 

Jayce opened his eyes and blinked the rain out of his lashes. Delight filled the air around them, warm and wet, as Jayce embraced Viktor again and spun in the puddles. They kicked up the rain that pooled on the ground and laughed, until the wind drifted closer to the ground and turned the warm rain cold again. 

Viktor shivered, leaning closer to Jayce and stepping on his toes. “Sorry,” He murmured, moving a step back, but Jayce only swayed closer. Viktor looked away to see the horse Jayce rode, set loose many moments ago, wandering closer to the corner of the barn. The saddle was long soaked.

“I deserve it,” Jayce said, a grin coloring his words brighter, “I did pull you into the rain.” Viktor turned, lost in his tooth gap and the way his smile rounded his severeness. 

“Your horse is going to wander into the barn, then into the hay,” Viktor warned, whatever rebellious part of his brain that overtook his speech trying to break the moment apart. Trying to free Viktor from whatever state Jayce put him in. 

“He deserves a treat,” Jayce said, making no move away. “Didn't spook or nothin’ with the thunder.” 

“Well that is good,” Viktor murmured, leaning his head against Jayce's arm. His body was so warm around the cooling wet of the rain. “I would hate for you to have been hurt. We both know I would be a poor rescue team.” 

“I'd crawl back,” Jayce chuckled, his hands heavy on Viktor's shoulders. “If it killed me.” 

“Let's not go so far,” Viktor warned, his tone turning icy. “I was worried enough with my own ponderings.”

“You were worried about me?”

“Very,” Viktor snarled. “And here you come trotting along laughing. I ought to kill you myself.” He took a breath. “You should have seen me trying to wrangle all your errant beasts out here before the storm hit.” 

“I'll cook the shit out of dinner tonight, then, just for you,” Jayce said, his cheek coming to rest on Viktor's soaking hairline. He was so warm, it was a comfort. Viktor huddled into the break he made in the storm. 

“You always do,” Viktor said, though it had become a joke between them. Jayce never cooked anything particularly well, just well enough to choke down. And Viktor was the same the night or two he took over the tiny stovetop. They both only ate to survive; and with grits, cans of beans, and little else, they sure survived. 

The rain petered into a patter, its drops no longer assaulting and instead kind as they splashed against their skin. With a breeze beckoning the storm away, Viktor felt the chill of his shirt plastered to his back. He and Jayce peeled apart and Jayce disappeared around the corner to find his wandering steed. Viktor tried to only watch after him for a moment, but it became two, watching him walk off dripping wet in his wilting stetson. 

It felt like relief to find two towels and sit on the porch and wait for the second towel's occupant to drip his way to the chairs out front. It felt like relief when Jayce finally sat down, his hair curling in the settling humidity and his cheeks still red from the exertion. It felt like relief when he clasped Viktor's outstretched hand, still reaching out to hand off the towel.

“That's not what that was for,” Viktor protested, almost pulling his hand back but some nonsensical part of his brain stopped him. 

“I know,” Jayce replied, squeezing Viktor's knuckles as he dried off with one hand. 

“You do not have to,” Viktor added, quietly. This was Viktor after all, he did not expect anyone to be so kind as to hold his hand out of a casual want. 

“But I want to,” Jayce said. “I like you.” And did that feel like the sweetest relief? That it was not a fluke, or flagrant affection, or some general enjoyment of physicality where it did not matter who so long as someone was there. 

Viktor did not reply and Jayce did not need one. What a relief. 

Chapter Text

Summer clung on to the month of August in a vice, choking and heavy and humid, with thunderstorms looming most nights. Jayce paused his mid-afternoon trail rides on the young horses to save Viktor the worry, and Viktor continued on his plumbing project nearing to the point of completion. 

Once the overhead lines were in place (dry to the bone without being connected to the source), Jayce surprised him with an odd breakfast proposal. 

“Let's go to the river,” He said, his eyes shining, a clump of oatmeal and honey (they were mixing it up today) caught on the hairline of his beard. 

“The river,” Viktor echoed, leaning across the table to wipe at the errant oatmeal with his rag of a napkin. 

Jayce did not shy away, instead he leaned into the touch and Viktor tried not to let the shine of his eyes seem like the shine of gratefulness and affection, rather just regular ole excitement. “Yes! It's the source for our water pump here. The swimming part's ‘bout an hour and a half ride behind the winter cowpens.”

“And I assume it's a trail ride,” Viktor responded, pulling his hand back while Jayce followed its movement. “That we will need to make on horseback.” 

Jayce chuckled, picking up another fork full. “Wull, yeah, I don't walk nowhere on this property that's longer than ten minutes.”

Viktor sighed. It had been over a week since his last lesson on Mercury. He thought it had been a disaster, and his tailbone thought so too. Loping had not been so bad, a gallop? That was much harder to master. Jayce explained it was best while straddling the horse forward, using your legs to stand in the stirrups and lean above the raucous movement. But Viktor's bad leg had not taken to the position well, and instead he had to hang on with a tightened grip and wait for Mercury to slow long enough that Viktor could pull him to a stop. 

Jayce did not think he did so bad. Viktor heartily disagreed and had avoided sitting in a saddle since. 

“Oh, come on,” Jayce cried, throwing his spoon into the bowl with a clatter. “I won't make you ride fast. We can go at a trot.”

Viktor hummed. He did want to assess the water pump, make sure it was in working order, that it could pull enough water to fill multiple buckets at once if needed. And it was still so stifling outside, and he'd sweated through all three of his shirts in the past week. It would be nice to have a day where he did not need to dirty his clothes so heavily. 

“Fine,” He grumbled, pushing his breakfast around its bowl. “The river would be quite nice.” He looked away from Jayce. Jayce's smile was infectious though, and Viktor could not help the little grin that pulled at the corner of his mouth. 

Later, they packed Viktor's small carpet bag with a few sausages, two flasks, and a promise to grab from some wild apple trees on the way. Jayce took one of the other colts, the palomino, rather than Rio for once. 

“Ah, so your unending love for her is waning, I see,” Viktor mused, playing up his disappointment. 

Jayce scoffed, tightening Mercury's girth. “I can't only pay attention to her. I have other horses to train.”

“Mm,” Viktor hummed. “But you will not take her to the river. Surely there are rivers I must cross on her when I leave.”

Jayce's smile faltered, only just long enough for Viktor to catch. He resumed his good natured teasing after the heartbeat, his grin back to the shine it had before. “I guess we'll just have to go back before autumn hits.” 

They raced through the forest (though racing was an overstatement when Viktor could hardly lope for long), Viktor chasing Jayce on the palomino colt, blonde tail whipping through the undergrowth and the warps and wefts of the trail. They wove their way to the river, arriving a little past noon, greeted by large boulders nestled among a peaceful drifting river. A grass scrub next to the exposed beach of the riverbed crunched below their feet as Jayce, after tying the horses to nearby trees, raced towards the waterline, shedding clothes as he went. 

Viktor followed slower, his cane tapping heavily and sinking into the sand. Where the sand gave way to uneven rocks and slippery surfaces, Viktor slowed to a crawl, hobbling with uncertain steps as he went. Jayce trawled among the shallows, spraying water across the beach when he turned, and noticed Viktor struggling for the first time. 

“Oh, shit!” He rushed through the water, bouncing through the surf he created and met Viktor sopping wet and in his small clothes. His slippery fingers threaded through Viktor’s again and he flashed back to the night of the thunderstorm. 

Viktor winced away, both at the bare skin and the wet. “Leave me be, go be one with the fish,” He urged, pushing at Jayce’s arm with his elbow. God, he could feel the muscle ripple. “I'm not going to fall over.” 

Jayce plodded slowly away, looking akin to a kicked puppy as he glanced back once, then twice, checking to make sure Viktor hobbled to his perch alright. 

One of the grand boulders half-sunk into the river jutted a sharp and thin facet over a deep portion of the winding river. Viktor crawled up its face, using his cane as a boost upward, and settled onto the warm surface. Watching Jayce swim against the current, he felt something like a lizard sunning itself on a warm surface. He settled on some of the clothes he gathered from Jayce's stripping and laid back. 

“You'd purr if you could,” Jayce teased a while later. He crawled up behind Viktor onto the boulder's face. With a little smirk, he rifled through the carpet bag and pulled one of the apples loose. 

Viktor took one of the flasks as they glinted in the sun. His tongue felt plastered to the roof of his mouth. He slipped the canister open and tipped his head back, blearily hoping the water would still be cool from when Jayce filled it that morning. A burning sensation filled his throat instead. 

He coughed and spluttered, falling forward between his knees to spit the fire he'd swallowed. Pain shot into his nose and his sinuses. He blinked away the tears as the last of the coughing racked through him. 

“Jayce,” He spluttered, vaguely feeling the other man clapping him on the back, firm but gentle. “What the fuck!” He gestured with the flask and the obvious alcohol within it.

Jayce, still sitting behind Viktor, hissed in a breath, the rhythmic thumping on his back easing with the breath. Viktor turned to find Jayce holding a hand to his lips, eyes screwed up with comedy as he tried to hush his laughter. 

“You did not think to tell me,” Viktor gasped between light coughs, “That one of the flasks holds whiskey?!” 

“I forgot!” Jayce whined though it bent with the hilarity still bouncing in his chest. “I meant to tell you, I swear.” 

Viktor scowled, glaring at the man, then the flask, then the man again. “I will never trust another opaque container you give me,” Viktor hissed, though it held no bite, only wounded pride. He shoved the flask into Jayce's chest. “I would have been much more delighted if it weren't such a surprise-” 

“Oh, come on, V,” Jayce sighed. He waggled the flask in between them like taunting a dog with a treat. “I'm sorry, okay? First couple sips on me.” 

Viktor glared at the flask again, held out like a dagger, the blunt bottom end pointed towards him while the top of the canister pointed towards Jayce. “You are a conman, you and your errant flask of alcohol parading as water.” He flicked the top off once again and took a sip- this time savoring the spiced flavor. “Could have killed me,” He dramaticized. 

“Mmhm,” Jayce hummed, leaning his face on his hand. Like reading a line of text, his eyes drifted along the curve of Viktor's neck as he drank from the flask. Each swallow bounced Jayce's gaze back up to Viktor's mouth. Viktor watched the entire moment outside of his mind in shock, a focus to Jayce in his periphery where the man's stare held like a vice grip. Never had Viktor noticed such an unabashed stare. 

“You called me by my name,” Jayce said, his voice teasing but soft. 

Viktor looked away, fiddling with the flask's mouth. “Yes… I have before, as well.” 

“You have?” Jayce slurred, a disbelieving grin on his face. “Feel like I'd've remembered such an instance of familiarity from a careful guy like you.” His voice had a tone that Viktor didn't want to read too far into. He didn't want to know what it meant, even as he had a good guess.

“The night of the storm,” Viktor replied, trying to get past that strange tone in Jayce's voice before it went too far. “I was very angry with you.” 

Jayce laughed. “I know- you were spittin' mad.” His laugh mellowed and he reached his hand out towards the shared flask. “I thought you looked beautiful in that light,” He admitted, his eyes downcast.

Viktor took another pull for the shock of it before savoring the fire on his tongue and handing the flask back to Jayce. “Here, I am going to plant myself back on the beach.” 

“How come? This is nice,” Jayce replied, his voice incredulous and his eyes twinkling as he took a sip in his plush lips. He held the opening in place with his teeth just long enough to savor whatever flavors were still there before swallowing a mouthful. 

“Because even with sober help, it would be difficult pulling me off this rock,” Viktor said, slipping down his back end to land on the beach. “I'd rather not let gravity have its way with me.” 

In Viktor's hands were Jayce's shirt and pants, and he spread them out on one of the flatter boulders that lined the edge of the sand and resumed his relaxed position, the clothing acting as a pillow below his head and his hip. Jayce followed soon after with the carpet bag in one hand, the flask in the other, and his apple held between his teeth. 

“Another?” Jayce asked upon loosening his hold on his items. Viktor took the flask without much preamble. 

“Of course, the horse may give me up to gravity on the way home,” Viktor said, “With enough sips of this, not even Mercury could save me.” 

“That's not true,” Jayce replied, “He wouldn't do that to you.” 

Viktor handed the flask back, wiping his hand across his mouth. Already, his tongue felt numb and his fingers felt the edges of the flask like it was a new material. Months without a drop of drink made it all hit at once, quickly, but far too subtle. “You have too much faith in a creature that could die nine different ways by eating slightly wrong. And you have too much faith in a man who only just learned how to post a trot.”

Jayce lounged beside Viktor, taking the flask carefully and leaning it in between them. He was too close, laying into Viktor's space like he was, head heavy on his hand, bicep curled and taut. Damn the shirt, Viktor wanted that to be his pillow. Jayce replying brought Viktor back to the present and away from the taut arm just beside his head. 

“I think,” Jayce said, pausing to chug twice and caught an errant drop by the lip of the container, “You are too hard on yourself.” 

“I am not!”

“You are a perfectionist,” Jayce continued. “You make me use two millimeters above my measuring cup's quarter line for pig fat in your meat dinners- any less and you can taste it. You took the tubing down because you threaded it on the wrong side of one of the posts and hated how it looked, even though it would have worked the same. You measured out my hand versus yours twice to figure out how many scoops you needed to fit one of my scoops for the horse's grain.” 

Viktor felt floored and the flush from the whiskey started to make itself known. Good thing he'd scrambled from the higher rock before that conversation began- the shock of such sentiments felt the same as landing flat on his back. He struggled to breathe around it. 

So much noticing from Jayce's end, how he must have caught everything Viktor did. A strange strangled beast deep in his stomach came crawling up his throat and tried to make a home in his brain, hissing out his inadequacies. That Jayce was annoyed at all those habits. That Jayce hated the little perfectionist pieces of flaw and mire that he could never remove from himself, like an organ that had no purpose but would empty his bloodstream if Viktor tried to remove it. 

This was evidence of Viktor's failings, that he ought to remove himself from Jayce's presence as soon as he could. He tried to ignore it- all the evidence Viktor could find said the opposite, that it was Jayce who invited him to the river, who loved to ride Viktor's mare, who housed him and cared for him while ill. 

But the strange beast only quieted and waited… for what Viktor did not know. 

Jayce took another sip, this one long and slow. His cheek divot deepened as he swallowed against the flask's mouth. “You- my darlin’- are less than a month into riding regularly, and I think you are doing fantastic.” He screwed the top back onto the flask and placed it back onto Viktor's chest that stuttered and started in breath. 

Viktor only paused in whatever harsh reply he couldn't think through before spewing. It would be too offensive, too mean, for the kind man laying beside him harping about how beautiful he looked one night and calling him ‘my darling’. It sank Viktor's stomach like it was full of stones, a direct opposite to the feeling Jayce gave him when Viktor didn't overthink his loving actions too much. 

Jayce's gaze ran down Viktor's form easily. Too easily, too familiar. “So… your cane…” 

“...Yes?” Viktor replied when the pause went too long, when it seemed that Jayce would wait for Viktor's admission. A tactic many a coward used to ask about Viktor's health, to awkwardly force Viktor's hand into admitting his ailments in a way that released the original interrogator from any guilt at prying. 

Viktor did not budge, though Jayce continued on without the common cowardice. “I noticed your leg brace- I hope you don't mind my looking-” Jayce had done many cases of looking and for what motives, Viktor had yet to find out. If this were the true cause, he would rest easier at night without the fear that Jayce was giving him something he did not deserve. “-But I was curious about it, ‘bout the way you forged it.”

Viktor felt a bit floored, but the part of him always ready for the next curio to overtake his attention pounced at the opportunity. “Ah, I did not craft it, though I did aid in its design. My old mentor made a majority of its design and the blacksmith he employed did the rest.”

Jayce glanced up to Viktor then back to the old contraption. “May I…?” He asked, scooting the tiniest bit forward. 

Viktor nodded, feeling a little untethered. The alcohol may have started working, he felt dizzy with the careful errant touch of Jayce's fingers on his brace. Little whispers filled the air as Jayce surveyed, little apologies as his touches lit something electric around the inside of Viktor's thigh and his leg jerked. It was easier to play it off as pain than as a lack of propriety. Viktor mentioned his tandem back brace upon Jayce's further questions, though he was far more hesitant about undressing his shirt yet and Jayce let it be. 

“Fascinating work,” Jayce concluded, his finger fiddling with the strap at Viktor's ankle in a way that made his skin feel numb. “But it seems a bit flimsy.” 

“It is quite old,” Viktor sighed. “It must have been more than a decade ago that my mentor had this forged. I have done my best in the upkeep but…”

Jayce moved Viktor's ankle in a way that made the brace creak very lightly. “Maybe I could fix it for you. Or make you a whole new one if you'd like.” 

Viktor looked away. It was too much. He gripped the flask. “Perhaps,” he conceded. 

Jayce noticed the hesitance. It was clear in the sharp movement of his chin upwards, reading Viktor's body language for what it was, a ‘no’. A thumb still swiped across Viktor's ankle, feeling the space between the worn padding and the roughness of his skin, where the metal sometimes rubbed quite painfully. Where the calluses never really built up. 

Jayce hummed. “Well, think on it. I've built more than just horse shoes and I'd like that challenge again, to do something more complicated.” 

Viktor would like the challenge, too, but he would not like the debt it would accrue.

Jayce marinated in the awkward quiet for only a moment, his lips screwed into a thoughtful grimace at the leg brace. Then, his eyes flashed up and the tension in his severe face eased. “I'm gonna jump back in the water, come with me?” Jayce asked. 

Viktor barely glimpsed the flush of Jayce's face as he scrambled from the beach and raced his way into the river. Viktor sat up at his exit, feeling unsteady, but not from the alcohol. Well, a little bit from the alcohol, but the several sips he'd taken hadn't had time to settle in his bloodstream yet. The bit of muddling in his mind could have been attributed to the mouthful he'd almost inhaled (the fumes were the worst part), but he was not convinced. 

No, the unsteadiness was connected to the man swimming into the river's current, great back rippled with muscle, water hugging his pectorals as he slowed and dove under. He reappeared ten feet further down, taken by the current and wiping the water from his eyes. His gaze turned to Viktor, grinning widely and he gestured for the man lounging on the beach to follow. 

The beast that made a home in the pit of his stomach rumbled its displeasure. He is just being kind to you, the dark thoughts in his hind brain said. He feels pity for you. And wasn't that Viktor's Achilles’ heel? Any sense of pity, warranted or not, would make Viktor only work harder to reject it. 

Viktor fiddled with the flask, turning his gaze down and watching it glint in the light. He took another long pull, feeling the alcohol burn in his belly, feeling it drown that odd creature that spoke his darkest thoughts. 

He threw the flask onto the sand and stood, ripping his shirt from his back but keeping his trousers on. He carefully unhooked his back brace and folded it upon Jayce's roughened clothes and unstrapped the leg brace from his thigh. After standing back from his bend, the dizziness was unexpected. His unsteadiness was more than emotional, it seemed. 

Without his supports, he limped painfully to the water. At ankle deep, he tossed his cane back onto the sand, and did his best to keep from toppling over with the pain that washed over his leg. Once he could let the weightlessness of swimming take him over, he would be okay. 

It was freezing, a refreshing change from the muggy heat that weighed down the air around him. He watched stones swirl below his feet, tumbled and smooth from the torrent of the river. A few small fish floated by, scattering when he took another unsteady step. He shivered from the cold as it overtook his bare chest. 

Jayce paddled closer to meet him as the current tried to pull Viktor off balance. Strong hands and strong swimming kept them in place as the bottom fell away and Viktor's bad leg turned him into a liability. 

“Sorry,” Viktor gasped as he grabbed Jayce's neck for support and Jayce grounded them on a submerged slick boulder. “It's been a while since I have swam like this.” 

“You're fine,” Jayce called over the din, his smile genuine, his eyes shining. That thing in Viktor's depths hissed at the sweetness. “It's strong, anyways, even I have trouble when there's been a lot of rainfall.” 

Jayce adjusted his grip so that he braced them against the current, his back taking the constant push of the river and holding Viktor bracketed in his arms. It was similar to the night they met, except this time Viktor was fully cognizant (other than the alcohol making his face feel on fire) and savored the body around him more than he should have. 

Over the roar of the river, Jayce spoke in Viktor's ear, his lips tickling the shell in a way that felt right and wrong. He used his free hand to point towards a further outcropping on the opposite bank. “Over there's where you can jump in- it's super deep, but there's an eddy at the bottom, so you gotta be careful.” His eyes shone with conspiracy as he added, “Some say there's still bodies floatin’ way down there below the current.”

Viktor pretended to push him away with an eye roll. “I do not believe in ghost tales if that is what you are spouting,” He retorted. “Any dead bodies would be long eaten by now.” He would know, he had performed autopsies on drowning victims. Within hours, the fish made their meal and within days, the lasting pieces would be consumed by bacterium or earth. 

Jayce grinned in spite of the response. “But it does put a chill up your spine, don't it?” 

“No, because I can't get over there,” Viktor scoffed, gesturing with a hand to his leg beneath the water.

Jayce frowned. “And if I carried you?” 

“I would aim for the eddy,” Viktor drawled, his grin darkening at the edges. 

Jayce scooped a handful of water and splashed Viktor's face with a grin. “You're demented,” He joked, wincing as Viktor shoved a wave of water in reply. 

“And you are too kind for your own good,” Viktor replied. 

The water flowed with an unstoppable speed, a leaf landing on the surface would be gone in just a few blinks of the eye. The slip of the current over Viktor's fingers, the cool of the mountain water and the breeze working in tandem, and the weightlessness in his hip all combined together. It felt like relief, just as Jayce had said only days ago. 

Exiting the water, Viktor collapsed upon the dry sand as it stuck to every wet inch of his skin. Jayce came puffing after him and let Viktor lean on him on the walk back to retrieve his cane. The river had not let loose of them easily and they barely reached the beach in its current as they tried to return to their resting area. 

Jayce took up the flask once more and tossed one of the extra apples towards Viktor. The sun was scraping the treetops- only a few hours left before evening came. 

“D'you think you'll miss this place once you go?” Jayce asked, his words slurring together from the touch of the alcohol after his sip. 

Viktor scoffed and pulled the flask back. “I could hardly understand you there, I believe it is time you took up the water flask instead.” Not that Viktor was any better. The tips of his fingers still felt like sparkles and the fine edges of the trees blurred together when he moved his head too fast. 

Jayce looked up at Viktor, eyes shining like they always did, twin highlights of glittering amber, unearthed and unbound from any shame of his question. “But would ya?” He sat back and continued on with a drunken confidence, “Cos I would, if you left- somethin’ fierce.” 

Viktor scoffed again. Disbelief colored over any lasting affection, beating it to a pulp. Viktor was not so amazing. He was not so interesting and helpful that his presence would truly be missed. Jayce was being kind, obviously. 

Ah, there was the creature again and what it had been waiting for: for Viktor himself to feed into the same line of thinking it had. He frowned and wanted to buck against his first line of thought, but he truly could not believe being so wanted that he would even be missed. 

“I'm serious,” Jayce replied to Viktor's scoff, his incredulity at such a concept. 

Viktor hummed in response, closing his eyes to the brightness of the sun and the resounding glimmer in Jayce's golden eyes. The air felt heavy, both from humidity and from things left unsaid. Viktor was afraid to open them again, to see any sort of honesty where he didn't want to.

No one had ever missed Viktor- not in the way Jayce was implying. 

He was sure the doctor missed him in the sense that there was no one to run the estate in his growing frailty, the boiler growing colder with its finicky mood swings in the coming winter. 

He was sure the Piltover enforcer system missed him in the sense of a person to point his finger, a head for the countless lives lost in his actions, no matter how well-intentioned. 

He was sure the Stillwater prison cells missed him in the sense that one would stay empty and aching, waiting for its occupant at the end of the line. 

Viktor shivered in spite of the warmth he felt all around him. No, Jayce would not miss him. Not if he found out the truth- and Viktor was determined to be long away from him before that happened. 

Something curious happened after Viktor's shiver. A darkness enveloped the brightness awaiting Viktor's closed eyes and something soft and admittedly a little damp crossed his chest. Viktor blinked, and found Jayce's shirt spread across his shoulders and just scraping against his belly button. He glanced to Jayce who had already turned away, the smaller flask in his hand and sipping idly. 

Viktor's head spun, but he stayed perfectly still. Just like the night when Jayce's nose buried into his neck's hairline, when arms crossed his chest, and their legs tangled into a cocoon of warmth, Viktor did not want to shatter that fragile moment. A shirt he didn't think twice to roll into a pillow for his head was suddenly blanketing him in a semblance of warmth and comfort even among the warmth and comfort of late summer and a sun-washed beach. Jayce literally gave his shirt off his back to ease any of Viktor's discomfort. 

You do not deserve this, the voice hissed. You should go. 

And go where? Viktor wanted to ask, to scream at that terrible part of himself so mutated and curdled with the awful things he had done. When his hands were unclean and his body twisted into something that limped and turned sore, why would he need another part of himself so burdensome, so loud and hurtful? 

Viktor breathed instead, trying to move the heavy air around him. To move whatever sinking feeling that threatened his heart, that was amber in color and glimmered in the setting sun. It would hurt when the weight of its disappointment shredded his heart to pieces, but what a relief it would be when it passed. 

Though it did not feel like relief when he waited for the pain that was sure to come. 

When sunset drew the sun away and darkness fell over the river and its surrounding woods, Viktor paused by Mercury, combing a hand through the bay stud's mane and leaning his head against his great muscled neck. Mercury, bless him, gave Viktor a warning through a greeting wicker at Jayce as he crossed the beach towards them. 

Viktor tensed just slightly, hardly noticeable below the heavy shirt he wore. Jayce had convinced Viktor to take his shirt as Viktor's was fairly thin and poor against the cold mountain air. Viktor wore, instead, Jayce's while Jayce rode topless and overly pleased about it. He'd insisted he ‘ran hot’ and ‘would be too busy controlling the colt to even care about the cold.’ 

Jayce's hand ran along Viktor's shoulders, tracing the planes of Viktor's bony scapulas through the thick cotton shirt. Viktor felt entrapped by the sensations of Jayce- his touch, his scent, his presence- lord, he needed a reprieve before he did something stupid. 

Viktor tangled his fingers in Mercury's hair before turning- something to ground himself. “Thank you again,” He mumbled, nodding to his clothed shoulder, “For the shirt. It was kind.”

“Ah,” Jayce waved a hand, dismissing the kindness. Even throughout the preceding argument regarding the shirt, Jayce had been dismissive and quick, never taking Viktor's no until the man finally conceded. It was infuriating but Viktor could not deny the difference it made as the day's warmth wicked away and the absence made him shiver. 

Jayce's hold tightened at Viktor's hip, almost an embrace. “Could I help you with Merc?” He asked. “I know this ain't the best ground for mounting-” 

Viktor had long learned in his arguments with Jayce that conceding was often the quickest way to finish their squabbles. Unless Viktor had found the perfect hill to start digging his grave to really settle in, he did not want to argue with Jayce. It was exhausting after a while, and a full day of swimming with his aching leg joints was sure to fail his argumentative nature.

He huffed a sigh, doing his best to sound as put off as he could. “I suppose I can allow your help- just this once.” 

Jayce grinned, a toothy smile that practically shone like the moon. Viktor could have grinned back but he was too busy trying to tamp down the odd feelings that smile gave him. With one of their hands together, one of Viktor's on the reins, and one of Jayce's under Viktor's boot, Jayce boosted the smaller man upwards, allowing him to pivot his heavy braced leg over the saddle. Mounting for Viktor was never an easy nor pain-free endeavor, but it was either grit his teeth for thirty seconds or walk for hours in the dark with a perfectly rideable steed in a loose rein hold. 

Viktor winced once he found his seating. He must have really overdone his leg in the river. Jayce caught the grimace and ran a thumb comfortingly around his knee. 

“You alright?” The man asked, worry clear on his face. 

Viktor sneered through the rest of the grimace though it was originally meant as a comforting smile. “Ah, it is nothing. No different than walking from my old home to the bridge- just an old ache.”

“We can ride slow,” Jayce promised, his expression serious. God his eyes twinkled like stars. “We don't have to push it if you're hurtin’.”

“I'll be fine.” Viktor rolled his eyes, waving a hand just as Jayce did moments ago. “Go and find your ride.”

Jayce hesitated, his eyes flicking up and down, as if searching for any sort of lie. After a moment of this behavior, he seemed to let the argument go (perhaps Viktor and Jayce were too similar in that regard), and went to step away. 

But before he left, he paused, the lingering thumb on Viktor's knee catching at his waving hand and threading together. Jayce pulled the hand down, limp in Viktor's shock, and brushed a tentative kiss along the knuckles. And then he retreated without a word to explain himself. 

Viktor felt his nerves alight with the same noxious burning as the whiskey up his nose. His fingers were back to that sparkling feeling, but luckily, his surroundings were no longer blurry. Just soft, distant, and vague. All Viktor had attention for was the crunch of Jayce's retreat over a coarse sand beach and his off-key whistle. Oh, and the burning sensation of lingering touch across his knuckles. 

He could not remember the ride home, only that he looked away whenever Jayce was facing him and that his bravery only surfaced when Jayce was turned away. They reached the barn in the dark, before the moon rose late in the night sky. The journey was slower than their initial arrival, but Viktor did not have the bandwidth to blame Jayce and his bleeding heart for it. 

When Viktor came back to himself, he leaned against the wall in Rio's stall, hand braced against her neck as she leaned into his touch. He was whispering to her, maybe to God, really. He was asking if it had been true or some cruel sort of trick. A few “what the fuck"s later and Viktor realized he was not talking to God, he never talked to God. He was cursing his frustrations to his only listener, Rio, and she was doing a mighty good job of listening.

He looked at her intelligent blue eye, shocking and wide with her light face skin, a perpetual expression of surprise. “He is not so foolish, is he?” Viktor asked. “He would not do such a thing unless he were foolishly drunk, right?” 

Rio had no answer for him and all he could do was bury his face in her mane and hope for a better option. For a better outcome. For a better person to take Viktor's stead. 

Jayce was confounding Viktor and it all started that night with the knuckle kiss. 

Well- that was not true, Jayce had always been touchy, but not to the degree of egregiously unfounded affection. No, Viktor had understood the brushes along his shoulder, the hand on his lower back when his footsteps became unsteady, or a ruffle across Viktor's hair when he said something unruly. 

Viktor understood those gestures as a sign of a growing friendship- something Viktor still did not want when he was meant to be on the lam, but much more manageable than anything that meant more. 

Viktor was growing afraid of what the touches meant. He was afraid that Jayce's lingering hand holding his when boosted onto Mercury's back was an early sign. He thought back to the thunderstorm, how they'd embraced and Jayce spun under the warm rain. 

That could have been a warning- that Viktor should have stepped away, told Jayce to towel off by himself, and retreated indoors. Or, when Jayce held him in the river against the push and pull of the current, Viktor's arms intertwined over Jayce's thick neck. 

It was confounding and it was worrying. For, if Viktor did try to leave, all these built up affections, all that constant care and easy touches, would be dashed away. Viktor would shake like a shimmer addict, his hands would twitch for Jayce's easy touch. He would cherish the nightly visage of a broad back of bronze musculature and its smattering of hair that Viktor wished he could run his fingers through. 

Jayce was too close. Viktor was getting too close. And something had to give. 

In the days following, Viktor had distanced himself. Rather than take all their meals together, Viktor would eat lunch alone or walk by himself directly after breakfast. He would only scuttle into the barn to work on his water project once he saw Jayce leave with one of the young horses and then pretend he didn't hear when Jayce called out to him in between rides. 

It was maddening seeing the disappointment cloud around Jayce, but there was little else Viktor could do while his mare was still in training and he could not pack up and leave so easily. 

As well as the water system Viktor had divised: it was not yet completed. If Viktor had spent his full days in the barn instead of scuttling away whenever he heard Jayce coming near, he would have been further along- maybe even finished. But the work was slow and Viktor pitched for that completion. A problem eradicated and a solution perfected. 

He missed discussing it with Jayce who always had an interesting perspective. He missed his shining smiles, his boisterous laugh, the way the slightest touch made Viktor's stomach bubble and flutter with nerves. 

The longing made Viktor's mouth go sour. He did not need to pine for something that would eventually make his heart ache. He mourned now, but hopefully, when the leaving came, it would not hurt so bad. 

Viktor sat up from the tree he laid beneath, the early afternoon air turning chillier as autumn approached. Jayce's promise to return to the river with Rio seemed like it would not pan out. Not that Viktor minded too much, he did not need another instance of Jayce's affection getting out of hand. 

In the distance, a metallic clanking rang from the cattle barn- where Jayce's forge and smithy were. He'd explained during a ride in which he showed Viktor around that it was best to keep the crucible away from the horses, just in case it caught fire in some way. The cattle barn was much more open where they kept the livestock, and if an emergency happened, it was easier to release them all at once than to go individual stall by individual stall in the main barn. 

Viktor limped into the cattle barn, finding a few of the horses tied to the walls. Rio was among them, her resounding neigh creating quite the racket to announce Viktor's entrance. 

Drawn to his favorite mare (he had to be specific else Mercury be jealous), he ran a hand over her pink neck, whispering gently to her while she wiggled on her wall hook out of excitement. 

Jayce appeared not a moment later and Viktor's heart caught in his throat. The man was completely shirtless, and without the further context of the river and without the already awkward air of their nighttime routine, it threw Viktor for a loop all over again. 

“Jayce!” Viktor hissed, turning his face into Rio's neck to hide his blush. “For such a massive man, you make no noise.” 

A low chuckle reverberated with the chill up Viktor's spine. A bronze bare arm crossed to where Viktor's brushed through Rio's mane. “I missed you at lunch,” He rumbled, leaning into Viktor's space. “Should I go ahead and get your girl done?” 

Viktor shrugged, moving his hand to pet Rio's cheek. “If you would like. I am not sure if she has ever been shod before- apologies if she is a menace.” 

“Never a menace,” Jayce murmured, petting where Viktor had been. A soft expression overtook him, affection and sweetness clear as he reached around Viktor to pull her loose. She gummed her lips on Viktor's arm before Jayce led her away. He felt a little like a parent watching their child in their teething phase. 

Jayce hooked her to the cross ties before the delve of his smithy. It consisted of a massive crucible and its yawning mouth that heated the air much as the heavy damp of the summer did. To the side, a trough of water and an array of implements laid in wait. On the opposite end, a shelf of materials, metal in differing greys and slabs of thicknesses gleamed in the filtered afternoon light. 

“How's the water project going?” Jayce asked as he moved about the space, setting an odd knee-high knobbed contraption in front of Rio. “Seems pretty far along.” 

Viktor nodded, shifting his weight to his good leg and moving his cane for extra support on that side. “All that is left is to test it- see what areas could leak and if the tubing holds up to the pressure.” He looked away. “So, yes, I assume it will be completed within the next few days.”

Jayce turned away towards the hanging tools. One of his hands clenched before wrenching the arm's length pair of tongs. “That's good,” He said lightly, in spite of the tension across his arms. The dichotomy was not lost on Viktor, who frowned at Jayce's behavior.

Viktor watched as Jayce clamped a thin sheath of metal into the tongs and placed it onto a platform at the center of the crucible. He shut the hatch and, curiously, a cutout with just enough space for both tong ends to stick out kept the tool in place for a moment. 

“I've been thinking about her pigeon toe problem,” Jayce said, turning back to Viktor leaning against the entrance, the tension ebbing into something more like himself. He bent over at Rio's shoulder and lifted her hoof with gentle prodding. “Pigeon toe ain't much an issue now- that'll be for when she's older and her joints ain't so good.” He looked up, straining at the angle. He waved Viktor closer. “For now, the only thing we can do is preventative measures. I can make her a shoe that angles her foot the correct way, so she ain't strainin’ her joints too much and settin’ her up for an early retirement.” 

Viktor nodded, looking at the shape of the hoof as if it meant anything to him. “This would be a quick fix, yes?”

Jayce's smile soured a bit, his gaze flicking downward. “Well,” He started and stopped, and started again, “Uh, no, it would be a bit of a constant. I was thinking we should try it, see if it helps her gait even out or help her develop stronger joints. It'd save her a lot of pain in the long run.” 

Viktor's chest twisted. Something similar with his twisted spine and misaligned joints could have saved him an adolescence without pain. And she was so young, younger than he'd been when his ailments first manifested. And it was a long time before he got treatment, before he could pay for treatment. 

“I appreciate the thought,” Viktor said, “But the cost of materials- not to mention the time-” 

“V,” Jayce sighed. “How many times-” 

Viktor stood to his full height and Rio stiffened, ripping her leg from Jayce's hold. A little twinge of regret pulled at him, but he was too far ahead already. “I cannot keep expending you like this, Jayce,” He said. “I will not bleed you dry, this job cannot be financially fulfilling so as to support both you and her and me on your limited resources.”

“There ain't a limitation,” Jayce argued back. “I don't mind- the Kirammans are wealthy, and I have the run of the place. If I report to them that I have a horse with extra needs for its quality of life, they'll understand it and help me out. They ain't unkind people.”

“But I cannot keep taking from you,” Viktor replied. He was becoming overwhelmed with guilt and anger. He dropped his voice lower to keep himself under control. 

“You're not just taking from me,” Jayce growled back, throwing a hand up. Rio balked her head at the movement, staring at the two men with wide blue eyes. “You put in a watering system, you make dinner, you talk to me, you stick around and care about Rio and-” Jayce cut himself off with a huffed breath. 

“Yes,” Viktor hissed, “Because I cannot do nothing while you do all this for me!” 

“I do it because I want to!” Jayce yelled, turning back to reveal a desperation Viktor had yet to witness. “I do it because I don't like doing things only for myself! Because it's easier when you're here and I'm not alone because I can't be alone again!” 

His eyes widened at the revelation, his breaths coming quick. The burn of a blush flushed his tan cheeks dark and he turned back to open the maw of the crucible to reach a naked hand towards the glowing hot tongs. 

Viktor tried to step forward to stop him but it was too late. 

Jayce stepped back with a pained grunt, his hand flying away from the heated metal and then cradled it to his chest with a hiss.

Viktor passed Rio on the crossties, rushing to Jayce's side. He grasped the tightened fist, trying to pry open Jayce's fingers to see the damage, but Jayce resisted. 

“Shit! Don't pull so damn hard,” Jayce whined. 

Viktor gritted his teeth. “Relax, if the burn is bad enough, you could make it worse by the tension.” 

Jayce hissed another pained sound and Viktor gave up, pulling the man by his forearm to the water trough and dunking in both of their arms together. The relief was instantaneous on Jayce's face as his features slackened and he breathed easier. 

Viktor gently uncurled Jayce's finger underwater, ignoring the much quieter hisses of pain. Once his hand relaxed, Viktor pulled it back into the warm air of the forge. Jayce sucked in a sharp breath while Viktor analyzed the injury. 

“Fuck, sorry, I haven't forgotten my gloves in a long time,” Jayce sighed, using his other hand to run through his sweaty hair. “I got carried away.”

“No, I distracted you,” Viktor murmured, his voice low as he followed the burn from fingertips to forearm. “It is not so bad- looks like the worst part is your fingertips.” 

“Yeah, I can feel that,” Jayce grunted, as Viktor submerged his arm once again. 

“It is good you can even feel it. Your nerve endings are still intact.” Viktor stepped back. “Wait here, I'll grab some medicines-” 

“I don't have much-” Jayce started to protest, but Viktor stopped him.

“True, you do not have many human medicines,” Viktor said and then rushed towards the main barn. 

When he returned, Jayce had pulled his hand from the trough and picked at the edges of his burned skin with a wince. Viktor practically stomped his foot. “Jayce! Stop touching it,” He whinged, placing an opaque glass container and a small arm of an aloe plant onto the empty anvil beside the crucible. 

Jayce startled, caught blister-handed. He smiled sheepishly and watched as Viktor unpeeled the aloe innards into the glass container. Viktor then took one of Jayce's implements, a thick-ended screwdriver, shoved the end into the fire, quenched it to sterilize, and used it to mix the container's contents with the aloe. 

Jayce looked incredulous when Viktor scooped a glob into his hand. “That's the salve I use on saddle sores,” Jayce said like Viktor didn't know any better. 

“It is lanolin,” Viktor stated, raising an eyebrow. “And with the aloe, it will soothe your burn. I've made mixtures similar to this many times over. Sometimes the mines in the undercity would catch fire and the worst of the victims would come to me.”

“You were a doctor?” Jayce asked, his eyes widening to a sparkle. 

Viktor grasped Jayce's hand once again and spread the mixture across the burn. A wince went on both faces, Jayce from the pain, Viktor from the title. “Not a doctor,” He replied, a little too quickly, “An anatomist and a surgeon. But I also had an open clinic often, and any cases could walk through that door. I was honorbound to help them.”

“Physician, then?” Jayce tried. Viktor only rolled his eyes and spread the last of the ointment on Jayce's forearm. 

“That is still a type of doctor,” Viktor replied. “I did not have a completed degree in spite of my years of study.” He reached for a pad of gauze on a shelf below the tools and unwound it. “I worked on an independent study with my mentor and there is no formal doctorate system in the undercity such as in Piltover.”

Jayce hummed in reply, wincing as the gauze pulled tight. Viktor touched the peaks of his knuckles in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. 

“Perhaps, when my mentor passed, I would have inherited his title and his offices,” Viktor mused. “I certainly ran his estate like one of his offspring.”

Jayce scoffed at that, yet to pull his hand away. “It must have been beautiful if you upkept it the way you do here.” 

Viktor shrugged, deciding to take the initiative of unhooking Jayce's injured hand from Viktor's light hold. Jayce squeezed like he wanted to cling on, but seemed to think better of it. “I owed him quite a lot- of course I kept up his home to the best of my abilities.”

Jayce tilted his head like a confused puppy. “Is that why you're weird about owin’ me a debt?” 

Viktor paused in his turning away, bits of aloe held loosely in his hand, ready to fly into the open crucible to waste. He had never thought of it, never made the connection. It certainly would make sense, it certainly would fill in some of those blanks Viktor never had time to even acknowledge. 

The doctor had always lorded his power over Viktor. He never missed an opportunity to remind Viktor of the great many kindnesses he afforded the young man. In between scholarly lessons, Viktor would do what was needed to keep a roof over his head and food on his plate. Save for his illness and his surgeries upon his back and his leg, he did his best to ease the burden he put upon his old mentor. The guilt would eat him some nights. 

“Per-perhaps,” Viktor stammered, throwing the useless flesh of the aloe with more than enough force into the open crucible. Jayce eyed the movement. 

“Well, I don’t need you to earn your keep,” Jayce reminded him, breezing past to reach for a pair of tools. “I don't need you to run a clinic or dissect anything to feel like you're worthy of a warm meal, a place to sleep, or corrective shoes for your horse.” He pulled gloves that reached to his elbows on, struggling with the bandage. “Speakin’ of, do you want to try it?”

Upon Viktor's eyebrows knitting together, Jayce gestured to Rio, still standing dutifully on her line, stamping her foot for the flies. “For her pigeon toes, to ease the strain on her shoulder.” Noticing Viktor biting his lip, Jayce paused his struggle with the gloves. “And if you're hesitating because you think you owe me, just stop while you're ahead, I ain't gonna cash in some future debt that I'll lord over you.” 

Viktor let the breath ease from his lungs, coughing lightly as it caught strange in his throat. He stepped closer to Jayce, placing a hand on the glove stuck partially over his tightening burn. Viktor took up the edges and carefully maneuvered it into place over the gauze, never looking up in the process. The injured hand, now gloved, flexed stiffly and the fingers curled around Viktor’s, still held loosely forward. 

If Viktor said yes, he would be here for longer, much longer than the final few days of his water project and the final dredges of Rio's cane training promised. He would be waiting for her improvement then, improvement that could take months while she grew and adapted. 

And then winter would set in, and he would be trapped there for even longer. He'd share a bed, a space, a life for the unknowable future with Jayce who had yet to complain once except for Viktor's constant attempts to make up for it. 

Would things change? Would Viktor letting his guard down, settling into such a space for so long, push Jayce too far? Would Jayce finally realize Viktor was not worth the trouble or the kindness, and allow the resentment to build? 

Viktor moved minutely, flinching as Jayce squeezed his fingers. From behind, Rio stepped forward to strain against her crossties. Her nose crested against his back brace and the loud popping of her lips betrayed her attempts to teeth on him again. She stomped a foot, and Viktor suppressed a wince, thinking again of her shoulder. 

Perhaps the time would be good for her. She could grow and maybe push off future years of pain with these shoes. Jayce could work with her, she could get balanced meals, and live a stable life before she and Viktor left to somewhere unknown. 

Viktor ran his teeth over his lips, biting hard to nail down a decision. “If you are sure,” Viktor glanced up to Jayce's downturned eyes focused on where their hands were connected, “That the price of the shoes and the food and her housing are no issue, then I will agree to it.” 

Jayce looked up. It was like a rush of air, the dangerous pull of a riptide, an earthquake below Viktor's feet that threatened to knock him over and drag him under. “Really?” He breathed as if he were asking Viktor for his hand and not to shoe his horse. 

Lord, what a vision. Viktor felt his face heat in spite of the image existing only in his mind's eye. 

Viktor let his face crumble into a laugh. “Yes, you fool,” He chuckled, pushing Jayce back towards the forge. “You are too kind and I suppose- at your constant insistence- I shall be the one to take advantage of that.” To fill the void of affection Jayce left, Viktor retreated to Rio who popped her lips at his thumb. 

Jayce smiled and it was beautiful. Close-mouthed, soft, making his cheeks dimple at the corners of his eyes, Viktor knew he would crave that sight like a drop of water in drought if he never saw it again.

Jayce flexed his gloved hand and took up his tongs. “Well- I ain't done a corrective shape in a while so I might need your council,” Jayce placed the glowing strip of metal onto the anvil and looked back up at Viktor, “If you got the time, ‘course.” 

Viktor drifted closer, leaving Rio to reach after him indignantly. “I could be amenable, seeing how I have extra time to complete my project.” 

Jayce flipped a hammer in his hand and Viktor became distracted by the golden ripple of his muscle in the crucible's light. And, God almighty, a vein popped along his forearm. Jayce looked up with a grin that could have graced billboards. “I can help you out with it later- if you'll have me.”

Viktor did not look away from the other man's musculature for too long, so much so he felt caught by Jayce in his staring. The blush felt feverish, especially standing so close to the open flame. “Perhaps,” Viktor purred, taking a moment to meet Jayce's challenging gaze, but then held without a flinch. 

Jayce only hummed in response, held the hammer high, and slammed it down upon the glowing strip of metal. It sparked and it lengthened, the force pulling it thin. The sound ripped throughout the forge and Viktor held his breath. The tension could break him. 

Viktor awoke expecting to see the image he'd shut his eyes to, the doctor's scalpel poised above his heart. There was a hypothesis on the tip of the old scientist's dry tongue that Viktor's heart could still beat even rotten and malformed as it was. But Viktor blinked in the darkness of the barn house's single room. There were books haphazard upon the opposite shelf and the curtains were pulled slightly apart to show the moon-drenched porch outside the window. It was just a dream. 

The bed was not empty. A body, warm and curled around him, tightened its hold. Arms encircled Viktor at the shoulder and waist. The fingers dug in as the body behind him turned tense and cowered into Viktor's neck. Breaths puffed rapidly and tickled into his hair. 

“No,” Jayce breathed, his voice sleepy and low but charged with an intensity that Viktor could feel. He hummed the next word as his lips stuck together. “... get up, please, gotta get ya home…” 

Viktor understood. The nightmares must have been contagious. 

“Jayce?” Viktor whispered, rolling over in the cage he found himself in. 

“Help,” Jayce cried in a soft voice. Viktor now rolled to him, he could see Jayce's eyebrows turned upward and his closed eyes squinted. A grimace pulled his lips downward, severe and broken like a shard of ice. “Help us, please!” His voice turned more desperate and broken.

Viktor couldn't stand it. He wriggled his arms loose until he could reach upward and hold Jayce's jaw. A comforting thumb swiped at the divot below the cheek bone. “Jayce, it's just a dream,” He stated, louder and calmer than before. “Wake up, you're safe.”

The nightmare came to a crescendo as Jayce's movements turned erratic and tight. His neck jerked and he woke with a cry, his eyes flying open. Jayce looked first to Viktor, surprised by their proximity enough that he reeled back and released Viktor from the hold. He panted into the dark, rolling onto his back and gripping the sheets hard enough to pull them taut. 

“Jayce?” Viktor whispered, reaching a hand to his arm because they felt empty without a loving face to cradle. “I'm sorry to wake you, I- It seemed intense.”

Jayce glanced towards Viktor, eyes caught gleaming in the moonlight. “No, I'm sorry for waking you,” He replied, rolling back to face Viktor and curling his knees closer. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Viktor asked, settling back into the mattress.

Jayce sighed. “Not really… It's nothing.” 

Viktor made no move to let it by, keeping his focus unrelenting. “It did not sound like nothing,” He replied. 

Jayce glanced towards Viktor exasperated, his lips pursed in the way he always did when he was deciding whether or not to start digging a grave on the hill he could die on. It seemed he'd choose a different hill that day when the tension in his face eased into something more mellow. 

Jayce traced the striped lines of the bedding and shifted so he leaned his cheek on his hand. “When I was ten, my mother and I got caught in a snowstorm,” He started. 

Viktor listened to the tale: one of desperation, an attempt at a better life, and nearly dying for the risk. Jayce explained why they were out there: the train conductors knew of a blizzard coming and would not go to Piltover for many days- maybe weeks, even- until the weather cleared. Jayce's mother- quickly running out of funds for their inn stay- tried to convince them, but was instead sold the promise that a mountain pass could get them through before the storm set in. His mother took the risk, bundling them up and setting out on the long trek. 

The train conductors had been ill-informed. The pass had never been attempted by explorers who'd survived, much less regular civilians with only the clothes on their backs as warmth. Jayce remembered the cold, the numbness in his hands, and how the chill spread to his brain and turned his memories hazy. He remembered his mother collapsing and him having to calling for help in the snow. And, miraculously, a figure had appeared: a farrier caught while on a hunting trip, with his mobile forge waiting only a couple hundred meters down the mountain to warm them. 

“That was your father,” Viktor guessed and Jayce smiled a shadow of his usual delight. 

“Correct,” He said. “We stayed in his traveling forge until the storm died, then he drove us directly to Piltover. After that, he married my mom and began to take me with him on his work trips. He was a kind man.” 

“Was?” Viktor asked, his voice soft in its probing. 

Jayced nodded. His head slipped from the hold against his fist and he settled back among the pillows. He seemed sheepish as he refused to meet Viktor's watching. “He passed when I was nineteen. It was very sudden.” 

“And your mother?” 

“Still alive- back in Piltover.” He kept the same sullen expression despite Viktor's attempt to ease that with a fact Jayce had let slip before, through mentions of letters from his mother. It clearly did not help as he closed his eyes and only frowned deeper. 

Viktor felt a bit foolish as he asked, “You seem to miss her a great deal, could you go and visit her?” 

Jayce barked an empty laugh rife with pain and hurt. Viktor tried not to take it to heart as the reaction bore a stab of pain in his chest. “I can't go back,” Jayce spat, rolling so he lay on his stomach and glared at the wall behind them. “And it's her fault.”

Viktor couldn't hold his empty hands back as his left touched the curve of Jayce's arm. Jayce stiffened as though shocked and then relaxed, letting his head drift sideways so he could see Viktor instead of his all-consuming rage at the wall. 

The gaze was thick and heavy, full of something that turned Viktor's mouth dry and stole all thoughts from his forebrain. Like the tide when it went to turn and ease back into the ocean, the subtle pull towards the deep drifted underneath the facade of something calm. A swimmer could drown in the hidden riptide of that stare, and Viktor had never been a strong swimmer. 

Jayce opened his mouth to speak, but Viktor was already pulling away. “You do not have to tell me, if it causes you pain,” Viktor said quickly. 

But Jayce caught the hand on his arm with his own, smothering it with his warm palm and keeping it in place. “No, it- um…” He took a deep breath in and released it, looking down at the pillow then back up at Viktor. “You've made allusions to something in your past you're running from- that you ain't a good man. I'm no good man either.” 

Viktor stilled at that. The shock of it, that Jayce could have done something as egregious as Viktor when the man was so kind and selfless- so giving and loving. The possibility that once he had not been so never crossed Viktor's mind until then; he got a glimpse of whatever uncertainty Jayce must have felt when Viktor mentioned his past. 

Who was the man laying across from him, held hand in hand, shining liquid eyes so full of misery that it made Viktor's heart ache? Viktor suddenly didn't want to know, lest it shatter the little world they'd built and inhabited together so far away in isolation. But he did not speak up to stop Jayce of his explanation. Viktor's curiosity was too strong. 

“The Kirammans sponsored me during my schooling,” Jayce said. “Otherwise, I wouldn't have afforded it even if my father hadn't passed so soon. Their support meant I could study my passions more closely- I could take a credit in an independent thesis project for a semester, travel, and focus on a topic of my choosing. I chose a volatile substance from Shuriman the Kirammans wanted to invest in and I wanted to turn it into a fuel source. 

“About a month before my thesis committee, some kids broke into my apartment and knocked a candle into it,” Jayce said, his voice turning hollow. “It lit up half the block and caught fire in the oil lamps. Many people were injured. My research was confiscated, I was jailed for a while, and my mother pleaded mental insanity to get me out.” 

He turned away again, burying his nose in his elbow. “The Kirammans took pity on me and sent me out here for something to do. I think they felt guilty- that they invested so much time into me all for nothing.” Jayce gritted his teeth and from the slight angle Viktor could see, his jaw muscle flexed at his temple. 

“Could you go back?” Viktor asked tentatively once the story had tapered off into silence. “Could you see your mother again?” 

Jayce shrugged, the tension in his brows tumbling into something a little more hopeless. “I don't know,” He admitted. “I only took this job to keep her from worrying. She said I was like a ghost of myself when I came back home from jail.” 

An explosion, a block of homes consumed by a raging fire ushered in by the infection of oil lamps. How it must have burned in the pristine glowing white of Piltover's perfect world. 

Viktor thought back, to when he was working like a dog, rarely resting, giving his all to a man that caned his horses and a clinic doomed to fail. He'd heard of a fire up in Piltover, of an heir to a small family name being tried for it, but it was all Piltie nonsense. 

In the undercity, justice was doled out by the masses, or not at all if the perpetrator was cunning enough. So a poor little Piltie got caught, such was life when enforcers prowled around in the daylight like rabid creatures waiting to snap at any small misdeeds.

Jayce was not the bad man he'd alluded to. His misdeed was a random encounter gone poorly, something he did not put into motion with ample known risk. His worst action was forgetting to lock a door before he left home, or having a simple lock easy to pick. He had not killed anyone with his own hands. He had not truly been banished from Piltover. 

If he decided tomorrow, he could pack up and return home to his mother's care and he could forget all about Viktor and the ranch. Viktor could not expect the man to stay out here, alone with only Viktor for company. 

Viktor wondered how things would have ended up if Jayce had been kept in jail, or if he had returned home, and there was no one to find Viktor drying out and limping in the scrubland. Viktor would have died most likely. Maybe Rio would have found a wandering kind soul or maybe she would have wound up as coyote food. Viktor tried to banish the thought. 

Viktor hummed, putting effort into the hand Jayce braced in place on his arm to press fingers into the muscle. Viktor's other hand drifted along Jayce's jaw, his cheek, his nose, his lips, poking hard enough to make him turn. 

“Wh- uh- what are you doing?” Jayce stammered. His face felt warm below Viktor's prodding fingers. 

“Feeling if you are alive,” Viktor answered. “Or if you are a ghost after all, and your mother is correct.” 

Jayce stilled. The comedy Viktor was expecting fell flat as an uneasy look took him over. “And? What's your verdict?” 

Viktor felt along his jaw again and then dipped lower to the curve of Jayce's neck, a spot right beside where a tendon flexed and disappeared. A steady thrumming, quick as a hummingbird, but deep and baritone greeted Viktor's fingertips. He listened to the beating, the lifeblood, the echo of the epicenter of Jayce's life itself. 

“Alive,” Viktor murmured, “Of course. You are not pale and see-through nor do you walk through walls and cry like a banshee at night. You are alive and well and probably very tired.”

Jayce nodded, glazed with an expression that disappeared into the dark of the room. He swallowed and it jostled Viktor's fingertips. “I could start haunting you if you need more convincing,” He joked, his tone low and uncertain, shaky like a leaf. 

“I don't need more ghosts,” Viktor replied. “I prefer you as you are.” 

Jayce parted his lips, one of his teeth shining against the light, like he wanted to say something but it got caught in his throat. A shifting and Jayce returned to facing Viktor with his head on his pillow. Arms encircled once more, back to where they belonged. 

Viktor touched the wrinkling corner of Jayce's eye and it made him blink. “Go back to sleep, Jayce. You are safe with me.” A warm nose nudged underneath Viktor's jaw and made a home against the skin of his esophagus. It pressed in with enough tension to make swallowing uneven and the breaths puffed against the skin there turned long and slow. The moon drifted lower to the point of peeking below the edge of the porch's roof. Dawn was not far away. 

Later, when Viktor woke from his continued nightmares, this time with a man suffering from a cancerous bulb upon his head and a child with rot in her lungs, warm breaths on his throat anchored him back to where he was. 

There were no dingy laboratories without windows. There were no cold sterile tables or a heavy syringe in hand. 

There was only relief and it looked like a golden morning. 

Chapter Text

Autumn planted itself firmly into the air. The sky turned a dazzling blue, the trees turned a ruddy orange, the grasslands turned yellow in its drought. The world began to die, slowly, brilliantly, beautifully. Sending forth the last of its lifeforce in an array of colors and a shower of falling leaves. The trees would sleep through the cold of the winter and reawaken anew. A death, a baptism, and a resurrection. 

For Viktor, the cold winds brought something more worrying. He was coughing more, in the way he had when he was young. In the way his father had in the sumps. In the way his mother had when Viktor finally dragged her to the doctor's door at age twelve.

The slow grip of panic made breathing harder over the days. Viktor ignored the signs at first as seasonal allergies, then as a light cold, then as a stubborn cough. And while he suppressed the coughs as much as he could around Jayce, some days he would enter into their shared room to a steaming mug of tea mixed with lemon and honey waiting for him. 

He'd completed the waterlines a few weeks earlier, and with a few days sat idle watching Jayce work with Rio (the shoes had worked wonders), he'd devised another project and set to work. 

Using little containers with holes poked into the caps, he put together what he hoped would make flies and gnats less of an issue: a mixture of vinegar, lavender, rosemary, and basil. He was experimenting with the amounts in each stall, and for a time, he was afraid the mixture was what made him feel so sick. Until tiny pinpricks of blood appeared on his handkerchief after a bout of coughing. 

Jayce didn't know about that, of course, he assumed it was a stubborn cough and gave Viktor grace when he struggled to pause the racket at night. It made Viktor want to tear his lungs out when he saw Jayce yawn in the morning, long past when the coffee should have banished such a reaction. 

So Viktor paused when Jayce mentioned it was almost time to go get the cattle. Jayce said it with the assumption that both of them would take the trek then idly mentioned he'd take Rio, to make sure she wouldn't dump Viktor out in the same stretch of plains she'd done before. It stabbed Viktor in the chest in a way that felt like a cough coming on. 

“But I don't want to slow you down,” Viktor argued while Jayce threw a trail saddle over Mercury's back. 

Jayce tightened the girth and glanced around Mercury's shoulder to Viktor with a laughing incredulity. “You ain't gonna slow me down. This is an endurance ride, not speed. It'll take two days just to get to the herd.” 

“What about the horses here?” Viktor asked, following behind Jayce to the tack room where the saddlebags, already packed, waited. “Won't someone have to watch them?” 

Jayce hefted the bags over his shoulder and nicked a pair of splint boots for good measure. “Naw, I'm gonna put ‘em out to pasture for a few days. Weather's s'posed to be nice while we're gone and they could use the extra nutrients before winter hits for real.” 

Viktor grumbled, massaging the bridge of his nose. The man would not let him out of the trip- not that Viktor particularly didn't want to go. He had yet to process his coughing or the blood he could taste in his mouth every few days. He knew his slowly-dawning illness was aggravating Jayce's sleep, and a break away from each other could be good. Good for Jayce's mind, good for Viktor's need to freak out a little bit. 

A hand clapped onto Viktor's shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. The intensity that vibrated out of Jayce made Viktor's thoughts disappear. “You ain't gonna try to get out of this, are you? I need the help- a whole herd of cows ain't gonna respect a single horse.” 

Viktor swallowed the awful feelings in his stomach, replacing it with a new nervousness. “Jayce, I have never done this before, I have never even galloped successfully. How am I supposed to move an entire herd?” 

“Wull, I'll be there with you,” Jayce said, like that made a difference. 

Viktor sighed. “I know that was meant to be comforting, but that does not change the fact that I do not know what I'm doing.” 

Jayce pulled him in, an endeavor that was a touch awkward, like grabbing a cat by the scruff and feeling it go stiff. Viktor ushered in only with a limp of his cane and the half-falling half-stepping feeling of a movement without extra support. He landed pillowed against a strong tricep that made him want to claw his lungs out for a different reason. 

“I'll be there with you and I'll be there to help you,” Jayce replied, grinning over the odd angle Viktor had to crane his head to see. Jayce bent and pressed a kiss against his temple, nothing too overwhelming, something close to the way a cat bumped its head against a human's petting hand but in reverse. “Besides,” He added, squeezing Viktor in tighter, “I don't wanna hafta miss you for almost a week.”

Viktor broke free from the stifling grasp, feeling warmer with each passing heartbeat. “You would not miss me,” He replied under his breath. 

But Jayce caught it anyway, having the gall to look hurt. “Viktor! C'mon, I thought we were past this.” He grabbed Viktor's wrist across their divide. “I want you with me or I'll miss you- I'm being honest.” 

And so am I, Viktor wanted to snap, but he bit his tongue. Instead, he let his shoulders slump forward and released the breath out his lungs. He nodded without looking at Jayce who continued on his excited ramble, walking Viktor through the route they were to take, where the campsites were. It was all cotton in Viktor's ears as the tension in his chest threatened to pull him apart. 

With the stalls cleaned and clear of their occupants, and the outside paddocks secure, Jayce mounted Rio and trotted to where Viktor waited. The mare looked like a pack mule, with a rope tied by the rawhide straps on her saddle, a few canvas rolls behind the lip of the seat, and saddle bags on each side, she looked ready for a cross-country trek. Mercury looked much the same, though the full grown stud looked much more at ease with his extra weight. Skinny little Rio floundered. 

Jayce shot a grin towards Viktor. “Ready to go?” He called as he sidled the mare beside him. 

Viktor nodded, feeling more than a little nervous in the face of such a journey. The longest he'd ever rode was the night he and Rio ran from Piltover and the undercity, riding for several hours out into the wilderness in the dead of night. They only stopped when Rio threw (dropped) Viktor sometime in the morning. 

Before Viktor could squeeze Mercury on, Jayce reached a hand across their divide, tangling with the reins. Jayce didn't say anything, but the softened smile dimpling his cheeks, the slope of his shoulders stretched toward Viktor, and the gentle squeeze of his hand told Viktor all he needed to hear. ‘I am right here’, Jayce radiated out of himself. 

It was quick, a flash of affection across their divide before Jayce gathered the reins back together and kicked Rio on. Mercury followed after a quick touch to Viktor's boot. 

They trotted, loped, walked, and meandered their way across the plains that eventually bled into scrublands. The sun rose around them, and in the autumn air, it warmed the world in a pleasant way like an echo of the punishing rage of summer. 

At midday, they paused at a small spring, long enough to water the horses and eat biscuits Viktor had made a few days prior. Then on they went, until the sun scraped the distant mountains and the shadows loomed.

There was an ache in Viktor's legs that was far different than the usual pain and discomfort. This radiated from the center of his hips, evenly spread across both sides and thrummed in a way that felt like he still had a horse running below him. Jayce noticed the difference as soon as their dinner discussion trailed off prematurely. Jayce passed him another serving without asking. 

“If you want, I can massage the pain out,” He said, eyes downcast and casual like this was something normal between them. Not something charged and tense, that push and pulled at the same speed as the tides. “I was saddle sore when I first started training again.” 

Viktor wanted to say no. He ached to say yes. He pursed his lips and pushed the added rice around the soup can he used as a dinner plate. He twitched his knees, trying to move more comfortably on his pained tailbone and winced. The aching only grew. 

He agreed, and the discomfort faded as the relief mosied its way in with Jayce's expert hands. Though, when they rolled out their canvas bed rolls later, Viktor placed his across the fire. It felt fair to give Jayce that space when he'd never had the choice after Viktor dropped into his life and took up a space in his bed. 

The fire of Jayce's hands over his back, his hips, and his legs overstayed their welcome throughout the night. Viktor didn't think he slept a wink, and it seemed neither did Jayce from how he tossed and turned. The next day came with more traveling and a little less conversation between horses. Viktor tried not to look at Jayce, though he failed more often than he succeeded. 

The strange tension tightened to a breaking point and Viktor could hear the seams starting to snap. The loudest crack came just before dinner as Viktor was tending the fire and checking the beans. Jayce came stomping from the forest, fresh wood in hand and hatchet swinging by its bearded end in the empty gun holster. Jayce had left his firearm with Viktor though he'd never touch the thing. 

Jayce dumped the logs unceremoniously next to Viktor with a huff. “You're actin’ off,” He said, crossing his arms. 

Viktor sat back from the fire, looking up with an honest confusion. Yes, he was trying to avoid Jayce, but he did not think it was so different from his usual habits. “I am?” 

“Yes,” Jayce replied, terse and tense. “You've barely looked at me today-” Ah, so he noticed- “You put your bed roll as far away as you could get it, and you won't talk to me.”

Viktor flushed at being caught. He turned back to the fire and tried to hide the heat in his face. “We are talking now.” 

“Are we?” Jayce replied, cocking his head sideways and moving to face Viktor's eyeline. “Because it feels a lot like I'm talking at you.”

“Perhaps you are.” Viktor shrugged and took up a spoon to stir the pot over the fire. 

Jayce let out a frustrated sigh. “Did I make you uncomfortable?” Viktor gave no motion. “Are you feeling ill? Are you cold, hungry?” 

“I'm tired,” Viktor replied, hoping that would put the argument to bed, but it did little. 

“I'm worried about you,” Jayce said, continuing on like he didn't even hear Viktor's one admission. “You cough constantly and you won't tell me what's the matter. I talk about the future- even fuckin’ next week- and you clam up. And then the next day you'll wake up, hold my hand, tell me that I'm safe, and you stare at me- constantly!” Jayce threw his arms out in frustration. “You're so fuckin’ back and forth, it's makin' my head spin.”

Viktor shoved the spoon deep into the mixture and practically spat his words into it. “I am not staying here for much longer, Jayce, and I have not made any allusions of anything different.”

Jayce wilted at that, his arms falling to his sides. A new kind of hurt bloomed upon his face and the scowl stabbed into Viktor's heart. “So… all this- you buildin’ a watering system, making a fly mixture, allowing me to train your horse and help her legs- all this was just so you could leave like there's nothing here?”

“Nothing where, Jayce?” Viktor snapped. He schooled his voice back, back down to where it was small, where his emotions did not seem so large and he could keep a betrayal of how he truly felt down. “I am not trying to swindle you with kind gestures- they are payment and nothing else.”

“That's a fuckin’ lie!” Jayce yelled. “This whole time I told you not to pay me back, not to feel like you owed me. If you did all this for me and it was just a payment, then look me in the eye and say it.”

Viktor turned away, abandoning the beans in their entirety. He looked out towards the grasslands, where Rio and Mercury chewed grass wearing ankle hobbles. Viktor swallowed and suddenly wished he had the strength to throw a saddle and run away. “Stop this, Jayce,” He muttered, but it did nothing. 

“No! No, you know there's more to us than that, than a fuckin’ debt!” Jayce cried. His voice carried to the distant hills and bounced back just as painful. “You know I care about you how I do and I know somewhere where you've squirreled it away, you do too! You just won't let yourself!” 

“Jayce, stop!” Viktor snapped again, gripping onto anything he could get his hands on. The dirt crumbled around his fingers and grass snapped from their roots. 

“Because I care about you, Viktor! I want you to stay, I keep tryin' to show you that there's a space for you, here, with me!” Jayce shouted, his voice high with desperation. “Whatever you're runnin’ from, I don't care, I've never cared-” 

“I don't deserve it!” Viktor finally shouted, struggling to his feet and leaning heavily on his cane. 

“Yes, you do!” 

“I've killed people!” Viktor finally screeched. 

Jayce paused and the world went silent. Only the fire popped and cracked in Viktor's wake. 

Like the fire, the creature deep in his chest purred and cackled. This was what it had been biding its time for, and it was famished.

Every feeling bubbled together into something that the self-satisfied creature clawing his insides to pieces could digest without an issue. His innards were shredded, he choked on the blood. Betrayal tasted like copper and he wanted to spit it out onto something else. 

“What?” 

“I'm a murderer, Jayce,” Viktor replied much softer. “That is what I'm running from. That is why I am not a good man. That is why you should not care for me the way you do. I mean my words when I say I do not deserve it.” His voice cracked hard and empty. 

The fire crackled and collapsed in on itself, releasing a flurry of sparks that blocked Viktor's view from Jayce just long enough to come back to himself. Just long enough for his heart to beat loud enough that he could think clearly again. The yelling left a ringing in his ears that had him wincing away once the flurries faded. Viktor stepped from the fire, his hackles raised and his breath coming fast.

“I'm sorry,” He gasped. Rio. He should get to Rio and run again. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” He took up his cane and stumbled into the dark. His blundering parted the grass as he tried to grasp the saddle horn and lift it with his freehand.

“Viktor,” Jayce called, stepping around the fire. 

He could run until he falls again. He could find a new place to hole up in until the cough became worse. Until winter came. Until Rio kicked him in the head or until he ran out of food or he froze in a blizzard. Or until the enforcers finally caught up to him. If he could only drag the saddle closer. 

“Viktor!” Jayce cried, closer now and touching his shoulder. 

Viktor flinched away and dropped the saddle. He could walk away instead and just hope he made it to the town, now an extra two days away. Certainly he could stave off dehydration for long enough. Rio would be better off, she wouldn't succumb if she stayed with Jayce.

Jayce's hands caught his wrists and held him in place, even as he struggled. “Viktor… Viktor wait,” He says. His voice spoke too softly, far too soft for the murderer he held. “Don't go, please.”

Viktor felt that he was crumbling, succumbing from the inside out. Claws tore at his lungs, made him wince in pain. There came a drumming at the edge of his skull, right where the spine connected as if a hand were reaching up from deep within himself and knocking to be allowed in. He almost let himself fall away, almost shrugged the pain and the fear off his shoulders so he no longer bore the responsibility of his own sins. 

“Viktor,” Jayce called again. He was so fuzzy and far away. A distant buoy at the edge of the shallow water, bobbing in the waves. A riptide tore through Viktor making the world into a bubble where sound muffled and bounced backwards as jumbled as it came.

His heart beat faster than it ever had, even the night of his absconding. The hypothesis must have been true, as the doctor from Viktor's dream had wondered, that his heart still worked in spite of its rot. 

It pounded in his ears just as loud as a regular, loving heart. It pounded alongside Jayce's; a hummingbird at his fingertips. Hollow as Viktor's heart was and empty as the breaths he took. With this, the grey in his lungs won further ground in the war against his health. 

The moon was rising when Viktor came back down from where he'd been, when he could gulp in air without the world needling down into a tiny point as the darkness bloomed around him. He was sitting ten feet away from the fire, knees pulled to his chest, and tapping his fingers against his leg. No, against someone else's leg. He couldn't feel the other side of the sensation, and when he focused, the leg was much more muscled than his own. 

A hand held his, squeezing with each breath in and out. The leg he'd tapped against pressed against his own and when he looked up from where he stared at the ground, it was Jayce who he saw. 

The panic threatened to rise again, but Viktor swallowed it down. “I'm sorry,” He whispered again. Something slid, warm and wet, down his face, and he realized a little dumbly that they were tears. “I'm sorry,” He breathed again. 

Like the night when Jayce woke from his nightmare, Jayce's hands mirrored Viktor's, holding careful to his jaw while he came down from panic. He breathed soft platitudes, pushed Viktor's hair behind his ears, and held him as the last of the tremors disappeared. He guided Viktor's hands into counting their breaths in a pattern so it slowed their breathing to something deeper.

“Will you tell me?” Jayce asked, hours later when the fire decrescendoed into a dying flame and the beans had stopped smoking. Viktor apologized for that too, and for taking up his evening, and for ruining his rest. Jayce heard none of it outside of his soft cooing. They sat next to each other like they would any night before bed, not touching except for the slightest brush of their knuckles on the canvas.

Viktor shuddered. It was a question he had dreaded since his awareness came back to him. But there was nowhere else to go, no desert he could walk into and get lost in without bringing Jayce with him. All they had were each other and the distant ringing of the horses’ hobble bells. 

“I told you I ran a clinic,” Viktor started. “And I told you my mentor was who taught me how to be a doctor. What I did not tell you was that he was the inventor of shimmer.” 

An undercity drug, it had ravaged the dredges of Viktor's home, turned once hardworking individuals into suffering addicts that grew pustules and cancerous tumors upon their bodies. With too much dependence, their blood became the very shimmer they fed upon. When they could no longer sustain their addiction, they succumbed to its hunger. 

“The doctor thought he could stabilize it- much how opium had helpful uses. He thought he could use it to cure the very illness it caused- perhaps even the grey. He had me use my clientele as his test subjects, and I administered the dosages.” Viktor blinked into the nothingness around him, seeing Mr. Huck, young Deckard, the wheelchaired orphan daughter of an enforcer clash victim. “The first few dosages went well, and they began to feel better. But then the placebo wore off, their bodies began to rebel against the shimmer. They all died in my clinic, bled out from bursting tumors connected to their circulatory system. It must have been eleven people in all.”

“One of my clientele was a Piltover citizen- a retired councilor in fact. He'd suffered a debilitating spine injury and relied on a wheelchair to navigate. He was not ill, he was not actively injured- he came to me for pain relief. But the doctor wanted a control subject, and he perished just as the rest did.”

“If it had only been undercity denizens, I may have been fine. There is no justice system in the undercity aside from the public. But a Piltover citizen among the victims? Gone missing after several trips to the slums? I was sure I would be arrested. So, I packed up everything the night of the tragedy, and I fled.”

Viktor finished his tale monotone and stared at the embers of the fire. Neither had made a move to stack the fresh wood Jayce dropped. Too absorbed in each other, they'd allowed the fire to die and crumble into itself. Grey smoke billowed upwards and disappeared into the wind as it sighed above their heads. Viktor stared down into the flames, watching a piece of the final surviving log flick into the air with a glowing lifeforce and watched it dance upward into the sky. It flickered somewhere far above them, dashed into the wind and dead. 

He could not look to his left. He did not want to see whatever reaction the man had. With the amount of pain and suffering he felt within himself, targeted towards his own fleshy and vulnerable insides, another set rending from someone he cared so much about would ruin him. 

Viktor tried to think ahead, but the planning was all done. There were no other options but to wait for Jayce's slumber and abscond once more. Then he would do it again and again and again until he could outrun everything he could not hold within himself. He could disappear, and with him would go all the things he had done wrong. 

“That's not fair,” Jayce muttered. 

The spell broke over Viktor as he finally looked at the man beside him. “What?”

“I said ‘that's not fair’. What the doctor did to you- making you use your patients. It's not fair,” Jayce said simply. He wore the most pitiful frown, like a petulant child. 

Viktor was dumbfounded. He'd bore the sins of his past so clearly that there was still blood collected under his nails, yet Jayce had called Viktor's experience unfair. “Not much in the world is fair, Jayce,” He blurted. “But I did these things. I was the perpetrator and I did not refuse to do them.”

“What would have happened if you'd refused?” Jayce asked, like it was simple. “Would he have been understanding? Would he have dropped the issue and tested his drugs in a more ethical manner?” 

“Of course not,” Viktor scoffed. 

“Would he have hurt you?” It was far more earnest now, Jayce even leaned closer. “Would he have hit you with a cane? Or tested his shimmer on you?” Jayce's hand was touching Viktor's wrist again, gentle fingertips against his pulse. 

“I…” Viktor stammered. The hesitance was not about doubting if the doctor would hurt him- he would and he had. Hesitance stemmed from if he could even admit such a thing. 

How could one admit that their own mentor who housed and clothed him as a child performed experimental surgeries at the first excuse? And how could Viktor dodge such blame when it was not his mentor's hand that had dealt the murders, it had been his own? “Jayce, it's not so simple-”

“It is. And I'm sorry I have to break the news to you, but you are not the bad person you think you are. You tried your best and you were set up to fail.” Calloused hands were back to clutching Viktor's jaw. How stunning such a careful touch was. 

“I know when you talk about him that you fear him. I know you have nightmares that he did somethin’ awful to you. You get this haunted look in your eye every time you mention him. You don't even wanna be called a doctor, for God's sake!” 

Viktor stuttered at that and could feel his breath coming fast again. This was not how the conversation was meant to go. There was not even supposed to be a conversation. Viktor should have admitted his greatest sin and Jayce should have ran him off with the end of his shotgun. 

Jayce took a deep breath, held it, and released it, then nodded for Viktor to do the same. It only helped marginally. “It ain't a good thing you've done, Viktor, but that doesn't make you a bad person when you tried your best.”

Viktor swallowed the words he wanted to say (‘Are you fucking crazy?!’) and spoke with a voice hoarse as if he'd screamed for an hour. “You are too kind!” He spat instead, wishing he could rip himself away from the cradle holding him up. But he was too weak to it. “You are too fucking kind!”

And Jayce- that fucker- laughed. It was something small and a little forced, but it was also a glimpse of his perfect smile, his imperfect teeth, that shine in his eyes. Another heavy tear rolled down Viktor's face. He didn't deserve this. 

“I'll never convince you, will I?” Jayce murmured, swiping that tear away with his thumb. 

Viktor shook his head, not an outright agreement but incredulity that Jayce still held him so close, physically and emotionally. 

“Don't think that just because you done something bad, that means I'm gonna hate you,” Jayce sighed. “I'm not sure I ever could.”

“You should hate me,” Viktor muttered, finally ripping his face away from Jayce's loving touch to fall against his shoulder. The exhaustion was a riptide Viktor couldn't fight against any longer. Jayce's hands rose up to embrace him closer. “You should be yelling and screaming at me, for lying to you. For everything.”

“You never lied,” Jayce tutted. “You were pretty clear that while you didn't want to talk about it, you hadn't anything good to tell.” 

“That's not the point-”

“And both of us are running from something we did in Piltover. Something we can't return to,” Jayce muttered breezily. 

Viktor stiffened against his touch. “Do not compare our crimes. We both know that will not end well.” But then he relaxed a moment later as Jayce only held him tighter and slotted his chin against Viktor's neck. 

“I'm not gonna drive you away, Viktor. I know deep down you're a good man- because you try to do good. And I won't stop trying to convince you.” Jayce's words tickled against Viktor's ear and he was powerless to push him away. He couldn't force his hands up to press against Jayce with any meaningful strength. He crumbled into the embrace and let his weight rest against the man holding him. The phantom tears, long dried and emptied, made his eyes sting in spite of their absence. 

When Jayce's voice came again, it had been after a pregnant pause while Viktor tried to fight the sensation of tears. It was a little more mellow, a little less passionate, and curdled with a tone of self-deprecation. 

“Did you know that the night I found you, I was going to hang myself?” Jayce said, as if that were a normal thing to say. Like it was a breezy, funny anecdote. Not a brutal, soul-wrenching, agonizing fact that made Viktor reel back in his arms. 

Viktor had had his suspicions, of course, for a long while in fact. In his febrile state, he'd seen the rope, he'd seen the random tree in the middle of nowhere, the horse Jayce had been about to unsaddle to set loose. But to have it confirmed so suddenly and so easily? It felt gasping for air and breathing in a mouthful of sea water. 

“You shocked me out of it, gave me something to focus on and help. But you know what you said before you passed out the first time?” Jayce glanced up with a grin and Viktor wanted to shake him. He settled for bracketing his hands at either side of Jayce's neck, ready to choke or embrace depending on the next few words out of his mouth. 

Viktor shook his head slowly, thinking back to the night. “I remember thinking it was clever- I was very out of my mind at that point.” 

Jayce grinned a little more of a smirk. He glanced down and back up again through his lashes. “You said, ‘Am I interrupting?’ and I thought that was the most jarring thing you coulda said at that moment. I completely snapped out of it. I felt like a fool, really.”

“You're not,” Viktor replied, but Jayce continued. 

“I'd been alone for months- the only time I got a good conversation was when I went to town every few weeks. I'd gotten a letter from the Kirammans saying they were gonna wind down the cattle company, the last thing I had going for me, and I just thought ‘Wull, shit, dying's bout the only thing I can do now’.” Jayce grinned but all the comedy and affection was gone. His hands tightened around Viktor's waist. “But I found your mare, and I almost envied her lost rider, figurin’ him dead. And then I found you, and I realized what a fucking sign it was.” 

Viktor caught his breath. There must have been some mistake, some mixed up sense of mysticism. A line of coincidences for a man at the end of his rope literally and figuratively did not necessarily mean it was an all encompassing sign. Viktor's heart broke that Jayce's hope, the thing that had pulled him from the edge, was nothing but a murderer chased to the ends of the earth. 

“Jayce…” Viktor sighed, lifting a hand to caress Jayce's cheek. The hairs of his beard parted with a roughness that was unusual, given he did not have his shaving razor with him.  

Jayce grabbed hold of Viktor's hand, squeezing with the strength of a dying man. “Don't try to break my heart to absolve yourself of some guilt over the mistakes you've made. ‘Cause I don't want you perfect. I want you as you are, as I know you,” Jayce said. 

“You helped save my life, and I know you've been fixin’ to leave since you got here, but I couldn't help myself. You're so likable and kind and hardworking. I don't think there's been a day you've been conscious that you haven't tried to pull your weight. You care about your horse, even though you don't know jack shit about horses. You put up with my weird behaviors, like runnin’ around in the rain. You laugh at my jokes, even when they ain't that funny. You stick around even when I have nightmares.” 

“You're good,” Jayce concludes. “You're good because you try to be good: to me, to Rio, Mercury, the world around you…” 

Viktor stared. How couldn't he? When the fire's embers still flickered enough to cast light upon Jayce, flying upwards in a way that softened, then turned severe, then softened again the features of the man beside him. At a certain point, he had started to filter out Jayce's words, and not out of stubbornness or spite. There was too much love all-encompassing that he drowned in it. He could no longer see the individual tidal waves when a hurricane raged around him. 

Viktor's breath stilled when he caught Jayce looking back at him. Though Viktor cradled his face, Jayce had looked down, away, to the side, wherever he could to avoid the intimacy of a monologue such as his. His lips were parted and dry from his speaking and Viktor was enraptured when his tongue flicked out to wet his lips. 

All those thoughts, all those moments of notice, everything Jayce had just bore. The pain in his lungs felt like heaven if the other man's love was what crowded out the oxygen. 

Viktor sucked in a breath. “But I could hurt you.” His final white flag waving in the wind. His final attempt to abstain or to run. 

Jayce only shook his head, a suffering small smile revealing his tooth gap. “I don't believe that for a second,” He muttered. He rolled his lips together and when Viktor tore his eyes away, he noticed Jayce staring down low on his face. 

Viktor bit his lip and Jayce's pupils dilated. “Maybe I could hurt you without knowing. And then it would manifest days later.” 

“Viktor…” Jayce's head dropped forward to Viktor's forehead all gentle. 

“Yes?” 

“Please don't worry about hurting me,” Jayce sighed, “You're good at fixing things.”

Viktor took a pause- another in that long conversation where he could not keep up with the whiplash of someone who genuinely cared for him. Jayce watched this pause so closely with a little more amusement than before, cupping Viktor's face much how Viktor cupped his. Though Viktor stiffened in his arms, Jayce made no move to release him from their reverie, forehead to forehead. 

There was a moment, a split second, where Viktor panicked as their noses slotted together. Where he looked at Jayce- looked at his eyes and not his mouth- in a stunning clarity that made him bristle. But then the warmth of that hold around him, a thumb cradling at the curve of his jaw, slotting into the divot of his cheek, soothed all of that panic. 

The tension didn't relieve when Jayce leaned up enough to kiss him. It grew in Viktor's chest and threatened to snap, fighting for his attention alongside the strange uneven sensation of Jayce's bottom lip, a scar that hid amongst the blush of his skin. 

Jayce parted his lips to move back, probably to keep the kiss somewhat demure, but Viktor chased the motion. He was trying to shut that bisected attention up. He wanted all that Jayce could give him, all that could take his mind away from the panic turning his chest tight. 

When they pressed back together, it was with open mouths and a little messier. Much more than what Jayce must have bargained for when he leaned his head up. 

When Viktor finally had his fill, when his head was empty except for his fingers in Jayce's beard and the taste of barley from the sprout Jayce had chewed earlier, he finally let Jayce sit back. They stared at each other, wide-eyed and stock-still. Like a spooked horse ready to bolt, Viktor waited for that tension to crack him in half and send him scurrying away. 

But Jayce only smiled and nestled his thumb below Viktor's bottom lip. The tight pull of fear in Viktor's chest eased like a slow stretch in the morning. Jayce pulled him back forward again to kiss him deeper, and longer, and sweeter. 

The sweetness danced on Viktor's tongue and mixed with the campfire smoke all around them. It tasted like the final goodbye of summer, the final breeze that blew from the sea before the Northern winds came down, the relief of a thunderstorm come and gone at the height of a day's heat. 

Jayce was relief in Viktor's arms and he chased it without an ounce of guilt. 

The guilt came later of course. When they finally called it a night and scraped together a small sorta dinner, Jayce tucked Viktor's bedroll next to his and nodded off to sleep. Viktor stared up into the night sky, watched his breath puff into clouds in the frigid autumn temperature, and waited for a sleep that never came. 

Instead, his mind was consumed by doubt and guilt. His chest hurt from where he'd been holding back coughs for hours. 

When the horizon began to lighten, he snuck away to a nearby creek, just to give himself some time to lose his mind a little. And to cough. A lot. And hard. 

He came away with blood-pocked hands he rinsed immediately to hide the evidence. His chest still ached, both physically and emotionally, from the weight of the knowledge of what he held within his lungs. What was eating him from the inside out. 

But Jayce had held him and kissed him so softly and sweetly, in a way that felt like every step Viktor had ever taken was ultimately meant to lead there. That every choice, even the worst he'd ever made, were pivotal to the fate he'd received. 

That felt too simple, too perfect. And it was true, Viktor was a perfectionist, but only true perfectionists knew that when something seemed perfect, it usually withheld an ugly truth of wrongness. 

Viktor touched his face, his lips, his hands. Everywhere Jayce had touched him felt the tingle of a phantom sensation from hours earlier. It didn't feel wrong. 

Viktor looked to the skies above and knew the truth: that undeserving pleasure deserved pain in its absence. There was another shoe to drop- another side of this Viktor would see and understand. It was all for naught and Viktor did not deserve it. 

But when he smelled the campfire from afar and retreated back to its circle, Viktor slipped into the space Jayce left for him. Sitting side by side, limbs touching without a care, though it still made Viktor jump a little at the contact, Jayce welcomed Viktor back into where they'd left off. 

A new development came. Instead of Viktor's name, or V as Jayce liked to call him sometimes, a new title came about. “Hi, my darlin’,” Jayce would say, or “Could you pass the splint boots, darlin’,” or “Comfortable darlin'?” when Viktor settled into his saddle. At least it wasn't a first occurrence, Jayce had called him such a term of endearment before- but Viktor had assumed it was in jest. He may have needed to rethink that then. 

It was another night, after they'd collected the cows and started their journey back home (Jayce said the cattle had dropped fourteen babies and lost two elders over the summer), that Viktor brought it up. They were laying side by side, mouths swollen from several minutes of sweet kissing and taking a break in the glow of the fire. Jayce pillowed Viktor's head on his shoulder and they stared up at the expanse of constellations above. A quarter mile away and down in a shallow valley, the herd lowed and settled into the evening. 

“So,” Viktor started, while running his fingers along the seam of Jayce's winter coat. The seasons were changing rapidly, and even under their thick wool bedroll blankets, they needed to wear coats. He paused as Jayce shifted in their lazy embrace and shoved his hands deeper behind Viktor's back. 

“So?” Jayce teased, his smile glinting in the firelight. He was haloed in it, glowing like an angel in the soft light of their campfire. 

“I can't have wooed you into swooning by passing out, winding up sunburnt, and thinking myself clever,” Viktor said. “So, when was it?” He picked at a loose seam on Jayce's arm, avoiding his gaze out of some self-consciousness that had always plagued him. 

Jayce sat up until he was leaning over Viktor's chest, knuckles under his chin and looking up as if he were thinking very hard. “I'm not sure…” He said with a playful manner, “You were just so charming.”

Viktor pushed him off. “I'm serious! I still can't imagine why you'd even tolerate me at times.” 

Jayce grabbed the hand that had been unspooling his coat's seam. “Okay, okay, I'll be very serious when I say your clever little statement endeared me to you more than you might guess. And then you continued with your clever little self by calling me egotistical for signing off my own journal on every page.” He paused for a laugh. “But I think I really went head over heels the day it stormed outta nowhere. You were waitin’ for me on the porch and I coulda fell off my horse and floated from the feeling.”

“Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual then,” Viktor replied, “I could not believe you were laughing when I was about to tear my hair out over your absence.” 

“You missed me,” Jayce cooed, nuzzling into the curve of Viktor's neck and shoulder. 

“Perhaps,” Viktor sniped back. 

Jayce settled into that spot, his eyes dimming a little from the previous mischief. “So, when did you feel the same?” 

Viktor swallowed at the question. It was complicated, to say the least. To say the most, it was a back and forth trench warfare battled over inches of prized land in which the sides consisted of Viktor's rationale and his wily emotions. There was no moment to pinpoint. Viktor never allowed himself to realize or second guess his own emotions. He simply ignored those feelings, thinking they would never pan out anyways. 

“I have always been attracted to you,” Viktor said carefully, “But I never allowed myself to hope- or even think anything you displayed was more than a polite host or an affectionate friend.” 

Jayce snorted, looking up at Viktor at what could not be an attractive angle on his end. “‘A friend’? Say it ain't so, darlin’.” He took full advantage of where he roosted, nuzzling his nose in and pressing a kiss against Viktor's rapid pulse. “Would a friend do this?” 

Viktor shivered and his eyebrows threaded close at the tension in his body. The way Jayce could wind up and ease him by just a few words or touches drove him to near madness and clarity. “That is unfair,” Viktor muttered around the stutter of breath Jayce elicited. “I am a very realistic man.” 

“You say that as though this possibility was a fantasy,” Jayce replied. 

“Is it not?” 

“Not anymore,” Jayce chuckled. “It'll stay reality if I can help it.” 

Viktor bit his tongue and let himself settle into the ease of the quasi fantasy real world he found himself in. That awful little creature that gorged itself on his admission the night before simply sat back and sharpened its nails. Viktor tried to not to let it get to him. The other shoe was sure to drop, but lord how he wanted to ignore it. 

Looking back, the first warning sign was when they'd paused at the spring to water the horses. The cows, the ones any older than the yearlings and calves, continued on towards the barn only a few hours away, while Jayce and Viktor paused. They would not have long to refresh themselves and the two horses, so they kept their saddles on and Jayce did most of the running around for Viktor, who was having a bad pain day. 

It seemed that sitting in a saddle for several days was not conducive to happy and healthy hip bones. 

Rio had not taken a drink, but that was to be expected. The old quote was true, and Viktor hardly paid her mind, but Jayce did- and he loosened her girth just to be certain that was not a factor. She still did not drink. 

“She'll be okay, Jayce,” Viktor soothed, walking up behind with his cane held tight. “We're almost home.”

“I know,” Jayce sighed. “Would it be wrong to say I don't want to go back?” 

Viktor sidled up beside him, enough to lean his head on the curve of Jayce's shoulder. “No, it wouldn't,” Viktor replied. 

“Cuz the minute we get back, that means winter's really on its way,” Jayce continued. He leaned his temple against Viktor's crown and rested his fingers over Viktor's where they gripped the cane pommel. 

“It will not be so bad. I'll be there with you,” Viktor replied without a thought in the world. Then it crashed into him, what he'd promised. Jayce stilled beside him. 

“You will be?” 

Viktor turned away, his face going hot. “I- It is not my intention to promise anything, but-” 

Jayce wound his arm around Viktor's waist to keep him from scrambling away, as was his tendency. “I ain't gonna hold you to that promise, but I would never complain if you stayed. There will always be a space for you in my life, darlin’,” He said. 

Then, with a kiss pressed to Viktor's hair, Jayce helped Viktor back onto Mercury's back and then mounted Rio. They trotted after the cattle and returned to their course.

“Say, whatcha want for dinner tonight?” Jayce called from across the herd. 

Mercury, who until that point had been very well behaved, reached out to bite a cow that happened to slow its pace a modicum too much for the stud's patience. Viktor held him back with a tut. 

“I assume pickled pork-” Viktor paused to stay with that same cow that decided to break away from the herd. “Maybe with a side of beans.” The cow took a few steps backward and Viktor called to it, “Hey, cow!” like he'd heard Jayce do several times to try and make it move. It only flinched the wrong way. 

Off it went, racing back the way it came, the logical wrong response for a creature so herdbound. Viktor sighed and called out for Jayce. “A cow is running away again.”

Jayce's head snapped up and he turned Rio in a second, spurring her on to race after the yearling. Viktor took up Jayce's previous spot at the back left of the herd to keep them driving forward. Mercury did most of the work with his serious pinned ears and stamping hooves that bounced the two of them back and forth around the cows. Once that portion of the herd was back to driving forward again, Viktor glanced behind and watched Jayce's race. 

They'd disappeared over the ridge of the hill, running fast enough to leave a puff of a cloud in their wake. Viktor, who still didn't quite understand how any of this cow business worked, stared after them, even as Mercury slowed his pace in wait. The stud could feel Viktor's divided attention. Viktor patted him, only sparing his attention for but a moment before his uncertainty won again. Without a view into the valley, Viktor had no idea if Jayce and Rio were okay, or if they'd caught the cow and were on their way back, or if something worse had happened. 

Viktor paused Mercury after what felt like several minutes, his heart rate starting to tick up. “Jayce?” He called out, straining to hear for any kind of reply. 

Mercury fidgeted below Viktor, turning back towards the cows. He would know if something went wrong, wouldn't he? He had much better hearing than Viktor did, surely he would have given some kind of indication if that were the case. Viktor gripped the reins a little tighter, doing his best not to panic and failing spectacularly. 

But then, Mercury's ears twitched towards where the pair had disappeared, and then Viktor heard it too. Rapid hoofbeats, multiple sets so it seemed, and Jayce yelling nonsense to keep the cow ahead of him. The three crested the hill and the yearling cow came bounding back to the herd. Jayce kept Rio running until they were mere feet from Viktor and Mercury, and pulled her into a dust-kicking sliding stop. 

Viktor sighed a breath of relief and then allowed the hot rush of irritation to spew the words out of his mouth like vomit. “Took you a minute, yes?” He hissed. 

“Workin’ on her boxing skills,” Jayce said. “She shuts those cows down quick when they get head to head, you shoulda seen her roll back, darlin’, she felt incredible!” 

Viktor shook his head and hurried Mercury on to the herd. “You ridiculous man,” Viktor muttered to Jayce as they continued on. 

“Back to dinner,” Jayce called, taking up position opposite of Viktor and moving Rio more aggressively, “How bout some celebratory drinks? Maybe a fire outside if you'd like?” 

“We just spent four days next to a fire, and you want a fifth?” 

“I liked it,” Jayce replied, a grin making his dimples prominent. “I've also got a surprise for you when we get back,” he teased, his grin turning to a smirk. 

“Oh?” Viktor called. “A surprise that necessitates a campfire?” 

“Not… necessarily.” 

Viktor shook his head yet again, a disbelieving grin matching Jayce's. Jayce spurred Rio on, her usually sweet face morphing into something ugly as she lunged forward and reached to bite another cow. Like Mercury, she found the cows lacking energy. All Viktor could do was laugh at her ferocity. 

The hours passed towards sundown. They were close enough to the ranch to see the barn house in the distance. 

The herd picked up speed, up to a trot, then to a lope. The older of the cows must have recognized their winter home and known where to go. But their pace sped to becoming too quick to keep a hold on them. Jayce barked orders to Viktor as the speed intensified and Viktor realized that he could no longer keep up, green a rider as he was. 

He lagged, though Mercury pulled at the reins and shook his head. Viktor couldn't handle a lope for too long, it made his leg lock up in place. And if they went faster? He remembered the striking pain of the last time they'd galloped together far too freshly. 

Jayce shouted from ahead. “Viktor! Come on! We gotta go wide!”

“I can't!” Viktor cried through gritted teeth, but maneuvered Mercury anyways to the far left of the herd. They refused to slow, racing as they were ahead of Viktor. 

Clouds of dust kicked up and the autumnal winds blew among the herd until they disappeared. Jayce in with them. They were only a quarter mile to the fence Viktor and Jayce had left open days before, only a quarter mile until they were sure to slow before trekking back to their barn. Viktor shrugged the guilt of lagging behind, spurring Mercury on to follow. 

The cows would slow, the excitement and energy would ease as they'd come upon the thin passageway to their target. And then Viktor would approach, chiding Jayce for his worry as they took up their positions at each corner of the herd. And then they could deal with the cattle and spend their evening recovering from their trip.

The dust cloud parted for just a moment, just long enough for Viktor to see Rio darting perpendicular to the herd, going a different way than expected, chasing after what could have been the same cow from earlier. Jayce was yelling, shouting at it, to get it to spook and stop it in place. They raced faster than lightning to catch the runaway cow.

So far off as they were, Viktor blinked and the cloud covered them again. The rest of the herd slowed at the gate just as planned. 

Viktor kept Mercury trotting towards their old post when he heard it. It was nauseating. It echoed back to Viktor's ears just slow enough that the dots connected, that he understood what he'd heard. 

It sounded like a branch breaking, like the first millisecond in a crack of thunder. It sounded like the impact of something heavy upon the ground and the deep tremor of an earthquake. Then, in the settling dust many paces away, came the squeal of something alive and in pain and the heavy huffed cursing of a man in shock. 

The cows didn't matter any longer. Viktor wheeled Mercury around and rushed towards the commotion, the puff of dust where the awful sounds came from. A cow lowed, quiet and miserable. 

“Jayce!” Viktor called, stopping Mercury short as the scene came to view. 

Rio was in the midst of standing, and the cow was wrenched beneath the lowest rung of the fence, its legs at angles it shouldn't have been. Jayce laid out of the saddle, on his back and wincing. His foot was still in the stirrup as Rio stood- which could have been awful had she not stood dutifully next to him, her hip cocked and head low. Any other young horse could have drug him along with his foot caught in the stirrup and so close to its stomping hind legs. 

Jayce shook himself from his stupor and kicked his foot out of the stirrup, but the guttural howl that came from him had Viktor spurring Mercury into a lope and flying from the saddle before the stud could fully stop. The pain at his landing meant nothing if the sounds Jayce made rivaled the cow with broken legs. 

Viktor rushed forward and fell to his knees at Jayce's side. “Fuck, Jayce,” He gasped, running his hands along Jayce's legs and up his hip. Jayce winced around his kneecap. “What happened?” Viktor cried as he continued his diagnosis. 

Jayce puffed for air. He must have knocked the breath from his lungs. “Ah! I- The fuckin’ yearling from earlier-” He hissed as Viktor tried to pull his left boot off, “-It took off again. I thought I had it, but Rio…” Jayce trailed off, letting his head fall back as he looked at the mare. 

Viktor only watched Jayce's attention change long enough to be sure he wasn't passing out. “Shit,” He hissed as the boot slipped off. “Hold still, let me see your leg.” 

“Viktor,” Jayce murmured, his voice sounding distant. 

But Viktor didn't listen, he was too busy ripping his coat from his back to free up his arms. “It is extremely important you stay down for at least ten minutes, I need to make sure you aren't concussed.”

“Viktor,” Jayce repeated. His voice was thicker, almost the edge of a sob. That was to be expected with a possible broken leg. Viktor continued.

“It'll be alright, Jayce,” Viktor said, reaching for Jayce's pant leg to survey the true damage. 

A hand grabbed his instead as Jayce hauled himself to sitting. “Viktor,” Jayce said a third and final time, his voice breaking and tears running down his face. Viktor stared, confused. Why would he so insistently interrupt? Viktor was trying to fix the problem, keep the other shoe from dropping. But then, he noticed something behind him. 

The cow, which previously had been pitifully trying to get itself free, fell still and its legs, broken and bloodied, limp. But Jayce wouldn't cry over such a tragedy, until Viktor's eyes slid to the right a little more and he truly noticed Rio's odd stance. 

Her back foot, still cocked at the hip, stretched forward in such an odd manner, though when she shifted slightly so did the flat of her leg.

The world tilted on its axis as Viktor watched the movement. It was foul, it was wrong, and every piece of him waited for the movement to pause, for the break to heal itself and go back to how it should have been. She shifted again and Viktor had to swallow to keep his stomach from upturning. Her leg shook at the break with too much softness. 

“No,” was all he could say, “No, no, no, no.” 

Jayce reached a hand towards Viktor's wrist, but he flinched away and staggered to his feet. He was probably sobbing and probably still repeating his utter disbelief. Everything sounded like the roar of the ocean around him and he felt the riptide pressurized and pulling him deeper within. 

In all his pondering, in all his waiting, he never expected the other shoe to drop to be anything other than himself. He would wake up coughing too hard, or a bounty hunter would knock on the door. Jayce would give a little more than he bargained for and run Viktor off into the unforgiving desert. Never in his expectations did he ever see the consequences for his wrongdoings that he had run from for so long taking such a sweet creature for punishment. 

Rio barely acknowledged Viktor's fingers running along her nose or his face pressing against her mane. She keened a high breath, her lungs shuttering in her heavy chest as she listed on three feet. He couldn't look at the leg; he couldn't let her go. The most he could do was wrench his mouth open and string words together to beg.

“Jayce,” He sobbed, turning over his shoulder at the man still spread across the ground. “Please, please help her,” Viktor begged. His lungs were close to crawling up his throat and choking him. 

Jayce had laid back again, head craned as far back as it could go so he could keep the two broken creatures before him in view. Several dark patches of dirt by his temples grew at the resounding tear tracks, and his chest shuddered at the silent sobs. 

Viktor almost stopped his own crying as he stared at the man before him, laying down, simply crying, while Rio suffered. The choking at his throat turned to anger in its disbelief. “Jayce!” Viktor screamed. “Fucking do something!” His tongue felt rotten and his mouth filled with bile as Jayce didn't move. All the man before him did was frown deeper and close his eyes at the pain of it all. 

No, there was more movement, as Jayce's hand lifted from where it gripped handfuls of dirt up to his hip. He flipped a leather strap open and slotted his finger around the trigger's boundary. Without preamble and without even a breath, Jayce held the gun loosely towards Viktor. 

As an anatomist and scholar of the natural sciences of the world, Viktor had seen his fair share of dead things. He was no stranger to the slow crawl of decomposition. He had spurred the rot of several living things in his life, his hands were not unsullied and not just from the business end of a scalpel.

Evolution, the winding path of nature and its journey from beginning to end, put its eggs in many baskets- but those baskets had to be woven. Those eggs had to be produced then found. There was no life without the ingredients to create it. Ergo, there were no eggs and baskets without the eventual rotten egg and unwound bunch of reeds. 

Certainly, as the good eggs and better baskets succeeded, there were others that failed. Experiments that did not pan out and therefore were left behind in droves to pursue what worked the fastest to get the needed results. 

Viktor wondered if, at the individual human level, he was one that was meant to be left behind. The good news was: he never intended on fathering. The bad news was: his illness would still kill him either way. At least no offspring would be damned how he was. 

Like a luna moth formed without a mouth, its offspring would starve, forced to breed fast enough to keep its entire species alive. Sometimes, creatures could only live long enough to procreate and then die. It was blunt, cruel, and a little silly admittedly. 

Horses, though made with a little more longevity in mind, were so fragile. At certain speeds, they could no longer actively pull air into their lungs and had to rely on their intestines to move the lungs enough to breathe. Their brains were situated beneath a spinal vertebrae that, if hit hard enough, could break and spear its own brain. And, sometimes, they dropped dead from eating food a little wrong.

Viktor should have expected an ending like this. He should have seen his punishment as something not wholly his own. He'd set a fragile porcelain vase at the tip top of a balancing act and jumped in surprise when it tipped from the uneven base. He expected a slow torturous death or something quick and painless. He knew his basket was sure to unravel, he knew the egg within was not viable. Yet he still flinched at the shock of it. 

Viktor was the one meant to have a barrel at his forehead. He did not have the months, the years, the viability the young horse in front of him had. Even if she was made out of paper mache, even if her legs were a little twisted pigeontoed. Even if she was born an evolutionary nightmare- she should have had more of a chance than Viktor. She could have been something far greater. 

Viktor pulled the trigger. 

Chapter Text

A partial pneumothorax had come in at two in the morning- far past Viktor's working or waking hours. The patient was a middle aged man, likely a miner, whose family had heard him groaning in pain in his sleep and mentioned him complaining about a strange floaty feeling in his chest the day prior. They waited outside the door in the street, and Viktor could hear their muffled sobs and speaking behind the door. 

The man was unconscious with a bag of burning opium tubed into his nose. Viktor only hoped, if he survived, that the experience with the opium would not leave a lasting effect. It had happened before to one of his prior patients. If the doctor had stabilized shimmer sooner, Viktor likely would be using that as an alternative. But shimmer was still volatile and far more addictive than the opium he cut with marijuana. 

Blood coated the edges of Viktor's sleeve as he cut through the ribs of the chest. The surgery was partially experimental, and he'd never attempted it on a living human before- only practiced the motions on the dead. But he'd been cutting for twenty minutes and thus far, the patient still had color in his cheeks and his temperature hovered at the bottom end of the liveable range. Viktor sped his movements, pulling back the skin and clipping the muscles back with clips.

Jayce came into the house, his footsteps uneven for an odd reason, but Viktor didn't notice. He sat at the end of the bed and stared out the window. The second furthest hill from the house was the fenced hill, the one where the gate at the bottom of the slope was where it happened. He couldn't see the two bodies at its base. 

Perhaps that was for the best. But he stared out that way anyway, thinking of the land they'd traversed before returning home. The peaceful nights they'd spent traveling. The gorgeous crisp days that heralded the coming end of autumn. 

Far in the distance, the sky turned grey in the morning light. The kind of grey that tickled Viktor's mind. A snowstorm? He wasn't sure. He'd never lived anywhere with such a perfect view of the sky. Only knew it had snowed based off the coal-streaked piles of ice that slipped from the top of the fissures and down to the rest of the sumprats below. If snow was coming, it would be the first time Viktor saw perfect, unfettered snow. 

His chest ached at the thought. There was a body out there that would be buried in its perfect white and freeze solid. Legs stiffened into the air, belly mid-bloat. Horror gripped his lungs again. 

Surgery was much more frantic an endeavor than a dissection, though it was much more imperative to be careful. Minutes stretched as Viktor carefully hacked his way into the unconscious man's lungs and found the pneumothorax.

Odd, the family had mentioned he's complained of pain on the right side, but as Viktor felt along the outer edge of both sides, it seemed both had collapsed at least partially. The right was definitely the worst, though Viktor could feel the bubble of air that struggled in and out on that side. 

He set to work, trying to reset its former shape. Everything he tried did not seem to work, the resuscitation movement, the use of electricity, even attempting to hold the lungs up for just a moment did not aid the man's feeble breathing. 

The skin turned paler and the heartbeat grew erratic. Viktor sucked a breath, shaking sweat from the corner of his eye and attempted to stop the blood flow from the tissues around the lungs. He took sutures, desperate for a few extra moments, and stapled along the bloodiest of spaces. His fingers cramped from where they felt along the holes in the man's ribs. Viktor bit his tongue to stifle a curse, lest the family be listening. 

Bloodied, battered, and exhausted, Viktor listened as the heart beat loud and slow in the man's final moments. Though Viktor rushed through his movements, attempted to close off the bleeding with staples, cauturizing, and even his own hands, it did little. It was too late. 

Around the edges of the bag of drugs, Viktor heard the final death rattle- the shake of lungs meant to wither and die in spite of Viktor's best efforts. 

“Are you hungry?” Jayce asked as he stamped the shavings off his boots. A little whine of pain joined the movement as he shuffled around the room. 

Viktor did not hear him for several moments, not until Jayce called again. 

“What?” Viktor asked dumbly. He did not turn from the window. 

Viktor finally noticed the hoarse croak of Jayce's voice the way his breath wheezed after speaking as if his voice box had been torn to ribbons and the final air shook the air like an organ. “I asked if you were hungry,” Jayce repeated, pulling a pot from the stove without an agreement. “We need to eat. It's been since yesterday.”

“Oh,” Viktor breathed. His senses felt numb as he tried to connect his brain to his stomach. No sharp pangs of hunger met him- only a void. “You can save yourself the trouble of my portion, I am not hungry.”

Without the steady pattern of a struggling heartbeat, the room felt stunningly deafening in its silence. Viktor gasped a breath, his fingers stilling in between the slot he'd cut in the ribs. His first death upon the table at twenty-one. The first person he'd failed. In all his prowess, in all his training, he had never allowed life to slip through his fingers like sand. 

Even amongst the mining accidents, when a man's leg was so mangled and burned the doctor had ordered an amputation, Viktor had completed the task with time to spare and a man free of infection. This time, he had failed. This time, he'd lost against the cruel hand of fate. 

“Viktor, darling, you've gotta eat,” Jayce sighed. The stovetop clicked to life. “Please come eat with me, you'll feel better.” 

Viktor turned only enough so his empty sneer could be seen. “I do not deserve to feel better,” He replied. When Jayce sucked a breath- either in shock or to reply again, Viktor didn't care which- Viktor stood from the bed and padded out the front door. All to escape Jayce and his kind gestures. 

Viktor was stalling for time. He knew it. The family had slowly migrated closer to the door, their concerned whispering sounding like shouting on the street. 

Viktor stared down at his stained hands, the man's stained nightshirt, the flecks of blood on his cheek, the gaping maw upon his chest. Viktor would need to cover the corpse before he opened the door- if only he could move. If only he could do the right thing.

The cold greeted Viktor like the perfect answer to a brilliant question. It lashed on his cheeks and turned the inside of his nose into pain when he breathed in too sharp. A cough racked out of his chest, another in a long line behind it and with a slowly shortening line in front. 

It was supposed to be Viktor who laid out in the scrublands decomposing. It was supposed to be Viktor's grave when Jayce found him unresponsive and drowned in his own blood. But that would be too simple. That would have been too easy of a punishment for a man with so many ghosts to haunt him. 

Viktor knew the death was not his fault. He would not be blamed for trying to save a man on death's door. Logically he knew that even the doctor would have struggled with such a surgery. His mentor had even shut the door in the faces of the concerned family, directing them around the corner of the manor to Viktor's back door. The man was hopeless. 

But that did not absolve Viktor of the guilt as he sewed the great wound on his chest shut, to save the family's already fragile hearts. He threw a grey sheet over the corpse, washed his hands in corn alcohol, and opened the door with his apron thrown into a hamper in the corner. Viktor would burn it later. 

“Good morning,” Viktor said, draining any emotion from his voice and visage. The round hopeful faces lifted into the light of the lab like an old world painting of the gods. “I am terribly sorry to say that the patient has died during the treatment. I did all that I could, but his condition was too far gone.”

The wailing that followed turned the night into a nightmare. 

Jayce found Viktor just before the storm was to break. His features were screwed into a scowl and each movement made new wrinkles bloom upon his face. If Viktor's hands weren't so heavy, if his heart hadn't infected all of his arteries and vessels with the dead weight of despair, he would have cared. But his chest was too full to spare even a modicum of space for Jayce. 

“Come inside, please,” Jayce begged, standing in the doorway. A crisp breeze blew enough to knock him from his balance and he grimaced. 

Viktor did not pull his gaze from the distant clouds. He stared out where he knew Rio was. He should be out there in the cold. 

“Viktor,” Jayce begged, shuffling forward until he crouched on one knee before him. “Please come with me inside. It's getting below freezing out here. You'll only hurt yourself.”

His words were a muffled breeze buffeting Viktor's ears. But Viktor slid his gaze slowly to Jayce like he did not recognize the man before him. 

“I believe I have finally stabilized the variant,” The doctor intoned, the excitement of his words deadened by the monotone of his voice. 

Viktor stood from his desk as the doctor prowled into his office. It was standard procedure for the two of them, a sign of respect from mentee to mentor, to acknowledge the years of study that had made the doctor who he was. 

“That is wonderful news,” Viktor said. He gripped his quill tight before placing it back into its well. “What applications do you wish to test?”

“Pain relief,” The doctor replied, “A stimulant perhaps. Even for temporary cardiovascular support, it could be revolutionary.” 

“Incredible,” Viktor breathed. “How soon shall trials start?” 

The doctor paused just in front of Viktor. They were the same height yet Viktor felt towered over, analyzed and documented like a bug beneath a microscope. The doctor reached his gnarled hand towards Viktor's notebook and pulled it close. 

Within were the notes Viktor took over his recent frequent patients. The young girl in need of a weekly oxygen session. The elderly man with arthritis. A retired Piltovan councilor shunned from society and in need of pain relief. Viktor held his breath as the doctor read through the pages of souls that had crossed his clinic's doorstep. 

“These are not the emergency files, are they?” The doctor mused. He already knew the answer if chronic cases were among them. “These people are able to leave on their own devices and return just as easily?”

“Yes, sir,” Viktor said, his eyebrows knitting together. “The trials, sir? You were talking about the stabilized shimmer.”

The doctor flicked a page over without a glance to Viktor. “I still am, boy. I am in need of test subjects and I believe these patients will do wonderfully.”

Viktor turned away. “I cannot feel it,” He stated. “I will be okay.”

“Viktor, you won't,” Jayce urged, “Please come inside, I can't carry you in.” 

They did not have enough rope out past the fence to drag Rio's body back. And Jayce did not have the strength to tie his heeling rope even for the stuck cow. She was still out there where she'd fallen when Viktor had- when he'd-

“What?” Viktor couldn't help the disbelief in his voice. “But not all of them need something of that sort and… and it has not been tested, it could-”

“Hence the need to test,” The doctor replied, placing the journal back on Viktor's desk. “What complications may not come up in a healthy person may arise in the not-so. It is best to check all possibilities.” 

“But it is an unknown,” Viktor replied, his grip tightening around his cane. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his voice from turning harsh. Only once had he made that mistake before the doctor. Viktor would not make it again. “If the trials were to go poorly-” 

“Then, thusly, we will know.” 

Viktor shook his head. His knee shook as well, but for the pain and heft of gravity in his joints. “No,” He responded. “I cannot do this- my oath-”

“Holds no weight except for ceremonial,” The doctor parried easily. “This is the undercity, a lawless wasteland grown from the unwanted filth and decay of the bright world above us. They do not care who we save down here.” 

Viktor stiffened. “But I care,” He hissed, allowing the edge to creep into his voice. 

The doctor simply stared, his expression unimpressed below the hood and mouth cover he wore to hide the lesions and scars. Viktor had seen it only once when the insolence of his youth came to a head with the unyielding will of the doctor. Along with punishments, the doctor knew pain well. It was an old friend, a confidant, and a mastermind alongside that of the old man. 

Viktor withered under his gaze and lost his bravado. It had been a long time since the dredges of their early days had awoken to haunt him. He was a coward to their echoing pain and fear. When he would cry out to his mother, freshly passed, and no one could hear him. When he had to swallow the injustice of a man who housed him, clothed him, and taught him but could not love him enough to punish him kindly. 

Viktor agreed to the trials to appease the old doctor. He buckled beneath the pressure of a man who had expected it so. 

As he readied the syringes, told his patients it was to be a new pain relief regimen, he tried to convince himself that his own morbid curiosity had taken hold of him. Not the cowering fear of his mentor. 

A hand squeezed Viktor's, big and warm. If he turned to his right, he knew amber eyes even bigger and warmer, holding concern for him, would greet him. He did not wish to buckle to the pressure. He did not wish to cower from the cold and the darkness outside that he deserved to feel. 

He should have been out there. He should have been the one stiffening in the wind and the cold. He should have been the one Jayce would have to bury. 

But Viktor buckled to the warmth. He tried to tell himself it was for the pure rush of survival or a snap to his senses. But he knew what it truly was, the weak need of wanting a body beside his to warm him and comfort him where he should have only ached. 

Kisses that felt like apologies followed him into a state like sleep, though Viktor received no relief. Only the tight compress of a headache. Like the world holding its breath after a sharp inhale, his chest ached and the snow that had threatened did not arrive. 

When Viktor awoke in the morning, Jayce was already gone, though he remembered the dream-like feeling of someone holding him tight before an absence of warmth. 

Viktor sat partially up and looked to the window to see a makeshift funeral procession, Jayce leading the charge with a shovel and Mercury and one of the colts pulling an equine body behind them. Viktor's stomach dropped to his feet as the reminder of his permanently changed world came back to him. He sat on the bedside, his head rang with stars as light headedness made a fireworks show out of his senses every time he tried to stand. 

It was one of those days, he realized as his body forced him to gaze out the window at Jayce. One of those days where Viktor's body rebelled against him and made him feel the full brunt of pain without distraction. 

Jayce continued the procession towards the hill closest to the house. The one with the overgrown oak with the gnarled roots that could trip the unsuspecting. He looked like he stumbled- no, it happened again, then again. With each step, he seemed to stagger and used his spade as a staff to hold his balance. 

In his bleary mind, Viktor remembered the way Jayce hobbled to Mercury's side in the wake of the tragedy, how he'd mentioned he couldn't carry Viktor inside. He'd hurt himself in the commotion of Rio's breaking and there he was, burying her as if the coming winter storm wouldn't preserve her until the next break in the weather. 

The fool. Viktor tried to stand to his feet, forgetting the odd state he was in, and crumbled yet again when his vision turned to sparkles. He caught his breath on the bedside yet again and slipped back into something far more known to him. 

In the middle of the night, Viktor awoke to pounding at his clinic door. A frequent occurrence as of late. Sleeping at his messy desk down in the lab was becoming a frequent occurrence as well. Upon opening his door with its ‘Closed’ sign duly marked, Viktor paled at what he saw. 

The retired councilor Salo sitting limply in his wheelchair covered in purple pustules and welts, his eyes bloodshot and wide. No different than the several others Viktor had been seeing to, the other recipients of the doctor's ‘stabilized’ shimmer. 

Viktor struggled to carry him in. With the three bed spaces occupied, Viktor had resorted to setting up linens on the floor, something the councilor opened his mouth to loudly complain about until the purple bile down his throat came coughing up. Blood, bile, and stomach acid mixed together and covered both Salo and Viktor's fronts, but only Viktor paid it no mind. More of the afflicted were showing up at his doorway and he was running out of solutions. 

The regularly prescribed pain relief mixes Viktor tended to dole out seemed to make no difference. Alcohol only made the patients hack it back up with further-created stomach ulcers. And when the earliest of the patients to arrive, Mr. Huck, had passed from his complications, Viktor squirreled his corpse away to inspect before the others could notice. There upon the table, Viktor opened the torso only to find partially liquefied organs, bloodstreams clotted with shimmer, and necrosis. 

Viktor began to realize, as the councilor Salo seized and choked on his tongue, that there was no saving the patients. The shimmer had been faulty. It was nowhere near stabilized. And Viktor had fed it directly to the people he was meant to save. 

In the late hours of the fourth day, as Viktor stared unseeing at the young girl who had gone blind hours before, he heard the heavy plodding steps of an elderly man and felt the cold grasp of a bony claw. 

Viktor did not turn away from the bloodshot and bulging eyes of the young girl. He wiped absently at a bloody tear of pure shimmer making its way around her nose bridge. 

“It seems,” The doctor turned his head about the room as he spoke, looking at the carnage, “That the trial was quite faulty.”

Viktor swallowed a laugh and bit back a sob. His teeth ground the feelings to pieces and he breathed out whatever was left. He had not felt such devastation since his first death almost ten years ago. The doctor had not been sympathetic then, either. “The shimmer…” Viktor took another breath. “...The shimmer was not stable enough.” He steeled himself and drew his hand away before it shook too much. “Did you know it was not stable enough?” Viktor asked, turning on his stool until he looked up at the doctor. 

The doctor, as he always did, wore his face covering above his clothing for traversing the city. His loafers were stained with little flecks of purple, his suit bore no wrinkles or slights against its tailoring. His hands were gloved and the leather groaned as he withdrew his careful touch at Viktor's shoulder to the crown of Viktor's hair. 

“My boy,” The doctor murmured, “I am not a wasteful man. I would not impede you as such.” He gazed at the stained sheets, the cabinets left half-open, the two corpses still laid upon the beds that Viktor lacked the strength to carry to the coolers. “My invention is as volatile as nature. My concoction surprises even me at its power. I could not have expected to have broken such a strong will.”

“So you gave it to me?” Viktor whimpered. His sinuses stung at the formaldehyde. “You gave me what you could not tame and expected me to fix it?” 

The doctor's fingers gripped at Viktor's hair and then softened before loosing their grip entirely. “You were always much more gentle, much more understanding of the care needed.” He sighed and looked at Viktor with the care of something much deeper than a mentor. “I should have explained everything, but how does a master admit failure to their student?”

Viktor shuddered a breath and turned back to the girl as another awful sob racked through her. She could not see the anguish that clung to him, but he wondered if she could feel it in the way he held her hand in the final hours. She, the youngest, the weakest among the other patients for her early onset illness of grey lung, yet she outlasted all of them. Not too long now, though, Viktor knew. 

“I would not stay here for long, boy,” The doctor muttered, backing away and turning ice cold. Any pretense of his previous softness scuttled back into the shadows. 

Viktor knew what the doctor saw in the young patient before them, an echo of something that came long before. Viktor was an echo like that, in the way he coughed so deeply, in his shining intelligent eyes, his youthful idealism. The young patient and Viktor in his waning youth reminded the doctor of his long lost daughter. And he hated to be reminded of such soft times when their absence left a gaping maw.

“Enforcers will be after you,” The doctor continued. “Family and friends will start to wonder what happened to their lost loved ones. And I will not be able to hold them off for so long.”

Viktor felt the life drain out of his muscles. “Will you?” Viktor repeated, “Hold them off for me?” He had never been so bold as to question the promises of the doctor before this night, but Viktor felt the tides turning on him and the growing pull of a dangerous eddy far below the depths. He had little to lose. 

The old man paused, clearly taken aback by the boldness. “You will do well to trust in me,” The doctor replied. “Or you may find you have less time than you thought.”

With that, he retreated, his heavy footsteps winding among the mess of the laboratory and closing the alleyway door between the manor and Viktor's clinic.

All Viktor could do then was wait for the girl to die, enforcers to arrive, or the relentless drive to survive awakening to grab him by the throat and force him to take action. To find the nearest vehicle of escape and take it without a thought. 

The snowstorm breaking overhead did little to wake Viktor to his surroundings. The only break in the fog he received was the occasional coughing fit and the several moments of intensity as he tried to return his breathing to normal. Blood sometimes stained his lips and his fingers. He wiped away the evidence as best he could, but his skin dried into flakes where it had once been. 

Jayce returned as well, but the fog in his brain allowed little room for relief. When Jayce sat next to him and rubbed warmth into his fingers, he only felt the numb sensation of a dead limb. When Jayce filled the stove full of a crackling fire and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, he only felt suffocated. And when Jayce drifted off beside him trying to hide the tears of a grief holding too tightly, Viktor came alive. 

He came alive not like a drowning victim resuscitated by a good Samaritan and the human need to survive, but like something meant to stay dead. Like a spider curling its legs upon death, or a lizard dropping its twitching tail to escape. Something deeply wrong moved him. Something broken, that flexed and bent in a way that made him feel ill. 

Viktor stood from the bed. 

In his dreamlike state, he had no idea what time it was. All he knew was that the room was dark, the wind howled outside with the heavy flecks of bone white snow, and Rio's corpse was alone. 

Viktor's original plan was to run away, to get as far from Piltover and the undercity as he could. Restart his life far far away and hope no one would ever recognize him. He never factored in Rio, he never expected another soul beside him as he went. He, admittedly, did not think about the souls of animals before that point. Not out of a lack of belief but out of a lack of experience around non-humans. 

He wondered how his life would have been different had he possessed a more understanding attitude to creatures of service as he'd fled Piltover. Would he have chosen Rio again? Would he have found another way? Would his wonton travel have brought him to Jayce as he contemplated his own end? 

Viktor shook his head. The fog was growing colder and louder, screaming into his ears and making his fingers grow numb. He wasn't sure when he'd grasped the door handle and walked through the door or when he'd even toed on his shoes in the descent into the storm. But the wind fluttered the blanket on his shoulders and he struggled among the snow drifts when they covered the uneven ground. Rio was out there somewhere and he had to go. 

But go where? 

In his time at the ranch, he'd never figured it out. Where would he go? Where would take him? Where would he be safe and survive? 

His mind drifted directly to Jayce, to the doorway several paces behind him now covered by a raging late autumn blizzard. He'd been safe there. He'd been warm there. 

But, no. He shook the thought from his mind. He was a wanted criminal, he would only drag Jayce down to the dredges and steal his future from him. Jayce would come to hate that mentality and the guilt that came with it. After all, Viktor wanted to claw his insides to ribbons whenever he saw his victim's faces. 

Viktor coughed hard enough to taste pennies. If the blood splattered anywhere, he couldn't see it and the snow whisked it away just as fast. The cold was a sword in his chest, a bullet in his ribs. He breathed in, wheezing and shaky, and held his free hand to his chest as the movement went up and down. 

Alive in spite of his rotten heart. Still beating just like a real person's can. Beating stolen time others should have had. A dozen lives were affected and permanently changed and ended by Viktor's choices. 

He found the pasture gate and limped past the spot where it happened. Ahead, only tens of paces left, would be the hill with the tree where the soil had yet to settle and the ground slowly froze around her. Viktor fell to his knees at the loose dirt wicking with snow, slowly burying itself once again. 

He dug his fingers in, wishing he could root himself into the ground and wither away. 

A thought came to him then: this was where he was trying to go. He could stay here and face his penance if he just let himself fall asleep. Even in the fog of his mind, he knew what hypothermia did to the body and the mind. He knew eventually the cold would turn to suffocating heat as his nerves froze and twisted. He would shut his eyes to the heavy dose of exhaustion and be gone just as easily and the pain would disappear. 

Maybe he'd meet the fires of hell, but at least he would no longer be in the limbo of finding where he needed to go. He would no longer burden Jayce with his presence and the things that haunted him. Piltover wouldn't have their catharsis at killing their wanted murderer with their gilded hands, but at least some sort of punishment would be doled out. Jayce could even turn Viktor's body in himself. 

No, Jayce would never do that. Like Rio, he would bury Viktor and let the dirt settle over him, letting the ground freeze to be undiggable. Viktor ached that it would be Jayce's responsibility, that Viktor would never leave the ranch. 

Viktor coughed again, hard enough that warm blood coated his knuckles and a steady stream flowed from his nostrils to pool at his lips. In the darkness of the storm, Viktor could see the contrast on the drops in the snow. Already, it was freezing and the steam turned to crystals as it flowed into the screeching wind. Viktor would follow next, he thought, as another cough doubled him over. 

He kept coughing and it blocked his senses, muffled the scream of the wind, and the odd voice-like quality it had to it. He could hardly breathe and the breaths he could take were so cold, his lungs shriveled and ached. The cold flooded his brain, crowding out the fog and replacing it with something far more frustrating. Something Viktor's ache to run away had been battling the entirety of his life: the need to survive. 

That was also the moment something heavy fell over him, something heavy and warm, and groaning from the weight of it. 

He and the heavy weight crumpled into the snow and the shock of it woke Viktor fully. He could feel the ache across his nose and the bone deep chill nesting into his fingers. The weight shifted until Jayce's face appeared, frosted with snow and wide with panic.

“Viktor!” Jayce huffed, covering him over like a jacket, his arms on either of Viktor's arms, bleeding warmth into each other. He stumbled and crawled until he was beside Viktor, still holding him but no longer draped over him. “God, you're bleedin’.” 

In the dark, Viktor could see only the shine of his eyes, not the pupils or the whites, the glint of his teeth as he spoke and the extreme darkness of his beard and hair as it whipped around his face. 

Warm hands cradled Viktor's jaw and he jerked back from the heat of them like fire. “You shouldn't be here!” Viktor slurred. The cold had frozen his lips and his tongue into numbness. The fog of his breath rolled out the side of his mouth as if he were smoking. 

“Neither should you!” Jayce shouted back. He chased where Viktor had jerked away, rubbing warmth into Viktor's cheek bones with his bare thumbs. “C'mon, we're going in!”

“No!” Viktor shouted, rooting himself to the ground. “Let me go, Jayce! If it isn't Piltover that takes me, it's my own body!” 

“I won't let that happen!” Jayce begged, gripping Viktor's face hard enough he could feel nails starting to dig into his skin. “I won't let any of that happen! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I caused Rio to die, but I won't let anything else hurt you!” 

Viktor paused at that and reached up to take Jayce's wrists. Originally, he meant to fight to free himself from Jayce's hold, but now he was anchoring himself, making sure all of this was real. 

Jayce thought he was the cause of Rio's death? As if a freak accident with a wild cow could be the true damnable offense instead of stealing her from her home and racing her out into the desert with no plan. Viktor tried to catch his breath, but he could taste copper on his tongue as the blood continued to flow down. 

“Jayce, wh- I- it was me, Jayce,” Viktor stammered, losing his voice over the wind as it cracked. “It was my actions, not you.” 

“Then it was both of us,” Jayce insisted, “So then both of us deserve to die out here, right? Because we both caused it.”

“No!” Viktor's immediate response came as the thought of letting Jayce die beside him washed over him. It was revolting and wrong to imagine. “No, you don't deserve that!”

“Neither do you!” Jayce replied. “Because it was me that convinced you to stay until winter came. It was me that wanted to ride Rio out to get the cows. It was me that took off after that cow with a green horse. I'm to blame too!” 

Viktor breathed in fast, copper and ice coating his throat. He looked at Jayce, as much as he could see, the gritted teeth, the puffs of air as they breathed the same proximity, the ice that was starting to form at Jayce's hairline. Like water doused over a flame, all the self-loathing and grief that had clouded Viktor's eyes disappeared into the screaming wind and he looked down at the snow pocked with little red spots. 

“Oh, my god,” Viktor breathed. It hitched into a sob as he crumbled into Jayce's hold. “God, I'm a fool. I'm a fucking fool.” He sobbed as Jayce held him upright and his deadweight pulled the man lower. 

He had not cried since he'd pulled the trigger and it flooded towards shore to drown all the tide pools and creatures living there. The overflow seeped out of the empty rotted place in his chest and turned his limbs to jelly. His face burned down the tracks the tears left. Arms encircled around him, and they bled their warmth together until it made Viktor's fingers ache. 

The breeze blew through them like the slats of a fence and Viktor nestled in deeper to the warmth and the sweetness he'd earlier shunned. But Jayce was sensible and bid Viktor to standing, even as Jayce winced at the movement in his leg.

Of course. God, of course. His leg.

Viktor surged upward in spite of his own pain and took Jayce's arm over his as a makeshift crutch. He took more of Jayce's weight than he would have expected, but shouldered it as they started to crawl among the snow drifts. 

Any of the previous anguish, any of the fresh pain of his old wounds, muffled in the slow trudge across the snow with the man he held up. They didn't pause until Viktor barreled his shoulder into the door and they stumbled into their home, shivering and teeth chattering. 

Before Viktor could navigate Jayce towards the bed to sit, the man was already rubbing warmth into Viktor's fingers and pressing his hands between his own. 

“Jayce,” Viktor hissed, pulling him around until his knees buckled against the bed. Viktor scrubbed the tight ice pulling his face taut, the frozen treads of tears he’d already shed as he knelt before Jayce. “Sit down, I need to check your leg.” But Viktor’s fingers were still shaking as he tried to pull at Jayce’s pant leg. 

Jayce only chuckled, his own lips quivering and just blue enough to make Viktor’s heart jump. “It ain’t gettin’ any broker,” Jayce replied, pulling Viktor’s hands back up to sandwich them between his. “Your hands could get colder though and that won’t happen on my watch.” He raised Viktor’s hands and kissed the knuckles, rubbing his fingers against Viktor’s. 

Viktor tutted but allowed the interruption. The sensation felt wonderful, like dunking his hands into a vat of ice, but much less severe. It spread through his palms and then his nail beds and traveled up and out, infecting each inch of a skin. The down of Jayce's beard scraped so sweetly against Viktor's knuckles, in a way that wasn't quite the crisp sensation of touch but close enough to be aware of it. To know what was lost and soon to be gained once his nerve endings awoke once again. 

Viktor could have lost this. He could have willingly let it go while trudging out into the snow, stuck in his own mind. 

”I thought-“ Jayce paused and swallowed. His voice was hoarse and his cheeks slowly gaining color again. There were ice tracks down his cheeks too, gorgeous patterns that crawled across his skin and melted into each other. Viktor stared in the low light and scrambled to light a candle while Jayce swallowed whatever had choked him.

”I thought you’d finally gone,” Jayce said. “That you’d finally done what you’d threatened this whole time.”

”I didn’t mean to threaten…” Viktor whispered. 

“And then with the blizzard.” Jayce’s eyes went distant as they drifted back out the window. He shivered and bent closer to Viktor, still kneeling on the ground. The candle flickered and bounced its light around his features, touching each spot with such a softness that Viktor wished he could replicate. “I’m lucky I found you. If the cold didn’t get me, my own heart woulda beat out my chest.” 

“I am sorry,” Viktor replied, squeezing the hand held between them. His free fingers played with the hem of Jayce’s pants, careful when touching the skin. “I knew you’d gotten hurt. I even tried fixing it first thing, but…” He looked up and trailed off. There was no excuse, there was no explanation, except for his own clouded judgement. 

Jayce’s eyebrows knit together. “You were grievin’,” He breathed. “I knew what it was.” He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed along the bottom of Viktor’s nose. The blood, it seemed, had crystallized along with the tears. “When my ma and I got back home after- well, y‘know- she wasn’t really there. Not for a few days, at least. My father stayed with us ‘cuz she wasn't well enough to care for me yet. I knew that’s what got you, that’s why you couldn’t really say much, why you couldn’t move much.”

”I could have helped you,” Viktor whispered. The previous stinging sensation of the cold returned, but deep within his sinuses. The distant threat of tears. God, no more of those, please. He’d had his fill. “I’m a healer, I took an oath, and I still allowed you to walk on like this.” 

Jayce huffed an empty laugh and lifted his own pant leg. “Enough of this self-flagellation. I don’t blame you, I swear it. Now do your worst, darlin’.”

Viktor screwed his mouth into something akin to a smile and pulled the fabric the rest of the way. The thickness of the jean material stuck together and made revealing the injury all the more worse. Jayce hissed breaths in and out until Viktor finally decided he should shimmy out a more logical way. With the pants thrown to the side, Viktor took a look at the leg and turned a bit pale. 

There was no gore, no blood, no broken skin. What there was, though, was a dark enough bruise to rival the darkness of the sky and the deepest dredges of the river. Upon even grazing Jayce’s ankle, Jayce bit a slew of curses and broke into a cold sweat. Viktor then took a quick recess to light the stove and allow its heat to warm them both. 

With the injury at the tips of his fingers, Viktor bit the inside of his cheek. “This is a bad sign, Jayce,” He reported, looking now at the knee and wincing as the bruise continued upward. “It is more than just your bone, it is the musculature around it. Walking on a hairline fracture as you have- not to mention performing heavy functions- overextended the tendons. The fracture is likely worse as well, but I cannot know how bad without better medical equipment.” 

Jayce sucked another breath as Viktor lifted the leg to feel along the calf. With trembling arms, he held himself up from behind and nearly collapsed before Viktor released the tension. “Fuck,” He breathed. “So… no more stall duty?”

“None,” Viktor warned. “The fact that you were able to dig a hole at all is a testament to your own stubbornness.” His voice trailed as he remembered the grave, remembered what lay in it. How he'd watched the procession, seen the evidence of pain, and made no move to help. 

Jayce's hands carefully curling around Viktor's jaw paused his thoughts. With a gentle tug with his other hand on the bundled blanket, Viktor stood partially to the bedside and sat beside Jayce, following after the warmth like a leash tugged. 

“Hey,” He warned, “I saw that look in your eye. You were driftin’ away again, weren't you?” 

Viktor nodded, submitting to the touch and falling between his hands. His forehead paused at Jayce's shoulder. “I do not want to.” 

“I know.”

“I am reminded of the things that have happened. Of the wrongs that I have done. It is so much easier to let myself drift than to feel the pain of reliving it,” Viktor admitted. His forehead still hovered awkwardly against Jayce's shoulder. “I do not want to stay there, but I do not want to stay here either.”

Clearly tired of Viktor's odd hovering over his shoulder, Jayce wrapped his arms around his partner's shoulders and pulled him in until his weight rested fully upon him. Petting his fingers through Viktor's snow-damp hair, he whispered, “But I'm here with you.”

Viktor shook his head, his nose running along Jayce's throat and collarbone as he did. “It is not enough,” Viktor admitted, “You cannot change the things that haunt me.” 

“I know,” Jayce replied, almost sounding a touch offended. “But I want to try.”

“A fool's errand,” Viktor said, but buried deeper into the curve of Jayce's chest nonetheless. It did feel safer, after all, and he was in search of somewhere safe to keep himself. 

Once Jayce's lips had returned to their natural color, and Viktor had endured the frankly painful ordeal of Jayce cleaning his windburned face of his frozen nosebleed, Viktor returned to the injury. With the use of kitchen spoons, he set the leg and tied it tight enough that Jayce had to grit his teeth from the discomfort. Viktor poured him a glass of whiskey to help. 

“In the morning, you ought to get to a doctor, perhaps hire some barn help while you are recovering,” Viktor said, handing the glass over. 

Jayce took it, but set it to the side. “Wait, you're not coming?” He asked. 

“I am still a criminal,” Viktor replied. “If they have heard the news from Piltover, I could be arrested. If they inquire where I came from, it would arouse suspicion.”

Jayce shook his head. “No, then I won't go. I'll stay here with you and you can fix me up.”

“And the horses?” Viktor asked. “The cows? Who will clean their stalls, feed them? Water them while the water lines are frozen? Who will let them in and out on sunny days and shepherd them back to safety when the weather turns?” 

Jayce frowned and took a heady sip of his whiskey, slamming the glass back down. “I don't know, but you're talking like you're thinking of leaving again and I don't like it.” 

Viktor frowned but couldn't keep it trained on Jayce if he tried. Instead, he turned away. “I am trying to be realistic, not avoidant. This illness will likely kill me.” 

A hand threaded through his own before he could walk away. “We can make it work,” Jayce said, his eyes shining and wet, golden like the sun. “I'll take care of you. I'll take care of our home. Until I can get on a horse to get to town, I could make a crutch and just keep off my leg as much as possible.”

“Cleaning the stalls?” Viktor needled. “Lifting hay and water buckets?” 

“It'll be slow-going. And I might need your help,” Jayce added. “But what other option do we have? I can't get to town if I wanted to and the horses can't go two days without their stalls cleaned as they are.”

Viktor sighed and the hand holding his squeezed comfortingly. It wasn't that Viktor hadn't done the work before or didn't want to- he'd tried in the past, but a cane in one hand and a pitchfork in the other was a lesson in difficulty. And Jayce was so prudent about his time and efficiency, he usually sent Viktor off to do something else that was easier for a cane user. 

Now, with both of them down for the count, it would be just plain difficult. No efficiency about it. Just difficulty.

“If you're afraid my hesitation is of fearing the work, it is not,” Viktor said after a few silent minutes of rubbing his temples. He paused and sat heavily on the bed next to Jayce, but allowed a smile to slip. “At least you do not need me to train them horses for you.”

Jayce chuckled, but it turned hollow and short-lived. His gaze went hollow as he seemed to drift off. He became a picture of what Viktor had probably been like for the past two days. Hollow and unmoving, staring at nothing with hands limp and empty. A realization of mourning what could no longer be. 

But, unlike Viktor, Jayce shook himself from the stupor and squeezed their hands once more. “So, you'll stay then?” He asked. Viktor nodded, but he continued on, “And you understand that you don't need to run away, right?” 

Viktor paused. He could lie and say yes and begin the process all over again. Living with a lie only to bolt at the first good opportunity. But he'd lived that life before. It was exhausting beyond measure. And his chest ached from the hurt and the illness, and it was a blizzard outside. And at the end of his fingers was a ridge of knuckles he could slot his fingertips in between and at the end of that arm, a man who wanted to make space for him. 

Jayce must have sensed his hesitation for he took his free hand and pushed the hair behind his ear. “I don't care how long you give me- if your illness is going to take you today, or next week, or never- just give me what you can. And I don't care that you've done wrong, stay with me because if you don't, I fear I'll never be right by myself again.” 

“Jayce-” 

“Everything I told you out in that blizzard is true,” He said, lingering a thumb on Viktor's jaw. “It was my actions, it was your actions, it was both of us. Don't disappear just because you wanna take the blame for yourself. Let me lighten the load a little bit. Stay and let me help you.”

Without a thought in his mind except for the distant sting of his sinuses once again, Viktor cracked into a wet smile. “Okay,” He whispered as Jayce pulled him in. “Okay.”

If the rain from the late autumn felt like relief, then Jayce's lips tasted like home. 

Winter bore on. The first storm of the season lasted for two more days, and with Jayce too injured to really even walk, Viktor took up the responsibilities alone. It took nearly all day to empty the stalls of their filth, and without the ability to walk outside to dump the manure, Viktor had to leave the nasty piles right outside the stall doors to take away once the storm cleared. 

On a good day, Jayce had Viktor's help down to the forge and showed him the surprise he'd hinted at before Rio's death had distracted them. He'd crafted a new adjustable leg brace for Viktor, this time with a heel plate to help with bending at the knee and lifting with extra force. 

Viktor touched the fine metal like he was afraid it would evaporate. “This is…” He breathed, unable to look at Jayce directly or he feared he'd burst into tears. 

Jayce, who was leaned against the anvil to keep the weight off his broken leg, grinned so brightly it could have rivaled his crucible. “I had to take measurements of your clothing, so if it's slightly off, we can change the height setting or switch out the straps-”

He was interrupted by Viktor turning to him, eyes shining from the surprise of it all. “You are too kind,” Viktor whispered, fondness bleeding into his voice and drowning the world in a flood. 

Jayce reached his hand across the brace between them and encircled where Viktor's hand touched. “I'm glad I got to give you the advantage of it,” He replied. “Now try it on, I want to see how it fits.” 

It worked like a dream, of course. Viktor only needed it adjusted down a few inches, but the added support gave him leeway to set his cane aside for a few minutes at a time when he had a short distance to traverse and no hands freed. 

Jayce crafted himself a pair of crutches and began to help with the chores more. Especially as the storm subsided and the barn began to stink. He found a way to support himself off one crutch and fiddle with a pitchfork in the other. Viktor, with his new brace, was able to plant himself in one spot and use both hands for the task. 

The winter pressed on. Jayce's leg began to lose its beaten quality, though the pain did not cease. Finally, a little more than a month after the break, Viktor had to admit his defeat. 

“It will never be the same,” Viktor sighed, holding the leg as gently as he could while Jayce winced above him. “If you can even walk unassisted, it will be nothing short of a miracle. I'm sorry, Jayce.”

Jayce's hands threaded into the sheets, growing taut and panicked. “But… I'll still be able to ride, right?” 

Viktor pursed his lips and then gently moved the leg at its thigh, above the breaking point. Jayce's wince was less pronounced, but still there. 

“Yes,” Viktor said, “But you'll need to rebuild your calf muscles and you may favor one side over the other- so the horses will, too.” 

Jayce fell back against the mattress, a look of loathing and despair on his features. Viktor gentled the leg back to the ground and sat on the mattress to lean over him. As Viktor laid back to join Jayce in his stewing, Jayce's hair was askew across his forehead and Viktor swept it back in place with a loving touch. 

“You still have all the knowledge of a great trainer,” Viktor reminded him. “You have Mercury who is good-minded and reliable- and cane broke, too.” 

“But I've effectively lost my job,” Jayce replied, closing his eyes tightly. His hands still crinkled in the bedsheets. “I'll have to tell the Kirammans I'm injured and can't do the work I used to.”

“Jayce,” Viktor sighed, running a hand through the dark waves of hair to brush them back to some semblance of neatness. “I just told you that you will still be able to train.”

Jayce didn't reply, instead opening his eyes to the ceiling with a newfound wetness that brought Viktor to pause. “I knew this profession was tough on the body,” Jayce said, his throat bobbing. “My father knew enough cowboys that fell apart at the slightest breeze from the hardships this job put them through. I knew this was a possibility, I just didn't think so soon.”

Viktor had heard this sort of despair before. In amputees and the chronically ill, it echoed throughout their symptoms, to the small dosage of medicines Viktor would prepare to help lift their spirits from the throes of depression. Even Viktor, through all his medical turmoil, found himself in that space occasionally. If he could scream at god for the years stolen from him, he would lose his voice. 

There was no support except to allow Jayce to feel as he did until the realization had settled. Any longer and it could become something more of a problem, a race against a riptide pulling him out to deeper and far more dangerous waters. 

Viktor ran a hand along Jayce's jaw, then his neck, pausing where the blood pumped at his collarbone slow and melodic. “It is unfair,” Viktor replied. “And I'm very sorry you have to experience this. But you aren't alone.” 

Jayce looked over to Viktor, his gaze deep and knowing. “Your leg?” 

“And more,” Viktor admitted, “But this moment is to let you feel as you do. We will talk about it later.” 

Jayce sucked in a breath and then sighed. In the motion, he lolled his head to the side until he leaned against Viktor's arm and they were flush together. They stayed that way for a while until the heavy realizations faded and the world called to them again. 

They wouldn't speak about the other things that afflicted Viktor in unfair ways until the heavy work Viktor was doing out in the cold caught up to him. Luckily, by that time, Jayce had steadily gained back a fraction of his old energy and work. Though, it was still a blow to their efficiency without a second pair of hands. 

To ease the barn, Jayce let the stalled horses out into the pastures for the day. They would be able to stretch their legs in the light snow and wouldn't dirty their stalls. 

Viktor laid in the bed, fighting the urge to curl into a ball, and took deep painful breaths. The pain spiked like the tide and threw his stomach around his torso. If he opened his eyes, the world tilted and shifted. His jaw ached from clenching but there was little else he could do when the pain stiffened his body into rigor mortis. He fought the urge to cough with each deep breath as it only sent the pain further up and down his spine. 

When Jayce stepped through the barn door and paused, Viktor could feel the wincing frown sent his way. 

“What can I do for you?” Jayce asked as he settled himself at the bedside. As was his nature, he reached for Viktor's hand but Viktor pulled away. 

“No touching,” Viktor hissed through his teeth. Another tremor ran through him that had him swallowing down a heavy cough. “It's too much.” 

“Okay.” The mattress shifted, groaning as Jayce laid sideways to face him. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“No,” Viktor replied. He blew a breath as the pain eased in its wave, but it would come back soon enough. “No, I have no appetite.” 

“How long do these last for?” 

“Depends. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days.” 

Viktor was aware of how clipped he sounded, how tired and hurting his voice came across. Why Jayce had yet to scurry away and leave Viktor to his wallowing was beyond him. He would learn soon, though, that Viktor's painful days were not for the faint of heart. 

Jayce had glimpsed them over the several months Viktor had stayed, but one this bad had yet to strike. Slow days with creaky joints were nothing compared to the tight coil of rippling knives that stabbed into every tendon and ligament holding his frail body together. He trembled from the effort of keeping his voice inside his body. 

“Maybe a distraction would help,” Jayce answered. “Could I read to you?” 

Viktor almost scoffed and sent him away rather unkindly, but then he stopped himself. That… did sound rather nice. And Viktor was exhausting himself with each spike around his body. He could map the edges of his muscle groups with how aware he was of them. 

Viktor finally pried his eyes open and looked at Jayce. Laid out on the edge of the bed, leaning his head against his fist and curling a soft smile to him. Not an ounce of pity marred his sweet features. Only affection and understanding. 

Viktor turned back and swallowed, his eyes shutting to the truth of it. “That would be nice,” He replied. The jaws of his muscles ached as he gritted his teeth at another wave. 

Jayce read from “The Illiad” as yet another squall threatened over the horizon. His voice was smooth and quiet, slow and quick to stop when Viktor's face tensed enough that words had no meaning. Too soon, Jayce had to rush back outside to retrieve the horses he'd let out, and each journey in and out showed the laborious movements of his bad leg. 

Slowly, but not slow enough that Viktor didn't notice, he lost track of his good days. There came a time when he had no good left to pull him out of bed. Jayce, luckily, had regained his strength enough to take care of the barn as he was supposed to, if a bit slower than before, but he had no extra help in Viktor. 

There was no hiding the coughing any longer. It overtook the pain of his body and made bad days even worse. Jayce tried the tricks he knew, the homebrewed teas and poultices spread across the chest. He wrote his mother for advice and she had very little other than eucalyptus oil under the nose. Viktor debunked it as a helpful tip for only the seasonal cold. 

Viktor could hardly think with the racket of his own breathing and he became something of an infestation in Jayce's bed. Unable to move, unable to speak much, unable to breathe well. In spite of all his promises, he wished Jayce would be more realistic. It ripped out of him some days, when things felt most dire and the terrible creature in his chest scratched at the walls of his lungs. 

Jayce was wiping on some of the poultice mixture once more when Viktor snapped at him. “Why do you even bother?”

Jayce, at this point used to Viktor's lashing tongue, only huffed a breath when his hand paused. “Because you deserve it,” He stated as though it were simple. 

“You know what I deserve,” Viktor lashed. “Not this. Not you.”

“You don't get to decide that,” Jayce replied, wiping his hand on his jeans. The frustration was curling out of him from this line of thinking. “I want to take care of you- it's not about if you think you're deserving.” 

“So you'll take care of me until I die?” Viktor spat. 

“If that's what it comes to,” Jayce said, gripping the bowl of poultice too tight. 

Viktor released a breath for a sigh and then coughed hard enough that blood splattered onto his knuckles. Jayce tried to reach forward, but Viktor merely pushed him away. “This is what it is coming to,” Viktor hissed. “I am mortally ill, I will die soon, Jayce. This is not the kind of life you deserve- to be my servant before you're left with a corpse.”

Jayce stared at Viktor with a kind of stubborn hurt, a love that was wounded but continuing on. It made Viktor's chest twist to choke that creature within him. He swallowed down the need to apologize. 

“Is that what it's goin’ to be?” Jayce whispered, the plain hurt cracking around the stubbornness. “You turning your belly over and giving up? Just lettin’ yourself die just cuz you think you deserve to?” 

“I…” Viktor's face fell and he stared down at the sheets. Little red drops stained the edge. 

“You survived a desert, you learned to ride a horse in only a few weeks, you built a sophisticated watering system, and now you're choosing to give up on a challenge,” Jayce said, turning away to stand with the bowl. “I gotta go feed the barn. I'll be back in a half hour.” 

Viktor coughed the need to apologize back up with another phlegm of blood. The hours Jayce disappeared battered Viktor with each dragging second.

The nerves of what he would say had him hefting to his feet- the first time in days. The world swayed around him then settled thankfully. 

Jayce's face dropped upon coming through the door and seeing Viktor on his feet, leaned heavily against his cane and over a boiling pot. 

Jayce, who trumped across the room with his own cane now, rushed to Viktor's side. “The hell's wrong with you? Go sit down, you got lightheaded the last few times you did this.”

Viktor held his ground, bracing against the kitchen counter. “No, you said it right, I was giving up too easily. This is a part of fighting back.”

Jayce suffered a sigh. “That's amazing, but you need to sit down the instant you feel weak.” But, true to his nature, he slotted his way in front of the stove with a kiss to Viktor's temple. “And I'll cook dinner, you'll burn it otherwise.” 

Viktor scoffed but grinned nonetheless, leaning against the kitchen counter to ease his canehand from cramping. And in spite of the downward slope he was on, Viktor continued to try. 

The worst came about, as it was always wont to do. It found him in the midst of a blizzard- likely the final of the winter season before spring broke winter and buried it in a shallow grave. 

Viktor was soon to follow, he knew it, and yet he still thrashed and fought as the jaws of death clamped down on his throat and chest. Jayce would need to burn the sheets once Viktor had finished his coughing and sputtering, bloody as they were. It made Viktor's chest ache differently than his illness. 

He wondered more than once if Rio's heart had pounded so loudly in her ears. If she had felt the break in her leg and known that her time was up or if she only felt pain and fear until Viktor took it all away. He wondered which one was better- to know that you would die and therefore be grateful for what you had or to blindly trust the gun and think about how pretty Spring would be when it came. 

He never came to a conclusion, but the dawning horror that his life would soon snuff kept creeping in. His belief in an afterlife was shaky at best, and the nuns at his parent's Sunday school church certainly never mentioned horses in heaven. He feared he'd disappear just as Rio did, all her thoughts and memories and animalistic sense of self, and become nothing when the cycle of life finally ate his empty shell. His rotten corpse. His terrible, dead beating heart. 

Jayce was a wonderful distraction, how he'd waltz in to keep Viktor entertained or speak with him about anything or care for him the way wedding vows always warned one should. Jayce stayed with him as much as he could. At one point, the horses were not touched for two days, even as Viktor begged him through bloody teeth to do his job. But he ignored it and stayed a constant presence through the protesting and wheezing. 

Viktor had become bone thin, his wrist thin enough that Jayce could touch his fingers to his palm while holding it. His cheeks sallow, gaunt and pale. The only warmth of blood on his face was what coagulated on the chapped dredges of his lips. Jayce dutifully wiped it away. 

“You'll like spring.” Jayce whispered of the future, of the things Viktor desperately wanted to see but likely wouldn't. He raged on anyway, chest fighting against the pull of gravity. “There's a pair of herons that nest by the river. And the cows drop their calves soon. Up in the scrublands, while the weather is mild, midnight flowers bloom and wither in the same night. And during the morning, a pair of cardinals likes to call for each other over and over again like they're new lovers.”

Viktor listened in between coughing battles, his eyes turning wet and the world turning wavy. He wanted to see it, hear it, feel it. Experience the gentle song of spring before the heady pull of summer poured in like a thunderstorm. He squeezed Jayce's hand as another coughing fit threatened. 

“I'm so tired,” Viktor admitted in the stillness of an evening. Time was losing its meaning and he was slipping in and out. “I don't know if I can do it.”

His breath wheezed as Jayce shifted beside him. They'd both given up their routines. Jayce must not have changed clothes in a few days. His beard was thicker than normal, his hair oily and unkempt. Beneath deep-set shadows, his eyes still flickered like embers, awake at the sound of Viktor's thin voice. 

The light of a low-burning candle flickered over the wetness in Jayce's eyes. “Don't you dare,” He warned, voice low and dangerous with a promise. “Don't you dare leave me like this.”

Viktor coughed a suffering sigh. The blood phlegm stuck to his teeth, metallic and textured with some organ torn to pieces. “That is not your choice to make, nor mine,” He tried, but it was weak. 

“I don't care.” Jayce's voice broke as his hands nestled along Viktor's jaw. “Don't leave. You can't.” 

Viktor merely smiled, bleary as everything was becoming. “You have horses to care for- a job to do, dear.”

Jayce swallowed whatever he was clearly about to say and trained his voice back to something raw and breaking. “I'm not gonna leave you. Not now.” He swept the hair back from Viktor's face as it dampened and clung to him. Jayce leaned forward to kiss him when his breath evened out. “You have to keep going, darling.”

And when Viktor drifted off, lips pressed to his temple, hands cradling him like sand slipping away, he gave as much as he could, even as it took all he was. 

Chapter Text

Spring came quiet and politely, stepping above the frozen ground with the grace of a deer, trying not to wake all those asleep. The warmth eased in slowly, without the gusto that winter had taken of autumn. Spring breathed soft breezes and melted the snow into life for the grasses and wilds, making the waking of mornings slow and difficult. 

But Jayce woke early, his spade digging into the ground with a heavy surety. Several feet down was still frozen solid and he ground his teeth with the metallic ring of the shovel. The sunrise grew overhead until light teased his features. The breeze woke up with it, still whispering the final touches of winter's chill. 

The ranch rarely had visitors, the last of which being a surprise that had changed his life. He braced himself as a rider came rumbling in and slowed its course to where he stood beneath the tree on the hill nearest to his home. 

The dig was only half done and the rider took only moments of his time- long enough to catch up over the winter and leave him with a bit of mail and an odd poster. An outlaw, the rider had told him, someone traced to be out beyond the scrublands now. 

“Naw, fellar's dead,” Jayce replied, his voice even. Or as even as it could be. If the rider noticed a change, it was not commented on. 

“How do you know?” Came the reply. And Jayce tensed before he answered. 

“This ain't forgiving country,” He'd said, hoping his slip didn't give him away. In the months of his reclusivity, he'd wanted nothing more than someone to speak with, for company. Now, all he wanted was to get back to his digging, to lay the body in wait to rest. “A pretty fellar like that wouldn't last a day out here. Not if he came from the fissures like it says.” 

That settled any lasting questions, and Jayce's continued gruffness drove the rider back to where they came. He shoved the spade back into the tough ground and continued digging. Once the hole hit its six foot requirement, Jayce retreated for the funeral procession and then laid the body with as much care as he could manage. 

The first grave after a winter so hard, the shivering made his teeth ache for days. The last grave dug still tented in its mound, the dirt having yet to settle much in its freezing. Rio's grave and the new, beside each other for eternity. 

Back in the day, Jayce had alluded to the owners of the ranch turning their sprawling pastures into oil rig space. Would the contraptions spread this close to his old home? Would they demolish the house and the barn? Would they dig up these graves that bore blisters into Jayce's hands? Unveil their occupants from an eternal sleep? Their peace ruined by the slow progression of oil mongers?

Jayce bent as low as he could manage with his stiff leg brace and touched the earth upon Rio's grave- then the new grave still settling heavily. Months before, he would have given anything to get away somewhere he felt he belonged. He was willing to kill himself for it. Now, where was the place he belonged except here? 

The trudge back to the barn with Mercury felt like a lifetime- and Jayce would have sped it up by riding bareback, but he'd strapped the stud with a cart. He returned into the living area around sunset, but did not start his dinner yet. Instead, he strode across the living room and out onto the porch. 

Someone sat upon the front steps, a leather weaving project mid-warp and a heavy blanket across his shoulders. Before the door could shut, Jayce murmured in greeting, “Am I interrupting?” A smile infected his voice, turning it softer than the teasing tone he'd expected to use.

Viktor turned, his smile tired and his project paused. He set the half made leather braid aside and tilted his face up towards Jayce's, waiting for the descending kiss. Both smiled into it, their lips meeting curled and teeth clacking where Jayce leaned down too far. Viktor scooted over enough to offer him a space on the steps built wide enough for multiple bodies. 

“Not interrupting, no,” Viktor sighed. “Saving my sanity, in fact. How leatherworkers get these braids so flat, I will never understand.”

Jayce wound his arms around Viktor's, breathing into his crown of hair. Admittedly, he was only half-listening. The comfort of his darling's weight in his arms, the scent in his hair, the way his clothing still smelled like the laundry, made the darkness at the edges of his mind dance somewhere deeper that Jayce had no conscious access to. For the better- he did not need such depressing topics in his forebrain. 

“Buried the calf?” Viktor asked, though he'd watched the entire funeral procession from inside. He knew what Jayce had spent his day on, how he'd only quickly cleaned the horses’ stalls to be sure he had time to dig the grave. The poor deceased thing had died before it could even take a breath of life. Stillborn, though fully developed, and an unfortunate cold thing Viktor found while checking on the cows in the morning. 

Jayce hummed his response into Viktor's neck, nuzzling as deep as he could around Viktor's growing beard hairs. The burial had affected him more than he'd expected and his clingingness was a byproduct of it. Not many days ago, it had been Viktor whose body they'd planned to occupy the dirt beside Rio. With the changing of the seasons and a warmer breeze to ease the pain in Viktor's chest, he'd started to recover and could leave the bed without Jayce's immediate help. 

“The mail came,” Jayce replied, once the lump in his throat over the occupants of graves had faded. He dug the letters from his waist band, their middles crinkled. “Said one of the letters is from the Kirammans and thought it was important for me to get it as soon as possible.” 

Jayce held the letters forward, making no move to discern them and open the specific one. Viktor did the deed instead, setting the others to the side. Jayce didn't even try to read what was written, allowing Viktor the sole interpretation (at least until Jayce decided to untangle himself). 

Viktor slipped through the letter, his lips pursed as he flipped the sheet expecting more. Jayce, content to have his living, breathing partner in his arms, closed his eyes to the objective discernment. 

“It's the cattle company, ain't it?” He finally asked once the silence had stretched for long enough. 

“Correct,” Viktor replied. 

“Time to shut it down?” 

“Correct, again.” 

Jayce sighed and nuzzled in deeper. At least the calf just laid to rest would stay in the home she was born in. Jayce would not receive the same treatment, not in the natural way at least. And the unnatural way, the way he had contemplated less than a year earlier, was looking less and less likely as the breeze around him and his partner warmed. 

“You are tasked with bringing the cattle and the horses in training to the sale. Half of their sale will go to you, the other half to the Kiramman estate,” Viktor read. “We appreciate your continued service to the Kiramman family, may you continue to provide the world with your intellect and talents.” 

Jayce grumbled into Viktor's neck, running his fingers along the patchy beard that grew along Viktor's jaw. A disguise, Jayce had suggested weeks earlier when the beard started as a light stubble- not without a little comedy. 

It was true, Viktor looked different with hair that reached the tops of his shoulders and facial hair, though patchy, that hid his upper lip and the curve of his chin. Silver streaks started to tease the edges of his temples, a testament to the stress of the past year. Jayce loved the new look, as much as he loved the youth of the Viktor he first met. It would be helpful to them if they truly did have to leave the ranch, even if it was born out of Viktor's exhaustion and Jayce's priorities ranking shaving quite low.

Jayce pulled the wanted poster forward, too, though it sported a new tear along its middle. “I also received this,” He whispered, careful. Mentions of Viktor's criminal history was something like handling a spooked horse. Sometimes, the thing they'll be the most afraid of isn't the thing you expect. Or, they'll have a bad day weeks down the road and find the most mundane thing to lose their mind over. 

Viktor stilled and then- oddly enough- chuckled. Jayce unburied himself to look at the poster. Nothing was out of the ordinary, a young-looking Viktor with shining bright eyes, a terse mouth line, and a scholarly cravat tied around his fine shirt. Almost an exact picture of who he was almost a year ago, when he stumbled into Jayce's life with a clever quip. 

“What?” Jayce asked, a disbelieving scoff in his voice. He thought for sure the listed crimes and, oh y'know, “wanted dead or alive” written in big bold letters would quiet the criminal Jayce held. 

Viktor covered his grin with a free hand. “This is quite an old drawing,” He admitted, his eyes shining more than they had in days. “Back when I was beginning my studies, I was seeing a young artisan boy. He sketched me for practice. The authorities must have found a portrait of me and copied it.” He held the poster further away and frowned, “Though they added the dark circles- which, may be fair, but a bit back handed, I believe. And that boy never did get my face shape right.” 

Out of all that Viktor had just said, the pettiest slice of information hung on to Jayce's forebrain. “You dated an artist?” 

Viktor scoffed yet again, shoving the wanted poster into Jayce's face. “You are something of an artist, too, no?” 

Jayce spluttered and caught the wanted poster back in his hand, his face burning and his pride a bit wilted. “Yes,” he huffed, “But I'm a little embarrassed I didn't even think to draw you all this time.” 

Viktor leaned his head on his hand, a smile pulling at his lips. “You can draw me anytime you like, my dear,” He purred. But, then the mischief faded, turning into something mellowed. 

Viktor still held the letter. Jayce trapped the wanted poster below his palm. They held each other's futures, futures that they did not want to come to fruition. Viktor's hold on the envelope tightened minutely and he slid closer to Jayce with a sigh. 

“So,” Jayce hummed, melding into the space Viktor took up and looked out across the hills. “What's the plan for dinner?” 

Another lighthearted jab. Viktor, in all his months living with Jayce, had never had anything other than pickled meats, beans, or sausage as their dinner. Though, there was the night months ago where Jayce had found wild raspberries and made oatmeal instead. 

Eventually, they gathered the strength to meander each other inside. Viktor, still fairly weak in his recovery, waited on the bed while Jayce tutted around the kitchen. Dinner came and went (it all tasted like ash in Viktor’s mouth), and then they were readying for sleep. Viktor waited in bed while Jayce left for the outhouse. 

He could see the slip of paper on the kitchen table- the wanted poster that bore his face. He’d barely looked at it except for the quick glance at the sketch, what he used to look like. He didn’t glimpse the bounty price or who’d issued it. Whether there was a date on it or if any of the crimes had changed. 

Not too long ago, he would have assumed the doctor revealed the identity of the murderer to ease his own sentence. Their last conversation had not been a good one- where Viktor accused him of knowing the shimmer was not stabilized as it should have been. But it was deserved, and Viktor got away with one of the doctor’s horses, and someone had to answer the tough question of “where has my loved one disappeared to?”

But it had taken quite a while for any news to reach them, nearly a year before a mail carrier came close enough to drop off the poster in the region he’d disappeared into. Perhaps it meant the case was fully cold. That old town gossip was just that: gossip. And that Viktor was no longer in any active danger if he were to step outside and greet the neighbors who lived a several hours ride away. 

Viktor found himself standing in the kitchen despite the pain of it, staring down at the poster. He didn’t even notice Jayce enter the room or that he paused his greeting words at seeing where Viktor stood, at seeing what Viktor was reading. 

Jayce cleared his throat after glancing the poster over again. “You alright?” He said it like Viktor would fall to pieces or bolt away. And Viktor couldn't blame him- he had the history of doing so. 

Instead of running off into the nebulous distant land he'd yearned for months over, he turned from the poster. “I think so,” Viktor sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. 

Jayce followed the movement and expected it to cover some avoidant behavior. But he believed it, and Viktor. “Tired?” 

“Yes.” Viktor led the charge to the bed, limping over the floor as the cane did its best to support him. He'd likely need something more like the crutches Jayce used while recovering his broken leg. They were handy, if a bit stiff and uncomfortable long term. But the strain in Viktor's wrist was becoming too much. 

“I've done nothing,” Viktor complained as he settled on his usual side. “For days I have sat here and wallowed. I get up for a whole forty-five minutes and use up all my energy!” 

Jayce followed, pulling his shirt from his shoulders and tossing it lazily behind him. The old bed creaked from Jayce crawling towards Viktor. “You'll get there, darlin’,” Jayce sighed. He pressed his lips to Viktor's cradling his jaw and only pressed close for long enough to get a taste. “It takes time to build strength.” 

Viktor couldn't help the frustrated breath through his nose as they parted. “A clever answer to the man who almost died.” 

“But you didn't.” Jayce sat back and scooped up Viktor's limp and bony hand. “You still have time and it'll get better.”

Viktor didn't argue and Jayce was glad for it. The last thing they needed after weeks of drudgery and illness was to go to sleep angry. Not when Viktor made so much progress in one day. 

Later, when Jayce awoke from a nightmare of blended haunts and new horrific possibilities, Viktor woke alongside him. It was routine, with how often bad dreams haunted Jayce and how loud they were in his psyche, that Viktor would wake too- even though Jayce could count on one hand the amount of times he'd woken up as Viktor had suffered from his own nightmare. 

A comforting hand circled Jayce's shoulders and ran along his spine as he hunched over his bent legs. Viktor stayed laying down, but his soothing touch followed Jayce's panting back, up and down. 

“The blizzard?” Viktor asked. It was always the blizzard. Only the fine details changed with each rerun. 

Tonight, Jayce had been lost trying to find the ranch house and each time he caught a glimpse of the porch light and Viktor's shadow in the doorway, the snow would block his vision again and bury him without a sound.

“The letter,” Jayce deduced between heavy breaths. “I think it… I think it affected me more than I thought.”

Viktor winced and pressed his hand a little firmer to Jayce's back. “We both received bad omens in the mail, didn't we?” 

“What are we going to do?” Jayce wheezed when the hammering of his heart pounded louder. He clutched the source of his pain, scrabbling against the roughened skin of his chest, and tried to breathe best he could. He was failing. “Where will we go?” 

That nebulous place beyond the matter of going. That space past where you were here and wound up there. Where was that for them? Where could they go?

Viktor stayed silent for several minutes. He was wrapped up in his own thoughts. The irony that for months he had yearned to go, to get away, somewhere far beyond where he was now. All of it was to avoid what he'd been running from. Now, he wanted nothing more than to stay. 

“You are a blacksmith,” Viktor supplied. “You could go anywhere and survive.” 

“But you're wanted by the law,” Jayce sputtered. “And I ain't gonna put you in harm's way like that.” 

“Maybe it's best,” Viktor tried, but it was weak. While both of them didn't know the answer to all the questions up in the air, they knew it wasn't to split up. Jayce would not let each other go their own ways. It would be together or not at all. 

“Absolutely not.” His voice was sure around the rapid beating in his chest.

“Then it will be a long journey,” Viktor said. “We'll have to leave Piltover's lands entirely. Freljord or across the seas. Maybe some remote place far from here.” 

“Whatever,” Jayce said, gripping Viktor's hand and turning in the bed so they curled around each other. Viktor was still lying prone, but curved around the bend of Jayce's legs. Jayce leaned over Viktor and sat at an angle so that he could see the hazy shine of the moon lighting Viktor's features. “Whatever keeps us together- wherever you want to go.”

Viktor nestled back, finally ripping his gaze away from Jayce's to look out the window behind them. It was nearing dawn, the sky warmed into a dark blush. “In all my time wanting to leave,” He revealed, “I never knew where I wanted to end up. I only knew where I could not stay.”

Such was true of Jayce, he realized. He had nowhere else he wanted to be but on the ranch or with Viktor. There was nowhere beyond himself that called to him so strongly. 

“I had thought if I kept moving forward, somehow I would find something,” Viktor said. “I guess in a way, that is what happened. I walked for hours in a desert and somehow found the one man it housed by chance.” Jayce smiled weakly and, in the dim light, Viktor smiled back. 

“Maybe…” Jayce paused to let his thoughts coalesce. “Maybe that's all we need. To go forth and try to find something?”

“Perhaps not the most sound plan for two bright minds such as ourselves,” Viktor sighed. “After all, I did find you when I was on the brink of death, but I suppose we can work this out more later.”

Jayce chuckled. “I don't think anyone who finds us on the brink of death would like having to carry two parched idiots to safety.”

“I was not a parched idiot,” Viktor huffed. He squeezed Jayce's hand hard as a warning. “I was a desperate man driven to extremes.”

Jayce grinned and leaned closer over Viktor. “You can be both.” 

“You can be both,” Viktor snarled back, shoving Jayce on his cheeks before pulling him in for a heady kiss. Jayce nearly lost his balance on the way down, scrambling to keep from squishing Viktor with his heavy weight. Not that Viktor would have minded, but the last minute save was quite sweet. 

As often happened when Viktor found himself in the pull of Jayce, his awareness needled down to the edges of his lips where he ended and Jayce began. All he was were the tips of his fingers in Jayce's hair, keeping him in place, and the scrape of his tongue on Jayce's palette. The heightened feeling of foreign skin pulling him closer turned into an intensity that left him gasping for more. 

All of his planned comfort, everything he'd planned to tell Jayce, to ease the man's mind, flew out of his own. And Jayce had no objections. No, the man was content to keep drinking Viktor in as deeply as he could, get him to moan and fill the quiet house with something far sweeter. 

They wouldn't discuss it again for several days, around the time Viktor began to move around unassisted for longer periods. Viktor pinned Jayce down in the forge, mid-shod, and extended a page toward him. 

“I apologize, I had to use one of your empty journal pages,” Viktor had said without preamble, leaving Jayce to set the horse's foot down from the hoof stand. 

The grullo colt huffed and gummed for the sheet as Jayce undid his bandana to wipe his face. Viktor held his breath when Jayce glanced the sheet over and tried to hide his apprehension by meandering around the forge as if its hanging tools and implements fascinated him. 

“It is not designed to be used during the winter, but we could reinforce the insulation with petroleum jelly if we were still traveling,” Viktor muttered, trying to fill the silence as Jayce read. “And we would need oxen, of course, and the pen panels to hold them when we parked. Mercury we can keep too, as a vehicle for when we need to travel quickly by ourselves- and also because he is loved and I wouldn't expect you to sell him so callously-”

Jayce crossed the room then, but not to where Viktor had meandered- instead to his work bench to pick up a drafting pencil. The only noise Jayce made was a quiet huff, like the first puff of a steam engine kicking into gear. He pulled a long sheet of thin paper out from a shelf beneath the lip of the disk, his pencil flying from corner to corner. Viktor watched the movement apprehensively.

“So?” Viktor nudged across the room, settling the crutch he'd co-opted from Jayce back under his arm. “What do you think?” 

The pencil traced the line from the back of the wagon, but Jayce elongated it with a flourish, bordering on the edge of the page. Viktor's original design was smaller, just enough to transport them from one end of the continent to another over many mountainous regions, but the design Jayce was drawing over Viktor's was more suited to flat lands, like the region they lived, and more longterm.

Jayce lifted the pencil to his lips and bit the eraser lightly between his teeth. He muttered, “The weight distribution was off. It should be a duo-pulling system, otherwise the weight in the front would wear down the oxen’s shoulders. We'd need to figure out how to redistribute during travel.”

Viktor paused, then leaned over the sketch. “That is true- perhaps the bed could be moved from the back compartment to the center, then it would take some of the storage space from the front and put it more to the back.” He pointed over Jayce's shoulder. 

“Do you think we could still get away with only two axles?” Jayce asked, leaning more on his elbow to get a good look at Viktor.

“The real question is that of material durability,” Viktor responded. “You are the blacksmith, you know where to order it and how much it shall cost.”

Jayce ripped his gaze away without having met Viktor's. As if he were afraid Jayce's current line of questioning was a slow rejection of the idea, Viktor had gone a little stiff, a little less prone to warmth and vulnerability. He kept his attention on the design fully, refusing in the few moments of discussion to turn towards Jayce other than a quick glance or two. 

“The cost doesn't matter,” Jayce replied, shifting his hand closer to Viktor's on the table. “I can get a good price for the cows and the studs. Their going rate- especially well-trained- is gonna give me a good severance.”

Viktor finally cracked a bit. “The going rate? Is it not a sale? You could get more.”

Jayce couldn't help but grin back. “I mean, if that's what they want for ‘em.”

Viktor leaned back, his expression incredulous. “You… you can haggle for more, Jayce,” he supplied, sure that at any moment Jayce would drop his mask of false ignorance and start laughing. 

Jayce only blinked, his grin fading as he lost the line of thinking. “...Why would I do that when they have a market value? The sale ain't a free-for-all.” 

There were very few hints in Jayce's habits and eccentricities that gave away his Piltovan background. Wearing his shoes inside the house, tucking his shirt in no matter the day, and taking in a stranger without worrying he was being scammed. Viktor spent every day he visited the market before he fled haggling for mere pocket change over his groceries, because if he didn't, he would slowly lose valuable money that could feed him later on. The flagrant disregard of the possibility of fetching a higher price than market value for hand-trained horses by the Kiramman family made Viktor want to strangle the man. 

But they had many other things to discuss, and haggling would come later, when the sale was actually happening. 

Viktor sighed and rubbed his forehead. “We can talk about this later- what if we made the bed into storage?”

They squabbled back and forth for a while, until the grullo colt behind them stamped his foot and shuffled in impatience. Jayce kept discussing the design as he finished the job. 

“We'll need an o-ring in the back to tow Mercury when neither of us want to ride him,” Jayce added as he clipped the ends of the nails off. “And you'll have to learn how to drive oxen.” 

“Or you could drive all the time while I watch,” Viktor snarked back.

“Well, that's hardly fair,” Jayce whined. He pointed his file towards Viktor. “What if I want to sit beside you and watch you drive the wagon?” 

“That would require first finishing the design.” Viktor's pulse raced in his chest, pounding louder as he threw out his hopes. “You'd have to agree to this- to this new lifestyle.” 

Jayce placed the nail file back against the hoof stand and leaned his weight on the crossties. The grullo stood bored and still as Jayce did. “I…” Jayce started, then paused. “I mean a wagon to live in?”

Viktor unthreaded his fingers and regripped the crutch a little tighter. A flash of foolishness warmed his face. “That wasn't my intention,” He tried to explain. “Unless we were to travel by sea- a wagon is the way to do it.”

“That's not what I meant. I want to build us a home- a place for us forever. And if that means we have to pick it up and move it with us, then let's turn it into a wagon,” Jayce replied, his odd hesitance softening into something Viktor could finally look at instead of the floor. “I had blueprints for a cabin, for when we found where we wanted to go. But with a wagon, we don't need to wait.”

Viktor's heart raced for an entirely different reason now. “You designed a cabin?”

“You designed a wagon,” Jayce replied, limping his way to Viktor's side. He leaned against his desk and held Viktor's hand in his own. The way they looked into each other's eyes felt electrifying, something powerful and riveting. “I want a life like that. I wanna travel around with you and have a forge out the back of the wagon and we can fix things and build inventions and explore the world!” 

Viktor felt a little insane, like his brain was rising up into the clouds just out of reach of an atmosphere filled with sanity. “I could fall ill again,” Viktor warned. 

“You think I wouldn't take care of you?” Jayce breathed. “That, if you needed it, I wouldn't find you a doctor or a more stable place to live? That after everything we've been through, I'd just give up?” 

“You know me,” Viktor replied, dropping his admission of fear with a guilty smile, “I'll never get used to your kindness.” 

“You don't need to,” Jayce said, leaning in to press their foreheads together. “You just need to accept it when I give it.”

The grullo colt, of course, demanded their attention as it pawed the ground while they lost themselves in each other. Jayce peeled himself away, reaching out to its shoulder to pause its impatient stamping. Viktor ran a finger along his lips, grinning to Jayce's back and the retreating colt as he took it back to its stall. 

The forge was left alive, the fire deep behind the crucible at a muffled roar that belched and breathed with the fluctuations of the air around it. Jayce would have to return to quench the fire, and Viktor had another surprise hidden up his sleeve. Or, more accurately, in his back trouser pocket. 

He slipped the paper out, looking it over and frowning at the pencilwork. In his recovering state, his hands still shook from overexertion and the lines had suffered from it. He'd had the design figured out in his head- he knew it was foolproof, each metallic ligament made to support a full-grown man, each leather strap he'd already woven soft and supple, but strong enough to endure a working lifestyle. The knee hinge would need to be oiled every now and again, but any metallic joint with that much heavy usage needed to be.

The brace design Viktor held on a torn loose leaf sheet of paper would improve upon what Jayce had made for Viktor and help give Jayce a better quality of life, more freedom and more ease hopefully. 

Jayce appeared suddenly, limping into the forge faster than Viktor could hide his surprise. A quirked smile graced Jayce's features as Viktor placed the sheet facedown below his hand. 

“What’re you working on?” Jayce purred, leaning into Viktor's space. “More wagon ideas?” 

Viktor smiled back, easing into the space Jayce took up, and wrapping his hand around Jayce's shoulders. “No, something else,” Viktor replied. His voice took a husky quality that had Jayce leaning in for more. 

Jayce's gaze caught on the curve of Viktor's lips, yet his fingers wandered to the edge of the page to tease the corners and breeze his fingers against Viktor's. “So?” Jayce prompted, causing his grin to turn mischievous. “May I see it?” 

Viktor pulled the sheet away and behind himself, using both hands to keep it covered. Jayce's suddenly empty hands instead found Viktor's lower back and held him upright. 

“Guess,” Viktor demanded as his eyes twinkled. 

Jayce hummed in thought, spotting the swath of bare skin below Viktor's neck and dove his nose in. His hands tightened around Viktor's waist and he hummed a thoughtful melody into the warm skin. “Plumbing?” He supplied, his lips catching on Viktor's collarbones. 

“That was months ago, dear, keep up,” Viktor sighed. 

Jayce breathed in deep, running his lips upward the curve of Viktor's neck. He smelled like their bed and fresh hay. “A self-driven wagon design?” He muttered. 

“I told you it is not a wagon,” Viktor laughed and it rumbled in his throat against Jayce’s nose. 

“Then a highly-powered magical portal that will completely change the multi-continental sailin’ trade?” Jayce asked as his lips crested the curve of Viktor’s jaw. 

Viktor huffed a laugh. “The forge smoke is getting to you-“ But his words ended in a gasp as Jayce’s hand rubbed along the seam of his pants and toyed with the zipper. 

“I give up,” Jayce replied. Viktor could feel the grin against his skin until the caress of his tongue left a cooling trail of spit. “What did that big brain of yours come up with now?”

Viktor leaned back onto his hands again, the page wrinkling as he did and pulled it forward face down. Jayce paused his exploration of Viktor's neck and chest, leaning his head against Viktor's collarbone as he gazed down at what Viktor held. 

Viktor bit his lip and flipped the sheet and handed it to Jayce. “Surprise!” He whispered. 

Jayce glanced the sheet over, confused at what he thought was a design for Viktor until he noticed the measurements and the height of the brace. It was beautiful, long strong lines with a few designs of filigree that Viktor peppered onto the joints to cement who the brace belonged to. His eyes widened.

”You made this for me?” Jayce breathed, looking the sheet over. A few notes at the corner wrote out the materials with the leather strapping already crossed out. Jayce thought back to the porch when Viktor had complained about his leather working. His throat bobbed thickly as he swallowed the happy sob bubbling in his chest. 

Viktor looked down at his partner, his love, and drank in the reaction. It was better than the reaction to the wagon- though that one had been a surprise. This reaction was a total surprise and the love he’d poured into the design emanated out of Jayce in waves. First with his eyes as they shined with tears. Second with the way he nuzzled deeper into Viktor as he followed each and every note in the margins. Third with the way Jayce reeled back, the surprise etched anew and his mouth dropped open. 

“You know my family crest?” Jayce whispered. 

Viktor shrugged. “I may have remembered seeing it in the papers all those years ago- also you drew it in your notebook.” 

Jayce laughed then, incredulous and high-pitched. Viktor grinned with him and then Jayce surged up into him. The hands that had made a home around Viktor’s waist pulled him to the edge of the workbench and Jayce slotted himself as close in as he could between the outstretched legs. 

“How long did you work on both of these?” Jayce gasped in between kisses. He released his hold on Viktor’s mouth and started another trail down the other side of his neck. 

“The bedrest drove me to near insanity,” Viktor sighed. He felt torn between the part of his brain wanting to tell Jayce every step of the design process and the much louder hedonistic id that wanted them to shut up and keep rutting against each other. He ran his fingers into Jayce’s hair and pulled as Jayce grazed the divot at the base of his throat with his teeth. “The wagon was an afterthought.”

Jayce groaned as he released his hold on Viktor’s waist to pull his shirt untucked. His fingers slid up under the fabric and caused him to shudder. “Our wagon,” Jayce breathed and then sucked a little harder on Viktor’s collarbone, “Is better than an afterthought.”

“Well, now that I know it will be our home-“ Viktor gasped as Jayce shoved his hand below the trouser’s waistline he'd been teasing, zipper damned to cause friction. Viktor accepted the warm hands pawing awkwardly at him, rough and calloused (and likely dust-covered, but there were more pressing matters to care about and they were pressing against him.)

Jayce recaptured Viktor's mouth, moaning into the kiss and working his hands a little faster. Viktor bucked his hips for more. When they broke apart, Jayce tilted his forehead against Viktor's, his lips parted to pant. Like he was focused on the hand dipped below Viktor's pants, he finally maneuvered to something far more effective than before. Viktor's back arched into the touch.

“God, I want that,” Jayce gasped. “I want to have our own home, something made just for us.” 

The overwhelm of Jayce's hands, his words, the way his neck smelled like sweat and iron. Viktor could only swallow his moans and accept the coming king tide of his orgasm. 

“I want that, too.” Viktor rewound his grip around Jayce's neck. Any excuse to get closer, to wrap his legs around the man's hips and grind themselves together. Jayce's hand caught in the mix made for an interesting extra bit of texture. 

This wasn't their first time becoming intimate together. The first had been months ago in the light of the campfire- the night they'd found the cows beside a glittering lake. Viktor had been awkward at first, afraid the herd would cast some sort of bovine judgement or investigate. Jayce rolled his eyes and found a way to distract the man- found the spot to distract the man more like- and Viktor had forgotten all his worries.

This moment felt like something new, in spite of the many times they'd had sex since. It felt like a vulnerability, something beyond nudity. Like their souls had revealed themselves to each other and found they matched in every way. A moan-turned-sob caught in Viktor's throat as he pushed down on the pressure between his legs, as Jayce slipped his fingers into Viktor. 

“I want it so bad, it terrifies me,” Viktor admitted into Jayce's ear as the tide pulled over his head again. His words were gasped in between humming moans. He was afraid to breathe too deep, that the saltwater would trickle in and ruin it all for him. 

Jayce's pace slowed a little and turned frustratingly gentle. “It's okay to be scared,” He said, before his lips found the slip of Viktor's shoulder where his shirt had gone askew. “I'm here.” 

Viktor tightened his hold. “Faster,” He begged while trying not to sound like he was begging. “Harder- you're not going to break me.” 

He meant it jokingly, but Jayce only gritted his teeth and honored the request. Viktor had hoped for a laugh, but Jayce was far away then, to a bedside where he held a shaking and bony hand in between bouts of consciousness. Their home- the one that Viktor wanted to build together, the one Jayce wanted to inhabit and make their own- would protect them. They'd be safe there. He'd make sure they were safe. 

Viktor gritted his teeth against the pace and found his mouth was too empty. He took a hold of Jayce's lips, kissing with a fervor that left them gasping. Viktor moaned in between sucking on Jayce's bottom lip and mapping the curve of his jaw. When the wave came, the turn of the tides he was too battered and beaten to fight against, he welcomed it wholeheartedly. He burrowed as deep into Jayce as he could before their souls melted together and held onto the anchor dragging him down to the deep. 

Jayce's breathing had picked up from the exertion and his arm twinged a bit. But it was all worth it as Viktor's moans turned silent and exerted, stuttering on Jayce's name between his teeth. Jayce slowed his pace through Viktor's orgasm, ringing out every wave of pleasure he felt until Viktor leaned limp in his grasp. 

Jayce grinned into Viktor's hair as he swept it back from around the limp man. His knee twinged along with his wrist and so he moved to sit on the workbench beside Viktor, keeping his weight to one side so as to keep supporting him. 

Viktor huffed a breath as Jayce sat back down. “I hope you do not have another horse to do. I will not be moving for a bit.” 

Jayce ran his fingers down Viktor's arm until their palms scraped together and he found the space to slot their hands into a soft hold. “I've got all afternoon, darlin’.” He leaned against Viktor as well, their combined leaning keeping them stable together. 

Viktor's lip curled into a smirk as he thought back to moments before. “You became excited,” He teased, “Just at the prospect of our living together.” 

A hot flush rose to Jayce's face. “I-I mean, I just want to build somethin’ with you- somethin’ we both want.” 

Viktor smiled, leaning back to crane his neck up and take in Jayce's bashfulness. “I want that, too,” Viktor replied, squeezing their hold on each other and slotting himself right where he belonged. 

The moment hadn't even settled into the companionable and gentle quiet that often surrounded them before something tickled in Viktor's throat. A cough he'd swallowed in the midst of his gasping finally loosened and he did his best to lighten the impact. 

Jayce went stiff for a moment as Viktor reached up to wipe his mouth. The silence became heavy and damp with worry. 

“You okay?” Jayce bit out. He was clearly more affected than his voice let on. 

Viktor tried his best to keep from rolling his eyes. It was a valid question when barely a few months before Viktor was struggling to simply breathe. “Yes,” He sighed as he looked up at Jayce. “I'm still recovering, dear. Not every cough is a warning.” He ran his thumb along the edge of Jayce's hand as a comfort.

“I know!” Jayce replied, “But I just-” 

“Get worried,” Viktor finished for him, “I know.” 

Jayce took a breath like he wanted to say something, but his lips shut before he could. A look of desperation bore itself on his face, something that made Viktor's chest twinge and his hand reach for Jayce's cheek. 

Before he could move though, Jayce was already surging forward to wrap him into an embrace and bury his nose into Viktor's neck. Their legs pressed awkwardly sitting side by side on the worktable with their bodies twisted around each other. Viktor had a few moments to enjoy the embrace before his back would start to ache, so he melted into it and breathed deeply. 

When they eased apart, Viktor let his hand take up residence on Jayce's face he'd wanted before the hug. “I am not going anywhere,” Viktor reminded him. 

Jayce's smile that appeared was small, almost a grimace that felt like a comfort in between swathes of pain. Ruefully, he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. It was a delicious weight in Viktor's hands that felt precious and fragile. 

“I know,” Jayce whispered. Then, his eyes opened and lost their melancholy. His previous chipper attitude returned as he stood from the table, slipping his hands into Viktor's to help his own slide from where they sat. “Well, will you help me with gathering the materials? There’s some scraps to use up behind the colt barn that we can survey.”

Viktor stiffly pulled himself down to standing, using Jayce's extended hands as balances until he could take up his crutch once more. Jayce took the cane. “That sounds lovely,” Viktor replied, smiling as Jayce's freehand came to cradle his lower back as a guide. 

Summer came roaring in earlier than expected. The heat bled every creature dry during a springtime that should have been mild and beautiful. Grass withered and browned beneath the harsh light of the sun. Each ferry back and forth in the days leading up to the sale as Jayce wrangler colts up and down the scrubland highway pushed him to the point of melting. The final day was the hottest as he brought the palomino and the grullo to the sale and rose back with Mercury alone. 

The next day, the cattlehands would come to take the cows and the sale would commence in the evening. Viktor had been adamant that Jayce train to haggle- he would not leave the sale with a measly twelve hundred cogs if Viktor could help it. As he'd argued, the cowhorses were worth more than the usual two hundred cogs any trained horse sold for. These were Kiramman family hand-trained work horses. Anything less than four hundred cogs was an insult. 

Jayce had left a little later in the day than expected to drop off the last hackamore horse. Viktor assumed he wouldn't come home- opting to stay with some of the cattlehands at the sale or at the town's hotel for the night. So, when the front door creaked open and a familiar limp made itself known, Viktor startled awake. 

“God, Jayce!” Viktor hissed, wincing as he turned towards the dark man in the doorway blocking out the moonlight. “Scared me half to death.”

Jayce shut the door behind him, already toeing his boots off and pulling his jacket from his shoulders. “I'm sorry,” He whispered back, a grin in his voice. The shuffle of clothing continued as Viktor rolled to his usual side and shut his eyes to the moonbright of the world leaking in. “I missed you too much” He threw his jeans to the floor and placed his stetson at the end of the bed. The springs creaked beneath his weight as he crawled to meet Viktor. 

“You will have to leave in- ngh, what time is it? Right after sunrise,” Viktor reminded him, struggling to figure out the hours until then. 

“Still enough time to spend with you,” Jayce sighed. They settled together in each other's arms. The chill of the scrublands outside faded to a distant memory as Jayce released one of his hands to pull the blankets up and over their shoulders. “A few minutes with you is worth it.”

“You will be tired and make stupid mistakes during the sale,” Viktor admonished. 

Jayce nestled in closer. “You have no faith in me,” He chuckled. 

“If you'd quit flirting while practicing haggling, I would have more trust. But instead, you try to haggle me into bed.”

”Seems it worked.” Jayce’s hands slid down Viktor’s back to cradle his ass and pull him in closer. “No haggling needed tonight.”

“Yes, as I was sleeping peacefully before you rudely awoke me,” Viktor grumbled, though he did not fight the pull closer. Instead, he slotted his nose below Jayce’s as they crested together and felt the puff of Jayce’s chuckle against his lips. 

“Would you allow me to delay your sleep a little longer?” He tilted his head, a silent askance to drift closer into a kiss. 

“The sale,” Viktor reminded him, a smile curling against Jayce's lips. 

Jayce groaned and flopped back to his own side of the bed to pout. “Are you sure it's a good idea?” He asked, pulling an elbow underneath himself. “Are you sure I can do it?” 

Viktor rolled the little bit it took to slot himself beneath his partner, his dear, his darling. His hand raised to the delightfully bare skin of Jayce's harsh cheekbone. “More than sure,” He said, as he had multiple times over the recitation and practices of how to haggle. 

Jayce hummed in response, thinking so loudly that even Viktor could hear the tick and whirr of the gears in his brain moving. He lowered himself until they slotted into each other like perfect machinery, his chin curving over the round of Viktor's skull, his arm finding the dip of Viktor's waist. Viktor felt the curve around him, where his chest met the dip below Jayce's ribs. They fit like two cogs, each tooth finding each divot, and they warmed together in the dark of the night. 

The quiet and the length of their breathing stretched, but neither closed their eyes though both assumed the other was asleep. It wasn't until Viktor, caught on such a tumultuous thread in his own mind, muttered his thoughts out loud that they both realized the other was still perfectly awake and startled each other. 

“Maybe I should come with you,” Viktor suggested, much to the shock of the both of them. 

“Or maybe not,” Viktor rushed to reply as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “Maybe that is foolish.”

Jayce, startled, exhausted, and delighted, reeled back and then surged forward at the shock of it. “No! You should! You're much better at this than I am- please come with me.”

Viktor puffed a breath through his nose. “Now you have no faith in yourself,” He chuckled. “Though, I do not think myself getting arrested will be helpful to your dealmaking.” 

“You're still coughing a bit, we could put you in a bandana,” Jayce muttered. “Make sure your hair is down and long. Get you in my stetson if it fits, or something very uncity-like. And these are cowhelp, too, they don't look at wanted posters.”

“Wouldn't they?” Viktor asked. He'd assumed someone guarding and protecting expensive cattle would be up to date on their cast of criminals who could waltz through. 

Jayce shrugged. “They'll be busy enough they won't care about the random tagalong coughing with a bandana over his face.” He tilted his head until his nose brushed against Viktor's hairline. “Even if he is distractingly handsome.” 

Viktor yawned, his rueful affection pushing Jayce away enough that their cuddled position fell apart. “They'll actually be too busy helping the strange exhausted man who fell off his horse from a sleep attack.” Viktor leaned over and kissed Jayce on the cheek anyways. “Now go to sleep, we both have an early day tomorrow.”

Yet Jayce persisted, doing his best to shower Viktor in as many kisses as he could get before being forcibly pushed over yet again in the bed and locked into a hug from behind. The sun could have risen, hours could have passed, and Jayce wouldn't have cared. He was right where he was meant to be. 

Viktor did not feel that way hours later as they waited to set off into the scrublands. The cattlehelp were busy maneuvering the cows out of the now empty lower barn, their walk languid and expectant. They must have thought they were starting their yearly journey to their summer pastures. Jayce had warned Viktor of this- that there may be a scuffle up ahead when the cows reached an impasse of the way their habits guided them and where the cattlehelp forced them along. 

They waited in the promenade space between two pastures- one of which housing the hill with a tree and two settled graves below. Both mounds now sported shoots of grass more vibrant and dense than the surrounding ground. In Viktor's worried state, he couldn't help traversing down a dark line of thought, of what decay and desecration had left behind in those graves. That the sweet little creature that saved his life was nothing more than bones. 

Viktor fiddled with the maroon bandana, one hand loosely holding Mercury's reins as the cattle meandered past and he stared down into the depths of the spiral. Jayce bounded from latching the gate closed, thankfully breaking Viktor out of the morose state he'd found himself in. Jayce was wearing a bandana as well, though only over his chin, to make Viktor's accessory less odd. Viktor was glad for the bandana. It covered up the deep frown he could feel.

Jayce, in spite of his hurt leg, thrust himself up and over Mercury's hindquarters and onto the skirt of the saddle. They had no extra mounts, no horse either man could ride to ease the burden on poor Mercury, but there was little else to do. Their wagon, as close as it was to being finished, was too heavy for the single horse. If Jayce wanted Viktor along like he'd said the night before, Mercury would just need to be strong for a day. 

Jayce's arms curled around Viktor's, guiding his hands that still held the reins. “Ready?” He asked, nestling his chin in the divot of Viktor's neck. 

“You could have taken the saddle,” Viktor admonished, squeezing his legs around Mercury to urge him forward. “You are the horse trainer after all.” 

They took up a spot to the back of the cattle drive, walking in tandem with the shady cowhand Viktor spotted earlier. Jayce must not have noticed the help's general shiftiness or the way he seemed to glance back to them every few minutes. “Mm, but then I wouldn't be able to hold you the whole time,” Jayce flirted, his grin and its wrinkles creasing against Viktor's neck. 

Viktor huffed a laugh, but kept the help in his periphery, his worries rising to the surface on the drive. 

The thoughts flew by at dizzying speeds, bouncing against the confines of his brain like missiles. Pain bloomed with each speeding bullet, each thought of ‘I should not have come’ or ‘does he know who i am? does he recognize me for my crimes?’ He spiraled as they walked with only Jayce's embrace to keep him somewhat focused. 

The sale was coming into view when Jayce finally needled at the problem. Hours had passed with little conversation, little interruption of the constant walking and occasional correction when one of the yearlings would pause. Jayce had tried to be talkative, but Viktor couldn't stop noticing the shady rider in the corner of his eye, even as his random looks ceased and the drive went on. 

“Are you okay?” Jayce asked, his body leaning back from Viktor's as if to attempt to give him space. “Did I actually keep you up too late last night? Is that why you're so quiet today?” 

Viktor bit the inside of his lip, staring down at Mercury's shoulders to focus on his periphery, on what the cowhand was doing. “No- I mean, yes. I am okay. No, you did not keep me up too late.” He tried his best to keep his words from becoming a snap. A hardened edge crept in regardless. 

Jayce was silent for a moment, analyzing Viktor from behind. His posture had become hunched and tight, a mirror of how he used to ride before Jayce helped him relax. Luckily, Mercury was too focused on the cattle to notice Viktor's dawning jumpiness.

“Do you want me to ride in front?” Jayce suggested. It was the wrong response. 

Viktor's shoulders became sharp against Jayce's front. “No. Thank you.” 

That was when Jayce caught it, at the very sliver of Viktor's face Jayce could see when the man looked forward. A tiny betrayal of his eyes, a sharp glance in the direction of his right. Jayce waited a moment- knowing he was as obvious as a bright-colored flag waving in the wind- then drew his gaze along the herd as if surveying it. When he reached the same direction Viktor had glanced, Jayce took in the cowhand in that direction. He was a fairly normal man, tall, skinny. Thin features and stringy dark hair. Plain enough that Jayce hadn't spared him a second glance, but maybe that was the problem. 

Jayce looked away before the cowhand could notice. He wound his arm back around Viktor's midsection and squeezed, leaning his weight into the saddle and onto his back for comfort. “We're almost there,” He said, doing his best to not glance back at the cowhand and give himself away. His periphery was locked on the man now. He nestled his face to the side the man could not see if he looked. From the outside, it seemed like a loving gesture. From within, Jayce fretted it looked conspiratorial. 

“Do you think he knows?” Jayce whispered. 

Viktor shrugged in Mercury's movement to hide it. “I'm not sure. Maybe-” He bit back the words and the inside of his cheek. “Maybe I am just paranoid.”

From the corner of Viktor's eye, the cowhand rushed a set of cattle forward. The sale was coming closer and a few of their staff came out to open the gates. There would be more people, more shifting eyes at the coughing quiet man covering his face and following Jayce around like a shadow. This was a mistake after all. 

“I shouldn't have come,” Viktor gasped, his hands tightening on the reins. He could feel a cough bubbling in his throat and it only made his heart rate spike more. 

“Hey, it's okay,” Jayce said. He reached his hands over Viktor's and pulled the reins back to pause Mercury. He only protested a little as the cows wandered away from him. Jayce waved the cowhands on and slid from Mercury's hindquarters so he was looking up at Viktor from the ground. 

Viktor was frozen, eyes staring forward as the herd drifted on to the sale. His hands were shaking where they gripped the reins and Jayce maneuvered his hand to cover over Viktor's knuckles. “Viktor,” He said, his voice turning serious, more gravelly. “Hey, hey, look at me, darlin'.”

It was slow, but Viktor eventually turned his head then his gaze onto Jayce, seeing and unseeing just the same. The bandana covering his face moved at the puffing in and out of his breath.  

“You'll be okay,” Jayce said. “That cowhand wasn't watching you. Nobody knows who you are, I swear it.” 

Viktor closed his eyes, breathing in deep. “You cannot promise that.”

Jayce squeezed the hands intertwined between them. “Maybe not, but I can promise you'll be safe with me.” 

Viktor looked down at their intertwined hands then back at Jayce. “I cannot go in,” He whispered. “I don't think I can be around that many people.” 

Jayce smiled, but it was reserved and careful. He lifted their hands up to his lips and kissed the nearest stretch of Viktor's fingers. “Okay,” He replied, his tone careful. “It shouldn't take long.” 

So Viktor waited on a nearby fence line, sitting under the baking sun with Mercury's hackamore lead in hand. Jayce had unsaddled the poor beast earlier and Viktor found an empty trough for drinking. There they waited together in the silence only broken by distant chatter and the occasional slam of a jury hammer when a deal was struck. 

Mercury gummed at Viktor's shoes then strained for the pathetic patch of grass growing around the fence posts. Viktor couldn't help the thoughts racing through his mind, the anxiety over the distant people milling about. What if one saw him from afar and reported a strange lone man on the fence line? Jayce had spent the better part of fifteen minutes softly refuting every possibility Viktor had, eliminating most of the unknowns plaguing him, but he had yet to come up with a new one that formed: What if Jayce were the one to turn him in?

He knew from a distance in his mind that the thought was ridiculous- Jayce would never. But the spiral beckoned like a swinging pocket watch, a downward slope that was too slippery for something like logic to take root and stop the slide. After all, Viktor was a burden. He'd been ill for months, coughing Jayce's sheets into a muddy red mess that he had needed to burn. Viktor had hardly pulled his weight in the time since. The bounty on his head would be enough to live off of for the rest of Jayce's life, probably. He wasn't sure, the wanted poster didn't name a price, only a vague reward. 

His heart pounded until it was splintering with premature heartbreak. The idea that Jayce would give him up was too emotional for him to fully refute it, but that split distance outside himself urged him to stay, to wait for his partner. A sale of forty cows was sure to take a while. Not to mention there was still the matter of the snaffle and hackamore horses Jayce had brought days before. It would be a while, even if Jayce had said otherwise. Viktor would just need to nurse that devised hurt until Jayce appeared to refute it all. 

With Viktor's head down, he had not noticed the approaching shadow until it crossed his eyeline where he looked on the ground. His spiral stopped in its tracks. 

Jayce finally exited the sale far longer after when he'd wanted to. The auctioneer was a lovely gentleman, but his talent for speaking fast was not reserved for when he was up on his podium projecting his voice over the masses. But he'd been a decent fellow and had hardly argued but once when Jayce had laid out his starting prices. The auctioneer believed the older bull should have been sold for meat price. Jayce shut him up quick.

He walked out with more than enough funds for Viktor and he to start their new life, and with more than enough to keep the Kirammans pleased. Not that their opinion really mattered anymore, Jayce only had a month left on their payroll before he could start this new chapter. And though he planned on leaving with a clean slate, he wouldn't mind a few jabs out the door. And with the extra money, Jayce would be able to pay for glass windows in the wagon and metal sink piping. The oxen were already bought and set to be delivered once the breeder finished up the rest of the week's auction. Their future was set up well and Jayce couldn't wait for it to start. 

Jayce blinked into the sun, glaring through the bright across the bare fenced field to see Viktor where he'd left him, Mercury by his side, but… someone was talking to him. 

Jayce stumbled and then sped his walking. Where before he strode along confident and itching to kickstart his new life, now he rushed forward to his partner. If this person recognized him, they could take him, and Jayce's future, away. 

The stranger stood tall, though not as tall as Jayce, broad and dark-haired, worn long but pulled back in a loose braid. A few of the wispy hairs framed his chiseled face well, and they blew in the breeze as he laughed at something he said. Even from a distance below Viktor's borrowed hat and bandana, Jayce could see his eyes were tense with stress as the man chattered along to him. The stranger was gesturing towards Mercury, but his body was completely locked towards Viktor. 

Jayce was still an awkward distance away, but that didn't stop him from interrupting. 

“Darlin’!” He called, trying to sound jovial and laid back, and fully failing. 

The stranger and Viktor startled, and relief flooded Viktor. “Jayce,” He replied, softer and muffled behind the bandana. The stranger looked towards Viktor then finally turned towards Jayce as he approached.

“Ah, so you must be the owner of this fine beast,” The stranger said, following Jayce like a predator as he rounded towards Viktor. He extended a hand. “Your name, sir?” 

Jayce sidled up to the fence and wrapped an arm around Viktor's back, awkwardly high from where he perched on the top board. The extended hand was ignored. He looked up at Viktor, checking in, then back to the stranger, before taking the hackamore lead line from Viktor. 

“Jayce- …Talis,” Jayce replied haltingly. “And sorta, we both own Mercury.” 

“Well, let me introduce myself-” The stranger tried, but Jayce cut him off. 

“Listen, we got a long ride ahead of us before sunset, so if you don't mind-”

The stranger barreled forward, just as rude and unaware as Jayce had tried to seem. “Oh, but I am interested in purchasing this beautiful animal. I've been speaking with… uh,” He glanced back at Viktor and Jayce felt something foul crawl up his spine, “What was your name again, sir?” 

Jayce stepped in front of the stranger's view, too irritated by the irate man in front of him to even need to scramble for a fake name. One jumped to the tip of his tongue, an idle daydreaming now turned real. “Mr. Talis and I are goin’, sir. Thank you for your solicitation, but any and all horses we have for sale are now sold. This one,” he glared, “is off the market.” 

“Well-” The stranger blustered, both literally and figuratively pushed back onto his heels as Jayce helped Viktor down from the fence. “I say, my query was simply that of a curious mind and a deep pocket.” 

Jayce stayed between the stranger and Viktor, only turning to the stranger enough to ward him away. “Thank you for the query, but we need to be off. Nice to meet you,” He added with the forced kindness of a man raised in high society.

The stranger departed with a curt goodbye, settling his hands in his breeches and marching away with a huff. Viktor finally relaxed and behind the curve of Mercury's neck, pulled the bandana down. The lightest scrape of red flecks below his nose showed he had a rough coughing fit in the time Jayce was gone and hadn't been able to rid all of the evidence. 

“Thank you,” Viktor sighed. He let his head fall forward and rest on Jayce's shoulder. Jayce held him close in the relative privacy of an empty yard and a horse as a divider. “He would not stop speaking and kept asking me questions about Mercury. I thought he would never leave.”

“He didn’t recognize you?” Jayce asked, though he knew the answer plainly. No sound-minded individual with the knowledge of a murderer in their midst would talk so plainly and easily. The question was a filler, something to ease the biting jealousy and possessiveness rearing its head within him. For a man so interested in a horse, the stranger sure had treated Viktor as though he were the one of interest. 

Viktor shook his head, unspooling himself from Jayce to lean heavily on the fence. “No, thankfully. He seemed genuine.” Jayce turned away to hide the sour frown he knew was deepening. 

“Good. We can get on our way, then.” Jayce returned the hackamore lead line to Viktor’s hold so he could swing the saddle back onto Mercury’s back. 

They rode into the night, this time Jayce taking up the seat of the saddle with Viktor hanging on over the skirts. Jayce pushed them faster to a canter, no longer inhibited by a herd of cattle before them. Over rough terrain, Viktor's arms tightened into a vice, keeping Jayce from leaning too much and pushing Mercury on further. Not that he minded, the touch was a relief after a jackass of a man trying to weasel his way in between the three.

The sky darkened to a graying lavender as they came upon rockier hills and Mercury stumbled over waylaid rocks. The route home was shorter, too, more of a hilly trail ride than a flat out amble like the morning. The wind calmed in their ears, making it easier to speak as Jayce checked in with Viktor then continued on in their silence.

It was broken not even ten minutes later with a light chuckle in Jayce's ear. 

“‘Mr. Talis’?” 

Jayce’s face heated so suddenly he felt feverish. “I- it was-“ He tried to turn, but their position back to chest effectively pinned him in place. He could only glimpse the impish curl of Viktor's lips. “I- I panicked, and- y'know- it saved us from thinking of a first name, you don' t look like anythin’ except a Viktor-”

Viktor's mischief mellowed into something shyer. “Is it… is it something you've thought of before?” 

Jayce shrugged. The last thing he needed was to come on too strong and freeze Viktor in place like he'd done months ago when they first met. “I mean- I- Maybe?” He settled on which was not quite a lie and not quite a truth either. “You feel like someone close enough to be kin now. And you ain't got a last name- bad manners, by the way,” He added just to see the little smile in the edge of his sight. “I could… I could give it to you… if you want.”

It was a good thing Mercury had slowed to navigate the thinner trail as Viktor unwound his arms. “You'd just… give that to me?”

Suddenly Jayce felt like a fool. He pulled back on the reins, lowing Mercury to a stop. In the stillness, he half-turned in the saddle and met Viktor's eyes. “I did this wrong,” He admitted. His blush consumed everywhere exposed to the cold evening air, though it barely rivaled the day-glow pink that was Viktor's flushed face. “This isn't how I should ask you.”

“But-” Impossibly, the flush deepened and Viktor leered away. “But, do you want to ask me?” 

Jayce snorted a laugh. “Yes! God, yes, but not here. Not like this.” He reached up, an awkward sort of squished reach, that pressed Viktor's cheek into Jayce's temple. He could feel the wrinkles of a smile on Viktor's face. “You deserve something better.” 

“A horse's ass is not your desired proposal spot?” Viktor joked through the muffling of his lips against Jayce's temple. 

Jayce tried not to let the heat of the word ‘proposal’ throw him off so much. “Hush you,” He admonished before finally turning around and sending Mercury on. Viktor leaned against him, warm and blanketing their bodies close against the coming cool of the night. 

Days later, Jayce found Viktor knelt before the graves, his fingers tangling in the grass and pulling them up from the roots. It was so similar to the night of the blizzard, fingers buried beneath the snow, digging into the freezing earth. The similarities stopped there, though the grief held a shadow of its former grip. The sun sank to its resting place and bathed the world in glowing golds, like a flower dying bursting forth with the last of its energy and light. 

They'd spent the day at the river, celebrating the finishing of their wagon. The last checkpoint before them was loading their things and going. Only a week left at the ranch and already Jayce could feel the dredges of nostalgia pulling at him. To avoid the oncoming grief of leaving what had been his home and the last visit to his favorite river, he'd spent a few hours in the forge working on a small quarry he'd found.

Viktor did not respond to Jayce's approach, lost in thought as he was. He did not respond to the glow of the sun as its rays found his face. He hardly even glanced away from the hidden top end of the grave as an ant crawled across his finger. He was gone, somewhere he hoped Rio could find him. Somewhere he could say bye once again as he had so many times before. 

Jayce waited in the quiet, settled with his knees up to his chest, his chin leaning on his arm. While he felt the grief of Rio's death, it did not haunt him in this singular place. It followed him like a ghost, a reminder each time he entered into her empty stall to clean the rafters. Or when he passed by the outer pasture gate. Or when he saw an unruly calf race beyond the confines of the herd. 

They did not speak until Viktor finally shifted- a minute movement that drew his shoulders further downward and his back slumped over. A quiet sigh pushed its way out of his lungs, a release of the tension, a touch of relief. 

“Do you believe in god, Jayce?” Viktor asked, his voice small and hollow. 

Jayce startled a little, the sweetness he'd expected of a greeting wiping his brain clean. “Uh, what?” 

“Do you believe in god?” He repeated with endless patience.

Jayce bit the inside of his cheek and looked out upon the planes. He should have said yes, he was raised that way as many were, with weekly masses and religious observances, but his mother had not been as strict as she should have been to get a devoted soul. Jayce had slipped in his academy years and realized it was nothing he missed from his life. He didn't actively believe in god and he felt no different with or without the routine of church. 

Jayce shrugged. “I guess not.” 

Viktor looked at him then, analyzing and revealing. Jayce wondered then if that's the look of a man on the secure end of a scalpel, if he'd laid those looks into the cadavers he used to study. The tension of it eased away as Viktor returned to the settled mound of the grave before him. 

“I used to think I was a non-believer. After all, my schooling stopped when I was young, fate had taken my parents, and my mentor could not handle the possibility of a future he could not control himself.” Viktor took a breath then and dug his fingers back into the earth. “But I cannot get away from the world the nuns built for me. I feel such a thread of terror thinking of a world made without the conscious mind of an all-knowing being. I cannot accept that something like this,” He gazed down at the grave so reverently, Jayce almost asked him to stop, “was a chance happening and had no reason aside from poor luck.”

Jayce had nothing to say. He was a non-believer, there was little to say. Instead, he scooted closer so their arms brushed together, a silent bid of ‘I am here to give you comfort.’

Viktor chuckled suddenly as he pulled his dirt-caked fingers from the earth, but it was a hollow sound like a sob. “Is it silly? To mourn a horse of all things?”

“No!” Jayce gasped, “No, of course not. The love you had for her was genuine and she was gone so suddenly-” Jayce nearly choked at the reminder. His own love for her clung tight. He couldn't help the rasp in his voice as he continued. “I still mourn her. It's a devastating thing to lose a creature who relied on you so much.”

Viktor sighed and listed into Jayce's shoulder. The world felt heavy before the contact, but something between his ribs lightened a little even as a heavy weight leaned against him. 

“It hurts to leave her,” Viktor said after a beat of silence. 

“It does.” 

Once the sun had set, they retreated into their home, nestled and warm as it was. The leaving would ache. It would turn that single-room farmhouse into something untouchable, something dead to their new reality as it rotted into their minds as something far better than it'd been in reality. Viktor had suffered so much there. Jayce spent months by himself wondering if its four walls would drive him crazy one day. But they'd remember the good it had held once and the life they'd left behind. 

Viktor surprised Jayce just before bed. “It is a warm evening,” He'd started while rising from the kitchen table. Jayce turned from the sink with a grin. “And I finished stuffing the mattress for the wagon bed.” 

Jayce lowered a bowl into a sink. “What of it?” He asked, his grin widening. 

“Maybe I want to test that it's stuffed enough to both our liking,” Viktor murmured, looking away into a tease. 

Jayce hummed in reply as he turned from the sink and wiped his wet hands on his jeans. He sidled over to Viktor, meandering like he had nowhere to be but with a smoldering gaze that said otherwise. “Christening the bed with its first usage, yes?”

Viktor played coy. “Hmm, I suppose so.” Jayce was close enough that he also played with the strings of his shirt. 

They chased each other to the wagon, flickering candles fighting against the rush of their running. In the light of the moon, the wagon sat dark, its newly cleared paneled sides glittering like the stars. The cobbled roof shone in the moonlight, washed out from its original orange clay color into something gray and pale. Jayce paused in the open doorway, settled on the two pull-out stair steps and leered over Viktor as he followed chuckling. 

Viktor stood tall as he met Jayce's playful challenge. “Will you let me in please?” He asked, depositing the candle to his cane hand. “I have a bed to break in.” 

“What will you give me in exchange?” Jayce leaned forward until Viktor could see the individual twinkles of the moon in his eyes. 

Viktor pursed his lips as if he was giving it some thought. “What could you possibly want from me?” He murmured, a wicked glint to his teeth rivaling the reflection of the moon. 

“You,” Jayce supplied. “Your hands, your lips, your body, your voice-”

Viktor shut him up with a heady kiss that nearly tipped backward at the odd angle they balanced at. Jayce caught Viktor at the hip, his hands freed from placing the candle on the floor, sure to drip wax everywhere. Viktor huffed a breath into the kiss. Already the man was making their home a wreck. 

Viktor broke the kiss apart early, before the delicious taste of Jayce filled his mouth. “So, may I pass?” 

Jayce breathed a sharp breath, his face dark with a blush. “Yes, absolutely, please.”

The two candles flickered in the window sill lower by half an inch than when they were set there, safe from the random assortment of drop cloth and the edges of the stuffed mattress. The blankets reached just short of the end of the bed, and two pairs of feet hung outside its comfort. The summer air was warm, especially with the wagon door open and the ceiling vent popped to see the stars where cricket song drifted in. Viktor hoped the sweat would dissipate before they seriously tried to fall asleep. The stickiness of the sheets was sure to bother him, especially where he and Jayce's mess from earlier had been left. 

Jayce traced Viktor's hand in the aftermath of their lovemaking, following each stretch of fingers down into the valleys, marking out the life, love, and heart lines on his palm, circling the nail beds and finally kissing a mole on his knuckle where the residue of Jayce's taste lay. 

Viktor chuckled. “You are a sap.” 

“That'd be you, actually, ‘cause you taste so sweet.”

Viktor pretended to gag and Jayce nestled his face closer into the sliver of moonlight the ceiling vent gave them. He was radiant within its glow. His beauty, his vibrance, his smile- it sobered Viktor as he sat up halfway on his stomach and began to trace Jayce's beardline. 

Jayce caught the same bug, following the shadows of Viktor's features as he lowered his gaze to shirk the moon and its touch. It was only Jayce who managed to say something about it. “You're beautiful,” He breathed. 

But Viktor was caught yet again in that relentless tide, the pushing and pulling of confidence and degradation. He huffed a disbelieving breath but did not argue it. He'd learned months ago that arguing on matters like this only vexed Jayce further and made him more insistent and the continued compliments caused Viktor to want to rip his insides to shreds more and more. The best course of action was to leave it be and hope it eventually stopped until he was in a better mood. 

“I mean it,” Jayce said, placing his touch which had been cataloging every inch of Viktor's palm instead onto the man's other hand that cradled his cheek. It kept the touch in place, it kept Viktor in place, while he said what he wanted to. “You never believe me, or you think I don't mean the whole'a you, but it's true. Even your leg, even your disease. They make up who you are and I love that.”

“It's not pretty,” Viktor muttered. “Being as I am.”

“I didn't say you were pretty,” Jayce sighed, rubbing his thumb along Viktor's wrist. “Even though you are. I said you are beautiful, all of you, even the parts of you you don't think deserve it.” 

Viktor bit his lip then settled a little lower than before so his chin brushed against Jayce's torso. “Do you remember, before you'd told me of your isolation, how you would mention so off-hand the isolation you felt? Showing how it hurt you without saying it?”

Jayce puzzled. “Not- not really. I mean, I'm sure I did, of course, but I don't remember specifics.”

“I think the worst was when you told me on the short ride we went on the first time you tried out Rio's talents. It was like you didn't even realize it was hurting you, like you could not yet access those emotions to think about them and effectively tell me.” 

Jayce blinked. “I… feel like I have now… right?" 

“Mm, you could probably do a little more, but you've made progress,” Viktor mused, but shook his head fast. “My point is, I am still figuring out the edges of what hurts me and how to tell you about it. I have lived my whole life feeling worthless for anything except my mind and to have you love me for everything else I always deemed as unworthy… it is…” He caught a breath, “It is disconcerting.” 

“I want you to know you're worth more than you think,” Jayce tried. 

“I know that,” Viktor replied quickly, pressing his hand more intensely over Jayce's face. “And this is not me stopping you. This is me asking you to be patient with me while I try to accept what you give me. To parse through all the worthlessness and replace it with the love you've given.” 

Jayce smiled at Viktor, a wavering wet sort of smile that warned if Viktor continued that he would start sniffling. He wavered for a moment, pressing as close into Viktor's touch as he could manage. “How- uh, how can I help you with it?”

Viktor smiled and brought his other hand forward to fully bracket Jayce in. “Just stay beside me, continue to love me, and let me learn where to put all its excess.”

Jayce shuddered a breath then promptly sat up, breaking Viktor's hold. While Viktor startled and moved out of his way, Jayce reached for the flagrantly thrown pair of jeans and pulled something from the pockets. 

“Close your eyes,” Jayce ordered as Viktor tried to see. He had an inkling of an idea, but submitted to it anyway. Accepting love and all of that. 

“Okay,” Viktor chuckled, screwing his eyes tightly and feeling a hand thread through his. 

“Hold on- shit, no!” A ringing of metal bouncing off a hard surface rebounded around the wagon and Viktor had to swallow back a laugh. Jayce must have scrambled across the bed with how it shook and bounced. Viktor could only laugh at the commotion and try to peek his eyes open- met with a flustered “Don't look yet!”

After a moment of stilling in which Jayce returned near enough for Viktor to feel his presence, he whispered, “Okay, open.” And Viktor had his breath taken away. 

No, it was not a surprise, not when Viktor had just been talking about life-long love, not when Jayce had revealed his want to marry him only days ago, not when he'd heard the hubbub of the lost ring bouncing around the floor. What caught his breath was the intensity in Jayce, the set of his mouth, the widening of his watery hazel eyes, the intensity in which he looked at Viktor and held forward his hands. In them was a plain gold ring, shining a pale wheat in the moonlight. 

Before Viktor could take a breath, Jayce was already speaking in that headstrong charging way he did when an idea had taken over his mind or he found a problem he could not wait to solve. “I've been thinking for a long time- probably too long- about the best way to ask you, to get down on my knees and plead with you for a life at my side. We may have been a little early in breaking in the bed, and any hope for purity is now gone, but I'd love you soul-rotten and splurged on sin. I'd love you sick and suffering. And no matter the situation, I'd love you as I do now- wholly and completely.”

Viktor wrapped his hands around Jayce's wrist, but Jayce was not done. “You asked me about god today, and I don't ascribe any belief to a deity. But if there is one and it turns out that fate is a predetermined story that we have to work to change, I’m so grateful that they brought us together. And I will do my damndest to make sure we stay that way, together for as long as we have.” 

Viktor blinked and suddenly his vision was wobbly. The darkness of the room washed into the tears in his eyes, turning the night into an abstract painting of the moon, candlelight, and the blushing brown flash of Jayce's hands holding the ring. He tried to blink it all back, keep a handle on his emotions, but he was failing. 

“Ah,” He tried to say, “If you wanted me pure, you should have done this years ago.” His lip crumpled. “But you are, as I've said since we met, too kind, too giving, and too trusting. Had I been a worse man than I already am, you would have regretted everything about yourself that makes you wonderful.” 

Jayce chuckled a sob, then looked back down at the ring. “So…” He caught his breath and looked up at Viktor, eyes shining. “Will you marry me and let me love you?” 

Viktor breathed a relieved sigh. It coursed through his veins, a saline solution that thinned his blood and made his heart beat faster. “Yes,” He said, surging forward to kiss Jayce. He could have forgotten about the ring- it wasn't necessary- but he stopped as its grip in Jayce's hand ran along his spine where he held him, sending him into shivers. 

“Where did you even find this?” Viktor asked, laughing as Jayce tried to slide the ring on. It was a tiny bit too small. “You don't have any gold or any time!” 

“It was the river, found it in the water while you were sunbathing,” Jayce replied, frowning as the ring refused to pass Viktor's knuckle. “I haven't had the chance to make my own, so I'll fix yours then.” 

Viktor rolled his eyes. “So you weren't working on notching the extra axel lugnuts when we got home, were you?” 

Jayce gave up on fitting the ring well and instead kissed the skin around Viktor's palm and knuckles. “Guilty,” He muttered between touches. It ran like a cold pull of water up Viktor's spine and left him tingling. His lips continued further, up Viktor's arm, over his shoulder, down his bare chest as Jayce cuddled him into his lap. 

Viktor kept the ring on his finger and used it similar to how Jayce unintentionally had- a glimpse of cold against his bare pectorals, a rub around the nipples. Jayce sighed into Viktor's mouth and pulled their bodies flush and apart. Tides playing back and forth. Push and pull. 

Jayce surged forward as Viktor's knuckles-kissed ring played further down his body, until he perched over the other man and pressed him back into the mattress. 

“Tomorrow will have to be an easy day,” Viktor gasped as his mouth was freed and Jayce found the tantalizing stretch of skin below his ear. “You love hard and unrelenting when you do.”

Jaycd breathed in between short kisses in loud and gasping breaths through his nose. If he had an inner monologue or more than just abstract feelings at the moment, he could keep up with Viktor's quips. But as it was, he wasn't able to think beyond the gorgeous man in front of him and he wanted Viktor to feel the same. His hands wandered, trying to push and pull something into dragging Viktor down into the depths where he lay. 

His hand wandered in between Viktor's thighs, palming and stroking where their earlier love-making had left him sticky and wet. A moan rumbled deep in Viktor's chest and he couldn't help the stutter of his hips as he chased the sensation up and down. But his strength was waning fast, poor as his athleticism always had been. He hissed in frustration as his movements slowed and Jayce's sped up. 

“You okay?” Jayce breathed, his movements pausing in a way that had Viktor biting back a groan. 

“Yes, fantastic, god- just fuck me already, please,” Viktor begged. His groveling was in such a way that he was glad to have a fuck drunk mind to mellow any embarrassment. When he was clearly thinking, such begging was below him. Not now, though, now he needed to have Jayce once again as soon as he could.

Jayce was too far gone to take his words as anything other than demands that he could fulfill. He mouthed back at Viktor's neck right where it had brushed his nose and made a mess of the skin there. His hand held tight to Viktor's bad knee as it lofted up into a half-bend and stretched the space between his legs apart further until he could feel every delicious dip and fold of Viktor's cunt against his hardening dick.  

Unlike the time in the forge, this experience did not feel monumental. It did not feel like a shift or a permanent change for the both of them. It felt like a promise that this is how it would feel. That they could spend the rest of their lives together feeling this way- so in love and so in tune to each other- and never grow bored of it. Even in the tiny changes like when Viktor pulled Jayce's hair enough to make him whimper or Jayce lofted Viktor's hips upward to reach a new spot he hadn't felt before. They would never bore of each other and the future they had in front of them. 

In the comfort of their new home, they were wrapped in its walls, small and cozy with enough space to keep any of their few worldly positions safe as well. They came undone together, safe in a place they had made for themselves, ready to explore the world and all it had to offer.