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Chapter Text

Your hands trembled as you rummaged through another set of drawers.  The lights were off.  Every clank or tink of objects clattering against one another made you flinch.  Despite it being the dead of night, the risk of discovery was all the same, and the consequence of that possibility just as dire.   A sack, already hefty and full, weighed at your shoulder.  You brought the next object up to the small beam from a flashlight caught between your teeth, inspecting it closer.  No clue what it was, but the material appeared valuable enough, so into the bag it went.  

In another life, perhaps you’d have liked to go to a school like this one.  Not for science- that shit was dreadfully dull and far too much to remember.  Your brain yearned to learn, though.  More than you’d ever had time for, between odd jobs, heists, and the general experience of growing up under the heel of Piltover.  Scraps and tattered books stolen from unsuspecting shopkeeps and droopy-eyed librarians could only do so much.  

Reality was waiting all around you and ripe for the picking.  A guilt-laden excitement was beginning to buzz at your chest.  Only a few more places to check, and then you’d be out of here with the largest score you’d ever managed.  Maybe enough to buy your way out of this part of the world for good.  Or at the very least, you could secure a few hot meals and a decent bed.   Oh yes, that would suit quite nicely.   

You were halfway down a bookshelf on the far side of the room when it happened.  You’d just decided to toss ‘Runes and Sigils: The Tumultuous Path of Magic’ into the bag as a personal selection, when the lab door wrenched open, ripping apart the silence.  

Run, you thought to yourself.  

There was nowhere to run, though.  One of the riskiest things about this endeavor was the lack of exit flexibility.  The only way out was through the door that had just opened.  Which meant going through whoever was inevitably standing between you and it.   Bright overhead fluorescents flicked on, showering everything in stinging white.   The figure, blurred a bit from detail as your eyes adjusted to the light, gasped.   You’d been spotted.  

Blinking frantically, you crouched and sprinted forward, enough to find cover behind a series of tables set up in the center of the room.   

“Fuck,” you mouthed in anguish.   If it was an Enforcer, you were most likely done for.  Hand to hand combat had never been your strong suit, though you’d always give it your all.   Most likely, you’d be hauled off at gunpoint and locked in a cage in Stillwater.  Certainly no hot meals to eat down there.  Perhaps it was worth just trying to rush the person.  A mediocre fighter in Zaun could beat a good one in Piltover any day, right?  You steeled yourself. If you prepped your crouch more actively, you could have a chance.   It’d be quick and easy.   Just slam into them before they get you, and leg it down the stairs.   Once you were out of the room, nobody would be able to catch you again.  That was your area of expertise.     

The door clicked closed again.   Then the lock snapped shut.  

Fuck.

“I do not know how you expect to escape from behind some tables,” called a clipped, terse accent from across the room.   Heat flushed over your cheeks.  I was working on that, asshole.   Whoever this was, was not playing any games.  You supposed you probably shouldn’t, either.   Warily, you peeked your head over the edge of the table for a better look.  The lack of an Enforcer’s uniform was an instant, almost nauseating relief.   Instead, it was just a man.  He wore a stuffy, wrinkled outfit that instantly clocked him as an academic.  You’d spied on the comings and goings of this University long enough to know the type.  The man watched you peer at him, his expression grave.   His eyes, however, did not seem necessarily cold.  More… curious.   “Ah, so you are real, and not a product of my sleep-deprived mind,” he huffed, leaning forward on the red handle of his cane.  

This was getting much more complicated than your original bumrush plan had accounted for.  

You stood, clutching the sack to your chest.   Your nostrils flared as you breathed.  Calm down, you willed, eyes scanning at light speed over everything you could take in.  Think. 

“I assume that bag contains items which belong to me?”  he prompted.  The question was fairly casual, considering he’d just bumped into a ‘scary undercity thief’ in the middle of the night.  Normally Pilties were screeching for the nearest uniformed thug by now, abhorring the very sight of someone like you.  Your fingers dug into the canvas material, eyes darting to the door behind him.  The man sighed wearily once he’d gathered you would not respond.  You noted the discoloration beneath his eyes.  It was nearly 3 in the morning, what was this guy even doing not only awake but at work ?  “I can offer you a decent amount of money,” he proffered.  “Not as much as you’d probably get from that.  Enough, though.  But the bag stays.”   His tone was firm and strong, his eyes watching over every detail.  A small chuff of disbelieving laughter pushed from your lips before you could stop yourself.  This Piltie was… haggling?  

He made no move to react or lash out at your small outburst.  You almost wished he would.  His sense of composure was beginning to unnerve.  It would certainly be easier to barrel past this man and try to make it out with what you’d come here for…  Except, he’d seen your face.   In your earlier panic, you’d forgotten to adjust the cowl back over your nose and mouth in time.  A stupid, careless mistake.  You’d been making more of those, recently.  You held no doubt that those nerve-wracking golden eyes would recall you in intimate detail.  He seemed like a fucker with an annoyingly good memory.  So you swallowed the urge to bolt, slowly raised the bag over the table beside you, and put it down gently.  He hummed, like he was pleased, and nodded once.  

“Come on then.  Put that back over your face,” he instructed.  His arm flitted up to gesture vaguely at the fabric bunched around your neck and shoulders.  Then he pivoted on heel.   The door was unlocked and thrown open.   Your feet were frozen to the cold tile beneath your thin, worn shoes.  “Last chance,” he called, letting the door begin to swing shut behind him.   That kicked you into gear, and you yanked the wool over your nose to pursue.  

Despite the lateness of the hour, your mad scientist had taken a snappy, energetic pace.   You had to run to catch up to him at first.   As you plunked along across dark corridors, you’d thought maybe you should ask where the hell you were going.   The words were on your tongue, but every time you breathed to speak, you found yourself wordless.  You hadn’t spoken to him yet, and perhaps it was better to keep it that way.  Less identifiable characteristics, or whatever.  It was hard to think clearly.  Every corner you turned down felt like a possible trap.  Your muscles constantly tensed and flinched at any sound or movement.  Just fucking breathe , you willed.

“There are no Enforcers in this section at this hour,” a gentle whisper floated from your right.  You flicked your gaze to him.  He was observing you out of the corner of his eye, though his head stayed mostly facing forward.   It was ridiculous, but you couldn’t help believing him.   There was something strangely familiar about the man.  It wasn’t his face, or his voice, or anything else you could see.  Moreso, it was the energy he gave off.  He embraced chaos like no other citizen of Piltover you’d ever met.  Flowed through it, like perhaps it actually powered him.  You found yourself relating to it.  Drawn to it.  His face turned more towards you, expression wavering, and you realized sharply that you’d been staring.  Once you snapped your head forward, you didn’t dare look again until you’d arrived at the destination.   

It was nothing special, just a faculty apartment door exactly like every other one you’d passed so far.  He unlocked it swiftly and slipped inside.   You posted up outside the door frame to wait for him, fists balled at your sides.  Ready for anything.  The hallway stayed dark and empty.  Even without being able to see the details of it, it felt foreign. Too much space, too little sound.  The air was too pure and temperature controlled.   Even the smell- or, lack thereof- made you feel off-kilter.   He poked his head out again, expression impatient.  

“What are you doing?  Get inside!” he hissed, gripping your shirt sleeve.  Before you could react, you were yanked through the space in the door.   

The moment he closed the door you ripped your arm out of his grasp, backing away.  

“Don’t fucking touch me again,” you growled low, snatching the cowl back down your face to bare your teeth.  So much for not talking. Your heart felt like it was beating in your throat.  There was a limit to the amount you were willing to trust a weird man with the power to get you imprisoned, and it felt like being trapped in his apartment might be it.  Though it was dark, you could see his figure raising his arms in a sign of retreat. 

“I am sorry, I-“ he stumbled, voice much milder than you’d yet heard it.   After a moment of fumbling, the entryway light turned on.  Your scientist looked genuinely concerned, and took a step forward.  You backed up further, arms low but ready to defend.   The cane cracked against the ground- an emphasis to his nervous, frustrated exhale.  Both of you stopped, in a crude mimicry of your first meeting position once again.   “I need to get past you, to access your money,” he finally said, after the silence had begun to mildew.   You looked over your shoulder for where he was gesturing, but there didn’t appear to be anything of note in sight.  Still, you stepped to the side quietly, and let him walk by.  “I’ll ask you to please face the opposite wall and not look until I say.  I’m quite fond of my hiding spot.  I intend to keep it.”   At that, you couldn’t help but raise your brows incredulously.  That hardly seemed worth turning your back for.  He shrugged.  “That’s the deal,” was all he offered in addition.  You gave him your most scornful look.  He simply waited.  

And waited. 

… 

Whatever this hiding spot was, it required several strange banging and scraping noises.  Your fingers twitched nervously at your sides, eyes wide and glued to the back wall you’d begrudgingly turned to face.  You weren’t sure why you were following this strange set of requests. Why you hadn’t bolted the second you left the lab.  

“Stealing from the University… very bold of you.  How did you get in undetected?  My understanding was that the patrols around the school are extensive at night-” you snorted loudly at that, breaking his train of thought.   The idea of something as simple as a late night Enforcer patrol stopping you from slipping by was ridiculous.  In combat, they were fearsome, to be sure.  In their routines, however, they were sloppy and naive- the product of living day to day life with a lack of general fear and threat.  You didn’t tell him any of this, of course.  For all you knew, he could be recording your conversation.  “I suppose a Zaunite would find those measures, ehhh…. Lacking?”  Your ears perked at his choice of word.  Zaunite .  Of course he knew where you were from, but to refer to it as Zaun was odd, indeed.  “You can turn back around now,” he added. 

When you faced him again, he was holding a small, drawstring bag.  It appeared to be full to bursting with coin.  Your eyes widened at the sight of it.  He was right in that the score you’d left in the lab would’ve secured you far more than this, but even so…  This was more money than you’d ever had in one go.   He walked forward a few steps, and thrust the bag out between you.  

“I have a window in my bedroom. You can use it to get out, scale the wall back down.  I assume you’re capable of that?”   You managed a nod, but your head was reeling.   None of this made any  sense.  It felt like a trick, like something horrible would happen the moment you fully surrendered to it.  The man was staring expectantly at you, looking from the bag in his hand and back to you.   

“I… I don’t-” you tried to speak, flustered.  

“Why did you come here tonight?” he questioned, resting the bag against his cane instead.  You were silent, eyes dropping to the floor.  That was a lot harder of a question to answer than he’d maybe anticipated.  You’d come in the hopes of  winning a record score, of course.  There was merit in that, though maybe only for your own private enjoyment.  The money could’ve possibly helped you leave for some distant city to get lost in.  In truth, there was also just…

“Nothing left to lose.”  

The man’s face fell.  His jaw clenched.  It felt like he understood, somehow.  You supposed there were weirder things about this night than that. 

“Can you read?” he asked, after a moment of thought.

“What?” you sputtered, taken aback by the abrupt shift in conversation. 

“Can you read ?” he repeated more insistently.  

You shouldn’t answer any more questions.  Demand for the bag, go to the window, and never return again .  It was so simple. 

“Yes,” you breathed.  

What the fuck happened to the plan???

“Can you write?” continued the man, his eyes narrowing as he locked into whatever wild idea he was pursuing.  His momentum was undeniable, endlessly energetic.  A current was catching at your body, threatening to pull you in. 

“Yes,” you said again, more resolutely.  That pleased him.  He laughed to himself, incredulous.   

“Do you know how to clean?”

You just stared at him, pointedly.  The question was absurd, and besides, what was he thinking?!  Some part of you already understood where this might be headed, and it didn’t make a lick of sense. 

“I have… I have an idea.  I’ll only offer it to you once,” he decided, standing taller.  His shoulders, such as they were, squared.  “I need an additional assistant.  One that can keep up with the late night hours I’ve begun to take. You’d need to be discreet, prompt, and I’m afraid the work would be rather dull in comparison to robbing labs.”  At that last part, he shot you a humorous, challenging look.  You had forgotten the need to breathe air.  All your limbs felt like lead, which only made the echoing thrum of your heartbeat that much louder.  “I can offer you 100 a week to start, plus… ehhh, maybe we can agree upon half of what’s in this bag.  As an advance for work materials.”  

Your mad scientist was madder than you’d realized. You , working for scientists?  In a lab coat, with a little clipboard, and a fuckass tie that scratched at your throat?  Coming to Piltover every day, to walk amongst people who mostly wished you invisible or dead?  The pay was insane. You’d never been offered anywhere near that amount of consistent money.  It would be foolish to say no to something like that. 

“Or you can take this bag and go,” he finalized, after he’d watched your crisis for a while.   

The air was still.  Your voice caught in your throat, so you cleared it. 

“Why?” you whispered.  He hummed in thought, the amber intensity of his gaze never leaving you. 

“I came to work here because I believe everyone deserves a chance,” was what he settled on. His conviction in that statement was difficult to deny.  

“I stole from you,” you pointed out in breathless disbelief. 

“Mmm, not quite.  You attempted to steal, but you put it back, so-”

“You’re not afraid I’ll try it again?  Or try to hurt you?  You don’t know anything about me.  Maybe I’d come back with a group, take it all,” you rambled. It wasn’t helping your case, but your mind ached to understand. 

“You don’t have anyone to come back with,” he stated, matter of fact.  

Your stomach turned sour.  How had this fancy-living little shit just torn apart your entire night?  How did he know these things?  The man must have noticed whatever wince had been drawn from you by the comment, because next he soothed it by saying,

“The lonely recognize the lonely, I suppose.  And you won’t hurt me.”

Your eyes must have been the size of dinner plates by now.  This couldn’t be real. There was a catch, or a trick-

There was a sharp knocking at the door.  Both of you tensed.  The man’s eyes flicked to the door and back to you, looking actually worried for the first time since you’d met him.  He held out a hand, motioning for you to stay still.  You both waited in the quiet, but your muscles were alive again. The bedroom looked to be past him, through the open door.  You estimated you’d need around 10 seconds to get out clean, with no loud noises or slip-ups.  This was a riskier escape, as you weren’t nearly as familiar with the shape of the walls on this part of the school.  You’d make do.  You’d have to make do. 

Another knock, louder this time.  Your heart leapt.   He approached you slowly, careful not to make any louder sounds with his cane.  Once he was close enough that you could hear the shaking of his breath, he whispered,

“Could be nothing.  Could be something. Either way you should be safe in here, so long as you stay out of sight of the doorway.  Will you wait?”  

You looked him over.  He seemed so genuine.  Striking.  From up close you began to realize he also looked quite-  

A third knock, insistent and rapid.  You darted past him on silent, dexterous feet, stopping at the entryway to the bedroom.  Your mad scientist was watching you like a hawk.  When you made no motion to continue to leave, he nodded in approval, and walked out of sight down the entryway.  There was a scuffle with the door lock. Then the sound of it opening. 

“Good evening, officer.”  The velvety cadence wrapping around the words did not ease the terror they inflicted.  

“Hey, Viktor. Sorry to bother you so late.  The door to the lab was unlocked, and the light was on.  There was also a weird bag of stuff on the table… was that you or-”

You didn’t stay to hear any more from the gruff, large-sounding Enforcer.  The window was easy enough to slip open without a sound.  Before you could blink again, you were hanging off a ledge, several stories up.  Nearby was a fire escape. You’d make it easily.  As you moved, hand over hand, you felt an odd sting at your eyes.  It’d been a nice dream.  Something fun to ponder about, when you were cold and tired and looking for a place to crash later.  There was nothing to be done.  You left empty handed, but your mind was full and racing all night. 

Chapter Text

Viktor was not one to fall victim to doubts very easily, but by the fourth tattoo shop he’d left without luck it had started to sound like a tempting idea.  Of all his recent obsessions, this one was the most concerning.  It’d been a very long time since he’d requested an entire day off of work.  Even longer since he’d actually desired to take said time away.  Jayce had looked at him like he was growing branches out of his ears when he’d first brought it up.  Once the idea had been voiced, though, Viktor knew he’d locked himself into his wreckless little plan.  This morning he’d tried to change his mind, only to be shoved summarily back out the lab doors by an anticipating gap-toothed grin. 

“Nope!  I heard there’s a new hot spring open a few blocks away. Go take a dunk. Bye!” 

A hot spring soak sounded dangerously lovely right now.  His leg could take a fair amount of strain, but he’d been searching for hours, and the soreness was catching up.   Viktor paused to massage absently at his hip and get his bearings.  There was only one more place to check.  If they didn’t recognize the crude rendition he’d made with pen and paper, he’d take that as his sign.  He knew better than most how to swallow defeat.  

Tish’s was a place he remembered from the latter half of his time in Zaun.  Big panels of striking green and pink glass covered the front of it, making the interior warp and fade from clear view.   An aesthetic way to stop spies and nosy Enforcers.  He entered, and was wafted with the scent of sterilizing alcohol and cigarette smoke.  It was fairly empty.  Someone deeply unconscious manned the front desk, softly snoring.  There weren’t really any customers, minus a beefy-looking man towards the back.  He laid on his stomach, while an artist worked careful strokes into the space between his shoulder blades.  Neither of them acknowledged Viktor’s  presence.  Someone was sweeping at the back, facing away from him.  They wore crude-looking headphones, which covered their ears as they bobbed their head to the music.  Before he could discern anything more, the figure slumped against the desk roused, and then jolted to attention.  

“Hey, what can I- Viktor?! ” 

Viktor peered more closely at the person.  Now that he was focused, he recognized the face well enough. 

“Holy shit, man!  I didn’t think I’d ever see you down here again, big fancy inventor ‘n all,” they grinned, sharp golden canines flashing in the overhead light.  

“Hello Mish,” Viktor greeted them.  “I didn’t expect to find you in a tattoo shop.”  Their interest had certainly never been in such things before.  If he could recall their brief but plentiful interactions, Mish was usually peddling metal work and other such scraps.  Viktor had purchased more than a few things off them, back when such things were necessary for his engineering projects.  

“You can expect to find me wherever they pay enough for me to eat and sleep in some excuse for a bed,” Mish quipped back good-naturedly, though the easy stretch of their previous smile waned.   An ever-present heaviness pulled just a little harder at Viktor’s bones.  He hated what had become of his home, in the time he’d been away.  Things had never been easy, sure, but the difference each time he visited in the years following Vander’s death was immense.  Far more bulging bellies of starving kids.  A plethora of weapons touted casually and brazenly in the streets.  “Nothing but think, think, think with you, huh?” they piped up, interrupting his swirling mind.  

“I’m sorry,” Viktor apologized.  “I’m glad it’s you, actually…  I need help with something.”   Mish looked surprised.  

“Yeah, sure!  You lookin’ to get a tattoo?  Not sure if there’s enough skin there for anything crazy-”

“No,” Viktor interrupted, pulling the folded piece of parchment from his pocket for the fifth time today.  He had no interest in another joke about how scrawny he was.  He’d take his lumps back at the lab, where the voice delivering it was warm and inviting.  Where he could lob back some mean taunt at his partner, unhindered, knowing all would be forgotten almost as soon as it had occurred.  “Can you help me find this person?  They’re not in trouble, I just need…  I need to talk to them.”  

Mish grabbed the paper from him, and folded it open.  Their eyes scanned with interest, and then recognition, over the drawing.  It was a snake, which curled itself up the arm from forearm to bicep.   It’d been hard to tell the exact placement, in all the commotion of that night.  The tattoo was striking, though.  Viktor hadn’t been able to get it out of his head.  

“Well,” they sighed, looking up more wearily from the paper to Viktor’s face.  “You’re in luck, but…  You swear you ain’t gonna do anything weird?”   

“I swear it, Mish.  Just to talk.”  

They squinted at Viktor for a long moment.  He took the scrutiny willingly, staying still and relaxed.  It was the truth, after all.  There was nothing to hide, save perhaps his foolish nerves.  

“Go around back,” they decided.  “I’ll bring them out.” 

For a few minutes, as Viktor leant against the brickwork at the back of the building, he wondered if he’d been given the slip.  Maybe his clever thief was gone, fled to further shadows, while Mish stalled.  He wouldn’t blame either of them if they had done this, though he would curse the waste of precious work hours.  It was late afternoon, and the air was losing heat much faster than it did up in Piltover.  A shiver ran over the soreness of his back.   

The back door shoved open.  Thick combat boots marched out, thunking on the metal of the landing.  The two of you recognized each other at the same moment.   He saw your eyes widen, just as they had that night.  To his disappointment, there was no hesitation in your abrupt turn back toward the door.  Mish was blocking the way.

“What the fuck, Mish?!” you spat.  “You said an old friend -!”

“It is! It is!  Listen, man, this is Viktor.  He’s chill, I swear on Janna-” Mish tried to explain, but you were having none of it.  

“This is the guy.  From the botched job ,” you hissed, those stinging, vibrant eyes passing over Viktor once more.   Mish looked between the two of you, and then groaned, scrubbing their hands over their face.  

“I’m not here to cause you any trouble,” Viktor piped up, trying to remain as unimposing as he could.  

“Ya know, Viktor, this would’ve been exactly the sort of thing to tell me before I got in the middle of this fuckin’ shit,” Mish bemoaned.  

“How the hell do you two even know each other?!” you asked exasperatedly.  Viktor found himself losing whatever little control remained over the situation.  Without a better plan of attack, you were going to bolt.  He remembered how briefly he’d been away from you that night, speaking to the Enforcer.  Couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds.  Yet, when he returned to the bedroom and leaned out the window where you had escaped, you were long gone.  There would be no catching you, if you broke loose.  That would be that.  “You know what, better question- did you bring anyone down here?  Were you followed?  Fuck , Mish, I gotta get outta here-”

“Please!” Viktor spoke tersely.   It cut through the panic like a welt-hot knife.  Much to his relief, it seemed to actually catch your attention.  For now.  You turned to face him fully, towering above him with the few steps of height the landing provided.  Viktor noted the headphones now hanging loosely around your neck.  The figure sweeping the floor earlier had been you .   

What an expressive face you had.  It was no wonder your trade was to slip into the background.  Viktor could see every little thought and fear as they cascaded like rain over your features.  You seemed, most of all, sad.  

“What are you doing ? ” you asked him, voice much more delicate.  Pained.   A nervous smile pulled at Viktor’s lips.  It felt unnatural.  It must have looked unnatural, too, because Mish sort of grimaced from the doorway.  

“I know I said I’d only offer it once, but…  That was before we were interrupted,” he pointed out.  Realization dawned like sunlight over your expression.  Then you scoffed, which confused him.   Shook your head, which was disappointing.  Rolled your eyes, which rather irked him, actually.  

“Run home, little Piltie,” you muttered.  “Don’t come back here again.”

“He ain’t a Piltie,” Mish defended.   

Viktor watched the gears turn in your brain, like he’d watched so many others in his life.  This was a system he hoped to get to know more.  To utilize, in his drive to blossom his and Jayce’s shared dream.  Maybe to pursue his own private dream as well.  The one he’d wished for since the moment he first stepped foot on that campus all those years ago.  Your mind worked fast, much to his intrigue.  He saw you clocking the connection between him and Mish again, brows furrowing. 

“You called me a Zaunite,” you reflected.  Viktor cocked his head a bit, trying to remember.  The whole night had been quite a sleep-deprived blur.  It made sense that he had, of course.  Especially since it had just been the two of you.  “You’re one of us.”  

Viktor hummed quietly.  That was a complicated statement.  The answer, truly, was a resounding and passionate yes.  Of course he was.  He always would be.  It didn’t change the fact that he went to bed every night in a comparatively enormous room in a Piltover university building (when he did manage sleep).  Woke up every morning to a kitchen stocked with anything he might need.  Stalled on his laundry because there were always more clean shirts to find somewhere in his ample closet.  Hot showers whenever he wanted, the world at his fingertips in a state-of-the-art lab.  The guilt of enjoying such pleasures, most of which were so commonplace they went unthought of by his colleagues, still lingered.  It didn’t matter how long he’d suffered and pushed himself past the moving goalpost of his breaking point to get there.  Such was the curse of living in both worlds.  

“I grew up here,” he finally managed.  “I left at eighteen.”  

It was quiet.  Mish had their arms crossed, temple pressed against the doorframe as they watched on.  Viktor thought maybe he was wrong, before, about how readable you were.  Without the acute panic of immediate danger, your face had become level.  Eyes calculating.  The way you took him in now was much more forward.  You sized him up the way people often did around here.  It was more familiar to him, though the strange intimacy of it had him fighting a bit of a flush.  

“How?” you asked.  

“Hmm?” He wasn’t sure what you were referring to, anymore.  

“How’d you end up with them ?”  

Viktor took in the poison to your tone at the end, unmoved.  He’d known, when he chose to follow you down here, that this was part of the deal.  Piltover and its citizens had never won anyone’s hearts in Zaun, certainly not recently.  A more genuine smile floated over his mouth, his mind drifting to the oddball Professor who’d casually changed the entire course of his life.  He’d regarded him with quite the same vitriol, when they’d first met.

“Someone took a chance on me, when I needed it,” he said. 

He watched the tremble of your chin.  You managed to stop it swiftly enough, but the memory of it was already recorded and locked away in Viktor’s mind.  

“I don’t know anything about science,” you blurted.  “I don’t have a formal education.  Don’t have documents, don’t have training, don’t have previous experience!  I mean, we met because I was stealing your things-”  

“Well, for starters, I’d advise against listing your weaknesses first, in an interview,” Viktor butted in.  Mish snorted, covering it with a series of terribly unconvincing coughs when you shot him a heated glare.  “You can read, and write, like you said before?”  After staring dumbfoundedly for a while, you nodded.  “Good.  You can clean, clearly,” he continued, gesturing at your apron and the broom still clutched in one of your hands.  “We have a full-time staff of assistants who take care of the support we need when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the science.  What I need is someone who can keep late hours, whenever I need them.  Someone who can take notes when I don’t have the hands for it, who can speed up my process by handing me things that are far out of reach, or running errands for me.  We've been cleaning the lab ourselves at night, so you would take over that responsibility.  I believe you to be fully capable of all these tasks, yes?”

Before you could even open your mouth to answer, Mish was exclaiming, 

“Yes!  Yes, they are.  I’ll vouch for them, myself, Viktor.  A hard worker, and smart, too.”  

“I thought I was a smartass dickhead ,” you retorted sourly at Mish, who shot you a look that Viktor thought probably screamed ‘shut the hell up don’t ruin this’.  

“You’ll fit right in, then,” Viktor shrugged.  “I believe my partner was just saying the exact same thing about me.”  

This was right.  He didn’t quite understand why it was, but he’d known it the moment you put the bag down in the lab.  The two of you were connected, and while Viktor was a vehement opponent to the idea of ‘fate’, he did believe in the power of choice.  It was his duty to help whenever he could, wasn’t it, after all he’d gained?  

A long, wilting sigh left you.  Your eyes scanned him top to bottom one last time.  

“A hundred a week?” you recalled.  Viktor tried not to get overly hopeful.  

“To start,” he replied.  “I think I could get you more, but I’ve got to get you papers and such first.  For now, you’d work under me, and I’d pay you directly out of pocket.  I have a place for you in my quarters, while we get you set up.  After a week or two I can get you your own room.  Or you can stay here and commute.”   

Your jaw clenched.  

Viktor held his breath.  

Then you made a face.  It was very similar to one he and Jayce often made, when they were about to engage in something risky and unfounded in their work.  The ‘fuck it’ face, he’d begun to call it.    

“Okay, then.”  

Chapter Text

You’d commute.  There was no sense in taking more than the bare minimum from Viktor.  It was better if you came and went from this place like a ghost.  Arriving just after the last assistants trickled from the building for the evening, leaving when the sun rose, or when you were dismissed.  Growing comfortable in the luxury of his sprawling apartment would be a mistake.  When the time came- as it so often did- to pull stakes and run, you’d be ready.  

The first few nights you’d worked, it was just you and Viktor.  You’d quickly learned why he needed someone.  Whatever gumption had driven him to track you down in Zaun, it was on proud display in the lab.  He worked furiously, with a pace that approached impossibility, given how little he seemed to sleep.  You’d spent most of the night cleaning, breaking away from your tasks occasionally when he’d ask for something.  Most of the time it was more coffee, or for something too far across the room for him to be bothered with.  In the meantime, there was a plethora of dust and hair and all sorts of shit to tidy up.  Men could always be trusted to ‘clean’ in the same way they did most things- haphazardly.  

It was funny- he’d said more words to you the night you’d broken in and the day he tracked you down than in the first week of shifts combined.  Once you were hired, it was like he’d solved a nagging problem, and his brain returned full-time to the dedication to his work.  You didn’t mind.  This kind of silence was a rare gift.  It might’ve been better if you could also listen to your music, but that was hardly worth ruffling feathers about.  Not for 100 a week.

<<<<<<  

On night four, at around 1:30 am, you placed a grey woolen blanket around Viktor’s shoulders.  He looked up at you for what very well may have been the first time all night.  Whatever he’d been scrawling away at was a particularly pesky hiccup in their calculations.  You’d overheard the previous assistants gabbing about it from where you hung out on the front steps of the University before your shift.  It was a nice place to catch a smoke, and also learn what little tidbits you could from loudmouthed lab rats finally free of their stuffy mazes.  Apparently Viktor had been at the same exact problem since 7 that morning.  

He raised an eyebrow at you, looking from your face and down to the fabric now draping his shoulders.  You shrugged. 

“You were shivering,” was the only explanation he received, muttered under your breath as you retreated to start a new pot of coffee.  

Each night-turned-morning ended the same.  Viktor would either stretch and rise around 4am, or you’d rouse him from where he’d dozed off at his desk by 5.  In both cases, you would lock up the lab together, flicking off the light.  He’d thank you, earnest but still distracted in his own thoughts, for your time.  You’d nod and plink off down the stairs, and disappear.  

<<<<<<<

On the sixth night, at around 3 in the morning, you got caught reading on the job.  It hadn’t necessarily been a purposeful distraction, but you’d incited it nevertheless.  It was just that, while dusting the bookshelf, your fingers ran along the spine of a familiar book.  The title was The Dreamless Theory of Space Travel.  Not necessarily the most entertaining read in the world.  You’d fallen asleep with your face buried in the pages of it more times than you dared keep track of.  This copy was much nicer than yours had ever been.  Without thinking much of it, you’d pulled it from the shelf, thumbing through chapters until you found the picture you were looking for. 

The illustration was of a valiant-looking woman, wearing a strange suit.  It puffed around her, with several tubes and a boxy compartment on the back.  There was a helmet over her head, but her face was still clearly visible.  She smiled at the viewer, her hand reaching up in a frozen wave.  It appeared she was weightless.  Many labels and notations had been added around the drawing in pen, pointing out flaws in the suit design as well as promising ideas.  The handwriting was not recognizably Viktor’s. These were made with boxy, thick lines that were much more neat and clear than anything you’d had to decipher so far in Viktor’s hand.  You smiled back at the space woman, just a little.  For old time’s sake. 

“I must admit I would not have predicted you’d choose that one,” Viktor’s voice wafted into your ears, startling you from your nostalgia.  You looked up sharply to find hawkish amber trained on you.  How long had he been looking this way without your notice?  Sloppy .  The book snapped closed.  

“Sorry,” you grumbled and shoved it back into its gap on the shelf. 

“What drew you to it?”  

He ignored your apology wholesale.  To his credit, he almost got you. Your tongue curled around the possibility of the story inside your mouth.  It was a nice one to tell, mostly.  Her eyes, alight with wonder as you read aloud the theories of the stars, flooded your memory with more detail.  Viktor was from Zaun. He’d understand more than most.  When you opened your lips, your eyes began to prick.  Your nose, to sting.  The vacant hole her absence left echoed inside you.     

You shrugged, swallowing dryly.  

Viktor seemed disappointed, but nodded minutely to himself.  

“You can borrow whatever you’d like to read,” was all he’d added. Then he returned to scratching more notes onto the chalkboard.  

That morning, when you’d locked up and slipped your way back down the cracks to Zaun, you let yourself think about her more freely.  The old sorting factory where you’d made your roost just two years ago glinted ruby shine off the sunlight that managed to travel deep enough.  A beat up, shit mattress still sat in the far corner of the rafters, along with a few trinkets and scraps not stolen and repurposed in your time away.  Her blanket was shoved beneath the potato sack full of raven’s feathers and other such downy detritus where she’d laid her head.  After two years of avoidance, you curled up on the old thing, and clutched the bunched blanket to your chest.  It didn’t smell like her anymore, but you could trick yourself, just for a bit.  No real amount of sleep ever came, but you laid there all day until it was time to leave again. 

<<<<<  

On the ninth night, when you pushed the lab door open, Viktor was not alone.  

You’d been told of this mysterious ‘partner’ before.  His name was Jayce, Viktor had explained, and he was wonderful.  ‘The smartest heap of muscles you’ll ever meet,’ he’d said, eyes glinting with mischief.  Viktor had assured you that he would be made aware of the circumstances of your employment, and, should you ever cross paths, work would proceed as normal.  

Except there was nothing normal about the energy of the room you walked into.  The silence was replaced by a flurry of excited conversation, so rapid and flowing with complicated vernacular that at first you wondered if it was some other language entirely.  In a way, you supposed, it was.  Viktor was scratching furiously at a big chalkboard he’d dragged into the center of the room.  It was already half-full of numbers and letters and crude abbreviations.  Arrows and lines connected things that, to you, felt random.  There were several drawings as well, though these seemed to be done in a different hand.  

“-flow of energy would no longer be impeded, yes, Jayce!  Brilliant!  Brilliant!” Viktor crowed, emphasizing the point with a last tap of the chalk on the board.  

“Awe, Vik, a compliment?  Don’t get too carried away,” the other man- Jayce, you assumed- teased jovially.   He also had his back turned to you, working at one of the center tables nearby.  It seemed he was fastening something together, large forearms spidering out to the sides to grab a new tool or screw at intimidating speed.  The room was dimmer tonight, with only one of the overhead lights on, and a lamp by the blackboard to help illuminate it better.  Besides that, the only other light emerged from whatever Jayce was working on.  It was a gorgeous, deep blue, and almost sang to you, though you could not yet see its source.  

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find something to loathe again shortly,” Viktor shot back, stepping away from the board to observe it in its entirety. 

“I’m worried about the tensile strength.  The last thing we need is this thing flying apart and taking out someone’s eye- oh!”  Jayce had turned his head to the side to speak more clearly to Viktor, which had given his periphery the opportunity to catch you hovering by the entrance.  He turned around fully, his body still blocking the object behind him.  Viktor had absolutely been right about one thing- the man was a heap of muscles.  Nothing you hadn’t seen before, but you found yourself quite surprised to see the build on a scientist.  “Hello.”  

“What?” Viktor questioned, confused as he threw a look over his shoulder.  Then he saw you, and his eyes widened.  “Oh. Yes.”

You entered the room the rest of the way, letting the door click closed behind you.  

“Sorry to interrupt,” you said quietly to Viktor.  

“Don’t be silly,” Viktor breezed.  “Jayce, this is my new assistant.  The one I talked to you about.”  The last sentence was spoken very pointedly.  That seemed to instantly jog the other man’s memory.  First, you saw recognition.  Then, something else.   Something you were much more familiar with, up here.  Apprehension.  

“I see,” Jayce acknowledged.  The look had passed through him such that lesser trained eyes might not have clocked it.  You’d caught it, but so, you noted, had Viktor.  He’d squinted at his partner the moment it occurred, mouth sloping into a frown. Scaredy cat muscle-boy, afraid of an undercity punk half his size.  

“You don’t have to worry about me, sir ,” you said instead, using the term liberally.  Viktor’s head snapped to look at you, frown deepening.  You’d never once called Viktor by such a title.  You’d asked him if you should, on your first day, and he’d just scoffed.  ‘Please do not,’ he’d insisted. ‘Makes my skin crawl.’  “I’ll be quiet. Pretend like I’m not even here.”  Then you turned away, no longer interested in the pretty boy Viktor had gushed about.  You had your own work to do, after all.   

It was much quieter after that, at least for a bit.   Occasionally, when you drifted far enough away from them, one of them would whisper emphatically to the other. 

“-fuck was that, Jayce?!”

“I’m sorry! —— can’t blame me——- stole from—”

“Need I remind——— we stole——- why you are employed here!”

Eventually the arguing subsided, and the two of them returned to steamy silence.  

Woof . 

The hours did not fly by.  Every minute of quiet now was a reminder of the joyous flow your presence had interrupted before.  You’d liked seeing it, when you’d been a shadow on the wall.  The two of them complimented each other, that much was obvious.  Jayce seemed to bring out something more boisterous and bubbly in Viktor.  He’d looked quite happy.  You weren’t sure why you gave a shit either way.  You just… did.  

Around 2am, mostly in line with your new routine, you brought two mugs of coffee to replenish the empties.  One with a heap of sugar and cream, the other black.  You weren’t sure how Jayce took his.  Viktor, on the other hand, drank his like a child with free access to the sugar jar.  It brought you endless amusement each time you made it.   You placed the black one on the table beside Jayce’s station, ensuring it remained separate and clear of the device on the other surface.   While you didn’t know what it was capable of, you were sure coffee spilling all over it would be bad news.  

“Thank you,” Jayce said, but you’d already moved swiftly past him, setting the other mug beside Viktor’s restlessly drumming fingers.  He looked up from his work immediately, which was new.  Typically he murmured his thanks as an afterthought, eyes hypnotized into whatever he was plugging away at.  Now that focus turned upon you.  

“I’ve, uhm…” you started, voice cracking.  This would’ve been easier to deliver to the side of his head, where you could convince yourself he wasn’t even really listening.  “I’ve finished cleaning. I figured…”. Viktor looked worried now, like he was anticipating something perhaps bigger than what you were actually meaning to say.   You leaned a bit closer, lowering your voice.  “I figured I should go. For tonight. You can dock it from my pay, but…  Whatever you were talking about when I got here, it seems important, and I think I might be a distraction.”

“You’re not,” he said swiftly, maybe a bit too loud.  His eyes darted over to wherever Jayce was, but you didn’t dare look.  When he looked back at you, he softened, and sighed tiredly.  “But you may be right about us needing the space.  Just for tonight.  And I’ll hear nothing of this ‘docking from your pay’ nonsense.”  He glared very sharply at you at the end, to emphasize his conviction.  You pressed your lips together, avoiding a smile, and nodded your head.  “We can speak more on it tomorrow.” 

You packed up what little you brought with you, settling the headphones over one of your ears, and trudged towards the door.  

“Goodnight,” they both said, nearly in unison.  You turned your head, and regarded Jayce again.  The man looked conflicted.  Remorseful, maybe? Those puppy dog eyes were lethal.  No wonder Viktor’s so infatuated, you thought to yourself.  You looked away from their evil powers before they could reel you in, too, focusing on Viktor instead. 

“Night.”

Chapter Text

Apologies for the last minute notice, I realized I did not have anywhere to send a letter.  We should rectify this soon. Left early tonight on unexpected business.  Enjoy a night to yourself.  

He didn’t sign it, probably because he knew you’d recognize the scrawling curves and angles of his penmanship.  It had been stuck to the door of the lab with a small piece of tape, which you removed carefully so as not to damage the paint.  In the nearly two weeks that you’d been in his employment, this had yet to occur.  You’d almost begun to enjoy the routine of meeting him each night.  You weren’t really sure what to do with yourself, now.  

That wasn’t quite true. There were a plethora of ideas, most of which would land you a ringing hangover in the morning.  Maybe it was worth just finding a place to hole up and decompress for the night.  Slowing down wasn’t your greatest skill in the world, but you were capable of it, weren’t you?

>>>>>>>>>

There were no clocks around to tell the time, but it must’ve been well past 3am when you stumbled from the bar.  The raging music was swallowed up once more by the swing of the door shutting behind you.  A nearby post looked as good a place as any to lean against. You dug around in your pocket, fumbling sloppily until your fingertips grazed over your box of smokes.  

The night air was cool and comforting against booze-heated skin.  Your head swirled with images from the past few hours. Flashing, colorful lights.  Screaming, raging sets played by drugged out musicians.  You don’t know what made you think of it, but you conjured the image of Piltover’s beefcake scientist stuck in the middle of that crowd.  His tall, muscular, well-fed frame would have him sticking out like a sore thumb. Wide eyed, overwhelmed, and probably getting hit on like crazy.  Or having everything swiped from his pockets.  Probably both.  Hiccuping laughter bubbled from your chest to shake your hands as you lit the cig now between your lips.   

“What’s so funny?”  The voice was husky, and driving.   Instantly recognizable.    

“Fuck me,” you groaned, leaning your head to the side to see her.   She was watching you from under the awning across the alley, her own cigar illuminating her face in a pale, orange glow.  “Whatever it is, no ,” you slurred. 

“Who says I want something?”  That made you laugh again.  The drunken giggle tickled over your nose, and you rubbed your eyes to clear them more.  Normally, you’d never have let her get this close.  Should’ve stayed home, you thought sleepily.  Or whatever constituted a bed for the night, anyways.  She didn’t make any moves, just puffed and stared, like always.  

“I don’t think you want anything.  Your piece of shit overlord, however…”  You breathed a long hit, wishing to whatever pitiful deities watched over this place that it was something stronger.  Perhaps it was worth taking another Silco gig.  He did always know where to find weed that made the sparkle return to the world- even if only for a little while.  But no, you didn’t need to stoop to jobs like that anymore.  You had a stable one.  Plenty of pay.  Another couple months and you’d be ready to fuck off out of here indefinitely.  “I’m done with him.”

It was her turn to laugh. Hers was more of a rattle, low and sardonic.  She shook her head, peering over you like a meal ready to devour. 

“You really think he’s just gonna let you go?” she asked. Her lips pulled into a smirk. 

“He never had me,” you retorted.  It was time to get out of here, before Silco’s guard dog got any ideas.  You shuffled forward, taking one last drag of your cigarette and then scuffing it into the ground with your boot.  “You know, Sevika, I remember when you used to sit at the table right next to mine, listening to Vander’s stories.  He had the whole of The Last Drop fixated on his every word, you most of all.”  Clearly alcohol and exhaustion had loosened your tongue. Already you were saying more to her than you’d done in the years since Vander’s death.  The mention of him seemed to catch the woman off-guard. She tensed, her smirk curdling into a warning snarl.  “We all do what we gotta do to survive, I guess,” you sighed, looking her over one last time.  She was older now, and walked with her weight distributed a bit to one side.   A beautiful woman, to be sure, and vicious.  The charm and lightness that all of Vander’s lackeys carried back in the day had long since disappeared from her. “Don’t make me run drunk, please,” you called over your shoulder as you began to walk away.  “You know I hate that.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about running.”  

You barely had time to clock the voice.  Slimy, gravely.  Vowels and consonants curled in the drip of his accent.  His shadow emerged from the alley to your right, while a pair of goons rushed you from the left.  

“I fucking hate when you do this,” you grumbled.  Then you took a fist of metal rings to the face.  It kicked a groan out of you, launching you towards Silco. You caught yourself before you fell to the ground, ducking out of the way of his swipe to snag your scruff.   There was a gap between the two grunts and Silco, but only if you moved now.  With more effort than it typically required, you darted through the space, body low to avoid the lunging grabs.  You made it past easily enough, and started pushing yourself further.  Harder.  Your muscles were warming up from the cool night air.  If you legged it hard enough, you could lose them around the corner. You knew an awning to climb, and from there it was just-

Ka-BOOM!

You were blown backward by a bright blue and pink explosion, which rained down the dust of its debris around you.   Any closer and it might’ve taken a leg with it.  As it was, you landed harshly and skidded over the gravel on your side.  It scraped the flesh raw all the way down your torso.   Still, you tried your best to scramble to your feet, ears now ringing from the proximity to the blow.  Maybe you could slip away down the alley where the two lackeys had come from.  The world swam before your eyes, the colorful dust still floating through the air and swirling into pretty fractals.  Maybe you’d hit your head just now, too.  Come to think of it, the back of it did feel more throbby than it had before. 

Somebody tackled you from behind, shoving you to the ground yet again.  It kicked the air from you, and left you wheezing and sputtering.  

“Get off of me!” you growled.  Whoever was behind you got your right elbow swung mercilessly into their eye socket.  It seemed to do the trick, as the howling of pain and the lack of weight on your back freed you again.  Except that it was quickly followed by a gut-buster of a kick to your side, rocking you up against the brick of the nearby building.   Iron rot flooded your mouth.   Your entire body pulsed, the pain slightly nullified by the drink in your system.   Even so, everything hurt.  You used the wall against your back in an effort to push yourself back to your feet. 

“My, my… I forgot how willful you could be,” Silco crooned.  You could hear the light drag of his footsteps.   A guttural, clenching cry ripped through your throat as you strained against your weakening limbs.  There was no way to make it back to your feet.  Not in time.  The shadow of Sevika loomed over you.   Your head felt like a ship in a storm.  All the exits were blocked.  Nowhere left to go.  

You let your body slide back down, hitting the ground with a soft sigh.   Sevika gripped your chin.  The worn pads of her fingers dug ruthlessly into the bone as she lifted it up and to the side, directing what little clear vision you had left at Silco.  He was watching over you, his hands clasped behind his back.   The man always wore a mask of faces, none of which were ever actually the real one.  This time, it was woven from mild interest, and satisfaction. 

“This really didn’t have to go so poorly for you, you know,” he pointed out, looking over the damage that had been done.  Behind the mask, you spotted glimpses of the truth.  A sparkle of regret.  A hint of concern.  You stared right back at him, and spat the blood in your mouth at his feet.  That coaxed a chuckle from him, though like everything else about him, it was fake.  A precursor to whatever deplorable shit was coming next.  Oh, how you’d grown weary of the theatrics.  

“Sorry you had to overhear, before,” you croaked, more droplets drooling, shiny and red, from your bottom lip.  “I know you get sensitive about your… better half.”   The slight about Vander did its job.  It was barely a reaction- just a short hiss of air and a squint of his eyes, but it made you laugh all the same.  Less a laugh, more a rattling, wet cough.  You grimaced beneath the harsher pressure Sevika applied to your jaw.  

“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll paint your brain on this wall, brat,” she warned bruskly.  

“I confess I was more concerned about this talk of you ‘being done with me’,” Silco continued on, as though Sevika had never spoken.  This was the typical rhythm.  You’d watched it happen to others a thousand times by now.  

“I am done with you,” you managed.  The two grunts behind him shifted, eyeing each other.  They looked nervous.  

“Really?  No more showing up at my office, begging for a job?  Working for little scraps?” he teased rather cruelly.   “I did hear that you spent quite a lot on drink tonight.”   Silco crouched beside you, getting eye to eye.  “Well, a lot for you , anyway.  I wonder where you could’ve gotten that kind of pay…”  Your frown deepened.  It was easy enough to gather what he was hinting at.  

“I know it’s hard for you to understand the word, with all these dumb-fuck yes men you keep around.  I’ll say it as many times as it takes to sink in.  No .”   

Silco looked at you a moment.  He seemed genuinely surprised, beneath it all.  To be fair, you’d always been a punk around him, but never like this.  You both knew this was different.  Whatever he found in you, it disappointed him.  He clicked his tongue, and stood to his full height once more.  

“I can make you do it, you know,” he spoke more quietly.  More real.  It cast a chill down your spine.  Reminded you of a time, long ago, before any of this had become your funhouse mirror maze of a life.  A dinner table, set for five.  Your fathers, Heka, Silco and you.  Laughter and warm food- as meager as the meals may have been. Heka would always ask him to do his magic trick again, and Silco would always oblige, no matter how many times her youthful eagerness demanded it.  

“She loved you,” you sputtered.   “Even after… everything you did.”  Your breaths were running more ragged now, slowing your speech.  The adrenaline that had helped you navigate your drunken slop of an escape attempt was wearing thin.  He didn’t react.  Didn’t even look your way.  Instead he seemed more concerned with something off on a rooftop down the alley.  Your eyes tracked it in the fading moonlight.  

A flash of blue hair, the drift of a little braid…  

Of course.  Her little contraptions were getting better.  More deadly.   Your stomach churned at the idea of Vander’s kid being corrupted into something like that.  Another useful tool.  Just like you.  

Silco turned back to you.  His face was fixed in a tired scowl.  

“Let them go,” he ordered.  Sevika blanched, grip only tightening on your face as her head whipped to look at him.   The other grunts looked just as confused.  Whispers filled the silence behind him.    Silco raised a brow at his number two, but remained quiet.  A moment later, you were released, your head roughly pushed against the brick.  It wasn’t like you were going anywhere very fast, anyway.  You could hardly shift your weight without wincing from the rippling pain.  “Everyone out.  Go wait by the bar.”  

The order was followed, though not without one final baring of teeth from Sevika as she passed.  You watched her go, nostrils flared.  Good doggie, you thought bitterly, as she led the others to file away.   Once they were around the corner and out of sight, it was just you two.  Plus or minus a scrawny blue-haired snoop, depending on where she’d skittered off to.  Silco let out a long, exhausted sigh, and leant against the wall across from you.  The two of you sized each other up.  It was possible that he’d kill you.  The man you used to know would never dream of it, but he was long gone.  This new guy was unpredictable- a live wire with endless power and cunning influence.  You’d been a fool to ever rely on him, even if it’d kept her alive a little longer.    

You wouldn’t die on the ground.  One of your fathers’ kids would get the privilege, barren as it was, of dying on their feet.  Heka had put up a more valiant fight than you ever could, shivering on that rotten mattress.  You’d do your best to make her proud.  Silco let you get up, watching the entire pitiful process with keen, gleaming eyes.  It took a few moments, and several failed starts, but you made it.  The remainder of the booze, plus the knocks to your head, had you swaying dangerously at first.  You mimicked your old family friend, bracing your back against the wall.  He regarded you with a sense of respect that you despised.  The irony of how desperate you used to be for such hints of approval from him was not lost on you.  

“You’re making things very difficult for me,” Silco commented, rubbing a hand over his mouth.  

“I’m so very sorry for that.”  Your tone oozed sardonic vitriol.  It won you one extremely withering glare.  You didn’t feel like much of a winner.  Mostly you felt like a bag of mush.

“I swore an oath to your father.  Both of you, unharmed.”   

A wheeze of bitter laughter overtook you, bumping your sore and abused head against the wall.  You didn’t think it was worth pointing out your own freshly beaten body, so instead you went with:

“She’s fucking dead, Silco.  Not very unharmed -”. 

“I did what I could for her!” he spat furiously, overrunning your miserable overture.  “That vile sickness that took her is exactly why I do this.  They did this to us.  Their pollutants.  Their gas.  I don’t understand why you cannot grasp the opportunity to help pay them back for what they’ve stolen from us.”

“I believed in you and Vander.  Your dream,” you managed, your words beginning to slur again.  Silco flinched at the mention of it.  “Then I watched you throw it all away.  My parents are gone.  My friends are gone.  Vander’s gone.  Heka-”  A horrible clenching of your throat stopped you.  It was too much.  You couldn’t even stomach looking at him anymore, so you just looked up at the sky instead.  It was too smoggy still to see many stars.  To get the right view you used to have to climb all the way to the top of The Last Drop.  Together.  The two of you.  It was always supposed to be the two of you.  Being the only one was too hard.  Just like you’d told her that final morning.  The whispered words against her cooling brow.  ‘Don’t leave me.  Don’t leave me.  Don’t leave me.’   

“I know you abhor weakness, Silco, but that's all I’ve got left.  The show’s over.  Kill me or don’t.  I’m done.” 

Chapter Text

Viktor awoke to the sound of thudding at the door.  The moment he sat up, various parchment fluttered off his chest onto his lap, where several books and pens were still strewn about.  Yet another mess.   He pushed it off his lap and onto the empty spot next to him, trying not to rip or crumple any pages too terribly.  

What time was it?  The clock on the far side of the bed read 4:57 am.  The noise continued.  It was not, by any means, a normal door knock.  It was a slow thunk… thunk… thunk… that had his hairs on end.  He threw some pants on and secured his cane, before making his way to the door and looking through the peephole.  What he saw on the other side had him scrambling to open the lock. 

You looked bad.  The journey from his front door to the couch was haggard, nothing like the spry precision with which you normally flitted about the lab.   Even without the lights on to see it yet, Viktor could smell the sharpness of blood on you.  

“Gonna mess up your couch,” you mumbled, stopping short of it.  Your arm was slung over his shoulders, and you leaned more heavily into him while you stalled.  He took the stress of the added weight without protest, though it concerned him that you offered it so easily.   You must be hurting very badly, indeed.  

“I don’t care about that.  Sit,” Viktor ordered.  

With some lights on, and a chance to wake up a little, he’d found the situation more manageable than he’d first feared.  You were worse for wear, but not so bad that the two of you couldn’t make do to patch you up.  His biggest point of concern was the tracks of blood on your neck and throat that had led him to a caking of it at the back of your head.  While you weren’t bleeding from the wound anymore, you were definitely acting clouded and out of it.  A concussion risk meant no sleep for you, at least for a little while.  He’d have to find someone trustworthy to look you over properly, and soon.  

You hadn’t said anything more yet.  Just sat there, tired eyes floating in the general vicinity of him as he took inventory of the damage.  Eventually he’d prod you for more information.  His brain raced with sensory input.  The more he saw, the more questions he had. It became much harder to resist the instinct to theorize.  The alcohol on your breath.  Some sort of fine powder scattered over your shirt and hair, brightly colored and perhaps… explosive?  Not to mention the swelling on the side of your face, which must have been caused by a punch but bruised far too angrily and too quickly to have been just bone on bone.  For now, none of it should matter.  It was clear why you were here.  He’d spelled it out rather bluntly the first night he’d met you.  Back when he’d been openly (and perhaps a bit recklessly) testing theories instead of swallowing them.   No one else to go to.   

On his second washcloth and bowl of water, he was confident that the only emergent injury was the one to your head.  The grime and blood had made things look especially dire before.  Many smaller wounds were not necessarily more merciful to you, but were at least more survivable.  Viktor was glad to see you gain some presence back to your gaze, tracking his movement with more precision.  It was a repetitive, almost hypnotic motion that he dragged over your skin.  Careful and gentle, but attentive to every inch of dirt and viscera he could find.  Unfortunately, with clarity of mind came other, unwelcome consequences.  Your lips were pulling down into the sort of mournful frown that made his heart sink.  

“You got another one of those?” you finally rasped.  He nodded, leaning over to grab it from the table nearby. You tried to tug your shirt up while he soaked the rag.  It was clearly painful, from the way you paused to chew heavily into your lip.   

“Do you want help?” he offered.   Only when you nodded begrudgingly did he assist in pulling it the rest of the way over your shoulders.  Your torso was a mess- bruised, gouged, and scraped up to bits.  Gravel and grime stuck to the skin and torn flesh. The sight of it didn’t seem to trigger much surprise in you.  Viktor just watched you dab away at the skin, wrinkling your nose and making small sounds to cope with the discomfort.   He realized that staring at the process would not make it any less miserable, so he got up and decided to make tea.  

The motions of making tea were thoughtless for Viktor by now.  It was one of his rituals, practiced liberally for any occasion- good, bad, or neutral.  This lived staunchly in the bad category.  His body followed the memorized patterns at the stove, but his mind and eyes could not tear themselves away from his assistant.  His clever thief.   He’d not known you very long, but it was long enough to glean some things about you.   For instance, he thought you were very brave.  Crass.  Stubborn. Thoughtful. He thought back to the night you’d wrapped the blanket over his shoulders- anticipating the need without him even being aware of it himself.  While you didn’t have anywhere left to turn now, Viktor strongly believed you used to.  That you used to have others to dote on.  To care for, and about.  

He cared. It was an easy thing, caring about you.  He couldn’t explain it.  His own reclusiveness from attachment was no secret to him.  How many times had Viktor pretended he was listening to his partner complain about his unwillingness to go out with him to socials and bars?  There’d certainly been more than a few instances in which he’d missed that someone had been trying to befriend him until long after he’d slipped out of the interaction.  There was always more work to do.  Something nagging at his brain that just, frankly, seemed more exciting.  More rewarding.  Yet… The only thing that felt close to this feeling with you, though it made him feel odd to admit it, was meeting Jayce.  There had been an instant click that night, watching him wobble on the precipice, both literally and figuratively.  He’d never felt such a strong urge to reach out and know a person like that before.  It was a feeling that stuck with him all this time.  Maybe that was why he’d been so quick to trust the instinct, when it arose again with you. 

By the time the tea was ready and placed into your hands, you’d finished cleaning up.  Viktor placed his own mug down on the table, scanning over your abdomen and ribs.  They looked better.  Not great, but better.  

“I have some bandages,” he noted aloud.  Some of the cuts and scrapes still oozed fresh scarlet.  That wouldn’t do.  He turned immediately to retrieve them from his bathroom cupboard.  “And a change of clothes.  I’ll… yes,” he trailed, leaving the room. 

It only took a minute or two to gather what he needed.  When Viktor returned, he found you with your head in your hands.  

“I can’t go back to Zaun,” you whispered.  There was no tenacity to your voice.  No fire.  Just an exhausted heartache. His stomach lurched, throat tightening.  The clothes and bandages in his hands suddenly felt like a barren offering.  

“Okay.” Viktor spoke as evenly as he could, lowering himself back into the chair in front of you. “We will figure it out.”  

You looked up, then, to meet his eyes.  Yours were red and puffy.  The side of your mouth screwed up a bit, a reaction to whatever you saw in him that he could not.   Fresh tears flowed silently down your cheeks.  He didn’t know what else to do.  

His mind tracked back into the distant past- to the rare times that his own hiccuping cries had been quelled by someone who loved him.  A mother, whose face grew blurrier and more nondescript each year, bending to hold his clammy little hands.  Lullabies- the notes of which had long faded into obscurity- hummed against his temple as he was rocked.  Jayce’s warmth had often filled this void, in more recent years.   A palm resting against the middle of his back, or a shoulder pressed affectionately against his at the chalkboard.  A stern voice threatening him to ‘go the fuck to sleep before I erase your chalkboard’.  Nevertheless, there was a unique brand of loneliness you and Viktor both carried with you, everywhere you went.  Perhaps it didn't have to be a burden shouldered alone.  He reached forward and grabbed your hand.  His attention was keen, watching for signs that he should back off, but you just squeezed his back and held it tight. 

<<<<<<<<<

Though he was confident it hadn’t been nearly the whole story, what you had told him was context enough.  You’d cut remaining ties to Silco, and it had landed you beaten and in exile from your home.  The punishment for being caught in Zaun again would be swift and imminent destruction.  

So far you’d spent a little over three hours still awake.  Viktor had ensured it, of course.  He would hear nothing of this foolishness about leaving your side, despite your stubborn insistence.  

“It’s 8, Viktor,” you’d pointed out, voice still rough and dry despite the amount of fluids he’d gotten you to drink.  The plate of food beside you had been, much to his chagrin, mostly untouched.  “You guys have that presentation coming up, and Jayce will be wondering-”

“Yes, of course he will,” Viktor had confirmed impatiently.  In his lap were several notebooks and scraps of paper, which he moved between fluidly in his chair.  He’d occasionally shared his thoughts on his work aloud or otherwise checked in with you, but for the most part you had shared each other’s company in amicable silence.  “And then he’ll come to find me here, and I will explain.  It’s fine.  Now eat .”

Like clockwork, Jayce had knocked on his door right around 8:30.  In the meantime, Viktor had insisted that you take the bed, despite some initial resistance. He’d propped you up on a couple pillows, to keep the temptation of sleep away for longer.  Now that he had to answer the door, Viktor realized he would need to leave you on your own.  A sharp pang of worry knotted at his guts.  He thought he’d been doing a valiant job at hiding it, except for the fact that you’d begun to chuckle.  The sound of it was a bit miserable, and it looked as though it felt that way, too- based on the strain in your expression.   

“Sorry.  I just… didn’t expect you to be so Mother Hen,” you huffed, the softness of the tone soothing the tease of the words.  Viktor allowed himself a small upward twitch of the lips.  To be honest, he hadn’t expected it either.  

The door was knocked upon again.  

“Vik?  Everything okay?” called Jayce, voice laden with concern.  It had Viktor rolling his eyes, though he felt no real resentment towards the man.   

“ That’s Mother Hen,” he retorted, shooting you a faux-exhausted look.  “Don’t fall asleep.”   Even after he turned away, Viktor felt you watching him.  When he answered the front door, his face was warm.  

“Viktor!” Jayce exclaimed happily, his bright eyes scanning immediately over every square inch of him that he could see.  “Are you alright?  I’m sorry, I guess maybe you were sleeping in for once, I just- You’ve never let me beat you to the lab before without telling me and I know it’s been colder recently, so I was worried maybe you’d caught something like last year and- Wait, is that blood -?!”  Viktor grabbed hold of the front of Jayce's vest, yanking him unceremoniously inside and closing the door behind them.  At this rate, the entire University faculty might as well be joining them for storytime.   

“Breathe, Jayce.  I am unharmed,” he instructed, trying to fight his entertainment at the breathless rambling.  In a way, he was glad you could hear it.  Maybe it would cheer you up a little.  Jayce had that effect on people.   

As he knew he would, Jayce listened to Viktor recount the events of the last few hours with rapt attention.  There were no interruptions.   Only those expressive eyes, which grew wider and more somber with every detail they absorbed.  Viktor omitted information about Silco.  Though he loved and trusted Jayce to keep a secret above all others, this was not his secret to entrust to him.  The relationship between you and Jayce had started off… rocky.  This had been much to Jayce’s eventual regret, Viktor well knew, but there hadn’t been much opportunity to try and smooth things over.  Yet.  

“My God,” Jayce breathed, once Viktor had finished.  Viktor nodded gravely in agreement.  He opened his mouth to add something more, but sounds from the other room caught both their attention at once.  You froze under the immediacy of both their gazes on you, halting halfway across the room. Heading towards the bathroom, Viktor assumed.   Though he’d done his best to explain, he supposed nothing communicated properly like witnessing something oneself.  He felt Jayce tense beside him.  Viktor tried to imagine what it must look like for him, seeing you like this for the first time.  In the hours previous, Viktor had grown used it- as much as one is able.  For Jayce, who’d only ever seen you willful and fresh-faced that one instance in the lab, it must’ve been quite jarring.  

“Be careful,” Viktor called to you, watching your body sway a bit where you stood.  

“It’s just a piss, not a bar brawl,” was all you scoffed back.  A tired smile winced over your swollen face before you continued your stiff and labored shuffle.   When Jayce turned back to him, Viktor could see the shock written all over his face like it had been etched into marble.  The two of them waited in knowing silence until the door clicked shut, and the bathroom fan turned on.   Then, 

“That’s bad , Vik.”  

“Yes,” Viktor sighed, furrowing his brow.  “But they’ll be fine.  It’s the head injury I’m worried about.  I need to find someone who can conclude if it’s a concussion.  Someone who can be discreet.   I have a person in mind, but…  I’d need to leave here to find her.”   He didn’t add the question in at the end, but it was understood, nevertheless.  In the past three years- almost every waking moment of which they’d spent together- Jayce and Viktor had built a strange way of communicating.  They often found themselves speaking between the lines of their own dialogue, as though having two conversations at once.  It was wildly efficient for their work, when it needed to be.  Sometimes, though, it was a way of softening a blow.  Squeaking by an argument without actually having it.  Testing a sore nerve. 

Jayce looked into Viktor’s eyes as easily as breathing air, which delivered his reply before he ever had to open his mouth.  Nevertheless, he said, 

“Then I’ll stay here.”  

______________________

It was a habit you’d already made note of, before ever meeting Jayce.  His pen chewing.  Half the time you’d reached for one in the lab, it was dented and deformed in some way at the end.  The process was on full display for you now. His leg bounced idly, eyes flitting over Viktor’s notes from earlier.  Every once and a while, Jayce would remove the pen from his mouth and make a new mark on the pages, or scratch a new thought into the margins.  Then it would wander slowly back between his lips, and the cycle would repeat. 

 Thirty seven minutes had passed since Viktor had left.  You’d counted every single one, just to try and keep yourself awake.  Maybe to keep yourself stubborn, too.  Why did you have to be the one to break the awkward silence?   Surely getting your ass beat was retribution for your part in the roughness of your first interactions. 

Jayce looked up at you. This was the 23rd time that he’d done so, if memory served.  Like most every time before, he smiled and then averted his eyes again.  You sighed.  This time he was staring off to your left, focusing more acutely on something. 

“You should probably drink more water.”  

He speaks…  There was a mostly full water glass on the nightstand.  The sight of it was as vaguely nauseating as it had been every other time you’d grazed your eyes over it.  You pulled a squeamish face. He watched you, the corners of his mouth pulling up at the ends.  The pen was removed from between his teeth and drummed thoughtlessly against the pages on his lap instead.  

“That’s my shirt,” he pointed out.  You looked down.  The grey t-shirt fit quite comfortably and loosely, which had surprised you when you first put it on, given Viktor’s especially wiry frame.  It was nothing special, save maybe how clean and nice the material was.  Your fingers traveled over the collar, feeling the thick softness against your skin. 

“Oh.  I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine!” Jayce was overly quick to add.  “I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just-”

“Trying to break the 38 minutes of silence?” you offered, as humorously as your aching head could allow.  Jayce’s smile widened a little, bashful. 

“You’re really counting?” he inquired curiously.  You shrugged.  Then you bit back a wince, because your body seemed incapable of moving without radiating instant discomfort.  “I’d offer you something to read, but you’re not really supposed to.  For now.”  

“Oh trust me, Viktor made that clear,” you snorted, leaning your head back against the pillows.  The man had run through an entire gamut of checklist items for what not to do while he was gone.  No reading, no bright lights, no pushing yourself to move too far, and absolutely no working on anything mentally taxing.  “It’s ironic, listening to him demand for me to take it easy.  If the roles were flipped, I’d be begging him to leave that desk chair in the lab by now.”  That made Jayce laugh.  

“Yeah…  He doesn’t really do ‘taking it easy’ very well,” Jayce agreed, and the tone to his voice indicated the legacy of his experience with such struggles.  You smiled to yourself, recalling the slump of Viktor’s exhausted shoulders and back over the desk.  Even, deep breaths of a body stealing sleep whenever it could trick its mind into it.  The soft, hickory strands of his hair drifted over his temple and into his face in his slumber, and your fingers always itched to reach out and move them away.   

There was an odd pang in your chest.  You swallowed, but it did not rid you of the feeling.  

Silence had descended back over the room again.  Though you didn’t move your head to look, you could feel that Jayce was still watching.   Was it your turn to speak?  You couldn’t think of anything to say.  Exhaustion, thick and syrupy, sung lullabies that threaded between your ears and lulled your throbbing head.  Maybe you could just close your eyes.  Didn’t need to sleep, per say.  Viktor had said something about avoiding eye strain, right?  What could be better for that than just letting them flutter closed… 

“Hey.”  Your eyes shot back open again, blinking wearily.  Jayce looked remorseful, but alert, sitting a bit straighter in his chair.  “Sorry.  I know you’re tired,” he sympathized.  His voice was soft and smooth. It was a nice voice.  All you could manage was a sigh.  If you’d been nursing these wounds on your own, like normal, it would’ve been half a bottle of liquor and a long, hefty nap.  Topsider preciousness about injuries and illness would take more getting used to.   You were stuck with it now, whether you liked it or not.  Stuck here.  The reality of what you’d lost rolled back over you in another wave- one of an endless tide that seemed to ebb and flow with little rhyme or reason to it.  You’d wanted to leave, hadn’t you?  So why was being forced out so terribly painful? 

“Will you, uhm…” you tried to begin, trailing as your voice wavered.  You’d already cried in front of one of them today.  Hopefully you could avoid a repeat with the other.  Jayce shifted forward in his seat, eyebrows knitted together in concern.  Him giving much of a shit about you was unexpected.  Sure, Viktor had talked about him being a good man, but you’d seen ‘good men’ in action before.  Rich Pilties who ranted on and on about ‘cleaning up Zaun’, only to be found slinking from brothels and drug dens under the cover of night. 

 Silco used to be a good man.  Used to hold your baby sister on his hip.  Used to teach you how to spell and write by hand, under dim candlelight with soft patience.    

‘ That’s Mother Hen’, Viktor had said, before, of Jayce.  You could see it now.  He radiated that sort of natural warmth that communicated without language.  It reminded you of Heka.  Kindness had come easily to her.  She always had something more to give.    

“Will you talk?” you pushed past what was left of your pride to ask.  “Doesn’t matter what, I just…” Need the distraction was tacked wordlessly to the end.   The man didn’t even blink at the request.   

“I’ve got a story I think you might like, actually,” he smiled to himself.  His hands were busy, organizing the scatter of paperwork into a neat stack on his lap.  Despite the difficulty, you resisted the urge to question how he could possibly have any sense of what you liked or didn’t.  You could bite your tongue on the topsider ribbing.  Just for a little while.  “About a year ago, Viktor and I got invited to participate in this thing- it’s called the Distinguished Innovators Competition.”

“Sounds stuffy,” you quipped.  

“It was,” he chuckled, leaning back in his chair.  “Anybody who’s anybody in the engineering community was gonna be there, and our new Hextech prototype was on the line.  We spent so many nights working on that thing I’d convinced myself I couldn’t sleep or I would somehow conk through the entire competition.  Or maybe while we were away from the lab that night some crazy fluke accident would burn it all to the ground.  Viktor stayed up all night with me and we just kept testing it over and over.  By the time we got into the carriage that morning we must have looked like we’d lost our minds.”  

Jayce leaned into the story like it was a warm bath, the words flowing through him with an ease that soothed at the agitation in your mind.  He regaled you with the ‘disaster-success’ that was the 32 hours of the Distinguished Innovator’s Competition, and while the entire story held you captivated, there were a couple elements that stood out to you the most.   

One, Viktor was capable of being terrified.  Self-conscious.  Unsure .  You weren’t foolish enough to truly think your mad scientist immune to such afflictions.  Nevertheless, your impression of him thus far had been that he was a man who walked through risks or the unexpected with his arms wide open.  It was fascinating to hear him be recounted by Jayce in such a different light.  Trembling hands.  Endless checklists repeated aloud incessantly despite their furious preparation in the weeks prior.  Apparently he’d worked himself up so badly that he’d puked into a small trash can he’d swiped from under a staff member’s desk at the convention center.  The two of them had proceeded to go on a chaotic side quest to rid the world of the horrible evidence.   

During his story you’d also been reminded of just how vital their work had become to the future of science.  You wouldn’t dream of understanding the intricate jargon of Hextech- it was an ever-changing blend of magic and STEM that left your brain aching the more you tried to pick it apart.  The idea that (just three years ago and at your age) these two men had essentially cracked the code to a whole new understanding of the world around them bloomed in your mind with more significance.  Perhaps for the first time since you’d begun working for Viktor, you truly appreciated the technicality of the work.  The passion and drive felt more tangible, more human.  They really were just two guys who loved discovery and were smart and driven enough to chase the future.  

There was something overarching all your other realizations, though.  A sense to Jayce’s tone, and the look in his eyes.  The deep fondness with which his mouth wrapped around the letters of his partner’s name.  If you didn’t know better, you’d think Viktor was the lead on the project for the competition, rather than their labors being equal.  Praise and intimately knowledgeable teasing tumbled from his lips, near unthinking as the man recounted his memory.  It was funny how quickly Jayce’s perspective of Viktor reminded you of how Viktor himself had spoken of Jayce, before you’d ever met.  An understanding appeared before you, as clear as the light of a sunny summer day.  

They were in love.  

You weren’t sure in what sense, or if they even knew it themselves.  They must understand it in some sense, you figured.  There were no doubts.  The glimmer of Jayce’s eyes said everything before his words could give him away further.   It made you feel warm, and content.  To be in the proximity of such a radiating affection was a reward in its own right. Especially after the loveless betrayal of last night, it was a melancholy you welcomed gladly. 

Your sister had been the deepest form of love and connection you’d had in your life.  Both your fathers had died long ago- though mercifully at an age where you could manage to scrape together full time care for Heka.  Any ideas about forging something romantic with anyone had crumbled away under the weight of familial responsibility.  There simply wasn’t time.  You’d watched the other kids you grew up around slowly mature and begin pursuing each other, but it had always felt more like a study in character than something worth chasing yourself.  Plus, there was a darker thought that had always curled like smoke between your other excuses and platitudes.  A theory of sorts, in which you imagined yourself to be a kind of alien species of human.  One incapable of reaching such a destination as romance.  Sappy love poems made you ill.  Watching couples dote on each other next to you at the bar gave you a headache.  Most of all, it was the fighting that bothered you.  It seemed couples fought more than they did anything else.  Cheating, lying, ‘stealing’ partners from each other.  Why subject yourself to that when you could just smoke a joint, listen to a record, and go to sleep?  Your life had been filled with enough fighting. Enough betrayal.  It was better, you felt assured, that you seemed to have been left out of the whole falling in love thing altogether. 

These facts made it surprising to you that you enjoyed Jayce’s obvious adoration for Viktor.  Typically such things summoned eye rolls so aggressive they hurt.  In spite of it all, you hung on Jayce’s every word, and let his earnest nostalgia extract some of the poison in your blood.

You cursed Viktor, quietly to yourself.  The hunk of Piltie muscle had won you over.  

A little.  

Chapter Text

The two of you compromised. Otherwise- as he soon discovered- you could find a way to argue indefinitely.  Viktor had initially insisted you both take a day or two from work.  He knew it would be hard not to be in the lab, but there were plenty of tasks to be completed on pen and paper, and smaller instruments could be brought to his apartment for the time being.  Samples could be reviewed and cataloged- he and Jayce had been procrastinating on repetitive tasks such as those.   There was every confidence in him that he could make progress efficiently enough (given the circumstances) from home, especially with help and collaboration from Jayce.  

This grand idea of his had come to a screeching halt the moment he pitched it to you.  You’d regarded him as though he’d just suggested you sever his arm at the elbow with a meat cleaver.  He’d been taken aback by the passion you’d invoked for avoiding any more delays in their work, but your brushing off the need for care was more in line with his expectations.  Thus (after quite a hefty back and forth) a new plan was born.  

<<<<<<<<<<

“If I leave you with this, that means it will be eaten when I return, yes?” he asked pointedly.  In his hand was a plate he’d filled with fruit, slices of meat, a bit of cheese, and some bread.   Sky had suggested they go slow at first.  Stomachs were more likely to be testy in the first 24-36 hours of a concussion.  

“If I say yes will you go back to work?”  you side-eyed, grabbing the plate from him.  Your hand skittered over the offering, plucking some cheese from the mix.  It was with, in his opinion, very exaggerated posturing that you shoved it into your mouth.   

“Per our agreement, I believe I have 43 minutes left in which to enjoy the walls of my own home before I’m forced to vacate the premises,” he chose to reply haughtily, pacing deeper into the room.  Normally the space would glow with the natural lighting of midday.  The drapes were shut today out of respect for the sensitivity of your eyes. Only a bit of sun crept in through the cracks- fragile beams splaying over the walls in an effort to reach you.  He’d opened the window, though.  It would have to suffice for now.  He knew you must be itching out of your skin.  The stillness had always been one of the things that bothered him most when he first moved here.  “I can spend them outside this room, if you prefer,” Viktor added.  

“Just tell me about the work,” you prodded without skipping a beat.  He raised his eyebrows at you, but you only shrugged, split lip stretching as you smiled.  “You know you want to.  I’m bored and your brain is still chewing on the problem.”  That took him aback.  He couldn’t help but return the smile, mostly because you were absolutely right. The back of his mind worked ruthlessly at any snag they encountered, no matter where he was.  It was a habit that occurred so frequently that he hardly noticed the split nature of his attention anymore unless it was pointed out to him. 

“You’re good at that,” Viktor noted.  He sat on the far corner of the bed and left his cane to rest against the footboard. 

“Eating cheese is a longtime passion of mine,” you snarked, tossing another piece into your mouth.  He didn’t bother elucidating his point.  You knew exactly what he’d been referring to, and he decided that your diversion was response enough. 

“Our gateway is nearly there,” he sighed.  The excitement of such a large success scrabbled tooth and claw with the horrid anxiety of a word like ‘nearly’.  One could remain ‘nearly’ something indefinitely, couldn’t they?  Viktor dreaded the thought.  “The stabilization effort is right on the edge of success.  In about 98% of cases we can move things from point A to B with virtually no consequence.   Unfortunately that 2% is not an acceptable margin of error.  Not when it’s meant to have living souls within its protection.”  He brushed his fingers idly over his mouth.  Before his eyes there danced two visions: one was the work, which twisted and turned as his brain ran through the options left at their disposal.  There was a hole in their understanding of the crystal.  Of course there was.  He imagined that, to a future version of himself, his current ideas about the crystal were akin to Swiss cheese.  

The other vision, peeking in through the gaps of organized mess in his head, was you. He’d found himself more distracted in the lab this morning than he’d been in a long while.  His thoughts were never far from the tipping point, skewing dangerously from ‘what if we’re wrong about the azurconia deposits’ to ‘what if they’ve disappeared again while I’m away’ as though the ideas were in any way connected.   There was, of course, an ever-nagging concern over the status of your recovery.  Why Viktor always seemed the most bothered by the concept of your absence was a problem he’d swiftly deemed worthy of his attention later . When exactly would later be?  He’d figure that out…  Later. 

“You’ll crack it,” you said.  Viktor absorbed the breezy confidence like it had gusted over his skin.  And how would you know that?   Didn’t seem sensible to say out loud, but the thought bobbed to the surface of the sea in his mind.  It came from a bitter place, one that always had far more to do with his own wretched doubts than anyone else.  “The two of you are going to build a way out of this place,” was spoken with more drive. Newfound vigor, perhaps.  The grander concept forming in your head was beginning to feel accessible to him.  To you, his work with Jayce was an escape route.  A plot for survival.   He understood that well enough.

So why was his mouth souring?

“Jayce has always described it more like a way to invite people in,” Viktor reflected, careful to sift out any traces of bitterness.  The furrow of your brow, and the silence that followed, clued him in on the fact that he may not have been entirely successful in that endeavor.  He allowed you your rumination in peace.  In the meantime, he stole a grape from the border of your plate, and distracted himself with the sweet flood that burst over his tongue.  Viktor was glad there was someone here to make actual use of the produce in his fridge.  Despite best efforts, the hours he typically pulled at the lab meant what little food was stored at home typically rotted away.  That, or it was consumed ravenously upon his arrival at odd hours of twilight.  It felt sort of nice to provide for somebody else.  Viktor began to realize just how long it had been since he’d made a new friend.  Three years and change, by now.  

After a while, an odd sort of peace washed over your expression.  He was happy to see you make a sizable dent to the food on your plate.  You hummed, and pushed it off to the side.  

“Think I’ll take a nap.  Gotta catch up on all that sleep you deprived me of.”  It was a tease- a jest about his apparently false idea that concussion patients couldn’t sleep.  He’d already received the lecture directly from Sky, during which he’d been acutely aware of you hiding your snorts of laughter in the background. 

“Of course. You have that rib to grow back together, after all,” he pointed out with a sardonic smirk. 

“Two, actually,” you replied, far too cheerily for the subject matter.  Viktor had time left to spend, but he could easily utilize it to return to the lab early or perhaps clean his kitchen.  The sink was beginning to look like a forgotten experiment left to invent its own mutation. 

“A nap does sound quite nice,” he mused as he shoved off, back to his feet.  His whole life he had always been averse to the very concept of a nap. Even when he was very small, he remembered his mother telling him stories about how difficult he was to lull to sleep.  ‘You never cried’, she’d tell him. ‘You were just too excited by the world.  Those little eyes had to stay open.’  Now he carried with him a blanket of exhaustion.  It wasn’t very heavy anymore, and he’d begun to grow accustomed to bearing it.  He figured this was the price of aging, even if he was only in his later twenties.  The all-nighters had to start adding up eventually.  Viktor straightened up his uniform as best he could, and grabbed his cane from its spot. 

“You have thirty minutes left,” you posited around the bite of a yawn.  “This is your bed. Take a nap. I’ll wake you up.”  He watched you pat the space next to you.  His body said yes yes yes .  His mind, however, yearned to see what Jayce had managed in his time alone.  Maybe nothing… but maybe something .  The promise of a something- a nearly becoming an absolute- was an intoxicating addiction.  He could sleep when he was dead.   There were sprawling decades left before then in which to explore, and plenty of people in desperate need of help. 

“Not today,” he decided aloud.   You watched him make the call with a fondness to your expression he found oddly familiar.  Then your mouth stretched back into a lazy smile.  Viktor was going to say something else…  What was it? … Oh yes!-  “I’ll be back-”

“-At seven, yes yes.” 

He scoffed at your know-it-all interruption, and allowed a dismissive roll of his eyes as he took off towards the door. 

“Oh, and make sure to-”

“Finish my plate?” you concluded, craning your neck to eye him at the doorway.  He watched you, stretched out in his bed.  The playful challenge in your eyes.  Your shirt ( Jayce’s shirt) lifted a bit, exposing the skin of your belly. For just one moment, his mind wandered…  

Viktor snatched his train of thought back again, before it could derail itself off a cliff.  Heat threatened at the back of his neck, nevertheless. A door, once opened-  Ah.  Perhaps there were more than a few ways Jayce could be of help to him today.  Biological… distraction was no good for the flow of their work.  They’d found that out fairly early on in the process.  Unfortunately, busy scientists get horny, too (to say nothing of men ). Luckily, as with most things in their lives, they’d eventually crafted a foolproof system.  It was logical.  Efficient. A pressure valve. 

When Viktor managed his way back to the lab, Jayce had just emerged from beneath a much smaller -but still quite large- mockup of their hexgate.  Jayce was sweaty and stripped down to his undershirt, which clung very nicely-  

Viktor locked the lab door behind him.  Jayce arched a brow, looking over his partner with much more focus than his initial glance had offered.  Then he took a drink of water.  Viktor didn’t try very hard to hide the fact that he was glued to the sight.  The bobbing of his throat.  A little trickle of liquid pearling over the corner of his lip.  Hydration is vitally important, especially with the amount he’s perspired, Viktor reasoned.  It was good to see Jayce taking care of himself, that’s all.  

Viktor was a very decent liar. 

“Been a long few days, hasn’t it,” Jayce remarked softly. His face was especially pretty when he looked worried.  Prettier still with that knowing glint in his eyes.  Viktor wanted to eat him whole. Amidst the act of tracking Jayce’s slow, prowling approach, Viktor vaguely noted that it had been a long few days. Perfectly reasonable, then.  The lapse in thought back in his room was nothing more than an exhausted mind and body making associations. After all, how many times had he stood in that exact spot in the doorway, looking down at Jayce’s disheveled head in bed instead of yours?  

“Make any progress while I was gone?” Viktor wondered aloud, as Jayce’s hands finally slid, warm and sure, down his sides.  Up close he could smell grease and musk and cedarwood and- oh, yes .  He could hardly help the way he nearly fell forward into Jayce’s chest. 

“Not really,” Jayce breathed near Viktor’s ear, placing a soft kiss to his temple.  “I think we could both use a break. Thirty minutes?”  That seemed like too long to indulge, though Jayce’s wandering touches suggested otherwise. Those lips against Viktor’s cheek, and then sliding down his jawbone…  He could be infuriatingly, relievingly persuasive. 

“Twenty, I’d wager,” Viktor hummed, free hand gripping altogether far too tightly to the waistband of Jayce’s pants.  The pleased smirk hidden against the skin of Viktor’s neck did not go unnoticed. Nothing went unnoticed, when it came to Jayce. 

__________________________

Somebody was in the room with you, and it was not Jayce or Viktor.  You could tell before you even opened your eyes. The footsteps scurrying by were much too light.  It was very dark- far past 7pm when Viktor had intended to check on you.  You sat up as quickly as the stabbing pain webbing up your side and down your neck would allow.  Adrenaline made things a bit dizzy, but you were alert.   The door to the bathroom wavered slightly.  

Your arm reached out for anything on the side table next to the bed.  Fingers scraped past the lamp and bumped into smooth glass.  The water cup from earlier.  You wrapped your grip around it, and struggled silently to your feet.  Whoever it was had sounded fairly small, which meant you at least had a better shot at taking them.  It didn’t do much to quell the thudding of your heartbeat in your eardrums. 

“I know you’re there,” you called, tone as strong and even as you could force it to be.  A light, young voice whispered indistinctly from within the bathroom.  The words sounded urgent and distressed, but they were spoken so softly that they couldn't have been for your ears.  After a moment the voice dwindled away too and the room returned to utter silence.  It sent ice cold chills pinpricking down your arms and spine.   You reached down beside you to flick on the lamp light.  That was when its gentle yellow glow revealed something in the gap of darkness provided by the open door- a pale, young face.  Bright blue eyes widened in fear before the figure vanished altogether.  The blue, choppy hair…  

Fuck. 

You dropped the hand clutching the water glass to your side, though you did not put it away.  Especially after the previous night, you knew better than to underestimate her. Or who she might have brought…  A far more distressing possibility fogged around the periphery of your mind. 

“Is he with you?” you demanded to know. 

Silence.  A rustling of something.  Then silence again. 

You sighed very deeply, then.  Lurking for this long wasn’t a Silco game, as far as you were concerned.  He liked the dramatics, but preferred them to take place in front of an audience and typically in order to prove a point.  Silco had already proved his point ten times over by now. No, this was something else…  Perhaps something worse. 

“You’re definitely not supposed to be here,” you chided.  She made a soft sound, akin to an irritated whine.  It seemed like she was genuinely upset.  The idea was almost enough to make you forget the bomb she’d lobbed at you earlier.  Almost.   “Go home, Powder.  Before you get us both killed.”   

It wasn’t fair.  None of this was.  She deserved Violet, and Vander, and her older brothers- guiding hands who loved her and protected her, instead of shaping her into a weapon.  In some sick way, you knew Silco imagined himself to be that person, now.  It curdled your belly.  You tried to picture the current version of him teaching her to write. Practicing times tables with her.  Making sure she ate her meals.  Tucking her in at night.  Doubtful that he deemed such things worthy of his precious time anymore. 

“Is it true?”  Her voice had begun to take on a raspy quality as she got older.  It reminded you of Felicia. 

“Is what true?” you questioned. 

“You can’t come back?” 

A spoiling, decaying nausea. 

“No, I can’t.”  

Everything was still again.  If you really tried, you could pick up the heaviness of her breathing.  You wondered if it was possible to hit your head hard enough to see small preteens who weren’t there.  Then the door burst open, and she careened towards you.  On instinct, you raised your arms to protect yourself.  She barreled into you, her stick-thin arms trying their best to cling to your torso.  The force of it brought white-hot stinging pain to the forefront of your nerves, but you bit your tongue rather than let out the string of curses.  Your arms floated around either side of her, frozen and unsure.  She was holding onto you.  Why?   You’d never had much of a relationship.   Your time under Silco’s thumb in recent years had certainly kept you in her path, but it wasn’t like you’d been racking up babysitting hours.  

“Why do you care where I go?  Also be careful, your dad and his goons beat the shit out of me last night,” you managed, cutting off a groan of pain as she squeezed particularly tight at your side.  She pushed away from you to eye you testily. 

“He’s not my dad,” she grumbled. 

“Oh yeah?”  You weren’t sure if the ringing starting up in your ears was anger or a symptom from the earlier blast.  “Then why are you doing work for him that he didn’t even ask you to do?  I saw the way he was watching for you last night. He was surprised you were there. You snuck out after bedtime just to fuck me over-!”

“-No!  No, no, no! ” insisted Powder, beginning to shake her head incessantly.  You recognized the motion.  It reminded you of someone trying to shake off nosey flies buzzing too close to the ears.   Your chest began to tighten.  I’m fucking this up .    

“Powder, I-”

“You’re the last one I had,” she bemoaned softly.   Her curled fists were starting to rub against her temples, mussing up her hair.  “If you leave, nobody will tell me stories about her anymore.  Nobody else talks about her.  They tell me to shut up.”  Powder’s voice, laden with misery and tears, cut into you deeper than any knife could ever reach.  Your lower lip trembled.  Why were you freezing up?  Didn’t you know what to do?  Hadn’t you grown up practicing how to comfort your younger sister in her moments of distress?  If anything, this was meant to be an area of expertise for you.   

“I can-” you tried, but she overlapped your train of thought to grunt frustratedly and hit at the side of her head.  “Stop, Powder!”  It was the threat of inflicted pain that kicked your bones into action.  You surged forward, trying to pry her hands away from her face.  At the feeling of your touch, she flinched back and tried to slap at you instead.  

“No!  Stupid, stupid- !”

“You’re not stupid, Powder,” you murmured.  You let her throw the abuse at you instead, keeping your hands up to block the worst of it actually hurting you.  In the rambling flow of words, you could only catch a few of them.  Vi.  Shut up, Mylo.  Jinx .  All you could think to do was shush her.  “It’s okay,” you told her.  “Shhh, just breathe.”  A low, pained sound worked its way out of her throat.  Her arms were slowing in their flailing, though.  Occasionally her eyes would actually meet yours with some recognition.  “I’ll tell you stories about her, if you want,” you offered.  The next fist flying toward your open palm decayed in speed until it simply rested against the skin instead.  “I can write them down, so you can keep them.”  She was trembling.  “I… I miss my sister too.”  

That got her attention. Her eyes snapped to yours, and you could see in them a fog that cleared away- if just for a moment.  Small hands gripped tightly to your forearms. Here, heaving in desperate breaths together, you were reminded yet again of her youth.  A thirteen year old had no place in this bullshit meat grinder that Silco had helped to further foster.  

Powder had often been one to doze off in the evenings, usually while keeping Vander company in The Last Drop.  Like their pulses were somehow connected, Vi always seemed to appear right when Powder needed her.   The soft roundness of Powder’s cheek pressing into Vi’s shoulder as she lugged her away…  Those were the girls you knew.  Even if the cruelty of this world had molded Powder into something different now, perhaps there was a way-

Viktor’s keys rustled in the lock at the front door.   You turned to look at the noise, heart lurching.   What would he think?  Would he understand her presence here?  Your gut told you yes, but did you even understand it?  It was as the door swung open that you realized you’d lost the feeling of Powder’s fingers digging into your skin.   You pivoted on your heel to face a now-empty room.   The only sign she had ever been there at all was the flapping of the curtain at the open window.   Sharp agony caught at your throat.  All this urgency to help, these instincts you’d dulled and hidden from, rushed to the surface once more.  You’d failed.  Again .  A door, once opened…  

Viktor called after you from the doorway to the bedroom.  There was a choice to make, now, while your back was turned.  Admit that something had happened, or play it off.  You tried to breathe deeply to calm yourself, but the act just wrenched at your freshly jostled ribs.  

“Sorry,” you croaked, steeling yourself.  

There was enough going on.  You’d probably never see Powder again, whether you wanted to or not.  Unless she found her way back to you…  You’d have to tuck the experience into your heart, and do your best to lock it up tight.   

“Are you alright?” he asked, clearly spooked to find you standing idly in dim lamplight at whatever hour it must be. Once you were sure you could control your expression, you finally turned.  

“‘Course.  Just woke up.  Little out of it.”  Viktor was leaning a bit more heavily on his cane, satchel slung over his shoulder.  Despite what must have been the lateness of the hour, Viktor looked wide awake.  Bright amber eyes scanned over you, alert and discerning.  He hummed at his findings.  The hint of a frown was all you caught by way of his opinion on the matter.  He turned away again and began to turn some more lights on.    “What time is it?”  As you went to follow him out of the room, you made sure to avoid looking at the bathroom door. 

“A little after one, I think,” he answered.  “I checked in on you around seven, but you were asleep.”

“You could’ve woken me.”  

“No.  You need all the rest you can manage, as our dear Miss Young so extensively pointed out this morning.”   He stopped in front of the kitchen, flicking on the light to better reveal it.  It was spotless.  You should know- you’d spent the better part of an hour and a half scrubbing it this afternoon.  “Besides, you’d clearly exerted yourself enough today,” he added dryly.   The worst part was that it had kinda felt like exercise.  When you’d started the whole endeavor, you’d had simple intentions: just one little space to clean, and alleviate some of your rampant boredom.  Maybe also (subtly) to pay Viktor back for something in all this mess.  It was easy to forget how physical cleaning could be.  The need for periodic breaks from the discomfort had stretched out the task into an unreasonably long quest- one that you’d quickly become bullheaded about completing.     

“Oh, you don’t like it?” you poked with faux-concern.  He was quiet.  With his back still facing you, it felt like being left out at sea.  Your worry became real very quickly.   Maybe he really didn’t like it.  You could see how it might feel like an imposition- or an accusation even- for a guest to clean your home unprompted.  Plus, who knew what kind of topsider ‘rules of conduct and politeness’ you might be missing out on.  Every interaction you’d ever had with a Piltie had felt like a dangerous game of roulette, in which you were somehow always destined to lose.   Viktor wasn’t a Piltie, but he’d lived here long enough to have adopted some of those expectations.  It had just occurred to you to open your mouth and apologize when he finally turned to look at you.  His face was relaxed, his small smile radiating warmth.  

“Thank you,” he said. 

You averted your eyes to the tile.  The sincerity of his tone had encouraged an uncharacteristic wash of bashfulness to take the place of your earlier fear.  

“Thanks for… you know.”  

Nice.  Very articulate.  Your promotion starts tomorrow.   

“For having me,” you tried again, risking a glance back to his face.  He was no longer watching you.  Instead, his focus seemed to have turned towards a cabinet in the corner of the kitchen from which he pulled two mugs.  All you got in response for your gratitude was a hand thrown dismissively over his shoulder.   

“Would you like tea?” he asked.  

“Yeah, actually, that sounds really nice,” you admitted.  The adrenaline from your previous interaction was wearing off more and more, leaving in its wake a bone-deep exhaustion.  Something warm could perhaps soothe the cool ache that accompanied the new absence you harbored inside.   

So you sat at the other side of the kitchen bar, favoring your uninjured side, and waited.  Viktor worked, haloed by worn, off-yellow overhead lights, appearing much the same as he did in the lab.  It was nice to get a little taste of what you’d been missing in your time away.  You’d be halfway through your shift with him by now, anyways.  Wasn’t it so strange, how adaptable humans could be?  Just a few weeks in, and it felt normal to miss the workflow of a science lab that once felt as foreign to you as stepping onto the surface of the moon.   

“You can put a record on, if you’d like,” Viktor offered, his attention never leaving the box of assorted tea bags he was rooting through.  Your interest piqued.  At the opposite corner of the room was the record player, which had sat untouched since your arrival.  You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been tempted earlier.  Just felt… wrong, somehow, without permission.  A little ironic given your previous occupation (and the subject of your final heist at said occupation), sure.  As you approached the bin of records now, you felt a pang of loss.  Your little music player and pair of headphones were among the few precious possessions now relinquished forever to your old home.  It was far from the worst of what had been taken from you, but it still stung.  Zaunite technology- things that no Piltie had yet to crack or turn into some commodified cash grab- that was yours .  There’d always been a sense of pride to having them.   (Perhaps perversely) it felt like proof of concept.   

Viktor had an expansive collection of records, most of which appeared hand-me-down or thrifted.  The covers were worn and smooth beneath your fingertips.  Many of the pieces were classical or otherwise orchestral-heavy, which was of no great surprise.  You’d begun to imagine the inner structure of his mind to be akin to the construction of such music.  Swelling and retracting, rising and falling, striking and soothing.  A few pieces looked familiar enough to you to go for, and you were just about to pluck one when a mustard-yellow cover toward the back of the stack caught your eye.  Excitement hummed a weak pattern beneath the skin.  The choice was suddenly exceedingly obvious.  

The first track bloomed into the air of the room.  You were careful to keep the volume relatively low.  Neighbors were more likely to get an Enforcer involved here for loud noises, instead of just banging on each others’ doors like normal people.  Acoustic instrumentals bled together with a duet of feathery voices.  They sang in a language you had never been able to understand, but their performances made up for the communication barrier tenfold.  You hummed along happily, watching the record spin round and round and round.   

“Your tea,” Viktor piped up from behind you.  “I tried not to make it too sweet.”  You accepted it gratefully, fighting the smile pulling at your lips.  Clearly he had taken your reaction to his preference in coffee flavor to heart, in spite of your effort to censor it.  

“We should compare the taste between the two,” you pitched, feigning ignorance at the mischief of such an idea.  The heat of the ceramic on your palms oozed down your arms like an infection of calm .  Viktor eyed you up and down, tired sass shimmering beneath the neutrality of his face.  

“I think not,” he retorted.  He placed his own mug on the side table, and then sat rather heavily onto the couch.   Though you didn’t dare to point it out, you cataloged the sigh of relief he muffled into the back of your head.  It was already achy and swimming anyhow after the events of tonight- what was one more thought to shove inside it?  “How is your head?”  Viktor sipped his tea casually, as though he were not a mind reader.   You did your best to focus on a response, rather than give into the temptation to begin testing the absurd theory.  

…

If you can hear me, put your feet up on the table.   He continued watching you, expression growing curious at your silence.  He did not move his legs.  Perfect.  Here’s a lie, then:

“I’m fine.  I’ve gotten knocked in the head plenty of times before.  Probably why math looks like alphabet soup to me,” you jested.  Your first sip of tea was hot and grassy, though any bitterness was quelled by the wash of honey.  He’d managed to make another normal beverage for you- further evidence that his addiction to liquid sweetener was simply a choice affliction.   

“Alphabet soup, eh?  I think I’ll need a demonstration-”

“Hah!  That’s a good one,” you interrupted boisterously.  “I’m not attempting anything approaching math while you’re watching.”   You rocked from side to side a bit, testing your weight on your feet.  The right side, where the damage to your ribs occurred, was definitely more off-balance.  It was a frustrating injury; one that had originally faded into the background of the fight that night. You had Sevika’s boot to thank for what would no doubt be an aggravating process of returning to neutral.

“Why not?” Viktor pushed, hiding his mouth behind another sip from the mug.  “If you struggle with it, I must say there are capable teachers at your disposal.”  He… had a point. Not one you had the energy to consider with any detail at the moment, but all the same.  “Jayce is the better teacher, by far,” Viktor admitted openly enough.  “Patience is a virtue we both struggle with, but he seems to find more success at it.”  

“In the interest of keeping my job, I’ll say no thank you.” 

“Why would you lose your job?”

“Well if the angry tears don’t get the termination paperwork flowing, then the rage-quitting definitely will,” you assured him.  You winced at the recollection of past attempts at ‘learning’ math.  It had felt not dissimilar to getting the shit kicked out of you in a dark alleyway.  

“If tears and anger lost you a job here, I’m afraid one Jayce Talis would’ve certainly been barred from campus ages ago,” Viktor chuckled, his head shaking fondly at whatever memory was conjuring to the surface.  “With me following suit swiftly afterward.”   You hummed in thought, taking a longer sip.   The chance to stand and move your body was nice, but the fatigue and stress from your earlier interaction were really starting to bear down on you.  For just a moment, you wavered on your feet, and blinked sharply to refocus on your balance.  Viktor said nothing, though his eyes were still firmly planted on you.  You knew better than to translate silence into ignorance.  

“Hard to picture that,” you thought aloud, finally forcing yourself to settle on the other end of the couch.  Your slump into the cushions was careless.  You reaped the cruel reward of a fresh shooting pain up your side into your neck.   

“Picture what?”

“You throwing a hissy fit,” you supplied.  Maybe that was a bit bold.   Viktor didn’t seem to mind it.  He just huffed ruefully, and leaned his head on his hand, his elbow on the back of the couch helping to prop him up.  

“I fear there will be a positive correlation between the length of your time here and the likelihood of you bearing witness to such a thing,” he confessed, a bit sheepish.  

“Good,” you smiled to yourself.  

“Good?”  Viktor looked surprised.  

“Yeah.  You’ve seen my mess already…  Think you’ve earned the right to show off some of your own.  Within reason.  Don’t start any fights with me.”  The tone was playfully threatening.  

“What, afraid you’d lose to the guy with the bum leg?” he cracked back, eyes testing.  You snorted.  

“No.  You’re just not allowed to get mad when I swipe that cane on the first try.”  That made him laugh.  It was low and subdued, but your ears fixated on it amidst the music wafting in the background.  You liked to see him laughing.  Some of the stress lines on his face smoothed away when he did.  

For a while, you slipped back into what was assuredly your most well-practiced form of interaction so far- companionable silence.  The good ol’ reliable.  It was the perfect opportunity to melt back into the music.  If you remembered correctly, you must be about a third of the way through the album by now.  The current song was much more down tempo then the earlier track.   Swelling strings and delicately plucked guitar danced together in a melancholic lullaby.  A soft, feminine voice would thread sentiments of longing between the phrases.  You wished you knew what exactly she was saying, but you understood enough for it to make you feel.  

It was comfortable here.  Out there, in Piltover, was another story altogether.  The thought of having to come to terms with it brought an incessant pressure to the side of your temple.  In here, with the door closed, however…  You needed to be careful.  Threats might not be as in-your-face here as they were in Zaun, but they abounded nevertheless.  A trap camouflaged by comfort was just as likely to kill as a gun or a knife.  

Viktor’s eyes were on you.  You could feel it before you turned to look.  He seemed deep in thought, like he was trying to puzzle something, and jumped in quiet surprise to find you looking back.  

“Sorry,” Viktor muttered.  His eyes did not move away.   

“What are you thinking about?”  

“Uhm…  Your choice in music, actually,” he said.  You cocked your head to the side a bit, confused.  “It seems like you know this album,” he expanded.  

“Oh!  I do,” you confirmed with a fond smile.  “I was surprised to see it in the collection.  My dads played this one in the evenings sometimes, growing up,” you supplied further.  “I wish I knew the language.  Never did find out where it’s from.  Everything sounds so beautiful when they say it.  Almost makes me believe in love.”  You laughed to yourself.  Then you tipped the dregs of the mug down your throat.  

When you looked at Viktor again, his face was a bit pink in the cheeks.  Your stomach tightened.  Suddenly you were racing through every single word you’d said, trying to replay the intonation.  Had you said something embarrassing?  

“You don’t believe in love?” he asked, quietly.  

You mulled over your next words very carefully.  Felt them prick and shift on your tongue.  

“I do.  I’ve loved friends and family and stuff.”  

“Ah, I see,” he nodded.  His fingers fiddled idly with a strand of his hair near his neck.  “Not a romantic, then.”  

The conversation suddenly felt like it had stakes to it, though you couldn’t imagine why.  He certainly wasn’t pressuring you to answer, or making you feel uneasy.  This tension was all your own.  

“No,” you found the courage to confirm.   “You?”

He was stoic, winding that stray curl around and around and around.  

“I try to avoid it.  Whenever possible.” 

You watched each other for what felt like a long moment.  The distance between you on the couch felt like a canyon.  Yet, you could feel your minds inching closer.  Finding yet another niche in which to carve out synthesis.  Understanding was a terrifying drug, indeed.  

“I can translate for you, sometime, if you’d like.”  

“Hmm?” you wondered, caught off-guard by the change of topic.  

“The, eh… The album.  I can translate it,” he clarified.  

“What?  How many languages do you speak?” you reeled, exasperated.  His smile was sleepy and fond.  

“Just two.  It’s my first language,” he explained, apparently growing more amused at the increasing shock on your face.  

“I can’t believe it… Yes, yes, I’d really like that! I’ve always wanted to know what they’re saying,” you spoke excitedly.  You could hear it now, a bit.  The accents were similar, with the obvious counter of the language differential.  You couldn’t help the sunny smile that had beamed across your face.  Meanwhile his eyes darted about your expression, calculating.  An idea was forming.  You could smell it. 

Whatever it was, he seemed to let it brush by.  For now.  The two of you fell back to your silence.  It was harder to keep your eyelids from drooping, especially with a belly full of warm tea.  The record played through a few more tracks.  Some you knew well enough to hum quietly along to, letting your eyes fall closed.  Time floated into abstract.   

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

A hand rested itself carefully on your shoulder.  You spooked, just for a moment, before you remembered where you were.  The music was gone.  The living room was dimmer than before, now that the kitchen lights were off.   It was hard to see Viktor’s face very clearly as he looked down at you.   

“You should sleep on a mattress,” he encouraged gently, removing his hand.  Your sleepy, foggy brain mourned the loss of touch.  

“ ‘S fine, Viktor,” you mumbled, waving him off.  “It’s your bed.  You should have a turn at it.”

“I’m going back to the lab,” he informed you.  That had you blinking wearily, trying to wake up more to focus.  Going back to the lab?  How late was it?  After a few more rapid blinks, the clock on the wall focused from the blur of sleep enough to be read.  

“It’s almost 3 in the morning,” you accused around a wide, pained yawn.  The abrupt stretching at your chest was not appreciated.  In your exhaustion, the groan of discomfort went unmuted.  

“I’m aware,” he replied wryly.  “I dozed off for a while as well.  I’ll be back in an hour or two, to rest again.  There’s something I have to check.”   Viktor extended his hand to you, gesturing insistently for you to take it.   You eyed it grouchily, rubbing at your temples.  He just stared back, equally stubborn.  Finally, you took his offer, and allowed him to help you to your feet.  Everything felt stiff and sore.  The next few days would be the most annoying, pain and mobility-wise.  Healing was good, but not necessarily easy.  You huffed, trying to swallow down the irritation.  It must not have been a very good attempt, because he chuckled a bit to himself as he left you to grab his satchel off the counter.  

“What?” you dug.

“Nothing, it’s just…” he trailed, shouldering his bag.  Viktor turned to give you a final once over.  His expression was carefully guarded.   “It’s nothing.  I’ll be back soon.  Get some rest.”  This time he did not wait for more.  He turned on heel and exited with his usual driven swiftness.

Silence filled the air again.  You could hear your own breathing, still slightly haggard in your current state.  You were too exhausted to fight the loneliness, so you let it fill you up like an empty cup, and tried not to spill over as you dragged yourself to bed.