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── .𐀔. ── .𐀔. ──
He’s not sure exactly what the circumstances that led to this situation are. Jayce was a little drunk, and Viktor was heavily sleep-deprived, yet instead of going home to rest, they found themselves sprawled on the floor of the lab. It was not an odd occurrence; the peculiar situation came after that initial setting.
There is one solace to the investor galas that Jayce now must suffer through — the guarantee that once over, he can return to the quietness of the lab to unwind with his partner or fall asleep to the sound of Viktor’s tinkering. He should worry about that; Viktor tends to overwork himself and forget to go home for the night. It’s a nasty habit but it’s a habit that benefits Jayce and sometimes — read: a lot of times since Hextech has truly made its mark, and especially now that the Hexgates are in the final stage of installation — he’s a little selfish.
That evening though, he didn’t find Viktor working, no, the man was sitting on the floor, back against the couch and head thrown back, an unlit blunt hanging from his mouth. The room did not smell of weed, though.
“Need some fire?” Jayce asked, sitting next to him.
“Need a distraction,” Viktor replied, spitting the blunt out and gesturing to his leg. He’d unclasped the buckles of his brace but did not remove it completely yet. “Did you bring anything back?”
Jayce hummed, showing off a bottle of expensive wine he managed to steal from the buffet. From Noxus, he believes. He doesn’t really care.
So after helping Viktor remove his leg brace to be more comfortable, Jayce handed him the bottle with no intention of drinking further himself. In fact, he lay down on the floor with his legs haphazardly thrown on the couch.
So here they are now. Alone, on the cold harsh floor of their poorly lit lab. An image reminiscent of many other nights before this one.
But there is something different in the air that night. Jayce can’t pinpoint what, he simply embraces it as he watches Viktor’s slender hand draw absent circles on the floor.
“Might as well lie on the couch Itself,” Viktor comments eventually, though he seems amused by the display.
“It's comfortable,” Jayce replies. “Could ask you why I found you on the floor.”
“Missed the couch. Decided to stay there.”
A pause. Jayce hums. “Pain that bad tonight?” A grunt answers him before Viktor throws his bad leg into his open arms. “You could always ask Sky to help. We hired her for a reason.” And because Jayce has been spending less time in the lab as of late, not as a choice of his own, but…
“You know how I feel about asking for that sort of thing.”
“I do,” Jayce concedes, massaging his leg. “But you let me help.”
“Yes, well.” Viktor takes a swig of the wine. “You're you.”
Whatever that means, it makes Jayce smile.
“How was the party?” Viktor asks, swiftly changing the subject.
“Dreadful as always. Would be better with you.”
Viktor is silent for a few moments, looking at him. Jayce pretends to not notice by putting all his attention on his partner’s leg.
“You would think you would be used to it by now,” his partner says eventually.
“I am. Doesn't mean I like it,” Jayce points out. “Salo was particularly annoying tonight.”
“When is he not? Entitled and whiny…”
Jayce snorts at that. “You’ve known these guys longer than me… any funny anecdote?”
Viktor ponders before he snorts and says, “Before I became Heimerdinger’s assistant and they were still figuring out what to do with a rogue Zaunite infiltrating the academy, Councilor Salo very, eh, strongly suggested that I become his escort.”
Jayce almost chokes on nothing.
“What?!”
“Said no, of course, despite the very enticing pay.” Viktor wiggles his leg a little, making Jayce realise he quite literally froze. “Is it really that surprising?”
“No— I mean yes— I mean—”
“Breathe, Jayce.”
“It’s just— you seem… very nonchalant about this.”
Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Hardly something I did not get before.” Is Jayce crazy or does he hear a hint of pride in his partner’s voice? “Actually, Councillor Medarda made an offer as well. Minus the sex part, of course.”
“Mel?” Now that is new and truly surprising. “Why didn’t you take it, then? Being sponsored by the richest house in Piltover…”
“I would have been a political pawn,” Viktor answers. He shakes his head when Jayce makes a protesting noise, ready to defend someone. Not sure who yet. “I suppose that is not too different from an investment now. Anyhow. Back then, she was still growing her name. The infamous exiled Noxus princess, she had something to prove. She had people she needed to sway to her side, including…”
“The undercity? Wouldn’t that have benefited you anyway, to help your people like you’ve always wanted?”
“Perhaps,” Viktor admits. “I was a prideful little shit though. And maybe… maybe I resented where I came from, too, and didn’t want that to define me. I was desperate to escape it after all.”
“You love Zaun.” It’s a statement, Jayce knows. Viktor rarely ever leaves the lab or take days off but when he does he knows he goes back to Zaun. They never discuss who he visits, Jayce has never dared to push during the many years they’ve known each other now.
Frankly, a part of him worries that he would not be able to handle the idea of Viktor having a life of his own, without him, on the other side of that bridge. Afraid that, if push came to shove, perhaps he would not come back.
“I do,” Viktor confirms. “Now that my ungrateful self has had a taste of Piltover’s reality behind the Gilded Dream.” Jayce winces. Definitely something Viktor is repeating, he's guessing. “What I was ashamed of became my pride. It’s a good thing though, I would have been seen as a traitor to my people, a sellout, well, more than I currently am but at least my face isn’t advertised.” He takes another swig as he mocks an exaggerated shiver. “Who knows, if I had said yes, perhaps we’d be in the same situation. The poster boy of ‘look, not all scums from the undercity are bad, look how this one turned out thanks to our help’. A magnificent lie.”
“... Am I a lie?” Jayce asks.
A pause as their eyes meet.
Then Viktor tilts his head, in that familiar teasing way of his. “Was I talking about you? A little egotistical, don’t you think?”
Jayce huffs out a laugh. “It’s just… I always thought it was strange that Heimerdinger and Mel only pushed my face everywhere.” And Viktor never protested.
“Well, Hextech is your theory.”
“And it’s our dream.”
Viktor tenses, like he always does whenever Jayce reminds him of their partnership. A sense of doubt, of fear of belonging, always lingering. Then he pokes his nose. “Do not be daft, though. We both know why.”
“It doesn’t mean I like it. I am not originally from Piltover either, I mean I did… grow up here, but still. Mel settled here even later than me. How come people accept us but wouldn't accept you?” Maybe it makes him naive.
Viktor taps his shoulder pad — or more precisely, the sigil embedded at the top of it.
“A name. It makes you worth something. A pretty face, too.”
“You're pretty!”
Viktor scoffs. “Thanks.”
Jayce's face falls. “You don't believe me.”
“I do believe you. I also know it is not true. Both can coincide.”
“You got propositioned multiple times by your own admission and you're sitting here, telling me you being hot is a lie?”
Viktor raises an eyebrow. “It wasn't because I'm hot, it's because I'm from the undercity. In their eyes, if you're not a criminal, you're a whore.”
“Viktor…”
“By associating with Heimerdinger I avoided those accusations. Even if people didn't accept me they couldn't deny my intellect. They had to listen to me when I did lectures. Now I'm associated with you, and people talk, talk, talk… they think I do not hear.”
Jayce pauses at that, trying to meet his partner's eyes but Viktor keeps his gaze stubbornly on the floor. It would be lying if he said he hadn't heard rumours about them before. The Golden Boy and his elusive partner, always in the shadows. He's mostly ignored them, it is the fastest way for them to fade away eventually.
Or at least to not be as prominent as when they first began.
“Do you regret it now, then?”
“Never,” Viktor answers immediately, making Jayce relax, heart melting at the certainty. “What we do is important. Of course, teaching the future minds is important too but it was boring. And the entrance exam isn’t exactly fair, lots of bribing, lots of people there because their parents want them to be, not because they want to be here…”
That last part is muttered but Jayce hears it anyway— he’s aware of the corruption seething in these hallways now and the fact that any applicants from the undercity are denied. Viktor had to almost throttle Heimerdinger until the yordle finally agreed to review Sky’s application, later admitting he had never seen it in the first place, meaning someone must have discarded it in the acceptance process despite her test coming back almost perfect. The same way Viktor’s application was, all those years ago, until he took matters into his own hands and forced his way in.
Jayce likes to think that that has changed since, now that Viktor and Sky are important members of the academy. Maybe that makes him naive again.
“I don't care about what they say about me as long as our work makes a difference… one day,” Viktor continues, now staring at the ceiling with conflict in his eyes. There is a tinge of frustration and sadness in his voice.
Jayce tugs at his pants as he releases his leg, prompting Viktor to carefully lean down, the bottle of wine discarded on the side.
“Soon,” Jayce promises as Viktor lays his head on his chest with a huff. "We'll get to do what we actually want to do with our dream."
“I do hate it too, you know? That you need to kiss their asses so we get the damn money to continue our research. How one prissy Piltie gets pissed off and all our work could vanish. I just— I can’t do it.”
“I know,” Jayce murmurs. “I can handle it. In the meantime, our hands are tied.”
“Are they? We’re the ones with the knowledge and the tech. We’re the ones who could change everything with a simple flick of a switch. What happens if we just say no?”
Sometimes, Jayce thinks it's a miracle that Viktor has listened to what the Council wants for so long, considering his stubborn streak and love to break the rules. Sometimes, he wonders if this docile, complacent side of him is due to his respect for Heimerdinger... or, more egotistically perhaps, Jayce wonders if it is for him that Viktor has endured all of this.
“No money and no Hextech for anyone. And if all our stuff is confiscated, who knows in whose hands they might fall,” he rationalises.
"Just steal it back."
"And live our lives as outlaws escaping the enforcers? We'd barely have times to change others' lives."
Viktor groans. “I hate it when you make sense.”
Jayce snorts. “Nah. You love it.”
He means it in a teasing way, of course, but then Viktor chuckles softly, bringing a hand to his face as if hiding his expression when he answers, “I do.”
There is a shift in the air. Jayce feels his heart stutter and prays that Viktor cannot feel it from where he is resting his head. But then he sees his friend’s lips twitch, fighting a smile, and he knows the subtle change of pace in his heartbeat and breathing did not go unnoticed.
It’s a recurring occurrence again, one they have always left unsaid. A touch that lingers. Breathes that mingle as they look over notes. The one equation they have willingly ignored. Jayce doesn’t know Viktor’s reasons behind his restraint, but Jayce has always been afraid of messing up the perfect balance of partnership they have. Things consume him quickly, be it his work or his relationships, and Viktor sits right in the middle of these two, he represents what could easily become Jayce’s descent into madness if worst ever came to happen.
Though a part of him knows it is already a losing battle even if they never cross that line.
Jayce worries every day about what the next will bring. Viktor has an eagerness for it, for the future, always looking forward and never dwelling on what could go wrong.
Almost as if he didn’t have the time to.
“Viktor.”
Viktor shuffles closer. “Mm?”
“I really, really want to kiss you.”
A pause. Viktor exhales right into his mouth. “We're drunk.”
“Tipsy.” He’s only had… a lot of champagne and the wine Viktor has been drinking cannot be that strong if he’s still speaking fluently without occasionally slipping into his mother tongue.
“Still inebriated.”
“I will still want to kiss you when morning comes. I always do.”
The reaction he gets is not one he expects; Viktor lets out a frustrated sigh before sitting up again.
“Then we will see tomorrow. Correct?”
Jayce blinks at him. The moonlight gleams around Viktor like a halo, gentle and pure. He's temporarily distracted.
“I… don't wanna move,” he whispers like it’s a secret after what feels like hours.
“You'll complain about your back.” They both pause at the irony of Viktor being the one to say that. “At least muster the strength to crawl into the couch.”
“Stay?” Jayce asks softly.
A pause. A breath. A faint smile. “Alright.” Another pause. "Help me with my back brace, will you?"
── .𐀔. ── .𐀔. ──
The next day finds Jayce headache-free, which is a miracle in itself. As he blinks his eyes open to a still dark lab, he meets Viktor’s steady gaze, gold glinting into the darkness.
“Sleep well?” his partner asks from where he is lying on top of him. He weighs… almost nothing, Jayce doesn’t recall falling asleep like this.
“Did you sleep at all?” Jayce asks back.
“You snore.”
That doesn’t answer the question, but Viktor looks more rested and at peace than he did the night before, at least. When he makes a move to stand up, Jayce acts on instinct and grabs him, turning them over, nestling Viktor between him and the back of the couch. His partner gives him an unimpressed look.
“Now that’s just unfair of you,” he deadpans.
Jayce hesitates. “... Do you mind? Sorry, I can—”
“Breathe, Jayce.” Viktor snuggles to his side and he closes his eyes with a pleased hum as he winds his arms around Jayce’s chest. “Just teasing.”
Jayce smiles.
Then.
“Still wanna kiss you.”
Viktor doesn’t move for a beat. Eventually, he opens one eye, the corner of his lips lifting despite his valiant effort to remain impassive.
“Alright.”
Jayce holds back a whine at Viktor’s pretend nonchalance. He can feel the other’s heartbeat quicken, ever so slightly. “... So can I?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
He huffs. Fine.
Jayce carefully grabs his chin while his other hand snakes around the back of his skull, threading through a few knots in Viktor’s wild hair. Viktor hums, following the motion, not so much with eagerness, but more so naturally, as if they have done this before, as if it was just a simple fact of the world.
On a quiet morning, in an obscure lab, surrounded by complete silence, Jayce kisses Viktor. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe it’s both. Neither can tell.
It’s as chaste as can be, a simple press of the lips, lazily moving together. Viktor’s lips are slightly chapped, the taste of yesterday’s wine still lingering. Absent-mindedly, Jayce wonders if Viktor can taste the champagne on his.
Viktor is the first to pull away, giving him a kitten lick to startle him before chuckling at his flustered expression and kissing the corner of his mouth. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?!” Jayce repeats, making Viktor laugh again.
“Teasing, again.” His partner flicks him on the shoulder. “Your ego is big enough.”
Jayce pouts. “Y’know, I still can't believe Salo of all people dared to…” He can’t even finish that sentence. “Didn't know you were his type. The side-eyes have a new meaning now…”
Viktor blinks at him. “Is that truly what you wish to discuss first? Salo?”
“No, sorry, just— popped up in my mind.”
A pause. Viktor stares at him in that unnerving perceptive way of his. “Do not do anything stupid next time you see him.”
“Who said I would?”
“Jayce.”
He groans. “Fine. You may need to keep an eye on me though. Join me at the next gala, y’know, just to make sure.”
He expects Viktor to roll his eyes, maybe scoff at his ridiculous attempt to make him join in the misery of investor parties. Instead, Viktor looks uncomfortable, shrinking ever so slightly in his arms and avoiding his gaze.
“I… would rather not,” his partner says eventually.
Jayce frowns. “Viktor?”
“I know it is unfair of me to ask you to handle all that alone but… do not ask me to do this, please.”
For a moment, Jayce wants to protest, to say he simply wants his partner by his side, to show Viktor off to the world, as he deserves to be. If not his face, to at least have his name be recognised and whispered with reverence across the golden streets of Piltover.
It’s not even about him shouldering this burden alone, he gives no care for that, he just wants Viktor to get the credit he’s due, one that cannot be done only through word of mouth or a signature on a paper, the people need to see him.
But… one look at Viktor’s conflicted look and all his indignation vanishes.
“Ok… Ok,” Jayce whispers.
“One day… maybe,” Viktor concedes, though it doesn’t sound genuine, he’s trying. “It is one thing to know what they think, it is another to confront it… without risk of injuring someone with my cane.”
It’s a deflection, Jayce can tell, to distract him from the real root of Viktor’s feelings on the matter. He indulges him and doesn’t point it out, though. Not on this quiet morning, when everything feels so fragile. Instead, Jayce chuckles softly and kisses Viktor’s forehead.
“I’d take the blame.”
That gets his partner to snort. “Of course, you would. And they’d fawn over and apologise.”
“Full-proof plan!”
Viktor is smiling again. It’s all he needs for now.
That, and perhaps one more little selfish thing.
“How about… how about just out and about? If it’s not at extravagant parties and just us together on the streets or on the hallways of the academy. Is this…” Jayce grabs Viktor’s hand, gently resting it against his heart. “Okay?”
“What? Your incessant need to touch me? I hardly think it will be any different than before, will it?” If Jayce isn’t mistaken, there’s a hint of a challenge in Viktor’s voice.
Jayce hums, bringing Viktor’s wrist to his lips, leaving the ghost of a kiss on the mole he knows to be there. Viktor shudders, letting out a deep breath.
“Unless you’re uncomfortable with it, and you must tell me if you are, it’ll get worse. I will be insufferable.”
“Enough to start rumours all over again?”
“Not rumours, just the plain truth – that I’m the happiest with my beautiful and insanely smart partner. In every sense of the word.”
Adoration glints in the gold of Viktor’s eyes as he laughs and completely gives in to Jayce’s sappy ideals. “Well then, do your worst, Talis.”