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Chapter Text

SEPTEMBER

The white writing on the green chalkboard did nothing to sate Viktor’s nerves as he took his seat.

Senior Engineering Capstone Course:

Day 1,

Partner Assignments

Two dozen rows of seats all looked down toward the chalked handwriting in an appropriately arena-like format, while a short, strawberry-blonde-haired man with a mustache that comprised half of his face fiddled with his laptop and sipped a mug of black coffee. The mug read “No.1 Hardass” in red lettering. Charming. At least Viktor’s sharp eyesight allowed him this much insight into the man who was set to determine his fate for the next nine months.

“Straight to it, then,” came a nodding sigh of a voice to Viktor’s left, and he threw a glance at Dmitri, who was slumping into the swiveling purple seat beside him.

Viktor’s housemate—which… was a title Viktor was still getting used to for the boy who he’d tutored last spring—pulled at the zipper of his gray Patagonia quarter-zip, sporting the sleek logo for his father’s Chicago-based investment firm, Mirage. Viktor couldn’t believe he’d donned a sweater of all things, given the humidity outside. The only indication of Dmitri’s compliance with the weather was the fact that his long black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail.

Dmitri whistled low under his breath, eyebrows raising. “Why waste time on a syllabus when we can just get right to the torture?”

“Three years of insufferable math and physics, all our hard work,” Viktor let a nervous kind of chuckle slip past his lips, shaking his head. “And we get a randomly assigned partner for the last, most important part of our degrees.”

“Criminal,” Dmitri groaned, propping his feet up on the table in front of them and leaning back in his chair. “Just criminal.”

“Just admit it.” Viktor gave him a side-eye. “You’re hoping to get paired with me.”

Dmitri caught Viktor’s glance, but held his balance in his chair, though it took him a moment to respond. “Sounds like you’re projecting.”

Viktor hummed, pulling his blank notepad out and tapping the eraser of his pencil against his lips.

“You know what they say,” he teased—this was often their dynamic, Viktor taunting his friend here and there, and Dmitri playing along. “Manifest it. You know… eh, speak it into existence. All that.”

Dmitri clicked his tongue and smirked, tapping the side of his temple with two fingers. “Way ahead of you, honey.”

Dmitri’s chair came down hard on the carpet, and before he could say anything further, a trilling, flamboyant voice rose from the front of the room.

“Take your seats, yes, take your seats, please!”

Dr. Heimerdinger ushered a few stragglers into the lecture hall, and scurried over to the door that was propped open to the right of the wide chalkboard, kicking up its stopper and letting it swing closed.

“Now then, welcome to your Senior Capstone course,” the squat man crossed to stand behind his desk. “And my congratulations on making it to this, the pinnacle of your undergraduate careers.”

A skeptical kind of silence rose amidst the settling students. This man was known to be notoriously nit-picky. Alumni referred to him as ‘the fence-sitter from hell’ more often than not.

“I applaud each of you for arriving on time. But that’s enough hand-holding on my part—you are here to excel, to discover new horizons, not to get a pat on the back!” Dr. Heimerdinger crossed again toward the lecture hall’s door, heading for the lightswitch, no doubt about to start his presentation and throw them all in the deep end. “You are innovators. Explorers with keen minds. The examples that you all set today, in this class, will determine not only your own futures, but those of the engineers of tomorrow—”

The professor’s fingers were on the lightswitch’s panel, reaching up and just about to flip the switch when the door to the lecture hall burst open, and holding the handle was a tall, sweaty student with his dark hair tousled from… what Viktor could only assume was his sprint to get to class.

Not just any student.

Jayce Talis.

For a heartbeat, everything else dissolved: the murmur of settling students, the soft rustle of paper being pulled from bags and binders, laptops whirring, the persistent hum of Dr. Heimerdinger’s intricate speech… Gone. All of it: quiet.

Viktor’s breath was lodged somewhere behind his sternum as he observed the panting figure, backlit by the harsh light from the fourth-floor hallway. His fit, broad silhouette catching all the gazes in the room. The rise and fall of Jayce’s chest betrayed his exertion as a faint flush stained his cheeks—whether from the run or the sharp weight of so many eyes on him, it was hard to tell.

Dr. Heimerdinger’s bushy eyebrows arched over razor-sharp, expectant eyes. The entire room held its breath, waiting to see if the professor’s infamous temper would make an appearance.

“Mr. Talis. Excellent of you to join us.” But instead, he just adjusted his glasses with deliberate calm, and spoke with a clipped gesture of his hand. “Fashionably late, it would seem.”

The young man raised a hand in apology, still trying to catch his breath, his smile a little too charming for someone who was late to the most important class of the semester—of their entire undergraduate years.

“Right, yes, sorry!” Jayce finally managed. “My bus was late, there was a woman crossing the street, and I—”

“No need,” Dr. Heimerdinger waved a dismissive hand with a reluctant sigh. The professor muttered something under his breath as he motioned Jayce in that sounded like, “can’t make allowances just because you are my advisee.”

“Professor, I really am—” Jayce tried again, apologetic.

Dr. Heimerdinger interrupted him curtly. “Just find a seat, lad.”

Jayce gave a small nod, clasping his hands behind his back as if on instinct, shoulders rising up to his ears sheepishly before he began to move. Viktor watched those hazel eyes sweep across the lecture hall in search of a vacant spot, noticing secondarily that the strings of Jayce’s gray Northwestern University hoodie were tied in a neat bow. Such a small, cute detail… and yet it threatened to derail Viktor’s entire center of focus.

There’s a spot by me, his mind sang unbidden, the vacant chair looming to his right in his peripheral vision. Focus: derailed. What if he sits by me? What if he—

As Jayce made his way up the stairs, he passed directly by Viktor’s row, not sparing more than a quick glance to see that Viktor’s bag was in the vacant seat, his cane resting against it, making it appear as if the space were occupied. Something cold and sharp fell through Viktor’s stomach. Eyes still lingering on that broad, retreating form, he heard Dmitri scoff beside him.

“Guy sure knows how to make an impression,” Dmitri muttered, the wry expression on his face as dry as his tone.

Oh, Viktor knew that better than anyone.

He swallowed hard, the sound small but loud in his own ears, his gaze still tracing the edge of Jayce’s movements as he finally sat down two rows back.

“Right.” Viktor finally breathed softly.

Of course, Viktor knew who Jayce Talis was, how could he forget?

Wunderkind. Aloof problem child. Future tech messiah. A charming man of progress, infamous for his winning smile, self-assured wit, and the fact that no matter how fuckable he was… no one could ever seem to get too close to him. Of course, it all depended on who you asked, and Viktor shuddered at the memory of those swirling headlines now. Suffice to say, there was no shortage of opinions on Jayce Talis. The boy’s name came up in departmental honors meetings and at parties alike, despite the fact that he was essentially unattached to anyone at their school. Rumors circulated like currency around campus, but Viktor didn’t just know the broad strokes about Jayce… it wasn’t something he’d ever admit to openly, but…

Even before those glossy questions and buzzing rumors had accumulated…

Viktor was an academic at heart, with an excellent memory. Even three years later, it all came back to him clearly. After all, he hadn’t just heard about Jayce. He had studied him.

They’d first met during their freshman year. It was a seminar on applied Chemistry theory, a bit advanced for most first years. Jayce had taken a seat beside Viktor, his hair wet from a morning shower, smelling of peppermint and something like faded smoke. Jayce’s hands were restless, fingers twirling his pen in-hand as he quietly rewrote half the problem the professor had put on the board. Viktor had inevitably glanced at his own notes, comparing what Jayce was scribbling to his own restructured diagram. They were… rather similar. Though Jayce’s approach appeared tentative. Conservative. Shy, if Viktor was honest.

When Jayce caught him looking, those tired eyes only lingering on Viktor’s briefly, he’d offered a small, closed-lip expression, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Resonance,” Viktor had offered quietly, careful to avoid the detection of their professor at the time.

“Huh?” Jayce had asked under his breath, not looking at him again.

“The resonance,” Viktor repeated, underlining a section of his own notes. “Will stabilize it.”

Jayce’s eyes had snagged on Viktor’s open notebook, on his chickenscratch cursive.

“Don’t you think?” Viktor had prompted, at Jayce’s lack of a response.

“I think that this assignment,” Jayce had shrugged. At the shift of his body, Viktor had noticed that there were dark circles hiding under the veil of Jayce’s long eyelashes. “Is structurally shortsighted.”

They did not speak again, but Viktor, his curiosity piqued, watched as at the end of that class period Jayce had signed the corner of his notes in a flourish before unceremoniously slamming his notebook shut, leaving their shared table without so much as a backwards glance, seemingly unaware of the slip of worn paper that had fluttered out of his backpack. Viktor plucked it from the ground, a hand raised as if to call Jayce back—but the other boy was already gone. Scrunched brows steepling his forehead, Viktor’s fingers had fallen to trace the faded, pencil-written line of text; the only thing to be found on the discarded scrap, other than a few overlapping rings of coffee stains.

If you don’t let it bend, it will break.

He had considered making a point of giving the weathered parchment back to Jayce, but they never sat together again in that class, or any other. Viktor had shut the paper, and its curious, scrawling handwriting—so unlike Jayce’s purposefully elegant penmanship—inside of his textbook, locked away between two early Chemistry chapters.

He kept on studying Jayce, regardless of the token he’d kept.

Given that brief initial interaction, the first thing Viktor had thought was that this boy was unbearably arrogant.

The second was that, though Viktor only admitted it reluctantly, Jayce was rather brilliant. Plenty of people at their university were smart, but few surprised Viktor with their intellect. Jayce did, that day they’d sat side by side.

The third and perhaps least interesting thought that had come to mind back then was… well. Anyone could guess just by looking at Jayce. It was irrelevant. The other boy obviously wasn’t interested in Viktor in… that way. There was no point in dwelling on it.

He watched from afar as, from one semester to another, the dark circles beneath Jayce’s eyes ebbed, replaced by a flush of hard work and determination. Jayce made his work dance. From large lecture halls packed with young scholars to gossip between classmates, Viktor kept tabs on the boy who connected patterns where others saw mere formulas. Jayce’s projects had a kind of unpolished poetry to them, barely held together by solder and sheer belief, but full of heart, friction, and fire. He moved through his studies with an almost reckless kind of determination—as if he were running out of time. As if something was chasing him.

During their sophomore year-end showcase, Jayce volunteered to present first, seemingly scattered. But even if Jayce himself wasn’t always seemingly present, his work betrayed him. It was that day that Viktor noted that there was a constant, humming spark of hope running through everything Jayce made—his presentation that day on how theoretical equations could be used to train healthcare intuition software proved it. The boy had an earnest, urgent kind of belief that seemed to suggest that things could be better. That they should be better. That he would be the one to make them better.

The last time Viktor had seen Jayce in person, before now, had been one week after that sophomore showcase. The two of them had brushed shoulders in the library on a rainy May evening. The timing of it stands out to Viktor, even now, because it had been just a few weeks before his top surgery. Static buzzing under his skin, Viktor had been on a war path to return his checked-out books and get back to his dorm, so he could pack and get the hell back home. The rubber heel of his cane had been clicking loudly against the linoleum, the din of rain falling in sheets against the library’s roof overhead. His mind was fractured. He’d needed to get gas here in Evanston before starting the four hour drive—a ride that would definitely leave him sore and aching, probably laid up for at least one whole day after—down through Illinois, over through Indiana, then finally back into Michigan, where his grandmother would be waiting up, sitting on the porch of her bed and breakfast. Even in his mind’s eye, Viktor knew that The Czech Inn’s regal lilac bushes were not quite in bloom yet.

A sharp bump against Viktor’s shoulder had jarred him out of his own mind, back into the present, but the offending shoulder that had clipped his own was already retreating, lost between the stacks.

A new set of swirling thoughts had surfaced as he’d watched Jayce once again walk away from him without looking back.

Was that a cut on his brow?

He still smells like smoke.

Is he really dating an older woman in a doctoral program?

And lastly: I wonder if he’ll notice me… when I finally look more like… me.

But then again, Viktor wasn’t sure he’d ever known what it meant to feel entirely like himself.

Thankfully, those thoughts of Jayce Talis had been forgotten once he was home in Saugatuck for the summer. He’d let his grandmother fuss over his recovery. Their evenings together had been slow on The Czech Inn’s wrap-around porch, the pair of them watching the sun set over the water amicably, warm in each other’s presence. As much as he was able, Viktor had helped out around the business. Mostly he’d manned the front desk, listening to his spry, sixty-eight year old guardian gush over her “fabulously smart grandson” in her faded Czech accent to many a vacationer.

Due to his school schedule, he’d ended up with just about the worst season possible to recover from top surgery, as simply managing how much summer in Michigan made him sweat was a full-time job in and of itself. He’d breathed in the humid, lilac-rich breeze in June, sucked the pits out of dripping-ripe cherries in July, and when August snuck into view, all warm lake water around his ankles and cicada song, he’d seen himself in the mirror, truly, for the first time.

That fall, during the first half of his junior year, he’d studied abroad in the Czech Republic, stepping onto the cobbled streets of Prague for the first time since he was ten years old. When he’d come back to campus for the spring term, he’d walked under the Northwestern University gate feeling more himself than ever. His academic advisor, Dr. Reveck, had tersely referred to it as him “coming out of his shell.” Maybe the wizened old man had a point—Viktor had befriended Dmitri that term, and well… It all seemed like a puzzle that fit together just right, in hindsight.

The sharp click of the light switch snapped him out of his thoughts, and the lecture hall dimmed in an instant.

Here he was, sitting in the lecture that would essentially determine his future. His studies. His career. His prospects. And he was agonizing over his timeline in relation to Jayce Talis.

Viktor adopted Dmitri’s scoff, groaning internally and determinedly facing ahead, focusing forward. A beat later, the projector screen began to lower with a mechanical hum as Dr. Heimerdinger tapped the machine into obedience.

Viktor grit his teeth, took a deep breath, and tried to clear his mind. He had worked his ass off to get a scholarship to this school, making sure his grandma didn’t have to spend a dime of his parents’ life insurance fund. He’d worked even harder to prove himself in this department. He’d be damned if he was going to let something as asinine as a freshman year crush get him off track.

The projector buzzed to life with a brief flash, casting a pale, flickering rectangle across the white screen, just as a file blinked open at the center of the projection:

Capstone Partner Assignments—FINAL

“Now then,” Dr. Heimerdinger began flamboyantly, stepping into the cast of light with theatrical precision, arms folding behind his back. “You will spend your next few months working more closely with your assigned partner than you have with anyone else in your academic careers. You will depend on one another. Challenge each other. And you will disagree, no doubt.” He paused, eyes squinting over the top of his glasses. “But above all, you will collaborate. Choose civility. Choose commitment. For true partnership to flourish, you must, regardless of the hurdles, work together.”

Dmitri nudged Viktor’s foot, thankfully cutting some of the tension building around Viktor’s lungs. He gave his friend an imploring, dismissive gesture, which earned him a huff of short, breathy laughter.

“Your pairings have been meticulously crafted by myself and your academic advisors.” Dr. Heimerdinger went on. “Your ability to collaborate will reflect your readiness for what awaits you in whatever facet of the engineering sphere you choose.” Dr. Heimerdinger paused, weighing his next words carefully. “You will learn to lean on one another.”

The professor seemed to recall something, a small sort of smile pulling at his features.

“After all, you will probably be spending a lot of time together.” The man’s mustache gobbled around what Viktor guessed to be a wry smile. “Best get cozy.”

A sharp whistle ran out from the back row—low, sardonic, and far too pleased with itself—followed by a brief, quiet ripple of laughter. Dr. Heimerdinger either didn’t hear it or chose, quite wisely, to ignore it.

The professor finally settled into his seat. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

The projector displayed the first pair, showcasing their student ID photos and a small blurb below stating their academic interests. On the left, a tawny-skinned girl’s bio read “thermomechanics and long walks on the beach—Miami, Florida” while on the right, a red-headed boy’s dimpled smile was displayed in contrast to his “I like math—Chicago, Illinois” simplistic pitch.

Viktor remembered Dr. Heimerdinger’s pre-semester email requesting this information from them over the summer. There had been a character limit, which, it seemed, some of them had seen as a challenge.

“Gibbs and Avery,” Dr. Heimerdinger called, and without even having been asked to do so, the red-headed boy shot up out of his seat in one of the front rows, while the tawny-skinned girl, sitting directly to Dmitri’s left, hid a giggle into the straw of her water bottle. “Yes, Avery, you. Find one another and be seated, if you would.”

The pair did so, chatting low in the dim lighting and seeming to hit it off with a glimmer of camaraderie and good spirits as they found an empty pair of seats in the very front row, far to the left. A stab of anxious longing pierced Viktor between his ribs. He ached for that—whatever it was.

“Next then,” Dr. Heimerdinger chirped jauntily.

“Oh, fuck me,” Dmitri breathed as the slide flipped ahead, and there, second in the line-up, was Viktor’s freshman year photo for all to see.

A closed-lipped, nervous smile. A sheen of sweat on his forehead from the humidity of early September. A pinstriped brown and white button-down that very nearly washed out his pale skin entirely. Viktor blushed as he registered that in the photo he’d left his shirt unbuttoned a touch low on a day when, due to the heat, he’d opted to forgo his binder, his slight cleavage on display for the entire senior capstone class. In contrast, compared to his present look, this three-years-ago version of himself lacked his now signature stacks of earrings and the honey-gold streaks trailing at the back of his neck, not to mention the tattoos that the old camera in the admissions office never would have seen. Viktor looked down at his own hands, his long fingers and knuckles decorated with rune-like stick and poke tattoos, recently touched up by hands steadier than his own, then back up at the old photo.

God, he looked so young.

Beneath his photo, his blurb read: Viktor Ambroz. Beep boop—Saugatuck, Michigan.

Cringing, he sunk a bit lower in his chair. He’d written that on a morning after a kegger, an Eggo waffle hanging out of his mouth, and a bottle of Pedialyte on his nightstand. Not exactly his clearest-headed moment—and definitely not his most eloquent joke, given the lack of context.

Still tense from his own self-mortification, his gaze swept to the right, taking in brown skin that was flush with warmth and wearing a triumphant smile. The image showed a first-day-of-college Jayce Talis.

Viktor’s senior capstone project partner.

It felt like all of his blood had drained out of his brain and arms, making his entire upper body sway with numbness in his chair. Vision going pin-point, Viktor read Jayce’s bio with a pounding heart.

Jayce Talis, I like big ideas and country music—Houston, Texas.

This was… so fucked.

Viktor’s mouth felt dry as if he’d swallowed straight up sawdust. He stared at the screen as though it had betrayed him, then slowly risked a glance over his shoulder, hopefully subtle and definitely unnerved as his eyes settled on his new partner’s dimly lit silhouette. Slightly adjusting to the darkness away from the blaring projector screen, he found that Jayce was already searching the crowd, eyes narrowed in a confused expression.

Viktor was frozen in his seat, distantly hearing Dr. Heimerdinger say, “Ah, Talis and Ambroz—yes, one of the first pairs we set aside.” Then he commented errantly, already flipping ahead and thankfully whisking Viktor’s old photo away. “I wouldn't be surprised if you two put something magical together, my boys! Find one another, please, and we’re moving along—”

In the darkness, their gazes finally met, Viktor’s pulse jerking comically.

Seeming to register Viktor’s face, the other boy’s features smoothed out, and something, not quite recognition, slowly lit in those hazel eyes. It almost felt like a lighthouse, illuminating some string of gold between them, tugging at his chest. Was this… really the same boy who could hardly meet his eyes in that Chemistry class? The one who’d brushed past him, all aloof and harried in the library? Viktor wanted to look around and ask is he… looking at me?

Jayce appeared entirely unbothered by the fact that everyone in the room had just seen the world’s most awkward freshman-year photo of Viktor displayed next to that winning smile. The boy lifted a hand in a friendly wave, the sentiment casual and worn-in, making Viktor think of curling into an old, sun-warmed leather chair. Before Viktor could calm his rabbiting heart, Jayce stood from his seat.

Not missing a beat and seemingly oblivious to Viktor’s internal crises, Jayce slung his backpack over one shoulder and began descending the steps.

Toward him.

Viktor turned forward again in his seat. Stiff. Jaw tight.

Dmitri leaned in slightly, one hand landing on the back of Viktor’s neck, thumb brushing just beneath his hairline. Viktor was far too distracted to consider the intimacy of the gesture beyond the limited comfort that it provided him.

“I feel you,” his roommate murmured, taking in Viktor’s wound-tight disposition. “It’s a shame, we’d have made a hell of a team.”

Viktor didn’t trust himself to speak. He just gave a tight, noncommittal smile and nodded once.

“Hey.”

Both Viktor and Dmitri turned toward the hushed, breathless voice to their right. Jayce was at eye level, even while standing a few steps below them, and while his smile hadn’t dimmed, his gaze seemed to snag on Dmitri’s retreating hand. There was a beat of a pause, the sound of Dr. Heimerdinger forging ahead filling the empty airspace, just long enough to register the shift in atmosphere.

Jayce nodded toward the empty seat beside Viktor. “Mind if I sit?”

Viktor blinked. God, this was off to a smooth start. Clearing his throat, he methodically reached over to lift his bag and shift his cane out of the way. “Not at all.”

Jayce jumped the steps up to their row easily and sat, backpack landing at his feet, arms loose at his sides. Viktor knew he was staring out of the corner of his eye, but he was emboldened by the darkness and… this was the closest they had been to one another in three years.

What must it have been like to have grown up in a body like that? Golden and strong. Broad yet gentle. Viktor’s gaze caught on the shadow of stubble growing over the boy’s jaw—different from the smooth-shaven cheeks that he remembered. Maybe… Jayce had changed, too.

Settling in, Jayce turned toward him, tilting his head slightly as he extended a hand across the armrest.

“Jayce.” He said in a soft whisper, like it hadn’t just been plastered across the screen. “Nice to meet you.”

Viktor looked at the hand for a beat, broad and warm-toned, with long, calloused fingers. A craftsman’s hand. An inventor’s hand. The same worn-in leather as Viktor’s own hands, scarred from tinkering and experimenting. Because they were equals. Partners, now. A sense of righteousness flared in his stomach, burning away the urge to brush this offense aside. He refused to shrink just because there’d been some fleeting, unrequited fantasy in his head years ago. Trying to mimic a confidence he didn’t feel, he took Jayce’s hand in his own.

“Viktor.” He replied softly into the dim light, watching Jayce’s expression, his own name catching slightly in his throat. “And we have met before.”

“Oh. I thought you were from Michigan?” Jayce’s smile twinged, confused at Viktor’s accent. One of his eyebrows pinched inwards. “And, wait, we have?”

To Viktor’s left, Dmitri tapped his pencil against the desk loudly.

“Well, yes, just not… originally.” Viktor explained simply, swallowing as Dr. Heimerdinger moved along, calling out the next pair as the projector clicked forward. “And yes. We have.”

Viktor made to withdraw his hand from where their palms were clasped together. Jayce didn’t.

“No way,” Jayce didn’t break their eye contact, intent on Viktor’s gaze, his index finger brushing against the thin skin of Viktor’s inner wrist. The professor’s trilling voice made it hard to converse, so Jayce leaned in a bit further, voice innocent and almost… affronted. “I think I would remember that.”

And there it was, that signature, seemingly genuine charm. Viktor repressed a traitorous shiver, pressed his lips together, and finally withdrew his hand with a shrug. He tucked a longer section of his unruly hair behind his ear, picking up his pen.

Jayce’s eyes flicked up to where Viktor’s fingers had trailed, seeming to snag on the silver and diamond of Viktor’s earrings. He had three lobe piercings on either side, each sporting whimsically dangling heirlooms handed down to him from his grandmother. The multiple helix piercings at the crest of the shells of his ears, well, those were admittedly a bit indulgent. He’d gone through quite the addictive phase when it came to customizing his aesthetic. Fighting to be cleared, and then waiting for top surgery had been an interminable two years. His hardware was an intimate bit of armor, he supposed. Raising his eyebrows, he shot a defensive ‘what?’ expression Jayce’s way.

Jayce pursed his lips and averted his eyes quickly, cheeks tinged with pink. Weird.

I think I would remember that.

Was he embarrassed at Viktor calling him out? And what the hell was Viktor supposed to do with that, exactly? He sat stiffly, suddenly hyper-aware of the half inch between their shoulders and the warmth radiating off the boy beside him.

This is fine, he tried to tell himself. We’re adults. This is just a project. You’ll manage. You weren’t memorable. It doesn’t matter.

But his fingers still tingled from where they’d touched Jayce’s.

In the left corner of his vision, Viktor saw Dmitri watching their exchange with narrowed eyes. His jaw flexed once, a muscle ticking just beneath his cheekbone—likely perturbed at Jayce not remembering Viktor on his behalf. He was always a bit protective in their friendship, even though Viktor hadn’t ever asked him to be. He still didn’t know how to feel about having such a fiercely loyal friend, but then again, he didn’t have much to compare it to, and at the end of the day, it did feel nice to have someone care that deeply about him. Since it’d been irrelevant for some time now, Viktor hadn’t ever fully confided in Dmitri about his crush—former crush, per se. Steeling himself and beginning to scribble on his legal pad, he reminded himself that it was still irrelevant; at his right, Jayce pulled out his own notes, and began to do the same.

“Hamish and Isaacs,” Dr. Heimerdinger called out.

A new slide clicked onto the screen, showing Northwestern University’s reserve quarterback’s portrait, signature smirk and cocked eyebrows on display. Dmitri’s freshman year self had chosen to go full school spirit on his first day of college, wearing a purple and white Wildcats hoodie, which seemed to bring out his younger self’s lingering teenage acne. Viktor had seen this photo once before, when the whole house had dogpiled onto Dmitri, teasing him relentlessly. The inside joke was that nowadays Dmitri had a fifty-step morning routine, which seemed to keep his skin flawlessly dewy and photo-ready. His bio read: Dmitri Hamish, just try to keep up—Chicago, Illinois. Under different circumstances, Viktor would’ve rolled his eyes and reminded his roommate that it was Dmitri who’d had to ‘keep up’ with Viktor in their tutoring sessions last spring.

To his right, Jayce stopped scribbling. In his periphery, Viktor caught the subtle shift in his expression as he glanced at the projection, a quiet breath escaping through his nose before he lowered his gaze back to his notes.

Dmitri’s photo was side by side with that of a girl with a mass of dark curls and a silver nose ring, her expression was a bit intimidating under the shadow of her long lashes and iridescent eye shadow. Her blurb read: Lacie Isaacs, life is a highway—Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Down in the front row, said girl raised a hand and gave a lazy little wave in Dmitri’s direction, making the young man sigh, running a hand through his hair with mock exhaustion. He rose and moved to step right toward the stairs that descended to his assigned partner—but as he passed behind his chair, Dmitri placed his palms on Viktor’s shoulders, rubbing into the muscle there with his thumbs and leaning in to whisper, mere inches from Jayce beside him.

“Good luck.” He said against the shell of Viktor’s right ear, the teasing edge sharpened just enough to make it sting.

With a final look at Jayce—equal parts curious and dismissive—Dmitri slung his bag over his shoulder, making sure to untuck his ponytail from under the strap, and mosied down toward the girl whose photo still glowed on the screen. She was currently engaging Dr. Heimerdinger in a witty spar regarding how her father was a truck driver, etcetera and so forth.

Viktor’s hackles rose. That should be him making an impression on the professor. Not that he had some funny anecdote about his parents to woo the man. Or parents in the first place. He blew out a groan of frustration.

“That sucks,” Jayce murmured beside him. “I’m sorry.”

Viktor’s brows creased, that tone reminding him distinctly of how Jayce had sounded years ago in their Chemistry class. To give himself something to do, Viktor reached down into his bag to pull out a package of gum. As he moved, he twisted his right shoulder in its socket, rolling his neck against the lingering sensation of Dmitri’s touch. “For what?”

Jayce looked his way, watching as he slid the strip of gum between his lips, then pulled his gaze away and back toward the projector which was now moving along to the next pair. “That you didn’t get paired with your boyfriend.”

Viktor choked on his gum. Loudly. So aggressively, in fact, that Dr. Heimerdinger paused in his introduction of the currently displayed pair to ask, “Are you alright, lad?”

“Fine, professor,” Viktor’s voice had gone high and reedy, and he pounded a fist against his chest, the scars under his shallow pecs twinging. “Please, continue.”

“Christ,” Jayce swore under his breath.

Viktor whipped his gaze back over to his partner to glare, ready to finally weaponize his own delusional sense of confusing hurt when it came to this aloof, suddenly sincere boy, only to find that Jayce was… trying not to giggle.

“Guess I pegged y’all wrong.”

“He’s not,” Viktor replied in a sharp whisper, and swallowed jaggedly, plucking his gum out of his mouth and into its wrapper. Lesson learned, no gum around Jayce. “My boyfriend. We’re just friends.”

Jayce’s cheeks were pink again. He raised his palms as if in surrender. “Didn’t mean to assume. So you’re not into guys, that’s… hey, it’s fine—“

What. The fuck. Was happening.

Acting as if on auto-pilot, his mouth blurted. “I am into guys.”

A trio of girls seated in the row in front of them threw glances back at him over their shoulders. Viktor was going to combust spontaneously into flames. Jayce looked at him for a brief second with a spark of curiosity in his eyes, his eyebrows raising just a little, the scar through his right brow catching the low light, mouth tightening at the corners in a way that betrayed how hard he was trying to hold something back.

Meanwhile, Viktor was in hell. Dmitri wasn’t an unimaginable prospect, but Viktor just… didn’t really see him that way. And besides, he valued their friendship too much to try anything even if he wanted to.

Finally, Jayce coughed, clearing his throat, and spoke in a whisper, “Right. Okay,” he said, shaking his head, a smirk creeping across his face. “Noted.”

Viktor blinked. His heart stuttered in his chest before crashing back into rhythm with a force that made him feel slightly dizzy.

Noted as in ‘interesting’? His brain whirred. As in ‘useful for later’? As in… ‘same’?

For all that he’d studied Jayce, Viktor, and the whole school for that matter, couldn’t seem to pin Jayce’s tastes down. For the first time in a great while, he had no clue what to think. God, he was going to short-circuit.

Viktor fumbled a quiet cough, eyes darting back down to his notebook, deciding to get the two of them back on track. “Whatever.” He mumbled, writing a line of numbers on the corner of his top paper, ripping it off and handing it to Jayce.

“Your number?” His partner blinked as he took it, smirk fading.

The overhead, bright lights flickered back to life. Evidently all the pairs were now together—God, that was fast, how much time had passed just while he and Jayce had had that short, mortifying exchange?

“A really specific hex code, actually,” Viktor quipped.

Jayce’s gaze flicked from the paper up to Viktor’s eyes, as if he were studying the color of them. He breathed a quiet laugh, not moving a muscle.

Raising an eyebrow, Viktor looked down at Jayce’s open notes, seeing several sketches of gears and mechanisms in the margins. But more than just machinery, there were also a few well-rendered butterflies and other insects lining the pages.

He’s an artist now? Viktor’s heart stumbled in his chest. That’s new.

“And… yours?” Viktor managed to ask.

Jayce blinked, seeming to remember himself. “Oh, of course.”

Following Viktor’s example, he quickly wrote a series of numbers on the corner of his own top sheet of paper and tore the fragment off with a soft rip.

“Here,” Jayce said, holding it out.

Viktor took it, eyes skimming over the neatly looped digits. Jayce’s signed initials were next to his phone number. Viktor bit back a smile, casting another quick glance at Jayce’s open notebook, confirming that just as he remembered from their first year, every single page was marked with those same initials tucked into each bottom corner. The letters conjoined by Jayce’s tightly knit penmanship, a tiny claim of ownership that looked similar to the symbol for pi. Thoughtful, bold, and unmistakably Jayce.

“Do you sign everything you touch?” Viktor asked, raising a thick eyebrow, voice slightly pitched in mock incredulity.

The other boy let out a light scoff, and tapped his finger repeatedly against his open notes, suddenly very obviously trying to cover the pages with both hands.

“A little,” Viktor tried to tame his smirk. “Egotistical, don’t you think?”

“Just practicing for the future.” Jayce shrugged sheepishly. “Real scientists sign all the pages of their research logs, you know? Plus, if I lose my notebook, anyone will know who to give it back to.”

Viktor huffed, equal parts amused and endeared despite himself. “Because every single person in the greater Chicago area knows what your signature looks like?”

Jayce shrugged once more, ears going pink. “Well, now you do. And besides, you might forget it’s mine. Who knows.”

Viktor glanced back up at the young man in front of him, this time with something slightly softer and unguarded filling the space between his ribs. “I won’t forget.”

Jayce smiled in return—briefly, but genuinely—and for a heartbeat, the awkward, one-sided history and years behind them ebbed, and something warm passed between them before they both blinked and looked away, hurriedly returning their attention to the front of the classroom.

Heimerdinger was now explaining the development outline for the semester project, writing bullet points and rudimentary diagrams on the chalkboard while standing on a step stool. The rest of the class passed in a near-total silence between the newly formed pair of Viktor and Jayce. No more words, just quiet proximity and the faint ambient hum of an academic morning on the first day of the new term.

Viktor felt like he was having a déjà vu of sorts.

So he did what he did best: observe.

As a good scientist, he once again began to analyze the person he would be sharing this project with—cataloging the patterns, the details that might go unnoticed to anyone else. The way Jayce chewed the cap of his pen in quiet concentration—just the corner of it, not the whole thing. The soft scrap of leather he fidgeted with around his wrist, thumb circling the little blue crystal etched into it over and over. How his fingers also kept drifting to the bow of his hoodie’s strings, tugging, twisting the loops around themselves, a small repetitive gesture, almost childlike. He just couldn’t seem to sit still.

Viktor found himself inexplicably fixated on all of it. It was curiosity, perhaps. Or maybe recognition. There was something strangely captivating about the way Jayce Talis stirred this sharp hyper-awareness within him.

When the clock neared the end of the session, Dr. Heimerdinger finally closed his laptop and clasped his hands together with an air of satisfaction.

“Well then,” he said, peering at them over the rim of his glasses, “now that the framework is clarified, I shall leave you the remaining five minutes to confer with your assigned partners. Perhaps a brief brainstorming session will help set the wheels in motion!” He offered the class a cheery smile, which was mostly eclipsed by his ridiculously big mustache, and started shuffling his notes into a tidy stack. “And should any of you have questions, don’t hesitate to come to my office hours and ask.”

A ripple of skepticism fluttered through the space, followed in rapid succession by conversations blooming around the lecture hall: voices rising, chairs scraping, papers rustling… Viktor and Jayce turned to face each other again at the same time.

“Uh,” Jayce leaned forward slightly, elbows braced on the desk. “Well…” He exhaled before chuckling slightly under his breath, as if he had just remembered something.

Viktor tilted his head, waiting. Maybe he was simply too caught up in his continued study of Jayce, or admittedly, he had some ulterior motives of making the boy sweat a little. All in an entirely innocent, not at all embittered effort to be more memorable this time, of course.

“So, what are you into, then?” Jayce asked, winced, then immediately added, boyishly “—apart from guys, that is.”

Viktor’s eyebrows slowly raised. He blinked once, silent, expression caught between incredulity and a begrudging sort of delight.

“Oh.” Jayce’s sheepish expression faltered. “Uh, was that… a bit out of line?” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was—just trying to break the ice. Stupid joke. Sorry.”

Making him sweat? Check. Reluctant amusement tugged at the edge of Viktor’s mouth, and he shook his head just enough to suggest mild disbelief. “You’re fine.”

Jayce let out a soft breath. “Cool.” He cleared his throat and gestured vaguely between them. “But seriously though, what are you into, as in… what fields interest you the most?”

Viktor hesitated, still amused, but answered. “Well, I’ve been getting a lot into robotics, lately,” he said quietly, “especially, eh—in its applications in assisting people with disabilities,” he gestured toward his right leg, cradled by the curve of an intricate orthopedic brace, “you know…”

“Oh, that’s why the—” Jayce gestured at where the projector screen had been, miming quotation marks while his smile pulled wide, showing the slight gap between his two front teeth. “Beep boop.”

Viktor told himself that he should just own it. Go with it. But the urge to place his forehead in his palm was so strong, and he did so while he nodded, silently admitting his embarrassment.

“Wait, that’s awesome.” Jayce chuckled genuinely, and Viktor opened his cringed-closed eyes to see that the hazel of Jayce’s seemed to spark. “Sophomore year I did a presentation about how some theorems can improve healthcare delivery. It’s crazy what even the smallest innovations can do.”

That spark caught flame in the pit of Viktor’s stomach. “Right? You—” the rest of Jayce’s words caught up to him. An incredulous laugh bubbled out of Viktor. “I know that you did, Jayce. I was there. I also presented at that showcase.”

Jayce startled. “You’re—no. No way…”

Viktor waited, a forgone, disbelieving smile taking over his features. This was edging toward comical.

“You’re not a transfer student?” Jayce’s voice had gone up half an octave.

Oh I’m trans alright. Viktor thought, but laughed again and shook his head. He didn’t want to spend any more time on this.

“You know,” he started. “I read a paper a couple of weeks ago on adaptive prosthetics. About how integrating sensory feedback could make them way more intuitive.” He said the next sentence from first-hand experience. “Life-changing stuff.”

“God, yes!” Jayce nodded, latching onto the grace Viktor was giving him, vividly gesturing with his hands. “Life-changing, I mean, just think about if we could find a way to connect nerves with something like that.”

“Talk about something that AI would actually be useful for.” Viktor considered. “Although it would take some considerable programming, and of course we’d need to be able to fact-check against our own medical knowledge…”

“What’s next, you’re going to tell me you’ve spent time dabbling in pre-med?”

“Well,” Viktor felt a flush creep up his neck. He’d had to find something to occupy his downtime at The Czech Inn’s front desk through the years. “Yes, actually.”

They exchanged a wide-eyed look, bright with that unmistakable spark of recognition between kindred spirits. A quiet click, like two gears slotting into place with one another, and beginning to turn toward a shared goal. For a moment, it felt like they were in their own little bubble, caught up in the shared thrill of purpose and progress. Luxuriating in their quiet, shared excitement to change the world.

And just like that, the bubble popped.

The room shifted around them once again. People were already standing, shouldering backpacks, waving goodbye to their new partners. The professor had finished packing and was now walking toward the door with his briefcase tucked under one arm.

“Alright, class!” He called as he opened the door and began to exit the lecture hall. “Good day. See you all next Monday—and I expect to have received your declared topics by the end of the week.”

Jayce and Viktor blinked, as if resurfacing from underwater, the atmosphere they had just built together dissolving with the swell of movement around them. They glanced around, then again at each other, a flicker of reluctance passing between them as they quietly began to gather their things.

Jayce slid his notebook into his bag and glanced sideways just as he rose from his seat. “So… would you want to meet later today? Narrow down a direction for the project and start putting together an outline?”

Viktor slung his bag over his shoulder, nodding as he reached for his cane. “Sounds good. Although it seems like we’re already onto something.”

Jayce’s expression took on an assured, confident quality. “Library?”

“You can come over to my place, if you want.” Viktor said, adjusting his strap, already stepping toward the aisle. “I live near campus.”

“Oh—well, sure.” Jayce seemed surprised, following after him, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, which hung from his hips like he was a Goddamn Levi’s model. “If it’s not a bother.”

So polite. Was that new, too? Or had Viktor overlooked it in his previous studies?

“Trust me, my roommates won’t mind.” Viktor shook his head, leaning onto his cane as he stepped.

“Roommates, huh?”

“Housemates.” He waved his hand. Semantics. “All twelve of them.”

“Twelve!” Jayce’s eyes widened, aghast, his slight Texas accent bleeding into his voice amidst the surprise. “Lord, d’you live in a commune or something?”

Viktor licked over his bottom lip, shrugging. “Something like that. I’ll text you the address.”

They wove through the remaining bodies, finally reaching the classroom door. Just outside, leaning against the hallway wall was Dmitri—arms crossed, eyes sharp, posture a bit detached. He looked up as they approached, gaze locking onto Viktor, and then briefly shifting to Jayce.

Just as they stepped into the hallway, Jayce spun on his heel, pulling his hands swiftly from the pockets of his jeans. “Cool, so today at… five?”

Viktor gave a measured nod. He could feel Dmitri stepping up to his side. “See you then.”

A soft kind of smile overtook Jayce’s face, and he reached out then, resting a palm on Viktor’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “See you later then, partner.”

Partner. Viktor swallowed hard, trying to return the smile with a tentative nod, his lips curving into a faint, hesitant line. Jayce began to pull away, the easy rhythm of his steps carrying him forward. As he passed Dmitri, he caught his gaze and offered him a polite little nod, smile still intact. Dmitri, Viktor noticed with a confused frown, didn’t return it.

Once Jayce rounded the hallway corner, heading for the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator like the rest of them, Viktor stepped a bit closer to his friend. He opened the topic tentatively, sensing one of Dmitri’s protective moods. “Didn’t know that the two of you don’t get along.”

Dmitri shrugged and tapped his fingers against the side of his own neck, flexing his spine this way and that, seemingly stiff. He pulled his black, shiny locks free from its ponytail, running his fingers through them, beginning to french-braid it all by feeling alone.

“We share… common interests.” Viktor went on, filling the silence. “It makes working together more straightforward. Easier.”

Viktor tended to prattle on when Dmitri got into one of his stormy dispositions. What were friends for, if not to pull you out of a funk? Around them, another half dozen senior capstone students milled about, watching as the elevator crept up several floors toward them.

“I am hopeful that our commonalities will, eh,” he gestured vaguely. “Inform our topic selection.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dmitri asked, still not looking at Viktor.

Just as the elevator dinged its arrival, Viktor stepped around Dmitri to fill his line of sight. Well, a good portion of it, as the boy was an athletic 6’6” to Viktor’s 5’11”—come to think of it, Dmitri was just slightly taller than what Viktor roughly guessed Jayce to be at 6'5".

Just details, of course, but again, Viktor spent much of his life observing.

“Dmitri,” he voiced as the first couple of students made their way onto the elevator. His friend met his eyes instantly upon hearing his name on Viktor’s lips. “If there’s something I should know about him, some… reason you’re being…” Viktor gestured vaguely again, this time at his roommate’s general posture and attitude. “I would like to hear it. Now. Please.”

Dmitri’s crystal blue eyes, all saturated-sapphire with the swell of his pupils, flickered over Viktor’s face. He seemed to decide on something, and he mirrored the way Jayce had just put a palm beside Viktor’s neck, thumb brushing Viktor’s clavicle—what was it with these men and his shoulders today?

“Nah,” Dmitri dredged up a smile. “Dinner tonight?”

“Maybe,” Viktor fiddled with his backpack’s straps, stepping into the elevator, Dmitri following behind him.

“Maybe?” Dmitri asked, and in the crush of the bodies in the tight space, his front was pressed flush against Viktor’s side, his breath ghosting through his hair—even with his eyes closed, Viktor would probably recognize his friend by the scent of his Armani cologne alone.

“We’ll see when Jayce and I wrap up.” He clued Dmitri in.

Dmitri’s capstone partner, Lacie, pressed the button for the ground floor.

“Hm,” Dmitri hummed. Not a question. More of a groan. Viktor chose to ignore that detail—his friend had told him it was nothing.

Viktor just nodded, “got to get started.”

In front of them, Lacie looked back over her shoulder at Viktor’s words, obviously seeking out Dmitri’s gaze but quickly rolling her eyes and facing forward, shaking her head. Something snagged in Viktor’s stomach. Confusion, perhaps. The rest of the elevator was alarmingly quiet, most of them on their phones or putting their AirPods in, but even so Viktor didn’t feel much like talking through his plans presently.

“So,” Dmitri spoke into the quiet, a bit sardonically. “You think he’s ΗΣΧ material?”

“From the looks of him,” Viktor lifted his chin and met Dmitri’s gaze, begging his friend with his eyes to let it go, for now. Viktor was feeling buoyant, floating on the promise of his and Jayce’s chemistry. He didn’t want to come down from it just yet. Pivoting, he angled for a joke. “Why, thinking of letting him rush?”

Dmitri let out a sharp bark of a laugh.

Viktor shifted on his feet, cane finding purchase on the carpet of the elevator. “No doubt he’d probably be better suited to it than I am.”

“You never rushed,” Dmitri stated, a tone of smugness creeping in.

“I didn’t have to,” Viktor sing-songed, feeling his own buoyant kind of assuredness rise to meet his friend’s.

Thoughts of what the fraternities often put their hopeful initiates through in order to 'prove themselves' flitted through his mind. There were the innocuous, silly tasks that those living in the house made the candidates subscribe to, in order to be considered. Such as having to post as if they were a weatherman on their social media platform every morning—for a month straight, or having to carry a grape around with them everywhere they went—God forbid that the grape be lost or broken, because then the initiate would have to upgrade to an even larger fruit. Viktor had heard rumors about the other, less bubble-gum-y rush tasks, the hazings, of course. He swallowed past the the thought of 'fight milk' chugging contests, as one example. 

All of this while the older boys laughed and teased the candidates relentlessly. The Freshman and Sophomore football boys tried their hardest to break the mold and be chosen to live in the ΗΣΧ house. Ultimately, it was unheard of. None of the youngest on the football team ever received the honor of living in the frat house itself. Living in the house was a badge of honor, reserved for Seniors, the rare, lucky Junior... and Viktor.

Not that that kept the younger boys from trying, of course. Or from coming to hang around the house like strays. Viktor shook his head, still perplexed at how he ended up in this position, even now.

“And all because I,” Viktor let a small laugh bubble over. “Had a guy on the inside. Even if I do stick out like a sore thumb.”

"Nah, you—" Dmitri’s throat bobbed, then he shrugged, lips curled while he averted his eyes. “You make that house a home.”

As the elevator doors closed firmly and it began to lower, Viktor pressed his lips together and swallowed, reaching out and squeezing Dmitri’s bicep through the material of his sweater. Viktor felt himself settle back into the intensity of their friendship. He parted his lips to try, but was unable to put into words what that comment meant to him.

Home.

Chapter Text

It was raining, and Jayce was late for the second time today.

Thankfully it wasn’t a dramatic downpour, but it was one of those sneaky kind of drizzles that seemed almost polite until it soaked through your clothes, seeping into your shoes. As he walked quickly past a set of vacant tennis courts, white light ripped through the sky, quick as a camera flash. The tacky-damp sidewalk splashed underfoot, and several cars slushed past him, their highbeams bright in the slowly dying light. After the brightness, he counted the seconds under his breath out of habit, forcing himself to inhale slowly just like his therapist had instructed him. Back when he’d had a therapist, that is.

One.

Two.

Three.

Cr-c-boom!

The thunder overhead rocked through Jayce’s bones, and despite bracing for it, his heart tripped in his chest, next step faltering.

“Christ,” he whispered, a palm pressed to his rabbiting chest, fingers twisting the strings of his hoodie.

The storm had caught him halfway into his commute—no clouds to warn him, no time to go back and grab an umbrella or rain jacket. Just one moment of overcast calm, and the next, a thousand tiny arrows of rain finding every exposed inch of his skin.

The temperature had plummeted since this morning; Chicago’s summer heat liked to linger into mid-October, but autumn still made its impatience known. With the waterfront less than half a mile from the street Jayce was now hustling down, the weather could change on a dime; Lake Michigan had a stubborn way about her. He could remember coming to tour Northwestern on his own as a high school Junior, flying into Chicago O’Hare airport, and seeing the lake in person for the very first time. He’d been in absolute awe as he looked out the window at the endless, curving expanse of fresh water. To call it a ‘lake’ seemed like an understatement. It sparkled and consumed the horizon like the sea, making him think of Puerto Rico and eating mangos on the beach with his dad. At the time… it’d been a bittersweet recollection. Chicago’s downtown skyline had come into view upon his westward descent, its distinct buildings all arranged together like a bouquet of trophies, a string of yellow-sandy beaches strung up and down the coast. An excitement had taken hold of him. It was so different here compared to back home, the urban and green spaces married in harmony, the seasons always changing; each one tumbling into the next.

Unlike Texas, which seemed to stand still in more ways than one.

Jayce’s overgrown hair now fell into his eyes, and he combed back the errant waves of it, brought on by the humidity, with his fingers. At least his hoodie was doing a decent job of wicking away the moisture, though his jeans were starting to cling to his thighs. White light split the sky again, and almost on cue, his phone rang in his back pocket for what felt like the tenth time today.

One.

The buzz of nerves under his skin ratcheted with the ceaseless hum of his phone. Keeping his pace eastward toward the lake, he groaned inwardly. This was the first meeting of what was, in no exaggerated terms, the most important partnership of his life so far. And he was late.

As he hurried through a crosswalk, dodging umbrellas and a gaggle of professors all hurrying toward a staff parking lot, images swirled through Jayce’s head…

Two.

Long, elegant fingers, inscribed with tattoos that read like an ancient language.

Unique, almost dainty ears that were dripping with silver and diamonds.

Reserved, curious eyes the same shade as honey when sunlight shone through it.

“We have met before.”

A defensive, embarrassed note of shame wound its roots around his ribs, and he grimaced.

Three.

He compared those memorable figments to the vision he presented at the moment: soaked nearly to the bone, disrespectfully unpunctual, and on top of that… agitated, which he realized as he pulled out his phone with a shaky hand and read the caller ID, water blurring the screen.

Four.

The rain grew out of its shyness, the sky unabashedly opening its floodgates. Clinging tightly to his backpack’s colorful strap, Jayce muttered a quiet “shit” and booked it down the sidewalk and under an isolated hut of a bus stop. The oak tree beside it was dancing, branches reaching longingly for the storm.

Cr-boom!

In his makeshift shelter, he hit ‘accept’ on the call.

“Mamá?” He pressed a finger into his other ear to try and hear better amidst the thunder. The water on his phone screen beaded against his cheek, and he accidentally hit the ‘end call’ button unintentionally.

Great.

Taking another deep breath, he closed his eyes and felt the sky sigh, then gnash its teeth around him. A wild thing all around. A wild thing within.

Jayce pressed his lips together, the rain tasting clean on his tongue, and quickly double checked the address he’d pulled up walking directions for. Closer now, nearly there, the location of Viktor’s house was coming into sharper focus. He glanced up from his phone toward Northwestern’s campus proper, with its winding sidewalks, lush purple hydrangea bushes, and old archways. Just on the other side of this slice of campus sat a select, small neighborhood, nestled in its own kind of bubble. A neighborhood prized for its easy walking access to campus, as well as being only a couple blocks from Lighthouse Beach, the nearest long expanse of lakefront sand.

Jayce looked down at his phone once more, confirming his suspicion.

Viktor lived… on frat row.

Viktor lived… in a fraternity.

Jayce’s next thought, as the surprise of that clanged through him, was: which one?

The top center of his screen lit up once more. Another incoming call from his mother.

“Right, okay,” he muttered, shaking his hands out with a quick, frustrated flick, as if that might somehow rid his palms of the cold-wetness clinging to them. Before answering, he quickly pulled up his messages.

Viktor (Capstone) 🔬

11:14am

see you @ 5.

2351 Sheridan Road.

11:14am

See you then :)

4:48pm

OMW!

For a moment, Jayce just stared at the blinking cursor in the text box, watching it pulse in time with the vibrations of his mother’s call.

His stomach turned and began to eat at itself, making his fingers twitch. He hated disappointing people. Whatever Viktor might think of him, Jayce just hoped he didn’t just take him for some flippant asshole. He cared. He wanted to do this right. He wondered if Viktor was waiting near the fraternity house’s door, annoyed at his tardiness, or perhaps too distracted by… whatever went on in a frat house to even notice his absence. Jayce had had the same roommate since sophomore year, and lived off campus, so he wouldn’t know. Whatever the case might be, Jayce’s brain wouldn’t let it go. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember meeting Viktor previously. Between his second class of the day, hitting the gym, and grabbing an early dinner, he’d attempted to place him, but kept coming up blank.

Then again, there were swaths of time, stretches of weeks and months, that his mind had simply… deleted. Mel had told him once that this was his mind’s way of protecting itself. He just wished he had some say in the matter. Memories from those two years felt more like static—patchy, distorted at the edges, full of soft-lapsed gaps his mind had tucked away under the weight of sleepless nights and chest-tight panic. It all stacked up, just enough for the outlines of things to stay, but not the details. Never the details.

But Viktor?

Jayce shook his head, sighing as he hastily typed:

5:09pm

Promise I’m not ditching. This rain is crazy

Be there soon!!! 🙏🏽

Letting out another bracing breath, and trying not to overthink the triple text, Jayce hit ‘accept’ on his mom’s call at last.

“Mamá—Dios, perdón, aquí está cayendo un palo de agua horrible.”

“Jayce!” Her voice spilled through the speaker, warm but edged with a familiar urgency. “¡Ay, ya, mijo! ¡Llevo todo el día llamándote!”

“Ya, ya, má… sorry,” he muttered, voice rough as his heartstrings twanged against her barbed words, “I’ve been busy. First day of classes, you know. I’ve been… overwhelmed, sorry.”

There was a brief pause, the kind that holds more unsaid than spoken.

“Everything alright?” She asked, softer this time.

“Yeah, just… adjusting. Got caught in the rain outside and I’m soaking wet.” Jayce sighed. “Weird day, you know. I’m just,” he took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Tired. That’s all.”

She hesitated for a few seconds before speaking, as if she didn’t fully buy it, but her tone was gentle all the same. “Alright… get somewhere dry soon, okay? You’ll catch a cold.”

“Mm.” He assented, shifting on his feet. He willed himself to wrangle the discomfort. “So, what’s up?”

“Ah, right,” she briefly cleared her throat. In the background on her end, the sound of a familiar Texas radio station flared and then ebbed. He guessed that she was calling him from the grocery store parking lot with her windows rolled down, cars slowly passing her by. He could picture the old beaten-up shopping carts, could visualize the feeling of her car’s old leather passenger seat. “I talked to tía Clara on the phone today. She was asking about you.”

Jayce swallowed, a double-edged ache of fondness welling his chest at the thought of his mother’s sister, of his little cousins and uncle. “Yeah?”

“Well, you know she and tío Andrés couldn’t make it to the memorial mass. Like I told you, something came up in San Juan.” An aggrieved, disappointed sigh. He remembered her getting the call two Sundays ago, as he’d been standing behind her, clasping her pearl necklace for her at the back of her neck, both of them dressed in black. “But, she told me she wants to get together. Soon.” She paused. “They found out yesterday that their flights are transferable… so they’re coming to Houston. The day after tomorrow, Wednesday.”

Jayce knew what was coming.

“They won’t leave until a week from this Sunday—so they’ll be here for a week and a half. I thought that maybe…” His mother seemed to muster herself, and Jayce’s guilt twisted. The shadows lengthened amidst the rain. “We could do something small, perhaps a little dinner, or at least we could all visit his grave.”

Those last words landed like a blunt strike. A sharp ringing filled Jayce’s ears, thin and shrill, making the steady drumming of the rain dull into something distant, muffled, as though the world had been wrapped in cotton. A twinge of pain bloomed tight and hot in his chest, pressing upward, and he shut his eyes against the vertigo that followed. Somewhere behind his thoughts, the phantom sound of a phone ringing clawed at the edges of his mind, the high-pitched noise inside his eardrums stretching—

“...Jayce?”

“Yes,” he blurted, snapping back. “Yeah, sorry, I’m here.”

“I was saying, you’d have time to look for a good flight and come home without rushing too much, if you came next weekend. Oh! And Rosa, Miguelito, and Aurora are all coming, they arranged it with their schools. It would… be so good to have you and your tíos and primos all here—you still have to meet little Aurorita, remember?” She sighed. “All of us together. Like old times, you know?”

Jayce stared out at the silver streaks cutting through the air, the way the rain beaded on the pavement and caught the light, the tightness in his chest making his very body feel claustrophobic.

“Right,” he said at last, on autopilot. He couldn’t think. All he had was the sound of the rain and the blurring colors of home bleeding through his missing memories.

“I was also thinking,” she continued, her voice warming with an excited, sort of practical rhythm, “maybe it would be good for us to finally visit her, too. You haven’t been to Puerto Rico since you were a child, mi amor.”

Jayce’s throat felt dry, despite the damp afternoon air clinging to him. The sensation of standing in front of a giant, looming wave occurred to him. He dragged a hand down his face, managing to take a deep breath in.

“I don’t know, má.” He hesitated, his voice catching on the words. He couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge the possibility of Puerto Rico, the enormity of it. His mother’s birthplace. The happy childhood memories he kept tucked around his heart, too precious to risk tarnishing with the ache he still carried. “Classes just started, and I already have some projects lined up. I don’t know if I’ll have time to get away.”

“That’s why I’m suggesting the weekend,” she quickly replied, almost coaxing. He could hear the faint movement of her bracelets as she shifted the phone in her hand. “That way it won’t interfere with your classes, no? You could fly in on Friday and leave Sunday evening, I could drive you and tía Clara to the airport together!”

Jayce closed his eyes for a moment, tilting his head back against the glass wall of the bus stop. Several spiders watched him from the high corners, stilled on their webs, clinging against the wind. Even the idea of returning home so soon, of sitting through more condolences, of steeping himself in the weight of the absence once again… The thought alone was enough to make him feel nauseous.

But how could he say that without sounding ungrateful?

And how could he keep leaving her alone with it?

It felt, most days, like he was running from a war that kept chasing him down, and any time he stopped to fight a battle, to try and fight for some sense of undeserved peace… he lost. He lost his grip on his routine, he lost time, he lost himself. He told himself that over the last twelve months, he was doing better. He wanted to believe that.

Jayce adjusted his grip on the phone, searching for the right words, but every phrase felt like it would cut. Jagged glass curdled in his throat. He had just gone to battle once again at her side. He just… needed some time before he could do so again.

“I don’t know,” he repeated, trying to sound as gentle as possible, “I was just there, so…”

“...So?”

His eyes slipped closed.

“So I don’t know if going back and forth so much makes sense,” he said carefully, though a note of tension slipped into his voice, “I need to get used to the rhythm of classes again, and, you know, flights are expensive, and—”

“This isn’t about plane tickets,” Ximena cut in gently, but with a firmness that pressed under his skin. “I can buy them for you, I don’t mind. It’s about showing up, tesoro.”

“I did show up.” Jayce’s jaw tightened. “I was with you just two weeks ago, má. For the—” He paused to take a deep breath. One, two, three, four. “For the mass, wasn’t I?”

There was a measured silence, like she was letting his own words reflect back. “You did,” she finally said, clipped, but not cold. “You were. And I know that wasn’t easy for you. I really do,” a quiet sigh came in through the line, “But sometimes we have to do hard things for the people we love. They are our family, Jayce. We… we don’t have an endless supply of family.”

Jayce’s eyes burned as he stared out at the storm unblinkingly. A shaky inhale rattled through his chest.

Onetwothreefouronetwothreefourone—

“They haven’t seen you in years, I know that they miss you. It’s not… something we can just keep putting off.”

“I’m not. Putting it off,” the words slipped sharper than he intended, and he stopped himself before they could unravel into something he’d regret. He drew in another shaky breath, steadying the quiver in his chest before speaking again, softer this time, “I’m just saying, I don’t think I can do it right now, okay?”

The pause that followed wasn’t angry—it carried a deep, unspoken disappointment. Which was so much worse. He could almost hear his mother shifting in her seat, the faint buzz of passing cars through her open window.

“Alright,” she said at last, though her tone was anything but agreement. “I’ll tell them you’re too busy, then.”

That landed between them like a stone dropped into deep water, ripples spreading into silence.

Jayce clicked his tongue, feeling the lump in his throat return, heavier this time, “That’s not—”

“It is alright, Jayce.” His mother’s voice was soft, and it wavered as she assured him, “I understand.”

There was another brief silence. The rain kept falling in soft, steady sheets, each drop a small percussion on the pavement. Jayce’s reflection in the puddle at his feet was a blur, all muted colors and wavering outlines.

He let out a long sigh as he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly, the kind of quickness that meant it wasn’t truly fine.

Jayce’s mouth tightened. He knew his mother well enough to hear what she wasn’t saying—the small, quiet ache she’d never force on him but would carry alone instead. That knowledge made something twist deep inside his chest.

The line stayed open for a moment longer, seconds ticking by and adding to the tally of his tardiness, neither of them speaking… until Jayce finally broke the silence. His voice was thick. “Te amo.”

He could feel her mother’s sad smile through the phone. “Y yo a ti, corazón,” she replied, warmth threaded through her words.

The ache in Jayce’s chest lingered, heavy and unresolved, but he forced himself to breathe, to find something steady in the weight of it all.

“Talk to you later, okay? Let’s see if I can get out of this rain. I’m already running late.”

“Vale,” she said softly, the word a sigh more than a reply. “Be safe, okay?”

“Yeah,” his throat tightened around the word but he forced it out anyway. “Bye, mami.”

“Adiós, mi amor.”

The line went dead, leaving only the hiss of the rain and the muted echo of his mother’s voice in his ears. Jayce lowered the phone slowly, his fingers lingering against the screen as if pressing hard enough he could hold onto her for a moment longer.

He gave himself only a few moments more, before breathing out a “fuck it,” and striding back out into the rain.

• .⋅ ⾕ ⋅.•

Despite the fact that his hair was now plastered to his scalp and falling into his eyes, Jayce checked the address Viktor had texted once more, glancing at the curbside mailbox that stood beside him, slightly askew. As if someone had barreled into it and had nearly taken it out by its roots—yet still it stood, its little red flag raised.

He tried his best not to personify and empathize with a mailbox, of all things.

2351 Sheridan. No mistake. This was the house.

The broad expanse of it sat beneath a large, old oak tree on Jayce’s right, whose leaves were already beginning to burn from green to orange. In a way, the red brick of the two-story house was proud; surprising, in contrast to the faded white paint of the front porch and second floor balcony.

The painted-blue Greek letters nailed to the front of the house were rusting, but read clearly: HΣX.

This house… was notorious on campus. Not only for its sheer size and prime location, but for the boys that lived inside of it. Football legends. Play-hard fuckboys. The upper echelon of college society, untouchable in many regards.

Jayce stood on the sidewalk, hesitating even with the downpour roaring around him. From down here, he could see movement behind the windows on the second floor; shadowy bodies traipsing between pools of lamplight like jovial phantoms. Even further up, in the small round window of the attic, warm light glowed through the gloom of the storm. Jayce’s eyes trailed, noticing that in the driveway there were several cars parked, including a glossy red Jeep, a sleek black BMW, even a silver ‘midlife crises’ Jaguar. Curiously, amongst all of the ‘daddy’s money’ vehicles, there was an unassuming, beat up two-door Ford Pinto, which looked straight out of a ‘70s movie, with what seemed to be… a custom dark purple paint job.

Thunder clapped overhead, and Jayce jumped. Cursing under his breath and setting his jaw, he resolved that couldn’t stay out here any longer. Dripping wet, he ducked his head and took the remaining sidewalk up to the house at a run, vaulting himself up under the reprieve of the house’s covered porch. Up close like this, no longer muffled by the din of rain, he could hear the dull pulse of music coming from inside of the frat house—unexpectedly, it sounded like some kind of indie genre, rather than trap, rock, or rap. Jayce shook some of the water off from his shoulders, hopping in place before taking a breath, and knocking on the grungy-white front door.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Jayce shifted his weight from foot to foot, skin cold and uncomfortably wet. A car passed on the road at his back, a pink Audi, likely heading to a sorority house down the row, its blue-white high beams flashing through the gray. Uneasy, he raised his fist to knock again, just as the door swung wide open and—

“Huh,” a hulking man, who seemed to be made entirely of honed muscle, chuffed. Pewter-brown eyes caught the dim porch-light, and the man-boy leaned a bulky shoulder against the doorframe. “You’re… not the pizza guy.”

Loris Matai. Starting quarterback for Northwestern’s Big 10 division football team. Jayce felt his head rock back a bit in surprise as Loris pursed his lips, mouth pulling askew.

“Uh,” Jayce started, taking one quick blink to dismiss the stupid, albeit small, starstruck quiver that had made his brain short circuit for a moment.

Jayce wasn’t a sports ‘super fan’ by any means, but he wasn’t indifferent when it came to athletics. Loris’ face, especially his signature hooked nose—which he’d broken in a spectacular play his first game as the lead QB his Junior year—was plastered on posters practically everywhere on campus. Northwestern was notoriously the laughing stock of the elite Big 10 athletic league, the worst of the best, but ever since Loris had joined the team… the buzz around campus was that the ‘Cats actually had a shot.

Jayce cleared his throat. “No. Actually I’m—”

“Fucking soaked,” Loris laughed, the material of his purple jersey lifting at the hem as he leaned an arm up over his head against the door frame, revealing a whisper of his six-pack. The guy filled the doorway, blocking anything else beyond him within the house from sight. He carried himself with the air of someone entirely rooted into their body. Someone smaller might find that intimidating, Jayce reasoned, but while Loris had more lean-muscle than him, Jayce actually had a couple inches on him. “Jesus, dude, ‘d’you swim here?”

Jayce huffed out a laugh. “Feels like it. I’m here to see—”

“Lor?” came a quiet, melodic voice from behind the footballer.

♬

I was at the point where all I really wanted was someone

And now I'm still hanging on

I was at the end of every tether waiting for what once was

And then, easy as anything and full of familiarity, Viktor ducked under Loris’ arm, amber eyes sparkling with curiosity.

The sound of the rain all around Jayce blurred into white noise.

“Hi,” Jayce breathed, the coldness of his shivering skin forgotten.

Viktor looked different outside of the classroom, a relaxed sort of aura radiating from him in the dim light of the entrance hallway. His hair, darker at the roots but catching streaks of warm blonde at the nape of his neck, was a bit damp and mussed in the back, as if he’d recently showered and had been running his hands through it. He was wearing loose purple flannel pajama pants, faded in places, paired with a black shirt that had clearly lived through a few lifetimes already—the sleeves hacked off at the shoulders, the cotton thinning, soft from too many washes and with tiny holes at the seams. Across his chest, bold block red letters reading BRUTALISMUS 3000 stretched jaggedly—some sort of niche band, Jayce guessed. Whatever it was, he definitely wasn’t familiar with it, but the shirt fit Viktor as naturally as the sharp lines of his bare arms, all long, slim muscle speckled with moles.

“You know this guy?” Loris’ voice rumbled beside him, fiddling with the toothy hairband that was keeping his dark hair orderly. The quarterback leaned into the frame with casual weight, looking between them with easy curiosity at Viktor’s back.

“Yes, he’s eh,” Viktor nodded, his accent rolling lightly as he said, “my new partner.”

Loris raised an eyebrow at the phrasing.

The muscles of Viktor’s neck tensed. “Heimerdinger’s capstone.”

“Oh yeah, Hamish mentioned something about that. Surprised the two of you didn’t end up together.” Loris pursed his lips as something in Jayce’s stomach twisted unpleasantly at the comment. Weird. Loris shrugged dismissively and jerked a thumb over his shoulder as his eyes flicked between Jayce and Viktor. “Well, I’ll uh—grab you a towel, dude, y’know, before you drown the porch.”

Jayce managed to get out a quiet “thanks” before the big man disappeared inside, his heavy footsteps muffled by the indie music still coming from inside the house.

The air shifted in the footballer’s absence.

Viktor took a few steps forward and leaned his weight back against the exterior wall of the house, sheltered here under the porch roof, one hand sliding into the pocket of his checkered pants. His cane—something Jayce was beginning to realize was a constant companion at Viktor’s side—was lackadaisically angled, his long tattooed fingers curled around the handle in an easy, familiar way. Matte black, the cane’s metal shaft was dotted with scuff marks and scattered with stickers: half-faded logos, curling edges of slogans Jayce couldn’t quite read, a small holographic star that caught the light whenever Viktor shifted. It looked lived-in; belonging to Viktor as much as any other part of himself. The cane’s counterpart, it seemed, was Viktor’s brace, fitted from his mid-thigh down to his ankle, the material of his pants bunching between its bands.

“So,” Jayce said at last. “Not a commune.” A curious half-smile pulled at his mouth. “You live… in a frat house.”

Viktor nodded, quiet. Jayce searched for it, but found no trepidation in Viktor’s expression. Only a neutral kind of contentment.

“You look…” Jayce ventured, unable to keep the question out of his voice. “At peace here?”

“And you look…” Viktor’s gaze tracked over him once, unhurried, and then, he spoke, voice low and even: “like a wet dog.”

Jayce winced, smothering the awkward curl at the corner of his mouth with a shrug. “If I bark, will you let me inside?”

Viktor let out an incredulous chuckle under his breath, then tipped his chin toward him, brows faintly lifted. “Do you not own an umbrella?”

“Didn’t think it’d turn into a monsoon out of nowhere,” he muttered. Not to mention he was distracted at best these days. Then, softer, “sorry I’m late.”

“It’s fine.” Viktor replied, almost too easily, giving a small nod back towards the entryway to the house. “Come on. Take your shoes off, you’re dripping everywhere. I’ll see if I can find some dry clothes for you.”

“Oh,” Jayce’s stomach tugged oddly at the thought as he stepped forward, Viktor stepping back to allow him in. Would Viktor’s clothes even… fit him? The boy was so lithe, and Jayce had always been one to take up space without any say in the matter. “You don’t have to—”

“Here,” Loris’ voice interrupted him as he tossed a towel in Jayce’s direction with an easy aim. “Before you catch something.”

Jayce caught it to his chest with a wet thump. The thought of making a lame joke came to mind, but Jayce wrangled the nervous urge to say, I just did, and wink lamely at the quarterback. Clearing his throat, he managed a “thanks, man.”

The interior of the house enveloped him. He was immediately hit by a heady mixed scent of stale weed and over-saturated vanilla, like a Yankee candle was burning somewhere to try and cover the pre-existing smell of smoke. The music, clearer now that he was inside, had shifted to something carefree and bouncy—more rock in its edge, though it still carried that unmistakable indie undertone.

♬

Flicking through a little book of sex tips

Remember when the boys were all electric?

And now, when she's told she's gonna get it

I'm guessing that she'd rather just forget it

Overhead, warm-white Christmas lights were strung in haphazard garlands from the high ceiling, lighting the space in a cozy glow. The long entryway was painted a dark navy blue, various NFL posters decorating the space, likely as inspiration for the football players—everyone aside from Viktor, Jayce guessed—who lived here. Jayce spotted the glossy images of the Chicago Bears, of course, as well as the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. He clicked his tongue.

“Not a fan of the NFC North?” Loris asked, noticing Jayce’s glance.

Jayce’s gaze caught on Viktor, who was standing in the middle of the long entryway, observing the pair of them. A warm curiosity simmered in those arresting eyes, so Jayce answered truthfully with a shrug. “I’m a Texans fan, myself.”

“I should’ve guessed,” Loris wagged a finger Jayce’s way, dipping into a room on the right, and calling. “Your accent, man, dead giveaway.”

Loris had ducked into what appeared to be a dining room of sorts, which wrapped back toward what Jayce presumed was the kitchen. A long table was cluttered with various books, beer cans, and ash trays. A ripped open box of condoms was spilling over an open Calculus textbook, technicolor Trojans lit in the dim light like lush candies—Jayce wrangled in a disbelieving huff at the sheer cliche of it as Loris swiped one of them for himself.

“Well, Mr. Southern Gentleman,” Loris grabbed a stick of gum off the table, too, and popped it into his mouth, gesturing toward Jayce with the neon pink condom between his index and middle finger. “You treat our boy right, y’hear?”

Jayce was saved from having to reply by Viktor sighing at his side and groaning, good-naturedly, “don’t you have to be God’s gift to football somewhere else, or something?”

Loris smacked his gum loudly and stepped back into the entryway, ruffling Viktor’s hair, getting a playful smack of his housemate’s cane against his ankle in return.

“Can’t believe you made this poor dude come walking here in this weather!” Loris rolled his neck from side to side in a practiced stretch, stuffing his selected contraceptive into the pocket of the gray sweatpants that were slung low on his hips. “Some partnership—not to mention he’s gonna get the floors all messed up!”

“These floors could use a wash.” Viktor’s mouth tugged sideways. “And besides, Jayce is far more presentable than the usual guests of this house.”

Loris pouted sarcastically in response, stepping between Jayce and Viktor to pluck a set of keys off of the sideboard in the entryway which was covered in empty beer cans. Following Loris’ movements, Jayce noticed over his shoulder that off the left hand side of the entry, there was what was once had been a library. Rather than books, though, the built-in bookshelves were now decorated with empty liquor bottles of all shapes, sizes, and potencies—the back corner of the library had an open doorway, and warm light flickered through it, along with a distant hum of voices.

“Well,” The quarterback mused, clearly pleased as he looked back over his proud shoulder, eyes flicking toward Jayce. “Dealer’s choice.”

Jayce completed his 360 spin of taking in the house to avoid the confrontation of being so obviously checked out. There, at the back of the entryway, a grand, dark-wood staircase wound upwards toward the second floor. A hallway flanked either side of its base, leading right towards the kitchen and left toward whatever space, likely the living room, had that flickering light coming through the library. This floor of the house seemed to be one big circle, of sorts.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Loris was toeing on a pair of sneakers, which were tacky on the hardwood. “You’re not wrong about the floors, at least.”

Jayce watched Viktor’s profile as a smile pulled at the thin, pink plushness of his lips, not quite showing his teeth. Viktor raised his voice just enough so that it carried through the house over the din of the music. “Someone has to balance out your—all of your—lack of cleanliness,” he replied, tone as dry as a bone. “How you all go around in here barefoot is beyond me.”

From around the corner, a muffled chorus resounded, a gaggle of varying masculine tones all chiding their playful disagreement. Just then, two quick, racing bodies zipped through the hallway from the kitchen toward the living room, cackling as the scent of popcorn trailed in their wake, a large silver bowl balanced in one of their arms.

“Oh, come on, V, we’re clean!” One of them sang, his gelled chestnut hair flashing under the Christmas lights.

“So clean!” The other parroted, eerily similar to his compatriot—though his hair fell just a tad longer and messier, and his frame was slightly shorter.

“Going bare ain’t rare with me, baby!” The first one crooned, and earned a hoot of horny, riotous hollering from the living room.

Viktor merely waved a hand over his shoulder in their direction, amused and dismissive, and the two boys jumped on top of one another as they tumbled onward, spilling popcorn as they went.

Loris chuckled, clapping Viktor lightly on the shoulder as he passed, the knuckles of his calloused fingers squeezing in a way that lingered. It was such an easy, unthinking gesture—one Jayce hadn’t expected. He had gotten the impression that Viktor was rather reserved, almost untouchable, the kind of person who kept everyone at a polite arm’s length. But it was obvious, from the casual way he accepted the touch, that he’d grown familiar with these brash athletes who were so far removed from his own world.

Jayce observed all this while he bent down to wrestle his waterlogged shoes off, lining them neatly by the door alongside the dozens of shoes all piled together, consisting of various Adidas slides, tennis shoes, and boots. He finally closed the front door behind him, shutting out the rain, and ran the towel over his hair. Peeling the soaked hoodie from his shoulders was a struggle, the heavy fabric stubbornly refusing to let go, but he finally managed to strip it off, leaving only a thin, considerably-less-wet t-shirt underneath, although he could still feel it clinging to his skin.

“We’ll eh,” Viktor cleared his throat, as he averted his gaze from Jayce’s frame, “head upstairs.” Jayce caught the faintest shift in his posture—an unspoken ‘let’s go’. “Going to get started.”

“Cool.” Loris said, already pivoting back down the entry way. “There’s movie night tonight, though.” He announced loudly, to which a chorus of cheers came from the living room, and Loris grinned at Viktor like it was some running joke.

“Ugh, I know.” Viktor let out a long sigh, shifting the cane at his side. He said sheepishly, “I don’t know if I’ll make it.”

“Well,” Loris waved a hand, unconcerned. “If you finish on time, you should come down. And bring your… friend, uh…”

Jayce’s gaze flicked toward him as he hung his damp hoodie on the entryway coat rack, his brows lifting, caught off guard at being drawn back into the exchange. “Jayce.”

“Jayce.” Loris echoed. “Right, Jayce. Well, you should swing by later.”

Jayce felt a tug of curiosity. “What’re y’all watching?”

Loris and Viktor exchanged a glance, and Viktor answered witheringly: “Finding Dory.”

For a moment, the three of them looked at one another, and the hum of the subverted expectation was palpable. Had they told him Die Hard or Wolf of Wall Street that would’ve been in line with what Jayce could’ve guessed. When at last he couldn’t hold it in any more, releasing a laugh, Loris joined him, and to Jayce’s delight, that small smile pulled at Viktor’s lips again.

Jayce’s laughter simmered. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”

“No way, dude.” Loris replied with the same easy grin. “Vik’s friends are our friends.”

That earned him a small, genuine noise from Viktor. “Get outta here already, Lor.”

Loris mimed tipping a cowboy hat, causing the small braid peeking beneath his navy hairband to sway against his ear. “See y’all later.”

He pushed off the wall with practiced ease and disappeared down the hall, leaving Jayce and Viktor alone, the din of the indie music dancing between them. Jayce adjusted the towel around his shoulders as Viktor made a subtle gesture for him to follow, heading for the staircase.

Following, Jayce shook his head, still finding a bit of water in his ears. The shift from the rain to the frat house was almost jarring—cool, humid air giving way to a warmth that carried an unexpected pleasantness. Yes, the house had a certain layer of decades-old grime, generations of Wildcat footballers having partied and lived here. The back hallway came into view, the walls somewhere between yellow and nicotine-stained gray. Jayce could see part of the kitchen down to the right, and to the left the living room beckoned at his curiosity. Beneath it all, there was a hum: laughter echoing down the hall, the rhythmic thud of bass from a distant speaker, the smell of popcorn now vibrant in the air, voices overlapping in bursts of chatter that rose and fell like waves… Oddly enough, it did feel like a mismatched kind of home. Toward the kitchen, something that sounded like a screen door slammed.

Viktor’s cane clicked gently against the wood as he walked toward the staircase, until he came to a stop at the foot of the winding stairs, patting around for something in his pants pockets.

“Vik?” A sing-song voice called from down the hall to the left.

Viktor paused, a foot raised to the bottom stair, looking down the hall. He seemed to be conscious of his partner who was waiting for his lead, and turned to look back at Jayce, who shrugged a bit, in uncharted territory.

“They’ll be insatiable if I don’t, eh,” Viktor explained, gesturing down the lefthand hallway. “Throw them a bone.”

“Well,” Jayce felt his brows scrunch inwards, confusion and curiosity dancing a two-step. “We… wouldn’t want that.”

As they approached the living room, Jayce began to pick out voices more indistinctly. Fragments sharpened into words as the conversation came into focus and the music grew clearer, spilling from the open space ahead in a steady pulse. He recognized the melody almost instantly—one of Steve Lacy’s most famous songs. The familiarity tugged at him, a quick spark of appreciation threading through his chest, though the recognition carried a wry edge; not exactly the kind of artist he would’ve pegged for this specific crowd, if he was being honest. The unexpectedness of it drew a faint, disbelieving curl at the corner of his mouth.

♬

Don't you give me up, please don't give up

On me, I belong, with you, only you, babe

Only you, my girl, only you, babe

“I’m telling you, dude,” one of the voices in the living room was proclaiming. “It’s getting colder out. The wind, the rain… The mood is set.”

A second voice grimaced with trepidation. “Don’t tell me—”

“Yup,” the first voice popped the ‘p’ dramatically.

“Haunted attic,” several voices groaned in unison.

“Man, I’ve got an 8am tomorrow, you’ve gotta be shitting me!”

“Please don’t tell me—”

“—boy toy coming over.”

“Hashtag confirmed, bro.” The first voice affirmed. “He told me at lunch. ETA unknown, but imminent.”

“Aw, hell,” another chimed imploringly. “They’re reunited. C’mon, it’s romantic!”

“Romantic?!” Several voices cried, flabbergasted as Jayce and Viktor stepped into the living room’s threshold.

The air thrummed with conversation: laughter bouncing from wall to wall, the glow of a wide TV flooding the room as a half-dozen frat boys lounged across several old leather couches, speaking over one another in easy cadences. Most of them were slouched under the weight of mismatched throw blankets, the coffee table at the center of the room was scattered with half-finished drinks, a bowl of popcorn, and colorful bags of snacks. A disproportionately large candle was burning in one of the far open windowsills. Jayce’s damp soles sunk into the carpet, likely leaving a wet footprint underneath him, and at his side Viktor was rolling his neck again.

“A noise violation is what it is.” A bearded, dark-skinned young man to the left tipped his head back against a leather couch, dreads spilling against his shoulders.

“Fuckin’ bat in the attic.”

“Bloodsucker,” came a husky giggle.

“Suckin’ something, alright.”

“God fucking dammit,” the guy with the dreadlocks groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “It’s gonna be Junior spring all over again.”

Another guy—his striking hair dyed fuchsia pink at the roots and fading into deep purple at the tips, a scar cutting clean across his left eye—jokingly elbowed him in the ribs, voice taking on a high-lilt as he breathed a series of mock-moans. “Oh Scar! Yes, yes! Right there, right there, pleeease!”

“Have any of you seen my pen?” Viktor called softly, and to Jayce’s surprise, despite the gentle tone… every head swiveled in their direction, looking back over the couches. The music played on; the DVD homescreen of Finding Dory on a loop.

A chorus of greetings echoed through the living room, this space painted blue just like the entry way. One voice called out “nice shirt, Vik,” while another chimed in with, “told you it’d look good with the sleeves cut off!” To which Viktor only answered with an almost imperceptible shrug. One of them—a straw-haired blond with a low, thin ponytail and his fringe falling into his icy blue eyes—suddenly caught sight of Viktor and quickly pushed himself over the back of one of the couches, a grin tugging at his mouth.

“Vik!” He called eagerly, hair falling in his eyes boyishly—Jayce recognized him from the posters, too, he was the team’s star kicker. “We’re still deciding on subtitles.”

“Mm.” Viktor’s lips twitched. “Got classwork to do.”

The response was almost instant: a couple of groans rolling through the room, followed by muttered protests, just like Jayce had heard from the entry way.

“You serious?” Another guy chimed in. His shaggy hair was a sharp, deep cherry shade that glowed under the TV light. His shirt was obscenely open over his torso, leaving his athletic frame on full, unapologetic display.

“C’mon, man,” the boyish kicker… Ezreal, right, Jayce remembered now, urged, leaning further over the couch. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

“Yeah, dude,” the pink-haired guy’s voice piped up from deeper in the room. “You can’t skip out on the tradition you started. That’s bullshit.”

“I know,” a long sigh escaped Viktor. There was a small, nearly endearing grin tugging at the boy’s mouth, distracting Jayce from the awkwardness of standing aside and being the ‘reason’ Viktor couldn’t join in the ‘fun.’ “But we have… something to start.” Viktor explained, shrugging in Jayce’s direction.

Almost in unison, all of their heads turned, gazes pressing needles into Jayce.

“A project,” Jayce surprised himself with the clarity of his own voice. Heat crept up the back of his neck, “For school.” He swallowed while forcing a smile, lifting his hand in a stiff, uncertain wave. “Um, hey.”

A few muttered “hey”s echoed back at him, more out of reflex than warmth.

A beat later, ignoring Jayce’s presence and Viktor’s excuse entirely, the redhead spoke up again, his grin sharp as he called out, “What if we put the subtitles in Czech this time? C’mon, you know you wanna see what Nemo’s been up to.”

“Sorry, boys. And besides, Sett,” Viktor’s answer was a quiet laugh under his breath. He shook his head, waving a hand dismissively. “You need to study for your Spanish mid-term.”

That earned a scatter of groans, some laughter, one of the boys crooning “got him!” while Sett moaned, “my mid-term isn’t for weeks!” and another protested, “we are studying, exposure to the language, baby—en Español!” Then came another, “no, no, we’ve gotta do French!” And then the boys all began to shove and rough-house one another, blankets shuffling over the leather as they tumbled.

In the midst of the colorful skirmish, Viktor giggling at his side quietly, Jayce caught a particular pair of sapphire-blue eyes watching him from across the carpeted room: Dmitri. From their capstone course. His hair was pulled up into a knot high at the back of his head, something tucked behind his ear—he had a notebook propped against his folded leg, a pencil eraser pressed against his lips. He watched Jayce, and Jayce, in turn, watched him.

“I never should have shown you all the subtitle features.” Viktor pressed his long fingers against his lips, as if keeping his laughter from spilling too profusely. “I have created a monster. A hydra with too many heads.”

Jayce watched in real time as Dmitri’s pensive, judgemental scrutiny morphed into what Jayce could only think to describe as a watchful, coaxing expression not unlike the Cheshire Cat. Those blue eyes snapped away from Jayce and onto Viktor; practically purring as he chimed in.

“Getting an early jump on it, huh?” Dmitri called, voice crawling under Jayce’s skin. The likeness was spot on, with Dmitri perched across the room in a recliner, metaphorical tail flicking lazily.

Without an ounce of trepidation, Viktor crossed the living room over to his fellow engineer, shaking his head as he left Jayce’s side. Dmitri’s eyes flicked back to Jayce only once for a snatch of a second, until Viktor chided, “hand it over.”

Dmitri sighed, head slowly sagging forward, “you’re too quick for me.”

A few of the other boys chuckled while they flicked through the subtitle options on the television, some watching as Viktor approached Dmitri, who had picked his head back up and was lounging back in his La-Z-Boy as if it were a throne. Jayce shifted on his feet, fiddling with the straps of his backpack, painfully aware of how his pants were dripping onto the carpet wetly.

“Filthy habit you’ve got,” Dmitri purred at Viktor, who stood at the back of the recliner and peered down over him, his chocolate and blonde tousled hair spilling forward delicately. “But if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times…”

“You,” Viktor started, tilting his head and leaning down, plucking the item, which Jayce now pieced together to be a weed pen, from behind Dmitri’s ear.

This was all so… different than Jayce expected—yes, he’d seen Viktor and Dmitri act familiar with one another in class, had made his own… assumptions, which turned out to be thankfully incorrect, but even so…

“Are not the boss of me.” Viktor finished, waggling the pen in front of Dmitri’s nose and stepping away nonchalantly, even as Dmitri’s gaze—many gazes, in fact—followed him as he crossed to Jayce again.

Jayce could’ve sworn he heard one of the boys curse under their breath. He confirmed as much when Viktor stooped to pick up a book bag from the floor by one of the couches, something sharper than camaraderie zipping through the air. He watched, helpless, as half a dozen sets of hungry eyes dragged up Viktor’s long legs, lingering on the curve of his ass and his narrow waist. One of the brown-haired boys they had seen earlier in the entryway leaned back against the couch, lips quirking in a mock-ecstatic grimace, his hands flexing in the air in Viktor’s direction—subtle, like he was cupping something that wasn’t there. His teammate beside him barked a laugh, shoving his shoulder, and the rest dissolved into quiet snickers—all unseen by Viktor’s turned back, but sharp and inescapable to Jayce’s dissecting gaze.

If Viktor noticed, he didn’t make any expression to show it, throwing the bag over his shoulder and tapping something on his phone. The playlist was cut off. “Happy studying.”

So that had been Viktor’s music.

“Bye, Vik!” Ezreal called dreamily, only to have his head pushed forward instantly by the boy beside him, both of them breaking into laughter.

Jayce’s stomach knotted. The smile he’d forced earlier dissolved into a thin line as discomfort prickled through him.

“Oh, and K’Sante?” Viktor threw a look back over his shoulder at the boy with the dreadlocks. “Steb might be loud, but I know for a fact he had your ass in debate last April.”

All the other boys hooted, waving their arms at how K’Sante had just gotten ‘dunked on’, exclaiming ‘oh yeah, I remember that!’ Meanwhile, Viktor paused at Jayce’s side, seeming to notice the shift in his demeanor, but misunderstanding it.

Viktor pursed his lips, tucking his weed pen behind his own ear now, speaking softly just to Jayce. “It helps with my…” He wiggled his cane in his grip in lieu of further explanation, holographic stickers flashing.

Jayce blinked, nodding, “Oh. Yeah, right, of course.”

Viktor pressed his lips together in a weak attempt at a smile, and passed by him, heading for the staircase. Jayce seemed to be frozen in place.

“Hey, man,” Sett piped up at Jayce, all the boys’ skeptical eyes on him now that Viktor had departed. “Haven’t I seen you at the gym before?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jayce swallowed. He thumbed back over his shoulder in a ‘gotta go’ motion. “Probably.”

“Oh yeah,” recognition registered in Sett’s eyes, the rest of the boys, even Dmitri, perking up at his surge of enthusiasm. “You were talking with that receptionist girl the other day—in Spanish!”

Jayce took another step toward the hallway, “...Elora? Yeah, she’s a friend of my roommate’s—”

Sett didn’t seem to be paying an ounce of attention to Jayce’s explanation. “Say something in Spanish, dude! Let’s see if I can understand it!”

“Uh,” annoyance prickled at the back of Jayce’s mind. His gaze flicked to the DVD menu screen. “Los peces son amigos, no comida.”

A beat of buzzing expectation and furrowing brows.

Then, “no way!” Sett howled. “Just like in the movie!”

Most of the boys cheered, glomming on and bouncing on the couches in excitement. K’Sante just shook his head, rolling his eyes. Dmitri’s expression remained unchanged, his cool gaze steady on Jayce, and—Jesus, did that guy ever blink? One of the boys accidentally upended the popcorn bowl, sending yellow-white confetti sky high. Jayce took the opportunity to duck back into the hallway, hastening after Viktor, who was already halfway up the stairs.

“What did I tell you,” Viktor chuckled when Jayce caught up to him on the stairs. “Dogs with a bone.”

• .⋅ ⾕ ⋅.•

Each of Viktor’s steps were soft on the wooden staircase, and as they came to the second-floor, the house grew quieter, the thrum of conversation and music muffled now by the floor.

Jayce’s eyes stared at Viktor’s back, noting how out of place he seemed in this chaos of a house, and yet, at the same time, that there was a quiet certainty in his movements. He was indeed at peace here. Viktor held his own, even amidst the rolling boil of this place. Still, Jayce's gut twisted, the dynamic between them all was… certainly peculiar. He was still unsettled by the weight of those boys’ gazes and sharp teeth behind their playful smiles.

From the top of the stairs, straight ahead, there was a large window that looked out onto a balcony, and through it Jayce could see that the rain had let up. The pastel purple darkness of twilight was now fully taking hold.

“Here we are,” Viktor hummed, directing Jayce down a left hallway.

Two bedroom doors waited down this direction, separated by what looked to be a storage closet. Above the door farther down the hall, a wooden plank hung above the doorframe, painted purple with white handwriting. It read: Dmitri, #1. The closer of the doors had a similar plank of wood hanging, though it read, simply: Viktor, in what Jayce recognized to be Viktor’s own penmanship. He imagined all of the frat brothers gathering up to paint their bedroom door markers together, with Viktor among them, no player number to note on his own. The curiosities of this house continued to stump him—though one detail of the house’s layout stole his attention, in particular:

Viktor and Dmitri weren’t just housemates…

The two of them shared a wall.

Charming.

Viktor opened the door to his room, pushing it inward with his cane before stepping inside. Jayce followed, shaking a bit of rain from his hair as his gaze made a slow circuit around the space.

It wasn’t the room Jayce had been expecting. Not exactly sterile or impersonal, but it didn’t scream college frat house either. The walls were mostly bare, except for a couple of posters with bold lettering and stark black-and-white imagery—rock bands or DJs Jayce had never heard of, probably. In contrast, one stood out in between the others: a seventies-looking print with a faded, worn effect, depicting a circle of colorful geometric shapes and two robotic hands locked in a handshake right in the middle. Under it, in purple sinuous block lettering: PINK FLOYD: Wish You Were Here. And just underneath, a bit more large and outstretched: Welcome to the Machine. Scattered between the posters were a small handful of photographs taped to the walls. Jayce couldn’t make out their subjects from where he stood, just flashes of light and shadow, frozen in time.

The bed in the far-right corner was half-made, pillows rumpled, sheets tangled. A long, oddly-shaped body pillow lay sprawled between the folds, catching the dim gray light that trickled in through one of the windows just above the headboard. On the nightstand there was a half empty dark plastic water bottle, a clutter of half-crushed energy drink cans, some sort of roll-on cream, and a stack of thin books threatening to topple.

“Cozy.” Jayce’s mouth twitched, speaking without his explicit intent.

Across the room, a narrow bookshelf leaned under the weight of paperbacks and music albums, and what seemed to be some sort of old, rusty looking boat toy. A small, solitary succulent was perched on the top like a sentry, defiant against the mess. Beside the shelf, a wooden desk bore the unmistakable chaos of a mind that worked too fast for its hands to keep up: scattered papers, half-spent pens in bright colors, open books, and a couple of chipped coffee mugs shoved to the side. An old, slim desk lamp arched over the mess, while Viktor’s laptop glowed with a faint blue light at its center, throwing a quiet gleam across the surface. Just tucked underneath, there was a wheeled office chair that looked far too ergonomic for the rest of the room.

Jayce’s curious eyes flicked over the space, taking in the layers of mess and order, before he caught the soft click of the door shutting behind him. Viktor let out a long sigh as he let the bag of books on his shoulder hit the floor, leaning his weight on the wooden door for a beat.

“Well,” he muttered, “welcome to my humble little corner of this madhouse.”

Jayce turned to look at him with a small, unguarded smile tugging at his mouth. “I like it,” he said truthfully, his voice warmer than he meant it to be.

Viktor hummed, his gaze sliding back to Jayce then, just for a moment. Amber eyes flicked up and down in a quiet, assessing sweep just before quickly clearing his throat and looking aside. “Anyway,” he murmured, stepping toward a wardrobe by the door. “Let me find you something dry before you destroy my floor.”

Viktor crouched slightly, pulling open the narrow drawers of the wardrobe with one hand while steadying himself with the other. Jayce shifted his weight awkwardly near the center of the room, tugging at the damp towel still slung around his shoulders.

“Really, that’s—it’s kind of you, but you don’t have to,” he said quickly, almost sheepishly. “I’ll dry off eventually. Promise.”

Viktor didn’t even glance back, shuffling through folded piles of fabric with a quiet determination. “No,” he simply countered, his accent sharpening the word as he plucked through another drawer. “I am not letting you sit on my bed and soak my sheets, sorry.”

Jayce opened his mouth, then closed it again, caught between amusement and embarrassment. He huffed softly through his nose, taking off his wet backpack and setting it down next to the desk, watching the way Viktor’s shoulders rose and fell as he worked, his cane wedged against the wardrobe to keep from clattering down. Jayce noticed now that they were settling into the space that this room carried the faint smell of weed, as well, but unlike the rest of the house there was a distinct note of rich citrus—like the scent of warm mulled cider that you came across at times during the holidays. It wasn’t oversaturated like the candle downstairs, and the longer that Jayce lingered on it, the more he realized… it was simply Viktor’s scent. Inherent to him.

At last, his new partner turned around, a bundle of dark clothes in his hand, long fingers curled neatly around the fabric, nails painted a perfect shade of matte black that stood out starkly against the pale of his skin. “Uh, this is…” he began, his expression mild, almost casual, though his brows pinched faintly as though he were bracing for Jayce to refuse. “The best I can offer. Hope they fit.”

Jayce hesitated, blinking. The first item unfurled easily enough—some loose sport shorts, the kind with an elastic waistband and the faint sheen of old polyester. The second was some sort of graphic t-shirt, soft from years of wear, its logo slightly faded. By the size of it, Jayce figured, it would swallow Viktor’s narrow frame whole. On him, though… it might be just right. For some reason, his own jeans felt tighter than ever. Probably just because they were still soaked. ...Yeah.

“Thanks.” Reaching out, Jayce felt the skin of his neck warm up. “Should I…?”

Pink bloomed in Viktor’s cheeks, “there’s a bathroom. Down the hall, on the right.”

Jayce swallowed. Their fingers were still touching around the clump of clothes. Viktor seemed to realize this at the same time, and pulled his hand back as if he’d been scalded. Jayce couldn’t help the way his stomach flipped.

“Right, okay,” he nodded. “Be right back.”

“Sure.” Viktor murmured, no longer meeting his eyes.

The upstairs bathroom was larger than Jayce expected, offering both a full walk-in shower as well as an antique clawfoot bathtub. The state of it was a bit more predictable. Creased with lingering scum and grime, the mint-green tile of the floor was covered by a bathmat in the shape of the Northwestern Wildcat logo. The shower curtain was faded white, and written on it in big, red-Sharpied letters was the statement: GET NAKED. He blinked at it for a beat, scoffed, then moved on.

Drying himself off with the towel and changing quickly, he found that the shirt fit to his rain-tacky skin like a glove, hugging the ridges of his abs in a way that made him scoff at himself. He shook out his hair a bit more, and ran some water from the sink over his fingers to tame the caterpillars of his eyebrows, his touch lingering on the scar through his right one. After one last timid look at himself, he hesitantly brought the hem of the shirt to his nose and gave a small, tentative sniff. It smelled of clean soap, a nearly imperceptible hint of smoke, and that same warm citrus scent. Yeah. Definitely Viktor’s scent.

After a deep breath and a slight groan, as he scooped up the wet towel and his own sopping clothes from the floor, he swung open the door to the hallway, and was met by the sight of a ladder, which he guessed led up to the attic, being pulled back up toward the ceiling. A broad hand disappeared into the warm gloom of the upper floor. At this point, Jayce wondered if there was a secret passageway hidden behind a bookcase somewhere. He held a hand under his dripping clothes, trying to prevent any further hardship to the hardwood floors. The long runner rugs in the hallway scrunched under his bare feet.

Returning to Viktor’s bedroom, he was met with the image of the boy sitting on the edge of the bed, fingers at the straps of his leg brace, starting to undo them. As he stepped in, Jayce shut the door softly behind him, lifting the damp bundle in his hands. “Where can I put these?”

Viktor’s head snapped up, and for a heartbeat he looked almost winded. His gaze stuttered over Jayce’s frame, and Jayce could’ve sworn his eyes lingered just a fraction too long on his legs, now mostly bared by the loose shorts Viktor had given him. He swallowed, heat prickling at the back of his neck, immediately convinced Viktor was probably thinking he looked a bit ridiculous in clothing so obviously not his size.

“Uh…” After a beat, his partner finally cleared his throat, glancing away and quickly returning to unbuckle his brace. “You can hang them… there. Over the windowsill.”

Jayce nodded, a little uneasy, and crossed the space, pushing the window open. The humid evening air brushed against his face as he draped his wet clothes over the sill. The rain had subsided, and twilight was curling with a light fog over the cool-damp grass of the disheveled frat house’s backyard. There was a set of outdoor furniture with overgrown grass eating its feet and ankles, as well as a number of footballs tossed randomly about, ready to be picked up and thrown at a moment’s notice. Beer cans dotted the yard like freckles, catching the gloomy sunset glow, marking a winding path to the back faded-white picket fence. In the center of the fence stood an arched trellis, with flowering vines growing up its sides, blue trumpet-like blossoms heavy with rain water. The back of a familiar sorority house awaited him through the fading light, though he’d never seen it from this angle before, glowing with its very own constellation of lamps and string lights.

Pulling his focus back inside the frat house, his attention snagged on Viktor’s walls. Pinned just next to the window, there was a horizontal polaroid of what seemed to be a much younger Viktor, his cheeks squished beneath the smothering kiss from an older woman with flawless silver-gray hair, except for a couple streaks of dark brown spilling from the tight bun at her nape. Jayce felt the corners of his lips purse, an instinctual warmth glowing with recognition in his stomach.

Nearby, a smaller polaroid—this one of a bronze-skinned girl with her curls piled high in a voluminous bun, gold glasses perched on her freckled nose, smiling shyly over an enormous bouquet of sun-bright yellow flowers. The softness to her expression made her seem instantly likable—sweet, almost. And if Viktor had given her a solitary spot on his wall, Jayce guessed she must’ve been someone special.

This section of Viktor’s room appeared to be a scrapbook of photos, a shrine to his loved ones. Yet another image was taped, somewhat haphazardly, below those above. A grainy printout on cheap paper, evidently more recent: this one depicted Viktor again, seated in the bleachers at Northwestern’s ‘Medicine Field’ where the football team played right alongside Lake Michigan. Viktor’s tattooed middle finger was raised toward the camera with a sharp grin and, behind him, with his football-padded arms draped over Viktor’s shoulders, Dmitri leaned in, teeth bared in a wide smile. Jayce studied the black-haired boy, noting that in the photo his violet football uniform was rumpled, helmet tossed aside, grass stains on the white sections of his kit. A few other boys, who Jayce guessed lived here in this house, too, were ‘photobombing’ in the background of the picture, all throwing up various sigils with their hands and putting on their best tough-guy faces.

His jaw tightened as he stared at that last picture, lips pressing together before he even realized it. He turned, gaze drifting back toward Viktor, who had finally unstrapped his brace, leaving it propped against the edge of the bed. The right leg of his pajama pants was rolled up to his knee now, pale skin bared as he worked the roll-on applicator Jayce had seen on his nightstand over the lower muscles of his leg. Fingers followed after, spreading the cream with practical precision, pressing in until his thumbs sank deep into the flesh, making Viktor wince slightly before resuming the motion.

Jayce swallowed, watching him longer than he meant to.

“Can I ask…” He finally broke the silence, curiosity too much to bear. “How’d you end up living here, anyway?”

Viktor tilted his head, snapping the cap back into the cylindrical roll-on before setting it on his bedside table, leaving a sharp, minty scent lingering in the air. He reached for his water bottle instead, and sucked a long drink from the purple straw. Jayce watched his throat work as he swallowed.

“What, you don’t think I rushed and also made the football team, just like everyone else?”

Jayce huffed out a self-deprecating kind of sigh. “Well, it’s not that, it’s just—”

“Dmitri.” Viktor answered simply.

Jayce blinked. “He… invited you?”

“Mmhmm. We met in a class last year. He needed some tutoring and I ended up helping him out for a couple of months.” Viktor shrugged. “He told me the house had an open spot for senior year, and since a, eh,” he blinked, eyes ducking down for a moment, “good friend of mine happened to live in the house that we share a yard with… well. It seemed like a good fit.”

“Someone in KαT?” Jayce thought of one member of that sorority in particular and felt a small smile tug at his mouth.

Viktor nodded, a similar expression on his features. Jayce turned to the second-story window once again. This time, he looked closer at the sorority’s larger backyard. Through the vine-crowned trellis, a garden of thick, tall wildflowers, chaotic and yet neatly cared for, obscured the back door of the sorority house from view, its pale yellow exterior welcoming even from a distance. Jayce could see into the back kitchen window of the KαT house that three girls were cooking dinner together. A redhead was singing into a wooden spoon, a brunette was chopping carrots, while a blonde had her back to the window, stirring something on the stove. Jayce was struck, not for the first time, by the beauty of simply observing the vibrancy of near-strangers in their natural habitat. A breeze curled through the backyard, and the wildflowers swayed. There was a word he was looking for to describe the tranquil scene, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

Movement from within the privacy of the tall flowers caught his attention. Two figures were intertwined in the garden, swaying together in laughter before their mouths found one another. Jayce narrowed his eyes, and he managed to recognize Loris almost instantly, the material of his purple jersey catching the buttery light from the sorority house’s back door. And, wrapped up in his embrace with her elegant hands on Loris’ chest and her purple-tipped waves gathered in one of his large palms at the back of her head, was none other than Lest.

“Huh,” Jayce nodded in surprise, eyes widening amidst the pang of recognition. “Yeah, you really do share a backyard.”

Oh, he was so going to tease her about knowing this new information. A giddy kind of excitement trilled through him at the thought of finally having some intel on his friend’s enigmatic love life. Still, beneath the thrill lingered a quieter thought—he only hoped this time worked better than the last for her…

Whether or not Viktor was aware of his housemate’s trists, well... Jayce decided to keep a lid on this information for the time being, until he could find out just how secretive Lest wanted to be about it.

Lest and Loris parted from their kiss, and she looked into his eyes for a long moment before laying her head on his shoulder, his arms enveloping her. In the soft light, Loris picked her up and twirled her gently, their laughter and the sway of their bodies carrying them deeper into the garden until they melted out of sight. An ache, deep rooted and seldom watered, pulled at Jayce. Romantic. That might’ve been the word he’d been looking for.

Jayce swallowed, clearing his throat, and turned from the window.

“So,” he started, bare feet brushing against the softness of a Wildcat stuffed animal that seemed to have been banished from Viktor’s bed onto the floor.

“So.” Viktor echoed, scooching back to lean against the wall behind him. “Our project.”

“Right,” Jayce said, rubbing the back of his neck as he crossed to his backpack at the foot of Viktor’s desk, inwardly praying his notes weren’t completely ruined. Luckily, his leather journal was nearly untouched, and his slim pencil case was only a little damp. He’d have to remember to thank Caitlyn again for spoiling him with a fancy Cotopaxi backpack for his birthday. The patchwork rainbow of the different sections of the bag still made him smile, even if had originally begged her to let him return it. To save her money. That it was too much. She’d seen the covert, appreciative look in his eyes when he’d opened it, and succinctly torn the tag off before he could argue any further.

Behind him, Viktor pushed himself up from the bed with his cane, taking his bottle with him and limping toward the wheeled chair tucked under his desk. He nodded toward a modest wooden chair in one of the corners of the room, a basket with a bunch of neatly folded laundry perched on top. “Suit yourself,” he murmured as he lowered himself into his own chair, leaning his cane against the edge of the desk. “You can put that on the floor.”

Jayce offered a faint smile, setting his belongings on the desk before moving to the chair. He lifted the laundry basket carefully, struck by how neat and orderly the clothes there were—strangely at odds with the scattered chaos of the rest of the room. Setting it down, he slid the chair closer and sat beside Viktor, the motion making the sport shorts he was wearing hitch up as he settled, baring more of his thighs than he’d have liked. He shifted in his seat, forcing himself not to dwell on it, watching as Viktor pulled his laptop closer to him, the cool blue glow of the screen enhancing the lines of his sharp profile.

“So…” Jayce flipped open his notebook, the word dragging as he gathered his thoughts. “Robotics?” He simply said, his mind going back to their conversation from earlier that morning.

Viktor hummed low, a sound that rumbled from the back of his throat. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled under his chin for a moment before he spoke. “If you like the topic, then yes, we could go for that.”

Jayce nodded, eagerness growing, pulling out a pen from his case and instantly tapping it three times against the margin of his notes as the gears in his brain began to turn. “But, what?”

“Well,” his partner nodded back, scratching the back of his neck as if he were deep in thought, reaching for a pencil of his own with his opposite hand. “I think the question is not what, so much as how.”

Jayce considered this different perspective. “Go on.”

“Robotics is too broad. Everyone wants to make an automaton that delivers coffee or folds laundry. But that does nothing for anyone—except, maybe, the exceptionally lazy.” His lips pursed thoughtfully at his own remark. “What interests me is robotics that fill a human need. Practical. Transformative.”

Jayce jotted the words down absently, but his eyes didn’t leave Viktor. There was a steadiness in the way he said transformative—like it wasn’t just a word, but something he’d pinned a lot of himself onto. “Alright. So, practical and transformative. I like that.” He mused, leaning back on his chair, feeling its legs creak under his weight. “What kind of ‘transformative’ are we talking here? I think we mentioned something about… prosthetics this morning, right?”

For a second, the image of his mom’s hands flashed across his mind—her left index and middle fingers gone, replaced by two simple steel prosthetics, the kind you settle for when money doesn’t stretch far enough for anything better. He remembered the way she had adjusted to them, masking the quiet frustration of losing mobility that had leaked through in the early months after the accident.

“Yes!” His head snapped up at the other boy’s enthusiastic response, the sharp conviction in his voice tugging Jayce fully into the present. “There has been progress there, but… it is slow. Too slow for the year we’re in, I’m afraid.” Viktor let out a soft scoff, his hand lifting in a vague gesture before falling again. “People would rather use AI for useless things. Or for writing their essays for them.”

“Right,” Jayce laughed quietly, fiddling with his pen as he kept up with Viktor’s line of thinking, “Prosthetics are usually just… function-first. What if we made something smarter? Something that adapts, maybe even… responds.”

Viktor’s brows lifted. “Responds?”

Jayce nodded to himself. “Imagine if a prosthetic could adjust in real time. If it could… I don’t know, listen to the body and react instead of being a static piece of hardware, needing to be ‘driven’ manually.”

Viktor’s eyes narrowed, his mind already working. He absentmindedly twirled the pencil in his hand without even glancing down. He was quite… dextrous. “There is already talk of neural interfaces,” he murmured, his accent curling around his vowels. “Electrodes that pick up nerve signals.”

“Right, but they’re clunky. Unreliable.” Jayce pressed, the momentum of the idea catching him. “So what if we improved that? What if tech could interpret those signals better, maybe even… predict them? Machine learning, AI training… something to make a prosthetic not just controlled by the body, but in tune with it.”

“The prosthetic’s AI nerves wouldn’t have to learn every single human being’s way of moving…” Viktor pondered.

“Only the person it’s paired with.” Jayce finished, and their gazes met.

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the soft whirr of Viktor’s laptop fan.

“Bespoke, adaptive neural intelligence.” Jayce breathed.

Viktor swallowed, and said the word that they both knew was simmering beneath the surface. “Magic.”

Jayce felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Essentially.”

He worried for half a second that he’d overstepped, gone too far into sci-fi territory—but then Viktor hummed, leaned in again, and his fingers started tapping restlessly against the computer keys. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair, drawing his left leg up toward his chest. His teeth caught on his thumb’s painted nail, worrying at the black polish. Jayce waited, patience an easy thing in light of the awe still lingering in the afterglow of them finishing each other’s sentences.

Then, Viktor looked at him—truly looked—his amber eyes catching the faint glow of the screen. “Alright,” he finally murmured, “I think we have a direction, then.”

Jayce felt a genuine smile pull at the corners of his mouth at the quiet conviction in his partner’s tone. He ducked his head, instantly scribbling down what had just been articulated.

“Do you really think it could work?” He asked, looking back up.

“Ehh, on paper…” Viktor shrugged.

“Okay, but I think if we—”

Jayce’s voice died in his throat as a loud ‘thump!’ came from the ceiling up above. His gaze flew upwards, brows furrowing, before he looked over at Viktor again, who was also staring up, slowly biting into the plushness of his bottom lip. Out in the hallway, through the thin wood of Viktor’s bedroom door, someone groaned.

“You,” Viktor cleared his throat. “Were saying?”

Jayce blinked. “Just that, I mean, we’d need to consult outside sources for proof of concept. This… this theory, it’s—at least in my field of research so far—not thoroughly explored. We would be breaking new ground.”

Even as he lost himself in the abstract excitement of it, he was aware of Viktor's eagerness rising to meet his own.

“Agreed,” Viktor swallowed again, writing something down in his own scattered notes and instantly circling it. “And though I’ve, eh, dabbled in pre-med, as I said, it’d be sheer hubris for me to assume complete awareness of the minutiae, there are considerations I’d likely overlook out of ignorance…”

Up above, a soft tapping began to stutter. Both he and Viktor’s gazes flicked upwards once again. Viktor’s brows were creased, but Jayce recognized the rhythm for what it was instinctually, exhaling a huffed breath. This… wasn’t his house. It wasn’t his place to acknowledge what was happening.

“You’re too modest,” Jayce cleared his throat, casting his eyes down to his notes.

Viktor hummed an amused kind of sound, refocusing. “Hardly.”

Jayce felt his ears grow warm. “What about approaching the biology department with this?”

“I considered that,” Viktor nodded. “My advisor, Professor Reveck, may be able to lend insight, if not his outright backing.”

Jayce’s chest swelled, gaze pulled back to Viktor like gravity. “You’re that confident in us already?”

Viktor’s amber eyes met his, and he didn’t flinch. The moment stretched, and Jayce’s heart was loud within the confines of his ribcage. The diamonds of Viktor’s many earrings twinkled in the low lamp light.

“I am.” Viktor said, softly.

Jayce’s tongue wetted his lower lip. An idea was forming in the back of his mind, his memories humming like the plucked chords of a harp. Something Caitlyn had mentioned a while ago, perhaps... Jayce’s brows furrowed as he tried to dig into the fog that often eclipsed his mind, searching for answers. His lashes fluttered as he opened his mouth to voice his own assurances.

He was interrupted by the tapping rhythm overhead accelerating loudly, becoming rabbit-paced.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Already?”

“Need it, I need it…”

“Yeah, right there?”

“Don’t stop, Scar, please, don’t stop—”

Jayce’s eyes flew wide, again looking up at the ceiling, his train of thought completely derailed. The voices were muffled but distinct from overhead, the moans sounding just on the right side of the pleasure and pain spectrum. Viktor pulled both of his knees inwards toward himself, a hand coming up to cover his mouth.

“Is that—?” Jayce asked, remembering the snatches of conversation he’d overhead downstairs when he and Viktor had approached the living room.

As their eyes met again, disbelief tripped headfirst into shocked laughter—both of them blushing as they fought hard to contain their giggles. If they could hear the two of them going at it in the attic, then surely the thinness of the walls went both ways. Although, Jayce reasoned, the couple above them were evidently a bit distracted.

“Yes.” Viktor put his face into his hands fully, shoulders shaking. “This is the first time that I have actually heard—”

The rabbit-paced thumping grew louder, the determined thwacking becoming raucous.

“Missed you so much.”

“Yeah, yeah—”

“Give it to me, baby, c’mon…”

“Please, please, daddy—”

To Jayce’s absolute delight, Viktor muffled a mortified scream into his own hands.

“Should we maybe—” Jayce tried, laughter-induced tears clouding his vision, not even sure what he was proposing.

The rhythm stuttered.

Viktor breathed in a deep, shuddering inhale, peeking between his fingers. “I believe they are almost…”

“Love you.”

“I’m—!”

The thumping rhythm ceased.

Jayce and Viktor sat in mutual silence, until, after a long moment, Viktor exhaled.

“Oh,” Jayce, still stunned at what had just occurred, blinking the wetness from his eyes. His accent was thick in the heat of the moment. “My God.”

Slowly, Viktor pulled his face, flushed with embarrassment, back from his hands. “I am,” his throat clicked. “Not sure whether I should apologize or…”

“Thank them for the show?” Jayce’s mouth was still quivering with amusement.

“For being two of the quietest people I know…” Viktor huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “God, I feel like I need a cigarette.”

Jayce bit into his lip, flicking his eyebrows upwards once and refocusing on his notes. His words came out unbidden, stomach flashing with brightness like a dime flipped in sunlight. “I won’t stop you.”

Viktor’s eyes found him from under his lashes, and something flashed deep in the amber of his gaze. Clearing his throat, the other boy shifted on his chair, picking up his pencil again. “As we were saying...”

Right. Back to business.

The pair of them fell into an easy rhythm, posing hypotheticals and discussing their goals—Jayce learned that Viktor’s ambition was to use this capstone as a springboard for his career after college.

“Of course,” Viktor rolled a shoulder, an almost shrug. A tuft of his wispy hair fell forward, grazing his high cheekbone. The honey-lamplight of the room made all the sharp angles of him a touch softer. “I will have to consider doctoral programs, if I want to be truly competitive in the years to come, no matter which specific field I chose to specialize in.”

Jayce had pursed his lips against a smile. “Of course.”

Viktor took another long drink from his water bottle; there was something comforting about the sound of him swallowing. “What about you?”

Jayce toyed with the fabric of his borrowed shirt, the brittle screen-printed logo flaking under his fingertips, “Um. Well, I suppose that I… I just hope that when we’re done,” he swallowed. “I’ll feel like it was worth it.”

Viktor hugged his good knee against his chest, resting his chin onto it as he looked over at Jayce. The tuft of his hair shifted, and Jayce had the distinct urge to reach out and feel it between his fingers. He blinked, brain going blank for a moment.

Looking back at Jayce unflinchingly, Viktor asked, “like what was worth it?”

Jayce’s gaze fell down to his notes, catching on his own initials in the corner. “All of it.”

There was a palpable second question hanging in the air, and even without looking up, Jayce could feel the burning embers in Viktor’s eyes fixed on him, watching him silently.

Before the silence could stretch to a breaking point, Jayce sat up straight, forcing levity into his voice as he blurted, “Are you sure we’ve met before?”

Viktor looked taken aback, the furrow of his brow morphing from—Jayce felt his stomach twist—concern into surprise, then a sardonic kind of disbelief, as if he were saying, no, I made that up.

“It’s just,” Jayce huffed a breath, raking his fingers back through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. He shook his head. “You’re kinda unforgettable.”

Viktor now looked as if he were about to either reach forward and shake Jayce by the shoulders, or abruptly burst out into laughter. Jayce would welcome either option gladly: Viktor’s touch, or Viktor’s amusement—especially if he were the source of it. He only ever wanted to bring the latter into Viktor’s world, it seemed as if he had enough chaos here, just in this house he lived in.

That thought soured in Jayce’s stomach, and it occurred to him at last.

“Was it,” Jayce’s throat clicked as he swallowed. “You said we had that Sophomore class together…”

Viktor nodded slowly.

Jayce cursed himself inwardly. “When did we meet, Viktor?”

Viktor licked over his bottom lip, and reached behind his ear to take his weed pen in-hand, spinning it in his grasp. Again, so dextrous. “It does not matter, really.”

Jayce sat forward, voice arrestingly terse, even to his own ears. “It does.”

Viktor met his eyes, and the pen stopped spinning.

“It matters,” Jayce repeated, unrepentant. “To me.”

Viktor raised his chin slowly, pupils large, amber irises lighting up the whole room. “Try.”

Jayce’s breath stuttered in his lungs. “What?”

“Try to remember.” His partner said, and the dismissive playfulness he’d kept on the subject so far was absent, matching the seriousness of Jayce’s tone.

Jayce worked the broad pads of his fingers in a rubbing motion over his forehead, and sat forward to rest an elbow onto one of his thighs. Thoughts of war and battle flared again in his mind. He hated the way his voice sounded as he said, “it’s… it’s not that easy. For me.”

Curling that same hand in a fist against his mouth, he looked up and met Viktor’s waiting gaze again. He was still unflinching, but the fire in his eyes burned in a way that beckoned, now. Jayce’s chest stirred.

“Try,” Viktor repeated, still serious, but this time softer.

Jayce’s eyes slipped closed, breath finding steadiness once again. “Keep talking.”

“Oh, Jayce.” Viktor sighed, though not impatiently. Again, that melodic cadence of his consonants. Jayce’s own name sounded better than he’d ever heard it, on Viktor’s tongue. “What would you like for me to say?”

“Anything,” warmth spread at the back of Jayce’s neck, but he ignored it. Color bloomed behind his eyelids, abstract. “Please.”

“Anything, hm?” Viktor hummed, and Jayce heard the distinctive hiss of him taking a hit from his pen. “Well I…” A sultry exhale. “I looked different. When we met. You saw that today, I believe, with the—well, with my first day photograph.” Jayce noted the sound of the pen being set aside on the table.

Jayce tilted his head slowly, shrugging. “I guess, but your eyes are the same.”

Viktor went quiet for a long moment. Something flipped in Jayce’s stomach.

“I said ‘anything’, remember?” Jayce prompted swiftly.

Viktor scoffed. “It is hard to know what exactly will, uh,” Viktor took another drink from his water bottle. The color behind Jayce’s eyelids sharpened. “Resonate, with you, Jayce—”

Jayce’s eyes flew open as the abstract color of the memory took form.

Resonate.

Why did that word catch him off guard? The way Viktor’s mouth worked over it—accent bringing a cushioned sharpness to its shape…

“Say that again.” He begged, drinking in the sight of his partner once more.

Viktor hesitated, embers flaring. “Resonate?”

“Yes, but, um…” Jayce stood from Viktor’s desk chair, pacing. “Different? More like…”

“Resonance?”

Jayce froze as the memory crashed into him sideways, hitting him at speed, but taking him by surprise. Viktor registered Jayce’s expression for what it was: recognition. The two of them stared at one another, Jayce’s lips parting to talk through the fog of what was slowly coming to him all at once.

“Again?”

“Mm,” Jayce’s stomach dipped as, overhead, a muffled voice eked out a slow moan. “Need you.”

His wide eyes flew up toward the ceiling, then back to Viktor.

“Right, yes, well, I think we’ve made good progress so far.” Viktor sat up straight from his leaning position, wincing as his back cricked. “I’ll draft an email to Heimerdinger for our topic declaration, you can proof it. Sound good?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Absolutely,” Jayce agreed, rapidly gathering his things and stuffing them into his backpack. “Um, what’d’you think, reconvene later this week? Figure out details later?”

The soft thumping rhythm resumed.

“Couldn’t agree more.” Viktor quickly grabbed his cane from the side of the desk.

“I can take it.”

“I-I’ll walk you out!” Viktor’s voice ratcheted up an octave.

“Know you can.”

Jayce’s concern spiked as he noted that Viktor would be going down the stairs without his brace on. “You don’t have to, really—”

“You feel so good.” A cracked moan. “Still wet from me.”

“I insist,” Viktor was already pulling open the door, and leading the way down the hall.

They dodged the boy with dreadlocks from downstairs, K’Sante, who was sporting a pair of large, over-the-ear headphones which had the volume dialed up loud enough for Jayce to hear a lyric of Cardi B’s Bodak Yellow clearly, a look of unamused determination on the guy’s face. Laughter threatened to consume Jayce once again, but he followed after Viktor diligently, all the way to the front door.

Jayce took his hoodie from the entryway’s coat rack, shrugging it up over his shoulders, the fabric still damp but noticeably less clingy than when he’d first stumbled in. He jammed his wet socks into the kangaroo pocket on the hoodie’s front and wrestled his shoes on, breathing out a small, “Well.”

“Well,” Viktor repeated, watching him as he laced his sneakers. “Progress.”

“Progress.” Jayce smiled, finally standing up straight.

“Mm,” Viktor nodded, placing both hands on the handle of his cane, slightly lifting his chin to look up at him. “Once we see how next week looks, we should try to figure out which day works best to keep… doing this.”

“This,” Jayce smiled faintly as they stepped out onto the porch—streetlight reflecting on the wet boards, the house still breathing behind them with muffled laughter, the smell of damp wood and hot pizza clinging into the air. “I like this.”

Viktor’s mouth twisted, and Jayce hoped he was fighting a smile. “Hasty, Jayce.”

Jayce bit his lip briefly. “Just text me, and we’ll set it up,” he said, the easy promise feeling warmer than the words themselves.

He retied strings of his hoodie into a neat bow, almost unconsciously, as he watched Viktor, the night framing him like a portrait: bony shoulders, the pale flesh at his throat, the warmth of his gaze reflecting the light, like a blurry, yet beautiful stranger you might see in a chiaroscuro painting framed with gold-leaf.

They stared at each other in a soft, companionable quiet for a moment. Then Viktor parted his lips to speak, “I—”

A sharp, carrying whistle sliced through the air a few yards down the walk. Jayce looked in the sound’s direction, instantly seeing three silhouettes in the darkness coming toward them, swaggering with the easy entitlement of boys built to take up too much space. One of them—a wiry-muscled boy, his hair close-shorn and a band-aid plastered across the bridge of his nose—tipped an imaginary cap as he neared. “How’s it going, boss?” he called Viktor, voice carrying the lazy warmth of banter.

Viktor gave a small, almost awkward smile and a hand-wave, trying to be casual. Jayce, watching the exchange, let amusement lace his features. “More of your housemates?” he murmured, almost to himself.

His partner exhaled, nodding. “I do not know how we all fit under one roof,” he said under his breath, the sentence an amused confession rather than a complaint.

“We don’t!” Band-aid nose snickered. “Deckard and Thieram are garage dwellers, remember?”

The guy leading the group—blonde hair falling into a pair of aquamarine eyes like chips of sea glass, expression practiced into a permanent half-sneer—clicked his tongue at the comment, gliding past the pair of them with a short, uninterested glance at Jayce, and a clipped “hey,” thrown at Viktor.

Right after him, the buzz-cut boy squeezed Viktor’s shoulder on his way inside, his grin pulling his nose into a scrunch that made the band-aid across its bridge shift with the movement. The motion somehow felt affectionate and territorial at once, and Viktor returned it with the barest of grins, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

The third came up behind them, considerably taller and a bit more lanky, his toothy smile revealing his chipped front teeth. “Hey, man,” he greeted Jayce, voice easy and clean. Jayce offered a mirrored smile and a quick nod. The guy then cocked his head toward Viktor with a lazy half-grin, breath fogging the porch light. “Looking good, Vik.”

Viktor shrugged, a small, practiced motion. “If you say so,” he replied, the edge of his voice softening as he managed a friendlier tone.

“You guys started movie night without us?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Afraid they did.” Viktor nodded.

“Should have guessed.” The boy clicked his tongue, blowing lightly through his lips so that his choppy, uneven fringe fluttered. “Are you gonna join?” he pushed, the question easy and almost teasing.

Viktor shrugged once again, giving a tight-lipped smile, “We’ll see.”

“Thieram!” A voice ran out from somewhere deeper inside the house.

The name snagged the boy’s attention as if on a tether. “Coming!” He sighed, then gave Viktor a brief half-salute, a loose, friendly arc of the hand that included Jayce without ceremony. “See you inside, then,” he said before pivoting and slipping through the doorway.

The porch fell quiet again, and Jayce arched a brow, amusement curling at his mouth as he looked at his partner. “You’re quite popular here, aren’t you?”

Viktor shook his head, a small, almost sheepish smile tugging at his lips. “They are just excited to have a newcomer in the house, that is all.”

“Mh.” Jayce let the sound low in his throat, clearly unconvinced. Still, he didn’t press. Instead he tugged his backpack higher on his shoulder, settling it against his spine. “Well. I should probably get going.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

The words hovered in the cool air between them, awkward in the smallest, most human way. Then Jayce’s mouth softened in a genuine smile, and before he could second guess himself, the words slipped out, warm and unguarded:

“I’m glad it’s you.”

The shift in Viktor’s expression was subtle but unmistakable. Something loosened, startled yet unhidden, his teeth catching briefly at his lower lip. Jayce watched as his pale throat bobbed before he finally replied, quiet but steady, “Yes. Yes, me too.”

Their smiles met as the quiet stretched out once again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Jayce was starting to understand that silence with Viktor was more comforting than anything.

Finally, Viktor broke it, glancing down as he cleared his throat. “Anyway…”

Jayce swallowed, nodding once. “Yeah, anyway, uh. See you around?” He began to step off the porch, the old wood creaking beneath his sneakers. He half-turned back, voice pitched lighter. “Text me, yeah?”

“I will,” Viktor said, lifting a hand in a small wave.

Jayce’s eyes lingered on him for just another heartbeat before he finally looked forward and started down the street. The night air was cold against his face, damp with the remnants of rain, but it barely touched him. A quiet smile curved on his lips, and warmth pooled steady in his chest, enough to carry him through the chill as he walked back to his apartment.

He didn’t realize until he was halfway home that he’d left most of his wet clothes on Viktor’s windowsill.

• .⋅ ⾕ ⋅.•

Late that night, insomnia keeping him awake, Jayce reached under his pillow for his phone. With a dull kind of static humming in the bundles of nerves in his wrists, he opened Instagram and began typing in the search bar.

His eyes widened in surprise when he realized Viktor’s profile… was public.

In his drowsy state, he didn’t think twice about tapping the ‘follow’ button, but what ensued in the hour of screentime after that, well… plenty of thoughts were pinging back and forth in his brain.

The cool subtlety of Viktor’s personality was reflected in his carefully curated Instagram feed, and beneath the Pinterest-worthy artistry of each seemingly effortless post, there was… a reserved kind of warmth. Maybe Jayce was reading too far into things. Maybe.

His thumb flicked and swiped through post after post. There was a single-photo post of a brilliantly blue butterfly resting on the polished black toe of Viktor’s Doc Martins. The location read Saugatuck, Michigan. There was no caption. Jayce might’ve scoffed if it were anyone else, but with Viktor… he got it. The photo said enough on its own.

Then there was a photo of a brilliant winter sunset on Lake Michigan, facing west and from high up on a bluff. The sand was hard-packed and dusted with snow, and it looked like, down on the shore beneath the windswept dune grass, the small figure with his mittened hands up towards the sky, appeared to be Viktor himself. The caption on this one read: photo cred: gran.

Jayce was unaware of his own smile until it began to heat and pinch his cheeks, and he quickly worked his jaw, shaking his head at himself.

There were aesthetically pleasing photos of beakers, equations, and chalkboards. Photos of Viktor’s delicately tattooed fingers holding nuts and bolts. Even one of an expertly crafted bit of latte-foam art that looked like the state of Michigan, the cup’s rim reading Saugatuck Sips. Jayce made a mental note to look up his home town later.

And then, he stumbled across it. A narrow waist, graceful collarbones, a light dusting of hair down a navel and across a shallow chest. It was a mirror selfie from the neck down displaying what Jayce knew to be top surgery scars. His mouth went dry when he noticed two metal studs puncturing Viktor’s perky nipples—but that wasn’t all. Just below, a subtle navel piercing—a small blue crystal ball glinting in the picture’s soft light. And last, but definitely not least, gracing the tenderness of Viktor’s chest and the taut line of his belly button, amidst his many moles and freckles… were tattoos.

Right in the hollow of his sternum, a sphere of ink pulsed like some sort of dark orb. It seemed like a labyrinth of corrupted lines and craters that twisted inward and outward, fractal and unstable. Its edges unfurled just slightly toward the sides of his chest, like a burst of restrained, geometric arcs intertwining with fine filigree. Below, framing his navel, there were lines curling upward and downward, encircling it in a broken ring, forming the impression of something organic yet engineered, a latticework of power scrawled across the soft plain of his stomach.

Jayce swallowed hard, the sound loud in the stillness of his own room. He lingered on the image far longer than reason allowed, tracing every detail with his eyes. The photo was lit in soft light, and there appeared to be several rainbows of light from a suncatcher of some sort dancing over Viktor’s pale, peach-fuzzed skin. The caption simply read: donated my tits to science.

Jayce’s thumb twitched, and he dropped his phone against his forehead, dumbstruck.

When he finally jerked his phone back in front of his face, he noticed in the displayed comments that Lest had commented: Damn, I would’ve taken them. Tits for tatts.

Below her comment, Dmitri had left no shortage of fire emojis. Jayce scoffed almost on instinct, having to restrain himself from rolling his eyes.

Heart beating in his neck and elsewhere, Jayce tossed his phone aside, staring up at his ceiling and willing himself not to spiral over his new partner.

His new… friend.

• .⋅ ⾕ ⋅.•

In the morning, Jayce woke up to a notification lighting up his screen: Viktor had followed him back.

He smiled, pressing the phone against his chest, a honey-golden warmth blooming in gentle, radiant waves until it filled every little corner inside his ribcage. As the sensation seeped into him, he turned over the ‘resonance’ memory in his mind, and for once… he didn’t run from it.

He did just as Viktor had encouraged.

He tried.