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Chapter Text

Geneva airport is a fluorescent, echoing nightmare. It’s stuffed with teenagers restless from the flight and well beyond testing the limits of Viktor’s patience. Every sound feels weaponised.

Viktor stands stiffly by a row of blue plastic chairs, holding his sore, withered arm to his chest, watching one of his students attempt to vault a luggage trolley. He closes his eyes for a long breath before opening them again. It is, regrettably, not a hallucination, nor a dream.

He checks his watch. They have not even been off the plane for fifteen minutes.

His phone finally finds a signal and buzzes with two texts from Sky, who he left behind in England. He had begged, in fact beseeched her, to accompany the trip, and she had more or less laughed in his face.

She has written good luck followed by you’ll need it. He senses that these well-wishes relate less to the students, and more to his impending ordeal with Jayce.

Viktor can hear Jayce laughing from across the terminal. He has always been loud, the golden boy, booming and unapologetically American. The students swarm him like wasps on sugar. A half-circle of bodies, their backpacks swinging, phones out, voices raised in near-hysteria. Powder is yelling something unintelligible while Ekko films her with the solemn dedication of a documentarian.

It’s Vi, Viktor finally realises, her shock of pink hair flashing as she vaults the trolley again, nearly sending it careening into an elderly couple. She play-bows like an idiot when the couple scowl at her, as Powder howls with laughter in the background. It has all been captured in high definition by Ekko.

Viktor resigns himself to intervening. It drains the last of the marrow from his bones, but he has ignored the chaos long enough. He makes eye contact with Ekko across the sea of bored travellers, and with a single look makes it abundantly clear that if said footage materialises on social media, Ekko’s life will become significantly more difficult, in ways he would very much prefer to avoid.

Ekko swallows and nods curtly.

It is the second week of term. They’ve barely settled the new timetable. The induction booklets are still stacked in the science office; half the students don’t know how to use a Bunsen burner, or what a Newton is. Viktor has not yet learned all the names of the Year 12s, and now he is in Switzerland with them.

He shifts his weight. His leg aches from the flight and his head aches from everything else. The CERN trip had been his idea. He had proposed it to their headteacher Mel last year, with the noble intention of cultivating academic curiosity and exposing the students to real-world physics in a dignified, intellectually rigorous setting. But he had pictured quiet note-taking and hushed awe, not sixteen teenagers hyped up on Haribo and giving each other piggy-back rides through a crowded airport terminal.

The significance of Mel’s dry, pitying smile as she listened to his vision is crystallising by the second. He’s been teaching long enough to know better — so he had thought.

Of course Jayce had volunteered to help, and in any case he was the only warm body available with a first aid certificate. For all the trials of supervising an international field trip, the indignity of doing so with Jayce is, he is sure, the worst by far.

“Jayce,” he snaps, when another trolley narrowly misses his foot. Jayce materialises at his side, sheepish, and the students go satisfyingly quiet, clearly delighted that Jayce is in trouble on their behalf. “Get them under control.”

Jayce grins with infuriating ease. “We’re in an airport,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the other travellers by the baggage carousel as if to demonstrate his point. It’s a point badly made, as no-one else here is behaving like a circus clown. “They’re just excited.”

Viktor still has not recovered from the way Jayce looks now; it’s proving a significant obstacle to staying properly annoyed at the students. Broader in the shoulders, softer in the middle, with a beard that he clearly believes is doing something for him. Infuriatingly, it is. He had taken Viktor’s breath away at his teaching interview at the tail end of last year, his eager smile and the impossible earnestness in his eyes, so familiar, stirring the memory, the knife in his chest that never got dislodged. And again on the first day of term, striding through reception looking like an excited dog stuffed into his owner’s borrowed suit. He is still utterly, ridiculously gorgeous, but Viktor is not ready to accept it, or how he’s been doomed since the moment Jayce stepped back into his life.

“Precisely,” Viktor finally says. They are in an airport in a foreign country, in loco parentis of a handful of feral children. “They should behave accordingly.” Viktor gestures toward the carousel, which has still not begun to spit out their bags. “They could hurt themselves.”

Jayce claps his hands. The students, to Viktor’s great surprise, actually listen, and hasten to obey, for the most part. They corral together, forming a loose, humming semicircle, watching the conveyor with increasingly excited impatience. The school mobile phone in Jayce’s hand buzzes, again and again, as it has been since they stepped off the plane.

“The coach driver’s mad,” Jayce mutters, holding his phone at arm’s length. Viktor peers at the screen, a blur of French. “Uh. Very mad. I think he’s saying he’s going to leave without us.”

“Tell him we are still waiting for our luggage,” Viktor says tightly.

“I did. Hang on —” He thumbs a reply. Autocorrect is clearly not helping him. Viktor watches the word ‘fromage’ flash across the screen just as Jayce presses send. “Oh, God.” Jayce grimaces. “That was supposed to say ‘for us.’ Not cheese. Hopefully he gets the gist.”

Unbidden, a memory, his lovely Jayce, flustered under pressure, tongue-tied trying to explain their project to a room full of sceptical professors. How Viktor had steadied him, looped their little fingers together under the desk. Just enough to remind him to breathe.

Viktor sits down slowly in the nearest chair, his body creaking as his stubborn joints give one by one. The edge of the chair digs into the back of his knees. The conveyor belt clunks into motion and bags finally begin to appear, to unnecessary cheers from their students.

Jayce bounds forward and starts grabbing suitcases and barking names. Viktor closes his eyes and rests, for a moment. Jayce’s enthusiasm is worth something, at least.

It takes twenty minutes. Then thirty. Eventually all the students have their bags. Jayce has his. Viktor does not.

It’s already clear the news is not good, when a man in a hi-vis vest arrives to try to explain the situation. The man’s accent is thick, his English halting. Viktor switches to French, realising halfway through that his vocabulary has entirely atrophied. It does not help that he is exhausted and in pain from the journey. The man keeps gesturing wildly, speaking slower and slower, as if Viktor is hard of understanding.

His luggage is elsewhere, possibly in the country, at least. It may arrive tomorrow. Or the next day. Or it may no longer exist at all, lost somewhere in transit, swallowed by the purgatory between airports.

Jayce appears at his shoulder with a concerned look.

“What’s up?”

“My suitcase,” Viktor says. He sighs, deeply. “Is lost.”

“Shit. Uh. Want me to get you a toothbrush, or —?”

“No,” Viktor says, barely containing his tantrum. “I want to go home.”

Jayce laughs, but it’s far from a joke.

They turn and make their way through the terminal with the gaggle of students, who have taken back up their rendition of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ in preparation for the coach trip to the hostel. The driver is going to hate them even more, when he hears it.

“Don’t worry, V,” Jayce says, and Viktor wants to scream, to protest, to turn himself inside out to escape the warmth he still feels when Jayce calls him that old nickname. “We’ll figure something out.”

They always did, didn’t they? Until the day it became too difficult, and stopped being worth the effort.

Viktor stamps on these thoughts as violently as he can, brushes Jayce off with pure venom, and hobbles away after the children.

The coach driver curses them in French, and German, and in particularly florid Italian, as they disembark and crowd into the youth hostel. Its entrance hall is plastered in posters for ski trips, pizza nights, and some manner of insufferable team-building exercise with a promise to ‘unleash your inner explorer’. Viktor’s inner explorer has been mugged and left for dead somewhere between the airport and this stifling building.

The students are beyond delighted. The second they’re handed their room keys, the chaos boils over again. Powder and Ekko take off running, keys in hand, cackling about something, instilling Viktor with a vague sense of trepidation. Vi and Caitlyn hang back, their luggage in tow, quietly squabbling over who should get the top bunk. It’s clear Vi isn’t going to win this particular argument.

They disappear up the stairs, luggage clattering behind them.

Viktor exhales slowly. He is too tired to process teenage nonsense, or anything else. He follows Jayce, who is still somehow unerringly peppy, up two flights to check on the rooms. It is slow going. Viktor’s leg burns with every step, but he refuses Jayce’s offered hand with a flat look and an even flatter tone. He keeps his face neutral, ironed smooth, the effort it takes not to limp too obviously radiating off him like heat. Jayce, to his credit, says nothing. Just keeps pace beside him, quiet, but watching, pretending he doesn’t notice.

The boys’ room is in a state already. Powder, who is not meant to be in the boys’ room at all, is sitting on one of the bunks, and has already appropriated someone’s phone, passport, and wallet. Ekko is half unpacked and Vi has settled in beside him, rifling through his things. Jayce gently herds the girls out, cracking jokes, reuniting belongings with their owners – including a stern warning to keep hold of their passports – and somehow making the chaos seem entirely natural. Almost survivable.

The girls’ room is calmer. Caitlyn has commandeered a corner, already unpacking her toiletries into a frighteningly orderly row. Vi has returned, loudly arguing with Powder about what happened to the snacks she’s sure she packed.

They agree to reconvene with the students in an hour to walk into town and find dinner, praying that nothing combusts in their absence.

“Should we have brought a female teacher?” Jayce says as they retreat into the corridor.

“Yes,” Viktor says, having talked this point in circles with Mel for hours already. They are to call on the female hostel manager if anything happens. Viktor prays it will not, but knows with complete certainty that it will.

“Cool,” Jayce says flatly. “I figured.”

At reception, things fall apart.

The manager is apologetic, in the disingenuous way someone is when they’ve already decided they can’t help you. “We were told one of you needed an accessible room,” she says. “We have one. Unfortunately, there’s only one bed.”

Jayce blinks. “Excuse me?”

“One bed,” she says again, more slowly. “I am sorry. We are completely full this week.”

Viktor opens his mouth, and almost immediately closes it again. His head throbs, his eye twitches.

“Can we get a spare mattress, or —?” Jayce attempts.

“No. It’s against policy. Fire safety, you see.”

Viktor looks at the woman. Then at Jayce. Then at the smiling poster behind her promising free Wi-Fi and ‘posi vibes’. He thinks about what it’s going to be like when the students find out the vending machines only take coins. They need the manager on their side, because the students are shortly going to become completely ungovernable.

“Fine,” he says, with doomed finality. “No matter. We will make it work.”

Jayce looks at him sideways as they take the key. There is far too much meaning in this look for Viktor’s comfort. He can’t ignore it.

The room is fine. Small, clean, nondescript. The bed is... a bed. A double, pushed against the wall, not made up yet, but clean. There is a single wardrobe, and a desk and chair that look as though they might fall apart in a strong breeze.

Viktor drops his carrier bag on the floor, hastily packed with an emergency toothbrush and a multipack of underwear from the shop at the airport. He stands in the middle of the room, breathing slowly.

Jayce occupies himself making up the bed, folding hospital corners into the flat sheet.

“Hey,” he says. “V.”

“What?” Viktor says, bristling.

“It’ll be okay,” Jayce says, stuffing the pillows into pillowcases. “I won’t touch you, or anything.”

Viktor turns, struggling to process this.

“I mean,” Jayce says quickly, holding up his hands, “in the bed. I’m not — I’ll stay on my side. I just — I know you don’t want this, and I’m sorry. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable, and —”

“Stop,” Viktor whispers. “Please.”

Jayce shuts up. The silence stretches. Viktor sits heavily on the edge of the made bed, lets his cane drop unceremoniously to the floor and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. The day folds over him, suffocating: the flight, the lost luggage, the howling students, the wheels on the fucking bus.

Jayce sits beside him, careful not to touch him.

“You did great earlier,” he says. Viktor cannot fathom what he is referring to. Possibly Powder’s panic attack in Heathrow. Viktor had talked her down. The students had accused him of having a heart, but he’d never tried to hide that from anyone, really. Just Jayce. “You’re awesome with the kids.”

Viktor whimpers. He can’t stand the kindness.

Jayce leans further away from him. “Sorry. I’ll shut up.”

Viktor does not want this. This softness. His warmth. He wants to hate Jayce, to keep hating him for the rest of his life.

But it’s so hard. When he is right here, and still so kind, after everything, every bitter, vicious word between them. Viktor shakes with how desperately he needs Jayce to touch him, hold him, make all the stresses and worries of the day seem so insignificant, insubstantial, with just one of his soft kisses. He always could, like magic.

He closes his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, so quiet it barely makes a sound. After a beat he says, “For shutting up. Between you and the students, I am going to lose my mind.”

Dinner is at a suspiciously charming Italian restaurant with gingham napkins and white tablecloths, tucked off a side street that Viktor would never have found on his own. It is, endearingly, candlelit. Ekko nearly sets his sleeve on fire messing around over one of the candles, but Caitlyn catches it just in time. Viktor makes a mental note: Caitlyn could probably be trusted with a Bunsen burner.

The students are thrilled to be sat in a real restaurant. The waiters are patient and endlessly indulgent of the students and their terrible French, the food is warm and carb-heavy, and the mood is buoyant. Powder vibrates with excitement when she finds out she’s allowed a small glass of wine. Viktor watches her warily as she takes a sip, grimaces, and returns to her orange juice.

Jayce pours Viktor’s wine for him, obliging, generous, grinning at him. Viktor gives him a tired, tiny smile in return. It is a brief and uncomfortably familiar moment of peace.

“Oh my God,” Powder says, pointing at them across the table. “Are you guys in loooooove?”

Viktor stares at her. Jayce tells her to grow up, and Vi whacks her arm, but it is already too late, the damage is done.

Afterwards, they walk down to the lake. The air is cooler now, the clear September sky turning a deep ink-blue as the sun sinks below the mountain ridges. The lights along the water are soft and gold. Jayce lets the kids loose in twos and threes with strict instructions not to fall in the lake, get arrested, or bankrupt themselves on overpriced souvenirs.

“And no smoking, and no drugs,” Jayce says, counting these instructions off on his fingers as the students nod moony-eyed back at him.

They disappear, and the quiet as they walk the lakeside is the loudest that Viktor has ever endured. In any case Viktor only lasts twenty minutes, before the pain in his leg bites his breath away, renders his hobbling even more clipped than usual.

Jayce notices, of course. “Hey,” he says, “catch you up in a sec, okay?”

Viktor nods. Jayce disappears, and when he returns shortly, it’s with a carrier bag sporting a green cross.

By the time they return to the hostel, the students are too exhausted to be unruly. Lights-out goes surprisingly smoothly, with Powder’s hushed attempts to start a deep philosophical discussion devolving into silly giggles, before being summarily ignored by the rest of the exhausted cohort.

Jayce and Viktor finally retreat for some peace in their room, before Viktor remembers: it only has one bed. And his suitcase is lost in the ether. He sits on the edge of the bed and stares at his hands.

“I do not even have pyjamas,” he despairs.

Jayce, from across the room, says, “Here.”

He tosses a bundle at Viktor. It unfolds into a t-shirt that reads ‘never trust an atom, they make up everything’ in crispy, peeling screenprint. Viktor holds it gingerly at arm’s length, more than mildly offended.

“It was a gift,” Jayce says hastily.

“It is enormous,” Viktor says.

“You’re welcome.”

Jayce’s flannel pyjama trousers follow, flung softly into his face. Viktor gives in, and gets changed. Jayce’s clothes smell of him; now there’s really no escape.

Viktor moves to lie down and instantly winces, clutching his thigh. The pain spikes. He bites his lip.

“My medication,” he grumbles, “was in my suitcase. I should have packed it in my hand luggage. I am such — an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. You had a lot to think about, and the kids made it in one piece.” Jayce crosses the room to stand at the bedside. “Here.”

He produces a small red tube. Pain gel. He must’ve run to the pharmacy earlier, pre-empting Viktor’s pain. Not for the first time, Viktor is reminded that he doesn’t deserve this man, nor any of his kindness.

“Take it,” Jayce says gently.

Viktor does not move. He just looks at Jayce for a long, tired moment. There is something naked in Jayce’s expression, something raw and painfully obvious. Viktor’s expression must be a mirror of his, because —

“You don’t have to give me puppy dog eyes, V,” Jayce says, his voice soft. “You know I’ll do anything for you.” After a beat, perhaps realising how much he has over-stepped, if he cares, he says, “Also, it looks weird on you. You ought to be scowling.”

Viktor swallows as the knife in his chest twists further.

“Please, Jayce,” he mutters, still not looking at him.

Jayce kneels, obliging, and rolls up the leg of Viktor’s pyjamas.

His hands are warm and gentle, exactly as Viktor remembers. He massages the gel into Viktor’s thigh, slow and careful, never taking more than he should, just giving. Viktor exhales, shakily, as the sharp edge of pain softens. He can’t look directly at Jayce, not while he’s touching him so tenderly. It’s unbearable, his beautiful boy, kneeling between his legs.

Only Jayce isn’t his anymore. In fact he’s almost a different person entirely, a thousand miles away from the version of Jayce that Viktor nearly loved. Could’ve loved, if he had applied himself to it, to being less stubborn and afraid. Now he’s an NQT and Viktor’s his mentor, and not even two weeks in they are facing down a complete disaster. They are smart enough to know they shouldn’t let it happen, and apparently too stupid to prevent it.

They sleep beside each other, not touching. Viktor hardly sleeps at all.

Chapter Text

In the morning they do a little sightseeing in one of Geneva’s cobbled suburbs; the kids coo over the slate rooftops and flowerboxes, and buy themselves tiny, overpriced coffees, delighting in how sophisticated it makes them feel. A couple of students ask Jayce if thhey can hang back to check out a bakery, and emerge a little while later with huge almond croissants dusted with powdered sugar. The rest of them are in high spirits, taking selfies in front of picture-perfect shop windows and tossing coins into the fountain in the square, while Jayce trails them, semi-supervising. His eyes keep dragging back to Viktor, no matter how vehemently he tells himself to stop.

He knows it’s not smart, letting his head turn every time Viktor moves, but getting sucked back into his orbit is a habit he never unlearned. An instinctive part of his programming, maybe. Sleeping beside him last night made matters worse, trying to force space between them, pretending not to notice when Viktor’s hand brushed his under the covers, that fleeting warmth. In the old days it was easier; Viktor half-asleep, soft and warm in Jayce’s arms, breath fluttering against Jayce’s neck. How Jayce wanted things that Viktor never promised him, that neither of them could ever actually say out loud.

It ended badly.

After a dramatic, protracted crash-and-burn Jayce finally pulled himself together and found some direction, got his teaching qualification and started lining up interviews. And then, of course, when a job offer came through it was from the same college where Viktor was Head of Physics. The universe sure loves its jokes.

In the present, Viktor pauses outside a flower shop, and Jayce watches him so intently he nearly walks into a lamppost.

Anyone who didn’t know Viktor would think he looks sweet, swamped in Jayce’s borrowed sweater, cataloguing the arrangements in the window like an oldschool romantic. The breeze ruffles his hair and with a weak hand Viktor tucks it back behind his ear, only for it to come loose again. He tilts his head to study the crimson dahlias, the pale lilies leaning elegantly towards the glass.

Jayce watches him, his heart exploding. Viktor deserves it all; someone to bring him flowers for no reason, to fetch him his favourite pastries and make sure his coffee isn’t too hot. Someone who’d let him stay in bed just a little longer. Jayce had been that person, sort of, for a while. In those days he’d slip back into bed beside him and Viktor would curl his body back into Jayce’s, like he’d been missing him all night, back when they were still —

None of this is helpful, so why can’t he stop?

And then Viktor looks back over his shoulder and beckons Jayce closer with a wave of his shaking arm. It’s as he nears that Jayce very quickly realises he isn’t being invited to comment on the flowers.

“You should not let them out of your sight so easily,” Viktor says, cool and clipped.

Jayce raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Caitlyn told me,” Viktor says, clearly trying to pick a fight. “You left them behind.”

Jayce shrugs, trying to keep his cool. “Not really,” he says. “They asked if they could go get pastries, so I said sure, just catch up —”

“This is not a holiday, Jayce,” Viktor says, narrowing his yellowy, exhausted eyes. “They are our responsibility.”

“I was like, thirty feet away, V. I could see them through the window.”

Viktor’s jaw tightens and he shakes his head. He always had to get the last word in, always had to be right about everything. And he overreacted so easily.

“If they are going to have unsupervised time, we will agree to this in advance. It is a matter of safety, Jayce.”

“Okay. Fine,” Jayce snaps, bristling at the way Viktor hissed his name. “You don’t need to lecture me about it.”

Viktor is visibly tired, in obvious pain; his grip is tight on his cane, and his weaker arm is trembling erratically. But his voice is clean and cold and doesn’t waver. “Do I not?” he says, in the tone of voice that means he’s winding up to be pointlessly mean. “Because it seems, not for the first time, that your judgement has been impaired by your desperate need for approval.”

“You think I’m —” Jayce laughs bitterly. “You think I care what a bunch of teenagers think about me?”

“Yes,” Viktor says. “I do. You are not here to be their friend. You are here to keep them safe, and you cannot do that if you are busy being the ‘fun teacher’.”

Jayce huffs. “While you’re the miserable one, I guess?”

“Jayce.”

“Fine,” Jayce says. “Whatever, you’ve made your point. But for the record I’m not trying to impress anyone. Least of all you.”

They stand in silence in the wake of Jayce’s blatant lie, the distance between them suddenly yawning wider than ever, even though this is the closest they’ve been for ages. Jayce feels the fight leave him completely, replaced with an awful, familiar ache. Viktor’s jaw is tight with pain. Jayce wishes he could hold him, kiss it away. Force him to choose vulnerability over cruelty, for once.

A pair of Year 13s wander up and point into the florist’s window. “Viktor, can we go in? Just to look.”

Viktor turns his attention to them. “Of course,” he says. “I will join you.”

The students file in ahead of him, the door chiming as they do. Jayce is left outside on the sidewalk, staring after Viktor through the glass. He watches Viktor lean close to admire a dyed orchid that the students are fawning over, his eyes narrowed in thought. It’s clear he hates it. Jayce can almost hear him calling it gaudy, the curl of his lip. He should really look away before Viktor glances back and catches him staring.

But he can’t.

That afternoon, Jayce takes a group of the girls to grab ice cream, while Viktor heads off with the rest. They’re supposed to have an hour of downtime before meeting up at the tram stop. Jayce finds a place tucked on a quiet street corner with a chalkboard outside. He starts translating the flavours with the aid of his rudimentary grasp of French, making a couple of the kids laugh, but something’s off. He notices before they say anything to him.

They’re walking differently, bunched together, hunched slightly, protective of each other, almost. Powder has gone quiet, which isn’t like her at all, and Vi is scanning the street, her jaw tight. It’s Caitlyn who confirms it for him; she stops just outside the gelato place, face drawn and pinched like she’s chewing on something sour.

“Jayce,” she says, sounding unsure. “Those men...”

He glances past her and sees them: three guys across the street, leaning on a low wall, leering. One whistles and another says something in French that Jayce can’t understand, but the tone is unmistakable and ugly. Caitlyn flinches. She takes French A Level, Jayce remembers belatedly, so she probably understands exactly what this creep just yelled at them.

He gives her a small, reassuring smile.

“You guys head inside,” he says. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

Then he turns.

He’s not the type to throw punches, having not ever really needed to. Usually just looking like he could kick someone’s ass is sufficient; he doesn’t actually know what he’d do if he ever needed to make good on that. He's also not sure this is the right course of action, but before he can reconsider he’s crossing the street.

They clock him coming. One of them straightens up, clearly a little unsettled.

“Hey,” Jayce says, calm, but firm enough. “Walk away.”

They laugh.

“We are just being friendly,” one replies, greasy and sneering. Jayce is gripped by the urge to punch the smile off his face.

“They’re kids,” Jayce says, his jaw tight. “Enfants. Back. Off.”

Two of them get the message, and turn to slope away. The third doesn’t, and he steps forward, squaring up. Jayce doesn’t flinch, and holds his ground, acknowledging a little too late that street fighting is a pretty bad look for a newly qualified teacher.

The guy’s fist comes out of nowhere, slams into Jayce’s face with enough force to spin him halfway around. He doesn’t go down, but he stumbles badly.

By the time he’s righted himself, they’re gone. Scarpered.

“Jayce!” Powder is the first across the street, nearly tripping over her own feet, concern warring with laughter as she draws up beside him. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

Vi trails her and when she catches up she winces, lip curled in sympathy. “Oof. That’s gonna bruise.” She stares at the guys’ backs as they retreat around the corner. “You punched back at least, right?”

“No,” Jayce wheezes, pressing his hand to his bloody face. “Obviously not.”

Caitlyn’s already on the phone — she’s probably the only student who actually saved the school mobile number. As she talks, Jayce checks he still has all his teeth.

“Hi, Viktor? We’re on um, rue de Vélodrome, by the gelato shop, and Jayce has —” she presses her lips together briefly, hunting for an explanation — “hurt himself.” She pauses. “No, he’s fine, I think. Just — yes, you should probably come and speak to him.”

Someone convinces the lady serving gelato to give them a bag of ice, and Jayce ends up hunched over on a bench, a dripping ziplock of crushed ice cubes pressed to his cheek.

Viktor arrives ten minutes later with the rest of the students in tow. He takes one look at Jayce and visibly fights the urge to start yelling in front of the kids. He storms over, erratic on the cobbles.

“Oh, for — what have you done, you idiot?” he hisses.

The students start to protest in Jayce’s defence, but Viktor silences them with a look that could shatter glass, and they scatter.

“Some guys were hassling the kids,” Jayce says, already defeated.

“And what?” Viktor seethes, and doesn’t give Jayce the right to reply. “You decided to play the hero, is it?”

Jayce lifts the ice away from his face and glares. It hurts his tender eyesocket. “What was I supposed to do, Viktor? Let them keep going?”

“Think, before acting,” Viktor snaps. “Rather than throw yourself into danger for the sake of your ego.”

“Right. Should’ve just stood there and done nothing, I guess,” Jayce snarls. “What would you have done?”

It comes out as a dig, far too sharp. Jayce hears it as he says it, the barb under the words.

The silence stretches. Viktor sighs.

“Removed the students, I suppose,” he says at last, his voice colder than the melting ice dripping onto Jayce's lap. “Called someone, or —” Viktor looks away, and Jayce swears he sees his lip wobble before he says — “There is not much I could have done.”

Jayce recoils. It's the reaction he thought he wanted, obviously, but now it’s here he doesn’t like it at all. “Jesus, Viktor. It’s not that deep.” He softens. “I’m sorry. Anything like that happens, you can just call me.”

Viktor rolls his eyes, the tension easing just a little. There’s a faint twitch of a smirk at the corner of his mouth, and buried somewhere under it — under all of it, his grumpiness, his reticence — is a tiny flicker of warmth, the likes of which Jayce has always been willing to do anything for.

“I know,” Viktor says.

He says it like ‘of course’. Like ‘obviously’; like he knows that if called, Jayce would show up for him, without question, like always.

“I made us miss the tram,” Jayce says, desperate to change the subject. “Sorry.”

Viktor shrugs, lopsided, with difficulty. “There will be another.” He glances over his shoulder at the kids, who are milling about, sunning themselves and comparing tasting notes on their gelato flavours. When he looks back at Jayce his smile has solidified. “Why rush? The students are enjoying themselves.”

Jayce grins at him. “You want an ice cream?”

“Let me,” Viktor says, turning for the store. “Try not to get punched again while I am gone, hm?”

“Yeah,” Jayce says, dumbly. “Sorry.”

Viktor’s shaking hand lands on his shoulder, for the briefest of moments. It’s nothing, really, just a friendly gesture, a little support, but it lingers long enough to suggest otherwise.

“Silly boy,” Viktor says softly, and lovingly, before he turns away.

Back at the hostel, the students put on a performance so suspiciously over-the-top it’s theatrical. Every single one of them, suddenly exhausted, groaning about how tired they are, absolutely shattered, can barely keep their poor weary eyes open. Jayce watches Ekko fake a yawn exaggerated enough that it might dislocate his jaw.

Viktor raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Yes, you should go to bed,” he says. “We are leaving promptly at eight o’clock in the morning.”

Groans all round. “Viktor, that’s so early —”

“See you tomorrow,” Viktor interrupts, utterly unmoved.

They usher the kids upstairs, no sternness necessary. It’s unclear whether they’re actually sleepy or just up to something, which is a little worrying. But once everyone’s in their rooms and mostly horizontal, Jayce and Viktor do their door-to-door routine, and everything seems above board. A lot of mumbled goodnights, rustling duvets, only one suspiciously loud snore from behind a door that had only just shut. Jayce peeks into the last room, and listens, but there’s nothing but snuffly breathing.

In the corridor, Viktor leans against the wall with a long sigh, taking the pressure off his legs for a moment.

“Would you like to have a drink?” he says, looking askance at Jayce, eyebags practically running down his face. Then, after a pause he adds, somewhat unnecessarily, “With me.”

Jayce tilts his head. Obviously he would, but — “We’re, uh — are we allowed to... do that?”

“Technically speaking, no,” Viktor says. His eyes crease with tired mischief. “In practice, I will not survive the next twenty-four hours without a little wine.”

Jayce huffs, grinning at him. “Just a little?” That’s not the Viktor he remembers.

Viktor’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, but he doesn’t acknowledge the accusation.

“Sure,” Jayce says. “I won’t tell Mel if you won’t.”

“Our secret,” Viktor replies. His voice is hushed, and silly. It makes something fizz in Jayce’s chest, something reckless in its refusal to die.

They head downstairs to the hostel bar, which is busy enough to give them cover; no one really notices them. A couple of other teachers from another school are hunched over beers in the corner, looking like they’ve aged fifty years in a single day.

“Oh, God,” Jayce says, watching them slump so badly with exhaustion they could be melting. “Is that what we look like?”

Viktor glances at him, sardonic little smirk at first, but then gives him another look, more lingering.

“No, you look worse,” Viktor says, deadpan. Jayce rolls his eyes, but then Viktor continues, “Although the black eye does look... remarkably good on you.”

Jayce grins, hurting his face again. “Hey, I’ll take that.”

Jayce buys a bottle of cheap red wine and they settle into a battered old sofa tucked in a corner. He pours the first glass carefully, watches it stain the inside of Viktor’s smudged hostel tumbler, then fills his own.

He raises his glass. “Cheers,” he says. “To surviving this far.”

“You certainly seemed as though you were trying to die, earlier,” Viktor says. He sighs and sips his wine. “Did you fight back?”

“Uh… no,” Jayce says. “The guys ran off. Besides, I’m not really a fighter.”

Viktor tilts his head at him. “But you could have,” he says. “If you were determined.”

Jayce stares at the wine in his cup. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t think it would’ve helped, though. Do you?”

Viktor only shrugs, noncommittal.

Jayce glances at him sidelong. “Why are you so interested, anyway? Looking for a fight?”

“With you?” Viktor lifts a brow. “Please.” He takes a long sip of wine, his mouth curling at the rim of the glass. “Let us both spare you the embarrassment of being beaten by a cripple.”

Jayce laughs, sudden and loud, then claps a hand over his mouth as a reflex, embarrassed. “You’re such a dick,” he mutters. He can’t keep himself from grinning; the wine has him lightheaded and stupid already. “But, yeah. I’d let you win, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Viktor repeats, a little too soft.

They talk shit for a while — about the décor, about the kids and their messed-up priorities when it comes to what to pack for an international field trip, about the itinerary for tomorrow and the likelihood of one of the kids calling the LHC a large hardon collider. They still get along like a house on fire; Jayce can’t help but think of how things used to be, how easy it was, all the good they could’ve had, that they denied each other in the end.

When the bottle’s long empty, Jayce clears his throat, stands up, and stretches. “Come on,” he says, “we better check they’re still tucked in.”

They make the rounds again, quietly this time, just listening at the doors. Maybe a cough, and the sound of someone turning over in their bed, but no hushed hysterical whispering or obvious misbehaviour.

Jayce looks at Viktor and nods. “Out like lights.”

Back in their room, the quiet creeps into an awkward silence. They’re wine drunk and alone in a bedroom together — this type of situation, historically, always ends one way.

Jayce sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, while beside him Viktor, ever the consummate professional, occupies himself by checking the school phone for missed calls and scrolls through his emails on his laptop. Jayce bites back a comment about how Viktor somehow managed to pack his work laptop in his carryon, but not the medication he actually needs to function. The light from the screen makes Viktor’s face look sharper, older than he is, though that could be the exhaustion of the last whirlwind 48 hours catching up.

Jayce watches him work in silence for a bit, then says, quietly, “I actually am sorry, by the way.”

Viktor arches an eyebrow, inviting Jayce to be more specific, which is a little unfair.

Jayce rubs a hand over his face. “For not handling things properly earlier. I guess I just don’t — I think you were right. I don’t always think —” He exhales heavily. “Think things through.”

Viktor closes the laptop with a click and sets it aside on the bedside table. The harsh light from the screen vanishes, and everything goes soft.

“The students are safe,” Viktor says. “Not that you should be expected to take punches for them, but...” He wrinkles his nose, a tiny, barely-there twitch. Adorable. “I was wrong to snap at you. You —” He pauses. “I was very surprised to see you hurt.”

“Surprised?” Jayce echoes.

“I mean,” Viktor says, his eyes flicking toward him. For a second, they linger on Jayce’s developing black eye, and the sight of it seems to knock him off-kilter all over again. “Unprepared.”

Jayce doesn’t say anything. He’s used to Viktor talking in puzzles; he always has — these strange half-statements and little riddles, waiting for Jayce to catch up, always leaving him on the back foot, like conceding anything to him would be admitting defeat, somehow. It was exhausting. He’d sign up for a lifetime of it in a heartbeat.

He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”

Viktor’s jaw shifts. His fingers twitch slightly where they rest in his lap. “I felt —” His face does that thing it does when the English word is just out of reach. Else maybe he has it, and he doesn’t want to let it out. “I wanted to look after you.”

Jayce’s heart lurches. The silence leaves them both unmoored.

“Yeah,” Jayce murmurs, scared, but he can’t let it go, the opportunity. If it even is one. “You were good at that.”

Jayce can feel the end of the conversation approaching, like a train down the tracks. He hates it, that familiar inevitability.

“I need —” The words stumble out before he knows what they’re becoming, but he has to keep going. “I need you back in my corner, V. You’re the best thing I ever —” His voice trips. “I can’t do any of this without you.”

Viktor doesn’t flinch, or pull away. If anything, he leans a little closer, just barely, like he’s drifting toward Jayce without meaning to. Like this is something inevitable.

“What are you talking about?” Viktor says softly, to his lap. “You are much stronger than me. And braver. And you were able to move on after —” He cuts himself off, waves his hands vaguely, like a halfhearted gesture could hope to contain all the mess they made of things. “Meanwhile I —”

Jayce shakes his head. “I didn’t move on,” he says. “I haven’t. I can’t.” His voice is giving out on him. “I just wanted to make you happy. I don’t know how to stop — wanting that.”

There’s a pause. Viktor clears his throat and looks away. His hands flex weakly in his lap.

“To be honest,” he says, “I am very glad you are here.” His voice has gone thin. “I would not be coping without you. Not at all. I —” He swallows. “I thought it would be harder.”

Jayce watches as the tears prickle at Viktor’s eyes, glistening in the dim light.

“Hey,” Jayce says, soft as he can manage. He shifts closer, careful not to crowd him. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m sorry,” he says, though it’s painfully insufficient. “I — I’m sorry. I am.”

Jayce reaches for him. He’s been reaching for him since the day they stopped talking. Viktor lets Jayce pull him into a hug, and they throw their arms around each other like they mean to keep each other safe from every hard thing in the world, when they both know that they’re the worst of what’s been inflicted on each other. He’s surprised when he feels Viktor melt against him, and all the tension and longing and sadness unspool, all at once.

It starts with a kiss. Just one, and Viktor doesn’t stop him, so it doesn’t stay as just one. He lets Jayce do it again, and then again.

“Oh, fuck, V. Please.”

Jayce’s hands are in his hair, and Viktor’s fingers are curled desperately in the front of his hoodie, and he’s kissing Jayce back like he’s just remembered this is what he needs to do, to live.

Jayce trails his mouth down the line of Viktor’s neck, his warm skin, and groans into the crook of his shoulder. Viktor still fits perfectly in Jayce’s arms. It’s where he’s supposed to be, so why can’t they —

“Stop,” Viktor says, barely above a whisper. Jayce stills instantly. He stops breathing. “Stop — Jayce, stop it,” Viktor says, catching his breath, pushing weakly at Jayce’s chest.

Jayce eases back, blinking like he’s surfacing from underwater, like someone just pulled him up from drowning.

“I need to —” Viktor cuts himself off, takes a breath, and tries valiantly to be the sensible one. “I am going to take a shower before bed.”

He gets up without waiting for a reply, moving carefully, stiffly, his limp more pronounced after the long day. He walks to the bathroom but pauses halfway, and turns. The look he gives Jayce is long and heavy, molten and impossible to ignore. Jayce knows what it means. It’s fucking obvious, actually, so if Viktor is going for plausible deniability, he’s failing miserably.

Viktor shuffles away and the door clicks shut behind him.

Jayce just sits there, stunned and shaking, every nerve in his body buzzing. He hears the water come on, and waits about thirty seconds. Probably even less than that.

Then he staggers to his feet, drunk on wine and the love of his life, his heart punching a hole clean through his ribs, or trying to.

He knocks on the bathroom door.

“Jayce?” Viktor says, muffled by the water.

Knowing he’s asking for trouble, Jayce says, “Can I come in?”

A soft laugh, so relieved it makes Jayce’s knees go weak.

“Yes,” Viktor says. “Please.”

Please.

Jayce doesn’t make him wait.

He steps into the bathroom, where through the fog of steam he can see Viktor already half-undressed, his pale skin gleaming under the buzzing fluorescent light, water hissing behind him. For a second Jayce thinks he’s walked into a memory — Viktor, warm and real, standing there with flushed cheeks, his hair curling in the steam, and that look on his face, saying he still wants him.

Then they’re on each other, all over each other; hands fumble, clothes peel away, the air between them thickening until Jayce feels dizzy. He can’t get close enough fast enough, but when he kisses Viktor it’s gentle, his mouth, his cheeks, nosing softly into his hair to kiss his ears.

Jayce somehow finds some of his senses and helps Viktor carefully into the shower. He eases him down onto the fold-out stool, hands firm at Viktor’s waist. He’s helped him like this a thousand times before, he was prepared to do it for the rest of his life. As soon as Viktor’s comfortable he reaches up and grabs Jayce by the hips — one strong hand, the other weaker but no less desperate — and pulls him closer.

Jayce melts, almost folds right over him as Viktor gazes up at him, like he’s seeing him for the first time. His beautiful eyes, like the moon.

“Jayce,” Viktor whispers to him, almost lost in the hiss of the water. “You are gorgeous.”

Jayce actually sees stars. He can’t speak.

Then Viktor leans forward, hands trailing over Jayce’s thighs, his intentions clear. Jayce’s head is spinning, his chest is tight with desperate lust, and awe, and some sensible part of him is piping up to say this is actually a fucking awful idea, but it’s overridden by something far, far, far worse.

“I still love you,” he blurts.

Viktor pauses, and then stares at him, his brow furrowed, looking like he’s just been slapped. He looks furious.

“Fuck,” Jayce says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it. Well. I did, but —”

Viktor’s lip is curling to a snarl, but before he can tell Jayce to shut the fuck up, the fire alarm goes off.

They both jolt like they’ve been electrocuted. Jayce feels his stomach drop out.

“Oh shit,” he says.

Viktor closes his eyes. “No. No, no, no.”

Outside, through the paper-thin walls, Jayce can hear the beginnings of chaos: the shrill scream of the alarm, doors banging open, raised voices, giddy students. He scrambles for a towel and their pyjamas, his heart hammering, soaked and shaking. Of course this would happen. Of fucking course.

Chapter Text

The shriek of the alarm is so raw it pulls Viktor out of his head completely; the next few minutes are a blur of damp limbs and stupefying guilt. They yank their clothes on at crooked angles, fabric catching on their damp skin — oh God, what were they thinking? — and Viktor snatches his cane as he stumbles for the door. In the corridor it’s chaos, doors banging, students panicked in their pyjamas, some already trying to text their parents. And the shrill howl overhead, shredding the remnants of his patience to ribbons.

“Shoes and coats,” Viktor barks, herding them like startled cattle. “Phones away. Then downstairs, all of you.”

Jayce flanks him, steering a swathe of students to the stairwell, along with some tense, stray tourists swept up in the crowd.

Outside the rain is falling in sheets. By the time they reach the assembly point, everyone is soaked to the bone, squelching in soggy slippers. Mercifully that spares them too many awkward questions; no one has noticed that Viktor and Jayce are wetter than most, were wet to begin with.

Viktor watches, arms folded and a presumably deeply grim expression on his face that is having the desired effect, as the students stumble and faff about until forming loosely organised lines. Jayce takes a register, cheeky when he ducks under the students’ umbrellas as he goes. If everything about him weren’t so endearing — Viktor only scowls deeper at the unwelcome thought.

The students are all accounted for. The hostel staff wave them back inside. The culprit is already obvious before Ekko comes sloping over, looking extraordinarily sheepish.

“Sir,” he says, to Viktor.

“Yes?” Viktor says, tightly. But he’s looking over Ekko’s shoulder at Powder, standing apart from the others, hanging back looking pale and stricken. She’s fidgeting with something in her hoodie pocket. “Ah. I see.”

Jayce and Viktor corral Powder and Ekko, and Vi for good measure, and line them up neatly against the back wall of the hostel, where a tired awning protects them from the rain. It very much gives the effect of a police line-up, and Viktor can sense Jayce vibrating with barely-suppressed laughter beside him.

“This hasn’t got anything to do with me —” Vi starts. Viktor holds up his hand.

“Powder?” he says, and she produces the offending article from her pocket. Viktor takes it and holds it between his fingers as if it’s irradiated. It’s a vape. Between this and the energy drinks he’s beginning to understand her occasionally erratic outbursts. “You set off the alarm with this?” he says, derisively. “For goodness’ sake.”

Powder winces, hunching her shoulders to her ears.

“And you,” Viktor says, his gaze sliding to Ekko. “You ought to know better.”

“What?” Ekko protests, eyes big and wet. “It wasn’t me.”

“No. But you ought to have told your friend she was being an idiot,” Viktor says. He pockets the vape and pivots his attention to Vi. “Were you aware of this?”

Vi’s glare is hot enough to burn a hole in the side of her sister’s face, but Powder ignores her, staring at the floor and looking as if she might imminently disintegrate, an unstable isotope. “Yeah,” Vi eventually says, against her will. “I already told her it’s bad for you. And expensive. And that you were gonna hit the roof when you found out. But she never listens to me.”

Powder turns red to the roots of her hair, deeply unsettling against the blue. Before she can explode, Viktor exhales the longest, most theatrical sigh of his life.

“I will be calling your fathers in the morning, Powder,” Viktor says. Before she can despair he adds, sardonically, “I can hardly wait.” He clicks his tongue. “All of you to bed.”

Powder groans like the world has ended, but she takes it well, all things considered. Vi shrugs, resigned, and the three of them slouch away, muttering under their breath.

Back in their room he kicks off his shoes and drops heavily onto the bed, not bothering to remove his damp clothes. His hip burns hot and cold, and crunchy and in agony. His skull is being crushed in a vice, perhaps literally. Jayce hovers, uncertain, and Viktor makes the profound error of glancing at his face; his hair has gone curly in the rain, his eyes gentle and sympathetic.

“Do not talk to me,” Viktor says, turning his gaze decisively back to the ceiling. “Do not even look at me.”

There’s a pause, during which Viktor expects Jayce to tell him that getting naked together was his own stupid idea, but instead Jayce only sighs, soft and sheepish, and says, “Okay.”

Then Jayce collapses beside him on the bed, at his side, not touching him, staring up at the ceiling too. The silence swells.

Viktor can feel him. His warmth radiates through the inches between them. Viktor’s body hums with the memory, all too fresh, Jayce’s mouth on his throat, the scrub of his scruffy beard, his warm hands steadying him in the shower, the ragged sound of his own breathing and the way it stopped when Jayce said — the one thing he should not have said.

It would be so easy to roll over. Or perhaps not, but Jayce would help him, steady his sore knee, his hip, make him comfortable. He would press his forehead to Jayce’s shoulder and give in to his gravity completely; he would only have to ask and Jayce would give.

Instead he lies rigid, looking staunchly up at the ceiling, staring down his desire like it might flinch. His fingers twitch, traitorously, and his mouth twists with the garbled mess of things he can’t bear to bring himself to say. The rain drums hard at the windows, drowning out the frantic crash of his pulse. And he must fall asleep, at some point, but it’s not a restful sleep, and it doesn’t come easily.

In the morning the kids are subdued, tired from their interrupted sleep. Powder looks absolutely miserable; Ekko and Vi try determinedly to make her laugh but after each failed attempt she wilts even further over her plate. Jayce drinks two black coffees at breakfast and tries not to think about last night, but he’s sure his face is giving him away.

“You look even sadder than me,” Powder tells him, between bites of her croissant.

“Just tired,” Jayce says, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists for effect.

She gives him a sympathetic look, but he can see the thousand questions behind it. Instead of grilling him, she says, “Do you think you can convince Viktor to maybe not call my dads?”

Jayce opens his mouth to tell her no, but she continues.

“It’s just that I used to get in trouble all the time at my last school and they were really excited about my ‘fresh start’,” she says. “But I just keep f— messing up.”

“Hey,” Jayce says, still bleary. “Powder, you’re a teenager. It’s your job to mess up. In fact, everyone’s allowed to mess up sometimes.”

“Sure, but why do you have to tell my parents? They’re gonna be so —” she sighs — “disappointed.”

“To keep you safe, kiddo,” Jayce says, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Boring, I know. Sorry.”

“You’re an adult,” Powder says. “It’s your job to be boring.” Despite the snark, she’s smirking as she pushes up from her seat to grab more pastries.

They leave the hostel promptly at eight, to Viktor’s satisfaction, and wander down to the nearby tram stop to corral the students onto a quiet tram. The ride over is subdued. Jayce is half-listening as Viktor calls Powder’s dad; Viktor’s voice is clipped, clinging to professionalism, weary as he recounts the unfortunate events of the night prior.

He imagines his own mother on the receiving end of the phone call — a thousand phone calls of a similar nature. Jayce has so much potential. But he seems determined to waste it.

Jayce keeps his gaze fixed on the windows, following the tramwires as they trundle past, the wet streets, grey as they warm in the morning light. The students are quiet in the aftermath of their late-night panic. Jayce considers trying to lighten the mood, play ‘I spy’ or something, but decides to leave it. Viktor seems exhausted, and whipping up the kids would only worsen the burden.

They pile off the tram and up the long driveway to CERN. He knows the accelerator is deep underground, but even the visitor centre is so futuristic-looking it’s easy to imagine that the secrets of the universe are inside. If he wasn’t such a fuck-up himself he could’ve been working somewhere like this, instead of what he’s currently occupied with, organising a fraying mass of kids fumbling their passports outside reception. Caitlyn is nearly crying thinking she’s lost hers; Jayce helps her rifle through her bag until she finds it tucked inside a secure inner pocket. She’s still shaking until Ekko drops his into a puddle of last night’s rain and makes her laugh.

They are a mess, but they make it past the ID check at reception. Security is worse; the metal detectors and pat-downs put the kids on edge, and the only coping mechanism they’ve got at this age is to become unnecessarily silly.

Viktor sets off the detector when he steps through it and he grimaces, trying to explain in French that he has metal rods in his back, but the guard pulls him aside anyway.

The pat-down is brusque, and Jayce is sure it’s too lingering, the guard pressing his hands where he doesn’t need to. Jayce reacts without thinking — well, he’s thinking as he reacts, that this isn’t the right thing to do and Viktor’s going to hate it — but it’s already too late as he squares up, scowling.

“Watch it,” he says, bristling for another fight. To get punched in the face again, that is.

The guard backs down with a muttered apology, having clearly decided that Viktor isn’t a threat. Viktor rolls his eyes and brushes it off, the least confrontational way of telling Jayce to let it go, but he’s still buzzing with it, the need to push his luck until he gets to suffer the consequences. He never did stop self-destructing.

And then the kids scatter, excited, into the exhibition hall, and Jayce remembers where he is. The fiasco at the gates is forgotten — if the students noticed it at all. They’re wide-eyed now, gaping at holograms of particle collisions, mashing buttons and jostling to spin interactive models, shrieking with delight when lights flash in response.

For their benefit, Jayce launches into explanation mode, gesticulating wildly to show them how the protons collide, the spray of particles in the aftermath. He tells them about the accelerator, the sheer speed of the particles, almost as fast as the speed of light (how many nines was that, sir?). He plays it up so the kids laugh, but every time he glances back at Viktor he finds him pale under the flourescents, leaning heavier and heavier on his cane, answering questions when cornered but otherwise silent and thoughtful. Jayce’s grin falters, but he keeps talking anyway, determined to make the best of it for the kids.

A guide welcomes them, and they follow her deeper into the facility, brisk but unfalteringly clear as she leads them through heavy doors, past warning signs that become increasingly and ever-vaguely ominous. They pause before the elevators to listen to the safety protocols and the guide rattles off the variety of industrial hazards they’re about to be exposed to: electricity, magnetic fields, ionising radiation. The students — the ones who understand what ionising radiation is, at least — exchange alarmed looks.

Ekko is whispering something to Powder, but when Jayce tunes in he realises it’s stupid (hey, did you ever hear about the guy who stuck his head in a particle accelerator?) and assumes it’s the setup for a particularly awful joke. He never gets to hear the punchline, because Viktor shushes Ekko with such vehemence that even the guide falters for a second.

Inside the control room the future is so close Jayce can almost taste it. The life he could’ve had, should’ve had — in between of all these scientists bent over terminals, wall-to-wall screens buzzing overhead, numbers streaming endlessly. The students gape in awe as the researchers set off a test run; bursts of data explode onto the screen, and they watch the modelled particles scream around the tunnel, slowed down for their benefit. Jayce grips the back of a chair, completely enraptured by it, trying to absorb it all. He glances sidelong, and there it is, Viktor’s crooked smile, tiny but real, somehow even more elusive than the Higgs boson itself. All the secrets of the universe, locked up in there. The guide is explaining what they’re seeing, and Jayce suddenly can’t hear a word.

Then an alarm blares. The kids shriek, and duck, and bolt; Vi drags Caitlyn and Powder to the door, barking at Ekko that he’s just going to have to fend for himself. Jayce flinches, his heart in his throat, but Viktor flinches harder and grabs Jayce’s arm in pure reflex — surely — clutching tight. Jayce steadies him, squeezes him back, tries not to think about long nights in hospital beside him, one thousand attempts to keep him calm that were pointless in the end. He never wanted any of it.

“Guys, relax,” Jayce says, over the sound of the alarm, and it’s unconvincing to his own ears but the students seem to appreciate it anyway. “We’re fine. Just wait up.”

The guide raises her hands. “So sorry. I forgot to mention. The alarm system is tested weekly.”

The students groan and laughter bubbles out of their fear, all the panic evaporating like steam. Viktor withdraws his arm with dignity, staring determinedly at one of the big screens, as if none of it ever happened, as if it’s not now hilariously obvious how his autopilot is still oriented to Jayce.

The rest of the tour flies past, with everyone giddy on adrenaline. Jayce manages to interject occasionally with some educational content, how what they’re seeing links to the syllabus and what they learned in lower school. Absolutely no-one is listening, obviously. It’s fair enough; Jayce is only half in the room, the rest of him still floating somewhere in the knowledge that Viktor still needs him.

In the gift shop the kids forget every single thing they’ve heard, overwhelmed by the stimuli of shiny magnets, pens, hoodies and tote bags. He overhears a conversation between Vi and Caitlyn, the gist of which seems to be that Caitlyn apparently is planning to buy Vi a hoodie, just to steal it back once it smells like her. He glances over to Viktor, who’s leaning exhausted against the checkout counter, the hem of Jayce’s hoodie hanging halfway down his thighs. His stubborn, stupid heart can’t take much more of this.

He buys Viktor a gift.

“For your lab,” he explains, slightly sheepish, as he hands over a Lego replica of the large hadron collider. “I thought it’d be cool.”

Viktor gives him a deeply sceptical look.

“I know what you are trying to do,” he says, flatly.

“What do you mean?” Jayce says, innocently.

Viktor sighs.

“You want me to tell you that I still have our solar system model,” Viktor says. “And that I could not bring myself to take it apart, or hide it away in a cupboard.”

Jayce forces his mouth completely still. He probably looks deranged. They used to build all kinds of things together, but that was one of the first, when they were house-sharing in London, when they had almost nothing. Just each other.

“And that would be entirely accurate,” Viktor says, considering the box in his hands. “I never managed to decide what to do with it. Unlike most of the possessions that you left me with,” he says, smirking now, “which I threw away at the tip.”

Jayce finally cracks, grinning. “Fair enough, I guess.”

“I could not stand being reminded of you constantly,” Viktor says. “Obnoxious even in absentia.”

“Okay, I get it,” Jayce says.

Before Jayce can say anything else to embarrass himself, Viktor says, “Thank you. For this. It is ‘cool’.”

Jayce grins, so wide it hurts, his heart rattling around his ribs like a pinball, beaten and battered but finally finding home.

On the tram back into Geneva, exhaustion crashes down on everyone. For the most part the kids are slumped, some of them asleep against the windows, their faces smushed against the glass. A few of them are chattering manically, pointing out livestock in the fields as if cows are a brand new discovery. Viktor is sitting opposite him, ignoring him for the most part, but his eyes keep catching, and holding for breathless seconds before slipping away again. Each time, Jayce looks down at his hands too quickly, playing far too hard at innocence to be anything other than obviously guilty.

Vi twists in her seat to look back at him, sly and grinning toothily, sleeves of Caitlyn’s brand new CERN hoodie pushed up to her elbows.

“I think he likes you, sir,” she says.

Jayce feels his face turn scarlet, not helping his case at all. “Very funny,” he says. “Also very not appropriate.”

Whatever meaning she’s managed to extract from that, it makes her turn and lean back to Caitlyn, and mouth, told you so. Jayce hisses, “Shut up,” but she only smirks at him.

He spends the rest of the ride staring furiously at the scenery, trying to will the heat out of his face, while the girls giggle into their hands.

At the tram stop back in town they release the students, who scatter with cameras and sketchbooks in search of somewhere to spend their last few francs before they head home in the morning. Jayce lingers at a respectable distance, watching Viktor pore over his phone, his shoulders tight with fatigue. He needs somebody to share it with. Somebody to kiss it away.

Jayce sidles up to him, nerves bubbling in his chest, like it’s the first time they’ve met, all over again.

“So,” he says. “Do you wanna... go somewhere? Together?”

Viktor studies him, unreadable for a second, before he softens at the edges, and tucks his phone back into his hoodie pocket.

“Yes. Okay.”

Yes. If Jayce feels any brighter, any lighter, he’s going to float away.

“Apparently there’s a botanic garden near here. We could —” He cuts himself off, grinning irrepressibly, counting his blessings. “It’d be nice.”

Viktor doesn’t argue, for possibly the first time ever. He just nods, and the day finally, finally, tilts back towards possibility.

They walk, unhurried, boots crunching on the winding gravel paths weaving between the trees. The late summer flowers cling to their last brilliant colours, their own closing night, pale pink and dusky purple, and the air is heady with the scent of apples already overripe, rotting on the boughs. And bastard wasps drunk on it and ready for a fight. It isn’t quite cold yet, but the breeze has teeth, warning of the autumn to come. The trees rustle above them, their gilded edges crisp and rasping, and somewhere in the near distance the harsh call of a goose is followed by the equally harsh cacophony of students’ laughter.

Jayce is staring at Viktor’s hand, and Viktor can’t help but notice. He’s embarrassed by his hand, his weaker one, as he is everything else about him. His hand is so pale, and thin; the twisted knuckles look like they might pop through his skin. He’s overtaken, then, by a memory — Jayce taking his hands between both of his, huffing warmth back into Viktor’s numb fingers, one wet winter night when Jayce had dragged him out for a walk to look at the Christmas lights. Viktor had been cold to his bones, aching, angry, and terrified. We aren’t together, he had snapped, later, venomous. We aren’t a couple. Why do you insist on playing pretend?

Underneath it all — the prickliness, the eventual play at hatred — was the bitter, wounded part of him that believed that if he just rejected Jayce hard enough, kept him at arm’s length long enough, he would be spared the eventual heartbreak. That perhaps it could be pre-empted, the disappointment. He could front-load the awfulness of it by never trusting any of it, for a second. The softness. How easily Jayce gave to him. How it rendered Viktor pathetic with want.

“Jayce,” Viktor says, not meaning for it to come out as a snap, and Jayce’s eyes flick back up to his face.

“Sorry,” Jayce says, immediate and instinctive. A routine they have practiced for so long it’s entirely automatic.

“What for?” Viktor says.

“I — I don’t know,” Jayce says. The sun turns golden as it slants between the trees, throwing them in the most flattering light possible. Softening them. “You just sounded mad.”

Viktor must make a face — his mouth twitches, a brief, unkind twist of his lips — because when he glances at Jayce his eyes widen, a moment of panic. Chastised, Jayce continues, “Sorry. Again. I’m being... pathetic.”

“I was only going to ask,” Viktor says, and pauses to take a breath. The day has exhausted him in that unique way that teaching does — taken its toll, taken part of him, left him defenceless. His voice grows softer, not on purpose. “If you would hold my hand.”

Jayce stares at him. His mouth parts, like he might speak, but whatever words he’s reaching for evaporate before they can properly form. Then he smirks, satisfied, not smug at all, and he takes Viktor’s hand.

He’s warm, and gentle, just as Viktor remembers, but something about the quality of the moment is different. More genuine. On the terms that perhaps they should have approached each other to begin with.

“Okay?” Jayce says, soft. “Lean on me, if you want. If you’re tired.”

“Thank you,” Viktor says, barely on a breath, and he does, welcoming Jayce’s steady support. How easily Jayce gives. And how funny he is, when he takes — his boyish charm, how he used to bat his eyelashes as a joke, and how they’d both collapse with laughter when it proved alarmingly effective.

He was lovely, then. He’s lovelier, now.

They walk, for a while. Viktor thinks he could fall in love with Jayce all over again, if it weren’t already far too late for that.

In the shade of a huge oleander tree, they pause, and watch its pink blossoms shiver in the cool breeze. They’ll fall, soon, but for the moment, they are glorious. Ahead of them, ducks squabble for position in the duck pond, snapping at each other’s tail feathers. The afternoon feels endless, timeless. It’s perfect. It’s a perfect day. He can’t fight it any more, the way Jayce makes everything better.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Jayce says, apropos of apparently nothing. Viktor tilts his head and narrows his eyes. “I got carried away. I’m not good at — moving on, I guess.”

“No,” Viktor says. He means it in agreement. As in, neither am I.

“Do you still hate me?” Jayce says, and it’s a surprise, again.

“I never hated you,” Viktor says, far too quickly, but he can’t bear this. “I would, if it were possible. God knows I tried, but I never managed to summon anything —” his throat is tight, suddenly — “anything but longing for you.”

The long pause is filled by the dry quiver of leaves and the sound of the ducks on the wet shoreline, slapping their soggy wings together, sarcastic applause for the two idiots under the oleander.

“Right,” Jayce eventually says. “The thing is.”

If Viktor looks directly at him it will surely wound him, like staring at the sun, so he doesn’t; he fixes his attention on a cormorant, stopped on top of the duck house, its wings spread wide to catch the sun.

What could the thing possibly be?

The thing is that I know you left because you were afraid. I know your leaving was an act of abject and cruel self-denial. I know you want someone to take care of you — but not like that. Not like you’re helpless.

The thing is I know you’re not helpless. But you make me helpless. Is that why you left? Because I showed you the softest parts of myself, and in so doing held up a mirror to yours.

The thing is that your fear of vulnerability gets in the way of everything, sucks all the oxygen out of the room, smothered to death all the happiness we could’ve had.

“I think,” Jayce says, and it’s clear he’s choosing his words carefully, with how tentative he is about it. “That —”

“Spit it out, Jayce,” Viktor bristles. “I am sick of tiptoeing around this — this disaster we made of — it.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Jayce says, and when Viktor glances at him he’s smirking again, mildly amused in his infuriating way. “You were pretty forward last night.”

“You bastard,” Viktor whispers, but he can’t keep from smiling. It curls uninvited at the edge of his mouth.

“So, the thing is,” Jayce says again, a man who has finally made up his mind. “I’m still into you. And... I think we could be good together. You know? Better than we were.”

Viktor feels his face grow alarmingly warm. There’s no hope of playing it cool, not with the soft surety of that confession pressed into the apparently malleable clay of his heart. Jayce’s handprints, all over it. Jayce, making him better, in a hundred different ways.

“Is that it?” he says. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Well, I think it could be,” Jayce says. “If you would stop being such a —”

There’s a long pause. Then, finally, Jayce says, “Sorry.”

“No, you are right,” Viktor says, worn out. “I was afraid. That letting you too close to me would be —”

He sighs, deeply, forcing the bone-tired breath out, and with it the last of his resolve.

“I have always thought I am better off alone. Always. That my various needs — all of them —” he says, gesturing weakly, vaguely, with his unsteady hand — “are too... much. That the effort of letting someone see all of this is not worth it, when anyone sensible would run in the other direction as soon as they realise how much work I am.”

Jayce is nuzzling against his ear, suddenly, nosing into his hair, kissing his cheeks, derailing his train of thought completely. Viktor’s entire body prickles with it, the softness of his love. He leans into it, entirely deliberately, entirely under its spell.

“Yeah, you are hard work,” Jayce says, and Viktor hears the grin in it. “But I’d say I’m... uniquely qualified for it.”

Viktor snorts with laugher, ruffled and unprepared.

“I —” Viktor lets his eyes slip shut, as Jayce kisses up his jaw. “I missed you. My sweet, sensitive, boy. I missed holding you to my chest. I missed kissing you.”

“Yeah?” Jayce murmurs, coaxing him.

“Yes.”

“Then kiss me.”

Viktor turns his face, and he does.

The world goes away. Viktor forgets himself, why they’re here, can’t remember why he would have ever objected to this. How he loves him. Jayce, who holds all his secrets. Jayce, who loves him without permission. Jayce who kisses him like it’s easy, like they were made for this.

Viktor pulls back, when the pleasure starts to frighten him. But Jayce lays a hand on his waist, to keep him close.

“Wait,” Jayce says. His eyes are searching, still. What could he possibly be looking for that he hasn’t already found? It makes Viktor laugh, and in turn Jayce grins at him like he’s just won the lottery.

Viktor kisses him, again. Indulges him, refuses now to suppress the instinct to give Jayce everything that he wants. The noise in his head, the constant static of pain and the anticipation of it, goes quiet.

He wonders when it happened, when all the branching possibilities narrowed to this, the only viable outcome for the two of them together. Probably the moment that his luggage was loaded onto the wrong plane. Forced to wear Jayce’s hoodie, to endure all his stupid soft looks, remembering how Jayce used to beam at him when Viktor would wear his clothes. Surrounded by his smell, kept warm by him even from a distance. A facsimile of distance. The distance that Viktor had spent so long trying to construct, closing from the moment he slipped his arms into the sleeves of Jayce’s oversized hoodie.

They part.

“Will that suffice?” Viktor says, catching his breath, grinning. “Or — more?”

Jayce looks out over the duck pond, checking the coast is clear, and it is. But regardless, grinning, he says, “It’s never going to be enough. But — maybe later.”

“Maybe?”

“Promise.”

Their sugary sweet moment is interrupted by Viktor’s phone buzzing in his pocket. He sighs, deeply, and feels the headache rush back again like it never left. He pulls back from Jayce as much as he can bear, and fetches his phone.

“Everything okay?” Jayce says.

“Mel is calling,” Viktor says, frowning.

“Uh... why?” Jayce says, and Viktor feels Jayce’s hands tighten slightly at his waist, the nervous energy.

“I was going to tell you earlier,” Viktor says, avoiding Jayce’s stare and wondering if he can just let the call ring out. “But why ruin a perfect day?” He sighs. “She may be aware of your, ah, incident yesterday.”

Jayce’s hand flies to his face, fingers to his bruised cheekbone.

“Yes, that one,” Viktor says, still not quite looking at him.

“Shit,” Jayce says. “Am I screwed?”

Viktor shrugs, and tilts his head. “That remains to be seen, I think,” he says, and on the last ring before the call goes to voicemail, he answers the phone.