Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“The Great Work (Latin: Magnum Opus) is an alchemical term for the process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher’s stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition, attached to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, used as a model for the ‘individuation process’, and as a device in art and literature. The Magnum Opus has been carried forward in New Age and neo-Hermetic movements which sometimes attached new symbolism and significance to the processes. The original process philosophy has four stages…”

-Jo Hedesan, The Four Stages of Alchemical Work

Stage I

Nigredo: Putrefaction and Decomposition

The Man With The Halo

Jayce doesn’t like it when people stop him on the street.

It used to happen all the time, when he was a boy. Old women with tattered shawls, empty-eyed amputees dumped there after the most recent war, young mothers with suspiciously silent babies in their arms, all shaking tins at him as he passed by. He always just let his mother steer him away—probably for the best. He never had anything to give them.

He doesn’t have anything to give these people now, either. They want things from him that he can’t possibly be expected to share: time, attention, answers to some vague political question, a night in their bed. He’s hardly been a Councillor (not his decision) for two weeks, and already people are looking to him for guidance, for leadership. For some beacon of progress and hope that the future is as bright as he’d promised them.

He isn’t sure he can do it. His whole life, he’s been doing rather than saying—the inclination of his bloodline, maybe, muscle memory passed through generations spent swinging a hammer in order to build the world they wanted to see. Jayce used to shut himself in his room and build and build and build, too, chasing the answers to questions he could barely grasp, his mind going a thousand miles a minute. His mother had said to his father, Where on earth does he get that brain from, my love? and his father had said, Hell if I know. Let’s just hope that he uses it for good things. Jayce has spent the last thirty-odd years of his life trying to use it for good things.

And now he’s here. Everyone tells them that he’s made for this. The Golden Boy with the silver tongue, King Midas touching everything around him, on a warpath to make the city bigger, better, brighter. He thinks, only part of that is true. He didn’t know he could talk his way into the conversation until someone gave him a podium. Now, there are so many people he can speak for and he’s dizzy with the thought of it, with the fear of messing up beyond any hope of reparation.

Mel Medarda has taken it upon herself to guide and teach him all the things he doesn’t know about politics and being in the public eye—which is admittedly quite a lot. He doesn’t know her motives, but he also doesn’t really care that much about trying to figure them out, either. They feel inconsequential when compared to the bigger picture. What Jayce does know is that he is grateful to her for her help, and he tells her this, when they’re standing side by side on her balcony beneath the moonlight.

Mel responds by taking his hand and kissing him.

Jayce likes the way she looks at him; the way she touches him and speaks to him whenever he has questions or insecurities. He also likes the way she wants him, and he finds himself swept up in the possibility of being able to have her, too, if he wants to. He thinks he wants to. He’s grown used to the subtle ache of wanting something, someone he can’t have—and with Mel there is nothing to ruin, no friendship to destroy or partnership to make suddenly inhabitable if things go wrong. She is simply here, and so is he, and he thinks, Wouldn’t it be nice to be here together, just for now?

Placeholder

Mel finds him at the hospital several hours later, hunched over in a chair outside Viktor’s room. The nurses won’t allow him to be present while they’re adjusting the various chemical drips and the apparatus that helps him to breathe—something about expensive medical equipment, he wasn’t really listening. I won’t even look at it, I promise, Jayce wanted to say to them. I just want to hold his hand.

“The Council is holding a meeting this afternoon,” Mel tells him gently. The silence all around them here is deafening. She places a hand on his shoulder: comforting, steadying, nothing more. Jayce appreciates it more than he can say. “I told them that you would be…otherwise preoccupied. If they have any issue with it they can take it up with me.”

Jayce shuts his eyes tight, and when he does he sees the image of Viktor’s body, crumpled and broken and alone on the floor of the laboratory, seared into his eyelids. How long had he been lying there before somebody found him?

“He’s going to be okay,” Mel says. She speaks with the quiet confidence Jayce wishes he had. It’s all he can do right now not to tuck his legs up to his chest and sob until he forces some of the burning lump of guilt out of his throat. There are plenty of other people just as terrified and uncertain as he is, huddled together along the hallway of this hospital floor; surely they wouldn’t even turn their heads if he suddenly broke down in tears. He’d be just another faceless picture of grief, of loss wreaking its relentless devastation like a hurricane, tearing everything apart.

“I don’t know,” he says miserably. “He’s dying. I don’t know. I…I don’t…” He stops in an attempt to gather himself. His voice is wet and strained. “Sit with me?”

Mel does.

It’s a small eternity before either of them say anything. Jayce feels something vital inside of him crumbling and unfolding, like a building whose foundation has suddenly split and there’s now a yawning chasm that’s opened up in its place. He isn’t sure how to fix it. Surprisingly, it is Mel who breaks the silence first.

“I didn’t realize you were so close,” she says.

Jayce doesn’t really know how to answer this. He shrugs, his gaze trained on the shiny tip of one of his shoes, trying not to imagine Viktor on the floor again. “Yeah,” he settles on, eventually. “Viktor…he saved my life, once.”

Mel hums. “He rescued your work when nobody else believed in you.”

“No—I mean, yes. He did. But I meant, he really saved my life. He stopped me from stepping off a building before I even knew his name.”

Mel says nothing. There probably isn’t much she could say in response, and Jayce thinks this long, reverent silence is the most appropriate thing to follow what he’s just shared. There’s nobody in the world who’s done more for Jayce than Viktor. What they did together—it’s incredible, it’s amazing, and he feels like it’s the only thing that could have come out of that moment where their paths crossed. Where Jayce faltered, Viktor questioned and pushed, and where Viktor doubted, Jayce countered and persevered, until finally, finally, they got it right. Who else could have done this with him? Nobody. There’s no one else like Viktor.

Jayce shudders.

“He’s going to be okay,” says Mel again.

After another weighty moment of silence, she gives a sigh and starts to get to her feet. Jayce places his hand atop her wrist without thinking.

“Wait, Mel,” he says hurriedly, and she pauses, looking towards him. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to say something, to explain himself when neither of them owe each other anything. He takes a shaky breath. “About last night…I…”

Mel smiles. She looks neither surprised nor disappointed—she simply looks like she cares. He thinks that maybe she really does. “It’s alright,” she says. “You don’t have to give me a reason. I enjoy your company immensely, Jayce, but for right now…friendship would be better suited to us both, I think.” Her smile softens. It is warm and beautiful. It reminds Jayce of the moon. “Stay with him. If you need me, I will be here.”

Jayce swallows against the aching pressure in his throat. “Thanks,” he manages hoarsely. He lets go of Mel’s wrist, and watches her as she leaves.

Tell God To Turn Off The Fucking Lights

Jayce finally forces himself to leave the hospital at the height of the afternoon, and only as a result of Viktor’s insistence that he’s going to get some more rest and that Jayce should get some, too.

The brightness of the sun nearly blinds him when he steps outside onto the street. He shields his face from it with one hand, bares his teeth at it as despair burns a hole right through his chest. He wants to rage at the audacity of the whole world, the whole goddamn universe.

Viktor is dying. It feels like the sun should set and stay set forever.

Altar In The Sky

Jayce dreams, sometimes, about That Night—That Night being the night everything changed: the universe, the world, his whole life, himself. In that order, although perhaps not in order of importance.

He still remembers how it felt to fly. If he closes his eyes tight enough he can feel the ground beneath him shift, the air singing in his bones as he’s turned upside down, cradled in the arms of some unseen, all-powerful force. Rebirth, he might call it. Isn’t that what you call what happens to you when you’re broken apart and then put back together in a new shape, not something entirely different but never again exactly the way you were before? That seems like the right word. Maybe he’ll ask his mother.

Beside all that— the thrill of discovery like he’s never felt, the rush of being able to reach out and grasp the future in his hands—is Viktor.

When he dreams about That Night, he sees Viktor floating across from him. The whole world melts away until there’s only the two of them, and the thrum of magic all through their bodies, and nothing else. He can always picture it so clearly, just like he’s back there again: Viktor’s smile, his face bathed in blue and his body swimming in an ocean of starlight, a halo of light circling his head in seven divine rings. His cheeks are full of color and his eyes are full of life. A laugh of delighted awe leaves him in a winded rush, and Jayce finds himself startlingly, irretrievably charmed by the noise.

This is usually the moment in the dream when Jayce realizes he’s loved Viktor for a long time. He doesn’t say anything about that, though. Instead he says, We did it, we did it, Viktor, and Viktor says, Catch me. Jayce smiles so wide it aches.

Maybe that’s not exactly how it happened. Maybe Jayce doesn’t care.

Tonight he dreams about That Night again. In this version, he already knows that Viktor is going to die—he stares at his limbs moving like he’s underwater, at his big, bright smile, and thinks I don’t want you to end up where you’re going. What can I do to make sure you stay?

He doesn’t say anything in this dream, either. He just watches, and hurts, and hopes.

You Want A Better Ending (Who Wouldn’t?)

Viktor discharges himself from the hospital less than twenty-four hours after he was first admitted, against all medical advice.

Jayce finds him standing outside the academy when the sun is high in the sky and classes have long been let out. He’s out of breath, holding a handkerchief to his mouth and staring at Jayce like he’s just as shocked to see him, too. With his other hand he’s clutching his cane in a vice grip.

Jayce stares back. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asks at last. It comes out a lot harsher than he’d like.

Viktor purses his lips. “I live here.”

“Yeah—no, I get that, I mean—what are you doing here. Out of the hospital.”

Viktor does not look amused in the slightest. Good. Jayce isn’t trying to be funny. “I am going home,” he says, slowly. “Because—again—I live here.” He draws the words out like Jayce is either hard of hearing or very, very stupid. Neither of these he appreciates.

Jayce feels himself getting frustrated despite all his efforts to keep a calm and positive demeanor. He heard that staying optimistic can increase a sick person’s chances of survival, or something, although maybe it only works if you’re the one who’s sick. He can’t remember the specifics right now. “Wouldn’t it be better for you to stay at the hospital?” he tries, with as much patience as he can muster. “There are professionals there who can help you.”

Viktor scoffs at the word professionals. “They can do nothing for me. They want me to simply lie there and allow them to fill me with so much medication that I forget where I am, much less who I am, until my body finally gives out and I am gone. It would be much better for me to be home, so I can work. That is the only thing that matters.”

Okay, this is not going the way Jayce wants it to. He only realizes that he’s moved to block the entrance with his body when Viktor makes an affronted noise in the back of his throat, glaring up at him and pressing his cane to the ground with a lot more force than necessary when he takes a step forward.

“Let me through,” he says through clenched teeth. There’s sweat beading at his hairline, even though the weather today is lukewarm at best.

Jayce shakes his head.

Viktor looks downright furious. “Jayce Talis,” he says, his voice low and shaking with anger. “Move.”

“No.”

Viktor makes a sound that Jayce can only describe as wounded. It reminds him of the noises the wild dogs that lived on the outskirts of town would make when they were starving, desperate and angry and fighting each other for everything they could get. Jayce’s stomach twists. “You will let me through,” Viktor hisses, the closest thing to a threat that Jayce has ever heard come from his mouth, “or I will go around the entire building and take the back entrance.”

Jayce wants to grab Viktor by the shoulders and shake him until he sees reason; until he lets Jayce take him back to the hospital where he can rest. Frankly, Viktor doesn’t look like he’d even survive the trip around the building. “Damn it, Viktor,” he groans, exasperated, and above all else, scared. “You—you’re committed to your work, to our work, and you know that’s something that I’ve always admired, but—right now, you need to take care of yourself. Please.”

Viktor narrows his eyes accusingly. “It has been a while since it’s been our work,” he says. Of course this is the part of Jayce’s words he’d hone in on, and the bite in his voice could probably make a grown man cry. He’s heard Viktor speak like this before—but never towards him. It hurts much more than he could have imagined it would.

“I don’t want to fight,” he says, instead of whatever anger-fueled retort is already waiting on the edge of his tongue. “I just…want you to be okay.”

“Well, you cannot get everything you want, now, can you.”

Jayce recoils as if he’s been punched. Viktor has never been so…volatile with him, and he hates it. It makes Jayce want to scream until his voice goes hoarse. It makes him want to be mean right back. He places himself in an even more obstructive position in front of the doors, and Viktor seethes, stumbling forward.

It happens very quickly. One moment Viktor is hitting Jayce anywhere he can find an open spot, spitting curses at him, and the next his breath is coming in abrupt, hitching spasms, his mouth twisting hideously as he starts to cry.

Jayce has never seen Viktor cry. This, somehow, is the worst of everything Viktor’s done today. He feels the lump in his throat from yesterday morning come back with a vengeance, and blinks hard against the sting in his eyes. “Damn it, Viktor,” he says again. His voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He wraps his arms around him as he sobs, weak little sounds that shake his whole body. For the first time, Jayce feels how thin Viktor truly is.

To his credit Viktor cries for what is probably only ten seconds. His tears dry easily, and as soon as it’s started it’s already over, leaving him drained and exhausted. He’s trembling when he pulls away from Jayce’s grip. “I should be the one apologizing,” he says at last, awkwardly. “I hit you.”

“It didn’t hurt.” Jayce is being serious, but Viktor cracks a tiny smile at this, anyways, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm. It’s such an oddly childlike gesture that it makes Jayce’s heart ache a hundredfold. “Do you want to…talk about it?”

Viktor shakes his head. He can’t seem to meet Jayce’s gaze, instead staring at the stones on the street like they’re the most interesting things in the world. He leans heavier on his cane and sniffs. “Tell me this, at least,” he says softly. “If you were dying, would you spend the remainder of your time lying in bed, just waiting for the lights to go out?”

Jayce does not respond. He cannot—the words are choked out of him before he can even speak. He knows Viktor is right. Of course he is. The silence between them passes like a gentle wave, the tension receding as Viktor gives a slow, heavy sigh.

“Neither would I,” he says. “Now, are you going to help me to my room, or do I have to go all the way around?”

What We Do Best

They approach Viktor’s illness as if it’s just another problem for them to solve—working tirelessly through theories and possible solutions, staring at equations until their eyes are red and sore. Jayce loses count of how many times he wipes the entire chalkboard clean, frustrated and afraid that the answer is simple and right in front of them: there’s nothing they can do.

Jayce has never accepted answers like that. If nothing works, he’ll make something that does, no matter what it takes, no matter how many people he has to get past or or how many toes he has to step on in the process. The future isn’t built by taking the path most travelled—and it certainly doesn’t save lives, either. Both of them know this.

Now That’s Just Bad Timing

Here’s a riddle:

How do you know you aren’t Exclusively Attracted to Women?

Jayce is twenty-seven when he figures it out. He is sitting in Caitlyn’s room, watching her struggle to pick out the appropriate dress to wear to the Council’s dinner function tonight. She doesn’t want to go, but her mother had convinced her by saying that Jayce can go, too, just so long as they both behave themselves. Jayce was only informed of this development twenty-five minutes ago, and the dinner starts in two hours.

It’s been a while since Jayce has lived in the adjoining apartment the Kirammans so charitably gave his mother when she started working as their housekeeper and Councillor Kiramman made the decision to sponsor Jayce’s studies. He’s since gotten his own apartment at the academy where he finally has the room to conduct his own research. Still, he finds himself spending a lot of his time here, regardless, just so he can see Caitlyn.

There are a lot of things he feels for Caitlyn Kiramman. He wants to protect her; he wants to make her smile; he wants to intimidate the hell out of any girl who might break her heart; he wants to see her happy. He’s beyond grateful that he gets to have her in his life.

“As my esteemed guest for the evening,” she tells him, “I might be able to get my mother to approve a plus-one for you. That would make this whole ordeal considerably more fun.”

“Why?” Jayce asks. “Who would I even bring?”

Caitlyn shrugs. “Viktor?”

Jayce almost laughs out loud. There is no way on earth Viktor would ever come to one of these things—it’s hard enough as it is to get him to leave the lab, much less the academy, despite the fact that everyone wants to talk to them ever since hearing about this “Hextech” that supposedly has the potential to revolutionize everything from travel to trade. Viktor is like a cat that hides behind a cabinet when someone he isn’t comfortable with threatens to intrude on his sanctuary. Literally—he once hid behind a cabinet when their new laboratory assistant, a pretty, mousy student named Sky Young, arrived unannounced for an interview. Jayce had asked her every question as professionally as he could without bursting out laughing. “No way,” he says.

“Do you not like him? I thought the two of you were friends. You have spent nearly every hour of the past three years together, after all.”

Jayce leans back on his elbows. He’s taken to lying on the floor, now, preferring the plush carpet to the weird rocking chair Caitlyn has in the corner. “We are friends,” he rushes to clarify. “I mean, sure, there are some things he does that get on my nerves sometimes, but he’s put up with me a lot, too. We work great together. He’s brilliant and funny and surprisingly kind, even though he’s got a lot to be angry about, which I wouldn’t blame him for if he was. I can’t imagine what my life would be without him.”

Caitlyn responds to this with her head halfway into her boudoir. He hears her rustling around in there, humming thoughtfully as she assesses her options. “Oh, okay,” she says. “That’s good. I was afraid I was going to have to beat him up.”

“I’m sure he’d be very, very intimidated by a nineteen-year old girl in high heels.”

“He should be.”

Jayce smiles fondly. He still remembers the day he’d first met Caitlyn: she had been eleven years old, long-limbed and fire-eyed, and took a liking to him immediately when she found him sneaking (unsuccessfully) into the kitchen for a snack in the middle of the night. “You have to avoid every third floorboard,” she’d said, conspiratorially, and Jayce had said, “Wanna show me where your dad keeps the leftover cake?”

“Anyways,” says Caitlyn, “I’ve only met him, like, once, which I think is incredibly unfair, since he’s your best friend apparently.”

“You’re my best friend,” Jayce says forcefully, like she’s just suggested something untoward. Best friend doesn’t even sound right, anyway, when it comes to him and Viktor. They’re closer than that, surely—they share everything: losses and failures alike, jokes and habits and dreams, laughing long into the night together until their sides cramp up and falling asleep side by side surrounded by piles of work, curled up uncomfortably in swivel chairs while the sky grows light outside the window. “He’s like a brother to me,” he settles on eventually.

Caitlyn twirls with a teal-colored dress held to her chest; Jayce follows the motion of the tulle with his eyes as it swirls around her legs like ocean foam. “You’re like a brother to me, too,” she says—and Jayce thinks: Okay. So maybe brother might not be the right word.

Caitlyn must know exactly what the look on his face means, because she suddenly grins the same way she does when she’s about to get away with something very risky and irresponsible. “Go get ready, now, and then report back here immediately when you’re done,” she orders, and then, partly under her breath: “Of course you’d choose the worst time for a revelation. We only have an hour and a half before my mother comes and drags us to the dinner, and you and I’ve got something very important to talk about. Got it?”

Bear Trap

Viktor coaches Jayce through the mechanics of his leg brace in a soft, low voice. It is early evening; the sun hasn’t quite set, but it is on its way down, casting Viktor’s bedroom in warm light. The Golden Hour, Jayce thinks he’s heard people call it. Viktor is sitting on the edge of his bed, and Jayce sits beside him, watching the movement of Viktor’s hands as he speaks.

“There are four mechanisms along the back,” he explains. “They lock when in place, but when unclasped they allow the pieces to fold so it can be removed from my leg. It locks here”— he taps the centerpiece—“to stabilize my knee. You turn this part in the back to loosen it. Here, at the top of my thigh, this is where it is tightest. That way it stays secure and does not slip. There is a smaller clasp around my calf, here”—he points—“where the rod between the knee and the ankle is held. The last one is on the back of the…boot, you might call it. It is like a screw, so you turn it counterclockwise to loosen it, as well. After this, I can take my foot out.”

Jayce follows the explanation with rapt attention. It’s a beautiful piece of engineering, if he’s being honest, although it certainly can’t be the most comfortable. Function over all else, he supposes. At least parts of it seem padded. “Not so complicated,” he says. Viktor gives him a look that means he’s about to make him put those words to the test.

“You do it,” he says.

“Already on it.” Jayce slides easily off the bed and situates himself on his knees in front of him; he lifts Viktor’s leg carefully, letting the heel rest against the top of his thigh while feeling for the uppermost strap. Viktor looks down at him, drawing a sharp breath at the sight, which Jayce politely ignores. Mostly because, were he to think too hard about it, he’d probably end up doing something he’d regret. So he tells himself.

Jayce loosens the first clasp: so far, so good. Viktor sighs audibly, his eyes fluttering closed. Jayce focuses on the one behind his knee, next.

“When’d you get this, anyway?” he asks, for no reason than to distract himself from the satisfied noise Viktor makes as he works on the second mechanism.

Viktor hums. “I had it made several years ago. My other one, the one I wore when we met, was small enough to conceal beneath my clothing. Unfortunately, that is not so possible with this.”

Jayce isn’t sure why he just assumed Viktor had had this one for a while, waiting in the wings. He doesn’t even remember the day Viktor switched to this newest one—definitely something he should have noticed, admittedly, but everything was such a rush of chaos with Hextech finally being implemented in Piltover, and there were other things on both of their minds at the time. In retrospect, Viktor was probably relieved that Jayce never brought it up.

“Careful,” says Viktor suddenly, knocking Jayce out of his train of thought. “You are turning that one too aggressively. If you are not gentle, it could get stuck.”

Jayce gives an apologetic little murmur.

It is suddenly much too quiet in this cramped room. Jayce wracks his brain for something to say; something, anything. He looks down at the screw-like mechanism and the steel rod that attaches to it, and it reminds him of one of the animal traps he’d seen his father use to catch rabbits in the forest when he was young.

“I watched Mr. Kiramman hunt a bear, once,” Jayce says. “I was around twenty. Caitlyn convinced him to let me come along, because she didn’t want to go alone. I was a shit shot so I just stuck by her the whole time. It was the dead of winter and I swear my breath froze on its way out.”

He unclasps the third mechanism, the one right behind Viktor’s calf. He feels the muscle jump beneath his hand, and pauses.

“Keep going,” says Viktor, sensing Jayce’s brief hesitation. “I put this contraption on and take it off every day, remember? I am used to it. You will not hurt me. I promise.”

Jayce nods. He runs his hand down Viktor’s leg before stopping at the metal boot. He clears his throat, rolls his shoulders as if this will ease some of the tension in his body. “Anyway. I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently the old-fashioned way to kill a bear is to make it impale itself. You put a long, pointed stick or spear in the ground, sharp side up, and somehow force the bear to fall on the point. After that, you just let gravity do the rest of the work.”

“Is that what Mr. Kiramman did?”

“No. He shot the thing with a hunting rifle like, twenty times. I think he told me that story about the impalement to try and impress me.”

Viktor’s mouth twitches, and he lets out a hard breath through his nose. “What an odd thing to try to impress someone with,” he says.

Jayce starts on the final clasp.

He feels Viktor’s gaze on the back of his neck, heated and intense. It takes him a little bit longer to loosen this one in comparison to the others, because his fingers keep slipping every time he hears Viktor produce any kind of sound, no matter how quiet, hyper aware of his breathing and the flex of muscle under his skin. At last, Jayce finishes and forces himself to look up. Viktor looks startled; his throat bobs when he swallows, his face slightly flushed, and Jayce wonders what would happen if he crawled up and took a bite straight out of that long, pale neck. He imagines Viktor making a whole symphony of those nice noises.

“There,” says Jayce. He feels like he can’t catch his breath. “All done.”

Viktor blinks owlishly. “I see,” he says. “I must admit, you are quite the fast learner. You only took about…hm. Double the time it takes me to do it, I believe. That is impressive.”

Jayce fights the urge to puff out his chest. He’s no stranger to compliments, but the ones from Viktor never fail to make him want to preen like a very vain man, or maybe a bird about to launch into an elaborate courtship display. “The important question is, how do I fare compared to the others?” he asks.

Viktor blinks again. “I would not know. You are the only person I have allowed to do this outside of myself.”

Oh. That…that’s something. Jayce doesn’t know what it is, or what it means, only that it makes something squeeze inside his chest and his stomach do a somersault. “Well, I’m honored,” he says, when his voice returns to him.

Viktor’s mouth quirks up in a tiny, amused smile. He’s looking down at Jayce with all the fondness in the world, and Jayce doesn’t know what to do with it. “You will not be saying that when I show you how to remove my other brace,” he says. “Some other time, of course. I am sure that one will take you much, much longer.”

Jayce wrestles his longing viciously into the ground.

Twice Drowned

Jayce waits patiently in the middle of the academy hallway for Viktor to catch up to him, trying not to make it too obvious that waiting is what he’s doing. He doesn’t think it’s really something he can hide at this point.

He doesn’t want to be too close, or hover; Viktor has always hated that, saying that it makes him feel pitied or coddled, or worse, looked down on. Jayce has never once pitied Viktor but he can understand the sentiment. Over the years they’ve known each other Jayce has become exceptionally good at only slowing his own walking pace by a margin, if at all, offering to help Viktor out of a chair or up a staircase only when it seems like he really needs it, and trusting Viktor to tell him when he’s having a bad day and requires a little extra accommodation. Viktor knows his own body better than anyone else, after all.

Of course, all of this was before Jayce found out that Viktor is dying. The doctors had used an irritating amount of medical jargon when they explained to him what was happening, but Jayce could glean the essentials, as follows:

1. Viktor is sick.
2. Viktor is really sick.
3. Viktor has been sick for a while, probably since he was a little kid, and it went unnoticed and untreated for so long that by the time it caught up to him as an adult, any hope of curing it with medication or surgery was out of the question. It’s to be expected—he grew up in the Undercity, after all, didn’t he?
4. The right side of Viktor’s body is deteriorating. He was born with a deformed leg but whatever disease he has has taken hold of it and started making it worse, possibly for several years now. It’s spreading, and it’s spreading fast.
5. Viktor is coughing up blood. His lungs are filling up with fluid.
6. Is there anything we can do to stop it?
7. I’m afraid not.
8. Fuck.

Jayce has heard of something called the second drowning. It happens when a child inhales water into their lungs while swimming. You can make them cough it all up, and everything will seem fine. Problem fixed, death averted. All that good stuff. Except later on, after a couple hours or so have passed, the child will suddenly start to have trouble breathing. It’s a delayed symptom: their lungs become irritated from all the water they choked on earlier, and the tissue becomes inflamed. If they don’t receive medical attention quick enough, there’s a good chance that they’ll suffocate even without water in their lungs anymore. They essentially drown twice.

Jayce wonders what it feels like to drown inside your own body.

Viktor is leaning against the wall and coughing again. The noise is horrendous, and Jayce can’t stand the way Viktor’s face screws up in pain, the way his whole body shakes with the force of it, how his handkerchief comes away more red than it was before he pressed it to his mouth. There’s a little smear of blood beneath his left nostril.

Jayce wants to do more than just wait for him. But what else can he do? So he stands there, and he waits.

Good Luck Charm

“Come with me.”

Jayce has resorted to practically begging at this point, and after about the fifteenth time of asking over the course of the afternoon Viktor looks about ready to smack him upside the head. It wouldn’t be entirely undeserved, but Jayce is too far gone, too wrapped up in his own misery that everything else is drowned out and therefore rendered unimportant. He’d much rather have somebody hit him than be forced to attend the Council’s Whatever-The-Hell Celebration gala tonight. Which is seeming like more and more of a possibility the longer the day goes on.

“Stop your whining,” Viktor says.

“No,” says Jayce, petulantly. Viktor rounds on him with his eyes narrowed, swiveling around in his chair. Jayce sees his fingers flex on the handle of his cane.

“You know how I feel about these kinds of things,” says Viktor slowly. It isn’t an outright “no” anymore, and it’s definitely no longer a “for the love of all the things that are holy, Jayce, stop asking me this stupid question,” which Jayce will count as a solid win, no matter how small.

“I know,” says Jayce. He does. “I know, and I’m not the biggest fan of them, either. I just…I really want you to come with me. Having you there will significantly lower my desire to swallow glass.”

He sees Viktor battle an undignified snort. His mouth always does this strange little thing whenever he’s trying not to show Jayce how funny he’s found something he just said. Jayce would honestly be a little bit offended if he wasn’t also so full of the longing to find out how that strange shape feels pressed against his own mouth. “You make it sound so simple, but it is not that way for me,” Viktor says. “Believe me when I say, Jayce, that they do not want me there. You are a much more…palatable face for them to see, I will put it this way. It is better that you be the one to represent Hextech, the way you did on Progress Day.”

“Yeah, well, I want you there,” says Jayce. He feels a sharp stab of shame for having accepted Viktor’s refusal that day so easily. This project is both of theirs, and Viktor deserves just as much recognition, maybe even more so. None of this would have been possible without him. Without Viktor, Hextech would be an unfinished mess of equations in a journal and Jayce would be a dried splatter on the road beneath his apartment. “I will get on my knees and beg.”

“Will you, now,” says Viktor. His tone is dry but Jayce can see the twitch at the corner of his mouth that betrays his amusement.

“Honest to the gods. All of them.”

Jayce doesn’t want to admit that part of the reason he wants Viktor along with him tonight is because something deep down in him is terrified that, if he leaves, Viktor will simply keel over and die the way he almost did that night in the lab. At the very least, he doesn’t deserve to die alone—Jayce has already abandoned him too many times to ever be atoned for, but he’s determined to spend as long as they both have left on this earth trying to make up for it.

Viktor also doesn’t deserve to die at this stupid gala, but that’s just Jayce being selfish. Everything is infinitely better with Viktor there.

Viktor sighs. Jayce can see the thoughts turning through his brain, the way he weighs his options like a man might weigh his gold: very carefully, and very thoroughly. At last, he sighs again, and averts his gaze as if he’s bracing himself for Jayce’s reaction. He probably is, which is fair. “Fine. I will attend this…gala with you, tonight.”

Oh thank the gods. “You have my eternal gratitude, V,” Jayce says, feeling his whole body go lax with unimaginable relief. He wants to cry, maybe, or sink to his knees and throw his arms around Viktor’s legs and never let go.

Viktor just smiles. “I thought that I had that already,” he says, and Jayce laughs, bright and loud.

Ode To Something We Hate Doing

The location in which the gala takes place is just as Jayce expected it would be: extravagant, massive, and crowded. The voices of the guests echo off the high ceilings, raucous laughter and inane chatter that Jayce is already dreading having to join. He’s allegedly the man of the hour, according to Mel, but he’s hoping he’ll be able to sneak out unnoticed after a couple of vacuous conversations. Or at least a couple of drinks to make this more bearable.

Viktor stands at his side, taking in the scene with a look that screams overwhelmed. He’s never attended anything on such a grand scale—the closest he’d ever come was a small graduation party at Heimerdinger’s office nearly ten years ago now, and Jayce knows this because Viktor had told him about it on their way here. Even that had been a casual affair in comparison.

At least there’s a silver lining, and it’s this:

Viktor looks incredibly handsome. Jayce will only take a little bit of credit for it, but he hadn’t done much. Earlier in the afternoon he went out and bought Viktor a few pieces that are a bit more sophisticated than his usual wardrobe: a new vest, a gold, satin suit jacket, a soft tie, all things that he promised Viktor he could wear again for special occasions in the future, no he did not waste his money just for this one event, what are you talking about.

Jayce can hardly stop looking at him. He keeps stealing glances when he knows Viktor’s gaze is elsewhere, trying to memorize the sweep of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the way the deep red of his vest brings out the gold of his eyes. His dark hair is parted neatly and slicked back in a very flattering style, which Jayce had done for him himself after getting ready. (“You have to do more than just brush your hair, V.” “Why? It looks fine.” “It looks like you just rolled out of bed.” “That is not my fault.”)

Several people catch sight of them in the entranceway and stare—some excited, some admiring, some simply curious. A lot more people than he was expecting look at them almost confused, pursing their lips in distaste or muttering to each other, their mouths curling into mean, disapproving sneers.

It takes Jayce maybe a little too long to realize they’re really looking at Viktor.

Viktor’s face scrunches up into an expression so sour that it borders on comical, mostly because it’s an expression Jayce doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. It makes him want to cherish it, hold it close to his heart forever. It also makes him want to pick Viktor up and carry him away from everyone here who doesn’t appreciate him. Fucking assholes. “It appears my reputation precedes me,” Viktor says, his voice flat.

Jayce has to stop himself from glaring at the next person who gives them anything other than a welcoming smile. “Don’t say that.”

“I did warn you that this would be an issue.”

“It’s not!” Jayce hisses back. “Well, I didn’t know it would be.” In my defense, he adds in his head. But he doesn’t say that.

“I cannot believe this,” says Viktor, huffing and leaning on his cane.

Jayce isn’t sure why he had expected people to treat Viktor differently—to treat him better, after what he’s found out. It’s not like any of them know. Viktor isn’t going to hold his hand out with each introduction and say, “Hello, it’s very nice to meet you, what a lovely gala, oh did I mention I’m dying?” But it’s all Jayce can think about, now, the only thing that’s been running through his head for the past three weeks. It still doesn’t entirely feel real.

“I’m sorry, Vik,” says Jayce quietly. “I should have listened to you.”

Viktor doesn’t meet his gaze. He seems to find the wall very intriguing, judging by how seriously he’s staring at it. “Many of these people are being very polite, actually.”

“Would it help if I said you look really, really good?”

Viktor’s mouth twitches. He shifts a bit, turning his head the way he does when Jayce says something about him that he feels is just a little too nice. His ears are pink. “That is quite the compliment, coming from you,” he says. Jayce isn’t sure if he’s being sarcastic or not.

He doesn’t have time to respond, because at this exact moment he spots Mel.

She catches his eyes across the room and nods: the signal to come over and greet her. She looks beautiful, just like she always does—she’s draped in white and gold silk, regal and elegant and commanding respect without even lifting a finger. She’s a woman with power and she knows it. Jayce remembers the way her mouth felt when they kissed on her balcony, the way she wound her fingers into his hair and pulled him into her bed as if to say, Of course. Why shouldn’t we get what we want?

It’s a nice sentiment, and one he absolutely does not want to think about right now.

They approach.

Mel’s eyes roam up and down Viktor’s form with measured interest, taking in the fine details of his vest, the lapels of his jacket, almost like a predator sizing up its prey. Whatever she sees seems to satisfy her, at least.

“You cut quite a dashing figure,” says Mel at last, flashing Viktor a polite but warm smile. “As do you, Jayce, but I’ve also had the great pleasure of seeing you dressed up before now. I’m sure the rest of the Council will be just as pleased to see the both of you here.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you,” says Viktor. He seems increasingly uncomfortable.

Jayce smiles back at her. He wants to say, Whatever.

At least she isn’t acting anything other than perfectly cordial with him, and for that Jayce is so grateful he could burst into tears. God, he’s thought about crying a lot today, and tried not to cry a lot more. It’s a pretty impressive feat given all of the emotions he’s been feeling lately, but, well, the night is still young.

Mel turns to smile at someone who is making their way across the room towards her: it is a young woman dressed in emerald green, an equally stout and severe-looking man at her arm. They are clearly brother and sister, and Jayce thinks that both of them are quite handsome. When he looks at Mel again she is studying his face curiously.

“Waiting for your compliment?” he asks. Shit. It’s not what he meant to say, and it certainly isn’t supposed to be mean-spirited, but luckily it makes Mel’s smile grow, and she puts a delicate hand to her mouth as if she’s about to laugh. Her shoulders shake and the motion causes the golden embroidery of her dress to sparkle in the light.

“Well, only now that you have mentioned it,” she says. “I expect you to come up with a good one.”

Jayce looks her up and down, trying to remain objective and failing. No matter the nature of their relationship, he cannot deny that she is a stunning woman, and it conjures up unwanted images of her body spread out over a mattress, her eyes warm and her hair splayed around her head like a soft cloud. “You look very nice,” is what he ends up settling on. The words sound even dumber coming out of his mouth than they did sitting in his head.

Mel laughs quietly again, her lips shiny and full and her teeth almost unsettlingly white when she flashes them. “Charming,” she says. “Now, it appears I have a few guests to entertain, but I hope you two enjoy the gala. I’m truly glad to see that you could attend, Viktor.”

A Gold-Star Man Is Hard To Find

Viktor practically drags Jayce to the corner of the room, seeking out an area that is a lot less populated before turning towards him with an expectant expression on his face.

“What,” says Jayce.

“Do not tell me, ‘What.’ What was that back there, with Councillor Medarda?”

Jayce feels his neck go hot in embarrassment. He’s surprised Viktor even noticed, to be honest, and he isn’t exactly looking forward to this conversation. “Well…So here’s the thing…”

Viktor is looking at him so intensely he may as well be drilling holes through his head.

Jayce clears his throat. It’s difficult to remember a time he’s felt more awkward. “It was only once,” he says at last. The words come out strained, like pushing them out of his mouth is extremely painful. It kind of is. He winces internally. Why is this so hard? Wait—scratch that, he knows why. He doesn’t want Viktor to get the wrong idea of him: that he’s the kind of person who goes around sleeping with whoever, whenever (nothing against those who do, it’s just—not Jayce’s thing), or that this means that he and Mel are now in a relationship, or that Jayce has…what, betrayed him? That’s stupid, considering Viktor has no idea that Jayce has been silently in love with him for a couple years now. Hopefully.

Viktor stares at him. His eyebrows are raised and his mouth quirks down just the tiniest bit, but he doesn’t look upset. Just thoughtful. “Oh,” he says slowly. “I have to admit, that is not entirely…shocking.”

“It’s not?”

“Not really, no. You seem…” He pauses to think of the right word, glancing up towards the incredibly high ceiling. “Well-suited to each other, I suppose you might say.”

“Okay, but it’s not—it’s not like that.” Jayce hopes his voice isn’t coming across quite as urgent as he feels it is. “We’ve decided to just be friends. It’s better that way, for both of us.”

Viktor takes several moments to digest this information. Jayce watches as his eyes roam the room, his shoulders slightly stiff and his hair beginning to come loose from its careful styling. It’s a lot more appealing than it has any right to be, Jayce thinks dourly. After a while Viktor nods to himself and hums, seeming to have processed this story and filed it away under Things That Aren’t As Important Anymore. Jayce likes to imagine that Viktor has tons of folders in his head where he keeps everything neat and organized, and maybe Jayce has his own folder in there, and it’s filled with nice things that make him smile. Maybe the Jayce Folder has a gold star on it or something, too, something to set it apart from all the rest, although that’s probably just wishful thinking. He’s sure that the Imminent Death Folder is taking up most of the space right now. “It is really none of my business, but I appreciate you telling me, regardless,” Viktor says. Then he gives Jayce a small smile, like he’s sharing a secret, and says: “Now perhaps I can ask you to dance without the risk of stealing you away from somebody more important.”

Jayce is too distracted by the idea of Viktor asking him to dance to scold him about the use of somebody more important, but he’s definitely going to address it, later. “Really?” he says.

Viktor huffs out a noise that Jayce desperately hopes is a laugh and not the start of a coughing fit. From the stage on the other side of the room the orchestra begins to play a new song, one that swells in great waves, peaks and valleys of strings and horns. “I would dance,” says Viktor. Jayce can see the wry glint in his eyes as he says this; he taps the handle of his cane with one finger. “But, well."

Jayce cocks his head and looks out over the crowd, watching the couples as they sway across the gilded floors underneath the glimmer of the chandeliers, clasped together and moving neat and uniform like waves in a sea of opulence. The image that this statement conjures up, of Viktor among their numbers, makes him suddenly want to laugh. They would make a mess of the dance floor, the two of them—although it would certainly be no great tragedy, in Jayce’s eyes, were this party to come to an abrupt and disastrous end. He imagines swinging Viktor around in the very middle of the floor so that he hits everyone within a five foot radius. Maybe I’m drunk, he thinks immediately after picturing this very vividly in his mind, but that can’t be right. He hasn’t had anything to drink yet. Maybe I’m going crazy. That seems a little closer to the mark.

“A shame,” he says at last, and Viktor whacks his shin with the end of his cane, no malice in it at all.

Hallelujah, Goodnight

“Let it be known that I am not one for pomp and circumstance,” says Jayce as they make the long, slightly unsteady journey back to Viktor’s apartment. The night is balmy and clear, not a cloud in sight, and Jayce’s whole body feels warm and weightless. He had been right—the event certainly got a lot better after they located the drinks table. Or at least, after Jayce located it.

Viktor laughs in a very unflattering way, and Jayce adores it with everything he has. “Oh, believe me, you have very much made that known.”

Jayce tips his head back and looks up at the sky. He thinks he can see a star with a tail, if he squints: a comet mid-descent, dazzling and fleeting and a million miles away. Make a wish, he remembers his father telling him, the first and last time they ever saw a shooting star together. Jayce had said, I don’t want a wish. I want a promise.

Viktor follows Jayce’s line of sight, letting him put an arm around his shoulder as they stop at the corner of the road. He’s burning up beneath his clothes. “Beautiful,” Viktor says softly.

“Yeah. It is.”

“What do you imagine a star thinks, as it falls to earth?”

“That’s a weird question.”

“Well, then, come up with a weird answer.”

Jayce grins. He wants to lean his cheek on the top of Viktor’s head and breathe in the smell of his shampoo. He wants to tell Viktor he loves him. He wants to hold him close and tell him that everything is going to turn out okay in the end, no matter how bad things may seem now. “I don’t know,” he says eventually. “Probably something like, ‘I shouldn’t have had those last two drinks.’”

“Oh, okay,” says Viktor, smiling now, too. “So it is thinking like you.”

Jayce nudges Viktor’s side gently with his hip. “No,” he says. “It’s thinking like me three hours ago.”

Viktor laughs and looks up at the sky again. The stars reflect in his eyes, glint against his teeth when he opens his mouth and licks his lips, and Jayce tries to superimpose the afterimage of the shooting star onto Viktor’s pupils with his brain. He wants to look at him forever and ever, exactly as he is right now.

“I wonder if it hurts,” Viktor muses quietly, “to fall so hard and fast, like that.”

It does, Jayce almost tells him. I would know. He wonders if maybe Viktor knows, too. He hopes that they both know the answer.

Close your eyes. Make a wish.

Jayce closes his eyes.

Mother Tongue

“Wow. I’ve never seen anything like this, before,” Jayce murmurs.

It’s a slow, warm afternoon, and his first time really getting the chance to examine all the books that Viktor keeps in his apartment; he’s holding one in his hands and flipping through the pages, entranced by the detailed diagrams and the foreign, sharp lines of the characters that form words he can’t read. From what he can tell, at least, it appears to be cataloguing some strange offset of wildlife—flora and fauna he hardly recognizes, things that look like they’ve reshaped themselves beyond natural logic in order to survive a cruel and impossibly ruthless environment.

“Of course you haven’t,” says Viktor distractedly, his attention taken up by trying to find a different text tucked away somewhere on the middle shelf. “You do not have books like it Topside.”

“And you can read this?” asks Jayce. He gets a severe eye-roll for his troubles.

“Of course I can. Why would I have something that I cannot read?”

“I don’t know. For the pictures?”

He’s mostly joking. Viktor abandons his search and snatches the book out of Jayce’s hands, his eyes narrowed as he quickly scans one of the pages. “Oh,” he says, “this one.”

Jayce waits for him to elaborate; to maybe say something about where he got it, or when. He eventually decides he’s going to have to prompt a follow-up himself. “You brought it from the Undercity, right?”

“Yes.”

“What language is it in?”

“Mine.”

Sure, okay. That makes sense. “When did you learn this one? The one we’re speaking right now.”

“Young. Very few people aside from myself and my parents used the one I grew up with, and even then we rarely did so outside of our home.”

“Why not?”

Viktor shrugs.

Alright, this one might get a longer answer. Jayce leans in closer and asks, “So, what’s it about? The images are definitely…interesting.”

Viktor traces one of the elaborate and carefully-crafted diagrams with his pointer finger. He looks like he’s studying it intently, and a little fondly, as well. It only makes Jayce more curious. “Mutations,” says Viktor at last. “Necessary changes undergone to adapt to the Undercity, or otherwise born from generations of exposure to the dangerous chemicals that pollute it. It is…a lot like deep sea life, if you think about it. The creatures down there evolve in response to lack of light, lack of warmth, lack of certain senses. They appear completely alien to those who have only seen creatures born in a similar environment to themselves. They are terrifying, but in some ways, they are also very beautiful. This, too, is how creatures evolve where I am from: strangely and urgently, and beyond all odds. Their will to live is truly extraordinary.”

Jayce imagines Viktor having evolved with an extra limb, a third arm or something equally strange, five-eyed and climbing up walls. Or maybe he doesn’t have to picture that, to picture a Viktor that has gone to impossible lengths to adapt to his environment. Maybe he just has to picture Viktor as he is now.

“It is pretty amazing,” Jayce agrees, not really thinking about the wildlife anymore. “Will you read it to me?”

Viktor’s gaze snaps back to Jayce’s face. He looks confused. “What? The book?”

“Yeah. I want to hear what it sounds like. I haven’t really heard you speak your native language a lot—mostly just when you’re cursing me out, but I don’t think that counts.”

Viktor raises his eyebrows, amused. “You want to hear me speak?” he says.

“Yeah, like—how you would speak with your family. I want to know what you sound like when you’re at home.”

Viktor’s face goes a little red at this. He’s so pale that it’s always obvious whenever he gets flustered, which Jayce finds incredibly adorable. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Of course. Here—it’ll be like a bedtime story about all the messed up plant and animal life in the Undercity.” Jayce plops down on the couch and immediately makes himself comfortable, pulling a pillow onto the armrest and stretching his legs out until they poke off the other side. He pats the space next to him. “Get over here. There’s plenty of room.”

“There is not,” says Viktor, but he hobbles over to the couch and eases himself down even as he says this. When he’s finally gotten settled, he opens the book in his lap and clears his throat. “Are you sure?” he asks again.

Jayce groans. “I’m positive. Just read the book, Viktor. You can pick any part you want. It won’t make a difference to me.”

Viktor sighs. “Alright,” he says. There’s silence. Jayce doesn’t hear anything for a little while, just the rustle of pages and the occasional thoughtful hum as Viktor browses the entries. Finally, he gently clears his throat again, and speaks.

Jayce has never heard anything like it. He’d like to consider himself a well-travelled man—he and his mother moved from town to town, city to city after his father died and before putting down roots in Piltover, finding work wherever they could like nomads—but he has to admit his visits to the Undercity have been few and far between, most related to his research, and not to mention brief. Even then, he hadn’t interacted with anyone who spoke with the same unique accent Viktor does. Perhaps it’s rare: a language only shared by people originating from the same small, unknown corner of the Undercity, a language brought from above and then mutated like all the other things that reside there long enough. It is strange and alien, and beautiful, too. Jayce makes a note in his head to ask Viktor about it later. For now, though, he just closes his eyes and lets the sound wash over him, rolling smooth through his body like a tide.

Let’s Go Make Another Mistake

“So,” Jayce begins. He’s leaning against the windowsill in the lab; Viktor is seated in the swivel chair at his desk, welding goggles pushed up to his forehead and the hexcore humming in front of him. “There’s another event that the Council is holding. It’s next week.”

“Jayce,” says Viktor evenly. He doesn’t even look up. “Would you please get my cane for me?”

Jayce grabs it and hands it to him. “Yeah, why do you—Ow! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Does Your Mother Keep Your Baby Teeth?

Viktor asks him one night. They are in the kitchen of Jayce's apartment, this time. It's a rarity, because the walk from the lab to where Jayce lives is a lot longer, and there are also a considerable number of stairs to climb in order to get here. Jayce loves it when they do—it means that it is one of Viktor's good days.

“What kind of a question is that?” Jayce replies.

Viktor shrugs one shoulder. His cane is leaning against the counter on the other side of the room, close enough that he can grab it if he needs to. In front of him sits a glass of alcohol: sharp, bitter shit he brought from his own place, which he brought from the Undercity before that, apparently. Jayce had taken one sip and then nearly spat all over the table, and Viktor had snorted and called him something derogatory—or at least, he’s assuming it was derogatory. He couldn’t understand the word.

Jayce is now busying himself with pouring another glass of wine at the counter where he had cooked dinner just an hour ago. “Any particular reason?” Jayce tries again, doing his best to assume a believable air of nonchalance. Clearly, there’s a reason for this question. He’s learned that Viktor is not the type to say things just to say them; in all facets of his person, everything has meaning.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Viktor shrug again. “I am not sure if people do it here, but it is somewhat of a…tradition, where I am from. When a child loses their first set of teeth, the parents will place them inside a small box and then keep the box somewhere safe. It is a form of protection, if I recall correctly, although neither of my parents ever explained it to me in much detail.”

“Protection?” Jayce makes his way back over to the kitchen table and sits down across from Viktor. He’s staring into the glass in his hand and idly swirling the liquid around, his mouth set in a thin, unreadable line.

“Allegedly, it is a way of protecting the child from adulthood. Or rather, protecting a piece of them. The teeth represent the parts that will always be young and innocent, untouched by the passage of time and the suffering that inevitably comes with it.”

Jayce takes a long sip of his own drink. Had his mother ever kept his baby teeth? He doesn’t think so. He can’t remember her ever mentioning anything about his teeth, either. They just fell out and that was it. “Did yours?” he asks eventually. “I mean, did your parents? You know. Keep your teeth.”

Viktor is still looking very intently into his glass. After a somewhat pensive silence, he brings it to his lips and takes a drink, too, staring at the empty space above Jayce’s left shoulder. “Yes,” he says slowly, “for a bit. I was still young when they died. I wonder if they would have kept them even now, if they were alive.”

“They probably would,” says Jayce earnestly. He doesn’t know if it would mean anything, but if there’s even a small comfort in the idea then he wants Viktor to have it. He wants to believe that they would keep any piece of their son that they could. He wants to believe somebody in Viktor’s life had, at some point, loved him the way he deserved to be loved. 

A small smile tugs at Viktor’s mouth. “Maybe,” he says. “That would be appropriate. When a child falls ill, it is common practice for the mother to carry around their baby teeth in her pockets at all times, until they are well again.”

“Why?”

Viktor presses his forehead to the side of his glass. When he tilts his head to meet Jayce’s eyes he can see the wet mark across his skin left from the condensation, the smooth glisten of alcohol on his top lip. Jayce briefly allows himself to imagine kissing it away, letting Viktor take another drink and then swallowing all of that bitter taste right into his own mouth: a makeshift communion between just the two of them, private and sacred beneath the light of the stars bleeding in through the window at their backs.

“A reminder,” says Viktor, his voice quiet and longing for something Jayce cannot see. “That things can be lost. And that they can grow back.”

Ode To Something We Hate Doing (But We’re Doing It Again, Anyway)

Somehow—beyond all of Jayce’s wildest and most preposterous dreams—he manages to convince Viktor to go with him.

“It would be foolish of me not to get at least one more use out of these things you bought for me—without my permission, I might add,” Viktor had stated as his reasoning.

“Are you sure it isn’t just because you like the food?” Jayce had asked.

Viktor had then rolled his eyes and said, “I do also enjoy the food, yes.”

They arrive at this event fashionably and purposefully late. It isn’t that Jayce wants to draw attention, it’s just that he harbors the (perhaps naive) hope that the later they get here, the less people will try and talk to him. He’s proven wrong almost immediately—no surprises there.

An older man, dressed in deep blue satin and sporting the most interesting mustache Jayce has ever seen, whisks him away before he can let out so much as a warning to Viktor. Although he’s learned that this kind of behavior is simply par for the course, especially seeing as he is not only the co-creator of Hextech but now a full-fledged Councillor, as well, it still grates on his nerves and makes sweat gather on the back of his neck. The man is speaking as if they are old friends, and hanging on a little too tightly to Jayce’s arm. Even if Jayce wanted to pull away—which he very much does—he probably couldn’t without causing a scene. There goes that option.

Is there even another option?

After the man comes a dazzlingly dressed couple with too-wide smiles who are, apparently, very generous beneficiaries of the academy; an obnoxious Noxian wine connoisseur who rattles off facts almost too fast to follow and also thinks that Jayce is equally as well-versed on the topic for some reason; and a frail elderly woman who says he reminds her of her grandson, who is living overseas. He isn’t entirely sure how to respond to this one, so he just smiles.

Finally, Jayce gets the chance to slip away, breathing a long sigh of relief and trying to shake out the tension in his hands that lets him know he was clenching them much too tight that entire time. He scans the room for Viktor, expecting to find him standing by the door, ready to make his escape, or at least in one of the corners attempting to blend in. Instead Jayce finds him caught in the crosshairs of a middle-aged woman who seems to have just gotten his attention; she is wrapped in a spotted fur coat and wearing very large, heavy-looking earrings that stretch her lobes in an unflatteringly way, elongating her already incredibly long and sour face.

Even from this distance Jayce can tell that she is doing an incredibly poor job at masking her disdain, and he can begin to make out her words the closer he gets.

“I must admit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at one of these events before,” the woman says slowly, her grip tightening just a fraction around the delicate stem of her champagne flute like she wants to start wringing somebody’s neck for the slight of being forced to even share the same room as Viktor. “What a…pleasant surprise.”

“Is it,” Viktor responds, in the voice of somebody shackled to a rock heading towards the edge of a cliff.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who…who invited you, exactly? Surely you couldn’t have snuck in.” She gives Viktor’s cane a pointed look.

Jayce feels something very angry and very ugly rear its head inside of him. He pushes past the several people hovering nearby attempting to listen in on this conversation and lightly takes hold of Viktor’s elbow. “Excuse me,” he says.

“Ah, Councillor Talis!” The woman suddenly turns on him with a bright smile, her affect undergoing a drastic change upon noticing his presence. “How wonderful! I heard the Kiramman girl mention earlier that you would be making an appearance, though I didn’t realize you would be here with…Well.” She clears her throat. “Your research assistant.”

Research assistant, gods have mercy. Jayce has absolutely no time for her. “My partner,” he corrects, maybe too sharply, “and as it happens, we have something important to attend to, so. If you would excuse us.”

Viktor grabs immediately at the proverbial lifeline Jayce has thrown at him, nodding rapidly and allowing himself to be led towards the edge of the group with an uncharacteristic relinquishment of agency. “Right,” he says. “Very important business. We must leave now. Goodnight."

Dare Me To Make A Bad Decision

They spend the next half hour hiding on the outskirts of the room, lingering near a large potted exotic tree where Jayce has a clear view of both the dance floor and the refreshments table.

“Has she left yet?” Viktor asks. It’s clear that staying standing for this long has been causing him a growing amount of discomfort. He’d refused the offer of a chair a while ago, and Jayce is about to force him into one the next time he makes any sort of fatigued noise.

“Shhhhh,” says Jayce eloquently. He’s watching Mel entertain a gaggle of admirers, among them the extremely rude woman from earlier.

Mel catches his gaze from far away and gives him a look that very clearly says What The Hell Are You Doing Jayce Talis Get Out Here Now. Jayce shakes his head.

Next to him, Viktor gives a long, put-upon sigh. “You know, we could actually leave. I happen to have alcohol at my apartment.”

“V, are you serious right now? There’s a bottle of the good stuff left unattended at that table. I’m going to grab it once nobody’s paying attention.”

“Could you not simply…buy one?”

Jayce turns and flashes Viktor his best, most winning smile. He feels a little hot under the collar, though whether from the three glasses of wine he had earlier or from simply being this close to Viktor wearing a suit, he isn’t sure. “Come on. You’ve gotta admit, this is much more fun.”

“I do not believe we have the same definition of fun,” Viktor says. He’s trying very obviously to hold back a smile—which makes way for an indignant grunt when Jayce suddenly reaches out and grabs ahold of his jacket sleeve excitedly.

“Okay okay, she’s leaving. I’ll give it a couple more minutes, and then I’ll go. How are my chances looking?”

“Slim,” says Viktor.

“Perfect. Just how I like them.”

So You Love A Dying Man (Congratulations)

The party goes on, and Jayce wants it to stop, but it won’t. How long do these things even last, anyway? He doesn’t know, he’s never bothered to count. Everything is too loud; he feels the noise vibrate in his teeth, in the soles of his feet, in his stomach. Viktor is still standing beside him, leaning against the wall.

“How much have you had to drink?” Viktor asks him. The light from the chandeliers makes his eyes shimmer like water at the bottom of a well when the sun hits just right.

Not enough, thinks Jayce.

Everything about this night reminds him of how things were seven years ago: when he and Viktor were halfway through their twenties and way out of their depth, having just done the unheard of and somehow living to not only tell the tale, but to do it again. Breaking into Heimerdinger’s lab and ending up floating at the very top of the room had been just the beginning for them. Everything was new and exciting, and they felt like they could do anything in the whole world. The future was shining and limitless and without end—after all, they had created it.

Jayce looks over at Viktor and feels his heart give a violent, painful lurch. He wishes they could go back to that moment on the ceiling. He wishes they never came down. But if he’s being completely honest, he’ll take anything he can get—even if the past snaps back into the present and Jayce wakes up leaning out of a carriage window on their way to the Distinguished Innovators Competition, about to throw up while Viktor yells at him to hand him the wrench. Anything to be back there, when things were simpler, when Viktor’s life wasn’t leaving him at a rate too erratic to predict and too fast to stop.

Viktor notices him staring. “Everything alright?” he asks.

No, Jayce wants to say, everything is fucking horrible because I love you and I’ve loved you for a long time and now I’m losing you, and all I want to do is make things right but I can’t I can’t I can’t.

“Let me take you home,” he says quietly.

Viktor nods. He doesn’t even spare a backwards glance at the rest of the party still continuing on loudly behind them, and they leave with the stolen bottle tucked under Jayce’s arm like the world’s shittiest consolation prize.

We Can’t Make Up For Lost Time, But We Sure Can Try

The two of them get back to Viktor’s apartment without much trouble. The night has grown somewhat cold, and fog rolls lazily across the streets in thin, hazy clouds, giving the city a strangely otherworldly glow. The stars wink at them through the window as they climb the staircase, Viktor’s arm over Jayce’s shoulder and Jayce’s hand on Viktor’s waist, supporting him.

Viktor steps away from Jayce’s side momentarily to unlock the door. His hand is trembling; this in itself is hardly noticeable, but Jayce sees the tightness at the corners of Viktor’s mouth, the hard, tired edge in his eyes as he struggles with it for a brief moment, and his heart aches. Once they’ve gotten inside he follows Viktor to his bedroom.

Jayce is considerably more sober at this point. Any trace of the alcohol he’d consumed has faded into a warmth in the pit of his stomach and a fuzzy feeling in his limbs that appears from time to time if he moves too fast. He feels vaguely embarrassed about the whole wine-stealing debacle now, but Viktor hadn’t even acknowledged it when Jayce set the bottle down on the kitchen table, so it’s safe to assume he doesn’t care enough to comment on it later. Jayce hopes that, at the very least, he had found it just a little bit funny. Maybe they’ll save it for a special occasion: he imagines them opening it on the balcony of Jayce’s apartment, ringing in the new year by yelling to the sky at the top of their lungs like they’re kids again. Or maybe they’ll open it one night just because they’re bored; because they want something to do, because they want an excuse to pretend like something important is happening and maybe that will give them an excuse to do something stupid, like kiss each other, or say I love you when the lights are low and they don’t care about the consequences anymore.

Viktor sits down on the edge of the bed and begins to take off his shoes, and Jayce realizes that he’s been standing in the doorway for maybe a little too long. He kneels down and helps Viktor to remove the brace around his leg, and after grabbing him a comfortable pair of pants to put on he starts on the larger, more complicated-looking one that encases his upper body like a steel trap, the one that allows him to stay upright for more than ten minutes at a time. Jayce winces at the sight of the rivets drilled into his spine.

“Does it hurt?” he asks. He can’t help it.

“It always hurts,” says Viktor, his voice giving absolutely nothing away. Perhaps it really doesn’t mean anything to Viktor at all—he is used to the pain, surely, and must accept it as it comes in order to survive. Jayce has never had to do anything so emotionally or physically difficult. The closest he ever got was fighting hopelessly against the freezing bite of the blizzard that threatened to swallow him and his mother, and even then he remembers distinctly how the devastation it wrought was so great that he contemplated just sinking into the snow and closing his eyes. How easy it would have been, to give up. Viktor never gave himself the option of giving up, though, and Jayce does not want him to start now.

All he says in response to this is, “Okay.”

Viktor instructs him patiently how to take this brace off, the same way he had done roughly a month and a half ago with the one around his leg. He had certainly been right about how much longer it would take—Jayce feels like it takes him hours, no matter how hard he focuses his attention. He can’t stop getting distracted by all of the noises Viktor is making, and to be honest, none of them really sound good. When he exhales it sounds like the air is being squeezed out of him abruptly by a giant fist; when he breathes in it ends in a sharp note of pain or discomfort, and the closer Jayce gets to getting the contraption off the more Viktor coughs, like his lungs finally have the room to try and force out all the liquid that’s been sitting inside them. They won’t be able to, of course; Viktor is still drowning. That won’t change. His body is still fighting him relentlessly and won’t let up.

At last, Jayce removes the brace from around Viktor’s torso. Viktor heaves a shaky, relieved sigh, and collapses carefully back onto the mattress with his teeth clenched. He’s sweating again, Jayce notices.

“I have a night shirt in the top drawer over there,” he says, somewhat breathlessly. “Would you get it for me? I am…not feeling up to it, at the moment.”

Jayce is more than happy to oblige. Not only is it the nice thing to do, but it’s also a good excuse for him to turn away from the very alluring image of Viktor sprawled out on the bed without a shirt. He’d caught a glimpse of the paleness of his skin, a few moles that he wasn’t aware even existed, and the twin scars beneath where his breasts used to be, and it’s already affecting him more than he’d care to admit.

When he’s dressed Viktor eases himself up to his pillow and settles there atop the sheets, pulling a thin blanket over from where it is folded beside him and spreading it across his legs to cover his feet. Even this simple sequence of actions seems to exhaust him; Jayce watches as he runs the back of his hand beneath his nose, where a small dribble of blood has begun to ooze slowly. He wipes his hand on his handkerchief secretively, like Jayce hasn’t already seen it happen a hundred times before. It is no less devastating this time.

“Should I…let you get some rest?” Jayce suggests. He doesn’t really want to leave, and apparently Viktor doesn’t want him to, either, because he shakes his head.

“I would like it if you stayed, at least for a little while. I know you are a very busy man.”

Jayce fights the urge to take Viktor’s hand and never let go. “Not too busy,” he says.

Viktor smiles gently. The shadows beneath his eyes are purple and splotchy, like he’s gotten punched in the face over and over. Jayce wants to reach inside Viktor’s body and rip out what’s killing him, what’s making him hurt, what’s taking him away. If only things were that easy. If only everything could be worked through like an equation in the dead of night, pressing their heads together over a stack of notes and whispering theories until they reach the answer. Plug in the right numbers, get the right solution. Now look—you’ve done the impossible again. Aren’t you proud?

“Read to me?” Viktor implores. His voice sounds very weak, and very small, and Jayce could not deny him anything, not even if he tried.

“Of course,” he says quietly. He reaches for the book perched on the edge of the nightstand; he doesn’t even know what it is about, and it doesn’t matter. He will give Viktor whatever he wants, no questions. As he sits himself on the bed beside him, Viktor suddenly reaches up and places his hands on the lapels of Jayce’s soft white suit jacket.

“You can take this off,” he says, “if you want. You do not have to stay all dressed up if it is not comfortable.”

Jayce wants Viktor to fist his hands into the fabric and pull it off, himself; or maybe use it to drag him in for a kiss that suddenly seems to be looming on the horizon like the pressure in the air before a storm. He wants to know what Viktor tastes like in every possible way. He thinks he sees a flicker of desire in his gaze when their eyes meet: dizzying, electric, slow-building and inevitable.

Viktor looks away.

Jayce tries not to let his disappointment show. He swallows it down and it doesn’t feel good but at least now it might not be on his face. He wants Viktor so much he doesn’t know what to do with himself, but he knows what he wants to do with Viktor. He imagines kissing him. He imagines—

Stop. Not the time. Maybe there isn’t a right time. Maybe there isn’t even a wrong time—just not enough of it at all. Maybe right and wrong can’t fit in the space between Viktor is dying and Viktor is dead. The more probable explanation, though, is that Jayce is a coward. Viktor is dying and Jayce is a coward. Viktor will die and Jayce will still be a coward. Jayce doesn’t want to think about Viktor dying anymore.

There’s a lamp on the nightstand that bathes their little corner in soft light, leaving the rest of the room submerged in darkness. It makes Viktor’s eyes and hair look like honey, and it makes Jayce feel like they’re the only two people in the universe.

“Turn the light off,” Viktor says quietly. Jayce does.

He isn’t sure how long he reads for; the words flow from him easily, their rhythm becoming a gentle lull after a while that has Jayce feeling loose-limbed and relaxed in a way he hasn’t been for months. Certainly not since learning of Viktor’s prognosis. Viktor’s breathing has evened out considerably, his chest rising and falling with only a minimal amount of the dreadful rattling sound Jayce has become so used to. In fact, Jayce almost thinks that Viktor has fallen asleep, until he shifts beneath his blanket and clears his throat pointedly.

“You can touch me,” he says. Jayce’s head snaps up so fast he gets whiplash.

“What?”

“I said, you can touch me. I would like it if you did, and I think that…you would like to, as well, yes? There is…something, here. Between us.”

Jayce is pretty sure his brain short-circuits. “Uh,” he says. Surely this is not why the city of Piltover chose him to orate on their stage.

Viktor reaches out and takes a gentle hold of Jayce’s lapels again. “You did not take this off,” he says, his voice low and soft. “I can help you.”

Jayce probably looks like he’s standing in the path of an oncoming train with no brakes. He tries to get his mouth to cooperate with his brain, because his brain is saying Finally finally finally Yes Viktor you’re all I want please do whatever you want with me forever on a loop.

Viktor, on the other hand, has begun to look incredibly uncomfortable. He immediately shifts to put space between them, and a flush spreads across his whole face until it reaches the tips of his ears. The sight is so endearing Jayce feels his heart melt a little bit. “Oh,” he whispers hoarsely. “Jayce, I’m sorry, I—I thought—but, maybe this is not—”

“No, no, Vik,” Jayce interrupts, nearly tripping over his own words like an idiot in his haste to stamp out Viktor’s unease. “No, it—it is. You’re right.”

Viktor’s expression does not change. “I’m…right.”

“Yes, you’re right,” says Jayce. His grip is white-knuckled on the book, and he’s struck by the sudden and ridiculous urge to throw it to the floor in some sort of grand show of romance, but Viktor likes this book, and it would be a little rude, so instead he just says, “Whatever you think is happening, it’s…it’s happening.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Viktor’s posture begins to relax, and his face brightens in clear relief and something else that is so unbearably warm, something that Jayce can’t name. “It’s happening,” he repeats, amused.

“Oh, yeah. It’s happening for sure. It’s been happening for…uh, a while now.”

“I do not believe we are talking about the same thing anymore,” says Viktor.

Jayce starts to laugh—he can’t help himself, he’s so happy and so in love he feels like he’s going to combust and set fire to Viktor’s nice bed, and his apartment, and his book. Although he doesn’t really care about the book. Or any of it, actually.

Viktor laughs, too. “Come here?” he says, a little bit like a question. That won’t do. Jayce wants Viktor to know just how much he wants him—how much he’s wanted him, for so long.

He closes the book, puts it back on the nightstand, and shrinks the distance between them down to nothing. In the dark he hears Viktor gasp, feels his breath hot against the side of his face as it shudders out of him.

Viktor is skin and bones and Jayce still thinks he’s beautiful. His elbows are knobby and his hips are sharp and his arms are so thin when he wraps them around Jayce’s shoulders, brings him closer to him, still. “Be careful of my leg,” he says quietly, like an afterthought.

Jayce pushes away with his arms a little bit. “Oh—oh, sorry, I—”

Viktor grabs him again and drags him back down with more force than Jayce is expecting, more than he even thought possible in his state. It alarms and arouses him in equal measure. His eyes are molten gold in the dark. “No,” Viktor says emphatically, “that is not what I meant. Just…I will tell you how to treat me, yes?”

“Yes,” says Jayce. The word leaves him in a devoted rush. “Yes, yes. Tell me.”

Viktor smiles. It is a small, lopsided thing, but it is one of the rare, special ones that reaches his eyes and Jayce feels his stomach flip at the way the corners of his eyes crinkle.

Jayce kisses him. Viktor’s lips are dry, and he doesn’t quite seem like he knows what to do with his mouth, but it is perfect, anyway. He cradles Viktor’s thin face in his hands; runs his thumbs across the sharp lines of his cheekbones, tilts his head and presses his tongue against the seam of his lips. Viktor gasps again, this time into his mouth when he opens it. For a while, this is all they do. Jayce would be perfectly content if the rest of the night were to continue on exactly like this, just kissing each other senseless, swallowing the little noises Viktor makes every once in a while and running his hands through his hair. Eventually, though, Viktor pulls away, breathless and dazed, and says, “Alright. Take your clothes off.”

Jayce doesn’t think he’s ever complied with anything faster in his whole life. Maybe a little bit too fast, if he’s being honest; he nearly trips over his pants quite a few times as he attempts to tug them off, and Viktor laughs at his expense, and god, Jayce is so in love it’s unfair. He tries to pretend he doesn’t notice the way Viktor is looking at him, like he’s hungry, like he’s been starving all his life and now here is something he can finally sink his teeth into. Jayce wouldn’t mind being that, for Viktor. He wouldn’t mind being devoured. His whole body is on fire and he’s so hard it hurts, and he hopes he doesn’t look too desperate when he crawls back onto the bed. Viktor’s cold hands roam appreciatively over his body and Jayce shivers, squeezing his eyes shut. He can feel how heated the gaze on him is even with them closed. Viktor clears his throat.

“I’ve always known that you are…well.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Attractive may be doing you a disservice. But I must admit, it is one thing to know something, and another thing entirely to see it for myself.”

Jayce can’t help the way he preens under the praise, feeling his face run hot. He hears Viktor give a delighted little huff of laughter.

“Look at me, won’t you?” Jayce forces his eyes open, and Viktor grins up at him, toothy and a tiny bit wicked. “Mm. Good boy,” he says. Jayce isn’t entirely sure if he’s joking or not. It’s doing things to him, regardless, things he’d much rather be doing to Viktor. Or letting Viktor do to him. Or whatever.

“Is that why you like me?” Jayce asks teasingly, trying to regain some semblance of control in this situation, and Viktor rolls his eyes.

“Please. You are the only person I have ever met who can match me on an intellectual level,” he says. “The fact that you are also like this”—he squeezes Jayce’s bicep—“is simply…a bonus.”

They start to kiss again, and they do this slowly and tenderly for a while, until Viktor makes a tiny, wanting whimper and squirms beneath him, and suddenly Jayce is on fire again.

“I want to see you,” he says, breathless, the words coming out hardly louder than a whisper with how much he feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him. “I bet you’re so pretty. But I’m sure I can’t be the only person who’s told you that, can I?”

Viktor makes a self-deprecating little noise; something that he probably means to come across as a laugh but instead sounds entirely too strange to fall under any category Jayce can think of. It makes him unbearably sad. "Actually, you are the first. And the first I have ever—well. Taken to my bed. Nobody has found the idea to be very…desirable, before you.” The me in this sentence goes unspoken, but is no less glaring. Jayce has the wild urge to hit every single man who’s ever so much as looked at Viktor like he isn’t the most incredible person to grace Piltover’s gilded streets.

Viktor watches his face very carefully. He seems almost like he’s waiting for Jayce to realize that he doesn’t want to be here anymore—that he suddenly finds Viktor just as undesirable as everyone before him, now that Viktor’s voiced this sentiment out loud.

“I’m not like everybody else,” Jayce says.

Viktor’s tense expression cracks for a second when he scoffs. “Humble as ever.”

“No, I just—I mean—You know what I mean.”

Viktor tilts his head a fraction, like he’s reading every muscle beneath Jayce’s face, parsing together clues to get the correct picture. “I do,” he says.

Viktor lets Jayce help him undress all the way. When they’re both naked Jayce allows himself to take a good, long look, like a sculptor assessing a work of art. Viktor’s body is thin and pale; moles litter his skin like stars, light spatters of freckles on the insides of his thighs and across his shoulders. He’s got a whole solar system mapped out on him. He’s also very tall stretched out like this, Jayce realizes. He drinks in every detail like he wants to drown in him forever, everything from the dimples on his knees to the scars on his chest, silvery pink in the moonlight. The very visage of him takes Jayce’s breath away.

“You’re perfect,” he says, hushed and reverent. “Better than anything I ever pictured. You make me feel so lucky, V. I can’t believe how amazing you are, that you’re letting me…God, there are so many things I want to do to you.” And here he goes again, going red in the face like a lovesick kid pouring his heart out in the schoolyard after class.

Luckily Viktor seems to find it endearing, if his soft, amused smile is anything to go by. “Before this goes any further, I need to know if you…Have you ever been with men like me before?” he asks.

Jayce shakes his head. He hasn’t. He hasn’t even been with any men at all—Viktor is the first. “No, but I’ve been with—ugh, I know this isn’t the right thing to say, because I know you’re not—you know—but I’ve been with. Women, before. So, uh—similar parts, I think, yeah? Do I need to…do anything differently? Say anything differently? Tell me everything, so I can do this right. I want you to feel comfortable and safe with me, the way I feel with you.”

Any unease Viktor may have still held onto disappears when he smiles. He reaches up and runs his hand over the sharp angle of Jayce’s jaw, cradles the soft curve of his cheek in his palm. “You do not have to do anything differently,” he says, his voice gentle. “We will do this together. I am glad that it’s you. There is nobody else I want.”

He leans in and kisses him.

I’d like to die like this, Jayce thinks. It wouldn’t be so bad. Then he stops thinking about death, and anything at all, for that matter, because Viktor’s hand is grabbing his own and leading it down to where he’s hot and wet between his legs.

“Like this,” says Viktor softly.

They end up propping Viktor’s bad leg up on a pillow and slotting another one beneath his lower back to support his spine. Jayce spends an hour or so patiently coaxing him to trembling climax with his fingers and then with his mouth, and then finally he’s inside him and it’s the best thing he’s ever felt. Maybe it’s because he’s wanted Viktor like this for so long, pictured it, dreamt of it and carried it around with him like a hot coal in his chest. Whatever the reason, he knows he’s going to remember it for the rest of his life. Viktor’s ruined everyone else for him—no one even comes close.

Jayce takes his time learning what makes Viktor shudder apart, reveling in the way he gasps for breath, all the quiet, sweet sounds he makes, all the ways he gets to taste him and touch him and make him feel good. He wants this night to last forever; wants the whole world to shrink to just the two of them, pressed together beneath the sheets, Viktor whispering his name in his ear and kissing him until stars burst behind his eyelids.

The moon is well on its way back down towards the horizon when Viktor tips his head back against the mattress with a ragged, worn out sigh, both of them spent and satisfied (Viktor more than once, Jayce recalls self-approvingly. He deserves no less). He’s flushed all the way down past his collarbones, and his hair is sticking to his face like he’s just run a marathon. Or—Okay, bad metaphor, but the image is so impossibly sweet that it’s hard to even put the right words to at all. He smiles, his eyes bright.

Jayce smiles back and tucks some of the hair behind Viktor’s ear with all the tenderness he has in him. He watches the rise and fall of Viktor’s chest fondly, a little nervously, waiting with bated breath for him to break into a coughing fit again or groan suddenly in pain. Neither of those things happen.

“I can not feel my legs,” says Viktor.

This is not at all what Jayce expected him to say. He blinks. “Oh.”

“Yes, ‘Oh,’” Viktor repeats, in the tone of voice that means Jayce has just said something he finds incredibly funny and also stupid, and he reaches out to halfheartedly swat at Jayce’s arm. Jayce doesn’t even bother trying to move out of the way. “Don’t look so smug. You are lucky I am too tired to hit you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jayce says. Viktor actually does smack him, this time, and Jayce laughs like it might be the last thing he’ll ever do, because he doesn’t think a person can possibly be this happy and survive it. Surely it violates several laws of the universe. Although, Jayce thinks, maybe that doesn’t really matter, after all. They’ve broken those laws before.

He hopes they get to do it again.

Jayce tugs the blankets up around the both of them and pulls Viktor closer. He can hear the way his breath stutters in his chest, in his throat, catching on something Jayce can’t see.

After a moment’s pause Viktor takes Jayce’s hand; rubs a soft circle into his palm and laces their fingers together. It is an incredibly sweet, innocent gesture, and Jayce’s heart skips. Despite everything they have just done, he feels himself get flustered like a teenager on a first date with his crush, all the way from the heat in his cheeks to the butterflies in his stomach. He’s never felt this way with anyone before.

“I do not think you could possibly know how long I have wanted you,” Viktor says. He is looking up at the ceiling, and Jayce is looking at his face, like Viktor is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and he can’t bear the thought of tearing his gaze away, even for a moment. Jayce feels that same swooping, longing pull in his stomach, like he’s free-falling from the top of a building. At least, this is what he guesses it would feel like. He almost knew. Then there was Viktor. Viktor, Viktor, Viktor.

“I think I could,” Jayce says softly.

He aches at the thought that they could have had this all along; the very idea makes a lump rise in his throat, and he blinks hard to try and chase it away. He imagines having kissed Viktor on that very first night: standing at the edge of a crumbled apartment, at the edge of the world, about to make history and not knowing it yet; he imagines reaching for him inside the blue halo of the crystal, awestruck and weightless and wild-eyed; he imagines all the times he could have told Viktor he loved him, so that Viktor could have a lifetime of those words to hang onto, so that he could have years of knowing somebody loved him, loves him, will love him forever and ever.

Viktor traces the side of Jayce’s cheek with his thumb, infinitely tender. When he breathes out Jayce can feel it on his skin. “You cannot think like that,” he says, his voice quiet and laced with sadness. Of course he can read Jayce so intimately, can tell his every thought and worry like it’s written all over his face. They know each other better than anyone else. “It will never lead anywhere good.”

“I know,” says Jayce.

“It will drive you crazy.”

“I know.”

“Kiss me again?”

Jayce turns towards him; their faces are so close that he can count every freckle on Viktor’s nose, every lash framing his eyes. He kisses him.

“Do not think about anything else,” Viktor whispers when he pulls apart. His eyes are still closed. Jayce closes his eyes, too. “Just be here, with me.”

Jayce finds himself nodding, despite the ache still thrumming fiercely in his chest. Viktor’s touch is warm and gentle, and he thinks he might cry with how much he loves him. He wants to hold onto him and never let go; battle gods for him; cross the universe on foot just for the chance of being able to keep him here a little bit longer. There is nothing Jayce wouldn’t do.