Chapter Text
It was a cold early evening in Piltover. You stood at your bedroom window, carefully poising a saucer beneath your dainty teacup. The steam that rose from the drink was your only real source of warmth as you idled there in your flimsy nightclothes. Well, really, they were lingerie.
It was raining, droplets creating rivers between the panes of your floor-to-ceiling windows.
You finish your tea and turn from the view, futzing with the soft edge of your chemise as you go to set down your empty cup. You had long since retired to your room for the evening, feeling ragged in the face of an arduous week. This was the first night in a while where your aunt didn’t require that you join her for whatever event she was attending or that you hadn’t made plans of your own. You’d been home for about a month, but the growing tide of arrangements never seemed to let up.
When you returned, it had been six years since you left Piltover. Six years since your aunt had sent you overseas to supervise a significant business expansion that, for some reason, necessitated the presence of her heir.
You returned with great fanfare but were met with an unfamiliar city. Technological advancements had increased in speed and number significantly over the previous five years, stemming from a specific event that occurred on Academy grounds a year after you left. You allowed yourself a private smile at the thought, a warmth growing in your chest.
Your room in the family estate was you’d left it, though your rise into early adulthood granted you some insights that you would use to redecorate, which, in the present, you had already managed to do. Your attendant helped you unpack your bags, and then a maid arrived with a new set of dresses that your aunt had purchased for your return. Piltovian, you thought to yourself as you thumbed the fabric, though you were pleasantly surprised to find that you enjoyed the way they looked on you.
There was much that you needed to be caught up on, which became readily apparent when Caitlyn Kiramman arrived at tea as a fully grown woman of twenty-one years, looking far different (of course) than she had at fifteen when you left. You’d kept in touch, but it was another thing entirely to see her in person.
She ended up being the one to fill you in.
“Your aunt wants to capitalize on your relationship with Jayce,” she said straightforwardly as the two of you walked through the garden. Despite gaining on thirty, you felt your ears grow warm at the mention of his name.
It was no secret that you’d fancied each other back before you were sent away. Since House Talis was close to the Kirammans, it was only natural that you inhabited the same spaces while growing up. By some twist of fate, you and Jayce happened to become inseparable, though it was never anything official.
You were both too immature, far more focused on your potential careers than any substantial romance. You know now that your disdain for commitment stems from a discomfort with monogamy, not a disinterest in love, but you didn’t understand that in your early twenties, much less as a teenager.
“You’re kidding,” you laughed, nudging her arm with your elbow as you tried to suppress a grin.
“Wish I was. With every invention that comes out of that workshop, he gains more social capital,” as she said this, she stopped, turning to face you fully with an even expression. “She wants that ace back in her sleeve.”
“Hm.” You pondered this, glancing to the side to gaze at the flora lining the walkway while rubbing the pads of your thumb and forefinger together.
Caitlyn busied herself toying with her sleeve. “All she needs is Jayce standing with you at parties. And him coming by your house, of course. ”
You huffed at that, returning to your leisurely pace and clasping your hands behind your back as Caitlyn fell back into stride. “I had a feeling that there was something more to her… well, insistence that I live at home.”
“Why else?” Caitlyn teased, and you smiled to yourself, appreciating her understanding.
It was challenging to have a high-powered businesswoman (or, in Caitlyn’s case, politician) for a parental figure or guardian, which you were promptly reminded of later that week when yours left an invitation on your vanity. You stared at the little piece of cardstock as you adjusted the backs of your earrings, fixating on the Academy seal. A fundraiser, your aunt was surely going to tell you later.
You knew her agenda. It was just a matter of deciding whether you wanted to conform.
Your aunt’s various plans for you were precisely what had you so worn out in the present.
You approach your vanity, feeling the stone floor beneath your bare feet, and you pause in front of it. Your attire is a little scandalous, now that you’re observing it in the low light of your room. The backlighting from the lamp on your bedside table emphasizes your silhouette, and you do a small half-turn to try and see if your chemise covers your backside.
When you see that it does not, you allow yourself a small smile before sitting down to open your jewelry box and retrieve the key to your bedside table.
When the night of the fundraiser came, you weren’t sure what you’d been thinking. Of course you wanted to see and spend time with Jayce again—your fate had been sealed the second you accepted your aunt’s invitation home.
The clever witch.
It had been six years since you’d hugged a twenty-three-year-old Jayce Talis goodbye, and now here you stood, across from one of the most premier inventors in Piltover. Hextech was still on the rise, but it would be foolish to claim that the rumors surrounding its development weren’t making considerable waves.
“Is that you?” You’d hesitantly asked once both your aunt and his mother had stepped away. Every potential coy comment had fallen out of your head the moment your eyes met. You felt as though you’d been transported back into your teenage years, when you spent summers attending parties with the Kirammans and, therefore, the two living members of House Talis. Except now, you were refined enough to be holding a champagne flute and mingling.
Jayce seemed… actually, you were having trouble placing his emotions. He was wearing the exact same smile that had been on his face when your aunt brought you over, but now he seemed to be fidgeting.
It only took you another moment to deduce that he was putting on a face for the party… and that he had not accounted for your potential presence when he put it on, the clueless man that he is.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said softly, and his dark brows scrunched as he tried to maintain his professional simper. His eyes traveled downward, and you felt your neck heat up at the thought that he might be, well, for lack of better terminology, checking you out.
He looked fantastic. The boy you had known all those years prior was just as tall but nowhere near as imposing. The old Jayce, the younger Jayce, wore clothes that fit well but concealed his lean musculature.
The Man of Progress, meanwhile, takes up space and wears clothes fitted especially for him and his bulk.
It made a youthful boldness stir in your body—the sort that used to make you forget your duties and run out into the garden to catch frogs after a rainstorm.
“Can we get out of here?” You asked in a low tone, glancing around the room. You could see your aunt and his mother chatting, but they weren’t looking your way. The majority of other people were focused on the academy officials, who were busy talking up their recent work to draw in new patrons. You looked back up at him with a raised brow and took a sip from your flute, daring him to object.
Jayce blinked, and for a moment, you feared that he’d reject the proposition. He looked out into the center of the room, pensive, but then— a slight, genuine grin broke out across his face.
“More than enough people are speaking for me already,” he said matter-of-factly, offering you his arm and nodding towards the far side of the room, where large doors opened out into the crisp night air.
You abandoned your flute on a nearby table and promptly took his (incredibly solid) arm, allowing him to guide you around the outskirts of the room, keeping between the rows of pillars and the windows to avoid any persistent aristocrats.
At the first open door, you stepped out into the night. The party was set in a beautiful downtown estate in the middle of the commercial district, and the terrace led out to and wrapped around a well-maintained garden. A stone pathway wound through it, curving under a hanging tree, around flowerbeds, and a fishpond. He led you down the main stairs into the courtyard, and then your world was bathed in moonlight and the house’s semi-distant glow.
“It really is such a lovely evening. It’s such a shame that my aunt—ah!” You began to speak, but as soon as you were out of sight, Jayce wrapped his arms around your middle and swung you into the air.
“Jayce!” You yelped, grabbing hold of his shoulders out of a gut need to ensure that you wouldn’t fall. You felt one of your heels coming loose and kicked your foot up to keep it on as you were spun around. Jayce laughed—a loud, boyish sound.
“I thought I’d never see you again!” He said delightedly and a little too audibly for your sequestered setting. He finally set you back on your feet, but only to pull you into a firmer and far more even-footed hug.
You still stumbled as he pulled you in, grabbing hold of his lapels to steady yourself before his arms wrapped around your shoulders and back. You inhaled sharply and were instantly overwhelmed with a distinctly masculine scent, likely a mix between his natural musk and some mature cologne. Quite embarrassingly, you found that you wanted to bury your nose in it, not just because you wanted to familiarize yourself with this new Jayce, but because he smelled unfairly good.
“You’re going to wrinkle my dress,” you said weakly, feeling emotions bubble up in your throat that you didn’t even know existed. It never occurred to you just how much you missed Jayce until now. You fisted your hands tightly in his jacket and listened to his rapidly beating heart, trying to steady your breathing as his large hands pressed into your mix of bare and silk-covered skin.
When Jayce finally pulled back, you were reasonably sure that you had avoided bursting into tears. Your lip felt a little wobbly, but it was nowhere near the threat that it was ten seconds prior.
Then, however, he reached down to fix your dress, chuckling and mumbling an insincere apology. It was an all-too-familiar motion that called back to the many times that he’d managed to get you into clothes-rumpling situations in your youth.
There was a time when he’d snuck you out of your room in the middle of the night. You were all staying at some villa in the countryside, and you awoke one evening to tapping on your window. After blearily opening your eyes and then the shades, the night met you with a grinning, teenaged Jayce, who promised that he’d figured out the path to the center of the garden maze.
Once you had dressed, he helped you down from your windowsill, holding you by the waist so that you didn’t have to drop down on your own. The moment that your shoes touched the soil, he attentively fixed the lay of your quickly thrown-on dress, murmuring apologies. You kissed him on the cheek in thanks, which sent him stuttering and flushing like a lovesick fool.
Never mind, you were going to cry.
“You look lovely, by the way,” the older Jayce said, grinning as his hands lingered on your bare arms, and you felt the overwhelming urge to kiss the tiny gap between his two front teeth.
So, you did.
You grabbed onto his jacket and tugged him down, an action that left him looking a little bewildered, but he got with the program when your lips pressed against his. You heard a happy rumble—a muffled laugh, probably—emanate from his chest, and then he was wrapping an arm around your waist and cupping the back of your head with his palm.
The kiss was sweet if a little tentative. There was a hint of parted lips, a brush of tongue, but it was mostly the faintly familiar feeling of Jayce’s plush mouth against your own.
Your brain only caught up to you when the two of you broke apart to breathe. Your eyes opened, and you felt the gears in your head grind to a halt as you looked into his dilated hazel eyes. A small bulb of panic popped into your chest cavity as you realized that perhaps you shouldn’t have kissed him, for, you know, every logical reason under the sun.
“Yeah?” He whispered teasingly, his lips pulling back with an easy, unbothered smile. And just like that, all of your worries about being too forward in the face of six long years melted away.
“I missed you,” You whispered back, and he kissed you again to say that he missed you, too.
Once you have the key, you return to your bedside table and crouch to open the drawer. Inside were your three most recent journals, the last two for ease of reference, and the one you were currently filling seated on top.
You select the top journal, along with a pen, and fall back into your bed, intent on accounting for your week in thorough detail before getting a decent night’s sleep. The scene is rather cliché: a young woman, resting on her stomach on top of her comforter, feet swaying in the air as she makes up for missing three days worth of diary entries.
You’d discovered a few years prior that having an adequate account of each business day, even in layman’s terms, would serve as a sort of… social ledger. So, keeping your journal highly detailed was of the utmost importance. And, well, with your recent romance, you had plenty of details to commit to the page.
You and Jayce started seeing one another regularly after the fundraiser. Your aunt was delighted.
It hardly mattered, though. It wasn’t as if you were engaged, and even then, monogamy was not always the unstated norm. You were relieved that first evening to find out that Jayce also had a tendency to take multiple partners.
“I fall in love all the time,” you’d said quietly, tracing your thumb over the lines in his palm as you sat together on the steps that could, if you ever wished, take you back to the party.
Jayce straightened a bit, and you felt him turn towards you. You glanced up at him when his hand curled around yours, his own, much larger thumb settling against your wrist.
He was smiling—a soft, understanding thing. “I think we may be in the same boat,” he said, and you giggled, tucking your head back down and leaning against his shoulder while he threaded your fingers together.
“I’m actually relieved,” he then said, squeezing your hand. “You’ll, um, have to come to the Academy one day. To meet someone.”
“Oh, that is lucky,” you snorted, sitting back up and fully turning to face him. You quirked a brow, grinning, before bringing his hand into your lap.
“How long have you been with them?”
“Him,” Jayce supplied, smiling shyly and looking out into the garden. The light from the house cast a wonderful shadow over his cheekbone as he faced away from it.
“Just a few months, but I’ve known him for years,” he turned the smile back towards you and then glanced down into your lap, where his wrist settled against your thigh. His fingers tightened around yours. “You’ll like him.”
Your aunt made sure that you were in attendance at all of the same parties for the next two weeks. However, certain people (Councilmembers, mostly Heimerdinger, who was aware of the importance of public opinion) began to complain that Jayce was frequently absent. So, eventually, you were forced to adjust your schedules.
Jayce’s partner (Viktor, Jayce said his name was) was overseeing the construction of a water treatment facility, so you wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet him for a few weeks. Though, both you and Jayce agreed that this might be for the best, as you were still in the midst of rediscovering your feelings for one another. Whenever Jayce wasn’t elbow deep in his work, of course, which was often.
You weren’t about to go criticizing his work habits—it would be horrendously hypocritical of you to do so.
He took you on a few dates: a walk to get pastries, a small informal dinner at his house, and one evening, he brought you out dancing.
It was wonderful fun, swaying with Jayce in a crowded ballroom. There were a couple of times where you paired off with other dance partners—mostly because others would cut in to take one of you away. Not long after, though, you’d feel his hand rest on the back of your shoulder, and a shiver would run up your spine as he’d ask if he could ‘borrow the young lady.’
Of course, he felt equally as dizzy whenever you pressed yourself back into his chest, humming happily as he held the small of your back. Truth be told, he was always reluctant to part from you, not out of jealousy but out of a clawing need to be near you.
It began to rain in the middle of your walk home, and you both laughed as you took one another’s hands and booked it towards his house, only five minutes off. You crowded against the paneled front door as he fished out his keys, shivering as your wet clothes stuck together, and breathed a sigh of relief when you finally spilled into the quaint foyer. You were both dripping all over the carpet, soaked to the bone from the sudden downpour, but you couldn’t wipe the stupid grins off of your faces.
“What a way to end the evening,” you said, still shivering, smiling brightly, and you looked up at him as you pushed your wet hair out of your face. More rain ran down your neck as you inadvertently squeezed out some of the water.
Jayce was a little breathless, his hazel eyes fluttering, but you attributed it to the breakneck sprint you’d just undertaken. That is, until you glanced down at your dress, and saw just how thoroughly the rain had affected its level of respectability. You squeaked, covering your chest with your glove-clad arms, and looked back up with your lip caught between your teeth. It took all of your strength not to fixate on the way that Jayce’s soaked dress shirt clung to his shoulders and pectoral muscles.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a robe?”
Jayce, seemingly unable to help himself, took your face in his hands and kissed you as though he were a man starved. His tongue smothered a yelp of surprise as he crowded you back against the door, but you were soon melting under the attention as he coaxed your arms into wrapping around his shoulders.
You were overwhelmed by him.
He shuddered at the feeling of your cold gloves on his neck, so you blindly tugged them off and tossed them in some unknown direction before immediately introducing your hands into his hair.
“You’re beautiful,” Jayce whispered reverently when you parted, your noses still brushing as he kissed the corner of your mouth.
You opened your mouth to offer a witty reply, but instead, your teeth began to chatter.
Jayce winced and then gained a sudden awareness of just how cold your skin felt beneath his palms.
“I need to get you warm,” he said, his jaw clicking as he shifted from charisma to problem-solving mode. You tried to assure him that you were fine, but found that your protests fell on deaf ears as he unceremoniously hooked his arm under your knees and began carrying you up the main stairs.
He brought you into the upstairs bathroom and sat you on the counter, pulling off your shoes before grabbing a towel and reaching into the shower to start the water running. He checked that the temperature was satisfactory before turning back to you, his brows pinched as he approached. You were so mesmerized by his shift in behavior that you almost didn’t react when he went to unzip your dress.
You gasped when you felt the faint vibration of the zipper on your lower back and frantically shoved him away. Jayce stumbled back with wide eyes, his signature ‘lost puppy’ look etched into his features as his mind struggled to catch up with his hands.
“Jayce! I— I’m more than capable of taking off my own dress,” you exclaimed. It felt as though lava had been poured over your ears.
“Uh, right,” Jayce tore his eyes from you, looking guilty and strangely as though he’d just awoken from a trance, “I… don’t know what got into me.”
You huffed a small laugh, feeling impossibly warm. You knew that he was just trying to help and that, often, he expressed affection via that avenue of physical assistance. But you’d prefer that he see your intimate skin for the first time in a different setting. “It’s fine... Just go get changed.”
Once you were warm, the two of you ended up falling asleep together on his couch, his head nestled against your chest and your arms wrapped around his shoulders. Your aunt had far too many questions when he walked you home the following day, and you spent the next evening writing about his large, work-worn palms in your journal. The entry took longer to write than most.
You’re halfway through your account for the previous day when there is a gentle knock on your bedroom door. Expecting your attendant (as you had no reason to anticipate anyone else), you don’t even bother to lift your gaze from your writing.
“Come in!” You call, carefully dotting an ‘i’ as you wait for the door to open. You look up as it swings open, and—, “Oh, shit!”
“Oh, uh.”
You lurch up onto your hands and knees, accidentally knocking your pen off of the bed in the process. It clatters somewhere on the stone floor, but you’re far more concerned with grabbing the edge of your comforter and hurriedly tucking your body beneath it.
Your cheeks burn with surprise and self-consciousness as you pull the blanket up under your chin. “Jayce, what the fuck are you doing here?”