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Viktor wandered aimlessly about Jayce’s apartment as the man himself puttered about in the kitchen, making plenty of noise, doing god knows what. Viktor had been in his apartment before, many times in fact; much more than Jayce had been to his. Although the ratio of has-a-massive-hole-in-it to not was… oddly even.
He’d been here, he’d analyzed every minute detail down to which books seemed to be pulled from the shelf most often judging by the disruption in the dust. But that had been on Academy orders, on Heimerdinger’s orders, and the analysis had been strictly a professional one. Now… now he was free to analyze for personal reasons, which was… well, it was certainly different.
Jayce was somehow both incredibly clean, and yet chaotically unorganized. His rugs were well-maintained and pressed, the hardwood floors mopped and polished. The massive bay windows overlooking a frankly breathtaking patio and view of the city were kept immaculate, and the furniture had nary a butt-print on it.
But on nearly every surface were stacks of books, piles of mismatched papers, gemstone pieces, empty mugs, half-full mugs, untouched mugs…
It was as if Jayce cleaned around the chaos instead of actually managing the chaos itself. Which, Viktor supposed, he knew already. It spoke to what was important to Jayce—he valued cleanliness, but only so far as it didn’t interfere with his work. He wanted to allow the natural beauty and light of the city in, if only to illuminate his way as he thought. And he sometimes made himself something, an item of comfort like tea or coffee, and then became so enraptured with his work that he forgot completely about the beverage.
With a sigh, Viktor recalled their conversation following the council meeting in which they were allowed to continue their Hextech research. Heimerdinger had suggested setting both of them up with faculty apartments on campus, but Jayce had insisted he wanted his old apartment back. Something about sentimental value, but Viktor hadn’t quite been paying attention at the time. He was practically giddy with excitement about all the possibilities their research could boast. Now, he wished he recalled what Jayce had said, why he wanted this busted-up place back.
“I’m sorry, one sec!” Jayce called from the kitchen, and for a moment, it sounded suspiciously like… nervousness in his voice? What on Runeterra did he have to be nervous about? The only difference between now and the last time Viktor had been here… was that they hadn’t slept together yet.
Ah. Well.
Viktor grinned, warming with the knowledge that Jayce was likely now trying to impress him, in some way or another. It would probably irritate Jayce to know that all he needed to do on that front was take his shirt off. So, with a grin, Viktor kept that tidbit to himself.
He arrived at a gramophone just as Jayce appeared from the kitchen, looking flustered as a bird with ruffled feathers, holding two glasses of wine.
“Sorry, didn’t, uh…” he said, his eyes fluttering about and avoiding Viktor’s as he sheepishly handed over a glass, a hand coming up to brush through his own hair. “Didn’t have any glasses clean.”
Viktor smiled, taking the glass with a nod, the fact that Jayce was flustered over some dirty dishes only making him fonder.
“Quite alright, Jayce,” he said, taking a sip of the, quite frankly, heinously good wine. “You know I’m a patient man.”
“Huh, yeah,” Jayce said, awkwardly backing away and hovering near an armchair, clearly having an existential crisis over whether he should sit or stand.
Viktor simply turned back to the record player, and the alphabetized collection of discs in a box to its right.
“May I?” Viktor asked, motioning to the player.
“Oh, yeah, uh-of course,” Jayce replied, and though Viktor wasn’t facing him any longer, he heard the rather large gulp of wine that followed.
Viktor was familiar with many of the artists in Jayce’s collection—it rivaled Heimerdinger’s in taste, and didn’t seem at all in Jayce’s wheelhouse (although, Viktor would be the first to admit that he actually had no clue what Jayce’s tastes were like… in music, anyway. All he knew was that he didn’t seem a very Heimerdinger-adjacent soul).
“Interesting titles,” Viktor said, pulling an orchestral from the sleeve and gently placing it on the wheel.
“Yeah… they, uh… they actually belonged to my father,” Jayce said, his voice pitching down in tone and tipping Viktor off to the sensitive nature of the subject. “My mother, she… she couldn’t bear to keep them, she said… well. Doesn’t matter what she said. She just wanted me to have them.”
There was a hint of defensiveness in Jayce’s voice, but Viktor didn’t pry. He understood, intimately, what it was like trying to sever your connection with something but still feeling that gravitational pull years later.
The smooth notes began to fill the apartment, the mood of it rather somber, but still beautiful.
Sensing that Jayce had accidentally brought up a topic he wished to avoid, Viktor decided to fill the hush that had fallen. “You know, this was the first thing I bought for myself, once I felt comfortable… stable here in Piltover; a record player,” Viktor reminisced, recalling his mostly empty dorm room that consisted of a single bed, one blanket, one pillow… and the used record player he’d purchased off a faculty member at the Academy. It had been secondhand, true, but still the most expensive item he’d ever bought for himself at the time.
“I struggled for a long time,” he went on, the words just starting to spill out, as if seeking to accompany the music. “I had money—the student stipend one receives upon acceptance. But… if you’ve never had it, you…”
His voice caught, and he sought to drown whatever frog had just taken up residence in his throat with wine.
“You don’t trust it. You… question every coin spent, regret every little purchase, even if it’s necessary. You just… keep expecting it to disappear. For the ground of stability to crumble beneath your feet, to find yourself right back at the bottom of the cliff you already clawed your way out of once. So you hoard it—refuse to spend a cent, so that when the inevitable happens… you have something to fall back on… something you can use to keep yourself alive long enough to find another source of income. Because it runs dry…”
He looked down at his wine, the taste souring as he thought of all those nights he’d held an empty glass, chips and cracks nicking at his chapped lips, wishing for just a single sip of clean water.
“It always runs dry. It’s unavoidable. Or so you tell yourself. But then… then you’re being just as selfish as those who hoarded the wealth in the first place, those who ensured you could never stand on the same ground as them, breathe the same fresh, poison-less air as they did. So it eats at you—the guilt, and the fear. Do I spend it, do I give it away? I have to eat too…”
The bitterness had now worked its way into his voice, but still Jayce was silent. Viktor continued eyeing the spinning record, watching as the stylus slowly worked its way inward, unsure if he could face Jayce as he talked about this, could handle what he’d see there, in those toffee rich eyes.
“But after three years, I finally found a balance—came to terms with the fact that I was going to put my education into helping them. So, although it still pained me, I had to accept that I had money now, but that I was going to use it to break the mold that made me, made any of them feel unworthy of it.”
He sighed, leaning his crutch against the countertop and absently thumbing through Jayce’s other records, not paying attention to titles or artists, just looking for something to occupy his hand.
“Do you know what the true measure of a man’s wealth is?” he asked, pausing halfway through the records.
“Mm mm,” Jayce hummed a negative, and the sound was burdened and heavy, as if afraid to make even a single syllable more.
“Art,” Viktor replied, pulling the record he’d paused on and sliding the disc from the sleeve. He held it carefully, as he’d been taught, to avoid scratching the surface, and spun it on a finger. “That’s not to say we all don’t create it, feel it, we do. We all have this… need to get the turmoil out, put it into something so it doesn’t eat us alive. And we do that by putting it on canvas, in clay, harp strings, piano keys. Chalkboards. We need to know that others feel like we do, that we’re not alone here in this trash heap…”
His voice broke, and he took a quick sip of wine to strengthen it.
“But only a rich man has the time and resources to create art and not have it be a burden or a waste of time that could otherwise be spent on survival. Only a rich man can support the art of another—hang paintings in his home and drown the sounds of a dying city with music. It’s a sick truth, isn’t it? That those who need it most… must drop their skills into dusty mines, must put them in a factory locker lest they lose them.”
Viktor found that his ears were hot with anger, a single finger tap-tap-tapping away at his glass as he had a tendency to do when he got like this.
He inhaled long and slow, held it, and finally released it, feeling the heat and rage dissipate a bit.
“My mother was a singer,” he said, not expecting his voice to sound so utterly shattered when he said it, but it did. He tried to picture her in his mind, but the edges were unclear, the eyes were wrong, and he couldn’t fabricate her smile to save his life. It was a specter of the woman he knew, and it frustrated him that he was gifted with such a brilliant mind… and it couldn’t even hold on to one simple image. “Only for a few, obviously, and only when the fits would allow her to. But… she was magnificent. In some other life, she would have entertained lords and kings, been hired for Piltover’s finest parties.”
He stopped to listen to the music for a moment, attempting to drudge up the sound of her heavenly voice from the pit of memories he’d attempted to lock away, but that, too, seemed lost to time.
“On the nights when her lungs would allow it, she would open the single window in our home, and let her songs fill the lanes. The air is thicker down there, you know, so… it did strange and… ethereal things to her voice—made it echo and carry much farther than most. It was as if an angel had descended into the Undercity when she sang, and for those few hours… things went quiet. People stopped screaming at each other, they stopped robbing each other, and they just… listened. She never learned the common tongue, I taught myself that, so hardly any of them understood her words… but I think that was the charm. Her songs were for each of them; could stand to mean any number of things if you just… imagined.”
“The night she died…” Viktor started, but his voice failed him. He swallowed thickly, slipping the record back into the sleeve and dropping it back into the box with a hard, resounding clunk. In some wretched twist of fate, he could recall that image with sickening clarity—her body twisted awkwardly with the way she fell, her eyes still open and unblinking, the yellow of the sclera more pronounced than her faded, gray pupils. It wasn’t the first time Viktor had seen blood, but it was somehow the brightest—perhaps it was his traumatized mind, but it seemed to glow where it oozed from her nose and mouth, pooling beneath her and soaking her graying hair.
“The night she died, she had been singing,” he started again, his voice shaking, but he couldn’t stop the words as they spilled out—like they’d been inflating within him for fifteen years, pushing and pushing at the boundaries of his silence until finally, they’d hit the needle of Jayce’s gramophone and popped.
“Which I suppose is a reassurance—perhaps she had a modicum of happiness in her final moments. But… the lanes were silent. I’ve never heard them so quiet, not before that night and never since. Well… they were quiet until I found her…”
He paused, looking down at his wine and feeling bile rise in his throat as it turned to blood in his eyes.
“Then it was just screaming…”
It was as if a steel carriage had suddenly rammed into him, but… it was just Jayce—he’d thrown himself at Viktor so violently that Viktor stumbled, knocking his crutch to the floor with a metallic clang, but it didn’t matter. Jayce held him so close, so tight, that there was no possibility of him going anywhere. One of Jayce’s strong hands wrapped behind his back, keeping him steady, the other cradled behind his head so tenderly that Viktor felt a flash of embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Jayce said, voice muffled where it was buried against Viktor’s shoulder, but it sounded like… like he was crying. “I’m so, so sorry Viktor. Gods, it shouldn’t be like this. No child should have to go through that, especially not… not you.”
He went quiet then, shaking terribly as he held Viktor, and rather bizarrely, Viktor could only think about how the jostling of Jayce’s embrace had spilled his wine on that pristine rug.
“Jayce… Jayce, it’s alright…” Viktor tried, but was interrupted.
“No! It’s not alright!” Jayce nearly yelled as he pulled back, his hands now holding Viktor’s upper arms just a little too tightly. “None of it is! This… this is why Hextech is so important. Think of the lives it could save, the time it could give back to people who thought they’d lost it…”
I’ve been thinking of those things since the very start—the thought was unbidden, and bitter, and Viktor fought it back, knowing that his rage need not ever be pointed at Jayce. Jayce just… didn’t know the true scope of it, until now. And that wasn’t his fault.
“I know,” Viktor said, awkwardly reaching to set his wine on the counter with Jayce’s hold still vice-like on his arm. With his hand now free, he reached up, placing it on Jayce’s cheek, not missing the way Jayce immediately softened, leaning into it slightly. “That’s why we’re going to work on this—together. Not to brag, but… Piltover couldn’t have a smarter pair charged with this undertaking.”
Jayce grinned, his hands finally releasing their hold as one came up to grasp behind Viktor’s neck, pull him close, and rest their foreheads together.
“I just wish it could have been sooner… that… that I could have helped her,” Jayce whispered, his voice shaking, and Viktor swallowed the lump that rose in his throat.
“Me too,” he said, scratching reassuringly at Jayce’s scalp. “But looking back can’t help us now. Only looking forward. Will you do that with me?”
For some reason, those words came out sounding like an oath, like vows, and white-hot fear ripped through Viktor with a viciousness that surprised him. What if the answer is no?
“Of course, Viktor,” came Jayce’s response, full of conviction and righteous anger… the same righteous anger Viktor had been feeling since he was old enough to feel it. “If not for anyone else, then for you.”
Jayce leaned in to kiss him, but Viktor pulled back from it.
“No,” he said, closing his eyes as the reality of it hit him—he’d meant to keep a healthy detachment in their… affair, but it was clear that both of them had failed miserably. And that was dangerous. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for the next me, who is still down there. Who wants his mother and can do nothing to save her. Who has everything he needs to succeed and thrive except the means.”
Jayce swallowed audibly, nodding slightly and trying again for the kiss, and this time, Viktor acquiesced.
It started tentative—as if, in the wake of such a heavy conversation, they had forgotten how to kiss each other. But it became very heady very quickly, Viktor’s nerves on edge as if every single one of them had been flayed open recently—and they had. So Jayce’s fingertips, light as feathers and gliding over Viktor’s neck so deftly they made his hackles rise, set his flesh on fire.
Within minutes, they were in Jayce’s bedroom, every last article of clothing shed somewhere on their path like so many breadcrumbs. Jayce had laughed when Viktor made him pause as he ripped his waistcoat back, reaching inside to the breast pocket and pulling out his vial of lubricant.
“Why do you assume I don’t have any?” he’d asked, mock-offended.
“Intuition,” Viktor had drawled, gripping the vial and allowing his clothes to be removed. “Do you?”
Jayce had paused, his cheeks going bright crimson with the expression of a five-year-old caught in the sweets. “Uh… no, actually. I’m… I’m out.”
Viktor had laughed, the sound catching in his throat as Jayce dropped to his knees and hurriedly (but still carefully) began unclasping the brace on Viktor’s leg.
“Better to be over-prepared than under,” Viktor had drawled, rolling the vial in his fingers as Jayce went for the buttons of his trousers.
Now, though, they were blissfully nude, Jayce lying on his back on his plush bed, much larger than Viktor’s, and Viktor was straddling him, grinding down against him as he buried his fingers in Jayce’s hair, his tongue in his mouth. They were both painfully hard already, but as of yet, neither had made any moves to provide relief, as the grinding of their hips together was enough… for now.
And as Jayce’s hands roamed Viktor’s body, an idea cropped up in Viktor’s mind—one born of their afternoon in the lab; after they’d almost been caught by Heimerdinger, Jayce suggesting their little… agreement, they’d gotten back to work. And they’d been incredibly productive, too—finishing the rune matrix and moving on to trials…
But Jayce had made focusing nearly impossible for Viktor. Despite their agreement to keep their hands off of one another, Jayce was increasingly physical with his excitement—placing his hand on Viktor’s neck or back, bumping their shoulders together as they worked, even taking his hand briefly when the matrix activated and began to illuminate the room in a brilliant white and blue glow—to the point that Viktor began doubting his own memories. Has he always been this tactile, and I just never noticed? Was there always this charged, sensual quality to his touches, or am I attributing that to them? Have they always affected me like this, or am I just insatiable, now that I’ve had him?!
By the end of the day, Viktor was jumpy and on-edge, to the point that, when Jayce leaned past him to pick up his notebook from Viktor’s desk, it actually scared him. After a bumbling apology, mumbling something about being distracted, Viktor had turned to Jayce, letting out a breath so large he was convinced he hadn’t taken a real one all damn day.
“What’s wrong?” Jayce had asked, voice low despite the fact that they were alone in the lab. He approached, a hand coming up to cup behind Viktor’s elbow, and that was the final straw. Viktor flinched, pulling his arm away, and noting the immediate expression of hurt on Jayce’s face, so he hurried to explain.
“I don’t know if it’s always been like this, or if I’m just… different now, but… every time you touch me, I want you a little more. Every time you stop touching me, I feel like…” he threw his hands up in frustration, keeping his left a little lower so he didn’t go flinging his crutch across the room, “I feel like I’m going to combust.”
Jayce’s face softened to one so knowing, and Viktor just wanted to… kiss that stupid grin off of his face.
“Oh,” Jayce practically purred, stepping close and trailing his fingers all the way down Viktor’s arm, and Viktor could physically feel the goosebumps follow. “Is that all?”
The memory fresh in his mind, Viktor rolled off of Jayce suddenly, leaving him looking surprised, tempting, and so hard. Viktor merely grinned, sitting on the corner of the bed and reaching for Jayce’s scarlet necktie, thankful it had been discarded next to the bed so he didn’t have to stand.
“What…” Jayce started, watching as Viktor straddled him again, and Viktor just gave him as vulpine a smirk as he could muster, and reached for one of Jayce’s hands, then the other, bringing them together in front of his chest and beginning to tie them together.
Jayce swallowed audibly, his eyes going comically wide.
“Oh…” he gulped, continuing to just watch as Viktor brought the other end up and began fastening it to Jayce’s headboard, which thankfully had artful iron bars.
“Secure?” he asked, heat rising at the sight; Jayce… gorgeous, muscular Jayce, laid out and helpless beneath him. It was enough to drive any man mad with want.
Jayce tested it—pulling against the tie twice, never breaking their eye contact as he did.
“Yep,” he said, his tone uncharacteristically unreadable.
Viktor paused, meeting Jayce’s eyes, the question already in them.
“Alright?” he asked anyway.
Jayce smiled softly, grinding his hips up against Viktor and reminding him he was still very hard.
“More than,” Jayce responded, readjusting slightly to get comfortable in the position.
Viktor eyed him with hunger as he reached for his vial of lubricant, pulling the stopper with his teeth for no other reason than the drama, and poured a bit onto his fingers. He worked it with his thumb, warming it as he continued to give Jayce his most heated glare.
“Do you know,” Viktor said, nonchalant, as if they were discussing some mundane calculation. He angled himself forward, propping a hand on Jayce’s ample chest for stability, and reached around to begin teasing at his own entrance. Despite his efforts, the lubricant was still a little cool, and he twitched, a slight gasp escaping, but it only seemed to excite Jayce more—his cock jumping where it was laying, thick and full, against his stomach.
“I used to do this… quite a lot… in the beginning… to thoughts of you,” Viktor huffed as he slowly pushed two fingers inside.
Jayce didn’t respond, but his eyes were ravenous as he watched Viktor move, licking his lips salaciously, as predator salivates over prey. Viktor grinned, pride giving him a boost as he pushed further inside. He was still a bit sore from their previous round of lovemaking, with it having been quite a long time since he’d had anyone, and Jayce was… not a small man by any stretch of the imagination. So he took his time, not worrying yet about stretching himself and simply enjoying the glide of his fingers.
And the way Jayce seemed to grow more desperate, more hungry with every little move Viktor made… well… that was just a tantalizing coincidence.
“I told myself I had to… ah!” Viktor gasped as he brushed his own prostate, and his nerves came alive, burning like a fuse. He bit his lip, attempting to avoid doing it again, or he would go too far, too quickly. “T-told myself I had to stop… that it was unprofessional, and irresponsible, and… a gross overstepping of boundaries…”
With a wily grin, he shifted his hand on Jayce’s chest, beginning to thumb rhythmically at a nipple, and Jayce moaned, his head thrown back into the pillow and his hips bucking beneath Viktor, and damn, what a stunning sight to behold.
“To my credit, I did stop… for a while,” Viktor went on, ready to kick things up a notch, and adding a third finger. He couldn’t help the full-body spasm when he did, and Jayce mindlessly began pumping his hips, even though Viktor was seated too far back for him to get any friction out of it. He tried anyway, his cock sliding up and down his stomach, and with a flash of heat, Viktor noted the precum beading at the head.
“But then it just built, and built… and built… until finally, in a mad fit of desperation, I spent an entire day in my bed, getting off over and over to thoughts of your hands on me, your mouth on me… your cock inside me…”
Despite how overwhelmed he was, Jayce valiantly responded,
“So that’s where you disappear to.”
Viktor grinned, pinching the nipple he’d been toying with, and Jayce hissed, his hips bucking again, and Viktor was practically mesmerized by his beautiful cock—thick and hard and purpling with denial, and he briefly lamented that it wasn’t in his mouth, heavy on his tongue.
“Would it shock you to know that… I did too?” Jayce whined, his voice wrecked in the best way. “Watching you work was practically an aphrodisiac—your passion and drive, your focus; Gods, there were whole days I spent just fantasizing about what it would be like to be the object of that passion. I’d watch you, frantically scribbling on your chalkboard, and I’d just… everything derailed when I… y-your hands…”
Viktor smiled wider, slowly extricating his fingers and reaching for the lubricant again.
“Yes, we’ve discussed your obsession with my hands at length,” he drawled, punctuating those words by pouring a bit of lubricant in his palm, leaning in to kiss Jayce firmly, and taking his erection in hand.
Jayce gasped into the kiss, and Viktor was distinctly aware of the sound of the fabric stretching, the iron groaning as Jayce gripped at the restraint.
He pumped his fist agonizingly slowly, pausing to polish the head of his cock before continuing and working the lubricant down his full length. Jayce pulled away from the kiss, digging his head back into the pillow as he let out a truly obscene moan. Viktor just grinned, rerouting his lips to Jayce’s carved jaw, his chiseled neck, where he went about paying Jayce back for the hickey he’d so rudely given Viktor yesterday with one of his own—except this one, he made sure would be visible above the collar.
“Gods, Viktor… I want to touch you…” Jayce whined, and the iron headboard matched it as he squirmed. “Is this… is this retribution for all my little touches in the lab today?”
Viktor simpered down at him as he leaned back from his kisses, flattening his hand over Jayce’s cock and cupping loosely at his balls. Viktor took in his reaction hungrily—he was practically twitching, his knuckles going white with how tightly they were grasping his restraint.
“That depends…” Viktor growled, pressing a kiss to Jayce’s lips and following it with a bite to the lower one. “Were you intentionally trying to get me worked up, even though we agreed not to?”
Viktor knew the answer, and so did Jayce, so the surrendering groan Jayce loosed was proof enough, but it was vindication in Viktor’s mind that no, he wasn’t crazy insatiable, Jayce was just a teasing, irresistible bastard. The only question now was… how was Viktor going to get his revenge, and just how sweet was it going to be?
Without a word, he leaned back up, scooted forward on the bed, and reached for Jayce’s cock to hold him in place as he got in position.
“Look at me,” he demanded, watching the fiery apprehension in Jayce’s eyes as they opened and met his own.
Though he’d never admit it, in fact if asked he’d flat out deny it, but… where Jayce had a thing for Viktor’s hands, Viktor was… enraptured by Jayce’s eyes. It was cliche, he knew, to say you felt like you were drowning in them, but… it was more than that. There were whole worlds in his eyes—a cosmos of kindness and humanity, ingenuity and possibility… sun-kissed razorblades, he’d once ruminated. They morphed and changed, reacted to their environment like the scales of a chameleon—in the ivory moonlight pouring into a half-destroyed apartment, in the orange glow of lamplight illuminating a scribble-filled chalkboard, in the azure-tinted lightning of a room filled with magic… ‘you’ve no idea how beautiful it is’…‘I don’t even know your name’…’why would you risk this’…
Viktor could see all of it in Jayce’s eyes as he sank down slowly onto Jayce’s length—taking him in inch by silken inch. Jayce’s eyelids fluttered with pleasure, but didn’t close, and the tiny little whimper that escaped him made Viktor shiver with anticipation.
He gave himself a moment to adjust as Jayce bottomed out inside him, the stretch and almost-ache already familiar to him; allowing his hands to glide all over Jayce’s body, acquaint himself with the sensations of his skin… the thin patch of hair between his pecs, the peaked but gentle give of his nipples, the soft expanse of his belly.
“Fuck, V-Viktor…” Jayce stuttered, eyes finally rolling back as he struggled to contain the minimal rock of his hips as Viktor continued to sit still on him. “Gods, you feel so good…”
While Viktor was prepared to fire back at him any number of cocky responses, he simply grinned, placing both hands flat on Jayce’s ample chest, planted his knees a little wider on the bed, and began torturously slowly rocking his hips.
Both of them moaned simultaneously, and it might have been humorous, the way their voices harmonized with each other like the music still spilling in from the parlor… if the drag of Jayce’s cock against Viktor’s spasming inner walls wasn’t so deliriously, mind-numbingly good. The view wasn’t bad either—Jayce, hands restrained above him, head thrown back in ecstasy, sweat beginning to bead all over him, and all his most eye-catching muscles flexing as he followed Viktor’s movements with his hips—those biceps, built for forging steel, those abs, built for…
Well, built for rocking his hips into Viktor’s body, it seemed.
Viktor’s bad knee already ached from the folded position, but it was muted, bearable, hiding behind the building pleasure for now, so he repositioned slightly, leaning back and placing his hands on Jayce’s slightly lifted thighs where they were propped behind him. It changed the angle, plunging Jayce’s cock deeper, and Viktor was helpless against the moan that ripped from his throat as he pumped his hips. Jayce hissed in response, his hips pistoning uncontrollably once and almost throwing off Viktor’s balance.
Viktor squeezed at his thighs in warning, grinning impishly down at him.
“Careful, Mr. Talis, or I might have to restrain more of you,” he purred, and Jayce’s entire body shivered in response, goosebumps rising on his arms and a blush sweeping from his cheeks down to his chest. His breathing quickened, his gorgeous bronze skin now shimmering with a thin sheen of sweat, and Viktor wasn’t immune to it—his mind salivating to the knowledge that he could unravel Jayce like this, make him come completely undone.
“Oh, you like that idea?” Viktor continued, keeping his thrusts even and measured, even though the hunger for faster, harder, closer had begun to make his heart hammer noticeably at the pulse points and his lungs burn for air. “Unable to move and completely at my mercy… though you’d be hard-pressed to find any. I could take you apart, Jayce, make you cry and scream and beg…”
It came out sounding a little more vicious than Viktor intended, but it was just as well, because Jayce tensed, whimpering a pitiful “oh god,” as he pulled at the restraining tie, to the point that Viktor worried it might not hold.
Heat flared through him at the thought—Jayce, mindless with pleasure and muscles rippling as he tore free, desperate to touch, to hold—the intensity of the image making him briefly lose his rhythm, a bit of precum leaking from him to dribble onto Jayce’s stomach. It didn’t help that this particular angle had Jayce’s cock dragging over Viktor’s sweet spot with each and every rock of his hips, the nerves firing off electric surges of pleasure like lightning in his veins, each one more powerful than the last…
It made an idea flash through his mind—could he come like this? Completely untouched, with nothing but the thick, velvet drag of Jayce inside him to get him there? He’d never done it before, but… that was what experiments were for… proving or disproving the impossible. And sharing those experiments with Jayce was what he did best.
“J-Jayce, I…” he gasped, throat dry and scratchy from the panting, and he paused to wet his lips. “I think I… I think I can come like this…”
Jayce tilted his head to look at him, his eyes absolutely ravenous as they cascaded down Viktor’s chest to his untouched cock, obscenely rocking between them as he moved, a near-steady stream of over-excited precum dribbling down his length. That stare, those eyes made Viktor feel raw and exposed, laid completely bare for him in a way that nothing else could—like Jayce could see through him, into his mind, into his body where he divined just the right places to caress and prod. As if Jayce could reach inside him, lay a hand on every muscle, every nerve ending, and claim them, stroke them until there was nothing left but ecstasy. It made him feel numb, staticky, like nothing could touch him when he was like this—no pain, no doubts… just Jayce.
“Yeah?” Jayce grunted, his hips rocking up harder to meet Viktor, and the sound of their bodies colliding began to drown out everything—their collective harsh breaths, the creak of the bed, the tension of the restraints, the orchestral music serenading no one out in the sitting room. “Just like this?”
Jayce managed to curl his hips just right, hitting that bundle of nerves with hammerhead accuracy, and the cry that loosed from deep in Viktor’s chest was primal and unhinged. The shock of it was enough to send him doubling over—crashing forward and just barely managing to brace himself against Jayce’s heaving chest. His thighs burned from the effort of moving, lifting himself and dropping back down as he mindlessly chased his pleasure, and he slowed against his will—this required a level of muscle mass he just didn’t have, no matter how desperately he wanted it.
“Jayce, I… I need—“ he started to explain, but Jayce seemed to know already, and he bent his knees, bracing his heels against the bed as he took over; rocking his hips up in a divine rhythm that was expertly aimed right into Viktor’s prostate.
The new angle had Viktor’s cock lying against Jayce’s stomach, just barely getting stimulation to the underside as he rutted feverishly down against him, precum slicking the way. He was absently cognizant that he was babbling incoherently, definitely not in English, and Jayce responded to it like a live wire—hips picking up even faster with a haphazard chant of Viktor, Viktor, Viktor!
The static in Viktor’s veins exploded, his entire body convulsing with it—it was like this, with Jayce… his climax was consistently merciless, slamming into him like a steel hull and sending his release all the way up to Jayce’s neck, marking him with streak after streak as Viktor shuddered atop him.
It happened fast, much faster than it typically did—pins and needles beginning at the back of his knee and crawling up his thigh like molten metal through his veins, and it went from ignorable to all-consuming within seconds.
The force of it took Viktor’s breath away, a hand flying to his thigh to grip at it, hoping perhaps the pressure might help… but it only grew worse—like a fork had been shoved deep into the tissue and begun twisting.
“Jayce!” he managed to eke out the panicked plea, despite his lungs and throat having stalled on him like an overheating engine. Rather abstractly, he worried Jayce wouldn’t pick up the tone, as pleasure and pain sounded remarkably similar on the human vocal cords…
All at once, Viktor noted a shrill metallic sound, and suddenly Jayce was sitting up, one hand wrapped around Viktor’s lower back, the other cupping the side of his face.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” Jayce asked, breath hot on Viktor’s face and distress hanging heavy in it, reminiscent of the fissures of his youth.
Another wave hit him, shooting up his leg and into his spine, that molten feeling turning into shrapnel that embedded between the bones. His throat almost completely closed up from the shock, and all he could do was whine, hand gripping harder at his leg, as if he could dig into his own anatomy and rip out the faulty pieces.
He barely registered that he was being spun, laid out on his back, his leg straightening out and a hand, gentle and doting and feather-soft rubbing up and down the side of his thigh.
With his leg not bent anymore, Viktor could practically feel the blood flow as it corrected, his toes tingling and the pain beginning to recede, agonizingly slowly but surely. He came back to himself, as if the pain had momentarily kicked him out of his own body, made him a ghost in his own skin, and settling back in felt… strange. His hands were trembling but locked onto Jayce’s shoulders like a vice, and he was panting so hard his throat and lungs burned. The ringing in his ears and the fuzz in his vision began to recede, a toxic tide that was finally giving up, and what took its place made his heart clench…
“Shhhh, I’ve got you, I’m here,” Jayce’s voice was like silk in the silence, smooth and lilting and so soft. There was clear panic in it, but it sought to be strong; a veritable orchestra of worry and reassurance, strings and brass, “Hey, can you hear me? What do you need?”
Viktor swallowed, his throat dry and raspy and causing a scratchy, rough cough as he did. He nodded gingerly, attempting to loosen his hold on Jayce, lest he hurt him. He dared to wiggle his toes, afraid that every muscle in his leg would revolt, but he was glad to find only a slightly fading ache.
“I… I’m… I’m alright,” Viktor rasped, keeping his eyes closed if only to avoid the look of pity he knew was etched in Jayce’s handsome features. “Just… this… needed this,” he said, flexing his leg a bit to infer what he meant.
Jayce started to pull away, and a mild hysteria flooded Viktor—don’t go, don’t let this drive you away, please, you’re the only one who hasn’t run from this yet, I can’t… I can’t lose you to it too…
Rather violently, Viktor threw his arms around Jayce’s neck, pulling him in close and throwing his good leg around Jayce’s thigh. He dared to open his eyes, meeting Jayce’s gaze with what he hoped was fiery conviction.
“Don’t!” Viktor whimpered, hating how weak and desperate it sounded. “Jayce, don’t, I… I don’t want to stop…”
Jayce stilled, a hand coming up to reverently brush through Viktor’s hair at his temple. He sighed, a whole war occurring in his features.
“I told myself I was going to stop second-guessing your decisions. So I’m going to ask one time, and I’ll accept your answer. Are you sure? We can stop, let you get your bearings, and then if you’re feeling up to it, I’ll fuck you senseless later…”
Viktor smiled, relaxing his hold and brushing his fingers through Jayce’s dark hair where it was falling slightly onto his forehead.
“I’m sure,” he said, only then realizing… Jayce had been restrained.
Viktor flushed with arousal as he tipped his head up to see the thin iron bar he’d tied Jayce to was broken from the headboard and bent in an L-curve as if it had been weak copper wiring.
“Well, well, well,” Viktor drawled, feeling the heat of a blush as he envisioned it—Jayce flexing tantalizingly, tearing through fabric and metal alike in his fervor. “Someone was determined.”
Jayce just giggled, rearranging slightly where he was lying between Viktor’s legs, and Viktor noted that at some point during the incident, Jayce had pulled out, but was still hard as stone and eager.
“I would do more than that to get to you,” Jayce declared as if it was a vow to the council, and Viktor’s head spun as their lips met, long and slow and unmoving; Jayce inhaling through his nose as if taking in every part of Viktor’s essence at once.
Viktor scratched at Jayce’s scalp as he pulled back from the kiss, whispering against his lips,
“Make me forget. Make me forget the pain, Jayce.”
Jayce nodded, placing another small, barely-there kiss as he nudged Viktor’s legs farther open and positioned himself.
“Think you can come again?” Jayce asked as he took himself in hand and lined up with Viktor’s entrance.
Viktor gave him that mischievous grin he knew drove Jayce wild, and purred,
“Think you can make me?”
Jayce let out a chuckle that morphed into a growl as he began pushing inside, and Viktor wasn’t sure if it was because his nerves were on high-alert from the recent pain, but the sensation of Jayce’s thick length slowly stretching him open again sent a shockwave of pleasure up his spine, making him groan wantonly and arch off the bed. He was distinctly aware of every inch as Jayce slid deeper and deeper, tapering his breath as it hitched in response.
“Good?” Jayce asked softly, a hint of arrogance implying I know it is, but I want to hear you say it, and Jayce’s fingers slid into his, bringing his hand up and pressing it into the bed. He was hovering so close that their noses brushed as he began to move, his breath warming between them and the weight of his body stimulating Viktor to hardness once more.
“Yes, Jayce,” Viktor gasped, closing his eyes and luxuriating in everything, all of it. Jayce was everywhere, and it thrilled him—like their bodies could somehow abandon physical shape at any moment and just become a bundle of cells, indistinguishable from one another as they moved as one; an electric cloud of euphoria, like a thunderstorm, like fissure gas, like magic.
Jayce planted one last kiss to Viktor’s lips before extending his arms and propping himself up, weight still pressing into Viktor’s palm, so that he could curl his hips harder, faster, and it was then that Viktor was provided the full spectacle—Jayce’s chest marked with red welts where Viktor must have scratched him when he came, his own spend still marking Jayce’s muscles and smeared over them… and those eyes—brilliant in the semi-darkness, attuned to Viktor with every pump of his hips like a metronome, lust in them, yes, but shining with concern and heart-wrenching devotion.
The single sob that ripped from Viktor’s throat was completely unexpected, and he hurried to pull Jayce down so he could bury his head in the crook of his neck, hide it from him. It was clear Jayce knew though, because he slowed again, pressing gentle kisses into Viktor’s neck and cheek, and in the same moment that Viktor gasped out a broken “I’m sorry,” Jayce was already repeating, “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
That simple promise shattered something fragile within Viktor, something he hadn’t even known was teetering over the edge, and he sobbed again, this time overwhelmed with a rush of possessiveness and greed, and he shook as he placed his free hand around Jayce’s jaw, forcing him back far enough to slam their lips together, tongue surging forward to taste him—sweat and elderberry wine and the salt of his own tears. Jayce whined into it, his hips picking up their tempo, hand suddenly abandoning Viktor’s as it whipped down between their bodies and took Viktor into his fist.
It could have been the recent orgasm, the recent pain (probably a combination of the two), but Jayce’s grip was reminiscent of midsummer pavement under foot—hot, refreshing, but just this side of too much… a hint of an ache hiding behind relief. Viktor nearly wailed into their kiss, pulling away and throwing his head back as his hips convulsed and pumped into Jayce’s hand.
“There you go,” Jayce groaned, sickly sweet and encouraging as he pulled from root to tip. Jayce himself was shivering all over, his hips slowing as he tired, but it only upped the anticipation as Viktor brought his hand down atop Jayce’s, guiding him, showing him how he wanted it—slower but tighter, with a little twist at the end to drive him wild.
“Fuck, Viktor, I’m close…” Jayce gasped, his voice trembling and reverberating like a plucked string.
“Almost… almost there,” Viktor whined, squeezing Jayce’s hand on him and bucking into it as pleasure shot through him like a bullet. “Wait for me…”
“I ca-can’t,” Jayce sobbed, pitiful and desperate as he collapsed, mouthing at Viktor’s neck as his weight nearly brought their hands to a halt, but the pressure and minimal movement would be enough.
“You can,” Viktor choked, reeling as Jayce’s fist stopped moving altogether and a thumb found the frenulum, where he slid it back and forth and pressed.
Viktor spasmed, feeling it brimming low in his gut.
“You can,” he repeated, helplessly rocking his hips as best he could against Jayce’s thumb. “Be good for me.”
That was clearly the wrong—or very right—thing to say, because Jayce howled, pumping his hips hard once and stilling, and for a very brief moment, Viktor could actually feel his cock pulsing repeatedly inside him…
That is until his own climax hit, and he seized up, free hand clinging to Jayce’s back as if it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the planet. Every muscle burned with the exertion of a second orgasm, his inner walls clenching on Jayce and making the poor thing nearly weep from pleasure as his hips jerked with aftershocks.
Everything went still as they panted in tandem, bodies soaked with sweat and shivering as it cooled on their skin. Viktor pulled him close, burying his nose in Jayce’s hair, taking in the scent of him—sweat and sex, wine and aftershave… and something like fresh ocean air that they’d both come to associate with the use of magic. It must have been lingering on both of them, after they finished the matrix earlier in the day.
Viktor could feel Jayce’s racing pulse at every point of contact, knew his own was following the same beat— one not dissimilar to the music coming from the gramophone one room over. He grinned and chuckled to himself; they made music together with their bodies, racing pulses for a beat, gasps and moans for vocals.
“Wha—whasso funny?” Jayce slurred, propping a terribly shaking arm to the right of Viktor’s head and tipping his hips back.
Viktor shuddered as Jayce’s cock pulled out of him, and he warmed at the feeling of Jayce’s impressive load following suit and leaking out.
“Nothing, I just… had a bizarre thought,” Viktor said, stroking through Jayce’s hair in comfort as he weakly collapsed again.
“Hm?” was all Jayce could manage, the aftershocks apparently not finished with him yet as he jerked one more time, an exhausted whine brushing past Viktor’s neck, hot and dense.
“Just that… we make music of our own… though perhaps not the kind that should be played at high-end galas…”
Jayce laughed, the sound starting off weak but growing with mirth as he was finally able to lean up, propping himself on an elbow as he tipped to the side to lay pressed against Viktor, a hand beginning to trace aimless shapes on Viktor’s chest and stomach, where his spend was puddled and smeared.
“Fuck their tastes, I’d play that song everywhere,” he said, and his hand came up, a single finger tipping Viktor’s chin toward him, where he kissed him, long and sound.
The adoration in his lips made a hint of humiliation flare through Viktor; that his pain had almost ruined everything. He pulled away, swallowing the dread that arose and staring at the ceiling.
“Hey,” Jayce cooed, flattening his hand over Viktor’s heart. “Look at me.”
Viktor didn’t want to, didn’t want to find pity there, but he couldn’t say no to Jayce, couldn’t deny him anything, so he obliged; turning his head toward him but staring down vaguely at Jayce’s clavicle.
“It’s okay,” Jayce said, those words so heavy they sank through the air like an anvil, landing somewhere in the vicinity of Viktor’s lungs.
It’s not, he wanted to shout back. It’s not okay. You’ll grow tired of this. They always do.
Jayce’s finger returned to his chin, and he didn’t ask this time, simply tipped Viktor’s head up until he had no choice but to meet those honeyed eyes he hated to love.
“It’s okay,” Jayce said again, thumb coming to rest on Viktor’s chin. “It doesn’t scare me…”
He paused, face scrunching up as he reconsidered, and despite the heavy nature of the topic, Viktor couldn’t deny that face was rather cute. “I mean… it does, because I hate that you’re in pain. I hate that we never know when it’s going to happen, how bad it’ll be, how long it’ll last… if it’ll get worse. But… it’s not going to scare me away. I’m here. I’m right here, and nothing short of you telling me to piss off is gunna change that. You’re my partner, Viktor… in… in more ways than one, I think… that is… if you’ll have me…”
He’d become rather bashful, worry etching those thick, sturdy brows of his and creasing his forehead, and Viktor was helpless.
“Shut up,” he drawled, leaning in and kissing him soundly, just barely playing his tongue against Jayce’s lips and drinking in the little whimper. “Yes, Jayce. I’m your partner. But if my partner can’t keep his hands to himself in the lab, I’m going to have to find something sturdier than iron to hold him…”
He flicked a finger against the ruined headboard, the metal making an almost humorous ting as he did, punctuating the statement. Jayce truly blushed this time, biting a lip and looking down to begin stroking a finger through the cum on Viktor’s stomach, and Viktor shivered.
“I’ll try,” Jayce said with a nod. “May not always succeed, though. But uh…”
He grinned, leaning in and placing his chin on Viktor’s shoulder and batting his eyelashes at him playfully, and Viktor just rolled his eyes.
“…if I do fail, I’ll… I’ll gladly accept whatever punishment comes my way.”
Viktor shivered again, goosebumps rising at the flood of fantasies that arose with those words—completely restraining Jayce, gagging him, blindfolding him, leaving welts on that pert ass of his as tears ran down his reddened cheeks.
“Oh… oh you like that idea?” Jayce mockingly quoted Viktor’s own words, pure gloating mischief in his eyes, and Viktor snorted a laugh, placing his entire hand over Jayce’s face and shoving him back.
“Come on, you lovesick Poro,” Viktor said, muscles straining just to sit up. Jayce followed, a hand coming to Viktor’s back to help, as it never failed to do. “Let’s take a shower. A normal, no-sex shower, do you hear me?”
Jayce delivered a look of faux-shock that was simply devastatingly attractive.
“You started it last time!” he snapped, obviously fighting the grin and failing.
“That’s right… I did, didn’t I?” Viktor drawled, tapping his chin dramatically in thought as he stood, leaning on Jayce as they made their way to the bathroom together.
And I’m probably going to start it again.