Chapter Text
Jayce is gentle.
Jayce is kind.
In the years that have passed since that fateful day on the ledge of Jayce’s apartment, Viktor has learned that Jayce spent his whole life constructing his appearance for others.
Most certainly, Viktor has done the same—clawing his way up from the Undercity, learning to sing the right words into the right ears, spending sleepless nights on his studies, attaining higher grades than his much older peers, gritting his teeth and hiding his limp and fatigue on his worse pain days—to at last sink his teeth into what is rightfully his.
Jayce, on the other hand, is alarming well-versed in shrinking himself down. Careful to maintain his strong and lithe physique, his meticulous grooming routine with neatly styled hair and rigorous skincare regimen. Hands folded graciously behind his back and his face artfully schooled into the kind of dashing, disarmingly earnest, Academy boy openness that secures desperately needed research funding from Piltover’s highest elites. The perfect, masculine picture of brain and brawn that he knows the city clamors to see.
At this gala, to the untrained eye, Jayce hits all the right notes, sings the right words, plays in time to match the cadence of conversation expected of him from all of Hextech’s potential investors. A well-oiled machine, he knows what he’s doing and he does it with ease.
But Viktor knows that this persona comes only with hours of practice and self-stimming to calm himself down, along with plenty of reassurance from Viktor that he is doing everything right.
Viktor also knows his tells.
Tonight, he watches Jayce run his fingers along his carefully gelled hair just once—it means nothing.
Then he does it again, this time a little too fast.
It means he is growing overwhelmed, and he needs fresh air.
This is Viktor’s cue to step in.
He does so with grace, sidling up with ease next to his shining partner.
“—and that’s why we could benefit from your patronage, Dr. Porter,” Jayce is saying. He catches sight of Viktor, and with a smile introduces him to the impressively mustached elder professor standing nearby, “Have you met my partner yet?”
To everyone else, Jayce appears simply to have brightened at the sight of the Zaunite. But Viktor can see that his shoulders are immensely more relaxed. And he catches Jayce’s grateful eye, and winks too quickly for anyone else to notice.
~*~*~*~
Dr. Porter is an excitable and cheerful little man with a round, gold-framed monocle over one eye. Viktor smoothly takes over answering more of his rapid-fire questions about Hextech, with Jayce chiming in as needed.
“By jove! Splendid!” the professor exclaims, reminiscent of Heimerdinger. “I would be more than happy to support such a fascinating and magnificent endeavor.
“In fact, I would LOVE for the both of you, the brilliant minds behind this Hextech, to appear at the primary Academy’s upcoming sciences workshop! What do you say, my boys? Impart a little wisdom, a little inspiration on these young minds…and then help them build some simple atomic models, nothing too fancy, hmm?”
In sync, the two men turn to each other, all smiles, sharing their own secret language with a single waggle of eyebrows.
Really impressed with us, isn’t he? grins Jayce.
Our hard work continues to pay off—let’s accept, continue this Piltie good will, smirks Viktor.
“We would be honored to speak at the workshop, Professor,” Jayce says smoothly, turning back to the short man.
“Tch,” comes a familiar sniff from somewhere behind Viktor. Jayce’s smile tightens nearly imperceptibly. Salo.
“How kind,” the slight councilor drawls, stepping into view and smoothly into their circle, “of the Man of Progress to spare you a sliver of his precious time, somewhere within his busy schedule. Doing—” He makes a dismissive motion in the air with one delicate hand, the other wrapped around his champagne flute. “—Janna-knows-what in that little laboratory of his.”
“And,” Salo continues, giving Viktor a pointed once-over—not for the first time, and certainly not the last—“how nice to have your assistant join in as well, Mr. Talis.”
Beside Viktor, Jayce tenses even further.
“My partner—” he corrects, through slightly gritted teeth. A little too fast, a little too loud.
Salo blinks, one eyebrow raised, unperturbed, disdainful.
Unseen by Salo, Viktor places a careful hand on Jayce’s back, and watches as out of the corner of his eye, the taller man flexes his hand once. Clears his throat.
“My partner and I will be stepping out for a bit of fresh air,” he says. Normal volume. Smile. Polite nod.
“Thank you again, Professor, for so graciously agreeing to invest in Hextech. And again—we’re honored to have your patronage, and look forward to seeing you at the primary Academy sciences workshop.”
And then they are gone, sidestepping through the gilded crowd, through the pure, clean topside air that is somehow still too hot and stifling, and towards the freedom of the open doorway leading to the balcony.
~*~*~*~
“You did well in front of Salo, all things considered,” Viktor says.
Jayce scrubs a hand down his face, and then shakily runs it through his hair again.
“They don’t realize everything you’ve done for Hextech,” he says for the umpteenth time. “Or they do, but they don’t care.”
Jayce paces back and forth. “They enjoy this—” he makes an emphatic gesture with an open palm. “—show of reminding you that you come from dirt, that you are dirt, and that you will always be dirt.”
Viktor simply listens. Below, the Piltover skyline twinkles and glistens.
A lone star, miraculously safe from the light pollution, gleams and winks in silence.
“I can barely even make it through one of these events without your help,” Jayce continues, voice quieter. “And then they turn to me, suddenly friendly again, all smiles, touching me—” His hands, gripping tightly at his coat sleeves, suddenly sweep back down in a vehement brushing motion, retroactively slapping away the reaching, wandering fingers of Piltover’s elite. “—As if they didn’t just insult my partner, the man who saved my life, my best friend, my—”
Viktor realizes this part of the monologue is…new…at the same time that Jayce does.
He peeks out of the corner of his eye at Jayce, whose gaze has frozen downward, as if his shiny gala shoes are suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. His hands have come up to grip at his coat sleeves again in a sort of half self-hug.
“In hindsight…I handled Councilor Kiramman and her husband looking at me in the way they did—the way they still do now, sometimes—for years,” he says softly. “But the second I see any of them look at you like that, I just—"
He trails off.
Not for the first time, something ugly and visceral within Viktor’s chest rears its head at the first half of Jayce’s words.
It is a renewed seething against the Kiramman’s. At anyone who would dare to make sweet Jayce feel anything less than the wonder who stands before him.
It is…protectiveness. Fierce. Raw.
Viktor realizes this. And files it away.
For now, he carefully leans his cane against the railing and steps closer to his partner, hesitant, unsure whether to give a comforting touch.
Jayce lifts his gaze, and Viktor is met with the purest hazel gold—anguished, soft, open, honeysweet. “They have no idea what you mean to me.”
Viktor blinks, stunned.
He wants to speak, he wants to reply. He opens his mouth, but the words lodge in his throat, and he tries for the longest moment to say something, anything.
But the words do not come.
Viktor remains woefully frozen in his inaction, and the moment passes.
Jayce clears his throat.
“This is going to sound crazy but…could I ask you something, V?”
Now Viktor’s voice works again, accursed thing.
“Anything,” he says. Perhaps a little too quickly.
“Would you…tell me something about yourself…? Something about your childhood. What you had for breakfast. Anything you want, really.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I know it’s a weird request, and you can say no if you want! I just…” He clears his throat again. “…I really like the sound of your voice.”
Viktor’s thick brows nearly shoot upwards off his forehead. “You do?”
“Well, yeah! It’s, uh, familiar… Comforting. …You know.”
Viktor isn’t sure he knows, but because Viktor can never say no to Jayce when he looks at him with those large eyes and his voice comes out all soft and shy like that…
He ponders. And spots a decorative vase of bright purple flowers out of the corner of his eye.
Through the pang of a painful memory, Viktor begins.
~*~*~*~
“I assume you are familiar with waveriders, commonly known as ocean creatures? …I actually encountered one, down in Zaun.
Jayce’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “You did?! You’re kidding.”
Viktor nods. “An extremely rare freshwater variant. A sort of pink color, almost translucent. With the largest, shiniest, sweetest purple eyes you’ve ever seen on that side of the bridge.”
He smiles, wistful.
“I mostly kept to myself, while I grew up. There were simply far too many projects to keep track of and finish, and so little time.
“By chance I found someone who became my mentor for a short while. He closely nurtured my interests, shared with me his own methods of problem-solving, experimentation, building… And it was under his tutelage that I met her…the waverider Rio. One of the few friends I had growing up.
“I fed her flowers that look very much like that—” Viktor gestures toward the nearby vase of purple flowers— “and from that day…for a short while, I remember feeling truly happy. I learned so much from my mentor, and he assisted me with troubleshooting all sorts of issues across all of my projects, big and small. And I helped care for Rio. I fed her, I bathed her, I played with her.
“Many times, when my mentor was occupied with a project of his own, I would study and tinker by myself in his workshop, and she would lumber over and sit next to me and watch. And if I ever needed to figure out an issue with a project by discussing it aloud…she made a very good, eh, rubber duck, so to speak.”
Viktor laughs. “Did you know that when they’re really, really happy…waveriders purr, as well? Just like cats.”
Jayce is turned towards him fully now, eyes alight with what Viktor can only describe as—can only dare to hope is—contentment…perhaps even adoration…at simply listening to the sound of his voice.
“Sometimes I grew so invested in a project, that I would fall asleep right there in my mentor’s workshop, leaning on Rio. And no, I promise you she was not slimy. Or wet. Or cold,” he laughs when Jayce cocks his head a little, looking unsure. “She was simply—very smooth. Warm. Comforting.
“It was a very happy, idyllic time. Uniquely so…like no other.”
Jayce looks at him in silence. Brow furrowed. “What happened to her?” he asks, a note of dread there.
The smile fades from Viktor’s face. “She became…very sick,” he says slowly.
“In hindsight, my mentor did tell me she was dying…and I suppose my caretaking duties gradually increased overtime, somehow without my noticing. Until one day I showed up on schedule, thinking it would be like any other afternoon. Only to find her illness took an utterly drastic turn for the worse.”
It is a half-truth. Even years later, he closes his eyes against the rapidfire flash of images—the tubes driven into her body. The glowing purple-blue webbing across her skin. The oil-slick tears running from large hazel eyes turned violet, clouded over. Her guttural sounds of pain…so much pain…
“Rio returned fully under the care of my old mentor,” Viktor says at last. “And shortly after, he and I ultimately parted ways…on less than ideal terms. I have not seen her since.”
Above, the lone few stars twinkle on and on.
Do they shine, Viktor wonders, shine down on Rio’s empty, glassy, half-closed eyes, within the depths of her suspension chamber, down there in Singed’s lab?
Or is she one of them now—one of the stars—free at last from injections and cold, clinical hands, and suffering, so much suffering…where her only worry is the Piltovan light pollution?
The silence stretches, and stretches…
Only to be broken by a lone sniffle.
Startled, Viktor looks back to see Jayce’s eyes have filled with tears.
“It was a long time ago,” he tries to reassure the taller man. And this time, without thinking, because he knows Jayce and that this is the type of language he is most responsive to (and not his love language, because Viktor would certainly know nothing about that, thank you), he places a hand gently on Jayce’s arm.
“Jayce, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have picked something so sad to tell you about—”
“There’s no need to be sorry, Viktor,” says Jayce, even as tears start to fall down his face. “Don’t ever be sorry about something like that. I wanted to hear it. And you indulged me.
“I just…she was your friend? Your close friend…and she was just…taken from you like that…” Jayce sniffles again, loudly. And then, in the sort of way that only Jayce can, without a single note of pity, he tells Viktor, “I’m sorry.”
Before he knows it, Viktor is enveloped in a familiar, all-encompassing embrace. He stands frozen within that warmth even as tears begin to drip on his shoulder.
Slowly, slowly now. Gently. He shifts his arms to return the gesture. And he stays there in that balmy starry night, arms warm and full of Jayce.