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Chapter Text

When Jayce was first beginning his serious, academy level hextech research, he had to go to the undercity a few times. Usually it was for illegal equipment he couldn’t get anywhere topside, but sometimes… well, once he had come down looking for something else. 

Once or twice, he had heard some of the upperclassmen talking about places down here you could go for…other reasons, bragging about all the brothels and “undercity whorehouses” they had been to. He knows that half of it was probably bullshit, but also that the other half would have to be true. So, with a few vague directions from one of them, he had ventured down and wandered around a little until he found what he was looking for, dark red neon lighting up the sign. The Full Moon was the most popular brothel of the upper levels, particularly the entresol level, of the undercity. 

His experience had, frankly, blown his mind, and he’s been making embarrassingly regular trips ever since. That had been the first time he met Viktor. 

Viktor was, frankly, the first sex worker Jayce had ever talked to. Or at least the first he had a real conversation and interaction with. He had seen a few down here before, but never exactly stopped to chat. 

Viktor had been nothing like he would have expected. He was, of course, great at his job. He didn’t let his leg or his health stop him. More than that, he was funny, and shockingly smart. Not to say that prostitutes couldn’t be smart, of course—but he hasn’t exactly expected Viktor to listen to his ramblings, look at his notes and correct his math for him, or later make the suggestion that finally got the crystal to stabilize, essentially making Jayce’s hextech dream a reality.

Everything spiraled quickly from there—not quickly enough, Jayce sometimes thought, not with the way none of his assistants could keep up with him and he was forced to wait until he made his usual trip to the undercity to ask Viktor his opinion on an equation or experiment or problem he was having.

Now, six years later, he has inexplicably somehow stumbled his way into Mel Medarda’s good graces and subsequently into a seat on the council. As a councilor. 

Life truly is unpredictable. 

Needless to say, the amount of stress and bullshit in his life has risen to unprecedented levels. To escape it all, Jayce decides on a whim to once again make the trip down to visit Viktor, despite the fact that he was just there a few short weeks ago.

Jayce doesn’t usually indulge this often, but again, his life has been getting more and more chaotic lately. More and more stressful. As he moves higher and higher up in the world, he’s not really able to channel that stress in a helpful way. He mostly just has to grin and fucking bare it. Down here, though, he doesn’t have to be the perfect Councilor Talis. Down here, he’s still the same academy student that stumbled his way in all those years ago, looking for a good time and also some material for his experiments. 

Coming to see Viktor is like coming home, almost, if home were a run down brothel where everyone pretends like they don’t know who he is. They’re paid for their discretion, of course, but Jayce likes the false anonymity all the same. 

“Talis,” the man at the door greets him jovially, like an old friend, and if Jayce tries hard enough he can pretend not to see the scorn in the man’s eyes. “Here for Viktor again, I assume?”

Jayce shrugs good-naturedly, “What can I say? I live a stressful life.”

“Well, this place is great for stress relief. You want the usual?”

Jayce nods. The usual, for Jayce, means booking a room (and Viktor) for the whole night. He knows they overcharge him for it, but at this point, it’s not like his pockets are hurting from it. If anything, he knows they wish they could charge him more now that he has the cash for it. 

“Your usual room is open. Viktor’s busy at the moment, but he should be done soon. I’ll let him know you’re here to see him.”

The idea of Viktor being busy sends a small spark of jealousy, of possessiveness, through his chest, which he quickly pushes down. It’s unfair and unwarranted, he knows, and it’s just Viktor’s job, but thinking about the other people he…spends time with makes him think about how he’s not any different than them, not really. That when Viktor is with him, he’s just doing a job like all the rest. He pushes this thought aside, too, pays the usual fee, and heads to the usual room.

It’s a little thing, not particularly well furnished or fancy, but he knows it’s one of the nicer rooms in the place. He has to pay extra for it, but it has a relatively comfortable mattress, clean sheets and even a nice little rug on the ground under the chair in the corner. He shrugs his jacket off, drapes it over the back of the chair, and settles onto the bed. He always feels a little awkward, waiting in the quiet room by himself. Never quite knows what to do with himself. 

The first time he was here, green academy virgin that he was, he had sat ramrod straight on the chair and fidgeted the whole wait. As the minutes had stretched on, he had almost changed his mind, almost been ready to get up and demand his money back and leave, go find some respectful academy girl or maybe a boy who would be down for a quick nighttime tryst like his roommate often had. 

Before he could work up the nerve to leave, though, the door had clicked open, and Viktor had walked in. His mouth had run dry almost immediately, and he had somehow sat up even straighter than he already was, freezing as the door clicked shut behind him. 

He had been gorgeous, hair ruffled and lips lightly painted. His shirt had hung off of one delicate shoulder, purposefully enticing, and his shorts had been so tiny it more than bordered on indecent. The cane had thrown him off a little, but Viktor had acted like it was the most natural thing in the world, so it was quickly forgotten.

“Hello there,” he had said, and the accent had been pleasantly surprising, too; voice soft despite the rough way it curled around the words. Jayce had been instantly intrigued. 

“Hi,” he had stuttered out nervously. Viktor had smiled, an amused little thing. It wasn’t mocking, though, so it hasn’t made Jayce bristle—just flush, which had made Viktor smile a little wider, tilting his head like he was examining him.

“I’m Viktor,” he said softly. “What is your name?”

“Jayce,” Jayce had blurted before he could even consider using a fake name. 

“Jayce,” Viktor had repeated, like he was testing the name. “It’s nice to meet you, Jayce. How would you like to do this?”

That had made Jayce stutter even more, but Viktor had been shockingly nice about the whole thing. He had coaxed him onto the bed, talked him through the various options he had, made sure he was comfortable and assured him they could stop at any time.

Then, he had proceeded to blow Jayce’s mind and change his whole fucking life. 

Now, he doesn’t fidget or think about leaving. He makes himself comfortable on the bed, propped up against the headboard, and waits. 

After about ten minutes, the door clicks open, and Viktor walks in. He’s just as gorgeous as he was the first time. His hair is sex-mussed, lips bitten bright red. It should probably upset him, the fact that Viktor is so obviously freshly fucked, but instead it just makes his mouth go dry the same way it had the first time. 

His shirt is practically sheer this time, rumpled like he put it on in a hurry. He can see the tight corset that he always wears, doubling as a back brace but no less erotic because of that. He’s wearing a skirt, too, tight around his tiny waist and barely brushing the top of his thighs, which is insanely unfair. His mouth quirks into an almost bashful smile when he sees Jayce waiting on the bed.

“Hello there,” he says, voice deeper than it was the first time, but no less soft. 

“Hi,” Jayce says, sitting up and smiling back.

“I hope you weren’t waiting too long,” he says, the door clicking shut behind him. 

“It was only a few minutes,” he waves off. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Still,” Viktor says, walking the short distance to the bed, still managing to seem graceful despite the cane and leg brace he’s recently started to wear. “Let me make it up to you.”

He carefully props his cane up against the wall next to the bed and starts to climb onto it. Jayce meets him halfway, like he always does, gripping his tiny waist and helping him ease up onto the mattress and into Jayce’s lap. Viktor settles there easily, like he always does, wrapping his legs around Jayce’s waist instead of straddling him so that he doesn't have to put weight on his bad leg. He’s flush against him, warm and solid and so familiar it makes Jayce’s chest pang.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he says against his better judgement, because it comes out too honest and genuine instead of sounding like pillow talk. Viktor, for his part, only freezes for a second before he’s running his hands up Jayce’s chest and the slope of his shoulders, settling at the base of his neck. 

“Yeah?” He asks, lightly teasing. “Is your new job really that boring?”

“Ugh,” Jayce groans at the reminder of the shitty, stressful new councilor position he’s unwittingly found himself in. “It’s fucking tedious. I feel like I’m suffocating, honestly.”

“Aw,” Viktor coos, “Poor baby. Would you like me to help you relax?”

Instead of bristling at the half-mocking tone of his voice, Jayce melts back against the headboard. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I would. You always know exactly what I need.”

Viktor huffs a laugh. “It is my specialty. And you’re not very hard to please.”

“Really?” Jayce often enjoys their light banter, both before and after the sex. He likes Viktor’s wry sense of humor, the soft spoken bite to his jabs. He’s funny, and interesting, even if Jayce still doesn’t know much about his personal life after all these years. “And what exactly does that mean?”

Viktor shrugs, “It’s not a bad thing. It makes things much easier for me,” he shifts against him, leaning in nearly close enough to kiss him. “You just need some nice words and a good fuck—both of which I excel at.”

“I don’t know about the first one,” Jayce says, even though Viktor is in fact very good at giving flowery praise when he feels like it, “You can be pretty mean to me sometimes.”

“Only when you want me to,” Viktor gives a lopsided grin, that suggestive raise of his eyebrows that used to make Jayce flush back when this was all new to him. “Would you like me to be mean to you tonight, Jayce?”

“Hm,” Jayce considers, letting his hand slide up Viktor’s back before he grips the thick hair at the base of Viktor’s neck, tilting his head back. Viktor lets him, keeping his eyes trained on him. “I’ve had a very stressful day, V; I don’t know if I can take you being mean to me on top of that.”

“Ah, I see. I guess I’ll be good for you, this time, but only if you’ll be good for me, too.”

“I will,” Jayce says immediately, dropping the banter and letting go of Viktor’s hair to cup his cheek instead. “I’ll be so good for you; I’ll be so good to you.” 

Viktor toys with the hair on the back of Jayce’s head, nails scratching lightly, just enough to make him shiver. 

“I know you will,” he says soothingly, “You always are. How would you like me?”

“Can I eat you out?” He asks, embarrassingly eager. He doesn’t do it often, but he’s found that he really enjoys it. Viktor was his first for that, too, of course, taught him how to actually make it good. He made Viktor cry, once, bringing him off over and over again with his fingers and his mouth until Viktor was sobbing, trembling with oversensitivity and pushing weakly at his shoulder to get him to stop. 

He doesn’t think he has the patience for a repeat performance tonight, but he’s been thinking about Viktor’s sweet hole all week, ever since he decided he would visit today. He wants to make Viktor cum at least once before he fucks him. He deserves it, with how well he always treats Jayce. 

Viktor inhales sharply at the proposal, eyes darkening with arousal. It makes Jayce shiver again, the way he does whenever Viktor looks at him like that. 

“You don’t have to,” he starts unconvincingly.

“I want to. Please, sweetheart, I wanna taste you so bad. It’s been forever.”

Viktor scoffs, “You were just down here a few weeks ago.”

“I could only stay a few hours,” he whines, “I barely had time to fuck you.”

“That’s not my problem. But fine. If that’s what you want.”

Jayce doesn’t waste anymore time, lifting Viktor up and off of him and turning to lie him down carefully. He makes sure his neck is supported by a pillow and his bad leg is propped up comfortably. Viktor rolls his eyes about it, but Jayce knows he appreciates it at least a little. He’s made comments before about how ridiculous Jayce is, and how Viktor’s comfort isn’t the priority here. It always makes his blood run hot, thinking about Viktor’s other clients treating him poorly, but he never voices these thoughts. The one time he had, Viktor had almost kicked him out—if Jayce hadn’t already paid, he might have actually done it. 

So he does his best to make sure Viktor is comfortable, and Viktor lets him. He doesn’t know if he just humors him because that’s what he’s supposed to do, because Jayce is paying him to do what he wants, and he doesn’t ask.

“Do you want me to take the skirt off?” Viktor asks. 

“No,” Jayce says, embarrassingly quick, “Keep it on.”

Viktor raises an amused eyebrow at him, but doesn’t disagree. Just lets his legs fall open, lets Jayce push them open further and slide between them. He lets Jayce curl his hands around his thighs, hooking under his knees to hold his legs open.

He gasps as Jayce presses hot kisses to his skin, unable to make himself take his time. Viktor is so warm and he’s already damp through the thin fabric of his underwear, enough that Jayce can see it. Gingerly, he lifts the hem of Viktor’s little skirt to see more of it. It makes him groan against Viktor’s thigh, makes him flip the skirt up so he can reach better and press his mouth between his legs. 

Viktor lets out a soft sound, already tilting his hips up. Jayce presses one hand against his stomach, up and under Viktor’s shirt, and holds him down against the mattress. Viktor whimpers, and Jayce can taste him through his little panties. Wet just for him, mewling just for him, and Jayce abandons his patience altogether. 

He considers whether he should leave them on or take them off. He decides he can get rid of them later, and pulls the fabric to the side so he can get his mouth on him directly. 

“Oh,” Viktor gasps, breathy and high. 

Jayce can feel Viktor’s cock, hard and swollen against his nose. He dips his tongue into his hole and licks into him, prying Viktor’s thighs open, and eats his second dinner of the night. 

At this point, he knows what Viktor likes. He knows how to hold him open and fuck him with his tongue, when to suck his cock, when to let his thumb jerk against it as he fingers him open. Viktor moves against him as best as he can under Jayce’s heavy hands, grinding into each flick of his tongue or fingers in little aborted movements. 

“Jayce,” he gasps, fingers threaded tight in Jayce’s hair, “Oh, oh, fuck—taught you so well, huh? You’re so good for me, love.”

Jayce groans against him, crooking his fingers and sucking hard. Viktor gasps a broken moan, loud and stuttering; he tenses beneath him, thighs flexing around Jayce’s head, and then wetness floods Jayce’s mouth. He licks it up eagerly, until Viktor is pulling him off by his hair. 

He uses the grip on Jayce’s hair to yank him up and over him so he can hook an arm around his shoulder and pull him down into a kiss. Jayce licks into his mouth the same way he licked into his hole, and Viktor groans. 

“You did teach me well,” Jayce agrees. “Let me show you how well.”

“You just did,” Viktor laughs breathlessly. “But go ahead—fuck me, councilor.”

“Jayce,” he says, even as he thinks that the title in Viktor’s mouth sounds better than it ever has. “Please.”

Viktor’s face softens, and he’s gorgeously flushed, small strands of hair sticking to his forehead. 

“Jayce,” he says, almost lovingly, and fuck but Jayce wishes so badly that it was real, that Viktor really did mean it like that, “Fuck me.”

Jayce fucks him. He’s hot and tight around him, soft and so fucking wet. Like this, with Viktor on his back and Jayce’s cock inside him, they’re back on Vitkor’s turf. He never seems to know what to do with himself when Jayce eats him out, but he knows exactly what to do when he’s being fucked.

He hooks his good leg around Jayce’s waist and presses his heel against his back to pull him even closer. He throws his head back, exposing the delicate slope of his neck, flushed all the way down to his chest, his shirt pushed up above his corset. 

It’s fucking breathtaking. It’s achingly practiced. Jayce buys into it anyways, because how could he not? Viktor is small and soft and sprawling beneath him, the sharp jut of his hips and his ribs and his gasping chest, and he’s so pretty and he looks so tired and he looks like he’s feeling good—like, actually feeling good, not the slightly over-the-top way he had faked his orgasm a few times back when Jayce couldn’t tell the difference. Jayce buys into the whole fucking thing. 

“God, you’re so…” Jayce groans, unable to articulate what exactly Vitkor is. Fucking incredible. Fucking tight. The best he’s ever had. 

“What, wet? Tight? I’m told quite a lot that I’m both.”

The mention of his other clients, even as small as it is, almost makes Jayce growl. He digs his teeth into the crook of Vitkor’s neck and fucks in deeper.

“No marks,” Viktor reminds him, slapping at his shoulder. 

Jayce huffs, but stops himself from sucking a bruise into his skin like he wishes he could. He can’t, because Viktor has other clients. Viktor isn’t his, not really. 

“C’mon,” he whines, too fucking turned on to be embarrassed about it. “Wanna mark you up, baby. Wanna make you mine.”

“I am yours,” Vitkor breathes, but Jayce knows it’s a lie. Vitkor is his for the night, but only for the night, and only because Jayce pays him for it.

“You’re not—but you could be. I want you to be.”

It’s a topic he’s never able to bring up, not really. He tried a few times, back at the beginning, when he was naive and sheltered; Viktor always shot him down, shut down the conversation. But right now, pressed into the mattress, he can’t run away from it. 

“Jayce,” he still tries to warn, but the bite is kind of softened by how breathy his voice sounds.

“You could be mine,” he says again, directly against Viktor’s ear. “I could take you with me. I’d treat you so good. I’d take you out somewhere fancy, anywhere you wanna go.”

Inexplicably—maybe because Jayce has paid him for it—Viktor apparently decides to go along with it. 

“Walking around down with an undercity whore on your arm?” He asks, somehow still managing to sound bemused as he’s being fucked into the sheets, “What would all of your piltie friends say? What would the other councilors think?”

“Fuck what they think—they’d probably just be jealous.”

“Of me?”

“Of me . You’re so—god, you’re better than all of them. You’d blow all their minds, Viktor.”

Vitkor huffs a laugh, “Like I blow yours?”

“No,” Jayce does kind of growl this time, gripping Viktor’s tiny waist tight in his hands. “None of them would get to have you—they wouldn’t deserve you.” 

“Do you deserve me, Councilor Talis? Jayce?” 

“Don’t I?” Jayce asks desperately, “Haven’t I been good?”

“Of course, лучик,” Viktor soothes, fingers threading through Jayce’s hair. “ So fucking good. You deserve anything you want from me.”

“I want you,” Jayce groans, “I just want you , baby.”

“You have me,” Viktor mewls, and Jayce knows it’s a lie but he wants so badly to believe it. 

Jayce lets out a broken moan. “I’d be so good to you. You could do whatever you want—you could take classes, if you wanted, y-you could come to the lab—you’d blow all their minds, Vik. I’d take you to all the stupid parties I have to go to, and they’d all be so fucking jealous of me but they wouldn’t get to touch you.”

“They’d be jealous of me,” Viktor argues, “They’d all hate me for stealing Piltover’s ‘most eligible bachelor.’ A sumprat whore—fuck, they’d despise me.”

“You’d show them,” Jayce counters, refusing to let Viktor speaks badly about himself, “You’re so fucking smart, so fucking hot—they wouldn’t know how to handle you.”

Viktor tilts his head up to kiss him like he’s trying to shut him up. It makes Jayce laugh into it, overcome with a feeling of fondness. 

“I’d,” Jayce gasps into Viktor’s mouth, “I’d give you anything, V. Everything you want. You’d sleep good every night and have as much sweetmilk as you want and I’d eat you out every day—“

Viktor lets out a surprised laugh at that, which makes Jayce giggle helplessly into Viktor’s shoulder, feeling drunk on arousal and his own pathetic hero fantasy. 

“Every day? That’s quite a commitment.”

“Every day,” Jayce insists, “As many times as you want. You could help me with my w-work and I could fuck you in the lab—“

“Oddly specific kink.”

“And everyone would be so fucking jealous of me, because you’re incredible, and you’d be mine. All mine.”

“All yours,” Viktor says indulgently, eyes fluttering shut. “Would you—would you take me to the beach, maybe? To see the ocean?”

“Yes,” Jayce grasps onto the idea like a dying man because it’s something Viktor wants and he just wants to make him happy, “We could—get a summer house there, maybe. The air would be good for you, and we could stay as long as you wanted.”

“Hmm,” Viktor hums, arching you against him even as it must make his back ache, “That would be nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. I don’t know how to swim, though.”

“I could teach you.”

“You would look very good in a, ah, bathing suit? Nice and shirtless.”

“So would you.”

“Please,” Viktor scoffs, and then, “Maybe I’d let you fuck me on the beach.”

“What, in front of everyone?” Jayce asks, half scandalized even as the idea makes his cock twitch, makes his hips jerk. 

“Aren’t private beaches a thing? Are you saying you aren’t rich enough to buy us our own part of the beach?”

It’s half-mocking, and Jayce knows he’s not serious, but he can’t help himself. “I am,” he brags, “if that’s what you want, I’d do it.”

Viktor smiles up at him, eyebrows tilted in disbelief. “You and your fucking piltie ego. What I want is for you to fuck me hard, and make me cum. Again.”

It’s a semi-polite way of telling Jayce to shut the hell up and get on with it. Jayce doesn’t push, because he thinks he’s pushed enough for one night and doesn’t actually want to upset him. 

Instead, he fucks Viktor hard, and reaches down between his legs to help him cum. Again.

He flutters beautifully around Jayce’s cock when he tips over the edge a second time, and it doesn’t take much before Jayce follows suit, panting harshly into Viktor’s neck. 

He does his best to collapse next to Viktor instead of on top of him, both of them groaning as Jayce slides out of him. 

They lie there for a moment, both of them catching their breath. Vitkor is unusually quiet next to him, staring up at the ceiling vacantly, like he’s thinking very hard or maybe thinking about nothing at all. Despite himself, he presses. 

“I mean it, you know.”

“Hm?” Vitkor says absently, but Jayce knows he’s listening. 

“I’d take you with me, if you wanted me to. You could come with me. You could—you could be mine. Just mine. You wouldn’t have to do…this with anyone else. 

Something in Viktor’s expression crumples, and Jayce can’t tell if it’s disappointment or sadness or both. His stomach sinks.

“I don’t… if I could… leave, I don’t think I’d want to be anyone’s. Not even yours. I would just…I think I would just want to be my own.”

He says it hesitantly, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. Like he thinks Jayce might get mad about it. His stomach sinks further as he thinks about how shitty what he said could sound—he doesn’t want Viktor to think he’s just an object to him, just something to own. He’s more than that; of course he’s more than that. 

“Then you wouldn't have to be,” he says softly, willing Viktor to believe him. “You wouldn’t have to be anyone’s. Not even mine.”

Viktor takes a long, deep breath, eyes fluttering shut. “That’s a very nice thing to offer, Jayce. But it’s a bit cruel, as well.”

“Cruel?”

Viktor gives a small, wry smile, and doesn’t open his eyes. 

“We both know it cannot happen, councilor . So it’s a bit cruel to make me play pretend like it can.” 

“Viktor…” Jayce starts. “I’m serious.”

“You’re not.” 

“I am.”

“You’re not ,” Vitkor repeats sharply, finally opening his eyes and pushing himself up. Jayce sits up with him. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”

“Of course I do. You really could come with me; I’d make sure you were taken care of—“

“I don’t need you to save me, Jayce,” Viktor interrupts, sounding more upset than Jayce had ever heard him. “I am not some helpless victim, trapped here. I don’t need your-your pity, I don’t want it.”

“It’s not pity , Viktor,” Jayce says, suddenly a little upset himself. After all these years, he would have thought Vitkor would know him better than that. “I just want to help.”

“I don’t need your help .”

“But you need my money?” Jayce says carelessly, and immediately regrets it when hurt flashes across Viktor’s face before it hardens. 

“In case you’ve forgotten how this works, you are the one who comes to me for this. I don’t need anything from you.”

He crosses his arms and looks away. Guilt sinks in Jayce’s stomach like a stone, and he sighs. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Stubbornly, Viktor stays silent. 

“I’m sorry,” Jayce repeats, “I won’t bring it up again, if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Viktor lets out a sigh of his own, deflating. “I know. You and your piltie savior complex.”

“I don’t have a savior complex,” Jayce argues weakly. Viktor very generously does not argue back. 

For a moment, Viktor just stares at him. He looks tired, and kind of sad. Mostly, he looks small—and pretty, despite it all. 

Then, he cracks a small smile. Jayce, for the life of him, can’t tell if it’s real or not. All of the sudden he feels incredibly scummy, even more so than he had the first time. Making Viktor listen to him go on about how shitty his new job is while the man is literally at work. Forcing his own wants and needs onto him. 

For all the time they’ve spent together, he really doesn’t know very much about Viktor’s personal life. For all he knows, he could be doing great outside of work. He could have a family, a social life, maybe even a romantic partner (the thought of which makes Jayce feel a complicated pit of jealousy and longing that he does not want to unpack). Who says Viktor would even want to come with him? 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, but Viktor shakes his head, waving him off.

“It’s okay,” he says, and it’s suddenly like nothing happened at all. He leans forward to rub at Jayce’s shoulder again. “You have the rest of the night to make it up to me. Or are you already tired?”

Jayce knows he’s trying to change the subject and move on, but he can’t help the way his cock tries to perk up at the challenge; the flush of Viktor’s cheeks, the skirt still bunched up around his waist, his sticky thighs.

“Of course not,” he says, letting himself fall back into their usual routine, forcing the uncomfortable tension out of the room. “Are you?”

He is, probably, if Jayce focuses on the bags under his eyes. Viktor always looks a little tired, though, and his eyes seem to brighten at the challenge Jayce fires right back. 

“Of course not,” he echoes. “Should I prove it?”

He slides both of his hands up Jayce’s thighs, quirking his eyebrows suggestively. 

And really, Jayce thinks, with Viktor’s kiss-bruised lips and his long fingers, how could he refuse?

Chapter Text

Despite his best attempts at self-control and moderation, Jayce finds himself making the trip again not even two weeks later. The man at the door looks surprised to see him.

“Talis,” he says, “You’re back early.” 

Jayce clears his throat uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. You know.” 

The look on the man’s face says that he does not know—but, as always, he doesn’t voice his thoughts. Jayce wonders, fleetingly, what the guy must think of him; what everyone here must think of him. 

“Well, you’ll have to wait a minute. Vik wasn’t expecting you today.” 

Jayce’s brain does not catch on the nickname, thanks, as he pays quickly. He turns to head up the stairs to his usual room, but the doorman says, “You’ll have to wait a minute for the room, too. You’re not our most important client, y’know.”

Jayce feels oddly embarrassed, and then feels stupid for feeling embarrassed. “Right. Of course.”

They lapse into a strangely tense silence. There isn’t exactly a waiting room in this place, and the doorman has never been very welcoming to begin with. 

The minutes tick by excruciatingly, until there are footsteps coming from the stairway, and both Jayce and the doorman straighten up at the sound. Jayce turns to glance at whoever is leaving, expecting to see another regular, or maybe some undercity rando. He does not expect to see someone he recognizes. Silco, he quickly places—the industrialist.

He has spoken to Silco exactly once before, at some charity event “for the undercity” that was mostly just a way for the council to seem supportive while offering no real support. They hadn’t exactly hit it off. Cait was also fairly certain he was involved in the whole shimmer problem that had recently gotten worse down here, but she didn’t have any proof yet. 

Fuck, he thinks, as the man’s eyes light up in recognition, eyebrows rising in surprise. 

“Councilor Talis,” he says, sounding shocked and almost gleeful to see him. “Whatever could you be doing here of all places?”

Jayce takes a breath, pretending very hard that his face isn’t flushing like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar—as if being caught in a brothel by a man who he’s pretty sure is heavily involved in drug trafficking somehow makes the drug dealer morally superior.  

He swallows, tilting his chin up. “The same thing you are, I suppose.”

“Looking for a quick fuck from someone you consider beneath you? I assure you, I’m here for no such thing.”

Before Jayce can even think about what to say to the harsh jab, the man who guards the door snorts.

“He’s here for Viktor,” he says, the scorn Jayce always sees in his eyes reflected in his voice. Silco quirks an eyebrow. 

“Viktor? I see.” His thin lips curl into a strange, smug smile, “I’m afraid I’ve just worn him out quite a bit.”

Jayce can’t help the shock from showing on his face. “You…?”

His reaction seems to spur the man on, his weird little smile stretching wider. “He’s quite a gem, that one. Pretty and smart; that’s a combination you don’t get very often. Tightest hole in the undercity, too,” he says pleasantly, casually, like he’s discussing the weather, “Maybe all of Piltover, though I suppose I’ll never know. What do you think, councilor?”

Jayce doesn’t deign to respond to the vulgar question, pushing down the hot spike of protectiveness in his chest. “I think that your business is your business. And that mine business is mine.”

The curt response only seems to make Silco more amused. Jayce has the distinct feeling that he just failed some kind of test. As someone who excelled in school, he does not really like that feeling. 

“Of course. I’ll be sure to do you the favor of not making your business the business of your colleagues. We don’t want the newest council member to have a scandal this early into his career, now do we?”

Jayce has never been good at all the politics shit. Sure, he could bullshit his way through painful conversations with the elite, but he’s never been good at lying. Mel always tells him he needs to stop wearing his heart on his sleeve so obviously. 

He didn’t plan to be threatened by an undercity kingpin today, so he isn’t exactly prepared to threaten him back. Besides, he thinks, no matter how well he pays them, no one here would take Jayce’s side, and he doesn’t want to make himself a target.

“I appreciate it,” he finally says, deciding to go with as neutral an answer as he can. 

“Of course,” Silco gives him another quick up and down, and then visibly dismisses him. “Enjoy your time with Viktor; don’t be too rough on him.”

And then he is gone, strutting out the door like he owns the place. Maybe he does, Jayce thinks faintly. How the fuck would he know what the man spends his money on?

The man at the door—and shouldn’t Jayce know his name by now? he wonders absently—gives him a quick once over of his own and looks away with a huff of amusement. Jayce clutches his fists, turns, and marches up the stairs before he can do something he’ll regret. He wants to see Viktor more than he wants to tell the doorman off. 

When he gets to his usual room, Viktor is already there, but not in his usual state. The door swings open, and he looks up in surprise from where he’s sprawled out on the bed at the same time Jayce stops in his tracks. 

When Silco said he had just worn him out, he really meant just worn him on. Like, very recently. Maybe, he thinks faintly, this is why he was told to wait downstairs until the room (and Viktor) were ready. 

The first thing he realizes is that Silco got Jayce’s usual room—the nicest room in the place, which makes sense, considering his status and the cash he probably has to go along with it.

The second thing he realizes he that Silco just fucked Viktor in this room—right on the same mattress, the same sheets—and that Viktor hasn’t had the chance to clean up yet.

They stare at each other for a moment, Jayce shocked and Viktor surprised. Then, Viktor swallows. He sits up. 

“Have you never heard of knocking?” 

“S-sorry,” Jayce stutters like the nervous academy boy he was seven years ago. He’s not sure if he should, like, leave or not. 

He can’t help his eyes from darting down Viktor’s half naked body. He’s wearing a ruffled red button up—unbuttoned, of course, hanging off of one shoulder and exposing his usual corset—and only a red button up. There are near-sheer black tights that he recognizes lying on the floor, along with an off white vest he does not recognize. Mostly. The color scheme is oddly reminiscent of the Piltover academy uniform. Which is—weird, considering who was just in here, and something he does not want to consider. 

Viktor crosses his legs and tugs the shirt back up his shoulders. He does the first few buttons up and crosses his arms. 

“Give me ten minutes,” he says, his tone clipped and professional. “I need to clean up; you can wait here:”

“No,” Jayce says unthinkingly.

Viktor blinks at him, “No?”

“No,” he repeats, shrugging his jacket off and crossing the room in a few quick strides. Viktor tilts his chin up to look at him, but doesn’t otherwise move, folded up on the mattress in a way that makes him look even smaller than usual. “Don’t go.”

“Jayce,” Viktor starts, exasperated. “I need to wash. I’m still—“ he cuts himself off, almost self-consciously.

Still dirty, maybe. Still bright with that post-sex glow. Still sticky with another man’s cum, freshly fucked and probably still wet between his thighs. 

It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, considering Jayce’s terrible track record with jealousy and any kind of competition. Logically, he should want Viktor to go wash up like he always does and come back to him clean, a blank slate for Jayce to project his desire onto, to dirty up as he pleases. He never likes thinking about Viktor’s other clients; the idea of getting their sloppy seconds should make him shudder.

And it does. But not in as much disgust as it should. 

“Let me see,” he breathes before he can stop himself.

Viktor finally moves, jerking back in surprise. 

“What?” He asks sharply, and he almost sounds offended. Scandalized, as if he hasn’t said filthier shit every single night he’s spent with Jayce.

“Let me see,” Jayce repeats, lowering himself slowly onto the bed. 

“Jayce,” his voice trembles, just a bit; he sounds embarrassed, and Viktor has never once sounded embarrassed. It makes Jayce’s blood roar in his ears. “Just let me go clean up. I’ll be quick.” 

“Viktor,” he says; Viktor’s gaze snaps up at the sound of his name. Jayce leans forwards, arms on either side of Viktor’s folded legs, bracketing him in. “I wanna see if he fucked you right. Open your legs.”

Viktor shudders, full body, and glaces away. 

“Jayce,” it’s dangerously close to a whine, something like shame coloring his tone. He’s flushed bright pink. It makes Jayce want to bite him. It makes him wanna swallow him whole.

Jayce grips Viktor’s waist in both hands and promptly tugs him towards the edge of the bed as he slides off of the mattress, sinking to his knees on the floor. Viktor squeaks in surprise, scrambling to steady himself, and Jayce takes the opportunity to hook his hands under Viktor’s knees and pull his legs apart. 

Viktor seems to give up on arguing, leaning back on one hand and bringing the other one up to cover his face. Jayce’s ego soars—he’s never been able to affect Viktor like this. Viktor, who’s always so composed and put together even in the heat of a good fuck. 

He was right—Viktor is still wet, flushed red and soaking. Well and thoroughly fucked, the way he usually is after Jayce is through with him. His thighs are damp. Silco, evidently, did not use a condom. 

“Fuck,” Jayce breathes. Viktor exhales shakily. “Look at that. Was he good?”

“Jayce,” it’s a warning, one that Jayce ignores.

“He told me he wore you out.”

“He—what? You talked to—?”

“Silco,” Jayce finishes for him, “Yeah. He seemed very proud of himself. You let him cum inside you?”

“I -I didn’t—he—“

Viktor tries to pull back, but Jayce doesn’t let him, tightening his grip. He runs one of his hands up Viktor’s thigh; his fingers come away damp. 

“Did you like it?”

“Jayce, come on—“

“It’s just a question, V. You seem to like when I do it.”

“Y-you're not special, Talis,” he says, trying to put his usual bite into it. For once, Jayce can see the attempt for what it is. 

“You let all of your clients cum inside you?”

“Only if they pay extra,” Viktor practically snarls. 

“Yeah? How much did he tip for it?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“How much should I tip for it, then?”

Viktor huffs a shaky laugh, “You always do it anyways; you don’t even ask.”

This is true. In his defense, the first time that Jayce had worked up the nerve to fuck him, Viktor had told him condoms were optional, as long as Jayce got regularly tested. He wonders if it’s something he offers to everyone, or if Jayce got special treatment. He hopes it’s the latter.

“Can I cum inside you, sweetheart?” He asks, letting his tone turn mocking just to see Viktor flush harder. His thighs clench under his hands. 

“You have to fuck me first,” he says weakly. 

“That’s a good point,” Jayce says, and finally lets go of Viktor’s legs. 

Viktor scrambles back almost immediately, and for a moment, Jayce is afraid he took it too far—but only for a moment. Viktor falls back against the mattress, stretching out like a satisfied cat. He looks up at him challengingly, seeming to have gotten over his embarrassment.

“I did like it,” Viktor says softly, like a threat. “When he came inside me.”

Jayce doesn’t know what kind of sound he makes, but it makes Viktor’s pupils dilate. His shirt is off in record time, and Jayce has him pressed into the bed, curling over him and ripping the button up open seconds later.

“Jayce!” Viktor yelps, glaring up at him as two of the buttons go flying. 

“I’ll replace it,” he says absently, and then bends down to kiss him. Viktor surges up against him, opening his mouth and letting Jayce lick into it almost angrily. He presses hot, open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, down his neck, until—

There’s a dark, angry looking hickey sucked against the side of Viktor’s neck, that was hidden under the collar of that goddamn shirt. 

Jayce feels supremely offended. 

“So Silco gets to leave marks and I can’t?” It comes out petulant and whiny, but he can’t help it.

“You do not control half of the undercity,” Viktor shoots back.

“I control, like, an eighth of Piltover. Which technically includes the undercity.”

“And why exactly would I care about Piltover?” Viktor scoffs, “Piltover doesn’t pay my rent for me.”

“Silco pays your rent?” It’s such a stupid thing to be childish about. Viktor gives him an unimpressed look.

“I’m generalizing. The pilties that come down here aren’t exactly generous tippers.”

“I’m a generous tipper. Do I at least pay part of your rent?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Viktor says, but he sounds close to laughing, so Jayce doesn’t feel too bad about it. 

“I can’t believe I’m not important enough to be allowed to bite you.”

“You want to bite me? That’s not very attractive.”

“Like in a sexy way,” Jayce defends. “Some kingpin asshole gets to bite you, gets to mark you up like you’re his—you aren’t his, Viktor.”

“I’m not yours, either,” Viktor says boldly. 

“You are,” Jayce insists, voice low, a strange kind of bone-deep want surging through his veins, a possessiveness that makes him daring. “You said it yourself.”

“Hm,” Viktor shivers as Jayce grazes his jaw with his teeth, breath hot. “Did I?”

“You did. Last time I was here, you said you were all mine—were you lying to me?”

He knows the answer, somewhere deep in his bones along with the want, but Viktor’s mouth opens in a sharp inhale, eyes blown wide as he gazes up at him. 

“Maybe,” Viktor says. He’s playing it up today, the rude, sparky side to him that comes out on nights where Jayce asks him to be mean—maybe it’s payback for embarrassing him earlier. His voice is higher than usual, though, less commanding and more petulant. Jayce buys into it just as easily as he always does. 

He lets the strange rush of adrenaline lead him, gripping both of Viktor’s bony hips in his hand and squeezing tight. Viktor makes a small sound, arching him against him like he’s already eager for it. 

“Maybe?” He repeats against the shell of Viktor’s ear. Viktor shudders beneath him, turns his head away like he has anywhere to go. Jayce can’t have that, he thinks. He lets go of one of his hips and slides a hand up to wrap loosely around Viktor’s throat. Not pressing at all, just resting there. A reminder. A challenge, maybe.

Viktor tips his head back, baring his neck further. His pulse races wildly under Jayce’s hand, a staccato rhythm that matches the frantic beating of Jayce’s heart. 

“Be honest, sweetheart. Did you mean it?”

Viktor holds eye contact for a few seconds, and Jayce isn’t sure which way this will go but he’s ready to follow. After those seconds have passed, Viktor relaxes back against the sheets, eyes half-lidded.

“Yes,” he says softly, like he’s telling a secret. “I meant it.”

“Meant what?” It comes out too breathy to sound like a threat, so he tightens his fingers a little around Viktor’s throat instead. 

“That I’m yours,” Viktor says sweetly, voice soft like butter and just as smooth. Jayce could melt into it if he tried. He wants to bottle it up and take it home with him. “I’m all yours.”

“All mine,” Jayce repeats lowly, and tilts Viktor’s head to the side with the hand around his throat. He shoves a knee up between Viktor’s legs, presses him into the bed and brings his mouth to the hickey Silco left to suck a mark of his own on top of it.

He worries the sensitive skin between his teeth, sucking until Viktor is bucking up underneath him and pulling at Jayce’s hair. Jayce finally pulls back to survey his work; he’s left a full bite mark, he notices, the notches of his teeth red against Viktor’s pale skin around the bruise. He can’t even tell there was anything underneath it before. It’s almost like Silco was never here at all. 

“Fuck, Jayce,” Viktor winces, “I said no marks.”

“I just covered his up,” Jayce argues, unrepentant. “I’ll pay extra if you let me make another one.”

It’s half a joke, probably, but Viktor goes still for a moment. He looks up at him thoughtfully, probably trying to gauge if Jayce is serious or not. 

He is, he decides. No matter how vaguely pathetic it might make him look. 

“How much extra?” Viktor asks, half teasing. Toeing the line between banter and a genuine question.

“Two,” he says, skipping the steps where he would drop a hundred and Viktor would consider and playfully demand a higher number to call him on his bluff.

It works, because Viktor just blinks up at him for a moment. Then, he cracks a bemused smile.

“You are a strange man, Jayce.” It almost sounds like a compliment when he says it. “Fine. But only one.”

“Two.”

Viktor sighs, rolls his eyes. “Two. But only two.”

Jayce ends up sucking three dark hickeys into Viktor’s throat, down the slope of his neck and into the crook where it meets his shoulder. Jayce spends a long minute on that one, because the sensitivity of that particular spot has Viktor whining, grinding up and down against the thigh Jayce still has shoved between his legs. He can practically feel his hole through the fabric of his pants, hot and damp. 

He nips lightly down Viktor’s chest until he reaches his nipples, hard with arousal and possibly the light chill of the room. When he lets his teeth graze over one of them, tongue tracing a circle around it, Viktor groans out a curse. As Jayce had learned years ago, Viktor has a very sensitive chest. Jayce never touches the surgery scars because he knows it makes Viktor uncomfortable, but anything else above the corset was fair game. Once, Jayce had brought Viktor off with his nipples alone (and a few small grinds against his cock); he had pinned him in place and not let him up until Viktor was squirming and gasping as he tipped over the edge under his mouth. 

Jayce doesn’t know if he has the patience for that tonight, no matter how self-satisfied it might make him feel, so he settles for holding one of Viktor’s wrists down, taking a pebbled nipple into his mouth and sucking hard. 

“N-no more marks Jayce, n—oh, god—“

He always loves reducing Viktor to broken sentences and stuttered words. He’s usually so eloquent. 

“Sorry,” he says, not sorry at all, and then dips back down to get his mouth on the other one. Viktor’s fingers rake through his hair, nails against his scalp. Jayce bites harder in response, and Viktor sobs, trembling as he cums against Jayce’s thigh. Jayce groans at the feeling, can feel the heat of it even through the fabric of his pants. 

Viktor tugs him off of his chest with a hand in his hair. He fixes him with an annoyed glare, but it’s kind of dampened by the way he’s panting, lips bitten bright red. 

“I said no more marks,” he says. 

“But you liked it,” Jayce argues, leaning down to kiss him again. 

“Fuck off,” Viktor says, and calls him something in his native langue that Jayce is pretty sure is derogatory. Jayce just kisses him again. 

“Can I cum inside you, V?” He asks again, because he enjoys the way it makes Viktor inhale sharply.

“Like I said,” he murmurs, voice low, “You have to fuck me first.”

Jayce huffs a laugh. “That’s a good point,” he repeats, and reaches down to unzip his fly. His cock is almost painfully hard, dripping and neglected. 

Viktor lets Jayce shoves his legs apart—mindful of his bad leg, of course, watching for any sign of discomfort even as his whole body seems to pulse with arousal—and lets him press a hand against his throat and shove his way inside of him in one hard thrust.

“Oh,” Viktor moans, voice cracking, arching up against him as he bottoms out.

Jayce takes this as his go ahead to drop the banter and fuck him hard. Vitkor, for his part, takes it beautifully. He gasps and moans and thrashes like he’s dying until Jayce pins him in place—it probably shouldn’t turn him on as much as it does, the way he feels like he’s shaking his claim, fucking into Viktor’s sweet hole the same way that fucking drug lord had been not an hour ago, but it does. Jayce thinks he could spend hours here, just buried inside of him. 

The tightest hole in the undercity, Silco had said, maybe in all of Piltover. Probably, Jayce agrees. But it’s not piltover’s, it’s not the undercity’s—it’s Jayce’s. Viktor is his and his hole in his and he hopes Silco enjoyed his time with Viktor today because it’s the last time he’s ever gonna get him because Viktor is his and he thinks he might be falling in love. 

The thought is fleeting but it still takes him by surprise—enough so that his thrusts stutter, jerky and uneven. Vitkor hisses, his bad leg flexing, and Jayce readjusts, takes the pressure off of it and pulls him further onto his cock.

Viktor slumps back against the bed, staring up at Jayce with something like wonder. It spurs him on, makes him fuck in faster, harder, releasing Viktor’s throat so he can get his fingers on his cock instead, jerking his thumb in time with each thrust until Viktor is clenching tight tight tight around him, clawing at his back like an animal. 

His nails dig into the skin of Jayce’s back as he pulses around his cock, and Jayce digs his teeth into the crook of his neck and buries himself as deep as he possibly can, holding him still as he fills him up. 

And he didn’t even have to pay extra for it. 

They stay there like that for a moment, frozen and panting with the aftershock. Eventually, lest they fall asleep like that, Jayce forces himself to pull out and sit up. Viktor has no such qualms—he lies there, eyes half lidded as he catches his breath. He looks, Jayce thinks, kind of like he got mauled by some sort of wild animal. 

Jayce kind of feels the same way, back still stinging from the bite of Viktor’s nails. 

“Fuck,” he says. 

Viktor casts a lazy glance at him, and sighs. “You better have been serious about the extra two hundred,” he slurs. 

Jayce barks a surprised laugh. “I was,” he assured. “I…um, I kinda went a little overboard.”

“Kind of,” Viktor scoffs, but it lacks its usual edge. He looks like he‘s halfway to falling asleep. It makes something in Jayce’s chest soften. “You have strangely sharp incisors.” 

“Thank you?” 

Viktor groans, rolling slowly onto his side to face him. “That was not a compliment.”

He doesn’t sound mad, though, not really—though that could be attributed to how quickly he seems to be losing consciousness. 

“You want me to help you clean up?” Jayce offers softly. He knows that Viktor doesn’t like going to bed without wiping up.

Viktor shoots him a dirty look. “ Now you want me to clean up?”

Jayce shrugs bashfully. “I’ll do it for you,” he says, a tentative olive branch, “You can take a little nap, if you want.”

Normally, this would be the part where Viktor would roll his eyes and say something about Jayce, spoiled little piltie prick that he is, not knowing how to wash himself, let alone anyone else. Tonight, though, he just shrugs, letting his eyes flutter shut.

“You’re a very strange man,” he says again, “But whatever. Wake me before you leave.”

A few seconds later and he’s out like a light, face pressed into one of the pillows. It’s an odd mixture of erotic and adorable.

Jayce feels strangely proud of himself. He knows Viktor gets sleepy after a good fuck, but he’s never made him pass out like this before. He ignores the small voice in his head that points out the whole Silco aspect of it all, and how two hard fucks in a row probably had something to do with it. 

Whatever, Jayce thinks, and resolves to forget about the probable drug dealer and the shady deal he may have accidentally stumbled into, the same way he stumbled onto the council. 

For now, he digs through the drawer of the bedside table to find the small towel Viktor keeps inside, and does his best to wipe him up. Viktor sleeps through the whole thing, even as Jayce lifts him up to tuck him under the sheets. 

Despite the fact that he books him for the whole night, Jayce rarely ever actually stays the whole time, usually choosing to leave before the street outside comes to life. He doubts Viktor is going to wake up again tonight—and if he does, he doubts he’ll be in any shape to do anything else. Jayce runs his fingers lightly through Viktor’s wild hair, smoothing his curls back from his forehead. 

He considers. After a moment, he pulls the sheets back and slides in next to him. 

He’ll leave before morning, he resolves. He’ll tip well, to make up for all the bruises and bite marks and his pathetic, jealous little ego, and he’ll leave before Viktor wakes up. 

The last thought he has before he falls asleep is that he hopes Viktor won’t be too mad at Jayce when he looks in a mirror tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Jayce is gone by the time Viktor wakes up, the morning after the fucker mauls him like an animal. Viktor is not surprised, because he rarely stays the entire night. He is not disappointed either, because that would be stupid, and he’s still kind of annoyed with him for the whole mauling him like an animal thing.

Coward probably didn’t want to have to deal with Viktor’s annoyance. The least he could’ve done is stick around and let Viktor bitch him out about it. At least he has the next few days off. He just hopes it’ll be enough time for the marks to fade—with the way Jayce had dug his teeth into the crook of his neck like he was trying to leave a scar, though, he isn’t very optimistic. 

At least Jayce actually did wipe him up, he thinks vaguely. Still, he needs to shower as soon as possible and then finally leave for the week—he could shower at home if he needed to, but the water here actually runs hot for longer than two minutes at a time. 

Viktor groans as he sits up, his leg and back aching along with his shoulders. He shouldn’t have slept with the corset on, he knows, but he was just too tired to take it off last night. It was quite unprofessional, he thinks, but he’s not used to that level of—activity, one so soon after the other. 

He reaches for the bottoms discarded on the floor and tugs them up over his legs. It takes him longer than he would like to dress and even longer to rummage through the closet for his casual clothes, hissing as pain shoots up his bad leg. Jayce is usually so thoughtful about it, but last night he was, frankly, not. 

He’s used to clients being careless with him, of course, but Jayce isn’t usually one of them. Viktor sighs, running a hand through his hair, feeling another pang of annoyance—with Jayce, maybe with himself for expecting any different.

Contrary to how he looks, Viktor is not delicate. He’s not a wilting flower, or a victim, or any of the other things people have assumed over the years. He’s very aware of how he looks, though, and the way other people—especially clients—view him because of it. He’s small enough that they can feel powerful when they hold him down, and has the kind of hair that people like to dig their fingers into. When he was younger, just starting out in the brothel (he had tried going solo very briefly, but it didn’t last very long; he’d had to break his old cane over some enforcer’s back and crawl away), it had been especially helpful for gaining regulars. 

He had “lost his virginity” about five separate times (discounting his actual first time), mostly to rich men who had paid extra to “deflower” someone young, and he had played the part perfectly for all of them. He could’ve been an actor in another life. 

(He could’ve been an academy graduate in another life too, perhaps, if he had even been allowed in to take the entrance exam. As it stands, he was not, no matter how many times he tried. Eventually, he stopped trying altogether.)

It’s early enough that he doesn’t run into anyone on his way to the showers—which he’s grateful for, because he’s still too irritated to stand the teasing he would get about all the fucking hickeys. He knows he wouldn’t hear the end of it for days.

Councilor Jayce Talis is something of a running joke around here—the fact that he’s been coming here for years, since before he was anyone at all. A lot of the workers and regulars alike remember the stuttering academy student who stumbled his way in six years ago; the idea of that little asshole being a full-fledged councilor now is kind of hilarious. It’s also kind of infuriating, if you think about it too long. 

The first time Viktor had met Jayce, he hadn’t really thought much of him—another green academy boy wandering down here in search of a good time, getting his kicks somewhere he wouldn’t have to face repercussions to his reputation. He’d been a virgin, but many of the academy students were; pilties cared a lot more about that sort of thing, and many of the ones who ventured down here lost their nerve and ran off before anything could even happen. 

When the door had swung open and he had taken in Jayce sitting in the chair by the window, fidgeting with the fabric of his pants and half-damp with a nervous sweat, Viktor had been sure he was gonna be another runner. 

Surprisingly, though—and luckily for Viktor, considering how low he had been on funds at the time—Jayce had not run away. He even gave him his real name, right off the bat (and Viktor could tell it was his real name by the look on his face right after he said it). Let Viktor lead him to the bed and unbutton the stupid academy vest and slide his shirt down his shoulders. 

That night, the first time, all Viktor had done was teach the poor bastard how to kiss semi-decently, and then sucked his dick afterward. Jayce, for his part, acted like Viktor had just changed his life. It was amusing, the way he gazed at him in something like awe, running his thumb over Viktor’s bottom lip over and over again after Viktor had swallowed him down. It would have been almost endearing, if not for the whole topsider-ness of it all. 

He had tipped surprisingly well, and left not soon after, citing some other errands he had to go do before he left. Viktor hadn’t asked, because he hadn’t cared to. He hadn’t exactly thought he’d be seeing him again.

Only, he had. Many times. A few weeks later, Jayce had shown up again, apparently asking for Viktor specifically. 

It had been surprising, but not exceedingly. Viktor was, after all, very good at his job. What had been surprising was the satchel full of half junk-metal and half vaguely illegal lab equipment that he had brought with him—more “errands,” he had said, which he apparently finished first this time.

“So I could, um, spend more time here, I guess,” he had explained, almost bashful. It made Viktor want to tease him, but he also didn’t want to scare him off so soon. 

“And what exactly do you want to do with all this extra time?” He had asked instead. Back then, Jayce had flushed at just about anything, if Viktor said it in the right tone, and this was no exception. 

They hadn’t fucked that night, either—no penetration, at least, because that costed extra and Jayce had spent most of the coin he brought with him on the contents of the intriguing bag on the chair. 

Instead, Viktor had sucked him off again, and then Jayce asked if he could touch him, so Viktor walked him through the steps of how to successfully finger someone instead of just shoving inside and hoping for the best. Jayce had thick fingers, even back then, calloused in a way that was rare for a piltie. He had seemed fascinated with Viktor’s cock, rubbing his thumb over the nub of it again and again until Viktor was wincing in over-sensitivity and had to fake an orgasm to get him to stop. 

He had fucked his thighs, after that—insisted on missionary, both of Viktor’s legs thrown over one of Jayce’s shoulders so he could watch Viktor’s face. It had felt strange, like he was on display, but he’d had to admit that his own view wasn’t too bad. Jayce somehow looked even more handsome in the throes of sex, huffing and flushed pink as he chases his pleasure. 

Afterwards, spent and panting on the bed, Viktor had asked, tentatively, about the strange contents of Jayce’s satchel. Jayce was apparently very loose lipped after a good orgasm, because he had spilled a lot—told Viktor that he was trying to create magic , of a things, that he had seen it before firsthand and knew he could do it, that he was sure he was almost there but the equations never quite worked and he wasn’t sure what the was doing wrong.

Viktor, feeling high on the passion in Jayce’s voice and the self-satisfaction of a decent fuck, had asked if he could see some of these equations he was having such difficulty with. Jayce had looked almost insultingly surprised at the idea, and Viktor was harshly reminded that this was a piltie who probably didn’t think anyone down here knew how to do math. 

“What,” Viktor had drawled, “Just because I work in a brothel, I can’t enjoy science?”

“N-no,” Jayce had stuttered, “I mean, yes—I mean, that’s not what I…” he cleared his throat, and gestured at the bag, “I have one of my journals in the front pocket.”

Which was a bit stupid, in Viktor’s opinion, bringing proof of supposedly life changing, revolutionary work down here, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. Instead, he had plucked the small book out of its pocket, settled back against the headboard, and had a look.

Jayce had been right about two things: one, this work was something special, was something Viktor had never seen before that truly did have the potential to change things; and two, the equations simply would not add up. Fortunately for him, there was a simple solution to the second. 

“You did not carry the two,” he had said.

Jayce had blinked up at him. “What?”

“Here,” he’d pointed out, and Jayce had sat up eagerly to see where he was pointing. “You forgot to carry the two. It was near the beginning of your work, so all of your numbers after that are off. Do you have a pencil?”

Jayce did have a pencil. He had stared at Viktor with that same strange awe as he watched him correct the math. Viktor had thought, briefly and dangerously, that he could get used to being looked at like that. 

“Wow,” Jayce had said, looking at the new equations and subsequent answers when Viktor handed him his journal back. “Thank you.”

“Eh,” Viktor had shrugged, oddly self-conscious. “We all make stupid mistakes on occasion.”

Instead of rising to the bait, Jayce had just shaken his head. “I’m serious—thank you, Viktor. This is-this is super helpful. I think I need to—“

He had rushed out not soon after, saying that he just had to go put these new numbers to the test as soon as possible.

Viktor had quirked an eyebrow at his enthusiasm—it was almost contagious, because he had thrown an offhand, “Let me know how it goes,” after him.

Jayce had spun around, face bright with a smile that left Viktor breathless. “I will,” he had promised, and then he had left.

Truthfully, Viktor hadn’t expected to ever find out how it went. 

Jayce, as he seemed wont to do, surprised him once again. The next time he had visited, he had brought more notes with him, rambled about more of his theories, his experiments, asking Viktor’s opinion in between breaths. 

It had been a long while since Viktor had had anyone to talk to like this—anyone who could keep up with him, who was impressed with his math instead of vaguely congratulatory. When Jayce said “that’s a great idea,” or “you’re so smart, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” he meant it; it meant more, because he knew what he was talking about.

It was easy to get swept up in Jayce’s excitement. Truly, Viktor hadn’t offered anything very substantial, other than someone to bounce ideas off of and a few unorthodox suggestions. “Maybe you don’t need to dampen the crystal’s energy to stabilize it,” he had said one night. “Maybe you need to-to amplify it.”

“To crank it.” Jayce had added thoughtfully.

“Sure,” Viktor had said, bemused. “To crank it.”

And that had been the end of that conversation, both of them much more interested in Jayce’s newfound interest in learning how to eat someone out. It had been, all in all, a decent night. 

Then, a few months later, the force that Jayce had been calling ‘hextech’ since before Viktor had even met him had blown up. Literally (Vander was dead, he had learned later, Silco quickly rising to power in his absence) and figuratively. Jayce had blown up with it—all his research, finally leading to something real, all of his experiments finally worthwhile. He was vindicated, high on his own success and long sought after recognition the next time Viktor saw him.

Apparently, he had told him in between frenzied thrusts, Viktor had been right—all he had needed to do to stabilize the damn thing was crank it. 

“You fucking solved it, V,” he had panted into the skin of Viktor’s neck, “God, you’re incredible.”

Viktor had tried to ignore the strange mixture of elation in his chest over his theory being correct and disappointment over— over what? he had asked himself, what were you expecting? That a few small math corrections and suggestions would mean anything in the grand scheme of things? 

His stomach had twisted the same way it had when he had seen what the doctor was doing to poor Rio, the way it had when he took his first client and the man had called him a slut and a whore as he took his fill of him. What had he expected, truly? 

He forced the thoughts away, focused on the slide of Jayce’s cock between his legs and the praises falling from his lips. He was—happy for him, he supposed. He was glad that Jayce was getting the recognition he so wanted, the success he was so starved for. 

Viktor was doing fine. He had accepted his lot in life. He was still making change down here, still doing decent work, even if he hadn’t clawed his way up to the academia of Piltover the way he had hoped to. 

He was fine. This was fine. 

For the first time in a year and a half of nights spent with Jayce, he had to fake his orgasm. Jayce, luckily, bad been too out of his mind with adrenaline to tell the difference. 

Forcing his thoughts back to the present, Viktor strips quickly, shrugging the button-up off and reaching behind him to unlace his corset. He groans in relief as it loosens, pressing his forehead to the cool tile of the shower wall. 

He turns the water on. Wait until it runs hot, and steps inside. He lets out a long sigh; the hot water feels incredible on his aching back. He lets the tension drip off of his shoulders and down the drain, leaning against the wall to take weight off of his bad leg. 

He forgets about the crime scene on his neck until he’s running a hand through his hair and accidentally brushes against one of the bruises. 

He winces at the touch. Presses his fingers to the bruise again. Winces again. Touches it again.

Jayce and his fucking piltie audacity. His piltie ego and hot temper. Viktor came harder last night than he has in weeks—since the last time Jayce was here. Jayce always does give him the best fucks. What can Viktor say—he taught him well.

He did not teach him how to whine like a child over a hickey, though, or how to come to someone’s workplace and say the most ridiculous shit because he thinks he owns whatever he wants—he picked those skills up somewhere else. 

He finishes up relatively quickly—as quickly as he can with his leg and his back. He replaces the corset with his off-the-clock back brace, dresses in his spare set of clothes, gathers his things, and makes his way down the stairs.

Ray greets him at the door, and then fixes him with that vaguely apologetic look that he always wears when someone has shown up last minute and booked him right before his shift is technically over. Which is strange, and very irritating, considering that his shift is actually, fully over this time. 

“Ray,” he says, letting exhaustion and exasperation color his tone. “Come on. I just showered.”

“Sorry, Vik. It’s a regular.”

Viktor frowns, ready to argue. “Tell them I already left.”

“It’s Silco.”

Well, fuck. There goes his four days off. Might as well just make it three. After his hopes are swiftly crushed, he feels a vague confusion settle in his chest. Silco was just here, literally yesterday. He’s never here more than once a month, twice at most. He’s certainly never showed up two days in a row.

“Silco?” Viktor repeats. “Already?”

Ray shrugs, seeming as uncomfortably confused about it as Viktor feels. “He asked for you specifically.”

Viktor sighs. “Do I need to change?” Did he make any requests, is what he’s really asking.

Ray shrugs again. “He didn’t say nothin’ about that. Just to meet him in his usual room.”

Interesting. Weird. He wonders if he should be concerned. Instead of voicing these thoughts, Viktor just sighs again. 

“My life is very difficult,” he says. Ray gives him a consoling pat on the back. Viktor makes him hold his bag for him, even though he knows he’ll just set it down behind a chair or something. 

He gives himself a quick once over, unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt and smoothing out any wrinkles in his clothes, and heads back up the stairs.

Silco is standing near the window when he opens the door, gazing down at the street below in that dramatic way he seems to enjoy. It suits him well; makes him look more mysterious and unaffected, which is probably the point. His jacket is draped across the chair in the corner. 

“Viktor,” he says, turning away from the window to look at him.

“Hello,” Viktor says, feeling oddly nervous. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to play things today—he’s not exactly dressed to impress right now, clothes looser than usual and leg brace visible over his pants. Silco, luckily, doesn’t seem to mind. “What can I do for you today, sir?”

Silco waves him towards the bed with a careless flick of his wrist. Viktor takes the direction gratefully, propping his cane against the mattress and sitting on the edge. Viktor begins to unbutton the rest of his shirt, but pauses when Silco holds up a hand to stop him.

“No need for that,” he says, “I don’t want to keep you long; I know you have the day off.”

Then why are you here? Viktor thinks but does not say. Instead he tilts his head a little, leaning back on his hands. 

“What can I do for you, then?” He asks again, spreading his legs a little as the man’s gaze drags up his body. There is something about Silco that always seems to pin you in place, regardless of who you are or how confident; it may have something to do with the whole eye thing. Or perhaps the fact that he managed to kill Vander and take his place. 

Silco raises a surprised eyebrow when his sees Viktor’s neck. He steps forwards, between Viktor’s legs, and peels the unbuttoned collar back to expose the dark marks Viktor knows look just terrible. 

He can’t help the hiss that escapes him when the man brushes his fingers over the bruise in the crook of his neck. He presses down, briefly, lifting his hand when Viktor winces. 

“I don’t remember leaving these,” he comments thoughtfully. 

Viktor swallows dryly, vaguely embarrassed. “The, ah, client I had after you last night was quite…excitable.”

Silco hums thoughtfully. Amused. “I hope you were tipped well, at least.”

Viktor huffs half a laugh, trying to regain his footing. “I was, thank you.”

Silco doesn’t answer, instead running his fingers up Viktor’s jaw to run lightly through his hair. His other hand comes to grip his belt. 

Viktor takes the silent direction, deftly unbuckling his belt and tugging his fly down. He lets Silco grip his hair and guide him forward, opens his mouth and opens his throat because Silco does not often like to take his time here. Viktor supposes that he has to take his time in so many other aspects of his life; he must enjoy having an area where he can do as he pleases as fast as he wants.

Or maybe he’s just pent up, and this is an easy way to get his stress out. 

Either way, he pushes forward and down Viktor’s throat in one unrelenting slide. He holds him there for a moment, hand tight in his hair; Viktor is pretty sure the man likes to feel his throat clench around him as he tries not to choke. He lets his eyes flutter shut, and relaxes as well as he’s able to. Silco pulls all the way out, lets him take a deep breath, and fucks back in. 

He really was honest when he said it wouldn’t take long. He seems less hurried than he was last night, less aggressive, but doesn’t seem to want to drag it out, either. Viktor lets him take what he pleases, sucking lightly when he can and swallowing around him when he seems to be close. 

He swallows it all, like he always does, Silco holding him still and spilling down his throat. He tries not to cough when he’s let up, but he can’t help it—he’s found that he’s been coughing more and more lately. He’s usually able to hide it when he’s with clients, but he wasn’t exactly expecting anyone to fuck his mouth today. 

Silco puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him. There’s a clink of metal as he re-buckles his belt. Viktor takes a deep breath and risks a glance up.

“Sorry,” he offers weakly. He’s aware that coughing after a blowjob isn’t exactly very flattering. Or attractive. 

“Nonsense,” Silco says, running a thumb over his bottom lip. “I apologize for not warning you.”

Viktor offers a quirk of his lips in response, reaching for his cane. Silco doesn’t make to move, though, keeping a hand pressed against Viktor’s cheek. 

He’s not really sure what to do, now that their usual exchange is over. Silco gazes down at him, something expecting in his eyes. 

Viktor clears his throat. “Not that I am not glad to see you, Mr Silco,” he starts carefully, “But you don’t usually, ah, visit again so soon. Is there something else you need?”

Silco gives him the barest hint of a smile, pulling his hand back. “Perceptive as always,” he says, half-threat and half-compliment. “You’re right. I’m here to ask a favor.”

That makes Viktor pause—that’s not what he was expecting at all. He wonders if it’s another request to help his daughter with one of her inventions, or his right-hand woman with her arm. He hopes it’s not work-related—not related to this job, at least—because he’s not in the habit of doing house calls.

“A favor?”

Silco nods. “I had quite an interesting conversation yesterday—with Councilor Talis.”

Viktor freezes, blood chilling in his veins, and then tries very hard to make it seem like he did not. 

“Ah,” he says as conversationally as he can manage. “Is that so?”

“I didn’t know he frequented this establishment. Or that you were his favorite employee—going on six years now, I heard?”

“Give or take.”

“He seemed very fond of you. A little possessive, but that’s not surprising for a topsider.”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, trying not to fiddle with his hair the way he sometimes does when he’s nervous. “I suppose.”

Silco hums, seemingly unimpressed with his non-answers. 

“How close are you, exactly?” 

Viktor tries very hard not to react to the question. He suddenly feels very trapped, because this cannot lead to anywhere good.

“Not…exceedingly,” it’s not a lie, exactly. ”I know him well enough.”

“I would imagine you would know someone quite well after fucking them for six years—give or take.”

“I suppose,” he says again. “Why do you ask?”

Silco’s red eye seems to bore into him, peeling him back like he can see right through him. 

“You’re a smart boy, Viktor. Smart enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if Talis confided in you about…difficult matters.”

The last twenty minutes slot neatly into place. Of course, Viktor thinks. Of course this is why Silco is here. He wishes Jayce didn’t have such terrible timing. Or such a big mouth. 

Viktor swallows. “I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”

The mattress dips as Silco sits down beside him. He puts a hand on Viktor’s thigh; a warning, probably. 

“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you.”

Viktor sighs, giving up the shitty ruse. “He doesn’t. Confide in me, I mean. Not about—council things, or whatever it is you want to hear.”

“No hextech talk, either? Really?” Silco drawls disbelievingly. 

Viktor shrugs, as uncaringly as he can. “We don’t usually do much talking,” and it’s only half a lie, because he counts all their banter as foreplay instead of actual conversation. “He’s very, ah, action-oriented.”

Silco huffs a ghost of a laugh. “I suppose he would be. Still. You expect me to believe that he’s told you nothing about his…business? In all the years that you’ve known each other?”

Viktor shrugs helplessly, not knowing what else he can say. He’s not lying, not really. He just doesn’t think all of Jayce’s bragging about his friend Caitlyn or the complaining about the apparently very controlling dean or various ramblings about the first time he saw magic are the kinds of “business” Silco wants to hear. He doesn’t know if he would even be able to tell him any of it; it’s just…personal. Things said in confidence. Not relevant to Silco or his cause. 

“Nothing council-related,” he says again, “Maybe some complaints about hextech’s progress here and there. But not much more than that.”

Silco’s frown deepens. He looks displeased, which is never a look you want to see from a man like Silco. 

“Do you think you could? Get him to confide in you about more…sensitive issues?”

Viktor takes a moment to process the fact that Silco is asking him to try to be a—what, a mole? a spy?—for him. To feed him information straight from a councilor’s mouth—from Jayce .

“I…” he starts, and then stops. He doesn’t know what the fuck to say, how the fuck to play this. He doesn’t want to seem like he cares too much for Jayce—for a piltie, for a topside councilor of all possible pilties—but he doesn’t particularly want to agree to it, either. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. 

Jayce isn’t a particularly perceptive person in many regards. But he knows Viktor, as well as he can for who he is and what they are to each other. It would be strange for Viktor to suddenly start taking an interest in topside politics after all these years. He would blow his cover immediately, and Jayce—the idea of Jayce distrusting him, of never seeing him again, makes something in his stomach twist uncomfortably.

“And why is that?”

Silco would sound genuinely curious, if not for the soft threat in his voice that always seems to undercut everything he says.

Viktor’s pulse picks up, just a bit, and he tries not to seem nervous.  

“I just—don’t know if it would work. He doesn’t talk much about politics or personal matters. It would be…strange, to start asking about it now.”

“Viktor,” he says after a heavy moment of silence. “Don’t tell me you actually care for that man.”

Viktor’s heart races in his chest. He is not afraid, he tells himself. He swallows down the anxious lump in his throat. 

“Of course not,” he says, unconvincingly.

“I would hope not, considering all that he’s done to you.”

Viktor finally chances a curious glance over. Silco’s gaze is locked on his face, eyes sharp like he’s cataloging everything he sees. 

“What, you mean paying my rent for years?” He tries for a joke. 

Silco does not laugh. He doesn’t frown, either. Instead, he slides his hand further up Viktor’s thigh, tracing up his chest and curling around his shoulder. 

“I mean all that he’s taken from you.”

Viktor isn’t sure how to respond, so he settles for a questioning look.

“If your little friend is to be believed—Sky, is it?—then you’re the one who cracked his whole ‘hextech theory,’ are you not?”

Viktor shrugs once again, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He wishes he hadn’t told Sky about it; back when it first happened, he’d had a bad habit of taking one too many shots at the bar downstairs and complaining about it to anyone who would listen. 

“I just helped with some equations. And made a few suggestions.”

“Suggestions that made all of his success—all of his fame and fortune—possible. And yet,” he trails off, running long fingers through Viktor’s hair, down along his jaw. “Did he give you any credit? Did he even bother asking if you wanted any?”

Viktor looks away, something like shame blooming in his chest. Silco always manages to make him feel so small, even though he isn’t a large man by any means.  

“I didn’t… I didn’t know that it was…” That it was the key to everything. That hextech really would change the world like Jayce had thought it would. That he would ever even see the man after that. God, he’d been so stupid. He is so stupid. Feeling fondness for a man who has given him money and sex and nothing else. “I’m sorry.”

Silco makes a soothing noise, and it sounds so genuine that he almost believes it. “Don’t apologize—don’t ever apologize for Piltover’s crimes.”

Crime is a bit of a strong word, he thinks but doesn’t say, because he knows that the topsiders truly have committed heinous actions against the people down here. Things that would be considered crimes if the undercity wasn’t the recipient. 

There is a long pause. “I still don’t—I don’t think I can—“

“Jayce Talis,” Silco interrupts, “doesn’t see you as anything other than an undercity whore he can come fuck when he’s bored. He does not care for you, not really. And he certainly doesn’t have your best interest at heart.”

“And you do?” Viktor snaps—too much, his brain immediately warns, too bold.

Silco grips his chin, tilts his head up to look him in the eye. 

“You’re a son of Zaun, Viktor,” he says slowly, “Of course I do.”

Viktor swallows, willing his heartbeat to slow down lest Silco feel it racing under his fingers. He is not afraid. He is not. 

“I’ll…see what I can do,” he finally concedes, unsure if it’s a lie or not but praying that the other man can’t tell. “But he truly does not tell me much anymore. I fear it would be…suspicious, if I started asking questions all of the sudden.”

Silco inclines his head, conceding his point with a thoughtful hum. “Play the long game,” he says after a moment of consideration. “You’re already halfway there; don’t rush it.”

Viktor tries to glance away, but Silco doesn’t let him, raising his other hand to grip the hair on the back of his head, holding him in place. Viktor goes still, like a prey animal playing dead with a predator’s teeth at its throat.

“You’re a smart boy, Viktor. I believe in you. And I trust that you’ll find a way to get what you need—what we all need.” 

Viktor keeps his breathing in check, because he is not afraid. He is not afraid, because he knows that Silco likes when he dresses like an academy student because it makes him feel powerful; because he knows how Silco looks and sounds when he orgasms, and a man is never more vulnerable than he is in that moment; because once, Silco asked him to help his daughter fix one of her guns that she was having trouble with and there is no bigger weak spot than a child that you love. Vander and his death is a testament to that. 

He knows Silco, at least a little bit. Probably more than the man thinks he does. And so he is not afraid of him. Maybe if he repeats it to himself enough times, he will begin to believe it. 

“I don’t know how long it will take,” he says. Hopes that Silco believes him. Lets out a deep breath when those long fingers slide out of his hair and come to cup his jaw instead. A facsimile of tenderness. 

“Take all the time you need,” Silco says with an air of finality. “As they say, good things come to those who wait.”

Viktor leans into the touch, because that is what he’s paid to do. Silco pats his cheek, almost fondly, and rises to collect his jacket. 

“You will, of course, be thoroughly compensated for the information,” he says as he tugs it  on. “And my other offer is still open; you would be well funded, if you would just—loosen your morals a bit.”

He says it like he’s joking—like Viktor’s reluctance to help manufacture life-ruining drugs or deadly weapons is a silly little quirk of his that needs to be straightened out. It’s a conversation they’ve had a few times. It’s never evolved to anything serious—at least, not serious enough to make him concerned. He still has Singed, after all, and he’s well aware that Viktor does not want to work with that man. 

“It’s a generous offer,” he answers vaguely, letting his mouth tilt up as if they’re sharing an inside joke. “But I will unfortunately have to decline. I’m doing alright as I am.”

Silco shrugs loosely, shoulders not nearly as tight as they were when he entered. What can Viktor say—he’s good at his job. 

“I know,” he admits, shocking Viktor out of his self-congratulatory musings. “There haven’t been any factory accidents on this level in months. The water is much clearer. You’re doing…good work here, Viktor. You’re a great asset to Zaun. I hope you know that.”

Viktor swallows thickly, unable to identify the strange emotion he’s feeling. Silco is a complicated man; he praises things like Viktor’s mouth freely and with a sharp edge to his words, but he’s never been this candid with him. He’s not sure what to do with himself. He’s not sure if it’s real, or if it’s just another way to get Viktor to do what he wants.

“Thank you,” he manages to say. “I—I just want to help.”

“You are. You would have been wasted topside.”

The casual reminder of his failure to get into the academy stings just a bit; but then, Silco always stings just a bit. It’s part of the routine. You can’t show genuine emotion down here without bearing your fangs again afterwards. 

“I suppose,” he answers neutrally. “I’ve been told it’s dreadfully boring up there.”

Silco quirks his strange smile. It looks more like a grimace, but that’s just the way he is. 

“Take care of yourself,” he says, and tosses a bag onto the mattress, heavy with the coin he reserves just for him. Viktor’s stomach almost growls at the thought of the warm meal he’ll be able to pay for tonight. “Update me whenever you make progress with Talis.”

Viktor nods his thanks and his acknowledgement, and then Silco is gone.

Viktor sighs, sinking back into the mattress, and stares at the ceiling.

This means he’s finally done for the week, thank god. He thinks he’ll be able to make progress on the wind turbine prototypes he’s been working on, now that he has some coin for the parts he’s been missing. He’ll eat well tonight. Maybe even for the next few weeks, if he doesn’t spend it all at the junk shop like he has a bad habit of doing.

All in all, not a terrible way to spend his days off. 

He wonders, vaguely, when Jayce will visit next. He thinks about Silco’s request. 

He decides to stop thinking about either of them altogether, and reaches for his cane so that he can go grab his bag and get the fuck out of here already.

Chapter Text

Jayce tries to take it easy for the next few weeks. 

“Taking it easy” for him meaning no taking full days off to make trips to the undercity that distract from his work and make a dent in his wallet. In all other aspects of his life, he is definitely not taking it easy—not for lack of trying. He would love to be able to focus on the areas he really cares about (his hextech work, his research, and probably Viktor too if he could), but his life, and almost everyone in it, has not really seemed to care much about what he wants, lately. 

When he got back from his most recent undercity trip, he found out that there had apparently been an accident at the lab. Not as big an explosion as the one that blew his apartment up all those years ago, but big enough to cause a stir. Nothing had been stolen, this time; it was just the result of a lab assistant being lazy and not paying attention to what substances they were mixing. 

Jayce had been forced to fire him, to save face. It probably wouldn’t have happened if he had been there to monitor the latest trials of experiments they’ve been conducting, but the fact is that he wasn’t there, because he wasn’t in Piltover at all. He couldn’t exactly admit where he’d been, though, so he had pushed down the pang of guilt he felt as he “let go” of another assistant.

(Later, he had overheard the man whispering angrily to his coworkers as he packed his things— honestly, I was this close to quitting anyway! Talis is fucking terrible to work with, he’s so far up his own ass that he doesn’t listen to anyone else, we’re not gonna be able to do whatever it is he’s trying to do, and so on. Jayce had tried not to take it personally. He’d never been great with group projects, because he’d never been great at toning himself down.) 

Heimerdinger had not been pleased with him, or his excuses. He had lectured him for approximately twenty minutes about proper lab safety and good leadership and taking responsibility—and probably would have gone on for even longer if they didn’t have a council meeting to get to.

The meeting had been long, and boring, and Jayce had spent the whole time thinking about how he would have to hire a new assistant and get them up to speed on his current project, which would take time he didn’t have when he was already being pulled in ten different directions. 

He’s aware he’s being a little over dramatic about it, but come on. He doesn’t even know why he’s here—he knows nothing about Noxian trade routes, has zero opinion on how to maximize export profits on whatever frivolous product Councilor Hoskel was trying to fill his pockets on. 

When the meeting finally adjourns, it’s late enough to justify going straight home and passing out. He sleeps fitfully. Thinks about Viktor. Doesn’t think about Viktor, because he has to look through resumes. 

He hires a new assistant. He runs equations. 

He skips dinner, realizes he has an appointment with a potential investor, barely makes it on time.

He sleeps fitfully. Thinks about Viktor. Does not think about Viktor because it’s barely been a week and he needs to reign in it a little. 

Another week passes in a blur of experiments, meetings, dinner parties. 

Tonight, it’s another gala. The invitation for this one allowed for a plus one—calls for one, even. The words mock him on the page, because he doesn’t really know who to bring.

He can’t take Mel as his plus one because she has her own invite, and he can’t go as her plus one for the same reason. Cait is busy doing…enforcer things, or whatever detective work she’s made for herself this week. He doesn’t want to take any of his assistants—Sky, one of the better and brighter assistants he’s had over the years, would have been a possibility, but she quit ages ago. He doesn’t particularly want to take any of the noblewomen who have taken to swarming him like a gaggle of birds. And Viktor—well, he doesn’t think Viktor would want to come even if he somehow could. 

Which kind of leaves him with no options. For the supposed Man of Progress and Face of Piltover, his social circle is kind of depressingly small. 

So he goes alone. He suffers through Mel’s light teasing, and then through Mel’s usual trip around the room that she leads him through, countless handshakes and fake laughter and bright, pearly white smiles. Jayce can’t believe he used to long for this, used to crave validation from these people so badly. 

Unbidden, his thoughts drift away, out onto the balcony and then down, past the streets and over the bridge. He wonders what Viktor’s doing right now; he wonders what he would say if he were here. How he would look all dressed up and fancy—dressed up in a different way than usual. He’d look good in a suit, probably. He’d look good in anything. 

He’d shaken out of his embarrassingly schoolboy-with-a-crush-esque thoughts with a hand on his elbow. Mel. He bids goodbye to whoever he was pretending to talk to, and lets her lead him away. She doesn’t stop until they’re out on the grand balcony, the night air cool against his skin. 

“Sorry,” he says, because he knows he hasn’t exactly been on his A-game tonight. “And thanks.” 

“You seemed like you needed some air,” Mel shrugs a graceful shoulder, and then fixes him with one of her inscrutable looks. “Are you alright, Jayce?”

Jayce, instead of Councilor or Mister Talis. He must really be out of it today.

He waves her off with a shake of his head. “I’m fine, just…a little stressed, I guess.”

“Yes, I heard about the lab incident last week.”

Jayce groans, propping his elbows up on the rail and burying his face in his hands. 

“That bad?” Mel asks, tone somewhere between sympathetic and pitying. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” he says. “I had to fire an assistant, too, which sucked.” 

“You’ve fired many assistants over the years, Jayce. You’re sort of known for it.”

Jayce looks up, stricken. “I’m known for firing assistants?”

Mel does not look impressed with him. She sighs, taking a graceful sip of her wine. 

“I’ve been told you’re exceedingly difficult to work with—in an academic setting.”

Jayce was aware of this; he is self aware enough to know that he struggles to slow down for other people—it’s one of the reasons being able to talk through his theories with Viktor was so incredible—he just wasn’t aware that other people were aware of it, too. 

“Don’t tell me this is news to you,” Mel sounds amused, in her professional, dignified way. 

Jayce just sighs, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m not trying to be difficult,” he promises, “It’s just—hard. Every time I think we’re making progress, it’s suddenly two steps back.”

“Don’t be too dramatic—the hexgates are a thing of wonder. You’ve brought an incredible amount of progress to this city.”

Jayce shrugs. He knows self-pity isn’t a good look, especially not on him, but he can’t help it. None of the people here care about him, not really. The hexgates are more than he ever could’ve hoped for six years ago, but now they just feel like…settling. He has a seat on the council and the city’s admiration and still it feels like he’s settled for something less than he could have. 

“There’s so much more I want to do,” he says. “But none of it is working.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Mel says. She touches his elbow lightly. “I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.” 

Her hands are warm, even through the fabric of his suit. He leans into the touch a bit, to show his thanks, and draws back. 

“Thanks, Mel. I appreciate it—I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you and your support.”

“That’s true,” Mel agrees, drawing her hand back as well, adjusting an earring. “You’ve been a worthy investment so far.”

“We’re back to investment status, now, huh?” Jayce teases lightly. 

Mel takes it gracefully, rolling her eyes and finishing her glass. 

“Not for lack of trying,” she says, almost shockingly candid. He wonders how many glasses of wine she’s had so far. Something must show on his face, because she huffs a quiet laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself too much; I can tell when my interest isn’t returned.”

“Mel,” Jayce starts, feeling oddly guilty. It’s not that he isn’t interested—Mel is a gorgeous woman, maybe the most beautiful he’s ever seen—and if he had met her first, maybe he would have given it a shot. He knows he and Viktor aren’t exclusive—like, just by the very nature of their arrangement—but it still felt weird. He had indulged a few times, with other academy students or the occasional noble, but it just never felt right. 

Mel waves him off. “I’m not in the habit of chasing,” she says simply. “At first I thought, perhaps, you were just a little slow on the uptake, but there’s…someone else, right?” 

“What do you mean?”

Mel fixes him with a look that bears a strikingly resemblance to the ‘don’t be stupid, Jayce’ slant of Viktor’s eyebrows. Faintly, he thinks that he’s very lucky the two of them have never met. 

“You know what I mean. You’re entitled to your privacy, and your personal life, of course. But—well, you can’t blame me for being curious about whoever managed to steal the heart of Piltover’s most eligible bachelor.”

She says the words with a teasing flourish that makes Jayce smile despite the strange anxiety in his chest.

“I mean…well, I guess there is…someone.” 

“A girl?” Mel asks, and then leans in, “A boy?”

Jayce feels himself flush, giving himself away. 

“Will I ever get to meet this man?” Mel asks, quirking an amused eyebrow. 

“I-I don’t know,” Jayce stutters, “He’s not from…around here.” 

Mel makes an interested sound, and then a hum of realization. “You’re telling me your lab blew up because you snuck off to see your boyfriend?”

“W-what? How do you—“

“Jayce,” Mel says slowly. “You’re not a very subtle person. You can’t disappear to the undercity every month and think no one will notice—especially not the enforcers who have to let you back into the city every time.”

Jayce swallows, at a loss. He feels incredibly stupid. 

“Oh. Well.” 

Mel sighs again, looks at him with what he can tell is genuine sympathy. “I understand that all of this is new to you—the notoriety that comes with a high profile position. But when you’re famous—and you are famous—people start to notice what you do. And where you go.”

Jayce tries very hard not to freeze. There’s no threat in her voice, no hidden, subtextual layer to her words—he thinks he knows her well enough to be able to at least sort of tell the difference—but his blood runs cold all the same. The idea of anyone following him—of putting Viktor in any danger of scorn or mockery—is oddly terrifying. And infuriating.

He frowns. “Didn’t you just say I’m entitled to a little privacy? My business is my business.”

He knows he snaps a little bit, and he knows it’s misdirected. Mel knows him well enough to not take it personally; just gives him a disapproving frown. 

“That’s the thing, Talis—it’s not. Not anymore. Of course you deserve privacy, but you can’t be…careless with yourself, nor with others.” 

Again, that thought—the idea of unknowingly making any kind of trouble for Viktor—sends a shock of guilt through his system.

Jayce swallows. Looks away, down at the sparkling city below, and then further, to the bridge, to the sudden drop and the darkness beyond that. Fleetingly, he wonders how Viktor is doing. If Jayce is remembering right, he should’ve had the day off today. He hopes it was a relaxing one. 

“So what, am I supposed to just—not see him anymore?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Mel puts a hand on his arm to get his attention; she looks him in the eye, voice firm the way it is when she’s going to say something serious. “I’m saying you need to have a little…discretion. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself.”

Jayce makes a frustrated noise. “I’m not trying to. 

Mel sighs, giving him a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Such is the burden of being rich and famous.” 

Jayce’s life is very hard. 

For his part, he really does try to take Mel’s advice.

He leaves a little later in the day, when there are less people on the street. He even has an alibi, telling his lab assistants and mentioning to Mel—offhand, of course—that he was going to be spending the night at his mother’s house and that he would prefer not to be disturbed. 

Mel had given him a look that said he was definitely not fooling her, but had said that she would pass the message along for him.

Then, he had put on his most non-council, non-Piltovian clothing (which was still, according to Viktor, not very subtle), and made the trip again.  

When he finally gets there, the doorman greeting him with his usual put-on ambivalence, his usual room is free and empty for him. The sheets are clean and unruffled, and Viktor isn’t here yet. 

Which makes sense; he’s usually not. His last visit was an exception that he’s grateful not to repeat. 

When Viktor does finally show up, he doesn’t seem particularly happy to see him. He stands there for a moment, after the door shuts behind him with a click, and looks at Jayce like he’s displeased to see him sitting there.

His eyes dart down to Viktor’s neck without his permission. The marks are gone, nothing but smooth skin and a jutting collarbone. Viktor’s frown deepens when he notices, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance.

This does not inspire confidence. 

“Hello there, councilor,” Viktor says, none of the usual softness in his voice. 

Jayce swallows. “Um. Hi.” 

They stare at each other for another moment. Jayce tries to look as apologetic as possible. Finally, Viktor sighs, slumping back against the closed door. 

“I told you to wake me before you left,” is what he says. “And I said two marks, Jayce. Two .”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he really is. He knows there’s a reason he’s not allowed to leave marks. “I hope you didn’t, um, get in any trouble?” 

Viktor’s face softens minutely, and he finally steps forward, cane clacking against the wooden floor. He comes to a stop in front of him where he’s sitting on the bed. 

Jayce risks another glance down, eyes raking appreciatively down Viktor’s frame. The skirt is back—a longer one, this time, pulled up around his hips and tight around his little waist; he’s wearing no shirt, only his corset, underneath a long shawl hanging off one shoulder. It’s dark, like his hair, with gold trimming to match his eyes. He looks like something straight out of a wet dream. 

He swallows again, this time because his mouth has gone dry. Somehow, Viktor always manages to make him feel like the same stupid boy he was the first time.

“You’re lucky I didn’t work the next day,” he says. “Did you have to bite me so fucking hard?” 

There’s a ghost of a smile in his tone, even as he frowns. Jayce puts his hands on Viktor’s hips, drawn there like a magnet. Tugs him a bit closer. Viktor lets him. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” he drawls, leaning in and looking up through his lashes; he’s not quite begging for forgiveness, but it’s close. He would, if Viktor wanted him to. “I just couldn’t help myself.” 

Viktor lets his cane fall to the side, propped up against the wall next to the bed. He puts one hand on Jayce’s shoulder to steady himself, bringing the other one up to grip Jayce’s chin, tilting his head up further. 

Jayce feels a shiver run up his spine at the feeling, long fingers cool against his skin and Viktor’s eyes cool and thoughtful to match. He looks down at him like he’s considering how to deal with a particularly annoying equation, or maybe a misbehaving dog. 

“That’s all you have to say? You ‘just couldn’t help yourself’?” 

“Mhm. What else do you want me to say?”

“That you won’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” Jayce promises, almost a whine but not quite. Not yet.

Viktor sighs, releasing his jaw and straightening up.

“How would you like me today?”  

Jayce can tell he’s not forgiven, not yet, but he’s pretty sure Viktor will change his mind by the end of the night. Jayce will make him feel so good he won’t be able to even think about being mad anymore. 

“Hm,” Jayce pretends to consider. He tugs on Viktor’s waist again, helping him up and settling him in his lap. “Well, I have a few ideas in mind.”

“A few,” Viktor repeats, feigning disinterest. “We don’t have all night. You’re going to have to pick one.”

“Actually,” Jayce tilts his head up, one hand on Viktor’s lower back and the other on the back of his neck, “We do. Have all night.”

“Oh?” Viktor makes an interested noise. “Did you clear your busy schedule for me, councilor?”

“Jayce,” Jayce reminds him. “And yes, I did.”

“Jayce,” he repeats, almost mocking. It almost makes Jayce shiver. “Which ‘idea’ would you like to share first?”

Instead of answering, Jayce pulls him down into a kiss. Viktor opens up for him sweetly, easy as that, letting Jayce lick into his mouth and curl a hand around his jaw to move him how he pleases. Viktor wraps his arms around Jayce’s neck, pulling him closer. 

It’s not forgiveness, but it’s something. (Jayce hopes that it’s real. That he really can win him back over; that Viktor won’t just fake acceptance because Jayce is paying him to. He resolves not to think about it.) 

They kiss for a few long, languid minutes, Jayce just reveling in the feeling of having Viktor in his lap, warm and real and far too light. 

Eventually, they have to pull back. Viktor pants lightly, cheeks flushed. Jayce cradles his jaw with both hands, unable to help himself. Viktor’s mouth is pink and shiny. Jayce wants to touch it, so he does.

He runs his thumb slowly along Viktor’s plush bottom lip; dips down into his mouth, across his wet tongue. He draws away, replaces his thumb with two fingers—which Viktor immediately sucks into his mouth, closing his lips around them and curling his tongue the same way he does when Jayce’s cock is in his mouth. 

Jayce groans at feeling, sliding his fingers deeper. Viktor’s throat flexes around them, his eyes half lidded. Slowly, Jayce draws his fingers back; they come away wet, and he can’t help fucking them in and out again. He traces Viktor’s mouth almost reverently—his lips are shiny and wet, painted lightly, and the pink of it smears on Jayce’s fingers. 

“Look at that,” Jayce breathes “Fuck, look at you. Of course I couldn’t help myself.”

Viktor whines quietly, high in his throat. 

“You’d better,” he argues weakly, voice rough, “If you leave another mark I’ll—“

“You’ll what?” He’s not sure what comes over him—that same bone-deep want from last time—but he lets his voice go low, almost condescending. “What exactly will you do?” 

Viktor’s breath stutters beneath him, and Jayce traces his wet fingers down Viktor’s neck. 

“I’ll-I’ll kick you out. I won’t see you again.”

“Never?” He traces Viktor’s sharp collarbone, dipping under the fabric of his shawl. “I don’t believe you.”

“Ray wouldn’t let you back in, if I told him not to.”

Ray, he thinks vaguely. So that’s the rude doorman’s name. 

“You’d let me in if I came back,” he argues confidently. 

Viktor raises an eyebrow. “And why’s that?”

“I pay you the best. And I fuck you the best,” he says, sliding his hand back up Viktor’s neck. “Better than any of your other clients. You would be so lonely without me.”

Viktor’s eyes flash with something—annoyance, maybe. Arousal. Something bright that sends a tingle down Jayce’s spine. 

“Presumptuous fucking piltie,” he drawls. “You do know your dick isn’t the biggest I’ve ever had, right? Not even in the top three.”  

Jayce’s fingers tighten around Viktor’s throat warningly. Viktor leans forward into the touch. 

“I bet none of them fucked you like me. I bet none of them knew how.” 

“And you think you do?” 

“I know I do. You’re the one who taught me.”

“Prove it,” Viktor breathes, his gaze burning hot.  

“Okay,” Jayce says pleasantly. “Can you take the skirt off this time?” 

Ten minutes later, he has Viktor on his back, legs thrown over Jayce’s shoulders, spread wide and shaking as Jayce holds him open with two fingers and fucks into him with his tongue. 

Considering he has the whole night off and probably most of tomorrow, too, Jayce figures that he can finally take the time to make Viktor cry again.  

It happens quicker than he would have expected—he wonders, vaguely, if anyone else has done this to him today; if anyone else has made him cum instead of just taking from him (even more faintly, he wonders if Silco has ever made him cum).

Jayce helps him tip over the edge—once with his mouth on Viktor’s cock, the nub of it hard and swollen under his tongue (he’s near-obsessed with the sound Viktor makes whenever he swipes a thumb or his tongue over it, the small oh oh oh’s as his whole body twitches). And then again with his fingers, kissing the skin of his thigh as he fucks him open with two, three, four fingers until they’re soaking wet. And then again, and then again, until Viktor is sobbing, trembling in overstimulation as Jayce holds his hips in place. 

“I can’t,” he gasps, sounding absolutely, beautifully wrecked, “J-Jayce, I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” he says, soothing and cruel, “One more time, sweetheart, I know you can do it.”

He can, it turns out. Crying out weakly as his thighs clench around Jayce’s neck one last time before he falls limp, heaving for air like he’s drowning. 

Slowly, Jayce slides his fingers out of his hole, his folds slippery wet. Viktor makes a hurt noise, legs jerking. Jayce murmurs a quiet apology, pushing himself up. 

Viktor looks half asleep, flushed all the way down to his gasping chest. His hair sticks to his forehead, lips bitten bright red. He looks like a dream. Jayce is torn between burying his cock deep inside him and wrapping him up in a blanket and holding him close for the rest of the night.

Viktor makes the decision for him, once he’s recovered enough to catch his breath. He breaks into a light coughing fit halfway in, and Jayce helps him sit up, rubbing his shoulder nervously. 

When it dies down, Viktor leans into Jayce’s side. 

“You okay?” Jayce asks softly. 

Viktor nods. “I think,” he says, and makes a small noise as he sits up again, “that you might be right: I wouldn’t be able to kick you out for long.”

Jayce feels himself grin, ridiculously self-satisfied. “Told you.”

Viktor just rolls his eyes. “Any more ‘ideas’ you have in mind?”

Jayce fucks him soft and sweet tonight. He knows Viktor is still sensitive, even if he’s trying not to show it, and he doesn’t want to hurt him, so he lets him set the pace. Viktor looks fucking gorgeous when he rides him. His eyes are closed in concentration, completely focused on what he’s doing, and he makes small, breathy noises with each grind. 

When he tries to speed it up, Jayce doesn’t let him. He keeps his hands firm on his little waist, haunted by the fact that if he squeezed a little tighter, he knows that his middle fingers would touch. They have before. However, Jayce doesn’t wanna blow his load as quickly as he did when he first realized it, young and overeager, so he doesn’t try.

Jayce fucks up into him slow and steady, softer than he has in a while, because he knows he went a little far last time and he wants to make up for it. He wants Viktor to know that he’s sorry, he wants Viktor to feel good when he’s with him, doesn’t want to be careless with him like some of his other clients. 

When Jayce finally comes, he presses his forehead to Viktor’s shoulder and moans low and long into his skin. 

After he takes a moment to gather himself, he asks, “Do you think you can do one more?”  

Viktor seems to consider for a moment. He flexes his thighs around Jayce’s waist, insides clenching around him. 

“Maybe,” he says. “But maybe not. I’m not as young as I used to be.” 

“Your stamina’s not too bad, yet,” Jayce argues. Viktor can’t really disagree, considering he just orgasmed five times and then rode him right after. 

Viktor hums dismissively. “I don’t think I can,” he admits. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Jayce runs a hand through Viktor’s hair, smoothing his curls back from his sweaty forehead. “You never disappoint.” 

It comes out embarrassingly sincere, but Jayce doesn’t take it back—he can’t, when it makes Viktor look away to try and hide a pleased little smile. 

He eases Viktor carefully off of his cock. He helps him lie down on the sheets—shifting him to the far side of the bed, because the ones underneath them are kind of soaked—and reaches for the towel to help wipe up Vitkor’s thighs. 

Instead of reaching for his clothes like he might usually do, Jayce crawls back into the bed, settling back against the headboard and letting his fingers run through Vitkor’s hair. If the change in routine bothers Viktor, he doesn’t mention it. 

“For the record,” Jayce says after a few minutes of peaceful quiet, “I really am sorry.”

Vitkor pushes himself up, leaning back against the headboard next to him. He huffs a tired laugh. 

“Yeah, I kind of got that. I guess I can forgive you.”

Jayce smiles at the sound of his familiar teasing tone. Warmth settles in his chest—Viktor isn’t mad at him anymore. 

“Thank god,” he says, purposefully over dramatic. “You’re scary when you’re mad.”

Vitkor quirks a tired smile, leaning into Jayce’s touch when he reaches to pull him into a soft kiss. 

They make some pleasant small talk for a bit, half-banter, half-not. It’s peaceful—really nice, actually—until Jayce brings up the problems he’s been having with his lab assistants, and more than that, the problems he’s been having with his research. 

Vitkor sits up straight, pulling away from him. Instead of looking intrigued or curious, like he usually does when Jayce brings up his latest hextech work, he just looks—kind of upset. Stricken. 

“What’s wrong?” Jayce asks, a bit bemused. “Is my theory really that off?”

Vitkor seems to collect himself, face smoothing out as he glances away. “No, I…” a pause, “Well, maybe. Are you sure all your math is right?”

Jayce shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I haven’t really had enough time to triple check things lately.”

“Is that not what assistants are for?” Viktor asks wryly.

“Supposedly. It’s been impossible to find one who really knows what they’re doing.”

Viktor hums thoughtfully. Vacantly, like his thoughts are somewhere else. Jayce is used to the tangents Viktor’s mind sometimes takes him on in search of an answer; Jayce has the same problem, sometimes—his thoughts jump around, catching on something until he reigns them back in. 

Right now, though, it doesn’t feel quite like that. Viktor is quiet for long enough that Jayce is beginning to wonder if he said something wrong. 

Then: “Can I…ask you something?” Soft and hesitant.

“Sure,” Jayce answers, trying for casual.

Viktor swallows, tracing small circles on the pillow case. 

“It’s a bit of an overdue question, but. My… contributions, I suppose. To your research, back at the beginning. If I had asked, would you have,” he seems to steel himself for something, taking a deep breath, “would you have given me…credit? For my work?”

Whatever Jayce was expecting, this was not it. He recovers quickly.

“Yeah.” He says automatically. “Of course.”

Viktor looks at him for a moment, eyes searching. “Why didn’t you, then?”

The question draws Jayce up short. “I…” he starts, and then doesn’t know how to continue. When he’s quiet a moment too long, Viktor back tracks.

“Make no mistake, I’m not—bitter about it, or anything. I’m not upset. I’m just…” he shakes his head, looking away, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I asked. It’s a bit too late for it, after all.”

He says it lightly, like he’s trying to joke about it to smooth things out like he always does, but it falls flat. His expression is cracked down the middle, eyebrows furrowed, troubled, gaze trained on the bed. 

“Viktor,” Jayce starts again, but Viktor cuts him off. 

“I suppose I was just curious,” his voice shakes a little on the last word, and then flattens into a sharp professionalism he puts on when he’s hurt. “I apologize, councilor.” 

“V,” Jayce reaches for him, pulls back when Viktor flinches back minutely. “Don’t do that. Don’t…I’m not mad. It’s a valid question. I just…”

Viktor looks at him from the corner of his eye, face still startlingly blank. Jayce doesn’t know how to salvage this sudden turn. He doesn’t know how to answer the question. Because it is valid. Viktor helped him out a lot, back when hextech truly was still just a theory. He helped him put things into place. He gave him the suggestion that helped stabilize the crystal, which would’ve taken Jayce an unknowable amount of more trial and error to reach by himself.

He knew that Viktor was something of a scientist, outside of this job. That he had his own projects, even if he could never coax a lot of detail out of him. 

So why didn’t he credit him? Why didn’t he mention him as a contributor? It’s embarrassing, in hindsight, to say that he forgot to. That he just—forgot to mention the one person his age who’s ever been able to keep up with him. 

“I don’t know,” he finally manages to say. 

“You don’t know?” Viktor repeats, voice unreadable. 

Jayce feels hot shame bloom in his chest. “I don’t—I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“Hm. Was it because of where I’m from,” Viktor says flatly. “or what I do for a living. Or was it a mixture of both.”

They aren’t questions. Jayce's heart sinks at the same rate that it beats up into his throat. 

“That’s not—“ he starts, and then stops again. Because. Well, Viktor has a point, doesn’t he? 

Jayce tries to imagine himself, at the ripe age of twenty four, standing before Heimerdinger and the rest of the council and admitting that he wasn’t able to crack his own theory, that he had to go all the way down to a brothel in the undercity to find the answer. That it didn’t even come from him, but an undercity prostitute who he showed his work to after he serviced him. And he can’t —he can’t imagine it, can’t imagine having the guts or the humility for it, because he was young and stupid and wanted whatever he could get in the name of his research. 

He’s always had an insatiable need to be liked by everyone around him. He’s always had a little too much pride, a little too much arrogance for his own good. It’s why he’s always had such trouble making genuine friends, both as a child and an adult. 

“Viktor,” he says weakly. 

Viktor looks away. Closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath in, and holds it. Jayce counts a solid ten seconds before he exhales. 

“I,” his voice cracks a little on the word; it kind of breaks Jayce’s heart, “I’m sorry, if I read too much into this. I understand if you want to stop seeing me, or—“

“What?” Jayce cuts in before he can finish that ridiculous sentence, “I don’t—why would you think that?”

Viktor just stares at him for a moment, some dampened version of his ‘don’t be stupid, Jayce,’ look. He looks incredibly sad for a moment. Looks away. Shrugs.

“I know this,” he gestures between them, “is purely…professional. I do not want to overstep.”

Oh, Jayce thinks. As if Jayce could possibly still consider their relationship just a transaction at this point. Again, it kind of breaks Jayce’s heart. 

“Viktor,” he says, feeling his own voice go soft. Slowly, he reaches out, cups Viktor’s cheeks lightly enough that he can pull away if he wants to. When he stays still, shoulder tensing, Jayce lets his thumbs trace his cheekbones, impossibly—alarmingly—sharp. “I have literally offered to let you live with me. Multiple times. I think we’re way past professional.”

Impossibly, Viktor exhales a small whoosh of breath from his nose, his form of an exhausted laugh. It spurs Jayce on, endearment warming his chest. 

“The offer is still on the table, y’know,” he says gently. Viktor’s eyes snap to Jayce’s face, a little slower than usual. 

“To be yours?” There is something in his words that feels like a test. Jayce is reminded, suddenly, of Vitkor’s words from weeks ago, his voice hesitant and small. I think I would just want to be my own. 

Jayce thinks that he’s taken enough from Viktor. He doesn’t want to take his autonomy on top of it. Viktor isn’t his; he doesn’t belong to him just because Jayce gets a little possessive from time to time. 

“No. To be your own,” he answers. And then, when Viktor meets his eye, “I really did mean all of it. You could work in the lab with me. I could take you to boring parties. To the beach, if you wanted.”

Something in Viktor’s expression crumples. For a moment, Jayce thinks he might cry. He doesn’t, which kind of makes Jayce want to cry. 

“A private one?” He asks, his voice like gravel. 

“With a summer home,” Jayce nods. “And I would give you credit. Professional credit. I should’ve, a long time ago. We could be…partners.” 

There is a long, heavy pause where Jayce wills Viktor to believe him. Tries to keep his face open and honest and sincere. It’s kind of embarrassing how sincere he is. He feels like a child with a crush; he feels like a man in love. 

“Jayce…” 

“I’m serious, V. I really am. I want—I know you said you don’t want my help, but. You deserve to be taken care of. You deserve to get whatever you want.”

Viktor looks at him searchingly, eyes wide and faintly wet. 

“You’re a very strange man.” 

Jayce snorts a laugh, unable to help himself. “So you’ve told me.”

Viktor’s lips twitch into a grudgingly fond smile, before the air goes somber again.

“Jayce, I can't just leave.” 

“It wouldn’t be forever,” he assures quickly, “And you don’t have to leave right away; I know you have your own projects and stuff.”

Viktor’s expression softens for a moment, even as he frowns. 

“You don’t understand,” he says, voice dropping to a murmur. “I cannot just leave right now. Certainly not with you.” 

He sounds serious. Apprehensive. 

“Why not?” He asks, matching Viktor’s hushed tone. “What’s wrong?”

Viktor worries his bottom lip between his teeth, fingers fiddling with a loose strand of his hair. “There’s been a…complication, recently.”

“Complication?”

Viktor seems to consider his words for a moment, the way he often does when he has something important to say. 

“Do you remember talking to Silco the last time you were here?”

Something in Jayce’s stomach drops. 

“Yeah,” he answers slowly. “Why?”

“The morning after you left, he approached me with an…offer.” 

His stomach sinks further. He almost doesn’t want to ask. He does anyways. 

“What kind of offer?” 

“He seemed to think that you were in the habit of sharing, shall we say, sensitive information with me. When I told him you were not, he said that I should try to…” 

He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Try to get that information. Honestly, Jayce thinks, it probably wouldn’t even be that hard. He told Viktor pretty much everything about hextech literally the second time they met. All Viktor would have to do is say something about how he’s sure Jayce has been making some difficult decisions lately, and that he’s sure he could help if he wanted to talk about it, and Jayce probably would. Even simpler, he could offer him a blowjob or a free meal and Jayce would be spilling government secrets whenever he came up for air between Viktor’s thighs. 

He thinks about Silco, his ominous, larger-than-life presence, telling Viktor to…what, spy for him? All because Jayce didn’t know how to control himself, all because he hadn’t stuck to his routine. Silco would never have even known about the two of them if he had. 

“Shit,” is all he manages to say.

“Yes.” Viktor agrees. “I suppose it was more of a request than an offer.” 

“Requests aren’t commands , though, are they?” 

Viktor gives him a look that almost makes him flinch back. “No. They are threats.” 

“Oh,” Jayce says faintly. Silco does seem very fond of making threats. 

Viktor sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing at his eyes. 

“I have people here, Jayce. I have work, good work, that I have not finished. I cannot just leave.” 

“Okay,” he says, sliding his hands down to grips Viktor’s shoulders and keep him grounded. “I understand.”

After one excruciating moment, Viktor slumps forwards, resting his forehead against Jayce’s chest and breathing deeply. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice terribly small. “I couldn’t say no to him, you understand? I can’t leave right now.”

Jayce runs a hand through his hair, mind racing, heart racing. He wonders if Viktor can feel it, hear it maybe. 

“What can I do?” He asks firmly. Viktor blinks up at him, raising his head. 

“What?”

“I kinda got you into the whole…Silco mess.”

“You have terrible timing,” Viktor agrees.

“So what can I do to help?”

Viktor lets out a shuddering breath. He swallows. Tilts his chin up. Almost looks like his usual unshakable self again. 

“I may have a possible solution,” he says slowly. “Or at least a first draft.” 

Jayce can’t help the smile on his face. Of course Viktor’s already thought something up while Jayce was still barely processing. For a second, it kind of feels like they’re about to start brainstorming crystal-related theories or something like they used to. Despite the shitty situation and the absolute mess they’re going to have to think their way out of, he suddenly isn’t worried any more. 

“Of course you do,” he says fondly, sitting up straight. “Let me hear it.”

Chapter Text

Viktor is kind of lying when he says he has a possible solution. But only kind of. In theory, the idea is fairly simple: give Silco the information he wants, but not really. Give him information, but not necessarily anything damning. Give him something, so that he won’t be suspicious or upset. Silco is not the kind of man you want to upset. 

“I told him it would probably take some time to get anything valuable,” he says quietly, Jayce looking at him intently, “So we have some time to…decide what to do. Long term.”

In theory, this makes sense. It’s simple. In practice, though, it has the potential to get much more complicated, very quickly. 

Viktor is a good actor—again, he’s successfully convinced five different men that they were actively taking his virginity even though there was no way a virgin would be that good at giving head. It kind of comes with the job. But Silco is not like most of his other clients; most of his other clients aren’t kingpins who run half the undercity. 

Viktor thinks that Silco could forgive him for genuinely not being able to convince Jayce to tell him anything, could forgive him for Jayce catching on and leaving. He doesn’t think Silco would be very forgiving of Viktor failing on purpose.

Either way, he doesn’t much want to find out. 

Jayce doesn’t seem very secure in Viktor’s possible solution— it’s kind of dangerous, he says, like a child and not a man who’s made great strides in science and now has a high ranking government position, and Cait thinks he might be involved in shimmer production and organized crime. Like that’s news to Viktor, or anyone for that matter. 

“Yes,” Viktor says slowly, “I’m aware. I’m not sure how you people are just barely figuring that out. Piltover is more out of touch with us than I thought.”

He injects a little humor into it, letting his voice drawl sarcastically, but he’s not joking. It’s a little appalling, actually. The idea that even after riots and rebellions that the enforcers brutally put down again and again, the topsiders care so little about the lives of the people they are stepping on that they have no idea who holds the power down here. As if the undercity is a lawless place full of people who are unable to govern themselves--that have to have order imposed upon them by a government who know nothing about them.

Silco has been running his shimmer empire for years now. Viktor knows that at least the sheriff is involved--he’s heard the whispers of his comings and goings down here. But it’s insane to think that not one other supposed “protector” of Piltover--barring Jayce’s friend, a young woman just starting her career--otherwise have a clue about it.

It’s what Silco wants, probably. But it’s ridiculous all the same.

He doesn’t know how he would even begin to explain all of this to Jayce, so he simply continues before Jayce can interject, “I know Silco is dangerous. I don’t spend my every waking moment in this building, you know.”

“No, I know,” Jayce assures, in that stupid reassuring tone that makes Viktor feel irrationally soft. “I just…is there no other way we can do this? Without you having to--play his game?”

It’s not a game, Viktor almost bites out. Silco does not play games; he makes promises that he often intends to follow through with. He makes offers that you cannot refuse.

“Like what?” he asks instead. 

“We could go to the enforcers,” Jayce suggests offhand, like that’s not the dumbest thing Viktor has ever heard, like the very prospect of it doesn’t make Viktor’s heart start to race. 

“The enforcers,” he repeats incredulously, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the idea, “And tell them what, exactly?”

“That you’re, um, being threatened?”

“And they would care because?”

Jayce squints at him, like it isn’t sure if Viktor’s being serious or not. “…It’s their job?” 

Viktor gives Jayce a withering look. Once again, he’s rudely reminded how different their circumstances are. Jayce doesn’t fear the enforcers because he has no reason to; because he’s secure in the knowledge that they will protect him.

“Jayce,” he says. “We are not going to the enforcers.”

“But—“

“They would just make things worse for me,” he tries to explain calmly, “They would not help me; all it would do is get me labeled a snitch. My work would be ruined, if Silco didn’t kill me first. We’re not going to the fucking enforcers. Okay?”

Jayce, for his part, does look apologetic. “Okay. sorry. I get it.”

No you don’t, Viktor thinks but does not say. You don’t get it at all. 

The fucking enforcers . As if they would do a thing about it, as if they wouldn’t look down their noses at him and then arrest him for solicitation for something--for your own good, they might say, or maybe they would just say it was his own fault, getting himself into a situation like this. As if one or two of them had never paid a visit--threatening arrest in exchange for free service.

No, Viktor thinks. Jayce even mentioning the idea to him at all shows exactly how much he doesn’t fucking get it.

Viktor takes a deep breath, expelling his irritation. Jayce is just trying to help, he knows. And it was his choice to tell him at all, so he can deal with a few ridiculous theories--he always does, when it comes to working with Jayce. The man is all idea, idea, idea with no care for the fine details. Making great claims about the potential of hextech without thinking about how to get from point A to point B without someone there to bridge the gap.

He’s a brilliant man, but he lacks foresight. Viktor isn’t surprised he’s found it difficult to make progress working largely alone, without suitable pushback. He can imagine that it’s hard to find non-starstruck assistants who are willing to give him that. 

“I know it’s not ideal,” Viktor says, placating, running a hand up Jayce’s arm and rubbing at his shoulder. “But the other option is you…not coming anymore. Or at least not coming as often.”

“No,” Jayce says, sitting up straight in alarm, “I mean, wouldn’t that put you in a worse position? It might look like you tipped me off.”

Viktor shrugs, “I cannot tell him information if there’s no information to tell. I am not a trained spy--I could simply say you got suspicious of me.”

“After six years?” 

Viktor sighs. “Then I suppose it’s option one.”

Jayce frowns, seeming troubled. “What are you gonna tell him when you see him next?”

Viktor looks at Jayce carefully. “You haven’t given me much, this time,” he says, “So I will not give him much, either.”

“But you will give him something.”

“That’s kind of the whole deal, yes.”

Jayce frowns harder. Anxiety spikes in Viktor’s chest; he cups Jayce’s face in his hands, tilts his head towards him and looks him in the eye.

“Jayce. If you don’t want to know, don’t ask,” and then, purposefully light, “I won’t tell him what you’re like in bed, if that’s what you’re worried about. That’s quite confidential.”

Jayce cracks a small smile, like Viktor hoped he would. He brings his large hands up to cover Viktor’s, warm against his skin.

“Sorry,” he says, “I’m just worried. About you, I mean.”

“And about your research,” Viktor finishes for him. Jayce looks a little ashamed, but doesn’t disagree; just shrugs apologetically. “Well, there’s a simple solution for that: don’t tell me anything you don’t want him to know.”

Jayce doesn’t seem particularly happy with that, but he nods all the same.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, V--and I would love your help on this gemstone thing--it’s just…”

“I know,” Viktor says. “I understand. That’s why I told you about--all of this.”

Jayce’s expression softens, goes so sweet it’s almost hard to look at. “I appreciate it. I’m glad you trusted me enough to let me help. If there’s anything else I can do on my end, please tell me.”

Viktor’s not sure that he will, honestly. He’s not sure what else Jayce could do; you would think that a seat on the council would come with a few more benefits, but it makes sense that those benefits are only helpful to the one who wields them. Viktor doesn’t want topside politics ruining everything he’s made for himself. 

“Just don’t go to the enforcers,” he says firmly, willing Jayce to take his words to heart. “Not even your friend. I’m serious, Jayce. Promise me.”

Jayce, for his part, really does seem to listen.

“Okay,” he says. “I promise. I’ll--see you soon?”

Viktor offers him a small smile. “Not too soon; stick to your usual routine. And don’t do anything stupid.”

He lets Jayce kiss him sweetly, like he’s his lover and nothing less, before he finally leaves. Viktor lies back on the mattress and hopes that he hasn’t made a terrible mistake.

The next time Silco pays a visit is later than Viktor expected but still sooner than he would have liked. 

It’s in the early afternoon about two weeks later on one of their slower days, which means Viktor is free. Silco doesn’t always ask for him when he visits, but Viktor isn’t surprised he’s requested him tonight. He has to admit he’s a bit anxious as he slides on the usual academy uniform-adjacent vest. Silco hadn’t requested anything specific this time, but Vitkor doesn’t want to take any chances. 

When he slips into the room ten minutes later, Silco is standing at the window again. His jacket is already off, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened. 

“Vitkor,” he greets, the same way he always does. 

“Hello, sir,” Viktor replies, the same way he knows the man likes. Respectful. 

They don’t waste any time with small talk, which shouldn’t surprise Viktor because they never do, but it throws him off all the same. It makes sense, he supposes, that Silco would save the business for later. This place is all about stress relief first and foremost; it’s what their clients pay for. 

Ultimately, Silco doesn’t seem to be acting any differently than usual, so Viktor decides to follow his lead. 

He limps over to the bed when Silco gestures for him to. Turns to prop his cane against the wall when he feels hands on his hips and warmth against his back. He forces the tension out of his shoulders, lets Silco tug the vest off and ruck his shirt up. He lets Silco bend him over the edge of the bed, putting most of his weight on his arms and chest and leaning heavy on the mattress to take as much pressure off of his bad leg as he can. 

He hears the clink of metal and the zip of his fly; Silco dips his thumbs under the fabric of his tights and yanks them down unceremoniously, leaving them bunched above his knees. 

Then, Silco wraps his long fingers around Viktor’s hips and pulls him back at the same time his hips snap forwards. Viktor lets out a strangled gasp, grasping at the sheets underneath him. Silco fucks in short, sharp bursts, tilting his hips up so high that Viktor has to strain his leg to keep purchase on the ground. 

Silco must notice—it must annoy him, disrupt his rhythm—because he leans forwards to wrap an arm around Viktor’s waist and nearly yanks him up and off of his feet. He gets his other hand on the back of his neck and shoves him down into the mattress. 

Viktor bites back a surprised yelp, twisting his hands into the sheets and turning to press his cheeks against the mattress so he doesn’t fucking choke on it. 

He can’t move, can’t squirm away and or even grind back. So he goes limp, ignoring the way his spine screams at the odd angle and the pain that shoots up his leg as it hangs uselessly. He feels trapped, Silco above him and around him and inside him, splitting him open and spearing him on his cock. 

He has surprising upper body strength for a man of his size, Viktor thinks vaguely, and then stops thinking altogether in favor of not trying not to suffocate. 

“Oh” he chokes, hurt noises punched out of him with every harsh thrust. “Oh, oh, fuck—”

Silco is saying something above him, the low growl that his voice drops into when he fucks or threatens, but Viktor can barely make out what it is. Something about lying there and taking it, rattling off praises and curses and digging his nails into the back of Viktor’s neck like he’s trying to fuck his anger out, fuck all of his passion and fury into Viktor instead. 

Silco, unlike Jayce and unlike many of his other clients, is quiet when he comes. He grips Viktor’s hip tight tight tight in his hand and digs his teeth into Viktor’s shoulder as he fills him up. 

For a few moments, they stay like that, Silco panting into the skin of Viktor’s back. Then, slowly, he pulls out. Viktor feels a warm drip down the back of his thighs; it makes him shudder. 

He stays there, balancing precariously on his good leg, until Silco pulls away and he hears the clink of metal as he does his belt up. Viktor tries not to groan as he climbs into the bed and turns to lie on his side, but he can’t help the gasp of pain when his leg spasms. 

This is not Viktor’s first time being treated a little roughly, and not his first time being treated a little roughly by Silco. He can be aggressive when he wants to—he often is aggressive, hurried and impatient in a way Viktor sees only in this room—but he’s never been so harsh with him. The fuck felt like a punishment for something he hasn’t done yet, an assertion of power. As if Viktor needs a reminder of who is in control here. 

He would understand the violence of it if Silco had already asked him about his Jayce Talis Progress and was displeased with his answer. But he hasn’t asked him anything yet. Punishment before the crime. A reminder before the question. 

It’s kind of unfair to expect anything solid out of him after barely a month. Viktor would complain about it if he was a stupider man. If he was a little braver. Viktor is not afraid of Silco. (He is.) But he could be. (He is.) 

He curls forwards as a brief coughing fit overtakes him, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep it in. It’s strangely embarrassing, just another show of weakness, another card he’s showing for Silco to prod at. 

Instead of the indifference he was expecting and probably hoping for, he feels cool hands on his shoulders, easing him up into a sitting position. They pull the sheets up around his waist to give him a modicum of privacy.

“Sorry,” Viktor says when it’s over. “I can’t seem to shake this cough.”

Silco settles on the edge of the mattress, looking at him thoughtfully. His fingers trace down his jaw and neck to prod lightly at the bite mark Viktor is sure he left. He winces, despite himself. 

“I apologize if I hurt you too badly,” Silco says, shocking Viktor back into his body, “I’ve had a particularly difficult week.” 

Viktor tilts his head, trying to seem interested but not too interested. He doesn’t know what reaction the man is looking for; he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to pry, if showing any interest at all will make him seem suspicious. Viktor misses the days where every job didn’t come with some complication or strange mind game attached. He shouldn’t have to feel this fucking stressed at work. Fucking Jayce and his terrible timing. 

“I’m fine,” is what Viktor says, focusing on the first part of his sentence. “I am not so delicate as that.” 

He allows himself a small quirk of his lips, just the right amount of flirty without crossing into disrespect. 

Silco doesn’t seem displeased with the answer, so Vitkor lets himself exhale. He adjusts his tights, pulling them back up around his waist and crossing his legs underneath him. 

“I’m sure you know this visit isn’t purely for pleasure.”

Viktor hums in acknowledgement, doing his best to lean back casually against the headboard. 

“I heard Talis visited recently. I know it may take time to get anything substantial, but I just wanted to check in.”

Viktor wets his lips, trying not to shift under Silco’s gaze. He shrugs, tugging at a stray strand of hair. 

“It was mostly uneventful, but the last time he was here, Talis complained a lot about having troubles with his latest project,” he says carefully. “He can’t get it to work, and is upset with the lack of progress. Apparently, he goes through lab assistants too fast because none of them can tolerate him.” 

Silco hums thoughtfully, lips twitching up slightly at Viktor’s jab. “The man of progress failing to make any. Careful, or he may go after another one of your ‘suggestions’ to take as his own.”

Viktor’s stomach twists lightly at the reminder, the thing that Silco keeps throwing at him to keep him off balance and feeling slighted. He forces a small huff of laughter, making sure to add just the right layer of scorn. 

“He rarely asks me about my work these days. It don’t even think he knows I ever applied for the academy.” He meant it as another light jab at Jayce’s expense, but the words slide out with a startling honesty. 

Silco makes a disapproving noise; a roll of his eyes, universal down here— fucking pilties, it says. Viktor shrugs back— what can you do? Also universal down here. 

“This could be beneficial for us,” Silco says, returning to the subject on hand. “More time for us to prepare while Piltover stagnates for a while.” 

Viktor smooths out the fabric of his shirt, making sure to keep his expression intrigued. But not too intrigued. He is simply doing a favor, passing along this information with no need to know how it will be implemented. Honestly, he doesn’t really want to know. He wants to fulfill his end of the deal and be left alone for a while. 

“I’m glad I could be of service,” he settles on. “I wasn’t sure if it would be helpful.”

Silco gives his cheek a fond pat, fingers brushing lightly through his hair. It’s so at odds with the the violent way he fucked him that it almost leaves Viktor reeling.

“Thank you, Viktor,” he says, and sounds sincere enough. “I hope your latest project is going well.”

Viktor shrugs, a little uncomfortable but trying not to show it.  “Eh, well enough.”

Silco gives his head another pat and tosses his payment onto the mattress—the bag is slightly heavier than usual when he picks it up. 

“For both of your services,” Silco says simply. “Keep me updated.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

And then Silco is gone. The door shuts loudly. 

Viktor lets out a long, exhausted breath, and lets himself fall back against the mattress. That was too fucking stressful.

His life is very difficult. 

At least his project won’t want for funds, he thinks, trying to look at the positives. In fact, he might even be able to finish the turbine prototypes soon. 

He decides to excuse himself for the day, opting to shower at home and telling Ray to tell any regulars that might come by that he’s not available. He knows the man has a bit of a soft spot for him—they’ve known each other for years, after all, and Ray has seen him at his absolute worst—so he isn’t too worried about getting in trouble with their boss about it. 

It doesn’t hurt that he’s stacked up a few favors with him, either. 

“How’s your leg doing?” Viktor asks pleasantly after he’s made his request. 

Ray rolls his eyes, seeing through him easily, but it’s undercut by the fond shake of his head. 

“Not terrible,” he admits, “Could use a few touch ups, though; it keeps locking up at the end of the day.”

Ray had lost his leg years ago, back before Viktor met him. He doesn’t speak about it much, but Viktor knows it was an explosion during the rebellion, back when Vander and Silco were leading the war for Zaun. Viktor was too young to be directly involved, but he remembers the fear and the hope that had swept through the undercity in equal waves. The metal body replacement that he had in its place wasn’t as advanced as something like Sevika’s arm, so Viktor had taken it upon himself to bully the man into letting him update it. 

Vitkor represses the urge to usher him over to a bar stool and take a look right now, because he knows if he starts he won’t be able to stop. 

“You can come by whenever you have the time,” Viktor offers, “I’ll take a look at it for you—on the house, of course.”

It’s a bit of a running joke, the idea of Viktor charging for his work. He’s never asked for payment, not from anyone down here. 

“Thanks, Vik,” he says. “Now get outta here before someone catches you sneaking out.” 

Vitkor would say that he’s not sneaking, he’s just clocking out early, but decides not to argue the point this time. 

He decides to stop by the junk shop on the way home. It’s a bit out of the way, but he’d rather get there a bit earlier than usual, before the best items are gone. 

Ekko, the smart young man who runs the shop when he’s not busy running his group of strays, is at the counter when he gets there, glancing up at the sound of the bell against the door frame. He looks tired, Viktor notices, but he still offers a smile when he catches his eye. 

“Hey, Vik,” he says amicably, smile widening when Viktor offers one in return. “You’re back again soon.”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, “My, ah, patrons have been quite generous lately.” 

Ekko, along with pretty much everyone else in Viktor’s life, knows what he does for a living to support his research. He’s not ashamed of it, because it’s kept him in relative comfort—or at least a step or two above the poverty his parents had to raise him in—for many years, and it’s a common enough story down here that no one who’s opinion Viktor values cares. 

Because Ekko is a kind kid even though he tries to put on a rough exterior, he snorts a laugh. “So you’re saying you’ve got enough cash for me to start overcharging you, huh?”

“What can I say—I’m good at my job.” 

That gets another grin out of the kid; he looks younger when he smiles, looks more his age and not the small adult he’s been forced to become in recent years.

It’s a small form of justice, Viktor thinks to himself, that the coin Silco has given him will go to Ekko instead. He had ached to hear about the previous owner of this shop and how Silco had killed him. He also thinks to himself that he’ll never tell Ekko that half of the coin in his pocket came from the man who murdered his mentor. He doesn’t think he could bear to see the scorn, or the disappointment. 

He lets Ekko show off his most recent finds with a childish glee, and takes a look at the hoverboards he’s been working on. They’re impressive pieces of technology. He can’t help the swell of pride he feels in his chest, despite the fact that he had no part in it. He’s glad to see that people down here have hope; that they have someone to give it to them.

He collects the various screws and the metal he’s been eyeing for the blades of his newest mini-turbine prototype. He leaves with a few extra things he definitely didn’t come for, and lets Ekko overcharge him—just a little bit, because he refuses to let the kid treat him too much like a clueless piltie. 

“I’d never treat you like a piltie,” Ekko says when Viktor tells him this, mock offended, and lets him take another battery for free. 

Vitkor thanks him, drops a few more coins in the tip jar, and goes on his way.

He makes it home a little slower than he would have liked; he’s been on his leg too long, and his bag is heavy where it’s slung over his shoulder. His lab is a little thing—he can only imagine the kind of space Jayce must have with the way he talks about it—attached to a small room with half a kitchen and a bathroom all packed into it. It’s more spacious inside than you would expect from the exterior. It gets cold in the winter and achingly hot in the summer and the heater often goes out just as often as the refrigerator. 

It’s kind of shitty, but it’s home. It’s what he has and he values it, because it’s his. 

He lets himself sink into his desk chair, padded with one of the many blankets he’s collected over the years, letting out a groan as the pressure is finally lifted from his bad leg. 

It’s only then that he lets his eyes close, leaning back in exhaustion. What a stressful fucking day.

Every day since Silco’s last visit has been stressful, no matter how much he tries to put all the mess aside and focus on his work—both jobs. Now that he’s alone in his home, his thoughts finally feel safe to wander, as they have again and again in the past weeks, to Jayce. Jayce and his ridiculous “offer.” His foolish, childish proposal to whisk Viktor away to Piltover like a prince in some fairytale his mother used to tell, half joking. He’s always had a built-in bias against that kind of story, a resignation to the fact that those things simply don’t happen to people down here. Certainly not with any topsider. 

He had made a risky gamble in telling Jayce about Silco’s offer-slash-request so soon, in trusting that Jayce wouldn’t be upset or do anything rash when he heard. He doesn’t know if it was the right decision, what with Jayce’s suggestion to go to the fucking enforcers of all things, but it’s the one he made. 

Most of him refuses to acknowledge why he made it—refuses to entertain Jayce’s offer as anything real or substantial. Jayce says a lot of pretty words, both during and after sex, and makes ridiculous claims. It’s only luck that one of those claims happened to come true and catapult him to success. There’s no reason to believe that this is anything more than the countless times Jayce has insisted that Viktor is his, like a child with his favorite toy. 

Despite his best efforts, though, a small, pathetic part of him actually considers it. Genuinely thinks about what would happen if he said yes, if Jayce truly would fulfill all his promises. Working in a big and well-funded lab, access to resources he would never be able to get his hands on with his limited reach. Going to ridiculous piltie parties just to see the looks on their faces when he walked in on their golden boy councilor’s arm; Jayce risking his reputation for him, taking him out wherever he wants and none of the rich piltie pricks being able to do anything about it. Getting actual professional credit for his contributions to one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in years. How much of that support and resources could finally be spread to the undercity, how he could truly help his people the way he’s always dreamed of.  

He thinks about going to the beach, seeing the ocean that his mother hailed from back when she was a child. Seeing if all her stories really were true or if she was just exaggerating to make him smile. 

That part of him that always craves more, that has always wanted and wanted—you learn not to want, down here, so you can survive without hating the way you have to do it—nearly sings at the thought. At the fact that it might actually be an option. 

He is not a child, he reminds himself, and those stories about heroes sweeping their lovers off their feet and saving them from the monster aren’t real in Viktor’s world. The undercity—Zaun—is not a monster, and Viktor does not need saving. 

Still. That small pathetic part of him considers, and imagines, and aches for it. 

With an extraordinary amount of effort, Viktor pushes these thoughts from his mind and opens his eyes. He didn’t leave work early to go to bed early, too. He rubs the near-sleep out of his eyes and sits up, because he has a long-overdue prototype to finish.

Chapter Text

It’s not that Jayce doesn’t trust Viktor, okay? It’s not that he doesn’t believe in him.

Of course he believes in him—he believes that he knows what he’s doing, and that he’s being as safe as he can. He’s aware that he doesn’t understand undercity politics or culture as well as Viktor does, that he could never hope to really understand his choices or why he’s making them.

(He would try to, he thinks, if Viktor wanted to tell him. He would listen and let him explain. He wants to understand why he distrusts the enforcers so strongly, beyond what he’s come to understand is the undercity’s general distaste for law enforcement. He wants to understand the work that he’s doing. He wants to understand why he refuses to take Jayce’s offer again and again.) 

He trusts Viktor. He doesn’t want to make things any more difficult for him than he already has. He wants to help. He wants to do something.

And that’s the crux of it—he’s an active person by nature. It’s how he’s always been; he knows how to help by doing . Being told that the most helpful thing he can do is stick to his routine, drop some juicy tidbits of info and let Viktor figure things out on his side is…not great. It makes him antsy, anxious to do. And then he’s struck with the big, blaring sign in his brain that Viktor had put up in flashing neon, telling him not to do anything stupid. Don’t go to the enforcers, not even Cait, stick to his routine and don’t do anything stupid. 

Maybe he should have asked for clearer parameter on what “anything stupid” means exactly. He supposes it’s anything that makes the Viktor in his brain give him that unimpressed frown and ‘don’t be stupid’ slant of his eyebrows. 

So no going to the enforcers—which he already wasn’t very serious about doing. He knows Marcus is up to something; Cait’s been suspicious of him for a bit, and Jayce doesn’t trust him with Viktor in any capacity. Contrary to how clueless Viktor seems to think he is, he’s aware how easily this whole thing could go sideways. How easily Viktor could and probably would be blamed for putting Jayce in a “dangerous” situation. 

Now that he’s a councilor, as Mel has often reminded him, everything he does supposedly reflects on the rest of them. On the city as a whole. 

He’s stuck in a kind of anxious, frustrated limbo, where he needs to tell someone something that he can’t tell anyone, and both of his usual go-to’s who give good advice aren’t options.

He can’t tell Cait, because he promised Viktor that he wouldn’t. He can’t ask Mel about it, because he and Mel are friends but he knows that she’s a councilor first and foremost. He couldn’t do a vague “my friend is in this situation” cover with her, either, because she might not know who Viktor is, exactly, but she knows he’s from the undercity. He doesn’t want to make her feel like he’s at risk. Or like Viktor is a liability.

So no Caitlyn and no Mel. Heimerdinger could be an option, but Jayce doesn’t really want to listen to a lecture about any of the various topics (not even including the eventual lecture about academic integrity he knows he’ll once Viktor’s part in hextech’s creation comes to light) the dean could decide to chide him on before getting to the actual advice. 

All in all, the whole situation kind of leaves him feeling this ever-present dread, because he doesn’t know what’s happening and he can’t do anything about it. 

He goes through the motions—councilor bullshit, events, long hours in the lab that come to nothing. He fires another lab assistant. Hires a new one. Goes to lunch with Cait, ignores her pointed looks that tell him he is definitely acting weird. Another council meeting. He thinks about Viktor. Does not think about Viktor. Starts a new project to stop himself from thinking about Viktor, comes up with a few things he needs a second opinion on, gets depressed when he realizes he can’t ask Vitkor for his second opinion anymore, not if he wants to keep both his research and Viktor safe. 

His life is very hard. 

Because no one, especially not Jayce, can keep going like that forever, it all eventually boils over at the weekly dinner Jayce has tried to make sure to have with his mother ever week. He’s been missing them more often than not, lately, because there’s just so much going on. 

He knows she understands, but he also knows it makes her sad when she doesn’t see him for months at a time. So he clears his schedule for the evening, lets his assistants and fellow councilors know that he’s spending the night with his mother and he won’t be disturbed. 

Mel lifts a brow when he mentions it to her, and he sighs. “I actually am having dinner with my mom this time,” he assures.

“Good,” she says primly, “It would do you good to spend some time with her; I know she misses you.”

She doesn’t explain how exactly she knows that, and Jayce is too flustered to ask. 

His mother does seem happy to see him when he shows up, her forehead smoothing in relief when she sees him on the other side of her front door. She hugs him tightly enough that he has to swallow down the vague guilt that claws at his throat. He really should visit more.

They make it halfway through dinner—something warm and homemade and so good Jayce swallows half of it down immediately—before he can tell that she’s catching on to his evasive, monosyllabic answers. To be fair, he’s never been very good at hiding things from his mother. 

“Jayce,” she finally says, her voice softening in that way it always does when she can tell something is wrong. “What is it?”

He can’t look up, because he knows that if he looks his mom in the eye he’ll spill the whole thing. 

“I don’t…” he starts to deny, but just can’t seem to follow through, “I don’t know if I can talk about it.” He settles on. 

“Is it something to do with your new position?”

Jayce shakes his head. “No, it’s, um, personal.”

“You don’t have to talk about it with me,,” she says carefully, “but know that you can if you need to.”

Jayce swallows, finally glancing a look up. It feels like he’s eight years old again—his mother holding his hand as he sat next to her hospital bed in the aftermath of landing in Piltover, and the way she had made him finally feel safe despite everything. 

He considers his words. “I have this…friend. He’s, well, he’s more than just my friend, but that’s—not important.”

His mother’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “You? Having ‘more than just a friend’?” 

He thinks he should probably be insulted that his own mom is surprised that he’s in some kind of relationship. 

“Yeah,” he coughs, oddly embarrassed. “We, um, work together. Kind of. Anyway, he’s…in a bit of a rough situation right now, that I’m kind of partially responsible for. But there’s not a lot I can do to fix it. He says he’s got it covered and that I should just let him handle it, but…I want to help . And I don’t know what to do.”

His mother hums thoughtfully, reaching across the table to rest her hand over his. “I understand that you want to help; you have a big heart, Jayce. But if you really care for this man—if you respect him—then you should trust that he knows what he’s doing.” 

“I know,” he admits, sighing. “I do trust him, but…I just hate not knowing if he’s safe.”

It comes out with much more raw worry than he meant it to, and he can feel his mother’s tone shift as she responds. “This is not about workplace drama, is it.” It’s not a question. Jayce shrugs helplessly. “Are you in danger?” 

She sounds distressed—but not as much as the way her voice near-shook in the council room five years ago—as she smooths a thumb over his hand. Not worried, yet, but concerned.

“No,” Jayce assures. “No, I’m not. Vikt—my friend . Is the one I’m worried about.” 

“Don’t do anything rash, Jayce,” for a moment she sounds remarkably like Vitkor. “Don’t do anything that could put you at risk, either of you.”

“I know,” Jayce says, “I won’t. Thanks, mom.”

She smiles at him softly, still seeming a bit worried, not not incredibly so. “Of course. I hope I’m allowed to meet this friend of yours someday.”

Jayce, to his humiliation, feels his face warm up at the teasing note in her voice, like he’s a teenager with some crush.

“Um. We’ll see.” 

His mom laughs softly, the way she used to back before the blizzard and everything that followed. He knows he wasn’t an easy kid to raise. He hopes he’s been a good enough son to make up for it. 

The rest of the night passes smoothly and he goes to bed feeling a little less guilty about his inaction.

When his regularly-scheduled visit to the undercity comes around, he makes the trip almost embarrassingly quickly. Ray is his usual judgmental self, his room is open, and Viktor is as gorgeous as ever when he finally arrives.

He looks much happier to see him than he did last time, and it makes the anxious thrum in Jayce’s chest settle into something more manageable. 

“Hi,” he says, trying not to sound too eager.

“Hello, Jayce,” Viktor says, accent curling fondly around the name. He looks fine, Jayce notes in relief, if not a little tired. Viktor always looks a little tired, but tonight fatigue seems to hang over his frame and weigh him down, even as he does his best to hide it. It’s present in the slower way he walks to the bed and the stiffness of his movements as Jayce helps him up and into his lap.

Either way, Jayce chooses not to comment on it. He hasn’t exactly been at his best recently, either. He’s kind of afraid he might start sprouting gray hairs in his thirties at this rate. 

“What top secret information do you have for me today?” Viktor asks, somehow making this fairly serious question into banter—like, almost sexy banter. Jayce would probably say something about the stop secret information in his pants, if he was about three years younger.

“Hm,” Jayce decides to lean into it, “Isn’t this supposed to be espionage? Shouldn’t you trick me into telling you or something?”

The idea of Viktor interrogating him in any sense, of looking down at him with those cool eyes or offering him a taste of him in exchange for what he wants, makes him shift in place a little. Viktor catches it, because of course he does, and raises his eyebrows in vague judgment.

“I can’t make it too easy for you,” Jayce continues, only half-joking. “You have to convince me.”

Viktor cracks a smile, strained around the edges but still reaching his eyes.

“Okay, councilor,” he says, putting on that detached tone he wears the nights Jayce asks him to be mean. He reaches down between them, and pops the button on Jayce’s pants. Jayce’s breath catches.

Viktor wastes no time, fishing his cock out and spitting into the palm of his hand before he wraps his fingers around him. He pumps slowly, looking at Jayce the whole time, face unreadable.

It makes Jayce flush under his gaze; he can’t help but buck up into his touch impatiently. In his defense, it’s been a long, stressful few weeks.

“I’ll ask again,” Viktor says suddenly, tightening his fist around Jayce’s cock, and then stopping his movement. Jayce bites back an impatient whine, because they’ve barely started and he’s not a teenager. “What information do you have for me today? What important councilor things have you done lately?”

“Um, there was a council meeting last week,” Jayce starts breathlessly. “It was pretty boring.”

Viktor hums, feigning disinterest—or maybe he actually doesn’t care. “And what did you talk about at this boring meeting?”

“A lot of things. They always run too damn long.”

“Anything useful to me? Or was it all just bullshit piltie politics?”

“W-we talked about trade routes,” Viktor’s hand doesn’t move, “And something about export shipping?” Viktor’s hand doesn’t move, and Jayce scrambles to remember, distracted by Viktor’s long fingers in his hair and curled around his cock, “And, um, some progress day plans?”

Viktor makes an interested noise, finally finally moving his hand, pumping up and down and swirling his thumb around the tip of Jayce’s cock. Jayce can’t stop his hips from jerking up into the touch. 

“Progress day,” he says thoughtfully, “I hadn’t realized it was coming up again so soon. The most annoying piltie holiday.”

“I think it’s pretty fun,”

“Of course you do; you get to show off to a bunch of rich assholes,” his accent goes heavy and low, “What plans?”

“What?”

“What progress day plans did you make? Or have you already forgotten.”

“N-no, I,” he nearly whines when Viktor’s hand stops again. “That’s top secret, babe. You’re gonna have to work a little harder for it.”

It’s a weak attempt to try and gain the upper hand again, and they both know it. Viktor lifts his hand away completely; Jayce is about to take it back, but stops when Viktor reaches down and pops the button on his own pants. Slowly, he climbs out of Jayce’s lap and leans back on the mattress, stretching out so that he can slide the fabric down his legs. Jayce nearly groans when he sees that he isn’t wearing any undergarments. 

Viktor tosses the pants onto the floor, and crosses his legs at the ankles. He leans back on his hands, propped up behind him on the mattress, and somehow looks as casual and unshakable as ever, even with his legs bare and his shirt hanging off of one shoulder.

“Would you like me to open my legs?” Viktor asks simply.

Jayce nods, halfway in a daze, because he couldn’t say no if he tried. Viktor huffs a superior laugh.

“What silly little plans did you discuss for your ‘progress day’?”

Jayce swallows, leaning forwards to put his hands on Viktor’s knees. Viktor stares him down, unmoving.

Jayce struggles to remember the stupid progress day plans. Honestly, it had mostly been vaguely disappointing, considering he still didn’t have anything new to unveil. 

“I’m giving the speech this year,” Jayce blurts desperately.

“Oh? Good for you.” Viktor says dismissively. Jayce nearly whines.

“And, um, I still haven’t cracked the gemstone problem yet, so there’s not a ton going on there. But I have some prototypes for a, um, hextech projector? To run reels on a bigger screen and—”

“I thought we agreed on no research talk?” Viktor interrupts, teasing and warning at the same time. Fuck, but that was a stupid agreement. Jayce would tell Viktor every single detail about his latest projects if he asked him to.

“Fuck, okay, um. The hexgates are gonna be open the whole time—there’s gonna be a lot of people from all over, and Mel was mentioning opening the bridge up for, like, a show of unity or something. No checkpoints or paperwork.”

Which hadn’t actually been confirmed or denied yet, because it was hard to get the council to agree to anything concerning the undercity—or at least at implementing any kind of change concerning the undercity. Jayce doesn’t know if it’ll actually happen, but he wouldn’t really be opposed to the idea—maybe Viktor would come. Maybe he could take him around town and show him a good time and let him criticize all of the Young Inventors Competition entries.

“Really?” Viktor sounds genuinely interested, but quickly smooths it over. “As if we’d want to celebrate your stupid holiday with you.” 

“Free food?” Jayce offers weakly.

Viktor scoffs quietly. But then—

Finally, finally , he uncrosses his ankles, letting Jayce slide his hands up his thighs and push them open. For a moment, he just looks, running his thumbs along the soft skin of Viktor’s inner thighs. Viktor trembles under the touch, just a bit, legs twitching. Jayce feels a smug smile tug at the corner of his mouth at the proof that Jayce isn’t the only one this is affecting—Viktor is soaking.  

Jayce wants to touch, and so he does. He slips two fingers between his folds, letting out a quiet groan at the wet heat he feels; Viktor makes a soft sound as Jayce takes his time opening up his present—his reward for giving up the information. He gave Viktor what he wanted, so now it’s his turn to take what he wants.

Jayce thumbs absently at Viktor’s cock, rubbing over it in small, brief circles. Viktor hips jerk at every touch, so Jayce holds them down with his free hand and does it again. Once, twice, and then stops, sliding his fingers back out of his hole and drawing his hand away. Payback for earlier, he thinks, grinning at the frustration on Viktor’s face.

“I answered all your questions, sweetheart,” he says. “Now I’m taking what I earned.”

Viktor fulfills his end of the bargain, because he’s nothing if not professional: he lets Jayce spread him open with his fingers and his mouth, lets him bring him right to the very edge and then leave him there, lets him fuck into him slow and steady with hands gripping his thighs, lets him turn him over, shoving a pillow under his hips to take weight off of his legs, and fuck him like that, curling over his back and pressing him into the mattress and forcing small, choked noises from his throat with each thrust. 

Then, there’s a knock on the door. Jayce's hips stutter in surprise. In all six years of his patronage, no one has ever knocked on the door. For a moment, he’s not really sure what to do.

Viktor clears his throat beneath him, getting his elbows underneath him and lifting his head. “What?” He snaps.

“Sorry to interrupt, Vik,” a woman’s voice sounds through the door, “But, um, Silco’s here? And he’s asking for you.”

Fucking Silco. 

Jayce snaps his hips forward, pushing a surprised ah! out of the man beneath him. Viktor shoots him an annoyed look over his shoulder. 

“T-Tell him I’m busy,” Viktor says, stuttering as Jayce pulls out and thrusts back in. 

“I will,” the woman says, “I’m just letting you know. Don’t wanna keep him waiting too long.” 

“I-I won’t—oh, Jayce, calm down— “

“Why?” Jayce asks, half-angry and not sure why. “Don’t you ‘not wanna keep Silco waiting’?”

Viktor scoffs, and Jayce is sure he’d be rolling his eyes if he could see him. 

“He’ll wait as long as he needs to,” Viktor says simply, “and if he gets tired of waiting, he’ll go with someone who’s available. I’m not the only person who works here.”

He sounds far too coherent for Jayce’s liking, so he hikes his hips up further to get a better angle, and fucks in harder.

“Seems like you’re everyone’s favorite, though,” he says, almost petulant. He understands why other people like Viktor— he likes Viktor—but he doesn’t have to like the idea of other people getting what he has.

Viktor tries to laugh his superior little laugh, but it comes out strangled. “W-what can I say? I’m good at my job.”

“So good you’ve got a fucking councilor wrapped around you finger,” Jayce agrees, pressing Viktor’s wrist into the bed so he can’t squirm away. “A drug lord, too. Any other dangerous clients you wanna warn me about?”

“Yeah,” Viktor says, audibly struggling to keep his voice even, “I’m—oh—I’m f-fucking the rest of the council, Jayce. And the sheriff, too. I meant to tell you, but there was never a good ti— oh , fuck —”

Something hot spikes in Jayce’s chest at even the thought of anyone on the council, of fucking Marcus, even thinking about bending Viktor over the bed like Jayce has him right now. Silco is bad enough. That bone-deep want threatens to swallow him whole again.

“Don’t even joke about that,” he nearly growls. 

“Y-you asked.”

Jayce did ask. Instead of admitting to it, he digs the fingers of his free hand into Viktor’s hair and tilts his head to the side, shoving his cheek into the mattress.

“You wouldn’t do that to me, would you, V?” he asks, “We’ve already established that I fuck you best and I pay you best.”

Something hot and dangerous flashes in Viktor’s eyes, so expressive even half-obscured by the sheets and the damp curtain of his bangs. “I don’t know about that last bit,” he says boldly, “S-Silco paid me extra last time he was here. Helped me finish my whole project.”

There’s something there, underneath the goading—a hint of strain, his bad leg twitching. Jayce pulls out immediately, gripping Viktor’s hips to help him turn onto his back. He falls back onto the mattress with a small whoosh of air, and then Jayce is knocking his legs apart and shoving back in with one firm thrust. Viktor gasps out what Jayce imagines is a curse, twisting one hand into the sheets.

“You think I should pay you extra ?” Jayce asks, tone bordering on condescending. “After everything I’ve given you today?”

Viktor doesn’t bother trying to act unaffected anymore, flushed high in his cheeks and all the way down his neck. 

“ He’ll pay extra,” he says breathlessly, “Right after you leave, he’ll come up, and I’ll fuck him and tell him what he wants to hear and he’ll pay me better than you do.”

He doesn’t know if it’s true or not, because Jayce has come into a lot of money in the last few years and has been more than willing to blow as much of it as he needs, especially on Viktor. But it makes that deep, ugly jealousy bubble up like bile in his throat.

He puts a warning hand loosely around Viktor’s throat, hiking his good thigh up around his waist. 

“I guess I’ll just have to stay all night, then,” he says lowly, “Even if he walked in right now, I wouldn’t stop. I’d show him how to fuck you right. He’ll have to find some other whore to pay extra.”

Viktor makes a strangled noise underneath him, grabbing at Jayce’s wrist and clenching around him, and then Jayce is gone. His orgasm takes him by surprise, and he buries his face in Viktor’s neck as he rides it out. Viktor lies still, running his fingers absently through Jayce’s hair. Eventually, Jayce pushes himself up and pulls out. Viktor goes to sit up, too, but Jayce puts a hand on his still-clothed chest to keep him down. 

Viktor lies there obediently, gazing up at Jayce half-curious and half-suspicious. Unsatisfied, Jayce knows, because he’s been a little neglectful of his needs tonight.

Luckily, he has a solution.

“Touch yourself,” he says.

“Jayce,” Viktor whines, voice fucked out and tired.

“I can’t do all the work for you, babe,” he says, gentle and mean, smirking at Viktor’s annoyed glare, “You have to make sure I’ll come back again; give me something to think about when I’m gone.”

It’s been ages since Jayce has last seen Viktor bring himself off; back near the beginning, Jayce had asked Viktor to show him what he liked so that he could learn how to do it right. The image of Viktor, gazing up at him with a hand between his legs, had been a frequent guest in his dreams for weeks afterwards.

It’s just as hot all these years later. Viktor lets his eyes slip shut, tilting his head away like he’s trying to hide. Jayce lets him, for now, focusing on the way his long fingers circle his cock, working himself up a little before he slips a finger, and then two, into his own hole. 

It doesn’t take Viktor very long to tip himself over the edge—Jayce doesn’t think he’s cum once all night, and he’s pushed him to the edge enough times that Viktor moves frantically, working his fingers in and out like he wants to get it over with as fast as possible. Jayce watches eagerly, drinking it all up and trying to commit every detail to memory. Right when it seems like Viktor is nearing his peak, whining softly, Jayce reaches down and rubs at Viktor’s cock, hard and fast. Viktor’s eyes shoot open as his hips stutter, and then he’s arching up underneath him, nearly sobbing as he spills over his own fingers.

Jayce’s cock twitches interestedly at the sight, but he doesn’t think he has another one in him tonight. He doesn’t think Viktor does either, with the way he tosses an arm over his face as he collects himself, chest heaving from the come-down. 

“Fuck, Jayce,” he breathes after a few moments. He reaches for him in a silent request for help, which Jayce gladly gives. He helps him ease into a sitting position, resting his back against the headboard.

He glances down at Viktor’s leg nervously, wincing when Viktor coughs—not as brutal and frame-racking as his last visit, but still hard enough to worry. 

“You okay?” he asks softly. “Was it too much? I’m sorry if I—”

Viktor waves him off, “I’m fine, Jayce,” he assures badly. “It’s just a bit of a cough. Not contagious.”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about,” Jayce says, trying to inject a bit of levity to his tone. He knows Viktor hates it when he dotes on him too hard. 

Viktor just gives him a small smile instead of getting upset. “I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me,” he stresses the word like it’s ridiculous—like Jayce could never hurt him, like the very idea is absurd. It makes something in his chest warm, the last traces of jealousy chased away by the feeling. 

He runs a hand through Viktor’s hair, coming to cup his cheek. Viktor leans into the touch. 

The moment can’t last forever, though. After soaking in each other’s presence for a moment, Viktor sighs, pulling back.

“I can’t stay long,” he says, and he really does sound regretful, “And neither should you. I didn’t expect him to come today, but I…probably shouldn’t keep him waiting long.”

Honestly, Jayce was hoping to have a little more time to discuss their game plan and whether Viktor had figured anything out for the long term, but he sounds so tired that he doesn’t want to press. Jayce can have a little patience, he thinks. He can trust Viktor to do what he thinks is right, and that he’ll loop him in when he’s ready.

“Right,” he says. “Okay.”

They get dressed in relative silence, Jayce offering to help him slide his pants back on over the small brace. Viktor must really be tired, because he doesn’t even argue a little bit. His ankle is small and delicate under Jayce’s hand. He zips up his fly for him, but Viktor bats his hands away when he goes for the button, too.

Jayce huffs a quiet laugh; Viktor rolls his eyes fondly.

There’s a moment where they just look at each other, both of them reluctant to go. Finally, Viktor looks away.

“I need to wash up,” he says. “I’ll…see you soon?”

“Not too soon,” Jayce says, an echo of Viktor’s warning last time. It makes Viktor smile, just a bit.

“Thank you,” Viktor says suddenly, “For helping. I’m…glad I told you. I couldn’t imagine lying to you about this. I couldn’t bear you…hating me, when you found out.”

When, he says, and not if. The idea of Jayce ever being able to hate Viktor is so absurd that Jayce could laugh. Viktor’s not joking, though, and so he doesn’t. Just cradles his jaw and tilts his head up to look him in the eye.

“I could never hate you, V,” he says softly, “But I’m glad you told me, too. I know it was risky for you. And I’m sorry I can’t help more.”

Viktor shrugs, almost bashful. “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do anything—”

“Stupid, I know,” Jayce says fondly, and kisses Viktor softly, like they’re teenagers saying goodbye after a first date or something. It makes him feel giddy, somehow, despite the way he just fucked Viktor into the mattress ten minutes ago. Before he can say anything to embarrass himself, like offering to take Viktor back to Piltover with him right this second if he wanted to, he reaches for Viktor’s cane and hands it off to him. “Be careful.” 

“I always am,” Viktor assures, and then he’s gone.

Jayce sighs into the empty room. He finishes getting dressed and leaves not soon after.

Despite his best efforts, he once again runs into Silco in the lobby.

“Councilor Talis,” Silco says; he doesn’t sound surprised to see him this time, just amused. “Fancy seeing you here again.”

The way Silco looks at him—like he’s a particularly funny joke but not quite worth laughing at, like he knows something that Jayce doesn’t—sends an irrational worry through his chest. He wonders what exactly Viktor told him about him; hopes it wasn’t anything bad, and then scoffs internally at his insecurity.

Jayce straightens up, trying very hard not to cross his arms. “It’s my day off,” he says casually, “I figured I’d have a little fun with it.” 

Silco’s mouth twists, something between disgust and judgment. “And of course this is your definition of fun.” As if he’s not here for the exact same thing—well, not the exact same thing, but the point still stands.

“What can I say—Vik knows how to show me a good time.”

Silco’s in-tact eye sparkles at the mention; his other one doesn’t otherwise change. Jayce has to remind himself that he has the upper ground here—he knows about Silco, but Silco doesn’t know that he knows—he’s just not allowed to show it. He’s never been great at politics, the kinds of mind games some of them like to play, but he cannot mess this up.

“Ah, yes,” Silco says amicably, “About Viktor—have you given any thought to my question, Councilor?”

Jayce has to pretend to think about it, as if the entire exchange he had with Silco their previous meeting hadn’t been word-for-word seared into his brain. 

“You were right,” he says, “Tightest hole in all of Piltover.”

Ray scoffs somewhere behind them. Jayce represses the urge to flip him off like a child. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he continues, “I should get going.”

“It’s a long trek back to your bridge,” Silco agrees dismissively. 

“Enjoy your time with Viktor,” Jayce says, purposefully echoing Silco’s words from all those months ago, “Don’t be too rough with him.”

It doesn’t make Silco’s smile drop—in fact, he just looks more amused, like Jayce is a child throwing a tantrum. Jayce turns on his heel and tries to walk out of the establishment as calmly and collected as possible. 

He ignores the stare he can feel on his back as he leaves, and tries even harder to ignore the fact that he knows the man is probably on his way up the stairs to see Vitkor as he gets further and further away.

Chapter Text

Viktor thinks that it’s supremely unfair to have to deal with Jayce and Silco back to back. It’s only happened twice—the first time led to the unfortunate situation he’s found himself—and even once was too many times for his taste.

It leaves him strung out and exhausted, caught between two big personalities, two powerful men that couldn’t be more different from each other but who both still manage to leave his head spinning. This is not the kind of bullshit he signed up for; he’s not meant for this kind of strain, especially not physically. He’s a man of science, not fucking espionage or marathon sex. 

Viktor meant what he said to Jayce—he wasn’t expecting Silco tonight. He imagines that Silco wasn’t expecting to run into Jayce, again, either. These kinds of unfortunate coincidences just always seem to happen. This means Viktor has about ten minutes while he washes up to figure out what he’s going to tell the man, who will definitely be expecting him to tell him something, while also trying to keep his breathing steady so that he doesn’t pass out in the showers. 

He’s successful on both fronts, because he usually is. He knows Silco won’t care about trade routes or Piltover’s export industry, so the only thing he has to offer is the Progress Day plans—the bridge opening, which he doesn’t even know will actually happen. He doesn’t know what Silco will do with the information, and he doesn’t want to know. It’s not his fault if something…happens. It was bound to be public knowledge eventually, if Jayce and this “Mel” get their way. 

Silco seems pleased enough with it; there’s a glint in his eye that makes Viktor shiver. He pretends it’s because of the long fingers tracing his jaw and hopes that Silco can’t sense his trepidation. 

He’s surprisingly gentle that night, considering his trip was probably originally just one of pleasure and not business. Maybe he can tell how tired Viktor, or maybe his cough isn’t particularly enticing. Either way, he has Viktor ride him while he tells him about the information he wrung out of Jayce—Vitkor decides to frame it as him asking about progress day in particular, and Silco seems to take particular delight in the idea of Jayce handing the information over freely when prompted. 

He tips generously, wishes Viktor good luck on his work, and goes on his way, 

Viktor lies there for a long few minutes. He’s fucking tired, he thinks, and then scrapes himself off of the sheets and back to the showers so he can his shit together and leave. 

He’s a little late for work the next day, and he can tell from the moment he wakes up that it’s not going to be a good one. His leg is particularly sore, and his back aches. His cough seems to be getting worse instead of going away, no matter how many cups of hot tea he drinks or lozenges he swallows. 

His first client is easy, a regular who works in a factory on this level whose structure Viktor helped reinforce. He never asks for much, just a respite from all the bullshit he has to deal with on a daily basis, and he can’t tip much because he doesn’t have much but Viktor doesn’t mind. His second client asks him to just hold him for a bit, which Viktor is more than happy to do, and he almost falls asleep like that. It’s a nice little break. 

His third client is not so easy to please. He’s new, at least to Viktor, and he’s tall—taller than Jayce, though not as broad, and he looks down at Viktor like he wants something to crush, wants something to step on so that he can feel big again. Viktor doesn’t ask any personal questions, not what he does for a living, not if he’s been here before, because he knows these kinds of men; they’ll take anything as a slight against them if they want to, and Viktor just wants this to be over already. 

About eight minutes later he’s on his hands and knees, full weight bearing down on both of his legs, his back arched painfully. The man had told him to take the corset off, which Viktor politely told him that he couldn’t do, which the man seems to have taken personally—digging large fingers into the back laces and using it to tug him back into his thrusts. It grates against Viktor’s ribs, constricting his lungs, and he feels close to choking—and not in the sexy way that he know Jayce has been inching towards trying. 

He needs to talk to the boss about the vetting process, he thinks faintly. And about sending obviously angry and slighted strangers up to Viktor, as if he’s not the worst candidate here for handling them. 

“W-wait,” he gasps out, feeling lightheaded, “Please, I can’t—breathe, I—“

The man tugs harder, yanking him backwards one last time before shoving himself forwards onto the mattress. He grips Viktor’s hips and flips him over—Viktor bites back a gasp as his leg is jostled and his back twists.

“That’s what you get for wearing this fucking thing,” the man grunts, irritated, “I told you to take it off.”

“I can’t,” Vitkor says again, trying for placating. “I won’t be able to stand without it.”

The man snorts, “You don’t need to stand,” he says, “All you gotta do is lay there and spread your legs.”

Viktor bites the inside of his cheek so that he doesn’t snap out something he’ll regret. He lies there, and spreads his legs, gazing up at the man in what he hopes is enticingly. 

The man doesn’t seem to care either way, knocking his legs apart with his knees and shoving back in with no warning. Vitkor swallows the pained noises that bubble up in his throat, gasping and throwing his head back the way he’s taught himself to do during not-so-great fucks. 

After a few minutes of drilling Viktor into the bed, the man reaches down and wraps a big hand around Viktor’s throat. Panic immediately spikes in his chest, his hand coming to grip the man’s wrist automatically. The man just grips harder, tightening his grasp around Viktor’s neck and cutting off his air supply. Viktor is fine with it—he’s had many clients over the years who are into this sort of thing, and many who have asked him to choke them—until his head starts spinning from lack of oxygen. He kicks weakly at the man’s back, pulling at his wrist until he lets go.

There aren’t many rules in this place when it comes to pleasing clients, but if the workers ever feel unsafe, they’re allowed to put a stop to things. No one has to sign anything, but it’s made clear—by Ray, especially, or the other doormen that everyone has to go through to get inside—that they aren’t allowed to seriously harm them. They aren’t allowed to maim, and weapons of any kind aren’t allowed either. 

Which is why when the man lets go of his throat and pulls out a small switch blade that he flicks open with a quiet click, Viktor is reasonably alarmed. And a little irritated. He should advocate for an anonymous complaint system for the employees. 

“You’re not allowed to have that here,” he says breathlessly, trying to suck as much air into his lungs as possible. 

The man holds the knife against the top of his corset, the point of it sharp against the lace. 

“I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” the man says, “I paid good money for what—a cripple slut who can’t take a little rough riding?”

Viktor swallows, throat bobbing dangerously close to the blade as he runs it up the length of his neck. 

Then, he does something he’s only had to do a handful of times over the years: he opens his mouth and screams. He gets half of Ray’s name out before the man claps a hand over his mouth, pressing the knife right up under his jaw. 

“Little whore,” he snarls, “You’re mine for the next two hours, so you better—“

He’s cut off by Ray throwing the door open, slamming it against the wall behind it. The man barely has time to look up before he’s being hauled off of Viktor and the bed.

“Knife,” Viktor warns weakly, gesturing generally at the floor. Not that Ray needed the warning, because the man lashes out blindly, and ends up sticking the knife into the metal of Ray’s right leg. Ray then kicks him with it. 

“Ain’t allowed to have that in here,” Ray says. Which is exactly what Viktor had said, but he supposes it’s a little more impactful coming from a six foot ripped doorman with a metal leg. 

Ray escorts the man out with little fanfare, grasping his collar and dragging him out of the room and presumably down the stairs and out the door. Viktor stops paying attention so that he can catch his fucking breath, heart beating up into his throat. 

Ray sticks his head in about five minutes later, his usually stoic face cracked in something that Viktor could call concern if he wanted to. 

“You okay, Vik?” He asks, voice gruff, looking pointedly at his face despite the fact that he’s already seen him naked a handful of times over the years. Vitkor pulls the sheets up to his stomach.

He lets out a long exhale. “Yes,” he says. “I’m alright. Just…” He trails off, gesturing at the room at large. “Can I be done for the day?” 

It comes out smaller and more pathetic than he meant for it to. It’s not his fault that his lungs have just run a marathon and have only just started to calm down. Ray’s expression softens minutely. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ll tell the boss what went down.” 

“Thank you,” Viktor says gratefully, trying for a smile. It probably comes out as more of a grimace, but Ray doesn’t make fun of him for it.  

“‘Course. You okay to, uh, get up?” 

Viktor is too tired to be annoyed about being coddled, and Ray sounds so unsure about it that he can’t help but huff an exhausted laugh.  

“No,” he says, “I would like you to carry me to the showers and strip me down.” 

“Um.” Ray makes an aborted movement into the room, and then stops. 

“I am joking,” Viktor clarifies. “I’m just…catching my breath for a moment.” 

Ray exhales, scoffing half-heartedly. “Asshole. Take your time.” 

He seems much more comfortable falling into their usual routine. Viktor gives him another smile, this one a little lighter. 

“I will.” 

Ray’s concern melts into his usual grudging fondness. “Go home, Vik.”

Viktor makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Then get out of here so I can get dressed.” 

Ray’s small snort of laugher follows him out the door. He closes it softly behind him.

Viktor takes his time getting up, mostly because his ribs are still straining from the rough treatment and his back is throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He forgoes showering in favor of gathering his shit and leaving as fast as possible. If he’s extra careful on his way home, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no angry men are following him, then that’s his own business. 

Lucky for him, he has the next day off. He sleeps in, waking up a good halfway through the day. He‘s kind of irritated about it, because that’s half of his three days off wasted, but he doesn’t feel a substantial amount better than he was last night. He’s pulling himself out of bed and half dressed when there’s a knock on his door. He’s worried for a moment, but when he opens the door it’s just Sky.

He’s very confused about why Sky is at his door, until he remembers what day it is. He hopes he hasn’t kept her waiting too long.

“Sky,” he says, voice still thick with sleep. 

It must surprise her, because she just blinks at him for a second. “Viktor,” she says, half-accusing and half-worried. “I’ve been here for like an hour. Are you ok?” 

It’s a testament to how much of a, as they say, workaholic he is that him showing up late to work is a cause for alarm.

“I’m fine,” he assured. “Just a, ah, rough day at work.” 

Her expression smooths in understanding, and then half-worry again. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want to take the day off?”

“No,” he says quickly, “No, I’m fine. Just let me get dressed and we can get started?”

“Sure,” Sky says, after her eyes flit down to his bare legs and then quickly back up, “I’ll meet you there?” 

Vitkor nods, trying for a small smile. Sky smiles back, so he counts it as successful. 

It takes him longer than he would’ve liked to make it to his desk, considering his lab is literally connected to his living space, but he decides to blame it on the asshole from last night and move on. He can tell Sky has questions, but she does not ask them. It’s one of the reasons he enjoys working with her so much. 

It sounds kind of terrible to say, but he’s—well, not glad that her academy prospects didn’t work as planned, because he’s sure that she could have done great things if she had decided to stay and he knows that she gave up a lot of opportunities by coming back down here after she graduated. But he’s grateful. To have her here to help him, and that she’s willing to even though she’s making much less than she ever did when she was working for Jayce.

They get the mini-turbine prototypes up and running in good time, and plan out a series of air filtering tests they can put them through over the next few weeks. It’s not much, and they’d need to be implemented in a much larger size if they do end up working to do any good, but it’s something. It’s his work and money put to good use in a way that might mean something.

And yet, still he finds himself distracted. So much so that he knows Sky has noticed, even if she’s too nice to say anything about it.

Because he’s taken over-emotional risks in various other areas of his life lately, he decides to take one more. As they’re tidying up for the day, Viktor does something very uncharacteristic.

“Sky,” he says, initiating a difficult conversation. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Sky looks briefly alarmed, but smooths it over quickly enough. “Yeah, of course,” she says, “I know I haven’t been coming by as much, but I—”

“No, no, it’s nothing to do with you,” he quickly dissuades, “It’s more of a personal matter.”

“Oh,” she says haltingly. “Okay. Is something wrong?”

“I’m afraid I’ve found myself in a bit of a…rough situation,” he says carefully. “And I don’t want to burden you, but I feel that I need your advice.”

He spills more of it than he meant to, including the Progress Day news that Jayce had mentioned, but it’s not his fault--Sky is exceedingly easy to talk to, and takes even the wildest shit that he says in stride.

“Well,” she says when he’s finished.  “That definitely counts as a rough situation.”

Viktor, despite himself, huffs a laugh, deflating in his chair. “Yes. I believe it does.”

“I know you said you wanted my advice, but I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say.”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, “I haven’t really liked what anyone has had to say to me in the last few weeks. I’m sure I’ll survive.”

Sky frowns, but steels herself. “Honestly? I don’t know how long you can keep this up. What’s the endgame here?”

“Here meaning, here?” he gestures at the lab around them, “Or the…situation.”

“Obviously the situation,” Sky says, unimpressed. 

“I don’t know,” Viktor answers honestly, suddenly incredibly exhausted. “To not die of disease or be killed by a kingpin? Live long enough to finish at least some of my work here?”

Sky frowns again, eyebrows furrowing above the frames of her glasses. “That’s not a great plan.” 

For a moment she looks and sounds remarkably like Jayce, frowning at him in concern from his place across the mattress and telling him that Silco’s kind of dangerous and are you really sure about this?

“I’m aware. There’s just not much else I can do about it. I didn’t plan to get involved in piltie politics, and I don’t want fucking,” he huffs in frustration, “Jayce Talis to be the reason I lose everything I’ve—”

He cuts himself off, leaning back in his chair again. Sky’s expression softens. He knows she understands.

“You mentioned that Mister Talis—Jayce,” she corrects, still sometimes calling the man by the name she did when she was working as his assistant, “had offered to…to give you asylum, essentially. Right?”

Viktor just blinks at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “Asylum,” he nearly laughs, “I don’t know if that’s what he—”

“You said he offered to pay your way up,” she cuts him off smoothly, “And that he’d give you a place to stay, and a job, and a bunch of other…weird, kind of romantic things.”

“I don't know if I would call them romantic,” Viktor argues, just to be petty; he scolds himself for spilling that embarrassing part, but he felt it was essential to the strange dynamic they were caught between.

“He basically offered you a full-ride scholarship. But for like, being a piltie.”

“I don’t want a piltie scholarship. Who would want that?”

Sky looks at him fondly, “Well, it sounds a lot better than a boring academy scholarship. Those things barely cover everything. Yours comes with a summer beach house, apparently.”

Viktor covers his face with his hands, groaning quietly. “The fucking summer beach house. He wasn’t serious about all of those things. It’s just—pillow talk. Lots of clients have dreams of saving whores from their ‘lives of destitution’.”

Sky tilts her head, conceding his point. “You forget that I know Jayce; I held out for a good six months in that lab with him. He takes himself very seriously.”

“Like a child,” Viktor adds.

“Like a man with a lot of brand new authority. I think he would make due on his offer just to prove he could.”

Viktor frowns, “I don’t want to be indebted to a topsider—a councilor—just to help his ego.”

Sky shakes her head, “No, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean…” she trails off, seeming to consider her words carefully. They’ve known each other since they were children, but it’s still rare that they’re this candid with each other. Especially in the lab. “You said he’s brought it up more than once. I think he’s serious about it, especially considering, well, the whole situation. And you finally getting credit? That would be huge, Viktor, and not just for you. It would reflect well on everyone doing work like that down here.”

Viktor sighs; it’s not like he hasn’t considered the implications it could have. The benefits it could offer the undercity, just by attaching its name to an achievement—and company, now—as big as hextech. Still.

“Are you seriously asking me to take his ridiculous offer?”

“Not to take it. Just—to think about it.”

“I have thought about it.”

“And?”

“I can’t.”

“Because of Silco?”

“Because of,” he shrugs desperately, “Because of everything. Because of you and Ekko and my aunt and my work and—I don’t want to just leave. For what? To go topside, where everyone would look down on me?”

Sky is quiet for a moment, looking at him thoughtfully. She sighs. “It’s not like I want you to leave, either. But it wouldn’t be forever. I’m sure you councilor boytoy could get you the paperwork to visit whenever you wanted.”

“Sky…”

“Just think about it. For your own sake—your own safety. This thing with Silco isn’t sustainable. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Viktor feels himself soften, unbristling at the sound of the genuine worry in her voice.

“I’ll think about it,” he finally concedes. And then, hesitantly, “If the Progress Day thing really is true, I’ve…well, would you like to go with me?”

Sky raises her eyebrows at him, “You wanna go celebrate Progress Day topside?”

Viktor shrugs, feeling oddly embarrassed about it. He knows he told Jayce that he didn’t care, but he’s not uninterested—purely from a scientific perspective, of course. Not because Jayce is apparently giving the speech this year.

“Maybe,” he says, forcing the embarrassment from his tone. “If we even can. I just don’t see the point in going alone. You were up there for a few of them.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I lived there,” Sky actually looks amused with him, which is not an avenue that he should have allowed for. “But sure. I’d love to go with you.”

“If we even can,” he feels the need to add again.

“If we even can,” Sky agrees. “Have you eaten yet today?”

He has not eaten yet today. Turns out, neither has she. She offers to go grab something from a stall nearby, or maybe from her parents’ place, and he agrees, because she’s been very accommodating to his personal bullshit today so he can let her bully him into practicing healthy habits for a day or two. 

When she leaves, he sighs, settling back in his chair and gazing up at the ceiling. He thinks about Jayce, and his ridiculous offer. He thinks about accepting it, and how drastically it would upend his life. He resolves to not think about it for the rest of the day, and sits up again. He has some experiments to plan out.

A week and a half later, an official announcement comes in, spread around enough that it makes its way down to the entresol level and below: the bridge will be open and unobstructed for Progress Day, if any trenchers would like to climb their way up to celebrate. 

True to her word, Sky shows up that morning in some of her nicest clothes, and Viktor dresses up just the same. It’s oddly embarrassing, dressing up for the pilties when he’s aware that even his nicest clothes won’t compare to theirs, but it’s oddly exciting, too. He doesn’t often have the need to dress up—in a way that doesn’t function as a precursor to sex, of course.

They make the trek across the bridge, kind of amazed when they really aren’t stopped to be searched or asked for paperwork, just looked at judgmentally by various enforcers hanging around. As they often do, though, their eyes dart down to his cane and they visibly dismiss him as ‘too pathetic to be a threat,’ not knowing about the knife he’s had in the top compartment since he was about twelve. 

He’s been up here twice before; both times he was turned away at the door when he showed up to take the academy entrance exam. The streets are much busier than he remembers, packed with people swarming this way and that. Sky, who spent four years at the academy up here and then half a year working for Jayce, takes his elbow lightly and leads him through the Piltover streets. 

There are booths set up, fancy machines being shown off, everything bright and golden. The hexgates stand, huge and proud, shooting up into the sky. The sight of them makes a strange twinge of awe and pride and bitterness all mixed together. He quickly squashes it. 

“Do you think we’ve missed the speech?”

“I don’t think so,” Sky assures, “it’s usually a little later in the day.”

They make their way through the streets, stopping at various booths and ignoring the wary looks some of the stall owners shoot them when they’re clocked as trenchers. The food is free, which is insane and also fantastic, and Viktor finds himself enamored with the fluffy pastries being handed out at one of the stalls. Sky teases him for it a bit, but she swallowed hers in about three bites, so she can’t say much about it.

When the time comes for the big speech, they make their way to the stage in the center of town. Viktor ignores the anticipation building in his chest. It’s a large crowd, the councilors up in their fancy chairs and a mass of people all packed in together. They manage to worm their way in decently close, their sharp elbows and the accidental snap of his cane against various ankles clearing the path. 

Jayce looks radiant taking the stage, dressed fancier than Viktor has ever seen him. He looks like the councilor he is, as bright and golden as the rest of this place. He looks like he belongs up there on the stage, taking the crowd’s clapping and cheering with a charming humility and a bright smile. 

Sky elbows Viktor lightly, like he doesn’t have eyes and can’t see what’s happening right in front of him. He elbows her back, ignoring her giggle. 

Jayce knows how to work a crowd, Viktor notices, reasonably well. He has to keep glancing down at the podium where he assumedly has his speech written down, but it somehow makes it more endearing. He makes sure to actually look down at the people in the crowd, too, as if he’s addressing everyone directly. 

Viktor stands up a little straighter, feeling foolish but hopeful. About halfway through the speech, he gets his hope: Jayce’s eyes briefly pass over him, and then quickly dart back. Viktor’s heart beats a little faster, like some kid excited to see his crush.

Jayce’s eyes meet his and he freezes, right there on stage, eyebrows shooting up in shock and, Viktor hopes, something like joy.

After a few terribly silent moments, he seems to realize where he is again and he clears his throat, tearing his eyes away. He finishes his speech with a dramatic flourish, puffing up with just the right amount of cocky confidence to make the crowd cheer. 

They find him afterwards; rather, Sky insists they go wait near the stage because she's sure Jayce will be looking for him as soon as he can, and Viktor allows himself to be dragged along. They don’t have to wait long, ignoring the various looks at the various, probably important pilties give them when they refuse to disperse with the rest of the crowd. Jayce stumbles down the stairs and almost rams straight into them. 

He cuts an imposing figure even all the way down in an undercity whorehouse. Here, standing tall and shiny in his fancy suit and done up hair, he looks incredible.

“Viktor,” Jayce says, sounding elated. He looks him up and down like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, before his cracks into a wide smile. “Oh my god, you’re here.”

“So it seems,” he says, going for bemused. “You’ve met Sky, of course.”

Jayce’s eyes snap to the side, widening in recognition. “Sky?” He asks, and Viktor is relieved to note that he seems pleased to see her rather than annoyed. “You—know each other?”

“Of course,” Viktor drawls, “Don’t you know that everyone from the undercity knows each other?” 

“Hi, Mister Talis,” Sky says before Jayce can sputter an answer. “Sorry about leaving on such short notice. Hope the lab’s doing alright without me.”

It’s a half a joke, but the way Jayce grimaces doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“We’re managing, I guess,” he says pleasantly, “It was a shame to see you go, though; you were one of the best.”

Sky shrugs bashfully, adjusting her glasses, “I don’t know about that.”

Viktor scoffs, “Yes you do. You remind me weekly.”

“You two…work together?” Jayce asks hesitantly. 

“Sky often helps me with my projects, yes,” Viktor says, neatly sidestepping the silent which kind of work question. 

Jayce, for his part, does look genuinely interested, perking up at the mention of Viktor’s projects. Before he can ask more questions, though, someone calls his name. 

“Sorry,” Jayce says, “I’ll be right back—wait right here.” 

Jayce jogs away, which looks kind of funny in his whole getup. Sky quirks a knowing eyebrow at Viktor.

“I am gonna go check out the food stalls again,” she says, not at all subtle. “I have no desire to be a third wheel.”

“Don’t leave without me,” it comes out a little more panicked than he would’ve hoped. Sky, bless her heart, doesn’t mention it.

“Of course. Come find me when you’re done with…all that. I’ll probably stick around the town square.”

Viktor watches her walk off, turning at the front entrance and giving him two thumbs up. Viktor flips her off; she laughs before she turns to leave. Jayce leaves him standing there for at least five minutes, but he looks apologetic when he finally does job back over.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s always something.”

"It's okay," Viktor shrugs good-naturedly. “But I didn't come all this way to stand here all night. Show me around.”

Jayce shows him around. He keeps a hand on his elbow the whole time—not a big enough gesture to draw unnecessary attention to them, but enough that Viktor feels grounded, if not a little embarrassed by the display, no matter how small. The thing is that people notice Jayce regardless of his attempts to not draw attention to himself. They’re stopped a ridiculous amount of times on the street—luckily, Viktor is just unremarkable enough that most people’s gazes slide right past him, probably marking him off as an assistant or something. A few of them catch on Jayce’s hand resting on the crook of Viktor’s elbow, but rarely for long.

It’s kind of charming, at first, seeing how much the general populace so obviously adore Jayce, but it gets annoying very quickly. They make a brief stop at the Young Inventors Competition to see this year’s lineup—Viktor thinks he could do better than most, if not all, of the entries, and says so. Jayce looks at him fondly and agrees. They don’t stay for long, though, because people start asking Jayce his opinions, once again invading what could have been a nice conversation. Jayce ushers him away under the pretense of “impartiality” and “not wanting to sway the judges’ opinions by giving his own.” Viktor gladly takes the out.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce says, and he really does sound sorry. “I thought this would be more fun and less…public.”

Viktor can’t help but give him a small smile, touching his hand reassuringly, “It’s alright. Me and Sky saw most of the booths and such earlier. It is all quite impressive, if not a little over-the-top.”

Jayce snorts a laugh, “Yeah, that’s Piltover.” His face lights up suddenly. “Oh! I know what we can do. Do you wanna see the lab?”

“Will we run into any more of your adoring fans?”

“No,” Jayce smiles bashfully, “No, it’s, uh, private property.”

“Well, okay then. Take me to your lab.”

It’s a bit of a walk from the town square, but not terribly far. It’s near the academy grounds—all of it stretching high into the sky, looking down at him mockingly. There are a few people walking the streets, mostly students in uniform, but not enough for Jayce’s presence to cause a scene.

Jayce seems to get more and more giddy with anticipation the closer they get; it’s endearing, how excited he is about something so mundane, but Viktor can’t say he’s not interested. A scientist’s workspace is something personal to them, no matter how ridiculous it may sound to say out loud. Viktor certainly wouldn’t let just anyone inside.

There are an annoying amount of stairs on the outside of the building, but no more inside. It’s on the first floor—and what a large first floor it is, he thinks vaguely—and then Jayce is doing that little half-jog forward to push the large double doors open for him.

Viktor steps inside. He can’t help the sharp inhale of breath as he looks around.

He doesn’t know whether to be amazed or appalled. He supposes he’s a little of both. The lab is huge, at least twice the size of Viktor's, at least twice the size of Viktor’s childhood home. It’s shiny and vast and well-stocked and Viktor’s stomach twists with a strange mix of envy and awe. 

“Wow,” he says, not quite managing to keep the awe out of his voice. He can practically feel Jayce’s chest puff up, so he undercuts it with a, “Did you never learn how to stack paper?”

Jayce sputters, “I know where everything is, okay? It’s just my system of—“

“Of organizing?” Viktor cuts him off with a quiet laugh. “Whatever you say.” 

He’s in a good enough mood and feeling magnanimous enough to let Jayce give him a grand tour, leading him to the various desks and stations—even the small table in the corner that proudly stores the coffee machine—and high tech, expensive lab equipment.

Viktor hates that he kind of falls in love with the place immediately. He hates that he can kind of see himself working here. Can carve a space out for himself already.

“And this,” Jayce says, seeming to be able to magically read his thoughts as they come to a stop near one of the tables, “This could be your desk. Maybe.”

“Oh?” Viktor asks disinterestedly, “And why this one?”

“”Cause it’s right next to mine.”

Viktor glances at Jayce’s desk again, the half-full coffee mug in the corner and the mess of papers and notebooks strewn across it. It make an uncomfortable fondness swell in his chest, which he pushes down.

“Hm,” he hums thoughtfully, and leans back against the desk behind him. “Help me up.”

“What?"

“The table, Jayce,” he says patiently. “I’d like to sit, but your little barstool doesn’t look very comfortable. So help me up.”

Jayce helps him up, big hands on his waist. He doesn’t let go even after Viktor is settled. Even like this, Jayce is just the slightest bit taller. It’s annoying. He’s so handsome, even in the dying light of the sun setting through the windows. Viktor reaches out to trace his jawline, finally able to touch the way he’s been dying to do all day. The way he hasn’t dared to, out in public.

“Are we alone?” Viktor asks. “Is anyone else going to come in for the next, eh, thirty minutes or so?”

Jayce looks at him questioningly. “I don’t think so; everyone has the day off today. Why?”

Viktor laces his fingers together at the back of Jayce’s neck and hums, leaning in conspiratorially. 

“I was just thinking—didn’t you once say you wanted to have sex in this lab?”

Jayce makes a choked noise. “Um. You told me it was a weird kink.”

“I said it was oddly specific,” Viktor argues. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.”

“Oh,” he breathes, sounding very interested. Viktor represses a huff of laughter. “Are you?”

Viktor leans in and kisses him again as his answer. Jayce responds eagerly, stepping closer and getting his big hands on Viktor’s waist. 

Viktor hasn’t had sex just for the sake of having it in a very long time. Sometimes sex with Jayce feels like it’s pleasure for pleasure’s sake, like they’re doing it because they both want to and not because it’s an exchange, but it’s not. He doesn’t know if that’s what this is. He doesn’t know how he feels about it. How he should feel about it. Maybe it makes him pathetic, wanting Jayce to touch him enough to not charge for it. Maybe charging him for it would be even more pathetic. 

Either way, he grips Jayce’s wrist and pushes his hand down until it’s between his legs. Jayce inhales sharply, pressing closer, forcing Viktor to spread his legs further to accommodate his bulk. He wastes no time in unzipping Viktor’s fly and slipping his hand down the front of his pants and undergarments. 

Viktor can’t help but buck into the touch, Jayce’s thick fingers dipping between his folds, stroking and spreading him apart as he slips a finger inside. He’s embarrassingly wet already, and Jayce whispers his praises into Viktor’s ear—fuck, sweetheart, you’re soaking for me, as if Jayce isn’t rock hard in his pants right now, hot against Viktor’s thigh even through two layers of fabric. 

Jayce’s thumb circles his cock slowly as he presses hot kisses to his neck, up his jaw, breath against the shell of his ear. Vitkor fumbles with Jayce’s belt, gets his hand into his fancy councilor slacks and fishes his cock out. Jayce’s hips jerk forward into Viktor’s touch as he pushes a second finger into his hole, stretching him out.

They get each other off talked that, grinding like horny teenagers—Viktor with his fist curled around Jayce’s cock, pumping him in time with the thrusts of Jayce’s fingers as he fucks him open. Desecrating his fancy fucking lab, the one he made with money he got from his hextech sponsors—the sponsors he never would have gotten without Viktor’s help. Poetic justice, or something. But not really, because this was Jayce’s idea to begin with, Viktor fulfilling his fantasy as always. 

He lets these thoughts drift away, brain foggy with pleasure as Jayce’s clever fingers drill into him hard and steady until he tips over the edge, grasping at Jayce’s fancy councilor blazer and moaning into his neck. Jayce follows not soon after, muttering a small fuck, V, when Viktor remembers to finish his hand job. He cums into Viktor’s hand; Viktor resists the urge to wipe it on his fancy councilor slacks, and takes the tissue Jayce scrambles to grab for him. 

“How was that?” Viktor asks, grinning smugly at the dazed look on Jayce’s face. “Did it live up to your daydreams?”

“Not quite,” Jayce says, laughing when Viktor frowns, “I still need to fuck you over my desk.”

Viktor snorts. “I don’t think that’s happening today, councilor.”

“Why not?” Jayce practically pouts. 

“Because I’m not in the mood to be fucked over a desk,” Viktor says simply. “And I need to be able to make the walk back home.”

Jayce sighs, but relents, leaning in to kiss him instead. Viktor allows it, opening his mouth and letting Jayce lick into it, kissing him long and languid.

They jump apart at the sound of a knock on the lab door; or, Jayce jumps back and Viktor slides carefully off of the desk, grabbing his cane so he can stand. 

“Yes?” Jayce asks, clearing his throat.

The door clicks open, and an enforcer slips in. He glances at Viktor briefly, looking him up and down and frowning at the obvious undercity clothing before visibly dismissing him.

“Councilor Talis,” he says, “I’ve been sent to alert you about a—“ 

He glances at Viktor and then back at Jayce questioning.

“A what?” Jayce asks impatiently, choosing not to pick up on the silent question of should he say this in front of the trencher. 

The enforcer swallows, straightening up. “There was an attack at the loading bay. They’ve arrested a,” he glances back at Viktor, gaze heavy with disdain, “a piece of trencher trash. It was an attack from the undercity.”

Fear and anger spike in Viktor’s chest in equal measures, “Excuse me?” He says, “How dare you accuse—“

“They arrested a trencher,” the enforcer interrupts, still addressing Jayce alone. “There were undercity weapons left behind. And a dead girl—another trencher.”

Jayce is quiet for a moment, absorbing the information. “Did anyone else get hurt?” He asks.

The enforcer nods, “A few dock workers were injured, but nothing fatal. A lot of cargo was stolen or destroyed, though, and part of a loading bay was blown up.”

Vitkor holds his breath, watching Jayce’s face carefully, ignoring the enforcer entirely. He can barely believe what he’s hearing; all he can think about is Silco Silco Silco—did Silco do this? Why would he do this? Was it one of the other gangs? Why today of all fucking days, when there are countless zaunites up here who could easily be arrested and blamed for this?

“Leave,” Jayce says. Viktor jumps at the sudden sound, the word echoing in the large room. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s talking to the enforcer. 

“Sir,” the enforcer says, “The council is calling a—“

“Leave,” he repeats, “Tell them I’ll be there shortly.”

The enforcer shoots one more suspicious look at Viktor before he turns on his heel and leaves the way he came. 

There is a moment of silence; Jayce turns to look at him, face guarded in a way Viktor has never seen before. A pit of anxiety begins to gather, low in his chest. 

“Did you know about this?” Jayce asks, voice low. Dead fucking serious. 

“What?” Viktor asks incredulously.

“Did you know about this?” Jayce asks again. He takes a step forward; Vitkor instinctively takes a step back, but there’s nowhere to go, his back against the edge of the desk. 

“No,” Viktor says, utterly bewildered. “What? No, why would I—?”

“Was this Silco?” 

“How the fuck would I know?” Vitkor asks.

“I don’t know, V, maybe because you’re literally in bed with that drug lord?” His voice is almost mocking, accusatory in a way it has no right to be.

“That doesn’t mean I work with him—how could you think that?”

“You still listen to him; all of you do what he says. Did Silco tell you to come today? As some kind of fucking distraction—?”

“Fuck you,” Viktor spits without thinking, suddenly furious, “Are you kidding me?”

“You’ve never wanted to come up before,” Jayce says, “And suddenly, the same day you’re here the harbor is attacked—“

“You don’t know it was an attack from the undercity,” Viktor says, aware that his accent goes thicker as he raises his voice. “There are literally people here from all over the world, anyone could have attacked your stupid loading dock.”

“They arrested a trencher,” Jayce argues, but the fire in his voice is slowly going out. “Right after we give you people something, you pay us back with this.”

Viktor’s mind catches on the you people, the angry, accusatory tone in it and the way Jayce is aiming it at him without a second thought. 

“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Viktor says slowly, willing his voice not to shake in an odd combination of fear and anger. “I decided to come up here today because I wanted to see you; Silco had no part in it. I thought you would be…happy to see me.”

Jayce exhales, all the wind going out of his sails. “I was happy to see you—I am.” 

Viktor can’t help an incredulous bark of laughter. “Yes, you seem quite happy to accuse me of attacking your precious Piltover.”

“You can’t blame me for being—careful,” Jayce says; there’s regret in his tone, but not enough. 

Viktor just stares at him for a moment. “And why is that.” He asks flatly.

Jayce sighs, crossing his arms defensively. “You know why.”

“Oh,” Viktor says, mock-thoughtfully, “You mean because of the shitty position that you helped get me into? The one where I’m being threatened once a month while you fuck off to your fancy lab?”

“Don’t act like I abandoned you or something,” Jayce shoots back, stepping forward again, “I wanted to help, I want to help, but you won’t let me. You told me to fuck off.” 

“Because your solution was to go to the fucking enforcers, Jayce. The pigs who would ruin my life and arrest me first chance they got.”

“I wasn’t actually gonna go to the enforcers—it was a suggestion!”

“A stupid suggestion,” Viktor yells back, suddenly feeling like an angry child stomping his feet. “How am I supposed to know you’re not serious? You don’t even know how to shut your big mouth around Silco of all people—“

“All I did was not answer some degrading question about how tight you are—“

“Well, you didn’t answer it right!” Viktor can physically feel himself flush—in anger, in humiliation, in crushing disappointment over the whole damn situation. 

“Obviously not! Because now I can’t trust you—“

“I didn’t have to tell you anything,” Viktor interrupts, “I told you because I didn’t want to lie to you, and now you say you can’t trust me? After everything you’ve—“

He cuts himself off, swallowing down the bitter words. Jayce doesn’t let him off, though, poking and prodding the way he does when he’s feeling slighted, as if he’s the one who should be feeling that way right now.

“After everything I’ve what?” Jayce asks, voice low. 

“After everything you’ve done.” 

“To who? To you?” And Jayce has the fucking nerve to sound incredulous, to sound disbelieving. 

“Yes,” Viktor spits, defensive. 

“What, paying your rent for years?” Jayce shoots back, voice hard, that end of condescension he only ever puts on when they fuck. “Funding your science projects or whatever it is you do?” 

“I mean taking from me,” Viktor forces down the lump in his throat; he was an angry crier as a child, and it’s never fully done away. “And then making millions off of my help without giving me any credit.”

It draws Jayce up short, eyebrows furrowed in anger and then hurt and then guilt and then anger again. “V, you know I didn’t mean to…”

“Didn’t mean to what?” 

“I know I should’ve given you credit,” Jayce ignores the question. “I told you I was sorry.”

“And yet, you’ve still done nothing,” Viktor says, voice wobbling until he forces it steady. “You said you would give me real, professional credit.”

“I will,” Jayce says, sounding almost offended. Upset that Viktor is bringing it up, upset that Viktor is upset. 

“When?” Vitkor demands helplessly. “It’s been five fucking years. You fuck me and you pay me and you pretend I am your equal but I’m not—you don’t see me as your equal.”

“That’s not true,” Jayce’s voice shrinks back the same way he does, the anger draining from his tone, “Of course I do.”

“And yet you don’t trust me anymore? And yet, you talk to me like I’m some stray dog you want to take home and spoil? And still you give me no credit.” 

“Viktor,” Jayce starts, and then doesn’t seem to know how to continue. He sounds apologetic, and the familiar tone somehow makes Viktor angrier. “I’m sor—“

“Are you going to arrest me, councilor?” He interrupts boldly. “If you really think Silco sent me as some honeypot distraction, go ahead.” 

There is a moment, however brief, where Viktor genuinely thinks Jayce might actually have him arrested, his eyes burning hot and bright. The moment passes. Viktor still does not exhale. 

“I think you should leave,” Jayce finally says. “Not because I want you to, it just…might get messy. I don’t want you to get caught up in it.”

He doesn’t look at Viktor while he says it. Viktor swallows down whatever shitty way this makes him feel. He swallows down his rage and his sadness and the pathetic urge to apologize and beg Jayce to let him stay like he always promised he could. 

He takes a deep breath. Exhales. 

“Fine.” He says. “I need to find Sky first.”

“Yeah,” Jayce says, glancing away. “I can help you look, if you want.”

“No need. I believe you have a meeting you should be getting to, no?” 

Jayce looks back over at him. Vitkor refuses to break eye contact. There’s a moment where they just stare at each other, so similar to the moment they shared the last time Jayce visited that it makes him ache. He waits for Jayce to say something. He does not; instead. he breaks eye contact first. 

“Right,” he says. “I should be going then. Have a safe trip home.”

Then he is gone. No usual see you soon, no hint of a future meeting. Viktor’s chest feels strangely hollow. He feels like he might cry. 

Jayce opens the door and stops in the doorway. He glances back at Viktor, expression upset and conflicted. 

The door shuts behind him, echoing through the huge room. 

Viktor collapses into Jayce’s stupidly comfortable desk chair, buries his face in his hands, and does not cry. 

Then, he stands up. He hopes Sky isn’t too hard to locate, because he wants to get the fuck out of Piltover as fast as possible. Preferably before any jumpy enforcer decides to arrest them. He leaves the huge, shiny lab behind, and goes to find his friend.

Chapter Text

Jayce storms down the hallway like he’s being chased.

His heart beats up into his throat, pulsing in time with his steps as he walks down the hallway to the council room. He’s reeling, mind racing. He feels like he can’t catch his breath. 

He should not have taken the detour to the loading bay, he thinks vaguely. He wanted to see for himself what had happened—bullet holes in the wall, strange crystal-looking material along the wall, cargo destroyed. A dead trencher girl lying in the middle of it all, shot from behind, pink hair cut short and eyes open in panic. Undercity weapons left behind, tying the attack directly to them. 

He should’ve just gone to the meeting immediately and listened to the reports. 

When he pushes the doors open, the sound hits him immediately. There’s panic in their voices, anger. Fear. As quickly as the arguing hits him, it cuts off—seven pairs of eyes turn to him.

“Councilor Talis,” Salo says, “How nice of you to finally join us.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jayce forces himself to say, “I—I went to go see the loading bay.” 

“So soon after an attack?” Councilor Kiramman asks, sounding anxious, “You shouldn’t be putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just needed to see it for myself.”

He seats himself, willing his heart to stop racing so fast. The meeting starts quickly. Everyone is on edge, reeling and angry and afraid. A few enforcers come in to give their testimony. Marcus comes in, talks about the damage left behind and the trencher they arrested. He says that the man is being interrogated as they speak, and that they’re looking for anyone else who might be involved. 

Marcus leaves soon after, citing the interrogation he apparently needs to get back to. Somehow, Jayce doubts they’ll get much out of him. Especially if he was working for Silco. 

“We need to cut the celebrations short,” Bolbok says.

“We can’t afford to cause a panic,” Councilor Kiramman argues.

“We can’t afford to let all the trenchers who swarmed the city wander around,” Salo says, “We should be questioning anyone who might be involved.”

“We should be rounding these vermin up before they can do any more damage.” Hoskel agrees. 

“We can’t arrest people for no reason.” Jayce says indignantly.

“There’s a very clear reason—we were just attacked.”

“There are countless people from the undercity up here. We can’t mass-detain them without causing an outrage.” Mel says logically.

“They’ll all go back home by the end of the day, anyways,” Jayce adds, heart racing once again at the thought of Viktor or Sky being thrown into a cell for no reason. “There’s no need to stir up more trouble.”

“I agree,” Bolbok says, “We should send them back underground where they belong.”

Which isn’t exactly what Jayce was saying, but it’s better than mass-arresting every trencher who deigned to accept their offer to celebrate their holiday with them. 

“I think we should send them back down and blockade the bridge,” Hoskel says hotly, “As a precautionary measure.”

Another uproar. Jayce puts his elbows on the table and presses his palms to his eyes. A fucking blockade on the bridge? He hears Mel’s voice, crisp and clear— there’s no need to resort to such matters so soon —and the muddled mix of the rest of the councilors and their opinions. 

He thinks about Viktor, on the other side of that bridge. He thinks about the hurt in his voice and on his face as Jayce accused him of…of having something to do with this. He knew just from looking at the crime scene that Viktor couldn’t have had a part in it, that Viktor never could’ve—and he had come up here to celebrate, had come up here because he thought Jayce would be happy to see him, and Jayce had turned around and—

“Talis,” someone says. 

Jayce is jerked back into his body; he looks up to the sight of everyone staring at him. “Yes?”

“The blockade option,” Hoskel says impatiently. 

“Um,” Jayce says intelligently. Viktor’s betrayed expression flashes in his mind. The dead trencher girl, eyes open. The carnage in the loading bay. “I don’t think we should escalate things prematurely.”

“It’s not escalation, it’s protection .”

“It would look like a show of force.”

“It would be a show of force,” Bolbok says, “We need to show the undercity that they’re still privy to Piltover law. They can’t be allowed to blow up whatever they want.”

“I agree with Councilor Talis,” Mel interrupts smoothly. “We don’t want to cause unnecessary tension. We can send enforcers in to investigate; there’s no need to resort to a blockade so soon.”

Jayce winces at the idea of flooding the undercity with more enforcers—the pigs who would ruin my life, Viktor had said—but doesn’t want to disagree with Mel. It’s better than a blockade, right? 

Heimerdinger agrees, but Jayce can barely hear whatever wise spiel he’s spinning over the sound of his own heartbeat. 

They vote on the blockade proposal: four to five, with Shoola as the deciding vote against it. Jayce deflates in his chair in relief, ignoring the puzzled looks a few of the other councilors shoot him. Mel looks at him thoughtfully, like she’s putting pieces together. He gets up and leaves the room before she can.

The next few days pass in a haze. He retreats to the lab as much as he can, trying to simultaneously clear his head and fill it so full of distractions that he can’t think about the absolute mess that his life has recently become. Tensions between the upper and undercity have grown increasingly strained. The news outlets ran wild with the loading bay attacks, hypothesizing about anything from petty thieves to a well-coordinated gang attack to a declaration of war. 

Enforcers have flooded the undercity, Jayce knows. They’ve been arresting more and more people in an attempt to prove that progress is being made, but they still haven’t figured out exactly who was behind the attack. He knows Cait’s been hot on the case, even if Marcus keeps shutting her down.

Jayce, for his part, has mostly been trying to stay out of it. He hasn’t been back down to visit Viktor yet. Every time he thinks about it, his stomach twists in guilt, shame and frustration. Frustration at himself, at Silco, at Viktor, at the whole mess of a situation they’ve all found themselves in. 

Mel, quietly and privately, had warned him about making any undercity trips for the next little while, for both his and his boyfriend’s safety. Jayce’s chest panged at the teasing way she said the word boyfriend, how it had almost felt true on Progress Day before things had gone so terribly wrong. 

His life is very hard.

Today, he fires another assistant. He makes no progress on his gem project. He erases an entire series of equations from the blackboard and collapses back into his desk chair. He’s the only one left in the lab, this late at night. He thinks he had scared the other lab assistants away after he blew up at the one he fired. He feels a little guilty about it; he should probably apologize tomorrow.

For now, he leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. It’s too quiet, he thinks. He wonders what Viktor’s doing. If he’s still upset with him.

He glances at the empty desk next to his. The desk he had offered Viktor, the desk he had helped Vitkor onto so that he could step between his legs and shove his hand down his pants—Viktor had initiated. Viktor had been the first to kiss him, the one to spread his legs and bring Jayce’s hand between them. They hadn’t talked about payment—Viktor hadn’t brought it up. Jayce would have paid him, if he wanted him to, but he hadn’t asked. 

It had been like they were really… like they were lovers, or something more than what they were. Viktor had come all the way up to Piltover to see him, and he had entertained all his bullshit and kissed him because—he wanted to. Because he wanted to. 

He closes his eyes, leaning back in his desk chair with a long, exhausted sigh.

He thinks about Viktor, and how his voice had wobbled dangerously before he had forced it steady. Viktor, and the way he had gasped into Jayce’s mouth as Jayce had fucked into him with his fingers, how wet he had been for him, how easily he had given himself up. Like he was Jayce’s; like they were real. How Jayce had ruined that with a single paranoia-fueled accusation.

No, don’t think about the way it fell apart, he tells himself. Think about how good it had been before that. Maybe it’s selfish of him. He rests his hands on his thighs, palm-down.

Viktor’s long fingers dipping into his pants and curling around his cock—didn’t you once say you wanted to have sex in this lab? he had asked, so casually. On the desk that could be his, if only Viktor would let Jayce give it to him.

He could have it like that all the time, he realizes—they could have it like that all the time, if only Viktor would let them. Every day. He knows Viktor could run circles around every mediocre assistant he’s ever had, could run circles around Jayce. They could do amazing work here, and then after their amazing work, Jayce could spread Viktor out on the couch in the corner and they could reward each other for their amazing work.

He can imagine Viktor whispering in his ear, praising him on his work the same way he tells him how big his dick is—you’re so smart, he might say, I can’t believe the work you’ve done. The work we’ve done, Jayce might correct. He could fuck Viktor into the couch after a long day, after a breakthrough—he could bend Viktor over his desk the way he’s sometimes had very embarrassing wet dreams about. 

“Fuck,” his breathes against his will. He lets his hand slide further up his thigh. Swallows down his shame, unbuckles his belt.

If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine it’s Viktor’s hand on his cock, his clever fingers and his clever tongue—fuck, maybe he would suck him off right here, kneeling on the floor of their lab and taking him down his throat in the middle of it. Maybe he could have him under his desk, pillow on the ground to make sure he’s comfortable. He entertains the idea of someone walking in, of Jayce having to pretend there’s nothing going on; he inhales sharply.

There’s so much they could do in here, he thinks. So much he hasn’t ever entertained the idea of because it was never a real option—now that he’s had Viktor in here, fucked Viktor in here (almost the way he’s always imagined but not quite), it feels so much more real. Like it could happen; like it needs to happen or Jayce might just die.

He returns to his most common fantasy: bending Vikor over his desk. Maybe he would spread him out on his back instead, kneel in front of him and loosen him up with his fingers and his mouth until Viktor was begging for it, fuck him hard and fast and so good that anyone who walked past outside would be able to hear them, would be able to hear that Viktor was his and only his and that they could listen but never, ever touch. 

And he wouldn’t even have to pay him for it. 

For some terrible reason, that’s the thought that tips him over the edge. His orgasm takes him by surprise, and he has to slap his hand against his mouth to muffle his moan. He grabs for a tissue immediately, not wanting to ruin his stupid fancy slacks, and wipes his hand up as best he can.

The come-down settles in fast and ruthless, leaving him feeling cold and kind of pathetic. Reality sets in; Viktor, looking like he might cry. Viktor, leaving because Jayce told him to (he was trying to help, some part of him defends weakly, he didn’t want him to get caught up in the mess that followed). 

Despite their argument, Jayce can still picture it clearly: having Viktor up here with him, permanently. As partners. He doesn’t know if Viktor would want that, especially now, but he can fix this, he thinks. He can fix this. He needs to fix this.

Mind made up, he re-buckles his belt and stands up. It’s too late to go tonight, but maybe tomorrow night? No, he has yet another bullshit gala tomorrow night. 

Soon, he thinks. He needs to have a little self control, what with the state of things right now, but soon. He tosses the tissue in the trash can under his desk and grabs his keys to lock up for the night.

Despite his best intentions, Jayce can only hold out for so long. 

He’s aware that he doesn’t cover his tracks very well, and he’s aware that going to the undercity right now isn’t the best idea, but he needs to make things right. 

The enforcers on the bridge obviously recognize him, but don’t ask any questions. One of them, a taller, bulkier man that Jayce hasn’t seen stationed here before, looks like he wants to say something. Jayce fixes him with a hard look until the enforcer glances away. 

“I have personal business to take care of,” he says. “I’ll be back by the end of the day.” 

“Of course, Councilor,” one of the familiar enforcers says. 

He makes it to the entresol level in record time, pulling his hood up over his head and keeping it low. He pulls it down only when he’s bounding up the front steps of the brothel. 

He runs into Ray, as usual. Unlike usual, though, the man doesn’t bother to hide his scorn, and he does not step aside. 

“Talis,” he says flatly in greeting. “I was wondering when you were gonna show up. Surprised it’s so soon.” 

Jayce clears his throat. “Yeah, well. Things have been…tense, since Progress Day.”

Ray snorts. “Tense. Sure. Enforcers been swarming the streets like fuckin’ roaches, arresting the workers here as soon as they step outside. But I’m sure things up there have been tense.” 

Jayce’s heart sinks at the words; he’d known that sending more enforcers to do rounds down here wouldn’t be ideal, but he didn’t think it would affect Viktor’s work. 

He inhales sharply. “Is Viktor—?“

“Viktor’s fine. Kid’s more slippery than you’d think.

Jayce sighs in relief. “Is he here tonight? I know his schedule changes sometimes—“

“He’s here,” Ray cuts him off. 

“Is he busy?”

“Probably.” He still doesn’t step aside, even as Jayce moves to walk in. “He’s booked up tonight.” 

Jayce frowns. “Then I’ll pay double, I don’t care.” 

Ray sighs, almost apologetic but not quite. “Vik told me he doesn’t wanna see you, Talis. Asked me to keep you outta here.”

Jayce doesn’t know what kind of look must cross his face, but it makes Ray briefly glance away. 

“What?” He manages, voice breaking pathetically on the word. 

“Whatever went down on Progress Day shook him up,” Ray manages to sound menacing and uncomfortable at the same time, “I didn’t ask, ‘cause it ain’t my business. But he asked me to keep you out, so,” he shrugs. 

Jayce tries to pull himself together and not let his heart spill out all over the front steps. He swallows down his indignation and frowns, offended.

“So what, you’re seriously not gonna let me in?”

“Yeah,” Ray drawls, “I’m seriously not gonna let you in. This is a privately owned business, we got the right to refuse service.” 

“Can you at least let him know I’m here?” Jayce bargains, “I can wait outside.”

“I ain’t a fucking errand boy.”

“Please. I really need to see him. I really fucked up.”

Ray frowns. Looks at him searchingly. Whatever he’s looking for, Jayce doesn’t know, but he lets himself be searched regardless. 

“Yelena,” Ray calls suddenly. A few beats of silence; a woman sticks her head out the door. Jayce recognizes her vaguely, but had never heard her name until now. 

“Yeah?”

“Tell Vik his piltie is here.”

“I thought we weren’t letting him in.”

“We ain’t. That’s why the piltie’s staying outside.”

The woman—Yelena, apparently—shrugs. “Okay.”

They wait there in silence, Jayce’s heart racing as anxiety claws at his throat. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’ll do if Viktor doesn’t want to see him. Viktor has never not let him in, not even after the shit he pulled with the hickeys. Jayce had finally gotten Viktor topside, finally been able to interact with him outside of this brothel, and he had fucked it up spectacularly enough that Viktor had actually told Ray not to let him in. 

The minutes tick by slowly. Someone brushes past him, stomping up the stairs, and Ray lets the man in without a word. It grates at Jayce, but he ignores it. 

He glances up at the worn down building, the second and third floor windows a square of dim lighting, some of them just a sliver with the curtains drawn. He wonders which one Viktor is in. 

It can’t be more than five minutes before Yelena returns; she returns alone. He waits for the familiar tap of Viktor’s cane until it sinks in that he’s not coming. 

“Said he doesn’t wanna see you.” She says simply.

“Really?” Jayce asks, as if he can’t see that for himself. “You mean he said that specifically?”

Yelena shoots him an unimpressed look. “He said ‘tell him to go home, I’m busy tonight.’ Sounds like a pretty solid fuck off to me.” 

“ Please ,” Jayce pleads pathetically, “I need to talk to him. Just for a few minutes. I need to apol—“

“He said he don’t wanna see you, councilor,” Ray interrupts, “Your status means shit here; you can’t swing your dick around and expect to get what you want.” 

Jayce represses the urge to say something about how this is kind of the place to swing his dick around and get what he wants, considering that’s the whole point of the brothel thing—he doesn’t feel like being punched in the face today. 

“That’s not what I—“ he cuts himself off. Viktor doesn’t want to see him. That’s fine, he thinks, that’s understandable. Jayce wants, needs, to explain himself, to say sorry, but Viktor doesn’t want to see him and Jayce can’t force him to. He doesn’t want to force him. “Fine. I’ll leave. But can you…can you let him know that I’m so fucking sorry, I’ve just been under so much stress lately and I got paranoid and—“

“I’m not a fucking messenger boy,” Ray interrupts again, expression hard. “Put it in a letter and send it in the mail or something. Go home.”

“Ray, please.”

They stare at each other for a moment, the night air thick and heavy. Jayce looks away first, because there’s something about the mix of judgment and pity in the man’s eyes that make him feel incredibly small.

“I’ll tell him you said sorry,” he finally relents. “But that’s it. You fucked up, Talis. Give him a while to cool off before you fuck things up even more.” 

Jayce swallows down a half-baked retort, because he knows that’s the best he’s gonna get today and he doesn’t wanna make Ray change his mind. 

“Okay. Thank you.”

Ray looks supremely uncomfortable. “Yeah, whatever. Fuck off, Councilor.”

There are years packed into that fuck off. Jayce lets him have it. He’s sure the guy has had a rough week. 

The trip back up topside seems longer and bleaker than usual. The same enforcers are working the bridge when he get back, and greet him politely enough. 

“How was your visit, Councilor?” The familiar one asks.

“It was alright,” he says, giving a strained smile. “Have a nice night.”

He feels the eyes of the unfamiliar enforcer on him the whole trek back across. 

The next council meeting comes sooner than expected. When he walks in, all eyes snap to his face in a way he hasn’t experienced since his trial. He feels, vaguely, like he should turn around and walk out of the room. Instead, he takes a seat. 

They commence with the usual routine. Business, crime rates, things that Jayce has no part in and doesn’t understand. Halfway through the hour, things take an unprecedented, very unwelcome turn.

“Jayce,” Heimerdinger says, and he sounds hesitant and uncomfortable in a way Jayce has never heard before, because the professor is always sure of himself. “I hate to bring your personal life up, especially—well, here , but.”

He does not continue. Hoskel scoffs.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is, personally,” he says, “But there’s a scandalous rumor going around,” he emphasizes the word sarcastically, near-condescending. “About you.”

Jayce’s heart does a strange, uncomfortable twisting thing in his chest. “A—a rumor?”

Councilor Kiramman sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Someone—likely an enforcer—told a news outlet that they spotted you in the undercity last night. Visiting an…unsavory establishment.”

Fuck, Jayce thinks. Shit. All these fucking years, and of course it’s now that someone who holds sway up here catches him down there. It’s because Ray wouldn’t let him inside, he thinks bitterly. Because he had to resort to pleading on the front steps. God dammit.

“Um.” He says, and just knows he’s flushing under seven pairs of judgemental eyes. 

“It spread very fast, this rumor,” Salo says, “The public is very interested in your personal life. I’m surprised you didn’t see it in the newspaper.”

“I, uh, don’t really read them in the morning.”

“Do you confirm or deny these allegations?” Shoola, unfortunately, gets them back on track.

“I’m not sure why this is council meeting-level business,” he starts, swallowing down his indignation. He could deny, he thinks. But if someone actually did see him, and if it really is all over Piltover already, then he doesn’t know how much denial will actually help. “But, um…yes, I was there.”

He carefully does not look any of them in the eye.

“What exactly were you doing down there at a time like this?” Councilor Kiramman says, “With tensions this high, you could have been in danger.”

Hoskel laughs, “C’mon we all know why he was down there. The Full Moon— that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”

“That’s quite enough,” Councilor Kiramman says, scoffing in disgust. 

Jayce goes through a series of complex emotions at the fact that Hoskel not only recognizes the brothel by name but has also probably visited it. He calms himself by reminding himself how fucking old the guy is, and how his visits might’ve been back before Viktor ever worked there at all.

“I’m just saying,” Hoskel grumbles. “We know why he was there.”

“You’re entitled to your personal business, Mister Talis,” Mel says, speaking for the first time since this conversation has started, “but right now is not the best time to be making such…personal visits.” 

Jayce clears his throat, wishing he could sink into the floor or maybe just die on the spot. 

“It wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t go for that —“

Shoola raises an eyebrow. “And what exactly did you go to a brothel for, then?” 

“This is extremely inappropriate—“ Councilor Kiramman interjects.

“I went to see…someone.”

In the long pause that follows, he sees Mel’s eyes widen in realization, sees the almost imperceptible, warning shake of her head. There are a few beats of silence.

“Yes. That’s generally what happens.”

“No, I mean, I went to see—a friend. Not for that reason.”

Kind of. Mostly. That time he really was mostly just there to apologize. 

“This is hardly the time for friendly visits.” Mrs Kiramman chides.

“This was important.”

“And why is that? What business do you have being friends—public friends, now, I might add—with a…”

Jayce is glad that she has enough tact to not finish that sentence with whatever ignorant bullshit she was about to say. He loves Mrs Kiramman and is grateful for everything she’s given him, but he knows she holds no love for the undercity. Thank fuck for propriety, for once. 

“He’s…” Jayce trails off, not sure how to even begin to explain in a way that these people will understand. Not sure what to say that will get him out of this mess.

He thinks about Viktor; he thinks about the years he spent coasting on the success that Viktor had helped him get while Viktor continued to work and live in the very same place he had been since he met him; he thinks about Viktor saying when? with more raw emotion on his face than he had ever seen, it’s been five fucking years. 

“He’s my partner,” Jayce blurts.

“Partner?” Mel asks sharply, and if looks could kill he would be dead on the floor, “In what way?”

Viktor’s voice echoes, loud in the back of his mind: you fuck me and you pay me and you act like I’m your equal but I’m not, you don’t see me as your equal. 

Jayce inhales deeply, exhales slowly. Steels himself. 

“Romantically. And scientifically.”

There are various echoes of “Romantically?” and “Scientifically?” with Heimerdinger’s voice ringing sharply over the latter.

“He’s my hextech research partner,” Jayce says, raising his voice so he’s heard over all of them, “He helped create the whole thing.”

A long beat of silence, as the councilors seem to process what he just said. Even Mel looks shocked.

“What?” Salo asks, sounding vaguely appalled. It makes anger spike in Jayce’s chest.

“He’s worked with me since the beginning,” he says firmly, “He helped me crack my theory five years ago. None of it would’ve been possible without him.”

Heimerdinger’s eyebrows are raised almost comically high. Jayce doesn’t know what to call the expression on his face, somewhere between surprised and thoughtful and—upset.

Hoskel, surprisingly, is the first to recover. “You’re saying hextech’s co-founder is some undercity prostitute? Who still lives in the undercity?”

“And you’ve never thought to mention this until now?” Shoola is the second to recover. 

“I…well, we were…hesitant to make his involvement public at first. For various reasons. And then it just—never really came up.”

“Is he at least being compensated for his contributions?” Mel asks, seeming to genuinely care. 

Jayce swallows. “Yes, of course.” Because he was being compensated, just…a different kind of contribution.

“Jayce,” Heimerdinger finally says, “I have to say that I’m very disappointed—it is, of course, someone’s right to privacy from the public, but you know how much professional credit can help a fellow scientist.”

“I know,” Jayce says, trying not to flush in shame in front of the entire council. “In fact, I had plans to finally give him that credit—and to help bring him and his work topside—but the attack happened before I could.”

Which is only half a lie. A few of the councilors’ expressions sour at the mention of bringing Viktor topside.

“How do we know you’re telling the truth about this… man’s work?” Salo asks, “You say he’s your romantic partner, too—I think that lowers your credibility a bit.”

“I can show you the notes, if I have to. There’s proof of his contributions in his own writing. He’s the one who cracked the theory that made hextech a possibility.”

“And you never once told this to anybody?” That question again—a valid one, if he’s being honest, but still frustrating.

“It was wrong of me to keep it a secret for so long,” he admits, “But Viktor made all of Piltover’s progress possible. The least this city owes him is a visa and a topside residence.”

That is not a sentence that goes over well, offense and outrage on many of their faces. He doesn’t even know if Viktor would want either of those things, but he more than deserves to have them as options. 

“I can sympathize with you and your…partner,” Shoola says, “But this, frankly, isn’t the right time. We can’t be showing favoritism to people who have just attacked us.”

“We can’t afford to look weak.” Bolbok adds.

“The undercity didn’t attack us,” Jayce says, “A few people from the undercity attacked us. We can’t punish a whole city for a few people’s actions.”

“You’re letting your personal bias cloud your judgment.”

“I’m not suggesting that we do nothing ,” he argues. “I’m just saying that Viktor isn’t the one who attacked us. Viktor has helped Piltover immeasurably. He deserves our respect and our aid.”

A long pause. More of them than he would expect look thoughtful rather than outright hostile to the idea.

“We’ve granted visas to undercity residents before,” Mel says eventually, words as calm and measured as usual. “We’ve aided students and workers alike; they’re a part of this city. I see no reason why the co-founder of hextech shouldn’t receive the same courtesy.”

“Again,” Hoskel adds, “if he’s even who Talis says he is.”

“I can show you proof of his contributions,” Jayce says again.

“Even so, there’s a vetting process.”

“Then vet him. He’s committed no crimes.” Which he isn’t sure is one hundred percent accurate, but he can’t picture Viktor, like, killing anyone.

“He works in a brothel,” Salo says, managing to make the word sound like an insult. “That’s solicitation.”

“It’s a privately owned business,” Jayce says, recycling Ray’s word from his last visit. “And the undercity is a harsh place; everyone has to make a living.”

Salo’s lip curls, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“I agree with Jayce,” Heimerdinger says, voice finally clear and self-assured as ever. “This is the City of Progress. If this Viktor is who you say he is, then he’s contributed to that progress a considerable amount. Every scientist deserves recognition for their work, and every citizen deserves our respect.”

Which is kind of funny to hear from a councilor, Jayce thinks but doesn’t say, even Heimerdinger. He’s self aware enough to know that most people topside very much do not respect the undercity or anyone from it. Still, the pit of anxiety and dread that has been steadily growing in his chest since he entered the room finally starts to shrink at his words.

“I agree with Councilor Heimerdinger,” Mel says. Jayce’s heart lifts further. He starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “With tensions as high as they are, a strict vetting process of course must be followed. But I see no problem with granting a visa and proper credit to a man who helped found hextech.”

“We need confirmation that he truly did help found it,” Salo argues.

“We can get that confirmation as part of the process,” Mel says.

“How? Talis is obviously biased in his favor.”

“Hm,” Heimerdinger hums thoughtfully. Jayce looks to him, willing him to have a solution. “I may be able to offer my services.”

As Heimerdinger elaborates and they begin to vote, Jayce, faintly, hopes and prays that Viktor won’t kill him for this.

Chapter Text

The trip back down to the undercity is tense and quiet. Viktor feels bad about basically ignoring Sky after giving her a terse “we had a fight—also we should leave before we get arrested,” but he doesn’t want to take his bad mood out on her. He’s afraid if he opens his mouth again, all of his anger and pathetic heartbreak will come spilling out and won’t stop until he’s screaming. He definitely does not want to make Sky deal with that. 

She seems to understand either way, giving him a light pat on the back and a reassuring smile before they part ways. He makes a mental note to both apologize and thank her for coming the next time he sees her. 

He locks himself in his lab—and when he’s too upset to make any progress on anything, he lies on his bed and tries to sleep. He is not very successful. 

He has work the next day, because of course he does. The first thing he does when he gets there is ask Ray not to let Jayce in the next time he comes—if he ever comes again, but he doesn’t say that part. Ray looks a bit concerned, but doesn’t ask him about it; just nods and says no problem, Vik, I’ve been waiting years to tell him to fuck off.  

Viktor tries to smile. It doesn’t work, so he goes upstairs to change instead. 

The day passes uneventfully; he sees a few regulars, and a few new clients. He lets himself fall into it, the fantasy of being absolutely nobody, of being whatever they want him to be. He misses the days when his two best clients didn’t come with the ability to completely upend his life whenever they feel like it. He misses the simplicity of doing a job, getting paid for his work and then fucking off.

Because nothing in his life is allowed to be simple, Silco is his last client of the day. Because of fucking course he is. 

There’s no academy uniform request this time. He stands in the back room, the place buzzing with activity as people show up or leave for the night, and deliberates on whether or not he should wear it anyways. He realizes vacantly that his hands are shaking. He doesn’t know if Silco had anything to do with yesterday’s attack; he doesn’t know if the man knows that he was up topside, celebrating with Jayce. He doesn’t know what he’ll say if he asks about it. 

He’s snapped back into his body by a hand on his shoulder—Yelena, he sees when he looks up. He realizes he’s standing in front of the mirror and takes a step back.

“You good?” She asks as she leans forward, running her thumb under her lip to fix the line of her lipstick. 

He hums noncommittally. “Do you think I should quit?”

She blinks at his reflection in the mirror, raising an eyebrow. “Depends. Do you have anywhere else to go?”

Viktor thinks about the desk Jayce had claimed to have put aside for him. He thinks about Jayce telling him he should leave. 

“No,” he says, “I guess not.”

Yelena shrugs a shoulder —what can you do?  

“Guess you should get dressed, then. I’d just go with the usual; I think he’s in a shitty mood.”

Great, Viktor thinks. Fucking fantastic.

“Great,” he says, ”Fucking fantastic. Thanks,” he adds—for the heads up, for the warning. Unfortunately for him, Silco is probably the one client that no one will come running to help him with if he screams. 

“Sure. Got a fancy ass bottle of red from a regular last night,” she mentions, casual and offhand enough to be whatever he wants it to be. 

“You working late?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know. She’s been working here longer than he has—she was the one who taught him how to fake an orgasm.

She snorts. “I’m always working late. Come find me after if shit gets rough.”

Viktor offers her a small, fond smile. He’s always liked Yelena; everyone likes Yelena.

“Sure,” he says, slipping the vest on. “I’ll bring the vodka I keep under the mattress.”

“The shit I gave you for your twentieth?” She asks. “It’s still there?”

Viktor shrugs, doing up the last button and smoothing out the fabric.

“It’s terrible,” he says, “Even I can only take a shot at a time.”

Her laugh follows him out the door. 

His good mood lasts approximately the three minutes it takes him to walk to the usual room. His heart is back up in his throat by the time he puts his hand on the doorknob. He swallows it down, takes a deep breath, and opens the door. 

Silco is waiting at the window, gazing down at the street below the way he always seems to be. He looks up briefly as Viktor steps inside. Yelena was right: he does look like he’s in a shitty mood, his eyes cold and hard, something dangerous simmering beneath the surface. 

“Viktor,” he says, voice unreadable. Viktor straightens up, trying not to seem guilty of whatever crime Silco might find him guilty of. 

I’d just go with the usual, Yelena had said. Okay, he thinks. Time to act completely normal. 

“What can I do for you today, sir?” He asks, leaning back against the door. 

Silco doesn’t say anything. He turns on his heel and strides towards him; Vitkor tries not to shrink back at the sudden movement. Instead of stabbing him or something equally as terrifying, Silco takes his jaw in both hands, presses him against the door and kisses him hard. Viktor makes a surprised noise, opening his mouth instinctually. 

He brings one hand up to grip the front of Silco’s shirt, keeping his other tight around the handle of his cane—until Silco reaches down and grips that wrist, tugging until Viktor lets go. He winces as the cane clatters for the floor, pulling away to make sure it’s alright. 

Silco uses the hands on his jaw to turn his head forwards again.

“Sorry,” Viktor tries to say, but it’s lost as Silco kisses him again. 

It’s not gentle or sweet, all tongue and teeth, and he gasps, letting his head tip back against the wood of the door as Silco finally lets go of him in favor of biting his way down his neck. Viktor shivers at the feeling of teeth grazing the sensitive skin under his chin, grabbing at the man’s shoulders to keep his balance as Silco tears his shirt open—fucking tears it open, not sparing a glance as a button goes flying. Just digs his teeth into the crook where his neck meets his shoulder, the same place Jayce spent minutes sucking a mark into his skin all those months ago, the night before everything went to shit.

“Oh,” Viktor breathes when Silco shoves a knee between his legs and pushes up. Silco stops marking him up like an animal in favor of pulling back and wrapping long fingers around Viktor’s throat—not pressing, just holding, like it’s his natural right. He just holds him there against the door for a moment, tilts his head like a predator deciding what to do with its prey—Viktor stays very still, his pulse a staccato rhythm under Silco’s fingers. 

This is familiar, this near-frantic energy intercut with moments of stillness. Silco is a dangerous man who lives a dangerous life; anyone would get pent up. That’s what this place is here for, what Viktor is here for—it’s something he knows what to do with, it’s what he’s come to expect from this man. 

Finally back on solid, familiar ground, Viktor melts back against the door, going limp save for the grip on Silco’s shoulders and the weight he’s shifted to his good leg. 

Silco drags his free hand down Viktor’s neck, over the lace of his corset and the jut of his hips and further still. He doesn’t even bother slipping beneath his tights, just thumbs at the nub of his cock through the fabric as he grinds his knee up between his legs. Viktor whimpers, because it does feel good; he’s always gotten wet easily, his touch-starved years coming back to haunt him, but it’s helpful for his line of work. Gives lots of men big egos, as if it’s them specifically and not just the feeling of someone’s hand in his hair that makes heat gather between his legs. 

As expected, it doesn’t take long before he’s soaked through the thin fabric enough for Silco to feel it on his fingers. He huffs a mocking, satisfied burst of air against the shell of his ear, the closest thing he’ll get to a laugh. It makes him shiver, makes him grind down against his fingers and his knee. Silco just presses him further against the door, giving him no space to move. Viktor whines, hips jerking pathetically—another ego booster, he knows. 

Silco, because he’s a huge asshole, pulls away completely, leaving him panting against the door. He bends down to grab Viktor’s cane, hands it to him, and then stalks over to the bed. Viktor, shakily, follows. 

He has just enough time to prop his cane up against the wall and sit on the mattress before Silco is on him again, dipping his fingers under the hem of his tights and undergarments and yanking them down, tossing them somewhere behind him. Viktor goes easily, Silco’s hand on his shoulders and his neck and his thighs, pushing them open to make space for himself.

The only thing Silco takes off is his vest, rolling up the sleeves of his button up and unbuckling his belt to get his cock out. He keeps the rest on even as he pulls Viktor’s shirt open further and spreads Viktor’s legs. Viktor knows it’s a power thing—an ego thing. Jayce does it, sometimes. He forces Jayce from his mind, instead focusing on the hot slide of Silco’s cock between his folds. As wet as he is, it’s easy for him to slide in slow slow steady in one fluid movement.

Viktor lets out a long breath, sinking into the sheets. 

And then:

“I heard you went topside for Progress Day,” Silco says once he’s slid home, buried deep inside him. Viktor holds himself very still even as his stomach lurches violently. 

“Oh,” he says, trying to think around the feeling of Silco stretching him wide, “Yes, I—decided to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Silco asks, managing to sound pleasantly interested as he starts fucking Viktor into the mattress.

“Y-yes, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Viktor lets his eyes slip shut, tilting his head to the side so he doesn’t have to look at him. 

“It was a little over-the-top,” he decides, trying to sound unaffected and mocking. “Piltie bullshit, mostly.”

He feels Silco huff a laugh, fingers digging into his hips. “Did you see Talis?”

Viktor ignores the way Jayce’s name makes his stomach roll in a strange mixture of discomfort and guilt. “He was—very busy.”

“Did you see him.” He says it like he already knows the answer, the way he seems to know everything. He’s everywhere, above him and inside him and bracketing him in on all sides. 

“Yes,” he says, because there’s no point in lying. “But not for long.”

“Did he take you out on the town? Flex his councilor wealth?” His voice is mocking, bordering on condescending. 

So they’re really talking about this now, Viktor thinks. He’s so used to Silco keeping the sex part and the business part of their interactions separate that he hadn’t noticed them slowly slide into one space. 

“N-not really,” he admits, and doesn’t know why he’s embarrassed about it. “It was, oh , very crowded.”

“Of course,” Silco says, “Wouldn’t want his undercity whore to end up in the news.”

It stings more than it should. Viktor bites the inside of his mouth to keep it from twisting. “I-I guess,” he offers tersely. He doesn’t want to talk about this now—he’s spent all day trying not to think about Jayce while having sex with other people. He wishes Silco would just let him do his fucking job in peace. 

He feels long fingers in his hair, almost soothing before they dig into the thick strands and tug, not letting him hide his face anymore. 

“Where did he take you, then, if not out?” 

“W-we went to his lab,” Viktor says quietly, feeling like he’s telling a secret. Like he’s telling Jayce’s secret—and why should he care, some bitter part of him wonders, about keeping Jayce’s secrets.

“His lab,” Silco repeats, sounding amused. “Did he fuck you in his fancy lab? Bend you over his big desk?”

“No, we just—just with his fingers.”

Silco hums, “Did he tip you well, at least? After making you come all that way?”

“U-um,” he considers lying, but there’s no time to come up with one, so he closes his eyes, shakes his head. “No, we were, ah, interrupted. And then I had to leave.”

“And why’s that?”

Viktor bites his lip as Silco gives a particularly hard thrust. He risks a glance up, making eye contact. Silco’s gaze is sharp and heavy and unwavering. Viktor would think he was unaffected, if he hadn’t fucked him dozens of times before this. There’s a light flush high on his cheeks, jaw clenched to keep himself together. A hand pressing Viktor’s wrist into the mattress, nails digging into his skin. He would be a little bit impressed at the man’s ability to compartmentalize his own pleasure to have a conversation if it wasn’t completely fucking terrifying. 

“Um. Well, there was an attack,” Viktor says boldly, “At the loading bay. So he had to go.”

Silco hikes Viktor’s good thigh further up around his waist. His expression darkens the slightest amount; he fucks in harder. 

“Yes, there was an attack,” he says, tone displeased in a way Viktor never likes to hear while he’s having sex. 

“Was it you?” He asks before he can stop himself. 

For a moment, Silco goes completely still. The sudden halt makes Viktor gasp, twitching around him. He bites the inside of his mouth hard to keep quiet as the man stares down at him, eyebrows raised as if surprised at his audacity. 

“Sorry,” he says automatically, sounding pathetically out of breath. “That’s—sorry, it’s none of my business.”

Instead of getting upset, Silco’s expression smooths out. He hums thoughtfully, studying Viktor where he’s pinned in place beneath him. He slides out slowly and thrusts back in with a quick snap of his hips. Viktor lets the surprised moan spill from his lips because he knows that’s what Silco wants to hear. 

“We were conducting business,” Silco says, voice cool and steady, “Simple trading, with no intent of violence, but we were interrupted—those damn Firelights.”

He practically snarls, gripping his wrist so tight Viktor thinks it might cut off the circulation in his hand. 

The Firelights? He thinks frantically, mind racing. Why would Ekko do something so reckless, on Progress Day of all days? There must be a good reason for it—there’s no way he would attack for no reason. He doubts all the violence was committed by them. He knows how Silco does business; he knows how little he cares about resorting to violence. How little his daughter does, no matter how reckless it might be.

“O-oh,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He’s not going to argue with Silco, especially not right now. 

“I’m sorry to hear it cut your time with Talis short,” Silco says, sounding mocking and not at all sorry. He dips down to bite at Viktor’s neck, finally releasing his wrist to dig his fingers into his hair, tugging sharply. Viktor moans, bucking up to meet his thrusts. “Was he quite upset about it?”

He knows what Silco wants him to say, so he says it. “Yes,” he gasps, “He was—afraid, I think. Paranoid.”

“Paranoid,” Silco repeats, sounding thoughtful. Shit, Viktor thinks vaguely. “Did he actually accuse you of the attack?”

Dead center, of course. Silco has a way of picking people apart, seeing right through them. Viktor shrugs. Tries to look away. Silco doesn’t let him, curls still clutched tight in his hand.

“He was just…scared. I don’t—he didn’t mean it, I don’t think.”

He doesn’t know why the fuck he says that of all things, but it slips out before he can stop it. It’s fucking pathetic, and he regrets it immediately—Silco raises a surpaies, amused eyebrow. He gazes down at him like he’s a puzzle he wants to take apart and put back together. Like he’s a small, sad thing that he pities.

“Viktor,” he says, and it’s the softest he’s been all night. “I thought you said you didn’t care for this man.”

“I don’t,” Viktor says weakly, and Silco won’t fucking let him look away. He feels like an insect pressed between two planes of glass, or the rat he once saw pinned to the table in Singed’s lab, ready to be dissected.

Silco lets go of Viktor’s hair to run his fingers down the curve of his jaw, a thumb along his bottom lip. 

“It’s not your fault,” he says, almost soothing but not quite, “You can’t help who you fall for. But Vikor, don’t be pathetic. To him, you’re just a whore he can play house with until he gets bored—or paranoid, apparently. A whore he doesn’t even have to pay.”

Viktor squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at him anymore, doesn’t have to see the scorn in his gaze. A small, pathetic part of him wants to disagree. Jayce was happy to see him. Jayce has a desk for him in his lab, already picked out. Jayce says he sees him as his equal and he wants to take him to his bullshit piltie parties. Jayce treats him like a secret and only visits him at work. 

“I know,” he says. He brings the back of his hand up to cover his eyes, trying to ignore the cock still spearing him open and the way he’s still fucking wet somehow, “I’m sorry, I—I just…he said that he…”

“Don’t apologize,” Silco reminds him, smoothing the hair back from his damp forehead, his voice softer than Viktor has ever heard before—no, that’s not true, he realizes. He’s heard him speak to his daughter this way, assuring her that Viktor was going to help her fix her gun and not fuck it up. It makes something confusing and complicated twist in his chest, so he ignores it. “It’s okay, I know, it’s okay.”

And he’s still fucking him, is the thing, a steady, constant slide in and out and in and out, small grinds that are still sending tingles up Viktor’s spine even as he kind of feels like he’s going to cry. He wants to push Silco off of him, he wants him to take it out and leave him alone and stop looking at him. But he can’t, because this man is their best client and no one is going to come running if he screams, not even Ray.

Silco wraps his fingers carefully around his wrist and pulls the hand from his eyes. Viktor tries to tug once, but Silco is unrelenting. 

“Look at me,” he says firmly, half comfort and half threat. 

Viktor looks at him, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood so that he doesn’t crack, forcing back the sting behind his eyes. 

“You would be wasted topside. You’re wasted here ,” As if he isn’t still currently fucking him, as if he isn’t a regular patron of this place. “You could do more. You could be more—more than some piltie councilor’s whore.”

“More than your whore?” Viktor asks boldly—too bold, he knows, but everything is too much, too overwhelming and he feels like he can’t breathe.

Silco just smirks at him. It’s small, just a twitch of his lips, but pleased. Maybe. Almost. 

“If that’s what you want. You would be thoroughly compensated either way.”

Before Viktor can come up with something to say, Silco reaches down and pinches his cock between two fingers, sudden and harsh. Viktor yelps, hips jerking automatically. Silco fucks in harder, forcing Viktor’s legs open impossibly wide, rubbing at his cock in time with his thrusts.

He curls over him, bracketing him in and holding him still—all Viktor can do is lie there and take it, trembling almost violently underneath him. Silco grips the thigh of his bad leg, jerking his fingers faster when it spasms; Viktor whimpers pathetically as he plummets over the edge in a strange mixture of pain and pleasure, and he knows he would be thrashing like he’s dying if Silco wasn’t already holding him down. 

Silco fucks him through his orgasm and into overstimulation; he follows not soon after, holding Viktor still as he spills inside of him. Viktor sinks into the sheets, panting in exhaustion. Silco stays there like that for a long minute, and then groans, pushing himself up and pulling out. Viktor is too strung out to even twitch.

Silco, maybe finally feeling merciful, lets him lie there as he tucks himself away and pulls his vest back on.

Viktor keeps his eyes closed, even as he feels the mattress sink beside him. There is a moment of anticipation. Silco wins, because Viktor opens his eyes once it becomes clear that’s what he’s waiting for. 

“Just consider it,” Silco says, all-business once again. It’s like he flipped a switch, the picture of calm and collected. “I mean it when I say you could be more than this.”

Viktor gives a small nod, because if he opens his mouth he doesn’t know what will come out. He just wants Silco to leave. As usual, the man gives him a near-fond pat on the cheek, tosses a pouch of coin onto the bed and rises to leave. Viktor watches him go, exhaling heavily when the door finally swings shut.

He rolls onto his back, pressing the palms of his hands against his closed eyes so that he doesn’t scream or something. He feels exhausted, like he got twisted up and wrung out to dry, picked apart and put back together.

He kind of wishes he had never met Jayce. It would’ve saved him a lot of fucking trouble.

Eventually, he falls asleep like that, because he doesn’t think he would make it home if he tried.

Silco doesn’t make another surprise visit, thank god, and the next week and a half pass without incident. 

Viktor tries to focus on his work, to various levels of success. He and Yelena split her fancy bottle of wine and finally finish off the vodka he’s had under the mattress in the good room for years. Ray finally stops by for that leg tune up; he pays for it with a gallon of sweet milk even though it’s supposed to be on the house. Jayce shows up at the brother; Ray sends him away while Viktor pretends not to look through the curtains to see how long he tries to get in, and then also pretends that he doesn’t feel bad about it. 

Two weeks after Progress Day, Viktor starts his day in ignorant bliss. He wakes up, makes himself some coffee, and makes the walk to work in decent time. The weather isn’t nice, because it’s never nice down here, but it’s decent. His leg aches a little less than usual today. 

Then, he gets to work. Ray greets him at the door. 

“Vik,” he says, “Why’s there another councilor here to see you?”

That draws Viktor up short. His decent mood is shattered, replaced by apprehension and annoyance. If Jayce is here he’ll—he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but it won’t be good.

“What? I told you not to let Jayce in—“

“Not Talis. The—little dude. The furry one.”

Viktor blinks, trying not to let the shocked hitch of his breath make him cough. “Who, Heimerdinger?” he asks incredulously. “Here? Why is he—why is here?”

“You don’t know?” Ray asks, sounding concerned. 

Viktor shakes his head, trying to seem calm even as his mind races. 

“Um. Should I…change? Is he—?” Viktor cuts himself off, not sure he wants to finish the sentence. 

“Said he just wanted to talk,” Ray says. “We put him in a room down here so he wouldn’t loiter around and scare people off.”

Viktor lets out a small breath of relief. “Okay. What the fuck do I do?”

Ray stares at him for a moment, seeming just as bewildered as he is, and then shrugs. “Talk to him, I guess? Or tell him to fuck off? One of those.”

Viktor considers. For some reason, because he’s curious by nature and never knows when to stop, he decides to talk to him.

Councilor Heimerdinger—and it is him, Viktor can obviously immediately tell when he opens the door—is sitting on a chair in the corner. This room doesn’t have a bed, which already makes things immensely less awkward. The yordle straightens up sharply when he walks in, looking him briefly up and down, eyes briefly lingering on the cane and leg brace. Viktor tries not to straighten up under his gaze, even as he feels immediately self-conscious. 

The moment lasts only a second or two, and then the dean is hopping off of the chair and saying, “Viktor, I presume?” with a short arm outstretched as if to shake his hand.

Viktor, because his mother did raise him with manners, shakes his hand and says, “Yes. That’s me.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” he says pleasantly, “My name is Heimerdinger, head of the council and dean of the academy.”

“Yes,” Viktor says again, bemused despite himself, “I know who you are. Pleased to meet you as well, I suppose?”

He doesn’t mean for it to be a question. Luckily, the yordle doesn’t seem offended. He shakes Viktor’s hand again, and lets go.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here; I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but I wasn’t sure where else to reach you.”

Viktor is briefly thankful that random councilors don’t know where he lives. He’s then concerned about why exactly the head of the council wants to speak with him.

“It’s alright,” he says automatically, even though it’s kind of not. “Um. Is there something I can help you with?”

Heimerdinger looks briefly alarmed, eyes darting to the couch that Viktor sits on to take the weight off of his bad leg, well stocked with pillows, but calms down when Viktor doesn’t move to, like, take his clothes off or whatever he had been expecting.

“Yes,” he says, clearing his throat, “I have a few questions I’d like to ask to help clear things up.”

There’s a sudden feeling of dread in his chest, because he’s definitely missing something. 

“Clear what up, exactly?”

Heimerdinger blinks up at him the same way Ray had. “You aren’t aware?” he asks, once again sounding remarkably like Ray. 

“Aware of what?” he asks slowly.

Heimerdinger looks at him for a moment, and sighs. “I assume you know Jayce Talis.”

Viktor’s heart sinks further. “What did he do?” is out before he can stop himself.

“Well,” Heimerdinger says, sounding both amused and understanding of Viktor’s apprehension. “The last time he was here, he was spotted by an enforcer, who leaked it to the press, of course. When asked about it, he said he was visiting you. Even more interestingly, he said that the two of you were partners —romantically and scientifically.”

No, Viktor thinks. No fucking way he said that. Heimerdinger isn’t done, though.

“He claimed that you were his partner in hextech specifically—that you cracked the theory that made all of it possible.”

Viktor kind of feels like passing out. He’s aware that he’s staring, probably in slowly mounting horror, but he can’t stop his eyes from widening. He’s not a medical doctor, but he thinks he might be in shock.

“Um,” he says intelligently, “Okay. And you’re here because…?”

If he sounds rude, the dean doesn’t seem to mind. “Because there is, of course, a vetting process. So as a fellow scientist, I’m here to vet you.”

Viktor feels like his head is full of honey, so thick he can’t think straight. That, or Heimerdinger is just especially bad at explaining what the fuck is going on.

“A vetting process for what?”

The dean’s eyebrows furrow in something like concern. Confusion, maybe. It’s hard to tell.

“Jayce put forward a claim for you to receive professional credit for your work—including a visa and topside residence.” 

Viktor blinks, trying to process what he’s hearing. He’s going to kill Jayce the next time he sees him, he thinks. Or kiss him, maybe. Slap him and then kiss him? He isn’t sure yet. 

“What?” Is all he can seem to say, the dean looking at him expectantly. “A—visa?”

“To both work and live in Piltover, yes.” He says pleasantly, eyebrows raised like he’s expecting Viktor to fall to his knees in gratitude and thank all of them for their generous opportunity. 

Instead of doing this, because it’s not like he’s the one who asked for it, he lays his cane across his thighs and says, “Oh. That’s…quite generous. I did not know it was something that could be done.” 

Undeterred by his neutral answer, Heimerdinger nods his head magnanimously. He carries such a large presence that it almost feels strange to be looking down at him. 

“I have to ask, first and foremost: is Jayce telling the truth about your hextech contributions?”

Vitkor would love to know what exactly Jayce had said about him, what particular contributions he’s talking about. Viktor swallows. The dean is looking at him steadily, eyes pleasantly curious—like he‘s ready to believe whatever he says. 

“I don’t know what exactly he’s told you,” he says slowly, choosing his words carefully, “But I did aid him in his hextech research, yes.”

“And you never thought to ask for credit?”

That familiar spike of shame that he feels whenever he thinks about it, followed quickly by indignation. He ignores it, and shrugs a shoulder.

“Considering my line of work and who I was to him then, I never expected any,” he says honestly, “And I also didn’t know, at the time, how…big it would be.”

Heimerdinger hums thoughtfully, a small hand under his chin. “I’m not blaming you for anything,” he says when Viktor fails not to shrink under his gaze. “I just want to get a better, ah, feel for the situation.”

Viktor tilts his head concedingly. “I suppose I just…didn’t see the point in asking for something I would not receive. Better to keep my source of income,” he says lightly, going for a joke.

Heimerdinger quirks a large eyebrow at him, almost conspiratorially. “Jayce speaks highly of you, you know; I’m sure he would’ve given you credit if you’d asked.”

Viktor gives a tight smile, thinking about Jayce’s I don’t know back when he asked him this very same thing. “Maybe.” And then, because this is the dean he’s talking to, “You know, I tried to apply to the academy a few times.”

“Tried?”

“I wasn’t allowed in to take the entrance exam.”

Heimerdinger shakes his head, like what Viktor’s saying is ridiculous. “The entrance exam is open to anyone, especially citizens of Piltover.” 

Viktor shrugs, “Yes, that’s what I said. And yet, they wouldn’t let me in. Apparently, I didn’t count.”

The dean looks at him closely, searchingly, eyebrows furrowed. Whatever he sees makes his mustache droop as he frowns.

“I see,” he says. “That’s…something I’ll definitely have to look into.”

It’s the kind of placating language Viktor had expected. Before he has to come up with a pleasant, neutral answer, Heimerdinger has moved on.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to see some of your work. Jayce told me that you have a lab down here?”

Of course he did. At least Viktor never told him where it is, he supposes, or he probably would have gotten a knock on his front door. 

“With all due respect, Professor,” he starts carefully, “I don’t much want the council knowing where I live.”

Heimerdinger’s expression softens just a bit. “This will stay between you and me, my boy. Everyone has a right to their privacy.”

And yet you’re asking me to bare my neck for you, he thinks but does not say. You’re demanding it. 

For a moment, he thinks about refusing. Instead, he lets out a long sigh. This might as well happen.

“Alright. Let me tell Ray I’m leaving. I suppose I’ll have to pick up an extra shift later in the week.”

The last sentence is quiet, mostly a note to himself, but Heimerdinger straightens up and shakes his head. “No need for that, my boy. I’ll of course fully compensate you for your time today.”

Viktor blinks. There’s a spike of indignation at the idea of the dean of the academy, the head of the council, paying him for his time like he’s another one of his clients. He pushes it down, because he would rather get paid for his trouble than have to work an extra shift. 

“Um. Okay. Let me just—get my things, then.”

Viktor gets his things. Ray gives him a long look, and then gives the dean a long look that actually has the yordle shrink back a bit. Viktor shoves his shoulder lightly.

“I’ll be back later,” he promises. Ray frowns, but lets them go without comment.

The walk to his lab doesn’t take too long. Heimerdinger chats about nothing the whole time, dropping the names of people Viktor has never heard of or met, and about the Progress Day celebrations, loud and constant enough that it attracts some glances as they go.

Viktor represses the urge to ask him to tone it down a bit; he exchanges bemused shrugs with a few people on the street. No one approaches them, luckily, and they don’t run into any trouble. 

He tries not to feel self-conscious when they reach his lab. He knows it doesn’t look like much, but he’s proud of it. Proud of his work and what he’s accomplished without Piltover or the academy’s aid. 

Heimerdinger makes a polite noise of anticipation. Vitkor digs his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door. He flicks the light on and lets the dean in, who makes a much more genuinely interested noise as he looks around. Vitkor wonders what he sees as he does—his desk covered in loose papers and various tools, books stacked in piles on the floor, the table in the corner with his turbine prototypes set up, the various versions of his first water purifier in another. 

“Wow,” Heimerdinger says, and he does sound interested, “This reminds me of my first lab—so many ideas in my head I didn’t know what to do with them all.”

Viktor chooses to take this as a compliment. Before he can try to come up with an answer, the yordle is walking over to the table in the corner.

“What does this contraption do?” He asks curiously. 

Viktor knows this is part of whatever test they’ve sent the dean down here to put him through, but the child who longed to prove himself topside nearly vibrates at the chance to talk about his work with someone who can appreciate it, to prove his worth to someone who might look down on him. Not that the dean has shown him any disrespect so far, but Viktor knows what people topside think of the people down here. How little thought the head of the council must have given them if he’s let things continue on like this for so long.

So, he rolls his desk chair over, takes a seat, and tells him about the turbine prototypes.

Heimerdinger listens with curious eyes the whole time, considering his words and looking over the prototypes with interest. He asks about the water purifiers next, and the improvements he’s made in the factories that Ray apparently told him about. He then moves onto his work with Jayce. 

Viktor hesitates. Considers. Wonders what exactly Jayce has told him. Hopes he won’t seem bitter, hopes that the dean will believe him. 

He tells him about his suggestions; about the first time he corrected the math and how Jayce would ask his opinion about things after that. How Viktor had apparently cracked the crystal problem. The rest is history. 

Heimerdinger goes quiet when they reach that part. Thoughtful. 

“I’m afraid we’ve done you a great disservice, my boy.” 

Viktor blinks at him. “Pardon?”

The dean sighs, shoulders slanted with the weight of his three hundred or so years. Viktor can hardly comprehend what it must feel like, living so long. He’s pretty sure he won’t make it to forty. It’s a miracle he even lived through his teens.

“It’s dreadfully irresponsible that you were barred from taking the entrance exam. And that you were never given proper credit for your contributions. I can’t believe that Jayce—no,” he shakes his head, “All of us on the council reacted poorly when he told us the truth.”

Viktor glances away, swallowing heavily. He doubts that reveal had gone over well. 

“Regardless, you’ve done incredible work down here.”

Viktor hates the way that warmth blooms in his chest at the praise. He decides that he’s allowed to feel flattered about the dean of Piltover’s academy telling him he’s done incredible work. He knows he’s done some good for his people, but it’s nice to hear a confirmation. Evidence that he’s done something real with what he has. 

He clears his throat, trying not to seem embarrassed. “Thank you, sir.” 

“Of course.” The yordle straightens up, twirling his moustache, almost comically. “Evidence of your work down here and the notes Jayce provided of your contributions are more than enough to convince me. I’ll have to report back to the rest of the council, of course, but we’ll get you your visa and topside residence sorted as soon as possible.”

“What? Really?” Viktor asks, embarrassingly breathless. 

“Of course. I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish with all of Piltover’s resources at your disposal.”

And then he shakes Viktor’s hand and walks out of the lab. Like he didn’t just drop insane, life-changing news on Viktor’s head. A visa? Somewhere to live topside? Academy resources? Basically asylum, Sky had said. 

Viktor leans back in his chair, mind racing. What the fuck. The dean spoke about it like it was a done deal, but he also heard the part about reporting back to the rest of the council. Jayce can give a good speech, but Viktor doubts the council—or even half the council—would agree to give these things to him. Why would they?

Either way, he cannot stop that small, pathetic part of him from hoping. The feeling blooms in his chest—the smallest spark that, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to tamp down.

Fuck, he thinks. Fucking Jayce Talis.

Then, he stands up and heads back to work.

A few days later, Jayce risks another visit. Viktor tells Ray to let him in—if only to hear what he has to say. His hands shake as he gets ready, but not with the fear he felt when Silco last came—if he had to put a name to it, it might be anger. Annoyance, maybe. Irritation. Anticipation. Hope. 

No, he’s going with irritation. Because how fucking dare he dump this all on him with zero warning. And then he deigns to show up and pay—tipping extra , Yelena tells him on his way down the hall—as if he’s just a regular client here for a regular visit. 

He lets his irritation carry him down the corridor and into the room. Jayce looks up at him sharply when he slams the door shut behind him, eyes wide in worry. He winces at whatever look must be on Viktor’s face.

“Um. Hi.” Jayce says, voice hesitant like he’s that green academy boy from six years ago and not a grown man who’s gotten him tangled in the most convoluted problem of his life. 

There is a long beat of silence.

“The head of the council,” Viktor finally starts, not moving from his spot near the door even as Jayce rises slowly, hands held placatingly in front of him. “Just showing up at my workplace—because you decided now was a good time to give me something I did not ask for.”

“Viktor,” Jayce says quickly, “I know I should have asked, but your visa went through and y—“

“What the fuck, Jayce.” Viktor practically snarls, cutting him off. Jayce reels back like he’s been struck. Vitkor tries very hard not to feel bad. “How could you do any of this without talking to me first?”

“I didn’t mean to!”

That just pisses him off more. “Didn’t mean to what? Give me credit? Drop my name in a room full of powerful fucks who hate us?”

“No, no, of course I meant to give you credit, I told you I would—“

“And you choose now ? Did you think I would swoon back into your arms for this? It doesn’t count if you only do it because you want to fuck me again.”

“That’s not why I did it,” Jayce says so desperately it makes something in Viktor’s chest twist. “I know it was shitty timing and I’m sorry, but—I did it because you deserve it. You deserve real credit and everything that comes with it.”

“What if I don’t want your ‘everything’?” Viktor argues. “Your fucking—piltie bullshit. This is my home; why would I want to leave it?”

“You don’t have to. You just—deserve options. You deserve more than this,” he gestures around them, at the small room and the building around it. 

“I don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity,” Jayce insists, “I just…I want you to be happy.”

Viktor snorts. “I’m content where I am. I don’t need you to sweep me off my feet.”

“Content isn’t happy.”

“Well, content is what I have. It’s good enough for me.”

“Is it?” Jayce asks. “Really? I doubt this is what you had in mind for yourself when you applied to the academy.”

Viktor must look surprised, eyes snapping to Jayce’s face, because Jayce cracks a sad smile.

“I do listen when you talk, V,” he says fondly.

Viktor frowns, trying to remember when exactly he dropped that particular piece of information. Maybe Heimerdinger told him, he thinks uncharitably, when they approved his stupid visa. Funny gossip—he didn’t make it to the academy, but at least they’re giving him this.  

“I didn’t apply,” he finally snaps, “I tried to apply. They didn’t even let me take the test.”

Jayce frowns, seemingly upset. “What, really?” So he doesn’t listen as much as he thinks he does, Viktor thinks bitterly. “That’s not fair.” 

Viktor barks a laugh. “No shit. Your people don’t want me up there; I have no intention of forcing myself into a space I’m not wanted.”

“I want you there,” Jayce says, “Heimerdinger, too. And Mel wants to meet you—so does my mom.”

Viktor forces down the utter panic and horror that the last sentence makes shoot through his chest. 

“Your mother? You’ve talked about me with your mother?”

Jayce flushes a bit, shrugging bashfully. “A little. I didn’t tell her a ton, but…yeah. She said she’d like to meet you someday.”

Viktor shakes his head in disbelief. “There’s something wrong with you. Your mother?”

“What, you don’t talk to your mom about your love life now and then?”

“I don’t talk to my mom about anything,” Viktor says flatly. “She is not here to talk.”

“Oh,” Jayce says, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed…”

Viktor waves him off, because they’ve gotten too far off topic and he doesn’t much feel like discussing his mother’s death right now. It’s not an uncommon story down here, but he supposes sickness and starvation probably aren’t very rampant up topside. 

“It’s fine, that’s not—Jayce. You should not have made this decision for me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just…didn’t know what else to do.”

“You should have talked to me first—“

“You weren’t seeing me!” Jayce argues, “I tried to talk to you but you wouldn’t let me in the door.”

“You could’ve tried harder,” he shoots back stubbornly. 

Jayce sighs sharply, ringning his emotion in surprisingly well. “I just want you to be safe, V. I want you to be happy. I want you to have everything you need.”

“I have what I need.”

“Anything you want, then. You must want something.”

“Everyone wants something,” Viktor scoffs.

“So what do you want?” Jayce asks. For some reason, it draws Viktor up short. He tries to remember the last time someone had asked him what he wanted—and meant it. 

Viktor considers. What does he want? He knows what he wants for his work—he wants to help. He wants to improve his people’s lives. He wants his work to mean something, to have a lasting legacy that will exist even after he’s gone. He wants enough coin to buy whatever he needs for his research; enough to eat well everyday and get that fancy tea he likes from the shop down the street whenever he has the urge. He wants to not have to worry about displeasing a fucking kingpin. 

He wants to get rid of this damn cough. He wants to stop losing his breath and choking on nothing. He wants to not have to worry about his health so much. He wants to live to forty. 

He wants to live and create and change the world. He wants too much—so much he’s afraid he’ll never stop wanting, that he’ll die bitter and empty because he can never fill that want. 

“I want everything,” he says, voice near-shaking. “I’ll take and take from you and I won’t stop.”

“You can have whatever you want from me,” Jayce says simply, “I’d give you anything.”

“What if I want more than you can give?”

Jayce looks at him for a moment with wide, searching eyes. 

“Then I’ll find a way to get it to you anyways.”

Viktor stares him down, gaze as hard as he can make it. Jayce stares steadily back.

He sounds like he means it. He really sounds like he means it. 

“You have to be serious, Jayce,” he says, voice wobbling annoyingly. “You have to mean it.”

“I do,” he insists firmly, “I do mean it.”

Viktor looks at him, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He searches his face for any flicker of a lie, the smallest hint of bullshit. Jayce has always been a shitty liar. His eyes are wide and imploring, his expression open and vulnerable in a way that could get you killed down here. Could get you torn to shreds. 

For a moment, Viktor thinks about it. Thinks about telling him to fuck off and not come back, about telling him to take his piltie bullshit with him and leave him alone. He thinks about the way he had been able to see himself working in Jayce’s fancy fucking lab, could imagine existing up there and thriving. About Heimerdinger and his appraisal; the near challenge in his words about what Viktor might accomplish with topside resources. 

He lets out a long breath. “I doubt Silco will like this.”

“Fuck Silco,” Jayce says immediately, with such a strong conviction that Viktor almost laughs. “I won’t let him touch you.”

Despite himself, Viktor cracks a small, fond smile. He sobers quickly, glancing away.

“I don’t want him to harm anyone else,” he says quietly. “He’s aware that Sky helps me with my projects. He obviously knows where I work.”

“Sky could come back, too,” Jayce offers, “She was an amazing assistant—and she wasn’t fired, she quit, so I’d love to give her the job back.” 

Viktor hums thoughtfully. “I can’t make that decision for her. But I suppose I could ask.”

“We can bring anything you need from your lab, too, if you’re worried about him doing anything to it.”

Viktor frowns at the thought of his work being destroyed over bullshit piltie politics.

“It might be inconvenient,” he admits, “I…well, I have a lot in there.”

“We have tons of space in ours,” Jayce says. 

We, like his fancy fucking lab already belongs to Viktor, too. This man is going to kill him someday, he thinks faintly. 

Viktor inhales shakily. After a long moment, he exhales again. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” Jayce repeats, sounding hesitantly hopeful. 

Viktor forces a nod before he can stop himself. “Okay. You’d better be fucking serious about this, Jayce Talis.”

Jayce breaks out into a grin so bright it’s nearly blinding. He rushes forward, arms raised as if to hug him. Viktor lets him, lets himself close his eyes and press his forehead against Jayce’s warm shoulder as Jayce’s arms close tightly yet carefully around him. 

“I am, V, I swear I am. Fuck,” he sounds choked up. Viktor swallows down the matching lump in throat.

They fuck in an odd sort of frenzy that night, an odd nervous energy and subdued excitement mixed into one. Jayce touches him like he hasn’t seen him in years, hands everywhere as if exploring for the first time. It’s sort of overwhelming—Jayce’s mouth on his neck and his chest and the insides of his wrists with no intent to bite. It makes Viktor shiver. 

Jayce spreads him out on the mattress and looks down at him with a strange awe that reminds Viktor of their very first time, with him on his knees and Jayce’s fingers tracing his mouth, shy and bold in equal measures. 

It makes Viktor flush and look away like the virgin he’s pretended to be five times. Jayce grips his jaw softly and tilts his head back to look him in the eye again. For a moment, he thinks about Silco—his long fingers tight around his neck, holding him in place—but the thought is fleeting. Jayce’s hand is sure and confident, but not tight. Not forceful. He’s looking at him because he wants to look at him—because he wants to see him. 

You could be more than this, Silco had said, more than some piltie councilor’s whore. You could be your own, Jayce told him once. Jayce had promised.

He reaches up and pulls Jayce down into a kiss so he has an excuse to close his eyes. He inhales deeply; feeling incredibly foolish, he lets himself imagine what it might be like, from now on. He pretends that they’re in Jayce’s room, whatever that might be like—or maybe it’s Viktor’s, some fancy mattress in his new “topside residence”—and that they’re fucking because they want to. Pleasure for pleasure’s sake, just to feel good. 

A whore he doesn’t even have to pay, he hears Silco’s voice in the back of his head, snapping him back to reality. 

“You told them we were partners,” Viktor says, pulling away, because he has to know that this is real. That it won’t be the same shit it is right now in a different place, with a few more obstacles to go through before they get to the transaction. “Right?”

“What?” Jayce pants, and Viktor opens his eyes to see Jayce peering down at him, handsome face flushed.

“The council. When you…the dean told me you said we were partners.”

Jayce looks annoyingly amused for a moment, but it softens into something warm and fond. “Yeah. I said we were partners.”

“Are we?” It’s a little pathetic, but he needs to know. He needs to be sure. 

Jayce smiles at him like…Viktor doesn’t have the words for it. The closest thing he can come up with is that he remembers his father looking at his mother like that, back when he was a child. He has to look away for fear it might blind him if he looks for too long, that it might crack him in half. 

Suddenly, Jayce is sitting up, pulling away from him—Viktor panics for half a moment, reaching for him automatically, before Jayce is wrapping big arms around his waist and lifting him up into his lap as he sits back against the headboard. Viktor instinctively wraps his legs around his waist the way he has dozens of times, Jayce’s cock still hard inside of him. He squirms a bit, until Jayce settles him with big hands on his waist.

“Viktor,” he says, drawing his attention back. Viktor looks at him, hoping he isn’t flushing as badly as he feels. 

“Yes?” he asks, as composed as he can manage.

Jayce cracks another fond smile, bringing one of his hands up to cup his cheek lightly. “We’re partners. You’re my partner.”

Viktor swallows, slightly overwhelmed by the weight of Jayce’s gaze, his full and serious attention. This is not the academy boy that stuttered through their first interaction; this is someone new, and someone Viktor has known for years.

“And you’re mine?” 

“And I’m yours,” Jayce agrees, eyes lighting up as he does. Like speaking the words makes them real—too real, maybe.

“My partner,” Viktor clarifies quickly. He shoves at Jayce’s chest when his smile turns amused; Jayce laughs at him, the asshole, so Viktor presses a hand over his mouth to shut him up. “Fuck off. I was just making sure.”

He feels Jayce smile under his palm and scoffs when he feels him kiss it. He lets Jayce reach up and pull his hand away, lets him lift his arm and press another kiss to the inside of his wrist—and then the crook of his elbow, his upper arm, his shoulder, his neck, and, finally, his mouth. Viktor lets himself get swept up in it, the fucking ocean that Jayce has somehow pulled him into. 

They rock into each other like that, Viktor’s hand in Jayce’s hair and Jayce’s hands fucking everywhere, but mostly on his hips, guiding him back and forth and over the waves—steady and unyielding until he slides a hand between Viktor’s thighs to jerk him into and through his orgasm. Viktor nearly sobs, digging his nails into Jayce’s shoulder and burying his face in Jayce’s neck as he cums. 

His head spins, ears ringing. He hears Jayce murmuring soft things to him somewhere far away; he holds onto that, and onto Jayce, and lets him take what he needs, whimpering softly when he feels Jayce spill inside him. 

When he opens his eyes, he’s on his back again, a pillow propped under his neck, and Jayce is wiping his thighs with the towel in small circles. Viktor blinks up at him. Jayce blinks back.

“You okay, V?” he asks softly, sounding a little concerned.

“Yes,” Viktor says, because he is. He takes stock of himself—his leg is fine, his back is no worse than usual. His thighs are a bit sore. He feels, overall, well-fucked and satisfied. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Jayce says, eyes soft. Too fucking soft, for all the shit he’s pulled. “You’ve never been that out of it, I was worried I did something wrong.”

Viktor shakes his head absently, pushing himself up and folding his legs carefully beneath him. “It’s just been a long week,” he says. “A long month, perhaps.”

Jayce settles onto the mattress behind him; Viktor, because he’s been ensnared by Jayce’s stupid smile and handsome face, doesn’t feel threatened having someone at his back, or of the arms curling around him. “I’d drink to that,” Jayce sighs.

“I would offer vodka, but we just finished it off,” Viktor says, falling back into their familiar rhythm gratefully.

“What, the stuff you keep under the mattress in here?”

“Kept,” Viktor corrects, thinking fondly about the time he had coaxed Jayce into taking a shot of it with him and he had immediately spat it all over the rug. And then tried again. He’d managed to keep it down the second time, much to both of their surprise. “Past tense.”

“You’ve had that shit in here for years . It tastes like motor oil. Or lighter fluid.”

“It tastes much worse than that.”

“And you’re telling me it’s suddenly gone?”

Viktor shrugs a sore shoulder, definitely not leaning back into Jayce’s warmth. “Like I said. Rough fucking month.”

A moment of quiet. The sound of a door slamming shut down the hall. Drunken singing from the street below. 

“For what it’s worth,” Jayce says, “I really am sorry about what happened on Progress Day. It was shitty of me to accuse you like that.”

Viktor exhales, deflating back against Jayce’s broad chest. The weeks-long build up of indignation and anger deflate with him, gone in a rush. He doesn’t like being mad at Jayce. It’s as insanely difficult as it is remarkably easy.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, too. For not seeing you.”

He feels Jayce shake his head behind him. “No, I get it,” he says into the back of his neck; Viktor shivers at the feeling. “I’m glad you let me in today.”

Viktor sighs at the teasing note in his tone, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t,” Jayce promises, pulling him impossibly closer, hooking his chin over Viktor’s shoulder. “I swear I won’t. You’re gonna blow all their fucking minds. I’m gonna make you so happy.”

Viktor sinks into the embrace, eyes slipping shut, and lets himself believe it. 

Chapter Text

The process of moving Viktor (and Sky, once Viktor apparently explains the situation to her) topside is a lot more complicated and difficult than Jayce expected it to be. In Jayce’s mind, he had pictured maybe a trip or two to get everything from the lab and personal items safely there, signing some documents and calling it a day. Maybe helping Viktor unpack in his new house, if he wanted. 

Of course, nothing in his life can ever be simple. 

“I cannot just pick up and leave today,” Viktor says incredulously the morning after he agrees to move, when Jayce suggests going and helping him pack. “I have people here, I have a life. I can’t just disappear.”

“No, I know that,” Jayce says, feeling foolish. “I just meant…I guess I’m excited. I wanna help.” 

Viktor looks at him fondly, “I don’t think strutting around with Councilor Talis will be very helpful for me right now.” 

So here Jayce is, stuck topside once again and feeling as fucking useless as ever. 

“What if something happens?” He asks Mel, hunched anxiously on the comfortable couch in her chambers. 

“Like what?” Mel answers distractedly, most of her attention on the canvas in front of her. 

“I don’t know, like—like what if his boss gets mad that he’s quitting? Or Ray convinces him not to?”

“Ray?”

“Or what if he changes his mind! Maybe I complained about shitty parties too much, why would he wanna come up here if it sucks?”

Mel sighs, setting her palette knife down and turning to look at him fully. 

“Jayce. I say this with the utmost care for you and our friendship—you’re being ridiculous.”

Jayce exhales deeply, pressing his hands against his eyes. “I know. You don’t have to say it.”

“Obviously I do.” He feels her sit down next to him. “The approval for your partner’s visa went through. He accepted your offer. He said he’ll send word when he’s gotten his affairs together.”

“But it’s been so long.”

“It’s been three days.”

“That’s seventy two whole hours, Mel! And counting! What could be taking him so long?”

He risks opening his eyes just in time to see Mel fix him with an unimpressed look. “I imagine uprooting your life and moving to a new place takes a bit of planning.”

“No, I know. I know that. I just didn’t expect it to…” he trails off before he can finish the sentence with—what, I didn’t expect it to take so long? I didn’t expect Viktor to have so much going on? It sounds rude to his own mind, and he doesn’t mean it, not really. He’s just—worried. It took so much to get Viktor to agree to accept his offer; he doesn’t want it to fall apart in his absence.

He trusts Viktor, but part of him is afraid he’ll change his mind if Jayce isn’t there to reassure him. Part of him is afraid that he might be right to. Because who says that coming to Piltover is even the best option for him? Because it’s helped Jayce prosper? It was near-impossible to even get the visa approved, not even considering the way the news circuit has taken the rumors and run wild with them. Just because the people here raised Jayce up as their mascot, their man of progress, doesn’t mean they’ll accept Viktor the same way—no matter how much he wants them to.

Well, he tells himself, as he’s told himself for the past seventy two hours and counting. He’ll just have to make them; Viktor will shine so brightly that they won’t be able to look away. Jayce won’t let anyone say shit. 

He sighs, rubbing at his eyes as he lets out a whoosh of breath. 

“You’re right,” he says.

Mel hums, rising to her feet again and brushing imaginary dust off of her dress. “I usually am. If he really is everything you’ve made him out to be, I’m sure Viktor is fine. And if he isn’t, I’m sure you’ll figure out how to help.” 

She goes back to her painting, leaving Jayce to stew a little longer. He falls back against the cushions, closing his eyes again. He could fall asleep here, if he tried. 

“Don’t fall asleep in here,” Mel warns. “I believe you have a meeting with potential investors this afternoon.”

Jayce groans, because he does. Curse Mel and her evil, impeccable memory.

It’s three days later, almost a full week after he last saw Viktor, that Jayce gets the go-ahead to come down and help Viktor move—because Jayce did convince him to let him help. He didn’t like the idea of Viktor and Sky hauling everything up and across the bridge themselves, and the idea of sending some enforcers down to help and make sure they make it up safely was even worse; Viktor had protested loudly when Jayce suggested it as an option, and therefore been forced to accept Jayce coming instead.

Unfortunately, they do send two enforcers down with him—it’s like you said, Mel told him with no room for argument, we don’t want anything to happen to either of you; you can’t go down by yourself. When Jayce argued that he could go down by himself and has, in fact, for the past six years, Mel had just rolled her eyes and told him that there were, unfortunately for him, no inconspicuous undercity trips possible for him in the foreseeable future. 

So he has to bring two enforcers, so that Viktor and Sky could receive their visas from ‘unbiased parties.’ Luckily, one of them is Caitlyn—who seems suspiciously eager to come with him, and suspiciously agreeable when he told her that she is here strictly for this and not to run off to do any detective work—and the other one is not Marcus. Honestly, Jayce is fine with any of them, as long as they’re not Marcus.

Sky is the one who meets them on the undercity side of the bridge. She glances warily at the enforcers behind him, straightening up slightly, but her smile when she greets Jayce seems genuine. 

Caityln introduces herself more politely than usual, actually smiling as they shake hands—Jayce suspects it has something to do with the fact that Sky is a cute girl who seems a bit flustered at the sight of another cute girl. The other enforcer says nothing, just hands her her new visa—blank picture, she’ll have to go get it taken again—gives her a once over and frowns. Sky soundly ignores him, save for glancing at the card and putting it in her pocket, so Jayce does, too.

They make pleasant smalltalk as they go, ignoring the stares their little entourage gets more and more as they venture further down. When they make it to the entresol level—familiar enough ground that Jayce finally lets himself breathe—Sky glances at him.

“Viktor should be done packing up his place by now,” she says, “But who knows if he will be—he still can’t decide what he wants to bring.”

Jayce frowns, “He can bring all of it.”

Sky shrugs, “That’s what I keep telling him, but he doesn’t think we can fit it all into the wagon.”

“Wagon?” he asks.

Sky gives him an odd look. “Yeah? You didn’t think we were carrying everything all the way back to the elevators on foot, did you?”

Jayce clears his throat. “I mean, I arranged to have a car come pick us up at the bridge, but…”

Sky shakes her head in disbelief—partially fond, which is the part he chooses to notice—and snorts a laugh. “We may not have all your fancy tech, but we’re not helpless.”

“I know,” Jayce says, feeling oddly embarrassed about such a small assumption. “Do you think we’ll be able to make it in one trip?”

Sky shrugs again, seeming to drop the topic and move on. “I guess it depends on how much he’s decided to bring. I don’t have much, but our research involves a lot of prototypes. Like, a lot.”

The way she says our research makes something odd twinge in his chest. It’s not jealousy, per se, because he’s not twelve years old, but it’s something. Longing, maybe. Excitement, that soon Jayce will be able to call his research Viktor’s and vice versa. 

It doesn’t take much longer to reach Viktor’s house; it’s on the far side of the entresol level, nearer to the water (a large portion of it mixed with chemical run off, he knows, that seems to get clearer and clearer the closer they get), and Jayce feels a wave of giddy anticipation rise in his chest. In all their years, he’s never been to Viktor’s house—why would he? He never wanted to push, and knew that Viktor would never let him. He knows their relationship hasn't been strictly professional for a long time, but they pretended for as long as they could. 

They don’t have to pretend anymore.

Still, despite his excitement, it sinks just a tiny bit when they see the house in the distance. It’s smaller than he expected—he doesn’t know what he expected, exactly, considering where they are, but the slightly run down building near the edge of the lake isn’t it. He resolves himself to reserve his judgment until they make it inside; it could be worse, he knows. In a way, it’s also better than he expected. It grates on something inside him, knowing that Viktor has been down here this whole time, while Jayce paraded him around his big, shiny lab on Progress Day, flaunting everything Viktor deserved but never got.

He shakes these thoughts from his mind as they get closer, and they leave his mind completely when the door swings open and Viktor steps outside. Somehow, even though he’s showing less skin than Jayce has ever seen, sweater rumpled like he just got out of bed and leaning heavily on his cane, he looks radiant. Maybe it’s the hesitant smile that lights up his face when he sees Jayce—somehow surprised, like he didn’t think Jayce would really come, and happy. He looks happy to see him.

“Jayce,” he says pleasantly, lips quirked into a smile; it fades slightly when he sees the enforcers behind him—the non-Caitlyn one even put his oxygen mask on when they reached the other side of the bridge, the sound of it almost obnoxiously loud.

“Hey, V,” Jayce says, drawing his attention back. “You done packing?”

Viktor throws an unimpressed glance at Sky, who holds her hands up unrepentantly. “You’ve been taking forever,” she says, “I was just letting him know we might have to wait.”

“Well, I’m done,” Viktor says, “I decided to leave the early water purifier prototypes here.”

“What? Why?”

“I imagine Piltover water is much clearer than ours,” Viktor says, “I’m leaving the functioning filters in the river and bringing the later versions with us to continue improving them. Anyways, shall we get started?”

He turns on his heel and gestures for them to follow him in. Sky frowns, but walks in after him. Jayce follows eagerly. He lets Caitlyn go ahead, but turns to the other enforcer.

“Wait out here,” he says, because he doesn’t like the idea of him coming in and judging whatever he sees, of a stranger invading Viktor’s space like that. “Alert us when the…wagon arrives.”

If the man frowns, he can’t tell. Jayce stays only long enough to make sure the man takes position outside, leaning back against the wall in preparation to wait, before he ventures inside.

It’s somehow exactly and not at all what he expected.

It’s a little cramped, but not claustrophobically so. There’s a large desk in the center, tables pushed into the corners; a few rudimentary contraptions that he assumes to be old prototypes lining the walls, some books stacked up on the ground near the table legs. There are a lot of places to sit—a few random barstools, a desk chair that has seen better days, a long workbench—which he supposes makes sense. Mostly, though, it’s bare, most of what he can see packed away in a few large boxes and two variously sized suitcases. 

It makes part of him a little disappointed that he never got to see Viktor’s lab before it was stripped down. He wonders if Viktor is messy or painstakingly organized or a mixture of the both; from the stacks of books on the ground and sloppily hung curtains over the one window, he’d say it’s a mixture. 

He’ll get to find out, though, he thinks, with the rush of warmth and excitement that he’s been feeling every time he remembers that Viktor is coming back up with him. He’ll get to find out because Viktor will be working in his lab— their lab, now—with him, so he’ll get to see exactly how he keeps his workspace. 

He can’t wait. 

But first: “So what should we start with?” Sky asks, breaking him out of his embarrassing daydreaming moment. 

And so begins the process of picking up Viktor’s entire life and putting it in the back of a wagon to haul it up topside. All things considered, there’s not a lot. The furniture stays—the desk, tables, his bed. The older work, earlier prototypes, journals, books that were apparently deemed not important enough to come. 

(Or maybe too important. Jayce is aware enough to notice that Viktor isn’t truly taking everything; he’s leaving just enough down here that he would be able to come back if necessary. A backup plan, in case things don’t work out topside. Jayce can’t begrudge him for it, no matter how much he wants to believe that he’ll never need it.)

Either way, it doesn’t take long. Viktor helps as much as he can, seeming to not want to let them do all the work despite the easy excuse he would have not to. The enforcer lets them know—disdainfully, taking off his mask with a loud hiss—that the wagon has arrived, driven by a small, old man with a heavy accent reminiscent of Viktor’s, and so begins the process of loading it up. 

It reminds Jayce, vividly, of his time in the academy: the long, arduous dorm move-in days, before he cashed in on his patronage with the Kiarammans and took full advantage of the apartment rooms they provided him. He thinks that, even with all the delicate looking models and old equipment, Viktor still has less to move now than Jayce did then.

It makes him sad at the same rate it makes him grateful not to have to take multiple trips.

Soon, there’s only a few smaller items left. Sky and Caitlyn are busy half-flirting in that endearing way that Cait spent all of her school days stumbling through outside, which Jayce catches part of as he carries out a very old-yet-comfortable looking footstool.

When he steps back inside to tell Viktor they should be good to go, there’s a girl sitting on Viktor’s empty desk. 

This would be alarming on its own, because there’s no other way she could have gotten in than through the back window, which is now open, and Jayce was only gone for about forty five seconds. What alarms him more, though, is the small gun perched casually on the table next to her. Like she sent it down absently and hasn’t bothered to pick it up; a threat without the attempt to be threatening. 

Viktor’s though, doesn’t seem overly concerned, save for a raise of his eyebrows.

“Jinx,” he’s saying when Jayce walks in, a note of surprise in his voice. Her name, presumably, with the way she raises a hand in greeting, which means Viktor knows her. This should make Jayce relax, but it does not. There’s something strange in her eyes that sharpens when she glances over at him. “Did Silco—”

“Who’s this?” Jinx, apparently, interrupts, jerking her head at Jayce but otherwise not addressing him.

Jayce opens his mouth to answer, but is stopped by the feeling of Viktor’s hand on the fabric of his shirt sleeve. 

“This,” Viktor says, “is a friend of mine.”

Jinx glances at him again, calculating, before they widen dramatically. “Oh. This is the councilor guy, huh? Tally? Dallas? Talis.”  

Viktor gives a tilt of his head, “Yes, this is the councilor guy.”

Jayce ignores being referred to as the councilor guy in favor of wondering if that means Viktor talks about him to other people the way Jayce talks about Viktor. 

“What’s he doing here?” She frowns, looking him up and down dismissively, “Why’s all your stuff gone?” 

The way she says it, like she already knows the answer but doesn’t want to believe it, puts Jayce on edge.

Viktor must be silent a moment too long, because the girl’s legs go still as she curls forwards, looking at him through the curtain of her bangs.

“You’re leaving?” She asks, voice somehow desperately fragile and dangerous in equal measures. 

He sees the line of Viktor’s shoulders go straight, tense, but that’s it; he doesn’t otherwise move.

“Not forever,” he says carefully.

“But that’s a yes. You’re leaving.”

Viktor’s eyes go sad for a moment. “Yes.”

“With him?” She spits, tilting her head sharply at Jayce. It’s a gesture both pointed and dismissive. 

“Yes. But as I said—not forever. I’ll visit often, as often as I can. I’m sure it will be dreadfully boring up there.” 

She frowns, lips drawing into a childish pout. She’s still wound tight, thin arms crossing at her chest. 

“Why even bother, then?”

There’s a pause, where Viktor seems to consider his words. “Piltover can give me things that I can’t get down here. Things that I can use to help the undercity. That’s all I want to do—help the undercity.”

Jinx frowns, eyes darting between the two of them. “If you leave, you might not come back.”

Something in Viktor’s face softens. “I will. This is my home; topside is just a means to an end.”

Jinx sniffs. “Taking from the pilties and giving to the sumprats, huh?”

Vitkor quirks a wry smile, something open-mouthed and full of teeth. “Exactly.”

Something in Jayce’s stomach twists unpleasantly. He doesn’t know if it’s the full truth, or if he’s just saying it to sate the girl with a gun sitting on his desk. But it might be. Jayce doesn’t know how it makes him feel, the idea that Viktor isn’t moving for him at all. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to feel upset about it.

“Fuckin’ snake,” Jinx says, but her mouth splits into a grin, just as sharp. “You better visit or I’m gonna have to come to you.”

“I wouldn’t want to make you suffer a trip topside,” Viktor says agreeably. 

Jinx fixes her gaze on him again, analyzing, and then swings to face Jayce. Her eyes harden, blue like ice,

“You better not fuck this up, council man. Or I’ll blow your house up.”

Jayce blinks at the brazen, unrepentant threat. Viktor snorts a laugh, like blowing things up is just a personality quirks of hers. Maybe it is, he thinks faintly. The fissures are places of violence and harsh upbringings. It’s kind of amazing that Viktor turned out the way he did. 

“Um,” Jayce says, “Okay.”

She pushes herself off the desk, hopping off and landing hard on the ground. She stomps her way towards him; he has to stop himself from taking a step back, because she’s a short little thing, braids swinging wildly behind her, and he totally is not intimidated by her. 

“I don’t like you,” she says. “And I don’t like this. But whatever. I know where you live.”

And then she’s gone, stomping her way out the door, much to the surprise of the people outside. Viktor exhales next to him, rubbing at his forehead with an air of someone much older than he is. 

“Well,” he says, “I suppose you better not fuck this up.”

“She’s not serious about the blowing up my house thing, is she?”

Viktor just shrugs vaguely, turning to pick up the last box.  

“You know that’s a terrorism threat, right?” Jayce says. “I’m, like, a political figure.”

 Viktor shrugs again, giving the near-empty lab one last look over. 

“They’d never catch her for it,” he says. “Silco wouldn’t let them. So again, you’d better not fuck it up.”

So she knows Silco, then? And is important enough to him that he wouldn’t let her get caught. Jayce files this information away as he swallows, and can’t help a nervous smile. “I’ll try my best.”

And he will. He thinks he’s fucked up enough that’s he learned from it. He won’t do it again.

They head outside, the last box tucked under Viktor’s arm. Jayce takes it from him so he can lock the place up. 

When they’re done, loading everything up onto the cart, Viktor stands in front of the little building for a long moment, and stares at it. Jayce doesn’t know what he’s looking for or what he sees. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and then the moment is over. 

“Hope Silco doesn’t torch the place,” Viktor says wryly, caught somewhere between sarcasm and worry.

Jayce takes the opportunity to put a hand around Viktor’s shoulder in a way he never really has before, not casually like this. Viktor tenses for a moment, and then, to Jayce’s relief, leans into the touch. 

“Ready to go?” 

Viktor breathes in deeply again; shaky. “I suppose,” he says. And then, stronger: “Yes. I’m ready.”

Jayce, Viktor and Sky climb into the front of the wagon, leaving the two enforcers to walk—it’s a little packed, but it gives him the excuse to sit next to Viktor, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. Their pinkies touch, and he has to fight not to flush like a high school virgin. 

Viktor shoots him a teasing smile, and hooks their pinkies together. 

He doesn’t let go for the whole ride up. 

Things go relatively smoothly—suspiciously smoothly, in fact—through transferring everything from the wagon and into the car, through driving across the bridge under the watchful gazes of the enforcers guarding it. He doesn’t like the way they linger on Viktor and Sky, but especially Viktor, looking him up and down judgmentally. They know who he is, and also who he is to Jayce, and that’s Jayce’s fault. 

If it bothers either of them, though, they don’t show it. Heads held high, not even bothering to react in any way. Jayce is not even half as subtle, shooting a glare at any enforcer who looks at them wrong.

It makes Viktor scoff and roll his eyes—fondly, of course. 

It isn’t until they make it further into Piltover that Jayce starts to worry. He knows Viktor has been up topside before—he was here on Progress Day, obviously, and made the trips to be turned away at the entrance exam door—but that doesn’t stop him from keeping a subtle eye on Viktor to gauge his reaction as they go. 

Viktor looks up at the sprawling city and the buildings stretching high into the sky as if looking at a mediocrely interesting plant he saw on his way to work, or maybe less-than-mediocre. He can’t quite hide his surprise at the scale of it, and Jayce knows the Hexgates look even more impressive when they’re left to their devices rather than being shown off, but it doesn’t seem to impress him. It’s a glimmer of awe in his eyes, the observation of something grand, that quickly shutters into something Jayce can’t read. It’s not disgust, it’s not disappointment. 

He watches Viktor glance at Sky, raise an eyebrow. Something passes between them that Jayce cannot read, a shared distaste, and then he turns away from the window, leaning back against the seat with a small sigh.

The enforcer, who Jayce isn’t sure why exactly is still here, notices it too. 

“What,” the man says, the only thing Jayce has heard him say all day other than alerting them of the wagon’s arrival, “Piltover’s not good enough for you?”

The four other people—including Caitlyn, who’s currently driving—turn to look at him incredulously. 

“Excuse me?” Viktor asks, sounding utterly uninterested.

The man frowns, “I saw the shithole you were living in,” he turns to glance at Jayce, visibly dismissing Viktor, “You’re going to let your whore insult your work like this?”

Dead silence, save for the wind rustling through the streets. Jayce sees red.

“What did you just call him?” he asks, voice low.

The enforcer blinks at him, like he’s taken aback, like he hasn’t been there for the last five hours and seen enough to know that Jayce will not take his side here.

“I,” the enforcer sputters out, glancing between him and Cait behind the wheel, like either of them will back him up. “I’m just saying—”

“What,” Jayce interrupts, “did you call him?”

The enforcer swallows. His eyes dart to Viktor by the window, accusing, which Jayce doesn’t like at all.

“Don’t look at him, look at me,” he says. Viktor bites out an annoyed Jayce at the same time the man scoffs loudly.

“Everyone knows what he is,” he says, spitting the word out with a surprising malice considering the way his voice shakes nervously. “You’re just using the hextech thing as an excuse to bring your whore topside.”

“You saw his work,” Jayce says disbelievingly, because the guy literally helped them move almost the entirety of Viktor and Sky’s lab; it is literally in the car with them. “He’s not—”

“Jayce,” Viktor says again, loud enough to cut him off this time; Jayce goes quiet.

The guard looks between the two of them scornfully, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Then he scoffs, and looks away. 

The car stops abruptly. Not because they’ve arrived, Jayce sees, but because Caityln has just stopped in the middle of the street. She turns and stares at the other enforcer, and, when he doesn’t move, reaches across him and opens his door. 

The enforcer takes the out, not even bothering to give them one last glare. He slams the door loudly behind him.

Cait continues to drive. There is a beat of silence in the car. 

Jayce glances at Sky, who’s frowning out the window, one of her feet pressed comfortingly against Viktor’s in a way that Jayce envies. When Jayce risks a glance at Viktor, he doesn’t look much of anything. He’s upset, he can tell, one of his hands clutched around the handle of his cane so hard his knuckles have gone white, mouth pressed into a thin line. But he doesn’t look angry, and he doesn’t look sad, either.

It worries Jayce, for a split second, that he doesn’t know what Viktor needs, because he doesn’t know what Viktor’s feeling. He can’t read him. God, he hopes this incident hasn’t made him rethink the whole thing. 

“V,” Jayce starts softly, and puts a hand over Viktor’s where it’s digging into the fabric of his own pants. Viktor doesn’t jerk away; in fact, he doesn’t move at all. “I’m s—”

“Don’t apologize,” Viktor snaps. Jayce can’t help but jerk back at the sharp tone; Viktor must notice because he sighs, letting go of the scrunched up denim and turning his hand palm-up to take Jayce’s. Jayce’s heart does not sing like a schoolgirl’s with a crush. “I’m not so fragile as that.”

“Viktor…”

“I’m not fragile, Jayce,” he repeats, impeccably calm “Nor am I new to the concept of enforcers being assholes.”

Sky tilts her head in agreement. Jayce frowns at the thought.

“They won’t be allowed to talk to you like that anymore,” he says firmly. Viktor gives him one of his bemused-slashed-uncomprehending looks, and exchanges a similar glance with Sky, too, which keeps giving Jayce emotional whiplash. He doesn’t like feeling left out of nonverbal exchanges, especially when he doesn’t know what they mean. “I’m serious.”

Viktor’s expression softens when he looks at him again, eyes warm with hopeless endearment instead of irritation; the tense air seems to fizzle out with Viktor’s soft sigh.

“I’m unsure of how you can possibly stop pilties from being assholes without upending Piltover’s political system and doing away with free speech altogether,” he drawls, “But you’re welcome to try.”It’s Viktor’s way of saying I see your efforts and I appreciate them no matter how ridiculous I think you’re being. Jayce has heard this same tone many times, most of them during sex.

Sky snorts a laugh, getting rid of the last bit of tension in the car.

Jayce takes Viktor’s hand in his own and laces their fingers together, takes the teasing jabs that Viktor and Sky build off of each other with, and lets his thoughts and anxieties leave with the asshole enforcer.

They come back very quickly when he spots the small group of—cameras, notebooks, oh fuck is that Marcus— reporters, gathered on the steps outside of the lab. These reporters spot them very quickly as well, considering there’s only one car on the street and they are in that car.

“Shit,” Jayce says as he and Marcus make eye-contact—and why the fuck is Marcus here? Does he not have more important shit to do than stop (or help?) reporters from making a scene in front of their lab?

Viktor, who has seemed relatively calm until now, freezes up at the sight of the small crowd. Jayce swears again, panic welling in his chest. Curse the Piltover news circuit for being so obsessed with him. He knows he chose to make Viktor’s contributions known, but he’s not sure if Viktor knows what Jayce has gotten him into. Jayce isn’t sure what he’s gotten him into. 

“Okay. No lab today, I guess,” he says, throwing an arm around Viktor’s shoulder in a poor attempt to shield him from view. “It’s fine, we can drop the equipment off later.”

Cait drives right on by without stopping, not saying a word. Jayce looks ahead even as he hears a camera flash. Fuck, he thinks. He’s aware he’s a public figure, but come on. A scientist can’t help his partner move into their shared lab in peace?

Part of him is worried they’ll follow them to Viktor’s new place, but they make it there in relative peace. A few glances, here and there, because they are again the only automobile in the street, but they pull up to the small, gated community with little fanfare.

Jayce, unfortunately, didn’t have much say in choosing what residence Viktor (and Sky, of course) were accommodated with. He gives the neighborhood a cursory glance. Gated, which means a tiny bit more safety; close to the docks but not close enough to smell, and close enough to the academy that it shouldn’t be a terrible walk for Viktor. Bus stop nearby. And, the only thing Jayce made sure to press upon, no endless fucking staircases.

“Hm,” Viktor makes a small, interested noise. “This is our…neighborhood?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jayce says, unable to read the tone of his voice. He glances at Sky, who’s leaning out the car window with wide eyes.

“These look way nicer than the academy dorms I got,” she says, sending Jayce and unimpressed glance.

Jayce puts his hands up defensively, “Hey, I have no control over the academy dorms.” 

Sky shakes her head, giving Viktor a conspiratorial look. “With the shit his assistants have to put up with, he should pay their rent himself.”

Viktor barks a laugh, but he looks at Jayce fondly. “I hope this, eh, residence is worth all the hours I’ll have to suffer through, then.”

“It won’t be,” Cait says as she pulls up to the gate, throwing a teasing grin over her shoulder. “Honestly, Viktor, I’m amazed you can stand to work with him for more than ten minutes. I get why Sky quit.”

“Okay,” Jayce says,“I don’t know why it’s ‘Bully Jayce Day’ all of the sudden, but let’s keep it civil.”

“Of course, Councilor Talis,” Viktor bows his head in mock-deference, “I wouldn’t want you to demote us to dorm living.”

Jayce, because he is a gentleman whose mother taught him to be nice to the boys he likes instead of bullying them, decides to still help both of them move in.

They’re met with enforcers at the front gates, who demand to see Viktor and Sky’s visas as if they don’t know who they are, and who then hand over each of their keys to their new houses. One of them, a young woman who looks to be around Cait’s age, seems more curious than anything, giving the Zaunites long, intrigued looks. The other, an older man, acts much more in line with the one they had to kick out of the car. Still, they get their keys, and the code for the gate, and are sent on their way.

Viktor and Sky’s houses are near each other, but not right next door. Caitlyn splits off to help Sky, and Jayce helps Viktor. Jayce hauls the two suitcases in while Viktor fumbles with the keys. His hands, Jayce notices, are shaking the slightest amount. Jayce gives him a moment to catch his breath and slide the key into the lock.

When the door clicks open, Jayce holds his breath. The inside is—underwhelming, kind of. He wasn’t expecting councilor-level affluence, or anything, but it seems more akin to a slightly larger version of the Kiramman’s rooms Jayce used to live in.

“Wow,” Viktor breathes, and he sounds pleasantly surprised rather than disdainful. “This is…bigger than I expected.”

Bigger? Jayce almost asks, incredulously, but does not, because he does have some tact. It’s not a bad house; a little small for his taste, but not the shoebox Viktor was living in down there. It’s clean, there’s more than one room, there are some nice windows. A comfortable looking couch. No stairs. Jayce supposes they could have done worse.

Still, some part of him is a little irritated that this is the best that Piltover has to offer the man who helped invent hextech, the reason they’re even half as prosperous as they are today.

But then: “Oh,” Viktor says softly, trailing further inside, “There’s a kitchen.”

There is, in fact, a kitchen. It’s small, with an icebox and a stove and many, many cabinets. The sink is in front of a window, overlooking the street outside. Viktor puts a hand almost reverently on the faux-granite countertop, runs his fingers across it.

The moment seems significant, something young and longing in Viktor’s eyes as he looks over everything carefully, and Jayce doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s a very nice kitchen,” Viktor says quietly, as though he isn’t sure how he feels about that fact.

“Your very nice kitchen,” Jayce says, setting the suitcases down carefully and stepping forward to join him. 

Viktor glances up at him, almost startled. Turns to look at the counter again. 

“Yes,” he says softly; thoughtful. “I suppose it is.”

He looks incredibly small standing there; Jayce puts a hand on his back to bring him out of whatever corner he’s thought himself into. Viktor flinches lightly at the touch.

“What else do you wanna bring in?” he asks quietly, “We can take everything else to the lab tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” 

Jayce shrugs, “If you want to do it now, we can, but the vultures will probably still be there.” 

Viktor sighs, shaking his head. “Nosy fucking pilties. None of you ever learn how to mind your business.” 

Jayce can’t really disagree.

“It’s a curse,” he says, and slides his arms down around Viktor’s waist, hooks his chin over Viktor’s shoulder, and marvels at the way he’s allowed to do it, the way Viktor lets him. It’s startlingly domestic, standing in Viktor’s new kitchen together. “Do you wanna go today?”

He leaves the choice up to Viktor, who spends a long moment thinking it over. Eventually, he sighs again. “No,” he says. “I suppose it can wait for tomorrow. Would you like to carry my books in for me?”

The books. The majority of them stacked in one, impossibly heavy box. Jayce’s back aches at the memory. 

But, because he’s a very good partner (he does not almost flush at the thought of the word, of the way Viktor had sounded saying), Jayce carries the books in. He doesn’t know what the fuck Viktor could possibly have in here to make it so heavy. He’s an academy student—he’s well aware of how heavy paper is, especially when it’s bound into book form—but this is excessive. 

After that, though, there’s not much else to bring in. The majority of what they brought was straight from the lab; most of Viktor’s personal effects came in the form of clothing and books, with the occasional cooking item or blanket. He had packed up some of his pantry, too, so that he could “slowly acclimate to gross piltie food,” as he had so lovingly put it.

Jayce offers to help him unpack, but Viktor declines, easing down onto the mattress—new, one that had come with the house, apparently (probably Mel’s doing). 

“It’s been a long day,” he admits, “I think that can wait as well.” 

“Are you hungry?” Jayce asks.

Viktor shrugs a shoulder. “I suppose.” 

Jayce doesn’t really want to leave for fear of running into any more reporters, and Viktor doesn’t seem too eager on the idea, either. So instead, Jayce watches Viktor unpack his few cooking utensils, some of the ingredients he had taken from home, and boil water on the stove.

Somehow, this is an incredible sight. Jayce is a scientist; cooking should, theoretically, be all science, but for some reason, it’s always evaded him. Viktor boiling water on the stove? He truly is brillant.

“Have you never boiled water before?” Viktor asks, very judgmentally. 

“Of course I have,” Jayce says. Viktor just huffs a quiet laugh, leaning hard against his cane as he then proceeds to make pasta. Jayce resists the urge to ask if he needs help, because he doesn’t want to be rude and he also doesn’t think he would be much help.

“I don’t have any spices or meat, so it won’t be the best,” Viktor says absently, “But it’s edible.”

Jayce personally thinks that the first meal in a new house should be more than just “edible” but again, he doesn’t want to sound rude and he doesn’t know enough to offer help. He supposes they could order something and have it delivered, but something tells him that Viktor won’t be impressed by the flex of authority.

Either way, it ends up being more than edible. They make light small talk as Viktor stirs the pot, and Jayce watches, near-entranced, as Viktor pours it out into two small bowls. One of them has a chip in it; Viktor takes that one for himself. 

It’s not the best meal he’s ever had, nor the best pasta dish, but it’s still not bad. It’s a simple meal, with simple ingredients and simple preparation, but it’s filling and warm. It takes him back to his very early days in Piltover, when it was still his mother doing all the cooking largely alone, even with her newly missing fingers. 

“Mm,” Jayce says around the first bite, watching Viktor blow on his own forkful before popping it into his mouth. “This is really good, V.”

Viktor rolls his eyes. “It’s plain pasta and tomato sauce, Jayce.”

But he seems quietly pleased with the compliment nonetheless. It’s only until Jayce has cleaned out his bowl and is rinsing it off in the sink that he remembers they left Sky and Cait to their own devices. Viktor doesn’t seem overly concerned though, brushing away Jayce’s worry with a wave of his hand.

“It’s getting late,” he says, “I’m sure Sky will be glad for some privacy. We’ll see her tomorrow.”

It’s the we part of it—the fact that Vikor has already started talking in the plural just like Jayce has—that makes Jayce smile.

Despite Viktor’s insistence on not unpacking any of his books or personal belongings yet, he cleans the pot and silverware thoroughly, leaving them out to dry on the granite counter. It’s something new about him that Jayce files away: Viktor can cook, and he prefers to wash up right after he’s done. Or maybe that’s just right now, and he’s stalling for time because Jayce is overstaying his welcome.

Jayce clears his throat. “Well, um, if you don’t need anything else, would you like me to…?”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, the picture of nonchalance, as he sets the last fork down. “You can go if you want.”

He says it airly, uncaring, the way he often would after Jayce was deciding whether or not he should leave for the night or if he had one more round (or research topic to discuss) in him. Jayce thinks he can hear an edge of trepidation underneath it, though. 

Jayce remembers what it was like when he first came to Piltiver, how large and new and overwhelming it was. He and his mom slept in the same room for weeks because he didn’t want to be alone. Of course, Jayce was also eight years old and recently had a near-death experience, but he imagines that Piltover is just as large and overwhelming as ever, even to someone like Viktor. 

“Do you want me to?” he counters lightly. “This is your house, V. You can kick me out if I’m bothering you.”

The tight lines around Viktor’s mouth smooth out just a bit; his shoulders lose a bit of their tension. Jayce steps forwards and puts his hands there, just because he can, and because Viktor’s shoulders are one big knot that Jayce wants to lovingly loosen up.

Viktor hums thoughtfully. “I suppose you can stay a while longer. Unless you have any important councilor business to attend to.”

Technically, Jayce is supposed to check in with Mel when Viktor and Sky have settled in, but that can wait for tomorrow. Tonight, right now, he follows Viktor through the small living room and into the bedroom, the comfortable looking mattress calling their names. Viktor eases down onto it once again, slipping his shoes off and unclasping the leg brace. He lets out a deep whoosh of breath when it slips off. He then lifts his legs onto the bed, leans back against the headboard, and looks up at Jayce where he’s still standing in the doorway.

They both pause.

For a moment, Jayce expects to hear the usual how would you like me tonight? And then feels foolish for expecting it, because they aren’t underground and this isn’t The Full Moon and Viktor is no longer a commodity that he’s purchased for the night.

Which is strange. And embarrassing that it’s strange. He doesn’t know how to proceed. He doesn’t know if he should fall back into their usual dynamic—so much of it had relied on the fact that it was a service that Jayce was paying for; Viktor had fulfilled whatever fantasy Jayce had wanted him to fulfill that night. 

This is what he had wanted for so long: Viktor with him, in his own bed, outside of the brothel. Just the two of them, no payment, no performance, no artifice. And here he is, standing there and feeling like the same green academy boy who didn’t know what the fuck to do with his hands.

The only thing that makes him feel a little less mortified is that Viktor looks as equally at a loss, looking at him with wide eyes from where he’s perched on the bed. 

They stare at each other for a moment, like that, both of them out of place and unsure of what to do. A beat, and then two. The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitches, and then they’re both laughing. They’re fucking ridiculous, Jayce thinks, and then he thinks about how lovely Viktor’s real laugh is, rough and barking and so full of fluid you could just drown in it, and how he wants to hear it every day for he rest of his life.

“Come here,” Viktor says once he’s recovered, beckoning him over teasingly. Jayce lets out a breath of relief and goes willingly.

“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t w—” he’s cut off as Viktor tugs him down by the collar of his shirt and kisses him hard, open mouthed and messy. Jayce responds eagerly, climbing blindly into the bed next to him, bringing his hands up to cradle Viktor’s jaw.

It’s kind of embarrassing how immediately hard he gets, straining against the fabric of his pants, but it’s not his fault—he hasn’t seen Viktor in a week, has hardly been able to touch him all day with everything going on and everyone hanging around them. Viktor notices because of course he does, and pulls back to huff an amused laugh, glancing down between them.

“What?” Jayce says defensively, dangerously close to a whine. “It’s been a long week.”

Viktor gives him a faux-sympathetic look. “Poor baby,” he mocks, patting his cheek condescendingly, “Having to deal with the consequences of your impulsive decision making must be so hard for you.”

Jayce flushes, half-irritated and half-embarrassed about the way the scorn in Viktor’s voice makes his cock twitch. “It is,” he says, trying not to sound like an upset child. 

Viktor hums, tilting his head like he’s studying him; it makes Jayce feel small despite the fact that Viktor is the one looking up at him.

“And what would you like me to do about it?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Jayce says, sliding his hands down to rest on Viktor’s thighs, “But I would love to help you break in your new bed.” 

“I’m sure you would,” Viktor says, spreading his thighs further. “First I cook for you, now you want to fuck me. I’m not your wife, councilor.”

“Jayce,” he reminds him automatically, “And I mean, you kind of are.”

Vitkor raises an eyebrow, “Excuse me? Did you ever propose?” 

“I proposed an idea . That you accepted.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Viktor says with an incredulous laugh. “We are not getting married.”

“But we’re partners,” Jayce says, tracing circles against Viktor’s thighs with his thumbs. 

“ Research partners.”

“Partners,” Jayce says again, thinking of the last time he had Viktor, the way Viktor’s eyes had gone wide in awe and disbelief at the word. 

Viktor seems to want to roll his eyes again, but something stops him. Jayce takes the chance to lean in and kiss him, inching further and further up the seam of Viktor’s inner thighs. 

“Fine,” Viktor says when Jayce pulls back. “Help me break the bed in. Partner.” 

Jayce helps him break the bed in. He shrugs his coat off, pulls the dress shirt over his head, unbuckles his belt with and eagerness that makes Viktor laugh softly. Jayce, again, wants to hear it forever, but he wants to hear the small intake of breath that Viktor sucks in when Jayce kneels on the floor in front of him and runs both hands back up his legs to get at the waist of Viktor’s pants. He pops the button open, undoes his fly, slides them down and off with a dramatic flourish.

Viktor, for once, is the one that seems too impatient for Jayce to eat him out this time. He shimmies up the mattress until he can lie down, pulling Jayce along with him with a hand in his hair. 

It’s a relatively nice mattress, definitely better than the one at the brothel. Jayce goes willingly, whole body thrumming with anticipation. Viktor is soaking, he feels under his hands, and it never fails to go right to his ego, how fucking wet Viktor always gets for him. For him, not for his money, not for his fame, not for any of the bullshit that people always seem to want him for. 

Jayce pushes Viktor’s sweater up as high as it can go so he can press hot kisses to his chest—he’s wearing a back brace, one that Jayce has never seen before, but he’s aware that Viktor probably didn’t wear the corset all the time. It’s utilitarian, not built for aesthetics or sensuality. Jayce likes it; it humanizes him, makes him more real. It doesn’t look exceedingly comfortable, though.

“Do you wanna take it off?” he asks.

Viktor shakes his head. “Take too long. It’s fine, just—”

He hooks his good leg up around Jayce’s waist to pull him in. Jayce gladly takes the hint. He thinks about the enforcer, the awful way he said the word whore, like that’s the only reason Viktor was here and everyone knew it. Viktor is here because he wants to be, because he deserves to be. The sex isn’t a given, but fuck, Jayce thinks as he slides in slowly, inch by inch, until he’s buried all the way inside, will it be a nice benefit.

Viktor makes a small sound when Jayce bottoms out, closing his eyes and sinking into the bed, as if just letting himself feel it—feel Jayce, inside of him. Brand new fucking mattress, Viktor split open on his cock the way he’s meant to be.

Inexplicably, his mind darts back to Viktor’s small lab underground, the ramshackle quality to it, in stark comparison to the clean, bare room they’re in right now. Will Viktor decorate it to make it seem more like home? If he does, does that mean he’ll stay? He thinks about that dangerous looking girl with her gun, the way Viktor claimed to be using Piltover as a means to an end and nothing more.

“Were you serious?” He finds himself asking, thrusting shallowly, “About what you said to that girl in your lab?”

“Who, Jinx?” Vitkor responds, cracking an eye open. “Why are you thinking about a young girl while you fuck me?”

Jayce brushes off the obvious attempt to change the subject.

“I mean when you said you’re just coming topside for its opportunities. Resources or whatever.”

Viktor raises an eyebrow, “Worried the snake trencher will betray you and steal all of your work?” 

“No,” Jayce says immediately, “That’s not what I mean. I just…well, is that really the only reason?”

Viktor’s eyes soften even as his lips twitch into a teasing smile. “What, you mean you?”

Jayce frowns, trying not to flush. “Well, yeah. I guess.”

Viktor scoffs lightly, but he looks at him fondly. “Of course you’re part of the reason, you ridiculous man. You promised me a summer beach house.” 

“That’s still material gain,” Jayce argues, but the tight knot of anxiety in his chest melts away and warms his chest. 

“It’s a decent perk,” Viktor admits, but raises his arms to trace the slant of Jayce’s jaw, long fingers cool against his skin. “But not the only one.”

“Yeah? What are the others?”

“Egotistical piltie,” Viktor drawls. “Why don’t you show me what other perks you can offer me.”

He clenches around him, back arching off the bed just a bit. Jayce knows a demand to get on with it when he sees it. He’s happy to follow the order. 

He does his best to grip Viktor’s hips, thighs hiked up around Jayce’s waist, and fuck him into his new mattress. No more springs pressing into their backs or old sheets; the “nice” room at that fucking brothel is gone, he’ll never fuck Viktor in it again. Vitkor will never be fucked in it again, because Viktor is here and not there and Jayce will never have to make a trip down to see him again because he’s here.

“Fuck, you’re here,” he says, unable to stop himself.

“I am,” Viktor says, half-breathless and half-bemused.

You’re here with me, he doesn’t say. You’re with me, you chose me, and this is real and you meant it when you said you were mine, mine and no one else’s. You’re mine, you’re mine. 

“You’re mine,” slips out, a whisper against Viktor’s skin. He knows Viktor hears him when he freezes up for a moment—just a moment, always so put together—before he softens again. His fingers rake through Jayce’s hair, nails against his scalp. 

“I am,” he answers, voice just as hushed. Like it’s a secret only meant for Jayce to hear. “I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours,” Jayce insists, willing him to know that it isn’t one sided; Jayce is Viktor’s just as much as Viktor is his. He thinks he could stay here forever, wrapped up in Viktor and pressed so close he can feel Viktor’s heart beating wildly against the confines of his chest. “Me and everything I have.”

He remembers Viktor, eyes bright and burning as he declared: I want everything. I’ll take and take from you and I won’t stop. Jayce will give him whatever he wants, whatever he can.

Right now, buried inside of him and nestled as far as he can, Jayce thinks he could stay here forever. Viktor hot and wet around him, taking him perfectly, like he was made for it—like Jayce has carved a place inside of him just for himself. Viktor’s sweet hole and pretty mouth, shaped just for him and him alone.

It’s only when Viktor gasps a small fuck, Jayce, that he realizes he’s been speaking out loud. 

“All mine,” he continues without missing a beat, mouth against the shell of Viktor’s ear, “My partner, my Viktor, my love,” it slips out before he can stop it, and he’s too drunk on adrenaline and arousal to regret it, especially not when Viktor shudders beneath him, small tremors up his legs and arms that only get worse when Jayce reaches down to thumb at his cock.

Vikor mumbles something in a language Jayce doesn’t know, words slurring against the skin of Jayce’s shoulder. It always makes him shiver, hearing Viktor’s mouth curl around the unfamiliar syllables; it doesn’t happen often, but Jayce knows he’s doing a good job when it does.

He wants to ask what he said, what it means, but Viktor clenches around him again, digging his nails into the skin of Jayce’s back, and then Jayce is fucking gone; his orgasm takes him by surprise and all he can do is gasp out Viktor’s name and dig his teeth into the crook of his shoulder as he spills deep deep inside of him.

He closes his eyes and breathes through his come-down, holding Viktor very still beneath him. He feels Viktor’s fingers carding lightly through his hair—it’s such a small, unconscious movement, but the casual fondness of it makes his chest warm. He tilts his head to the side and presses his lips to Viktor’s throat, soothing the bite mark he left with his teeth. Viktor hisses, jerking underneath him and around him, which makes Jayce hiss.

He sees the quirk of Viktor’s lips from the corner of his eye, and the fingers in his hair tug a little.

“Make me cum already,” he says, more demanding that he’s ever allowed himself to be, none of the put-upon deference in his eyes that he always wore, even when Jayce would pay him to be mean; Jayce hadn’t even realized it had been put-upon until now, now that he doesn’t see it. 

Viktor doesn’t defer to him anymore; he demands of him. It’s unfairly hot.

“Yessir,” he says, not nearly as mocking as he meant it to be. Before Viktor can open his mouth to tease him about it, he’s pulling out, shuffling down the bed and prying his legs apart further to lick into him.

Viktor says a lot more, but none of it coherent enough to count as teasing. Jayce brings him off twice, and is ready to try for a third when Viktor is yanking him off by the hair to get him to stop. His nails are sharp but his face is soft, flushed and fucked-out. 

Jayce can’t help but surge up and kiss him again when he thinks about how he’ll be able to have this every day. That Viktor is here, that Viktor is staying. 

Viktor kisses him back, blinking up at him sleepily.

“Consider my bed broken in,” he says, sounding sated and satisfied. Happy, maybe. Content. Jayce revels in it.

He falls down into the sheets next to Viktor instead of on top of him, throwing an arm over his small waist. “Tomorrow we can get you and Sky set up in the lab,” he says, stretching out. “And we can get started.”

On what, he doesn’t know. He has the gem project he’s been working on, and he’s willing to set aside time and space for whatever Viktor wants to work on. 

Viktor hums thoughtfully, trailing his fingers along the length of Jayce’s arm. “This is real, right?” he says, so quietly Jayce has to strain to hear it. “This is all…it’s real?”

It won’t be taken away? is unsaid. It won’t be promised and then broken later on?

“Yeah,” Jayce says, voice hushed; he turns to nestle closer into Viktor’s side, pressing a kiss to his hairline. “It’s real. Whatever you want. It’s real.”

Viktor trembles, slight and narrow against him, but doesn’t cry. Jayce holds him through it.

They fall asleep like that, without even cleaning up or getting changed. It’s the best sleep Jayce has had in months. 

Chapter Text

Viktor wakes up in Piltover. This is a strange sentence, one that he never thought would be true. But Viktor opens his eyes, sweaty and oddly comfortable despite the fact that he slept in his back brace, and for a moment he doesn’t know where he is. He blinks up at the unfamiliar ceiling, a fancy beige color and an honest to Janna ceiling fan, realizes that there’s someone pressed up against him, breathing into the crook of his neck, and then remembers. That he’s topside. That this unfamiliar room with the beige ceiling and a ceiling fan and an insanely comfortable mattress, is technically his now.

He has to lie there for a moment and let it sink in. Jayce shifts a little, snores a little. It’s endearing only because Viktor is awake now, and it’s light enough snoring that he can still think, could probably fall back asleep if he tried. He closes his eyes again. Thinks about his home, now half-empty and abandoned. Wonders if Silco will light it on fire or something. Thinks about Jayce’s—their —fancy lab, shiny and big and waiting for him. About the gaggle of reporters on the front steps.

He sighs. Opens his eyes again. He wonders what exactly he’s gotten himself into. What Jayce has gotten him into. 

He drifts in and out of sleep for the next hour or so. He’s drawn back to awareness by the feeling of Jayce rolling closer to him, shifting onto his side. The next thing he feels is Jayce’s morning wood poking him in the thigh—no fabric between them or anything, because they were both too exhausted to get dressed before they knocked out that night. 

Viktor would scoff a little if he was awake enough, but as it stands he is not. He moves his thigh a little so it’s not touching anymore, and closes his eyes again. 

Jayce presses closer, hips jerking against Viktor’s thigh. His breath comes in a short exhale that Viktor can feel on his neck. Like a fucking teenage boy, he thinks, half-bemused. 

“Really?” He tries to say, but it comes out a rough half-whisper.

Jayce, who he can tell is at least partially awake, makes a soft whining sound, shrugging the shoulder that isn’t pressed into the mattress. 

Viktor sighs, but considers. Jayce has been very good to him, and gave him a great orgasm last night. He should let him have this, right? He should give this to him. He might as well. 

Still, he’s not quite awake enough to do any of the work, nor does he really want to. So, he turns onto his side carefully, Jayce’s broad back against his chest. He tilts his hips back the slightest amount, feeling the hot slide of Jayce’s erection on his back.

“Go ahead,” he says, voice still thick with sleep. “Just don’t be too loud about it, I’m still tired.”

He hears Jayce’s breath stutter, and then big arms wrap around him, tugging him back and holding him close. He feels Jayce shift a little, maneuvering down to push his cock between Viktor’s thighs. He’s ridiculously hard for this early in the morning, as if he didn’t just have sex a few hours ago. He’s big, heavy; Jayce moves in small, lazy thrusts, his cock sliding back and forth between Viktor’s folds, growing slick with the friction. 

Viktor thinks he’s too tired to cum, but he can let Jayce take what he pleases. He just hopes Jayce won't spill all over his nice, new sheets. 

Jayce makes soft, sleepy noises with each thrust, breathing into Viktor’s ear. He presses a kiss there, a sensitive spot that makes Viktor twitch. Jayce does it again, sliding one hand down to brace on Viktor's hip. His thigh, and further still, under the sensitive crook of Viktor’s bad knee. He realizes what Jayce is doing a moment too late—tugging carefully, so carefully, bending Viktor’s leg up towards his chest the slightest amount and pressing forwards to try and slide his cock inside of him. The position is a little awkward, shoving in from behind, and at first he only manages to get the head in.

Viktor isn’t sure he wants to be fucked first thing in the morning. He doesn’t think he’s wet enough for it yet. 

He’s still tired enough that his brain is lagging a moment behind, though, so he only manages to slur out a muffled Jayce, wait a sec —before Jayce is readjusting and shoving back in. It’s a tight fit, but he slides in all the way to the base before Viktor can open his mouth to say anything else; maybe there was something to the shit Jayce was talking last night, about Viktor being shaped inside just for him, a perfect hole made for his cock. 

He gasps into the pillow, caught off guard by the sudden feeling of being full full full, kept in place by Jayce’s strong arms, by his broad chest pressed against his back, body curling around him.

“Fuck,” Jayce breathes into the back of Viktor’s neck, making him shiver. “Y’r so tight, V.”

Viktor can only make a small noise in response, body reacting despite himself. Horny fucker, shoving his cock inside of him without even asking first, like Viktor is his to fuck whenever he wants. It’s just on the right side of degrading, just on the right side of hot, which pisses him off. It feels good, though, which would annoy him further if he were more awake—which he’s becoming with each passing second. Jayce seems to be waking up, too, making more and more noise despite the fact that Viktor told him to be quiet about it. Fucking both of them into consciousness. 

“Oh,” Viktor sighs into the pillow when Jayce reaches around to thumb at Viktor’s cock, rubbing in soft circles. Again, Viktor doesn’t know if he can come right now, but Jayce is certainly trying his best. 

It doesn’t take long for Jayce to tip over the edge, movements growing shorter and more sporadic until he buries himself deep, holds Viktor still and spills inside of him.

First thing in the fucking morning, Viktor thinks, half-annoyed. At least he’ll have an excuse to try his new shower. It seemed very fancy.

Jayce pants into Viktor’s hair. For a second, Viktor thinks he might have fallen asleep again, but then he’s sliding out, stretching and groaning and sitting up behind him. Viktor stays where he is so he can breathe for a moment.

Viktor tilts his head to eye Jayce over his shoulder. He looks unfairly handsome for someone who just woke up.

“I said wait,” he grumbles, unsure of whether he’s actually annoyed or not.

“Huh?” Jayce asks intelligently.

Viktor sighs, pushing himself onto his back so he can gaze up at him. “You should at least ask before you stick your dick in someone this early in the morning.”

Jayce, to his credit, does look apologetic. “I’m sorry, baby,” he says, reaching down to push the hair back from Viktor’s forehead. It’s annoyingly soothing. “You just felt so good.”

Viktor scoffs, unable to stop the rush of fondness at Jayce’s honest tone. “You didn’t have to come inside.”

“I didn’t wanna mess up your new sheets,” is the cheeky excuse, which is annoying because Viktor had the same thought about it. “I can clean you up, if you want.”

Jayce raises a suggestive eyebrow, gazing darting down between Viktor’s thighs. Viktor sighs, letting his eyes slip shut. He supposes that he’s sufficiently awake now.

“Fine,” Viktor says, “But hurry up about it.”

Jayce hurries up about it.

When he’s done, he presses a soft kiss to the inside of Viktor’s thigh and pulls back. He sits up, glances at the clock on the bedside table (Viktor wasn’t aware clocks could look fancy, but this one somehow does) and then practically leaps out of bed. It would be funny if it didn’t startle Viktor so bad his thigh nearly cramps up. 

“Shit,” Jayce, scrambling to grab his clothes where they’re strewn across the floor. “I forgot—there’s a stupid council thing I have to go to this morning. Fuck, Mel’s gonna murder me if I’m late.”

Viktor props himself up on one of the big, fluffy pillows and watches Jayce flail around as he pulls his pants up. He buttons his shirt wrong—which Viktor kindly points out—and fumbles with his belt.

“I’ll meet you at the lab later, okay?” Jayce asks distractedly, looking for his vest, which Viktor helpfully points at (it’s somehow made it all the way across the room, in a corner under the window). “Or you can wait here and I can pick you up after? It might run a little long, though—but you can go back to sleep if you want, or—”

“I’ll meet you at the lab,” Viktor interrupts graciously, before Jayce can work himself up into passing out again. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get lost.”

Viktor snorts at the vote of confidence. “It’s not too far from here, right? We drove by yesterday. And Sky used to work there.”

Jayce frowns—presumably at the reminder of why they only drove by instead of stopping. “Right. I’m sure Cait wouldn’t mind driving you guys and your stuff there.”

Viktor had forgotten there was a mostly-full car still parked outside with all of his lab equipment in it. Better to get it into the lab soon than let it sit out there until it gets stolen. If that’s something that happens up here. It would be quite annoying to be robbed on his second day. 

“Sure,” Viktor says, because he can tell Jayce is waiting for an answer before he bolts. “Have fun at your council thing.”

Jayce barks a sarcastic laugh. “I will. Always a fucking party.”

He then bends down to give Viktor a quick peck on the mouth—like they’re married or something, and he’s a haggard businessman leaving for work. Viktor doesn’t expect it, so he’s stunned for a moment—long enough for Jayce to grab his shoes and jog out the door, throwing a see you later over his shoulder before he’s gone. It’s so startlingly domestic that it would make Viktor blush if he were about five years younger.

He has to sit there for another moment, on his fancy new mattress in his fancy new bedroom, and let things sink in once again. It’s so strange, being here like this. Waking up next to Jayce, being kissed on the mouth before he leaves for work. 

As he gets up and heads to the bathroom for a shower, he feels a bit like he’s trespassing in someone else’s home. The mirror is large and shiny-clean; the shower has a huge tub with a sliding glass door. It feels like he’s stepped into some strange fairytale, like he’s not supposed to be here. 

But he is, he tells himself; he’s here, and all of this is his now. It’s real. It’s so fucking weird. It takes him five minutes to figure out how to work the shower.

After he showers, dresses and eats in his new, very nice kitchen—the counter tops look and feel like actual granite (though he doesn’t know enough about it to tell if it’s fake), and the sink is huge, and there’s an icebox twice the size of his back home; the water is clear without him having to attach a filter to the pipes—he heads over to Sky’s. He wonders how she’s settling in, if this is all as strange as it is to him. Probably not, right? She’s lived up here before. 

When she opens the front door, though, the look on her face makes him think that wherever she lived last time she was up here—the infamous academy dorm living—was not this fancy at all. 

“Have you tried your shower yet?” Is the first thing she says to him. 

“I just took one,” he answers, stepping through the threshold when she moves to let him in. “The water pressure—“

“Is insane! And it was hot the whole time!”

“I think I was in there for almost half an hour.”

“At least ,” she agrees, and she smiles at him, bright and happy. He’s very glad she decided to come with him. He doesn’t know what he would do with himself if he was the only trencher in the room, always. If he had nobody but Jayce. 

“My kitchen is huge,” he adds. “I think my mother would have passed out if she saw it.”

Sky’s smile turns bittersweet at the mention of his dead mother, but she tilts her head in agreement. “I don’t know how anyone could fill up that many cabinets.”

Viktor shakes his head—partially in disbelief at the fact that they’re here. Up here. “I suppose I’ll have room for a lot of alcohol,” he says. “Which I imagine I will need if there are still reporters outside the lab.”

Sky makes an ugh sound at the mention, reaching for a jacket that she’s hung up on the coat rack—an entire coat rack, just standing next to the door. Vitkor has one, too.

“The piltie news cycle is insane, Vik,” she says. “Once, a professor got into a scandal with one of his students, and it was the only thing anyone talked about for weeks.”

Scandal , huh? This does not bode well for him. 

He sighs, feeling incredibly tired already. And he slept so well, too. Fucking pilties. 

“Do you know how to drive a car?” He asks.

Sky thinks for a moment, which isn’t a great sign. She shrugs a shoulder. “Probably.”

He’ll take it. “Would you like to try?”

She flashes him a grin, all teeth, excited. “Yes, I would.”

Sky drives them to the lab. For someone who can only “probably” drive a car, he thinks she does a rather good job. They don’t hit anyone, or anything, save for an unfortunately placed trash can when she turns a particularly sharp corner. And maybe someone’s mailbox.

Point is, they make it there in one piece, and so does everything in the trunk. Sky says she’s pretty sure there’s a loading bay somewhere, for big deliveries and such to be safely dropped off, if he wants to head in and see if Jayce is back yet while she heads there. 

Viktor very much wants to stay with Sky, considering the three people out on the steps; one of them has a camera, balanced precariously on one knee and she sits on one of the steps, as if she’s been there for a long while. These people are insane, he thinks. Camping out in front of some random building because there might be some scandalous bullshit to take note of. 

Maybe he should talk to Jayce about making small, portable hexgates. So that he could just teleport into the lab. Yes, he thinks as the car pulls up and the people’s heads shoot up. That should be their next project. 

“Actually,” Sky starts. “Do you wanna just come with me?”

For some reason, it’s her hesitance that makes the decision for him.

“No,” he says. “I’m pretty sure this is private property, right? They can’t follow me in.”

“Sure,” Sky says, “But that doesn’t mean they won’t.”

Insane, he thinks again. Aren’t topsiders supposed to be more civilized, or something? Where’s their precious propriety when he needs it? 

He sighs deeply. “I’ll be fine,” he says unconvincingly. “Once they see the cane, they’ll clear a path for me real quick.”

Sky quirks a wry smile at him. Viktor knows his leg has a way of making topsiders uncomfortable, and he’s sure the press is no exception. He’s sure it’ll make the paper, or whatever, but if it will help him get inside faster, he doesn’t much care. 

“Alright,” she says. “I’ll see you inside, yeah?”

He gives her a nod. “Don’t crash, okay?”

He steps carefully out of the passenger's seat. She gives him a Look— good luck, it says. This does not make him feel better, but he doesn’t stop her from driving off. He watches to make sure she successfully turns the corner, and then takes a breath in preparation, before he turns around and begins walking up the stairs. 

As he expected, the click of his cane draws their attention first—their eyes dart down, and then quickly back up, as if even looking, even acknowledging his disability at all, is rude. 

“Good morning,” he offers flatly. 

There’s a moment of silence, as if they’ve never heard a man say good morning before, and then all three of them begin talking at once. 

He catches only bits and pieces— are the rumors about you and Councilor Talis true? are the rumors about your job in the undercity true? something about hextech and brothels and Zaunite honeypots —before they go quiet once again. 

He’s not sure why, until he hears the click of heels and an air of cautious respect from the reporters in front of him. 

“Viktor,” he hears his name, and there’s a hand light on his elbow to get his attention. He looks up to see a woman he’s never met with a sharp accent. “Sorry to interrupt. My name is Mel Medarda, I’m a friend of Jayce’s.”

“Ah,” he says in recognition, “Councilor Medarda.”

The councilor he’s heard Jayce mention by name. The one who was apparently “excited to meet him.” 

She’s tall—taller than him in those heels—and she’s gorgeous. She might be the prettiest woman he’s ever seen, and there are some very pretty women in the undercity. She holds an elegant hand out; he didn’t know the act of offering a handshake could be elegant.

Okay, Viktor thinks, and reaches to accept it. Her handshake is firm without being aggressive. 

“I apologize for the informality,” she continues, which is the last thing he expected to hear, “I never caught your last name.”

Of all the things to ask about, he thinks, half-bewildered. Topsiders and their strange propriety.

“I don’t have one,” he answers, letting his accent seep further into his words. If it bothers her, she doesn’t show it. “Old Zaunish surnames can be very confusing. We might be here all day.”

She raises an eyebrow, the picture of polite amusement. “Just Viktor, then. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Sure,” and then, because he doesn’t know if that was rude, “Nice to meet you as well.”

She offers a smile; he can’t tell if it reaches her eyes. Her gaze then tilts sideways, flitting to the various reporters and back to him before she quirks an exasperated eyebrow as if to say can you believe this bullshit? Viktor has to admit that she’s very good at likable first impressions. 

“Please, let me walk you to the lab. I was just on my way to see Mister Talis myself.” 

Viktor gladly takes the out. “Thank you, that’s very kind,” he says, just loud enough for the people on the steps to hear. Mel’s eyes twinkle. 

“Of course,” she says; she flashes a winning smile at the reporters, and then laces an arm though his and turns to walk him into the building. He hears the snap of a camera and fights off the urge to flip them off in response.

“Vultures, the lot of them,” she says as soon as the doors swing shut behind them. 

Viktor offers a quirk of his eyebrows in return. “No, I appreciate the warm topside welcome,” he drawls.

Another polite smile, and again he cannot tell about the eyes. “I know it can be a lot,” she says, “I remember when I first came to Piltover; they made quite a fuss about it, too.” 

It’s a great move, in terms of expressing relatability. Making connections between both of them being outsiders here, no matter how integrated. 

“How long until they move on, do you think?”

She hums softly. “If you’re lucky, a few weeks.”

“And if I’m not?”

“At least a few months.” Viktor must make some kind of face, because she quirks an apologetic smile. “The news cycle loves its gossip, I’m afraid.”

Viktor exhales a small, amused huff. “Believe me, I know about gossip. You can’t do a damn thing in a brothel without everyone knowing about it.”

Again, if it bothers her, she doesn’t say anything. Instead she gives a small, appropriately amused laugh. 

By this time, they’ve reached the lab. Viktor finds himself excited, excited to see it again and excited to see Jayce, even though he just saw him earlier this morning. 

He hopes the council thing went alright. He hopes he wasn’t a topic of discussion. 

When they push the doors open, Jayce is hunched over his desk, looking over some papers with a hand in his hair, making it messier than it already is. He looks up at the sound, and the way his face brightens when he sees him makes Viktor feel almost embarrassed for him for being so fucking obvious. It’s also nice, though, and Viktor can feel his own smile shine in return.

“Viktor,” Jayce says, voice a little awed, somehow surprised he’s here despite the fact that he helped him move yesterday. “Hi.”

“Hello, Jayce,” Viktor says, trying to tamp down the butterflies a little. 

“Hi,” Jayce says again, and then seems to realize they aren’t alone, “And Mel—hi. Again. What are, um, what’s up? I didn’t think we had a check in til next week.” 

Mel gives a small, amused smile. “We don’t. I was simply walking Viktor in. I wanted to meet him.” 

Which contradicts what she said earlier about coming to see Jayce, but Viktor appreciates her scaring the reporters off earlier, so he decides it’s not worth pointing out. 

“Oh,” Jayce says, seeming relieved. “How was the trip over?” He asks Viktor.

Viktor shrugs. “Fine. Sky drove, said there was a loading bay somewhere?”

If the news that Sky drove is alarming at all, he doesn’t show it. “Right, the equipment. I’ll have someone go unload all that for us.”

Viktor pities the poor someone who he’ll have to kill if any of his equipment is damaged on the way over. 

Councilor Medarda seems to take this as her cue. “Well, I suppose I should be going,” she says, brushing imaginary lint off of her dress, “I’m excited to see what the two of you have in store for us. I hope you both have a lovely day.”

Councilor Medarda looks between the two of them knowingly. It makes Viktor kind of embarrassed, which in turn kind of makes him more embarrassed. 

“You as well,” he says, pushing it down. 

When she leaves, the door clicking shut behind her, Viktor breathes a sigh of relief. 

“I’m sorry I had to go so early,” Jayce says, stepping forward. He reaches out to put a hand on Viktor’s waist like he’s done it a million times before; Viktor doesn’t flinch back. 

“It’s alright,” he says, oddly touched by the apology, “Councilor Medarda was very helpful.” 

Jayce smiles. “Yeah, she’s great. She was looking forward to meeting you.”

Viktor doesn’t know if he believes that, but it’s nice to hear anyways—that he won’t be an unwelcome spectacle to everybody up here.

“That’s kind of her,” he says agreeably. 

“My mom is excited to meet you, too,” Jayce says, dropping it like it’s nothing. 

“Let’s slow down there,” Viktor says, reaching up to pat Jayce’s cheek fondly. “I just got here; let me breathe a moment.”

“I didn’t mean right now,” Jayce says hurriedly, “I just meant…eventually. Whenever you’re ready.”

Viktor doubts he’ll be ready for a very long while, but he doesn’t say that. 

Luckily, he’s saved from having to respond when Jayce lights up once again. “Oh!” He says, turning back to snatch up the paper he had been looking over. “I wanted to see what you thought of these gem equations.”

Viktor blinks. He remembers Jayce mentioning something like about a gem before, but never in depth. “Gem equations?”

Jayce’s eyes widen in surprise. “Right, I forgot I couldn’t tell you about the gems.”

Couldn’t tell you referring to the Silco problem, which Viktor had been trying very hard not to think about. 

“Well,” Viktor says, “Let me sit down and you can tell me all about them. I’m sure you’ve mixed up your math somewhere.”

Jayce’s smile widens, so bright Viktor feels like he should look away before he’s blinded. But he doesn’t, because he’s allowed to look now; because it’s just for him to see. 

Jayce spends the rest of the day explaining his gem idea, his theories and experiments and many, many failures. Viktor sits there, entranced, the whole time. He knew Jayce was brilliant, but seeing him in his element with the proof to back it up has Viktor unable to look away. 

Fuck, he thinks faintly. He’s in far too deep. 

There are no reporters waiting on the steps when they leave for the night, thank Janna. Jayce offers to walk Viktor back to his apartment, but doesn’t ask to stay the night—which makes Viktor relieved, because he doubts he would have been able to turn him down. He wonders if Jayce can tell that Viktor needs a moment or two to himself to settle in, or if Jayce also needs a moment to himself. Either way, he appreciates it.

Jayce gives him a long, lingering kiss goodbye, and says that he’ll see him in the morning. Vitkor shuts his front door and finds himself leaning back against it like some infatuated love interest in one of his mother’s old romance novels. There’s no one here but him, though, so he lets himself savor the feeling—of being wanted, of having someone excited to see him tomorrow. 

He makes some more pasta. Unpacks one of his boxes—but just one. He can’t quite bring himself to touch the others yet. He still doesn’t know if he’ll be here long. He doesn’t know how long this strange daydream he’s stepped into will last.

Despite this, though, he has a decent evening. He takes a brief walk around the neighborhood—still a bit blown away by the fact that it’s gated—and his leg only aches a little bit by the time he gets back home. 

He cleans his dishes. He searches through another box to find a book he’s been reading slowly for the past few months, and sits on his fancy new couch to finish a few chapters. Because that’s something he can do now: have enough free time to sit down and read without worrying about anything else.

It still feels so strange. It doesn’t feel like his—not his couch, not his living room, not his house. But it is. 

He goes to bed fairly early for him, considering the terrible sleeping schedule he’s kept up in the past, caught between his job and his research with not enough hours in the day to add a good amount of sleep to the mix.

The mattress is comfortable, the sheets soft and the blanket warm, but he finds himself missing the feeling of Jayce’s presence beside him. He falls asleep slowly, and doesn’t remember his dreams. 

The next day, he and Jayce begin going back through all of the math from the beginning to search for any errors that may have thrown off the gem calibration calculations. Viktor is actually a bit impressed with how long Jayce was able to go without making any mistakes, but he finds the culprit a few hours in—it’s always carrying twos with him. Or threes, this time. And dividing wrong. And dropping an exponent. And—

“Okay, I get it,” Jayce interrupts, sounding embarrassed. “I fucked up the math.”

“You fucked up the math,” Viktor practically sings, ignoring one of the lab assistants giving him a dirty look, possibly because he’s making fun of the Man Of Progress or possibly because he just doesn’t like him being here. Vitkor doesn’t care much either way. 

He gets through a few more equations before Jayce clears his throat, drawing his attention again. 

“Yes?” Vitkor asks when he doesn’t actually say anything.

“Okay, just hear me out.” 

This is not a great sentence to hear. Vitkor raises an expectant eyebrow when Jayce once again hesitates. 

“So, there’s this investors’ gala thing tomorrow night…” Jayce starts, which is probably the worst possible way he could have started a sentence.

“Interesting,” Viktor says, “Sorry to say that I’m not planning to invest, so it seems there’s no need for me to come.”

“Viktor,” Jayce says, a pleading note in his voice  already.

“You told me those parties were shit. Why would I want to attend a shitty piltie party? I have better things to do.” 

“Free food?” Jayce offers, just like Caitlyn did when she and Viktor briefly talked during the move.

Viktor is not swayed. “I have plenty of food in my very nice new kitchen.” 

“But this’ll be, like, super fancy. There are desserts and stuff.”

“What kind of desserts?” Vitkor asks, and then regrets it when it makes Jayce’s expression brighten with hope. 

“All kinds,” he says. “They have these little fruit tart things, and fancy cookies and—you like truffles, right? And brownies?”

He never should have let the secret of his sweet tooth slip, he thinks. Especially not around Jayce. He’s only had truffles twice in his life—one of them when his father brought some home for the three of them to try, and once when a fancy piltie client let him have one as a tip. His mother used to make brownies, when they could afford all the ingredients. 

“Hm,” he says, giving a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose.”

“Please, V,” Jayce says desperately, and he does sound quite nice when he begs. “I’ll make it worth your time.”

He gives Viktor a once over, gaze heavy and unfairly handsome. No wonder he has all of Piltover eating out of the palm of his stupid big hand.

“I don’t know,” Viktor glances away, back to his desk. “I think you’ll need to try a little harder to convince me.”

Later, Jayce invites Viktor to his place for dinner. After dinner, he invites him to his room, where Jayce spends the evening trying a little harder to convince him. 

He spreads Viktor out on his huge mattress, throws Viktor’s legs over his shoulders, and eats him out like he’s fucking starving for it. He holds Viktor’s hips down so he can’t grind up against him, pinning him in place so the only thing he can do is fist a hand in Jayce’s hair and take it. 

He works Viktor open with his fingers and his tongue, rubbing the nub of his cock in small circles with each thrust in. It doesn’t take long for Viktor to come—he’s taught Jayce too well, he thinks faintly, and Jayce doesn’t stop even as Viktor’s thighs clench around his head. He slides his fingers out to push his good leg open even further with a hand under the crook of his knee, and dives back in. Viktor’s second orgasm takes him by surprise, and all he can do is grip Jayce’s hair tight tight tight and shake through it. 

And still, Jayce doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop until Viktor is begging him to, yanking him back by his hair as he near-sobs in overstimulation. 

“Fuck, Jayce,” he says, sinking into the bed and trying to catch his breath. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Of course not,” Jayce says, crawling up so he can press a soft kiss to Viktor’s mouth,”I’m trying to convince you.”

Viktor doesn’t even have the energy to scoff, so he just half heartedly rolls his eyes. 

“Did it work?” The fucking puppy eyes. Face all flushed, hair messy and tangled from Viktor’s fingers, the lower half of his face slick with Viktor’s wetness. How could he say no to that?

Viktor considers the idea of going to some fancy piltie party full of people who most certainly look down on him as trencher trash. It does not sound fun. There will probably be free food though.

He sighs deeply, letting his eyes flutter shut. “Fine,” he says, and is rewarded with another kiss, hot and wet. 

“You’re gonna look so hot in a suit,” Jayce whispers. 

Viktor can’t help but huff a laugh, and feels Jayce smile against his mouth. 

Jayce wants to take him shopping “out on the town,” which Viktor very adamantly refuses, so Jayce has someone take his measurements and go buy one instead. The someone comes back with three, and Jayce decides he should keep all of them. Viktor doesn’t know what the fuck he’ll do with three whole suits, but Jayce insists that he will in fact need them. Which does not inspire confidence about what exactly this man has gotten him into. 

He ends up wearing a white suit to match Jayce’s, prettied up with a red tie and gold trim that Jayce insists “brings out his eyes.” He actually tries to fix his hair a little, which doesn’t stick for very long, and he decides to leave his leg brace over his slacks instead of under. If these people are going to see him as nothing but an undercity snake, there’s no reason he should hide anything. He’s not ashamed of himself; he refuses to be. 

Jayce looks at him with that same awe he wore their first time, gaze sliding up and down and back up. 

“You look great,” Jayce says, sounding a bit breathless. 

Vitkor pretends he can’t feel himself flushing. “Thank you. You…look good as well.”

Jayce smiles fondly. “Thanks, V. You ready?”

“Of course not. Shall we?”

The building the carriage pulls up to is huge. There are many stairs up to the entrance, which Viktor takes his sweet time walking up, Jayce with a hand on his lower back the whole time. 

The hall where the party is being held is also huge. There are a lot of fancy lighting pieces, lots of gold, a few arches. And many, many fancy-dressed pilties. 

Many of them look up when the two of them walk in. Viktor feels countless eyes on him—on his suit and his cane and his brace (and for a moment, Viktor feels a pang of regret about not wearing it under his pant)—and wishes for the night to end quickly. 

“Do not leave me alone at this party, Jayce,” he says quietly, trying to seem firm and not slightly afraid. “I’m serious.”

“I won’t,” Jayce assures.

Thirty minutes later, Viktor is standing alone, abandoned, nursing a glass of terrible piltie wine in his hand. He watches Jayce grit his teeth through a conversation with some business man. Viktor sighs, taking a sip. To his credit, Jayce really did try to stay by his side, keeping an arm looped through Viktor’s when it wasn’t resting softly on his lower back or, when he was introducing him, his shoulder. But Piltover’s elite are sneaky and underhanded people who have experience navigating their way through social graces to get what they want; Viktor never stood a chance.

He takes a sip of the shitty wine. Contemplates the pros and cons of straight up leaving. He wishes Sky were here. Or maybe Caitlyn; he thinks she would be fun at a shitty party like this. Someone to complain with. 

He watches Jayce be pulled aside by yet another someone. He smiles that charming Man Of Progress smile. Vitkor has to stop himself from rolling his eyes as one of the noble women almost physically swoons. 

He sighs again, loudly enough that he gets a few glances for it—he’s been getting glances all night. The people here seem to be torn between asking out of pocket questions with morbid fascination or trying to ignore him. Jayce kept trying to include him in conversation, but after he would introduce Viktor and the person in question would make their decision, they would mostly speak to Jayce, glossing over Viktor whenever he made a comment. Some more overtly than others. 

He got tired of the whole charade fairly quickly. 

So now here he is, standing near a fancy pillar in the corner. At least the truffles were good. Pretty much the only thing Jayce was right about. 

He takes another sip, trying not to throw all of it back in one go because this is his second glass (not that it’s done much for him so far; baby piltie alcohol percentage.)

His attention is drawn away from Jayce by the sound of footsteps; no one has ventured into his corner since he parked himself there. He glances up to see a tall, forty-something man in a dark blue suit. Flashy watch. Weird mustache. 

Viktor wants this conversation to be done before it’s even started. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” The man says with a posh piltie accent, flashing his very white teeth. It makes him look like a shark. “Viktor, right?” 

“Yes,” he says, and looks back out at the party in an attempt to end the interaction there. Of course, the man either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. 

“My name is Clayton Maxwell,” He says, as if that’s supposed to mean something to him. When it’s obvious that it does not, the man frowns but moves on. “Founder of the Maxwell Shipping Enterprise. I’ve been an investor in hextech for many years now.”

“Ah,” Viktor says, offering a polite nod, “So this party is for you, then.”

He can feel the man’s eyes on him, but doesn’t turn to look. He hears the bark of a polite, fake laugh. 

“I suppose it is,” he says. “I have to say, I was surprised to hear about hextech’s mysterious co-founder—and when I heard who you were, I nearly couldn’t believe it.”

There’s another polite laugh, as if who Viktor was, is something to laugh at. He can’t help but grip the handle of his cane a bit tighter. 

“Oh? And who exactly am I?”

“No need to make me say it,” Maxwell answers. “We’re at a civilized party, after all.”

Viktor succumbs to the urge to shoot the man a warning look—which the man again ignores. 

“No, please,” Viktor drawls, gesturing for him to continue. “You’re such a big investor; your opinion is so incredibly important to me.”

If the heavy sarcasm in his tone offends the man, he does a good job of not showing it. He raises an eyebrow as if surprised at Viktor’s audacity.

“You know, there are some rumors going around about you—and Talis, of course,” he says, changing the subject. No one has been this forward about said rumors all night, though he knows it’s been on many of their minds. 

“So I’ve heard,” Viktor says flatly, taking a sip of his forgotten wine. 

“So,” the man says, almost playful if not for the tone of condescension in his voice. “Is there any merit to them?”

“I suppose it depends on which one you’re talking about,” Viktor drawls, practically rolling his eyes. Instead of recognizing it as a dismissal, the man seems to take it as encouragement. 

Maxwell leans in, taking a step forward into his space. Vitkor tries to take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go with the stupid fancy pillar behind him. 

“You, a genius whore,” he says, as if telling a joke, “A slutty little scientist. Like something out of an erotic novel.”

Viktor narrows his eyes at the man, feeling his shoulders draw up defensively. “I would take care how you speak to me.” 

The man huffs an amused laugh, looking down at Viktor as he leans in further.

“I know what you’ve got down there,” he says lowly, eyes dropping down to Viktor’s crotch before sliding back up. “I get why Talis decided to bring you topside. How many times a day do you open your legs for him?”

Viktor feels fury rise in him like a tidal wave, face flushing hot with anger or humiliation or both. 

“That is none of your business,” he snarls.

“What’s between your legs? Or how often you open them?”

Viktor feels his hand clench into a tight, tight fist so that he doesn’t hit the man with his cane. 

“Neither.” 

The asshole smiles at him, like he’s fucking amusing. “I apologize,” he says, “I was under the impression you were still for hire. I thought you were here for work?”

Viktor fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and gather himself. He refuses to look away, to look ashamed. 

“I thought you were here for work,” Viktor snaps, “Do you invest in sexual harassment as well?”

The man’s face darkens in irritation briefly, before it smooths out again. “No need to be rude; I was simply offering you a job.”

“I doubt you could even afford me.”

The man raises his eyebrows, like he’s pleasantly surprised. Like they’re fucking bantering. 

“Whatever Talis is paying, I could double it. Triple it.”

“That seems a little desperate of you.”

The man smiles again, condescending as all fuck. “You’re at this party, letting Talis show you off like his favorite toy. That seems a little desperate. Were the slumlords down there not paying you well enough?”

Viktor feels the brush of the man’s hand on his waist. He goes very still, freezing in place so he doesn’t give into the urge to start swinging. He leans forwards, just a bit, as if to tell a secret. The man leans in as well.

“I suggest you remove your hand,” Viktor says lowly, “before I remove it for you.”

For a moment, there is a promise of violence in the man’s shoulders as he scowls. His eyes dart out to the party and the many people who would hear him make a scene.

“Slut,” the man spits, “You should do yourself a favor and go back to the trenches.” He then turns on his heel and stalks away. Vitkor watches him go. 

A sumprat whore, Viktor remembers himself saying, joking with Jayce when he decided to indulge his little hero complex daydreams. Fuck, they’d despise me.

He should have known; he should have fucking known—he did know, he didn’t want to come to this stupid party with these people who all hate him. He should never have said yes, he should never have come here, what was he thinking? 

He finds it hard to breathe; he doesn’t know if he’s choking on his anger or his anxiety or if his lungs are just being shitty again, but he breaks out into a cough. He tries his best to muffle it, but knows it catches a few eyes. Concerned, disgusted, annoyed, he sees, and then looks away. 

When he finally catches his breath, he presses a napkin to his mouth. It comes away wet, and light red, which makes him freeze with fear for a brief moment. He’s shocked back into his body with a hand light on the back of his shoulder.

He jerks so hard he thinks he might have sprained something. He looks back to see Councilor Medarda, which just makes his heart sink further. The last person he wants to see him falter like this is Jayce’s favorite councilor. 

“Viktor,” she says, voice quiet and concerned. “Are you alright?”

Viktor glances away, having a sharp nod. “Yes,” he says, “I’m fine.” 

“I can go get Jayce, if you’d like,” she offers. For some reason, it annoys him—bringing up Jayce again, as if Jayce is the only reason he’s here at all, as if he needs Jayce to swoop in and save him.

“No,” he snaps, sharper than he meant to. He knows he’s not angry at her, though, so he tries his best to soften. “No, that’s alright. Sorry.”

She steps forward to stand at his shoulder, giving him an odd look. “The last thing you should be is sorry,” she says, soft but firm. “I heard the last bit; no one should speak to you like that.” 

He tries to ignore the vague feeling of shame at the idea of Councilor Medarda hearing some noble fuck call him a slut. 

He’s not sure what to say, doesn’t think he wants to say anything, so he does not. She doesn’t push him to, just standing next to him in what could maybe be companionable silence if they were anywhere else but here. 

“I feel I should apologize on behalf of Piltover,” she finally says. “Especially those at this party.”

Vitkor snorts, feeling his shoulders relax a bit despite himself. 

“The last thing you should be is sorry,” he offers her words back to her. “You certainly weren’t the one who just propositioned me.”

Councilor Medarda straightens up just a bit, glancing at the man where he’s now hovering around the dessert table, but she doesn’t seem shocked to hear it. It shouldn’t make him relax, knowing that she isn’t surprised, but it does. He doesn’t know if he would be able to handle Jayce’s shocked outrage—after all, what had either of them expected?

Still, she sighs, shakes her head in disapproval. “Unfortunately, Mister Maxwell does have a bit of a history with that.”

“With…propositioning people?”

She shrugs a shoulder. “With being inappropriate at parties—once he’s gotten a few drinks in him.”

Viktor frowns. “And these are the people you want Jayce to do business with?”

“These are the people whose money I want you to take,” the councilor corrects, at least willing to own it rather than give him false appeasements, “Take it and use it to build something great. To help people.”

“To help which people?” he asks, “These pilties invest in hextech because they want it for themselves, not because they want to help people. Certainly not my people.”

He can’t stop his accent from growing heavier, clipped around the words. He wonders if he would be able to slip out the back door without anyone noticing.

“Pilties?” Councilor Medarda repeats, sounding almost bemused, “That’s a fun word.”

The fact that she’s never heard it before makes the distance between them feel even larger than it did before. It’s not exactly a new term. He’s sure she’s heard sumprat before.

Before he can say anything about it, though, she continues. “I understand your concerns. The people of Piltover can be quite set in their ways. But you want to help people— your people, right?”

Viktor offers a nod. The councilor nods as well, taking an elegant sip of her wine.

“It’s you who I’m putting my faith in—you and Jayce. These people are simply a means to an end,” she gestures to the room as a whole, all of the rich men and women in their fancy clothes, tittering about nothing at all, “Take their money and use it to do what you want to do.”

Viktor is silent for a moment, watching the people flit around the room. He understands what she’s saying, but doesn’t know how he feels about it. He doesn’t want to do business with people like that, people who use their power to harass and oppress, people who hate him and his home and everyone he cares for. Is there a difference between doing business and using as a resource, when the shitty people they’re using will own part of what they create? Vitkor doesn’t want his research going towards bettering lives topside before it’s used to help the undercity. They can have it, but only after he’s done what he’s here to do.

“Is that what you do?” He asks boldly; blame it on the two glasses of shitty wine he’s inhaled. “Take people’s money to do what you want with it?”

“I don’t need to take money from anyone,” she nearly laughs; he supposes that she is one of the richest people in Piltover. “But other things, sure. I prefer to think of it as seeing the value in people.”

Viktor hums. “People like Jayce?” People like me?  

Councilor Medarda gives an elegant shrug. “Jayce is an exceptional man. I saw potential in him all those years ago—as did you—and I decided to help nurture it. Yes, it helped me and my personal goals. But it also helped my city prosper just as much.”

“Not all of it,” Viktor says. 

She gives a tilt of her head. “Not all of it,” she concedes. “But that’s why you’re here, is it not?” 

Again, Viktor is silent for a moment. “I suppose it is,” he finally says. “Excuse me, I believe I need to get some air.” 

“Of course,” she says, giving his elbow another light touch. “There’s a balcony down that hallway,” she gestures to the right. “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Viktor.”

“You as well,” he says politely, even though he’s not quite sure that it was. 

He sets his glass down on a table he passes as he walks down the hallway to the balcony as quickly as possible without drawing too much attention to it. The doors are propped open, ornate glass. The cool evening air hits him, a burst of much needed relief on his skin. 

He stalks to the fancy golden railing and grips it tight, breathing in deep and releasing it slowly. There’s no one else out here but a couple in the far corner, pressed shoulder to shoulder and whispering to each other, lost in their own world. Viktor thinks of Jayce inside, a bright sun with a million little planets orbiting him, leaving Viktor nowhere to fit at all, and envies them.

He looks out at the sprawling city before him, the hexgates stretching high into the sky. All of the bright, twinkling lights that go on and on until they don’t anymore, dropping off right where he knows the bridge begins. So much progress, reaching to the very edge of Piltover and no further. This is what has come of his contributions to Jayce’s work, while everything he’s done down there—his little water filters in the river and tiny turbines that hardly work yet, let alone being big enough to do anything—has made hardly any change at all. 

He squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore. He’s hit with a rush of homesickness so strong it feels like it might knock him over; he grips the railing tighter, feels the grooves of it dig into his palms, so that it can’t. 

Fuck, he thinks. He’s never letting Jayce talk him into another shitty gala—definitely not one for investors .

Fucking piltie prick. Rich piece of shit asshole —Viktor hisses under his breath in his native language, loud enough that the couple briefly glances at him before turning back to their flirting. Viktor ignores them. 

He wants to leave. There’s a fucking army of rich assholes out there who would probably more than happy to see him go. But there’s also Jayce, who Vitkor promised he would stay. We can leave early, Jayce had insisted, though, we can leave whenever you want. 

Viktor just stands there and breathes, the clean air of Piltover sharp in his throat, curling around his ribcage and clearing out his lungs. He counts his breaths until he feels his heartbeat slow back to a manageable level. He relaxes his grip on the railing, wincing as blood rushes back to his hands. 

He’s fine. That man was nothing but an entitled rich fuck who thinks he should anything he wants because he’s never wanted for anything. He doesn’t matter. They’ll take his money and use it to help the undercity; Viktor needs to help the undercity. He needs to. It’s why he’s here. 

He inhales. Holds it. Exhales. 

He’ll do what he needs to do to get what he wants, he begrudgingly decides. Even if that means accepting money from assholes like him. He’ll take and take and he won’t stop until he’s done—he had warned Jayce, after all. And Jayce had told him it was his to take. 

Viktor stands there and breathes and misses home, until Jayce eventually wanders out to find him. 

Chapter Text

For Jayce, the party was also not going great.

No matter how much he tried to hang on, keeping a hand on some part of him the whole time so he couldn’t slip away, he lost Viktor about thirty minutes in. One moment he was there, and the next Jayce looked away at the feeling of a leading touch to his elbow, and then Viktor was gone. Jayce had searched around frantically, catching a snatch of wild brown curls and a golden accented suit, before his attention had been dragged away yet again.

He grits his teeth through a few conversations with various investors—always wanting more more more, promises that Jayce can’t give for fear of compromising his own values more than he already had—and tries to keep an eye out for his partner. 

He catches sight of him briefly, and sees him talking to that Maxwell asshole, looking like he wants the conversation to be over ten minutes ago. Jayce decides to go intervene (and not, he tells that shitty, wanting part of him, because the asshole is leering like he’s found a quick fuck for the night), but is stopped by another noble trying to get his attention. When he’s able to glance up again, Viktor is gone once again.

When he’s able to bow out of the conversation, citing a need to use the restroom as an excuse and sharing a fake laugh about how much champagne they’ve all been drinking, he’s stopped by Mel. Now, he likes Mel. She’s been a lifesaver in navigating this whole councilor thing, has sponsored hextech from the beginning, and at this point is a pretty close friend of his, but right now all he wants to do is find Viktor.

As always, though, she seems to know exactly what he needs. “He’s out on the balcony,” she says before he can say something probably impolite, “Said he needed some air.”

Which probably isn’t a good thing, and definitely means that he’s not having a good time at this shitty party. Jayce thanks her, thanks her again when she offers to take his half empty wine glass, and hurries down the corridor as fast he can without drawing too much attention to himself.

The night breeze is refreshing on his skin; he hadn’t realized how stuffy it was inside. A couple on the far side of the balcony glance at him interestedly when they see who he is, but look away quickly when they notice him noticing. Viktor is standing on the opposite side, back to the open double doors. He looks small; his slim figure cuts a sharp image against the dark sky, white and gold.

If Viktor is startled at the sound of someone walking towards him, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t even look up save for a brief glance in Jayce’s direction before looking away again. He’s gripping the balcony railing so tight his knuckles are turning white. 

“Hey,” Jayce says softly, “Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question, with how tight his shoulders are, with how hard he’s trying to show nothing on his face at all. For all Viktor claims to be a great actor, he wears his heart on his sleeve in the details. You just have to know where to look—now, though, Jayce can tell Viktor is upset just because he looks upset. 

“I’m fine,” he says shortly. So that’s a no.

“Did something happen?”

“No.” So that’s a yes. 

“V,” Jayce says, putting a light hand on the back of his shoulders, his shoulder blades sharp against his palm. For a moment, he thinks Viktor might jerk away. Instead he freezes, and then softens, tension seeping out of his shoulders and down his back.

He sighs, sounding exhausted. “It’s nothing, Jayce. I’m not new to the concept of pilties being assholes.”

Shit, Jayce thinks, a protective indignation rising in him automatically. 

“Did that Maxwell asshole say something?” He asks, somehow already knowing the answer.

Viktor doesn’t say anything for a long second, long enough to confirm a yes. 

“I told you not to leave me alone in there,” Viktor finally says, voice flat and unreadable.

“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t—“ he stops before he can make an excuse for himself, “I’m sorry. Do you wanna leave?”

Viktor shrugs, doesn’t say anything.

“We can go, if you want.”

Viktor snorts, “Can you? No reason to make your admirers hate me more by stealing you away.” 

Jayce frowns, but he doesn’t want to argue. He knows these things can be overwhelming; he shouldn’t have left him alone in a room full of sharks.

“I don’t care what they think,” Jayce says, like a liar. Viktor snorts again, because he knows exactly how much Jayce needs to be liked. “If you wanna leave, we’ll leave. Fuck them.” 

Viktor shoots him a bemused look at the cuss, and probably the way he slightly lowers his voice when he says it. The corner of his lip twitches, but he doesn’t smile. 

He turns back to look out at the city. He sighs deeply, a sound that rattles alarmingly in his chest. Jayce wants to help him feel better, but is struck with the fact that he doesn’t know how. He’s almost afraid to touch, but touch is the best way he can communicate comfort; a light hand on Viktor’s back seems to draw him back into himself. 

“I want to leave,” Viktor says. It’s honestly not what Jayce expected to hear, but he’s glad that Viktor feels like he can’t be honest with him. 

“Okay,” Jayce says, and Viktor deflates with relief, “Let me go tell Mel we’re leaving, and we can go.”

“Don’t you have a speech you’re supposed to give?” Viktor asks.

He does, but that doesn’t matter. He’s given a million bullshit speeches at a million bullshit events like this. He shrugs. 

“Mel can cover for me,” he says. “Or we could make a scene and I could pretend to have terrible food poisoning for something.”

The comment makes Viktor quirk a smile, and Jayce feels some of the tension in the air evaporate. 

“No need to ruin your reputation further,” he quips lightly, before his smile drops again. “Is there a side entrance or something? I don’t feel like going back in there.”

He sounds frustrated, and Jayce doesn’t know if it’s with the people in there or Jayce or himself; either way, Jayce rubs his back in a small, reassuring circle. 

“I’ll go check, okay? Just stay here, I’ll be right back.” 

Viktor nods absently, glancing back over the balcony again. Jayce stands there for another moment, unsure of if he should say anything else, and then turns on his heel and hurries back inside to find Mel.

Something must show on his face, because very few people try to intercept him this time. Maxwell especially gives him a wide berth—which pisses Jayce off more, because that means the asshole knows exactly what he did. He makes him want to go tell him off, but Viktor is waiting for him, and he doesn’t want to make a scene. 

He finds Mel quickly, and she seems to understand despite the very brief explanation he gives. She tells him there’s a back stairwell they can take to avoid the crowd, and that she can take care of the speech. He thanks her profusely once again, and hurries back outside.

Viktor is in the same place he left him, gripping the railing and watching the city below. His eyes aren’t on the hexgates or the docks or the people milling the streets; his gaze is far away, trained on the sudden drop of light where Jayce knows the bridge to the undercity is. It makes something uncomfortable twist in his stomach, which he ignores. 

“Hey,” he says, alerting Viktor of his presence. “Found us our escape route.”

Again, Viktor offers the barest quirk of a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He straightens up, grasping the handle of his cane.

“Finally,” Viktor says, looping his free arm through Jayce’s. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

They catch a carriage ride back to Viktor’s place, because Jayce insists on at least taking him home. If he had any hopes of possibly staying the night—or thanking him for coming, as he’d been planning to do with his head between Viktor’s thighs—those hopes are quickly shot down. 

“I just wanted to say thank you for coming…” Jayce says slowly as Viktor unlocks his front door.

“You’re welcome,” Viktor says absently, sighing in relief when the lock finally clicks open. 

“I was hoping I could show my appreciation—“

Jayce is cut short by Viktor turning the knob and shoving the door open with more force than strictly necessary before stepping inside.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Viktor says, either ignoring what Jayce said entirely or simply not hearing him, and offers Jayce a tense smile, “Goodnight.”

He shuts the door before Jayce can open his mouth to respond. Jayce blinks at it for a moment. That was not the reaction he’d expected to get—but he supposes it’s what he deserves. He shouldn’t have left Viktor alone, he knows, and he’s sorry. He hopes Viktor won’t be too upset about it; he has a few ideas on how he can make it up to him if he is.

The next day, things are a little awkward. Not bad enough to affect their work, but enough that they can all feel it—even Sky, who, to her credit, is doing her best to act like nothing's wrong. Jayce follows her lead, and by the end of the day Viktor seems to have gotten over the party last night.

Jayce doesn’t think another verbal apology will do anything other than make Viktor uncomfortable by bringing it up again, so Jayce tries to be on his best behavior and hopes that Viktor will feel his apology anyways. Either way, Viktor doesn’t bring it up again, and so neither does Jayce.

Working together is easier than Jayce expected it would be—he assumed it would be a little difficult at first, to adjust to someone else in his space, but he and Viktor are able to bounce off of each other like they’ve been doing this for years. Viktor is definitely a little less restrained than Jayce had thought he would be—he has to remind Viktor on multiple occasions to wear some kind of protective gear when handling the gems directly, because he very much does not want to see his partner get blown up or severely injured—but he’s able to balance out Jayce’s focus on big ideas by always bringing it back to the small details. 

He had also been a little worried about how the new environment would change things between them. It’s one thing to ask someone’s opinions on your theories after a good fuck (that you paid for) and another to work side by side with them everyday, but Viktor is still Viktor, even in an entirely new place.

It’s nice—refreshing, exciting, and always a bit of a surprise—to see him every morning. He still has to get used to the sight of him outside of that little room in the brothel, in casual attire. He still manages to make button ups and old looking sweaters look attractive, but Jayce might also be a little biased. 

(Also, it’s a little embarrassing to admit to anyone except his own brain, but over the years he thinks that he’s adapted a kind of pavlovian response association between seeing Viktor and the thing he usually saw Viktor for —that being sex. He’s been steadily training himself out of it, but it’s made for a bit of a stressful workplace environment; he never used to feel especially horny in the lab. Now, all Viktor has to do is look at him from a certain angle, or flash a little bit of ankle, and Jayce’s dick thinks it’s time to get hard. He’s lucky no one has caught on to his problem yet.)

Despite the rocky start and the ever present nightmare that is being a politician, the two of them—three, with Sky there to help—fall into a rhythm. They work together like a well-oiled machine, and Jayce could cry with how great it is to finally have capable people in here to work with. Countless lab assistants he’s had to cycle through for the past five years, when he could’ve had Viktor up here with him this whole time.

The days pass into weeks in a blur of work and startling, dazzling, incredible progress. For the first time in months, it feels like shit is actually getting done. They finish going back through the gem equations and clean up all the math. Sky insists they go through it all a second time, to make sure the numbers are completely accurate—Viktor grumbles about it a little bit but gives in easily enough, which leads Jayce to believe that Sky is half the reason Viktor never blew his whole lab up down there.

God, he’s so glad Sky decided to come back. She really was the best assistant he ever had. 

It takes them the better part of two days to finish double checking, all three of them kept awake by a steady stream of caffeine and the weird undercity licorice shit that Viktor brought with him—tastes like shit, but definitely shocks the senses enough to wake you right back up. 

Once they’ve made sure the numbers are accurate, they’re able to start testing. Viktor has put his personal projects on the backburner for now, because he’s explained to Jayce that this gemstone idea is invaluable—that it could revolutionize his own work, past and present. He’s talked about water filtration systems run on hextech gemstones, turbines that never stop working, clean energy for both Piltover and the undercity that doesn’t come with all the waste and runoff. 

Viktor’s passion is inspiring; his contributions are game changing. The two of them together—they’re making breakthroughs that might have taken Jayce months or even years to make on his own. No matter what the councilors or other rich fucks have to say about Viktor or their relationship, the results speak for themselves.

Another few days, and they’re ready to test the math. Sky isn’t able to come in today—citing a family thing that she has to visit home for—but she’d help them set it up the night before. They’ve employed their math, developed a thick, clear insulator that they then encased a crystal in. All that’s left is to test how well it holds up.

They most definitely should not be doing this here, with just the two of them and no real protection. Unfortunately, for how well they seem to balance each other out, they also seem to encourage each other’s impulsive, danger-seeking tendencies. 

Hence their test. Viktor helps him rig a large Talis hammer that will swing down to strike the gem head on—not a crazy amount of force, but enough to shatter concrete. Jayce would use the hammer himself, but neither of them are quite crazy enough to risk him losing his arms or something.

They stand a reasonable distance away. They glance at each other; Viktor looks determined and confident as ever. Jayce swallows, and nods. Viktor presses a button; the hammer is released, slicing through the air and swinging down to hit the gem hard before it clatters to the ground behind it.

Jayce holds his breath, as the gem’s surface…doesn’t crack. The force from the hammer is neutralized with a whoosh, fizzling out with a rush of air that blows some paper off of the desk. A beat of shocked silence. Two. There’s a pop—a hairline fracture in the crystal, and the two of them scramble back to duck behind a desk, and maybe they should have waited until Sky was here to talk them out of this—but the burst of energy Jayce had expected never comes.

More fractures crack along the gem’s surface, and then they stop. Jayce counts to ten, slowly, in his head. When he reaches ten with no more dangerous bursts of magic, he pushes himself to his feet, instinctively offering a hand to help Viktor up. Viktor, luckily, takes it.

When they steady themselves, they stare at each other for a few seconds, eyes wide.

“That…did not go terribly,” Viktor says slowly, turning to look at the cracked gemstone on the table.

“No,” Jayce agrees, “It didn't.”

The gem cracked, but not completely. They haven’t sealed all of the arcane energy inside, but they contained just enough of it to not blow up their lab or break anything.

It’s not a solution, but it’s a huge step forward. 

He turns back to Viktor to see an awed, excited smile bloom across his partner’s face. It takes years off of him, makes him look even younger than he did when they first met. He’s near glowing, honey eyes warm and mind visibly whirring with possibility.

He’s gorgeous. He did this, they did this, and Jayce is so struck by it all that he can’t help it—caught up in the heat of the moment, he bends down, cups Viktor’s face in his hands and kisses him hard. Viktor responds enthusiastically, gripping Jayce’s jaw with his long fingers, sliding his hands down to scratch lightly at the short hair at the base of Jayce’s neck. Jayce can’t help but groan into the kiss, wrapping an arm around Viktor’s waist to tug him even closer.

Viktor breaks the kiss to huff a laugh, letting Jayce tug him and resting his forehead in the crook of Jayce’s neck for a moment before pulling back. He goes to step away, but Jayce doesn’t let him, leaning back in to press a kiss to his cheek, the side of his neck, tugging lightly on Viktor’s shirt to reach his collarbone.

“Jayce,” Viktor complains lightly, half a laugh in his voice. “Come on, we have work to do.”

“Work can wait,” Jayce says lowly, and has to bite back a grin as he feels Viktor shiver. 

Hands press against his shoulders, gripping at the fabric of his vest to pull him closer, to—push him back, gripping his shoulders firmly. 

“Jayce,” Viktor near-snaps, annoyance seeping into his tone, “I’m not in the mood.” 

Jayce pulls back, blinking down to see an uncomfortable frown twisting Viktor’s lips.

“O-oh,” Jayce stutters out, releasing Viktor’s waist to let him step back. “Sorry.”

Viktor’s eyebrows unfurrow, and he pats Jayce’s cheek fondly. “It’s alright,” he says, “I know you’re always eager for it.” 

Jayce pretends he’s not flushing, a little embarrassed. In the middle of their workplace, he thinks, with the door still unlocked. Like a horny academy boy. He clears his throat. 

Viktor smirks, like Jayce’s embarrassment is hilarious to him. It probably is. 

“We have work to do now,” Viktor repeats, “But if you do better work today than you did with those gem equations, we can continue this later.”

He turns on his heel with a last, lingering look. Jayce watches him go. 

He’s never sped to his desk faster in his life. He hears Viktor laugh at him; it’s such a nice laugh, despite how scratchy it is, so Jayce doesn’t even mind. 

Later, they lock the lab doors tight and fuck frantically, Jayce spurred on by the location and the fact that they haven’t done anything like this in here since Progress Day—Viktor half in Jayce’s lap and kissing him hard as they grind against each other through their clothes like horny teenagers. Jayce talks Viktor into finally, finally letting him bend him over his desk like he’s had wet dreams about for years, and it’s just as hot as he always imagined it would be.

He pushes him so far up the desk, one arm supporting his waist, that Viktor’s feet barely touch the ground. He makes soft noises with each thrust, grasping and fumbling at the metal of Jayce’s desk as he tries to find purchase. He has to settle for gripping the opposite edge, burying his face into the crook of his elbow and just taking it, letting Jayce grip his jutting hips and fuck him into his desk—where they’ve worked together, where they’ve made game changing discoveries together. Viktor, his amazing, brilliant, genius little partner, finally up here with him instead of wasting away in that fucking brothel down there. 

He’ll never have to step foot in that place again, neither of them will. Jayce is the only one Viktor will ever spread his legs for again, the only one who will be allowed into his tight little hole—tightest hole in the undercity, in all of Piltover, so wet Jayce can feel it dripping down his thighs. Just for him, all for him. 

Jayce comes hard, digging his teeth into the nape of Viktor’s neck. Viktor makes an almost hurt noise underneath him, spasming when Jayce gets a hand under him to work his cock, struggling to catch his breath as he pushes Viktor to his own orgasm.

“Fuck, Jayce,” Viktor says breathlessly, voice post-orgasm thick. “You act like you haven’t gotten any in weeks.”

“We’ve been busy,” Jayce says, trying not to be embarrassed about it. Viktor rubs absently at one of his hip bones when they straighten up; Jayce hopes they don’t bruise too badly (he hopes they do, he hopes that Viktor thinks about him every time they ache).

Viktor hums noncommittally. “The man of progress—if only the council knew that the way to get you working hard was to dangle sex in your face.”

Jayce scoffs, stepping forward to bracket Viktor against the desk again, leaning down to press a warm kiss to his still wet lips. “Not sex,” he argues, “Just you.”

He doesn’t miss the light flush that dusts Viktor’s cheeks, even as he gives his shoulders a light shove.

“I suppose we should keep that between us, then,” Viktor says mockingly, “Unless we want to give further evidence to the Zaunite honeypot rumor.”

Jayce frowns at the mention—all of the media buzz surrounding him and Viktor has stuck around longer than he had hoped it would. There have been many theories that the news cycle has run with; the most recent one is that Viktor is a spy for the undercity chembarons, and that he’s been tasked to seduce Jayce into unwittingly giving him control of his seat on the council. He’s very glad he never told anyone about the past Silco Situation, or there might have been some actual credence to that one. 

Honestly, Jayce had told the last reporter who had been stupid enough to ask him about that particular rumor, if Viktor wanted my seat on the council, all he’d have to do is ask; it’s not a very comfortable chair. Mel hadn’t loved the way that line had ended up on the front page of various newspapers, but Viktor had gotten enough of a kick out of it that he didn’t regret it.

Despite his dislike of that rumor—and all the stupid, bullshit rumors that people seem to whisper to each other whenever they’re around—he decides not to press the issue. Viktor seems to think it’s all absurd and a little bit funny, and if that’s the way he wants to treat it all, then who is Jayce to argue?

“You know you wouldn’t have to seduce your way into anything,” Jayce teases lightly. “I’d give you anything you asked for.”

This close, even in the dim light of Jayce’s shitty desk lamp, Jayce can see Viktor flush at the sincerity in his tone, and watches Viktor shake his head like he’s embarrassed for him. Honestly, Jayce would be embarrassed for himself if he didn’t like how beautifully Viktor reacts to it—the praise, the devotion that Jayce would scream from the rooftops if Viktor wouldn’t kill him for it. 

“Okay then,” Viktor says, voice as composed as ever as he fiddles with his collar, “I want to focus more of our attention on the undercity. Now that we’re closer to making the gems safe for public distribution, I want to make sure that they actually get distributed to the people who need them. Not just topsiders.”

Jayce has to take a moment to process the sudden tonal whiplash, but immediately nods anyway.

“Of course,” Jayce says. “The undercity is one of hextech’s top priorities.”

Viktor nods, seeming satisfied with Jayce’s quick answer. He reaches up to tug Jayce down by his tie, and gives him a long, lingering kiss.

“Good,” he says, releasing Jayce’s tie and patting him on the cheek. “Be careful saying yes to things so fast—before you know it, I’ll be running this whole company.”

Jayce can’t help the sappy smile he feels growing on his face. “Can’t wait,” he says. “One less thing for me to worry about.”

Viktor’s small half-laugh feels like a kiss of its own.

A week later, and they’re so close to cracking the surface problem Jayce can almost taste it. Their next three trials have gone pretty much the same way, with the gems holding up mostly, but not completely. They can’t exactly hand out cracked up crystals and promise safety to everyone who uses them.

Still, their progress is comforting. It’s more than Jayce has accomplished in ages. They’re close. 

Viktor and Sky have been tinkering with their turbine prototypes whenever Jayce isn’t able to be in the lab—which is more often than he would prefer—and they seem to be making good progress there, too. They’ve been making noise about possibly going down to the undercity to run some tests, citing the need for the actual heavy sump air they’ll be working with, but Jayce isn’t very keen on the idea. He hasn’t forgotten about Silco, or what he might do to Viktor if he catches him down there again.

After a long day of council bullshit that’s kept him away from the lab, he’s excited to go to Viktor’s for dinner. He’s often politely shot down when he asks Viktor on actual date-like activities, but Viktor had invited him this time—he suspects that not seeing Jayce much at all for the past few days has endeared him to the idea of spending casual time with him a little more. Jayce is aware he can be a lot to deal with for long periods of time; imagine how he feels, having to spend time with himself twenty four seven.

(Also, the idea of Viktor missing him just as much as he often misses Viktor makes an uncomfortably soft warmth bloom in his chest whenever he thinks about it. He resolves not to tease his partner about it, because he doesn’t want to get banned from future possible dinner invites.)

When he gets there, the small house is bathed in a warm yellow glow from the porch lights. He knocks lightly, and opens the unlocked door when he hears Viktor yell faintly for him to come in. 

Inside, he’s glad to see that Viktor has seemed to make himself more at home—there are the many stools he saw back in his undercity lab placed strategically throughout the living room and kitchen; books stacked on the coffee table, loose papers just hanging around in various places. There’s a new, kind of tacky but in a fun way lamp on the table next to the couch, that he thinks Sky mentioned them finding in the shopping district last weekend; he’s still amazed she was able to talk Viktor into going with her.

In the kitchen, Viktor is standing at the kitchen island, chopping vegetables with a large, dangerous looking cooking knife. He smiles when he sees Jayce, whole face lighting up in an unguarded way that makes Jayce want to scoop him up and pepper him with kisses or something equally as sappy. He does not do this because again, Viktor is holding a very large knife, and Jayce doesn’t feel like getting stabbed to death tonight.

Instead, he says, “Hey, V,” shrugging off his coat and draping it over the back of a chair. 

“Hello, Jayce,” Viktor answers, and tilts his head up to accept the kiss that Jayce bends down to offer him. “How was your important councilor business?”

“Ugh,” Jayce groans, wrapping his arms lightly around Viktor’s waist from behind and burying his face in Viktor’s wild curls. “Terrible. Boring. I don’t know why I let Mel talk me into being a councilor.”

Viktor makes a sympathetic noise, but Jayce can see the hint of an amused smirk on his face. “You could always just quit, right? You’re not required to be a councilor.”

That actually draws Jayce up short. Could he? Just quit? It’s true that he never, like, signed a legally binding contract or anything. Could he resign, without bringing negative consequences down onto hextech?

Viktor seems to sense his conflict, or at least his contemplation, because he elbows Jayce lightly in the stomach with the hand not holding a knife.

“Make yourself useful, councilor,” he demands. “Help me peel the potatoes.” 

Jayce helps him peel the potatoes. Viktor doesn’t actually have a potato peeler (a what? Viktor asks him judgmentally when Jayce asks him what drawer it’s in, just use a knife; you don’t need a fancy tool for everything), but Jayce manages to get all five peeled cleanly without losing a finger over it. 

Viktor talks him through mashing the potatoes—and he does have a potato masher, so he really has no right to talk about fancy tools—while Viktor goes about preparing the rest of the meal. Something with carrots and asparagus and beef that’s apparently been cooking in a little pot on the counter for the past twelve hours.

Viktor makes a stray comment about how much food this is, and how the leftovers will probably last him the rest of the week— easier for me, he says, I won’t have to worry about cooking for at least a few days. Jayce is reminded, as he always is whenever he or Sky make offhand comments like this, about how much he takes the little things like this for granted. 

By Piltover standards, this is a relatively simple meal. A main course with a single side. He wonders how hard it might be to find good meat and fresh vegetables like this down in the undercity; just one more thing they’ll be able to help fix once they get this gem thing sorted. He should ask one of the biology professors about sustainable food sources and what environments they’d be able to grow in. 

When the food is done and Viktor makes them both a plate, they sit around the little table in the kitchen. Jayce thanks Viktor for the meal, and digs in. It’s one of the best things he’s tasted in weeks. There’s something special about Viktor’s cooking, the same way there’s something special about his mother’s—homemade and personal.

They make smalltalk while they eat—which quickly devolves into lab talk. Jayce brings up the sustainable food idea, and if they could somehow use hextech energy to fuel it. Viktor rolls with it, mentioning something about greenhouses and air filtration and water purification, and how it would be a lot of precarious steps but definitely something doable.

Jayce lets him ramble, caught on the way he gestures when he talks, the way his whole expression lights up like all of his ideas come from a warm, bright source inside of him that comes pouring out through the gold of his eyes.

They retire to the living room not soon after with a bottle of wine that Viktor apparently bought during he and Sky’s little shopping trip. Viktor’s couch is actually very comfortable, even if Jayce gets stabbed in the ass by a stray pencil when he sits down, and the wine—bought in the undercity and resold for much too high a price, Viktor says with a roll of his eyes—is pretty good. It’s nothing like the Zaunite vodka, thank god, and he and Viktor pass the bottle back and forth like they’re rebellious teens or something. Like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

Their conversation drifts from here to there. Usually long conversations like this tend to drag, because Jayce is notoriously impatient and self-aware enough to know it often comes across as self-importance. 

With Viktor, though, Jayce could talk all night. It’s always been like this with Viktor, since the very first time he corrected his math. Everything that comes out of his mouth is some kind of interesting—even the mundane shit about the odd vendor who was selling fake magical artifacts that he and Sky met at the shopping district, or the coffee place he tried on the way to work the other day. Viktor could probably read out his grocery list and Jayce would find it compelling.

Eventually, after they’ve gone through half the bottle and Viktor declares them good for the night, plucking the bottle from Jayce’s hand and placing it on the table next to the lamp, out of Jayce’s reach, Jayce is finally able to work up to a question he’s been waiting to ask for the past few days.

So here’s the thing: it’s coming up on the new year, so quickly Jayce had hardly noticed winter creeping in. The weather’s getting colder, the city getting ready for the holiday economy boom. Naturally, there’s a small gala being held to celebrate the council and their “contributions” to Piltover throughout the past year. Jayce is amazed at how many celebrations they’re able to justify throughout the year, but this one is actually annual. It’s a fairly private celebration, not really open to the general public—nothing the council does is really private , save for the illegal bullshit they all seem to dabble in on occasion, but this is the closest thing to it. 

It’s council members and whoever they deign to invite. Caitlyn has been dragged along by Councilor Kiramman to many of them. This is Jayce’s first new year as a councilor, and therefore his first invite. He doubts his mother will want to go, and Caitlyn is most likely already being forced to come by her mother. He wants Viktor with him—not only as his plus one, but as his partner in everything. 

Jayce knows how badly the last event went, but he really really doesn’t want to be alone for this one. The council isn’t exactly his favorite group of people to spend time with. They’re technically his colleagues now, he knows, but it doesn’t feel like it. They still don’t feel like equals—he knows he’ll never forget the way they were so quick to dismiss him all those years ago, how ready they were to throw him out of Piltover altogether—and he doubts they see him as such.

It’s not something he wants to try and weather by himself, even though Mel will be there. As he expected, though, Viktor isn’t crazy about the idea.

“I am not going to another shitty gala, Jayce,” he says flatly, “Especially not one for investors.”

“This one’s not for investors,” Jayce argues lightly. “It’s just the councilors and their families.”

Viktor frowns in distaste, “I think that’s worse, actually. I change my mind—if I must go, I’d rather mingle with the investors again.”

He draws the word out like an insult, voice curling around the syllables as if they taste bad. It makes Jayce huff a laugh—he wishes he could be as free to express his dislike of all the politics bullshit as Viktor is. He wishes he was brave enough to. 

“C’mon, they’re not all bad. Mel will be there.”

“Hm,” Viktor hums, “Councilor Medarda is certainly the least irritating. But most of the others…” he makes a face, “I don’t wish to spend an extended amount of time with. Especially not that weird blond one.”

“Salo?” He asks.

Viktor shrugs disinterestedly. “If that’s his name.”

“What’s up with Salo?” He asks, thinking about the utter disdain the man had shown when Jayce had first brought Viktor up at that council meeting, and the strange way he’s caught him looking at Viktor the very few times they’ve been in the same room. Disgust and morbid curiosity and the barest hint of interest.

Viktor raises an eyebrow at him; shrugs again, like it doesn’t matter either way. 

“He seems like he has some repressed sexual desires, and I’m an easy target to project onto,” he says, flat and logical, “Which isn’t my idea of a fun party.”

Jayce frowns. He supposes it makes sense—Salo does seem like the type of man to take project his issues onto people he deems below him—but even the thought of someone like that thinking of Viktor in the context of ‘repressed sexual desires’ makes that bone deep protectiveness flare up. 

“Okay,” he says, “No council parties either.”

Viktor snorts, smiling teasingly. “No investors’ galas, no council parties—is there anywhere I can go?” 

“I thought you didn’t wanna go to any more shitty parties.” 

“Well, I don’t like being told what to do,” Viktor counters, changing his tune quickly, almost playfully, “What if I want to see Councilor Medarda, after all?”

“We can get lunch with her or something,” Jayce lets one of his hands drift to settle on one of Viktor’s thighs.

“I thought you wanted to show me off,” Viktor mocks, “You told me I would blow all their minds or something.” 

“I changed my mind.”

“And why is that?” 

“I don’t wanna have to deal with the fact that everyone who looks at you wonders what it would be like to fuck you,” he says, near-whine.

“You’re ridiculous,” Viktor scoffs, half-smiling. “Way to blame the victim, by the way.”

“I’m not blaming you,” Jayce says adamantly, “I’m just saying. Some of the people at that gala looked like they wanted to eat you alive. They can’t have you. None of them can have you.”

Viktor raises a judgmental eyebrow, but for once doesn’t tease. “No,” he agrees softly, “They can’t. Not even if they paid me.” 

Jayce frowns. “Has anyone tried?”

“To pay me?” Viktor shrugs a dismissive shoulder, “Eh, a few.” 

“What did you say?”

Viktor fixes him with an unimpressed look. “No, obviously.”

“Did you consider saying yes?”

It’s Viktor’s turn to frown, looking genuinely upset all of the sudden. “No,” he snaps, “Why would you ask me that?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Jayce says immediately, “I thought we were still—“ he gestures vaguely. 

“You think it’s sexy to ask if I considered whoring myself out to some rich piltie fuck because he waved money in my face?” 

Jayce blinks; he’s never seen Viktor so quick to getting upset before. (Of course you haven’t, a voice in his head that sounds alarmingly like Caitlyn, you were a client he didn’t want to upset; this thought is an uncomfortable one, and so he pushes it down.) He’s seen Viktor angry, but it was always a cool simmer until it bubbled up in hot bursts of argument. Here, it’s bubbled up much faster than usual.

“Viktor,” he tries.

“Is that what you think of me?” Viktor continues. 

“Of course not. I didn’t mean—“

“I’m not a whore,” Vitkor practically snarls, cutting him off. Whatever is upsetting him is much bigger than this conversation, Jayce realizes. Maybe it has been simmering for a while, like usual. “I’m not your whore. Not anymore.”

“I know that,” Jayce says carefully. 

“I don’t think you do.”

“What are you talking about?” He asks, bewildered. 

“I don’t exist only to help you with your research and fuck you when you’re horny,” Viktor snaps. “And yet that’s how you act.”

“What? No it’s not,” he doesn’t mean to also snap, but he’s confused and a little offended that Viktor would think that after everything he’s done for him. 

“It is,” Viktor insists. “We always fuck because you want to fuck, not because I want to be fucked.”

Jayce blinks, taken aback. 

“That’s not…” Jayce trails off, mind racing as he thinks back to all of their sexual encounters in the last few weeks, back to the first time Viktor touched him without having to be paid. 

“I’m not just—available to you, all the time,” Viktor continues, ignoring him. “You can’t bend me over a desk whenever you feel like it.”

“You were into it! You’re the one who offered to—”

“You said it would be different up here,” Viktor ignores him. “You said we were partners.” 

“We are,” Jayce says immediately, anger deflating at the quiver in Viktor’s voice. 

“It doesn’t feel like it! To these people, I’m an assistant at best and a sumprat slut at worst. Never your partner.”

“Who cares what they think?”

“You do,” Viktor snaps. “You care so much it took you five years to give me credit.”

Jayce has to fight not to roll his eyes. “I said I was sorry for that,” he says, near-desperate. “I gave you credit like I promised. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

Which is, ironically, not the right thing to say. 

“Are you kidding me?” Viktor says, voice suddenly cold and sharp.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce says again, because it’s the only thing he can think to say. 

He doesn’t want to upset him more; he doesn’t want to ruin this, because the whole thing has been on far less solid ground than he thought it was since Viktor first stepped foot in Piltover. He doesn’t know where all of this is coming from—he though they were fine, that they were doing fine—but Jayce promised not to fuck this up. He can’t fuck this up. 

“I think you should leave,” Viktor says flatly, after a long beat of silence. 

“V,” Jayce says, voice pleading. “Come on, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to make you…but I’m sorry.”

Viktor’s face softens into something sad, disappointed. He sighs, glancing away. 

“I just…need you to understand. That I’m not…that you were paying for a version of me that you wanted to see, a whore who fucked you and fixed your math afterwards. You aren’t paying me anymore.” 

There’s a moment of stillness, where Jayce lets the words settle in the air. Jayce’s heart sinks. Viktor won’t look at him. 

“I do understand,” he says, even though he’s beginning to think that maybe he doesn’t, not really. “I don’t want the…the work version of you. I just want you.” 

Viktor doesn’t look like he believes him, necessarily, but his expression thaws further. He looks very tired.

“Okay,” he finally says. “I still think you should go.”

He still won’t look at him. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“I, um,” Jayce forces out, “I won’t be in the lab tomorrow; I have a meeting and then the…party thing.”

Viktor just makes a small noise of acknowledgement. “The day after, then.”

“I can stop by after the party,” he offers, very aware of how desperate he sounds. “I’m sure they’ll have truffles again, if you want me to bring you some.” 

Viktor doesn’t smile, but he looks marginally less upset. “I suppose,” he says, “But I want at least three.”

“I’ll bring the whole bowl,” he promises. 

Viktor finally glances up at him again, honey eyes searching and tired. Jayce doesn’t know if he finds what he’s looking for, but he must find something, because his frown fades into a slight twist of his mouth. 

“Goodnight, Jayce.”

“Goodnight,” he answers, and fights the urge to ask him to let him stay again. When he turns to gather his things and leave, Viktor doesn’t stop him. 

The walk back home is long and cold. Jayce takes the long way home because he can’t bear the thought of sitting alone in his apartment and stewing over what just happened. Going over Viktor’s words in his mind again and again. 

He knows that Viktor isn’t…well, he knows their relationship and dynamic have changed. He’s glad it has; he’s happy to finally be able to be with him outside of a monetary exchange. He likes being with him, and working with him, not some tweaked fantasy version of him.

He knows the Viktor he got in the brothel wasn’t really him, the same way Jayce himself isn’t really like the papers make him out to be. There’s a face for work and a face for home. The thing is that Jayce is just barely starting to truly see the home and not the work; moments of him, Viktor just as he authentically is, had shown up over the years, because of course they had. Jayce knows Viktor. But deciphering what was part of the fantasy and what wasn’t might be more complicated than he thought.

And how far down did that go, he wondered. Did Viktor even like having sex with him? Or was that just what he was used to doing, and so he felt like he had to? There have been times when Viktor’s initiated, but it’s mostly Jayce seeking out whatever he can get from him, whether it’s a blowjob or a quick fuck over the desk. 

Okay, he thinks. Maybe Viktor had a point about the working and fucking thing. It’s not his fault Viktor awakens, like, some kind of primal sex drive in him whenever he sees him. But it’s not Viktor’s fault either. 

He’ll do better, he decides. He promises. He can’t fuck this up. He’ll prove to Viktor that he sees him and no one else, that he understands. 

He just hopes that Viktor will open the door when he knocks tomorrow. 

Chapter Text

Sleep does not come easy that night.

When Jayce leaves, Viktor finishes off his glass of wine in one long gulp and rinses out the glasses in his fancy new sink. He packs the leftovers away and puts them in the icebox. Against his better judgment, he pours himself another glass of wine and finishes it before he even makes it to his room.

He undresses, takes his braces off, falls into his fluffy new bed and sinks into the mattress like a stone. The wine rolls around in his stomach unpleasantly, but he isn’t that worried—he can hold his fucking alcohol. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in deeply, holds it for five counts, breathes out. Repeats until he no longer feels like breaking something—until his heartbeat has evened out and he can breathe again. He opens his eyes, stares at his ceiling with his even heartbeat and his ability to breathe and tries to make sense of the ocean swirling inside of him, conflicting and overwhelming. 

He’s mad at Jayce, and annoyed that he’s mad, and he feels bad for snapping at him and then annoyed for feeling bad because who just says something like that? Who invites someone to a shitty rich people party and then leaves them alone? Who lets their employees and their colleagues and their people treat their partner like—but no, that’s not fair. It’s not Jayce’s fault that topsiders are so fucking awful, it’s not Jayce’s fault that people treat Vikor the way that they do. It’s not his fault. But it still sucks—it’s still hard. 

He’s in a better position in regards to his work than he’s ever been in his life, he has more resources at his disposal that he knows what to do with, and that alone should make all of it worth it, because he can finally do what he’s been trying for so long to do—he can make a genuine impact, he can help his people and his home. But it’s still so fucking hard.

Jayce is trying so hard. Viktor knows that Jayce is trying, that Jayce wishes he could snap his councilor fingers and make everything better, but he can’t. No matter how much authority or sway he thinks he has, no one can single handedly change a society’s bias. Years and years of institutional, targeted discrimination can’t be undone by one man and his love—his selfish, protective, naive love. Jayce might believe that he can, that things will get better if he just wills it, if he just tries hard enough, but Viktor just…can’t. 

He refuses to change himself for topside acceptance. Even if he tried, he doubts it would make a difference. Most of these people decided what kind of person he was before they even knew his name. Nothing he does will change that—and he doesn’t care enough to try. 

He knows that Jayce loves him, as well as he can for who he is and what they are to each other. He knows that he probably loves Jayce, too, no matter how foolish it is, and that he’s probably loved him for long enough that he should have known better. They echoes of their established dynamic—the client and the service, the consumer and the thing to be consumed—hang around them like specters, haunting their sex life—and work life, sometimes—in ways that Viktor doesn’t think Jayce is even aware of. In ways Viktor knows Jayce isn’t aware of, if their stupid argument showed him anything.

Janna, he thinks, letting his eyes slide shut again. What a fucking mess.

The noble asshole at the party, the enforcer who propositioned him last week, the lab assistant who still looks at him like he’s the scum of the earth. The headlines, the media, the endless, endless rumors. It was kind of funny at first, the ridiculous theories they would come up with, but it got old very fast. He doesn’t understand why they can’t move the fuck on. It’s been months; surely there are more interesting things to talk about. 

(Also, his cough hasn’t gone away. It’s stuck around persistently. If anything, it’s gotten worse. So far, he’s managed to hide the worst of it, the blood and the awful way he can’t catch his breath sometimes—he went to a topside doctor just once, but nothing came of it. He remembers his mother, blood staining her teeth as she coughed and coughed and one day, went to sleep and didn’t wake up. He’s always known he wouldn’t live to grow old and gray, but he thought he had a little more time.)

Something has to give, he knows. He hopes he hasn’t pushed Jayce too far; he seemed genuinely sorry, but he always seems genuinely sorry. 

If he takes Piltover as a whole out of the picture, though, he’s actually been relatively happy. He has Sky, and his work, and he didn’t hate his job at the brothel but he didn’t love it either. He enjoys having autonomy, and not living paycheck to paycheck, and having the freetime to take a walk or read a book without worrying about his entire life falling apart. 

But something has to give.

Viktor sighs. Sleep does not come easy.

The next morning, Viktor sleeps in a little. Even after he wakes up, he has the urge to stay in bed and sulk. Instead, he makes himself get out of bed, rubbing at his temples to get rid of the headache the last glass of wine gifted him with.

He showers, and gets dressed, and does not think about Jayce—doesn’t think about how awkward things might be at the lab, and how much he hates having to dance around things with him. It’s only when he gets to the lab that he remembers Jayce won’t be in today—councilor shit, and the party later tonight. He breathes a little easier, which makes him feel a little bad, which annoys him, because he’s allowed to want space without feeling bad about it, and now he’s irritated again.

Suddenly, the big, spacious lab feels too small, too sanitized and metal and foreign. That one lab assistant glances at him from the corner of his eye, the rude way he does whenever Jayce isn’t around to catch him doing it. Viktor still isn’t sure what the man’s name is. 

It’s all so fucking exhausting, all the passive aggressive piltie bullshit. Without Jayce here, what the fuck is the point of putting up with it?

He makes a beeline for Sky, who raises her eyebrows at whatever she sees on his face. 

“Hey, Vik,” she says slowly, keeping her voice down so they won’t be overheard, “You okay?” 

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “Do you think the turbine prototypes are ready to test?”

Sky blinks, obviously not expecting that. She glances over at the table where they sit and then back at him.

“Yeah, probably,” she says, which is what he expected. It was more of a rhetorical question; they’ve been considering taking a trip across the bridge to test them out sometime soon. The main reason they haven’t yet is because they’ve both been too busy. Well, fuck it; Vitkor is his own boss, now. If he wants to go test his prototype, he’s gonna do it. 

“Great,” he says, no inflection, “I think I will do that, then.”

Sky blinks. “Test it? Like, down in the fissures.”

“That is where it needs to be tested, yes.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” She asks, sounding concerned, and continues when he shakes his head, “I don’t want you going alone, Vik. Silco…I don’t want something to happen.”

One of the other powerful men he finds himself caught between. Viktor can admit that the Silco Situation has slipped his mind a bit, but it is one of the reasons he hasn’t been back down there at all these past few months. Silco is not a man you want to displease, and Viktor is pretty sure moving topside with no warning didn’t exactly please him.

Still, he thinks. Nothing has happened yet. And besides, he knows Silco, as well as he can for what they are to each other. He understands him, as well as he can—understands him better than he understands the topsiders and all their bullshit propriety. 

He just wants to test his damn prototype. He can deal with an angry Silco, if he has to. He’s done it before. If the man does try something, though, he’d rather Sky not get caught up in it.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. “I can deal with Silco.”

Sky does not look like she believes him, but something in his tone makes her sigh and relent. Maybe it’s just that obvious that he needs a break from this place. Needs to go home, at least for a few hours. 

“Fine,” she says, “But if something happens, I will say I told you so.”

“Acceptable,” Viktor says. “I would, too.”

Sky just shakes her head, glancing skyward in the universal ‘the shit I put up with' way. “What should I tell Jayce?”

Viktor frowns. “Jayce isn’t coming in today.”

“Yeah, but he might stop by. Or you might be down there a while.”

Viktor shrugs, “Tell him I’m testing our prototype. And that I…need some space to think. And that I hope he enjoys his shitty council party.”

The last bit is unnecessary, but he says it anyway. Sky raises an eyebrow, but does not comment.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Be safe, alright? If you see Ekko, tell him I say hi.”

Viktor finally feels himself soften enough to crack a smile, relieved. “Of course.”

Sky helps him gather up the prototype, a gem and the equipment into a pack that he can sling over his back, and walks him out. It isn’t until he’s on the bus, halfway across the bridge, that he remembers Jayce saying he’d stop by after the party later. He has a fleeting regret that he didn’t leave a note at his house or something, but it’s fine—he’s sure Sky will let him know.

One huge downside to this whole moving topside thing is that people recognize him, now. Enforcers recognize him. For most of his life, he rarely registered on the enforcers’ radar, because a quick once-over at his leg and his cane usually made them write him off as a non-threat. He was arrested for solicitation once, on his way home from a shift—arrested by an enforcer who’s dick he had sucked that very same shift—and got caught pickpocketing once when he was younger, unable to run away with the rest of the kids, but other than that, was rarely singled out. 

Now, though, he is recognizable. Especially up here. Disabilities aren’t exactly rare down there, and he looks like every other half-starved child grown into a half-starved man, but up here? The accent alone is a dead give-away, and he doesn’t even want to know what press-taken pictures of him have ended up in the newspapers.

The enforcers on the bridge know who he is. He is used to seeing scorn in these peoples’ eyes, synonymous with the uniform, but it’s never been this personal before. Viktor refuses to show fear or unease, but he can feel the familiar licks of both bubble up in his chest.

He gives them his papers, which the man spends too long looking over, explains that he’s going down to do some hextech research, and they let him pass. He doesn’t breathe out until he’s safely on the lift, the familiar creaking and jolting helping calm settle over him.

As the lift travels down and the sunlight turns to neon, he feels himself finally able to relax. He should probably be a bit more worried, considering that Silco will most definitely know that he’s here within the hour, but he wasn’t lying to Sky, either: he can deal with Silco. Probably. Most likely. 

Now that he’s finally down here, though, he isn’t really sure where to go. Part of him is kind of afraid to stop by his lab; if it’s been destroyed, he doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t know if he could handle that right now. Regardless of his indecision, he finds himself getting off on the entresol level. He’s halfway to The Full Moon before he even realizes he’s heading there; years of muscle memory, and maybe the subconscious longing for familiarity. 

He feels like he could cry in relief when he sees Ray standing at his usual post, just inside the door. He does not, because that would be embarrassing, but he feels like he could. He should have visited sooner, he thinks. He should have visited sooner.

Ray raises an eyebrow when he sees him, the closest he’ll come to showing exceptional surprise, and then offers a smile. “Hey, kid,” he says, stepping outside and onto the steps. “Last I checked, you’re not on shift today.”

Viktor cracks a small smile at the familiar gruff tone. Aw, he thinks, the big guy’s missed him.

“Sorry to bother you,” he says, “I just…wasn’t sure where to go, other than my lab. Which might be burned down or something, and if it is, I don’t want to know. I can go, of course, I know some of the girls and boys might not want to see me, and you’re on shift, so…I can go.”

He clears his throat once he’s finished rambling, which he hasn’t done in front of Ray since the first time they met, back when he had to look up at the man even more than he already does. Back then, Ray had snorted and clapped him on the shoulder like he thought the rambling was funny. Right now in the present, Ray sighs a little and shakes his head.

“Janna,” he says, “Talis has done a fuckin’ number on you, huh.”

Which is a little rude, and a little unfair, and it still makes Viktor huff a weak laugh. “He’s actually been remarkably well-behaved. It’s the rest of the pilties who are insane.”

Ray snorts. “I coulda told you that,” he says, and then tilts a head at the pack slung over Viktor’s shoulder, which is starting to ache, “You on the run?”

“No, no,” Viktor laughs, and moves to lower it carefully to the ground and give himself a break.  “I’m here to test a prototype—the turbines me and Sky were working on.”

“Right,” Ray says, unconvinced, “You’re sure you’re not on the run?”

Ray has always been oddly perceptive, in his own way. Or maybe Viktor just looks as fucking tired as he feels.

He shrugs, giving up. “Maybe a little. But I really am here for the research, too.”

“I know you are,” Ray says fondly, “But c’mon, man, take a minute. I’m sure everyone’s missed you.”

“You mean you’ve missed me?” he corrects, ignoring the soft pang in his chest at the thought. He doesn’t miss the job, necessarily, but he’s missed this place—and the people in it—more than he thought he would.

“Yeah, Vik, I have. Fuckin’ sue me.”

Viktor is very rarely flustered, but it’s not his fault this time—Ray is very rarely this upfront about these things. He clears his throat, and gestures to his pack where it rests by his feet.

“Can I put this somewhere?”

Ray is, surprisingly, right: a lot of people have missed him, or they’re at least glad to see him. It’s not as if he assumed everyone would be upset with him for leaving, but he’s been around here long enough to have seen a lot of boys and girls come and go, not always under the best of circumstances. The people they leave behind have to deal with it in their own ways, and sometimes that way is to cut them out completely.

Yelena is on shift, because she always seems to be on shift, and she physically lifts him up and gives him a few twirls when she sees him.

“Damn, Vik,” she says after she puts him down, “You look…shiny.”

“What?” he laughs, bewildered.

“You look shiny,” she says again, pinching at his cheek like she’s someone’s grandma, “Getting a lotta sun up there, mister hextech?”

“Of course not,” he says. “I’m too busy.”

She scoffs, “Of course you are. I bet you haven’t even been to the beach yet, have you.”

Viktor offers a bashful shrug; it’s obviously on his to-do list, but it hasn’t exactly been his top priority. Yelena does not look impressed, shaking her head and gesturing for him to follow her to the back room. He does, looking out for the hole in one of the wooden stairs, and it’s all so familiar he feels himself relax. 

He exchanges a few hellos with the people they run into, and sinks gratefully into what used to be his usual chair in the corner.

Yelena rummages through the draws of her go-to vanity and pulls out a small, unlabeled bottle.

“You want a shot?” she asks.

“It’s hardly past noon.” 

“And?” she shakes the bottle, “We’re celebrating. Also, you look like you need a shot.”

Viktor considers. “Fine. But just one, I do have shit I need to do today.”

“Sure, sure,” she says, pulling out two small glasses from the same drawer. He gladly takes the offered shot, and does not ask what’s in it before he throws it back. It fucking burns—whiskey, maybe—and he grimaces as it goes down.

“Shit,” he says, shaking his head, “That is awful .”

Yelena grins at him, twisting the top back on and sliding the bottle away. “Bet it beats whatever they’ve been givin’ you up there.”

Viktor grimaces at the reminder. “You would think ‘expensive’ meant ‘better,’ but…” he trails off.

“Sometimes things that are expensive are worse.” Yelena says wisely. “But seriously. How is it up there? How are you ? Does your fancy new house have a nice kitchen?”

“It does,” Viktor says, leaning forward to grasp at her hand, “The kitchen is so nice. The countertops are granite.”

Yelena gasps, almost comically loud, “Granite countertops,” she repeats. “You really are living the life.”

Viktor huffs a laugh, glancing around the room. It’s crazy how little has changed; it feels like he’s still twenty, gossiping with Yelena in between clients. They still haven’t cleaned up the red stain on the floor; it’s been there for years, long enough that no one remembers what the fuck it even is. Wine, probably, or maybe blood. 

“I suppose so,” he agrees mutedly. It really has been too fucking long since he’s had decent alcohol. His stomach is warm with the whiskey, and he sighs.

He can hear the frown in Yelena’s voice when she says, “What’s wrong.” She doesn’t ask, because it’s not a question. 

Viktor shrugs, feeling light and heavy all at once. He’s with his friend, but he’s never felt further away from her. He didn’t come here to complain, especially not to her, but…

“I don’t know,” he says. “Well, I do know, but…it’s complicated.”

“Ah,” she says, and opens the drawer again to hold the bottle out questioningly. He shakes his head, and she shrugs and puts it away. “Is it Talis? Did he do something?”

“It’s not Jayce,” he says, shaking his head, “I mean it is him, a little, but it’s mostly not. It’s—it’s everything else, it’s everyone else, and he says it will get better but it won’t—it won’t.”

“Fuckin’ pilties, right?”

“Fuckin’ pilties,” Viktor agrees, changing his mind and contemplating another shot. But no, he needs to be sober when he leaves. No more shots for Viktor.

“Can’t he do more?” Yelena bitches on his behalf, “Like, make some kinda ‘don’t be mean to Viktor’ law?”

The idea actually makes Viktor laugh. “I mean, he could try—I don’t think it would work.”

Yelena smiles, propping her chin up on her hand, elbow on the table. “But he loves you?” she asks—not goading, just curious.

“I think he really does,” Viktor says, “Part of me thought he would…get tired of me, once the novelty wore off, but he hasn’t. He’s trying really hard, I know he is. Because he—he loves me, but I don’t know if he really loves me . You know?”

“No,” Yelena says, “But also, yeah. If you fall in love with someone who’s there ‘cause you pay ‘em to be, there’s gonna be some cognitive dissonance going on once you’re not payin’. Is the sex still good, though?”

He’s known Yelena long enough to go with the swift topic change. “Mostly, yes,” he answers.

“Mostly?”

He shrugs, “It’s still weird, sometimes, being not here . It feels like I should still be performing, even though I’m not being paid to anymore.”

Yelena nods, making a sympathetic noise. “You just gotta do what feels natural.”

“I don’t know what feels natural,” he admits, frustrated. “And sometimes I don’t want to—”

“Is he forcing you?” Yelena cuts in, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“No,” Viktor says quickly, “No, he’s not like that. He stops when I tell him to. It just sometimes feels like…it’s expected of me, so I might as well, right?” 

It sounds kind of pathetic, saying it out loud. Yelena, though, just takes one of his hands in her own, small and warm, and her grave expression softens. 

“Have you talked about this with him?” 

Viktor feels himself deflate alongside her. “It came up when we were arguing last night. He—” did Jayce take it well? He was defensive at first, which was natural, but he did seem to listen, even if he didn’t seem to know what the problem was. “He said he was sorry. That he understood.”

“I’ve heard apologies like that from a lot of people,” she says. “Do you think he meant it?”

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it. He knows Jayce meant it—Jayce always means it, when he says he’s sorry, even if he doesn’t know what the fuck he should b sorry about.

“Yes,” he says. “I do. Is that stupid of me?”

“Nah, Vik,” she says. “It just means you love him, too.”

“And is that stupid of me?” he jokes, ignoring the flush of embarrassment he feels at being so obvious.

“Maybe a little,” she laughs, “Considering, y’know,” she gestures vaguely, “But you can’t help who you love—that’s, like, the main issue with it.”

Viktor hums thoughtfully, rolling the shot glass between his thumb and forefinger. 

“I meant it when you said you look shiny,” Yelena continues, “You’re…warmer. You seem healthy—healthi er,” she corrects when Viktor scoffs in disbelief, “than you ever were down here. It’s a good look on you.”

Viktor smiles softly, even as his stomach sinks at the irony. He’s been eating better in the last few months than he probably ever has, and the air topside is crisp and clean. And yet, he thinks, blood in his mouth and sink and all over his hands. And yet. 

“Thank you,” he says regardless, because Yelena is a good friend, and he’s missed her, and she doesn’t need to know that he’s dying just as fast up there as he was down here. “I do miss everyone, though.”

She gives a sad sort of smile, jagged teeth. “Miss you too, kid. Hey, you should throw a party or something, invite all of us. We could freak out your neighbors.”

Viktor actually kind of loves the idea. “Of course,” he says, “I need to show off my fancy kitchen.”

Yelena beams at him, throwing an arm over his shoulders and tugging him in for another hug. He hugs her back, releasing his cane to wrap both arms around her this time. He feels her sigh into his hair.

“Y’know, we’re all proud of you, Vik.”

He swallows down the lump in his throat, forcing back the sting behind his eyes. “Really?” he asks, a little pathetic.

“Yeah,” she says, pulling back to look him in the eye. “We hear news about you every now and then—most of it is bullshit,” she admits when he raises an eyebrow at the word news , “but it’s still crazy to hear. All the hextech stuff—I won’t pretend to understand most of it, but I know it’s a big deal. We hear all this shit about hextech’s ‘new co-founder’ and how no one seems to know what to do with you and it’s like—I know that guy, I taught him how to give head.”

Viktor barks a laugh, and Yelena laughs with him. “You did,” he says, “I’m very grateful—I think it’s that skill that won Jayce over.”

She shoves his shoulder lightly, “I know that’s right,” she says, smiling, and shakes her head. “It’s crazy, you being up there. But it’s…it’s also nice, I guess, having one of ours in a place like that. Like maybe shit actually can change. Get better, y’know?”

All the doubts Viktor was feeling, all the complex, layered emotions melt and give way to a strange feeling of calm certainty, because—because. Because that’s what he’s doing this whole thing for, right? So that shit will change for the better?

“That’s all I want,” he says, maybe too sincere, because he feels himself flush a little under her gaze, “I just want to help.”

“I know, Vik,” she says fondly, “I’m glad you got out. There’s no one else I’d rather have fightin’ for us up there.”

He feels a bit embarrassed, now, running down here to lick his wounds because of a petty fight with his boyfriend. He has priorities, he has goals that are more important than his own personal drama. He has people down here that need him to keep his shit together. 

Yelena tries to goad him into taking another shot before he leaves, but he turns her down—he does actually need to have a clear head to set everything up right—and he manages to slip out of the brothel before his old boss can catch him hanging around. 

Ray gives him a tight hug—which shocks Viktor so badly he just barely manages to return it—and says that he should visit again sometime soon. (His actual words are ‘might as well stop by next time you’re here,’ but Viktor gets the message either way.) Viktor says that he will.

He slings his pack back over his shoulders, and leaves feeling much lighter than he did before. 

His better mood makes him not want to go see if his lab has been destroyed even more. He probably should have just asked around at The Full Moon and see if anyone had noticed anything. 

Also, the sooner he sets the turbine up and gets it running, the sooner he has to go back topside, and although his talk with Yelena was helpful, he still doesn’t want to head back so soon. 

And Sky did mention saying hi to Ekko for her, didn’t she? He might as well go check the shop out before he sets up; maybe he’ll find something he didn’t know he needed. That’s always how it seemed to go at Benzo’s place. 

Mind made up, he finds his way down to the lanes. He hasn’t spent a lot of time here, especially not after Vander died and Silco took over, but he knows his way around well enough, and he hasn’t been away long enough to shake the undercity from him. Everytime he and Sky brought up wanting to test their prototype, Jayce would always mention coming with them; Viktor is very glad that he did not. Jayce is a lot of things, but he would have stuck out terribly down here, might have even gotten them robbed. As it stands, Viktor is halfway to Benzo’s old place before he runs into trouble—and not even the kind he would expect to find.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he spots Caitlyn Kiramman. This is alarming, and so he bodily turns around, instinctively checking for an enforcer’s uniform, which he does not see—the skirt looks familiar, though, and the purple hair, and the sharp, noble features. 

Let is be said that Viktor knows how to mind his fucking business, and he usually does. But he was not expecting to see Caitlyn Kiramman today, so it catches him by surprise a little.

“Caitlyn?” he finds himself asking, still self-aware enough to not say the name Kiramman down here, even surprised. For a long, mortifying moment, he’s sure he’s mistaken, until the woman freezes and turns around, eyes wide in surprise and—yeah, that’s Caitlyn. 

Next to her, a shorter woman with bright pink hair turns, too. Her eyes are sharp and startling, giving him a quick, suspicious once over, mouth curled into a frown.

“Viktor,” Caitlyn says, sounding just as surprised. “Um. Hi.” 

“Hi,” he parrots, a little bemused. As far as he was aware, Caitlyn was supposed to be at whatever fancy council gala Jayce is probably trapped at right now. Definitely not in the lanes of the undercity. Caitlyn—and by extension the pink-haired woman—steps closer, touching him lightly by the elbow and moving so they’re out of the walking traffic of the street.

“What are you…doing here?”

There’s a strange pang in his stomach at the question—why wouldn’t he be down here, when this is his home? It shouldn’t be strange to be home.

Still, his annoying inner turmoil isn’t her fault, and it is a fair question. He gestures at the pack over his shoulder in answer, “Testing a prototype.”

“Oh,” Caitlyn says, seeming to relax a little, “The, uh, the air turbine, right?”

Viktor probably shouldn’t be surprised that Caitlyn remembers the project he had been working on when she last visited Jayce at the lab, but he’s touched nonetheless.

“Yes,” he nods, “But also visiting some friends. I suppose I needed a…break from,” he gestures skyward, “all of that.”

Caitlyn, for all that she’s the daughter of a council member, seems to understand his disdain for the upper class all too well. She makes a sympathetic noise, cracks a wry smile.

“I’m sure the rumor mill doesn’t help,” she says, commiserating. 

“It does not,” he agrees, and then glances at her pink-haired companion. Caitlyn straightens up, seeming to remember that there is in fact someone else here. “Who’s your friend?”

“Right, this is, um,” Caitlyn starts, but is interrupted by the woman herself.

“Vi,” Vi says, somehow seeming both disinterested and challenging all at once. “We’re not friends. She broke me out of prison.”

“Oh,” Viktor says, glancing between the two of them; Caitlyn doesn’t actually deny it, just looks slightly embarrassed about it, as if this isn’t something that could most definitely ruin her enforcer career. He supposes things like that work differently for topsiders. “Alright then.”

“Alright then?” Caitlyn echoes. Viktor supposes Jayce would have had a more explosive reaction, but he is not Jayce. 

Viktor shrugs, “I assume you have a good reason.” A pause. “How did you break her out of Stillwater, though? I’ve heard it’s very…underground.”

Caitlyn seems to waver for a moment, but finally lifts her chin, the confident tilt that he’s used to seeing on her. “I used Jayce’s name,” she says, unrepentant. “Worked like a charm.”

Viktor huffs a laugh, “I suppose that councilor title is worth something.”

Vi snorts from her place next to Caitlyn, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. His eyes catch on the hair again, the blunt, single syllable name—there’s something there, something familiar that he feels like he should recognize, but he can’t quite place it. He wonders how long she’s been in prison, why she ended up there in the first place. 

“Don’t tell Jayce,” Caitlyn says, drawing his attention again. “Not yet.”

The last thing Viktor wants to do is go behind his partner’s back—even back before they were real partners, he still didn’t want to lie to him about Silco—but he knows where Caitlyn’s coming from, here. She’s put herself in an incriminating position for some reason, probably something to do with her personal, unofficial investigation into Silco and his shimmer empire. Jayce loves Caitlyn like a little sister—Viktor knew that long before he ever met her, gleaned from the years of Cait-Related Anecdotes he’d heard—but Jayce also isn’t known for his subtlety, or his exceedingly calm reactions. 

Still, he doesn’t want to be the reason, even indirectly, that Caitlyn gets hurt. Or worse. 

“Are you going to get yourself killed?” he asks, because it’s the simplest question to encompass everything.

Vi tilts her head with a smirk—not too confident in Caitlyn’s chances, then—but Caitlyn raises her chin once again, looking him in the eye.

“No,” she says, “I won’t.”

“Well then,” Viktor says, “I can’t tell Jayce anything I don’t know.”

A small, relieved smile breaks out across her face, and she nods once.

“Thanks,” she says. “Good luck with your turbine. I hope it works.”

“Me too,” he offers a smile, and then sobers, “Be careful, Caitlyn. Silco is a dangerous man.”

“I know,” she says, but he doesn’t know if she does; judging by the dark look on her companion’s face, though, Vi does. This shouldn’t be a comfort, necessarily, but it does ease some of his worry knowing that Caitlyn has someone with her who knows what they’re doing. “I will.”

“I’m serious. If you’re not back in a few days, I’ll have to tell Jayce something.”

Caitlyn frowns, but relents. “Fine. But I really will be careful.”

She sounds sincere enough, and Vi definitely looks tough enough, all undercity swagger and a confident walk. For once, he goes against his better judgment, and hopes he won’t regret this later.

“Alright. Good luck.”

She gives him a sharp nod and an unsure smile, and the two women are on their way. Vi gives him one last look, and, when her glare doesn’t visibly phase him, a sharp, cocky grin. He hopes Caitlyn will be on guard with that one, he thinks to himself; she’ll definitely try to lose the enforcer as soon as she can.

He doesn’t watch them leave, instead deciding to peruse the food stalls a bit. The undercity bustles with life in its own way, and the familiar sounds, sights and smells wash over him with a strange kind of nostalgia that comes with knowing he’ll have to leave soon.

He was going to go to see Ekko, but, on second thought, it’s probably best not to, right now. His encounter with Caitlyn has shocked some fucking perspective back into him, and he doesn’t want to draw anymore of Silco’s attention on him and the Firelights than there already is. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something happened to them because of the bullshit Viktor’s gotten himself caught up in.

Time to bite the fucking bullet and go check on the state of his lab.

He turns to head back to the lift, and almost walks straight into someone—he has to look up, up, up past an impressive-looking prosthetic arm and into the face of a woman that he almost certainly knows works for Silco. He knows a few people who left The Full Moon to go work at Babette’s place instead, and he’s heard that Silco’s right hand frequents it a lot.

Dread sinks like a stone in his chest. 

“Sorry,” he says politely; he turns to step around her, but is stopped by a firm hand on his upper arm. The stone sinks further, ice in his veins. 

“It’s all good,” she says, tone implying that it’s anything but. “You can make it up to me by making this easy for both of us.”

He exhales slowly, looking back up at the woman—Sevika? that sounds right—and willing his face blank. Hers is a stone wall; he can’t read a thing. 

“Making what easy?” he asks, for the sake of asking.

She just gives him a look, as if he should know exactly what she’s talking about—which he does, because why else would Silco’s right hand woman be here.

Still, “Boss wants to see you,” she drawls. 

He doesn’t bother asking why. If she knows, she won’t tell him. What was he thinking, coming down to the Lanes like this? He should’ve just stayed in the entresol, set up his tests and gone back topside. It’s one thing to come down here, it’s another to flaunt himself in Silco’s territory like this. He should’ve known better.

It echoes in his head like a mantra the whole walk over, alongside his own warning to Caitlyn. When it comes into sight, The Last Drop’s neon sign flashes like a warning, like it’s taunting him. He follows Sevika inside, ignoring the eyes that fall on them as the doors swing open, and follows her up a flight of stairs. His leg has started to ache, but he doesn’t dare slow down or make any protest. 

They walk down a long hallway, and Sevika knocks on the closed door at the end of it. She doesn’t wait for an answer before turning the knob and pushing it open; she does not move to enter, just pierces him with an expectant stare. 

Well fuck, he thinks. Time to be brave.

He dips his head in thanks—for the escort, for opening the door for him like a real gentleman—takes a steadying breath, and enters the room. It turns out to be a large office, Silco’s desk and a tall, ornate chair standing out starkly against the large window behind them. The man in question looks up at his arrival. His face is terrifyingly blank.

Viktor does not dare say a word. They stare at each other for a long moment, before Silco sighs, gesturing loosely at the couch in the center of the room. 

“Sit,” he says shortly. 

Viktor sits. 

A soft whoosh of breath escapes him as the weight is taken off of his aching leg, but he otherwise still does not speak. He slides his pack off of his shoulder and places it carefully on the cushion next to him. Honestly, it’s amazing it hasn’t sustained any damage, with the way he’s been hauling it around. How foolish of him—he really should have just set up the turbine and left. 

The silence drags, broken only by the muffled music and sounds of people from the bar right below them. Silco pushes his chair back, stands up and slowly walks around his desk. He picks up a glass bottle full of clear liquid and a cigar.

“Would you like a drink, Viktor?”

Somehow, it throws Viktor for a loop. He clears his throat, trying to mask his surprise. “Ah, no, I’m alright, thank you.”

Silco raises an eyebrow. Should he not have refused? “Are you sure? It’s quite expensive—or wait, I suppose that’s not a novelty to you any longer.”

It seems like he should not have refused. He takes a second, less steady steading breath. “I had a drink with a friend earlier, I’m afraid,” he settles on, diplomatically, “I need to be clear-headed for the tests I will be running.”

Silco sets the bottle back down and makes his way over to the low table in front of Viktor, dragging a spare chair along with him. He sits down and leans back almost leisurely, effortlessly powerful, even though he has no extra muscle in the room with him. 

“The tests you will be running,” he echoes, voice unreadable.

Viktor gestures at his pack. “I’m here to test a prototype,” he says, for possibly the hundredth time today, “A turbine that could help purify the air.”

Silco hums, taking a puff of his cigar. “If you’re here to test your little prototype,” he starts, “Why is it not being tested?”

Viktor bites back the impulse to say that he would be testing it right now if he hadn’t been intercepted and forced to come to Silco’s best attempt at an evil lair. Something must show on his face, though, because the man’s gaze sharpens, and he sits up a smidge straighter.

Viktor does his best to smooth his expression out. “As I said, I got a drink with a friend earlier. I was on my way to set the turbine up when your friend said you wanted to speak with me.”

Silco’s mouth twitches upwards the slightest amount; Viktor’s best must’ve not been very convincing. “Purify the air, you said?”

The pivot back to the prototype once again throws Viktor off, but only for a moment. He has no idea what Silco wants from him right now—honestly, he had expected to be threatened or possibly killed for daring to cross a man notorious for fucking killing people who cross him—but he can talk shop for days at the drop of a hat.

“Yes,” he says, placing his cane sideways across his thighs. “We’ve narrowed down the main chemical compounds in the sump air, and may be able to filter them out, the same way I’ve been trying to do with the water. If it is successful on a small scale, with one of the compounds, we will hopefully be able to implement them on a much, much larger scale, all over the undercity.”

“Clean water and clean air,” Silco comments, something near-wistful in his tone. 

“It’s still a work-in-progress, of course,” Viktor says, “but it is in progress.”

Silco takes another long drag, giving Viktor a slow once-over. Viktor, strangely self-conscious, wonders what he sees. If he really is warmer like Yelena said he is, or if his worsening sickness shows to people who know what to look for. If what he’s heard is true, Silco grew up even further down than the lanes; they had him working in the mines deep, deep in the fissures, where death was just as likely as waking up the next morning. He’s sure that Silco knows what to look for. 

“I’m glad to hear that your priorities are still in order,” he finally says, voice cool and calm. “I’ll admit I was worried for a stretch—eloping with Jayce Talis the minute my back was turned.”

Viktor goes stone-still. His heart races, beating so loudly he’s sure Silco can hear it from across the little table. 

“Eloping is a bit of a…dramatic word for it,” he goes for a light joke, desperately falling back into their usual dynamic of just-cheeky-enough-to-be-exciting-but-not-too-much. This is not The Full Moon, though, and Silco isn’t about to unzip his fly. Hopefully. 

Silco, of all things, snorts a surprised laugh—his usual amused-with-Viktor’s-audacity twist of his mouth. Viktor relaxes the slightest amount, but only the slightest amount. 

“What would you call it, then?” Silco asks, the slightest amount of fondness in his voice—but only the slightest amount. 

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, trying for casual. “Quitting my day job?”

Another snort, a small huff of breath. “Quitting your day job,” he repeats. “When I said you could be more than Talis’ whore, I didn’t expect you to become his—what, his kept boy?”

Viktor bites down an automatic retort, unable to stop his frown. “We’re…partners,” he argues carefully. 

“Partners,” Silco repeats once again, barking a dismissive, disbelieving laugh. “Of course you are. You do the work for him and suck his cock afterwards, is that it?”

Viktor flushes despite himself, hating the way the man’s words echo what he had said during the argument with Jayce last night. “No,” he says, maybe too quickly, “He—doesn’t expect it of me.”

“But you give it up freely anyways,” Silco says, voice dripping with a scathing disdain. Viktor feels himself flinch away from the heat of it.

Viktor has the ridiculous urge to defend himself—to defend Jayce and his relationship with him—but he knows there’s no point. It would only make him sound pathetic, and probably piss Silco off more. So instead he says nothing, gritting his teeth and looking away. Conceding defeat, at least here. 

Silco sighs again, sounding disappointed. Tired, if he were the kind of man to show fatigue. 

“Vikor,” he says, and Viktor snaps to attention, straightening up in his seat further. “I’m going to be honest with you.” This is a little bit of a terrifying statement, but Viktor nods anyway. What else can he do? “I’ve always thought you had potential—the potential to change Zaun for the better, if you truly put your skills to use.”

He pauses, as though expecting Viktor to say something, so he does. “Thank you, sir.”

“You don’t need to prostrate yourself before your councilor and his council to make that change. You’re better than that—better than this.”

Honestly, Viktor isn’t so sure that he is better than this. Still, it strikes something in him, the fact that Silco is saying these things to him, under the pretense of honesty. Of course, Viktor has no idea if any of it is true—Silco wasn’t able to overthrow Vander and keep control of half the undercity by being bad at manipulating people—but it’s still nice to hear, especially from a man like him. 

Viktor is still deciding how best to answer when Silco continues. “I think you know that you’re better than this,” a significant pause, “Why did you ‘quit your day job’ for Talis? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Viktor fiddles with his cane nervously, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He feels Silco’s gaze on him, burning hot. His eyebrows are raised expectantly, awaiting his answer. I was honest with you, they seem to say, now you must be honest with me.

Viktor glances away, unable to hold eye contact any longer. There’s no way he can be honest about this—he certainly can’t tell Silco about all the ways that Jayce makes him feel safe and loved and hopeful and all the other sappy shit he makes him feel, that the decision was as impulsive as it was well thought out. He thinks he would die on the spot. 

“I…I thought it would be better,” he finally says, “For my work, and for…” and for me, he doesn’t add. Silco seems to understand either way, a tilt of his head.

“And was it? Is it better up there?”

“I don’t know,” Viktor answers honestly, too honestly. He feels Silco’s eyes sharpen at the admission. “In some ways, yes. But…” 

“But?”

Viktor shrugs, glancing away. “But I’m not meant to be there—the topsiders do their best to remind me everyday.”

Silco hums thoughtfully, tilting just head. “Yes, we’ve heard a lot about the councilor’s ‘sumprat whore’ from the enforcers, but they never mention the whore’s contributions. The hextech part never seems to come up at all.”

It stings, rubs just the right amount of salt into wounds that he knew just the right location of. 

“I’m aware,” Viktor says, too sharply, “of what they say. It doesn’t matter.”

Silco scoffs, “If you think you will ever get those people’s respect, you’re deluding yourself.”

“I’m not doing it for their respect , I’m doing it for the undercity. For Zaun .”

“And does Talis share your sentiments?”

“I’ve made my priorities clear to him,” Viktor says, “and intend to follow through. That is why I’m here.” He gestures to the pack next to him.

Silco scoffs. “You don’t expect Piltover’s council to approve of these ventures, do you?”

“Hextech is a business empire,” Viktor says carefully. “Ja— Talis —is rich beyond belief. I don’t need the council’s funding to help Zaun.”

“You just need Talis’.” Silco finishes. 

Viktor nods. “Which I have.”

“For now.”

“For now,” Viktor agrees. “And for the foreseeable future.”

“And how long do you think that future will last? How long do you think it will take Talis to tire of you and throw you away?”

He can’t tell if Silco is trying to bait him or not, trying to get him upset, or if they’re genuine questions. It could very well be both. Viktor is so, so tired of mind games.

“I don’t know,” he says, “But he hasn’t, yet. Considering all of the,” he gestures vaguely, “ backlash he has received over making our partnership public, I would say it seems that he’s quite invested. Would you not agree?”

Silco’s eyes flash dangerously—his left glowing as ominously as ever—and Viktor hopes that turning a question back on him wasn’t a step too far. He’s not used to dealing with Silco outside of the brothel, save for the few times he dropped by the lab with his daughter. Here, in Silco’s fucking office, it’s an entirely new environment, with a new, unfamiliar set of rules.

“It certainly shows that he’s stubborn,” Silco says, not quite conceding but not disagreeing, either. “Or, at the very least, possessive of his new toy.”

“If he wants to keep me around,” Viktor tries again, ignoring the remark, so similar to the man at that stupid investors’ gala, “why not let him? It gives me access to a crazy amount of resources, which I plan to use to help the undercity. That has always been my goal.”

“I understand that,” Silco says, “I just don’t know that you’ll be as successful as you think you will.”

Ah, Viktor thinks, as pieces seem to click into place. This is personal—not truly about him and Jayce, not really, Silco’s past experience with his own revolutionary partner superimposed over them. Vander, ultimately, did not follow through, and everyone knows how that ended. Silco expects—hopes, perhaps—that Jayce will crumble just as certainly.

It’s understandable, if not a bit misguided. It’s shockingly, almost unbearably human of him. Viktor isn’t conceited enough to think it’s built on concern for him—in fact, he’s pretty sure Silco won’t care for Viktor’s well-being if Jayce were to turn on him like that—but it’s still enough to make him pause. He knows Silco—he’s known him for years, maybe longer than he’s known Jayce. Silco knows him. Silco expects Viktor to lose, here, and therefore expects Zaun to lose by-proxy.

As if Viktor’s battle against topside’s tabloid circuit is going to change the course of fucking history or something. Janna, sometimes he wishes he never met Jayce at all. 

“With all due respect, sir,” Viktor says slowly, “I don’t know how successful I will be. I only know that I was given an opportunity that I could not refuse—an opportunity that could help not only me, but my people as well. Jayce,” he slips up with the name again, but doesn’t bother to try and switch it, “cares for me, enough to give up half of his company.”

Silco’s eyes don’t leave him for a moment, dark and searching. He hums thoughtfully, “And if I were to have a rumor spread that one of my men saw you in here on your knees, sucking my cock, free of charge, what would your man of progress think of that?”

“He wouldn’t believe it,” Viktor says shortly, calm as he can manage. “It would just be one more bullshit rumor. If anything, we would probably have really good sex about it.”

Silco snorts, shaking his head a little. Yelena did the exact same thing, not two hours ago. He should have just stayed in that back room and taken that second shot. Maybe even a third. He would be sleeping the liquor off there instead of slowly suffocating in Silco’s fucking above-bar office. 

There’s a long beat of silence, where Silco finally looks away, eyes vacant as he thinks. It’s odd; Viktor can practically see the wheels turning in his head, but has no idea what conclusions he’s drawing or how. 

Suddenly, he feels it, the awful tickle in his throat that comes before a coughing fit. He hasn’t had anything to drink in far too long, the excitement of the past thirty minutes catching up with him all at once. Stupid fucking lungs, is the last thing he thinks before he doubles over in his seat and coughs—hard.

He coughs, and coughs, and coughs until he’s bent over the table and clutching desperately at the fabric of his shirt, right over his chest, as if that will help keep himself together. It takes him a humiliatingly long time to catch his breath, and when he straightens up, his hand comes away red. He goes to reach for the handkerchief he’s taken to carrying with him, but is stopped with a hand on his wrist—Silco’s, and his heart skips a beat, because for half a moment he had forgotten where he was. He looks up to see that Silco is now sitting on the table in front of him, too close too close and leaning forwards.

Silco lifts Viktor’s wrist to look at his palm, smeared with thick, red blood. His other hand comes to grip Vikor’s chin, tilting it up as though to get a better angle. Viktor can taste metal on his lips, and tries very hard not to flinch when Silco’s thumb wipes through the mess on his chin.

“Ah, I see,” he says, cool and observational, “You’re sick. Fading. The same disease that took your mother, correct?”

Viktor doesn’t ask how the fuck Silco knows that. There’s no need—Silco seems to know whatever he needs to. Fear will make people admit anything and everything.

He swallows. Does not tremble. “Yes,” he says, voice thick. “That’s correct.”

“Does Talis know?”

“...No,” Viktor answers honestly, because there’s no point in lying when he’s caught in a trap. He’s sure Silco can feel his pulse racing in his wrist.

“Oh?” Silco tilts his head slightly, as though they’re two friends gossiping at lunch, “And why not?”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder as casually as he can, “There’s nothing he can do. He’s not a medical doctor.”

“Why not take advantage of Piltover’s illustrious medical care? Surely they have something that could save you?”

Viktor glances away—Silco lets him, releasing his chin but keeping a hand around his wrist. “I was told that there’s nothing they can do. They’re not familiar with this type of sickness.”

He frowns, recalling the one and only time he went to a Piltover doctor. Jayce had insisted—he had noticed the lingering cough, but Viktor never let him see the blood—and Viktor had given in, partially out of curiosity. There were doctors in Zaun, obviously, but Viktor certainly didn’t have a ‘primary healthcare provider,’ which was the first question he was asked, nor could he provide them with physical medical records. 

Essentially, the doctor had told him with surprising kindness and sympathy after they had run a few scans, they had never dealt with this particular kind of disease before. It was slow acting and deeply rooted, and they weren’t adequately prepared to deal with it. When Viktor had told her that most people he knew in the undercity contracted some kind of lung problem because of the air they were breathing, so it wasn’t exactly anything new, she had looked horrified. Part of him had wanted to scoff—what did she expect, from people forced to live in someone else’s chemical runoff—but he didn’t. She had seemed genuinely dismayed that she couldn’t help him, and hadn’t pushed when he asked her not to say anything to Jayce about it.

Here in the present, Silco scoffs for him. “‘Not familiar.’ As usual, the topsiders pay no mind to the lives they destroy.”

Viktor decides not to comment, instead fishing his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his mouth. Silco intercepts him once again, releasing his wrist to pluck the fabric from his hand. He leans forwards further, into Viktor’s personal space. Viktor only barely doesn’t lean back.

“So that’s it, then?” Silco asks, “You’re just going to roll over and die?”

The pride that Viktor has spent most of his life keeping buried rears its head at the insinuation. 

“No,” he says, too close to a snap, “I’m going to continue my work. I still have time to figure something out.”

Silco looks almost amused, as he slowly, slowly wipes away the blood still smeared on Viktor’s chin. “Not much time, by the looks of it.”

Viktor doesn’t dare jerk away, whole body tensing up to prevent it. “This doesn’t change anything,” he argues. “I still have time.”

It sounds desperate, pathetic even to his own ears. Something complicated flits across Silco’s face, that Viktor only sees because it’s inches away from his own—sadness, and resignation, and something terribly close to pity. It makes Viktor ache as much as it confuses him. 

“Hm,” is all he says, wiping at Viktor’s mouth one last time before pulling back, seemingly satisfied. “It’s late. Stay here for the night, and go run your tests tomorrow.”

Viktor reels back at the sudden shift in tone—and more than that, the words that just came out of the man’s mouth.

“What?” he nearly yelps, flushing at the way it echoes in the large room. “No, I-I couldn’t—”

“Stay,” Silco says again, handing Viktor his handkerchief and moving to stand. “You’ll get your own room, and are free to go in the morning.”

“Silco—sir,” Viktor corrects, quickly righting his cane and rising with him. “I-I appreciate the generosity, but I really should be going. I told Sky—I told my colleague I would be back by the end of the day.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand. It’s hard to go home without running into old friends.”

Is that what we are? Viktor thinks but does not say.

“Still,” he insists, as politely as he can manage, “I don’t want to intrude—”

“I’m offering.”

“I…” Viktor trails off, unsure of how to combat that. Propriety was never his strong suit, at least not the kind that didn’t directly lead into sex with someone who was paying him to be proprietary. If Piltover has taught him one thing, it’s that he was not adequately prepared for high society propriety. 

“What’s the issue?” Silco asks, raising a brow. “It’s just for the night. Besides, Talis won’t mind, will he? ‘Just another bullshit rumor,’ as you said.”

Viktor did say that. The last thing on his mind right now is what the fuck Jayce will think about this; he’s mostly hung up on the fact that he very much does not want to sleep in Silco’s evil lair slash home slash the place Silco’s ex-something used to live before he killed him.

Still, he glances at the clock and it has gotten late. He’s spent the day gossiping and reminiscing with his ex-coworkers and running into Jayce’s friends instead of doing what he came here to do. And although he’s undercity born and raised, he never made a habit of wandering through the lanes alone at night with a suspiciously large bag and bum leg to boot. He doesn’t want to risk something happening to the prototype, and he isn’t a fan of getting jumped, even with a knife in his cane to help him out. 

He sighs, rubbing at his eyes. “Fine,” he says, “alright. Just for the night. And I can leave when I wake up?”

He looks Silco in the eye, because he thinks he’s earned the right to make sure he’ll be allowed to leave. 

Silco seems to agree, and offers him a single nod in return. “Of course. I don’t want to invite Jayce Talis’ jealous rage upon me just yet.” He says the words mockingly, like the idea of Jayce retaliating against him is both funny and ridiculous. Viktor does not take the bait. 

“Alright,” he says again. “I suppose I am rather tired.”

Silco gives him the slightest, thin smile. “I can imagine. You’ve had quite the journey today.”

Viktor just gives a slightly uncomfortable smile in return. “Thank you for the hospitality, sir.”

“Of course,” Silco says, smug and absolutely willing to flaunt it. “Come. Someone will show you to the spare room.”

Someone shows him to the spare room, because Silco is apparently too busy to do so himself, even though it’s quite literally down the hallway. The someone doesn’t offer his name, or any other conversation, and Viktor does not ask. 

When the door shuts behind him, he sets his bag down, takes three steps and falls forwards, face-first into the mattress. He lets out a long, muffled groan into the blanket.

Janna, he thinks faintly. What a fucking nightmare of a day—well, he reconsiders, the first half of it was fine. It’s only the last hour or so that absolutely fucking sucked and kind of ruined the rest of it, in hindsight. 

He rolls onto his back, briefly surveying the room. It’s small, with only a bed, an old-looking chair and a small bedside table. The curtains are drawn and tattered. He does not ever want to know whose room it used to be.

He stares at the ceiling for a moment. Inhales deeply and lets out a long, long sigh. He squeezes his eyes shut and covers his face with his hands.

He supposes he could try to leave, maybe slip out in the middle of the night or possibly risk his and the prototype’s lives by climbing out the second story window. But it is late, and he is tired. Might as well take advantage of the soft mattress while he can—and who fucking knows if his bed even still exists, because he still has no idea about the state of his lab. Fuck, but he should’ve sucked it up and asked Silco while he had the chance.

Letting out another frustrated, exhausted groan, he sits up just long enough to toe his shoes and jacket off before he falls backwards again. 

He’ll only sleep for a few hours, he decides. Just until morning, and then he’ll get his shit and leave and go finally run the actual tests he came down here to run. He rolls onto his side, shuffling around until he can slide under the blanket.

Hopefully, he thinks wryly, no one tries to kill him in his sleep. He scoots a little closer to the edge of the bed, just to make sure his cane is within grabbing distance, and lets his eyes flutter shut.

He’s asleep within minutes.

Chapter Text

The thing is that Jayce has a game plan. He had spent the long hours it had taken him to fall asleep last night after he and Viktor’s date night had ended…not so great…coming up with it. He’s going to be better, he’s going to do better, and that’s going to start today.

The plan is: he’ll go to the meeting with a potential investor that he has scheduled in the morning, and try to stop by the lab around lunch time, with some coffee from the shop around the corner that Viktor likes and a pastry or something as a peace offering. In the evening, he’ll go to the council gala, and steal some truffles to bring to Viktor afterwards, like he said he would. 

Is it a very complicated or original plan? Not really. But it’s chock-full of two things that Jayce has decided he’s going to be better at: responsibility and thoughtfulness. He can’t skip the council stuff because he is a councilor, and he made a commitment when he accepted the position. But he won’t let Viktor come second to it, ever. He’s going to pay more attention to what isn’t being said—because Viktor holds back a lot, but he also gives a lot away when he thinks no one is watching—and he’s going to listen more thoroughly to what is being said.

He’s going to, like, take his life in his own two hands and figure his shit out. He’s going to be a better partner, both scientifically and romantically, and he’s going to make sure that Viktor knows that he won’t ever take him or what he’s given up for granted again.

The first step in his game plan goes off fine. The meeting is boring but successful, and he walks away with a new investor to add to the Investors’ Parties Guest List and a promise of additional funding. The second step is where things immediately derail.

He stops by the coffee place, orders Viktor’s favorite sugary-as-all-hell latte thing and a blueberry muffin, and heads to the lab, rehearsing his apology in his head. When he gets to the lab, though, Viktor is not there.

Viktor is not in the lab, because Viktor is in the undercity. Apparently. 

“He’s what?” Jayce repeats, just in case he heard wrong.

“He went to the undercity,” Sky repeats, fidgeting with her glasses a little, “To test our turbine prototype, like we were mentioning we might.”

Jayce blinks, taking this in. Viktor, going to the undercity, by himself, the day after a fairly serious fight—or at least a fight that felt serious to Jayce. A fight that upset Viktor. 

“Oh,” Jayce hears himself say, and he sounds small and put out to his own ears. Sky glances away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“He’ll probably be back by tonight,” she offers, “He said he just needs some space to think.”

That’s…okay, Jayce thinks. That’s fine. It makes sense that Viktor would want some space after last night, that’s perfectly fine. He’ll be back by tonight, hopefully with good news about the turbines. 

He has no idea what kind of look must be on his face right now, but Sky seems to sense his panic, her eyebrows shooting up in quiet alarm.

“Jayce,” she says, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jayce answers automatically, straightening up. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry to bother you.”

Sky gives him a warm smile and a shake of her head, “It’s no bother. This is your lab, I just work here.”

“Thank god for that,” Jayce says, just so Sky will smile again—the first time she worked here, he remembers her being so nervous all the time, shy and mostly quiet. She’s still quiet—compared to Jayce, at least—but she doesn’t duck her head and look away under praise anymore. He supposes he has Viktor to thank for that, the way he has Viktor to thank for most positive things in his life.

He leaves Viktor’s sugar-high coffee order with her, because if he tries to drink it himself it might send him into cardiac arrest, and goes to get ready for the stupid gala.

His suit is tailor-made and probably the fanciest thing in his closet; Mel requested to have it made for him, specifically for this gala. Apparently, it’s a bit of an unspoken rule that this particular gala is, like, more important than other ones. Or something. Jayce is just grateful Mel is always filling him in on these things. 

The glitz and glamor of councilor life had been almost exciting, at first—somehow more extravagant than the life he was living after hextech blew up. Jayce had never been poor, had certainly never been anywhere close to undercity levels of poverty, but he had also never been exceedingly wealthy. He and his mother got by fine, especially once Jayce had secured the Kirammans as his patrons, but he had never had the kind of money that had started rolling in once hextech got off the ground. 

It had been overwhelming at first; he had so much money that he didn’t even know what to do with it all. But he thinks he adjusted to the wealthy life decently enough. He had the status to go with it; people suddenly cared what he had to say—the merchants and business owners and nobles, the people who ran Piltover, cared what he had to say. He had reveled in it. He had ridden that high for five years until he had gotten a seat on the council, and that, funny enough, is what finally made him come down from that high.

The glitz and the glamor and the authority of being a councilor had been almost exciting, at first, but it quickly wore off. Now he has to worry about things like which fancy gala was more important than the other fancy galas, and what suit he should wear. Sometimes he misses being that young, ambitious academy student with something to prove. Little asshole had no idea what was coming for him. 

He arrives at the gala with no plus-one, feeling the slightest bit pathetic because of it. He knows the other councilors are probably expecting Viktor to be with him; he might’ve even tried to ask him again if he hadn’t literally gone to the undercity to avoid him.

The hall where the gala is being held is a little bit smaller than usual, as it’s only the eight of them and their guests (and the waiters), but it’s no less extravagant. He wants to leave almost as soon as he arrives, all eyes on him for the few seconds after he walks in. He settles for reaching for the nearest glass of wine and hoping for the best. 

He finds Mel almost immediately, who greets him politely, with just a little more warmth in her tone than there is when she addresses anyone else. If she’s surprised by the lack of Viktor, she doesn’t mention it. He looks around the room desperately for Caitlyn, but doesn’t see her anywhere. Which does not bode well, because Councilor Kiramman is already here, which means that Cait should be here, too. Unless she, like Viktor, turned down the invitation. He’s amazed that her mother let her, but Cait has been testing the bounds of her autonomy lately, and so far seems to be winning. 

He sighs deeply, resigning himself to a long, unpleasant evening. He hopes the food will be good. 

He’s jerked out of his depressive spiral at the sound of footsteps from below his eyeline; he instinctually glances down.

“Jayce, my boy,” Heimerdinger greets in that familiar friendly tone. Jayce feels himself relax just a bit; for all the times he’s disagreed with him, the professor has still been one of his greatest supporters through all of this. He never would have even made it through his academy days without the yordle. 

“Professor Heimerdinger,” he answers, “It’s nice to see you.”

“You as well! I feel like I hardly do anymore, with you always cooped up in your lab. You boys have been making some great strides as of late,” the little professor says, voice proud and approving.

“Thank you, professor. But I honestly can’t take much credit—Viktor is the one making the breakthroughs, I’m just following his lead.”

Heimerdinger gives him an indulgent smile. “That boy is a bright one,” he says, nodding agreeably. “How is he doing? I honestly expected him to be here with you tonight.”

Jayce shrugs a shoulder, “He’s not a huge fan of parties like this,” he says honestly. “I did promise to steal some truffles for him, though.”

Heimerdinger laughs pleasantly. “He has a sweet tooth, eh? Well, if I do notice the bowl over there disappear, I won’t tell anyone,” the professor gives a conspiratorial little wink, and Jayce can’t help but grin.

“Thanks, professor,” he says, but Heimerdinger’s attention has already been stolen by someone else. Jayce doesn’t take it personally. 

He finishes off his glass of wine and reaches for another.

It’s halfway through dinner—and the food is good, as it should be—that the hextech laboratory is robbed. Or at least, that’s when Jayce finds out about it, an enforcer hesitantly interrupting their meal to announce it. 

Well, first it’s broken into, the walls are vandalized with oddly colorful spray paint, and then some of their confidential research is stolen. Jayce knows this because as soon as he hears the words lab and robbed in the same sentence, he’s already halfway out the door.

It’s a mess, he sees when he gets there. Windows broken, papers strewn across the ground, paint on the walls and the floor. The gem that had been left out on one of the tables is gone. So is the notebook that was in the drawer of that table. The notebook full of their equations, their most recent additions and theories. 

Gone. Fucking gone, because the lazy enforcers assigned as security can never do their fucking jobs. He hopes they all get fired for their negligence. 

They call an emergency council meeting, because of course they do. Jayce marches down to the council room, and it’s nearly midnight and Jayce is still in his fancy new suit and all of the councilors are all dressed up, too. It would be kind of funny, like they all decided to wear their most expensive clothing for some random meeting, but Jayce isn’t really in the mood to laugh about it.

He’s only half listening to the back and forth, despite the fact that it’s his fucking lab that was robbed. He wants to go see Viktor, he wants to tell him what happened, he wants reassurance that it’s going to be fine. Instead, he has to sit here and hope that his heart doesn’t beat up and out of his chest.

That is, until Hoskel brings up a fucking blockade again. The man might be obsessed, Jayce thinks absently, lifting his head to check back into the conversation.

“What good would a blockade do?” Shoola asks, “The thief probably crossed the bridge hours ago.”

Because of course they’ve all just assumed the thief must be someone from the undercity.

“We don’t know that it was someone from the undercity,” Jayce finally speaks up, thinking about Viktor, voice noticeably weaker than usual. He clears his throat. “Who’s to say it isn’t some competitor of mine, or something? We can’t just make assumptions.”

“Yes,” Salo says, “We can. Even if it was a topsider—though I doubt it—then a blockade would prevent them from escaping as well.”

“We should keep both sides of the city contained until we discover the culprit,” Bolbock agrees.

“We can’t go on lockdown for this,” Councilor Kiramman argues. “It wasn’t a terrorist attack, it was a robbery.”

“What was taken?” Mel finally speaks, looking worriedly at Jayce.

Jayce decides he might as well be honest. “Some of our confidential research. And one of our gemstone experiments, still in progress.”

Heimerdinger makes an alarmed noise, “Still in progress?” he repeats. “Is this gemstone unstable?”

A beat. “Yes,” Jayce admits, “Most likely. We’re still working on stabilizing them for widespread use.”

“So this thief now has access to potentially dangerous technology,” Mel says. Jayce nods.

“Still think we shouldn’t go on lockdown?” Salo asks Councilor Kiramman, who frowns, but doesn’t argue.

“If we blockade the bridge, nobody comes in or out of Piltover,” Hoskel says. “We send Marcus in to do his job, we find the thief.”

What a night, Jayce thinks, if Hoskel is acting like the voice of reason. Mel seems equally perturbed by this.

“If we set up a blockade with no warning,” she says, “people won’t be happy about it. We run the risk of protests, of riots. There’s no security in a city with civil unrest.”

“It wouldn’t be forever,” Shoola says hesitantly. “Just until we find out who did this.”

“And the gemstone,” Heimerdinger adds, and then looks at Jayce. “I would suggest putting a stop to any further experiments you have planned. This break-in should take top priority.”

Viktor will not be happy about that, Jayce knows. Viktor won’t be happy about any of this. But what can he do? 

Jayce feels the weight of seven pairs of eyes on him, and nods his acquiescence. “We’ll shut down our hextech operations for the time being. Including the hexgates.” Hostel makes an outraged noise, and Jayce raises an eyebrow at him. “If we’re locking down the bridge to keep the undercity contained, we should keep Piltover contained, too.”

The man doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t look happy about it. None of them do. Well, Jayce isn’t happy with any of this, so they’ll all just have to deal with it.

“All in favor of a blockade on the bridge, and the halting of any and all hextech operations?” Mel starts. 

The vote is, despite Jayce’s hesitation, unanimous.

He stops by V’s place to let him know what happened. Sky said he was planning to be back by the end of the day, and Jayce needs to see him. He needs to know that he’s alright and that he came back and that he isn’t mad—and if he is mad, that’s okay too because he’ll still be here. And they can work this out, they can work things out and Viktor will know what to do because he always knows what to do. 

He knocks on the door three times. There’s no answer. 

He knocks again, four times, with more force, a little louder. There’s no answer. Jayce’s heart sinks.

Maybe he’s in the bathroom or something, he reasons. Or the shower. Maybe he’s making dinner, so he has to turn the stove off or wash his hands before he answers the door; he knows Viktor hates it when his hands are dirty with anything that doesn’t involve their research. 

He waits, counting down the seconds. A minute passes. Two. Three. Viktor does not open the door.

“Shit,” Jayce breathes, anxiety immediately flooding his chest. “Shit.” 

Viktor’s not here, which means Viktor is probably still in the undercity, which means he might not make it back before the blockade goes up tomorrow. He has his visa, he reminds himself, ignoring the tiny, terrified part of him screaming that Viktor not coming back tonight might mean he’s not coming back at all. He tells that tiny part of himself to stop being paranoid—they’ve had worse fights before, and Viktor just needed some time to cool off before they talked it out and moved forward from it.

Viktor might’ve just gotten caught up in something. Maybe he is home, and just ignoring him. God, Jayce never thought he would want to be ignored by Viktor, but he hopes so badly that he is.

He knocks one more time, just to be absolutely sure. No answer. 

This is fine, because Viktor is his own person and can go wherever he wants, even if it’s potentially dangerous and even if he doesn’t tell Jayce about it. This is fine.

Viktor is fine, and he’ll be back soon, and Jayce just needs to calm the fuck down and breathe. He thinks about going to see Caitlyn, because she always seems to know how to get his head straight—but Cait is gone, too, and he doesn’t have the energy to go looking for her.

Fuck, all of Jayce’s friends up and disappearing. He doesn’t want to bother Mel with any more of his bullshit, she has enough on her plate right now. 

He inhales deeply. Holds for five seconds. Exhales. Goes the fuck back home.

Sleep is very hard to come by, but it does, eventually, come. He tosses and turns all night.

The blockade goes up the next morning, before anyone is awake enough to notice. The first thing Jayce wakes up to is news that there’s a clamoring protest on the bridge. By midday, it’s devolved into riots.

Not long after that, an enforcer comes to tell him that Viktor has been stopped at the blockade. That they were refusing to let him in, even though it’s very public knowledge that he has a visa and explicit permission to come and go as he pleases. Most key details about their whole “scandal” are public knowledge, thanks to the news cycle and rich people’s love of gossip. 

The enforcer who comes to tell him—it’s the same one who Caitlyn had to kick out of the car that first day, something starting with an F?—that they’ve “caught Viktor” at the blockade says it like it’s something they’re proud of. Like they’re doing Jayce a favor, letting him know that Viktor was somewhere he shouldn’t be. He straight up tells Jayce that they’re ignoring Viktor’s visa and refusing to grant him the rights that he’s been granted; as if they have the right to ignore Jayce’s—the council’s—explicit orders. The way he refuses to even say Viktor’s name, disdain dripping from the word partner, makes Jayce want to punch him. 

Still, he feels relief sweep through him like a wave at the same rate he feels his stomach drop in a strange kind of embarrassment. The way F-something addresses him, like it’s some kind of joke, Jayce’s partner being caught breaking a rule that Jayce, as part of the council, has put in place. Like he’s laughing at Jayce—because Viktor doesn’t listen to Jayce, and Jayce can’t control someone that they consider below him. It’s such a shitty way to think, and Jayce hates that it actually gets to him for a moment. 

Because it is embarrassing, isn’t it? That Jayce’s partner is one of the people from the undercity trying to break the council’s direct orders—because no matter how ridiculous or unjust the orders were, they were the council’s orders. 

Can’t keep your own whore in check, Marcus—fucking Marcus —dares to say, to his face, when he meets Jayce on the bus to the bridge. A joke and an insult all in one, and just loud enough that some of the other enforcers on the bus can hear. Jayce doesn’t have to look to see the derision in their eyes.

It’s disgusting, the way they have so little respect for Viktor, and don’t even respect Jayce enough to express that disrespect behind his back. As if Jayce isn’t one of their councilors, hasn’t improved all their lives with his work. Isn’t the “Man of Progress,” as everyone likes to treat him these days.

And Jayce hates that he cares, hates that he has to swallow down the shame that bubbles up uncontrollably in his chest. 

“Excuse me?” He snaps, an echo of that time in the car. This time, though, there’s no Viktor to say Jayce in that warning voice.

Marcus raises an eyebrow, like he has no idea why Jayce would take offense to that. 

“I’m aware that you don’t respect me,” Jayce says when Marcus says nothing, “I don’t particularly care. But I would be more careful about disrespecting my partner right in front of me.”

“You are aware that your partner attempted to break emergency law, aren’t you?“

“ You are aware that Viktor has a visa that allows him to cross the bridge whenever he wants.” It’s not a question. “Aren’t you.”

“A visa does not supersede the law.”

“This temporary blockade is not the law . The visa applies whenever the council decides it applies. You’re disobeying the council’s direct orders.” 

Marcus is silent for a moment, lips pressed together in a judgemental line. “We can’t afford to show favor to one person without inciting further violence. You should be grateful we came to get you at all.”

Jayce hears the blatant threat there: they could have held Viktor up as long as they wanted to, they could have done anything they wanted to, and Viktor would have no way of letting Jayce know where he was. His blood runs cold for a moment at the thought—he had been worried about something happening to Viktor in the undercity; he never thought he would have to worry about something happening to him up here, where the enforcers are supposed to protect their citizens.

Suddenly, Viktor’s outrage over Jayce suggesting they go to the enforcers with their Silco Problem all those months ago makes a lot more sense.

“You should be more careful about who you trust, Councilor Talis,” Marcus continues, taking Jayce’s silence as defeat, “You can take the man out of the undercity, but you can’t—“

“My personal affairs are none of your business,” he cuts in cooly, before he can finish the cliche line. The bus slows to a stop as it finally reaches the blockade; there’s smoke in the air, and he can hear the yelling before the doors even open. “Thank you for the escort, Sheriff.” 

“Of course,” Marcus says sourly, and Jayce doesn’t look back as he exits the bus. 

For a moment, the scene that greets him on the bridge is overwhelming. Smoke and shouting and the sound of state-sanctioned violence. The majority of fissure folk that he can see are wearing some sort of uniform—restaurant employees, janitors, the kinds of jobs that Jayce has never thought twice about. He remembers Viktor mentioning how easily it would be to put a halt to topside’s economy, just by no one showing up to work one day.

This blockade thing was a terrible idea, he thinks, for the millionth time. He doubts the other councilors considered even half of the repercussions Piltover will face from this. The ever-building knot of anxiety in his chest gets bigger with each passing moment. The enforcers greet him with nods of varying levels of respect. One of them points him to the left, tells him he can find his partner on one of the benches. 

Jayce thanks him, swallowing down the anxiety-shame-embarrassment. His eyes dart this way and that, searching for a mop of brown hair, until he finally spots him. All of it—the worry and the stress and the panic—washes away the moment he and Viktor lock eyes. All he can feel is an overwhelming relief at the familiar honey-gold, at seeing him safe and here. Fuck.

He’s halfway there before he even realizes he’s rushing towards the bench Viktor is seated on, cane lying sideways across his thighs. 

Viktor doesn’t rise to meet him, but that’s fine. Jayce doesn’t mind bending down to wrap him in a hug, the surprised noise Viktor makes muffled in the fabric of Jayce’s shirt. 

“Shit, V,” he says, far too dramatically, exhaling deeply into the soft curls. For a moment, it’s just the two of them, Viktor safe and present in his arms. He feels Viktor return the hug as best he can with his arms trapped between them. That’s what makes Jayce pull back, his hand finding the crook of Viktor’s shoulder on its own. 

Viktor cracks a small, bemused smile, looking up at Jayce fondly. “Hello, there,” he says softly, “About time you got here.”

There’s a crack of plastic against flesh, a sharp yelp, that jerks Jayce back into the present. 

“How long have you been waiting here?” Jayce asks.

“A few hours, I suppose. I don’t have a watch, so,” he shrugs under Jayce’s hand. Jayce pulls back, suddenly self-conscious about the eyes that are probably on the two of them. “My fancy visa was not much help.”

His tone is wry, sarcastic, and unsurprised. It makes Jayce flinch back, and he tries to look apologetic. “I’m sorry, V. I told them the blockade was a bad idea, but…”

“Ah,” Viktor says, nodding, “Of course this is the council’s work.”

“What happened?” Jayce asks, changing topics, “Sky said you’d be home by the end of the day yesterday.”

“I…” he glances at the enforcer standing closest to them, and then back at Jayce. “I ran into some friends and some…acquaintances, and lost track of time. So I had to run the tests this morning.”

Jayce may not be the best at picking up hints, but he knows Viktor enough to know which acquaintance he might be talking about. That it’s probably Silco. The pit of anxiety in his stomach is back. 

Silco is the reason Viktor had to stay the night down there. Maybe. Maybe he’s talking about, like, Ray or Yelena or that girl with the gun. Maybe acquaintance really just does mean acquaintance. But he knows that it’s probably Silco. 

He’s very aware that they’re being watched right now, by various enforcers and journalists—because of fucking course there are journalists here—and probably being listened to too. 

“Oh,” Jayce says, trying his best to sound natural, which is probably not a very good try. “I see. How did the tests go?”

Viktor quirks an amused eyebrow at him, and it’s so comfortingly familiar that he feels the last of his mixed emotions drain from him. Part of him might be upset, but mostly he’s just happy to see Viktor. He’s so happy that he came back. He was so fucking worried, but Viktor is fine and Viktor came back and that’s what matters right now. 

“Not too bad,” Viktor answers, voice flat, “They offered promising results. We’ll be able to tell how well it works in a few weeks.”

Jayce just nods, not voicing his thought that, depending on how things go in the near future, they might not be able to go back down and check in a few weeks. “Glad to hear it. Speaking of tests, there’re a few things in the lab I was hoping we could go over today.” As if the lab isn’t technically closed for investigation right now.

Viktor hums, taking Jayce’s offered hand to help him stand up. “Alright. Lead the way, councilor.”

Jayce can practically feel the disapproval dripping off the nearby enforcers; Jayce puts a protective hand on Viktor’s back as he leads him to the waiting bus. He can practically feel Viktor roll his eyes, too, but he lets Jayce lead him. He must be tired, Jayce thinks, because he doesn’t brush his hand away even as they reach the bus and are ushered up the steps. He still musters up a disdainful glance in Marcus’ direction, though—and Jayce knows how it feels to be on the other end of Viktor’s disdain. 

The ride back is basically silent. Viktor is worn out enough to lean into Jayce’s side, resting his head on Jayce’s shoulder. Jayce almost wishes he wouldn’t—wishes he had thought to call another car so they could have some privacy right now. He doesn’t want Viktor to be on the receiving end of any more judgment from these people—the way they look at him for showing fatigue, the same way they look at him for showing strength.

He glances warily in Marcus’ direction. The man meets his eyes briefly, gaze darting down to where Viktor is slumped, half asleep. Something in his eyes softens, the tiniest amount, and then hardens once again. Marcus looks away.

Good, Jayce thinks. Something about the sheriff puts him on edge in a way he doesn’t like one bit. 

The bus drops them off in front of the lab. Jayce could’ve asked them to take them straight to his place, but for some reason that seemed too personal. He’s sure Marcus must know where he lives, but still. 

As it stands, though, the lab is a little bit closed. Considering it is a crime scene. Viktor looks at all the people—mostly enforcers—going in and out of the place, and then back at Jayce.

“Did you blow something up again?” He asks.

Maybe Jayce should be offended that that’s his first guess, but it just makes him huff a laugh.

“No, not exactly. Hextech, including the lab, has kind of been…shut down, for the time being.”

“Pardon?”

“Because of the robbery, I thought it would—”

“The robbery?”  

“Oh, right,” he says. “Shit, I forgot to tell you—”

“You forgot,” Viktor repeats flatly, “To tell me that there was a robbery—where, exactly?”

Jayce pauses. He wishes they could’ve done this inside, instead of on the front steps. “Uh…the lab.”

“Our lab was robbed? And you didn’t think to mention this until right now?”

“I didn’t wanna make a scene on the bridge,” Jayce says. Viktor opens his mouth to say something else, but sighs instead, gathering himself. 

“What was stolen?”

“Do you wanna go back to my place?” Jayce asks, “We can talk about this more—privately.”

Viktor frowns like he wants to argue, but relents. “Fine.”

The walk there is blessedly quick; the shock seems to have woken Viktor up a little, and he mutters to himself under his breath as they go—words Jayce can’t understand, but most certainly aren’t pleasant. He hopes they aren’t about him.

“What was stolen?” Viktor asks as soon as the door shuts behind them.

Jayce clears his throat, bracing for impact. “A notebook, with some of our gem research. And, um. One of the gems.”

There’s a moment of silence, where Viktor seems to process this. Instead of snapping at him, Viktor goes oddly quiet. “Fuck,” he says softly, eyebrows creasing in worry. “Shit, Jayce.”

“I know,” Jayce says, sure his expression must mirror his partner’s.

“That’s bad. That’s— shit, Jayce, the gems aren’t ready, yet, they’re still—”

“I know.”

Viktor sits down hard in the living room chair that Jayce’s mom gave him when he first moved out of the dorms. 

“Do you know who did it?”

Jayce shakes his head. “Marcus is apparently investigating,” Vitkor scoffs, echoing Jayce’s sentiments exactly, “But who knows if that’ll lead anywhere.” 

“I doubt it,” Viktor says, rubbing his eyes, and releases a string of what Jayce assumes are curses in his native language.

“I know,” Jayce says again, stepping forward to put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”

Viktor offers a tired smile. “I know.”

A beat, where Jayce revels in the feeling of Viktor’s shoulder under his hand, bonier than it should be considering how well he’s been eating the past few months. 

“You look tired,” he says softly, “You want some coffee or something?”

“Sure,” Viktor says, equally soft. 

Jayce’s apartment isn’t huge—it’s bigger than his old Kiramman rooms and bigger than Viktor’s—mostly because he can’t be bothered to clean his shit up on a good day and lately he only comes home to sleep. Sometimes it bothers him, but right now he’s glad for it: he can keep Viktor in his sights while he sets the coffeemaker up. Part of him is afraid that if he looks away for too long, Viktor will disappear again. Which is stupid, and irrational, and he’s not a fucking baby so he should have a little more object permanence. 

The scent of coffee fills the apartment, and he sees Viktor take a deep breath, slumping back further in the chair. It makes Jayce smile. He opens the icebox to pull out the sweetmilk he keeps on hand, but the bottle is pretty much empty—or at least, there isn’t enough to satisfy Viktor’s taste for it. 

“Looks like you drank all my sweetmilk, V. Any creamer preference?” 

Viktor hums. “Do you still have that peppermint stuff?” 

He does. He makes sure to add one too many spoonfuls of sugar (for his taste) and watches the dark liquid get lighter and lighter with each stir of his spoon. 

Viktor takes the mug gratefully, immediately taking a sip despite how hot it still is. “Mmm,” he sighs, “thank you, Jayce.”

“It’s no problem,” Jayce says bashfully, sitting down on the couch across from him with his own mug—nothing too crazy, mostly black with a few sugars and some milk. 

He watches Viktor nurse his coffee for a few quiet minutes, cataloging the way he breathes in the steam and closes his eyes as if savoring it. Jayce feels that heavy swirl of anxiety that’s been gnawing in his chest for the past day and a half finally settle. Vitkor is here; he came back, because he said he would. 

His mind drifts back to their reunion on the bridge, and what he said, and then the anxiety is back. 

“Viktor?” He asks, hating himself for ruining the peaceful moment. 

“Hm?” Viktor’s eyes flutter open. 

Jayce takes a badly-timed sip. “Um. On the bridge, you mentioned running into an…acquaintance?”

Viktor’s expression drops the slightest amount, and he sighs. He takes a long sip of his coffee. 

“Yes,” he says, glancing out the living room window. “Believe me when I say I hoped to avoid him, but I, ah…I saw Silco.” 

Jayce knew it. Shit, he knew it. This is exactly why he didn’t want Viktor going to the undercity alone.

“Are you okay?” He asks, unable to keep the worry out of his voice. “What happened?”

Vitkor gives him a fond look. “I’m fine,” he says. “He just wanted to…talk, I suppose.” 

Somehow, Jayce doubts that. “Talk? About what?”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, “He wasn’t exactly pleased that I left—especially without telling him. He…asked me why I did it.”

Jayce leans forward in his seat despite himself, “What did you say?”

Viktor’s gaze finally leaves the window, flickering back to Jayce. He takes another sip. “What he wanted to hear.”

Jayce wants to ask what exactly that means, but he also doesn’t know if he actually wants to know what Silco wants to hear about him. He imagines the two of them in an office somewhere in the undercity, Silco sitting back in some big fancy chair listening to Viktor talk shit about him, laughing about it. Viktor has a lot to choose from in terms of shit-talking. Jayce has done a lot of shit. 

Something must show on his face, because Viktor gives him a bemused look. “Nothing terrible about you,” he says. “Though I will say, he is not your biggest fan.”

Jayce snorts, burying his embarrassment at being so obvious in his coffee. “That’s it, though? He didn’t, like, threaten you? Or hurt you, or—”

“No, Jayce,” Viktor graciously interrupts, “We truly just talked. I’ll admit it was…well, I was worried. But I’m fine. I ran the tests this morning, and the results really were promising.”

Jayce can’t help the warm spread of fondness in his chest. Of course they were; he’d expect nothing less from Viktor’s—and Sky’s—work. “That’s great, V.” Viktor gives a small smile, taking another sip of his coffee. “Why’d you, um, stay the night?” Jayce continues. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

The small smile drops into something nervous. Viktor shifts in his seat, fidgeting with the handle of his mug. “Ah. Well, before I spoke to Silco, I stopped by The Full Moon to see some of my friends there. And by the time Silco was through, it was late enough that I just decided to stay.”

That makes sense, Jayce thinks. Perfectly reasonable. 

“How’s your lab holding up?” he asks pleasantly, assuming that’s where he must have slept.

Viktor goes very still for a few moments, and Jayce wonders if maybe the lab is not holding up, and Silco and his guys trashed it or something and Jayce is just rubbing salt in his wounds. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Viktor beats him to it.

“Um,” he says, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. “Well, I…didn’t stay in my lab. I would have, but—well, it’s not a good idea to be in the lanes alone at night. So, Silco,” he pauses, searching Jayce’s face apprehensively, and clears his throat, “He insisted that I stay the night.”

Jayce blinks. He takes a moment to process the words. The moment passes, and they still don’t make sense. 

“Sorry, what?”

Viktor seems torn between laughing and apologizing. “Not with him,” he says quickly, “Just—he had a spare room, and let me leave in the morning. I didn’t—I mean, I tried to refuse, but. It was late. And I didn’t want anything to happen to the prototype…”

He trails off nervously. The genuine anxiety in his voice, the way he seems to curl in on himself, snaps Jayce out of whatever emotional spiral he was about to go down. He’s immediately flooded with guilt; he doesn’t want Viktor to be nervous to tell him things, especially things like this.

“I’m not mad at you,” he blurts, a little bit louder than was probably necessary. Viktor looks at him with wide, surprised eyes. “I mean, if you were worried. That I’d be upset. I’m not.” 

Viktor’s expression softens into something relieved and fond. “I wasn’t worried,” he says. “Well, maybe a little. You’re not known for your calm and logical reactions.”

Jayce flushes, but he can’t exactly argue with that. The whole Progress Day Debacle haunts him like a humiliating specter. 

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he says honestly. “He didn’t—try anything, did he?”

“No,” Viktor says, “He didn’t. I left as soon as I woke up. Set up the prototype, got stopped at your council’s stupid blockade.”

“And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here,” Viktor agrees. He sets his mug on the coffee table next to the chair, and leans forwards to place a hand over Jayce’s. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I really did plan to be back by last night.”

Any lingering doubts Jayce had about the situation melt away. He shoves his mug—now empty—on the table to put his other hand on top of Viktor’s.

“It’s okay, V. I’m just glad that you…” that you came back, he does not say. “That you’re okay.”

Viktor seems to hear it anyway, because he can always read Jayce like a book. Instead of teasing him about it, he tugs Jayce forwards and off of the couch until he’s kneeling in front of him. The taller one for once, Viktor cups Jayce’s jaw carefully, so carefully, and leans down to kiss him.

Jayce surges up to meet him, his own hands finding Viktor’s waist as if drawn there by a magnet. He feelsViktor smile against his lips, and can’t help but smile, too. He doesn’t know what he was so worried about; of course Viktor came back. Of course Viktor is still here. Their lab was robbed and that sucks, but they’ll figure it out. Jayce feels like he could do absolutely anything, as long as Viktor is here with him. 

“I’m okay,” Viktor says when he finally pulls back. “I’m fine. Fucking tired, but fine.”

Then, he turns away and starts coughing. Jayce is reasonably alarmed, especially when it goes on longer than it should, each couch racking his partner’s small frame. 

“You’re fine?” Jayce asks when the fit has died down, slightly hysterical. Viktor sits still, seeming to catch his breath.

He clears his throat. “I’m fine,” he repeats. “Just a cough.”

“How has it not gone away yet?” Jayce asks nervously, “It’s been months.”

“I have a shitty immune system,” he says dismissively. “Though, I understand if that ruined the moment. I wouldn’t much want to kiss someone after a display like that.”

Which was the last thing on Jayce’s mind—honestly, Jayce would probably kiss Viktor even if he had the most contagious disease on the planet, but that’s his own business. “I mean, I have a great immune system,” he says suggestively, “Not to brag.”

Viktor rolls his eyes, and it’s like the coughing fit never happened at all. “Of course you do. Now give me my cane.”

Jayce gives him his cane, straightening up and ignoring the way his knees protest the sudden movement. He’s not old enough for his knees to start aching.

“The lab is closed for now,” Jayce reminds him. 

“I know,” Viktor says. “I’m going to your room.”

“Oh,” Jayce says intelligently. 

“You can come with me, if you want. It is your room.”

“Right,” Jayce says, and comes with him, leaving their dirty mugs on the coffee table. He’ll get to them later. 

He drops back onto his annoyingly aching knees to help Viktor ease his shoes off—Viktor doesn’t even snark at him about it, just leans back on his hands and lets him do it. His ankle is small, bony and delicate in his big hand. Jayce presses a kiss to it, unable to stop himself.

“Jayce,” Viktor huffs a laugh. “Come up here.”

Jayce lets go of his ankle and rises to meet him in another kiss. Viktor wraps his arms around Jayce’s neck, opens his mouth, lets Jayce kiss him and kiss him and kiss him like he hasn’t seen him in years—meets his enthusiasm, scratches against the short hairs on the back of Jayce’s neck and kisses back.

The position isn’t very comfortable—Jayce basically crouched, half standing with one knee on the ground—so he stands up, shifting Viktor further up onto the mattress with careful hands on his waist. Viktor huffs a laugh against his mouth, moving his bad leg carefully, making space for Jayce to slot himself between his legs.

Exactly where he should be, he thinks, blood rushing to his dick so fast it almost leaves him dizzy. It should be embarrassing, but he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed anymore; they both know exactly the effect Viktor has on him, and there’s no use pretending otherwise. Viktor kisses him—or touches his hair, or gets on his knees, or any other number of things—and Jayce gets hard. That’s just the way things are. 

He leans down again, bringing a hand up to tilt Viktor’s head the way he wants it—the way he wants it, he thinks with sudden clarity. The conversation from the other night comes rushing back, hitting him like a train; what Viktor said about it always being about what Jayce wants, that they fuck because Jayce wants to, and not because Viktor wants to be fucked.

He pulls back like he’s been burned. Viktor blinks up at him, panting lightly, caught off guard.

“Do you want this?” Jayce blurts.

Viktor blinks up at him again. “Um. Considering I’m the one who asked you to come to bed with me…yes?”

“Are you sure?” he asks, even though that is a very good point. “Because I know you’re tired, so if you just wanna take a nap or something we can do that, too, you don’t have to feel obligated or anything…” 

“Do you want this?” Viktor asks, sounding a bit concerned.

“Yes,” he rushes to say, because he really does. “Of course. I just…I wanna make sure you want it, too.”

Viktor’s features soften with a warm affection that makes Jayce feel like he’s melting a little. “I do want it, Jayce. I missed you,” he actually flushes a little, as though admitting that he missed Jayce is somehow more embarrassing than the countless filthy shit they’ve done together over the years. “I’ll try harder to let you know if I don’t. Communication goes two ways, I know that. I should have been more upfront when it started to bother me.”

“I should have been more attentive,” Jayce counters. “I know I have trouble picking up on stuff like that, but I’ll try harder to listen, to-to pay attention. I don’t ever wanna hurt you, V, and I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything—especially not this. You’re your own person, you’re not…mine.”

Viktor’s face cycles through a complicated string of emotions, too quickly for Jayce to process. In the end, it doesn’t matter, because he smiles at Jayce—fond, a little exasperated. So soft that Jayce wants to take this moment and hide it under his pillow to save for later.

“Stupid piltie,” he says, voice thick, “Of course I am. I thought we’ve been over this.”

Jayce clears his throat, confused. “I don’t…”

Viktor rolls his eyes, the way he does in the lab sometimes, when Viktor has figured something out and is waiting for Jayce to catch up. “I’m yours. And you’re mine. We’re partners, right?”

“Yeah,” Jayce says, feeling oddly choked up; god, he hopes he doesn’t start fucking crying before he even gets the chance to take Viktor’s pants off. “Of course.” 

“Then does that not make us equals? I can be my own person, and I can be your partner. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Well, when Viktor says it like that, Jayce feels a little ridiculous for agonizing over it for so long. Viktor is the only person who can make him feel like this, ridiculous and stupid and so loved despite that. 

“Right,” Jayce says, strangely breathless. “That makes sense.”

Viktor smiles up at him, as though straining not to laugh. “Jayce,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me already. You have my full permission.”

Jayce kisses him. Viktor kisses him back, hooking his good leg around Jayce’s hip and pulling him down against him. His mouth is warm and needy, and when he pulls back to kiss his way down Viktor’s neck, his skin is warm, too. He smells like smoke—like the bombs people were throwing around in the riot on the bridge—and he smells like metal and chemicals and Viktor, and Jayce doesn’t even bother taking his shirt up, just pushes it up until he can reach Viktor’s chest. 

“D’you wanna take it off?” he asks, running a thumb along the length of his back brace.

Viktor shakes his head. “It’ll take too long,” he says. “I just—I want you to fuck me, Jayce, we don’t need to do the whole routine.”

Jayce scoffs, offended. “It’s not a routine, it’s foreplay . It’s, like, my favorite part.”

Viktor huffs a laugh, “Your favorite part is when you get to come. Usually inside of me.”

Jayce has to fight not to groan at the thought of filling Viktor up. He does love that part, too.

“I do love that part, too,” he admits, pressing a kiss right above one of Viktor’s nipples and grinning at the shiver it gets him. “But I love being between your legs, sweetheart, you always taste so good for me.”

Viktor flushes under the praise, pink high in his cheeks. It’s always so interesting, seeing what makes him flush and when. He can say the filthiest shit imaginable without breaking a sweat, but blushes like a virgin when Jayce says he likes eating him out. 

“You’re very good at it,” Viktor admits grudgingly, “But I’m—I don’t think I’m in the mood for that, right now.”

Jayce sobers quickly, dropping the banter. “That’s alright. We can do whatever you want.”

Viktor smiles, almost shyly, and it’s so fucking cute Jayce almost dies on the spot. 

“I already told you,” Viktor says, recovering quickly, “I want you to fuck me, Jayce.”

Jayce swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, okay. Are you wet enough?”

Viktor scoffs, “Of course I am. Kissing you always…” he trails off, clearing his throat. “You know.”

Jayce feels himself smile. It’s not often that he sees this side of Viktor; he doesn’t think he ever saw him flustered like this before that first run-in with Silco, when Jayce let his possessiveness get the better of him. That familiar bone deep want, protective-possessive-so so in love it hurts, rears its head. But Jaye won’t let it out today; it’s not the time, and it’s not the mood.

So instead of teasing or drawing it out, he sits up on his knees and pops the button of Viktor’s pants. He wastes no time peeling them and his undergarments off, sliding them carefully over Viktor’s bad leg and tossing them somewhere behind him. His own pants are a little harder to get off, and Viktor laughs at him as Jayce struggles. It makes Jayce laugh, too, and then they’re both giggling like idiots until Viktor tells Jayce to fucking get on with it already.

Sliding into Viktor feels like coming home. Genuinely, he means that. It’s familiar and warm and welcoming, and it always feels so good that Jayce wants to stay here forever. Viktor is small and alive and here , gasping underneath him and grabbing at Jayce and holding him so, so tightly, like he wants to be as close to him as possible. 

Jayce tries to give him that, helping him wrap both legs around him and fucking in as deep as he can, irnogring the way Viktor’s brace digs into Jayce’s skin. Viktor whimpers helplessly, whispering Jayce’s name over and over again like it’s the only thing he knows how to say. His brilliant mind reduced to broken sounds and stuttering gasps. It’s heady, making him sound like this, it’s fucking intoxicating; he’s the only one who can do this, because Viktor is his—he truly, genuinely is, it’s not just pathetic dirty talk in a brothel anymore. Viktor is his and Jayce is Viktor’s and they are each other’s and no one else’s.

Not any of Viktor’s countless clients, not any of Jayce’s crooning admirers, and not fucking Silco’s.

He’s wondered, before, how Silco fucks. Not because he’s like, interested in Silco; it was more of a protective-tinged curiosity about how he fucks Viktor. Fucked Viktor, past tense. 

Usually, he does his best to not think about it. Thinking about how someone other than him (any someone, but especially Silco) has seen Viktor the way Jayce has, has felt his warm mouth and his warm hole and knows how he looks when he orgasms—it makes his stomach twist in that bone-deep protective-possessive mix that he knows is irrational. He knows it’s irrational, and that it doesn’t matter. 

But Silco—fucking Silco. It’s the fact that Silco has known Viktor for as long as Jayce has, has been fucking Viktor for as long as Jayce has. Maybe even longer. 

He wonders if the guy’s good in bed, or if he tipped enough for Viktor to act like he was. Jayce bets he’s better than Silco by a long shot. He’s, like, younger, and probably nicer. Probably has more stamina. And Viktor is here, in his bed, not Silco’s, so. He definitely wins.

Which is such a stupid, childish thought to have. Viktor isn’t something to be won, obviously, and he’s here because he chose to be here. But it’s knowing that Viktor chose here, chose Jayce, that lets him put his petty worries aside. Mostly aside. 

He does not think of Silco now. He thinks only of Viktor, warm under him and warm around him and scratching at Jayce’s back like he wants to pay him back for all the hickeys Jayce has dreamt of—and, recently, has started to—mark him up with. 

He tips over the edge with Viktor’s name on his lips, burying himself in all the way to the hilt and spilling deep inside of him. Viktor makes a wrecked noise underneath him—another one, when Jayce reaches down between them to get a hand on Viktor’s dick, gentle and steady until he feels Viktor clench around him and then sink down into the sheets. 

“Oh,” he breathes, strung out and fucked out and gorgeous. “Oh, Jayce.”

There’s something in his tone—awe and affection and a note of something dreadfully sad —that makes Jayce lean down again, pressing small kisses to his lips and his cheeks and the tip of his nose until Viktor laughs and shoves him off. 

“Was that okay?” Jayce asks, feeling like the same virgin he was six years ago, looking for approval after his first real fuck. 

Viktor gives him a tired but real smile, eyes shining. “Yes, Jayce. That was more than okay.”

Jayce presses one last kiss to his damp temple, and then pushes himself out of bed to find a towel.

Unsurprisingly, Viktor all but passes out for the rest of the afternoon. He wakes up around dinnertime, and Jayce orders some takeout because his cooking ability includes, like, toast. He can make a mean omelet, if he doesn’t get distracted. And there’s no way he’s making Viktor make dinner for them in Jayce’s apartment. 

So they get takeout. Toss some theories back and forth—how to fix the last crack in their gem equation, how to approach Jayce’s big hextech projector project that got put on hold, whether or not Salo’s hair is real (Viktor is convinced it’s a wig)—until the sun has set again and both of them are tired enough to sleep again. 

Viktor decides to sleep over, probably because he’s too tired to make it back to his place, but also because Jayce offers. He even puts on the too-big shirt and sleep shorts that Jayce offers to share, and he looks so fucking adorable —adorable? Viktor scoffs when Jayce dares to say it out loud, we aren’t children, Jayce, I’m not adorable— that Jayce can’t help but kiss him again. Viktor makes a show of being put-upon, but he kisses back easily. 

Viktor props his cane up against the wall and slides under the blankets and presses up against Jayce, an arm thrown over Jayce’s chest, as easy as that. It’s like he’s always been here, like they’ve done this a million times. It’s so startlingly domestic and easy and it’s the happiest Jayce has felt in a long time.

Viktor falls asleep quickly, breath hot against Jayce’s neck. Jayce follows not soon after, his heart so full he thinks it might burst. 

Of course, their peaceful, undisturbed happiness does not stay undisturbed for long. 

The next morning, they stop by Viktor’s place so he can change and shower, and then decide to go to the lab—just because it’s closed to the public doesn’t mean it’s closed for them; it’s privately owned property, and Jayce and Viktor are the private owners. 

Oddly enough, Marcus is waiting for them at the front door. Or maybe not oddly—this is technically still a crime scene, but Jayce thinks that there’s been enough time between the robbery and now for them to have taken as many pictures and shit as they need to.

“Councilor Talis,” Marcus greets, ignoring Viktor completely save for a brief once-over. “I need to speak with you.”

Jayce frowns. “Right now?”

“I’m afraid it’s urgent. It’s about the robbery.”

“What about it?”

Marcus glances at Viktor once again, but there’s no doubt he’s speaking only to Jayce when he says, “I would recommend that we speak privately; it’s sensitive information.”

Jayce’s frown deepens. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of both of us.”

When Marcus doesn’t reply, Viktor scoffs. “I don’t have time for this,” he says dismissively, “Fill me in whenever you’re done. I’m going to see if my water purifier is still in one piece.”

He doesn’t even look at Marcus as he leaves, stepping around him like the sheriff is contagious. Jayce fights a smile at Marcus’ frown.

“Let’s step inside,” Marcus says once Viktor is gone, which is a bit ironic considering Viktor also just went inside.

They step inside, into the building’s long corridor but far enough away from the actual lab—whose door is closed—that there’s no chance of Viktor hearing. 

“What is it?” Jayce asks as soon as the building’s front door clicks shut. 

Marcus doesn’t look very pleased with being rushed, but Jayce imagines the man wants this to be over just as soon as Jayce does. The sheriff reaches into his back pocket and pulls out what appears to be a small, crudely made bomb.

“We found this just outside the lab yesterday,” he says, handing it to Jayce, who takes it carefully. “We found a similar device at the loading bay, after the Progress Day attack.”

Jayce looks at him sharply, interested despite himself. “You’re saying you think the same people were behind both crimes?”

“I’m saying I know the same people were behind both crimes,” Marcus says confidently, arrogantly. “We’ve been keeping tabs on these people for a while now, actually. They’re an undercity gang called the Firelights, they’ve been behind many coordinated attacks on both Piltover and the undercity. They’re violent, and highly dangerous.”

Jayce does not like the sound of that. He definitely does not like the sound of these people getting their hands on Jayce and Viktor’s research, and especially not their gemstone.

“Are you sure? Why would they take our research on top of the gem?”

Marcus gives him a judgmental look. “I think that’s fairly obvious. If they know how your technology works, they can replicate it.”

“We don’t make weapons,” Jayce says, “There’s nothing in that notebook about anything like that.”

“Before all of this,” Marcus gestures at the building around them, “I remember your hextech crystals blowing up half a building. I’m sure they can figure out how to use it as a weapon.”

Dread sinks like a stone in Jayce’s chest. He’s not wrong; the main issue they’ve been having with the gems is finding a way to completely stabilize them. The main issue Jayce has been worrying about is the fact that the gem that was stolen has not been completely stabilized.

He takes a steadying breath. “Thank you, Sheriff,” he makes himself say. “Would you mind if we took a look at this?”

“Go ahead,” Marcus says. “Let me know if you find anything useful.”

“Likewise,” Jayce says. He doesn’t wait for Marcus to leave, just turns on his heels and walks down the hallway to the lab.

Viktor glances over when he walks in. He’s standing in front of the most heavily vandalized wall, leaning heavily on his cane, as he looks at the colorful spray paint. 

“Eccentric robber,” he comments dryly, but quickly sobers when he sees whatever expression must be on Jayce’s face. “What’s wrong? What did the sheriff say?”

Jayce can’t even laugh at the fact that Viktor refuses to even use Marcus’ name. He walks over to his partner and holds out the bomb that Marcus gave him. Viktor takes it and looks over it carefully, a thoughtful expression on his face. He then glances at Jayce, eyebrow raised in a silent ask for clarification.

“Marcus gave it to me,” he explains, “They found it outside the lab; apparently it matches one that they found at the docks after the Progress Day attacks. He said they’re both evidence of some gang—the, the fire-something.”

“The Firelights?” Viktor says, sounding oddly shocked. Almost panicked.

“Yeah,” Jayce says slowly, “You’ve…heard of them?”

“Yes, they…yes, I know of them. I suppose he would call it a gang,” it’s said fondly enough that Jayce isn’t so sure that the he that Viktor’s referring to is Marcus, “but they’re not dangerous. They wouldn’t do this. The loading bay is one thing, but—”

“So they were behind the Progress Day attack?” Jayce interrupts, “I thought you didn’t know anything about that.”

“I didn’t,” Viktor says cooly, “I asked Silco about it, when he came to see me after. It was apparently a dispute over shimmer—

“Shimmer?” Silco’s drugs, he thinks, the shit he’s made his empire off of.

“The Firelight are opposed to Silco and his shimmer trade, they don’t work for him.”

Jayce processes this as quickly as he can. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asks, because he can’t help but feel strangely betrayed.

“There was no reason to,” Viktor says plainly. 

“I could’ve done something about it.”

“Done what? Your council would just send enforcers to go arrest children trying to defend their home.”

Jayce shakes his head—it always goes back to the enforcers with him—waving the matter off to return to the main one at hand. “How do you know they aren’t behind the lab robbery?”

“I just do. This isn’t their way of doing things.”

“You said they were kids. All this,” he gestures to the spray paint all over the walls, “seems kind of childish,”

“I know, but it was not the Firelights, it was—” he cuts himself off, looking away. Jayce zeros in on his hesitation, on the fact that he knows. Viktor knows who did this.

“It was who?” He asks, keeping his voice remarkably level. 

He can’t believe that Viktor would know the person who did this, who broke into their lab and stole their work, well enough to hesitate in telling him. He almost opens his mouth again to say the same awful thing that ruined Progress Day all those months ago— did you have something to do with this? He stops himself just in time. He knows that if he were to ask that question again, especially after their last argument, that would be it. He would ruin things again and that would be it.

He knows Viktor couldn’t have had anything to do with it. He knows Viktor and he trusts Viktor and he’s not going to shatter that trust again because he’s not sure it would be put back together again. 

So he does not ask that shitty, paranoid question. Viktor considers, for a long moment, seeming to pick his words carefully. 

Finally, he sighs. “Even if you get the crystal back,” he starts, “you’re not getting the thief. He won’t let you.”

Jayce knows, almost immediately, the he that Viktor is talking about. After all, when it comes to the undercity, there’s only one he that doesn’t need to be named for Jayce to know. Silco. Silco won’t let them get the thief, even if he gets the crystal back—Jayce remembers the day of Viktor’s move, the girl with the gun. They’d never catch her for it; Silco wouldn’t let them.

“That girl,” Jayce says. “With the braids, who threatened to blow up my house.” He racks his brain for the name. “Jinx, right?”

Viktor looks at him warily, and gives a single nod. 

“You said Silco wouldn’t let her get caught,” Jayce continues. “Why not? Who is she to him?”

“She’s his daughter,” Viktor says simply. 

“Daughter?” Jayce repeats, slightly hysterical. Silco does not seem like the kind of man with a daughter, especially not one he loves enough to be so protective over.

“Not by blood.” Viktor looks away, fiddling with the handle of his cane. “I don’t know the whole story. But I know he cares for her as if she was his own. She’s probably the one thing he would never give up.”

Why the fuck haven’t you told me this before? he almost asks again. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t want to accuse Viktor of anything. Still, though, why would Viktor keep this from him? It seems like pretty relevant information: knowing that the kingpin of the undercity has this single, undeniable soft spot. This single weakness. 

The Firelights, their Progress Day involvement, Jinx and her relationship with Silco—what else is Viktor not telling him? What other vital information does he know that he hasn’t felt worth mentioning? He knows it’s his paranoia talking—there are things that Jayce hasn’t told Viktor about, for one reason or another—so he does his best to swallow it down.

“How do you know it was her?” he asks instead.

“The bomb, for one,” Viktor says. “She’s fond of them; I can tell this is her handiwork. The spray paint, too.”

Now that Jayce thinks about it, he can definitely picture the girl he met, with her long braids and her painted nails and manic energy, leaving her colorful mark all over their lab. He can also picture all the chaos someone like her could cause with one of their gems.

She did threaten to blow up Jayce’s house if he fucked things up, and the lab is basically Jayce’s second home and he did kind of fuck things up, but not unsalvagably. He also doesn’t know how she could have heard about their argument because she was busy blowing up Jayce’s lab while Viktor was presumably talking to her father. 

Did Viktor let something slip about Jayce being at a gala that night? Did Silco know that the lab would be empty, that Jinx could get in and out and no one would be there to catch her (bar the enforcers on security, who always seem to be shit at it)?

No, he immediately thinks. Viktor isn’t stupid. He would know better than to give Silco that kind of information, even offhandedly. 

“So what do we do?” Jayce asks, looking at Viktor. Viktor worries his bottom lip between his teeth the way he does when he’s thinking hard.

“We cannot go to the enforcers,” he says. Which Jayce was expecting, so he just nods. 

“I know,” he says. “Believe me, I have learned my lesson about suggesting enforcers.”

Viktor gives him a strained smile that quickly fades. “If Jinx has the gem, that means Silco has it, too,” he says. “What research did she take, exactly?”

“Um, it was a notebook. Our latest, with a copy of the gem equations.” And thank every god he knows of that Viktor is in the habit of writing everything down in two places, just in case something were to happen to the first copy. “And your theory with the runes.”

“I don’t know if I would call it a theory,” Viktor argues, lifting the mood with his inappropriate-for-the-situation banter, “I haven’t actually started testing it yet.”

“But it holds merit,” Jayce says. “I never would have considered that hextech might be able to think like that.”

Viktor smiles again, still anxious, but a little more genuine. “There’s not much speculation in that notebook. It’s an underdeveloped, not-at-all tested idea. I don’t think she’ll get much out of it; I haven’t gotten much out of it.”

“So mostly gem stuff, then.” Jayce concludes. “Which makes sense, considering, y’know.”

“She stole a gem, yes,” Viktor finishes for him, “That’s kind of the whole problem. She could do enough damage with a stabilized gem, but this—it’s still volatile, it’s not ready for public use.”

Because public use is one of the main reasons they’ve been working so hard to stabilize the gems. So that there can be hextech in every home, everyone having access to the same life-changing technology and not just the ones who can afford to invest. Jayce knew that of course the gems would be distributed in the underground, too—it was one of Viktor’s top priorities—but this is not what he had in mind.

To be fair, it’s probably not what Viktor had in mind, either.

“If she knows you, why would she steal from you?” Jayce asks.

Viktor shrugs a shoulder absently, looking over the bomb again. “I assume she’d see it more as stealing from you . But it is disappointing—she could have just asked me.”

“You would’ve just—given her our research?” Jayce asks, disbelieving. 

“Of course not,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t let her even touch one until it was stabilized.” 

Implying he would let her touch one once they did stabilize it. Equal access for all, he reminds himself. Apparently including the daughter of the goddamn undercity kingpin.

“Viktor,” he starts. “I know you don’t want to go to the enforcers, and I’m not saying we should. But we can’t just…let Silco have an unstabilized gem. You’ve told me yourself that he’s a violent, ruthless man who hates topsiders.”

“Believe me, I’m fully aware of what he could do with it. But I don’t think topside is in any immediate danger.”

“Why not?”

“If Jinx has looked through our notes, then she knows that it isn’t stabilized—which means Silco knows that. He won’t risk using an unstable weapon, especially one that could potentially hurt him or Jinx if he tried it.”

Somehow, this does not inspire confidence. “So you think they’ll try to stabilize it.”

“I don’t know what they’ll try to do,” Viktor answers honestly. “I’ve always tried my best not to get involved in any of that…business. They were both aware of that, so they never spoke with me about those matters.”

“But they spoke to you about…other matters?”

“Not often. I helped fix one of Jinx’s guns, once. Occasionally, she would bring me materials she thought I could use, or sit in while I worked. That’s all.”

Jayce believes him, but he can’t help feeling like there’s something more Viktor isn’t telling him. He’s not sure how he feels about the idea of Viktor, gentle, funny, nonviolent Viktor, spending time with someone like Jinx—someone he knows isn’t afraid to resort to violence, who literally threatened to blow up a councilor’s house to said councilor's face.

“I can tell that you’re fond of her, V, but…”

“But what? What do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t know. We can’t just let her blow shit up with our gem, Viktor. Maybe I could ask Caitlyn to look into it,” (no matter that no one’s seen Cait in a few days and he has no idea where she is).

“And then what? I already told you that Silco won’t give her up.”

“Maybe we could use her to get Silco to—”

“We cannot kidnap her, Jayce. I don’t even think you could catch her.”

“It wouldn’t be kidnapping.”

“Without an arrest, it would be. And we are not going to the enforcers, so you can’t arrest her. Marcus is in with Silco, anyways, so the enforcers wouldn’t help either way.”

“Marcus is what? Since when?”

“Since—since forever? I thought you knew, how could you not know that?”

“Whatever, that’s not—I’m just—Silco is ruthless. Do you think that he wouldn’t use you to get to me? Or me to get to you? You always talk about how us pilties up here don’t know shit about what’s going on down there. Well, I’m trying to. I know we can’t beat him unless we play the same game.”

“This is not a game , Jayce,” Viktor says. “This is peoples’ lives. Jinx is—she’s exceptionally bright, she has so much potential, Jayce. She’s just been nurtured by a man who allows her— encourages her—to resort to violence whenever she wants. But she’s not evil . She’s done shitty things, but I won’t punish her for Silco’s crimes.”

Jayce is silent for a moment, processing. Thinking. It would be a bit hypocritical to resort to the same kind of crime and violence that Silco uses. But it would also be the smart move. Mel would probably support it, but—hextech was not built to be used as a weapon, and he doesn’t really want to have kidnapping someone’s daughter on his conscience. 

He sighs. “You know her,” he says eventually. “Right? She trusts you?”

Viktor shifts uncomfortably, “Well enough, I suppose.”

“And Silco trusts you, at least enough to believe all the information you supposedly got from me. Enough to let you sleep at his—what, his house?”

“I suppose,” he repeats.

“He wants you to work with him, right? Maybe you could…” he trails off, for some reason unwilling or unable to put it into words. Viktor knows what he’s thinking, because he always does.

He looks incredibly sad. Disappointed, maybe. Upset, the way he was during their last argument—and fuck, why are they always fighting? Is this a fight? He doesn’t think so—it’s a discussion, it’s a brainstorming session, but it’s not a fight. Jayce doesn’t want it to be, he won’t make it one.

Finally, Viktor inhales shakily, exhales. “Do not ask me that, Jayce. Do not ask me to do that.”

Part of him saw this answer coming. He saw it coming, because Viktor is not a spy, he’s a scientist, but it still stings for some reason?

“Why are you protecting Silco?” he asks without thinking.

Irritation flashes across Viktor’s face. “I’m not protecting Silco, I don’t care about—” he cuts himself off, “I’m protecting the people who would get caught up in it all. Silco does not care about the people of the undercity, he does not care if they get hurt—neither do the people up here. Nobody cares.”

“I care,” Jayce insists, “You care. We wouldn’t be doing this to hurt people, V, it’s to protect them.”

“They would not be protected . Do you think Silco lives alone in some lair? That he doesn’t have people to shield him, willing or not? The undercity is not big, people are packed together, living on top of each other. If I tip you off and you and whoever else you think would help you come charging in, other people will get hurt, other people will die. I will not be the reason more Zaunites die. I will not.”

There is a long beat of silence. Jayce, for a moment, wants to insist—Viktor is the only one who can put a stop to this in the most straightforward way possible; if Silco doesn’t care about the undercity then shouldn’t Viktor want to help get rid of him? But Viktor’s tone is final, and his mouth is a flat, defiant line. Jayce can’t ask him to go against his principles, would never force him to. 

He exhales, all the wind leaving his sails. “Okay,” he says, “I understand. I’m sorry.”

Silence, no sound but the whir of the radiator and the wind against the window panes.

“I’m sorry, too,” Viktor says. “I wish I had a different solution, but I don’t…I don’t know what to do, Jayce. I’m sorry.”

His voice wobbles near the end, almost imperceptibly. Jayce steps forwards immediately, putting a hand on Viktor’s shoulder, the other against his neck.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m not mad at you, I’m just—scared. I’ve never dealt with something like this before, I’m not trying to take it out on you.”

“I know,” Viktor says, voice small, “You didn’t. This is…it’s a shitty situation.”

Jayce huffs a weak laugh, eliciting one of Viktor’s small, wry smiles.

“I’m not cut out for this shit,” Jayce admits, “I’m not a politician or a fucking—battle strategist—”

“ Battle strategist?” Viktor repeats, amused.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“I know,” Viktor says. “I’m not saying we should do nothing. Silco is dangerous, and so is Jinx, and I don’t want the undercity to suffer under technology that I helped create. We just have to be…careful, right now.”

Jayce takes a deep, calming breath, trying to steady himself. Viktor puts his free hand on Jayce’s chest and breathes in slowly, breathes out slowly. Jayce copies him, chest expanding and deflating under his partner’s long fingers, until he feels calm enough to think again.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m great at being careful.”

Viktor actually laughs at him, the asshole. “No, you’re not. Luckily for both of us, being careful was basically part of my former job description.” 

Jayce can’t really argue with that. Instead, he wraps an arm around Viktor’s shoulder and slowly pulls him in for a hug. Viktor lets him, resting his forehead against Jayce’s collarbone and wrapping his free hand around him, coming to rest on his back.

“Oh,” Viktor says after a minute or two. “There’s something else I should probably tell you.”

Jayce pulls back enough to make eye contact. “Um. What is it?”

“Caitlyn’s in the undercity. She used your name to get a Zaunite out of prison.”

“Oh,” Jayce says blankly, “Why?”

“To help with her Silco investigation, I think. I ran into them when I was down there.”

“Huh.” Jayce says. “Well, I guess that explains where she’s been the past few days.”

“Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier; she asked me not to, and I said that if she wasn’t back soon, I would have to say something. I think this whole robbery thing kind of takes priority over my promise, though.”

“That’s fair.” Jayce considers this new information. Caitlyn is in the undercity, potentially with vital Silco-or-Jinx related information, but he has no fucking idea how to reach her at all. “Shit,” he says, “I knew I should have pursued my portable hexgate idea.”

Viktor laughs into the fabric of Jayce’s shirt. 

The next day, they’re back in the lab. Not testing anything, really, because Heimerdinger has been keeping tabs on lab activity to make sure Jayce was serious about shutting shit down, but mostly because they both feel secure here. Or at least Jayce does; he hopes that Viktor feels safe here, too. Even if it’s hard to feel safe after they were robbed so easily. Maybe they should invest in a better security system.

“Maybe we should invest in a better security system,” Jayce says.

Viktor raises an eyebrow, glancing over from where he’s sitting in his chair, rifling through some notes. “We could just make a better security system.”

“Hextech security? Hex-urity?”

Viktor barks a laugh. “I don’t know if everything needs to run on hextech, Jayce. But maybe…”

He trails off, eyebrows furrowed in contemplation. They spend the next thirty minutes tossing ideas for possible security system improvements back and forth. Viktor gets up to make some more coffee, offering to make Jayce a mug, too.

“As long as you don’t add too much sugar,” Jayce says.

Viktor waves him off, fiddling with the coffeemaker. Everything is fine, until Viktor doubles over and starts coughing. Again. 

Again, because he’s been doing that more and more lately. Jayce holds his breath and waits for it to pass. 

Only, it does not pass. The mug Viktor was holding loosely in his hand shatters on the floor, and Viktor nearly loses his grip on his cane, he’s shaking so bad. Jayce is there immediately, panic flooding his chest.

“Viktor,” he says frantically, unable to stop the panic from seeping into his voice. Viktor, for once, takes the offered help, grabbing at Jayce’s arm to steady himself. He coughs, and coughs, and blood splatters onto the floor, bright red against the tile and the shattered shards of porcelain. Ice fills Jayce’s veins; cold, stark fear. 

The fit seems to go on forever, until finally, finally, Viktor’s breaths start to even out—wet, rattling in his chest. He reaches clumsily into his pocket, pulls out a handkerchief and rubs at his mouth. It comes away red. 

Jayce, wordlessly, leads him to the couch on the far side of the lab. Viktor, wordlessly, lets him. He lets out a whoosh of breath as he sits down. Jayce falls to his knees in front of him, so that he can look up at his face, so that he can see it clearly. 

Viktor’s skin is ashen, his cheekbones sharp. There’s blood on his mouth, in his mouth, dripping down his chin and onto the collar of his shirt. Light blue, long sleeved, over a white button-up. His jacket is draped over the back of his chair. It’s been getting colder outside, so Jayce never questioned all the layers Viktor’s been putting on in the morning. 

He looks exhausted. He looks—he looks—Jayce is afraid to put it into words. He can’t. He can’t.

“Viktor,” Jayce says, so softly, so scared. Viktor looks absolutely shattered at the sound, blood still smeared on his chin.. “Viktor, what…?”

Viktor seems to struggle to speak, one hand gripping at the fabric of his pants. Jayce takes the opportunity to take the handkerchief from his loose grip and wipe away the blood still staining his lips, his chin, dark, dark red. His hand won’t stop shaking.

Viktor stares at him with wide, scared eyes. Stricken. He looks wary, and terrified in a way Jayce has never seen. 

“I’m…” Viktor starts, his accent thick, his voice rough, words catching in his aching throat. He looks away, as if he can’t bear to see Jacye, to see the terror that must show on his face. “I’m sick, Jayce.”

“I mean, yeah,” Jayce says, unsteady. “I’ve noticed you coughing, but never anything like…the doctor said…”

Viktor had told him that the doctor said they didn’t need to take any medical action, that the cough would clear up on its own. Jayce hadn’t thought to talk to the doctor himself, accepting Viktor’s words easily. 

“The doctor said she wasn’t familiar with my…problem,” Viktor says carefully, “So she could not treat it. I didn’t want you to find out this way. I’m sorry.”

Silence. Jayce reels, struck with the fact that Viktor lied to him, kept this from him. Struck with the fact that Viktor is sick—a serious kind of sick—and cannot be helped. 

“No,” he says, “no, we-we need a second opinion. There’s got to be something they can do.”

“The doctors up here don’t treat undercity patients,” he sounds exhausted, as though he’s had this conversation many times, “My illness is a common one in the fissures, but the doctors down there don’t have access to the right resources.”

Common illness. Implying there are other illnesses specific to the undercity that aren’t as common, that may be worse than—than whatever this is, whatever other symptoms he might be hiding, too. Common, but unable to be treated by the people who should be able to treat it. 

“Then we bring the right resources to the right doctors.”

“I…” Viktor trails off, uncertain. “There may be one I know who could try, but…I don’t know if that’s wise.”

“Then we find someone else.”

Viktor looks at him with a profound kind of sadness, and a fond slant to his eyebrows. He doesn’t believe that they’ll succeed, Jayce thinks. Viktor doesn’t believe that Jayce can help him. Or at least doesn’t think anything they try will work. Like he’s resigned himself to whatever is coming. Bracing for impact. 

“Jayce,” he says, the same twist of awe and affection and something dreadfully sad that was in his voice the last time he was in Jacye’s bed.

“Viktor,” Jayce says, and then doesn’t know how to continue. Viktor, I don’t want you to die, you can’t die; Viktor, I will do anything and everything I can to make sure you won’t; Viktor, I love you, and I have for so long that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop. Viktor, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me sooner, why didn’t you let me try to help?

For once, he doesn’t know if Viktor heard it all anyway, like he always seems to do. 

“V, we need to get you to the hospital.”

“Jayce,” Viktor sighs, shaking his head, “I don’t need—“

“Viktor,” Jayce interrupts. “Please.” 

Viktor sits very still, looking at Jayce like he’s afraid one wrong move will break both of them. For the first time in a long time, Jayce cannot read his eyes. 

“Okay,” he finally says, dropping his gaze. “I don’t think I can walk right now.”

“That’s okay,” Jayce says, his voice stronger than he feels. His body feels far away, like he’s stuck in some daze, some nightmare that he can't wake up from. “I can carry you.” 

Viktor doesn’t seem very pleased at the suggestion, but agrees to it anyway. Viktor is too fucking light when he picks him up, careful as he can. Viktor is too light in his arms, because Viktor is sick and cannot be helped. 

He will be helped, he reminds himself, focusing on the feeling of Viktor’s long fingers curled into Jayce’s shirt for support. He will be helped, because Jayce will help him, and if he can’t, then he’ll find someone else who can.

Jayce doesn’t loosen his grip the entire way there. Viktor doesn’t say a word. 

Chapter Text

The hospital room they give him is very nice—or at least, he assumes it is. Jayce had demanded the best care, and the staff had rushed to accommodate, no matter the fact that Viktor isn’t planning to stay here very long. No matter what Jayce says or wants, Viktor is not going to spend the rest of his life in a hospital bed.

Despite the sterile feel about the place, the clean floors and smell of antiseptic, the bed is decently comfortable. The sheets are freshly washed, and the pillowcase smells faintly of soft detergent. The IV drip in his wrist only bothers him if he thinks about it; he can barely tell it’s there at all.

Overall, it’s certainly the fanciest hospital room he’s ever been in. Not that he’s been in many hospital rooms. When his mother got sick, there were trips to the small house of the only doctor in town; he was a nice old man with an accent even thicker than his mother’s, who liked to go on about the “old country” as though recounting a vivid dream. He hadn’t been able to do much, because he didn’t have the kind of equipment or medicine for it. But he had been kind about it, as kind as a person can be about that sort of thing.

His mother hadn’t gotten a fancy hospital room. She hadn’t gotten a comfortable bed with freshly washed sheets. She had only gotten her own bed in their little house, the bed she used to share with Viktor’s father before he had passed. By the time she had gotten seriously sick, it had only been the two of them—her and Viktor. She was too sick to work, so it was just his income from the factory that they had, which wasn’t much of anything at all.

Watching her die had been an achingly slow, heart wrenching process. He was old enough that he’d seen death before, but young enough that it had never been too up close. Never like this, with someone he loved. He had done his best, tried to make sure she was as comfortable as she could be, especially near the end. It was not enough, but he did try. He really did try.

He hasn’t thought about his mother in a long time, at least not to this degree. The pain of watching her die had soothed over time, but never gone away. As soon as it had become clear that the cough he had was not going away, though, she had been on his mind more and more.

So he sits in his comfortable bed in his fancy hospital room and thinks about his mother. He thinks about Jayce, and about Jayce having to go through what Viktor had. Jayce watching him die, Jayce sitting and watching and waiting for it. 

He doesn’t want that. Not for Jayce and not for him. If he’s going to die, he won’t die in a fancy piltie hospital bed. He refuses to.

The doctors do some tests—the same ones they did the last time he was here—and come back with the same results. The same “problems.” They seem much more nervous about telling Councilor Jayce Talis that they just don’t know how to treat something like this than they did telling him, but Jayce does cut a much more intimidating figure, even though his hands have been trembling on and off for the past few hours. 

“What do you mean you can’t treat it?” Jayce says, voice low and remarkably level. “Is it an issue of operation? Do you not have the right, I don’t know, equipment? Or are you telling me you don’t know how to do your fucking jobs?”

Viktor doesn’t bother biting out a Jayce this time, or trying to calm him down. He’s had the same thoughts, more or less. Jayce is just actually saying them out loud.

The doctor who had come with the news—a different one than the kind woman who had spoken with Viktor last time he was here—looks like he wants to go jump out the window. Viktor is surprised he hasn’t shaken himself apart, he looks so nervous.

“It’s not a question of, um, equipment,” he says, stuttering over his words under the force of Jayce’s glare. “It’s just—we don’t have experience with this particular…illness. We can’t treat it if we don’t know anything about it.”

“Do you people not do research here?”

“Of course we do, sir, what—?”

“Really? Viktor came here with these symptoms months ago—you took your tests months ago, and you’ve done nothing with that information? I thought this hospital was known for its medical innovation.”

Jayce draws the words out like he’s mocking him—mocking the whole hospital. Which might not be the best move, if he’s expecting any actual help from them.

The doctor squirms under the accusation. “With all due respect, sir, we have limited resources at our disposal. We can’t put other projects on hold for…” he trails off, seemingly catching himself.

“For what?” Jayce asks, not giving him the out.

The doctor clears his throat. “For one person. Of course we could reach out to other cities and see if there’s some…experimental treatments we could try—”

“Okay,” Jayce says, “Then why the hell haven’t you done that?”

The doctor looks supremely uncomfortable, glancing quickly at Viktor as though looking for help; Viktor does not give him any. The doctor looks at the window, and then back at Jayce.

“I don’t know, sir,” he says, voice small. “I wasn’t the one assigned to Mister…Viktor’s case the last time he was here, so I couldn’t say.”

Jayce does not seem pleased with that answer. Neither is Viktor, to be honest. He hadn’t expected the piltie doctors to be able to help him, not really, but he hadn’t been offered any alternatives or “experimental treatment” when he had come by himself. Of course he hadn’t, he thinks bitterly. Of fucking course he hadn’t.

“Alright,” Jayce says, seeming to have calmed down a bit. “Then I’d like to speak with your superior. I want to discuss reaching out to other hospitals, and any and all possible treatment plans.”

The doctor seems thrilled to not have to be the one to talk to Jayce anymore, and leaves as quickly as he can, promising to get someone “more qualified” for Jayce to speak with. For Jayce to speak with, not Jayce and Viktor. This grates on Viktor more than it usually would; he doesn’t care about these people’s opinions of him, has gotten used to the brusque treatment, but right now it pisses him off. He’s the one sick, he’s the one dying; he should be the one the More Qualified Person speaks to.

As soon as the door swings shut behind him, Jayce deflates, taking a few steps and dropping into the chair next to Viktor’s bed—the place where he’s been for the past four or so hours, after the humiliating trip from the lab to the hospital.

“God,” Jayce says, rubbing at his eyes. ‘“Fucking doctors. This is why I didn’t go into biology.”

Despite it all, the simmering frustration in Viktor’s chest and the ever-present dread he’s been feeling for the past—he doesn’t know, days? weeks? months?—it makes Viktor snort.

“I don't think all doctors are biologists, Jayce.”

The sheer relief on Jayce’s face, put there by the simple act of Viktor making fun of him, is almost overwhelming to look at. “I think you have to study biology before you can get into med school, though, don’t you?”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to med school.” As though medical school is just a place Viktor could go—as though they would ever even let him in. And now he’s frustrated again.

Luckily, he’s saved from having to make further strained banter by the door swinging open—not another doctor, thank Janna, but Sky. She’s panting, out of breath, and some of her hair has come down from the usual tight bun she wears in the lab.

“Viktor,” she says, ignoring Jayce completely. The door shuts behind her. “What the fuck.”

It actually makes Viktor laugh—which burns his throat, and it quickly turns to a brief bout of coughing, but it’s also oddly relieving. With the heavy air that’s been hanging over this room since they got here, he almost thought he would never laugh again.

“Don’t laugh,” Sky says, visibly straining not to crack a smile through her anger. “Seriously, Vik, what the fuck.”

Once Viktor has caught his breath enough to answer, he sighs, leaning back against the pillow. “What?”

Sky blinks at him incredulously. “What d’you mean what?” she snaps, “Why didn’t you say something about—” she gestures at the room, at the bed, at Viktor. “I have to hear that you’re in the hospital from fucking Richard the asshole lab assistant. Why would you…”

She makes a frustrated noise, too angry to even finish her sentence. Viktor feels himself shrink back against the bed despite himself; it’s hard to make Sky genuinely angry, but she’s fucking scary when she is.

“Sky,” Jayce finally says, putting a placating hand up.

“Shut up, Talis,” she says, shocking Jayce into silence. Viktor would laugh about it if he wasn’t afraid for his life. “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Viktor.”

Which would be a welcome change, if, again, Viktor wasn’t afraid for his life.

“Jayce,” Viktor says, seeing Jayce’s head swivel in his direction from the corner of his eye. “Could you go…I don’t know, get me a drink or something? They have coffee here, yes?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Jayce says hesitantly. “I don’t know if—”

“Please,” Viktor interrupts, “Please, could you go get me some coffee. I need to talk to Sky for a moment.”

If Jayce is offended that Viktor doesn’t want him in the room for this, he doesn’t show it. Just rises to his feet, presses a quick kiss to Viktor’s forehead and leaves the room with a promise to be back soon.

Once the door has shut again, Sky takes the three steps between her and the chair Jayce was using, and sits down angrily. There’s a moment where the two of them just stare at each other; Viktor is too tired to fight, and he doesn’t want to fight with Sky. After a long beat, Sky sighs, all the tension draining from her shoulders.

“Shit, Viktor,” she says, all the fire gone from her voice. “How long have you…”

Viktor shrugs, swallowing down the sudden lump in the back of his throat. “I don’t know. I’ve had…suspicions for a while, I suppose. I was mostly just pretending that nothing was wrong.”

Sky looks incredibly sad, eyebrows drooping. “That stupid cough,” she says quietly, realization dawning in her voice; he has to glance away, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”

He glances back at her, at the self-reprimanding look on her face. He’s surrounded by martyrs and drama queens, he thinks wryly. 

“You didn’t notice because I didn’t want you to,” he says, making sure to look her in the eye. “It’s not your fault I spent almost three decades inhaling chemicals with my shitty lungs.”

Sky manages a weak smile, but he knows it’s mostly just for his sake. A spike of anxiety at the thought—he doesn’t want people to start tiptoeing around him because of this. He doesn’t want to be treated differently, the way people started to speak to or about his mother; the hush in their voices, like they were trying not to step on glass.

“I just feel like we could’ve been doing something,” she says, “We could’ve been…I don’t know, something.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says, and he does mean it. “I just couldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Not even Jayce?” she says softly, too softly.

“Especially not Jayce, are you kidding? He…” Viktor sighs. “I don’t want him to…to worry, to put his life on hold for this.” 

Sky looks at him like he’s gone insane. “Vik. Jayce loves you. Of course he’s gonna worry— I’m worried.”

She takes his hand in both of hers, squeezes tightly. It makes Viktor want to cry, the empathy in her voice. The fear. She’s scared, he knows, for the same reasons he’s scared. She’s seen this before, and she knows exactly how it’s gonna go. 

He doesn’t know if he could have gotten through the years after his mother died without Sky and her family. She was there for the worst of it. He’d had to ask them for help with his mother’s body, because there was no way he could do it by himself. 

“I know,” he says, and clears his throat. “He wants to talk to the, ah, the head doctor? To try and find some sort of ‘experimental treatment.’”

Sky perks up. “That’s good, right?” She asks hesitantly. 

“I don’t know,” Viktor says honestly. “Maybe. But maybe not. I don’t want him to get his hopes up.”

And Viktor doesn’t want to get his hopes up. He has known for a long time that he probably wouldn’t live to see fifty, or even forty. He’s not made to grow old and gray; he is made to burn brightly and then fizzle out. He’s come to terms with this, theoretically. Kind of. In his mind, it was always a far off thing that he’d deal with eventually. “Deal with,” as though he could invent his way around it. Maybe he can. But maybe he can’t. 

“We might as well try it out.” Sky says, always the optimist. He really does owe her so much. “We’re not just gonna sit here and let you die, are we?“ 

“Of course not,” Viktor scoffs dramatically, just so Sky will stop looking so sad. “I’m certainly not staying in this place longer than I have to. We have work to do.”

Sky huffs a weak laugh, seeming relieved that Viktor isn’t going to roll over and die. As if that was ever something he would do. 

“Actually,” she says, “I was looking at some of your notes the other day, about your hextech-can-think theory. And about the runes.”

Vitkor perks up, immediately interested. “What about them?”

“Well, I figured with all other hextech operations on lockdown for now, why not start looking into it more? We don’t need to put the runes around a gemstone, right? We could use one of the original crystals.”

“I don’t see why not,” Viktor says thoughtfully. “It’ll probably start off as testing a lot of random sequences”

“Of course it will,” Sky says, sighing overdramatically. “But it’ll be a start.” 

Jayce comes back a few minutes later, with Viktor’s coffee and a woman Viktor assumes is the previous doctor’s superior. She sits down and talks them through a few of their options—because apparently, there are options. 

There are research medical centers in neighboring city states that they can reach out to about chemical-caused illnesses, especially ones centered in the lungs. They’ll probably need to go take samples of the sump air, which they won’t be able to do until the blockade on the bridge is taken down. For now, the most they can do is prescribe some medication for the pain, and possibly some light antibiotics to fight what they assume to be infection in his lungs. 

It’s more than Viktor was offered the last time he was here. It’s more than he had hoped for at all.

Jayce seems almost too hopeful, the kind of hopeful that means he will eventually and inevitably be disappointed. Viktor feels the small swell of it, too—of hope, that things will actually be okay. That his lung won’t give out within the next few years. 

If anyone outside of Piltover has data on this kind of illness. If the blockade is lifted soon enough to get the samples. If the medication works. It’s a lot of ifs, but Viktor has built his life on risks like this. 

When the three other people in the room turn to look at him for his opinion, his acceptance, he swallows. The doctor seems competent enough; she has a no-nonsense air about her, and presents the information clinically without being cold. 

“Alright,” he says slowly. “If that’s the best course of action, then…sure.”

Jayce takes his hand in one of his own and squeezes, a relieved smile on his face. Viktor tries not to get too caught up in it, but he can’t help it. Something is being done; even if it doesn’t work in the end, something is being done. 

The doctor recommends that he stay here overnight for monitoring, but that he’ll be free to go in the morning. Viktor almost disagrees on principle alone—he’s had enough of people demanding he sleep in places he doesn’t want to sleep with the promise of leaving tomorrow—but he knows he won’t win against Jayce’s big, puppy-dog eyes.

He supposes he can stay, just for the night. His mother would disapprove if she knew he rejected the help that she never got. 

He sinks back into the pillows, letting his eyes flutter shut as Jayce and Sky discuss Viktor’s rune theory, and how they could start incorporating hextech for medical use, once it gets back up and running. 

Shockingly, he feels calm, secure in a way he hasn’t in a long time. He doesn’t know how long this feeling will last, but for now, he decides to simply feel it.

Viktor, despite Jayce’s protests, is back at the lab the next day.

Despite the severity of the whole “stolen gem in Silco’s possession” situation, there isn’t much the two of them—three, including Sky, and four or five if you count the revolving door of other lab assistants—can really do about it. Viktor refuses to allow Jayce to tip the enforcers off about who has the gem, and the two of them couldn’t cross the blockade on the bridge without attracting attention. There are other ways to get into the undercity of course, but his leg kind of makes all the running and jumping involved a little difficult. 

So things return to a strained kind of normal. Hextech operations are still shut down for the time being, so they turn their attention to the rune theory. They have it set up by the end of the day—a crystal surrounded by an adaptive rune matrix that Viktor has been designing in his down time. The next steps, as is usually the case for the beginning of a project, are a lot of random testing, and keeping track of all the sequences that are tested.

Viktor wants to get his hand on it immediately—even sets up gloves to handle it “safely”—but Jayce insists they call it a night. Sky seems to agree, albeit hesitantly, and so Viktor is outvoted. In his own lab.

He accepts the majority vote, but he’s not happy about it. Sky suggests stopping at a restaurant she found recently—her new favorite, apparently. It’s the place where she gets the bagels she brings into work sometimes. Viktor is hungry, and Jayce offers to pay, so Viktor agrees.

It’s a small, family-run place, just outside of the shopping district on an out of the way street. Viktor is pleasantly surprised to find that at least half the menu is undercity cuisine. Apparently, Sky explains, the owner of the place is from the undercity and living up here on a work visa. His family lives up here with him, so they haven’t been affected by the blockade like a lot of undercity workers have been. 

Jayce looks remarkably out of place looking over the menu, glancing unsubtly at Viktor’s to see what he’s looking at. Viktor pushes down the urge to tease him about it, and explains the different options, pointing him to a few that he thinks Jayce would like.

The food is fantastic. Viktor hadn’t realized how much he missed the greasy, homemade meals he would pick up from the food-stalls on his way home from work. Topside food is fine—Piltover, being all about progress and innovation and such, has a lot of foreign cuisine in the shopping district—but it’s nothing compared to what they’ve got back home.

Jayce seems to like his well enough, too, and he asks the waitress—who turns out to be the owner’s daughter—a lot of questions. She seems a little overwhelmed at first, being asked about ingredients and meal preparation by Councilor Jayce Talis (who, unbeknownst to her, does not cook), but she gets used to it quickly enough. She has an accent reminiscent of Vander’s, though much lighter, balanced out by crisp topside delivery. 

Overall, it’s a pleasant meal. He can’t believe Sky hadn’t told him about this place before now—she claims it was supposed to be a surprise for his birthday—but he’s grateful she finally did. 

They part ways when they get to their little gated neighborhood, Jayce sticking to him all the way home as though he’s afraid to let him out of his sight. Viktor doesn’t even bother asking if he wants to come in, just tells him to lock the door behind him.

When they reach Viktor’s bedroom, Viktor carefully toes his shoes off, feeling his leg ache from doing more walking than he was expecting.

“I think I’m going to shower,” he says; he can feel the tension in his shoulders, in the ache of his joints. He goes to shrug his jacket off, only for Jayce to do it for him, big hands on his shoulders. They slide back up after he tosses the jacket to the side, kneading lightly. 

Viktor sighs, eyes fluttering shut. He leans back into the touch, feels Jayce’s presence at his back. He turns, stepping into Jayce’s space, running his free hand up Jayce’s arm. 

“Would you like to join me?” he asks, voice low, tilting his head back. 

For a moment, Jayce looks like he’s going to say yes, hands hovering just above Viktor’s hips. Then, his expression shutters, and he takes a step back. Viktor’s arm drops, not expecting the sudden movement.

“I shouldn't,” Jayce says, “I have some council stuff to look over, and I know you’re probably tired.”

Oh, Viktor thinks, anxiety spiking and leaving just as quickly, leaving him feeling oddly hollow. He had been afraid this would happen—afraid that Jayce wouldn’t want him like…like that anymore, once he knew. Maybe it’s shallow, but it had been one of the reasons he hadn’t wanted to tell Jayce. He had wanted to pretend for a little while longer, that this could be his life.

He swallows all of this down, and nods. “Alright, then,” he says, and turns to head to the bathroom. “Feel free to leave, if you want to.”

“Do you want me to help you—”

“I don’t need you to help me undress, Jayce,” he says, impressed with how level and not annoyed he keeps his tone. He knows he’s just trying to be thoughtful. But still. “I’m not a child.”

“Okay,” Jayce says after a moment, voice oddly subdued. “Can I feel free to stay, too?”

Viktor can’t help a swell of fondness, overwriting his annoyance. “Of course,” he says. “I might be a while, though.”

“Take as long as you need.”

Viktor was already planning to, but he nods anyway, grabbing a towel and his sleep clothes on his way. When the door shuts behind him, he leans back against the wood and squeezes his eyes shut. He is not going to cry, not over something stupid like this. It’s not as though Jayce has to accept every one of Viktor’s advances—if Viktor can have boundaries, can say no, then of course Jayce can, too. He’s allowed to not be in the mood. But Viktor can’t help but think that it’s more than that—he knows that it’s more than that.

Maybe it’s a bit hypocritical; he’s never had a problem teasing Jayce about his constant need for sex. But it’s not like Viktor didn’t also enjoy it, didn’t look forward to their time together.

He sighs deeply into the still air of the bathroom. It’s fine, he thinks decisively. He’s going to shower—no, he’s going to take a bath, soak in the warm water until he feels like a person again, and when he’s done Jayce will be warming his bed and he’ll get to sleep pressed against him, cradled and held like something precious. And they’ll go to work the next day, and it will be fine.

Viktor sets the bundle of clothes down on the counter and turns the water on.

This is fine. 

The next day passes much the same: they go to the lab, they work on deciphering the hexcore (which is what they have, very creatively, decided to call it), they go back to Viktor’s. Well, Viktor makes Jayce go home and change before work, and they order to have dinner delivered. Viktor offers to make something, but Jayce insists that he doesn’t have to. And because Jayce can’t cook for shit, that leaves takeout. 

Viktor doesn’t argue much, because he hasn’t gone grocery shopping in long enough that he isn’t sure what he would even make. Dinner is oddly quiet. He would say tense, but it’s not, really. Just…quiet. Jayce doesn’t ramble as much, and Viktor doesn’t have much to add, either.

After dinner, Jayce cleans up, insisting that Viktor not worry about it. He’s been insisting that Viktor not worry about a lot of things, the past few days. Viktor sighs, but relents. 

They retire to the bedroom again. Viktor thinks about his first night here, when he made dinner and Jayce helped “break the bed in.” He wonders why it feels like it was so long ago; why it feels like it’s so far away.

Viktor sits down on the edge of the bed, sighing as the weight is taken off of his legs. He takes his nightly dose of pain medication, a swig of water, and Jayce literally takes the bottle from him after he’s done. As if he can’t put it back down on the bedside table that he just picked it up from. Viktor catches him by the tie before he can get away, pulling him down until he can strain upwards and catch him in a kiss.

Jayce kisses him back for a few heart-lifting moments, and Viktor feels a familiar lick of heat low in his stomach. 

Then, Jayce pulls back. Glances away, straightening up. “You must be tired,” he says. “You should get some rest.”

Viktor blinks, irritation rushing through him at the same rate that his heart sinks. He was right. He was right. Jayce doesn’t want him like that anymore, now that he knows. Is too afraid to, maybe, afraid of hurting him—and that’s even worse, because that means it’s coming from a place of care. It still stings. It still feels like a rejection.

Viktor’s first thought is to turn away like he has been, let Jayce coddle him into bed like Viktor’s some grandmother, or a child who can’t tuck himself in. He thinks about what he said about trying harder to speak up when something bothers him. He promised to try; Jayce promised to listen. He wants them to be able to keep their promises, especially to each other. 

Unfortunately, Viktor is feeling a bit too overworked and underslept and fucking stressed out to try and be soft and nice about it. He doesn’t want to argue, but he doesn’t want to have to deal with Jayce both avoiding and fawning over him until he keels over and dies.

“Excuse me?” he says, before Jayce can walk away, “I should what?”

Jayce turns back to look at him, eyes wide. “Um. I said you should—”

“Why?” Viktor interrupts, feeling slightly ridiculous about it. He knows why, obviously. 

Jayce blinks at him for a moment, clearly thinking the same thing. “Viktor,” he starts, as if Viktor is being ridiculous. 

“I’m serious, Jayce,” he says. “I am just as sick as I was a week ago, and you had no problem sticking your cock in me then.”

Jayce sputters, “I didn’t know that you were—” he cuts himself off, like saying it would be rude. Like acknowledging it would be rude. 

“Well, I was. And I am. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I am, but…” he huffs, struggling to articulate what he wants to say. He settles on something simple. Honest. “But I was afraid this would happen.”

“Afraid what would happen?” Jayce asks, lowering his voice as though not wanting to spook him. Which just irritates him all over again.

“This,” he says, gesturing to Jayce, “this treating me like glass. Like a child.”

“Viktor,” he says, placating, but Viktor doesn’t want to hear it. He rises to his feet, gripping his cane tightly.

“I don’t want you to treat me like I'm dying,” he says, “You are the one who keeps saying I won’t, and yet you act like I will fall to pieces if you touch me wrong.” 

Jayce’s face falls, and he steps forwards again, hands reaching almost instinctively for Viktor, but he stops again. Seems to realize what he’s doing, but lets his hands fall anyway. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice small, and he does sound sorry. “I know you aren’t fragile, but I just…I can’t stop thinking about what happened in the lab. I don’t wanna do anything that’ll make it worse.”

Viktor sighs, suppressing his urge to break into frustrated tears. “I’m not going to force you into anything,” he says, voice cracking, “I would never. But I…if you don’t want me like that anymore, you have to tell me.”

Jayce doesn’t stop himself from reacting this time, cupping Viktor’s jaw gently. “V,” his voice is achingly soft, “Of course I still want you. I want you all the time. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Viktor sniffs, forcing back the hot sting behind his eyes. “You don’t. I’m usually already in some kind of pain. You make it better. You make me feel good, instead.”

“Are the pain meds not working?” Jayce asks worriedly. Viktor snorts, because of course that’s what he took away.

“They’re working as well as they can,” Viktor says, waving the matter away, “But you know what would feel even better than pain meds?”

He raises a suggestive eyebrow, the kind that always used to make Jayce flush. It doesn’t quite bring that same color to his cheeks, but Jayce still picks up the suggestion, eyes hungry despite all his hesitance. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Are you feeling well enough to—”

“Janna, Jayce,” Viktor laughs incredulously, “ Yes , I’m feeling well enough to fuck. I’ve been trying to for days.”

Jayce swallows nervously at the tone, so Viktor runs a hand through Jayce’s gelled back hair. “I’ll tell you if anything is wrong,” he assures, “I could tell you where to touch, but I think you know me well enough by now.”

“No,” Jacye says quickly, “tell me. Tell me where to touch you.” 

He slides his hands up the outside of Viktor’s thighs, coming to rest on his hips. Seems like he got with the program rather quickly. Finally. 

“Hmm,” Viktor pretends to consider, “Alright. Hands off, then.”

Jayce pouts, “V…”

“Take your hands off, councilor.” No matter how much Jayce insists on Just Jayce, Viktor can tell that he still likes the title, just a little. It’s the slight gleam in his eye, the way he swallows. Honestly, Viktor likes to throw the word around just to see what will happen; the results tend to not disappoint. 

Jayce, slowly, takes his hands off. They hover in the air like he doesn’t know where to put them.

“Down,” Viktor says, putting a hand on Jayce’s shoulder and guiding him to sit down, “on the bed. Keep them there until I say you can move.”

Jayce flushes; he always flushes so nicely, takes direction so easily. He swallows again. Nods his head. Keeps his hands still. 

Viktor goes to climb into Jayce’s lap, and then realizes he won’t be able to do that without Jayce’s help. He laughs under his breath at himself; at Jayce’s questioning look, he suppresses a smile. 

“I need you to help me up,” he admits. Jayce grins at him, but it’s not mocking. He wraps his big hands around his waist, familiar, like the way that he scoots further onto the bed and helps lift Viktor onto his lap is familiar. 

“Okay,” Viktor says once he’s settled, “Now hands off again.”

Jayce snorts, but drops his hands onto the mattress on either side of him. Viktor traces his fingers along Jayce’s jaw, coming to cup his face in his hands, holding him still. He observes him for a moment, takes in the way his pupils are already blown wide and the way he’s already half hard against the inside of Viktor’s thigh. 

Viktor dips down and kisses him softly, the way he did on Jayce’s couch after Jayce had to rescue him from the blockade. Jayce surges up to meet him just as eagerly as before. Viktor leans back, sitting up straighter, just out of reach.

Jayce blinks up at him, mouth still open and spit-slicked red. He really has no right to look so good all the time, Viktor thinks as he traces his plush bottom lip, considering. He’s not sure what he wants to do today. He’s already growing hot between his legs, just from the simple act of having Jayce underneath him, warm and willing. 

“Hmm,” he hums thoughtfully, carding a hand through Jayce’s hair. It’s still half-sticky with all the gel he’s taken to putting in it. He never used to wear any down to the brothel; Viktor would surely have made fun of him for it if he had. “What should I do with you, I wonder?”

“Anything,” Jayce says immediately, “Anything you want.” 

“You are a fan of your foreplay,” he draws the word out mockingly, enjoying the visible shiver from Jayce at the time. “Would you like to eat me out?”

Jayce nods quickly. “Yeah. Yes. If that’s what you want.” 

“Can you do it without using your hands?”

Jayce nods again. Viktor rewards his enthusiasm with another kiss, rocking down against him. Jayce’s hips jerk up automatically as he kisses back, mouth falling open, but he doesn’t move his hands. Good boy.

“Okay,” Viktor says. “Help me lie down.”

Jayce helps him lie down, lifting him up and out of his lap and setting him carefully onto the mattress. He seems to take the opportunity to touch as much as he can while he can, his hand running up Viktor’s legs and the length of his arms, shoving his shirt up for further access and carding through his hair as he helps prop his head up on the pillows. It makes Viktor smile.

“Take my pants off,” Viktor orders, and Jayce pops the button, unzips his fly and slides his well-worn slacks and undergarments off in one easy tug, tossing it somewhere behind him. If Viktor had any doubts about Jayce doing this only because Viktor made a scene about it, he doesn’t anymore. Jayce is as eager for it as ever.

Jayce reaches for Viktor’s thighs again, and Viktor holds up a finger to stop him.

“Without using your hands,” Viktor reminds him. Jayce just smirks at being caught, slowly dropping his hand onto the mattress on either side of Viktor’s waist. 

“You’ll have to spread your legs for me, then,” Jayce says, voice low and confident. Cocky. That won’t do at all, Viktor thinks faintly. 

Still, he’s not wrong. Viktor looks him in the eye as he does it, familiar by now with how far he needs to open his legs so that Jayce can fit between them. He doubts Jayce will be able to do much with his hands where they are, so he takes each of Jayce’s wrists and readjusts them for him, one at a time, planting his hands below his spread thighs so that Jayce has the space to bend down and put his mouth to good use.

“If you wanted me to hold them open,” Jayce says, eyes still locked on Viktor’s, “you could’ve just asked.”

“I don’t think you’ve earned the right to touch, yet,” Viktor says, voice level. 

“But you’re so wet for it, V,” Jayce argues. “I can smell it from here. I know you love my fingers, you love the way they spread you open.”

Again, he’s not wrong. But still, Viktor won’t waver. He knows Jayce well enough to not give into his shit this soon.

“I do.” Viktor agrees, cooling his tone, making it sharp. “But I like your mouth more. Why don’t you do something useful with it already? I’m getting bored.”

That seems to be all the permission Jayce needs. He falls onto his elbows, hands fisted into the sheets where Viktor put them, and dives in. Viktor shivers as he kisses up the inside of his thigh, mouth searing hot. Jayce was right: he is wet for it, the crooks of his thighs slick with it. Jayce licks it up—Viktor feels him groan at the taste, like he was starving for it—and then licks up all the rest, too, tongue between his folds and inside him and swirling around his cock and fuck, he supposes Jayce wasn’t lying when he said this was one of his favorite parts.

He’s taught him almost too well. Even without his hands, he knows Viktor’s body, his thighs and his cock and his hole, well enough to have Viktor trembling in no time at all. Viktor lets his eyes slip shut, lets himself focus on himself, grinding into each swipe of Jayce’s tongue, his nose bumping against his cock and making his hips jerk.

“Fuck, Jayce,” he says, and it comes out in one long slur. He feels Jayce’s self-satisfied laugh against his core, feels it in his bones, but he follows it up with a sharp suck around the nub of his cock, good enough that Viktor immediately forgives him for laughing. “Do that again.”

Jayce does it again. Viktor gasps raggedly, keeping his eyes squeezed shut so he doesn’t have to see the smug look on Jayce’s face. He’s so close, that hot pressure building low in his stomach, fingers clenched tight in Jayce’s stupid gelled hair. He’s not sure when his hand got there, but it doesn’t matter, not when Jayce moans each time Viktor tugs, bringing him closer and closer to the edge.

Then, to his dismay, he feels that familiar tickle in the back of his throat that means he’s about to start coughing. He tries to swallow it down, gritting his teeth against it, but he knows it’s a losing game.

“Jayce, hold on,” he gasps, pushing at his head to get him to stop, and then brings his other hand up to cover his mouth before he starts coughing. 

The fit only lasts a minute or so, but it seems to go on forever. He feels Jayce’s big hands on his thighs, his hips, rubbing soothingly as he waits for it to end. The thought makes Viktor feel oddly sad, and incredibly loved.

“Sorry,” he croaks out when the coughs have tapered off. Jayce reaches for a tissue from the box he’s started keeping on his bedside table. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he says softly, taking Viktor’s wrist and cleaning his hand. He grabs another tissue and wipes softly at Viktor’s mouth and chin until he pulls back, seemingly satisfied. “I know I’m too good at giving head; I should’ve held back a little.”

It makes Viktor snort a laugh, which was probably the point, and he shoves him lightly. “Fuck off.” 

“You want me to keep going?” 

Viktor considers, and shakes his head. “I want you inside me,” he decides. “Get up here.”

Viktor spreads his legs further to accommodate Jayce’s bulk as he sits up between them. He shivers at the feeling of Jayce’s cock sliding between his folds, just barely nudging at his hole. Waiting for permission.

“Where do you want my hands?” Jayce asks, cheeky despite how flushed his face is, mouth still shiny with Viktor's wetness. 

Viktor reaches out to take one of them, humming thoughtfully. He drags Jayce’s hand up slowly up his stomach, his brace, the bunched up fabric of his shirt, coming to rest on the hollow of his throat. He hears and feels Jayce’s breath catch, and bites back a smirk. 

“Viktor,” he says shakily, “Your lungs—I shouldn’t—“

“You won’t,” Viktor interrupts calmly, ignoring the fact that Jayce can probably feel the way his pulse is racing. “You’re going to leave your hand right where I put it until I say you can move.” 

He feels the muscles of Jayce’s hand flex against his neck, but decides to forgive it for now. 

“You won’t squeeze if I tell you not to,” Viktor continues, “You can be good for me, can’t you?”

Jayce nods obediently, eyes wide and hungry. He holds himself very still, above him and around him and almost, almost inside him.

Viktor hooks his good leg up around Jayce’s waist, nudging him forwards with the heel of his foot. Jayce obliges, sliding in slow-slow-steady until he’s buried to the hilt. Viktor takes a moment to breathe, body fluttering around it, barely even needing time to get used to the familiar feeling. Maybe there really was something to all that shit Jayce was talking his first night here, about Viktor being made just for him.

“Slowly,” he orders, voice coming out much more steady than he feels. Jayce starts moving—slowly, an almost unbearably slow drag in and out. He feels the tension in his partner’s body, taut and tight like a wire; his hand hot against his throat, but not heavy. He’s trying so, so hard to be good, to be good for Viktor , to do exactly what Viktor tells him.

Viktor has honestly never been the biggest fan of being choked out. He had no problem curling his fingers around someone else’s neck if they paid him to do it, but giving someone else the power to cut off his air, to truly hurt him if they wanted to, has always been difficult. He’s done it, of course, if the money was good enough. But the encounters always left his heart racing with anxiety rather than arousal. 

He knows Jayce has probably been working up the courage to ask—if he’s even realized it’s something he’s into yet. All the times he’s put his hand there, in warning or just because he felt like it, is enough to let Viktor know he’s at least thought about it. He thinks he would let Jayce do it, if he asked nicely enough. He’s never liked having his clients’ hands around his neck, not even his regulars, but Jayce is not a client anymore. Jayce is his partner.

Jayce won’t hurt him. Jayce has him by the throat, large fingers curling around it, and he won’t squeeze at all because Viktor told him not to. Because Jayce cares what Viktor wants; he won’t hurt him unless he wants him to. Right now, he won’t do anything unless Viktor wants him to.

It’s almost overwhelming, Jayce moving slowly inside of him, his hand pressing hot against his throat. It’s such a stark contrast to the way Silco has held his hand there, to all the various clients who have asked and not asked. He knows Jayce could do whatever he wanted, and Viktor likely wouldn’t be able to stop him if he tried. But he won’t, because Jayce loves him. Fuck, he loves him.

It’s too much, and it’s not enough—he could come like this, if he had the patience to work up to it slowly again, but he doesn’t. He’s strung out and the sheets are damp underneath him and he just wants. He wants .

“You can move your hands,” Viktor says, and Jayce’s hand immediately slips from his neck to curl harshly into the pillow beside it, squeezing for a moment. Then he lifts it, freezes in the air like he doesn’t know what to do. Hovering. Waiting for permission. Viktor finally gives it to him. “You can touch however you want.”

The sentence barely makes it out of his mouth before Jayce is on him. He’s everywhere, hands on his waist and his chest and his wrists and every bare inch of skin he can find as he thrusts forwards, readjusting. Viktor lets him readjust, lets himself lie there and feel Jayce’s hands on him, big and warm and wanting. Jayce hikes Viktor’s thighs further up around his waist, gets a hand around one of Viktor’s wrist and fucks him into the mattress. 

It doesn’t take much longer for them both to finish, Jayce absolutely toppling over the edge, burying his head in the crook Viktor’s shoulder and moaning long and low as he fills him up. Viktor follows not soon after, with Jayce’s clumsy but clever fingers on his cock; he comes harder than he has in weeks and weeks, the aborted try from earlier probably sweetening it that much more. 

They lay there panting like that for long enough that Viktor feels himself start to drift off. Jayce jerks him out of it as he moves, pushing himself up with a groan and collapsing back onto the bed next to him.

Viktor gasps as he pulls out, leg twitching from oversensitivity, and slurs out a string of breathless curses, not sure which language they came out in. His head spins, but not the nauseous way it does after one of his fits. This is good head-spinning. He’s missed good head-spinning. 

“Thank you,” he finds himself saying. He feels the mattress dip as Jayce turns on his side to look at him.

“You’re welcome,” Jayce says. “For what, though?”

Viktor huffs a weak laugh. “I don’t know. For giving me a nice orgasm? For still—” For still wanting me, maybe. For still loving me, even though I’m in the process of slowly dying.  

It feels like too much to say out loud, especially right now, and part of him is afraid to even put it into words. Jayce must see something on his face, either way, because his eyebrows furrow in concern. He presses a warm kiss to Viktor’s damp forehead, smoothing his hair back.

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” he says softly. “You are welcome for the orgasm, though. I told you the foreplay is my favorite part.”

Viktor smiles, his body feeling heavy and relaxed as though full of sweet-slow molasses, and pulls him back down for another kiss.

The next morning, a few things have happened. For one, there was apparently a fight on the bridge last night, and many enforcers, including the sheriff, are dead. For two, Caitlyn, with Vi in tow, is back from the undercity. These two things are probably related.

Viktor finds the first thing out from Jayce, who comes back from the scene looking sick and upset. He just shakes his head when Viktor asks what happened— “it was like a massacre,” he says, pressing his palm to his forehead. Viktor isn’t sure what to feel; they were all enforcers, the ones who were killed. People who probably have Zaunite blood on their own hands. But they were still people—they were still Jayce’s people. He feels an uncomfortable twist of dread low in his stomach.

He finds the second thing out because Caitlyn stops by the lab, out of breath, and tells them that she convinced her mother to call a council meeting so that she and Vi, who apparently did not ditch the enforcer the first chance she got, can speak to them about—about what? Viktor asks.

“You should be there,” she says, “It’s about Silco. And the undercity. But mostly Silco.”

Then she turns on her heel and jogs away, presumably back to the Kiramman’s estate to check on her injured—friend? Someone comes to summon Jayce for the council meeting not soon later. Jayce doesn’t ask if Viktor wants to come, because he knows that he does. Viktor never thought he would willingly go to a council meeting, but desperate times, and all that.

They meet the two girls at the door to the council room. Caitlyn is standing straight up, pacing back and forth a little. Vi is leaning against the wall next to her.

“Jayce,” Caitlyn says when she spots them, halting in place. “Finally.”

Jayce snorts. “Sorry it took us so long?” 

“Oh, hey Viktor,” Vi greets when she recognizes him. He doesn’t remember if he told her his name, but Caitlyn may have mentioned it if he hadn’t.

Vi looks well-slept, if a little worse for wear. She seems to be subconsciously pressing a hand gently against her side, the way he had once seen Ray do when a violent client got a swipe at his stomach with a knife. Must have been an eventful trip. He’s glad she’s alright.

“Hello, Vi,” he greets with a nod. “Good to see you.”

“You too.” She steps forwards, tilts her head conspiratorially, “Be honest with me: are these council people even gonna listen to us?”

Viktor shrugs. “I doubt it,” he says honestly. “A few of them, maybe. But they did somehow vote to let me live up here, so who knows.”

She makes a huh sound, “Fair.”

He glances over. Her shoulders are tight, jaw squared as if bracing for a fist fight. He supposes that she kind of is. Jayce pushes the door open.

The council room is large and ornate. Huge windows and a big, fancy table. Whenever he had pictured the theoretical topside council sitting up in their tower and voting on matters that would ruin the lives of people they would never know, it was strangely reminiscent of this. There is no seat for him, obviously, so Jayce lets him take his.

It goes about as Viktor expects. Nobody outright questions his presence, but he’s aware of the side-eyes he gets. He’s aware of the rumors that have started circling after he was caught at the blockade—he hopes nobody is going to accuse him of being a spy or a rat or something of the sort. 

Caitlyn introduces Vi, explains that Silco is the one that Marcus was involved with. That Silco has a death grip on the people of the undercity, that he wants independence from Piltover. That he calls it Zaun. Some of the councilors snort derisively, as though independence from Piltover is the most ridiculous thing they’ve ever heard, as though they aren’t already basically two separate cities. 

Then, out of nowhere, Jayce presents the bomb—Jinx’s bomb—that they found outside the lab. He asks if they know who made it, as if Viktor hasn’t already told him. Viktor glances at him sharply, confused, but Jayce doesn’t look at him.

Vi, to Viktor’s surprise, confirms that it’s Jinx—something flickers in the back of his mind, that same strange feeling he had when he first met her, that there is some connection he should be making here. 

“So this Jinx has the gemstone, then,” Jayce says, leaning forwards to brace his hands on the table. “Do you recommend using force to get it back?”

Viktor fully turns to glare at Jayce this time, suppressing the urge to stand up and shake him by the shoulders. They’ve been over this; he thought they were on the same page. 

“That could trigger war,” Councilor Medarda says calmly.

Caitlyn looks equally as alarmed as Viktor feels. “There are good people down there,” she says.

Hoskel snorts. “Bad ones, too.”

“Viktor,” Professor Heimerdinger says, suddenly deciding to bring him into the conversation. Viktor nearly jumps in surprise at being directly addressed. “You’ve lived in the undercity your entire life, barring the last few months. Do you have anything to add?”

A beat of silence. 

“I can corroborate their story,” he answers simply, not sure what else to say.

“And how is that?” Hoskel asks, amused. “You weren’t there with them, were you?”

Viktor shakes his head, already tired of this. “No, I mean…look, I know Silco,” he admits after a steadying breath, “He was an…occasional client of mine.”

“Client?” Salo repeats, “From your previous occupation, I assume?”

Viktor squeezes the handle of his cane tight in his hand. “Yes, from my old job at the brothel,” he fights the urge to roll his eyes at the scandalized gasp from a few of the councilors. As if the entire city isn’t well aware of where Viktor used to work. “Occasionally, he was a client of mine.”

There is a round of murmuring, glancing back and forth. He catches Jayce’s eye; Jayce looks concerned, and surprised at his confession. Viktor is also a bit surprised at his confession.

“Why admit this?” Shoola asks after a beat of silence, “You’re aware this makes it seem much more likely that the rumors are true.”

The rumors about him feeding council secrets to Silco, he assumes, or whatever else people are saying now.

“You think I would risk what I have up here for a man like him? A man who has caused the undercity so much suffering?” 

There’s another bout of murmuring, but no other accusations, so Viktor continues. “I’m telling you this because I know Silco. I know that they are right when they say that he is dangerous, and that he hates all of you. He wants independence from Piltover above all else. Those things are facts.”

Councilor Medarda hums thoughtfully, elbows propped on the table and fingers laced together in front of her face. She shakes her head. 

“War must be our last resort,” she says, and Viktor’s chest sinks in relief, “There may still be a diplomatic solution.”

Jayce doesn’t seem happy with her answer, but the rest of the councilors don’t disagree with her. Vi makes an outraged noise, stepping forwards.

“What?” she asks, disbelieving, “You want to negotiate with him?”

“It may be the only way to avoid more bloodshed,” Councilor Kiramman says, as though she cares about the blood of anyone other than topsiders.

Vi scoffs, as if echoing his thoughts. “You can’t talk to Silco—he hates you, everything you stand for. If you sit here and do nothing, he won’t stop ‘shedding blood.’ He won’t stop.”

There’s a beat of silence. Salo stands up, chair scraping against the ground, and plants both hands on the table. “Enforcers,” he says, “Please escort them out.”

As if Vi raising her voice means that she’s threatening them. Viktor is sure the man simply doesn’t want to listen to her anymore.

“Forget it,” Vi snaps, turning on her heel. “I remember where your fancy damn door is.”

She stalks out of the room, Caitlyn following after her with a disappointed sigh. Viktor slumps back in Jayce’s fancy council chair, exhausted despite his minimal contribution to the conversation. He can feel the air of discontent around Jayce, but doesn’t bother looking at him.

Nothing will be done, the council decides quickly, leaving the discussion with an open-ended “possible diplomatic solution.” But at least they won’t invade. At least there won’t be a war. Not yet.

Viktor is the first to stand and the first to leave. He doesn’t bother to check if Jayce follows him. He doesn’t care.

Vi finds him later, in the lab. 

Viktor is hunched over his desk, angrily going through his notes. Jayce isn’t back; he assumes he went to the forge to work his frustration out, or maybe he went home for the day. Viktor doesn’t care, he tells himself for the tenth time. He doesn’t care what Jayce does or what Jayce thinks, because Jayce obviously doesn’t care what Viktor thinks. Obviously doesn’t care about what Viktor has to say, or about his perspective on maybe not trying to start a war between the two halves of the city.

Regardless of where Jayce is, Viktor is in the lab. Which is where Vi finds him, a few hours after the shitty council meeting. She doesn’t even bother knocking, just opens the door and saunters in, glancing around with an air of disinterest.

“Hey,” she says when Viktor looks up. “Cupcake said you’d prob’ly be here.”

It takes him a moment to figure out who exactly Cupcake is, but he assumes it’s probably Caitlyn. Or Jayce, but he doubts there would be even half as much fondness in her tone if she was talking about Jayce.

“Oh,” Viktor says intelligently, “Yes, this is…usually where I am.”

“Nice place.”

Viktor shrugs, “I suppose. Only the best for Councilor Talis.”

He doesn’t mean to sound bitter, or to speak badly of Jayce. But this is a girl from the undercity, who probably understands his position better than anyone else in that meeting, and he’s feeling a little bit peeved at Jayce at the moment, so. 

Vi snorts in response, coming to stop near his desk. She leans back casually against the table next to his, arms crossed.

“So,” she says, cutting to whatever matter she’s come to discuss, “You know Silco?”

Her tone isn’t exceptionally threatening or upset, so he doesn’t think he’s about to be shaken down or accused of being a spy. Which is good. He thinks it would hurt worse from another zaunite.

“Yes,” he says. “Not well, but well enough.” 

Vi nods, glancing away and clearing her throat. She squares her shoulders, as though bracing for impact.

“Silco,” she says. Stops. Starts again. “Something happened between me and my sister, and I haven’t seen her in a long time. I come back, and Silco has her. He’s…changed her. Acts like he’s her-her dad .” She pauses to collect herself again. “I wanted to ask if you know her at all.”

Oh, he thinks, realization dawning as pieces finally click into place. Jinx is her sister. Vi, a slash of pink hair, Vander’s daughter. Silco, who killed Vander, and apparently took his other daughter in as his own. He looks at Vi in a new light, recognizing her hunched posture as nervousness, the cross of her arms as a shield for the vulnerability she’s been forced to show. 

“I do know her, a bit,” he admits, “I helped fix a gun of hers, once. And sometimes she would visit the lab, bring me materials she thought I might like.”

Something in Vi’s face cracks and softens, nostalgia and regret at once. “That’s Powder,” she says fondly, and the name throws Viktor for a loop. Does Silco have a second daughter that he doesn’t know about? He doubts it. “She’s still been making her bombs, too.”

“Powder?” He can’t help but ask. 

“Right,” Vi says, “I guess you wouldn’t’ve met her before Silco. Her name is Powder.” She falters, looking down. “Or it used to be. I don’t know.”

That’s a very complicated suitcase that he doesn’t have the time or expertise to unpack right now. He doesn’t know if it’s his business to comment on it. He does anyway.

“I didn’t know her as Powder,” he says carefully. “But I do know her as Jinx. She’s smart, and funny, and enjoys blowing things up. If that sounds like your sister, then I imagine she still is.” He doesn’t know if it makes any sense, once he says it out loud, so he clarifies. “Even though she’s different now, she’s still your same sister, is she not?”

Vi nods hesitantly, and then resolutely. “She is. Of course she is.”

“Then there you go. Names are important, especially a name that you give yourself. The rest, I am not so sure.”

She gives him a half-smile, rough and tired and sweet. “Yeah, man, me either.” A pause. “Thanks, though.”

Viktor isn’t sure what part she’s thanking him for but he gives a brief smile in return.

“Y’know, it’s kinda funny,” Vi says, shrugging off the sincerity, “She’s taken Talis’ fancy hextech crystals twice now.”

Viktor blinks, mind immediately zipping to the robbery that ended up blowing Jayce’s apartment building up—and then blowing hextech up along with it.

“She was the one who robbed Jayce, what, five years ago?”

Vi grins, all teeth. “We both were. Us and our-our brothers,” she stumbles over the last two words. “Didn’t mean to blow the place up, but,” she shrugs unapologetically.

Viktor snorts a laugh. “That’s hilarious. Maybe don’t tell Jayce, though. He took it very personally.”

Vi barks a laugh of her own, and Viktor feels the tension between them settle and fizzle out. 

“Look, Vik,” she drops the nickname casually, as if they’ve known each other for years. “I also wanted to talk to you about the whole council thing.”

“What about it?”

“You don’t agree with them, do you?”

“Of course not,” he scoffs. “We obviously can’t do nothing . But I don’t think violence is the right option, either. We don’t want to start a war.”

“I’m not trying to start a war,” Vi says, crossing her arms. “I’m just trying to save my sister.”

And that’s the crux of it, Viktor thinks. If only it were that easy. If only good intentions made for good results. 

“I know,” he says. “I get that. I’m just not sure if this is how you do that.”

Vi frowns, but doesn’t snap at him the way he thought she might. He supposes he’s a much different audience than the one in the council room. 

“Honestly,” she says after a moment, pushing up off the wall to pace around the room a bit, “I was gonna go to your boyfriend about this, but I figured you would understand more than he would. You know what it’s like down there, what he’s like.”

“Which is why I can’t resort to provoking him before we try negotiating.”

“You can’t negotiate with him.” 

Viktor understands where Vi is coming from, he truly does. Silco has done an awful thing to her, to her sister, to the undercity. She sees him as an absolute evil that needs to be faced head on. A monster to slay. Viktor has had a monster or two like that. 

To Viktor, Silco has done monstrous things, but he’s not a monster like the fairy tales his mother used to tell. He is a man who thinks he is doing the right thing for his people even as he kills them, makes their lives worse with shimmer and turf wars. He is a smart, violent man with a lot to lose and a lot he wishes to gain. 

To Viktor, a man like this has done monstrous things, but he is still a man. That means that he and Viktor can speak the same language. It means Viktor can reason with him.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But maybe I can. I have to try that first.”

She doesn’t look happy with his answer, but relents with a sigh.

“Fine,” she says. “If that’s how you feel.”

“It is.” 

She pushes off the wall, straightening up. “Let me know if you change your mind anytime soon.”

Viktor cracks a small smile despite himself. “Sure. Be safe, Vi. Don’t do anything too reckless.”

“Sure.”

Which does not really inspire confidence, but he’ll take it. 

After a few more hours of useless back and forth with rune sequences, he accepts that he should turn in for the night. He’s tired, and his leg aches faintly, along with his back. He thinks he forgot to take his pain medication earlier. Or maybe it’s just the usual ache, the kind that painkillers can’t ever seem to get rid of.

He locks up after he leaves, ignoring the fact that Jinx got in through the locked window, and heads home. Halfway down the laboratory building’s steps, he stops. Jayce must be done with whatever he was doing by now, right? Viktor is still upset with him, but it’s not the pulsing frustration he had been feeling earlier. He wants to see him; he wants to talk to him. He wants to be sure that he’s still here.

He changes trajectories, and decides to take the quicker walk to Jayce’s apartment instead of going back to his own. It’s later than he thought it was, the sun long-since set. There’s hardly anyone out right now. Even though this place is supposedly “safer” than the undercity, he feels even more on edge and uneasy walking down Piltover’s streets at night than he ever did down there.

Luckily, he makes it to Jayce’s quickly enough. He hesitates only for a moment, and knocks on the door. His knuckles sting with the force of it.

A few long minutes later, Jayce opens the door. He squints at him through sleepy eyes, but quickly seems to wake up when he sees who it is.

“Viktor,” he says. “Um. Hi.”

“Hi,” Viktor answers shortly, and then doesn’t continue. Suddenly, he’s unsure of himself. He doesn’t know if he should have come. And being unsure makes him frustrated again, and now he’s back at square one.

Jayce just stares for a moment, seemingly waiting for Viktor to say something else. When he doesn’t, he shifts in place, putting weight on one of his legs. 

“Sorry I didn’t come back to the lab earlier,” he says, clearing his throat. “I needed to blow off some steam, so I went to the forge for a while.”

“I assumed so, yes,” Viktor answers.

“About the council meeting…” Jayce begins, and trails off just as quickly. 

Viktor frowns, unable to hold it in any longer. The night air is cold, and Jayce still hasn’t even invited him inside. 

“I thought we agreed,” he says, exceptionally calm for the way his heart his beating, “No enforcers.”

Jayce sighs with the air of someone who knew this was coming. “I know, I’m sorry. But force doesn’t necessarily mean enforcers—“

“War does,” Viktor interrupts. “Force means starting a war, war means enforcers. It means people from the undercity dying. People from Piltover dying, too.”

Jayce looks away, eyebrow furrowed. In the low light of the lamp, Viktor can’t tell if it’s frustration or contrition. 

“I’m sorry,” he says after a beat, eyes slipping shut with a sigh. “I think the attack on the bridge really…you didn’t see it, V. It was…”

He trails off, as though he can’t find the words to describe it. Viktor can imagine, either way. He’s seen a lot of death in his life. 

“And that made you want to enact violence yourself?” Viktor asks, but it comes out more confused than sarcastic. 

Jayce’s shoulders hunch further, and he opens his eyes. “It made me upset, I guess. It made me angry. But I don’t—I don’t want more of that. I shouldn’t have suggested using force.”

Viktor sighs, all the wind going out of his sails. Jayce sounds genuinely sorry; he knows what he did wrong. Nothing came of his suggestion at the end of the day. For now, the council is firm in their usual inaction. 

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agrees, “Luckily, your council voted against it. Now, are you going to let me in? It’s cold outside.”

“Of course,” Jayce says, stepping aside quickly. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Viktor chides lightly, shutting the door behind him. “Or I suppose, stop doing things that you need to apologize for.”

Jayce huffs a weak laugh. “I’m trying, V, I am.”

“I know,” Viktor concedes, because he does know. “I know you are.”

It’s late. Not exceedingly late, but they retire to the bedroom anyway, because Jayce was presumably already in bed and Viktor is tired. Viktor feels like he’s always tired, lately, which probably isn’t a good sign, health-wise. But Jayce seems equally as exhausted, so there isn’t any argument from him.

Viktor brushes his teeth with the spare toothbrush that had miraculously shown up in Jayce’s bathroom one day, and takes his medication. Jayce’s bed is as large and soft as usual—almost too large, like he could get lost in it by accident—and he slips into it carefully, rolling onto his side to get comfortable.

He feels the mattress dip next to him, and with the flick of the switch on the bedside table’s lamp, the room goes dark save for the light from the lamppost outside, sneaking in through the crack in the curtains. 

For a moment, there’s an odd beat of stillness, of silence. Then, Viktor shakes it off, opening his arms for Jayce to slide into. Which he does. They take a moment to get settled, fitting their limbs together carefully, but things click into place easy as ever, easy as they had last night, Jayce’s arm around Viktor’s waist and Viktor tucked against his chest. 

It’s familiar, and safe. The ups and downs of the day—the anxieties and thes scares—seem to melt away, and Viktor finds himself speaking before he means to open his mouth.

“I know it’s not out of any compassion for the undercity that your council decided against war,” he says softly into the dark of the bedroom, “It’s because they don’t want to get involved in undercity politics. They don’t want to risk their own people. But I’m still relieved. I’m still so—” he breaks off, feeling oddly choked up.

He feels Jayce’s fingers card soothingly through his hair, and he lets himself exhale, sinking into the sheets. He closes his eyes, feeling the warmth of Jayce’s body pressed against his own.

“I don’t know what I would do if…” he trails off, not wanting to bring that kind of talk into the room with them right now. It’s nothing he has to worry about, because war is not happening today. Hopefully not anytime soon. He won’t have to choose. “I’m just so relieved.”

“I know, V,” Jayce murmurs, pressing a hot kiss to Viktor’s forehead. Viktor can’t help but sigh at the feeling. “It’s okay.”

It is okay, Viktor thinks. Or it will be. He presses himself closer to his partner, curling his fingers into the back of Jayce’s shirt. It’s okay, because Jayce is here, and there will be no war today.

Viktor drifts off slowly, soothed to sleep by the sound of Jayce’s breathing and the feeling of Jayce’s arm around his waist. He sleeps peacefully, and doesn’t wake to cough even once.

When he wakes up the next morning, he is alone in Jayce’s bed.

Chapter Text

Jayce can’t sleep. 

He feels Viktor drift off slowly in his arms, breath evening out; the sound is usually soothing, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to follow. His head is too full, mind buzzing with too many thoughts. Worries. Stresses. Gem equations. There’s too much going on and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He knows he won’t solve all his problems right now, head spinning in the middle of the night, but that apparently won’t stop his brain from trying. 

The feel of Viktor in his arms is the only thing stopping Jayce from scrambling out of bed and pacing up and down the hall or something; he likes to move while he thinks, but right now he likes being in bed with his partner more. Viktor feels so small against him. He’s always been a skinny guy, long limbs and a teeny little waist, but he’s never felt so small, before. Like he could snap in half if Jayce held him too tight. Break into a million pieces in his hands. 

He knows his partner is stronger than that, knows Viktor would hate it if he knew what he was thinking, but he can’t help it. Viktor is far too light, far too cold. Jayce is so fucking scared he’s going to lose him. If not to his…illness, then to whatever chaos Piltover is a few wrong moves away from exploding into. Chaos that he almost helped spark back in the council room.

The look on Viktor’s face when he had made his stupid suggestion, shock and disbelief and betrayal—even thinking about it makes his stomach twist. He hadn’t been trying to start a war. It was just a question, brought on by the image of the massacre on the bridge burned into his mind. But he is a councilor now, and his questions hold weight, hold intent. A question is never just a question in that room; he should know that by now. Mel had diffused the tension as she always does, and the council had decided not to interfere. It’s like Viktor said: it was out of apathy rather than any love for the undercity, but it was still a net positive.

I’m just so relieved, Viktor’s words echo in his mind. Viktor should never have to sound like that, small and uncertain and shaken. Jayce has rarely seen him that shaken. Most of those times have been within the last few months. 

Jayce sighs, pulling his partner closer and breathing in deeply, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to commit all of it to memory: Viktor’s boney knee digging into is side where he’s curled up, his deep, whistling breaths, the tickle of his hair on Jayce’s face. He’s so small and so cold but he’s here, with Jayce, and he’s safe with Jayce. For now, some traitorous part of his brain says. He’s safe and here for now, but for how long? How long can this little world of theirs last?

Jayce tries to shake these thoughts off and will himself to sleep. It doesn’t work. 

Finally, when it becomes too much and the night feels like it might drag on forever, he accepts that he won’t be getting any sleep. He eases carefully out of bed, smooths back his partner’s unruly hair and presses a kiss to his forehead. Vikor doesn’t stir. 

He gets dressed quickly, not bothering to brush his hair or grab his tie, and, like he often does when he needs to blow off steam, heads to the family forge. He knows he was literally just here, but he doesn’t know where else to go. He has this forge, and the lab, and right now the lab reminds him too much of Viktor, which reminds him of everything else. So the forge it is. 

He stokes the fire, still warm from the hours he spent here earlier, clears his head and focuses only on the hammer in front of him—something he’s been working on in his spare time, away from Viktor’s eyes. He’d finished most of it earlier today. He knows his partner wouldn’t approve, but it’s not as if he’s going to use it. It’s not as if he wants to. He just wants to be…prepared. For the worst. No one can fault him for that, especially not Viktor.

He doesn’t know how much time passes—no windows in here, and he left his fancy councilor pocket watch at home—but he’s nearly done with the handle when the doors are flung open and that undercity girl—Vi, he recalls—strolls in, hands in her pockets like she’s been invited. Which she has not been. 

“This is private property,” he says. Vi pays him no mind.

“Hey,” she says with a nod of her head, as if they’ve simply run into each other on the street. “Nice place. Not as nice as your lab, but,” she shrugs.

“When did you go to my lab?” he asks, metaphorical hackles rising at the idea. 

“Went to talk to your partner earlier—Viktor. He’s nice.”

“He is.” Sometimes.

“Too nice. I was gonna come to you first, but I thought he would…well, that doesn’t matter. He’s like Cupcake, I guess.”

Jayce doesn’t know who the fuck Cupcake is—probably Caitlyn, if he thinks about it. He doubts Vi knows anyone else up here. He also thinks that calling that Caitlyn sweet is kind of funny when you’ve known her as long and been subjected to as much of her teasing as he has.

“Come to me about what?” he asks cautiously. He doesn’t know much about this girl beyond what Caitlyn has told him, but he does know they met in a prison. For a supposedly unjust sentence, but still. 

For the first time, Vi looks a little unsure of herself. Then she squares her shoulders and stands up straight, as though trying to make herself seem taller. It kind of works. She has a very solid presence about her. 

“Out of all the pilties in that stupid councilroom, you were the only one talking any sense.”

“What, about the bomb?”

“About Silco.” Of course. It always comes back to Silco. “About the right way to deal with him.”

“You heard what the council decided,” he deflects. 

“Fuck the council,” Vi spits, and he knows she means it. It’s kind of refreshing. It reminds him of Viktor. “Silco can’t be negotiated with. There’s only one language he understands, and it’s not fucking diplomacy.”

He can tell she speaks from experience. He wonders what he’s done to her, for her to hate him like this. He knows Silco has hurt the undercity in ways he’ll never fully understand, and he knows that his strange relationship with Viktor is probably not the norm. She’s just confirming his suspicions further—Silco has a sharp tongue, able to sway even Viktor sometimes, but he, like every other powerful person Jayce has met, might respond best to a show of opposing power. 

But still. 

“I don’t want to start a war,” he says.

Vi scoffs, shaking her head. “Like I told your boyfriend, I’m not trying to start a war. But something needs to be done, and no one else up here seems to be willing to do it.”

Jayce frowns. Something about her having this conversation with Viktor, not getting the response she wanted and then coming to him rubs him the wrong way. Like she knows he’ll be on board for the force he suggested; like he’s as willing to commit violence as she and Silco are. But that’s not fair, maybe. He doesn’t know this girl. As of right now, she’s strictly opposing Silco, which is the closest to being on Jayce’s side as she’s gonna get.

“What are you asking me to do, exactly?”

She gives him a quick once-over, sizing him up. As if she isn’t half a head shorter than he is.

“We need to hit him where it hurts,” she says, glancing around the lab as she talks. Her eyes catch on the hex-gauntlets on the far table, nearly-operational. “His empire is built on shimmer and fear. Going after him directly is too dangerous, but going after his shimmer…”

She trails off, letting him fill in the blanks himself. It’s not a bad idea, really, but he doesn’t much like the idea of running around the undercity shaking down dealers. Sure way to get himself jumped.

“And how would we do that?”

“He only has one manufacturing facility. I know where it is. I say we take it out, cut off his supply. No shimmer, no money, no empire. It’s a place to start.”

It is a place to start. Risky, but potentially worth it in the long run. No enforcers need to get involved, which would make Viktor happy. Just he and Vi, in and out.

“And no one gets hurt?” he asks. “No, uh, civilians?”

Vi shoots him a look, like she’s surprised he gives a fuck about civilians. “No, no ‘civilians.’ There are guards there, obviously, but—”

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” he interrupts. Vi shoots him another look, this one a little less amused.

“I didn’t say you had to. The shimmer is the goal, remember?”

Jayce takes a long moment to think, ignoring Vi inching her way over to the gauntlets. He knows Viktor would probably disapprove on principle, but Vi makes some good points. He looks up as she slides a hand into one of the gauntlets, flexing the fingers. “Haven’t seen a pair of these in forever.”

“Be careful with those,” he says on instinct. “They’re not finished yet.”

She waves him off. “Someone close to me used to own a pair. Taught me how to throw a punch. So are you in, or what?”

“I don’t know, I mean…Vikor knows Silco, and he thinks we should at least try to negotiate.”

Vi’s expression does something complicated, but he doesn’t know her nearly well enough to understand what it means. She sighs heavily, glances down at the gauntlet that she’s wearing. 

“It might be worth a shot,” she admits, frowning hard. “But Silco…look, you don’t know him. He killed my father. He’s the reason my brothers are dead. And my sister…” she shakes her head angrily. “No matter how well Viktor thinks he knows him, Silco is more likely to kill him than change his mind. I thought you wanted to keep him safe.”

“Don’t act like you know me,” Jayce warns, not liking her tone. But the comment hits where it’s supposed to. Of course he wants to keep Viktor safe. That's why he’s here, that’s why he spoke up at the council meeting. All he wants is to keep Viktor safe. He can’t protect him from his awful illness, but he can at least try to protect him from Silco, and the war that he might bring. 

“If innocent people get hurt over this…he might never forgive me.” He finally says. It’s a surprisingly honest thing to give this rough undercity girl he barely knows.

“Then you better not let anyone get hurt.” She says simply. “Look, you were the first person Caitlyn wanted to look for when we made it topside. Out of everyone up here, you're the one she trusted to do something.” She pauses, letting the words hang there between them, letting them sink in. “So I’ll ask you again: are you in, or do I have to go take care of this myself?”

Jayce considers. Caitlyn trusted him to help, sure, but Caitlyn isn’t here right now because Caitlyn wouldn’t approve, and both of them know it. Viktor wouldn’t like it either, but Viktor said himself that Silco is dangerous. That his shimmer is dangerous, that it’s ruining his people’s lives. This is immediate action that he can do to make the undercity a little bit of a safer place, and hit Silco where it hurts. No one has to get hurt but Silco himself. And no enforcers will be involved. Surely that will count for something.

Jayce looks at the nearly-finished hammer, the only thing missing the gemstone that will go right in the center. He thinks about Viktor waiting for him at home, asleep in his bed. He thinks about all those dead enforcers on the bridge, Marcus and his glassy, dead eyes. Viktor’s blood all over the lab floor. Silco and his insufferable fucking smirk.

“I’m in,” he hears himself say before he’s even fully made the choice. Vi grins at him, and although it’s half-grim, it lights up her whole face. He thinks he gets why Caitlyn is so taken with her. 

“Shake on it?” she asks, propping her elbow up on her folded knee and offering him a giant gauntlet’s open hand. 

Jayce steels himself, and shakes on it.

He had honestly expected to have to do the whole “I’m a councilor so let me through” song and dance at whatever was left of the bridge blockade, but, as it turns out, there are other ways to get into the undercity. 

Other more dangerous, kind of scary ways that he is definitely too old for, jumping over buildings and swinging on pipes and shit—all of which would be difficult to begin with, but is made much more difficult with the addition of his giant fucking hammer. They’ve been working on sealing up the remaining gemstones, but haven’t found universal success yet; the one powering his hammer has a couple tiny hairline fractures running along it, but, encased in the metal of the hammer itself, he’s not too worried about it. This is a weapon, after all; it’s meant to do some damage. If it blows up in his hands, then it’ll be his own fault. Or so says a faint, chiding voice in his head that sounds remarkably like Viktor. Or maybe Caitlyn. 

They’re also going all the way down to the Lanes. Jayce hasn’t been there in years, not since before he was robbed and subsequently arrested. The air gets thicker as they go; it gets harder to breathe. He didn’t dare to bring one of the ventilators the enforcers wear, and Vi doesn’t seem affected at all, so he sucks it up and tries his best not to cough. 

Believe it or not, he has learned from his years of sneaking down to the Full Moon, and grabbed a cloak to cover up. He wasn’t exactly wearing his councilroom-best in the forge, but better safe than sorry. They attract a few glances stalking through back alleys, but a sharp glare from Vi is enough to make them mind their business. 

Jayce tries not to get distracted, but it’s difficult. Things are…well, he doesn’t want to say bad. There’s a constant movement about the place, but it’s muted. It’s hostile. He knows his last trip down here was years and years ago, but he remembers neon lights flickering and music pouring from bars and merchants calling passersby from their stalls. It was dangerous, but there was  liveliness to it. Now, neon lights flicker and the music is angry if played at all; there’s no one calling out prices for rare magical artifacts, and if Jayce looks at anyone for more than a few seconds he gets a suspicious glare in return. 

Silco has run the undercity for less time than Jayce has known Viktor, and this is what he’s turned it into. Not that it was a great place before, but still. Jayce knows that from an outside perspective, he’ll never really get what has changed, or what was lost. But Vi does. And Viktor does. 

They split off from the neon ramshackle city into a darker, less populated area. Jayce gets more and more tense as they go; he has a strong urge to make some ill-timed joke, just so that Vi will say something to him other than clipped instructions to follow me or keep your head down, but he has a feeling it won’t be appreciated. 

Finally, a wide, bulky building comes into view from the darkness, stacked up on top of itself like it’s been built into the surrounding rock. Thick smoke rises from the center, floating up and blending with the thick sump air. For someone who supposedly cares so much about the undercity, Silco sure has no problem making their chemical problems worse.

“This is it?” Jayce asks, just to fill the silence. Vi gives him a look, but still nods. “It’s…bigger than I thought it was gonna be.”

Vi snorts. “Shimmer’s in high fucking demand.”

Jayce concedes with a tilt of his head. Looking up at the scope of it, he kind of wishes they had brought some backup along. Having people to secure the entrances for them while they go in and take out the processing plant itself…but no, he reminds himself. No enforcers. Enforcers might help, but they might hurt just as much. Jayce isn’t naive enough to think the factory runs itself. There are people in there—probably a lot of them. While he doesn’t think very highly of them—helping manufacture the drug that’s ruining people's lives—he also doesn’t want them dead. The enforcers’ usual resort to violence plus the anger they probably feel about the bridge attack? He’s sure that would lead to something that Viktor would never forgive him for. He won’t be the reason more of his partner’s people die. 

Still. They could have at least brought Caitlyn with them. Her sharpshooter skills would come in handy right now. 

“How’re we getting in?” he asks instead of voicing these doubts.

Vi glances at the large double doors on the far side of the building, and the train tracks that stretch out in front of them. “How do you feel about hijacking a train?”

She says it so casually, like this is all just another day for her. It reminds him, once again, of Viktor. He tries to shrug just as casually, even as uncertainty begins to twist in his stomach.

“First time for everything, I guess.”

Vi grins at him, all teeth.

The train thing goes, overall, much smoother than he thought it would, considering he’s never had to jump onto a moving vehicle without attracting any attention. Vi puts a knife to one of the guy’s throats, they  toss the crew off the side, and put the thing in reverse. Jayce only realizes she’s planning to smash through the fucking doors when they’re moments away from hitting them, and he scrambles to brace for impact. 

There’s a moment or two of still, quiet shock, a bunch of factory workers in ventilation masks staring at them with wide eyes, before things explode into movement. Vi leaps from the train and immediately starts swinging, taking down a man twice her size before he can even react. Jayce takes a deep breath, and jumps down after her. 

They most definitely should have brought backup, he thinks, slamming his hammer into a man’s ribs and then swiping another one’s feet out from under him. He hears crunches and cracks, but nothing that will kill. Hopefully. There’s a flurry of movement, and a shorter guy sprints towards the wall, where a large red button sits. 

Fuck, he thinks, not able to react in time, and then alarms are blaring and his heart is pouding in tune.

“Hey,” Vi shouts, getting his attention. “Let’s go!” She then turns on her heel and runs further inside, towards the heart of the factory where the shimmer itself is probably stored. Jayce bites back a curse and runs after her. This was a terrible idea. Why did he think they could do this alone? Why is he here?

The alarm only seems to get louder the further they run. Vi jumps over a railing and starts sprinting up the stairs, two at a time. It’s a spiral staircase, he notes absently, trailing after her and swinging his hammer at anyone who gets in his way, circular metal floors at even intervals, catwalks stretching across the open huge, open chamber that everything is centered around. Far, far below them, there is a heavy, dark purple glow. Shimmer, he thinks. And a lot of it. He’s not sure why they’re going up instead of down, but for once he’s not going to question it. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing; part of him is afraid Vi might not know, either, but he prays she knows more than he does. 

There’s someone flying around on a fucking hoverboard, shooting at them. God, they should have brought Caitlyn along. He ducks, just barely avoiding getting fucking shot, and then remembers the small, compact gun he shoved into his back pocket last minute on their way out. A gift from Caitlyn, he recalls—her cheeky smile as she said I’m not always gonna be there to save your ass, you know. And she was right. 

He yanks it out, aims unsteadily, irked to find that his hand is shaking just a bit. He remembers at the last moment that he’s not here to kill anyone—but surely if someone’s trying to kill him, it should count as self-defense, right?—and shoots at the attacker’s legs. He misses his first shot. And his second. And his third. His fourth shot, though, hits the shooter right in the knee; they’re knocked off balance, just enough for their chem-tech board to jerk out from under them. They slam into the railing hard, and then slip off the side. Jayce does not check to see if they hit the ground. He forces his breathing steady, and hurries after Vi.

She’s doing fine on her own, he quickly finds, but nails a guy who was coming for her anyways. She shoots him a cheeky little wink as a thank you, and then turns to punch a man straight in the face. They end up back to back in the center of the railing. Vi excels at close range combat, and Jayce powers up the extra features he added to his hammer and starts dealing with the pesky guards shooting at them from other levels.

He can feel the weapon hot in his hands, can feel the sheer power surging through and out of it. He nearly blows one of the lower catwalks in half, people scrambling out of the way, and many of the men who were approaching him run for cover. Adrenaline pumps through his veins, blood running hot and fast. He feels strange, above it all; his stress is gone, his fears are gone, he is in control and nobody can stop him.

From across the railing, he sees a small gun pointed his way. He swerves to take aim, and is about to shoot, when he locks eyes with the person holding the gun. Their eyes are wide and scared and young. He takes in the whole of them—short and small and handling the weapon like they don’t quite know how to use it. It’s a kid, he thinks with sudden clarity. That’s a fucking kid. 

It’s enough to make him freeze in place. The hammer, revved up and ready to go, releases a quick zap of energy; a shocked cry leaves his mouth and he reaches forwards, useless. The child jumps, jerking out of the way—but not completely. The gun clatters to the ground along with a crunch of blood and bone and the rest of what used to be an arm, seared off just below the elbow. The child screams, clutching at the wound and sinking to his knees. Jayce’s blood runs cold in horror, and he can’t tear his eyes away.

A kid, he thinks, on repeat. A fucking kid, whose arm he just shot off. Why is there a kid here? He glances around wildly, above and below, the fight forgotten. 

It’s not just the one, he realizes all at once. This whole place is full of fucking kids, peering at him over the railing, big eyes and skinny little faces; some older and angry, some younger and scared, one of them, a little girl, running to help the redhead who’s arm he just took. What the fuck.

He thinks about Viktor once telling him that he worked in a factory for a while as a child, when his mother got too sick to work herself. He knows it wasn’t a shimmer factory, but he looks at these tired childrens’ faces and can picture a young Viktor here with them perfectly. More than that, though, more than the personal connection, these are children. Silco is making fucking children work for him, processing dangerous chemical drugs. He’s suddenly so angry he doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

“Vi,” he calls out sharply. “Where’s the shimmer? Where are they processing it?”

“What?” she calls back, distracted.

“We came here to shut this place down, not hurt people.” He reminds her. His point is kind of undercut by the punch he throws at a man who comes at him, but he’s not the one who started swinging first. He wrestles the gun out of the man’s hand and aims it at another, one who has a ring of keys on his belt. “Vi,” he says again, “I’m not here to kill children.”

Something hot and dangerous flashes in her eyes, and she glares at him. Glances around. Sees what he saw, expression shuttering oddly. She turns back to him, closed off once again. “Neither am I, asshole. Let’s go.”

He figures out pretty quickly that she doesn’t actually know where they’re processing the shimmer itself. He assumes it’s probably somewhere in the swirling glow of purple area. He’s not completely sure, though, so he grabs one of the masked guards by the collar, holds his head up against the hot, thrumming metal of his hammer, and asks. The guard answers.

They figure out pretty quickly that they’re not going to be able to punch or shoot the factory to a close. It’s so big. There’s so much of it. Jayce just wants to be gone from here. He doesn’t want to look at these childrens’ soot-covered faces and their angry eyes. Most of the muscle has been taken care of—either incapacitated, surrendered, or on the ground and not moving. He’s almost certain a few of them are dead. He does not check. 

They make it to the ground floor, closest to where the chemicals are housed. Jayce looks up into the open chamber, all those tiny figures gazing down at him.

“Unless you want to die,” Vi yells, voice strong and steady, “Get the fuck out of here, now!”

There’s a flurry of movement, dozens and dozens of little feet pattering against metal as they run. Vi shoots him an unreadable look, her mouth twisting and eyebrows furrowing. He looks away. 

“What’s the quickest way to get rid of all this shit?” he asks her. There’s a pause, as she considers. 

“How much firepower does that shiny hammer of yours have?” Jayce glances down at his hammer, still lit up hextech blue, and back up at her. 

“Enough.” He says, catching on to her plan.

“Enough to wipe this place out?” she asks, gesturing around at the huge facility. 

Jayce considers. He doesn’t know how the hextech energy might react with the shimmer chemical or everything else in this place. He’s not a fucking chemist. But he does know enough about the gemstones to know that it will probably be an explosive reaction. He’s not sure if he can do it long range. He doesn’t want to leave his hammer here, but it might work better in this situation as a bomb than anything else. 

“Yeah,” he finally says, voice flat. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

She gives him an appraising, if not skeptical, look. “Okay, pretty boy. What do we do?”

He takes a breath. “Get the train working again. We’ll only get one shot at this, and we need to be able to get the fuck out, fast.”

Vi gives a lazy salute and runs back towards the train and its busted up locomotive. The doors they rammed their way through aren’t blocking the tracks, luckily, and he hears her clambering on board. The last of the factory kids are still on their way down. A few shoot him glances as they go—he sees fear, distrust, anger, hatred, relief. He looks away.

“We’re good to go,” Vi shouts. Jayce nods sharply, and turns back to his hammer. The half cracked gemstone inside. He powers it up once again; it splits open, energy thrumming through it and twisting together between the two prongs. He aims it upwards and shoots wildly at the upper level railings until the whole building shakes. Then, he cranks up the power as much as he can, letting the energy gather and gather until he can hardly hold it anymore. He takes three steps forwards and hurls it over the edge of the chamber and into the vat of purple shimmer below.

He then turns on his heel and sprints towards the front entrance. “Start the train,” he shouts. Vi cranks a lever and the train’s wheels begin to turn. He runs harder than he ever has in his life, feet pounding on the metal floor, lungs burning. He leaps onto the very edge of the locomotive, scrambling at the railing, just as it makes it past the factory doors. He feels Vi grab the collar of his shirt and haul him up.

Chemtech engines must be something else, because the train speeds down the tracks so quickly he’s afraid the wheels might derail. His lungs heave as he counts down the seconds, hoping they’ll be far enough away from the blast. If it ever comes. God, how embarrassing would that be, tossing his one of a kind, revolutionary hextech weapon into a vat of chemicals and running away, not actually accomplishing anything that they came to—

His thoughts slip away with a resounding boom as the factory goes up in a flurry of fire, smoke, purple and crackling blue. It’s loud. It’s hot. It gets their message across, loud and clear. A rush of energy hits the speeding train, blowing Jayce and Vi off of their feet but not otherwise harming them. 

Vi pushes herself back up and whoops in victory, a gleam of success in her eyes. Jayce wants to feel the same, but he watches the swirling mass of chemicals float into the air—not the sky, he thinks, because there is no sky down here—and can’t seem to feel anything but dread. 

He doesn’t know if everyone in there made it out. If all the kids made it out. He turns away from the smoldering remains of the factory, and doesn’t dare to think about it.

When he gets back topside—Vi does not come with him, save for leading him back to pipes he can climb back up in lieu of using the bridge—Viktor is not waiting for him. He’s not at Jayce’s place, the bed made haphazardly and a used mug in the sink, so he assumes he’s probably at the lab.

He walks into his living room and sits down hard, sinking into the comfortable couch cushions. He wonders how long it’ll take for Silco to find out what’s happened, and how long it’ll take for him to do something. But what could he do? Jayce wonders. He can’t go to Piltover authorities, for obvious reasons, and there’s no basis to start an actual war over something he can’t cite as justification. If he admits someone blew up his shimmer factory, he’ll have to admit it was his, and that he runs the shimmer trade. 

It hit him where it will hopefully hurt, but there’s not much he can do about it, right? Right? 

He’s sure the enforcers will hear about it, and he wonders if i’ll cause a big enough stir to reach the councilors' attention. As long as Jayce can keep his own involvement out of it, then there will be no reason for them to care; more undercity politics, intercommunity violence, not their problem. And if there are people who accuse him of being there—well, it’ll be his word against theirs. And he knows the councilors well enough to know that even if they aren’t his biggest fans, they’d rather cover for him than admit one of their own was involved in something like this.

It’s starting to dawn on him that this is something he could get into a lot of trouble for. Maybe if he had alerted the enforcers, brought some along with him and made it an official, legal raid, he would be able to write off his actions as fighting on Piltover’s behalf. But there were no enforcers, just him and a scrappy, undercity ex-con. 

It’ll be fine, he tells himself, rubbing at his exhausted eyes. Again, it’ll only be a problem if his involvement gets out, and the only people who saw him there were children and criminals. His word against theirs. 

He ignores the fact that it isn’t Piltovian authorities he’s worried about getting in trouble with. There’s no way Silco won’t find out he was there. But that was the point, wasn’t it? To send him a message? To push him into a corner, so he’ll have no choice but to negotiate? 

He sighs deeply. Maybe he should have talked to Viktor about this, thought it through a little bit more. But Vi had been right, at the time. She had given him a way to do something about it other than sitting around and waiting for things to happen.

He hopes he hasn’t made a huge mistake. That redheaded kid’s wide eyes, his screech of pain and horror. Half of his arm on the ground. Jayce squeezes his eyes shut, forcing the image from his mind. At least he hadn’t killed the kid, like he had been about to do. Fuck, at least he hadn’t killed him.

He lets his head tip back against the couch cushion. God, he aches. He feels dirty, grimy. Guilty. Tired. He somehow manages to peel himself off the couch and drag himself to the shower. The hot water helps a lot, but not enough. 

Afterwards, he makes himself coffee, because it is—he checks the clock on the bedside table—not even noon yet. Viktor didn’t sleep in, then. Jayce hopes Viktor hadn’t woken up too soon after he left. He hopes Viktor hasn’t been worried, or upset. He hopes he remembered to take his morning medication. 

He pulls his clothes on automatically, barely feeling like himself. He spends five minutes in front of the mirror making sure his hair looks okay and ignoring the dark circle under his eyes, and then he’s out the door. No one stops him on the way there and asks him what he was doing in the undercity last night, so he supposes he’s good for now. His back kind of aches from all the climbing and running and hammer-swinging, but everyone he sees seems as generally pleased to see him as they usually do. Sometimes this is nice, but right now he only wants to see one person, and he’s not sure that person will be very happy to see him for long.

Despite these fears, he feels himself gradually relaxing. This tentative good mood carries him through the city, in and out of Viktor’s favorite coffee place, up the laboratory steps and down the long corridor. Viktor must hear him come in, but he doesn’t look up until Jayce sets the take-out coffee cup down beside him. Viktor jumps a bit—lost in concentration, then, not ignoring him—and looks up.

“Jayce,” he says, a tired smile blooming on his face. It’s not as energetic or bright as they used to be, but it lights up the room all the same. He doesn’t rise to meet him like he used to, either, but he does reach up to grab Jayce’s tie and pull him down for a kiss. It’s a quick thing, just a greeting peck, but it makes Jayce feel oddly guilty. Viktor wouldn’t kiss him like this if he knew. 

“Hey, V,” he says anyway. 

“Where have you been?” Viktor asks. He sounds a little annoyed, but not upset. “I think me and Sky may have had something of a—well, I don’t want to call it a breakthrough, because there is still much to be tested, but,” he waves it away, taking a sip of his coffee. “Nevermind. Where were you? You were gone when I woke up.”

Jayce swallows, mind racing as he tries to come up with a believable excuse—he went to the forge, he went on a run, he was visiting his mother, there was another last-minute emergency council meeting—but nothing comes out. Viktor just looks at him expectantly, probably expecting that kind of answer. Ready to accept it without question, and then move on with their day.

Jayce looks into his partner’s honey-gold eyes, and cannot lie to him. He just can’t. It’s going to come out sooner or later, and they made a promise to each other to be honest. He made a promise to be better. 

He takes a deep breath. “I, um. I went to the undercity.”

Whatever Viktor had been expecting, it obviously wasn’t that. He just blinks at him for a moment, eyebrows furrowing like he’s not sure he heard right.

“What? The undercity? Now?”

“Yeah,” Jayce nods. “With, uh, with Vi. Caitlyn’s friend.”

As if Viktor needs the clarification. That just seems to make him even more baffled. “Vi?” Jayce nods again. “Why? And how? Has the blockade been lifted?”

“No, we…well, she knows a few other ways to get down there.”

Viktor is getting impatient now, setting his mug down and crossing his arms across his chest. Jayce knows he’s dancing around the point. “And what was so important that you had to risk falling to your death?”

“Um…” he swallows, glancing away. Sky doesn’t seem to be in right now, and neither do the two other lab assistants. “You have to promise not to get mad.”

Which was not the right thing to say, judging by the raised eyebrows and suddenly tense shoulders. “Jayce…” he starts cautiously. “What did you do?”

Which does sting just a bit, but he supposes Viktor isn’t wrong in this particular instance. “Please, V, just promise to hear me out, okay?”

There’s a long pause where Viktor just looks at him. Finally, he nods sharply. “Fine. Why were you in the undercity?”

Suddenly, he wishes he had at least practiced what he was going to say a few times. There’s no good way to explain what happened, so he decides to just bite the bullet. Slowly.

“Well…” he starts, and then decides to sit down so he’s not towering over his partner so much. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went to the forge again. Vi came and talked to me.” Viktor sits up a little straighter at the mention of Vi’s name.

“About what?”

Jayce shrugs. “Same thing she talked to you about, I guess. She…made an offer. And I took it.”

Viktor seems to be bracing himself for impact even as he says: “Jayce. What did you do.”

Jayce can’t bear to look at him, so he looks away. “We took out Silco’s shimmer factory. The manufacturing facility. Me and Vi—we went alone, no one got hurt…”

He trails off when Viktor doesn’t immediately react. When he dares to look his partner in the face again, he seems to be processing. He’s looking at Jayce blankly, a terrible mixture of disappointment and disbelief. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“What do you mean by ‘took out,’ exactly.” His voice is flat, no upwards tilt of a question at the end.

“I mean…it’s gone. We—we destroyed it,” and, when Viktor still doesn’t say anything, “We blew it up.”

That finally gets Viktor to react, even if it is just to stare at Jayce in mounting horror, arms uncrossing and hands falling loosely into his lap. “What? You blew it up?”

Jayce nods meekly.

“How?”

“With, um. Well, I’ve been working on this…this hammer. A hextech hammer. Something that could be used as…well, as a weapon. Just in case. So. We used that.”

Viktor just stares at him, silent and faintly horrified, until his eyes slide away. His mouth twists like he doesn’t know what to say. His expression flickers between disbelief and acceptance. He shakes his head again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he finally says. The flat apathy is gone, replaced with a simmering anger. He’s upset. But upset is better than that blank horror. “You build a weapon with our tech and use it to go blow things up in the undercity? You told me you weren’t going to use force.”

Jayce’s heart sinks. “I know, but I was—I was trying to help. Vi thought it was a good idea.” Viktor barks a disbelieving laugh, so Jayce reminds him: “You promised you would hear me out.”

Viktor narrows his eyes at him, but gestures for him to get on with it. Under Viktor’s betrayed gaze, it’s getting harder and harder to remember why he thought it was a good idea.

“I know the council voted against using force, and I’m glad they did. I don’t want to start a war, V. And I didn’t. It was just me and Vi who went—no enforcers, I swear.” He was hoping that bit of information, that implicit promise that he made and held himself to, would soften Viktor up a bit. He can’t tell if it has, but he continues anyway. “No one knew we were there, it won’t get traced back to us. Silco will take a huge blow from this, but he won’t be able to retaliate without admitting the shimmer factory was his. And nobody got hurt.”

Viktor is silent for a minute. And then, voice impressively calm, “You think Silco won’t ‘retaliate’ for this?”

Jayce's blinks. “He won’t be able to. It can’t be traced back to Piltover—”

“The people who worked there,” Viktor cuts in, “Did they get out before you blew it up?”

“Yes,” Jayce hurries to say. “Of course. There were…there were kids there, V. Most of the workers were fucking children. But we got them out.”

Viktor looks horrified, but not shocked. Not surprised. He supposes children in factories isn’t a new concept for him. But getting them out must have meant something; he must have at least done that right. He decides not to mention the guards or other workers who may not have been so lucky. 

“You say it won’t be traced back to you,” he says, looking at Jayce for confirmation. Jayce nods. 

“By the authorities, at least. I’m sure Silco…well, he might figure it out.”

“But he can’t ‘retaliate’ against you.”

“Or you,” Jayce adds, reassuring. Viktor doesn’t seem very reassured. 

Viktor nods slowly. “Who do you suppose he will blame, then?”

“What?”

“Who do you suppose he will blame?” Viktor repeats. “If he cannot blame the enforcers, and he cannot blame you, who will take responsibility? I imagine Vi isn’t afraid of retaliation, but what will happen to the people—the children—who worked there?”

Jayce blinks. Viktor can’t be implying what he thinks he is. He knows Silco is a terrible person, but…but those were kids. Kids who he let work in dangerous environments, kids who fueled his drug empire. Kids who ran while he blew up their factory. It’s not their fault. Silco will understand that. Anyone would understand that.

“Are you telling me that getting rid of a shimmer factory was a bad thing?” he asks, confused and a bit exasperated. “I thought you of all people would want it gone.”

“Of course it’s not a bad thing to shut it down,” Viktor snaps, “It will be a blow to Silco, it will keep shimmer off the streets, but for how long? And who will suffer for it?”

That draws Jayce up short. He hadn’t thought about it in terms of “who would suffer the consequences,” because he assumed that Silco would. It was his shimmer trade, and without the shimmer, he can’t run it. He loses shimmer, he loses support, he loses power. And the less children working in factories the better, in his opinion.

But it’s not that simple. He knows it’s not that simple. But he still—he still doesn’t think that he’s in the wrong here. He doesn’t think that Viktor thinks that either.

“Okay,” he says, running a nervous hand through his hair, “I get what you’re saying. I should have considered the long term, but—Viktor, I needed to do something. I was trying to help.”

“I know you were trying to help, you’re always trying to help. But you just—-why do you not think these things through? Why do you not listen to me when I tell you that Silco is dangerous?”

“I do listen,” Jayce insists, “That’s why we didn’t go after him, we went after—”

“The shimmer, I know. It’s not about the fucking shimmer , it’s—” Viktor cuts himself off, shaking his head helplessly, “You could have gotten hurt, Jayce. You could have died.”

He sounds so serious, so scared that it makes Jayce’s heart ache. “I didn’t.”

“But you could have. You could have died down there, alone, while I slept in your fancy bed. Did you think about that, when you left to play hero?”

Jayce honestly and genuinely hadn’t thought about the “possibly dying” aspect of it until he was in the middle of possibly dying. Maybe it’s naive of him. Maybe it’s arrogant. But he hadn’t thought it was truly a possibility until they were storming the place alone; until he shot that boy’s arm off; until the factory went up in flames behind them. 

He hadn’t been thinking about dying, because he had been thinking about Viktor. About what Viktor would think of his actions, what Viktor would think of him. If he would forgive him. It hadn’t occurred to him that Viktor would be scared for him—cool, unshakable Viktor, scared for Jayce when he has so much more reason to be scared for himself. 

But of course he would be scared for him. He tries to see it from Viktor’s perspective—Jayce disappearing in the middle of the night and coming back the next day, saying he stormed a well-fortified drug-making factory with one other person and an untested hextech weapon. Jayce disappearing in the middle of the night and never coming back, because he had gone to play illegal hero in the undercity and fucking died for it.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice small. He thinks of last night, of Viktor telling him to stop doing things he had to apologize for. Of Jayce telling him he was trying. And he was. He is. And yet here he is, apologizing once again.

“How could you not tell me?” Viktor asks, voice just as weak. He coughs lightly.

“I…I didn’t want you to talk me out of it,” he admits, instead of the well, you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you up he was planning on. “I wanted to do something, but I was…scared of what you would think.”

Viktor lets out a humorless laugh, but doesn’t respond. 

“I tried to do it right,” Jayce continues, “No enforcers. No one died.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Jayce adjusts, ignoring the poor fucker on the hoverboard. “The council isn’t going to do anything. You said we can negotiate. This puts Silco in a position where he needs to if he wants to keep his power.”

“This isn’t a game, Jayce.” And he sounds so tired.

“I know that. I do. I’m not playing a game. I’m trying to stop the city from destroying itself. I’m trying to keep you safe.” His voice breaks traitorously, and he feels a terrible sting behind his eyes.

Viktor's expression softens into something incredibly sad. He sighs, and reaches out to beckon Jayce forwards. Jayce goes eagerly, dropping to his knees on the tiled floor and wrapping his arms around his partner.

“Oh, Jayce,” Viktor says, so quietly. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jayce admits into the folds of Viktor’s well-worn sweater, voice wobbling dangerously. That boy and his fucking arm. Viktor’s blood all over the lab floor. Viktor so small in that hospital bed and the factory up in flames. “I just want to keep you safe, I want to keep the city safe, but I don’t…I’m sorry, Viktor. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.”

He thinks he’s crying a bit by the end of it, but his eyes are squeezed shut tight enough that he can pretend he isn’t. He feels Viktor’s long fingers carding through his hair. He’s so tired. 

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Viktor asks quietly, as if reading Jayce’s mind. Or maybe the crying has something to do with it. 

Jayce sniffs, keeping his face pressed against his partner’s chest. “Not really.”

Viktor hums sympathetically. “Do you want to take a nap?”

Jayce huffs a laugh, but he knows Viktor isn’t joking. A nap doesn’t sound too bad, honestly. 

Still. He doesn’t feel like the situation is resolved. There's going to be a fallout, even if the ripples won’t necessarily be felt all the way up here. Something’s gotta give. 

“Are we…I mean, are we okay? Are you still…mad?” He sounds kind of pathetic even to his own ears, like an insecure child. Viktor doesn’t scoff like he usually would, not even playfully. He doesn’t stop petting Jayce’s hair, though, which he takes as a plus.

“I don’t know,” Viktor says after a long moment. “I’m…I don’t know, Jayce. I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

Which isn’t the same thing as them being okay, or Viktor not being mad. But it’s better than nothing. It’s better than Viktor storming out of the room and refusing to speak with him. He doesn’t know what will come of this, what Silco will do, what the council will do, what Viktor will do. But Viktor is here, holding him close even after everything. That has to count for something.

“Okay,” he says softly, accepting what Viktor can give instead of pushing for the answer he wants. “A nap sounds…pretty good, actually.”

Viktor doesn’t quite laugh, but he does make a small, amused noise as he scratches at the hairs on the base of Jayce’s neck before lifting his hands. “You should sleep, then.” 

Jayce begrudgingly pulls back, wiping his eyes as discreetly as he can manage (which is not much) and rising to his feet. 

“Should I…” he starts, feeling uncharacteristically nervous, “Do you want me to leave? Or can I…?” He glances at the couch on the far edge of the lab.

Viktor finally, finally rolls his eyes a bit, making a tired shoo-ing motion with his hand. “It’s your lab, you ridiculous man. Do whatever you want."

Now that Jayce has recovered from his moment of weakness, Viktor seems to close off again. But it isn’t a no, and that’s what matters. He'll take it. 

He ends up face down on the couch cushions, shoes and tie and vest in a pile on the floor, lulled to sleep by the sound of Viktor scribbling in a notebook and the click of the hexcore runes moving and changing. 

When he wakes, it’s late into the evening. There’s a blanket draped over him, and his vest and tie are folded neatly over the arm of the couch. Sky is at her desk. Viktor is gone. 

There’s a row of huge,wilted, dead-looking potted plants lined up on one of the tables. On another, a shorter row of smaller, alive plants. Part of the breakthrough Viktor had mentioned, maybe? He wants to stay and talk to Sky about it, but he wants to find Viktor more. Sky tells him he went home an hour or so ago, and that he asked her to tell Jayce that he’ll talk to him in the morning. A polite way of saying that he doesn’t want to see him tonight. Jayce thanks her before he leaves, suddenly unable to be in his lab without his partner there, and he’s halfway down the front steps before he realizes he forgot to ask about the plants at all. 

The night air is cool on his face, a chill that he didn’t expect. It's colder up here than it was down there. He wonders if it has something to do with the sump air, if it takes longer for everything to cool down. Maybe he’ll ask Viktor. Whenever Viktor wants to see him again. Which isn’t tonight—he stops in his tracks when he notices he’s on the way to Viktor’s little gated neighborhood. The streets aren’t quite empty yet, and a few younger kids wave when they see him. He gives an awkward wave back, trying not to think about that redheaded factory kid.

He feels unmoored. Which is ridiculous, because he has so many responsibilities these days that he doesn't know how to handle them all, and there’s probably some important councilor thing he’s forgetting to do right now. But it all seems so trivial now. He nearly died last night, fighting against a factory full of children, and the person he did the fighting for doesn’t want to speak with him because of it. 

Not to say that he got rid of the shimmer factory for Viktor alone—he did it because it needed to be done, because it should have been done a long time ago. But it’s Viktor's people who will be impacted by it—he was very much an outside player down there—and so shouldn’t Viktor understand why he did what he did?

Maybe he’s feeling so uncertain because this is an action he won’t directly see the impact of. He’s not in the undercity, and he has no desire to go back down there to check out what’s going on. He’s sure Silco must know what’s happened by now. He must be furious. He might be floundering. There’s only one way to find out, right? Part of the reason he attacked the factory in the first place was to put Silco in a position where he would have to negotiate. Or at least be open to it. 

Would it be better to reach out now, before he has a chance to regroup? Or should he wait? No, he can’t wait. He doesn’t have time to wait. If they can figure out the Silco-Jinx-Zaun situation first, then they can focus on helping Viktor. 

He’s not exactly sure what the best way to reach an undercity kingpin is, but he assumes a letter might be the way to go. On their little escapade last night, Vi had mentioned needing to make a wide berth around Silco’s home base— The Last Drop, she had said, voice thick with emotion. Mostly anger. 

He’s never really had to send a direct message to anyone in the undercity before. He doesn’t know if the mail is even running back and forth right now, what with the blockade still up, but he’s sure he can pull a few councilor strings if he really needs to.

The post office is still open, but just barely. He snags some paper and a pen with the help of one of his winning Man Of Progress smiles, and then spends twenty minutes standing there, trying to figure out what the fuck to even say. 

He’s only spoken to Silco directly about three times, and two of those times were in a brothel. The idea of talking with him one on one about the fate of the two halves of the city seems like a lot, but he’d rather do it himself than have to go through the council. He doubts that would end well for anyone. 

He ends up putting down a time and place for a meeting—two days from now, at one of the seawalls where they aren’t likely to be spotted—and that he, Jayce Talis, is willing to negotiate for Zaun’s independence on behalf of the council. So it sounds official enough without Jayce admitting that he’s an independent party in this. He’ll bring the council into it only when he’s sure he has something solid, something they’ll agree to. 

He seals up the letter and sends it off with a tug on one of his councilor strings—yes, the blockade is still up; yes, this is important and top secret council business, please and thank you. He leaves feeling oddly shaky, yet confident that he’ll get an answer. And if not in writing, he’s almost certain Silco will show up at the meeting place. There’s no reason for him not to.

Silco will show, and they’ll sort things out, and there will be no war. They’ll save the city and then they’ll find a way to save Viktor, because all of this means nothing if they don’t save Viktor, too. 

Things will be fine. Things have to be fine. He’ll talk to Viktor tomorrow and everything will be okay. He wishes this wasn’t a mantra he’s used to repeating. He wishes things spent more time being okay than he spent wishing for them to be. 

There must be some strange, intense look on his face, because he makes it home quickly and without interruption. His kitchen is woefully under-stocked, but he’s not that hungry anyways. He’s not tired, thanks to his nap. He’s not much of anything, other than stressed and strung out and missing Viktor.

He kicks his shoes off and settles in for what he’s sure is going to be a long, uncertain night.

The next morning, he stops by the post office on impulse and finds an answering letter already waiting for him. It reads, in simple terms: I accept the offer to negotiate, but not with you. I speak to Viktor alone or not at all. 

All the air in Jayce’s lungs seems to escape him at once, and he thinks he might be sick right there in the lobby. 

Chapter Text

All things considered, Viktor has a decent morning. Not a good morning, really, but decent. 

Jayce is gone when he wakes up, but that isn’t an especially huge cause for concern. He was fidgeting up until Viktor fell asleep, so Viktor assumes he was either at the lab or retreated back to his forge or maybe had some last minute council bullshit to deal with. 

Thinking about the council makes Viktor frown, so he pushes yesterday’s awful meeting from his mind and works up the energy to get out of bed and head to the lab. He stops for coffee (and a muffin for Sky) on his way. Jayce is not there when he arrives, but Sky is. 

She bullies Viktor into eating half of the muffin before she’ll let him take a look at the prototype she put together for their latest endeavor. His stomach seems pleased to have something else to digest other than coffee and various types of teas (Jayce has been on a natural, healing tea kick ever since Viktor got his diagnosis; Viktor has been drinking them because he wants Jayce to feel like he’s helping in some small ways), and then they get to work.

Sky must have been here working late last night, because the adaptable rune matrix prototype is already built and functional. They had spent the last day or so carving the runes into each tetrahedron-shaped tile, and she’s taken them and recreated their sketched out design perfectly.

Viktor is impressed. He really is so glad Sky came topside with him. 

They begin with her previous suggestion of using an original crystal at the center of the matrix instead of a gemstone. It all works fine at first, the runes moving successfully around it as Viktor works the controls, until he makes one more spin with his left hand and the whole thing bursts apart in a rush of arcane energy.

The two of them get a face full of metal and a shove that sends both of their desk chairs flying across the lab at record speed. Viktor just barely doesn’t fall out altogether, gripping the arm rests for dear life. 

There’s a beat of shocked silence, where they turn to stare at each other from across the room, and then they burst out laughing. His laughter quickly turns into a brutal bout of coughing, but Sky waits him out patiently. 

“Well,” he says once he’s recovered, “I suppose we’ll have to try our luck with a gemstone.” 

So they try their luck with a gemstone. This one, from their fifth trial, still has that annoying single crack down the middle—not quite contained, but as contained as it can be. They carefully replace it, get the matrix reconfigured around it, and start again.

An hour passes like that, until they’re so overcome by frustration that Sky accidentally breaks a pencil in half. Another hour, and Viktor is ready to break something himself—he doesn’t know if it’s the unstable gemstone or something wrong with their design, but it’s just not clicking. 

It’s when Sky has stepped out to use the bathroom that he’s hit with the worst coughing fit he’s had since the day Jayce found out about his illness. It burns his throat, his senses overtaken by the smell of hot copper, and he doubles over, grasping at the metal desk for purchase as he hacks his fucking lungs up. It feels like he can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t take in enough air to make up for all that he’s losing.

He hears more than sees the dark red splotches of blood splatter across the desk, narrowly missing the notes he’s been taking. His head spins, black dots spotting in his vision, and he slumps backwards in his seat, finally able to breathe again.

He hears a strange kind of static sound, like jolts of electricity, and cracks his tired eyes open to see the hexcore—the name he and Sky had come up with, a bit of a joke but fitting for the rest of hextech’s hex-titles— reacting to his blood. 

“Shit,” he croaks, leaning forwards to find something to wipe the blood away, but there’s nothing within reach. He watches with morbid fascination as the hexcore seems to suck it up into itself, crackling with sudden energy, twisting and turning and changing.

He feels like he should probably do something to stop it, but he has no idea what. He’s not going to kill himself trying to touch it. More than that, though, the whole strange reaction is proving his theory. He’s not doing anything; the tech is reacting all on its own. Which means that he’s right: hextech can think, hextech can learn, hextech can change. 

Sky notices something is different the moment she gets back. 

“What happened?” she asks in alarm. It’s then that Viktor remembers the rest of the table still stained with his blood.

“The usual,” he waves a dismissive hand. “Except some of it fell within the hexcore’s reach and it…reacted.”

Sky steps closer, taking in the scene on the desk. “To your blood?”

Viktor winces lightly. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It…ingested it through its own will. Which means we were right.”

Sky looks torn, glancing back and forth between Viktor and the hexcore, its tiles still clicking and shifting. “Okay. But still…you don’t think it’s, I don't know, dangerous? We don’t actually know what introducing human matter to an arcane substance will do.”

Viktor nods, conceding that point. “Which is why if something goes terribly wrong, we will shut the experiment down.”

Sky sighs, still seeming a bit uneasy, but they’ve worked together long enough for her to know that now that Viktor has his mind set on something, it’s either leave him to it or join him. Like always, she decides to join him.

“Alright,” she says, “So what’s the next step?”

They spitball back and forth, discussing the merits of introducing another outside substance to the hexcore and just seeing how it will react. The old throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks approach, which they’ve had to resort to many times over the years. 

She pulls out a few sources she’s been consulting ever since Viktor proposed the theory, old stories about arcane healers, harnessing magic to cure illness, regrow limbs, all sorts of wild claims. If any part of it is true, that means that organic matter must have to come into contact with the arcane energy; rather than magic exerting power over the subject, maybe the magic…fuses with it. Transforms it. Transmutes it. 

Animals or any other conscious subjects are obviously out of the question this early on, but non-living subjects may not prove to be helpful, either. They can’t truly start any comprehensive experiments until the gemstone inside of the matrix is stable itself—though Viktor has no idea how his accidental contribution may have affected it—and Sky quickly shuts down the idea of Viktor feeding the thing more of his blood.

Eventually, they find their solution in the little, half-dead, kind of pathetic looking potted flower that one of the lab assistants—Hanna, Sky tells him—brought in to “spice the place up” when she first started working here. Viktor is honestly amazed that it’s still alive, albeit just barely. He certainly never remembers to water it. 

Making a mental note to reimburse her if she even notices it’s missing, Sky takes Betty The Lily ( Hanna likes to name her stuff, Sky tells him with a shrug when he shoots her an incredulous look) from her sad little perch near the window. 

It takes them a minute to figure out how exactly to set the whole thing up, but Sky finds a few metal legs of some poor disassembled chair in the storage room and a flat slab of metal, which they do a quick and dirty welding job on to build a rudimentary, sterile surface to get Betty the Lily sitting above the hexcore.

It seems to sense something near it, maybe recognizing the organic matter nearby, it begins twisting as if in anticipation. It’s probably not good for him to be personifying this unknown, potentially dangerous creation, but he can’t help it.  

They step back a few feet, and he gets a hand in the protective gloves they set up to test the rune sequences. He gives it a few good turns, and then the hexcore seems to come alive. It expands and retracts, twisting and turning with a swirl of blue energy, and then—

Betty the Lily grows. It blooms at a sudden, unbelievable speed—green leaves expanding to two, three, four times their previous size, multiple new buds blooming into fully grown, beautiful flowers, with long, white petals. It climbs higher and higher until it nearly brushes the ceiling. 

Viktor stares at it. He then stares at Sky, who stares back at him with wide, bewildered eyes. They look back at the flower again.

“Holy shit,” Sky breathes. Viktor agrees. This is more than reacting to organic matter—these are results unlike anything he could have imagined. 

Their strange euphoria lasts only a few minutes. There’s an awful cracking noise, and then Betty the Lily starts to wilt. Its new growth turns brown, droops and withers and falls apart just as quickly as it bloomed. 

Viktor’s heart sinks with dismay.

“What happened?” he asks no one in particular, as the two of them watch the miracle they just witnessed turn to decay.

“I don’t know,” Sky says anyway, scribbling furiously in her notebook. “But that was amazing.”

Viktor has to nod, even as Betty The Lily’s tragic life comes to a tragic end. It was amazing. It was unlike anything he’s ever seen. The implications of it all have his mind racing. Sky gives him a blinding grin, his own excitement mirrored on her face, and he knows they’ve only scarcely begun. 

Finding themselves without any more plant subjects to sacrifice for science, Sky turns back to her books and Viktor turns back to his equations. He feels full—of life, of wonder, of a pure curiosity he hasn’t felt in himself in a very long time. He can’t wait to tell Jayce about this. 

The man in question finally gets to the lab around midday, when Sky is out on her lunch break, bringing coffee and very bad news, and Viktor does not get the chance to tell him about the flower.

Viktor wishes he was more shocked about Jayce’s ridiculous, reckless escapade to the undercity, but he’s not. He’s disappointed and upset and anxious and vaguely furious, but not shocked. He should have known—Vi had literally told him that she had been planning to go to Jayce before she decided to talk to him instead. He should have expected her to go find someone else to talk into her scheme. He should have expected that it would be Jayce.

They argue, Jayce breaks down, they kind of, maybe make up. Viktor doesn’t forgive him, but he understands where he’s coming from. And he loves him, in the end. He does love him. It makes this whole thing that much more complicated and confusing. 

Afterwards, Jayce falls asleep almost immediately. Probably exhausted from all the climbing and jumping and blowing things up. Which is just fine with Viktor, who immediately delves back into his work.

Sky and the other, not-Hanna lab assistant come back from lunch not much later. They don’t say anything about the man of progress dead asleep in the corner of the room; Sky sends him an amused glance, but doesn’t ask questions. Viktor is glad for this; he doesn’t know where the fuck he would even begin.

“Okay,” he says to Sky as she pulls up a chair to observe the dead plant, even though nothing has changed in the forty five minutes she’s been gone. “I think we should do another test run.” 

She nods, expecting this. “Should we get some more plants then?”

“I think plants are the best subject for now, yes.” 

Viktor glances at the only other conscious person in the room, who’s diligently running numbers for the gemstone equations at his desk across the room. 

He struggles to come up with the name for the lab assistant, until Sky catches onto his plight and says, “Richard?” 

Richard, apparently, startles a bit at being addressed but quickly recovers. “Yes?”

Sky looks to Viktor for direction, and Richard, slowly, does the same. The man’s eyes are blank; neutral, for once, rather than outright hostile. 

Viktor clears his throat. “Could you run to the shopping district and get more plants?”

Richard glances at what remains of Betty the Insert Flower Name, blinking like he’s just barely noticed the dead plant carnage all over the table, and then back at Viktor. 

“Uh, yeah, sure. What kind?”

Viktor gestures vaguely, “Whatever you can find, as many as you can carry.”

Richard hesitates a second longer, and then nods. He takes the offered coins from Viktor’s hands and hurries out the door. There’s an intention to his step that Viktor appreciates; he imagines it won’t take him very long to get the plants. 

And it doesn’t. In the meantime, he and Sky work on clearing a table for them—Richard manages to grab six, which is a good starting point, and doesn’t protest when Viktor hands him a notebook and asks him to take notes for them. 

Not that there’s much variety to record. The hexcore twists and turns and each plant they place above it, no matter what kind, blossoms to incredible heights and then begin to wither and die minutes later.

Some die within three minutes, some last as long as seven before they start to wilt. It’s frustrating. It’s incredible. It could be the key to so much—healing disease, extending life, replacing lost limbs, the list goes on and on—if they can just figure out how to stop the specimens from rejecting the hexcore’s power. 

Using a cracked gem at the center of it all probably isn’t helping; it might be the cause of the failed transmutations. They need to finish safeguarding the gemstones before they can make any real, solid progress with the hexcore.

Despite their argument, he’s still excited to tell Jayce about all of it. He’s been away from the lab more frequently than not the last few days, through no real fault of his own, but Viktor is sure this will be proper motivation to get him to finally solve their gen equation issues. Part of him wants to wake the man up so they can get started, but the other, more sensible part of him is still a bit upset with him and doesn’t want to talk to him at all. 

Ultimately, he decides to head home without waking him and leaves Jayce snoring lightly on the couch with a final, lingering look. He feels a bit bad, but he doesn’t want to be there when Jayce wakes up. He doesn’t know what the hell to say to him right now. 

The walk home is slow going, the light chill outside stinging his already chilly hands. His stomach rumbles in hunger, and he has a sudden rush of longing for the food stalls he used to stop by on his walk home from the Moon. He wants something greasy and filling and dubiously-sourced. He wants something that tastes like home. 

He cooks up a quick and dirty stir fry when he gets home, fresh veggies and fresh meat and a variety of spices. It doesn’t quite fit the bill, but it’s good. It reminds him of his mother’s cooking. If she’d had access to ingredients like this, he can’t imagine the kind of delicious meals she could have made. 

It makes him feel a drop of guilt for wishing for less, being ungrateful for the resources he has access to, and he cleans the rest of his plate with a silent apology to his parents, who wanted nothing more for him than a warm meal everyday and a comfortable place to sleep.

He gets a knock on his door not much later. It had better not be Jayce, he thinks, or he doesn't know what might come out of his mouth. Luckily, it is not. Sky stands there when the door swings open, a big bottle of dark wine in her hand that she holds up in greeting.

“Hey, Vik,” she says with a tired smile, “Can I come in?”

He steps aside easily, comfortable with having Sky in his space after years of working together. “What’s the occasion?”

She shrugs, “If we need one, I guess we can call it celebrating our breakthrough today? Mostly, I just thought you could use a drink.”

“Honestly,” Viktor says, feeling the weight of the last few months heavy on his shoulders, “I think I could use a drink, too.”

He pulls out the only two alcohol glasses that he owns, passed down from his parents, and Sky pours them both a generous amount of wine as they settle on the couch.

“Apparently this is some fancy Noxian wine,” Sky says, “Supposed to be way better than the watered down juice the pilties like to drink.”

Viktor raises an eyebrow, “Oh yeah? And where exactly did you find fancy Noxian wine.”

Sky just shrugs again, staring resolutely at the bottle she puts down on the coffee table. “Caitlyn gave it to me.”

“Caitlyn Kiramman?” As if there’s another Topside Caitlyn they both know.

“Yeah. She was really nice the day we moved, she helped me carry all my stuff in after you and Jayce fucked off,” he gives her an apologetic little smile, “And I invited her over for dinner later that week. She brought some bottles that her mom had apparently been hiding.”

The idea makes Viktor smile a little; he’s not surprised the two of them get along, just a little miffed that he didn’t know about it.

“That’s kind of her,” he admits, and takes a sip of the wine in question; it’s a dark purple, thicker and sweeter than he expected. He finds that he likes the taste. “It’s pretty good, actually. Thank you Caitlyn Kiramman.”

They clink glasses, toasting all the lovely plants that they killed today. They’re halfway through the bottle when Sky broaches the Jayce topic. 

“So, um,” she clears her throat, “Why was Jayce asleep all day? And why are you mad at him…again?”

Viktor sighs deeply. He relays the story as concisely as he can, the look on Sky’s face quickly cycling through the five stages of grief and coming to a stop of resigned acceptance. 

“Wow,” she says. “I don’t even know what to…wow.”

“Yes,” Viktor agrees dryly. “Wow.”

“They blew it up?”

“So he said.”

Sky just shakes her head, seeming lost for words. He takes another sip of the Noxian wine. She does the same.

A long moment of mutual contemplation, Sky’s brows furrowed, troubled. 

“Do you think we’ve made a terrible mistake?” he finally asks, staring into the dark purple slosh of wine in his glass. He doesn’t specify what he’s talking about exactly—he thinks he means all of it. Coming topside, leaving the undercity behind for Piltover. 

Sky laughs humorlessly, tipping back her own glass and downing the rest of it in one big gulp. “Honestly, Vik, I have no idea.”

It’s a testament to how fucked everything is that not even Sky has a positive spin to put on things. They sit in silence for a few moments as she pours herself another glass.

“But,” she says, drawing Viktor back out of his cup, “I do know that we never would’ve made today’s breakthrough back home. Hextech merging with live, organic matter? It could change lives. That has to count for something.”

She’s right, of course. Viktor feels another rush of excitement just thinking about it, the way the plants exploded with life and then died minutes later. An entire life cycle, run through in mere moments.

“We just need to figure out how to make it stick,” Viktor says.

“We will,” Sky reassures, nudging his thigh with the toe of her shoe. “It’ll be a lot more stable once we seal the gemstones up. The hex…core? Is that what we’re calling it?”

Viktor shrugs, “I suppose.”

‘The hexcore will be less unpredictable once we don’t have to worry about it exploding if we use the wrong rune.”

Viktor’s lips twitch into a small smile. It brings back memories of their old lab, one particular jammed chemtech gun he’d been fixing that had left him with a hole in his roof until Sky forced him to get it properly fixed (he had paid some neighborhood kids to climb up and cover it with some sizable pieces of scrap metal).

“These stupid gemstones,” he gripes, taking another swig of his drink. “We should lock Jayce in the lab until he finishes what he started.”

Sky snorts. “Sure. I’m fine with him blowing shit up as long as it stays in the lab.”

Viktor barks a surprised laugh, which makes Sky giggle a little bit. He feels a twinge of guilt for bullying Jayce a little, but he can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it. Blowing up a fucking shimmer factory. 

But that’s part of what this whole exercise was supposed to distract them from. Sky must also realize this, because she pivots.

“Do you remember back when we were younger and my dad’s prosthetic just stopped working one day? It locked up and wouldn’t bend and he couldn’t figure out what was going on. You came over to check it out--you opened it up and crossed a few wires, turned a few screws, and then it was working again.”

He does remember that day, if a little vaguely. He thinks they must have been around twelve, maybe thirteen. It was during the summer, and Sky’s father was still working in the mines. Having a working leg was kind of vital to the job.

“I didn’t do anything special,” he says, “I just got lucky that it wasn’t a serious problem.”

“You fixed it, Viktor. You made sure he could work.” She gives him a fond look. “What I’m saying is, we’ll figure this out. We’ve done it before.”

Viktor’s heart aches just a bit at the conviction in her tone, and then strengthens at her resolve. “You’re right,” he says. “I just don’t know if I have the time left to see it through.”

He doesn’t mean to say it but doesn’t regret it once it’s out. Sky doesn’t flinch away from the reminder of his condition like Jayce often does. Sky has known him since they were children. She’s known he was going to die young almost as long as he has.

“What happened to the whole checking in with neighboring nation’s doctors thing?” Sky asks, frowning.

Viktor shrugs listlessly. “Jayce would know better than me.”

Sky makes a dissatisfied noise. “What’s the point of being a councilor if he can’t flex his power a little? I’m sure if he asked, they’d hurry up about it.”

He appreciates her frustration on his behalf, but isn’t surprised that it’s slow-moving. He’s been keeping his expectations of topside’s doctors low so that he won’t be disappointed when they don’t pull out some miracle cure. 

“You should tell him that,” he says with a small grin, “I do like watching you yell at him. He gets so scared.”

Sky’s frown cracks into a smile of her own. “He should be. I’m very scary.”

“You absolutely are,” he agrees, only half-joking. She’s a force to be reckoned with when she’s angry. 

He finishes off his glass, the stronger-than-expected wine finally going to his head and making his sore limbs heavier than usual. He thinks it’s probably his bed time soon. 

Sky seems to be in a similar boat, her eyelids drooping as she props her head up in her hand, elbow on the couch cushion. She’s been working so hard to pick up he and Jayce’s slack. He appreciates it more than he could ever hope to express.

He sends her home with a hug and a thank you, and is asleep within minutes of his head hitting his pillow. 

The next morning, they start on the plants once again. 

The first few two attempts go largely the same way, and Viktor accepts that they need to crack the gemstone issue before they can start meaningfully working on the hexcore. So it’s back to the fucking gem equations. He’s reviewing the work that Richard did yesterday, swapping out different variables. There’s a very small amount of corrections he needs to make; it’s good to know at least one of their non-Sky assistants is decently competent. 

Jayce arrives somewhere in the middle of page two, Sky most likely still sleeping off the wine and the two other assistants out for the day. He comes bearing coffee once again, which Viktor takes with a small thank you. Jayce carries anxiety in with him like a physical cloud, present in the way he fidgets, the nervous twist of his mouth, the way he hesitates before speaking, seemingly building up the courage.

Viktor puts his pencil down and waits for Jayce to make the jump. 

“Viktor,” Jayce finally says, and his tone is serious enough that Viktor feels his hackles already begin to rise. “I, um, there’s something that I…something happened.” 

“What is it? Something about the gemstone?”

“Kind of. Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

Jayce clears his throat, sitting down suddenly. “It’s about Silco.”

Viktor feels a sudden bloom of unease. “What happened?”

“Well, I…” Jayce trails off. “Okay, so, I thought a lot about what you and Mel said—the diplomacy approach, I mean. And I figured that talking to Silco, negotiating with him to see what he wants, would be the next step to that…”

Viktor feels dread sink in his chest at record speed. He didn’t. He wouldn’t go back to the undercity a day after blowing up the ruling kingpin’s drug manufacturing facility to talk to that kingpin. Right? 

“So I sent him a message by mail, asking to negotiate.”

Viktor takes a moment to digest this. It’s leagues better than the worst case scenario his mind jumped to. He does believe diplomacy is the best approach, and he does appreciate Jayce taking his words to heart. Still…it’s a big step to take without getting a second opinion. And so soon after a Piltover-affiliated attack (even if “there’s no link back to us,” as Jayce had put it, Silco isn’t stupid; he might know exactly who the culprit is, especially with so many eye-witnesses). 

“Okay,” he says slowly, “That’s not so bad. When are you meeting?”

“Later today.”

 “Very quick turn around for something like this. Do you have a plan?”

Jayce nods, but doesn’t look too confident about it. He fidgets a little, shifts in place. There’s something else he’s not saying.

Sure enough, moments later he clears his throat. “He sent a message back this morning, and um…well, he said he’ll only speak with you.”

Viktor blinks. For a moment, he wants to slap Jayce across his stupid, perfect face. Always getting him into the most ridiculous, messy fucking situations.

“Me?” He manages, voice strained and audibly verging on hysteria. Jayce winces. “Why me? I am not a—politician, I don’t want to be a part of all of that.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t bring you into it, he just—”

Jayce suddenly thrusts a piece of paper at him, crinkled up from being held so tightly in his hands. Viktor takes it, reads the elegant scrawl of Silco’s hand. Simple and to the point. He can practically hear him, the way his smirk would curl around the words, smug and pleased to get a chance to poke the bear a little. Undermine Jayce and topside as a whole. Incriminate Viktor, if this goes badly, get his name in the middle of this mess. Force him to speak on behalf of Piltover, the city that has done nothing but shun him and shame him since he arrived.

He suddenly wants to hit Silco, too, to finally see something like surprise on him.  Wouldn’t that be something, greeting Silco at his stupid negotiation with a slap to the face. He supposes he should have seen something like this coming. Maybe this is a convoluted sort of delayed punishment for “eloping with Jayce Talis.”

He sighs deeply, tossing the message onto the desk pressing his fingers to his temples. He rattles off a string of curses in his first language, sees Jayce wince even though he doesn’t know what Viktor is saying.

Finally, he speaks. “And you said this is today?”

Jayce winces again and nods. “Yeah…this evening.”

“Why so soon? What if Silco hadn’t bothered to check his mail until tomorrow?”

Jayce sputters. “I mean, he got back to me pretty quickly.”

Viktor just shakes his head. These ridiculous, powerful men he has gotten himself seemingly forever stuck between no matter what tall piltie towers he climbs into, “negotiating” the fate of the city in some back alley meeting, like the lives of everyone in the city are chips to throw around. 

“If he didn’t make this request, were you even going to tell me about this?”

Jayce hesitates just long enough for irritation to flare in Viktor’s chest. He nods his head, but Viktor is not convinced. “Of course I was, V.”

“What are you going to offer him?”

Jayce in a deep breath as though steeling himself. “Independence. For the undercity. Give him his ‘Nation of Zaun.’ That’s what he wants, right?”

Viktor is genuinely floored. He was not expecting that at all. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The Nation of Zaun. 

It takes him a moment to gather his voice. “Independence?” he repeats.

Jayce just nods, like offering the undercity the rights of an independent city is as simple as that. 

“You want to give the undercity to Silco?” is the next thing he is able to say, incredulous, “Silco, whose shimmer factory you spent the other night blowing up?”

“Not necessarily,” Jayce scrambles to say, “I mean, I want to give him and the rest of the undercity independence. I’m not endorsing Silco as, like, head of the undercity council.”

Viktor scoffs, not in the mood to let Jayce play pretend. “Who exactly do you think will assume power if the undercity is suddenly rendered independent, with no pre-established government of our own. You’re not stupid, Jayce.”

“I thought you would be on board with this,” Jayce says, “You always tell me how the council rules over people they don’t know or understand. This could be the best way to resolve everything without things…escalating any more.”

Of all the ways for Jayce to finally put some of Viktor’s negative opinions of the council to use. 

“Is that even something you can promise? You’re one- eighth of the council. They don’t care about the undercity, but I know they don’t want to lose their power over it.”

“I wasn’t going to promise anything in the very first round,” Jayce says, sounding a bit indignant, “It’s just a…tentative, unofficial meeting to discuss negotiation.”

“Don’t piltie-talk me.”

“It’s a preliminary trial?” Jayce tries again. “Just to, y’know, hear his terms, and then regroup and assess.”

That doesn’t sound terrible, Viktor admits. If he takes a step back from the shock of it all, it’s probably the kind of move he would have made. He would have no desire to bring the council into undercity matters like this, and he is the one who has been on the side of diplomacy so far. 

And he had told Vi he would rather try to talk to Silco than escalate through violence. He owes it to her to follow through. She certainly followed through on her end. 

He sighs deeply once again. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He nods sharply, “I’ll talk to him. But we will need to discuss what exactly we can reasonably offer.”

Jayce nods, shoulders slumping in obvious relief. “Alright. I think we should loop Mel in on this.”

That throws Viktor off balance once again. “Councilor Medarda?”

“Yeah. I figure we should get input from someone who actually knows legal, diplomatic stuff. I’m sure she’s made a hundred deals like this before.”

“Wonderful,” Viktor says flatly. “Let's have her do it then, she sounds much more qualified for the job.”

Jayce mock-shivers. “The idea of the two of them meeting is kind of scary.”

Viktor appreciates the attempt at levity, even if he’s still a bit irritated with him. “I don’t know who I would bet my money on, honestly.”

And he truly doesn’t. Usually he would lean towards Silco, but he’s heard a bit about the Medarda clan and their fondness for war. Councilor Medarda, for the few times he’s spoken with her, doesn't seem to share that fondness. She was the most vocal supporter of negotiation on the council by far. 

“Which is why looping Mel in will help,” Jayce insists. “She’ll know how to play this. And she’s discreet—she won’t tell the rest of the council.”

Vitkor rubs exhaustedly at his temples once again, willing his oncoming headache away. “Fine,” he relents, even though he’s not sure he believes him, “Let’s ‘loop Mel in’.”  

So they loop Mel in. She comes to visit them in the lab, the three of them plus Sky, who Viktor insists on joining the conversation if she’s going to be there anyways. 

They discuss. They argue. Councilor Medarda lives up to Jacyce’s claims of her diplomatic prowess as they agree, and disagree, and come to compromises. It takes quite a few hours, pushing up against the scheduled meeting time. Eventually, they have a list that Viktor tucks into his back pocket, written out in the councilor’s practiced, elegant scrawl. 

Independence-adjacent is how Viktor would best describe it. Two seats on the Piltover council, and a right to establish their own process of selecting those seats. A local government, Zaunite-lead to govern the Zaunites, but also a (somewhat miniscule) hand in the wider city’s politics, all of it hinging on the safe return of the stolen gemstone. 

“It’s the most power we can initially offer,” Councilor Medarda says, calm and matter-of-fact, “I think it’s more than generous, considering the circumstances. And it leaves space open for further negotiation.”

It’s also exactly the kind of offer to wound Silco’s pride. Offering him something just shy of what has been his main goal for over a decade, a taste of the real thing. But it does, in fact, leave room for further negotiation. 

“Which is what we want, right?” Jayce says, firmly on Councilor Medarda’s side here—which is a bit annoying, considering he’s the one who initially offered full, complete independence right out of the gate. “We’ll hear his terms, and figure out where to go from there. It’s just a first step.”

Councilor Medarda nods decisively. Viktor sighs. “I will tell you right now that he won’t appreciate being baited. He will not be satisfied with a pseudo-freedom.”

“And that’s why you will negotiate,” Councilor Medarda says patiently, “Or at least hear him out and present our terms. We can regroup afterwards.”

Viktor doesn’t particularly want to regroup to decide what to do with the future of Piltover, of his city and his people. It doesn’t feel right to play politician with people’s lives, like the four of them deserve to make this decision on their own, but Viktor doesn’t see another option at this point, and the councilor knows it. She smiles at him; she has a very nice smile. 

He glances at Sky, who looks back at him apprehensively. He can tell from the curl of her mouth that they’re on the same page here, but she eventually shrugs. “It’s a first step,” she says. It makes up Viktor’s mind for him, and he finally nods his acquiescence. 

He carefully folders up the list of terms and slips it in his back pocket. He rises to his feet, and the rest of them rise with him.

“Good luck, Viktor,” Councilor Medarda says, and to her credit she does sound sincere.

“Be careful,” Jayce, arm moving like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to reach out and touch him. It’s probably for the best. Viktor doesn’t know how he would react if Jayce tried to embrace him right now. 

He looks so worried, though, eyes sad and brows furrowed like a sad little puppy. Viktor is frustrated with him, and with the situation, but he’s weak for him all the same. This ridiculous, impulsive man of his. Viktor sighs, and offers Jayce his hand.

Jayce takes it quickly, and then takes the hint when Viktor tugs him closer—he wraps him up and holds him close, tender in a way that verges on embarrassing, especially with Councilor Medarda and Sky right there in the room with him. After a long moment, he pulls back, looking a little bashful. 

Viktor cracks a small smile, gives him a little pat on the cheek. “I’ll be fine,” he says, hoping he sounds more confident than he feels. 

Sky tugs him away to give him a quick hug of her own. He thinks it’s all getting a bit ridiculous, everyone acting as though he’s about to go on some perilous quest into great danger instead of having a conversation with someone. It’s making him oddly nervous, so he says one more goodbye and starts on his perilous quest.

He does wish Jayce had picked somewhere closer to the lab, so he wouldn’t have to walk so far. All the way to the docks with the long-abandoned cannons overlooking the water where the river meets the sea. Chemical runoff mixing with salt, eventually being overpowered by the vastness of the ocean. 

It’s surprisingly isolated, no boats coasting by or enforcers on guard. No one but he and Silco.

He sees him as soon as the long railing of the docks come into focus, a blot of black against the blue-gray sky. He’s sure Silco can hear him coming from just as far, the clack of his tripedal step unnervingly loud in the quiet, but he doesn’t turn around until Viktor is nearly there. He finally reaches the railing, a respectable distance away from the man, and leans heavily against it, finally taking some weight off of his leg. 

A long beat, where the two of them stare out at the ocean together, Viktor quietly catching his breath in between a light bout of coughing, before Silco finally deigns to look at him. 

“Viktor,” he says in greeting, “I wish I could say you look well, but…”

Viktor shrugs a shoulder, brushing off the jab. “Low blow. I’m a dying man, you know.”

Silco hums, turning to fully face him. “My condolences,” he says, “A bit rude of Talis to make you walk this far just to see me.”

Viktor feels himself frown, but doesn’t take the bait. He decides to skip the banter. “Why am I here?” he asks simply.

“To negotiate, according to your councilor.”

“Why not just talk to him, then?” It’s a bit of stupid question, considering everything, but he feels he deserves to know the answer. 

“The state of the undercity is a…complicated matter, and should be discussed by people who understand the delicacy of the situation. Jayce Talis does not. He is not my equal, and I doubt he sees me as such.”

“And is that what I am to you?” Viktor asks dubiously, “Your ‘equal’? Or am I just here to get fucked again?” 

Silco raises an amused eyebrow, “I didn’t know that option was still on the table. Are some of the rumors true, then?”

“They are not,” Viktor snaps despite himself, taking the bait after all; he’s just so tired of all of this, ignoring the rumors and the stares and forcing down the urge to tell all of Piltover to fuck off, “I’m here as a scientist, not a whore. I’m tired of reminding people of that fact.”

Silco lips twitch upwards, obviously pleased to have gotten under his skin, “Oh, I’m well aware. You’ve come a long way since your brothel days. In fact, I’d say you’re one of the most powerful people in Piltover right now.”

“ Please,” Viktor scoffs in disbelief, “You don’t need to flatter me.”

“You know I’m not the kind of man who flatters.” Viktor does know. “I’m sure the rest of the council is terrified of you, of what Jayce Talis might do for you if only you asked. I’d call that power.” 

Viktor doesn’t know what to say to that. Maybe it is a kind of power, an unspoken capital in this strange, elite world he finds himself in. Maybe it’s just bullshit. 

“You know that nothing we come to an agreement on here holds any value to them,” he gestures to the expanse of Piltover as a whole, “I don’t speak on behalf of the council, I cannot promise you anything.” 

“Neither could Talis,” Silco waves his hand dismissively, “I’m aware this whole thing is mostly a show of good faith. But you have Talis’ ear, and Talis has some kind of sway in the councilroom or you wouldn’t be here at all.”

With that, he pulls out a sheet of paper and holds it out for Viktor to take. Viktor takes a few steps closer to reach it. In Silco’s small, looping scrawl, Viktor skims: more favorable trade routes, blanket amnesty, access to the hexgates. All  fairly reasonable demands. Sovereignty , which Viktor saw coming. 

“This is quite a list,” he says neutrally. 

“Too much?”

“The sovereignty might be, ah, pushing it a little.”

“You know independence has always been the goal,” Silco says cooly. 

“I do,” Viktor agrees, “Would you like to hear their offer?”

“No,” Silcos says, and leans against the railing, his back to the sea. “I want to hear your offer.”

Viktor frowns. He’s so tired of all of these games and power plays. He does not speak for Piltover; he has no offer of his own. Silco knows this, of course he knows this. He’s here as a mouthpiece for Jayce and Councilor Medarda, because Silco has made him take on the role.

“Well,” he starts reaching for the list in his pocket, but then stops. “We need the stolen gemstone back. That is non-negotiable.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Jinx does.”

“And you think she’ll willingly hand it back over to Piltover if I asked her to?”

Now Silco is just fucking with him.

“I do.” Viktor says, “She stole some notes as well. I’m sure you’re aware that the gemstone is unstable. It’s not ready for widespread use. Jinx may be able to solve that problem on her own, but if you return the gemstone to me, I will be sure to give it back when it’s deemed safe for the public.”

This, finally, seems to genuinely catch Silco off guard. “You would give it back?” he echoes disbelievingly. 

Viktor shrugs. “They are meant to be distributed amongst the people when they’re done. Accessible hextech for the common man, as Jayce likes to pitch it.”

The mention of Jayce has Silco frowning again. “And that ‘pitch’ includes the people of Zaun as well?”

“I will ensure that it does.”

Silco doesn’t look convinced, “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you, considering what your Man of Progress got up to last night. Attacking a building full of children.”

“A factory,” Viktor can’t help but correct, “Your factory full of children.”

Silco is silent for a long moment, expression hard. “They’re fairly compensated for their work. You of all people know what it’s like growing up down there.”

Viktor does know. Silco knows, too. Which makes it even more unacceptable.

“I do. I would not wish it on another generation. I would think positive change would mean less children working in factories.”

“They are fairly compensated,” Silco repeats, “Better a factory than working the whorehouses.”

There’s acid in his voice, and it stings. Viktor has always known that the man’s strange respect for him is conditional, but somehow it still stings.

“I didn’t start that young,” he jokes, trying his best not to seem rattled. “No child should have to cook you drugs to feed their families.”

“I thought you were here to negotiate with me, not complain about how I do business. You never have before.”

This is true. Viktor knows children were working the factories since long before Jayce decided to blow the place up. Viktor had been one of those children once—albeit not in a shimmer plant. He knows it’s been going on for years, out of sight and out of mind. That still doesn’t make it right; it doesn’t make Viktor’s inaction right, either, even thought there isn’t much he could have actually done about it. 

He can do something about it now, though, he realizes. If they’re supposed to be equals here, then Viktor is in just the right place to make demands of his own. Silco did say he wanted to hear Viktor’s offer.

“Well,” Viktor finally says, “Things have changed. I’m now in quite the perfect place to ‘complain’ about your business practices.”

Silco raises his brows, less than pleasantly surprised at Viktor’s sudden gall. 

“The children who worked at the factory that Jayce…attacked,” Viktor continues before Silco can interrupt. “What will happen to them?”

“I imagine they’ll find another way to make money,” Silco says dismissively. 

Viktor nods. “Right. You will help them with that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing shimmer-related. Nothing life-threatening. You will take care of them, and their families, and you will not punish them for topside’s actions.”

Silco is momentarily stunned into silence. It’s ridiculously satisfying, the feeling of finally surprising such an unshakable man. He recovers quickly as ever, though, the surprise freezing over into cool contemplation once again.

“And this is part of the deal?” he asks.

Viktor shrugs, self-satisfied. “You wanted to negotiate with me. This is one of my terms.”

Silco studies him for a long moment. The sea breeze blowing in is salty and sharp; it tickles Viktor’s throat, and he turns away to cough, breaking the tense silence. 

“Fine,” Silco finally says. “Far be it from me to deny the wish of a dying man. What are the rest of their terms?”

It seems Viktor has reached the limits of Silco’s odd fondness for him. He decides not to push any further, pulling the list from his pocket and passing Silco the folded up paper. 

He watches the man’s face as he reads it, the minute changes in his eyes and the twist of his mouth—the interest in the council seats, irritation with the pseudo-sovereignty of local government, and then a sharp burst of panic. Fear, if Silco was the kind of man who feared.

There is one more thing on Piltover’s list, a final demand that both Viktor and Sky were resolutely opposed to but was added regardless. The council needs someone to make an example of, Councilor Medarda had said, for the people’s peace of mind. 

“They want Jinx?” Silco asks, voice soft and deadly.

Viktor swallows nervously, fiddling with the handle of his cane. “I told them you would not agree to it. They did not listen. They want someone to…’make an example of’.”

“She was acting under my orders,” Silco argues, like Viktor is someone he needs to justify himself to. Like Viktor is someone who wants Jinx behind bars. It would be insulting if he couldn’t see the concern for his daughter written in the tension of Silco’s shoulders. 

“I know,” he placates, “I don’t want to see her in prison either.”

“What then? I give them Jinx and they give me scraps?”

“Local government and council seats are not scraps,” Viktor feels the need to say. “But…all of it is contingent on the return of the gemstone. And someone to ‘make an example of.’ They want Jinx, but…I know that isn’t an option for you.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“Well,” Viktor says carefully. “They want a body to put behind bars. I think if we want to have a chance of getting the rest of the council to agree to any of this,” he holds up Silco’s list of demands, “then an arrest is probably necessary. But I don’t think it will matter much which body.” He’s not entirely sure if this is true, but he can probably get Jayce to agree to it. “Pilties are easy to please in that regard—I think they just enjoy the act of throwing trenchers in prison.”

Silco snorts ungracefully, turning away from him to look out over the sea. Viktor does the same, giving him his illusion of privacy and unflappability. 

It’s peaceful, if he ignores the man beside him and what they’re here for. Viktor has always loved the idea of the ocean; he used to make toy boats out of spare cogs and scrap metal, urged on by his mother’s tales of her home country and the journey to Piltover her family took across the sea when she was very young. 

He hadn’t actually seen it for the first time until he came topside for the academy’s entrance exam. He had sat on a bench near this very dock after he had been denied entry, and stared out into the vast expanse of it. His mother was gone by then. He will likely soon be gone with her. 

He’s drawn from his musings by the sound of Silco sighing. Viktor finally dares to look at him again, as he folds Piltover’s list up and slips it into his jacket. His hand seems to catch on something else, and he makes a noise of remembrance.

“Ah, I almost forgot—I have something for you.”

That does not bode well. “Oh?” Viktor turns to face him full-on once again. 

“I had a chat with our mutual acquaintance about your…predicament.”

That most certainly does not bode well. He runs through a list of “mutual acquaintances,” each one less reassuring than the last.

“What predicament is that?” Viktor asks. Silco has that smug little smirk on his face again, probably happy to have turned the tables back to their usual arrangement, with him in control of the conversation and Viktor along for the ride.

“You’re a dying man,” Silco reminds him, as if Viktor needs any reminder, “Your old mentor seemed unusually sentimental about it when I told him the news.” Singed, then. Of course. Viktor doubts his sentimentality very much, the thought of him alone bringing back memories of poor Rio and her agonized screeches. “He asked me to deliver this to you.”

Silco pulls a small vial of a familiar dark purple liquid from his pocket and holds it out for him to take. 

Viktor does not.

“That’s shimmer,” he says, a bit unnecessarily. 

“It is,” Silco says, amusement in his voice, “A special variant, apparently. He claims it will help your illness. The pain, the fatigue. Give you a bit of a kick to keep you going.”

“He is not a medical doctor.”

“That he is not,” Silco agrees, “But he’s familiar enough with your ailment. We’ve all known someone who got sump-sick.”

Silco holds the vial out insistently, taking a step forwards when Viktor takes a step back. 

“Shimmer is not the solution,” Viktor says, “It’s a temporary fix; it does not help, it destroys.”

“Which is why this is a special variant, tailored specifically to you and your needs,” Silco steps ever closer, Viktor caught between him and the metal railing, the ocean below. He takes Viktor’s free wrist and presses the vial into his hand. It’s cool against his skin. “No one’s going to force you to use it. But better to have it as an option than to die before you can complete your work.”

Silco takes Viktor’s hand in both of his own, forcing his fingers to curl around the vial until he’s holding it tight in his fist. Silco’s fingers are warm, a shock against the cool ocean air and the chill of Viktor’s skin.

“I won’t need it.” Viktor insists. 

“Of course not,” Silco says, “But take it anyhow. Consider it part of the negotiation.”

With that, he finally steps back, giving Viktor space to breathe again. 

“I’ll take these terms to my people,” Siloc continues, as calm and collected as ever, “We will discuss, and get back to you. I assume you’ll do the same.”

Viktor clears his throat, slipping the vial into his pocket so he doesn’t have to keep touching it. “Right. We, ah, look forward to hearing from you.”

“I’m sure,” Silco drawls. “I wish you good health in the coming weeks.”

“Thank you,” Viktor says, caught off guard by the sudden gentling of his tone. 

“And if you ever do change your mind about my offer of employment, my doors are always open,” Silco adds, always needing to get the last word in. “Piltover’s doctors don’t know what they’re dealing with—we can keep you alive, Viktor. I can help you. All you need to do is ask.”

It’s a taunt as much as it is an offer. Viktor is sure they probably could keep him alive, at least for a bit, as if an endless cycle of addiction wouldn’t be a hindrance on his ability to work. He’s not that far along yet, thinking as he swallows his discomfort down and nods.

“Thank you,” he says again, far less sincere this time, “I will…keep that in mind. Have a safe trip home.”

Silco offers him a nod goodbye, and then turns on his heel and strides away. Viktor does not watch him go, instead turning back to the sea and breathing deeply in relief. That…did not go terribly. In fact, all things considered, it might have gone well. As well as it could have. 

Nothing has been agreed on, really, nothing has been solved, but it’s a first step. 

Viktor coughs lightly—and then not so lightly, body curling forwards over the railing as he hacks his fucking lungs up for the tenth time today. Copper floods his senses once again, and he spits a mouthful of blood into the water below. It disappears almost immediately, mixed into the swirl of salt and runoff. He spits again for good measure. 

Inspired, he wipes at his mouth absently with the back of his hand so he can pull the vial of shimmer from his pocket and hold it out over the railing. He could let go and watch it disappear into the blue. He could throw it, see how far he could make it fly. 

He should just drop it. He knows he should drop it.

For some reason, he does not drop it. He holds the glass between his fingers and stares at it, a lighter shade of purple than the stuff he’s seen passed around the brothel; there was a girl there who doubled as a dealer both on and off the clock. Fucking on shimmer was an experience, if the sounds coming from her room all night were any indication. 

A special variant. He imagines his old mentor cooking up a special batch of his poison, just for Viktor to try. He doubts it’s safe in any regard. It might just make everything worse. And he has no time to fall into any kind of substance dependency; addiction is rather inconvenient, and he doesn’t have room for inconvenience anymore. 

Still, he does not drop it. 

After a beat of thought, he unscrews the handle of his cane and slips the vial inside the tight space he had hollowed out years ago. He used to keep a knife in there, but deemed it unnecessary after moving topside. No need to get caught carrying a weapon up here.

He screws it shut, and suddenly it’s like the shimmer never existed. Out of sight and out of mind, just like the children who make it. But still there, just in case. Viktor is the kind of man who likes to have a backup plan, even if it’s one he doesn’t necessarily want to have to fall back on. Better to have a non-ideal backup than to have nothing at all—Silco was right about that, at least.

He won’t use it, he thinks firmly. He won’t. But there’s no need to throw away a gift. A special variant. He wonders what’s in it. Maybe he can find out. Maybe it works on plants. 

He stares out at the sea for a few moments longer, feeling the breeze on his face and wondering what it would feel like to leap into the water and drown. Then, he pushes off the railing and begins the long walk back to the lab. 

Jayce and Sky are at the lab when he finally makes it back, the Councilor apparently called away on some other important councilor business. 

Sky is tinkering with the hexcore, Jayce re-working some of their failed gemstone equations. They both rise when he walks in, work immediately forgotten. It’s sweet of them, but he does wonder how much actual work they’ve gotten done while he was gone.

Jayce is on him almost immediately, hovering in a nervous way that’s so unlike him that Viktor is the one to reach out and touch. Jayce holds his hand like he’s afraid he’ll never be allowed to again, tight and yet hesitant.

“How did it go?” he asks. 

Viktor shrugs. “Honestly? Not too bad.”

He relays the conversation, more-or-less, leaving out all the charged jabs and his old mentor’s gift, letting Jayce’s other hand slide higher and higher up his arm until it’s curled around the crook of his elbow.

When he reaches the Jinx part of the conversation—and what Viktor proposed to get around it—Jayce frowns. “Viktor, you heard Mel. They need someone—”

“To make an example of,” Viktor cuts him off, “Yes, I recall. But she’s his daughter, Jayce. He’s not going to give her up. Either we get the gemstone and a warm, not Jinx body to put behind bars, or we get nothing.”

Jayce frowns harder, but seems to know that he won’t win this argument. “Okay. We’ll talk about it more with Mel, I guess.”

Viktor sighs deeply at the idea of regrouping as these councilors are so fond of calling it. “Yes, I imagine we will.”

Suddenly very tired, Viktor decides to go home at a reasonable hour for the first time in weeks. Jayce rises to his feet at this announcement, his hand still hovering around the general vicinity of Viktor’s elbow.

“Can I walk you home?” Jayce asks. He sounds so earnest, that sad little puppy look on his face again. Viktor crumbles easily. 

“Sure,” he says softly. “But we’ll have to walk slowly. I’ve done a bit too much of that today.”

Jayce immediately looks concerned, “I’m sorry, I would’ve made the meeting place closer if I knew you were gonna be the one to—”

“Jayce,” Viktor cuts in, “I know; it’s not your fault.” He tugs at the sleeve of Jayce’s button up. “Walk me home already.”

Jayce smiles weakly and walks him home. It’s a slow walk, but Jayce doesn’t seem to mind. He keeps a hand on him the whole time, on his elbow and his back and his waist. He has to support some of Viktor’s weight near the end, his leg and back finally reaching their limits after the demanding day. 

The thought shakes him so badly that he stands up straight. A demanding day. He walked to work, and to meet Silco, and then back to work. There used to be evenings at the Moon where he would take as many clients as he could, and then drink with Yelena afterwards, and then walk home and tinker on his latest project. And then get up the next day and do it all over again.

His illness has progressed faster than he had expected it would—than he had hoped it would. He feels like it’s getting worse and worse every day. It scares him more than he had thought it would. He had seen it before, after all, he knew what was coming for him. But knowing isn’t the same as living, and living it is not something he was ready for. 

He thought he would have more time.

He only makes it another block before he has to lean on Jayce again, and then they’ve finally made it. Jayce stops at the threshold of the door when Viktor gets it open, as though unsure if he’s allowed inside. It endears Viktor as much as it makes him feel bad for being so cold, and then annoyed about feeling bad. 

“You can come in if you like,” he says, and Jayce’s broad shoulders deflate in relief. 

This piltie house he’s been given still doesn’t quite feel like home, but it’s the closest thing he has up here other than the lab; the relief he feels stepping inside and locking the door behind him means that he’s gotten more comfortable here than he thought. 

“Have you eaten at all today?” Jayce asks, a light hand on Viktor’s back.

Viktor has to stop and think about it, which means that the answer is most likely no. Jayce gives him a disapproving look.

“V,” he says, voice heavy with concern. “You have to eat.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose; I just haven’t been hungry.” 

Jayce doesn’t push the issue, just insists on cooking something up for him even though he only knows how to make about three things. Luckily, Viktor has the ingredients for light sandwiches.

He sits at the counter and watches Jayce put them together, struck by the domesticity of it all. How nice it feels to be able to come back to this after such a long, overwhelming day. Jayce looks like he belongs in Viktor’s kitchen, in Viktor’s home, rifling through his cabinets to look for fancy kitchen supplies that Viktor very much does not own.

“You don’t have a vegetable slicer?” he asks. 

“You have a perfectly good knife in your hand,” Viktor answers, slightly baffled. “There’s your vegetable slicer.”

Jayce cuts the tomatoes with a wobbly hand; they’re always so steady during their experiments, but apparently cutting a vegetable is different. They talk while Jayce prepares the food, Viktor catching him up on he and Sky’s experiments with the plants—which Sky had given him a brief rundown on while they waited—but leaving out the pesky accidentally fed my blood to an unknown magical entity bit, because he doesn’t want to hear a lecture on danger and irresponsibility. Jacye, for his part, listens intently the whole time. Viktor can see the cogs turning in that brilliant head of his, and feels a swell of anticipation for work tomorrow. 

The food turns out well. It’s tasty and filling, which is as much as Viktor could ask for in a meal. He watches Jayce rinse the plates off afterwards and then put them carefully back up the correct cabinet. He handles them gently, even though one of them has a deep crack in it and they’re probably worth less than the water he washes them with. Maybe it’s just because they’re Viktor’s, he thinks, and is a bit undone by the fact that it’s probably true. 

They head to the bedroom afterwards. Viktor sits down heavily on the nice padded reading chair in the corner, shoving a stray sweater out of the way. Jayce perches a bit awkwardly on the bed across from him. Suddenly devoid of all distractions, it’s just the two of them alone in a room with nothing else to do for the first time since before the Shimmer Factory Ordeal.

This is not lost on either of them. 

Jayce clears his throat. “Viktor, there’s, um, there’s something I want to show you tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”

It’s a bit sad that Viktor’s first feeling is immediate dread, but he’s been surprised a few too many times today to be gracious about it. 

“What is it?” 

If Jayce senses his apprehension, he doesn’t show it.  “I’ve noticed that it’s been harder for you to, um, to walk lately, so I asked the doctor about it, and she recommended you switch from a cane to a crutch, for more support. So I…started making you one—last week, before everything started spiraling.” 

He fidgets in his seat, eyes darting this way and that. Despite everything that has gone on in the past forty eight hours, Viktor feels such a sudden rush of love for this mess of a man. So thoughtful about Viktor’s comfort and careless with citywide politics. Thoughtful about the things he loves, which now includes Viktor. He feels his last bit of frustration at his partner’s actions melt away; it’s not his grudge to hold, anyways. He loves Jayce, and he’s so tired of being at odds with him.

“You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to,” Jayce continues when Viktor stays silent, “It’s not totally finished yet—you can make adjustments, too, if you want.”

Viktor’s chest is warm; he leans forwards to take Jayce’s hand, feeling cherished and oddly hollow in equal measures. “Thank you, Jayce. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Jayce puts his free hand over Viktor’s, his palms warm against Viktor’s stiff fingers, sore from gripping his cane stress-tight all day. “I just want you to be…comfortable. And okay. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“You act as though Silco was going to knife me on the spot,” Viktor jokes, even though he knows Jayce is talking about more than Silco now.

“I didn’t think he would knife you,” Jayce defends, “But you can’t blame me for being worried. I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

“You didn’t put me anywhere,” Viktor says, and brings his free hand up to cup Jayce’s cheek. “Like I said, it’s not your fault Silco is a petty bastard.”

Jayce huffs a laugh at the insult, leaning into Viktor’s hand. His cheek is warm, too.

“Still. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yes, yes, I made it back alive from my perilous quest.” He gives Jayce a peck on the mouth to stop him from saying it again. Jayce doesn’t seem to mind, cupping Viktor’s jaw and turning the kiss long and languid. 

Viktor leans forwards to reach him better and winces at the sharp burst of pain that shoots up his spine. Jayce pulls back immediately, that now-familiar concern back on his face.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Viktor says, waving him off. “Just sore.”

He rubs at the muscle of his cane-side shoulder, tight from all of today’s action. 

“I can help with that, if you’d like,” Jayce offers, strangely timid. “I give a good massage. I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my hands.”

Jayce is pretty good with his hands—in more ways than one. Viktor knows this intimately. Viktor is the one who told him, after all. 

He’s never gotten a proper massage before, but the idea isn’t a bad one. He finds himself intrigued.

“Alright,” he concedes easily enough. “Should I move?”

“No, no,” Jayce says, pushing himself to his feet, “That’s okay. Just…relax. 

He circles around behind the chair, and puts his hands on both of Viktor’s shoulders. He’s really doing this, then. Viktor tries to relax, feeling a bit ridiculous, sinking back against the cushion and into Jayce’s hands.

They’re forge-hot as always, warmth sinking into Viktor’s skin even through the fabric of his shirt. They just rest there for a moment, feeling, and then he presses down with intention, thumbs rubbing circles against the bend of Viktor’s neck. Soothing pressure working at the knots in his shoulders—it feels so nice, so suddenly, that he can’t help the soft noise that slips out.

Jayce takes it as encouragement, pressing harder, moving down to his shoulder blades, his upper back, skirting around the metal knobs in his spine and the straps of his brace, until the chair cushion inhibits him from going lower. He works his way back up, and the hot rub of his big, magical hands is so soothing that he wishes he had thought to take his shirt off so he could feel it against his skin.

He doesn’t realize his eyes have fluttered shut until Jayce’s hands are gone, leaving a chill in their wake. A rustle of movement, and he opens his eyes to see Jayce kneeling before him, a smug little grin on his face.

“Feel good?” he asks, like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. 

“Why did you stop,” Viktor demands, too tired for their usual back and forth.

Jayce puts his hands on both of Viktor’s knees, eyes imploring. Viktor nods, and Jayce eases his knees apart just enough to sit comfortably between them. He’s so used to having Jayce between his legs for one of a few specific reasons, so he’s somehow caught off guard when all he does is start untying the laces of Viktor’s boots.

He slides them off one by one and sets them neatly side by side on the floor. Viktor’s socks come next, double layered now that it’s been getting cooler outside, and then Jayce is wrapping his big hands around the ankle of his right leg and propping that foot up on his thigh with a delicacy Viktor has rarely seen him use outside of the lab.

“Jayce,” Viktor says, voice startlingly weak; no one has touched him here in…he doesn’t even know how long. Jayce certainly never has. “You don’t have to…”

Jayce digs his thumbs into the sore arch of Viktor’s foot, and Viktor stops protesting. A gasp tears from his throat, too-loud in the quiet of the room, but Jayce doesn’t even look up to gloat about it. 

He rubs at his foot for a few long minutes, easing out the ache of too much standing until it’s nothing but a faint memory. Then he moves up, soft pressure on the joints of Viktor’s ankle; he can feel the heat from Jayce’s fingers sink into the bone beneath the his skin. Then higher, sliding his hands up under the hem of Viktor’s pants to reach his calf. 

Viktor would consider himself pretty in tune with his body. He’s always aware of it, even when the constant ache is dulled down to a faint white noise. Right now, every press of Jayce’s hands feels like the center of the universe, sizzling pinpricks of sensation.

His eyes slip shut, and he lets himself just sit there and feel. The whole world falling away, reduced to nothing but the warm pressure of Jayce’s strong hands on his calf, the bend of his knee, his thigh. And then, what that leg is sufficiently loosened up, the other—gentler, handling the stiff limb like it’s something precious as he unhooks the clasps of Viktor’s brace and slides it off. 

Viktor feels his pulse pick up as Jayce runs a careful hand up under the hem of his pants once again, pushing the fabric up as far as he can go and starting the whole process over again. Foot to ankle to calf to knee, kneading the tension out of the atrophied muscle with his steady, steady hands, melting the stiffness of his joints away along with all the coherent thoughts in his head. 

Jayce really is very good with his hands. 

He nudges Vitkor’s legs open further when he reaches his thighs. Even through the thick fabric of his pants, Viktor can feel the heat of Jayce’s palms. The splay of his big hands, thick fingers, across the width of Viktor’s thigh, has the first licks of heat sparking low in his gut. 

Jayce switches thighs, wringing him out and filling his head with cotton. Time drifts by, slow like molasses and just as thick, and then Jayce has a hand on both knees, pressing closer, and drags them both up along the length of Viktor’s thighs.

He slides them higher, higher, higher still—fingers flexing around the meat of Viktor’s thighs, still not giving up the pretense of just a massage—until Viktor can feel his thumbs pressing tight into the space where thigh meets crotch. Jayce has had his fingers in all sorts of places between Viktor’s legs, but this—soothing circles rubbed into his inner thighs, centimeters away from the wet heat that has pooled between them—is startlingly intimate. 

It’s also very frustrating. Jayce seems to be very committed to the masseur bit, doing his very best to turn Viktor’s limbs to jelly and nothing else. 

Not that Viktor was expecting this to turn into anything more; they’ve both been a little bit too stressed out and busy and tired to fuck recently, but Viktor was also not expecting this to get him so…worked up. It makes sense, though: Jayce has always had a way of working him up. He just usually also has the intention to follow through on it. 

He tilts his hips up the slightest amount, trying to silently will Jayce’s hands higher. They do go higher—up over his hips to his waist, gripping tight and rubbing circles into the dimples of his lower back. It makes Viktor groan—disappointment and pleasure all in one.

“Jayce,” he nearly whines, voice thin.

“Yeah?” There’s none of the smug teasing in his voice that Viktor had expected. As though he doesn’t know Viktor is throbbing between his legs, every spot that Jayce has touched sparking like a live wire. “Is there somewhere else you want me to do?”

Viktor huffs, lacking the energy for frustration but still unwilling to say it outright. He spreads his legs the slightest bit wider, urging Jayce to take the hint. Jayce hums thoughtfully, dragging his hand back down Viktor’s thighs to his knees.

“Here?” Jayce asks, and he is teasing now. Viktor cracks an eye open to glare down at him, unimpressed. Jayce raises an eyebrow, the hint of a smile on his lips. He slides his hand halfway up his thighs. “Here?”

“Jayce,” Viktor says again, more of a plea than a demand. Jayce slides his hands higher still. 

“Alright,” he murmurs softly, “Just relax. I’ll take care of you, sweetheart.”

If Viktor still had space in his head for coherent thought, he would probably scoff—push back a little bit, just to remind Jayce he’s not to be coddled. As it stands, he does not. Docile and sleepy, he shuts his eyes again and trusts Jayce to take care of him.

Finally, finally, Jayce brings one of his hands between Viktor’s legs. He just holds his hand there for a moment, a few seconds of solid pressure that has Viktor’s hips jerking automatically into that waiting warmth, and then he finally moves. He is very committed to the bit, grinding his palm up against the hard nub of Viktor’s cock like he’s trying to fucking massage that, too, knowing exactly what to do even through two layers of fabric. 

He should probably take his pants off, Viktor thinks vaguely, but that would be such a hassle—they’re long since soiled, and right now Viktor is too blissed out and loose-limbed to even care. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and grasps at Jayce’s shoulder to steady himself. “Do that again.”

Jayce follows orders remarkably well when he wants to. 

It’s a slow, sticky affair, the way Jayce gets him off. And then, when he finally fucking gets his hand down the front of Viktor’s pants, a fast and sticky affair. Jayce’s clever fingers spread him open and slip inside and move slow and steady until he’s sloppy enough for Jayce to adjust his grip, getting his free hand around his thigh and easing his legs open even further.

He presses a sweet little kiss to the inside of Viktor’s still-clothed thigh and then uses this new angle to drill into him with a brisk efficiency that reminds Viktor of the night he taught Jayce how to properly use his hands. That was years ago, but he still has that same single-minded diligence to please that made him so easy to fall for as he fucks into Viktor’s slick hole hard and fast. 

Viktor doesn’t last long. He’s so sleepy and strung out and sensitive; his body buzzing and his head full of honey. The orgasm Jayce wrings out of him feels like it goes on forever, leaving him panting and strung out on his fancy new chair that probably cost more than the rest of the furniture in his old lab put together. 

Viktor whines in oversensitivity when Jayce slides his fingers out of him and slips his hand up out of his pants. He presses another kiss to Viktor’s thigh; when Viktor is finally able to pry his eyes open, he finds Jayce smiles up at him softly, looking so fond and sappy that it would make Viktor flush if he wasn’t already. 

He reaches a hand out to touch, cupping his partner’s cheek lightly; Jayce leans into it, and then turns and gives his palm a kiss, too. It makes Viktor smile, soft and sated.

“Thank you, Jayce,” he says, his voice, “You are very good with your hands.”

Jayce smiles, all boyish and charming and easy to forgive, and then licks his sticky fingers clean. “I learned from the best.”

“I didn’t teach you that first bit,” Viktor says, distracted by Jayce’s mouth. If he were a few years younger, he would be ready to go again in a few minutes. But he is not a few years younger, and both of them are very tired. 

“My mom used to get really bad back aches,” Jayce explains, pushing himself to his feet and groaning a bit as he stretches his legs. 

“That’s sweet of you to do for her,” Viktor says, charmed by the idea of a young Jayce learning how to give a massage for his mother. Jayce shrugs, preening a little at the compliment. 

“It’s a good skill to have.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Viktor agrees, and holds out a hand. Jayce helps him to his feet without having to be asked, and walks him over to the bed a few feet away. 

“Here, let me…” he hurries to the closet, presumably to get Viktor some comfortable, clean sleep pants. Viktor lets him, unwilling to put up his usual protest at being doted on tonight. 

He lets Jayce help him out of his pants and undergarments and into a new set, and lets Jayce help him out of his back brace and into his bed. It’s not too bad being doted on, he decides, but it might just be the massage and orgasm talking. He does not voice that thought aloud, because he doesn't want Jayce to know how much power his clever, calloused hands hold over him. 

“It’s late,” Viktor says when Jayce hovers at the edge of the bed in silent question. “You can stay the night, if you want.”

Jayce’s answering smile could light up every single dark corner of the fissures. 

An hour later and Jayce is knocked the fuck out beside him, arm thrown over Viktor’s waist and his nose buried in his neck. Viktor, for how exhausted he’s been all day, just can’t seem to follow. He finds himself staring up at the ceiling fan moving in lazy circles above them, absently stroking Jayce’s hair.

His mind won’t stop racing, replaying today’s events over and over. The breakthrough with the hexcore, the negotiation with Silco. The vial of shimmer still hidden beneath the handle of his cane, propped up against the nightstand less than two feet away.

He wonders what Jayce would think, if he told him about Silco’s offer, that he thought about throwing the vial into the sea but then kept it instead. That he’s considering using it.

He finds that genuinely isn’t sure, at this point, what Jayce would think. What he would say, what he would do, if Viktor told him. It scares him, not knowing. 

He should tell him, probably. He took a leap telling him about the Silco Situation, back when that was the biggest problem they had. He’d trusted Jayce to hear him out and to believe in him. And Jayce had. 

But things aren’t the same as they were back then. They aren’t the same. It’s a race against time, now, and he doesn’t know if he has enough of it to get Jayce to understand where he’s coming from. He doesn’t want to keep him in the dark, though—he doesn’t think he can. It’s not sustainable, all of these lies. He’s a scientist; not a politician, not a spy, not a negotiator. He deals in truths, in facts. 

He should tell Jayce about the shimmer.

(He should have just tossed the shimmer into the ocean, too, and yet there it sits, hidden away just out of arm's reach.)

On the other hand, it’s not like he’s planning to use it. It’s just a possibility. If it becomes more than just a possibility, if he actually does decide to use it, then he’ll tell Jayce. 

He will.