Work Text:
It was night outside. It had been dark for a long while, and Jayce thought that maybe the words on the paper in front of him weren’t trying to mess with his head by moving and swirling around. Maybe his eyes were just done for the day. Or, in this case, the night.
But this was the last document he had to review. He scrunched his eyes shut for a few seconds, took a breath, opened them, and tried again. The documentation followed every practical detail regarding their new invention, his and his partner’s. But Viktor hated paperwork, he was way more into the practical stuff, Jayce mused, so he of course had volunteered to take care of it. He was almost starting to regret his decision. But then a pair of lovely, intense, golden irises peeked into his brain, overlapping over the words on the paper and Jayce decided that nope, he didn’t regret a thing. Not when Viktor had looked at him like that.
So now, Jayce finally managed to read the last lines of print and- he stopped. Below it all there was an empty space, and above it, the writing read: “Signature:”. Viktor wouldn’t mind if he signed for them both, would he?
Jayce meticulously scribbled his name, in that fancy way that almost looked careless and rushed, but was actually a practiced art, as any person that didn’t have a real signature and used their name as one did. He then grabbed a blank piece of paper, and tried to mimic Viktor’s writing on it. His partner’s style was more sharp, angular and messy, and Jayce did his best. When he was satisfied with the latest version of Viktor written down, he started to copy it on the official document.
But the pen didn’t manage to reach the paper, because he abruptly drew back, eyes narrowed. He couldn’t write just Viktor as a signature, not when next to it stood the fancy Jayce Talis scribble. Had he ever asked Viktor his last name? Did the man even have one?
This was so foolish, but Jayce couldn’t let it go. Vik would probably tease him the following day for stressing so much over such a feeble matter. Do you think anybody bats an eye at some fucking signatures, Jayce?
Jayce did. And it was enough to throw him in a spiral.
The inventor pushed the document away in frustration, and sprawled his arms on the desk, head following suit. From that angle, cheek pressed in the crook of an elbow, everything was at a 90 degree angle. The surface of the desk became a wall and everything on it looked like it was levitating, somehow glued to the wood. As he trailed his eyes over it, something caught Jayce’s gaze. It was small and shiny, glinting softly in the lamp’s light, and an idea came to him.
It was the following day. (For Jayce it was the same day, but Viktor didn’t need to know that his partner had stayed awake the better part of the night, fighting his brain.)
Viktor was stationed at one of the working benches in their lab, when his partner had entered the room. He showed no sign of sensing Jayce’s presence, and Jayce chuckled to himself. Vik often did this thing where he would completely shut out the external world, all his focus poured into his work. Jayce cleared his throat, making his steps lauder. Viktor stopped. Turned around. Caught Jayce’s eyes and smiled.
Something melted inside Jayce and he smiled back. He continued his approach but the ruffle of the papers in his hand brought him back from his reverie. A little reminder of his plan. Heat threatened to crawl over his neck and cheeks, but he took a breath and didn’t stop his feet until he reached Viktor.
“Morning” the latter spoke, reaching his hand to cup Jayce’s cheek and draw him close.
Jayce leaned in, eyes starting to shut, getting ready for the kiss. Viktor abruptly stopped the movement, however, grabbing Jayce’s face with both hands, twisting it around, brows furrowed. Jayce fully opened his eyes then, confusion seeping into the lines of his face, but heat still creeping in at Viktor’s gentle touch. He swept his thumbs over Jayce’s stubble, cheekbones, eyes, then he sighed. Jayce tensed.
“If I had known reviewing those damn papers would’ve taken so long, I would’ve offered to help. You look like shit.” He concluded.
Jayce blinked, frozen in the uncomfortable position of slightly hovering, out of balance, down and forward, to be at Viktor’s level.
“I- actually I… that’s not…” Jayce started, trying to find his words, but his brain was mushy from lack of sleep and overthinking, and Vik was so close to him that any ability to make a full cohesive sentence was lost on him.
“Calm down, you look constipated.” Viktor spoke into his thoughts, voice all amusement. To his credit, he did bring Jayce to him, squishing his face into an almost pout and giving his lips a soft peck. Then he let go, and Jayce drew himself up. The movement was too swift and he almost stumbled back from the recoil. Viktor bit back a laugh.
This was not going in the direction he had hoped. Jayce had come to the lab as a man on a mission, and he did intend to finish it. His brain, however, decided to bypass a few major steps in his half formed plan, because before he realized what he was doing, he dropped a little round object in Viktor’s palm.
“For you.” was all Jayce could manage to say, thoughts threatening to become a full scale tornado inside his head. He was gripping a bit too tightly his papers, so he moved around and placed them on the nearest flat surface, keeping Viktor in his peripheral to gage his reaction.
Viktor, for all his lovely, sharp way of thinking, looked utterly confused. He turned his head up and a little to the side, taking Jayce in at a diagonal, the way he always did with things he needed to assess more carefully in order to understand.
“You’ll have to use more words, pumpkin.” He said, not unkindly.
Jayce had opened his mouth to reply, but the pet name stopped him dead in his tracks. His jaw clamped down hard and a warm sensation spread throughout his body. This always happened when Viktor used one of those silly pet names on him. He loved it and hated it at the same time, that his partner had such an effective way of rendering him speechless.
Viktor was still gazing at him, still expecting an answer. The taller man gathered his wits.
“It’s cuz of- You know…. to solve you missing last name situation.” Jayce tried to supply the explanation. His hands were now fiddling with each other and he started to miss the comfort holding something brought him.
Viktor continued to face Jayce, looking more through than at his partner. Then his posture straightened a bit, tensing up. A few seconds went by, and when Jayce thought he would might as well loose his mind in the heavy silence, Viktor’s eyebrows shot up, eyes shooting to the side, blown wide. A lovely blush colored his cheeks and Jayce fought very hard the urge to lean down and kiss that gorgeous face again.
Viktor traced the object’s edge slowly with his thumb, and then placed it on his ring finger in one swift motion.
“Oh Jayce, I don’t know what to say…” he started, truly at a loss of words. Jayce was beaming now, all doubts gone as something more tender took over.
“So you do want to join our house! Oh, what a relief, I was starting to think that maybe you would’ve felt like I was taking pity on you, which I would never you know that, but still-”
Viktor raised a hand to stop him, and Jayce almost bit his tongue and he tried to revert his thoughts inward instead of letting them spill outside. He was reeling.
“Your house… this is not a proposal, is it?” Viktor’s words felt more like a fact then a question.
Jayce’s face fell. He swallowed, hard. Viktor blinked. Nobody was smiling now.
Somehow Jayce’s sudden change in appearance was enough to confirm it for Viktor. He seems to recover quicker than his partner, who still didn’t dare to move.
“Why the ring though?” Viktor asked, curious.
“Oh, it’s an old family heirloom.” Jayce felt a bit of relief as he found himself back on even ground. Able to offer concrete, helpful facts for a change. “I saw it on my desk yesterday and… Didn’t you see the hammer on it?” he asked, incredulous.
Viktor’s face paled, as if the man wasn’t almost as white as a sheet of paper, looking down with what seemed to be dread at his hand, where the ring sat on his finger. And sure enough, even from that angle, Jayce could clearly gage the elegant lines of the carving that took up the top of the ring. A small, azure stone, was placed in its middle, glinting more vibrantly in the light of day than it had the previous night on Jayce’s desk.
“Jayce… I don’t need a big family name to back me up, I have my work and it’s enough.” Viktor tried to give Jayce an encouraging smile, an I appreciate the intention, but, really, it’s fine one.
Jayce’s smile wasn’t as confident. “So… I guess this is a no…” his vocal cords felt sticky, words didn’t want to come out properly. He tried to continue, slower.
“Can I have the ring back, then? It’s just… my mom kind of treasures it and if you don’t want it- I have to take it back”. Jayce dragged a hand over his face, feeling exhaustion pulling at him, but Viktor didn’t seem to be listening. The man was now focused on something else, furiously twisting the ring on his finger. Jayce dropped his hand. “V? Are you ok?”
“There may be a slight problem with that…” Viktor whispered, barely any sound leaving his mouth.
“Wha-” Jayce started, but his partner cut in.
“It got stuck. The ring. I can’t get it off my finger.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed” Viktor confirmed, a grim apprehension enveloping him.
Jayce was reeling again. This time for a completely new, nerve-wracking reason. That ring, it couldn’t stay on Viktor’s finger. It just couldn’t. Not to mention that the man had chosen his ring finger, on the left hand, out of all of his ten fingers. Why did he do that?
Jyace shook his head. He couldn’t blame his partner for this, he was at fault for creating so much confusion.
His fault. His responsibility. He had to fix it.
So he got to work.
Viktor didn’t protest as Jayce took the initiative in solving their current problem. Jayce first tried applying vaseline onto his partner’s long, thin finger. Maybe he did spend a bit too long smoothing his thumb over the slender tendons and elegant shape of it, trying to soothe Viktor’s nerves as well as his, but his partner allowed it. Then, Jayce started twisting the ring, getting the grease between the metal and skin, but the lubricant proved inefficient. The ring would still not budge.
Next, Jayce produced a pair of blacksmithing tongs from a nearby drawer, and at his partner’s raised eyebrow, he smiled with the confidence he surely didn’t feel. He tried to pry the ring off, getting a better grip with the instrument. The ring stayed put. Jayce felt himself tense, panic climbing up his throat like bile.
There was only one option left, but with it came some consequences he refused to think about. It was dangerous and tricky and- necessary. A groan escaped his lips.
Viktor, seated across him, was studying his face, trying and failing to read his partner’s mind. Jayce was sure Viktor was thinking the same thing by now, maybe he had from the start, but hadn’t dared propose it. But everything had failed and Jayce felt desperation claw at him.
“Ok, I think we have to cut it.” He spoke his thoughts, dreading every word.
Viktor didn’t reply at first. He gingerly took his hand out of Jayce’s grip, his features becoming unreadable. “Jayce, you know I care about you.” Jayce nodded, Viktor continued. “And you know I trust you.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“But” Viktor didn’t smile. “I won’t have you wielding a metal cutting machine near my fingers!” he protested, voice hard with no room for compromise.
“Oh come on Vik, I have good dexterity, you’ve seen my work!”
“Your work most often than not explodes or catches fire, sometimes both, in that exact order.”
Jayce’s head was pounding, this was not right. The ring had to come off. There was no other way.
He took Viktor’s hands in his again, gently rubbing them, eyes pleading.
Hope started to flood back into his system as Viktor’s face took a more pondering quality. Jayce still had a chance. The new feeling, however, started to dissolve at Viktor’s next words.
“If I’m putting my favorite finger on the line, I need to make it worthwhile.”
Jayce rolled his eyes, impatient. “Ok, what do you want?” he blurted out. And since when did you have a favurite finger? He kept the question to himself.
“One entire week devoid of your incessant pestering about how I don’t take care of myself enough.” Viktor wasn’t making it easy. But Jayce wasn’t having it either.
“No.”
“Five days, and-” Viktor added, eyes narrowing, “we cuddle in the weekend.”
Jayce still didn’t want to relent. He recognized a challenge when he saw one, and the sudden shift in the adrenaline usage left him lightheaded.
“Fine.” Viktor exhaled, defeated. “You leave me completely alone during the next two weekends, and I’ll eat lunch with you during the workdays. That way you’ll have proof of me getting enough nutrients in and everything.”
“-and?” Jayce asked, smug smile plastered on. His partner grumbled, looking away.
“And you get bonus cuddles the entire time.” He supplied, and Jayce approved with a satisfied nod.
As a ray of light caught in Viktor’s hair, the man’s demeanor appeared softer, the light creating a gentle glow around his shape. Maybe he was finally starting to hallucinate from the lack of sleep, Jayce thought. He wasn’t going to complain though, from that angle, Viktor looked ethereal.
”Now, can you take this thing off, please?” his partner asked, deadpan.
Jayce blinked twice and blamed his next move entirely on his exhaustion. Instead of starting to look for the necessary equipment, he took hold of his partner’s ringed hand and pressed it to his lips, placing a light kiss on the man’s knuckles. Viktor blushed again, that lovely rosy color Jayce never got tired of.
“For good luck” explained Jayce, words barely audible, breath catching on smooth skin.