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Chapter Text

A sense of dread fills Jayce as he enters Viktor's lab.

First, the door is unlocked and a Noxian guard eyes Jayce from the entrance. The intimidating man stares at Jayce as if it’s not his own room that he’s protecting and Jayce rushes in, cursing to himself. Jayce is tall in his own right, but the guard is a behemoth of a man with an impressive beard and steely eyes. He tracks Jayce’s movements even as he slides to the side to allow him into the room.

Allow, Jayce scoffs to himself. It’s his damn laboratory too. Who does Ambessa think she is?

The Noxian General was forward in her desire to meet the inventor of Hextech, which Jayce politely met. Then assertive to see the hexcore for herself, which Jayce politely declined.

And when Jayce politely declined, indecorous when asked about his relationship to her daughter. Indecent, she called it, but would forgive him with time. Improper, as she dragged a finger across his chin as she said she wouldn’t fault Mel for having delectable taste.

Jayce’s face singed a bright red as he stammered, denied it all, and excused himself. Mel would hear about this if she hadn’t already. How dare she come in here and make demands! Accusations! Passes… on him.

Jayce was able to make a hasty retreat. However, he’s only one inventor of Hextech.

He should have seen the signs. Viktor hides his wounds like a feisty cat, and something as small as discomfort or irritation appears nonexistent. Or so it would seem.

It started innocuously at first. A strange package full of trinkets that Viktor would eye in confusion. An easy approval. A manner of respect. Materials expedited. A bureaucrat all too happy to offer their stamp that has Viktor eyeing them with suspicion. Viktor’s eyebrows would raise as a day had gone his way.

Another package that’s shoved into a drawer.

A delivery that Viktor tries to return.

It’s not until a bouquet of red and white dahlias from an anonymous sender appears on Viktor’s desk that has both of their heads tilting. A conundrum far greater than the equations on their chalkboard.

Viktor is quick to set them aside and complains that they take up too much room on his desk. They’re banished to a corner, Jayce allows it, and the beautiful bouquet subsequently wilts. To Viktor, life moves on however Jayce sees them for what they are.

Courting gifts, dear gods.

Jayce tries to ask, Viktor says to ignore it, and Jayce tries to do as he’s told. 

But curiosity starts to plague him as he watches the petals fall off the flower’s long stem. Jayce runs through all of their connections and colleagues but comes up short.

In the end, the only answer Jayce finds is that it’s not curiosity. Not a question of who but how? Though his partner is sitting just a few feet away, he feels oceans apart as life goes on in spite of these gifts. It’s hard to sit and do nothing especially when there are small tells to Viktor’s behavior, a ghost of a smile as he eyes the banished bouquet, or a hum of curiosity when he rediscovers a package…and Jayce runs wildly with what that means.

Jayce tries his best to ‘ignore it’ but jealousy takes a thriving root. How is Viktor receiving all this?

The answer to all these questions comes the day Sky takes pity on the wilted flowers and ushers them to the trash can.

The foyer of their lab is the same as he left it this morning with papers strewn about, books left in their rightful places, and not even a new scribble on the board. But then light streams in from the other room. Usually Viktor sits in that room for long hours until the sun has set and he’s illuminated by the eerie glow of blue, moonlight washing over his alabaster skin in small rivulets that makes the bones under Jayce’s skin itch with desire.

But instead of the familiar pulsating blue, the light is warm and the overhead fluorescents are on for a change. Cake, tea, and oil tickle Jayce’s nose. The clink of teacups, a laugh, and the rich voice of General Medarda pours into Jayce’s ears like an accompaniment of smooth honey. But rather than being a sweet treat, Jayce’s heart swoops to his stomach and he fears the worst.

That Viktor has given her all his secrets, that Medarda is threatening him, or that he’s sold their entire legacy. Foolish thoughts. Viktor would never do such things, but Jayce suddenly empathizes with the fleeting fears of a cornered animal. He crosses the foyer in three long strides before he pushes the doors of the laboratory open.

His eyes first land on Viktor, always to Viktor. His partner is haunting his regular chair before the table, goggles perched over his unruly dark hair as he tinkers with, not the hexcore, but a component of its cradle. Long fingers are wrapped around a screwdriver and oil stains his sleeve. There’s a teacup in dangerous proximity to his elbow as his fingers slip and he mutters a curse to himself.

It’d be endearing, something that would usually bring a smile to Jayce’s face. Maybe he’d perch himself on the desk next to his partner, run a thumb over his dark circles and admonish him for lack of sleep. 

If Viktor were actually muttering to himself, that is. There is a laugh, and a wisp of a smile so rare on Viktor’s face. It's gentle and precious; it tugs on Jayce’s heart, and rips an ugly thread of jealousy so forcefully he freezes at the door.

Ambessa notices Jayce before Viktor does. She greets him with a wave of her hand as if she meant to give him pomp and fanfare, but her voice is teasing.

“Ah, the man of the hour.”

Viktor finally glances upwards and catches Jayce’s attention. He offers Jayce a small smile, his eyes lighting and briefly crinkling at the corners. Jayce quirks his lips in return, but it slides off his face as he flits his attention back to the imposing woman standing too close to his partner. 

“General Medarda…” Jayce begins with a carefully even voice. “To what do we owe the pleasure? I was under the assumption that you’d learned everything you needed about Hextech. Was there something I missed?”

A slight, under the correct light. Ambessa catches the underlying message, clear in the set of her jaw and slight narrowing of her eyes. Jayce can’t help it. He doesn’t trust her or her motivations, and to see her so close to Viktor… it makes Jayce’s hair stand up on ends. 

Jayce strolls over to the desk with his hands behind his back in an attempt to keep an air of calm, even if his heartbeat has already begun to rabbit underneath his chest. Ambessa watches him approach with clever, dark eyes. She’s in her usual regalia, draped in reds and golds so imposing, so different from the gentleness of her daughter. 

Ambessa shrugs one broad shoulder and the coat draped over them slightly sways with the movement. “I had more questions about your inventive process.” She extends a hand wrapped with sinews of fabric to Viktor. “Considering there is another inventor and you were otherwise preoccupied, I made my way down here.”

Jayce situates himself right next to Viktor’s chair, an urge that could be called possessive clawing at his chest. He knows he needs to relax. It’s just damn near impossible when she’s leering at Viktor like that. And Viktor doesn’t seem to notice or mind, only sparing Jayce a brush of his gaze as Jayce stands so close that his thigh nearly brushes Viktor’s shoulder from where he sits. 

“Ambessa inquired as to how the gemstone maintains its self-regulative properties,” Viktor explains, setting down his screwdriver with a sigh. “Admittedly, it’s been helpful to explain the process to a third party… Much gets lost in translation when we are bouncing information off each other like a deranged echo chamber.”

Viktor chuckles, but Jayce can feel his molars grinding together. 

He drags his eyes back up to Ambessa and asks innocently, “Are we on a first name basis already?”

Ambessa smiles with all perfect, white teeth. She crosses her arms and cocks a hip as she addresses Jayce over Viktor’s head. “Viktor is so humble that he insists I forgo Professor. Besides…” She pauses and smiles brighter, “There is no need for formality over a friendly chat.”

Friendly chat. Jayce thinks he may turn his molars into powder.

Viktor intones, “It helps, of course, that I am not technically a Professor. I’m afraid Mr. Talis here adjusted that course all those years ago when he declared me as his partner.”

There is a bit of an edge to his voice, but when is there not? Jayce often forgets how easily a knife could sit in Viktor’s hands as well as his tongue. It stings, but warmth burns through him.

At that, Jayce can’t help but relax a little. He looks back down at Viktor and breathes a little laugh, fondness blooming through his chest and winding upwards like the petals in the Kiramman garden. Viktor blinks at him with long, dark lashes and for a moment, they’re alone again.

Jayce’s endearment is evident in his voice, “Pretty sure I remember it as you being the one that barged into whatever remained of my lab and–”

Ambessa makes herself known again as she extends an arm toward the two of them, her fingers dangerously close to brushing the top of Viktor’s head. “Through thick and thin. But Viktor…” She pauses, and Jayce’s stomach sours when he hears Viktor’s name roll off her tongue. “You are too humble… maybe even give others too much credit.” She eyes Jayce for a moment and he narrows his gaze in return. “With what you've told me, you've made great strides all on your own. Even a breakthrough or two during our conversation.” 

Gods, even still the sound of praise sounds wrong on her tongue.

“Viktor’s brilliant,” Jayce steels his voice. He means it. “We wouldn’t be here without him.”

Viktor huffs a little laugh, but Jayce keeps his eyes on Ambessa as his partner begins, “Well, I wouldn’t say that–”

“Ah, yes,” Ambessa drags out the vowels as they drip with deeper meanings that Jayce recognizes from her daughter. “He was telling me all about how you met.” 

Viktor cuts in and begins to shift in his chair, drawing Jayce’s attention once again. “I was telling her you had a penchant for blowing things up, and that's unfortunately rubbed off on me over the years.” Another fond little smile. They’re Jayce’s favorite. “Partners we are, for better or worse.”

Viktor wraps his long fingers around his cane that lays against the table. He grunts as he stands and Jayce has to clench his fists at his sides to avoid offering help. It’s an aid that Viktor may take on a normal day, but Jayce knows he will end up on the wrong side of that cane if he dares offer to help him in front of Ambessa. 

What’s left of the evening sun flows along Viktor’s body as he stands, illuminating various buttons on his chest before it finds its home on his face. Jayce can feel his own face soften as Viktor backs away one step to face them both. But his eyes focus on Jayce, first. The gold of his irises is more liquid in this light, molten metal between an anvil and a hammer.

But this gold is not something Jayce can weld or shape, as much as he’d like to… No, this gold is one that Jayce wants to pour into the veins of his skin rather than the channels of a mold.

Viktor slides the goggles off his head and a few locks of dark hair glide over his forehead. Jayce has to once again flex his fingers to resist the urge to move them back, just barely remembering who is in their presence. But when he looks up to their visitor, Ambessa is already watching him with a gaze that reminds Jayce of a wolf stalking a fox in the ice.

She knows. 

Ambessa resumes their conversation and the wolf suddenly retreats, her eyes cushioning at the corners as she addresses Viktor again. “I thought we weren't being so formal with things like titles.”

She prowls just on the edge of his line of sight, and Jayce realizes that the wolf doesn’t necessarily need to strike.

Viktor raises the corner of his mouth as he hums, “I suppose so.” He flits his gaze over to Jayce again and continues, “Friends, then. My very dear friend.”

Viktor’s voice is once again teasing, but this time it feels like condemnation. Friends? Friends?!

It doesn’t help that Ambessa sees right through Jayce. Even from several feet away, she commands the room. “Friends, huh?” 

Viktor seems none the wiser as he continues to idly put away his things. A shine to his goggles, shuffling his papers, and Jayce watches as Ambessa swaggers in for the kill and slots herself right next to Viktor, leaning against the desk. There’s a grin marring her face as she calculates her next move. Jayce watches her not one, but two steps ahead in their negotiation.

But then that speculative gaze in the Noxian woman’s eye turns downward, travels down Viktor in a familiar way. The kind where she might be undressing Viktor with her eyes to discover secrets she didn’t even know she needed. There’s something similarly molten in Ambessa’s eye, sultry, hungry, as if she’d love to take a bite of him. 

“You know my daughter suggested I try the local delights.” Polite and placating words are lost in Jayce’s throat, an argument takes shape, and he realizes too late whenAmbessa has tilted her head and her fiery ire has been directed toward him.

Ambessa drives her knife, “Mel tells me that you, Jayce, know a thing or two about that.”

At some point he wondered if Mel’s mother would ever bring it up. He just didn’t think it would be here, in front of Viktor, and he watches as Viktor’s back stiffens. Jayce doesn’t balk at the challenge and clearly pointed words. Instead, he stands with fiery defiance threatening to burst, a boiler erring on the wrong side of the gauge. Medarda makes her move to close in on him.

Through it all, Jayce forces a smile, air whistling through his nose as he does so. ”I’m afraid, Ms. Medarda, that you won’t find my taste in watering holes very interesting.”

But she is upon them both now, her head tall as if she held the upper hand this whole time. She frowns at Jayce, but turns saccharine as she locks onto Viktor. “Watering holes. Hm. I beg to differ.”

Since their squirmish, Viktor has retreated from the desk to where the hexcore sits. It floats idly in its cradle while Viktor tinkers with one of its arms. Occasionally it pulses, the spines of its sigils twitch as if the pearl hidden underneath were desperate to escape its cage.

Without Viktor, a silent war happens between the two. They both see each other for who they are and what this truly is. But Ambessa leaves Jayce in exchange for her objective and she takes her place across from Viktor.

Viktor seems none the wiser with his attention on the hexcore. Once the arm slips into place, the gem seems to glow all that much brighter. The gem spins in a slow lazy turn like the center of a meandering whirlpool, it’s easy to get lost in the swirling motion of light and glowing symbols.

Ambessa gasps in awe. “It’s beautiful.”

A look of pride crosses Viktor’s face but Jayce comes up behind him, a hand sliding on his shoulder as he interrupts. “Thank you.”

Ambessa and Viktor both frown at the same time, but she pays him no heed. Instead, she leans in to examine the glyphs carved into fortified gold. In the glow of the hexcore, always in the potential of innovation, Viktor’s eyes shine. Ambessa’s voice is pragmatic, “It’s important to invest ourselves in things such as this. Energy. Life. Untapped potential…” 

Viktor makes a noise of agreement and rests his hands on his cane. Ambessa cranes her neck, attempting to peek through the gaps of the honeycomb panels to garner a view, yet positioning herself between the hexcore to catch a glimpse of glowing blue in Viktor’s eyes. Potential sits in her own gaze and she smiles, ”Beauty.”

Her eyes don’t leave Viktor as the word rolls off her tongue and Jayce watches with indignance stirring in the clamp of his jaw as she glides to the other end of the table, lifts a hand to run her fingers against Viktor’s chin. A caress so liquid fast that Jayce isn’t even sure if he’s seeing things correctly. 

But the violent flush that overtakes Viktor’s high cheekbones confirms the gesture. Jayce is only able to see half of his face, half of that pretty blush that only Jayce should be drawing from him. His blood begins to heat and bubble beneath his skin and he doesn’t even realize how strongly he’s gripping Viktor’s slim shoulder until Viktor twitches underneath his hand. 

His grip only increases when Ambessa drags her predatory gaze over Viktor’s face, paying as much mind to Jayce as she does her Noxian guard, and croons, “I’d love to see it in action.”

The low timbre of her voice sends a shiver up Viktor’s spine and when Ambessa takes a step back to admire the effect of her words, it’s as if Viktor has been finally cut loose of his strings and the spell that’s kept him entranced. He pulls away from them both, hiding his blush with a cough.

“I'm afraid we can’t do that tonight, Ms. Medarda.” Rarer than a smile, rarer than a laugh, Jayce can count the times he’s seen Viktor lose his cool on one hand, let alone flustered. He stammers, clever words suddenly windswept from him. But as he replies there is a hint of mirth to his voice, “I overloaded the system and it doesn’t seem I'll be getting it back online tonight.”

Jayce’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline at double-entendre and he looks at the hexcore in its perfectly idle state to make sure he heard correctly. No evidence of an overloaded system except a janky cradle arm. Lying he expected, but his Viktor flirting? Something like an Eastern breeze, hot and rushing burns his ears, a mixture of relief and envyspread through him. 

If that’s how Viktor wants to play, then he guesses he can provide back-up and play along. Jayce stands up straighter next to Viktor and doesn’t look at him as he addresses Ambessa. “Hm… Afraid it’ll be out of order for the next few days. Maybe longer… It depends on how fast I can work my hands.”

Of the two of them, Viktor has a better poker face, and barely restrained exasperation rattles through him as he straightens his spine. Though Viktor turns, his face momentarily scrunching up in disgust, his thick brows briefly straightened and his golden eyes flashing hot. If Jayce fucks this up, Viktor’s never going to let him live it down. So Viktor takes back the reins. “Right. If you give us a few days, maybe it'll behave.”

Jayce scowls at the jab and folds his arms. “Probably not, though. We never quite figured out how to get it to behave,” he retorts.

Ambessa huffs a sigh, her eyes swinging back and forth between Jayce and Viktor as she weighs another jab, another argument, another negotiation, or a graceful retreat. Thankfully, she finally chooses the latter as she takes a step toward the door. “I understand. I'd like to thank you for being a gracious host this evening.”

Though the General is not one to go down without the last hurrah and turns once more to Viktor, always Viktor, leaving Jayce as an appendage to her attention. Her voice is saccharine again, perhaps genuine if Jayce weren’t so suspicious of her. She leans down towards Viktor, and if she were more than a couple inches closer, the gold on her bottom lip would be brushing the tip of Viktor’s ear.

“If you aren't so busy in the coming days, I would love for us to continue our conversation and maybe try a local favorite.”

Viktor receives her, as gracious as ever. She straightens back up and Viktor smiles politely, seemingly unassumingly. “Of course, Ms. Medarda. You are a lovely conversation partner.”

Ambessa’s eyes light again as she emphasizes the word, “Partner. So formal, but I will admit it does have a nice ring to it.” Ambessa smirks as if she’s set up her board, the unseeming rook to check, but for tonight she doesn’t show her hand, and leaves with a simple, “Goodnight, Viktor. Jayce.”

As Ambessa finally leaves with her guard, it’s as if she had carried all of the oxygen with her.

The room deflates as she leaves and tension flows out the door along with the billowing of her jacket, but Jayce’s grip on the desk hasn’t alleviated and he’s staring so hard at the wall it may as well burst into flames. 

The gall. The nerve. The fucking–

“I can feel you pouting from here,” Viktor’s smooth voice slides through Jayce’s internal meltdown. He’s already sat back down to tinker with the core and he doesn’t look up from his work even as Jayce glares at him. “No need to worry, Jayce, she will not see it in… action. You are just so fun to tease, I cannot help myself.”

Jayce barely bites back a scoff as he studies his beloved partner tinkering away at the desk as if nothing happened. The sun has slipped past the horizon now, and those familiar blues and etches of moonlight have returned to the shadows of his face. Viktor still pays him no mind as the tip of his tongue peeks from his lips. 

“Didn’t sound like you were joking,” Jayce mumbles. Okay, maybe he’s pouting. “You should’ve seen the way she was looking at you.” 

Ravenous. Like she wanted to eat him and worse, like she wanted Jayce to watch. Jayce closes his eyes and suppresses another shudder that’s part adrenaline and part nerves. 

The room is quiet. Viktor’s steady breathing and clinking of the screwdriver are familiar noises and Jayce forces himself to take a deep breath. She’s gone, her stupid fucking guards are gone. All that’s left now is the two of them. The way it should be. 

He’s almost gotten himself to relax in the silence when Viktor speaks again. 

Viktor chuckles under his breath, “She certainly has a, uh… way about her.”

Jayce was on his way to the small kitchen, but he turns on his heel and can feel his eyebrows shoot to his hairline. 

“A way about her?” His voice is getting dangerously high, his giggle almost maniacal. Gods , Viktor makes him insane. “She’s deranged, V. Shameless. I can’t believe she– she just touched you!”

Viktor finally sets down his screwdriver and fixes Jayce with a familiar look that usually precedes a statement that Jayce thinks about for days. Knowing. Almost pitiful. He too can see right through him.

“Ah… politicians,” Viktor says smoothly and waves a regal hand. “Warlords. People have one taste of power and think they can do whatever they’d like. It seems Ambessa has had a full feast of it in her life… and this was merely a consequence of you having a taste.” He pauses and mumbles out of the corner of his mouth, “Of her daughter no less.”

Jayce should’ve known that was coming. His affair with Mel, as short-lived as it was, seems to bite him in the ass about once a week. Viktor harbors no ill feelings toward the councilor, Jayce knows that. They’re even what one could call friends. 

But for him to bring that up right now…

Jayce scoffs incredulously and rubs a hand through his hair, feeling a slicked strand fall over his forehead. It seems he can only get out, “Viktor! You–!”

But Viktor only shrugs and stands back up to lean on his cane next to the desk, unbothered to the very end. His eyes betray his body as they light with the satisfaction of a nerve well-struck. Sadistic, really. Jayce doesn’t know why he loves him so much. 

“Shown a mirror right onto you, have I? I did not think it would bother you so much considering.”

Then Viktor smiles one of those smooth, teasing grins, and the small gap in his teeth glints in the light. All the fight leaves Jayce in one exhale.  

Jayce crosses his arms. “I’m not bothered.”

Viktor’s lips twitch and he quirks a thick, arched eyebrow.  

“You look bothered.”

A huff leaves Jayce’s lungs. When will the day come when he knows himself better than everybody else does?

No, not everybody, Jayce reminds himself as Viktor abandons his cane to rest it against the chair and slides himself on the desk with his legs dangling. Not everybody, Jayce reminds himself as Viktor leans back on his hands and spreads his legs for Jayce to step between them, a language that only the two of them know. 

Only Viktor. 

“Come here, and tell me how unbothered you are.”

Jayce sighs and his feet are moving before his brain as he crosses the room. He steps between Viktor’s legs and nuzzles his face in his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of lavender soap. The day-old stubble on his face lightly scratches the thin skin over Viktor’s jugular, but he’s spared from a chastisement as his hands find the curve of Viktor’s waist. 

Soft brown locks tickle Jayce’s nose as he mutters, pathetically, “She touched you.”

Jayce can feel a slight shrug as Viktor picks one hand up to scratch at the fine hairs on the nape of Jayce’s neck. His lips brush against Jayce’s ear, his voice more of a purr than anything else, “She did not mean anything by it. She just wanted to get a reaction from you, which, I hate to be the one to report this, but she succeeded.”

A reaction. Bullshit. If only that were what it was. It’d be so much easier. Jayce can handle a reaction, but he can’t handle…

“No, you don’t understand.” Jayce pulls back to stand straight again, lifting a hand to smooth over Viktor’s hair. “She… has a thing for…” He awkwardly clears his throat and Viktor’s honeyed eyes wait patiently for an explanation. “Men like you. I’ve seen it.”

Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Men like me?”

“Mm…” Jayce hums, then leans forward to finally get those lips between his own. Viktor makes a pleased little noise that goes straight south in Jayce’s body. “Pretty men…” Jayce mumbles against his lips, “With high cheekbones.” He pulls back to kiss the apex of Viktor’s cheek, “Nice collarbones.” Jayce drops his head to kiss a path down Viktor’s neck, pleased when Viktor tilts his head to allow him. He nips the small bump of Viktor’s collarbone peeking from his shirt before returning to suck a mark into his neck as he finishes, “And small waists.”

Jayce slides his hands underneath Viktor’s shirt to wrap his hands around that damned waist, humming a little noise of approval when his fingers touch over the knobs of Viktor’s spine. He keeps his mouth on Viktor’s neck as he yanks him forward on the desk, crashing their hips together. It’s too easy to get lost in the other man, Jayce’s thoughts already cleared away and boiled down to the taste of Viktor’s skin on his tongue, to the leather straps of his brace digging into the palms of his hands.

Viktor gasps and his hands come up lightning quick to the sides of Jayce’s jaw, regaining control and directing him back to his face so he can crash their mouths together. Jayce smiles into it even as their teeth clack together, and Viktor takes the opportunity to drag Jayce’s lower lip between his teeth. 

“And you, Jayce?” Viktor says his name like a prayer, his eyelashes fluttering against Jayce’s own as he asks against his mouth, “Do you have a thing for men like that?”

Viktor’s control slips as Jayce grinds their cocks together, a broken little moan leaving his mouth. Jayce’s hand leaves his waist to slide up his back and tangle into Viktor’s hair, pulling his head back to expose his neck even further. 

Jayce sinks his teeth into the spot just beneath the jut of Viktor’s jaw and he half-growls, “I have a thing for you.”

Viktor finds that he can’t argue with that. Whether he’d admit it or not, Jayce knows his way around his body from the most efficient way to unbutton his vest or slip off his shirt. He knows how to unravel him, worse, devastate him.

It’s that infallible presence, those fingers that raze across his skin like a chisel to freshly set metal. When Jayce touches him with stars in his eyes, it's the feeling of company set in dark night where companionship is only hosted by a multitude of far off lights. Leaving Viktor surrounded by sparks that could be mistaken as stardust or molten heat of potential. A feeling that feels too raw to voice or deny, so the man allows Jayce to make his own conclusions within his own right.

After all, Viktor couldn’t possibly admit he’s good at silencing him. It’d go straight to his head and where would he be?

Dress him up, break him down, recreate him if he must, Viktor allows Jayce to do as he wishes. And he watches as the engineer’s fingers slip underneath the thick leather straps that connect the support harness with his brace. They slide across the intricate embossings and down the gilded shaft that runs along his spine disconnecting the mechanism there too – the same hands that put so much care and detail into this masterpiece. 

As Jayce proudly presented his gift, Viktor had told him that it seemed too garish for his tastes. Which Jayce quickly took offense to as he explained that if he was going to help design a brace for Viktor, and they were partners, and he was Piltover’s prized engineer, he should make something fitting for all those things. And just like with everything he let Jayce measure his leg, pester his doctors, tighten the straps, and hoist him to his feet.

Even today, Viktor allows Jayce to help and his deft hands undo the main buckle. Viktor can’t help but sag and a noise of relief escapes him, the sudden release after a long day of wear feels good against his skin. Then Jayce undoes another strap on his thigh, the velcro on his calf and shin. With a tug and a shift of Viktor’s hips, the shapely brace slips off his foot, and the rest is off along with his pants.

He’ll complain later about putting it back on, how Jayce should have more patience, and how he better not drop it. But the moment still simmers, and Jayce knows that Viktor thinks of none of those things. Only the odd sense of vulnerability as he sits naked on his desk. While Jayce sets his greatest work aside and looks to his prize.

Viktor’s breath hitches. “Why do you look at me this way?”

Jayce is too busy running his hands up Viktor’s thighs and digging his fingers into the curve of his ass to pay much mind to this words, even as his eyes refuse to leave the mole perched over Viktor’s lip and the soft curtain of eyelashes like fluffed clouds over the sun.

“What way?” Jayce asks, barely a mumble as he goes in for another kiss that Viktor grants him. Soft, hardly more than two pairs of lips reacquainting themselves.

Viktor releases another shuddery exhale that breaks at the end as Jayce brushes his knuckles against Viktor’s cock. Jayce feels every wisp of the breath on his own mouth and he presses their foreheads together. 

“Jayce,” Viktor breathes, “I have seen the awed gazes of politicians, of courtiers, of nosy generals.” Jayce huffs a laugh and kisses a path down Viktor’s neck as one hand braces against the small of his back to feel every notch of Viktor’s spine as the man arches against him. “I’ve seen you look into the arcane itself. I’ve seen you through every breakthrough, through every modicum of progress. All these wonderful things that would bewitch both a child in the Undercity and Heimerdinger himself, I’ve watched every twitch of your face and glow in your eyes. But it is a curious thing when you look at me… It is almost as if all these things you’ve seen are, eh… rudimentary. At best. Boring, even.”

Viktor leans back a little to lock eyes with Jayce again and he reaches up to clear a strand of hair that’s fallen over Jayce’s forehead. His head tilts to this side and he suddenly looks ten years younger, curiosity softening every pitch of his voice as he asks, “Why is that?”

And in a world of impossible equations, fascinating propositions and hypotheses that make him want to both rip his hair out and scream at the ocean, Jayce could laugh at how simple this question is. 

He answers it with a shrug and a promise. “Because I love you.” 

Then, oh, the small blush Ambessa won from Viktor is nothing compared to this one. Viktor’s entire carefully sculpted face turns pink, his collarbones and sternum following suit. Jayce hardly has time to look at it because Viktor is yanking him back down via hands tangled in the front of his shirt, which, why is he still wearing one?

Viktor kisses him long and deep, drawing a small moan from the tunnel of Jayce’s throat. He tastes like tea and sweetmilk. Jayce allows his hands to wander over Viktor’s back before they find a home over slight hips. Viktor makes quick work of Jayce’s shirt and Jayce shrugs it off before his hands return to Viktor like planets caught in an orbit.

“Show me,” Viktor whispers against his mouth. 

“Always,” Jayce whispers back. It’s an easy thing.

It doesn’t take much to lift Viktor off the desk, it takes even less to turn him around and bend him over the surface, blueprints and bouquets and lipstick-stained mugs be damned. Jayce keeps one hand steady on Viktor’s hip to lift the weight off his bad leg. He extends an arm over to the nearest drawer and frantically ruffles inside of it until he finds the small vial he’s looking for. 

Viktor’s breaths are quicker as he turns his face to rest his cheek against the table, his kiss-bitten lips parted. His dark hair has always been a heady contrast to the paleness of his skin, and now it looks more like the night sky painted in oil against a canvas, dripping with strokes of moonlight and swirls of stars. 

Jayce takes a moment to appreciate the landscape before him. He sucks in a breath when Viktor lays his chest flat against the desk and reaches back with two sinister hands to spread himself for Jayce. His eyes glint with mischief and desire, a mixture that is so quintessentially him and something only Jayce gets to see.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Viktor,” Jayce hears himself saying. His brain became unfettered from his mouth the moment Viktor exposed his tight, pink hole. Jayce is only a man. 

There’s the ghost of a smile, then that blush returns to Viktor’s face. The audacity for him to be blushing over something as simple as a compliment as he’s spread out over a desk and biting his lip as Jayce oils his fingers. Anticipation is thick between the two of them.

Jayce leans down to press a kiss to one of the knobs of Viktor’s spine as he circles Viktor’s rim with one finger, smiling to himself as he hears the small intake of breath above him. He pushes slowly inside and barely restrains a groan from the tight heat around his finger that’s all too easy to imagine around his cock. 

“There you go,” Jayce whispers and stands again. Viktor whimpers and pushes back into Jayce’s hand, impatient as usual. 

Viktor is always so responsive for him, his muscles rolling and eyebrows screwing together as he chases Jayce’s fingers inside of him. Jayce watches with heat in his gaze and his body as he tries to ignore his own cock pushing against the seams of his pants. All for him, he thinks with a sense of pride that threatens the confines of his chest. She won’t ever get to see Viktor like this. Jayce is sure of it. 

But still… he can’t get the memory of Viktor blushing out of his head. The way he stuttered, the way he looked askance. 

Jayce is a selfish man, he has to admit. The self-awareness, however, isn’t enough to stop him from digging his fingers into Viktor’s hip and saying with a voice that’s gravely to his own ears, “Tell me who you belong to, Viktor.” 

Viktor’s eyes open, momentarily taken back from the throes of arousal. He looks back at Jayce from the corner of his eyes and they briefly crinkle at the corners as if he finds what Jayce said funny.

Jayce grits his teeth and adds a second finger just to watch Viktor falter. But he’s a fool if he thinks it works, because even as Viktor grinds his hips into Jayce’s hands, his clever mouth opens.He dares to breathe a laugh as he releases his ass to slide his arms up over the table and elongates his body in a way that makes Jayce’s mouth water and nearly forget what he just said. 

“And what if…” Viktor’s voice is infuriatingly calm, even as he pauses to moan. “I said Ambessa?”

Just the mention of her name lights Jayce’s veins again. He leans over Viktor to bite him at the nape of his neck, feeling wispy hairs brush over his forehead. He crooks his two fingers deep inside Viktor and satisfaction cools the heat in his blood as Viktor moans brokenly. 

Viktor’s voice is close to his ear as he rasps, “Have you seen her arms? You know that I have a thing for shoulders– ah!”

Jayce is having none of it. He swiftly adds a third finger and stretches Viktor on them, rutting his hips against the back of Viktor’s thigh just to feel some relief. He gives Viktor exactly three thrusts with his hand, because he may be selfish, yes, possessive, perhaps, but he’s not going to hurt Viktor… any more than Viktor likes to be hurt, that is. 

Jayce’s body is moving before his brain as he abruptly slides his fingers out. He ignores Viktor’s offended cry as he quickly unbuckles his pants and pushes them down just enough to get his cock out, and then he’s just simply impatient as he slips a hand between Viktor’s waist and the table, standing him up just so he can spin him around and hoist him up in his arms. 

His voice is caught between his teeth as he grits, “Enough about her.”

Viktor laughs again, even as Jayce begins to carry him over to the wall. Viktor leans down to kiss him in a clash of teeth, absolutely uncaring as to wherever Jayce is taking him. Jayce is only able to get them to the wall because he knows the room like the back of his hand. He internally pats himself on the back for getting them there blind because he’s too busy mapping the feeling of Viktor’s teeth on his tongue.

Viktor sucks in a breath as he feels his back hit the wall and he pulls back from Jayce’s mouth, leaving a strand of saliva that briefly connects their mouths before breaking into nothingness. Viktor looks down at him with eyes that seem to glow in the room and Jayce nearly doesn’t even hear what he says because he’s entranced with the flecks of amber that sit in Viktor’s iris like a diamond in a ring.

But Viktor tsks his tongue and murmurs, “So jealous, Jayce.”

Jayce releases a sardonic laugh and gets back with the program, ripping his eyes from the realm of Viktor’s face as he holds him with one arm wrapped around his waist while the other lines his own cock up.

“For you?” Jayce breathes, “Yes. I’m jealous.” He begins to slide inside and releases a ragged groan as he finally feels slick, velvet walls around him. Somehow, he keeps talking, “I’m possessive.” He sucks a mark into Viktor’s neck, rolling his hips just to hear the indelible moan that’s ripped from Viktor’s chest as the man digs his nails into Jayce’s biceps. “Selfish. I’m a selfish man.”

Viktor tosses his head back and his chest expands with a broken breath. He screws his eyes shut as Jayce begins to move him up and down, his mouth falling open. Jayce watches every expression pass through his face as he grunts with exertion because Viktor may weigh nearly nothing, but he is doing this one-handed. “You don’t have to be. You–” Viktor stutters as Jayce uses his free hand to stroke his cock as he begins fucking him. “ Ah, yes, touch me there. Can’t you see I belong to you?”

The words go straight to his head. Jayce groans and wants to hear it again and again and again.

“Say it again,” Jayce growls as he feels want and need and desire in every single one of his synapses. He crooks his neck up so he can watch Viktor fall apart, biting his own lip as Viktor opens his eyes to look down at him with hooded eyes.

“I’m yours, Jayce Talis,” Viktor murmurs, sweeter than anything Jayce has ever heard. “And you’re mine.”

Jayce would never argue with that. He nods furiously and releases Viktor’s cock so he can get both hands on his hips to fuck him properly. ”Yours. Always yours, Viktor.”

Viktor wraps his arms around Jayce’s neck and buries his nails into the expanse of Jayce’s back, hanging on for dear life as Jayce bounces him against the wall. Jayce can feel slim thighs around his own hips and distantly realizes Viktor is trying to hold his own weight. 

“Stop that,” Jayce says and leans up to catch Viktor’s lips between his own again, wincing as Viktor’s tooth pokes into his lip. “Just let go. I’ve got you, V.”

Viktor keens against him and finally goes lax, allowing Jayce to take the reins. Jayce proves to him he can handle it over and over again, thrusting in and out of him and driving Viktor’s body down onto his cock. He wants to live here like this, buried inside of Viktor, so deep inside that he wants to rearrange his goddamn organs. Make a home for himself because he knows he’s meant to be here.

Jayce lifts Viktor up almost to the point where Jayce slips out of him before he slams him down again and the curse that Viktor shouts surely can be heard by anyone walking outside of their lab. The thought fills Jayce with some sick satisfaction as he fucks into him again, feeling slick skin slide together and hearing the wet sounds echo through the empty room. 

The white heat of his impending orgasm begins to flow like the tides through his bones and Viktor’s moans grow higher and higher as he unwinds one arm from Jayce’s neck to stroke himself along with each thrust. Jayce would normally be affronted from the gesture because he is the one who should be doing that, but he figures his hands have more important things to do. 

Jayce slides an arm from Viktor’s hip to snake around his waist as he holds their bodies impossibly close together and rolls his hips. He groans as he snaps his hips deep inside and releases Viktor’s other hip to clasp his thigh, cradling his bad leg and holding it steady. The new angle meshes them together so completely that Jayce can’t figure out where one body ends and another begins.

He feels a hand in his hair as Viktor pulls his head back and guides it back to his mouth. Between the panting and the moans, they’re both too far gone for a real kiss. Instead, they breathe open-mouthed against each other and make feeble attempts to catch each other’s mouths in a symphony of spit, sweat, and hot breaths. 

Viktor whines low and disjointedly as he comes, spurting between their bodies so intensely that Jayce feels some hit the bottom of his chin. He groans unabashedly as Viktor seizes on his cock and he closes his eyes so hard that he sees stars painted on his eyelids. 

“So good for me, fuck,” Jayce babbles as he chases his own orgasm, “Just hold onto me, I love you so fucking much, I–”

His muttering cuts off with a shaky groan as the wave crests over the shoreline and he feels himself come deep inside Viktor, filling him to the brim. He slides his sweat-slick face past Viktor’s to bite into his shoulder and feels bone beneath his teeth as he rides through his orgasm with a roll of his hips. 

Viktor rests his cheek against the top of Jayce’s head and is little more than dead weight in Jayce’s arms. He releases a small little whine and tries to roll his shoulder out of Jayce’s mouth, which is when Jayce realizes that he bit down so hard that a bruise is already forming. 

“Shit. Sorry,” Jayce mumbles and tries to come back from space.

Viktor chuckles and Jayce feels it against his ear. “You have done much worse.”

True, but Jayce still soothes the mark with a brush of a kiss. He presses another to Viktor’s neck, his cheek, then finally his mouth. Viktor hums into it and tangles both his hands on Jayce’s hair, scratching his scalp. Jayce’s heart thunders against his ribcage as it makes a valiant attempt to get to Viktor. 

“I love you too…” Viktor murmurs against Jayce’s lips. “Selfish man as you are.”

Chapter Text

Viktor sits at the edge of his worktable with Jayce in between his legs. Thankfully though the other’s attention is directed away from the persistent flare of embarassment on Viktor’s face. They both sit forward, Viktor’s legs bracket his shoulders while his back rests against the juncture of the scientist’s limbs. Instead, with a cloth in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other, Jayce assesses the damage.

The joint of his brace is scuffed, an unruly gash that starts at his knee to his shin where the gilded paint has been scraped off. But that’s none of Jayce’s concern as he pays attention to the brackets that support his leg.

Jayce wipes his pliers and grips the band of metal, giving it a hard rend until it’s straight again. Viktor stiffens above him, his posture going rigid as if Jayce were using his pliers to instead dig and pick at the sinew tying together his kneecaps.

“Careful!” Viktor barks and Jayce is too lost in thought to even tease Viktor for doubting him.

The eye of an engineer inspects his work. There’s a determined set to his jaw. Hands comfortable in their capability that Viktor sinks into as Jayce wipes away scattered golden flecks for good measure.

It’s not until he’s satisfied with his work that Jayce asks the question that Viktor had been dreading. “What were you even doing? I get a call and find you swiping and snapping at Enforcers like the Professor's pet powder puff.”

Admittedly, it’s not one of his most shining moments.

He knew how he looked with a his clothes shaggier than he last saw Jayce, in the ritzy part of town, and picking a fight with Enforcers as they tried to help him from the ground. Viktor insisted he didn’t need help, truly, that they had better things to do, and even now with Viktor’s legs in Jayce’s sturdy hands, insists that he’s better off alone.

Besides the less Jayce knows, the better it is for all of them.

Viktor runs a hand through his hair. “It’s none of your business.” And Jayce’s reaction is almost immediate as his head whips toward Viktor.

“None of my--!” His face is red with barely contained ire, and Viktor realizes too late he’s only confirmed a hypothesis. “You went to go see her didn’t you!”

The way Viktor’s eyes drift askant is incriminating.

“And if I did?”

It’s true.

He had gone to see her.

It only felt like a natural progression, a possibility turned inevitability.

In the weeks following Ambessa’s visit, the random gifts had only intensified. Admittedly, they were confounding at first. Then amusing as he watched Jayce’s reaction. Now, it was annoying.

Frivolous junk kept piling up on his desk. Interruptions from delivery people and nosy missives from the Noxian general.

Viktor knew what she was doing. Courting him, perhaps, but most likely wearing him down. But wearing just him down? Unlikely. Viktor blinks and his eyes meet Jayce’s.

No, wearing them both down to their joints.

But in the end, it’s him that Ambessa wants, so it would be him to resolve.

Even if Jayce would disagree, “We talked about this. We agreed. We were going to have nothing to do with her and continue our work. If she wants to talk to us, she goes through Mel or the Council.”

Viktor can’t help but scoff, “Like the Council wants to do anything about this dumb charade. Do you expect me to just sit around and admire these…trinkets.”

Viktor waves a hand at the mess surrounding them. Even now junk sits scattered among notes and tools, delivery receipts among paperwork, sensual cursive among breakthroughs. It’s like Ambessa had found a way to sit between them without needing to be there at all.

But to Viktor, he would not let her.

Below him, Jayce curls his fingers around Viktor’s wrist and cranes his neck, resting his head in the juncture of his legs.

There’s trepidation to his voice, a sound so familiar, yet exclusive for Viktor. “Did she…”

Yet Viktor hates the sodden look on his face and rolls his eyes.He hates the way it feels like she’s won. Hates the way his eyes search for a truth that should be plain as day. Hates that Jayce has far from learned the lesson from his teasing.

He tries to reign in a white-hot brand of anger and annoyance, and with much more vitriol than he means chides, “Don’t look at me like that, Jayce.” A sharp tongue that is replaced by the dousing liquid of regret. A quiet apology rests atop Jayce’s head and reassuring fingers comb through the engineer’s curls,  “Besides she was umm…more than preoccupied.”

Jayce isn’t assuaged, “Preoccupied?”

Vitriol returns and Viktor snorts, “I think I understand what you were saying when you said she has a preference.”

A brow furls, “What happened?” and Viktor is steadfast in his cryptic manner.

“I told you. Nothing.”

But a treacherous thought comes to him. A shiver, a bite, and a temptation so utterly delectable he can’t refuse as he watches Jayce’s face morph from questioning to meet the blistering feeling inside of him. Viktor clears his throat and a ghost of a smile slides onto his face, only the slightest tell, as he recalls the ridiculousness of the situation. “I arrived…”

Perhaps it was strange.

Perhaps it was his first mistake that the guard let him through without a fuss. His first sign that maybe he was playing right into Ambessa’s hand. She had dealt her move, and so the hare walks right into her trap.

He is met with a large open space, the halls of one of Piltover’s finest apartments. High, sprawling, marble pillars greet him, florals tickle his nose. It’s quiet, save for the serene trickle of water that spills from fountains down runways that bracket the door. One could call it tranquil if it didn’t raise Viktor’s hackles.

Annoyance, irritation, and a vein jumps in Viktor’s skull as he grinds his teeth together. Viktor’s mood sours at the lack of hospitality. Only delaying the rather uncomfortable and awkward conversation he is eager to have.

Tentatively he climbs the low, marble steps searching further into the apartment. The echo of his heels clack against the floor, reverberating across the grand halls. Sound dances from one side to another, like a spooked prey in its harried dance with a predator.

 Discomfort replaces annoyance, and Viktor’s heart sinks as he suddenly feels not only unwelcome but as if he’s somewhere he’s not supposed to be.

The way Viktor’s voice lilts, shocks even him as he continues to watch Jayce, “She was having her fun...”

As he approaches the end of the hall, exiting the grand threshold to more private rooms. That’s when he hears it.

The rustle of cloth, a moan, and Ambessa’s voice, affectionate almost endearing. Soft like furs lining a bed, gentle like silks piled on top of those. “Shh…sh..sh..sh…” she hushes.

A click of her tongue and as if summoning Janna by her heels, the wind tears through the great hall in a howl. It ruffles Viktor’s hair and whips against the sheer curtains that divide the threshold with Ambessa’s private room.

Behind it, Viktor catches a glimpse of what’s behind the curtain.

His tongue suddenly feels heavy in his throat as Ambessa straddles another man. Viktor can’t help the flush that comes across his face as he sees her in all her glory. Gone is her armor, her furs, and red-tinted leathers.

Her hair drapes down her neck in a magnificent cascade that frames her face, running down like snow caps that carved themselves in the deepest straits of a mountain. Viktor follows the trusses of her hair to the dramatic contour of shoulders to where her breasts sit in rippling muscle and soft flesh, before his sights run down lower.

Viktor swallows not at the sight of her, but the only thing that she is wearing. Thick leather straps wrap around her waist, accentuating the curve of her ass and the power in her thighs. A harness with a thick dildo, larger than any cock he’s ever seen, makes his mouth go completely dry but then there's the man beneath her…

He’s bent forward, her hand tangled in his hair while she sits on her haunches. She’s guiding him, coaching him, as she nudges her hips forward and impossibly so the cock disappears as he takes it. He moans again, mouth dropping open into a state of pure bliss as pleasure overcomes him. He thrashes not to escape but greedily tries to cant his hips to meet hers, desperate and wanting more.

He almost seems lost in his own pleasure. Both of them lost in their own moment. But as the wind blows again, billowing the curtain that separates them, those two glassy eyes catch the movement and find Viktor.

Green eyes like the finest jade meet Viktor’s ambers, and Viktor can’t help but notice the rest of him. The curve of his jaw, the color of his hair, the cupid bow in his lips, even the positioning of one of his moles, and Viktor is rattled by how much it’s like looking into a mirror.

The other man screws his eyes shut and cries. Viktor’s face distorts into disgust. Ambessa however lingers, waits, allows Viktor to process the shock, consider their exhibition, perhaps want, and it’s not until her hips are finally flush with her lover’s that she peers up at her guest.

She drapes her body over him, leaning over to curl two fingers underneath his chin to even her partner’s eyes to his Viktor’s. It’s as if she were showing off a prize, the glean of her victory. “There. You’re being so good for me.”

For a moment, Viktor realizes how hot he suddenly feels. A cold sweat forming on the outskirts of his collar. A traitorous thought, so perfect that it might as well have been planted, Viktor wonders what it’s like: to be wanted in such a way.

And he wonders for a moment what it would be like, to be a hare trapped in a wolf’s mouth. To be carried away and ravished in a way that leaves a mark on the silk sheets smoothed out before him. To be splayed out and taken apart for a craving, a desire, a meal that could be heralded for centuries.

But it’s an illusion that suddenly comes undone with a forceful roll of Ambessa’s hips.

Jayce’s throat bobs in the same way Viktor recalls the slow gyration, “And then?”

The chuckle that reverberates in Viktor’s chest is like an earthquake that could decimate them both. Exasperation frays the edges of Viktor’s composure. “And then?!”

What would Jayce have him do? Stopping here would be a mercy but Jayce hasn’t moved where he sits enraptured. Frozen by Viktor’s tale. Eyes that would try to pick him apart for the truth and draw their own conclusions in a careless haste.

Silence would be a mercy but letting Jayce run with it almost seems more of a cruelty. “Then…”

Viktor had frozen with his cottontail between his legs. Two sets of eyes watch Viktor and a pair of smiles set the scene.

It’s quick but even in a haze of pleasure, the brown-haired courtesan licks his lips, a glint in his eye that tells Viktor he might be enjoying the audience.

The sight is shocking, scandalous, as it is alluring watching their bodies move. Attention is drawn away from him as Ambessa starts to set a brutal pace. The dildo slides, the pink hilt pistoning in and out of Ambessa’s lover before completely disappearing with a snap of her hips.

The courtesan collapses like an ace drawn from a house of cards, a lynchpin to a system, the vital juncture to a vein by Ambessa’s ministrations until he bleeds and pours into her hands. His arms buckle and he grips the sheets, scrabbling for a hold as he takes it all. Something in Viktor begins to stir, something hot in gut as he continues to watch this man become undone.

Chalk it up to sympathy, a sister answer to the stranger’s want, or another traitorous thought. Ambessa tears away from her lover for just a moment as if sensing the proximity of her victory, and Viktor doesn’t have to look in the mirror to know that she sees right through him.

He knows he’s flushed. His face as bright as a tomato as a blush disappears into his collar. His Adam’s apple bobs. And he can feel himself sweating through his pressed vest.

Ambessa’s voice is like a siren upon the winds, the dancing breeze that continues to circulate through the room. With her words she directs her current, and before Viktor can become windswept, he tries to leave.

Ambessa doesn’t let him go without a final temptation. In the corner of his eye, a finger presses into the brown-haired boy’s mouth and he sucks without so much direction, “Let me give you what you need, sweetheart. So good for me…”

Pressing, thrusting, fighting her way into Viktor’s thoughts. But not just Viktor…

Jayce has clung to every word.

 An intensity that could match Ambessa’s sits in his eye, molten, fiery, practically burring a hole into Viktor. Yet the difference between her and him, is how it makes him shudder. Suddenly, Viktor feels agitated in the stillness of his grasp.

Like sitting in the eye of a hurricane, there is an unnerving serenity in Jayce’s pupil. It inspires a momentary look of awe as he senses the impending storm, and Viktor’s chest swoops as Jayce places his palms against Viktor’s shins.Viktor dreads his next question as much as Jayce would dread the answer,  “Then how did you…?”

Viktor can’t help the cruel smirk that splatters against his lips. To stoke or quell? “What do you want to think? Do you think I joined them?”

He almost regrets it as the words escape him but Jayce’s reaction is almost immediate as delicate palms grip his legs sending Viktor’s heart racing. Almost.

He bites his lip. Ridiculous. An entirely ridiculous situation but there’s an addictive sort of trill that he can’t help but chase. Viktor toys with the stray curl that escapes the perfect frame of Jayce's face.

“Do you think I took their invitation and climbed into bed with them?” Viktor’s tongue salivates, pupils blowing wide as he watches Jayce, placing the perfect curl back in its perfect spot. Viktor watches his perfect brows bow.

Viktor is more aggressive in goading him, wanting, and chasing a reaction.

Just a bit more.“Maybe they both undressed me and in my haste, I was a little careless.” Another blow. “Maybe she had to spread me wide.”

A push, a shove. “You should have seen her, Jayce. It was huge. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Viktor plays his heart like a fiddle, his reactions as if it were a game of chess, and Viktor knows it’s not much further. The final straw, “You know I could have taken it. I know you like seeing me split in half, Jayce. Is that what you want to think?”

And Viktor waits.

It’s as he calculated. It’s as he's formulated. It’s as he’s wanted and Jayce explodes and the scientist braces a relentless storm, “I don’t want any of those things, Viktor!”

Viktor however doesn’t flinch. Satisfaction settles and instead of meeting him for blow-for-blow. He reels him in, settling him in between his legs. There is some resistance before he gives, facing Viktor with a pout against his thigh.

The man can’t help but press a balming kiss to his forehead, “I know. Green looks awful on you, Jayce. Tell me, what would you have had me do then?”

Even when he blows away, Viktor still has him in his hands, physical or otherwise.

Jayce sits up and turns to face him. His hands find their way to other man’s waist and Viktor is met with the ire in his eyes. His face is mere inches away, his breath smoldering like a heaving smokestack, and Viktor’s breath catches in his throat suffocated by the threat.

That familiar trill returns, not teasing like a western wind, not gentle like a burbling fountain, but a deep heat that’s reserved just for Jayce. A furnace sits in his stomach and Viktor can feel his cock start to stir.

Once delicate hands now tear at the hem of his shirt untucking from where it sat neatly against him. Hands shear up Viktor’s sides and nails rake down his hips like a hacksaw leaving a skittering of sparks in its destruction yet absurdly precise.

Jayce’s hand fits its way into Viktor’s pants and the scientist braces himself for a demise seated in a scorching crucible. But Viktor can never seem to calculate how Jayce hovers. How the clash never comes, violent heat never burns, his touch never quite reaches his cock, but teases as his lips touch Viktor’s in an unsatisfying kiss. An aborted fire. An unceremonious end. A sudden dousing and a rupturing steam.

Jayce kisses him sweeter than he should before his head rolls to Viktor’s shoulder. He murmurs “I just want you...” Then all of a sudden the hand that’s still rests in his pants comes alive, digging past the button, and without warning squeezing Viktor’s cock.

Viktor feels the bastard smile when he yelps in surprise, “…right here. Nowhere else.”

The rest tears away. The universe suddenly focuses, shrinks until it’s just the two of them. For all his goading, for all his teasing, for all the frivolous and mean-spirited things he might say, Viktor is breathlessly confronted with the fact that in the end, it would always be just the two of them.

They move hastily after that.

Jayce kisses him, hot and scalding, like Viktor’s used to. A clash of lips and teeth that nip at him. Viktor moans into his mouth and runs his hands across Jayce’s shoulders to stabilize himself.

Except Jayce is on his own mission as he kisses down Viktor’s neck, torn between his hastiness and a patient desire to leave a trail of ruddy marks.

Viktor feels off-balance again in his own lust, carried away by his heartbeat and the way his chest gasps for air.

Jayce’s hands pull at Viktor’s pants, yanking at the buttons and the zipper to release him from his pants.

Viktor twitches against the cool air, and shudders as Jayce touches him. Then makes a noise high in his throat as Jayce leans down to kiss the head of his cock.

Viktor braces his heels against Jayce’s back and spreads his legs wider to fit the man between them. He awaits the plunge, Jayce’s mouth sinking onto his cock in a heavenly sensation. But like two pistons jamming, Jayce teases him again as he hovers.

“Why don’t you tell me what you want?” He asks and a chuckle reverberates through his chest. Two-for-two he supposes. A punishment, a consequence, the ball sits in Jayce’s court as he plays Viktor’s cruel game.

Jayce swirls his tongue over the head and pleasure races up Viktor’s spine. The feeling is maddening. But between heat and chill, pressure and gossamer touches, tenderness and strength, it’s not enough to quell the itch that desires more.

Jayce’s eyes flick to Viktor as he sucks the head, his plush lips parting over the flesh before sucking off with a wet pop. His brow furrows, your turn .

Viktor gasps, “I want…” and Jayce slowly pumps his dick as if to help him along but it only sends Viktor’s thoughts to a screeching halt.

“I want…” he moans with Jayce’s mouth on him. Viktor savors the sensation, this impending tidal wave, the force of the man, his impending…doom…recreation…but in the end it's just…

“ You .” Viktor finally manages and as if a rune found its correct command, Jayce swallows Viktor down to the hilt.

Together they are like a chrysanthemum stuck in its bud awaiting a temperate August day to bloom. Petals that were once fused together in its youth coaxed apart, extending, reaching in its maturity. The moment reaches its fever pitch as Viktor sinks into the heat and all he can think about is Jayce.

He looks wretched like this as he does beautiful. Neat, slicked-back curls come undone in as Jayce greedily bobs his head. Determination in his eye as he watches Viktor. Desire, as his hands find their way to Viktor’s thighs searching for another way to touch him. Pleasure, as he moans around Viktor’s cock sending a reverberation up his spine that makes the pads underneath his fingernails itch and scrabble for hold. 

Furious attention is on him for better or worse.

Viktor would call him a paradox as he cards Jayce’s hair caught between wanting to force him further onto his cock or signal to him that it’s too much. Too much of Jayce. He’s torn between inviting him to split him in half, or leave him bereft and sitting cold without him, neither seems like the most fitting option. So he sits caught in between a maddening middle while Jayce bobs his head and strokes the base of his cock with too much reverence.

A middling thought comes to Viktor as he wonders what he did to deserve this. To have Jayce in between his legs, feeling him envelope him…in an odd way solidifying the arrangement between them, the promise between them, a vow, a partnership. Jayce looks at him too earnestly sometimes, determined golden eyes with too much unnerving sincerity. Perhaps payment is only needed in his answering pleasure.

Viktor begins to moan which only spurs Jayce on. He moves faster, and a silent conversation happens between them.

He’s mine. 

He’s yours. 

He’s mine.

Heat coils and yet Viktor shudders. Jayce’s eyes are soft yet his grip is tight. Viktor teases, he pushes, and yet he wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world. Viktor’s orgasm is impending yet he only knows it’s another new beginning. Paradoxes collide, contradictions grate against each other, and though that may raise more questions, the truth settles far heavier in garbled confessions as Viktor cries his way through his orgasm.

Jayce’s stabilizing hands hold Viktor’s hips as he comes down from his high. He slides off Viktor’s dick in a trail of spit and a wet pop that even feels too much to look at.

Viktor slumps against the workbench. His cheeks burn as he tries to process what just happened. Jayce rests his cheek against the inside of Viktor’s hip, a spot just for him, and Viktor places a reassuring hand on his head while he stares at the moulding in the ceiling.

How ridiculous he may seem. The both of them.

In between two paradoxes, Occam’s razor often sits cleanly in the middle.

Viktor throws him the bone he’s been wanting, “I fell.” And Jayce peers up at him making the flush on Viktor’s face rise a little higher. For all his words and even-head, when confronted with a greater threat, a situation he can’t invent his way out of, he freezes.

Now and then it’s no different and Viktor admits in another churlish laugh,  “I ran out of there with a hand over my eyes and you know…”

With a flit of his hand Viktor tries to wave away the rest, but continues anyway, “Those steps are awful and I wasn’t paying any attention…”

A hand slides over the scratched bracket and Viktor feels a smile against his stomach.

Then there’s a laugh but no burn, a scolding but no bite, and truly, where would Viktor be without Jayce?