Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jayce Talis had finally done it.

He'd successfully convinced his partner of four years to go out on a date.

The trick of it was skillfully implanted ignorance. Viktor didn't know.

So in a way, it wasn't really a date, as Viktor hadn't formally agreed to one in the usual manner of being asked out. This was a break from the stress of research, some much needed time away from the lab to clear their heads. If Jayce had obsessively constructed a series of date-adjacent activities in the privacy of his mind in a way that would appear spontaneous, that was something Viktor would remain unaware of, if Jayce stuck to the playbook.

And he had to stick to the playbook. He’d formulated this plan for too long to back out now.

The roundabout, meticulously planned coercion wasn't something he was proud of, but Jayce couldn't stand to allow his desires to collect dust any longer. His mind had become overpacked with sweet, loving, tooth-ache-inducing domestic fantasies to the point it haunted his daily routine, from the moment he woke up.

There's enough space for him here if I fold into myself. He always sprawls out, though. Maybe I should get a new bed. I could install a hook next to the frame for his cane, so he won't need to strain himself so early. And another for his crutch near the front door.

Is he fully awake when he brushes his teeth, or just barely holding himself up? How often does he cleanse and moisturize? Would he use my toothpaste? I'd let him, I'll let him.

Will Viktor accept an extra hand with the new brace? Does he sleep in it because it’s too arduous a process to latch into and take off alone? I bet it's a hassle. Gods, I'll kiss the bolts in his spine when I help him in and out of it. If he lets me help. I hope he lets me help.

Not to mention the lab. Jayce did his best to compartmentalize the engrossing thoughts that had rooted deep. As he spent most of every day in close proximity to his partner, the daydreams took on a different form when they shared a room: barely controlled instincts to touch and to hold, to press close and drink in every shared sense. The impulses were suppressed to half-embraces that went on a little too long, a hand on a shoulder when it wasn't called for, lingering in Viktor's space in a non-essential manner Jayce could just barely play off as rational. Like every day could be their last. Yet time continued to pass without much stress regarding Hextech’s longevity... and Jayce sank into the routine of yearning. In both work and leisure, Viktor would be there, either in reality or Jayce's terribly fixated mind.  

Years of assumed unrequited love had been beaten down and compounded into heated obsession; hot licks of passion simmering under the surface, only just controlled, bursting at the seams of containment, the cracks mended with temporary measures. Jayce couldn't turn the burners any lower. The overheated flames had licked up the sides to the point the metal was beginning to singe and deform at the base. Unfixable. There was nothing else he could do to mitigate the fire, and gods did it fucking burn.

Jayce knew if he didn't take some sort of strategic preemptive action it would boil over and erupt into something that could entirely destroy the sanctity of their partnership. He knew in his fucking bones, even if he confessed in the sweetest and most genuine way, the possibility of rejection remained at a much higher percentage than what Jayce was willing to risk.

The Council would likely admonish the idea that their revered Boys of Progress could be invested in something other than Piltover’s advancement. The Hexgates had recently catapulted the city into the spotlight concerning trade and tech, cementing the nation as a leading force in revolutionary science. Great things were expected. Just how long could a relationship last under that scrutiny?

If Hextech were defunded? Now there's a thought. Jayce wouldn't have to share his partner with the world. He wouldn't have to split his own time appeasing politicians. He and Viktor could focus on what they considered relevant without oversight—help people who needed their work now rather than later—the true goal of Hextech, their dream from the beginning.

Jayce stopped the train of self-sabotage before it could build enough track to leave the station.

Viktor would never forgive him. Even if Jayce smothered his partner with every kind of love, Viktor wouldn't consider it worth the sacrifice of security. He'd worked too hard for his current post to give it away with no promise of stability. Every time they made a breakthrough together, his partner's eyes would shine with exhilaration and ambition. It wouldn't have been possible without subsidy from the Council, Mel Medarda's unwavering support, and the ongoing patronage of the Kiramman House. Hextech wasn't just Jayce's cause anymore. It had evolved to a winding network of sponsorship and corroborative effort he no longer had full jurisdiction over.

Jayce still held his dream close to his heart, only now it was horribly entangled in affection for another: his passion for discovery, creation, altruism... and his love for the man he shared it with.

And even so. When the complications surrounding what a romantic partnership could look like were set aside, there was the terrible, depressing, all-too-real possibility that Viktor just did not want him that way. Sex was one thing. They were compatible, versatile, and three years into their partnership had established reliable guidelines of when to engage in intimacy as means of stress relief.

If Jayce confessed and Viktor rejected him, the sex might stop as well.

He could see it. Gentle amber eyes, brows knitted up in painful, unbearable fucking pity. Awkward condolences that it just would not fucking work. A slow intake of breath and prolonged silence as Viktor contemplated the best way to let Jayce down easy, to avoid any further proclamation that it would be worth it and they were made for each other and all the horrible, loving things Jayce had thoroughly convinced himself of (which Viktor would not want to hear). That perhaps their habitual sex had confused Jayce. That he just needed some time to get over the affection that would not, in the years that followed, linger.

Jayce worried what he might say, or do, if his partner rejected him like that.

He did not want to envision it.

He hated that he could.

And if Hextech was rendered inoperable from the fallout, with Viktor unable to work with him…

Jayce had been down that road before.

He knew the exact structural makeup of the pavement. Which streets would be cordoned off when his body was found limp, crumpled and broken and cold. Jayce was sure the red detailing of his jacket would compliment the stain of shattered arteries rather well, scandalous enough to hit the front page of the city's paper for at least a week. 

Seeking an early death was a road of self-appeasement he’d followed all the way to the literal ledge. Despite the step back he'd taken years earlier, the tempting promise of darkness amidst a cool night breeze on his cheeks was always there, an undesirable path but an ever-present option nonetheless. Jayce intimately understood how his mind would fold if he was alone again, most likely within the day if faced with scathing resentment from the man who had once saved him from that fate.

Jayce Talis was adept at picturing the worst case scenario, down to asinine specifics that any outside perspective would consider irrelevant.

He would do everything possible to avoid the outcome so viciously self-seeded in his brain.

It was the desperate, curdling fear of what could happen if he didn't take charge of his desires that led Jayce to concoct a plan to sate his own needs. His subtle manipulation in manifesting what should have been a straightforward request didn't come easy—in fact, he was terribly ashamed by how he'd gone about it.

For nearly a year, Jayce had spent an inordinate amount of time formulating the perfect method to dote over Viktor as a spouse without arousing too much suspicion from the man his plan revolved around. Where anxiety didn’t smother, Jayce was elated by the early success his efforts reaped when Viktor first agreed to leave the lab that afternoon. It was the undercurrent of dark alternatives that spurred him forward as opposed to the fluttering, boyish excitement that followed Viktor saying yes.

Convincing his partner to accompany him outside the lab for a few hours on a beautiful spring afternoon wasn't overtly a red flag. Fresh air would clear their minds. If they happened across an establishment that served the freshest spiced sweetmilk in the city, how could Viktor possibly turn down the offer of a paid-for treat? If their break went on a little longer than strictly necessary, would it really be that bad? If they coincidentally stumbled into a pop-up market of novel wares and trinkets from foreign nations, how could they pass up the opportunity to browse?

And if that trek happened to coincide with the base level of Jayce’s apartment, wouldn't Viktor be relieved to go upstairs and relax in the privacy of a suite that had been painstakingly cleaned and organized the day before?

“You know this is highly irregular,” Viktor muttered.

His back was pressed up to the white brick walls of the building adjacent to the market, the intention to alleviate some weight off his leg. The sun still shone high over the bright city, mid-afternoon light glinting sharply off an abundance of gold and bronze, glass and silver, the lines of neatly arranged varicolored tents. The area bustled with patrons who shuffled past them to weave through the stands, loud and excited, too busy taking the sights to notice them, right?

It only made sense that Jayce would press forward into Viktor’s space to allow the stream of people to get by. If he raised a hand to Viktor's waist and his lips settled into the smooth bend of his partner’s neck—so he could hear his companion better, of course—it shouldn't have been too irregular.

He rifled through the multitude of responses he'd preconsidered, the cards in his hand, a filed system of how to keep the date from falling apart. Because if Viktor caught on too well and surmised his partner’s tactics, he wouldn't let up until everything was revealed, from the obsessive fantasies down to the personal notebook of all things Viktor stashed away in Jayce's desk drawer.

Jayce had taken years to fully commit to this plot. He wasn't ready to throw it away at the first sign of disillusionment.

“I don't know what you mean,” he lied with his lips pressed to the milky skin of his partner's neck. His own pulse thudded hard and fast, and Jayce hoped if Viktor felt it, the tell would be equated to arousal rather than the truth of overwhelming, guilt-ridden anxiety.

Dismissive and vague. Dismissive and vague. You can do this. He doesn't have to know. He won't find out. You've calculated every possible scenario, even countermeasures if something goes awry. Just for today, he's yours. Only yours. And he loves you too.

“Jayce... you are no longer a blacksmith from a lower house. High Piltovan social conduct does not readily permit this kind of public indiscretion.” Viktor glanced over the broad shoulders that obstructed his body from being seen by the citizens and tourists that ambled the market street.

“You really think anyone would recognize me?” Jayce pressed another subtle kiss to Viktor’s jaw, who craned out of reach.

A slender hand settled against Jayce’s chest as a gentle means of denial.

“I am certain of it.”

Jayce’s offer was already loaded and ready to fire once the moment presented itself. “My place is near here, we could... stop by. It's less than a block up the left street.”

Viktor scoffed lightly. “I know where you live. I’ve visited on numerous occasions. Is this a lapse in memory on your part?”

“I wasn't sure you'd recognize the area when it's light out,” Jayce clarified. “You only come over when we're jaded from a gala or you need a drink.” And, Jayce did not add, for sex. “You know, late night visits. Everything looks different during the day.”

Viktor stared. He stared until Jayce tentatively licked his lips, swallowed, and offered a nervous smile, the slight gap in his front teeth the most reliable tool of disarming charm he could use in that moment.

“Don't you want to sit down for a minute? We've been out for a while.”

“It is, eh, not unbearable.” Viktor shrugged. “Though I do appreciate you holding onto what we bought.”

“Of course. But... I do want to drop these off. The lab is cluttered enough already,” Jayce said. He gave his partner some space, backing away just enough to raise the canvas bag stuffed with various parts and purchases.

“I’m anxious to return. I can hail a ride myself if you feel a stop is necessary.” Viktor adjusted the crutch under his arm and smoothed the wrinkles of his shirt over the hidden brace locked around his chest.

Jayce was ready. He'd played this part over more times than he cared to count.

“Your key is locked in the lab, you'll need mine.”

“And is there a reason why you would refuse to lend me yours?”

“Last time I lent you my key I didn't get it back for a week.”

Viktor pursed his lips. “I told you where I left it, I cannot be held responsible for where it was misplaced from there.”

“Yeah, sure, but I'm not one to make the same mistake twice.” Jayce smiled (not because he knew the exact location of the missing key, but because of how Viktor pouted) and shifted the bag from one hand to the other, light and casual, like the invitation couldn't possibly mean anything. “Just come with me, Vik. We don't need to stay long.”

Viktor glanced down the street where the crowd thinned out and Jayce’s apartment was tucked around the corner.

“You are not giving me much of a choice, and I predict you will become distracted once we get there,” he sighed, the ironic truth of his statement blanketed in dry humor. "Do not get dragged into another booth, Jayce. You’ve been swindled enough as it is."

Jayce let his hand linger over the small of Viktor's back as he guided him through the crowd. When Viktor began to pull ahead, Jayce let it drop, the tips of his fingers tingling.

The modest apartment was clean, tidy, and inviting. At least, that's how it looked today, as opposed to only hours earlier when every surface had been covered in various Hextech documentation and an assortment of discarded belongings.

Jayce kicked his shoes off near the entrance, a sure sign he meant to stay longer than what had initially been suggested. He walked a short distance to set the bag down on the kitchen counter and began to take out each product they'd deemed worthy of buying.

"Make yourself comfortable, this will take a minute or two," Jayce offered, gesturing vaguely to the interior of his apartment. He knew Viktor would be hesitant to take him up on it, so he busied himself with the goods instead of insisting.

He frowned. There was something here he hadn't paid for. How’d it even end up in the bag?

“When did you pick this up?” Jayce asked without looking over, fiddling with a gyroscopic top. He spun one of the affixed gears and let it whir. “Is it... Demacian steel? No, pewter.”

“I always wanted one as a child. A heat of the moment decision,” Viktor chuckled. He watched Jayce play with the gears and sighed, charmed. “Definitely not something we need, but it called to me.”

Jayce appreciated the addition to his collection of details about his enigmatic partner. Note taken. “It's a gorgeous piece, the construction is impeccable. I would have made one for you, if you wanted.”

“You have more pressing matters to attend to than assembling a toy, Jayce.”

Next time, Jayce would pay for it.

His focus flickered as he watched the gear slow to a halt.

Next time? The whole thing is fucking insane. It's not even over, and I’m already considering running this gambit again?

But the day so far had gone by without too many hitches, as the work he'd put into his plan seemed to have been worth it. He felt that clawing, masticating heat of heartache simmer down from the point of boiling over, allowing him a moment to breathe. The illusionary comfort of domesticity worked wonders, the overbearing flame of discontentment that ate away at his insides now a manageable ulcer.

This could get addicting, he worried. Monopolizing him like this.

Jayce set the top down and organized what items needed to be taken back to their lab, the trinkets he’d been convinced to purchase, and the few products Viktor had agreed were worth the cost.

“We do need to get back soon,” Viktor announced once it was obvious his partner was in no rush. 

“How come?” Jayce didn't make eye contact, rifling through their joint wares. He'd touched every piece twice already. "After this week we're ahead of our projected timeline."

Viktor was still idling by the door, shifting over the support of his crutch. He didn't move to sit down on the couch where Jayce had specifically padded the pillows.

“You locked the lab. Miss Young is scheduled to come in today, did you forget? Or did you preemptively inform her we would not return for quite some time, because you planned not to?”

Jayce froze. He fucking froze, even though he’d anticipated his partner would catch on to something or other; he was brilliant and beautiful and of course he would piece together a truth of some kind. The final accusatory phrasing triggered Jayce to tense even if it had been delivered offhand, and he felt his pulse spike.

Thankfully, Jayce had prepared for that. It had been nearly a year, after all. The variables had been locked in for months.

He played off the sudden pause as genuine contemplation and fiddled with his collar. “Shit, I did forget! We’re lucky I ordered her a key a few weeks back just in case.”

Viktor considered this plainly in mild surprise, a development he hadn't been informed of. The fact Jayce had taken the initiative without telling him might have been atypical, but it wasn't quite relevant enough to comment on.

“And you are sure it has been delivered?”

“There’s a hassle with elective access concerning the building, some paperwork, but I can’t imagine it hasn’t gone through by now.” Jayce refined his factual reassurance with a lie: “Sky was in the lab before me yesterday. That would confirm it, right?”

Viktor had slept in the day prior, and Jayce slotted the card away for later use. He continued before his partner could see the bluff for what it was.

“I know I had my doubts, but—she's a great addition to the team. You said, uh, she grew up in the Undercity as well?”

Jayce had done his research. He knew the answer, and hoped Viktor would take the bait to focus on something else.

“We both read her resume, Jayce.” Viktor pursed his lips but chose to follow the prompt. “Entresol, yes. Although... she seems to remember meeting me, while I do not recall the encounter.”

“She must have an incredible memory, then.” Jayce would not have forgotten meeting Viktor at any age or any time, he was sure of it. He and their new colleague had that in common. “It'll take some getting used to, having an extra set of hands around the lab, but I'm excited you and I will have more time to focus on what's important.”

“Hm. As long as she has access,” Viktor conceded. He ambled to the couch and settled into the cushions with a huff. Feeling the tease of tension run through his leg, he propped his crutch against the armrest and nudged a thumb under the top binding of his leg brace to massage the muscle. “Although I predict Miss Young will be somewhat confused when not one but both Hextech founders are notably absent.”

Viktor was caught up on the tangent for longer than Jayce wished, but at least the previous loose accusation had fallen by the wayside. He let himself breathe, willing the ease of a purposefully constructed narrative back into play.

“She's been well briefed, and clearly capable. Besides, a worthwhile assistant doesn’t require constant oversight.” Jayce left the trinkets on the counter to round the couch and sit down now that the opportunity had presented itself. “Who knows, she might appreciate the peace and quiet.”

He laid his arm over the length of the couch. His hand settled so, if allowed, he could easily reach up and wind his fingers through soft brown hair.

Jayce had fucking measured the distance to sit.

“All the more reason to return promptly,” Viktor said with a smirk. “It would not be in our best interest for our new assistant to prefer silence over intensive discussion.” He stretched out his braced leg to adjust how his trousers bunched underneath.

“There's space for both, what with—you know, how much time we spend there. Hextech can wait a few more minutes.”

Jayce took a breath. Even the length of his exhale was calculated. He noted his own posture, the way he leaned, confirming that he didn't exude the anxiety running rampant under his skin.

“You—do you want a break from the brace?”

Too hesitant. Not casual enough. Fuck.

Viktor didn't look over, pressing his thumbs in gentle circles under the thick piece of metal that rode up his thigh. He hummed, considering. “Only to refasten it shortly after? I would rather not strain my back for such a temporary relief.”

“I'll take care of it,” Jayce cut in. “Not a problem.”

It really wasn't. Jayce had put together a replica of the clasp mechanism, the one used in three places throughout the design of the brace. He'd deftly practiced the maneuver so he wouldn't fuck up and break one of the pieces again. (He was still kicking himself over it. Viktor hadn't spoken to him for a day, and had gone out of his way to commission someone else to replace the part.) At this point, the delicate interlocking piece of metal was a tool for releasing nervous energy in the privacy of his home. Jayce had tucked it away in the back of his desk drawer next to the incriminating notebook. Even now he could feel the phantom click.

“I'll be more careful this time, don't worry,” Jayce persuaded when Viktor cocked an eyebrow.

He shifted his weight closer so his arm was carefully poised around the back of the couch, inches separating where he could have held Viktor’s opposite shoulder, caging his partner in. His right hand dropped to the top clasp of the brace, fingers hovering, and he leaned in towards Viktor’s ear.

“You want it off?”

A little breathy, somewhat sensual. Perfect.

“By Janna, why are you talking like that?” Viktor laughed, slicing through the purposefully devised tension. “Yes, Jayce, I would like it off.” He mimicked his partner's tone towards the end, settling back into the couch as a barely perceptible blush dusted his cheeks. “You will have a much better angle from the floor. Do not break it, you won’t be gifted with a free pass of causing me that inconvenience again.”

Jayce felt his ears burn.

He dropped to the floor, foregoing the intimate brush of his fingers over Viktor’s shoulder as he'd planned. A little off the mark, but everything was still in motion, and Jayce framed the braced shoe with his thighs.

Three clicks for each of the mechanisms that held the leather straps taut, three swift pulls to loosen the bindings. Jayce shifted back so he could lift Viktor’s heel with one hand and support the underside of his thigh with the other, sliding the metal brace from his partner’s leg over the grafts screwed underneath. He set it on the coffee table as if it were made of glass, not a combination of reinforced steel alloys.

As if he’d done it a million times before.

Because he wanted to do it a million times more.

“Better?”

Viktor was staring again. The blush had deepened, a soft rose.

“You are acting... rather odd today, Jayce.”

“I just want you to feel comfortable,” Jayce said, the deflection ready on his tongue. Dismissive and vague. He readjusted to frame Viktor’s foot again and carefully settled his palms over his partner’s clothed thigh. “If you need, I can—”

“What is this about?” Viktor interjected. “If I wanted a massage, I would have requested one.”

“I'm trying to be helpful,” Jayce said evenly. His hands didn’t move where they splayed over Viktor’s thigh, encompassing the entire width. “Will you let me?”

Viktor’s brows were drawn together, clearly agitated but it wasn't pointed at a particular reason just yet... because Jayce was proving very difficult to pin down over the past few hours.

The past few weeks, if Viktor was honest with himself.

What Jayce hadn’t accounted for within the schematics of his plan was just how well Viktor knew him. After four years of turbulent ups and downs building Hextech together, the Undercity scientist was innately aware of every behavioral tell his partner had. What triggered passionate discussion, what made Jayce angry, what bent the man to worry or excitement. How to properly relay the logical answer to a scenario when it conflicted with his partner's emotional tendencies.

Today, every pattern in Viktor’s catalogue regarding Jayce had been challenged. The reason for the stark change was still out of reach, as his partner clearly was not in the mood to tell him.

It was a Friday. Their sex was scheduled for semi-occurrent Tuesdays. Jayce hadn't initiated intimacy in over a month, and while curious as to why, Viktor hadn’t brought it up. His libido wasn't necessarily low, but compared to Jayce... well. Viktor appreciated the sex because of its consistency, the reliability of having someone he trusted ready to satiate an irksome need if it came up. Even on the days they did spontaneously engage in intimacy, there was still a congruent process to initiating it. Flowery courtship, public displays of affection, and sensually spoken offers were not a part of their vaguely penned contract.

Massages were a Wednesday occurrence.

They had a system, and Jayce was not using that system.

If Jayce wanted to be helpful, he would have lent his key. If he wanted to be helpful, they would have returned to the lab when Viktor first prompted. This was something else. And as each straightforward question had been strategically ignored, a spun web where every deflection was hidden amongst too many extra threads to disentangle entirely, Viktor decided the only way forward was to play along.

“Go ahead,” he said casually. Viktor laid his elbows over the back of the couch to stretch his limbs further. “You seem invested, I won't stop you.”

Jayce wasn’t making eye contact. He’d kept his hands still while waiting patiently for a concise yes or no, and yet Viktor had a feeling he’d be steered toward accepting the offer even if he did initially voice otherwise. A pattern that had repeatedly surfaced all day. It wasn’t something Viktor was comfortable with—submitting to the will of others—yet Jayce always accompanied the coercion with a strained smile which pushed Viktor to accept that Jayce needed whatever was suggested more than he did. And while Jayce was tactile in camouflaging his internal turmoil, it was obvious to Viktor his partner was in some sort of state.

But the man wouldn’t answer honestly, and Viktor accepted the fact he needed to work around the issue. He’d unravel the truth eventually.

“We will not be returning to the lab tonight, I gather?” Viktor said smoothly. He raised an eyebrow when his partner still refused to look at him.

Jayce’s throat bobbed as he began to rub his thumbs methodically into the tightly wound thigh beneath his hands. He stared at the spot he was massaging like he meant to burn twin holes through the fabric.

“We can if you want to,” he relented under his breath, so hesitant and quiet that the falsity of the proposition was laughable.

Fake, Viktor criticized even as he let the man touch him. You are being artificial, Jayce.

Viktor had gotten used to the mask his partner wore in the presence of potential investors, of councilmembers, of Piltovan aristocrats and others who had earned the duplicity. A sticky silken artifice of likability that one might be content to stay wrapped in, if they didn't know Jayce Talis through and through. The way his hazel eyes became dull, the brightness dimmed so the shine was palatable; the way he offered a smile as a means of appeasement, not genuine earnest expression.

Viktor wondered what he’d done to deserve the displeasure of facing it for hours on end.

“And reject your generous offer?” Viktor settled deeper into the couch and stifled a moan when Jayce’s fingers joined the fray, drawing deep lines along the outside of his thigh. His head tilted lazily over the back of the couch, content in letting his partner prove he meant what he said in wanting to be helpful. “No, Jayce, I do appreciate it. You are being... very kind.”

Viktor didn’t ask why, because he knew Jayce would clam up and change the subject. He knew his partner would do whatever it took to reroute the topic or, if that didn’t work—in a disturbing lapse of principle Viktor rarely saw—shamelessly lie.

Jayce had lied about the coffee shop: the payment wasn’t from a Hextech stipend, that was his personal wallet detailed with red and gold house colours. He’d lied about the surprisingly convenient proximity of the market event, as Viktor had seen the pamphlet on Jayce’s desk the week prior (before it was crumpled and discarded in the wastebin), the time and location clearly indicated at the bottom. He’d even lied about Sky, because Viktor was almost certain that she had not received her key yet. But he was too invested in Jayce’s woven trail of careful forgery to worry about what their new assistant would be up to that afternoon, when the lab was locked and she’d be left to wonder why.

Viktor would find out why, and when he did, would press Jayce for every show of falsity committed.

Chapter Text

The transfer to the bedroom was slow, unrushed. Pleasant, amiable kisses pressed to pale skin as more was laid bare, wherein Jayce made it a point to take his time. He was usually rather frantic in a way that came off as endearing, if not a little desperate, during unscheduled sex.

Performative ease, Viktor surmised. He held back a taunt as he saw his partner was already half hard, clearly attempting to ignore his arousal as he meant to draw their intimacy out.

Viktor appreciated a second set of hands to undo the mechanism that kept the back brace fixed to the bolts inset through his vertebrae. The screws in the front provided easy access to ratchet the brace tight, but aligning the piece proved a difficult process even with a mirror. Jayce undid every strap and loosened every bolt in silence with gentle hands. Viktor was aware how much Jayce had pored over the designs for it when the necessity was first brought up. Even though he hadn’t personally crafted the device, Jayce knew the mechanisms by heart, and his fingers traced the bolts in Viktor's spine with even-tempered indulgence.

Viktor sighed where he sat against the headboard of the bed, both braces laid aside on Jayce’s dresser, stripped down to his undergarments. The confining support of two braces was stifling, not to mention heavy. Viktor savored the way his lungs could fill fully without the constriction of metal biting at his ribs. He laid his grafted leg out straight and bent the other up, waiting.

The room wasn't unfamiliar at this point, the destination for their proclivities often enough that Viktor felt comfortable sitting in the bed alone. Although since their last rendezvous, a specifically positioned hook had been affixed to the side of the bed Viktor naturally gravitated towards. The height and width of the device perfectly held his crutch flush to the wall.

Viktor regarded the addition to the room with a certainty he didn’t need to confirm aloud.

Jayce, also bare except for his briefs, exited the closet after making his choice. He gave what he'd chosen to his partner without looking at him before sitting at the end of the bed, not quite facing Viktor. His fingers knit nervously over his lap.

“You want this without penetration?” Viktor was quizzical, raising the gag as if Jayce’s vision could have failed him when picking out the item. “You have only ever requested something of this variety when I fuck you.”

The last time Jayce had worn a gag was three months prior. At the time it had been new, something Jayce had bought on the sly, one without a ball or bite or hole to use for play. A simple yet elegant swath of thick fabric that cinched tightly over the entirety of that incredibly vocal mouth and buckled around the back of his skull. He'd very enthusiastically tried it out, yelling and moaning stifled words Viktor could not manage to decipher despite the hour he spent fucking into Jayce’s tight warmth and milking the pleasure from his cock.

Jayce had specifically asked him afterwards whether he could understand the jumble of sounds that slipped through. The answer that night was a definitive “no”. The single word Viktor correctly assumed was his own name, only due to the familiar cadence of the syllables. Everything else had been a mystery, and Jayce did not bother to tell him what had been muffled beneath the gag that night. It hadn't been used since, and Viktor could not have guessed Jayce would ask for it again on a night they switched off.

Jayce nodded. “Is that okay?”

“It seems... counterintuitive, but if that’s what you want,” Viktor said as he shrugged, and adjusted his weight to shuffle forward. Jayce tucked his legs up to fully kneel on the bed facing away, positioned to accept the self-imposed bondage.

Viktor smoothed the fabric between his fingers and flipped it to the correct position. Yet just as he dropped the length of fabric over his partner’s chin, Jayce shifted away from the binding.

“Wait, can you...” Jayce’s voice wavered, unsure. He's been doing that a lot today. “Can I request one more thing?”

“Why not?” Viktor said. He draped the fabric around the width of Jayce’s throat instead of his mouth, the temporary measure tinged with the promise of what was to come. His free hands settled over the back of Jayce’s neck. “It has been a while since we last engaged like this.”

“Could I specify what you say during sex?” Nearly whispered, Jayce seemed incredibly hesitant to outright ask.

Viktor wondered what could possibly be so damning.

“Only if you tell me, Jayce.”

Viktor was usually far more patient when it came to hearing out his partner’s preferences, but with how the day had gone, he was less inclined to coddle the shy demeanor he was now faced with.

“Call me soft names,” Jayce said, stilted and nervous. Gods, he sounds so small. “Baby. Darling. Sweetheart. Things like that.”

Viktor was both intrigued and amused by the development. Jayce's pulse was so rapid Viktor worried his partner might slip into a panic if he said anything other than yes, although he wouldn’t dare—Jayce hadn't just initiated this, he needed it.

“An easy request to meet,” Viktor assured him. “Is there a fantasy attached to this you wish to play out?”

His partner went quiet in a way that prompted Viktor to privately denote that he'd come upon another loose thread, just long enough to tug at.

“Not really,” Jayce denied after a moment. “Just wanted to try something different.”

A vague deflection, just as thinly veiled as the last, the silk too sheer to encapsulate the lie. Viktor held the thread amongst the others he'd wound around his palm.

“Anything else before we put this on you?” He drew the binding away from Jayce’s throat, preparing to draw it into position.

“Yeah, do you have any stipulations?” Jayce asked, turning his head to make eye contact. His pupils were contracted, fighting off anxiety. The shake in his voice was only noticeable to someone who had grown accustomed to recognizing the variation.

It was strained, but Jayce was attempting to be sincere for the first time all day. So Viktor considered what would be nice, what would calm his nerves, even if the man facilitating his pleasure was the source of his frustration. His voice softened, and he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of his partner’s neck, hoping to reaffirm to Jayce that their unscheduled intimacy was something he was looking forward to as opposed to a chore.

“Less than an hour. A condom would be preferable for ease of cleaning. Refrain from pushing my legs higher than what is strictly necessary, and if you feel the need to come twice, the second round will not be penetrative.”

“Okay, that’s... yeah, okay,” Jayce breathed. The definitive boundaries did nothing to soften his already interested cock. He nodded and turned to face forward, ready to be bound. “Make sure it’s tight.”

Viktor laid the thickest width of the fabric over Jayce’s mouth. “Hold this for me,” he prompted, and Jayce raised a hand to fix where it would stay.

Viktor adjusted the rest of the fabric to slide over the shell of Jayce’s ears and began to buckle the gag at the back of his partner’s skull. He slid his fingers around to press to the front of the binding where Jayce’s mouth was now covered.

“Tight enough, sweetheart?” Viktor’s accent hitched over the word not commonly utilized within his vocabulary.

Jayce shuddered. He took a second to recover before nodding.

“Good.”

Viktor settled back against the arrangement of pillows he'd been gifted to relax in. The linen smelled freshly washed, almost too clean, and Viktor wondered whether the scent of Jayce’s detergent would linger on him.

“When you would like it untied, pinch me.”

Jayce turned his way to tilt his head, brows knitted, clearly put off by the idea.

“Not hard. It is not uncommon practice, and will be the quickest way to secure my attention while you’re inside.”

A simple head shake.

“Tap me, then. Be insistent with it."

Jayce shifted fully around on his knees and crawled forward to settle between Viktor's spread legs, breathing evenly through his nose. His fingers traced deliberate lines over pale skin, lingering wherever a mole was dotted and where the pink lines of brace straps had cut in. Slow enough that Viktor would have been bored, if not for the steady stream of muffled sentences.

He couldn't make it out; the gag was doing its job too well, especially when the words were spoken so tenderly under the cloth. Jayce was talkative tonight, and—for a reason Viktor had already begun to draw a conclusion about—did not want his words perceived in the slightest.

“Darling, you have touched me more than enough this evening, I would rather you get on with it,” Viktor lulled. It seemed using any of the designated affectionate pet names would draw a shiver from his partner, so Viktor decided to abuse the permission he'd been given. “Put your cock in me, sweetheart, you are clearly aching for it.”

A muffled moan, another sentence suffixed by the only word Viktor could make out: his own name.

“Can you not see how wet I am for you in this moment?” Viktor laid the sensuality on thick. It wasn't a lie, he was soaked, but goading Jayce into action was his first priority. He set his feet against the plane of the mattress and raised his hips a fraction, thumbs teasing at the hem of his briefs. “Take these off. Make me feel good. I know you can.”

Another fractured, moaned response safely veiled under the constriction of the gag. Jayce did as instructed. He shuffled back to pull the underwear off, and from the scrunch of his brows, Viktor knew Jayce felt some regret in restricting the use of his tongue. The lube would make up for it. He delved in with coated fingers, smearing the collected slick up to Viktor’s cock with measured worship. His left hand held Viktor’s hip, the other dragging purposeful lines up and down the length of slick-painted pink folds, thumb gently pressing up against the modest cock.

Unheard words. Specially picked sentiments under the lock and key of tightly wound fabric. Jayce talked Viktor through it without mutual exchange, strangely enthused by the assurance that nothing he said would be heard.

“You're teasing,” Viktor muttered with an edge of dissatisfaction, a momentary break from the exaggerated vulgarities.

Two fingers gingerly slid from his dick into the warmth of his cunt in response.

“Oh—I, mm. It has been some—some time since we last did this, no?” Viktor shuddered through the sensation, a little too much after the prolonged drought. Two of those fingers equaled three of his own.

Jayce quickly reverted to one. He bent to press his covered mouth to Viktor’s hip in a gesture that served as both a mock-kiss and an apology.

They eased through the process of adjusted angles, thick fingers, and fluctuating sighs of tentative preparation. The first time they'd done it was somewhat frantic and messy. At this point the actions felt fluid, trained over a lengthy period of experimentation. Jayce knew exactly how to roll the pad of his thumb over Viktor's hardening cock as he thrust inside at the ideal angle; Viktor tilted his hips into the touch and stared down to where Jayce was bent between his thighs.

Viktor could feel his partner’s intention to please with the way he graciously divided his attention between the hole he meant to fuck and the erect cock lengthened within slick folds. Jayce was focused and still mumbling as he spread his fingers. He let his other hand drag up and down the grafted leg that lay to his left, soothing and graciously considerate.

Jayce looked up, hazel eyes questioning.

Viktor wet his lips and held the wrapped condom between two fingers, offering so it was within his partner’s reach.

Jayce nodded and shuffled off the bed for a moment, the sharp rip of the packet amidst fumbling hands as he removed his sticky briefs. Viktor could hear the way the other man’s exhales sharpened through his nose.

“This has been on your mind all day, hasn’t it, sweetheart? My legs open in your bed, waiting and wanting only for you?”

The way it was said, overly enthusiastic with an extra cushioning of sensuality, hid the way Viktor meant to unwind the strands Jayce hadn’t clipped well enough. He would tug on each thread until the meticulously woven web was entirely undone.

Viktor slunk back against the pillows and watched his partner’s blush darken as opposed to a wide-eyed realization. Jayce seemed too invested in jumping onto the bed and repositioning himself to process the building insinuation. He slicked extra lube down his cock and sighed heavily through his nose, the head of his dick pressed lightly against the slick entrance.

“Jayce.”

The assertive tone, hearing his name spoken clearly in a retraction from the multitude of lulled pet names, made Jayce look up from where he was focused and lock eyes with his partner.

Viktor’s slender figure was indeed open and wanting and waiting as he'd stated, pale skin painted with a pink tint, limbs spread out over dark blue sheets. He reached out towards his Jayce's face, gesturing to the binding as he couldn't quite touch it.

“You still want this on you?”

Jayce nodded.

He hadn’t given himself the option otherwise.

The softly mumbled praises of You're so perfect and I need you closer and Let me be the only one you ever want were all safely muffled beneath tightly bound fabric. His plan was working, each card laid down a successful play in surviving another round. Jayce could confess the terrible lengths to which his affection had climbed without the undetermined variable of a reaction.

Viktor dropped his hand to his hip and bent his knees, inviting the next step with his body.

“Mm. Keep going, then.”

“Love it when you sound like that,” Jayce whispered under the gag. “Breathy and tense like you're annoyed just how badly you want it.”

Viktor (who could not, Jayce had been assured, understand what had been said) let out a moan as his hole was stretched open, a warming heat inside that filled him inch by inch. Jayce gasped against the soft inner plane of the fabric over his mouth. When the dense barrier stopped him from sucking the oxygen he required, he breathed deeply through his nose instead.

Passing out was not an option. He needed to be present for every borrowed second he could steal, fantasizing Viktor was laying in his bed like it was the only place he ever slept. Pretending his partner wouldn't go to others to satiate this need if the time came. That they were imbued to each other now and forever; the notion that only death could part them.

Jayce bottomed out like he had no intention of ever letting the space sit unoccupied, drawing his hips back just enough to cant them forward again.

Viktor’s legs twitched and he strained backwards with a fractured moan of pleasure, “Ah, that's—don't stop—”

Jayce continued his steady rocking, pulling Viktor’s thighs up to his hips to keep their sex flush. The spring of the bed aided his efforts as he kept the rhythm going.

Not too hard. Keep his legs down. Don’t come too fast. You might not get another chance like this, satisfying him after a date like he’s yours and only yours—

Viktor let out a winded moan that Jayce drank in as the sustenance he needed.

“I love you,” Jayce breathed, just once to start.

Viktor didn’t grace him with a response besides stilted whines and a careful shift of his hips.

“I love you, Viktor,” Jayce whispered again. He continued to thrust into his partner’s slick warmth and groaned as the resulting pleasure enveloped him from head to toe. He angled himself so the slide was easy, the steady rhythmic song of skin slapping skin as he fucked.

“Sweetheart, you... Gods, that feels... lovely, darling,” Viktor said between hitched breaths.

Jayce could feel the sweat accumulate under the band of the gag, slippery as he continued to ease in and out of his partner—his lover, his husband, because who else would call him such pretty names of endearment?

“You're so beautiful, so perfect,” Jayce groaned. The gag dug into his jaw as he flexed. “Feel so hot around me. You feel good, baby? Is this what you needed?”

“Yes, keep—j-just like that, mm—” Viktor reached a hand up to steady himself against the headboard, the other dropping to his cock and rubbing gently back and forth.

“Want to come home with you. Want you in my bed. Only you.”

“Good,” Viktor moaned, angling his hips down and flicking faster over his cock. “Oh, fuck, darling, you’re doing so well–”

“Gods, I love you,” Jayce moaned, fading into the fantasy of it before they returned to the mutual arrangement that would disqualify its use. “I love you, Viktor, I love you, I love you—”

Jayce repeated it one too many times.

Viktor knew exactly what was being recited like an urgent prayer. The dictation was all at once too distinctive, and in conjunction with his name it was clear, even if muffled under the gag.

He looked up in awe, the hot, wet friction inside his cunt somewhat distracting as he came to terms with the confession Jayce was not aware he’d given. Jayce continued to thrust into him, eyes closed, too engrossed in their activity to notice how Viktor stared.

Jayce was breathing heavily through his nose, cheeks flushed, a bead of sweat caught at the top of the fabric binding his mouth. His hair had fallen down over his forehead, muscles tensed, his large hands gripping slim thighs in a firm but careful embrace. Everything was on display for Viktor to appreciate except for his partner’s mouth, bound in a self-administered punishment, his words so guilt-ridden they required censorship.

He’s gorgeous, Viktor thought. This specimen of a man, a genius in every right...

How can he possibly be so dense? 

Viktor tensed and reached up through the rocking movements. Jayce caught his partner’s hand with his own and guided it back down to interlock their fingers over the blankets.

“Jayce...”

His partner only moaned and snapped his hips. Jayce was too far gone, lost in a formulaic warping of reality, a prison of his own design disguised as erotic fantasy. By the way his pace had quickened before slowing considerably, he was close and trying to toe the line for as long as possible.

Viktor decided Jayce did not reserve the right to make that call.

He lifted his ungrafted leg at an angle that would likely cost him later, hitching the heel behind Jayce’s hip as he untangled his locked hand to grab at the man’s shoulders, urging him to lean in. When his partner was close enough, Viktor wrapped an arm around Jayce’s neck to whisper in his ear.

“Fill me up, sweetheart,” he said through hitched breaths. “You—ah, feel perfect inside, like you were built for it, made to please me...”

Viktor squeezed hard around the cock inside him for emphasis. Jayce shuddered and faltered again as he tried to maintain his movements. The slide was slick from arousal and lube, the sounds wet and consistent, the intensive pressure building for both of them. One broad palm, searing with heat, cradled Viktor's waist. Jayce’s other elbow firmly planted in the mattress above his partner’s head to keep him from fully smothering the man beneath him.

"Keep going," Viktor groaned. "Faster. I know you can."

The challenge was met despite Jayce's earlier reservations, speeding up and fucking hard in foresight of his own release. Viktor pressed a sweaty kiss to his partner's collarbone where he had caged himself close.

The mess of moans and words behind the binding were punctuated by the diction of Viktor’s name not once, but twice.

“Viktor—Viktor, I love you,” Jayce said, and again the confession was heard.

With a solid thrust that knocked the bed frame into the wall, Jayce came in a stuttering jerk and his climax throbbed in a heated spill inside the fixed condom. The weak thrusts that followed were accompanied by the heave of Jayce’s chest, matching the sharply inhaled breaths through his nose.

Viktor closed his eyes and felt his cunt pulse from the sensation, not yet enough to bring him over the edge but satisfying nonetheless. He had more pressing matters to attend to than his own simmering arousal. Jayce nuzzled against Viktor’s head, who unwound his arm from his partner’s neck to pet gently over his cheek, down his jaw, along the binding of the gag as Jayce began to pull away. 

Viktor held every thread he'd gathered—the tangle of silk a warm promise in his hands—and tugged, if ever so gently.

“I love you, Jayce.”

The cadence of the simple phrase felt strangely natural on his lips, as if he'd already said it many times before.

The subject of his assertion froze in body and soul. For several long, silent seconds, even as Jayce was still sheathed inside his partner’s heat, he did not move. An animal stiff in the plight of apparent danger, a building panic that locked Jayce’s limbs fast, like the weight of what had been exchanged had frozen him solid.

Then, the tapping started and did not stop, more insistent than Viktor could have ever anticipated against the sweat-slick skin of his waist.

Chapter Text

Viktor felt his partner’s anxiety leech onto him in waves as Jayce immediately bowed, hovering with bated breath for the gag to be removed. The tapping continued light and fast over Viktor’s hip while he attempted to undo the buckle, like his flushed pale skin sent a shock up Jayce’s arm each time.

“Hold on, let me... by Janna, Talis, patience.”

Viktor shifted up against the headboard to get a better angle. Undoing the fastening blind was somewhat harder than expected. Jayce moved with him, careful not to make contact anywhere besides where they were locked and the ever-consistent fluttering taps, as if Viktor might change his mind and leave him bound on a whim without the constant reminder.

The deceivingly simple mechanism finally came undone, and Viktor brought the binding away with a slick sound of compressed sweat. He laid it on the mattress to the side and in an instant, their intimate proximity was broken.

Jayce sucked in a gasp and reeled backwards onto his heels, frantically shifting away and out of the sticky warmth. Viktor moaned from the loss, a phantom pressure still inside him. Jayce hid his cock in his hand, still donned in latex, sweaty and messy and spent—his eyes frantically darted from his partner’s sex to his own before ending on Viktor’s face. Jayce held the contact for several arduous seconds before breaking it to stare at the lit lamp... until he couldn't help but look back again. Panic and shame raced behind his eyes as he festered over the first true exchange of words in some time.

Viktor tucked his legs to the side, lips subtly pursed, and waited. Not because he felt particularly patient at that moment, but because the ache of profound sympathy in light of how skittish Jayce was acting just managed to beat out his frustration. His dampened attempt at climax had been cut short, and while he knew Jayce would have guided him there if he'd allowed the deception to continue, Viktor had never been any good at playing dumb even when a situation suggested it was in his best interest. The sweat that had accumulated in beads over his skin left him cold, colder still when he knew Jayce was so warm and so close. Viktor could withstand the chill a minute longer, as he'd been waiting for an opening this explicit to surface for quite some time. There was an opportunity here, strung between their hearts by a shared confession, and may the gods strike him down if he didn't take it.

Jayce pulled the edge of the sheet up to cover himself and took a breath he must have counted in his mind with how he seemed to center his resolve. He rubbed the sweat from his chin, willing the red marks to dissipate, fidgeting out of reach. When the silence dragged on and threatened to permanently solidify, Jayce opened his mouth, closed it again, and swallowed.

“Why would you say that?” Jayce finally asked with a shaking breath.

Viktor took in the emotionally unbalanced disposition of his partner and fully sat up against the headboard. “What are you implying?”

“I asked for you to—to call me soft names, sweet things. If that’s a part of the play, it’s too far,” Jayce said, all tense and stiff and hurt. “It’s too far, V.”

Viktor wasn’t about to let Jayce to redefine his confession for anything but what it was: the truth, whole and unfiltered. His to share. Viktor tensed his brows and crossed his arms, closed off. “Explain in exhaustive detail, then, why you are allowed to say this while I cannot.”

The incessant fidgeting stopped outright. The rose-touched colour in Jayce's cheeks seemed to drain.

“I-I don’t know what you're talking about.” His voice was tainted by a horribly obvious waver, the rejection instinctual, while the imminent response under Viktor’s discretion would undo everything Jayce had woven so carefully. He knew that, he must have known, and still—what was Jayce trying to prove by denying it?

“You can only confess you love me under the protection of that self-evident muzzle so many times before I understand it clearly,” Viktor said, his tone level and sharp in case Jayce still had the audacity to dismiss it any further. “Were you under the assumption I was unaware you felt this way? Do not take me for a fool. I am not so easily deceived, least of all by you.”

Now Jayce did not dare look away. He stared and processed, an obvious flicker behind his eyes as every measured statement played through his mind. Up and around each assertion pinged, so foreign to his mindset that nothing could be misconstrued fast enough. Every piece eventually settled, solid and incontestable. Viktor watched the gears turn as Jayce’s expression began to relax in a slow release of tension.

“Then—gods, Viktor, why didn’t you say anything?” Jayce asked with a heavy exhale, and though his anxiety was still present, it no longer tainted the room with a riled panic.

“Should I have? You believed the reality was such a flagrant offense you had to disguise it.” Viktor’s tone was devoid of any true sharpness now, only a delicate, necessary pressure threaded through his accent. “You denied me the privilege of telling you that I love you. You accepted defeat before I was even offered the chance to claim you as my own. You took that from me, Jayce.”

There was a hint of remorse there, for what could have been, for the way their shared affection had been preemptively disavowed.

“I messed up,” Jayce whispered both in acknowledgement and as an appeal for charity. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear. I didn't think you’d want... me.”

“And what led you to that conclusion?” Viktor’s question was sincere as Jayce continued to work through his self-determined denial.

Jayce’s eyes were wide, cautious yet transfixed. “I had so many reasons.” He leaned forward onto his hands to tease the safety net of distance he'd constructed in what he'd just been certain was mutually beneficial. “Hundreds. Each more brutal than the last. I didn't think I could, I thought—I mean, do you really—”

“We seem to have stumbled upon the root of the issue,” Viktor cut in. “Your brain spins and contorts any mild concern into the worst possible iteration of an original premise. For once today, be honest: for how long have you agonized over this scheme of courting me as a lover?”

It’s done, Jayce thought. Game, set, match: Viktor.

And yet, the anticipated defeat and harrowing panic he'd been so sure would follow the revelation did not take root. Instead a warm buzz filled his veins, something closer to intrigue, a feeling that pillowed around the vulnerability he'd sunk into with an ease he could safely equate to trust. The conversation was taking place in a way he couldn’t have anticipated: he was naked and sweaty, his shortcomings exposed in a way he’d never experienced, and although it shouldn’t have surprised him, Viktor was the one calling the shots. Jayce felt very little control over how the situation was developing, and after a day of preconsidering every possible outcome, he was relieved to let his partner steer their course.

“Nine months.”

Viktor’s tense expression was eased by an entertained smirk. He shifted his tucked legs to the other side and kept his gaze fixed, relaxing his posture in minute ways.

“I’m impressed,” Viktor drawled, “just as much as I am displeased by your commitment to this ridiculous charade.”

Jayce did break eye contact from that.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. This time, the nervous shake in Jayce’s voice was from a wave of wired exhilaration, not dread.

“Are you?” Viktor raised an accusatory eyebrow. “I’d sooner believe you are disappointed that all this intricate choreography unraveled without your consent.”

Jayce was a little too giddy now to take his partner’s play at a serious tone as one of genuine admonishment.

He loves me?

“I am sorry,” Jayce pressed. “I’m—sorry I wasn’t honest, I’m sorry I tried to coerce you—”

Into something he actually wanted, he does want it, he does—

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how much I love you sooner.”

“A day does not go by where you fail to,” Viktor assured. His hands smoothed over his own bare thighs before stopping at his knees, imitating the touch he knew Jayce was eager to continue wrapping him in. “You consider my judgement a necessity, you prioritize my needs in subtle, consistent ways without imposing... It does not go unnoticed. Your devotion is not something that requires objective expression. Even so, I had expected you would admit it quite some time ago, albeit using a much less elaborate method.”

Oh.

This was entirely fucking unnecessary.

Jayce wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to crawl back into his partner’s embrace yet. He sat on his heels again, kept his hands on his thighs, and swallowed back a noise.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce repeated. He wasn’t sure how many times he needed to say it—once for every hour, for every lie, or for every day that he’d rejected the instinct, under the assumption his feelings were something to tamp down? Unworthy of nurturing, unrequited, a burden on his guilt-ridden heart?

And I’m the only one who ever thought that.

Ever the pragmatist, Viktor’s gaze wandered up and down Jayce’s body as he considered the weight the apology held, eyes sharp in the half-light of drawn curtains and an outdated lamp. It was quite obvious Viktor wasn’t finished laying out his grievances, even if they were delivered in a calm cadence.

“Was it really so unclear how infatuated I am by your presence? What have these years together proven, if not that?”

Jayce felt his cheeks flush, his heart flutter, and fought off a smile. He shrugged and absentmindedly pulled at a  loose thread in the hem of his sheets.

String me up.

“I don't know. I didn't want to pressure you, in case... you didn't feel the same.”

Viktor scoffed before waving a hand. “My apologies. Perhaps my intrinsic understanding of ‘partnership’ is vastly different. I would not be here, with you, if my heart was not aligned with yours.”

Hang me out to dry.

“It doesn't always overlap, though.” Jayce knew pushing back would bring reprimand. He didn’t just crave the dialectical slap, he needed it. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever want anything more than physical intimacy.”

Most people didn’t. In one way or another, Jayce had always been more than what his past lovers expected: too intense, driven by emotion, wound up in everything that made him stand out as other. No matter how hard he tried to disguise those ugly little facets, it never lasted. His conventionally attractive charm would always be eclipsed by the parts he hid for as long as possible. So when something simple was wanted from Jayce, he gave it.

Viktor had been different. Their spark was forged in the darkest time of Jayce’s life from the passion he’d always been told to stifle. But when Viktor had offered the release of tension in a candid way Jayce was familiar with, he’d assumed hitting a boundary would be inevitable. Jayce had gotten used to mitigating his desires using winding pageantry and masks of feigned authenticity.

Viktor narrowed his eyes, the otherwise judgmental expression offset by the ghost of a smile.

“Did you ever consider the possibility I would have said yes if you had bothered asking if I wanted something more than sex?”

“No,” Jayce answered honestly, fascinated by the way Viktor opened his legs.

There was space for him now.

A dark curly thatch of hair was the perfect frame for pink folds, puffy from use and painted with strings of new, shiny slick. Jayce leaned forward to press his palms flat against the plane of the mattress again, waiting for the moment he could spring forward and wrap his arms around the man in his bed. He felt the tension of their parlay draw taut, electric, and gods did it feel good to lose this game in such a way, to let his mind sit for once in a relieving form of repentance.

Viktor seemed caught between further chastising his partner and relenting to the way Jayce was poised to pounce.

“The neurotic manner in which you disguised something so simple as a date raises some concerns,” he said in an overly authoritative tone. “I believe an extremist method is required in proving my intention towards you, so it does not become twisted in your brain like so many other truths have been.”

“That's fair,” Jayce admitted with a heavy sigh. It sounded harsh, but from the context of everything else Viktor had professed so clearly, Jayce could only be expectant of what his partner might offer as a solution.

“Jayce.”

“Yeah?”

“The used prophylactic,” Viktor requested dryly. He leaned forward and lifted an empty hand.

“What? Why?” Instinct prompted Jayce to inquire, whether he received an explicit answer or not.

Viktor only raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, right. Okay.”

With a hesitant pull, lip caught between his teeth, Jayce eased the condom from his cock. It was still warm, tacky, slick outside and filled within. He regarded it for a moment before pinching the opening and holding it out.

Viktor snatched the condom away the instant it was within reach.

“This?” Viktor slipped two fingers inside. “Belongs to me.” The cum-dipped digits were brought to his mouth. Viktor’s tongue peeked out to lick at his own middle finger, tentative to taste as if he'd never held Jayce’s cock on his palate before. A moan was caught in the back of Viktor’s throat as thin lips closed around the tip, gilding the action merely for the sake of driving his partner mad.

Jayce shuddered, entirely enthralled by the sight. “Gods, Vik...”

“You belong to me. Only me,” Viktor stated before the rest of his finger disappeared behind his lips.

Jayce nodded, loose and compliant, his eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. He shifted further forward on his hands, the beginnings of a crawl, but Viktor popped his fingers from his mouth to set his palm up in disapproval.

Jayce froze.

“Say it.”

“Only you,” Jayce said, perfectly entranced.  He felt his mind sink into a sanative fog, inhaling the sweet musk of Viktor’s words like a heady aphrodisiac. Each prompt for mutual understanding was met without hesitation, concise and weighted with lust.

“Good boy.”

The head rush made Jayce dig his blunt nails into the sheets just to keep still.

Viktor picked the filled latex from its closed end and poured the contents onto his torso, an extra shot of cream over milky skin. It filled the divot of his chest and dripped down his stomach, marking himself as owned. He lazily dropped the useless condom over the edge of the bed to the floor. “And... what else?”

Jayce held back a whine in light of being tempted and continuously disallowed the liberty to indulge. He took a beat to respond, fists clenching and unclenching in the sheets as he kept his greedy hands at bay until he was allowed the gift of access again.

“You belong to me,” Jayce breathed out, his condensed assertion quaking with want, relief, and unequivocal faith. “Only me.”

“Pity that didn’t sink in much earlier,” Viktor said lightly, his fingers soiled with cum. He spread his digits before smearing the limited viscosity up from his chest to the base of his collarbone. “Tell me, my love, did you want to come inside? Did you plan on marking me from within?”

“Yes,” Jayce answered immediately. His avid blush was from an uncanny synergy of shame, arousal, and flustered adoration. My love. There was no forced sensuality to it this time; the pretense had been discarded. The phrase rolled naturally off Viktor’s tongue.

“Would you like to?”

Jayce nearly said yes again, but he closed his mouth before the word could form, his memory saving him from sharp-witted criticism.

“You said a second round wouldn't be penetrative,” he recalled while holding his partner’s gaze.

Viktor hummed. “Under my previous discretion, correct. So, what does that leave?”

Jayce contemplated the hidden set of options that may or may not be available to him at that moment based on prior affairs. In the past, if Viktor was satisfied with their intimacy as it occurred, Jayce might press close, indulge in sleep, and pretend he would be woken by a kiss within the next hour. If Viktor was not content and needed more, Jayce was eager to lick and suck in between his partner’s legs until the man shuddered and cried out. And on the off chance another full round was requested, Jayce might be tempted to switch. By Janna, temptation wasn't even the root of it—Jayce craved being whole with the one person who understood him in every way, a map of his own neurons on the back of his partner's lovely, generous hands.

“Whatever you think I deserve,” Jayce said, and the gravity of his statement betrayed the lingering thought that had driven him to this length in the first place:

I don't deserve you.

Viktor's smile was kind and sweet with a subtle cunning edge in regard to what this unique form of penance looked like.

“Oh, Jayce... Your bleeding heart is a cherished gift, mine to care for, along with the rest of you.” He ran both hands over the sheets to his sides and slid back down into the pillows, stretching the silence, drawing Jayce’s composure to the very edges of the fray. “I will not let you waste away in the misconception that you have not earned this right. You deserve it all. Every part of me.”

Jayce’s entire form was tense with desire, expectation, but the rich potential energy was strangely balanced by a warm glow instilled by the loving sentiment so thoroughly laid out. Viktor had never sugarcoated the nature of his thoughts before. He wouldn’t have said any of this unless he meant it.

He’ll let me have every part of him.

So Jayce was poised but patient in finding out the exact extent of what he deserved. He could wait a minute longer, if that's what—

“Clean this off.” Viktor drew his fingers across his collarbone, alluding to the rest of his dirtied state. “Now.”

Jayce pounced. He dove in to hold himself above Viktor, elbows sunk into the mattress on either side of his narrow hips, and licked a wet stripe up the man’s abdomen from where the spend had settled. Jayce let himself indulge in a soft little moan with each swipe of his tongue, and his hands closed possessively over the curves of a pinched waist. It didn’t matter how bitter his own cum tasted—it was offset by the smooth texture of his lover’s skin and a hot-blooded drive to prove he could listen.

Viktor jerked under the sudden energetic display despite inviting it, having strung the man on top of him to just shy of his breaking point. He flexed before relaxing into the sensation of hot licks and breaths across his abdomen, watching as Jayce began his ascent up to Viktor’s chest, following the lines of semen that had dripped.

Jayce's spent cock rubbed against the sheets between Viktor’s thighs with each movement, perking from the exchange of heat and friction. He took a short, opportunistic detour to kiss a pert nipple and graze it with his teeth, enough for sensation to spark before returning to his task.

Viktor made a curt sound, lashes fluttering once. “Be—mm, thorough.” His head craned back into the pillows, hair fanned out.

Viktor didn’t need to ask that.

Jayce was always thorough.

His tongue worked up and up until he reached the curve of Viktor’s clavicle, lapping up the last of his cum, taking it all back with an extra zing of salty sweat.

I’m allowed to ask, Jayce realized. No coercive tactics to disguise what he wanted were required here. Not with his tongue mapping moles over Viktor’s skin; not when his confession had already been accepted, his repressed desire to tie their hearts together acknowledged.

“Let me eat you out. Please, V...” Hot air ghosted over hotter skin as Jayce implored, voice thick with contrition and arousal alike, interwoven and indistinguishable. “I wanna make you feel good. Let me taste you. Please.”

Viktor stared at the ceiling and wound a hand through Jayce’s hair, holding the man to his chest. “You could have, earlier, had you not been so wrapped up in your own game.”

Jayce vowed to himself he would never use that particular gag again.

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” He pressed an openmouthed kiss against the base of Viktor’s throat, then another, tentatively dipping back down the way he’d come.

Even if Viktor said no, Jayce had asked. He'd stated what he wanted. It was uncomfortable, the insecurity of not knowing how Viktor would respond, but at least he’d asked.

“Do you believe that's something you've earned?” Viktor inquired evenly.

Jayce looked up under dark lashes from his place at Viktor’s sternum and braced his hands against the mattress.

His brain supplied the easy answer first. This time, Jayce fought it. He swatted the insidious thought aside, because his partner was looking down at him, flushed and beautiful and entirely his.

“Yes."

While the word wavered slightly, Jayce’s certainty in his answer did not.

Viktor tilted his head and his hand dropped from Jayce’s hair to the side of his face, thumb caressing over where the red marks of the band had almost faded. “Tell me why.”

On the third swipe of Viktor’s thumb, Jayce leaned into the touch with a shy smile. “Because you love me,” he said, “and because I'm yours.”

Viktor’s praise was a sultry tease. “You've always responded well to correction.”

“Not always.” Jayce turned his head to press a chaste kiss into the palm that held him kindly. “You just know the best way to make it stick.” Jayce shifted on his knees so he had more leverage. “Can I? It'll be good.”

“You say that as if you do not owe me for today,” Viktor teased. “I'd be offended if you didn't.”

Jayce licked one last stripe over Viktor's abdomen to assure he'd cleaned up the rest of his cum, ending it with a kiss planted squarely in the center of the man’s chest. He didn't wait for his partner to question it; Jayce shuffled backwards off the end of the bed, wrapped his hands around a slim waist, and pulled gently until Viktor’s hips were level with the edge of the mattress.

“Oh.” Viktor let out a surprised sound as he was maneuvered and let his grafted leg lay limp over the end, the other crooked up.

“Any strain?” Jayce asked softly.

Viktor shook his head, lips pressed together. The pink blush over his cheeks was so pretty, so gratifying... Jayce wanted to watch it spread, but he’d already been granted permission and didn't want to squander his time. Not again. He'd wasted so much time.

He sank to his knees on the rug, took a breath, and leaned in to boldly mouth over his lover’s flushed, sensitive cunt. The tepid mess quickly warmed again from the avid use of his tongue as he lapped against slick folds and nosed through whorls of dark hair. Jayce kissed and licked upwards around the small cock until it throbbed in time with the weak spasms of Viktor’s bent leg.

Jayce never liked the astringency of latex. He’d rather have eaten Viktor out before sex. His partner had been right: fixating on his own plan had denied him the option. Jayce let his saliva pool in his mouth and drooled against Viktor’s cunt, hoping his lover’s natural taste would return if he coaxed more slick from the space between. With every distinct opportunity Jayce had to indulge, he’d become more fond of the unique flavor, especially once Viktor cried out from his honed, consistent technique. Jayce knew where to linger, when to shift gears, how to read his partner’s pleasure as a set of lewd variables so when he knew Viktor was close, he could sink in further.

Viktor let out a broken string of words in his first language (profanity interwoven with praise, most likely) and clenched when the insistent licks pressed deeper and began to delve inside. With every hitched moan Viktor breathed out, Jayce knew he was doing well. When he used his thumbs to spread Viktor wider, sensed the heartbeat under his skin, felt hands thread through his hair, thighs twitching around his ears—Jayce knew he was doing very well.

He broke away to breathe, if only for a moment. Air instantly cooled the slick smeared over his chin, and he sealed his mouth over Viktor's modest cock, sucking lightly.

“Ah, Jayce...”

Jayce loved hearing his name called like that. Loved the way Viktor seemed to lose a bit of control in moments like these. Loved the little gasps and groans and tugs at his hair, the clench around him when he forced his way inside the throbbing wet heat, hearing Viktor’s voice pitch up and grind back down. More than anything, he loved sinking into the blissful satisfaction of drawing Viktor’s pleasure to the very peak of ecstasy with every considerate touch.

“I love you,” Jayce breathed over Viktor’s cock, unrestrained in his sincerity, entirely uninhibited by dread from what those words truly meant for the first time.

Viktor arched over the sheets, his expression obscured from view, but from the low sound that vibrated through his chest and the warm slick that leaked from his cunt—Jayce knew his partner must have appreciated that.

“A-again,” Viktor said, sharp and demanding despite the crack in his voice.

“I love you,” Jayce repeated before licking up the length between Viktor’s sex to run flat under his pulsing cock. Every instance he'd shied away from the instinct to tell him had to be atoned for. What better place or time to start than here and now?

“S-see, that wasn't—ah, so difficult, now—again.”

“Love every inch of you... Love how you fall apart... Love you just like this.” Jayce punctuated each affirmation with another lap of his tongue, smearing his saliva through the mess he’d been allowed to feast on. “Let me feel it,” was the only warning he gave before gingerly stroking at Viktor’s cock with his fingers and opening his jaw to slip his tongue back inside.

The loose slide was obscene. He couldn’t tell where his saliva stopped and where Viktor’s wet arousal began. He tongued through it, relishing the warmth against his cheeks as thighs twitched around his head, the taste and scent intoxicating.

Viktor’s hands fisted into short locks and he crooked his hips up into the touch, a steady shallow thrusting. “Fuck, Jayce, I’m—”

Closer than I thought.

Jayce maneuvered quickly, switching positions so he mouthed over the head of Viktor’s hardened dick and easily slid two fingers inside his lovely pliant heat, feeling the walls constrict in a flutter that matched Viktor's unfiltered moans. Jayce sucked in thoughtless worship and kept his lips fixed, his tongue heavy against the sensitive tip. The throb that permeated through hot skin was a steady beat in his mouth. A pump of fluid wet his fingers, dripping into his palm and down the back of his hand.

The pure, wanton expression of need in Viktor’s next moan told Jayce that the climax he’d worked to provide was imminent. He crooked his coupled fingers as deep as they could go, massaging upward against the hot velvet walls of his partner, and soothed his tongue under Viktor’s cock as he sucked hard. Without any self-imposed limit, Jayce wanted to say it again as he pushed Viktor over the edge, but his mouth was quite busy and instead he exhausted the phrase in the seclusion of his adoration-drunk mind. He hoped Viktor would hear it; that somehow, he would know.

I love you, Vik. I love you, I love you, love you, love...

Viktor cried out in stilted whines and planted his foot against the bed to keep the angle, sweat-slick thighs tightly clamped around Jayce’s ears, muffling the sounds of crested pleasure. He leaked heavily over the knuckles pressed into the sodden curve of his cunt and rode erratically against the touch, toes curled and limbs twitching.

When the pressure slowly eased and moans filtered into short-winded pants, Jayce dropped from Viktor's cock to lap at the entrance pulsing around his hand, a self-indulgent effort to ensure the mess wouldn't soak into the blanket any more than it already had. He let out an indelicate sound into Viktor’s cunt when the lax fingers threaded against Jayce’s scalp pulled taut again.

“Off, off,” Viktor said weakly, the hint of a scratch straining his voice.

Jayce was reluctant, but eased off and out with a shaky breath in a heady, satisfied daze. The hands in his hair dropped to the edge of the bed and twitched where they clung to the sheets. Jayce gingerly wiped his slick jaw against the side of Viktor’s thigh and realized he was allowed to stay there, breathing in the deep scent of his partner and licking the fresh slick from his own lips.

“Only me,” he whispered, a reverent reminder just for himself.

The man Jayce had unraveled to completion only moaned in response, a single indistinct sonorant on his exhale.

Viktor’s head was still swimming, his body limp as he settled back into himself, nothing left to focus on but the lingering heat of thoroughly administered pleasure cooling around his exhausted sex.

But Jayce had said something. To him, most likely.

“What is it?” Viktor slurred.

A contented hum from between his thighs.

“Nothing.”

“I doubt that,” Viktor sighed. His heartbeat slowed as he came down from the high and collected his frayed thoughts. “Your mind rarely lets you sit idle.”

“Actually, uh..." Jayce took a melodramatic breath. “Are you still mad about today?” The tactless question somehow came across as endearing as opposed to stupidly candid.

Viktor laughed lightly, and his measured attempts at catching his breath dipped shallow for a moment. “I was frustrated, yes. You're making progress on that end. Although, you denied me this pleasure in favor of your artful plotting these past five—no, six weeks.”

“Oh.” Jayce’s voice was meek. Viktor looked up just enough to see his partner's flushed face between his thighs, only visible from the eyes up. “I guess I was pretty focused on everything else going right.”

“It was a nagging worry for me, you know: why my partner's insatiable need to wrap his hands around me disappeared without warning,” Viktor admitted.

Jayce mumbled something incoherent, and Viktor felt an innocent kiss against the inside of his knee.

“Louder.”

“I wouldn't say it disappeared,” Jayce said for a second time in a self-conscious mutter. “‘Temporarily rerouted’ might be more accurate.”

“So, you would forgive me if my worry dipped into something adjacent to, eh, jealousy, then? Towards whatever else had claimed your attention?”

“There wasn't anyone else to be jealous of.” Another kiss on Viktor’s grafted leg, wide hands rubbing gently over the backs of his calves.

Viktor nudged Jayce’s head with his left knee. “And yet, imagine my surprise when a consistent schedule was abandoned.”

“You missed it?” Jayce asked, and there was a cheeky little ring to the question that Viktor scoffed at.

“Check your tone, Talis.”

“I did,” Jayce said, easily maneuvering around the friction. “You don’t—I don't think you know how much I—Gods, V, I was going crazy. I couldn't fall asleep without imagining you next to me. Waking up with you. Every day, by my side, always.”

“By your side, always...” Viktor echoed quietly, somewhat amused. It seemed a bit of a stretch, given they lived separately some distance apart. But Viktor understood this sentiment was in line with Jayce’s mentality when it came to all things concerning him.

“Do you think... I’m allowed to want that?” Jayce’s breath ghosted over where Viktor was still wet and another kiss was pressed to his inner thigh.

“There is very little you could ask for that I would be disinclined to give you,” Viktor admitted.

It scared him, just how true that statement was.

His partner craved the bliss of companionship, somehow in greater capacity than what they already shared. A rather flattering display of greed. Fascinating, really, the lengths in which Jayce had strung himself along under the assumption that their bond was not one to be treasured.

However, the type of relationship Jayce longed for had always been a deterrent for Viktor with past intimate relationships. It was part of the reason why he'd waited for Jayce to act, as it hadn't been a road Viktor had ever been keen on exploring. Too many pitfalls, too many risks in favor of an unclear reward, a shared vulnerability that could be taken advantage of.

Strangely enough, that apprehension had dissolved when it came to his partner. He'd been smitten from the start with Jayce’s mind, his idealism, his sense of wonder. Viktor couldn't have anticipated how much the promise of belonging to someone—and for that man to belong to him—would lift his heart, not drag him down.

Viktor stared up at the ceiling and considered approaching the topic of cohabitation plainly. His train of thought was interrupted by a familiar hitched inhale, pitched and reedy, coming from somewhere on the floor between his legs.

Viktor huffed a gentle laugh. “I thought you were alluding to a rather important conversation, Jayce. Have your priorities shifted?”

The man at his feet did not confirm or deny the allegation, so Viktor ran a hand over the sheets and relayed his own considerations simply.

“I wouldn’t mind that, you know. Sharing a bed every night with you. A closet, a kitchen.”

The feeble attempts at keeping quiet were broken by a whining moan, promptly muffled when Viktor felt the pressure of Jayce’s face against the edge of the mattress close to his own idle hips.

Viktor couldn’t help but laugh again. “Does the concept of living together really spark such a heat within you?”

Another moan, louder than the last but suppressed by dense fabric.

“Yes, then." Viktor hummed in feigned contemplation and rested the sole of his foot on Jayce's shoulder. "It would be a difficult adjustment to navigate. I anticipate Hextech will suffer if every night holds the potential to be spent satisfying somatic desires.”

“Fuck, I know,” Jayce groaned into the space below Viktor’s hips, a muffled, self-deprecating edge to it. “Don’t—please don’t... hold it against me.”

“On the contrary, your obsessive nature is rather captivating.” Viktor propped himself up on his elbows. “I reserve every right to both hold it against you and reward your devotion.”

He carefully pushed off from the end of the bed to center himself over the mattress. Jayce looked up from where he’d been hiding himself. A flush painted his cheeks, curls stuck to his forehead, and hazel eyes sharpened to focus on why his partner had pulled away.

“Up here.” Viktor smirked and felt the drying slick between his legs, sensitive and silky folds warm from his partner’s ravenous attention. “There is no need to banish yourself to the floor. You mean to share this bed, yes?”

“But you're...” Jayce’s blush deepened to a ruddy cherry, and he tentatively raised one arm to cling over the mattress. “You don't need to—”

“Would you prefer I return the favor, or should I preserve my throat to illustrate exactly how much I want you? I mean to take you apart with my mouth alone, in either—”

“Fuck—tell me,” Jayce blurted out. He took his time climbing back onto the bed, avoiding eye contact as he stared at his partner’s body, unsure where to situate himself. “I mean, uh—second option. I’d like for you to tell me.”

“Then I must ask you to lie down, gorgeous,” Viktor lulled in a seductive purr. He shifted to the side of the mattress where his crutch was clutched to the wall and gestured widely to the space available. “Get comfortable for me.”

“You think I’m... gorgeous?” Jayce’s skewed smile complimented his blush as he crawled towards where Viktor had once been splayed out. He was slightly on edge still, attempting to hide the state of his cock with his thighs and the bend of his knees.

“The whole of Piltover knows this, Jayce. Don’t play coy.” Viktor maneuvered down using the mattress as support.

“But I haven’t heard you say it before.” Jayce turned to lay back into the propped mess of pillows.

Viktor realized how many times he’d kept his explicit adulation hidden behind pressed lips and the sultry flush of his cheeks.

“Mm. I’ll have to remedy that.” Viktor repositioned himself on his front between Jayce’s spread heels, thighs still pressed together. “Open.”

Jayce shifted up against the headboard and hesitantly let his knees fall apart. Viktor followed and pressed a hand over the inside of Jayce’s leg, pushing out, exposing the heavy cock already leaking against his hip. Jayce was a dripping, sticky mess only from indulging in taste and sensation and simpleminded satisfaction.

“Lovely,” Viktor breathed, and adjusted from his elbows so he laid his head on Jayce’s thigh. This close, the scent of sweat and musk and mixed sex enveloped his senses in full, the heat of Jayce’s skin sticking where he made contact. “Undoubtedly gorgeous. Seeing you like this, your lack of inhibition... The physical aspect always appeals, but melting your brilliant mind to filth is the prize I covet most.”

Jayce’s cock twitched where it hung, and he grabbed the base as he trapped a short, pathetic sound behind his lips. He kept his other hand flat against the sheets and bit his lip when Viktor did nothing more than lock eyes with him.

“Are you gonna—”

“No, Jayce.” Despite Viktor’s rejection, he palmed at his partner’s opposite thigh, his touch otherwise withheld. “I would like to see how you handle yourself when I am not the source of your pleasure.”

“You’re always the source,” Jayce mumbled, and his gaze flicked between Viktor’s head settled against his leg and his own hand on his cock. He stroked slowly, fingers flicking to pet the clench of his balls before pulling back up to the head and thumbing down the slit, a procedural method at odds with the frantic tugs Jayce usually indulged in during intimacy.

“What drives your arousal late at night, alone in this bed? What particular memory does our Golden Boy turn to first?” Viktor lightly dug his nails into the built muscle of Jayce’s thigh and blew a cursory puff of air across the slick slide of his partner’s taint, causing the leg under him to twitch.

Jayce shook his head, eyes closed.

“What? You don’t think of me?”

“I do,” Jayce contested. He'd clearly been trying to hide the way his voice already sounded terribly strained, because every following example was laced with a moan. “I think about—your clothes mixed in with m-mine, your toothbrush in my cup, how pretty you look in my sheets, the—ah, way we would... start the morning slow, and I’d get to—to kiss you whenever I want—”

“So domestic,” Viktor chided sweetly. A little boring, he omitted, as his thoughts concerning his partner during the off-hours didn’t usually align with these innocuous, basic delights. Viktor felt his cheeks grow hot and allowed the vulnerable flutter in his heart to warm his veins. “As opposed to the sweat I put into riding your cock dry, when you begged me to milk a third out of you with my hand on your throat? Does that memory not run you ragged?”

The evening had stuck with Viktor, at least.

“No, that too, I just..." Jayce moaned, his eyes flitted back open, and his face was beautifully flushed with a warm, florid hue. He paused stroking himself to hide the head in his loose fist. "I might have, mm, tweaked it a little. In my mind."

"To what extent?" Viktor asked. His partner's mind was quite the enigma. 

Jayce flirted with eye contact like this admission would spell his shame in bright red letters across his cheeks. "You're wearing my sleep shirt.”

Viktor had never experienced a sexual relationship where the romantic aspect had such a drastic effect on his blood pressure. What had he done to earn this excessive level of affection from his partner? And yet it was anything but saccharine, just this genuine, tender, consistent admission of love in every way that was unfailingly Jayce.

Temporarily thrown off course, Viktor considered just how palatable the idea of spending even more time with Jayce seemed. Perhaps submitting to how the wind that aimed to steer him away from overt sexuality might be beneficial. The swell of affection in the wake of Jayce’s sweet sentiment was an enticing comfort Viktor felt compelled to nurture.

“I thought y-you were gonna talk to me,” Jayce complained in a mellow timbre, and his cheeky little grin was too precious to properly snap back at.

Viktor let go of his partner’s thigh to reach up and run the tips of his fingers over Jayce’s knuckles curled around his cock, the closest he would get to touching him directly. Jayce hummed a moan in his throat and tightened his grip.

“Your clothes wouldn’t fit, obviously,” Viktor mumbled. “But I could be persuaded. Take care of coffee tomorrow and I will consider it.”

Jayce bucked up into his own hand, jostling Viktor slightly in the process. “You’re—mm, gonna sleep here?”

“Would you like that?”

Jayce nodded and released a punched-out sigh at the thought.

“I'll smell like you in the morning, darling.”

“Oh gods, V—” Jayce moaned, and knocked his head back into the headboard hard enough he most likely saw stars. “Ow, fuck—Viktor, that's..."

A leak from his rosy tip dribbled down his fingers as he sped up despite the minor upset, pumping his cock like Viktor had said the most vulgar thing imaginable. Perhaps it was, given what Jayce had denied himself of so consistently.

“Stay with me, Jayce.” Viktor’s pleasant tone matched his smile. Ever the hopeless romantic. Worse still, he’s… struck dumb by it. He dragged a single finger through the mess that had collected around the base of the heavy, dripping cock in front of him. “You are far too easy.”

“Tell me—” Jayce cut himself off with a whine and crooked up the knee Viktor wasn't laying on to stay rooted in place. “More, tell me more, please—”

“In addition to coffee, you will make breakfast, and I will clean up afterwards.”

“I can clean,” Jayce said in protest, but it had very little backbone when he sounded so breathless. “I’ll take care of it—”

“You’ll be busy laundering these sullied sheets, given the mess we’ve made."

Jayce looked down with a slack jaw and another pulse of precum oozed from his tip at the sight of his partner between his legs. The fluid quickly disappeared between the ring of Jayce’s fingers as he slicked himself wet with it. “I-I’m gonna do laundry?”

“Our laundry,” Viktor said with absolute certainty.

“Viktor…” Jayce whimpered, and the sound shot a wave of heat through Viktor’s nerves that settled in his core. He shifted fully onto his side and cuddled against Jayce’s leg, pet his hip, brushed his thumb over the divot of his pelvis.

“Would you draw a bath for us after this, darling? I’d like to wash you clean.”

“Yeah, yes, I can—”

“I’ll have to press close. It is not the most spacious tub, from what I’ve observed.”

“No, it’s not—” Jayce had closed his eyes again, head tilted back, melting only from the balmy tone of Viktor’s words as he stroked his own cock with growing intensity, the slapping slide ostensibly lewd in contrast to the humble desires that unwound him so thoroughly. “Too small, won’t fit—”

“We’ll take turns, then. I’ll tease the suds from your hair while I sit on the side. Can I trust you to do the same?”

“Please, please let me,” Jayce implored, as if he still needed permission to indulge in something so innocent.

Viktor let the warmth steadily blooming in his chest claim him entirely, a pleasing lull, coloring his cheeks and flipping his stomach. His Jayce, to have and to hold dear, who would do anything to hold him just the same.

Viktor peeled himself from Jayce’s thigh and shifted to sit up between his legs, the dull ache in his hip soon to be soothed by the promised bath.

“Eyes open.”

Jayce’s lids fluttered up as asked, eyes glossed over in a haze of emotion. He was heavily slumped against the pillows as he panted, slowing the tug up and down his dick. Muscles taut with anticipation, flushed down to his chest, complimenting the ruby complexion of his cock. The natural wave in his hair had pulled away from the gel, ringing a dark brown lock across his forehead. Nowhere near the calm, cool, collected version of himself Jayce had put on for the better part of the day.

Gods he was a sight, a vision only for Viktor to enjoy in this moment. Jayce was hanging on by a single thread, the last one Viktor still kept wrapped through his fingers which tied off inside his heart... The only thread that mattered.

“I love you.”

“Ohh.” Jayce didn't need an extra push over the edge. His cock twitched in his hand as he held himself off from release, fisting into sheets with the other.

“Anything you ask for would be a pleasure to provide. I'm yours, though and through.”

“Vik...” Jayce looked at him like a man starved. “I want—Please kiss me, please—”

Viktor did his best to shift closer and accommodate the request, his legs crooked together under his partner’s knee. Jayce leaned forward to meet him halfway and moaned as he parted his lips to kiss without reservation, the taste of sex on his tongue, messy and uncoordinated from the slightly awkward stretch. Jayce keened regardless as he stroked his cock and began to spill over his own chest, painting his stomach in lines of viscous white and gasping into Viktor’s mouth.

“Oh, f-fuck—I love, mm—” Jayce whined between desperate attempts at keeping their kiss locked, nearly bent in half as he tried to take everything now that it had been offered in all respects. “Love you, V—so much—”

Viktor held himself up with one hand on Jayce’s thigh, the other behind his neck, and realized the extent of repression his partner had put himself through.

Jayce continued to milk his climax in frantic pulls until he was panting the words against Viktor’s lips, the sentiment now free to roll off his tongue without restraint. “Love you, love you, I—”

“Easy now,” Viktor whispered into Jayce’s ear.

“I love... Oh, gods...”

One last pathetic pulse of cum joined the rest of the rivulets on Jayce’s chest, cascading down to pool over his abs. Jayce shuddered, jaw slack as his voice petered off into whining, desperate gasps.

Viktor held Jayce by the back of his neck as he began to slump. He pressed a kiss to his partner’s cheek, felt the overheated flush, and hoped the man wasn’t about to pass out. “I know, Jayce. I know.”

“Ah, Vik...” Jayce strained to stay close but exhaustion bullied him into tipping back; he threw out his arms to catch himself from slamming straight into the headboard, but one of his elbows connected with the wood and he yelped. Viktor had no choice but to follow, cupping his partner’s head, crawling up his cum-slick torso to straddle him despite how his grafted leg protested.

“Jayce,” Viktor prompted silkily, “just breathe.”

He only received a weak groan as a reply.

However built and able the man was, it hadn’t been enough to save him from falling apart like this. Jayce could not seem to focus on the source of his own name being spoken as he sunk back into the pillows. Viktor rolled onto his side with a huff, sticky with cum and sore from the continuous effort of physically keeping up. But this was his partner, who he had broken, so Viktor kept his hands on his lover’s face as he coaxed him back to cognizance, trying to keep his tone free of concern.

“Stay awake, please. You are very precious to me, and I would like to see your eyes. Can you do that?”

The reply Viktor received could have been mistaken for a whine. It certainly wasn't a word, by any means. 

Jayce ran a hand across his forehead, trying to collect the little stray pieces of awareness still available to him. He breathed deeply through his nose, as his mouth felt entirely too dry to drag in another gasp of air through.

Viktor was still next to him, right? The soft strokes over his cheek? That was his voice, at least.

He’d said something. To Jayce, most likely.

“Mm?” It was more of a slurred little sound than an actual response, so Jayce turned onto his side towards the dip of weight and tried again. “V?”

“Yes, love. I’m here.”

Love you.

“I love you.”

It had to be Viktor, because the relieved laugh and the soft touch tracing the angles of his face were both warm and familiar, grounding Jayce back in reality. Thumbs brushed under his eyes, wiping at moisture, and he couldn’t be sure how or when it got there.

“Yes, I know,” said the voice in his ear, and lips found their mark on the scar notched into his brow line. “I love you just as well. Anything else in that empty head of yours?”

“Bath,” Jayce remembered.

“I’d like for you to look at me first,” Viktor said, all silken and sweet and patient.

It seemed a simple task, and yet Jayce found his eyelids were heavy. They fluttered open after a moment of concentrated effort, and the golden hue that greeted him was very, very close. His partner. Viktor, his Viktor, holding him with slender hands and keeping him safe. Sharp angles softened with dotted moles and chestnut waves.

“Viktor,” Jayce murmured. It felt nice to say his name.

“Good.”

Viktor was still looking at him. That was nice, too.

“Eh, I may have to amend what I’d asked of you earlier,” Viktor said. The quirk of his mouth as he spoke made Jayce smile in return, even if he wasn’t entirely following.

“Hm?”

“In a few minutes I’ll draw a tepid bath just for you. I can indulge in mine later. You'll still draw it for me, of course... hot.”

Jayce wanted to nod, because whatever Viktor had said was most definitely the correct judgement, but he didn’t want to give the hand holding his cheek any reason to move, nor the man next to him any reason to leave.

“How many?” Jayce asked, and his voice sounded hushed even in his own ears as his question whispered across the pillows.

“Minutes?” Viktor seemed to consider this for longer than necessary while his gaze flicked over his partner’s limp form. “How many would you like?”

Jayce tried to shrug, as he’d lost the reason he’d asked in the first place, but the movement led to a newly awakened awareness concerning a dull ache somewhere in his left arm. The shrug became a sort-of stretch, and he winced as his elbow extended. “Ow.”

“I’ll give you ten,” Viktor supplied when he received nothing to work with. “Although we are quite soiled now, and I will not be sleeping in these sheets tonight.”

“I just washed them,” Jayce mumbled, confused.

Viktor whispered something in his native tongue and kissed him on the nose. Jayce scrunched his face; that wasn’t exactly an answer, after all. But the warmth was close, a bath in its own way, submerging him in tender proximity.

So Jayce let himself sink in. He draped his sore arm over his partner’s waist, adjusted so he could press his lips to Viktor’s forehead, and his eyes slid closed again.

“Wait, Jayce.” Soft lines were drawn over Jayce’s shoulder. “First, I need to clean off in your washroom and start the water. I won't be long, darling.”

The endearment sounded very nice and his lover was very warm in comparison to the damp layer of linen beneath him.

“Okay,” Jayce sighed as he nuzzled closer, his hand winding tightly around Viktor’s middle.

“Well, that’s...”

Viktor shifted beneath Jayce’s arm, but he didn’t try to break away. Instead, Jayce heard his partner hum gently, a soft ring in his ears, the gentle vibration transiting through his chest.

“Alright. Ten minutes for us; five extra just for you,” Viktor said, his deference clotheslined between amusement and fondness. “Your legs may give out otherwise. The crutch is conveniently positioned, if you need it.”