Chapter Text
What are we? She wonders, sitting across the room from the two brilliant minds behind Hextech. Not friends, certainly; colleagues barely. Strangers, probably. She hadn't exactly been looking for assistant work, but after years of flitting between different fields of study but never finding anything that really stuck, an assistant position offered her the freedom to study whatever she pleased without the looming threat of expulsion should she continue skirting the requirement of choosing a major. Heimerdinger had a hand in this, of course. She’s noticed recently, he’s had a hand in a great many things. Didn’t want to forsake a bright mind over some simple indecision, he’d argued, and then tossed her headfirst into the very new Hextech lab without much of a warning.
She mostly sits in the corner, brings coffee even though neither of them ever actually asks for it, and works on her own research well out of the way of whatever potential explosion brews on the other side of the room. They had a lengthy discussion the day she first joined, both of them up in arms as if Heimerdinger had just assigned her to keep an eye on them. He had, but she had very little interest in doing so and told them as much.
“I keep to myself.” She’d said, “You’ll forget I’m even there.” Then, remembering that she was supposed to be an assistant, added, “Unless you need something, of course.”
They rarely ever need something, at least not something that they can’t already work out between the two of them. She feels a bit like a hanger-on, and an unwanted presence, but it’s better than expulsion. So she ignores the other side of the room as best she can and quietly flips through a textbook about whatever has her attention that month. Most recently it’s pottery, and she hopes that she might be able to sneak out of the room and try her hand at the wheel in the fine arts wing of the academy before it’s locked for the evening.
She peers up from her textbook to look at the clock on the wall. It’s just an hour until then and from what she can hear behind her it seems they are still very much in the middle of something. They probably wouldn't even notice if she were to go missing.
So she closes the cover on her book and tucks it under her arm, spinning around in her chair to announce that unless they need anything, she’s headed to another department for the end of the day, only to stop in place when she realises that Jayce is missing. “How long has he been gone?” She asks, more to herself than anyone else.
Viktor, who’s hunched over a pile of notes on the other side of the room gives her a dismissive gesture over his shoulder and doesn't even bother turning around. “Only fifteen minutes, he’s getting dinner.”
“I could have done that.”
He shrugs, “He thought you seemed busy.” and then, peering at her over his shoulder, “He also thought the walk might help clear his head.”
She clutches tightly at the book under her arm, suddenly feeling a bit guilty about her plan to leave early, especially with the sun already setting and Viktor now alone in the room. She bristles, almost defensively, “He really should have asked me to do it, that’s the only thing I ever do around here.”
Viktor hums, “Indeed.”
She wants to get angry at first, to snap at him. It wouldn't help any though, it’s not like the two of them really wanted an assistant. How infrequently they ever ask for her help is proof enough. They wanted her here as much as she wanted to be here: very little. Even still, they’re stuck together and letting Viktor have it over something that wasn’t his fault would only make things worse. So she bites her tongue.
“What did he need to clear his head of?” She asks, trying to wrench something from him that might result in at least a shred of goodwill, “Are you having trouble?”
In the month or so that she’s been sequestered in the back corner of the lab, she hasn't overheard anything more than a minor setback, the occasional explosion. Though in her mind, an explosion is still at least a lesson in what not to do. Progress is progress. This is the first time she’s seen either of them truly stumped.
“We’re at the edge of a breakthrough.” Viktor replies, “But we cannot seem to get over it.”
Decision made, she places her book back down on the desk and starts walking over to the other side of the room, “Hard spot to be in, are you just going through your notes?”
He sighs, “For now, yes. Though it hasn’t helped any.”
His desk is large enough that there’s space for her to lean up beside him. He looks tired when he peers up at her, though from what she’s seen of him, that’s pretty normal. Positioned where she is, she covers up most of the setting sun as it streams in through the window, all but for one perfect beam of it that slices down the right side of Viktor’s face, straight across his eye. Her head tilts, had they always been so golden?
“Do you want to talk through it? I’m a good listener, and saying it out loud is probably more helpful than just re-reading your notes for the hundredth time.”
His brow creases, and he leans back a little further in the chair. The beam of light hits his hair now, making it shine almost orange, “Eh, I suppose it couldn’t hurt, at least until Jayce comes back.” he tilts his head in the direction of Jayce’s desk, “Go get his chair, he won’t mind.”
She does as he says, wheeling the chair over and parking herself beside Viktor, resting her elbows on the desk. He shoots her a look out the corner of his eye, and she quickly removes her elbows. “Sorry.”
“Be careful with the things on my desk, I’d prefer it didn't become more disorganised than it already is.”
“Duly noted.” She replies, instead resting her hands in her lap and rotating her chair to face him a little more directly, “Ready when you are.”
She doesn't understand all that much about his explanation, though there are little moments here and there that resonate with her, or that sound familiar enough that she can grasp the concept. Some parts she recognises from hearing the two of them talking about it behind her, but overall she’s just stunned at his retention and how quickly he elaborates on such complex topics. She leans forward in her chair, watching intently at his sharp gesticulation and the way his brow creases when he struggles to find the right word. She nods along even though she doesn't completely understand because the important thing is to get him thinking about it, whether she understands doesn't matter one bit.
“-but we’ve already established that it cannot be done that way, so all of that work just needs to be thrown away and-”
“Why not?”
He stops mid-thought, eyes darting to hers, stunned to hear her speak after so long. He laughs, incredulous, “Why not ? We’ve already tried it and imploded.”
She still doesn't quite understand the difference between imploding and exploding, but it's irrelevant, “Did you figure out why?”
“It was too hot. We couldn’t produce enough power inside of the casing without it imploding. We did try reducing the power and adjusting the-” He cuts himself off, suddenly turning back to the desk and resting his chin in his palm. His eyes dart across the various notes and blueprints sprawled there and then after a few agonising moments he lets out a breathless chuckle, “We never tried adjusting the casing for airflow.”
She smiles, the feeling of it on her lips aching with an unfamiliar fondness, “There you go.” she stands from the chair and heads back over to her desk, “I suspect you’ll be busy until Jayce gets back, then. So I might head home.” a glance at the clock confirms that the fine art wing will be well closed by now, but she finds herself not minding all that much, “Enjoy your dinner.”
At first, she thinks that he isn't going to answer, the room filled with the sound of a desperate pen scraping on paper, but just as she reaches the door, he whirls around in his chair and says, “Thank you, for permitting me to talk at you for almost an hour. It helped.”
What are we now? She wonders.
“I’m glad.” She says.
What are we? She can’t help but ask herself, giggling at Jayce’s face when his finger is met with a strong zap from a prototype that Viktor had just told him not to touch.
She still sits on the other side of the room, still makes her way through a growing pile of assorted textbooks (philosophy, currently, operatic theory last month). But now it’s different. Now Jayce calls her name with an excited wave whenever they make a new development, and Viktor regularly uses her as a springboard when he can’t get his own thoughts straight. Her favorite thing though, is when she and Jayce sit cross-legged on the floor to eat lunch, unwilling to move any of the notes and prototypes strewn across the desks to create space for eating. Viktor is hard to pull from his desk, even at lunch, but with enough prodding from Jayce, he will at least spin his chair around to face the two of them while he eats instead of remaining hunched over his work.
“Okay! Okay!” Jayce says, instinctively shaking his injured hand as if to dissipate the last of the electricity, “Don’t touch, I get it.”
Viktor huffs, but she can tell he doesn’t really mean it, “All this time and he still doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself.” his head inclines in her direction, his expression of false irritation shattered by the crooked curl at the corner of his lips, “Can you believe this? Even after my warning.”
Another laugh bubbles up and out of her, “Wouldn’t be the first time he’s touched something he shouldn't.”
Jayce points an accusatory finger in her direction, “Hey! You know I didn’t realise that pastry was yours, you can’t keep holding this over my head.”
Viktor quips back with something that she doesn't quite hear, and she just laughs before spinning her chair back around and returning to her textbook. The three of them must be friends now, she thinks, peering over her shoulder to see that Jayce and Viktor have returned to working on the prototype. At the very least, they like her well enough to tell her what they are working on, even though that information is still strictly confidential outside of the lab. She has their coffee orders memorised, which must mean something. It's been over six months now and while she doesn't have much to offer scientifically, she likes knowing she's there to bounce ideas off when nothing seems to stick. She smiles to herself, flipping through her newest textbook, but retaining very little of it. The new prototype behind her is loud , it's the sort of sound she could easily tune out if it wasn't constantly stop-starting and fluctuating in pitch.
From behind her, she hears a sudden panicked stream of consonants leave Viktor’s mouth and then the aching pitch of the prototype’s whirring begins to climb and climb until there’s a loud thunk when Jayce shuts off the power. Though her shoulders tense up beside her ears, she doesn’t feel the need to turn around, “Everyone alive back there?”
Jayce lets out a breathless, nervous laugh, “Yep!”
She hears the rhythmic click of Viktor’s cane as he crosses the room and then after a moment he says, “Just having trouble getting the new prototype to resonate the way the older one did.”
“Hah.” She replies, “Just be careful, another interval up and we will have lost our windows.”
Silence for a moment, and then Viktor asks, “ Why? ”
She spins around in her chair, the two of them are standing by the prototype, both blinking at her owlishly. Her brow furrows, “The sound.” she says, gesturing in the direction of the machine, “It’s hitting just an interval down from a high C. It’s the resonate frequency of glass, a loud enough noise matching the pitch will-”
“Yes!” Jayce exclaims, beaming wide, “The glass would begin to vibrate and then shatter.”
Viktor hooks his cane over his arm and leans backward against the desk, “And this is good news, how?”
She stands from her desk, buzzing with excitement, “Your resonance problem. Maybe it isn’t just about the power being produced by the crystal, maybe it’s also about the sound .”
His eyebrows jump, and then settle into a thoughtful crease as he cups his chin with his palm. “If organic magic is cast by humans, it wouldn’t be a far reach to assume that there is also a vocal component.” he hums, “If we could find a way to adjust pitch without reducing power then…” he smiles and his eyes meet hers, “You spend a good deal of time in the music wing, yes?”
She nods, “Tuning forks?”
Viktor’s smile grows wider, “Ah, like you’ve read my mind.”
***
She isn’t used to walking around the halls of the academy with another person beside her. Though she’s pretty comfortable with Viktor and Jayce inside of the lab these days, they rarely, if ever, spend any time together outside of it. She arrives later than they do in the mornings and leaves earlier than they do in the evenings. These days she also goes out for lunch on her own and brings the food back with her. So she keeps peering over at Viktor to make sure she is matching pace with him, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides because she doesn’t know what she should be doing with them.
“You study music, then?” Viktor asks after several minutes of walking in complete silence.
She startles at his voice, not expecting to hear it, “On and off.”
He hums, “You keep busy.”
“I usually lose interest if I stay with one subject too long.” She admits, tucking her hands in the pockets of her slacks.
The silence returns, thicker than before. Viktor’s cane clicks on the tiles, the sound at least keeps her in tempo with him, so she doesn’t need to focus as hard on how quickly she’s walking. She takes a quick peek at him and sees that he’s just staring forward. The two of them are passing by a set of windows and his profile looks very sharp when backlit by the afternoon sun. It isn't often that she sees him outside the dim lighting of the lab. His eyes turn to meet hers and she quickly busies herself with picking the already cracked nail polish on one of her fingers.
“Have we been of interest to you, then?” He says, the corner of his lips turning up in a smile, “Enough that you haven’t lost it?”
She hadn’t really thought about it, for the most part, she still considered her time in the lab a requirement from higher-ups at the academy, but was that all it was anymore? She shrugs a shoulder, “For now.” she smirks, “Hard to lose my attention when you continually blow things up.”
Viktor tuts, “There hasn’t been a single explosion this past month, besides, it’s all part of the scientific progress, yes?”
“If you say so, I’m not exactly an authority on the subject.”
The two of them turn a corner and the angle of the sun changes, Viktor squints a little when the light hits his eyes, he sighs, “To think I was about to say that it’s nice to be out in the sun.” He lifts his free arm to cover his face from the light.
She laughs, ducking her head to hide her smile, “It’s just upset with you for spurning its advances for so long.”
His brows settle in a scowl, but she can’t help smiling wider when she realises that it doesn’t reach his eyes which instead shine with a playful warmth, “Very funny.”
“I try to be.” She increases her pace a little, turning around to face him. Her backward steps slow at the sight of Viktor awash in the bright light of the afternoon sun, squinting his eyes to keep her in focus. Her continued smile is almost involuntary as she beckons him closer, “C’mon, just down the hall. If we’re quick we can get you some more sun exposure on the way back.”
***
The older version of the prototype hums on the bench before her, crystal spinning in a consistent whirl. It’s far less refined than their newer attempt, still assembled with whatever pieces they could find around the lab and the metal casing jitters and quakes a little under the strain. She still likes the older prototype better, all its rough edges and shaky frame, it’s a whole lot less commercial than that new chrome casing they’ve been working to perfect, but progress is progress, she supposes. As she lays three of the tuning forks out in front of her, Viktor and Jayce peer down at her expectantly and she isn’t used to feeling intimidated, so she doesn’t like it all that much.
“I’m pretty good at picking notes by ear.” she begins, “But it’s more uh…mechanical sounding than I’m used to, zippy-” her brow creases, “or zappy? Maybe?” she gestures to the forks, “it’s somewhere within this range though.”
“Go on then!” Jayce says enthusiastically, “Give it a try!”
She sucks a breath in through her teeth and grabs the fork that’s tuned to a G4, lightly tapping the prongs on the corner of the bench. The vibrations run up from her fingertips all the way to her elbow and the sound is inconsistent at first, until she raises the fork up vertically and holds her hand still. From behind her, she hears a sharp exhale of breath and then Viktor’s voice much closer than she was expecting.
“Got it in one.” He says, and she peers over her shoulder to find that he’s leaned in closer to observe. He smiles, “You do have a good ear.”
He’s right, the sound emanating from the fork matches the ethereal pitch coming from the Hextech prototype so exactly that the two sounds begin to merge. She can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips, “Well, I guess the two of you need to figure out how to get your new prototype to hit a G4.” She spins her chair around and passes the tuning fork to Viktor, the sound comes to an abrupt stop when the prongs make contact with his palm, “My work here is done, I’ll be at my desk if you need me.”
She has the weekend off, and the day she comes back Jayce immediately grabs her hand and tugs her over to the other side of the lab with such enthusiasm that she almost topples over. She doesn't even have time to put down her bag. He beams from ear to ear as he positions her in front of the bench the prototype has taken up full-time residence on. Viktor is sitting at the bench, finishing up some last-minute wire connections when she arrives. He spins his chair to face her, and removes his goggles (leaving red rings around his eyes that she resists the urge to tease him about later) before rolling himself out of the way.
“Watch!” Jayce says enthusiastically, stepping towards the device and turning it on. As before, the crystal begins to spin, faster and faster, the casing whining under the pressure as the power builds but fails to resonate. Then from the other end of the desk, Viktor picks up a small remote connected by a set of wires and as he adjusts the knobs, the sound that the crystal creates adjusts in pitch, warbling and quivering until it settles confidently on a perfect clear G4.
A laugh escapes her, unbidden and she oddly feels like she might start crying. Jayce grabs both her hands and exclaims, “We did it!”
“You did it!” She returns excitedly.
“We did it.” Viktor corrects, and she suddenly realises that we now includes her.
Friends. She confirms to herself, standing up on her toes so she can wrap her arms around Jayce, she gazes at Viktor from over his shoulder and is pleased to find his eyes look especially warm when he smiles. Friends, she reiterates.
The next six months pass quickly. With the resonance problem fixed, the rest of the research and prototype building seemed to come easily, with only a few notable explosions. Most of the work was still theoretical and Viktor spent hours glowering at the blackboard while Jayce put things together and then pulled them apart. Lots of the original prototypes were cannibalised for parts and she hates to see them go. Jayce was a good sport when the first prototype they ever made had to be put in storage to clear up space, laughing with her as they wrote a terrible farewell poem for it. Viktor did rest a comforting hand on her shoulder as she acted out an exaggerated goodbye to the project because even though the faux waterworks were in jest, it was as if he could somehow tell that her insides ached at the ever-persistent march of change.
Much of the stress in the lab was around the looming threat of presenting their ideas to the council for more funding, diagrams needed to be drawn and chicken scratch notes needed to be copied into a much more legible format. That was her job for a while, hunching over her desk and transcribing notes, yelling at Jayce over her shoulder for his miserable handwriting and calling Viktor over for translations on what she started affectionately calling ‘Viktor-isms’
“You can’t keep giving new concepts names without explaining what they relate to.”
He scoffed, “I think it’s fairly obvious what an AOE Expansion Stabalisor is.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, incredulous, “Will it be obvious to Councilor Hoskel?”
Viktor cringed, “Ehh…allow me to draw up a diagram.”
Her best asset these days is her ability to boil down complicated concepts to their most simple forms. To essentially translate the inner workings of geniuses to something comprehensible by the layman. She has a large bound book that she is compiling all of the most essential notes into and a presentation that she is helping Jayce to draft.
“Oh, I’ll help you write it, but I’m not speaking.”
Jayce huffed, “But Viktor says he doesn’t want to speak either! It’ll just be me up there.”
She laughed and gently punched him in the shoulder, “I’m sure you’ll knock ‘em dead, big guy.”
They aren’t just friends anymore. They’re something else. Something closer to family. She spends more time in the lab than she used to, abandoning her textbooks to instead work on the presentation, to sit and listen as Viktor goes on one of his hour-long rambles that slowly starts to become more comprehensible the more she listens to them. She likes listening to them. The smiles on their faces when she first decided to come in on a weekend even though she didn’t have to are still burned into her brain. Jayce’s smile was as bright as it always is, while Viktor’s was subtler, quieter; but to her, it was utterly incandescent and she couldn’t shake it from the corners of her mind for the next few hours.
“Miss?” A voice says, ripping her from her musings and back into the present.
She blinks a few times, remembering where she is and then replies, “Sorry, Professor Heimerdinger, what did you ask?”
“No worries at all, dear girl.” He says, adjusting himself in his seat, “It’s been over a year now since I first asked you to work in the Hextech lab and I just wanted to make sure the three of you were getting along.”
“We are.” She replies sincerely, “Very well.”
Viktor falls asleep in the lab sometimes. One winter afternoon she found him asleep at his desk and couldn’t bear to wake him up, so quickly and quietly, she left the lab and hurried across campus to her dorm room to grab one of her spare blankets. He hadn’t stirred while she was gone, so she took the time to tuck it around his shoulders before returning to her desk. Jayce came in an hour later and she gestured furiously to Viktor’s sleeping form before he could let out one of his usual, very loud greetings. Holding a finger to his lips, Jayce nodded and they both silently returned to work. The blanket lives in the lab now.
“That’s good, very good,” Heimerdinger says with a nod. His white eyebrows curve in a sympathetic arch and he leans forward in his chair, “I know that it was a shock to find that your patron had withdrawn their support last year, and while this likely wasn’t what you wanted I hope that it was of some value to you.” He laughs, “Though I do also think those boys need someone keeping an eye on them.”
She laughs, “Even now? They’re making steady progress, I’m not certain they need much monitoring.”
“I know from experience that a scientist can so easily become trapped in a box of his own making, but with all your studying and your knowledge across such a wide breadth of subjects, I’m not sure those boys could keep you in a box if they tried.” He smiles softly, “They need that, or they won’t get anywhere.”
“Oh… thank you.” She mutters, pretending to be very interested in whatever is going on outside the window to avoid having to reconcile what sounded like a very genuine compliment.
“You don’t have to stay in the lab with them if you no longer want to.” Heimerdinger says quietly, “I’m essentially your patron now and I can easily assign you to another department if-”
“No!” She says sharply, then shakes her head, “Sorry, that was rude. Um, I mean, no thank you. I’m happy where I am.”
Heimerdinger chuckles to himself, “Well then, are you majoring in the sciences after all?”
She snorts, “ No , I don’t have the brains for it.”
Two weeks ago she caught a miscalculation in Jayce’s notes, prevented the destruction of yet another prototype. It was just pattern recognition though, she’d become so familiar with the strings of numbers and formulas in their notes that the anomaly practically screamed out to her in bleeding red writing. She was better at understanding what they spoke about now, and able to help with wiring when either of them needed extra hands, but that’s just retention, muscle memory.
Despite her depreciation, Heimerdinger smiles knowingly, “That, I find hard to believe.”
***
Just a week later she sits next to Viktor in the council room, eyes darting across the expressions of the council members trying to gauge any sort of reaction. She knew they had Councillor Medarda’s vote at the very least, but she’d never even been in the council room before now and had absolutely no way of knowing what direction each of them swayed.
He must see the look on her face, because, in hushed tones, Viktor starts giving her the limited information he has, “Hoskel will vote the same direction as Medarda” he begins, leaning close to her ear, “Kiramman has a soft spot for Jayce, Heimerdinger has hopefully swung in our direction but other than that, I have no idea.”
She swallows and turns to look at him, “No, thank you, that helps.” she heaves an uneasy breath in her throat, “I don’t like it in here.”
Viktor chuckles, “Me either, but look at Jayce go, there’s a reason he’s the face of this operation.”
It’s true, he’s a natural. While she sits completely tense in the shadows, he gesticulates just enough and speaks at just the right volume. She spent so long helping him to perfect the script for the presentation that she can practically follow it along with him.
Then it comes time for him to show the new prototype, the final version, the one that sings a perfect G4 and resides in a casing that doesn’t rattle or whine even when the gemstone is generating full power. She’s so nervous that her breath catches in her lungs and doesn’t come back out, from her side she can hear Viktor’s foot tapping a frantic rhythm against the tiles. Without even thinking it through, her hand finds his and grabs it tight. He doesn’t pull back, if anything he holds hers even tighter and they both hold their breath as Jayce activates the prototype.
A clear and beautiful G4 fills the room, an angelic hum that sounds like magic in and of itself. When all the tensed muscles in her body release, it takes all her willpower not to burst into tears or laughter of utter relief and when she turns to Viktor he looks exactly the way she feels; exhilarated, soft and warm after months of anxiety just melted from him. He smiles and oh god.
The question becomes more singular, we now refers to two people instead of three and oh god , what are we?
What are we? She wonders one year later, frozen in the doorway of her childhood bedroom, holding her breath as if it will prevent him from noticing she’s there. Viktor stands beside her single bed, weight resting on his cane as he leans forward to peek at the old doodles she pinned to the corkboard years ago. He’s smiling.
Bringing both Jayce and Viktor to her father’s house had not been on the docket earlier in the day, but sometimes fate has its own ideas. The next and hopefully last presentation to the council is coming up tomorrow morning and they have spent the last few months working on a 1:250 scale recreation of the final idea. It took a long time, but it’s finally gotten to the point that they can reliably transport a medium-sized object from one side of the room to the other and if they push the power, they can even manage to move something halfway across campus.
It was her idea to provide a more accurate visual aid, that if they were planning to push the project as a vessel for trade routes, the council would likely grasp the idea better if the object they were transporting actually looked like a dirigible, instead of the old metal crate they had been using during tests. While Jayce agreed with the idea, it had come pretty late during preparation and he was worried that there wouldn’t been time to get it finished while they also worked together on drafting the presentation. It was Viktor who insisted on building it.
“I used to assemble these sorts of contraptions for fun .” He’d said, already arranging a collection of metal pieces on his workbench, “Besides, I’m going to be far more useful working on this than I am working on your script.” He peered at her from over his shoulder, “I don’t share your gift for linguistics.”
So while she and Jayce poured over notes and collected the most legible blueprints they had available, Viktor tinkered at his desk, welding and folding metal. It didn’t take him long at all to finish it, two whole days in the lab with very brief breaks for meals when she or Jayce forced him to eat something and a trip or two to the textile department for the fabric components. She had a great deal of fun inflating the miniature airship and shooting it back and forth through the miniature Hexgate, but the night before the presentation they were overcome with concern at just how long it took for the dirigible to appear on the other side of the room.
Viktor huffed and pushed his hair out of his face as he stared at it, “It should only take a second for it to make the journey, but now it’s taking four .” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “It must be something to do with the shape? Previously we were using a square object, far less complex.”
So he and Jayce set to adjusting the prototype while she made a few last-minute changes to Jayce’s speech. The problem came when they tested the Hexgate one last time, they had overcorrected and the dirigible emerged on the other side of the room at a greater forward velocity than they had been expecting and collided directly with a pile of discarded scrap metal. Her head shot up from her desk just in time to watch as it started falling to the ground, kicking her chair out from behind her and diving for the airship, letting out a grunt as the heavy object landed in her arms.
Luckily she had been quick enough on her feet to prevent any structural damage, but the collision had torn a hole in the fabric and unless they managed to get that fixed before the sun came up, it wasn’t going to fly during the presentation.
“It’s okay!” She said quickly, the moment she caught the look of quiet horror on the inventors’ faces, “The textile wing will be closed, but I have a sewing machine.”
“In your dorm?” Jayce asked, expression quickly losing the air of misery it had just a moment ago.
She grimaced, “No. not in my dorm and you’ll both have to come, I can’t carry this thing on my own and I probably need to disconnect the fabric so I can put it through the machine.”
Presently, her hand grips tightly to the open doorway, still holding her breath as she watches Viktor rest his cane against the bedside table and take a seat on her childhood bed, leaning down quickly to rub at the muscles in his bad leg. When his eyes dart up and he sees her, he freezes, “Oh, hello.” he clears his throat, “I got lost.”
She snorts, “How could you get lost in a two-bedroom house?” she leans against the doorframe, unable to stop her smile, “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“If you say so.” She replies, looking down at her toes just to avoid the broiling gold of his eyes, “I’ve got the machine set up on the kitchen table, so if you’re done snooping -”
“I wasn’t snooping .” He interrupts.
She crosses her arms, finding that she likes the incredulous expression he’s making, almost as much as she likes seeing the sharp lines of him juxtaposed with her soft floral bedsheets, “Then what were you doing?”
He sits up straight, loosely gesturing to her corkboard, “Admiring your work.” His expression settles into a soft smile, “Were you looking to study textiles when you joined the academy?”
It’s been a long time since she’s been in this room. She visits when she gets the chance, but always heads back to her dorm instead of staying the night. The corkboard is covered with old clothing designs, swatches of fabric, and a button here and there. She shakes her head, “No, not really. It’s uh, it’s the family business. I haven’t thought about it all that much since taking up studying.”
“You said that your father wouldn't be here.”
She nods, “He’s at the workshop, tomorrow is the busiest day of the week. He usually stays there the night before so he can get a head start in the morning.” a sigh escapes her, “My mother used to force him to come home every night, but, well…”
Viktor doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
“My patron was one of my father’s customers. He offered to do his alterations free so long as he took care of my patronage at the academy.” She chews on her lower lip, not really sure why she is telling him all of this, “I think he expected to make some money from me, that I was some sort of genius, but I was indecisive and refused to major in anything, so he withdrew support.”
Viktor laughs, “Bad luck for him then.” he says, wincing a little as he pulls himself back up from the bed, “You’re one-third of Hextech now.”
She hums aloud as he crosses the room, shifting in the doorway to give him space to slip past. “Yeah,” she replies and the hand not on his cane rests briefly on her upper arm as he passes, lingering maybe a little longer than it needed to, “I guess I am.”
Her body goes slack against the doorframe, her chest expanding with a warm sigh as she watches him turn the corner to the kitchen, clearly not lost. Their relationship hasn’t changed all that much in the past year, they joke around a lot more and physical contact is more common, though it’s little more than a hand on a shoulder or the usual tight handholding at any and all presentations they give to the council. They’re friends, she reasons and whatever in her heart is telling her that it’s something else is just causing problems, an unnecessary ache. She sighs again, peering into her bedroom and imagining him still sitting there, smiling at her. It’s only when Jayce calls her name that she manages to recollect herself, calling out a quick, “I’m coming!” before they start wondering why she’s lagging behind.
Has something changed? She wonders. Even with the tall ceilings and open windows, the ballroom she’s trapped in feels suffocating. She sucks a shaky breath in through her teeth and continues clutching the stem of a champagne glass she’s been holding for over an hour now without actually drinking it. Jayce is planning to give an address shortly, about the success of the recently completed Hexgates, but he rightly refuses to start until Viktor arrives and it’s been long enough that she’s starting to worry he may have decided not to come altogether.
The last two and a half years were the most difficult for the three of them. A project of such an enormous scale takes up a lot of time and a great deal more hands than the team alone could provide. Viktor quickly learned that he hated working with other people, and most nights at the lab were spent making changes to blueprints, running tests and complaining about the construction team.
“I swear-” Viktor began one day, furiously scribbling notes on a blueprint, “-I wouldn’t be surprised to find that one of those people ate all of our crystals just because I didn’t specially label them inedible .”
She’d laughed, sitting at the desk next to him and updating the construction resources with less technical language, “Be nice. If I hadn’t been eavesdropping on you for three years I probably wouldn’t know what any of this stuff means either.”
Viktor sighed, “You’ve done much more than eavesdrop .” his pen stilled for a moment and his golden eyes met hers, “I can be nice, I promise.”
Without thinking, she’d let her head drop to rest on his shoulder, “I know you can.”
He made no move to shift her off of him, even though the weight of her head was surely going to affect the use of his dominant hand. After a lapse of comfortable silence, he let out a chuckle and inclined his head in her direction, “That cannot be comfortable.”
“It’s not.” She admitted, “Your shoulder’s pointy.”
“and yet you are not moving.”
“That’s right.”
“Suit yourself.” He replied, his voice barely a whisper. Before quietly returning to his writing.
Jayce grabs her attention from across the room, gesticulating wildly. She knows him well enough to immediately recognise that he is asking if she has any idea where Viktor is. All she can respond with is a concerned shrug before pointing to the nearest door, implying that she will go look for him. Jayce smiles in thanks and then returns to the gaggle of investors surrounding him. The champagne finally gets drunk, it probably would have been nicer an hour ago when it was still cold, but she needs two hands to maneuver her dress. The glass clinks when she leaves it on the nearest flat surface and starts heading to the doors, half considering never coming back, whether she finds Viktor or not.
Not that she ever makes it through the door, because she almost bumps headlong into him as he makes his way inside.
“Viktor!” She exclaims, half shocked and half relieved to see him.
His mouth twitches up in a smile, “Sorry I’m late, outfit problems.”
Her eyes dart down involuntarily. His suit is mossy green and the colour brings out the gold in his eyes. He looks good and she is about to say so when she notices the rudimentary steel and leather brace on his leg. Her chest cavity fills with the ice-cold chill of dread and Viktor must see it on her face because he quickly supplies an explanation.
“Never many chairs at these things.” he says, gesturing to the brace, “A precautionary measure.”
She wants to believe him, wants so badly to believe him. The calculations all match up in her head though, him an hour late, the brace clearly made and not purchased. Four and a half years is a long time to watch someone, especially when watching as intently as she has been for at least the last two. He places more weight on his cane than he used to, and struggles to do anything that involves both hands while standing up. Even from across the lab, she can hear the way he hisses each time he has to rise from his chair and when the setting sun streams in through the window the same way it did that first month in the lab, the shadows settle deep in the hollow of his cheeks.
“Good idea.” She forces herself to say, ignoring all of the evidence because any other explanation would be preferable. Instead, she returns to what she had intended to say from the beginning, a truth far less daunting, “You look very nice, by the way. Can’t even tell you had outfit problems.”
He laughs, though it sounds a little too much like a wheeze, “You’re too kind. Anyway, let’s go find Jayce before he starts worrying.”
They’ve already missed the boat on that one, Jayce is in the midst of a nervous sweat when they make their way over. His eyes also dart down to the brace on Viktor’s leg, but she watches in real-time as he dismisses the thought, gives the both of them a quick hug and shakes the nerves off before his address.
“I’m surprised you survived so long without me,” Viktor says cheekily as Jayce heads over to grab Councillor Medarda’s attention.
“So am I.” She replies, peering up at him with a smile, “You know I hate these big events.”
Viktor returns her smile and his face melts into such a warmth that all the signs of deterioration seem imaginary for just a moment. Somewhere across the room, Councillor Medarda clinks her glass to grab the attention of the room, but right before Jayce begins his address, Viktor leans down to her ear and whispers, “You look very nice too, sorry I didn’t say so earlier.”
The feeling of those words resonates so warmly in her chest that she can’t resist holding onto them and just as Jayce steps forward, just as the usual nerves begin to set in, Viktor’s hand reaches out and grabs hers tight. The way it always does. She smiles softly to herself and rubs her thumb across the protrusion of his knuckles in thanks. Maybe nothing has changed, not really, she might just be imagining it. Even if the bones in his fingers feel more pronounced.
Applause fills the room when Jayce finishes, at one point he even has the good grace to point out where she and Viktor are standing in the crowd, which she hates , but knows she should appreciate. He’s his usual ball of sunshine self when he comes over, beaming wide and wrapping his arms around the two of them.
“That went great !” He exclaims, hands still shaking with the usual adrenaline associated with speech giving, “I can’t believe that we’re closing the chapter on Hexgates, whoo!”
Viktor chuckles and pats Jayce on the arm, “It’s still early days yet, lots of time for things to go wrong and lots of modification on the horizon.”
“I know, I know . It still feels good though, doesn’t it? To have finished something?”
She laughs, “This is probably the first thing I’ve ever finished in my life, so thank you.” her eyes drift to Viktor and then quickly back to Jayce, “Both of you.”
“To finishing things!” Jayce exclaims suddenly, and follows up with, “Wait, we need drinks, one second!”
“A veritable font of energy as always,” Viktor says a few seconds after Jayce disappears.
“Pretty sure he’s already had a few drinks.”
Viktor looks at her cheekily, “For the nerves, I’m sure.”
“Oh yeah, definitely just for the nerves.” She replies, watching as Jayce gets caught by another throng of investors on his way over to the bar. She sighs, “Poor guy, I’m glad I don't have his charisma.”
Viktor hums aloud, “Do you think he’ll know to check the balcony when he comes back?”
“It’s only the place we always frequent at these events.”
His eyes light up, “That’s a yes, then?”
“Always will be.” She replies, trying not to get lost in the way his eyes crinkle in the corners. She clears her throat, “Let’s hurry, it’s too hot in here.”
It’s like a shock of electricity when his free hand presses against the small of her back and when she peers up at him to find he is already looking down at her, the question rises once again, unbidden. What are we?