say it with your fists for once

by lepueya

Summary:

For over a decade, since he was a freshman in college, Viktor has loved Jayce in silence, scrounging for any morsel of warmth and closeness while pretending it was enough to satisfy him—until it wasn’t. Beaten by the situation for years, watching Jayce graduate and move away to be with someone else, all that seems to survive is bitterness and resentment. But Viktor is apparently still hopeless, because when Jayce calls him out of the blue and asks to meet for dinner and drinks, he goes to him. Armed to the teeth, expecting another upset, but he goes.

And it better be worth it

Chapter 1

First Jayvik fic <3 Had to try my hand at it. This will only be two chapters, but I was too impatient to wait to be done with both.

Ethel Cain song that inspired the title and vibes.

 

—

 

It was November in Boston, and although the winter months hadn’t quite set in yet, ushering in a cold that plundered sense and reason, Viktor’s coat and gloves barely felt like enough. The coat was new but a favorite of his, woven from wool and cashmere. He had gotten it in Copenhagen while on a business trip, and despite the price tag making him blench, it had fit him so handsomely that he allowed himself a rare spurt of materialistic indulgence. The gloves, however, had been in his seasonal wardrobe since college, sent by his mother as a Christmas gift. 

But wherever retaining heat was concerned, it didn’t help that Viktor had always been a spindly thing, all limbs and no meat. His spare constitution was the product of a permanent spinal injury he had sustained as a child after falling through the tie beams of an abandoned, derelict barn that his parents had specifically told him to stay away from. Not listening was his first mistake. His second was placing too much weight on a rotted piece of wood while exploring the hayloft. Then came the half-second of oh-shit terror when it splintered and caved in on itself, nothing below to cushion him but solid ground. He probably even said, “Oh shit,” when he realized what was about to happen. 

There was no pain, initially. But when the shock wore off and the wind returned to him and he tried to move, it felt like two burning rods were spearing him through the legs and back. Luckily, his screams carried, and his mother, having heard them through the kitchen window, shot out of the house like a cannon, sprinting down the fields of their yard towards his distress. Panicked, she immediately gathered him up into her arms and rushed him to the closest hospital where a doctor, after slapping several pictures of Viktor’s skeletal structure onto an X-ray viewer, taken by a nice lady in lavender scrubs, said complicated words he couldn’t understand, such as “fractured vertebrae” and “incomplete severing” and “lumbar damage.” He didn’t understand much of anything with all the morphine they’d given him, coupled with the eight staples in his skull that made him look like Frankenstein. Apparently he had cracked it like an egg. But he distinctly remembered how inconsolable his mother was. His father, who had been at work when the accident occurred, dealt with the guilt of a broken son in silence, as men often do.

It didn’t matter. Viktor figured it out the hard way when he didn’t heal right, even with continuous medical intervention. He couldn’t run or jump or stand for too long without causing spasms, which eventually mandated a back and leg brace as he grew into adolescence, the muscle weakness becoming more persistent in tandem with his mobility becoming more limited. By the time he was sixteen, a crutch had been added to the mix. But now, at thirty-one, he had been downgraded to a cane after undergoing spinal decompression surgery. Age, as forewarned by many professionals, was his primary adversary. A ticking bomb. His body was basically a vehicle with used tires: not equipped for lengthy journeys, the tread wearing faster than others. It didn’t make him hopeful for the future, but he tried to enjoy what he had in the short term, which was the freedom to walk to his intended destination without discomfort.

It was only half a mile. He could hack it.

And so Viktor went down Charles Street towards The Last Drop, a tavern that had been around since the eighties, though its building and the others that surrounded it were much older. Beacon Hill was a historic neighborhood in the heart of Boston, once home to famous poets and painters and politicians and abolitionists that anyone would know by picking up a textbook, meaning that it was charming, desirable, and outrageously expensive. But Viktor had managed to score a relatively cheap condo that was nestled between a clinic and a boutique. Not that money was an issue. He worked at Piltover, one of the largest biomed companies in the world, as a Design Lead for their Medical Device Innovations Department. One could say he brought both brains and personal experience to the table.

The sun had already set, so the path ahead glittered and gleamed from the soft, antiquated hue of blackened copper street lamps and the light that casted down from the brickrow houses that lined the sidewalks, wrought iron railings leading up to doorways of decorative and intricate molding. Meticulously preserved. A constant whisper of the past. To American standards, Viktor supposed. He was from a small town about an hour outside of Prague. He used to be more exact when people asked, because his accent had never diminished and it was unlikely that it ever would, but the confused looks he would get in response, followed by some equivalent of “Where the hell is that?” prompted him to just say that he was from Prague. It wasn’t a total lie. He had attended secondary school there, then technical school before earning his scholarship to MIT through blood, sweat, and tears. With Prague having been around since the dawn of the Holy Roman Empire, Boston was an infant in comparison. Still, it had its lure, and had been Viktor’s home for the last thirteen years.

A warm embrace of air greeted him when he finally entered The Last Drop, along with the sound of countless conversations converging into one steady thrum. The place was lacquered in mahogany, kindling an ambience as cozy as a blanket. And it was packed, since going out for beers and a bite was quintessential recreation for most on a chilly Friday night. Viktor scanned the room, every seat seemingly occupied, and couldn’t find Jayce, so he decided to take a lap.

As he did, he tried to settle on an emotion to feel. He’d been grappling over it in the days since Jayce’s sudden phone call, asking him to meet, and had yet to make up his mind. A part of Viktor would forever be glad to hear from him, let alone see him, even though it had shrunk over time. Or maybe ‘dimmed’ was a better description for it. Still there, just as big and consuming as it always had been, but buried underneath a mountain of disappointments. But that, too, had lost its significance as Jayce put further divides between them. Sometimes unconsciously, sometimes not. It certainly wasn’t Viktor’s doing.

He had learned how to steel himself to it, though, because it was necessary for enduring what was the greatest sadness of his life.

Nearing the end of his search with no sightings, a bit disillusioned at the possibility of Jayce ditching him, which wouldn’t be a first, Viktor spotted a man sitting by himself at a table, tucked in an easily missable corner. He squinted, so much of him familiar, and changed course. The man looked up, sensing his approach, and his face brightened with recognition, the clacking of Viktor’s cane being enough of an identifier. But then they both paused, assessing. The gold of the man’s eyes were unmistakable, but everything else took a moment to register.

“Viktor?”

It clicked at his name, and they were both incredulous. Jayce looked so—different. And Viktor was delayed in realizing that he, too, looked different from when they’d last seen each other. Over a year ago. Viktor was fresh out of his operation and Jayce had driven from D.C. to be his chauffeur from the hospital, as well as his nurse. Viktor hated being an inconvenience, but he wasn’t so stubborn as to think that he wouldn’t need assistance. And there was no one he trusted more to not treat him like an invalid than Jayce.

Jayce had been appropriately attentive, sweet in his way, but noticeably detached while he was there and not inclined to elaborate. When Viktor finally shooed him away, another divide was imposed, the only bridge being texts that gradually lessened in frequency. It felt unprecedented, like death rattles. Viktor should have been beyond caring at that point and he wished it didn’t hurt like it did, but, as it goes, hurt doesn’t come without caring a lot.

At any rate, during the rest of Viktor’s two month recovery period, he had neglected his hair. He’d been letting it grow ever since per the recommendation of his colleague, Sky, who thought it would be a fashionable enhancement. She was a fashionable woman herself, so her opinion was reliable. Also he didn’t have to cut it as much, and he was all about reducing waste in his schedule even if it was just five extra minutes spent doing something he actually considered important. Jayce, on the other hand, prided himself on his appearance, was borderline neurotic about it, and yet he was scruffed and rakish. His hair was a thick, black mop on his head when he normally went to the barbershop twice a month to keep it trimmed and shaped. And he had a beard to match, which was the most startling to Viktor. He had never known him beyond a five o’ clock shadow.

Overall, Jayce didn’t look bad. He was far too handsome to ever be ranked as such. He looked like—well, a man. Fully matured and without a trace of boyishness. Viktor’s heart squeezed, remembering that gentler version of him, while his stomach ached with sin, stirred like a ladle in stew. That feeling was not unprecedented. Just never acted on. For several reasons. The longest standing one, though the motivations for upholding it were withering, was the fear of ruining a friendship. But even if Viktor chanced it anyway and the dice rolled in his favor, he would then be presented with the moral dilemma of Jayce being married. Very messy, no matter how he measured it. And not to mention he had been best man in his wedding.

But evidently Viktor was having some sort of effect on Jayce as well since his mouth parted slightly, stunned by what he saw. After staring at each other for a second, stretching on in its own eternity, Jayce was the first to come back to earth and speak.

“You…”

Viktor waited, curious and anticipating, but Jayce rerouted, staunching the thought and finishing instead with, “I was worried you wouldn’t show up.”

“You said seven, didn’t you?” Viktor checked his watch. “It’s 6:54.”

Jayce started tripping over himself, as he did whenever he was nervous. “Well, yeah, I just meant—in general.” He cleared his throat. “I know you’re busy is all.”

Viktor had expected the awkwardness. And while he was prepared to let Jayce flounder in it as a form of punishment for his abrupt reemergence from an unexplained and, frankly, bullshit absence, quietly fading into obscurity, he couldn’t resolve himself to commit. Not entirely, when he looked so chastened. A dog with its tail between its legs, aware that it had caused upset and was hanging in suspense for a scolding. He would have deserved one, but Viktor’s displeasure was silent and refined, if not calculated, and he wanted to see how the situation unfurled.

“Jayce. This isn’t a federal indictment. You can relax.”

“Do I not seem relaxed?”

Viktor didn’t deign himself to answer, which was an answer in itself, as he pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. Jayce had surely been purposeful in choosing a table for him, knowing that getting in and out of a booth was a struggle to maneuver. It gained him points, but the deficit was still high.

“I’m happy you came,” Jayce said, somewhat more confident than before because he was being sincere.

We’ll see about that.

“I’m happy you called,” Viktor replied, also sincere, though his tone implied otherwise. It was impossibly calm, and he swore Jayce gulped. 

Good. He should be scared.

“Was the walk okay? I could have swung by and gotten you.”

Viktor dismissed him with a wave, no more than a listless flick of his wrist. “It’s barely fifteen minutes,” he said, then added, “For everyone else, it’s ten.”

Jayce ignored the joke. “You’re doing all right, though? After the surgery?”

Viktor tapped his cane against the leg brace he still wore, hidden beneath his slacks. “Right as rain.” He set his cane aside, propping it against the banister next to them, and took off his coat and gloves. “The pain’s better, but it won’t last. My surgeon didn’t promise me anything.”

On cue, a waitress arrived for drink requests. Young and all smiles, probably working her way through undergrad. Viktor raised an inquiring eyebrow at Jayce.

“I haven’t ordered yet,” Jayce said. “I was waiting for you.”

Viktor couldn’t resist. “And how long have you been waiting?”

He watched as Jayce got flustered again and wasn’t as satisfied as he ought to have been. Knocking him off his axis wasn’t difficult, requiring no more than a nudge. It was a consequence of being too bold and unrehearsed. He planned minimally. Winged shit often. But that wasn’t the current case. He was unusually tense, even for the circumstances. It suggested that he might have actually come with a plan for once and was blundering the execution portion. On stage with his lines memorized but going blank once he was in front of his audience. He had given the same impression when he called. In fact, it sounded like he was suffering. Viktor assumed it was from the enormous pill he had to swallow in order to pick up the phone, but seeing him now, it was more than that. Something was torturing him, and it summoned compassion.

“Dirty martini with Stoli’s, please,” Viktor told the waitress, figuring they would need the booster, then nodded towards Jayce. “And an amaretto sour for him.”

“Any specific kind?”

“Top shelf. He’s very pretentious.”

When their waitress left, Jayce had a mischievous glint to him that was reminiscent. 

There he is, Viktor thought.

“Pretentious, huh?”

“Do you still sign every page of your research notes?”

“Einstein did it.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

Viktor chuckled a bit, and just like that, the ice thawed, releasing pressure. It was that easy with Jayce sometimes despite Viktor’s best efforts. There was too much history between them, and Boston held most of it as the epicenter of their renaissance. The research note comment was a tiny pull on a thread that tied them back to Cambridge when they were roommates at MIT. Both engineering students, Viktor in the HST program, founded in collaboration with Harvard that combined biotechnology with clinical medicine, while Jayce was in mechanical, their majors complimenting their personalities so precisely that they could have been its poster boys. Bioengineering was for those who were patient and analytical. Contrastly, mechanical engineering demanded leadership, extroversion, and assertiveness. And that’s what they were: two contrasting individuals that were somehow cut from the same cloth.

At a learning opportunities event for freshmen, meant to connect them to campus resources and non-profits and global industries, they were introduced by Dr. Heimerdinger, a mutual professor who Viktor still kept in contact with whenever he was invited to participate in speaker series—and who still asked about Jayce whenever he accepted. (“How is Mr. Talis? I haven’t heard much from him. I do hope he’s doing well. He had astounding potential.”) When the two of them were thrusted together, they were the epitome of polar opposites. Jayce was dark, polished, charismatic, and built like an Olympian, which was due to him rowing crew. Viktor was as pale as the moon, casual, reserved, sharply sarcastic, and his hair was untamable, never lying flat around his ears. Jayce, if asked, would say he seemed bitchy upon observation. Viktor would retort that he seemed like a moron and an asshole. Nevertheless, Heimerdinger was insistent that they would make a brilliant pair. Jayce and Viktor’s excruciatingly polite smiles begged to differ. Yeah fucking right. But they were surprisingly, and pleasantly, wrong. They hit it off like a house on fire. Two fervent science nerds at the core, both ready to be the next Nikola Tesla, but with enough yin and yang to make things interesting.

Opposites indeed, and also inexplicably similar.

They started running into each other around campus, typically on Mondays and Wednesdays because they both had calculus classes in the Green Building, a horribly ugly structure that evoked Soviet Union brutalism. At first, they would pass by with either nods or waves in acknowledgement, maybe even a “Hey, nice to see you,” when they were feeling frisky. Then it turned into them stopping to talk—about how their courses were progressing and whatnot. Then it turned into them grabbing lunch at the Stata Center, which looked less like Stalingrad and more like a Salvador Dali painting. The university kept an office open there for Noam Chomsky for when he did guest lectures.

During these lunches where they would banter in a stable volley, or ramble on and on when they got too engrossed, was when Jayce had first shared his notebook. It was one of many that contained sketches and notations of his research ideas, like solar trackers that mimicked a sunflower’s response to light for optimal efficiency, or micro-scale urban wind turbines, or how to convert seismic vibrations into electricity. While it was MIT and everyone within a three mile radius was inventing something, Jayce had tremendous vision and a noble objective: to harness the power of the natural world and produce sustainable energy. Corporate oligarchs would not be pleased. Viktor respected that. Though he did have to poke fun at him when he saw his initials written at the bottom of every page. (“They should have made this cafeteria bigger.” “Why?” “To hold your ego.” “Ha ha. Dick.”)

Then, during one of their regular conversations, Viktor had revealed that he didn’t have a roommate, which threw Jayce into a tangent about how his roommate was an inconsiderate slob and that he was reaching his breaking point with him, one irritant away from contemplating homicide. Viktor asked where he dormed and he said Simmons, describing it as having more windows than people. Viktor said he was in East Campus. Tattered and ancient, but a comparatively better option in terms of culture and population. He was surprised, though, that Jayce wasn’t in a fraternity. Jayce said that he had tried rushing, hounded by his rowing teammates to do so, but it wasn’t his scene. So, Viktor proposed that he jump ship. (“You could room with me, if you want.”)

And that was the end of it. They were together all throughout undergrad. Four years of glorious coexistence, of staying up until unholy hours without a care, no real responsibilities besides earning their marks and feeding their frolics. Cramming and studying and debating in wonderful delirium. Cracking bad jokes. Eating and sleeping like garbage. Making juvenile contraptions like disk launchers and catapults. Shotgunning beers because Viktor had never heard of it. A “European tragedy” is what Jayce called his pitiful sense of fun. (“And haven’t you had enough of those?”) Viktor countered that Americans wouldn’t be so optimistic if they weren’t so fucking spoiled, but Jayce obstructed his argument by loudly whistling Yankee Doodle.

Pong was also an American pastime that Viktor hadn’t partaken in either but had seen it in National Lampoon movies. He discovered that he had a knack for it when Jayce dragged him to a party at Burton. Contrary to what many would believe, MIT had some of the most diverse college parties in the area, ranging from the subdued to the pandemonious. That night at Burton was in the middle of the spectrum, so Viktor made himself scarce. Jayce, determining that Viktor would not spend the evening as a stowaway, hooked an arm around him and steered them through the music and cigarette smoke so he could be his pong partner. Viktor’s lesson was quick, and they wound up dominating the competition, cheers and hurrahs tossed like roses at their feet, making them feel like kings. That was just how Jayce was. If a throne was offered, he was taking Viktor with him—whether he liked it or not.

He would also fight an army for him. So, when some douchebag, drunker than a skunk, cleaved through the commotion by yelling out, “Let’s go, Stephen Hawking!” resulting in groans and protests from the crowd, everyone rallying in solidarity to declare it in poor taste, Jayce, without hesitation, snatched the guy up by the collar and yanked him nose-to-nose with him, ready to put him through a wall and risk expulsion. Viktor knew that he would, and it didn’t flatter him. But as he was about to tell Jayce to leave it alone, because he honestly wasn’t even that offended, several others started shoving solo cups in his face, composed of all sorts of foul debris. Hair, chewing tobacco, ash, butts. Chants rose up, encouraging him to pour it. (“POUR-IT! POUR-IT!”) Viktor was not above revenge, so he took the nearest, most revolting cup, hocked a wad of spit in it for zest, and dumped it right on top of the fool’s head while Jayce held him in place.

Balance was restored, and the night merrily concluded with everyone singing “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Viktor hallmarked it as his first sampling of the American college experience that was to come, thanks to Jayce’s coaxing.

He repaid him by introducing him to the introvert’s idea of paradise, swapping one first for another: smoking weed. Jayce had never done it before since he’d always been in sports, but having cleared his drug test for the year, he was game to experiment. Viktor had established a connection through, weirdly enough, a pizza delivery boy named Ekko, though he doubted that was his real one. He called in orders to a local shop so much that they had formed a rapport with each other. Ekko was cool people. He would bring Viktor’s order to his dorm window since it was on the ground floor (courtesy of MIT’s “Accommodating Students with Disabilities” policy) and he didn’t want to make him walk to the front entrance for it. Viktor would slide open the window, shoot the breeze for a bit, then conduct the exchange: Ekko handing over an unsuspecting pizza box while Viktor slipped him a generous tip. Pizza was indeed inside—along with a treat wrapped in cellophane. Viktor gave Jayce a slice while he plopped down at their desk and got to work crumbling herb. He was an expert joint roller, and Jayce watched him like he was performing open heart surgery.

After stuffing towels in the cracks underneath the door, Viktor sparked up, achieving a smooth burn before passing it to Jayce, who succumbed to a coughing fit the moment he inhaled. Viktor smirked, counting down the minutes until he launched himself into the stratosphere. Then, once they were coasting, they laid back to bask in it—Jayce on the floor and Viktor on his bed—and traded useless wisdoms. Did you know this and did you know that? Jayce brought up how astronomers thought the universe was shaped like a donut. Viktor, asking the vital question, wondered what kind of donut. (“Does it matter? “Of course it matters.”) After a meditative pause, Jayce said that it definitely wasn’t a creme stick. Viktor exploded with laughter, and it was infectious. Jayce started laughing too, then Viktor laughed even harder because Jayce was laughing, and soon they were trapped in a vicious laughing cycle until they were both wheezing and cradling the stitch in their sides.

They shared many firsts together during their defining age of independence. Viktor, beforehand, had known mostly isolation as an only child. Even more so after his accident. Safe to say that forging and sustaining friendships wasn’t easy when he couldn’t keep up—and looked how he did. A liability at best, a cripple at worst. He was acclimated to ignorance, though. It was why the Stephen Hawking remark hadn’t fazed him. But he encountered less and less of it in adulthood because human beings, as it was proven, become more civil. But Jayce wasn’t just civil. He was kind and genuine and fair. Everything that was good. He revived Viktor’s boyhood and showed him true companionship, how to take shit in stride and not be too serious. Regardless of whatever came later, Jayce was always, above all else, his dearest friend.

But eventually their closeness began to dig at confusing things in Viktor. Things he brushed off or outright denounced as character glitches. He wasn’t oblivious to Jayce being attractive; being, at times, so magnetic that people practically fell over themselves to get to know him—or sleep with him. It was just a fact of life, like the sky being blue. But there was this one instance at a bar, Viktor remembered, where Jayce was flirting with a girl, earnest with his advances, and it had put Viktor in a pissy mood without realizing until Jayce dared to broach it. Not irritated but anxious, thinking that he had unintentionally perpetrated an act of treason, though he wasn’t sure where. Viktor assured him otherwise and apologized. Tried to convince himself that anyone would be annoyed at an intrusion when it was supposed to be their night out. But when it happened again, and again, and again, his dismissals began to enter the realm of deception.

Then there was their first summer apart after a successful freshman year. Viktor had been dreading it throughout finals. He didn’t want to leave. But alas they went their separate ways for a while: Viktor flying home to his parents, who were very proud and excited to see him, and Jayce going to Connecticut to be with his own family and work at a beach club. Their goodbye was expectedly depressing, but Viktor couldn’t dodge the feeling that he was losing something essential. The only balm that sort of made it better was the promise that they would be reunited in August and that they would keep in touch until then. It was nice whenever they did, either through texts or phone calls or video chats; the time difference manageable. But for Viktor, it was more of a frustration than a fix, because it just underscored how very far away Jayce was, living his beautiful, vibrant summer without him. Even Viktor’s parents had gotten into the habit of asking about Jayce, he was that much of an influence.

Aside from that, Viktor also missed the atmosphere of Cambridge and the students there. It was elite without being elitist. It was unconventional, clever, eccentric, and abound with intellectuals while Boston itself was a gruff-talking old man with a smoke and a pint in his fist, wicked and boasting and loyal to the bone.

So, needless to say, that summer was agonizingly slow. When August finally came around, Viktor couldn’t have boarded the plane fast enough.

And seeing Jayce again, well, it was like seeing the sun after a long hibernation.

Jayce had surprised him, saying that he wouldn’t be in town until later in the week. But when Viktor arrived at their dorm, Jayce was already there in sweats and a hoodie, unpacking his belongings while bobbing along to his headphones. “My boy!” he exclaimed, beaming and resplendent, the literal sun, when he looked up and found Viktor in the doorway. He dropped everything to cross the room and crush him in a hug.

Viktor froze for a second—startled, overwhelmed, and so incredibly happy that it was frightening—then broke into a smile, placing a single hand on Jayce’s back. His words ran through him like honey, and it took monumental restraint to not nuzzle himself into his neck and breathe him in.

My boy, my boy…

It was a crowning reunion, meant to be. If only Viktor knew how each one would become a misery. Incidentally, this decline was spurred into motion that sophomore year when Jayce had asked him to spend Thanksgiving in Connecticut. Viktor had remained in Cambridge the last time, not minding since it wasn’t really a holiday for him, and would have been content without an invitation. But Jayce was adamant, and Viktor, truthfully, was curious to see what all the fuss was about, though he was a little nervous about meeting Jayce’s family.

Jayce had mentioned them here and there but hadn’t provided much of a framework beyond the basics. The only information Viktor possessed, straight from the horse’s mouth, was that Jayce was half Mexican and a second generation immigrant on his maternal side, and that his mother, Ximena, had been a widow since he was three after his father, a welder and a blue-collar man, committed suicide. Shot himself in the garage. Jayce was far too young to remember him—or remotely grasp the severity of what he had done. If it bothered him now, he never said. His mother didn’t remarry and had been living with her sister ever since Jayce graduated high school so she wouldn’t be so lonely. Based on secondary context clues gathered from overheard phone conversations and fleeting glimpses of Jayce’s surroundings whenever he video called during the summer, his aunt was financially flush. Jayce confirmed it, as well as filled in the residual blanks, when they stopped in Providence to have lunch at a local seafood shack, renowned for its clams, while on their way to Madison. Jayce explained that his Aunt Cassandra had hit the jackpot by marrying into wealth. The old money kind. And her husband, Tobias, was very liberal with it. Sure they had their spells of being vain or illusory, but were overall decent. Viktor had nothing to worry about.

However, when they got there, Viktor was on pins and needles. The house was large and breathtaking. A pristinely white colonial that sat right on the Long Island shoreline, four acres of manicured land encompassing it, likely tended to by a team of gardeners. Viktor turned to Jayce, dumbstruck, and Jayce grew sheepish under his scrutiny, making it apparent that the reason why he hadn’t told him the extent of his prosperities, even though they were conjugal, was because he didn’t want him to think of him differently. Viktor didn’t, but the abundance stacked before them led him to ask, once again, just what type of old money this was.

Jayce sighed and said that the Kiramman’s, which was his uncle’s family, could be traced back to Gilded Age New York—with the Astors and the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. Not nearly the same caliber, he stressed, but they had gallivanted around with the same crowd. Tobias trumpeted that part a lot. What he failed to disclose was that his great-great-great grandfather had “affiliations” with a sugar plantation in Trinidad. Viktor slumped back into his seat and groaned. (“Christ, Jayce.” “I know.” “Slave drivers and war profiteers? What century is it?” “Hey. My grandpa’s from Guadalajara. Crossed the Rio Grande like everyone else. It’s not my fault my aunt hooked up with a colonizer. But Tobias has two boats and a house in the Siesta Keys, and I get to sit my ass on both and get as brown as a baya, so who’s laughing now? Oh, and my mom and aunt are like, super Catholic, so no cussing, no communicating the dead, and, as much as you were looking forward to it, no premarital sex.” “Well, fuck, now I have to cancel the occult orgy.”)

Despite believing that the whole trip had been a mistake, Viktor got out of the car and went up to the front door with Jayce at his side. Never ahead, always keeping pace. It wasn’t even deliberate anymore. It was sown into his instincts.

Jayce knocked, and while they waited for someone to answer, presumably a butler, Viktor attempted to dispel the tension by injecting humor. (“I must inform you, I haven’t been to confession since the last time I was caught with my hand down my pants.” “Oh my God, shut up.”) Viktor eased up when the door opened. A woman, who was indisputably Jayce’s mother from how alike her resemblance was to him, most predominantly in the eyebrows, welcomed them as enthusiastically as any mother would: with acclamations and hugs and kisses on the cheek. Even for Viktor, who she was thrilled to meet. Evidently, Jayce spoke about him often and with high regard.

Ximena beckoned them inside, and Viktor stepped into a foyer that was spacious enough to create an echo, the walls made of a decadent cherry wood. Just down the hall was a sitting area with French salon furniture and tall arched windows that extended floor to ceiling, offering a sweeping view of the water beyond, sparkling like a chandelier. Viktor fortified himself as he was escorted further in to where the rest of the family was congregated and lounging, as genteel as prized Spaniels.

Introductions, though, went well. Tobias was a thin and scholarly-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard, and Aunt Cassandra was equally as dignified in her silk blouse, tailored slacks, and shrewd winks of jewelry that exuded quiet luxury. Viktor also met their daughter, Caitlyn, who had acquired all their best traits: narrow and angular features that commanded attention, and hair so black that it shone almost blue in certain lighting. And she was studying Criminal Justice at Harvard Law. Another golden child. Her and Jayce had grown up together like siblings, which meant they bickered and harassed like it too. Viktor’s first real impression of her was when she told Jayce it was good to see him, then said, “And that gap in your front teeth. It’s so fetching.” Viktor smothered his snickers, warming to her instantly, and then everything else sort of fell where it was supposed to. He was received with open arms, especially by Ximena. According to her, it was rare for Jayce to bring friends home, so his presence was indicative of how special he was in her son’s life. Naturally, she had to know all there was to know about him. Her interrogation was relentless but respectful. Sometimes invasive, which made Jayce cringe, but nothing ridiculous or intolerable. She also leapt at any opportunity to rave about Jayce, showing off the numerous trophies he’d won for his athletic and academic accomplishments. And, of course, disentombing photo albums. Jayce was very embarrassed. Viktor, however, was very intrigued and delighted to add further torment by crooning his praises at every childhood memory Ximena gushed about. (“This is Jayce when he was an altar boy. Isn’t he adorable?” “As adorable as a lamb.” “And here he is on his first day of kindergarten. He was so scared to be on his own. Clung to me like a vine.” “He does that to me too every morning before class.” “Oh, Jayce didn’t tell me you were funny!”)

As amusing as it was seeing Jayce’s face and ears turn redder than a tomato, Viktor still found himself smiling at every story, endeared by each one. And that sentiment bloomed like a flower in spring over the days he spent there, experiencing Jayce in a new and uncharted environment. Being in a dorm was one thing. Being in the comfort of home was another. It relaxed a person. Made them softer, guileless, more authentic. Viktor would go on afternoon walks on the beach with Jayce and Caitlyn, his body up for the excursion, and pushed himself as far as he could venture. Then they would stop and hunt for seashells or sit in the cool sand as autumn gales ripped off the water and onto shore, feeling much younger than what they were. Like a kindred bunch of children in the classics like Stand By Me or The Outsiders.

Later, Viktor would watch Jayce in the kitchen with his mother, cooking tamales and elote and chiles en nogada while they sang Elvis Crespo, and think it heartbreakingly precious. Even things Viktor had seen a hundred times before felt evolved. Jayce waking up in the morning, disheveled and lugging his feet around like cement blocks. Taking naps on the sofa. Eating meals at the dinner table, not in a cafeteria. It was intimate, personal, and Viktor couldn’t get enough of it. He drank greedily, never sated, while ignoring the warning signs that furiously pointed at the obvious until one night where it all came screaming to the surface.

It was Thanksgiving. Hours of prep by Ximena and Cassandra had produced the most gorgeous, sprawling feast Viktor had ever laid his eyes on. Finally, he understood and appreciated the Thanksgiving spirit. It was a nice concept: being together with loved ones and expressing gratitude, no gifts expected other than each other’s company. Viktor felt full in every sense, almost dazed by it.

After dinner, when the dishes had been washed and put away, Viktor and Jayce decided to pack it in early while everyone else stuck around for coffee or brandies. Viktor went to the guest bedroom he was occupying by himself, Jayce across the hall, and changed into looser clothes to accommodate the gluttony he had gorged himself on. Then he grabbed his toiletry bag and headed off to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He came to a halt when he saw the door closed and heard water running, not realizing that Jayce had hopped in the shower. He knocked, asking if he would be done soon, and Jayce called back that it was fine. Just come in.

Viktor stood there, temporarily abstracted, then opened the door. Nothing unusual, he thought. They were friends, and both boys, and essentially lived together already. And yet why did he need to remind himself of that? And why, as he unzipped his bag and arranged his toothbrush, did the awareness of Jayce being naked behind the curtain sit so oddly in his stomach?

Fortunately, Jayce was chatty, and it served as a moderate distraction. Viktor half-listened to him as he scrubbed his mouth clean, a bit too rigorously, which was why there was a delay in noticing that the shower had been shut off. Before it had properly sunk in, Viktor heard the curtain being drawn back. Reactively, he turned towards the sound, toothbrush stalling mid-stroke in his hand as he caught Jayce at just the right moment where he was wrapping a towel around his waist, leaving a split second of exposure for his pubic hairs to be visible, along with the junction that joined his thigh to his groin. But even when he was covered, too much had been shown, ensnaring Viktor’s focus. He was incapable of tearing himself away from the V-line of Jayce’s abdomen, sculpted like David, and the droplets of that trickled down it.

Down and down and down.

And then there was the rest of him. Chest and shoulders broad, arms and legs corded, skin rich and brown. His hair, sopping wet and undone. Viktor’s inspection wasn’t subtle, his eyes roaming, but Jayce wasn’t paying attention. Or he was completely impervious. Either way, he stepped out of the shower, playfully wiping his hands on the back of Viktor’s shirt like they were locker room pals, and strolled out in the near nude without a damn to be had.

Once he was gone, Viktor had to grip the sink to maintain his composure.

That night while lying alone in bed, everyone else asleep, he stared hard at the ceiling in hopes of losing himself in the white nothingness of it, thus forcing away whatever was encroaching upon him. But it kept building, immense and unbearable, and resistance became futile. His hand, traitorous and surrendering, slipped into his underwear, to the need that had swollen there. What an irony. Perhaps he had accidentally spoken his impropriety into existence.

At first it was absent, the rubbing of his hand, but it soon gained purpose. However, the crucifixion of Christ and the picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall weren’t inspiring. For a moment, he felt like was trapped inside a confessional booth, their judgement deterring him from his trespasses. So he got up, limping and hobbling without his crutch, and took them all down and banished them into a dresser drawer, prepared to face eternal condemnation on a later date. In the meantime, he returned to bed to touch himself without inhibition, pulling up the mental image of Jayce fresh out of the shower and honing in on the details that had captivated him most: the water rolling down the many contours of him to the valley that narrowed between his legs, the seductive crease of his hips, the inky wet tendrils of his hair.

Viktor’s hand moved faster, and he went blind. He put his fingers in his mouth as he imagined himself removing Jayce’s towel, unveiling him to vulnerability, and taking him in the same place. On his knees, sucking him, making him have to grasp onto the nearest object. 

Jayce, the alter boy. Jayce, the MIT student. Jayce, the athletic star. Moaning for him. Wanting him.

Oh, Vik. Don’t ever stop.

Afterwards, Viktor laid there, stricken and mortified. Not because of religion. Not in shame for craving another man—under his family’s roof no less. It was because he had crossed a line he couldn’t uncross, everything shifting all at once. Memories came to him in a torrent, altered and repackaged, yet the clearest they had ever been.

All the times Jayce had touched him and elicited pleasure, all the times they had talked for hours and poured themselves into each other like spilt urns, all the times Viktor had fought the compulsion to hoard Jayce to himself…

It was yearning and jealousy.

Viktor held his head and blew out a shaky breath at the long overdue acceptance that he had loved Jayce from the beginning and that Jayce loved him too, just not in the way he wanted.

And that was how it was doomed to be.

“God,” Jayce said, expelling it almost like a sigh of relief, and Viktor was reeled back to the present. “It’s been forever. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“I wish I had something worthwhile to report, but all’s been fairly—consistent.”

“Boring, you mean.”

“Eh. The older I get, the more I appreciate boredom.”

“Never thought I’d see the day. You’ve always been the most dangerous when you’re bored.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” There was a beat of reluctance before Viktor started fishing for information that was actually relevant. “Is that why you’re back in Boston?”

Jayce scoffed. “No.” His delivery insinuated that there was more to say about it, and Viktor gave him a prying look that was too uncompromising to be refused—because he wasn’t leaving without answers. Jayce heeled to it. Perhaps he really had come prepared to lay everything out. But affliction sprouted in his gaze, impeding him. He ran a hand over his mouth. “It’s a whole thing. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Or we can talk about it now.”

Jayce wasn’t rattled by Viktor cutting to the chase. In fact, he smiled at it. “Damn. No shallow end?”

“A little past that, don’t you think?”

“Seemed polite since we haven’t…”

“I don’t need the formalities. We’ve known each other for thirteen years. Us being preoccupied doesn’t erase that.”

Their waitress returned with their drinks then, setting them down gently, and left them alone to savor. “Perfect timing,” Jayce said and raised his glass, inclining it towards Viktor. “To thirteen years.”

Viktor requited the gesture and clanked his glass against Jayce’s, emitting a fond sound. They shared their first sips and Jayce licked his lips after as he lowered his drink. Still in hand, though, for safekeeping. “You’re kind to say us.”

Viktor’s eyes flickered up to Jayce then back down to his martini, appearing unassuming as he stirred around his olives. He knew exactly what he was getting at but was only marginally appeased. He wanted something a bit more explicit.

“How so?”

“You and I both know the one who got preoccupied was me.”

“You were starting a life, Jayce. Who could fault you for it? Besides, it’s not like I’ve been sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”

It was passive-aggressiveness at its finest, a concealed jab. Viktor was, by all accounts, professionally thriving. Had assembled a lustrous career. Was respected and sought after. Traveled across the world to provide his insights. He had defied the odds and done it all on his own. Nothing and no one had prevented him from doing so, Jayce included. 

Jayce could not say the same for himself.

“Right, of course not,” Jayce amended. “I wasn’t suggesting…” He faltered, unable to find his footing, and took more substantial swills of his drink, hoping coherence was somewhere at the bottom. Circling back to Viktor’s initial question, he said, “Anyway, I’m here because I’m meeting a real estate agent.”

Viktor paused in his stirring, letting the olives sink. “You’re moving?”

“I’m weighing some options right now, but it’s likely.” Jayce studied Viktor’s expression. He had failed to school the conflict out of it. “Don’t look so thrilled.”

Viktor put on a mask of indifference but it was probably too late. He had spent years trying to disguise how much Jayce affected him and had never mastered it. “Am I not allowed to be surprised? I thought you liked D.C.”

“I do, but it’s not what I want anymore. It’s lonely, honestly. No one’s around.”

“What about Mel?”

It was the most obvious rebuttal to make, and also the most loaded.

“We’re separated.”

“Oh.”

The news was an expected shock, if the two things could coincide. Mel and Jayce were beautiful together. No one would argue it. But like a candle that burns twice as bright for half as long, they weren’t destined to last. Not because they lacked dedication, but because they operated on different frequencies that, at times, would compliment but never synchronize. Simply put, they didn’t fit like they should. Viktor just didn’t think they would quit each other so soon. It had only been five years since they had gotten married, the day like a scar on his memory that blocked out bits and pieces.

It was a major divulgence either way, and Jayce looked weary when he unburdened himself from it. Although Viktor had ongoing suspicions that Jayce wasn’t doing well on the home front, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t unfortunate. Hard steps needed to be taken, battles waged and lost, in order to reach the end of a marriage. It must have been why Jayce had so thoroughly shut Viktor out and had been remiss in his personal maintenance. He didn’t care for himself when he was stressed.

“When?” Viktor asked.

“It’s been two months. The paperwork’s already been filed. Should be finalized in a couple weeks. We’ve kept the process clean and agreeable. Shake hands, then take whatever we walked in with. Except that I gave her the apartment. I was never a fan of it.”

“You sound certain,” Viktor said. The way Jayce spoke about it so pragmatically was tragic, as if he was past exhaustion.

“It’s been looming for a while.”

“Well, regardless, I’m sorry.”

Jayce squinted at him, unconvinced. “Are you, though?”

Viktor’s chest constricted, incensed and defensive. He felt interrogated, accused of a crime. “That’s quite an assumption to make,” he retorted. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t pretend.”

“No. I want to hear it from you.”

Jayce obliged. “You never liked her.”

Viktor doubled down. “I don’t recall ever saying that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah?” Viktor challenged, his fuse short. He wasn’t sure what Jayce was trying to accomplish with this, but it was pissing him off. “And what made you come to that conclusion? When she called me a sad shadow that follows you around, oppressing your glory?”

Well, whatever Jayce was after, it wasn’t that, and his face fell, remembering the incident he was referring to. Viktor was, admittedly, paraphrasing what Mel had said, but it was to the same effect. To contextualize, Melrose Medarda had come into the picture their senior year of college, introduced to Jayce by Caitlyn when he had met her at Grafton Street to catch up over dinner and drinks. Not too dissimilar from Viktor’s current setting. Mel was Caitlyn’s plus one and also a fellow student at Harvard Law, which was how they had become acquainted. Jayce, for as gravitating as he was, was eclipsed by her. To know Mel was to be in awe of her. She was stunning and articulate and remarkably intelligent, capable of disarming with either wits or looks. She had grown up military, her mother being an Admiral in the U.S. Navy, one in four black women to ever hold such a position, so she was cultivated and resilient. Spoke three languages too. German, Italian, and Spanish, which was an advantage with Jayce’s mother. She conducted herself like a debutante and a socialite, ensuring a seamless integration with the Kiramman’s. She had goals, not aspirations, of being a congressional attorney and had obtained them. She worked now at the House Office of Legislative Counsel. Her most recent assignment, as Viktor had read in the Washington Post, was to the FEC, who was taking some non-profit organization to court for violating the Bipartisan Reform Act.

She was the ideal woman, the end all be all, and no man’s match, though she could have any that she wanted. That’s what made her so fascinating, so formidable, and Jayce was wrapped around her finger. He came back to Cambridge that evening blushing and grinning and sighing like a maiden, utterly romanced. Viktor couldn’t blame him. Mel was impressive, and he didn’t award that to people often. And it seemed as though Mel was charmed by Jayce, too. He made her laugh.

By then, Viktor had curbed his jealousy down from the whetted blade it had once been, carving up his insides, to a dull prod. But Mel had swept in and destroyed his labors. She wasn’t necessarily unkind, but her treatment towards him was always handled with a dose of skepticism—as was his treatment towards her. Like they were vying for dominance. Or rather, Viktor was. Mel, however, saw him more as a peculiarity than an obstacle to overcome, and thus she stripped him bare whenever she looked at him, making him cold and guarded and distrusting. He and Jayce would get into squabbles over it. (“You could stand to be nicer.” “I am being nice.”) But Mel was too perceptive, and Viktor couldn’t shake that she could see right through him, into the secrets he had yet to fully reconcile with, and nail him down for what he was. And so the threat of her invasion put him on edge. He would own up to that.

But there was also the very real issue of Jayce’s changing priorities. Mel had a lot of friends, many with influence, and so Jayce started attending formals and banquets, campaigning himself like a politician. It was unlike him, but Mel disagreed. She felt that Jayce was exactly where he belonged—as a prince on her arm. A trinket, Viktor thought, because she was complete without him. As a result, Viktor spent more and more nights alone, grinding through labs and thesis projects in his aches and pains. His legs and back were getting worse, and it didn’t benefit that he was wound so tight and sitting for extended durations.

Then one night while Viktor was studying for an exam, Jayce was flying around their dorm room, fretting over what to wear to some big event he’d been invited to, when he stopped dead in his tracks, struck by enlightenment, and asked Viktor to come with him. (“Please? You’ll keep me sane.”) Viktor spurned it at first, but Jayce was good at donning the pleading, doughy-eyed look. Viktor threw down his pen and pinched the bridge of his nose, tension forming from how intensely he’d been staring at his notes, and asked, exasperated, what he was attending and where. A mixer at the Porcellian was his answer, which was a Harvard finals club that was as pompous as the name suggested and not easy to get into. (“Jayce, why do you even care about these people?” “I don’t. Well, I do, but I don’t. Can you just put on a clean pair of pants? You’ve been wearing the same thing for two days.” “If you abandon me—” “I won’t abandon you. I swear.”)

He did—about an hour in when he trailed after Mel, shooting Viktor an apologetic glance in the process, to rub elbows with some blonde-headed ignoramus named Salo whose pointed face reminded Viktor of a bird’s. His father was a Senator, but he acted like he was standing president. The type Mel liked to have sway with in case it was needed later, and the type Viktor and Jayce would mock amongst themselves. But instead Viktor stayed behind in a corner by the champagne table and watched Jayce as he ascended the pulpit and molded himself into confidence. It was the first time he had not offered to share the honor together, if there was any to be had, and it was then that Viktor began coming to terms with the possibility of Mel being right: that this was the sort of enterprise Jayce was made for. He could concede to him finding his niche, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Not wishing to be a witness and an outcast any longer, Viktor left his post and went up to Jayce to tell him that he was taking a cab back to campus, catching a moment where it was just him and Mel talking, but slowed when he heard Mel mention his name. They hadn’t seen him, so he lingered and waited and listened.

(“I would have never pinned the two of you as friends,” Mel was saying. “I don’t mean it rudely, and I know bringing him was well-intentioned, he’s just very recluse. A bit sad, if I’m being honest. I haven’t seen him interact with a single soul all night besides you.” She smiled and brushed a nonexistent speck of dust off Jayce’s shoulder as an excuse to slot her hand there. “He’s like your little shadow.”)

Jayce chuckled nervously, met with a decision. To look in the face of a goddess and discredit her, to say that Viktor was his own man and he had been invited out of want and not pity, or win her over.

(“Yeah, he can be like that, but…”)

Viktor didn’t stick around to hear the rest. He would have rather fallen from the barn and broken himself all over again than experience Jayce’s betrayal. To him and to his integrity. Viktor had never forgotten it. Had never felt so stupid, so angry, so failed by another person. He walked out of the party and returned to their dorm where he festered in the discord of his thoughts until Jayce finally came back. He, too, was angry. He’d been calling Viktor, wondering where he was after noticing his disappearance, but Viktor had no interest in making himself accessible. Even then, face-to-face, he still didn’t, because he couldn’t trust himself to not spout out confessions he couldn’t retract once he turned the valve. To keep himself in check, he was curt, and that triggered a detonation on Jayce’s end. It was the first fight they’d ever had, the bells tolling the fall of Rome. Still there, but a shell of what it used to be. (“What the fuck is your problem, Vik?”) Viktor was feeling catty, so he told him he didn’t want to be a “recluse” and “sad” hindrance to his pursuits of being a social climbing snob. Jayce was quelled by that, looking guilty and ashamed. He started saying that he was sorry, not realizing that Viktor had been in range to eavesdrop, but Viktor shut it down. He had some time to brood and reflect and had reached a verdict. Jayce didn’t believe what he had said to Mel. He just said it in service to someone else, because he didn’t have a fucking backbone when it came to her, and that’s what stung the most. (“Spare me, Jayce. I don’t need you or anyone else to defend me. I’ve heard every name in the book, felt every stare when I enter a room. It wasn’t what she said or your reaction not being harsh enough. It’s that you…”)

Chose her over me.

And he kept on choosing her. Time and time again. Even derailed their post-graduate plans of remaining in Boston together when he followed Mel to Washington D.C. instead, then proposed once she had gotten her Master’s from Georgetown. And Viktor, the glutton for punishment that he was, kept leaving the door cracked open, hoping for the day that he would choose differently.

“It was shitty, Vik,” Jayce said to him—in the here and now. “She was wrong for it, and I was wrong for not telling her so when I should have.”

Viktor didn’t feel like rehashing it. They’d already done it before. “Forget it,” he said. “It’s ancient history. It was unfair to even bring it up.”

Only you can make me like this, he thought, bitter and dejected. So childish and pathetic.

“Back to my original point,” Viktor continued, “if you weren’t ignorant to how I felt about her, then clearly my opinion didn’t amount to much.”

Jayce leaned forward, serious. “Your opinion means everything to me. I was just a fucking idiot. Most days I still am, but I’m trying to get my shit together; to rebuild what I took for granted. That includes you. Especially you.”

Viktor was silent as he absorbed Jayce’s acknowledgment of his involvement in the decay of their relationship, but he felt no triumph. Only sorrow and doubt. He made both known when he looked at him and locked in.

“No shallow end?”

“Dive in.”

“Drink first.”

They drained half of their cocktails, then shivered and grimaced as it charged them with guts and bravery.

“What is this?” Viktor demanded.

“I thought we were catching up—”

“No, no, no. This is a habit of yours, and over the years, I’ve been quiet and patient and haven’t complained because you were my friend, but I can’t keep…”

“Say it. I won’t be mad.”

I don’t have the right to be, the remorse in Jayce’s eyes seemed to convey.

“You make rash choices.”

“Agreed.”

Viktor shook his head. “It’s more than that. Ever since I’ve known you, you rush in blind, on a wind of emotion. It makes you passionate, but it also makes you a—”

“—fucking idiot,” they finished in unison, and they reveled in a small moment of amusement before Viktor reanchored himself, steadfast and unwavering in his path. “And whenever one of your rash choices bites your hand, you turn back here, to me, and suddenly I’m important in your world again when it didn’t start that way. And I must be an idiot, too, because I keep soothing the hurt, listening to you and trying to sympathize, which I used to be happy to do, but now it’s just chasing after a lost attachment. And then, once you’re better, you go back to where you came from.”

Somewhere far away.

Jayce didn’t refute it. For a while, whenever he was in a rough patch, whether it be with his career not panning out like he had envisioned or with the insecurities that were a blight on his marriage, he would use Viktor as a dumping ground for his woes, then wave goodbye when his mental purging met some sort of satisfaction. Viktor had allowed it then, so he couldn’t claim innocence, but he wasn’t going to allow it now. “I’m sorry,” Jayce said. “It wasn’t my intention.” But Viktor only sat there, requiring more if Jayce didn’t want him to get up and leave.

Jayce raked a hand through his hair. “Look, I know you’ve never needed me—”

“That’s not true.”

“Let me finish.”

Viktor backed off, and Jayce went on.

“I know you’ve never needed me, in the sense that I could be an utter disappointment, which I have been, and you could still go on with this supreme focus and drive and determination that you’ve always had. I mean, look at you, Vik. Look at what you’ve done for yourself. But I just—fell apart without you.”

Finally, Jayce struck on target, his last admission landing on the soft spot that had never stopped longing for him, like a face pressed up against a foggy window.

Viktor tried not to let it kill him.

“I promise I’m not asking you to put me back together,” Jayce assured, and believing him didn’t feel unreasonable. He seemed changed, made from tougher tools. “I’m okay. I’m figuring it out on my own. Took me a minute, but I’m getting there. I just want to talk, how we used to. Before I was a selfish prick.” Jayce reached out his hand and placed it on the table near Viktor’s. Intimate but not presuming. Viktor noticed, then, that his wedding ring was gone.

“I’ve missed you.”

That pulled him back up to Jayce, and he was met with that doughy look again that he wore so well.

“I get it, though, if I’ve cashed in all my chips.”

Viktor sighed in defeat, hopeless to everything he did. “Tell me what happened,” he said. “You and Mel.”

 

—

 

They ordered a second round, and Jayce mapped out the timeline of events that had led to his and Mel’s mutual separation. It was not without its trials and tribulations, some of which Viktor was already privy to—or had conjectured.

When Jayce absconded to D.C., he did not flourish as he had hoped. First off, he was six hours away from his family, so he saw them less. Meanwhile, Mel continued having a plentiful social circle, Jayce beginning to loathe many of its members. And, unfortunately, her mother was there too. Ambessa was pure authority: stringent and succinct and domineering. Mel had a complicated relationship with her. Ambessa had taught her tenacity and strength, how to be a wolf in a white man’s forest, but had deprived her of warmth. Ambessa also had never been particularly keen on Jayce. Thought he was mediocre and that Mel was marrying below status. She would have preferred her with a general or a sultan.

So, Jayce was on his own in foreign territory, unable to assimilate while also under bombardment, his mother-in-law’s criticisms of him constant. Mel tried advocating for him as best she could, but it hardly left a dent. Ambessa was as stubborn as an ox.

Mel kept pushing forward in her ambitions. Graduate school had consumed her, and she allotted herself no transitional period before jumping into her career. Then she and Jayce got married in a fever because it seemed like the next logical thing to do, and shortly after, she was taking on a full caseload. She worked tirelessly, often clocking seventy hours a week, and when she finally had a break, she was depleted. It quickly put a damper on her and Jayce’s love life. It felt more like they were passing ships in the night than partners.

As for Jayce’s professional development, it was lackluster. The most predominant fields in the area were entrenched in government and finance. There were high paying jobs in tech and defense, but getting your foot in the door was difficult and Jayce hadn’t applied himself like he should have in college. Even if that college was MIT. Others had Ivy League schools on their resumes. It wasn’t that distinguished. But, overall, firms and corporations valued experience over a piece of paper—or who you knew. Jayce was too prideful to go that route, so he bounced around, not liking any fit, until he eventually settled on an engineering job at a manufacturing company that made kitchen appliances, offering a fair and competitive onboarding package. (“Very sexy,” Jayce had told Viktor when he accepted the position, about two years ago. “If ever you need to know the ins and outs of a shrimp peeler, I’m your guy.”)

It was a mundane and unsatisfying pick. He had wanted to be in renewable energy with his sunflower solar panels, but instead he was creating programs and calibrations for machines that spat out utensils. Not that it was beneath him. Someone had to do it. It just wasn’t what he had dreamed for himself and it made him depressed, which also interfered with his marriage. Two stressed and busy people trying to get a wet piece of wood to light was what they became, causing frustration and resentment. He and Mel started getting increasingly fractious with each other until they got to a place where they didn’t even bother fighting anymore. They attempted therapy, but it was an antidote that was introduced far too late.

Ultimately, Jayce didn’t feel at home. Didn’t feel like a husband or a provider. He didn’t feel like anything at all, really. A stranger in his own life.

Then he told Viktor that, at his lowest point, he had been hit with a misdemeanor.

“For what?” Viktor asked, visibly thrown by it.

Jayce shrank into his chair. “You’re gonna yell at me.”

“And you probably deserve it.”

Jayce puffed out his cheeks and let loose a long breath. “It was a DUI—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“—that was dropped to a reckless op,” he hurriedly explained.

“I don’t really care. What the hell, Jayce?” Viktor looked down at Jayce’s drink, apprehensive, and Jayce interjected when he deduced the implications.

“Okay, no, it’s not like that. Listen, please. It was a year ago. I was having a bad night. I had a couple at the bar and thought I was fine. Got pulled over for turning right on a no-turn stoplight. The cop had me do a field sobriety test because he must have smelled it on me. I passed that part but blew a .09, so I was busted. But I was so barely over the limit they dropped the charge down.”

“Come on, Talis. You’re better than that.”

Talis was a past endearment. Jayce’s rowing teammates would always call him by his last name (“Come on, Talis! Let’s go, Talis!”) so Viktor had started calling him that, too, as a joke. He hadn’t used it in a while, and it made Jayce smile despite the conversation topic.

“I know. Trust me, I’m fucking embarrassed about it.”

Viktor could only imagine the shit he had to eat when Mel and Ambessa found out—or if Ambessa was even told at all to spare him. He decided not to ask, focusing instead on a more concerning detail. “You said you were having a bad night?”

“You don’t need to hear more about me making a mess of my life.”

“It’s getting stale, but I’ll tune in.”

Jayce chuckled in good humor, but there was a sadness to it. “Um…” His voice fell away, dissolving like the end of a smoke column, and he suddenly got emotional. He pressed his fingers to his eyes to try and stop it. “Shit,” he said, shakily, then sniffed and recomposed himself. “So, ah, we lost a baby.”

The color drained from Viktor. “Mel was pregnant?”

Jayce nodded.

A father, Viktor thought, the weight of it immense. He also thought about how wonderful he would have been at it; how he was probably gripped by fear and excitement when Mel broke the news to him. Viktor’s condolences extended to her as well. It must have been crushing for them both, but with women, it was much more personal.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

The question was its own devastation, rising from several things all at once. It ripped the seal off an old feeling: Viktor’s contrition with himself for never being honest, the lies turning him sour. Faced with it again, it was swift in reminding him that he also had not handled himself sensibly. Neither of them had. And there was a fresh stab of guilt now that he had put Jayce in a box and shoved him away to such an extent, giving him a taste of his own medicine, that he would rather grieve the loss of a child in isolation than confide in him about it. In many ways, Viktor felt justified for doing so, for protecting himself, but as he recalled Jayce’s last visit to Boston, how distant and unmoored he had been, silently crying out for rescue, it didn’t seem worth it anymore. Time was too fickle. Life was too cruel. And Jayce, regardless of his faults, was too irreplaceable to him.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Jayce said. “Neither did Mel. I feel horrible for even mentioning it now, but—when Mel took the test and it showed up positive, for the first time in a while, we were how we used to be. Young, unsure. For a moment, everything was magical and brand new. Mel was never crazy about having kids because her mother—well, you know her mother. But the more she sat on it, the more she was willing to give it a chance, and so was I. The certainty, not the idea, that if you do absolutely nothing you’re going to be a parent hits you like a freight train, Vik. Whether you go through with it or not, it rewires you.”

Viktor believed that too. The proof was sitting in front of him.

Jayce sniffed again, his eyes swelling with another surge of tears that he kept unshed. “We would have had a four-month-old by now. That lived and breathed between us. Made it all worse. And it sounds fucked up to say, but looking back, we’re relieved that it turned out how it did. And yet we’re in mourning too. I don’t know. It’s been hard.” Jayce pursed and unpursed his mouth to hide how it trembled. “I haven’t been a good person, so I probably wouldn’t have been…”

Viktor, on impulse, grabbed Jayce’s hand in his despair. “You both would have been great,” he said. “I mean that. Don’t crucify yourself for being human.”

Jayce nodded, but it was tepid. He would need more time to forgive himself. Until then, he held Viktor’s hand in return, squeezing it slightly to let him know that he appreciated the vote of confidence, but there also was also a quiet desperation to hold him that did not resemble the usual carefree nature of his affections.

It almost made Viktor shudder.

 

—

 

They eventually sailed into calmer waters, their cocktails dwindling and a pleasant numbness beginning to seep in. They discussed family, Viktor in particular wondering how Jayce’s mother was doing.

“Same as always,” Jayce said. “Checks on me everyday to make sure I’ve eaten my three squares. She asks about you.”

Viktor played it humble, but he already knew that she did. It was sweet that she still kept space for him, treating him like a second son. He also wouldn’t deny that it stroked his ego some. Last he had spoken to Ximena was after his surgery when he had called to thank her for the card and flowers she’d sent, wishing him a speedy recovery. If he called her tomorrow and said he had a hankering for her tamales , she’d likely pack a bag of ingredients and drive from Madison to cook them for him.

(“You’re Jayce’s smart friend,” she had said to him once. “Look out for that boy. He doesn’t know what’s best for him sometimes. He never had a brother or a father to guide him.”)

“Oh, and Cait’s a lesbian now,” Jayce added.

“Good for her.”

“Already got herself a girlfriend too. Her name’s Violet.” Jayce pulled out his phone, tapping and scrolling until he found a picture of the two of them. He held it out for Viktor’s evaluation. It was taken at a concert venue, and Caitlyn had her arms around a rather muscular woman with tattoos and pink hair, shaved on one side.

Viktor snorted. “Cassandra and Tobias must be over the moon.”

“My aunt might have an aneurysm.” Jayce put his phone away. “How are your folks? I still remember the Czech you taught me.”

“Ah, yes, you were quite the talent,” Viktor chided. Learning languages was not Jayce’s specialty. He couldn’t retain the grammar structure and his pronunciation was atrocious. But when they were dorming together and Viktor’s parents would fiddle around with their computer enough to figure out how to Skype, Jayce would give them a two-finger salute in the background and say, “Ahoj!” They thought it was the funniest thing, in a get-a-load-of-this-American kind of way.

Viktor told Jayce that he had plans to visit them over the summer. He was finally in suitable condition, and his mother was scared to death of airplanes. He didn’t mind, though. Actually, he would insist upon it. He missed home. The original one. He supposed that as a person ages, they grow to cherish familiar places more than ever. The bell towers and churches, the clay and brick and stone, the small roads next to wide pastures. These were the components that framed him. He had wanted to take Jayce there, broaden his horizons a bit, but they never got around to it.

The subject then acted as a springboard for Viktor to talk about his travels before he was cooped up and in rehabilitation. Piltover had been shipping him all over, to London and Copenhagen and Geneva and Berlin. In the coming years, if contracts unfolded how they were projected to, he would be in Shanghai and Tokyo as they breached Asian markets. Jayce was proud of him—and surely envious.

Spotting their empty glasses, their waitress came by and asked if they wanted another round. Both of them hesitated, looking at each other to gauge their interest. The Third Drink was an unstudied phenomena. One or two was casual, but the third was a wild card, substantially upping the potential of the night turning into something unexpected. And Jayce and Viktor, being too inquisitive, couldn’t abstain from the temptation to know what that something would be, so they called for replenishments but were also responsible enough to order food along with it. Jayce was plain with his selection, getting a burger and fries, while Viktor got the Friday special: pork chops in an apple glaze with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables as his side choices.

When they were served their meal twenty minutes later, a band consisting of three older men and one woman were beginning to set up by the window, tables having been cleared away to provide ample room for their equipment. Jayce asked their waitress what music they played and she said that they did classic covers—and requests. She pointed over at the mason jar on the floor that was filling with scraps of paper that had songs and artists scribbled on them.

Jayce lit up like Christmas Eve and turned to Viktor.

“You wanna stay for it?”

His eagerness was too persuasive. Viktor shrugged. “Why not?”

Jayce borrowed their waitress’s pen and jotted down a song he had in mind on a napkin, cupping his hand around it so Viktor couldn’t see. He gave the napkin to the waitress and an extra five dollar tip for the trouble of delivering it to the jar for him.

“What did you put?”

“You’ll find out,” Jayce said coyly as he took a bite of his burger. Viktor, content to wait, picked up his knife and fork.

 

—

 

Jayce kept staring at Viktor pork chop as if seduced by it.

“I should have gotten that,” he said.

Viktor cut off a chunk, swirled it around in the apple glaze, and held it out to him on the prongs of his fork. An olive branch of sorts, and one would have thought he was handing him a winning lottery ticket from how gladly he accepted. Jayce hummed out a groan, the flavors tart and spiced. Viktor pushed his plate towards him. His appetite had always been small and he was at capacity. Jayce, though, was a bottomless pit, and he all but licked the plate.

“I need to get back to the gym,” Jayce lamented. “After I turned thirty, everything sticks to me like glue.” He patted his stomach for emphasis and it barely generated a ripple. But he was fuller. Not chiseled like he had been, certainly not plump either, but sturdy and solid and rugged and—

Viktor had to mentally pinch himself.

“Better you than me,” he replied. “How else am I supposed to keep this slim figure?”

“I’ve said you could be a model with those cheekbones.”

“Back in the day, I’m pretty sure everyone said that you were the model. The girls called you Mr. Universe.”

“And you’re Mr. Oblivious because girls definitely looked at you too.”

Jayce was half-right. It wasn’t that Viktor was oblivious or considered himself perfectly undesirable. He just didn’t have the incentive and never gave his appearance much thought. Barring his disability. However, once he entered the real world, as vast and lonely as it was, a switch flipped. All a person had was their appearance. Everything else came second. No one would know if he was educated or a dropout, a saint or a prick, a riot or a drag, but they would make assumptions based on what they saw, and the sad shadow he had been labeled as would exist no more. May it die and rot. So, he reinvented himself. Dressed better and walked into rooms with conviction, biting back the throbbing in every step. People took notice. Piltover gave him a job a month after graduation, wanting his contributions immediately, and suitors started sniffing around his front porch, drawn to him like perfume. Male suitors, it went without saying. And with Jayce no longer there to distract him, he let them in. It wasn’t healthy, at first. It felt vindictive—or like he was proving something. But, in time, Viktor ripened, and he found enjoyment in his sex life, though none of them really prompted a need for permanence. In truth, he didn’t think the need would ever come. His clinical future was too ambiguous for it. He didn’t know if he would be bound to a wheelchair by fifty and it was too much to ask of someone.

But he had money, he had success—which didn’t equate to happiness but who wasn’t some degree of miserable—so why not flirt a little? He could be quite lethal when the itch arose. He had a pouty mouth that he utilized to his advantage; the ability to turn his gaze fierce or imploring at whim, accented by his expressive eyebrows; a square jawline and, as Jayce pointed out, sharp cheekbones; naturally tousled hair, making him look recently out of bed; and he was cunning and penetrating with his words. The only aspect about him that could be improved upon was being too skinny, but many didn’t mind it. Preferred it, even. And while he was inclined more towards a submissive role, his wills often dominated. He would settle for nothing less. So, even though Jayce still roused the weaker parts of him, parts that kneeled, he was not the same person either. He was honed now.

“I’m more Sports Illustrated,” Jayce was saying. “You, though, are high fashion.” He brandished a vape then, stashed away in his pocket. He and Viktor were both social smokers, especially when they drank. They would go in on a pack and divide the spoils, but Jayce had swapped cigarettes for convenience, like most had.

He took a hit.

“You’re Vogue, baby,” he said, grinning through the artificial haze.

God, was he a fox.

Viktor put out his hand, motioning for the vape, and Jayce complied. Viktor pulled in slow, his lungs expanding, then tilted back his chin and blew a line of smoke into the air.

 

—

 

“One more?”

The band had commenced, flooding the bar with music, and Jayce had to shout over it. The band had kicked it off strong with the B-52s, getting half of the diners to clap and sing along to “Love Shack,” and were now onto the Eagles as a palate cleanser.

Viktor raised a finger that had grown lazy. “One more.”

What did the fourth drink mean? You’re fucked? Too late to turn back now?

He couldn’t bring himself to worry about it.

In the interim of their waitress carting away their plates and returning with a resupply of cocktails, Viktor’s tipsy brain clued him in on how close in proximity he and Jayce were, the volume of the band requiring them to fold their arms on the table and lean in to hear each other. It also didn’t help that gravity had become heavier. If Jayce perceived it too, he wasn’t compelled to put distance between them—and neither did Viktor.

Their faces were flush now, and they were more generous with their laughter and smiles, their eyes reflecting an auburn glow from the mahogany decor like flames burning low. Something about it was reverent. Something well-seasoned, baked at the right temperature. Jayce always had such passionate eyes. They revealed everything about him, making him an awful liar.

Their closeness was interrupted, though, when the band got to Jayce’s song.

“Oh my God,” Viktor moaned, recognizing it, and dropped his forehead into the heel of his palm. Jayce, on the other hand, was grinning like a maniac.

It was “Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger. Another memory. Viktor wasn’t sure if they were freshman or sophomores in it, but he knew that it resided somewhere in early college. They were having late night discourse about music and film and pop culture. Well, it was more of a quarrel, really, since their opinions kept clashing. Viktor had said that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should be in London since the British did the genre more justice. Jayce thought he was appallingly misinformed and a filthy European gentrifier. (“It was born from jazz and country, dude! Here! On southern American soil! Chuck Berry, Presley, Aerosmith, Credence, Skynrd—” “Zeppelin, Floyd, the Beatles, the Stones—” “Bob Seger!” “Who the fuck is that?” “Oh, come on, you know Seger. Risky Business? The movie?” “Never seen it.”)

Jayce was on a mission to rectify that in the most sensational way possible. He undressed himself down to his briefs and undershirt and socks, leaving Viktor blinking in confusion, then took a wrinkled button-up from his dirty clothes hamper and threw it on. They had a stereo with an auxiliary cord on the desk and Jayce plugged in his phone. Hastily, he grabbed a pencil and darted out of their dorm and vanished into the hall, but he didn’t shut the door. A second later, the stereo speakers started punching out piano keys, loud enough for a noise complaint, and Jayce reappeared around the frame, recreating the infamous Tom Cruise scene by sliding across the linoleum floor in his socks. He popped out his collar and raised the eraser-end of the pencil to his mouth, using it as a microphone as he strutted back into the room and lip-synced against a bluesy bass, “ Just take those old records off the shelf / I’ll sit and listen to ‘em by myself / Today’s music ain’t got the same soul / I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll!”

Viktor’s reaction was both entertained and begging him to stop. He didn’t. Unsurprisingly, his one-man performance attracted an audience. Heads peeked around the door, belonging to students in neighboring dorms. It poured fuel onto the fire, and Jayce went prancing down the hall like a madman, cheers and whistles at his back—and a few roaring their umbrage. (“SHUT THE FUCK UP, TALIS! I GOT CLASS AT EIGHT!”)

Viktor’s response now wasn’t much different than back then. Jayce was still a jackass and not all shy about bellowing the song from his seat, snapping and rolling his shoulders to the drum beat. Thankfully, neither were others, so everyone drowned each other out.

When the band concluded the number, Viktor and Jayce buried their faces in their arms and vibrated with chortling laughter. Wiping the tears from their eyes was useless because they would just burst into another fit at random.

Two more songs were played through before intermission. By then, Viktor and Jayce had nearly polished off their drinks, not tasting the alcohol anymore. They weren’t tanked, but they weren’t sober. So perhaps it was liquid courage that made Viktor recline in his chair, the vape he had stolen from Jayce for the millionth time lax in his hand, and said, “I’ve decided I like the beard.”

Jayce chuckled. “Have you been debating that this entire time?”

“Yes. At first I thought it made you look…”

“Old and worn out?”

“Maybe a little disarranged, but no. Just—new. More honest.”

Jayce returned the compliment. “I like what you’ve done with…” He gestured to Viktor’s hair, and Viktor tucked it behind his ear as if to say, Oh, this?

“Did you, like, bleach it?”

Viktor scoffed. “Please.” He examined a strand of it, brown but ashened at the ends, giving an ombre effect. He didn’t know why it did that. Overworking himself, probably. “It is strange, though, how it’s lightened on its own.”

“It suits you.”

Viktor could have been mistaken—or crazy—but the remark seemed to go beyond the scope of observation, like his hair was an object of desire. “Thank you,” he finally said after a pause. The mood pivoted, about to shift, but it was thwarted in doing so when their waitress came by again to see if they wanted anything else. Jayce asked for the check.

“And thank God. One more martini and I’d be sleeping here.”

“Not with me around. I’d just throw you over my shoulder and carry you home.”

Viktor chewed on the inside of his lip, imagining more than that. Realizing he was being shameless, he recovered by tossing back the rest of his drink and being a teasing bitch.

“Yes, you wouldn’t want to get a DUI for real this time.”

Jayce hissed. “So mean. Unless,” he suddenly droned, “there’s someone already there—who would get the wrong impression?”

“Are you asking me if I’m seeing anyone?” Viktor baited.

“Are you?”

The room was getting hot. “I was,” Viktor lied. He had only ever engaged in dillances.

“Really?”

“Is it that shocking?”

“No. You just never seemed interested.”

“Quality over quantity.”

“And who was it that met your unattainably high expectations?”

Viktor traced his finger around the rim of his martini glass, producing a faint ringing. “He was a doctor.”

His preference for men was not undisclosed. Viktor had told Jayce years ago when his heart had already been pulverized into dust, laying waste to whatever still advised him to harbor the secret. The torpedo that ensured his annihilation was Jayce saying that he was going to marry Mel and that he wanted him to be his best man. So, about a month later, Viktor nonchalantly outed himself. Other than Jayce stammering through his support and Viktor resisting the urge to slug him in the jaw to release some steam, there wasn’t much to report.

Jayce clicked his tongue. “Uh-huh,” he said, not at all fooled. He knew Viktor was full of shit. “What kind?”

“Neuroscience,” Viktor replied, unruffled. “We met at a conference in Baltimore. Very handsome. Disgustingly rich.”

“I’m sure.” Jayce picked up his drink to finish it. Too audaciously for Viktor’s liking, so he had to knock him down a few pegs.

“Good in bed too,” he said, then smirked when Jayce choked and coughed. Viktor carried on with smug disregard. “He wasn’t what I was looking for, though.”

Jayce cleared his throat. “And what are you looking for?”

“Now, where’s the challenge in answering that?”

Their waitress brought the check, a debit card already in the holder. She gave it directly to Jayce. “Have a nice evening,” she said cheerfully, then went off to tend to her other tables.

Viktor was flummoxed. “Wait, when—?”

“Oh, I gave her my card before you even got here.”

“Jayce, I can pay.” Viktor tried to nab the check from him, but Jayce quickly swiped it away.

“Ah-ta-ta. This is exactly why I did it. I wasn’t up for arguing with you. And you might as well save your breath because it’s already done.” Jayce wrote down the tip, definitively scratched his signature across the bottom, and stood up. As Viktor did the same, Jayce reached over the table and grabbed Viktor’s coat and gloves, presenting them like a gentleman.

“Last chance,” Jayce said. “You sure your technician ex-boyfriend isn’t waiting to kick my ass?”

Viktor took his coat and put it on. “Are you walking me home?” he asked, smoothing out the lapels and slipping on his gloves next.

“I thought that was obvious.”

“Well, my money’s on you.”

Jayce feigned being puzzled. “But didn’t you say he was a doctor?”

Viktor was confounded for a moment, then smiled at Jayce outwitting him. It wasn’t often when he did—and it was also representative of Viktor’s intoxication level. “You know,” he said, tapping a finger against Jayce’s chest, “I just have so many lined up at the door that I can’t keep track of ‘em.”

 

—

 

Trying to get the next chapter out soon! Hope you enjoyed the first one!

Chapter 2

Thank you everyone for the support on the first chapter!

I did lie though. This is going to be three chapters instead of two because it demanded an epilogue.

Also, Jayce is a dad rock guy (I will accept no arguments on this lol) and this song came as a blast from the past while I was writing. It felt very fitting to his POV, which we get this chapter.

 

—

 

Courtesy of the liquor they had indulged themselves on, Viktor and Jayce were invincible to the cold but not so much to other forces of nature that gave their steps a noticeably sluggish sway. Viktor couldn’t remember when he had last drank beyond his limits. His need for control and prudence in all situations usually prevented him from doing so. But now he had succumbed to being a lotus-eater. At least, that’s what he compared himself to. One of Odyssey’s men who renounced practicality, who sacrificed loyalty to their ship and crew, to dine on pleasure-fruit instead. No wonder why they would’ve rather remained on that island of paradise and deception, forgetting about the pains and urgencies of the world. It was indefinitely easier.

Unfortunately, Viktor couldn’t escape his sobering realities when they finally arrived at his front door. He stood on the landing, digging through his coat pocket for his keys, while Jayce waited patiently on the stairs. Viktor was well aware that he was stalling, reluctant to turn towards the suspense that had manifested itself the closer they got to the end of the evening, drawing breath at his back and prickling the hairs on his neck. It was volatile, problematic, compromising. But he could only forge a few spare seconds of mental preparation before he found his keys and had to bite the bullet.

“Do you—need somewhere to stay?”

Viktor felt obligated to offer since Jayce had drunk the same amount as he had, though his tolerance surpassed his own by leaps and bounds. The scales hadn’t always been skewed. They used to be able to put away a bottle together and still manage to submit assignments. These days, Viktor would be comatose.

Jayce glanced at the door, skeptical about going near it, then jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m at the Hilton, so…”

“Suit yourself.”

“Thank you for coming,” Jayce blurted after a pause.

Viktor’s reply was as droll as it was serious. “Anything for you.”

“Did you…?”

“Yes, Jayce.”

Jayce nodded like he was pondering the assurance that Viktor didn’t totally regret being in his company—or felt as though he had gritted through it. Viktor continued to stand at the door, expecting something more. What that was, he pretended not to be sure.

“Right,” Jayce announced, collecting himself. “Well, I’ll be around until Wednesday, so if you wanna slum it again, just give me a call.”

“I might.”

Jayce flashed him a small, timid smile. “Have a nice night, Vik.”

As he went to leave, Viktor had to cork his scoff, once again disappointed but not surprised. He was determined to not let it upset him, but he couldn’t stave off the thickness building in his throat. He admonished himself for it. He couldn’t keep acting like this whenever Jayce didn’t jump into the sheets with him. It was obscene.

But then Jayce dithered in his descent. “Actually,” he said in an occurring afterthought he didn’t finish. Not with words, at any rate. In a spontaneous and ferocious rush of courage, he whirled around, barged up the stairs, seized Viktor’s face in both hands, and kissed him. Viktor’s eyes widened, his heart soaring and his mind running wild. For a moment, he was convinced that his grief over Jayce had exceeded such irrational proportions that it was inventing scenarios to cope, but feeling Jayce’s lips earnestly pressed against his own squashed that theory. Even then, he couldn’t make sense of it, so he surrendered to instinct. He leaned in, eyes closing as gently as drifting to sleep.

Then there was a sudden disturbance in Jayce’s peripheral that he couldn’t apprehend before Viktor slapped him across the face.

“Fucking hell!” Jayce touched his reddening cheek and stared at Viktor in shock, squawking, “What was that for?”

Wiping his mouth contemptuously, Viktor took his cane and whacked Jayce in the arm with it. Not aggressively enough to do damage, but enough for it to sting. “Ow!” Jayce cried, holding the spot that Viktor had struck, both to soothe and to shield. No matter. Viktor just whacked him on the leg next. “Ow! Jesus Christ!” Jayce was hopping around on one foot when Viktor swung back his cane like a baseball bat.

Jayce raised his hands in a plea for mercy. “Will you stop? ”

Viktor kept himself in position. “You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he seethed, his accent protruding. It was a common symptom that presented itself whenever he was exasperated, and Jayce was now afraid that he had made a terrible error in judgment.

There was a lack of appreciation for the irony that Viktor was the one Jayce had to fear an ass beating from.

“How long?” Viktor demanded.

“How long what?”

“How long have you wanted to do that?”

“I—I don’t know!” Jayce flinched, ready for another round of Viktor’s wrath. “Please don’t hit me again.”

“Over a decade, Jayce! That’s how long it’s been for me! Do you have any idea—the faintest notion in that dense brain of yours—of what that’s been like? No, not you. Never you. One whiff of an opportunity and you pounce on it. ‘Vik, I need you. Vik, I’m lost without you.’” After revealing himself in an outpouring of rancor and ridicule, Viktor straightened himself back up and stuck his cane down like a flag in the ground, declaring sovereignty. “I had a good time seeing you, but I am not—”

A second priority, a last resort, a temporary cure for loneliness were the possible options he was going to say, but Jayce interrupted him before he could choose.

“It’s been years for me too.”

Viktor was silent and dubious. “Since when?” he eventually asked.

“You want a date and time?”

“Yes—or get the fuck off my porch.”

Jayce knew the threat wasn’t an empty one. “Alright, alright.” He loosened a breath, muttering some frustrated and frazzled curses to himself until he simply committed himself to the truth. “That Saturday in March,” he said, looking firmly at Viktor to convey that he meant it, though everything else about him was anxious and uncertain. “It was a couple months before the wedding when we were supposed to get fitted for tuxes. I was nervous and having doubts and regretting moving to D.C. and then you came into town and we hung out for the first time in a while and I…” His divulgences were spilling out of him in one rambling stream, and he was drowning quickly. Abandoning the endeavor of organizing them, Jayce flung his hands out and down at his sides, defeated. “Maybe I’ve always known. I’m just slow as shit to the uptake, apparently. I’m not good with these sorts of things. I’m too easily led and too eager to please. But I’m not lying to you. Actually, on my wedding day, when we were alone before the ceremony. You looked at me and asked if I was okay. I said that my stupid bowtie was strangling me. We both knew I was scared shitless, but you didn’t mention it. You just fixed the tie for me and gave me a pat on the chest. And that’s how you are, how you’ve always been. A calm in the storm. And this—this thought came to me. It was loud, like someone was living in my head and saying it. ‘Take him and get out of here.’”

Jayce swallowed.

“But I didn’t,” he said, angry at himself for it. “And I’m sorry for pushing you away. I didn’t even realize I was doing it initially, but as time went on, the more trapped I got. And I know I’m fucking bad for you, but—”

Jayce was cut short by Viktor snatching him up by the collar of his jacket. He rightfully assumed that it was to gain the leverage needed to deck him out, but the blow never came to fruition. To his astonishment, Viktor yanked him in so that they were intimately flush at the middle. They stayed like that while searching through each other’s gazes, swollen with so much more to confess that they were close to bursting. Preferring initiative instead, they both caved into another kiss.

Words, words, words.

They had years of words, spoken and unspoken, and were sick of them.

Jayce reeled Viktor in by the waist, squeezing tight as if he would scatter to the wind if he did not claim him desperately enough. Their mouths opened, and Viktor started luring Jayce back towards the house, to come inside and do the inevitable, and Jayce all but fell into him like a sailor into the sea, enchanted by the siren’s poignant melody.

 

—

 

Still attached to each other, they half-walked, half-stumbled into Viktor’s foyer, Jayce shutting the door behind them with his heel. It disoriented his balance and he pitched forward as a consequence, but he was swift on the save, shooting out a hand so that it made thudding impact with the approaching wall instead of Viktor’s spine. The clattering of Viktor’s cane was heard next as he dropped it, deeming it an encumbrance, and latched onto a new support aid by throwing his arms around Jayce’s neck.

Amorously, Jayce’s hands trailed down Viktor’s sides, over his hips, and to the back of his thighs. They were used as anchors for Jayce to quite literally sweep him off his feet, lifting him up and around him like he weighed no more than a toothpick—which wasn’t a significant exaggeration. Regardless, the ease of it was absurdly attractive and made Viktor gasp.

Jayce withdrew, misinterpreting it as discomfort. “Too much?” he asked, a bit winded since they had only allowed themselves to take in air during fleeting lulls of lips and tongues that were too insistent to be expected to stop.

“No,” Viktor murmured, grazing the seam of his mouth along Jayce’s in an enticing circle. “I like it.”

“Should we, like, talk about this?”

“Jayce,” Viktor said sweetly.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

Viktor crushed their mouths together again, just as avidly as where they had left off, and Jayce had nothing else to comment. Viktor began pointing in the direction of where he wanted them to go and Jayce obeyed his instructions. As he carried him through the living room, past the kitchen, Viktor hastily shrugged off his very expensive coat and tossed it aside like it was utterly worthless, landing somewhere at random. His shirt was disposed of soon after, Viktor snapping open the buttons as though the fabric was scorching him alive. Jayce’s hands were immediately on his bare skin, chilled from the outside. Viktor hissed at their contact.

Their kissing never ceased, even when Jayce steered them the wrong way and almost went into the bathroom. Viktor caught the doorframe, humming his opposition, and Jayce corrected himself, turning too heedlessly. He bumped into a table and shattered a lamp on accident.

“Shit.”

Viktor couldn’t have cared less. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll buy another.”

Eventually they were successful in making it to Viktor’s room, and Jayce whisked him straight to bed. He crawled onto the mattress with Viktor still clinging to him, then laid him down as tenderly as a rose. Jayce nested himself between Viktor’s legs that parted in instant invitation, and their arousals finally convened through their clothes, achingly taut. It was deliriously surreal, an oh-fuck-it’s-happening reckoning. Jarring and exhilarating and daunting all at once. It didn’t frighten them into reconsideration. If anything, it ignited curiosity, and they blazed ahead.

They kicked off their shoes, tumbling onto the floor, along with their socks. Viktor assisted with Jayce’s jacket and shirt, adding them to the growing pile of discarded attire. There was barely time to admire him, still broad and strong and olive brown, before he reached for Viktor’s trousers, cautiously observing to see if he would change his mind. He wouldn’t, but it was adorable that Jayce was so concerned.

Before Viktor had a six figure salary, he would either purchase pants that fit his width as normal and clamp his brace over top or, in cases where he felt it wise to conceal it, he would go two sizes up and fasten on a belt. As his career advanced, requiring him to be at the helm of consultations and negotiations, he deferred to the latter more often but also didn’t want to appear drab. So, he took a page out of Cassandra Kiramman’s Guidebook to Finer Luxuries and now all his pants were custom tailored to tastefully accommodate the extra dimensions, meaning that removing them involved little to no effort. They glided off like silk.

Viktor was then on his back in only his briefs.

Consistently, this was the part during sex where Viktor’s partners would get skittish, abruptly met with the contraption on his leg. It was worse when he had a spinal brace to boot, irking him on occasion. He understood the apprehension but not when it bordered on the disparaging. Jayce, however, had seen him put the damn thing on so many times that it didn’t remotely faze him. Referencing dorm memories, he released each Velcro strap with composure and sensuality, as if he was unlacing a corset. The brace opened like an oyster shell and was delicately placed beside the bed.

Jayce massaged Viktor’s leg just how he remembered him doing whenever he endured prolonged periods of confinement. He kneaded dutifully, then dared to go further. He went up and up without complaint until his thumb was at the hem of Viktor’s briefs.

Viktor’s lashes fluttered, and Jayce cracked into a smile.

“Feels that great, huh?”

“Don’t stop.”

Jayce became more dedicated, more rough, and Viktor groaned behind his mouth, pressed closed in pleasure. Viktor raised his other unoccupied leg and hooked a toe in the front loop of Jayce’s jeans, giving it a suggestive tug. Receiving the message, Jayce retreated off the bed. Towering above like a pillar of brawn and valor, like a son of Olympus, he unzipped himself, and Viktor was once again chewing on his lip in the anticipation. He didn’t live in it for long because in one fell swoop, Jayce dropped the curtain, pants and underwear pooling around his ankles. He stepped out of them, emerging as naked as the day he was born, and stood before Viktor in full exhibition. 

Viktor clenched at the entirety of him, the size of him. He gawked as unapologetically as he did when he had first been taunted with a glimpse of the unabridged picture, veiled by a troublesome little towel. The only difference was that age had relaxed Jayce’s definition, as he had griped about, but he was being too critical with himself. He was a monument of the brick shithouse he had once been, traces surviving in the structure. In Viktor’s opinion, it was a substantial improvement. He wasn’t interested in young calves anymore. He wanted a bull. And to his delight, there was also more hair on Jayce’s chest, on his forearms, on that seducing line leading down to his pubis, now exposed in its glory. Throbbing to have him with a bush as black and plentiful as the one crowning his beautiful head.

All man indeed.

“Fuck me,” Viktor said. It was both an appraisal and a statement.

Jayce slinked his way back to bed, becoming an animal on the prowl. He reclaimed his roost, and the solid heat of him rubbed against the mound of Viktor’s erection—and kept on rubbing until his underwear was wet with both of their excitement like tears wept onto a handkerchief. Moans rose from them in a blended harmony. A song unheard. A song coveted. But there was an intermission when Jayce halted their momentum.

“Look,” he started but was distracted when Viktor rubbed against him some more. He shuddered, buckling to it. “Holy shit. No, look, I haven’t…”

“You haven’t, what?” Viktor crooned. He knew exactly what he was alluding to, so he fanned the flames by being defiant. He readjusted, rolling up in measured, abrading waves, and was smugly satisfied each time Jayce lacked the resilience to concentrate. He had to pin Viktor’s ornery hips down so that he could form somewhat of an intelligent sentence.

“I haven’t done this before.”

“Now, Jayce,” Viktor countered, teasing.

“You know what I mean.”

Although Viktor had clocked Jayce’s inexperience from how he caressed him like a woman—which he didn’t have any grievances about—there was a gratification and honor in introducing Jayce to yet another new exploit, to be his first man. It was poetry created through life’s serendipities. Neither Shakespeare or Tennyson could have written it better.

“But you’ve thought about it,” Viktor said. “And if you’ve thought about it, then you must have done some research.”

Jayce grew bashful. “I have.”

“Did you put it in your notes?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Viktor smirked. “It’s not rocket science. Different buttons, same end results.” He ran his fingers down Jayce’s arm, watching them map the curvature of it. “Just do what you usually like.” Viktor kissed the knob of his wrist and looked up demurely as he dragged his bottom lip against it. He could tell by Jayce’s expression that he wasn’t prepared for him to be so versed in promiscuity. “You don’t need to worry about breaking me either,” Viktor said. “I wouldn’t want you to flatter yourself.”

Jayce took the bait and accepted the challenge to prove him wrong. A switch was flipped, and his demeanor morphed into something unruly and feral. He essentially ripped off Viktor’s underwear, wrenching them down and throwing them across the room in one savagely clean motion like they had caused him offense. Then he used his thighs to force Viktor’s legs even wider before diving back into him. It cranked up the temperature, and Viktor groaned in a way that was almost a growl. He grabbed Jayce by the meat of his ass and pulled him in at all costs so that their bodies cupped completely and left not an inch uncovered.

They kissed messily. Felt each other in a frenzy of hands while grinding their cocks together like two teenagers in the backseat of a car, steaming up the windows and rocking the suspension. To some extent, they were. Those kids still existed. Imprisoned in the past, shackled by foolishness. So, tonight was about recapturing everything they had denied themselves; to explore properly and endlessly. Round the bases, as the saying went, and escalate the game into a pressure cooker where they wondered whether or not they should let the other steal third and make a dash for the plate. They honestly could have done that for hours and been content, but they both needed that home run. Fireworks and all.

Jayce kissed Viktor’s neck, on a money spot above his pulse. He ravished it for a while, savoring the sounds and squirming reactions, before embarking on his expedition south, his mouth never idle but also taking its leisure as it charted Viktor’s chest, his stomach, his hips. Viktor bowed to every peck and nip, slipping a hand into Jayce’s hair and urging him down more, boldly asserting that he wanted his mouth around him.

Jayce was happy to do it. Too easily led and too eager to please, he had said. It was an accurate self-assessment and a quality that had failed to serve him well. But, at the very least, it benefited him as a lover. He would cater to whatever Viktor asked.

Jayce licked and sucked at first, then incorporated languid and steady strokes without hurry. He applied Viktor’s advice, focusing his attention on all the right places that only someone with similar equipment could accomplish, and yet it was once again made prevalent that he was accustomed to a feminine design because his treatment was reverent. Even when he engulfed Viktor whole, which should have been an unrefined ordeal, his manners translated. The pace, the ministration, was like he was between a cunt, making love to it with his tongue alone. It was incredibly erotic, and Viktor sank in deeper, writhing on Jayce’s mouth. To get a better view, he brushed Jayce’s fringe away and propped himself up on an elbow, and just watching him was enough to send him to the brink. The hollowed cheeks. The bobbing and plunging.

Viktor was wrought with ever increasing pants and moans, his climax encroaching embarrassingly fast. He could feel it puckering in his abdomen, mounting in his groin. Whether it was due to Jayce’s finesse or the fact that it was Jayce, the center of his desires, he didn’t know—nor was it important because he was crumbling regardless.

“Jayce,” Viktor exhaled, then again, more fervently. “Jayce.”

Jayce looked up at him, perceiving the warning, and his eyes were wicked things, encouraging him to collapse so he could soak it all in. So, Viktor gave him a show. He lolled his head and let the moans fly out of him, genuine and unabated. “Almost, almost, almost,” he whined, embracing the tides of orgasm. Jayce’s grip reined him down as it crashed into him, bringing light and rapture. Viktor’s mouth hung agape in a final cry that was evidently too profound for deliverance, choked and stunted, while Jayce drank him like nectar.

Viktor flopped back onto the bed once he was spent, knocked senseless. His legs, pinched around Jayce’s ears, fell limp and trembling, as boneless as jam. He felt Jayce’s lips on the inner wall of his thigh, enamored and beholden, and it infused him with pure serenity.

Jayce returned to Viktor tousled and blushing, looking at him like he was the most priceless treasure on earth and the key to his undoing.

Viktor’s heart missed a beat.

How often had he imagined this? Hoped for it in silence?

In a warm wash of fondness, Viktor smoothed Jayce’s hair back from his forehead. He couldn’t resist combing through it. “I remember you,” he said with a smile, reunited with a hint of the old him. Jayce chuckled and went to lean in, but Viktor foiled his pursuits by turning towards the nightstand and opening the drawer.

Jayce craned over to see what was within while Viktor rummaged around. “Hold the phone,” he said, going for an object that had spurred intrigue. There was a glint of silver as Jayce extracted a pair of handcuffs, dangling like a pendant. Not the cheap toy kind. These were professional grade steel, intended specifically to detain and debilitate. Jayce creased his brow at them, then directed his bewilderment towards Viktor.

Viktor shrugged. “I’m not opposed.”

Jayce had a sneaking suspicion that Viktor wouldn’t be the one wearing them. “Maybe next time,” he said, amused but nervous, doubting if he even had it in him. He was beginning to comprehend that Viktor was secretly a minx and that perhaps he was the one who should be wary about being susceptible to ruin. Not the other way around.

“But we will need…” Viktor presented a bottle of lubrication like he was passing off a baton. “This.”

Jayce paled, the poor dear. And as much as Viktor would have relished seeing him flounder in his ignorance, he was feeling gracious. So he uncapped the bottle himself, dumped a decent amount into his own palm, and put it away. He reached down between them to grasp Jayce by the cock, and holding him there was electric, powerful. Like he was Eve subduing the serpent that dripped lust and poison into her ear, believing itself cunning, and taming it to her will.

Oh, I’ll eat the apple, she’d say. And the pit and seeds too.

Viktor's fingers slick around Jayce’s length, pumping it slow, had Jayce melting into candle wax. He droned out a groan and worked himself into Viktor’s strokes, his temperament suddenly becoming submissive. It struck a captivating chord.

“Am I your boy?” Viktor said, as he had in countless dreams of the two of them, a poltergeist that plagued him constantly, and always, unavoidably, going up in smoke.

My boy, my boy…

Jayce jolted, sucking in sharply. “Oh, hell, Vik. You can’t say stuff like that.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I won’t last.”

“Wouldn’t bother me.” To substantiate that, Viktor changed vocations, guiding Jayce’s hardness down until the tip nicked against him.

Jayce blinked, startled. He may have been an amateur, but he knew they were skipping a step—or several. “You’re ready?”

Viktor answered by spreading himself further, tempting him into the garden. Viktor’s body was a conductor for pain. This was nothing. In fact, it was the reason why he would rather his sex be relentless. If he was to be suffering’s captive, then he would suffer deliciously whenever given the chance to wield it.

Jayce entered with discretion anyway, not wishing to cause harm, and Viktor naturally unraveled to him. It was his favorite tonic. The stretching, the gradual calibration. That glutted feeling when someone is buried inside of you, the merging complete. Viktor’s mouth parted at the tightness, the girth, as if amazed by it. Jayce was practically vibrating.

“Are you okay?” Viktor asked.

“You just feel— so right on me.”

That was all Viktor needed to hear.

Greedy and impatient, he secured Jayce by the ass again and started moving him, and Jayce assumed command shortly after once he got acclimated. His thrusts were beckoning. Ardent, grounded, drenched in longing. Viktor met them in rhythm, pushing up to the hilt, and yet it still wasn’t enough.

“Faster,” he moaned, and Jayce, taking off the bridle, picked up speed. Viktor clawed into his back and dragged down his nails, leaving his mark. Jayce repaid him by slamming them into a bruising kiss, all hunger.

They devoured. They feasted. The bedsprings squealed underneath them.

When they broke for air, they spoke in blistering, frantic pants. Their minds were gone.

“Am I your boy?” Viktor asked, entreating, and Jayce was much more pliant on the second attempt.

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re my boy.”

“Say it again.”

“You’re my boy. You’re my boy. Oh, you’re my boy.”

“I’m yours, I’m yours.” Viktor gasped as Jayce hit somewhere breathtaking. “God, fuck your good boy.”

Jayce, rising to the occasion, did just that. He hiked one of Viktor’s legs over his shoulder, opening him up like a pomegranate and wasting no time in sating his now roaring appetite. He achieved new depths, and Viktor swore he could feel him in his navel as more thrusts came down upon him, hammering him into the mattress. In contrast, Jayce held Viktor’s leg with affection, planting kisses along his calf to the crook of his knee. It was as if he couldn’t decide if he should handle him like a bride or a whore, so his passion was a mixture of the two. It racked Viktor in a thousand splendid shivers and the noises he made were shameless, begging.

“Yes, yes, yes, harder, give it to me harder.”

It was Jayce’s turn to vie for dominance, which Viktor relinquished without objection. Jayce hauled him up so that they sat facing each other, still joined, and Viktor welcomed him in swathing arms. They were, thoroughly, an entanglement of limbs.

Viktor tossed his hair so that it swung at his back, a tendril of it draping charmingly over his lashes, and arched himself for zeal. Jayce seemed to like it because he coiled Viktor’s hair around his fist like a rope and tugged. Not cruelly. Never would he hurt him with purpose. It was behaved; a gentle nudge to express that he was pleased. Viktor exposed the column of his neck to him, already flourishing with blemishes. Jayce added to the collection as he recommenced the charge, bucking up like a stallion and bouncing Viktor in his lap.

“Who’s my boy?” Jayce groaned, ragged.

“I am.” Viktor scooped up Jayce’s chin by the undercarriage, fingers digging into his jaw, and hovered their lips barely a fraction apart. Their eyes were lacquered, intoxicated.

Viktor had something to say.

“I belong,” he husked, “to Jayce Talis.”

He enunciated every syllable, feeding Jayce his own name. It inspired madness, and the room became saturated in the positively vulgar sound of smacking flesh.

“Make me cum again,” Viktor said, and Jayce took it as the order it was. He thrusted in with a slight tilt, dead center on Viktor’s prostate. He knew he had discovered gold when Viktor exclaimed his approval. “Fuck, like that. Keeping going, keeping going.”

Jayce, though, was at his peak. “Vik, I’m not—”

“Just a little bit more.”

Withholding himself was like fighting a lion. Jayce wrestled with it for a long as nature would allow, reducing him to grunts and whimpers. As soon as he felt Viktor constrict around him, he was helpless to the call. Everything was so warm and enveloping, pumping the bellows of his blood. He came ahead of schedule but only by a margin. Viktor followed about a second or two later, his pleasure converging into a single spearhead that lanced through him and streaked the evidence across his skin. They went into the dazed and blissful throes of climax in near perfect symmetry.

Jayce, though, was left wanting. An unscratched itch. A thread not quite snipped. If he didn’t do something about it, he’d surely go insane. And so he didn’t quit. He persisted vigorously, his cock spilling cum and stirring it within. Viktor’s insides were sensitive and quivering in a lingering state of stimulation. It was like pressing on a bruise, and he gasped so loud that it could have been mistaken as horrified. He was burning—and not unpleasantly, though it was intense. Discipline was robbed from him. His hands were everywhere. Jayce, the bedsheets, himself. Scouring in vain to clutch onto whatever would stable him before devastation made landfall.

Nothing felt right. He said Jayce’s name in imploring repetition until he was hoarse.

“Jayce, Jayce, Jayce.”

Please, please, please.

He didn’t realize that he was cumming again until it happened. His third one, combining with the last, and all he saw were shapes and stars as every neuron in his brain popped off like a discharged pistol.

If he screamed, it was deafened by sensory overload.

It was, without question, the hardest he’d ever orgasmed in his life. It reinvented the mold.

When Viktor finally floated back into himself, he looked down at the aftermath. Their stomachs were soiled with something diluted and watery.

His voice was shaking. “Wh—What the fuck?”

Jayce was equally stunned. “Did you just…?”

They stared at each other with eyes blown wide.

Viktor couldn’t help but laugh. “I think I did.”

Jayce grinned. “Hell yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I got it all over us.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.” Jayce cradled Viktor’s face, tucking a wired piece of hair behind his ear. “You were fucking dynamite.”

“Best you ever had?”

“Easily.”

“You weren’t too bad either.”

“Oh yeah? Tell that to the noise complaint you’re gonna get tomorrow.”

Viktor smacked him playfully on the chest. “Be a gentleman and get me a towel, would you?”

Jayce plucked Viktor off of him by the waist, then froze when Viktor cried out and clasped his leg, the muscles underneath contracting into a spasm episode.

“Are you alright?” Jayce asked fretfully.

“It’ll pass,” Viktor said through his teeth. He punched out about a dozen colorful profanities until he became less rigid. It took two minutes. When Jayce was moderately assured that he was on the mend, he very carefully laid him down and went to the bathroom—but not before grabbing his toes and giving them a comforting jostle. Viktor appreciated him as he left, limber and strutting around his condo like he owned it, and appreciated him again when he returned with a towel, casually wiping the many fluids from his now flaccid member.

One would think they’d done this a hundred times before.

Jayce sat down and extended the towel. As Viktor was cleaning himself up, Jayce took his leg and rested it across his thighs so that he could rub the strain out of it. Being a former athlete made him knowledgeable, but he was far from a physical therapist.

They were quiet for a while until Jayce said, sadly, “I should have been here with you.”

“You were. I sent you back to D.C.”

“Viktor.” Jayce employing his full name always came with a reprimand attached—or was a reprimand in itself.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Everyone needs a break sometimes. Even you.”

Viktor didn’t respond. He instead circumvented them from spiraling into a potential argument about it by turning towards his nightstand again to get out a lighter and pack of cigarettes, kept stashed away for whenever he felt in the mood. Marlboro Reds, what he and Jayce smoked in college. Harsh as a sawmill, but he was too attuned to upgrade to a smoother selection.

Jayce fell down next to him as he sparked up.

“Oh, yes, make yourself at home,” Viktor mumbled around the filter.

“Do you want me to go?”

Viktor shook his head and pursed his lips in that nonchalant way he often did. Jayce hated to say that it never hid much. “No,” Viktor said, then offered Jayce the cigarette in good faith. They traded it back and forth while sharing conversation.

“How long are you here for? Tuesday?”

Jayce exhaled smoke, swirling blue in the night. “Wednesday. I have meetings with my agent Monday and Tuesday.” He handed over the cigarette. “Why?”

“No reason.” Viktor pulled in, the cherry glowing orange. “So what’s your plan? You have a job?”

“I got something cooking.”

“Where?”

“Piltover.” Viktor shot up like a canon but, thankfully, heaved a massive sigh of relief when Jayce said, “I’m fucking with you.”

“You still think you’re funny.”

Jayce pretended to be wounded. “Aw, what? You don’t wanna work with me?”

“Absolutely not.”

They would be a walking Human Resources violation. Not to mention they would probably kill each other over opposing opinions. They were evenly matched in the stubbornness department.

“ZAUN,” Jayce revealed as he stole back the cigarette.

“That'll be good for you,” Viktor said. ZAUN was one of the top green energy providers on the eastern seaboard, so Jayce might have the opportunity to build his solar panels and urban turbines after all.

“Fingers crossed.” Jayce reached over Viktor to flick debris into a cup they had been using as an ashtray. Pectorals shoved in his face. The slut. He smelled like sweat, a cologne of earth and rain, and it rekindled Viktor’s pheromones. “Already put my notice in.”

Oh, Viktor thought. He was being coy, diminishing and trivializing his decision to move back. If he was leaving his current company, then ZAUN was set in stone—as was his divorce. Not that it was in dispute. Viktor was inclusive to many things, but he did not sleep with married men.

Well, technically he still is—

Besides the point.

He wondered, though, that if he had driven Jayce away instead of into his bed, would he have just snuck into Boston and lived right under his nose without detection, hoping they would cross paths again? Months from now? Years?

“Where are you looking to get a place?” Viktor asked.

“In the East Boston-Chelsea area.”

“That’s a commute.”

“It’s twenty minutes.”

“Yeah and with traffic it’ll be more like forty.”

“It’s affordable ,” Jayce stressed, then stretched like a cat. A few joints cracked. “I don’t know. I’m not really sold on anything in particular.”

Viktor nodded, absorbing information and sorting it. The cigarette was in his possession, dwindling down to a nub. He stabbed it out in the cup. “And you’re at the Hilton?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

“Hm,” Jayce echoed, discerning that Viktor was going somewhere with this.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Viktor said after concluding his deliberation. He could practically hear Jayce’s mouth curling.

“Where else am I to stay?”

“Jayce.”

“Vicky.”

Jayce guarded himself with a pillow as soon as Viktor’s eyes narrowed into daggers. He loathed when he called him that. It was short for Victoria. And, historically, an insult. Jayce used it whenever Viktor was being dramatic.

Viktor chucked the pillow.

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I think after what we did, whatever you don’t want to say will be mild.”

Finding it difficult to argue with that logic, Viktor yielded. He would do it for no one else. “Just stay here for the weekend.”

A mirror into the past appeared before them.

(“You could room with me, if you want.”)

“I couldn’t impose,” Jayce protested, making a production out of it so that Viktor would maintain otherwise. Damn fucking child that he was. Viktor scowled but it contained no real malice. Jayce’s poorly stifled smile bloomed into shit-eating brilliance, devilishly handsome. “Twist my arm, why don’t you?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Jayce slid further down into the bed and laid on his side, leveling their gazes. “I need you to know that this”—he gestured between them—“isn’t a whim or a distraction for me. I’ve been thinking about you—about us.”

“Is this your love confession?”

Viktor was joking. He had to or else his heart would give out from how fast it was racing. Jayce, however, wasn’t. His honesty pervaded in the silence.

Viktor stared. He waited.

Jayce, putting himself on the spot, got cold feet. He shrugged.

“What the hell was that?” Viktor shrugged as well, mimicking him.

“Christ, Vik.”

“No, I just believe I deserve more than a—” He shrugged again. “It’s like, ‘Do you want Chinese for dinner?’” And again. “‘Do you want to go to Belize for Christmas?’” And again. “‘Do you—”

Jayce shut him up with a kiss, soft yet consuming. When they parted, Jayce swiped a thumb along Viktor’s cheek. The touch was adoring. “I have loved you from the moment I met you. Just didn’t have the clarity to see it.” Jayce brought them closer, whispering, “Now come here.”

Viktor went.

God how he loved him. In every timeline, in every script, in every outcome, he did.

So Viktor rolled Jayce onto him so he could push himself inside once more, his body still open and feverish from their previous session, and bent to him like a flower to the sun.

 

—

 

I hope the smut was decent and satisfying 😭 It’s always a balancing act between give-enough and less-is-more, so praying I was somewhere in the ballpark. 

 

Chapter 3

In the haze of morning, Viktor’s face scrunched in offense at the sliver of light that infiltrated through the window curtains, beaming brightness square into his eye. With a petulant sort of groan, he turned towards the pillows, the sheets slipping down to drape around his bare hips, and buried himself in their softness. He knew he was in disarray, could feel the tangled mess of his hair, and was unconcerned by it. His hand instinctively reached out, expecting to land on Jayce. He was disgruntled when it flopped onto the mattress instead. Blindly, he patted around, hunting for the warmth that had been his faithful companion during the night, but felt only empty space.

Alarm bells tolled, snapping Viktor into alertness. He looked up to find that Jayce wasn’t in bed—nor anywhere else in the room.

(“I won’t abandon you. I swear.”)

This motherfucker did it again, Viktor thought, assuming the worst. Almost snarling, he went to rip off the covers, anger coming as quick as a whip, but stopped when he caught sight of his cane and brace propped against the nightstand along with clothes stacked and folded neatly on top. There was a note beside it that read: Checking out of the hotel. You were too peaceful to bother.

Assuaged, Viktor got dressed in the garments Jayce had graciously provided: a big comfortable shirt, cotton shorts, and fresh underwear and socks. Afterwards, he put on his brace like a pair of stockings, closing it around his leg and pulling the straps firm, then grabbed his cane before heading out into the kitchen.

Jayce must have risen at the crack of dawn because he was already back, his presence made apparent by the luggage parked in the living room and the wafting smells and sounds of breakfast sizzling on a skillet. Viktor also noticed that the broken lamp had been swept up and disposed of.

Jayce was standing at the stove, bowls of chopped vegetables and containers of seasoning that he had raided the pantry for surrounding him, with a spatula in hand, wearing sweats and an old university hoodie that Viktor recognized. Jayce heard the approaching clicks of his cane, forever ruining the element of surprise, and didn’t spare a glance. He was too engrossed in other matters, like monitoring the omelette he was preparing, but his greeting was cheerful.

“Good morning,” he said, practically singing it as Viktor took a seat at the counter.

“Morning,” Viktor grumbled, not as enthusiastic. Jayce had been an early bird ever since he’d known him. When he was rowing crew, he was required to be at training no later than five, three hours before classes started, and Viktor would listen to him fumble around in the dark for his duffle bag, feeling not an ounce of envy. Jayce had become so accustomed to the routine that he couldn’t change it even if he wanted to. His body was on a regimented clock. Viktor, contrastingly, was a nocturnal creature, moody when awakened.

“Coffee?” Jayce asked.

“Please.”

Jayce had a pot of it brewed and waiting. He poured Viktor a cup and set it down in front of him exactly as it was, black as hell and strong as death. Viktor mumbled his thanks and took a bitter, rejuvenating sip, thinking that he could get used to this, but he tried not to dwell in it. There was still a chance that everything could burn to ash. It had been easy to sink into Jayce’s confession while they were naked and amorous, when Jayce had said it over and over while rutting into him like a beast of passion until they lost track of the hours spent entwined with one another. I love you, I love you, I love you. Viktor, in saccharine weakness and exhaustion, had said it back just as fanatically, basking in the liberation of declaring it aloud when he had kept it shoved down so deep that it had nearly been calcified into stone.

It wasn’t that Viktor didn’t believe Jayce. He very much did, and that was the problem. How they proceeded from here was crucial. They had opened Pandora’s Box, unleashing irrevocable truths, and could not return to what they were. Rebirth or demise were their only recourse, both frightening equivalents.

To distract himself from obsessing over it, Viktor dove into work. There was an excuse for it since he had taken the afternoon off yesterday. He frequently made the kitchen counter his designated home office, so his laptop was in convenient proximity—as well as his reading glasses. He perched them low on his nose bridge as he opened the screen.

Jayce waved his spatula towards the eyewear. “What are those?”

“Just another condition of mine,” Viktor replied, moving his finger around the cursor pad and indifferent about his vision going to shit. “Can’t see my emails without them.”

It was enough of an explanation, and Jayce resumed cooking while Viktor tapped away on his keyboard and fired off responses to threads he had left ignored. He paused only when he heard the clank of a plate against granite, Jayce bestowing him an immaculately arranged omelette with a fork on the side. Viktor gave him a tiny, appreciative smile, though his dotting never depended on it. It was done in genuine pleasure, often silent. He had acquired the trait from his mother.

Jayce made an omelette for himself next, and they ate across from each other in a tranquility that didn’t demand conversation; Jayce standing over his meal, leaning on his elbows, and Viktor scooping up bites between tasks.

When Viktor was young, his father, while bent under the hood of his truck to switch out the oil in it, Viktor having been assigned to wrench-holding duty, which he accepted and honored with the utmost seriousness, had been incentivized into some man-to-man talk. How to treat a woman, how to address her, how to cherish her. (“Get yourself a good one like your mother.”) It was reliable advice, though Viktor wouldn’t go on to use it for standard purposes. But what really stuck was his father telling him that he knew his mother was the woman he was meant to share his life with because nothing was ever stagnant. There was no compulsion to fill every moment with substance because substance existed constantly, even in the quiet. Especially in the quiet. If you could be in a room together without exchanging a word and still feel connected, then that was worth more than gold.

Continuing in his darling kindness, Jayce washed and dried the dishes, then finished off with wiping down the stove and counters until they sparkled like a diamond, looking better than when Viktor had first signed his lease. Once he was pleased with his labors, Jayce threw the cleaning rag onto his shoulder and said, “So, what’s your usual Saturday agenda?”

Viktor casually removed his glasses and shut his laptop, intending to show him.

 

—

 

They lounged on opposite ends of the couch while the television played an Iron Maiden music video and Viktor took a nice, pacifying drag of the joint burning between his fingers, on the path to cloud nine. It was barely half-smoked, so he passed it back to Jayce. He declined, already slumped against the cushions and blitzed out of his mind.

“No, that shit’s potent.”

“I warned you to watch out. It’s medicinal.”

A montage of ghoulish images rushed across the screen, and Jayce seemed to shrink away from them. “Vik, it’s not that I don’t like Iron Maiden, but it’s too aggressive for me right now.”

Mercifully, Viktor tossed him the remote. Jayce picked it up, aimed it at the television, then stared blankly.

Viktor cocked an eyebrow. “Are you going to type something or…?”

“I’m manually breathing and I’m not quite sure how to spell.”

“Man you’re a cheap date,” Viktor said, joking, then came to his rescue. “What are you trying to search for?”

“Kenny Loggins.”

There was a beat of silence before they both scoffed out a pfft-sound and crumbled into boisterous, uncontrollable laughter, the choice being, evidently, too ridiculous to weather. Jayce made it worse by attempting a piss poor imitation of a Texan accent and saying, “I’m Kenny Loggins and this is Jackass! I was raised on the dairy!”

Viktor snorted despite not having a clue what he was referencing, though he did know it was the wrong person. “I think that’s Kenny Rogers.”

“Oh no, it is Kenny Rogers.”

Honestly, it wasn’t even that funny, but the mistake had them in hysterics, the kind that dissolved into wheezing and whistles and coughing fits, causing ulcers. It was cathartic. Neither of them had laughed so hard in ages.

And then, suddenly, Jayce regained enough composure to have an epiphany and announce, “Wait, I got one!” He remembered how to spell, excitement and determination providing coherence, but hoarded the remote like he was clutching a set of pearls when he saw Viktor studying his next move. “Don’t look, you creep,” he told him. Viktor rolled his eyes and kept them glued to the ceiling, muttering, “Not this bullshit again.”

Jayce’s selection soon drifted through the room, chasing away the rebellion of heavy metal and replacing it with softly synthesized piano notes and a rhythmic percussion that was stereotypically post-disco. Viktor didn’t hate it. Actually, he liked “Islands in the Stream.” He let it wash over him, warm as bath water, and faintly sang along. Jayce watched, endeared, as Viktor reclined against the armrest with his joint like a dame having a cheeky cigarette and curled his toes in bliss. With his oversized shirt and uncombed hair, he was the picture of relaxation.

He looked so ordinary, so beautifully simple, that it beguiled Jayce to stand up and hold out a cajoling hand. Sheepish but smiling, Viktor scraped out his joint in the ashtray on the side table—and proper one this time—and went for his cane.

“Leave it,” Jayce said. “I have you.”

There was something about how he used have and not got that made Viktor’s chest flutter. A small but enormous distinction. The latter felt brief, momentary, while the former felt enduring, a possession and obligation that existed always. And he knew then, as he took Jayce’s hand, that there was nothing to fear. They would dedicate themselves to staying like this. To hell with the rest.

Jayce pulled Viktor up and looped an arm around his waist as seamlessly as when he had carried him off to bed. In doing so, he also lifted him off the ground to place his feet on top of his own, an aid to guide him through the art of slow dancing. Viktor wasn’t much of an aficionado.

Nevertheless, the pads of their fingers traced the grooves of their palms, committing each one to memory, before clasping together. Then they rocked to the chorus as gently as a cradle.

Islands in the stream
That is what we are
No one in between
How can we be wrong?
Sail away with me
To another world
And we rely on each other, ah ha
From one lover to another, ah ha

Viktor, adrift in the romance of it all, laid his head against Jayce’s chest. Despite what many believed, he wasn’t completely impenetrable. Being loved by someone was the greatest prize one could hope to have. Being loved by Jayce, though, was heaven.

“Viktor?”

Viktor hummed a response, his eyes closed and luxuriating. Jayce’s voice dampened to a whisper.

“I don’t think I can take being this happy.”

Viktor withdrew from his sanctuary to look at him, a man who, indeed, had not known happiness in a very long time. It was a delicate and fragile bird, and he was afraid of causing harm if he dared to touch it, the same trepidation he had worn on his wedding day. Torn, unsure. Viktor was empathetic. He hadn’t really known happiness either since Jayce had strayed out of orbit. Life was a cold and lonely desert when he wasn’t near.

To lighten the mood, Viktor pretended to fix an imaginary tie around Jayce’s neck as he had done to calm him years ago. Go on, it had said back then. They’re waiting for you. Anything else would have been selfish and a detriment. But when Viktor reenacted the pat that had rallied Jayce’s spirit, his hand remained, feeling his heart pounding underneath. Moved by the nostalgia of it, Jayce kissed Viktor as he had wanted to then, held him as he had wanted to.

And how grateful they were that Viktor had said yes to Jayce’s phone call.

 

—

 

They exiled themselves from the world and made love all weekend, on every surface, until they were sore. And even then, the hurt was sweet because it meant that they had been there before, again and again and again. The evidence was strewn everywhere. In the bundled and wrinkled sheets, in the puddles of clothes on the floor, in the phantom streaks imprinted on the shower door from parts pressed against the misted glass. It was in the air itself, perforating like a bawdy perfume. They would smell like each other for days.

It was a religious experience, a spiritual restoration, a sexual baptism. A perpetual cycle of surging and collapsing. Every whimper, pant, and moan breathed into feverish and bristled skin. Hands roaming, caressing, squeezing, gripping. Rough one minute then so tender the next that it was if their bodies were the horizon that joined the sky to the earth. And all the while they called each other gorgeous, wonderful things.

Jayce ended up being adventurous enough for the handcuffs—and therefore discovered that he was willing and obedient once they were on. Viktor did not squander the opportunity. He spoke to him like a tramp, teased him until the tendons in his restrained wrists flexed, and spanked his thighs here and there for bad behavior, which made him whine like a bitch in heat. Then, once he was riled up, Viktor released him from his cage, the room whirling as Jayce flipped him onto back and claimed him with ferocity, all gas and no brakes.

But whenever their gazes met, everything would slow, eyes expressing their thoughts as clearly as words.

Yes, they said. You’re the one.

 

—

Monday

—

 

“So, I know the space is a bit small,” the agent prefaced, the clacking of her heels echoing through the vacant studio apartment as she walked into its center, “but it’s got a lot of potential and includes all of your amenities. Dish washer, laundry on site, electric stove top. Decent location too. There’s restaurants all up and down the block and a public garden about five minutes away.”

Jayce surveyed the area, which took less than five seconds from how compact and minimal it was, and tried not to cringe. This was now their third stop, and he had drastically lowered his standards since the hunt had commenced. He didn’t even need to be impressed. Tolerable would have been enough. He glanced over at Viktor, who had submitted a vacation request so he could help broker a suitable deal. Viktor was a negotiator, knew how to haggle and play hard ball. Jayce, however, was a pushover.

Currently, Viktor was conducting his inspection by accordioning a closet door. It jammed on its hinges. Viktor turned to Jayce and discreetly shook his head while the agent was distracted, deeming this place another bust.

“You said you two won’t be here together, correct?” the agent asked.

“Uh, yes,” Jayce replied, flustered by the question and all it implied.

“I was going to say, probably not ideal for two but perfect for one.” She could sense that they weren’t persuaded, so she suggested an alternative. “There’s a one bedroom unit that’s available on the next floor up if you want to take a gander?”

Jayce doubted it would be much of an improvement.

“Yeah, sure. Can you give us a moment?”

“Of course.”

Once the agent had gone out into the hallway, Jayce unsheathed his disappointment. Viktor was the one who verbalized it when he scratched at the closet door, the paint chipping off, and said, “What a shit hole.”

Jayce scrubbed at his face and inhaled through his nose, annoyed and fed up. “I’m so over it.”

“You need a different agent. Surely there’s better out there.”

“With my price range and in this economy? Not likely.”

“You’re an engineer, Jayce.”

“In Boston, Viktor. Not Kakahookie, Indiana.”

“Is that real?”

“You’re missing the point.”

Viktor sighed. “Cancel the rest of your appointments.”

“Why?”

“You’re jumping in too fast and scrounging. Frankly, it’s depressing.”

“I kinda need something now.”

“Then stay with me for a while,” Viktor said, so nonchalantly that he might as well be discussing the stats of the last Red Sox game. “Until you get situated, that is,” he added. “Lowers the pressure.”

Jayce hesitated. It was a charitable proposition and not an unfamiliar arrangement, but seeing as how the last two days had been devoted to fucking each other stupid, there was a new context to consider. Viktor didn’t appear concerned in the slightest, which left Jayce uncertain as to how he should interpret it.

“I have all my shit in D.C.,” he said. “It won’t fit in your condo.”

“Get a storage unit. It’ll cost you nothing.”

Jayce let out an incredulous noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a chortle. “You don’t want me staying with you.”

On the contrary, Viktor was dead serious. He scowled at him for presuming otherwise. “I wouldn’t have proposed it if I didn’t.” He cooled himself, blithely sauntering away. “But if you’re so against it…”

“No,” Jayce hastily amended. “No, I’m not against it.”

“Then take the offer, Jayce.”

“Okay,” he said, a little breathless and nodding like a half-wit. Charmed, Viktor returned to him, standing flirtatiously close. He had to tilt his head up to get a proper view of him. Jayce was too weak to resist. Revving his engine was as easy as reciting the alphabet, and he was extra susceptible since Viktor had worn his hair in a bun that day, tendrils framing his face. He looked poetic, sophisticated, foxy, so Jayce twirled one around his finger. A wolfish aura emerged, darker than a forest before a storm.

“You know,” he drawled, “there’s a very sturdy counter over there.”

Viktor brought his lips to Jayce’s but hovered, not quite sealing them. “Way to make a girl feel special,” he said, then pushed him away, severing the tension. Good things came to boys who were patient. “Now go tell your agent that your frail and feeble friend isn’t feeling well and we’ll go to lunch.”

Inclined to that idea, Jayce darted off—but not before slapping Viktor’s ass and laughing when he yelped.

 

—

One week later

—

 

Jayce had arrived back in D.C. on Wednesday as planned. The dread of it had started trickling late Tuesday when he and Viktor had ordered takeout from a Mediterranean spot down the street, geared to kick back on the couch and watch The Fifth Element. A personal favorite of theirs. But once they sat down with their styrofoam containers and plasticware, the awareness of it being the last night of their unexpected holiday together soured Jayce’s appetite. He hardly touched his food, blaming it on an upset stomach.

It wasn’t a stretch. Jayce had developed stomach problems in recent years. Undoubtedly stress-induced. Viktor, having a pharmacy for a medicine cabinet, gave him two antacids and a Valium for some relief. Jayce passed right out and slept like a log. When he woke up in bed the next morning, he had no recollection of how he’d gotten there. Viktor had probably steered him half-conscious from the couch.

Jayce was careful not to disturb Viktor while he dressed and gathered his belongings, the sun still in slumber. But as he zipped his suitcase, he heard sheets rustling.

“No goodbye, then?”

Jayce went like gravity, heeding the summons. He crawled over to his drowsy angel and kissed him on the temple, whispering, “I’ll be back soon, okay? I’ll text you when I can.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Jayce had taken a few more antacids for the road, chewing them like candy. Unfortunately nothing could mitigate the knot that formed as soon as he saw the sign welcoming him to Maryland. When he got to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, stalled in the normal stand-still traffic, his knees wouldn’t quit bouncing. It just underscored how much he didn’t belong here. Had never belonged.

Although he and Mel were officially separated, both of them co-inhabiting the same apartment as single people until Jayce could devise an exit strategy, he felt ashamed coming home to her knowing how he had spent his time in Boston. She could probably tell from the moment he stepped through the door. Her intuition could be that sharp. It was a necessary quality to have when you were persecuting white-collar crooks all day long.

Nevertheless, Mel asked Jayce how his trip went and he kept it short, not mentioning Viktor once. Perhaps avoiding it exposed him more than being upfront about them going to dinner. He guessed it didn’t matter. Mel had reading him down to a science. As Viktor had said, he was an awful liar. Deception was impossible.

But Jayce reminded himself that, technically, whatever he and Mel did away from each other in private was neither of their business anymore. It was a clause in their peace treaty.

That night, though, they sat down and had yet another difficult conversation, one of many in an ongoing series. Jayce disclosed that he had found an apartment and put down a deposit, which wasn’t a total fabrication. Mel was satisfied to hear it. Didn’t ask where, though. Not elated, not pleased, because what was there to celebrate in the failure of their marriage? She had never failed at anything other than this.

Jayce said that he just needed a couple days to get organized. Rent a truck, pack his stuff, get a storage unit and a trailer hitch for his car. His notice period was scheduled for another two weeks, but he could send any files and projects virtually. They didn’t need him onsite and had been understanding that he was in the process of moving states.

Mel agreed to the terms. Not that she wouldn’t have. She, like Jayce, wanted a conclusion to their misery. They couldn’t continue treading on as they were. It was too taxing and tiresome.

In the meantime, Jayce opened and sustained a line of communication with Viktor, texting him regularly but most often in the evenings. Viktor, in retaliation for the Vicky comment, had changed Jayce’s contact name to Jackie.

Jackie: I miss you.
Vicky: I don’t.
Jackie: You’re a brat.
Jackie: Too bad I like it tho.
Jackie: Is your ex there? Tell him to wash my underwear.
Vicky: Yeah we’re talking about what a douchebag you are.
Vicky: And how much I miss you too.
Jackie: lol, I’ll see you Saturday.

On Saturday, Jayce picked up the rental truck and almost popped a blood vessel trying to parallel park it on the street, shouting curses that would’ve had a sailor blushing. D.C. congestion was the bane of his existence. He had also hired movers to handle the larger loads since hauling furniture down three flights of stairs solo was unfeasible. Mel had volunteered her assistance but he didn’t wish to trouble her, so she made herself scarce, conducting litigation meetings from their bedroom.

Well, her bedroom now.

When she finally took a break, she came out into the living room with her cardigan wrapped around her. Barefoot and beautiful, her thick braids coiled up on her head. It was still a mystery how Jayce had managed to win her, even if it was fleeting.

She stopped and stood in a space that was emptier, grieving the loss of each missing piece.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce said, in the midst of filling up a box, and the apology was bottomless. “It’s taking longer than I thought.”

“No need to rush.”

“Do you, uh, want that lamp?” Jayce nodded towards the one on an end table and Mel waved a dismissive hand that told him it was free to have. As he added it to the box, Mel said, “You’re staying with Viktor, then?”

The way Jayce froze was revealing.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, no use hiding it anymore. “Temporarily.”

Mel nodded, reconciling with it, and crossed her arms like she was clinging to herself. Then she sniffed and brushed away a tear that had slid down her cheek.

Jayce felt horrible. He stood to console her. It was the least he could do.

“Mel—”

“I’m fine. Just a little sad is all.”

“I know,” Jayce said gently, aligned with her sentiment.

She sniffed again, reassembling herself, and looked at him with fondness. “Despite everything, I will miss you.”

Jayce wasn’t prepared for their goodbye to be so excruciating, but he supposed that’s how it went when you were leaving a part of yourself behind. A person who you were once stricken for, who you had shared laughter and heartache and vows with. A wife, the mother of his child—who would have been born into love. They would always be bonded in that regard, never to forget. Perhaps when they saw a little boy or girl with honey eyes and caramel skin running and squealing through a park or grocery store, they would think about each other. That, in another life, that child would have been theirs.

Neither of them could regret that.

Jayce hugged Mel first but she was already unraveling to him. They mourned and nurtured for a while. Cried together and for one another. Jayce hoped that they could be friends, as they were meant to be.

“You’re going to be great, Mel,” he said. “Greater than you are now. I’ll be waiting for you to become the Attorney General.”

Mel chuckled. “My mother would eat that up, I’m sure.” She pulled back but kept a hold of Jayce’s arms. “Jayce. Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Take care of each other.”

 

—

Saturday night

—

 

There was a knock at the door.

Viktor should have been more embarrassed by how quickly he scrambled for his cane and sprung up from the couch but couldn’t find it in himself to care. He did, however, don a cavalier mask as he opened the door to Jayce standing in the hall. He wouldn’t want to inflate his ego by exhibiting how much he had been anticipating him. He’d never hear the end of it.

Jayce had a box tucked under his wing, having just gotten back from traveling all over hell’s half acre to drop his things at the storage unit and return his rental. The box contained only a lamp.

“Got you a replacement,” Jayce said, thinking himself clever.

Viktor’s guise broke. It wasn’t that strong to begin with. He smiled and grabbed Jayce’s collar, bringing him inside, and they both knew, in an honest part of themselves, that once the door shut, there would be no new apartment for Jayce. He wasn’t going anywhere else.

And so he didn’t.

 

—

 

Ending credit music <3

That’s it folks! Happy endings for all. Hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you (maybe??) on the next one.

(For anyone wondering about the Kenny Rogers reference, it's from the Kenny Rogers Dairy Challenge Mad TV skit lmao.)