Chapter Text
Just finish this paragraph. Viktor tells himself. Just this one paragraph, then take a break. His body refused to comply, though, his fingers cramping and stiffening above the keyboard of his laptop. With one more frustrated sigh, he turns to look out the small window he’s sitting next to. It’s still raining, but he hadn’t noticed how dark it had gotten outside.
“We should wrap up.” Jayce is stretching his arms above his head from across the table they’re at, and it looks like he’s stifling a yawn. “The library is closing soon.”
“Library doesn’t close until midnight on Wednesdays, right?” Viktor retorts, but moves to finish up his routine anyway.
“Two A.M. And it’s…” Jayce glances at his phone. “1:46.”
“Oh.” Viktor double checks that his work is saved before powering the laptop down for the night, coiling up the charger with a sigh and organizing his bag to his liking. He supposes it must have been nearing six hours since he’d begun his coffee-fueled study session, and Jayce had only joined around eleven. Certainly several hours too many for standing to be anywhere near comfortable, and when Viktor hisses in a breath as he stands, Jayce’s eyes shoot up to meet his own with a frustratingly sympathetic gaze.
“Hey, why don’t I go pull up the car?” He offers, eyes flicking to Viktor’s hands as they crack and pop more than the average person’s should. “Only one of us has to be rained on, and I’m going to want to run for it anyway. Wanna wait by the door?” Viktor is too tired to protest and can’t argue much with the logic, so with a nod, Jayce is hurrying to the exit, keys in hand.
Three years ago, he would’ve disapproved of his own acceptance of a personal chauffeur. However, Viktor could only deny the convenience for so long, and not much time had passed before Jayce had become his closest friend.
He’d noticed the man between the first classes he began taking alongside his doctoral research, often lingering in the engineering buildings as well as himself. Viktor took embarrassingly long to realize that he not only lived in the same apartment complex as the man, but only four doors down the hall, and he had tried to avoid any awkward conversation when they occasionally crossed paths in the complex. After only a single semester of taking the bus to campus, though, he’d received a near-inaudible knock at his door one morning to find a sheepish Jayce. He’d introduced himself – of course, Viktor had figured out his name by then – and mentioned that they often went to the same campus building in the mornings.
“We do.” Viktor had said, cautious.
“Well, um, I know the bus system is kind of terrible here, and, sorry, I don’t mean to overstep, but – I mean, it’s never on time. It’s nice out now, but when it gets colder, it’ll just get worse.” Viktor had raised an eyebrow at that. “...Uh, I was just thinking, do you want to just come in my car with me in the mornings? It’s cool if not, but I thought I’d offer, since, you know, same building.” Jayce had looked almost nervous, eyes flickering above and behind Viktor.
“Hm…” Viktor hadn’t been able to decipher the gesture; it was early in the morning and his brain was lagging from the closer look at the man. Figuring he didn’t seem the axe murderer type, he’d conceded. “That is… quite thoughtful of you. Sure. Thank you.”
Although it was a bit awkward at first, they had soon learned to casually exist within each other’s space, complaining about similar coursework and research requirements. When the weather had indeed become cold and disgustingly unpleasant to stand in, Viktor was twice as thankful for the carpooling arrangement. After the semester had ended and they no longer went to exactly the same building in the mornings, Jayce had insisted upon driving Viktor to campus anyway – it was still quite cold in the first few weeks, after all, and he’d ‘needed the motivation to get to the lab before class.’
Beyond that point, it was simply a habit for them to travel together, and Viktor had been endlessly grateful for both the accommodation and the companionship.
Now, Viktor mindlessly toys with a lightened lock of his hair at his shoulders, looking into the rainy darkness for a red hatchback. Their friendship has certainly developed as any would over the course of three years, but the past one or two months have felt particularly… vulnerable? Viktor wonders whether it’s due to their approaching proximity to final deadlines and he’s becoming sentimental, and secretly, but desperately, hopes it’s not because he’s somehow forgotten a night of blackout drunkenness in which he’d confessed his beyond-platonic affection for his friend.
The car pulling up to the curb caught his attention, and Viktor sucks in a breath before facing the few feet of outdoors he had to endure before getting into Jayce’s car. Jayce is nearly soaking wet, his hair dripping onto his shoulders and shirt damp, but there isn’t a hint of dissatisfaction on his expression beyond a lingering fatigue. “Thanks.” Viktor murmurs, looking away from the man’s seemingly endless smiles.
The drive back to the complex is fairly quiet, save for the barely audible radio and humming engine of the car. Viktor is thankful for their shared understanding that their energy is far too depleted for meaningful conversation, and shortly, they’ve pulled into the parking lot. With a sigh, Viktor opens the car door and hoists himself out using his cane, wincing as the rain hits his head for a few moments as he gets under the awning of the entrance. Jayce isn’t far behind him, and they quietly wait for the elevator.
Jayce is perfectly capable of taking the stairs to the third floor, but he rarely ever does, instead electing to wait with Viktor in either comfortable silence or engrossed conversation. Viktor appreciates the company at the end of the day, and besides, it saves them both from the awkward re-farewell if they cross paths once again on the third floor.
Viktor really should be living on the first floor, but his scholarship funds and savings were scarce, and the apartment was the best option for both transportation and proximity to campus. The elevator dings as it arrives, and the two of them step inside.
“You should go to sleep instead of working yourself to death tonight,” Jayce says, breaking the silence as they slowly ascend. “If a bigger storm is coming tonight, then the roads will be shitty in the morning. We should leave a little earlier than usual.” He yawns as he finishes speaking. “Plus, the work will be there in the morning.” He adds.
“Hm, no promises.” Viktor hears and silently condemns the weariness in his own voice as he approaches the door to his apartment.
—☆—
Jayce hears the clicking of Viktor’s keys hitting the door as he walks down the hall to his own apartment, and tries not to listen closely to the door closing and locking. His thesis doesn’t feel nearly stable enough, his research barely clinging to its requirements, but he’s trying to keep his head up and not infect their shared workspace with his stress. Viktor keeps reassuring him that his work is well-constructed, and their shared nights of research truly have helped them both, but the sheer mass of the responsibility feels extra daunting during the gloomy part of the year.
Exhaustion is hitting Jayce quickly as he kicks his shoes off and locks his door behind him. He gets into his sleep clothes and collapses into bed as soon as he’s completely sure that his alarm is set for the next morning. The comfort of the mattress and blankets are helping to ease his body, but some depraved part of his mind deeply frets over Viktor getting to sleep comfortably. Did he take something for his pain when he got home? Would he push himself and hunch over his own desk to keep working all night, or would he take Jayce’s advice and get some rest? Probably not. The anxiety keeps him awake until he reinforces the thought that it’s… simply not his business.
The next morning, Jayce is holding two travel mugs of coffee at the door of Viktor’s apartment, work bag balanced precariously on one shoulder and starting to slip off. Viktor opens the door a moment later than he usually would, admittedly looking exhausted. Clearly not wanting to bother with contacts, his rarely-debuted glasses balance on the bridge of his nose, and Jayce swallows down a comment about how they compliment his features. He briefly thinks to the night before, when Viktor wasn’t able to avoid the rain entirely between the buildings and the car. His long hair was dampened, waving at the ends, and the blonde strands tucked under layers of brown and auburn but poking out under his chin had looked almost light brown. Jayce tries not to think about the image too much as he hands a mug to his barely-standing companion. “Thank you for this.” Viktor murmurs.
“You didn’t go to sleep, did you?”
“Let’s just go.”
The car ride is indeed slow as predicted, but other drivers are being far too cautious for the weather conditions at hand. “It’s a good thing we left early today.” Jayce comments, mostly to himself. He anxiously taps his fingers on the steering wheel, refraining from going for the radio. After three years of friendship, he still doesn’t know what Viktor listens to – save for the few times he’s seen him in a casual band t-shirt, though the names were typically in a language undecipherable to him. The designs seemed fairly alternative in nature, but he figures it’s simply personal to some, and doesn’t pry. Jayce does, however, truly just want to know.
Though they only live four doors apart, he’s never seen the inside of Viktor’s apartment aside from what he could see from behind the slightly open door here and there. From what he’s gathered of the front room and living area, there are a few scattered plants on various surfaces and more books than can fit on the shelves, but the lighting was always far too dim to see much. Viktor, however, has been inside of Jayce’s apartment dozens of times, accepting an invitation for a cup of tea or sitting on the couch while Jayce nearly runs them late looking for a textbook, or his phone, or his keys, or… well, sometimes, they had longer mornings. Someday, he’ll see how Viktor lives, he supposes.
Finally reaching the far end of campus, Jayce stops at the nearest curb to the front door of the building. Viktor takes a moment to get out, but always says thank you. “See you later.” Jayce says, and begins his drive to the parking lot closest to the laboratory. He’s currently probably three semesters from truly finishing his biomedical engineering PhD, but he sometimes couldn’t imagine how his courseload could possibly get worse than this. Luckily, his only class of the day is a class on tissue engineering – while not his best class, it’s an interesting class with a good instructor. Closing his car door and approaching the laboratory, he mentally compartmentalizes the thoughts of Viktor’s apartment.
Viktor is in a lecture, a biopharmaceutical production class. He is certainly… well, in attendance, at least. He’s supposed to be taking notes and paying close attention at this point in the semester, but really, he can afford to stress it later – Jayce is better at this kind of thing anyway, and could surely fill him in on whatever gaps he has in his notes. Currently, he’s busy typing like his life depends on it, on a mental streak of clarity with his research paper. His thoughts are in the mindset of a specific conversion that needed to be completed over a dozen times, and he couldn’t afford to lose the train of thought – especially not when the data was lining up just how he needed it to.
A notification appears at the bottom corner of Viktor’s screen, indicating that he’s received a new e-mail. He tries to ignore it – hence the flowstate – but he’s filtered everything out of his notifications that isn’t of utmost importance. He takes one last look at everything in his document, saving it once, twice, then three times, and opens his e-mail inbox as the instructor drones on. The subject of the e-mail reads IMPORTANT FINANCE NOTICE, and his blood goes cold. It was nearing midterm season, nowhere near the point in which it was time to settle the financial ins-and-outs of his scholarships and tuition. Taking one last glance at the presentation in front of him and taking a deep breath, he wrings his suddenly clammy hands together before clicking on the e-mail.
Good morning, Viktor!
Unfortunately, your scholarship funds have been reduced to $8,000 a semester. Due to consolidation within the university,
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING
is reducing funding in its
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
area. Due to your financial standing, the university is no longer able to accommodate your tuition. This change takes effect at the end of the Spring semester and will not honor exceptions at the point of the Fall semester. If you have any questions, please contact the Bursar’s office.
Fuck.
He reads it over and over again, reads the number, – eight? – he waits for an e-mail stating that it was all a horrible typo. Viktor checks his credentials with the university online and… the text on the website reads that his scholarship has indeed been reduced to 8 grand. A measly 8 grand. His nearly full-ride scholarship was over five times that, thanks to the resource-heavy university’s laboratories. Letting out a bated breath, Viktor simply closes his e-mail inbox, suddenly self-conscious about his classmates finding his financial distress shameful, even though the nearest student is several feet away and probably wouldn’t notice Viktor’s presence if he seized and dropped dead.
He, perhaps neurotically, saves his research document a fourth time and closes that too, since no way he’s focused enough to get anything done now. He stares blankly at the presentation, lost in thought. What the actual fuck will he do about rent? Between his literal life’s savings and pitiful government disability check, he’d be barely able to cover a single class with this financial standing – let alone the resources for his research. Well, he thinks, he had wanted to look at living somewhere cheaper with the rising cost of rent in his complex. Maybe somewhere on the ground floor, so that he doesn’t have to walk to the other end of the building for the secondary elevator when the primary one is broken. One with a good bus route, he thinks, before his stomach drops. Although the deluded optimism was sure not to last more than another thirty seconds anyway, the thought of having to sever his close proximity to Jayce and their daily commute was suddenly sickening. Viktor had already realized that he’d probably have to move away after graduation anyways, but that was supposed to be another year away.
The instructor finally concludes, and he snaps out of his thoughts. Closing his laptop with a sigh, he waits for others to file from the lecture hall before making his departure and decides at that moment to head straight home. He had to make some calls and figure some shit out. He’s supposed to be a TA for a metal composition course in about an hour, but the university was accommodating enough to allow optional remote work days. He typically didn’t feel as though remotely assisting such a course was appropriate, but his distaste for the university’s administration in general at the moment overshadows any potential guilt.
-going home early, taking the bus so don’t wait up
he texts Jayce, and the typing animation shows almost immediately.
-Everything ok?
-fine
-OMW
It’s too late to stop Jayce now, Viktor thinks with a sigh. He knows the man well enough to know that there is no changing his mind at this point, and he was probably already in his car. Based on the time, Viktor tries to reassure himself with the fact that Jayce had likely just been killing time in the lab anyways.
As expected, the red hatchback is pulling up to the curb in no time at all. Viktor must not be hiding his sour mood well despite his efforts, because when he settles into the passenger seat, Jayce looks anxious. “Hey, Viktor.” He says cheerily, but his face betrays him.
“Hi. Don’t you have class?” Viktor tries to keep his voice neutral, asking even though he knows the answer.
“No, that one meets on Fridays. I was just wrapping up in the lab anyway.” The drive back to the complex is quiet for a while.
“…Is everything okay?” Jayce finally breaks the silence as they approach the entrance road. Viktor sighs. He can’t play it off like everything’s fine, and he knows that making Jayce drop it will make him think that it’s personal and just stress him out more.
“The university has decided to… gut my scholarship. I’m going to have to potentially look at other schools. Move apartments.”
“Wait, what?!” Jayce has just put the car in park at the complex. Luckily, the slip of the rainy asphalt has evaporated, but the clouds still loom above them, and Viktor frowns out the window. “We’ll figure something out! Hold on, come inside.” They make their way to the elevator as Jayce rattles off all the departments he knows to call, about how there’s got to be some mistake, and if not, there must be some loophole, something. When they pass Viktor’s apartment, Jayce’s eyes flicker to the door, but his pace barely falters and leads the two of them inside his own. Viktor isn’t entirely in the mood to exist in a social setting, or really any setting outside from under his covers in bed, but he feels bad for taking Jayce away from his research just to sulk in the guy’s car.
“Okay, you sit, I’m going to call someone and make some tea." He sits, stretching his legs out, and vaguely listens to the sound of the tea kettle being filled with water. When Jayce makes a phone call, Viktor elects to tune out and check his own phone, fingertip nervously tracing a scratch in the screen that’s starting to look closer to a crack. He checks his e-mail again, refreshing the page twice, and tries not to physically prickle at the sound of Jayce’s voice becoming slightly frantic. No new e-mails. He refreshes the page a third time, just in case the first two were somehow insufficient.
A few minutes later, Jayce sighs as he puts a steaming mug on the coffee table, right next to where his legs are propped. “It’s not a mistake. They lost their biggest sponsor and need to pull funding. It’s the whole department’s scholarship program, and they're hitting the fully- and mostly-funded ones first.”
“...So they are only downsizing those without rich grandparents.” Viktor muses, though his stomach is sinking.
“I’m really sorry, Viktor, this is such… ugh. We’ll figure something out.” Jayce sits on the other end of the couch, looking at him like it was his own funding that was revoked.
“I don’t know what there is to figure out. With my rent paid and my remaining scholarship funding, say, a single class at a time, I would have nowhere near enough money left over to even begin considering funding my research.” Jayce’s eyebrows raise for a moment, and Viktor is sure to stifle the spark before it can catch alight. “Before you even say it, neither you nor any of your… sponsors are putting a dime into my degree. And for your information, I am not going to campus and grading essays for fun. There is no point in supplemental classes if I have no research.”
Jayce’s expression slowly falters as he decides against protesting the sentiment, and they sit in disappointed silence for a moment. “Okay,” He says as Viktor takes a sip of tea, suppressing a wince as the liquid singes his tongue. “Okay, let’s look at this differently, then!”
Viktor raises an eyebrow. “How do you suggest we look at it?”
“You have to promise to hear me out, I’m just thinking aloud here,” Jayce pleads. Viktor reluctantly nods. “How long do you have to figure something out?”
“Realistically, by May, I only have the rest of this semester.”
“So three-ish months. You only have, what, two more semesters to get through, right?”
“That was the plan, yes. Where are you heading with this?” Viktor tilts his head, and Jayce sighs.
“You said you’d hear me out!” He puts up his hands in mock surrender, gesturing for the man to continue. “Okay, so… what if you lived somewhere cheaper? Would you be able to push through the last bit?”
“Perhaps I would in theory, I would have to look at some things. I don’t know if there’s anywhere cheap enough to make that work within a reasonable distance, though. I was planning on looking online when I got home.” Jayce started smiling as soon as he had started talking, and by now, he’s grinning.
“You don’t have to go anywhere! I don’t use the spare for an office anymore, it’s tiny – you know that, since you have the same unit, same floor plan,” He laughs nervously, “But we could make it work for a year! If you split your rent in half and just moved in with me for a little bit, that’s got to be at least enough of a solution to buy you time, right?”
Viktor pauses, letting out a long sigh he doesn't realize he's holding. “Um,” He clears his throat. “I don’t know, Jayce.” He must have been frowning, because the inflection of Jayce’s voice as he replies reminds him of a tone that one would take to coax a stray cat into a cage.
“Just think about it for a second! Would that, theoretically, buy you time?” Viktor does think about it, just for a moment. Rent was indeed the most intense of his expenses, and theoretically saving the extra near thousand dollars a month would fund his research for at least another semester. His classes are another story, but he entertains the idea. In reality, though, this is the concept of moving in with Jayce. There is simply no way that this could feasibly work. In another context, his dreams perhaps, his chest wouldn’t feel frigid at the idea, but living with someone you occasionally find yourself staring at longingly sounds… uncomfortable. He sips on his tea, thankful that it’s cooled down.
“I don’t know, Jayce, I believe I would be a hassle to live with. I particularly avoid ‘roommate’ situations, as my way of life is quite different than most.” Viktor finally settles on saying, careful not to offend Jayce.
“Oh, come on, I’ve seen you so beyond sleep deprived after ten hours at a folding table in the library. I can handle your way of life.” Viktor remembers the time he’s referring to. He’d left a textbook in Jayce’s car that morning, texting him during the day that he’d be in a campus laboratory that evening and to not bother driving; he’d be home later to pick up the textbook and join him for a vigorous study session. Little did he know, that was several hours ago, and he’d never returned home to answer his door – nor had he replied to any of Jayce’s texts throughout the evening. Jayce had discovered him in a near-pitch black corner of the library, sixty-three pages into an outline and, frustratingly, entirely startled to see his friend.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jayce had said. “I should have known you would be here. You worried the hell out of me.” Standing up and walking to the exit had proven to be far more difficult than Viktor had anticipated, and Jayce never once persisted in trying to offer assistance as they left the library at a snail’s pace, essentially supporting the entirety of the other’s weight – all the while, Viktor’s sarcastic remarks had never ceased. Of course, he had appreciated the gesture, but the halt in his workflow had been irritating nonetheless.
“I can be a lot worse than irritated, Jayce.” Despite the fact that he was telling the truth, and that it was a horrible idea for his mental health, he's still secretly mulling over the idea. Jayce’s apartment was always clean, slightly messy at times from simple disorganization but never cluttered or truly dirty. Whether he’d be a good housemate might be entirely up in the air, but Viktor is starting to tally the pros and cons in his head.
“That’s to be expected when living with people, right? Like, you’re not always going to be socially perfect. I’ve had a few roommates and it’s always ended up fine, though. Seriously.” Viktor takes another long second to sip his tea… he did have another few months to truly figure something out before it was too late, and the leasing manager was an incredibly kind and helpful woman. Surely it wouldn’t be too much trouble to simply switch his credentials from one lease to the next… He was getting ahead of himself.
“I sleepwalk and occasionally try to, eh, strangle people.” Viktor says, deadpanning as steam dissipates from his still-warm tea. Jayce’s expression doesn’t even falter, catching the joke immediately where others would have become awkward in his presence. He knows you too well.
“That’s fine. I’ve been told I punch when I sleepwalk, so hopefully we’ll both survive those nights.” Viktor, against his better judgement, can’t help but smile at the banter, pulling his knees up to his chest on the couch and turning to more properly face Jayce.
“I take really, really long hot showers, and you won’t be able to get anything but cold water. I am not giving those up.” Viktor squints facetiously, but Jayce was quick to reply.
“I already take cold showers. It’s refreshing in the morning.” He’s smiling like Viktor has actually agreed to this, but Viktor doesn’t want to kill his optimism and can’t help but entertain it.
“You are a psychopath. There’s no way you truly enjoy a cold shower in the morning.”
“...I mean, they can’t be that bad.” Jayce admits sheepishly, and Viktor sighs, running a hand over his face. He drinks more of his tea, inspecting his surroundings more thoroughly. He recognizes a few texts on a shelf, mentally appreciating the good taste, glances at the neatly lined up pairs of shoes near the door.
“If you are truly offering…” He starts.
“I am.” Jayce sounds completely genuine, and Viktor feels something twinge in his chest.
“I will… think about it. There is time.” He stretches his legs back out, grabbing his cane and taking his now-empty mug to the sink – a slight excuse to check out the layout of his kitchen, which is, of course, organized and in good taste – before going to the door. “Thank you for your offer and the tea, Jayce. But you should think it over too, truly.”
“I’m serious, Viktor. I… I want to help you. I mean it. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow.” Viktor offers a small smile before closing the apartment door behind him.
—☆—
That night, Jayce eats his reheated pasta in silence, stewing in his thoughts in lieu of his usual television habit. The remote lay abandoned on the coffee table where he’d left it the night before, and the thought of starting a TV show with Viktor wanders into his mind. He thinks about finding a compromise between their tastes, he thinks of arguing when the other watches an episode without waiting up. The domesticity is almost maddening to think about, and he has to take a deep breath before taking another bite. A strange fantasy of spending even a moment in the living room of Viktor’s apartment was abandoned for a hungrier, more intoxicating one of rolling back their morning routine by an hour or two; a fantasy of starting their days together sooner than usual, of shared commute marking the end of their mornings together rather than being the entirety of them.
It was, he has to remind himself as he takes his plate to the sink, just a fantasy. Viktor’s hesitation to even consider the idea was nearly palpable, and he doesn’t blame him. The day had likely been more overwhelming than Jayce can imagine, but his own desperation to fix was never easy to quell. Of course, he wants Viktor’s scholarships to be reinstated far more than he pitifully wants to share his company, but for now, he allows himself to indulge in the fantasy. Was it inappropriate to think about during such a time of agonizing distress for the other man? Absolutely. Could Jayce help himself from thinking about sharing one too many drinks and ending up on his living room floor as the rug pushes uncomfortably into their skin? Absolutely not.
With a dramatic groan, he gets to washing his plate, ever the meticulous and (mostly) organized. If the brief glimmers in Viktor’s eyes as they laughed at the idea of sharing a home meant anything, – and Jayce didn’t get his hopes up, – then this would either be the best or the worst choice of his life.
Chapter 2
Summary:
ok so i did lie, i'm probably gonna update more than weekly. hopefully.
again, the future outline is still rough, so feedback is rly appreciated! i'm thinking about, when it comes to the right point, offering 2 or 3 different ways in which the story could go, and letting commenters decide. we'll see! i hope you enjoy this chapter, and please, don't mind the grammatical errors ;u;
also just imagine viktor's t-shirt later on is like evanescence or something idk i'm giving the reader creative liberty with the music stuff
Chapter Text
Two months later, the semester is crawling to a close, and Jayce can tell from afar that Viktor’s research is getting sloppy. At this point, he’s attended countless hearings, virtual meetings, made as many phone calls and sent as many e-mails as he could, but his financial situation had refused to budge. Although Viktor’s research is another year from any significant deadlines, Jayce can’t help but notice when he finds himself rushing through procedures, trying to squeeze every drop out of the university’s laboratory resources in case it was his last.
Viktor has also been spending more time in Jayce’s apartment than he typically would, and Jayce refuses to allow himself the possibility that he was trying to get used to the idea of living together – just in case. It was only a week ago now that they’d decided to share a drink in his living room after a long Friday, and one drink had turned into three, which had eventually turned into five. “It’s actually not that much smaller than the bedroom.” Jayce had remarked as they stood in the doorway of the empty office space.
“I’m getting another drink.” Viktor murmured in response before making his way back to the kitchen – was Jayce just one drink ahead of him, or two? “You had Heimerdinger?” He called from the living room.
Jayce had made his way back into the living space and noticed the book that Viktor was holding. “Just for a semester, yeah. I really liked his recommended readings, I think there are a few more from him, um… somewhere.”
“I was his TA for two semesters. Two. His input is always insightful, but…” Viktor had laid across Jayce’s couch, his button-down wrinkling with the movement. “Grading the work he assigned was miserable.” He carded through the pages of the book lazily, squinting at certain pages.
Jayce’s breath had caught in his throat for a moment, then two, so he’d elected to stand in front of the bookcase. “I can imagine,” He’d muttered, thinking about his sub-par work. “I was usually too tired to produce anything meaningful for that class. I did really enjoy it, though. I think that’s why I got so much slack.”
“Do you have that one that was the, eh… something field production? By the Scientologist?” Viktor had asked, a mischievous smile across his lips.
“No, I don’t think I have that one,” Jayce had laughed, though he did recall the text. “Heimerdinger definitely has some… eccentric tastes.”
Viktor had already begun standing up by the time he’d fished his keys out of his pocket and crooked a finger at Jayce, motioning for him to follow. Wordlessly, he’d followed with a swirling heat in the pit of his stomach at the gesture as they’d stopped at Viktor’s apartment, and although he elected not to turn the lights on, Jayce had finally been able to see a sliver of the other man’s living space. The plants he’d caught a glimpse of before seemed to be in good health, and Viktor muttered to himself as he sorted through a pile of well-loved books. As he’d dug around, Jayce had looked around with his eyes alone, noticing a CD tower holding a bigger collection than he’d ever seen. Sitting atop the shelf near its player was a CD case with a barely-readable script, and Jayce had burned the image into his mind, hoping he wasn’t too drunk to remember it later.
“This one!” Viktor had suddenly exclaimed, raising the only book in pristine condition above his head. “Heimerdinger made me buy it for the course, it’s complete madness, look, here.”
Thankfully, Jayce did end up finding the album online a few days later when he’d remembered that he’d seen it, finding the music to be somehow both shocking and entirely unsurprising: Viktor was, as he’d learned over the years, an incredibly complex person. He certainly had a hard shell, at times an abrasive attitude, but he wasn’t that much of a strict conformist. In fact, he had the tendency to be quite the rule-breaker, often finding himself in numerous complex affairs with the university’s moral standings. Still, it was thrilling to have access to such a small but intimate sliver of information about the man, and Jayce had listened to what he’d discovered to be a hardcore, somewhat experimental album from front to back by the time he’d seen Viktor next. Of course, he would never indicate his knowledge, but in just a few weeks, he’d gathered little bits of information that painted a fuller picture of the person he was finding himself nearing obsessed with.
Currently, they’re huddled up in a lab together, watching as Jayce’s hand-crafted mechanism works... Until it doesn’t. “There’s too much pressure on the arm. Distributing it to the base puts too much heat on the power source, and adding another cooling solution on top of the redistributed weight would make it more of a paper weight than a surgical tool.” Jayce sighs at its third failure.
Viktor is wordless, humming in recognition but eyes lost in a dozen reworkings of the formulas in front of them. “What if you… hmm.” He murmurs something in his native language, and they sit in another long pause. “Would you be able to push funding for, say, a thermoelectric cooler? I know it is simply a prototype and not meant to truly function, but if you were to shift most of the weight of the power source to, eh,” He gestures to an area closer to the joint of the mechanism than he’d once considered would work, but hadn’t thought too hard about, “Somewhere throughout here, you would save the coolant space and balance the motion component. Perhaps, too, it would keep the cables from kinking at the bend…”
“That might work! Gods, I never would have thought of that.” He gets to writing, furiously chasing the thought process that followed before he lost it.
“No, no, certainly not in the way I described it,” Viktor doesn’t allow the praise and goes back to murmuring in his native language, scrawling something in his own notebook as he loses himself in thought. It’s remarkable to watch, Jayce thinks, almost like he’s working magic, the variables in his equations acting as vessels for the creation that was to come; his thought processes worked like spells, never overwriting, but enhancing Jayce’s own.
They both know that it’s not anywhere near a perfect solution, but it gets the gears turning in Jayce’s mind. They’ve been working a lot more collaboratively than usual, and it seems to be working out for both of them. They match each other's intellect, and not needing to slow the conversation for fundamental explanations is a privilege Jayce cherishes. He just wishes that Viktor would slow down on his own research and allow the same type of workflow for himself. Each time he takes a fresh look at Viktor’s work, it’s been half-gutted and mauled, forcing itself into a new position or angle that could be finished more quickly.
They work on the mechanism for a while longer, and the air grows stale until Jayce clears his throat awkwardly. “So.” He says, “It’s April.”
“Yes, it is. You are getting awfully good with your months, shall we revisit our shapes and colors?” Viktor muses, his concentration refusing to break as he finishes writing his train of thought.
“Oh, come on, you know I’ve mastered those.” Jayce smiles, hoping that he doesn’t immediately kill the mood in the next moment. “The semester is ending in like, three and a half weeks, and I was wondering if you’ve done any–”
“Yes, I have thought about your offer.” His hopes are crushed in an instant, but he pushes further.
“…So?”
“I really don’t know, Jayce. It’s an incredibly selfless offer, and of course I am endlessly grateful for your generosity.” Frustratingly, Viktor is still writing in his notebook. “But…”
“But?” Jayce presses, and he starts to think he’s pushing his luck when Viktor sighs.
“I really– it sounds like a bad idea.” He gives up his work for the moment, conceding to the vulnerable conversation – another situation that most certainly would not have happened this easily a year prior, perhaps even six months prior. “Have I told you anything about my…” Viktor gestures to his leg, sighing again as his eyes dart around the room.
“Umm, no. You don’t have t-”
“I have multiple sclerosis, and it, for lack of better words, fucking sucks. You would hate living with me.” If it weren't for the sudden intensity of the conversation, Jayce might have laughed at the sudden usage of profanity. His eyes meet Jayce’s for just a moment, and something akin to shame looks like it’s bubbling to the surface. “Sometimes I don't even leave my bed for an entire day.”
Jayce waits a minute before responding. “That’s fine,” He settles on, and mentally kicks himself when his voice comes out sounding nervous. “I won’t bother you if you need… isolation.”
They sit in a long silence. Jayce fidgets with his hands and tries to let Viktor control the conversation and waits for him to speak first, watching his expression and starting to feel unsure that it was the right choice until he responds. “Knowing I don’t realistically have any options for the time being, I should just say, sure, why not?” Another pause passes, and Jayce struggles between trying to make eye contact to show that he’s listening, and looking away to give Viktor the walls he needs around him. “But it makes me… uneasy. It’s not your fault, I just… I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t like to be seen.” Viktor makes eye contact again, just briefly, and Jayce lets out a breath.
He takes that as the end of the sentiment, but once again, struggles with formulating his response. “That makes sense. I… I’m not asking you to present yourself as anything you’re not. We don’t even have to talk to each other unless it’s necessary. I get that this is a lot to- well, I don’t get it, sorry, what I mean is that it makes sense that you’d-” He sighs, trying again. “We can just… coexist. I don’t mean to put any social pressure on you in a living space, but I think I understand why you would be apprehensive. Sorry, I shouldn’t have-” He clears his throat, suddenly wondering why he even brought it up in the first place. “The offer is always open, you don’t have to tell me anything. Unless you’re showing up to move in the next day. Or moving across the city.” He takes it as a victory when Viktor’s lips twitch into a small smile.
“You have my word.” He says, and when they simply move on without any lingering awkwardness in the air, Jayce reminds himself that it’s a privilege he does not take for granted.
—☆—
Time really is running out. Viktor knows he should just rip the band-aid off, so to speak; that he should just text Jayce a hurried see you around and disappear or something of the sort. But something indistinguishable from a selfish desire keeps pulling him back to the offer of co-living. Is it a perverted enticement? The warm comfort of companionship? No, he tells himself, it’s simply the best option he has in a horrible situation. He, however, really doesn’t want to interrupt Jayce’s way of living. He doesn’t want to fill his medicine cabinet with prescription bottles, to fill a quiet morning with the sound of metal clasps clicking against his skin.
Jayce deserves better than that, but he himself seems to be clouded by something that’s pushing him against his own better judgement. Jayce has to know that living together would be miserable, that it could – and likely would – destroy their very friendship as they know it. What that ‘something’ was, Viktor couldn’t possibly understand. Jayce has always been a very compassionate person from what he can tell, always willing to offer the clothes off his back to whoever was in need. That didn’t seem to be quite right, though, the motivations seemed altered, and Viktor couldn’t seem to decipher what could have possibly pushed the man into such a rash decision.
He tosses and turns in bed, his sheets too warm and leg cramping uncomfortably as he writhes. Glaring at his phone as the screen’s full brightness blasts him in the eyes, he groans at the time. 3:42 am. Eventually, Viktor sources his discomfort to his dry throat, reaching for his cup of water but finding it empty. He debates for a minute, gauging how dry his throat truly was, before he sighs and grabs his cane, lifting himself to his feet with a pained hiss. He shuffles to the kitchen, empty cup in hand, deciding against turning any lights on to avoid souring his mood further. When he reaches the kitchen, he props his cane against the counter, leaning against the edge as he lifts the faucet and fills the cup.
Lost in thought at this point, he drinks the entire cup, refills it, and starts to drink that one, too. Eventually, he decides that tomorrow, he will go to the leasing office. He won’t say he’s making any changes, won’t get his hopes up for anything, but he will inquire about the possibility. The clatter of his cane hitting the ground snaps him out of his thoughts, and he lets out a sound of annoyance as he bends down to pick it up. With his cup half-full, he heads back to bed at a snail’s pace, taking his sweet time as though retiring to the bed sealed his fate.
Two weeks later, Jayce’s mechanical arm is nearly fully functional, and it’s simply meant to be a prototype. Viktor is endlessly impressed. While a few models work in a similar manner to his own, Jayce’s own design implements a precision that’s yet to be seen with an entirely unique processing function. Watching his work come to life was indeed spectacular, although Viktor is entirely unsurprised in his awe. Within the first few days of their meeting, he might have been more blown away to see the capacity of Jayce’s mind, but Viktor had been happy to be proven wrong about Jayce’s intellect. He was, actually, the smartest man he’d ever met.
Viktor watches with fascination as Jayce’s hands, clearly built for a life of hard labor, delicately handle the machinery in a way that makes something stir in his stomach. At risk of creating an uncomfortable situation if he stares any longer, Viktor looks down to his notes as Jayce speaks. “I don’t know if it’ll stay calibrated long enough for a presentation.”
“Nonsense, it’s passed…” He looks down at his notes. Only half of the boxes that indicate success are checked. “Most of the trials.” Jayce raises an eyebrow, unconvinced by the tone of his voice. Viktor closes his notebook. “Let’s just… let the battery rest for a while and try again in, say, one hour?” With their proximity to the end of the semester, Viktor is not expecting Jayce to agree to the proposition without resistance, putting his notes into his bag without much exasperation.
They end up going outside for a much-needed breath of fresh air at Jayce’s suggestion, and it’s nicer outside than it has been in quite some time. It’s not too cold, but they do need their jackets. The sun warms the olive undertones of Jayce’s complexion, and he tries not to stare as his friend unconsciously keeps pace with his stride. They end up stopping to sit at a table in the grass, positioned under a tree that filters the direct sunlight into something less harsh. “It will work, Jayce, I’m telling you.” He really does have faith in the project, and Viktor is certainly not the type of person to omit the truth to spare someone’s feelings.
“I have a week and a half to make sure it does. If I want any chance to secure funding, it has to work. I can’t stand another semester of reworking.” Jayce’s hands cover his face as the light breeze pushes through his hair.
“You won’t have to do another semester. Trust me.” Viktor asserts confidently, and the sentiment seems to have an active effect on Jayce’s psyche as he sighs, tension leaving his shoulders as his hands drop from his face.
“How’s your research coming? You don’t really have any deadlines this semester, do you?” Jayce changes the topic.
“Not really,” Viktor shakes his head as Jayce takes a long sip from his water bottle. “Next semester is what I’m worried about.” They both know he’s not just talking about the increased workload of the final year of research, and Viktor truly hadn’t meant to bring up the sensitive topic of ‘I’m completely fucked.’
“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” Jayce says, suddenly avoiding eye contact. “I would be too.”
Viktor clears his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about that, actually.” Jayce’s gaze shoots up to his own in an instant, and it’s almost constricting. “I talked to Leslie, the property manager. I’ve been in touch with a few places around the area, but the options are looking… bleak.” He takes a minute to tuck a strand of auburn hair behind his ear, and he wonders for a moment if he wants a haircut. “Leslie said it wouldn’t be any hassle to simply move my information to your unit, especially since we need to renew our leases next month anyway. You would have to sign a new agreement, though.”
“Oh!” Is all Jayce says, and while he contains his smile to a small incline of his lips, a gleam of joy reaches his eyes that’s so intense, Viktor has to look away. “That’s great news! Does that mean you’d want to…”
“I’m waiting on one last option. There’s a place about ten minutes from here that has yet to call me back about their leasing dates, but if that falls through, it seems that…” He swallows, realizing now that it’s the first time he’s confronted the reality aloud. “My only option would be to take you up on your offer. If it still stands, of course.”
“Of course,” He echoes back. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.” Unable to contain his grin now, Jayce is beaming.
Suddenly overwhelmed by the tenderness of his words, Viktor changes the topic. “I do have a final in a class I have barely paid attention to, though. You’re proficient enough in biopharmaceutical production, yes?”
—☆—
Jayce tugs open his work bag, the one faulty zipper nearly frustrating him enough to simply tear the bag open, and fishes out his car keys. Holding them up to Viktor from across the lab, “Here,” he says, walking over and putting them into his friend’s open hand. He tries not to let his touch linger as their fingers brush against each other, the warmth sending a jolt of electricity up his spine. “I’m going to shut everything down here, you can start heading to the car.”
Viktor, who had already packed up his journals and laptop nearly ten minutes ago now, silently nods in agreement. After their hour-long break, the battery had indeed rested enough to provide some slightly more promising numbers, but it was still far from ready, and even further from perfect. Jayce listens intently to the clicking of his cane intermingled with the soft taps of his footsteps as he leaves. As soon as he hears the door shut, he allows himself the simple pleasure of letting out a sigh of relief. He can’t believe Viktor is actually letting him help in such a significant way – especially since, in his experience, his friend is incredibly averse to any sort of assistance in general.
Watching the power levels drain from his workstation, he thinks about what kinds of dinners he can cook for the two of them, of Viktor’s personal food preferences, and he realizes his hands are shaking. “Okay,” Jayce murmurs to himself, swiping his clammy hands against his pants before ensuring that everything is discharged and unplugged. “Alright, chill.”
By the time Jayce is jogging up to the car, Viktor has just barely settled inside, his cane still resting on his lap. The drive back to the apartment complex is quiet, but charged with an energy that neither of them seem inclined to disrupt. The elevator ride puts an odd pit in Jayce’s stomach.
When they get to Viktor’s door, the point in which they typically say their goodbyes, he pauses, looking back at Jayce. “Do you want to come in for a drink? I suppose I should ask your opinion on consolidation, too.”
Holy shit, yes. Jayce tries his absolute hardest to seem nonchalant and makes the intentional effort to wait a moment before answering with his confirmation. He watches as Viktor unlocks the door, slender fingers twisting the mechanism, and when the door swings open, Jayce is not quite sure what he’s expecting. It’s the same layout as his own apartment, obviously. He vaguely remembers the dark walkway from the night they had drunkenly recited the ramblings of a madman in the living room of Viktor’s apartment, but still, it seems different. Viktor clicks on the few lights in the room, all of which being varying levels of dimmed lamps, and the curtains block out most of the sunlight. Jayce awkwardly shuffles to the kitchen, making sure to first kick off his shoes, and sets his bag near the door.
Now, when Viktor had offered a drink, he’d expected tea, but Jayce simply watches as he opens a cabinet and pulls out a tall, glass bottle of what looks to be vodka or white rum, and two short glasses from another cabinet. “I do know you prefer a mixed drink, but I don’t really keep anything on hand… sorry.” Viktor apologizes as he pours them each what looks to be a shot and a half of the alcohol.
With a clink of their glasses, the two of them take a straight shot, and as Jayce confirms that it’s vodka, he struggles to keep his composure from the burning fluid running down the back of his throat. Completely unsurprisingly to him, Viktor is watching him struggle, entirely unaffected by the aggressive liquid. “Okay, so,” Viktor suddenly claps his hands together. “I do not keep many dishes, I can get rid of anything that will crowd your space. The only things I really need your opinion on are the items within the living area. It’s, well, mostly it’s just quite a few books, I know, but I’m pretty sure we have a couple of duplicates–” Jayce doesn’t tune out entirely, but he does allow himself to simply watch as Viktor’s cheeks begin to slightly flush from the alcohol. He forces himself to pay attention, suddenly hyper-aware of when it was appropriate to nod or hum in confirmation.
Viktor is pouring another shot for each of them when Jayce decides to push a risky offer, the single drink alone slightly impairing his judgement. “I can make us dinner, if you’d like. I hear the meals I make are almost edible.”
Viktor, almost sheepishly, smiles. “I don’t have much in the way of, eh, cooking… ingredients.” He finally settles on, taking his shot with almost undetectable disgust. “Sorry, if you are hungry, I do not have much to offer you. I survive off of coffee and desperation alone.”
As much as Jayce doesn’t want to leave Viktor’s dwelling, he does want Viktor to eat a full meal, eyes flitting to the way his thin fingers grip the glass. “I’ll cook at my place, if you want.” He follows suit, taking his own shot and trying to stifle his reaction.
Viktor agrees, but neither of them are particularly starved at the moment, so they instead elect to look through Viktor’s bookcase. “I have a copy of this one, too,” Jayce says at one point, and it only takes a minute or two before he’s pointed out half a dozen titles that currently sit on his own bookshelf at home. The compatibility of their minds is almost sickening, and in that moment Jayce wants nothing more than to experience Viktor’s mind, to crawl inside of his skull and force their beings so close together that they mold into one. Instead, he points out a particular text that he enjoyed, pulling it from the shelf. “This one actually really got me into biomed. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t end up in the program yourself, but I also can’t really see you doing anything other than chem.”
“Hm, I did consider it, briefly. Chemistry simply works more smoothly in my mind, though.” Viktor leans over to peek at the page Jayce has opened the book to, and surely it’s just the alcohol, but he’s standing so close that Jayce can smell the mahogany scent of his shampoo.
“That’s… Makes sense.” Jayce can hear that his own voice is strangled, and he mentally curses the heat rising up his neck. The top of Viktor’s head is barely at his shoulder, it would be so easy to just–
“This section,” Viktor’s finger lands on the page; it traces the lines as the palm of his hand rests upon Jayce’s own. “Was incredibly difficult for me to get through. It makes sense to me that this would spark your interest, you're quite intelligent in this area.”
“That’s kind of what comes easily to me. The medical approach is what just clicks to me, you know? It’s hard for me to think about it differently.” Jayce prays that his hands aren’t sweating. He tries to play off the brief tremor in his right hand as a mere twitch as he flips the page, having stopped reading several moments ago but wanting to look engaged. Viktor’s hand still lingers atop his own, fingers helping to guide the turn of the paper as Jayce sucks in a mahogany-scented breath.
“Hmm…” Viktor hums, finger guiding his reading for another moment before he pulls back, stretching his arms in the air. Jayce refrains from flinching at the sound of his shoulders popping, then his elbows, and finally, his wrists. “What were you going to make yourself for dinner tonight?” He asks, and although he’s leaned back, they’re still so close to each other that Jayce has to look anywhere but his face.
“I wasn’t sure, maybe you could help me decide. I don’t know if you’re, like, vegetarian or something, but if you are, I have plenty of options.” Viktor’s golden eyes squint a bit as he smiles, and in that moment, Jayce could feel his heartbeat in his ears. “Do you want to head over now?”
“Yes. Well, wait–” Viktor pauses as he makes his way across the kitchen, holding up a finger to indicate a pause as he takes a swig directly from the glass bottle of paint thinner- vodka. He puts it back in the cabinet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and putting their glasses from earlier in the sink. Jayce starts to put his shoes back on, but Viktor puts his finger up again. “Can I have just a second first? These clothes are miserable, and I can’t keep my braces on for much longer.”
Jayce, of course, nods enthusiastically, momentarily wondering about the mention of braces. He rarely sees Viktor’s casual attire, often wondering if the harsh divide between the slacks and vests of daytime and the oversized t-shirts of the evening or weekend were simply due to a cultural difference. There’s always something so endearing to him about both looks, though, something so close to Viktor’s personality that he was desperate to know more about.
When Viktor re-emerges from the hallway a few minutes later, he’s simply in a black t-shirt with a gray and blue design scrawled across the front that Jayce can’t decipher from afar and a pair of casual black joggers. Contacts forgone, his glasses sit perched upon his nose, his color-variating hair only partially tied back as the lighter locks fall below his jaw. Jayce, ever the thankful that his jaw wasn’t on the floor, resumes tying his shoelaces with shaking hands.
He helps with clicking the switch to each individual lamp before they leave, trying not to be obvious as he takes one last look around before closing the door to the apartment behind them. Viktor locks the door, and when they start towards Jayce’s own apartment, there’s a bit of a sway in his walk, the flush in his cheeks a bit deeper and more exposed with his hair pulled back. Jayce thinks briefly about coming home like this, coming home together, and almost drops his keys while trying to unlock his own door.
Taking his shoes back off, Jayce sets his bag on a stool and starts gathering ingredients for a fairly simple chicken and rice dinner, still unsure of Viktor’s preferences due to his vague whatever is good answers from earlier questioning. As Viktor makes himself comfortable on the couch, he asks, “You need any help?” although it seems he already knows the answer.
“No, it’ll be maybe… twenty minutes? You can put something on the TV, if you’d like.” Instead, Viktor wanders to the bookshelf, the same bookshelf he’s seen countless times before, a finger tracing the spines as he reads each title more closely. Jayce throws his attention into cooking, reminding himself of the sheer havoc he could potentially wreak upon their dynamic were he to say the wrong thing or stare for a moment too long. He’s nearly finished with their dinner, fluffing the rice with a fork, when he’s abruptly interrupted.
“Can I move in next month?” Viktor asks suddenly, golden eyes boring into his own with an intensity that Jayce had yet to see from the man. The question, albeit asked by a slightly tipsy Viktor, would be hard to decline even if he hadn’t been the one to make the offer in the first place.
“Yeah, of course, Viktor.” Jayce finally breathes out. “You… want help moving?” Viktor simply nods and pushes his glasses further up his nose. “Okay, yeah.”
“Thank you.” The sheer intensity of his gaze is nearly suffocating, and Jayce has to force himself not to look away.
“Of course.” Jayce feels paralyzed, and Viktor suddenly begins to smile, seemingly only able to hold the eye contact a moment longer before looking down at the pan in front of them.
“What did you make? It smells good.”
Chapter 3
Notes:
heed the updated tags and rating!!!!
thank you so much for telling me what you think about the fic!! :D
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Viktor had awoken the next day, he was thankfully neither hungover nor anywhere other than his own bed. Of course, already tipsy, they’d drank even further to celebrate in a way – although Jayce had offered his couch as the night had come to a natural close, Viktor had enough wit to keep from collapsing into the faintly ash-scented cushions. They’d eaten dinner on the floor together in front of an array of texts, proper seating manners forgone. When the mood had dimmed after they’d mutually lamented over a particularly miserable professor at the university, Jayce had produced an impression that was miles from accurate, but it still made Viktor laugh until his sides hurt.
Now sober and mostly clear-minded, he’s crushed by the reality of his future. Viktor hadn’t regretted the split second decision he had made the night before, in fact, it was as though a massive weight had been lifted off of his chest. Instead, a new weight had been taken its place. The paralysis of decision had been beyond distracting. The other apartment complex ten minutes from campus had, in fact, gotten back to him, and it was a manageable offer. However, there had looked to be a good amount of sidewalk stairs between the front of the complex and the bus stop, and it had made Viktor second-guess himself. It wasn’t an unacceptable living situation; he’d dealt with much worse before his current arrangements. Still, he’d felt like he was making excuses for himself, despite the fact that he was desperate for anything other than Jayce’s offer of co-living. To him, a few stairs and living with Jayce were equally as bad, and it was a fifty-fifty shot at success.
Some part of him had known, even before the complex had called, that Jayce’s unit was his only feasible option. Still, he had worried that he’d overstepped a boundary or three the night before, unable to resist the gravitational pull of Jayce’s warmth under even the slightest state of inebriation. Viktor had been deeply anxious to face him the next Monday, typing and erasing an apology three times when Jayce had texted the next day.
-Hope ur not hungover lol. I had fun with u! Lmk if u need anything
Instead of awkwardly distant like he’d expected, Jayce had seemed delighted to see him on Monday, and Viktor was convinced that he wasn’t imagining his friend’s typical touches lingering a bit longer than they typically would. A hand had landed on his shoulder – entirely normal behavior until Jayce had grasped his arm tightly before releasing it; at one point, Jayce had manually opened Viktor’s own hand to place a prototype power source into it, and Viktor had simply watched as it happened, making no move to shoo him away.
Now, nearly a month later, he packs the measly contents of his bedroom into a single box. Viktor is suddenly thankful for his lack of sentimental attachment, having consolidated his entire living areas into just a few boxes. He’s not really going to miss the apartment. He was never particularly fond of its layout, sometimes feeling claustrophobic, nor did he like the window placements, but his bitterness toward the university’s choices made him feel strangely sad to leave. It’s really just spite that he’s feeling, he eventually concludes. It feels like surrender.
“Hey, is it okay if I take the plants over?” Jayce suddenly asks from the doorway. “I’ll leave them to you, if you’d prefer, since they’re delicate.” Viktor turns and shakes his head.
“You can take them over, if there’s room. Thank you.” He knows that there’s room already, having noticed the slowly-clearing spaces upon Jayce’s windowsills over the past few weeks, a new bookshelf about waist-high now holding the items that threatened to clutter up the newly-designated plant sites.
With a sigh, Viktors closes the box. It’s not necessary since it’s only going down the hall, but it feels like closure. His bedroom now only contains his bed frame and mattress, which Jayce had insisted to deal with once everything else was done. Viktor hadn’t argued, figuring he wouldn’t be of much use anyway. He can make it across short distances without his cane thanks to the braces on his leg and back that help him walk on a good day, and thankfully, it’s a good day. On a bad one, the braces only provide enough support to let him stand for brief intervals, an entirely unpleasant situation he’s anxious for Jayce to inevitably see.
Viktor had made himself useful that morning by moving all of his pre-packed boxes to one central area in the living room for Jayce to take the rest of the way, and the last time he'd checked, there were only a few left. It’s barely past noon. He doesn’t have to turn in his key until eight in the morning the next day, but both he and Jayce would rather get the horrific torture of moving done and over with sooner rather than later.
Although the sun has just hit its highest point in the sky, it’s suddenly a bit chilly inside the barren apartment, and the sun provides a bit of warmth near the windows. Viktor stands from his spot on the floor with some difficulty, stretching his arms above his head and letting out a satisfied sigh as his joints pop and click into place. When he makes his way out to the central living area, he finds that all boxes but one, plus the one in his room, have already been moved. Without much decorating the walls, it had been fairly quick work to consolidate his items throughout the past week – although everything in his apartment seemed out of place to the average viewer, Viktor’s apartment had been a kind of organized chaos. There hadn’t been much to it in terms of decor, anyway, and Viktor is thankful that it seems they’re wrapping up soon. Despite the fact that he’s been spared of any true heavy lifting, his joints are screaming for a break as he brings the box from his bedroom to Jayce’s apartment.
“There’s only one more,” Viktor says as he passes Jayce in the hallway, whose eyes flicker to the box in his arms for a moment before he nods and keeps moving. By the time Viktor has put the box down, Jayce is already on his heels with the last one, and together, they go back to the empty unit. Viktor has already forgotten about the bed frame and mattress when he sits on the hardwood floor of his apartment, and he offers an apologetic thank you as Jayce carries the mattress from his bedroom. He is, because of course he is, entirely unphased by the inconvenience, just offers a beaming smile and makes quick work of the furniture. Viktor watches from the corner of his eye as sturdy arms strain under the weight of the wooden frame, and when Jayce returns, he joins him on the floor. They sit in the barren apartment, both seemingly exerted by the same amount of strain, drinking from their respective water bottles as their heaving breaths echo around the room. Without the curtains, the sun beams into the room, making it look bigger than it actually is. Viktor almost wishes he’d taken more advantage of the fact while he could, but he had only ever allowed enough light into the room for his plants to thrive, otherwise preferring the cave-like lifestyle.
It’s a decently-sized unit for its price, and Viktor briefly wonders about who will fill his place here. The living room is a large square, taking up most of the floorplan. The two windows on the wall are opposite to the short walkway of the front door area, and the kitchen merges with the hallway to the right. It’s a pretty small kitchen, but the breakfast bar and apartment-provided barstools open up the space nicely, making it look more modern than the architecture truly is. At one point, Viktor had noticed that Jayce had bought his own plush bar stools to replace his unit-issued metal ones, and Viktor had wondered how that works with his lease and charges for damages.
The hallway, which is four inches narrower than the average doorway – Viktor had measured it himself – leads to the bedroom at the far end, a bathroom to the right, and an office or spare to the left. The floorplan of every other unit is mirrored, and Viktor is suddenly thankful that Jayce’s unit is oriented the same as his own, imagining the nightmare of getting a glass of water in the night and not being able to find the sink.
“I’m glad I saw it, you know.” Jayce heaves after finishing what’s left of his water bottle.
“Hm?” Viktor tilts his head, squinting curiously as he tries not to rush through the rest of his own water. They could both simply refill their waters, but the faucet suddenly seems extremely far from the floor of the empty apartment, and from the sound of Jayce’s breath, he shares the feeling.
“Before it was all packed up. Your living space.” He clarifies, looking around wistfully as if Viktor’s boring mess of a living room was something to be missed.
“It wasn’t much to see.” Viktor shrugs. “Plus, half of it is going to clutter up your apartment, and you are going to regret saying that.”
“No, I liked to see it when I could. It’s interesting to see how people work in that way.” He smiles, and Viktor has to take a sip of his water.
In a brief moment, Viktor goes from feeling relieved with the end of the task to raw and exposed in an odd way, and he changes the topic. “Do you think they will invoice me for the paint?”
Jayce seems to notice the sudden tension in the air, but doesn’t push it. “Nah, Leslie’s too nice to worry about charging you for a single square inch of chipped paint.” A whiteboard he’d put on his wall had come off unceremoniously, and Viktor had worried about it, gnawing at his fingernails and letting Jayce take things off the walls from then on.
He’s starting to feel quite badly about the way Jayce is stretching tension from his back, almost uneasy with the way his eyes never seem to dim or waver, the way his attitude never falters as he carries box after box down the humid hallway. It honestly would have registered as more off-putting behavior, had Viktor not been too exhausted within the first hour of the day to keep from indulging in Jayce’s insistence to help. “Gods, I wish it wasn’t Sunday today. Truly the worst day of the week.” Jayce sighs.
“Worse than Monday?” Viktor probes, simply wanting to engage in simple conversation after such a physically intensive morning.
“Monday’s fine after the first few hours. Sunday is for dreading Monday.” Jayce explains, and Viktor hums in agreement.
“It is only…” He looks at his phone. “Twelve forty-six.” Begrudgingly, they decide to head back to Jayce’s unit to assess the damage, and despite the strain of physical labor, Jayce stands up quickly. Viktor, of course, needs a second, and mutters as such. Standing is fine, sitting is ideal, but the transition between the two feels like a herculean task as Viktor clutches his teetering cane. Jayce offers a hand, and he takes it as he adjusts his grip on his cane, holds onto it while he steadies himself. “Thank you.”
He turns to leave, and Jayce doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of his eye, he can vaguely see his friend’s hand lingering in the air, ready to re-initiate their touch at the slightest indication of unsteadiness. Slightly spitefully, Viktor forces himself from the apartment on steady feet, looking around the empty apartment from the doorway and snapping a picture of the empty space before closing and locking the door. I will probably take one last look before I turn the key in, He thinks as he pulls the key from its ring on his keychain, just for closure.
When they get to Jayce’s apartment, it’s not as well ventilated, and therefore, not as chilled as Viktor’s empty one was, and there’s barely any walkable space. Viktor uses his cane to push a few lighter boxes to the side, and together, they form a temporary walkway to the hall. “You don’t have to do anything about the boxes today, you should lay down or something.” Jayce says as he starts washing the few dishes in his sink.
“Eh, nonsense.” He's right, but regardless, Viktor tucks his cane under his arm and takes a box down the short hallway to the empty spare. It looks exactly the same as the one in his old unit, but it looks like the lock on the window actually functions. The space is maybe two-thirds the size of his bedroom, but it will work perfectly fine. Most of his old bedroom was simply empty space anyway, really only being used for dressing and sleeping. The full-sized bed now takes up a considerable amount of the room, and it almost feels cozier because of it. He sets the box on his bare bed, placing his cane on the mattress next to it and starting to put his clothes into the closet. It doesn’t take long, as he’d left the hangers on, and he only has to re-adjust a few items.
A moment later, Jayce stands at the doorway holding two boxes stacked upon each other, and when Viktor beckons him inside, he gently places them on the floor, but out of the way. Viktor gazes fondly at the gesture as he ties up some of his hair; he doesn’t like to give up the protection offered by a shield of hair now that he has it, but Jayce’s apartment is fairly muggy and he’s working up a sweat from shuffling around a room that’s maybe ninety, one hundred square feet. Jayce watches the movement as he speaks, gaze not quite meeting his own. “I’ll leave you to, uh, do your room stuff, but I wanted to bring these in here for you.”
“Thank you.” Jayce lingers for a second like he’s forgotten what he’s doing, then turns abruptly and leaves without responding. Before Viktor can wonder about it, the sound of pots and pans moving around fills the apartment as Jayce begins to make lunch. After Viktor has unpacked his bedsheets and made his bed, he sits on the comforter and pulls out his phone. A young woman named Sky is the only other person in Piltover that he considers a friend – she’s also in the chemical engineering graduate program, and while the vast majority of their fellow classmates were the same ones they’d shared for several years, Sky has somehow managed to exist as the single human being in the program without the acute ability to trigger Viktor’s irrational urge to hold his breath until he passes out to escape conversation. In the last year or so, the two had begun quizzing each other for their shared exams and quizzes of the sort, finding that their study styles were quite different, but often complimentary.
This past semester has just barely reached its bitter end, and while they had a tough time, Viktor had felt that they had bonded a bit more. He sends her the picture he’d taken of his empty apartment earlier, followed by a message reading, ‘it has officially happened.’ He puts his phone down and stretches his leg out, wincing as a strain threatens to form. His back brace, while currently uncomfortable against his slightly dampened skin, is in near-perfect condition. His leg brace, however, is what some would consider ‘falling apart at the seams.’ The medically-appointed aid now sports two faulty clasps that he’s fixed himself one too many times, and a screw has been replaced with a slightly too long one that tends to dig into his knee. It’s an orthotic device of sorts, a thin and flat bit of metal resting against the bottom of his foot and fusing with a thicker, more sturdy plastic material secured against his calf with straps and clips. A break in the material midway supplemented with a simple metal hinge at the knee allows full mobility, and the second plastic support, only two or three inches tall, rests above the back of his knee. It used to be more of a hassle to get it to settle normally under the average pair of pants, but over the years, the muscle has atrophied and taken up less space than it used to.
The brace is not providing nearly as much support as it needs to, and Viktor knows that he should keep from pushing its limits like he is. He lays back on the bed for a moment, taking in as much air as his lungs can handle until he hears a sound from outside. There are two birds on his windowsill, chirping to each other in their hidden language, feathers rustling against each other. He sits back up, watching as they discuss something clearly important before settling into a nest just above his window. In a moment of fleeting optimism, Viktor stands to push his bed frame from the middle of the room up against the window, letting the light spill directly onto the comforter. It’s not particularly heavy, just large and awkward-shaped, and once he’s satisfied with its position, he settles back atop his bed.
Viktor’s phone vibrates; Sky has texted back.
-omg, are you at jayce’s apartment now???
-yes, He replies, i turn in my key tomorrow.
-that’s crazy! is everything going ok?
He thinks about it for a moment. In the less than one hour he’s spent in the space, everything is going fine. He’d begun packing his apartment up six days prior, so the task load wasn’t really anything significant that morning. That is, other than the part where he’s actually moved into Jayce’s apartment. A pit of anxiety suddenly starts to take root in his stomach as he realizes that he will be at Jayce’s place for the rest of the day, and the one after that, too. He thinks about the expectations of a guest’s behavior that he was raised with, worrying about the need to politely socialize in exchange for the stay. With a deep breath, he chooses to believe Jayce’s words of insistence that there aren’t any social expectations, solely for his own benefit. He texts Sky back.
-yes, this might actually work out just fine.
—☆—
That night, they’d gotten takeout for dinner. In the search to find something mildly entertaining, the two have started an episode of the most bizarre reality television show that either of them have ever seen, occasionally finding themselves forgetting to actually eat the food as they stare at the screen in jaw-dropped astonishment. Every time Viktor giggles at something absurd, Jayce can’t help but smile, thankfully able to conveniently play off his absolute delight as a shared amusement with the show. Viktor has been sporting casual wear the entire day, but it doesn’t ever stop shocking Jayce how good he looks in his more comfortable clothing. He’s also forgone his contact lenses again, and something about the glasses sitting in the bridge of his nose make Jayce feel even more attracted to him. They’re thin frames, purely practical and nowhere near stylish, but they suit both Viktor’s face and personality perfectly. Somehow, his sharp features almost swing the style pendulum entirely and make them look like an intentional choice of high fashion. Although it’s a warm night, Viktor’s wearing pajama pants, and Jayce briefly wonders like a rabid dog if he’ll ever get to catch a glimpse of a pale leg.
The smell of their dinner is still in the air as he puts the leftover styrofoam boxes in the fridge, pushing a few things around to make room. Viktor had barely touched his own dinner. Jayce had noticed the pain he was in today, and desperately tried not to overstep when putting Viktor’s plants on the newly opened spaces upon his windowsills. He hopes it came off as helpful like he’d meant it to, and as he’s preparing to take the trash outside, he hears Viktor yawn. Jayce looks up in time to see Viktor about to escape down the hallway for the night and flashes him a smile. He looks absolutely exhausted, and it warms Jayce’s heart in a way that almost makes him feel like running a mile. “Goodnight, Jayce,” Viktor bids him, not waiting for a response as he shuffles to bed.
“Night, Viktor,” Jayce offers anyway.
When he goes outside, taking the stairs for speed, the stifling heat has cooled to a warm, somewhat breezy night. The sky is clear of clouds and the unobscured stars shine brilliantly as he tosses the trash bag into the dumpster. Jayce pauses for a second, looking up to the third row of windows on the building and watching as the light to his spare room clicks off. Don’t be a fucking creep.
He goes inside, washes his hands, and resets the living room to its usual state as efficiently as he can with half a dozen boxes at different stages of unpacked in the living room. He moves them all against one wall of the room, but he really doesn’t care where they are, entirely unbothered by their presence. In fact, their existence makes him overwhelmingly giddy to think about. Suddenly worried that he’s giving off the impression that he finds Viktor’s moving boxes to be bothersome, he moves them back to their original spots on the floor as silently as possible.
Finding that he’s incredibly tense from head to toe, he decides to take a hot shower. Whether it’s the strain of physical labor or simply from the way he’s held himself the entire day, Jayce finds instant comfort in the warm water hitting his skin. He lets out a sigh as the room fills with steam, finding a strange sense of comfort in the slight tightness of his next inhale. He takes his time washing his hair, and his mind suddenly turns back to the stool in the corner of the bathroom. He should’ve known that Viktor can’t really utilize a standing shower, but the very presence of the mobility aid fills his mind with an image he tries to suppress. Viktor will be spending time in his shower, he realizes suddenly, and an odd flare of possessiveness brushes throughout his thoughts. For a brief second, he finds himself frustratedly jealous of the water that will glide down Viktor’s bare skin, and he realizes how deeply he needs to get a grip. Surely it will go away, he tells himself, it’s only bad now because the first night of this feels like a sleepover with your crush in undergrad. That’s kind of exactly what it is, he thinks for a moment, followed by that’s actually not what this situation is, like, at all.
It doesn’t go away. At least, not in the fifteen more minutes he spends standing under the stream of hot water, forcing his thoughts into different corners of his mind, nor in the extra time he’d spent on his post-shower hygiene routine – not even in the time he’d laid in bed and listened to half of a chapter of an audiobook he’d been keeping up with after getting dressed. It’s getting quite late, and he and Viktor both have rented a time slot in one of the campus’ laboratories early the next morning. Over the summer, the flow of undergraduates subsides greatly, so there’s not much of a need for such an early rental. Still, they both preferred to keep their early routine. Nevertheless, Jayce’s heart threatens to burst from its cage in his chest with the rate it’s beating at, knowing Viktor is just down the hall. Technically, that’s always been the case, when he thinks about it, but the hallway separating them is considerably shorter than it used to be.
He thinks about getting up and taking the three, maybe four steps to the door of Viktor’s new bedroom, thinks of knocking, of course, and cracking the door open when prompted. Of the dim light from Jayce’s own bedroom reflected in the hallway softly leaking into the room, spilling onto Viktor’s softened face as he sits up in bed, hair tousled from sleep and golden eyes half-lidded, a mischievous grin on his lips, and– Well, fuck. Jayce is certainly not going to sleep now, he thinks, heart now hammering in his throat. Surely, taking the pressure off of his mind – like an overheating chemical solution, yes, this is logical – would help, he convinces himself as his hand slips under his sweatpants. It’s just a weird hormonal reaction to moving in together, and he just has to get it out of his system.
He finally wraps a hand around himself, nearly hissing at the contact and closing his eyes. This is most certainly wrong on so many levels, a tiny voice in the back of his mind tells him, but he ignores it. He just has to get it out of his system, he repeats to himself as he starts to move his hand, slowly working himself up as thoughts of sharing a shower with Viktor fill his mind. He wouldn’t need to use the stool anymore, surely, not if Jayce simply holds him steady as they shower. When he thinks of pushing his wet hair out of his face to kiss him under the stream of water, Jayce has to pull the collar of his shirt into his mouth in a bite to stifle a whine. He’s entirely capable of helping Viktor with anything, everything he’ll ever need; a shiver of arousal runs down his spine at the thought of wrapping his hands around Viktor’s waist, running his hands against the soft skin and devoting himself entirely to the art of taking him apart piece by piece, only to put him back together with a slice of himself included.
He thinks about what Viktor’s hands would feel like on him rather than his own as he quickens his pace further, mind wandering back to the earlier image of Viktor staring at his every move as he’d pulled a few locks of hair out of his face and into a hair tie, and Gods, it truly should not have caused his mind to short-circuit the way it had. It was such a simple action, but in Jayce’s mind, it was nearly pornographic; he doesn’t last much longer once his mind wanders further to the thought of holding auburn and brown locks within his own hand in place of the hair tie as golden eyes gaze up from below.
After a few moments of breathing like he’s run a marathon, Jayce cleans himself up with a deepened sense of longing. Shame vaguely lingers alongside it, but as much as he’d like to pretend otherwise, this is not the first time he’s desperately gotten off to the thought of his dearest friend. This could have been a bad idea, Jayce realizes, unsure if he’s able to live like this. Will he spend the next year and some months feeling overwhelmingly in love with Viktor at every minor gesture? Leaving Viktor to suffer was absolutely not an option, though, and he’d absolutely rather experience this comparatively minor inconvenience in his place, but Jayce is still struggling with a type of fear conflicting with his self-pitying desperation. Although the entire situation plagues his mind stressfully, he’s certainly calmed down enough overall to turn off his light and start to drift to sleep.
When Jayce awakens the next day, he’s suddenly overwhelmed with terror at the thought of facing Viktor. He actually wakes to Viktor’s alarm due to the thin walls rather than his own, which is set to twenty minutes later. He finds himself entirely unbothered by the loss of sleep, but he’s gripped with fear. What had gotten into him the night before? It was entirely inappropriate for their living situation, a dangerous indulgence. A second layer of fear washes over Jayce as he realizes that he’s about to see a freshly awoken Viktor for the first time in his life, and he’s entirely unable to predict what his cruel mind will do with the mental image.
He physically startles in his bed a bit when he hears Viktor’s door open and the bathroom door close, letting out a sigh of relief when he hears the shower turn on. He’d laid out an extra towel the night before when Viktor had unpacked his toothbrush, sitting in a ceramic container mirroring Jayce’s own on the opposite side of the sink, as well as the few other items he’d kept in his bathroom in his own apartment. The shower, Jayce realizes, gives him time to gather some composure and make a cup of coffee.
Slowly, he rises out of bed and turns off his soon-to-be ringing alarm, heading to the kitchen and brewing twice as much coffee as he usually does. He paces around while his omelette cooks, debating between offering one to Viktor or simply making two. He’s overthinking for nothing and he knows it, but the acknowledgement doesn’t seem to let him stop.
When Viktor emerges from the bathroom, Jayce can feel the steam flowing into the hallway as Viktor goes to his room for a moment. He feels paralyzed as he listens to the sound of metal clasping, feeling like an absolute creep, but the sound is hard to ignore. The only other competing sound in the apartment is the sizzling of Jayce’s omelette, which he remembers to flip as soon as the thought registers. He’s almost certain he’s going to make their morning unbearably awkward by accident, but when Viktor eventually joins him in the kitchen and his eyes piercingly meet Jayce's own, he’s entirely unprepared for what he feels instead.
The chest consuming affection comes back tenfold; Viktor’s hair is still pretty wet and a strand is clinging to the side of his jaw. He’s mostly dressed for the day, but his dress shirt is untucked, and without his shoes, the metal clicking of something near his ankle rings against the floor with each step. “Sorry,” He says, voice soft. “I just needed to refill my water, but I’ll get out of your way. I will be ready whenever you are.”
“Oh, it’s fine! I made you coffee.” He gestures to the two mugs on the counter with his metal spatula. “There’s milk in the fridge if you want it, and sugar in the cabinet… I think the one above the sink?” Viktor pauses for a moment, then elects to use both in his coffee. “Do you want breakfast? I can make another in no time.” Viktor shakes his head as he stirs his coffee, and the precious strand of hair leaves his jaw.
“Thank you for the coffee, Jayce.” The way his name sounds softened by the morning is nearly enough to make him keel over and cry in anguished adoration, but he manages to say, no problem, trying not to stare as Viktor retreats to his room.
When Jayce takes a shower himself, he’s nearly surprised to find that there’s plenty of hot water to use. Surprised because of how humid the room was when he entered, but nearly because of Viktor’s tendency to take the polite role of a guest incredibly seriously. Jayce hopes that the tendency will fade over time and decides to take a cool shower anyway.
—☆—
Viktor is working on his own research in the laboratory while Jayce tweaks with his mechanical arm, a solid chunk of funding granted to his cause after his success in the trials at the end of the semester. Just as Viktor had assured him, his marks were absolutely stellar across the board, and he now has numerous manufacturing and production connections on top of his several thousand dollars of university funding. Jayce, naturally, has already run into a bit of a roadblock, but with the near-empty campus of the summertime and lightened moods that came with the sunshine, Viktor is sure that Jayce will figure it out in no time. He always does.
Viktor’s ability to get meaningful work done on his own research is limited, as access to certain databases and lab equipment in the summer was typically based on the fall semester enrollment status – his, currently, is a little bit up in the air. He has three different biosensors completely deconstructed in front of him at his workstation, entirely filling the small amount of space he has on his electrostatic discharge mat. After staring at their varying components for so long, his back aches and his brace digs into his skin as he leans back for a moment to stretch.
His phone buzzes, and Viktor pushes his chair from the workstation to check his notifications. Sky is curious about the progress of his work, and in fact had offered her own credentials for accessing various materials he needed from the chemical engineering department specifically as soon as finals week had finished. It was an incredibly kind and useful gesture, and he’s thankful for their companionship.
-are you at the lab rn?
Viktor texts her back
-yes, are you staying in town for the summer? i am happy to take a look at your work before the fall semester starts
Sky is, academically speaking, a year behind Jayce, but age-wise, she’s three years younger than Jayce. It’s impressive to say the least and would certainly override her academic status if it mattered, but in graduate programs, the hierarchy of time found in undergraduate ones dissolves into something beyond meaningless and morphs into a simple shared suffering.
“Ugh, Viktor, this is perfect!” Jayce exclaims, and Viktor turns to see the mechanical arm boot up in record time, its temp reader glowing a steady green as the room fills with the gentle hum of the mechanism’s battery. “I’m serious, I’m going to find a way to get you credited for the coolant idea. And the grip strength equation. And the base rewiring pattern.”
“There’s no need, Jayce, I was simply fueling your own stream of thoughts.” Viktor sets his phone on the workspace. “Plus, I do not want any sort of recognition. It is your work alone.”
“Think about it, though! It could get you funding for your research if we play our cards right!”
“Jayce, you deserve every ounce of credit for that thing– watch the suppressor.” Jayce turns just in time to watch the mech arm re-orient before it could’ve overcorrected itself, and Viktor can see his smile from the small shred of his face that’s visible from this angle.
“There’s got to be some way to get your funding increased. Your research already proves itself, and you’ve clearly got all of the recommendations, all of the successful trials... A collaboration to your name really might help you out right now.” He knows that Jayce is just thinking aloud and knows not to try and sort out the details – at this stage, they will work themselves out, he’s learned over time.
“What would you say, this guy sat and mumbled while I worked, please give him money?” Viktor teases, and Jayce laughs.
“No, it’ll be something more like, this guy used this mech arm to strangle me once, and I’m scared of what he’ll do if he loses his funding, so please give him money so he doesn’t do it again.” Jayce retorts, and it sends the two of them into a rare fit of genuine laughter. Of course, the device is nowhere near capable of such an act, but Viktor is entirely capable of something within that realm of behavior.
“No, no, how about you try, I need to get him out of my house, check out this arm that could strangle you if you say no?” Jayce’s cheeks are slightly flushed from laughing, eyes still slightly shining from the tears that had come to his eyes a moment prior.
“Oh, no, I’ve got it! You know, uh, shit, what’s her name, Hannah? The girl with the hats?” Jayce snaps as the name comes to mind.
“Ah, yes, the one who just got engaged to mister truck?” Viktor ponders, thinking of the moron with a lifted truck in the middle of suburbia.
“Yes!” Jayce points to him enthusiastically. “She literally got some elderly sponsor to nearly double her funding so she could have it done in time for a wedding. We could just say we’re engaged, but keep the part where you’ve strangled me with the mech arm!” Jayce is laughing before he’s finished talking, but Viktor only lets out a huff of what could be interpreted as laughter to a hopeful ear.
“Don’t… joke about that.” He mutters, turning back to his own work.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t-” Jayce starts, anxiety radiating from his end of the lab.
“It’s fine.” Viktor cuts him off. It’s kind of uncomfortable in the room for a few long moments, but he doesn’t cede to the tension. He isn’t particularly surprised that Jayce would make such a joke; he knows how comical it looks when he struts around campus with the golden boy of the engineering departments. He knows why the idea of their pairing would be laughable, why it would be the punchline of a joke. Still, it feels like a gut punch for Jayce of all people to make a jab at his clear inferiority like that. Viktor supposes that he’s found himself somehow caught in the excitement of a fantasy formed in the midst of his drastically changing life, somehow forgotten that Jayce is still, in fact, another person himself.
At some point in his youth, he’d committed himself to the promise that he wouldn’t ever allow a punchline at his own expense, no matter how excruciatingly awkward he could make an entire room of people, but this time, he gulps. His hands are shaking. He doesn’t like to feel uncomfortable like this in Jayce’s presence, and he doesn’t like how he can feel Jayce’s guilt from across the room. Instead of stewing in it, Viktor tries to ease them into a different conversation.
“What are you working on now?” His voice cracks.
“Oh, um, just trying to figure out what to rebuild first. Gonna rework it with the new funding now that I know what to do. You?” Jayce doesn’t look over when he talks, and although Viktor only knows this due to his peripheral vision as he himself stares at his own workbench, he’s offended in a petty way.
“Hm, nothing interesting.” Jayce drops it.
Eventually, he puts his headphones on and works on his sensors with a lump in his throat. It was a fifty-fifty decision between this and a rough walk to a bus stop ten minutes away from his front door, he’d known that. It’s only now that the horrible realization is dawning on him – he’d made the wrong decision. This was a bad idea.
Notes:
don't worry guys... just trust me don't worry! more tags incoming for the next chapter you've been warned
Chapter Text
They don’t enjoy dinner together that night. After a silent drive back to the apartment, Viktor mumbles something about a failure in his lab work that needs to be looked at before they go back tomorrow, and all but sprints to his room. The air between them has fallen stale in the past several hours, and all Jayce can do is be appreciative that Viktor isn’t actively ripping his throat from his body. Jayce is stewing in guilt, and the thing is, all Viktor has done is politely refrain from engaging in their typical dynamic. It would probably feel better to be yelled at, Jayce thinks, perhaps to be smacked across the face. Viktor’s feigned indifference to the shift between them is torturous. A good, harsh bite after Viktor’s several warning nips might do him some good, perhaps dampen the obsessive flame that rages throughout his chest.
Instead, he’s sitting on the couch as he scrolls mindlessly on his phone, forcing his brain not to listen intently to the muffled sounds that come from Viktor’s room. A window in the living room is cracked open a few inches, letting in some warm summer air, and it rustles through the leaves of a spider plant in his windowsill. Jayce looks back to his phone, putting the descriptions of the five potted plants into a search engine one by one and mindlessly reading up on the typical care routines and origins of each specimen.
It’s a miserable night, truly. Jayce is consumed by guilt. He’s clearly pushed his allowance a bit too far; the invisible line between them that he’s slowly been able to nudge further and further has been strictly redrawn with a further distance between them than there had been before. Perhaps it had been the hormones raging throughout his system from his purely despicable behavior the night before, but Jayce quickly suppresses that thought. He’s entirely responsible for this, and there are zero excuses. Not only has he crossed a mental boundary of Viktor’s by introducing an unwanted thought of a romantic association between them, but he’s done it while providing housing to the other man. He feels as though he’s trapped his dear friend in a deeply uncomfortable situation, and the shame of it all physically tingles in Jayce’s temples.
The next morning, he wakes before Viktor’s alarm even goes off, having tossed and turned the entire night. Deciding it’s a pointless endeavor to lay with his eyes closed for another forty minutes, Jayce rises from bed and goes to the kitchen. It smells like fresh air, and he realizes he’s left the window open overnight. It’s a bit muggy, but the cool air of the morning is starting to diffuse the night’s heavy heat that had filled the living area. He turns on the coffee maker, hesitating as he measures out the coffee grounds before biting his tongue and making enough coffee for two.
It’s only when he’s pouring the steaming liquid into an ugly blue mug from a free undergraduate event that he realizes it’ll be another thirty-ish minutes before Viktor actually wakes up, and it’ll probably be cold before he drinks it. Jayce decides to leave the remaining coffee in the pot. I’ll just make more when I hear him get up. What if Jayce finishes his own coffee before Viktor gets up, though, and it looks like he’s just made a single cup of coffee for him? After the events of the day before, that would surely worsen his reputation as an overstepping and unwanted suitor. He can brew an entire new pot right before Viktor’s alarm goes off, Jayce decides, and just have another cup for the day. Yes, he’ll wash the mug before Viktor notices, and it’ll seem entirely normal. Should he just dump out his mug now, then, although it’s a waste? Before he can think further, the click of Viktor’s door opening disturbs his flow of thoughts enough to physically startle him.
He emerges from the hall with an empty water cup, and he looks more tired than he had the morning before. Jayce looks away while Viktor refills his cup, nodding in response to a quiet ’morning’ as he takes a long sip of his coffee. “There’s more in the pot for you, if you want it.”
“Thank you,” Viktor says softly, ever the thankful. It’s undeserved, and it makes Jayce feel sick. Viktor retreats to his room with the mug of sweetened coffee and his cane, electing to leave the water behind. Perhaps yesterday, Jayce would’ve offered to bring it to the room, but today, he can’t imagine forcing himself further into his friend’s space, especially his bedroom.
“Sky is going to stop by the lab today,” Viktor says in the car ride to the lab. The radio hums as the sun pushes past the morning’s clouds and through the windshield. “She has access to the second floor storage, I’m unsure how long she will be in the lab.” His voice sounds entirely normal, his mannerisms perfectly aligned with the average expectation of his character, but Jayce isn’t fooled in the slightest.
“That's perfectly fine with me.” Jayce has met Sky exactly three times, two times in passing while picking Viktor up from the other side of campus and one when he actually got out of the car to introduce himself. While she had seemed not only incredibly kind, Jayce mentally acknowledges that she must be incredibly intelligent and nonabrasive for Viktor to actually enjoy socializing with her.
She shows up to the laboratory about an hour after they’ve unpacked their materials for the day and worked in near-silence. Jayce actively stifles a pang of misplaced anger, no, something akin to jealousy when the two of them leave briefly to retrieve things from the second floor. Viktor is more than allowed to have friends, and this is completely ridiculous, Jayce tells himself. Not only does he still feel awful for pushing the joke to a point that had clearly made Viktor deeply uncomfortable with his presence, he feels worse, even horrified for quite literally cumming to the thought of his lips mere hours prior to their conversation. You don’t have the room to be annoyed. You’re not being a good friend.
He feels like he’s failing Viktor somehow, and it’s a feeling that’s devastating from head to toe. When he hears the sound of conversation approaching from down the hall, Jayce hurries to put his earbuds in and turns to let the two of them work uninterrupted. He can feel the tension he’s radiating into the space, and while he offers a polite smile when they return, he doesn’t have the strength to reel in absolutely every ounce of it.
Jayce barely gets anything of significance completed throughout the entire day. He’s barely thinking about what his hands are doing, instead working up an apology in his mind, mulling over the least threatening and most damage-control-oriented approach to take. When Sky inevitably leaves them to their shared solitude around three in the afternoon, Viktor looks to be actively on a roll with his work, wiring suspended between his fingers delicately, and Jayce chooses not to interrupt. It’s not until they’re kicking off their shoes in the doorway of the apartment and the metal sound of what he’s now sure is a type of leg-stabilizing device hits the hardwood floor that he speaks up.
“Let me make dinner. You haven’t eaten anything all day, have you?” Jayce offers before Viktor can slink off to the darkness of his room.
He hesitates, mouth opening a few moments before he actually speaks. “No, thank you, it’s alright. I have a considerable amount of work to do.” Viktor has already turned away again before he’s finished speaking, cane clicking against the floor as he makes a beeline for the door.
“Viktor.” Jayce gulps, teetering upon an incredibly delicate line. “Will you wait… just a second?” Viktor stops in his tracks, lets out a sigh, and makes his way to a barstool to rest his cane against the counter and take a seat.
“There is clearly a, uh…” Viktor sighs again. Instead of continuing, he simply puts the palms of his hands out to Jayce expectantly before letting them fall to his lap.
Jayce takes a deep breath, forcing himself to look into Viktor’s guarded eyes. “Okay, look, I’m really, really sorry for making things weird, alright? I know I’m kind of crawling up your throat with the moving in stuff and I… clearly pushed your limits too far. And I’m sorry.”
A long moment passes, and Viktor presses his lips into a firm line. “Thank you, Jayce, I just… That’s not why I’ve been feeling… ‘weird.’” He finally settles on.
“I know.” He lets out a long breath. “And I am apologizing for… that. I shouldn’t have said that. Now, please, can you stop feeling weird for long enough to eat some food?” Jayce pleads, already moving toward the kitchen in a desperate attempt to rid himself of his nerves.
Viktor swivels in the barstool, resting his elbows on the breakfast bar to face Jayce as he washes his hands. “It’s fine, I am not mad at you, I suppose.” Viktor plucks up the lighter and candle from the far end of the counter, lighting the lemon-scented wax as he speaks. “I am very aware of… what I am. And how easy it is to joke about. I understand. I don’t blame you, I just… I did not expect you of all people to acknowledge that.”
Jayce has dried his hands too hastily, and they’re still a bit too damp when he speaks. “Wait, Viktor what? I wasn’t, I- I didn’t- hold on.” Forgoing the towel, he wipes his hands on his pants as Viktor avoids eye contact. “What?”
“I know that it would be… humorous to consider myself in such a position, but I thought that joking about it would be too low for you.” Viktor is fidgeting with his hair, nearly hiding behind the curtain of locks. “I have been thinking about it, though, and perhaps I have put too high of an expectation upon you, and I’m sorry for creating an uncomfortable environment. Especially as a guest in your home.”
“Viktor, I’m so sorry, but what in the ever loving fuck are you talking about?” Jayce feels like his skull is exploding into fragments of sizzling shrapnel in the fuming crater of destruction that was their current dynamic. “You know what you ’are?’ What do you think I was saying?”
“You… apologized?” Viktor tilts his head, hands pausing their fidgeting as he looks up at Jayce for a moment.
“Yeah, for taking the bit too far! Viktor, you’re not… Do you think I was making a joke about… what, getting disability funding or something? I’m sorry, I really am, I’m just having a hard time understanding wh-” The remaining air in Jayce’s lungs leaves his lips with a huff as he gives up in desperate confusion.
“I… Okay. You joked that we could pretend to be newly engaged for further funding, yes?” Viktor extends a hand as he speaks, and Jayce swallows the urge to take it as he talks, to lean his cheek into the palm and pour his apology into Viktor’s skin.
“Yes! Which I shouldn’t have, considering you literally just moved in, and, like, well, you’re my closest friend but – to be honest, we don’t really know that much about each other, you know? And- and I guess we’re not really that kind of close where I can just say things like that! And I-I’m sorry.” He wipes his hands against his pants again, but they’re damp for a different reason this time.
Viktor just raises an eyebrow. “Right, but would the prospect of you suggesting such a thing to the university not be… ridiculous? I mean, come on, Jayce, you’re their golden boy, and I’m…”
As he trails off, a horrific realization dawns over Jayce, and he scrambles for a resolution. Of course it wouldn’t be ridiculous in any way, in fact, he would be the proudest man alive in that scenario, but there’s no way to reconstruct that sentiment in an appropriate manner in the time he has to formulate a response. “I…” He fails to find his words. “Viktor, that’s not what I was… I wouldn’t…” Viktor’s eyebrows are furrowed as he scans Jayce’s face, clearly confused in some manner of his own.
“What was the joke, then?” He tilts his head.
Jayce lets out a half-nervous half, and the sound startles the still, tense environment. “I don’t know, Viktor, maybe that we would probably have to put on an act for some old rich people? I don’t know. It was just a stupid joke, but I wasn’t… Why do you think that…” He’s still struggling with his words, and he’s surprised to find a scrutinizing gaze, all previous anxiety gone and waiting expectantly for his explanation. “You’d be a real catch, Viktor. I don’t know why you think you’d be a, a punchline for a joke like… that.” He settles on, and clenches his jaw as his entire body cringes at his choice of words.
“Ah.” Viktor says, eyebrows raised and expression entirely undecipherable. “I see… now. I… ha,” Viktor laughs then. “That’s really… I misunderstood.”
Jayce laughs, too, relieved by the sound. “Listen, I’m still sorry.” He asserts, and his words come much more easily now. “I’ve clearly been pushing some boundaries that I shouldn’t be, especially during a really stressful time for you, and I want you to know that I’ll- I’ll ease up. Just tell me if- I don’t want to make this worse for you than it has to be.”
“It is perfectly okay, Jayce. I simply misunderstood the source of your humor, and it seems I have entirely misjudged your character. For that I am… sorry.” Viktor grabs his cane and starts to stand, and Jayce starts thinking of excuses to keep him for longer, barely processing the previous words. “It is… unkind of me to think that you would make a joke at my expense. You have been nothing but kind to me.”
Did he stop breathing? Fuck, he’s stopped breathing, and now it’ll be obvious when he lets out a heaving breath. Jayce crouches to get a pan from a lower cabinet, finally starting the dinner he’s been thinking about since noon. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Viktor. Seriously. Now, do you like spicy food, or no? Because there are two versions of this dish, and I like both of them, but it’s up to you.”
When Jayce starts frying some bell peppers, Viktor hesitantly moves into the kitchen instead of down the hall, asking to help every few minutes even as Jayce insists that he’s got it under control. Regardless, he assists in small ways whenever Jayce turns his back, washing a cutting board as soon as a chopped onion is moved from the board to a hot and oiled pan, pulling out spices and ingredients on the recipe card from the various cabinets and fridge. “I’ve been eating all of your food, sorry. I can help pay for groceries next time you go to the store.” Viktor says, and despite his words, he’s tasting a fried pepper, still hot from the pan.
“That’s a stupid idea, don’t.” Jayce responds. “Half the time, the food goes bad before I can eat it; it’s better that you’re eating it before I have to throw anything out.” When the food is finished cooking and plated, the two of them move to the couch – it’s probably rude for Jayce not to offer the tiny dining table and wobbly seating he has, but they’re both more comfortable on the couch, anyway. After a bit of playful debate, they decide to watch another episode of the ridiculous reality show again. It’s somehow expanded upon its own absurdity, and Viktor keeps watching far beyond he’s finished eating. Jayce is ecstatic to return to their freshly-established routine and tries not to stare.
When the episode ends, he finally finishes the scraps on his plate that he’d been putting off eating in case it somehow concluded their time together. He takes both of their plates to the sink, and for some reason, Viktor follows him to the kitchen. He tries his best not to acknowledge the burning gaze on his skin until he’s nearly finished cleaning the second plate and a pale hand lands upon his bicep.
“Thank you, Jayce.” Viktor’s eyes are soft, welcoming. “I truly appreciate your kindness.”
Jayce can feel his heartbeat in his throat; it’s humming in his ears. The sink runs for a moment, two moments too long before he shuts it off, eyes cutting away from the intense gaze. “It’s really no problem, Viktor.” He says. “You’re very easy to be kind to.”
Viktor’s hand lingers for a moment longer, and Jayce looks up just in time to see a soft smile upon his lips before he finally breaks their point of contact. When he turns to go to bed, a breath of mahogany-scented air hits Jayce's nose.
—☆—
Ten days later, Viktor is in the university lab, carefully pulling a mylar cover from a board connector with a pair of tweezers. It could quite easily tear under the force of the pull, and while it wouldn’t matter too much if it did, Viktor really doesn’t feel like crossing the lab for a drawer on the far end of a workstation for a replacement. Jayce is somewhere else on campus, explaining something about a side project while he had been soldering a particularly difficult-to-tame PCB via and admittedly, not listening very closely.
The mylar cover tears with a quiet thwack of material against the metal tweezers as he loses his concentration, and Viktor lets out a sigh of defeat. Perhaps it’s time he stretches his legs anyway, he thinks as he checks the time. He’s been hunched over the workstation for a solid four hours now, and his back is certainly paying the price. Since there’s nobody around, he stands with a groan and starts to work the unused muscles in his legs.
Sky is supposed to come to the lab as soon as she’s finished getting lunch with someone, a vaguely described ‘talking stage’ fling that she’d been hinting at for the past few weeks. Viktor briefly wonders how the lunch is going as he paces around the lab and hopes it’s going well, of course for the sake of his friend’s feelings, but selfishly, for the sake of his work, too. An hour and a half-assed mylar cover replacement later, Sky texts that she’s on her way. Viktor can’t decipher a specific mood from the message.
When she walks in with a smile and a noticeable spring in her step, he concludes that it went well. “Hello, Sky.”
“Hey, Viktor! She was so perfect in person, oh my Gods-” They talk about the now-defined date a little bit, and the joy radiating from Sky is infectious. He finds himself grinning at the end of the recap, and he’s not bothered at all when they don’t start to collaborate on their workflows until half an hour later.
A few trials pass, several trials fail, and by the time four o’clock rolls around and the sun is beginning its descent, they’ve barely gotten anything done. Viktor texts Jayce.
-sorry for not texting sooner, i can be ready whenever you are
“Everything okay?” Sky asks.
“Yeah.” Viktor puts his phone back in his pocket. “I was just letting Jayce know he can pick me up.”
“Ooh, Jayce.” She grins. “So… How is that?”
“What do you mean?” Viktor asks, picking up on her double-edged question and choosing to dodge it, if possible. Not likely, he thinks to himself.
“Come on. How’s it going? Have you hooked up yet?” Sky’s humor is unashamed, and the blood drains from his face.
“I- excuse me?” She laughs maniacally.
“You, Viktor, you have to be a little bit realistic right now.” She says between giggles. “Drop the act and tell me about it!” Viktor stares at her amusement, unsure of where to go with this. It’s not that he distrusts Sky, certainly not, but what was he to say?
She watches as his dumbfounded expression fails to falter, and it seems to dawn on her that their living arrangement is purely based in utility alone. “Wait, you’re serious?” She gapes. “Oh my Gods! Viktor, you have to make a move!”
Viktor sputters. “He wouldn’t… That would not go… well.”
“Oh!” Sky exclaims, an accusatory finger pointed at his chest. “But you’re not denying that you would!”
She’s got a point – he’s trapped himself in a spot beyond the point of no return. “Of course I would, Sky, look at him!” Viktor hisses in humorous aggression, and she explodes into a fit of laughter. He can’t help but let his lips twitch into a grin with her as she wipes a tear from her eye.
“I’m serious, though, I think you have a shot.” She says, smile lines digging into her cheeks.
“You’ve lost your mind.” Viktor rolls his eyes, anxiously pulling his phone out to see if Jayce has replied. “I’m not talking about this.”
“He cares about you!” Sky insists. “Have you ever seen him bring someone home?”
“We have barely lived together for a week and a half, Sky. He does not strike me as that bold, despite his personality.” He hasn’t texted back.
“Yeah, but before that. Have you?”
“I guess… not.” Viktor realizes, but it’s not like he had spent his evenings sitting in the hallway, waiting to see if Jayce had any guests over. Her face lights up in victory as she opens her mouth to respond, but he’s quicker. “But I’m serious, I’m not talking about this. Do you have the green adjustable screwdriver? I don’t think the blue one takes this bit.”
Hesitantly, she eventually moves on. Half an hour later, Viktor’s phone buzzes, and he nearly drops it on the linoleum with the speed at which he pulls it out of his pocket.
-Omg I’m sorry I didn’t see this, coming now
Viktor packs up his tattered notebooks and puts his borrowed pieces of equipment back into their respective packages as delicately as possible. “He’s coming now, then?” Sky inquires with some type of accusatory tone, and he scoffs.
“Yes, Sky, my roommate is coming to pick me up. So we can go back to our apartment that we share. As roommates.” He zips up his bag, and the harsh movement sends a jolt of pain down his spine.
“You know, I think we’ll have to take another look at this later this week,” Sky says with a dejected huff as he reaches the door. “Sorry for gossiping most of the day.”
“It’s quite alright, Sky. I enjoy our talks.” Viktor opens the door.
“I’ll be expecting to hear all about how you and Jayce finally-”
“Goodbye, Sky.”
On the way back to the apartment, Jayce takes an unusual turn, and they end up at a familiar restaurant a few minutes down the road. “I’ll be right back.” He says before closing the driver’s side door, and in a few minutes, he returns to the car with a takeout bag. As they drive back to the complex, Viktor rolls down the window to let in some warm summer air and reads the receipt. “I ordered, like, an hour ago. I hope you like what I picked, but if you don’t, there’s plenty of leftovers and stuff back at the apartment, if you’re in the mood for those.”
Viktor does, in fact, like what he’s picked. It’s a dish he’s gotten once before, mentioning in passing that he’d enjoyed it perhaps two weeks ago now. He’s impressed and touched by Jayce’s memory, and later insists that he is perfectly capable of carrying the bag of food once they finally reach the parking lot of the complex.
When they get inside the door, the air conditioning hits Viktor’s skin and nearly pulls a shiver from him. A window’s been left cracked open since the morning’s toaster strudel incident, and the smell of warm grass mixes with the scent of cold dust from the vents. “Do you want to watch a movie tonight? It’s Friday, which kind of means nothing to us, but I really want to stop thinking about math.” Jayce offers.
“Sure.” Viktor agrees, kicking off his shoes and heading straight to the couch. Typically, he’d pause to change into casual attire, but the smell of the takeout awakens a deep hunger that he hadn’t realized was growing throughout the day. They settle on a movie that focuses on some type of cross between an alien and paranormal phenomenon, and Viktor sighs in relief as he finally begins to eat. He’s incredibly grateful for the gesture, and he sends Jayce an appropriate sum of money on his phone before he can vehemently decline the offer.
Once he’s satiated the initial pang of aggressive starvation, he realizes that the too-long screw situated within his leg brace is digging into his knee a bit too uncomfortably to ignore. Before he can think twice about it, Viktor pulls his pant leg above the knee, working to unclasp the workings of his brace. His eyes flit up to Jayce, who’s blatantly staring at his movement. “Sorry, do you mind if I…?” Viktor starts nervously, but Jayce’s eyebrows shoot up in record time.
“No, no, of course not! J-Just let me know if you need help, um, moving around or-” He gulps and returns his focus to the movie on the television screen, “-anything.” It’s kind of endearing, Viktor realizes, how anxious Jayce is to say the right thing, to look the right way, to find the just the right balance between kind and patronizing. He cares about you, Sky’s voice echoes in his mind.
Once the brace the fully separated from his skin, he leans down to set it on the rug as he lets his pant leg fall back into place. Strategically, and admittedly boldly, the spot Viktor settles into when he sits back up is a bit closer to Jayce’s own spot in the couch. He seems to stiffen in response to the movement, but it could also be due to the particularly tense point of the movie. It’s kind of predictable – the alien hates humankind’s greed, its selfishness – but Viktor can’t deny that it’s a movie capable of producing unsettling imagery. He also, notably, is unable to deny the fact that when Jayce moves to set his own food down on the coffee table, he’s shifted a bit closer to Viktor, too. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to dive into contact, to settle under Jayce’s arm and rest his head against his broad chest. He has to focus harder on the movie, suddenly unsure of what’s actually happening in the plot.
“I don’t know if I’d make that choice.” Jayce says as the protagonist makes a risky move, and his voice is tense, a bit wobbly.
“The good thing is, you’ll be alright, Jayce. I highly doubt you will ever have to make that choice.” Viktor muses. “You are not in a… what is that, a decrepit laboratory?”
“Yeah, I’m not anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this happened in a campus lab.”
“Yes, that is fair. The concoctions that the freshmen left at the end of the last semester could absolutely grow some kind of-” He’s cut off by a jumpscare that’s admittedly quite effective as they both jump, a gasp ripping through Viktor’s throat as his back makes contact with the arm Jayce has splayed across the back of the couch. A moment of tense silence later, they both burst into laughter and a hand brushes his shoulder. “That was not even that scary!”
“Oh please, Viktor, you do not get to say that after you jumped a foot off the couch!” Jayce smiles, and Viktor doesn’t care to keep up with what the sudden scare meant to the plot.
“It was loud, yes, but that does not mean it was an efficient scare! I’ve seen better still shots – I will have to show you a- nevermind, it’s actually not important.” He trails off, watching as a flashback scene unfolds on Jayce’s high-definition TV.
“No, I want to watch it!” Jayce’s hand grasps his shoulder as he speaks, and they’re suddenly locked into an extremely intimate position. He notices his mistake as soon as he makes it, freezing, and Sky’s words ring through Viktor’s mind once again. He cares about you.
At this exact moment, there are a plethora of ways in which he can alter both of their fates. Jayce’s actions are, of course, critical to the scenario as well, but the ball is truly in Viktor’s court at this point. It’s a risky endeavor, yes, certainly, but perhaps a scholarly one. Really, it’s for science! Viktor studies their position and is suddenly enlightened; the invisible line they dance around is now illuminated and glaring. How could he have been so blind to it before? Ever the critical, Viktor is always miles ahead of these elementary types of observations – how had he allowed such an oversight?
Viktor wants to cross the glowing line. He has to try, just to see what Jayce does. It’s a calculation, really.
Before Jayce can pull his arm back from its position across his shoulders, Viktor leans in and closes the space between their lips. The action is immediately effective, Jayce’s large, shifting hand now solidifying its grip on Viktor’s shoulder as he pulls in a sharp breath through his nose and kisses back. It’s thrilling, he realizes, nearly mind-numbing in nature, and a tiny part of his brain can’t help but finalize the active equation that had been running in the background. Viktor lets a hand reach for Jayce’s jaw as he presses further, the light layer of stubble scratching his skin as he realizes that he tastes like home, a comforting and almost familiar press of lips against his own.
Jayce’s other hand pulls his face away by his chin a moment later, and Viktor stares at his flushed skin as they gasp in near-synchronized huffs of air. “Viktor, what… Why?”
“I don’t know. Did you not want me to?” His voice doesn’t sound quite right when it rattles from his throat.
“No, no! I mean, yes, I do! I-I’m just wondering why, um, now-” Always inquisitive. Viktor doesn’t let him finish after the confirmation, now turning fully to lean into the connection of skin as he kisses Jayce again, lips twitching in amusement at his immediately eager response. His hands reach anywhere they can reasonably touch, one running through Jayce’s hair and the other sliding from his jaw and down the warm side of his neck. He pauses his hand’s movement for just a moment, feeling the thrum of his pulse thrash against his skin just as Jayce’s own hands move to his waist, partially obstructed by the brace under his shirt. He doesn’t make any movement to search, to move elsewhere, and Viktor sighs softly into the kiss as the warm tip of Jayce’s tongue swipes across his lip.
Although it wasn’t entirely his intention, the exchange is becoming quite heated. He’s not opposed to it, not at all, but an inkling of anxiety threatens to scratch its way up his throat as he leans even closer, letting his hand slide under the back of Jayce’s shirt in a sort of embrace. Large hands drop from his waist to his hips, pulling him somehow closer into their entanglement, and after another minute of increasingly rabid motions of his hands, Viktor elects to swing a leg over Jayce’s waist, effectively straddling him and deepening the kiss. It’s not a painful position, at least, not for now, but even if it was, he wouldn’t care enough to disrupt the way Jayce immediately gasps against his lips, pushing one hand up to rest between his shoulder blades as the other stays firm on his hip. “Viktor,” He breathes into the kiss. “Viktor, you’re comfortable?”
“Yes, Jayce,” He smiles at the endearing nature of his– friend? Certainly not the time to figure out that behemoth of a crisis. “I am perfectly comfortable. Thank you.” He leans back down, catching Jayce’s jaw with the hand that was in his hair and pressing their lips back together. A sudden shift of the hand on his hip sends a tingle of pleasure down Viktor’s spine as his hardening length drags against Jayce’s muscular thigh, and he’s also suddenly aware of Jayce’s own – good Gods, he’s massive – excitement in his lap.
Experimentally, he tilts his hips slightly, pressing into the warmth for just a moment, and a shiver rips from both of them. Another successful trial. The movie’s still playing on the TV, growing louder at one point and smothering the sound of a strangled whimper from Viktor’s own throat as he ruts against Jayce’s hardness. Emboldened, he reaches to the bottom hem of his shirt, sliding his hand up the warmth of his broad chest as his own dress shirt comes untucked. “Jayce.” He murmurs against his lips as the buttons of his shirt start to come undone. “Jayce, can you…” He takes a warm hand, guiding it to the locking mechanism of his back brace.
Before he can start instructing, Jayce is eagerly unworking the contraption like he’s the one who designed it. When it finally releases from his skin, Viktor lets out a relieved sigh and tosses it to to side, near his leg brace. “Thank you.” Before he can dive in for another kiss, Jayce stops him.
“Thank you, Viktor, for trusting me. Is this… okay?” His hair is messy, usually styled into place but now touseled like he’s just woken up as he breathes heavily into their shared air. Viktor stares into his enlarged pupils with his chest feeling like it’s at risk of collapsing under the weight of Jayce’s affection.
“Yeah, yes, this is good.” Viktor encourages, smothering the feeling with another kiss as he cradles Jayce’s face in both hands. It’s messier, teeth clicking against each other as he’s worked out of his dress shirt.
“Viktor, you’re… breathtaking.” Jayce murmurs the last word against the column of his neck, and the vibration pulls a gasp from his chest. His warmed hands explore the bared expanse of his chilled skin as he kisses his pulse point almost aggressively, nearly threatening to bite.
“Jayce,” Viktor hisses when he starts to move more frantically, dragging his hips forward against his own with his huge hands. “Ah, that’s- good.” He does it again, pressing wet kisses under his jaw, breath tickling his skin. It’s enough to make Viktor tangle both of his hands in Jayce’s hair, to lean into the motion and hum softly as arousal zips down his spine.
A few moments later, Jayce is fumbling with the button of Viktor’s pants, pulling away from his neck to look up at him. “Can I? Please?” His voice is strained, heaving in breaths after nearly every word, and Viktor is convinced he’s dreaming. It’s truly a sight to behold, Jayce Talis flustered and discheveled under his touch, pleading for permission. Unable to trust his words, Viktor just nods, pushing him into the back of the couch to kiss his lips again.
His brain short-circuits the moment Jayce’s hand wraps around him, dry but just feeling until the wetness of precum starts to slicken the glide of his movement. It’s slow, not quite enough to match the level of his arousal, but Gods, it’s Jayce, and he pants into the kiss. It’s almost like Jayce is conducting an experiment of his own, occasionally pausing to watch his own movement as it shifts, searching to see what pulls out each reaction from Viktor. It almost makes him want to pull away; the exposure in such an intimate way cuts into him like a blade, but another part of him wants to lean further into it, to fall onto the knife himself and bleed out into Jayce’s open arms.
His pace speeds to one that makes Viktor’s vision blur at the edges and he gives up on trying to properly kiss Jayce, instead letting his head drop to his shoulder and gripping the tops of his strong arms. “This is okay?” Jayce pants, his voice vibrating against the top of Viktor’s head.
“Hmm,” He hums in response, hips shuddering forward to chase the friction. “Yes, Jayce, it’s- hah, it’s good.” Jayce’s own hardness twitches against his thigh, and he suddenly wants to see it, to touch him and take in the scent of his bare skin. “Let me…” A shaky hand reaches down, starting to unclasp the button of Jayce’s jeans.
“You don’t have to-”
“I want to.” Viktor insists, mind swimming with overwhelming sensation. Jayce slows his pace before pulling away entirely, letting Viktor move enough to unzip his own pants and free his leaking cock from the confines of his briefs. It’s proportional to the rest of him, sitting heavily in Viktor’s hand as he gazes in awe before starting to stroke him. Jayce’s hips jerk up into the touch, spilling clear fluid over the fingers that just barely reach around the circumference, and after a moment, he swats Viktor’s hand away.
“C’mere, closer,” Jayce breathes, pulling him in by the hips instead of waiting for a response and wrapping a hand around both of their lengths. Viktor’s vision cuts out for a moment, and he settles his forehead back against Jayce’s shoulder with a groan as his hand starts to move.
Viktor’s no virgin, but he isn’t a particularly sex-driven man. It’s simply not much of an interest to him, the social contract often too exhausting to entertain, so he rarely engages in the act. He knows without a doubt, though, that this is the most enjoyable of his experiences by far as hips twitch forward, following the movement of Jayce’s hand and letting a whimper fall from his lips.
It just feels so good; Jayce’s rough and calloused hands would’ve been uncomfortable against his skin without their mixing precum aiding the movement, and instead, it provides a delicious texture against the head of his cock with each swipe, forcing the band of tension in his gut tighter and tighter. “Viktor, fuck, you’re so perfect, so good,” Jayce sighs into his ear, sending a shiver down his back. “Please let me see you, look at me.”
Hesitantly, Viktor lifts his gaze to Jayce’s, looking down at his reddened lips and the way his eyes are nearly black with the size of his pupils. When he leans in for a kiss, Jayce tightens his hand and quickens his pace further, pulling involuntary sounds from Viktor’s lips as he toes closer and closer to the edge. “Yes, like that,” He whispers against Jayce’s mouth, voice unreachable in the state of his clouded mind. Instead of intensifying the movement further like the apparently non-English comprehending partners of his past would have at the sentiment, Jayce keeps the pace exactly how it is, and it’s so pleasurable that Viktor could drown in the sensation. “So good, Jayce, it’s-” He gasps, suddenly teetering right on the edge of release. “Oh, Jayce, I’m-”
“Oh my Gods, Viktor, you feel so good like this, sound so pretty.” Jayce is pushing his free hand into Viktor’s hair, freeing his face from the obstruction and pressing a kiss just beneath his jaw when it’s all suddenly far too much to contain, too explosive to hold back any further. At the next stroke of his hand, Viktor is gasping out Jayce’s name, hips thrusting as he spills his release onto Jayce’s hand and cock with a broken sob. It’s the most intense orgasm he’s experienced in a long time, perhaps ever, legs shuddering as he’s worked through it and unable to stop the string of moans and curses that rip from his throat. When it’s too much friction to be enjoyable anymore, he pushes Jayce’s hand away, catching his lips in a kiss.
Viktor is well-aware of the ways in which hormone production affects emotion, but in that moment, the weightlessness he feels in Jayce’s hold is unbearably tender. He kisses him harder, reaching between them to take hold of his hardness and swallowing the groan from Jayce’s lips. He doesn’t expect he’ll last long by the way he’s twitching, thrusting into his hand and furrowing his brows. “Come on, Jayce,” Viktor murmurs, moving to press a kiss against his bared throat. “Are you going to cum?”
Jayce shudders out a breath, nodding as he clenches his jaw. Viktor commits the image to memory before leaning back down, letting his kiss transform into a bite on his collarbone, one just against the side of his throat, and a second later, his hand is being covered in Jayce’s release. The sound of his pleasured sighs are purely erotic, and Viktor watches his own hand move in fascination as he pulls the final drops of release from his length.
After a few moments of sharing heaving breaths, Jayce pulls him into a short kiss. "You're incredible, Viktor. Wow."
Viktor is suddenly lost for words, reality slowly starting to settle into his mind. "Thank you for... that." He swallows nervously.
Jayce just smiles at him endearingly, and then his eyes wander just past his face. "Oh my Gods, I think the movie's about to end."
Viktor laughs at that, pulling himself off of Jayce's lap and dressing to an appropriate manner before stretching his legs out. "We watched maybe... thirty minutes of it? I would say that is a fair amount."
Jayce takes off his t-shirt to wipe himself off, and Viktor mentally curses himself for not getting it off sooner. “I’ll be back.” He promises before going to his room, returning in loungewear. “Did you want to, um, maybe try a different movie?” He offers, and the two of them burst into laughter.
“Yes, Jayce, I would like to actually watch a movie with you. Stay here, I have to get my contacts out.” Viktor makes his way to his room, deciding to leave his braces at the couch in case he ends up falling asleep during the movie. In the solitude of his room, he lets out a sigh of satisfied disbelief before changing into pajamas, hurrying as though Jayce will disappear in the time it takes him to get more comfortable.
Of course, he doesn’t, and when Viktor settles into his side on the couch, he feels stupid for thinking that this would be such a horrendous idea. It’s actually turning out to be quite a good one, he thinks.
Notes:
rubbing my hands together like a fly when i name drop the title of the fic like it's a marvel movie... anyway
next chapter has two different drafted possibilities. it could either be a bit of filler, a fun date around town perhaps and general sweetness. or, potentially, i can continue to operate on the assumption that these two are idiots and let them stew for a little longer. i thought i'd ask about what the readers want to see! the overall plot won't change, but the next chapter could work both ways. i might override opinion and write something entirely different to be transparent, but i hope you all enjoyed this chapter and had a good weekend!
Chapter 5
Notes:
sorry for the long wait! as a grad student myself i've been fighting for my life. :,)
Chapter Text
Don’t move, Jayce thinks to himself, don’t fucking move an inch. Viktor seems like he’s thirty seconds from a coma, his slowed breathing having evolved into what sounds like sighs of sleepiness. From the position of his head resting on Jayce’s chest, he can’t quite tell if his eyes are closed, a mystery that’s equal parts infuriating and invigorating.
The vent just above them sends cool air down the back of Jayce’s neck, and although it’s miserably warm outside, the air conditioning provides the perfect environment for the two of them to huddle under a single blanket. It’s something he’s daydreamt about; there’s another life in which they’re pressed against each other in front of the warmth of a fire, sharing the heat as their legs tangle up together. In this life, though, Jayce lets his hand rest on the curve of Viktor’s hip, careful not to wander. He’s watching the closed captions coordinate on screen, but not really reading them, finding them mildly distracting to the actual film. I cannot understand these kinds of movies, they speak too quickly. Viktor had said earlier in the night. It is a nightmare trying to keep up. Of course, he’d obliged to the accessibility request, finding himself far too engrossed in the parts of exposed skin that were touching his own to watch much of the movie anyway.
“Viktor,” Jayce murmurs, lightly squeezing the fragile hip under his palm as the other man stirs. “You shouldn’t fall asleep here, it can’t be good for you.”
“I am comfortable enough.” Viktor’s voice is riddled with exhaustion. It’s not anything he hasn’t heard before, but when it vibrates against Jayce’s chest, he feels his heart contract tightly.
“Yeah, but you’ll be pissed tomorrow if your back hurts. Plus, I’ll feel like shit if you’re immobile because I let you sleep like a ragdoll.” Viktor just hums, not really seeming to register the words and not caring to try, either. Another moment passes, and Jayce tries again. “Viktor.”
“Fine.” He huffs, running a slender hand through his hair and starting to sit up, albeit quite slowly. “I’m not putting my braces back on, though. You’ll have to help me to bed.”
Hesitant to separate despite his insistence to do so, Jayce lets his palm linger for a moment longer before standing himself, offering both hands to a squinting and tired Viktor. After a long sigh and a sideways glance at his mobility aids, he finally takes one hand, then both, and uses them as leverage to pull himself to his feet with some difficulty. It’s not a far walk to the guest room, but Jayce can’t help but wince at the first three wobbly steps in the direction of the hallway. “Can I, um, is it okay if I just carry you? I don’t know what the best way to provide support would be in, uh, this kind of…”
Viktor lets out a huff of breath, clearly exerting a considerable amount of physical effort from the few steps he’s taken. His lips press into a firm line as he thinks, clearly resistant to the idea, but he nods as he avoids eye contact. “Don’t drop me.”
Offering to help is one thing, but actually picking him up is another. Deciding on the best move for the comfort of his leg and back, Jayce swipes an arm under his knees, pulling Viktor’s warm body against his chest and starting straight for the hallway. He’s unbelievably light, nose pressing against the crook of Jayce’s neck as his ankles dangle in the air. Jayce would carry him absolutely everywhere if he let him, he realizes, stopping briefly at the door to nudge it open with his foot. Realistically, he’s well aware that this is likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he tries not to make his stalling obvious as he inches towards the bed. Although there aren’t any lights on to illuminate the space, Jayce can tell that it’s been slightly lived in since the last he saw it nearly two weeks ago; a well-loved jacket is draped across his desk chair, there’s a movie poster that he vaguely recognizes the title of held to a wall with thumb tacks.
Carefully, he lowers Viktor onto the cool sheets, who lets himself fall against the pillows with a sigh. “Thank you, Jayce,” He says as he takes off his glasses and clumsily sets them on the side table next to his bed, voice gravelly. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“I don’t mind at all, Viktor.” Suddenly becoming acutely aware that he’s standing still as a statue at the side of a very tired Viktor’s bed, Jayce wrings his hands awkwardly and makes for the door. “Goodnight.” He doesn’t let himself look back until the bedroom door has clicked shut, but it sounds like Viktor has fallen asleep already, anyway.
In the privacy of his own bedroom, Jayce begins to spiral. Of course, the whirlwind of an evening had to come to a close at some point, whether it concluded with Jayce alone in his room or curled up next to his partner in science. It just so happens that he’s suddenly left alone with his thoughts, and panic is starting to stir in his chest. To be entirely fair, he had explicitly asked a clarifying question — sure, the question itself hadn’t been very explicit, but he figures that a general why had been contextually sufficient considering the fact that his friend’s hands had been on his face, in his hair, down his shirt… Regardless, he had received little of an answer.
He should’ve been more concise with his question, he thinks, stopped them where they were and flat-out asked what was happening. He wants to know every thought in Viktor’s mind, really, but the most important one seems to have been blatantly missed. Jayce’s stomach sinks as he sits on his own bed, gnawing at his fingernails anxiously. How can asking a simple what are we possibly feel infinitely more invasive and intimate than quite literally having your hands down someone’s pants? It’s far too much to push for answers at this exact moment in time, he concludes, and panicking about it won’t change the reality of the situation.
Was the carrying too much? Surely, it had to be too much — Viktor rarely takes an outstretched hand for help, and he certainly doesn’t hop into anyone’s open arms. It didn’t seem like too much at the time, but it was far from impossible. There’s a misconception that Viktor has a harsh, even audacious personality at times, but in reality, he simply knows how to assert himself. He’s a perfectly vocal communicator of his wants and needs, pushing abrasive at times to the untrained ear, but Jayce still isn’t one hundred percent confident that he’d be told if he’s overstepped. The situation they’ve found themselves in is becoming more complicated with every passing minute, and although his friend is the smartest person he’s ever met by a long shot, Jayce is unconvinced that Viktor is navigating it flawlessly.
The ribbon that ties them together is squeezing tighter than it ever has before, straining against the force of their companionship and threatening to tear. Yet at this moment, it feels as though Jayce has been cut loose from the ribbon prematurely, stranded, floating in the zero-gravity nothingness of confusion and solitude. He wishes more than ever to shrink down and crawl into Viktor’s mind, or better, to find a warm corner in his chest and curl up under a blanket of his viscera. The need to consume and be consumed is maddening; it’s a primal desire that reaches beyond the bounds in which Jayce is able to cope properly.
He’s not going to sleep anyway, Jayce thinks as he rises from the mattress and stalks down the hallway. After the first lap around the apartment, his mind is still amped up to ten. After the third, the electricity buzzing around his skull settles into something different, and after the eighth, he realizes he’s pacing around the apartment like a guard dog. He can’t help but listen for the slightest indication of discomfort, overwhelmed with a need to take the entire burden of living life off of Viktor’s shoulders, to allow him to simply exist where and when he’d like to. It’s far from possible, he knows this, but after the twenty-second lap, he doesn’t care anymore.
When Jayce wakes to the sun hitting his eyelids with a near-nuclear force of light, he’s far too exhausted to work himself into another anxious fit. Instead of a crushing air of awkwardness, the kitchen sits in a bland sense of nothingness when Viktor finally emerges from the hallway. He takes his usual mug of coffee with some kind of a bland stiffness, nearing coldness but with an undercurrent of something Jayce is either too tired or too stupid to decipher.
The way Viktor is moving is unnatural, it’s overly mechanical and exceedingly careful. Jayce is awake enough to worry, trying to take in as much information as he can in the brief glances he allows himself beyond his peripherals – he doesn’t like the way Viktor is holding his weight as he shuffles back down the hallway, but he doesn’t want to suffocate him, either. A never-ending carousel of torture for both of them, it seems.
Instead of joining him at the lab, Viktor elects to stay home that day. “Nothing at the laboratory will assist with the current state of my work.” He says from the doorway of his room while avoiding Jayce’s inquisitive gaze, deep eye bags cutting into the sharp planes of his face.
“Are you sure? What if you, like, need something from me? I can hang back today!” Jayce insists, trillions of possible mishaps racing through his mind as he fights the urge to simply drop his bag and kick his shoes off regardless of the other’s response.
“I’m sure.” Viktor looks at him then. “I have spent many days alone in an apartment, Jayce.” It’s not snappy by any means, but something about the way he speaks freezes the blood in Jayce’s veins. He’s heard Viktor’s sharper tone a near-infinite amount of times, and this certainly isn’t it. It’s lost in the vagueness of something else, a reality he has a hard time swallowing as he fights the urge to explain himself.
“Of course!” He settles on plainly, calling down the hallway as he heads back to the front door. “Text me if you change your mind!”
Jayce skips past the usual lab entirely and drives directly to the other end of campus, a trip he usually takes once Viktor has already settled into a fully logarithmic trance. A friend – well, closer to an acquaintance, really, – with a concentration in orthopedics has been letting him use the building space over the past few months for a project that’s nearly humiliating if he thinks about it too long. His acquaintance doesn’t seem to be on campus today, Jayce realizes as he sets his bag and keys onto an empty chair.
In front of him sits a mostly-constructed mobility aid, designed (with the help of an unlucky intern) to correct the inward tilt of a leg and to take pressure off of the joints without stressing the user’s back. It’s an entirely unique design, quite innovative, really, but entirely too much.
It’s a few weeks from full completion, and he just needs to find some subtle way to get Viktor’s measurements. From there, he can adjust the custom-fitted functions behind the calf and weld in the clasps in the most useful orientation possible based on average weight distribution. The knowledge he’s gathered over the past several years from the construction of the mechanical arm – jovially titled the hex claw by none other than Viktor himself – has allowed for leaps and bounds in the making of this brace. Surely, it would have taken him years to get this far in the past, rather than within a few months of an adrenaline-fueled frenzy.
Jayce is still easily at the point where the brace can be used for someone else of similar stature to Viktor, so he has a clear exit should he choose to take it. How can he even customize it without clear measurements? It was a question he’s kicked down the road since the very beginning of this project, but now, it sits at his feet. Should he just pull the trigger and ask for his measurements as clearly and concisely as possible? Would it be better to bring home what he has and just adjust it later if everything goes over smoothly? Or, perhaps it can sit in the ortho wing until some unlucky student decides to scrap it for parts.
For the next hour, Jayce paces and deals with meaningless matters on his phone, avoiding the behemoth of a task in front of him. It's embarrassing, really, to start crafting something like this when the only information you have to go on is an observed limp and a handful of comments here and there. What had he been thinking when he started this?
Finally, Jayce takes a deep breath. Either way, he’s here, and something has to be done. He starts tinkering with the fittings, imagining how Viktor’s thigh had fit in his palm and adjusting accordingly with a clenched Jaw.
It’s barely two-thirty when he quite literally throws in the towel, dropping a microfiber cloth onto the workbench in front of him with an exceedingly dramatic sigh. It echoes faintly throughout the room, and it’s only then that Jayce realizes he never turned on the overhead lights. He’d rather not terrify Viktor by showing up unannounced three hours earlier than usual, so he pulls out his phone.
–Hey, sorry to bother but I’m headed home early. Do u need anything while I’m out?
Of course, he doesn’t get an immediate response. He doesn’t get one by the time he’s in his car, either, though, so he decides to run an errand before making his way home. A long-overdue library book sits in his back seat, and he makes himself wait until he’s watched the book disappear into the drop box to check his phone. Still, nothing. Unable to stall any further, Jayce drives five under the speed limit all the way home, not seeing a single other car on the roads the entire way.
It’s dead silent in the apartment when he gets home, and Jayce would wonder if he’s home alone if it weren’t for the extra pair of shoes at the door. After spending a still moment in the doorway, the silence doesn’t cease, and he kicks his shoes off. He wishes for a completely stealthy way to check up on Viktor without alerting him, which is a completely normal thing to think in this context, Jayce convinces himself. He debates on sending a follow-up text the entire time he’s combing his hair in the bathroom, but ultimately decides against it. There’s no way Viktor doesn’t know he’s home at this point, having purposefully made some noise on his way down the hall. It’s when he starts making dinner half an hour later that Viktor finally texts back, and although he’s just down the hall, Jayce nearly jumps to read the message.
–sorry ive been asleep
He’s still typing.
–can i ask u for a massive favor
He’s so relieved to finally hear back from Viktor that the pot of water on the stove almost boils over, finally able to quell the distressing thoughts of finding him unresponsive in bed for some indiscernible reason.
–Yeah of course you can. Jayce waits a moment to text back. Btw, want dinner? It’s just frozen ravioli.
It’s another fifteen agonizing minutes before he gets another response, the ravioli boiled and sauce nearly warm enough to combine.
–i’ll come get some in a little bit, ty. i left a medication in your bathroom cabinet, can u plsss grab it for me
Jayce is already in the bathroom by the time he’s done reading the text, opening the cabinet and asking which one. He recognizes the function of each medication, having been well educated in the pharmaceutical side of things – although they tended to bore him half to death, he’ll admit that he’s functionally good at it. He tries not to read absolutely every bottle out of respect while he waits shortly for a response, and when he finally grabs a prescription-strength painkiller from the cabinet, he realizes Viktor must be in pain.
–Ok, do you want me to leave it at your door? Jayce texts, lingering awkwardly in the hallway as though he can be seen standing there.
“Can you come in?” Viktor calls out instead of messaging, and his slightly muffled voice momentarily startles Jayce.
Instead of verbally answering, he carefully opens the door as though he’s still capable of startling the other. In the daylight, Viktor’s room holds more character than he’d expected from such minimal decor, and Jayce smiles politely as he brings the medication to his bedside. “I’ll refill your water.” He offers, plucking up the empty glass from the side table as Viktor calls out a soft thank you after him. He tries not to hover as Viktor takes two white tablets with a sip of water, followed by several more sips as his nose slightly twitches up from the taste. “Do you want me to fill that back up?” Jayce offers.
“No, that’s alright. I apologize for being so reclusive today.” Viktor wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, settling back into the position he was in before.
“No, Viktor, it’s perfectly fine! Is there anything else I can do for you, though?” Jayce barely holds back the desperation in his voice.
“You have done plenty. Enjoy your dinner, Jayce.” Viktor smiles at him politely. His hand sits on the cold doorknob as he takes in his environment more critically. It’s not quite awkward, but there’s a tension that sits oppressively in the air between them.
"Thanks.” He lets out a breath, looking at his feet. “I can bring you some whenever you’re hungry.” He leaves at that, not trying to force more conversation out of an already-anti-social person who’s clearly suffering. The guilt that had eaten at him the day before was surprisingly but pleasantly suppressed by the night that had followed, but it hasn't entirely gone away. No -- instead, it's festered into something deeper, dug its claws into the newly exposed flesh of his heart.
Was it the stance they were in that caused a potential flare up of sorts? Maybe the position they laid in on the couch afterward? He should’ve been more attentive, far more attentive to Viktor’s body language beyond what was interesting to him. The ravioli doesn’t taste quite right.
What Viktor had said all those weeks ago was entirely right. He did not like to be seen. Although the day of pain seemed to ease itself with time, he continued to work in his room – Jayce only knows because the document they have shared online is often updated with between ten and twenty pages of new findings. Some large part of him spirals further every day, worried he’s somehow misremembered everything entirely and has actually pushed a completely undesirable dynamic onto Viktor as he works through formula after formula.
The only thing that keeps Jayce from breaking the door down and begging for a single hint at the thoughts in Viktor’s mind is the idea of emotionally suffocating him, but that fear alone isn’t nearly enough to dampen the gnawing anxiety. A full week passes before he finally crumbles, knocking on his bedroom door one morning and offering a ride to the lab. “Maybe a change of environment will help. It’s too easy to get stuck in your head, you know.”
“No, thank you, Jayce. Be cautious driving today, the wind looks quite intense.” Don’t push it, do not push it.
“I will be!” He smiles and locks the apartment door behind him.
—☆—
Why isn’t this working? Viktor thinks for the umpteenth time, tapping his pencil against his desk frustratedly. The formula works backwards, but forwards, it just… doesn’t. At all. Every possible variable has been taken out, put back in, rewritten as clearly as they can be, and it simply does not compute. This shouldn’t be mathematically possible, it isn’t mathematically possible, and he feels a headache coming on. Remembering every other time he’s been positive he’s discovered a complete impossibility within the fabric of mathematics itself, he logically knows he just needs a fresh pair of eyes to identify the error. Still, the fact that Viktor’s own eyes cannot find it is maddening. He settles for a break.
Jayce is still at the lab, and he shouldn’t be home for another three-ish hours if everything goes to plan, which it rarely does. Pushing away from the desk, Viktor leans back in his chair and rummages through his bag. He crunches on some chips he got from the near-empty campus market the other day, but what he’s really craving is takeout and a movie with Jayce.
It’s shameful, really, how cowardly he’s behaving, he thinks. Ever since the single night they spent together on the couch, he’s curled in on himself, shriveled up and coldly isolated. It truly hadn't been intentional at first, he’d been unluckily struck with a horrifically bad pain day and simply needed bedrest in the hours following. Out of pure embarrassment, he’d acted as though he’d slept the entire day away – a lie he doubts Jayce bought, but stranger things have happened – when in fact, he’d stewed in his emotions all day like a brooding teenager. It was juvenile, he’d even thought at the time, but he couldn’t stop it regardless.
He also hasn’t been the greatest friend to Sky, he faces shamefully, having avoided both the lab and his obligation to help with her research. Of course, she doesn’t know why he’d suddenly stopped showing up like clockwork – that would be a dramatic conversation that he’s simply never in the mood to have – but she doesn’t push for answers, either, thankfully.
Frustrated, Viktor crumples up the now-empty chip bag and tosses it at the trash can under his desk, missing by a solid five inches. It only needed to make it a foot across the room, and he stares at his failure blankly for a moment before picking it up and disposing of it properly. He clumsily wipes the few stray crumbs from his pants and stretches his legs, finally looking back to the demonic entity that is his laptop.
He really wants to do this with Jayce instead, maybe on their own laptops but curled up comfortably in bed instead of hunched over their respective desks. It wouldn’t be ideal, really, knowing the way both of them work, but he lets himself yearn for it anyway. Plus, Viktor really can’t push his luck. Although his initial experiment had concluded successfully, its results yielded an odd reaction of sorts – what had followed was wholly unplanned and threw a wrench in the entire formula. What he’s coming to understand is that Jayce was simply in need of sexual companionship, likely feeling stifled by Viktor’s moving in and the closing opportunities to have over whoever he’d like without an awkward conversation. They’ll move past it perfectly fine, he’s sure of it, but Viktor isn’t sure he’ll be able to ever mentally turn back.
Regardless, such a domestic request is out of the question. They’d never get anything done, probably bickering over who’s taking up more space. Something small in Viktor’s mind tells him that Jayce would comply if he simply asked, but whether it would further impact their precarious relationship is another question. It’s so deeply frustrating to have such intense feelings, and he wishes he could flip a switch to turn them off. He’s not even sure which emotions he’s feeling, unable to hammer down exactly what he wants from Jayce and prancing around a few simple conversations like they’re fatal after spending nearly an hour half-naked on his lap.
Viktor is a man of logic. He does not allow emotion to plague the path he wants to take in life in any regard. His pulse thumps against his throat in protest as he settles on a decision – tonight, he’ll talk with Jayce, figure out whatever this is, and they’ll move on. That’s what he’s best at. For now, he’ll get back to work.
He migrates to the living room over half an hour before Jayce is supposed to get home. He doesn’t get any work done on the couch, listening to every footstep in the hallway of the complex with the same anxiety as though he’s awaiting a police raid. Distracting himself with the same numbers he’s been staring at for a week isn’t working, so Viktor tends to a digital animal farm he’s kept track of for nearly two years. The website’s interface is riddled with ads, nearly unusable to the untrained eye, but he can’t bear to abandon his digital barn cat.
Jayce gets home a little later than he usually does, toting a cardboard box so tall it obscures most of his face. He looks surprised to see Viktor on the couch and kicks off his shoes without putting the box down. “Hey, change of environment helping?” He teases, taking the mystery item to his room. It couldn’t be the mech arm, there’s absolutely no use in having it here and it’s so intertwined with the workstation wiring that moving it is a rare and grueling task.
“Not really, no.” To be fair, he’s not lying in the slightest. Still wanting to look as though he’s been productive, Viktor closes the game tab and runs through his work documents to make sure everything is saved. When Jayce returns from his room behaving strangely, Viktor squints at him. He plays stupid with his expression, simply looking back to the cabinet he’s rummaging through and pulling out a can of- no, not that one, he puts it back. Now is as good a time as ever, Viktor supposes. “Jayce.” He almost drops the bag of rice in his hands, spinning to face the living room. “Would you like to order takeout tonight? I’ll buy. I finished the third round of computing trials today and would like to take a small break.” He’s actually not even started the second round, but the lie seems to bounce right off of Jayce’s ears as his face illuminates with a smile.
“Yeah, that sounds great! You’re not buying, though.”
They settle on a restaurant quite quickly, and as Jayce makes the phone call to place their orders, Viktor admits to himself that he’s chickened out. He clicks through the streaming services preemptively while Jayce politely clarifies their address a third time – it’ll probably take forty five minutes for the food to arrive, but he selfishly misses spending time with Jayce. Finding that nothing on the TV has been watched since the movie he fell asleep on a week prior, he wonders about the details of Jayce’s work. Usually, he’s equally as invested in Jayce’s projects, sometimes even more passionate on a rare occasion. Has he simply been incredibly busy like himself, unable to pause for a moment of leisure?
Viktor offers the remote to him when he’s joined on the couch and scrolls on his phone. While they wait for the food, Jayce watches a movie trailer that he eventually dismisses out of boredom. The name of their university appears in a notification on Viktor’s phone; he clicks it to find that the school is trending mildly for some kind of financial investigation, but he doesn’t care enough to engage and closes the app for peace of mind.
“Okay, what about this one?” Jayce says, referring optimistically to a horror movie Viktor’s seen before. “Or, we could always catch up on Fling or Flame.” The idea of catching up is a bit ridiculous considering they’ve only watched two episodes of a four-season and still-running show, but it’s a routine he misses nonetheless.
“I’m sure you are joking to some extent, but I do actually kind of want to watch it.” Viktor admits sheepishly, and Jayce lets out what sounds to be a relieved laugh.
“Oh my Gods, it’s so stupid, but I really want to watch it, too! Okay, that makes this whole process a lot easier.”
They’re most of the way through another ridiculously over-the-top episode when there’s a knock at the door. Jayce stands to answer it, tips the delivery driver, and kindly thanks her for the food. Viktor finds his polite tenderness extremely endearing as he extends a hand from the couch, taking his container of food with thanks of his own.
Things will surely change in the following few weeks, and there is no doubt about it. It seems the hurdle has been mostly conquered without the need for conversation as they enjoy a casual dinner together, but Viktor knows that can’t be quite right. The fall semester is approaching, and they really don’t have time to sort out such trivial endeavors.
Speaking of the upcoming semester, another notification momentarily draws Viktor’s attention to his phone. A social media app he’s not bothered enough to delete shows a break in some kind of on-campus case — knowing the ways in which his life teeters on the financial decisions of his overlords, Viktor should really look into that. Instead, he props his feet on the coffee table and sets his phone down, trying not to think too hard about the last time they watched something together.
Chapter 6
Notes:
thanks so much for waiting on this update, i really hope you think it's worth it! :D i have between eight and nine chapters planned, so we've officially pushed beyond the halfway point, maybe moving into the point of 2/3 or 3/4 completion. thank you all so so much for reading along and enjoying this story with me!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s been a warm day. An open window lets in the chirping of crickets and the sound of a nearby sports team’s practice, and from the couch, Viktor can nearly decipher exactly what the coach is shouting. It’s not too distracting, though, and the smell of the evening air — a grassy botanical scent carrying the sweetness of a college town — is worth it enough to put up with. Jayce is on an ‘ultra-secret mission,’ (his words,) and as Viktor watches the last drops of sunlight push into the living room, he wonders how late Jayce will be. It’s not like he’ll nag, but he embarrassingly wants to watch the season finale of Fling or Flame tonight. Most of the people on the show have been eliminated and sent home, and the finalists held an obvious winner — Viktor imagines Jayce feels the same by the way he’d loudly protested at a particularly rough elimination, but it’s still humiliating to be genuinely entranced by a horrifically bad dating show.
It’s nearing nine in the evening when Jayce waltzes in the front door with a grin on his face, packet of papers in hand. “What have you gotten yourself into?” Viktor raises an eyebrow.
The papers rustle in the breeze of the open window when he sets them on the coffee table. “Get registered, you have funding for probably two classes if you pick them right.” Jayce’s hands rest on his hips confidently as Viktor slaps his glasses onto his face so quickly he nearly pokes an eye out.
“What are you talking about?” He grabs the papers with a quivering hand, crumpling the edge a bit as he squints to read its contents. Sure enough, it shows a hefty deposit made to his bursar account — certainly enough to cover two more classes.
“You’ll want to register before they’re full, fall semester’s always busiest.” He can feel Jayce watching him as he flips through the papers, various redacted credentials lined up with his own.
“How did you… Who is this?” Viktor points to a name at the top of the paper, and a shrill whistle sounds from somewhere outside.
“I had a sponsor meeting today.” It’s like Jayce has sensed his impending protest from a mile away, and he holds up his finger to halt Viktor’s response. “Hear me out — I had to bring my blueprints anyway, so I grabbed the ones we worked on together in case they wanted a closer look. Your notes ended up in the pile and they asked if I was bilingual, which, obviously, I am not, so then, naturally, you came up, and-“
“Jayce! You did not!” Viktor drops the packet to his lap harshly, exasperated. “That’s your work entirely! It isn’t right for me to claim a single penny that’s supposed to go towards your work.”
“Yes, I know, and I thought you might say that. The good thing is, my funding didn’t change. If someone’s rich enough to fund both of us, why say no?” Jayce smiles, aware that his logic is technically sound. Still, Viktor is uneasy, a feeling of shame brewing in his stomach. There’s no reason that he should have this opportunity over any of the countless students who probably had to drop out entirely due to the funding pull, especially after he’s been living lavishly with dirt-cheap rent and eating someone else’s food. If someone’s rich enough to comfortably fund two students, what’s stopping them from funding three? Four? “Plus, it’s just some collaborative credit, so it’ll only push you through the semester.”
Still, optimism starts to seep in beside the guilt. It’s not a permanent solution, but it’ll at least cut down the amount of extra time he’ll have to spend at the university by at least half a semester. Now, he might be on track to graduate with Jayce, albeit a semester late. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” Viktor blinks dumbfoundedly as Jayce sets his work bag next to him on the couch, watching with a smile as he scrambles to grab and open his laptop.
There are two courses he'd planned to take this semester nearly a year ago, although it feels closer to a lifetime ago, but one of them does not have any open seats. Regardless, he navigates to the the other one and pulls up the list of available classes in another tab. It’s not long before he settles on another three-credit course that fulfills his requirements, and he hastily enters his information like the opportunity will disappear. Knowing graduate school, it just might.
When he clicks register, there isn’t an error message filling the screen like Viktor is expecting. Instead, his laptop screen congratulates him on the new semester, and he lets out a sigh. He doesn’t realize he’s wearing a satisfied smile until he’s going back two or three pages and the black screen reflects his expression briefly, and when he looks at his student information page, he can’t believe it. He’s officially registered for three classes alongside his independent research study, all paid for and dealt with until spring rolls around.
“Congrats! Your life is officially twice as hard.” Jayce grins, clapping a hand on Viktor’s shoulder before moving to the kitchen and starting on an evening snack.
“Thank you.” Viktor repeats himself, but it comes out closer to a whisper, and he doesn’t think Jayce hears it.
A few short weeks later, he wishes he had looked more closely at the list of available classes. He’s sitting in a lecture hall with at least one hundred other students, a class size he avoids like the plague, listening to a familiar professor drone on. Listening is a generous phrase, as Viktor’s truly focused on tending to his digital farm, letting out a huff as he feeds his cat for the second time in an hour. Insatiable animal, he thinks as she happily laps up her milk.
He’s experienced the professor’s teaching style once before – it’s led by a gruff, no-nonsense older man with a tendency to ramble – and barely survived exam season. In the realm of molecular thermodynamics, Viktor is certain that the man is entirely incapable of holding his attention for long enough to force any new information into his skull. Gratingly, he reminds himself of how endlessly thankful he is for the opportunity to further partake in mind-numbing credit fulfillments – by the grace of some kind of magical force, his life choices have somehow gotten him into two extra classes. Regardless, he can’t help but glare at the wall as the final fifteen minutes of class drag on.
On the bright side, Viktor’s research is doing incredibly.
Although he’ll never admit it, getting back into the lab after spending so much time in a stuffy bedroom had indeed helped his workflow tremendously. Something about having the space to roam, although he’d never use it, opens up his mind – it’s almost as though his thoughts tend to be restricted by the confines of whatever room he’s in, and the spaciousness of the laboratory sets them free. The day prior, Viktor had settled down next to Sky at a workbench, smiling at Jayce’s exasperated good luck as they’d parted ways. With the fall semester in full swing, a little over half a dozen other students moved throughout the massive lab space, luckily having the intellect to keep moderately quiet as they’d worked. Sky’d been there since the campus had opened for the morning, and it looked like she'd been clicking between nearly fifty tabs on her laptop.
“Good afternoon, Sky,” Viktor had said softly, trying not to smile as she’d nearly jumped out of her seat in surprise.
“Oh! Hey, Viktor!” Her smile was nearly blinding, white teeth glinting in the sun. “I think I’m going to lose my shit if I look at this any longer. What kind of work do you have to look at?” As if to emphasize her point, she’d closed her laptop with enough force to let a clack ring throughout the laboratory, and a few heads had turned.
Paying them no mind, he’d pulled his own work bag onto his lap. “I have a considerable amount of homework to do, but as for research…” He’d retrieved his laptop and notebook, flipping open to a quite worn page. “I haven’t been able to work out this function for… two weeks? Pushing three perhaps? I was wondering if you could share your insight.” Sky’s insight had, admittedly, proven to be critical in the past. He’s found himself inputting threes as eights and sevens as ones after a particularly helpful intervention, and her tendency to keep from indulging in frustration until it’s absolutely unavoidable was a saving grace at times like those.
She’d taken a long look at the equation on the page, pulling out a scrap piece of paper herself and absentmindedly scrawling out her thought process. “Okay, so, right off the bat, it looks like you’ve got this variable- wait,, no, that’ll work…” Sky had murmured, lightly running her pencil across the page as she’d read it repeatedly. “Well, the issue is that the function just isn’t true. It doesn’t work.”
“Ah,” Viktor had said slyly, tapping his pencil against the same page. “Now, flip both sides and do it backward.” She’d squinted at him, and he’d raised his eyebrows as if to say, I know it sounds crazy, but don’t ask me why. She’d returned her gaze to her paper, scrawling with a cautious demeanor until she’d set the pencil down with a near-slam.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” She’d said, lips pursing in mild agitation. “How did you go about finding this?”
“I was trying to find a workaround for Jayce’s… actually, that is an entire conversation I’m not in the mood for right now. Thank you anyway, though.” He’d moved to close his notebook, but Sky had slapped a hand on its open pages to keep him from doing so.
“It’s part of Jayce’s work? Have you asked him to look at it?” Ah. Well, it’s far too late to avoid that, now, Viktor had thought.
“No, I haven’t really left my room much lately. Now, would you please hand me that notebook?” He’d said, voice level. Viktor blatantly ignored the sly look in her eyes as she’d conceded with a huff, releasing her guard over the item and handing it to him. Curiously, Sky hadn’t pushed further than that, and it was when he’d turned to ask Jayce about it that he realized the man had already crossed the lab, hand open expectantly.
“You wanted me to take a look at that earlier, right?” Jayce had offered kindly, taking the notebook handed to him with a careful grace. “Hey, Sky! How are you?”
“I’m doing well! This semester isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. At least, so far. How about you?” Sky had smiled politely as Jayce scanned over the equation once, twice, then paused for a long moment before responding.
“Not the worst I’ve had! You’re putting your simplifications in the wrong spot, it should have linear bounds.” Jayce had said offhandedly to Viktor, handing the notebook back and looking up at Sky. “I hear you have Heimerdinger this semester. Best of luck to you, I’m sorry to say that you’re gonna need it.” He’d simply smiled like he was enjoying a walk in the park before turning back to cross the lab again. Viktor had just stared after him, astonished with his quick wit. After opening the notebook again, the answer had nearly slapped him in the face – of course, that’s why it would work backward, but not forward. A ridiculous oversight, one he’d have scolded himself more if it weren’t for Sky missing it, too.
Nonetheless, Jayce had impressed them both that day.
The professor concludes their session with a clap of his hands, and Viktor finds that he’s far from the only one dying to escape the lecture hall. He waits to the side while swaths of terrified undergraduates and overtired graduate students file out the door, finally taking his leave once he’s sure he won’t be trampled.
Viktor is eager to get back to the lab, figments of a mildly reckless idea flitting around his mind as he pushes open the door to the building. Jayce waves from a parking spot at the curb, and he’s extremely thankful for both the short walk and the pleasant weather to accompany it. He briefly covers his idea’s main points aloud on the drive over to the lab – a unique power source with the ability to regenerate itself in small bursts through learning from and adapting to its own machinery. He’s broadly guessed the function outputs that he’d have Jayce take over with considerable room for failure, but overall, Jayce agrees that it’s a somewhat feasible idea.
They get to work almost immediately. Jayce brews two mugs of shitty university coffee while Viktor sprawls blueprint paper across the first workbench he sees. The only other pair in the lab is actively packing up and leaving, so Viktor tries to offer them a tight smile as he starts sketching ferociously. He’s the less artistically inclined between the two of them, but Jayce can always re-draw these concepts once the ideas have been established.
On their third mug of coffee, it’s starting to look possible to get somewhere remarkable within the semester if they play their cards right. By the fourth, it looks entirely impossible again. Running a hand through his hair, Viktor picks up his pencil and turns the page in his notebook to a mostly blank one. “Alright… what if we swapped out this end of the equation for… this one, and just tried an alternate workaround for the startup?”
Jayce raises an eyebrow. “You mean the one I suggested earlier? The one you said wouldn’t work?” Viktor pauses and turns the page back, taking a closer look.
“…Ah, yes, that would be the one.” He admits. Jayce laughs, and the sound is a bit weary.
“Okay, let’s give it a go.” Naturally, it still doesn’t work, especially considering they’re within the very first hours of tackling the project. However, they’re narrowing down their options and getting closer to something that might work. Viktor can feel it, the answer calling to them, crawling closer and closer with each scratched out footnote. It’s whispering at the edges of his mind, taunting him.
“Jayce, would you hand me the, eh…” Viktor’s mind goes blank as gestures his hands like he’s working meticulously, searching for the right word and failing. Jayce hands him the tweezers, guessing correctly like he usually does, and Viktor uses them to pull a connector from the board in front of him. “I think if we combined this section-” He points the tweezers at a particularly messy conjunction, “-with a separate board for the ports alone, it would take some of the stress off of the whole thing.”
“Hm,” Jayce nods in agreement, clearly thinking ahead. “I think you’re right, but can we try it tomorrow?” Viktor looks out the window, ready to use the time as an excuse to keep pushing through. It fails him, though, as the sun has cast half of the street into a deep orange glow, the other half shrouded by darkness. The sun has been setting earlier lately, but nonetheless, the way it’s creeping under the treetops indicates that it’s indeed closing time.
“Eh… I suppose. I have to get up early anyway. We do.” He concedes, realizing he’s unsure of the best mode of transportation for their work at this point.
“Oh, I’m gonna be a little late to pick you up tomorrow,” Jayce says as he neatly piles various papers into a document organizer. “Caitlyn wanted to call about her homework.”
“Ah, she’s started class alright then?” Viktor offers the opening for small talk. He’ll have to just cover it with cardboard and put a note on it not to touch it. He’s sure he’ll be the first at the lab tomorrow, anyway, as Jayce has an eight AM class to get to.
“Yeah, she’s doing fine. I think she’s intimidated by the tutors they have there, but she’s gonna have to go to one eventually. I mean, she probably won’t have to, she’s a smart kid.” Jayce throws a paper coffee cup into a trash bin atop a concerning amount of others. Caitlyn, Viktor has learned over time, is a dear friend of Jayce’s. Her parents have been long-time sponsors of his, and they’d taken notice of his intellect when he was still in high school. Often finding himself on babysitting duty, the two had developed a sibling-like bond over time, and some odd part of Viktor yearns to meet her. For what reason, he’s unsure. Jayce clicks off the lights as they leave.
Viktor rolls down his window on the drive home and lets a hand wander into the warm evening air, trying to let the sensation pull his mind from the sheer amount of work he’ll have to do tomorrow in order to purely focus on his research over the weekend.
The next morning, he’s weirdly wide awake, buzzing with anticipation for something. Perhaps it’s the checklist he’s constructed and hoping to finish before six; he glares at it sitting on his desk as he gets dressed for the day.
His less grating classes pass by fairly quickly, and with an extra cup of coffee in his system from his early morning alone in the lab, Viktor is able to conquer his to-do list without many obstacles. The university’s labs aren’t as populated on Fridays, so with his headphones and a healthy amount of delusion, he’s able to check off the last assignment on his list for the weekend by five thirty.
It’ll be at least another forty minutes before Jayce gets to the lab, probably longer since he’ll be calling Caitlyn. Viktor really doesn’t mind the wait, but realizes within the first five minutes of solitude that he’s been increasingly struggling with behaving normally around his friend. Although it’s typically his preference, being left alone with his thoughts is torturous at times, and he tends to find himself thinking about Jayce in a way that certainly isn’t conductive to their academic partnership.
Every friendly touch that lingers on his shoulder, his hand, his spine, fills his mind with what more he wants. For the sake of his mental health, Viktor tries to avoid thinking too hard about the domestic aspects of a fantasy relationship with Jayce, but he often finds himself indulging in the sexual ones – surely, that was allowed, considering their single night of reckless behavior? With a huff, he pulls out a textbook and starts reviewing the next week’s material to stay ahead of it.
One hour later, Jayce texts that he’s parked by the east door, and Viktor is beyond relieved to be freed from the shackles of an extremely bland analytical report. He asks about Caitlyn on the drive home, sensing the lingering presence of hyper-socialization from Jayce, who taps his fingers on the steering wheel to a nonexistent tune. “She’s doing well, just self-conscious and hyper anxious to miss a deadline, but she’ll be perfectly fine.”
“Good.” Viktor says, and it really sounds like he means it – he does. They drive in comfortable silence with the windows down, the sound of passing cars and the wind whipping around them melting into an ambient hum.
When they’re kicking off their shoes in the doorway, Jayce fidgets anxiously like he’s broken something expensive and can’t bear to keep it to himself any longer. “Hey, one sec.” He finally speaks up once their bags have been set on the counter. “I have, umm, something to show you. Come with me.” He beckons with an arm, and Viktor can’t help but follow curiously. He’s basically radiating anxiety as he leads them to his bedroom, gesturing for Viktor to sit on his bed with a slightly shaky hand.
Viktor has only seen the room twice in passing, but it’s quite cozy. Neat, of course, but not without character. The comforter he’s sitting on is a soft burgundy, adorned with bits of white and gold, and Jayce flicks on a lamp by the bed. It fills the room with warm light, extremely contrasted to the fluorescents they’re used to working under and strangely intimate.
Jayce opens his closet door and drags out a tall box, clasping his hands together and taking a deep breath as he stands next to it. “Okay, so this might be extremely weird, and I’m very sorry if it is, but I started a project a while ago – I guess it was kind of inspired by something you mentioned about design failures, like, two years ago. But anyway, um, a few weeks ago when you-” Jayce looks away, flush creeping onto his skin, “Y-you took your brace off, and I saw the failing joint mechanism you were talking about. So-” He reaches into the box, pulling out the most incredible thing Viktor has seen in quite some time – perhaps ever.
It’s a sleekly designed leg brace, lacking any stray screws or sharp edges. Most of the metal is obscured by a white cover of sorts with a light gold embellishment, making the device look much less medical and probably more comfortable, too. “There are some custom fittings to be done; it’s nowhere near perfect and you can totally tell me if this is way too much, but I thought I’d offer it to you since, like, it was just supposed to be a portfolio work sort of situation but I got a little carried away and…” Jayce balances it against the floor with a sigh, looking up to where Viktor is sitting.
He knows he’s staring wordlessly, but he’s simply awestruck. It’s the most thoughtful thing he thinks anyone has ever done for him, and with his confidence in his partner’s intellect, it has to be incredibly well-designed. Realizing that he’s leaving his reaction up to interpretation entirely, which is always a bad idea when it comes to Jayce, Viktor tries to come up with a response. “Jayce, that’s… I don’t even know what to-” What the fuck, he thinks to himself as he realizes he’s getting choked up.
Instead of speaking, he silently pulls up a pant leg and removes his current brace. With its current state of wear, it doesn’t take long, and Viktor simply holds out a hand for the new one, not trusting his voice. Jayce lets out what sounds to be a sigh of relief and hands it over, lingering by the closet. As he’s putting it on, he notices it’s a near-perfect fit to his leg, needing only a few easy adjustments – quite impressive. Jayce’s eyes watch each motion intently, catching the slight inconsistencies himself with a look that’s nearly unnerving with intensity.
Viktor clips together the final clasp and pats it down in case he’s missed one before letting his pant leg fall back down. Experimentally, he stands up. Something close to a shocked laugh bubbles from his chest involuntarily at the action – it’s a massive upgrade from his old brace; it holds him upright steadily and doesn’t send an ache up his spine when he straightens out. “This is incredible, Jayce.” While his voice is under control, what feels like a stray tear slips down his face. Traitor. “It’s so much more comfortable.” He takes a step forward. Smiling, Viktor looks up to see that Jayce seems almost flustered, biting his cheek.
“It’s really nothing crazy, it’s going to need a different height at the knee, but I’ll work on it,” Viktor turns and sits back down with a smile refusing to budge from his face. “I’m glad it works for you, though.”
“You came up with this design in only a few years? I’ve never seen anything like it. The decompression is really quite incredible.” Viktor asks, looking at the various mechanisms holding everything together. Suddenly, Jayce crouches at his feet and simply grabs the brace.
“The weight distributes down to here, and it kind of helps push your leg up with the steps you take.” He gestures broadly with the other hand, and Viktor just stares and tries not to choke on his breath as Jayce rambles, undoing the clasps on the brace until he reaches the knee. Suddenly seeming to get a hold of himself, he freezes. “Sorry, I just figured since it’s the evening you’d want to-”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to stop.” Viktor says, unable to stop the way his voice has been softened by his affection. Jayce sucks in a breath, then moves to push up his pant leg, his hands sliding up further to undo the clasps at his thigh. He’s no longer rambling, working in purely fixated silence as he removes the brace carefully, eyes glued to the bare leg in front of him. There are still angry red marks on his from the old brace pressing into his leg in the wrong places, and Jayce doesn’t seem aware that his own hand is reaching out to touch them.
“Sorry, I-I feel like this is totally inappropriate.” Jayce’s hand leaves his leg and his slacks fall back down into place. Viktor tilts his head, looking down at where Jayce is still crouched, avoiding eye contact like he’s gotten himself into another bad situation and needs to confess to his crimes.
“Why do you think that?” Viktor probes curiously.
“I just, I don’t know, I feel like I’m-” He lets out a sigh, shoulders sagging. “I might be overstepping like crazy, and I’m so sorry if I am, but I just can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t want you to be in pain because I just- Gods, I hate the idea of you not reaching out for help because you don’t want to, and I just, I don’t know, I,” He finally looks up, shame written across his face. “I really enjoy your presence, Viktor. And I don’t want to stop spending time with you.” Viktor smiles a bit, feeling his face heat up at the sentiment and the newly placed hand on his knee.
“I really enjoy your presence, too, Jayce.” It’s a risky move, but he lets a hand fall down to cup the side of Jayce’s face, who leans into the touch with a look of pure devotion on his face. It’s confusing, conflicting violently with the reality Viktor has constructed himself within, but he lets Jayce lean up and kiss him anyway.
It’s softer, more tender than the frenzied rush of their last kiss. It’s something akin to speaking a language; a desperate output of feeling with the hopes that the message is received. Viktor still has a hand on Jayce’s face, and he uses it to pull him closer. Jayce’s hands land on the bed at each side of Viktor with the action, and as he melts into the tenderness of the kiss, the hunger starts to return. It’s hard not to think in such a way when your painfully attractive roommate is leaning over you, leaning into your touch like it’s the cure for a terminal disease.
Viktor hooks the other arm around the back of Jayce’s neck, pulling him down on top of him and pressing even closer into the kiss. The substitute of a weighted blanket is incredibly pleasant, and he runs a finger under Jayce’s jaw. Much to his disdain, Jayce pulls back shortly afterward, standing and looking down at where Viktor is laid on his bed with a conflicted look in his eye. “Viktor,” He says, “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know.” Viktor shrugs noncommittally. “What do you think we’re doing?”
“Well,” Jayce runs a hand through his hair anxiously, “I really want to keep kissing you, but I don’t want this to be awkward later, so I’d really love to hear your input first.”
Viktor sits up on his elbows, pushing a lock of hair behind his shoulder. “I think I’m quite attracted to the man who designed a new leg brace for me, and I would very much like him to come back over here.” Jayce reacts almost instantly, eyebrows raising momentarily before he’s easily repositioning Viktor to be laid properly against the pillows and crawling back on top of him with a crushing kiss. The action is incredibly attractive to Viktor; Jayce’s attention to where he should be the most careful isn’t obstructing his fervor.
“Viktor, I’m obsessed with you.” Jayce says as he starts to press warm kisses against the column of his throat.
“You’re very endearing,” Viktor murmurs and lets a hand tangle into dark hair.
“No,” Jayce says as his teeth sink into the joint between his throat and collarbone. “It’s- it’s psychotic. I can’t get enough of you.” He leans back up to meet Viktor’s lips in a kiss, hand travelling down to rest against his waist.
“You can have as much of me as you’d like.” It’s true, honestly, probably to a fault at this point. Viktor doesn’t care, though, because Jayce is running his hands under his shirt, reaching under him to remove his back brace like he’s done it dozens of times before. He doesn’t let it fall to the ground, instead placing it down carefully before working to get both of their shirts off.
The way Jayce kisses him next is nearly animalistic, ferocious with a desire he’s only just discovered. One of his hands, not tasked with keeping him from collapsing atop the other, can’t seem to stay in one place – it’s running over the bare expanse of his stomach and finding its way up to the side of his neck. It’s everything Viktor wants and more, and he starts to ponder the limits of his influence.
Anything he was thinking about is quickly interrupted, though, when Jayce’s knee slots itself between his legs and sends a shock wave of pleasure up his spine. He wants so desperately, desire rushing into his veins as he sighs into their kiss and ruts against Jayce’s leg. It’s far from civil, closer to feral the way they claw onto each other eagerly. Jayce’s insistence to touch and kiss nearly every inch of his exposed skin makes his stomach flip, his twitching expressions hard to read beyond a sense of longing.
“Jayce,” Viktor eventually heaves out after several long minutes, sweat starting to bead at his hairline.
“Hm?” Jayce hums against his skin absentmindedly, continuing his attack on Viktor’s shoulder.
“Jayce,” He finally looks up, at attention. “Are you going to keep at this all night, or are you going to fuck me already?” Viktor watches as the gears in Jayce’s brain stop turning for a long moment, nearly shatter from inactivity, and then slowly start back up.
“Yeah, okay, I-” He finally stutters and presses a kiss against Viktor’s lips, “I can do that, yeah.” It’s hard not to smile into the next kiss, their lips meeting in another clash of desperation. A few more minutes of tender kissing turns back into something urgent when Viktor gets fed up and grabs for the button of Jayce’s pants, who takes a deep shuddering breath against his lips. He sits up, kicking off his own pants before running his hands down the exposed skin of Viktor’s torso and letting them rest at his waistband. It’s far from anxiety, he realizes, something closer to anguish written on Jayce’s face as he guides Viktor out of his slacks, immediately leaning in to press a kiss against the now barely reddened part of his knee. “Viktor, I’ve…” He breathes, eyes raking over his form like it’s something to be worshipped. “I’ve dreamed about this.”
“I didn’t know you were… struggling in that way.” Viktor replies, voice lacking its usual confident flare. He feels like some kind of specimen being examined, but it’s not particularly a bad thing; Jayce gently runs a hand up and down his bad thigh. “If I had known sooner, I would have…” He trails off, realizing he’s already played all of his cards in the past and they’ve somehow managed to end up here anyway. “I actually don’t know.”
“Are you kidding? I feel like I’m about to scare you off every minute of the day.” Jayce’s voice wavers with a concern that evaporates with each word, seemingly re-processing the fact that the two of them are, in fact, nearly naked and tangled up in his bed.
“You are not going to scare me off that easily. Stop talking and come back here.” When Jayce complies, Viktor hooks his good leg behind his knees, pulling them even closer together as their lips barely meet in a frenzied kiss. They’re nearing a new point of no return, Viktor realizes as Jayce’s fingertips run just underneath the waistband of his briefs. He hadn’t realized that there was another point of no return, the previous one seeming far too daunting to face. Now, though, he seemingly has all the information that he needs at his disposal – still, something in Viktor’s chest flutters with something nearing nervousness as a large hand wraps around him, intentionally careful.
The trepidation starts to dissipate almost immediately after Jayce’s lips move down to his jawline, wrist eagerly working him to full hardness like he’s done it nightly for the past century. It’s not long before Viktor realizes he’s enjoying himself far too much for it to last, and he gently slaps a hand against Jayce’s bicep. “Get on with it, will you?” He pants, kicking his remaining clothing off and reaching for Jayce’s before he’s stopped by the same hand that was just touching him.
“Just- let me? Please?” Jayce insists as he reaches into his bedside stand, fishing out a barely-used bottle of lubricant. His eyes never stray from where Viktor is laid speechless on his sheets, meeting his lips once again after just a few moments like he can’t bear to be parted any longer.
Viktor looks over to where Jayce’s arm is propped next to his head, reaching a hand up and forcing the warm hand to splay open against his own. The difference in size between their fingers is erotic in its own right, but when Jayce realizes what he’s doing, he intertwines their fingers where they’re pushed together and presses a slick finger against his entrance. It makes Viktor gasp against his lips, the sensation sending a buzz of electricity up his spine. He can’t decipher the sound he makes when it’s overlapped with the Jayce’s own hum as he finally pushes the digit in, ever the careful. Everything about him is large, and of course, his hands are no exception – still, it’s not an unbearably unpleasant adjustment to make, and the red-hot pleasure accompanying it overshadows the lingering discomfort.
Their teeth click against each other when he pushes to the first knuckle, pausing briefly before slowly starting to move. The feeling is too distracting for Viktor to keep up with the kiss, so when he falters with a whine, Jayce drops his head to his shoulder and takes a deep inhale instead. It’s straight out of a dream, the way Viktor is able to let his head fall to the side and inhale the scent of Jayce’s shampoo and laundry detergent in his bedsheets. It’s not long before he’s reaching for where Jayce’s wrist is working, beckoning him to use another finger.
When he complies with a groan, it’s with a renewed vigor that forces a punched-out breath from Viktor’s chest. “This okay?” He murmurs against the heated skin of his throat. Each drag and pull of Jayce’s fingers makes him shiver, and the sensation starts to draw in an arousal he doesn’t think he’s ever experienced before.
“Jayce,” Viktor gasps, pulling his face up by the jaw. “Jayce, it’s so good.” The praise washes over his face, clear as day as his fingers slightly quicken, and Viktor makes a mental note.
Several minutes after Jayce has pressed his third finger in, they’re both panting and moaning so loudly that Viktor has the brief foresight to worry for the sanity of their neighbors. It’s not enough of a concern to stop the near-wail that breaks from his chest as Jayce’s fingers press at just the right angle, and Viktor feels his partner shiver. “Come- ah, come on, you can put it in.”
Although his response isn’t immediate, Viktor doesn’t have to reach for Jayce’s briefs for long before he’s finally retracting his hand, leaning back and kicking them off. It’s a glorious sight to behold, truly, and Viktor wishes he could take a picture. For a moment, they’re only inches apart, recycling the air they breathe as Viktor runs his hands through Jayce’s hair. The moment passes as he yanks him down into a messy kiss, legs wrapping around Jayce’s waist eagerly. “Viktor,” Jayce nearly whines against his lips as he settles his weight more onto one side, hiking Viktor’s good leg up further. “You’re so perfect, I can’t believe it.”
He doesn't have a chance to respond with something snarky because Jayce is pressing inside, and oh, Gods, it’s so much, but it’s so deliciously satisfying the way he inches closer, the hand under Viktor’s knee quivering with restraint. He forces himself to relax as best as his body will allow, but the sheer size of Jayce is nowhere near what he’s experienced in the past, and he lets out a shaky breath as Jayce pauses halfway. “It’s- you’re okay?” His voice is strangled, warped into something rough.
Viktor nods, pushing a strand of hair off his forehead. When it lands against his shoulder, he realizes how much of his hair is dampened by sweat, sticking to his skin. “Yes, Jayce, you can keep going.” As if to convince him, Viktor presses their lips together again, groaning into his mouth as he inches in further.
When their hips finally meet in the middle, neither of them seem able to believe it – Jayce stares at where their skin touches, the hand hooked under Viktor’s knee is twitching like he wants to let it go. “Jayce.” The sound of his voice is closer to a whisper than anything else, but his partner's eyes meet his own in an instant anyway. They’re filled with something like adoration, slightly frayed at the edges, and Viktor feels like the breath has been stolen from his chest. Instead of speaking further, he just feels around Jayce’s face for a moment, stroking his cheekbones, feeling the line of his jaw and letting both of his hands settle on the sides of his neck. The look on Jayce’s face is almost unbearably fond, and Viktor has to look away when he finally finishes his sentence. “You can move.”
The first rock of his hips makes Viktor feel like Jayce is halfway up his throat, and the second isn’t much different. It’s a good minute before he’s breathing somewhat normally, eyes closed as he pushes past the discomfort and leans into the heavy blanket of pleasure that’s simply the fact that it’s Jayce. There’s certainly a colossal conversation to be had tomorrow, but as Jayce heaves and gasps above him, Viktor lets himself momentarily delight in the fact that his little crush is seemingly reciprocated.
Viktor pulls his good leg even higher up Jayce’s side, encouraging his newly freed hand to drop and wander where it wishes as he pulls them together for another kiss. Wander it does, and after a few seconds, Jayce hisses into his mouth, refusing to break the kiss as he reaches for one of Viktor’s own hands. He lets his hand be led down the front of his own chest, lower and lower down until- Oh my Gods, he can barely feel the slight protrusion of Jayce’s cock pressing into him from his lower stomach. A drop of precum drops onto his skin as Viktor breathes shakily, pressing his hand down against the sensation and shivering at Jayce’s answering thrust.
As the momentum increases, so does the tingle of warm pleasure in Viktor’s stomach, and a particularly abrupt movement draws an involuntary whimper from his lips. Jayce licks into his mouth, tasting each of his teeth with a groan like he’s desperate to get somehow closer together. It should be embarrassing the way he moans and whines at the building heat, but the way Jayce twitches under every breath that touches his skin is enough to quell the potential humiliation. “Jayce, you feel so good, I’ve- fuck, I’ve thought about this so many times.” Viktor spews between shaking breaths, letting his bad leg assist in pulling them closer yet and keening at the deeper thrusts that follow.
“I- You have no idea how badly I’ve-” Jayce cuts himself off with a sigh, instead electing to rest his forehead against Viktor’s sternum as he pushes moan after moan from his partner with a quickened pace. The sound they’re making is obscene, truly, the wet slide of skin against skin seeming audible from miles away to Viktor. It’s strangely both desperate and hopeful the way they move against each other, bodies fitting together like two puzzle pieces.
“Oh, Viktor, fuck, look at you, you’re stunning.” Jayce’s voice quivers, as his pace starts to falter ever so slightly. It doesn’t matter to Viktor, who realizes with a twitch of his ankle that he’s creeping dangerously close to the edge himself.
Like clockwork, though, the overwhelmingly pleasurable sensation finds company in a far more familiar ache, and Viktor wants to curse aloud. A strain is threatening to form in his back – from what, he’s unsure, perhaps the way he’s got his leg raised up, Gods forbid he raises a leg, – and Jayce senses it almost immediately, slowing to a halt. “What is it?” He asks, concern seeping from his voice.
“Oh, it’s not you, it’s just- My back is starting to-” Viktor adjusts slightly as he speaks, and while it helps incrementally, Jayce reaches for the far more feasible solution – a pillow. He lifts Viktor’s hips with a single hand at the small of his back, sliding the pillow underneath and staying seated inside for the entire motion.
“This good?” Jayce asks, eyes flitting over his face like he’s searching for something. Viktor shifts slightly, then nods. When Jayce pushes back in properly, sitting up with both hands gripping Viktor’s hips like a lifeline, the adjusted angle aims his thrusts in just the right direction. Viktor suddenly claws at the hands at his waist with a sharp gasp, unable to communicate further than the ’oh, oh, oh’s’ being ripped from his throat with each driving push of Jayce’s hips as a searing heat shoots down his spine.
With Jayce’s pace unrelenting, a tingling heat gathers in his lower back, shooting up from his ankles and into his spine as Viktor barely gasps out a Jayce, fuck before he’s hit with the most powerful orgasm he’s ever experienced in his entire life, vision failing momentarily. It has to be nearing the minutes mark when he’s finally coming down from it, throat scratchy from broken sobs of Jayce’s name and some bilingual mix of profane language as his legs twitch and tremor from the intensity of it all.
Just as the continued stimulation is bordering on discomfort, Jayce pulls out, stroking himself a few times before spilling his release across the expanse of Viktor’s bare stomach with a sound that borders on a yelp as if he’s in pain. Viktor’s legs are still trembling when Jayce lays them against the bed gently before collapsing at his side, intertwining their hands as they sit in a moment of brief silence.
Viktor looks down at where their hands meet, thankful that he doesn’t have to twist himself into an uncomfortable position to feel close to Jayce. He basks in the moment for only a second before he startles with a gasp, causing Jayce to whip around to face him like he’s declared nuclear war on half the planet. “I didn’t apply the negatives.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jayce stares at him for a long moment. “...What?” He finally says cautiously.
“Your equation. The one I said would not work. It will. I simply did not apply the negatives to the last few lines when we tried it again.” Viktor runs a hand across his forehead, lamenting the fact that he’s completely filthy and desperately needs a shower before he can even consider touching his notebooks. “How stupid, I should’ve-” Jayce laughs suddenly, and the sound cuts through the air thickened by their previous silence.
“Viktor, you’re– You can’t be serious right now.” Jayce nearly has tears in his eyes from how hard he’s laughed at the breakthrough. A warm, calloused hand softly lands on the side of Viktor’s face, turning it to face him. “You’re completely naked in my bed and you’re worried about the… the fucking research project?”
“It’s an independent study, Jayce.” Viktor finds himself smiling at the humor of it, too, but the look on Jayce’s face is so endearing that it makes his chest hurt. “I suppose there are more pressing matters at hand, though, yes.”
With a twitch of his smile and a slight squeeze of his hand, Jayce turns to reach for a stray bath towel strewn on the floor – a rare occurrence, Viktor imagines – to delicately wipe his skin clean with a kiss pressed to the side of his throat. Well, it’s clean enough. It’s nothing like a shower, but it seems that neither of them can be bothered to face the hallway for such a task. Instead, Viktor turns on his side, leaning into the warmth of Jayce’s open arms and closing his eyes when the comforter is pulled over them.
Jayce reaches across him to turn the lamp off, then pulls Viktor impossibly closer and intertwines their limbs comfortably. “Should we talk about…” He starts.
“Tomorrow.” Viktor mumbles from under Jayce’s chin, tucked away like he’s hiding. Jayce concedes, instead running a hand through Viktor’s tangled locks. His heart is racing; Viktor can feel it thumping under his palm and has a feeling that neither of them are quite tired enough to sleep. Nevertheless, he closes his eyes and allows himself to ponder a forbidden fantasy of domesticity – one that’s beginning to feel less and less forbidden.
Notes:
an entire viktor pov chapter means it's jayce's turn next yay!! you're all lucky that i'm in desperate need of joy and whimsy at this stage of my life i'll let them have fun a little longer
Chapter 7
Notes:
sorry for the late update i got in a car crash (everyone's safe!) but don't worry guys they get nasty again enjoy the chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s a Saturday morning.
Hungover undergraduate students stagger to on-campus coffee shops like hoards of zombies while somewhere nearby, an unemployed trophy wife finishes her third task of the day, flitting between sidewalks and dog-walkers like a spy on a mission. A professor crosses paths with one of his students around the corner from the apartment complex, and their shared laughter of surprise pierces the morning air. As the sun rises, it filters through the blinds of Jayce’s bedroom and lands on a framed photograph.
It’s a picture of his mom and Caitlyn from several Christmases ago, one where Caitlyn is freshly fifteen and smiling through barely concealed humiliation while she’s fitted in the tackiest sweater ever created – of course, holding up the matching gloves, too. Ximena had bought it as a gag gift during a randomized gift exchange, but when Caitlyn had been unsure of how to react when opening it, the opportunity was simply too good to pass up. Now, light bounces off of the protective glass and reflects onto the opposite wall; a rectangle of white light inches closer and closer to Jayce’s closed eyes like clockwork.
When it finally causes enough disruption for Jayce to wake up with a grimace, the first thing he notices is a squirrel poking curiously around his windowsill. Based on the amount of sunlight hitting its fur, it can’t be later than ten in the morning. He watches for a bit longer, feeling like he’s missing something – like he’s just gotten to class and hasn’t yet realized that his notebooks are on his desk at home.
The feeling lasts only for a fleeting moment, breaking as the second thing Jayce notices that morning is Viktor stirring from under his arm. He turns his head to look as though he’s imagined the sensation, finding the brunette nearly covered in sunlight that fractures through the blinds – luckily, Viktor seems to have avoided any direct beams of blinding light. It’s a rare sight to see him so vulnerable, face relaxed and lacking its usual tension. Jayce stares for a short while, recognizing the moment as a short-lived one before Viktor is stirring again, turning to flip on his other side. As he does, he slips from under the weight of Jayce’s arm – the perfect opportunity for him to get up as quietly as humanly possible.
Jayce pulls on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt with a racing heart. When he pulls the sweatpants on, he accidentally lets one foot hit the floor with a slam to keep from losing his balance, but Viktor’s sleep seems undisturbed.
It takes every fiber of his being to keep from falling to his knees once he gets to the kitchen, overwhelmed with unbridled glee. Even the apartment looks happy somehow, the plants eagerly reaching for the sunshine filling the living area. Their work bags are still on the counter from last night, Jayce’s haphazardly thrown to one end and Viktor’s neatly placed against the connected wall.
Instead of replaying every moment of the night before in his mind, Jayce makes coffee. He’s learned over time that Viktor’s preference is, in his opinion, both disgustingly sweet and impossible to perfect himself. He’s tried it before, hoping to save an extra two minutes in the morning when they were running behind, but the attempt had been futile – on the car ride to campus, Jayce had simply watched in barely-disguised shock as Viktor had produced a sugar packet from somewhere in his bag and dumped it into his to-go mug.
Jayce hasn’t made another attempt since, but as he watches the coffee drip into the pot, his confidence in making something drinkable starts to grow. When the machine sputters and dispenses the last of the coffee, he nearly burns himself with the speed at which he pulls out the pot and empties it into two mugs, sugar and milk already on the counter. With a spoon that bends slightly to the left from an encounter with a frozen-solid pint of ice cream, Jayce mixes up what he can only hope is a fairly close approximation to what Viktor likes to drink.
When he’s finished, he’s suddenly paralyzed with indecision – should he wait for Viktor to get up and around? Or should he hand-deliver a mug of likely-not-ideal coffee to his bedside like an indentured servant? Jayce doesn’t have to agonize for long, though, because in a considerably short amount of time, Viktor has joined him in the kitchen – notably, cane-free. The smile on his lips is faint, but the light that reaches his eyes nearly outshines the lingering fatigue on his freshly-woken face. “Good morning.” Viktor says plainly, seeming to run out of whatever stamina had fueled him as he leans a hip against the counter.
Jayce realizes in an embarrassing split second that he’s gaping like a fish out of water, still gripping two mugs like an idiot. He shuts his mouth, handing over the cream-colored coffee with what he hopes comes off as a surprised smile. “Hey! You’re- What did-” He sputters, tilting his head and mentally driving himself into traffic.
Viktor’s smile finally broadens a bit to show just a bit of his teeth as he drops a hand to lift a pajama pant leg – how had Jayce missed the sound of Viktor stopping in his room to get into pajamas first? – to reveal his new leg brace. The device is, of course, still not perfectly-fitted and juts out a bit at the knee, but it’s thankfully a straightforward fix. “I usually do not need the cane for short distances. This brace is far more structurally sound, though, it lets me go a lot farther.”
“That’s great! I mean, it’s gonna need some more fitting, but I’m really glad it’s working out for you!” Jayce takes a sip of his coffee, smiling against the lip of the mug. “If you want to just wear it around this weekend and note down anything that bothers you, I can probably get it finished by Monday or Tuesday.”
“I will. Thank you.” Finally, Viktor takes a sip of his coffee; he pauses after the first taste, gaze briefly flitting to the cabinet like he wants to worsen the already-harsh assault on his teeth’s enamel, but he seems overall satisfied with its state of sweetness and doesn’t move to adjust it. Jayce nearly lets out a sigh of relief before catching himself, instead redirecting the breath into cooling his coffee and taking another swig of his own, finding an odd expression on Viktor’s face when he does. With a squint and a slight tilt to his head, Jayce attempts to wordlessly communicate his confusion back, but confoundingly, it only makes Viktor laugh. “So.” He says, smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth.
“So.” Jayce echoes back, the weight of reality starting to sink in. “It’s tomorrow. Unfortunately.”
“That it is.” Tension starts to stir in the air as the two stare at anything but each other for a few long moments. “I think-”
“Would you-” They start at the same time, and although it was unintentional, Jayce feels strangely quite rude. “Go ahead, sorry.”
“I think we should just… proceed with our lives as we typically would.” Viktor strums his fingers against the side of his mug before shifting his weight to the other leg. “There is no reason for either of us to behave weirdly. We are both adults who are allowed to do what we please, no?”
Jayce catches the moment his fingers stop moving, probably thinking about the weird behavior that had tarnished nearly every interaction between the two of them for a week. “That’s fair, I agree!” Jayce nods. “But, like… Oh my Gods, I can’t believe how stupid this sounds, but would you let me take you out to dinner or something?” He nearly winces as the words tumble out of his mouth, and Viktor’s eyebrows raise by a nearly imperceptible increment.
“You would like to do that?” He seems surprised rather than completely averse to the idea, and while it’s a small victory, Jayce can’t fathom where the shock is coming from.
“Yes!” He responds too quickly. “I mean, I would really like to be more than, um… friends with a weird weekend habit. If that’s, like, fine.” Viktor’s face faintly expresses half a dozen emotions in the time it takes him to speak, but it settles into something closer to neutral. He bites his cheek before he responds, the corners of his eyes moving like he wants to smile.
“Okay, sure. You will have to decide where we go, though.”
Viktor, as usual, skips breakfast and takes a shower while Jayce takes twice as long as the average person to toast a slice of sourdough bread. He’d wanted to ignore Viktor’s no thank you and toast two slices, but a mention of medications and side effects from a few days before had reminded him that Viktor simply does not have an appetite at this hour. He eats his buttered toast over the sink, crumbs hitting the metal at an absurd rate, and tries not to lose himself in his head.
Jayce is thoroughly in need of his own shower, and once Viktor has slipped back into his room, he roams down the hallway to his own bedroom. It doesn’t look the same as it did when he woke up, Jayce finds, as Viktor has taken his old brace back to his room and neatly pulled the comforter back to the top of the bed. He’s going to have to wash the bedding anyway, but it’s a gesture that feels so endearing when it comes from Viktor, and Jayce finds himself smiling to himself in the doorway like a lunatic. He tears his eyes away from the memories lingering atop his mattress and grabs a set of clean clothes for his shower.
Under the stream of warm water, Jayce thinks for a long, long time. He wishes that verbal language alone was sufficient communication, but he’s still trying to figure out how Viktor feels about his proposal — his expression didn’t seem to align with one that matched his words, but Jayce hasn’t always been the best at deciphering those, anyway. Viktor’s 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner sits on the ledge of the tub, cap slightly askew, and the steam makes it smell like mahogany. Only monsters use 2-in-1 hair products, Jayce thinks, Only monsters, and Viktor.
It’s nearly noon when he gets out of the shower. He dresses carefully, not particularly trying to impress anyone but being mindful of his choices, and remembers some kind of event he’d seen online. Jayce scrolls through his phone for a minute before finding the information on a robotics showcase with a twist, reading through the entry fees and details before seeking out his partner.
Viktor is in the living room, watering a plant and inspecting its leaves with something close to dissatisfaction etched into his face. He turns when he sets down the watering can, eyes softening at Jayce’s entrance. “I don’t know if you’re into this kind of thing, but do you want to come with me to watch a bunch of nerds build robots and make them fight for money?”
Viktor’s face lights up. “When is it?”
“Four, but we can definitely be early or late depending on when you want to go. It’s downtown, so how about dinner after? There are some really nice spots down there for college student pricing.” Jayce pitches the offer, and it feels like talking to Viktor for the first time all over again. He’d been a stuttering mess that very first morning, stumbling over every other word like it had been his first day on Earth and probably giving off the impression that he’d been a serial killer.
“Do you want to just come in my car with me in the mornings?” He’d said. “It’s cool if not, but I thought I’d offer, since, you know, same building.” It had taken everything in Jayce’s power to keep from physically recoiling from his choice of words and abandoning the sentiment, but after a slightly tense moment, Viktor had agreed. Jayce had first noticed him in a computer-integrated manufacturing class with nearly fifty other people, weirdly finding himself drawn to Viktor’s quiet genius. When called upon in class, Jayce had been intrigued by Viktor’s answers, softly spoken but not sheepish in any manner; the ways in which he’d described his conclusions as if anyone would’ve taken the route that he had made Jayce both think harder about his own work and try to sit a bit closer to Viktor in the lecture hall every day.
When they’d finally begun to form some semblance of a friendship, there weren’t any significant factors that would’ve been responsible for such a shift. Instead, their natural compatibility seemed to flow into as many aspects of their shared time as it could, forcing its way through tense car rides and late-night study sessions as if there were a great force of pressure in the world being relieved by their association alone. Any shifts in behavior had gone unnoticed as the very simplicity of their conversations could be shaped into anything; they’d found shared solitude in the sheer bounds their minds could reach, quite often fraying and crumbling on the edge of lunacy. Somehow, they’d adapted and learned to keep each other closer to sane, but the few times they’d indulged in a kind of shared hysteria, their most groundbreaking work yet had tended to follow.
Of course, at the end of the day, Jayce is positive that a little instability has let their dynamic develop into a methodical one. Not particularly calculated at every corner, but rather protean – individually, they may not be the most well-rounded or mindful people on the planet, but their very interactions are adaptive, the essence of their relationship is learning.
Jayce thinks they learn a little more in the moment that Viktor turns back to his potted plant with a faint flush across his cheeks, lips turned down at the edges like he’s trying not to smile as he says, “Four sounds good to me.”
“Three… Two… One… Fight!” A metal gauntlet accelerates from the darkness. Although it’s not very hasty in pace, the device’s mass and stylistic choices make it almost look menacing itself, and from the other side of the platform, another machine approaches. The gauntlet twists as what looks to be a monkey flits around, and despite its size, the maneuvering ability of the mechanism dodges many of the rapid-fire attacks from the monkey.
For dramatic effect, the platforms illuminate in alternating sections, and a fog machine fills the room with an oddly syrupy scent as the machines grind and clash against each other. One of the gauntlet’s wheels catches on the lip of an edge, and its manipulator, a pink-haired girl who can’t be older than nineteen or twenty, shouts in frustration – her exclamation seems to have some effect, though, because the device is able to push itself up and recover, the gauntlet’s mildly articulated fingers putting decent damage into the monkey’s weaponized cymbals.
Just as it looks like the monkey might be meeting its end, though, the unexpected happens: its clapping motions stop as the back latch opens, firing small smoke bomb-like projectiles around the platform and sending the gauntlet toppling over. The popping and screeching of metal is nearly obscured by the crowd’s overwhelming cheers. The pink-haired girl drops her head into her hands as the announcer confirms her defeat, and surprisingly, the victor looks even younger than her. A blue-haired teenager runs onto the platform to retrieve both robots, clearly relishing in the crowd’s enthusiasm with a glowing smile and running over to her opponent, dropping both mechanisms at her feet. Just as it looks like their conversation is getting aggressive, the pink-haired girl lifts the other over her shoulder in a split second, laughing as what Jayce now concludes to be her sibling thrashes and kicks in protest. It’s supposed to be a twenty-one-and-up event, he thinks as he takes a sip of his incredibly overpowered Paloma, but there’s no way that either of them are of drinking age.
The corners of Jayce’s vision are a bit fuzzy from the alcohol, and judging from the tilt of Viktor’s smile when one of the machines starts to spark and catch fire, it’s fair to conclude that his drinks have been poured with a heavy hand, too. “Which one’s on fire?” Jayce has to raise his voice a little over the sound, squinting at the platforms as two different robots entangle through a mess of sparks and light tricks.
“Umm… ‘s the purple one. No, it’s kind of blue.” Viktor says as he leans into his side, and Jayce blinks. One of the devices is red, and the other is mainly just exposed bronze metal with a few embellishments in gold. Just as he opens his mouth, Viktor starts to laugh like Jayce is missing out on some kind of inside joke. “I don’t know why I just lied to you, sorry. I have no idea, I am too tipsy to know what’s going on.”
“Oh.” Jayce laughs, too, but he feels like it sounds a bit off – Viktor keeps leaning closer when he speaks, of course, so he’ll be heard over the rising and falling cheers of the crowd. Regardless, the motion makes his heart skip, and the alcohol can’t be helping. With their chosen restaurant within walking distance of the venue, it’s a good thing Jayce has time to work off his buzz before driving them home, especially considering he hadn’t even meant to get tipsy off of a single mixed drink.
The red robot tips and tumbles off of a ledge, and its owner admits defeat. The arena erupts into a mixture of shouts, cheers barely overshadowing the booing. Betters either take their money with smug smiles, or they walk away from the table frustratedly, and Jayce wonders how much money people are putting into these things. “I had no idea it would be this intense. I mean, especially considering I found the post on this compsci dude’s page.” He nearly shouts, wincing as someone across the room slips and nearly falls in the aftermath of a spilled drink.
“You never know what people get up to, Jayce.” Viktor grins. “This is… fascinating, though. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Yeah, it’s no problem. If that board is to be believed, it looks like there’s only one more match after this one. Wanna beat the foot traffic, or are you dying to see that thing demolish yet another prized creation?” It looks like someone is crying over a loss – not their loss, but with the surprisingly high flow of alcohol, Jayce is unsurprised by the emotional outburst.
“I would be partial to skipping the masses. Let’s go.” Although he’s tipsy, Viktor maneuvers the crowd with surprising ease, and Jayce has to pause and jog a few times to keep up. Just before they reach the doors, a young woman crosses their field of vision.
She’s quite intoxicated by the looks of her gait, and she halts in her tracks to hold up a hand to Viktor. “The arcade bar. It’s on the left, not the right.” She says, clearly wronged by another patron.
“Ah. Thank you.” Viktor responds to the completely irrelevant information kindly, but with a slight tilt to his voice. Jayce disguises his laugh as a cough when Viktor turns back to raise an eyebrow at him, quickening his pace to get ahead of the other and open the door politely. He swings the door open dramatically, gesturing for Viktor’s exit with the other hand, who just rolls his eyes and scoffs. The cool air is both refreshing and jarring, and it almost feels like true autumn is about to begin. Luckily, Jayce can see their destination illuminated from just the other end of the street.
The restaurant, which they didn’t look into far beyond its distance from the venue, looks like it serves a variety of vegetable-based dishes and an impressive soup selection. Once they’re seated, Viktor skims the menu with a slight upward tilt to his lips, and Jayce wants to take a picture of the sight. The light fixture the two of them sit under looks to be hand-crafted, an amalgamation of stained glass and soldered copper, spilling broken cracks of warm light onto Viktor’s multihued hair and where his hands rest in front of him atop the menu. The button-down he’s wearing has a neat stitching across the collar, and the warm lighting does favors for the already flattering deep green fabric.
The restaurant isn’t incredibly high-end or anything of the sort, but it is a Saturday night in a slightly nicer side of the city, a network of bustling life nestled away from the youthful aura of the college town. It’s slightly busy, seeming to increase as the time inches closer to seven, but it’s not so loud that Viktor has to raise his voice when his pointer finger lands on a menu item. “This looks quite close to a dish I grew up eating.” He looks up and the light catches the gold of one eye for a brief moment before he squints and shies away. “I haven’t had it in forever, I think I’m going to get it. You should try some.”
Admittedly, Jayce hasn’t really been looking at the menu and has no idea what he wants, but he finds the area where Viktor has pointed out and reads the item’s description. Being entirely honest with himself, Jayce knows that the combination does not sound particularly appealing to him, but not because it looks bad – simply because he’s never tasted half of the flavors described, and never even heard of one of the ingredients.
“You should!” Jayce insists, and although most of the alcohol in his system has dissipated, he starts to feel inebriated again at the sight of how pleased Viktor looks with his selection. He tucks a lock of hair behind his ear and looks up for just a brief moment, gracing Jayce with a small smile before turning his attention to their waiter.
Once their food has been ordered – Jayce makes a last-second decision on a dish he’s tried and liked before – it arrives surprisingly quickly after what feels like fifteen minutes of pleasant small talk. Viktor takes the first bite of his food pensively, expression kept entirely stoic as he chews. He pauses, eyebrows raised slightly, then nudges his plate slightly closer to Jayce. “It’s not exact, but it’s close. Want to try?”
Cautiously, he does. Although he’s not feeling very motivated by Viktor’s lack of reaction, the food is incredibly good, and Jayce exclaims as much. “You don’t seem as impressed as I am.”
“Oh, it’s quite good. I’m simply trying to figure out which ratio of ingredients I would change.” Viktor pulls the plate back to its original spot in front of him.
“But it’s so good already!” Jayce insists, pausing to take a sip of his water. “I bet we could cook this at home, though. Plus, that way, you could nitpick all the spices you’d like.”
Viktor smiles fully this time, resting his chin against the palm of one hand. “I would like that.”
In the span of a single hour, Jayce feels like he learns several years’ worth of knowledge about Viktor as they talk about just about everything they haven’t yet. He learns about Viktor’s upbringing in Czechia and his early affinity for oddities, about his parents’ deaths in his childhood and the recklessness of his teenage years. He also learns that Viktor actually speaks three languages, picking up Italian during undergrad to fulfill credit requirements, and in exchange, Jayce opens up about his own background to an appropriate extent. He doesn’t dwell too much on the blizzard he narrowly survived with his mother and lost his father in as a child, trying not to dampen the mood while simultaneously expressing his understanding of losing a parent.
Jayce doesn’t feel like there’s anything particularly interesting about his life, especially in contrast to his counterpart’s seemingly endless stream of adventure, but nonetheless, Viktor watches and listens intently as he speaks, nodding and asking questions where Jayce forgets to explain something further. It’s endearing in a way that almost makes him nervous, and despite the fact that this is technically a first date, he’s having a hard time with the reversed steps they’ve taken in a relationship.
When Jayce asks for a single check, Viktor narrows his eyes at him, traces of a grimace on his lips. “You do not have to pay for dinner, Jayce.”
“I know.” He shrugs. “But I asked to take you to dinner. Not if you wanted to come buy dinner with me. That would be lame, anyway.”
“We do that every week.”
“Takeout doesn’t count. Plus, I’ve been secretly sending your money back since you don’t have your notifications on.”
“Jayce!” Viktor hisses disapprovingly, whipping out his phone at record speed just as the waiter arrives with the check. They leave the restaurant without a murder case, and by the time they’re in the car, the light mood of the evening has them giddy, laughing at unfunny jokes they’ve told before.
Jayce turns on the lights to the nearly pitch-black apartment and realizes in the still silence that the night is coming to an end. Surely, they’ll both have to work like their lives depend on it tomorrow, and he dreads the busy Sunday to come as he kicks off one shoe. Viktor’s already clicking down the hallway by the time he steps out of the other one, and for a split second, Jayce worries that he’s gone to bed without a word. He’s uncomfortable in his own outerwear, though, and moves to get into loungewear, assuming that Viktor’s doing the same.
His room feels different somehow, almost like the space itself has changed in his absence. The room has seen before Viktor and with Viktor, and although a fairly-priced dinner at a restaurant that isn’t flooded with college students doesn’t realistically say much about two people, Jayce feels as though he’s entered a new phase of infatuation. He’s just had – what he assumes to be – a successful date with the person that’s made him feel completely insane with aching desire for years now, and yet, the yearning fails to subside. Likewise, Jayce’s curtains still move in the breeze the same way they were a few hours before, and his furniture sits unmoved.
A quiet knock pulls him out of his thoughts, and he opens his bedroom door in lieu of responding. Viktor, as expected, stands in his sleepwear, worn tee shirt exposing his collar and thin glasses perched atop his nose. Jayce stands still for a moment, only moving to open the door further when Viktor quirks an eyebrow, amused.
“I had a nice time today,” Viktor says as he roams into the space, eyes scanning the room like he’s looking for something until he looks at Jayce with a burning intensity. “Thank you.”
Before Jayce can dismiss it, Viktor has a cool palm on his cheek, pulling him closer for a kiss. It’s short and slightly uncoordinated, but thrilling nonetheless, and Jayce moves to hold Viktor’s face in his hands. When they separate, Jayce chases his lips and presses them together again, not wanting to part ways quite yet. In response, Viktor’s hand slides down to his sternum, pressing firmly as they kiss until Jayce has no choice but to stumble backward a step or two. Something playful flits across Viktor’s face, and Jayce’s throat goes dry.
“What are you doing?” He asks as Viktor approaches again, pressing another firm but careful push into his chest as he responds.
“What do you mean?” Viktor squints with a slight tilt of his head, and the backs of Jayce’s knees hit the edge of his bed. “I’m not doing anything.” He sets his cane against the foot of the bed, both hands landing on Jayce’s shoulders and starting to lightly shove. Getting the hint, he lets himself sit down on the bed, eyes wide as he stares up at his partner.
“Viktor-”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He insists as he settles onto Jayce’s lap, who moves to sit against the headboard for both of their comfort’s sake, but mainly Viktor’s. “I’m simply saying thank you for dinner.” He says, leaning down to connect their lips again.
This time, there’s a flame to the way Viktor kisses him, hands wandering and pulling him closer. “You don’t have to-” Jayce starts when they part for a breath, but he chokes on his words as Viktor’s lips press against his throat, hands starting to work his belt out of its loop.
“I’m not doing anything.” He asserts again against the skin of his neck, cool fingers slipping under the fabric of Jayce’s shirt and running across the waistband of his briefs, who nearly coughs with the force of which he inhales. For just a moment, Viktor sits back up, looking down at Jayce with nothing short of amusement written across his face before slithering backward until he’s laying on his stomach, elbows propped on Jayce’s thighs.
Jayce must look like a deer in headlights, which is accurate to some measure, but not in the sense that Viktor seems to momentarily react to. “Can I?” He asks cautiously, fingers paused at the waistband of Jayce’s pajama pants.
“No, yeah,” Jayce nods, voice barely a whisper. “If you want t-”
“No, yes is yes,” Viktor mocks as he pulls the pants down, hand wrapping around Jayce’s somewhat embarrassingly already hardened length. “But yes, no means no. English is a despicable language.” He mutters, casually starting to stroke Jayce’s cock, eyes flitting between the view a few inches from his face and Jayce’s own expression. Seemingly satisfied with what he sees, he leans in to press a wet kiss to the underside of his shaft, and Jayce can’t stop the hand that flies to Viktor’s hair – not pulling, but stabilizing as he takes a shaky breath.
Entertained by his enthusiasm, Viktor huffs out a soft laugh, and the motion sends a vibration through Jayce’s skin and up his spine. Teasingly, Viktor continues to kiss and lick gently, mouth twitching into a small smile every time Jayce gasps or tightens his grip on his hair until he finally wraps his lips around the tip, eyes slightly squinted up at him like he wants to smile.
“Viktor, you’re- Oh my Gods,” Jayce starts, interrupted by his own heaving breath as his cock hits the back of Viktor’s throat, who adjusts his position slightly before taking him further. He can’t quite take the entirety in his mouth, but it doesn’t stop Viktor from trying until he suppresses a gag, one hand moving to make up for what he can’t reach. It’s the most mind-numbingly erotic thing Jayce has ever experienced, every thought aside from the sight in front of him escaping his mind with incredible force as he bites his fist. “You’re- fuck, you’re incredible, V.” The nickname slips off his tongue before he can think to stop it, but Viktor hums against his length, pulling back and pressing his tongue against the underside of the head as his other hand pushes his glasses back up his nose, slightly askew from the frantic movement.
Jayce barely gets a second to breathe, squirming under the eye contact that Viktor holds as he sinks back down, mouth working like he knows exactly what will make him twitch. It’s only a few short minutes before Jayce is tugging at Viktor’s hair, panting into his hand. “Viktor, I’m-”
Viktor glares up at him, refusing to pull back and instead taking him as far as he can, and Jayce’s brain screeches to a halt as he realizes that it was far too late for a warning anyway, hitting the wall of his restraint at full force and making him lightheaded. Viktor doesn’t stop until Jayce is hissing in overstimulation and tugging at his hair, but even then, he looks almost irritated to be interrupted.
Viktor sits back on his heels, clearly pleased, and moves to get off of the bed. Jayce grabs for his waist, stopping the movement and pulling him closer. “Come up here.”
A downpour smacks against the apartment windows like it’s threatening to break in, shattering the glass and flooding the floorboards. The fixtures hold fast, though, and Jayce has to remind himself as such every time the wind forces more water against the glass. The rain isn’t quite snow, closer to sleet, but with the gusts of wind manipulating the water to fly nearly sideways, it’s starting to look like a blizzard outside.
It’s no secret that Jayce hates the cold, never able to cover his skin in enough clothing to quell the chill in his bones. He’d take hot weather any day – at least he could engage in outdoor extracurriculars – but the cold seeps deeper into his joints than a heat stroke could ever dream of. Thankful for the apartment’s insulation quality, Jayce takes a deep breath as a harsh gust of wind sends a whistle through the street.
It’s nearing two months since his first dinner date with Viktor, and although the changes to his quality of life have been a net positive, Jayce can’t really say that their dynamic has changed much. Viktor is still a generally withdrawn person, perhaps a bit more self-asserted than he had been a few months prior, but his sentiment had been honest – they did, indeed, proceed with their lives as they typically would’ve. Overall, though, Jayce continues fighting to keep his obsessive nature at bay, and they carry out an incredibly pleasant association with each other.
Jayce’s phone buzzes from its place in his pocket. A text from Caitlyn lights up the screen.
-hey can you text my mom back? she has to talk to you about something
A pang of dissatisfaction twists in his stomach, but he ignores the message with the mental promise that he’ll deal with it later. Besides, the milk on the stove is about to boil over, and Jayce rushes to take it off the heat. Stirring the warm liquid into a mug, he wonders if the hot chocolate he’s making will be sugary enough for Viktor, or if he’ll barbarically add another spoonful of sweetener to fit his tastes. Regardless, he hopes that the drink is at least mildly comforting as he starts to Viktor’s room, careful not to spill.
When he enters, he finds that Viktor has moved from his previous spot hunched over at his desk to one huddled underneath his comforter, laptop propped open on his lap. The way he’s swaddled himself into his sheets provides an endearing sight, and if it weren’t for the expression of pure distaste on Viktor’s face, Jayce might’ve mentioned how cute he looks. “If you want it any sweeter than this, you’re going to have to ruin the mug yourself. I can’t be complicit in any more of your crimes.” Jayce sets the mug down on his bedside table.
They both know it’s a lie at this point; Jayce would bend over backwards to any extent for the sake of his partner, would rush to the kitchen and stir in as much sugar as Viktor could ever ask for, no matter how abhorrent the amount. Viktor mutters a thanks as Jayce sits on the foot of his bed, taking a sip of the warm liquid and holding out a thumbs up in approval as he drinks nearly a quarter of the mug. “This is horrible. I am going to be working on my degree for the next decade.” He groans, slapping a hand against his forehead and leaning back against the headboard.
“You won’t! It’s just midterm season, I swear the sense of doom gets worse around this time.” Jayce flops back onto the mattress, back sore from hunching at his own desk all afternoon. “I don’t know how you’re able to get anything done from your bed, though, it just makes me want to go to sleep.”
“I typically do not. But my shirts are not warm enough, and my sweaters are far too warm. The blankets are my only option.” Viktor places his mug back down to adjust his blanket, tucking it further over his shoulder as he raises his eyebrows incredulously at something on his screen.
“You don’t have anything that’s, like… Hold on.” Jayce rises from his spot on the bed with a huff of effort, walking to the small closet next to the front door and rifling through it. There are plenty of heavier coats for colder weather, and he runs a hand through the pockets of each while he’s searching, just in case he’s left a lucky amount of money somewhere -- he hasn't. Finally, he reaches to the far left, and his hand touches the soft fabric he’s looking for – Jayce retrieves the light jacket with little difficulty and slings it over one arm. It’s an article of clothing he used to wear nearly daily but has since abandoned for the sake of nicer, more coordinated clothing.
At second glance, its deep blue fabric shows slight signs of wear, and the maroon lining is starting to fray at the seams. In any case, Jayce is fairly certain that it’s the perfect middle ground for his partner and takes it back to his room with a spring in his step. “Here,” He says, tossing the fabric to Viktor’s bed from the doorway. “Not too cold, not too hot. Actually, that’s not for me to decide, I won’t be offended if you don’t wear it.” Jayce laughs nervously.
Viktor pauses, sets his laptop to one side, and reaches for the jacket. “Thank you, Jayce. You’re very thoughtful.” With the textile pulled over his shoulders, he has to push the sleeves up to his elbows to keep them from interfering with his typing, and the sight makes Jayce feel a strange pang of possessiveness. “You should take a look at this listing. There are several openings lined up for product planning and design at the Academy, and they’re looking for engineers.”
Jayce leans against the doorway. “We’re not predicted to graduate for another, like, semester and a half, at least. How far out are they planning?”
“Hiring starts in six months, but I’m sure our credentials are more than sufficient. I think you would do quite well in this type of workplace, you should apply.” Viktor finally tears his eyes away from his screen, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to stand and re-settle back at his desk. His leg brace, now custom fitted to near-perfection, notably doesn't squeak in protest at the movement, but Jayce habitually keeps an eye on it anyway. “You can always decline it later if they offer the job to you.”
“Is it… competitive?” Jayce asks pensively. “I’m not going to apply for a job you’re also fighting for.”
“Why, scared you’ll lose the offer and have to live in my shadow?” Viktor muses as he drops his laptop charger to the floor, a slight smile twitching across his lips when he sees Jayce’s expression of nervous terror. “No, it is not competitive. At least, not to my knowledge. I will send you the information if you’re interested.”
“Okay,” Jayce breathes out, and his phone buzzes in his pocket again. “Sure. How cool would it be to work the same job? I mean, considering we won’t get immediately fired for blowing something up.”
“I blew one battery up, and you cannot let it go. The administration should’ve been more careful with the age of their electronics, not me.” Viktor insists, accusatory finger pointed at Jayce’s chest. “It would be quite convenient, though.”
“It would!” Jayce agrees, pulling out his phone to look at the link Viktor has sent over. Scrolling past another text from Caitlyn, he opens the application form and starts reviewing the information. “Where did you even find this?”
“I have my ways. I’m not going to apply just yet, though, I’m not sure that I would be… I don’t know that it will be a good fit yet.” Viktor leans back in his chair, arms stretching above his head as an odd harmony of pops and clicks sound from his joints.
“You could always apply and decline if you change your mind, too, you know,” Jayce says, uncrossing his legs from where he’s leaned against the door frame and inching closer to Viktor’s desk.
“Eh, I don’t know that I’ll… I don’t know.” Sensing a bit of tension from an indistinguishable source, he decides to drop it and take a look at Viktor’s notebook.
“What are you working on now?” He asks, fingertip tracing the book’s spine. While Viktor explains, Jayce retrieves the forgotten hot chocolate from his bedside and places it at his desk.
Outside, it seems that the rain has only drawn motivation from their shared disdain for the cold – it drums against the apartment’s roof and smacks the windowsills, pooling in the uneven cracks of the sidewalk and gushing into the gutters with enough force to knock somebody off of their feet. A bus rumbles down the street, sending a spray of water onto the curb and luckily avoiding any passersby. The streetlight flickers overhead, seemingly confused by the weather’s shifts between light and dark. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles slowly, almost patient with its timidity, and it’s more felt than heard as the windows vibrate in their sills.
The storm outside is distant, it’s irrelevant. For now, in the solitude of Viktor’s bedroom, they’re untouched by its rage. For now, the two are safely wrapped up in a single moment of domesticity.
And for now, the storm stays outside.
Notes:
two more chapters potentially i think? coming to the end now thanks so much for reading!
Chapter 8
Notes:
this is the second to last chapter -- there's one more coming, and it'll either be very, very long, have an epilogue, or both!
i'm so impressed with the amount of people who are interested in my little au, and it means so much to me! thank you so much for reading and leaving your feedback. <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Icicles are forming on the awning of the laboratory, and there’s so much frost on the windows that they barely function as windows at all. It may not be snowing, but it is horribly cold outside.
From the moderately warm indoors, Sky frustratedly wipes off a workstation with a rag and spray bottle ambiguously titled ‘cleaner,’ wishing that the grown adults who use the laboratory would have the decency to clean up after themselves. It’s nothing truly disgusting, just bits of pencil lead and dried-out alcohol pads, but it’s the principle that’s annoying to her.
Thankfully, it seems that the lab will be hers and Viktor’s entirely for the day – not only has the cold driven away any potential peers, but finals week is just around the corner, and most are studying flashcards like their lives depend on it.
Viktor has yet to arrive, but his text a few minutes prior has to mean that he’s showing up any second now – Jayce, who typically joins them, has some sort of administrative issue to attend to, which means that Viktor will either seem mildly irked the entire day, or he’ll be laser-focused on his research. Sky wonders if Jayce has gotten himself into some sort of trouble as she uses the sleeve of her outermost sweater to wipe the frost from a window, peering through the slight clarity just in time for his red hatchback to pull into a parking spot. Without meaning to, she finds herself mindlessly watching their interaction from afar, spray bottle still in hand.
They both get out of the car when the trunk opens slightly from an automatic lever, and Jayce pulls what looks to be a cardboard box from the car and places it in Viktor’s outstretched arm with some hesitation. It looks like Viktor is getting a bit annoyed with an insistence that it’s not a problem, raising it in the air for emphasis. Finally, Jayce raises his hands in defeat, and he smiles before pulling Viktor in for a–
Oh my Gods.
The bottle clatters to the ground with a loud thwack as Sky gasps so abruptly that she briefly worries she’s strained a muscle.
From the biting cold outside, Viktor forces his legs to work against the fierce winds racing past him and starts towards the building. From his peripherals, he notices movement from a third floor window, and he squints through the wind to see Sky waving with a bit of… enthusiasm.
Without a free hand to wave back anyway, he uses the end of his cane to press the door opener, waiting in the wind with a grimace before it opens enough for him to slip inside. It’s not much warmer, but without the wind, he’s able to take a full breath and step into the elevator.
By the time he’s reached the third floor, he realizes that the box is indeed starting to cause a slight strain in his arm – not from its weight, but from his inability to shift his position more than a few inches at a time. Viktor stifles a huff as he scans into the laboratory, pushing the door open with his shoulder and dropping the box on the nearest workstation. He finally lets out a sigh as he slumps into a chair, having expected to be jumped out of his bones the minute he stepped in. Instead, Sky’s quite composed when he raises a hand in silent greeting, and for a moment, Viktor thinks that she hasn’t seen anything. That is, until she’s smiling smugly in response. “Good morning, Viktor.”
“Hello.” He ignores the suggestive tilt to her voice, turning in his seat to start unpacking the contents of his box – it’s full of odds and ends; scraps from mini inventions crafted from drunkenly written blueprints and tossed victims of mental burnout. If Sky wasn’t as close as she is, Viktor is certain that he’d look like a serial killer with a box of rusty medical equipment, preparing to destroy evidence. Instead, she’s curiously silent from behind him, he realizes as he plugs in the hex claw’s power source with slight effort.
It’s not until Viktor is, thankfully, several feet from his workstation and taking a long sip of water that Sky speaks up in a voice he doesn’t think he’s ever heard from her. “What, does your throat hurt?”
His sip of water ends up on the floor. It spans across several tiles, actually, and Viktor coughs into his elbow as Sky collapses into a fit of hysterical laughter, arms grasping her midsection as she wheezes out an apology. “I don’t know what happened to what are you working on or do you want to get coffee, but I think we should return to that.” He drops a paper towel to the floor somewhat uselessly, using his shoe to poorly clean the small mess.
“Oh, come on! I told you all about last week when my girlfriend took me to dinner and–”
“Yes, you did, but I don’t believe I recall asking for specifics.” Viktor isn’t genuinely upset with her, but he refuses to give into such a juvenile way to discuss his life. “Would you turn on that power strip?”
She spins in her chair and clicks the button with a huff, putting her glasses back on after she’d taken them off to wipe a tear from her eye. “How long?”
“If that’s a euphemism, I’m not–”
“How long have you been seeing each other? That wasn’t even on me, I was being genuine.” Sky crooks an eyebrow at him, and Viktor turns to his workstation.
“Eh, I don’t really know how to measure it.” He says as he fiddles with a knot of metal wiring. It’s not that he’s evading the question – it’s the truth. A little over five months ago, they’d gotten a little too tipsy at a robotics showcase and shared the nicest dinner he’d ever experienced with anyone. How long before that had he basically jumped on Jayce’s lap and made their cohabitation slightly awkward? Did that even count as the start of anything?
It was another week after dinner that Jayce had asked over their morning coffee what Viktor would prefer to be called. “I don’t know if I’m entirely misreading you, but you don’t really strike me as the boyfriend type.” He’d said nervously.
“Hm,” Viktor had hummed in agreement as he’d taken a sip of his coffee. “I think partner is best.”
The knot of wires isn’t coming undone anytime soon, Viktor decides, and he sets it aside to look through his other scraps. “Five months, give or take.” He settles on.
“And?” Sky probes from across the room, looking out the window again.
“And? What is it that you would like to know, Sky?” He asks, starting to get fidgety as he speaks.
“How is it?” She asks like it’s the most obvious question in the world.
“I’m not talking about relationships today. I only have a few hours to get a prototype drafted, and I know you have at least a dozen reports to get through.” As he speaks, Viktor does start to think about it, and he can’t help the way his face starts to warm up. “But it’s… good.” He smiles to himself.
—☆—
ꜱɪx ᴍᴏɴᴛʜꜱ ᴇᴀʀʟɪᴇʀ
“Yes, exactly.” Jayce confirms with a clasp of his hands. “According to our trials, its surgical precision beats the best on the market by three times over.”
“Very impressive indeed.” Cassandra flips through the blueprints for a fourth time. Caitlyn’s kindergarten picture gleams at him from the wall of the dining room, and Jayce tries not to watch the analysis of his work with too much concern. It's always a little odd to find the balance of behavior he should be presenting in such an oddly familiar environment, but today, the tone of the room is crystal clear. “You wrote most of these, then?”
“Yes. Everything in blue is me, and Viktor’s notes are usually in red.” The collar of his shirt is starting to feel suffocating. Were the lights always this bright?
“Hm.” Cassandra says with a twitch of her lip, something unreadable in her eyes as she sighs. The dining room is so large that the sound echoes faintly, bouncing off the walls and sending a wave of anxiety through Jayce's chest. She's in a blouse that crawls up her neck like the collar of an empress, and she sharpness of her wordless judgement makes him feel like he's on trial. “It looks like he’s got… something going on.”
A wave of protectiveness rises in Jayce’s throat, and he chokes it down before he says something he regrets – something along the lines of, last time I checked, you’d have to be a pretty damn good engineer to really get what any of this says, anyway. “He does. I’d be nowhere near this stage of trials without his input.”
Cassandra takes another long look at the blueprints, back at the abstract, and then finally, at her laptop. He can tell that she has something on the tip of her tongue; she's balancing some decision in her mind as she selects her choice of words and turns to face him sympathetically. “It is... such a shame we had to reduce so many of the scholarships for international STEM students. It seems harsh, but funneling funds into more... particular projects like yours was truly the right move.”
Time stops.
Jayce is positive that his heart has given out. He should have known that of course, as a member of the university's administrative board, she would have had some sort of involvement in that decision. But is she implying that she voted in agreement on it? Realizing that his jaw is clenched and forcing it to relax, he chooses his words carefully. “I didn’t realize that funding was that drastic. This could’ve taken a backseat.”
“Of course.” Cassandra settles the blueprints back into their folder and slides it across the table to Jayce. “But you understand how funding works in a place like this, don’t you?”
He stops its movement with his hand before it topples into his lap. “Of course.” He echoes back, and they fall into silence as Cassandra clicks at her laptop. "It's just... You've seen his work. If money isn't stopping my work, it really shouldn't be stopping his. The whole thing is just... unfair, is all."
Cassandra purses her lips before returning to stoicism. "Yes, well, these things unfortunately do not run on a merit of fairness." She's typing as she speaks, and the clicking interrupting her voice is almost more grating than the sentiment itself. After several minutes of silence, she lets out another long sigh, rolling her eyes to herself and folding her hands in her lap. “I can sponsor… two of his classes. It’s not enough to get him to graduate, but if his input is so important to your work, then he will need to keep giving it to you. Give me a minute to print your forms.”
Jayce feels like he has whiplash as he stutters out a way to thank her. Cassandra’s distaste for Viktor has either been mostly obscured to Jayce or entirely undiscovered to herself, but he knows it isn’t specifically targeted. They’re sitting at a table that costs more than Viktor’s entire degree, and somehow, her prejudice has seeped into their conversation in a way that paints him as an inconvenience; as nothing but a miscalculation. It makes Jayce feel more deranged than he’d like to admit, and he takes the forms, still warm from the printer, with shaking hands.
ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ ᴅᴀʏ
Jayce has known the Kirammans for longer than he’s known most of the people in his life. Having been introduced to the family as an anxious teenager, they also know him better than most, but from his plastic seat in the back of the boardroom, he feels more misunderstood than ever. Next to him, Caitlyn is texting furiously, clearly preoccupied with a social matter and beyond used to sitting through her mother’s board meetings.
Jayce has seen Cassandra exceedingly proud. He’s seen her in a poorly concealed state of distress near the beginning of Caitlyn’s undergraduate career. He’s seen her with the face of a second mother. He’s even seen her tipsy on a few occasions, carefree and bubbly. Now, though, she sits like a monarch at the end of the council table, her sharp gaze locked onto the ever-useless Dr. Hoskel as he rambles. Amongst the rest of the members of the administrative board, Cassandra is nowhere near as snake-like as many of the others; not as calculated as Professor Bolbok or as sharp-tongued as Salo. Still, as Dr. Heimerdinger begins to speak, her lack of considerable protest cuts nearly as deep.
“With an investigation underway, I don’t believe that would be the best course of action, Doctor Hoskel. The students are already confused.” He fiddles with his moustache for a second. “I think we may need to reallocate our international funds entirely.”
Caitlyn stops typing. Cassandra’s eyes flit to Jayce’s in a millisecond, and the incredibly brief look on her face speaks volumes of please don’t do anything insane. “With all due respect, Doctor Heimerdinger, I believe that our international students provide some of our most significant assets. Cutting funding could be incredibly detrimental to our function entirely.” Dr. Shoola acts as a singular voice of reason as the rest of the board members avert their eyes, scribbling in their notebooks and shuffling papers around.
“Not cutting!” Heimerdinger points a finger in the air. “Pausing. A brief pause on international funds for a few semesters, just until we can sort out exactly what kind of wrench was thrown into our system.”
Jayce’s stomach drops as Dr. Shoola considers for a moment, pondering before consulting her own paperwork. A few semesters is nothing to these people, but it’s everything to the students. Time works differently when you have an incredibly expensive deadline to meet, and the administrative board has seemingly lost touch with this reality entirely.
“With such a significant decision, we will have to put it to a vote.” Cassandra finally speaks up. “Next Tuesday, same time, I ask that we meet again to settle the issue. This would give us time to propose another solution, should our vote be… inconclusive.”
When the meeting has been dismissed, Jayce has to physically restrain himself from approaching Dr. Heimerdinger with a heated choice of words, and he grips the armrests of his chair until his knuckles are white. Finally, Caitlyn rises to rendezvous with her mother, and Jayce lingers a few paces behind.
When she finally looks over to him, he composes his expression. “Jayce.” She says tentatively. “I understand that this is stressful, but I asked you to attend for a reason.”
“Yes, you did.” He says shortly, venom-free, but soulless.
“You saw the figures. You saw what we’re working with. I gave everyone time to come up with something else, but–”
“But do you think they actually will? You saw them. They decided on it before Heimerdinger even finished talking.” Jayce cuts her off, unable to restrain the frustration seeping into his voice.
Cassandra squints at him, and he shrinks. “Doctor Heimerdinger is the only reason your friend has any funding at all. I’d suggest that you allow me to do… my best.”
Jayce sighs. There’s a tingling sensation at his temples and a heat gripping his throat, but he turns and leaves anyway.
“Try it.” Viktor holds a spoon to Jayce’s face with an all-too bright smile on his face. It’s not to be trusted for even a second.
“I will, but if it’s just salt on the spoon that you’ve covered with a single layer of soup again, I’m not going to be happy.” The pot on the stove is emitting a warm, savory smell, and Jayce desperately hopes that he’s actually getting to try it this time.
“It’s not salt.” Viktor promises, raising the spoon closer to Jayce’s lips. Hesitantly, he takes the spoonful of soup, and– no, actually, it is indeed salt. Instead of spitting it out like he had a few days prior when his taste buds had been assaulted in the same manner, he swallows the spoonful of salt-soup as Viktor snickers at his disgusted expression of betrayal.
“Wow, V, your cooking tastes like shit.” Jayce clears his throat, the near-tablespoon of abrasive seasoning tickling his tongue. Viktor laughs even harder and rinses the remaining salt from the spoon, returning it to the pot and fishing out an actual spoonful and tasting it himself.
“My Gods, Jayce, this is a very culturally significant recipe where I’m from. I did not take you to be such a… bigot.” He muses as he considers adding more dried marjoram to the pot.
“What? I’m not bigoted, your culture just tastes bad.” Jayce pokes back, and Viktor’s head tilts back as he laughs. It’s easily the most breathtaking thing Jayce has ever experienced, and has only really been a recent development.
After their incredibly backward-timed ‘first date,’ Viktor’s become increasingly comfortable with being seen, and he’s started to grow into their space. He leaves his mark everywhere; Jayce’s borrowed jacket across the back of the couch, his shoes, several feet apart, tossed in the general direction of the front door, the jar of honey on top of the fridge that’s emptied and replenished more frequently than Jayce could ever think to be possible. The most incredible development of his comfort, though, is that he laughs. Typically reserved or hiding his smile behind a hand, Viktor has not only begun to fully express the breadth of his emotions, but he’s funny, too. Jayce has been taken off guard with an extremely well-tailored joke more times than he can count, and he often struggles to keep up with equally-entertaining quips in response.
“Okay, you saw me do it this time. It’s not salt. Try.” Viktor is smiling again, but the mischievous gleam has left his eyes. Jayce does try it, and it’s not only considerably less salty than he’s still somewhat prepared for, it’s incredible. The flavor skyrockets to the top of his list of favorites in a split second, and Jayce expresses as much. “You’re flattering me. Would you get our bowls out?”
“No, seriously, that’s so good. I can’t believe I’ve been torturing you with grilled chicken and pasta.” Jayce sets two bowls on the counter just as a pair of students get into a loud dispute outside. He crosses the living room and shuts the cracked window, electing to turn the fan to a low setting instead. Despite the biting cold of the outdoors, their unit always manages to end up slightly too warm for comfort, and the fan rustles a potted monstera’s leaves.
“You haven’t tortured me.” Viktor responds from the kitchen. “I quite enjoy your cooking.” With a bowl of warm stew in each hand, he shuffles the few steps from behind the counter to the other side of the breakfast bar, beckoning for Jayce to join him.
Jayce, distracted, almost doesn’t hear the compliment. Viktor’s CD collection, which had moved from the back of his closet to the living room at some indistinguishable point, is intriguing him, and he flips over a few cases. “Do you want to listen to something while we eat?” He offers.
“Hmm… sure. I can’t promise that you’ll enjoy any of that, though.” Viktor has started eating already, clearly unwilling to wait for Jayce’s interruptions.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jayce says flippantly. “I like all of your music.” He plucks a disc from its case and sets it in the player, placing the volume at a lower setting before joining Viktor at the breakfast bar. “Thanks for cooking dinner.”
Viktor finishes chewing before responding. “You cook dinner almost every night. It’s the least I can do.”
They barely speak as they eat, too engrossed in the flavors and nutrition of a warm meal after a long day, and Jayce finishes his food first. He starts to clean up while Viktor scrapes at the bottom of his bowl, trying not to dwell too much on the sight of his well-fed and satisfied partner. He’s scraping to the tune of the song that’s playing, mindlessly lost in his own world, and Jayce gets an idea. Whether it’s a good one is still entirely up in the air, but he risks it and dries his hands with a dish towel, stepping into the living room. “Come here.” He holds out a hand to Viktor.
Viktor seems to startle a bit before turning to Jayce, raising an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Just come over here!” He insists. Viktor’s cane is against the wall next to his stool, and he takes it as he stands to cross the room. When they’re face to face, Jayce drops a hand to Viktor’s waist, urging him closer. “Dance with me.”
“Jayce.” The tone he uses is one that Jayce is now intimately familiar with as one of do not do whatever you're about to do, and it makes him prickle a bit. Relentless, he just smiles pleadingly.
“Come on, I won’t let you fall. Here.” He sets Viktor’s cane against the couch, mindful to keep it within his reach, and wraps both hands around his waist, stabilizing. It’s another moment before Viktor is actually relaxing into his hold and letting his bodyweight be supported entirely by Jayce, and then, they’re dancing. Sort of. It’s uncoordinated and off-beat, but neither of them seem to care as a smile twitches at the corners of Viktor’s lips, a restrained giggle spilling from them a moment later as they nearly collide with a wall.
“You’re a terrible dancer.” He teases, looking up at Jayce with a fondness that makes his chest hurt.
“Please, I’m the best dancer you’ve ever seen. If you saw another dancer, right now, you’d be embarrassed that they’re even trying.” The song changes, and so does their movement. It doesn’t get the chance to play out fully, though, before Viktor is moving a hand from Jayce’s shoulder to reach for his cane, and they settle on the couch together.
“You are… ridiculous.” He huffs, but a faint pink dusting across his cheeks gives him away.
“Yeah, but you’re worse. I literally ate a spoonful of salt half an hour ago.” Jayce rolls his eyes and retrieves his phone from his pocket. Caitlyn has texted a few times, asking if he knows some girl who’s allegedly an undergraduate student at his university, and he gets another idea. “You should meet Cait sometime. She’s heard all about you.”
Viktor seems to tense a little, and Jayce isn’t sure why. “Hmm, maybe. All terrible things, I imagine?” He muses anyway.
“Oh, the worst. I told her that you make me sleep on the floor.” Jayce smiles, trying to ease the tension of an unknown source. “Seriously, though, she’d love to meet you.” It's not the first time he's suggested it – far from the first, actually, having been to a handful of dinners with the Kirammans since the start of the semester and always extending the invite to his partner.
“...Sometime, sure.” Viktor responds after a long moment, gaze never reaching Jayce’s own. The last song of the CD ends at the same time, plunging them into an uncomfortable silence. Neither of them want to be the first to speak, and Jayce is at a crossroads. He doesn’t want to pry, but he doesn’t want to leave Viktor in the hot seat, either. “I was thinking about getting out of town for a little bit. Just a day, probably, maybe a weekend.” Viktor finally says, looking at his plants on the windowsill.
“Where would you want to go?” Jayce keeps the sudden terror he feels from affecting his tone, but his hands start to fidget in his lap.
“There’s this… aquarium, a few hours south of here. It has a showcase in a few weeks that I would like to see. I’m too stuck in my work, and I need to get out of the same three buildings.” Viktor looks back at Jayce then, eyes briefly flitting to his tightly clasped hands before continuing. “If you’re not interested in that type of thing, there’s a bus route that’s a fairly straight shot. I would like to go with you, though.”
Equally as thankful for and startled by the change of topic, Jayce relaxes a bit. “An aquarium? That sounds cool! I’d be happy to drive us. When- When is it?”
“The beginning of February, I don’t recall the exact date.” Viktor sighs, casually reaching for the remote and settling into Jayce’s side like their dynamic had never skipped a beat.
That night, Viktor had slept in his own bed, and Jayce had worked at his desk into the late hours of the night. It wasn’t unusual for them to retire to their respective areas, often ending up with opposite schedules and needing to isolate for periods of time. Jayce, however, had decided to revisit the Academy’s job listing for engineers. He’d submitted an application for Viktor before even starting his own, and by the time three in the morning rolled around, he’d passed out at his desk.
—☆—
On Monday morning, Viktor wakes up with Jayce’s heavy arm splayed across his chest. Their alarm is ringing, but too quietly to wake him, so Viktor slaps at his arm until he rouses.
It’s still an ugly winter day, but the sun is seeping through the clouds and melting some of the frost. Some of the sunshine filters into the bathroom as Viktor showers, and he pretends that the heat of the water is actually the warmth of a summer day. When he finishes his shower and taps into the kitchen, the smell of coffee is stronger than usual. The sugar and milk are nowhere in sight, and Jayce is holding out his mug with a calculated look on his face.
Suspicious that he’s about to experience an intense dose of revenge and take a long sip of salt-coffee, Viktor leans a hip against the faux-granite countertop and squints at Jayce. “What did you do to this?”
“Nothing!” He exclaims. “Seriously. I think I got your coffee right. Try it.”
Deciding that the revenge would be deserved anyway, Viktor braces himself and takes a long, careful sip. The warmth spreads throughout his chest instantly, and the sweetness is perfect. It tastes like Jayce has taken a creative liberty with a small amount of cinnamon… perhaps vanilla, too, and Viktor smiles, relieved. “Oh, this is quite good.”
“Yes!” Jayce’s own mug sits abandoned on the counter as he clasps his hands together. “I told you I would get it someday.” Viktor takes another drink as if the second sip would taste different than the first.
“That you did. Thank you.” He says fondly, setting the mug down to pull Jayce in for a brief kiss.
Flustered like it was their first kiss, Jayce beams at him. “It’s just coffee.”
“But you got it right. You noticed what I like.” Viktor starts back down the hall with his mug, a strand of wet hair clinging uncomfortably to his neck as the toaster clicks from the kitchen. “I will be ready in ten minutes.”
As he steps into his first class of the day, he decides that his delicious coffee was a good luck token – one that he’ll desperately need as he opens his laptop and navigates to the final exam. It’s not unbearably difficult, and about halfway through, Viktor realizes that he’ll certainly pass. Whether he’ll get a score he’s satisfied with, however, is an entirely different struggle as he spends the next hour reviewing his responses, editing and tweaking until he’s worried he’ll overwrite them into confusion.
When he submits the exam, he realizes he’s one of four people left in the lecture hall, and he leaves as quietly as possible, thankful to be entirely done with the course. In the time that he’s taken in the exam room, Sky has texted three separate times – first, with a tweet that made her laugh that morning, second, with a question about his notes, and third, with oh you’re in an exam aren’t you. Viktor texts back as he waits for the elevator, realizing that he has only thirty minutes before his next final.
The day drags by painfully slowly. Viktor feels like his brain is melting by the end of his third exam, and he’s starting to think that he slept at an uncomfortable angle with the way his back is straining. Jayce has an exam period that extends beyond Viktor’s last one, but he’s too burnt out to go kill time at the lab. Instead, he steps into the cold outdoors.
The wind has died down for the most part, and with his jacket zipped up, the temperature is actually quite bearable. Viktor makes his way across a section of campus, trying to stretch his limbs as he walks, and ends up stopping at a table in the frost-coated grass. He and Jayce had left the lab and decompressed at this exact table countless times in the summertime, but now, entangled with ice, the seat isn’t as inviting as it should be.
A candle that smells something like a pine tree flickers on the coffee table, and the sunset is drawing the living room into a warm, cozy darkness. Coziness isn’t what Viktor needs, though, what he needs is to focus. This final paper isn’t writing itself, and while it’s not due until tomorrow, he has so many other loose ends to tie up before the end of the week.
Jayce is next to him on the couch, clearly struggling with his own course work. It’s an incredible feat that neither of them have broken down into tears yet, but from time to time, Jayce’s face will go entirely blank as he averts his gaze from his laptop for a few moments, almost like he’s trying to keep from throwing it against the wall.
“Do you have a second?” Viktor mumbles, saving his document.
“Yeah, for sure. What’s up?” Jayce looks relieved to have a distraction, setting his laptop aside and motioning to take the other’s.
Viktor hands it over, pointing at the paragraph he’s struggling with. “I don’t know if that reads well. It makes sense to me, but I have also stared at it for weeks.” Jayce hums, reading it over a few times before editing, altering the phrasing here and there before reading the paragraph aloud.
“Is there another section you wanted me to look at?” He asks, sparing a brief glare for his own laptop.
“No, thank you.” Viktor stretches his legs out with a groan, sinking impossibly further into the couch cushions. “I don’t want to work anymore. I’m tired. Have our professors ever considered that we’re tired?”
“I think they actually go out of their way to make sure that we’re tired.” Jayce hands the laptop back before wiping both hands down his face. Faintly, his phone is ringing, buzzing against the arm of the couch. It’s the second call he’s gotten – and ignored – in the past half hour. On a Monday evening, it’s got to be bothersome, especially considering the sheer size of Jayce’s workload for the next few days.
“We should probably take a small break soon.” Viktor proposes, wondering if it’s too late for a cup of coffee.
“Probably.” Jayce doesn’t resume his work, but instead extends an arm. The invitation is too tempting to ignore, and Viktor sets his open laptop on the coffee table to settle into the warmth of Jayce’s chest. “We’ll survive this. Most likely.” He murmurs against Viktor’s hair.
“It just… never ends. There is so much to do. Always.” With the living room starting to reach near-complete darkness, he’s getting dangerously tired.
That is, until a ping sounds from his laptop.
It’s unmistakably the sound of an e-mail, and a dreadful sense of déjà vu sinks into Viktor’s bones. After a moment of hesitation, he sits back up and repositions his glasses before pulling his laptop back to its position atop his knees. “What is it?” Jayce asks, but the sound muffles as Viktor reads the message he’s received.
Good evening Viktor!
Due to a reallocation of funds, your assistance from
INT’L SCHOLARSHIP
will not be continued in the coming spring semester.
If you are receiving this e-mail, your classes have been unenrolled. Once sufficient funds have been applied to your account, you may re-enroll for your spring classes.
If you have any questions, please contact the Bursar’s office.
He can’t believe it. He won’t graduate. This entire process, everything he’s worked for has just… ended. He will not graduate.
“Viktor, what is it?” Jayce asks again, a frantic edge to his voice as he takes the liberty to look over Viktor’s shoulder and see for himself. “Oh. No. That’s not… They were supposed to… Hold on.” Jayce stutters as he rises to his feet, pulling out his phone as he starts to make a beeline for the hallway.
The absurdity of his reaction sends an ice-cold chill down Viktor’s spine. “Jayce.” He says sternly through the shakiness of his voice. “Come back.”
Jayce is still for a long moment before he returns, looking at everything in the room but his partner.
“What are you talking about?” Viktor asks, barely pushing the words past his teeth.
“I… need you to listen, okay? Okay– please, just listen.” He stammers as Viktor’s face reacts in time with his words. “Cassandra said that she would-”
Listen? “You knew about this?” His hands are shaking. Something he hasn’t felt in a long time is creeping into his throat. This is bad. This is so, so bad.
“No, no! I mean, well, yes, but–” Viktor closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I didn’t– The board was supposed to vote on it tomorrow. Cassandra Kiramman said that she would- she would come up with a different solution, okay? They absolutely said Tuesday, it’s way too early for them to have decided on– on cutting the–”
Cassandra. She had funded his classes, hadn’t she? Was that another solution? How long has this been in the works?
How long has Jayce held the very balance of his future in clumsy hands?
“Is that who has been calling you?” Viktor asks, the venom in his voice striking his words with enough force to make Jayce wince.
“...Yeah. I’m sorry, Viktor, I shouldn't have kept you out of the loop, and I–”
“Did she truly give me collaborative credit for your hex claw? Or did you simply decide to steer a narrative there, too?” He doesn’t like the way that Jayce is still standing, speaking down to him, so he stands, too.
“She did! But Viktor, I have to fight for you a little bit, alright? You did collaborate with me on that, and it-it’s not like I just walked in and asked her to throw money at you.” Jayce is guarded, uneasy from the glare that’s fixed on him. “You said yourself that you didn’t want any help from me or my sponsors, so what– what was I supposed to do when she gave it to you anyway?”
The slight mocking edge to his tone cuts deep, and Viktor has to restrain from cutting back deeper. “You cannot be…” He takes a long deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “I meant, I didn’t want to become reliant on some millionaire that I’ve never even met! Not that you should be complicit in a complete fucking disaster, Jayce! It’s not just about me, do you have any idea how many hundreds of other brilliant minds who will have to go home two years early? A single semester early?” Viktor is losing his grip on his composure, and another strike slips from his lips before he can stop it. “I suppose I’ve become entirely reliant on the millionaire anyway, thanks to you. And just like I feared, I’ve gotten completely fucked. Thank you for fighting for me.”
Viktor is halfway down the hallway before he can face his own shame, not wanting to see Jayce’s reaction to his words. His hand is on his doorknob when Jayce stalks down the hallway too, irritation emanating from his figure. “Well maybe it wouldn’t be a complete stranger to you if you’d, I don’t know, come to any of the dinners I invite you to? Meet the people that are important to me?”
Viktor scoffs, opening the door to his bedroom. “Please, Jayce, don’t patronize me. I’m not interested in being observed like a specimen.”
“That’s entirely you! You’re doing it again!” He exclaims, and the show of emotion is startling. “Nobody else thinks that way, Viktor! You do this– this complete self-sabotage and run away from everything. You don’t give people the chance to be cruel to you, which– I get it, okay? But you don’t really give a lot of room for them to be kind, either. You didn’t even give me ten seconds to explain myself!”
Viktor is suddenly furious that he’s gone to his own room and been followed anyway. Snatching his work bag from atop his bed, he storms out, Jayce still hot on his heels. It’s not until his laptop is safely in the bag that he whips back around, unable to contain the suffocating frustration of his life’s autonomy being toyed with. “You do not get it.” Jayce’s face softens the slightest degree in his blurring vision, and the realization that tears of anger are starting to gather in his eyes just makes the feeling intensify. “People don’t look at you how they– I’m not even going to…” Viktor swallows the lump in his throat. “You have gone behind my back for months, for something that’s incredibly important to my life. Did you know about the initial cut, too? Was your spare room really empty, or were you just waiting to– to swoop in and fight for me here, too?”
Jayce’s face has twisted into a thousand emotions in the span of thirty seconds. “That’s not fair. Of course I didn’t know about that.” Ah, the emotion his face has settled on is hurt, Viktor realizes as Jayce’s voice wavers. “Is it really that easy for you to jump to that conclusion? That I’m just waiting on the edge of my seat to completely fuck your life up?”
“I don’t… want to think so. But I don’t really have another explanation that makes sense right now.”
“Well the world doesn’t exist within what you think makes sense Viktor! You can’t decide what everyone else thinks of you and then isolate yourself like you have– like you have absolutely nothing to do with it!” Jayce runs a frantic hand through his hair as Viktor’s jaw clenches, eyes flitting to the front door.
“You don’t understand.” He finally mutters, cursing his voice for sounding so pitiful. Jayce is angry with him, and while that's bad enough, the worst part is that they're not even talking about his complete betrayal anymore.
“You’re right! I don’t.” Exasperated, Jayce lets his hands drop to his sides, and for a long moment, the only sound in the apartment is the shared volume of heavy breaths.
Deciding to take charge of his own life in the most aggressive manner he can think of, Viktor slings his bag over his shoulder and heads for the door, letting his feet fall more heavily than he probably should. “I knew this wouldn’t work. I’ll get my shit later this week.” He hisses, snatching his key off the hook and yanking the door open. Jayce calls his name just before he slams the door, but thankfully, doesn’t follow him anymore.
Viktor has tunnel vision as he makes for the exit, needing both fresh air and a different environment entirely. How dare he? What is Viktor supposed to do, trust everyone he meets with his life and, what, jump into his neighbor’s apartment with a smile? Take financial help with open hands just to get the rug pulled out from under his feet? Hell no, he thinks he glares at the bus stop, not everyone has been so unbelievably lucky with their experiences in life. Privilege can find a way to rot its recipients.
The longer Viktor waits for a bus, the angrier he gets. What had he been thinking when he’d made this choice? Truly, it had been the most uncharacteristic decision of his entire life – he’s abandoned who he is for the sake of what, a few months of fun and a devastating heartbreak? He can’t even truly be angry at his situation because he’d gleefully taken the blindfold and walked himself into this.
He's officially seen the worst of it, exactly like he's been expecting to. Still, it hurts. It hurts so deeply that Viktor feels like his chest is caving in as he boards the night bus in a haze, not bothering to see where it goes. Jayce’s face mocks him from its place on his phone’s lock screen, and he rushes to reset it to its default setting before the sight makes him cry. Realizing that he's still in Jayce's blue jacket makes him cry anyway.
Notes:
if you're wondering who the girl sky went out with is its ME yes i'm self inserting, i don't care if she’s out of character! i’m letting her have fun and whimsy in my own mind. i also didn’t put mel on the council because she’s literally the same age as everyone else, and i want her to be enjoying life. unlike everyone else. instead she is living her best life with elora on a beach somewhere and doesn’t have crushing responsibilities at her age YAYYYY
Chapter 9
Summary:
“I knew this wouldn’t work. I’ll get my shit later this week.” He hisses, snatching his key off the hook and yanking the door open. Jayce calls his name just before he slams the door, but thankfully, doesn’t follow him anymore.
And then, everything else.
Notes:
okay, so this final chapter is actually about the length of… chapters 1 through 4 or 5. oops. enjoy! runs away
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
How can a pair of keys not only go missing, but simply disappear into thin air? Jayce puts them on the hook as soon as he gets in the door. There’s nowhere else they could possibly be, and he’s fairly certain that nobody broke into his apartment, took nothing but his keys, and locked up behind themselves, all while he slept peacefully.
It’s seven eighteen. Three minutes behind. The absurdity of his missing keys makes Jayce want to laugh out loud, but the panic in his throat keeps him from finding any humor in the situation. He’s never been late to drive Viktor to campus, not once – it’s only been a week and a half, but he takes his punctuality incredibly seriously.
They’re not in any of his pants or jacket pockets, even checking the ones he hasn’t worn in days. His spiraling causes a bout of irrational choices, and he catches himself pushing aside a milk jug in the fridge to look around, just in case. It’s ridiculous, but Jayce has exhausted his logical options.
Finally, a glint of silver catches his eye from across the room. It can’t possibly be – it can! His keys are atop a windowsill in the living room for a reason he can’t recall, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Relieved beyond belief, Jayce almost forgets his work bag on his way out the door.
“I’m sorry I’m running behind,” He apologizes as casually and sincerely as he can at Viktor’s front door. “I don’t know how, but I lost my keys.”
“It’s quite alright. It’s only seven twenty.” Viktor is neutral faced, which should indicate that he’s truly not upset. It’s not very inspiring, either, though. Jayce has gathered that Viktor’s not an incredibly expressive person, and while it has the potential to make him nervous at times, he’s learning to read the smaller cues.
Jayce almost has a heart attack when the gas indicator flashes as he turns his car on, but it disappears with the rest of the indicators a moment later. He’s incredibly on edge today, and he’s wondering if he should’ve had that second cup of coffee. He needs the energy for the day, though, and he hopes that he’ll be able to channel the nerves into productivity. Although the semester has barely begun, it’s surely one of the most important ones of his career; prototypes are to be constructed and deadlines are to be met, and he can only hope that of all his scrapped ideas, a surgical mech arm was the right avenue to pursue.
It’s a quiet drive. In the span of a few days, they’ve seemingly exhausted each possible corner of small talk that every person has ever said. It’s not awkward in general; they’ve shared a good few laughs over their mutual distaste for classmates and have managed to avoid any deeply embarrassing social blunders. Still, Jayce feels like it’s his first day on Earth when he turns down a street and the sunlight shifts its position. The rays filter through the open window and scatter across Viktor’s hair and face just as the wind rustles the locks, and for a moment, he looks like a stained glass masterpiece. “Your hair,” Jayce mentions stupidly. “It’s…”
“Yes, I know, I will have to get it cut soon. I don’t usually let it get to such an awkward stage of growth, but I simply haven’t the time to call a hairdresser right now.” Viktor explains himself slightly bitterly, one hand rising to anxiously tug at a strand curled below his ear. The waves are framing his face, reaching under his jaw and flipping out at different angles as he grimaces out the windshield, lips pressed into a thin line.
“I was going to say it looks nice,” Jayce keeps his eyes on the road. “Suits you.”
“Oh. Okay,” The tone of Viktor’s voice has tilted, almost sounding like he’s been randomly gifted with a lavish getaway on an island somewhere. “...Thank you.”
(He never called the hairdresser.)
Once they’re actually on campus, the brick walkways are absolutely flooded with hoards of undergraduate students. The air is thick with the smell of last night’s rain, an earthy and metallic humidity that makes Jayce realize that he won’t be needing his jacket for the day. The beginning of the semester is always filled with activity after activity for students who have just begun to crawl out from underneath the watchful gaze of their parents, and they gather cautiously like captive animals seeing the sky for the first time.
They weave past a group and step over another sprawled on the grass, their shoes splayed on the brick and voices bubbling with the kind of energy that Jayce once had in his youth. Somewhere behind them, the feedback from a microphone sends a shrill sound through the air, and a chorus of groans rises from the crowd.
The wet grass makes him nervous; he wants to cut around the masses, but the footing is far too unstable to suggest to Viktor. He’s about to cough out a second excuse me when his acquaintance takes the initiative for himself, simply shoving past the inattentive teenagers with some semblance of an apology. They don’t seem to notice.
Someone’s handing out flyers, repeating their mantra as the paper crumples into distracted hands. The warm breeze carries the scent of something fried across the field of grass to their right, and Jayce nearly grimaces at the thought of visiting a food truck before eight in the morning.
Finally, the path diverges. This is where they part ways every morning, and it’s also the part where Jayce summons the entirety of his will to keep from turning and watching Viktor get to his building.
Viktor, ever the polite, has offered a meek thank you each morning, but today, he turns to Jayce with a somewhat nervous-looking smile. “Thank you for the ride, Jayce.”
He keeps his returning smile as casual as he can handle. “It’s no problem! See you later.”
—✤—
Now, Jayce sits in the driver’s seat of his car, alone.
He’s on his way to a final exam. It’s the most stressful morning of his career by a long shot, barely catching a traffic light turning red in time. With so little sleep, he’s not sure that he should be driving at all, but he doesn’t have another choice.
Jayce’s fingers grip the steering wheel like a lifeline, but it’s a weak one; his hands tremble unsteadily. The radio is agitating him more than it's distracting him, and he lets one hand drop to slap the power button. The hum of the engine persists, though, and Jayce takes a deep breath to stay focused. He’s not sure what the solution is. Every flicker of light or slight sound sends a wave of frustration through his skull, but the silence is worse.
Having woken up after a mere forty minutes of restless slumber in a cold bed, he’s found the complete quiet to be crushing. It isn’t uncommon at all for Jayce to wake up in his bed alone, but without the tap of a cane in the hallway, this morning had been out of the ordinary. He’d even lived by himself for plenty of time – quite comfortably, even – but today, the apartment suddenly seems far too large for a single person to inhabit. The night before had been an explosion of sound, of shouting and slamming doors, but now?
Now, the world has fallen silent.
The dashboard reminds him that he’s running early, and a sudden wave of grief crawls up his throat. Almost forgetting to look back up at the road, he starts to hit the brakes as someone in the near distance makes an incredibly slow right turn.
“You don’t understand.” The words echo in Jayce’s head, unpleasantly accompanied by the memory of Viktor’s face screwing up into a dejected frown as tears slip down his flushed expression.
Fuck.
He’s messed up so, so horrifically badly. He coughs from the discomfort of his tightening chest, shoving the emotion into a space right next to the physical pain. He can’t afford to feel right now. This is a final exam worth half of his grade, and Jayce has absolutely no room to fail a class he’s not paying for himself.
His hands slip down the wheel a bit, clammy and slick with sweat as he swallows, hard. The tears are coming, he can feel the pressure in his throat, the stinging in his sinuses. With a moment of rapid blinking, he pushes them back just in time to turn onto the last street that will take him to his destination. He nears campus slowly as the familiar sight of vast parking lots and buildings loom, standing just as they always did, emotionless and insentient against the late morning sky.
There’s a fleeting moment when the sun pushes past the clouds and everything seems so unbelievably surreal, like he’s watching someone else’s life unfold as if he could just step outside of it and stare from a distance. It’s dreamlike seeing campus without Viktor at his side for the first time in actual years, - whether physcially or at least emotionally - but Jayce can’t just step out of his life and watch. He can’t slip away from the anguish, from the rattling pangs in his heart. Instead, he pulls into a spot and puts the car in park.
When he turns the ignition off, he lets out a sigh, running a hand over his face. It’s like the car isn’t the only thing that’s stopped. With it, his heart followed, then time itself, and then the planet’s rotation. He has ten minutes before he should realistically be in the building, so Jayce lets his forehead drop to the steering wheel.
For a second, he thinks about staying in the car. There’s no way he’s driving all the way back home right now, but he could nap in the backseat. Get a few hours of fresh air, maybe, forget about the exam, forget about his classes… Maybe he’d never leave, maybe he’d stay in the car and wrap himself up in the memory of late night drives, of Viktor’s music playing so loudly that his windows rattle.
He shouldn’t. He can’t, he reminds himself. This is it. Once he’s done with this exam, he can forget about the class entirely and work on preparing for tomorrow’s exam. Presumably, Jayce can fit a few hours of sleep in there somewhere, but for now, he needs to deal with this.
On his way into the building, he passes a few familiar faces and pauses for small talk with a friend. It’s empty, though. He tries his best to look engaged, but Jayce can’t find a single ounce of will to care about what his friend is saying. “I’m glad it’s working out for you,” He finds himself replying. “I hope your exams go well.”
It’s the right answer, he presumes, because he gets a hand clapped on his back as they part ways. “You too, man!”
When he gets to the instruction room, he wants to drop his bag in defeat. Jayce doesn’t think the morning can get any worse as he takes the last available seat, directly behind Dmitri, the most bothersome individual he’s ever encountered in his entire life. It’s not an entirely fair hatred, but it burns nonetheless. His mere presence makes Jayce grit his teeth as he opens his laptop.
The first question of the exam is easy, and the second one is a breeze. He’s starting to think he’ll be perfectly fine when the third question fills his screen.
Calculate the moment of inertia for the cylindrical rod below. Assume uniform density.
The words blur together; the diagram is a foggy mess of color and lines. The numbers don’t look like Arabic numerals in the slightest, and Jayce moves to go back a question or two to make sure he hasn’t incorrectly responded in a haze. It doesn’t let him move backward, though, and he frowns as he tries to take another look at the diagram. Okay, it’s a formula he knows like the back of his hand, he knows this. Hours hunched in front of a textbook had to mean something, right? The concepts are slipping through his fingers, though, falling to his feet like sand anyway.
His classmates type away, clicks filling the exam hall as they put their work on display. What in the ever loving fuck is this formula? He thinks he’s conjured it, but it doesn’t look right on his screen.
“People don’t look at you how they– I’m not even going to…” Viktor’s voice cracks as his eyebrows twitch together, and fuck, he’s crying. You made him cry.
Jayce rubs his eyes, sweat gathering on his temples. The weight in his chest sinks deeper, each breath pushing it into his ribcage and making him feel sluggish with depression. Focus. Moment of inertia. What if he bombs this exam? What if he fails the class because of his emotional instability? His heartbeat thumps in his ears, and he moves his cursor around as the screen dims from inactivity. Moment of inertia. You know this. It should be lightwork, really, but it isn’t – at least, not to him. His classmates scratch away at their scrap pages, moving between keyboard and paper with fervor and creating a rhythm of suffocating sound. The blank answer box at the bottom of his screen sits impatiently, demanding something, anything.
Viktor’s bag is on one shoulder. He’s physically curled in on himself, leaning on his cane with both hands as his glossy eyes flit to the door, to his keys, to the door – do something! Say something!
Moment of inertia. What even is inertia? Is he remembering his framework correctly? Second guessing himself, Jayce considers skipping the question entirely. With his confidence in the first two questions wavering, he doesn’t think he can afford to skip it entirely. Will his professor give partial credit, or is it auto-graded?
This isn’t anyone’s fault but his own, he thinks. The professor had been incredibly thorough with her expectations, and had even made a comprehensive study guide.
This isn’t anyone’s fault but his own. Viktor had made his need for independence and transparency incredibly clear.
He taps the keyboard, eyes stinging, and types the first number that comes to mind. It’s probably not right, but it has a slim chance to be. It’s the best chance Jayce has, and he takes a deep breath to click onto the next page.
Observe the stress-strain curve. Assume tensile loading. At which point does the output value equal the yield strength of the material?
It’s more familiar, but his confidence is shot. The curve clearly shows the point he needs to calculate, and he squints at his screen. He can do this. It takes several minutes of checking and re-checking, but eventually, he’s almost certain that he’s answered correctly.
The next portion requires a written response, and each sentence Jayce types feels like it’s getting dragged out of him. He grits his teeth as he reviews his answers, only two sentences actually registering: I knew this wouldn’t work. I’ll get my shit later this week.
By the time Jayce submits his exam, his hands are shaking again. The exam is over. He’s done. Whether or not he’s passed it is entirely out of his hands now, and he’s done everything in his power to succeed. The moment of relief washes away in the same moment that it flutters in his chest, crushed by the realization that this was the easiest part of his day. He still has to figure out what to do with himself for the rest of his day… for the rest of his life.
The drive home feels safer than the drive to campus. Jayce is still exhausted, but the adrenaline of his future hanging in the balance of a two hour exam window has at least given him enough will to focus more certainly on the road. Still, he takes his sweet time driving, not wanting to go back to the coldness of his empty apartment. Some part of him delusionally thinks of the possibility that Viktor is in fact waiting for him there, that he’ll get the chance to fix everything. The only fix is going back in time, though, and he doesn’t have enough energy to start sifting through formulas of time like a mad scientist. Not yet, at least.
When Jayce opens the door to his apartment, his heart sinks. Viktor has been here. It doesn’t seem that he’s gotten his shit like he’d promised, but a handful of his CDs are gone. Light seeps down the hallway as though his bedroom door is open. Jayce swallows and it makes an odd sound in his chest.
Viktor certainly isn’t there anymore, and he’s sure of it. Still, he peeks into the bedroom to find dresser drawers torn open, a once-overflowing closet now nearly empty, his desk cleared of anything meaningful. His bed still sits against the window, but it’s missing its comforter, and atop the bare sheets sits his leg brace.
The sight of his own handiwork is the thing that breaks Jayce’s resolve, and he lets out a pained sound as he starts to cry. The brace is in perfect condition, clearly placed carefully in the sea of chaos.
Jayce truly wishes that Viktor would’ve kept it, and the idea of him settling back into the painful hold of his old brace makes him want to rip his hair out. It feels so finalizing to see, like the final nail in the coffin has been beaten into the back of Jayce’s throat. He stands in the doorway pointlessly, watching as his mind conjures memory after memory and fills the space with Viktor’s presence.
“You don’t give people the chance to be cruel to you, which– I get it, okay?” Jayce holds out his hands to Viktor just as his expression sours impossibly further.
Why did he say that? He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all. He understands the concept logically, the sentiment computes in his brain, but he doesn’t get it. Jayce drags his feet as he shuffles to his own bedroom, curling up under his cold blankets.
“But you don’t really give a lot of room for them to be kind, either. You didn’t even give me ten seconds to explain myself!”
He shouldn’t have followed Viktor to his room. He knows that his gravest mistake was interrupting the flow of events that were supposed to happen: Viktor was supposed to go to his room, and they’d each cool off. Then, Jayce was supposed to apologize like his life depended on it, and then he was supposed to call Cassandra to ask her what the hell she was thinking.
Was Viktor planning on leaving in the first place, though? Were the first steps he took to his bedroom the beginning of the end? Would it have even mattered, or has he just filled their already fate-stricken parting moments with unnecessary pain?
Either way, things did not go how they were supposed to go, and Jayce struggles with the reality as he pulls his comforter around him more tightly. No, the reality is that Viktor had left for good, and afterward, Jayce had simply stood in the middle of the living room like a statue.
Cassandra had called, interrupting his stoic disbelief after an indiscernible amount of time. Finally, this was the call that he’d picked up. “Jayce, finally!” She’d said, “I wanted to give you a… notice. They’re going to go ahead and–”
“Yeah, I saw,” He’d interrupted, voice raspy, nearly unrecognizable. “Thanks.”
The line was silent for a moment before she replied. “I’m sorry, Jayce. We’re in a bigger situation than you understand. I tried to show you some of the…” She trailed off.
“Okay. Goodnight.” He said robotically, eyes still fixed on the front door. He barely heard her response before the phone was beeping in his ear, indicating the end of the call.
Where the hell was Viktor going? It was late, and worse, it was pitch-black outside. Unlocking his knees, Jayce walked to the couch and sat down in a trance, not quite able to get his eyes to focus on any of his surroundings.
An hour passed, then two. Jayce was antsy, nearing frantic with the realization that Viktor was not coming back. He stood up, paced up and down the hallway a few times, and finally, stepped into Viktor’s bedroom. He wondered how long the scent of mahogany would linger, becoming petrified that he’d been releasing the essence of Viktor’s presence into the hallway and letting it escape. He closed the door behind him, settling into Viktor’s desk chair and pulling out his phone. He shouldn’t text. He shouldn’t.
-Are you coming home tonight?
Jayce chewed on his fingernails as he watched the message send, then deliver. The typing animation showed up almost immediately, and Jayce started to let out a breath of relief before it stopped in his throat.
-no
The rest of the night is a haze.
—☆—
The hiss of the bus’ brakes elicits a range of expressions from its riders, clearly concerned with the vehicle’s structural integrity. Viktor isn’t worried, though, and he raises a hand in thanks as he steps onto the sidewalk. It’s a sunny day, and after starting his morning with twenty minutes of uninterrupted music-listening, he’s certain that it will be a good day.
His first class isn’t far. Still, Viktor clenches his jaw as he starts his trek towards the engineering end of campus, wishing his headphones hadn’t died at the end of his trip. Perhaps the sounds of his surroundings will suffice, he thinks as he overhears a passionate conversation about an ex-boyfriend and a flamethrower.
Although his back is starting to ache by the time he’s approaching his class, Viktor still finds room for optimism. His first class is one that he actually enjoys, and he’s eager for feedback on his latest potential breakthrough.
The building always smells faintly of mildew and the odd scent of dusty books, but it’s already become incredibly familiar. Viktor walks into the classroom with his usual sense of quiet determination, a devotion forged by a fiery sense of ambition and entire years of his life being committed to academia. The chalkboard refreshes his memory as he navigates to his seat, marked with complex equations and hastily scribbled notes from the previous class session, and the quiet click of his cane doesn’t turn any heads.
The semester is only a few weeks in, but Viktor has already taken mental note of his peers – he’s not familiar with any of them in the slightest, but they’re recognizable by the way they carry themselves. He’s taken stock of which ones tend to sit at the front, who talks with their classmates before class has officially begun; he’s found a pattern within the students who slink to the back of the room as though they can go unnoticed in a room of only ten or twenty people.
The one thing he’s observed most quickly in the start of his journey toward a PhD is the deepened sense of quiet understanding amongst his peers. There’s a rhythm in the shared movements of sleep-deprived students that differs from the ebbs and flows of undergraduate life or a master’s program, and Viktor gets the sense that they all understand one thing: no matter how many hours they study, how many holidays they miss to work in the lab, it’s still incredibly easy to lose one’s footing and get lost in the crowd. This is it.
The rest of the class is starting to file into the room. Viktor triple-checks the position of his cane leaned against the wall behind him, not wanting to accidentally fill the room with a clattering nuisance. It’ll be another ten minutes before the professor even gets to the room, but a handful of his ever-punctual peers are already starting to settle in.
One of them isn’t settling well – a few rows ahead of him, a classmate of Viktor’s is struggling to organize their papers with so little desk space, clearly trying to keep from making any noise. He’s familiar with the feeling, and his own work bag is already weighed down with a stack of syllabi and notes. Just as a handful of pages tip over the edge of his workspace, another classmate walks in.
Jayce. Or something like that. Viktor isn’t really interested in building friendships at this point of his life, but Jayce-something-or-other is interesting for his own reasons. Never late, his demeanor balances both enthusiastic kindness and serious work ethic, and unsurprisingly, he tends to sit in the front row. He asks questions semi-frequently, his unwavering voice seeking genuine guidance while both asserting himself clearly and respecting the line between student and professor. It’s hard not to notice him, really, with the way that he carries himself in the manner of someone who takes his work incredibly seriously, ready to take any risk necessary.
His eyebrows raise incrementally as he strides into the room, immediately crouching to gather his classmate’s scattered papers. With a small smile, probably-Jayce places them back on the desk before heading to his own seat. He’s kind of cute, Viktor almost thinks before refocusing his attention on his notebook, and as though he’s a mind reader, hopefully-Jayce seems to pause before settling into his seat. For some reason, it makes Viktor’s chest tighten.
As class begins, he finds himself distracted – something he certainly can’t afford to be at this point in his career. Still, something about the way his classmates pick up on Jayce’s enthusiasm is infectious. He truly lights up the room, and Viktor glances around the space as though it’ll genuinely be brighter than it had been a few minutes prior. Instead, he looks back to the front and finds the sight of a well-built arm raised in the air.
“Yeah, Jayce.” Thank Gods, that’s actually his name. The professor pauses to answer his question, hand opened expectantly.
Jayce inquires incredibly politely, voice clear but still tilted with a twinge of confusion. He turns heads as he speaks, and Viktor realizes in a moment of clarity that he, too, would need to note down the professor’s answer. How strange it must be to live in such a way, Viktor thinks. To be a person who doesn’t need to be the center of attention to feel valued, but somehow manages to find himself there anyway.
Jayce’s presence in the room is starting to sort of feel like a challenge – not in an aggressive manner, but in a way that’s making Viktor realize the rigidity of his thought process, in a way that makes him realize how much he still has to learn. It’s a little intimidating, but it’s kind of thrilling, too.
Eventually, class draws to a close, and he stands to gather his belongings. An ache in his knee makes the motion feel like the squeak of an ungreased gear, and Viktor tries not to express his discomfort as he places his notebook back into his bag. It’s not until he’s nearing the doorway that he allows himself one more glance in Jayce’s direction, and he nearly trips at the sight of a pair of hazel eyes already fixed on his own. His peer gives him a polite smile, and he tries to offer one in return. It feels a bit more like he’s baring his teeth.
—✤—
Viktor isn’t interested in video games today. In fact, he’s not interested in anything at all. Still, he watches as Sky’s expertise laps his own three times over, and a miserable screen of failure appears. “Okay, to be entirely fair, I have, like, six years of experience on this one. Do you want to give a different one a go?”
Sky’s apartment doesn’t have very much natural light, but it still smells like clean, fresh air. A lemon candle flickers in the kitchen, and the scent helps create the illusion of a spring day. Instead, the wintertime keeps the sun from escaping the blanket of clouds in the sky for more than a few moments at a time despite the fact that it’s nearing noon. Her couch is comfortable, and the teal suede of the cushions nicely compliments the rest of the living room’s slightly minimalist fashion.
Viktor can sense the desperation in her voice. He knows that she’s trying to keep him from the bottom of a bottle somewhere downtown, and while he appreciates the sentiment, he’s still considering it ever so slightly. “I will have to catch up with you somehow, won’t I? Let’s go another round.” He’s trying to humor her, but his voice comes out flat, dry. It’s annoying, and he knows it.
The game starts again, and Viktor tries to remember the path to the center of the map. His hands don’t quite comply with the controls he has in mind, never really being great with console games in the first place. He puts in a genuine effort, but still, his movements are sluggish, never as efficient as they should be.
Sky seems to throw him a bone when they interact, and he’s able to get a few hits in before he’s inevitably running for his life. It should be him throwing her a bone here, and he should be a more entertaining guest. Although, she does seem fairly entertained by his pleas for mercy as he desperately attempts to heal his character. Somehow, he actually does recover, and in a moment of sudden excitement, he gets his first win.
“You let me have that one.” Viktor sets down the controller as she cheers on his behalf. The ache in his leg sends a wave of pain down his spine so intense that it elicits a shiver.
“I did at first, but not at the end there! You deserved that win!” Sky insists, and he tries to smile.
Time is ticking by, and every minute is making him nervous. Jayce is supposed to be starting his exam any minute now, and it’s the perfect – and maybe the only – window he has to slip into their apartment, grab a few essentials, and run for the hills again. Viktor isn’t really sure what his long term plan is, and he certainly can’t sleep on Sky’s couch forever. Still, he’d only promised to officially move out later this week, and he’ll surely arrange something else in the following days. In the meantime, though, Viktor can’t stomach the idea of actually packing everything up yet, especially not with Jayce present.
Sky seems to sense the moment of tension, and she glances at her phone. “Do you want to head over there soon?”
Viktor looks at his hands. “It’s probably best to, yes.” He doesn’t get up yet, though, and sits uselessly as she shuts the television off. Sky looks for her keys for a few minutes, choosing not to speak – it makes him wonder if she knows exactly where they are. Eventually, he uncrosses his legs and grabs for his cane on the ground, and the sheer force that it takes to stand is nearly nauseating.
He feels like a kicked puppy the entire way to the car with the way Sky is looking at him, but Viktor doesn’t feel like making small talk. Still, he’s endlessly thankful for her help and hospitality, so when she unlocks the car door, he clears his throat. “Thank you for everything. I apologize for my…” He pulls on his seatbelt and sighs as she waves a hand dismissively.
“It’s really nothing, Viktor. I’m just sorry you’re going through it.” He doesn’t know how to reply, so he doesn’t.
Viktor looks out the window, eyes starting to unfocus as the world blurs and passing cars turn into flashes of color. There’s a weight in the air between them that’s so heavy, it feels like there’s a third passenger in the car. He hasn’t had the mental capacity to even breach the thought process of having to transfer schools or drop out entirely yet, but the mess of the near future sits in the corner of his mind. It’s packaged tightly, sealed like a tomb and withstanding the heat of the flames that rage throughout his mind palace, devastating a cherished space and everything that dares to touch it. He’ll have to open it soon.
Sky’s car doesn’t have the music system that Jayce’s did, and he feels selfish for missing the vibration under his feet as the radio hums. He can’t think about missing anything lost to the mind-fire right now, and he starts to fidget with the hem of his shirt as though he can feel the warmth of the flames creeping over his shoulders.
“Just essentials, right?” The sound of Sky’s voice snaps him back to reality, and he realizes that they’re nearing the apartment complex.
“Yeah, just until I can…” Viktor is suddenly on high alert – what if Jayce is running late to his his exam, or worse, skipped it entirely? “Would you mind circling the parking lot before we stop?”
“Oh, I was already planning on it.” She assures him as they pull into the complex. They’re both looking for the red hatchback by the time they’re passing his usual parking spot, which now lies empty. After another lap without any sign of it, Sky pulls into the same spot and yanks on her parking brake. “Do you need me to come up there with you?”
Despite the fact that he kind of does want her to, Viktor shakes his head. “I won’t be long. I only have the one bag.”
The elevator ride is horrific. It smells the same way it did when he’d excitedly make his way up to Jayce’s apartment after a late night at the library when they still lived separately, the same way it did in the mornings with Jayce at his side, coffee cup in hand. It’s not a very good smell, but Viktor closes his eyes until the doors start to open, lost in the memory.
The way he keeps his cane from tapping too loudly down the hallway is starting to feel ridiculous; he’s seen with his own eyes that Jayce isn’t home, but his hands still shake as he pushes his key into the doorknob. There aren’t any shoes by the door, and Viktor realizes as he steps inside with a twinge of pain in his chest that some small part of him was hoping that Jayce would be there anyway.
Not this Jayce, though. The old Jayce. Viktor swallows the lump in his throat and makes his way to his room. With every step, the pain of recollection sends stab after stab of anguish into his stomach, and by the time he’s sitting on his bed, his eyes are blurry.
It’s so unbelievably unfair. He doesn’t want this. It had all happened so quickly, but even that isn’t an accurate assessment of the situation – nothing happened in a short amount of time; a floodgate had been opened and he’d nearly drowned in the ocean, having been under the impression that it had only been guarding a small stream. He wants to just curl up in his bed and wait for his Jayce to come home and wake him from this nightmare, but his Jayce never existed, and that’s the toughest pill to swallow.
Still, Viktor grieves like he’s lost someone. He has, in a way, and the brief thought crosses his mind that Jayce’s genuine death might’ve hurt less than this. Instead, he has to grapple with the reality that the person he’s spent years beside was just a fabricated mask, a show – it leaves him blindsided and out of breath as he starts to open his bag.
With the past several hours to sulk cool off, Viktor has realized that it’s not like Jayce could’ve done much about the financial situation, anyway. It’s not like he himself is a member of the administrative board, and Viktor isn’t really sure of how much weight his voice holds in the presence of a Kiramman, never having been truly knowledgeable about the workings of his financial overlords. Still, it’s not why he’s leaving – not why he has to leave.
He’s not leaving because they yelled at each other and he can’t handle it. He’s leaving because he’s entirely misjudged Jayce as a person, and misjudgement is dangerous, especially at this scale. It’s kind of frightening to think about how much of his life could’ve been steered by Jayce’s will just out of sight, and Viktor refuses to feel afraid – in any sense – in the presence of someone who’s supposed to care for him.
Jayce could’ve marched up the podium himself and insisted that the school’s financial decision-making is out of poor judgement, but if he kept it to himself, it wouldn’t have mattered. None of it matters, Viktor thinks as he starts to pull t-shirts from a dresser drawer. The clothes are cold.
It hurts to be yelled at, and it hurts to be picked apart in the way that Jayce did. But he’s not rolling up his clothes and stuffing them to the bottom of his bag because he’s hurt. No, he’s yanking another drawer open because his entire reality has shifted, and he’s scared. Sure, he can find it within himself to be cordial with Jayce in the future, even friendly, but the hard truth is that a simple choice of words had revealed a reality to Viktor that he wasn’t aware of – that he wasn’t supposed to be aware of.
Viktor angrily scrubs at his face when a drop of wetness lands on the jacket he’s folding up. He’s starting to fret that he’s going to forget something important, and he refocuses on the task at hand in a moment of clarity. Essentials only.
Still, he needs to get out of the bedroom before he breaks down entirely, so he makes his way to the living room. A handful of CDs sit atop the shelf they’re meant to be neatly filed into, and without looking at which ones they are, he shoves them into his bag. Jayce doesn’t need any more paths into the workings of his mind. He shouldn’t have a way to hear the way Viktor thinks, he’s taken enough.
Halfway back down the hall, he nearly loses his footing at the sight of Jayce’s open bedroom door. He doesn’t have any reason to go inside, but a spiteful part of Viktor’s mind wants to invade his privacy, too. In a moment of weakness, Viktor listens to the spiteful part of himself and clicks down the hallway.
Inside, Jayce’s room is a disaster. Usually organized to the point of near-spotlessness, his comforter is strewn across the floor, his textbooks are scattered across every surface imaginable. A glass-blown butterfly, usually on his nightside stand, sits atop a biofluid mechanics textbook on his dresser. Viktor had given it to him.
“I don’t know why, but I thought you might like it,” He’d said nervously, now eons ago. “The base pattern looks quite similar to the picture frame in your room, and it reminded me of-”
“It’s beautiful!” Jayce had exclaimed, joy radiating from his figure as he’d carefully placed the figure atop his nightstand. Had his joy been fabricated, too? “Look, there’s a perfect spot for it right next to the lamp!”
Viktor bitterly snatches the glass figurine from atop the textbook and puts it in his bag before returning to his own room. It’s not fair, he thinks for the fiftieth time in ten minutes. The person he lived with would tell him about the worm he saw on the sidewalk on his way to class with the sympathy of a saint. The person he knew would text him about the car he saw that was such an odd color for its function, would come home with a myriad of observations to relay. That person wouldn’t keep something so serious from Viktor. Nor would he flip their conflict onto Viktor’s own insecurities.
He misses that Jayce, misses him more than he misses the yellow flowers blooming in his hometown, and he doesn’t want to live in this weird alternate universe anymore. But that Jayce never really existed in the first place, did he?
It’s easier to imagine them as two separate people, Viktor decides as he zips up his bag, one that’s been killed, and one impostor. The powerful logic of his own mind keeps him from sinking entirely into the idea, though, and he feels like an idiot as he passes a picture frame on the wall. It’s just an old photo of the outside of his childhood home, and there’s nothing beautiful or noteworthy in the object, but Viktor feels like a complete fool for hanging it up in the first place. He’s put so much of himself on display that it’s going to be a tortuous and humiliating task to reel himself back in.
Essentials only. He stomps into the bathroom as though someone can hear him, wincing at his reflection before opening the mirror cabinet and starting to fit bottles of medication into his pockets. He really should’ve brought another bag, maybe two or three more and he would’ve been able to move out entirely without ever needing to interact with Jayce.
It’s cowardly and he knows it, but no part of Viktor wants to face his now-ex partner. It’s both too shameful and too infuriating to even think about, and he swallows his guilt as he scans his bedroom for anything else he’ll absolutely need over the next few days.
Just before Viktor’s about to consider his efforts as good enough for the time being, something in the back of his closet catches his eye. A shining bit of silver pokes out from underneath a thick sweater, and Viktor realizes that despite the aches and pains of his recent flare up, his posture is a little too straight. He’ll have to give the leg brace back.
No matter how cruel this Jayce-impostor seems, Viktor can’t bring himself to hold onto such an expensive gift. Surely he’ll be able to sell it or something; perhaps he’ll present its design as an academic project later down the line. It’s truly remarkable, and he’ll probably go pretty far with it – that is, if he can manage to even look at mobility aids without his workflow being tarnished by the memory of, apparently, a self-pitying and self-destructive charity case.
As Viktor reaches down to start undoing the clasps, he thinks back to the first day he’d moved in. The sun had been beating down onto its victims before it had even reached its highest position in the sky, and Viktor had refilled his water bottle three times by ten in the morning. Something weirdly electric had been in the air that morning, though, something that had inspired knowing glances and fits of misplaced laughter throughout the day.
For a moment, Viktor is homesick for his old apartment, the one they’d emptied without a care in the world. After another moment, though, he realizes that he doesn’t really miss living alone at all. Frustratingly, he’ll eventually have to admit to himself how much nicer it was to be cared for, to share a space with someone so affectionate, but that day won’t be today. For now, he glares at his sunless surroundings as he pulls his pant leg up and starts unworking another expertly-crafted clasp.
Moving out will surely be incredibly different, but he can’t go back. He’s made his decision, asserted it quite clearly, and now, has to stick with it. Jayce probably doesn’t even want to live with him anymore, and Viktor tells the weaker parts of himself that just want to settle into bed and lie in wait just as such. It’s an annoying thing to confront, having been cut so deeply by what Jayce had said about his apparently baseless self-deprecation, but there’s just no reasonable way that sentiment applies to their current situation. It’s far too dire.
With the brace finally off, he sets it against his sheets carefully before moving to put his old one back on. It’s more uncomfortable than Viktor is anticipating, and he has to grit his teeth in determination as he yanks on a strap tightening around the calf. It’s certainly not ideal; it feels like a lack of use has stiffened some of its joints, but it’ll have to work, and he stands to gather both his bag and his comforter.
His gait is considerably worse than it had been a few moments prior, and Viktor relies on muscle memory alone to stagger to the living room with his eyes closed in concentration. On his way to the front door, little bits of evidence seem to laugh at him; it’s evidence of his now-lost comfort in the space, and Viktor panics briefly as the feeling of stomach acid crawls up his throat. Refusing to throw up in the apartment, no matter how deserved it would be, he yanks the door open and barely locks it behind him before he’s slapping a hand over his mouth and speed-walking to the elevator. Luckily, the feeling subsides by the time he’s inside, and he all but runs to Sky’s car.
“Are you going to be alright? You look about three shades whiter than usual.” Sky asks cautiously as she starts to back out of the parking lot, and for a moment, Viktor shares her anxiety as another wave of nausea washes over him.
“Yes.” He says shortly, and it’s not very convincing. Viktor rolls the window down a single inch, and the cool air starting to rush in helps him settle his sickness. Sky reaches to her own control system and rolls the window down the rest of the way.
It’s not horrifically cold outside like it has been in the past several weeks, but the wind still chills Viktor’s fingertips into an angry red color, almost purple. The sensation is grounding, though, and he’s thankful for Sky’s sacrifice of comfort for his sake. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t throw up in Sky’s car. Breathe in, breathe out.
After a few minutes, a few droplets of rain are starting to fly into the car. Great. As the storm starts to pick up, Viktor gasps in a final breath of fresh air before rolling the window up, glowering at the gray clouds swirling in the sky like they’re mockingly exposing a well-kept secret of his.
It’s not well-kept at all, though, because Sky keeps glancing over at him like he’s about to open the car door and jump for it. Trying to ease her concerns a bit, Viktor tries to think of something interesting, but fails. “What time is your exam?” He asks instead.
“Three-thirty. I’ll probably aim to get there around three, though. Do you want me to take you anywhere on campus, or are you alright hanging back at my place?” She taps her fingers against the steering wheel at almost the same pitch as the sound of the rain hitting the windshield.
“I’m going to look online for places to live outside of the area. I can set up somewhere on campus if it’s easier for you.” When Viktor speaks, it feels like his voice is coming from somewhere far in front of him, somewhere observable and distant.
“You should stay at the apartment. I won’t be on campus for very long, you don’t have to feel like you can’t use the space.” Sky says gently. She sounds kind of far away, too, but it’s pleasant to sink into the warm nothingness. He forces himself to come up with something in agreement.
The rain is coming down harder now, smacking the windshield so frequently that it’s nearly a steady rhythm. Thunder rumbles hauntingly in the distance, and it’ll have to crawl closer eventually. It’ll have to.
By the time Sky is leaving for her final exam a few hours later, Viktor has slightly found his voice again. It’s not genuine, but it does seem to make her a bit more hopeful as she offers her desk space on her way out the door. “Good luck!” He waves as he pulls out his laptop. She clasps her hands together as she thanks him before grabbing her third cup of coffee of the day and rushing outside.
After a few moments, Viktor puts his laptop back down. He’d been alone in Jayce’s apartment just a few hours later, but both the chance of him coming home and Sky’s presence in the driveway kept him from experiencing complete isolation. Now, though, it feels like the first time he’s been completely alone since he’d gotten on the bus last night. It feels like it was years ago, Viktor thinks as he takes a deep breath and settles back onto the couch, unwillingly replaying the events in his mind.
He’d been so embarrassed about crying on the bus, but in reality, nobody had paid him any mind. When he’d stepped onboard, it had seemed mostly empty, save for an elderly woman in a thick fuschia coat. He’d sat down in a trance, not really taking in much more of his surroundings until his eyes drifted throughout the dimly lit cabin. A man sat in the back corner, the thick woven fabric of his hat poking out from underneath the hood of his raincoat. Closer to the front of the bus sat a middle-aged man with headphones in, foot tapping to the upbeat rhythm of whatever he’d been listening to. A young couple had been across the aisle from him, whispering to each other so closely that Viktor had to look away.
Streetlights illuminated the dark path, and eventually, the lights of the city came into view. They were still somewhat in the distance, but it made the night feel more surreal somehow. Viktor felt like he was somewhere between, completely cut loose in space with nothing and nobody to latch onto. He’d always found strength in independence, but on the night bus with no destination and only a backpack, he desperately wanted somebody to lean on, something to grasp.
The bus made three stops before he realized he needed a plan. Viktor looked at the map of bus routes posted next to the window, squinting at the colorful lines and trying to make sense of where he was. Out of all of its potential destinations, he eventually settled on one closest to the university laboratory – he had a paper to finish and an exam two days away, and he refused to think about whether it would even matter or not.
It was another twenty minutes before he snapped back into his surroundings again, only knowing the time passed after checking his phone. It surprised him, feeling like it had been mere seconds, but he stood to exit anyway. Every step felt like the wrong one somehow, and Viktor tripped on the sidewalk, barely catching himself but dropping his bag in the process. He cursed out loud, yanking it back over his shoulder and making his way to the laboratory.
When he scanned in and opened the door to find a mildly startled Sky, he froze. “Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be-” He started.
“No, no, what’s going on?” Sky stood up, ushering him the rest of the way inside, and Viktor, too emotionally exhausted to protest, trudged to the chair she guided him to. “What happened?”
Realizing that a façade would get him absolutely nowhere and lacking the energy to construct one anyway, Viktor let himself slump in the seat, head falling to his hands with a sigh. “Things are… not good. I have to move out, Sky, I can’t keep living there.” His voice lifted as he spoke, the reality starting to crash down.
“Woah, okay, slow down. Why?” She pulled up her own chair, sitting in front of him with her open hands extended in helpless concern.
“It was bad.” Viktor’s throat felt like it was closing up as he spoke, eyes stinging with a fresh set of tears. “It was really, really bad, Sky.” He ran his hands through his hair, unable to put the rest into words.
“Okay, should I be, like… How concerned should I be right now? Do I need to get someone to fuck him up?” Her voice was humorless, and Viktor had to take several deep breaths before speaking again. “I’m serious, I’m not joking in the slightest.”
“No, no, it’s nothing… No. I won’t be mad if you keep being friends with him, it’s nothing like that. It was just a personal…”
Well the world doesn’t exist within what you think makes sense, Viktor!
“...a personal misalignment. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, I just had to get out of there.” His voice was shaking, and he covered his mouth as he looked away from Sky’s sympathetic gaze.
“I was just packing up to leave, actually. Okay, why don’t you…” She stood to put the rest of her work materials in her bag and checked something on her phone. “Why don’t you come back to my place tonight? I don’t want you to spend the night here, seriously.”
Viktor couldn’t take more than he’d already been given. He’d learned not to disrupt that balance the hard way. “I can’t ask that of you, Sky.”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you. Come on, we can talk about it over ice cream.”
Without much of a choice and even less of a grasp on his surroundings, he’d ended up agreeing. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Regardless of his avoidance, Jayce’s texts started to roll in: First, asking if Viktor would come home, which got a hasty no in response. An hour later, it was a few texts asking him to be safe and reasserting that he’s welcome back home, and then, of course, the first apology. When they went ignored, Jayce called, and he sent it straight to voicemail. His messages started to get frantic, less coherent, and didn’t stop until Viktor replied only with a threat to block him. Even then, they only slowed to a crawl, and every notification on his phone made his heart physically hurt.
“I don’t want to talk to him right now.” Viktor said through tears as Sky tried to inch a water bottle closer and closer to his hands, similar to the manner in which someone would hide a pill in a piece of ham to give to a sick dog.
“Just ignore it,” She said, a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to.”
That night on Sky’s couch, Viktor felt a sense of nighttime depression that he hadn’t felt since adolescence – the stomach churning nostalgia of homesickness. He was sleeping in an unfamiliar place alone with very few personal belongings, stranded, and the feeling reminded him of childhood. He missed his mom. He missed his teachers at school that would let him linger in their classrooms. He’d become self-sufficient so early in life, both in terms of his schooling and his emotional bandwidth, and that night, he felt half his age as he tried to keep from crying too loudly.
He dreamt about his Jayce that night, someone that he knew even in the trance of slumber to be an entirely fictional caricature. They were at a park in his hometown, tangled up in the grass under a willow tree and accompanied only by the scent of the flowers his mother used to keep in the front garden. Viktor held his face in his hands, crushed with the realization that Jayce’s skin could only be felt again in his dreams, and spoken to him as though he’d been real. “You were perfect.”
He’d woken up with a fist around his heart and a lump in his throat.
Viktor snaps out of the memory.
When he starts to look for apartments, he doesn’t set any restrictions on the distance, unsure of the closest school that could even potentially offer him a scholarship. Most schools can arrange online classes nowadays, anyway, he thinks as he looks through the pictures for a property over an hour away.
He’s not looking for long before Sky is back with a smile on her face, clearly confident in her academic success. “How was it?” Viktor asks anyway.
“A breeze! Oh my Gods, I can’t believe I’ve been stressing over that one for two weeks now!” She drops her keys on the counter and bag on the floor haphazardly, and they thud in protest before she leans over the back of the couch to look at his laptop. “Oh, that looks nice! Where is it?”
“A few hours away. It’s a very reasonable price, so I am slightly worried about a… catch.” He clicks over to another option he had in mind as she sits on the other end of the couch and taps at her phone.
“Mm, yeah. You never know, but I can ask around for some reputable places.” She says, slightly distracted, and Viktor chews on his lip for a long moment before trying to slip an idea past her guard.
“I think I’m going to text him.” It doesn’t work, and her head shoots up in a split second.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She says after a moment, thumbs frozen above her screen.
“No, not at all. But I need to communicate with him about moving out anyway.” Just saying it out loud makes his stomach sink, but it’s true. His stuff won’t magically end up somewhere else.
Viktor’s already on his phone by the time Sky tries a different angle. “Why don’t you wait another day or so? I mean, you have an exam in the morning, right?”
“I do,” He says, opening his text messages. The screen is haunting, Jayce’s usual smiley faces and typing quirks forgone, replaced with odd message after odd message, apology after apology before they all cut off around ten in the morning. It doesn’t look like he slept. “But I’d rather get it out of the way.”
Still, his hands shake as he starts to draft a message to fake-Jayce.
—☆—
The late night has rolled into the early morning, and if he listens closely, Jayce swears that he can hear birds chirping in the distance. It’s summertime, though, and without day-by-day deadlines, he’s allowed to indulge in a little reckless behavior.
By reckless behavior, he means splitting a bottle of liquor with his partner and doing anything but their work. It’s thrilling to him despite its simplicity, their conversations feeling sealed by the darkness and kept away in secrecy – the nighttime feels like a different plane of existence. The usual sounds of passing cars and unbelievably loud neighbors have fallen into nothingness. It’s like they’re the only two people in the world.
Across from him on the floor of the living room sits Viktor, a deck of cards in his hands and a lopsided smile on his lips. The remnants of the alcohol sits somewhere on the coffee table, and his t-shirt has been slipping down his shoulder the entire night. “You shuffle it.”
Jayce reaches out and takes the deck of cards, not realizing that he’s smiling too as their fingers brush against each other. “I’m going to laugh so hard when you realize how shuffled these are. You know, every time you shuffle a deck of cards, it’s the first time it’s ever been arranged in that order.” He says as he starts to rearrange the cards as disorderly as possible.
Viktor looks at him like he’s just revealed the forbidden knowledge of the afterlife, fondness priming his features like gesso underneath the paint strokes of warm light across his skin. “That doesn’t mean anything to me. Give.” He commands, hand reached out in mostly the right direction.
Jayce slaps the cards into his open palm, and Viktor smiles fully as he starts to thumb through the deck. It has to be, what, two in the morning by now? Three? His phone says four sixteen, but he doesn’t believe it. The exposed side of Viktor’s neck and collarbone sport a litany of light bruises, his hair pushed behind his ear and over his shoulder, and Jayce doesn’t care about being caught staring anymore.
“You, Jayce Talis, are an absolute fool for doubting me.” Viktor slips one of the cards from the deck as Jayce’s stomach does a flip at the sound of his full name. When he turns the card to face outward, Jayce doesn’t have the wit to stop his jaw from dropping. “This is your card, and I know it is your card, so you cannot lie.”
The eight of hearts flutters a few inches from his face as Viktor throws it in his direction, clearly amused with Jayce’s surprise. “Hold on!” He says, snatching the card from where it’s fallen in his lap and scrutinizing it through the fog of inebriation. “How? You had to have marked it somehow!” Viktor’s laughter is making him laugh, too, and his bewilderment just adds fuel to the fire.
“Are you accusing me of cheating?” Viktor gasps, plucking the card from Jayce’s fingers and flipping it around. “I did not! Look! It is exactly the same as all the others!” The card is shoved in his face alongside four or five more.
“Then how?” Jayce picks up the rest of the deck of cards, looking for some kind of indication of his selection.
“A magician… Does not tell… What is it? You know what I am saying.” Viktor waves a hand dismissively before leaning back, weight resting on the palms of his hands behind him.
“A magician never reveals their secrets.” Jayce says, cheeks slightly sore from how much he’s smiled in a single night. “But you should. That was cool.”
“I am not going to tell you, Jayce. That ruins the fun.”
“Okay, okay, fine! Do you know any other tricks, though?”
“Do I know any– okay, pick a different card.”
—✤—
Jayce doesn’t feel like eating pasta for dinner, but he can’t stomach even the thought of any of Viktor’s leftover odds and ends. The noodles are cold at the bottom of the bowl, but he eats them mechanically anyway, eyes fixed on the empty spot at the breakfast bar.
Thankfully, he’d gotten a solid few hours of much-needed rest after collapsing into his bed, still in his jeans and sleeping somehow anyway, but the fact that he’s just woken up before dinnertime disorients Jayce. When he’d woken, there had been a brief moment of mental trickery where the noise of the pipes had sounded like Viktor was tapping around in the kitchen. In his half-awake state, he hadn’t realized why that couldn’t be the case until he’d fully woken, feeling quite a bit more tortured than he had moments prior.
His pasta is starting to actually taste bad, melting into a uniform flavor of absolute nothingness. Jayce swallows with some effort and stands to wash his bowl out. He’s too emotionally drained to cry any more today, but his throat tightens like he’s about to anyway, and the water is far too hot to be washing this slowly.
The stinging sensation makes Jayce pause, though, letting the steaming water run across his fingers a bit longer before he pulls his hand away with a hiss. It sends a rush down his spine, and he has half the mind to do it again before his phone vibrates in his pocket.
Every notification keeps him on edge, even as most are meaningless to him. He’s been in touch with Caitlyn here and there, able to disguise his distress over text and reamaining thankful that she hasn’t called yet. Jayce would love to talk to her some other time, but today, he’s texted as intently as he can manage as she relays the end of her semester and the mild dread she feels toward the idea of going home for the holidays.
Otherwise, he hasn’t felt like keeping up with any of his social obligations. It’s too exhausting to think about, and as he dries his hands off, Jayce desperately hopes that it’s not a classmate asking about how his finals went.
It’s not.
-hey. sorry i didn’t get everything, can i come on friday to get the rest
Jayce doesn’t realize that the sink is still running, nor does he realize that he’s not breathing. A strange tickling sensation in his chest is what makes him let out a sigh, but the water keeps flowing as he stares at his screen. Viktor.
A thousand emotions wash over him at once. A mix of joy and relief that it’s finally him texting, a fresh wave of grief and regret, the ice-cold grip of sudden trepidation. The message reads coldly, but maybe Jayce just has an incredibly guilty conscience. Should he go back to apologizing, or should he just make it as easy for Viktor as possible and respond simply? Should he try both?
-It’s okay, I can help you pack your Delete.
-I’m sorry, will you please just come over so we can Delete.
-Friday works. If y Delete.
This is ridiculous. He knows it is, but Jayce can’t help but feel like he has to make one last attempt at reconciliation. Friday does work, and he can say that, too. He doesn’t, though.
-Is there anything I can say to change your mind?
After sending the message, he doesn’t look away from his screen until Viktor starts typing. When he does, he types for quite a long time – long enough that Jayce paces up and down the hallway, expecting to receive a novel of a text message. Then, out of the blue, the typing animation disappears entirely. Jayce stops in his tracks, tapping his screen to keep it from timing out for the third time since he’d sent his own message.
It’s such an incredibly unpleasant feeling to be so far away from Viktor, to know nothing about what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling, to be without his expressions or twitches of his fingers, and Jayce’s head feels physically hot all the way down to his neck.
Then, Viktor starts typing again.
-i will be there on friday
The length of the message is off putting, and Jayce can’t decipher the tone of it; it doesn’t settle any of his thoughts, in fact, it worsens them. Is Viktor exasperated and deciding that he doesn’t care if Friday works or not, taking moving into his own hands entirely? It seems like it, but Jayce can’t help but consider the other possibility – I’ll be there on Friday, change my mind then.
He wants so desperately for it to be the latter. More than anything, he wants to reach into Viktor’s chest and take the pain he’s inflicted upon his heart into his own hands, to settle into the space it leaves and sew everything back together himself, entombing himself in the process. He wants to look into Viktor’s skull, to watch his thoughts fire off in a way that’s measurable, observable, but he can’t.
Jayce is miles away from even the touch of his skin, both physically and metaphorically. Worse, it’s only Tuesday evening, and he doesn’t see a minute of sleep ahead of him for the foreseeable future. The rest of the week looms so dauntingly that Jayce lets out an audible breath of anguish. He turns his phone back off.
“A new basketball court? What’s wrong with the one we already have?” Jayce exclaims. Caitlyn mirrors his look of astonishment from the other side of their video call, her pixelated face framed by the absolute mess that’s taken over his desk.
“I don’t know! My mum won’t tell me anything. I think she’s in some really hot water, though.” Her voice cuts out somewhere in the middle, and Jayce curses the poor Wi-Fi connection in his room. “She was just talking about how badly they need to hold onto every penny they can, and I was thinking, hey, what about that firm you contracted a few months ago?”
“I actually go to this school and haven’t heard anything about a fucking basketball court,” Jayce feels a headache coming on. “Wait, so your mom is in contract with whatever company is building it?”
“She has been since… March, I want to say? Maybe April,” Caitlyn’s childhood bedroom sits in frame behind her, a familiar stuffed rabbit atop her neatly made bed. She had never been that organized in her youth, and the sight would make Jayce want to tease her if it weren’t for the fact that he’s learning about perhaps the worst financial blunder he’s ever seen from a business. “It’s not just Mum, though, I think Salo’s got stocks involved. I don’t want to say anything for sure, I’m still investigating.”
Investigating. Caitlyn’s always had a knack for getting into hard-to-reach places, both as literally and as figuratively as possible. Her quick wit and sharp eye have always made her out to be a strong personality type, but Jayce knows that underneath the commanding tone of her voice and willingness to dig her heels in until the bitter end lies an undercurrent of a singular innocent emotion – curiosity. He can only hope for both of their sakes that it never dies down.
“So… We’re coming up on a year of their contract?” He rubs his hands over his face. “Does Dr. Heimerdinger know anything about this?”
“Oh, of course he does!” Caitlyn’s hands fly into the air, but Jayce’s laptop only displays a few of the frames, her movement choppy. “He doesn’t care. He’s too spineless to actually do anything about it.”
The sentiment is refreshing to hear from an outsider, but it's equally as frustrating. The dean of the college has never been one to firmly stand on his own two feet, often allowing Jayce’s classmates with unbelievably unsatisfactory performance to pass his class out of a strange sense of eggshell-walking. As the dean, though, Jayce can’t help but feel like the man shouldn’t be seemingly afraid of his students. “That’s not surprising,” His hands are starting to get clammy. “At least the investigation is an external one. How much do you want to bet that he’d suddenly take a stand if it was someone from the university snooping around the books?”
“Oh, he would in a second! There’s no question about that. As the dean of this school, I take personal offense to your inquiry!” She mocks him, one hand raised to twirl an invisible moustache. Caitlyn’s expression bears the indications of someone deep in thought, but whatever she’s mulling over, she decides to keep partially to herself. “I don’t know if… I think there’s something else going on. The scholarship reallocation seems weird to me.”
“Weird how?” Jayce perks up at the mention of scholarships.
Caitlyn sighs, running a hand through her navy locks. Her dark roots are starting to poke through the color, but Jayce has long since learned not to mention such things. She lifts a glass of water to her lips, and the sound of her taking a long sip crackles through the speakers of his laptop – he should probably start looking at newer models before the device implodes and he loses the entirety of his work. “Weird like… Jayce, it’s really important that you know I’m just guessing here.” He nods wordlessly, quite literally on the edge of his seat. “But to me, it looks like the school is pulling funds from low-income students, keeping them on the line, and then dropping them completely. Those funds are then funneled into projects that will attract a more… well, profitable student body.”
“Right, like fucking basketball courts. Okay. Okay.” Jayce doesn’t know what exactly his game plan is, but something is brewing in the heat of his skull.
“And research projects. Not just the good ones, though. Look – my mom is funding some type of painkiller,” She holds a packet of papers up to her camera, mostly unreadable as they refuse to keep still. “I’m no supercomputer like you are, but I’m pretty sure that this medicine both already exists and works better than what this guy has going on.”
“But why? Asking your mom to look at Viktor’s work for more than thirty seconds was like pulling teeth. And this- this-”
“Dmitri. Yeah, he looks pretty confident in the abstract but to me, this looks like a more addictive oxycontin ripoff. Or something.” You have got to be fucking kidding me.
“Are you serious? That guy’s an idiot!” Jayce laughs, bewildered. “Why in the world is your mom throwing money at him?” Caitlyn quirks an eyebrow, and he can sense the impending jab from a mile away. “Okay, okay, why would she throw money at two idiots?” He beats her to the punch.
“I couldn’t tell you, but his parents aren’t anyone I recognize. They make a good amount of money, though, and I can’t help but think…” Caitlyn looks away, anxiety steeped into each drum of her fingers against her desk. “My mother has always been… hypercritical. She’s so judgemental towards different backgrounds, and I love her, I really, truly do, but I- Jayce, I can’t even introduce her to Vi.” She looks back at him then, gaze fixed just below her camera.
Violet, or Vi, as Caitlyn insists, is apparently an undergraduate student at Jayce’s school and a star member of the softball team. He’s seen a few pictures; in their text thread sits a photo of the pink-haired girl with her arms around Caitlyn, another with their circle of friends, and several months ago, a screenshot of her Instagram page. She seems nice enough, but Jayce hasn’t heard much about what she actually does other than the adventures he hears from Caitlyn’s perspective. Still, he can understand why she hasn’t taken Vi home yet – Vi and her sister apparently come from a rougher part of the area, and they both seemingly outwardly present as quite… unconventional. “Doesn’t she know that you guys are together, though?” Jayce asks.
He tries not to think about the phone call he’d shared with his mom a few months ago. He tries not to think about the excitement on the other line, the insistence to bring Viktor home for dinner, the ramblings of pride and well wishes. “She knows… somewhat.” Caitlyn smiles a bit, eyes focusing on something far outside of frame.
“What does that mean?” Jayce should call his mom soon. “I get what you’re saying, though, I’d be nervous to bring someone home to your mom, too.”
“Yes, especially if she’s going to say something horrifically outdated and scare away my girlfriend.” Caitlyn says solemnly. “She knows that I’m seeing someone. She also knows that Vi is my… close friend.”
“Ah,” Jayce confirms his understanding. “Do you think it’s serious enough to figure that out soon, then?”
Her expression shifts drastically, moving back and forth between something like sly excitement and abject terror. “I think it’s that serious, but I can’t say for sure that she feels the same. We’re so different, it’s hard to figure out what she would do in my shoes, and likewise. How are you… supposed to tell?”
Jayce opens his mouth to respond, then closes it, thinking for a long time. He fights to regulate his tone as he speaks, finally settling on something vague. “I don’t really know, sprout. I think you just have to talk about that with her.”
“Well, what about Viktor? English isn’t even his first language, and you guys get along just fine,” Something about his expression must have given him away, and Caitlyn’s tone wavers at the end. “Right?”
“Um,” Is all Jayce says as he struggles to come up with something inspiring, failing as quickly as he starts. Caitlyn watches his silent contemplation, a stern expression starting to etch its way onto her features. “Yes.” His voice is about three pitches too high and cracks at the end.
“What’s going on?” She asks, voice suddenly softening in disagreement with her expression.
What is going on? Jayce’s sinuses start to tingle again as he flounders. His twenty year old pseudo-sister doesn’t need to get an earful of his life’s anguish, but he’s not sure how to wrap it all into something presentable, either. Regardless, he doesn’t think he has the wiggle room to change the topic at this point, and it lessens more and more with each passing second of silence.
“Ah, Viktor and I are… Not… Seeing each other. Right now.” Ends up being his destination, and Caitlyn’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “Well, okay, probably not anymore, like, at all.” Jayce’s voice wavers near the end, and he gestures that it’s nothing as she starts to question the state of his well-being.
“Why? Okay, wait, you don’t have to tell me right now, but are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?” She asks, suddenly at full attention in her chair, classified documents uncharacteristically forgotten.
“I- It’s- I don’t think I can…” He says before shaking his head, gesturing his indifference again. “The board took all of his scholarship funding. Like, literally all of it a few days ago. We didn’t… There was an… unpleasant conversation following that. He’s supposed to be coming to get his stuff this evening.” Jayce coughs to disguise the tension in his voice, knowing it’s an inefficient tactic but doing it habitually anyway.
Caitlyn frowns at him from the screen of his laptop, and for a second, he wants to shut it entirely and crawl back into bed. “I’m sorry, Jayce. Is there anything I can…?” She trails off, smacking the unseen parts of her desk and scratching something down on a piece of paper. “I can probably come up there to see you in… February? Would you want to do something then?”
“Yeah, yeah, that would be- I’d like that.” He sighs, and the list of people he needs to reconnect with grows longer. Sensing a point to pivot, Jayce takes it as hastily as he can. “What are you doing over there?”
“Sorry, I- I nearly forgot to schedule my classes,” She lifts the note for a moment before pinning it up somewhere behind her laptop, and her sweater sleeve obscures the image for a moment. “It’s so strange coming back here. It’s like moving back in time.”
“I remember that feeling,” Jayce says, although it’s only a distant memory. “It’ll feel nicer to come home in a few more semesters, though. Just push through the holidays, and then you can get back to drinking and whatever other shit you’re getting up to.”
“I am not drinking in the dormitories!” She exclaims with a gasp. “It’s against the rules!”
They stay on the line for another half hour until it’s dinnertime and Caitlyn has to leave. Cassandra’s voice calls her name in the background, muffled by both the walls and the speakers of his laptop, and Caitlyn calls back to her mother with her eyes closed in annoyance. “Wish me luck. I’m going to lose my mind here for the next three weeks.”
“See ya, Cait.” Jayce is plunged into silence a moment later. It wraps around his ears like a cozy piece of headwear, creeps through his spine and down to his fingertips, enveloping him entirely in the numb serenity of complete stillness.
It’s been three days since Viktor first texted, and only a few hours since his last message – frustratingly, with absolutely nothing in between. It had only been four short words, lighting up Jayce’s phone and jumpstarting his brain at eleven in the morning.
-be there at 7
This can’t be it. Yes, the dust has settled, and Jayce has had the time to fully unpack his thoughts and feelings – most importantly, he’s come to the conclusion that he’s fully, entirely, and indisputably responsible for their separation. But this can’t be it. Jayce is selfish, and he knows it, but the only thing he does with the information is accept it. He’d spent a few hours stewing in something like a misguided bitterness to cover up the guilt; he’d found Viktor’s action to be entirely too dire and a disproportionate reaction. Then, the guilt had started rear its ugly head once again, and he’d found himself wallowing back in the bottom of a pit of self-pity. Viktor is guarded, he’s complicated – Jayce can’t possibly apply his own logic to the actions of his partner.
Now, he stares at the inactive screen of his laptop as the comforting blanket of numbness starts to slip down his shoulders, exposing his skin to the coldness of reality. Jayce’s heart is starting to race again, and his hands are clammy when he rubs his temples. His phone reads five forty-four, which leaves an incredibly uncomfortable window of time to kill, and he opens his conversation with Viktor to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. Of course, he hasn’t.
As Jayce starts to mechanically re-clean the kitchen and living room, he finds a coin in the cushions of the couch that isn’t a currency he recognizes. He thinks about putting it in Viktor’s room for only a moment before pocketing it selfishly, mulling over his plan. He shouldn’t have a plan, really – the best thing to do is to give Viktor his space, let him move out peacefully, and try not to spend the rest of his life in a pit of regret. What he wants to do, though, is to beg for forgiveness – on his hands and knees, if he needs to – and offer everything he’s capable of giving in return for more of Viktor’s time. It’s selfish and pathetic, but Jayce keeps the idea in his back pocket anyway.
The rug has been vacuumed twice already, but Jayce plugs the mechanism in anyways. It’s not like he can be over-prepared, and the motions are soothing to some extent – it keeps his hands busy, and the noise fills the chasm of silence that’s infected the once-bustling apartment.
What will most likely end up going down, he decides, is that he’ll gauge the environment once Viktor is actually there. If he’s angry to see him, Jayce will go somewhere else until he’s done. Maybe the library, or maybe a bar – there is absolutely no hope in doing anything but worsening that situation. If Viktor is professional and neutral, detached like he expects him to be, Jayce will… Try something else. Whether the begging is somewhat dignified or not will have to depend on the moment entirely.
The time ticks by both too slowly and far too quickly. Before he knows it, Jayce is fully, entirely panicking – with ten minutes to spare, he doesn’t know if Viktor will knock or just come in, and he stands paralyzed in the kitchen. Cowardly, he elects to stay in his bedroom instead of acting on any of the possibilities, and he shuts the door behind him with a shudder. Viktor can just come to him if he needs anything, and that’s how it should be. That’s how it always should’ve been.
Jayce gets into his bed, wrapping the blankets around himself despite the fact that he’s overheating from anxiety. It’s six fifty-two.
He closes his eyes for a long moment as though he’s trying to fall asleep, deep breaths rustling the pillowcase. It’s six fifty-six.
The blanket is too hot, and it’s not helping. He throws it off, flipping over on the mattress. It’s six fifty-nine.
Seven o’clock comes, and nobody knocks on the door. Seven-oh-three comes, and still, there’s no one in the apartment but Jayce.
At seven-ten, though, a sound comes from the front door.
—☆—
“Don’t you ever want control of the music? You are the driver, after all.” Viktor says as he plugs his phone into the console, scrolling through dozens of albums in search of a particular song.
“Yeah, but I listen to my own music all the time. I need something different when I drive, or I get bored. Plus, I like your music, too!” Jayce backs out of the parking spot they’re in, and Viktor finds the song he was looking for, one hand stabilizing the gallon of milk in his lap. The grocery store, a typically tortuous place to Viktor, fades into the distance as they drive through the sunny expanse of road in front of them, and Jayce drops a hand from the steering wheel to turn up the volume.
The sun filters through the autumn trees, lighting up the orange and yellow leaves in a way that makes them seem almost golden. The crisp air flowing through the window is both refreshing and nostalgic in a sense, and Viktor lets a hand wander into the breeze. Jayce is tapping his fingers to the song, one that Viktor is surprised he can even bear to listen to. It’s not that he has a bad taste in music, – at least, he doesn’t think he does, – but he’s found that his interests misalign with the average person’s by quite the considerable margin.
“I like this song,” Jayce says, turning it back down a few clicks as he speaks. “But I like their other album more, the one with the… it’s, like, a red cover with the detail around the corners? Oh, which one is that…?” He wonders aloud, and Viktor’s heart flutters in his chest.
“You actually listened to that album?” He asks, and Jayce’s hand goes back to the wheel, leaving the volume low. He’d mentioned the tracklist once or twice in passing, and unfortunately, had drunkenly recommended it to Jayce one night.
“Of course I did!” He exclaims, turning to Viktor briefly with a heart-stopping smile. The sun catches the hazel of his eyes before he looks back to the road. Of course he did. Even though Jayce isn’t looking anymore, Viktor smiles back and realizes that he’s deeply, completely in love.
—✤—
Viktor is so terrified that he can’t think straight. It’s six fifty-two and they haven’t left yet, thanks entirely to him. He can’t decide what to do – firstly, should he text Jayce that he’s on his way? He did say seven, and that should be plenty of information, right? Second, is he going to need to take multiple trips? Will Sky help get the bed frame out of there? Does he actually need it, though, or can he just leave it? A red CD sits atop the stack he’d snatched from the apartment, and he flips it over face-down before sitting to tie his shoes. It annoys him; he should’ve left it behind.
“Viktor, I’m going to the car!” Sky calls from her bedroom, stopping in the living room at the sight of him prepared to leave. “Oh! Are you ready?” It’s a loaded question, and she winces as soon as it leaves her lips.
“Ready enough. Thank you for your help.” Viktor says, following her out the door with a stack of folded cardboard boxes under his arm.
“It’s no problem. I really, really don’t want to pack my own stuff to go home for the holidays, but packing your stuff sounds like a breeze.” The unsaid difference in scenarios hangs between them for only a second before dissolving into the cool winter air as she locks up behind them.
“I must insist upon a form of payment, though; this has been quite the intrusion upon your finals week.” Sky rolls her eyes, starting the car’s engine as Viktor puts the boxes on his floorboard.
“Why don’t you promise me a really nice meal at your new place?” She suggests as they start the daunting drive of all daunting drives. “Your lunches always smell so good, you can owe me that!”
It’s nowhere near a sufficient trade-off for crashing at her apartment for what will likely end up being the entire week and hitching rides everywhere, but Viktor has offered financial compensation more times than he can count with absolutely no variation in the degree of no’s he’s received. “I can guarantee you a meal. I cannot guarantee that it will be good.” He agrees. A ‘new place’ is starting to sound nice, Viktor thinks, pondering the ways in which he’ll decorate a fresh space. Surely, he’ll deviate from his typical trinket collection eventually, and maybe end up with something really pleasant like Sky’s place. It actually doesn’t sound nice at all, and he knows that he’s lying to himself.
Every mile that passes feels like an inch closer to something he doesn’t want to face. Not within the walls of an apartment complex, but within himself – Viktor doesn’t want to move out. At all.
In fact, he wants to waltz into the door, drop his boxes, and find his Jayce waiting for him. “Welcome home, V!” He’ll say, “I missed you!” Viktor will fall into his arms, and they’ll have dinner and a movie together like not a second has gone by. Maybe they’ll open a bottle of something and get a little too handsy on the couch, or maybe, Viktor will just fall asleep in his embrace.
No, none of those things will happen, he reminds himself. This is closure.
Still, he feels like a coward as his hands shake where they’re folded in his lap. For a moment, Viktor holds onto the hope that Jayce won’t even be home, and he’ll take all the time he needs. It’ll be easiest that way, but the burnt, decayed bones of his mind palace yearn for reconstruction. He wants Jayce to be there, if anything, to selfishly show him what he’s done. So he’ll have to suffer through this, too. Viktor will make it hell, he thinks, hell on Earth if he has to.
He’s found a unit to tour about an hour away with a lease that starts in two weeks, but Viktor imagines that he’ll be able to make something work in the meantime. It looks a bit sketchy even online, and while he’s anxious to see it in person, there’s a fragment of himself that hopes it falls through entirely. The sharp screw of his brace digs into his knee when they hit a bump.
Viktor tries to focus on that thought – new place, new decorations, maybe I’ll try a color scheme, perhaps each room can have its own theme so I don’t have to balance too much, – as Sky indicates her turn signal just before the apartment complex. It’s a left turn, and they have to wait for a few long moments before it’s safe to go. In the meantime, the car clicks in tandem with the light indication, and it sounds like a ticking clock. Specifically, one that’s running out of time to tell.
Viktor can’t do this, and he’s sure of it as they pull into the parking lot. Jayce’s red hatchback sits empty, exactly where it always is, and Viktor feels like his vision is starting to get fuzzy. “This feels… really dramatic of me,” He chokes out, voice wavering. “But I have to do it. I committed, so I have to do it.” Viktor isn’t sure who he’s talking to, but Sky replies anyway.
“If you really feel that strongly, then I think you should, too.” She says softly as she pulls into a parking spot, yanking on the hand brake and turning to face him. Viktor swallows nervously under her gaze, thumbing at a lock of hair behind his ear. He’s sitting quite awkwardly in the stopped car now, fidgeting with his clothes like they’ll let him disappear and still building the strength to actually go inside. Sky lets out a long sigh. “Listen, Viktor,” She says in the same tone as any of their other more serious conversations over the years, a kind, comforting cadence. “I don’t know what actually happened, and you don’t have to tell me anything. Right? And I don’t want to overstep your boundaries here, but… Jayce really cares about you, and I know you care about him. If you end up… working something out, then great! But-” He meets her eyes for a moment. “But if you don’t, and things start to get weird or something, I’m going to be parked right here. Okay?”
Viktor nods wordlessly, swallowing again and wiping his clammy hands against his pants. “Okay. Thank you.” It barely comes out as a whisper, and Sky leans across the center console, pulling him into a hug. It’s pretty cramped, and quite the awkward position, but it’s comforting nonetheless as Viktor reaches an arm around to hug her back.
She gives him one last look, one of kind inspiration, and Viktor gets out of the car.
It’s cold as fuck. It had been chilly on the way out to the car, but at some point during the drive, the winds had picked up so intensely that the car door slams shut on its own. Viktor precariously fishes the boxes out of the vehicle before making his way to the elevator as quickly as he possibly can, gut-twisting anxiety taking a brief back seat in lieu of the biting frigidity. It’s not until he’s actually standing in front of the door that he realizes that muscle memory has taken over, and it’s far too late for any last-minute preparations. He stands still as a statue for a minute or two before pulling his key from his pocket, still attached to the little gear Jayce had fastened to it to keep Viktor from losing it.
His hand shakes violently as he starts to unlock the door, and Viktor drops the bit of metal before trying again, turning the key like he’s ripping off a bandage. Pushing the door open slowly, Viktor steps into the living area, which both looks and smells like it’s been freshly cleaned about thirty times over. His own items remain untouched, though, entirely undisturbed by the force of disinfectant that had covered every other corner of the room. His things look completely out of place here, and Viktor wonders bitterly if that had been intentional. Deep down, he knows it hadn’t been, because he knows Jayce.
Well, he thought he did.
Viktor goes straight to his bedroom, closing the door behind him and leaning against it like he’s just gotten to the only safehouse in hundreds of miles of apocalyptic terror. He only stays there for a minute, and then, there’s sound coming from Jayce’s bedroom. Viktor gets as far from the door as he can, assembling a folded box and starting to pull everything that's left from his closet.
Notably, Jayce’s leg brace is still on his bed. Viktor suddenly isn’t sure if Jayce had even seen it there in the first place, and he decides that he’ll deal with it later, sorting through photo albums and winter jackets to be distributed the most efficiently across the few boxes he has. Everything will fit, there’s no doubt about that, but he doesn’t want to be stuck with an unbearably heavy box and one that’s feather-light.
Viktor’s heart races as Jayce seems to stay in his own bedroom, not making much sound but completely making his presence known. It’s not like he thinks he can avoid Jayce forever, but he can certainly hope so as he reconfigures the orientation of his box. The last time he’d been here, it had been nothing but soul-crushing anguish. Now, the anguish just pokes at him from outside the shell of numbness Viktor is entombing himself within, and he tries to keep it as stable as possible as he folds a pair of dress pants, setting them neatly atop an award he’d won in undergrad.
Nearly an hour passes before Jayce’s bedroom door opens, and Viktor’s defense weakens in an instant. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears as Jayce’s footsteps tap down the hallway, stopping at his doorway, and Viktor freezes entirely when he knocks.
Without even thinking, Viktor grabs his cane from the bed, rising from his spot on the floor and making his way to the doorway, knees shaking under his weight. Deep breaths, he probably just needs something, deep breaths.
Viktor opens the door.
Jayce’s face stuns him entirely. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen; his expression is entirely composed but his features alone are paralyzingly familiar, almost instinctively comforting. I miss you. I don’t want to do anything without you. I can’t do anything without you, he thinks. Viktor fights to keep his own expression neutral as he looks up at Jayce, who swallows audibly before speaking.
“Hey, I’m sorry to interrupt, I just… I don’t know, I just really don’t-” Jayce looks away, eyes glossing over as he speaks. “Can we please just talk? Just five minutes, and then I won’t bother you anymore.” Gods, his voice, Viktor has missed his voice. He only wishes it sounded less destroyed.
Not trusting his own, Viktor presses his lips into a firm line, nodding once before stepping back to let Jayce in, who all but collapses into Viktor’s desk chair, head dropping into his hands. “Viktor, I’m… There’s nothing I can say that will make this any better, but I’m so sorry for… everything. No, that’s not-” He starts to mutter frustratedly, refusing to meet Viktor’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for keeping you entirely out of the loop with the- the school board stuff. There’s no excuse, and I don’t have one. I’m just sorry. And fuck, I shouldn’t have shouted at you at all, I can’t stop thinking about it, I-” Jayce runs his hands over his face, which is starting to look more worn than Viktor remembers.
“Jayce,” He says as sternly as he can, electric with the anxiety and frustration that Jayce is radiating, that he's filling the space with. “You should have just… told me. Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice weakens at the end, and Viktor leans against his closet door.
“I should’ve,” Jayce agrees, covering the lower half of his face as he speaks. “I should’ve. I don’t know, I don’t know if I thought I could just work it out for you, but I- I should’ve- it’s not up to me to fix. I’m so sorry, V.” It sounds like he’s crying now, clearly trying to keep it concealed, but his voice quivers as he drops his head shamefully.
Viktor is at a standstill.
He knows the old Jayce is dead, killed by this impostor in his chair. But when he looks up to Viktor with guilt written across his face, his eyes still sparkle the same way. They shine, albeit dimmed, with the same expression of complete adoration, of devotion, shuffled underneath a myriad of negative emotions. His eyebrows clearly still quirk when he’s nervous, he still smells like clean laundry and something ashy.
Maybe he’s still under there somewhere.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Viktor says helplessly, already out of the fight he’d thought to put up as his own eyes start to sting with tears. “What am I supposed to do with this? It’s already done, I- I-” A traitorous sob wrenches its way from his throat, and he covers his mouth. “How am I supposed to believe anything you’re saying? I feel like you’re- you’re not who I thought you were.”
Jayce visibly deflates, speaking before Viktor has even finished. “I know, I know, I don’t- You deserve to feel like you can trust your partner, and I haven’t- I didn’t give that to you. I don’t know, Viktor. I don’t know.” He contradicts himself in the same breath. “I am, it’s still me, I just-”
“No, it’s not!” Viktor exclaims, his tearful voice several octaves higher than he’d like it to be. “It’s not you, because the person I know wouldn’t-” It’s not worth the breath, and he sits back down, curling in on himself. He just needs to think.
It’s not long before he’s run out of deep breaths to take from behind his arms and knees, and when Viktor looks back up, Jayce has joined him on the floor, sitting a few feet in front of himself. He’s thankfully not looking at Viktor, distracting himself with something else in the silence like a stray dog trying to wordlessly indicate how hungry it is. Candidly, it looks like his Jayce, and as Viktor watches for a bit longer, he convinces himself that it is his Jayce.
But what if it is? Has this decision been entirely overblown, a kill switch in case he feels threatened? The last barrier comes down, and Viktor realizes that this is exactly what it is. In the same horrific vein of thought, he realizes that if he keeps a kill switch for every threat, he’ll isolate himself into nothingness, completely alone for the rest of his time on Earth.
But Viktor doesn’t want to face the things that weaken him, that disrupt his natural routine and force these soul-crushing emotions into his chest. Hence the kill switches.
He does, however, want his partner back.
Their eyes finally meet, and Viktor is hit with another wave of grief. It’s him. Of course it’s him, he’s sitting on the floor instead of the perfectly good chair behind him, just so they can be closer. It’s his Jayce, disheveled and lost in a chasm of guilt, looking at him with a devastating fondness as though Viktor hadn’t decimated their partnership without looking back.
He won’t let Jayce hold onto the weight of the destruction alone. Viktor moves a few inches forward, reaching out and taking one of Jayce’s hands into his own. “I should not have been so unkind to you. I’m sorry. I should have gone to- to the dinner, with your family, I should have-” He takes in a shuddering breath, and Jayce’s expression somehow falls even more.
“Oh, Viktor,” He says, pulling him into an embrace as he fights between sobs to finish his thought. The comfort of the hold just makes Viktor cry harder, so he gives up on speaking in lieu of wrapping his arms around Jayce’s shoulders, pulling them closer together. “It’s okay, I promise, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have thrown that in your face. I didn’t even- It genuinely doesn’t even bother me.”
“I shouldn’t have accused you of- of fucking my life up, I was being so mean. I’m so sorry, Jayce.” Viktor is thankful that he can’t see Jayce’s face from within their embrace on the half-empty floor of his bedroom. He reaches up to run a hand through Jayce’s hair – it still feels the same, because of course it does. “I don’t know how to- I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to be normal, I… you were right, I do it to myself, but I can’t stop. I’m so tired, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I- I can’t-”
“No, V, no, I’m sorry, no,” Jayce protests, his voice worn and overwhelmed with sadness. “I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean any of that, I don’t know why I said that. I don’t understand what you go through at all, it was so stupid of me to say any of those things.” His fingers are tangling in Viktor’s hair, now, too, and it’s almost too much to bear.
“But you are right,” Viktor pulls away as his back starts to tense from the position they’re in, sitting back and wiping the tears from his face. “I run away. I mean,” He gestures to their surroundings with a short, humorless laugh. “From everything. I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t run away. Viktor, you don’t,” Jayce says shakily, taking Viktor’s damp and reddened face into his own hands. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
It’s the last thing he needs to hear. Viktor stops running and leans in, connecting their lips in a plea of let me stay, forgive me, I’m sorry. It feels like Jayce hears it with the way he kisses back, gentle but familiar, come home, come back to me, I’m sorry. Everything clicks right back into place – he’s home. Everything will be okay, and he’s home. It feels like they’re closer than they’ve ever been, one being entirely, a new sense of raw connection flowing within the entity, vulnerable, magical.
As though they hadn’t just shared a complete, single sense of understanding, Jayce asks when they part, “Stay? For tonight, at least?”
Viktor smiles, almost laughs through the tears. “I’m staying forever.”
Sky flips through her car radio with a pout. Nothing she deems to be good is on, just slow and repetitive reruns of hits from three years ago, so she switches the audio connection to her phone at a stop light. Just as she’s found the playlist she wants to listen to, she gets a text from Viktor, and the light turns green. Well, it’s a good thing she’s headed back to Jayce’s anyway, she thinks, desperately hoping that things haven’t somehow worsened in the time she’s snuck away.
She drives safely, but slightly over the speed limit until she’s back in the parking spot she’d been in half an hour prior. Sky pulls her phone from its spot on the passenger seat at a truly impressive speed, opening her messages with her heartbeat in her throat.
-umm okay so i am not going to move out. lol. can i get my stuff from your place.....
Sky laughs out loud as she types her response, preparing herself for the windy outdoors.
-literally just got it, thought i would just in case. you still owe me a meal though
—☆—
The sun has dried out the grass, ridding it of the morning dew and making for a perfectly pleasant sensation under the feet of a group of undergraduates playing with a frisbee down the street. Their voices carry throughout the neighborhood, laughter echoing off the apartment complex. A pair of dogs are chasing each other through a nature trail behind the small field that’s adjacent to the horribly plain building, and their owner watches from somewhere in the blossoming trees. It’s official: Spring break has finally graced the city of Piltover.
In the field sits a picnic table, a worn wood that creaks as Caitlyn leans across its surface, eyes laser-focused on the movement of cards in Viktor’s hands. Jayce is watching, too, and although he’s on the same side of the table as his partner, he doesn’t catch any sort of trickery that would explain how he’s able to set the small stack of cards down and flip over each from the top in perfect numerical order.
“What? That’s not possible!” Caitlyn exclaims, both hands slamming onto the table in defeat as Viktor starts to laugh. “I watched every card, and you couldn’t even see them! How do you do that?”
Vi picks up the cards in her own bewilderment, flipping them over in search of anything that would indicate the trick – folded corners, bits of marker, but Jayce knows that she won’t find any. “I actually possess a range of magical abilities,” Viktor says, stoic but with the remnants of a smile on his lips. “None of them do anything useful, though, it’s only card tricks.”
Jayce snickers and Vi gives up on her search, nudging Caitlyn’s side with her elbow. “I don’t know, Cait, I kind of believe him,” She says, looking at Viktor with an overly dramatic sense of feigned awe. “Do you take apprentices?”
“Not anymore, no, not after the last one died horribly. Truly tragic-” Viktor is losing his grip on his straight face, but Sky is here to interrupt the running bit with a smile on her face and a suspiciously liquor bottle-shaped tote bag slung over one shoulder.
“Hi, guys!” She waves happily after a chorus of hello’s. “It’s nice to finally meet you!” Sky settles into a seat as Caitlyn and Vi introduce themselves, and her eyes immediately pick up on the havoc that’s been delivered to the table. “Oh, is Viktor doing the freaky card thing again? We should play King’s Cup!” She raises the bag on her shoulder as if to imply it further, and Vi is already nodding.
“Yes, sure, but we should go inside,” Jayce insists. “We’re harboring a few criminals over here.”
“Wait, are you two even old enough to drink?” Sky asks as they start toward the apartment. Jayce offers a hand for stabilization as they descend a slight hill, and Viktor takes it with a soft smile.
“We’re just not allowed to in the dorms.” Vi clarifies, and Caitlyn scoffs.
Inside the apartment, the setting sun illuminates everything it can touch with an orange hue. Things have changed over the past several months; a second couch now sits against the windowsills and a larger coffee table perfectly accommodates their group. Sky starts explaining the rules, but Jayce is familiar enough to tune out for the most part, taking in his surroundings completely.
It’s a beautiful afternoon-turning-evening, and the open windows are bringing in the scent of a spring breeze. Caitlyn is watching Sky intently, nodding to show that she’s listening and smiling as they both start to become more comfortable with each other, more familiar. She’s got an arm around Vi, who’s looking at her like she’s hung the sun in the sky with her own hands, and it settles something in Jayce’s mind that he hadn’t paid much attention to before.
And then, there’s Viktor. He’s watching Sky’s explanation with a look of slight concentration on his face, warmly lit and framed by his freshly-trimmed hair. Jayce had nearly begged him not to cut it, having come to adore the way he looks with his natural hair color grown out, lighter tones near the ends that had fallen down past his shoulders. “It gets in my way, though,” Viktor had said, “But I’m not cutting all of it off. Just back to, eh,” He’d gestured somewhere below his jaw. “Here-ish.” It does, of course, look very nice, and Jayce feels a pang of adoration in his chest as Viktor’s eyebrows push together in confusion.
The first round of the game is a practice round, just to get a hang of the rules. They play with cups of water to keep from getting unbelievably wasted before they’ve had the chance to play for very long, but Vi still takes a swig or two from the bottle anyway. Jayce wishes that the sunlight could last forever, but as the game unfolds, he eventually has to stand to turn a few lamps on.
He isn’t paying much attention to the game, distracted by the way Viktor keeps looking over at him with a warm smile. “Two is you!” Caitlyn holds her drawn card in the air before slapping it down against the coffee table and pointing to Jayce. Rules are rules, but he takes an almost imperceptibly short sip of the liquor before drawing his own card.
Spring break will have to come to an end eventually, and Jayce will have to go back to teaching a mind-numbing class of fifty people who only need a quick credit. Viktor will have to finish grading exams, but he’s less worried about his partner’s workload. Following an extensive investigation of the school’s financial handlings and a myriad of hearings, firings, and hirings, Viktor had been granted a full-ride scholarship for the remainder of his doctorate program. It’s more than deserved, Jayce thinks, and Viktor has seemed considerably less stressed in his day to day life – they are free classes, after all.
Still, a nearly unthinkable amount of work looms ahead, and eventually, the night has to end. Sky, who’s managed to only consume a single drink throughout the entirety of the night, offers to drive both Caitlyn and Vi to the latter’s dormitory down the street. Jayce is glad they were all able to spend time together, and he expresses just as much as he shares a parting hug with Caitlyn – even if it was partially an excuse to come spend time with Vi. She only goes to school forty minutes away, but the two act like it’s a distance of oceans between them. Jayce gets it.
When he and Viktor are the only ones left in the apartment, Jayce fights the urge to clean up the mess of cups and cards that litter their coffee table. Instead, he settles onto the couch where Viktor sits with expectantly open arms, waiting to crawl into Jayce’s lap and rest his head against his shoulder. Neither of them are particularly drunk, but there’s a haze that makes Viktor feel warmer against his skin. “That was nice.” He murmurs into chestnut hair.
“Yes, it was good to see Caitlyn again. I’m glad that Sky seemed to get along with them, too.” Viktor replies, voice vibrating against Jayce’s neck.
“Yeah, because she’s not prehistoric like us.” He scoffs.
“Oh, I know, I was having the hardest time trying to keep up with the slang they use.” Viktor giggles against his skin, pushing impossibly closer into their embrace.
“It’s not just you,” Jayce says. “I couldn’t tell what half of the things they were referencing even mean.” He pulls out his phone to text Sky, asking if everyone’s made it home safe, and Viktor starts to scroll on his own device. He pauses, and Jayce feels the movement of his neck as Viktor tilts his head a bit.
“Hm,” He hums curiously, “I got the job at the Academy. I do not believe I ever applied for it, though.”
Jayce opens an identical e-mail in his own inbox at the same time, and an embarrassing wave of mild shame washes over him. “Oh, so I- Ha, I actually applied for both of us, like, way back before that one… horrible week.” Viktor slightly stiffens in his embrace. “And then, I meant to call them to say we wouldn’t actually be taking the job, but it slipped my mind, and- Well, I guess it is a pretty good gig, but I can-”
“You wouldn’t have gone?” Viktor asks, sitting up on the couch and turning to face him.
“No, of course not! I didn’t want to do it without you.” Jayce searches Viktor’s face for a sign that he’s done something excessive, something too far, but finds nothing but warmth. “I don’t want to do anything without you.”
Viktor smiles, fully, without hiding his face. “So, coworkers, eh?”
—⧼⊹⧽—
ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ
—⧼⊹⧽—
The kitchen sink is broken. Again.
Viktor watches from a wicker chair in the living room as Jayce tinkers with the pipes in the lower cabinets, a light sheen of sweat starting to grace his features. “It’s the same thing as last time,” He calls out from the floor. “We might just have to gut it.”
Their home is a work in progress. Well, it’s probably always going to be a work in progress at this rate considering the suspiciously affordable price tag it came with over a year ago now, but it’s nice. It works for them, and in return, they work for it. “Ah, yes, gut it. Of course,” Viktor muses as he turns his attention to Rio floating around his tank. “We absolutely have the time and the funds for that.”
“Oh, come on!” Jayce says with a smile as he gets up from the kitchen floor, crouching next to where Viktor’s sitting and watching the axolotl kick its way to the surface before gliding back down to the pebbles, a seemingly pointless endeavor. “You don’t feel like just taking that thing out back and going crazy on it?”
“Hmm, I suppose I do have some resentment for that sink.” Viktor reaches a hand down to run through Jayce’s hair for only a second. “And you do look very handsome when you fix things for me.”
“Good, because I mean it,” Jayce leans into the brief touch, resting against Viktor’s legs. “That whole thing just has to go. It’s going to be more expensive if we keep fixing it, and it’s like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.” If we keep fixing it, Viktor repeats in his mind like a mantra as he thumbs at the band of platinum around his ring finger.
“That’s alright. We can wash our dishes in the bathroom for a little while if we need to.” Jayce takes hold of the fidgeting hand, pressing it against his warm cheek, lost in thought. He ponders for a while, eyebrows twitching and lips moving as though he’s going to speak before mindlessly pressing a kiss to Viktor’s fingers. “I have never been sink shopping.”
Jayce huffs out a soft laugh, the air catching Viktor’s fingertips as he moves it back to Jayce’s hair. “I haven’t either. I hope we can agree on one. What if we get divorced over a sink?” Viktor laughs. They’ll probably get the first one he shows even the slightest interest in, and it won’t even be his call.
“We will not divorce over a sink,” Viktor says as Jayce stands, stretching out his legs as he does. “Unless you’re simply waiting for a reason to.” He feigns annoyance, looking over his shoulder to conceal his smile and catching a glimpse of the repair-in-progress. They will absolutely have to gut it.
“You’re so dramatic.”
Sink shopping is, as predicted, both an expensive and timely task. The light kitchen countertops contrast the dark cherry wood of the cabinets, and Viktor prefers a more quaint, humble-looking kitchen, despite the fact that he barely does any of the cooking. Jayce, on the other hand, is all about efficiency, and only slightly winces when Viktor tries to make a case for a vintage piece of ceramic at an antique store.
Of course, the sinks don’t really matter – neither of them truly care how the kitchen ends up looking, but indulging in the thrill of domestic life is often far too tempting to ignore. They wash dishes in the bathroom sink for a day or two, dancing between each other one morning as Jayce brushes his teeth and Viktor rinses off a plate.
That night, Jayce collapses into bed, freshly showered after spending several hours installing the appliance. Viktor had assisted incrementally, handing over wrenches and screwdrivers when needed, but he really just enjoyed watching his husband work up a sweat.
“No more dishes in the bathroom,” He says, muffled by his pillow. “If that thing doesn’t hold up, I swear-”
“It will hold up.” Viktor assures him gently, resting a cool hand on Jayce’s incredibly warm shoulder, who turns onto his side to face him.
“Thank you for helping me. I probably would’ve broken down into tears if I had to do that alone.” He smiles, reaching a hand up to stroke the side of Viktor’s face.
“I barely did anything,” He holds Jayce’s fingers against his skin with his own hand, tilting his head into the touch. “Thank you for fixing it.” Viktor leans in to press a thankful kiss to his lips, careful not to show too much enthusiasm – Jayce is exhausted, after all, and it’s not his fault that he’s incredibly attractive when he’s committed himself to something laborious. Viktor doesn’t hide his attraction very well, though, and without thinking, he’s found himself pushed against Jayce entirely. The queen sized bed accommodates the two of them perfectly fine, but Viktor is nowhere near his side of the bed; one leg is halfway up Jayce’s side before there’s a large, warm hand under his shirt.
“You’re cold.” Jayce notes before slipping both of his hands beneath the cloth and running them up Viktor’s sides. The movement is leisurely, slowed by fatigue but lacking none of its tender fondness. No matter how many times they’ve been this close to each other, it still seems to set a fire in the room that neither of them can escape from; there’s a spark that dances between them like a third person entirely.
“Hmm, warm me up, then.” Viktor murmurs against his lips, no longer trying to conceal his eagerness as he pushes his way on top of Jayce. Like several nights of the week, they end up unclothed in a matter of minutes, exploring hands and kisses lagging only slightly from Jayce’s beyond understandable weariness. It doesn’t affect much of the routine anyway, and Viktor is more than happy to take the initiative as the room gets hotter with each breath against his skin.
At some point, Jayce finally notices the cool metal of a brace pressed into the side of his leg, and he sits up so quickly that Viktor nearly falls out of his lap. “Oh, let me help you, I’m sorry-”
“No,” Viktor smiles as he pushes Jayce back onto the mattress. “Leave it on.”
“But y-” Jayce starts, confused before a moment of recognition flits across his face. “Oh. Oh, okay.” Despite his exhaustion, Jayce’s eyes have lit up like it’s Christmas morning, and Viktor lets an amused huff slip from his lips before pushing them back against Jayce’s with a clack of their teeth.
The leg brace Jayce had crafted so long ago now has held up incredibly, and with a few adjustments here and there, it’s capable of supporting Viktor’s joints in just about any manner. They take advantage of this development less than either of them would truly like to, but every now and then, it’s simply necessary. His back brace, on the other hand, rests atop its usual nighttime spot on the dresser, and Viktor briefly ponders if he should’ve kept it on. He decides against it as he presses closer, clearly startling Jayce a bit with his eagerness. It isn’t until Jayce is lazily trailing a hand down the length of his spine and carefully pressing a digit inside that he’s recognizing the scope of it. “Did you-“
“You took a long time in the shower.” Viktor answers against his lips, swatting the hand away and taking it upon himself to reach down, exhaling shakily as he starts to sink down onto Jayce’s cock. He doesn’t fully trust that his joints will support him like this for very long, but thankfully, Viktor’s hips and knees fail to protest as he fully seats himself into his partner’s lap.
“You’re- ah, what’s the rush?” Jayce probes with a strained voice, hands sliding up Viktor’s thighs and resting on his hips — not pushing, but reminding him that he has help if he needs it.
“You’re going to fall asleep soon,” He replies after a long moment of breathing between them. “Which is not very fair when you’ve been half-naked on the floor all day.” With both hands firmly pushing into Jayce’s shoulders, he starts to move with a sense of pure satisfaction. There’s nothing in the world quite like watching Jayce as he struggles to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time, clearly unrelated to the topic of sleep, and Viktor can’t help but smile as he tilts his hips to quicken his pace.
“Viktor,” Jayce pants, hands tightening around his hips. “Let me help, please, let me.” He’s twitching a bit, eyes searching for Viktor’s like he can convince him with a look alone.
In almost any other scenario, it would’ve worked. Tonight, though, Jayce won’t be doing any more work than he’s already had to, and Viktor will make sure of it. “Hold on,” He insists, one hand moving to Jayce’s sternum for more stability. “I’m not done yet.” With a slight adjustment, it’s only a few minutes before Viktor is whining into his mouth, heat starting to creep up his spine as he claws into Jayce’s chest and drops his hips with enough force to shake the headboard.
Jayce has gone suspiciously quiet, jaw clenched as he tries to kiss Viktor back with a shaky breath, and it’s all too familiar. Viktor changes his approach, instead biting into the side of his neck before murmuring into the skin between whimpers, “You can cum in me, but I’m still not done yet.” It’s close enough to the truth; he’s on the precipice of a snapping tightness in his stomach, but Viktor is capable of holding out until his partner is satisfied.
His words have clearly had a positive effect on Jayce, who finally lets out a breath and tangles a hand into Viktor’s hair. “Oh, fuck, fuck, Viktor, please, please-” He begs, and the sound of his voice directly in Viktor’s ear is nearly enough to cut his plans short entirely.
“Go ahead, come on,” Viktor pants, pushing himself back upright to watch as Jayce comes apart below him, perpetually warm hands wrapped around his waist like he’s going anywhere. It’s an unbelievably alluring sight alone, but accompanied by the twitching thrusts of his hips and breathy thank you’s, Viktor succumbs to the sensation entirely. “Oh, oh, Jayce, Jayce-” He whines, legs shaking and pace faltering into something entirely without rhythm as a long-awaited orgasm crashes over him.
Somehow, it’s still never anything less than overwhelmingly satisfying, and Viktor stays slumped into the side of Jayce’s neck for a solid minute or two before forcing himself to move. It’s only then that he remembers that Jayce has just taken a shower, and he pats the sweat-dampened skin of his chest in apology. “We can take a bath if you would like.” He offers in a whisper, but Jayce shakes his head, eyes closed.
“Mm, tomorrow. Don’t care. Love you.” He says, pressing a kiss to the top of Viktor’s head before wrapping him in an embrace and promptly falling asleep.
From underneath the weight of Jayce’s bicep, Viktor tries not to shift around too much. He deserves his sleep, and Viktor has kept him up for long enough – still, he can’t help himself from freeing himself of the embrace slightly, looking down at his resting husband.
All at once, Viktor has a moment to himself. Everything around him clicks into place, every stray thought in the corners of his mind, every emotion scattered throughout his body melts into one cohesive, warm sense of pressure against Viktor’s chest. He has these moments somewhat often; there’s a feeling of comfort in settling into their domestic life that presses against his ribcage, and it’s one that he’d been entirely unfamiliar with until Jayce had come along. It feels juvenile to react so strongly and reminds him of grade school; it’s something like the feeling of seeing your crush in the hallway, Viktor thinks, like seeing them for the first time after a long winter of yearning and homework. It makes his heart flutter in his chest all over again, and when Jayce stirs, eyebrows twitching in his sleep, Viktor’s heart leaps to his throat. That’s my husband, he thinks, he’s all mine.
The window is making a weird sound. The nighttime breeze is trying to push through a break in the seal, emitting an oddly pitched whistling noise, but thankfully, Jayce’s sleep doesn’t seem to be disturbed. The coming autumn’s storms will make it worse, and Viktor knows that he’ll be entirely at fault if he forgets to make the problem known and they end up with water-damaged fixtures. He’s entirely capable of fixing it himself, and he knows it – after all, Viktor has lived in more than his fair share of cheap apartments with shoddy windows. Instead of standing to find the break in the seal, though, he elects to settle back down into Jayce’s arms, eyes starting to slip shut against his better judgement. As he starts to drift to sleep under the warm weight of companionship to the sound of a future problem, Viktor makes a mental note: Jayce will take care of it for me.
And he did. Jayce took care of every shaky window, every leaking sink, every squeaky door in their lives until there simply weren’t any left. Every time, he’d work with a smile like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and every time, Viktor would watch from a corner, stirring his coffee or leaning against a wall in such a manner that seemed to make the job go by twice as fast.
Perhaps he’d been lying to himself that first night, Viktor realizes one morning as Jayce massages his sore knee under the dawn’s sunlight. It was so long ago now that he can barely make out the memory, but he knows that it’s something along the lines of a scary movie and a split-second decision. The first kiss they’d shared had been something like a leap of faith into a pool of intimacy that Viktor had previously been so shy of, and he’d framed it as an experiment of sorts.
Now, though, he’s not able to frame it the same way. Not anymore, especially not if he had never been able to in the first place. Although his hypothesis has yielded groundbreakingly impressive results, Viktor must admit something to himself as Jayce beams up at him from the living room floor, two warm hands wrapped around his aching leg: Nothing about this had ever been scholarly.
Notes:
and that… was… everything! (except for the part where i inevitably go back and improve earlier chapters until it’s 1000% PERFECT i am sorry but it’s just gonna have to happen)
i know people don’t always read these end bits, but i just wanted to say how incredibly thankful i am for the fandom and people who have shown their appreciation for this fic. i’ve been so consistently blown away by people’s comments and reactions to this au!!! never in my life will i forget the inspiration and excitement i felt when people were showing so much interest, kindness, and genuinely helpful input. after over a decade and a half of posting my fiction online, i can absolutely and confidently say that i’ve never, ever experienced such a welcoming and kind readerbase.
because of this support, i’m strongly considering writing some standalone works, little snippets in between the action of this story and some afterward, too, because there’s so much time in between everything (and also because these versions of them live in my mind 24/7 and there’s endless content in there). i don’t know when or how often (the real-life master’s degree era unfortunately is neither very romantic nor fun), but i’m not ready to give this community up!! who knows, maybe i’ll start another long fic of them, idk! ^-^
thank you so much for reading. byeee! <3
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