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Normally, Jayce hated going to events like these. He suffered through them because he knew they were a necessary evil if they ever wanted to get their inventions off the ground. However, usually by now he would be fantasising about different excuses he could use to blow it off, networking and investors be damned. But instead tonight, he was actually looking forward to this event. Because, Viktor had finally, finally, agreed to come with him.
He approached Viktor’s apartment and knocked on the door. Immediately, he heard banging and a stream of curses.
“Viktor?” he called out through the door.
“Yeah, yeah I’m coming” he heard a muffled shout and approaching footsteps before the door was flung open and Viktor was standing in front of him, looking only moderately disheveled and missing a shirt.
“What are you doing here? It’s only 7? I thought you said you were coming at 7:45?”
Jayce was still distracted by the missing shirt, but he tore his eyes away from all the skin on show and back to Viktor’s slightly panicked and mostly pissed off face. He looked so much like a disgruntled kitten that Jayce had to stop himself from laughing. He didn’t think that observation would go over well right now.
“Yeah, but I was already ready and bored at home so I thought I would just come over earlier.”
“You-?” Viktor shot him an incredulous glance, but eventually caved when Jayce shot him his most earnest, innocent smile.
“Fine, come in,” he sighed. “You may as well help me figure out what to wear.”
He turned and retreated back into the small apartment, leaving the door open for Jayce to follow.
When they eventually arrived, the event was already in full swing. The large room was filled with the sounds of loud chatter and clinking glasses.
They both stood there for a moment, preparing.
“What if we just left,” he whispered to Viktor. “I mean, no one’s seen us yet it’s not too late”.
Unfortunately, at that moment Heimerdinger materialised in front of them, seemingly from nowhere.
“There you boys are! What took you so long?”
But before either of them could offer any excuses he carried on.
“Yes well never mind now, lots of potential investors here tonight, so go and mingle,” he instructed them. And with that he retreated back into the crowd as swiftly as he’d appeared.
“So, where to first?” Jayce said, turning to Viktor.
He looked around before pointing at the bar to their left.
“There. If I have to talk to this many people there is no way I’m doing it sober”.
Once they were sufficiently equipped with alcohol, they surveyed the room, looking for an easy target to start with.
“Oh what about that guy?” Jayce said, subtly indicating a smartly dressed older man on the other side of the room.
Viktor followed his gaze but as soon as he saw the man his eyes widened.
“Absolutely not”
“What? Why?”
“That’s Professor Adams, he teaches in the languages department at the Academy”
“So?”
“Well,” he moved closer and Jayce bent his head down slightly so Viktor could whisper in his ear.
“I had to stay late to help Heimerdinger with something one night and accidentally walked in on him and Professor Madden preparing for a different kind of oral exam…” he trailed off.
“No!” Jayce gasped, pulling back to look at Viktor.
“Yeah,” Viktor grimaced.
“But they’re like…old?!”
“I know! Ugh it was so gross I wanted to gouge my eyes out afterwards,” Viktor said, shuddering at the memory.
“Since then I haven’t been able to look him in the eye,” he continued.
“Well thank you so much for sharing that mental image with me,” Jayce said.
“Oh you’re very welcome,” Viktor said, with mock sincerity.
It was only then that Jayce realised how close they were standing. Viktor reached out a hand, lightly brushing his fingers along Jayce’s shoulder.
“This colour really suits you, you know,” he said in a low voice.
Jayce was sure his face was turning bright red.
“How do you two expect to get investors interested in your research, if you just talk to each other all night?”
Jayce abruptly turned away from Viktor to see Mel Medarda standing next to them. He hadn’t even heard her approach them.
“We’re just…trying to find a good target,” Jayce explained lamely.
“Oh really,” she raised her eyebrows at them. “Well in that case, Viktor, why don’t you go and talk to that lady over there.” She indicated a tall woman in a long green dress over on the other side of the room. “Her and her husband have money to burn and are always bragging about their investments so they’ll probably go for it. Be warned though, she’s pretty insufferable and you’ll have to hear all about the drama with her sister before you can get a word in edgeways.”
“Wow you’re really selling this,” Jayce said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I guess…I’ll see you later then,” Viktor said, shooting them a mournful look, and left them, moving into the crowd.
Once he was gone, Mel raised her eyebrows at Jayce, her eyes dancing with humour.
“Oh shut up” he grumbled.
“He looks nice tonight,” she comments with faux innocence.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah he does.”
The look they’d eventually decided on back at the apartment was a white shirt with billowing sleeves and a red waistcoat that had gold accents on it. If Viktor noticed that Jayce had been basically encouraging him to wear the House Talis colours, he didn’t comment on it.
“You’d better be careful no one else scoops him up before you get your head out of your ass and actually tell him how you feel,” she comments, teasing him.
Jayce turned to look at her sharply. But he was saved from having to answer by the arrival of Elora. She was carrying a drink in each hand, passing one to Mel as she arrived and wrapping her now free hand around her girlfriend’s waist.
“Why thank you,” Mel said, turning to press a lingering kiss on her lips. She turned back to Jayce, shooting him one more significant look, before they left him.
His eyes roamed over the crowd, trying to look for someone who didn’t look too intimidating, but who might be interested in funding some of their research. But he wasn’t alone long before a man approached him. As luck would have it, it was the same man that Viktor had pointed out earlier, the language professor that he had already forgotten the name of. He tried his best to make it through the conversation without laughing, a feat that was not helped by the looks Viktor kept shooting him over the man’s shoulder. He probably thought he was being subtle, but was not in the slightest.
Somehow he managed to make it through the little pitch that they had practiced and luckily for him (but perhaps not for their funding) the man left shortly afterwards.
He searched the room for someone else to pitch their Hextech research to but instead of potential investors, his eyes found Viktor again. He had his back to him and was talking to a small group of people, two women and a man. He was gesturing wildly with his hands, and they seemed to be hanging off his every word. Jayce’s chest swelled with pride and a stupidly fond smile spread across his face. Though as he watched, he saw one of the group reach out to touch Viktor’s arm and linger there a bit too long to be a casual touch. His mind went back to Mel’s words. He knew that she had just been teasing him, but what if she had been right? When he looked again, the group’s body language and expressions seemed less casual interest and more…appraising? Hungry?
Before he’d really thought about what he was doing, he’d started walking over to them.
“Hey! There you are, I was looking for you,” he said, wrapping an arm around Viktor’s shoulders.
Viktor shot him a questioning look, but before he could say anything, one of the women spoke.
“Oh Mr Talis! Your assistant was just telling us all about your research!”
Assistant?
“Viktor is my partner,” he corrected, a definite edge in his voice. He couldn’t help it, his patience for these people was wearing very thin.
“Oh! I’m so sorry I had no idea,” the woman apologised, looking between the two of them, surprise evident in her voice.
Thankfully, the group departed swiftly after that.
“Huh that’s weird, they seemed interested in our research before” Viktor said quietly, confusion in his voice.
“Yeah they were interested in something alright,” Jayce grumbled.
Viktor turned to Jayce and gave him a questioning look.
“What did you want with me?”
“What?”
“You said you were looking for me..no?”
“Oh right, right!” Jayce said, perhaps a little too loud. He was panicking. He needed to come up with a good excuse.
“I er…just wanted to check in? How are you doing?”
Viktor looked even more confused, but there was something else in his expression too, something Jayce couldn’t read.
“Well I’m fine, as you can see,” he said, gesturing down at himself.
“Right! Yes good well, I’ll just leave you to it then, I’ll be…around,” he finished lamely. God he had to get a hold of himself.
He decided that the best course of action would be to try to avoid looking at Viktor. A task that was embarrassingly harder than it should have been and one he ended up giving up on almost instantly. He didn’t realise just how often he sought out the other man. Still, he managed to make it through at least three conversations without incident.
He went to get another drink from the bar, but as he made his way across the room, his eyes landed on Viktor again.
He was talking with two men, a couple he assumed, from the way one of them was practically draped over the other. He was too far away to hear what they were talking about, but there was something about the way they were looking at Viktor as he spoke, like they wanted to eat him alive, that made Jayce think that their interest in him had nothing to do with furthering the field of science.
He weaved through the crowd until he reached them.
“Hey! How’s it going over here?!”
Viktor huffed out an exasperated breath but seemed to go with it.
“This is my partner, Jayce,” he said, waving his hand slightly, introducing him to the couple.
“Your partner?” The man closest to Jayce said, his eyes roaming over him now, as if sizing him up.
“Yes,” Jayce said, with perhaps a little more force than necessary, staring down the other man.
“Oh! Ok well we’ll be off then,” said the other man, trying to diffuse the tension. “Good luck with your..er…hex stuff!”
When they had gone, Viktor turned to Jayce, glaring up at him.
“Can I talk to you?”
He turned, heading for the doors that lead out to the hallway, Jayce following behind him.
When they were alone, Viktor rounded on Jayce.
“What is your problem tonight?”
“What?”
“Why do you keep checking up on me? Even when you’re not coming over and interrupting, I can still feel your eyes on me. Am I doing something wrong? I know I’ve never been to one of these events before but I am capable of talking to people you know.”
“What?! No, Viktor it’s not that at all!”
He had to fix this, this was even worse than Viktor finding out his feelings for him.
“Well then what is it?”
“It’s…it’s how they were all looking at you!” Jayce burst out. “Like they wanted to fuc-” Viktor’s eyebrows shot up and Jayce’s eyes widened in shock about what he’d nearly just said.
“er..fund our research, I mean.” Jayce finished. There. Saved it.
“But Jayce…isn’t that the whole reason why we’re at this stupid event?” Viktor said, moving slightly closer to him. Jayce looked back at him, expecting to see the same look of hurt on his face, but it was replaced with an open, curious look. A teasing smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. Great. That could only mean trouble for Jayce.
“Yes! You’re right! Of course, how silly of me!” He said. He was babbling a bit but he had to get out of this conversation.
“Well, let's get back in there!” Jayce continued, with entirely false enthusiasm.
“Are you going to let me actually talk to potential investors this time?” Viktor said, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t seem annoyed anymore at least, which was something.
“Yes, yes, I promise”. Jayce said, rolling his eyes. Viktor laughed and they made their way back into the hall.
They decided to stay together for a while. Viktor even held his arm for a while so they wouldn’t get separated in the crowd, which Jayce was trying not to seem too pleased about. And they actually managed to get a few people interested in investing in Hextech. Which was fine too, he supposed.
He was about to suggest to Viktor that they leave, when they were approached by an older man. Jayce didn’t recognise the house symbol he wore but he definitely had seemed to have an air of importance about him.
“I hear you boys are looking for investors?”
He saw Mel pass by behind the man’s shoulder and she widened her eyes at them, subtly pointing at the man and giving them a thumbs up. So clearly his plan to say that, actually, they were just leaving, probably wouldn’t go down very well.
Unfortunately, it was apparent very early on that this man loved the sound of his own voice. Before he knew it they were trapped in conversation that seemed to show no sign of stopping.
When they’d reached what he thought was a natural pause in the conversation, after hearing in excruciating detail about the man’s latest business deal he opened his mouth to try and get them back onto the subject of Hextech but Viktor beat him to it.
“I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve just seen Professor Heimerdinger over there and I have some urgent Academy business to discuss with him.” Jayce knew for a fact that Heimerdinger had left twenty minutes ago, but hopefully this man didn’t know that.
The man seemed a bit put out.
“Can’t it wait?”
“I’m afraid it can’t,” he said, and turned to Jayce, who was about to offer up his own excuses, naively assuming that Viktor had planned this escape for the both of them. But Viktor wasn’t finished.
“But my partner here would love to tell you all about Hextech! And anyway, he’s much better at talking to people about our research than me.”
The bastard. He supposed he deserved this though.
“Yes, I’d love to.” He said through an entirely false smile, glaring daggers at Viktor as he walked away, giving Jayce a cheery grin and a wave as he went.
He went through their pitch, hoping to get through this as quickly as possible, but the man seemed genuinely interested in how their technology could help his own business ventures, and kept asking questions.
After what felt like an hour, but had probably only been around ten minutes, he began looking around the room in earnest for an escape. Instead, his eyes landed on Viktor. He was talking with Salo, the two of them stood close, their heads bent together. As Jayce watched, Salo reached out and touched Viktor’s shoulder, running his hand down his arm.
“Mr Talis?” The man in front of him questioned, trying to regain his attention.
Reluctantly, Jayce tore his eyes away from whatever that was and tried to refocus on what the man in front of him was saying.
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologised quickly. What had he been talking about? Something about shipping routes?
But his focus only lasted a minute or so before his eyes wandered again to Viktor. As he watched, Salo leaned even closer, whispering something in his ear and Viktor actually tipped his head back and laughed. He reached out a hand to touch Salo’s chest, lightly pushing him away.
Now.
Okay.
Jayce has had the displeasure of speaking to Salo. Multiple times. The man is not that funny.
Before his brain could catch up with what he was doing, his body was halfway across the room and by Viktor’s side again. His rational brain had clearly packed up and left for the night because he also reached out and wrapped an arm around Viktor’s waist, pulling him into his side slightly.
“How’s it going over here?” He turned to Salo. “Is my partner persuading you to invest in Hextech?” He smiled, trying for friendly, but probably missing by a mile.
“Oh yes, Viktor’s being very…persuasive,” Salo said, continuing to look Viktor up and down as if he wasn’t there.
Jayce needed him to stop looking at Viktor like that or he was going to say something he would definitely regret. Luckily for his reputation, a tall woman approached them and whispered something to Salo.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, and turned to follow her.
But before they left, Salo turned back to Viktor.
“You should come to one of my parties sometime. I’d love to-”
“Great, we’ll be sure to swing by!” Jayce interrupted, smiling at him. “Bye now.”
Once they left, Jayce turned to Viktor, an apology already on his lips. God what is wrong with him tonight? He was expecting to see the same angry expression from before but instead Viktor looked up at him with humour in his eyes, like he was trying not to laugh. Great. But before he could explain himself, Viktor interrupted him.
“Do you think we’ve talked to enough people for tonight? I’m actually feeling kinda tired”.
“Definitely,” Jayce sighed. “Let’s get the fuck of here”.
The walk back to Viktor’s apartment was a mostly silent affair. Jayce spent the whole time trying to come up with an apology and a reasonable excuse for his, quite frankly, absurd behaviour tonight. God, Viktor probably thought he was insane.
But all too soon, Viktor’s building was looming in front of them. Now or never then.
“You didn’t have to walk me home, you know.” Viktor said, an exasperated but fond smile on his lips.
“Yeah I know, I just wanted to.” Jayce said, probably too earnestly but he couldn’t care about that right now.
“Look, Viktor, I’m really sorry about tonight I-“
He cut himself off, wide eyed, as Viktor reached a hand up and gently cupped his cheek. Slowly, as if giving Jayce the chance to pull away, he leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Before Jayce could even process what was happening, Viktor pulled away again.
“Goodnight, Jayce.”
And with that, he turned and headed for the door, leaving Jayce standing shell shocked on the pavement.