Chapter Text
Jayce doesn’t… he doesn’t know what to do. He feels so empty. He feels like an apple that got cored, his chest a gaping, hot wound. It’s only made worse by the fact that he knows Viktor would hate it. The dramatics of it all.
Jayce’s feet have been moving on auto-pilot, dragging him from the large hall in which the tribunal had been held, through the warm streets of Piltover and down. Down. Down where he belonged. Certainly now that everything had been taken from him.
His research. His whole life, gone up in an explosion and then in the subsequent fallout.
His mother had tried to make them see reason but his outburst had been too- he knows he shouldn’t have said all these things. He should not have lost his composure. He should not have been so young and idealistic and… and dramatic.
But standing there and listening to the council disparage what he and Viktor had been doing-
Listening to his mother trying to do damage control by basically calling him insane-
He had not been able to take it. Not with Viktor’s lilting voice constantly at the back of his mind telling him to not hide himself away from everyone and everything and instead let them finally know about his genius. About their genius.
About magic.
There’s static in his head. He’s at the harbor at some point and his dragging feet come so close to the edge of the water that he wonders dazedly if he’s going to fall and just end it all. But they keep moving on.
He must look like a zombie. He doesn’t know. Is he even encountering anybody during his trek?
Jayce is shell shocked, he realizes dimly in that analytical part of his brain that is still somewhat working. He moves down into the undercity; fine Piltover regalia from the tribunal still covering his body and he just walks down there.
They nearly killed him for far less. He got a pale scar on his forehead to remind him of that.
As he slowly moves on, one foot in front of the other, eyes glow in the darkness of alleys. He does not notice them – just like he’s never noticed them any other time he’s gone down here with a spring in his step and a cloak covering him, trying to blend in and utterly failing each and every time.
Viktor says that the undercity people can smell Piltover on him, no matter how much he covers himself up. It’s always difficult to figure out whether Viktor is joking or not, so he’s taken to believing him in this regard.
Nobody stops him; and nobody talks to him. Or maybe someone is but their voices are not penetrating the dazed fog in Jayce’s head.
Finally he comes to stand in front of the clinic door. As he stares at the chipped little sign that says ‘closed’, he realizes two things: that he would need to reach for the key in his pocket – difficult as his whole body feels heavy as lead – and that he would need to actually use it. Impossible.
Tears suddenly spring to his eyes, itching and overwhelming.
Jayce’s lips wobble. He presses them together in a tight line, his first coherent thought in hours shooting through his brain: Viktor can’t see me bawling like a little kid.
It would just be the cherry on top. The doctor seeing him completely destroyed and deciding that he won’t be able to associate with him after all because… because… he doesn’t know. He can’t think clearly. He’s overwhelmed and he doesn’t know what to do.
Jayce stares at the door, eyes brimming with tears, unaware of how his shoulders are shaking or how his breath comes in aborted little gasps. He’s unable to take out the damn key that Viktor gave him and actually use it because it feels like an insurmountable task when walking here has taken all of his energy out of him.
Something bangs above and then clatters to the uneven cobblestones right next to him. Jayce startles, takes in a sharp breath, and glances down. There is a rather large stone lying next to his perfectly shining boots. Had someone… had someone thrown a stone at him?
He’s still staring at it, uncomprehending of the situation, when the sound of a window being ripped open slices through the fog in his head. Viktor’s voice rings out in a hiss: “I’ll gut whoever threw that- …Jayce?”
Jayce’s head tilts back and he stares up at Viktor hanging out of the window of his tiny flat. He presses his lips together and clenches his jaw hard enough that it starts aching. Through the darkness that permanently resides in the undercity he can see how gaunt and pale Viktor looks. Had he been sleeping? How late was it?
“S-Sorry,” Jayce gets out somehow. His throat feels like it is being squeezed by a large hand. “I don’t… kn-know-”
Viktor’s dark eyes bore holes into him. He’s too far away to make out his expression. For some reason he is becoming just a blotted, pale dot hanging high up over Jayce.
“Stay,” the pale dot says and then vanishes.
And Jayce… Jayce stays. His hands come together in front of his belly. He’s wringing them, fighting with tears, wondering if he has a handkerchief anywhere and then remembering the pocket square. He reaches up and fumbles with it and just as he starts to dab at his face does the door of the clinic suddenly open.
Viktor is right there in front of him. He’s wearing… Jayce isn’t all that sure. At first he thinks it’s just a shirt but it seems to be too long for that. His brain supplies him with the information that it must be some form of night gown which is so ridiculous and endearing that it briefly startles him out of his funk.
“What are you wearing?” he asks at the same time as Viktor asks: “What happened?”
An awkward silence immediately stretches between them. Jayce gestures with his hands, the handkerchief clutched in one. He feels the words lodging in his throat and, as he stares at Viktor standing there, looking so weirdly harried. So… so tired and… and he must have been sleeping. And Jayce woke him up.
He’s had the worst day of his life and he’s topped it off by being an inconvenience to Viktor. All of a sudden, it feels like a door is suddenly slamming shut in his throat, locking all his words behind it.
He makes a soft noise that sounds forlorn even to his own ears. Viktor’s gaze sharpens. he takes a single step closer to Jayce, one hand extending toward him-
When suddenly, Viktor’s dark eyes flick to the side. He looks at something past Jayce, and his face scrunches up tight, a complex expression entering it before he grabs Jayce by the arms. “Never mind that. Come. Come in.”
He pulls and Jayce just stumbles in obediently. His eyes are stuck on Viktor’s skinny, bare legs and his naked feet on the cold clinic floor.
“You’re going to get sick,” he wants to say, but his mouth opens and no sound comes out. “Where is your brace?” he thinks next and when Viktor says: “Upstairs” he thinks for a wild second that among all the things that Viktor can do, reading his thoughts is among them.
But apparently it was an order. Spoken all slow and careful as he reaches out for Jayce again once he’s closed and locked the door. Upstairs. He wants Jayce to go upstairs. But Jayce is not moving and Viktor seems stumped for a second, just staring at him. He does not quite touch this time, even though he’s reaching for him. His long fingers are hanging impotently in the air as he stares at Jayce’s face. His thick brows pull together and he looks so concerned that it feels like a stab in the gut.
Jayce’s breath hitches, his hands curling into tight fists, crumpling his handkerchief against his solar plexus. He must look like an idiot but his body is locking up on him like his words have been locked away.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
The way Viktor enunciates these words is so… it’s so soft and crisp, the r’s rolling and-
and Jayce can feel his face fall. It’s just… it’s just he hadn’t thought of what might happen once he got here. He hadn’t thought of Viktor’s reaction beyond the doctor being disgusted with him for his juvenile behavior.
He hadn’t been braced for the genuine worry quietly radiating off of him.
Jayce is not sure what his expression is doing but Viktor looks alarmed for a moment before finally, finally grabbing Jayce’s arms again. It’s like he can’t quite make up his own mind as he pushes Jayce a step backward, then blinks and pulls him forward. There’s something in the tightness of his jaw that makes Jayce think Viktor is actually freaking out on him right now.
Which is… yeah. That’s a thing. He’s never freaked out on him before. No matter what emergency crawled over the clinic’s doorstep. Not even when they met up with this Silco person. But Jayce manages to get him there?
… fuck.
He takes a heaving, gasping little breath. Viktor’s eyes go wide and he moves backward at a more rapid pace, pulling Jayce along as he goes.
“No, no, no. We are not crying. Come. Come here- sit. There’s a good boy.”
He’s pulled Jayce straight past the hidden little door that leads up to his apartment and into his office. Jayce is very familiar with this place. He’s slept on the tiny little cot a few times. He had hoped that after their last encounter he would be able to instead sleep in Viktor’s bed…
But for now he is pushed back onto the cot to sit there, Viktor’s long and narrow hands cool against his hot cheeks as he cups Jayce’s jaw and tilts his head up and to each side, his critical gaze fixed on him.
“You came here like this?” Viktor asks. His thick brows are pulled together, hair looking wild as it stands up unkempt from his head. There’s a tiny orange lamp he’s clicked on and the light catches in all the gray hairs filtering through the dark brown. “What happened?”
Jayce opens his mouth, realizes that his words are still gone, and closes it again. He lowers his shoulders, his jaw sagging more heavily into Viktor’s hands when he can’t just let his head hang.
I’m sorry.
Viktor purses his lips. His eyes narrow as his thumbs drag against Jayce’s cheekbones in such an absent-minded gesture that for the first time since the news about the explosion, Jayce feels something like hope tentatively bloom in his chest.
“Are you injured in any way?” Viktor asks finally. He takes his hands slowly away from Jayce who makes a scratchy little forlorn sound in the back of his throat.
Jayce slowly shakes his head.
Viktor exhales.
“Very well. You seem to be in shock at the moment. I do not think that forcing yourself to answer questions at this point in time would do you any good. You should sleep; tomorrow we will figure this out. Yes?”
Jayce is equal parts pathetically thankful for someone else taking over the reigns and telling him what to do – and ashamed that he can’t figure all of this out on his own. He nods miserably and lets Viktor lead him off the cot and out of the office again with a hand wrapped around his wrist.
The fact that he’s allowed to come up to the cramped apartment and crawl into Viktor’s narrow bed doesn’t even give him the satisfaction that he thought it would. Jayce is simply exhausted.
With his head on Viktor’s chest, his large body wrapped around Viktor’s stringy one, he falls asleep.