Work Text:
The summer Viktor starts his new job, he meets an angel.
Working at a Piltovian engineering firm is not half as exciting as he thought it’d be—the projects are mostly rote, and he’s not senior enough to be leading anything big. Still, the company is paying for his masters in the fall, and he’s able make rent and build a bit of savings, so he supposes it’s not all bad.
His friend Sky, who he’d known in undergrad and who works in another department, raps on his cubicle at the end of the day of a very trying week. “You alive?” she asks.
“I haven’t walked into the ocean yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Viktor says, his voice muffled by his palms. He rubs them over his face and looks up. “Heimerdinger didn’t get back to me until this morning.”
Sky winces. “Yeah, sorry. Someone should’ve warned you—he prefers calls, not emails.”
“Wonderful,” Viktor says. “I will take note for the next sprint.”
“Dinner?” Sky offers, sympathetic. Viktor appreciates it—they had not been close in undergrad, but in their time working here, they’ve become real friends, instead of merely coworkers.
Viktor nods. “Where to?”
"I heard a new burger joint just opened up near the beach,” she says. “They have good milkshakes, apparently. You could use a break.” She winces, wiping her glasses off with her shirt. “We both could.”
The summer is shaping up to be a very frustrating one, indeed. The heat, of course, doesn’t help—when he drives from his apartment, he always has to crank the A/C to its highest. He could probably afford a better car, but he’s installed both a hand brake and a separate lever for the gas so it’s easier on his leg when he drives, and he doesn't want to do it all over again with a new car if his current one works perfectly fine. Besides, he’s trying to save money.
Still, the subpar A/C doesn’t help when he has to get back in the car after it sits in an uncovered lot all day. Even with a sunshade, it feels worse than working in the actual mines of Zaun.
So, yes. A burger and a milkshake sounds heavenly right now. He logs off and collects his things, reaching for his cane.
“I can drive,” he says, and Sky nods.
~
It’s so fucking humid. The A/C is still blasting when they pull up—Piltover Beach and Burgers, the fun, retro neon sign reads.
“There’s no seating,” Viktor says, surprised. He puts the car in park while they wait in the long driveway. Every car seems to be waiting their turn to pull up to one of the covered stalls in the parking lot, which is lined with palm trees. At the center of the lot is a small diner, and behind it, the beach.
Sky nods from the passenger seat, where she’s…putting on lip gloss? Viktor slides a curious glance at her. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s a drive-up restaurant.”
“I see,” Viktor says. Overhead, the sky is beginning to pink with dusk, the clouds heavy and full, golden and purple. That’s the one thing that Viktor actually, truly loves about this place: this close to the coast, the sky turns almost violent when the sun is low, like it's bursting with color.
They wait for about five minutes before they’re able to grab a spot, pulling up to one in the corner of the lot, where they still get a view of the beach. Viktor cuts his engine and rolls down his windows in an attempt to at least get some fresh sea air, salty and cool against his sweaty skin.
“What do you want?” Viktor asks, peering at the board that displays the menu.
“Whatever their basic burger is, and a cookie-dough milkshake, please,” Sky says.
Viktor decides to get the same except with the sweetmilk milkshake, which according to the sign, is their signature flavor. He pushes the button.
The voice who answers has an accent, refined and almost aristocratic. “Anything else I can get you?” she asks, once Viktor finishes relaying their orders.
“No, that will be all,” Viktor says.
“Fantastic,” she says. She gives him his total, then says, “Jayce will be with you shortly.” In the background, Viktor thinks he hears someone say Cupcake! Car at stall three needs ketchup, but then the mic cuts out.
Viktor sits back and closes his eyes for a moment, letting the breeze wash over him and the faint sounds of the waves slowly ease the knot of tension in his chest. Gods, he’s ready to go home after this and do absolutely nothing. Maybe he'll finish laundry, or try reading that new book he found at the used book store the other day.
The summer already seems endless, like a long, empty road ahead. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do to fill it.
He opens his eyes to watch the palm trees gently sway overhead, when, in his battered rearview mirror, he sees movement. A waitress is moving…quite quickly towards the car next to them. She’s moving far too fast for someone who doesn’t seem to be running—Viktor sits up a little and cranes his neck out of his open window.
It’s around then that Viktor realizes why Sky might have been putting on lip gloss, and why she might have suggested this place.
“Sky,” he says, staring as a waitress with bright pink hair, buzzed at the side, and a tank top that shows off a pair of strong arms that make Viktor question, in a brief moment of insanity, whether he really is gay. The reason for her speed becomes evident a moment later, as she moves back to the small building in the center of the lot—she is wearing roller skates, the kind with four wheels. Another woman joins her, with short, straw-colored hair in a bob.
In fact, the parking lot is full of people on roller skates. Very attractive people.
Viktor turns back around and raises an eyebrow at Sky, who is once again checking her lipgloss in the sunshade mirror. “Is there a reason we have come here for dinner, other than the burgers and milkshakes?”
Sky grins, snapping the sunshade up. “I have no idea what you mean, Viktor,” she says.
Viktor opens his mouth to retort when he's interrupted by polite knock on his car door.
“Hi!” says a voice.
Viktor turns. Looks up.
Nearly dies.
Because there is an actual angel hovering over him, now. The first thing Viktor notices is his smile, friendly and sweet, with an adorable little gap between his front teeth. Viktor’s eyes travel down, to his chest slick with sweat, to the sunglasses hanging off the low scoop of his crop top, to the happy trail of dark hair that starts at his navel and leads down, to the little pudge of his stomach spilling over jean shorts that are very short. Their length—or lack thereof—showcases strong, muscled legs, a dark leg brace, and finally, the same four-wheeled skates the other servers are wearing.
The first thing Viktor thinks is: I want to eat him.
The second thing Viktor thinks is: What the fuck?
He feels a bit dizzy. It must be the heat. It has to be. What the fuck? he thinks again.
“Two milkshakes?” says the angel. Viktor finds himself unable to speak.
“That’s us,” Sky says, popping up behind Viktor. She sounds very smug. “Are you Jayce?”
Jayce’s smile seems to grow, if possible, even brighter. “Yep!” he says. Viktor, despite all the blood rapidly disappearing from his head, manages to notice that he is, indeed, carrying a little tray that has two milkshakes on it. “I have one cookie dough milkshake and one sweetmilk milkshake?”
Viktor wrenches his brain back from whatever vacation it’s decided to go on and finds his voice. “Yes,” he says, and thank the fucking gods, his voice comes out semi-normal. “Yes, those are, eh. Ours.”
“Fantastic,” Jayce says, and maybe it was a mistake to speak after all, because then the force of that smile is focused entirely on Viktor. He leans over—Viktor nearly passes out when Jayce’s shirt scoops low enough to see the slight peaks of his nipples, the dark hair of his underarms peeking out just under his short sleeves—and says, still smiling, “Here ya go.”
Somehow, Viktor takes the milkshakes and passes Sky hers. “Thank you,” he says. It almost sounds like a question.
What the fuck, Viktor thinks once more, his brain leaking out of his ears. What the actual fuck.
“My pleasure,” Jayce says, and Viktor nearly fucking dies again, from hearing the word pleasure come out of Jayce’s mouth. There’s a slit in his left eyebrow. Viktor is completely fucked. “I’ll be back with your burgers when they’re ready!”
He skates away. Viktor cranes his head out of the open window, unable to help himself. Jayce’s jean shorts are very short, barely containing the swell of his ass and his generous thighs. His back is broad and strong, and so are his shoulders. He has two little dimples in his back, just above his waist. His calves look like they were sculpted by Janna herself.
Viktor turns back around to glare at Sky. She takes a slurp of her milkshake, her eyes wide and innocent.
“You did this,” Viktor says, accusing. “You knew.”
“You’re welcome,” Sky says, smiling around her straw.
“Sky,” he says.
“Viktor,” she says back. She laughs, delighted. “You were stressed out! I thought this might take the edge off.” She grins wickedly. “For both of us.”
For the second time that day, Viktor wants to bury his face in his hands. He takes a slurp of his milkshake instead. “Oh, I’m on the edge,” he mutters, sucking on the straw. It takes quite a bit of effort—the milkshake is very thick. By the time he actually tastes it, he feels breathless and sweaty and hot. Definitely the milkshake’s fault. “Who told you about this place?”
It’s Sky’s turn to blush. “Ah,” she says. “Well, you know how I joined that roller skating class a few weeks ago? To use our health and wellness stipend?”
Viktor eyes her suspiciously. “...Yes,” he says.
“Well…” she slurps her milkshake. “One of the instructors for artistic skating—she sponsors the whole league.” Another slurp of her milkshake. “She also, ah. Owns the restaurant. She says she sometimes works on Fridays, to help out. A lot of the derby girls work here, too.”
Viktor watches the woman with the violent pink hair make another pass around the lot, this time with an empty tray. She pulls up to a little window at the diner, where another woman with blue hair pulled up in a high ponytail, wearing a headset (she must’ve been the one who’d taken their order), takes it from her with a quick peck to her cheek. “I see,” he says. “What's her name?”
Sky pokes at her milkshake with her straw, like a chicken pecking at the ground. “Her name is Mel Medarda,” she says with a sigh. “And she’s way out of my league, but I… I don’t know. I think she might be interested?”
“What’s she look like?” Viktor says, watching the rearview mirror on Sky’s side.
“Oh, you know. Tall, dark, and beautiful,” Sky laments, still pecking.
“Ah,” Viktor says. He points to a woman with dark skin and twisted hair tied up with golden beads, now rolling their way. “Is that her?”
Sky swears. “Fuck—” she mutters, dabbing at her lips with her ring finger and putting her milkshake down. She tucks her hair behind her ear and turns around just as the woman reaches her window. “Mel, hi!” she says, in a voice Viktor has never heard her use before, all high and…fluttery.
Viktor smiles into his straw. So it seems he’s not the only one here for more than the milkshakes and burgers. And now he’s thinking about the angel—Jayce, his heat-addled mind supplies helpfully—again. Jayce, who is gorgeous, and has a smile that makes his eyes crinkle, and whose strong thighs would probably fit so nicely around Viktor's ears, and…
He tries very hard not to think about the shape of Jayce’s ass in those shorts.
“Sky,” Mel Medarda says. She’s wearing liquid golden eyeliner, a sleeveless top, and dangly earrings. She is, probably, the most beautiful woman Viktor has ever seen in his life.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” she says, like they’re in the middle of a gala and not a parking lot near the beach. She is also wearing roller skates, black leather with golden laces. “How are you finding everything?”
“Great!” Sky says. She pushes up her glasses on her nose. “We’re just waiting on our burgers. The milkshakes are great.”
Mel smiles at her warmly. “I am very glad to hear it,” she says. She leans down a little and puts her hand on the open window, smiling at them both. “Please just let us know if you need anything at all.”
“Yes, definitely,” Sky says, nodding enthusiastically. Mel smiles at her for a moment longer, then leaves, her hand pushing off the car gently.
They watch as she skates to the next stall, where a girl with long blue hair in twin braids is sitting with her feet up on the dashboard, while her friend (boyfriend?) fiddles with the radio in the driver’s seat. It seems she’s going around to all the cars, although she does not lean in their window the way she had done with Sky’s.
Viktor sits back, feeling a little bit better. Karma, and all that. “I see,” he says again.
“Oh, shut it,” Sky says with a groan, falling back into her seat.
“Are you interested in playing derby?” he asks, although admittedly, he is distracted now—he sees Jayce leave the building, now with a brown paper bag in his hand. He watches as he passes Mel, giving her a high-five. They speak for a brief moment, clearly familiar with one another. Viktor sighs again. He should not get his hopes up. Perhaps Sky shouldn’t, either.
“I don’t know yet,” Sky says. “It seems kind of intense.”
“Hm,” Viktor says. For a brief moment, his and Jayce’s eyes meet in the mirror, and Viktor swears Jayce winks—he looks away quickly. “I can imagine.”
Viktor grips his milkshake perhaps tighter than necessary when Jayce arrives once more at his window. He’s still smiling, that godsdamned gap in his teeth doing awful things to Viktor’s already fucked-up respiratory system. “Two burgers for you,” he says brightly, handing over the bag.
“Thank you,” Viktor says as he takes it, already resigning himself to finding a plausible excuse to come back next week. One that, hopefully, Sky won't give him shit for until the end of time.
But Jayce lingers—he steps back and scratches the back of his neck. His shirt is so short that Viktor can see the bottom curve of his pecs when he lifts his arm. His stomach is slick with sweat, muscle and fat moving as he lowers his arm.
Viktor swallows, his mouth very dry despite the sticky sweetness of the milkshake on his tongue. “Yes?” he manages.
“Um,” Jayce says, almost shy. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but…”
Please pry, Viktor thinks.
Jayce gestures, a little sheepish, to the parking pass hanging from Viktor’s rearview mirror. “Do you go to the Academy?”
Hope rekindles in Viktor’s chest. He tamps it down. “I do,” he says. He wills his voice and face to remain normal. He thinks he almost manages it. “I begin my masters program there this fall.”
Jayce’s face lights up. “Really?” he asks, skating a little closer. “Me too! What are you studying?”
Which—oh. Oh. “Biomedical engineering,” Viktor says. “And…you?”
Jayce grins. “What a coincidence; also engineering. Electrical, though.”
Viktor tries very hard not to swoon; beside him, Sky whistles, low. The electrical engineering program at the Academy is notoriously difficult. Jayce must be a fucking genius.
Viktor finds himself leaning forward as well, now. “Are you also taking some software classes this semester?”
Jayce groans. “Yeah, they’re required, right?”
Viktor nods. “Unfortunately.”
Jayce laughs, a high, lovely sound that Viktor wants to bottle up and keep forever. “Right? I’m more of a hardware guy myself.”
Viktor lets himself look Jayce up and down, making the motion obvious. “I can tell,” he says.
Jayce blinks, two high spots of red beginning to bloom on his cheeks. Oh, Viktor is monumentally fucked. Jayce laughs softly and thumbs at a leather bracelet at his wrist, rolling back and forth on his skates with little hip motions that Viktor thinks should be illegal. “Yeah, the skates. I, uh, referee for the girls’ derby games,” he says. He glances at Viktor, then a little past him at Sky. “Would you guys, uh. Wanna come to a game sometime?”
“We would love that,” Sky says. Viktor can hear the smile in her voice.
Viktor nods, not breaking eye contact with Jayce when Jayce's gaze returns to him. “I would be very interested.” A beat. “In going to a game,” he adds, and wishes for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
But Jayce’s blush only grows a little deeper, rosier. “Great!” he says. “Well, I’ll—” he makes an aborted motion at Viktor’s lap, where the paper bag sits, warm and probably leaving grease stains on Viktor’s pants. At least, Viktor hopes those are grease stains. He is so fucked. “I’ll let you two get to your meal. Just hit the call button if you need anything.”
“We will,” Viktor says. Despite his attempts to not get his hopes up, it sounds very much like a promise.
With a quick nod, that adorable flush still on his face, Jayce skates away.
Thankfully, Sky has the restraint to at least wait until he’s out of earshot before turning to Viktor.
“Oh my fucking gods,” she says.
“Sky,” Viktor says, passing her her burger so he doesn’t have to look at her. “Please don’t—”
“He is so into you!” Sky says. “He’s so fucking cute, and he’s smart? Viktor.” She grins at him. “Snatch that boy up.”
Viktor thinks that she is, perhaps, correct. Still, he is stubborn; he needs more proof than a few blushes and one brief conversation. “He might have just been friendly,” he says, trying not to let the traitorous hope he feels blooming in his chest rise to the surface.
“Right,” Sky says, fishing out something from the bag. “Friendly. Definitely. So friendly he left his number on the receipt.”
Viktor whips his head around. “He what?”
Sky waves it in front of him, the sound of paper crinkling. “I don’t know, maybe you’re right,” she teases. “Maybe he gives his number to every customer.”
“Give me that, please,” Viktor says. He is not above lunging for it.
Sky only smiles and, after some playful wagging, hands it over.
Viktor smooths out the receipt as carefully as he can, ignoring the grease stains. And indeed, at the bottom, just beneath their total—a phone number, written in a slightly messy script. Beneath the number is a name, written almost like a signature—Jayce Talis.
“So it is,” Viktor says, his voice coming out a bit strangled. He looks back to the diner, but the window where the blue-haired woman had been is now closed, and he can’t make out anything inside.
Heart pounding, he carefully folds the receipt and puts it on his dashboard. Wouldn’t want to get ketchup on it.
He and Sky finish their burgers and milkshakes in companionable silence. Eventually, the overhead lights blink on all around them, washing the lot in a pale yellow as customers come and go. They hear music from radios cut off by car doors opening and shutting, cars engines starting and stopping, people chattering and laughing. All set against the gentle sounds of the waves on the beach, the palm trees rustling overhead.
Viktor keeps his ears perked for a specific voice—he hears other customers chattering and need anything else’s? drifting over as the occasional server rolls out to deliver food, but none of them, sadly, are Jayce.
“Well,” Viktor says, once they’ve finished eating. He tries not to feel disappointed; he already has Jayce’s number, after all. He shouldn’t be greedy. “I suppose we should head out.”
Sky nods. “Yeah.”
With another sigh—good gods, he’s turning into his late mother—Viktor starts the car. He’s just beginning to roll up his windows when he hears—
“Wait!”
They look up.
Jayce is running over, his skates thrown over one broad shoulder. He’s still wearing those infernal shorts and crop top, and he’s still ridiculously tall, even without the added height of his skates.
“Heading out?” he asks, coming to a stop just by Viktor’s window, bending down a little to meet his eye.
Viktor can’t help the smile that spreads on his face. “Yes, we are.”
“How was it?” Jayce asks. He’s kind of shuffling from foot to foot; if Viktor were feeling generous, he’d say Jayce looks a little nervous.
Adorable, Viktor thinks.
“Delicious,” Viktor says.
Jayce immediately relaxes, that gap-toothed smile returning. “Good,” he says. “Think, uh. Think you’ll be back?”
Okay, Viktor concedes. Sky is right. It's not all in his head after all.
He finds that he does not mind one bit.
“That depends,” Viktor says, smiling back. “Will you be here?”
There it is—that pretty flush, the little duck of his head. “I, uh—” Jayce scratches his cheek. Oh, Viktor wants to eat him alive. “Yeah, I’ll be here all summer,” he says. He ducks down a little, smiling. “Need a little extra money for my grad program.”
“Our graduate program, no?” Viktor says. He feels almost giddy with it—more than anything, he wants to talk with Jayce. See what kind of beautiful brain is ticking behind that pretty face. See what face he’d make if Viktor puts his mouth on—
Viktor clears his throat, wrenches his brain away from his dick. To his disappointment, Jayce leans back a little, the moment broken. “I’m sure we'll have many of the same classes,” Viktor says.
“Yeah!” Jayce says. He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Yeah. Hey, listen, sorry, I uh, I came out here again because—” He glances away from Viktor’s face; Viktor sees him spot the receipt, placed carefully on the dashboard. He smiles again, and Viktor has the pleasure of watching it slowly spread up to his eyes. He looks back at Viktor, still a little shy, but more confident now. Pleased.
“I don’t even know your name,” he says.
Viktor crooks his finger, beckoning. Jayce leans down on Viktor’s side almost immediately, his arms folded over the open window, his head low. Viktor can smell him, like clean sweat and sunscreen and something else, something Viktor thinks might be solely Jayce.
“It’s Viktor,” he says, softly. He feels Jayce’s stuttered breath against his face, watches his eyes blow wide.
“Viktor,” Jayce breathes back.
“Mm-hm,” Viktor says, biting back a smile. He leans away and reaches for the joystick, trying very hard to not accidentally put the car in drive instead of reverse. It would kind of ruin the mood, if he drove both him and Sky into the sea right now.
Jayce leans away as well and stands, one hand rubbing his bicep. “It’s nice to meet you, Viktor.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Jayce,” Viktor says, meaning it more than he’s meant anything in his life. “I’ll call you, yes?”
Jayce grins at him, beautiful. “Yeah,” he says, stepping back to give Viktor space as he backs out. “Yeah, that sounds great, Viktor.” Around them, the cicadas are starting to buzz; Viktor feels the wind on his face, sees Jayce’s smile in the last rays of dusk.
“Goodbye for now, Jayce,” Viktor says. He rolls up his window and drives away, watching from his rearview mirror as Jayce does a little fist pump in the shadowed parking lot, giddy. The girl with the pink hair steps out a moment later, rolling towards him very fast. She punches his shoulder, saying something to him that has him palming her away with a laugh.
Viktor turns out onto the road that parallels the beach, and they disappear from view. For now. Sky turns on the radio, and Viktor can’t help but hum along with her.
The night is warm and young. As he drives, the whole world seems to become a little brighter, a little lighter, than it was before.
Viktor eyes the receipt, still tucked up on the dash, and smiles.
Perhaps this summer will not be so bad, after all.
~
(On the road home…
“Ah! How much do I owe you?”
“No need, Miss Young.” Viktor smiles at the road, taps his fingers on the wheel. “Your debt has been repaid in full.”
Sky just chucks a fry at him.)