Chapter Text
Jayce’s laughter shook his whole body, aching in his face and his sides, and it took longer to die down than he intended, or could really control. The tears were a surprise too, and he scrubbed them from his face with the heel of his hand. His nerves were so frazzled he could feel it in little electric shocks of adrenaline that raced along his skin. Exhaustion was a dull knife blade pressing down on his brain, but the jitter of nerves inside him pushed back against it, like he was an engine threatening to shake itself apart.
Between the two, he couldn’t tell if his body or mind would give out first under the strain and when it did, if it was going to be an explosion or a collapse. The thought just made him laugh harder.
“Jayce, are you… alright?” Viktor said cautiously.
“No,” Jayce giggled. “No, I’m not.” He forced his face to settle into a neutral expression, but for some reason it wouldn’t obey. His lips kept trembling. He tried clearing his throat instead, which seemed to help. A little. “Hrm. Sorry, just… What the hell kind of question was that?”
“An honest one, I’d like to think,” Viktor said. His golden eyes searched Jayce’s face.
“My god…” Jayce said with another wheezing laugh. But he was almost too exhausted to even be embarrassed anymore, so… “Sure, why not? No, Viktor, I haven’t been doing much of that lately, either.”
Hard to settle back and enjoy when all I can see is you, Jayce thought and would never, ever say, even under threat of torture. It didn’t help that whenever his thoughts crept that way, he was hit either with a sickening wave of guilt to be imagining his best friend like that, or if he was trying to take his mind off the upcoming competition, seeing Viktor in his mind’s eye just reminded him once again of how much was at stake if they failed. “With everything that’s been going on? It hasn’t exactly been a priority.”
But Viktor wasn’t laughing. He hadn’t even cracked a smile. Actually, he looked even more concerned than ever and said solemnly, “That isn’t healthy, Jayce.”
“Yeah, because everything I’ve been doing lately really screams ‘healthy choices’.” Jayce sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face to brush away the last traces of hysterical tears and the ache in his cheeks. “Well, what about you? Or do I not get to ask that?”
“You may ask,” Viktor said placidly. “And of course I do, regularly. I’m a young man as well, after all, not a machine.”
Jayce wished he had a smart retort for that. But at the image of Viktor here, alone in this bed, reaching below the blankets to take himself in hand, his face contorting with mounting ecstasy, the blush that had set Jayce’s whole body on fire pulsed in his veins. His breath stuttered and he had to force himself to inhale, which only sucked in a lungful of Viktor’s scent everywhere around him.
What do you think of when you do? He wanted to ask, desperately. But he knew he was a terrible liar, and if Viktor turned the question back on him, he wouldn’t be able to keep the answer from his face.
“…And I believe it is worth a try,” Viktor added.
Jayce froze. His head shot up. “What?”
Viktor shrugged. “Self-pleasure matches all of the criteria we have set for you, does it not? It is a natural, physical form of release that is not overly time consuming. Better still, it is known to have soporific effects in men. If you have not been indulging lately, as you say, then it could very well be exactly what your body has been missing.”
A part of Jayce wondered if he had died and this was some sort of hell. It felt like hell, at least the heat of his blush did, scorching his entire body. He actually felt a bit dizzy with how quickly that pure, distilled mortification shot through him.
Even worse, it was Viktor saying all of this, so there was still a part of Jayce that was blushing for an entirely different reason and, in his dazed state, he could only hope that the ground would swallow him whole before anything on his face gave it away.
“Are you saying…?” Jayce choked. “Tell me you’re not saying…”
“Need I remind you, Jayce, that we are running out of options and time,” Viktor said pointedly. “It is entirely your decision, of course. And, if you truly wish to dismiss the option, fine. You need only say so, and I will never mention it again. No pressure.”
That sounds like pressure, Jayce thought hysterically, remembering the last time Viktor had told him no pressure. That night over a year ago now when they had first proven Hextech was possible, with booted feet crashing against the door, and banishment or brilliance waiting, depending on whether or not they could provide proof not even in a matter of minutes, but in seconds. The feeling of floating after, both inside and out, as magic coursed through the air at their command, with Viktor weightless in the air across from him, laughing, unfettered by gravity, by his leg, held aloft by the wonder they had created together. When all the world had reduced down to just the two of them, submerged in the electric blue of their dreams.
Jayce knew the exact moment he had fallen in love with Viktor, when Viktor had given Jayce his bracelet and his name. But later that same night, floating in the air across from him, Jayce had known for certain who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, no matter what that looked like. Whatever it took to have Viktor always beside him, he would do it, even if it meant Jayce never got the chance to touch him the way he wanted. None of that mattered, as long as Viktor was happy.
But this… this wouldn’t have to mean touch.
“I thought…” Jayce swallowed, “...you were the one who was supposed to make the decisions tonight?”
He was graced with the sight of Viktor freezing, of Viktor being the one who looked uncertain.
Only for the triumph of that moment to vanish instantly when Jayce realized what he had said.
“I–I mean, that’s… that’s not what I…” Jayce stuttered.
But Viktor held up a hand, silencing him.
“No, you are right, Jayce,” Viktor said slowly. He straightened his spine a little and lifted his chin. “It is my decision.”
Jayce sucked in a breath, frozen by the look Viktor pinned him with. That thoughtful, intent look that even in the lab made him feel hot all over, and that was when it was focused on a prototype. Now it was focused on him. His heartbeat quickened and part of him still screamed that he needed to stop, laugh it off, pretend that isn’t what you meant, but under the focus of Viktor’s gaze, all of Jayce’s nerves from the days of overwork and exhaustion seemed to fade and go quiet.
He wanted. Wanted whatever Viktor chose to do next. Wanted whatever that looked like. And he was too tired to fight it anymore.
“Lie back on the bed, Jayce,” Viktor said quietly.
Jayce nodded and moved as if hypnotized, his eyes never leaving Viktor. His heart still thundered in his ears, but once he was lying flat, his breathing gradually slowed into deep, even breaths.
“Do you want me to just…” Words failed Jayce and his eyes darted to the lamp flooding the room with its light, and back to Viktor. “Now, like this?”
“Is there something that would make you more comfortable?” Viktor said, tilting his head to the side.
“It’s… uh, a bit bright in here, don’t you think?” Jayce said weakly, nodding beyond him to the lamp.
Without taking his eyes off Jayce, Viktor reached over and switched off the lamp.
The room plunged into darkness. The distant street lamps below offered a faint outline of Viktor, of the glint of his eyes, and little more. Suddenly, it was easier to breathe, with no prickle of unease at the thought of unfriendly eyes on him, or of judgmental whispers. As if turning out the lights had shut out the world, so it was only him and Viktor left.
“...It occurs to me that my presence may also be a source of discomfort for you,” Viktor said, a thread of uncertainty winding through his words. “Would you rather I remove myself until you are finished?”
Jayce hesitated, lips parted, the words on the tip of his tongue, but not sure himself what the right answer would be.
The easy answer was just to say yes. He could take Viktor’s suggestion at face value, try to relax and take care of himself, then see if that helped him sleep. He doubted it would, but at this point he was just about desperate enough to try and hope the crippling embarrassment of doing so in his friend’s bed would be overcome by the release. Being surrounded by Viktor’s scent as he was, he had no doubt about where his mind would wander.
Or… he could say no.
Jayce’s pulse began to pound faster again, wondering which was the right answer, how Viktor would react if Jayce boldly asked him to stay, how badly things could go wrong if he did. But was he a coward if he just said yes? If it meant preserving their partnership, he would do it in heartbeat and then they could both just forget any of this had ever happened tomorrow.
But could he ever forgive himself for giving up the chance to know, to really know if this was something Viktor could ever want? And what did Viktor want? Was he being polite by asking? Did he want to stay? Should Jayce say yes, or no, or…
Just thinking about all the questions involved made his heart hurt. And there, Jayce realized, was his answer.
Jayce wetted his lips, took a deep breath, and said, “That sounds like a decision.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then, a soft huff of amusement.
“So it is,” Viktor acknowledged. “Very well, then. Let us proceed.”
The simple, clinical way Viktor spoke, as if Jayce was another faulty prototype they would solve together, probably shouldn’t have sent a bolt of need through Jayce so sharp it took his breath away. Then again, hearing Viktor talk like that in the lab about a prototype probably shouldn’t have either. So perhaps Jayce needed to acknowledge to himself that he was just hopelessly broken in this way, and maybe never wanted to change.
“Alright. Yeah, just… tell me what to do,” Jayce said. He tried to keep his tone light but it was hard when the words felt so heavy, so… real.
“Hmm. Let us start with the basics, then,” Viktor said and his tone was light enough as well for Jayce to relax a little more. He didn’t sound offended or put off by any of this. Instead, he sounded like it was just another day in the lab. Somehow that made all of this easier. Familiar. “Why don’t you begin by undressing?”
Jayce nodded, not sure if Viktor saw it in the darkness, but the sound of shifting blankets was probably a giveaway that he’d obeyed when he pushed them aside. Then with a slow breath out, he skated his fingertips down his stomach, only to pause at the top of the soft sleep trousers Viktor had lent him for bed.
There was a bridge, here. One that might be impossible to come back from. But it was Viktor’s decision to make, not his. So Jayce hooked his thumb into the waist of the pajamas and tugged them down his thighs, exposing himself to the cool air of the bedroom. He hesitated, waiting for some protest from Viktor. When there was none, he then kicked them off the rest of the way, before balling up the trousers and setting them aside next to him on the mattress.
In the faint glow from streets far below, he saw the outline of his own body, the muscle from working the forges, the trail of dark hairs leading from his navel to his already stirring cock. He swallowed and hoped it was too dim for Viktor to see that he was already half hard.
His partner remained mercifully silent on that front. But he did hear a sound from Viktor, so soft it might have been his imagination: a sharp exhale.
Just the sound of it… the thought that, maybe, Viktor was watching him now and liked what he saw, and that he’d made the same soft sound that he did when they made a breakthrough, sent such a punch of raw, dizzying lust through him that Jayce squeezed his eyes shut and put a hand over his cock to hide his reaction. In seconds, he was so hard it ached, with that breath ringing in his ears.
“Wh-What now? What should I do?” Jayce rasped. He opened his eyes and looked over at Viktor. His vision was beginning to adjust to the darkness. He could make out a little more of Viktor's expression, intensely focused upon Jayce. At the sight, his cock twitched under his palm and he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“First, take yourself in hand,” Viktor said with calm, soothing authority that sent a shiver through Jayce. But he did as he was told, wrapping his fingers loosely around his length and giving it an experimental stroke, fingertips tracing along the top.
“That’s it. We will start gently, slowly,” Viktor continued, his voice soft, hypnotic. “There is no need to rush.”
Jayce gave a tight nod and began to move his hand, just letting the sensation build. It had been a while since he'd let himself to settle into this sort of pleasure. He closed his eyes and turned his head into the pillow, towards Viktor. This time, he deliberately sucked in a lungful of Viktor’s scent from the pillow, and this time, the scent was soothing, calming, like a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
There was still a brief, but distant pang of guilt that tasted like copper at the back of his throat. Of shame welling up inside that he would use thoughts of his friend this way, build himself up towards climax with Viktor’s name on his lips and his scent in his mouth. But now, he could step free of that guilt, watch it flow around him as nothing more than a wave lapping past his ankles, no longer powerful enough to sweep him under. Viktor was here beside him. This, all of this, was Viktor’s idea, and no matter what happened after, they would be alright.
Jayce’s brow drew together as the slow, gentle rocking of his hand over his length began to build, sending jolts of pleasure through his muscles and along his skin. His heartbeat began to speed up and he could feel himself growing more sensitive. His lips parted as he began to breathe faster, his hips to move to push forward into his own tightening grip. And in his mind’s eye he imagined it wasn’t his own hand, broad and marked with the silver of old burn scars. What if instead there were pale, elegant fingers wrapped around him, a musician’s hand, Viktor’s hand?
Jayce’s pulse leapt and he bit his lip, tossing his head back and speeding his pace. The image combined with the smell of Viktor, the sound of his voice in his ears, was devastating. He clenched his muscles desperately to hold himself back, to let the pleasure build until it drowned him.
“I-I need…” Jayce whispered, then his breath hissed through his teeth at another surge, the point of no return already hurtling towards him. He could hear Viktor’s breathing now too. It was faster than before, harder, and it wasn’t just his imagination. He felt the shift in the bed as Viktor leaned forward, inching closer.
“What is it, Jayce?” Viktor’s voice was low and intent, sending fresh shockwaves of heat through his veins, wave after wave. “What do you need?”
“Touch me, please,” Jayce moaned. Viktor’s voice was in his ear, his scent all around him, his own hand flying up and down his length, and he was so close. “Anywhere. I don’t care. You decide.”
He knew it was too much to ask but he didn’t care about that anymore, either. He couldn’t. It was Viktor’s decision now. Whether or not he did it at all was out of Jayce’s hands. But if he did, god, if he did…
There was a fond huff of amusement in his ear. “Is that all?”
“It’s everything,” Jayce panted. “It’s all I want. Please.”
“Very well,” Viktor said and Jayce jolted as a brush of fingertips ghosted along his left arm, cooler than his own skin, which was scorched by the heat coursing through his body. Viktor's fingertips traced their way up to his left shoulder, along the lines of muscle cut there by long hours in the forges, then down his clavicle to his chest, where Viktor lay his palm flat above Jayce’s heart, as if measuring his heartbeat.
A shudder raced down Jayce’s spine, arching his back. He opened his eyes and turned his head to gaze desperately up at Viktor, who leaned in closer.
“You are so sensitive,” Viktor murmured half to himself. “Out here, but also in here.” He tapped his fingertips over Jayce’s heart. “I never would have guessed that from looking at you. Perhaps that is why so few people seem to know.”
“Viktor, please,” Jayce gasped. He couldn’t hold on much longer. His heart was threatening to pound out of his chest. His vision grew hazy.
“Don’t worry, Jayce,” Viktor said. “I will see you through this.”
Viktor’s palm smoothed its way over Jayce’s chest, to his throat, and up to cup his jaw. There, Viktor’s thumb traced back and forth over Jayce’s cheek and through the haze, Jayce could see Viktor was studying him, and there was something wistful in his expression.
“You need not hold back any longer.” Viktor leaned closer to look him directly in the eye, and said gently, “Let go.”
Jayce’s breath hitched at Viktor so close, at finally feeling his touch on his bare skin, at having all of that focus entirely on Jayce, just Jayce, and then his whole body seized. He squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth dropped open, overwhelmed. The last thought in his head was more reflex as he grabbed the bunched up pajamas to hold over himself, and then he was coming. His back arched and jaw clenched as every muscle in his body tensed, and then his mind… his mind went blissfully blank. Suddenly there was nothing except for waves upon waves of euphoria crashing through his muscles and nerves, curling his toes.
Then, he was floating. And just like that night awash in electric blue, Viktor was across from him, where he belonged, where Jayce always wished that he could be. And on the heels of that bliss, he felt exhaustion, peace, building up behind it in a wave that would finally pull him under.
“I should…” Jayce slurred. He scrubbed the pajama pants listlessly over himself to clean up the mess, only to realize what he was doing with Viktor’s clothes. He froze.
Viktor chuckled. “Don’t worry, I will take care of it. Besides, I imagine you sleep better naked in any case, hmm?”
Jayce blinked, and his brow furrowed. Thoughts were growing harder to string together. He might have already been half asleep. “How did you…?”
“Conjecture. You hesitated, earlier, when I asked if you wanted clothes for bed, and I know for a fact that your body runs hot.” The corner of Viktor’s lips quirked up and he nodded his head from side to side as if weighing an equation in his mind. “It is… noticeable, even in the lab.”
“You don’t mind?” Jayce murmured. His eyelids were heavy, his whole body felt heavy, and the bed was so soft it felt like he was sinking down into a cloud.
“I think you will find that I am not so easily offended,” Viktor whispered. “But now, I think it is time for you to sleep.”
Jayce mumbled an incoherent affirmative, and rolled over on his side. He vaguely felt the bed shifting as Viktor moved, the pajamas being taken away, the sheets being pulled up over him without the weight of all the other blankets on top. It was all very distant, though, as his mind drifted and finally went quiet.
There was birdsong outside the window when Jayce slowly stirred and opened his eyes. He squinted and raised a hand to shade his eyes against the light. With a wince, he rolled over and burrowed his face into the pillow, in the hopes of getting a few more minutes of sleep before his alarm rang.
Except it was not his pillow.
At this point, Jayce realized several things at once:
That this was not his bed.
That this was Viktor’s bed.
That he suddenly remembered everything that had happened the night before.
And just how high the sun was in the sky.
The last realization had Jayce rocketing upright in bed, staring in horror out the window. Then he was moving, dragging the sheets off his body, stumbling to his feet, and only realizing once he was there that he was completely naked.
His blush was scorching and instantaneous. Thank god the door was closed, because for a moment he could only stand there stock-still looking down at himself, aghast. Then he was off again, scrambling to find wherever his clothes had gone.
After tearing through the room, Jayce finally found his clothes hanging up in the closet, set a little aside from Viktor’s matching uniforms. He had probably never dressed so quickly in his life, hopping on one foot to pull on his socks one by one, and then his trousers, tying his tie from muscle memory rather than bothering to find a mirror, and scraping his hair back with his fingers before plunging out the door into the sitting area.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep that long. I don’t know what…” Jayce drew up short.
Viktor was sitting at the kitchen table, placidly drinking from a cup of tea. There was a pile gears in front of him and two sets of clippers, one resting beside his hand.
“Good morning, Jayce,” Viktor said pleasantly. He set his teacup aside on the saucer and gestured to the seat beside him. “Sit. Now that you are awake, I will make something for us to eat.”
“Umm,” Jayce said intelligently. “You don’t… mind?”
“Of course not,” Viktor said. He pushed himself back and rose to his feet, bracing himself with the back of his chair before taking up his cane from where it leaned against the side of the table. “After all the trouble we went through last night, I was hardly going to wake you at dawn. I asked one of my former students to go to the lab and fetch the gears for us. You can continue working on those while I cook.”
“Breakfast?” Jayce said, more than a little dazed. Still, he took a seat at the table as ordered and his hand automatically found the spare set of clippers. He picked up a gear and set to work, clipping even notches out of the metal by muscle memory, with the swiftness and ease of a good night’s sleep behind him. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea before we head back, huh?”
“It… is closer to lunch, at this point,” Viktor admitted.
Jayce winced. “Viktor, you have no idea how sorry I am. If you had just woken me up, I…”
“We will be fine, Jayce,” Viktor said and after a moment of eying the cabinets and the ice box, began to pull out bread, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes for what looked like a pair of sandwiches. “Besides, I made a few rough calculations of the work remaining for us, and determined that allowing you to recover fully was a better use of our time than trying to squeeze out a few more hours of productivity here and there.”
Jayce nodded solemnly and a little shame-faced. “Thanks. I... think I needed it.”
Viktor gave a wordless hum of agreement and turned back to the counter to begin assembling the sandwiches.
Jayce finished a gear and picked up the next, then hesitated. He set it aside and wet his lips, staring down at his hands on the table. “About last night…”
There was a clatter from Viktor setting the bread knife back down on the counter. “Yes?”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s alright, but I guess I just wanted to know…” Jayce closed his eyes and steeled himself. “What are we, after that?”
There was a pause and then the sound of steps approaching. Jayce braced himself, feeling sick to even have to ask, and worse the longer the seconds stretched.
Until he felt Viktor’s hand settle on his shoulder.
Jayce blew out a slow breath and looked up to meet Viktor’s eyes.
“I thought you already knew?” Viktor said. “We’re partners.”
Jayce snorted and gave Viktor a wry look. “Do ‘partners’ usually do… that?”
“I think we are the ones who get to decide what it means, hmm?” Viktor said, squeezing Jayce’s shoulder.
“I suppose you’re right.” His gaze dropped from Viktor’s face down his arm to where his hand rested on Jayce’s shoulder. “I like it when you do that, you know. Touch me, I mean. In case that wasn’t obvious, after last night,” he added with a self-conscious chuckle. “I, um, hope you don’t mind when I touch you? If you do, I can try to be more careful.”
“It’s true that when we first met I was not… accustomed to such easy familiarity,” Viktor admitted. “And that it took a little, hmm, ‘getting used to’? But you may touch me whenever you wish, Jayce.”
A smile of relief broke across Jayce’s face and he reached up to wrap his hand over Viktor’s where it sat on his shoulder. “That’s good. I know I’ve been terrible at stopping myself up until now. I’ve been so worried that I made you un—”
“Uncomfortable, yes,” Viktor said. “I think you can put that fear to rest. Many things have made me uncomfortable in my life, Jayce, but you have never been one of them.”
Jayce’s brow drew together and he looked at Viktor in surprise. Viktor offered him a faint smile and squeezed his shoulder one more time before releasing it.
“Once we have eaten, and finished those gears, I think we should return to the lab, hmm?” Viktor said over his shoulder as he returned to the counter. “There are some notes I would like to go over with you. And, Jayce?”
Jayce startled, and realized he’d just been gazing after Viktor, wearing a silly grin on his face, which he quickly straightened. “Um, yes?”
“I am not much of a fan of wine bars, or coffee shops,” Viktor said. He turned back to the countertop and began assembling the sandwiches “Still too crowded and noisy for my liking. But, after the competition, perhaps you would like to join me here to celebrate? It occurs to me that we might both be more effective in the lab if you spent your nights here, from time to time.”
Jayce stared at him, speechless and overcome, before stammering out, “Yeah. Yeah, I’d love that.” Jayce looked down, chuckling ruefully at himself, at how transparent he must be. Then he lifted his head and pointed his gear clippers at Viktor. “But no celebrating yet, ok? We still have to win this thing first.”
“Naturally,” Viktor said dryly and they both returned to their work.
By some miracle, they managed to assemble a working prototype of the Hexgates in time for the Distinguished Innovators competition, even if Jayce was still frantically notching the last gears in the carriage ride over.
And, true to his word, Viktor did an admirable job of holding them both together until the day of the competition. Right up until the moment they were mounting the stairs to the building, when the realization of where they were seemed to hit Viktor all at once. He very suddenly turned a ghastly shade of green and rushed over to the stairway railing to throw up in the bushes.
But somehow, they made it through the day and the prototype worked without exploding or taking anyone’s eye out with a loose cog. They even managed to take home the prize, and soon their lab’s mailbox would be filling up with letters from curious merchants and probing councilors, eager to invest in this latest technology of Hextech.
The night after the competition, they went back to Viktor’s apartment to celebrate.
And, for a little while longer, everything made sense.