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Three weeks after Jayce's trial, they had a patent. Jayce insisted Viktor’s name be added.
Two weeks and six days after the trial, the night before the document was finalized, Jayce discovered that Viktor didn't have a last name. He'd seemed concerned about that, but Viktor had dismissed it with a shrug and a small, kind smile.
Jayce was filled with overbearing, boisterous kindness, and Vitkor found himself trying to repay it.
Three weeks after the trial, a patent for Hextech was issued to ‘Viktor and Jayce Talis.’
Jayce had asked, two weeks and six days in, if Viktor wanted to review the information before submitting it to the Council. He'd said no, that he trusted Jayce to do everything competently.
Had he actually reviewed it, he would have convinced the man to switch their names, would have explained to him how it would look for Viktor's name to not only be first, but succeeded by Jayce's family name when Viktor was not his… well.
But the forms were submitted and Hextech was patented to ‘Viktor and Jayce Talis’.
Five weeks after the trial, Viktor learned that Jayce preferred bourbon over beer. He liked mixed drinks while Viktor drank straight from the bottle. He also learned that Jayce became almost comically clumsy when he was drunk while hoping Jayce hadn't noticed that Viktor became embarrassingly giggly when he was drunk.
Surely the warm look on Jayce's face was due to the celebratory opening of their very own lab. Surely the flush in his cheeks was from the mulberry bourbon.
Five weeks and twelve hours after the trial, Jayce and Viktor introduced the hungover versions of themselves to each other, exchanged polite nods, and picked out which desk they wanted.
Jayce took the one by the window. Viktor would occasionally ask him to close the blind when the days got especially bright and the sun hit his own desk by the door.
Two months after the trial, Jayce came into the lab wearing a grin so big Viktor immediately began to mirror it, however reluctantly.
“What?” he'd asked, and Jayce had said, “So, I've been thinking,” and it all fell into place. Their excitement -- their chaos -- fit within the walls of the lab almost as perfectly as Jayce fit leaning over his desk to scrawl notes on a sheet of paper while Viktor reached under his arms for a notebook.
Two months and twenty days after the trial, they'd figured out how to control the crystal's ability to transit objects from one place to another. Hypothetically.
That was the problem.
It was a four-month problem.
Six months after the trial, they had built a prototype for as many months as the project had been going. Three sat in a corner of the lab they'd begun informally calling ‘the graveyard’ in various stages of decay as they were stripped for parts. One sat in the center of the lab, still breathing and bridging the gap between their desks. Now, six months after the trial, Jayce's was covered in parts, papers, and old, stained mugs while Viktor’s housed most of their notebooks and blueprints. There were always two chairs at each of the desks even when one chair was empty. Usually it wasn’t. Usually it was one of the desks that was empty instead.
The lines between them blurred, but like everything, Jayce and Viktor fell into place; Jayce passing Viktor a tool before he asked for it, Viktor finishing one of Jayce’s equations, and the casual way they shared desks. The one by the window was still Jayce’s, but Viktor had a seat at it as much as Jayce had a seat at his.
In those four months, the prototype had evolved from a single tower to two structures with a middle point that would act as a conduit for energy. And there was a lot of energy. Viktor had wondered aloud, after their first test run, if the Council could revoke their patent for blowing up one of the Academy labs. Jayce had replied that he was more worried the Council could take the whole lab away before they even got a chance to blow it up.
They came to an agreement that they’d avoid both possibilities by not blowing the lab up at all.
This was easier said than done.
The crystals were powerful. Concerns about the frame catching fire were voiced exactly two days before the frame did, in fact, catch fire. A coolant system was added, but even then the machine ran hot. Summer months clogged the air in the lab, mingled with the heat of magic and innovation, and created an atmosphere that had both of them stripping down to their undershirts. But, summer months dripped away into fall, and fall into winter -- and one, two, three prototypes were laid to rest while predecessors took their place.
Jayce occasionally grew frustrated. Viktor’s confidence in them remained unshaken. This proved to be a good combination, and Jayce was never allowed to wallow too deeply before Viktor pulled him back into their work.
Things progressed, then fell apart, then progressed again, and it marked the passage of time until one day they experimented with a new pattern of runes and, though the machine grew hot like usual, the air in the room remained cool. Outside, the sky was a murky gray. These days, Viktor rarely asked Jayce to close the shade over the window.
Six months after the trial, it snowed.
Six months and three days after the trial, it was still snowing.
Piltover hadn’t gotten this much in years, and it was the topic of most discussion. Classes were postponed at the Academy. Children and adults alike ventured out into the streets and parks to enjoy the three feet of fresh powder. Even Heimerdinger dusted off his snowshoes to join the festivities, but the two scientists remained locked away in their lab. All the snow gave the impression that they’d been buried.
Such weather had never boded well for Viktor. His leg did not agree with the extra effort walking through high snow required, and any fun he could possibly have would be offset by the pain in his leg, his hips, up his spine. His joints ached in the cold and if he slipped, the likelihood of it landing him on bedrest was high.
The trollies had closed down as soon as the snow started laying, and when that happened, Viktor had trudged through it from his apartment to the lab with a small bag of essentials. If he was going to get stuck anywhere, he’d be damned if it was at home where there was nothing to do.
When he arrived at the lab, he’d been surprised to find Jayce there, donning a thick sweater, snow melting in his hair.
“I wanted to get some work done,” he’d said, but he’d also brought a bag with him, and an unspoken, “I didn’t want to be at home for this” passed between them.
Four days after the snow had started, they were still in the lab, though the sun was bright and the trollies were running again, so they could no longer say they were snowed in. But, four days after the snow had started, they were still in the lab, and Viktor was trying to determine if that was why Jayce was in such a tense mood.
He’d been Jayce's partner for six months and, though there was much Viktor didn't know about him, they'd spent almost every day of those six months in the same room. The man hadn’t snapped at him once. Not when the first transitory prototype failed, and not when the third one did, either. Not when he was having an obviously frustrating day. Not when he’d been hit with a migraine halfway through their calculations. Not ever.
He would sigh, or complain, or sometimes even rant, but never once had any of it been directed at Viktor. It was only ever, “Thank you for listening,” or “I appreciate the extra work you’re putting in,” or “Sorry, I’ve been kind of out of it lately.” Initially, Viktor had thought it would do Jayce some good to be a little angrier about things -- to just get it over with and lash out instead of carefully composing himself like he was locking all his ugly pieces in a box. Viktor could see it happen -- could see his very essence shake with every heavy thing he was feeling, but it always slunk back inside where it couldn’t hurt anyone but himself.
Viktor wasn’t convinced that it was simply politeness or even professionalism, and it wasn’t just self-control, either. It was too flighty, too guilty. Too unresolved.
Maybe that was it. A buildup of hot energy that had nowhere to go.
All Viktor knew was that, forty-nine hours into the snowstorm he had noticed Jayce’s shoulders were tense, there were several lines of worry etched into his face, and he’d gone through two sticks of chalk because he’d been pressing so hard they’d nearly crumbled. And Viktor had wondered how he hadn’t seen it all before now.
Many things about Jayce were genuine, but many things were also carefully arranged. It was like he picked pieces of himself up off the floor so nobody would trip over them; except Jayce had shoved all those tripping hazards into a closet, and now the door was bowing open.
It made it impressively hard to tell when something was wrong. Viktor never would have pegged Jayce for a good liar, but he was.
Good enough that Viktor was able to convince himself Jayce was just a little testy from spending three nights away from his bed. Besides, they’d gotten stuck again, and both of them were feeling the sting of their work hanging in suspension. It was only natural to be annoyed -- Viktor was annoyed. And those little hazards of Jayce's were never truly enough to trip over, so Viktor just… stepped around them. And he was almost able to ignore them.
Until he wasn’t.
Four days after the snow had started, Viktor was combing through their notes trying to figure out what they were missing. They were so close, he could feel it -- the problem was, he was spending more time correcting Jayce’s work than he was actually addressing their problem.
Nose wrinkling, he stumbled over a few more lines and couldn't help a displeased exhale. It felt like he was grading papers again.
“You must be more careful with your calculations, Jayce.”
It sent a thin crack through the silence that had gripped them for the last several hours. Viktor only now realized how suffocating it had been.
“Your work is getting sloppy,” he finished, flipping to a new page.
Outside, the snow pressed in on the lab, sealing the silence inside and, when Viktor shuffled a few more papers, sealing that, too.
“Like, here-- This is a completely preventable mistake.”
He'd put the numbers in the wrong order. It was so simple, it would have been humorous had it not Viktor almost an hour of effort.
He let the papers fall back onto his desk.
“Here, come review these. I can't do anything with them.”
There was a faint shift, the shuffling of clothing enhanced tenfold by the odd, almost otherworldly silence that had descended upon Piltover.
“I'll check it in a minute,” came Jayce’s voice -- somehow loud and quiet at the same time. Loud because everything small had grown large. Quiet because he'd said it like he was working in another room, not a few feet away.
Viktor frowned and stopped himself from rolling his eyes.
“Jayce, I cannot complete my work if all the equations are wr--”
“I said in a minute.”
Viktor's hand stilled over his desk. His brows pressed together, and something tugged the frustration out of his chest like unraveling a spool of yarn.
“Jayce.” His tone had fallen in the gray space between a warning and concern. He turned in his chair.
Viktor should have seen it. Gods, how had he not seen it? But then, there were probably at least a dozen reasons why he hadn't; their partnership was so new, he had his own complexities to deal with, all their focus was on Hextech -- and Jayce was so good at hiding it, whatever had curled into his bones and turned his blood solid and hard. Something that cracked when he shifted.
Which was why, perhaps, he was sitting so hunched. So still. Even when he cleared his throat, he didn't move.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I'll check it in a minute, okay?”
Viktor's brow furrowed further, and then he was standing swiftly. His cane announced his approach, but Jayce either didn't hear it or was choosing to ignore it. Viktor couldn't see his face, only the tense lines of his back. From this angle, he almost looked asleep.
“Something is wrong.” Viktor stopped just behind him. “What is it?”
Jayce's shoulders shifted, a ripple of something. A flinch, Viktor wondered, and he frowned.
“Nothing's… wrong.”
He narrowed his eyes, searching across the back of Jayce’s body. It had never been this closed off from him. Never so… restricted.
“Then something is bothering you, and my question still stands.”
“It's not…” Jayce finally moved, and Viktor could almost hear the way it hurt him to do so.
He turned around so he was half facing Viktor and reached up to rub the side of his neck.
“It's--” an exhale. “Complicated.”
Viktor stared down at him like he was a puzzle.
“So was Hextech,” he said. “Does something about me imply I cannot handle complicated?”
Jayce looked at him, lost at the question but obviously desperate to present Viktor with its correct answer -- and obviously unable to.
Viktor's face softened.
“Jayce.” He thought he saw the man shiver. He made his voice even smaller. “What is it?”
Jayce glanced around for a moment, trying to catch up to something, trying to work through some problem Viktor couldn't see. And then his eyes returned to Viktor's, and he inhaled.
Thirteen years ago, Jayce had almost died.
“I was… eleven, maybe twelve, I don't know. No, I was twelve because it was after my father… yeah.” He was rubbing his hands together like he was trying to keep them warm.
Viktor watched him -- hoped Jayce didn't notice the intensity that must be there in his eyes for fear of scaring him off. But Jayce was staring at his knees.
“We got caught in a blizzard. I couldn't figure out where we were, or where we were supposed to be going. And my mom--”
He cleared his throat again, but it didn't stop his voice from sounding strangled when he said, “My mom was in really bad shape. It was so cold I could barely breathe, but she'd given me her gloves--” a shrill crack. Like ice.
Viktor shifted, leaning onto his cane, body tilting in a gesture he wouldn't follow through with.
“I remember, uh… her hands were so stiff when she touched me.” He stared down at his own fingers. “Anyway. We tried to find a way out but… eventually I just couldn't hold her up anymore.”
Viktor carefully drew in a breath, forced it to remain steady. When Jayce looked up at him, he didn't look away, barely tried to arrange his expression.
All he could picture was Jayce, eleven-maybe-twelve years old, waist deep in snow, trying desperately to save his mother. So much smaller, but still with that valiant, noble selflessness. That golden, beautiful desire to do good, so strong it would destroy him.
Viktor could see him so clearly, and it broke his heart.
“That was where I got this,” Jayce said, holding his wrist out, the bracelet that Viktor had once held in his palm, warmed it so it wouldn't be cold when Jayce put it back on and decided to live. The teardrop gemstone glinted gently in the light.
“A man saved us. A mage.” He shrugged weakly. “He used magic, took us somewhere warm and… soft. It's because of him that my mother survived. That I…”
It was unspoken.
Viktor swallowed.
“Uh…” Jayce shook himself off, rolled his shoulders back, pulled his hands into his lap.
And Viktor could see the strength of that boy, now forged into a man.
A man who still trembled against the cold.
“Usually I can keep it under control, even when the temperature drops like this. But all this snow… It makes it… hard.”
Chest tightening painfully, Viktor tried to organize his thoughts into words he could offer. He had just managed to work out something that would probably be inadequate when Jayce sat up straighter.
“I know I’ve been dragging, okay? I’m sorry, I’ll do better. This won’t impact our work, I swear.”
“What, no,” Viktor’s frown deepened, his brow twisted -- maybe his whole face twisted, because, “I’m not worried about our work, Jayce. I mean-- okay, perhaps a little, but it is secondary.”
Jayce looked like he wanted to say about five different things but couldn’t decide which one. He also looked a little like he wanted to crawl onto the floor.
“But… I keep making mistakes,” he said as if it was some obvious sin that Viktor should resent him for.
Viktor tried to keep the disbelief from his face and remind himself that Jayce had never had a partner before. That he’d spent the majority of his scientific career begging for scraps from the Kirammans -- funding that would be taken away if he didn’t produce results. That he’d almost been banned from the Academy, had almost lost everything, because he’d made a mistake.
“You are a human, not a machine, Jayce. We all have bad weeks. You--” he faltered, eyes rounding slightly, thumb rubbing the handle of his cane. “You should tell me these things.”
Jayce was looking up at him like he was searching a landscape, searching the horizon for a silhouette, searching rows of dark windows for one filled with light.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, but Viktor was shaking his head before he even finished.
“No need. Truly.” You don’t need to apologize for being human, he wanted to say, but he recognized how hypocritical that could sound coming from him, so he didn’t.
Instead he said, with as much gentleness he could manage, because he knew that Jayce was like him; measured his worth in accomplishments,
“I will complete your responsibilities for today. You should go home and--”
“No!”
His eyebrows raised slightly. Jayce looked guilty.
“No, I want to work, I do. I just… I can’t focus.”
His hands were shaking. They were folded in his lap, but they were shaking, and Viktor realized that sending Jayce out to walk home in the snow would have been just as cruel as what had happened to him when he’d been young.
“Okay,” Viktor began, thinking quickly. “Okay, then we will do it together. Like before.”
“But, won’t that take so long?”
Leave it to Jayce to worry when he couldn’t even work.
“So? We have time,” he shrugged. “Besides, we need to be accurate with this, or we may end up accidentally killing a lot of people.”
Causing a mass explosion would be a swift way to ruin their careers.
Jayce laughed hoarsely.
“No pressure, then.”
Viktor shook his head.
“No. Because I will check your work, and you will check mine. And then Heimerdinger will review it for any errors we might have missed, though I am confident there will be few. And then the Council will pass their approval before we move forward.” He paused. “You are not the only one working towards this goal anymore, Jayce.”
Jayce sighed and stared down at his shaking hands. “I just… I don't want you to feel like you have to take care of me.”
He said it the same way Viktor would have said it. A grand mortal failing. The worst thing to ever occur. Something like that.
“Well-- why shouldn't I? We're partners, aren't we?” The title was offered hesitantly, from unstable ground.
But then Jayce looked at him, eyes widening the same way they had when Viktor had told him he wanted to help complete his work some six months ago.
“Partners look after each other. Their work suffers otherwise. Would it not be my responsibility, then, to be aware of the state of your wellbeing, at least to some degree?”
He hoped none of this would be turned onto him, but like their work, it was secondary; he just wanted Jayce to stop looking so… small. And afraid. And guilty about being small and afraid.
“I… guess?” Jayce weakly offered.
“Good. Then we will work at the board today. I will be able to catch any miscalculations much easier that way.”
“Viktor, I--”
“Don't apologize.”
Jayce blinked and then stared as a foreign expression shifted across his face. And then he stood up -- stiffly, and Viktor could see that the tremor was not just in his hands.
God, it felt like being drained of blood, to see a man like Jayce Talis trembling, even if it was only slightly. It felt like being hollowed out.
“Thank you,” Jayce whispered, and that felt wrong, too, so he dismissed it with a scrunch of his nose and gestured to the chalkboard.
“Grab the notebook, would you? I want to start over from, eh, somewhere around the middle.”
This was something he could fix. The equations and the way Jayce had been sitting frozen for what had likely been hours, getting nothing done and feeling bad about it. Viktor would unfreeze the air; thaw it out with their work, and with it, maybe Jayce, too.
Tapping a piece of chalk against his chin, he reached up and began rewriting where they'd last left off. The numbers were old friends and the way they organized themselves along the board was a problem he and Jayce had slunk back to too many times to count.
“We've got to be getting close,” he muttered, resisting the urge to bite down on the chalk like he did his pencils. He placed his finger between his teeth instead.
“Here,” a voice, still too thin, appeared beside him, ushering in Jayce’s presence at his side.
Viktor hummed in thanks, glancing briefly in his direction as he took the notebook. It was already open. Their fingers brushed in the clumsy process of transferring it from Jayce's palm to Viktor's
Jayce took a breath. Viktor hummed again and mumbled a few incoherent thoughts.
Jayce was like a taut rubber band next to him; Viktor could feel him straining tight enough to snap. He glanced sideways before swiftly making up his mind.
He held the chalk out, ignoring Jayce’s helpless look, and stepped behind him.
“Viktor--”
“Just copy the equations.” He reached around Jayce's shoulder to hold the book out where they could both see it.
Jayce lifted his hand, shoulders stiff and hunched like he was bracing for a wind to blow, and he still hadn’t looked down at their notes. Viktor frowned. He grabbed his cane by the neck and hoisted it up to press the handle against Jayce’s shoulder.
“Relax,” he murmured, tapping his cane in a gentle insistence when Jayce struggled to let the tension out.
Taking a deep, deep breath, Jayce rolled his shoulders. Viktor kept the head of his cane pressed firmly against Jayce's deltoid muscle until he felt his whole body sag.
“Good,” he said, cane sliding back to the ground.
Jayce turned and his amber eyes swam into view. Viktor gestured with his own eyes to the board.
“Okay,” Jayce breathed, and Viktor could see the effort it was taking to keep his body relaxed. Could see where his hand still shook as he wrote.
Viktor wasn’t making sure he copied everything correctly. Jayce could have been writing anything and Viktor would have been running his eyes over Jayce, looking at him with naked emotions that he usually wouldn’t let breach the surface, but this time, he was too occupied. Occupied with a new halo that surrounded his image of Jayce like falling snow.
“Okay,” Jayce said, holding the chalk out.
Viktor had mercy on him and took it with a firm “Thank you.”
Abandoning his cane against the board, he tossed the book onto his desk.
“We know the key lies with the runes. You described them as catalysts, so now we just have to figure out how to direct that energy and bring it back around.”
Jayce was rubbing his arm.
“The current problem is temperature. The runes melt before the transition can complete.”
Jayce knew this. Viktor knew he knew, but he explained it anyway. A summary. He really did feel like the professor's assistant again.
“So,” Jayce weakly began. “We need to figure out how to carry out the same process without overheating the system.”
“And coolant hasn't worked -- not entirely -- so the next viable step is to reassess the process itself.”
Viktor circled a section of the equation that he wanted to rework before stepping back. He let his shoulder brush Jayce’s, pinning the man's hand between them. Fingers twitched against his sleeve before pulling away.
Jayce’s eyes roamed the board, and still Viktor watched him. So he saw the moment his whole face shifted in disappointment. He was drawing back into himself.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and Viktor swore the poor man's chest started to bleed from the pain in those two desperate words. “I just… my brain won't--”
Viktor raised a hand to eye level and snapped twice. Jayce looked at him, eyes round.
“You would make a cruel professor, with the standards you uphold.” He hoped Jayce took it as the gentle thing it was trying to be.
“These conditions are not optimal. We are running on very little sleep, and we are attempting to do something entirely uncharted. We are going to fail at least a few times before we make progress.” He paused. “Stop letting your fear of failure stunt your mind.”
Jayce watched him -- watched him like he was a complex reaction Jayce was trying to understand.
“There is a natural process to this,” Viktor mumbled, stepping up to the board. He began to alter the equation in small ways to see if it got them where they needed to be. “You do yourself a disservice by requiring perfection.”
He could feel Jayce hovering behind him. For a man who was so cold, the heat his body threw was staggering.
It sparked like the beginning of a fire when a large arm appeared over Viktor's. Jayce took his hand, the one with the chalk, and moved it to a different part of the equation further down.
“Ah…” Viktor's eyebrows lifted.
Jayce remained silent. Remained close. Viktor could feel the brush of their shirts as he released him.
“Yes, very good. That might just…” he slipped up, bit down on the chalk.
Jayce had picked up his own piece and was hesitantly making adjustments. He erased a number with his sleeve before tracing it out again. Viktor, trying to scrape the taste of chalk off his tongue, reached around him to work on his own side.
They created a sort of four armed creature.
Six months, four days, and three hours after the trial, they still weren't any closer to solving their problem. But Jayce hadn't apologized again, and at some point in those three hours, Viktor realized they'd been maintaining at least one point of contact at all times.
Jayce had pushed his hand back through his hair enough that it was sticking up like he'd touched a charged wire. He ran both hands through it this time, chalk leaving white streaks at the roots, and switched his weight to his right leg. His hip knocked into Viktor's, who propped an elbow on Jayce's shoulder to lean against. It was an awkward angle, but the stretch in his back relieved stiff muscles.
“What if…” Jayce mumbled, rubbing at the stubble that was growing on his jaw.
And then he shifted, a gesture that had always reminded Viktor of a bird puffing up its wings in a puddle.
“Viktor. What if we've been looking at it wrong this whole time? If the equation can't be changed and maintain its function, and man-made coolant doesn't work--”
Viktor's eyes narrowed. He smacked Jayce's chest lightly.
“--What if the best solution is a rune?”
“You want to add a rune that would perform the function of-- Yes. Yes. But does such a rune exist?”
“We can find out.”
Jayce passed him his cane and stepped out from under his arm in the same gesture. Viktor let his weight drop from Jayce to his cane and swiftly followed after him.
Scientific breakthroughs are fickle things.
Six months, four days, and seven hours after the trial, Jayce was rubbing curled fingers against his palm. He was heavy, Viktor could see it. He looked like he was straining under a great weight.
They'd been scouring through every rune Jayce had ever discovered. He had a book of them, hand drawn, with spindly notes added to the margins, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, hunched over its pages. Viktor wished they had two books so they could scan things faster, but Jayce was still moving at a slower pace, anyway -- kept hesitating, second guessing himself, going back on his progress. Viktor even caught him staring blankly for long enough that he got concerned again.
But then Jayce’s leg would start going against Viktor's, and he'd flip a page and mutter something, and Viktor thought maybe he was feeling better.
It was a cycle.
Viktor let it happen three times before he reached out and laid a hand on Jayce’s leg. It stilled instantly. Jayce's shoulders caved in a bit.
He was… fragile. Someone so big shouldn't be as breakable -- all it took were Viktor’s fingers against his thigh and he looked like he was about to crumble.
“Jayce,” he hesitantly started, but Jayce just shook his head.
“What's--” he cleared his throat. “What's the point of me if I can't do this?”
Viktor's face pinched with thought, prices of information reaching out to each other before leaping over synapses.
“This is a momentary setback. It will not determine the trajectory of our work.” He almost finished with a useless, “You know that, right?” because clearly he didn't.
“Jayce,” he said again, this time firmer -- enough that Jayce looked up.
Viktor searched his eyes for something he could fix. It was selfish, wishful thinking.
Viktor was such a hypocrite to say it, but he said it anyway.
“This is an abnormal, infrequent occurrence. It is unscientific to base conclusions on an outlier. You know this.”
“I know,” Jayce managed. Barely.
Gods, how had he survived as a student? How did the weight of his own expectations not destroy him?
Maybe they were. Maybe it was just that no one saw it happening.
“Then apply it. Think objectively.” He hesitated. “Pretend it’s me, if you must.”
Jayce looked at him through a fog.
“You must find a way outside of your own head.”
“But… that's where everything important is.”
Viktor almost scoffed. Almost.
“Yes, well, it is making you miserable at the current moment, so I think that negates your argument.”
Jayce laughed, then groaned.
“You're right. I know you're right.”
It sounded like there was going to be a but at the end of that, so Viktor swiftly said, “Good,” with a faint smirk.
When Jayce saw it, he smiled just as faintly.
“I really owe you one, Viktor.”
He didn't like the hoarse sound of Jayce's voice, like he'd torn his throat up.
“It is not transactional,” he shrugged easily.
His hand was still one Jayce's leg. Suddenly feeling the need to, he pulled away. Jayce shuddered slightly when his fingers dragged, and Viktor frowned, resisting the urge to chew on his lip and instead flipping a few pages back. He was fairly certain Jayce hadn't been comprehending what he’d been seeing for a while.
Evening bled into early night. Streetlights blinked on, casting unnatural light that pooled onto the snow. It had started to settle, it seemed. Viktor would have believed into something comfortable, but now when he saw the snow, with its own aura of light, all he could think of was Jayce shivering.
“I think we're barking up the wrong tree, Vik.”
“And you almost managed to sound unapologetic about it.” He sighed. “It’s fine. We will reassess this approach tomorrow and determine if we want to rule it out entirely.”
Jayce looked miserable. He rephrased.
“It is alright, Jayce.”
Viktor shook his head, standing up so he didn't run the risk of Jayce seeing his frown. The foolish man would think he was upset with him.
“We will have fresh eyes tomorrow. For now, I am going to walk you home.”
“But--”
“You are tired. I am tired. We can reconvene tomorrow. Besides, I don't have any more clean clothes.”
It was irrelevant, but he hoped Jayce wouldn't realize that. He hoped Jayce would just take it.
Though, he didn't look like he could take much more. Let his head drop into his hands and kept it there like if he moved, his guts would fall straight out of his chest or his skin would crack and shatter or…
Or he'd start crying or something.
Shit.
“I want you to listen to me, Jayce Talis.” Viktor steepled his fingers onto the back of Jayce's head, watched him tense for just a moment before his muscles loosened considerably.
“Whatever you're worrying about, stop it now. I will worry about it-- just for tonight,” he clarified when Jayce tensed again, pushing on his head to stop him from getting up.
Jayce inhaled slowly.
“For tonight, I will take any worries about our work, and your ability to do our work, and anything else, yes? And then tomorrow, if you are still insistent on being miserable, I will return them. But tonight, you may not have them.” He found himself allowing fingers to slip further into Jayce's hair. Take root. “Understand?”
Jayce took another breath, braced like it would be deep and then tripped over it when it stuttered in the shallow part of his chest. Got caught there until a wet sound knocked it free, where it fell at their feet.
“Okay,” he said, hands rubbing harshly at his face. Viktor wanted to grab them but he didn't. “Yeah,” Jayce nodded.
“Okay,” Viktor repeated with an indifferent lilt, and it directly contrasted the way his thumb, seemingly of its own volition, brushed a few strokes across Jayce's scalp.
Jayce shivered.
“Don’t take any work home with you.” Viktor pulled his hand back through the cold air between them.
Like the hypocrite he was -- or maybe like a good partner -- he grabbed a few notebooks on the way to his bag. He could feel what he was pretty sure was Jayce watching him, but he carried on as if nothing was abnormal about that.
It wasn't, he realized. The only difference was the pinched, sick look on Jayce’s face where admiration usually was. Horridly, Viktor wasn't sure which he loathed more; Jayce’s naive admiration, or his suffering.
His suffering, he decided as his fingers closed around the strap of his bag. My pride had not quite led to heartlessness.
His coat was slung over his shoulders and his gloves were halfway on when he realized Jayce hadn’t even moved.
Viktor tried not to audibly sigh. He tried not to panic.
Jayce had tried to kill himself, once. Not even that long ago…
Viktor hadn’t considered that a worry until he’d thought it, and suddenly found himself trying to remember how many windows Jayce’s new apartment had. Tried to remember what floor he was on.
But, surely he wouldn’t… They had so much left to do, after all.
So Viktor did the only thing he could do. He took him his coat. Didn’t even offer it to him, just draped it over his shoulders -- pressed it firmly onto them like the touch alone might wake Jayce up. In a way, it sort of did. Jayce lifted his head, eyes still hazy and dull, and Viktor hadn’t known gold could look so miserable until now.
“Jayce,” he softly implored. “We just need to get some sleep.”
Maybe sleep wouldn’t fix a decade of memories, but it might fix their Hextech problem.
“There’s always tomorrow,” he added, giving Jayce’s back an awkward pat -- some pathetic version of what Jayce himself would have done, had things been reversed.
“Tomorrow,” Jayce exhaled. Viktor watched him make an attempt. “Right.”
“Good.” One more touch. Just one more. “Now put your coat on.”
Jayce complied, however slowly. He was moving like a series of pictures set in film; with stutters of black in between every image.
He didn't have gloves. If Viktor's would have fit, he’d have offered them gladly. Instead, he gestured to his own pockets and watched Jayce follow his lead after retrieving his bag.
Viktor switched the lights off. In the darkness, it was so much easier to let his hand find Jayce's back, let his fingers, hidden behind many safe layers of fabric, press against the heat of Jayce. His body. His pain.
He guided him through the door. Locked it behind them.
The halls were silent and barren. Blue shadows painted it all in a wash -- one streak of icy gray. Jayce looked especially lifeless with all the color drained away, so Viktor didn't look at him. Their footfalls sounded loud and close, a presence looming over their shoulders.
It was almost like they were running from themselves.
When they broke out onto the front steps of the Academy, the heavy door booming shut behind them, it was a puncture in the atmosphere; air and sound and feeling rushed back in. Jayce drew a long breath. Viktor shrugged his collar higher.
The wide Piltover sky was a direct contrast to the Academy hallways, like tunnels in a catacomb buried under the snow. If he could move himself very far away and perch along the ledge of one of those buildings in the distance to look at where they were now, Viktor knew he would have seen two small interruptions in a landscape of white. Two specks at the very bottom of a slope.
The lamps had been lit, though some of them had blown out, and a breeze like a sigh kicked powder up, swirling it through the air. Winter air took up volume. It was something you had to step around rather than walk through. There was a level of politeness required. Viktor looked up what felt like miles of lamp post stretching into the dark, glowing sky before finding the small flicker of a flame above their heads. He watched it until his vision swam and urged him to look away.
A puff of breath curled towards the orange glow. As soon as it had left Jayce’s lips, he sucked another one back through his teeth. He was rubbing his hands together, shoulders around his ears.
“At least it's not snowing anymore.”
Optimism looked familiar on him. It was a relief.
Viktor smiled.
“See, things are looking up already.”
Jayce laughed at his feet. It was short-lived.
“I… Thank you, Viktor. For everything.”
Viktor scrunched his nose.
“It is nothing.”
“It's-- Okay, yeah.” He smiled softly. “Still. Thank you.”
“Of course,” he shrugged -- tried to shrug off the gratitude he hadn’t earned, tried to shrug away Jayce’s vulnerability.
With a polite nod, they stepped around the frigid air and into the night. The snow insulated sound and color, even the cold. It was a hungry mouth.
Jayce stayed close to his side. But then, didn't Viktor also? Their shoulders felt fused together, and it wasn't even all that unfamiliar; the last time they'd walked to Jayce’s new apartment, they'd been drunk.
Six months, four days, and eight hours after Jayce's trial, they were just cold.
But the cold, like the alcohol, made the sensation of Jayce’s arm bigger and hotter and more dizzying than it should have been. Made it something Viktor might long for, if he could ever long for something like that.
It made him want things that no one should ever want from their new professional partner. Someone he’d invested his career in.
Someone he'd grown to like very much and didn't want to lose.
But he also couldn't pull away from Jayce’s arm, couldn't separate them when he really should have. It was like conjoined twins; one of them would probably die.
That was dramatic. He knew that, but when he stepped around a sheet of ice and it sent him out of Jayce's atmosphere, the comparison didn't feel that outlandish.
Then he slipped, the side of his foot catching the sheet’s corner, and Jayce came right back into him like a meteorite or the breath after a flatline. He slung his arm around Viktor, grabbing the back of his coat, planting a gloveless hand on his chest, holding him between the two with a desperation and the desire to help.
Viktor let a hand smack onto Jayce's forearm and wobbled for a moment before Jayce half lifted him onto stable ground.
“Careful.” The word left Jayce as a cloud of frozen breath. The silence around them took it in and did away with it; hid it somewhere safe but out of view.
Viktor looked at Jayce just to see that he was there.
“I'm fine.” He squeezed Jayce's arm, who let go slowly, smoothing down the wrinkled back of Viktor's coat.
“Thank you,” he added, but Jayce just shook his head. Viktor thought the man's chest was rising rather shallowly.
Around the sheet of ice's tail end, they stepped back into each other. Two stars colliding. A nebula expanding yet again, even after it had been created, forming new spirals that would astound the astronomers.
There were no astronomers on the snowy streets of Piltover -- at least, not at this hour -- and Viktor could only wonder at the spiraling curve of Jayce’s shoulder as it relaxed against the touch of his own arm. Not completely, but more than it had in the last several hours. The way Jayce's body had been held tense was as palpable as the winter air, and the release of even a little of that tension was like finding sprouting blades of grass under the snow.
The rest of the walk wasn’t long, and they kept a leisurely pace. Jayce had stuffed his hands into his pockets, and his arms flexed every so often like he was playing with the fabric or squeezing his fingers together. Viktor tilted his chin up to the sky, watched a cloud of his breath curl towards the stars. It was joined by another cloud. They mingled together and dissolved. Viktor looked over to find Jayce watching him.
“I… want to apologise again,” he admitted with an almost shy smile. Viktor blinked at him, surrounded by stars like a saint’s halo.
Jayce Talis, patron saint of repentance.
Viktor smiled. “I am certain there will be a time in our future where I am far from my best, and then you can return the favor of scolding me for my misery, even if it doesn’t work. And it probably won’t.”
“You?” Jayce laughed, disbelievingly, like he couldn’t imagine Viktor ever having an off day. “No.”
“Please, don’t be ridiculous. Ask Heimerdinger. A-Actually, don’t do that.”
Viktor watched the laughter spread through Jayce’s body, the stardust halo expanding before dissolving through his bloodstream, and Viktor wanted to reach out and grasp it, keep it forever in something secure like a jar or a petri dish. He wanted to hold the wide night sky and how Jayce looked under it -- not afraid, but glowing -- somewhere he could return to it always, until the day he died.
“I’m exhausted,” Jayce chuckled faintly, another halo for his head; a far better one than the weight of the world.
“I know,” he replied, voice staggering slightly on the blatant truth of it. But Jayce smiled, and though it was sad, Viktor knew it was the truth, too -- his own way of tripping over it but landing on his feet.
They were both on their feet, despite everything.
When they approached his apartment, Viktor was trying to figure out a way to ask Jayce if he was going to be okay.
The building was untouched from the last time Viktor had been here, like this had been the thing to remain secure in its jar or petri dish. A scene in a snow globe as the world around it shifted through seasons and became unrecognizable. Piltover might be covered in snow now, but there was the lamp post with a slight dent in it, and the small sapling the city had planted around the time Viktor had walked away from the ledge leading Jayce behind him. The tree was barren now, last season’s leaves turning into compost somewhere safe beneath the snow.
Jayce lived on the second floor. Viktor remembered the way the light in the lift whined loudly -- an old bulb, perhaps. It twinkled like wind chimes as they reached Jayce’s floor. The snow knocked from their shoes and brushed from their shoulders had melted into a puddle, and Jayce held his arm out to guide Viktor around it, murmuring a soft, “Don’t slip.”
The lights in the hall were similarly yellow, but at least they didn’t make any noise. With the snow and the shadows, it was like creeping through time, walking down that hallway to Jayce’s door. It was like being outside of the universe, maybe somewhere right next to the stars. Viktor wondered if Jayce knew any of his other neighbors, or just those ones; the stars and his sainthood.
A lonely life that would be.
Not that Viktor could say any better of himself.
The last word had been spoken by that buzzing light in the lift, getting one in after Jayce’s “careful.” Now, as they stood in front of his door, they almost missed it and its constant drone of input. In this silence, the space between them and all its potential grew large and oppressive.
Jayce’s face was tilted down, whole body hunched a little, but not like before. Somehow Viktor could see that, and somehow the few seconds of rapid observation led him to conclude, unwillingly, that Jayce was trying to get closer to him. Was trying to bring himself to Viktor’s level.
Viktor, who looked up at him. They were close enough in height that he didn’t even have to move his head, just slide his eyes up and there Jayce was, standing like a smaller man.
Viktor felt monumental. Jayce was looking at him like he was so, and when his lips parted, Viktor swallowed and felt his face lift like a reflex.
“Thank you,” Jayce said, and without anywhere else to go -- no sky, no stars -- his breath fanned across Viktor’s skin. “For walking me.”
He breathed it in and suddenly felt jealous of the night sky and the stars themselves. Every single one of them.
“Of course,” he replied, trying not to feel ridiculous. Trying not to do something he would regret.
Or maybe he wouldn’t, which was probably worse.
Jayce inhaled. Jaw working slightly, he dipped down further and the air around them shivered even though the hallway was the warmest place they’d been in days, and suddenly everything around them was glass. It fogged up when they breathed. It pressed against their skin as they stood, too close, threatening to go closer. He felt the pull of Jayce, felt it press him into the glass air; heard it creak with threats of spider-web cracks.
And then Jayce pulled back, and the air rushed in, and the world grew big again -- back to its correct size. Back to a world where they were two scientists who had met six months, four days, and eight hours ago because of a professional interest in a revolutionary discovery.
Still, the feeling of Jayce’s breath lingered on Viktor’s skin. If he were a superstitious man, he would say it was a sensation that would never leave him; that would haunt him as a ghost or a curse or the constant beating of a heart that did not belong to him, echoing in the background of his life.
But he was not a superstitious man, and he would not fall victim to the curse of something he could never have.
Jayce’s breath was only his breath. It disappeared before it ever mingled with Viktor’s. And they weren’t cold anymore.
But Jayce watched him in the silence that had stretched on too long, watched him unashamed and wide-eyed through the layers of snow and memories that had been haunting him, and between them pulled taught a string of potential. Viktor watched it snap tense and vibrate like the string of a guitar, marking the spot where the path they were on could veer off into endless possibilities. Even one where Jayce asked him to stay and Viktor agreed -- another string winding between them -- one where Viktor walked into the apartment and opened them up to a spool of choices, outcomes, threaded pathways of life.
“Uhm…” Jayce could see it too. Viktor held his breath. “Will you… be okay to walk home?”
He blinked. The strings unraveled to their feet.
“Yes, of course.” Then, gentler. “I will be alright.”
“Okay.” He nodded. It was like adjusting the weight of all that cosmic fabric, yet still unable to make it fit more comfortably. “Okay. Well… good night.”
Viktor smiled softly.
“Get some sleep,” he offered, hoping truly that Jayce would.
“Yeah, you too.” They were twin smiles in the darkness and the solitude. “Be careful, though. It’s icy. And cold.”
“I know,” Viktor murmured, slightly delayed from trying to grasp what it meant for Jayce to state the obvious.
His body delayed, and his mind hovered, and the tips of his fingers itched like they should be doing something, not just hanging uselessly at his side. He leaned onto his cane. Jayce was watching him.
One of them had to do something, and Viktor knew Jayce was waiting -- waiting for the cold to go away, waiting for the fear to stop. There was a vulnerability in waiting for everything around you to do what it wills.
Viktor would not be another thing to happen to Jayce. Probably not ever, but especially not like this.
So he turned around. It was a gentle action. A moment of mercy, to turn away and not look back and only listen to the door clicking shut when he stepped into the lift. A moment of mercy, but for who?
Walking out into the street sent him back into sharp air and large sky and a more expansive darkness, and there was the universe. Viktor felt small beneath it, but he also felt like he was pulling its tapestries and changing the angle of its rotation. Taking a slow breath, he looked for the direction of his apartment and thought about what all this universe would look like had Jayce asked him to stay.
It was bright. Too bright. Gods, why was it so bright?
He hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and he hadn’t figured out their four-month problem, but the snow was beginning to melt. It dripped in rivulets from the eaves of porches, ran like life blood through the veins of the streets. In one of these veins, a small trickle of water ran from the street to the trolley tracks before veering to follow along them. Viktor watched its movement, beautiful and clear, as he stepped up into the carriage. It was awkward with both of his hands occupied, but he managed.
The trolley ride was short. The carriages were nearly empty; most places were still closed and most of Piltover was still laying in their beds or sitting in their kitchens nursing something warm. He glanced down at the two covered mugs in his hands and wondered how bad the flooding in the Undercity would be, with all the snow runoff.
The trolley lurched to a slushy stop, pushing snow out onto the walkways. The cart plows hadn’t reached this part of the city yet. Someone with a uniform was shoveling snow away from the entrance to Jayce’s building. They gave Viktor a lingering look as he stepped around the dented lamp post, and he readied himself to use Heimerdinger’s position to the fullest extent, but he made his way inside without delay on their part.
The twinkling light greeted him as the lift doors slid open, kept him company like a gnat as the number above the door wobbled and then blinked to two. Viktor tapped his pointer finger on the ceramic cup. Being stationary gave him a chance to take the weight off his leg; he hadn’t walked this much without a cane since his early Academy days.
The lift dinged and the single bulb flickered like it was thinking about giving up entirely.
Viktor stepped out. He knew exactly where he was going -- would have even if he had not been here just a few hours ago. Maybe he should have waited longer, but he had an overwhelming feeling that Jayce hadn’t gotten much sleep, either, and that he would already be up. And the thought of Jayce being up and alone seemed cruel, recent developments considered.
So, six months and five days after Jayce’s trial, Viktor was standing outside his new apartment, trying to figure out how to knock on the door without spilling the cups.
He ended up swinging his cane, which had remained hooked over his wrist the entire trip, into the wood. It only produced a faint thump, so he did it a few more times and hoped Jayce wouldn’t assume he was about to be robbed.
When the door opened, Viktor could tell his overwhelming feeling had been right. He held the cups up in greeting.
“Morning. Did you-- wait, did you walk all the way here like that?”
“Yes. What of it?”
Jayce looked a little bleary and a lot helpless. Viktor thrust a cup in his direction.
“Are you prepared?”
Jayce looked even worse.
“I thought we could walk to the lab,” Viktor continued as if there was any other reason he’d come knocking on his door at this hour. A scientific breakthrough, he realized, but unfortunately that particular circumstance would have to wait until another time.
“Right, right,” Jayce shook his head like he was clearing it of dust. “Uh, what’s this?”
“Sweetmilk.”
“Right,” Jayce said again. “Okay, yeah. Let me just… get my things.”
That helpless look hadn’t gone away, so Viktor held his hand out and let Jayce put the cup back into it so he could go collect his things. Slipping his shoes on by the door, he popped the collar of his coat.
“Thanks,” he said, more like I’m sorry and took the drink from Viktor.
Viktor leaned onto his cane and ushered Jayce into the hall, pausing for him to lock the door.
“I compiled a few more rune combinations last night. We should run tests, once you look them over.”
“Sounds good. Is there bourbon in this?”
Viktor smirked at his halfway scandalized tone.
“Mhn? Eh, a little.” He shrugged.
Jayce blinked down at him -- at his smirk, persistent even when Viktor looked away and at the number above the lift doors -- and smiled.
“Is this supposed to help me work?” he asked, scoffing, still smiling. The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched.
“It is a remedy. Helps you recover from a variety of discomforts.” He gave Jayce a sideways glance. “It is my mother’s recipe.”
“Ah… Well, thank you.”
Viktor raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement. Jayce took another sip.
“It’s good,” he offered after a moment. “Very, uh, warm.”
Viktor smiled at the ground.
“Good,” he replied, and then the lift dinged and they could leave behind that singing light and trade it for the now busier streets of Piltover.
A trolley rolled by, pushing more slush onto the walkway. Jayce sidestepped and they cut the dented lamp post, Jayce stepping down into the street, before reconvening on the other side. The morning persisted in its obnoxious brightness -- sun shining loudly and reflecting off of the white snow. But when Jayce tilted his face up to it and sighed, suddenly Viktor didn’t mind the sun as much. It was the first full breath he’d heard Jayce take in at least two days.
“They are saying the temperatures should be on the rise,” Viktor said. He’d asked around that morning, though the reports were slow to come in.
Jayce nodded. “It’s not so bad, now that the snow’s not falling. The, uh, sun helps, too.”
Viktor nodded, waiting to see if he would go on, but he didn’t, just sipped his drink and kept his other hand in his pocket. The last time they’d walked together, they’d been brushing arms, but such a thing didn’t seem possible in the daylight. It didn’t seem necessary anymore, either -- Jayce wasn’t falling apart; but he was quiet and somber, and that itself was abnormal enough to make Viktor want to reach into his orbit again.
They made it to the lab without that happening. Jayce had finished his sweetmilk, set the mug on Viktor’s desk while Viktor went about turning the lights on and shutting the door.
“So, you said you have some new rune combinations?” Jayce hesitantly spoke.
Viktor turned and found him standing before the chalkboard, looking at it not as he had last night -- like it was a death sentence -- but instead as it was: an opportunity. For failure, of course; there was always the chance of failure, as they would continue to learn. But also for success.
Six months and four weeks after Jayce’s trial, they would indeed succeed. They would find the right pattern of runes to prevent overheating, and they would successfully transmit a coffee mug from one side of the Academy to the other. Six months and four weeks, and all the snow will have melted, and the air would be testing out spring just like they tested their first entirely functioning prototype. And they would have an audience with the Council to prepare for. And things would be growing warm.
Six months and four weeks…
But now, six months and five days after Jayce met Viktor, they stood side-by-side before an open notebook and took shelter from the cold.