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“Hey,” Jayce's head is tipped back, laughing and wine-drunk, and Viktor is watching the cool night air kiss his marooning cheeks, “If this Hextech thing doesn't work out—”
Viktor almost chokes on his own spit. “If? Of course it will fucking work out—”
“If this Hextech thing doesn't work out,” Jayce drawls, slow and sweet, head still dangling awkwardly from his neck, except now he's facing Viktor. “You know what we should do?”
This is a joke Viktor isn't in on. But now he's intrigued, so he draws up his good leg and rests his elbow on it, letting the quiet hum of music wash over him.
“What,” he asks, “Should we do, Jayce?”
Jayce is holding in a laugh. “Suicide pact.”
Viktor blinks.
“We do it in the lab,” he continues, lips quirked into a pretty smile that definitely isn't talking about trying to kill itself (again), “With all our research around us. Y’know, something only the greatest minds in Piltover could achieve—total, magical enlightenment, and, maybe, total ruin.”
Viktor says nothing, so Jayce punctuates his speech with a final word.
“Together.”
It's like pressing on a wound that doesn't belong to him. A second passes, then another, and in no time at all Viktor is huffing out an ugly, wheezy, half-disbelieving-half-awestruck laugh. Jayce grins along, pleased with himself.
“You are sick,” he says, “Sick, Mister Talis.”
“Is that a yes?”
“What, you're not joking?”
“I'm saying we should be partners for life,” Jayce lazily turns his head back to the sky, admiring the stars Viktor never got to see growing up. And now he's stilled, because partners for life sounds imminent, sounds dangerous. A commitment. A promise. The same promise Viktor made that night on the cusp of Jayce's ultimate failure.
“It's a contingency plan,” Jayce is still talking, “If it works, it works, and we're great. But if it doesn't, and we fuck up—we fail, then…”
“Then,” Viktor rasps.
“Then we still have each other. Right?”
Jayce side-glances him and Viktor's pretty sure he can feel his heart knocking on a rapidly loosening rib. He stays quiet—cannot believe I am actually fucking considering this—and pretends to look into the night.
“My goal, I think,” he says eventually, “Is to stay alive.”
Jayce guffaws. “And mine isn't? V, we're people.”
He can't help the tug of his lips at that. “And as much as I would like to stay alive, I have poured too much energy into this Hextech dream of yours—”
“Of ours—”
“Of ours, and if we fail—and we will not fail—but if—if something so terrible were to happen, then, eh,” he stumbles through his words, clumsy, hating what Jayce does to his cognitive processing, “I suppose—yes, fine.”
“Yeah?” Jayce looks like it's Christmas. “You'll do it with me?”
“Yes, Jayce, I am agreeing to your egregious suicide pact. We can position ourselves to look like an old couple, even. Scientist and scientist. Would that suit you?”
“Oh,” when Jayce smiles it's all teeth, “That'd suit me just fine.”
Viktor snorts and makes sure not to look at him. “I should not have brought you out here.”
It started in the hall. There was a party, or a gala, or a ball or something, Viktor doesn't fucking care, he'd only come because Jayce used those stupid puppy eyes on him and sealed the deal with a, there'll be alcohol, V! instead of a kiss, like a proper person.
He's not shy. He doesn't hate public appearances because his mouth locks up when people are looking. He can talk—God, he can talk, because how else would he have gotten Jayce off that ledge? It's one of Viktor's primary talents, but he prefers to save it for the people that matter, not the ones that stare at his cane while he's trying to explain the very basic, very rudimentary concept of magic.
It's like he's trapped in a fucking petri dish. Limping along like some kind of invalid, being relegated to assistant, friend, Jayce Talis' less-than-equal. And it's not Jayce's fault. It's not, and that's the bitch of it, because Viktor isn't even mad at him and probably could never be. The word partner rolls off Jayce's tongue so prettily and he's not unaware, Viktor knows he's not, because sometimes he'll say it with an added decibel or three, just to really get it through their heads.
So Viktor comes, occasionally, to these boring, exhibitionist events, if only to squeeze money out of rich Piltovians and make his dead parents proud. That's where he's at right now, scarfing down a canapé and trying not to make eye contact with anyone in case they recognise him. Improbable, but not impossible. He blends right into the tapestry.
He thinks he can see Jayce in the distance (how romantic) swirling his wine glass like an asshole while Councilor Medarda keeps a loose grip on his bicep. Viktor narrows his eyes to get a closer look; Jayce may have made a joke, because she's laughing, but in a way where her face doesn't crease too much. The longer Viktor stares the more he realises that Jayce is doing The Thing. As in, The Thing he does when he doesn't want to be somewhere, or do something, or his brain refuses to cooperate with external commands. The Thing is Jayce's eyes, darting and frantic, and his face, twitchy and uncomfortable, constantly trying to school itself back into carefully focused neutrality.
Viktor might be smiling. Jayce is good at masking—better than him, actually, which pisses him off sometimes but that's not the point—the point is Jayce can take all the shit Viktor hates most and soak it up like a sponge. He does it so well, fools people into believing he thrives here. Makes them think he lives off useless chatter and tiny, plated foods. A born investment.
But he's slipping. Viktor is very eager to play hero and get the fuck out of here.
When Viktor sidles up to the, admittedly, very attractive couple, Jayce’s eyes light up in a way that makes his stomach go knotty. Councilor Medarda regards him with a cool politeness; she can acknowledge their partnership well enough, but Viktor’s not the one she wants. He's not marketable, or naive, the way Jayce is. Bad leg aside, birthplace aside, she thinks he's too ornery. At least, that's what Jayce told him over a pile of cogs, smiling shy and embarrassed while Viktor pretended to listen. He thinks that was the moment he wrote I want to rip his beautiful skin off with my teeth and wear it in his journal. He’d frantically scribbled it out seconds later—not that it mattered, his handwriting is indecipherable—waving off Jayce's laughing questions about what the hell he just wrote, and how badly he could've fucked it up.
She asks him how he's enjoying the gala (it's a gala) and he says something about eh, yes, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my evening, just to make her eyebrow twitch. Then he turns to Jayce, craning his neck, thinking: finally, finally, finally.
“I was thinking of stepping out for some fresh air,” he says, scrunching his nose. “Would you like to join me?”
“Yes,” Jayce breathes out. “I mean—yeah, sure. I can join.”
Viktor nods sagely. “My deepest apologies for whisking away your man,” he says to Councilor Medarda, and, just because he's had a drink, he adds: “He may come back, or he may not.”
She can see right through him. Shaking her head, she's already searching for the next profitable conversation. “Enjoy the rest of your night, gentlemen.”
“Pleasure talking to you, Councilor,” Jayce says, and then he's pulling Viktor away by the arm, and Viktor’s barking out a laugh so loud the strays outside can hear it.
“I'm glad you did,” Jayce says after a few comfortably silent moments. “Bring me out here, I mean. Felt like I was gonna melt in there.”
“Oh, I know,” Viktor nudges him conspiratorially. They're lying on the grass, now, and it's very unprofessional. “You were doing that–thing, again. With your eyes. It's like a signal.”
Jayce groans. “I didn't mean to.”
“You never do.” The grass is so soft, Viktor may as well have settled on a blanket. He's dizzy and grinning at nothing except getting his partner to himself after an entire night of watching women gawk at him like he's on display. “It's your nature, Jayce. You cannot escape it.”
Jayce is looking at him, and he knows it, though he pretends not to know it. He can feel his eyes on his jaw. It might be the cold that makes him shiver.
“Nature's a funny thing,” Jayce says. “You really think like that? We're all just born with… quirks, built in?”
Viktor licks his lips. Considers this. “I would not say quirks, exactly, but, eh—I don't believe in fate, Jayce, if that's what you're asking.”
“No?” Jayce props himself up on his elbow so he can look down at him.
Viktor breathes out and they make eye contact, sharing a tiny, secret smile. “No.”
Jayce turns teasing. His eyes are still moving a mile a minute but it's different because this is The Thing he does when he's too focused. “So, us meeting. You wouldn't say that was fate?”
“Absolutely not,” Viktor wants to roll onto his side, get closer, but putting more weight on his leg would be a bad idea right now. “You know how I know this?”
“How, wise one?”
Viktor swats at him.
“Because we did not meet that night. We met before, just after your apartment was—blown up.”
Jayce blinks down at him, frowning, and says, “So? I'm not sure I'm following, V.”
“It's so easy to forget!” The sentence bursts out of him in an embarrassing display, partly because it's the most obvious thing in the world and partly because he actually thinks about this a lot when Jayce isn't around. He likes to ruminate, unfortunately, and he's always been puzzled at how awkwardly fuzzy his memories of their first interaction have gotten. “There was no attraction, no pull—you were just—well, a fucking lunatic. And in your mind I suppose I was some... bum-legged inconvenience getting in the way of your Hextech dream.”
Jayce's expression turns serious, almost cold. “Don't say that. I'd never think that.”
“You know what I mean, Jayce. Put down your pitchfork.”
“No,” Jayce sighs, eyes rolling up until the Talis gold is gone and replaced with milky, overworked red-white. Then they come back down, slot into place so easy, and Jayce is smiling. “I didn't even register the cane at first. You know that, right?”
Well. What the hell is Viktor supposed to say to that?
“Then you must have been very blind or very self absorbed.”
“Both, actually,” Jayce laughs, “But my point stands.”
“So does mine. It wasn't fate that we met, or that this thing happened. I chose to bring back your research, and you chose not to jump. The freedom of choice is what makes our journey beautiful, I think.”
“Beautiful like our Hextech dream?”
“Oh, yes,” Viktor throws him a sideways glance. “Or like you, giddy like a child when we were floating in the air.”
A heady silence. Viktor thinks he may have fucked up, said something he can't come back from, and opens his mouth to rectify it somehow, some way—but then Jayce is shuffling closer, lying back down, and time has stopped completely.
“I think you're wrong,” he murmurs, voice soft around Viktor's ear. Viktor closes his eyes.
“I'm never wrong.”
“Of course it was fate,” Jayce continues. “You should ask me why.”
“Why,” he says it so quietly it almost isn't there, “Why?”
He opens his eyes and slowly, slowly, Jayce is lifting his left wrist, until the gorgeous blue gem embedded in his bracelet slides into Viktor's view.
“Your rune.”
“You gave this to me, that night,” he says, “I'd taken it off because I didn't want it going to waste when I—y'know. Went splat.”
Viktor watches it. Jayce keeps talking.
“And you gave it to me. And all I could remember, then, in that moment, was the man that dropped it in my hands in the first place, and what I'd been chasing for my entire life.”
Jayce never talks about this, his childhood. Viktor thinks there was a blizzard of some sort, thinks it left him broken, but he can’t pick it out of Jayce’s mind and he doesn't think he wants to. He tries to keep his breathing steady, afraid that the slightest interruption will make him withdraw.
“He saved me. Magic saved me. And then, there you were, holding it out to me. You said I didn't need permission to change the world. You stopped me from making the worst decision of my life.”
His eyes are so golden.
Jayce's hand drops to his stomach, exhausted. He's looking up again, peaceful, contemplative. “You saved me, V. Just like he did. Of course I'd think the universe gave you to me as a gift.”
“A gift,” Viktor repeats hoarsely.
Jayce shrugs. “Why not?”
Viktor's a lot of things. A Zaunite. A scientist, a discoverer, an inventor. For a while, he was an assistant—a boy. He's a man, now, a partner. He's a man that can hardly walk unassisted, let alone run. A clever fucking inconvenience.
Jayce thinks he's a gift.
“Jayce,” Viktor says, dreamlike, “I think—I think if you try to go back inside now, I will skin you with my teeth. And wear it.”
Jayce's laughter reverberates in the cavern of his chest. Viktor just soaks it in, and when he looks at the sky, he thinks he can see a shooting star.