Chapter Text
Like the well-oiled ballet of the hours, liveried attendants walked back in the room leaden with heavy, furry packages. Each participant was offered a heavy pair of snow boots, and a fur coat. The hosts as well, though their gear was of higher quality. Naturally.
Viktor’s long fingers disappeared into the thick fur surrounding the neck of his coat, the strands light and soft to the touch. A small part of his brain revolted at the concept of killing for his own comfort, but his own hypocrisy kept him from making a comment: after all, the Academy benches had seen him dissect all sorts of beasts to understand their biology. His teeth had bitten through all sorts of meat, without it being a moral issue at the time. The warmth of the coat felt inappropriate.
“Looks like we won’t be holed up inside all day!” exclaimed Jayce by his side, the thickness of the coat and the height of the boots making his figure twice more imposing than anyone else in the room.
“Oh, joy,” sneered back Viktor. “I cannot wait to freeze my-” A quick look to the ladies nearby. “-legs off.”
“Don’t be such a grump,” he laughed, playfully shoving his partner toward the exit. “I’ll show you how to make a snowman afterward.”
“Snow homunculi? Jayce, I know you still believe in magic despite your alleged adult years, but this is getting too far-”
Jayce bumped their shoulders in retaliation. His enthusiasm was almost communicative, though Viktor’s reserved curiosity toward snow had none of his partner’s childlike energy. None of the winter’s chill could reach Viktor’s bones as Jayce caught his elbow, guiding him outside.
Rebecca herded the group toward a large open field covered with a pristine sheet of snow. It must have been part of the lush gardens, framed as it was with carefully cut hedges. The high sun glittered upon the white like a spattering of diamonds. There was a Zaunite story, about a little girl sent to work for an evil stepmother- or was she a witch? it had been a long time since he heard it- and every morning she shook her drapes by the window, sending gemstones cascading down. Witnessing the glistening ice shards could make one believe in fairy tales.
It had a certain smell, like opening the windows in a stuffy room. Clean, crisp, vaguely green. Viktor inhaled a great gulp of it, relishing in how the air filled his lungs without any of the acrid pollution he was used to. With the bare blue sky, and the tall mountains framing them, the crunch of ice beneath his boots, and the peaceful silence of the scene, even Viktor’s mood brightened fractionally.
Moved by something like genuine wonder, he almost missed the frozen hitch at his side. Jayce’s face showed nothing of his earlier enthusiasm, two feet planted in the snow. His eyes were wide, devoid of their usual glowing joy. His jaw, set harder than black ice, did not unclench. Viktor made to reach out, but his partner hitched just out of his reach.
“Are you quite alright, dear?” asked Mrs. Wislow, placing her gloved hand on his arm.
A full-body shiver. A step back, to retreat from her touch. Then, a forced smile. “Yes! Yes, I was just- I just- I forgot something. Go ahead, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!”
Jayce turned back inside the building before Viktor could offer his help. It was of course then that Rebecca surged up to him, prim and properly annoying.
“Please join the rest of the group,” she smiled, grabbing his shoulder with more strength than he thought she possessed.
“Wait, Jayce is-” he tried to dislodge himself from her grip, to no avail.
“He will be fine! Now, chop chop, we don’t want to be late for the second challenge!”
Viktor planted his feet in the crinkling ground, and promptly ripped his arm free. For the first time since the beginning of the contest, Rebecca’s face showed genuine frustration. They stared at once another, her eyes not quite managing to regain the professional sheen she applied to the rest of her face. Mrs. Wislow had wisely fled the scene to join the rest of the group.
“Mr. Talis,” Rebecca hissed with a frozen smile, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard. “It is very important that you attend the second challenge. Katya seems to see potential in your involvement, which is not a sentiment I share- but we both know who holds the reins here. I will send someone-”
“No,” he snarled back. “Delay the challenge, cancel our participation- It is of no importance to me. My partner needs me.”
---
There was no statue quite as alluring as Jayce’s broad back. Was he even breathing at all, in his eerie rigidity? His fists were two hard stones, knuckles borrowing marble’s whiteness. The bed dipped with his weight, away from the glorious light of the day, so that his face burrowed in comforting darkness. Fur surrounded his limbs, choking his neck with its warmth.
Viktor’s fingers stilled on the brass door handle. Once closed, the door would create a world of silence and anticipation. His gaze followed the wet tracks of the boots to Jayce’s impossibly tense legs.
The door slotted close with a barely audible click.
“Jay-”
The words stuck to the back of his throat when the other man all but shattered in front of him. Like snow sliding off high peaks to form an avalanche, the emotion in him had gained enough momentum to annihilate anything in its path. Jayce’s eyes searched the space between them as if sifting through a blizzard, and finding no familiar edge in the unforgiving ice. His breath lost any sense of rhythm, panting and choking wildly as he jumped up.
Viktor raised his hands in surrender- in defence? The sudden movement was too sharp, and Jayce’s back hit the wall with a dull thud. His own hands came up as claws, as if fighting for his life. His irises, pinpricks darting left and right without logic, had the haunted quality of seeing a revenant.
How could a topsider know the inner horrors of the Gray, Viktor wondered. These symptoms, if they could be called that, the twitching and the empty lungs, usually did not make their way up the high spires of Piltover. Uneasiness invaded his chest- emotion was a realm he only rarely passed by. Jayce was the one who delighted and inspired, reassuring both lab assistants and investors.
“I- well, it might not work,” Viktor mused aloud as he shed the imposing, too-heavy coat from his shoulders, carelessly onto the floor. “There is a solution. I will be back.”
He all but ran out of the room.
The kitchens were not very busy at this time of the day, with only a few junior cooks cleaning the workstations. Viktor did not stop to marvel at the incredible display of copper pans shining on the wall, or the sheer size of the fireplace, not even at the luxurious presence of an ice box. He zeroed in on the youngest cook, and walked to them full of determination.
“Mrs. Caulton needs a bottle of vodka- eh, yesterday,” he ordered, making sure his face conveyed how urgent the demand was.
“What-”
“You know how she is,” he insisted, rolling his eyes for full effect. “Add it to her bill, and get on with it. Chop, chop, as they say.”
The young man darted a look at his colleagues, who all very studiously let him deal with the situation. He could not have been older than sixteen, with a few brave wisps of a mustache growing over his top lip. The kid nodded with a frustrated grunt and asked Viktor to wait a second as he went to check the reserve.
“We don’t have uh- vodka. I hope that’s close enough?”
---
Rabid still, Jayce had found a way to weasel himself into the closet. Viktor stood in front of the open doors with a raised eyebrow, using all his strength not to make a comment about it. Being a good friend, a helpful lab partner, and the man with a bottle of liquid solutions was his main goal.
The carpet’s plush fibers muffled Viktor’s knees, but his spine protested the unnatural angle. He dismissed the ache as one more inconvenience to endure. A spoonful of laudanum before bed should take care of the pain. Looking at the hunched, shivering shape hiding behind their clothes, Viktor thought he would perhaps share the medicine with Jayce as well.
Hanging clothes dragged his hair into new and interesting shapes, an indignity Viktor ignored. Sounds dampened in the darkness of the closet, only Jayce’s quick, raspy breath echoing between the two of them. The small space smelled like him, like the comfort of his body laying next to Viktor’s at night, just out of reach.
“Go away,” Jayce grunted, burying his face in the confines of his forearms.
“And miss the party? How unlike me,” He smiled, maneuvering his decidedly inflexible body to sit next to his friend. “And I even brought a childhood friend.”
Viktor shook the bottle in front of them, wordlessly offering it to Jayce, who took one look before shaking his head. Making himself so small, he reminded Viktor of a kicked puppy whimpering under the couch.
“My friend can help you, you know?”
Viktor looked at the label, and found himself unable to read the elegant Ionian script. All he could identify was the halved pear illustration. It tasted as strong as it looked, and he had to hiss the fire away. Jayce’s wide, unguarded eyes were on him again, right above the thick material of his coat.
“See, it didn’t kill me. It shouldn’t kill you- but eh, only one way to find out?”
“I- don’t think I can. Drink. Anything.” The rough voice fought through the dryness of Jayce’s throat, sending Viktor’s mind to a very dangerous place.
“Interesting hypothesis, I would wager the opposite for research’s sake,” he joked, trying to shake the inappropriate thoughts away with another swig. The burn pricked the back of his throat. “And I didn’t steal this to drink on my own.”
At last, there was something like an amused glint in Jayce’s eyes. It was hard to tell, in the comfortable darkness of the closet. Pant legs dangled between them, and a pair of shoes dug into Viktor’s thigh. A distant, giddy part of his brain noted the flicks of brown and copper in Jayce’s golden eyes, now far calmer than minutes prior.
“I’d spill the bottle. Hands shaky.”
“Oh, I can help with that. If you would turn your face to me-” Viktor whispered, raising the expensive liquor between them.
Perhaps a more logical Viktor would have managed to bring the bottle to Jayce’s lips. He could have also gotten up, as much of a hassle as it would be, to retrieve a glass from the bathroom. He could have even perhaps reasoned that mixing alcohol and panic was not the soundest plan he ever came up with.
Not this one.
Jayce’s gaze was intoxicating, watching Viktor bring the liquor to his own lips. Holding a mouthful without swallowing it burned terribly, but not as much as the angle at which he had to lean on to bring his lips against Jayce’s. Whether or not they were soft did not register, only the impatience of stopping the painful tingle against his gums.
The act was utilitarian, detached. Skin against skin- until Jayce opened his lips.
What had been painful became delicious. Viktor felt something drip down his chin, a hand through his hair. Jayce’s tongue sliding against his, the softest of caresses. It was too warm, it was perfect.
A sharp knock startled Viktor out of the intoxicating moment. His teeth painfully clashed against Jayce’s, who winced in pain.
“Are you two decent in there?” yelled Rebecca, impatience seeping through the thick wooden door. “We’re still waiting for you!”
The curses out of Viktor’s lips were nothing worth writing down, for fear of shocking the reader.