Chapter Text
Jayce is making pancakes.
Pancakes are simple. Flour, sugar, eggs–a little butter. He can’t fuck it up (he’s fucked up so many things). The batter is a…a little lumpy, but pancake batter is supposed to be lumpy, isn’t it?
Jayce is making pancakes, and Viktor is in his shower, and for a brief moment it’s like the past ten years haven’t happened, that the war and the horrible ways he and Viktor have hurt each other never happened. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend this is their life, that this has always been their lives, just the two of them, together, and they haven’t spent the past ten years trying to kill each other.
He ladles the first pancake into the pan, watches as it sizzles, and then–
Crash. Bam. Two small bodies in the kitchen beside him, each trying to out-yell the other.
It is too early for this.
“Dad!” He zeroes in on Amarathine’s voice first. “He stole my–”
But Naph–a little older, a little more world-weary–doesn’t take her accusations quietly. “I didn’t steal anything. I was just looking at it!”
“You took it and you didn’t even ask and–”
He rubs his temple, where he feels a headache growing. “Amaranthine. Naph,” he looks at the two children– two children, barefoot in their pajamas in his kitchen, under his care–how did this happen? “You’ve got to learn how to share.”
Naph looks at his feet, ashamed. Amaranthine looks like she’s about to cry. Jayce wonders if this means Viktor is a better father than he is.
The pancakes are burning; Jayce flips them, trying to savage what he can.
“I don’t want to share,” Amaranthine cries, big crocodile tears that aren’t genuine in the least. He’s been her guardian for long enough now that he can tell when her tears both are and are not real. Quite the little actress he’s raising, and she knows she’s got Jayce wrapped around her little finger. “I don’t have much to myself, and now he’s going to break my things and I won’t have anything at all, and it’s not fair Daddy I–”
Naph snorts. “You wouldn’t last five minutes in Zaun, you fake Piltie–”
Jayce does not need the war outside his walls to happen in his kitchen, too. “Stop it, both of you,” he puts his best fatherly voice on, the kind that allows for no arguments from young children. It sounds surprisingly natural. He slides the first batch of pancakes out of the pan, and onto the plate. He sighs as Amaranthine sniffles. “You’ve got to learn how to get along with each other. Viktor and I are trying to make things work between us, which means you’re gonna see a lot of each other. Hell, you’re practically brother and sister–”
They both looked equally horrified at the prospect.
“Which means,” he continues, ignoring their shared looks of horror. “That sometimes Naph will touch your things, Ama. That doesn’t mean he’s going to break them, and if he does, it’s not as though we can’t replace them. And Naph,” he looks Viktor’s boy straight in the eyes, brown meeting brown. “Asking goes a long way, okay? It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
Naph swallows, and looks at his feet. “Yes sir.”
Amaranthine cries louder. “I don’t want a brother! How could you do this to me?” She cries, stomping off back to her room.
Jayce takes a deep breath, and ladles the next batch of pancakes in the pan. He reminds himself that Naph is ten, and Amaranthine is only seven; that Naph lived in an orphanage in the undercity before breaking into Viktor’s house; that Amaranthine lived with her mother in Piltover until her mother died suddenly, at which point she immediately found Jayce, who spoiled her rotten and rarely told her no.
In the back of the house, he hears the shower stop. “Will you set the table?” He asks Naph, who is still watching him guilty, like he needs to apologize for the space he takes up. It’s a look he recognizes from Viktor. Maybe it’s common in all undercity children. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”
Naph nods and scurries like a little mouse, and his house is almost quiet again, save for the sizzle of the pan in front of him. The quiet is calm, peaceful, almost meditative. It’s his excuse, at least, for why Viktor is able to sneak up on him.
He’s not used to Viktor being quiet, his steps silent without the use of his cane.
He’s not used to Viktor being taller than him, either, feeling the press of his love against him, planting a small kiss against his hair. He’s still wet from the shower, and he smells like Jayce’s shampoo. The thought curls warm in the low of his belly.
“You want more coffee?” Viktor asks, and he smiles, flipping over the second batch of pancakes, proud that this batch seems less burnt than the previous.
“Red cup by the sink, thanks,” he stops what he’s doing and watches as Viktor refills his coffee, exactly the way he’s always liked his coffee: a spoonful of sugar, a dash of cream. The fact that he doesn’t need the reminder a decade later makes Jayce’s heart race, just a bit. He watches fondly as Viktor makes his own abomination of half sweetmilk, half coffee, in an old Man of Progress mug he must have dug out from deep in his cabinets. For a moment, it’s like nothing has changed, and they’re still twenty-something year old kids sharing a lab and a life together, where they still know everything about one another.
Like a war never tore them apart. Like they haven’t been trying to put themselves back together ever since they walked out of each other’s lives, a decade ago.
The third and last batch of pancakes goes fast with the hot pan. When the pancakes are done, he slides them on the plate, grabs the container of syrup out of the pantry, and walks into his dining room, where his heart melts a bit.
Sitting at the kitchen table is his family, and his heart feels so warm and full he thinks it may burst. Viktor is sitting right beside Amaranthine, complimenting her hair quietly, like he already knows the way to Jayce’s daughter’s heart is to stroke her ego, like father like daughter. Across from them Naph waits patiently, fidgeting in his chair.
It’s not perfect; it’s only been a few weeks since he and Viktor decided to stop trying to kill each other. But he once knew Viktor better than he knew himself, and they slide back into old habits easier than they would have thought, like they hadn’t really lived in the time they spent apart. His kitchen table isn’t cleared off, still full of empty beer bottles and mechanical bits. Naph didn’t clean off the table so much as added plates and forks to it, but that was fine. It was better than fine. What was life without a little mess? Especially this beautiful life he got to have?
“Breakfast is ready,” he announces, and when Viktor looks up at him his eyes shine bright, like he can’t quite believe this is their life, either.
Breakfast is surprisingly drama-free. Naph eats like he’s still not entirely sure he’ll get another meal ever again in his life, and Viktor has to remind him that silverware is a thing, here in Piltover. Jayce doesn’t mind; he’s charmed by the young man and the way he holds three pancakes in his mouth at once, like the sugary, slightly burnt breakfast is the best thing he’s ever eaten. Viktor doesn’t eat much, pokes at his pancakes and sips his coffee slowly, savouring it. Amaranthine has decided that getting Viktor to compliment her again is more important than her father’s cooking, although she does eat breakfast still, fingers sticky with syrup. Jayce takes the burnt pancakes for himself, and finds that even the burnt flour tastes sweet with the present company.
It’s the perfect morning; he can’t remember the last time he’s been this happy, that his heart has been this full.
Of course, the knock on his front door ruins it.
“Jayce?” Caitlyn’s voice comes through the door as it begins to swing open. “I’m coming in. I hope you’re dressed and not hung over, because I have news about Vik–”
She stops mid-sentence, staring in disbelief as she takes in the sight of them. Of Viktor, still half-machine, in a pair of sweatpants and long wet hair, drinking Jayce’s coffee. Of Jayce, sitting across from him in his pajamas and an old t-shirt, a plate of half-eaten pancakes in front of him. Of Naph, sliding onto the floor with half a pancake still hanging out his mouth, like perhaps the sight of a child hiding underneath Jayce’s dining room table will escape the notice of the sheriff of Piltover.
Amaranthine waves at her. “Hi Aunt Cait! Dad made pancakes for breakfast!”
Caitlyn swallows, hard, and Jayce can tell that she is practically vibrating–whether from rage or from disbelief, he’s not certain.
“I see you have guests,” she says, surprisingly neutral. He only knows she’s angry because he can hear the sound of her teeth grinding.
He should have known his little paradise was too good to last. Perfection has never been his except only temporarily. He wipes syrup off his mouth with a napkin and tosses it on the table before standing, grabbing his robe off the back of his chair and putting it on. Caitlyn may kill him, and he may deserve it, but he won’t freeze to death outside in the Piltovian winter, at least. He ties his robe and locks eyes with Viktor, trying to silently tell him a million little things with a look. I love you. I’m sorry. Watch the kids. I won’t let her harm you or Naph. She’s still my sister. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.
Viktor merely nods, and if he understands half of what Jayce was trying to communicate, then Jayce is grateful.
“Be right back,” he tells his little family, rubs his hand through Naph’s carrot-colored hair as he walks to what might be his death, or the end of his relationship with his sister. For the first time, he locks eyes with Caitlyn. If looks could kill. “Could we speak outside, please?”
Caitlyn doesn’t say anything; instead, she steps outside, holding the door open for Jayce. He walks through it with his head held high, with as much dignity as a man in a bathrobe can, and shuts the front door behind him. Outside is a cold rain, mixed with a little snow, and he’s grateful his front door has a little awning keeping them covered.
“I know what you must be thinking–”
“Do you?” Caitlyn asks, disbelief in her voice. “Because I came here to tell you that no one has heard from Viktor in nearly three weeks and we think he might be dead, and instead I find him playing house with you and your daughter,” she turns her head and tries looking in his front window. “Is there another kid in there?”
He nods. “Naph. He’s Viktor’s–” Ward? Apprentice? Son? None of the words sound right on his tongue. “He’s Viktor’s.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Caitlyn shakes her head. “How did this even happen? I thought you hated him.”
He leans back against the wall of his house, and wishes he had a cigarette. “I’ve never hated him. Not really. I’ve disagreed with him, and his methods, but hate?” he closes his eyes, and listens to the sound of the rain on his metal roof. “I’ve hated only how much I’ve missed him.”
“How could you do this? To me? To Piltover? To–”
“I’m so tired, Cait,” he whines, looking his sister dead in her remaining blue eye. The eyepatch she wears hides so much in her expression when she wants it to. “I’m 42. How long do you think we should fight? Until we’re dead in the ground? Until we manage to kill each other? We’ve got,” he gestures towards his house, where his little family is still safe and warm. “ Kids now, plural, both of us,” because fate hates a repeat but it loves a rhyme, “and we’re tired of fighting each other. We’ve been doing this for almost a decade now–how many bodies will be enough?”
Caitlyn bruises her lower lip. “So you’re betraying us.”
“I’m not betraying shit. I’m just not fighting anymore,” he rubs his face with his palm. “I can’t do it anymore, Cait. I’ll drink myself to an early grave if I have to keep fighting Viktor every day of my life, and then Amaranthine will be an orphan twice over, and I can’t do it. I can’t do it to her, I can’t do it to my mom, so I won’t. I’m done fighting. I’m done.”
“The Council will never accept–”
“The Council can suck my fucking dick,” Jayce says, louder than he means to, slamming his fist against the brick wall beside him. He’s been trying to clean up his language since taking in Amaranthine, but he’s not the best at it, always. Too many years of being on his own with no one he’s had to watch his mouth for. “I’m not fighting. Neither is Viktor. We’re done.”
“You’re speaking for Viktor now?”
“Yeah, actually,” he rubs the back of his head. “We’re together, again,” Caitlyn looks away from him, like she doesn’t know what to say. “Cait, I love him.”
“He’s a murderer.”
“So am I. So are you,” he reminds her. “Please don’t arrest him.”
His sister stops, and he realizes she’s shaking a little bit. “Do you not think I’m tired, too, Jayce?” She asks him, her fists clenched. “Do you not think Vi and I want to stop fighting? Do you not think–”
“Then don’t!” He tells her. “Don’t fight! Don’t do anything! We can just–”
“We can what?” Caitlyn laughs darkly. “Just forgive them? Just ask the Council nicely and have this war forgotten? Pretend there’s not hundreds of bodies between our two cities, all because–what? You and Viktor love each other?”
She’s crying, he realizes. He hadn’t noticed earlier due to the rain.
He gives her a moment to catch her breath. He peeks through his window and notices that his family is still together–Viktor is picking up dishes, talking gently to the kids. He wants, more than anything, to be in there with him, helping to do the dishes.
“You know, Viktor told me Jinx has a kid now,” he says, and he doesn’t really know where he’s going with this other than the thought came to him, and he’s not very good at not running his mouth. “A little orphan girl she’s taken in. I bet,” he bites his lip and prays. “I bet Vi would like to meet her niece.”
“Who let that psycho have a child?” Caitlyn stares at him in disbelief. “What, are they just giving away free kids in the Undercity now?”
Jayce shrugs. “There’s been a war. Lotta of dead people. It makes for a lot of orphans.”
He tries not to think of his and Viktor’s orphans in the house behind him.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Caitlyn storms beside him. “If Vi finds out she has a niece she’s gonna go off and do something stupid, like kidnap her sister and the kid, and then they’ll both be in my fucking house and it’ll be my problem, fuck. I don’t want any fucking kids.”
It’s such a mundane complaint that Jayce can’t help himself: he laughs, loudly, and it’s apparently the right answer, because Cait laughs, too. Together, they laugh and they cry in equal measure, and he should have known he was never really in any danger from his sister.
Once they catch their breath, she gestures to his house. “How did,” she moves her arm in a circle, as if to encompass everything she just witnessed. “All of this happen, anyway?”
“I broke into his lab, intending on getting supplies back, and he all but begged me for a truce,” Jayce tells her softly, remembering the nearly month ago when this happened. “Naph was running a fever, and he couldn’t get his fever to break. He was so scared. You know Zaun medicine is crap–Viktor’s the closest thing they got to a doctor, and his degree is in mechanical engineering, not medicine–so I ran back here, got antibiotics, and brought them to Viktor. I wasn’t–I wasn’t going to let a little boy die just because Viktor and I were fighting. Well,” he sucks in his breath. “I waited with Viktor while Naph’s fever was breaking, and I realized Viktor loved this kid, and if Viktor loved this kid then he still had his emotions and wasn’t just a robot, and we talked and he was still Viktor , and things just…progressed from there.”
Cait rolls her eyes at him. “Really? That was all it took?”
“What, you want the dirty details?” he teases her with a grin. “You want me to tell you how as soon as Naph’s fever broke and he was asleep, we went upstairs and had wild sex–”
She shoves him.
“--And I realized I still loved him, and it turns out he still loves him, so we kept making sweet, sweet love, and–”
She laughs, fully blushing, and shoves him again. “Okay, you gotta stop. I don’t want to know this about you.”
“You asked.”
“I did no such thing,” she teases him. “Where was your daughter during all this?”
“With my mama, of course.” How lucky he had gotten, that his mother had asked to have her granddaughter for that weekend, that he had gone to see Viktor right then, when Naph was sick. That the stars had aligned for just that moment, to let them fix things between them. “She’d wanted a girls’ night. Excellent timing for me, right?”
She laughs and leans against his front door, sliding down until she’s sitting on the cold concrete. He sits down beside her. “I’m happy for you,” she says, finally. “Sad for me. Uncertain of where we go from here. But I’m happy for you,” she leans her head against his shoulder. “You’ve always loved Viktor.”
“Yeah,” he admits. “Took losing him to realize how much, but, yeah, I do,” he lets her rest against him. “You and Vi should come over for dinner. Meet the kids. Re-meet Viktor.”
“You mean, interact with him without arresting him or trying to kill him?”
“It’d be nice,” Jayce offers. “We could put our heads together, try and figure out a solution to all this. Or we can all put our heads in the sand and play pretend for a little while? Or,” he laughs. “We could come up with an escape plan? For all of us?”
“I don’t know about all that,” Cait sighs, putting her head against her knees. “But dinner? Vi and I can do dinner. Want us to bring anything?”
“Wine,” he suggests, because it’s easy and he knows Viktor doesn’t share his taste for cheap Piltovian beers. “And maybe something sweet for the kids?”
His sister nods, and goes to stand up, offering her hand to his to help pull him up, what with his bad knee. He forgets how strong she is, compared to the little girl he first met, all those years ago. “Thank you, Cait,” he tells her, and means it.
“You’re my brother. Alcoholic tendencies aside,” he hasn’t drank since Viktor came back into his life, almost three weeks sober, minus a few casual beers he’s had at night before bed; hence the bottles on the table. A fact that would have seemed impossible a month ago. “There’s not much in this world I wouldn’t do for you. The least of which is dinner, and trying to come up with a plan,” she bites her bottom lip as she pulls him up. “Besides, it’s not like Viktor is anywhere near the worst of our enemies.”
“That’s for sure.” Even at his worst, Viktor has always held on to his principled set of morality–even if it was a morality that only made sense to Viktor. “5 o’clock for dinner sound alright?”
“Can we do 6? I want to run home and feed the dogs,” Cait and Vi had three pitbulls that were practically their children. “And have a chance to change before coming over.”
“Sure. Six works,” he kisses her forehead, and breathes. “Thank you, Caitlyn.”
She pushes him off of her. “Stop being mushy, and go be with your kids, and your–Viktor.”
His Viktor. He smiles, and waves her off before returning inside.
The kitchen table is abandoned now, and he can hear the sound of dishes being done in the other room. In the distance he can hear the sound of two children playing together, and he can’t help but smile. He picks up the plate that was left for him, and carries it to the kitchen, dumping the leftover burnt pancakes in the trash. Viktor is washing dishes, mechanical hands in soapy water, and it’s domestic, and soft, and Jayce’s heart might burst, so full of love.
He kisses the back of Viktor’s neck, sliding the remaining plate into the water. “You didn’t have to do the dishes,” he whispers, and presses a few more kisses against the mole on his neck.
“You cooked, I clean,” Viktor shrugs, putting a clean plate in the drain rack. “How did your conversation with Ms. Kiramman go?”
“Better than expected,” Jayce confesses, wrapping his arms around Viktor’s waist, burying his nose into Viktor’s dark green sweater. “Honestly, I thought she might try and kill me.”
“She would never,” Viktor argues. “She’s practically your sister. Besides, if I thought you were in any sort of danger, I would have gone with you.”
His words warm his heart. “I invited her and Vi over for dinner,” Jayce yawns. He needs to stretch, but he finds himself unwilling to part from his love. “I figured the four of us could sit down, try to brainstorm what happens next.”
Viktor nods before turning the water off, picking up a towel to try his hands, forcing Jayce off of him. “It’s a good plan, but what are we going to feed them? We need to go grocery shopping.”
He had a point. Jayce groans, stretching out his back as he mentally runs through what he had, food-wise. It wasn’t much. “D’you think Cait and Vi will like dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets?” He kept a stockpile in his freezer, as it was one of the few things he knew Amaranthine would always eat. And besides, they were delicious.
“Absolutely not,” Viktor smiles at him, like the thought amuses him. “I’ll stop by the store and get something to cook on my way back from Zaun, if you’re alright watching the kids?”
“Of course. What do you need from Zaun?”
“The last bits from my lab,” Viktor stretches as well, leaning against the counter. “I’ve gotten most of it out, but there’s one last project I’ve been trying to figure out how to transport.”
“You need help?”
Viktor grins, then kisses him sweetly. “Yes. But more importantly, I need you to watch our children.” Our children, plural, their blended little family. Jayce kisses him again, deeper this time.
When they pull apart, Jayce leans his forehead against Viktor’s. “How’d you get them to get along? They were fighting this morning.”
“I merely suggested that they could pretend the teddy bear was a giant robot, and perhaps the giant robot could help rescue the princess. They took off running from there.”
Smart man. His man. “I love you.”
“I know. I love you too.”
After Viktor leaves, he spends some time cleaning up the house, making it more presentable for visitors. Beer bottles in the recycling, toys back in Amaranthine’s room, dirty clothes in the laundry basket, and, while he’s here, he might as well do laundry. It feels like he’s always doing laundry, but laundry for four piles up much faster than laundry for two. Laundry started, he dusts, sweeps, mops, vacuums, and by the end of it, his house is looking pretty decent. He should probably scrub down the bathroom, but then his dryer dings, and if he doesn’t fold clothes now, they won’t ever be folded. He carries the laundry basket into the living room, intending on folding while watching tv, when he sees a familiar ten year old hanging upside down on his couch.
“You and Ama done playing?” He asks, setting the laundry basket down with a gentle plop. Naph watches him, his head dangling off the couch while his feet are up towards the ceiling.
“Yeah. She wanted to play dress up and I don’t wanna,” he kicks his feet, one, then two. “I’m bored .”
Hi bored, I’m dad, he thinks, but doesn’t say, mostly because he and Viktor haven’t really had that conversation yet, about what each other’s kid should call them. He knows that Naph calls Viktor dad and Viktor pretty interchangeably, while Ama calls him daddy almost exclusively. It’s a conversation to be had later, preferably with the kids’ involvement. He doesn’t want to force anything they don’t want to do.
“Bored? Impossible!” He plops down on the couch beside the boy. “There’s a million things to do.”
Naph scrunches his face, freckles on his nose. “Do you have any video games?”
He does, in fact, have video games. None of which he’s going to let a ten year old play unsupervised. Viktor would kill him. “How about you read a book?”
Naph makes a face like Jayce just suggested he eat raw vegetables for fun. “No thank you. Viktor is always trying to get me to read, and I don’t like it.”
That does sound like something Viktor would try. “Well, you haven’t tried any of my books yet. I have some really fun ones. And some of them have pictures.”
At the promise of picture-books, young Naph looks intrigued enough to sit up right on the couch. “Okay,” the boy agrees, hesitating. “But if I don’t like them, do I still have to read them?”
“Of course not. All I ask is that you give it a try.”
Naph nods in agreement, and follows Jayce to his office, where he stores most of his books. A lot of his collection is science-based, meant for research, but he does have some fun stuff here, too, especially something a young boy would like. An old series about a magical school that he stopped caring about because the author is transphobic–-no, that’s not a good choice. He almost hands Naph a series about magical girls in sailor uniforms before he remembers the nudity, and decides that’s not a conversation he’s ready to have with Viktor’s son.
He–-he has a lot of books about magic, he’s realizing.
Finally, he settles on a series he thinks Naph will like. “Give it a try,” he hands a thin book to his not-step-son. “I think you might like this one.”
Naph raises an eyebrow. “What’s it about?”
“These dwarves have to hire a burglar to help them steal something for their home,” Jayce tells him gleefully. “But they have to encounter a dragon first.”
Naph’s eyes get wide, intrigued. “I like dragons.”
“Me too, kid. This was one of my favorites when I was your age.”
“And,” Naph looks at him suspiciously. “If I don’t like it, I don’t have to keep reading it?”
Jayce crosses his heart with a big x. “I promise. You don’t like it, just come find me and we’ll find something else for you to do.”
Naph nods in agreement, then climbs into Jayce’s big office chair, and opens the book.
Jayce does not intend to fall asleep. Really, truly, he doesn’t. But the laundry got folded, and he told himself he was going to close his eyes for just a moment, really, just to rest his eyes–but then he hears a pot bang in his kitchen, and he knows he messed up.
He bolts upright on the couch, and realizes that someone had put a blanket on him that’s got him a bit tangled. He kicks it off and rubs the sleep off of his face, and wonders at what time it is. He can’t have slept for too long, he doesn’t think, but considering he didn’t intend to fall asleep at all, he’s a bit concerned.
He stands and stretches, trying to work out the crick in his back. He needs water, he realizes, and he starts heading towards the kitchen before he even really thinks about it.
In the kitchen is Viktor, and Amaranthine. The hexclaw holds on to Amaranthine gently as she works on Viktor’s hair, braiding it clumsily. Viktor himself is focusing on chopping carrots while Amaranthine braids his hair, though how much hair ends up in the braid is a bit of a mystery; he has at least six ribbons in his hair, and three pigtails, and sparkly lipgloss, and a sticker of a kitten stuck to his cheek.
Jayce loves him.
“Daddy!” Amaranthine spots him first. “Viktor let me play dress up with him!”
“I see that.”
“Isn’t he pretty?”
“Gorgeous ,” Jayce says, without a hint of irony. He kisses the kitten sticker on Viktor’s cheek with a loud smack of his lips. Gently, he takes Amaranthine out of the hexclaw’s firm hold, and sets her down. “Why don’t you go pick out something nice to wear for dinner? Aunt Vi and Aunt Cait are coming over.”
That gets her attention, and she runs down the hall, her parents forgotten. Which means Jayce can kiss Viktor properly, now; he’s certain he has lipgloss on his mouth as well.
“Thank you,” he holds Viktor close. “For indulging her.”
“Of course,” Viktor laughs. “I have long hair; it’s more fun for her to play with. Practically a siren’s song,” he hums, dumping the carrots into a large soup pot. “You’re going to have to teach me your little miracle, too.”
Jayce raises an eyebrow; Viktor gestures with his shoulder towards Jayce’s office, then whispers quietly, like he’s a little afraid talking about it out loud will break the spell. “Getting Naph to read, voluntarily. He hasn’t put that book down. That boy never reads anything, and I try so hard to get him to. Did you drug him? Because I’m not above trying it.”
Jayce laughs. “No, no, I just got him a book that I liked as a kid. I’m glad to hear he likes it, too.”
“Miracle worker,” Viktor kisses him again before turning his attention back to the soup pot. “I tried getting him to read Tolstoy, but he refused, and–”
“Tolstoy? ” Jayce shakes his head. “Viktor, he’s ten!”
His partner purses his lips. “I was reading Tolstoy when I was ten.”
“Yeah, but you’re a super genius.”
“Naph is plenty smart–”
“I’m not saying he’s not,” Jayce interrupts the rant before it can begin. “But he’s ten. He’s interested in books about dragons and giant robots, not War and Peace. ”
Viktor looks like he might want to argue, but the fight just isn’t in him. He turns his attention to the cutting board instead. “I got stuff to make beef stew for dinner. And a good loaf of sourdough. I figure it’s cold out, soup goes far and can feed a crowd, so I just started cooking it. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
“Sounds great to me,” Jayce pulls a glass from the cupboard, and fills it with water–his original intention in coming in the kitchen in the first place. “You get everything you need from Zaun?”
“Yes. Most of the important things from my laboratory are currently in your garage,” Viktor looks over his shoulder again, this time in the direction of Jayce’ garage. “Including a nine-foot tall golem.”
Jayce spits out his water.
“Blitzcrank is in the garage?” He can’t believe it. He hasn’t seen Blitzcrank in years. “Why would you do that to my boy? Bring him in–I can’t wait to see him.”
“He can’t fit in the doorways, Jayce,” Viktor explains, like Jayce is a child. “Not without doing a significant amount of property damage, at least. Besides, he’s in shutdown mode, so it’s like he’s sleeping. He’s not missing out on anything, I promise,” he sprinkles a bit of salt into the soup pot, tastes it, then sprinkles in a bit more. “I’m just grateful that you don’t actually own a motor carriage–I don’t think he would have fit if there was a vehicle in there.”
Actually, he did own a motor carriage–but Caitlyn had taken it away from him once he announced that he was planning to officially adopt Amaranthine. (“You want to ruin your own life, be my guest. But I’m not letting you drive drunk with a child in your life.”) The carriage was now stored at his mother’s house for safekeeping.
“How’d you get him across the bridge, anyway?”
Viktor wiggles his mechanical fingers at him. “Magic.”
“...You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
“Let a man keep some air of mystery to him,” Viktor flips his hair out, accidentally knocking one of the ribbons loose. “Ah fuck. You think Ama will be mad if I take these out before dinner?”
“If she is, I’ll deal with it,” he downs the rest of the water, and hates the part of himself that wishes it were a beer. “What time is it?”
“Almost five,” Shit, he did nap for far longer than he meant to. “So you have an hour to get pretty, before the girls arrive.”
“I’m already pretty.”
“Prettier , then,” Viktor pulls him close, and kisses him again. “Go take a shower, Jayce.”