Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Jayce felt like a moron.

He barely paused to halfheartedly reassure Sky before making a break for the door.

“I’m sure Viktor’s fine. He disappears all the time. He probably just needed to rest.”

That was bullshit, and they both knew it.

Viktor would never disappear without warning the day a project was due, and even if there wasn’t a project due he’d never take a completely unannounced day off for something he deemed as "inconsequential” as rest.

Jayce stuffed his arms into his coat’s sleeves, making some excuse about wanting updates on the council’s emergency meeting as he sped walked out the lab door.

He was so deep in his own chastisement, he barely noticed the chill of the winter evening closing down around him as he strode through the academy square, heavily decorated with tiny twinkling chemlights. 

How could he have been so blind? He should have known the letter was old, Viktor wouldn’t have said “we can finish it in the morning,” expecting him to come in early, in a letter he only sent that morning.

Passing under glittering Snowdown garlands and out into the gathering dark, Jayce’s mind swirled with horrible possibilities. He walked as quickly as was safe across the icy sidewalk, the only companion for his thoughts a sharp clicking as the flames of the self-lighting street lamps flicked to life.

What if he’d fallen in the bathroom and cracked his head open?

If Viktor had the same symptoms he had, he’d probably been vomiting. What if there had been some sort of freak accident and he’d aspirated in his sleep? That could happen, right?

What if Jayce had made another unwarranted assumption and Viktor didn’t have the same stomach bug but something worse?

Viktor’s home was closer to the lab than Jayce’s in an older neighborhood built for inexpensive staff housing just after the construction of the academy itself. The line of townhouses were old-fashioned dark brick, at odds with the bright white wash of the academy itself, as if built solely to reflect the magnitude of its shadow.

Viktor had bought it a little after the council commissioned the original Hexgate project. They’d both received an advance meant to support them through the first years of it’s production. He’d bought it for the needed security of their work, and because owning some piece of property in Piltover was one of the only ways to ensure his residence card couldn’t be easily revoked for lacking housing the way it could be if he lost his lease on an apartment.

The price tag was quite low at the time, as the area needed updating and had long since fallen out of favor with academy professors. By the time Viktor had looked at it, the townhouses were mostly owned or rented by academy support staff and one or two adjunct instructors who commuted and wanted somewhere to crash.

Jayce wondered at the time why Viktor didn’t buy anything more recently updated or in a newer neighborhood. He’d gotten the same fee Viktor had and had been able to afford something much more comfortable.

“I’m rarely home, and I never host important visitors; the luxury would be wasted on me.” Viktor shrugged, “Besides, it’s a close walk to the lab and I have other needs for the money.”

Viktor’s small two-story was sharp featured and narrowly built, much like its occupant. The street leading up to it thankfully already salted for the expected snow.

The townhouse was easy to spot, dead center of the row with only its darkened windows to set it apart, and set Jayce’s heart to racing.

Jayce fumbled with the latch of the gate, fingers feeling along the mechanism in the dying evening light for the tiny lever Viktor had created to help hide the spare key.

Trembling hands found the catch and pulled three times, paused, and then flicked it in the opposite direction twice more. A sharp click echoed before one of the gate’s decorative points shot loose, flying over his head and into the street. Jayce fell to his knees, scrambling for the heavy metal key

At the time he and Viktor had constructed the keyhide, it had been a hilarious side effect of using a spring with the wrong tensile strength. The keyhide had been a small side project to blow off steam and the lazy summer evening they put it together, they’d been slap happy and half drunk after a gala for the HexGates soft launch.

On their third attempt, the key launched itself into a tree, and they’d both collapsed into fits of laughter on the thin strip of grass that passed as the house’s front garden.

“Oh no Vik, the gate’s failed, all those years of work wasted!” Jayce choked out between giggles, sending Viktor into another fit of wheezing laughter.

Jayce hadn’t been able to resist egging him on. Viktor’s wide toothy smile was usually such a rare gem of a thing, a precious commodity Jayce would put all his stock for the future in if given the chance.

Now as Jayce scrabbled for the key on his hands and knees in the dark, fingers half numb from forgetting his gloves, muttering obscenities under his breath, heart beating out of his chest, it wasn’t funny at all.

Why hadn’t Viktor ever fixed it? Or why hadn’t HE fixed it?

By the time his fingers grazed the icy metal of the key, he was half questioning whether he should have knocked the door down to save time.

Jayce’s hands were shaking when he finally managed to unlock the front door.

He had forgotten earlier the anxiety that led to his rashness with the lab rules but he was certainly reminded now.

Sky’s words had flipped a switch and now his bemoaning the possibility of Viktor being annoyed with him felt utterly foreign, like the past year was just a blip in the sea of concern he’d felt the last time Viktor was sick.

Jayce tried not to push and prod about Viktor's health.

He knew the specifics of the birth defects in Viktor’s leg and spine and the subsequent degradation with some intimacy from working with Viktor on numerous iterations of canes and braces.

An easy routine they’d fallen into after Jayce had insisted on replacing the one that snapped blockading Heimerdinger’s office that first fateful night.

Anything made of bone or muscle, the variable mechanisms of human movement, Viktor was clinically open about; everything else was fragments.

But Jayce wasn’t blind; he knew there was an “everything else”.

If anything happened to Viktor because he was too busy being concerned with Viktor thinking he was clingy and overbearing to check on him… 

The smell of old books and the heat of dry radiator air teased his freezing face as he entered the dark entryway. 

“Viktor?” He called softly.

There was no response and Jayce choked back the urge to yell Viktor’s name at the top of his lungs, moving quickly past the kitchen, its surfaces mostly clear save for a fine layer of dust.

Viktor didn’t cook much.

Jayce made to check the bedroom first.

Viktor's current bedroom had been a downstairs office until the previous year. 

The narrow, steep stairs that led to the house’s intended bedroom on the second floor were a nightmare to navigate when Viktor’s leg was particularly painful, and one particularly shitty Monday Viktor had fallen and gotten a nasty black eye and sprained wrist coming down them. As the degeneration in his leg and spine got worse he began to see maneuvering an extra set of stairs on the daily as an unnecessary and painful risk.

That, along with needing a space downstairs to recover from upcoming spinal surgery, had led to Viktor deciding to convert the office space into a bedroom.

Jayce found the bedroom empty, the streetlight peeking from between the curtains revealed the bed was not only unoccupied but also oddly stripped down to a bare mattress.

Confused, Jayce backed into the hallway, and before he had a chance to process what he’d seen, spotted light coming from the downstairs bathroom.  

Jayce steeled himself for what he might find inside before flinging the door open, but the bathroom was equally empty save for a greenish glowing chem lamp hanging from the ceiling and a sweat-stained pillow on the floor.

A faint, unpleasant odor of sickness hung in the air.

The smell muddled with Jayce’s anxiety enough that he had to back quickly out of the bathroom, retreating to sit against the arm of the living room couch, breathing deeply to ease his own queasiness.

Jayce closed his eyes and tried to center his thoughts. 

In spite of the approaching freeze, the house was summer warm. Viktor had to be here somewhere. He hated the cold almost as much as Jayce did, but he never wasted money by leaving the radiator cranked when he wasn’t home. 

If he were in a mindset to remember something like that right now.

What if he’d been hospitalized and neglected to say anything again?

Maybe Viktor had gone upstairs? It was mostly empty save some boxes nowadays, but there was still a cot in the old master, Jayce had stayed on it before, and the bedroom had an ensuite bath-

“If you’re here to rob me, the first editions are under the bed,” a scratchy voice muttered, whisper close.

Giving a very dignified yelp, Jayce leapt to stand, his foot clanking musically against something metallic and hollow.

There was a soft chuckle followed by a groan as Jayce blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the gloom of the unlit living room, and finally he spotted the lanky figure stretched out on the living room couch.

As he swallowed his heart back to its usual spot behind his rib cage, he felt relief flood his system.

“Vik?” Jayce said, hand still clutching his chest.

“Hey,” the vague shadow of Viktor croaked from his spot on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce dropped his voice back down to a whisper, “were you sleeping, did I wake you?”

“I…” Viktor sounded confused, “I’m not sure, maybe? What time is it? When did you get here? I didn’t hear a knock.”

Jayce’s face heated, “It’s just past sundown, you never came or sent a note to the lab, I got worried and came to check on you.” 

“Sundown?” Viktor muttered the springs of the overstuffed couch creaking as he shifted, “I’m so sorry, I must have-” Viktor let out a groan, trying to push himself up into a seated position.

Without thinking, Jayce’s arm suddenly shot out, pressing his palm against Viktor’s chest, his palm feeling damp heat where it met bare skin.

Embarrassment took the place of the panic seeping out of him. Jayce snatched his hand back, “I should have knocked, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have barged in like this.”

“No-“ Viktor cut him off, settling back on the cushions, “it’s okay, I don’t mind if it’s you…”

An uncomfortable silence fell between them as Jayce felt his face heat in the dark, “I’m going to get the light,” he said quickly, needing something to do with his hands. 

Jayce clicked on the reading lamp behind Viktor’s couch, warm golden light flooding a cozy, overstuffed room. Books trailed across several mismatched bookcases and lined the mantle above the unlit fireplace. There was no art or family photos, but sketches of personal projects and a smattering of handheld blackboards lay propped over books, the delicate sketches clearly done in Viktor’s careful hand.

Viktor let out a sharp hiss at the light, covering his face with his hands, but it did nothing to hide the clammy milk white color his skin had gone, his lips chapped and pulled into a grimace.

When Viktor pulled his hands away, blinking and shivering miserably in the light, his usually striking gold eyes dull and sunken, ringed with disturbingly bruised-looking dark circles.

“God Vik,” Jayce blurted before he could stop himself, stooping to grab a blanket on the floor near Viktor’s feet, he must have kicked it off in his sleep, and finally spotted the metal object his foot had bumped earlier. Set near Viktor’s head was the bathroom’s waste basket.

“You look terrible, you still throwing up?” 

Jayce frowned, looking Viktor up and down, taking in his unbuttoned sweat sweat-soaked work shirt. His shoes were set by the far end of the couch where his cane leaned, his belt thrown over the hand grip. He was still wearing his braces, though they were half unstrapped from his leg and back. It looked like he’d come home from somewhere and passed out on the couch halfway through removing them..

Surely he hadn’t been like this the last two days with the state of the rest of the house? Where had he gone this ill? 

“Eh, I don’t know if it’s physically possible for there to be anything left to expel at this point,” Viktor muttered, “but I do not want to test that theory and be wrong, again.”

Jayce shuddered, the sense memory of his own hellish night still fresh enough to taste acrid. 

He wondered offhandedly if that’s what happened to Viktor’s missing bed linens, but decided not to ask for the sake of Viktor’s dignity.

Instead, he busied himself with tucking the blanket around Viktor’s shivering form, the smaller man watching him with the same inquisitive little frown he gave whenever Jayce offered to pay for lunch, like he thought he should disapprove but couldn’t bring himself to do so.

It was far from the first time Jayce pulled a blanket over his partner, passed out at his desk, or stretched out on the lab couch, but it was perhaps the first time Viktor was awake and watching him do so.

Though Jayce was sure he’d seen a flash of gold eyes watching him tiptoe away a time or two. 

Maybe Viktor was only tolerating the attention because he was too out of it to care about much.

That thought was enough to raise Jayce’s hackles with worry. Both he and Sky had recovered after a day, and yet Viktor was 48 plus hours into a 24 hour bug still shivering and sick as a dog. 

Jayce cleared his throat, “Do- you have a thermometer right?”

“It’s in the medicine cabinet, behind the mirror, but it’s not necessary really,” Viktor pulled the blanket up to his neck, closing his eyes and snuggling a flushed cheek into the couch cushions.

“I’m just feeling a little under the weather, I meant to send a note this morning but I-” he trailed off frowning, “I’ll make it up to you by working on the prototype instructions in the morning, I just need a few hours rest, I think.”

Something about hearing that word, rest, from Viktor’s mouth, made Jayce’s blood run cold.

Fuck the instructions.

He’d seen Viktor without sleep for 70-plus hours, fevered and fervent as they broke down and rebuilt a malfunctioning prototype over and over. He was never the first to call for rest, even when the physical ability to think clearly had left them both.

In the months leading up to Viktor’s spinal fusion he’d struggled to make the slightest of movements without baring his teeth in pain. He’d spent most the work day drafting from the break room couch because he’d get deeply concerning shooting pains up and down his spine and legs when he stood or even sat fully upright for long.

Even then Viktor stubbornly refused to go home and rest. 

Viktor must truly feel horrible to be openly admitting to needing rest and unprompted at that.  

“Don’t worry about the paperwork I’ll finish it,” Jayce hesitated for half a second before repeating Viktor’s words from days before verbatim, “It’s not particularly difficult and it doesn’t really require collaboration. I can easily finish it on my own. ”

Viktor blinked sheepishly at him.

“Please humor me? You already took care of the prototype in what, one evening, while I was out?

And you scaring the shit out of me.

 “Just let me worry about it and make sure you’re okay?”

Maybe if Viktor knew he was doing Jayce a massive favor not letting him drown in a pit of anxiety by overexerting himself he’d actually accept the help.

Viktor sighed, pushing his sweat soaked hair off his forehead. “Fine,” he said softly.

Jayce didn’t wait for Viktor to change his mind, stepping hurriedly out of the room to grab what he needed. 

He stopped by the bedroom first grabbing Viktor some pajamas to change into and dropping them onto the arm of the couch. He gently squeezed his partner’s thin shoulder to get his attention before retreating again.

Once he was in the bathroom he finally spotted where Viktor’s bed sheets and blanket had disappeared to, they sat the floor of the shower half hidden beneath the fold down seat.

The unfortunate source of the sick smell.

Jayce winced at the all too recent memory of his favorite housecoat being sacrificed to the demonic stomach bug.

Locating a laundry bag printed with Viktor’s cleaning service’s name (Jayce still hadn’t been able to convince him to invest in the new automatic washing machine an inventor had introduced last progress day) under the sink and quickly grabbed the dirty linens and blanket from under the seat and stuffing them into it, making a mental note to send out for a pick up.

He’d seen Viktor slip bribe money into Sky’s pocket when he thought Jayce wasn’t watching, and made note of the way the carriage driver who took him home had suddenly changed his attitude towards having a violently ill passenger.

He knew Viktor had been trying to save him embarrassment by shielding him from the man’s disgust, it was the least he could do to protect Viktor’s pride.

Even if Jayce was still a bit sore about Viktor contacting his mom.

It was odd, Jayce mused, Viktor gave so much of himself every day, but when it came to accepting a modicum of what he deserved in return… well.

He stared for a moment at his own initials engraved in the shower seat remembering when they both worked together to transform the downstairs half bath into a full one when Viktor had to move his bedroom downstairs

-

It had been such a Herculean feat for Viktor to find a builder in Piltover to update the old house’s bathroom that he had seriously considered moving.

These days most contractors focused on new construction and tearing down old construction. And the few that were focused on remodeling charged exorbitant fees for working on “historical” homes.

Ironically the influx of businesses hoping to profit off the industrial boom Hextech created meant the price of real estate, especially homes with horizontal space rather than vertical, had skyrocketed. It was especially bad close to the Academy and if Viktor was forced to move the only homes Viktor could reasonably afford were much farther from their lab.

It would mean more walking and more strain on Viktor’s body which is exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid with the deceptively simple solution of moving downstairs in the first place. 

“Screw the builders guild,” Jayce had exclaimed, “we designed the majority of the Hexgate tower ourselves. You could easily come up with a better design than any builder in this city.”

Viktor scoffed, “I appreciate your faith in me and our engineering skills, but if you remember we did almost none of the actual construction on the tower. And I’m afraid I do not have the… fortitude for lugging pallets of tile and plaster. If I did, we would not be having this conversation in the first place.”

Jayce blinked at him in confusion, “Well you wouldn’t be lugging around the heavy supplies, I would! ” 

Viktor froze, eyes widening slightly, “you want to… you don’t have to-“ he grew increasingly flustered, mouth pulling into a grimace the peaks of his cheekbones going pink as he fiddled with the handle of his cane.

Jayce’s heart sank, he thought it was the most obvious solution.

“You don’t want me to help?”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to help solve my problems,” Viktor said cautiously, averting his eyes.

“What? “Obligation” has nothing to do with it. It’s just…”

Jayce struggled to put into words how horrendous he’d feel if he knew someone he cared about was suffering  an injustice he could easily solve. Or the pure relief he’d felt when he’d come up with a way they could work together to fix it.

Like he thought they did all things?

And that was skipping past the fact Viktor shouldn’t have to jump through the rage-inducing number of hoops he had to just to have the dignity of a home that wasn’t a constant hindrance to his well-being. Especially when the builder’s guild only had all the new business it did because of their work in the first place.

“It’s ridiculous that it’s this hard to get the bare minimum. Also isn’t making people’s lives better what we’ve been trying to do this whole time? Not waiting on someone else to fix the problems in the world we can fix ourselves?”

Viktor gave him the same pinched frown he gave when he was contemplating a particularly difficult runic equivalentacy exchange problem.

It was funny, if Jayce were to make an exhaustive list of all the ways his partner differed from him he figured the greatest through line would be that Viktor’s brain just seemed to follow far less rigid pathways than his own.

He was endlessly clever especially when it came to out of the box thinking, seeming more annoyed with the existence of boundaries than truly bound by them.

But when it came to asking for help? It was as if it never occurred to him to do so. If you offered to help Viktor with something personal you’d think you’d presented him with a bomb to diffuse.

Scratch that, he’d probably prefer the bomb.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Viktor finally asked.

Jayce shrugged, “We designed the water cooling system for the Hexgates, how hard could it be?”

The renovation had gone smoothly, right up until they got too the plumbing portion and made a few incorrect assumptions about the capacity of the building’s century old pipes. It had taken three different plumbers to sort out the flooding.

-

Jayce could still remember how Viktor looked when the pipe feeding the cold water had burst in their faces.

His eyes had gone so wide he’d looked like a shocked wet owl. Jayce couldn’t help it, he’d burst out laughing, and after smacking him Viktor had to.

Pushing wet hair out of those golden eyes one sharp incisor peaking out of his laughing mouth.

Jayce shook his head returning to the task at hand, steeling himself for a long moment in front of the bathroom mirror before opening it.

His heart jumped at the sight. Abruptly brought back down to earth.

Aside from the normal toothpaste and aspirin the majority of the cabinet was dominated by neat lines of brown glass pill bottles of various sizes and shapes, at least a dozen, along with several vials of fluid and powdered medications and an inhalation device attached to a mask similar to the ones he’d seen Piltovian’s wear when visiting the Undercity.

Jayce couldn’t pronounce half the printed medication names much less tell you what they were for.

It felt like an answer and condemnation all in one.

How had he dared think he should speak on the risks Viktor took with his health when he knew so little?

Guilt rose like bile in his throat, and he quickly fumbled for two boxes on the bottom shelf, one holding the glass thermometer he’d been searching for the other some sort of injector device, he tucked the injector carefully back and closed the mirror refusing to invade Viktor’s privacy further by examining the medications more closely.

Jayce knew Viktor’s health was on the poor side. 

Even if he wasn’t as open about it as he was with the deformity they’d designed his braces to assist with Jayce still picked up bits and pieces over the years. He wasn’t blind.

He’d seen Viktor taking pills before meals and discreetly throughout the day.

He knew how the inhalation device worked from seeing Viktor use the one he kept in the lab after a particular smoky explosion led to what seemed like a never ending coughing fit.

He recognized the slumped posture, sharp intakes of breath, and overall distracted air that came before Viktor announced he was going to be gone for a few days.

He’d watched the lengths Viktor went to avoid illness and knew from how long it took him to recover that his reasoning for it was more than paranoia.

Maybe that was all this was? Viktor taking a little longer to recover from a bug because of his underlying medical issues?

Jayce wasn’t sure if that made him feel more or less worried.

A sharp startled yelp of pain, like a poro accidentally being trod on, ripped though the quiet house pulling Jayce from his thoughts.

He flew back to the living room thermometer forgotten.

“Viktor!”

Viktor had moved to sit up on the couch, though sitting may have been too strong a word for it. He was curled in on himself protectively and Jayce could see his back trembling through his thin sleep shirt.

Jayce dropped to his knees in front of him hands hovering not wanting to make things worse.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Viktor didn’t answer for a long moment, his breath odd and hitching drawn in through clenched teeth, before he finally leaned back face screwed up in a grimace.

Searching frantically for the site of his discomfort Jayce saw Viktor’s hand clenched vice tight around his bad right hip.

“Vik?” Unable to tolerate seeing his partner in such pain and doing nothing he began to rub the tense muscles of Viktor’s leg in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

“I’m- I’m okay,” Viktor breathed, eyes watering with unshed tears when they finally met Jayce’s, “just- did something stupid. I slept on the bathroom floor two nights too many and now my body is showing it’s displeasure… I think.”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

Viktor huffed softly through his nose looking determinedly away, fever points of red flushing in his cheeks, “No, I don’t think so, just straightened too quickly, eh- getting dressed.”

For the first time Jayce took stock of their positions. Viktor had clearly been in the middle of changing into his pajamas when he cried out. The shirt lay unbuttoned revealing his thin chest latticed with red pressure marks from falling asleep in his brace, one hand protectively over his painful hip and his lower half bare save a pair of boxer brief underwear. 

And Jayce was crouching on his knees between Viktor’s own, one hand touching his bare goosebump covered leg.

“Oh… oh! uh,” Jayce shuffled back onto his ass.

“I-I’m sorry for my state of undress,” Viktor refused to meet his eyes pulling his blanket across his lap.

“It's fine, it's not the first time I’ve seen you without clothes.”

Viktor blinked at Jayce in exhausted confusion.

Jayce quickly backtracked, “well you know, I asked you to take your pants off the other day,” he supplied unhelpfully.

The Talis forge burned cooler than Jayce’s face at that moment.

“Y-you know what I mean,” Jayce grumbled, hiding his face in his hands. 

“When we were measuring for adjustments to my brace?” Viktor said hoarsely.

Jayce nodded weakly . 

He’s sick Jayce, he’s sick and you’re making it weird. He’s already probably uncomfortable enough with you forcing your way into his home, get it together.

Jayce cleared his throat and fumbled for the pajama pants left rumpled on the floor, “here, you should….”

Viktor hummed quietly and took them, not meeting his eyes 

“Do you need help or do you want me to-“

“I’ve put on my own clothes for nearly 30 years, Jayce,” Viktor said sharply, then paused and said more evenly, “This pain isn’t anything worse than I’ve handled before, as nice as it would be if my chronic issues went away whenever I became… acutely ill that’s not how it works.”

Jayce bit his lip unsure what to say to that.

Viktor gave him a grim smile that didn’t meet his eye slumping back against the couch cushions, the adrenaline that had animated him seeming to leech away. “I’ll be fine as long as I go slowly this time, really I’m okay Jayce.”

But you don’t have to deal with this alone, Jayce thought.

That was the part he could never fully understand. 

He got at a certain level that it was about pride, that Viktor hated when people assumed he couldn’t do things for himself.

But he was sick, clearly exhausted and in pain.

Even if Jayce had been embarrassed when his mother had shown up to check on him, it didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the soup or how much she cared. 

Jayce knew Viktor could take care of himself but if letting him help could relieve some of his stress and discomfort he wished Viktor would trust him enough to let him.

And hell, when he’d gotten sick Viktor had practically kicked him out of the lab and “told on” him to his mom like they was seven. How was he going to do that and then act all sheepish?

But there was no point in getting frustrated with his partner's behavior. Not now anyway. Not when Viktor looked ready to keel over hands shaking as his usually clever fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He had to find a way to help Viktor could accept.

“How long has it been since you last threw up?” Jayce asked carefully.

Viktor looked lost for a moment like he was trying to recall the memory through heavy fog, “Just after midday maybe? Shortly after I got home from my appointment.”

So five, six hours give or take? That was a good sign right?

Jayce took in the dark eye bags and cracked lips again and frowned, he reached for Viktor’s arm and turned it over studying it intently.

“What are you doing?” Viktor frowned at him sleepily but didn’t pull away.

“Testing a hypothesis,” Jayce said simply, frowning when he pinched Viktor’s hand and the skin didn’t immediately bounce back, “I think you’re dehydrated.”

“Eh- congratulations Jayce, I didn’t realize you were studying medicine,” Viktor grumbled, pulling his arm back and cradling it protectively.

“No,” Jayce shrugged and then said a little proud of himself, “but I did spend a month hunting for the Hexcrystal’s raw stones in the Shuriman desert, and I had to familiarize myself with a bunch of different ways to identify dehydration to be allowed on the dig site.”

Viktor pouted rubbing at the back of his hand, “I feel as though you could have conferred dehydration without pinching me.”

“What do you mean?” Jayce asked.

Viktor sighed and rubbed at his temples, “If you had asked I could have told you I’ve hardly kept down any water in days, my head is killing me, and my mouth feels like the Shurriman dessert. Those are usually pretty good signs.”

“Right,” Jayce said sheepishly because what could you say to that.

You wouldn’t have told me shit except “I’m fine,” comes to mind.

Jayce decided to change the subject, to something Viktor had said himself he enjoyed when he wasn’t feeling well.

“I could get you soup or something? Nutrition and hydration all in one I think you said?”

Viktor pulled a face.

“Are you still nauseous?” Jayce asked carefully, “Because if it’s been hours without puking maybe the worst is over. It might make you feel a bit better to try and get something in your stomach. Get a little energy back?” 

At least then he’d be able to take something for the pain in his hip. Most pain medicine requires food to work without burning a hole in your stomach right?

There had to be something in Viktor’s pharmacy of a medicine cabinet. 

Viktor just sighed and listed away from him to curl on his non-sore side on the cool leather of the couch, “No thank you. I was… well, I thought I was feeling a bit better yesterday evening, I tried to consume something then and it left me,”  he winced at the memory, “unsettled, to say the least.”

Well that solved the mystery of the shower sheets.

Wait… he’d been feeling better yesterday? Jayce hoped the alarm didn’t show on his face.

“Will you at least let me get you some water?” He suggested cautiously, “You really should at least drink something.”

So you don’t end up in the hospital from dehydration?

Viktor hummed in approval slowly drawing his bad leg on to the couch with a soft hiss of pain. “If you’d like.”

Jayce hesitated for a long moment, not sure what else to offer, “do you need anything from your medicine cabinet? I’m not sure what’s in there but if you don’t mind me…”

“No, that’s alright I can get what I need.”

“Do you want to move to your bed? You’d probably be more comfortable. I could put new sheets on it if you told me where-“

“That’s okay,” Viktor murmured, eyes closing as he burrowed back beneath the blanket, “there’s no en-suite bathroom downstairs, and I am a very poor runner.”

Jayce huffed through his nose. He understood the sentiment of wanting to stay close to the bathroom if you were still feeling nauseous but he was starting to get the feeling anything he asked Viktor if he wanted he would get a dismissive but “polite” no.

If Jayce had thought Viktor was fully coherent he might have felt hurt, as it was he was frustrated. 

It felt like Viktor asked him to stay only to tie his hands when it came to actually being any help.

Had he actually asked him to stay? No he’d said he didn’t mind that Jayce broke in.

“I don’t mind if it’s you.”

Heat crept up the shell of Jayce’s ears.

Viktor was definitely out of it if he said that out loud. 

Jayce pulled the bottom edge of the blanket down to cover Viktor’s bare feet and fretfully smoothed it over his thin shoulders, before tiptoeing to the kitchen.

As he dug around in the cupboard above the sink for a glass, a sudden thought struck him.

If Viktor was uncomfortable asking for or accepting offers of other people’s help, and only accepted it when you directly presented him with said help.

Screw it he was making him soup.

If he already put the labor in then Viktor wouldn’t have to ask or feel bad about accepting the offer right?

But wasn’t that the assumption he’d made when he pissed Viktor off by rewriting the safety bylaw? Viktor wouldn’t have to feel bad about taking time off when he wasn’t well if it was a rule?

All he’d ended up doing was making Viktor feel like he had no say in his own lab, or in his choices for his own body.

And Viktor’s body had to feel especially out of his control now, with how sick he was. 

Is that what’s making him trust you less than normal?

Jayce shook his head, this wasn’t the same as the lab incident, not really. In any case Viktor had said he could be here and there was no way he was leaving Viktor alone in this state.

And if he was going to be here while Viktor was sick he refused to sit with his thumb up his ass and watch him suffer. 

If Viktor wasn’t ready to eat soup fine, he’d put it in the ice box for when he was. If he could think of anything else that might make Viktor feel better he was going to get it.  Viktor could always refuse what he brought and Jayce would back off but he couldn’t do nothing.

Setting the water glass he’d retrieved from the cabinet in the sink for the time being Jayce began to snoop for ingredients.

The cabinet to the left of the sink yielded nothing but a tin of stale soda crackers, a bottle of vinegar, and an unidentifiable jar of pickled vegetables.

The one to the right held a small box of dryed noodles and a glass container filled with what appeared to be detritus and tiny faintly glowing dots. He almost threw it away thinking it was something that had gone off before he remembered the early birthday present Sky gifted Viktor, an odd contraption she had personally inoculated with spores to grow an edible mushroom found in the Undercity. 

Viktor had looked so touched his bright eyes twinkling with unshed tears.

He carefully pushed the container back into the gloom at the back of the cabinet. Feeling like an ass for still not having finished Viktor’s Snowdown present let alone his birthday present.

Jayce moved to the pantry on the far side of the kitchen and after clicking on the light stared into the abyss of it before sighing, unsurprised but exasperated. 

Instead of dry goods or jars of preserves Viktor had lined the shelves with books about theoretical geometry, and practical physics. 

He recognized several they’d referenced for their work on the Hexgates.

He knew Viktor didn’t cook much and understood the Viktor logic of it all. 

Free shelf space, free bookshelf.

Still part of him hated it.

It was as if the pantry was being used to nourish the city instead of the man who owned it.

Jayce moved quickly away from the thought in favor of perusing the icebox.

It too was mostly bare. Just a large paper bag and two takeout containers that had been sitting at least a few days. (from before Viktor got sick), Neither container had anything suitable to feed a person recovering from a stomach ailment.

The large paper bag however was pinned with a stamped receipt from a local grocery delivery company.

Jayce grabbed it only for it to immediately rip open and send its contents spilling to the floor.

He scrambled to catch the rolling wet potatoes and damp carrots, grimacing at the remains of the bag immediately seeing the culprit, a large jar had a visible crack in it and it had clearly leaked soaking through the bottom of the bag.

A handful of wilted herbs and a waterlogged box of noodles remained in the mess of what smelled like chicken broth.

Viktor didn’t cook, what had he been…

Jayce glanced at the receipt still clutched with half the bag in his hand. The time and date written on it indicated it was delivered two days previously in the late afternoon .

Hadn’t they both been at the lab around that time? Viktor must have sent out the order from the lab right after he’d gone home sick.

Suddenly it clicked.

Potatoes 

Noodles

Carrots

Broth

Herbs

…Soup?

A wave of fondness swelled in Jayce’s chest. 

Viktor had been planning to bring soup after all, he just fell ill before he had the chance.

Most of the ingredients weren’t salvageable, it seemed like the groceries had stayed outside at least overnight after Viktor came home sick. The carrots were mostly fine but the potatoes had gone odd and rubbery from freezing and thawing, and the broth jar was damaged (probably from expansion when the liquid inside froze) and potentially contaminated.

As much as he didn’t want to leave Viktor alone he’d have to go out and get new ingredients if he wanted to make anything.

Jayce cursed his lack of foresight, he’d been in such a panic when he’d fled the lab that he’d brought nothing but the clothes on his back.

And while he was at the market maybe he should get some ingredients for ginger tea and something with electrolytes in it. If Viktor couldn’t stomach soup yet he at least needed to hydr-

Jayce paused for a long moment before doing a double take to the sink and remembering why he’d come in the kitchen in the first place. 

Right, water first, everything else after.

Swiftly filling the glass Jayce tiptoed back to the living room where Viktor lay unmoved still curled up under the blanket.

“Vik?”

Not receiving an answer Jayce gingerly moved to kneel by the couch.

Viktor was fast sleep cheek squished up against the cushions, breathing softly, though even in sleep his features looked drawn, mouth tight with pain, strands of usually artfully unruly hair plastered down to his forehead and cheeks

Jayce absentmindedly brushed Viktor’s hair away from his face, it was softer than he had imagined, and careful not to wake him, felt his sweat soaked forehead for fever.

His skin was a little too warm.

Did I have a fever yesterday? 

Jayce couldn’t remember.

Jayce debated retrieving the thermometer from where he’d left it in the bathroom. But he really didn’t want to wake Viktor up from probably much needed sleep.

It seemed low grade anyway, probably nothing to worry about, Jayce tried to tell the pit in his stomach.

He should probably pick up a fever reducer when he was out.

“Hhhmm…”

Jayce jumped, feeling Viktor move under his hand quickly realizing it was still resting on his forehead.

He moved to pull away only for Viktor to grumble softly and nuzzle his forehead back into his palm like an affectionate cat.

“Stay,” Viktor mumbled sleepily.

Jayce went stock still, was he awake?”

“If you go down there-” Viktor murmured, eyes clenching tight, breath hitching against some invisible terror, “-you won’t come back.”

Ah probably not then.

Jayce felt a completely unfair pang of disappointment.

He seemed lost somewhere far away, probably thinking Jayce was some person he’d lost long before they’d met.

The moment Jayce had woken curled up on his sitting room floor, calling his own mother by his partner’s name, mocked him.

Jayce doubted he sprang to Viktor’s mind unprompted in moments of stress the way Viktor had his.

Still Jayce couldn’t stand the idea of leaving Viktor, usually so careful Viktor, in this state of vulnerability, begging not to be left behind.

Plus if he moved Viktor might actually wake up then they’d both be embarrassed.

Please don’t wake up.

“It’s alright, you always come back when you disappear, I will too,” Jayce soothed absent mindedly smoothing over Viktor’s damp hair with his thumb.

Viktor sighed, the panic gripping his features easing as he drifted off.

Jayce waited for what could have been an hour or could have been ten minutes until Viktor began to snore softly before cautiously easing Viktor’s head back onto the couch cushions

Viktor gave a soft sleepy whimper but did not wake.

“I’ll be right back, I promise,” Jayce whispered. He carefully placed the water on the coffee table within Viktor’s reach and straightened the blanket where it had come untucked, turning off the light before tiptoeing for the door.

———

The winter sun had long since set when Jayce made it to the shops outside the academy commons. He moved as swift as the impending snow; thankful that the deceptively early dark meant while it was still early enough that the shops he needed to visit were open most of them were not bustling with customers.

A paper apothecary bag under one arm Jayce ducked easily past the few merry clumps of shop goers rushing to buy last minute Snowdown treats at a nearby bakery.

Jayce paused to stare through the window at rows of delicious looking pastries filled with cream and warming spices all marked down for the end of day. The kind of thing Viktor would normally devour with abandon and Jayce himself was partial too.

Seeing Viktor’s thin frame most people would assume he didn’t eat much. (And while that could be true when they were working a tight deadline), whenever they actually ate together the man could easily keep pace with his partner despite being half a head shorter and half the breadth.

With Viktor’s love of sugar, cream, and carbs in general you’d think he’d have a little more meat on his bones, but for reasons Jayce couldn’t really understand nothing ever seemed to stick.

Viktor had insinuated it was genetics and made attempts over the years to try and gain a healthy amount of weight but whatever he managed to gain seemed to disappear within weeks leaving him his same spindly self.

Jayce knew it bothered Viktor in the rare moments he’d draw away from their work to focus on himself. Particularly when they were expected to make appearances at Piltover’s elite society events.

“If I was born in Piltover they might consider my… physical state something aristocratic, as it is the moment people hear my lack of a family name they consider me half starved… or diseased, it’s happened before with… it doesn’t matter, point is it’s not worth trying to connect,” Viktor admitted bitterly after a few too many. 

Jayce had been trying to be supportive asking him why he’d blown off a man who’d clearly been interested.

He’d nodded along actually feeling some relief that his immediate dislike of the man was vindicated, how dare he hypothetically judge Viktor. 

Jayce could never imagine ever feeling repelled by Viktor, the very idea that someone could look at his partner and feel disgust was infuriating.

He’d caught himself once or twice staring at Viktor’s back as he wrote equations on their blackboard, contemplating if his fingertips would meet if he wrapped his hands around Viktor’s thin waist.

Fingers resting at the hollow of his bellybutton.

Would it be soft to the touch?

Jayce shook his head and tried to focus back on the pastries.

The Snowdown holiday was only a few days away. He sincerely hoped Viktor would be able to enjoy at least a few of the treats by then.

He remembered the spice cake he’d brought to share with everyone in the lab the year before. Viktor denied it but Jayce knew he eaten half of it by himself.

For now though he settled on buying something easier on a queasy stomach, a basic white loaf left from the morning, perfect to make toast with.

Most of the grocer's produce and meat selections had been picked over for the day, and the more Jayce considered it the more he realized it might not be best  to torture Viktor with the smell of food cooking for the several hours it would take to make soup if his stomach was still unsettled and he was sleeping in the room next to the kitchen.

He settled on just picking up honey, a knob of ginger and some decently fresh mint from the greens grocer for tea and purchased several varieties of soup from a nearby spot he knew Viktor favored for lunch in the lab.

Soft flurries had begun to drift through the glow of the lamplight by the time Jayce made it back to Viktor's street with his spoils. 

However as he turned the borrowed key in the lock and opened the door it became apparent that he had raised his expectations too high.

A strangled wet cough echoed through the hallway as Jayce entered the darkened house, quickly followed by rough pained panting.

“Viktor?”

A breathy whimper was the only reply quickly followed by the horrible heart ripping sound of retching.

“Fuck,” 

Jayce abandoned the bags of supplies in the entryway, darting quickly into the kitchen where the noise was echoing from.

The sight of Viktor, bent painfully over the sink, arms braced against the edge as his whole body shook riding through waves of nausea, sent a fresh wave of horror through Jayce..

Jayce hurried to his side, nearly tripping over Viktor’s crutch where it had fallen to the floor.

He gently rubbed Viktor’s back, his shirt soaked through with sweat and trembling with exertion under Jayce’s palm.

“It's okay, you’re okay,” Jayce soothed half to himself voice shaking with worry.

Viktor’s only response was another soul deep dry heave that had Jayce’s own, only recently recovered, stomach turning.

Don’t you dare Jayce Talis.

After a few more unproductive convulsions, the ill man seemed to settle, still gripping the sink ledge for support, shaking as he tried to regain his breath by taking great gulps of air.

Jayce dutifully rubbed his back, hoping beyond hope that was the end of it

What was going on? 

Jayce felt Viktor’s knee knock into him as his bad leg started to go out from under him and he quickly wrapped his arm around his partner’s shoulders to keep him upright, alarmed.

This would make night three of what was supposed to be a 24 hour bug, and Viktor didn’t seem to be getting any better. 

Viktor made a soft sound somewhere between a moan and a sob as Jayce steadied him

“You’re okay, I got you.”

“M’sorry,” Viktor croaked breathlessly.

“For what? It’s not your fault your stomach decided to turn on you.”

Refusing to look at him Viktor leant his head on the sink ledge “Sorry you had to witness… this.”

Jayce tried to force a reassuring smile that came out more as a pained grimace, “I had your seat a few days back I’m pretty sure you’re the one with the worse view.”

Viktor's eyes flicked up to Jayce’s, their usual bright gold tarnished and confused, like he was too exhausted to really process the joke, before his expression dropped and he swallowed convulsively, lurching back over the sink.

Jayce had to clench his eyes shut and look away at the sound of liquid spattering against the steel basin.

That sound was not half as horrible as Viktor’s painful breathing, halfway to a sob between heaves, or the way his slight weight seemed to grow steadily heavier as if he could support himself less and less as each retch hollowed him out .

When the round of vomiting ended Viktor slumped back against Jayce shaking, his sweaty head pressed against his chest as he gasped for air.

Jayce could feel Viktor begin to drop in his arms as he struggled to remain upright and Jayce looked around frantically for somewhere to get him off his feet.

Holding Viktor as tightly as he dared to his chest Jayce turned grabbing the side of the counter with his free hand for balance and awkwardly hooked his foot around the leg of one of the chairs at the nearby kitchen table dragging it closer with a sharp squeak.

“I gotcha, I gotcha,” Jayce soothed as he eased Viktor down, the smaller man curling forward almost immediately, grimacing in pain as he sucked in air through his teeth.

Jayce felt both woefully helpless and horribly intrusive.

Like he was doing too much and not enough at the same time.

He knew Viktor was rarely not in pain and he tried to do whatever Viktor would let him to help. 

A proffered arm or supportive hand on the back on a long walk, an offer to make the trip to retrieve their lunch at the lab, a feigned excuse to leave when an event went on too long with nowhere to sit down.

But even in those times Viktor carried his pain like his own shadow, always present but largely hidden in the light of day if you didn’t know where to look.  

He’d seen Viktor wincing, Viktor putting to much weight on his good side, Viktor biting back hisses of pain.

The way Viktor went dead silent when he felt overwhelmed.

But never this, Viktor vulnerable, shaking on the verge of tears, exhaustion pouring off of him as he curled in on himself arms wrapped protectively over his core.

In the dimly lit kitchen Viktor’s shadow was thrown into sharp relief.

Normally if Viktor was suffering he disappeared before it got bad, and Jayce just let him with barely a word unless Viktor himself acknowledged it, not wanting to embarrass him or intrude.

Because when he did it felt like he always managed to screw it up.

Now Jayce wasn’t sure if he was the one person Viktor trusted enough to see him in this state or if he was just intruding on something private and hadn’t taken the hint.

Either way he felt woefully inadequate.

But either way there was no way he was leaving Viktor alone like this.

Jayce stooped grabbing the crutch from where it had fallen and leaning it within Viktor’s reach against the sink as his partner tried to gather himself.

It was the one thing he could think too do to return a little autonomy to his sick friend.

Jayce laid a gentle hand on Viktor’s thin shoulder and, though he knew it was impossible from only two days of illness, tried to remember if the bones had been so prominent the last time he’d done so. 

“Hey Vik, you alright?” He asked calmly, like his heart wasn’t in his throat and worry wasn’t eating him alive.

Viktor shook his head, “Just… need a minute… dizzy,” he breathed.

Now Jayce was the one who felt like throwing up and it had nothing to do with any virus, but he just nodded and stood keeping one hand on Viktor’s shoulder, should he start to keel over again. 

Jayce flipped on the sink to rinse Viktor’s meager stomach contents out of the basin, mostly just bile along with a few assorted pills, before grabbing a few kitchen towels from a drawer near Viktor’s feet.  

He wet the first thoroughly under the tap, the water ice cold due to the weather, and then wrung it mostly back out before gently settling it around Viktor’s overheated nape hoping it would be grounding.

Viktor jumped, “Hmmm?”

“Too cold?” Jayce asked concerned.

Viktor shook his head and sighed leaning sideways against the kitchen counter, the chair creaking slightly, “it’s nice…”

Breathing a sigh of relief that Viktor sounded coherent and didn’t seem likely to take a nosedive into the hardwood floor Jayce set about soaking the second towel with warm water.

Jayce crouched in front of his partner and with the tentative kind of reverence he usually reserved for particularally expensive and delicate custom order parts, he gently held the side of his partner’s face and tilted it up toward him.

Again Viktor didn’t pull away, if anything his bruised looking eyes lit up through the veil of bleary exhaustion with a wary kind of wonder Jayce didn’t know how to interpret.

He felt a little awkward, but in his defense he was an only child and his only real knowledge for how to care for a sick person came from his mother’s ministrations on his younger self.

But if Viktor felt awkward he said nothing, wariness transforming into a sheepish kind of acceptance as Jayce began to gently wipe away any signs of illness from his chin, eyes drifting shut as he let himself relax into the touch.

Jayce totally wasn’t going to read too deeply into that, he was just too tired to argue, probably.

“Stomach still feeling pretty fucked up huh?” Jayce winced as he noticed the collar of Viktor’s pajamas were not spared said organ’s wrath. He dabbed at it wordlessly.

“I did try to tell you…” Viktor muttered, eyes opening to slits.

“What happened?”

Viktor’s eyes flitted towards the kitchen table and for the first time Jayce noticed the small array of objects laying across it..

Three pill bottles in a neat row, along with a half drunken glass of water, and the tin of slightly stale crackers.

It was pretty easy to put three and two together even before Viktor answered.

“I’m very sore,” Viktor said softly, resigned. “It… woke me up. I tried to take something, but well.”

Jayce grimaced empathetically, “yeah.”

“I just want to rest." Viktor said.

“Do you have anything for nausea in that pharmacy of yours?”

Viktor snorted derisively, “I tried that first, it’s what’s in the first fucking bottle, it didn’t do shit.”

Jayce flinched a little at the frustrated tone. 

“Sorry…” Viktor swallowed, wincing, “It’s just…”

“No no I get it, you’re hurting.”

Jayce couldn’t talk, he had called Viktor something rude to his own mother the day before.

“That’s not an excuse.”

“Vik please, I’m just worried about you, I don’t care,” Jayce said quickly, and he legitimately didn’t, the only unusual behavior he cared about was that Viktor was visibly curled up in a ball of pain, after throwing up and nearly passing out.

“You said it’s your stomach, hip, and head right? That’s what’s hurting you?”

Viktor’s eyes widened slightly before settling on his lap refusing to look at Jayce, “The head’s probably just dehydration. it’s… my whole abdomen was sore yesterday but now… less so except around my hip and back and-“ he trailed off mouth pinched considering his next words as he tried and failed to straighten up through gritted teeth, “that’s not totally unusual for me to feel pain there- I just, I’ve had worse it’s just… my usual eh, methods for managing it are not an option. But, I’m fine, it’s not the first time. I’m sorry for worrying you.” 

Confused Jayce leaned back Viktor’s eyes darting up to meet his before shooting back down to his hands, nervous.

Was he backtracking? Like he thought he’d said too much, let Jayce see too much?

Why? What had he done to make Viktor not trust him? 

“You nearly passed out, you could have hit your head or worse.”

“I did not faint,” Viktor gave him a tired yet familiar pout of pure stubbornness, “I just lost my footing. I’ll admit standing is a little hard right now, but that’s only weakeness from joint instability and… discomfort from lack of pain medication, nothing more.”

Something dawned on Jayce then.

“Viktor, have you been able to take any of your medications the past few days?

Viktor shrugged evasively, “I have, just nothing oral.”

So not the majority of them then?

“Vik…” 

“Jayce.”

Jayce let out a long suffering sigh rubbing at the stress headache beginning to form between his eyes, “Viktor you’ve been sick for at least twice as long as anyone else in the lab, that doesn’t seem “normal”.”

It was the exact wrong thing to say, Viktor’s bruised eyes narrowed and his mouth pinched in a way that would be adorable if Jayce didn’t know it also meant Viktor had decided to revoke Jayce’s right to present an opinion on any of his choices.

“I know that better than you I think,” Viktor grabbed for his crutch and motioned for Jayce to move.

“Viktor come on, you know that’s not what I meant” Jayce said though he moved quickly out of Viktor’s way.

“Jayce, no, I know what you’re going to suggest and, there’s no point,” Viktor said flatly, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing shallowly through his teeth, rocking slightly bracing himself for the pain, effort and momentum it would take to pull himself upright.

Jayce offered the arm he knew Viktor wouldn’t ask for, Viktor hummed a groan through a clenched jaw as Jayce gently eased him up,“bathroom or bed?”

“Couch, please…”

They repeated the motions of earlier with Jayce retrieving a new shirt and glass of water but this time not forgetting the thermometer (37.9 C [100.2 F], not horrible but still a fever). Throughout the whole process Viktor was nearly silent only murmuring a soft “alright” or “thank you” of consent now and again, too exhausted to really argue with the help.

Still Jayce waited until Viktor was settled back on the couch with the blanket pulled up to his chest before he tried again.

“All I’m saying is maybe it’s time to get some more help, contact your doctor, something.”

“My primary care doctor is out of office for the holiday…” Viktor said resigned, “I won’t be able to see them for several days.”

“What about the academy’s clinic?” 

They’d both been there plenty of times after incidents in the lab; just last week they’d both been in for minor electrical burns after Sky insisted. 

Ridiculous really, the miniature impulse generator had a low enough voltage there was only a slight risk of inducing an arrhythmia.

Viktor shook his head, “they won’t be helpful, with my medical history…” he trailed off, “they will just do nothing and send me home with orders to go to the hospital’s emergency department if things get worse.”

“Okay then let’s go to the emergency room,” Jayce said, anxiety rising in his chest and he began to pace around the small living room. He couldn’t stand seeing Viktor like this, even if everything Viktor said was true, that this was just some bug he was struggling to get over, that whatever pain he was in was something he could handle and had handled without anyone else intruding in the past, why risk it?

Viktor was in so much pain he could barely stand, he couldn’t keep anything down going on a third day, he wasn’t able to take his medications, he was probably dangerously dehydrated, he was barely sleeping and again he was clearly suffering.

“Even if they don’t give you antibiotics, I’m sure you’d feel a lot better if they at least give you some fluids and I don’t know, some stronger painkillers you don’t have to swallow so you can sleep.

Viktor looked at Jayce in pure bewilderment like he’d just suggested he stand up and tap dance.

“I can’t show up and ask for that, they’d think I was there to get painkillers.”

Yeah painkillers you need not to be in agonizing pain unnecessarily?

“What’s your point?”

Viktor huffed in frustration rubbing at his temples, “Jayce, if the medical staff think I am only there to get injectable pain medication they will think I want to use it to get high. The moment they see my name they’ll know I’m from Zaun, and with how shimmer has been spreading… it’s already top of their minds when they meet someone from the Undercity.”

“You…” Jayce opened his mouth to argue before what Viktor said hit him. He’d heard the things people whispered about the Undercity at society events, “don’t donate money to Undercity charities they’re all just funneling money to shimmer production” he’d seen people pull their kids away from Zaunite day workers on the street, “they are probably high on drugs, you need to be more careful”.

It felt like a shock of cold water to the face whenever he remembered some people viewed Viktor the same way. As if he was somehow influenced by what happened in a place he hadn’t even lived in over a decade.

“Please just drop it, they won’t do anything for the pain and I really don’t want to go to the ER for gastritis unless it gets beyond what I can stand.”

“Gastritis?”

Viktor gestured vaguely at his midsection “A stomach virus.”

“And you know that’s all it is?” Jayce asked quietly, hearing fear fill all the space the volume had left.

“That’s what they told me when I went to the clinic this morning,” Viktor shrugged, “Didn’t you wonder? I don’t usually make it a point to wear my braces to sleep.” 

That explained why he was half dressed when Jayce arrived, though Jayce hated the image of Viktor out in the cold forcing himself to walk on the icy street shaking from chills and with his leg on fire.

At least he hadn’t been trying to go to the lab.

“I’m not a fool Jayce I know my body better than you and sometimes it takes far longer to heal than I’d like. and I want to get back to our work as quickly as I can,” Viktor sounded more hurt than truly angry, or perhaps he was too worn out to muster it, “if there was an obvious fix for this other than waiting it out I would have taken it. But there isn’t so if you don’t mind I’d like to just lay as still as possible and not cause further discomfort.”

Jayce deflated, he’d done it again, let his fear overwhelm his good sense, he knew Viktor never did anything without a good reason, “you’re right, of course you’re right, I’m sorry.”

He set a hand on Viktor’s overheated shoulder causing the man to finally look at him, the hurt waiting for him there searing worse than the fever.

“Is there anything else you do for pain besides the pills?” It was the only thing Jayce could think to offer too help that wasn’t overstepping some line he couldn’t quite make sense of.

This part of Viktor’s life, the brutal vulnerability of his pain and the control it took away was so different from the Viktor he usually saw.

The Viktor he knew always embraced his collaboration rather than shying away and rejecting him.

Because at least with your work he trusts you, he doesn’t have to be afraid of you screwing up and hurting him.

He wasn’t used to being on the wrong side of Viktor’s fear.

“Heat,” Viktor said after a moment, wincing and pressing a hand to his tender stomach.

“You alright?” Jayce asked alarmed.

Viktor shook his head, pushing  himself shakily upright and reaching for the bin.

“Hot water bottle. Hallway closet,” Viktor mumbled hiccuping painfully and hugging the bin, “please.” 

Knowing he’d been dismissed and what was coming next Jayce tore himself away from Viktor’s side to give him privacy, and by the time he lit the stove for the kettle he could hear Viktor retching.

He kept on reminding himself, as he stood staring at the burner like that would make the kettle heat faster, that getting Viktor what he asked for would do more good relieving his pain than being stared at.

The sound of ragged breathing and soft whimpering that followed almost landed Jayce with a bad burn as he nearly set his sleeve alight, hurrying to fill the hot water bottle and forgetting to turn off the stove.

That would be one way to convince Viktor to go to the emergency room.

When he stumbled back to the darkened living room with the waterbottle Viktor had set the wastebin aside and lay curled on his side face pressed into the pillow. He was silent but Jayce could see from the tension in his jaw and hitching breathing that he was barely holding back from sobbing.

He wanted nothing more than to wrap Viktor up in blankets before scooping him up and carrying him to Libertene Ferros Memorial hospital himself.

He dropped down beside Viktor, cupping his hand around the back of his neck comfortingly and gently pressing the hot water bottle against the top of Viktor’s offending hip.

“Here, just tell me if you want me to move it.” Jayce whispered, absentmindedly stroking Viktor’s damp hair with his thumb..

Viktor fumbled to maneuver the waterbottle into a better position at the front of his hip curling towards it.

“Is there anything else you need to be more comfortable,” Jayce tried to soothe, “something to put your leg up on maybe?”

Jayce might have missed Viktor’s small nod if he hadn’t been physically holding Viktor’s head.

Jayce started to get up when Viktor spoke, voice smaller and more mournful than Jayce had ever heard it before.

“M’sorry… It will pass, I just-“

“I know,” Jayce said quickly, he didn’t need an apology, not from him, not for this, not ever, “it hurts, I know.”

Viktor sighed shakily, a stray tear breaking through his façade.

Jayce’s want to hold him was so fierce in that moment his arms ached with the lack of it, he just wanted to take all this bullshit away from him, hold him close and tell him it would be okay.

But Viktor was finally asking for Jayce’s help and he needed that more than Jayce’s affection or being jerked around in a way he couldn’t be sure wouldn’t hurt him more.

So instead Jayce pulled himself away, hand slowly sliding from Viktor’s neck, and made his way as silently as he could manage into Viktor's bedroom, closing the door behind him turning the knob as he did so to minimize noise. He found several pillows from Viktor's bed kicked under it  and carefully stacked them into his arms before screaming his frustration into them.

After a long minute composing himself Jayce made his way dutifully back to Viktor's side to see Viktor too had spent the time putting back up the fragile wall he'd been fighting to maintain all evening.

Viktor stared at the ceiling exhausted and miserable but his body no longer held the tense posture of someone being run through with a burning poker.

“If you tell me where you keep your sheets I can make the bed for you,” Jayce suggested yet again when two of the pillows had been used to elevate Viktor's feet and another to cushion his back and hip.

“I really don't want to move right now,” Viktor muttered,

“I know Vik, but you know it will probably be better for your leg and back in the long run, and I'd feel like a real dick taking your bed and leaving you too sleep on the couch.”

Viktor finally turned his head toward Jayce looking bewildered, “What are you talking about?”

Jayce attempted a nonchalant shrug, “Well I can't exactly contact my mom to keep an eye on you.”

The implication hovered in the air, coloring Viktor's cheeks pink though his expression remained unrepentant.

“Jayce, yesterday why do you think I contacted your mother?” Viktor said slowly, “better question, how exactly do you think I got your letter?”

Well he'd sent the letter to the lab where Viktor- no that wasn’t right, Viktor had already been home sick right? Jayce had been too worried about Viktor to actively think about it before but now he vaguely remembered Sky denying even seeing his letter so…

Horror rose in Jayce as it dawned on him what he must have done just as Viktor spoke to confirm it.

“It showed up in my mail chute addressed to my home on the tube but had “Hextech Labs” on the envelope,” Viktor said patiently, “your hand writing was barely legible, and it expressed the intention for you to go to the lab, alone and clearly disoriented, to work on a sensitive prototype.”

“I- It couldn't have been that bad,” Jayce blustered, crossing his arms, now it was his turn to go red.

Viktor’s eyebrows rose and he gave him an incredulous look that shouldn’t have been so effective coming from someone wilted into their couch cushions and a small mountain of pillows, "You misspelled your own name in your signature.”

Okay maybe it was that bad. But I was just exhausted and maybe feverish. It’s not like I would’ve blown up the lab.

“You did not seem coherent. I wasn't sure what could have happened if you had made it to the lab, or hadn’t, and I was in no fit state to check on you. I contacted your mother because I was worried about you Jayce.” 

The look on Viktor’s face, mouth pinched in a frown, stubbornly refusing to apologize but at the same time eyes wide begging him to understand was so disarmingly Viktor he felt his previous frustration melting away, but he couldn’t lose this argument when Viktor was just distracting him from something important.

“Yeah well now I'm worried about you!” Jayce burst out flustered.

Viktor blinked, flushing a deeper red before he turned his face away to study the back of the couch.

“I’m grateful for your concern, but really, you, you don’t have to stay, I’m not going anywhere and I’ve survived worse,” Viktor said softly, the implied “alone” hanging in the air like the echo of a piercing scream.

You can barely stand.

“Is that what you want?”

Please don’t ask me to leave you alone like this.

Viktor sighed, “You were planning on going to your mother’s house for the holiday after the railway meeting today right?”

Not a yes, but not a no. It was as if he wouldn’t believe Jayce truly wanted to stay by his side if he didn’t present him with every possible out.

Jayce hummed quietly, unsettled, “I’ll let her know I’ve been delayed, she’ll understand. I can still go in a day or two. Besides, she'll probably want to give me a talking to about trying to come into work sick, and this gives me a chance to postpone the lecture.”

And how am I supposed to celebrate knowing you’re alone in this state?

“Come on Vik, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve stayed over.”

Viktor was quiet for so long Jayce was half convinced he’d fallen asleep before he finally answered.

“I’m afraid I’ll be a very poor host at the moment.”

In spite of everything, Jayce cracked a small smile, “That’s okay, I’ve got plenty of soup.

—-------------------------------------------------------

Viktor

-

Within minutes of his birth Viktor’s mother was told not to get her hopes up for her baby.

Children like him, born early, with a twisted limb and a crooked spine, there was just no telling what else might be wrong. Not without any access to proper medical intervention.

It wasn’t uncommon for children of the lanes not to survive infancy, especially in those days before the vents drew away the worst of the Grey.

Internal deformities caused by the polluted water, poor maternal nutrition or  just the slow leak of poison coming from the mines choking their tiny lungs.

There were stories of the medical advancements in Piltover proper. Machines that could look inside bodies to  highlight problems to be fixed and warming boxes and therapies that helped babies born too small.

But to a poor family in Zaun, the money it would take not just to have their child treated but to stay where the air was clean enough to give them a fighting chance, they might as well have been fairy tales

In Piltover a mother would be given hope.

Instead Viktor’s mother was told to keep him warm, fed, and comfortable, but not to get her hopes up.

His mother loved him regardless of whether she had him for a day or the rest of her life and under her care he had done better than the midwife who delivered him ever thought.

But outside of their tiny apartment the attitude of cautious distance still followed him throughout his childhood.

Life was hard, not guaranteed for even the strongest in Zaun, he didn’t blame people for protecting themselves.

He was at worst a target, at best someone worth passing kindness but not investing your time in.

It was especially bad when it came to other children.

Most kids openly refused to play with him, he couldn’t keep up as they ran through the streets let alone climb to the rooftops they flew across. And if they were chased? Forget it.

Kids knew what happened when you were too slow to escape the worst of the adults, goons who would pull you in to work in dark corners of the Undercity factories until their gears ground you to dust.

Even the children who’d give him the time of day would eventually grow tired of the slower more methodical ways he played and leave him behind.

Some kids were downright cruel, trying to knock his good leg out from under him, stealing his cane or whatever project he was working on just to destroy it.

As he grew older he began to understand why. His generation, thankfully one of the last before the introduction of the vents, was painfully small, everyone knew at least one kid who never made it past early childhood.

When other kids met him all they saw was the worst of the pain they’d been born into. To them he was already dead. And on some level they feared he’d drag them down with him.

They had too, in their minds, find a way to prove to themselves they were bigger and stronger than him, that unlike him they would survive in a world stacked against them.

Unlike their children most of the miners had enough passing camaraderie as forgotten citizens of the Undercity not to mistreat a fellow miner’s kid.

Their eyes largely slid past him, as if it hurt to look at him, which he preferred to the ones who’s eyes read plainly, “poor thing, the Undercity will eat you alive.”

———-

Over time he learned to find comfort in remaining as quiet and invisible as possible. 

It was easier than being made to feel like nothing at all.

However even as he learned the cruelty people like him had to deal with just for the crime of being alive and being seen, he also learned there were things he could do to make the world a more bearable place.

By the time Viktor was 6 adults started watching him out of the corner of their eye not just out of some piteous voyeurism but because he’d picked up the curious habit of trying to take apart whatever he could get his tiny child hands on. 

They’d discover this when his mother had taken him with her to refill a gas canister and while the adults had been distracted discussing the price per liter Viktor had taken it upon himself to explore.

There had been a loud clunk and his mother and the clerk turned to discover to their shock and horror the small boy had somehow removed the store’s doorknob.

He hadn’t meant any harm, he’d simply wanted to know how it worked.

His mother had apologized profusely and admonished him for getting into mischief but Viktor had felt a burning curiosity rise that day that never seemed to go out.

Endlessly hungry to learn he absorbed information wherever he could find it, out of date manuals, old clocks and machines discarded by their Piltovian neighbors. Viktor was forever trying to pull apart the world and understand its pieces so he could put it back together in a way that made more sense.

Viktor had never been the sort of person who felt the need to make other people feel his pain to make himself feel heard. On the contrary he was the sort of person who never wanted anyone to feel the things that hurt him.

He had always felt out of step with the rest of the world but the more he learned to fix and create the more it felt like he had finally found a place he not only fit but a way he could make the world better.

And almost miraculously as he learned to fix wiring in people’s houses and make their faulty devices run better than new, people began to stop looking through him.

For the first time he could make people happy, he began to associate a world where people had fewer problems with a world where people were kinder. A world where things were more fair.

In a world where Viktor had so little control he’d found something that let him use the best parts of himself to make the world that never had time for him better.

In a world where his infirmities and his inability to do anything about them brought his mother too tears he found a way to make her proud.

He could make his mother smile and feel like he had a future. 

——

Because that was the other thing he’d learned.

There was no space for his pain.

When he was small he’d cry for hours on end not understanding why his mother couldn’t make the ache in his muscles and bones disappear, why she couldn’t always stay and hold him when the air felt thick and hot in his lungs and it hurt to breathe .

No amount of crying would give him the luxury of his mother staying by his bedside at home when he hit a growth spurt and hurt too much to move. Not if they wanted to keep their bed and their roof.

All his crying would do was make his mother sad, or make her desperate enough to forgo eating to afford pain medicine.

She already gave him the little grey pills she was supposed to take to help mine workers lungs endure the fumes longer.

The guilt ate him alive.

And after he lost her? Well.

Life was hard in the Undercity, suffering and lack was unavoidable and the ability to endure and walk through anyway rather than fall apart was necessary to survive.

Showing weakness could be the difference between life and death.

At times enduring quietly was the only virtue he could afford.

Still even as an adult he sometimes dreamed about the nights his mom would come home late and find him still awake in their bed curled up in pain and unable to sleep.

She’d creep quietly into the apartment after her shift and he’d hear the tell tale creak of the floorboards and feel the bed dip as she sat beside him.

She’d gently run a work rough hand through his hair hushing the sobs he couldn’t keep back in the face of such softness.

If they still had gas that week she’d retreat to the kitchen to warm a hot water bottle for him before crawling in beside him smelling faintly of oil and iron gently humming a simple off key tune to calm him into a fretful sleep.

Where had she gone? Viktor thought blearily, the water bottle had fallen away and lay still slightly warm against his side.

No longer comforting, the heat seemed to have turned his blankets and extra pillows, pillows he didn’t remember them having, into a strangling oven, the heat making his skin sticky with sweat, his head swim and stomach twist.

“Mmmm…”

Grumbling to himself Viktor pulled at the blankets and pillows but the shift in weight sent a lance of pain through the right side of his pelvis.

Viktor bit back a moan, his eyes finally cracking open dimly confused when even plaster swam into focus rather than the worn wooden boards and bare pipes of his childhood. 

Foggy disappointment formed a lump in his throat, that old apartment hadn’t been his home in well over a decade and his parents had been gone even longer still.

He was…

Viktor’s stomach roiled, demanding his attention as his entire body broke out in a cold sweat. Breathing shakily through his nose he clenched his eyes shut and begged the feeling to pass.

He hadn’t had anything but a few sips of watery mint tea before falling asleep. 

He was no stranger to nausea; he'd had his fair share of days where the pain in his leg and back were enough to turn his stomach and these days he semi-routinely had coughs so bad they brought up more than air and mucus.

Water had stayed down all right the afternoon before. Why did he feel worse?

He wanted to scream with frustration, but couldn’t move without feeling like he was being ripped in two.

There wasn’t a spare inch of him that didn’t hurt.

His head throbbed from dehydration even as he fought to keep what little fluids he got down inside him. His back ached from the base of his neck to his sacrum and his chest and abdomen weren’t any better, the exertion of vomiting and bad sleeping positions irritating what felt like every muscle in his torso.

But that had nothing on the pains below his navel.

His entire right leg felt stiff and tight getting worse the closer it got to his thigh and hip, the usual persistent dull ache escalating to a gnawing burn that he knew would set his whole side alight if he shifted the joint.

Even if he couldn’t manage any food substantial enough to take a painkiller, and taking a sleeping aid was out of the question due to the aspiration risk, if he could just tolerate water for while it might ease the pain in his head, and he could take a muscle relaxant to help calm some of the horrible cramping.

If he could just do that then maybe he could actually sleep beyond just fitfully dozing and actually heal enough to take the rest of his meds and get his body back under some reasonable amount of control.

And hopefully avoid a trip to the hospital.

It had been days since he’d been able to take the anti-inflammatories for his lungs and he shuddered to think about adding a flare up on top of every other miserable symptom he was already struggling with.

He tried to distract himself from the maelstrom of discomfort centered around his core by reciting the runic equations they’d incorporated into their newest prototype. But all the squiggles of the runes seemed to squirm together nonsensically and all that did was remind him of all the projects he was neglecting being stuck flat on his back.

There was nothing like his body betraying him so violently he couldn’t get up to strip away everything he’d managed to build and make him feel like the child no one expected to amount to anything.

At least being ill over the holidays meant he wasn’t missing many more working days than anyone else. That was ignoring the fact that if he had managed to complete the construction instructions on time he would have been able to work on a personal project and not just the council’s plans to create an economic boom with Hextech.

He needed to be doing… something, anything other than letting his weak body get the better of him by shutting down over something as stupid as…

Saliva welled in the back of Viktor’s mouth and his heart sunk, this wasn’t a battle he was winning. 

Adrenaline pushed him into a seated position gritting his teeth to keep from crying out as his stomach cramped and the embers in his hip and thigh flared back to life. He fumbled blindly in the dark to grab his crutch and pulled himself to his feet.

His body weighed a thousand pounds, his head swam and he teetered dangerously but somehow managed to remain upright, and while his leg shook and throbbed it held better than earlier.

But there was no time to really consider why, not when his stomach contents were trying to defy gravity like he’d swallowed an activated hexcrystal.

He stumbled drunkenly in the dark around the side of the couch towards the hall barely noticing as the “wall” his cane bumped into let out a startled huff.

Adrenaline could only take him so far on days of broken sleep, little water, no nutrition and what felt like a lightning rod for a femur. Viktor made it  two steps into the hallway before everything started spinning.

He managed to pitch sideways into the opposite wall rather than falling on his face as nausea overwhelmed him and he curled forward convulsively retching up a mouthful of bile.

“Vik?”

Jayce?

Viktor’s only reply was a pained whimper. Shuddering and spitting bitter saliva before heaving helplessly again. 

“Oh shit…” there were shuffling noises as Viktor tried to regain his breath and pull himself up using the wall, shaking like a leaf and trying to keep moving towards the bathroom even as the faint outline of the hallway swam in and out of focus.

Suddenly a strong arm was slung around his shoulders lifting and steadying him, and he felt Jayce’s firm chest press against him as he pulled him to his feet.

Jayce pushed something else Viktor had forgotten, the repurposed puke bin, into his hands, and whispered soft encouragement as he half supported, half carried him too the bathroom.

Viktor knew he should be embarrassed that Jayce had stopped him from collapsing twice that evening, watched him puke on his hallway floor, and now was helping him lower himself down in front of his toilet because he was shaking too hard to trust himself not to fall and crack his head open on the bathroom counter, but he felt entirely too shitty to care as he crumpled over the toilet heaving up his guts for the upteenth time in the last three days even as his body screamed in protest.

Black spots swam in his vision by the time the nausea began to recede leaving him gasping and sucking in air between dry heaves.

Jayce’s huge hand rubbed gentle circles in his sweaty back and his partner spoke softly, “there we go, you’re okay, just breathe…” 

Viktor coughed and let out an involuntary sound somewhere between a hoarse laugh and a sob. 

His back screamed from its stooped posture, and the pain in his gut stabbed and twisted like someone sunk their fingers through his flesh.

Jayce sighed his hand sliding off Viktor’s back. Viktor wanted to cry from the sudden lack of physical contact until it returned a moment later on his neck.

“You’re warm,” Jayce whispered.

Viktor gave a shaky discontented hum as a response, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the cool toilet seat.

Jayce’s hand moved again to press briefly against his forehead, “really warm.”

It had been a long time since Viktor had felt this aweful.

He wanted more than anything to be the sort of person who could melt fully into Jayce’s touch, let it sooth the taut cowardly parts of himself that would never soften enough to let him ask for comfort, no matter how much he craved it.

He could picture it, he had indulged in rose colored dreams where Jayce held him closer than a friend and let his considerable warmth sink into him, a balm not just for his body but his soul.

But he knew in his heart he couldn’t ask Jayce for that. Jayce wasn’t his, never would be.

Jayce cared for him, he was sure because when Jayce cared about something or someone he let you know. How many times had he laughed at Viktor’s stupid jokes, or matched him thought for thought whenever he came up with a new harebrained theory? How many times had he heard his partner talk up his ideas to investors or get frustrated on his behalf at galas Viktor knew he’d only been invited too out of courtesy.

But he also knew Jayce’s fondness wasn’t a meager cautious thing like his own. It flowed freely.

Jayce cared for Viktor, Jayce loved his mom, Jayce adored young miss Kiramman…

If Jayce loved him as more than a brother, could love him as more than a friend he’d let him know.

It was probably better that way.

Jayce deserved better than someone who’d forgotten how to be held.

Even if Jayce loved him, what could he possibly offer him in return?

Even now when Jayce tried to offer help he wasn’t sure how to accept it.

His first instinct was too shy away from the offered hand. 

Piltover already looked down on him, he knew the faces he had to wear if he wanted to survive and be seen as more than something to be pitied.

Viktor knew how to hide away his worst parts, to curl in on himself, to grit his teeth and endure hard days when weakness was more a possessing force than an unwelcome passenger.

He didn’t know how to be in pain with someone watching.

He didn’t know how to feel safe without managing the other person's expectations, or knowing how much of him was too much, because he didn’t trust anyone not to push his boundaries.

He was exhausted and in too much pain, even the thought of trying to explain how to help was more than he could bear right now.

But look at the mess you’ve made trying to take care of everything yourself? Even in your attempts to be self-sufficient you’ve just made yourself more of a burden.

“Vik?” Jayce’s voice came softly as he knelt down beside him on the bathroom floor. Viktor couldn’t meet his eyes.

You could ask him to accept that Jayce would never want him the way he wanted him, but you couldn’t ask him to look Jayce in the eye and poison what they did have by seeing pity, or worse disgust.

He couldn’t blame Jayce.

It had been several days since he’d felt well enough to wash properly. He probably reeked of stale sweat and puke, his hair was a greasy mess and he’d spent too much time tethered to his toilet to not count as some sort of biohazard.

“Vik!”

The sharp note in Jayce’s voice startled Viktor's drifting mind into looking up and what he saw in Jayce’s face was not pity or disgust but something worse.

Fear.

Here he was feeling sorry for himself and pre-determining (judging) Jayce’s responses, and he had forgotten just how scary the ways his body failed him could be to someone not living with it every day.

Viktor wanted to apologize, wanted to let him know this was nothing he couldn’t bear, but Jayce’s fear was catching and his already rabbit fast heart rate rose into his throat.

That was all this was right? Just his body being its usual difficult self?

“I think I threw up my soul,” he tried to joke but his voice was small and acid hoarse, even in his own ears.

Jayce’s shoulders visibly relaxed and he chuckled though his smile didn’t touch the wary exhaustion in his eyes.

He’s still recovering too, you know. He should be resting and celebrating and you’re purposefully making things more difficult.

“I’m going to get your thermometer, wait here,” Jayce rose to his feet, knees cracking.

As if I could move, Viktor thought morosely, sliding his body shakily down to lie against the cold tile floor and attempting to move his leg into a less cramped position.

He hated where his mind went when his body got this bad. He was too exhausted and in too much pain for there to be space in his brain for complex thought or distraction but there was apparently endless real estate for worry and self loathing.

Viktor was no psychologist but as a physicist it was definitely some bullshit.

A shot of pain twisted over his right hip when he tried to straighten his leg..

What the hell was going on?

His leg still ached, the weakened muscles and twisted physiology not holding up well to all the abuse he was forcing it through, but if anything it hurt less than earlier, like the heat from the hot water bottle had helped ease some of the tension.

So then why did it feel like some awful thing had grabbed him by his right hip bone and sunk their wicked talons into his gut? He thought bewildered.

His immune system was shitty enough there was always the possibility even a mild bug could turn into something much worse.

Perhaps the bug was turning into an intestinal flu that would take him out for weeks and further plummet his already low body weight.

That would suck but would not be the worst option. 

There was always the possibility that some new system of his body was beginning to pack its bags.

“Please make it stop,” Viktor prayed to no god in particular, curling up on the cool flooring.

He couldn’t stand the idea that his body had found some new way to fail him right now…

Viktor heard soft shuffling nearby and sensed a shadow passing over him.

That must be Jayce returning with the thermometer.

Viktor blinked and warm hazel eyes met his.

“This doesn’t seem at all comfortable,” Jayce said from his spot lying opposite Viktor on the bathroom floor.

Viktor opened and closed his mouth in confusion looking the larger man up and down.

His long body was stretched out, feet sticking out the door into the hall.

“When I was sick, I slept in the tub, I never have time to soak in it, but it’s ridiculously big so I figured I had to make use of it somehow.”

Viktor’s mouth twitched, “you’re ridiculous…”

Jayce shrugged, “Hmm yeah that was, ,still not as ridiculous as puking out a tenth story window, now that was ridiculous,” his hand drifted up to brush damp hair away from Viktor’s face.

And Viktor let him, because even with all his doubts, out of everyone in the world Jayce was the only person who could make him feel this safe.

He made him feel for a moment, though his body still ached and sweat stuck his skin to his clothes, like he wasn’t something unsightly.

Jayce who looked at him with a frankly impolite level of care, who could make him feel like he mattered, like he was something precious. The kind of affection that left him physically aching when they parted.

Heat crept into Viktor’s cheeks and he flipped himself wincing onto his back, “you shouldn’t be down here…”

Jayce shrugged, “I don’t mind the floor.”

Something dawned on Viktor then, sounds in the dark as he was stumbling to the bathroom and accidentally hit something, someone.

Jayce.

Earlier, what had he been doing on the living room floor? If he wanted to stay over Viktor had a perfectly functioning bed in the other room, or if he wasn’t comfortable with that there was a cot upstairs, why would he...

“Besides, I’ve already had what’s going around, it’s not like I can get it twice… I think.”

“It’s gross, I’m gross,” Viktor muttered cheeks heating, wincing as the dull bathroom light pierced his head.

Jayce hummed non-committally shuffling too his knees to wash his hands and the thermometer in the sink.

Viktor thought he must have drifted off for a moment because when he opened his eyes again Jayce was gently  patting his cheek and guiding him up to lean against the shower door.

“Open,” Jayce commanded, brandishing the thin glass thermometer after settling down beside him and throwing an arm around his shoulders to keep him from sliding sideways.

Viktor was so tired, the adrenaline of the vomiting episode leaking out of him like water from a basket, he took the thermometer without a word. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and slip back into unconsciousness.

Until the next time the pain that he could do nothing about spiked or nausea sent him reeling back over the toilet to heave up nothing.

Viktor made a keening noise in the back of his throat of sheer frustration. 

He really didn’t feel right.

“Shit,” Jayce swore after a minute had passed and Viktor handed over the thermometer, too tired to bother reading it himself.

Viktor’s heart sank, “that bad?”

“It’s… not dangerously high, but it’s-“ Jayce rubbed a hand over his face not meeting Viktor’s eyes.

He was always a terrible liar.

“It’s worse, isn’t it?”

Jayce sighed, “38.9,” (102.2)

Viktor’s heart jolted.

Fuck

That was fast.

“Ah…” Viktor pressed his face into his hands.

He really hated the ER, he already felt shitty enough without spending hours waiting in a loud room trying to find a tolerable position in an uncomfortable chair only to probably just be sent home and told to rest.

“Vik you… you really don’t look so good,” Jayce said worry creasing his eyebrows and making him look a decade older than his 29 years, “you’re really pale.”

It’s just gastritis. That was what the doctor at the clinic said. 

Did he even physically examine you?

Viktor couldn’t remember, the trip was a vague blur.

They also told you to go to the ER if your symptoms got worse. 

He couldn’t get any water down, and he knew distantly that the sticky feeling in his mouth and the rapid beating of his heart joining his headache were potentially dangerous signs.

You can barely stand up or move without crying out, it’s already been days and your temperature is spiking, if this gets worse… You can’t ask him to deal with that, he’s already done too much, and tonight already proved you could be in real trouble if you try to push through alone.

He didn’t want to move or breathe or exist right now.

Jayce’s hand found it’s place on the back of his neck absently massaging the tense muscles there. He took a deep breath like he was preparing for a long argument.

“Vik look, I know you said you don’t want to go-“

“I’ll go…” Viktor croaked.

“Hmm?”

He owed him this, it could be pointless, he could be overreacting, but Jayce wasn’t going to leave his side until he was sure he was safe. 

And if he didn’t make a decision now Jayce would probably call emergency services in a few hours regardless of how he felt about it.

Because that was Jayce, for better or worse, always doing what he thought was right.

“I’ll go to the ER.”

This was going to suck…

----