Work Text:
The verisimilitude of time passing through the isthmus was not enough to deter the flow of hurried work in this specific corner of scientific discovery. The passage of hours made its presence known through the movement, the occupied square filled with people hurrying the last touches in time for the upcoming Snowdown festival; all of which fell on blind eyes and deaf ears as tension was focused on something else in the Hextech lab. Not even the scorching sun emerging above or diving under the horizon was enough to alert Viktor of the impending and inevitable recurrence of entropy; the notion of disorder was god and the god had blessed them with a fragment of order to be imposed in the golden city of progress. An ouroboros with less than twenty-one grams to its sway. Still, it was entropic the way the equations organised themselves on the blackboard, breathed into life were the slanted handwritings and the fingerprints of chalk that they so desperately tried to scrub off the quantifiers. Evidence be damned; Jayce had left with a renewed purpose, ninety-seven percent of which involved scoring more coffee for their already emptied-out mugs. Viktor declined the notion, sinking further into the stiff chair. Holing up in the lab this time of year was not just an option; it was a tradition that he never dared admit to anyone else.
It was either four in the morning or nine at night; out here in the isthmus where everything smelt faintly of vapour and overwhelmingly of laxity it was truly the case that entropy reigned. Thirty-three more minutes and everything might go to hell. Despite every drop of water circulating the air his eyes had never been drier. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the equations. From a distance they sounded faintly of kaleidoscope. Something wrote of the lock turning and he turned as well, with his focus still on the paper, trying to make out what on Targon he had written down just a few minutes ago while contemplating the possibility of an early brain haemorrhage.
The lack of the pungent coffee smell did little to rouse him. As expected, Jayce’s trip was fruitless, though Viktor had half a mind to speculate that Jayce had an ulterior motive to get away rather than just simply for the sake of scavenging for something that would keep them through the night. The arguments were still fresh in his mind, and even though façade of pretense were put up to erase any evidence of its existence, the torn papers and skewed chairs were enough to inform anyone within the vicinity of the storm that passed by. Jayce’s reappearance gave his eyebrow a little rise, as he turned in his chair and watched the other man trudge through the door with an air of annoyance that spoke of days without sleep.
“If you are tired, you don’t have to be here,” Viktor remarked off-handedly, not sparing Jayce another glance. He was tired too, posture weary, body slumping into the stiff chair even though the comfort of it—or lack thereof—was the last thing he desired right now. But for the sake of science, they pushed through. Even then, he could not hide his symptoms from Jayce, who came up and slumped into the other empty chair. One that was not occupied by loose leaflets, or stacks of books, or coats carelessly tossed on top. “Go home, Jayce. It’s the holidays. I don’t want Mrs. Talis to go after me for keeping her boy past Eve of Snowdown.”
The tone of nonchalance was enough to mask the discontentment—whether Jayce actually noticed it was a different story. “I’m fine,” Jayce huffed when he sat himself down, contemplation filled the silence between them, before the bubble burst as he spoke up again, “Two heads are better than one, especially if we want to finish this by Snowdown and I am not leaving you to hammer away at this alone.” You just did, for half an hour, thought Viktor bitterly but he did not voice the accusation. That would only add more friction to their collaboration, which, even though emerged as a result of their shared vision, was born also out of necessity and was not without its troubles. He regarded the taller man, slumping over the desk staring at equations with his fingers in his hair. Jayce was brilliant, no doubt about that, but impatient. Always rushing forward with new ideas and brimming with all the possibilities they could bring to the table with the invention of Hextech. About how they could change the world with their technology. Viktor hated that he must be the methodical person in their partnership. He hated it even more that Jayce could not seem to sit still to process the slow progress when there were millions of things pulling at him from all sides.
--
Frost clung to the glass window; their breath curled the lips—the heat in the room was not sufficient to counter the wet cold here in the isthmus; the same cold emerged every year to wreak havoc to the mild-verging-on-hot weather they enjoyed year-round in this coastal city. That did little to dampen the spirits of Snowdown, remarked Viktor as he stared out of the opaque window. Children running down the streets with their parents’ scold chasing after them, running circles around the workers who were trying to set up stalls for the holiday fair. People lead their sleds down the main avenue, some putting tinsel and decorations on the pine trees in the squares, stepping up the ladders and examining the results of their hard work. He caught the tails of put on your scarves or don’t take off your gloves and the echoes of scold registered like trains moving down the memory lane. That did nothing for him, except stirring the ongoing holiday spirits in the city of progress that never slept. That seemed to pin a knife in his guts and twist it slowly. The undercity, his fingers going cold and stiff in the cutting winds. His parents calling after him in the streets; their tired figures chasing after the young child that seemed to be so enraptured by the change of season that even his weak and frail body sprung to life with every step he took along the drably decorated pavements. The train kept leaving the station and he could not keep up.
He begrudgingly took his eyes off the joyous holiday scenes that he was only privy to through the windows frame and redirected his attention to his work. There was something bile-like rising in his throat; his behaviour felt verging on voyeuristic, watching the familial interactions and wishing on the stars that it could be his, but always an outsider looking in. An absence of the blithe chirrup that often frequented the area went unnoticed in the mix of roaring laughter, quickly choked to death by the repugnant cracking of logs on fire in a pit downtown. Jayce’s absentminded humming clocked in the rhythmic passing of time in their silent room. Hours later Jayce still stayed despite Viktor’s insistence on sending the other home.
--
“I don’t ever recall any other Snowdown being this jubilant outside.”
Whatever emotions Jayce was brewing up in the pit of his stomach he shed his annoyance fast. Some twenty-seven seconds after dropping himself into a sitting position he shot up, staring at the halation of the streetlamps lining the road winding around their lab. They reflected in his eyes the same sparks Viktor witnessed when they were floating in Heimerdinger’s lab, running high on serotonin and adrenaline from a successful venture. The kind of sparks that made Jayce light up and rendered him incredibly attractive, and the first thing Viktor experienced was a funny flip in his stomach. The second thing, though, was his mind croaking out an Oh no, because one, he had a problem if all he could think about when his partner effectively transformed himself into a poro was to kiss that stupid face, and two, whatever Jayce’s addled brain concocted at probably two in the morning couldn’t be good.
But he was a good sport. He listened.
“Do you remember Professor Haze’s class, Theory of Quantum Mechanics?”
Viktor seemed to consider wringing life out of Jayce but then he tilted his head. Smiled.
“Around this time, last year? How could I forget? You were a disaster with the final project because you wanted to rush the process to go home in time for Snowdown.”
“Through all those troubles, we still aced it,” a fond chuckle escaped Jayce’s lips, and Viktor felt so entranced by it that he definitely should consider the probability of a brain haemorrhage.
“Well, I was not entirely without my share of holiday breakdown.”
“My mother brought food for us to the lab and you almost lost it.”
“It’s a chemical lab. There is a strict no-food policy. Noble though Mrs. Talis’ intention was, I don’t think Heimerdinger would appreciate his star student getting a chock-full of chemicals in his system before the break, or whatever the geologists were cooking up in the next lab.”
“Shut up, you weld without your goggles on. What were you trying to protect me from? The nitrogen from the visible emission lab, how valiant!”
“Ah, but it was the well-being of our grades that I was more invested in. The Deslandres table—”
“You promised you wouldn’t bring that up!”
The mood lightened up instantly, and Viktor felt that he could now breathe without the weight of homesickness on his chest. Times like this he just wanted to make a home out of the memories he had here and nestled there so the annual holiday blues would have no way of getting its claws on him like every other year. The silence stretched on after they shared a knowing smile, acknowledging one another on how far they had come to get here. From students to independent researchers, working together to further their vision of a world where their inventions could elevate everyone onto the same playing field. Maybe he was becoming too comfortable with the notion and the illusion that when Jayce spoke up again, the bubble burst and Viktor found himself mercilessly thrown into the reality of the cold lab in which they sat. He shuddered.
--
“What if, instead of considering quantum tunnelling as a purely quantum mechanics phenomenon,” Jayce suggested, holding up one of the scratch papers and methodically folding it into two, and then two, and then two. Viktor watched on, silently.
“What if we apply it to classical mechanics scenarios and blow it up to macroscopic quantum tunnelling for the Hexgate? It worked for vortex nucleation in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate.”
As if proving the point of the meaninglessness of lives—because why do anything if your efforts are going to be discarded later on—Jayce unfolded the scratch paper and held it up under the light.
“You are trying to achieve a crude form of teleportation,” Viktor replied wearily. “But the object in question does not have enough energy to tunnel through the barrier even when replicated in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Not to mention we are going classical where the object is no longer exhibiting evident wave characteristics. Where are you going to draw the energy needed to overcome a barrier—assuming we manage to thin the distance between two gates down enough for tunnelling to be possible?”
“This here,” Jayce dropped the paper and opened his palm, and in it laid the brackern crystal, “We both have seen things being done with the crystals that others would never dare dream of. What is a little scientific impossibility in the face of the arcane?”
He said that with such conviction that Viktor stared at it for two seconds, before looking up at Jayce with dull eyes that spoke of an inner conflict between either punching Jayce in the face or kissing him because his ideas were stupidly creative, so much so that it might just work. He seemed to have been contemplating those specific choices often, too often that it became disturbing.
“Like an electron tunnelling away from the bound state in a hydrogen atom. But designing the experiment will take time, not to mention the maths… Why don’t you go home, and we can take a crack at this some other time?”
“Some other time?” Jayce repeated, dumbfounded, “But progress doesn’t take a break and we are running out of time.” And there he went again, rushing through the process as if they were the only two people in the world and time was running out. Time was running out for both of them with the self-imposed deadlines, and no one needed to know that, but they moved fast anyway and incidentally hurt themselves in the process. It would be no different; it would be pushing it to even try and entertain a notion of spending yet another day together in the lab again.
“It’s the holidays.” Another attempt to get Jayce out of the way.
“So? It’s okay. Mom said she could wait. She said our work was more important,” declared Jayce and that was final. Viktor sighed and relinquished his strength to the chair. Hand covered his face. When he stood up for the first time in hours, the look on his face was not that of dejection. It was a renewed determination.
“Okay,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Okay, we approach it from another framework. Make a hypothesis, a-a theory. Design the experiment. Test it out. Collect data. I’ll handle the maths—we need a precise vibrational-rotational energy level for tunnelling and to maximise the probability of an object passing through the barrier. I will do that; you prepare the experiment.”
When the look on Jayce’s face brightened more than any strings of light on the pine trees on the square could, Viktor turned away and muttered fucking experimentalists in the fondest tone his accented voice could handle.
--
It was not until the next night that they had a minor breakthrough in progress, setting up their experiments with a fragment of a degree of concentration. Notes at the ready, chalk dust on fingertips and on wood-brown trousers of the Academy uniform. Lines of arguments etched into the corners of their lips, syllables standing by to either cheer when the first piece of data was collected that fitted a Taylor expansion, or to groan and argue when their surmised theories were gutted into shreds right in front of their tired, sleep-deprived eyes. These things happened. One of them had a hypothesis. The other was not always on board with it. But mutual respect and trust had allowed them the respite from philosophical debates of the merits of taking another lap chasing the stars, one that might prove to be as fruitless as Jayce’s repeated coffee ventures when tension rose. Viktor stayed behind, ever the outsider. The insomnia-à-deux was profound.
And here’s the thing:
One thing they didn’t tell you when you were kids reading about discoveries and prizes and recognitions and speeches of changing tomorrow was that collaboration was not seamless and not everyone had the same idea of what they wanted to do. But you stayed even after the fallouts and the arguments and the damaged egos and the shattered hearts and the imposter syndrome—except that Jayce and Viktor never had any imposter syndrome because they both knew they belonged (somewhat for Viktor, entirely for Jayce) here in this temple of ingenuity (and maybe that’s the thing about being able to survive in academia—you need an unhealthy amount of insurmountable ego—adapt until you are assimilated, right?), and the twelve seconds of pauses before all hell broke loose because you found a sense of familiarity, a home in the weird mental gymnastic routine. At the end of the day, you stayed because you found someone who resonated with you. It was part of life. As part-of-life as falling in love, getting your heart broken, picking up and moving on. Sleep on it, wait on it, let it grow, but don’t yearn. Don’t dwell. Don’t tie your happiness to one thing and let it float down the river of fate. Viktor seemed to have forgotten the life lessons and rushed through the motions the same way Jayce rushed through their process. The wind was picking up outside, rattling windows and rustling leaves. People scattered, yet their cheerful drunken carols still rang between Viktor’s ears. The sky seemed to darken a few shades in his amber eyes.
--
“So, V.”
Jayce spoke again when they were setting up the apparatus with the necessary outlets connecting to their respective necessary outlets. Viktor’s hand fiddled with the selector switch.
“What are your plans for the holidays?”
Viktor flinched. The room went dark. Someone screamed within the vicinity and footsteps thumped against the carpeted floor of the hallway.
“What,” Viktor breathed, the air entwined in his voice as he wheezed out with difficulty, feeling anger boiling on the plate and off the rim and he almost shook. Something snapped. His hand found the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck just happened?”
“Uhm, well, I asked a question—”
“No, not that. Would you mind getting the light, please?”
Viktor sighed into his hand, temporarily forgoing with the gift of vision as he closed his eyes and tried to focus, hoping that the bleary eyes would magically fix themselves when he opened them again, but no blurry orange penetrated his eyelids, and he knew something was wrong.
“Light’s not coming on,” informed Jayce helpfully. He shuffled back to their bench, now trying to crank up the oil lamp left forgotten in the far corner of the lab, looking out the windows to see the same darkness blanketing the streets—one by one the windows dimmed and an eerie silence hung heavy. The only light cascading through the frost-covered windows of their lab and reflecting off of the marble street was from the moon peeking through the heavy clouds, and the feeble dancing flames the workers tried to light up in pits for warmth.
“I think there’s a power outage,” he turned to inform Viktor with a slightly bewildered expression on his face before realisation dawned. “Do you think we—?”
“Overloaded the electric circuit?”
Viktor inhaled, voice jagged with daggers and all edges and no curve, and Jayce’s skin crawled at the chilling tone weighing down on his partner’s sentence. “No, Jayce, it must be the Snowdown Santa’s helper elves borrowing the electricity to power the toy car every damn child in this Janna forsaken city asked for this season!”
Mindful breathing: each breath was drawn in and pushed down in a rhythmic manner, yet alien. The flow of air was not his own, just a borrowed existence to keep him corporeal. All mechanical, no organic. The sound of his inhale, even though soft and almost too quiet for Jayce’s liking, was somehow too loud in Viktor’s head. And there was blood. Thrumming through his veins, ramping on his skull like a hammer to a wall, and the Zaunite felt himself jerking away from Jayce in a wave of panic crashing into him like rows of tides pulling in the long, coarse shore.
The door banged open and Heimerdinger stood in all his four-foot glory; there was something scary about watching the unibrow drawn together as if the individual strands of hair could squeeze the space between them out anymore, but then he opened his mouth and all traces of thoughts vanished from the two engineers’ head.
“What did you do?” Heimerdinger barely got his inquiry out of his system before Jayce positioned himself between the other two. “Ahh, save your excuses. The fuses blew out on West and we are sending someone down to fix it. Stay put, and Janna help me if you even move a limb. Buckle up because it’s going to be a cold night, especially now without the heater.”
And off he went. Nothing and everything was fleeting about Heimerdinger, the words sharply spoken, impact delivered, and within a blink of an eye the revered inventor was gone, leaving his two confused charges to stand in the darkness, the only source of light was the flickering flame licking up the glass case of the oil lamp.
--
“My mom is going to freak out,” Jayce bit his lips and paced around the lab, and Viktor felt his headache magnifying with every soft thump of the sole of the other’s shoes against the padded floor. “She doesn’t deal well with the cold.”
“If you had gone home when I told you to, there would be no problem.”
Viktor muttered under his breath, flipping the pages of the hefty book by the oil lamp, trying to work some sense into their situation while perusing the books related to the problem they had at hand with the experiment going haywire. He was never one to play the blame game, often finding himself becoming the voluntary scapegoat if not due to his own background first, then because out of his unlimited kindness he did not want others to suffer under the weight of blame. He flipped a page and sneezed, feeling the piercing cold penetrating his bones; Jayce whipped around to look at him.
“Then I would be leaving you alone. What kind of partner does that?”
And then he hesitated. That dead doe look resurfaced, and he shuffled close to Viktor, claiming seat on one of the uncomfortable chairs next to the lamp. “Are you cold?”
The genius struck again with obvious questions. But Viktor gritted his teeth and shook his head: I’m fine, Jayce, go home.
“But-”
One could only repeat the reassurance—lies—so many times before the dam burst, and Viktor whirred on Jayce so fast that his neck felt like it was going to snap.
“What is your problem?” The words were chewed up, spit out, ground into dust in his mouth before the other pulled away; teeth chattering as they were, but his patience was running short, and it only took one misstep for the fuse to be lit. The words were jarring and poisonous like a snake about to strike with its venom, teeth baring and heart all black, and all Jayce could do was sit and blink. Agape. Unable to comprehend what happened. As if the strings pulled taut of tension was not enough to tell the taller man that there was nothing for them to ponder on except the mileage of failures scattered like ashes on coarse dirt, as if the agitation was unfounded. If only, if only, if only. Viktor could only repeat himself so much and agonised over their juxtaposition for so long before he snapped. Viktor, alone in the city, no one to celebrate Snowdown with. Jayce, parent waiting, chose to throw the chance away to stay here and be a nuisance. Their contrast posed as a joke to him, and it took every ounce of willpower in his mind to stop himself from snapping again.
“Go home, Jayce.” He repeated for the last time and stood up, distancing himself from the other man and moved to the opposite corner of the room, failing to notice the downcast that now draped over Jayce’s shoulders like a weighted blanket.
“I told you, I’m staying,” and having no concept of boundary, Jayce followed him around the lab like a duckling in need of its mother, settling down wherever Viktor chose to sit while simultaneously taking off his outer vest and trying to drape it over Viktor’s bony shoulders. Viktor, reflexes incredible for someone who looked like they would keel over at the faintest gust of winds, ducked, and ducked, until a strong pair of arms were wrapped around him, and he stood frozen in his spot. Jayce was hugging him; Jayce was hugging him, and he stood there like a deer caught in the headlights.
“I’m not leaving you to spend the holiday alone.”
The tone was light and airy but packed in it was a whirlwind of emotions. Worry. A touch of pain. A hint of desperation and the hug tightened. “And I will keep hugging you like this if this is the only way you would let me stay and keep warm.”
That was a promise, but to Viktor who was already on edge, it read like a threat, and he jolted, almost jumping out of his skin and out of the embrace. Putting distance between them.
And for Jayce: you simply can’t keep cool if the object of your care and affection keeps pushing you away. One moment he acted like he was all alone and sad, and that pained you more than losing your life work, but the next he acted as if he never needed you or your help, or anyone’s help and all battles were his battles and his struggles alone. And that pained you more than anything else; it was something akin to walking on eggshells, but you were not walking on eggshells because he paid great care to structure most of his habits around you without your knowledge, but over the time you noticed every little touch, every smile, and every way the tail of his eyes curved up when you said something interesting. The constant push and pull and refusal to give in and open up, because you had known each other for two years and you still didn’t know his last name or what he liked to eat—if he ate at all—besides the occasional swig of sweet milk and you wanted so badly to invite him over and introduce him to your mom, but he was like a hedgehog, constantly balling up whenever you tried to get him to open up. Accepting your touch was a first start that he gladly took, but the rest fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. And so, you thought if you could stretch time apart and use up all the excuses in your science book to keep him company through the holiday he would open up, but it didn’t work and now he was angry. And you got a bit angry too.
“Why don’t you just admit that you need rest and company like everyone else; why are you always trying to run yourself a fever working through pain and exhaustion? Why don’t you admit you are just human and need help and rest and are as vulnerable as any of us?”
The outburst had a facsimile of an oncoming train: heard it coming miles away—after all the thing was noisy and loud, ever so excessively vocal about its presence. Jayce’s anger was vocal about its manifestation. But it did little for those around him as the train pulled into the station and crushed everyone standing too close.
Watch out people, this is the splash zone!
Viktor did not like being called out. Never a fan of being read like a book, nor was he complacent to let others make the decision for him; he might never get why Jayce was so adamant about giving him attention, care, walking between the lines of friendship and something more, but he was selfish and greedy, and he took all that in anyway, until Jayce toed the line of pity and he put up his walls.
“Are you just here because you think I am lonely?” Viktor scoffed, unable to admit the truth. In another world where he had less of an ego the idea wouldn’t have sounded so farfetched and outrageous. But he was angry—the type of anger that never manifested but burnt like an ember in saw dust, feeding on every broken nerve, ever drop of frustration until it burst.
“You—agh! I’m going to strangle you.”
The declaration left him like a gust of wind; half-hearted may it sound, the agitation in Viktor’s eyes spoke volumes about his intention. This was not a man to be messed with. The undercity gave rise to many dangerous people despite circumstances and appearances. He grabbed the nearest thing to him, a pamphlet promoting the newly opened train station on the east side of town, covered in scribbles written in black permanent marker, and hurled it at Jayce, who ducked it easily.
“Please—I mean, I would like to see you try!”
That came out of nowhere, and Jayce was glad that he salvaged the situation with the grace and eloquence of a choking duck. That seemed to buy him a split second of time as Viktor gawked, seemingly both offended and amused by the idea, and Jayce ducked behind the blackboard as if the filthy screen was even remotely sufficient to shield himself from Viktor’s agitation.
“I don’t need pity. I just want a moment of quiet to work on this project before our own careers are on the chopping block at the mercy of a very fucking fickle council.”
“It doesn’t mean you need to be working at it alone. Look at you. Look at you. You always look so tired and—why don’t you just let me take care of you?”
“Because I don’t need to rest. Because this is bigger than us, and I get that you want me to take it easy, but I can work for the both of us. You go home.” he was shaking now, ember in his eyes when he stared at the other man through the veil of darkness. “Running myself ragged is my fucking specialty. You want to know my little secret, Talis? I am fucking high all the damn time. I keep myself up with nothing but a copious amount of sugar until I see Plato dancing naked in front of me, and that’s when I get cracking.”
There was that crazed look in Viktor’s eyes again; the kind of mania that emerged whenever he found interest in yet another thing that would never pan out the way he wanted if he was anyone else—but he was Viktor and Viktor was brilliant. Viktor was brilliant, beautiful, so strong, so detached from everything else but always cared too much that he made having empathy look effortless. Viktor who made Jayce want to care, pull him in and kiss him stupid, and Jayce laughed. Out loud, the kind of boisterous laughter that would scare Stanwick Padidly’s statue into assuming flesh form again. Fuck, sugar, Plato, naked, the idea itself was crazy and it fit together like pieces of puzzles from different holiday jigsaw boxes but that did not stop Jayce from pulling a full picture from the mismatched pieces. Maybe he was the one going crazy. A hand draped over his face, and he doubled over in confusion but also in laughter, finding nothing funny yet everything hilarious. It was exhilarating; maybe it was not the fact that something Viktor said was entertaining to him, but it was just the revelation that he finally had the missing pieces and saw something entirely new about his partner that he had missed before, and the reconciliation with the missing pieces was so good that he felt as if he could cry from happiness. But he couldn’t cry, because if he did Viktor would cry too, and they both would cry, and they couldn’t cry on the Eve of Snowdown; what kind of mood would they be setting for the year if they did? So, he laughed, but that only seemed to agitate Viktor further. The eyebrows drawn together, the look of exasperation and fuck, Talis, you are so stupid, everything was drawn so clearly on Viktor’s face because all the emotions expressed themselves so clearly on Viktor’s face all the time.
“You are brilliant,” he breathed and watched the agitation drain from Viktor’s face. Replaced with bewilderment and he had never looked more beautiful. And there were a million points of light but all he saw, all he felt, was the amber in Viktor’s eyes, and he felt entranced. Hypnotised, elated, all the adjectives in the book and yet they still failed to describe the warmth kindling in the pit of his stomach.
Was this what being in love felt like?
“When this is over and we get power again, come home with me.”
He blurted out and Viktor’s face twisted into a look of surprise. Always adamant about keeping their personal lives private from one another, also the reason why Jayce never broached the topic of inviting Viktor over and only keeping the crush he had buried deep in his chest, but the roaring laughter fed him courage, and for one moment he felt as if he could do anything.
“If you don’t feel like celebrating with your folks back in the undercity, come home with me,” he repeated, looking at Viktor expectantly. It would be a long shot, but at least if he got rejected he would know that he tried.
There was a long silence settling down between them again, the eerie vacuum occasionally filled by the sound of drunken people cheering on the streets by the fire pits, but the lick of flames reflected in Viktor’s eyes momentarily before it went out, snuffed away by vast sadness. The eyelids drooped, they broke eye contact and Viktor turned away.
“A year or two after I came to Piltover my parents passed away,” he murmured in a low tone, tapping against the cold glass. Eyes finding shapes around the twist and turn of Piltover's streets; somewhere above the horizon the undercity rose from the grey—drinking in the silence and the longing gazes.
“I don't have anyone to celebrate with.”
The syllables sank like an anchor to the shore; Jayce’s guts churned. He took a step forward. And another step. And then another step until the distance between them closed and Viktor’s hand was resting in his.
“My father passed away before I even know how to put two and two together. My mom and I celebrate alone since. It gets lonely sometimes, but… “
He reminisced in silence, looking out at the streets. He saw shadows and figures leaving their houses in warm coats and with boozes in hands, heading towards the fire pits to share in the warmth. Now as it stood, it seemed like the streets of Piltover provided more warmth than the empty space between walls. A small smile etched into his feature—after all, Snowdown as an occasion for merrymaking. For spending time with your loved one. He had checked the box on that: the hand found Viktor’s shoulder and gripped it softly, pulling the other man close to him.
“And well… “ said Jayce, tone as light as a feather, defying the weight of suspense threatening to do his chest in. “You are always welcomed in our family. Holidays or not.”
It was an invitation. And to make it a declaration or even a demand, he turned sideways to look at Viktor, startled when he realised how small the distance between the both of them was. And he smiled fondly at the way the tails of Viktor’s eyes turned up at the notion, watching that handsome face light up in the darkness at the idea of being included.
“Mom’s always asking when you will come over for dinner. She adores you so,” his voice crumbled; he could feel his body shake under the nerve-wracking revelation. Opening up was never easy, especially not after a fight. What was he to do, let the silence stew and further the rift between them? The only logical thing—the only thing he could do that would quell his aching heart.
“And I, her. She is a remarkable woman,” Viktor smiled, so overcome with elation that he felt like he could cry. The tears were there in his eyes, but he would swallow them down, and he let out a small, throaty chuckle, the kind that Jayce would like to hear—the kind that stoke a fire in his chest. The kind that made Jayce feel like he could do anything in this world if asked. And he did—he closed his eyes blind and took a leap.
“Mhm-hm, she always asks when is your boyfriend coming over?”
That leap, he took it. And it became so quiet that he could hear the windows cracking under the weight of the cold. Winter was cold and deceiving: temperature nadir, driving fingers to rub against skin to generate more heat through time of desperation. Lady winter and her pulchritude. Caustic-like prickling frost was emollient to the heated skin. His inside burnt like fire, waiting for the response from his frozen partner. It was agonising the wait, chipping away at his arrogance and unravelling his tangles of nerves.
“And what did you say?”
And the dam broke; Jayce grinned.
“I say, as soon as he agrees to go out with me. So?”
What the hell, he was feeling bold. It might be the lack of sleep nudging him towards the verge of a relationship suicide, but that’s okay. The expectation pooled in Jayce’s brown eyes, and Viktor felt his guts twist. In a good way, in the way that made him want to throw up but laugh it off later, the unique feeling you get when you sit in the wings, waiting for your turn to dazzle and impress the audience with your wits. Your first time here on the topside and no one was there to catch you when you fell anymore. Your first time here in Piltover and no one made a space for you to belong. Except him.
Out there in the darkness of the night a new fire was lit, and people cheered as more and more came out from the cold inside to rejoice in the newfound comfort of the crowded streets. A firework exploded overhead. Fifteen minutes. An amendment. A smile found; melancholy lost to the night.
It might just be the holiday’s spirits or being drunk on sleeplessness whispering courage into his ears, or it could be months of budding feelings buried deep down in his guts, but Viktor leaned in and closed the distance between them, effectively cutting off the enthused chatter that kept Jayce’s lips opening and closing repeatedly, even though none of the sound registered to him. Jayce Talis, that was the worst come-on I have ever heard, he remembered thinking as their lips met. What the hell, he was feeling generous anyway: What is love but a constant struggle? Between the desire to punch Jayce Talis in his handsome face, or the want to kiss him stupid. He seemed to have settled.
Jayce stilled in his track; blood pumping and heat scratching underneath the surface of his cheeks when their lips met. An undignified squeak was all that he managed before the excitement settled, and he reciprocated with a small smile.
“A date it is, then. Happy holidays, Jayce,” Viktor whispered when they parted, the amber in his eyes clear like the water in an autumn pond, tiny tangerine speckles painted in his eyes, and spoke so much of unspoken agreement, and Jayce felt so charmed that he could die. His heart palpated. He let the other man lean on him and draped an arm around Viktor’s shoulders—no longer under the guise of shielding the frail man from the cold; now with clear intent and a desire to protect that came inherently with the funny throb of his heart.
“Happy holidays, V.”