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Jayce’s hands are around his wrists. Not dangerously tight. Just enough to keep Viktor from turning away from him. Strong, yet soft — like Jayce.
Viktor knows he’s crying and he hates himself for it. He wants Jayce to go back to all his pretty people at their pretty parties where they speak pretty, empty words to each other.
He keeps turning his body, trying to get away from Jayce, though he knows his heart isn’t in it. Viktor couldn’t walk away from Jayce if he really tried. Jayce is too much like a magnet for him, constantly drawing him back to those warm eyes and warmer smile.
The crying is harder now, though Viktor doesn’t quite know when it changed. His chest is heaving, his delicate lungs working overtime to accommodate such an outburst of emotions. Viktor can feel the violent cough that will wreck his body after tears have dried and Jayce is gone.
But Jayce isn’t gone yet, still staring at Viktor’s face with care and worry and compassion and, gods forbid, adoration.
Viktor knows he’s hyperventilating now. His breaths are shallower than they are normally, a significant achievement. Jayce’s demeanor changes instantly, hands loosening their grip on wrists as one comes to hold Viktor’s face with all the care one might hold a piece of fragile lace.
He hates himself for leaning into Jayce’s touch, for chasing the warmth that has long since left his life in the dark alleys of the Undercity. He hates how Jayce cares for him, his broken body and even more broken spirit. He hates that this is what he wants — to be held and loved and cared for, not out of obligation, but out of genuine concern.
Jayce’s thumb is wiping away a tear now, calloused finger finding soft cheek. If he concentrates, Viktor bets he could feel the scar of when Jayce accidentally cut his finger open working on some metal plates.
He had come back from the library to a frantic Sky and an unusually calm Jayce holding an ever-reddening cloth to his hand. Viktor had been delicate with the bandages, trying not to notice how Jayce seemed to study his face for answers.
“-ktor?” cuts through the cloud of hyperventilation and reminiscing. When had his vision gotten so blurry? When had the room decided to start spinning?
“Jayce…?”
His legs gave way under his weight, and Jayce moved quickly to hold him upwards. Of course Jayce would make sure he didn’t fall; perfect, beautiful, infuriating Jayce.
“Viktor? Are you okay?”
Viktor looked up and immediately regretted it, meeting Jayce’s eyes full of worry and concern. It looked like Jayce himself could start crying soon.
Viktor willed his left hand up to meet Jayce’s chin, hoping his fingers weren’t too cold. His poor circulation damned him to a lifetime of cold extremities, not helped by the lack of oxygen pumping through his system.
Jayce reached up, cupping his hand around Viktor’s in act so tender Viktor would’ve started crying again had he ever stopped.
“I- I’m sorry…” he stuttered out.
Viktor damned his self awareness, reminding him of how easily Jayce was able to hold his lanky, uneven limbs with such care, not like he was breakable, but that he was precious.
“Viktor…” Jayce whispered, holding gently to Viktor’s hand, leaning his face into it.
Selfishly, Viktor imagined Jayce kissing his wrists and feeling his pulse quicken underneath his lips, moving past all his scars and moles.
“I’m… Jayce…” Viktor couldn’t form complete sentences just yet, his breathing slowly but by bit as Jayce held him.
“It’s okay, Vik. You don’t have to say anything.” Jayce pulled him closer now, encompassing his whole body into a hug.
Jayce ran warm, like the forge he spent so much time toiling away in. Viktor wished he could bottle that warmth and hold it close to his heart. Maybe then the cold wouldn’t seep into his bones and joints as the rain seeps into dry soil.
A drop of water hit Viktor’s shoulder and there was a sudden realization. Jayce was crying.
Viktor pulled back a little, noting how Jayce seemed to chase after his arms. Jayce’s eyes were muddled over with tears, the shine of Piltover’s Golden Boy lost in a sea of emotions.
“Jayce…” Viktor breathed out, chest heaving in slow, uneasy rhythms. His left hand found its way up to that chin again, now wiping away Jayce’s tears.
Jayce held onto that hand like it was a lifeline, like he’d drown without that anchor holding him above water. Maybe that was more true than Viktor had originally thought.
“I just… I can’t stand to lose you, Vitya. Not now. Not ever.” Jayce smiled sadly at his partner.
Viktor stiffened at the sound of the nickname and then relaxed, as Jayce’s look of adoration washed over his body. He had told Jayce once that his mother used to call him that. It was a way of endearment in the Undercity, he had explained. No one had called him that since.
“I know…” whispered Viktor into the space between them, praying to whatever gods were out there that his next words ring true. “I won’t leave you, Jayce. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
And with that, Jayce’s tears began again, the soft drops hitting his melancholy smile, and he pulled Viktor into a warm embrace yet again. Viktor let himself be dragged, tired from crying and knowing Jayce needed it just as much as he did.
“I care so, so much about you, you know?”
It was a whisper that Viktor barely heard, held so tightly to Jayce’s chest that the vibration carried through both of their bodies. Viktor wrapped his arms around Jayce, holding tightly to his vest.
“I know.”
~