Work Text:
Romantic feelings were something Viktor rarely ever experienced . They were actually almost annoying when he first noticed them.
He had no idea when he stopped seeing Jayce as just a lab partner and began viewing him instead as one of the sole reasons for working towards their dream and someone he wanted to be more than a friend to. The habits he used to find mildly annoying were becoming endearing instead and he had to stop himself from getting distracted by them and he had embarrassingly memorized how Jayce looked with his tie untucked and his vest unbuttoned and hair slightly mussed from sleeping in the lab.
One view that Viktor found he actually enjoyed far far too much was Jayce without any of the normal product in his hair, strands falling in front of his forehead and all of it just a small bit more curly than everyone is normally led to believe. Thinking of his partner in general always made him mushy and distracted and it kept happening increasingly more frequently.
He was able to almost ignore his feelings until Jayce started getting more friendly. Setting a glass of sweet milk on Viktor’s desk with a hand on his shoulder as a good night before he left the lab, leaning entirely into his personal space while looking over his shoulder looking at blueprints.
Viktor hated it when he did that. He had to remind himself everytime not to get distracted by Jayce’s cologne or the insane amount of heat he gave off. Jayce started always touching him in some way when they were close enough, calloused fingers brushing against his or a warm palm resting somewhere on his body. Although, he couldn’t deny that he did enjoy the contact.
Jayce knew that he was head over heels in love with Viktor not long after they started working together. Those beautiful golden eyes had him melting and he could kiss the sharp angles of his face and that shy smile of his for hours. Viktor in general was just beautiful. He looked fragile but strong at the same time. He spent way too much time out of his day watching him work, stealing glances at him in between mapping out blueprints and puzzling out equations.
One morning he came into the lab early and figured out that Viktor liked sweet milk. They had been working together for a fair amount of time by that point and from then on he made it a nightly habit to make Viktor a glass before leaving the lab and getting some rest.
In the back of his mind he knew he had begun to initiate more physical contact than was strictly necessary between friends but Viktor never minded and Jayce craved the brush of his hand against Viktor’s cold fingers or just the sheer satisfaction he got from being near him.
At one point Jayce had even started sketching him during his lunch breaks, and when one day he ended up with something he was vaguely proud of he taped it into his notebook and surrounded it with other notes. This was one of the few complete pictures he had ever done of Viktor, with an entire other mess of sketches of his eyes or the way his mouth curled, his delicately holding a piece of chalk as predecessors.
Anatomy practice turned into excuses to sketch Viktor and when he was winding down in his own room adding more detail to a particular part of his partner’s body his brain would sometimes wander and he’d think of all the little marks that might exist. Maybe he had a mole somewhere on his thigh, or a beauty mark on his shoulder. Maybe his skin was clear, just a beautiful expanse of porcelain. He hoped he would find out one day, but he was also content with the way things were.
Viktor had followed Jayce to his room because they were in the middle of an important conversation and he was unwilling to pause it because his partner forgot his blueprints. On the chair by Jayce’s desk there was this little leather bound book and he went absentmindedly thumb through it as he sat down.
His partner in question was rifling through his desk drawers as Viktor quipped about how messy he was. The book turned out to be a small sketch book and the first few pages were landscapes, crystals, drawings of faceless people, and yet, as he got further he saw himself start covering the pages more than anything else. He drew in a sharp breath and kind of just stared, not knowing what to think. Jayce’s gentle pencil lines made him appear beautiful, the sketches poetry without words, something entirely too personal and something he should have never seen.
Still, Jayce had turned to see why he had cut off and went slightly pale as Viktor gently shut the small book. The room was silent for an uncomfortable few moments
“I had never known that my anatomy was so interesting to you…”
Jayce gaped at him for a moment and Viktor couldn’t help the slight chuckle that left his lips. It was an interesting expression that partially pulled him from his racing thoughts.
“Although, I find that I’m actually flattered.”
Jayce blushed and was about to splutter out something or other until Viktor got up, supporting himself with his cane, and leaned forward to kiss Jayce, gently placing the book on the desk behind him.
He may or may not have ended up posing for Jayce later that night.