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It’s day seven of the trial period, and Viktor is tempted to whack Jayce into next Tuesday with his cane. The desire itself is not an uncommon occurrence, nor is the reason. Simply put, Jayce is meddling again. This time however, it is regarding a subject that Viktor is adamant on keeping to himself.
In retrospect, Viktor should have seen this coming. A few months ago, he and Jayce were having an easy conversation held over a few beers after a long week pouring over data for a project. The conversation flitted aimlessly from subject to subject without rhyme or reason, and you inevitably came up. Viktor can’t even recall the reason why your name was initially mentioned.
He was several drinks in at that point, and blames the alcohol for having let it slip that he thought you were pretty. His own reaction to the admission must have told Jayce everything he needed to know to develop a keen interest.
A human with any measurable amount of decency and decorum would have left the subject alone once Viktor made it clear he did not wish to discuss his feelings for you. But alas, Jayce has neither of those things, and Viktor was drunk.
What followed is an uncomfortable hour of Jayce’s incessant needling for information on why Viktor refused to discuss the matter further and why he insisted against simply asking you out - as if that weren’t obvious.
You are an absolute joy to be around; always smiling and laughing and making it nearly impossible for others not to do the same. You can make friends with almost anyone, if you desire to do so. You’re smart and caring, thoughtful, and - as Viktor had so conspicuously blurted out - quite pretty to put it mildly.
Why on earth would someone like you be interested in him—a scrawny, detrimentally aloof workaholic with the social skills of a bear mid-hibernation? And that’s not even getting into the other physical complications Viktor has to deal with, like his crippled leg and chronic back pain.
Jayce himself was also multiple drinks deep at the time, and determined to be the wingman that Viktor never wanted. He tried hyping Viktor up, insisting that you were ‘definitely into him too, bro!’ but how could Jayce possibly surmise that? You’ve displayed no outward signs of attraction that Viktor’s noticed—and he considers himself to be quite good at picking up on small changes in other people’s behavior like that.
Then again, he’s also an excellent liar when he needs to be, but he can’t so much as give you a half-truth without becoming fidgety.
Jayce, the insufferably self-righteous man that he is, has apparently devised a scheme in which he intends to prove Viktor wrong.
Viktor only realizes the severity of his predicament this morning, when he sees your name at the top of the list for this today’s volunteer test subjects.
“You really have no sense of self-restraint, do you?”
Jayce is sitting at the table, clicking his pen absentmindedly with one hand, and squinting at the phone in his other with pinched concentration. At the sound of Viktor’s accusation, he looks over with raised brows. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me!” Viktor snaps, affixing him with a frustrated scowl and waving the volunteer sheet clipboard in the air between them for emphasis, “This entire thing is a setup, isn’t it?”
“She’s been a volunteer before! What’s the big deal?” Despite his facade of innocence, Jayce obviously knows what Viktor is talking about - especially given that Viktor never mentioned your name. The pen Jayce has been clicking absently for the last thirty minutes takes a sharp uptick in tempo.
“The big deal,” Viktor seethes through gritted teeth, “is that we don’t create entire projects to determine the results of one person!”
Jayce sighs, “Viktor. Do you really think I’d put together an entire clinical trial just on the off chance I get to prove that a girl has a thing for you?”
“Yes!” Viktor retorts stubbornly, “stop gaslighting me.” Still far from convinced otherwise, he adds, “Did she actually volunteer for this study, or did you ask her to participate?”
Jayce’s silence prompts a rabid swear from Viktor, who tosses the clipboard onto the table in abject confirmation. He’s about to tell Jayce to cancel all of today’s appointments - as well as inform him of a much better place to stick that pen - when the sound of the lab’s double doors opening cuts him off.
Sensing a means for escape, Jayce practically launches himself from his chair to rush around the table and greet you with an enthusiastic (and probably quite thankful) embrace. If the hug itself is longer or more emphatic than usual, you don’t seem to care.
“Holy shit, Jayce, you act like you didn’t see me yesterday,” you wheeze with a laugh, one arm slung around Jayce’s neck to return the gesture.
The sound of your voice lifts Viktor’s mood against his will, even more so when you peek over Jayce’s shoulder to add a chipper, “Hey Vik! I grabbed you two some coffee on the way in.”
“Hey,” Viktor manages, turning to face you fully and leaning back against the table. You’re always bringing them little gifts like this, and he hates that there’s never a casual opportunity for him to return the favor. “You didn’t have to—.“
Jayce cuts him off with an incredulous look before interjecting, “You’re too good to us, really! The coffee maker here tastes like dirt.”
“Do you… wash it?” you ask.
“You’re supposed to wash it?” Ignoring your look of mild horror, Jayce plucks the twin cups from where you have them pinned to your chest with one arm, and walks Viktor’s over to him.
“I am going to hurt you, later,” Viktor warns under his breath, swiping the to-go cup presumably marked with his name. He scowls at Jayce over the rim as he takes a sip.
“You’re going to thank me later,” Jayce corrected just as quietly. Looking over his shoulder to you, he adds in a louder tone, “I’m going to go grab the equipment. Hang tight for a sec.”
He darts out of the small lab without further hesitation. There’s a beat of silence where the two of you merely stand there awkwardly, soon broken by the sound of you settling into the chair you’ll be in for the duration of the test.
“Thank you, for the coffee,” he says after a moment. It’s perfect - you must have memorized his preferred order - the small gesture makes his stomach swoop affectionately. He looks down at the cup in his hand, brow furrowing with amusement at the name ‘Kictor’ written in black marker.
“I said, ‘Viktor with a K’ to the barista,” you explain with a wry laugh, “Admittedly, I didn’t think to specify where the K was supposed to go.”
“Technically, they did what you asked,” Viktor points out with a chuckle, “Regardless, I think I’m going to need it today.”
Giving him a small smile, you tilt your head curiously, “Is everything okay? You seemed like you might bite Jayce a minute ago.”
“The thought has crossed my mind. He is wearing on my last nerve.”
You hum in understanding, brows furrowing into a solemn expression that looks more amusing to Viktor than anything else. “Well, we can’t have that.”
Huffing out a laugh, Viktor takes another sip of his drink. “Does that mean I can count on your silence if I do something untoward?”
Eyes crinkling at the corners, you fix him with an impish little grin that spells out mischief.
“Oh, Viktor. For you? I’d hold him down, myself.”
He has no time to relish in the sweet tone of your voice, nor the implication (however playful) that you’d do something for Viktor simply because it’s him - because the sound of the intercom startles you both.
“I can hear you two, you know,” Jayce’s voice crackles casually through the speaker overhead.
You turn to make a scrunched up face up at the small camera mounted to the ceiling in the corner of the room. “I know what you can hear. This ain’t my first rodeo.”
The intercom crackles to life a moment later, “Yeah, yeah. Just remember this can be used as court evidence if I wake up hogtied in a basement.”
You and Viktor both snigger, exchanging sidelong glances as he continues to nurse his coffee.
Perhaps this won’t be quite so bad, after all.
As if in direct contrast to that thought, Jayce returns pushing a small cart with electrodes, wires, a heart monitor, and Bluetooth display on which the subject of the experiment would be shown. He looks positively giddy, and it sets Viktor’s teeth on edge all over again.
“Vik, if you’ll do the honors for me, I’m going to get everything set up in the back.” Jayce turns to you, adding with a haughty note, “It would have been ready to go when you got here, but someone just had to show up early.”
“Hey!” You retort from your chair, giving Jayce a flippant look, “I brought you coffee!”
“True…I suppose you can be forgiven.”
As Jayce leaves the room, Viktor pushes himself off from the desk with a shake of his head. He walks over to the cart and rolls a vacant chair to sit in front of you, giving you a look that he can’t quite articulate, though he hopes it communicates his exasperation with his lab partner rather than you.
Ripping open an alcohol wipe, he motions for you to lean closer, explaining, “This is just to prep your skin for the leads.”
“I know. I didn’t even put on makeup this morning.” you reply brightly.
“None are being attached to your face today, but the gesture is appreciated,” Viktor says with a laugh.
Ever the perfect little subject, you sit still and dutifully allow Viktor to wipe the small towelette across the areas the leads will be placed. You even pull at the neckline of your blouse for him to do so without him having to ask, which makes this situation much less unnerving.
“Lift your shirt for me, please—perfect…” He can feel his cheeks start to warm as you pull up the hem of your top to expose your midriff. Desperate to diffuse the one-sided tension as he opens a new alcohol wipe, he blurts out the very first thing that comes to mind. “I didn’t know you have a bellybutton piercing.”
He would like to throw himself off of a tall building immediately after the words leave his mouth. Luckily, you’re either too distracted to notice, or so genuinely kind that you don’t mind the inappropriate comment.
“Mmhm,” you nod, adding with another impish grin, “I have some tattoos, too - but you only get three guesses where.”
“My money’s on a butt cheek,” Jayce’s voice immediately crackles from the intercom.
“Wrong,” you call out, “two guesses left!”
His mind wanders unintentionally towards other potential locations the tattoos could be, narrowing down the list by the skin he sees frequently and — nope. No, Viktor absolutely cannot. This isn’t a topic he can bear to think about right now.
It’s all he can manage to let out a quiet, nervous little laugh and start hastily sticking the electrodes in place. Goosebumps break out across your abdomen in response to the cool adhesive, and he murmurs an apology.
Taking a moment to warm the next electrode between his hands before removing the backing, he takes a risk peering up at you— only to immediately glance back down with heat blooming in his cheeks when he realizes you’re watching him. The lead going below your left clavicle is much warmer than the first, but goosebumps still raise over your chest when Viktor presses it into your skin.
“It just tickles, that’s all,” you explain with a quiet, breathy sounding laugh that isn’t at all typical. Viktor opens his mouth before he really knows what he’s going to say - a terrible thing to do in most situations - but you quickly change the subject before he can speak. “So what am I going to be doing today? Have you guys built a death ray yet?”
Viktor smiles. Unwrapping two wire bundles, he connects them easily to the first two leads. “A death ray is… a bit outside the scope of our degree. And also our budget.”
The intercom crackles, “And I doubt Heimerdinger would be cool with us using the student body for testing.”
“Well he’s no fun.” you retort archly.
After connecting the wires to the monitor, Viktor leans back and allows you to straighten out your blouse. “This is going to be monitoring your heart rate during the tests. We’ll start it now to get a baseline, and proceed with the tests after a few minutes of control data.”
You nod your head, lips twitching up into a smile. “Sounds good.”
“This will control the monitor in front of you,” he goes on, placing a small remote with only a few arrow keys into your hand, “It’ll make sense once the experiment begins.”
“And these,” Viktor adds, pulling a pair of egregiously modified protective eyewear from the cart and putting them gently in place on the bridge of your nose, “will monitor your pupillary dilation.”
“Will you guys be able to see all of this data real-time?” you ask, quirking your brow in a way that is somehow still infuriatingly cute with the goggles on.
“More or less,” Viktor shrugs, “there is a delay of a few seconds, but everything is transmitted to our computers through Bluetooth.”
After taking another few moments to set up the screen, he turns to take his leave to monitor the experiment with Jayce in the back.
“Hey, Viktor?”
“Hm?” He turns to look at you over his shoulder, one hand still on the door handle.
“How do I look?”
Viktor tilts his head, taking the sight of you in. Wires stick out of your blouse at odd angles, ruching up the fabric. Beneath the clunky goggles perched slightly askew atop your nose, you’re smirking playfully at him.
“Beautiful,” he answers too easily, his own lips twitching upwards just a fraction, “beyond measure.”
You beam at him, letting out a delighted little laugh; as if he’s merely humoring you—as if it’s not an observable, universal truth he’d tell you freely no matter what you’re wearing.
Excusing himself from the lab, Viktor makes his way back into the observation room with Jayce. He stops halfway beyond the threshold, frowning. Jayce is giving him disconcertingly heavy eye contact.
“…What?”
“How do I look?” Jayce teases, batting his eyelashes up at Viktor and pointedly ignoring the developing scowl on his face.
“Shut up,” Viktor snaps, spinning Jayce around by the back of his chair and dropping himself into another at his left, “Do your job.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Kictor.”
Shoulders still shaking with silent laughter, Jayce pushes the intercom button. “Okay, I think we have a good baseline. In a minute, four very similar pictures are going to appear on the screen in front of you, one after the other. The remote you’re holding can be used to flip back and forth between each image as much as you want. You’re going to tell us which one is the real one.”
“Pictures of what?” You ask.
“You’ll see.”
“… Well that sounds ominous.”
Viktor fidgets uncomfortably in his seat.
The lights in the lab are dimmed, and your face becomes illuminated by the flatscreen monitor. It takes a split second for you to register the first image in front of you, and then you let out a disbelieving laugh.
“I got up early, on a Saturday, for you guys to hook me up to lab equipment and show me pictures of my mom?”
“Hey!” Jayce defends, pressing down on the red intercom button, “We’re doing very important science stuff, here. You see your mom pretty much every day. Let’s see how well you can pick out the genuine version of her.”
Viktor watches you shake your head in amusement before scrutinizing the images in front of you through the camera feed. The goggles pick up slight pupillary dilation.
“This is… this is weird,” you cringe, shaking your head slightly as you flip between the two images. Viktor notices a slight uptick in your heart rate. “Is this experiment supposed to do with the Uncanny Valley, or something?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Jayce agrees, though Viktor catches him look over in his direction out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t be nervous! The changes are going to be difficult to spot at times, and all we’re doing is gathering data.”
The room goes silent, and Viktor watches your brows furrow in concentration as you take in the images.
“Option one is real,” you say definitively after a moment. “My mom’s freckles are too dark in the other ones.”
“Good job!” Jayce praises, “This one was the demo round, so to speak. I won’t be telling you whether or not you get the rest of them right. Also, moving forward, there’s a possibility that none of the images in a set will be genuine. Make sense?”
“Yep,” you reply, reaching up to brush some hair out of your face.
“Great,” Jayce says, “Ready for the next set?”
“Bring it on, science boy.”
Another fifteen minutes go by, another twenty images of your mother show up on the screen in groups of four. The base picture in each set is different, and the alterations become more minuscule. Your eyes narrow, pupils shrinking to pinholes as you frown at the monitor.
“You’ve stumped me on this last set. I’m going with option two being the real one.”
Jayce tsks playfully into the intercom. “I’m totally giving your mom the results, later.”
There’s an outraged gasp from the audio feed. “Don’t you dare!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Next round starts in two minutes.”
“How’d she do?” Viktor asks privately once Jayce’s finger is off the intercom. He’s been more keen on watching your facial expressions as you decipher between the images, rather than paying attention the EKG feed or the options you chose.
“Not bad,” Jayce admits, “a bit over average so far; four out of six sets.”
A minute goes by, giving your pulse time to return to its baseline. Viktor notates your vitals on his clipboard and nods to Jayce to begin the next series.
Once again your face is illuminated by the glow from the flatscreen, this time with an expression of unabashed confusion. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
“That’s my neighbor Frank,” Jayce explains, “He consented to letting us use his pictures for the purposes of this experiment.”
“The dude that breeds Persian cats? The one I’ve met, like, three times in passing? How am I supposed to know which picture is legit?” you protest mildly, flipping aimlessly between the group of pictures.
Viktor smirks at your reaction, the disgruntled pinch of your brow as you try to determine which picture is unaltered. It takes you expectedly longer to make your decisions in this round, with only one answer being correct out of six sets.
“I already know I did terribly,” you declare without much concern, leaning back into the chair. “Sorry, Frank.”
“I’m telling Frank that you hate him,” Jayce snarks, removing the images from the monitor.
There’s another lull in conversation as Viktor and Jayce record the data and give you time for your heart rate to return to baseline, though after the initial confusion, there’s no measurable difference between the two. After a moment, Jayce turns in his chair to bring up the next round on screen.
“Ahh, I see what’s happening. I’m being fucked with,” you decide with a snort as you flip between four images of Jayce grinning back at you.
“No pressure,” Jayce replies, winking over at Viktor, “but I can see the right answers. Good luck!”
“Oh fuck off!” you retort with a laugh, shaking your head slightly. Letting out a breath, you steel yourself, eyes becoming focused to decide which image of Jayce is accurate.
“It’s the third one, the other ones are wrong.”
Viktor makes more of an effort to track which answers you choose this round. Your heartbeat is steady and calm after the initial surprise of Jayce’s pictures popping up. He notices with some amusement that you essentially as well as you had with your mother. When the last images are shown, the results are four out of six sets.
“She’s doing well,” Viktor comments, still recording the data onto his sheet. Jayce nods emphatically.
“Yeah, she’s got one hell of a visual memory,” Jayce agrees. Pressing the intercom, he adds, “All right, final stretch. We’ll give you two minutes to relax before the last series starts.”
Jayce shoots him a sidelong glance before he turns on the last round of images. Immediately, Viktor rolls his eyes and groans.
“I was waiting for it,” You say with an amused note in your voice.
The nearly identical photos of Viktor stare back at him from their facilitator screen. His mouth is slightly open (probably in the middle of arguing something), eyebrows knitted together in the beginnings of a scowl (at Jayce, most likely) as he doesn’t particularly enjoy having his picture taken.
Reaching past Jayce to press down on the intercom, Viktor grumbles, “Let it be known that I did not consent to this photo.”
Your laugh makes his ears turn pink. “It’s a cute picture, Vik.”
Jayce grabs Viktor’s wrist to pull his index finger off of the button. Pointing to the slow stream of data coming from of the EKG, he says, “That was a skipped heartbeat.”
Viktor opens his mouth to retort, but Jayce interrupts again with, “Look!”
Viktor turns, looking at the data streaming from the goggles. Pupillary dilation increased to six millimeters.
The brewing argument stops short when your voice comes through the audio feed. “Option four is the real one.”
The screen goes dark, then lights back up with another set of similarly identical Viktors in a different base photo, though his expression is just as perturbed as the last.
Frowning, he squints at the next set displayed on the facilitator screen. Even he can’t even tell the difference between two of these. Or rather, there’s certainly a difference, but he doesn’t look at himself enough to say confidently what it is.
“Option one,” you call out after only a moment, adding, “you did something weird to his teeth in the other ones.”
Viktor’s eyes dart back to the screen in disbelief, his eyebrows raising in surprise. You’re absolutely right. His chest tightens with something indiscernible at the fact that you find the image with the gap in his front teeth having been corrected to be one of the ‘weird’ ones. “Well, shit.”
Jayce gives a smug look in reply.
“Option three. You did something to his nose in the first two, and his eyebrows are thinner in the fourth.”
Set after set, Viktor watches with rapt attention as you go through each and every one of them without fail.
Every single one.
The final set does seem to actually stump you for all of thirty seconds before you call out your answer with impressive confidence.
“None of these are real.”
What’s curious is that you’ve known Jayce much longer than you’ve known Viktor. If you were going to memorize anyone’s face apart from your mother’s, it should be his.
How often have you studied his face?
“Weird,” Jayce echos Viktor’s thoughts, but in a sardonic tone that implies the opposite, “it’s almost like she likes you.”
“Stop it,” Viktor mutters, getting up heavily from his chair and grabbing his cane to point it at Jayce with emphasis, “I’m still unhappy with you. I’m sure this whole thing is some sort of ethical violation.”
It takes all of his willpower to keep a neutral expression as he leaves the observation room. Even more so to stay that way when he walks back into the lab to unhook you from the machinery. Whatever Jayce thought to accomplish with this aside, Viktor can’t deny that the fact that you’ve apparently committed his face to memory, and it makes him melt a bit.
“Do I win?” you ask, already pulling the goggles from your face and blinking around the room.
“I suppose,” Viktor muses, “if you consider donating your Saturday morning to an undergrad science project to be a prize.”
Your eyes follow Viktor’s hands as he pulls the electrodes from your midriff. “Of course it is. At the very least, it’s an excuse to hang out with you and Jayce.”
Viktor chuckles under his breath, leaning closer to remove the electrodes a bit more carefully from the delicate skin below your collarbones. “You’re very easy to please. We were in another room for the majority of it.”
You shrug, “it’s like… like when you’re in the same place with your friends, and you’re all doing different things and not necessarily talking to each other—but it’s still inherently better because they’re there.”
He feels a sudden rush of affection that pushes his heart clear up into his throat. Certain that any noise he comes up with would sound grossly inhuman, he gives you a little nod.
Is it getting warm in here?
Goodbyes are said briefly thereafter. As is tradition, Jayce gives you an enormous hug that cracks several vertebrae in your back, and you give Viktor this little shoulder nudge that’s become something like a hug between you and him. You apparently have an aerial silks class in an hour, and Jayce and Viktor have other volunteers to set up for, so you’re gone within a few minutes.
And now Viktor has to decide whether or not he’s mentally prepared to look up what an ‘aerial silks’ class is.
After pulling up a quick google image search, he realizes that he is definitely not prepared.
“I can’t believe you didn’t ask her out,” Jayce laments as the two of them get the lab situated for the next volunteer, “She has it bad for you, Vik.”
“I don’t think you fully understand how problematic it would be for me to ask her out immediately after watching her complete a test—one that in part revolves around my face — while I was sitting in the back watching her EKG.”
“So… just not immediately after, then?” Jayce prods shamelessly. Viktor scoffs, rolling his eyes as he tosses the used leads into the waste bin.
Feeling the buzz of his phone in his pocket, Viktor pulls it back out and unlocks the screen, expecting it to be an email from the next volunteer regarding their appointment.
What he doesn’t expect, is a text from you.
> Don’t let Jayce get to you. Let me know if I need to come back there. ;)
Fighting back a blush, he tears his gaze away from his phone, pressing his lips together to stave off a smirk as he looks back over at Jayce. “… We’ll see.”