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The doors open and Jayce stumbles in, straightening his tie and running a hand through his hair. He seems a little frazzled, which is unusual for Piltover's Golden Boy, and Viktor turns to look at him with one eyebrow raised. He stares pointedly at the clock on the wall over the door and then back to Jayce, who nods and waves his hand, trying to bat away Viktor's disapproval.
"Good morning Jayce. Nice of you to join us today."
He says, sarcasm colouring his words.
Jayce scowls ineffectively at him and Viktor spots a flash of gold catch the light on Jayce's jaw as the other man walks over to the hob to make coffee.
"How is Councillor Medarda this morning?"
Jayce stops, turning to stare at Viktor blankly, a cup emblazoned with his own face on held loosely in one hand.
"What?"
Viktor raises a finger to his own jaw and taps it twice. Jayce frowns for a moment, then reaches up to wipe a hand down his cheek. He pulls it away and looks at it, eyes going wide as he sees a small smear of gold. His cheeks flush with colour and he looks up and stares anxiously at Viktor.
"No, listen, it's not what-"
Viktor waves a hand and gives a small laugh, turning back to his workbench.
"Calm down Jayce. Whoever you or Mel choose to...hold council with is none of my business. I am only teasing."
Jayce deflates a little, shoulders dropping and he smiles sheepishly. Finishing the drinks, he walks over to Viktor's desk and hands him the cup with his face on. When Viktor had first seen the mugs, it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to stop laughing. Once he'd managed to pull himself together, he had immediately bought as many as he could carry and secreted them into the building late one evening. He'd then spent an enjoyable hour hiding them around the lab in the most ridiculous places, and been childishly overjoyed at Jayce's dismayed exclamation the following morning when he'd seen the one Viktor had left on his desk, a delicate little bow wrapped around the handle. Since then, it had brought Viktor immeasurable joy to watch Jayce grumble every time he stumbled across another, tucked away in some drawer or hidden in a box of prototype pieces. Now, only one remains, slightly chipped with the image beginning to wear away. Viktor refuses to drink out of anything else, much to Jayce's chagrin.
Viktor takes it with a nod of thanks and a small smile. His eyes linger on Jayce's jaw, where a single flake of gold still sits and he reaches out absently to thumb it away. Jayce freezes under his hand, eyes zeroed in on Viktor's face. Viktor pulls back and wipes his thumb and finger together, dispersing the remaining flecks.
"Now, since you have finally decided to make an appearance-"
Jayce rolls his eyes, but his cheeks still hold a pale dusting of pink.
"I was five minutes late-"
Viktor cuts him off and twists on his stool to face his desk.
"It is time to get down to business. I have run some calculations this morning, and I believe that all we need to do is..."
Viktor looks down at his notebook as he talks, tapping his writing pointedly and feels a flush of warmth as Jayce steps closer, putting a hand on his shoulder to lean down and study the notations.
~
"No, Jayce, look at it properly. You're not taking the weight fluctuations into account!"
Viktor reaches out and grabs Jayce's tie, tugging it to bring him closer to the board and take his attention from the notebook in his hand. He taps his equations pointedly with the handle of his cane.
Jayce stumbles and follows him over, putting out a hand to steady himself on Viktor's shoulder.
"Viktor, you have to sto-"
"Shut up and look. If we differentiate between the required capacities at the stage, we can negate having to switch out the runes further down the line. That should solve our timing problems, at least whilst we get the prototype up and running."
Jayce's gaze runs over the board intently for a moment before he side eyes Viktor.
"But what about stabilising the frequencies? You have to factor in that the conditions are likely to vary enough that the runes will need to be swapped out."
Viktor nods, letting Jayce's tie slip through his fingers so he can rub his chin.
"Well yes, but that's still no reason to make more work for ourselves at this stage. We can return to that once we've got the basic framework designed and slot in what's needed then, rather than trying to do everything at once."
Jayce frowns and leans closer to the board, his fingers tracing over some of Viktor's calculations. His cheeks still hold a flush and Viktor wants to rest his palms against them, feel the heat against his fingers tips.
Jayce turns and looks at him pointedly and he blinks, engaging his brain to replay the last thing said. He thinks on it a moment before responding.
"I suppose that could work, but we would need to..."
Jayce finishes his sentence for him and stares across, a bright smile widening on his face that Viktor can't help but respond to in kind.
~
A few hours later, they're both stood by another one of the blackboards, chalk pieces in hand as they argue over the importance of stabilising power streams.
Jayce taps the board pointedly with his chalk and Viktor rolls his eyes, jabbing Jayce lightly in the shin with his cane.
"Don't be obtuse, Jayce. You know that-"
"I'm not being obtuse, I'm simply stating a fact. You can't just jab me with your cane every time I disagree with you."
Viktor scoffs.
"That was barely even a graze. You'll know when I jab you with it-"
Jayce grins and pushes his foot over to knock the end of Viktor's cane, laughing as it shifts a little and Viktor drops his chalk. Viktor narrows his eyes and is just opening his mouth to retort when the lab door opens and Heimerdinger's poro bounds in excitedly.
Just behind it, Heimerdinger himself and Mel enter, clearly in the middle of a conversation. The poro bounces over to the board and rubs itself against Viktor's leg with a series of squeaks. Jayce crouches down to tickle it.
"Boys! How goes progress today?"
Heimerdinger looks at them with a gleeful expression as he lifts himself up to one of the stools. Mel stands just to the side of him, cocking one hip so she can lean delicately against the desk.
Jayce straightens, his face lighting up as he flips the board over and dives into explaining their latest breakthrough.
Viktor steps back slightly, happy to let Jayce take the reins. He watches carefully as Heimerdinger nods seriously, his fluffy brows dancing as Jayce walks through their recent experiments. Mel's expression is a lot more contained, but her eyes sharply track Jayce's movements as he paces in front of the board.
There's a point, a few minutes into the lecture, where Viktor steps forward to gently lift Jayce's hand where it's dropped to point at the wrong equation as he's turned away from the board. Jayce smiles sunnily at him in thanks and Viktor nods, cutting in with a comment that has Jayce nodding earnestly. They talk through the rest together, and by the end, Heimerdinger is practically bouncing on his stool he's nodding so much. Mel crosses her arms gracefully, lifting one hand slightly to catch their attention and raise a question. It's intelligent and smartly worded and Viktor's eyes crinkle as Jayce answers her excitedly, almost puppyish in his mannerisms. She nods as he talks, her eyes darting over to catch Viktor's momentarily and he inclines his head slightly. She smiles softly back and returns to look at Jayce as he finishes speaking.
"Well, this all sounds extremely promising. I look forward to hearing about your continued advancements at the next council meeting."
Heimerdinger agrees as he shuffles off the stool and drops to the floor with a quiet oof. His poro, who had been happily distracted chasing a dust mite round under the benches, bounds over and nuzzles him happily.
"Oh by the way Viktor, I've been meaning to ask, do you happen to know where my thesis on converting quasi-crystalline structures is?"
Viktor barely even pauses before he speaks.
"Yes, it's in the 2nd cabinet on the left. Bottom drawer I believe, under your notes on diffraction."
Heimerdinger beams at him.
"Excellent. I know you're doing great things here, but I do miss having you around so much. This new boy is friendly enough, but he doesn't have your ability to anticipate my needs in quite the same way."
Viktor tilts his head a little in response and Heimerdinger pats him cheerily on the shin on his way past.
They leave and as the door slides shut behind them, Viktor turns to study the slight furrow on Jayce's brow.
"What's wrong?"
Jayce looks up at him, intently.
"You had access to literally everything in Heimerdinger's office. All his official works and council papers?"
"Correct," Viktor nods in ascent, unsure where Jayce is going.
"And you even taught some of his classes, right?"
"I covered a few lectures when he was busy with council business. Why?"
Jayce turns to fully face him, a look of slight disbelief on his face.
"I just cannot believe you didn't even officially graduate from the academy and yet you have one of the highest classification levels in the city."
Viktor grins sharply and wiggles his eyebrows conspiratorially.
"How to you think students of Piltover would feel knowing they were being lectured by an Undercity imposter?"
Jayce laughs, a loud belly laugh that rings out like a bell chime.
"You are an actual agent of chaos."
Viktor bows extravagantly.
"You flatterer."
"It's true! You're one of the greatest minds Runeterra has ever seen and yet literally every choice you make is based around criminal intent."
Viktor snorts at him.
"Surely that is an exaggeration."
Jayce raises an eyebrow and lifts a hand to tick off his points
"Assuming a fake student identity, theft, that 'incident' with the fire in the third floor library. I mean, the first day we met, you convinced me to break into the Dean's office and complete unlicensed and dangerous experiments.
"You didn't really take much convincing-"
Jayce cuts him off with a finger gently jabbed into his chest.
"You know someone actually said how restrained and quiet they thought you were the other day."
"I'm sorry, what? Who have you been talking to?"
"At one of the investors meetings! I was discussing our partnership and they said you must be a calming influence to have in the lab!"
Viktor stares at Jayce for a moment before a laugh bubbles out of him. Jayce sniggers back at him.
"I didn't have the heart to bring up the chart."
He gestures over his shoulder to the 'Days Since Our Last Incident {including but not limited to; explosions - minor (Viktor's handwriting), broken or unusable prototypes, medial emergency resulting in a trip to the infirmary, hot coffee spillages or cane inflicted bruising (Jayce's handwriting)}' chart, which is currently sitting at 2 but hasn't made it below a 5 for over 9 months.
Viktor has to lean against the stool and clutch at his belly as he laughs. Jayce wheezes and wipes tears from his eyes.
"Honestly V, I don't know how you get away with it."
Viktor takes a few deep breaths to calm himself enough that he can stand upright again.
"I am just so glad I could bring a little excitement to your humdrum life. Anyway," he says, pointing at Jayce. "I'm not the only one who proved to be a little different than expected."
Jayce straightens, blowing out a gust of air as he tries to stop hiccupping with laughter.
"What? Me? But I haven't done anything!"
"Oh, that's not strictly true, is it? You may have kept your work with the arcane quiet, but you were still the talk of the academy before we ever met."
"I was not-"
"I think you'll find you were. Admittedly most of the gossip seemed far more concerned with your, ehm, physical attributes rather than your mental ones, though they were most complimentary you know. But it did lead me to assume you were a, how do you say, flash in the pan?"
Jayce snorts and looks affronted but Viktor carries on before he can say anything.
"After your speech to the council and reading your notes though, if we ignore your hubris of signing every single page-"
"I told you, it's because-"
"I know I know, intellectual property, yadda yadda. But it became clear quite rapidly that you were far more interesting than I had previously thought."
Jayce's eyebrows nearly reach his hairline.
"Well thank you, I think."
Viktor pauses for a moment to study Jayce, taking in the shadow of stubble on his jawline, and the way his hair has started to drop from its neatly pomaded shape. He likes Jayce best like this, loosened and relaxed.
"I couldn't bear the thought of it being all thrown away. What a waste it would have been."
Viktor speaks quietly, phrasing it as if he just means the notes and equipment but he can see in the way Jayce's eyes soften that he understands what else Viktor is referring to.
"Of my...physical attributes?"
"Oh, if nothing else!"
Jayce laughs again, but it's more contained now. He offers a comedic wink to Viktor before turning back to the board and flipping it over again. Viktor steps up to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and picks up his piece of chalk again.
"Ah yes, I believe we had an argument to finish."