Chapter Text
There wasn’t much to say at the first sign of trouble. Viktor should have given more thought to it, but he had a bad little habit of only focusing on one problem at a time. One-track mind, Jayce called it. And that week, the problem had been really quite something — the Hexgems were combusting again, due (they learned) to a certain coating their manufacturer had begun applying to the clawlike prongs that held them in place. So the other small intrusion didn’t even make its way into his daily journal entry.
Context is necessary. Let’s move all the way back.
Viktor was often mistaken for a quiet person. It was something he expected; people tended to look right over his head. Bad enough in the undercity, where you had to be loud and look loud if you wanted to get any respect, but somehow worse when he clawed his way up to Piltover. Quickly, he learned the same principle applied.
But loud meant a different thing than he’d grown up learning. It meant stand up straight and observe all the etiquette. Be silent but deadly; adorn yourself in gold, but know what is tacky. Your words must always have two meanings. If you are especially revered, they should have a third. Be polite and don’t smell bad. Don’t look disheveled. Don’t fidget too much, don’t stumble over your sentences. Do not curse. No bodily noises in public. And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Some parts of this neverending list of rules came easily to him; he had always paid a certain attention to the clarity of his speech, and didn’t tend to stutter. But he felt it was hard for him to command the attention he knew his work deserved up top. And thus it was easy to become frustrated.
When he was frustrated, Viktor tended to lose his cool. His world became singular, focused on whatever new issue had cropped up with his studies, pushing in past the peripherals of his vision until something gave way and it became too big for him to handle alone. Some kind of outburst or explosion usually followed that, and he gained a reputation, which led him to the curious Professor Heimerdinger — which gave him everything he had. For this he was endlessly grateful. He wrote this at the end of every journal entry, a reminder and a mantra. I am grateful for everything I have. The list was long. His work, his stability, his escape from the smog of Zaun. His relative health. His face, which he liked best of everything on his body. His wit. His friend and mentor, Heimerdinger.
Soon that list expanded to his new friend and colleague, Jayce Talis. Jayce was a treat to have in the lab. A smiling, persistent kind of thing, he had a new lease on life and he knew it. On days where Viktor’s frustrations splattered out to that tunnel vision he often seemed to get, Jayce was there, with grapes and a distracting clap on the back. It sometimes seemed he was trying to prove how happy he could be. To whom, Viktor didn’t know. But it wasn’t his problem.
Jayce had never assumed anything about him, which was honestly? A breath of fresh air. One day, a particularly bad day for Viktor’s knees, Jayce had bounded up a set of stairs and just waited, no pity, no helplessness, for Viktor to make it up after him. Something about that was appreciated.
And Jayce almost innately knew how to follow all the rules of Piltover. Easy enough to believe, he’d grown up there, but Viktor watched the way people drew themselves to his side at events and threw money at him like he was a shrine to Janna and quickly grew to realize Jayce was a new kind of beast. It was the world’s greatest blessing to the work to have him at his side.
So every night, a kind of prayer: I am thankful for Jayce’s support. I am thankful for his magnetism. I am thankful for our funding.
It wasn’t like people didn’t know who Viktor was. Years of study had given him a reputation. But he had been clumsy in the earlier days, had indulged too much at parties, had insulted people or gone home with others, always an uncouth man. He appeared unnoticed and left very audibly.
Something in him didn’t want Jayce to know this. So he pretended to be overwhelmed by the loud situations of those funding galas and progress parties. He would sit in a corner, take no champagne, until Jayce felt sorry and pleaded to walk Viktor home. He never accepted.
It’s one such night when the Kiramman household invites them, a courtesy, to their third wintering gala of the season. The halls of their manor are warm with laughter, fireplaces, and bodies in furs and velvet packed wall to wall.
Jayce strides through the double doors with some kind of practiced smile, turning to Viktor with an excited shimmy.
“You seem overexcited. What is different about this gala? We’ve been to two already,” says Viktor, gesturing to the mass of nobles inside.
“My little protégé turned fourteen last week. You know what that means.” He snaps a couple of finger guns Viktor’s way, which does nothing to lessen the confusion.
“I don’t know at all what that means.”
“It means she’s been presented, Vik! Remember, I was talking about it all last week? And I wasn’t there on Friday? Because I was…”
Viktor stares right through him. “When was this?”
Jayce sighs through his nose. “You were all on about that weight distribution problem with the Hexgates. I thought you were hearing me, but nah, I guess. Well — I was at her debut ball. She’s officially in society now, Viktor. Which means she’ll be here! At this gala!”
“Wonderful.”
“And you’ll get to meet her!” Jayce’s smile has gotten bigger, if such a thing was possible.
“Caitlyn, if I’m right?” Viktor chews on his bottom lip, turning over everything he’d heard about this girl in his mind. She was a great shot, but not so good with scientific theory…she’d found out some kind of new weightless workout routine and forced Jayce to try it with her for months…she was impossible to shop for because her parents got her everything already…and that was it. Hm. Viktor really should make more of an effort to listen.
“Yeah. Little Cait. Man, I just…this is awesome. You know. For me. I really hope you guys like each other.” Jayce crosses his fingers with one more toothy smile, and practically skips into the party.
Viktor is left unmoored. Clutching his cane near the wall. He is not at home here. It dawns on him after a few seconds of watching that there seems to have been an unofficial dress code; everyone around him shines in green and gold. He is in white and red. The nicest vest he owns, ironically a gift from Jayce, is a perfect shade of crimson. It looks good; Viktor tends to flush, and the deep red offsets it just enough. But it is not in keeping with the guests’ style. He is sure he’s already getting stares.
He won’t move from the wall the entire time he is obligated to be here. That is what he resigns himself to for the three dozenth time. It’s boring, it’s anxious, but Jayce thinks he is put together, if not a little shy. So he must stay that way.
But as the minutes pass, a long-suffering bitterness begins to grow too big for the blanket of this decision. No one begins a conversation. No one invites him to the floor. And his partner is nowhere around.
He looks for Jayce in the crowd, and his searching eyes find him. Surrounded by people already. Laughing, as always. And fitting right in, wearing a rich, mossy green overcoat.
Jayce hadn’t spared a second thought for him. Viktor is suddenly very sure of that. He gives his partner a cursory chance to look over, an invisible made-up plea, just look over, try to find me in the crowd, look concerned for one minute that you’ve lost me immediately when you think that you know that I hate these things.
Obviously Jayce does not deliver. A rush of some coiling emotion starts in Viktor’s chest. He feels too slighted to stay where he is. Why does he care if Jayce thinks he’s put together? Jayce couldn’t care less if he started seizing in the middle of the floor. All that talk about meeting Caitlyn. And where was she? There were several young girls here, all of them bright-eyed with hands full of champagne, their first night out promising a sparkling kind of future.
A few girls surround Jayce, but he doesn’t seem to be paying any of them special attention. Viktor snatches a champagne glass off a passing tray. One long draw and it’s gone. The liquid burns through his throat and down into his chest, wrapping around that pit of emotion, cushioning it with bubbles. No, he doesn’t care what Jayce thinks of him. They’ll get whatever they need from these people anyway. And tomorrow, they’ll be back in the lab, who cares about this gala? Who cares what Viktor does outside of his notebooks and his robots?
He’ll make himself something to do tonight. He’s never been a lightweight. Another tray of bubbly floats past him and he ends up with two more drags. Something light.
The crowd looms before him, hot and loud. He’s done this before, if not in a long time, and takes a breath and downs his drinks before tightening his grip around his cane and pushing off the wall.
Immediately he is dwarfed by the men around him. It’s fine, he’s used to that. His back has already begun to ache and hunch, which he hoped wouldn’t happen but always expected in the back of his mind. So he’s lost a few inches these past years. It’s worse next to Jayce, who is so broad and tall it’s sickening, and Viktor catches another glimpse of him in the crowd and turns away before that sick emotion bellows up like bile.
The bar looms on the other side of the room like a warm fireplace. Viktor will get there in due time. He pushes his way through, ignoring a small twinge when his bad foot catches on the floor, and offers cursory smiles to old school colleagues or people he recognizes as Jayce’s friends. They sometimes smile back. It’s not enough to cool the rapidly growing anger in his chest.
The bartender is a well-groomed blonde. Tall and broad, like Jayce, with long gold filigree painted down the side of his face. It shines as it joins his hairline with an effortless swoop. But Viktor feels a kind of camaraderie with him as he sits on a barstool, a triumphant decision beginning to clear itself out of the fog. For the man isn’t wearing green or gold. He’s got a brown vest and a white undershirt, rolled up and rugged.
“Could I have a wooden fire? Or, apologies, a double of malt in a soda water base.”
The bartender laughs. Viktor is mesmerized by the movement of his bright swoop of hair — it seems the champagne is beginning to catch up with him. Maybe he shouldn’t have ordered a double. He’s drinking too fast.
“Wooden fire. Nah, I know what that is, don’t worry. I haven’t heard that in years.”
“Oh?” It was a drink Viktor had loved from his teenage days. He’d ordered it at some dive around the corner from his dad’s rickety apartment. “Usually the bartenders at these sort of things only take orders for fancy things made with coffee. Or red wine.”
“Well, I didn’t start out at these things,” says the man in retort, smile revealing a chipped canine tooth.
“You —“ Viktor leans in, incredulous. “You’re from underneath?”
“Yes I am, and I wouldn’t say that so loud, except that I’m pretty sure you are too. Forgive me, but you don’t exactly look the most comfortable here.”
His drink is dropped unceremoniously in front of him. No pretense of reverence for the barfly. It reminds Viktor of home. “I’m getting more comfortable by the minute.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Viktor. I’m here with my partner, who’s much better at these things than I am. He’s mingling somewhere, I suppose. You’ll probably see him.”
The bartender draws back. Something in his voice changes. “Ah. Smart, marrying one of them. Me, I took the hard route. Worked for chump change for years just to afford a passport to get across the bridge.”
Viktor inhales his drink, and splutters into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry?”
“I said —“
“No, we’re not married. I’m sorry, I should have clarified. My work partner, he is. We are…scientific colleagues.”
“Ah.” The air seems thicker now, the noise of the crowd more intrusive. “So you worked your way up here, just the same.”
“I did. I’m thankful for it.” Viktor swigs the rest of his drink. He needs to get through this conversation before the pulsing sway of alcohol hits him. If he plays his cards right, he won’t need to talk any more for the rest of the night. “A good drink. This is noble work you do.”
Another crooked smile from the bartender. “Then this one’s on the house.”
Shit. Another double. Viktor watches him pour it, thinking that seven drinks in one hour is far too much far too fast, but the bartender slams it in front of him with strong arms, and he suddenly wants this drink very much.
They remain at the bar for the next forty minutes as Viktor slips into a strange half-state of existing. In the blurred lights of his two-bit vision, the bartender’s smiling quips aren’t anything like Jayce, really, but when he’s serving the odd other patron, something in the musculature of his back is the same.
“Ransom.”
“What?” Even blinking feels difficult. Viktor guesses standing won’t go very well on his own.
“I said hey, handsome. My buddy over there is taking over the rest of my shift.”
“Oh. Ha-nice. How. How nice. Nice.” He frowns. His accent is so much thicker when he’s wasted.
“You were telling me about that fancy government bedroom of yours. I’d love to see it.”
Viktor realizes he’s leaning almost halfway across the bar. He giggles, almost at the absurdity of the action, and realizes that pit of fiery anger in his chest is gone.
He’s staring at the blue in the bartender’s eyes and wondering how such a vibrant color even genetically works when a rough hand claps him on the back. Viktor swivels, too fast, and the world turns sideways as he topples off the barstool.
“Viktor!”
Slowly, surely, as Viktor squints, the face of that man blurs into frame. Jayce. He looks agitated, or angry, one of those emotions at least — but Viktor can’t bring himself to care, foggy as he is. Another laugh escapes from his lips. “Jaycey! You notice me!”
“What—Jaycey? What is that, a nickname? Viktor, were you just here all night?”
“What do you care?” Viktor spits the words at him, the dam broken, anger slamming back through his chest, flooding his head. “You leave all the time, you could care. Could not. Care. You. Yes.”
Something in Jayce’s face breaks. “You need me to take you home?”
Viktor feels pitied. He will not be pitied tonight. Not tonight, not like this. “I am going to home. Will going on my own, thank you very much times. Go. Find girl.” He waves in the general direction of the crowd, where a waltz has started. “She dance.” Shit. Dance? Dances? What was the right form? His verbs were always the first to go.
“Please, Viktor, get up. Take my arm. Come on.” Jayce looks behind him, motions some kind of no to somebody, and turns back to Viktor with an arm.
Viktor stands sloppily, cane scraping on the floor, pointedly not taking Jayce’s outstretched hand. He takes a chance on not falling back down and spins around, back to the bar, whamming a hand on the surface to steady himself.
The bartender is still there, eyes flicking back and forth. He shakes hands with Jayce, exchanges something that might serve for pleasantries, maybe says something else. Viktor doesn’t know. His eyes are crossing and they sound blurry.
He blinks in an effort to clear his vision, and when his eyelids lift, he’s in a familiar hallway. Strong arms support him as he stumbles down through the assistants’ quarters.
“Jayc-ey?” His head is impossibly heavy. His arms dangle down before him like they’re attached to a doll. But a large hand in the peripheral of his vision holds his keyring, and that’s reassurance enough. “Jaycey.”
Somebody murmurs next to him. Hot breath on his neck. Maybe he says where, maybe he says right? Viktor can’t tell. But they stop at a door that feels familiar, and when it opens, he barrels inside in a beeline for his bed.
The blankets curl around him as he flops to the mattress like a dead thing. A weight presses onto the bed behind him, and those same large hands encircle his waist. He can say nothing but Jaycey at first, lidded eyes making sense of one canyon-like crease in the pillow next to him.
You okay for this? the hands ask him, and Viktor takes them and presses them to his back, where they move in a circular motion, massaging and kneading. It feels incredible, like fireworks, like someone pouring sand through the maze of his musculature.
Jaycey, I hate it when you are leaving me, he manages to push out between his teeth. Do not be doing that any more.
Only I can stay here tonight. Do you want that?
Viktor sighs. Do what you will.