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Viktor was tired. His body hurt, and the long hours he had spent in the lab as of late had proven ultimately fruitless. He rubbed his eyes with a quiet groan before looking around for the pocket watch he had tossed somewhere on the workbench hours before. He knew it must have been late, as Jayce had already come and gone, telling Viktor to get some sleep as he left. Viktor had responded with a half hearted, ”Yes, yes.” at the time, but they both had known the words were merely an acknowledgement that Jayce had spoken.
Finally, the glint of light hitting metal caught Viktor’s eye as he moved a messy pile of papers and notes. He squinted to be able to read the watch in his hand. It was, of course, many hours past a normal time of night to retire from work. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, finally feeling the pounding headache that sat behind his eyes. Pushing his chair back from the bench, he took hold of his crutch and pushed himself up. The workbench remained the mess it had been all day, but, as he looked on it with dread, he decided it was absolutely a problem for himself in the morning.
The walk to his apartment took him significantly longer than it normally would. Even with his crutch, Viktor was growing increasingly more unsteady. Clenching his jaw, he pushed on. The pain that spread through his leg and into his back was nothing new to him– if anything, it was more akin to an old friend. The frequency and intensity of his flares had, however, started to grow more concerning as he pushed himself farther. Whether the flares were a result of the pushing or the pushing a result of his own inevitability, only time could tell. Either way, he sighed and begrudgingly welcomed the familiarity. As familiar the feeling was, however, the door to his apartment had little ever looked as inviting as it did as he hobbled up to it. He struggled to get his key in the lock for a moment, his hand shaking more than he had previously realized. He finally steadied it long enough to open the door, leaning on the wall as he closed it behind himself.
He had initially planned to bathe and eat before catching a few hours of sleep, but he realized with a sigh that he definitely did not have the energy required for either of those. With winces that were slowly growing in frequency, he made his way into his bedroom and nearly collapsed onto the bed as he sat. The relief that rippled through his body was nearly palpable, a sigh escaping from what felt like his very soul. Still moving slowly, he brought his legs up to rest on the chair against the wall by the bed, working his shoes and leg brace off. The rest of his clothes and brace around his back followed soon after, replaced by a soft shirt and pants.
As Viktor took a moment to sit still, catching his breath, he noticed the tremor that ran through his body. He had pushed himself too far again, of course. The notion was far from foreign to him, but he had hoped that one measly day of working on that stubborn Hexcore wouldn’t be enough to pull him over the edge. He shook his head. He needed sleep, of course. Some rest was sure to make it at least manageable again. Although he had been getting a few hours of light sleep when his body practically begged him for it, the cot in the lab left much to be desired. His back was far from supported properly on it, a fact which he could no longer ignore. He groaned as he slowly maneuvered himself to lie down and pulled the heavy covers over himself. His bones ached and seemed to almost shudder as he curled in on himself, begging anything listening to his thoughts that it would be improved by morning.
Of course, as was customary in Viktor’s life, his wants were ignored. His sleep was spotty– the pain too persistent in its attempts to keep him awake despite the exhaustion seeping into his core. He groaned and tossed and turned, trying to find any position that would be at least a bit more comfortable before finally drifting off once again.
The little sleep he did get was riddled with vivid nightmares. In his nearly delirious state, he saw Singed– the man who had first seen him for who he was and who he so desperately wanted to be. The man who had hurt one of his only friends in the name of science– in the name of the purpose that drove his life forward. In other dreams he saw his childhood– lonely and cold. In the worst ones he saw Jayce. He watched as the man grew further from him, falling so easily into the role he seemed nearly destined to play with Piltover’s “finest.” He wished, upon waking from one of the latter, that the thought was nothing more than a mind’s wild imagination.
Viktor frowned as he turned onto his other side to give his aching hip a break. A shiver ran through his spine as he pulled the covers closer around his body. Distantly he knew the blankets that he had piled over himself would do little to waive the bone-deep chill that seemed to have settled itself more securely in its place, but he hoped the weight would at least lend itself to ease his discomfort. With a mournful sigh, he let his eyes slowly droop closed.
As the throbbing in his leg and back started to pull back into focus, Viktor realized he must have fallen back asleep. It certainly hadn’t felt like it, as his exhaustion was just as if not more heavily present in his chest, but the light now trickling through his curtains certainly supported that theory. Reaching out to take his watch from the nightstand he was facing, he groaned, both from the pain and the result of the sight. It was well into the later morning hours, meaning he was already late getting into the lab for the day. Of course, being that it was technically his lab, he couldn’t exactly be late to start his work, but he still had standards. Unfortunately, his body did not pay mind to his standards. For once, he decided to heed the warning signs presenting themselves and tossed the watch somewhere beside him on the bed. Gathering the covers tighter around himself again, he turned onto his other side and let his eyes close.
Jayce had been waiting in their lab working for a few hours by the time he decided to check the time again. It was well past lunch, starting to encroach on the evening hours, and Viktor hadn’t been seen all day. He knew Viktor was clearly an adult and his own person, but for as long as Jayce had known him it was unusual for him to not show up to the lab without prior notice. He knew he had stayed late the night before, but, if anything, that made it even less believable that he hadn’t stopped in. If the state the lab had been in when Jayce had first walked in was indicative of anything, Viktor had been clearly in the middle of a project. Finally, checking the clock again, he frowned and left the room.
The first place he checked for Viktor was the alcove in one of the outer walls that he had found Viktor in plenty of times before. The first time Viktor had gone “missing” on one of his thinking outings, Heimerdinger had told Jayce about the place. Apparently, ever since joining the academy, Viktor had gone there when he needed a place to get out and think. This time, however, the area was empty save for the mechanical whirring of large machinery. Leaving the wall, Jayce checked a couple other places, including Heimerdinger’s own lab and office, to no avail. Growing increasingly worried, he headed back towards his and Viktor’s lab.
Jayce knew logically he was getting worked up over something that could have been completely mundane, but something in him was unsettled. He had barely seen Viktor in the past few weeks, and when he had, the man had seemed so distant. Some of that, he realized, was his own fault. He knew he had let him down, both as a partner and a friend. The dream they had made together had so easily became something Jayce headlined into a part of the council, effectively shutting Viktor out of a large part of it. As he reached the lab once again, he hoped that his foolishness hadn’t caused damage he would be unable to fix. The frown that had been settling on his face grew deeper as he walked into their empty lab. He stood for a moment, his jaw clenching without his notice. The ball of worry in his chest had grown sharper, entwining itself with his ribs. He knew how bad Viktor’s health had gotten, and the thought of something happening to him was something Jayce still had yet to be able to stomach.
Shaking his head, Jayce left the lab once again, this time with a set destination in mind. If Viktor wasn’t in his apartment, he wasn’t sure where else there was to look other than the Undercity itself. Thankfully, Viktor’s apartment wasn’t far. He knocked on the door and waited for a moment before calling out Viktor’s name. When no response came to his first attempt nor the ones that followed, the twines of worry squeezed. An image of Viktor lying lifeless flashed in his mind. Screw it , he thought, grabbing the spare key he had once convinced Viktor to leave by the door.
The apartment was quiet as he entered, but he knew Viktor must have been there as the lights were still on in the hallway. Jayce headed down it, poking his head in the rooms as he went. With no sign of Viktor, he finally reached his bedroom and hesitated, knocking and calling his name again, albeit softer than he had at the front door.
“Viktor?” he called, his voice thick in worry. With a sigh at the lack of reply, he continued, “I’m coming in.” He pushed the door open and was both thankful and apprehensive to see a Viktor-shaped lump under a messy pile of covers. “Viktor–?” he called again as he approached the bed, his eyes flitting down to note the haphazard pile of discarded clothes, shoes, braces, and crutch. As he took another step closer, the lump moved with a low groan.
Viktor stretched his leg out unconsciously, his mind barely able to focus on the mere idea of being awake. Something had woken him, but he wasn’t sure what, or if he even cared to know. He was about to roll over to his other side when he felt a slight dip in the mattress by his front. Suddenly wide awake, he shoved the covers away from over his head.
“Jayce? What are you– What–?” Viktor stumbled over the words, blinking to get his eyes to focus. His voice was hoarse, a product of the lack of water he had surely skipped drinking. As the words left his throat, a cough punched its way from his chest, coating his lips with drops of viscous red. His eyes squeezed shut as he tried to sit up through the coughing fit, his strength still failing him. He nearly fell back when something held him up, carefully guiding him to sitting. A jolt of electricity seemed to run through his spine from where Jayce’s hand rested. He vaguely realized Jayce was speaking, trying to talk him through the fit, but his mind would not focus as it worked to find breath for his desperate lungs. All he could recognize was the pain writhing through him and the soft movement of Jayce’s thumb on his back.
The coughs slowly subsided, leaving the shivers filling his chest. His eyelids drooped heavily, trying to force themselves shut. His head lolled slightly towards his shoulder as he focused on the breaths that seemed to pull the remaining fumes of energy he had been grasping onto out of him.
As the world slowly started to pull itself back into focus, Viktor finally heard Jayce’s murmuring as more than just sound. The words themselves were little more than soft generic assurances, but he latched onto them all the same. Jayce’s voice was his raft for the time, holding him above the water as his lungs learned how to breathe once again. The hand on his back remained in its place as Jayce spoke, his thumb still gently brushing Viktor’s skin. Jayce’s skin was nearly blistering compared to the ice that ran through Viktor’s veins, the man seemingly a perpetual heater in stark contrast to Viktor’s constant chill. Viktor latched onto the feeling, craving the warmth that came from it.
Viktor looked over at Jayce, meeting his eyes for a moment as Jayce stopped his string of verbal comfort. Although no words were said, Viktor seemed to hear something in his eyes, looking back down at his lap with a sigh.
“Why are you here, Jayce?” Viktor asked, the words quiet in a way that felt so unfitting to be coming from him. Jayce’s heart squeezed even tighter from the wires of worry that had wrapped so endlessly around it.
“I–” Jayce sighed, the thumb on Viktor’s back pausing its movement yet keeping its place. “I was worried– I know you stayed late again last night, and you–” he cut himself off with a clenched jaw, finally letting his hand drop from Viktor’s back.
“Neither of us are strangers to sleepless nights in pursuit of knowledge.”
Jayce didn’t miss the way Viktor shrank away from him as he spoke. The air between them was thick, a strange tension that nearly seemed fully foreign despite the familiarity of their joined presence. Jayce’s chest ached, desperate to pull Viktor to him and hold him close– feeling him solidly in his arms in clear proof of his beating heart. He hated the distance that had grown between them, an expanding ravine they each stood beside.
“No, but they didn’t always cause this.” Jayce’s words came out sadder than he had meant for them to, muttered into the air away from Viktor. He hated how Viktor’s shoulders slumped further, burdened with the added weight of the thoughts Jayce wished he hadn’t verbalized.
“I’m sorry,” Jayce started, leaning forward to try to face Viktor, his hand coming to lightly grip Viktor’s arm. “I’m just–”
“It’s fine, Jayce,” Viktor cut him off, moving his arm away. He pointedly kept his gaze away from Jayce as he wrapped one of the blankets strewn on the bed around his shoulders. “I am fine. I just need some sleep. I will be in as normal in the morning.”
Jayce took in the clear dismissal with a frown, not moving from his place on the side of the bed. “This seems a lot more than just being tired, V–”
Viktor finally turned to him and met his gaze, although the sharp look that met Jayce was far from what he had been hoping for. “I am fine,” he started, his voice raising. “Just let me–” His words were cut off by another spell of coughing. Although not as bad as the first, it still had him doubled over and gasping for breath as Jayce’s hand returned to his back as it had rested before.
“You’re not fine, V,” Jayce said softly once the coughing had subsided once again. “Let me get the doctor– please,” he pleaded, eyes soft yet fierce with worry.
Viktor shook his head, looking away again. “I already know there is nothing they can do.”
“But maybe–”
“Jayce.” Viktor cut him off, tone unyielding as he looked back up at Jayce, though the sharp look that had once flashed in his eyes was no longer able to be found. “This is my life, and my decision. They can do nothing for me, and I am tired of their fruitless attempts. I am not so far gone that I cannot make that decision for myself.”
“I–” Jayce stopped, sighing as he looked down before nodding. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just–” The hand that he had had on Viktor’s arm slid down to rest on his splayed fingers. His eyes followed the lines on Viktor’s knuckles, tracing them softly with the pad of his finger. “I’m worried, and I–” He leaned forward and let his forehead gently rest on Viktor’s shoulder. “It worries me– when you push yourself like this. I know you can make that decision; I know it’s your choice– but I–” his voice trailed off.
Viktor stayed in place, his gaze still locked to the folds of the blanket that lay in his lap. His teeth worked at his lip, pulling at the chapped skin there, a clear showing of how dehydrated he had ended up.
“Alright,” he said finally, the word scratchy and quiet. He kept his head down even as Jayce raised his to look at him. “I’ll– I’ll try.”
Jayce breathed a small sigh beside him, his arm circling around Viktor’s back and the side of his head resting back on Viktor’s shoulder. He squeezed Viktor’s arm lightly as he replied, “Thank you– and anything you need, at any point, I’m here– I can cover for you to the council if you need extra time or I can bring over food or–” He was cut off for the third time as Viktor pulled himself from Jayce’s arm to face him.
“This does not mean you can coddle me, Jayce. I am not a child; I have managed this all of my life and I have the right to continue to do so on my own terms.” Despite the clear dark bags under Viktor’s eyes, his expression was sharp and strong. Weak in body he might have been, he was certainly not weak in spirit, as his jaw clenched.
Jayce paused before nodding, looking down sheepishly once again. “Yes– You’re right– I’m sorry. I– I’ll do better with that.” He met Viktor’s eyes again with his last words, meeting him where he was in more ways than one. Viktor seemed to read his gaze, nodding after a moment and moving back away to gather the blanket that had slipped from his shoulders.
“Well– if that is all, I will be in as per usual in the morning,” Viktor said, his voice oddly quiet in contrast to his solid tone from moments before. He busied himself with righting the pillows and blankets that had been displaced. Although he kept his eyes set on the task, he didn’t miss the hesitation in the man beside him. Jayce had moved back when Viktor had initially pulled away himself, but had made no other move to get up and leave. Viktor wasn’t sure if he was truly upset about that fact as he knew he probably should have been.
Finally, Jayce spoke up. “Can I at least get you some water? Your glass here is empty,” he said, pointing to the glass on the nightstand that had indeed been empty for as long as Viktor remembered in recent days.
Viktor looked over at the glass and then at Jayce. For a man as impressively large and strong as he was, Viktor had never seen someone with a more convincing pout. With another sigh– one of many of that evening it would seem– Viktor shook his head in mock disbelief before replying, “Yes, fine, water would be fine.”
One would think he had just been told he had won a prize by the way Jayce smiled, getting up and heading out of the room. As he was gone, Viktor pushed himself slowly back to rest his back against the pillows he propped against the headboard. The conversation had left him even more drained than he had been before, and the effort of keeping himself upright was becoming too much to bear. The pain in his leg from sitting unsupported had also grown once again, traveling up through his hip and into his side and back. A particularly sharp pang of pain had him clenching his jaw to stave off a wince as Jayce entered the room again, this time with a glass of water in hand.
“Here,” Jayce said, kneeling lightly on the bed to pass the glass to Viktor. He waited as Viktor took a couple sips before taking the glass and setting it on the nightstand beside him. “Better?”
Viktor nodded. “Much. Thank you.” His eyes met Jayce’s, the odd air between them from before having shifted into something different once again. The tension was still there, although now covered in another feeling he couldn’t identify.
Jayce cleared his throat and looked away, as if the action would clear the weight between them as well. “Are you hungry? I can get you something before you go back to sleep?” His eyes widened for a moment. “Not that– I mean– I ‘m not trying to say you can’t yourself–”
Viktor raised a brow at him, a slight amused smile playing on his lips. “I know, Jayce. And no, I would prefer to just sleep.”
Jayce nodded, seemingly watching him as his eyes panned down to the tremors in Viktor’s leg and back up to the shivers wracking the rest of his frame. His eyebrows furrowed in the way they did when he was deep in thought over an equation or blueprint. Viktor had half a thought to reach over and ease the tension in his forehead lest he cause himself wrinkles over him, but quickly brushed that off as an exhaustion-induced haze thought.
“What helps?” Jayce asked, cautiously nudging the silence built between them with the soft words. “When it gets bad– what helps?”
Viktor raised a brow at that, his surprise flitting across his face for a moment before he quickly reigned it back in. “Not much anymore,” he said finally, his voice soft with an odd vulnerability. “Sometimes warmth or slow stretches, but–” Viktor bit the inside of his lip and looked down at his leg. “Oftentimes it simply takes time until it decides to subside.”
“And today is one of those times?”
Viktor nodded. “I’m fine, Jayce, it is what it will be. Some sleep may help.”
Jayce frowned, meeting Viktor’s eyes again as his brows furrowed. Viktor used to hate the way that the man would sometimes stop and appear to study him, thinking that he was simply another person scrutinizing his very being. He learned through their time together, however, Jayce was anything but. He remembered and noticed things Viktor had barely remembered himself– he remembered the way Viktor liked his tea, the way he got colder in the evenings, and, with the look in Jayce’s eye, Viktor was sure he would remember this night as well.
“It hasn’t seemed to have been helping so far,” Jayce said finally, his tone not unkind.
Viktor sighed. “It sometimes does not. Besides, I’ve been–” He pulled the blanket closer around him. “It’s been hard to get warm.” He didn’t miss the way Jayce looked around at the blankets strewn across the bed and floor at that. He scoffed lightly. “Not all of us are human heaters, Jayce.”
Jayce opened his mouth to reply before closing it again with a swallow. Viktor tilted his head quizzically at the hesitance that seemed to weigh the man down. He raised his brows at Jayce, gesturing for him to go on and say whatever was on his mind.
“I could stay,” Jayce said finally. His words were quiet, and Viktor would have asked for him to repeat it for clarification if it weren’t for the way Jayce had pointedly held his gaze.
“I’m sure you have much better things to do than watch me sleep.” The attempt at a joke fell flat, Viktor realized with an internal wince. “I’ll be fine,” he added, pulling a particularly heavy mound of blankets on top of his legs. He was about to reach for another when Jayce took his arm in his hand.
“Let me stay?” Jayce asked, his eyes searching Viktor’s again. Viktor paused, watching him for a moment as if the added time would change Jayce’s mind. It clearly did no such thing, as Jayce merely gently squeezed his arm, a soft smile resting easily on his face.
Viktor sighed, feeling his resolve melt away from him. “Yes, yes, fine– stay. If only to keep you from pouting around the lab for the rest of the week. There’s some pants that might fit you in the bottom drawer of the dresser.”
Jayce ignored the playful dig and smiled, turning to pull off his shoes and jacket before shifting over to the dresser. As he changed, Viktor turned out the light beside him that he hadn’t realized had been left on and shifted down to rest his head on the pillow. The exhaustion that had already been weighing heavily on him grabbed a stronger hold as his body sank into the bed. His eyelids started to slip close without his notice nor permission, barely opening again as Jayce climbed into bed next to him. Without a solid thought behind his actions, Viktor reached out in his direction, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling, although without any substantial force.
“You’re too far,” he mumbled, his eyes sliding shut again. He heard a soft chuckle and felt Jayce pushing closer to him, arms circling his back and pulling him against Jayce’s bare chest. “Thank you,” he whispered, barely audible. Jayce pressed his arm more firmly to his back for a moment in a silent acknowledgement. The warmth that slowly spread throughout Viktor’s body was the last thing he felt before his body finally succumbed to sleep.