Work Text:
They are in the lab, in the quiet calm of darkness that they both prefer. It’s late–or rather, it’s early, too early in the morning for someone to be working already, but they are both here already. An unspoken arrangement they’ve always adhered to: late nights in the lab, and ridiculous early mornings in the lab. Jayce thinks they’d both just live here if they could.
Jayce sips his coffee before breaking the silence. “Can you believe Salo thought we were a couple?”
That earns him a grin from Viktor. “Right? How ridiculous.”
“Insane,” Jayce takes another sip of coffee. “Especially since you don’t even like men.”
Their lab has always been quiet, but after Jayce speaks it’s like Viktor freezes, and time stops. Viktor looks at him like he’s grown another head, and it makes Jayce scowl at him. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You think I don’t like men?” Viktor asks, with something akin to grief in his voice.
“Honestly, I didn’t think you liked anyone,” Jayce confesses, trying not to look Viktor in the face as he speaks. “But yeah. Why? Am I wrong?”
(His voice might squeak a little as he speaks the last bit of that sentence, but he chalks it up to the early morning, and not his nerves.)
“Jayce,” Viktor says, his voice incredulous and his expression utterly unreadable. “I exclusively like men.”
Jayce almost drops the coffee mug. “What.”
“Jayce –”
“Like–sexually?”
“Yes!” Viktor laughs, a bemused sparkle in his eyes. “What, did you think I was some sort of sexless robot?”
“No!” Maybe. “You just–in the whole five years I’ve known you, you’ve never once dated anyone–”
“Because I’ve been busy! We’re building the hexgates, I don’t have time to go on dates–that doesn’t mean I don’t have needs. Or desires,” Viktor picks up Jayce’s coffee cup and takes a sip. They often share a cup together–less dishes that way, and neither of them are picky enough about their coffee to mind how the other takes it. “I don’t like women, sexually. I’m—I identify as a gay man. For the record.”
Jayce thinks his brain might be leaking out of his ears. “Oh.”
“Besides, the ridiculous part of Salo’s suggestion is you, not me. You don’t like men.”
“I like men,” Jayce bristles, holding his back straight.
“No you don’t,” Viktor says clearly, like he’s stating the weather, or a universal truth, like that the sky was blue, or grass was generally green, and not talking about his coworker’s sexuality. “You like women.”
Jayce laughs lightly, rubbing his face with his hands. “I like women,” he admits, because maybe then Viktor will get the hint. “I also like men.”
Now it’s Viktor’s turn to look like a gaping, open mouthed fish. “What.”
“I’m bisexual,” Jayce tells him, feeling a blush on his face. “I like both men and women. Equally. Well, mostly equally. Depends on my mood, really–”
“What.”
“Have you never heard of bisexuality or something?” Jayce smiles at him, stealing the coffee mug from him. “How homophobic of you.”
“You–” Viktor grinds his teeth. “You can’t be bisexual.”
Jayce will bite. “Why not?”
“Because–because—” Viktor bites his lower lip, and Jayce can’t help but think it’s adorable. “In the five years I’ve known you, I have never once seen you date, or express interest in, a single man–”
“I’ve been busy!” Jayce sputters. “I–we’ve been building the hexgates! I haven’t gone on dates with anyone since we’ve started Hextech, because I spend all my time in the lab with you!”
“I—that hasn’t stopped you from flirting with Mel Medarda!”
“Well, yeah,” Jayce laughs. “Because Mel’s fun to flirt with, and also beautiful. I don’t flirt with the rest of the Council! Though I might, if there was a handsome guy on the Council, too.”
“You can’t be bisexual.” Viktor repeats, in that stubborn sort of way of his.
Jayce leans against their workbench, taking the coffee mug and placing it on the bench behind him. “Why not?” he asks, softly.
“Because–because–”
Because then I’d have a shot with you, Viktor doesn’t say with words, but he doesn’t have to. His eyes say it for him.
Jayce doesn’t know if he moves first, or if Viktor does, but it doesn’t matter, because soon they are kissing, and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened in Jayce’s life, ever, and that includes discovering actual magic. Viktor is warm beneath him, tasting of coffee and sweetmilk and something uniquely Viktor, and Jayce is addicted to it, chasing the taste with his tongue. They kiss until their lungs begin to yell at them to breathe, and even then they part only long enough for oxygen, before their mouths are back together again, like they belong.
“We’re so stupid,” Viktor gasps, as Jayce begins to press kisses into his neck, chasing the taste of his skin. “Absolutely moronic.”
“The stupidest men in Piltover,” Jayce agrees, pulling away for just a moment before Viktor grabs his cravat, and pulls him closer. Viktor bites him, hard , and god, it should not be that hot, but it is, it’s the hottest thing Jayce has ever experienced in his life.
There’s no telling how far they might’ve gone, had not the sound of the security guard opening the hallways up not pulled them apart. It must be seven am, then, time for folks to begin coming in and out of the Academy.
Viktor laughs, the sweetest sound Jayce has ever heard, and rests his forehead against Jayce’s own. “I want to be with you,” he says, and it’s so simple when he says it, the answer to every problem Jayce has ever encountered.
Jayce presses a gentle kiss to his cheek. “I want to be with you, too.”
“I want to,” Viktor kisses him softly on the lips. “I want to make you my mother’s borscht recipe. And feed you bread.”
Jayce kisses him again, just as soft. “I want to take a shower with you. And take you to meet my mom.”
“I’ve met your mother.”
“Not as my lab partner,” he breathes. “As my boyfriend.”
“Is that what I am? Your boyfriend.”
“I’d like you to be.”
“I’d like that, too,” Viktor still hasn’t let him go. “Boyfriend.”
“Partner.”
“Miláček,” Viktor says in his native tongue, and then laughs. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to buy Salo a fruit basket. Because you and I were too stupid to do this otherwise.”
“Smartest men in Piltover,” Jayce murmurs, and then kisses one of Viktor’s moles. “Also perhaps the most stupid.”