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Viktor, by some miracle, makes it into the dorm building before his leg becomes too painful to use, just barely.
He's pretty sure it's mostly been adrenaline keeping him upright up to this point. He'd gone down badly on his ankle in Zaun, and that had pretty much put an end to his errands for the day. It had hurt then too, obviously, but something about the injury had given him just barely enough time to limp all the way through Zaun, back to the elevator, and through Piltover to the university. Honestly, he'd almost managed to convince himself that that was as bad as it was going to get.
Unfortunately, the world did not work that way for Viktor. He'd put weight on his ankle stepping out of the dorm building's elevator and that had been that.
He'd dragged himself back upright and, yes, tried hopping. It had looked ridiculous but at least he'd been upright. It was jarring the injury, though, and the added weight on his knee was definitely fucking it up. It only took a couple seconds for this to become untenable. Of course. Carefully moving his cane out of the way, Viktor hits the floor via strategic fall, rolling his eyes. This also jars, but he's been doing this, at least, his entire fucking life.
The hallway is empty, so Viktor just sits for a minute and contemplates the predicament. Goddamnit. He is going to have to crawl, isn't he.
It's been years since something like this happened. He'd had a streak going, it had been... too good to be true, honestly. He should have known. Even when his old cane had been sacrificed to the gods of his and Jayce's illicit hextech experimentation, he hadn't been hurt, then. His bad leg had been better in general. Even allowing Jayce to act as a prop had been tolerably embarrassing. He's pretty sure he was a child last time he'd been crawling levels of stranded, actually. Fuck.
Viktor laughs mirthlessly, letting his head knock against the wall just hard enough to hurt, and rolls over. The affair is going to involve a lot of dragging, probably. He is not looking forward to it.
Nobody is in the hallway. It's three in the morning and nobody is in the hallway. As long as Viktor gets back to his room quickly, nobody is going to see this. All fours is enough to distribute his weight reasonably, so Viktor can actually crawl properly at least, even if he ends up alternating between holding his fucked ankle in the air and, when his stupid atrophied muscles protest, just kind of pulling it behind him and trying not to move it.
He's halfway. He's halfway there. His front door is around the corner and--
And the stairwell door is right in front of him. And it's opening.
This building isn't just a dorm--the level above this one is all labs and offices. It's actually why Viktor lives here, apart from the elevator (a shockingly rare thing in a city this wealthy and obsessed with progress, but a lot of buildings were stone and a lot of owners couldn't be bothered.) His lab is on the floor directly above where he lives. His lab and Jayce's. And Jayce always works way too late. Viktor scrambles in an awkward crab-crawl to sit against the wall in a place he desperately hopes looks casual. Sort of.
"Viktor?" Jayce asks.
"Hello, Jayce." Maybe if his eyes are closed, this will stop happening and he can get back to his room in humiliating peace.
"What, uh," Jayce says, still there. "What are you doing on the floor? It's, like, the middle of the night."
"Thanks," Viktor replies flatly, ignoring the question. "I noticed."
Viktor opens his eyes to look up at Jayce. His eyes are narrowed, inspecting Viktor on the floor. For lies, Viktor guesses.
"Go home, Jayce," Viktor says. "I am fine, mind your own business."
"I didn't say anything about you not being fine," Jayce points out, and sits down on the floor across from Viktor, goddamnit.
"Jayce, please."
"Nope," Jayce replies. "What's wrong? You're being weird."
"I am always weird," Viktor retorts.
Jayce rolls his eyes. "Come on. I'm not going to be annoying about it, I promise. You're just being suspicious as hell and now I'm worried about you.
"You are already being annoying about it," Viktor says, and tucks his knees up to his chest. Unfortunately, this puts weight on his ankle at exactly the wrong angle and-- well, Viktor has more than enough practice to not actually yelp out loud at the railroad spike of pain that runs through Viktor's foot and halfway to his knee, but he does gasp sharply and pull his leg back to get the foot up off the ground again. Jayce is on him immediately.
"You are not fine!" He says, pointing at Viktor and sounding unreasonably victorious. "What's wrong with your ankle? Let me look at it."
"You don't even know it's my ankle," Viktor protests half-heartedly. Jayce is kneeling in front of him now, hands hovering just out of range. He will not touch Viktor without permission. Viktor knows this.
He's inclined to say no, for a moment. Tell Jayce to fuck off, for real, that he doesn't want help. Doesn't need it. Jayce will go, probably, now that he knows at least sort of what the problem is. He does actually respect Viktor's boundaries, even if he gets a little bit pushy sometimes about Viktor's well-being. When he thinks about it, though, he finds he doesn't really want Jayce to fuck off after all. Jayce has seen him weak before. If it's going to be anyone, at least it's him. And Jayce does look incredibly pathetic right now.
"Yes, alright, fine," Viktor acquiesces, rolling his eyes. He straightens his leg gingerly in Jayce's direction, implicit permission, and Jayce very very gently takes a hold of it, pushing up the leg of Viktor's pants carefully. It doesn't even hurt--not more than it would have, anyway. Jayce's hands are warm and dry, broad palmed and huge-looking against Viktor's skinny calf. It does something to him that he doesn't care to examine, and he tears his eyes away to look at Jayce's face instead. He's examining Viktor's ankle intently. He moves one hand to palpate Viktor's ankle gently, which does not feel good at all.
"Ow," Viktor grits out, glaring.
"Sorry," Jayce replies immediately, wincing, and pulls his fingers away to continue looking with his eyes only.
"This is like, really swollen, dude," Jayce informs him. Viktor looks down again. His ankle is indeed about twice its normal size. That isn't good, probably. "You think you should maybe go to the hospital about this?"
"No hospital," Viktor replies vehemently, maybe a little bit too fast. "It's just sprained, there is nothing they can do there that I cannot do myself."
Jayce raises the hand not supporting Viktor's leg in a lighthearted gesture of surrender. "Okay," he says easily, "No hospital. I'm not arguing for spending eight hours waiting to be seen for literally nothing either."
Jayce hesitates for a second, clearly considering a question. Viktor looks at him promptingly.
"I know you don't like feeling like you need help," Jayce starts slowly, and Viktor thinks he knows where this is going, "But do you want a hand getting home?"
There it is. "It is not that far away, it's just down the hall," Viktor argues vaguely, but Jayce clearly isn't buying it.
"I just watched you barely put your foot on the floor and flinch, Viktor." He says, unimpressed. "Somehow I kind of doubt you can walk anywhere right now."
Viktor... really doesn't want to crawl home in front of Jayce. At all.
"Look," Jayce says. "What kind of partner would I be if I just left you here? I'm getting you home, at the very least. Once you're in your apartment you can do whatever you want--tell me to fuck off, I'll go! Just let me help you get back."
Viktor wants to argue. He really wants to argue, say no, he's fine, he doesn't need help. He does, though. He does need help. Viktor wants to go home more than he wants to assert his independence with Jayce right now, and go to bed, and not fucking think about this anymore, and he knows full well that will happen a hell of a lot faster if he just lets Jayce help him.
Fuck.
"Fine," Viktor says grudgingly, and Jayce beams.
"Don't get excited, Talis," he says. His tone is maybe a tiny bit too hostile, but in his defense he's in kind of a lot of pain right now, even by his standards. "This doesn't mean blanket permission to carry me around like an invalid whenever you feel like it."
"Of course not!" Jayce replies, almost appalled. "You're a capable adult or whatever, obviously. More capable than me, probably. I would do this for anyone, you're hurt."
He's so sincere. He sounds like the idea had never even occurred to him, or at least fakes it well enough. Viktor puts out a hand for Jayce to pull him up.
Viktor will admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that a full carry would probably be more efficient than the heavy-leaning limp he ends up going with. Jayce already has just about all of Viktor's weight, and may as well be carrying him whenever the bad foot hits the ground. He's had enough embarrassment for today, though, disability-wise--he is not adding letting someone pick him up like a child to this stupid fucking day, even if it is just Jayce.
Admittedly it is faster than it probably would have been by himself, and being able to hang off of Jayce while he fumbles in his pocket for his keys does make unlocking his actual door a little easier, but he doesn't plan on acknowledging that anytime soon.
Jayce has never been in Viktor's apartment before, Viktor realizes. Jayce is looking around at literally everything with a look on his face that would get him mugged within seconds if he made it in Zaun, seemingly awestruck by Viktor's very normal apartment.
"Where to?" Jayce says, freakishly cheerful for what has to be 4am at this point.
Viktor has things he has to do tonight. He wants to tell Jayce to just drop him on his bed, but--
"Closet," he says reluctantly, indicating an unmarked door on the far wall, and Jayce does as he's told, drag-carrying Viktor over with an expression that Viktor interprets as "please god tell me to pick you up" and promptly ignores. His apartment isn't big. He pulls the closet door open, letting go of Jayce to lean on the wall, on one foot again and ignoring his knee's protests. In one practiced movement, he grabs what he's looking for from against the wall and swings it out into the main room.
The wheelchair is collapsed, right now. Viktor kind of shakes at it until it opens out properly, and sits down before flipping down the footrests. Jayce, when he checks, is in fact staring.
"I get a lot of surgery," Viktor states flatly. "Have to get around somehow." And he uses it on particularly bad days. And when his wrists hurt too much for the cane. And when he's really properly ill and can't breathe or stay upright or whatever it is that time. But he doesn't really feel like bringing that up at the moment.
Releasing the brakes, Viktor wheels over to the kitchen. He needs sweetmilk, at this point. He has had a fucking evening and he has had enough. It's either this or working on the death ray again, and if he finishes that frustration-project too fast he'll have to come up with another one.
"You want anything?" Viktor asks Jayce, because he might as well be a decent host if nothing else.
"Are you making sweetmilk?" Jayce asks, confirming the label on the tin Viktor had removed from the tea cabinet. "Uh, yeah, sure."
"Alright," Viktor replies, and pulls down another mug. Approximately half of his mugs are the stupid Man of Progress ones with Jayce's face on them, because they had collectively been given like a million of them when the print went out, which had subsequently ended up split evenly between Viktor's apartment, Jayce's, and the lab. They were incredibly tacky, but a free mug was a free mug and constantly giving Jayce drinks in cups bearing his face had yet to stop being funny.
Viktor dumps a decent amount of sweetmilk mix into both cups, and pours the boiling water over top.
"Get over here," Viktor tells Jayce, grabbing his and making for the table. "I can only carry one mug hands-free, and it is not going to be yours."
"Yeah, that's fair," Jayce replies, disappearing behind Viktor to retrieve it, then, audibly grinning: "Oh, come on. Seriously?"
Viktor laughs at him openly. "Do you want the sweetmilk or not?"
"I want it!" Jayce replies, sounding like he expects it to be confiscated if he's not appreciative enough. "How many of these things did you keep?"
"Enough that you breaking that one will not make a difference," Viktor calls back. "And you're cleaning it up if you try!"
Jayce snickers, and finally comes over to sit at the table with Viktor. "I promise not to break any of your dishes."
"Good," Viktor says, amused, and sips from his own (Jayceless) mug. The familiarity of the anise fills Viktor's mouth and warms his chest on the way down. Anise isn't a very popular flavour in Piltover--he's never been able to find it in the overcity, outside those expensive little import shops he guesses are for Pilties who like to feel cultured. Zaun has everything they sell for a fraction of the price and better, anyway. Even the sketchiest Zaunite food stand has better food than anywhere he's been in Piltover (barring maybe Jayce's mother's house) by far. Viktor buys his food there as much as his schedule lets him get away with, and keeps a fairly large collection of just spices and sauce here and even in the lab's tiny kitchenette for when he can't.
"What happened, anyway?" Jayce asks, bringing Viktor abruptly back to the present moment. "Uh, to your ankle, I mean."
"Fell off a roof," Viktor replies, just to see what Jayce will do. Jayce reacts exactly how Viktor thought he would, looking like Viktor just told him he was in a shootout or something. He keeps his face straight and waits for Jayce to... Yeah, there we go. Jayce narrows his eyes, clearly about to call Viktor's bluff.
"You did not." They've been spending too much time together, clearly, if Jayce is starting to gain the ability to tell when Viktor is fucking with him.
"Technically, I did," Viktor replies. "About three feet."
Jayce glares at him, but Viktor doesn't think he plans on holding the grudge for particularly long.
"Why were you even up there?" Jayce asks, after a minute, seemingly putting the injury out of his mind for the moment.
"It's Zaun, Jayce. Everybody climbs." The streets in Zaun are basically all pothole, and the grey is a lot thinner high up. Just about everyone Viktor grew up with spent more time on the rooftops than actually in the street, if just for the fact that it's quite a bit harder to jump someone on top of a building than it is on the ground. "I wasn't being stupid, I just landed wrong."
Jayce looks like he's trying very hard to hold back a comment about differing definitions of stupid. Viktor appreciates the effort to mind his own business--it's a vanishingly rare skill in Pilties, Viktor has found. It's also a requirement to earn his friendship, which explains why Jayce is one of the very few people up here Viktor voluntarily talks to. Viktor ran out of patience for other people's bullshit years ago.
Jayce takes another swig of his own sweetmilk. "You think you're coming to the lab tomorrow?" He asks.
"Yes," Viktor says firmly. "It's not as if we don't sit all day anyway, I don't need to be able to stand to work."
Jayce just nods. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Call me if you need anything. Like, at all. I don't care if it's dumb."
His voice is lighthearted, but Viktor can tell he means it. It's... nice, honestly. He's not going to call--normally he'd argue, even--but it's Jayce. He knows Jayce of all people isn't coming from a place of pity: he really is just like that. Viktor watches as Jayce finishes his sweetmilk, and immediately goes to wash his mug without being asked
"Thank you, Jayce," he says quietly, before the water turns on. "The sentiment is appreciated."
He's not sure Jayce even hears him, but as soon as the water shuts off and Jayce's mug clinks in the drying rack, Jayce is beside him again.
"Are you kidding?" He asks, smiling and so painfully sincere. "You're my friend, Viktor. You don't even have to ask."
Before Viktor can even process all that, Jayce is saying goodnight--reminding him to call, if he needs anything! and slipping out the door, and then Viktor is alone in his apartment. He stares into his sweetmilk. It's cold, now. He finishes it anyway, and just leaves the mug in the sink with a little water for tomorrow, because he is not doing that tonight. Viktor's ankle aches, deep and pulsing, and he sighs and goes to brush his teeth.
Approximately half an hour later, Viktor is (finally) in bed. His braces having been painstakingly removed and placed on the chair beside Viktor's bed, wheelchair parked within reach, and pillows arranged around and under Viktor's body in just more complicated a configuration than usual. His ankle still aches, and his knees, his back, the space behind his eyes, like they always do. This pain is too familiar by now to be distracting, and Viktor lets his eyes slip shut, incredibly ready for this day to finally be over.
Whatever will happen tomorrow will happen. Viktor just wants to turn himself off, at this point. Stop inhabiting a body, for the... about four hours now, he guesses? That he has until he needs to drag himself out of bed and upstairs and do his goddamn job. Let go.
There are elastic bandages and analgesic cream in the drawer beside Viktor's bed, always. He's sprained his ankle before--he knows how it goes. He'll be fine, for however long it takes for him to be walking again. He'll be fine, and he will go to the lab and do the work and someday, maybe, he won't need anything at all. Maybe nobody will.
For now, Viktor is going to sleep. There is nothing now that cannot wait for morning.