Work Text:
The first time it happened, they were in the lab, of course.
Viktor had been hunched over a piece of Hextech circuitry for hours, his face illuminated by the ethereal blue glow, brows drawn together in intense concentration. Jayce had been pacing, alternating between fine-tuning a schematic and grumbling under his breath about the Council's latest demands. It was a normal day.
Until it wasn’t.
“Pass me the precision wrench, sunshine,” Jayce said without thinking.
Viktor froze, his fingers pausing mid-air before they could grasp the requested tool. His head tilted slightly, as if trying to process whether or not his ears had deceived him.
“What?” Viktor asked, the word slow and deliberate.
Jayce barely looked up. “The wrench. Come on, we don’t have all day, sweetheart.”
This time, Viktor did not move. His amber eyes flickered with confusion and—was that amusement? Jayce, absorbed in his work, didn’t notice.
With calculated precision, Viktor picked up the wrench and held it just out of Jayce’s reach. “I will give it to you,” he said, lips curling into a smirk, “if you repeat what you just called me.”
Jayce frowned, finally looking up. “What? I just asked for the—” He stopped short as his own words caught up to him. His ears burned. “Oh. I, uh. I didn’t mean—”
Viktor chuckled, shaking his head, and handed him the wrench. “Do not let me stop you. I am rather enjoying this development.”
Jayce grumbled something under his breath and turned back to the workbench, hoping the incident would fade into irrelevance.
It did not.
A few days later, it happened again. This time, over coffee.
Jayce had barely slept, having spent the night locked in theoretical calculations. Viktor, though equally exhausted, had the audacity to look well put-together, sipping tea while Jayce struggled to blink himself awake.
“Morning, Viktor,” Jayce yawned. Then, without thinking— “You look good today, darling.”
Viktor almost choked on his tea.
Jayce, blissfully unaware, grabbed a pastry from the plate between them and took a bite, still blinking the sleep from his eyes. Viktor watched him for a long moment before exhaling sharply, shaking his head.
“You truly do not hear yourself, do you?”
Jayce swallowed and looked at him blankly. “Huh?”
Viktor merely raised an eyebrow and took another slow sip of tea.
The nicknames continued. Sometimes casually, as though Jayce had no control over them. Other times, slipped in under stress—“Careful with that, sweetheart!” when Viktor nearly dropped an unstable Hex crystal. Or “Here, let me help, babe,” when Viktor stumbled reaching for a book. It was always absentminded, as though it had been second nature all along.
Viktor, to his credit, took it in stride. If anything, he started leaning into it, just to see how far Jayce would go.
One day, as Jayce was knee-deep in council reports, Viktor strolled up beside him, holding a fresh cup of coffee. “Here you go, dearest.”
Jayce took it without looking up. “Thanks, love.”
Viktor grinned. “You are aware that you just called me ‘love,’ yes?”
Jayce froze, fingers tightening around the mug. Slowly, he turned his head. Viktor was staring at him with barely concealed amusement, one brow raised expectantly.
Jayce’s mind reeled. He ran through every possible way to explain this away. He had none.
So he did the only thing he could.
He grinned, sat back, and took a sip of coffee. “Guess you bring out the soft side of me, huh, honey?”
Viktor blinked, visibly caught off guard.
And Jayce—finally—smirked in victory.
If Viktor was going to play along, he might as well make it interesting.
As the weeks passed, the pet names became more frequent, more natural. Jayce barely even noticed anymore. They slipped from his lips like second nature, blending into their daily banter.
“Vik, you gotta stop working so late, sweetheart.”
“I believe I have told you before, darling, that sleep is for the weak.”
Or:
“Jayce, stop pacing, it is irritating.”
“I’ll stop when you finally admit you like me calling you ‘love,’ sugar.”
He even used them outside of the lab. At council meetings, in casual conversations. One day, Mel had arched a perfectly sculpted brow when she overheard Jayce call Viktor ‘babe’ while discussing Hexcore advancements.
“You two,” she had mused later that evening, a smirk playing at her lips, “are either very close friends or absolutely hopeless.”
Jayce had laughed it off, but Viktor… Viktor had merely hummed, sipping his tea, a knowing glint in his golden eyes.
The inevitable happened, of course.
Late one evening, after a long day of frustrating tests, Jayce found Viktor dozing off on the worn couch in their lab. His cane rested beside him, and his usually neat hair was tousled from exhaustion.
Jayce hesitated for a moment before walking over and draping a blanket over Viktor’s shoulders.
“Get some rest, sweetheart,” he murmured, brushing an errant strand of hair from Viktor’s forehead. He didn’t expect a response, assuming Viktor had already drifted off.
But then Viktor shifted, cracking one amber eye open.
“You truly do not hear yourself, do you?” he murmured sleepily, his voice barely above a whisper.
Jayce froze. “What?”
Viktor let out a slow, tired chuckle. “I think you have been calling me these names for so long, you do not even realize it anymore.”
Jayce swallowed. He wanted to argue. He wanted to say it wasn’t like that.
But Viktor just smiled, eyes fluttering shut once more, and—before Jayce could stop himself—he leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to Viktor’s temple.
“…Goodnight, darling.”
This time, he meant it.