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You’d gotten good at recognising people by the sound of their gait a long time ago, but Viktor made it easy for you. Not that you hadn’t been able to recognise this specific person long before your accident. The corners of your mouth curl up into a soft smile as you hear the click of his cane approaching you.
“You’re working late”, he says, looking at the piles of braille transcripts and other documents surrounding you at your desk.
“You’re one to talk”, you quip. “Besides, my eyesight isn’t affected by low light”. Honestly, the only reason you kept a light on at your desk was to not freak out anyone who walked in on you.
He chuckles, stopping to lean on your chair, his arm brushing your shoulder. “I thought you’d finished most preparations for your classes already?”
“True. But then I thought I’d get started on some research for that paper I told you about. Guess I lost track of time”.
“Alright, professor, I came all this way for you. Let’s go home”.
“Professor”, you laugh as you get up, grabbing your own cane. “Can you imagine?” He reaches over to turn off the light before offering his arm to you.
Your canes and footsteps form a familiar symphony as you walk home together, arm in arm.
He holds in a laugh as he suddenly feels you gently tugging him with you. “Let me guess: you smell dinner”.
“And? We need to eat, don’t we?”, you jest, steering him towards an enticing smell. A few minutes later you’ve got a bag of food in your hand and a satisfied smile on your face.
Viktor opens the door to your shared home, holding it open so you can walk through and into the kitchen. You grab everything needed to set the table, which isn’t a problem, as you’re perfectly aware of where everything is, and Viktor is very careful not to leave anything laying around that might harm you. You both try to keep most of your work at the academy anyway.
Dinner is mostly spent in a comfortable silence, with the occasional remark about both of your days thrown in. Viktor and you have never had the impulse to fill every silence to combat any kind of awkwardness, since there simply wasn’t any awkwardness between you.
He stops you when you get up to clean up after dinner, a gentle kiss pressed to the side of your face as he tells you to just get comfortable.
You go freshen yourself up and put on your sleeping clothes to lounge in until you fall asleep, listening to the sounds of clinking ditches and splashing water as Viktor moves around in your kitchen. You sit on your shared bed afterwards with a braille book in your lap, perfectly content. You vaguely register Viktor moving towards the bathroom to get ready for bed.
You’re broken out of it when you feel the bed dip next to you, Viktor’s arm brushing against yours. “What are you reading?”, he asks, resting his chin on your shoulder to look. Most of the books you keep at home have both text and braille in them, which has resulted in many a cozy night cuddled up together, reading the same book. Though if you’re honest, those nights more often than not ended with him just reading the story to you, his alluring accent and soothing voice putting you to sleep.
He hums when he recognizes what you’re reading. “This one again?”, he teases.
“What? It’s good. You wouldn’t want me to read a good book only once, would you?”
“I wouldn’t say you’ve only read it once before”, Viktor chuckles. He slowly reaches out towards the book, his hand brushing yours. “Could you bear to leave it for another day and join me instead?”
You smile as you let him take the book from you. “How could I ever refuse you?”
He puts the book on the nightstand, pulling you further onto the bed with him.
“Are you wearing a… long-sleeved shirt? It’s too warm for that, Vik”. He sighs, knowing you have a point. Deep down, he knows you don’t really care what he looks like, but he can’t help but still feel a little ashamed. He thinks you must be reading his mind when you gently reach out and say “Let me”.
Slowly, you take off his shirt, flustering him when you press a kiss to his neck right after pulling it over his head. You surprise him yet again when you take off your own shirt. “That’s only fair, right? Besides, I’m not looking to wake up in a sauna either”, you say.
He smiles as he reaches to turn off the light before laying down next to you. His nose rubs gently against yours as he settles in, and he feels your smile mirroring his own as he leans in to kiss you.
Slowly, gently, your hands reach up to rest on his side, your fingers brushing the edges of his back brace. At that, you feel Viktor wrapping his own arms around you, pulling you closer and burying his face in the crook of your neck.
One of your hands reaches up to bury itself in his hair as the other slowly starts tracing over the intricate metal of Viktor’s back brace. You plant a kiss on his temple and tilt his head gently so you can whisper in his ear.
“You know I love you, right?”
You can’t see the tenderness in his eyes, but you can hear it in his voice as he answers: “Of course I know”. He reaches a hand up to your face, delicately tracing the faint scarring around your eyes.
“Good. Don’t you ever forget that”. Your fingers lightly trace patterns as they move downwards across his back.
Viktor cups your face in his own hands. “I love you too”, he says, kissing you again. “Don’t you ever forget that ”. You smile, leaning in for another kiss.
You spend several more minutes gently tracing the details of each other’s bodies before you end up - as you do most nights - falling asleep, cuddled up together in a tangle of limbs that somehow feels perfectly comfortable to both of you.
~
You and Viktor had always gotten along well. From the moment you’d met as children, you’d been intrigued by each other’s inquisitive nature.
In Zaun, people have to stick together. So, you figured, you might as well stick with Viktor. He was a bit sheltered at first, made quiet and shy by a childhood filled with pity and rejection. But once he understood that your intentions were sincere, that you actually did enjoy his company, he opened up to you.
You became a lot of each other’s firsts: first real friend, first dance, first kiss - you were even each other’s first sexual partners. You were stumbling, fumbling and nervously laughing throughout much of it, but you were both so clearly in love that none of that mattered.
One day though, the universe decided to break your easy routine. Or rather, Piltover’s pride did. Years of them dumping all of their undesirable waste in the Undercity was taking its toll, and you were right in the middle of it when you stepped outside one day only for a huge explosion to hit, a bunch of toxic chemicals hitting you right in the face.
Viktor was distraught as he sat by your bed for the next couple of days, just waiting for you to wake up. When you did wake up, it took you quite a while to come to terms with your newfound blindness. The thought that you’d never see anything or anyone again - the thought that you’d never see Viktor again…
Once you started accepting it, Viktor helped you in any way he could, just as you had always helped him with his pain and mobility issues. Not only did he take care of your face, trying to reduce the scarring to a minimum, but he also helped you learn braille. How he managed to get the materials necessary to teach you, you haven’t the foggiest.
The two of you were going steady again when Viktor got the news that he’d been accepted into Piltover’s academy and been offered a spot as assistant to the dean. You’d been overjoyed for him, practically flinging yourself at him and enveloping him in a big, proud hug.
“I haven’t told you the rest of it”, you’d heard him say as you felt his lips turn up into a smile against your skin.
Somehow, Viktor had managed to appeal to Heimerdinger’s compassion to let you come with him to Piltover. You had no one else; you’d make yourself useful; he couldn’t - wouldn’t - leave you. The Yordle had agreed, recognition and a fondness in his eyes, which lit up even brighter when he watched the two of you embracing happily when you’d first stepped foot into the academy.
Viktor thrived at the academy, having found a place where his intellect can blossom and eventually starting up his partnership with Jayce, who also took a liking to you.
Meanwhile, you’d found yourself a job as a teacher, instructing younger Piltovans. It wasn’t their fault that the older generations were so vain and selfish. Maybe you could teach the younger generation some more respect and compassion for their peers, and give them more awareness of the many Zaunite lives that were worsened by the pride and greed of the city towering above them.
You were a natural: firm but fair, kind and compassionate when you needed to be. Viktor adored you all the more for it. He’d whispered that and more sweet nothings in your ear on the numerous nights you fell into bed together after a long day, wrapped up in each other’s warm embrace.
~
The first thing you feel when you wake up is a slender but strong metal arm draped across your middle. Wiring and magic thrum ever so silently within the chest pressed against your back. Viktor’s slow, calm breaths tickle the back of your neck.
Despite him being so close to you, his augmented body a testament to everything you’ve been through together as of late, you have to remind yourself that you just woke up in the commune, and not in your shared apartment in Piltover.
You reach a hand up and gently trace the delicately formed metal of Viktor’s arm, taking in every small detail. You rest your hand over his when you feel him nuzzle his nose into your hair.
“Good morning”, you greet him.
“Haven’t you memorised me yet?”, he asks, his face still buried in your hair.
“Not quite”, you smile, turning over in his arms.
He takes his chance to kiss you as soon as you’re settled again.
“Good morning”. You can feel his smile against your lips, and you can’t help but be fascinated by the slight mechanical undertone in his voice when he says it. It’s been that way for weeks, and it’s still undeniably Viktor, but still. It takes some time to get used to.
You give him another kiss as you move a hand to explore the patterns in the metal, following its path to where it creeps up onto the sides of his face.
Gently he breaks the kiss and leans his head back a little to get a good look at you. Your thumb moves over his cheekbone, tracing the places where metal blends into skin as he contemplates you.
He searches your blind eyes as your hand moves to comb through his impossibly soft hair. You’d asked him not to restore your sight, and he’d agreed. To be honest, he’d never even considered it before you brought it up. He thinks you’re perfect the way you are.
You smile and give him another quick kiss before moving to sit up and get out of the bed. Reluctantly, he lets you slip from his grasp. You move around the space, still in the process of perfecting your morning routine in your new home.
You halt suddenly when you’re almost ready, realising Viktor hasn’t moved to join you yet, instead opting to regard you silently from the position you left him lying in.
Playfully, you raise an eyebrow at him. “You coming? You’ve got lots of people waiting for you, oh great saviour”, you tease.
“You will never fail to keep me humble, will you?”, he chuckles as he finally gets out of bed and into his robes.
“No, I don’t think I will”, you reply as you hand him his staff. His hand wraps around yours, holding the staff together as he softly leans his forehead against yours.
“Good”.