Chapter Text
Viktor has had his fair share of loud neighbours.
Ever since he moved out of the Academy student lodging after graduation and into the private apartment complex on the outskirts of the campus, he’s had the misfortune of dealing with a wide range of rude and disruptive people dead set on disturbing his peace.
First there was the couple in the apartment 2D downstairs, who always seemed to either engage in screaming matches or excessively loud sex at ungodly hours of the night. Then there was the lady with a penchant for playing the recorder. Often and poorly. And then the quote-unquote 'roommates’ on the top floor who turned out to be a full-fledged frat house.
Thankfully those didn’t last long before the landlord kicked them out, much to Viktor’s relief. There’s only so much EDM a man can take in his life before he snaps.
It’s the unfortunate downside of living in a building with a semi-reasonable rent so close to the Academy. Poor sound insulation, poor manners.
Viktor, however, has always managed to make the best of it.
The commute to the Academy is short, and he doesn’t require much more than a bed to crash in when grading papers starts giving him a splitting headache. A closet to hang his clothes, and something a little more comfortable for his aching body than the ratty couch of his office. Somewhere he can bathe, spend time with Rio and waste some odd hours doing a vague approximation of resting.
He’s never made a habit of complaining.
Firstly because no amount of couple’s spats or impromptu house parties can compare to the kind of living situation he had to endure before he moved out of Zaun. He’ll take 3AM karaoke over street fights and overcrowded streets any day, thank you very much.
But mostly because he cannot, simply put, be arsed.
Complaining would entail a certain level of human interactions that he tends to avoid, as a general rule. Meddling in people’s affairs is a line in the sand that Viktor refuses to cross no matter what, because he has a very strict definition of what his comfort zone is, and other people’s business is definitely not a part of it.
It’s so far out of it, in fact, that he’s rather convinced that this one coworker from the Academy holding him hostage to talk about her failed marriage might qualify as Viktor’s own personal vision of hell.
So he keeps to himself, when he can, and he does his best to ignore the ruckus. Noise cancelling headphones were invented for a reason, after all, and although in his case the main use is because the sound of the Piltover cable car during his commute makes him want to tear out his own skin, they also make do for noisy neighbours.
They don’t, however, make a lick of difference when the noise in question is loud enough to rattle his whole walls. They shake hard enough that it’s nothing short of a miracle that the entire frame doesn’t collapse on the spot. There’s a split second—as he watches Rio dart under the couch in panic—where Viktor worries if this might be an actual earthquake.
But those don’t typically happen in Piltover, and besides he’s never heard of a seismic event sounding like drilling.
Viktor cannot for the life of him make sense of it, because his is the last apartment at the end of the hallway—closest to the elevator when the darned thing feels generous enough to function—which leaves only one other place this could possibly come from.
Apartment 4D, Mrs. Talis.
She’s an older woman who’s lived in the building far longer than Viktor has, making them the only two people in the apartment complex that don’t partake in the yearly rotation of tenants. She’s also the only somewhat tolerable person in the building.
Mrs. Talis is a soft-spoken lady with greying hair and a tendency to be slightly overbearing when she’s decided that Viktor is far too skinny for her liking. He’ll protest, as a matter of principle, but even he can admit that her cooking is absolutely divine, and nothing short of a godsend when the work piles up and he slips back into his old habit of surviving off coffee and peanut brittle.
Mrs. Talis is a lot of things—nosy, excessively chatty about her family, prone to overwhelming physical contact and obsessed with Viktor’s cat—but she’s never been loud.
Maybe it’s the strangeness of the situation, the twinge of worry for the person who has unwittingly become somewhat of a maternal figure to him. Maybe it’s the fact that the shaking keeps vibrating his laptop nearly off the table in some sort of attempted technological suicide—something to keep in mind when the machines invivably rise up to overtake the world and enslave humanity.
Maybe it’s that Viktor is bored out of his mind and if he has to spend a single second more grading mediocre papers from his sophomore class, he’ll take a page from his computer’s book and jump off a cliff himself.
Whatever the reason, Viktor finds himself making the very unwise choice of breaking his one rule.
Do not meddle, ever.
He pushes himself up, leaning on the living room table with a hiss when his bad knee buckles under his weight and his hip twinges with an uncomfortable click as he accidentally over-corrects the momentum. He manages to catch his cane off the side of the table before it follows suit with the laptop and goes clattering to the ground.
Rio makes a worried little mewl from under the sofa—a very meek feline word of encouragement—as Viktor makes his way through the cluttered mess of his own apartment and out into the hall.
The distance between the different units isn’t wide, but the ache shooting up Viktor’s legs makes him painfully aware of every step until he’s standing in front of the pristine white door of apartment 4D.
He knocks, and—
Nothing.
Viktor is smarter than this, usually. He knows a sign from the Universe when he sees it, and this could not be any clearer a message to just count his loss and go work from the Academy library.
But it’s already the middle of the afternoon, meaning that the library will be packed with students desperately preparing for midterms, and close down soon enough to not make the trip worth the pain it’ll inevitably cause. Besides, he told Sky that she could use their shared office space today to interview potential TA’s while he worked from home.
Giving up now means either resigning himself to a very unproductive evening—a heresy he’d never stand for under normal circumstances—or risking a flare up and rendering himself useless for the rest of the week.
He knocks again, louder.
This time, the sound of the infernal drilling stops, followed suit by heavy footsteps coming from inside the apartment, the click of a lock and—
Alright.
Viktor has had attractive neighbours before. A few come to mind, but never quite for the right reasons. Like the man from his old dorm who may or may not have been kicked out for dealing drugs, or Jeremy from apartment 2A a couple of years ago, who convinced Viktor to make the horrible decision of starting an innocent fling only to find out about his wife and kids back in Nexus.
Viktor has never had to deal with a neighbour that was at once the loudest human being in Runeterra and the most attractive man he’s ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon. Viktor’s brain blue-screens.
The man standing at the door towers over him, soft bronze skin and bright hazel eyes peering down at Viktor in confusion. Gruff looking beard that matches messy dark locks of hair. His indecently toned muscles glisten from a thin sheen of sweat under the low-cut black tank top stained in white paints.
The sight of him is obscene, the man’s frame sculpted like the quintessence of both artistry and mathematical perfection. Something that should be observed from behind the velvet rope of a museum, something that painters have lost their minds in a vain attempt to recreate, a fickle muse taunting the tips of their brushes but never to be owned by something as trivial as a canvas.
He is also, horrifyingly, holding what looks like a ripped out power outlet still attached to some unidentified wires trailing behind him.
The stranger leans an arm against the doorframe, accenting their height difference in a way that makes Viktor shiver and nearly swoon like a Victorian virgin bride. He needs to get his shit together, and fast.
“Erm.” The man—who is decidedly not Mrs. Talis—scratches the back of his neck awkwardly when Viktor doesn’t start talking. “Hi ?”
Fuck. Right. Words. Viktor knows some. He hasn’t planned this far ahead, and certainly hasn’t anticipated being this mortifyingly horny for the confrontation ahead of him.
“You’re loud.” Is what unfortunately comes out of his mouth. Great. Good job. Pat on the back.
He expects a lot of things from this exchange. A talk down so vicious that it’ll shatter the remainder of Viktor’s flimsy self esteem into a million pieces. A mental picture of the man that he’ll have no other choice but pathetically jerk off to in the shower for the next year to come. A slammed door in his face for being a socially inept weirdo incapable of stringing a full sentence for an extremely valid concern.
He doesn’t expect this living Greek god of a man in front of him to turn beet red and start stuttering like a scolded child.
“I—Fuck. Are you from the building management ? I’m sorry, I have a permit for the renovations, I swear !”
Viktor is stunned, baffled by the scene in front of him as what can only be described as the human embodiment of Lust starts gesticulating and putting his foot in his mouth in an attempt to explain himself.
A horrid sight, a dreadful realisation dawns.
Oh no, he’s cute.
But the situation is so absurd that by some twist of fate it manages to switch Viktor’s brain from ‘pent up teenage boy’ back to its regular functions. He frowns, and cocks a brow at the other man.
“I’m not management.” He says, voice ice cold, a frankly impressive feat of self-control. “I live here, and whatever reckless destruction you have going on in there is disturbing my work.”
That seems to unsettle the man, whose posture shifts from panicked to confused and slightly bashful. “I’m redoing the electric work in the kitchen.”
“Well you sound like you’re about to blow up the entire building.” Viktor huffs, leaning cautiously to the side to peer into the apartment. “Can I talk to Mrs. Talis, please ? I’d like to have a word with her about the people she hires for renovations.”
The man blinks at him. “I live here.”
Viktor has many flaws, most of which he could easily list given the time and the right self-deprecating frame of mind. At the very top is his notable lack of patience for people who take him for a fool.
“You most certainly do not.”
The other man’s face tints pink again, a lovely shade on him if not completely infuriating given the context of their conversation.
“No, I do !” He insists. “I’m the new tenant. Or, well—Ximena Talis is my mum, I took over her place. I moved in now that she’s gone.”
Viktor blanches. “Oh. I’m sorry…”
Shit. Alright. Social cues definitely aren’t his forte, but even Viktor knows that insulting some man over his dead mother is a bit of a conversational faux pas.
The man blinks, and his eyes shoot wide open when he realises the underlying meaning of his words.
“OH ! No, not like that ! She’s fine !” He shakes his hands in what is probably meant to be a reassuring motion, but looks vaguely threatening with possibly-live electrical equipment in his grasp. “She just moved to the country-side. Got tired of the city life, y’know ?”
Viktor heaves a relieved sigh. His social circle is quite small to begin with, and although he wouldn’t have considered his old neighbour a friend, the idea of her potential passing rattles him.
He distantly remembers Mrs. Talis mentioning having a son, although for the life of him Viktor cannot recall his name. Only a lot of gushing about his various accomplishments.
And not a single hint about him being a sculptor’s wet dream come to life.
“Sorry, I’m being super rude.” The man shakes his head. “I didn’t even introduce myself.”
He holds out a hand—only to realise that he’s holding the electric socket, and extend the other. His eyes fall on Viktor’s cane in his grasp, and curses again before switching the wires to his other hand and holding the first one out once more—empty-handed, this time.
“I’m Jayce. Jayce Talis.” He smiles, maddeningly charming despite the fumble. “New tenant of apartment 4D.”
Viktor doesn’t need a crush. In fact, it’s the last thing he wants. His life is complicated enough as it is. He doesn’t need gorgeous men barging into his life with loud renovations and adorable tooth gaps. He eyes his outheld hand, callused and tan, twice the size of his. Outrageous, he needs the man carnally.
He sighs and shakes it, sealing his fate. “Viktor. 4E.”
“Oh.” Jayce’s eyes widen in realisation, stopping mid-gesture and forgetting to release his neighbour’s hand. “You’re Viktor ?”
The man in question frowns, unsure whether to be insulted or not by the genuine surprise in his tone. “Yes ?”
Jayce shakes his head again. Viktor vaguely wonders how he keeps any of his thoughts organised when he keeps rattling them in his skull like a kid with a cheap festival fishtank.
“No, sorry. Mum just talks about you all the time.” He shrugs, seemingly not noticing when the gesture brings Viktor’s hand along with it. “She says you’re scary smart.”
“Oh.” Viktor wasn’t expecting this, and hates the way his face heats at the easy compliment. Flattery isn’t something he’s usually sensitive to, but the man looks frightfully earnest. “Thank you ?”
“She, like, loves you.” Jayce chuckles, and goes to rub the back of his neck again only to realise that his hand is still holding Viktor’s. He drops it, face flushing. “Oh, sorry. I—Ah, yeah. Can’t say I’m not a little jealous. You got to enjoy all the cooking I didn’t when I moved out.”
Viktor hums in agreement. “Your mother’s cooking is exceptional.”
The other man beams. “Oh, it’s the best. Luckily, I learned everything I know from her. I’m almost as good as she is, if I dare say so myself.”
A quirked brow. “Quite the glowing compliment to yourself. A little, eh, egotistical would you say ?”
Jayce puffs out his chest. “I’ll have you know that I’ve heard so from multiple sources.”
“Ah, yes.” Viktor rolls his eyes. “Because people tend to be awfully judgmental when presented with free food.”
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. It took Viktor several months to engage in any sort of small talk with Sky when they first met, and she’s annoyingly easy to get along with. Yet, here he is, exchanging banters in the middle of a hallway with a man he’s only known for ten minutes.
But there’s just something about this strange man in front of him that keeps drawing him in, pulling at the threads of his self-restraint and revealing all the snarky parts of himself that he’s usually much more reserved about with strangers.
Jayce grins, taking the unspoken challenge with a pleasant ease. “Well then. You’ll have to try it sometime and judge for yourself.”
Viktor pauses, blinking owlishly up at him. “You’re… Inviting me for dinner ?”
“Yeah ? When the apartment doesn’t look like someone set off a bomb in there.” Jayce tilts his head to the side, looking an awful lot like a confused puppy. “I mean, it’s the neighbourly thing to do, right ?”
Ouch. “Oh. Yes.”
Viktor shouldn’t be disappointed. He should’ve known that someone like this wouldn’t be asking him out on a date after such a brief meeting. He doesn’t want him to.
Honestly, it’s his own fault for getting his hopes up, and he has the hurt feelings to show for it, now.
“You’re a professor at the Academy, right ?” Jayce asks, flowing easily from one topic to another, unaware of the other man’s inner turmoil. “Biomedical engineering ?”
Viktor frowns, a little unsettled about a virtual stranger knowing so much about him already. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your profession. But she did mention several times that you won your junior science competition when you were 12.”
“Try not to be too impressed.” Jayce winks cockily, but it’s easy to find the humour in his tone.
Viktor lifts a brow, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
“Winner of the Young Innovators’ Competition at 11.” He deadpans, pointing a finger at himself.
The other man lets out a whistle, looking genuinely awed. “Ah, I wasn’t aware I was in the presence of such an esteemed scientist.”
“All is forgiven. Besides, you didn’t stand a chance.” Viktor shrugs, and he allows his gaze to travel along Jayce’s figure, seizing him up. “It takes a lot to impress me.”
Jayce’s face flushes, which wasn’t the goal but Viktor is at least satisfied to see them on equally unsteady footing in this strange conversation.
“And to answer your question, I’m in mechanical engineering.” He says, clearing his throat. “I—yeah. I work freelance for now. Home a lot, hence the…” He makes a vague gesture towards the inside of the apartment.
The stupidly gorgeous man is also brilliant and entrepreneurial, because of course he is. Jayce was made in a lab just to taunt him. Viktor just can’t catch a break.
“Yes. Speaking of which…” He coughs, trying to get the conversation back on track before he says something he’ll deeply regret. “The noise.”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” Jayce has the decency to look apologetic. “I think I underestimated how much work this was going to be… It’s like that magician trick with the endless rope in the sleeve, except a thousand times more annoying. I keep trying to fix something and discovering another, more shittier thing to fix instead.”
“Sounds… Complicated.” Viktor tries. It also doesn’t bode well for any shred of hope he had of getting back to his peaceful, quiet apartment and get some work done.
The other man emphasises his point with a wave of the ripped out power outlet in his hand. “The electrical stuff is kind of kicking my butt.”
Viktor hasn’t seen it, but judging by the rest of Jayce’s looks it’s safe to assume that the man has a very cute butt. So the prospect is less than ideal.
“Is there any chance that you can keep it down for today ?” He sighs, tangling his free hand in the messy half-up do he managed this morning to keep his hair out of his face. Thinking back on it, had he known he’d meet the hottest man alive today, he would’ve made an effort to clean himself up. He’s not winning a fashion award with his oversized knitwear anytime soon.
Viktor isn’t usually one to put too much thought into his appearance beyond looking professional for his job—which considering the ‘bright minds of tomorrow’ he has to perform in front of are more often than not twenty-something kids still hungover from the previous night’s bender, isn’t saying much.
But standing in front of Jayce, Viktor can’t help but feel a little inadequate. His fingers tug mindlessly at the bleached ends of his hair that reach his shoulders. Maybe he’s overdue for a cut. A nightmarish thought.
“I can make arrangements to be back in the office tomorrow.” He says, distracting himself from what is sure to be a fun spiral of self-loathing. “But I really have to finish grading some papers.”
“Right.” Jayce smirks. “Wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your good work, Professor.”
It’s horrifying, how this much teasing alone is enough to send a shiver up Viktor’s spine.
“I appreciate it.” He forces the words out, and is quietly happy when his voice doesn’t crack.
Jayce eyes him with a soft smile, and Viktor feels laid bare under his gaze. He’s so out of his element, like this, with no clear direction as to what is expected of him. But Jayce doesn’t seem to judge him for it, seemingly eager for any crumb in conversation thrown his way, and that fact alone is peculiar and unusual in a way that only unsettles Viktor more.
He shuffles uncomfortably, tightening his grip on his cane.
“I should probably get back to work.” He says, clearing his throat and gesturing vaguely in the direction of his own apartment.
“Oh. Sure.” The other man blinks, only now realising that they’re both still standing in the middle of the hallway. “And, hey, let me know if you need anything fixed while I’m at it.”
Viktor hums. “I appreciate the offer, and I do not mean to be rude but the fact that you are holding a ripped out power outlet does not inspire much confidence.”
“Hey, I take offense to that.” Jayce pouts. “I’m usually great with my hands.”
Oh I’m sure.
“I’ll let the professionals deal with any repairs needed.” The other man deadpans.
“Fine, but you’re no fun.” Jayce rolls his eyes. “Anyway, I should be done with the drilling for now, barring any other unfortunate discovery. So I’ll probably be out of your hair for the rest of the day.”
“Good.” Viktor nods, then adds quickly. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” His neighbour beams. “And I’m holding you to that dinner, you know. I feel like I need to restore my image if the first impression you had of me was this terrible.”
Viktor blinks. He’s used to people saying things they don’t mean, pointless turns of phrases meant as nothing more than social lubricant and ways to stroke their own egos. Endless strings of let’s get coffee later’s and we should do it again sometime’s that hold no real value.
Jayce isn’t what he expected him to be. Every word out of his mouth is brazen and sincere, without a single trace of polite deceitfulness, spoken with the confidence of a man who has never once thought of being self-conscious in his interactions with others.
It’s odd. And strangely refreshing.
“I—” He finds himself saying, trampling all over the last shreds of his resolve to not get involved. “Alright.”
“Perfect !” Jayce looks so pleased, he nearly glows, and the sight alone makes it hard to regret his decision. “I’ll see you later, Vik !”
And Viktor must have blacked out after that, because he has no recollection of walking back to his own apartment, mind reeling from the bizarre conversation, the dinner, the unprompted nickname…
“Vik…” He breathes out, leaning his back against the door.
A white little feline head pops out from under the couch, tilting to the side in a questioning expression. Viktor huffs, pushing himself off the door.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
It’s definitely not a date.
————————————
“Oh it’s definitely a date.”
Jinx is sitting on his graded paper, something that’s become an unfortunate habit as of late.
She has her legs crossed—thankfully with no shoes on, Viktor’s one rule if she’s going to insist on having her feet up on his dining table—and twirls her long teal braids as she drills Viktor for information about his encounter with his strange neighbour the day before.
He gives her a withering stare, pulling out a sheet of paper from under her. She doesn’t budge.
“Why are you in my home ?”
Viktor isn’t certain when he made a habit of taking in strays. In an odd turn of events, Jinx showed up at the doorstep of his dorm room the very same week he adopted Rio off the street. Maybe they saw something in him, or maybe he’s the only person in Piltover gullible enough to spend time on them. To this day he still isn’t certain if it’s some sort of divine intervention, a cruel joke of fate or a setup from Jinx himself.
Whatever it was, they both took to him immediately and made a permanent place for themselves in his life. A cripple, a manic girl and a blind cat. What a fun little family they make.
Ever since then, Jinx has made a habit of barging in unannounced and disrupting his work like some sort of brightly coloured hurricane.
“Rude.” She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. “I’m here because if I don’t show up every now and then you’ll just live in total isolation like those weird hermit dudes, or those elderly people that end up totally mummified in their apartments because they died and no one noticed. Though I guess Rio would probably eat your remains before you can mummify...”
She pauses, pondering her own quandary with worrying seriousness, before shrugging and beaming at him.
“See ? I’m just looking out for you, Cookie. I don’t want you to become a gross ugly mummy or be eaten by your cat !” Jinx grins, opening her arms wide and wiggling her fingers in strange little jazz hands. She rolls her eyes and drops her arms when Viktor doesn’t react. “Besides, you loooove having me here.”
“Debatable.”
Jinx waves a hand around dismissively. “Oh you’re just pissy because some Pretty Boy asked you out and you’re, like, a professional stick in the mud.”
Viktor sputters. “He did not ask me out. He’s being neighbourly.”
“No one gives a rat’s ass about their neighbours.” The girl levels him a look. “The hottie’s got a thing for you !”
This is mortifying. Viktor rubs a hand over his face. “Can we drop the topic, please ?”
“No, it’s too fun.” Jinx beams, but complies anyway. “You said he was Mrs. T’s son, from next door right ? Then you gotta lock him down, that woman’s food is out of this world. I don’t know how I’ll survive without it…”
Viktor frowns. “When have you ever tasted her food ?”
He’s quite certain that Jinx never met the woman. Viktor has never voluntarily tried to hide her from the world—he couldn’t if he wanted to, Jinx is neither discrete nor one to obey orders she didn’t already plan on following.
But it stirs something unpleasant in him when people don’t even attempt to look past her slightly frenzied behaviour and dismiss her as strange, or worse. In an odd way, he’s grown protective of her.
“When I show up at your place and steal leftovers from your fridge while you’re at work.” Jinx shrugs, pulling another graded paper from under her and folding it into a paper plane, sending it flying across the living room. She notices Viktor’s scowl. “What ? It was gonna go to waste anyway ! You have the appetite of a bird… If that bird ate half a protein bar and fourteen Monster Energy drinks instead of seeds and stuff.”
He huffs. “You are the bane of my existence.”
“I’m your only friend and you love me.”
“I have other friends.” A dubious look. “I have Sky, she enjoys my company.”
“A miracle, truly.” The woman snickers. “I’m just here to help you expand your social circle—Oh don’t make that face, I didn’t ask you to stick rusty nails under your… Well. Nails.”
“I’m throwing you out.” Viktor deadpans.
“And I’m gonna start calling you slurs now that you have a boyfriend.” Jinx sings.
“He’s not my boyfriend. And I don’t know who you’re talking about.” He makes a vague gesture at himself. “Make yourself useful, will you ?”
Jink nods, her posture shifting to laser focused as Viktor undoes the buttons of his shirt and shrugs it off his shoulders, giving her access to the compressive clothing underneath.
He’s always hated the damned thing, an ugly black shirt that doctors insist on calling discreet. You won’t notice it’s there ! As if he could possibly forget about the boa constrictor with a million zippers constantly pressing down on his lungs. The fabric alone is enough to drive him insane with sensory overload, on bad days.
Jinx starts pulling at the various straps on the back, tugging and adjusting until Viktor feels the barest hint of relief, just enough support to keep his vertebra from slipping in and out of place like loose cogs in a machine.
It’s a strange sensation, trusting someone else with this. Viktor’s always been excessively closed off about anything that has to do with his disability. He doesn’t like talking about it, seeing that fragment of an expression on people’s face when they notice—a pendulum in perpetual motion swinging from dismissive to pitying.
But Jinx is nothing if not contrarian, stubbornly refusing to do what is expected of her. She’ll look at all the tape and elastics keeping Viktor whole, and decide that he’s weird, but that she’s weird too, so it’s a good thing.
“How bad is it, today ?” She asks, pulling on the final strap and helping Viktor put his shirt back on with his limited range of motion.
Viktor snorts. “What, you want me to give you a scale ?”
There was a house, back in Zaun. Viktor knew it well enough. Off the main road, down the stream. With white walls turned grey from the ash and the dust. The other kids thought it haunted. Old rickety fame and shattered windows, wind howling through the empty rooms like drawn out cries in the night.
Now, picking at the buttons of his clothing as his body gives way to the ever present aches, Viktor thinks of that house.
His own bones like splintered columns, damaged by weather and time. Water stains on his ribs. Black mold in his lungs. His own body possessed, inhabited by spirits to his very core. Creaky floorboards. Shattered dishes. Flickering lamps. Poltergeists moving his joints.
Pain a forlorn lover in the attic, keeping him in a possessive embrace and refusing to cross over. Unwanted presence keeping him company in the dead of night.
It’s not the sort of feeling you can rank from 1 to 10.
“Bad.” He concedes, and that admission alone is a struggle against his own wounded pride. “But not quite a flare up.”
Jinx nods but doesn’t comment on it. He appreciates that.
He shuffles his way onto the couch, groaning as the shift sends a fresh wave of pain up his spine. He reaches for the remote of the electrical heating pad he always keeps within reach and sets it to the highest setting, sighing in relief when the warmth starts seeping into his muscles.
“Want some painkillers ?” Jinx asks, curling around Rio when the cat finds her way on the table and settles in her lap. It took some time for the feline to warm up to her, but their bond is undeniable now.
“They don’t do shit.” Viktor huffs. Not without putting him out of commission for the rest of the day, at least, and he still has some work to do.
“Gasp ! Language mister !” She throws her hands up in a dramatic gesture, disturbing Rio who stretches and hops off with an annoyed strut. “You kiss your mother with that mouth ?”
Viktor laughs, he can’t help it.
Jinx has a knack for distracting him when the pain gets too bad, even when it comes with a side of dead parents jokes. He knows better than to take offence, especially since they first met when they were both in the foster system—him, counting the days until he aged out and her, a spitfire of an 8 year old who kept being sent back.
The motion sets off another wave of pain, and he stifles a hiss.
Jinx swings a leg from the table, tilting her head to the side exaggeratedly. “Want me to score you some of the good drugs ? I know a guy.”
She probably does, but Viktor knows that Jinx has been clean for almost two years now. She jokes about it in an effort to make things normal, but he trusts her.
“Maybe later.” He smirks, closing his eyes as some of the tension in his body starts unraveling. “For now some rest will have to do.”
“Don’t be such a wet blanket.” He hears her pout, and the soft tap of socked feet on the floorboards lets him know that she jumped off the table. “Fine, take your old man nap, I’m gonna go bother Ekko.”
Viktor hums in acknowledgment, listening as the woman shuffles in his apartment, gathering her things. There’s a moment of silence after that, and if it weren’t for the fact that he hasn’t heard the creaking of his front door, Viktor would’ve wondered if she’d left without a word.
“You should give Pretty Boy a chance.” Jinx says finally from somewhere on the other side of the room, and her voice carries a softness that feels rare and vulnerable. “You deserve to be happy too, Viktor.”
He lifts his head, giving her a fond look. She rarely says it upfront, but he knows that Jinx cares for him as deeply as he does for her. It’s a strange, fucked up bond, but neither of them would trade it for the world.
“I am happy.” He tells her.
The look she gives him is sad, older far beyond her years, and betrays the sort of sorrow that feels so misplaced on an open face like hers. A glimpse into the hurt and hardship she’s had to bear with a grin.
“You’re surviving.” Jinx says with a shrug. “That’s what we do.”
Viktor doesn’t know what to say to that, but thankfully Jinx isn’t one to linger on sentimentality.
“And tell me if your hottie does end up blowing something up in his apartment.” She spins around, the moment passed, waving a hand as she calls out from the front door.
“Then it’ll really be interesting !”