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When the purple and silver envelope arrived, Viktor automatically attempted to wave the courier to Jayce, where all such formal correspondence — really, any correspondence at all — normally went.
To his surprise, the young woman shook her head. “I was instructed to hand deliver this to you, sir.”
Sure enough, his name was neatly penned in silver ink on the dusty purple parchment. A stylized ship’s wheel adorned the seal.
“What’s that?” Jayce asked, crowding Viktor as soon as the courier had departed. The question did not hold Jayce’s characteristic easy curiosity. Instead he asked it as if Viktor was holding a particularly ugly bug.
“House Giopara sent me a missive.” The identification was unnecessary. As a noble himself, Jayce had no doubt known from the exact purple used. The number of times Jayce had refused to purchase an item because it strayed too close to another house’s favored shade was frankly ludicrous. “Perhaps they still think I have sway with Heimerdinger.”
“You do,” Jayce pointed out as Viktor cracked the seal. Technically, looming behind him to read the letter over Viktor’s shoulder was rude. It was a breach of his privacy that Viktor noted and then allowed. Viktor was most likely going to tell him the contents of the letter unless it was some sordid proposition. If it did happen to be that, well, Jayce would learn his lesson.
Thankfully, the contents were perfectly professional. In fact, the entire letter was downright respectful in a way Viktor rarely experienced from the higher echelons of Piltovan society. Viktor let out a low whistle as he reached the end, where a neat, practiced hand had signed, ‘Dimitri Giopara’.
“Quite a generous salary he is offering,” he noted.
Jayce exhaled through his nostrils like an angry bull.
“A patronage. I cannot believe it. The absolute gall of him, the complete disrespect, did he really think I wouldn’t notice the insult or is he just that desperate for an in? Has he finally realized he doesn’t have an inventive bone in his body? Has he finally developed a sense of taste?”
The more Jayce spoke, the bigger his hand gestures became, until he was a danger to anything within arm’s reach. Luckily, he had also begun to pace, so Viktor himself was safe.
“Is it not egotistical to assume this offer is about you?” Viktor scoffed, annoyance only growing as his traitorous mind pointed out that no one had tried to offer him a patronage before Jayce came into his life.
“Viktor, you don’t understand!” Whirling on him, Jayce pressed his hands together as if he could squeeze an explanation out between his palms. “Fifty years ago, I would have had to challenge him to a duel of honor.”
Viktor met Jayce’s gaze only to be absolutely certain he saw how Viktor’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling. “A duel? Now I know you are being ridiculous.”
A polite knock proceeded Caitlyn impolitely letting herself into the lab. “Why are we talking about duels?” she asked.
Jayce snatched up Viktor’s letter and waved it in the air. “Dimitri Giopara offered Viktor a patronage!”
Caitlyn stopped dead. “Oh. You have to kill that man.”
It was far too long a moment before she noticed Viktor’s horrified expression and quickly amended, “Metaphorically!”
With Caitlyn as his cavalry, Jayce spent a solid ten minutes trying to explain to Viktor exactly why a patronage offer to him was an insult to Jayce. Something about implying that Jayce was too poor to offer a patronage of his own (silly, as they all knew that was untrue), attempting to access Hextech (pointless, as it was owned by the Council), and jockeying for power over House Talis using Viktor as a playing chip (incomprehensible, as Viktor had no power in House Talis in the first place and wouldn’t let them use it even if he did).
By the end of it, the only conclusion Viktor could solidly come to was that the upper echelons of Piltover had far too much time on their hands.
Then Jayce turned those big golden eyes on him. “Do you want to take the offer?”
To tell the truth, Viktor had been considering it. Due to their work on Hextech, he was no longer a salaried employee of Heimerdinger. The money had been replaced by grants, but Viktor hated taking what he needed to live out of money that should be used for their research, and hated asking Jayce to fund equipment or supplies out of his personal purse even more. The payment House Giopara was offering would allow him to live quite comfortably, as well as add to the research budget.
But Jayce Talis gazing at him like a forlorn puppy convinced Viktor more than any explanation of political drama could. “I never even considered it,” he lied.
It was apparently the right answer, because Jayce lit up like a firework and bounced to his feet, rushing to his desk. “Okay! Do you mind sending your rejection letter on this?” With a snap, Jayce presented a piece of vellum parchment to him.
Viktor raised both eyebrows even as he took it. “You want me to send my rejection on House Talis letterhead?” he asked, tilting the paper so Caitlyn could also see the hammer stamped at the top.
“Yes!” Jayce clapped his hands together, radiating excitement as he spun to Caitlyn. “Should I have him use my seal, too?”
As if there were an obvious answer, Caitlyn quickly shook her head. “No, no, have him use a plain seal. That way it doesn’t look too overt. Like maybe Viktor just so happened to grab this paper because it was what he had on hand. Plausible deniability.”
“Oh yes, I would just casually grab official-looking paper off Jayce’s desk,” Viktor muttered, amused by their antics despite himself.
“Half of our vibration stabilization proof is on Talis letterhead from you doing just that,” Jayce pointed out with a laugh.
Smoothing the parchment out and picking up a pen, Viktor huffed. “That was an emergency.”
“A science emergency?” Caitlyn asked, her lips twitching upwards with badly repressed amusement.
“Hey now, those are real and do happen,” Jayce countered. “I had to write notes on a handkerchief at a party once.”
“Translating that would have been much easier if you hadn’t also used it to sop up wine,” Viktor said, eyeing the blank page. “Do you want to write this? Sneak in some additional clever insults only the bluest of blood will understand?”
Jayce looked sorely tempted, his lips pressing together as he clearly imagined all the ways he could give House Giopara the middle finger. Then Caitlyn tsked — making herself sound entirely like her mother, though both Jayce and Viktor knew better than to point that out — and Jayce sighed, shaking his head.
“No, it’s better if it sounds genuine. I’m not trying to start an entire conflict with them,” he said.
Wondering at the fact that he somehow had the power to cause a conflict between House Talis and House Giopara in his hand, Viktor began to write his rejection letter.
A week later, when an official courier brought Viktor a patronage offer stamped with the seal of House Talis - ridiculously, while he was sitting next the heir of said House — Viktor’s heart jumped. Apparently having another family after Viktor was not an insult Jayce would suffer twice.
Viktor looked Jayce straight in the hopeful eye and stole a piece of paper off of his desk.