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He watches as Jayce's chest rises and falls with deep serenity, sound asleep. His quiet snores fill the empty static around Viktor's ears.
Viktor has not been able to sleep for two whole days. He's been on edge since last week, when his chest was still tight and he had spent ten whole minutes coughing without a break.
Sky had approached Jayce, who was albeit scramble-brained and anxious of his upcoming presentation, and prodded him about Viktor's wellbeing.
Jayce had become upset, and not very silently. He told her flatly to mind her business, and let Viktor handle himself.
Later, he'd confront Viktor, and raise his voice like shackles on skin.
Viktor's hair stood on end as Jayce dragged his palms down his own face in exasperation; “Haven't I done enough for you? Why are you so – so difficult? Even Sky notices. You're not well and you won't tell me why.”
Viktor's jaw hung open with shock. Was he burdening Jayce - simply with his existence?
He'd apologized quietly and said he missed a dose of antibiotics, likely drawing out the ordeal of his chest infection.
Viktor shifts in bed to bring his hand up to his mouth, to chew on his fingernails.
That's not entirely a lie.
The doctor had told him of an underlying strain that settled in his lungs, some sort of medical-grade jargon that meant his lungs were becoming thin and fragile from the backwash of the aromas of the undercity.
The tainted leftovers Piltover shelled out meant oil-slick puddles and carbon monoxide shrouding their shitty-hovel in smog and poisons.
Mostly from the mining residue deposits that were well-off in demand for Piltover. Up here, though, the doctors call the disease harnessed by the pollution in Zaun, the ‘Grey’.
It would take time for the symptoms to become unmanageable, and little is yet to be discovered, but Viktor checks all the early warning signs.
Viktor bites particularly hard on his hangnail, and pulls it out with his teeth. Water fills his eyes as it begins to sting, his cuticle filling with blood.
Viktor lies his head on the table in the lab. His breath rattles due to the awkward angle he's promoted his back into.
He's much too sleepy to hear Jayce's approaching footsteps, causing him to flinch involuntarily as a gentle hand comes up to brush through his tawny curls.
“Sorry,” Jayce whispers softly, “I didn't mean to scare you – did you fall asleep?”
Viktor wants to cry. He wishes he could fall asleep.
“No.” He punches out.
He blinks twice, refocusing his eyes before staring up at Jayce's face.
“Are you okay?”
Viktor hums, “Yes.”
The response is nothing short of blunt, and a little bit rude. Although, Jayce has a habit of becoming overbearing when he knows he's said something hurtful (like last week). Viktor only can stomach so much patience.
_______
Viktor coughs wetly into his handkerchief, thick, yellow globs spewing from his mouth.
He's becoming worried that his infection may become pneumonia.
Jayce looks up from his project, some sort of giant glove used to bluntly dig out materials. It's hardly assembled, the cables and sheets of metal lying loosely around Jayce's workspace.
“You've been coughing a lot. Did you finish your antibiotics?”
Viktor's jaw tightens. It's been two weeks. Of course he finished the damn medication.
Although, he doesn't find the strength to speak, let alone tease. He just nods tiredly.
“It's getting pretty late,” Jayce stands, pulling off his goggles and letting them clatter to the desk.
He yawns, his back crackling softly as he poses to stretch. “Wanna call it a night and go home?”
Viktor squirms. Another sleepless night in bed sounds horrible.
He wants to say no. He wants to say yes. He wants to cry, so he does.
As usual, no sound comes from him. Just sniffles to keep the snot from running down to his chin, and the soft rustle of fabric as his shoulders shake.
He doesn't dare face Jayce. Not when he hasn't regressed in two whole months. Viktor had felt proud, thinking he had overcome his needy tendencies.
Now, he wants nothing more than to curl up in a soft blanket against Jayce's chest. He wants to be rocked to sleep, but the thought of his lungs pilling away like old cotton inside of him is too horrifying to allow him to ask for that.
Why would Jayce want to stick around if Viktor were to get worse?
“Viktor, I'm talking to you.” Jayce is approaching.
Viktor can hear him.
Jayce has grown frustrated easily lately, mostly due to Viktor insisting that he keeps his distance from Jayce. (Maybe that way, it'll hurt less if Jayce leaves).
Jayce kneels at his swiveling chair and pulls Viktor's face towards him.
His eyes widen at the fat tears spilling down his partner's face. “Oh, baby,” he whispers softly, his face still accenting a twinge of horror at the realization.
“What's the matter, honey?” He soothes, bringing the pad of his thumb up against the crease in Viktor's browline, attempting to soothe over the taut skin; mimicking the affection that Viktor does so frequently to Jayce.
Viktor starts to cough while he cries, occasionally belting out a struggling sob.
Jayce takes the initiative to hold him. “Are you hurting?” Jayce murmurs quietly, in-between smothering Viktor's damp face with kisses.
Viktor cries harder. It's not fair. It can't be. To be sick, and to have to tell the person you love how that sickness is only going to fester. A morbid invite; “Hey, wanna stick around for my eventual decay?”.
Viktor can't say it. He won't. But Janna, doesn't Jayce deserve to know?
Viktor begins hiccuping, panic lining his heart and head. He's shaking all over, likely due to his crying and lack of sleep.
Jayce pulls him off his chair and into his arms, and cradles him onto the floor.
“It's okay. You're okay.” He repeats, like a chant of what should ring true.
Once Viktor is tucked in bed with his pajamas, and pulled into the secure hold of Jayce's arms, does he begin to slip fully.
Viktor nibbles on his bottom lip as Jayce watches him attentively. Viktor's eyes water, he feels much too exposed with Jayce staring through him.
He shivers, and then promptly buries his head into the swell of Jayce's strong chest.
Viktor wants nothing more than to call out ‘papa’. He can't help it. Please. Jayce's words still ring in his mind, and he can't help but feel deeply ashamed.
Maybe he's asking too much.
Just when Jayce's hand is about to come down to rub his skinny back, does Viktor rise from their setting and attempt to leave.
Jayce catches him by his wrist as half of Viktor's body slumps off of the edge of the bed.
“Where are you going?” is all Jayce asks, his face is scrunched with concern, his eyes full of that deep seated love that scares Viktor, sometimes.
(Realistically, Viktor was going to hide in the bathroom until these feelings passed.)
“Um.” Viktor bites his tongue. He wants to cry and jump back into his arms. He wants his pacifier.
Instead, he stares blankly at Jayce, before yanking his limb away, and climbing out of bed. Jayce climbs after him.
They pad into the living room together. Viktor hovers around the closet, before turning around and letting his bottom lip wobble.
“What are you looking for, baby?” Viktor sucks in a shaky breath at the nickname baby.
“Please don't be upset with me,” he whimpers, struggling to stay upright. He forgot his cane at the edge of the bed.
Jayce's face flickers with genuine worry, “Why would I be upset with you?”
Viktor's weight struggles as he collapses in on himself like a taut bow-string cut free. Jayce skids closer to catch him as he falls, before his knees hit the floor.
Viktor heaves in lungfuls of Jayce's comfort. “I want to be little,” he whispers, “I'm sorry.”
“Why're you sorry?” Jayce coos softly, petting Viktor's hair.
Viktor wipes his nose on his sleeve, before wiping his cheeks with his palms. “... Because you've gotten sick of this … act of mine – you've said it yourself.” Viktor hides his face with his palms, deeply ashamed. “I'm sorry.”
Jayce's throat tightens with embarrassment, and infliction.
“I should be saying sorry, baby.”
Viktor's fingers pry open to let an eye peek out, humming a confused little “hmm?”.
“I never meant that I don't like taking care of you… it's the opposite, really,” “I just – I love taking care of you so much, so when you're hurting in ways I can't help with… I can't help – but…” Jayce rambles, gasping between words, almost tearing up.
“I can't help but feel helpless. Watching you hurt but refuse to tell me is the worst,” Jayce's eyes flicker to the floorboards, their knees pressing against each other in a cramped cuddle. He looks so sad.
“I want you to tell me. I was just… angry. – Angry that you were sick and refusing to let me… help you. Love you.”
Viktor cups Jayce's face, “...Sorry,” he says. “It's hard to be a bother.”
Viktor feels guilty. He'll only get sicker. Is Jayce going to want to help, and love that part of Viktor, too?
Jayce's eyebrows scrunch up in seconds, almost like a flinch to Viktor's words. “You're not a bother.”
Viktor feels like a baby sticking up his pinky in hopes of truth, “Promise?”
“Papa promises,” Jayce grins, exhaling a tiny laugh, linking his pinky with Viktor's.
They snuggle, Viktor having successfully been reunited with his pacifier, suckling quietly.
Jayce punches in a twenty minute timer into the alarm-clock, to keep Viktor's teeth healthy.
“I'm sorry, but I don't want you hurting your little teethies, bubby.”
Viktor can't find himself to care about the timer, and suckles harder, attempting to soothe his restless mind.
He squirms in bed, causing Jayce to hold him tighter, “I'm sorry baby, I'm sorry.” He repeats, worried he's upset his partner.
Viktor smushes his face into his pillow, and curls up towards the end of the bed. He doesn't want to say anything, yet he wants to say everything.
Jayce runs a gentle hand over Viktor's jagged hip, “I'll take it out if you fall asleep. I'll make it up to you tomorrow. I can make your favorite breakfast?”
“Mmh…” Viktor hums, and Jayce snuggles closer to his baby.
“I love you, my sweet boy.” Jayce kisses his hair, and behind his ears.
Viktor blindly looks for Jayce's hand, grasping it to squeeze it three times; morse-code for ‘“I love you’”.
Jayce squeals with a soft “aww,” and smothers Viktor in a swaddling hug.
“So sweet, my baby,” he whispers, spewing more and more praise and soft words. Viktor's eyes are heavy but his chest is, too. He can't sleep. He'll try anyway.
_____
Jayce will do anything to make Viktor comfortable, and Viktor will forgo his own comfort to make Jayce happy.
This level of codependency is probably unhealthy. Unfortunately, Viktor hasn't been a very healthy man to begin with, and Jayce has made a habit of the unprecedented.
Viktor gnaws absently on his new teether, a silicone toy ring in the shape of a seahorse.
Lately, Jayce has been spoiling him with lots of fun things and baby toys to make up for Viktor's hesitancy.
Jayce stirs the thick, pudgy bowl of oatmeal with a wooden spoon. It smells of cinnamon and apples.
“Breakfast time, Viktor,” he smiles, before placing the bowl on their small dining table.
He waltzes over to where Viktor is sitting up on the floor, and lifts him onto his hip with ease, as if he were an actual infant.
Viktor hides his face in Jayce's neck with delight. How good it felt to be small, and treated like something precious.
Jayce struggles with his grip for a moment, before shuffling over to place Viktor in one of the chairs at the table, and brings up a heaping spoonful of steamy oatmeal up to his mouth.
“It's nice and sweet, just the way you like it, baby.” Jayce soothes, caressing Viktor's cheek down to his chin, with his thumb.
“You're going to get all better,” he says, wiping the excess oatmeal off of Viktor's chin with the spoon.
Viktor struggles to swallow. He rolls the food in his mouth with his tongue and finally, gulps it down after two minutes.
“I'm going to get sicker,” he says. His voice is so soft, quiet, like a pinch that's trying it's best to not hurt.
It's hardly heard against the soft squelch of the meal as Jayce continues over-mixing Viktor's breakfast.
Jayce brings up another spoonful, jaw clenching, teeth grinding, “We'll talk about this later.”
Viktor squeezes his teether in his hands, trying to ground himself with the earthy tastes of cardamom and cinnamon apples.
Viktor's lips twitch into a frown as he swallows thickly between bites, “Will you still love me?”
The spoon clatters into the bowl, splattering its contents onto the table.
Jayce looks like he's going to cry, or scream.
He puts his head in Viktor's lap, cradling his thin legs, “I would never stop loving you,” Jayce croaks, tears melting like acid into the soft skin of Viktor's thighs.
“I love you so much,” Jayce whispers, the slope of his nose damp with tears.
Viktor curls around Jayce's head, and rests his own head atop of the curve of Jayce's back.
“Are you sure you want to?” Viktor drawls, in between anxious chomps of his teether.
“I've never been more sure of anything, Viktor.” He assures, between sniffling tears.
“My baby, my love,” Jayce insists, quietly.
“My Viktor.” Viktor is crying now, too.
“M'yours, papa,” he hiccups, pressing his nose into Jayce's shoulder.
“And I'm yours, baby, your papa.”
Viktor sits on the couch, refusing to spit out his pacifier so he can drink his milk.
He hasn't slept in three days, and is crankier than ever.
“Come on, V, I know you're hungry and too tired to eat. Have some sweet-milk, you love sweet-milk,” Jayce pleads, squatting before Viktor and offering him a steaming mug.
Truthfully, Viktor wants milk more than anything. His jaw hurts and he's much too tired to eat. But his pacifier is such a soothing comfort, that he doesn't want to let go of it.
Viktor shifts in his seat, wriggling with discomfort. He drawls out a high-strung whine, behind his pacifier.
Jayce tries to reach for the loop of the device, and Viktor outright wails.
Jayce flinches, “Shit – shit,” he panics, sloshing the cup of milk, spilling some of it onto Viktor's sock.
Viktor flaps his arms in discomfort and continues wailing.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I won't take it.” Viktor curls into a ball, pressing himself into the back of the couch.
“Meanie,” he whimpers.
“Noo,” Jayce jests, placing the mug on the floor to grab Viktor's socked feet playfully,
"Papa isn't mean, he didn't mean it, honest, baby boy,” he counters, pleading for forgiveness.
Jayce sighs mid attempt, because gosh, did it really have to be this difficult to get a baby to sleep?
Viktor makes grabby hands in the air, his face still hidden against his bony little shoulder.
“You want papa?”
“Milk,” he requests, voice slurring behind his pacifier.
“Oh,” Jayce says, feeling a little silly, holding out the cup of cooling sweet-milk.
Viktor grasps the mug and continues suckling on his pacifier quietly.
The drink stays suspended in air in-between his hands.
“Aren't you going to drink some?” Jayce inquires, rubbing at Viktor's kneecap affectionately.
“Mmm…” Viktor whines, deciding on his course of action.
“You want them both, huh?” Viktor nods, and then shyly sticks out his free hand,
“Papa?” He pleads, voice small. Jayce takes the initiative to put Viktor in his lap for a cuddle, and holds the cup of milk for him.
He raises the cup to Viktor's mouth, and Viktor settles on intervals between his pacifier and milk.
“You're such a smart baby, figuring out to take turns like this,” Jayce praises, kissing the crown of Viktor's head. His hair smells like baby shampoo.
Viktor looks up at him tiredly, “mmm…” is all he mutters, before pushing the half full cup of milk away.
“Full? No more?” Viktor nods, and tucks himself into Jayce's side, snuggling for warmth.
“You know baby… this gives papa an idea.”
Viktor just offers a confused expression, before happily curling up into Jayce's arms as he picks him up and carries him to bed.
The next time Viktor is regressed, he's sat in Jayce's lap at the lab. The door is locked, and it's after hours.
Viktor sleepily hums as he watches the lights from their large pane windows. The sky is a gentle purple, stars stretching through the skyline. Jayce always says Viktor's moles are like constellations themselves.
Jayce bounces his knees to keep Viktor awake, since carrying a grown man asleep would likely raise… concerns if they were to run into anybody.
“Just a little longer,” Jayce whispers, absent-mindedly pressing a wet kiss to Viktor's cheek. Viktor squeals with frustration, mostly for feeling absent joy.
“I have a surprise for you when we get home, can you behave until then?” Jayce shushes his baby's grievances with a stern voice and a plethora of kisses.
He continues scribbling out a few minor adjustments for one of the blueprint angles, and calculations on the sinusoidal periodic flow of the hex-gate's duration periods.
He haphazardly gathers and stuffs them all in his satchel before escorting Viktor out of the laboratory.
“Come on!” Jayce grins, practically radiating with kinetic energy.
Viktor drowsily trails along, curious, albeit grumpy.
He reaches outwards for Jayce, and his mind soars with satisfaction when he clasps their hands together.
It's 1:24 AM and quiet in Piltover.
Viktor is lazily picking his nail beds, curled up on their loveseat. Jayce is busy boiling the kettle of milk and sugar, bustling happily, and noisily for such a late night.
Viktor finds himself agitated instead of infected with his partner's good mood.
Viktor peeks up and sees that Jayce's back is still turned, and decides it's a good time to promptly shove his thumb in his mouth and begin suckling.
Whenever Jayce is near, he makes sure Viktor's hands stay out of his mouth, much to Viktor's whining dismay.
More shuffling and clanking sounds are reoccurring like soft music, and Viktor is almost completely asleep by the time Jayce returns.
Instead of the stern voice Viktor would normally be met with, Jayce chuckles at the state of his partner.
Viktor genuinely resembles a baby with the way his expression is so drunkenly soft and sleepy.
Jayce plucks Viktor's hand and pulls out his thumb with a soft pop, and offers something new.
It's a baby bottle.
“Look what I got you, Vik.” Jayce is grinning like a fool.
Viktor makes a face of confusion. “Mhh?”
“I bought it like, two weeks ago. I was waiting for you to regress – come on, try it.”
Viktor doesn't move, instead whines, and shuffles deeper into the seat. Jayce scoops him up with one hand, eliciting a squirmy yelp of horror, before he's placed back into his Papa's lap.
“It's like your two favorite things wrapped up into one – milk and a pacifier nib. But you can have them both, now!”
Jayce's excitement is infectious, no matter how badly Viktor wants to remain grumpy.
Viktor's teeth are poking against his top lip as he struggles to smile in his drowsy haze, and he accepts the nip into his mouth nervously.
Jayce tips him back and presses him into his neck like someone might do with an actual infant, and Viktor giggles, deliriously happy to be tiny.
Viktor gives the bottle a curious suckle, and is pleasantly surprised to be rewarded with sweet, warm milk flooding his throat in a gentle dribble.
Viktor looks up at Jayce and smiles so hard, his eyes crease.
Jayce soothes his hair, and says, “Is it good, my sweet baby?”
Viktor tries to coo in response, but accidentally spills the precious liquid all over his mouth, but his Papa quickly wipes it up with his sleeve. “Careful now, honey. Drink it all up, okay?”
Viktor stifles a nod, and falls back into a ravenous pattern of loud sucks from the bottle. It takes a good ten minutes before the bottle is mostly empty, and Viktor is so sleepy and milk-drunk, he doesn't even try to move.
He whines quietly when Jayce pulls the nip out of his mouth, mourning the weight of comfort. He continues fussing as Jayce moves his head to his shoulder, and begins patting his back.
“Sorry, sorry V,” Jayce reasons, “but I have to burp you, or your tummy will ache.”
Viktor murmurs a few exhausted babbles, before finally, exhaling a quiet burp.
Jayce squeezes Viktor in the tightest embrace; “Good job baby! You did so well!”
Viktor feels pleasantly proud at how well he did during his first bottle feeding, along with feeling perfectly full and equally exhausted.
The tight warmth of Jayce's arms are nothing but an invite for sleep, and Viktor passes out on his shoulder, snoring softly into his partner's ear. Jayce grins proudly, his plan had been a great success. A perfect ending to a great day.
“I'll always look for ways to care for you, my love.” Jayce whispers into the soft curls of Viktor's hair, a promise of his devotion.