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After celebrating Jayce's birthday at The Last Drop amidst family and friends, Viktor and Jayce return home to their apartment for their own small party with just the two of them. A small vanilla cake covered in sprinkles sits waiting on the kitchen counter, while Viktor and Jayce settle in the living room, the TV turned on low to some cartoon Viktor doesn’t know the name of. Neither of them pay attention to it.
The last rays of the evening sun come through the open windows, and a slight breeze waves Viktor's potted ivy on the windowsill. The scent of baked pavement wafts from below. Leftover booze leaves Viktor warm and loose, while Jayce slips all the way down now that they're back home and alone.
“Happy birthday, darling.” Viktor smiles as he hands Jayce his first gift, a box wrapped in blue paper patterned with yellow stars - different wrapping than what Viktor had used on the gifts Jayce opened at the bar. He hadn't wanted to get them mixed up, and both sides of Jayce deserve to feel special.
Jayce takes the gift with wide eyes and gentle hands, then looks back up at Viktor as though unsure what to do next. The blue party hat Viktor insisted on tilts to the side like a lopsided horn.
“Well?” Viktor laughs, and leans back against the sofa. “Are you going to open it?”
Now with permission, Jayce tears into it, revealing a colorful box depicting toy building blocks, and gasps, “Wow!” He trails his fingers over the picture, then begins to open it with clumsy hands.
“Hold on, honey,” Viktor says, and Jayce stills, blinking up at him with shiny eyes. “You still have three more presents, and then you can play with whatever you want.”
Jayce's gaze draws back to Viktor's side where three other star patterned gifts rest, and sets the blocks to the side, giving it one last longing glance, before reaching for the next one. It's square and thin, and Viktor has the pleasure of watching Jayce's concentrated face turn delighted when he sees what's underneath.
“It's a puzzle!” He turns it around to show it off as though Viktor wasn't the one who bought and wrapped it. It's forty-eight pieces and features different types of dinosaurs and their names; Viktor is already getting heart palpitations at the thought of Jayce trying to pronounce them.
“That's right,” Viktor says, and nearly doesn't recognize his own voice. “Do you like it?”
“Uh-huh!” Jayce beams, showing off the gap in his front teeth as he hugs the puzzle to his chest. “It's got a Carch - charchas- “
Dear god. Viktor is no stranger to chest pain, but there's only so much affection his body's able to handle before his organs start to shut down. He breathes through the pain, and hands Jayce the next present while he's still butchering dinosaur names. “Here, honey, this one next.”
Jayce puts the puzzle in his lap, and opens the new gift: a coloring book from the aquarium they'd visited a month ago. He practically squeals, and begins flipping through the pages, running his fingers over the inked lines.
It's so easy to make him happy, especially like this. If Vikor adds a whip cream smiley face to Jayce's pancakes, or tells him “hold my hand in the parking lot, sweetheart.” or buys him a simple coloring book, they all bring Jayce such joy. Viktor has an addiction.
“Last one,” Viktor tells him, and Jayce takes it with two hands. It's a plain box under the wrapping paper. Jayce unfolds the top and pulls out a gray stuffed rabbit as long as his forearm, and gasps, jaw slack and hands fluttering like he doesn't know what to do with them.
Jayce squeezes the rabbit so hard Viktor has a passing concern about the seams holding. “I love him! Thank you, thank you!”
“You're welcome, sweet boy.” Viktor leans forward, and kisses him on the forehead. “What will you name him?”
“Oh. Hm.” Jayce's brow furrows as he fiddles with one of the rabbit's ears, then brightens. “Hoppy! Hoppy Birthday, cuz I got him on my birthday.” He seems immensely pleased with his own cleverness, and Viktor tries not to go into cardiac arrest.
“A very good name,” Viktor praises, and Jayce beams at him, yet again unbelievablely pleased by just a few words. “What will you play with first, hm?”
His poor boy looks between his five gifts, helpless with indecision, and brings his thumb to his mouth as he deliberates. It's an adorable sight, but Viktor is too aware of all the things Jayce touches throughout the day.
“Hands out of your mouth, sweet boy,” he corrects, and tugs on his wrist. “Do you want your chew or your pacifier?”
“Um,” Jayce mumbles, and looks up at Viktor through his lashes. “Pacifier, please.”
“Very good manners.” Unable to help himself, Viktor gives him another kiss before standing, careful of Jayce's sprawled legs. “Just a moment, sweetheart.” He heads to their bedroom closet where a blue, wooden box hides behind hung dress shirts, and reaches inside for the small plastic case that holds Jayce's pacifier. He leaves the case on the bathroom counter for afterwards when it's cleaned, and returns to the sofa with Jayce still on the floor and attempting to hold Hoppy while also struggling to open the building blocks.
“Here, honey, let's trade.” Viktor chuckles, and passes Jayce the pacifier, which immediately goes into his mouth. Jayce gives him the box, and Viktor opens it with the scissors he'd stashed nearby. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Jayce says, words thick and clumsy from behind his pacifier, and tips the box over, uncaring of the deafening clatter of wood against wood. Viktor winces - their downstairs neighbor would not appreciate that.
Alas, the damage had already been done, so Viktor simply sighs and gets comfortable on the couch so he can watch Jayce entertain himself. Hoppy lies nearby.
Jayce gives the blocks his undivided attention, eyes narrowed and hands steady, treating them like delicate machine parts as he stacks them into something resembling a house. He appears the same physically - still the same height, still dense with muscle, still has a perpetual five o’ clock shadow - but Viktor can't help marveling at how young Jayce looks. There's some kind of light in his eyes, something in the way he moves that screams innocence, and it draws out the feral, possessive street rat Viktor used to be. Viktor shares Jayce with people every day - friends, family, the board, academia as a whole - but this side of Jayce belongs only to Viktor. He's the only one who gets to hold him and wipe his face and feed him and see the weight Jayce carries fall from those broad shoulders when he gets to be Daddy's sweet boy.
At first, Viktor relied on instinct. Ever since their first year of living together, Viktor knew of Jayce's winter struggles. It was obvious to anyone with working vision. Jayce has an easy, boyish charm, and while it's genuine he uses it as a type of armor, and in the winter it's blatantly clear where the cracks lie. His words slow. He becomes irritable. He refuses to drive if there's even a film of snow on the road. And yet, he somehow thought he needed to tell Viktor verbally he has PTSD, even if he never uses that term.
Viktor saw the news article. Not because he went searching, but because he'd found it cut out at Ximena's, and when she noticed him reading she'd explained. They'd been in a car accident driving back home after visiting family. Black ice. The car flipped over the guard rail and landed upside down out of view from the highway with Ximena trapped in the driver's seat. At seven years old, Jayce walked back to the highway and flagged down a passing truck, while his mother waited, trapped and dying. She'd shown Viktor the two fingers she lost from frostbite.
Viktor had a dream or two about it. Of the little boy he'd seen photos of, plump and smiley, crying in a freezing, wrecked car. His breath would fog in the cold air as he called out, “Please, someone help!” He would've gone back and forth between the car and the road, listening for passing cars while unwilling to leave his mother's side completely, little legs struggling in the deep snow. After Viktor woke, he'd pulled Jayce closer, tucked himself into Jayce's ribcage to feel his heart and the living heat of him, while Jayce slept none the wiser.
So when he'd discovered Jayce hiding in a haphazard blanket fort six months ago during a bad snowstorm it wasn't hard to guess why. And when he'd looked up at Viktor, all soft and trusting and called him Daddy Viktor knew he was done for.
“Daddy, look!”
Viktor comes back to awareness, and looks down at Jayce's creation. It's a four wall structure with two blocks leaning against one another to form a sloping roof. It's certainly no neurological controlled mechanical arm, which is what they're currently working on at the lab, but Viktor is proud nonetheless, and tells him so. “Well done. I can tell you worked hard.”
Jayce is incandescent with joy. He smiles so wide his eyes disappear into his cheeks, his whole face flushed and glowing. Why Jayce ever thought Viktor would deny him this he doesn't know. Even from a purely selfish standpoint, who wouldn't want this beautiful specimen of a man looking at them like they're a deity born in flesh? It makes Viktor feel ten meters tall, the way Jayce curls himself up into something small enough for Viktor to carry. He won't drop him, won't let him go.
Back around Christmas he'd thrown himself into research the way he did when presented with any new topic he didn't know much about. Thank God for Google. He wasn't sure if regressing was something Jayce would want to do again, but just in case he wanted to be ready, so he bought something small to show him Viktor held no judgement - a pacifier. Jayce tends to go through life mouth first, and watching him suck on his thumb in an effort to self-soothe unlocked something inside Viktor he hadn't known about. He knew he couldn't save Jayce as a child, but maybe he could protect him now in this smaller way, with words and love and an open mind.
“Oof!” Viktor is gently trampled by Jayce climbing his way into Viktor's lap, Hoppy under his arm and still nursing his pacifier. He settles his head in Viktor's lap and curls toward Viktor's stomach, legs spilling off the end of the couch - a mastiff insisting on being a lapdog. “Hello, darling.” Viktor runs his fingers through Jayce's hair, still a bit sticky with leftover pomade. “Are you sleepy?”
Jayce hums. This close, Viktor hears the slight sucking noises coming from Jayce's mouth, and watches his blinks go slower and slower. He supposes two birthday parties in a single day will do that to someone, especially little boys. Viktor turns off the TV. “Do you want to have a piece of your cake? Or should I put it away and we can eat it tomorrow?”
Jayce doesn't answer. Viktor glances back down, and the sight is so helplessly charming Viktor presses a fist to his mouth and inhales - Jayce has fallen asleep. His mouth is slack and letting out even breaths, while the pacifier is barely hanging on. His cheeks are pink, his eyelashes a smudge of charcoal against golden skin, his party hat dented and digging into Viktor's arm. Viktor hooks a finger underneath the string and slowly pulls it off; there's a red line where the elastic dug into his jaw.
He'll need to wake him up eventually. Even as small as his boy is, there's no way Viktor can carry him and Viktor's joints won't survive a night on the couch, but there's no harm in letting him sleep for a few minutes. “Rest now,” Viktor whispers, and tucks the pacifier in his pocket. “Daddy has you, sweet boy.”
The night air smells of summer.