Chapter Text
Winter, always a bit of a shit show for Piltover’s Science Academy, had just begun in earnest when it happened.
The change in seasons brought not just crisp mornings and Snowdown festivities but an inevitable season of sickness.
The academy’s plentiful outdoor spaces turned quickly from sunny and inviting to cold and desolate. Students and professionals alike were shuttering windows and retreating to huddle in the Academy’s well-heated buildings.
All those intermingling breaths blended with the lingering funk left by the crowds from the previous month’s harvest festivities, to make the academy a variable Petri dish for communicable disease.
The year before Viktor had rarely been seen outside of the lab or his home for the better part of two months, and if he did venture out, it was always with a medical-grade respirator.
A nasty chest cold had burned through the Academy’s biology and chemistry departments before cooling and settling like a musty rain-soaked blanket over the HexTech Lab.
With his tendency towards lingering respiratory illness, his lungs' ever increasing intolerance to the cold air, and his overall weakened immune system, Viktor had been loath to lose days of work to illness.
When the mask hadn’t been enough, the virus had taken to Viktor’s lungs like fire to dry tinder and he’d been forced into bed. No one expected him back until at least the start of the new work week but suddenly, on the third day, he’d reappeared.
Jayce had arrived before dawn to the lab; to attempt to fix a difficult equation he’d sorted out in the shower the night before, and found Viktor, ghostly pale, red-nosed, and wheezing asleep at his desk.
Tucking away his shock and worry Jayce had nervously joked that until he was no longer “tilting like a grumpy dandelion” Viktor should really stay home.
Viktor, not really up to mentally or physically doing much else had let his partner take him home and had stayed there for another week until he could speak without coughing up a lung and stand without nearly passing out.
But seeing him in that state gave everyone quite a scare and Jayce being Jayce felt the need to “help” the situation.
-
Shortly after Viktor had returned from his coerced sick leave Jayce had called for a “lab staff meeting” to discuss potential changes to the “lab safety bylaws”.
Jayce’s eyes snuck nervous glances at Viktor as he read out his proposed amendments.
“Violating the following conditions will have you banned from the lab for the remainder of the work day. One: Coming into the lab with a fever of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Two: Coming into the lab if you have vomited in the past 24 hours for reasons not due to inebriation or chronic health condition. Three: Attempting to continue working in a state of exhaustion, rendering you unable to remember how to spell your own name.”
Viktor rolled his eyes
“And four, stealing your partner’s yogurt from the break room icebox,” Jayce tried and failed to inject some humor into the tense silence.
Viktor turned slightly pink.
That has nothing to do with safety.
Viktor had had some questions as to the usefulness of Jayce’s amendments.
“This is ridiculous. We have no reason to believe anyone would intentionally endanger the health of anyone else in the lab, especially not enough to threaten punishment. Is this really a discussion worthy of our time?”
Viktor made appeals to authority.
“Jayce, we are equal partners, and as you cannot implement this without my consent, I don’t know why you are bothering to present this. Also you are not the lab safety officer; Miss Young is.”
“I um- abdicated responsibility to Jayce in this circumstance,” Sky said guiltily, pushing up her glasses, “and technically the bylaws state that in matters like this we really just need a two-thirds majority concurrence with the staff.”
Viktor stared at her mutinously, as if he wasn't the one to write the bylaws, and crossed his arms. “I appreciate your concern, what I do not appreciate is both of you conspiring behind my back.”
One of their student interns in attendance (the other, unsurprisingly, was out sick) raised their hand immediately, igniting Viktor’s hope for an ally, only to be disappointed almost immediately.
“If I vote to complete the two-thirds majority with Miss. Young and Mr. Talis can I leave? Because if this is the only reason for the emergency meeting, I really do have a midterm paper to complete.”
“Midterms?” Viktor threw up his hands in exasperation, “They have midterms, Jayce. Why are we distracting them from their studies for something as unnecessary and inconsequential as this? And when did we decide the interns have a vote anyway?”
“Doesn’t matter either way technically,” Jayce said, feeling a pang of guilt but refusing to act admonished or be distracted, “even if neither intern can vote it would still be 2:1 and if they can it would be at best 3:2…”
“So I can leave?” the intern asked, looking for all the world like a kid caught in an argument between their parents.
“Yes,”
“No!” Jayce said without thinking.
The intern froze like a frog in a floodlight.
“I mean… sorry.” Jayce’s face heated, “yes”.
Viktor tried reasoning with Jayce.
“We are all professionals here, we don’t have restrictions on when someone can call out sick, and we all understand the precautions needed not to endanger the health of others. Why do you deem this necessary?”
“What exactly do you have against it?” Jayce couldn’t help but blurt, “Because all I’ve heard is that you think it’s stupid?”
Viktor looked affronted, huffing out an exasperated breath and shaking his head.
When all else failed, Viktor finally tried bargaining.
“The most I will agree to is a fever in the past 12 hours and exhaustion protocol can be overridden before a major deadline.”
“Viktor-”
Viktor gave Jayce a deeply indignant look, daring him to speak over him again, and it made Jayce’s mouth snap shut, though his partner’s voice was deadly calm and diplomatic when he spoke.
A sure sign he’d gone too far.
“May I remind you, Jayce that whatever rules we agree to today you must also abide by?”
Jayce felt immediately sheepish.
“…fine.”
And eventually a new health policy for the lab was agreed upon.
Luckily, unlike the previous year, it appeared that the Academy had been spared any major outbreak of respiratory illness or flu.
Unfortunately, what had dug its roots into the flagstones was a rather unpleasant 24-hour bug.
As midterms approached again, the main campus janitorial staff was frequently seen hurrying around trying to stop the spread by sanitizing heavily frequented areas around the main buildings and mess hall.
Their research assistant, Sky, was the first in the lab to fall ill, the poor girl.
When Jayce and Viktor arrived at the HexTech lab early one chilly morning to find the doors still locked and windows dark they were dismayed but unsurprised to find an apologetic message waiting in the mail tube.
Miss Young, still living in one of the academy's residence halls surrounded by underclassmen, was feeling under the weather and was unable to come in to work.
“So it begins,” Jayce said ominously, going to prepare the coffee as Viktor riffled through drawers for paper and pen to quickly scratch out a reply.
-
Miss Young,
Please take all the time you need, rest today and simply notify us if you need additional time to recover.
-Viktor, HexTech Labs, Piltover Academy
-
After a few minutes Jayce returned with two freshly percolated cups of coffee. ( One black, modestly sweetened with a single spoon of honey and a pinch of cinnamon for himself, and the other pale with sweet cream and an ungodly amount of sugar for Viktor)
He leaned in close over his partner’s shoulder to read the letter, his breath causing pale goosebumps to rise on the back of Viktor’s neck
Jayce reached for the pen and scrawled over Viktor's shoulder…
-
P.S.
Rest easy, we'll take care of your plants and the paperwork, don't come back until you're feeling better, lab rules.
-JT
-
Sky returned the following day, appearing a little pale but otherwise her usual cheerful self, and the lab quickly returned to its usual comfortable rhythm with barely a blip in productivity.
That was at least until Jayce suddenly called for a dinner break, forearms deep in the shell of their newest prototype.
At 4 in the afternoon .
Viktor blinked up at him owlishly from behind his goggles, “are you sure?”
They had been finalizing the design of an updated power module. As the hexcrystals would need to be transported by train to a new hexgate project across the Ionian mountain range, they had to create something that would serve both as stable transport for the volatile crystal and subsequently slot directly into the new machine.
“Yeah,” Jayce said curtly, wincing and rubbing the bridge of his nose as if banishing a headache before giving Viktor a not-so-reassuring grimace. “I’m feeling a little shaky, and I really don’t want to screw up the framework. Do you want me to get you anything?”
“No, I brought something. I thought we were having a working supper today,” Viktor frowned, setting aside his soldering gun and pulling his goggles free to get a better look at his partner.
Jayce’s shoulders slumped in relief at his refusal, making it clear he only offered to get Viktor something to be polite.
“Are you alright?” Viktor asked, a little perturbed.
“I just…” Jayce paused, rubbing a hand across his face, “I just need to clear my head for a bit, get some fresh air I think.”
Jayce immediately grabbed for his coat and headed for the lab door, leaving a befuddled Viktor behind.
An hour and a half later, when Jayce had still not returned, Viktor went searching for him only to find their parts supply closer cracked open and Jayce inside.
He was nestled between boxes of washers, lying with his jacket folded under his head and his feet propped up on a crate of lightbulbs..
“Jayce?”
The man groaned quietly from the floor before cracking open glazed eyes, “I’m not sleeping…”
“Clearly,” Viktor observed.
“No really…” Jayce sighed, rubbing at his face miserably before sitting up, “I tried.”
Viktor’s concern deepened along with the crease between his brows, but he stepped back as Jayce pushed himself up from the floor and half stumbled to lean on the door frame.
“Are you alright, Jayce?”
Jayce shrugged, reaching out to give Viktor a half-hearted pat on the back; “I’ll live,” he muttered unconvincingly, his usually warm tan face washed out to a dull taupe as he staggered over to the desk with the prototype pieces strewn across it.
Wordlessly, Viktor joined him and they resumed their work, though Viktor could not help nervously studying his partner every few minutes.
Viktor’s suspicions were confirmed ten minutes later when Jayce suddenly shot up, his chair screeching back before tipping and clattering to the floor.
Jayce paid the racket no mind, eyes trained on the window set behind the desk, his face a stony grey/green mask.
He lurched forward, bracing both hands against the desk before scrambling up to kneel on top of it, knocking papers to the floor as a startled Viktor quickly yanked the prototype out of harm’s way.
Jayce scrabbled to pop open the emergency panel on the decorative window set behind the desk before shoving his head out of it.
Viktor could only watch alarmed as Jayce heaved his guts up out the window, perched awkwardly atop the desk.
After a long, horrified moment of watching Jayce’s shoulders quake, as he graced the rooftop of the building with his stomach contents, Viktor gingerly set aside the prototype and scooted his stool closer.
“Jayce?” Viktor asked tentatively.
The Jayce in question only gagged in response, his back convulsing and making Viktor’s own stomach twist in sympathy.
Viktor sighed, unsurprised after the initial shock, reaching awkwardly to pat Jayce’s booted calf in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.
A soft click heralded the lab doors opening, and a familiar bespectacled young woman stepped into the lab carrying an open box of components.
“Ah, Miss Young,” Viktor straightened, flushing and removing his free hand from Jayce’s leg and placing it atop his cane as if nothing was amiss. “If you could please do us a favor and send for a carriage, Mr. Talis is um… under the weather and heading home for the evening.”
Sky’s eyes flitted between Viktor’s pink face and her other boss hanging out the window, for a moment, only the sound of violent retching filled the awkward silence.
Her mouth, which had been hanging open in confusion, snapped shut, and she nodded, handing over the box quickly and leaving with a swift, “Feel better, Jayce.”
Jayce had no response except to groan, stomach still cramping but no longer trying to eject itself.
“I’ll get your coat,” Viktor said as soon as the door closed behind Sky, his tone making it clear he was unwilling to listen to argument.
Jayce gave a soft grunt of protest, spitting disgustedly out the window before resting his head exhausted against the windowsill.
“I… I’ll get it in a minute,” Jayce swallowed and tried to settle himself by taking deep breaths of the cold winter air, “don’t want you… getting sick too.”
“Eh,” Viktor scoffed dismissively, cane clicking softly as he moved across the lab, returning from the closet a moment later with the pale wool jacket Jayce favored and settling it carefully across the man’s back.
“Don't be ridiculous, I have been working side by side with you and sharing tools for days. It would be a miracle if I haven’t been exposed already with both you and Miss Young falling ill.”
“I’m sorry, Viktor,” Jayce muttered shakily, pulling himself out of the window frame and moving to sit on the edge of the desk, metal creaking under his weight and several screws rolling to join the papers on the floor.
Viktor paid them no mind, fishing around in his pockets until he pulled out a rumpled but clean handkerchief and held it out to Jayce, who took it gingerly.
“Sorry for what?”
“We’re supposed to present the prototype to the railroad safety committee in two days.” Jayce’s face contorted in misery and frustration, wiping traces of vomit from his mouth.
Viktor just shrugged unaffected, “We’ve already completed the design and machined the parts for the stabilization unit, all that’s left to do is finish constructing the prototype, make sure it fits all the transportation committee’s requirements, and then write the instructions for the production team. None of those things are particularly difficult or requires collaboration. I can easily finish them on my own.”
It would probably take much longer without a second pair of hands, and be intensely tedious without company, but it was nothing Viktor hadn’t done before.
Still, Jayce felt a pang of guilt along with the nausea, “I mean, I feel a bit better now, after I- you know. And you said yourself, everyone here has already been exposed I could-“
“No.” Viktor cut him off, making Jayce pout at him like an overgrown child. Viktor stared back, jaw tight, unmoved. “You know the rules, you are vomiting and I am expecting feverish, you cannot stay in the lab.”
Jayce opened his mouth to protest, only to quickly snap it shut and press a fist against it.
“Oh no.” Viktor breathed, ducking for a nearby trash can, which had been conveniently under the desk the entire time.
Jayce just belched quietly and waved him away, “I’m okay.”
Viktor frowned, eyes tracing him up and down, taking in the sweat sticking his dark rumpled hair to his forehead, the feverish gleam in his eyes and the way his hands shook with aftershocks of adrenaline from launching his breakfast from a great height.
It would have been more convincing if he had claimed to be Heimerdinger in disguise.
“Jayce.”
“Hmm?”
“Please go home.”
“Viktor-“
“Did you not enforce the lab health code with Miss Young just yesterday?” Viktor cut him off voice cooling.
Jayce broke eye contact, wincing internally and shivering as the cold winter breeze from the window blew across the back of his sweat soaked neck.
Of course, Viktor remembered that, even if his little addition to the note was meant mainly as a joke and reassurance that none of Sky’s projects would be left unattended in her absence.
“Or do your rules only apply to others? Viktor said voice casual, but eyes suddenly knife-sharp..
Jayce swallowed thickly; he knew better than to push on the subject. He could still remember the suffocating silence in the lab in the week following the “lab safety meeting,” and though Viktor had never said it out loud, it had been abundantly clear to Jayce he’d overstepped.
It wasn’t as if Jayce had sought to piss Viktor off, he’d tried to argue with himself. He’d only introduced the amendment out of concern for his partner’s well-being.
It had scared the shit out of Jayce to come into the lab in the early morning hours to find Viktor asleep at his desk.
Hospital bracelet on one wrist, face flushed, breath rattling like he had a chest full of marbles, a Bunsen burner on his desk still lit and burning soot streaks up the side of a glass flask, its contents long since evaporated away.
Viktor had been feverish enough when he awoke that he hadn’t even been sure what he’d been trying to make or when he’d gotten into the lab. And when asked about the hospital visit, he’d simply shrugged and said not to worry, “it was only because my doctor insisted, they didn’t stop me from leaving.”
As if that was somehow at all reassuring.
And anyway, it wasn’t as if Jayce would have pressed the issue if Viktor had expressed any real issues with the rules besides general contempt for the concept.
And in hindsight, he should have talked to Viktor about the idea instead of springing it on him.
But whenever Jayce had tried to talk to Viktor about what happened when he’d come in so sick, he’d brush him off and immediately change the subject.
At the time, it had felt like the only way to get through to Viktor and make him understand how worried he made him, how much he wished his partner would put himself first once in a while.
He should have just taken the hint that Viktor didn’t want him inserting himself into matters about his health; that Jayce should have just let it go.
Instead, he had- what? Staged some sort of ill-conceived intervention? Acted without thinking and made Viktor feel cornered and pressured into making a decision he clearly hadn’t wanted to make?
Made him put up a wall between them that still made Jayce’s heart drop and put a weight in the pit of his stomach when he thought about it.
Even now, a year removed, Jayce still half expected to see the same closed-off, quietly fuming expression Viktor had worn for days after the meeting when he met his eyes again.
Instead, whatever frustration had quickly sparked in Viktor seemed to evaporate from his warm, golden eyes, leaving only a soft frown of pure concern.
Jayce felt his own resolve melt away just as quickly, shoulders dropping from their defensive posture. He felt like shit, exhaustion weighing him down like someone had strapped his own anvil to his back, nausea rocking uneasily in his gut like a badly tethered rowboat in the Piltovian harbor.
“Fine,” Jayce relented.
-------
It was a good thing Jayce agreed, as when the carriage finally arrived 15 minutes later, Viktor and Sky had to peel him up from the floor of the bathroom after another bout of sickness had driven him from the lab.
They helped him up into the cabin of the carriage with one of the lab’s waste baskets cradled in his arms.
“I’ll eh, I’ll bring you some soup later,” Viktor promised as Sky stepped away to discreetly bribe the less-than-keen carriage driver (with money Viktor had surreptitiously slipped into her lab coat pocket).
Jayce groaned, leaning against the wall of the carriage cabin, already dreading the long, bumpy ride across the cobblestone streets.
“No thanks,”
“Nonsense, nothing is better once you stop, eh… puking your guts up,” Viktor winced at his own phrasing, “nutrition and hydration all in one go of it, very efficient.”
Jayce narrowed his eyes on his now ex-best friend Viktor. Just the thought of eating liquid with chunks was enough to make saliva pool in the back of Jayce's mouth, and he spat mulishly, hugging his new best friend the wastebasket closer.
“You’ll send a message if you run into any trouble with the stabilization, right?”
Viktor acted as if he hadn’t heard, tilting his head away and exchanging a nod with Sky as the driver stuffed a few gold coins into his pocket and climbed into the front compartment of the motor carriage.
“Viktor?” Jayce shifted as if to exit the carriage, only to get a soft thump on the knee with the handle of Viktor’s cane.
“I will send word if the lab explodes, for anything less, I will just get Sky and perhaps an intern to help.”
“Vik-“
“If you ‘Vik’ me one more time I will contact your mother,” Viktor deadpanned, though the corners of his mouth twitched.
Jayce huffed but settled back against the carriage cushions.
He was no match for the soft frown of fond concern that graced his partner’s face as he almost absently reached a cool hand to feel the side of Jayce’s neck.
“You’re running a temperature.”
Jayce held very still, not wanting the comforting hand to pull away.
Inches away, Viktor’s warm eyes lost all of the guarded aloof affectation he wore whenever they left the sanctity of the lab for something more real, more Viktor, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle and pleading.
“We will survive without you for a day, Jayce. Please just try and get some rest.”
And how could Jayce ever argue against that?
——
Jayce carried the image in the forefront of his mind the whole way home. He cradled it close for comfort as he spent a long, sweat-soaked night oscillating violently between fitful dozing in his oversized bathtub and clinging to his bedroom’s ensuite toilet for dear life.
He finally fell into something resembling deep slumber a few hours after sunrise with his face pressed against the cool tile floor of his bathroom, and only awoke hours later when the gloomy winter sun had long since passed its peak.
His mouth tasted like shit, and his back was sore, but the violent sea of nausea shipwrecked him on dry land, a little queasy, rung out, and faintly traumatized but in one piece.
After sort of tolerating a picked-apart piece of toast and most of a mug of herbal tea, Jayce was perhaps feeling a little overconfident about his return to health. He sent a message to the HexTech lab via Piltover’s tube system, offering to come in to help finish their prototype for the railway board.
Only for the siren song of warmth from his sitting room’s fireplace to lure his exhausted body back to sleep, a few minutes into the wait for a reply.
He awoke a few hours later to a cool hand gently pressed to his forehead.
“Viktor?” He mumbled, blinking blearily to bring the slim figure into focus.
It was not Viktor, but his mother hovering over him, eyebrows drawn together in concern.
Jayce was suddenly aware he was curled up on the rug of his sitting room in front of the low banked fire, hugging a decorative pillow.
In just his boxers and housecoat.
Jayce’s feverish face turned red.
Viktor, true to his word, must have contacted her.
“Little snitch,” Jayce grumbled to himself, pressing his burning face into the embroidered pillow.
Ximena quickly shooed him to bed, like he was still twelve, admonishing him lightly for his comment.
“Don’t be rude, you worried the poor boy.”
Once he was settled beneath several blankets, she brought him yet more tea and some soup made purposely bland (mostly chicken/tomato broth with small noodles). When she was satisfied he’d finished enough of it to take a fever reducer, she set up camp outside his bedroom door with a book and refused to go home until he went back to sleep.
It felt embarrassingly like the time he was grounded as a teenager for using the backs of his mother's fine porcelain dinnerware to scratch-test minerals.
Jayce was determined to feign sleep and sneak out to the lab as soon as his mother left. Unfortunately, before he could come up with a concrete plan, his exhausted body drifted off into a fever dream (of becoming a jewel thief), and he did not awaken until his alarm went off the next morning.
Two hours before the meeting with the railway safety committee.
—
He'd rushed to press his suit and shower, the hot water rinsing away the last of the sickness clinging to his skin and leaving him refreshed and ravenously hungry.
With little time to prepare or send out for breakfast, Jayce scoured his icebox and saw his mother had left a tureen with the rest of the soup she had brought the night before. The noodles were a little soggy but perfectly serviceable.
He felt a pang in his stomach that nearly killed his appetite and had nothing to do with nausea or anything physical when he realized there was one promise Viktor hadn't kept. He'd never come by to bring him soup. Jayce brushed off the sinking feeling of disappointment. Maybe he had come by and Jayce had been too deeply asleep to hear the door, or he'd been joking, or he didn’t want to listen to Jayce complain about him ratting him out to Ximena.
Jayce decided to good-naturedly needle him about it when they met up in the lab.
However, when Jayce bustled his way into the lab (not even bothering to shuck off his coat with minutes to spare) to gather both Viktor and the prototype before their meeting, Viktor was nowhere to be found.
The only sign of the man was an unsealed message cylinder beside their packed away prototype.
The note inside was written in Viktor’s hand.
-
To whom it may concern,
I am very sorry, but I am feeling quite unwell today, and it would be ill-advised for me to come into the lab.-
-
“Ah Vik…” Jayce grimaced, trying not to replay the nightmare of his last 24 hours with Viktor set in the lead role.
Viktor had said it was only a matter of time, with the bug bouncing around the lab, especially with his “less than stellar” immune system, but Jayce had been hoping against hope it would pass him over.
-
I apologize for not finishing the production instructions within the time frame we were hoping. I attempted to finish them before leaving for the evening but ran out of time. There should be some time to finish them in the morning if needs be. The prototype is finished and should be ready for the railway board however, the blueprints are not updated. The diagrams should be in the top drawer, and you will need to copy them into the final blueprint if I am unavailable to do so.
-V
-
Jayce sighed and rubbed at his face, caught between concern and exasperation. The production notes weren’t truly needed until Tuesday, so they could just come in on the weekend to finish them. But if the blueprints still weren’t finished, that likely meant the prototype had in fact needed significant adjustments. Something Jayce could have helped finish if Viktor had taken his help when it was offered, instead of setting his mother on him.
And what did Viktor mean by “I attempted to finish them… but ran out of time”?
If it were anyone else, he’d say it got late and they went home. But Jayce couldn’t count the number of times Viktor had worked through the night, refusing to leave until he saw a job done, meaning in all likelihood Viktor worked until he felt too sick to continue.
And he lectured Jayce on his self-care?
But there was no time to lament his partner’s absurd stubbornness, not with his late arrival to the lab this morning, not when the railroad union was looking for any reason to stall the transport of the Hexgate materials.
Not when Viktor was now counting on him to see things through for both of them.
He told himself he’d check on Viktor later, after the meeting. If his experience was anything like Jayce’s he’d probably be passed out asleep and wouldn’t welcome a visitor anyway.
Maybe he’d give Viktor a lecture on lecturing other people when he did not listen to his own lectures.
-
Thankfully, most of the adjustments to the blueprints were fairly minor, and Jayce managed them on the carriage ride over to the railway authority, the blueprints pressed precariously against the wall of the cabin. By the time Jayce arrived to meet Councillor Kiramman on the front steps everything was neatly packed away and he had a winning smile firmly in place.
Cassandra made no note of Viktor’s absence, other than to quickly glance over Jayce’s shoulder, busying herself instead with fussing about the promises the council had to make to get the railroad authority to cooperate.
“It’s ridiculous, what some people will do to avoid progress for their own sake. If they suspect this will help them retain their current contracts they are sorely mistaken,” she seethed indignantly.
Jayce nodded along as she complained about the executive's demands to keep transport with Zaun’s remaining mining operations strictly with the railway.
Their hesitation to help spread Hextech was understandable if not intensely frustrating.
The Hexgates would revolutionize how goods were transported across Runeterra. Of course, the railways were worried about being rendered obsolete, but it wasn’t as if there wouldn’t be a need for transport outside the major industrial centers where Hexgate ports would be located. It would greatly expand what could be transported across the continent by shortening shipping times.
But instead of being eager partners with Hextech, the railway executives had dug in their heels every step of the way. They’d used the fact the hex crystals were, ironically, too unstable to transport by airship to eek out money and demands. They had fear-mongered constantly in meetings with the council, bemoaning the great risk they were undertaking by transporting “dangerous materials”.
Jayce clutched their prototype a little closer, already exhausted at the prospect of a long, intensely irritating meeting of dumbing down basic physics concepts even a first year at the academy would be expected to have memorized. He wished more than anything that Viktor was with him so he’d at least have someone to share a knowing side eye with.
Even if this presentation was only a slightly more tolerable misery than the stomach flu.
-
After what felt like a lifetime (but was probably more like 5 hours), the meeting finally ended with terse handshaking and Jayce’s jaw hurting from keeping his expression pleasant.
Immediately upon exiting the building, the steep drop in temperature made Jayce shiver and examine the gray sky nervously. Clouds threatening snow had rolled in over the course of the meeting, and Jayce pulled his jacket closer, frowning.
Cassandra quickly bid Jayce ado, canceling their plans for a late lunch in favor of reporting back to the council on the outcome of the meeting.
Jayce breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have time to question him about the unfinished production notes.
It gave him the whole late afternoon to deliver the prototype back to the lab and try to complete the production instructions.
They didn’t have to technically be finished until after the three-day holiday weekend, but Jayce figured it was the least he could do after leaving Viktor alone to finish their prototype.
But even as Jayce settled at his desk and pulled out the neatly stacked documents, he was fighting the instinct to drop everything and knock in his partner’s door with a box of crackers and a warm blanket.
The rational side of his brain remembered the betrayal on Viktor’s face the last time he’d tried to insert himself into something regarding his health.
Jayce knew he could be… overbearing, and a very large part of him recoiled at the potential fallout of acting on his instinct. He didn’t want to upset Viktor by inserting himself into a situation where he wasn’t wanted again.
It felt like having a knife slowly sheathed in his chest being shut out the last time .
Jayce viciously scribbled out a line after misspelling “transverse” for the third time and covered his face with his hands, groaning in frustration.
Viktor wasn’t like Jayce; his anger didn’t come out in the form of yelling and saying impulsive shit he’d immediately regret.
Viktor would argue, sure, but you always had the sense when he did that he was fighting for something, to get you to understand his way of thinking, to do what he thought was right. It wasn’t spitting fire for the sake of it, and you could tell he was only bothering to argue because he cared.
If Viktor was ever truly upset though? Then he went deadly silent.
He stopped fighting to be understood; he just shut down and put up a wall.
Sometimes Jayce could forget in their long days working side by side, laughing, joking, hitting ideas back and forth, picking up the ends of each other's thoughts like they were two needles threaded from the same spool , how distant Viktor was with most people.
Eternally cautious, polite, and professional but detached .
While Viktor was the most stubborn and determined person Jayce knew, he came to learn that Viktor was also one of the most protective of himself.
He had to be, Viktor had told him once in a vulnerable moment (spurned on by copious amounts of Noxian wine), Piltover didn’t really see him daring to push back as anything other than belligerence, ungratefulness.
And so he held most of the world at arm's length, keeping only their joint work as his means of expression, keeping his real self behind a wall.
For the most part, Viktor had to really trust you to let you get close enough for him to argue.
Jayce hated being on the other side of that lonely wall, the hurt of feeling like just another person Viktor couldn’t trust, even after everything they’d been through.
Knowing he caused Viktor to feel like he had to put up that wall.
Jayce sighed and picked back up his pen.
If he couldn’t convince Viktor to accept his help, he could at least make sure their work was finished so the man would let himself rest over the weekend.
He should just finish drafting the instructions, then go home and bleach the shit out of his bathroom, like he had originally-
“Jayce?” a soft voice interrupted his thoughts.
Jayce nearly jumped out of his skin chair, squeaking against the floor.
Sky blinked back, startled, a blue overcoat over one arm.
“Sky, oh sorry,” Jayce cleared his throat and straightened the paperwork, trying to regain his dignity, “are you leaving for the day?”
She nodded, “Yes, um- it’s good to see you’re feeling better,” her eyes wandered across the darkening lab, quickly losing interest in small talk as she searched for something among the odds and ends.
“Viktor was with you today, right? I wanted to say goodnight before I left.”
Ah
“No, he didn’t come in today; he’s not feeling well. I think the stomach bug going around caught him.”
Panic flashed across Sky’s face, quickly hidden but disproportionate enough to spark alarm in Jayce’s own chest.
“What?”
She opened and closed her mouth once before giving a shaky smile, “It’s nothing, you didn’t send in a note when you didn’t come in yesterday, I’m sure it’s fine.”
Ignoring the obvious confusion of what she meant by that…
“No, Viktor left a note, it's right here,” Jayce pulled the rolled message from the drawer he’s stuck it in and held it out to Sky, hoping to soothe her anxiety, but she just stared at it for a moment, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
Something dawned on Jayce then, “Wait, you’re the one who opened the note and left it on the desk for me to find, right?”
Sky nodded, “Yes, I did leave that note because Viktor wrote where he left everything for your meeting in it, but that’s from yesterday morning.”
A cold feeling dropped to the bottom of Jayce’s gut as Sky continued.
“Viktor started feeling ill the same evening you did, and he hasn’t sent in anything today.”