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Viktor – March 20th
Viktor knew exactly when Jayce bought the ring. Of course he did – Jayce isn’t subtle about anything, as much as he tries to be and Viktor will admit that he did try. They’d been together for hardly over six months, six beautiful but difficult months, and Viktor had mentioned something offhandedly about someone calling Jayce his husband in a meeting and Viktor not correcting her and something in Jayce’s expression had changed. Become cloudy.
“I wouldn’t mind being your husband for real,” he’d said, and Viktor had laughed.
“You are in everything but the official papers,” he’d replied.
And Jayce hadn’t mentioned it again. Which was concerning, until Viktor realized he’d been booking time in their shared calendar with Vi, and Vi hadn’t told him anything about it. So, he’d asked her, and she’d said it was her wedding stuff, super top secret, but that didn’t make sense. He’d let it lie.
Some time after, Jayce had come home and went straight to their bedroom before he’d even kissed Viktor, and he’d come out, still in his work clothes, looking less guilty. Viktor had only assumed that was the day Jayce bought the ring.
Maybe it’s wrong to say he knew. He assumed.
But now he’s standing in their room, over a year later, the box he’d found completely by accident at the bottom of Jayce’s sock drawer – Really, Jayce? Really? – heavy in the palm of his hand. He could open it. He wants to open it.
It’s small. Black, with silver details, the edges sharp when he runs his fingers over them. He digs the pad of his thumb against one, considering his options. He could put it back, without opening it and pretend he hasn’t seen it at all, which is maybe the best of his options, but he’s a bad liar and Jayce is too good at reading him. He could put it back and let Jayce know that he found it, but that seems unfair. He’d chided Jayce for hiding it so poorly, but really, it’d been over a year since the assumed homecoming of the ring and he’s only found it now, reaching deep into the drawer for the fuzzy socks he knows Jayce has at the bottom.
He could leave it somewhere that Jayce could see, confront him about it, but that seems like the worst thing to do. Hey, love, I found this box in your sock drawer. I didn’t mean to, I swear, but when were you planning on asking? Why haven’t you yet? What’s stopping you? Why did you leave it here, for me to find and not put it on my finger immediately so I could call you my fiancé?
Fiancé. What a delicious title. An in-between. A promise.
He wants to be Jayce’s fiancé. Why hasn’t he asked?
He runs a finger around the edge of the box and then lifts it to his mouth, presses it softly against his lips, and buries it back in the sock drawer. Exactly where it had been. He locates the fuzzy socks, and pulls them on, leaving the bedroom, a game plan formulating in the back of his mind.
If Jayce does not wish to ask him to be his fiancé, he will have to take things into his own hands.
**
Jayce – April 2nd
Jayce is sitting in his office, staring at the unopened emails in his inbox. It’s the end of the semester, and he’s been flooded with questions about finals and exam prep, something he usually doesn’t mind but has been taking a toll on him. The computer in front of him hums loudly, and he sighs, turning to stare through the window, instead.
It’s raining. It’s been raining for three days straight, he and Viktor’s umbrellas hardly having the chance to dry before they’re taken from their home in the morning and used again. Viktor’s been fighting off a perpetual chill, something that generally happens in the spring, and Jayce has been increasingly worried about him.
He’s been so tired lately. Overworking himself to get his thesis finished, and then all the extra marking he’s taken on. The tutoring. Often, Jayce is the first one home, or the one hovering outside of Viktor’s office, wondering if he should knock and disturb the other man. He usually does, but on those rare occasions he leaves he always tries to pick up a treat. Sometimes it’s a bottle of wine, and sometimes it’s a baked good. Sometimes it’s a tub of ice cream in the freezer, or a hot bath drawn and ready for him when he walks through the door.
He’s happy to do it. He’s always been happy to do it, but something’s seemed off. Something’s seemed different, lately, and he isn’t sure what. He’s asked, of course he has, but Viktor has only pushed his concern away, telling him he’s stressed about his thesis, or his knee has made walking feel like there’s an icepick in his bones and that’s the only explanation he’ll get.
His phone buzzes on the desk with a new message, predictably from Viktor. It’s one of the days that Jayce has lingered at work instead of him.
when do u think you’re going to be home?
soon. just answering student emails. need me to pick up anything?
no no just want to know when i can see ur face again <3
Jayce sighs. He presses his phone against his chest and picks up the photo on his desk of Viktor, drowning in one of Jayce’s hoodies, Rio the cat on her back in his arms, his expression so incredibly full of love. It’s his favourite photo of Viktor. It reminds him every day of why he’s dragging himself through his research, through his work. He loves Viktor so, incredibly much.
That’s not the problem.
That’s never been the problem.
The problem is he isn’t sure he loves everything else. He’d been happy, doing research before. He’d been happy teaching before. Now, he isn’t. He’s not sure what changed. He’s not sure when the empty hole inside of him started wanting more.
Now that it’s started, he isn’t sure if he can stop it.
Now that it’s started and he’s paying attention to it, he’s not sure he can keep going the way he’s going.
He doesn’t know what that makes him.
He doesn’t know who that makes him.
He puts the photo of Viktor back on the desk and unlocks his phone to answer. miss me, do ya? ;) i’ll be home in ten. students can wait til tomorrow. love you
love you too baby see you soon
He wants to melt into Viktor’s arms and let him soothe him. He wants Viktor to tell him what he’s supposed to do. He wants Viktor to tell him it’s okay, baby, you can try something else for a while. The research will still be there when you come back.
But Viktor’s going through his own hard time. And Jayce doesn’t want to be a bigger burden. And deep inside, he’s afraid that Viktor would be upset about his change of mind. That Viktor wouldn’t understand, would lose some respect for his partner.
It’s probably unlikely.
But it’s possible.
And that’s terrifying.
**
Jayce gets home to find Viktor in the kitchen, wearing his apron, the air thick and heavy with whatever he’s cooking. “Smells great, love,” Jayce tells him, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind and hooking his chin over his shoulder, peering down at the thick stew on the stove.
“I stole the recipe from Vi,” Viktor admits. “It’s the one she made when I was sick the last time, you remember?” The hand that isn’t holding the spoon presses against Jayce’s cold, despite the heat of the task.
“I remember it was delicious,” Jayce quips, planting a wet kiss on Viktor’s neck and earning himself a withering look.
“Off,” Viktor says. “I am cooking. There is time for this later.”
Jayce chuckles but unravels himself all the same. “How much longer until it’s done?”
“Eh, ten? Maybe less.” He raises the spoon to his mouth to taste it, and Jayce watches his reaction, the bliss in the narrowing of his eyes. “Less.”
“Do I have time to change?”
“Yes! Go get changed. Say hello to your children.” Viktor waves him away, and Jayce is deeply amused. His cooking grumpiness is akin to his morning grumpiness in the fact that all it makes Jayce want to do is bother him. Lightly, of course.
He doesn’t. He does as he’s told, changing into his sleep clothes and petting Rio who appears on the bed with a loud chirp, wrapping herself around his hand. Magic is harder to find, but Jayce manages, scratching behind his ears before he drifts back out towards the kitchen, finding Viktor ladling the food into bowls.
“Did you have a good day?” He asks, scooping his up, and following Viktor to the living room where they settle on the couch, the foot of space between them only for decency while they eat.
“It was alright,” Viktor hums, fending off Rio, who would try to stick her whole face in the bowl if she were given the chance. “Nothing much happened. Just review. You?”
Jayce narrows his eyes. There’s something that Viktor isn’t telling him and it’s all over his face. “Answered a fuck ton of emails,” he complains, “calmed down a bunch of first years who were convinced they were going to fail.”
Viktor raises his eyebrows. His hair is longer, nearly shoulder-length now, and it’s starting to grey at the bottom in the back. Jayce thinks it is incredibly sexy, and he’s doing everything in his power to make sure that Viktor believes it too. There’s been box dye sitting on the bathroom counter for months, and Jayce has been praying for the day it gets moved into one of the cupboards, out of sight and out of mind. He’s not sure he could handle the covering-up of Viktor’s hard-earned age.
“Did you believe they weren’t going to fail?” Viktor pokes fun at him.
He groans, rolling his eyes. He does everything he can to make sure his students don’t fail. He goes through the content slowly. He does multiple review days. He’s available for three hours twice a week for office hours and as much as possible over email. None of his midterms or his final are cumulative.
And still, they find a way to fail. Always. He doesn’t know how to make it better.
He’s been trying to make it better.
“They were some of the higher grades in the class,” Jayce muses, “even if they fail, I don’t think they’ll bomb the class.” If he hates failing students on tests, he hates failing them overall even more. There are always a few, every year, and it’s been getting to him. He wishes he’d chosen a discipline that made it harder for them to do poorly.
“Mm,” Viktor hums. “That’s good. Something to fall back on.”
Jayce doesn’t want to talk about work anymore. He gestures to his bowl. “This is delicious, by the way. You should thank Vi for it, from me.”
He watches as Viktor upturns his own bowl and slurps the rest of his broth, the side of it leaving imprints on his cheeks that he licks off, the motion making want swirl in the put of Jayce’s stomach. “Thank her yourself,” Viktor grins, as if he knows exactly what he’s just done. “She’s coming over tomorrow evening for bake night.”
Right. Friday bake night. It’d started off as a night where Viktor and Vi tried to create the flavour for Vi and Cait’s wedding and then it’d just stayed on the schedule. Sometimes it’s less baking in the kitchen and more baking on the balcony, but Jayce can’t complain either way – he gets delightful treats, or a delightfully high Viktor, who never fails to be warm and cuddly, burrowing into Jayce’s embrace when Vi leaves, falling asleep with every part of himself somehow pressed against the other man.
“Ah, I will, then.” He finishes his stew, and puts the bowl down, gesturing for Viktor to bridge the space between them.
“Needy,” Viktor huffs, but he pulls Jayce’s arm tighter around his shoulders anyways.
“You smell good,” Jayce muses, pressing his face against Viktor’s hair.
“I had to use your shampoo,” Viktor admits. “Mine ran out.”
“Ah, explains it then.”
“Full of yourself, aren’t you?” Viktor hums, but there’s no menace behind it. “It just reminded me of you all day.”
“Good thing?”
“You’re very distracting, you know that? All day I couldn’t wait to come home to this. All I could think of was you holding me.” He curls further into Jayce, as if he’s embarrassed to admit it. “Jayce, what have you done to me?”
Jayce tightens his grip around him, unable to stop the stupid fucking grin that he knows has plastered itself on his face. He presses a kiss against Viktor’s scalp, that smells like his shampoo, and then another further down, closer to his temple. “Nothing that I know of,” he says, the picture of innocence.
“Lies,” Viktor accuses. “You must have cast some sort of spell.”
“Not me,” he defends himself, his tone light, airy.
“I’ll figure it out one day.”
“I’m sure you will.”
And Jayce is sure he will. Jayce is sure that one day, Viktor will know everything about him, every secret he’s kept, every spell he’s cast aware, or unaware. One day, on the other side of the sinking feeling in his chest surrounding his job, Viktor will hold him and say, it’s okay, Jayce. You were unhappy there, and you were allowed to leave. It’s better now, isn’t it?
And Jayce prays he’ll be right.
Viktor – April 3rd
Vi is in the apartment for bake night, and Jayce has tucked himself away into the office to put together his final exam review for the next week. They’re making blueberry scones in the kitchen, Viktor doing most of the work and Vi sitting at the island, scrolling through something on her laptop.
Scrolling through wedding ring designs.
They’ve found a jeweler. They have an approximation of what they want – nothing special, really, just a gold band with a sapphire inlaid in it, because those are Jayce’s favourite gemstones. He’s been toying with the idea of an inscription, but he isn’t sure what exactly he would want Jayce to wear for the rest of his life.
Maybe something like in all timelines, in all possibilities, but that feels sappy. He doesn’t know if he would be able to handle knowing those were the words pressed against his husband’s skin. Even if he feels that they’re somehow true.
Gods, he’s already transitioned to thinking of Jayce as his husband. Husband. Husband! The word haunts him. He wants it so badly and he’s not even sure why. He’s never cared for marriage before Jayce and was happy to be partners with whoever he was dating. Now, though, it’s an itch that’s only gotten worse every second since he found the stupid ring in Jayce’s drawer.
Every day he gets closer to getting Jayce his own he wonders why it is that Jayce still hasn’t asked. Jayce is about to graduate, and Viktor is next semester. They already have a beautiful life together, Viktor doesn’t understand what the hangup has been.
Vi told him that maybe Jayce is nervous. Maybe Jayce knows that Viktor’s been ambivalent about marriage in the past and bought the ring on a whim. Maybe you should talk to him about it, before you dive in headfirst, she’d told him, but he’d shrugged her off. He’ll mention it – marriage – before he proposes, of course, but he’s going to get the damn ring, anyways. If anything else, at least he’ll be ready when Jayce proposes. At least he can look Jayce in the eye and say, I’m ready too and mean it.
“What about this?” Vi asks, turning her laptop around to show Viktor, and Viktor leans against the counter to look at what she’s showing him. It looks like every other ring she’s found, and he hums.
“I really don’t know the difference,” he says, “and we’ve looked at so many of them already.” He has to admit, men’s rings are boring.
“It’s thinner than the others,” Vi points out, “and the info about it says it lays better than the thicker ones.” She steals the laptop back and keeps scrolling. “I don’t know if we could get an inlay in it, though.”
Viktor groans. This is supposed to be the easy part. The hard part is getting Jayce’s ring size when he has no jewelry of his own. “It’d be nice if it could sit better, though. I don’t want him to have to take it off because it’s uncomfortable.” He can hear the conversation now, Jayce complaining, not that it’s uncomfortable, but that he can’t show the world who he belongs to. Jayce, always the dramatic.
“Mm,” Vi hums. “You know this would be easier if you just went together.”
“Went together where?” Jayce, lumbering in from the office to refill his water bottle.
Vi, never subtle, slams her laptop shut. “Sex stuff,” she says, very helpfully.
“Sex…stuff,” Jayce repeats, his eyebrows sky high on his face. “Sure.”
Vi nods enthusiastically, doubling down on the lie and Viktor groans. “Yeah! Sex stuff. Like, you know, one of those kink clubs?”
Jayce’s eyebrows get higher in disbelief. “Kink clubs?” His gaze tracks from Viktor to Vi and if it weren’t somewhat annoying, he might think the way Jayce’s cheeks are getting red is endearing.
Viktor puts down the bowl of batter he’s been clutching to his chest. “That’s not what we’re talking about,” he says, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “What we were talking about is a surprise that you are not allowed to know about.”
“Oh,” Jayce’s eyebrows relax. “What kind of surprise?”
“Sex surprise,” Vi says, still unhelpful but this time with a smirk.
“No, it’s not,” Viktor cuts off before Jayce can respond. “And it wouldn’t be a surprise if we told you, would it?”
Jayce shrugs. “Had to try, didn’t I?” He fills up his water bottle from the tap. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then. Later, Vi.” He salutes and then disappears back to the office.
Viktor watches him go, grinning.
“How did you train him so well?” Vi asks, leaning forward across the counter. “Cait would have never let that go!”
Viktor isn’t dumb. He knows they’ll talk about it later, if only to check in, but other than that, Jayce is mostly good with minding his own business and knowing when he’s not welcome. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t prod. At least not in a serious way. If Viktor voiced any displeasure, he’d stop and let it be. “He’s a good man,” he murmurs, the door closing between them.
“You’re fucking drooling, oh my god.”
Viktor picks up the bowl. “Am not,” he defends, but Vi only rolls her eyes.
She was right. Of course she was right.
**
Jayce – April 5th
Jayce asks about the secret as soon as Vi leaves, of course he does. And Viktor doesn’t give him anything more to go off, so he drops it, but it eats away in the back of his mind. What is it that Viktor is planning?
“You know if it is sex stuff, I’d like to talk through it,” he says, on Sunday, when they’re on their semi-regular evening stroll to the ice cream shop down the street.
Viktor, whose hand is tucked neatly into Jayce’s elbow, groans. He leans harder into Jayce, throwing off their balance and sending them both careening towards a fenced patio before Jayce rights them, laughing.
“Bit dramatic, V,” he comments, “and not convincing that it’s not sex stuff.” He really doesn’t want to be thinking about the secret. He trusts that it isn’t something bad. He trusts that when Viktor looked him in the eye on Friday and said, it is something I think you will be excited about and I will tell you soon. His instincts are saying proposal, but his heart is saying graduation surprise party and both make him nervous. If Viktor proposes, how will he tell him that he’s had a ring in his sock drawer for a year just waiting for the right moment?
If it’s a graduation surprise party, how is Jayce supposed to act as though he’s happy to be where he is?
He thinks it’s the graduation party, mostly because Viktor has always seemed ambivalent about marriage – and that’s part of the reason why Jayce hasn’t asked him yet. The other, bigger part is that they’re both in grad school and they’ve hardly had time for each other, let alone a wedding. Let alone time to plan a little trip so Jayce can propose to Viktor privately, properly, and then they can have loud, uninterrupted sex in whatever secluded cabin they’ve found to rent for a weekend.
That’s his dream, anyways. He’s sure that Viktor would agree.
“I can promise you that if it were sex stuff I would have come to you immediately,” Viktor says as he pulls away from Jayce to hold open the door for him.
Jayce steps through and narrows his eyes at the woman in the closest table, watching them with disdain. He can nearly hear her thoughts, and he doesn’t like them.
Viktor, beside him again, notices, and reinstates his hand at Jayce’s elbow. “She probably thinks you’re a terrible person,” he whispers, as they approach the counter, “letting your poor disabled boyfriend open the door for you. Imagine!”
“The horror,” Jayce indulges, and Viktor chuckles. He steals another glance at the woman, who’s still watching them, and changes their arrangement so he can place a possessive hand on Viktor’s waist as they look at the menu. “What are you gonna get?”
Viktor, in typical fashion, orders the sweetest sounding ice cream with the most toppings possible, and Jayce can only watch in fascinated terror as he takes his first bite. He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand the depths of his insatiable sweet tooth and he’s not sure he wants to.
“Speaking of sex stuff,” Viktor says, a moment later, after Jayce has taken a bite of his own ice cream. “Can I fuck you tonight?”
Jayce sputters, fighting to keep his composure and his ice cream in his mouth, and Viktor looks very pleased with himself, an evil little smirk playing across his lips. “If that was your plan I’m not sure ice cream was the best idea,” Jayce says flatly, after he swallows.
Viktor, still smirking, only shakes his head. “I just wanted to tease you,” he says. “We can do whatever you want.”
Under the table, Jayce catches Viktor’s good ankle between his own. He’s already lost in his thoughts, ready to head back home, his skin hot under his sweater. “Yeah, baby,” he says, dreamily, untethered, and Viktor’s smirk only gets bigger.
**
Viktor – April 7th
He’s settled on only you for the inscription. He’s settled on a design that allows for the inlay but supposedly sits nicely against the wearer’s skin. He’s spoken to the jeweler. All he needs is Jayce’s ring size.
He could approximate – gods know he could approximate – and maybe he should, and have it sized properly later, but he wants to get it right. Vi thinks he should approximate and get it resized.
Cait thinks so too.
They’re probably right. He’s in his office, staring at it up on his second screen, fantasizing, when there’s a knock on his door. He minimizes it quickly, in case it’s Jayce.
“Come in!” He calls out, and is relieved when it’s not Jayce but Sky.
Sky, who comes bearing coffee. “Hey you,” she says, setting the cup gingerly down on one of the open spots of his desk. “How’s end of term going?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, you know,” he says. “Exciting. Terrible. I’m ready to be done.”
Sky nods and takes a seat in the chair reserved for visitors. “Tell me about it.” She’s been in limbo for a while now, and Viktor isn’t sure how she’s doing it. How she’s keeping it together.
“Thanks for the coffee. How are you?”
“Gods, Vik,” she sighs, “I just want to be done, too. I just want – I just want the treatment to be implemented, you know? Get it out of my hands and into physicians, but heaven forbid.”
The finer details of what’s halting the process have escaped Viktor, but he knows it’s been a slow and frustrating thing. “One day,” he says.
“One day,” she agrees. “And hey! At least all the people who’ve been able to access it so far are doing well!”
Viktor grins. “I’m not complaining about that part.”
Sky grins back. And then she shifts. “I’ve heard some things, though. Are you and Jayce – okay?”
Viktor’s light mood plummets. He blinks at her. “What do you mean are we okay?”
A grimace. A rearranging of arms. “I heard that he’s being snarky with Heimerdinger and the rest of his committee,” she says. “That he’s been warned once that he needs to stay in line. I thought – well, I assumed the only thing that might get between him and his research is you.”
Oh. “He has been a bit weird lately,” Viktor admits. Clingy and then distant. Push and then pull. He’s been home a lot more than normal, too, choosing to do his work in the home office instead of at the university. Viktor had noticed, but he’d chalked it up to graduation jitters.
“Apparently Heimerdinger is reconsidering offering him a position here when he’s done.”
“Oh?” Viktor leans forward. Jayce loves teaching, though, he thinks. He loves what he’s doing.
“I think he’s burning out,” Sky says. “And that maybe he should take a break when he graduates. But I – I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him about it. I thought that if there was maybe something happening – ”
“No, we’ve been fine,” Viktor reassures. “A little busy, but fine otherwise.” Maybe if he’d been less focused on buying a wedding ring he’d have noticed Jayce’s declining mood. Maybe if he’d been less busy he’d have clocked the discontent as more than what he had.
“Hm,” Sky hums. “Do you want me to talk to him?”
“If you want to, but maybe I’ll bring it up tonight? And get back to you?”
Sky nods, and then Viktor asks if she wants to be let in on a secret.
She says yes, of course.
**
Jayce – April 7th
He is going to lose his fucking mind if he has to tell one more kid that he doesn’t control the final schedule and no, he cannot change the time to something more agreeable than eight in the morning on the first day of finals.
I’m not happy about it, either, he wants to say. Also, they’ve had weeks since the final schedule was released and only now is it registering.
Only now, a week before.
He flips his office sign to its busy side and slumps down in his chair. Heimerdinger isn’t happy with him, but Heimerdinger has never really been happy with him. He’s tired. He’s frustrated. He just wants to go home where everything makes sense and he’s happy to indulge in whatever Viktor wants to do.
He doesn’t understand why he’s not happy.
He has it all figured out, doesn’t he?
Why can’t he just be happy?
**
“Jayce?” Viktor asks, poking his head into Jayce’s office where Jayce said he was going to be doing work but has been fiddling with his latest Lego project instead, unable to focus on it. Unable to focus on anything other than the fact he’s being stupid and a failure.
“Mm?” He sits up.
“Are you okay?” There’s so much warmth and concern in his tone. “I – I heard that you’re having troubles with Heimer.”
“Oh.” Jayce deflates, leaning his forehead against the edge of his desk. “Who told you that?”
“We work at the same place, love. Things get back to me fast.”
“It was Sky, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Viktor’s cane taps slowly towards him, and then Viktor’s hand is on his shoulder. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” A gentle squeeze. “You don’t have to.”
I’m not happy, V. I’m so sorry but I’m not happy. Why aren’t I happy? I’m done. I’m mostly done. I’ve done it! I’ve done the PhD! And I have you. And I love you so much, you’re not the problem, but I don’t know what you’ll think of me when I tell you I’ve lost whatever it is in me you thought I had. The passion. The obsession. The drive. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want it anymore. I miss the old me.
“I don’t know how to put it into words,” Jayce complains, not lifting his head. He’s not sure he’d be able to have this conversation while looking at Viktor. “I just don’t know that I’m where I want to be anymore.”
“Oh? In what way?” No scorn. No anger. Only curiousity.
“Academics. Work.”
Viktor’s hand traces its way into Jayce’s hair, and he hums in acknowledgement. “You’ve been going full speed for a long time,” he considers. “I think it makes sense that you’re ready for a break.”
Jayce sits up, finally, and Viktor removes his hand. When he looks at Viktor he’s met with only a thoughtful expression. No disappointment, no anger. He’s not really sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this. “Would you be disappointed in me if I took a break?” He asks, feeling exposed. Feeling vulnerable. How is it that Viktor has been able to pare his feelings down to their core without even trying?
“Of course not,” Viktor whispers, reaching out again, palm to cheek. “I think I’d encourage it, even.”
“Oh,” Jayce whispers. “But I thought – ”
“You thought I valued your work more than your wellbeing?”
Jayce frowns. “Well when you put it that way it sounds bad.”
“Silly man,” Viktor teases. “If you need a break, then you take a break.”
“I’ll find another job. Maybe one that’s not so taxing.”
Viktor nods. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever you think.”
“I thought you’d be upset.” The relief is immense. It bursts inside him like a balloon and then he’s pulling Viktor closer to him, resting his head against his chest, wrapping his arms around him like a man saved from drowning.
Viktor makes a noise in surprise and then, “No, love. I’m here for whatever is best for you.” More relief.
He’s quiet for a moment, bursting with possibility. Bursting with excitement. He’s so happy that Viktor understands, that he’s not upset, that he thinks he could die. He’d been so worked up. He’d been so sure that Viktor would hate him for changing his mind.
Viktor weathers the quiet with him, running his fingers through his hair and whispering quiet affirmations that Jayce is okay. That everything is okay.
When he’s processed enough, he pulls his face from the fabric of Viktor’s shirt and asks, “Does that mean you’ll tell me your secret?” Because he can’t help himself.
He gets an eye roll in response. “I will tell you when it is time to know,” Viktor says, and he leans down to press a gentle kiss against Jayce’s mouth. “I promise.”
“Okay,” Jayce agrees, chasing him, asking for more. Viktor indulges.
**
Viktor – May 30th
The PhD cap makes Jayce look ridiculous, and Viktor has insisted on an inhuman amount of photos because of it. Jayce allows it, only barely, and Vi and Cait roll their eyes every time he raises his phone.
The ring in his pocket is burning a hole so bright and hot he’s itchy with it.
He’s not planning on proposing today, but he’s taken to keeping it on him just in case the moment feels right.
It’s beautiful. Exactly what he’d pictured.
Jayce is beautiful. Everything he’s ever wanted.
Husband, he thinks fondly, snapping another candid of Jayce smiling.
“I’m so proud of you,” he tells him, once he’s crossed the stage and once they’re back together.
Jayce beams.
Jayce – May 30th
They fall through the door to their apartment, unable to keep their hands off each other for another second. Viktor’s mouth is hot on his, and Jayce wants nothing more than to strip him, right there in the entrance.
They stumble through into the kitchen, Jayce supporting Viktor, and then they’re crashing through into the bedroom, and he’s laying Viktor down on the bed, greedy fingers already unbuttoning his dress shirt.
“You’re so hot,” Viktor drawls beneath him, “And smart. And sexy.”
Jayce grins, peeling the shirt to his shoulders and swallowing Viktor’s abdomen with his palms. “Don’t stop there,” he teases.
“And you’re so good to me. And you were such a dork in that hat. And I love you.”
Jayce explores further, moving to Viktor’s hips, and then further to his core, undoing his belt. “I love you too,” he says, half drunk on the compliments and the way Viktor’s looking at him, eyes lidded, beautiful.
“Jayce?” Viktor asks.
“Baby,” Jayce counters.
“Would you marry me if I asked you?”
“Is that the secret?”
“No.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Silence for a beat. And then.
“My left pocket.”
And then Jayce’s heart is beating so hard in his chest he can’t breathe.
Viktor sits up.
He digs in his pocket and produces a box. His cheeks are dusted red. He’s still beautiful. He opens the box.
“Marry me, Jayce?” Viktor asks, holding it out to him, and suddenly Jayce wants to cry.
It’s perfect.
“Of course,” he whispers, in awe of the man in front of him.
“I – wait a second – ” He pulls away, feeling like he’s floating, and digs to the bottom of his sock drawer, where he finds his own ring. “I didn’t – I bought this on impulse, and I didn’t – I bought it so early, V. I couldn’t possibly have asked you that early, so I just – kept it. But you – you’re so perfect. You’re so good. I – gods, here just take it. I’m making a fool of myself.” But Viktor’s only watching him with lovestruck eyes.
He makes sure that Jayce’s ring is on his finger before he opens the new box, and Jayce swears he tears up, just a little.
“Here,” Jayce says, and he slips the ring onto Viktor.
And then Viktor is back in his arms, and everything in the entire world is right again.
Or. It’s not quite. But it will be.
**
Viktor – May 30th
His approximation fits like a glove.