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“I think it will help,” Viktor argued. “Bloodflow to the brain.”
The response was a snort, from somewhere close to his left, on the other side of the couch in the lab. Their workstations had long been abandoned for comfort, in light of the fact neither of the inventors had come up with an idea worthy of a chalkboard in hours.
Jayce’s deep timbre was shaded with exhaustion and amusement when it pronounced, “Viktor, I love you, but that is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Viktor lifted his head, glanced over, and blinked at his partner. The absence of change in Jayce’s expression made Viktor resolve to get some sleep soon in order to address the auditory hallucinations. Jayce didn’t look much better than Viktor felt, deep shadows cast under his hazel eyes, bent over a notebook full of scratchmarks that seemed to be more indications of Jayce’s need for perpetual movement than actual calculations. His strong brows were creased in a furrow that Viktor worried might get stuck there, if they didn’t fix the thermoconductor’s balancing problem soon.
Viktor was, himself, perched upside down on the same couch, legs draped over the back, head hanging toward the ground. His hair might be touching the lab floor, actually. He resolved to be extra thorough with the shampoo in his next shower.
Jayce’s eyes flicked over to him, after a moment spent in the silent absence of a response.
“You’re turning red,” Jayce observed. Then he winced sympathetically. “And that can’t be good for your spine.”
“Say that again,” Viktor commanded. Just to check.
“Your spine,” Jayce repeated. He glanced down at the notes again, then sighed heavily before chucking his notepad onto the side table. Jayce sank into the couch, pulled his knees up to his chest, and rubbed his eyes.
“The other thing,” Viktor specified.
Jayce paused, brows furrowed, recollecting. “You’re turning red?”
“Further back.”
Jayce sighed and pinched his nose. “Your idea that being upside down is going to help somehow is stupid?”
“One more.”
Jayce glanced at the notebook, and said, “Maybe the thermoconductor can balance itself if we spin it hard enough?”
“Not that,” Viktor said, letting his head droop again. He had imagined it, then. “Also, that is ridiculous.”
“Explains why you ridiculed it,” Jayce muttered, slumping even further into the couch. “We should give it a rest. I’m so tired that I can smell colors.”
Viktor huffed a laugh, and nodded. The motion was oddly challenging, whilst upside down.
He admitted, “We should. I am so tired that I thought you said you loved me.”
Jayce blinked. He shifted forward, peering past his own knees, squinting down at Viktor.
Then Jayce said, simply, and sounding confused, “I do love you.”
Viktor’s world turned. Everything he thought he knew flipped and stood on its head, his stomach swooping towards his throat.
He didn’t think it had anything to do with being physically inverted.
“Oh,” Viktor said, then fixed his gaze forward. Down.
Upwards, actually.
Their lab’s ceiling was quite high. Viktor wasn’t sure he'd ever looked at the ceiling, so he took a moment to study it, in the quiet stillness of the early morning, when truth slips through the cracks. The ventilation system was exposed, pipework bared plainly to anyone who might look up. Viktor, apparently, hadn’t ever looked up.
“You’re my partner,” Jayce said, quietly, like that was an entirely sufficient explanation.
Partner. As he had dubbed Viktor the night they’d met, hand steady on Viktor’s shoulder, voice full of a conviction and certainty that Viktor had only heard once before: at the trial of a man who claimed magic and all of its wonders were something that could be made, and something that should be shared.
Which they had done. Together.
Viktor inhaled deep, and exhaled, slowly.
They were partners.
Perhaps Jayce was correct. Perhaps that fact was a sufficient explanation.
Viktor had certainly loved Jayce, since some unmarked moment in the midst of that evening, if not from the moment he first saw Jayce, bruised and framed by his undeciphered genius scrawled on the chalkboard of an exploded building.
Being partners also meant that they took risks and made discoveries together. It meant that he shouldn’t know something Jayce didn’t also know.
“Well, eh,” Vikor said. He licked his lips, head reeling, and confessed, breathlessly, “I love you also, Jayce.”
Jayce smiled down at him, eyes soft and heavy-lidded.
He reached over a hand and dropped it on one of Viktor’s knees, where they were thrown over the back of the couch. An amicable pat, of sorts.
Viktor let his head droop again, as something warm settled quietly in the space between them. Not something new, he realized, just… an acknowledgment. They were partners. Of course Jayce loved Viktor, and of course Viktor loved him, his laugh, and passion, and that every problem they’d yet encountered they had met together and overcome.
He loved that Jayce was brilliant. And Jayce was brilliant, even though he’d said they could spin the thermoconductor.
Viktor stared at the ceiling once more, brows furrowing, something tickling towards the back of his mind.
He was still staring at the exposed ventilation when he realized Jayce was correct. They could spin the thermoconductor.
“Spin,” Viktor said, quietly. “You mean we could balance the component with centrifugal force?”
Jayce blinked, and glanced over at his notebook on the side table. He shrugged. “Could we?”
Viktor gripped Jayce’s arm and hauled himself up, ignoring the head rush at the sudden change in verticality. He clambered over Jayce, provoking performative grumbling, to snatch up the notebook and glance over Jayce’s scratchings. Now that he knew what to look for, lines and numbers resolved from the scattered penstrokes, and a rough diagram emerged from the page.
“Maybe,” Viktor said, clambering off Jayce. He reached for his cane, stood, and stretched to alleviate the twinge in his spine as he made for the chalkboard.
Jayce hummed. Offered, "I'll put on the coffee.”
And in spite of the early morning light dawning through the high windows, and the hours upon hours of listlessness, when Viktor glanced over, Jayce’s exhaustion was etched over with a smile that was small and hopeful and bright.