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By the time they walk back to their picnic area, it’s grown dark and cold again. Viktor’s teeth are chattering fiercely from the chilly dip in the water and Jayce can only keep him so warm with one arm around his shoulder. Jayce picks up the blanket and wraps Viktor up in it as soon as he can, pulling it over his head and wrapping it tightly around him.
“W-what ab-bout y-you?” Viktor asks after drying off his hair.
Jayce slips his boxers back on. “I mostly dried off on the walk over here. You’re freezing, you need it more.”
Viktor pulls the blanket up higher around his shoulders and shivers again. Jayce picks up his shirt and holds it out to him. “We should head back.”
“No,” Viktor shakes his head, pointing his chin towards the sky. “Look.”
Jayce follows Viktor’s line of sight upwards until he’s faced with a blanket of stars and a crescent sliver of moon. He gasps at the beauty of it. “Oh, wow.”
He can pick out several constellations right away. It’s incredible that they’re visible this far away. Once the sun sets on this planet, the visibility into space is incredible.
“R-reminds me of the j-journey here. Weeks of b-blackness dotted with s-stars,” Viktor sighs wistfully, his mind elsewhere as his body slowly starts to warm up. In Zaun, the pollution was so bad you could hardly see the sun, much less the stars. In Piltover it was better, but their sky was filled with a red haze around the edges from city light pollution.
Out here in the wilderness, surrounded by nothing but trees, it feels like it’s just them and the endless expanse of space laid out before them. It’s peaceful, and a little breathtaking. He doesn’t want it to end.
“We can stay out here a little longer if you want,” Jayce offers, his voice cutting through Viktor’s thoughts. “Watch the stars together.” Viktor turns and smiles at that before sitting down in the grass and lying back. He adjusts the blanket so he is still rolled up, but there’s enough excess for Jayce to lie down on the other side.
“K-keep me w-warm.”
Like he even needed to ask. Still in nothing but boxers and his hair still wet, Jayce quickly drops down onto the blanket, slipping his hand across Viktor’s chilly middle and his other one under his neck. “Is that better?”
Viktor nods, squirming even closer, pressing his entire side against Jayce’s front. Jayce can feel the trembling of his body. He squeezes him tight, rubbing his hand up and down his side to try warming him up faster.
Viktor sighs out through his nose, eyes pointed up into space and millions of stars reflecting in his eyes. It won’t be long and he’ll be warm again. Jayce’s body heat is his favorite form of warmth.
Jayce bites his lower lip, the sensation of Viktor’s lips on his still there as his eyes trace over the lines of his profile and the curve of his lips. “Remember the Distinguished Innovators Competition?”
Viktor chuckles, sighing wistfully. “I remember you.” He was the bright, confident, head of the presentation for Hextech’s public debut. Viktor still remembers how his voice captured that entire crowd, including him. The crisp lines of his academy jacket, his straight back, squared shoulders. Always a xalpha when he had to be.
He remembers how afterwards, when they were backstage alone together, he shrunk back down, needing Viktor’s reassurance that he did a good job.
Jayce presses his nose against Viktor’s chilled cheek. “Heimerdinger scolded us for testing Hextech on ourselves when he found out we had no trial participants.”
Viktor laughs. It was a ridiculously unfounded reprimand. “Who else would have volunteered?! Two college students, surviving on coffee and a dream, seeking willing test subjects. They WILL be altering your DNA on a regular basis.”
Jayce laughs, imagining the kind of person who would agree to that. He spreads his fingers out on Viktor’s stomach, laying his palm flat in an attempt to let Viktor soak in his warmth. “I think the audience member we scanned actually pissed her pants when you transformed into her during the competition.”
Viktor smiles, remembering the gasps from the crowd. “She was polite at least. Though, I thought Mrs. Kiramman was going to faint from fear of the lawsuits for sponsoring us.”
“It worked out. She completely forgot about it when we won.”
“Especially after we landed that manufacturing deal with the Intergalactic Association.”
Yes, indeed. She threw the most extravagant party Jayce had ever seen, but none of its splendor compared to Viktor that night. Viktor looked stunning, breathtaking. Jayce can still remember the outfit, lined in gold, his slender wrists peeking out of the sleeves, a drink in hand, the tone of his laughter, the glow of his cheeks from the attention.
His exposed neck, asking to be bitten, to be claimed. The way other xalphas were eyeing him up until Jayce slipped a hand onto his back, directly into his skin through the opening in the back of his shirt, and shot them a snarl.
Jayce shakes his head; what were they talking about? Oh yeah, Mrs. Kiramman. “Damn… Is it weird that I kind of miss her? And her daughter, too.”
Viktor turns, smiling wide. His face is so close. Jayce wants to repeat the experiment. They need more tests for accurate results, right? Would Viktor be interested in testing what it feels like to put their tongues in each other’s mouths?
“The little girl that was always in our lab breaking stuff?” Viktor asks. Jayce blinks, refocusing back on the conversation again. He needs to stop doing that.
“Oh, she broke a few beakers, that’s all. And she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s like sixteen now.” As a kid, she was clever, silly, curious, kind of a smartass. Jayce wonders how she took the news of their crash landing and capture. Does she know that Jayce overthrew his navigator and hijacked a ship? He wonders what she thinks of that. She was definitely always a stickler for rules, even looking into becoming an enforcer. But she did look up to them.
Viktor’s warm breath ghosts over Jayce’s cheek. “Who else do you miss…”
Jayce was always surrounded by others. It was infuriating to Viktor because he wanted him all to himself, but he understood why. He was a beacon of light and energy that naturally drew people in. Even one of the councilors, Mel, had been drawn in by him.
She even went so far as to suggest Jayce join the council to try keeping him from going on this mission. Jayce had ultimately chosen the mission, but Viktor could tell he was considering staying back with her.
If he had, his father would not have been the only casualty of this mission…
Jayce ponders on that question for a moment—about everyone they knew and everything they worked for—only one thing stands out as something he truly grieves. “What I miss more than anything is the big dreams we had to help your home country. We’ll never be able to create any of those inventions now…”
Viktor's home country, Zaun, has been completely disregarded by the council. Never truly independent, it exists in Piltover’s shadow. Literally. Its elevation is lower, so all of Piltover’s chemical runoff makes its way down there and into the air and water that the people breathe and drink. Even Viktor himself struggles with lung issues because of it.
“Maybe some day, someone else will pick up our research and make a better Zaun with it,” Viktor says.
Jayce scoffs at that. “Our research is probably in a criminal evidence folder somewhere now because of me.”
Viktor turns back up to the stars, wishing he could see their home planet from here. He doesn’t miss it, but he also feels like he failed everyone they could have helped. He stares off in the direction of it. When will they come looking for them? How long will these peaceful days last?
A single streak of gold glitters across the sky. Viktor gasps. “Jayce, look. A shooting star! Did you see it?”
Jayce smiles at Viktor’s enthusiasm, tracing his fingers across his cheek. He did see it, in the reflection of Viktor’s eyes.
They fall asleep like that. Cuddled up in the grass. Viktor nods off first, too warm and comfortable to fight the urge to close his eyes for just a little bit. Jayce, afraid to wake him, pulls his side of the blanket over his own shoulders, slipping a leg under Viktor’s side of the blanket.
He wants this every night—Viktor, warm, soft, content, naked, in his arms, breathing softly.
Safe.
And despite everything he’s lost recently, everyone he’ll never see again, every bit of the research that they’ll never get to finish, Jayce only wishes for one thing on that shooting star.
Viktor, loving him back.