Chapter Text
Dear Doctor Jayce Talis, we regret to inform you that your application for the Piltovan At-Risk Adoption Program has been declined. Although we were impressed by your academic accolades, financial standing, and reference letters, your unmarried status and criminal record make it difficult to endorse you as a candidate for—
Jayce crumples the letter between his hands and presses his lips together, throat tight with grief. Why the hell is he so upset? He knew this was a long shot; agencies far less prestigious than Piltover's have already rejected him on the same grounds. In his heart, he felt this one coming.
Doesn't stop it from hurting.
He takes a deep breath, trying to rally himself. This isn't the time or place for a breakdown. He usually takes all of his personal letters home from work, where he has most of his mail delivered for convenience, but he saw the return address on this one and couldn't help opening it before driving home. At least the courtyard is peaceful right now, his colleagues off to catch trains and taxis, the huge fountain turned off for the winter. Jayce crams the letter into a pocket and climbs to his feet, pulling his overcoat tighter around himself as he crosses the street in the light snow. There's only one place that could bring him comfort right now, and it's not his office or even his spacious apartment downtown. He needs someplace quieter. Someplace with good coffee and a damn fine view.
Sure enough, Viktor is sitting behind the counter when Jayce pushes open the door to Emberflit Espresso, reading a ragged paperback. He hastens to stand when he hears the bell jingle, and Jayce tries to wave him back down. "Don't get up, V. It's just me."
"Jayce," Viktor says, voice warm. He stands up anyway, immediately starting on one of the vanilla lattes that Jayce favors on chilly days. He's wearing a dark red sweater with a high collar beneath his loose apron. Beautiful color on him. Despite the lead in his stomach, Jayce can't help smiling as Viktor reaches into the low mini-fridge for the cream, hair falling delicately across his forehead. "I didn't expect you this late. Did something happen?"
"I wanted to see you," says Jayce, and that's not a lie. "How are you doing today?"
"Oh, you know. Same feces, different flies. You?"
"Just another long day at the painfully literal office. You look gorgeous."
"Stop," says Viktor, cheeks dusted with pink. Against Jayce's protests, he scoops the biggest butter tart out of the display case and sets it in the oven to warm. "You could quit your job any time, you know. Marry me. I'll take good care of you. Did you know that shift leads here are paid nearly forty cents above minimum wage? I'd buy you the prettiest rock on the planet."
Jayce loves this game that they play. "Which is—?"
"The Olympic Australis, obviously."
"Oh, we're talking opals? I prefer Halley's Comet."
"Ah. So you like them uncut."
"And fist-sized."
"That's my line," says Viktor, laughing aloud, a rare treat. Jayce laughs too, and the two of them share a fond, wistful look. Teasing like this is safe, somehow. Maybe because they know that if they were really meant to be together, it would've already happened.
They've known each other for about five months now. The coffee shop opened in late August when an early autumn was settling across Piltover, trees turning too soon, and Jayce's deep, seasonal melancholy had him looping sad songs and lingering too close to tall ledges. It was especially bad that year. His breakup with Mel was still an open wound, and he was mourning the prospect of adoption that fell through along with the relationship. Like he'd lost a child he never had. Jayce wandered into Emberflit after work that day, looking for a hot meal and a place to hide, because the office was too loud and his apartment was too empty.
He still remembers what a vision Viktor was that day. Slim and pale and sharp and stunning in an oversized sweater and black skinny jeans, forgetting the lid on the blender, then yelping when it started sputtering iced matcha across the room. Jayce laughed for the first time in weeks, said something easy and mean like Nice one, genius, and Viktor spun on him with a withering glare and replied—Jayce'll never forget this—I do have some experience with emulsifiers, believe it or not, but they are more of the diacetyl tartaric acid ester of monoglyceride variety. After Jayce picked his jaw up off the floor, he helped Viktor clean the counters, and they talked immiscible phases and isotropy all evening. By the end of the night, Viktor was leaning close and speaking excitedly with his hands, and Jayce was more than halfway in love.
It's hard to say what's kept them apart. Jayce's fear of ruining a great thing, yes, and how screwed up he still feels without Mel sometimes—but there are other factors, too. Not least of all his understanding that Viktor is intentionally private. Jayce respects that. He himself is an open book, or open magazine, in the case of the shirtless The Science of Everything spread he shot last week to accompany an article on his work with Hextech. He wonders if Viktor knows about that. They've never met outside of the cafe, and only superficially discussed their lives beyond it.
There was one day, though. One strange Tuesday night three months ago when Jayce was working late and saw that the shop's lights were on past closing time. It was unlocked, so he let himself in, running on instincts that proved alarmingly correct when he found Viktor sitting half-conscious on the bathroom floor, struggling to contain a nosebleed.
Are you okay? he'd demanded, kneeling in front of him. Viktor, what happened to you?
Jayce Talis. My second favorite dream. Viktor's voice was slurred, distant. When Jayce clasped a hand to his cheek to check for fever, Viktor lolled into the touch, uninhibited in his haziness. You are an extraordinary man, you know? Smug. Proud and smug and perfect. Sometimes I like to imagine you would ever notice a person like— he broke off, coughing. Blood spattered his hand.
I'm calling an ambulance, Jayce said, reaching for his phone.
That got Viktor's attention. No! Please, Jayce. I'm fine. I merely bit my tongue.
You look like someone beat the shit out of you!
I assure you, I am still plenty full of shit. He tried for a closed-lipped smile, then, and even though it trembled at the corners, something in Jayce told him that if he kept pushing, he'd lose him for good.
So instead he sat down beside Viktor on the tile, tipped his head back, and held paper towels to his nose until the bleeding stopped. Viktor hitched with painful, sob-like hiccups that subsided only after Jayce helped him to his feet so he could wash his hands and face. Bruises lined his delicate throat, but he smiled again when Jayce touched them, the gesture featherlight and aching with questions.
Please don't ask me, Viktor whispered. How could I behave around you, knowing that you've seen me like this?
Seen you how? Hurt? Human?
Jayce…
I won't mention it tomorrow, but you have to promise me that you'll take care of yourself. That you'll be okay.
And that wasn't fair. It was an impossible request. But Viktor nodded anyway, and Jayce was so eager to believe it when he bade him goodnight—and it worked out because Viktor looked beautiful the next day when Jayce stopped in to see him. His bruises were hidden behind a navy scarf threaded with thin gold stripes. His coloring was flushed, radiant. There was no sign of last night in his eyes but for a new tenderness toward Jayce that he could sense on his face like moonlight, pale and bright and nearly spiritual.
That's still how Jayce feels toward Viktor now, even as he struggles to pour cream into the latte in the shape of a leaf and only manages a spindly-looking penis. "Fuck," says Viktor, staring into the paper cup.
"It's perfect. You're perfect. Here." Jayce offers Viktor a twenty dollar bill that he simply ignores, so Jayce stuffs it in the tip jar instead and sips his coffee.
Truth be told, Viktor was a pretty shitty barista in the beginning, the ratios all off and the coffee too watery. After Jayce told him to approach it like a chemist, though, Viktor has been nailing every beverage. He's obsessed with anything science-related, from gemology to the study of nematodes to being legitimately interested in Jayce's weird job as the 'VP of Clean Energy Performance Engineering' at Hextech Incorporated—a role that is largely clerical, actually, and absolutely fucking miserable. Viktor's enthusiasm for his work is the only thing keeping him from quitting: Your position is critical, Jayce. The world needs your solar knowledge and bullshit radar.
The six figures a year don't hurt either, but they apparently don't lend themselves enough to looking like a good adoptive parent candidate on paper. Jayce sighs deeply before he can stop himself. Viktor glances back at him, eyes gentle and acute.
"If I asked, would you tell me about it?"
"Probably not," says Jayce, "unless we're quid-pro-quoing here. Tell me what's going on with you, Viktor. Like, really tell me."
Viktor hesitates. A shadow passes across his face before he relaxes into a smile. "Why, I've a trillion things on my mind, all of them related to how delicious you look in that suit."
"Yeah. That's what I thought." Then, because he can't help himself: "I just had it tailored. You like it?"
"So vain. You don't need me to tell you you're beautiful."
"What if I do?"
"Then I pity you." Viktor studies Jayce again, head to toe, the gaze slow and appreciative. "You are a masterpiece, Doctor Jayce Talis."
"As are you, um—uh—" Jayce falters.
Viktor delicately lifts an eyebrow. "Give it a go."
"His Holiness, maybe. Professor. Master?"
"I like your thinking, but no. I also hold a doctoral degree."
Jayce is not surprised by this information—though they haven't spoken of it explicitly, Viktor's genius, academic and otherwise, has been obvious from his very first words—but he never expected Viktor to trust him with such a personal disclosure. Because Jayce is Jayce, he leaps at this opening without shame: "In what? From where? When did you graduate?"
"This is why we don't talk about me," says Viktor with mock-annoyance. "You begin frothing at the mouth. What would you do if I told you something that actually mattered?"
"Like what?" Jayce says eagerly.
"Like my favorite ice cream topping. Rainbow sprinkles, by the way."
Jayce pretends to swoon, and Viktor throws a dish towel at him and passes him his tart. Jayce eats at the nearest table and watches Viktor perform his closing duties, scrubbing down the counters one last time, packing up the leftover pastries, cleaning off the syrup pumps. Even in that enormous apron and rumpled from a long shift, Viktor is incomparably lovely, tired and kind and real. He keeps yawning. Wobbles a little on the stepstool when he reaches up to turn off the music. Jayce is there in an instant to stabilize him.
"You're dead on your feet," says Jayce. Then, because the adoption agency's rejection has given him nothing to lose tonight: "Let me drive you home, okay?"
Viktor sighs, playing along as he turns off the lights. "Now, Jayce, just because we talked rainbow sprinkles and honorifics—"
"I mean it. It's snowing. I don't want you commuting in this."
For a moment, Viktor regards him in silence, smile fading. His eyes widen, and Jayce realizes that with this offer, the two of them have reached the point that might be their peak—the closest they can ever get to each other without compromising themselves. Jayce feels a sudden wave of dread, and opens his mouth to backpedal. But Viktor speaks first.
"All right," he says, voice soft.
Jayce blinks. "Really?"
"It's cold out. Where are you parked?"
"It's—I'm out by the—just stay here. I'll be right back."
"Okay. I'll wait outside after I set the alarm and lock up."
Jayce shrugs off his overcoat and drapes it over Viktor's shoulders, pulling it tight. "Stay warm," he says, and it comes out so unexpectedly tender that Viktor's face reddens. He nods. Jayce barely resists the urge to kiss his forehead, then exits the coffee shop and begins the brisk walk down the block to his office's covered parking garage.
He feels some gratitude that he took his relatively-modest Lexus instead of the BMW, which may have been expensive enough to scare Viktor out of accepting a ride—Viktor, who balked at a gift of a dozen roses for Christmas, who makes his three free coffees a shift out of the cheapest beans because he doesn't want to "waste" the good ones on himself. He is obviously struggling financially. Jayce hates that Viktor works these long, grueling shifts for feeble tips while Jayce himself sits in his private office and watches his Newton's Cradle executive toy swing back and forth for roughly 120 dollars an hour. An obscene amount of money that he can't even use to spoil anyone, now that Mel is out of his life—
That was almost half a year ago, Jayce reminds himself sternly, unlocking his car and slipping inside. It doesn't matter that they knew each other for a decade, dated for nearly seven years. Tonight is the night he will get over her for good, and that progress begins with him poking open the passenger-side heating vents, tossing a jacket over the fast food detritus in his back seat, and driving back to the coffee shop.
Viktor is waiting outside the dark building, leaning on a cane that Jayce didn't know he used. He hasn't threaded his arms through the sleeves of Jayce's coat, instead merely holding it shut over his apron, clearly trying not to be presumptuous. Oh, Viktor. Jayce pulls as close to the curb as he can and leans over to open the door himself.
"Button it, for fuck's sake," Jayce says.
"It's too expensive," says Viktor, carefully easing himself into the car. "I wouldn't want to ruin—"
"Viktor, please."
Viktor relents and puts it on properly. Jayce made it to his car in good time, but there's still a light dusting of snow on Viktor's shoulders, and he's shivering. It makes Jayce ache in a way that alarms him a bit, causes him to wonder how deep this softness for Viktor really runs. He can't wait for his jacket to smell like him. Coffee and cheap amber cologne and dust and books. Jayce clears his throat and turns on the radio, suddenly blushing himself.
"What'll it be? Crunkcore? Catholic psychedelic?"
"Know any industrial metal stations?"
Jayce's fingers pause on the dial. "Can't say I do. Are you teasing me?"
Viktor's smile is small and private. "You'll never know, will you? Put on whatever you want, Jayce."
After a suspicious few seconds, feeling distinctly judged, Jayce connects his phone via Bluetooth to see what he was last listening to. Immediately, Taylor Swift crashes out of his speakers. Jayce leaps for the volume control, cursing, and Viktor hides his laughter behind one perfect hand. They settle on a light rock station, and Jayce navigates toward the closest intersection.
"Where to?"
"South, past the Undercity. It's a—"
"Dance club, yeah." Gay dance club. "Do you go there often?"
"Oh, yes. I can really cut a rug." Viktor taps his cane wryly.
"I didn't realize your leg hurt you so badly. You should've let me help you close."
"While we're at it, we should swap jobs entirely. You can make subpar caramel macchiatos while I advise Hextech on the best site topology, KPI, and alarm rules practices."
Jayce hesitates. He has a feeling this proposition won't be well-received if he delivers it casually, because Viktor is as proud as he is unassuming, so he words it with special care: "It wouldn't be charity for me to find you a job within the company, you know. Given my coworkers, I can assure you that you are wildly overqualified for all of the open positions. And if you have a doctorate—"
"It's not in a related field," says Viktor, voice going a little flat.
"Ah." Jayce lets his serious tone drop. "I bet it's a dual PhD. Medical illustration and coffee sommelier degrees."
"Are there such things as—? Oh, you're poking fun. This is about my penis latte art. I swear, I mastered rosettas ages ago. It's just that when I'm around you, my—my hands shake." He says this without looking at Jayce, ears pink.
"Oh." They spend most of their time together blushing like teenagers passing love notes in class. Jayce can't say he dislikes it, but he has to flirt in moderation, or risk completely combusting. "Left or right after the Undercity?"
"Left, please."
It turns out to be a considerably long drive that runs near an electric train station. From there, Viktor directs him a few blocks further. Jayce hates the idea of Viktor trudging through this snow with his cane and heavy satchel, especially since it's not in an especially safe part of town—lower income and urban, no Neighborhood Watch programs, the streetlights few and far between. Viktor asks him to stop at a curb in front of a rundown apartment building.
"This is perfect," he says. "Thank you very much for the ride, Jayce. Wait, what are you—?"
Jayce is already out of the car and slipping in the sleet in his haste to open Viktor's door for him. He beams and offers Viktor an arm, and Viktor rolls his eyes before taking it, spreading a pleasant warmth through Jayce's chest. He reaches for the closest front door, but Viktor sighs and nods upward toward the third story.
"You're kidding," says Jayce.
"Not terribly accessible, I know," Viktor says. "You don't have to walk me up."
"Of course I do."
"So stubborn."
But he doesn't protest further, so they tackle the rickety metal stairs together, Viktor huffing quietly with the effort. His face is drawn with pain. He must be having an especially rough evening. He forgoes his cane, one hand on the railing, the other in the crook of Jayce's elbow. It's slow going, but they make it without incident. Viktor tugs him to a halt in front of a weathered blue door, gaze shyly lowered as he lets go.
"I appreciate this very much, Jayce."
"Any time. I mean it. Not just when it's snowing."
"We'll see. I'm hoping to find a closer place to stay." Viktor begins patting around for his keys, absently dipping one hand into Jayce's coat pocket—and pulls out Jayce's rejection form.
"Oh," says Jayce, reaching for it with sudden shame. "Ignore that. It's just—"
"Piltover's At-Risk Adoption Program?" The emblem is clearly visible at the top of the page; Viktor doesn't have to smooth it open to see it. He looks up at Jayce, eyes strangely unreadable, and after a moment of hesitation, Jayce nods his permission for Viktor to examine the letter. Viktor uncrumples it and scans it quickly. He seems to blink at 'criminal record,' but doesn't comment. "Is this what it looks like?" he asks.
Jayce shifts his weight from foot to foot. "Y-yeah. My ex-wife and I were hoping to adopt. That was before our breakup, but it's something I still want for myself. Haven't had much luck yet. Single parent status, and—" he doesn't really want to discuss his criminal history right now. "—and yeah."
Viktor studies him like he's contemplating something very difficult. His eyebrows knit together with sudden emotion, and he swallows visibly. There's a vulnerability in his face that Jayce hasn't seen since that unspeakable night in the bathroom.
"Why do you want a baby?" he asks, abrupt and damn near unkind. "Why would you want something that's so much time and money, so much pain?"
"Pain? No," says Jayce vehemently. "I mean, yes, there will be pain. That's inevitable. But the joy of being a parent would be infinite. Even when it's hard work. Even when it hurts. Maybe especially when it hurts, because to care about someone that much, to raise them and be responsible for them and love them unconditionally—I can't think of anything that would make me happier. I want to be a good enough man to deserve this, V. That's the most I could ever ask for. The chance to become better than the person I was before I met the soul who will change my entire life."
Viktor blinks hard. His mouth quivers before he pulls it into a smile. "Pretty words," he says. "But can you back them up? Can you ever really promise you'll love someone?"
"Yes," says Jayce firmly. "I would love my child before myself. I already do."
The air rings with this declaration, even in the snow, but the silence that follows hangs on an instant too long. Viktor doesn't say anything, and Jayce begins to feel foolish. Naive. Then he realizes that Viktor is fighting back tears.
"Are you okay, Viktor?" Jayce asks quietly.
He reaches up to touch Viktor's face, bold in his concern, and Viktor even allows it for a moment before stepping back and drawing a deep, steadying breath. He removes Jayce's coat and hands it back to him. Jayce accepts it reflexively, questions still lingering on his lips, but before he can ask any of them, Viktor reaches back to untie the huge apron he's still wearing from work.
"Viktor, what—"
The words die out. Viktor licks his lips and folds his apron over one arm, letting Jayce see him. All of him.
Viktor is unmistakably pregnant.
"Oh," Jayce breathes. He unthinkingly reaches for Viktor's convex belly, stops himself before he actually makes contact. His hands hover helplessly. "Viktor—wow. Oh my god. How long—?"
"About thirteen weeks," says Viktor. "I'm almost in my second trimester."
"Holy shit." Jayce feels faint. "I had no idea."
"Yes, well, that was the point, wasn't it?" says Viktor, antithetically gentle. "No one was supposed to know. By the time anyone found out, I wanted to have it delivered and in the arms of its loving new parents. Or—parent."
The implications are obvious, but Jayce still takes a long time to absorb them. His heart begins beating very, very fast. "W-would you even consider that? It's not that simple. You can't just—I mean, you can do whatever the hell you want, I guess, but there are so many factors, and I—I—" he's stammering. He has to close his eyes and force himself to breathe properly. When he opens his eyes again, they're damp, and so are Viktor's. "Viktor, holy fuck. I want this so badly," Jayce whispers. "Please tell me what we can do to make this happen."
Viktor nods. He cups his hands to his stomach, cradling the child growing inside of him with tenderness and no small amount of desperation. There's snow in his hair. Jayce brushes it away.
"Well," says Viktor, fishing his keys out of the front pocket of his pants, which have an obvious maternity panel, "you'd better come in. I suspect we have a lot to talk about."
"Thank you," says Jayce. It sounds ridiculously insufficient. "For even considering this, I owe you—everything."
"I feel the same way," Viktor replies, and gifts Jayce the most beautiful, frightened smile he's ever seen. "But let's start by sharing a cup of tea."