Chapter Text
Jayce doesn't always despise the gatherings that Mel or Mrs. Kiramman drag him to. Sometimes it's nice, having a rapt audience listening as he recounts his endeavors or waxes optimistic about Piltover's future.
But sometimes, it's torture. Sometimes it means being trapped in a gilded cage with the most insufferable, arrogant elites the city has to offer.
One of such men is commanding the room now, gesticulating with his fat cigar in a way that makes it impossible to escape the nauseating waft of smoke.
"Oh, the golden years of the academy!" he roars, red-faced from the scotch. "In my day, they didn't let just anyone in, no sir. Only the crème de la crème!"
There are a few faint titters from the small crowd gathered in the parlor. Here he goes again, Jayce hears someone whisper to his left. He swirls the ice in his glass, doing his best to imagine himself anywhere else. At home. In Heimerdinger's office, with its sweeping views of the city. Best of all: in the lab with Viktor, lit only by the blue glow of Hextech.
The man—Milton?—sniffles. "These days you have all sorts. Scholarship students. Or, by the gods, Zaunites."
Jayce prickles, fingers tightening around his glass.
"Say," someone nearby drawls in his general direction. It takes Jayce a moment to place him—Salo, the hedonistic councilman, wearing his trademark feline smirk. "Isn't that assistant of yours a Zaunite?"
"My research partner," Jayce counters forcefully. "Viktor."
To his horror, Milton's eyes seem to gleam with recognition. "Ah, yes. The professor's underling. You wouldn't believe the rumors I've heard about him."
The woman next to him rests a tiny, bejewled hand on his arm. "Darling—," she says haltingly.
Milton, clearly not one to be cowed by basic human decency, pays her no mind. "I mean, what is one to think? He shows up, and suddenly he's right-hand-man to the dean?" He leans in conspiratorially, and Jayce thinks distantly that the glass will shatter in his hand if he grips it any harder. "I heard that he had some sort of...arrangement with a few of the professors. Slept his way up to the top, as it were. Only sensible, when you think about his, ah. Heritage."
Salo chuckles. Jayce wants to smack the self-satisfied grin from his face. "But who would want him? Truly?"
"Well." Milton takes a sip of his scotch, pausing for dramatic effect. "You know, some fellows are into all sorts of things."
Jayce stands abruptly, unsettling the prim society women seated around him. He looks to Mrs. Kiramman from across the room, and even her faintly disapproving frown in Milton's direction only feeds his anger. Cowards, he thinks viciously.
"Viktor earned his place through hard work and intellect," he grates out. More than legacy admissions like you lot could ever imagine. "I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for him. Nor would Hextech."
Milton hardly seems swayed. "A rousing defense, my boy!" He raises his glass to Jayce, as if it's all a game. Jayce wants to spit on him, knock the glass out of his hand—anything to humble the insufferable air of a man so rarely challenged.
"No harm meant," Salo chimes in. Jayce rounds on him, and he holds his hands up in a sick mockery of surrender. "We weren't implying that he'd propositioned you." The cruel lilt of his voice makes it seem as if that was exactly what he was implying.
Jayce draws up to his full height and opens his mouth to say something, but Mrs. Kiramman cuts in before he has the chance. "That's quite enough," she says bitingly. "This is hardly an appropriate conversation for polite company."
Jayce notes that there's no reproach there for Viktor's benefit. He feels suddenly sick, as if another moment around these people would send him into a fever pitch. He tries to reach for Mel's advice, to think of what she would say to cut to the quick of it, but his mind is nothing but a red haze of anger.
He sets down his drink and clenches his fists, inclining his head slightly towards the host. "If you'll excuse me, I should return to the lab." His voice sounds distant, restrained, as if he's already disconnected from this hideous gathering. He can't bring himself to look at Mrs. Kiramman. "I hope you'll attend our next demonstration so that you can see the fruits of Viktor's labor for yourselves. Good evening."
He can hear Milton's grating laugh as he excuses himself, followed by a faint my, but he is a hot-headed one, isn't he?
*
Jayce had hoped the brisk walk to the lab would clear his head, but he's still boiling with resentment by the time he reaches campus. The familiar golden spires and manicured lawns do nothing to stem his frustration; instead, he feels as if the gilded cage is only growing around him.
He wonders if Milton knows about his background as an immigrant, a refugee. How he'd been looked down on for years as little more than a charity case until the Kirammans had started touting his accomplishments in earnest. Would it have made a difference? Or would he, too, be subject to speculation about how he'd risen through the ranks?
Merit means nothing to these men. It's about status and wealth and power, things that only interest someone like Viktor insofar as they allow him to continue his research. But to hear him reduced to an assistant—Jayce has to grit his teeth, gripping the stairwell banister harder than necessary as he ascends.
He lets it happen, Jayce knows. Viktor is content to work in the shadows if it means idiots like Milton will leave him alone long enough to do his work in peace. But discovery begets glory, and glory begets legacy—and Viktor's legacy lies right alongside his. Inextricable. Men of progress.
Two equals, greater than the sum of their parts.
If Viktor had been like them, so preoccupied with appearances, he'd never have taken a risk on Jayce. But he alone had saved Jayce's life, given it new meaning, elevated their dream to something in the realm of true possibility. That crystalline beauty of his mind has brought them to heights so far above the small, stilted intellects of that stuffy parlor that sometimes Jayce feels dizzy with the possibilities.
Underneath the current of anger, though, there's a strange, churning curiosity. Some rumors, Jayce knows, start with a kernel of truth.
I heard that he had some sort of...arrangement with a few of the professors. Slept his way up to the top, as it were.
Jayce doesn't believe for a moment that Viktor's connections have any bearing on his accomplishments. But could it be true that he'd had a relationship with a colleague, at some point in the past...?
The idea shouldn't rattle him. But he keeps turning the words in his mind like a bruise, an addictive discomfort that he can't seem to pull away from. Jayce has never thought of Viktor as a sexual creature; he has the distinct impression that Viktor treats his body primarily as a vessel for thoughts and ideas, or perhaps occasionally as an unavoidable inconvenience. He's rarely seen Viktor indulge in material comforts like food or drink beyond absolute necessity (or the occasional sweet tooth), so the idea of him pursuing an intimate relationship is... new. That's all.
Something to tuck away and examine under the cover of night, when it's just him and his racing mind.
He can see a faint, flickering light under the door as he approaches the lab. Viktor is still at work—he'd guessed as much. Jayce knocks to keep from startling him before turning his key through the lock and peering inside.
"You're back early," Viktor says without turning around. He's hunched over the table, silhouetted from behind in an arc of brilliant blue light.
"I got bored." Jayce closes the door behind him and picks up his latest stack of notes, drifting towards the fresh equations scrawled on the chalkboard in Viktor's cramped handwriting. If only the people at the party could see what he sees: genius, plain and simple, in stark black and white before him.
"Mundane small-talk again?"
"If only." Jayce scrubs a hand over his face. Viktor's presence stirs a strange cocktail of relief and guilt in him that he can't quite place.
Viktor glances over at him, pushing his safety goggles up onto his head in a way that sends brown strands of hair sticking out in every direction. He's heard Jayce complain before about the galas and the parties, the endless efforts to sweet-talk investors and court support from a dizzying array of politicians. Viktor had, in fact, professed on more than one occasion that he'd rather perish in some tragic lab accident himself than be forced to socialize with so many of Piltover's elite.
Jayce is rather inclined to agree at the moment.
"Didn't drink enough this time make it bearable?" Viktor asks dryly. "Pity to waste a perfectly good outfit."
Jayce huffs out a laugh. Thank the gods he hadn't been inebriated, or he might have actually socked that bastard Milton in the jaw. "Not enough alcohol in the world."
And... well. He doesn't know what to do with the knowledge that Viktor noticed his new suit. That he likes it, even.
Viktor pulls his goggles off the rest of the way and pushes away from the lab table. At first Jayce thinks he's reaching for his cane, but he ducks lower, opening a cabinet that Jayce doesn't ever remember using. "The night is still young, eh?" he says, hoisting out a bottle and two mismatched glasses.
Jayce grins and pulls up a spare stool. "Has that been there the whole time?"
Viktor shrugs. "For celebrations. Or emergencies." He uncorks the bottle and pours them each a generous splash of pale amber liquid.
Jayce takes his glass in hand, still grinning. He loves this best, the late nights where things are a little looser around the edges. "And which is this?"
Viktor's mouth quirks upward in response. "A celebration," he decides.
"What are we celebrating?"
"That you have made it out of another insipid party with your wits about you, of course."
Jayce chuckles and clinks his glass against Viktor's. "I'll drink to that."
They talk—first about their research, and then about everything and nothing at all—and Jayce feels himself relaxing by slow degrees.
He likes this version of himself better. He's loose-limbed and grinning, a stark opposite to how he feels at the tense, formal affairs that seem to be pulling him away more and more as of late.
He likes this version of Viktor too: a little softer around the edges, like he's been painted over in watercolor. Viktor uses his hands more, a wealth of animated, vivid gestures that make something warm and fond bloom in Jayce's chest. He gets the feeling that people who don't know Viktor well tend to think of him as reserved, even grave; in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Viktor is telling a story now, his eyebrows climbing to dramatic heights as he recounts the misdeeds of one of Heimerdinger's former pupils. Even in the low light, Jayce can see the flush of the alcohol stealing up the carved planes of his face. It's a rare sight, he knows.
He thinks begrudingly back to the people at the party who had spoken of Viktor like they knew anything about him at all. Viktor, who reveals himself in bare glimpses to all but his closest friends. Who are they to speculate about his private life?
Jayce stumbles down the length of that thought and realizes with a jolt that maybe there's more to Viktor than even he has the privilege of witnessing. After all, he can only count on one hand the amount of times that he's seen Viktor anywhere near inebriated, and yet Viktor has had a bottle of liquor stashed in the lab all along.
He'd thought of Viktor as someone largely immune to most creature comforts, save hot tea in the morning and a cold glass of sweetmilk at night—but what if he just can't see the whole picture? What if there's another facet to Viktor's intimate life that he's not privy to?
He swallows around another sip of liquor, his eyes tracking Viktor's gestures but his mind a thousand miles away. Would he even know if Viktor had taken a lover, like Salo said?
He can see it, suddenly: dim, hazy warmth, the rosy glow on Viktor's pale skin, night unfurling endless possibilities before him. That sculptural face twisted in pleasure, that lithe body tangled up in white sheets. The faint echo of liquor on his lips, his tongue.
The clarity of it startles him. He must show it in his expression, because Viktor stops talking and raises an eyebrow at him.
"What?" he says, trying not to sound defensive as he banishes the thoughts from his mind.
Viktor purses his lips. "You were looking at me strangely. Like you were...," he makes a shooing sort of motion with his hand, "...somewhere else. Am I that boring?" His tone is light, but his eyes are searching. Inquisitive.
Jayce shakes his head, carding his fingers through his hair and allowing a sheepish smile. "Of course not, V. Long day and all." He pauses and takes another slow sip to clear his mind. He'd been basking in the moment, before that lurid gossip from earlier had resurfaced in his thoughts. "And just... thinking. About how I wish there weren't so many obligations attached to this work." Once the words start coming, they seem to tumble out in a rush. "The ceremonies, the parties—there isn't a single one of them I'd rather be at than here with you."
He clears his throat and stares down into his almost-empty glass. Why does it feel so much like a confession?
Viktor just looks back at him with an unreadable expression, the flush still high on his cheeks. He's quiet for long enough that Jayce thinks he might have said something wrong.
Finally, Viktor's mouth curls into a small smile. "I'd say the same, but I think you already knew that."
It startles a laugh out of Jayce. "Yeah, well. The bar is pretty low for you."
Viktor half-shrugs, taking another swig of his drink. "Even so. I would not wish to be anywhere else."
Jayce beams at that. Warmth steals through him from head to toe, settling somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. Viktor's words narrow things down to a simple truth: he'd suffer all the fools of Piltover a hundred times over if it means he gets to keep coming back to this at the end of the day.
*
Jayce finds himself replaying that night over and over in his head. He feels instinctually that there's something to puzzle out there, an angle he's not seeing yet.
It goes like this: Salo and Milton's cruel words. Anger, hot in his belly, every time he thinks about them. The juxtaposition of Viktor in the lab—a quieter warmth, tempered, comforting.
Viktor. Every time he conjures up the feeling of that night, pulls on that thread, it takes him back to Milton's vicious rumor. He remembers the way it colored his thoughts, conjuring up images of Viktor that make him flush to think of.
Cloaked in the thick of night, laying alone in his bed, those images play out against the backs of his eyelids over and over. Indulgent, impossible fantasies of lily-bare thighs and kiss-swollen lips and wide, molten gold eyes. Who? he thinks. Who could turn Viktor into this—wanton creature?
And this is where he spirals, night after night. The anger comes back, searing, but it runs deeper than Milton and Salo. It takes the shape of some unnamed professor, a shadowy cohort who feasts on a part of Viktor that he's never known.
Jayce knows logically that Viktor is an adult, capable of choosing his own partners if he desires. He believes fiercely in Viktor's autonomy, in a way that feels deeply at odds with the grasping, covetous heat that sinks its claws into him at the thought. And so he lashes himself with guilt, wracked by the idea that he is no better than the gossiping hordes that seek to whittle Viktor down to a mere object of conquest.
Each night he resolves to be better, to stop feeding those wretched rumors with his own sick musings.
Each night, he fails.