Chapter Text
Hand poised on the handle, Viktor hesitated. It was not in his nature to lurk in doorways or eavesdrop—he found such behavior unseemly and inefficient. Yet, the familiar cadence of Caitlyn’s voice, drifting from within the laboratory, gave him pause. She was laughing.
He took a careful step back, uncertain whether to announce himself or allow the conversation to end in its own time. If the matter was personal—family affairs, political conversations, or Jayce’s inexplicable obsession with herbal tonics—he would rather avoid the awkwardness of intruding.
He adjusted the grip on his cane, the worn metal warm under his fingers. A minute. That was all. One respectful minute, and then he would knock. Or walk in. Or possibly retreat entirely if the conversation was too personal.
He exhaled slowly, and listened—just enough to assess.
“The third chapter was really quite good,” Caitlyn said, with a conspiratorial delight in her tone. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting them to kiss so soon.”
Viktor’s head tilted.
Kiss? Chapter? This did not sound like their typical exchange. Something in the way they spoke tugged at his attention, subtle but insistent. He kept listening, one hand still on the handle of the door and the other on his cane.
“Yeah, that was fast,” Jayce replied, his voice tinged with sheepish amusement. “Maybe too fast? I thought they’d hold off longer, but…”
They were discussing fiction. A serialized story, it seemed. Romantic in nature. Viktor blinked. Jayce, whose bookshelf was a graveyard of treatises and schematics, hardly seemed the type one associated with moon-eyed protagonists and literary flirtations. And yet, he spoke with the ease of a man not merely acquainted with the tale, but immersed—critically and emotionally—in the cadence of its romance.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Caitlyn chimed in. “I prefer when the tension actually leads somewhere. And do you know, I had trouble reserving the next chapter—there’s a waiting list. A waiting list, Jayce!”
Jayce let out a surprised little gasp. “Wait, really? That many people are reading it?”
Viktor did not mean to continue listening. Truly. But his feet had taken root. His posture shifted incrementally toward the door, not unlike a scholar leaning toward an unstable experiment, too curious to withdraw, too wary to intervene.
“Yes. I daresay this anonymous writer—what was the name again? Forgeheart?—will become quite the literary sensation,” Caitlyn said, her tone as dry as a sun-scorched vineyard and twice as teasing.
Jayce let out a laugh that came out a bit too high, a bit too fast, like a kettle left on the flame too long. “Ah—well, we’ll see, won’t we?” he said, scratching the back of his neck in a performance of nonchalance so forced it might have qualified as physical theatre. Then, with a sudden shift into nervous urgency, he added, “But please, Caitlyn, as I mentioned before—don’t mention this to anyone. I’d really rather not have anyone thinking I’m into, you know…this sort of thing.”
Forgeheart.
Viktor repeated the name in his mind like a formula to be memorized.
It all began to make a peculiar sort of sense. Jayce’s inexplicable enthusiasm, the suspiciously detailed commentary, the emotional analysis of narrative structure. Perhaps it was the pen name that first caught his interest—romantic in tone, yet mechanized in nature.
Perhaps Caitlyn had read it first and passed it along, like contraband literature whispered between noble houses. Or perhaps Jayce had stumbled upon it himself while browsing for schematics in the library and accidentally fallen headfirst into emotional subplots and clandestine confessions. Regardless, Viktor now suspected the story was more than just prose.
His thoughts were cut short by the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching the door.
He could not be found loitering like some hallway specter. Caitlyn’s silhouette was already drawing near the threshold, her stride as purposeful as ever. Viktor, with all the natural grace of someone pretending not to have been eavesdropping, pushed the door open just wide enough to step inside and avoid the mortifying scenario of a double entrance.
Caitlyn looked up, halfway across the room, and offered him a small smile. “Viktor. Good to see you.”
“Miss Kiramman,” he replied, nodding politely, his tone level. “Likewise.” He stepped aside to allow her to pass, cane tapping softly against the stone floor like a metronome.
As he moved toward his usual desk, his gaze flicked—just for a moment—toward Jayce.
Suspicious.
Jayce was perched on the edge of one of the lab tables with the air of a man who had been sitting there very casually for exactly seven seconds. His hands, subtle as a thunderclap, were busy shuffling a bundle of parchment into a lower cabinet with the kind of speed that betrayed guilt rather than tidiness.
Jayce offered a bright smile, his hair tousled just enough to suggest a productive early morning—not that he had recently scrambled to conceal a secret manuscript. “Good morning, Viktor!” he said, his usual cheerfulness bubbling through.
“Good morning, Jayce,” Viktor replied, placing a neatly bound stack of notes on his desk. The papers made a satisfying thump, which he found helpful in grounding his composure.
Jayce strolled over to Viktor, hands in his coat pockets, a smile still plastered on his face. “How’s the leg pain today?”
Viktor looked up from his chair, “Tolerable. The brace seems to be doing its work.”
Jayce leaned in slightly, examining the brace he had built. “Glad to hear it. Although I might tweak the tension on the inner strut—just a bit. Might make the motion even smoother.”
“I think it’s fine for now,” Viktor replied, glancing briefly at his leg. “Stable, supportive, and allows me to walk. I call that a triumph.”
Jayce grinned. “Always aiming for greatness,” he quipped, then turned to his own workbench to begin sketching something with great enthusiasm—likely updates to that new prototype they were working on.
The morning settled into routine: the low hum of arcane equipment being tested, the rustle of parchment, the occasional soft clink of tools. After a few quiet minutes, Viktor found himself rereading the same line of text three times. His concentration was no match for curiosity.
He cleared his throat lightly. “Caitlyn seemed in rather good spirits today.”
Halfway through a complex diagram, Jayce didn’t look up. “Yeah, she was.” For all his charm and sharp instincts, he seemed blissfully unaware that he had, moments earlier, been the unwitting subject of quiet observation.
The lab fell back into a gentle rhythm until Viktor, eyes still on the tiny copper washer rolling between his fingers, ventured another nudge into the conversation. “Was she here to deliver news about the latest patrol routes in Zaun?” he asked, his tone perfectly neutral, as if the question had occurred to him entirely by accident and was of no particular importance whatsoever.
Jayce finally looked up, one eyebrow arched in mild curiosity. He blinked at Viktor, as if trying to gauge whether this was a trap or just an unusually social morning. “Nah, nothing like that,” he said with an easy shrug. “She was just stopping by.”
His tone was light, but Viktor noted the slight pause—just long enough to make a suspicious man more suspicious.
“Why? Everything alright?”
Viktor gave what he hoped was the expression of a man making conversation and not attempting to uncover Jayce’s secret hobby. “Of course. Can’t I make small talk?”
Jayce chuckled, still looking at Viktor in search of an explanation. “You can, yes. You just don’t do this often.”
Viktor offered a faint smile, the kind that flickered more in his eyes than on his mouth. “Well, today I simply feel like it.”
Jayce returned to his drawing, muttering something about whether energy transfer could be regulated through rotating magnets. The matter of Caitlyn’s visit, to him, seemed settled.
But to Viktor, the case of Forgeheart was only just beginning.
At midday, Viktor excused himself under the perfectly reasonable pretense of retrieving “structural recalibration records” from the library archives. In truth, he was on a mission. One requiring stealth, precision, and a firm, disciplined refusal to acknowledge just how personally invested he had already become in this entirely ridiculous endeavor.
He arrived at the Piltover Grand Archive, a stately building of polished stone and golden lattices. The place smelled of ink, varnish, and old papers—Viktor’s third home. He was well known here, often seen poring over obscure journals or muttering to himself beneath the frescoed ceilings.
But today…he was not here for research.
He was here for Forgeheart.
He began, logically, in the general fiction aisle. Nothing. Then the fantasy section—dragons, sorcery, morally conflicted swordsmen—but no sign of Forgeheart. He considered the romance shelves but dismissed them quickly. Jayce wouldn’t read just romance, would he? Surely there was a deeper thematic layer.
After several minutes of searching and increasingly suspicious glances from a librarian dusting shelves nearby, Viktor spotted a familiar figure.
“M. Viktor!” the archivist called, offering a smile. She was one of the senior attendants and long accustomed to his peculiar borrowing habits.
“Good afternoon,” Viktor replied with a slight nod. “I’m looking for a manuscript. Forgeheart?”
Her smile grew suddenly amused. “Oh,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of reading.” A twinkle of mischief danced in her eyes. “Come with me.”
That was the first moment Viktor regretted not sending a research assistant instead, but it was too late. Still, he followed, cane tapping quietly beside her heels as she led him through the echoing halls, past the great staircases, and finally to a small, unassuming wooden door.
Etched in gold lettering above it: “Adults Only. Please request access from staff. Identification required.”
The librarian pulled out a brass key from her ring and unlocked the door with ceremony befitting a tomb. She gestured him inside. “After you.”
He had never been in this room before. Not once. Not in all his years of study. Not even when he was a young man.
The shelves here were taller, older, and slightly uneven. A single lantern hovered in the middle of the room, casting a warm but ever-so-suspicious glow. He followed her to the back—where, above a large section, hung a wooden placard painted in deep crimson letters: “Erotica and Sensual Literature”
Oh.
Oh…
He stared. A long silence followed.
“It’s more popular than you’d think,” she said lightly, already scanning the shelves. “We only have the first volume of Forgeheart’s work at the moment. The next two are in very high demand.”
She retrieved a plain manuscript from the middle row—no cover, no embellishment. A simple stack of parchment bound with red thread, its modest appearance doing little to mask the aura of scandal it radiated. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “No illustrations, if that’s a concern.”
Viktor took it gingerly, as one might handle a ticking device whose wires had already been tampered with. “Ah. Thank you. A friend mentioned it…I thought I would investigate.”
He glanced at the title, printed in neat cursive on the first page: “The Alchemy of Us.”
She gave him a sidelong smile. “Judging by your face, I suspect you weren’t aware of the genre of this work.”
“Not…precisely,” Viktor admitted, a faint blush blooming high on his cheekbones. “Is it that lewd?”
“It will be, eventually,” she chuckled. “The first few chapters are more romantic buildup for now.” She leaned in a little, as if confiding state secrets. “Quite tastefully, I would say. But there is quite the tension.”
Viktor cleared his throat. He was not shy by nature—reserved, certainly, and often too preoccupied with his work to entertain more visceral pursuits. But shy? No. He had no discomfort discussing matters of the body—whether in the context of science, education, or even idle curiosity.
Still, this kind of story had never appealed to him.
He had never quite understood the allure of romantic fiction in its more explicit forms. Too often, they felt staged. Idealized. Draped in impossible elegance. The words lacked the weight of truth, traded in fantasy where everything was effortless and immaculate. Perfect bodies, perfect timing, perfect satisfaction—as if intimacy could be boiled down to a well-placed metaphor and a simultaneous, miraculous release.
No awkward fumbling. No nerves. No ill-angled limbs or missed cues. No life, really.
He preferred reality. The imperfect wonder of it.
The hesitant learning curve between two persons. The thrill of discovery—not just of skin, but of trust, of comfort. The missteps. The breathless laughter. The quiet fumbling followed by a question: "Does this feel good?" The tangle of limbs and clothes, the rustle of sheets, the rawness of it all.
The hair, the heat, the skin. The humanness of it.
He wasn’t prudish. He simply found more intimacy in imperfection than in glossy fantasy. And he doubted that a manuscript—especially one with a pen name like Forgeheart—could capture the beauty of sexual activities.
Still...
He wanted to understand what Jayce saw in it. Purely out of intellectual curiosity, of course.
Perhaps there was something in the structure. The phrasing. Some metaphor about conductivity so artfully phrased it made Jayce’s brain light up. Viktor doubted it, but he had read more tedious things in the name of understanding.
He glanced at the archivist, who was now pretending not to be delighted. “I see,” he said calmly. “I’m not entirely sure this will be to my taste, but...I’ll give it a try.”
She chuckled knowingly, tucking a book under one arm. “Let me know what you think. And if you’d like, I can add your name to the waiting list for chapter two.”
Viktor hesitated. He did not want his name recorded in any official registry involving this. But it was too late. He could feel his mouth saying it before his brain could veto the decision. “Eh. Yes. Fine. Go ahead.”
She nodded, entirely too cheerful, and returned to the door.
Viktor slipped the manuscript into his satchel with the delicacy of someone stowing away contraband.
He was nearly certain he would stop at the first chapter anyway.
Almost entirely.
When Viktor returned to the lab, it was blissfully empty. The hum of dormant Hextech equipment buzzed softly in the background, mingling with the faint scent of parchment, and whatever scorched residue Jayce had last left smeared across the calibration table.
Perfect.
He dropped his satchel onto his workbench with a practiced flick and slipped the manuscript out like a classified thesis from a forgotten archive. It rested in his hand—modest, unassuming, and entirely too weighty for fiction.
He prepared a cup of tea, added two spoonful of sugar, and seated himself at his desk. With legs comfortably extended under the desk and one elbow propped lazily, he opened to the first page to the summary:
In the silver-spired city of Arcfall, where transmutation is a science and secrets dissolve like metals in acid, two alchemists are assigned to a singular task: to reconstruct the Harmonic Circle, an ancient transmutation ring broken centuries ago. But harmony demands perfect balance—and perfect trust.
Varek is the Empire’s most reclusive alchemist—precise, pragmatic, and solitary. His hands are gloved at all times, hiding the burn-scars of a failed synthesis no one dares ask about. He works in silence, and trusts no one with his reagents.
Then comes Jalen.
Newly appointed by the High Circle, Jalen is brilliant, bold, and maddeningly earnest. He talks too much. He leaves his notes in disarray. He calls golden aether “pretty” and insists on naming their catalyst like a houseplant.
They are opposites in method, temperament, and nearly every approach to life. And yet—amid a lab of broken flasks and sleepless nights—they inevitably begin to orbit one another.
As the compound destabilizes, so does the line between partnership and something far more volatile.
A story of mercury and magnetism, glass and trust, and the quiet alchemy between two men who were never meant to mix, but couldn’t stay separate.
So it was of scientific nature after all—but it already sounded far too cheesy. The summary read like a Council directive disguised as a love letter. And yet...something about it lingered. Viktor couldn’t quite place it. A strange pull settled in his chest—not recognition exactly, but a feeling akin to déjà-vu. Familiarity wrapped in unfamiliar phrasing.
He began to read, quietly, the way one might dissect a questionable data set. Every few lines, he sipped from his hot tea, letting the words unfold between breaths.
After a few pages, his assessment began to crystallize. The author was clearly a novice in fiction. Not bad, by any means—the prose was technically sound, even elegant in places. There was a discipline to the syntax, a preference for precision in word choice, and an obvious affection for the mechanics of alchemy. In fact, it was almost too polished for something shelved between erotica and romantic fantasy.
It read less like escapism, and more like someone trying to explain something they hadn’t quite admitted aloud.
The prose was competent. Self-conscious, yes. Occasionally overwrought. But buried in the elegant metaphors and formulaic pacing, Viktor could sense the mark of a first work—someone still searching for their style. Still revealing more of themselves than they realized.
The opening chapters were purely exposition. Each character introduced in meticulous detail. Varek was a textbook recluse. Brilliant, reserved, burdened by his past. Meanwhile, Jalen was bold, talkative, reckless with his elements and, apparently, with his heart.
For a while, they did not meet.
And then, finally, they did.
The explosion wasn’t entirely his fault. Jalen had followed the ratios—more or less—but the salt reacted faster than expected when introduced to the raw aether. The resulting blast vaporized half the stabilizer rack and embedded a sliver of glass into the ceiling, where it pulsed faintly like a dying star.
His lab was rendered unusable. The haze of burnt tincture still hung thick in the air when his professor arrived, flanked by two unimpressed assistants. Jalen braced himself—he knew the High Circle did not look kindly on reckless alchemists. A formal reprimand was all but guaranteed.
And then the door opened again.
Varek entered without ceremony, his expression unreadable, his gaze sweeping across the scorched ruin with quiet calculation.
Jalen’s breath caught.
The man before him was tall and slender, his brown hair falling just so at the sides of his sharply cut face. He moved like someone used to silence, like the air itself parted for him. And his eyes—deep amber, precise, unyielding—locked with Jalen’s in a way that felt like being seen through.
“Jalen,” Varek said calmly. “You’ve been reassigned.”
Jalen blinked. He hadn’t realized he was staring. His mouth was slightly open. “What?”
“To my lab,” Varek repeated, voice like polished stone. “The High Circle believes you require oversight from now on.”
Viktor paused.
He read the paragraph again. Then, with slow deliberation, set his teacup down—gently, as if the ceramic might shatter under the weight of what he had just absorbed.
A tension bloomed behind his eyes, subtle but insistent. One corner of his jaw clenched, a muscle ticking like a reluctant metronome.
Viktor stared at the page.
The resemblance was almost uncomfortable.
An explosion caused by reckless experimentation. A reassignment by a higher authority. A stranger stepping into the chaos with effortless composure. And the stranger in question? Tall. Brown-haired. Amber-eyed. Sharp features. Unreadable expression. It mirrored reality with unnerving precision—their reality. The first time they officially met.
The sequence was nearly identical.
He leaned back slightly in his chair, narrowing his eyes at the parchment as if the ink might flinch.
Surely…it was a coincidence. A strange one. But coincidence nonetheless.
After all, some of that information had been made public. The incident with Jayce’s hexcrystal hadn’t exactly been confidential—there had been reports filed, witness statements, and no small amount of gossip. Anyone with enough curiosity could have dug up the basics. Perhaps the author had merely taken inspiration from archived events, reshaped them for fiction. That was all.
Yes. That was the reasonable explanation.
And yet...
The description. The tone. The way Varek and Jalen had spoken. The particular phrasing. It wasn’t just the facts—it was the texture of the moment. The familiarity threaded between the lines, as though someone had been there.
Viktor exhaled slowly through his nose. He turned the page with quiet resolve.
It was probably just in his head. A projection, nothing more. He was just probably not prone to flights of fantasy. He continued reading in silence, eyes scanning the page with measured rhythm as the story was evolving slowly.
Then the door creaked open.
Jayce entered, absentmindedly tossing a thin metal component between his hands—likely part of the unstable prototype he'd been obsessing over all week. His steps were casual, humming under his breath in that infuriatingly contented way he did when he thought no one was looking.
Viktor didn’t look up. He didn’t need to.
He smirked inwardly, folding his mischief neatly into the corners of his expression as he continued reading in silence, eyes never leaving the page. Let’s see, he thought. Let’s see how long it takes until Jayce asks about the manuscript in his hand.
Jayce crossed to his bench and placed the metal piece down with a soft clink, sparing only the briefest glance in Viktor’s direction. He seemed entirely unbothered to see Viktor reading—it wasn’t an unusual sight.
But Viktor knew him too well.
Jayce was curious by nature. A chronic snoop. He poked his nose into everything: journals, sketches, Viktor’s notebook, even his tea selection. The fact that he hadn’t asked already was suspicious in itself.
Viktor cleared his throat. Loudly.
He turned the next page slowly—too slowly—adding just the faintest rustle for dramatic effect.
He still didn’t look up.
Sure enough, a moment later, he felt Jayce glance again. “What are you reading?”
Viktor allowed himself a restrained sort of satisfaction. He didn't smile—at least, not visibly. “Nothing important,” he replied smoothly. “Just some kind of fictional story.” He kept his eyes on the manuscript. He knew exactly what he was doing.
There was a pause. A long, twitchy, suspicious pause.
“Oh?” Jayce said, fiddling with the pen in his fingers. “It’s rare that you read fiction. What’s it about?”
And there it was—the fidgeting. Viktor noted the start of Jayce’s classic stress response: one leg began bouncing under the desk, a steady, rhythmic tap like an unspoken alarm.
Viktor didn’t look up. He turned another page with all the serenity of a man reading ancient philosophy. “I’m just starting,” he said mildly. “It’s called The Alchemy of Us. ”
Jayce’s leg stopped mid-bounce. His pen slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
Ah. There it is.
Only then did Viktor lift his gaze—slowly, deliberately—just in time to catch the precise moment Jayce’s face contorted into a grimace that lived somewhere between forced smile and dawning existential crisis.
Viktor raised a single eyebrow, the picture of polite curiosity. “Something wrong?”
Jayce jolted into motion, lunging for the pen he'd dropped like it was a diplomatic incident. “N-No,” he stammered, straightening with a too-fast grin and running a hand through his hair—a gesture Viktor had long ago catalogued under Step II: Mild Panic Responses. “Nothing’s wrong.”
He cleared his throat with the theatrical subtlety of a man trying to bury a body under a dinner napkin. “Viktor, when did you start reading this kind of literature?”
Viktor allowed himself a small, satisfied smile—just enough to suggest warmth, not enough to be legally considered gloating. “One of our assistants mentioned it was worth reading,” he said, with impeccable calm. “Naturally, I was curious.”
Jayce nodded too quickly. “Ah. Yeah. Right. Curiosity. Of course.” He scratched the side of his neck— Step III: Active Discomfort —and stared at the manuscript as if it might suddenly sprout legs and run. “I—uhm. I see.”
Viktor turned back to the pages with the practiced grace of a man who had won an argument without ever raising his voice. “Have you read it?” he asked casually, flipping to the next page like he wasn’t dangling bait on a string.
Jayce went quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
A beat passed.
Then—
“I—uhm—I don’t think I would like that.”
Viktor did not look up immediately. He gave it two full seconds—two—before glancing over his manuscript with the kind of slow, deliberate expression that said really. So, Jayce had decided to lie after all. Bold choice.
He tilted his head, lips tugging ever so slightly into a smirk. “Oh? Really?”
Jayce’s eyes did a little dart—right, left, ceiling—as if seeking escape routes.
“Because it sounded earlier,” Viktor continued smoothly, “like you knew exactly what kind of literature it was.” He sipped his tea.
Jayce blinked. Once. Twice. Mouth slightly open, hands doing absolutely nothing helpful.
He had been caught. And he knew it. And Viktor knew he knew it.
Viktor leaned ever so slightly forward, the edge of a smile touching his lips. “I’m joking,” he said lightly. “Someone probably told you about it too.”
Jayce laughed—nervously, a little too loud. “Y-Yeah, exactly!” And then, right on cue: the chew of his lower lip. Step IV: Regret about lying. Consistent. Predictable. Almost endearing.
Viktor closed the manuscript with a quiet thump and set it neatly on the desk beside him. “If you ever decide to read it, let me know,” he said, already turning back to his notes. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on the story.”
And with that, he resumed work as though nothing had happened.
But Jayce didn’t move. He lingered a few seconds longer, staring—not at Viktor, but at the manuscript. At the closed pages. At the secret, wrapped in red thread, lying innocently exposed in the open air. “S-sure…” he said at last, voice thin, retreating.
A long silence stretched between them before Jayce finally returned to his own workstation. But whatever focus he had brought into the room had long since evaporated.
Viktor could hear it.
The way Jayce flipped through his notebook with too much force. The clatter of a dropped part. The muttered sigh. The scratch of graphite struck through equations that had nothing wrong with them.
Frustration was radiating off him like heat from a badly tuned core.
And Viktor—quiet now, eyes flicking between his notes and the corner of his vision—felt something twist uncomfortably in his chest.
Jayce had lied to him.
Not about a confidential political Council decision. Not about personal family matters. But about something small. Something that, on paper, shouldn’t matter. A story. A book. A passing interest in a genre Viktor would never judge him for. Never laugh at.
In fact, had Jayce said so openly, Viktor likely would’ve picked up the next title himself, just to keep the conversation going. They could have compared structure, pacing, the logic of the worldbuilding. They could have laughed about the melodrama and praised the metaphors that accidentally landed.
They could have shared it.
Instead, Jayce had looked at him—eyes wide, shoulders tense—and lied.
Not because Viktor would judge him. But because, apparently, Jayce didn’t know that.
And that—that hurt more than Viktor wanted to admit.
Something was off. Something beneath the surface that didn’t add up. And Viktor hated equations that didn’t balance.
He adjusted his leg brace and reached for his pen.
He didn’t know what Jayce was hiding.
But he intended to find out.