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pink-andwhite · 2 months ago

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pillars. / viktor x gn!reader, fluff and angst, lots of angst actually, implied childhood friends, confession kisses, mentions of death, one singular czech pet name, kissing viktor's moles, takes place during s1 act 2, so technically no s2 spoilers but some things are implied. word count: 7.9k

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"You look exhausted," You hum, your voice thick with fatigue in unison, "Don't you think you should rest?"

Viktor takes a breath deep and slow enough to hear, his hands briefly faltering as he twirls a small, bronze magnifying glass with his fingers, but he doesn't reply, nor does he turn away from his notes.

The lab is cool, quiet — aside from the distant hum of various pressure valves and idle machinery. The Hexcore thrums. Runic engravings litter each complex, geometric surface. Viktor rests his balled-up hand on his face, bony knuckles pressing into his cheek. With his inkpen, he messily scrawls something into his notebook. Low, blue light illuminates the cluttered room and his workspace. Each side of the Hexcore pulses when you approach behind him, twirling to its own complex, ominous rhythm. Acknowledging you, somewhat.

Viktor inhales sharply, and shakes his head frustratedly, crossing out what he'd just written with jittery, forceful motions.

It wouldn't be the first time you've found him here, like this, mulling over some sort of invention or idea when most of the city is already asleep. Falling into a focused routine is merely second nature. And normally, you wouldn't protest.

When you were much, much younger, staying awake as long as you could felt fun. Helping Viktor cram studying for exams in between finishing an invention the night before Progress Day became a yearly occurrence. In the weeks before finalizing blueprints for the Hexgates, you'd almost forgotten when either of you had last seen the sun. It's just that this routine has been far more absorbing, far more taxing — and the repercussions are painted clearly on Viktor's shadowed face.

He looks drained. Worn. Like if he tried to stand, if he wasn't leaning against his desk and absorbed in his research, the weight of his own exhaustion might make him crumble and collapse. The ends of his hair stick out in messy, curled strands, from where he's anxiously twirled them around his fingers.

You hate the dark bags that have made their home under his eyes. You feel a knot in your gut as you watch Viktor's hands; shaky, and imprecise. Flipping through the pages of his notebook to search for something. Tracing a sentence with the end of his inkpen, only for his gaze to flicker back to the start when the words failed to register.

You sigh. Forcing a smile, even though he can't see it, you take another stumbling step forwards. Your arms wrap around his thin figure loosely, and your weight settles gently yet firmly against his hunched back, in something of a tender, evocative hug.

Viktor shifts, his grip tightens on his pen when it almost slips. You nuzzle into the perfect, head-shaped space at the crook of his neck, breathing him in — flooding your senses with a coffee-warm richness, with the scent of ash and sweat and lingering sparks.

His gaze softens like melted honey. As if the simple press of your body to his returned pieces to himself he'd thought he lost. Brows unpinching, your heat at his neck spreads across him in waves, contradicting the collected edge kept in his tone.

"I'm not yet tired," Viktor lies, trying his hardest not to lean into your embrace. "I'd like to analyze this for a few moments longer. This page is," He shakes his head. "Incomplete. If I could find the key to what induces some form of response, then-"

As if on queue, the Hexcore sparks with energy, twirling faster, glowing with luminous constellations. Viktor swiftly moves to jot something down, but as fast as the Hexcore reacted, it's just as quick to return to normalcy.

He mutters something under his breath, slightly jostling you from his shoulders when he leans forwards in focus.

"I swear," You're grumbling; you rest your chin on the hard edge of his shoulder, glancing between the Hexcore and his notes with passive interest. "You've always been like this."

"Like what?" Viktor flips through his notebook once more. "Stubborn, I'm assuming?"

"Stubborn, yes. Smart. Terribly ambitious." You reach up, until you're able to place a few taps onto his forehead with the end of your finger. Viktor barely seems to notice. He adds onto an almost-full page by messily writing in the margins.

"I know how hard it is for you to stop those gears in that brain of yours. Once they're going, it's impossible to get them to stop."

"Mm. And you know how important this pursuit is in particular, yes?"

He reaches for a notched turn dial on the opposite side of his desk, connected to the Hexcore by a series of braided wires and support poles. Your gaze follows his hands — gripping carefully, with delicate, calloused fingers. There's a distinct pause. A moment of palpable tension, as you both instinctively hold your breath.

Viktor twists the dial. Once, twice.

The Hexcore gives off a few miniscule, pitiful sparks, like a God's first attempt at a lightning storm. And he expels a long, drowsy, disappointed sigh.

"I do," You murmur, sympathetic.

Viktor grinds his jaw, hard enough to feel it aching, but even through his fierce familiarity with self-induced destruction, even though he isn't deserving of this, he can't hope to hold onto the ragged bites of stress in his veins. Not when you're so warm, when the feeling you ignite in his chest with your voice alone is so terribly soft. He has missed this.

"But I also know," You're continuing, "Every time you get close to a breakthrough, once you let yourself rest," Viktor's head nods sleepily, struggling not to fall, and you playfully tap your index finger to the end of his nose.

"That's when you find it."

Part of him wishes he could keep himself from listening. Of course, as strongly as he wants to be better and more efficient, because taking a break is like admitting defeat, and defeat is worse than accepting he might've reached the end of his line — he knows you're right.

Placing the cap on his pen, he leaves it in the middle of his notebook, closes the pages to save his spot before hastily, reluctantly pushing it aside.

You grin. You slowly shift up, and Viktor feels your arms sliding from his shoulders, your weight leaving his body. For a second, he thinks you might move, believes you'll leave and feels a sharp grind between his ribs at the thought. Instead, you place your palms on his rigid shoulders, and you squeeze.

His lashes flutter, eyes partially rolling into his skull. His head grows dizzy, like he'd been spun. Frustration melts out of him as warmth and light take its place, shining from your touch like the kiss of stars and the rays of the sun. Bright and lovely; galaxies weaving themselves into his tired muscles.

Relaxing, he can't help but lean back, dropping his head against your waiting chest.

"I saw Jayce before I left this morning," You're murmuring. It's in one ear, and out the other at first. You lean in, speaking close to him this time, to make sure you've been heard. Your voice shudders through him, warm like candle wax. "Says he hasn't seen you sleep in days."

"In one day," Viktor corrects, rather matter-of-fact for someone who's busy melting into you like his limbs are boneless. "Technically, about twenty- no, twenty two hours. More or less. Honestly… hardly worth the over-exaggeration."

"Vik," You scoff playfully, breath fanning warmly on his skin. "You're doing it again."

Your palms move. They drift from his shoulders to his arms, fingertips gently toying with his sleeves in a foolish attempt to touch his skin. He tilts his head all the way back, and cracks his weary eyes open to look at you.

"And what is it I'm doing?"

"Saying things that make me worry about you. And then expecting me not to."

"I am not-"

Right then, before he can speak, your hands return to his now-tensed shoulders; they combat the ache in his chest and the tightness in his throat when they roll his muscles. His chest thrums with a soothing gentleness, rich and saccharine, difficult to swallow down.

"You are worried about me?" Viktor questions, sighing slightly when your hands work out a particularly old, tightened knot. "I have not seen you in… who knows how many days. I have lost count."

Your mouth forms a hard line.

"I- I know," You're answering, hands drifting down smoothly, as if they're carried on waves. They find where his tie is neatly fastened around his collar, grasping the diamond and pulling to loosen it. "I've been trying not to get in your way. Everything is just- Jayce is a counselor now, and you're busy with a thousand different things. I'm not going to interrupt your work with my stupid-"

"Our work." Viktor's tone is resolute. It holds you, grounds you against the raging winds in your mind that threaten to pull at your pieces. "Hextech was furthered by your contributions. Do not forget that."

You swallow, but it does little to chase away the dryness in your throat. In a hasty, abrupt motion, your palm grasps Viktor's shoulder, this time twisting his chair to make him face you. He eyes you with surprise for a moment, his tired gaze tender and weak enough to light the shrapnel in your stomach.

"Viktor." Your head tilts, affectionate. You reach up, and brush away the messy strands of hair that cover his pretty face and tickle his forehead. "This research, this dream of yours, it's-"

"It is a necessary risk."

Gaze wide, you freeze up. Viktor exhales sharply, glances away from you to focus on something in the distance instead — messy shelves of discarded machinery, inventions you once worked on together, etched with your signature and his — because the way you're looking at him has an ache prodding at his heart, sharp and thorned.

"Finalizing this thesis would simply be the beginning," Viktor continues, passionate, gradually starting to talk with his hands. "Think of the lives we could save, of the good we could prosper from this sort of technology. Enough to improve the Undercity for the better, to provide rationale for the potential dangers. I understand you are worried- but this is our life's work we are talking about. If we were to determine the true limits of Hextech, it would make our efforts worth it, in spite of… even if…"

He stops, trails off. Glances up, and decides he might've said too much. You understand. You have always understood where all of this is going.

The lives he could change would be worth the price, even if he was to throw away his.

Tattered threads tear from within you — unspoken, buried deep. You've become well acquainted with the taste of denial. Sharp on your tongue, thick in your throat to meld with the bile. It sits on your lips as words better left unspoken. Eats away at your skin and your flesh and your core, settles in your limbs and at the tips of your useless fingers. Reverberates, until the ringing in your ears begins to sound like him.

Piltover feels so distant, with the idle noise of the lab filling the room. Miles away, even though you're right in its heart. Nothing has ever been fair. It cast you aside, it was never your home. He was.

All you've received for ages now are fake sentiments, vague reassurances. Reminders of how terribly futile your ambitions have proven to be. Every sun has to set, every star will burn out — but fuck, you don't want him to burn.

Your mind is dizzy. Each thought spins, tipped faster and faster. Light pounds from behind your eyelids, and your stomach churns, making you nauseous. The lines blur between Viktor's figure, the floor, and the dull aura of the Hexcore, beginning to overlap everything together.

You aren't present, or perhaps you're wishing to be anywhere but here. Curled beneath the covers, hiding under your bed like you did when you were a child, running to the furthest, broken edge of the universe so you wouldn't have to imagine him slipping through your fingertips; Viktor draws you back, grasping your chin oh-so gently. He tilts you towards him, puts your focus on him to push the rest of the world into the background.

"Though, I suppose there is no harm in stopping for the night," Viktor reasons, his tone a soft murmur, devastatingly gentle. "I have missed you. I believe I may have neglected to make myself clear."

And for a brief reprieve, there isn't anything sweeter. Nothing this fatal.

His arm braces behind him, elbow resting on the edge of the desk. You follow through when he gently keeps you in place, steady on his direction; you're a compass, and he's Polaris. Your gazes don't separate, magnetized together like a hex crystal to iron.

For a moment, he forms a small pout, in a way that would have you grinning if the circumstances were different. His expression ripens, becomes soft. Almost guilty. A plea and an apology and some form of a confession, muddled into one dangerous, indecipherable nebula.

"You sure?" You're muttering, trying to keep your tone upbeat, regardless. "Your project looks like it's itching to fly away."

"Eh," Viktor shrugs, he allows his thumb to brush over your cheek. "I'm sure it can wait. It understands I have more important things to focus on."

His touch makes you ache. Guides your sorrow to entwine with his, digs in deep to grasp at your chest with such devastating familiarity.

It's an excruciating reminder of how much you have craved this. How badly it hurts, to feel Viktor's hand tremble as he touches you, slightly unsure, when you wish he wouldn't be. Exhaustion is wound so deeply into his system, you'd think he was born with it. He brushes his palm from your cheek to your jaw, caressing idly, in an absent, lazy motion. And it frustrates you, because you know you'll soon be lost, wishing you could feel his touch again.

Every pound of your heart reminds you of everything — of the brushes of fingers, when passing tools and pens at the work table. Hands solidly grabbing one another to steady anxieties, to offer familiar reminders. Nights spent categorizing constellations, while in your eyes, Viktor's radiance burned brighter than any distant galaxy.

Gentle touches pressed to weary limbs. Tightening machinery, releasing the gears on a brace. An arm offered to help him stand. Instinctually standing beside him, at the side that might need you. Fingertips exploring the notches of a spine, traveling rivers of veins, mapping out star-shaped clusters of freckles.

Tired moments much like this, but instead of protests and strives against fate, there were lovely brushes of whispers. Twin dips in the same bed, murmurs of, I'm here, you can go back to sleep. Touches that wished for themselves to be something more, something lasting. Though they knew they'd evaporate by morning.

It's far too late to still rely on daydreams.

You let the haze die out, tracing the edges of his hard knuckles as an apology before you clumsily push his hand from your cheek. Standing up straight, the lab seeming more cold and quiet and empty than ever, you choose to put distance in between yourself, and your lost love.

"Sorry. I shouldn't-" Breathe, you've got to remind yourself to breathe. Air catches in your lungs, sharp and dizzy, and you quickly shake your head. "Viktor, I-"

Gods, Viktor shouldn't have to choose between you and his ambition. He shouldn't need to place his own body in the middle of making a difference, and saving himself. There's still so much you haven't done, haven't said. The life you both dreamed of and fought for is crumbling, he still has so much he was meant to accomplish, and yet —

A hand grabs your wrist with surprising force, to keep you from taking another step back.

Viktor's brows pinch. "Do not tell me you're thinking of leaving."

Oh. Your gaze finally travels up from your feet, and he looks hurt; his voice barely manages to avoid cracking around the edges. His fingers dig into your wrist sharply, desperately.

Viktor's jaw tightens, his firm grip causing veins to show in his wrist. Your shoulders slump, and you exhale.

"I'll walk home with you. You shouldn't sleep here, it's bad for your-"

"No, no you will not," Viktor interrupts, exasperation echoed through his tone, pain and worry laced through the lines of his palms to compel them to shake. "Tell me why you are refusing to stay. It's been weeks without change, why must you run off the moment I attempt to make time for you? I doubt you have any idea how much this torments me."

Weeks of avoidance, days upon days where he'd watch you disappear too soon. Viktor would turn, he'd say something to the empty air because he expected you to be there, but you would be gone, absent from the lab or the hallways or the dorm you once shared. Bitter sentimentality, the hurt you forgot to take with you, is all that would linger in his bones.

Just how far are you willing to run — in vain, until your legs might snap — to pretend you won't lose the only thing you have left, your friend, your partner, to imagine you might escape the certainty of his conclusion?

Your gaze is flighty. It carries raindrops, flutters on soft wings, between him and the intricate, statuette angles of his face. Between the ground and the desk, and the glowing Hexcore. He has rarely seen you so unsettled. When your emotions run high, you hide them from him; unsuccessfully, he might add. Your wrist flexes beneath his palm as he feels your hand clench, and unclench.

Little by little, you're tugging his heart from between his ribs. Tearing it apart like petals pulled, like the games you used to get lost in when you both were kids; you love him, you love him not —

"I can't stay. I wasn't- I shouldn't have tried to come back to the lab in the first place," You answer, dejected. His grip only tightens on your wrist when you pull. "Viktor, please."

"Answer me. I need you to say something," Viktor grits out, voice getting louder, his shoulders tensed with frustration. "What is the cause of this- this fracture in between us?"

Your arm drops. Your bottom lip quivers, and your breath gets caught in your lungs. The expression on your face is more sore than he's ever seen it, painful enough to kill, bordering on bursting into tears.

And then, your voice quiets. "I don't want to watch you die."

The Hexcore gives off a low, rumbling sound. The lab becomes quiet enough to hear the individual ticks of machinery gears.

Viktor's grip loosens on your wrist, only slightly. He doesn't speak, he can't listen to his heart or his head when he's placed between the persistent thrumming of both. You aren't looking at him. Regret dawns on your face, then sadness, then something he can't recognize when you turn your head away. Fatigue curls into his system, and settles amongst everything else: the guilt, the anticipation. The raw, forceful tenderness.

It's a reminder that you're right.

The passing of each slow second seems to exist for just the two of you. Dragging on and on. Barely helping him to find any answers. If only there was more time.

Words could never be enough, burying your emotions like lodging a knife way deep in your chest isn't working. Your partner was made to burn bright, to exist as an act of defiance itself. To dedicate his mind and his body and his bruised hands to progress, no matter the obstacles or limitations, the past grievances or untold emotions.

So many moments were never adequately spent. Days and weeks across years taunted you, moments spent as friends and colleagues, despite half of you belonging to him.

You just needed one push, one thrust into the light to stop you from holding back, because you knew you risked ruining everything. But if Viktor continues, if the Hexcore grows more and more dangerous, if the council continues to require more of him, and what you haven't spoken about becomes true — there won't be anything left to ruin.

And as he watches you collapse, firm on the outside but weak on the inside, turning back to him because you have to, not because you want to, Viktor finally understands.

He knows this body is… wilting.

Decaying; he can feel every ounce of newfound weakness in his limbs, knows he's a servant to his own existence as it waits for him to waste away. Many from the Undercity are much less fortunate. He is grateful you are stronger than him.

More pressingly, he is acutely, abruptly aware of how little time he's spent with you — it runs as fierce in his chest as the hourglass-shaped reminders of the short span he has left. You used to be inseparable, you shared the same dreams. Your talks weren't limited to melancholy utterances of, Have you eaten yet? and, Is your leg okay? and, I never see you anymore, will this time be the last?

How he's chosen to treat himself are small deaths, in a way. Promises to join you later that led to nothing, nights of exhaustion framed by mornings of fading in and out. He's followed his own guide to avoidance, the steps were simply laid out differently. He's grown sick of it, truly. And deep down, or perhaps on the surface, he is so, terribly exhausted.

Swallowing thickly, you remain frozen in place, waiting for him to give up, for his hand to slip from your wrist. When it does, you continue to linger. Your heart pounds loud in your ears. Little glances at him greet you with his face downcast, his shoulders slumped.

You sigh — and you decide this can't be it, or perhaps you're just not ready. You draw yourself dangerously close, to trail your knuckles down Viktor's sharp jaw as a weak apology.

If there's one thing he isn't accustomed to, it's throwing logic to the wind. Viktor tries to think of this like his notes, attempts to categorize and interpret these emotions. He imagines there's diagrams and logs in his own swirly handwriting, outlines that would guide him to precisely what he needs to do.

None of it works, of course. It's a terribly juvenile line of thinking. And he's rarely one to give into impulsivity, but you make it so difficult to think, to focus.

His breathing is already quickening and sharpening, creating pockets of light in his weak lungs, even through the reminders of his own mortality's shadow. Nothing is more important than the feeling you cradle in his chest, bright and fate-defying.

It would not be like him to accept this. To fade out with a hundred contributions unfinished, a thousand words unspoken. Confessions meant to fall from his voice like meteor showers, fears and regrets with no way to form on his tongue. The thought alone leaves him troubled, choked. His jaw tightens in frustration, only relaxing when the ghost of your fingertips guides him to.

Low light frames you, the features of your face troubled; oh, he can hardly remember the last time he's seen your smile. But he remembers, knows it to be beautiful. The slight softening his gaze undergoes as it flickers across you is utterly familiar — you pointed it out, once.

Your eyes overfill with warmth, they melt like amber. Your pupils widen like big, lovesick moons. His head can't help but spin; there's so much he never realized, when you did.

His hands like to absently search for something to fiddle with when he needs to think. His fingers have a habit of tapping against something methodically: his desk, the spine of his notebook, his own forehead. The mark above his mouth follows his lips, when they tip into a smile. He's doing it now, surely. Softening in your afterimage. Gaze warm, honeyed, hopeful.

No, he isn't sure if his fate can be changed; he's treading close, but he isn't dying yet. The Hexcore is unresponsive to every stimulus he's attempted, but his research is far from complete. There are mountains of quandaries he isn't sure he can fix, pitfalls remaining just out of his control. All but one, all but this. This is something he could do, something he can change.

You almost speak. Almost give some useless, parting words when his tired, gentle eyes drift back to yours, two ships on the same sea. He's inquisitive, hesitant, his brows creased together in thought and with conviction. The mere sight of him — hair a mess, skin pallid, ignites a thousand feelings and worries in your gut; a lighter tossed to a puddle of gasoline.

It's something Viktor picks up on.

You look pained. Unsure of yourself, from the way your eyes can't quite meet his own, from how your hand slips away from his cheek, as everything in you threatens to disappear. Weary, as you gaze at him like you've already lost him.

You've forgotten how to read him, he realizes. Caught up on what you might lose, the both of you have forgotten what you could have. Viktor's heart feels like it might burst, with enough force to make the sun's implosion look weak, and you don't understand, he'd have to show you.

He takes it as a sign. Grasps the last chance you've extended to him, and runs with it as fast as he can.

His name dies on your mouth, before you have the chance to speak it. Echoes haunt your soul when his palm finds your cheek, solid, sure; Viktor pulls you in hard, threads of distance easily closed, and he presses his lips to yours with an intensity that feels vividly visceral.

It won't fix what's already been done. This isn't a promise, falling short between being reassurance and becoming a goodbye. It isn't the way he would want to confess, if fate was kind enough to give him a choice.

But Gods, logic and reason, worry and mortality are all melting into nothing. Fading and fizzing into the sky, budding and beginning anew in his lungs — because for so long, he has needed this, needed you. As fiercely as dead parchment longs to be burned.

Your body immediately goes tense in surprise. Your arms awkwardly hover in place, until Viktor's head tilts, following the gentle aria, his palm brushing from your jaw to your cheek to hold you close — as though you're still prone to vanishing, if he were to let go. Like this is the beginning of too many firsts, and even more lasts. This kiss is worthy of savoring.

So, you do. You let your eyes flutter closed. You shift forwards with a shaky step, practically stumbling into him.

It's sweeter than you ever could have pictured. The subtle roughness to his chapped lips. The slight tickle of his breath, when you pull apart for long enough to hesitate, but not enough to gain the wisdom to stop.

Soft kisses draw you further, closer. A hand holds his cheek, a palm braces to his shoulder. Careful to use little force, to avoid any accidental hurt.

Viktor follows, leans back, has you bending closer as you get caught in his butterfly effect; blue light bathes you, and the Hexcore shifts, utterly radiant. There's a moment of separation, a brief second where your eyes barely get to flutter open. A pause that promises to be your last opportunity for regret. Greedy and urgent, brutally eager, Viktor drags you back in, keeping you caught in his penumbra. Coaxing you to cage him in — to kiss him like you mean it.

The taste of you is vivid, perfect, intense, rich; you make charged electricity glitter down his spine when your fingers curl into the soft, chestnut tresses of his hair. Grasping, pulling, leaving it even messier than it already was before.

Your lips part, your breath forms an intoxicating meld with his. And he is only foolishly, stupidly human. Made of flesh and bright dreams, etched with soft skin and fervent desires. Too weak, desperate, and caught in your echo to contemplate anything but the way his own name sounds — the V is a soft vibration, the completion of the consonants makes it sound like reverence — when it's breathed into his mouth.

Hazily, he feels your palm press, shoving gently to his chest, pushing his back against the desk in a clumsy effort to bring yourself closer. His chair shifts slightly from the movement, rusted wheels grating the tile. Your palm finds its place between his lower back and the desk's firm edge, bracing some of his weight, and acting as a buffer, keeping him from pressing against it.

Viktor melts underneath you, breathes a soft noise into your mouth that begs you not to stop — as if you could. As if you haven't wanted this in an unquantifiable amount of ways, across an infinitum of discarded daydreams. You're left to steal gasps in between, clinging onto quickened sighs that rival the struggle of keeping your head above water, as wild waves crash over your skull.

Out of breath, he blindly fumbles to find your shoulder; pushes gently, silently asks you for a moment of reprieve.

You draw back immediately. You're unable to stop yourself from shuddering when he softly breathes your name. Familiar accent curling around the syllables, giving them life and importance like your name was made for him to say. To whisper, to covet, to plead.

"Lásko," Viktor coos, as his eyes grow heavy. Glinting, with a spark of zeal that tells you to stop holding back.

You're well acquainted with the warm, softhearted nickname. You know it to be something Viktor taught you himself, between gentle explorations of the few things you didn't already know about one another, when your late-night curiosity and desire to learn led you to, Oh, and what name would you use for someone special?

His jaw grits; his next words, murmured in his mother tongue, resemble a sharp, possessive swear. His head tilts with yours when you lean closer — but you shift, falling in to let your lips find his neck.

The kisses you place there are hurried, desperate; like rays of light, as if you don't have time. Obediently, he stifles a whimper, and allows his head to fall back. It leaves plenty of room for your wandering hands to crinkle and press aside his shirt collar, and you place your lips on the firm, jutting curve of his collarbone.

You find the twin moles on his neck tendon, blessing a kiss there, near desperate enough to bruise. You follow them like a treasure map, to kiss the perfectly-placed mole above his mouth. Your palms cup his face faintly. Then, you sweetly kiss the mark on his opposite cheek, your lips warm, laced with fervent sparks.

Viktor shudders, he feels lighting race up his spine and split him open like a scythe. He's been avoiding his own declining reflection for weeks upon months now, but he doesn't need to remember much of himself to still know exactly where you're kissing, like the back of his hand.

The ghost of your lips just above his mouth, and then to the apple of his cheek send a thick, syrup-sweet realization reeling through him. His moles. It reminds him of fingertips playfully tapping his face. Of soft comments and pretty compliments, portraits of his own image that he'd never forgotten because they were from you.

When you hear the hitch in his breath, he swears he feels you smile against him. He's certain, once you shift back down to his neck, to repeat the process all over again. Placing messy kisses onto his soft skin, worshiping the intricacies he would've never thought were admirable. Memorizing each placement as though it's deliberate, like making a map of the night sky's constellations. And Viktor swallows, shakes, softens.

Blindly, you search for where his hand has been kept at your side. You grasp it, and pursue the natural interlacing of fingers: yours fitting perfectly between the gaps of his.

Trying not to shudder, failing when your breath fans against the right-angle corner of his jaw, he guides his free hand to trace the small of your back. His fingertips are gentle, hesitant. Careful brushes akin to a study, an exploration.

With a dizzy mind and even more muddled thoughts, he doesn't expect when you support your weight by placing your knee on his stool, between his legs — when you lean in close and fast and hard, crashing your lips against his once more. One kiss isn't enough, so you kiss him again; you let yourself be pulled in on his current, and he forgoes breathing to drink you in instead.

Your body arches into his touch, curves when his palm presses flat to your back, attempting to feel as much of you as possible. You want to be pliable beneath his warm hands like clay, because at least being molded would leave an imprint. You'd have something to remember what this meant, what his touch felt like.

Seconds and minutes bleed into one another. You can barely tell where he begins, and you end. Two halves of the same anatomy, you can feel the thrum of his inherent light beneath your breastbone.

The Hexcore watches. Pulses, hard enough to make pens begin to roll across the desk. To topple a precarious stack of diagrams, which sends a few papers fluttering to the ground, to make the steel marbles of a Newton's cradle clumsily clink together.

Neither of you notice. The response Viktor's been searching for spikes just beyond his reach. You make him feel weightless, as though the fragility of his own vessel is more of an afterthought, until he could be ripped into fragments and you would be there to put him back together. Viktor's palm holds the back of your neck, his head tilts with yours, and you kiss. Falling into one another, only unfalling to breathe. Your atoms melt into his particles, blossoming a blur between your two shapes. Your heart pounds with his, to a rhythm so exact they could be mistaken for the same singular beat.

Finally pulling away requires a mountain's worth of strength and effort. You only do so because you've got Viktor's back pressed hard against the desk, and he's practically about to fall off his chair.

You both needed to breathe. It takes several moments for your head to stop spinning. You can barely focus on anything, but the bruising of your lips and the skip of your heartbeat. Stumbling back, sliding from his chair to offer him more room, you cup his jaw in both palms. Soft and blissfully tender, as though this is what they were made to hold.

Viktor sighs hard, gasping heavily. His skin is slightly flushed, still warm to the touch. His gaze stays on you, basking in your afterglow. You're used to him flinching away. A slight hesitation always laces through his fingers when you try to grab his hand. His muscles tense on instinct whenever your arm wraps around him, braced to help support his weight.

But this time, your palms hold his face, your thumbs brush his skin, and he melts into your touch, unburdened. Gaze fluttery, expression relaxed. Giving in at last, after countless ages of starvation.

The low light of the lab, and the soft glow of the Hexcore's rune matrix — quiet, now — frame his face in outlines of shadow and hues of cerulean. Shades of blue meld with the honeycomb of his eyes, dulling the color. Clouds over a fading sun.

He hears the slight shake in your breath first, before he feels a tiny droplet hit his cheek; and you're leaning forward, trying to hide. Eyes shut tight, as you rest your forehead against his.

"Sorry, I-" Viktor murmurs, weak and faint. So quiet, you almost fail to hear. "I know this does not… fix things."

Oh. He hasn't seen you cry since you were both kids.

Viktor remembers clumsily trying to comfort you, making a crude somewhat-flower-pinwheel out of scrap metal as a gift, because he thought it wouldn't fix everything, but it might make things a little bit easier. For a time, anyway.

Reality is often a cold, cruel overseer. Remembering how to breathe again brings sharp pain into his lungs, it returns an ache to his tired shoulders and his strained leg. His vision comes back into focus, his future returns to taunt him but this time, something is different.

He feels a spark. A newfound wave of ambition. The radiant golden hour, before a bright, final breakthrough.

"It's fine," You breathe, weak and fragile, with a meager shrug of your shoulders that says you are anything but. "I didn't expect it to."

Viktor grasps your chin, gently shifting you back to give him space to look at you. His thumb brushes a stray droplet from your cheek. He tuts: a soft, teasing, tch sound. "Ah, but for a time, the world nearly felt miles away. Did it not?"

His gaze is hopeful, almost nervous. Trying to gauge any slight shift in your reaction. Thankfully, his voice seems to swiftly bring you back to life. You laugh a bit, wiping the remainder of tears away with the back of your hand; there's the smile he's always admired.

"Like we were melting into each other," You admit, a little shy, tenderly wistful. Your heart unfurls in your chest like a bright, pretty blossom. It's fitting for the both of you to recollect, to try and analyze the intricacies of every situation. "It was…"

You're pausing, trying to find the right description, as you rest your arms around his shoulders in something of a half-hug. It was lovely? Captivating? Addicting?

You shake your head. You're glancing away, because even remembering kissing him is enough to make your heart pound, enough to tempt you to pull him in again. Viktor tilts you back towards him, his finger lightly tapping your jaw.

"Hm- Breathtaking?" He muses, "Better than you could have dreamed?"

The brief lilt of confidence he embodies, words smooth as they're carried on his accent, pleasantly reminds you of when he was younger. Far too composed, and eager to prove himself. He follows it through, coaxing you forwards with a palm to your side. You're gentle; most of your weight, you support yourself, until Viktor pulls you down, patiently and decidedly guiding you to settle against his lap.

"You know," You're cooing, head tilted, "That sounds an awful lot like a confession."

You can see each subtle heave of Viktor's chest, expanding with every long breath he takes in. It's a tight fit. His stool is barely wide enough to accommodate himself, let alone you. His brace presses into the back of your leg just slightly: jutting metal, protruding bolts. The spread of his thighs leaves you with a small amount of space, but still forces your body to press awfully close to his.

You're in the perfect position to witness every detail of his face. His tired eyes, the curve of his jaw, the slant of his nose. His thick brows pinch slightly, forming a faux pout, and you reach up. You brush your thumb from his temple to his brow, relishing in the instant softening of his expression.

"Perhaps it is one. Or, actually-" Viktor hums, inquisitive. "It contains the potential to be one, if I decided to elaborate."

"Oh? Enlighten me."

A pause. Viktor bites the inside of his cheek as he ruminates, and your fingertips push fluffy strands of hair from his face to tuck behind his ears.

"For so long, I… ached to be close to you." His tone is calm, temperate. It twists a shiver up your spine, cool and heaven-sent. His palm trails and caresses your face; a lesson in restraint, as he tries to stop himself from pulling you in once more. "It was a pipe dream. I assumed I was… too late."

"I thought- I was sure you didn't-" Your shoulders grow tense and the bridge of your nose knots up, you twirl a strand of his hair around your finger and pull it away to admire the resounding curl. "Since when?"

Viktor exhales. "We have been effectively inseparable since the day we met, I am certain you still remember when the Undercity kids would laugh and- and make jabs at my obvious crush. But, you are searching for something specific. In that case, there is one instance."

This time, you don't have to ask him to elaborate.

A palm tracing down the column of your neck, idle yet admiring, Viktor takes one more steady, deep breath. "It was the Progress Day after we had finalized the Hexgates. The council's afterparty was… stifling. I was fortunate to have convinced you to attend. You wore such gorgeous attire. Jayce commented, stated I was unable to take my eyes off of you. I denied it. In hindsight, it was more than obvious."

The party was hardly your usual scene. Viktor was always the one who wound up convincing you to attend every Progress Day.

He'd mention you should vouch for your contributions, try to mingle. You were fine with dressing up for an hour or two, but all of the drinking and fraternizing — you found the presentations about new technology to be interesting, but everything to happen afterwards was tiring, to put it bluntly.

The occasion then was more special than most, though. There was a difference in the way Viktor asked you, sounding hopeful and stress-bound. It seemed important to him, and so it was doubly precious to you.

"I joined you on the balcony, once I was able to shake the flocks of investors." Viktor continues, thinking, thumbing through all of the details, "You'd been saving a cocktail for me all night, if you remember. Something made with rum- apple cider, I believe."

Viktor recalls overhearing several of your conversations. Your excitement to show off what you invented together was palpable. You made the room shine, he thinks. He watched you go on and on, when you thought he wasn't listening, assuming he was busy with his own consultations. Viktor zoned out of them, truly. Once the day's festivities are over, the rich folk of Piltover are more interested in finances than progress.

Your words were so kind. Viktor is amazing, have you met him yet? Every sponsor and socialite would know your partner to be intelligent, inventive, incredible. He doesn't compare. It's funny, how Viktor saw the same qualities in you.

For most of the night, you were separated; Viktor was busy with the swarm of fancy patrons, all of Piltover's finest hoping to get the latest gossip on what the partner to the Man of Progress would come up with next. Luckily, the both of you chose the same hideaway to try and escape the crowd.

"I had been waiting for such a moment- to speak with you. You offered me your congratulations. Complimented me, on my performance of the short speech you helped me to memorize. And… so clearly, I remember you said, 'I'm so proud, Viktor. But I knew you could do this.'"

I knew you could. No underestimations, never a doubt in his potential. You believed in him, even when no-one else did. When there weren't eager investors and a fawning council, just you and him, the suffocating smog of the Undercity, and his foolish dreams. Within the gaps in between, your praises sung as loud, unbidden, echoing strums.

He supposes he's going to have to ask again for your faith, just one more time.

Viktor's gaze stays focused down, for a moment. Contemplative, emotional.

"I almost kissed you right then." He glances up to you, finally. "But-" He hums, then sighs, "There were benefactors still lingering just beyond the balcony, some of which already decided to inquire extensively about my personal life. I would have hated for our first kiss to incite such a scene."

Viktor admires the tender kindling of gentleness on your face. Slightly pained, despite the hints of softness. It's his cue to find your cheek, to hold you close and oh-so softly like he did from the start; the cliff before the waterfall, his first step in to drown with you.

Nothing will ever return to simplicity. But Viktor refuses to regret this, decides he should face it head on. Every building conflict, these budding emotions, the remnants of how your lips felt on his; tenderly unforgettable, a crucial step that he refuses to forget.

You can feel the slight tremble to his fingers, the calluses on his palm —

"Vik-"

"I need to have your trust."

Your eyes widen.

"Viktor," You're starting again, "You already do- you always have. I don't want you to hesitate, you can-"

"No, no, the Hexcore," Viktor corrects. He takes a quick glance between you, and the shifting runes of his project's surface. Glowing and fluctuating, a marvel even when it is dormant. "There is much I have not yet told the council. Nor Jayce, nor you."

A newfound flicker of conviction blazes behind his sun-bound eyes. A brightened enthusiasm to solve any puzzle he's presented with, a key twisted into a door that he never thought would open.

Your gaze is curious, attentive, then clearly conflicted, and he feels his jaw start to tighten. In spite, he continues, speaks with his entire chest, even though his hands tremor at the thought, and his voice is much too soft and broken and he hates the sound it makes when it's breaking —

"You are the one thing I cannot lose." Viktor holds your face lovingly, captures you in a statue-like state of devotion, as he fights against the gnawing roughness at the back of his throat. "I believe I can solve this, but I need to know that to any end, you will follow. Please."

It's something he's already sure of, against the faint threads of doubt in his mind. Of course you would, if he was the one to ask. The both of you are knit together as endlessly as the lines that connect the constellations, he just needs to hear you say it.

You offer him a weakened smile, your touch brushing the curve of his face like fingertips would caress the arch of a flower's petal. "Do what you think is right. I trust you."

Viktor softens.

There's bittersweet catharsis in finally admitting the truth, along with an endless chasm threatening to swallow him whole — and for now, for the rest of the night, at least, he wants nothing more than to fall in with you.

"My love," He murmurs; he draws you close, with the pull of the sea to the moon. He dares to press one more faint kiss to your cheek, despite knowing how infinitely difficult it will be to pull away. "My inspiration," A kiss to the opposite cheek, then. "My little spark."

The lab remains quiet, dark, save for the low hum, and the glowing orbit of the Hexcore. Viktor leans his head against your chest, relaxes further once you begin gently toying with his hair. And finally, fully, he allows his heavy eyes to close.

#DEAR GOD.#viktor x reader #viktor x you #arcane x reader #viktor arcane x reader #viktor arcane

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pink-andwhite · 2 months ago

Text

actually stfu why is this the best thing ive ever read

forwards, beckon, rebound. / machine herald!viktor x reader, 18+, reader is fem bodied, angst, size difference, fingering, choking, dry humping, praise, russian terms of endearment, somewhat toxic relationship, mild augmentation kink, way too many emotions, mix of arcane + league lore / spoilers. word count: 16.2k

read on ao3

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Viktor enjoys making you feel helpless.

Technically, it isn't enjoyment so much as it is a responsibility; you'll repeatedly show up at his secluded lab in the Undercity, and as he does with everyone who comes to his doorstep worn and destitute, he'll take it upon himself to give you what you need. You are like the rest of his endeavors — meticulously examined, ambitiously furthered. But unlike his various grandiose experiments and his pursuits for evolution, it isn't just his mind you occupy.

There is some dusty, disregarded hole in his once-perfect mechanical heart, and if the hypothesis he's formed but doesn't want to acknowledge is correct, you are the most probable cause. Or perhaps, you'd be the cure.

Carefully, with his usual amount of precision, Viktor pulls his leather glove from his hand. He allows his fingers to flex: scarred skin improved by intricately-crafted metal joints. He's positioned above you, large and imposing while he keeps you pinned beneath him. The firm, steel surface of his giant worktable feels cool against your bare back. The room itself is dim, worktable lit by an overhead lamp that burns when you happen to look directly at it. Thankfully, Viktor's armored form above you, encased in dark shadow, blocks out most of the light.

The Hextech third arm on his back grasps your wrists unwaveringly, and keeps them in place above your head, utilizing an exorbitant display of strength. You can't move a muscle, not even if you tried. Lingering heat sears into your skin, radiating from the metal — from where the laser he's perfected could easily sever your wrists from the bone.

What's more, you can hardly think. Your head is spinning; your heart pounds from between your ribs, fiercely yet uselessly. You can only stare at the glowing, emotionless eyes of Viktor's mask, and wait for him to decide what he plans to do with you. Gentle. With the way you're looking at him, you need him to be gentle, this time.

He presses his palm to the center of your chest, where he can feel the erratic beat of your heart. Slowly, he begins to drag his hand down. It's a knowing, practiced motion — not as soft as it ought to be, considering his cold, purple-veined hand and calloused fingers. As his touch is brought down to your stomach, your waist, you shiver, and your body relaxes. Finally, fully.

It doesn't take long for you to arch into his touches, just as he predicted, just as you always do. Your flesh loves to sing for him.

This dance has been performed by the both of you numerous times beforehand. Viktor questions if you'll ever grow tired of it. Of the pirouetting, of revolving constantly around unspoken, trembling complications, just to return, to let your mind and your heart reel all over again.

What he feels for you — what he has evaluated from you, because machines do not feel — is something unexplainable, foreign, futile. He knows this, this dynamic you've fostered; it hardly makes sense. You are allies with no common goals. You were friends, some disregarded years ago. Every other night, you stumble into his lab to interrupt his work, and he lets you.

No, he indulges you.

"You are quivering," Viktor hums, voice muffled and deepened by the mask's filter. A usual, matter-of-fact statement, but the edges of his tone sharpen in the wake of a held-back, dark chuckle. "You want me to touch you. Say it."

The powerful, vastly-superior Machine Herald already has you right where he wants you.

Slightly riddled with static, the way his thick accent curls around the words only serves to make you shudder more. Your breathing is choppy, your chest rapidly rising and falling.

Not from fear, if Viktor had to guess. His scans of your heart rate would come across much differently if that was the case. This is from arousal. Clear, easily definable arousal. Just from his thick voice, his soft touch, and the imagery provided by his large body above yours.

The sight of you is addictive. Addiction isn't a sensation built into his mechanical repertoire, but it's the best word he can think of to describe this. You are small when you're underneath him. So malleable, so fragile. So human. How abnormal. The compulsive surge that runs through his veins should not, according to all of his tests and conclusive research, be occurring.

Viktor supposes this type of behavior would be more fitting of the past version of him. Presently, he doesn't have room to let time go to waste. His vision is all that matters. The old him, though, the Viktor you once knew would've given you whatever you desired without a second thought, even though he hardly deserved it.

He was weak, once. For you, perhaps a part of him still is.

You are intelligent, you always have been. He has cast away much of his past in pursuit of chasing a better, more important future, but still, he remembers each and every moment he shared with you quite vividly. They play in the background of his mind sometimes, persistent like a system error, recurrent like a late-night looping television program.

Your inventions often kept pace with his. Your smile was bright, brighter than the pillars of light that shone from Piltover's grandest lighthouses. Starry-eyed and driven, you wanted to improve, as a person and as a scientist. You challenged him to push further right alongside you.

Of course, you knew him better than most, but Viktor wonders: did you ever expect him to go this far? Did you ever plan on retreating back to Zaun with him, to fall further into madness together?

By now, you must be smart enough to know he is different. What you might've had, a friendship or a partnership or something delightedly improbable, it is now nothing. Nothing more than another one of his shed weaknesses and old, discarded memories.

Perfect machinery does not feel. Not even for you, no matter what it once felt. Scientifically, it can't. You should understand this relationship is not beneficial. He could and would gladly break you, it's what he built himself to do. And yet, as he's starting to realize, perhaps being broken by him is exactly what you want.

"Please touch me," You're begging, as his palm caresses the all-too-human curve of your side. Your voice is warm, lustful. A sweet, familiar taste settles in the back of his throat, as you coo the old nickname you still reserve just for him. "I need you to, Vik."

And just like always, because of you, because of his predisposed sense of responsibility, or perhaps because of an unrecognized fault in his complex machinery — Viktor gives in.

He revels in your vulnerable, quivering limbs and your heavy, desperate gaze. The grip of his Hexclaw tightens on your wrists, your hands closing, fingers tensed. He drags his palm down your stomach slowly, carefully. His gentleness is calculated, but it is yours, all the same.

Your legs spread for him on impulse when his hand reaches your thigh. He squeezes, before he brings his hand between them, allowing the end of his index finger to brush your clit; his touch is precise, with all the efficiency and learned confidence of a flawless, apathetic machine. He could make you fall apart for him so easily, every part of you perfectly attuned to his touch, and his touch alone.

Yet, he's teasing you, careful and slight touches barely grazing where you're oh-so sensitive for him. Your thighs shake, and spread wider; your body is exposed to him, soft and sweat-soaked expanses of skin contrasting splendidly with his bulky, armored chassis of metal. Now, instead of his index, Viktor uses his thumb, providing more friction and a slightly firmer touch. You squirm, the pretty features of your face washed over in pleasure, before you breathe a small, satisfied whine.

"That's it," He murmurs firmly. "To think this is all it takes to make you submit."

Viktor allows his thumb to trace circles onto your swollen, needy clit, and your breath proceeds to hitch so deliciously for him. An action, and reaction. Repeated experiments make for predictable results. Hextech hand practically digging into your wrists, Viktor brings his free, metal hand to your cheek. Oddly tender, his cold palm cups your face. He isn't surprised at the response it gets out of you, your chest heaving with a deep, trembling sigh. Every part of your skin tingles, as you lean into his faux, steel touch.

"Earlier, you wished to be defiant. Disobedient." Viktor scolds, his thumb flicking over your clit while his fingers brush your cunt, gathering your dripping slick on the digits. He takes his metal hand away from your cheek, and he presses it flat to the table, right beside your head. Your brows pinch disappointedly, clearly unsatisfied with his subtle form of punishment.

"And now look at you. Wet and desperate."

He's barely touched you, barely even begun with you, and you're already dripping.

"I wasn't- I'm not disobedient," You're countering, although it's damn near impossible to keep your voice sounding steady when his persistent touch is toying with you. He's teasing, circling your clit agonizingly slowly, just to make you squirm. "I brought you everything you asked for. Like always."

"Yes, and you did well," Viktor praises flatly. As though he's reading off a trained script, rather than watching the way your eyelids flutter as his knuckles brush your entrance. "Our current project will run smoothly now, utilizing the tech you acquired for us. But when I told you to wait, to bring the tech after I had finalized our plans, you did not listen."

You admit simply, foolishly, "I missed you."

Those words are familiar. You'll often tell him you missed him when he returns to the lab, home at last after finalizing a few affairs elsewhere. You said you missed his face the first time you saw it, your hands gently holding his cheeks, caressing metal and skin — despite how different he looks now. Despite the scars, the mechanical parts.

He knows you missed him. In a soft, delicate way. In an indecent, desperate way. His form of longing is much, much different. When the mortal matter and fraying wires of his brain yearn to have your presence beside him, with him, under him, it is strong, it is carnivorous. It is encompassing.

"You nearly comprised everything we've been working towards." Viktor's third arm tightens even more, making your wrists and arms go nearly numb. "There is only so much I can do to protect you. I disposed of the last enforcers to attempt tracking you down, but if you were to lead them here, you will not just be putting yourself at risk. You are threatening our entire vision with your recklessness."

Carefully, his index finger finds your entrance: sensitive and wanting. He deliberately pulls his hand away when you whine, instead placing his palm back on your inner thigh. Your skin is soft to the touch. Your gaze stays steady on him, on the unflinching shape of his mask, your eyelids heavy, pupils blown with clear arousal. As though he encompasses all you need, anything you could possibly want, and everything that could devastate you.

You are frustratingly beautiful.

Viktor hums, the sound low, somewhat mechanical. He gently guides his hand over your neck, just how you like, until large, metal fingers are wrapping around your throat. Not squeezing, just tightly holding. Enough to ground you, to remind you of who you belong to. You let go of a sigh, your eyes growing heavier. Your heart is skipping, and with his hand around your throat, the subtle vibrations of your quick pulse shudder through his complex machinery.

"Viktor-" You start, voice weak, barely there. "I'm-"

"I know you want more." He squeezes your thigh, applies just enough pressure to your throat to make your mind go fuzzy. "Tell me what you have been waiting for me to give to you, what you desired so strongly that you ran to me, instead of following the plan. And perhaps, I'll let you have it."

You tremble: a full-body, tingling shudder. Viktor — the Machine Herald — is so much larger, so much stronger than you. He's augmented himself to be significantly taller, significantly more imposing, and underneath him like this, you must look meager. Pathetic. Fully bare, your legs spread open for him. Giving yourself to him so easily. Your chest heaves, your mortal heart skipping and wavering at the sight of him above you, pinning you beneath his heavy, metal form.

"Breathe, zayka," Viktor murmurs, his grip on your neck loosening up. "Your heart is racing. Focus on me."

Taking in slower, deeper breaths, your mind quiets, your pulse calms. Stars and static thrum in the corners of your vision, your thoughts a knotted up blur. Viktor — his touch is all you can focus on — traces his fingers further up your thigh in approval.

"There. Very good. You're alright."

"Your fingers," You pant, "Please."

Viktor scoffs, his tone mechanical and rough, "You can do better. Try again."

Huffing, your head knocks the firm worktable when you toss it backward.

"Bastard." Your hands clench and unclench, your wrists giving a poor attempt at struggling against their hold. To no avail, of course. "Are you at least going to let me touch you?"

"No. Answer me. Do not make me repeat myself."

You briefly gnaw on your bottom lip, your jaw tense, thighs shaky. "I need your fingers inside me, Vik. I've missed you, I need you, please. I'm going fucking crazy."

Viktor's unmoving, glowing eyes examine you carefully. "That's it. That is much more sufficient. So exquisite, when you are begging. Take what you need, then."

You're well aware he isn't the same man you once fell for, nor is he the soft-spoken, bright scientist you once knew. Rumors paint him as a maker, a monster, a machine. He is cold to the touch. He isn't supposed to feel, he removed such functions ages ago; they were useless to him. As were his failing lungs, his weak legs, his heart. A heart made from machinery never skips. It can't be blinded by love, or lust. It cannot be distracted by old, unkindled flames, in the same way you often are. You envy him, somewhat.

But Gods, when it's just you and him in his lonely little corner of Zaun, and when you are at the pleasant mercy of his perfected touch, you swear, he feels more human than anything. Nothing else truly matters, because still, he is yours.

Viktor's index finger slides inside you slowly, just barely stretching you around its thickness. You're wet enough that he could press it in easily, could have you melting and drooling over whatever you're given — but instead, he chooses to let the digit fill you languidly. The feeling is slight, enveloping and enthralling and familiar, yet not enough to make you feel full, at the same time. His fingers are long, dexterous. Pretty and scarred.

You've watched him work on plenty of augments and automatons, hands tightly grasping a wrench to turn it, fingers carefully holding the ends of thin wires to thread them together. Each action swift, exact.

With the same level of precision, Viktor presses his finger deep inside you, and crooks it upward to nudge it right against your sweetest spot — and you whimper, your whole body shivering, collapsing.

"One is never enough to satisfy you," He asserts; he gently pumps his finger into you to a steady, easily manageable pace. "Isn't that right?"

If his mask weren't there, you're sure you'd see him speaking through a slight grin, maniacal and crooked, impossibly him. Your heart pounds. You're doomed, you must be.

In response, you nod your head fiercely. Another shaky moan tears through you as he works you on his slender digit. Pressing in, dragging out. Calculated and perfectly steady, like the continuous beats of a metronome.

"Or," Viktor questions, "Should I have you come undone around just one?"

"No," You snap quickly, although you're obviously in no position to be making demands. Your eyes flutter open, your face contorted in a mix of pleasure and frustration. He finds your desperation strangely satisfying. All for him. It's the same sort of hungry satisfaction that comes with working on an automation, striding closer and closer to a job well done. He adjusts, pushing your legs apart with his large knees when they tremble and threaten to close.

"Give me two," You're pleading, "Please."

Viktor hums, the sound low and vibrating.

"Guiding you to your peak would prove trivial, even without the means of penetration. You are simple. Easy to unravel." His low, intimidating voice effortlessly sends goosebumps careening down your spine. "You could most likely be led to cum against my shoe or my thigh, from modest friction and my voice alone."

"Viktor," You almost wince at how pathetic you sound. "Stop talking."

Viktor eases his index finger as deep inside you as you can take, and heat surges across your form in thundering, breaking waves. "Why would I stop when you are enjoying it?"

Oh, he knows you far too well.

"Dammit, at least-" You exhale, trembling through a moan, and Viktor's Hextech arm holds onto your wrists impossibly tighter as your hips roll into his hand — desperate to feel more of him. It works, momentarily. Until he is using his free hand to firmly grip your waist: thick metal fingers digging into warm, pretty skin. He pushes you back against the worktable, holding you in place.

You groan in frustration. "At least quit teasing me."

"Such impatience. I am working you upwards, gradually conditioning you to take higher levels of stimuli. It will make the process as a whole much more pleasurable."

"Gods if you weren't wearing that stupid mask, I would shut you up in no-"

"I always satiate you, milaya," Viktor answers calmly, as he slowly drags his finger out, leaving you quivering and empty. The nickname he uses is tender, familiar. It reminds you of your once different life. Vividly, it forms blossoms in your chest, unfurling flowers and delicate petals. Tugging sweetly at your thudding heart, despite the cold artificiality of his manufactured tone. Milaya. His darling.

Though, the Machine Herald does not covet. What he desires, he takes and makes his.

"Interesting," He's muttering, seemingly mostly to himself. "Your neediness has greatly increased since the last time we convened. Normally, you are capable of controlling yourself. To a certain extent."

He tsks, metal hand caressing slow, reassuring circles onto your waist, while his other palm dives back between your legs. His fingers drag over your cunt with an irrational sense of clumsiness, considering the motion is coming from him. He lets his fingertips search for nothing in particular, getting them slick with your arousal, nudging your clit carelessly with his knuckles until your back is arching, and your sighs are sharpening.

"Sorry." You mumble a half-hearted apology, eyelids softly fluttering.

"It was not a complaint." Viktor presses his fingertips close, dangerously closer.

Your body needs him, needs what only he can give to you. His hands, his fingers inside you. Every inch of you screams for his touch. As though you are a solved puzzle, a piece of technology broken down to let him understand each individual part. Your thighs shake, and that's part A. Your chest heaves, your shoulders go tense. Significantly human responses. Components labeled B, C, D, V. Your lips quiver, before they mutter another breathless, desperate plea of his name.

Predictable, and understandable. Yet, for certain, you are a delight to decipher. Those pieces and budding sensations come together as he thought they would, and they — and you, are primed to be bent at his will.

You expect him to tease you further. When he falls silent, becoming more impossible to read than he already was, you feel your arms and your thighs tense with what must be anticipation. Surely, he can sense how eager you are.

But Viktor doesn't falter, he does not hesitate. He guides his metal hand underneath your back, predicting its arch, and he presses two of his fingers, his middle and ring, to your drooling entrance. They slide into you with a filthy, wet noise; it's almost obscene how eagerly your cunt accepts them. How you plead with whiny utterances of yes, yes, your voice breaking, eyes closing. He eases them inside you slowly, fills you with them completely — until his scarred knuckles are nudging against you, and you're sobbing through a half-sigh, half-moan.

He doesn't wait to hear you beg for more. You're given a calculated amount of time, just enough seconds to catch your breath and get used to the stretch of both digits inside you. He fucks you on his fingers, pumping them in and out to the tune of your broken whines and gasps for air. It's a gradual process. A coded, mastered technique well-baked into his mind, his heart, and his hardware.

Of course, he's long since learned just how to make you fall apart. He has studied you, he's proceeded to subconsciously store your data in the most important vault in his mind. It is simply a matter of getting you there, of drawing out your pleas for him and your tremors and your pulses, to push you even further past your previous crescendos.

You can always be louder. Finish harder. You deserve to. And when it comes to any and all of his endeavors, including this one, he is persistently, unquenchably ambitious.

"Vik-" You're babbling, in a wavering voice he might logically, astutely label as precious. His quiet lab echoes with the whirr of various displays and devices. With your soft noises, echoing alongside the wet squelch his fingers make each time he presses them deeper. "Please, I just- I'm so- I want you so much-"

"You have me," He answers rigidly. Prepared and intentional, his fingers move slower, drawing out your moans and your shudders of pleasure. "Or were you demanding more?"

"I always want more with you." A faint, endearing pout forms on your features, the kind of look only he can draw from you. "Want- I want you to fuck me."

It isn't anything of importance; just an aimless, desperate plea. The kind you might be expected to ask of him when you're in this state — your mind wandering, your body relaxed. You need fuel for your building fire, you need to hear him outline through words what he can't through actions. You cannot make him feel as you do, but Viktor is kind enough to let you play pretend.

Though, for whatever strange, unrecognizable, illogical reason, he goes against the fixed line of actions he was previously adhering to, and he hesitates. He contemplates. He twitches, circuitry briefly inoperable, fuzzy and working against him. His center, his self-regulating core, hums with marginally more force than it did before. The hand he has pressed to your back trembles. It thrums with artificial, built-up heat, before he grips you much tighter.

Fortunately, he rediscovers his composure as quickly as it waned. Viktor quirks his fingers into your sweet spot to make you cry out for him, and then he drags them half-way out — every moment agonizingly slow, so he can admire the way the digits glisten in the lamplight.

"Filthy little thing." His voice is thick. His words are stern, making you picture how his jaw might be tightened. "I am already providing you everything you asked for, and yet still, you act greedy. Human desire is terribly intemperate."

"As if-" You're squirming, sweating, your hair a mess, warm gaze and moon-wide pupils locked onto his obscured face. "As if you feel nothing from this."

"I cannot feel. You are well aware of this reality. I suggest you do not continue to persuade yourself otherwise."

"Bullshit."

"In fact, I do feel nothing." Viktor brings his thumb to your clit on his next press in, rubbing it roughly, circling it precisely. "I am incapable of experiencing desire," His fingers crook and spread. "Nor enjoyment." They pump slowly, while they stretch you around their shape. "Or affection."

"But you were worried about me- fuck- when I went off on that stupid mission," You're mumbling, barely able to speak through ragged gasps for breath, "You were fretting over my safety. You- hah, you stopped everything you were doing just to check on me, because you felt relieved, you felt happy when you saw me walk in, didn't you?"

Did he?

Hours earlier, you returned to his doorstep, and he knew it was you from the way you knocked; he put aside the small automaton he was working on, and hurried to meet you at the door. He gave you a quick once over — in this form, he is vastly larger and taller than you, to the point where you have to crane your neck to look up at him — but you assured him you hadn't been injured. When you fell against his armored chest in something of an embrace, he didn't push you away. Nor did he protest when you pulled his heavy, bulky shape on top of you as you fell back against the nearest surface, his additional sensors picking up your already increasing breathing and heart rate.

He recalls your arms around him, hands tugging at his cape, removing sections of his armor, fingers threading through his hair. Soft lips pressing to cold steel —

Viktor tenses. You are plenty capable on your own, capable enough that he rarely considers whether or not you'll return. You always do, after all. This mission was considerably riskier, though. Considerably more worrisome.

If anything had happened to you, if he discovered you were injured or captured or worse, his subsequent reaction would be less than logical. His mental processes would malfunction, and he would lose the ability to think rationally. The stifling, unstoppable force that would build within him could be compared to something like rage, something like love.

You swallow thickly, and the room swirls around you in a dizzy haze as Viktor slowly pulls his fingers from you. Leaving you empty.

He murmurs, "Look at me."

It's a little difficult of a command to follow, with your head spinning and your eyes all heavy. Still, you force yourself to breathe deeply, to steady, in the wake of the sudden lack of attention.

You look up, and his hand, fingers slick and filthy, momentarily moves to grasp your chin. He tilts you towards him, to make sure you're watching. Viktor reaches up, and he presses a mechanism on the side of his mask. It hisses, releasing air, small puffs of steam streaming from either side.

He removes it tentatively. He tosses it aside with a bit less caution, causing it to clink, spin, and nearly fall when it hits the upper edge of the table.

You're met with messy brown hair, scarred skin, and familiar moles. The entirety of his jaw is made of metal, reconstructed into intricately crafted steel that continues down his neck and underneath his armor. His skin is overly pale, to the point where you can notice deep eye bags, and the criss-crossings of several individual, purple-hued veins. His expression is stern and deadpan, his brows slightly creased. He takes you in, gaze flickering down for a moment, then back up — and searing eyes, dark purple pools and bright orange suns, finally meet your own.

"Your legs," He's instructing; his voice, no longer filtered through the mask, sounds warmer, clearer, a little less deep. Despite everything, terribly familiar, and blissfully human. "Place them around me."

Unable to stifle a smile, you lift your thighs, casually locking them around his back at the ankles. You rarely get to see his face, and it's impossible to keep your eyes off of him, nor can you stop your heart from pounding. Viktor returns your gaze, cold and unflinching. It's like he's examining you, regarding you with the same restrained interest as he'd have for the subjects of his experiments.

"There you are," You're cooing, head tilting, "Vitya."

Viktor's expression finally shifts from his usual indifference, his brows scrunching up to form a slightly irritated scowl.

"Defiant again. As expected."

"You used to like it when I called you that. Am I not allowed to tease you now?" You're laughing, and your smaller frame, still pinned underneath him, shifts somewhat when he loosens his grasp on your wrists. A faint amount of mercy. You offer him one of those radiant smiles he can't stand — can't resist. "You can be such a hypocrite."

"Open your mouth," Viktor sneers coldly, "So it can be put to better use."

With a firm, metal hand, he holds the curve of your soft side, measuring your individual tremors, paying attention to the steady movement of your lungs. His gaze flickers between your eyes, your lips. Your breath hitches, and your mouth forms a line. You can't help but roll your eyes.

"I can just leave, you know," You mutter, your voice still playful, yet noticeably a few volumes lower. "But I'm guessing you don't want me to."

Funny. You seem to think you could escape from his grasp.

"Open. Your. Mouth. Before I give in, and do something I shouldn't."

"I'm not-"

Your protest fizzles out into a surprised noise and a subsequent sigh; Viktor grabs you, he pulls you closer in tandem with surging forwards, and his mouth promptly crashes into yours.

Finally.

The kiss tastes sharp, like iron and ash, like something distinctly him when his tongue slowly brushes against yours. You allow your eyes to close — but Viktor hardly leaves you any room for air as he practically devours you. It's deep, enthralling, and clumsy. Needy, on your end, and hungry on his. The kind of kiss that possesses you, consumes you. Your mind is dizzy, your breath is gone, but you need to kiss him more than you need to breathe.

You melt into him gently, naturally. Like you were always meant to. His hand cups your face, his thumb brushing your cheek: a motion far too soft, far too important.

When he pulls away, finally giving you some breathing room, your eyes immediately meet. Your chest is heaving, your heart warm and pounding to a tempo made just for him. His gaze is once again sharp, once again perfectly composed.

You miss the softness of his lips already. "Vik."

And he needs you, needs more of you. He's wanted to feel your lips against his for far longer than you or even he could have realized. Since those days when you were both young and stupid, when you vowed to achieve your dreams together. As though your gentle voice pleading his name is just tender enough to push him over a metaphorical edge, to flip some hidden switch in his complex mechanics — He kisses you again, again, again.

All of this, it isn't meant for him. It is unfathomably human, from the way you breathe fervently against his mouth; stuttered breaths, quicker than his, heavier than his own could ever be. To the way he touches you, a half-machine's best imitation of intimacy. His still-human palm moves to brush your neck, then glides further to hold the back of your head. Your body is all awkward limbs and soft edges and smooth skin, but you fit underneath him oh-so perfectly.

He can't stop. It doesn't seem real; Viktor imagines he must have fallen into a different reality, he's in a different body with a different, mortal heart. None of this makes an ounce of logical sense otherwise. Then again, when do you ever make sense?

He can't focus on anything but your lips on his — because for a few fleeting moments, he isn't defined by metal and machinery; he is himself. He is a mess of muddled thoughts and imperfect touches. Your legs around his back pull his figure closer to yours, and you have him wondering what it might entail without any steel in the way. Just skin against skin.

It'd be impossible for him to feel such a thing, when there's little skin left. His entire arm, his legs, his torso, his spine; they've since been replaced, improved upon. Is this the closest he'll ever get to you, to love?

Waves upon waves of warmth wash over you, they drown you, they envelop you. Even once Viktor has finally pulled apart from you with one last soft kiss, you still aren't able to breathe. Your heart pounds against your ribs, so fiercely it almost hurts.

He settles back above you, and as you calm again, he holds your gaze. His slender fingers move to trace the column of your throat, where they not-so-subtly seek out your pulse. It's racing for him. He looks remarkably composed now, compared to how disheveled you're sure you appear.

Gently, he trails his hand upwards. His thumb swipes your kiss-swollen bottom lip. Your mouth parts instinctually, allowing him to carefully press the digit into your warm mouth, onto your wet tongue.

"Do not leave," Viktor murmurs, an analytical edge already returning to his tone, in spite of what transpired between you. He pulls his thumb from your mouth, brushing it over your bottom lip again, smearing your lips with your saliva. "Stay for tonight."

"Are you asking? Or is that a demand?" Your breath on his skin is foggy and hot. When it's clear he isn't going to answer, his gaze regarding you inquisitively, you propose another question. Your hands clench, they briefly push against the unyielding grip of his Hexclaw. "Will you let my hands go now?"

"Tsk. Only if you are capable of keeping them to yourself."

"C'mon…" You hum disappointedly. He appears routinely unaffected by your pouting. So, you change your approach.

You shuffle, trying to get more comfortable. The table beneath you feels especially firm. "What if I say please? Is that what you're looking for?"

"Go ahead. It will not affect my decision."

"Seriously? But I want to touch you. You're so pretty."

Viktor hesitates, but only briefly. He senses the whirring in his chest, the usual hum of his augmented components. Substitutions where imperfect pieces should be, strength replacing frailty, mechanics coming to life once more as his mind becomes forcibly unclouded. His systems are working as usual again. All it took to experience a malfunction was your lips on his, and all he needed to do to rebuild his composure was pull away. And you are still a gasping, heavy-eyed mess.

Still, there is something troubling him. The same illogical functions that've been prodding at his mind since the very beginning. Lingering errors. Faults in his perfected frame. When he looks at you now, he strongly senses the push and pull of those inaccuracies.

If he allows you to touch him, each framework, every mechanism — Everything he's been carefully constructing might come crashing down.

Would that be so bad?

Pretty. How ridiculous. Viktor scoffs, his jaw tensing up, his next words arbitrary. "Most are afraid when they look at me."

Perhaps they should be. Perhaps you should be.

But you just smile, your expression growing soft as you tilt your head, and you answer in earnest: "I don't think I've ever been scared of you."

Again, there goes his worthless, thrumming, obsolete heart.

You should be afraid of a man who's designed himself to fit an image you no longer recognize. You shouldn't try to get so close to him, when his compulsive obsession to destroy and remake borders on a clear line of danger. This new chassis embodies perfection. It has long since relinquished any weaknesses, but if you detested him, he wouldn't blame you. Others are reluctant to embrace his vision, save for a select, fortunate few. You and him have history. History that would make seeing him like this rather difficult, he assumes.

Usually, Viktor is able to keep any oversights from throwing him off course. He can't be distracted from achieving his goals. The people of Zaun need him. This new body poses no hindrances. Pain doesn't disrupt him; it can be turned out, like anything else. Pain of the body, and pain of the heart.

You, though. Any thoughts he has of you start as small blips. Tiny, persistent sparks. They build overtime, burning brighter, hotter. Until he sees you, and you look just like how you did back then, so, so long ago. There are tired lines on your face, faint scars, and he knows they're his fault. All at once, his mind is threatening to become a mess of discordant, fraying parameters, of processes that are refusing to function in the manner they should.

He wants to keep you far, far away; far from him, from this lab. Far from this terrible, awful place you both grew up in. If he could, he'd have you go somewhere so very distant, where you couldn't distract him — where you could be happy and free. You will see the sky, feel the sun's warmth, and breathe fresh, cool air. It'd be what's best for you. And he will continue to further his endeavors in evolution. Alone, as intended.

But ultimately, no matter what he winds up doing to his mind or his body, he would think of you. Of holding you or unmaking you, sometimes he isn't sure which. If you were truly afraid, if you ran, he wouldn't follow on your heels. But along with you, you'd take a piece of himself, a faint trace he would never get back; for better, or for worse.

Viktor listens to the sound of your breathing: steady, deep. His gaze studies you, but it lingers on your eyes for longer than intended. You are still looking up at him, smiling, sparkling like a sky full of stars. As though he is a sky filled with stars.

Your breaths become heavier when he presses his palm to the center of your chest. He drags his touch down, down. You are more sensitive this time, he notes. You lean into him once his hand caresses your pelvis, your waist, and you loosen your legs from around his back to become more comfortable. His fingertips trail up your inner thigh, and you shudder, you shiver.

He thinks of kissing you once more. A couple times more, maybe. Proper judgment tells him he should resist. The thought remains there, lingering and burning between you.

"Viktor…" You murmur, your voice a bit broken, but he's hanging onto every word. "Touch me again."

Pleasant sensory inputs glow within him; tingling veins, reverberating wires. Overwhelming heat fills his shoulders, the back of his neck, his head — the heat of machinery, the warmth of his soul.

Viktor grabs your waist assertively, metal fingers digging into your hip. His gaze doesn't waver from yours as he guides your thighs to spread. Suddenly, he pushes himself against you, until you are hopelessly pressed between steel and metal. Between him, and the worktable.

You feel his weight, you feel the intricate ridges of metal plates and hard edges, the artificial heat of his much larger body radiating against your bare skin. Now, you are completely pinned, practically chest to chest, pressed underneath the Machine Herald so closely it's enough to make your head spin. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating. Perhaps he can hear it. Or maybe, he just knows your heart must be pounding for him, as it always does.

Your limbs tremor with excitement. As his palm squeezes your thigh, you can't help but arch into his touch. Thin, skillful fingers press close and feel how wet you are — still so sensitive, already dripping out onto him. You aren't teased, you aren't even able to catch your breath, because two of his fingers are swiftly dipping inside you, giving you exactly what you need.

It feels so right. Viktor reaches for your cheek. He encourages you to continue meeting his gaze when your eyes flutter and nearly close.

Your gaze on his, you let his name leave your mouth in a series of sharp gasps, and desperate pleas. He fills you slowly, but wastes no time building a rhythm; his fingers pump into your sensitive cunt gently, then methodically. Satisfied, Viktor hums, and he carefully shifts his other arm down. He holds your back as it arches, further pressing you against himself.

Now, the way he pleasures you is deliberate, it isn't enough, but Gods, you'll take anything he gives you.

"That name," Viktor starts, speaking in a smooth, level tone, perfectly contrasting the airy huffs and whines you utter for him. The name he hoped to relinquish, his name. "It sounds best when you are pleading it."

You smile through a soft moan. "It's my favorite. Such a sweet name."

Precisely, determinedly, his fingers crook into the spot within you he knows all too well, and you crumble, you sob.

"The tech you brought to me will accelerate the completion of our latest prototype," Viktor is explaining, matter-of-factly. As though the conversation is as simple as it is necessary. Like he doesn't have his large body shoved against you, and his fingers knuckle-deep inside you. It just serves to excite you further, honestly.

"I will install the heat core, and adjust its interior components accordingly. We could have its systems operational by tonight. However, I doubt I will be able to focus."

You take a forced, deep breath. "Yeah? Because of me?"

Obviously, he wants to say. You'll be here, staying in his lab, as you usually do after a tough afternoon or a previous sleepless night. He doesn't mind. Your chatter might occasionally be disruptive to his work, but your voice is nice, it is calming. Your presence itself might be a distraction, an interference that his mind tells him he should discard, but having you here is a nice change of pace, compared to the long, lonesome hours he's grown used to. He has never minded.

Sleep is less of a necessity for him. Resting for a handful of hours a few times per week is usually enough to keep himself operational. The torn leather couch he keeps in his quarters is there just for you. He no longer needs to eat in the typical sense, although he still needs to recharge burned energy. He keeps stocked up on the foods he remembers to be your favorites.

It's strange, out of everything he's forgotten, he still remembers such useless, trivial details. Each and every detail about you.

Without you, this space — the adjustments he's made to accommodate your presence, the dip in the couch from where you always sleep, your articles of clothing strewn over the floor and the couch arms. His lab would feel so empty.

His next words sound much gentler than usual. Warmer, more desperate.

"Because your voice will not leave my mind. Begging for me. Breaking for me," Viktor murmurs. He nudges his fingers against your walls, testing, teasing you. "Pleading my name."

Once more, he challenges your limits; his fingers slide into you deep, so deeply you can feel them everywhere. Nudging at your core, filling you perfectly. As if on queue, you whimper a broken plea of yes, and as your eyes flutter, you're cascading into a needy mess of pleasant, shaky gasps. You writhe, your pinned hands trembling, wishing for something to hold onto. Though, he keeps you in place underneath him, blissfully unrelenting.

"Say it," Viktor demands, "My name. Tell me who it is you need."

"Viktor," Your voice is light, clumsy and slurring slightly, but in the way you say his name, there's an unmistakable lilt of pure adoration. You need him, you need to feel him everywhere: his practiced touch, his soft skin, his steel-built anatomy. You want him to not have to leave you, to not need to choose between you and the Undercity's future.

You feel completely, utterly dizzy. You want so much. You want his hands, flesh or metal, to study every intricate inch of you. You want him to stop holding back, you need the both of you to make up for the stupid amount of time you've lost — "I- hhah- I want…"

With your eyes nearly shut, static and stars flickering at the edges of your vision, you hadn't noticed how close he'd become until Viktor's voice echoes warmly, right against the shell of your ear.

"You want me to fuck you?"

And holy shit, his tone is sultry, his accent is thick — you shiver so hard you're sure he's left feeling the aftershocks, your body still pressed up right against his, even through his layers of metal armor. Viktor doesn't stop the steady pace of his fingers, pumping and arching and working you so well. Nor does he quit speaking, simply because he knows this is what you want to hear. What you need to hear.

"You are insatiable," He scolds, although there's little emotion in his level tone. Just an obvious, already-known sense of acknowledgement. His voice is a thousand times more intense when it is curling directly into your ear; "You wish for me to render you even more weak than you currently are, so you can be shown exactly who you belong to? Oh, and how I'd fuck you. How I would take you. I would make a mess of you, I'm sure. You'd be begging to be given all of me. To be used by me."

It's merely theoretical, a set of fake promises and dirty words to put pleasant visualizations into your mind — calculated, like everything he pursues. And it works. Predictably, your entire body shudders with pure, forceful need. You pulse around his fingers, throbbing like a heartbeat. You sob, and try to twist to face him, although it's impossible, considering you're still tightly pinned beneath his figure.

You want to see his face, he figures, so Viktor shifts up. He re-puts himself in the center of your vision, and you glance towards him, eyes flickering across his face; your gaze on his is practically teary-eyed. Desperate and eager, you find ways to plead without words.

You want to let go. Of course you do — always forced to be strong, you need nothing more than to melt at the hands of the last person left in Zaun that you trust. Even if he is more machine than person. Even though he is not right for you.

For a moment all too brief, Viktor wonders what it would be like to push those boundaries. To truly have you, beneath his hands and in his heart, to feel you resounding beside him like the echoes of a rippling, rolling wave.

How would he take you? No, how would you want him?

He formulates a few possible outcomes. Perhaps you'd want him hard and desperately. You need to be put in your place, to feel him as close as he could possibly be while he molds you to his shape. You want to be obedient. A good little subject. You want to be called good, very, very good for him while he pounds you into the table, or maybe while he leans back, glowing, masked eyes focused solely on you, your hands gripping his armored shoulders so you can bounce on his lap however you'd like. The Machine Herald's perfect little pawn. He wagers with such filthy actions and words, he could make you even louder than this.

You'd be pinned underneath him, and instead of his fingers, he'd fill you with all of himself — carnal and raw. Warm and sweat-soaked. Yet still, your body pressed to his would be agonizingly tender.

Or maybe you'd want him in a different way. In a much softer way.

Tenderness has never been afforded to him, it's hardly a concept he knows, but perhaps it's what he once hoped for. With you, it's what he once pictured.

Every touch would be slow, delicate. Your hands interlocked. Bodies pressed together, galaxies against galaxies. So close, they could be mistaken for the same shape. He would learn you truly, and honestly. Warm and gentle, you would touch him soft enough to make him human again.

Your voice would beg for him, whispering sweet nothings into his ears, against his form. Useless, perfect declarations of love. Viktor shudders. He imagines your hands, pretty and delicate, brushing the space between his shoulder and his steel spine. Feeling his scarred skin, alighting fiery sensations he assumed he'd long since lost.

Compared to who he was before, he is much stronger. He must be strong, must be forged of grit and iron, he must not submit to worthless, human desires. But you make him oh-so weak.

He isn't supposed to be weak.

"Please," You're gasping. You are barely able to speak at this point, babbling sweetly between broken noises as he fucks you on his fingers; it's just enough to make you shut your eyes and imagine more. "Fuck- Vik- Oh, p-please…"

Splintering, throbbing with mechanical heat, his inner workings surge with a sublime abundance of molten, unbridled energy. Burning, it's burning him up from the inside, melting him down and making him fragile.

You've gone fuzzy beneath him — No, his vision is fuzzy. Your edges are blurred, your chest is heaving as his fingers barely leave you before pressing back in. His hand adjusts, allowing his thumb to brush your puffy clit on the next press in. When you whimper his name, as you've done countless times before, he swears he sees nothing but flickering, colorless static.

Burning and heightening and building, he must be malfunctioning, experiencing crucial gaps in his design. This shouldn't be happening. He should not feel, and this isn't feeling, but there is something building inside of him, something with your name on it.

No, no, your name is flickering through him, pounding against his mind like a drum, and he has to establish control. He has to fucking fix this.

He needs to be closer, so much closer. He needs you in an unexplainable, all encompassing way. In a way that shouldn't be occurring. He doesn't want anything, he can't experience the sensation of wanting because it isn't meant to exist.

Truthfully, he's past the point of no return, and you might be all that's left to hold him in place. Impossible. The only thing he's ever desired is progress, evolution. Improvement is what matters. Improving, fixing, augmenting.

You are going to be the death of him. He needs to be pressed against you, holding you, in you, examining your inner workings, guiding you to reach your true potential —

Something snaps.

"Do you know," Viktor grasps your face, roughly tilting you in his direction. The newfound harshness to his tone is exhilarating. "How impossible it is to resist breaking you?"

He laughs, the sound sharp, almost chilling; his smile is crooked, barely recognizable, showing off even more crooked teeth. His gaze holds your own until it practically burns into you. His body is hot. To the point of overheating. You feel the heated metal against your skin, pressing to your chest, your thighs, faint puffs of searing steam pouring out from gaps in the plating.

The grip his Hexclaw has on your wrists is so tight it nearly hurts. But it's faltering, his hands are twitching. He seems to recognize he might be hurting you, and so he lifts off of you slightly, he forces himself to loosen his hold.

There's a sound coming from him that echoes like grinding gears, like the hiss of burning filaments. Like something is crumbling. Fighting against itself.

"It is all I have ever known, milaya." Viktor lets go of something akin to a sigh, although he has no need to breathe. He is utterly ruined — the poor excuse for a heart he once placed between his ribs is aching, shuddering with the anticipation of a touch, soaring with the softness that comes with a kiss. Is this what it feels like to be dizzy, to be lovesick?

You shudder as his thumb rubs your clit, and he digs his metal fingers into your side, feeling the space just beneath your ribs. "You will soon understand," He murmurs, "And if you are incapable, I am still willing to teach you. To make you into so much more."

There's a stirring in his chest at that, at the thought of completing you; a deep-rooted abnormality he can't quite pinpoint. Is it excitement? Guilt? Lust?

You swallow. You're crumbling, as he sends tingles through your veins in the wake of more enthralling words.

"You are mine. Your fundamental place is at my side." Viktor senses the building heat of his inner workings, a deep wave rolling up from his constructed spine to settle onto the back of his neck. Building, burning, breaking. "I cannot wait to unmake you."

Pulling you apart would be delightful.

Your pieces would be disassembled, separated by each individual, pretty, dizzying section, so you could be redone carefully, gently, with a sense of tenderness only he could manage. He wants to understand you. To know exactly what makes you tick, down to your most basic of functions. To be close. Indistinguishable, the both of you made from the same materials. If you were constructed in his image, your components marked by his influence, there would be no doubt who you belong to.

Through breaking you and mending you, he wonders if he could find new ways to make you sing. You'd relax under each touch, shuddering and breathing his name as he completes your newfound enhancements. Gazes locking. Touches lingering. Metal soldering. Viktor trembles. Gods, how he wants you.

Furthering your potential and heightening your pleasure both require similar sentiments. Trust, and vulnerability. Opening your chest to watch your heart pound for him is the same as measuring your hitching breaths, growing heavier the deeper and faster he presses his fingers into you.

Because delicately pulling you apart just to put you back together is some metaphor for intimacy. Carving out a space for you within the confines of his fake heart is some synonym for tenderness. Holding onto his memories of you, replaying everything he can't quite forget to the point of near insanity — to the point where he attempted to forcibly remove you, by removing those emotions. Only to fail. Feeling these sensations for you when he shouldn't is some form of devotion.

You shouldn't feel for him either, right?

Having you there from the very beginning meant something; you were beside him when he only dreamed of becoming someone greater. When his ideas for evolution were just prototypes, when he first put the full extent of his weight onto both his legs. Didn't it mean the world to you too?

You were equally misunderstood. By your peers, by the world. Just as you believed in him, he saw light in you, from the very start. He thinks you could burn bright enough to melt anyone who stands in your way. And now, years down the line, when he is seen as less than human, you only see him. Not what he's become. It's infuriating. It's unmistakably loving.

You are panting. Getting close. Your bottom lip quivers, and your body tenses, each shudder more forceful than the last. His fingers echo a filthy, wet sound each time they pump into you, and your back is arching, you are simply begging to fall apart around him. For him, because of him. You deserve to.

And you sing, voice trembling like plucked strings, "Just p-please. You can do whatever you want to me, I trust you- I've always trusted you. Vik, I need you. I'm yours. All yours."

All his.

Whatever he turns into, whatever becomes of his body, memories, and heart, you would still follow. No matter what his goal might be; to destroy this city for what it did to the both of you, or to work in unison to try and remake it. Or perhaps, he plans to become more. An example of perfection. A God. As if he isn't one already.

The first time he touched you, when he felt the softness of your skin and heard the plea in your voice, and knew you were in his heart still, still, wasn't it akin to a prayer?

Oh, he is going to unravel you.

Viktor allows his grip on your wrists to finally, fully loosen; his Hexclaw presses flatly to the table, helping to support his weight. Relaxing, you exhale a deep breath, but you don't hesitate for long. Your arms waste no time wrapping around him, pulling him close. When you kiss him, a hand cradling his cheek like he is something breakable, and not a perfected piece of unstoppable machinery, the tender press of your lips to his feels undoubtedly inevitable.

All he knows is since the day he pretended to forget about you, when he decided to become something more, his new heart beat steadily, his enhanced mind was clear. But his systems wouldn't stop buzzing.

When he hardly knew where you were or what state you'd return to him in, the noise grew sharper. Fervently pulling, Hextech whirring, unsated electricity sizzling like fireworks underneath his skin. Having you in his arms once more only made the static form so thick, he thought his mental processes might completely go haywire. All he knows is that now, as he's kissing you, feeling your lips on his, your body against his own, and your hands tangling through his hair — for once, the static is silent. Blissfully silent.

And he kisses you, harder than before. Softer than anything and everything.

"Faster-" You're pleading brokenly against his mouth, between breathy kisses, your voice echoing through him, "More."

Faster, harder, more. Whatever you desire, he's going to give it to you. Viktor mumbles, "Of course."

Finally able to move, you hook one leg around his waist, you use it to drag him in even closer. You rock into his hand when his fingers spread and crook inside you, and you grab tight, messy fistfuls of his hair. His lips on yours, kissing you over and over, leave you little room to breathe.

Once you've pulled away, you're gasping for air, and his gaze fixates on yours: examining, devouring. Viktor takes note of your every movement. How you grind into his fingers when his thumb teases your clit, your bottom lip caught between your teeth, brows pinched. How you fall back against the table when the sensations overwhelm you, eyes shut and limbs weak. Pulsing and tensing around him, so sensitive. So close to falling apart.

Your arms wrap around him again, and he tries to keep the pace of his fingers steady, while you begin placing hurried kisses to his cheek, his neck. You kiss the side of his face, soft lips on soft skin. Then, your lips continue down, they press to his steel jaw. He tilts his head to let kisses fall over the expanse of metal that runs down his neck. Tingling phantom sensations curl into him and split him open.

"Close," You're muttering, so quiet he nearly doesn't hear. You hold him as tight as you can manage. Your breath is warm on the side of his face, tickling his skin, making him feel even warmer within.

"You are close?" He repeats for confirmation; his hand finds your side, and you grip his shoulders, hands brushing over thick plates of metal, desperately searching for something to hold onto. Your nails dig in, firm enough that he thinks the steel might chip. Viktor breathes a slight laugh, "You sound so sweet."

"So- I'm getting so-" You swear, "Oh, f-fuck…"

The only way he might quench what's come over him and steady his systems is by watching you come apart. Pleading his name, while you melt into a needy puddle of all the emotions and pleasant sensations he could never let himself have. Brought to your peak by his touch, his voice, because you are his, all his.

Viktor's free hand traces up, cool steel carefully finding your collarbone, your neck. Then, his fingers are wrapping around. He squeezes your throat just barely, just how you like, enough to make you fall back with your arms sprawled above you. Your head is perfectly dizzy, as his fingers work you steadily, his thumb flicking your needy clit much faster. Pushing you closer, closer.

Until it's far too much, and you are at his mercy, guided right to the edge of an exhilarating, electrifying precipice.

"Let go. I have you," Viktor instructs, "Let yourself submit."

Everything you've been building towards, all of his touches, all of this ecstasy, and how terribly you've missed him coalesces into this. Into a single, shuddering moment, waves upon waves of pleasure pushing you over the waterfall's edge. You're melting, cumming hard for him, your arms shaking, until he's removing his hand from your throat and giving you something to grab onto — delicate fingers laced with thick, strong, metal ones. Perfectly contrasting.

Your vision goes white. Your body tenses and then goes limp, like you've been shut down. The high is forceful, before it becomes soft, ebbing over you with gradual warmth, his hand in yours enough to steady you. Heart pounding, you take quick, loud breaths.

You can't help but feel disappointed when Viktor's hand releases yours to return to your waist. He holds you carefully, cold fingers brushing your skin reassuringly. Every touch feels deliciously raw, alight and sensitive.

Your eyes open slowly. Viktor's hair is a mess in his face, likely caused by you. He seems flushed, if only slightly. His unflinching gaze flickers across your form, before it settles back on your eyes.

"Breathe," He instructs carefully, gently. His hand grips your side a bit tighter; he's clearly affected by the way you sigh. You do your best to follow along, the aftershocks fading as your pulse slows, and as you start to calm.

"There. Excellent, you have done so well," Viktor praises. He smiles slightly in satisfaction. "You have never been this breathless."

Whatever words you could've formed in response don't come. They can't, not when his fingers are still inside you; not when Viktor is pressing them into your sensitive cunt just barely, squeezing your side as he delights in the way you whine. Pleasure, white-hot and familiar, surges through you fiercely.

It's so much, it's so much, it's too much, he's already fucking you with his fingers, and before you can fully wind down, you're swiftly building towards another high. Your body needs this. You just aren't sure if you can take it.

"Ah- shit," You murmur; reaching up, you tangle both hands in his hair, gripping tight for leverage. His expression remains infuriatingly calm. "I want- I need more. It feels so good, Vik," You're practically purring those last words, your whole body shuddering through another wave of ecstasy. "But I don't- I'm not sure if I-"

"You can." Viktor interrupts, assured and composed. "You can cum for me as many times as I dictate."

You're smirking now, obediently spreading your trembling thighs wide, while you roll your hips into his touch; his fingers are so thick, so impossibly, perfectly deep — "Hah- and you said I'm the insatiable one."

"Yes. You are the most insatiable human I have ever known. And it would seem you are particularly insatiable with me."

"You were once- Oh-"

Your head falls back as Viktor nudges that sweet, tender spot inside you, and your body becomes limp once more.

He takes the opportunity to bring the Hexarm's hand to your cheek. It's large enough to eclipse your face, the same way it was big and strong enough to easily pin both your wrists in its grasp. The heat radiating from the metal makes your eyes briefly flutter, before he trails it down to your throat. Perfectly responsive, your eyes grow heavy. He provides you with your favorite, much-needed pressure.

You've watched him use this very same hand to solder metal and create machinery. The device could heat to a temperature a thousand times hotter than it is now, it's capable of firing off a single ray of concentrated energy potent enough to slice through steel. And he has that hand wrapped right around your neck.

Fuck, that shouldn't excite you. It shouldn't have you quivering more and whimpering, shaking while you try your best to keep meeting his eyes, all because you so desperately want to hear him speak again. Praising you — You are doing so well for me, so pliant, so adorable. Or scolding you — Pathetic, aren't you? Quivering like a rabbit, and all it took was a little brush with danger. You are amusing.

Whichever he prefers. Because Viktor is so much stronger, so much smarter, and it hardly matters what he chooses to say, when any and all of it still gets you off.

Deep within your heart, you know he'd never hurt you. He would take away your pain if you asked it of him, so you wouldn't have to feel it again. His words can be sharp, simply because he wants to protect you. He wouldn't even attempt to put his hand on your throat like this if he didn't have complete, total control over the Hexclaw's laser. Carefully, he observes your every movement for any sign of discomfort, calculating and controlling each aspect of your pleasure — and it only serves to make your heart pound faster.

Of course, he can tell when you start to truly shake. He knows every inch of you is melting with overstimulation, and he's going to give you more.

"Take it. I know you are capable." His voice gives you goosebumps, while his fingers press into you shallowly, but the smallest movements are more than enough to make a mess of you. "There, perfect, you are performing excellently. Relax. Continue breathing deeply, nice and slow breaths. I will take care of you, love."

Love.

"Don't-" You choke, trying to keep your eyes on his despite the way your vision wavers and blurs; your reaction is immediate, predictable, and instantly satisfying. "Don't stop…"

You're beautiful like this, when you're underneath him. Since his enhancements, compared to his new body, you are now much smaller. He had to learn to adjust to the touches you need, to be gentle. Like you once were with him. Your roles, reversed in such a crucial way. You are undoubtedly strong in your own right, but when it comes to him, you are as sensitive as you are receptive. He needed to study how to keep from holding you too tightly, how to regulate his temperature to not burn your skin underneath his hands.

You are a pretty sculpture of quivering limbs and glistening skin. Your chest heaving, eyes fluttering. As beautiful as you were back then, before this. Before he lost the warmth he felt in his chest every time he saw you, before feelings on their own became mere faded memories. His iron consequence, locking away his dying love.

He gives you another. Three fingers press inside your dripping cunt, stretching you, filling you. A hand grips your side, his third lightly squeezing your throat — he works your pleasure for all it's worth, and has you gasping as he wrings out your aftershocks.

Viktor's mouth can't help but twitch into the slightest smile. "Look at you. You are worthy of the world."

He would give it all to you.

The Machine Herald will have this city in his hands. His vision is moving fast and accomplishing much, so it is only a matter of time. If you wanted more, he'd just have to reach even further. Relinquishing his human emotions left him without the need to be happy, nor content. But you, your happiness, keeping you safe, seeing you smile. It is stupid, foolish, doesn't make sense; his mechanics stutter, until he thinks he is choking on his own contradictory tenderness.

His body is betraying his mind. There is heat at his center, more than the normal amount emitted by his internal components. A very human, very filthy amount of heat. His skin underneath his armor is flushed and warm, his chest is aching from the weight of your heavy destruction. You are destroying him, and he can do nothing but allow it.

"I missed you," You murmur earnestly, voice weak, close to shattering. Your eyes are closed. Why, why are those words making his hands and his limbs and his heart shudder? "I missed you so bad- don't stop, keep fucking me Viktor- don't, please don't stop talking…"

Is that what you're imagining?

So he doesn't stop.

As you fall back against the table, Viktor removing the Hexclaw and letting go of your neck, he leans in to speak right against your ear. "I am proud of you, lubov. Infiltrating Piltover must not have been simple. You brought me more than I required, you did so with much efficiency. And you returned to me safely. Allow me to reward you. Fall apart for me, cum like I know you so desperately need to."

Your body curls, your hands move to his shoulders and grip them impossibly tight in an attempt to keep yourself steady. "Vik- Viktor-" You're gasping, you're close, "Kiss me, please kiss me-"

His hand holds your chin, the cool, rigid steel of his thumb swipes over your bottom lip; teasing you, making you whimper. Sliding further, into your mouth, until you're tasting the sharpness of metal. Until you're gently sucking, feeling the intricately crafted notches and joints on your tongue. When he pulls it out and kisses you hard, when his lips press to yours and your high-pitched moans become muffled on his mouth, you cum on his fingers hard enough to see the afterimage of stars.

He's trailing kisses down your jaw while you pulse around him, your thighs shaking, your head tilting to let his mouth find your throat. In the wake of his soft kisses, his foggy breath, you melt, and fully succumb to your shuddering high.

Working you back down is a slow, patient process. A kiss onto your neck for every gasp you take in, the feeling of gentle teeth once your body starts to fully relax. Everything you've wanted, everything you missed; far too tender for who he's become.

There are faint marks on your neck by the time he pulls away. Signs he was there. Proof he is softer than he is meant to be.

You could stop here. Instead, the next few moments happen in their own special space of reality.

Away from this city, away from his lab. A different plane made for just the two of you. Your mind feels dizzy, heavy. Viktor meets your gaze, momentarily scanning your face, waiting to make sure you've calmed.

He is all you can think of, all that has ever mattered. And even when he is right here, you miss him so, so much.

You tremble from the end of your spine to the top of your shoulders when he carefully pulls his fingers from you. He brushes his palm from your thigh to your side in one steady, soothing motion. You can feel the scars on his palm, the slight hesitant tremor to his still-slick fingers. You're reaching up, palm pressing to his chest. You absently feel the various ridges of metal. Smooth to the touch, armor radiating the faintest flickers of heat.

He glances down, watching your movement as your palm brushes further, further. Delicate fingertips trail the dips and outlines that continue down his stomach. Eventually, you reach as far as your arm will let you, your fingers drawing circles onto the rib-like sections of steel crossing just above his hips. As he glances back up to you, he finds your soft, pleading gaze to be already looking at him. As sweet as he's always remembered.

Your breathing is heavy. "Vik," You're begging, "We shouldn't- I'm sorry. This is stupid. I know we should stop, but…"

He is going to regret this.

Before he can stop himself, before his mind and his systems can even be led to form a single rational thought, Viktor is pressing the palm of his Hexarm just above your head, flat to the table. He is leaning over you, he is finding your cheek with a soft hand and a gentle touch. He's pulling you in, crashing his lips against yours, and he knows you're right — you shouldn't continue. He shouldn't allow this.

Machines do not feel. The Machine Herald feels nothing, and wants for nothing besides evolution. But Gods, you're kissing him like his lips are a drug, all you need after wanting to kiss him for so, so long. Since before you both became dim shells of what you once were. Your legs are wrapping around him, your fingers are brushing his face with such devastating tenderness, and Viktor believes he is feeling everything.

He's reaching down between your gasps for breath that make gaps in your kisses, and he's deftly activating a set of small, circular mechanisms on either of his sides. The armor on his chest unlatches with a clicking noise, platings becoming loose, unaligned.

The larger, more cumbersome sections of his armor, including his gauntlets, cape, and shoulder pieces have been discarded from the start, making the portion of chest armor come off as two simple halves. He has to pull away, sit up straight, and partially slide off of you to remove it all the way. Both pieces of armor hit the ground with a particularly heavy thud.

Most of his body has been replaced. Underneath the metal armor, there's just more metal; sections of iron that've been fused to replace muscle and skin, alloyed parts that reinforce his thin frame.

You have only seen him like this once. He was fixing some miscalibrated platings on his side, a wrench in one hand, the Hexclaw's laser busy welding a suitable replacement. Two thirds machine, and one part still human, he was definitely much different from what you remembered. Still, there were small sections of pale skin on his back, split where his spine had been reconstructed. And jagged scars, adorned by faint, dark moles. His messy hair still falls around his face just like you remember it.

You wanted to touch — he says he can't feel, but would he sense your fingertips as they traced his scars, would he shudder as your hands felt his skin? If you kissed what remained of him, his hand and each of his fingers, his back and each of those pretty moles, his chest down to his stomach, could you alight new sensations in him?

You've never wanted to touch him more than in this moment.

The bottom portion of his armor comes off much easier, leaving just the thick sections that cover his thighs down to his legs, including the steel brace mechanism. You're only able to catch the faintest glimpse, before he's pulling you into another deep kiss — a kiss that burns with every moment lost, his body pressing you against the table and beneath him. Your arms wrap around him, palms trailing across his back.

As they've always longed for, your fingertips feel the back of his neck: the ridges and hard edges of his spine, the solid base of the Hexarm, his soft skin. Viktor physically shudders. When one of your hands tangles in his hair while the other falls, landing upturned beside you, he kisses you harder, he absently finds your hand and holds it in his. Your fingers lace together. His hand feels so warm, still slightly larger than yours. His skin is scarred, your thumb brushing over calloused knuckles and thin, purple veins. Every touch is so tender, earnest, human, it's nearly unbearable. Your hand was meant to be in his. Even if it won't last.

It's a strange sensation, when his body presses ever closer to your own. Metal leads down from his navel, across to his pelvis, trailing underneath the armor on his thighs as one smooth, solid construction. Partially welded into his skin, but seemingly designed to make some sections removable. It is warm like the rest of him, designed with faint ridges and indents.

Your legs, locked around him at the ankles, encourage him to press ever-closer. He devours you, kissing you deeper than you thought possible. You sigh against his mouth, and hold on tightly to his hair. His body rocks against yours in an instinctual, clumsy motion. Close, pressing, grinding. Warm metal and those perfect little ridges grind between your legs, against your core, against your clit. And you practically jolt.

Oh. You break away from the kiss to toss your head back with a breathy, pretty noise. Pleasure threads through you, thick and unrelenting.

Viktor mumbles something that barely registers in your ringing ears: Should stop, you manage to make out. And then, Are you alright?

"Yes, I just-" You mumble, panting hard, "Don't. Don't stop."

So Viktor grasps your waist in a tight, yet careful grip. His eyes never leave yours, gaze burning with a fire you've never once seen. He guides you to press against him, grinds his body against yours until you're making a mess of the metal. Until the faint ridges are nudging your swollen clit just right, until the heat of the iron is burning through you, into you, and your slick arousal is glistening on the steel.

Your mind and heart are racing.

"Oh, fuck-" You're swearing, your words surely seeming broken; he finds your cheek, he tilts your head up towards him, and you can't decide if the gesture is tender, or possessive. "I need you, I really, really do."

His body feels as though he just touched the surface of the sun, and Viktor hardly knows if the warmth is coming from his overloaded systems, or if it's surrounding him, heat drawn thickly from the friction between the two of you. Perhaps it's a mix of both.

Either way, he is losing himself. It's all happening so terribly fast; when his body rolls against yours, and you whimper through a filthy utterance of his name, there is a clear, undeniable response. A tingling in his veins, an eager sensation that shoots from his back to his chest to his core, consuming everything like a wildfire, and threatening to envelop all of him.

He doesn't even know what to do with this. How to silence these disruptions, how to get his stupid brain to stop picturing you shuddering beneath his form as he presses against you, presses inside you, and brands every inch of you with his own name —

"Milaya," Viktor hums, and you swear, his tone sounds lighter, his voice sounds strained. "I have always needed you. I'm not- No, I want- I shouldn't…"

Trailing off when you cry out, he swallows. His thumb brushes your bottom lip as he continues to guide you towards him. Sweat beads on your chest, your thighs. He instructs, partially shakily, "Keep looking at me. Please."

You've rarely heard him stutter or falter, never seen him anywhere close to worked up. You hardly knew if he had the capacity to feel this way, even though he certainly wasn't built to, even though he definitely isn't supposed to. And isn't it all because of you?

The way your gaze locks with his as he rhythmically rocks against you has your heart skipping beats. There's a slight softness to his cold eyes, to his expression, that you're sure no-one else has seen before. Not since back then. You are impossible to resist, and this definitely needs to stop, this is definitely too far — it's going even further when your hand reaches down, fingertips clumsily tracing the edges of the metal seared into his navel.

He knows what you want. You're greedy, a glutton for punishment, a sweet, terrible fool. But if he's honest with himself, perhaps he is worse. You are pleading his name again, the sound echoing unendingly in his ears, and Viktor is removing the front-most section of the metal enhancement: a thin plate that forms a triangular shape from his hips, all the way down.

When he presses against your form, the next sensation to bleed into you is much different. It's smooth, soft latex, shoving against you. The last layer remaining between you and him and —

And you can feel him. Straining hard and heavy against his underclothes. Firm and warm as he rocks into you, grinding all of him onto your throbbing cunt. You aren't thinking, you can't think anymore. Not when Viktor is hard, and when your heartbeat is so damn loud in your ears, you couldn't possibly hear anything else.

"Viktor," You're murmuring, your chest pleasantly aching. Pleasure welds with emotion, walking the same shaky line, until your heart is unfurling with delicate petals that fill your throat sweetly, consuming you wholeheartedly, "I love you."

If Viktor's mechanized heart was still capable of faltering from its pre-programmed rhythm, he's sure it would be fucking pounding.

Every part of him is set alight. Burning, he feels smoke in his throat, and swears he tastes fire. He's overloading, practically overheating, like a fragile body trembling with need and want, like a system with too many programs open at once — and oh Gods, it just keeps opening more. His vision has long since gone blurry, and every sound in his ears is thick, as though he's been submerged in deep water.

How long have you wanted to say those words? He thinks of quiet days spent with you in Piltover, the lingering glances and faint touches he tried his hardest to forget.

How long has he needed to hear you say them?

Honestly, he could cry, if he was at all still capable of crying. His mind is a mess. Heat is threading through his circuits, devotion and desire, a terrible softness; he's so soft inside, it hurts. It actually hurts, and he believed he taught himself how to forgo any pain.

Electricity and faulty Hextech sizzle in his core, radiating, echoing. His damn foolish, worthless, synthetic heart. He needs to hold you, fuck you, break you. To encode this sensation into his head and his blood, because forgetting the way your voice strummed those words would be worse than admitting he is too weak to discard them.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

He doesn't deserve this. He was not built to love. Love should be thrown out, along with everything else. Love is a weakness. You may be fine with placing your heart on railway tracks, you might not think twice before putting yourself in danger, but if anything were to happen to you, he might be entirely consumed.

With his mechanized existence, he could soon become immortal. This longing would surely stick with him after you're gone, an eternity of something he could never understand. Swallowing him whole, holding onto him tight. Endlessly painful. But right now, when he is here and stuck in a dream at the same time, when he is more of himself than he has ever been, and you are all that exists in his veins, could he ever manage to stop?

You are so close to so much more. So close to ruining everything — just one last layer, one more touch. One movement, one press of his palms to your figure before he slides into you, one last massive, unfixable mistake.

"Vik, please, please, I'm-" You can barely hold on anymore, as much as you've been trying to. You curl into him, grinding back against him hard; "I can't, I can't fucking- hhah- I'm so close-"

Your bodies rock together desperately, beckoning and wanting more of what they shouldn't have. His heat radiates into your skin, and your breath fills the air in thick, heavy huffs. You're still so wet, and it makes every movement slick and simple. Your hands feel his back, his shoulders, his steel jaw, his face. Anywhere you can touch, you're making the most of it.

Viktor finds your chin, he holds it delicately, and when he says your name, it feels personal; devastatingly so. Like he could make a home with the familiarity laced through each syllable. He breathes them like he did back then, coveting you so deeply. Muttering it as one final plea.

If he can't fix this, perhaps you can reconstruct this part of him. Could you show him how to live again, could you instruct his mechanized heart, and finally teach it how to skip?

"I have you," Viktor sighs, because he's sure you want to hear his words as much as he needs to say them. He doesn't require a working heart, when he can let all of himself echo through his still-human soul. "I love you."

Your chest bruises with sparks in the wake of his gentle voice. Still somewhat robotic. Spoken as though each individual, inevitable word is one he is learning to speak. I. Love. You.

Your legs and arms wrap around him, holding him as close to you as he could possibly get. Exhaling shakily, your whines are broken, your nails digging into his back. They'll leave red marks onto his pale skin; he hopes they do. His chest is pressed right up to yours. Viktor allows his forehead to rest just barely against your own, utterly tender, and he melts, as your thudding heartbeat echoes through him. Body to body, scarred skin on softer skin. Delicate limbs held around a partial chassis of firm, strong metal.

Helpless. Perhaps for you, he is the helpless one.

It doesn't matter; everything is crumbling away, and the both of you are thrown right back into reality, because you are falling apart for him at last. One last time.

You shake, liquid hot pleasure drips over you like burning wax, and you're left at the mercy of your blistering, final high. Another few deep grinds into each other are all you need — the both of you throbbing, his jaw tensing, Hexclaw twitching, stiffening, and radiating a powerful amount of heat. His eyes flutter, the artificial glow behind them flickering like a dying lightbulb. You hold onto him tighter, and he lets go of a slight noise. A quiet, shaky, all too desperate moan.

You stay rocking against one another even while you're cumming, even after your voice is sore from chanting Viktor's name so loudly, you briefly worry that anyone just outside of his lab might've heard you.

Finally stopping, you only begin to relax once your whole body is entirely spent.

You breathe slowly. In, and then out. Deep, calming breaths. Your heart pounds with force. The room refocuses around you, the harsh light of his various lamps burning into the back of your eyelids and making you see colorful spots. Viktor waits a few moments, before he shakily pushes up to prop himself above you.

There's a hum of ambient, grinding metal coming from him. The hiss of steam. The echo of small shudders, and forceful gasps. Your vision is still fuzzy, your limbs incredibly weak, but you notice when he reaches for something; the thin metal plating, which he secures back onto himself.

Once your eyes are completely clear and your heart is beating to a normal tune, you're finally able to focus on him above you. In barely any time, with a half-machine's perfected efficiency, Viktor has already regained every last aspect of his composure.

"Stay. You require rest," He instructs matter-of-factly, his tone filled with his usual sternness. His gaze scans you up and down methodically. "I will supply you with a change of clothes."

Right. Viktor's heart can't shudder like yours. Soft sensations have no need to linger. You'd almost forgotten. This is what you were always bound to return to: you, an ally. And he is just a machine.

Through heavy, lovesick eyes, you admire the sight of him above you. His thin figure, enthralled in shadow, light reflecting off of the metal sections of his outline. He runs a hand through his hair to push it from his face, a gesture you find particularly endearing and human.

"Oh, don't worry," You hum casually, stretching your arms and legs out. Your voice is light, foggy and still weak. The table beneath you feels firm against your back, but with how lightweight your whole body feels, you couldn't care less. "I don't think I'm moving even if I wanted to."

Viktor raises a brow just slightly. He taps your neck with a single smooth, metal finger. "And something needs to be done about these."

Briefly, your expression shifts into confusion. You tilt your head, allowing his fingers to trail further, and they examine the base of your neck down to your collarbones; the marks he left on your skin are swiftly darkening, forming blotchy, pretty bruises.

Realizing what he's getting at, you smile smugly. "Worried someone's gonna ask questions?"

"Half of Zaun acknowledges you as my right hand. I am not worried. But they will ask. It could prove arduous." Viktor explains, his tone exceedingly controlled. "Come. Hold onto me."

When you don't immediately move, he stares at you expectantly. So, despite your tiredness, you listen, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your legs around his middle loosely. Viktor lifts you with ease. His heavy boots clunk with each step, and he carries you just a few paces from the table, setting you down on your back, and onto the familiar, ripped-up leather couch. It shifts, accommodating your weight and his. Compared to the worktable, when your back hits the soft yet worn cushions, you feel like you're resting on clouds.

Viktor shifts, starting to move away, but you keep your arms wrapped around him, and speak before he has the chance.

"Vik…" You're purring, "Stay here."

A brief look of contemplation crosses his face, categorized by the slightest pinch in his thick brows. You smile, and nearly wind up kissing him again. He doesn't attempt to pull apart from you when you drag him closer to yourself, your lips gently brushing his cheek.

At first, he's overly stiff. His arm fits underneath your back to hold you out of mere obligation. In contrast, his metal arm is kept beside you, refusing to touch, steel-jointed fingers flexing absently. But once your hands trail up, your fingers tracing the back of his neck, before they run through his hair, he honestly, earnestly relaxes.

Your body underneath him is comforting. Limbs entangled, your legs brushing steel and the rigid metal brace. His head leans gently into the crook of your neck, almost hesitantly, as though he isn't entirely sure where to place it. He can't help but fall against you, bodies pressed into one another naturally enough to form the same grave. If he ever came face to face with death, he would refuse to accept it, unless it was just like this.

You let your tired eyes close. You allow yourself to focus on his warmth, on the weight of him, and you can almost pretend this is natural. That you are in the past, or perhaps residing in a much different future. You are both lovers, as you wished you would be; simple and uncomplicated, nothing more, resting together in the dizzying comfort of your afterglow.

It'd be nice. Nicer than anything you've been afforded. The only problem is Viktor is all firm steel and hard edges. His metal hand shifts to hold your side, and his fingers are digging into your skin, gripping a bit too tight. His weight on yours is making it damn near difficult to breathe. And right now, he is very, very hot.

You frown, your eyes fluttering open again. "You're overheating."

"My internal temperature is regulated by a liquid cooling apparatus," Viktor murmurs, after a moment. "It seems to be malfunctioning."

His voice is smooth, as it always is, but it sounds much warmer, much quieter, when it's spoken this close to your ear. You sigh softly, and shuffle a little under him, trying to get more comfortable.

"Ah. That sounds concerning."

"The device will adjust itself in time," Viktor clarifies. "If it does not, repairs will take a few minutes, at most."

Your fingertips brush over his back. They feel the thick ridges of his spine, and the thin steel shape of the Hexclaw's base. It feels cool and lifeless under your palm. "This is cold, though."

"It is inoperational. It stopped responding, I will need to reset it individually."

"That so?" You huff in response, laughing a little. You hold onto him tighter, and lean your head into his shoulder. "Whatever. Just don't let go of me."

He doesn't. You exhale a long, weak breath. Your hands tremble slightly, as they uselessly grip onto the sections of cold steel that frame his shoulders. Viktor stays perfectly still, and he allows you to hold onto him as tightly as you need to. This might be the last moment you'll have together. For a while, at least. He has much to attend to, after this. Some tasks he can work on at your side, with your assistance, preferably. Some missions he must complete alone.

The next time you speak, your voice is so fragile, he thinks he should be holding it in his palms. Or else it'll break.

"We shouldn't- or, I guess I shouldn't have said… you know." You shudder, shaking all over before you tense. You're holding him too close to allow him to see your face, but he can picture your expression: slightly playful, to attempt to hide your uncertainty. "Gods, I'm so stupid. But I meant it. And I just-" You laugh, "I'm sorry, Viktor. Maybe you were right. I've been way too reckless."

Viktor has no need to ponder his answer. "I know. Don't apologize. You should be resting, our conversation can continue tomorrow."

You breathe deeply, and he quietly murmurs, his voice echoing through your ears, "I love you, milaya."

Fake. Expected. A ghost of choked-back emotions, of all-too tender moments already slated to become forgotten memories. But something is there, something that tells you he's trying. For now, you'll take it. It's more than enough.

You are close to falling asleep; every one of your nerves, washed over by warm, inviting waves, enveloped in his persistent heat. As though he can sense your building exhaustion, Viktor rubs your back with slow, reassuring circles — as best he can manage, considering your shapes are pinned too close together. Your breathing evens out, and you relax into his touch. Your mind feels as heavy as your weary, weak limbs.

Your love would be soft, he considers, distracted. Gentless personified, warm like your smile, like the radiant sun shining down on one's skin. Patient and alighting. Like being pulled by the wrists, wrested out of a rocky, dark sea — finally alive, and finally able to breathe. The still-human part of him feels in measures of softness. The mechanical part is much, much different.

Heat is running through his veins. It's racing through his system, and he knows it isn't from any sort of malfunction. It burns. The taste of it is like sharp blood on his tongue, it spins in his head like the dizzy grinding of gears, sears through him with fraying wires and sizzling static. Pain and softness, forming a mix he might certainly call love, but might also swear to remove.

There's a certain sharpness gnawing at him. A flickering, raw bruise, brutalizing him from between his ribs, regardless of his attempts to try and ignore it. Your efforts are failing. You are feeling, and that means you have failed. Even dying embers burn out the same as raging flames.

You've drifted off, it would seem, your breathing slow, your body limp. So Viktor holds you just a bit tighter.

For once, for the first time since he truly decided who he wanted to be and what he wanted to accomplish, he is lost.

In the end, he is going to have to make a decision. One that will benefit his vision. Or one that will destroy him from the inside out. He must carve out these distractions, remove the sections of his heart that are faulty, or he must learn what it would mean to embrace them.

It scares him, truly. Viktor, the Machine Herald, genuinely scared over something meant to be so trivial. Fretting over the one person he never wanted to lose, even though he was sure he'd already lost you. He wonders what his opposition would say, what those who view him as soulless might think, if they knew the truth. And if you knew?

Just having to tell you, forcing himself to push you away, or coming face to face once more after he's altered his brain to completely forget you — No, the thought alone might be enough to seal his fate.

He'll make up his mind before you wake. His head will become clearer, eventually. When your voice is gone from his ears, when your phantom touches tracing his skin have finally disappeared. Besides, this moment won't last, and he wants to savor what's left of it.

Whatever happens next, wherever he takes this, he knows you will follow — to a different path, to a better future. Or to the ends of the earth.

#stfu #im deceased #this is peak #i cant sleep knowing this exists #i need this engraved in my brain #MILAYA COME ON #viktor x reader #viktor x you #arcane x reader #viktor smut #machine herald x reader

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