#Ever thought about how many times Jayce failed to kill Viktor? Me too

[melanleiv]

Failure

[viktorredemptionarc]

Fic: Falling out of feeling [JayceViktor]

A/N: Available @ AO3 too. Set after all the Bad Things happen, and Viktor attacks Jayce’s lab. It was supposed to be a lot angstier than it is but halfway through it I discovered that I cannot do that. Fixed some hiccups left because I published it FRESH OUTTA THE OVEN and some formatting stuff.

Word Count: 7.160.

Characters/Relationships: Jayce/Viktor.

Rating: T for language.

Summary: Regrets go well with snap decisions.

Since Viktor left, he learned how to hate him. It was easier to find him a menace, clear cut as a danger to Piltover and humanity, than to remember him as the dry witted man he once knew.

He tells himself that, but some nights Jayce aches all over with missing him and he doesn't know what to do with himself. He misses the easy friendship they forged back when Viktor was allowed in the academy, the way he dismissed academic nonsense yet fought to spread knowledge. How he talked about humanity, and emotions, and progress, as if the world weren't rotten but merely needed adjustments to shine.

We are slaves to our emotions, he would say, and to this day he still thinks that Viktor was waiting for an answer that Jayce was unable to give him.

Once Viktor left for good, nobody cared to tolerate him anymore. He's aware. Viktor found his arrogance funny, something to prod at and make fun of instead of something irritating and wrong. He misses that, too, even the more so when loneliness jabs at him and twists his gut.

As it is doing right now, as he reads one of his colleague's papers, acutely aware of the fact that the author only wants him to read it because he's Him. Knowing that if Viktor caught him thinking that, he'd stare at him with unimpressed disdain and say something ridiculous like "good grief, you are impossible".

They made so many mistakes.

He leaves the paper on the desk and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands with a groan. Things could've been different. There's no way to know if they would've been better than they are, but he's sure that changes could've been made. If he had backed Viktor up when Stanwick stole his credit for Blitzcrank. If he hadn't told on Viktor to the Academy. If he had followed him after that. If he hadn't attacked Viktor's laboratory in Zaun.

Wondering leads him nowhere. Yet, after all these years, he can't help but feel guilty sometimes when his guard is down. He can recognize Viktor's fault in things, but it's only fair to reflect on his. Not doing so, or trying to avoid to, is a matter of pragmatism. Once he starts, he can go at it for hours and all time spent on that is time lost.

Jayce looks at the paper on his desk and grimaces.

Transhumanism in the magic and clockwork era: Challenges and opportunities.

Viktor would have either loved or hated that. It was hard to know with him, sometimes. Specially after the incident with Blitzcrank, when things soured between them. But he has a feeling that he would have at least had something to say.

He has to stop thinking about it. Viktor attacked his laboratory not that long ago, there's no use in getting tangled up in that mess again.

He can't change the past. It's bitter and hopeless, but it's the truth.

Viktor's voice, when they were younger, a fire in his words that could burn the world. He remembers them, still. We are slaves to our emotions.

He can't change the past.

But maybe he can change the future.

-x-

That night he dreams of the day when everything went wrong.

-x-

Dusk, the sun filtering through the windows.

Viktor walking in circles, his eyes ablaze.

Tension. Frustration. Anger.

"You are oversimplifying things. You refuse to see reason, as usual."

"You are taking away their free will!"

"I'm trying to stop them from killing each other and themselves!"

"By making them unable to refuse to follow commands!"

"Goodness gracious, Jayce! What kind of commands do you think they're going to get? It's only temporary, they will be informed, it's for their safety."

A plea in his voice. Please, understand.

"You're having delusions of grandeur."

"They will die, Jayce. They are dying. It's not a controlled environment, free will isn't part of the equation when they're getting intoxicated and losing it to begin with."

"Either way, you can't do that."

"Why?"

Viktor screams at him. Demands answers. He wants to scream back. Nobody is as self-sacrificing as you. Nobody will see it as you see it. Nobody will bother to listen beyond you telling them that they will be forced to obey.

They will steal it as they did before.

"Have you forgotten about Urgot? What if your research is used for other things, Viktor? What if it ends up in the wrong hands? Not everyone wants what you want, believe it or not. We can't manipulate free will because then they will think that it's okay to do it."

"It's the only way. You're blinded by your emotions."

Enough.

"So are you. I can't let you do this, Viktor. I just...I can't."

Viktor's back to him. The ever tense line of his shoulders.

Defeated.

"Do as you will."

-x-

Venturing into Zaun when he's had barely one or two hours of sleep isn't the brightest idea he's ever had, he will admit that, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Not much, but enough for him to break one of the rules that have dictated his life.

Jayce wants the situation to be over. He wants to stop spending hours wondering about the what ifs and how everything turned south. He wants to stop being on high alert every second of every single day, to the point of almost attacking a child. He wants to stop playing this good versus evil charade.  Jayce is clever enough to know that it's bullshit, that he's a jerk. More of a jerk than Viktor could ever be.

For better or for worse, Jayce expects it all to end today. He could very well die in seconds as he approaches Viktor's laboratory, or he could live to tell the story. Either way, the ridiculous back and forth between him and Viktor will stop.

The metallic gates to the building open without him having to do more than walk to them and he looks around, on high alert, waiting for the moment the automatons jump on him. But, as he makes his way towards the main entrance, nothing happens.

Once in front of the door to Viktor's home, he expects another grand gesture of technology. Automatic doors, maybe an automaton, but he gets the unexpected and it almost makes him rethink it all and go back to Piltover.

His bravado is the only thing keeping him there when Viktor opens the door, metallic and foreign. So different from the man he remembers, not a trace of his tired eyes and gloomy smile. Inscrutable.

Jayce clears his throat, trying for nonchalance but knowing that he's failed beforehand.

"You didn't attack me on sight."

"You are unarmed," Viktor answers, in a no-nonsense tone of voice that takes Jayce years back and makes his heart clench, and with a distortion to it that makes it hurt. "Do you want to come inside?"

Detached. Formal.

Wrong.

He nods, and Viktor guides him inside standing tall and holding himself steady. Jayce follows him to what he guesses is the main room, with automatons lining the walls and tables overflowing with notes.  He looks around, fascinated and revolted by the organs floating in glass jars. There's a workbench, and on the workbench there's blood, and Jayce has the sneaking suspicion that it's Viktor's.

He doesn't want to think of the other possibilities.

All the while, he feels Viktor staring at him leaning against his workbench with a calmness that gets on his nerves.

This is not how he expected this encounter to go. He expected screaming, an explosive mess of emotions. Reproaches and regrets thrown at each other. Not Viktor, calm and composed, guiding him inside his laboratory as if they hadn't tried to kill each other at some point. As if Jayce hadn't apologized to him across a room and Viktor hadn't ordered his automatons to kill him.

He gets why, now, but it still stings. Even though Jayce had almost killed Viktor, too. People though that he was dead.

It's too civil, considering how they've come to this, and the reasons why it might be as tame as it is being are dreadful. Viktor might be way too different from the man that he remembers. He somehow tried to prepare himself for that, but the reality of it is too harsh.

"What do you want?" Viktor inquires, and Jayce feels relief at how tired he sounds even if the distortion gets on his nerves. Even if he misses his voice more than he has missed anything in his life. As if something essential has been taken away, lost forever.

Extrapolating it to Viktor as a whole hurts too much to start thinking about it. He needs to focus. He needs to be articulate. He needs...something. Anything.

Jayce sighs. "I want us to stop behaving like children," Viktor huffs, and Jayce misses the tense smile that used to go with the sound. He knew that this would be painful, he wasn't ready for how much.

"I am sure that I can, but can you? Last time you came to visit me, you smashed everything around you with a rather big hammer."

"I thought that you were trying to kill people," he argues. It feels futile, and childish considering his words, but he has to.

"You thought wrong. You have a tendency to do that when it comes to me," Viktor laughs, humorless. "Jump to conclusions, assume the worst, and betray me."

He wants to tell him that he's wrong, but Viktor raises a hand and Jayce takes a deep breath and waits.

"We may not have seen eye to eye in everything, Jayce, but I trusted you."

Guilt blooms in his stomach, heavy and hot. He thought that he was doing the right thing. He always did. But the right thing came with a price, and that price was Viktor. Jayce wonders, again, if anything would have changed if he had taken Viktor's side back then. If Viktor's attitude towards human emotions would have been different. If he could still look at him in the eye now, listen to his voice, read how he feels in his face.

Useless thinking, yet inevitable.

Jayce lets Viktor's words hurt while he sheds his pride and steps closer to him. He lets them burn through him, be a bitter reminder of everything he did wrong.

"I'm sorry," he says, pouring all the regret he feels into it, and for what feels like an eternity Viktor doesn't react.

Then, slowly, Viktor raises his hands to the back of his head. There's a click, and as he lowers his hands the metal that covered his face does it with them. His eyes are closed, yet Jayce longs to touch him just to reassure himself that Viktor is real. That he really was wrong about how his enhancements work.

It's selfless, he's aware.

He doesn't care, but he refrains all the same. Jayce closes his hands in tight fists, and Viktor opens his eyes and he can't breathe.

"Judging by your expression you thought that I had cut my face off," Viktor smiles, mirthless, and Jayce's stomach ties in knots. "You always had a flair for the dramatic. I have, as a matter of fact, kept most modifications away from my brain."

Most. Alarmed, yet trying to be patient, Jayce only takes another step closer to Viktor and looks at him. The light in the laboratory is unflattering, to say the least, but his features still fill him with familiarity. Sharp and straight lines, tired eyes, lips half stretched in a worn out smile, angular nose.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, stupidly but out of things to say, and Viktor shakes his head and runs a metallic hand through his hair.

"Done is done. I have had a lot of time to wallow in regret and misery, and it has brought upon nothing but trouble," Viktor sighs. "That is what emotions tend to do."

Jayce bristles. "Emotions are what brought me here today."

There's a lull in the conversation, brief, filled only by the sound of Viktor's fingers tapping on his mask. Metal against metal, like clockwork inside a machine.

"And what good has that done?"

Viktor's words cut him in places deep and tender, already sore.

He knows the answer.

None.

Jayce rubs his eyes, exasperated with himself and the situation he's gotten himself into.

"Will anything at all fix this, Viktor? Is there even a way?"

"In all honesty, I don't know what you want to fix."

Jayce wants to scream at him that he's lying, that he does. But he doesn't know how true that statement would be, and suddenly the idea terrifies him.

"This mess between us, this rivalry. I don't understand it."

Viktor huffs. "Neither did I, when you stopped making sense and started dancing to Pididly's rythm, yet here we are."

"I made mistakes."

"Yes," Viktor deadpans, and Jayce laughs. He's hurting so much, so bad, in ways that he almost forgot that he could, yet Viktor didn't doubt a second to back him up on that. Yes. Yes you made mistakes. Yes.

"So did you."

"That's debatable, but I guess that I could have talked it out at some point. It wasn't my brightest moment. Everything was crumbling under my feet, Jayce, what did you expect me to do."

Saying talk to me sounds selfish, even to him.

Jayce doesn't know what he was expecting Viktor to do. Remain as himself, maybe.

Stay.

He could lie or say nothing at all, but if he wants anything to come out of this Jayce has to be honest. He owes Viktor that much. "I wanted you to stay."

"I am here."

Jayce grumbles, frustrated. "That's not what I mean."

"As disappointing as this might be to hear, I am not a doormat. I am, albeit open to discussion by now, a human being. They kicked me out of the Academy. It was my life. It was hard. I did what made sense back then."

"You mutilated yourself."

Viktor's eyes cut through him with what Jayce is both appalled and mystified to recognize as rage. Such a reaction, from someone who claims that emotions imply weakness, leaves Jayce speechless. He wasn't expecting an automaton, not exactly, but he wasn't expecting to be able to taste Viktor's fury in the air either.

The atmosphere has changed. Tension hangs heavy around them and Jayce knows that he has failed. That the situation is far from over, and that it's his fault for being unable to keep his mouth shut.

Viktor's voice, when he talks, is deceivingly calm and detached. "I wouldn't expect you to understand what I did this for," he says, and Jayce can see that his organic hand is trembling around the mask. "Leave."

No, Jayce thinks. You're dehumanizing yourself. You're drifting away. You went down a path that I couldn't follow. A dark and scary one, morally and ethically ambiguous. I can't leave now. You are the one who doesn't understand how hard it has been to come down here. Come with me.

He doesn't say any of that.

Jayce can't hold his gaze any longer. He looks at the workbench behind him, stained with blood, and bites his lip ridden with uncertainty on what to do. If he leaves now, there's no way to know what would happen next. But pressing Viktor, that has never been the best choice when they were younger. Not when he specifically asked to be left alone.

"Viktor, I-" Viktor cuts him off with a shove, bypassing him and crossing the room to the door. Jayce closes his eyes for a brief moment, enough to compose himself. To gather himself and his wits and will his legs to carry him out of Viktor's space. The message has been clear. He wants him out.

He turns, and follows Viktor all the way back to the door.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, in a last attempt to try and fix the situation, to at least make sure that Viktor knows that it was a mistake.

The only answer he gets is the door closing loudly in his face.

-x-

The next morning, Jayce wakes up to a throbbing headache and a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. As the day progresses, he wanders around his laboratory without purpose, trying to settle himself and reign over his own emotions as well as advancing on his own work. It's of little to no use, and his idle coming and going through rooms and tasks only helps in making him irritable and even harder to be around than normal.

He's furious.

First and foremost, at himself for putting his foot in his mouth and upsetting Viktor to the point of anger. Livid at his own failure, at his own incapacity of maintaining a civil conversation. It was going well, not stellar by any means but they were talking and it seemed to be going right.

Jayce can't also help being angry at Viktor. That maddening, volatile, man. He never knew where he stood with him, even when they were friends he had no idea whether or not Viktor merely tolerated him or liked him. It's ridiculous.

Yet he knows, because he might be arrogant but he's also intelligent enough to self-reflect, that Viktor is right to be angry and that he was an asshole. Which only fuels his own self-loathing to a point in which, sore and tired from spending the day roaming around his lab forcing himself to work and snapping at everyone around him, he ends up slumping on a chair sulking.

"What's up with you?" Jayce groans, and Vi blinks at him from the door. She stalks into the room, whistling as she looks around. "What the fuck, dude."

Jayce rubs his eyes. He isn't in the mood to talk. He is in the mood to stare morosely at the wall thinking about all the things that have gone wrong in his life. His afternoon is full.

"Nothing," Vi snorts, but Jayce pays her no mind. She sits on the workbench by his table, arms crossed. Jayce glance slowly up at her. She doesn't look happy. "Really, Vi. It's nothing. You wouldn't understand."

She glowers. "Hey, first of all fuck you," she gives him the middle finger. Jayce feels like he deserves it. "What's wrong. I mean, something must be wrong, you look like crap. Am not gonna ask you to work on my gauntlets like this, you could mess 'em right up."

This is, oddly enough, just what Jayce needs. He's mad at himself and at Viktor, ridden with melancholy and sadness and an endless string of what ifs. Vi is abrasive, and she won't have mercy on his soul. Maybe it will help him think. Not of a solution to Viktor's situation, but of a way to move on.

A very unhelpful part of his brain whispers unlikely and Jayce sighs.

"I went to Zaun," Vi perks up. It's hard to know how she feels about Zaun, these days, but she looks interested enough. "I...thinking about it now, it sounds stupid. But I wanted to talk to Viktor. Or have our final fight. I don't know."

Vi smirks. "You missed him," it isn't a question, and Jayce resents her for that but can't argue. He shrugs. "So then what? Not a cool good versus evil fight?"

"No, not as such," he laughs, weak and worn. "I said something that I shouldn't have."

"Business as usual, then."

"Hush," he plants his elbows on the workbench, staring down at the metallic surface with a grimace. "It was worse than usual, believe me. I told him that he had mutilated himself."

He can't see Vi's wince, but he can feel it.

"You suck."

He's aware. "Yes, I know. Thank you."

Jayce sighs, bounces his leg, leans back on the chair and stares at the ceiling suddenly full of restless energy. It's better than sulking, he supposes.

"So what now? I mean, I guess you can't punch your way through forgiveness but there must be something you can do, right?"

But that is exactly the problem. Jayce looks at her, carelessly inspecting her knuckles, and is grateful for the privacy she's giving him. Conscious on her part or not, he's already horrified at the sting of tears rising behind his eyelids. He wouldn't want her to see.

He bites his lip. "I don't know," Jayce takes a deep breath, blinks hard and fast. "I just. I don't know, Vi. And that's the whole thing. I can't figure out what to do now, and it was all my fault, and it's all gone to shit."

Vi hums, still pointedly looking at her own hands. "I'm not good at this sorta thing, but if I do know something is that one can still keep trying. It's what we do. Take some time to think about stuff, then maybe try again."

Jayce won't tell her that it sounds like an stupid thing to do. It's the only thing he can think of, too, and she's the only one who has came up with anything at all. She might be right, for all he knows.

She shrugs and jumps off the workbench. "It's either that or moping around forever."

"Sounds appealing," he mutters, and she slaps him between the shoulders. Hard. "Okay, fine. I will think about it. Can't and won't promise anything. This is a very complicated situation, Vi, we tried to kill each other."

Vi snickers. "Yeah, well, who hasn't."

-x-

Night comes, and even if Jayce can still feel the irritation and the guilt prickling at his skin even while he attempts to sleep, he must admit that Vi was right and that thinking about it has calmed him down enough to stop catastrophizing. Their situation was catastrophic to begin with, what happened was merely a setback.

A regrettable one, true. Avoidable, yes. But it happened all the same, and all he can do now is either stay wondering what he could be doing to fix it or go see Viktor and try again. He didn't ask him to leave forever, after all.

Semantics, adds a voice that sounds very much like Viktor's in his head, and Jayce sighs as he starts drifting off.

The alarm is blaring.

Jayce jumps out of bed, as alert as he can be when he's just been woken up, and scrambles out of his room and down the stairs to the front door. Panting and frantic, he looks around himself and finds nothing.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

The alarm stops with a last, pitiful, sound and panic raises cold through Jayce's body. Whoever has entered his house knows how to deactivate the alarm.

It isn't easy, he made sure that it wasn't.

With his heart beating in his throat, Jayce turns to go to where the alarm's circuits are and freezes.

Viktor is there, standing tall and in full armor, right in front of him. Jayce has half a mind to remember that Viktor could be here to harm him before feeling relieved.

"Relax," he says, and Jayce huffs out a shaky laugh. "I mean no harm. Wasn't expecting the alarm, is all."

His nonchalance is, once again, alarming. But Jayce doesn't know what time it is, he feels vulnerable and raw, and he doesn't want to second guess himself or Viktor. He guides him silently to the living room and sits on a wooden chair rubbing at his temples while Viktor stays standing, staring.

Jayce sighs, figuring that even though Viktor is the one who has broken into his house he should at least say something. "I really am sorry for what I said. I did mean it, but it wasn't right. It was ignorant of me, and simplistic."

Viktor hums, and the click of the mask being unfastened lures him into looking up.

He looks tired, even in the dark where Jayce can barely see him. Yet resolute, in a way that he almost envies.

"I am still angry," Viktor grumbles, between his teeth. "But anger leads nowhere. I am also tired of this back and forth between you and me, and I supposed that I could drop by to settle things."

Jayce quirks an eyebrow. "In the middle of the night."

"The passing of time isn't as easy to discern in Zaun as it is here," he says, something bitter in his tone, and Jayce nods. "When I realized, I was already here and it was a matter of doing it or leaving knowing that I wouldn't be coming back."

That, he can understand with ease.

Viktor looks around the room until he locates another chair and drags it towards where he's sitting in the dark. He settles, there, and looks at Jayce with an expression that he can't fully decipher.

"Was this how you thought your life would be like when we were younger?"

Jayce smirks. "Sitting with you in the dark at who knows when in the morning talking about the future? Sure," he pauses, but so far Viktor offers no reaction. "You?"

"At some point, yes. I guess that was a possibility," Viktor catches his gaze in the dark, and Jayce feels trapped until he relents and looks at a point over Jayce's shoulder. "Until, you know. All that happened."

Maybe it's time to come clean. Maybe it will do both of them some good. Maybe not.

There's only one way to know.

Jayce crosses his arms over his thighs and leans forward. "When Stanwick stole credit for Blitzcrank, he talked to me before you came back from Zaun and threatened me. He said that he would get me expelled if I tried to do anything. He did that to everyone who worked on Blitzcrank." Viktor's breathe hitches. "As for the suits, to this day I still think that free will should never be toyed with. I don't know if there were other ways, but I do think now that the the Academy overreacted."

"Yes," Viktor whispers, airy yet firm, and Jayce nods.

"I'm not trying to justify myself. Raiding your lab was a mistake that will burden my conscience for as long as I live. People died because I acted on a misconception, and there is nothing I can do about it now. I just thought...I don't know. That it was important for you to know."

For a long while, Viktor says nothing and stares down at his lap. He reaches out and grabs one of Jayce's wrist as if in need of an anchor, and Jayce lets him. It's anchoring him too, and it wouldn't do for him to drift away now and get lost in memories of things that he can't fix.

Viktor looks up at last. "I, too, wish to end this rivalry. Never wanted it to start, to begin with. If you want, I will leave and you will never see me again."

There's a fragility in his words, albeit firm, that tugs at Jayce's heartstrings, that makes him want to shake his wrist free only to hold his hand. It's too late to tell him that he never wanted him to leave in the first place, so he does the second best thing that comes to mind.

He shakes his head. "No. That's not the point. Long nights spent talking about the future are still something that I would like to have."

Viktor's lips curve in a faint smile. Jayce holds his breathe, hyperaware of his fingers around his wrist. "You will have to go down to Zaun. I am still a wanted man here," he says, his eyes searching, and Jayce can hear the words that aren't there.

Sacrifices are to be made. He's going to have to give in order to get this, whatever this is. Jayce snorts, and tugs with his wrist for Viktor to lean closer. With Viktor sitting in front of him for the first time in years, a few trips to Zaun sound like a ridiculous price to pay to have this back.

"I will be there," he reassures, and Viktor nods. Jayce sighs, rubs his eyes and looks back at Viktor. "Was this really so easy to fix?"

Viktor lets go of his wrist and smacks his knee. "No. But I don't see what we were getting out of a petty war, publicity for you aside."

Jayce grimaces. "Don't. They expect things from me, they don't get them, they hate me. I never asked to be their poster boy, you know that. They just kind of went and got me there on their own."

"I know that you like it and that liking it makes you weak," Jayce bristles, but recognizes the jab as the truth and settles. Viktor is still very close, leaning into him, and he can't see hostility. He's as relaxed as he's seen him. It's a rare sight, but a welcomed one. "But I don't think that you actively seek it."

"Damn right I don't," Jayce stifles a yawn with the back of a hand.

"I loved you," Viktor mutters, and all of a sudden he's more awake than he's ever been in his life. He isn't looking at Jayce, having leaned back, and is running a hand through his hair. The familiarity of the gesture hurts in ways that he wasn't expecting. "Back then, I did. It was destroying me. An awful feeling. A weakness of sorts."

"Why," Jayce blurts out, stunned and aching, and Viktor quirks an eyebrow but doesn't answer. "I mean. I thought that you could barely tolerate me."

"One does what one must," Viktor says, so solemn that it should be ridiculous, but Jayce is too dizzy to laugh. The finality of the past tense is just hitting him, and it's making his entire being recoil with disapproval. Another regret to add to the list.

"I did, too. Love you," he laughs, aware of the mild hysteria in it, and Viktor looks shocked for a second before composing himself. "Honestly, Viktor. Don't you remember? I was insufferable, I stayed like that for a week. Completely and ridiculously enamored, but you rebuffed me and I figured that it wasn't possible. I tried to move on."

Tried being the key word.

Yet here they are, aren't they. Two grown men, unable to deal with their own feelings. He gets, now, why Viktor makes such unsavory remarks about them.

"That is what that was? I thought that you were trying to drive me out of the lab," Viktor frowns at him, then groans and hides his face behind his hands. "This is ridiculous. How old are we."

"Old enough to recognize that we were idiots," he says, reaching out to gently pry Viktor's hands from his face. He gives, muttering under his breath. "Do you love me now?"

He isn't sure what makes him ask. He feels giddy and brave, a little bit as if he's in a dream. For a second he's afraid that is actually what this is, but Viktor takes his hand and the metallic parts of his fingers bite at his skin. The tiniest flairs of pain reassure him that it's real.

"No, but I reckon that I could given time," Jayce notices, distantly, that the hand he's holding isn't fully organic. He doesn't care. "A lot has happened that we need to talk about beyond this night, not everything can be fixed in a few hours."

Something rebellious in Jayce wants to argue. Why not, why can't we go back to how we were before. Why can't we forget. But there's a bigger part of him, one that's cautious, that knows that Viktor is right. Rushing into things might be his style, but he cares about this and he's been given a second chance.

"Yes," he agrees, with a nod, and Viktor lets go of his hand and leans to rest his forehead against his. Jayce closes his eyes. "I know that. One step at a time, right?"

Viktor nods and Jayce raises a hand to touch his face. It's been only one day, but it feels like ages have gone by and when his fingers touch Viktor's skin his whole body hums with approval. He's warm to the touch, and as his fingers slide to the back of his neck and find metal Jayce is mildly surprised to discover that he doesn't care.

"I will go down to Zaun tomorrow," he touches Viktor's faint smile with a thumb.

"Okay."

"I will bring a paper I've been forced to read," Jayce wants to kiss him, but that can wait. "It's titled Transhumanism in the magic and clockwork era: Challenges and opportunities."

Viktor snorts. His laugh is dry and inelegant and Jayce longs to hear it again soon. "Sounds awfully dull."

"I wouldn't know, I've been thinking about you instead of reading it," his honesty catches both of them by surprise, and Jayce leans back and retrieves his hands to stare at Viktor as he blinks at him. "I've been doing that a lot the last couple of years."

Viktor shakes his head. "Sweet talking me will get you nowhere," he stands, and Jayce glances at the window and sees the first rays of sunlight filtering through. "I should leave."

He's right. That doesn't stop Jayce from wanting to tell him to stay. He has the feeling that once Viktor crosses the door, the spell that has fallen over them will be broken and they will be back to that awful tension and unfortunate remarks. But if Viktor stays any longer, he risks getting caught around Piltover. He took a big enough risk going up at all, albeit not knowing the time, Jayce won't stop him now.

It's regrettable, and everything in Jayce is screaming at him to try and make him linger if only for a little bit longer, but he must let him go for now.

Jayce will go down to Zaun later. He promised. He'll bring the awfully dull paper. That's something that he can hold onto.

He guides Viktor to the front door in silence, and Viktor opens it and takes a deep breath before putting his mask back on. Jayce's heart gives a painful pang.

"I'll see you later, then," he says, as Viktor stands in the doorway, and he half expects Viktor to change then. Into the monster everyone thinks he is. Jayce feels guilty for doing so, but he's also tired and sleep deprived and terrified that whatever amicability they have achieved is too frail to last. "If you want to."

Viktor cocks his head, and Jayce has a feeling that he's frowning at him. "Of course. Bring the bad paper. I want a kid that comes around some days to read it, will be interesting to see how that goes."

He's stepping away, and Jayce grabs his hand on impulse. Metallic, organic, he cannot be arsed to care.

"I..."

Viktor sighs. "Jayce. One step at a time. It is going to be hard, but that's how most things are," he steps closer as he talks, and Jayce is slightly ashamed of how relieved he feels. "I must leave now, but you will come by later. And if you don't, I will try and sneak up here tomorrow. We will make do. You are as stubborn as they come, I trust that to be instrumental in the reconstruction of us."

Carefully chosen words, those, and Jayce is ever so grateful for them. Fortified. They are true. He swallows around the knot in his throat and squeezes Viktor's hand one last time before letting go. Viktor nods, pats his arm, and strides purposefully away from his house.

Back in his room, Jayce sleeps better than he has in years.

-x-

Transhumanism in the magic and clockwork era: Challenges and opportunities is, as predicted, awfully dull but Naph, the kid that is in Viktor's lab sometimes, tears into it with enthusiasm and asks for more. Jayce is a bit alarmed and very pleased to see that bringing him things to read has become a routine, that spending time with Viktor, and Naph occasionally, is as much a part of his life as talking to boring academics or stabilizing his hammer's system.

"You're here again," Naph says, as Jayce walks to Viktor by the workbench, and there's a hint of caution in his tone. He dislikes Jayce, but that's fair enough because Jayce doesn't know how to talk to children. They're hard to figure out. "Did you bring me anything?"

He hands him a stack of papers and the boy holds them and frowns at them. The Ethics of Mechanics. Viktor wrote that one, back when they were in the Academy, and Naph's eyes light up when he scans the first page and reads the author's name.

Naph tugs at Vikor's sleeve and Jayce hides a snort with a cough. "You wrote this," he blurts, and Viktor glances his way and at the piece of paper he is holding up.

"I did, indeed. Many years ago," Viktor directs a pointed look Jayce's way, and he shrugs. "We can discuss it once you are done reading it, if you want to."

"Yeah, that would be cool," Naph replies, as he leafs through the pages, and Jayce is amazed by how eager he looks. He does like to read, has been happy to do so with everything Jayce has brought him, but he has never reacted like this. It's kind of endearing, as if he thinks of Viktor as a celebrity of  sorts.

He might, for all he knows.

Jayce looks at Viktor while he works, leaning on the free side of the workbench. It's been months since their midnight conversation, and Jayce is full of longing. Lingering gazes and brief accidental touches can only maintain him for so long, and he's full to the brim with loving Viktor in brand new ways that he wasn't capable of when they were younger.

Quieter, more patient, grateful, focused on all those little details that make Viktor who he is. It's comfortable to bask in it, as disconcerting and  annoying as waiting can be. But he can wait for as long as is needed. It's worth it.

Viktor is working on his own arm. The first time he saw it, it made him feel dizzy and nauseous but it was, admittedly, a fascinating process. Now, he's desensitized to it and can look at how Viktor tinkers at it without so much of a blink. It can be even calming, help him think, with how mundane it has become.

Jayce likes the idea.

"You didn't send those two persons to my lab," he asks, and Viktor stops with a wire halfway to his wrist but doesn't look up. It's a bit of a sore topic between them, one that they've tried to bring up sometimes but that most of the time finds them in the wrong mood to talk. Jayce figures that it's best to try and get rid of it once and for all.

"No, I did not. I don't put vials full of chemicals on people. It's not how I work. My hypothesis is that someone heard of the attack, was interested in your research, and tagged along," he can hear the name Viktor isn't saying in that someone, but doesn't push. Viktor connects the wire to a port in his wrist, flexes the fingers of his open arm, and hums. It's a pleased little sound that Jayce drinks up like an starved man.

"I figured as much, but it's good to know for sure."

Viktor seals his arm closed, and Jayce kind of misses the circuits and the metal inside. He wonders if Viktor would let him fiddle with the mechanisms one day and a shiver runs up his spine.

He is learning quite a few things about himself, during his visits to Zaun.

"Are we done with that topic for now?" Viktor seems snappish, but his expression reveals nothing. He looks calm, relaxed, and Jayce gets a little bit closer to him. Viktor glances his way but doesn't comment.

"Yes, we are. Done is done. I'm over it, anyway," he shrugs and Viktor nods. Good. He wants to talk about other things. He wants to talk about everything there is to talk about with him, and that is something incredible and amazing that Jayce himself has yet to stop marveling about.

They stay in comfortable silence for a little while, and Jayce looks at Viktor from the corner of his eye as he tidies the workbench. The blood is, in fact, Viktor's. He knows that now, after Viktor told him matter of factly and as if he were stupid that yes, he bleeds when he opens his arm to work on its mechanism.

He also told him that he doesn't feel the anticipation of pain, and Jayce still worries about that. Some of Viktor's ideas and choices still don't sit well with him, and some of his own are still hard for Viktor to get, but they're talking and that is more than he expected. As Viktor said, there's a long way to come. At least they have found a path to walk through.

"Viktor," he calls, and Viktor hums distractedly as an answer. "What do you think of disjunctive conjunctions."

Viktor doesn't say anything. He leans on his hands over the workbench for a second, turns to Jayce and kisses him hard, and deep and wonderful and everything that Jayce needed. He grabs onto Viktor's waist with both hands and tugs him closer, and Viktor prods at his lips with his tongue. Jayce can feel his heart beating in his chest, the front of his body pressing to Viktor trying to soak in his warmth, and is opening his mouth to let his tongue in when the sound of footsteps approaching makes him jump back.

"Er...sorry. I can leave you guys to it," Naph quips, looking rather pleased with himself. Jayce, albeit mortified, is too exhilarated to find it in himself to care. They have time. All the time in the world.

Viktor coughs, by his side. "It's fine, Naph. Did you want anything?"

"Ah, yes. I'm donde reading that," Jayce doesn't believe him, and judging by how Viktor crosses his arms and quirks an eyebrow he doesn't either. "I read fast. I have some questions? If that's okay?"

Viktor casts one last lingering gaze towards Jayce over his shoulder, that Jayce can feel burning him from the inside out, and turns to Naph.

"Of course. Questions are what make the world make sense, they can be more interesting than the answers."

Jayce looks at Viktor and Naph walking side by side to sit on a pair of chairs by a table, chattering away, and smiles.