#anyways this is my undercity viktor au. ive got. 3 jayvik aus in my drafts but the second i talk about them the less i want to write them.

[mkniesy]

New Year, New Snippet! tysm to my favourite shrimp @kalegreeneyes for tagging me <3 what i have in store is actually more of my jayvik post-canon au

np tagging @marzst4rz @lilacfiresoul @stuartdesharnais @drowninginthoughts27 @annieqattheperipheral @angel-daydreams & @kaaaaaaarf !

“What?” Jayce croaks, heart quickening as he scans Viktor for any of his tells – anything that could signal a lie. He isn’t shifting his stance, the muscles in his jaw don’t twitch. Jayce realizes belatedly that he doesn’t know this Viktor like he had his. His. “Viktor, you’re not- you can’t-” Viktor gingerly sits himself down on one of the ratty, patched couches. He doesn’t look as sickly as his Viktor; fuller cheeks, the bags under his eyes less prominent- but he’s not exactly the image of health either. If anything, he somehow looks worse. In the dim lighting of his lab, Viktor manages to look intimidating and ghastly, the amber flickering of the light nearby casting him in shadows. His expression is more closed off than Jayce had ever known it to be. “You misunderstand me, Jayce Talis,” he sighs, hand still wrapped around the hilt of his cane. “I am not dismissing your suggestion entirely, but you haven’t exactly explained the purpose of this… endeavour. From what I am hearing, we would not benefit mutually.” He knows how out of place he must look, a fine suit gathering dirt from his tumble earlier, the rips and dried bloodstains from his fight evident at every angle. People had glanced with contempt his entire shameful walk across the Undercity, refusing to do less than spit in his face at the request to see Viktor. He stopped asking; the last time he did, he had thrown the man against the bricks of a ruined building, heaving his hammer into flesh and bone and hearing the grisly crack of bone shattering. It's a miracle he made it this far, that he’d managed to find Viktor unscathed. That moments before, he squeezed a sickly pale man’s throat beneath him, panting and his mouth curling in anger- Viktor’s name on his tongue- inevitably releasing him once he’d learned that he’d had his hands on one of Viktor’s lackeys. Jayce sits perpendicular to Viktor, refusing to move closer, pretending he hadn’t noticed the way Viktor had flinched when he’d attempted to close in earlier. He won’t pretend he didn’t feel his stomach lurch at that, unable to even conceive the idea of a Viktor that disdained the idea of him. “It would benefit you. It would benefit the Undercity. Don’t you want that?” Viktor’s expression somehow sours at the suggestion. That Jayce had the audacity to assume what he had wanted, requested to see him so desperately only to share a harebrained idea, that he was lying- worse, that he wasn’t anything more than a Piltie who would use him and discard of him shortly after. Jayce is sure his expression must have faltered as well at the thought of Viktor being used like that, no matter if he was the imaginary perpetrator. Viktor opens his mouth to respond, but Jayce quickly explains, “I know you’re hesitant. You have every right to be, but I also want to help people. I’m not asking for more than you can give me, and it’s not like I’m taking anything from you. I just need a partner.”