#possibly the worst single moment of Jayce’s life

[avelera]

Absolutely crazy when you think about it that the most selfish thing Jayce ever did for love was bring Viktor back to life and the most selfless thing he ever did for love is shoot Viktor through the chest; and both were about finding a way to save him

[honey-tongued-devil]

[Arcane preference]reacting to their s/o calling them husband/wife for the first time

I’ve finished the first chapter of the long fic about Universe 7 (Anytime it rains). As soon as my second beta reader gives me the okay, I’ll post it. While I wait, I’ve written the first headcanon (out of three I’m definitely planning to write and post in the next few days) and picked up the drawing of Steb I’d left unfinished. I’m slow, as usual, but English isn’t my first language, and I’m juggling a lot of things at once. Enjoy!

socials: | INPRNT | | Tip Jar | | X | | BlueSky | | Ao3 | poster: | Jayce poster | | Silco poster | |Silco +self insert poster 1| | Steb poster | if you want to read the fluff longfic with vander and his happy family + Silco x reader you can find it here! ↠ Masterlist

Jayce:

-This man is planning to put a ring on your finger as soon as possible, okay? -Between the academy, public appearances, and both theoretical and practical studies, there isn’t a single moment when he’s really in the right mindset to bring up the topic -The worst part is that, deep down, he’s terrified of putting pressure on you -That’s why, the first time he hears you refer to him as “my husband” during a gala with noble families, he almost chokes -He has to gather all his strength not to grab the interlocutor by the shoulders and ask if they also heard you say that word -He’ll try to keep his composure, maybe responding to your remark with, “Yes, exactly. Her husband really did say/do/design that.”

Viktor:

-It’s not a thought he’s ever really entertained; it never crossed his mind -Part of it is that science is his priority, and part of it is that marriage doesn’t seem like something meant for people like him, -The first time you call him “your husband”, that thought suddenly becomes real in his head, and he can’t help but lean against a wall and wait for the other person to leave -“So, I’m your husband now, huh? Mmm… I don’t mind, a bit pretentious, though…” he jokes, making you roll your eyes -Now, more than ever, he has no idea what to do. He’ll give you a bronze ring from a machine he’s building -“Until I can get one worthy of you.”

Ekko:

-Yes -That’s it -The end -Okay, seriously. The idea of being certain that something will last forever is probably his greatest wish -The first time you call him your husband, he doesn’t see it coming -“Wait, you’re married?” -“I was talking about you, Ekko.” -The moment you say it, he points to his chest, you see his lip tremble slightly, and his eyes grow shinier -He won’t stop talking about it for a week, and at least once a day, he’ll ask if you still want to marry him, if you’re sure, if you love him -No rings before S2; the promise is made by drawing something for each other on your masks and clothes -After S2, he still can’t afford a ring, but now that life is more stable, he can start thinking about a more traditional gift, like a piece of jewelry

Vander:

-This man is ravenous for any family role you might offer him—fiancé, father, husband. Anything goes -The first time you call him “husband”, he plays it cool but will seize the first opportunity to return the favor by telling a customer you’re married -As soon as he can, he’ll squeeze your hand, even under the counter -The idea of being married and having a complete family is everything he’s ever wanted -He won’t stop calling you “my beautiful wife/husband” from that moment on.

-You said it first; you can’t take it back. Now you have to get married

Silco (old man):

-This man’s only sin is loving too much, but I’ll save that reflection for another post -Having no ties other than his illegitimate daughter doesn’t make him someone who’s particularly keen on formalities -The first time you call him “your husband” is in front of Sevika, and he slowly turns to look at you, while she slowly turns to look at him -“Did I... miss something?” Sevika asks, but he doesn’t reply, still perplexed, before glancing at her and saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” -He’s relieved but doesn’t show it. He can’t afford to just yet -As soon as he confirms you were serious, your name will be flamboyantly forgotten—he’ll constantly refer to you as “my wife/husband”

Silco (young):

-The man who survives on love -The first time you call him your husband is in front of Vander, and while Vander bursts out laughing, Silco chokes on his drink -“Are you serious?” He’s so happy that his pale iris are completely swallowed by his dilated pupils -He grabs a pen and draws a ring around your finger -To his credit, he works in a mine, so it’s hard to do better than that, but it becomes the goal that keeps him going -Completely focused on family, the future, and anything that sees the two of you together and happy

Steb:

-The first time you call him your husband is at a dinner among enforcer families, and being mute doesn’t stop him from stealing the spotlight -He whips around, blinking slowly with only his third eyelid in a gesture of confusion -When he’s 100% sure he understood what you said, his eyes widen, the small membranes under his eyes flutter madly, and even the barely visible gills near his jaw gasp for a moment -Someone says, “I didn’t know you were married,” and he immediately nods enthusiastically, not giving you time to take it back -Within 48 hours, he’ll have the ring ready

Jinx:

-The first time you call her “your wife”, she freezes -“What did you just call me?” -She’s used to being a little sister, a big sister, a daughter—she’d never thought she could be a wife. Family ties aren’t chosen, but the idea that someone would want her in their life so much they’d marry her feels incredible -“You want to marry me? Really? Why?” -She bursts into tears, and it’ll take at least 24 hours of cuddling in bed to calm her down -After that, she’ll run to her father to announce that she’s now a married woman

Vi:

-She might not be Silco and/or Vander’s blood daughter, but she’s inherited their deep desire for family -From her family’s tragic fate to Vander’s, she’s always seen family as the ultimate aspiration -When you call her “your wife” for the first time, she doesn’t notice right away, but a full minute later, she whirls around to look at you, as if to ask for confirmation -“Say it again.” -“...You need to buy bread?” -“No, all of it.” -“My wife needs to go buy bread.” -“Again.”

-"My... wife?"

-"Again"

Caitlyn:

-Has she thought about it? Yes -Was she planning to act on it? Not exactly -Caitlyn struggles with emotions and feelings, which is why she hesitates and takes her time -But when you first call her “your wife”, her brain completely shuts off—she just stares at you, unable to hear a single word being said -If you or someone else asks her a question, she’ll snap out of it and respond, -“My wife/husband said everything.” Even if it makes no sense as an answer, making you laugh and leaving the other person baffled

Mel:

-Not a single flicker of surprise—the first time you call her “your wife”, she remains completely composed -“So, I’m your wife?” she asks as soon as you’re in private, approaching you like a feline. You can almost hear the purr in her voice -She’s amused but also intrigued by whatever game you’re playing -The idea of marriage is complicated for her—on one hand, it feels like it would limit her freedom to act, while on the other, unresolved family issues seem to devour her at the mere thought of starting a new cycle -She’ll tell you to go ahead, to get married, but she’ll also ask for time -In the meantime, though, she’ll start using the term “husband/wife” with you—she likes the way it rolls off her tongue

Sevika:

-Between the work she does, the environment she lives in, and all the interesting circumstances of her life, marriage has never been on her radar -Not to mention that in Zaun, it’s not exactly a common practice—people just move in together and build families when they can, without much fuss over formalities or bureaucracy -The first time it happens, she’s playing cards with the other goons, and you casually ask if “your wife is winning” -Her first reaction isn’t even hers—it’s the others’. Dustin, the blond goon with the lazy eye, almost starts crying, embarrassing her -Don’t worry, she’ll make you pay for it at home -She won’t ask to formalize anything, but in true Zaunite fashion, she’ll consider you married, plain and simple

[wingedshadowfan]

some thoughts about the caitvi breakup scene

i saw ppl pointing out what looks like a tear running down caitlyn's nose after her and vi's fight w/ sevika and jinx (when she finally stops hitting the wall w/ her rifle and puts her forehead to it) and it could've been just sweat, but here's why i think it wasn't:

it's bcuz vi took the choice away from her.

we all know caitlyn's parents had been keeping her in a gilded cage since she was a child. we see this symbolically in her conversation with jayce when he gets kicked out of the academy after the explosion - he's outside in the rain, but she's within the gates of the kiramman estate, under an umbrella, protected, hidden. she tells him her parents don't allow her to talk to him anymore but she doesn't care. they're friends.

we know cassandra didn't approve of caitlyn's choice to become an enforcer either (we assume caitlyn had to fight for it and her family tried to stop her). even after that "win", her mother kept meddling and made sure caitlyn would always get safer tasks - out of harm's way and where she'd never be able to prove herself or do any actual good like she'd always wanted. her own coworkers make fun of her for being a kiramman and only "playing dress up" as an enforcer - a job she decided she wanted and had been working towards since she was a child, in order to help and protect people. she'd had to fight (not for the first time) to be placed on a case, in a real guard position, to be taken seriously.

caitlyn's choice and her agency - things she's barely been given in her own life, because of her parents, her name and how sheltered she'd grown up - she'd always had to fight for. she's had to fight to be able to choose, she's had to fight to defend her choices, and she's had to fight to prove herself over and over again.

then for the first time in her life, she didn't have to fight because vi (perhaps being swallowed by her own guilt for everything jinx had done to caitlyn) gave caitlyn the ability to choose what happens to jinx. unconditionally.

and caitlyn chose. vi agreed with her choice.

take the shot.

then vi took the choice away from her in the last possible moment, physically stopping her from shooting. (now, we can talk abt what that means to someone who's never been the stronger opponent in any physical altercation they've been a part of so far, but i won't)

this is the real reason caitlyn completely disassociates shuts down, not to mention the adrenaline after almost dying again bcuz sevika wasn't playing. caitlyn goes all out hitting the wall, lets out a single tear, refuses to look vi in the eyes and tells her, "i thought you were different but you're not"

she's yet another person who denies caitlyn the ability to make a choice in her life.

it's her blood in your veins.

vi's loyalties lie with the blood of someone who'd worked for silco in oppressing the undercity, lured and blown up caitlyn's coworkers, tried to kill caitlyn (and vi) multiple times, kidnapped her from her fucking bathroom, dressed her up against her will, kept her hostage for a full day in which she with almost 100% certainty tortured her, kept her as the only person gagged throughout the tea party, asked vi to kill her, then blew her mother up along with 4 more counselors and (allegedly) attacked their memorial. talk abt taking someone's freedom of choice away.

then why are you the one acting like her?

vi - not fully without reason - compares caitlyn to her worst fucking nightmare. a psychotic killer who's caused so much fear and trauma to caitlyn that she admitted jinx's smile is all she sees when she closes her eyes, up there w/ her own mother's lifeless eyes?? and yeah, vi has a point - caitlyn had indeed grown more violent and aggressive in her desparate pursuit for revenge. that doesn't mean it hurts caitlyn any less, especially when she'd been trying so hard to do the right thing (sending a squad to catch jinx instead of a full blown armed invasion, only her and vi having hextech, clearing the streets first), and vi knows this: she just automatically did what she does best - aimed for where it hurts the most. i think she even realizes she's overstepped but before she can do anything about it, caitlyn bites back reflexively and hits her with her rifle. there, in the place of the wound she once took care of herself.

the perfect storm.

the only question i have left is why everyone in this fandom keeps acting like caitlyn is the only one who hurt someone and vi is the only one who got hurt in that scene.

[starlight-tav]

I'm going fucking insane over Jayce & Viktor so I offer you an unhinged ramble about the butterfly and the narrative structure of their relationship. I apologize in advanced for being batshit.

So Viktor and Jayce's relationship is a chiastic structure. A chiasm is where the beginning and end of a story point to the middle of it, creating an X or ∞ (a chiasma is also a structure in genetics, if you've seen the word in science classes before.)

This means that the rise and fall of the narrative mirror each other (parallelism). There are many parallels in Jayce and Viktor's relationship, with one of the most overt being "Am I interrupting?" and one of the more covert examples being Viktor's belief in Jayce's dream to use science to bring access to the Arcane ("Our hextech dream") and Jayce's belief in Viktor leading them to shattering access to the Arcane web ("We finish this together.")

At the center of this narrative is death and resurrection (metamorphosis). The first season ends with Viktor's death, and the second begins with his resurrection, the literal center of the story.

Now, Arcane is about love in its entirety. All-encompassing, earth-shattering, life-giving, life-taking love. Love, which inspires our greatest evil and our greatest good, is something that changes us. Love which can lead to grief, can make us into our worst selves (consider the warmongering), but it can also make us into our kindest selves (consider Isha.)

Jayce's love for Viktor saves him but it also changes him. Twice. When Viktor dies, Jayce is unwilling to let him go and uses the hexcore to resurrect him. This transforms Viktor into the Herald.

When Jayce is forced into the alternate reality where he experiences the decline of his body and the struggle to climb from the depths to the surface (a narrative representation of empathy), he finally understands Viktor. This transformative understanding primes him to fulfill his promises to Viktor, past and future - to destroy the hexcore and stop the Arcane from bleeding out all over reality; to save Viktor.

The butterfly is a well-know symbol of transformation, so it's no accident that it follows Viktor and Jayce from the very beginning to the very end. But it isn't just a visual representation of love and its power, but a reminder of the very structure of their narrative.

Because Arcane is also about perspective - narratives. Silco and Vander show us how our shared experiences can yield different motivations, as do Jinx and Vi, and Ambessa and Mel too. Every single one of these characters is motivated by love, but their methods are opposing forces.

We see, time and time again, that those with the most power are those who control the narrative (power in Zaun creating a righteous rebellion vs power in Piltover creating a narrative of dangerous insurrection), and that power lacking empathy is corruptive (Cait and Ambessa forsaking empathy in favor of violently seizing control vs. Vi and Mel embodying empathy to save that which they love.)

At the center of all of this conflict is partnership. Failed partnerships, like Vander & Silco and redeeming partnerships, like Ekko & Jinx. Viktor and Jayce share a dream, and that dreams bleeds the Arcane, corrupting reality. But when they forsake their partnership (Jayce joining the council and Viktor leaving the lab), it nearly destroys everything.

When they lean into their affection, when they utilize empathy, when they let their love be transformative, they heal the Arcane and reality. In their final moments, they mirror each other, and as they're scattered into all timelines and all possibilities by the explosion they are transformed into something cosmic together. Their story ends as it began.

We know from the lifecycle of the butterfly, by the structure of the narrative, that beginnings and endings are not so finite. Love is both a constant ("in all timelines, in all possibilities") and an anomaly ("That which inspires us to our greatest good, is also the cause of our greatest evil".) It is the infinite, and the infinite is not a line with a beginning and an end, but a tangle of time and potential.

The chiastic structure of Jayce and Viktor's relationship is one that shows that love itself is the most powerful and transformative force in nature. It demonstrates that love doesn't just have the potential create or destroy but to do both at the same time; that reality isn't binary, but it is symmetrical. A butterfly was always a caterpillar and a caterpillar was always a butterfly; it experiences both, not one or the other (there's even a moment where it's neither and both all at once!)

Love is imperfect. People are imperfect. When Jayce is transformed in the depths of Zaun, he finally understands this. He carries this revelation to the height of Piltover where he finds Viktor waiting for him.

"There is no prize to perfection, only an end to pursuit."

If love were perfect it would stagnate, dreamless. Recognizing its power is seeing it for all its good and evil, and choosing it all the same.

"You were never broken, Viktor. There's beauty in imperfections. They made you who you are. An inseparable piece of everything I admired about you."

Viktor's transformation isn't from a broken man into the Herald, it's from a man believing himself unworthy of love to one knowing he is loved unconditionally. If love were perfect it would require perfection of us. But it isn't and it doesn't. Only Jayce can show Viktor this, because Jayce loves Viktor and Viktor loves Jayce.

"I thought I wanted to give magic to the world, but all I want is my partner back."

Think about Singed telling Viktor that "Love and legacy are the sacrifices we make for progress."

And Viktor responding, "Jayce will understand."

He did understand eventually, only he sacrifices progress and legacy for love and transformation. Love is not the opposite of progress, perfection is the opposite of progress. In a perfect world, there is no need to dream together. Jayce understands this. He shows Viktor this. And together they change.

I've always been bad at concluding paragraphs, but I hope my rambling has made sense up to the point. TLDR; the butterfly is a visual representation of Jayce and Viktor's narrative as one of love and transformation.

[demacianpuppet]

Very well-written post.

The hate Jayce gets comes partly because people really look at him in such a shallow way without thinking about the nuance the serie gives us.

First of all, the whole situation with Viktor dying is a big mess. Viktor is probably aware of it for some time and still refuse to let Jayce know until he can no longer hide it.

Jayce notices things but he also tries to respect Viktor's boundries, which puts him between a rock and a hard place. You can't just push someone if they clear show they don't wanna talk.

Second, people hate Jayce for spending the night with Mel which is. Yeah, the sex scene itself is framed as betrayal, at least it is one of the way you can read it. But if we take the scene before, we also can see how Viktor pushes people away, while Jayce tries to find connection. Also, the whole motion to hate Jayce for this feels weird to me - both Mel and Jayce are consenting adults which wanted this. The timing was unfortune but something about how the fandom treats it tastes bitter to me, especially with the rise of purity culture in fandom and outside.

More important, the moment Jayce finds out something has happened to Viktor, he raced at Viktor's side. Not just that, he hadn't even time to leave a short message for Mel in his OWN home, which was understandable bitter after she woke up alone.

(I would also like to mentioned that Mel shows understanding. She absolutely sees Viktor as romantic rival and still she can't blame Jayce for going to see Viktor and even encourage it.)

Jayce is as focused on getting the Hexcore to work for Viktor. The moment something was threating the possible cure, he eliminated it.

Speaking off the bridge scene, y'know what this happens shortly after Jayce kicked Heimerdinger out of the council? The guilt is eating Jayce alive then he arrived at the bridge, while being escorted by Marcus, who also shows every time that he doesn't respect Jayce authority.

It is almost like this, plus the whole "my best friend is dying", brings out the worst in him. I don't think Jayce truly believes the Undercity to be bad, but also he has bias against them not including the propoganda from Piltover as well. (And after all, Jayce has enough reason to dislike the Underctiy since they almost killed his career (and him) before it even started.)

It is almost as this is a realistic display of someone who has internal bias which comes sometimes and how we can hurt the people who part of it because of it. Almost as if it is something that almost every person has and we actually have to be aware of to unlearn such a thing.

Something, something about who is without sin should throw the first stone. (I for my take, now my personal bias. I know from where they come. This is not necessary I think every person does.)

Also, if you want to see another instance of Jayce being a good friend - then Marcus confronts Jayce that Cait used his name to bail out Vi, he instantly covers for her. He trust Cait enough to know she did with good reason.

Jayce absolutely makes mistakes in the serie and he could have been more kind etc but he tries his hardest to navigate the mess he currently is (especially consider his own technology is the hands of a terrorist). He is such a "ride or die" friend and everything he doesn't see it this way, clearly has not ever worked a single day in their life or had a little more complicated relationship with someone.

I will never get why some people think Jayce and Viktor’s arcs aren’t connected enough. Like, did y’all not see how so much of what they did impacted the other? They’ll literally say there weren’t genuine moments between the two and still have the gall to post this shit on the Jayvik tag and say they could do a better job writing the show than the actual writers.

The point IS that they’re growing apart and not resolving their problems jointly throughout the series. Jayce gets drawn in by the worst parts of Piltover and Viktor gets drawn in by the worst parts of Zaun. That’s- that’s literally spoonfed in the “We lost our way” scene.

Their plots seem disconnected BECAUSE THEY’RE INTENDED TO BE. Because Jayce’s priority list is a mess of incomprehensible scribbles and Viktor’s go-to move is to lock himself in the lab, fuck everything else. That’s. The point. They lost sight of their goal just as they lost sight of each other. If Caitvi is an example of how Piltover and Zaun can work together, Jayvik is an example of how Piltover and Zaun can fall apart.

There are still people out there saying that Jayce doesn’t express worry for Viktor’s impending death outside of the hospital scene. And apparently there wasn’t enough story emphasis on Jayce insulting the people of the Undercity. That Jayce and Viktor “really don’t act like good friends or anything” AND THEN POST THIS IN THE JAYVIK TAG AS DIRECT PROVOCATION. If you can’t see that they’re close, then you’re denser than the brick wall I feel like I’m talking to. This isn’t even about shipping. Some people LITERALLY cannot see the platonic love waving its arms in front of you.

Jayce can’t figure out priorities, but we DO see him working with Viktor on the Hexcore, trying to influence the way it reacts to organic matter. In fact, I think the only time he spends in lab after becoming councilor IS TRYING TO SAVE VIKTOR.

Viktor also pushed him away at the start, saying not to worry, and Jayce respected his wishes. He only starts accepting Jayce’s help after getting sent to the emergency room.

You know what else he does to try to save his partner? HE DEPOSES THE HEAD OF THE STATE. (Besties, if your bf won’t dethrone a ruler for you, he ain’t your bf <3) As soon as Heimerdinger said he would destroy the one chance they had at saving Viktor’s life, Jayce took immediate action and removed that obstacle for them.

Wdym they never focused again on the fact that Jayce insulted Viktor’s people? We see that that line had IMMEDIATE AND DIRECT AND LASTING CONSEQUENCES. It’s implied that Viktor would have told Jayce about the shimmer since he said, “Jayce will understand,” but decides not to tell him anything after Jayce says that bullshit. Without someone to bounce ideas off of while using the shimmer and the Hexcore on himself, he gets a lot more reckless and Sky goes poof.

One thing leads to another. Just because it wasn’t spoonfed to you doesn’t mean you can’t use your brain and make the connection. Besides, Jayce eventually writes up the proposal to free Zaun. Viktor presents this peace treaty to the Council alongside Jayce, so we can assume that it has been at least partially resolved between them, but likely that we will see more of it in season 2, or so you need that spelled out for you as well?

I said this a in a response already, but seeing as it was deleted to curate this user’s echo chamber, i still felt the need to post this where people could see it. Fuck you, but you can’t see this anyway, so nobody’s feelings will be hurt.

[thedreamlessnights]

Roommates

Jayce Talis x Fem!Reader || NSFW || Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Mention of sex toys, getting caught masturbating, oral sex (fem receiving), overstimulation, mentions of edging, P in V sex, cumming inside.

Synopsis: Jayce (your super hot roommate) doesn't know how to knock.

You’ve wanted Jayce since the moment you first saw him. 

Back then, you’d been in need of a roommate, but hardly anyone had responded to your advertisement. It’d gotten to the point where you were ready to give up and starve, desperate to find a solution. Anyone that had the money to split the rent, and wasn’t a creep. 

Like a saving grace, Jayce had answered your advertisement, the two of you had met up, and you’d figured out that he was essentially perfect within the first two minutes.

Jayce wasn’t a creep. Not even remotely. 

He was likable, tall, polite. A natural at creating conversation in the awkward pauses where you tried not to stare at him; tried not to notice how he smelled of bergamot and vetiver. 

He was single, too. 

You never really understood that. People flocked over him in every situation, fawning over him, batting their eyelashes as they eye-fucked him through conversations. How on earth was he not taken, when he could have his picking of anyone? When he could have you even, though you never truly had the courage to offer yourself to him?

How could you, though, when he was the perfect roommate? When it risked you losing everything you’d grown so accustomed to as a year and a half stretched on?

Jayce was tidy. He never ate your food from the fridge, or left the toilet seat up, or kept you up into the night blasting music. You liked the arrangement the two of you shared over quiet nights in the living room, wrapped up in a blanket and poring over a book. 

 Sometimes he’d even bring you back your favorite snack from the grocery store, grinning down at you, reminding you of the endearing gap between his teeth. 

When you got stuck on an assignment, he always seemed to know the answer. So damn smart. And, admittedly, he had pretty good taste in movies. 

Yes, some of them may have been cheesy, but they always left you smiling. Feel-good, as he liked to call it, sprawled out over the couch, long legs and warm, callused hands, and the shirt that hugged him just right.

You’d often spend your nights daydreaming of ways to tell him how you felt - tell him that you were his for the taking, if he ever wanted you. Unfortunately, daydreams were much easier to manipulate than real life. You could manipulate the lines, the settings, the feelings to be whatever you wanted to be. 

In life, you couldn’t do that. Confession was miserable, and you never found the courage to tell him.

As you find out one dreadful day, you don’t have to confess anything.

Instead, Jayce comes bursting through your bedroom door at the worst possible time - when you’re blissfully close to your climax, favorite vibrator fixed in hand, other hand gripping the sheets. When you’d forgotten to lock the door, thinking that he wouldn’t be home for another hour. 

You just barely have the time to shut the vibrator off and throw your sheets over yourself when you hear him, a flurry of cotton and your heart thrumming violently in your chest and thanking the heavens that you’d kept your shirt on. 

“Hey,” he says, seemingly not noticing anything amiss, “have you seen my, uh…”

And then he trails off, eyes fixed on your face, taking you in. Then, his gaze slowly trails downward. It fixes on two things: the vibrator that you’d neglected to cover, and your obvious bottle of lube. Very, very slowly, his cheeks go pink.

“I - I’m so sorry,” follows next. He covers his eyes, like that’ll somehow help the situation, then backs out of the room, feeling around at the doorway to help him. “Shit, I’m sorry. Fuck. Sorry.” With a bump, he bangs into the doorway, nursing the side of his head. “Ouch,” he hisses. “Sorry!”

In all his embarrassment, he leaves the door open.

Considering what just happened, you’re not exactly about to get up, ass bare, and shut it. Now when it risks him seeing you again, but this time even more exposed.

“It’d help you to learn how to knock,” you call, shaking like a leaf from the leftover adrenaline. “And to shut the door!”

“Right!” 

Except he hesitates at the doorway when he sees you again, hovering around like he’s trying to decide on something. 

Your face is burning like the fucking sun. What the hell is he doing?

“Well?” you ask. “Are you planning to join in, or are you going to close the door?”

You don’t mean your question literally, but that changes as soon as you see his face. Flushed, yes, but his pupils are blown wide, lips parted, eyes darting over you and then away as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“D-Do you want me to join in?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I?”

He can’t be serious, can he?

“If you want,” you say, voice shakier than you want it to be. “Then… yeah, I want that.”

He nods.

“I want it, too.”

The look in his eyes is giving you some new form of confidence that has you raising your chin and meeting his gaze.

“Then close the door and come here,” you instruct. 

He’s quick to follow your instructions, shutting the door behind him with a soft click before he hesitantly approaches, halting at the foot of the bed.

It’s strange - it’s almost like he hasn’t ever done this before, but then again he hasn’t fucked anyone in the last year and a half (at least, not to your knowledge). He might just be ridiculously horny.

“Jayce,” you say, “what do you want?”

His eyes, which had been focused on the bottle of lube near you quickly flit back up to yours.

“I want to eat you out,” he says, swallowing hard. “I want to make you cum.”

In all your years, never once has a man told you he wants to eat you out. Most times, you’ve had to ask for it, and they’d complained the entire time and still hadn’t managed to make you cum.

The desperation Jayce clearly has for you is almost unbearable - it almost has you jumping him, tearing his clothes off, begging him to fuck you. Eating you out is a close second to that. You nod and slowly slide the sheets down your right thigh, and Jayce takes the opportunity to sit on the bed next to you.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“You can do anything you want,” you tell him, and he doesn’t waste a moment before pressing his lips to yours.

The kiss is hungry - his hands find your waist immediately, slowly tugging your shirt up, thumbs rubbing over the soft skin of your stomach, tongue molding against yours. You fist a hand in his hair and he moans into your mouth, already getting hard in his jeans.

As the kiss deepens, he pulls the shirt up and off you, trailing his mouth, hot and wanting, down your neck. He presses feather-light kisses, gentle bites, soft nuzzles to the skin, trailing down to your bra.

“Fuck,” he says when he sees it - as if he hadn’t noticed it there before. As if the plain fabric is the sexiest thing he’s ever seen.

“You’re so… fuck,” he groans. “Sexy. Jesus.” 

And with that, he unhooks your bra and tosses it off the bed, undoubtedly landing somewhere on your floor.

You were dripping before he’d come in. Now, well… if someone opened the dictionary to the word wet it’d probably be a picture of you. 

“Don’t stop,” you manage, practically panting as he makes his way down your stomach, stopping at your hips to nip near the bone and draw shuddering gasps out of you.

Your hand reaches down to grab his hair again but you find his hand instead, his grip steady on yours. Of course he’d hold hands during sex. Still, you can’t say that you mind. It has you flustered, soft. Pliable for him.

The warmth of his breath on your thigh already has you shivering, twitching at the feeling. He takes his time leaving hickeys up their expanse, kissing the soft flesh.

Then he slides lower.

The first breath on your clit has you jerking away from his touch. He presses his mouth to you ever so softly, then with more pressure, and you moan and grab the sheets with your free hand, absentmindedly grinding into his face.

“Fuck, Jayce,” you manage, mouth suddenly dry. You swallow hard, shutting your eyes and sinking into the feeling of his tongue slowly tracing circles around your clit, running long strokes against you with his mouth until you nearly cum then and there.

In response to your words, Jayce only groans. Never pulling away, never letting up. He’s like a man starved, arm hooked around your thigh to keep you still, other hand gripped in yours, firm but not painful, making you shudder and shake and whine for him until you almost can’t take it anymore.

You’d been so close before he came in that it doesn’t take you long to get there again - letting out a quick gasp and squeezing his hand.

“I’m close,” you manage.

He pauses for the briefest moment, sinks into you a little more, and promptly sucks on your clit.

The orgasm hits you like a fucking hammer - knocking the wind out of you, forcing your soul out of your body. You lose all sense of where you are as white-hot waves of pleasure sweep over you. You’re just barely aware that you’re moaning.

As you come down a little more, you realize that Jayce hasn’t stopped eating you out. Your breath hits your lungs in a sharp, desperate sound as you start to squirm from overstimulation.

“Jayce,” you breathe, “holy shit.”

He pauses for a moment, fingers trailing over your thigh. 

“Want me to stop?”

You pause for a moment.

“No,” you decide. “Keep going.”

More than happy to oblige, Jayce hooks your right thigh over his shoulder and goes back to work. Considering your sensitivity, his tongue is softer this time - light, gentle strokes, giving you a little space to recover as he slowly builds you up. 

It feels fucking amazing. When you jerk away, his hand tightens on your hip - essentially holding you down, and you've never had anything like this before. You’re making sounds that are wildly inappropriate, and you’re thanking everything possible that you don’t live in a shitty apartment building with paper-thin walls. 

As heat floods you and your back begins to arch, Jayce takes the opportunity to add in his fingers - much longer than yours, warm, thick. He starts with one, finding zero resistance, and immediately adds another. 

Fuck, you think, and then you’re gone.

As your second orgasm crashes over you - faster than you could ever get yourself there - your soul seems to leave your body. The world fuzzes and blurs, pleasure hums through your veins, and you clench around Jayce’s fingers.

It takes you a long moment to come down, panting. It’s then you realize that your hand is still tangled up in Jayce’s. He’s taken to pressing soft kisses everywhere he can - your thighs, your hips.

“Come up here,” you request. 

He’s still fully dressed, his shirt hugging his arms as he pushes up to you, leaving one final kiss on your thigh. Then he kisses your lips, still tasting of you. Post-climax, your brain is fogged over and your actions are clumsy. All you know is that you want him inside you, and that you can’t wait for it much longer.

Hooking your fingers under his shirt, you tug at it until he gets the picture and pulls it up over his head. Then you freeze.

You’ve seen Jayce shirtless before - after morning runs, standing bright-eyed in the kitchen, sweat shimmering on his skin, chest still heaving from the exercise. You’d had to leave the room every time, trying desperately not to think of that image when your hand found its way under the waistband of your pants and between your legs.

But now he’s on top of you - available to run your hands over, and you can’t resist the opportunity to do just that.

He whines when you touch him, burying his face in your neck as you map your way over his shoulder-blades, over his biceps and forearm, everywhere you can reach.

 “You’re gorgeous,” you murmur. “You know that, pretty boy?”

He lets out a whimper.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

That sentence, in addition to the fact that you can feel how hard he is against you - aching to be relieved - has you fucking desperate for him. You’re ready to start grinding against his leg.

“I want you inside me, Jayce,” you request. “Please - fuck me.”

He lifts up from your neck, sitting up to undo his jeans with shaking hands, shuddering as you touch his shoulders, kissing up his neck from behind.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” you hum, nipping at his ear. “So fucking… smart, and… sexy, and nice? How the hell has no one snatched you up yet?”

“I wanted you,” he confesses. “I’ve been trying to ask you out to dinner for months, but… I got nervous, I guess.”

You bite him a little harder and he winces, lifting his hips from the bed to pull his jeans down his legs. In apology, you leave a soft kiss on the mark you’ve just left, one that will undoubtedly bloom purple against his skin.

“Well, I guess we skipped dinner,” you say with a light laugh, nuzzling into his neck. “Unless you still want that, in which case… I’m free on Thursday?”

Jayce, still in his boxers, twists to face you in a single fluid motion, pushing you onto your back again, hands fixing on your wrists as he pins you down. His knees end up framing your waist as he grins down at you, loosening his grip.

“Thursday sounds like a plan,” he says, giving you another kiss. Then he moves downward, tugging his underwear off, propping your legs apart with his knee and lining himself up with your entrance.

He groans as he pushes into you, so wet for him that he slides all the way inside you with one motion. 

You choke out a moan and grab against his back, nails clawing into the skin.

“Holy fuck,” he pants. “Feel so… fucking good for me. Fuck.”

After all the time he’d been hard and leaking for you, it doesn’t take him very long to get close - but each time he gets to the edge, he slows down, pressing his forehead to yours, brows creasing.

He’s edging himself, essentially. That, combined with the way he’s whining, the way he’s rambling on about how good you feel, how perfect you are - the way his cock is stretching you, lengthy and thick - it all has you approaching yet another climax.

“Christ,” you manage. “Jayce, I’m going to cum again.”

Jayce whimpers, his pace halting for a moment.

“Tell - tell me where to cum,” he clenches out. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“Inside,” you breathe. “I- It’s safe. Cum inside me.”

He thrusts harder into you - thrusts that have you clenching around him - and groans, biting your shoulder and cums inside you.

You’re quick to follow him into your third orgasm, legs tightening around his waist, one hand fisting in his hair, moaning into his mouth as he kisses you. 

It goes quiet for a moment after that as the two of you recover, shaking, coming down from your respective climaxes.

Your mouth is incredibly dry, and you find yourself swallowing hard, trying to catch your breath. Pushing loose strands of hair out of Jayce’s face, you laugh a little, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“That was pretty fucking good,” you tell him. “Want to go another round?”

Jayce laughs with you, burying his face in your neck.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just… give me five minutes.”

[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.