Archive of Our Own

“Yes Viktor?” Jayce raises his head and smiles tiredly at Viktor from the desk he's still hunched over like those old people selling fruits and vegetables over their carriages at the market - he needs a better chair, now that he thinks about it.

The dim light plays with the sharp lines of Viktor’s face, hollowing out his cheeks even more, carving them into villain-esque lines but in a sexy kind of way. Jayce really shouldn't sexualize the malnourishment of the undercity but if there's something like balance in the world, Viktor's horrible upbringing was rewarded with the beauty of a skinny fashion model.

“Don't forget to sign those new pages. We wouldn't want anyone mistaking them for someone else's, no?” A small joke, followed by the raspy wetness of Viktor’s laugh, the real one, that he rarely gives anyone but Jayce or sometimes Sky.

The skin around his golden eyes crinkles with mischief, Jayce has learned Viktor likes to be a little wicked just for the fun of it, hair falling into his face with the movement of his chuckling, thick, molten chocolate mixing with the unhealthy white of paper thin skin.

“Fuck off, asshole.” Jayce pushes the thoughts away, instead throwing as lovingly as he can one of the gifted Academy pens after Viktor, watching him duck his lithe body - entirely too fast for a very ill man Jayce wants to add - behind the half-opened, gilded door of their laboratory.

“Good night, Jayce.” Viktor’s rosy lips curl around the syllables of his name like an artist reciting poetry, words echoing in the empty hallway and in Jayce's aching chest.

A quick movement of Viktor's lips, forming a smirk that will one day, in the near future, end in a nosebleed on Jayce’s part, before he completely slips out the door.

Fuck.

Jayce doesn’t think anyone in the history of all Runeterra was ever so desperately longing for someone as Jayce longs for Viktor.

///

It doesn't exactly feel good to leave Jayce behind, a bitter taste of betrayal on the tip of Viktor's tongue, when he closes the heavy metal door behind himself. But Viktor can't convince that stubborn man of doing anything, much less rest, when Jayce sets his mind onto something. For a second Viktor allows himself to lean on the door, taking a few mouthfuls of oxygen before pushing himself to go home.

Even with all of their experiments failing spectacularly today, Jayce still thinks it is somehow only his mistake - if people pleasing will ever be a sport Jayce is a future medalist - that with every repetition something vital broke under the strain of concentrated magic. In Viktor's humble opinion breaking under the cruel hands of an oppressive force is the most normal thing one could do. Their screws just followed the order of the capitalistic nature. Which Jayce, of course he wouldn't, doesn't understand. So he keeps babbling about the math not adding up in the equations, in and of itself an outrageous comment, painted beautifully and strangely golden by the green banker’s lamp on his massive, utterly chaotic desk.

Viktor's math is never wrong. Has never been wrong. It is most likely the screws themselves.

The equations are correct, of course they are, Viktor did manage to check them twice before ultimately drifting in a state of mind-numbness filled with questions about the texture of Jayce’s ebony black hair and golden skin. Viktor came to the conclusion there was nothing else to do than revise the experiment's setup completely and also, maybe, if Jayce might be up for it suck on those plush lips. At least the first one they couldn’t do without a trip to the metal workshop, because they were out of the aforementioned broken screws.

So Viktor had spent most of the last half hour studying Jayce’s lips and how the light flicked over the slopes of his chin, before deciding he should head home and do something about the second thing, that horrible urge to suck on some lips.

So Viktor told Jayce as much, well not all of it, mostly the first thing honestly. And while Viktor isn't one to shy away from a good all-nighter, thriving really on nights spent high on coffee and pain medication and a sense of accomplishment absolutely nothing else can give him, he doesn't mind sleeping in his bed either. So after trying to get it in that stubborn, handsome head of Jayce Talis that there is nothing they can do tonight not twice, not thrice but four times, Viktor gave up. If Jayce really wants to pull a frustrating and senseless all-nighter Viktor can't and won't interfere with that madness. Pick your battles and all. Tomorrow, with fresh eyes and with a chance to get another set of screws from the metal workshop, they can try a different setup for their experiment. Right now Viktor’s body feels like a burning pit of pain, ready to indulge in the delicious evening entertainment of consuming high amounts of pain medication and maybe some lip sucking. Who knows.

On his way out he checks the time on his clock, delightfully discovering that it might be quite dark outside but the night isn’t that far along at all. In truth it is barely past eight, awfully early for Viktor to go home already. For a broken part of a second he is about to turn back, to tell Jayce he should get out of his shirt and into his forge, fixing them up with homemade Talis originals if the metal workshop deems seven an appropriate closing hour.

This thought is interrupted by a sudden jolt of pain, snaking up from his right foot to his hip joint, pinpointing Viktor’s awareness rather urgently to the need for something to sit on. All this stress about the yearly Inventor’s Day gets to Viktor in the worst possible way. His broken body reacts just as usual with utterly piss-poor behaviour, translating the stress into a deep set ocular migraine, now plaguing him for the third day in a row and occasionally blinding his left eye whenever Viktor exceptionally doesn’t need it. He doesn't even dare think about the pulsing pain in his right leg or the dull throbbing of his lungs. By now that is his baseline of pain, easily compartmentalized away in the back of his head in favor of other interesting things like basic existence.

What he needs, quite desperately, is a night of staying horizontal, a generous serving of his pain medication, melting his brain in a soft wrap of feelinglessness, and, coming back to the sucking of some lips, someone to fucking blow his back out so hard, he will forget his stupid name over it.

In Zaun, when he used to live in Zaun before he clawed his way up into the fresh air and the warming sun, finding someone willing for the more risqué parts of life, without second-guessing him about the way his body looks or feels and if he can even survive such a treatment, was rarely a challenge. Everyone down there is kind of sick in one way or another, not like those polished top-siders, and for Zaun standards Viktor looks as good as a guy can look. Especially, if he is willing to share his pain medication, just for the night.

Nobody dared treating him as fragile and on the brink of breaking, just because he uses a cane and has to keep his rib brace on during sex, down in the green neon lights of the undercity. Back in the day he told the guys to fuck him like they mean it, and then they did. Easy, uncomplicated and apparently quite the leap for most top-siders. Piltover is so much more stuck up and touch averse when it comes to his body. Yes, often he is the only person with a disability in the room and yes, he knows that he looks the kind of shimmer chic most top-siders find concerning. But that doesn't mean he will keel over the moment they touch him. In Piltover there is only one person, one single person, after all those years of top-side living that doesn’t shy back from touching him. Even with a little force.

Jayce.

And Viktor knows that particular ride is out of the question, mostly definitely, because Jayce must be the straightest guy Viktor ever met. A real friend. A loyal partner. But never anything else.

During their years in the Academy Viktor spent an ungodly amount of time daydreaming about what it would be like, if poster child Jayce Talis decided to finally notice him. Shining some of his overflowing charisma upon Viktor for just a second, bathing him in the warmth of his melodic voice and regarding him with those soft hazel eyes.

Of course that didn’t happen. Instead they met in a ruined apartment, surrounded by enforcers and rubble and damming amounts of sunlight, that made Viktor look especially malnourished and gaunt, while Jayce shone bright like a freshly picked orange during a sunny fall day. Viktor couldn’t help the saltiness in his voice and the eagerness to be just a little mean to Jayce Talis back then, relishing the way his perfectly groomed eyebrows squished together, forming an almost, just almost of course, ugly line on that perfectly shaped face, when Jayce had realized that all of his research was about to be seized. Yeah, Viktor can be a bit cruel, fucking sue him.

But instead of becoming rivals after that a little too self-indulgent power trip in Jayce's wrecked apartment, they became partners and right after that friends in an almost comically turn of events. Which pretty quickly showed Viktor that Jayce is as straight as they come, so precisely that Viktor sometimes amuses himself with comparing the man to spirit levels or precision tools.

And with ruling out the only close friend he has - fucking a friend is a well loved Zaunish tradition the Pilties will never understand - and meeting someone like he used to, in a bar, after two drinks for courage, being nearly impossible, there was nothing else to do than downloading an app named f+buddies, really a bit on the nose for Viktor's taste, and create a profile. While Viktor has been sceptical at first, what else can he be, he's a scientist, the app abdicated the need for a profile picture. Instead a number of questions tell the other how athletic, spontaneous or sexually oriented one is, and leaves the exchange of pictures to the chats.

And to Viktor's profound relief even then most men don't want to see his face but much rather his cock or his ass or weirdly specific parts of his body (armpits really???), which he gladly shares, shooting himself in the most attractive lightning his ramshackle apartment can offer, as long as it means he will finally get fucked by an actual person instead of the failures in the laboratory.

So with his night free of work and Jayce occupied, apparently with ghosting through Viktor’s mind like a specter in the darkest parts of the Lanes, Viktor arrives at his apartment, swallows a few painkillers and opens up the app.

Of course Viktor doesn't think too much about the profile descriptions. While he has a certain taste in men - that is entirely too close to one Jayce Talis - the desperation to find anyone at all has made him less of a picky eater so to say. Of course he prefers a guy that can do the heavy lifting for them, but he has made due with a wide range of different men in the last few months. None of them worth a repeat tasting, but good for just one night at least. He is resigning himself to the fact that tonight won’t be much different until a tasty profile pops up.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

Age: 31

Height: 1,90

Build: Male, Muscular

Orientation: Bi, Versatile

Searching for: something uncomplicated with no strings, mostly experimenting

The profile alone is enough to let Viktor’s mouth water like that of a badly behaved pet. He swallows, hard, feeling very acutely the bob of his own Adam's apple in his throat. Malleus will most definitely stimulate Viktor's delicate flavour palate, sating that hunger for Jayce’s big everything at least for a while.

It might be the migraine medication, it might be the general, disastrous constitution of his body, but something gives Viktor the strength to delude himself into thinking that a guy like that will be interested in his scrawny ass. The moment he has sent out an interest notification, his heart drops a thousand feet, hitting the ground with a ugly splash, courage somewhere lost on the way there. Of course nothing bad will come of it, but sadly Viktor has found that not only Jayce craves the acceptance and approval of whatever asshole he makes conversation with, but, at least in the realm of more salacious relationships, Viktor can't handle rejection either. Not in a society that already rejects him on a daily basis.

///

With the clock ticking away the seconds and minutes of his evening, slowly but steadily driving his attention away from their experiments and into his head, Jayce is probably in an entirely different reality light-years away from Runeterra by the time his phone starts to vibrate insistently. The sound of aluminium on wood, rattling away, irritates him more than it should and if something could catch fire just by looking at it his phone would be incinerating right this second.

Jayce is a charismatic, extroverted person, always has been, but the constant grinding of Piltover's society over his metaphorical gears, very efficiently brought Jayce to a point where he would rather fling himself into the sea than talk to somebody during his laboratory hours. There is only one person in this whole city that adds something to the constant rattling of Jayce’s brain, someone who not only keeps up but makes miles before Jayce even turns the corner. And that person is probably home by now, sound asleep and for that a thousand times smarter than Jayce.

So, who the fuck, could need something from him?

Not that he has anything important or useful to do. While he is allegedly working on the equations of their experiment, he has found that as soon as Viktor leaves his vicinity the man keeps haunting Jayce’s brain, making it impossible to think about anything else really. It takes inhuman strength to push Viktor’s face out of his brain, yes he is a little obsessed, fucking sue him, and focus on his work. And with the hour growing late Jayce has given up and instead has pictured Viktor’s little satisfied smirk with more and more indulgence, the way the edges of his mouth slightly curls up, mole squishing together in the nasolabial fold, sarcasm carefully bedded between the accented consonants of his speech. He has thought about Viktor's nonsensical way of using facts about Jayce to turn them into mean little quips and his raspy laugh that still echoes in Jayce’s ears like the sweetest tune ever composed. He is idiotically grinning, he most certainly knows. What he would do to be able to put a thumb to Viktor’s sometimes lying lips - Viktor does that from time to time, lying just for the kick of it - testing their plumpness, pulling them down until his jaw would open and Jayce is able to stick his whole thumb into it.

Not that it will ever be possible. No, it is stupid, more than stupid, to even entertain these thoughts. If not outright disrespectful. Viktor most certainly isn't the type for such carnal relations. In no uncertain terms has he told more than a few people that tried to proposition him that he is absolutely not interested, emphasis on absolutely and not, shaping his answer like a sharp punch in the gut.

And while Jayce allows himself the indulgent daydreaming, actually disregarding Viktor’s clear boundaries is most definitely out of the question. Jayce won’t survive the look of betrayal on Viktor’s face, the disgust bubbling up in his eyes like strong acid after realizing that Jayce is just another one of those pretentious Pilties that want to fuck him for the novelty of it all. His words, not Jayce’s. Jayce would rather throw himself down the balcony of the Kiramman’s apartment for real this time.  

Jayce's phone vibrates once more, seeking his attention and this time he takes a look at the display. A notification from f+buddies shines brightly in the dim light of the laboratory, insistently pulsating, longing for him to pick up the thread.

Honestly, since leaving the Academy halls as a student and being busy with the laboratory they were trying to build out of the Hextech success, Jayce rarely seeks out other people for a night off. He won't say he was naive before this venture, but it became clear very quickly and very harshly that running a commercial laboratory is infinitely more complicated than breaking into Heimerdinger’s laboratory in the middle of the night to stabilize a crystal that longs to explode.

Against what Viktor might think, Jayce relishes the little time he is able to sleep if at all, while trying to keep the cash in their rarely full bank account flowing and with that the doors to their newly opened laboratory just that - open. Quick hookups seem like an unnecessary waste of very precious time, especially when the one he is so obviously longing for is unattainable anyway.

And besides that, after figuring out the intricacies of being attracted to men and what that meant Jayce has indulged in a night or two or three of experimentation. Sex with another man is fundamentally different to sex with a woman, alone the amount of preparation needed if penetration is supposed to happen. It feels not exactly fair for him to get someone to go through all of that, or do the hard work to himself, for a measly two hours of late night fun.

But to be honest it has been a long day, a long week, a long month really and with Viktor gone there is no way Jayce will make any meaningful progress with the experiments. And daydreaming about Viktor, until he is tired to the bones, won't lead anywhere either, most of all not a good place. So maybe, if he looks at it from the angle of much needed relaxation, a round of meaningless sex could pick up his spirits a little.

With a sigh Jayce snatches up his phone, curiosity getting the best of him. He unlocks the screen, eyes squishing together against the bright light, and opens up the notification records. Immediately a profile pops open, ready for investigation.

[DownUnder_2912]

Age: 30

Height: 1,72

Build: Male, Slim

Orientation: Gay, preferably bottom

Searching for: stress relief

The first thing Jayce notices is the height. Almost 20 centimeters would make for a rather delicious difference, that Jayce won't deny, is something of a kink of his. Folding a person together like a neatly wrapped package has an unique allure to it, towering over them much more so. Still, this might be a stupid decision, he should probably go home. He keeps tapping in and out of the app for a couple of agonizing minutes, thinking hard if that is something he should do tonight. His desk light keeps flickering occasionally, the clock ticks relentlessly away on the wall and after repeatedly telling himself that this is well-deserved and even more needed, he opens the messaging option.

A simple night of stress relief will be good for him, especially when he needs to be sharp like a well honed knife tomorrow during the dissection of their experimentation setup. What can go wrong really? If they don’t resonate with each other, Jayce can easily drop out of the message thread.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

20:55

I wouldn't mind some stress relief… Up or under?

[DownUnder_2912]

20:56

Glad to hear that. Up. Not far from the Academy. You?

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

20:56

A bit of a confusing name then 😉. Same here. What do you like?

[DownUnder_2912]

20:57

A little rough. You?

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

20:57

Servicing. How rough? I'm not into hitting and stuff like that…

[DownUnder_2912]

20:57

I'm fine with some hair pulling and a good ride… Agreeable?

Jayce snorts, very embarrassingly, he’s so glad that Viktor is gone. Viktor would take one look and know what’s up, he knows Jayce too well by now. He shouldn’t think about Viktor. There’s a guy in his phone ready for Jayce to dish out a good railing. If that is what the other guy needs, Jayce can certainly. He doesn't need to play soft and loving with a stranger, as long as he has at least a little time to take the other apart beforehand.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

20:58

I'm not against it. Would you mind me taking care of you first?

[DownUnder_2912]

20:58

Honestly, no, are you any good with massages? Got an old leg injury that is flaring up... Is that a problem?

Jayce's heart flutters at the mention of the injury. He can vividly imagine that the guy might walk into problems on the app. Piltover people tend to be a little hesitant when it comes to visible impairments, especially if someone looks to be hurting. He would have been the same way if not for Viktor.

[GoldenMalleus0712]

20:59

I've been told I have pretty big hands, and I would gladly use them to make your night a little easier. Where would you like to meet? At yours?

A couple of minutes go by before another message turns up. Long enough for Jayce to doubt himself, questioning if he has been weird, or overstepping. He isn't exactly new to hookups in the bigger picture of his life, but he has found that men search for different conversations than women and more often than not has he fumbled his chance. So when a new message finally pops up, Jayce sighs with relief, heart beating just a little faster.

[DownUnder_2912]

21:05

Do you know the convenience store in Ferraway Street? We could meet there in about half an hour. My place is not far away.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

21:05

Sounds good.

[DownUnder_2912]

21:07

So we don't miss each other:

[DownUnder_2912]

21:07

pic09073829.jpg

With a tap to his screen a picture of DownUnder opens up. It is a delicate choice of what's shown and what's not. His slightly parted, glistening bottom lip, his rather sharp chin and the top of a cozy wine red, high-collared sweater lets Jayce swallow a little harder. A small hint of a smile plays around the lip and Jayce can't help the warm feeling pooling in his abdomen.  That guy looks small.

He can definitely work with that.

Oh, he can so work with that.

He thinks for a second what kind of picture he should send back. His dick is the classic choice, obviously, but DownUnder’s picture is so tame and settled, it feels wrong to counter it with a snapshot of a - well-groomed he might add - cock.

His face is most certainly out of question, privacy is the whole reason he likes the app. After a few minutes of agonizing he settles on a snapshot of his hand clasping on his thigh, for size reference of course, expertly slipping the black sleeve of his dress shirt a little lower, to hide the bracelet that Viktor gifted him some time ago.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

21:11

img2224.jpg

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

21:11

Can't wait to meet you.

///

The 24 hour convenience store in the middle of the way between Viktor's house and the Academy isn't exactly a well kept secret or a rather romantic spot to meet up in, but it isn’t too far away from Viktor’s apartment and if someone manages not to look murderer-esque under those fluorescent lamps Viktor guesses he will survive the night at least. Besides that Viktor has already made peace with the fact that he will most likely spot another late-working colleague or the stray student. That is alright. Viktor doesn't plan to stick around after a few minutes of small talk. Just a neutral place to check out the other guy he is about to let into his apartment and subsequently into his pants.

He buys a cheap, convenience store sweetmilk, placing himself with the paper cup on a chair to take some weight off his leg. He slips out his phone, quickly typing a message, because the seating area, if one wants to call the mix of mismatched garden chairs and plastic tables a seating area, is hidden behind one of the shelves.

[DownUnder_2912]

21:40

I'm sitting at the left side.

[GoldenMalleus_0712]

21:40

Almost there.

Another couple minutes go by with nothing but the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the gnarly, low music of a radio that is probably on the brink of death to keep Viktor company. He feels nervous, it's been a while since he met up with someone just for sex, and he isn't in the mood to be denied by a spoiled Piltie son for not looking healthy enough. Or bendable enough. Or too Zaunish to be attractive enough for a one-time-adventure. Or, and of all the things this one would be the worst, to exactly Zaunish enough to be the stand-in for some weird fantasy fulfillment for a guy with a narcissistic savior complex.

But Malleus seemed normal enough and he didn't lie when he said he had big hands, which Viktor can't deny makes him a little giddy. While he hates the way most top-siders tend to infantilize him, treating him like his wasting away body would automatically also impair his intellect, he has in a mocking turn of events quite the thing for a big, brutish man towering over him in bed. Even better when he feels truly small and maybe a little threatened by the hands that are bringing him off. Yes he knows, that’s a little, yeah maybe even really fucked up, but the body wants what it wants and logic has nothing to do with that. Why is craving more pain and a little humiliation in bed when he already gets that day in and out? Makes no sense, and yet. It's not even about control, Viktor wants to be in control but he also wants someone to wreck him. Simple as that.

The edges of his sweater starts to give under his nervous fingers fiddling with the strings, when the horrible, electric doorbell sound announces a new patron in the store. From one second to another Viktor’s heart rate spikes like he has started to run, well he guesses as much, because the last time he tried to run somewhere he fell face first into the dirt. But either way, if running would be an attainable option, his heart rate would do exactly what it is doing right now. The nervousness urges him up and out of his seat, smoothing out his beige, way too wrinkled to make a difference, slacks and the wine-red sweater, hiding his cane just a little behind his braced leg. Which he hates himself for, but he has figured out that the combination of the leg brace, the shimmer chic skin tone and the cane is too much for the Piltover men. Their constitution is very fragile, even more fragile than Viktor’s collapsing lungs, so who is he to burden them even more?

In sync with the rhythm of his probably soon collapsing heart, the steps draw closer, until they round a corner, polished tips of the expensive leather shoes first. His heart gives out because there is not some well-muscled himbo searching for a quick fuck with an sickly undercity refugee, but Jayce fucking Talis, in his whole regalia, polished shoes, wrinkle free suit pants, and a probably steamed again - what the hell is wrong with the guy he didn’t look like that when Viktor left - black dress shirt with a light jacket on top. Did he use their very expensive commercial steamer to de-wrinkle his shirt? God, the audacity.

“Jayce?” Viktor tries to reign in the surprise, nervously straining his ears for another sign of someone coming in, please let someone else come in so Viktor can disengage as quickly as possible from this disastrous meeting.

It’s just his luck that he goes out on a rare, sensuous adventure only to stumble into Jayce. Fuck. He should have invited the guy over to his place instead of a very public convenience store not far away from the Academy. Fuck safety and crazy murderers and people just using him for the way he looks, every horrendous scenario is more preferable over explaining to Jayce that he is meeting up with a guy to fuck.

“Viktor? What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to turn in early today?” There are no accusations in the words, only confusion and curiosity.

Jayce's face turns slightly pinkish, like Viktor is the one catching him somewhere he shouldn't be, his eyes nervously flicking around the seating area. There’s a twitch to his body that signals that he is looking for something, and Viktor is honest to god bewildered at that behavior.

“Ah. You see… I was meeting an acquaintance.” Viktor answers a little embarrassed and avoids looking Jayce in the eyes, because Jayce has figured out when he is lying for fun and lying for real, the slight nuances to his voice are no longer a secret for the intricate brain of Jayce Talis. “But apparently I was - stood up.”

Viktor swallows hard, leaning on his cane, praying for the ground to open itself up and send him right back to Zaun. Why in the world would they end up meeting here, of all places in Piltover. Really, Viktor is puzzled, Jayce hates convenience stores, this one in particular, because the entry sound, the lights and the radio annoy him to death. The only reason he endures the trip to this place is to sate Viktor's late night sweetmilk cravings, when the cafeteria is already closed.

Oh.

Oh no.

It suddenly dawns on Viktor the very same moment Jayce figures it out himself, very obviously staring at Viktor's wine red sweater. In one of the biggest, brightest cities, full of admirer and heart-eyed devotees, Jayce fucking Talis doesn’t go to a bar to find a girl, he uses an app. Which is a hundred times more annoying and laborious. Which Viktor would gladly never do again.

“Fuck, are you DonwUnder?” Jayce expresses, a little too loud and too perplexed for Viktor’s comfort.

“Ah, what? No-” At that lie Jayce makes a face Viktor doesn't like at all, scrunched up brows with big puppy dog eyes, like Viktor is about to shatter his hopes and dreams forever. “I mean yes, but - you, we, don't need to- I mean. Since when are you bi?”

Yes, since when? Isn’t it unfair enough to all the heterosexual men of the city having to compete with Jayce fucking Talis, does he really need to make it hard for the rest of the spectrum too? Fuck.

“I kind of… figured it out… during these last months.” Jayce - giver of speeches and vivid debater - is actually stammering his sentences. Viktor curiously cocks an eyebrow but can't think of something smart to say. Instead, he - doctorate of engineering, co-inventor of Hextech and quite often the smartest man in the room - provides a dumbly “Ah.” as a response.

Jayce fucking Talis is bi.

“Let me walk you home and then we forget about it?” Jayce offers and Viktor gives him an agreeing nod.

Even though he does not agree, nor does he want to forget. He has spent hours upon hours daydreaming of putting his lips on that gold-brown skin, so much it is truly embarrassing, and now the universe is telling him he wouldn’t have needed to suffer through all that, he could just have gone down on his knees - hypothetically at least - in the laboratory and show Jayce the wonders of the right side of the Kinsey scale?

///

What a mess. What a ridiculous mess. Jayce tries to stir up a conversation twice but Viktor is clearly uncomfortable, and in his head, and definitely not in the mood to talk this out. So they quietly walk along each other, which drives Jayce crazy, he can feel every molecule of fabric on his skin, itching like he needs to break free but can't do anything about it.

“So, this is me, as you very well know.” Viktor says, gesturing to the ramshackle house with the worn down red bricks, where his apartment is on the third floor and the elevator is nothing more than a death trap in the form of a metal cage.

“Yeah, alright.” Jayce nods once, twice, wringing his hands like a wet towel, because nothing is in an even generous approximation of all right.

They don't look at each other, awkwardly facing away with embarrassment and Jayce hates everything about that. Yes, it is a little surprising, Viktor goes out searching for meaningless sex, when he made it very clear that he was not interested before. And a little insulting, honestly, Jayce has been right there, available. Has he not made it painfully obvious with his touches and stares and invites to get something to drink? Apparently not.

All this time, there was only ever a resolute no from Viktor's lips when someone asked. But - to be fair those people, most often than not, had hit on Viktor at some gala or party, with Jayce right next to him. And even Jayce isn’t as delusional as that to think that anyone would agree to a hookup right in front of their work partner.

This will put a strain on their relationship, Jayce just knows it. What has been so so so easy and open up until now, full of banter, jokes and only half-serious flirtation would wither away and turn into a workplace relationship like any other. Jayce can’t let that happen, won’t let that happen, fuck, Viktor isn’t romantically disinclined, he just doesn’t like pretentious, spoiled Pilties and Jayce is neither utterly pretentious nor completely spoiled just a little egotistical as Viktor loves to tell him.

“Viktor-”

“Jayce-”

They both say at the very same moment, because they are perfectly in sync, why have they ever thought of being with somebody else, god, Jayce wants to kiss that stupid man on his stupid mouth and forget about the strangeness of this meeting. They look at each other like they have never looked at each other at all, Viktor’s eyes are wide and golden, inquisitive in the way he gets when he wants to take something apart into the smallest pieces just to know how it looks inside.

“Viktor.” Jayce starts again, dares to be brave, he has to be courageous all the time, they work with fucking prone to explosion crystals, and connects their line of sight intentionally. “This doesn't have to be this awkward, we wanted to blow off some steam, that's perfectly normal. Let us - just forget about it?”

Even if Jayce doesn't necessarily want to forget about it, he still would love to make Viktor's night better, massaging the pains out of legs, wrapping his hands around his stupidly tiny waist and then pushing him into the mattress with rhythmic thrusts until Viktor chants his name like the choir in the temple begs for some god’s approval. Oh, fuck him, he needs to stop fantasizing or the most acute problem in his imminent future will be his sullied pants.

Viktor's face makes a complicated motion, that could be embarrassment or disappointment, sometimes Jayce just doesn’t know what the movements of his face mean. Like there is a cultural rift spanning from the top of Piltover to the very last, foggy alley of Zaun between them, making it completely impossible for them to communicate in any meaningful way what this, this thing between them, means to them. Jayce would hate to disappoint Viktor, fuck, he can make this so good for him, he just wants to understand what is going on in that pale, sleep deprived head of his.

“Or, we don't think about it this hard and you let me take care of you. Please.” Jayce offers, because he wants to think less about it, he's taking a step closer, squeezing Viktor's biceps with his hand, so very softly.

Beneath his hand he can feel Viktor shiver.

After Viktor looks up, golden eyes radiant and beautiful, illuminated by yellow lantern light. God, he’s so gorgeous, how can he be this gorgeous, just on the edge of a muse used for classical art and a man that is in need of a hospital bed. Viktor swallows, hard, throat bobbing, and Jayce can’t help feeling excited at this. Because it isn’t denial, it isn’t refusal, Viktor is thinking, thinking about Jayce’s proposition. After all this time, all of his longing, is this the night, all his wild dreams about Viktor could finally come true?

A few seconds go by, awfully stretching out like viscous metal putty, Viktor gazing up at Jayce like he needs to solve a complicated equation, but the complex formula in need of solving is them. And after what feels like a lifetime Viktor finally gives a nod. A small delicate thing, like he’s not entirely sure, which would be a first, Viktor is insufferably confident in his mathematical skills set. Even though a firework erupts in his chest, Jayce only pulls the left side of his mouth a little higher than usual, just so he won’t spook Viktor away from this. Slowly, ever so slowly, he moves his hand from Viktor's biceps to his palm, hoping that the skin on skin contact might help in conveying that Jayce would rip reality apart for a chance with Viktor.

He doesn't tell Viktor all of that of course, instead opting for a soft squeeze of Viktor’s hand in his.

“Alright.” Viktor tells him and turns around, hand still in Jayce’s, fuck, he’s still holding his hand. It is cold and thin and ultimately feels like Viktor has miscalculated how uncomfortable it would be outside. Jayce grasps it tighter, if he is something then it is excessively hot, in one way or another.

The way up to Viktor's apartment involves the precarious ride in the metal death box Viktor’s landlord calls an elevator and Jayce only scrapes by a panic attack twice when he re-notices the botchy welding job on the walls and occasional doors breezing by. (Why didn’t he take the stairs? Because Viktor holds his hand, damn it.) He climbs out of it with a plan to send a formal complaint to whichever property inspector in Piltover is gravely neglecting his job. Viktor lets Jayce's hand go in favor of searching for his key, which Jayce hates. Viktor’s hand shakes when he opens the door, key scraping along the metal before it slips into the keyhole. Jayce stops breathing all together until they make it inside.

Is this really happening?

He’s been in this ramshackle excuse of an apartment so often he knows it at least as well as the laboratory. The smell of mint tea, disinfectant and orthosis lubricant hangs heavy in the air, but Jayce feels only a vague feeling of home, relaxation and peace. With Viktor’s everything they rarely made the trip to Jayce’s apartment, because in the small, immaculate kitchen awaits a whole cupboard of medication that is impossible to carry through the city without a smaller incident. Most of all in the hands of a former undercity inhabitant, no matter that he is the co-inventor of the best fucking thing to ever come out of Piltover’s laboratories and workshops. So they have stayed here, cramped on Viktor's old, moss-green couch, developing innovation after innovation in between stiff pillows with weird patterns when they grew tired of the Academy or the laboratory.

Viktor toes off his shoes and throws his key in the little ugly, wine-red bowl beside the door, hissing when his right foot seems trapped for a second. Jayce slips out of his own shoes, making the trip to the kitchen to get some water and a beer, Jayce knows for a fact only exists because Jayce drinks it and not because Viktor likes it. Viktor hates Piltover beer or Piltover wine or Piltover anything containing alcohol, the only thing touching the holy inside of his body is liquor straight from the darkest, deepest chemical plant available in Zaun. His words not Jayce’s.

If Jayce drinks half the beer in one big, greedy gulp right there in the kitchen, droplets pearling down his chin, just to gain some courage for what is to come, then that is his problem alone.

“Coming?” Viktor calls, so Jayce moves with the beer and the flask of water.

Apparently Viktor has skipped the living room all together today and went straight for the bedroom, which is reasonable taking into account that it’s only getting later and they met up with the intention to have sex. When Jayce enters, he looks around, he has fallen asleep on the couch, multiple times, but he has never made it into this room.

It is strangely even more Viktor than the rest of the apartment. Shelves filled with books over books, a whiteboard with equations over a workbench that doubles as a desk with a matching stool, an ramshackle wine-red dresser that looks on the brink of collapse, an old intricate lantern shining green light, a bunch of coppery and green enamel advertising signs with Zaunish script, and a very high bed too big for one person. Does Viktor do this often?

Viktor, not at all concerned by Jayce's blatant staring, already pulls out what Jayce has come to know are the necessities of gay penetrative intercourse: towels, lube, condoms and tissues. It’s not so much different to the way Viktor pulls out wrenches, screws and metal in the laboratory, which is unfortunate, really fucking unfortunate, because that will lead to a few confusing moments in the future.

“So, how do you want to do this?” Viktor asks, so matter-of-factly and work-like Jayce gets whiplash from it.

If Jayce's next move is pulling out a repair set instead of doing anything romantic, then that is Viktor’s fault alone. He’s halfway to saying that, but then Viktor’s face makes a complicated move somewhere between curious and a little bit embarrassed, suddenly so very small and shy.

“Let me take care of you, yes? I'm only egotistical when it comes to my notes.” Jayce aims for a joke on his behalf, to lighten the situation, just because he knows Viktor enjoys a good joke that ruins Jayce's ego.

“That is to be seen, eh?” Comes the lofty reply, accompanied by the trademark smirk, and Jayce feels the tension bleed away already.

Slowly - why is everything happening slowly today - Jayce wants to fucking rip his clothes away and get started, he waited so long for this - anyway - slowly to give Viktor more than enough time to object, Jayce takes a few steps and settles his hands on Viktor's hips.

“Do you need time in the bathroom? Your profile said-”

“No, eh, I’ve done so before, you know how it is.” Yes, Jayce knows, that was a rhetorical question, Viktor never anything but meticulously prepared, and that he didn’t notice makes it clear how nervous he must be. Also if Jayce would invite a guy over to fuck him, he too would take some bathroom time beforehand.

With a little encouragement Viktor puts a hand on Jayce’s shoulder and slowly - slowness fucking sucks - they start walking backwards until they hit the edge of the bed. Viktor’s cane, still in his other hand, clatters to the floor, his mouth falling open, little huffs of air leaving those very kissable lips.

“Jayce.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t take this back.”

“I don’t want to take this back.”

Jayce slips his hand under Viktor’s chin - fuck slowly - tipping it up and when Viktor doesn’t object Jayce lowers his head and places his lips upon Viktor’s. They are soft and cold, not a lot of give at first, like Viktor needs some time to process what is happening right now. After a three second delay his hand finally slips from Jayce's shoulder to his hair and then he pulls, Jayce groans and whatever hardness was there melts with Viktor into Jayce’s chest. It is a revelation, cosmic, ethereal, a whole new plane of existence, everything suddenly making sense. Those harsh denials, the soft little glances, the jokingly flirting, the flirtingly joking, the nights spent in the laboratory together and that one time, when they both fell asleep on the shitty lab couch they found on the street, and how Jayce felt like a new, better man when he woke up with Viktor’s smell in his nose. They are made for this, Jayce is made for this.

Fuck slowly.

He takes Viktor’s head in both his hands, slipping away from Viktor’s mouth to the sharp line of his jaw, keeps kissing there and down the slope of his long pale neck, pushing away the high collar of Viktor’s sweater with his nose. Viktor smells of WD40 (hot), sweetmilk, sweat, fabric softener and rosemary, and when Jayce bites the crook between neck and shoulder he yelps. And then coughs, wetly and rattling, which sounds only mildly concerning compared to the one time Viktor had bronchitis.

“Sit.” Jayce softly urges Viktor on, who does as he is told, legs dangling off the edge of the bed.

It is easy to kneel, like a man in prayer, god knows Jayce worships Viktor since the day they have met, and puts his mouth and hands to work. The force needed to nudge Viktor’s legs apart is practically nonexistent, Viktor suddenly so pliable under Jayce’s hands. The way Viktor looks down on him feels like benediction, golden eyes glowing hot like the sun, and Jayce might confess every sin he’s ever committed in the hopes of being forgiven if he only does a good enough job down there in between those knees.

A challenge he gladly accepts, mouthing along Viktor’s left thigh, hands stroking over what he can’t kiss at the same time, heart wildly beating at the difference in size. Viktor is so small and reduced to the bones in his body, thanks to his illness, god fuck that illness. He’s also so very fragile, not that Jayce would ever tell him that, but Jayce is sure that he would be capable of the base violence needed to ruin Viktor. There is no reality where he would use his strength against Viktor, but there is a reality, this one, where Jayce grows steadily harder in his pants by the differences of their bodies just existing.

A groan slips out of Jayce's mouth when Viktor threads his cold, thin fingers in his hair, scratching along his scalp softly. Viktor huffs a small laugh, the kind when Jayce has done something utterly ridiculous in the lab, only stoking the warmth in his stomach.

“Can I take this off?” Jayce asks, looking up to Viktor through his eyelashes because he knows he looks damn good like that, one hand carefully placed upon the brace on Viktor's right leg. “I want to make you feel good, will you let me?”

Viktor blinks down at him, eyes hazy and eyelids closing sleepily, long eyelashes fluttering along the thin, bruise-blue skin beneath his eyes. There is a tiredness in him that Jayce will never be able to cure, but he can at least try making life just a little bit better for him.

Time moves, strangely fast and slow at the same time and from down here Viktor is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, and Jayce thinks he might be dreaming, with how indulgent this feels. A million moments later or maybe just a second, Viktor slips a hand beneath Jayce’s and unbuckles the first of the clasps around his thigh.

///

Viktor watches Jayce unbuckle the rest, breathless in a way he rarely is, except that one time another pulmonary embolism threatened to cut his life shorter than it already will be. Every touch of Jayce’s hands burn hot, even through the fabric of his slacks, and he can't help but imagine he'll soon catch fire at this rate.

Honestly this feels like a dream, soft and gloomy around the edges. There is the possibility that Viktor is having a delusional episode where he dreams up a perfect reality that involves Jayce fucking him instead of his migraine meds just doing their job, but the onslaught of emotions triggered by the image of Jayce between Viktor's knees seems too real.

After all this time, all this longing, and the subsequent realization that Jayce would never feel what Viktor felt for him, Jayce turns out to be bi? Viktor wouldn’t be surprised if he is about to wake up from a fever dream, sweat-wet and panting like an animal, because he fell asleep on the couch while scrolling through f+buddies.

But nothing like that happens, instead Jayce carefully unbuckles one clasp after another, studying the brace like it's his next project, stroking over Viktor’s aching muscles with a careful hand. When the metal piece finally comes off, Jayce doesn’t throw it to the ground, no - and Viktor would probably kill him if he did - he carefully studies it, bending it at the knee, inspecting a few screws, before putting it to the side.

“We can do better than this, we should talk it through tomorrow.” Jayce says, like it's the most normal thing in the world to want to fix some loose screws on your sex dates leg brace, looking up at Viktor with those hazel eyes of his in utter devotion.

And Viktor can't help but think that in Jayce's head this brace is nothing more than a simple part of Viktor in need of adjustment, just like a pair of shoes. It's horrible how validating it feels to not be reduced to his disability but be seen for it and Viktor hates that he's surprised as if Jayce ever gave him the reason to feel lesser beside him.

Jayce is back to rubbing over Viktor's now accessible leg before Viktor can even deny or accept his offer of betterment. Instead he keeps himself busy with stretching the leg out completely, feeling where Viktor's muscles block the movement, only to then dig his finger into the meat of it. It is hurting so good while simultaneously sending a ripple of excitement up his spine, that Viktor can't swallow down the groan breaking free from his lips. It only urges Jayce on, massaging the strain out of Viktor’s foot and ankle with insistent, perfectly hot hands.

Viktor can feel his pants grow tighter with every second, like Jayce is determined to turn this otherwise benign message into some sexual fulfillment for Viktor. He leans himself back on his arms, staring at the ceiling, controlling his breathing because his emotions are somewhere between enjoyment, arousal and embarrassment, ready to spill out a love confession in the form of too rosy words and tears. After a few minutes of working on his right leg, Jayce finally relents, moving upwards and over Viktor’s half-lying form.

Like this Viktor is trapped beneath Jayce, arms bracketing him in on each side, face so close to his own that he cannot for the life of him avoid eye contact. So he doesn't, challenging Jayce with a defiant lift of his chin.

“Can I undress you?” Jayce murmurs, moving to kiss along Viktor’s jaw again. He doesn't stop until their lips meet once more, indulgently licking into Viktor's mouth, exploring with his tongue until Viktor feels hot all over.

For a few breathless seconds Viktor forgets how to think all together, the question melting away like ice cream on a hot summer day. Only when Jayce pulls back, cocking an expecting eyebrow, Viktor remembers himself enough to formulate an appropriate answer that is not please fuck me right now.

“Oh, I mean, I can-” Viktor stammers, hands searching for the button of his pants.

“No, Viktor. Will you let me undress you, please?” Jayce replies, eyes so intense Viktor feels another shiver crawl along his back. Honestly it's a bit embarrassing how badly he wants Jayce to take him apart, and if at all possible he will die with this secret of this infatuation.

So instead of telling Jayce that he can fuck right off, Viktor is still capable to remove his own clothing, thank you very much, he nods, paralyzed under the intensity of Jayce’s eyes weighing heavy on him, like they alone push him into the mattress.

“Thank you, partner.” Jayce smirks at him, slipping back down, nosing along Viktor’s belt, tickling the skin above it with his hot breath. He lets his hands roam over Viktor’s abdomen - his hands are so fucking hot, how can they be so hot - almost stretching over the whole expanse of it, ultimately bumping against the brace that wraps around Viktor's whole thorax.

He doesn't even blink an eye at it, already so familiar with Viktor’s need to steady his body with external assistance, it's normal and usual instead of novel. There is wonder in his eyes, Viktor can see it, but it's more akin to worship than exoticism. Jayce lingers only a few seconds, finger tips exploring the edges of the brace with careful touches before he goes back to Viktor's belt, finally opening it and slipping pants and undergarments off with one smooth movement. His socks follow next and after that, Jayce slips Viktor out of his sweater, leaving him completely naked, save for the chest brace, while Jayce is still perfectly dressed, not even his dress shirt out of place.

It lets Viktor’s heart pound hard against his ribcage, like a caged animal ready to break free with claws and teeth. If he will die tonight due to cardiac arrest that would be alright with him. During all those months together in the lab, Jayce has been so often disheveled, sometimes without shirt or shoes, soot-dirty and smelling and sweaty from the forge. Jayce is on top of that awfully chaotic and sloppy, never-ending stacks of paper littering his desk, half eaten meals all over, water bottles strewn about wherever Viktor looks. To have their positions reversed causes an exhilarating beyond-design-basis event, that will most likely be culminating in a cataclysmic failure of Viktor's capability to think.

“You should wear that one more often, it suits you, the wine-red.” Jayce interrupts Viktor’s horney catastrophizing with a twinkle to his eyes, something Viktor can't place, neither really hunger nor lust, more a tinge of possessiveness before throwing the sweater over the edge of the bed.

In loss of an answer Viktor gives him a cocked eyebrow and a self-assured smirk, like he already knew that this outfit looked good on him, Jayce's comment just old news. It's not a lie, wine-red does suit him and he likes it, brings out the sickly cheekbones and the bloodless skin in an almost attractive way. Jayce huffs an amused laugh and returns back in between Viktor’s legs, kissing along his belly down to his crotch. Viktor’s cock is already on the best way to growing fully hard, an errant drop of precome clinging to the pink tip.

“I really want to suck you off. Is this comfortable for you or would you rather lie down?” Jayce asks, eyes now most definitely hungry, tongue peeking out to wet his lips.

Viktor fails to recall any of his other hook-ups ever asking him that so he genuinely needs to give it a quick thought. While he loves the visual of Jayce between his legs sucking his cock, the height of the bed and the pain pulsing through his head and back will very surely become uncomfortable very quickly. Lying down completely would be so much easier on Viktor's body but he really wants to see this. Burn the images in his mind, usable for years to come, even when Jayce has discarded him.

“Leaning against the headrest would be best.” Viktor answers after some consideration, carefully studying Jayce's reaction.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it somehow does when Jayce nods immediately, no questions asked, placing a soft kiss on Viktor's left thigh before he moves up. The fact that Viktor's bar for Piltover men is so low by now, that this is something pleasantly surprising, should be a point of embarrassment really, but what is a disabled man from Zaun to do? Going celibate for the rest of his life?

But Jayce keeps surprising him when he slips his arms under Viktor's legs and around his body, lifting him up with easy strength. Viktor is slightly confused at the effortlessness, like he weighs nothing, which he probably isn't to a guy shaped like Jayce who’s used to hammering metal. Nevertheless his stomach swoops, heart beating wildly against his ribcage, when Jayce settles him against the headrest. Jayce doesn't even break a sweat, face completely at ease and Viktor is so unbelievably horny, it borders on a miracle that he’s not drooling onto Jayce by now.

Jayce hovers over him, his hands lingering on Viktor's body, encompassing so much of him, that it is a little surreal. Logically, Viktor knows that Jayce's hands have easily been wrapped around the full of his shoulder before, hundreds of times by now, but naked and at Jayce's mercy that logical side of him leaves his body rather quickly.

Jayce watches Viktor, indulgently raking his eyes all over his body, before leaning down to coax another round of kisses out of Viktor, probing at his lips with his tongue until Viktor opens up. It feels amazing, like they have been doing this a thousand times already, tongues mingling and exploring, playfully pushing at each other. Viktor’s length strains and twitches, leaking more precome, arousal quickly growing hotter.

“Fuck.” Jayce groans out against his lips, breathing hard. “Let me- let me finish what I started.”

It comes out so choked and out of breath, like Viktor has actually done anything more than reciprocate Jayce's kiss. Beneath Jayce's hot breath he feels so vulnerable, so open, so touchable. He hasn't felt touchable in years. Jayce works his way down Viktor's body, scratching the slight stubble of his beard against Viktor's skin. Wherever Jayce's lips and hands touch a heated patch of skin is left, pulsating with the need to be kissed again, touched again, anything really.

When Jayce finally stops, fitting his ridiculous massive body between Viktor's lithe legs, a shiver crawls over his skin, length growing proudly erect. Jayce kneels before him like he's going to pray, but instead he leans forward, kissing Viktor's body with a reverence that should be reserved for church. When Viktor's length keeps twitching he receives a kiss there too, almost chaste, as much as a kiss on the tip of a cock can be chaste. But nothing more, Jayce's ever moving hands are already occupied with another part of Viktor's body.

When Jayce carefully lifts Viktor’s very naked right leg upon his very clothed knees, he looks at it like it's precious, and not a malfunctioning, broken thing. With rough, strong hands he starts massaging, putting pressure on Viktor's muscles and tendons, stroking his calf out until the tension finally releases. It prompts a relieved moan out of Viktor and he's mortified at the sounds falling out of his mouth, even though they plan on having sex this part seems too vulnerable to share.

Next comes his knee and then his thigh, where Jayce expertly locates one of the especially painful knots because Viktor's brace tends to sit especially snug there, growing uncomfortable over a long day. He feels his muscles spasm, pain jolting up his leg into his hip with every press until he can't keep it in any more.

“Fuck, Jayce!” Viktor cries out, leg twitching upwards and out of Jayce's grasp. There's an errant tear rolling down his cheek, the pain relief almost not comprehendible between the clouds of his migraine medication.

“Are you alright?” There is a concerned streak across Jayce's face that Viktor hates with a vengeance in other people and he almost rolls his eyes in annoyance.

“I'm not so fragile, Talis. Do it again.” He commands and whatever concern has tainted Jayce's expression makes room for an almost feral hunger.

Immediately Jayce gets a better grip on Viktor's leg, his thumbs finding the pressure point once more, digging in repeatedly until Viktor all but squirms under him. The leather edges of Viktor's chest brace deliciously dig into his ribs when he breathes deep, pleasure and pain mixing, letting him gasp for breath, knuckles gripping tightly against the linen beneath him. They haven't even had sex and Viktor already feels so wrung out, when Jayce puts his right leg down.

Against that onslaught Jayce's hands on his left leg feel like a kind summer breeze swiping through Viktor's hair. Jayce makes quick work of it, returning his broad palm back to Viktor's right when he adjusts his position between Viktor's leg.

He moves himself into a lying position, his head bedded in-between Viktor's legs. Through hooded eyes, pupils blown out, Jayce looks up to him, cheek against Viktor's hard length, so mind-bending beautiful Viktor still questions reality. Jayce slips both of Viktor's legs over his shoulders, bending Viktor's right knee in exactly the right position needed to give it some rest.

“A little rough, yes?” Jayce asks and Viktor blacks out for a few seconds, desperately forcing himself to breathe an almost inaudible encouragement.

There is a reality where they never get to do this, where they keep longing for each other and Viktor is so very glad that it isn't this one. Honestly, he should write the inventors of f+buddies a thank you letter and send some chocolates.

He watches Jayce take the tip of his cock in between his lips, indulgently licking at it before he starts bobbing and sucking, hollowing out his cheeks. Viktor moans, letting his head fall back, eyes defocusing until the world surrounding him blurs into nothing but vague colors and shapes.

He's not prepared for the hot heat of Jayce's mouth, and even less for the moment Jayce gags on his length while simultaneously pushing a finger into that trigger point on Viktor's right leg. A lesser man would have come right there and then. And with lesser Viktor means a man that is not currently bedded in the fluffy nonsensicalness of very strong pain medication.

Behind his eyelids a whole universe explodes, every touch to his body a burned-out star, bright and strong and inevitable. There's no other option than to grasp at Jayce's hair again, a fixture in space to tether himself to while Jayce takes him on this wild ride of pleasure and pain. Viktor bites his lips almost bloody when Jayce keeps at it, ridiculously warm hand searching and finding the pain points in his leg, electrifying Viktor with pulses of pain until Jayce soothes it over with his tongue around the tip of Viktor's cock.

Viktor isn't sure if he's ever had a blowjob quite like this, if anyone has ever taken the time to figure out how to incorporate his leg into his whole pain kink. Which is absolutely insane, now that Viktor thinks about it.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He moans out, feeling the tension in his abdomen, an orgasm just around the corner if not for those damned pain meds.

This won't work, but he knows Jayce, extremely diligent to the point of obsession, and he won't stop until Viktor will tell him to. God, he has dreamed of this so often.

They once were drinking, in some dive bar in the small strip of no-man's-land between Zaun and Piltover. Jayce kept hitting back every shot Viktor put in front of him, like he was some kind of miner used to the harsh Zaunish moonshine, when he was most definitely a soft man getting tipsy from a few champagne flutes. And Viktor was not nearly as drunk as Jayce, he was supposed to take care of Jayce, taking him home but he tripped over a shitty, exposed drainage pipe and fucked up his leg. Jayce carried him all the way back to the bridge, not once faltering, keeping Viktor steady in his arms, even though he was so drunk, so fucking drunk. They had to stop there so Jayce could vomit, but right after washing his mouth out with highly questionable water, like nothing happened at all, he picked Viktor back up and didn’t let him down until they made it back to his home. Nobody ever took care of Viktor like that, and he has furiously masturbated to that memory so often he should be ashamed. But he isn’t.

Not with Jayce between his legs, sucking his cock like he could win the Inventor’s Price for it, looking so completely blissed out Viktor questions if he had a pick of his medication besides the beer from the fridge. Nobody ever took care of him like that. Nobody but Jayce.

The fact that Viktor has never felt for anyone what he feels for Jayce and the strain of wanting to orgasm but being unable to, climbs through his body, until it reaches his eyes and pushes tears out. Because something needs to give, there is only so much oppressive force until something needs to break. Just like their screws earlier today.

God, it's so embarrassing, but he can’t do anything about it. The tears gather in his eyes, hot and heavy and Viktor hopes that Jayce will keep going until he digs his way through the haze of medication that dulls Viktor’s nerve ends.

“Fuck, fuck. Jayce. Jayce.”

Jayce hums, mouth otherwise occupied.

“Jayce, I- fuck, I need - this won’t work.” Viktor groans out, tilting his hip just a little, spreading his left leg away to make more room.

Jayce falters only a second, before his mouth pops wetly away from Viktor’s cock. There is spit stretching between it and Jayce's mouth, dripping onto his bed when it finally is too thin to hold up.

“Need what?”

“Not just your mouth.”

“That desperate, huh?”

“Yeah, so fuck me or fuck off, Talis.” Viktor spits, and there’s something flitting over Jayce’s face that Viktor doesn’t understand.

But Jayce gets back to kneeling, scooting his knees up while pulling Viktor down by the hips, carefully, so fucking careful, like he might brake the very next second. But Viktor goes without resistance, smoothly sliding down from the headboard under Jayce, guided easily in between Jayce's spread legs. The softness of it all drives Viktor almost insane.

That mean streak of his flares up, wanting to tell Jayce he should do it right or leave it, but the way Jayce looks at him makes Viktor's steel forged insides soft and mushy, cruelness softened like he has been beaten into obedience by Jayce’s hammer. Jayce moves his massive hands under Viktor’s ass and lifts him up like he weighs nothing, again, and Viktor is coming to understand that he probably does weight nothing for those muscles. Jayce is shoving a pillow under him so there’s no strain on his spine, legs on Jayce’s knees, skin on warm fabric. Against Jayce’s warm-toned hands Viktor looks sick, which he is, but he likes to forget that part about himself, at least when he gets fucked.

But Jayce doesn’t look at him like he’s sick. He looks like Viktor has just revealed the universe's biggest secrets, spilled out everything Hextech could accomplish and secured funding too. Viktor can’t think about that, instead he grabs for the lube and throws it against Jayce’s chest, watching it bounce off and in between them.

“Thanks, I guess.” Jayce smirks, squirts a good amount of lube out of the bottle and goes to work on Viktor.

Viktor has spent a lot of time fantasizing about those hands, hardly avoidable with the time they work together. And Jayce is exceptionally nimble for a guy of his size and of his brute force. Viktor is prepared, of course he is, about 45 minutes ago he thought some stranger would end up here, someone not as kind and as thorough as Jayce.

Who takes him apart like his life depends on it, meticulously slipping a finger in and out, stroking Viktor’s cock until he’s loose and relaxed before adding another finger. It takes some real effort to blink his eyes open, to look at Jayce, who watches him like a man short of dying from thirst would look at a fresh pond filled with clear water. It’s entirely too much, Viktor slips his eyes close again, throws his head to the side and into the pillow, moaning out all those cursed, desperate feelings instead.

And he is desperate, so fucking desperate, has been for so long. Jayce doesn’t stop, keeps slipping in and out, in and out, fingers curling up, hand tight and wet around Viktor’s length. There’s a mind-bending moment full of ecstasy, muscles in his abdomen twitching, spine arching, legs tensing and toes curling, tears once more pearling at his eyes.

“Yes, Viktor, fuck- look at you.”

Viktor thinks he might fully cry, and he never cries, not with other people, but right now he feels like the one time he was still a child and his mother was sick and the guy at the social counter - a bullshit, corrupt Piltie charity - told him there was nothing he could do. Only adults are eligible for health and food stamps and he, Viktor, better fuck off before the guy calls the enforcers. He cried, from anger and embarrassment and utter grief, stomach rolling. This overwhelming feeling right now is so much like that time, and then nothing at all, it rolls over him in waves, leaving him breathing hard and horribly rasping, swallowing down the tears, the pain, the relief and everything else.

He wants to scream, to curse those god-forsaken meds, to show Jayce what he’s doing to him, but then something gives, finally, fucking finally, just like those screws, and Viktor sees white, sees black, sees a whole universe exploding behind the thin skin of his eyelids and then he comes.

///

Viktor screams Jayce's name when he comes, and Jayce doesn't know if Viktor is aware of it, but he screams. The way Viktor's tongue curls around the syllables of his name makes him swallow, throat bobbing with the movement. Watching Viktor come on his hands, whole body tensing, eyes screwed shut is like a revelation. Jayce has never been religious, wrangling magic into science was esoteric enough for multiple lifetimes, but being the witness to Viktor’s undoing is a sacred awakening. There is nothing in this world that would bring Jayce to his knees in supplication except this right here.

When his golden eyes slowly blink open Viktor looks up to Jayce like a saint giving out blessings, light refracting in the sweat on his skin when he moves his hand into Jayce’s direction to beckon him closer.

“Come here, Jayce.” He says, and Jayce follows the order like a well trained dog, thick arms bracketing Viktor’s head against the mattress.

Viktor's hand brings them together, lips on lips, heat and air shared between them. There is an urgency to their kissing that betrays Jayce's eagerness, his hard cock hanging between his crotch occasionally rubbing against Viktor’s belly. He feels the stickiness of Viktor’s come soaking in his pants and it’s marvelously filthy.

It might be his upbringing trapped in this golden cage of Piltover or maybe there is something deeply wrong with him, but Jayce always thrived on defiling something perfect, because something fragmented has edges and nooks and crannies yearning for Jayce to explore them. And Viktor isn’t broken, not really, but he’s interesting and Jayce is full to the brim with curiosity.

Jayce groans into Viktor’s mouth that his whole body vibrates with it, feeling the delicious heat of his tongue and the prickly cold of Viktor’s long, cold fingers rubbing along the ridges of his ribs.

“Are you this desperate for it?” Viktor whispers and Jayce can only nod in agreement, he’s never wanted something as much as he wants Viktor.

“Mhm, do you want to be good for me?”

“Yes please, Viktor. Anything.” And Jayce doesn’t know how to pray, but this sure sounds like it.

“Clean me up.”

It’s a simple command, something Jayce knows how to do, so he steals a last brush of Viktor’s lips and goes to work. He laps along the silken skin of Viktor’s stomach, Viktor’s pubic hair scratching over his face, until he sucks there too. His whole live he didn’t know what starving meant, until this very moment right now, because he’s hungry, so fucking hungry, and he let’s his teeth sink into Viktor’s flesh, sucking it in between them until it bruises.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Little huffs of breath leave Viktor’s mouth and Jayce can’t help but bite until he hisses above him.

“Be good.” Viktor’s snarls playfully and Jayce relents, licking over the bruise with a hot tongue, soothing over the carnal confessions of his love until Viktor pets through his hair.

He laps the rest of the come away, swallows and bends upwards, kissing along the collarbone and the shoulder and the neck and the jaw until he arrives once more at Viktor’s lips.

“Was this to your satisfaction, partner?” He murmurs and Viktor answers with a huff.

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

“Always.”

“A little egotistical of you, don’t you think?” It’s the same tone of voice Viktor uses to tease him in the lab and that does something complicated to Jayce’s inside.

Hopefully this won’t end in Jayce being ruined for their future work together but before he can give the notion any more thought Viktor already brings him back to his mouth and kisses him with such vigor that Jayce feels like he will surely melt under Viktor’s hands. He drips more precome in his underwear, whining in Viktor’s mouth in a pitch that should be impossible.

“Do you want to fuck me, Jayce?” Viktor asks against his spit-slicked lips and Jayce can do nothing against his length twitching with want.

“Yes, god, yes.” He groans out, so very needy Viktor huffs another laugh at him.

“You should get me comfortable then.”

Jayce lets his hands wander beneath the brace that keeps Viktor’s torso together, gears and clasps of metal that feel just as warm as his skin by now. He slips the pillow out from under Viktor, carefully depositing him back onto the bed. He can't help but notice how his hands meet behind Viktors back, tiny waist not much more extensive than the circumference of the inside of his own hands. It lets a shiver crawl over Jayce's head. Viktor was never anything else but skinny, but god, he is so thin, too thin. Jayce needs to change that if Viktor lets him in the future.

Viktor smirks up at him, hand searching and finding his crotch, very effectively expelling all dark thoughts about Viktor's sickly constitution. Jayce gasps when Viktor rubs his hand along the fabric. There's no reason a little frottage should be this good, but it is, because it is Viktor's fingers that are just as clever here as they are in the lab.

“Jayce.” The way Viktor curls his tongue around his name and the torturous, slow movement over his length drives him nearly insane.

“Yes.” Jayce moans out, clinging onto his composure for dear life.

“Be a good boy and stop stalling.” Viktor commands and there is no room for disagreement. He guides Jayce down by the crotch, and it would be humiliating if this were someone else then Viktor but it isn't so it's not.

While he would do nothing much rather than fuck Viktor senseless, he takes the time to prop Viktor's right leg onto a stack of pillows. At that, Viktor's face does something strange, a weird little motion that reminds Jayce of the day he gifted Viktor his new cane, made of the lightest and durable material Jayce could get his hand on. He puts another pillow under Viktor's head, finally being able to use all those hours of secretly watching Viktor for something useful. Jayce knows Viktor's body, at least from a standpoint of daily interactions, the way he moves and arranges his surroundings into much needed solace. Of course Jayce won't tell Viktor that he longed for the permission to do this, to dote on Viktor, to care for him.

Instead he steals a kiss from Viktor's lips before bending his left leg up, folding it against Viktor's chest. He's strangely flexible for a man not much fond of exercise and while Jayce doesn't want to hurt Viktor he won't deny that this - folded and naked beneath Jayce - is the most beautiful Viktor has ever been. It's so very indecent how Jayce can see everything now, Viktor's hole lovely and slick all over, gaping just a little for Jayce. He gulps down a heavy breath.

“What are you waiting for, partner? Scared you'll finish too quickly?” Jayce will never see the smirk on Viktor's lips the same way.

Impatient, like he's always been, Jayce leans back and makes room to quickly remove his day-wear, fiddling with the buttons of his suit pants and dress shirt until Viktor cocks a questioning eyebrow, slowly shaking his head in disapproval.

“What?”

“I didn't tell you to undress, did I? I want you - just like this.” Viktor tells him, golden eyes regarding him from head to toe with the unquenchable hunger of a man waiting to sink his teeth into a good meal.

“Oh. Oh. Yes, alright.”

Viktor doesn't comment on the way Jayce's hands tremble like dry leafs in autumn when he opens the fly of his pants, pulling his wet cock out from all the precome gathering in his underwear. Doesn't laugh at him, when the condom doesn't open right away. No, instead he goads Jayce on, telling him he's drooling and heaving air like a dog in heat.

Which might sound cruel, but it isn't, god, it never would be, not when it is Viktor that speaks those words into reality. If the goal was to pent him up so high he might implode like a star under its own gravitational pressure, then yes, Jayce is on the brink of becoming a black hole, ravenous for nothing but Viktor.

The condom slips on, rolling down the shaft smoothly and then Jayce is finally, finally, back into position, perfectly placed between Viktor's legs. Jayce squeezes a little more of the lube in his hand, slicking his cock and then Viktor's rim, before lining himself up, eyes flicking up to Viktor's.

“A little rough, yes?”

“Do your worst, Talis.”

///

Piltover men don't touch him like this, with urgency and strength, massive hands on the backside of his thighs, slowly but determined, pressing and pressing, making more room, splitting Viktor apart. And yet Jayce does exactly that.

Viktor digs the heel of his good leg into Jayce's back, pulling and pulling, he wants to be filled so badly, faster and harder. But Jayce holds back, giving Viktor time to adjust, his cock is thick, it truly is, but nothing Viktor can't handle. This carefulness is not necessary, not at all, and Viktor tries to urge Jayce one with his heel, digging into the string of muscles of Jayce's back, because this is torture.

Jayce breathes through the slide-in like he needs to concentrate, inching forward, brows knit together, mouth agape. He's beautiful, skin sweaty and golden, the muscles of his abdomen twitching with every inch.

“Are you gonna come already? You look like it.” Viktor teases, watching Jayce's eyelids flutter.

“No.”

“No?” Viktor asks, smirking, hoping to rile Jayce up a little more

“No!” Jayce snaps, hips stuttering forward, cock pressing in quicker and harder.

Viktor moans in response, loud and unrestrained, fingers gripping onto Jayce’s clothed body. It feels marvelous, the girth of Jayce's cock, the warmth of it. Massive, good gods he's massive, just like the rest of Jayce's body and Viktor feels every little inch of the intrusion in his body like a jolt of electricity coursing over his skin.

But then Jayce stops, forehead creased with worry, and then he pulls out again almost completely, and Viktor wants to scream in frustration. He doesn't, he's better behaved than that, but it is a very near thing. Jayce doesn't care for his frustration, giving Viktor only little, pointed thrusts against his prostate. It's great, marvelous really, desire crawling all over his skin and into his muscles, stimulating every molecule until they swing in synchronisation with Jayce's. But Viktor wants more, he waited so fucking long for this, he needs Jayce's everything. Now.

“Ah, ah, ah - fuck, stop playing.”

Jayce's eyes find him and Viktor pulls all his remaining composure into an angry look that lets Jayce go all puppy-eyed and pouting.

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“You can't.”

“You don't know that. Viktor, please.” Jayce tells him, eyes full of worry, and Viktor knows on a rational level that Jayce could take his broad hands, wrap them around Viktor's body and break him in half in a heartbeat. But he wouldn't. He wouldn't. There is no reality where they would permanently hurt each other. Never.

“Do you trust me?” Viktor slings his arms around Jayce's hips, looking up into those round, worried eyes, with the self-assurance of a man so accustomed to pain Viktor knows that Jayce couldn't hurt him if he tried.

“Yes, always.”

On Jayce's next shallow thrust Viktor pulls Jayce forward with his arms and leg, impaling himself in one slick, long movement. The sound coming out of his mouth is borderline pornographic, but Jayce is so thick, so hot, around him, in him, holding on for dear life, fingers digging into Viktor's skin.

He feels Jayce's clothed legs against his naked ass and thighs, relishing the thought that he must ruin those fine, dress pants with the lube spreading. God, the way he wants to ruin Jayce are infinite, a boundless amount of reiterations, this just the beginning of an entirely different, even better partnership.

Jayce's fingers twitch impatiently - finally - against Viktor's thigh, breathing fast, eyes ripped open. They fall away from Viktor's face to Viktor's belly, like he expects to see the consequences of Viktor's action beneath his thin skin. He's not bulged, of course he isn't, but he does feel split open and filled to the brim. He can't help but huff either way, breathlessly groaning:

“You're not that big, you egotistical asshole.”

Jayce doesn't look up, but smirks, shrugging half a shoulder, before he grinds into Viktor, making him moan like a desperate beast in heat. Viktor moves with him, rolling his hips into it as best as he can without putting strain on his leg or his back. Jayce's hands pull, cock edging deeper, but still no movement and Viktor grows wild with it.

“I won't beg for it.” He snaps half-deliriously, riding the high of being so full his head swims with it, he barely notices Jayce's eyes flicking up with pure competitiveness written all over them.

Jayce leans over him, trapping his left leg between them, inching in deeper, grinding harder into it, until Viktor throws his head back in frustration. Viktor feels Jayce's lips sucking bruises into his skin, licking along his neck, biting his earlobe. A thousand points of contact, but still no movement. Desperately Viktor tries to move, to fuck himself if Jayce won't do it, but he is utterly trapped, bracket in by Jayce massive form.

The fire inside of him burns only hotter, melting beneath Jayce's insistent hands. God, the man knows how to handle heat and Viktor is burning up, his remaining brain cells melting out of his ears, at the way his hands do nothing to move Jayce. The rhythmic grind deep inside of him drives him crazy, hunger for more blazing hot, licking up his mouth, and pouring out into desperate moans.

“Jayce.”

“Yeah?”

“Jayce.”

“What do you want, Viktor?”

Viktor knows this is his fault, he shouldn't have taunted Jayce, but by now he doesn't care, doesn't mind his failing. Wants nothing less than everything. Who cares for propriety, for pride, in between the gentleness of their kisses is no room for such bourgeoise concepts, for such Piltover longings. He will beg, if he must.

“Wont you fuck me? Please?"

“Good boy.”

The praise slots into Viktor like sweet summer wine, dragged from the outer edges of Zaun, where the water of the coast meets the sewers of the undercity, desperate sunlight clinging to the water-logged cliffs.

The first real thrust punches the air from his lungs and the thoughts from his brain. Nothing but fullness, burning hot skin to fabric contact and the spit between their lips edges through to his consciousness. Has Viktor ever felt this out of bodily with other men? He doesn't think so, but he doesn't think much right at this moment at all.

Jayce.

Jayce.

Jayce.

He's everywhere, every part of Viktor's skin touched by him. Sweat pools in his clavicle where their bodies are pressed together, leg trapped in between them. Jayce's broad palm presses against his thigh, hiking it impossibly higher, sweat gathering in the fold of Viktor's knee. It's unreal, their bodies melting into one, burning hot, hammered into one piece by Jayce's hard thrusts. Viktor only understands that he chants Jayce's name when Jayce answers in kind.

“Viktor. Viktor. Fuck.”

Mouth wet and soft against Viktor's neck, pulling out moan after moan, Jayce is bruising the soft skin beneath his ear. Viktor might go insane, might actually lose his mind over how good he feels. How perfectly simple he is in Jayce's arms, reduced to the desire in his bones, pain and higher intellect just a far way afterthought.

Viktor’s orgasm is building fast, and he feels Jayce's cock in him pulse every time his muscles flex and tighten. It's near impossible to come once with his pain meds. Twice would practically be a miracle. And yet. And yet.

“Jayce. Jayce.” He whines, voice broken and rough, throat utterly wasted from the sounds escaping it. “I won't, god, I can't, I'm sorry.”

Jayce licks into his mouth again, pistons harder into him, faster. Viktor sobs with it, but he knows it will take more. So much more to make this happen. He shakes his head, eyes closed against the onslaught, begging his body for another release.

Viktor's so close to crying again. The frustration, the arousal and the desire cooking into a dangerous mixture in Viktor's stomach. But he doesn't, eyes clenched shut. Jayce kisses the side of Viktor's face, whispering something unintelligible and then he slips out, releasing Viktor's trapped leg from between them. It leaves Viktor horribly bereft and empty.

“If I flip the left one over your right leg, will that hurt you?”

“I'm always in pain.” Viktor scoffs, annoyed by the loss of stimulation.

“More than usual?”

“I won't break, do it.” Jayce's lips curl disapprovingly but then he flips it roughly over, turning Viktor's hips with the movement.

Jayce doesn't ask when he presses back in, one hand a few inches over Viktor's knees, the other in the crook of his waist. With Viktor's legs pressed firmly together, barely painful thanks to the pillows Jayce bedded his right on, the angle makes Viktor impossibly tighter. Jayce feels so big in him, hot and wet and massive, filling Viktor so well. There are a few experimental thrusts where Jayce tests and then adjusts like the scientist he is until one hits exactly the right spot, and something guttural spills out of Viktor's mouth. Jayce, that narcissistic peace of shit, huffs out a laugh and slips his hand from waist to belly, fingertips digging in.

“Does that feel good? Am I the best you ever had?” He thrusts hard, pushing the breath out of Viktor's already failing lungs and Viktor wants to slap him.

“Fuck you, Talis.”

“Mhm, is that a promise?” Jayce smirks and pistons into Viktor like it's not hard at all. An errant pearl of sweat at the side of his left brow is the only indication of any strain.

Viktor wants to spit in Jayce's vain face or his mouth or maybe both. Seriously, Viktor hates the fact that Jayce is right. Horribly, he is the best Viktor ever had. It's even worse that Viktor might never recover from this, every other guy fading into irrelevance against the beacon that is Jayce Talis.

When Jayce bends low Viktor can't help but lift his head in a desperate welcome. He opens his mouth to Jayce's searching tongue, offers himself up between desperate gasps for air and little ahahah’s.

Time and space stretches, bends and folds until Viktor cannot discern his body from Jayce's anymore. They move as one, every point of connection burning bright and fusing them together. Oxygen, spit, warmth and desperate moans shared between them, an abundance of feelings, swallowing Viktor whole. All through it Jayce leads and Viktor follows, mind going pleasantly quiet, somewhere far away where pain is only a vague concept drowned out by an all encompassing pleasure. Deeper, deeper, deeper and deeper until there is nothing but his molten core in Jayce's capable hands, hammering him into another shape until Viktor emerges reformed and rebuilt, body fully taken apart.

“Fuck, fuck, Viktor - I'm going - fuck,” Jayce's hand slips away from Viktor's waist to his face, wiping away the tears that Viktor didn't know have been rolling down his cheeks.

“You're so fucking beautiful.” Jayce's words reach him right in the vulnerable parts, in-between his ribs, sneaking into his heart and giving him that sharp edge of a blade reforged.

Their foreheads meet and Viktor might die, god he feels like he's about to burst, what is Jayce doing to him? It takes Viktor by surprise, when he does fall over the edge once more. His orgasm rolls over him, pulsing through him like a wave hitting the shores when Jayce's clothed thighs connect with his ass. Viktor feels Jayce fucking him through it, movements growing more and more erratic until he chants Viktor's name with every thrust. It's mind-shattering good when all of Jayce's body tenses, muscles locking up, eyes clenched shut, mouth open and outright drooling onto Viktor.

Viktor doesn't think there will be anything better in store on f+buddies in the future. But maybe it doesn't have to.

///

“Jayce?”

“Yes Viktor?” Jayce moves his head to the side, giving up on staring at the ceiling and trying to rearrange his brain cells into something akin to an intellect.

Viktor rolls on his side and into Jayce. He looks cozy and sleepy and entirely too kissable, with eyes as shining and as round as the sun itself. The dim light of the bedroom plays with the lines of Viktor’s face, filling the hollow under his sharp cheekbones with golden light, making him into some divine, ethereal being. The undercity might have shaped Viktor into who he is, but the gold of the Piltover gives his beauty an unique and irreplicable edge.

They should have printed Viktor on the Hex Tech advertisements and not Jayce. They should cling to every word that leaves those plush, rosy lips. They should carry Viktor on their hands through Piltover, because Jayce wouldn't be where he is without that naked genius right beside him.

“I would love a cigarette right now.” Viktor deadpans.

“You can blow me if you need something in your mouth that bad?” Jayce smirks, watching the golden eyes sharpen and if Viktor kisses him instead of killing him for his badly timed humor then Jayce won't ever complain about it.