Archive of Our Own

He was already there.

It's been a week since he last saw him— since he broke into his house, and it's strange he hadn't complained about the stolen crystals like he hoped he would —but it feels as he had never left, he a phantom his humanity liked to torture him with.

The Defender stands in the desert battlefield, one of the abandoned fabrics in the Fissures they use for this, fighting just an excuse, but they both pretend they don't know.

He's frowning, but it's not angry. He holds his Hammer, but it is with a relaxed grip. His leather armor is in perfect state, and it makes him look much fitter than he is, he notices.

All bark. All performance.

The Herald takes his place in front of him, sixteen feet away.

That is usually his queue.

He should start shouting now, about how he hates him, and how he's an abhorrent aberration that corrupts the weak minds of vulnerable people, a threat to humanity— Piltover —as a whole, and for that he must be punished, for that he must be killed.

He never does.

He doesn't move, either. He simply stands still, eyes fixated on him searching for something .

The silence is unnerving.

The Herald stares back, unsure what to do, fingers tight around his staff.

Even from a distance he can see his exhaustion. There's bags under his eyes and he can tell he hasn't shaved, an unkempt stubble coming in.

He's handsome like this, with his arrogant mouth shut.

The weight of the Hammer shifts to his right hand, the left coming up to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“I'm not doing this,” he speaks.

“Why have you come, then?”

His lips purse. He doesn't need to say it. It's all over his face. It's in the softness in his eyes and in the tilting of his brows. The Herald knows.

Jayce leaves.

Viktor waits one, two, three minutes, fifteen. Maybe thirty. Not an hour, surely.

The sun falls as he makes his way back home.

*

Viktor is not stupid.

He knows exactly what this is, this debilitating condition, this ache that can't quite find its footing and subsequently corrupts every corner of him, organic and artificial parts both rotten and corroded by this pain.

He should've installed that chip into his fucking cortex years ago.

He should do it now, then.

Just a pinch and it's gone— all gone, this affliction and the aching and the clutch it has around his heart. There's no honor in pain, there's no glory in suffering. He could get rid of this nuisance now, less than five minutes and it will never bother him ever again.

His hand shakes when holding the syringe. The fault of flesh, the inutility of muscle and bone, and after this is done his hand is next— he's cutting it up, replacing it for something that won't fail him when he needs it.

Metallic fingers grab onto it, then. They're steady and precise, a forever improving magnum opus. He aims the thin metal behind his ear, where the flesh is tender and the bone thin, to reach his temporal and end this— just fucking end this.

He grinds his teeth together, closes his eyes shut. He had torn every inch of his body apart, had stained his hands with the blood of his own insides and replaced the soft tissue with metal and he's still afraid. He's still a coward. He's still weak.

His hand is stuck, the mechanism jammed, or that's what he tells himself.

He can't—

The Hexclaw slams his head against the table, keeping him steady, because he was going to fucking do this. He wasn't thinking straight, he was letting his emotions get the better of him. He needs this, he needs to keep going, needs to get over it, needs to get his shit together and forget him—

He isn't doing this for him. He won't let that egotistical asshole put his name on his own doing again. Just a pinch and it's gone. Forever gone. All emotion gone, nothing to make him suffer, nothing to make him ache, and he will be whole without it.

The needle touches his skin.

A desperate animal wail makes the glass equipment in his lab shake.

He doesn't even register it's coming from his mouth. He doesn't register the diluted oil that stains his cheeks until he opens his eyes and finds the world blurry and dark, either.

This pain won't last, it's passing, it'll all end soon, he just needs to push— just needs to push it in—

He sobs and the plates that conform his throat rattle with anger.

He can't do this.

The metal hand falls dead over the desk with a clang. The Hexclaw eases its grip on his scalp.

He cries for the first time again, the first time he does since reborn in this better body. His chest doesn't shake with the force of it, he doesn't cough, he doesn't get lightheaded with the lack of air— it's just tears and snot and trembling organic fingers, and it doesn't feel genuine, it doesn't ease the pain.

These tears can't purify him.

And he's choosing this, he's choosing this endless pit of despair, suffering without fucking meaning— he can get rid of it, it's just a pinch, just a pinch.

He can't bring himself to it— taking the easy way out. He's never taken an easy way out— he needs to fight this, needs to conquer this remaining piece of himself, he can control it, surely, and there will be glory in the victory.

But he's a liar.

He's such a fucking liar.

He wants it .

He cries. It's loud and desperate.

' Viktor, I love you '.

He fucking wants it.

He sobs and wails over the desk like a wounded prey until he passes out, just another victim of humanity's cruelty.

In dreams there is softness, and for a moment he's young and full of hope again, a bright mind supported by a crumbling spine, a deformed knee and corrupted lungs. He is dying, but things are simpler.

Jayce still goes into the lab and shares his time with him, and they bicker until midnight at the temple of their creation, share ideas and brief kisses at their very own altar of science.

Jayce is still sweet. He still looks at him with those accursed puppy dog eyes, and he calls him his partner and his heart, not yet mechanical, not yet cold, flutters. 

They still don't know what the future holds, but it must be bright.

*

A clash.

It startles him, wakes him right up from his fantasies and forces him to face cruel, cold reality. There's a diluted oil stain under where his head laid. He wipes his face with a handkerchief, trying to rid himself of the disgusting feeling of tears and longing.

Another clash, and with it a curse.

He knows exactly who it is, and maybe that's why he finds it necessary to adjust the mask on his face before going down the stairs.

“Why are you here?” he keeps his composure even through this familiar ache, a phantom over metal organs it cannot reach.

The Defender of Tomorrow stands tall but unsure in his living room, his Hammer in a relaxed grip in his hands. The neatness in his appearance is dissonant with his surroundings, the broken husk of an almost haunted house repurposed and reformed, but bearing still the scars of abandonment and the undeniable marks of Zaun: the humidity, the pollution stains, the cracks.

There's a Piltie in his living room and the entire house growls with disgust.

Behind him the glass shards from the broken window are scattered on the floor. What a brute.

Jayce scoffs, but it doesn't feel entirely genuine “You know why.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You stole from my lab, V.” he frowns, but it's not angry. Annoyed, at best.

“Yeah. And what if I did? It's been a week. I've used them. I don't have them anymore. You're late.” he shows his empty palms, shrugging his shoulders “Besides, you let me.”

“I did not.”

“You did .”

The Defender blushes, and the Herald finds the sight amusing. His fingers fidget with the hammer in his hands and his eyes look away from him, gaze falling on any other corner of the decrepit structure. He used to do the same things years ago, when he would get nervous before talks with investors, before speeches, before council meetings.

He finds himself smiling at the thought.

He allows it, hidden behind his steel mask.

“My blueprints,” he starts again, voice harsh “Where are my blueprints?”

“Which ones?”

He frowns, but doesn't respond. After a few seconds, Viktor understands he just doesn't know.

“Jayce, why are you here?” he reiterates, calmer, crossing his arms over his chest.

He stands straight, but still keeps his silence. He's an idiot.

“You leave me on the battlefield. You show up to my house,” he starts, slowly walking his way towards him, and he can see a lovely scowl forming in his face, a pout in his mouth “Not even in armor, mind you. You break my window. You throw excuses at my face.” he stops before him, just close enough to force him to crane his neck upwards to see him “Answer me.”

“Can you not point your laser at me while we speak?”

“You first.”

He doesn't hesitate. He lets go of the Mercury Hammer, which falls with a loud bang onto the floor. Oh, he'll kill him one of these days, and when his hands are around his neck he won't think of getting banished or their fights, but the way in which his poor wood flooring suffers because of his stupidity.

He lowers the Hexclaw, his part of the deal.

He cocks his head.

Jayce sighs, and it sounds exhausted.

“Do you regret it?”

“What?”

“You know what I'm talking about,” but it's shock, not a misunderstanding “Do you regret it?”

“I'm not entertaining the ramblings of a drunk.” he dismisses, but he knows.

“I'm not drunk— I mean it. I meant what I said a week ago, too. I wish it had been in other circumstances, but—”

“Sure. And isn't it so convenient that in ten fucking years you gain clarity after sucking me off?” 

“I thought you hated me.”

“I do.” he lies, but, unlike Jayce, he's good at it.

“You don't .” he's stubborn “I know how you look at me, V— I saw it. You don't hate me. Not all of you.” 

His amber eyes are shiny, hopeful and loving.

He's always liked the sight of them— he had noticed them the other night, too, and they haunt his every silent moment since. 

They remain the same as in their Academy days, but the body that wields them (because a weapon so dangerous can only be wielded), in turn, had deteriorated. There's bags under his eyes, wrinkles that scar suffering across his face, stubble he doesn't care for anymore, grey highlights among black strands— but he used to have those, didn't he? From sleepless nights and stress.

And in his eyes there is a glimpse of that sweetness that was, that still is— battered and bruised, morphed and mutated, evolved, but still is.

He's grown older.

“You think too highly of yourself.”

Viktor's grown bitter.

“Why didn’t you ignore me, then? Why didn’t you leave me? Why didn’t you kill me?”

He recognizes the tone in his voice— soft and charming, with just a hint of that smile. He would rest a sure hand on his shoulder and lean in and speak lovingly into his ear: ' you should sleep ', ' don't overwork yourself ', ' take a break ', always a little insistence after, a little ' Viktor ' that would make him fold— not because he wanted to stop working, but because he wanted to be with him.

It always worked.

And he talks just like that— like he was just reminding him of something obvious (something he knows but willingly decides to ignore), and is just stalling and waiting for him to come to senses, to give in and accept that his' was the better option —but his voice is a little tainted, a little broken by the first hints of desperation.

“ Viktor, ” he pleads.

“Get out of here, Jayce.” 

He turns around and walks towards the stairs again.

Jayce will understand, eventually. He will get over it, in the end, when he finally accepts that this is him now— that he's irreversibly grown into something he despises, something he hates (or at least pretends to) —and maybe without this phantom of what they used to be they can finally live.

“Viktor, can we talk like fucking adults for once?” he raises his voice, but it's not angry.

He doesn't stop his steps, but it usually takes him far less to walk this distance.

“I love you.”

Ah, there it is.

It sounds good coming from his mouth. It always feels honest.

“And you love me, too, don't you?” but he keeps going, keeps going “Viktor?” 

There's a tug on the back of his loose, patched up sweater first. Two thick arms wrapped around his waist, then, a pretty face and a big body pressed against his back.

They don't keep him in place. He decides to stay still.

“I never stopped loving you.” he cries “I don't care about— your prosthetics, and your metal parts, and that fucked up Evolution thing. I love you. I miss you.”

The Hexclaw pets his hair. There's just a bit of sensibility there, in the fingertips, where he truly needs it, and through limited sensors he can feel his warmth.

“I want my partner back,” he sobs, and the force of it shakes his metal rib cage, every organ within it.

He's warm against the parts that still feel, and he soothes the ache that looms.

He lingers in his arms, where it's warm and painless and indecipherably safe.

He rests his organic hand over one of his, just to feel. He slips his fingers in between his' over the back of his larger hand. He draws circles on his tan skin, and only realizes halfway through.

How cruel, this desire, this desperate, merciless craving that grows in between metal plates and jams up unfeeling machinery, forces an unfeeling steel body to suffer. How cruel, how it slowly spreads, how it reaches him, how it infects them both.

“I can fix you.” he declares matter-of-factly. It would be just a pinch, just a pinch and he wouldn't have to drink himself to numbness. He could live without bearing the weight of what could've been upon his shoulders. Maybe he could even be just a scientist again, do what he was meant to do, what he's good at, instead of fighting him with fake hatred in his eyes.

“Just a pinch and it's gone. This senseless pain, these unnecessary feelings,” And he wouldn't look at him with those pretty amber eyes so full of hope and devotion ever again, but he would get over this, finally.

“Are you going to euthanize me?”

“No,” his hand moves, fingertips running over his strong forearm, studying the scars there. His whole body is riddled with scars. He wonders if he could recall them all. He wonders if he bears any that weren't dealt by his hand “It would save you.”

“If it isn't you, I don't want it.”

“Why?” he asks, his mouth working faster than his brain.

There's silence, then. Soft breathing through organic and metallic lungs. Him pressed to his back. And his house is still not entirely sure about the Piltie's presence. He isn't, either.

“You're the only thing that matters to me. You’ve always been.” he holds him closer, and his heart beat makes the metal plates on his back rattle. For a split second, he can pretend they share it “I don't think anything else can fix me.”

He presses kisses to his back he can only hear, a phantom of the pressure of his lips where his feeble body once was.

He's careful guiding the Hexclaw down the side of his face, feeling his temple and his ear with artificial fingertips, cupping his cheek with a metal hand hot with the heat of the machinery necessary to shoot a laser that can cut straight through flesh and bone.

Jayce leans into the touch.

“Viktor,” his voice loving and pleading, and he can feel it on his fingertips “Do you love me?”

He's stubborn, isn't he?

He's arrogant, too, and egotistical, and a fucking traitor. He's a flamboyant, hypocritical, self-absorbed asshole.

And he has aimed his Hammer at him, he has torn his body apart with it and his bare hands, he's broken bones and cables, smashed and bent steel, he has swung at him, hit him square in the chest, made him spill blood he didn't even remember having onto the pavement and he's made him almost, almost die.

That's the worst part— his mercy. His compassion and the look in his eye before a final blow he can never get himself to land, the horror in his face the few times he had thought he had actually done it, the quiet relief every time he gets up again.

It's different when it's him who holds his life on the line. When metal fingers begin to crash his throat, when the heat of a forming laser aimed for his face begins to stir up, when he takes off his mask because if he was killing him he was letting him know who did it, who he betrayed and banished, whose name he erased from their work, who hates him.

He smiles. In his eyes there's affection and relief, acceptance.

Viktor can't bring himself to kill him.

Is that love?

“Or have you... gotten that— the pinch?”

Maybe he should've. This would've been easier.

Bet he doesn't want it, does he? The easy way out.

He craves this, still, his touch on every part that can still feel, his sweet voice in his ear, his lips on his, even if it hurts to lack it, even if it serves no real purpose, even if he knows he will regret it, even if he knows he will just end up ruining him, again, in the end.

He wants this, this human suffering.

The house is quiet.

He's 46 and he was never quite supposed to make it this far.

He had imagined it different, the future.

He would die young but he would die happy, satisfied with what he had accomplished, and his partner would share a drink at his grave sometimes, but he would get over him, eventually.

He shouldn't be alive.

He isn't— not quite.

His heart only beats with a mechanical pump, and his lungs only breathe with an automatic system of vents and purifiers.

And yet humanity haunts him, angry that he managed to trick it, furious at his attempts to surpass it.

It claws at him, a virus that cannot be killed, that keeps mutating whenever he manages to fight it— a pain that lures him in with a pretty sight, a warm embrace, a tender voice that calls his name softly, lovingly, an almost perfect form wielding two sweet amber eyes until it makes him need it.

Tomorrow he will come to his senses.

He will plunge that syringe into his brain and he will purge this craving, but tonight, just for tonight, he will give in.

He will give in.

“I love you, Jayce.”

Tonight, just for tonight.

The mask drops to the floor with an unceremonious clang.

They both stay still for a few brief seconds.

His hands unwrap from his waist slowly, carefully. Viktor turns around in his loose hold.

He has the most beautiful amber eyes, shiny with forming tears, but from his lips pulls a bright smile.

“You do?”

He leans in and Jayce kisses him, the first time in ten years.

He's so gentle.

He can tell he's holding back, eager hands restrained by doubt, one on his cheek, the other feeling the shape of his waist.

It's hard to kiss him when he smiles, and he should probably be more bothered than he is to waste any second of this one last night of indulgence on his silliness, but he allows it. Just because it's him.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“I've missed you.”

“I know .”

He's crying again.

He doesn't remember him quite this sensitive. Maybe he's gotten sentimental, with age. Maybe he has, too.

They kiss again. He's warm against his face, a calloused thumb tracing the shape of his cheekbone. He wonders if he can taste metal, when he urges his tongue in. He wonders how many people he's kissed since the last time. He wonders how many suitors had gotten into his bed. He wonders if his name had ever escaped his lips in a moment of rapture, the same as it had happened to him. 

He needs to feel him— just one last time, before they start trying to kill each other again.

An organic hand on his jaw, caressing the coarse stubble there, traveling down to his neck, going under his jacket and his shirt to feel the tan skin of a body that runs way too hot. Metal sneaks under the fabric to reach his gut, limited sensors taking in the tensing of his muscles, the softness of his body.

“Sorry, I— I'm not quite what I used to be, I...” he tries to justify himself, as if he hadn't seen him, all of him, just a week ago and wanted him all the same.

He shuts him up with another kiss, hand going upwards, exploring more of him. He's prettier when he's quiet, either way.

His body is pliant under artificial fingers. He can tell this is embarrassing for him— the growing heat in his face, his panting against his lips —and it makes him want it more. He cups his chest, the muscle firm and flesh tender on his hand, and squeezes.

Jayce moans in his mouth and it makes his whole ribcage vibrate deliciously.

“Take it off.” he commands, and he's eager, pulling the shirt and jacket off his body like they burned , throwing himself back at him like any second apart hurt.

It's so amusing to see how easily he melts in his hands, how every touch makes him whimper, how he hums when his fingertips trace a scar, how his lips beg and search for his every time a moan breaks them apart— all while his palms sneak under his clothing, exploring the skin of his stomach, gentle fingers discovering metal ribs, steel hip bones.

The feeling is familiar, so very familiar, those large warm hands wrapping around him a sensation that used to be normal before their caresses turned to clawing, their grasping to seizing, tracing to cutting, kissing to breaking, marking to scarring— before they lost their gentleness. He can't help the way his breath catches on metallic lungs, how he leans his reworked spine into the touch, how his brain demands more, more.

“Jayce,” a whisper against his lips and his eyes on his, ready to follow his every order “Let's go to my room.”

Up the stairs, through the hallway, like two lab partners fearing getting caught sharing a room, sleeping at Jayce's apartment because it was 'more convenient', locking the door of the lab because they needed focus.

They walk past the entrance to his lab, and he doesn't know it, but tomorrow he will come to his senses and forget all about him— just a pinch and this will all be gone, this ache, this need, this excitement, and he won't bother him ever again.

But tonight, just tonight, they go into his room.

It's messy.

He hadn't stepped in here in ages— he doesn't need to, when falling asleep at his desk won't make his back hurt anymore.

“ Viktor ,” and it's a plea, hands on the loose fabric getting slightly caught on bolts and hinges, and tonight he is merciful.

His hands undress him with hardly contained need, fingertips feeling the revealed mix of skin and steel, his hot breath against his stomach as he kneels, lips gracing over bionic legs, fingers curiously playing with the screws on the sides of his knee, the vulnerable cables at the back of it, the expression in his face slowly morphing into one of focus, caught in a trance exploring his machinery.

He's handsome like this.

On his knees, shirtless, with eyes narrow and a little frown observing all the little intricacies of his life's work, he the only man in all of Runeterra that could truly appreciate and understand the systems that operate him, the brightest mind hidden behind a glamorous façade, a scientist at war, an unwilling symbol.

He would let him study him for hours.

He would let those calloused hands handle him the same way he does his Hammer, would teach him all he wanted to know, would show him the ins and outs of this man-made body just as long as he marvels at him with that pretty glint in his eye.

Heat pools at the bottom of his stomach just thinking about it.

But he shouldn't share information with the enemy.

“Jayce,” he hooks his chin in between his pointer and his thumb, lifting his face to look at him “Fuck me, will you?”

His eyes open wide, shocked but undoubtedly wanting, following the hand that guides him to stand, to climb on the bed with him, to crawl atop his laying form, to slip his thick, muscular leg in between prosthetic ones, to kiss him again and again, gentle and sweet.

It's almost wrong to have that big body on top of him without his hands around his neck to match, to reach out and touch hot skin without wrestling on the floor like animals.

Tan fingers rest on his stomach. A pale hand leads them downwards, down the middle of his body, urging the shy digits to touch him how he knows how to touch him.

He spreads his folds gently, slipping two fingers just against his entrance, slick-coated fingertips drawing torturously slow circles on his dick with almost reverence.

The vents on his neck hum contently.

“Take your pants off.” he commands softly, robotic fingers hooked against the elastic.

“You don't have to—”

“I want to.”

“No, it's—” he looks away. He's mortified and he looks positively adorable “I don't know if I can— I think it's the alcohol, alright? It's not you .”

“What are you talking about?”

Silence.

“Don't you have a strap-on or something?” he chuckles nervously.

Oh.

“Take your pants off.”

He does as he's told, but can't look him in the eye.

He's well endowed, the asshole, and he's going to get him hard if it's the last fucking thing he does. If he wanted to be stuffed full of silicone he would be— but he wants him and that thick cock of his, he wants to be so full he can't breathe, so full of him he can't think of anything else. He hasn't kept his cunt biological and intact for ten years just to not be able to feel him when he finally has the chance, just this one last time.

Organic fingers wet themselves with the slick on his hole before reaching back up to handle him, stroking up and down, pulling the foreskin back, his thumb over the pretty pink tip.

He whimpers on his ear like a dog.

“Keep touching me, Jayce.”

A thick finger presses against his entrance, and he obediently waits for an agreeing hum to push in, tentatively prodding against the walls softly tightening around it.

“Another one,” he gasps, his wrist forever in motion, slow movements on the soft shaft.

The stretch stings just a bit, but it feels good when they reach deeper, forcing his insides to accommodate their size as his hole flutters.

It had been a while since he's fucked himself. He just doesn't have the time nor the energy to confront why the mechanical part is not enough— why he can only get wet when he pictures him (young and full of hope, at first, the Defender of Tomorrow, as time went on), why he can only cum when he convinces himself the fingers inside him are his (but his aren't so big, so it's never enough, never enough), when he fantasizes that it's his cock stuffing him (and all his toys are his size, but nothing feels as good). 

Fingers curl right against that spot and he moans.

He doesn't need to order him. He's already fucking his fingers in and out him, aiming for that bundle of nerves that makes his eyelids flatter shut, his hips rock to meet him in the middle.

With every slow but rough thrust there's a wet squelch that ricochets on the four corners of the room and mixes with panting, censored moaning and the constant buzzing of his neck vents. It's obscene and loud, but all he can hear is that sweet voice in his ear praying in mumbled whispers “I love you, V, I love you.” 

His wrist keeps going, up and down and up and down, fighting through the haziness in his brain just to uselessly try to pleasure him.

Metal fingers reach for his own core, substituting his mortal enemy's, plunging unfeeling digits into himself just for some of that wet slick.

“Keep going.” a soft order in his ear, accompanied by a kiss to his burning cheek. He can feel his entire body shiver over him as his silicone sensors grace against his rim, a small whine censored on the bedsheets by his head “Easy, Defender.”

“Don't call me that” his fingers fuck into him again, just a bit faster.

“What should I call you, then?”

“Yours,” he whines, steel entering him easily, curling inside him, drilling into him mechanically, mercilessly.

“Mine.” he indulges, his dick softly twitching in his hand.

Viktor can't feel his own fingers. He just pushes them in till the last joint, poor touch trying to make him feel good the same way his thick fingers do.

His thumb grinds against his cock roughly, pressing down and playing with the pink tip just above the hole he fucks into, and Viktor can do little more than whine and speed up the hand tugging at his dick, slowly but surely hardening in his grasp.

It starts with his forehead, a kiss, another, down his temple, his cheek, his ear, and tomorrow he will crush his own skull to get that syringe in but tonight Jayce kisses the spot, so lovingly, so dearly.

It's all so gentle— the adoration in his lips, the dedication in his hands, his voice mumbling “I love you, mi vida .”— and he doesn't know this is the last time, but it's perfect.

He doesn't need to know.

He would start crying, begging for him not to, for another chance, because of course he would make this about him, the egotistical asshole. He would promise that he could fix it, as if he had ever managed to fix anything. He would speak a little ' Viktor ' and he would give in, because he knows himself.

A sweet mouth parts from his skin, and two amber stars above him stare at him like he could just tell by the look in his eye that this is something special. Through the pleasure carved into his expression he smiles at him, a little whine singing through the little gap in between his front teeth, before bringing his lips to his, celebrating an end he's blissfully ignorant to, peppering kisses across a face that, after tonight, will stay forever hidden under steel.

This won't mean anything tomorrow.

This will not hurt, he will have no time to regret this. 

He clings to that.

“Jayce,” he heaves “I need you inside me.” he tugs, fingers tight around his half hard shaft.

Thick fingers slide out of him with a soft, wet pop “Do you have any protection? I didn't—”

“Raw.” his hips lift off the bed, an invitation “I'm clean. I can't get pregnant. Just fuck me”

He's obedient.

He wonders if he is the same with the other people he's fucked. He bets he isn't, the proud asshole. He bets he tops every single time. He bets he stumbles over his words when they ask him to talk dirty. He bets he'd be mortified if the public knew the Defender of Tomorrow likes it in the ass. He bets he keeps up the act, even in bed.

But Jayce is wrapped around his finger. 

Tonight he's his.

All his.

Just for tonight.

Free hands hook around a strong neck, letting him work the details— positioning himself in between his legs, laying a meager pillow under a metal coccyx, carefully resting heavy bionic limbs over thick tan thighs. 

“I love you.”

Fuck.

The stretch hurts .

And he's only half hard. How did he take this every fucking week? Shit, no wonder he had to end up using a crutch.

“You're so tight, V.”

No shit. His cunt is fighting for its life— that thing could be a fucking murder weapon and it keeps getting deeper, deeper, breaking into him, filling him up all the way, and he's sure if he buries himself to the hilt his tip could reach metal.

Jayce whines praises in his ear, but Viktor can only gasp, silent mouth open in the shape of an O, mind still processing everything, regretting rushing this but fuck, he wants this, he’s going to get this, just one last time.

The cockhead reaches the bottom and he feels like he's going to split in two.

“Stay there.”

“Does it hurt?”

A little late to ask “Just stay.”

Kisses, more kisses, and they can almost distract him from the feeling of being impaled by his cock for the first time in ten years and feeling like he might just break. He can feel him throb inside him, getting harder, and he can only squeeze around him as that fat dick molds his insides to its shape.

“Pull out.” he tries to keep his composure, but it fucking hurts.

A squelch, a pop and he's so terribly hollow, walls gaping around nothing, his cock resting over his slit, the thick shaft, red and angry and covered in slick, nudging against his pink dick, standing up straight as if just to meet his.

Apologies spill from his lips by the dozens, but Viktor doesn't entertain his wallowing. It's astonishing how that man could only apologize too much or too little, no in between and never the right amount.

“Shut up,” and he does.

Flesh and silicone fingers cling onto his back, the weight of a metal body bringing him just the bit down, just the bit closer to him.

His legs are steel, but his hips remain mostly organic— the nerves that control their muscles mostly untouched, their movement improved by a spine that actually works like it's supposed to, better than, even. He almost can't help the way they rock against his shaft, awkwardly searching for friction against the member that just left his hole aching. Slender fingers sneak between the two bodies to help his need, pressing his hard dick against his, keeping it still as his folds climb him, sensitive tips touching.

A moan gets him out of his trance, and he raises his gaze from the point where their bodies almost connect to look at the pretty way in which pleasure twists his face, the soft dim orange light coming from him giving his eyes a warm honey color. Their eyes meet, and his lips after, just because he couldn't manage to keep his mouth off of him.

Large hands bring his hips forward, hipbones clashing and his cock pressed tightly against his folds, and bionic legs hook on the small of his back trying to hold him impossibly closer. His first thrust is careful. The second gentle. The third soft and desperate, and Viktor joins in, too, and it's all little whines and gasps, moans and wet sounds and needy humping..

“You're so big,” he speaks against his mouth.

“Sorry, amor ,” and Viktor has to admit, he likes the nicknames.

“I still want you inside me,” he lifts his hips, letting his tip drag over his entrance before coming back down “To fill me up good.”

He doesn't need to answer. His cock is already throbbing against his core like it's aching for it.

His large hand in between them, and two of his thick fingers slip inside him again easily, his girth just softly rubbing against his dick. His brows knit in concentration as his digits open and close inside him, slow scissoring motions preparing him to take it, and Viktor can only focus on him.

On the wrinkles on the sides of his eyes, the smile lines on the sides of his nose, the lines on his forehead, his softer, bigger body, and his muscles and his gut and his thick arms. When he kisses him again it almost feels like he knows he's staring, but doesn't have the courage to tell him to stop. Instead, his lips travel down to his neck, all perfect vents and ordered cables inside their casings, taking away both his pretty view and the feeling of his mouth on him.

And it's just him.

And oh, thank God tomorrow this will stop.

Tomorrow this won't matter, and he won't even have the capability to regret this. This won't haunt him every waking hour, he won't spend any more time cursing his weakness— not being able to resist his sweet little nothings, letting him back in, giving in to this ephemeral pleasure.

And after tonight, he will be perfect— or he will start to be. He will get rid of all these faulty, weak organic parts and substitute pale skin for cold steel, and he won't cross his mind. His hand won't falter when cutting at his face, wondering if he will recognize it. He will remember his lips on the moles on his abdomen, but they won't stop his vision. And in his palm will forever remain the phantom of a warm cheek, but he won't put a face to it, and his fingers will never shake again from fear, from anger, from weakness.

This craving will stop, finally, this debilitating condition, this chronic pain will be gone, and he will be able to live.

And Jayce will get over him, eventually.

Surely.

Probably .

Tomorrow this won't matter.

He will not be able to regret this, whatever it may cause, whatever it may do to him.

This won't matter.

He clings to that.

He has to cling to that.

“Jayce,” and he's not too sure why he's whispering, when it's just the two of them “Come here.”

Kissing him feels cruel, but he doesn't want to keep thinking. He wants him, and he wants to get so drunk off of his sickly sweet affection his mind goes blank one last time.

He chuckles “You'll never quite let me kiss your augmentations, will you?”

“I can't feel it.” he reminds him “It's useless.” 

“I'm going to put some sensors on you,” he kisses his cheek “Make you able to.”

Another finger pushes in. Three thick digits inside him fighting the tightness of his walls.

It feels good. He's so gentle.

“Fuck me, Jayce.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mmh.”

He gets a little straighter, getting his fingers out, aligning the tip with his entrance.

He takes a sharp breath in.

He pushes in.

It stings, but it's better.

He rests his hands on his back again, fingers slightly digging into scarred tan skin as he got deeper, deeper, and forced his insides open.

“You feel so good, V.”

He can feel his cock throb inside him. He tries to squeeze back. His stretched out walls can only do so much, but Jayce whimpers all the same.

He lets his eyes close as he bottoms out, the head reaching his core gently, his girth so close to breaking him.

He stops there for a moment, peppering kisses on his cheek, and Viktor basks in the feeling of being so completely whole his brain couldn't function properly. His hips rock against him, and just the smallest amount of friction makes them both gasp. Fuck, and he used to take this dick almost daily when he was younger. He was such a fucking slut.

“Move.”

He's careful.

The drag against his walls is delicious. It slides out easily, pushes back with a bit more difficulty, his cunt tightening around him as if it just craved the feeling of being broken into.

Jayce pants and moans in his ear like it was his first time getting pussy in years. He's always been loud, way too fucking loud, but Viktor loves it.

A soft thrust makes him gasp, eyes coming up to find amber stars focused on his expression. Oh, he's adorable.

“A bit deeper” he guides him through gentle whispers “Upwards” he angles his hips to help him, a nice heat going through him as his head grazed against that spot “Yes, there”

He tries to take it slow, at first, giving them both space to writhe and moan for every stroke against that sensitive bundle of nerves and every affirming squeeze, but it's amusing to see just how quickly he loosens up the exact moment he realizes he's not hurting him (and it still burns a bit, but the ache easily gets forgotten when having his cock stuffing him inside).

His hands on each side of his hips keep him nice and steady as he fucks into him, forever aiming for that good spot that makes his walls tighten around his girth, his eyes roll back, his fingers dig into his back.

And in his ear that constant “I love you, V, I love you,” he won't stop praying, even with a throat hoarse with pleasure and moaning. He shuts him up with a kiss. It feels cruel to listen to it.

His large hand rests on his abdomen, tan skin over pale eclipsing the brief glimpses of organic flesh that remained, a calloused thumb coming down to stroke him, playing with his cock torturously slow and easing the way for the thick dick pounding into him.

His spine awkwardly arches off the bed into his touch, metal vertebrae clinking and grating together. He cringes at the feeling a second before a low whine escapes his mouth, a pleasant heat pooling at the bottom of his stomach, right under Jayce's palm.

“Is it good?” he presses his forehead to his, every word spoken like a kiss against his lips, and he's not sure where his mouth ends and his begins “So good.”

Silicone fingertips follow down a straight spine to sink inside him again, a pretty moan broken from his throat, sweet little whimpers every time his hips rocked, caught between his cunt and his fingers. He slows down, thighs shaking, his tip dragging against his walls so deliciously.

“Fuck, V.” 

And it's been a decade, but he praises “Good boy,” and his dick still throbs inside him, hips stuttering for a moment before picking up with a little more speed.

He's so easy.

And he's his, all his.

“Don't stop your hand.”

He's not rough but passionate as he rams into him. It's strange, this softness, this fixation he has with kissing him, this underlying love on every move.

He had imagined it different— because he had imagined it, repeatedly, much as he hated to admit it, every time he and his tight fitting jeans featured on the papers, which was both way too often and never as much as he'd like —, rough and aggressive, clawing and biting and pulling, choking, way too much choking.

But this was good, too. Maybe this was a better last time than another fight they don't mean.

His palm presses on his lower stomach, just some support to speed up his thumb, pushing down that sensitive spot right against his tip. Viktor can't help his gasp, the cruel clenching of his muscles, the rocking of his hips trying to get him to rub there, right there again, but he won't stop thrusting.

“Stop,” he whines “No, inside,” Viktor briefly marvels at the sight and feeling of being impaled, a little shock getting him out of his trance “There. And keep— your hand going. Yes, fuck.”

What a pretty little thing, following his every order.

“Good boy,” he praises, and he looks so ashamed to enjoy it it makes him want to say it at every fucking chance.

His hips rock slowly against him, dragging that sweet bundle of nerves against his cock, every involuntary squeeze making him twitch inside him. An affirmative whine escapes his lips when his hand applies more pressure on his stomach, as if he just got it .

Jayce picks up again and he gasps, short coy thrusts abusing that spot lovingly, thumb pressing down cruelly on his dick to let him grind against it, and all the while two amber eyes fixated on his face, wordlessly asking ' Is it good? Does it feel good? Am I doing this okay? '.

He kisses him, just because he's afraid to mess up his words with the way every single thrust seems to break another neuron connection in his brain.

It feels so good he can’t quite think.

The thick head kissing that nice spot that makes his few remaining muscles tremble.

And his thumb, getting him so fucking wet and pliant just to take it .

And he's so full— he's so big and it feels so good to have the real thing inside him he could almost cry.

It feels so good.

Heat pools at the bottom of his gut, right between his hand and his cock.

Usually, when he’s close, when his brain starts malfunctioning, it gets hard to imagine.

But tonight he can just look up, and two pretty amber eyes stare back.

And even his lips feel real.

God, he misses him.

Janna, he misses him.

Jayce swallows the moan that breaks through his throat, metal plates rattling with pleasure.

His hips buck upwards and all that is left of his old body tenses, cunt spasming around Jayce.

He's short circuiting, legs locking behind his back, hand jammed in the repetitive motion, heart pumping faster, harder, his system scrambling to do maintenance and reboot a body that's suddenly not working how it’s supposed to.

His brain is still mush and his body is still not quite right, still throbbing when he whines “Cum— in me.”

He rams into him with passion, buries himself down to the hilt and makes him whole, finally whole.

He takes him, him and his kisses, brief and sloppy, the gentle touch of large hands, in his ear that prayer, again, mumbled under the slap of skin on skin, his heart pump, his ventilation system, the moaning, his mind filled with nothing but Jayce, Jayce, Jayce.

There's a disconnection, then.

His brain shuts down and he is left corporeal, all feeling, all touch, no coherent thought left to voice but this craving, this desire, this ecstasy.

“Jayce,” and he says it just to feel how the air flows out of his mouth, the sweet way his name weighs on his tongue “Jayce, Jayce.”

Kisses to his cheek, his hot breathing against it, a hand on his hip digging its fingers on his flesh and his girth pounding into him, opening him, filling him up, making him whole, finally, whole.

“I'm going to— V, I'm gonna—” he whines but he can't process it. He's left with the sound of it, with the way it feels against his skin, and it's gentle and desperate.

“Jayce,” and his cognitive abilities are coming back, slowly, lazily, but he can't quite control his mouth— not that he really tries “I love you, Jayce.”

His tongue in his mouth, the vibrations of his moan making metal shake down to his rib cage.

The first thing he processes is that warmth— him spilling while buried deep inside, and it feels too much, it feels like he is going to break.

His hips lazily rock into him, dick twitching as he gets through his orgasm, and Viktor gives him soft, affirming squeezes, indulging him, carrying him into this tired bliss his mind is already slipping into.

It's quiet, then.

Just soft panting, catching their breaths, the sound of bodies disconnecting, of robotic limbs regaining movement. A soft thud, Jayce's body over his, and he holds him there, his weight unable to bend metallic ribs, to interfere with steel lungs. He somehow likes it, his mass pinning him to the bed.

After a few brief moments his voice, a weak “Shit, sorry,” and he's tragically rolling off of him onto the mattress, by his side. Viktor lays on his side, too, following him, but it's Jayce who reaches to hug him, pressing an organic heart to a metal pump.

In this stillness there is calm.

Just that sound, that gentle beat ricocheting against the walls, and Jayce's body pressed to his, thick arms around him, his face buried on his shoulder. He rests his hands on his back, just to feel, tracing the scars there, softly rubbing his muscles, palms and fingertips trying to catch all they could of his warm skin. He lets his eyes close shut as he nuzzles his cheek against his hair, as that softness escapes him, as it’s replaced by a kiss to his cheek, first, to the mole under his eye, second. 

His operative systems reactivate one by one, slowly regaining each part of himself that keeps him up and running, but when all is back to normal all that's brought forth is that hollowness in his core, his cunt aching, abused and gaping, his seed slowly oozing out.

He lazily, unwillingly untangles himself from him and this bliss. He needs to go to the bathroom and take care of the mess he left him with— the one he asked him to make —and then they can keep going, after that. At least these legs can't fail him on his way.

His steps sound heavy upon the wooden floor. There's still that beat in the room. The quiet shuffling of bedsheets. Soft breaths.

He opens the door, meeting with the sight of his lab's, behind which an oil stained desk and a miraculous syringe still awaited him.

Right.

“V.”

They can't keep doing this, can they?

He can't keep allowing himself this, this indulgence in this unnecessary craving, this senseless pain, these ties that hold him back, this addicting virus that claws its way into his brain again. What if he says he loves him? He had promised him the same years ago— what did that amount to? 

The banishing, taking his name out of every fucking project, the fighting, the look of disgust— fucking disgust —in his face when he found him fixing his own lungs because he loved him but never enough to go against the Academy, never enough to fix him, never enough to fucking save him.

And never enough to understand him, truly, understand him. He kisses his augmentation, but will he praise the robotic bodies he's designed? The lives he's changed? The perfect systems he's designed with fucking scrap just trying to save the Zaunite lives Piltover doesn't give a shit about? Will he just stare at him with that disgust again, just like he did before smashing his old lab to pieces?

He looks back, at the naked form of the Defender of Tomorrow upon his mattress, shiny, hopeful, loving amber eyes staring at him. He's beautiful like this, he always is, with the soft pale moonlight painting the fullness of his face and every line on it with gentle strokes.

“You'll come back, right?”

He's just pushing him back.

He doesn't share his vision, he never will.

This will just end up in another fight.

He loves him, but he can't keep doing this.

Tomorrow he won't regret this.

He won't miss this.

He won't be able to.

It will be just a pinch.

“ Viktor ?”