Chapter Text
Jayce barely makes it home before he's got his hand between his legs. He closes the door to his apartment behind himself and kicks off his shoes and coat, loosing his tie from around his neck as he moves with purpose toward the bathroom.
As soon as he's slipped his underwear from his body he's touching himself, braced against the sink as the shower heats behind him.
“Everyone else does not know what you sound like when you come.”
That really shouldn't have gotten him worked up like this. The way it had come out - sharp and snarky. The insinuation that Viktor has thought about the sounds he makes. The tilt of his jaw as his mouth moved around the words, then the way he'd slapped a hand over his mouth, flush blooming over his entire face. So similar to how he'd looked that night.
“I'm - fuck, I'm close.”
Jayce should talk to Heimerdinger, get Viktor a reassignment.
“Your turn. How would you like me to make you come?”
He should tell Viktor that that was inappropriate. An inexcusable overstep. That he has to treat Jayce with respect. That they're working together as partners in this project.
“You want to be good, don't you?”
God. He wants him.
He pushes away from the sink and steps into the shower, pressing his forehead against the wall as he gives in to his imagination.
He pictures what could've happened if he'd have stayed; Viktor muttering another apology even as Jayce had tugged his hand from his mouth, Jayce telling him that if he's thinking about it enough to bring it up maybe he deserves to hear it a second time. Viktor realising. Viktor pushing him against the nearest clear surface and growling at him, telling him he's been thinking about this the entire time. That every single moment of frustration between them he wished he could shut Jayce up with his cock between his lips and his slick over his beard.
Jayce comes embarrassingly quickly from that thought. His thighs tremble and threaten to give out from under him as he works himself to the point of discomfort. He sighs against the tile, feeling the well deserved guilt of the fantasy settle in his chest. He finishes his shower with little fanfare and towels off with even less, too ashamed with himself to risk remaining in the bathroom long enough for the steam to clear from the mirror to avoid having to look himself in the eye.
He really should talk to someone. Let them know about his and Viktor's history. He should've done it when he started the course. But instead, he unlocks his phone and clicks on Viktor's contact. He'd deleted all the messages, but had convinced himself that he may need his number at some point. His fingers hover over the keys on the screen right as his phone pings and a message appears in the blank chat right in front of him.
V: I'm sorry for texting you, but I wanted to apologise for earlier. I should not have said that; my mouth moved faster than my brain, which I know is not an excuse. I was not trying to make you feel uncomfortable at all, but I know I will have. I am going to explain my misconduct to Heimerdinger and will not mention anything related to our dalliance prior to the start of the course.
You: don't tell heimerdinger
Jayce's fingers are moving before he's finished the thought. Beyond the anxiety at the forefront of his mind, he thinks that of course Viktor would use proper pronunciation in a text.
V: Are you certain?
You: he'll kick you out
V: I know. I expect this
You: you said something stupid, you don't need to leave the university
V: i made an incredibly inappropriate sexual comment about you.
You: we had sex and we haven't talked about it properly since. i get it. ive thought about it too
He goes to delete that last line and clicks enter instead, a cold flush running through him when he realises his mistake.
V: it complicates things that we are both thinking about it doesn't it
Jayce can't think of a response. His thumbs hover shakily over the letters on screen. His heart beats a mile a minute.
V: i am at the bar if you would like to talk about this more properly. i owe you a drink
Oh, this is an atrocious idea.
You: i can be there in an hour
The bar is far less packed than it had been the last time he was here, which makes sense, but means that he doesn't have the excuse of not spotting Viktor to get over the anxiety of seeing him sat at the bar.
He's in the same spot he was the last time, in a drastically different outfit; smart, dark, well fitting night attire replaced by the now familiar browns of his daily wardrobe. A light cardigan over a darker shirt and a pair of loose trousers.
When Jayce had spotted him at the bar the first time, the night they met, he'd done what must've been to onlookers a slightly comedic double take. He'd thought ‘oh, he's cute’ and let his eyes continue absently, before catching up to his mind and backpedaling to take him in fully. At that point, Viktor had been deep in conversation with a man that seemed to not understand that the man in front of him was the most beautiful person in the room.
Jayce is aware of his obsessive nature. It’s what has gotten him to this point, but it is not without its drawbacks. His university career was all someone needed to see to know that; he'd managed a lower Second during his Bachelor's, with grades that ranged wildly from barely passing to top of his class, depending on how closely the work required fit his interest. But, regardless of that, with Heimerdinger’s help and the ridiculously high grade he'd received for his dissertation, he'd been able to score a funded PhD only a year out from graduation. The way he had felt watching Viktor, trying to build the confidence to go over and talk to him, was dangerously similar to how that had been; single minded, everything else fading into the background and falling to the wayside, the rest of the bar nothing compared to the man in front of him.
In the present, Viktor has noticed him and is offering a greeting in the form of a stationary hand in the air, which Jayce stiltedly returns. His legs carry him over to the stool beside Viktor, and he sits, careful not to knock any part of them against the other. The only thing that stops him from pushing his seat as far from Viktor as is socially acceptable is that the stools are affixed to the floor.
“Hello.” Viktor greets him. He sounds… resigned, almost. There's a ruddiness to his cheeks that betrays that he has had at least one drink within the last hour.
“Hi.”
“Thank you for meeting me.”
“Thank you for asking.”
There's an awkward moment between them as Jayce orders a drink and waits for it to pour where he's not sure if they should continue to talk, but then his drink is in front of him and Viktor has told the bar staff to put it on his tab, and they're left alone in a far worse anticipation. One that raises hairs on the back of Jayce's neck. He takes a breath and wraps his hand around his glass.
“I-”
“You-”
They speak in tandem, looking at each other with mirrored surprise. Then Viktor huffs a light laugh and gestures for Jayce to go first.
“You were going to talk to Heimerdinger.”
Viktor takes one deep breath in and releases it slowly, pointer finger tapping against the bartop.
“We had an agreement to maintain a professional relationship. I broke that agreement, and it is only fair to both of us that I discuss this through the proper channels.” He sighs. His finger stills. “And beyond even that, I have been rude to you. I know you have only been doing your job, and I have been taking it incredibly personally.”
“I may have… been a bit harsh with you.” Jayce admits back. “Pedantic.”
Viktor shrugs. “I can be the same.”
There's another drawn out moment, and Jayce steels himself to ask the thing that's been on his mind since he received the text.
“You've thought about it, then?”
“Hm? Ah, I - it is hard not to, when we are constantly around each other.”
Jayce makes a noise of agreement and sips his drink. “We don't really have a lot of other touch points together.”
“Which is why I will tell Heimerdinger about my actions, and we will not have to work together again.”
“I don't want you to, Viktor.” Jayce is surprised at his own honesty, the way it slips off his tongue without thought.
Viktor looks at him. His hair is loose over his shoulders. It looks like it could do with a brush. Jayce knows he's run his fingers through before, but he can't remember the sensation.
“What do you propose then? If we have both been -” the sentence catches on its way out, “- if we have both thought about it? And we do not have any other common ground?”
“We talk.”
“Talk.” Viktor doesn't sound convinced.
“Last time I was in this bar, a guy told me the worst way to hit on someone was to tell them about yourself.” Jayce shrugs. “But we're not hitting on each other. Let's start over.”
“Start over?”
Jayce is barely half a drink in, but his head is swimming like he's had six as he holds out his hand dumbly between them. An olive branch that feels more like a leafless twig the longer it sits there.
“I'm Jayce. Talis. I'm a Lecturer of Biomechanical Engineering and Neuroscience at Piltover Academy, with a specialism in adaptive technology and cybernetics.”
Viktor looks down at his hand, something tumultuous swimming in his eyes in the low light. And then he huffs and takes it. Jayce barely hears him say his full name, occupied as his mind is with the feeling of Viktor's palm on his.
“- student of Biomechanical Engineering.” He squeezes Jayce's hand once before releasing it. “Nice to meet you, Jayce.”
“And you, Viktor.” Jayce realises he's still holding his hand up, keeping his olive branch outstretched now that the leaves have sprouted. “So, ah, what made you pick Biomechanics?”
Viktor tilts his head and regards him curiously, as though he's still wary of the conversation. “I have enjoyed mechanics since I was a child. I feel as though there is more we could be doing in the realm of assistive technology that follows biological blueprints. Things that build on the body.”
“And that's what your thesis is?”
“This feels more like an interrogation than a conversation.” Viktor tells him. The tilt of his head though has become more relaxed, the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Right. I'm sorry. Did you have one for me?”
Viktor taps the bar again, noise dulled by the sticky surface.
“Why teaching?”
“It's where the research is.” Jayce answers honestly. “I want to… keep creating. It's hard to find a job that allows that on your terms. Sure, at the Academy I have to plan classes and student projects and a million other things, but I also get to work on what I want to. Less for-profit than most other jobs.”
“And your focus is prosthetics?”
Jayce sucks his lower lip into his mouth and worries at it as he thinks on how to respond. He's told the story a million times, but not usually to just a man at a bar.
But this isn't just a man at a bar, even if they're pretending otherwise.
“When I was a kid my mom lost three fingers on her right hand.” He says. “She had to relearn pretty much everything; writing, cooking, driving. Even once she was given a prosthesis, she had to rely on her sight rather than feel for things she used to do with no issue. It was harder than I ever imagined it would be. I wanted to make something for her that would allow her to live more like she used to.”
Viktor is quiet. Looking down at the table, expression unreadable and hand still.
“It sells well to investors.” Jayce attempts at a joke. “Tugging on heartstrings.”
More silence from Viktor. Jayce's knee bounces. He should have done a better job at playing pretend here.
“I have a degenerative muscle condition.” Viktor says, quietly. It interrupts Jayce's bouncing and freezes him where he is. “One day - provided I live long enough - I will not be able to walk, and will rely on a wheelchair. I will lose the fine motor skills I rely on to do the work I have done since I was a child.” He's quiet for another moment. Jayce is breathing slow and cautious, like he might accidentally blow this moment of vulnerability away. “My thesis is an experimental piece I have been considering for when this inevitability occurs.” He looks up, catching Jayce's eye like a fly in amber, and offers a wry smile. “How is that for selling well?”
Jayce opens his mouth to respond, but Viktor doesn't let him. “I'm sorry. I have had, eh, a few drinks. That was a little… much information.”
“No, it's - it's fine.” Jayce says. “I told you mine. It's - thank you for being open with me.”
Viktor snorts. “I have been far more open with you in other scenarios.”
A beat.
He groans. “I'm sorry, I - I do not, ah, know how to do this.” He waves his hands in front of him, gesturing to nothing in particular. “I have never been in a scenario like it. I do not have the best control of my mouth, sometimes.”
Jayce snorts. “Neither have I. I don't usually - I came here to avoid students. Before.”
“Is this the first time you've run into one at a bar?” Viktor asks. He tilts his head to one side when he does, hair falling away from its position tucked behind his ear.
The real answer would be that he rarely actually goes to bars, but Jayce doesn't know whether that makes it look better or worse that he'd gone home with Viktor so readily.
“Yes.” He says, instead. A truth on a technicality. “And I meant it when I told you I didn't have the class register. Names or photos. I really didn't know this would happen.”
“I believe you.” And it sounds genuine. Jayce relaxes. This can be okay, he thinks.
“Where did you grow up?” Jayce asks.
“Zaun.” Is the response. Candid, but unexpected.
“Your whole life?”
Viktor chuckles. “Yes. I know, the accent is confusing.”
“I mean, it's - the undercity is a big place. I don't know.”
“I am from a relatively insular community of migrants. I did not speak the common tongue until I was… eh, in my teens.”
“Wow, that's… I didn't realise that, uh, could happen.”
Viktor snorts ungraciously, squinting at Jayce. “You continue to prove that even the smartest men can be incredibly stupid, at times.”
There's not the typical venom behind the sentence, it's almost… fond. Jayce rubs the back of his neck.
“I mean I - I'm an immigrant. I came here when I was, uh, six. But the accent came pretty quickly.”
Viktor hums. “Perhaps we do have more touchpoints to discuss.”
Jayce allows himself to smile in response and ignores the way his stomach flips when Viktor smiles back.
And they keep talking.
And oh, Jayce might have made a mistake. Because now he's getting to know Viktor. Beyond the physical attraction; the eyes like whiskey and the knobbly elegance of his fingers and the way he looks at Jayce sometimes with a half-lidded kind of irritation that makes Jayce want to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness or for punishment.
No, now he's getting to know his story and his likes and his dislikes and that he really is into the God-awful sci-fi that Jayce likes. And that they went to university together a decade ago and if Jayce thinks really hard then maybe he can remember bumping into him as he'd been leaving a lecture hall and Viktor had been entering, but which could easily also just be wishful thinking.
And as they keep drinking, Viktor loosens up and Jayce gets to watch him throw his head back and cackle at one of Jayce's stupid stories. And he reaches out to steady himself on Jayce's bicep and looks at him through slightly teary eyes even though the story was truly not all that funny, and Jayce thinks this might be hell. All he wants to do is kiss him.
“Okay, okay. You were a Star-Trek child, yes?” Viktor's eyes are slightly squinty from drink, and Jayce realises they've been here longer than they were last time. He feels a telling buzz under his skin, a looseness in his mind.
“That obvious?”
“Eh, I was much the same.”
“I was really into it.” Jayce admits. “Into my teens. It was - it was a lot more, uh, mainstream than some of the other stuff I liked. Easier to find a community.”
Viktor rests his chin on his hand and gives Jayce a knowing smirk. “You were in, eh, fan communities?”
Jayce groans and covers his eyes with one hand. “You can't judge me. It was - I was on a lot of chatrooms.”
“Did you write, eh, what's the word… ‘fan stories’.”
Jayce can't bite back the urge to correct, even as it damns him. “Fan-fiction. I - I'm not answering that.”
“You liked the, ah - Spock and Kirk? What did they call it?”
Jayce has his head in both hands now. “Spirk.” He says, mournfully.
Viktor snorts and Jayce looks through his fingers at him. He's giving Jayce a sweet, lopsided grin. Jayce wants to kiss it off him.
“I had a notebook,” he admits, to distract from the urge, “of writing.”
The grin widens. Viktor tilts his head and rests his cheekbone on his hand rather than his chin. “Yes?”
“I just - the dynamic was interesting! Did you not have something like that?”
Viktor looks to the ceiling in thought for a moment and shakes his head, rocking his hand back and forth. “No. I was more interested in the science part of the fiction.”
“I liked that too!” Jayce protests. “I just… also like romance.” He shrugs and tips back the last of his drink, staring at the rim of his glass as he absently adds: “Guess I've always been a romantic, I don't know.”
Viktor is quiet for a moment, and when Jayce looks over his eyebrows have a slight furrow, and Jayce realises his faux pas just a second too late.
“But I - uh, the science was cool, too. I used to try to make it make sense, in the stuff I'd write. I got really into theoretical physics, for a while.”
Viktor hums, frown disappearing, replaced by a slightly smaller smile this time. “Yes, I was quite the same.”
The next time Jayce looks at the clock, it reads three in the morning. Which is - fuck. He’s not been out this late in years. More shocking than that is that he doesn’t even feel the exhaustion that is sure to hit as soon as he gets home. The maybe four or five drinks in his system are, he’s sure, contributing to the level of energy he’s still feeling.
“Shit.” He says, dumbly. “I should call a cab.”
Viktor blinks and traces Jayce’s gaze to the clock. He hums, apparently displeased himself at the hour. “Ah.”
Jayce is already squinting down at the rideshare app on his phone when Viktor speaks again, and he has to take a moment to register the words.
“Thank you for tonight.”
“Huh?”
“For meeting me. Giving me another chance. Thank you.”
“You don’t -” Jayce pulls his lower lip into his mouth. “We were both being, uh, kinda stupid about this. Sorry, not to call you -”
Viktor snorts, breaking into full blown laughter, nose crinkling beautifully and blunt teeth on show as he tips his head back.
Once he’s managed to catch his breath, he speaks. “No, you are right. We were very stupid. I, ah, appreciate your willingness to work with me despite how stupid I have been.”
Jayce’s phone buzzes. His car has arrived.
“I appreciate your… I’m glad we were able to work together. Your work really does have potential.” He runs a hand over his head. “I’ll see you next week?”
Viktor smiles at him with eyes that seem to glow brighter than the neon around them. “I’ll see you, Jayce. Good night.”
“Good night, Viktor.”