Archive of Our Own

"Hello, darling! I'm so happy to see you!"

"Mom!"

Jayce is glad that Mel is maintaining a relationship with their daughter. He is. But he can remember when Mel was that happy to see him, and while he understands they were never going to work out in the long run, it makes him nostalgic for the days when things were good between them.

Maybe he should think about dating again, now that Dee will be starting high school in just a few days.

Or... dating at all. He'd barely dated when he was in high school, himself. He hadn't dated Mel so much as had a magical summer fling that neither of them had wanted to end. And by the time they'd recovered from that, he had Dee to take care of and no time for dating, anyway.

So before he can think about dating again, he has to think about learning how to date, and it's all so exhausting to even think about, and he knows he's not going to do it.

Maybe when Dee goes off to college, he tells himself.

He already knows he's lying.

"Jayce?"

He blinks out of his thoughts and looks up. Gods, Mel may be even more beautiful now than she was when they were nineteen. "Sorry, I missed that?"

She doesn't look annoyed, but he can feel it radiating off of her anyway. "I said, is it all right if I bring her back Sunday evening, after dinner?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah, that should be fine. Not later than ten, though, please."

"That should be fine," Mel agreed. She eyed the bulging backpack over Dee's shoulder. "Do you have everything, darling?"

"Yeah, Mom, I'm fine." Dee waved at him. "I'll see you on Sunday, Dad."

"See you Sunday, sweetpea." He misses the days when she threw her arms around him in the biggest hug her tiny body could manage. He even kind of misses the times she clung to his leg and cried and didn't want to go with Mel at all. "Enjoy your weekend of conspicuous consumption!"

Mel shoots him a brief glare, and he pretends he didn't notice. He wishes she'd stop trying to buy Dee's affection.

But Mel doesn't say anything and neither does Jayce, and two minutes later, he's standing at the window watching Mel's car as it turns the corner out of sight.

He stays there for a minute longer, pretending he's trying to figure out what's going on with the neighbor's lawn, and then closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose to try to stave off the oncoming headache. After another couple of minutes, he goes back to his office, where he'd been trying to wade through all his email before Mel arrived.

He rereads the reply he'd almost finished, adds another couple of sentences, and sends it off.

The next email is a department-wide memo from the Department Chair, Dr. Heimerdinger. Apparently the Physics Department is planning to get rid of a bunch of old equipment, and he's offering it up to the faculty for their own personal use before he calls in the professionals to move it all.

Jayce frowns at the appended list of equipment. Most of it isn't even that old; Jayce is only 35, and he can remember some of it arriving when he'd been the newest member of the faculty team. He hits Reply.

Dr. H,

Maybe some of the local high schools could use some of this? It seems a shame to get rid of functional equipment just because it's not quite precise enough for research purposes.

--Jayce

Half an hour later, he's pulling up the new data set for his own research when his email pings.

Jayce,

What an excellent suggestion! Please take point on this, and let me know if there's anything you need from my office.

Sincerely,

Dr. Cecil B. Heimerdinger
Physics Department Chair
Piltover Academy

Jayce stares at it for a long moment with a swirl of resentment and resignation.

Maybe he'll start his weekend now, actually.

Viktor knows it's going to be trouble when his daughter knocks on his bedroom door instead of crashing in. "Hey, Pops?"

He looks up from where he's folding laundry. "Yes?"

"We might have a little, tiny, barely-even-worth-mentioning problem."

Viktor hums, finishes the pair of pants he's currently folding, and sets them aside. "What is it?"

Jinx smiles disarmingly. "I was just checking that I had all the stuff for classes to start tomorrow and realized that I... maybe did not read the full description of this class before I signed up for it."

"Which class?" Viktor asks.

"Um, Programming for Beginners. Why?"

Viktor frowns. "You are not a beginner," he points out. "You could program when I met you."

"Sure, but I was self-taught, so it's not on any of my records, and I figured it would be an easy A." He gives her a dry look, and she hurriedly adds, "And I lost a lot of it over the--" She gestures vaguely in the direction of the past, which includes a lot of shit that neither of them talk about any more than necessary. "--the stuff. But the programming part isn't the problem."

"What is?"

"The time. All the other online classes are asynchronous. The prof records the lecture, you watch it sometime in the next couple of days, you do the homework and turn it in. But this one is live classes. I have to be online at the same time every Monday and Wednesday."

This still does not strike Viktor as a problem. Jinx learned how to manage her schedule while she was getting her GED. "And?" he prompts.

"It's from three to four-thirty."

Ah. Viktor now sees the problem. He sighs. "Jinx..."

"I'm sorry," she says quickly.

"I have a faculty meeting every Wednesday from two-thirty to four," he says. "I've had the same meeting, at the same time, since you were, what, seventeen?" Since they had moved here, a fresh start for Jinx away from all of the stuff, two years after Viktor had adopted her.

"I know," she pouts. "I just... didn't read the description that closely. I figured it would be async, like all the others!"

Viktor grips the back of his neck and squeezes, trying to ease the building tension there before a headache can form, and sighs again. "I will think about what can be done. But for now, you will just have to find a way to keep Isha occupied while you are in class."

Jinx whines a little. Caring for Isha is easier than it used to be, but an hour and a half is a long time to ask a five-year-old to go without some kind of attention. Viktor is not unsympathetic. But he can't bring Isha to the faculty meeting every week, even if he were able to dash home after school to pick her up and get back in time for the meeting, which is theoretically possible but would require some kind of divine intervention.

Isha is Jinx's daughter, and this is Jinx's mistake. She will have to deal with the consequences until they can think of some kind of workaround.

"Okay," she sighs, slumping. "You're right."

He smiles a little, and kisses the top of her head. "I am proud of you."

"I fucked up. Again."

Viktor curls an arm around her shoulders. "You told me about it right away," he says encouragingly, "and you're accepting responsibility for it. We all make mistakes, Jinx. What matters is how you deal with yours."

"Ugh, you sounds like a fortune cookie," she grumbles, but she leans into his comfort, which she hadn't been able to do for almost two years after she'd come to live with him, and he's proud of her for that, too.

"If it makes you feel better, the first faculty meeting is not until next week, and I can take her with me to my non-faculty meeting this week," he offered. "It is at the Academy, so I can bribe her with looking at the ducks in the campus pond when I am done."

"What's it for?" She straightens again, then reaches for one of Isha's shirts in the laundry pile and starts to help him with the folding. Perforce, he also resumes the chore.

"The Academy physics department is disposing of some, eh... gently used equipment, and they thought to offer it to us, if we can use it. I am going to evaluate its potential."

"That sounds nice," she says. "You're always complaining about how there's not enough budget for stuff you need."

"True. We will see if any of this equipment is stuff we need, I suppose."

"Ah-- You are Dr. Talis, yes?"

Jayce looks up to see the most beautiful man he's ever seen in his fucking life. He has to blink a few times as if there are sunspots in his eyes before he can actually focus. "Uh. Yes. That's me."

The man smiles and Jayce's heart almost stops. It makes the man's golden eyes light up like miniature suns. "I am from the high school."

"Oh! Yes!" Thank the gods. If he'd just been looking for directions to Heimerdinger's office, Jayce would've cried. He stands up, somewhat belatedly, and offers his hand. "Please, call me Jayce."

"Jayce," the man confirms, taking his hand in a grip that belies his slender, almost delicate frame. His other hand is clutching a rather elegant-looking cane, and there is a brace of some sort settled over his right leg. "I am Viktor."

A small person peers out from behind Viktor's leg, one chubby hand clenching his trousers.

Jayce smiles down at the child, who he guesses to be around four or five, then he crouches to be a little closer to eye-level. "Hi there!" he says brightly, but not too loudly, because he can remember clearly how shy Dee was around this age. "What's your name?"

The child blinks at him, then lifts a little hand to make what is recognizably letters in the sign language alphabet, but too quickly (and possibly clumsily, given tiny fingers) for Jayce to follow.

"Sorry," Jayce says. "I didn't catch that, I'm not very good with sign. Can you go slower for me?"

The child looks up at Viktor with wide, solemn eyes and tugs on his pants sharply, twice.

Viktor smiles down and brushes his hand over unruly curls. "Her name is Isha," he tells Jayce.

"You have a very pretty name," Jayce tells Isha seriously. "You want to trade? I could be Isha and you could be Jayce."

Isha covers her mouth in a soundless giggle and shakes her head rapidly in an emphatic no.

"Darn," Jayce says. He winks at her and pushes back up to his feet. His knee pops, and he winces. "Tell you what, Isha. We're going to be talking super boring grownup talk for a little bit, so while we do that, would you like to, um... Oh! You could draw on my whiteboard?"

Isha examines the whiteboard gravely, then nods yes. Viktor nudges her pointedly and raises his eyebrows when she looks up. She rolls her eyes -- which looks hilarious on a child so small -- and then makes another sign gesture that Jayce doesn't know but infers from context is probably please or thank you or some other polite phrase.

"Great!" Jayce drags a non-rolling chair over to the whiteboard and erases the section for her use, then brings her a small handful of whiteboard markers in varying colors and thicknesses. "Your canvas awaits!"

She looks at Viktor again, and he smiles gently and gives her a single slight nod. She hesitates for only a moment longer, then releases Viktor's trousers and starts to clamber up onto the chair.

"Thank you," Viktor says, sotto voce. "Her mother needed her occupied this afternoon and our emergency babysitter moved recently."

Of course the beautiful man with the adorable child is married, even if he's not wearing a ring. Or maybe it's a live-in girlfriend. Either way, probably straight and definitely not available. Jayce sighs inwardly and then rolls his eyes at himself because it's not like he'd have ever made a move anyway. All he was going to do was look and maybe fantasize a bit, and he can do that with or without Isha's mom in the picture.

Of course, then he realizes that he's been looking for a moment too long, because Viktor's eyebrows quirk up a little, an echo of the wordless reminder to Isha, and Jayce jolts back to the topic at hand. "Right!" he says, just a little too loudly. "Right." That was better. "Have a seat, let me grab that list for you."

They're about halfway through the list when Isha climbs down and comes over to yank on Viktor's trousers again, and points at the drawing she's made on the whiteboard. She's five at most, so it looks mostly like blobs of assorted colors, but Viktor and Jayce are united in their effusive appreciation. She signs something peremptorily to Viktor, then goes to drag the chair over a little to the next open spot.

"Flowers," Viktor translates for Jayce, and when Jayce looks back at the blobs, he can actually kind of see it, assuming that the wobbly purple lines are meant to be stems (his green marker dried out over the summer). He nods. "Clearly, she has a future in the arts."

"You're very good with her," Viktor says quietly.

"She's cute," Jayce says, entirely honest. "My daughter is older now, but I remember this age, it's great." Then he considers the rest of the conversation. "You know, if you don't live too terribly far from here, my daughter is fifteen, and would probably be willing to babysit for you occasionally."

Viktor freezes for a second and then makes a soft sound almost like laughter. "How fortuitous," he murmured. "Only a few days ago, we discovered that we will be having a regular schedule conflict, every Wednesday afternoon for about two hours. Would you ask your daughter whether she would be amenable to such a standing arrangement? With, perhaps, occasional one-off jobs. And what her rate would be." He looks around, then tears a corner off the list Jayce had printed out, and scrawls a phone number on it. "Here. Please let me know. If she is willing, we can arrange a meeting, to see if they suit one another."

"Absolutely," Jayce agrees, and makes an amused mental note to tell Caitlyn that he scored digits off a married man just to see what kind of face she makes at him. He tucks the scrap of paper into his shirt pocket and then goes back to the list. "What about these momentum demonstration kits..."

It turned out that Jayce and his daughter lived only a mile and a half from Viktor, so they agreed to meet at a nearby ice cream shop.

Viktor firmly ignores the flutter of anticipated attraction in his stomach (and lower parts) as he and Jinx and Isha make their slow way up the sidewalk. If he hopes for Jayce's daughter to help fill the gap in their schedule for Isha, then a brief fling is probably a bad idea, and Viktor gave up on finding a long-term relationship a couple of years before he adopted Jinx. And certainly since Isha was born, there has been no time for anything like dating.

"I'm still not sure about this," Jinx hedges. "If she's only fifteen--"

"You were a mother at fifteen," Viktor reminds her gently. "And Isha was much more breakable, then."

"You were there to help me, though," she says. "Even if I was an ungrateful brat about it."

Viktor smiles fondly and says, "I never thought you were ungrateful. Merely mistrustful. Which I could not blame you for, given the circumstances. And you will be in the house with this girl."

"I'll be locked in my room with my headphones on," Jinx points out.

"I trust the two of you to find some way for her to signal you in the event of a situation important enough to call you away from your class. Smoke signals, perhaps."

Isha is ignoring them, dancing ahead and then crouching to examine weeds growing up out of the cracks in the sidewalk, or shiny beetles lumbering along, or bits of gravel sparkling with mica. She is collecting dandelions and other flowering weeds in one chubby fist. Sometimes she looks for long enough that Viktor and Jinx pass her by, and they walk even slower so they can keep an eye on her until she realizes she's behind and dashes to catch up.

He allows Jinx to open the door and hold it for him and Isha. Jayce is already there, sitting at a table with a teenager who Viktor assumes is Jayce's daughter. They both stand when they spot Viktor and Isha and Jinx.

Like everything else about the man, Jayce's smile is beautiful. His daughter is quite pretty, too, in the slightly awkward way of younger teens, with darker skin and a halo of curls that puts even Isha's mop to shame. Jayce glances from Viktor to Jinx to Isha and back, and Viktor can practically feel him trying to work out the connections -- whether Viktor is actually enough of a creep to have had a child with a woman so much younger than himself.

Usually, Viktor rather enjoys making people squirm over it. It had been even more amusing back when Jinx was clearly still a teenager herself. But for reasons he refuses to examine, he doesn't let Jayce twist too long. "This is my daughter, Jinx," he says, and then clarifies, "I adopted her when she was fifteen. Isha is, technically, my granddaughter."

"Oh," Jayce says, and looks mildly relieved at the explanation, though he does a reasonably good job of covering it up. "This is Dee," he adds, waving toward his own daughter.

"It's short for Melody," the girl adds, then cocks her head at Viktor. "You teach at my school. Physics, right?"

"I teach at Padidly High, yes," Viktor agrees, though Dee doesn't look familiar to him. "You are not one of my students."

"Nah, I just started. I can't take physics until junior year, at least. But one of my friends, his boyfriend is in your class." She turns toward Jinx, then, and her eyes widen. "Oh my god, your hair, that's so pretty! Is it hard to keep up?"

Isha has made her way to Jayce and is tugging on the hem of his shirt.

"What?" Jayce says, and he sits back down in his chair so he's not craning his neck quite so far to talk to her. "Did you change your mind on the name swap?"

That earns him a vigorous shake of the head and, if he'd been looking up to see it, a ridiculously fond smile from Viktor.

"Too bad," Jayce sighs while Isha giggles. "Okay, well, to make myself feel better about that, I'm going to go get some ice cream. Why don't you hang out here with Dee and your family for a bit?"

Dee, clearly recognizing her cue, breaks off her conversation with Jinx and drops into the chair as soon as Jayce vacates it. "Hi there!"

"I will help you," Viktor tells Jayce, and follows him up to the counter. "Jinx was a little nervous," he admits quietly when they're far enough away from the girls to not be overheard. "But Dee seems to be handily winning them both over."

Jayce glances back over his shoulder and smiles sweetly. "She's a charmer," he says proudly. "Gets that from her mom."

"I find it hard to believe that you have contributed nothing, there," Viktor says, and then mentally pokes at himself, because he was not going to flirt.

"Eh, I can turn it on if I need it," Jayce says dismissively, either not noticing or cautiously avoiding the flirtation. "But her mom is just like that."

Viktor manages a thin smile. "You should have brought her along," he suggests.

Jayce snorts. "No, we've been divorced for, what, thirteen years? Something like that. Dee was still tiny when it happened. In a way, I'm glad we didn't try harder to patch things up between us, because she was still young enough that she doesn't even remember when we were together. If we'd put it off for a few more years, I think it would've hurt her more."

"Ah," Viktor says. "I did not mean to pry."

"Oh, no, that's on me," Jayce says easily. "I tend to infodump. Feel free to smack me or something if I get going too much." He turns to the employee behind the counter and rattles off an order for two cones so smoothly that Viktor is certain he and Dee come here frequently.

By the time they're back with the ice cream, Dee seems to have become best friends with both Jinx and Isha, despite the disparity in ages. Viktor hands over a cone to Jinx and a bowl for Isha, then sits close enough to Dee to discuss her charge rate for the babysitting. Since Jinx will be home to handle any actual emergencies, they settle on a rate slightly below the norm, though Viktor promises if they engage her for true sitting, he will of course pay the full amount.

That agreed, he suggests that she give her contact information to Jinx so they can coordinate, and then sits back in his chair to enjoy his own treat. He is just congratulating himself on the incredibly successful interaction when he realizes that he now has nothing else to do but to sit here and watch Jayce lick at an ice cream cone.

Jayce's hands are big enough to dwarf the cone, but he's holding it so carefully that it's hard not to imagine those hands in... other contexts. His tongue is broad and firm and as he reaches the end of each lick, the very tip of it curls in a way that settles deep into Viktor's innards.

Viktor drags his gaze back to the girls by sheer force, because if he thinks about that for too long, he's going to be in a Situation that he cannot afford at this moment. Later, he promises himself, and focuses very intently on his own ice cream.

Jayce glances up at the house and checks its number, then shoots a text to Jinx.

> Jayce: I'm here

Only a few seconds later, he hears the rattle and thunk of locks being disengaged, and the door flies open. "Hey, Dr. T! C'mon in!"

"Dr. T sounds like someone who is way cooler than me," Jayce observes, bracing as Isha flings herself at his legs. "Hey, kidlet! How's it going?"

Isha tips her head to one side to eye him consideringly, then signs Dee?

"She's sick today, so I'm filling in. I know, it's exciting, I'm way more fun than her."

Isha rolls her eyes and Jayce laughs. He'll never get tired of seeing that.

"Appreciate the rescue," Jinx says. "I can usually manage alone if I have to, but I have a test today."

"No problem at all," Jayce promises. "Go kick butt, I've got the gremlin."

Jinx smiles at him gratefully and stoops to kiss the top of Isha's head. "Be good for Dr. T, okay?"

Isha looks up and signs something that Jayce doesn't catch all of, though he recognizes eat and TV and figures he can make a guess.

"Maybe," Jinx answers. "We'll ask Pops when he gets home. I've gotta go, monkey. See you in a couple hours, okay?"

Isha nods and watches as her mother heads down a hall, presumably to where the bedrooms are. Jayce waits until he hears Jinx's door close, then sits down on the floor with Isha, leaning back against one section of the couch. "Okay, first things first," he says. Isha is already shaking her head and giggling when he asks, "How're we feeling about that name swap today, hm?"

He grins. "Okay, I'll ask again later, maybe. Or... maybe that was your last chance!"

Isha waves him off, already knowing he'll ask again next time. She goes to the TV stand and opens the cabinet built in underneath. Inside are a stack of child-friendly games. Isha drags out a well-worn box, and Jayce recognizes it from Dee's young childhood and suppresses a groan. It's horrifically boring. But it will keep Isha occupied for an hour, so he sighs as quietly as he can and starts setting it up.

Between rounds, he has ample time to look around the house. He's never been here before; Dee always bikes the short commute.

It's a nice space, well-lit, cluttered without being messy. It feels immediately comfortable. He sees evidence everywhere of Isha -- toys, children's books and movies, covers over the outlets, colorful drawings tacked to walls or taped to furniture and covered with glittery stickers. But as he adjusts to the proliferation of child-related things, he begins to see signs of Jinx and Viktor, as well.

There's a photograph of the two of them standing on a shelf; Viktor looks almost the same as he does now, but Jinx looks quite a bit younger and is heavily pregnant. The non-child movies seem to be divided fairly evenly between popcorn-munching action/adventure types and romcoms, and Jayce would not dare to hazard who prefers what, or if they both share a love for them all.

There's a pair of hand-decorated combat boots near the door that can only be Jinx's, and the coat rack has a whole assortment of sizes. On the coffee table is a tube of topical lidocaine and a (childsafe) bottle of over-the-counter painkillers that could theoretically belong to any of them but which Jayce guesses are for Viktor, who walks with a cane but has a job that requires being on his feet for most of the day.

There are physics books on the shelves that must be Viktor's; as Jayce peruses them, he's mildly surprised to see several are very recent and entirely too advanced for the average high school student. Viktor must be keeping up his own studies, which is admirable.

Jayce doesn't see any fiction on the shelves; either they rely strictly on Isha and movies for their entertainment or they keep those sorts of books in their bedrooms.

Isha trounces Jayce at the game, and then he beats her, just to see if she's going to be a poor sport about it. She isn't, which Jayce appreciates. He lets her win the next couple of games. Sometime around the seventh or eighth game, her head snaps up and she looks toward the door only seconds before it opens to reveal Viktor.

He looks mildly surprised to see Jayce, but then Isha is barrelling into him. He redirects his attention to her for a moment as her fingers fly. Jayce sits back to watch with a grin.

"If you can be good until your mother finishes her class," Viktor says, perhaps answering the question she'd asked Jinx earlier. "Perhaps starting with putting away the world's most boring game?"

Isha grins at him and then flits back over to Jayce to start putting away the pieces. Viktor follows part of the way and stops to sink into what is clearly "his" side of the couch, setting his cane aside with a sigh. "She tricked you into playing that with her, I see."

"I didn't take much tricking; I didn't know there was a ban." Jayce shrugs. "I've managed worse. Dee's sick today," he adds before Viktor can ask why Jayce is there. "I'm the backup babysitter."

"Ahhh," Viktor says. "It becomes clear, now." His eyes spark with mirth. "Did Jinx negotiate an adequate payment for your services?"

Jayce laughs and starts to climb up off the floor. It's a lot harder than it was ten years ago, when Dee was Isha's age. "No, but I think I can let it slide this time. You can get me a coffee sometime and we'll call it even."

Viktor chuckles and reaches for his cane.

"Gods, don't stand up," Jayce says. "You've been teaching all day and you just got home. You don't need to see me to the door. It's right there, I'm pretty sure I can find it." He pulls his own jacket on, even if he's pretty sure he doesn't actually need it for the short walk to his car, just to model some common sense for Isha. "Tell Jinx I hope her test went well. You guys have a nice evening."

"You too, Jayce," Viktor says in his soft, lilting voice. His accent practically caresses the consonants of Jayce's name. "Thank you for your help. Please tell Dee that we hope she is better very soon."

The alarm on Viktor's phone chimes, and he looks up. "Your time is up, Mr. Davys. Please submit your final answers now and turn in your scratch paper if you would like me to consider partial credit. Don't forget to put your name on it."

The student sighs and hits the Submit button on the test, then gathers together his several pieces of scratch paper. He scrawls his name across the top of the first before stapling them together and putting them in front of Viktor. "Thanks for letting me re-take the test, Mr. V."

Viktor smiles faintly. "A poor grade is not meant to be a punishment, Mr. Davys. It is a warning that you fail to grasp the subject matter. After our discussions last week, I felt your first attempt was a poor representative of your actual understanding of the material. Do you feel more confident, this time?"

"I think I did a lot better, yeah."

"Good. I know physics is a difficult subject for many, but I think you will do well, if you apply yourself."

"Thanks, Mr. V. I'll see you in class tomorrow."

"Indeed." Viktor waits until the student has left, then tucks the papers into his bag and puts on his coat. He will need to stop by the front office on his way out to double-check that they have requested a substitute for the day of his medical appointment next week, and then he can go home to finish his grading in comfort.

He's so focused on scheduling the remainder of his evening that he nearly walks straight into someone as he enters the office. "Excuse me, I was not--" He pauses, blinking. "Jayce?"

Jayce grins at him. "Viktor."

"What are you doing here? Is your daughter well?"

"She's fine, I just had to bring in her immunization records. Which I swear I'd given them before, but..." He shrugs. "Bureaucracies."

"Indeed."

"How are Jinx and Isha?"

"Very well," Viktor says, warmed. "Jinx has found her stride with the online classes, I believe, and Isha has been in a particularly good mood of late. She is asking me, always, whether Dee can come over to play with her."

Jayce chuckles. "I mean, if you don't mind, I think Dee would be happy to come over a little more often."

Viktor scoffs gently. "Dee is very good with Isha, but no teenager would prefer to spend their free time with a five-year-old."

"I don't know that I'd think of it as free time," Jayce says. "She can get better practice with Isha than with me."

Viktor blinks slowly. "Practice?"

"Oh, yeah, didn't she tell you? She's been learning sign, so she can understand Isha better."

Viktor stares. Dee is fifteen. Viktor has been a teacher for more than ten years and met many teenagers. Not many fifteen-year-olds are so thoughtful. "Oh," he breathes. "That's... that's very kind of her."

"I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there's a component of college application boosting to her motivations, there," Jayce admits.

Viktor waves this aside. "There are many things she could do to improve her application. That she has chosen this method, a thing that will broaden the world of my Isha..." He shakes his head and has to fight not to tear up. Even he and Jinx did not think to learn sign language until Isha was nearly a year old and it became clear that she was never going to speak. "She is a remarkable person, and a credit to your parenting," he tells Jayce.

Jayce rubs at the back of his neck bashfully and blushes a little, which Viktor tries not to stare at too obviously because it's adorable, and also because it spreads down the man's neck, and Viktor wants to know how far down it goes. "She mostly raised herself, really," Jayce demurs.

"I think we both know how untrue that is," Viktor says warmly. "Did you say she was practicing with you? You are also learning it?"

"I can't help it," Jayce says with an embarrassed laugh. "I'm one of those weirdos who picks up a language just from being around it, and Dee's been wandering around the house practicing, and..." He huffs again. "It turns out that's not limited to verbal language," and as he speaks his hands are shaping easy easy easy. Viktor's pretty sure that Jayce isn't even aware of it, because then he adds, "And you know, Isha and I are friends too, now," and his hands say trade names yes?, the ridiculous joke that Isha finds hilarious every single time.

Gods, could this man possibly get any more attractive? Viktor probably shouldn't have wondered that, because it will inevitably happen and then Viktor will probably explode or do something stupid like kiss him.

"Anyway, I should let you get on with your day," Jayce says after a moment, and Viktor is suddenly aware that he has been just staring at Jayce in wonder for longer than he should.

"Ah, yes," he says quickly. "I need to-- It was very good to see you, Jayce." He turns to head deeper into the office, then pauses and turns back. Jayce is still standing in the doorway, watching him. "Please tell Dee that she is welcome to visit any time. Both of you. You have been good friends to us, these last months."

The remnants of Jayce's blush turn bright again, but he smiles. "You, too," he says. "I mean, you've been good friends. To me and Dee. Not that you couldn't visit us!" he adds quickly. "It's just my place isn't childproofed anymore, and--"

Viktor smiles and puts Jayce out of his misery. "Thank you, Jayce. I will see you again soon, I hope."

Jayce just smiles somewhat helplessly, and Viktor turns back to continue on his way. He's almost out of hearing when Jayce says, "I hope so, too."

"Dinner, sweetpea!" Jayce yells in the vague direction of Dee's room. She's been spending a lot of time in there lately. More than usual. He'd mentioned it to Mel, but she'd been blithely unconcerned. Teens do that, she'd told him. Don't you remember being a teenager?

He does, but he's pretty sure he didn't spend this much time locked in his room. At least, not until he'd discovered girls. And then boys, shortly thereafter. (He hadn't encountered any other options until college, but by then he and Mel had been married. Girls and boys had been more than enough preoccupation for high school, as it was.)

Fuck, what if Dee has discovered boys? Or girls. Or others. Jayce honestly isn't sure he knows how to handle that because he wants to be open and understanding and sex positive but also she is his baby. He wonders if Mel has already had The Talk with her. She's fifteen, she should probably already know most of it, right? Maybe there's a helpful website he can just point her at. It would probably be less embarrassing for both of them. She still gets a little flustered when she has to tell him she needs menstrual supplies, for fuck's sake.

He's jolted out of his rambling panic when Dee comes into the kitchen. She grabs their glasses off the table and takes them to the fridge. Getting drinks has been her job since she was seven. She puts ice in both glasses and then considers the options in the fridge. A moment later, she looks at him questioningly, and he pushes himself into action, filling their plates.

When they're both sitting at the table, Jayce watches her pushing her food around her plate and not really eating and says, "You know if there's something wrong, you can tell me, right? Or-- or your mom, if you don't want to tell me?"

She blinks up at him, then goes back to building a volcano with her potatoes and sacrificing peas one at a time to the angry god of gravy or something. "Yeah, I know."

"It's just that you've been kind of--" Don't say hiding, don't say hiding! "--staying in your room a lot, the last couple of weeks. So if there's anything wrong..." He leaves it open, hoping she'll fill in the silence.

Another pea goes over the lip of the volcano. Jayce imagines its tortured little scream while he waits for Dee to decide what to say. He should probably stop watching stupid movies late at night.

"It's just that next week is the last week of the semester for Jinx's school," she finally says. "So they won't need me anymore except once in a while. I'm gonna miss hanging out over there every week."

"Hey, you know they like hanging out with you," Jayce protests. "You don't have to have a job to visit."

She gives him the look that he's figured out means she's trying really hard not to roll her eyes at him. "I'm fifteen, Dad. Jinx is twenty. She doesn't want me hanging around like an annoying little sister."

"Isha is five, and you do kind of want to be hanging around her, it sounds like," Jayce points out. "So maybe you need to let Jinx decide for herself who she does and doesn't want to hang out with."

Dee mumbles something that Jayce is fairly certain he's not meant to understand anyway.

"Sweetpea--"

He's interrupted by her phone ringing. The picture that Jayce gets a glimpse of before she scoops it up to answer is of Jinx. "Hey!" Dee says, sounding a lot brighter than she did just a few minutes ago. "What--" Her eyes widen. "Oh my god, Jinx, I-- Wait, hang on, I'm going to put you on speaker with my dad, okay?" She thumbs the screen and puts the phone down. "Okay, go."

"I wasn't even gone for a minute!" Jinx's voice sounds higher-pitched and raspier than usual. "I just went to pee, and when I came back the front door was open and I couldn't see her anywhere and--"

Shit, Jayce thinks immediately. It's cold out; it might even snow later tonight. If Isha decided to wander off without an adult... "How long ago?" he asks.

"I don't-- I was running around outside yelling for her for like five, maybe ten minutes before I called?"

Jayce can hear the tears in her choked voice. "Hey, Jinx, it's going to be okay," he says soothingly, even as he's getting up to pull on his coat and grab his keys. "Hang tight, keep looking close to your house. Dee and I will be there in just a minute, okay? Try to stay calm."

It's already dark when they arrive to find Jinx and Viktor both outside, calling for Isha.

Jayce squeezes Dee's shoulder. "That little park you take her to?"

"On it," she says, and starts jogging down the sidewalk.

Jayce goes to Viktor. "You need to go inside," he says, as calmly as he can.

Viktor all but snarls at him. "If you think--"

"I think she might decide to come back on her own," Jayce interrupts, still forcibly calm, because he understands viscerally that Viktor can't be. "Someone needs to stay here in case she does, to let the rest of us know."

"But I can--" He sets his jaw mulishly, and for a couple of seconds Jayce thinks they're going to waste precious time arguing about this, that Jayce is going to have to point out that Viktor is the slowest and least flexible of them, which will piss him off but is also true. But then Viktor capitulates, his shoulders sagging. "Fine," he growls, and heads back into the house, thumping his cane against the ground angrily with every step.

Jayce grabs Jinx. "Has she asked for anything in the last day or so that you had to tell her no to?"

Jinx rolls her eyes. "Only about a million times," she says. "But she's never run away for something like that before."

"You never know when they're going to actually come to the realization that it's possible to walk out the door on their own. Okay. You go north, I'll go south. We're going to find her, Jinx, I promise."

"You can't promise that, Dr. T." But she gives him a watery smile and turns up the sidewalk. Jayce starts heading in the other direction.

"Isha!" He calls her name every ten steps or so, pausing to look under bushes and behind decorative walls.

His phone chimes, and he snatches it up, hoping it will be good news.

> Dee 🎶 : not at the park, what next?
> Jayce: idk, where else does she like to go?
> Dee 🎶: the playground at the elementary school sometimes
> Jayce: im only a block from there now, ill check
> Jayce: head toward the hs, shes been there with V enough to think she knows the way
> Dee 🎶: got it

He has to deviate from his original path to go to the elementary school, but he thinks it is worth the detour.

He calls her name as he approaches, and hears a... faint rattling sound. He speeds up a bit, and then breaks into a run when he realizes what he's seeing.

Isha had clearly tried to climb over the chain link fence into the school playground and then slipped and fell. She's mostly on the ground, so she couldn't have gotten very high, but one foot is trapped in the wires of the fence. She's trying to kick it free, but it's not working.

"Isha!" he yells again as he gets closer, practically skidding to his knees beside her. A tiny little voice in the back of his head reminds him that panicking will just make her panic more, but he is panicking anyway, because she can't even scream if she's in pain. "Sweetie, oh gods, honey, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

There are tears on her face and her eyes are red, and she nods fervently to his question. It's hard to see in the darkness despite the lights from the school's parking lot, but she signs, shakily, Trade names?

Jayce laughs a little. "You want to trade now?"

Small time, she tells him. Borrow.

"Oh, so I just get to borrow your name for a little bit," he says. "I guess that's fair. Okay, Jayce, let me take a look at your face, here." She giggles silently, even if tears are still leaking from her eyes, and he keeps talking as he cups her face gently. She winces away from the light of his phone, but he gets enough of a look to see that her pupils are the same size and reacting to the light, so she probably doesn't have a concussion. She grabs at his arm irritably and points at her foot.

"I know, honey," he says, "I'm gonna look at that right now. I just had to make sure you didn't hit your head too hard when you fell." He shifts a little to shine his light on her trapped foot. It doesn't look broken, though it's red and swollen from her yanking on it. "Okay, here's what we're going to do, Jayce." She giggles again, hand over her mouth, and he smiles back down at where she's propped up on her elbows now, fear fading and confidence recovering now that there's someone here to help her.

"I'm going to pick you up a little, and then we'll try pulling your foot out normally. If that doesn't work, we'll get your shoe off, and if that doesn't work, I'll text Dee to bring my my tools from the car and I'll clip the wires. Got it?"

She signs, Carry me home?

"Yeah, sweetie, I'm going to be carrying you, your leg is probably going to hurt a lot if you try to walk on it right now. Okay, here we go." He carefully scoops her up, making sure not to let her leg tug against the fence any more. He manages to find a position where she can stand with her unstuck foot on his thigh and hold tightly to his jacket for balance, and she lets out a huge sigh. Better, she tells him, and he smiles reassuringly and then gets to work on getting her foot out of the gap it's trapped in.

There are fresh tears on her face when he looks up again. "Am I hurting you, sweetie? You need to take a little break?"

She shakes her head no almost violently. He's kind of relieved; his thighs are already going to be killing him tomorrow for holding this half-squat (with forty-odd pounds of child standing on one of them) for so long.

Without her weight working against her, it only takes him a couple of minutes to get her foot free, thank the gods. He stands up the rest of the way, settling her on his hip, where her face is just about level with his so he can keep an eye on her. He pulls out his phone and thumbs a clumsy text to Dee.

> Jayce: got her pass the word all ok

"Okay," he says. "Time to go home. I'm going to try to go fast, but you need to tell me if it makes your leg hurt more, okay?"

She nods and Jayce can't help but plant a kiss on the side of her head, wildly impressed with how brave she's being. Dee would've been crying and screaming bloody murder by this point, for sure. He starts walking, watching the way her injured leg is swinging, then looks up at her face. She gives him a solemn nod, so he speeds up a little, and then starts running.

He all but bursts through Viktor's door when he arrives, and Viktor is already standing in the center of the room, his eyes wide and wild. "Isha, monkey!" He adds something else in a language Jayce doesn't know yet, and reaches out. Jayce goes over, ready to hand Isha over to him, but Viktor pulls both of them into a tight embrace.

He kisses Isha's forehead and then her cheeks, over and over, saying something in that other language that is probably some mix of relief and scolding. When he winds down, he hugs them both tighter, pressing his face against the side of Isha's neck.

Isha taps on Viktor's face to get his attention, then signs, Kiss Isha?

Viktor smiles and kisses her forehead again, but she shakes her head. Not Jayce. Kiss Isha.

"Oh," Jayce says, chuckling. "She... finally agreed to that name swap. Just for a little bit, though, right? Pretty sure you're ready to have your own name back by now, huh?"

She signs, Soon, and then, Kiss Isha.

Jayce's heart twists in his chest, but he shoots Viktor a quick, apologetic look. "Sweetie, that's not--"

And then Viktor is kissing him. Jayce forgets what he was going to say. He's pretty sure that he forgets every word he's ever known. His arms are full of small child but he leans into Viktor's kiss and returns it with all the enthusiasm he can muster after such a terrifying evening.

"Thank you," Viktor murmurs when he pulls back, just enough to rest his forehead against Jayce's, eyes drifting closed in relief. "You brought her back. Thank you."

"If I'd known this would be my reward, I'd have conspired with her weeks ago," Jayce whispered.

Viktor's eyes open again, and Jayce can see the hope in them. He opens his mouth to speak, but the door bursts open again to admit Jinx, already (or still) weeping, immediately followed by Dee. Jinx has no qualms about pulling Isha out of Jayce's grasp.

Jayce doesn't mind. It means he has an arm free now to slip around Viktor's waist. Viktor leans against him comfortably while they watch mother and daughter reunite, Dee lurking close by to fuss over Isha as well. "So, um," Jayce says softly, after a minute, "would you... like to get coffee sometime?"

Jayce glances at Viktor, who rolls his eyes, smirks, and grabs Jayce by the coat collar to kiss him again.

Shit, Jayce thinks, ignoring Dee and Jinx shrieking excitedly about what their dads are doing, I don't know if I'm ready to be a grandfather.

But then Viktor bites his lip a little, and he decides he can get used to the idea.

Three and a Half Years Later:

Viktor is actually grateful, for a change, that the entire faculty is expected to be present at the commencement ceremony, because the house is pandemonium. Dee left an hour ago, because despite three separate practice sessions, it still takes the graduating seniors an hour and a half to get into the correct order to file into the stadium. (They are seniors, Viktor had argued his first year as a teacher. They are all aware of how the alphabet works, are they not? ...Apparently, they are not. He is glad that he is not one of the teachers in charge of that thankless task.)

Jayce and Jinx are still yelling back and forth between the bedrooms about exactly how they're going to escape Dee's graduation to get to Jinx's graduation on time.

"Why the hell do the Academy and the high school that's literally walking distance away have the same graduation date?" Jinx demands at top volume, for approximately the twenty-third time. Today.

Jinx's boyfriend, Ekko, whom she'd met after she transferred from the online community college to the Academy proper, is in the living room, attempting to corral Isha's hair into something pretty or at least different. The task is made much more difficult by the fact that someone (not naming any names but it was definitely probably Jayce) let her have one of the celebratory cupcakes half an hour ago, and she is in the "full-on vibration" stage of her sugar rush.

"I must go now if I am to be at the ceremony for my duties," Viktor tells Ekko. He's exaggerating a bit; his ceremonial duties include assisting in reading off the academic awards, which needs no particular prior instruction, even if the principal will insist on talking the teachers through it anyway. "If our partners are still panicking in another half-hour, throw a smoke bomb into each bedroom, then grab Isha and run."

Isha bounces harder, shaking loose the braid that Ekko had finally managed to get to stay put. Ekkos sighs and throws his hands up. Another cupcake? Isha begs.

Viktor snorts. "After we get home." He kisses the top of her head. "Be good for Ekko, yes?"

She glances at Ekko, sly, and he winks at her. Which, Viktor suspects, means that Ekko will be sneaking her another cupcake.

Viktor pretends not to notice. A two-cupcake sugar-rush Isha is not going to be his problem.

The high school commencement ceremony is, as always, boring as fuck. If he weren't forced to be sitting on the stage where everyone can see him, he would bring a travel pillow and take a nap. He amuses himself for a while trying to spot his family amidst the crowds. That suffices for a good half-hour, but then he spots the pale shape of Ekko's bleached dreads. Once he's seen that, Jayce and Jinx and Isha are obvious. Dee's mother is also in the audience somewhere; Viktor doesn't look for her. He gets along with Mel well enough, when they cross paths, but they are not friends.

He sees Jayce murmur something to Jinx shortly after Dee has crossed the stage and accepted her diploma; Jinx nods and gets up to edge carefully out of the stadium. Good planning, Viktor decides. Jayce's duties at the Academy commencement don't begin until after the main ceremony, so he'll have plenty of time to get there. Jinx is the only one who has to be at the Academy early, and Viktor doubts she'll notice if the rest of them are five or ten minutes late.

Due to the horrendous traffic leaving the high school ceremony, they are in fact almost half an hour late to the Academy's commencement. However, due to that same horrendous traffic, the commencement speakers were also late, so they actually miss very little.

The Academy's ceremony is somewhat less dull, because they don't call every student's name to walk individually across the stage, and because they have a larger budget for a decent speaker. Balancing that, however, is the fact that they also have enough budget for multiple speakers, which is intolerable. At least Isha had the good sense to tuck a book into her bag; she might not even notice when it's time to cheer for Jinx if he or Ekko don't nudge her.

"Should you ever wonder whether we truly love you," he tells Dee quietly in the midst of the third nearly-identical speech about the bright promise of progress, "think only of this day. That your father and I would endure not just one but two of these in one day is surely a testament to our affection."

Dee giggles softly and leans briefly against Viktor's side with easy affection. On her other side, Jayce glances over, then leans in to kiss her temple. "Proud of you, sweetpea," he murmurs.

She rolls her eyes. "It's just high school."

"Jinx did not graduate high school," Viktor points out. He's been looking for her amidst the sea of graduates, but they're all in black, and Jinx's blue hair is hard to spot under all the mortarboards. "She had to get her GED before she could start her college classes."

"Yeah, but she had, y'know, stuff," Dee points out. "You can be proud of me when I'm graduating college."

"I'm going to be proud of you no matter what," Jayce says. "But I'll try to be less sappy about it until then."

"Deal," Dee says. She glances at her phone, then looks around. "I'm going to go have lunch with Mom and then I'll meet you guys at home for the party?"

Viktor can practically feel Jayce wanting to argue about Dee staying to watch Jinx's graduation, so he jumps in beforehand. "Tell your mother hello for us," he says, "but please be sure to be home in plenty of time for dinner, yes?"

"Of course." She hugs Viktor and kisses Jayce's cheek before slipping out of the row.

Jayce scoots into her vacated seat and puts his arm around Viktor's shoulder. "The logistics are making me crazy," he mutters.

"Almost done," Viktor promises.

Finally, the big graduation ceremony is done, and then they troop obligingly down to the sciences building where Jayce peels off to do his duty to the Physics department while the rest of them continue to the second half of Jinx's ceremony with the Mechanical Engineering department. Jayce manages to duck in for a couple of minutes -- long enough for him to catch Isha's eye, at least, who elbows Viktor somewhat ungently until he also looks up. Jayce smiles and signs, Tell Jinx I love her. Back in 30.

Isha says, I want more cupcakes.

Viktor has to suppress a snort.

Finally, finally, all the tedious ceremonies are over. They make it home only just before the catered dinner that Jayce had pre-ordered, and it seems only moments later that the house begins to fill with Dee's and Jinx's friends.

Viktor finds himself tucked into their office with Jayce and Isha, who had insisted on attending the party until she realized that there would be no more cake. Now she's sitting on Jayce's lap, playing a video game of some sort.

"When do you think they might let us get some sleep?" Jayce wonders.

Viktor looks at the clock: 9:00. "You're not even forty," he tells Jayce. "How can you be so old?"

Jayce makes a rude noise. "It's been a busy few days."

The door opens a crack and Viktor says, "Off limits," without even looking up.

"It's me," Dee says. "I just wanted to know if I could go to another party with some friends?"

"Only if you are the designated driver," Jayce says. "Be safe, please."

"Thanks, Dad!" She disappears.

Jayce drops his head back against the headrest of his chair. "She's going four hundred miles away for college."

"Yes," Viktor confirms. "It is a good thing, Jayce."

Jayce pouts at him. "It is not."

"It is. It means that she is adventurous and confident and strong, the way you have always wished for her to be. All children leave their nests someday, my love."

Isha lifts her hand as high as she can to say, Gross no kissing! In retaliation, Jayce covers her hair and face with kisses, until she's squirming and trying to get away, her breath wheezing slightly with her silent laughter. She slides off his lap and gives them both a very firm glare before flouncing off to her own room.

Jayce reaches out a hand and Viktor takes it. "I'm glad I have you," Jayce says with an utterly sappy smile.

Before Viktor can decide how to respond, there's a soft knock on the door, one that Viktor recognizes immediately. "Jinx?"

She comes in, and she's smiling, so their remaining guests haven't broken anything important. Probably. "Hey, Pops. And Pops 2: Electric Boogaloo."

"No," Jayce says.

"We are not even married," Viktor notes. Yet. They have been talking, and there is a box hidden in Viktor's sock drawer.

"A minor detail," Jinx says. She leans back against the door, looking, for the first time since Viktor met her, not just nervous but anxious. Almost to the edge of scared.

"Jinx?" Jayce says softly. "You know you can tell us anything. Or if you want me to go so you can just talk to Vik, that's fine."

She's still hesitating.

"Are you pregnant again?" Viktor asks.

"Vik!"

Viktor doesn't look at Jayce, because he's too focused on Jinx. "I thought I would rip the bandaid off."

"No," Jinx says. "I'm not pregnant. I'm, um. I have that job offer? From the same place Ekko works? The design firm?"

"Yes. It sounded like a generous offer for someone fresh out of school."

She nods. "Ekko and I were thinking that we might, um? Look into getting a place together?"

"Oh," Viktor says. Not quite ten years, and his daughter is already leaving him.

Jayce's hand, still laced with Viktor's, squeezes gently. "What can we do to help?"

Viktor looks up at her. "Will you take Isha with you?"

Jinx takes a deep breath. "Yes. She's mine. She's my daughter. And I know you've done just as much if not more to raise her, but--"

"Jinx," Jayce interrupts gently. "It's okay. You won't be going that far. You'll visit a lot, right?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Then we're happy for you. We'll help you any way we can."

Jinx's eyes are still on Viktor, still uncertain, and that, he realizes, is unacceptable. He takes another breath. "It does not matter how far you go," he says. "You will always be my daughter. I will always love you, and I will always love Isha. If this is what you want, then I will support you. And if it does not work out, then you can always return to me." He glances at Jayce. "To us."

"To the house of Electric Boogaloo," Jayce says, very solemnly, startling Jinx into a laugh.

That breaks her paralysis and she stumbles forward to wrap herself around Viktor. "Thank you," she whispers. "I love you, Pops."

He hugs her tightly, then makes himself let go. "Go make sure your friends are not trashing our house and tell Ekko we did not spontaneously combust at the news. We can discuss things in more detail soon."

When she's gone, he looks at Jayce. "I did almost spontaneously combust. Thank you for that."

Jayce smiled. "I've got your back, V. Just like you've got mine." He sighs. "We're going to be a pair of ancient geezers of thirty-nine rattling around our empty nest in a few months, I guess."

"I can think of some things to do about that," Viktor says.

"Oh yeah?"

Viktor smiles and stands up, tugging Jayce up as well. "Come on," he says. "I want to go get ice cream."