Heralds of Tomorrow (A Jayce/Viktor Collection)
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Heralds of Tomorrow by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
24 Jun 2022
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Viktor hears Jayce rise as he turns back to the blackboard. He nearly jumps at the tentative touch of Jayce’s fingers on his shoulder. Jayce is larger than him but gentle, his voice soft as he says, “Our Hextech dream.”
Jayce’s hand drops back to his side, leaving Viktor feeling oddly cold as they both stare at the blackboard.
“Are you sure, Viktor?” Jayce asks quietly.
Viktor has never been more certain of anything in his entire life.
Viktor and Jayce's developing relationship from research partners to friends to something else entirely through the events of Arcane.
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In Pursuit of Discovery by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
09 Nov 2021
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Sighing softly, Viktor leans into Jayce’s touch. Jayce stops, and then after ensuring that Viktor is still asleep, resumes stroking Viktor’s cheek. The skin feels smooth and delicate beneath his fingertips.
Jayce prides himself on being an observant person with things that he cares about.
He’s just bewildered at how quickly Viktor became one of them.
After their Hextech discovery, a soft interlude.
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Sketchbook by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
10 Nov 2021
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“You…you are an emotional individual,” Viktor whispers, pulling away. He means for it to sound annoyed but the words are damnably light and fond.
“I am,” Jayce says unapologetically. “But so are you, I think.”
Viktor bristles at the accusation, even as he leans into Jayce’s touch again.
“That’s not a bad thing,” Jayce says. “Trust me.”
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Vitya by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
28 Nov 2021
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“Do you have many friends down here?” Jayce presses the issue, realizing how little he knows about Viktor.
He wants to know as much about Viktor as possible.
Viktor shrugs and wraps his free arm around his waistcoat, bringing his cane closer to his body as he walks.
“Not really.”
Early into their partnership, Jayce wants to learn as much as he can about Viktor. Viktor makes it difficult until he doesn't.
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In His Language by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
22 Dec 2021
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Viktor nearly flinches.
He cannot remember the last time someone touched him voluntarily.
He cannot remember the last time he wanted to be touched this desperately.
Jayce’s warm fingers trail down Viktor’s upper arm — humerus, Viktor’s mind corrects him mid-thought — as he pulls away and Viktor resists the urge to lean into Jayce’s touch.
Jayce and Viktor learn how to communicate intimately with each other in their respective languages. It takes longer than it should, but they get there eventually.
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Inspiration (Sky Young) by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
09 Dec 2021
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“I needed someone I could trust,” Viktor says softly. He leans towards her conspiratorily before the wind can swallow his words. “Hextech is dangerous technology and requires precision, care, and above all else, secrecy. We are…walking a fine line, as you say, between our work and the ethos.”
There’s a small undercurrent of a threat that Sky recognizes from the same, self-serious child she had studied with. Accepting this job would already form a binding contract, even without paperwork.
“I’m honoured, Viktor,” she says, meaning every word. “Of course I accept.”
The corners of Viktor’s mouth turn slightly upwards in a small smile.
Sky's perspective as she's hired to be Jayce and Viktor's lab assistant. This is a sort of interlude for Heralds of Tomorrow, but reading that story is not necessary to understand this one.
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Cold Hands by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
07 Dec 2021
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If Viktor does want to take a quick nap in between projects — he admits one night to Jayce that the mattress is a decent enough idea and saves him the trouble of having to stiffly walk back to his room and then promptly goes about ignoring Jayce’s triumphant smile — he now has to contend with Jayce.
Jayce who seemingly clings like a Bilgewater sea creature to anything that enters his bed.
The first time, Viktor had shoved Jayce to the side and climbed into the bed only to be immediately wrapped up in Jayce’s arms.
He had wondered if Jayce’s actual bed partners had to contend with this.
I tried to write Jayvik holiday fluff and this weird, bittersweet thing of them pining over each other while sharing the same bed in the lab came out instead. Set in the year before Arcane Act 2.
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Meditations in an Emergency by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
15 Nov 2021
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Viktor is beneath him with that small smile Jayce had noticed the night they met. It’s barely an upward curl of his lips, but it somehow still reaches his eyes, bright with warmth and fondness directed solely at Jayce.
I’m so stupid, Jayce thinks to himself. He can’t understand how he had missed what that smile meant.
Jayce makes a different choice once he learns that Viktor is dying. He chooses Viktor. Everything changes. Arcane Act 2 canon-divergent.
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The Man I Held As Half-Divine by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
20 Nov 2021
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Viktor feels his face stretch into a smile before he realizes what is happening or what Jayce has said.
He must look wrecked—
—And impossibly, irrevocably, in love with Jayce.
He’s too tired to hide it, despite everything that has happened. And perhaps he didn’t always do the best job of hiding it to begin with.
Their partnership began with Viktor talking Jayce off a ledge. Years later, Jayce returns the favour.
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Paradigm Shift by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
02 Dec 2021
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“I said everything made sense then.” Jayce rolls over onto his side and gives Viktor a fond smile.
“I do not think…I do not think it was,” Viktor says.
He trails off and drops his eyes, staring at patches of moss on the ground between tufts of grass.
Jayce waits.
“I think…we simply did not pay attention."
Viktor and Jayce reunite after both have made irreparable choices. They talk, fight, and finally come together.
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The Man in the Academy Hallway by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
30 Nov 2024
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Viktor turns the uniform over in his hands, smoothing over the wrinkles in the trousers. The buttons are diamond-shaped and hard underneath his fingers.
Leaning forward, his mother places her arm around his shoulders as she lays a white cravat across Viktor’s hands.
It’s the brightest piece of fabric Viktor has ever seen.
“Vitenka,” she whispers. “If you are going to change the world, do not ask for permission. Act like you belong and no one will question you.”
Piltover Academy of Sciences research masters student Jayce Talis isn't really studying crystallography like he told his professors. Viktor isn't even an academy student, he just has an academy uniform his parents made and very little to lose. They run into each other in a school hallway. Literally.
Based on this tweet from one of the Arcane writers that there was a backstory where Viktor's parents helped him sneak into the academy.
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This Is Love by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
20 Dec 2021
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Swallowing again, Jayce closes his eyes as their noses touch.
“Jayce.” Viktor leans forward and brushes his lips against Jayce’s ear.
Jayce’s entire body shudders.
Pressing a soft kiss to the space between his neck and his ear, Viktor nips at Jayce’s earlobe before teasing it between his lips.
“Let us try to disprove the crystallographic restriction theorem,” Viktor whispers softly.
Jayce and Viktor can't agree on how to stabilize the hexcrystal for public use. They resolve their argument in the best way.
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The Face of Hextech by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
24 Dec 2021
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Jayce likes serving Viktor’s sweetmilk in the Man of Progress mug because sometimes Viktor looks down at the picture and laughs. He makes it a point to ensure that Viktor’s brown mug becomes a holder for pens, pencils, his compass, and other assorted stationary.
It’s unfair that Viktor doesn’t have a mug, Jayce thinks.
It’s unfair that people don’t recognize Viktor for the brilliant person he is.
After receiving a mug with his face on it at their hexgate celebration party, Jayce wants to make sure that Viktor receives the recognition he deserves. Based on this art commissioned by the LoL Germany account where Jayce drew Viktor's face on a mug.
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Proper Pronunciation by AppleSharon
Fandoms: League of Legends, Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
10 Jan 2022
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“Vitya, please.”
It’s the most honest thing Jayce has said in over a decade.
The whirring sound increases. He hears the laser firing up beside his right ear but doesn’t stop looking at Viktor’s back, hunched over at the work bench.
It resonates at a high-pitched whine for what seems like minutes before powering down.
“Блять,” Viktor says. “Fine.”
Against his better judgment, the Defender of Tomorrow pays the Machine Herald a visit on his birthday. They share a few drinks and some thoughts about a possible future.
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Jayvik Week Drabbles by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
07 Jan 2022
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A series of short fics under 1K for Jayvik week on Tumblr.
Prompts chosen in bold:
Day 1: coffee/crank it
Day 2: evolution/broken
Day 3: different meeting/free day (Professor!Viktor, starry-eyed academy student!Jayce)
Day 4: hands/interrupting
Day 5: firsts/hextech
Day 6: dancing/dream
Day 7: repair/kiss (Two whole prompts in one messy divorce-era reconciliation fic!)Series
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Hextechmetallurgy by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
17 Jan 2022
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Viktor laughs in his face and Jayce can smell a hint of star anise from his sweetmilk and the acrid smokey scent leftover from the soldering iron rising from Viktor’s hair.
“I wonder if you even know that you cited my college thesis in these notes.”
What?
“What?” His hand falls away from his face as he looks at Viktor with genuine confusion.
Laughing again, Viktor flips back two pages and points at his list of research citations. “‘How can hydrometallurgical processes aid in mining oxides from chemtech seams? A review of potential options and applications.’ This is my paper.”
Upon the discovery that Jayce unknowingly cited one of Viktor's research papers before they met, Jayce shows Viktor his gratitude. (Will end up as a series of smutty, slightly-related one-shots featuring SCIENCE.)
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And makes me end where I begun by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
19 Jan 2022
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He allows his fingers to linger for a few seconds, feeling the tips of his ears turn red with embarrassment.
Jayce smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Viktor wants to take his hands and pinch Jayce’s cheeks until he laughs — wants to tug at the corners of Jayce’s lips until he smiles.
Just as Viktor learns not to flinch, Jayce stops touching him.
Viktor doesn’t know what he did wrong.
Short thing featuring touch-starved Viktor.
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The perfect spot to learn by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
26 Jan 2022
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“Superintelligence as was so eloquently stated by my student Zhenya here—” he nods at the girl who is attentively hanging on to Viktor’s every word.
Jayce scowls.
“—is a hypothetical agent we use to talk about a technological singularity. As we continue to make strides in both robotics and cybernetics in the pursuit of changing the world, we must keep these things in mind. Progress for progresses sake is ill-advised at best—”
Viktor has no idea who Jayce is and yet Jayce can’t help be feel properly admonished by these words.
Jayce is a post-graduate student and assistant to the Dean Cecil B. Heimerdinger at Piltover's Academy of Sciences. Viktor is a professor at the Zaun College of Techmaturgy. They still meet and discover hextech together.
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Some Enchanted Evening by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
02 Feb 2022
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“Do you ever get jealous of me?” he asks Viktor after taking a small sip.
He steels himself for Viktor’s answer.
The tapping sound of Viktor’s cane is steady against the stone floor of the terrace.
It’s familiar.
“No. I do not envy your position, Jayce. If anything after tonight I feel…I feel like perhaps I should have come to a few more of these events with you earlier.”
Jayce always wants Viktor at his side. Viktor has trouble understanding why.
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On mattresses and blankets in a laboratory by AppleSharon
Fandoms: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021), League of Legends
05 Feb 2022
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“I am sorry I woke you. I was thinking of sleeping myself.” A half-truth, but one that seems to satisfy Jayce, who beams back at him.
“Right! Well the mattress is easily big enough for two so…unless that’s…” Jayce trails off and looks at Viktor, eyes wide and expressive.
Nerves. Hope. Some sort of pleading emotion. For not the first time, Viktor thinks that Jayce must be a terrible liar.
Tilting his head to the side, Viktor holds his stare. Jayce gulps audibly.
“It is fine,” Viktor says after Jayce looks away first. “We can share.”
Viktor, Jayce, and the pile of blankets on a mattress that Jayce drags into the laboratory one day early on in their partnership.
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