Work Text:
At eleven at night, a messenger arrives at Jayce’s door with a note from Viktor:
There’s a cat in our lab.
Jayce rereads it, then again, as if the paper will provide more information if he looks hard enough. But there’s no elaboration. Viktor hasn’t even bothered to sign the note.
When Jayce finally looks back up from the paper the messenger asks, “Would you like to send a note back, sir?”
There’s a cat in our lab. All right, Viktor. Why? And also: huh?
Slowly, Jayce shakes his head. He dismisses the messenger and grabs his shoes.
The lights in the lab are dim except for the table lamp on Viktor’s desk. Even from the back, he makes for a familiar sight to Jayce: hunched over his work, one leg stretched straight out at an angle from his chair, hair in disarray from where he continuously runs his fingers through it. It’s a picture that Jayce has seen often in their year since founding the company together.
“Are we starting animal experimentation?” Jayce asks.
Viktor – unusually for him - actually pauses in his soldering work. He pulls his goggles up to rest at his hairline. His mouth twists into a displeased moue. “It’s under the cabinet.” He points with his soldering iron. “There.”
He’s gesturing at one of their bookshelves. Jayce can’t see anything but shadow beneath it.
“So you called me?” he asks.
Viktor swivels his chair to watch Jayce cross the room to the bookshelf. “You mean your charm doesn’t extend to all conscious organisms?” His tone is dry, but he grabs his cane and joins Jayce to stand before the shelf.
The cement of the lab floor is cold when Jayce kneels down to peer beneath the shelf. As usual, Viktor is correct: there, under the back corner of the bookshelf, a small cat huddles against the wall. In the shadows, Jayce can’t make out much more than its large eyes and the outline of its ears flat against its head.
He sits back up.
“Well?” Viktor asks him, standing above.
“It’s certainly,” Jayce gestures helplessly, “a cat.”
Viktor huffs, managing somehow to sound amused and displeased at the same time.
Jayce cranes his neck to look up at him. “What do we do?”
Viktor raises his eyebrows, incredulous. “Why are you asking me?”
Jayce has never had a pet in his life, even though as a child he did go through a period of begging his mom for one. “I don’t know! Why are you asking me? Do I look like a cat person to you?”
Viktor blinks at him. “Yes.”
He chooses to ignore the intuition that he should feel insulted. “How did it get in here, anyway?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. My working theory is the venting system.” Viktor adjusts his weight against his cane. “Either way. It’s not safe for it to be here.”
“For us, or for it?” Jayce asks.
Viktor’s mouth twitches in amusement. It’s strange for Jayce to see his face from this angle, looking up at him from below. “Are you scared of a cat, Jayce?” Viktor asks.
“No,” Jayce says. “Though it wouldn’t be crazy if I was. They do have claws. They’re predators, you know.”
“I’m aware,” Viktor says, in the slow tone he takes when he’s teasing. “We just need to release it back outdoors. It’s a domesticated animal. Can you not just… pick it up?”
“Why don’t you pick it up?” Jayce retorts.
Viktor just watches him with a flat, unamused look. Jayce sighs and leans back down to look at the cat. There’s not enough space for his arm to fit in the narrow sliver beneath the shelf. “Give me your cane,” he says.
He angles the cane to gently push the cat out. “Come here, kitty,” he says, since he feels like it’s necessary, somehow. But when the cane touches the cat’s haunch – barely a brush – there is a sudden explosion of movement. The sound of claws scratching against cement, the pinwheeling of legs, the barest suggestion of gray stripes, and the cat is gone. Jayce sits up just in time to see it wedge itself beneath their centrifuge table in the opposite corner of the room.
“All right,” Viktor says slowly. “Plan B?”
*
They’re two of the best scientists in Piltover – in Jayce’s opinion, the two best scientists in Piltover -- who together will revolutionize technology itself. They will change lives. They will become the faces of progress. They will lead Piltover to a new age of prosperity.
On the floor of their lab at midnight, they jury-rig a drop trap to catch a cat.
Viktor pulls his leftover sandwich from the lab fridge and places the meat at the end of the trap. A traditional drop trap requires the observer to pull a string to drop a cage onto a feeding animal. Instead, Viktor has programmed the box to drop when he presses the button on a remote. Jayce programs a back-up: a small motion detector in the corner of the cage that can automatically trigger the drop if the remote is not pressed within a certain time frame. They’ve used an upside-down delivery box for their cage.
They place the trap near the centrifuge – as near as they dare without disturbing the animal from its hiding spot – and sit on the floor against the wall opposite the trap to watch.
“Is this how you expected to spend your night?” Jayce asks, popping some dried fruit pieces in his mouth. He angles the bag toward Viktor.
“I can’t say it is.” Viktor takes a few of the proffered fruit pieces. “Did you never have pets, then?”
“No.” They keep their voices low as if in unspoken agreement to not disturb their visitor. “I wanted one for a while, but my mom always said no. It was probably the right decision. I don’t think I would have made a very good pet owner.” So much time, so much attention, to spend on a small animal that would depend on him utterly. Jayce, even from a young age, always had his mind in books, in equations, in magic. It doesn’t come naturally to him, to focus on caring for another being. “How about you?”
Viktor rolls his cane against the tops of his thighs, up and down. “People in the undercity don’t keep pets in the same way as people here. Animals are kept outside. Some are guard animals.” Jayce wonders if he’s moving the cane like that in order to massage the slender muscles in his legs. It’s an almost hypnotic rhythm. “I would feed the animals outside of our home sometimes,” Viktor continues. “My mother would scold me. She said they were leaving a mess. And she always worried that they would trigger some kind of allergic reaction in me.”
Viktor speaks of his childhood rarely, though Jayce has asked about it often in their one year of acquaintance. The slightest mention of it is like a gift – a small fact about Viktor that he can tuck away with the others in his mind, another piece of the puzzle. Jayce always wants to ask more, to know more, but often, the wrong thing worded in the wrong way would make Viktor close down like a trap snapping shut, and Jayce would blow his chance.
“You fed the animals?” he asks, amused by the mental picture. Viktor, smaller than he knows him now but still sharp-eyed, tossing out food to stray cats and birds.
Viktor shrugs, as close to self-conscious he can get.
“Maybe that’s why you’re so slim,” Jayce says, smiling. “You gave all your food away to animals.”
Viktor says, “Yes, that, or the rampant malnutrition.”
Jayce’s smile disappears. He does this often, too often, forgetting how different their experiences were. It sometimes seems impossible. When his brain is snapping effortlessly into place with Viktor’s, when their thoughts align like sine waves in superposition, it’s easy to forget that Viktor was not raised in the same way as Jayce. That somehow, their different environments created the same type of person.
Jayce stutters, “I’m sorry, I-“
But Viktor interrupts him, angling a crooked smile at him. “I was joking.”
Jayce’s jaw snaps shut.
Viktor helps himself to another piece of fruit from the bag held limply in Jayce’s hand.
*
Jayce wakes up to a bony elbow pressed insistently in his side and his name hissed by a familiar voice.
It’s not the first time he’s fallen asleep in the lab, but it’s certainly the worst position he’s awoken in, leaning against the wall on the floor as he is. His neck hurts immediately; he’s pretty sure his legs are asleep.
“What time’s it?” he slurs. It’s still dark outside of the lab windows.
“Three in the morning,” Viktor says. “Look.” He’s pointing to the drop trap. The cage has fallen.
“It worked!” Jayce exclaims. He struggles to his feet and pulls Viktor up with him.
Over the cage, they exchange a look.
“Is it in there?” Viktor asks.
“It must be,” Jayce says. He frowns. “Maybe we should have installed a window.” Jayce kneels down as Viktor begins musing aloud about how best to close the box and move it outdoors safely. He’s still talking as Jayce lifts the box a few centimeters, then a few centimeters more. Finally, he pulls the entire box from the floor and holds it over his head. Viktor stops mid-sentence and looks at him with wide eyes.
There’s nothing beneath the box but an empty food plate.
Viktor looks shocked, but the expression is slowly replaced with the same look he gets when Jayce introduces him to a new concept about Hextech: wonder, and curiosity.
“How did it manage to eat the food and trigger the motion sensor without getting caught?” he asks.
Jayce sits back on his haunches and lets the box rest in his lap. “I have no idea.”
Viktor collapses into his chair at his desk, his hand on his chin. It’s his thinking face. Jayce knows better than to interrupt him. He stands and sets the box aside. Maybe it’s time for a new perspective.
*
When Cait arrives at the lab thirty minutes later, she is about as unkempt as Jayce has ever seen her – that is: not very. She is fully dressed and buttoned-up, but her hair is pulled back in a messy bun.
“This couldn’t have waited till morning?” she asks.
Viktor is sketching new trap ideas. He looks up in surprise, gaze flicking between Jayce and Cait.
“I sent for her,” Jayce tells him, almost apologetic. “I figured we could use some help.”
“And I was foolish enough to actually come,” Cait says. She looks over at Viktor. “Hi, by the way.”
Viktor has gone a bit stiff in the shoulders. He and Cait have only met each other a handful of times, despite him being Jayce’s partner and her being Jayce’s best friend. Viktor always gets a bit quiet around Cait in a way that he doesn’t get around anyone else. Viktor is usually quick to voice his opinion, unapologetic about his thoughts. Around Cait, he clams up.
Jayce tries not to take it seriously, but he gets anxious when the two of them are together, like it’s important to him that they get along – a fact about himself that he doesn’t plan to examine too closely.
“Miss Kiramman,” Viktor says, nodding at her.
“Caitlyn,” Cait corrects him, as she does every time they talk.
Viktor nods again, now in apology, his gaze sliding downward to the floor. Jayce wants to shake him. It’s just Cait! You don’t have to be shy around Cait!
Cait moves deeper into the lab, looking around shamelessly like the snoop she is.
“So,” she says, “a cat?”
“It’s under the bookshelf again,” Jayce says wearily, pointing. “We tried setting a drop trap that we designed but it escaped.”
Cait slowly turns toward Jayce. “It escaped?” she repeats.
Slowly, Jayce says, “Yes?”
“From a trap you designed?”
Even more slowly, he says, “Yes?”
Cait peels into laughter. “Did you two get outsmarted by a cat?”
Jayce feels his face heat up; he’s used to Cait teasing him, but having her tease him in front of Viktor in his own lab is hitting a weak spot.
Viktor, nose scrunching, says, “It’s a very intelligent cat.”
“Obviously,” Cait says, grinning. She ducks down to check on the animal under the bookshelf. “Oh there you are! Hello, little one.”
“Do you have any experience with cats?” Viktor asks her.
“None,” Cait says, her face still pressed to the floor. “My mother would never deign to let an animal in her house. Imagine all the hair it would leave behind. She would have it arrested for property destruction.”
“Your mother isn’t that bad,” Jayce says.
“You don’t live with her,” Cait reminds him. She coos to the cat and reaches a slim arm under the bookshelf. Jayce braces himself, worrying that she’ll be bit. Instead, it’s like the cane all over again: the sounds of scratching, scrambling, and the blurry line of a gray cat streaking across the room and sliding under yet another piece of furniture.
“Poor thing is terrified,” Cait says.
“We’re open to suggestions,” Jayce says.
Cait shrugs and stands up, brushing off her knees. “You two are the scientists. Can you tranquilize it?”
Jayce exchanges a look with Viktor, whose expression says, I have no idea. “We’re not chemists,” Jayce tells Cait with a shrug.
“Then find someone who is,” Cait says. “When you sent for me, I thought the cat was destroying your lab or something. I thought it was an emergency. The cat isn’t hurting anything. Go home, get some sleep, and deal with it in the morning. If you want suggestions, that’s mine.”
“What if it gets into something?” Viktor asks. “We have equipment here. It might damage our work or - or hurt itself.”
“We can move the prototypes to the closet so it won’t touch them accidentally,” Jayce suggests. “Cait’s right – it’s late.” The pain in his neck still hasn’t quite gone away since he fell asleep on the floor. He wonders if Viktor isn’t in a bit of discomfort as well.
Viktor concedes to Jayce’s suggestion with a half-shrug and a tilt of his head. Together, the three of them move their more delicate prototypes into a storage closet, locking them safely away from any potential feline interference.
Viktor leaves them outside the door to the lab, bidding them both goodnight with a wave.
Cait tugs at Jayce’s sleeve. “The least you can do is walk me home,” she says.
Jayce sighs and does not argue.
Outside, it’s still too early for the sun to rise, but the sky is beginning to lighten – a pale gray instead of deep black. The stars cannot be seen, and the streets are empty but for a few patrolling enforcers.
“You owe me one,” Cait says.
“You didn’t do anything,” Jayce reminds her.
“Exactly. Yet I still walked all this way to see if I could. In the middle of the night. See? You couldn’t ask for a better friend. And now you owe me one.”
Jayce sighs. He doesn’t bother to point out that Cait has called for him in the middle of the night a few times herself. Their friendship rarely has time constraints; neither of them are very good at adhering to a normal sleep schedule. “All right,” he relents.
It’s cold enough for Jayce to see his breath, but it doesn’t bother him. Winter is arriving, but it’s nothing compared to the winters of his childhood. He supposes that, after the near-death experience of his youth, he should fear the cold. Instead, it just makes him think of swirling magic, of electricity on his skin, of the warmth of power around him.
“I think Viktor hates me,” Cait says.
Jayce looks at her in surprise. She has her head tilted back, looking at the puffs of condensation that her own breath forms before her.
“What?” Jayce says, stunned.
She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I suppose I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He’s from the undercity, my mother is on the council…” She tips her head back and forth.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jayce asks. “He works for someone on the council – or he did, anyway. And I’m not from the undercity and he doesn’t hate me.” Jayce shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, pulling his coat tight against his shoulders. “He doesn’t hate you,” he insists. “I think he’s just quiet around you.”
“Yes, and he doesn’t look me in the eye, or he’ll leave the room when I enter, sometimes.”
“You don’t-“ Jayce cuts himself off with a shake of his head. He can’t deny that Viktor can be a bit skittish around her. “I think he’s just like that around people, sometimes,” he says. “But he doesn’t hate you, Cait. Trust me.” He tilts his head to get her attention, slanting a smile at her. “If he hated you, you would know it.”
“All right,” she says, considering this. The wind picks up, nipping cold at their ears, and they pick up their pace to ward off the chill.
*
Jayce oversleeps – not surprisingly, given how late it is when he finally collapses into bed – and when he arrives at the lab, Viktor is already there. Part of the prototype has been removed from the closet and is back on Viktor’s work bench. Jayce leans over Viktor’s shoulder to get a look at his progress on the soldering. He’s almost finished with the rewiring process, has rerouted a few circuits that were causing initial shortages in their earlier trials. Viktor’s slim fingers are almost as nimble as his mind; he makes delicate electrical work look easy.
Viktor pauses in his work and tilts his head a fraction. He says nothing, but the small movement is enough to make Jayce realize how much he’s invading Viktor’s personal space. He quickly leans back.
“So,” he says, aiming for casual, “where is our friend this morning?”
Viktor’s shoulders go a little tight. He doesn’t look at Jayce when he gestures toward the windowed wall of the room. One of their metal lab carts is there. Jayce guesses that Viktor means that the cat is beneath the cart’s lowest shelf, hiding as usual under the lowest furniture possible. But there, in front of the cart, are two small bowls. One is filled with water, the other with what looks exactly like cat food.
“It came out briefly,” Viktor says, his voice a little quiet. “It took some food and disappeared back under.”
Viktor is still looking at the prototype before him, still stiff-backed. His voice had been tight when he spoke. Realization spreads slow through Jayce’s mind: this is Viktor feeling embarrassed. Is he worried that Jayce will tease him for feeding the cat?
It certainly isn’t what Jayce had expected to see when he walked into the lab this morning. He looks at Viktor’s hunched form, his averted eyes. This is the Viktor that I wish you could see, he thinks to Cait. The Viktor that wakes up early and goes out to buy cat food for a stray that broke into his lab. The Viktor that brings two bowls from his own home kitchen to place on the floor. The Viktor that continuously does these things – the kind things – even when he thinks he might be chastised for it.
Jayce rubs his hand across his jaw and looks back toward the cat bowls. He takes a breath.
“I’m glad it ate something,” he says. “More than just what it got from the drop trap last night, I mean.”
Viktor looks at Jayce then; Jayce can see it out of the corner of his eye. Eventually, Viktor says, “I figured it earned it, given that it did successfully outsmart us.”
“Hey,” Jayce says, “let’s not go around admitting that.” He takes the seat next to Viktor. “What’s our next plan with it?”
“I think your friend was right,” Viktor says. “Right now, I want to get this prototype working. The cat is not the priority. We can work on the trap when this is done, if the cat has not found its own way back out by then.”
The cat is not the priority, except for prioritizing going out and buying it food, Jayce thinks. Still, Viktor is right. There’s no immediate harm in putting the trap on the backburner, and there is a chance that if the cat found its way in, it can find its way back out.
“Sure,” Jayce says. “Except… don’t cats need litter boxes?”
Viktor abruptly stops soldering. “I,” he says, “did not think of that.”
Jayce runs a hand through his hair.
He finds a bag of sand in the back of their storage, purchased originally to be used as an experimental dampener to Hextech’s power emissions. He quickly hammers together a low-walled box out of scrap metal and pours the sand in. He pushes the box next to the lab cart.
“Do they just… use it automatically?” he asks Viktor.
“I have no idea,” Viktor says, “but I imagine we will find out quickly.”
Jayce collapses back into his chair. “I can’t believe that between the two of us we don’t know anyone who has experience with cats.”
Viktor hums in agreement. “Between the two of us, we don’t know many people in the first place.” He thinks for a moment with a tilt of his head. “I suppose Heimerdinger might know.”
Jayce’s eyes widen. It’s true that Heimerdinger undoubtedly has experience in this area – he seems to have experience in all areas – but the idea of telling him that their lab is potentially contaminated by a loose animal that they’ve failed to contain is… not tempting.
Jayce grimaces. “You can tell him if you want. I guess.”
But the look of dawning horror on Viktor’s face suggests that he’s come to the same conclusion as Jayce. “I distinctly do not want,” he says.
After that, it’s easy to forget about their new guest. The cat does not make an appearance all day. It doesn’t even make a sound. They turn to their work. Jayce is forced to leave early for some meetings with potential investors. When he asks Viktor to come with him, Viktor simply replies, “Good luck,” and waves goodbye. Jayce has yet to find a way to convince Viktor to help him with the public side of things.
He doesn’t come back to the lab until the following morning. He’s there before Viktor. As he’s turning on the lights in the lab, he notices the bowls out of the corner of his eye and walks over to inspect them. Half of the food bowl is empty. There are signs of use in the makeshift litter box.
“I guess it does know how to use it,” Jayce notes.
He kneels down and places his cheek against the cold floor to peer under the lab cart. There’s enough ambient light from the window to see, and sure enough, he’s met with yellow feline eyes. The cat is not alone under there; someone has pushed a small blanket under the cart. The cat huddles beside it.
It’s a solid gray cat, and small. Young, or maybe just small for a cat. Maybe a runt. Its fur looks a little dirty, not very sleek.
“Still here, huh?” Jayce asks it. The cat doesn’t respond. “It doesn’t seem like you like it much here. Don’t you have a family to return to? A cat mom and cat siblings out there waiting for you?”
Jayce hears the click of the cane a little too late. “I don’t think it can answer you,” Viktor says from the entrance of the lab.
Jayce sits up a little too quickly and wills himself not to flush. He shouldn’t be embarrassed that he was caught speaking to the cat. Besides… “Did you give it a blanket?” Jayce asks.
Viktor shrugs, dipping an ear toward his shoulder. Cowed. He makes his way to their chalkboard.
They test the finished prototype later that morning, and it’s a success. They’re another step closer to the reality of functional, largescale Hexgates. Viktor grins at him over the whirring prototype, his face lit up in the blue glow of Hextech. Triumphant. It’s like the moment he looked at Viktor while floating in the gravity field, or the moment when Viktor pulled him back from the ledge and told him that he believed in him.
“Viktor, you’re a genius,” Jayce tells him, though it feels like only a fraction of what he means.
Viktor laughs at him, his breathy wheeze. “I have been told this,” he says.
It’s easy to forget about trying to trap the cat.
*
The next morning, Jayce enters the lab to see Viktor with his goggles on, welding something fairly large, something Jayce doesn’t recognize from any of their blueprints. He approaches to watch. It looks a bit like a large box.
“What’s this?” Jayce asks.
Viktor continues welding for a few more seconds. Finally, he clicks the hand laser off and pushes his goggles up.
“The cat’s a girl,” he says.
Jayce blinks.
Viktor gestures broadly, arms flapping. “It came out. She came out. This morning.”
“You got a look at it?” Jayce asks. Viktor doesn’t respond right away, and something clicks in Jayce’s mind. He looks at the box Viktor is welding. There’s a semi-circle carved out of one wall of the box. There are no hinges that Jayce can see, no falling parts. It’s not a trap. “Are you making a house for the cat?”
Viktor fiddles with the tool in his hand as if adjusting its settings, even though Jayce is pretty sure they don’t need adjusting.
“Viktor,” Jayce says slowly, “we can’t… you know we can’t just let the cat live here, right?” It’s a lab, a working lab, and besides, Heimerdinger would kill them. And neither of them knows anything about cats. The thing might have fleas.
“I’m not…” Viktor looks annoyed at himself. “I know it’s not a permanent solution. I just think she should be comfortable until we find a home for her.”
“I thought we were just putting it back outside,” Jayce reminds him.
“It’s going to be winter soon,” Viktor replies.
Jayce doesn’t see how that has anything to do with it. Didn’t Viktor himself say that animals usually lived outside? Cats have fur; she would be fine.
But. Jayce can’t find it in himself to say no to Viktor. This is probably, he thinks, going to cause him a lot of problems in the future.
“Do you know someone who might take her?” Jayce asks.
“I was hoping you might,” Viktor replies.
Jayce taps his hand against his own leg. “I can ask around,” he hears himself say, with absolutely no idea who he’s going to ask.
*
“No,” Caitlyn says.
“Come on, Cait, just for the winter?”
“Absolutely not,” Cait repeats. The sun shines on her through the windows of the café. She sips from the very expensive drink Jayce bought her – payment for her late-night visit. “I already told you, my mother won’t allow it.”
“Well,” Jayce says carefully, “you don’t always do what your mother tells you to do…”
Cait’s jaw drops open. “Are you actually being a bad influence on me? I think this is a first.”
“Come on, Cait,” he says. “Is there someone else you might know? Someone who might want a cat?”
Cait’s eyes narrow. “Why don’t you just take it?”
Jayce has considered it, but only briefly. He’s a little afraid that Viktor will ask him outright if he will take it, and Jayce will find himself the helpless new owner of a cat. “I don’t know how to take care of a cat,” he tells Cait. “And besides, I’m almost never in my rooms. I’m at the lab twelve hours a day. It wouldn’t be right to have a pet.”
“And I guess your partner is in the same situation.”
“Yeah,” Jayce says, stirring more sugar into his drink and watching the ripples swirl. “I think he’d keep it if he could. He’s the reason we’re not just releasing it outside.”
Cait tilts her head. “Really?”
“He thinks it will be cold, I guess. Doesn’t want to put it out in the winter.”
Cait laughs. “I didn’t know Viktor was such a softie. I thought people from the undercity are supposed to be tough.”
“He’s tough,” Jayce says, out of loyalty. “I mean, he’s tough when he should be. And he’s soft when he should… be.” Cait is carefully raising a judgmental eyebrow at him. “He’s the right mix of tough and soft, all right?”
“Whatever you say,” Cait says. Jayce slumps, and she must take pity on him, because Cait says, “I’ll talk to Grayson. She knows everyone. And I’ll talk to my dad too. I’m sure I can find someone willing to take your cat.”
Jayce smiles gratefully at her. “Thanks, Cait.”
Cait sips her tea. “Now you own me another one,” she says.
Jayce swings by his rooms on his way back after lunch. He arrives back in the lab with a spare pillow under his arm. Viktor is just finishing the cat house when Jayce pushes the pillow toward him.
“Will this fit?” he asks.
Viktor lifts an edge of his goggles to look at him with one golden eye. He pauses for a long moment. “Yes,” he says finally, slowly.
“Good,” Jayce says, setting the pillow on the workbench.
“Thank you,” Viktor says quietly.
“Caitlyn’s going to ask around.” Jayce takes his seat at his own workbench. “I’m sure she’ll find someone who can give the cat a home.”
“Thank you,” Viktor repeats. He gently smooths a hand over the pillow beside him. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I didn’t expect you to be so ready to help this animal.”
“I’m not exactly doing it to help the cat,” Jayce says. “I’m doing it to help you.”
Viktor adjusts his goggles. Then adjusts them again. “Yes, well,” he says. Then, “Thank you.”
*
Five days later, Jayce walks into the lab in the morning and sees the cat sitting on Viktor’s lap.
He catches about two seconds of the image: Viktor, straight-backed and careful and still, a small gray ball of fur in his lap. But then the cat’s ear twitches; she’s heard Jayce come in. In a flash, the cat is diving back into her pillowed box.
Viktor hisses and leans over, grabbing his thighs.
It’s a lot to take in within the first few seconds of coming to work.
“Are you all right?” Jayce asks first, rushing to Viktor’s side. There are three small pinpoints of pink seeping through his pants.
“You scared her,” Viktor says.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jayce says, kneeling on instinct to see if he can help Viktor. “Shit, Viktor,” he adds, looking at the blood.
“I’m fine,” Viktor says. “She was just scared. She’s never scratched me before.”
Jayce leans back. “She’s sat on your lap before?”
“That was the third time.”
Jayce hasn’t even been able to look at the cat without her disappearing under the cart, or into her box. “I didn’t know that,” he says.
Viktor shrugs. He grabs his cane and heads into the washroom to – Jayce assumes - clean the wounds.
Jayce had no idea that Viktor has been successfully taming the cat. It must be happening in the evenings after Jayce leaves; Viktor has stayed late every night this week.
He should be happy. He should be happy that Viktor is bonding with the cat, should be happy that the cat is becoming more tame. But it feels like this is another aspect of Viktor that is locked away from him, inaccessible. Viktor can stay late and bond with the cat; Jayce can only walk in and upset the peace they’ve achieved.
Jayce has never been all that good at making friends. It seems especially upsetting that he can’t even make friends with a cat. Or worse, that a cat is better at making friends with Viktor than he is.
He moves toward the windows and leans down to look into the cat’s box. The cat watches him warily.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” he tells her. She’s frozen in place. He reaches out a hand into the box carefully, wanting to let her sniff him. If she’s sat on Viktor a few times, then obviously she’s at least somewhat amenable to human contact.
As his hand gets closer, she lets out a strange low sound. Jayce isn’t sure what to make of it before she’s hissing. She slaps his hand with her paws – three strong whaps – and Jayce falls back on his ass in surprise. That same strange low sound emanates from the shadows of the box.
His hand is bleeding. She’s scratched him.
“Idiot,” Jayce murmurs to himself.
He knocks on the door of the washroom. “Viktor,” he calls through the door, “keep the first aid supplies out.”
The door swings open. Viktor, apparently done with his own wound-cleaning, asks, “What happened?”
Jayce shows him the scratch marks. They’re bleeding sluggishly, and hurt entirely too much for such shallow cuts.
It’s unmistakable that they came from a cat’s claws.
Viktor sighs and steps back, giving Jayce the space to walk in. The first aid supplies are still sitting out on the sink counter.
Viktor hands him a clean towel after Jayce finishes washing his hand under the sink. Then he gestures at Jayce to sit on the closed toilet lid.
Jayce might be able to bandage the wounds himself, despite the cuts being on his dominant hand, but he gives up his hand gratefully when Viktor reaches for it. Viktor’s hands are cool, his fingers long, his skin light against Jayce’s own.
“What did you do to make her do this?” Viktor asks, reaching for the disinfectant.
“Hey, I’m the victim here,” Jayce reminds him.
Viktor looks at him from under lowered eyebrows. “That’s not how it works with animals.”
Jayce forces himself not to twitch as Victor applies the disinfectant. Viktor is being as gentle as his can, but the chemical burns regardless. “I tried to let her sniff my hand,” Jayce says. “I thought it would help her… get to know me, I guess.”
“And where was she?”
“In her box.”
Viktor pats the wounds dry with gauze. He holds Jayce’s hand like it’s a delicate thing. “You cornered her,” he says. “You didn’t give her a choice. You put your hand in front of her, and she felt trapped.”
Jayce can’t deny the logic of this. “What should I have done?” he asks.
“Let her come to you,” Viktor says. He gently tapes a square of clean gauze over the cuts. His work is precise and careful. “She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”
Viktor releases his hand. Jayce carefully runs his fingers over the gauze square.
“It can’t be that easy,” Jayce says.
Viktor quirks a crooked smile at him. “Easier than getting scratched.” He turns to begin putting the supplies away.
Jayce rubs at his hand again. “I thought you said you weren’t a cat person.”
“It’s all science, isn’t it?” The supplies go back into the first aid box, back into their compartments. “Trial and error. Observation and inference.”
Viktor, as usual, makes everything seem easy. “Jeez, Viktor. Is there anything you’re bad at?”
Viktor closes the first aid kit with a snap. “One or two things.”
That evening, they both stay later than usual. When Viktor finally begins tidying his work station in preparation of leaving, he eyes Jayce.
“Are you not leaving?” he asks.
Jayce taps the transistor he’s working on. “Just going to finish this.”
Viktor’s stares at him for another beat. Finally, he says, “All right. Good night.”
When Viktor closes the lab door behind him, Jayce picks up his journal and lowers himself onto the floor in the center of the room. He faces the cat house and waits.
It takes almost forty-five minutes, but eventually Jayce looks up from his notes and sees a gray head peeking out from the door of the house.
The cat is watching him, her eyes large. She’s completely still, as if she believes that if she doesn’t move Jayce won’t be able to see her. They watch each other for long, long moments. Jayce says nothing. He doesn’t breathe. A small gray paw moves forward and sets itself carefully on the floor outside of the box. Then the other. Her eyes never leave Jayce’s.
I won’t hurt you, Jayce thinks desperately. You can trust me.
The cat finally looks away. She turns to her food and begins to eat.
Jayce lets out the breath he is holding. He watches her make her way to her litter box. She even sniffs around her cart a bit, looking around. But when Jayce moves, just setting his journal down, she moves back into her box. This time, she doesn’t run. Doesn’t panic. She just watches him put the journal down and disappears into her home.
Jayce grins.
He wakes up early the next morning and goes out to the shops. He tucks his purchase into the back of the lab fridge for later. That night, after Viktor leaves with another considering look, Jayce sits himself on the same spot on the floor. He unwraps his purchase from that morning: a raw filet of fish. He places it directly in between himself and the box, perfectly equidistant.
Now, it only takes twenty minutes for the cat to show herself. She doesn’t make for her food bowl first. Instead, she tilts her head up, considering, sniffing the air. She watches Jayce with those sharp yellow eyes for a beat. But the lure of the fish must be strong. Slowly, keeping her body low to the ground, she inches toward it. When she reaches it, she huddles on the ground and eats quickly, in big bites. Jayce smiles at her, but she doesn’t notice. When she’s done eating, her confidence has evidently exploded. Jayce watches her do a loop around most of the lab, sniffing at everything. She eventually jumps up on Viktor’s workbench and lays down. She’s still there when Jayce stands up and goes home for the night.
*
“What’s that?” Viktor asks the next morning.
Jayce smiles at him over his armful of supplies. “I got some treats for the Hexcat,” he says. “And don’t worry, I got you some things too.” He drops the pile down on Viktor’s workbench in a heap and sets the tea and breakfast sandwich in front of Viktor.
Viktor is blinking. “The Hexcat?” He carefully begins to unwrap his sandwich.
“She likes fish,” Jayce says. “This time, I got some more varieties for her to try.”
“All right,” Viktor says. “Now answer the other part, Jayce: Hexcat?”
“What else would we name her?” Jayce asks.
“I’m concerned about your creativity,” Viktor says, which makes Jayce laugh.
Jayce places a pillow on the edge of Viktor’s workbench. “I also bought another pillow. She likes to sleep on your workbench.”
“I’m… aware of that,” Viktor says. “I thought we weren’t keeping her.”
“We’re not,” Jayce says quickly. “This is just… making her comfortable until we hear back from Cait.”
That evening, Viktor cleans his workbench and swivels in his chair to face Jayce. Jayce can see him watching him out of the corner of his eye, his chin resting against the heel of his hand. Finally, Jayce stops pretending not to notice.
“What is it?” he asks.
Viktor says, “What have you been doing with her, after I leave?”
Jayce sets his pencil down. “I sit on the floor and wait for her to come out.”
Viktor considers this. Then he says, “Show me.”
Jayce grabs the three packets of fish from the fridge and sets them, unwrapped, in the same spot he set the fish the previous night. Then he sits in his spot and flaps his arms around as if to say: like this.
Viktor stands and comes over to him. He leaves his cane behind, leaning against his desk, and when he goes to lower himself beside Jayce, he uses Jayce’s shoulder as a brace. “Just like this, eh?” he says, getting settled with his leg stretched out in front of him.
Jayce nods. “Like you said. I’m letting her come to me. When she’s ready.”
Viktor smiles at him.
They wait in silence. It doesn’t take long – five minutes, maybe. The cat barely looks at them before she’s trotting up to the fish.
“You gave her too much,” Viktor says quietly.
“It’s in the name of science,” Jayce whispers back. “I’m experimenting with fish preferences.”
She manages to eat about half of the fish – one and a half filets, ignoring one of them entirely, Jayce notes. When she finishes, she looks up at the two of them. Viktor clucks his tongue a few times and holds out his hand, rubbing two fingers together. It’s like his own brand of magic, no Hextech required: the cat trots up to him. Her eyes flick up to Jayce a few times, but when she’s within reach of Viktor’s hand, she rubs her head against his long fingers.
Viktor scratches the short fur on her head a few times before he withdraws his hand. He nods at Jayce.
His hands feel sweaty, as if he’s greeting an important investor. More nervous than that, even. He puts his hand out and rubs his two fingers together, trying his best to mimic Viktor. The cat doesn’t hesitate. She bonks her head into his hand. Her fur is softer than it looks. Her purr is loud.
She flops onto her side and looks up at Jayce with half-closed eyes. Jayce can see her small frame vibrating with her own purring. He runs his hand down her side, and she lets him. She lets him.
He grins over at Viktor. Another victory, achieved together. Viktor’s face is soft, softer than Jayce has ever seen. Content. When he leans into Jayce to press their shoulders together, that feels like a victory, too.
*
Three days later, Caitlyn walks into the lab.
“Good afternoon,” she says. “I have good news. One of my father’s friends has a son who would love to adopt your cat.”
Jayce exchanges a quick look with Viktor.
“What cat?” Viktor asks.
“I don’t recall any cat,” Jayce says.
There is a small gray cat sleeping on a pillow on Viktor’s workbench. Cait looks directly at it.
“Oh,” Jayce exclaims with a snap of his fingers, “you mean the cat that we had in the lab? It escaped.”
“Must have gotten out the same way it got in,” Viktor says.
“We must have forgotten to update you,” Jayce says. “Sorry, we have no cats here.”
“Well,” Cait says, utterly unsurprised. “In consolation, I brought you this.” She reaches into her pocket and reveals a small knitted mouse, bright pink. “A toy. Just in case you do get another visitor someday.”
Jayce grins as he takes the mouse. Hexcat is sleeping comfortably, but she cracks one eye open as Jayce approaches to set the toy beside her bed. She stretches, long gangly legs sticking straight out. Jayce pets down her side and she lets her head flop back down against the pillow, eyes slipping back closed.
Cait watches this encounter. “What happened to not knowing how to take care of a cat?” she asks, arching an eyebrow at him.
Jayce shrugs. He slants a smile at Viktor. “I learned.”