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As soon as Jayce gets Viktor out of their younger counterparts’ bedroom, he grabs his waist, boxes him against the kitchen island, and kisses him for the first time in years.
They have a lot to talk about. But once that starts, Jayce knows they’ll need to put their clothes and armor back on and get home. To their own universe. Where, maybe, Viktor won’t be in the mood for this anymore.
And Jayce has missed this more than anything.
Far be it from Jayce to explain why seeing a younger, unaugmented version of Viktor next to his Viktor made him realize just how fucking stupid he’s been.
Jayce hasn’t been at war with the Machine Herald for some time. They’ve been collaborating on a time travel device to fix their universe’s problems that were caused by the war they’re no longer having.
But they don’t really talk otherwise. They don’t spend time together outside the lab. Before tonight, they were something on the bitter side of cordial, Jayce supposes.
They were never married, but Caitlyn refers to the last better part of a decade as their divorce era. Jayce sort of likes that, the application of such a colloquial term to what feels anything but. Divorces are final. Comfortable. Plenty of people get divorced and continue to work together.
Well. Jayce can’t think of anyone besides them off the top of his head. But he’s sure it’s not some wildly abnormal situation that merits further analysis.
Viktor, fortunately, isn’t protesting. He threads sharp fingers into Jayce’s hair, against his skull, and kisses back wet and hungry. Maybe due to that removed refractory period he’s always talking about. Maybe because not ten minutes ago he was crying and fucking a younger version of himself. He’s…tender. Jayce is here for it. Always has been, really.
Jayce squeezes his hands around Viktor’s waist, feeling up the metal alloy, the textured wires. Viktor shivers and licks into his mouth and he tastes like all the sweet wine and cum from earlier, organic and alive. Nothing like the battery acid Jayce always imagined. The metal plating on the sides of his face doesn’t affect his mouth. Inside, he’s all original Viktor, as wanton and delicious as Jayce remembers.
Viktor slides his hands down to Jayce’s neck, tongues him deeper, and rolls his hips forward.
That’s something that Jayce isn’t familiar with. His new dick. The one Jayce had the pleasure of watching the younger Viktor get split open on. It’s fuckin’ huge, maybe unnecessarily so, and it’s also kind of badass: backlit orange and made of a flexible, smooth metal alloy. And it cums gratuitously, which is pretty much in line with what Jayce would expect Viktor to do when tasked with building his own cock.
While he didn’t know the specifics, Jayce actually already knew Viktor’s fancy new cock existed because of the last time Viktor visited this timeline, and returned, and made the singular complaint to Jayce that he wished he’d had it attached at the time so he could have fucked this Viktor better than Jayce ever could. Incredibly normal behavior.
Jayce pulls back his head to break the kiss, and Viktor practically doesn’t let him. He huffs and follows him forward, sticky strings of saliva connecting where their lips were screwed together. His hands tighten on Jayce’s neck, like he thinks Jayce has somewhere to go. As if Jayce would rather be doing anything but this.
“Easy,” Jayce says, and it comes out a little raw with how firmly Viktor’s compressing his larynx. Viktor’s pupils fatten in his glowing eyes, and he applies more pressure before he lets go. “Not going anywhere. Just wanted to see something.”
Jayce shifts back a bit to readjust where their hips are flattened together. He grabs his own cock, already hard again, and slots it alongside Viktor’s robotic dick. Maybe a few years ago it would have bruised his ego how much bigger Viktor is. Fuck, maybe a few hours ago.
But instead…
“That…hmm,” Jayce says, his breath coming quicker. He hasn’t been what he’d call flustered in over a decade, so it’s kind of novel, and no surprise that it’s Viktor flustering him. “That’s so fuckin’ hot, V.”
Viktor squeezes the base of their cocks together with a practiced hand and Jayce groans and rolls his hips forward on instinct. His other hand holds Jayce’s shoulder still with ease, and Jayce finds that Viktor’s new strength being directed at him makes his stomach flip and his cock pulse precum. Viktor twists his wrist to slide his fist over their cockheads and strokes firmly down.
“Would you take it?” Viktor asks, while pumping their cocks. It’s his unmodulated voice, so low and heavy in its accent that Jayce has to grit his teeth to keep from groaning again just from hearing it resonate in his ears.
“Yeah,” Jayce says, and nods, like he’s psyching himself up. “Fuck yeah.”
Viktor pauses, like Jayce has surprised him more than Jayce has surprised himself.
“Very well,” he says, eventually.
“I’ll, uh—" Jayce steps back and spits on his fingers and pretends he didn’t just stammer.
“No,” Viktor says, and grabs his wrist. “Let me.”
Jayce nods and wipes his fingers on the counter and lets Viktor trade places with him. He lowers his forearms to the kitchen island and spreads his legs a bit. It’s been awhile. This isn’t something he’s done without Viktor, he means.
He, truthfully, always kind of imagined that Viktor would be a dick about it, if he ever got the chance after they broke up. Cruel and rough and detached, maybe. It’s one of those fantasies Jayce shoves down deep, for sure.
He didn’t imagine Viktor’s breath would catch in his flesh and blood throat behind him, that he’d rest the palm of his cool metal hand on Jayce’s back, or that he’d gently hook his leg around one of Jayce’s ankles to spread him further.
“Can probably steal some lube from their bedroom if you’re quiet,” Jayce says.
“The eh, cum doubles as professional grade lubricant,” Viktor says. “And there is plenty in the reservoir.”
“God,” Jayce says. He’s glad Viktor can’t see him roll his eyes. “Alright.”
Viktor’s fingers are surprisingly warm when they circle his asshole. That professional grade lubricant reservoir is probably inside him after all, kept body hot by his functioning organs, machine hot next to the processors. It makes Jayce’s toes curl, and he tries to relax further onto his forearms, tries to breathe.
“Your heart is beating disturbingly fast,” Viktor says. Jayce realizes he can feel it through the hand on his back.
Well. It would probably be more pathetic to not just lean into it if the proof of Jayce’s nerves is traceable in the database of Viktor’s built-in heart monitors, or whatever.
Besides. He saw Viktor break down in tears while he was fucking him earlier. The emotional walls they’ve built around each other for a decade were razed in an instant.
“You can’t be surprised that I missed this,” Jayce says. And then reconsiders, because that’s not even the full truth. “Missed you, I mean.”
Viktor doesn’t respond. Verbally, at least. He presses the flat of his palm more firmly to Jayce’s back, and then slides what feels like two slick, warm fingers inside him.
“Fuck,” Jayce says. His fists clench on the counter.
“Relax, Jayce.”
Jayce does relax on the command. It’s Viktor’s unmodulated voice saying his given name, after all. Kind of original after all these years. So Viktor adds a third finger, and starts fucking him on them. Slow, but deliberate, and as deep as his knuckles will allow.
“I am starting to think I built it too big,” Viktor says in that maddening deadpan. Jayce laughs, feeling a bit delirious, and shakes his head, stares at the whorls on the false granite countertop.
“Nah, it’s perfect, V,” he says. “At least, if he could take it, I know I can.”
He’s referring to the other, younger Viktor, of course. Not that it fit particularly well.
“He is a slut.”
Jayce laughs again, which feels kind of good with Viktor’s metal hand inside him if he’s being honest, bumping up against his sensitive nerves.
It’s interesting how much disregard Viktor has for his younger counterpart, even after they cried in each other’s arms. Jayce can’t bring himself to feel the same way about Talis. Regardless of how much his naivete annoys him, Jayce kind of thinks it would destroy him to find out things don’t work out for him. He doesn’t even want to begin to unpack what that means.
“That’s you you’re talking about,” Jayce says. “You weren’t all that different than him, once—fuck.”
Viktor maybe didn’t like that diagnosis, because he grunts and adds a fourth finger without warning, and the burn of the stretch is now in Jayce’s spine, in his toes, in his cock.
“Shit, I’m not saying I prefer it, Vik.” Jayce cards through his hair with one hand. “I’m at least fifteen years his senior. Can you fuckin’ imagine keeping up with Talis?”
“Easily,” Viktor says. Without missing a beat.
Right. Because of the removed refractory period, and the stronger hips, and the everything new and shiny about him. By design it’s not something Jayce has dwelled on too much, but Jayce is remarkably human compared to Viktor. And with that, becoming more flawed by the year. Falling behind, maybe.
Jayce grits his teeth and wishes Viktor would just get on with it.
“I am, eh. Also not saying I would prefer that, though,” Viktor says.
Jayce’s jaw relaxes again.
“Okay, okay, don’t get too sentimental on me,” he says, even though his chest feels warm. “M’ ready for you.”
“That is debatable,” Viktor says. But he withdraws his fingers. Jayce wonders how much eagerness is able to seep through his emotional filter, and he feels like he gets the answer when Viktor roughly repositions Jayce’s hips and ruts his cock up to his ass from behind.
Not more than half an hour ago, Jayce watched both Viktor’s take dick like fucking champions. So it is not without a blow to his ego that when Viktor starts getting inside him—it’s anything but easy.
“Jayce,” Viktor says. He’s not wearing the mask so Jayce is definitely imagining it, but his voice is so serrated it sounds like it’s escaping him in a pneumatic hiss. “You are…exceedingly tight.”
“Yeah,” Jayce says, feigning casual when his body feels like it’s been warmed over a fire, and his dick is throbbing for him to be fucked fuller. “I’ll live. Just get it over with.”
Viktor reaches around and fists Jayce’s cock in one hand, and that helps. Jayce leans into it and exhales a breath he was holding tight in his lungs, and Viktor hums. Viktor’s other hand relaxes where it’s rested on Jayce’s hip, stroking the muscles there.
He is definitely not getting it over with, like Jayce asked of him. He is not cruel or rough or giving Jayce what he thinks he deserves, like in Jayce’s worst fantasies. Maybe because of the way Jayce has handled Viktor tonight, he’s earned something nicer. Clearly, at least for the evening, they’re not bitter anymore.
Breathing comes easier to him, and muscles he didn’t know he was straining taut start to uncoil, and practically all at once Viktor’s able to bury into him to the hilt. His body, cool metal and burning flesh, plasters to Jayce’s back and Jayce almost groans for the feeling of skin-on-skin more than he does for the feeling of being finally fucked full.
God, maybe he’s starved for this kind of touch. How embarrassing.
“Excellent, Jayce.” Viktor’s voice is close to his ear and almost ragged with pleasure, and he hasn’t even moved yet. Which helps mend some of that wounded pride from earlier.
Part of it, Jayce is sure, is because this is the first time Viktor’s fucked him like this.
It’s not that Jayce never took it in the ass when they were together. It was just dildos and strap-ons and fingers. All fun for sure, but this is Viktor’s actual cock. He made it to fuck Jayce with, and he’s entirely inside him, and it’s getting him off directly for the first time in their lives. It kind of makes Jayce dizzy. Viktor’s forehead presses to his shoulder blade and he groans through his teeth. Jayce wonders how many times no refractory period translates to filling him up, and it makes him groan ruinously in response to Viktor.
“I have thought about this many times,” Viktor says. His hips move, shakily withdrawing and then fucking forward to fill Jayce up again. He’s steadier the second time, and even more so the third, and then he’s railing him in earnest against the counter, fucking up into him.
“Better than you imagined?” Jayce manages. He doesn’t want Viktor to think he’s lost his confidence just because he’s the one getting fucked. Which is a train of thought he hasn’t fully picked apart yet. He doesn’t know what it is about Viktor fucking him makes him feel so raw, when he has never thought any less of Viktor for spreading his legs for him over and over.
It’s probably a question for the therapist his head assistant is always begging him to make an appointment with. Maybe he’ll take him up on it. He’s sure why does my ex fucking me feel more vulnerable than me fucking my ex is a great question to start off a doctor-patient relationship.
“Indescribably better,” Viktor says, voice so thick with his accent and disarmingly earnest it makes Jayce feel kind of unhinged. His strong hands lay over Jayce’s hipbones to hold him firmer, fuck him harder, and Jayce realizes that he’s never heard him sound more sincere than he’s been this evening in their entire lives.
His next thrust lands home, striking Jayce’s prostate so well Jayce reaches back to grab onto Viktor’s neck with one hand and he says, “There, Vik.” And because they’re now in what Jayce is considering a competition as to who can be more emotionally vulnerable, he continues, “Please.”
Viktor exhales a groan and follows through, lasering in, excelling like he does with most things he gives a shit about. Jayce supposes they’ve always had that in common. He digs his fingers into Viktor’s neck and keeps encouraging him, openly, with things like yeah like that and feels so fucking good and I can’t believe you’re inside me, Viktor. He kind of gets into it, into both getting fucked so well he thinks he might be able to come without a hand on his cock, and making it good for Viktor, in getting Viktor’s voice to break up in his ear and his metal hips to snap so hard Jayce is pretty sure they’re going to leave fat purple bruises on his ass.
A cordoned-off part of Jayce wants to turn around so he can get off while seeing Viktor’s face. But he also doesn’t want to ruin Viktor’s flow, and Jayce is too close anyway.
One of Viktor’s hands moves from Jayce’s hip to his neck again, closing around it from behind. He doesn’t squeeze yet like he did earlier, but Jayce’s eyelids fall and he nods, praying he will.
When they were younger, it was Viktor’s favorite thing to do in bed. Whether he was getting railed, or fucking Jayce, or riding him, he always wanted to choke Jayce out. It took both his small hands to get around Jayce’s neck. Sometimes he’d use Jayce’s tie to help him out. He would get into it, eyes fixated, breath hastened, and he’d often take it too far because Jayce was too stubborn to tap out.
Or maybe he just didn’t want to ruin Viktor’s fun. It’s been so long, Jayce can barely remember. He can’t recall when the things he did for Viktor’s benefit were repackaged as things he was doing out of condescension, or as things borne out of bitterness.
Either way. Now, just one of Viktor’s strong, metal hands is enough to get around his neck.
“Go ahead,” Jayce says, because Viktor hasn’t gone any farther with it yet. “M’ so close.”
Viktor doesn’t choke him out. Instead, he slows down and stops fully inside Jayce. Based on where they left things before they travelled to this universe, he is certain Viktor’s fucking with him. Edging him, maybe.
Then, Viktor says, “When we get home, I would prefer we work on things between us.”
Jayce blinks. Again, Viktor’s balls-deep inside him, with his robot fingers dangerously close to compressing his carotid arteries. And he’s trying to talk about their relationship.
“Really, Viktor?” Jayce asks. He’s going for light-hearted, because he feels like it goes without saying that they aren’t just going to go back to being cordial but bitter after fucking younger versions of themselves together. And because he’s a few good thrusts away from getting off.
Viktor does not start moving inside him again, but he does squeeze his fist around Jayce’s neck. Hard. Pressing down on the sides of his neck, but also compacting his larynx in a way that is definitely not safe or sane.
Maybe Jayce’s reluctance to stop Viktor when he wasn’t choking him correctly when they were younger has translated into something dangerous paired with Viktor’s new strength.
“Fuck—” Jayce can only get the word out.
“Yes, Jayce,” Viktor says. He sounds annoyed, and he lifts his hold on Jayce’s neck to strain it upwards. Jayce really has no idea if Viktor’s emotions would be sustainable if they weren’t suppressed at this point. “Really. This cannot be the last time we do this.”
If Jayce had any oxygen to spare, he’d laugh. He already admitted he missed Viktor. He practically admitted he didn’t hold any particular fondness for the Viktor in the other room, the Viktor who was never his. Leave it to Viktor to demand Jayce turn his emotional vulnerability inside out when Jayce already thought he was doing a pretty good job of that.
Jayce makes the barest choking sound his esophagus will allow, and he reaches up to paw at Viktor’s hand. It takes a few, breathless moments, Jayce’s vision darkening on the edges, before Viktor gets the hint and releases him.
Jayce gasps for air and slams his hand back down onto the countertop for stability.
“Apologies,” Viktor says. He drops his hold on Jayce’s hip and steps back, cock withdrawing from him. “You used to take that very well.”
Now, Jayce does laugh. Exasperated and delirious, he turns around to face Viktor and grabs Viktor’s face in both hands.
“This isn’t the last time,” Jayce says. His voice is still raw, but he’s got to say what Viktor needs to hear. “I get that you don’t believe anything I say anymore, but it’s not. We can’t erase what we said—and did—back then. We’ll never have what they have again.” He tilts his head at the bedroom door. “But we can try to have something else.”
Viktor’s glowing eyes are looking Jayce all over, like they’re analyzing his micro expressions, trying to find fault in what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. It makes Jayce want to throw up, the fact that he instilled this doubt in the only person he’s wanted to spend his life with.
Then, Viktor’s face softens and he nods. Like they’ve agreed on a business deal, or something.
“That is agreeable,” he says.
Jayce wants to laugh again, or say more sappy shit, or tell Viktor he can teach him how to choke him correctly next time so he doesn’t kill him. But instead, he leans forward and kisses him. And Viktor kisses back.
Without hesitation, Viktor repositions Jayce’s hips and gets back inside him. They used to have a hell of a time with standing sex thanks to their mismatched height, but now it’s almost too easy. Jayce punches out a groan when Viktor fills him up again and grabs onto his shoulders to help with the leverage.
Now, Jayce’s cock is slotted up between their bodies instead of the kitchen island. Jayce was already pretty sure he could get off untouched before, and now his cock is rubbing between them with every upward thrust, caught between cum-slick metal alloy and Jayce’s hairy stomach. He tries to hold on, for his sake, for Viktor’s, for prolonging the magic, but it only takes a minute for him to drop his forehead against Viktor’s and come. It’s electric, his nerves sensitive from getting fucked but more so from feeling finally free. He’s less burdened than he’s ever been since Viktor walked out of his life all those years ago.
“Fuck,” Jayce says, in the aftermath, because Viktor is still fucking him and his overstimulated cock is still trapped between them. He clenches his jaw and digs his fingernails into Viktor’s metal shoulders and doesn’t protest any further, though. After decades of mistreating Viktor, it’s kind of the least he can do.
Viktor stays driven deep inside him when he comes, and holds Jayce’s hips to the counter. He gets a little out of breath after, which Jayce supposes he knew was possible but hasn’t heard so clearly since Viktor was young and braced and his lungs couldn’t keep up with his desires. Jayce keeps his forehead against Viktor’s and reaches up to cradle the back of his head.
“You don’t know your own strength yet,” Jayce says, of almost being choked to death. “It’s cute.”
“You are one of the strongest people I know.” Viktor pulls his head back and considers him. “It is…overwhelming to think I could hurt you.”
Jayce thinks about saying it’s actually kinda hot, but instead he pushes his tongue into his cheek and gets on his knees.
Not to suck his cock, but to duck under and lick his preserved cunt clean of the orgasms he got out of Jayce. He tastes so good, so purely Viktor, that Jayce’s cock twitches again valiantly. But he’s getting a little too old to go more than twice in a night.
“Best of both worlds,” he says, after wiping his mouth, and gives Viktor a lascivious grin from the floor. Viktor rolls his eyes and hauls Jayce up by the hair and they fall into another kiss, slick with Viktor’s cum, both real and fake, and messy with desperation even after getting off so many times.
“You wanted to talk,” Viktor says, when they’re done. Jayce can barely keep himself in the post-coital glow from kissing Viktor more. Viktor did not bother to return to the original reason Jayce pulled him out here until they were done fucking, because he clearly wants Jayce as badly as Jayce wants him.
Instead, Jayce controls himself and takes a breath.
“This isn’t the only universe I’ve been transported to,” Jayce says.
“What?” Viktor’s repressed emotions temper what Jayce is sure would otherwise be full incredulity at his statement.
“There’s something about me—and you—that causes a rift.”
Jayce doesn’t want to explain everything here in the dim academy apartment, with Talis and the other Viktor in earshot if they get as curious as he knows they are.
The thing is, Jayce has seen cities laid to waste and ruin, and timelines bereft of humanity.
And this timeline is the worst. But it’s also, here in their apartment, before things get bad, his absolute favorite. These counterparts really carved out a life for themselves that Jayce and Viktor never had the courage to.
“You…and me,” Viktor repeats, deadpan.
“Well,” Jayce says, and chews on his cheek to suppress a smile. “Mostly you. Your whole glorious evolution thing doesn’t play as well in their universe…in most universes…the way it does in ours.”
Jayce isn’t ready to share that he’s the only one capable, in all timelines, of pulling Viktor back from the brink of insanity. He already made Viktor cry tonight. He’s not going to pour salt in the wound.
“His does not play out well?” Viktor asks. And now he’s genuinely balking, looking over at the soft light spilling from the bedroom. Jayce gets it, because he can’t believe that younger Viktor—soft and witty and clearly loved to pieces—gets as corrupted as he does either. Viktor shakes his head and steadies his voice again. “We will return to our universe now. And you will share everything you know.”
“We can’t change anything,” Jayce says. He’s relieved that even though Viktor used to hate his guts in their universe, they do not face a future of waste, or ruin, or blown out shadows of robot clones perpetuated in the pursuit of perfection.
And, after all this, he doesn’t think Viktor actually hated his guts at all. Jayce certainly never actually hated Viktor.
“Of course not,” Viktor says. “We should not even be here. But I still want to hear about it. It is eh, scientific curiosity.”
They used to stay up late solving equations and testing inventions and talking and talking and talking of their scientific curiosities. Jayce gathers Viktor’s wrists in his hands and kisses him again. And Viktor makes a little noise of surprise, but he lets him.
Then, they clean each other up, and the floor, and the kitchen island. Jayce wouldn’t bother normally, but this is the place he leaned against while sharing a drink with Talis before teaching him how to fuck his Viktor. Where he sat and watched Viktor kiss and accept the younger version of himself. Maybe he’s getting sentimental in his old age.
After, they get their clothes and armor back on and steal back to the lab to activate the time travel device. Jayce sincerely hopes the counterparts they’re leaving behind will figure it out, and that his bad omens of their universe are overblown. He hopes they will turn it around before it’s too late.
He has hope, because he’s pretty sure he’s finally turned things around in his own universe.