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Viktor is about to go to the Piltover Innovation Gala and he is not happy about it.
Jayce is the face — the ungodly, stupidly handsome face — of the operation, and that’s just fine, thank you very much. Viktor is more than happy to be the man behind the curtain, tinkering away backstage while Jayce goes around shaking hands and kissing cheeks and whatnot, doing whatever it is exactly one does at these events. Viktor doesn’t really know and he’s perfectly glad not to.
However, an unfortunate side effect of that stupidly handsome face of Jayce’s is that he’s sometimes kind of difficult to say no to. So, when he approaches Viktor and really pleads with him to accompany him just for a few hours, V, we’ll practically be in and out, well… the vehement rejection was sitting just on the tip of his tongue, but somehow never found its way out of his mouth.
Once upon a time, Viktor had prided himself on his tenacity. Gods, just look at him now.
The gala’s a few hours away from starting, and the two of them are at the lab gathering notes and research. Jayce is absentmindedly practicing his speech under his breath which is, unfortunately, endearing.
Again, Viktor did agree to go after a bit of needling. But it doesn’t mean he’s excited, and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s not going to complain a little.
“A gala,” he says, leafing through his notebook. “Add it to the fun pantheon of euphemisms used for the wealthy seeking connections with the even more wealthy.”
Jayce, optimist to his core, replies, “Well, gala usually means a good dinner and dancing, so that’s fun at least.”
“Dancing,” Viktor replies flatly.
“Yeah, y’know. That’s pretty standard at the more, I don’t know… ‘party-like’ events, I guess?”
Viktor isn’t able to confirm or deny it; he’s been to many lectures from guest academics, his fair share of stuffy meetings, plenty of quiet studies. Galas, dances, parties — he was not invited to those. And if he ever was, he likely wouldn’t have gone anyway. What a wrench in the works this Jayce Talis truly is.
“I’ll take your word for it,” is all he says, and is certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the conversation will end there.
However, loath as he’d be to admit it, sometimes Viktor’s theories are wrong.
“Do you like dancing?”
Jayce’s resonant voice carries across the quiet room and when Viktor looks up, he finds his partner’s hazel eyes locked right on him. For just a moment, he’s at a loss for words.
But they’re found quickly. Viktor snorts, then taps his chin sarcastically.
“Hmm, do I like dancing?” He drums the end of his cane on the ground a few times for emphasis. “You know, Jayce, I’m not sure I’d say it’s something I do very often.”
Jayce’s expression drops immediately, cheeks a little rosy.
“I’m sorry- I didn’t-” He sighs. Regroups. “I’m sorry.”
Viktor waves it off casually, turning back to his notes.
“It’s fine. You were not thinking.” He’s quiet for a beat, then cocks his head. “I’m not sure it’s something I have ever done, to be quite honest.”
“You’ve never danced?” Jayce is incredulous as he slides into the seat next to Viktor, heavy brows knit. “Never even tried?”
“Were you not paying attention?” Viktor raps his cane on the ground with a little more intensity.
“I- I know.” Jayce runs a hand through his hair. So distracting. “But how do you know you can’t do something if you haven’t tried?”
Viktor’s tongue forms a knot in his mouth. Jayce is really quite sweet, and is certainly well-meaning with this, but Viktor feels an all-too-familiar sensation creep from his stomach up into his chest. Embarrassment — at his limitations, at all of the things that are simple as breathing to people who aren’t him but he has to scrape and claw to get close to.
“I am well aware of my limits,” is what he settles on, “and am fairly sure that is one of them.”
He puts his metaphorical blinders on, staring down at a chicken-scratch diagram in his notebook like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. He can’t look at Jayce right now — he knows if he does, white-hot shame will course through his veins and crimson blush will rise to his cheeks. He just can’t have that.
But Jayce is still looking at him; he doesn’t have to meet his eyes to know that. He can feel it, but it isn’t uncomfortable. Well, maybe a bit to someone as averse to the spotlight as Viktor, but Jayce has always looked at him with a gentleness, a reverence, that no one ever has. Viktor doesn’t know why and, for once in his life, has no interest in analyzing it.
He only looks back at his partner when he hears the seat scrape against the tile. Jayce rises from it, face set with a soft smile, and holds out his right hand with the palm facing up.
“Let me teach you how.”
The pause is long and unrelenting.
“You are joking.” Viktor says it as a statement, not a question.
Jayce’s forehead creases slightly before returning to normal. He seems uncharacteristically antsy.
“I, um. I’m not. I mean, well- maybe just a move or two? There’s a few Piltovan dances that are pretty easy.” He stops, then adds quietly, tentatively, “I don’t want you to be sitting alone tonight once the dancing starts.”
A lump appears in Viktor’s throat. Alone. He’s been alone most of his life, from the time he was a child. It’s never been wholly comfortable, but it’s familiar. Tolerable.
Until it isn’t, is what he’s learning. He’s never once resented Jayce for needing to split up with him at events similar to this one — he’s always getting pulled in a thousand directions, with everybody wanting a word with the one and only Jayce Talis. Viktor gets it. Jayce is everything he’s sure he himself is not. Strong. Handsome. Desirable.
But tonight, Viktor is so out of his depth. This isn’t a stodgy sit-down meeting amongst academics. It’s an excuse for Piltover’s finest to drink expensive wine, network, and tipsily dance with one another. Not exactly his scene.
Oh, Jayce is still rambling. He’s still a bundle of nerves, for some reason. Unusual.
“I definitely haven’t been to as many of these as some of the more, um… important houses, but I’ve still been!” He rests his hands on his hips. Gods, he’s so broad, so sturdy, like he was molded specifically by celestial hands to handle a heavy hammer. “I know a few moves.”
What’s so ridiculous about the whole situation is that Viktor is almost, almost willing to hear him out and give it a whirl. But him, an Undercity transplant who works everyday to simply walk properly, out on the floor with the personifications of wealth and grace? How absurd. He can’t.
“You’re being ridiculous.” It doesn’t come out of his mouth with the finality he wants it to, more of a weak suggestion than a statement.
Perhaps as a result, Jayce is undeterred. He grins; it’s a little mischievous, but dashing, as always.
“You’re a scientist, V. You’ve got a hypothesis that you won’t be any good, but need evidence to prove it, yeah?”
“Dancing is not science,” Viktor replies dourly.
“It’s all about learning and experimentation and a lot of trial and error.” Jayce’s mouth tugs upwards. “I don’t think they’re so different.”
Viktor rolls his eyes so hard they feel like they may leave his skull. Anybody who can manage to out-stubborn him, he supposes, may be worth hearing out.
He allows his notebook to slam shut and turns himself around in his chair.
“Jayce, you are a man of equally genius and stupid ideas. Care to guess which one this is?”
Jayce smiles wider. “Is that a yes?”
“Unfortunately.”
Viktor begins to reach out his hand, but hesitates about halfway to Jayce’s. It dawns on him, with all the grace of a runaway train, that he hasn’t ever held hands with anyone before, at least not like this. He did with his parents as a child, sure, or when the occasional well-meaning peer helped him stand up on days his leg was particularly stiff.
And even though this is just a lesson, no different than learning a formula etched on a professor’s chalkboard, his mind is churning, working overtime and billowing obscuring black smoke like an Undercity factory. No… this is different from learning science. His mind he can trust. His body is another story.
He drops his hand to his side. As his arm falls, so does Jayce’s face.
“Viktor?”
“I… cannot,” he replies, voice soft as he looks away. “This is something I cannot do, Jayce.”
There’s a moment, as intense as it is sudden, that Viktor finds himself angry about all the things his bad leg has robbed him of. It’s not something he allows himself to contemplate often, but now that he’s opened the floodgates, the painful thoughts come rushing in. He’ll never run with the wind whipping through his hair, never tuck his knees to his chin and dive into the water, never jump for joy or even simply rise from a chair without a bolt of pain shooting from hip to foot. And he knows he’ll never go a day without the stares of Piltovans searing hot on his back.
And now, the most beautiful man he’s ever seen is asking him to dance, and he’s so sure he’ll make a mess of it that he can’t even enjoy the fact that it’s happening.
This is how things are, how they’ve always been. Viktor, of all people, has never once expected life to be fair, born living proof that it never is. And yet, right now, he finds himself wishing that it was — just for a little bit. Just so he can be the perfect dance partner for Jayce.
Itching to end the moment as swiftly as possible, he begins to turn back to his desk. But Jayce, Jayce — he’s tenacious as he is handsome.
Two powerful hands land on the edge of Viktor’s desk, one on each side, caging him in. It’s clear that it's meant to be a friendly, even comforting gesture, but they land hard and heavy, rattling the cup of chalk and assortment of pencils sitting by Viktor’s notebook. Jayce’s body is so powerful that he often doesn’t know his own strength — something Viktor doesn’t ever think about ever, nope, not at all.
Viktor turns back, finding himself in the presence of such a kindly expression. Jayce is a funny paradox in that way: equipped with a brawny body that could so easily inflict pain, and endowed with a heart that’s somehow ten times bigger.
“You’re capable of so much more than you think you are,” is all Jayce says.
It’s all that needs to be said. Viktor sighs; he’s gone soft, he’s sure of it. He inattentively wonders if his time away from the Undercity has shaved down all his edges.
“Has anybody ever told you that you are ridiculously hard-headed?”
“Quite a bit, yeah.”
There it is again: that outstretched hand, palm to the ceiling. Viktor observes it a little more closely this time; it’s thickened with callouses, probably from his family’s forge. But if anything, the way they lie on his hand serve to make it look bigger and stronger — laughable, how even what could be considered flaws are curated perfectly on Jayce. Viktor waits to feel jealousy, but it never comes. Odd.
He doesn’t leave room to hesitate this time around. He quickly places his hand in Jayce’s, and allows himself to be hoisted out of his chair. A grin completely takes over Jayce’s face. Viktor chews his lower lip and he feels blood rush to his cheeks — embarrassing, embarrassing.
Almost child-like, Jayce is really struggling to hide his excitement. Viktor isn’t sure what exactly there is to be in such a tizzy about.
“Okay, awesome, great. Alright, so, you put your left hand here…”
He gently places a hand on Viktor’s wrist — unbelievable, his fingers go all the way around it , middle and thumb touching right on Viktor’s pulse point, likely able to feel the humiliating lightspeed pace of his heartbeat — and lifts it up, leaving Viktor’s hand to rest on his corresponding (broad, muscular) shoulder.
Viktor’s palm is so, so sweaty. He thanks every deity he can think of that Jayce can’t feel it through his shirt.
“Okay, great,” Jayce continues, “and then I put my hand, um, here…”
He gently reaches down, settling his palm delicately at the small of Viktor’s back.
Everything stops. Time, the lab they’re in, the darkening sky through the large-paned window to the side — it all melts away in that moment. All that Viktor knows is Jayce is holding him, and not with the scrabbling desperate grip an aspiring Undercity mugger might. It’s simple, it’s soft. It’s sweet.
There’s a flash of mortification when Viktor realizes Jayce can definitely feel the hard lines of his back brace through his shirt, and if it was anybody else with their hand there, the feeling would likely linger. But Jayce doesn’t seem to mind at all, his tender touch never flinching away or delaying even for a second once he feels it. And if he doesn’t care, Viktor shouldn’t either, right?
He’s yanked back to reality once Jayce’s placid voice floats back into his ears.
“Perfect. And then, I’ll take your other hand…”
Jayce trails off, his eyes dropping to Viktor’s cane. A silent question hangs in the air — not unkindly, but it’s definitely there.
And there it is again, that superheated embarrassment bubbling up from Viktor’s gut. “I… cannot put my cane down. I can stand for a short while without it, but if I’m moving I…”
“That’s okay!” Jayce hastily interjects. “Totally fine. We can make it work.”
Viktor isn’t 100% sure precisely what make it work means. What he does not expect is for Jayce to wrap a large, warm hand over the one of Viktor’s that’s gripping the cane.
A million hypotheses in his head about what Jayce planned to do just now, and this simply wasn’t one of them. A failed analysis. His brain short circuits a bit.
“Okay.” Jayce’s voice has taken on a breathless quality that makes Viktor’s pulse (somehow) speed up even more. “Just follow my lead. If I step forward, you step back with that same foot and then vice-versa, okay?”
Viktor swallows, despite his mouth having gone completely dry. “Okay.”
It’s so simple in theory, especially with how slow they’re going, but Viktor’s body has never been one for following directions. Following along with his left foot isn’t so bad, but as soon as his right side is involved, it’s awkward and jerky, interrupted by the cacophony his cane scraping against the ground makes. Jayce is so fluid, so polished, so… beautiful in his movements, and Viktor feels ashamed to ruin it.
Ever perceptive, Jayce seems to pick up on this, leaning in and saying softly, “You’re doing really well, you know.”
Viktor laughs humorlessly, staring down at his feet and willing them to do better. “You need not patronize me, Talis. I know how I look doing this.”
Jayce knits his brows, frustration crossing his face for just a split second.
“I don’t think you do.” He’s adamant in his dissent.
“Oh?” Viktor’s a little intrigued now. “And tell me, how exactly do I look?”
There’s a long pause, long enough that Viktor is sure Jayce won’t warrant what is clearly a tease with a response. The only noises lingering in the air are of feet shuffling and his cane intermittently hitting and sliding along the ground.
With Viktor clearly getting the hang of it a bit, Jayce begins to maneuver the two of them around the room. Slowly, prudently still, they begin to take tottering steps not just in a restrictive square, but looping about in the lab, circling around tables strewn with bent tools and torn pages.
“Stunning.”
It’s been so long that Viktor startles at the sound of Jayce’s voice. Feeling awkward, he barks out a laugh.
“Stunningly bad?” He’s flustered and it’s showing; his accent is thicker than usual, twisting vowels and dampening consonants.
“No! No,” Jayce clarifies immediately. “Not at all. Not at all.”
Viktor hums, a little entertained, unable to hide the small smile creeping across his mouth. “Right, of course. What a sight it’ll be, eh? Piltover’s golden boy dancing with a trencher dragging his bad leg behind him.”
It’s self-deprecating and obviously a joke, but it rapidly becomes clear it wasn’t taken that way. For a few brief moments, Viktor is completely unaware that Jayce has stopped moving. He continues dancing along stiffly to the silent beat, only noticing the stoppage once he steps forward directly into Jayce’s solid frame. Alarmed, he looks up to see his partner’s expression — stricken, deflated, a little bit stymied.
“Do you really think that?” He says it immediately. Viktor’s snark dies in his throat.
“Jayce, I…”
He considers loosening himself from their stance and stepping back, but Jayce’s large hand is hot as a furnace on his own, warming and soothing his thin fingers and achy joints. He just can’t bring himself to do it.
“I know what I am and I know what you are,” he continues weakly. “I believe in myself when it comes to academia, but I am very out of my depth with… this. Thank you for attempting to teach me, but as a member of the academy you should know: some students cannot be helped.”
It wasn’t at all Viktor’s intention, but his words flip a switch within Jayce. His brows draw down and lips part, revealing the distinctive little gap between his front teeth that Viktor loves to let his gaze linger on when his partner talks. But not now; he can’t pull his stare away from Jayce’s eyes, blazing with indignation in between the browns and greens of his irises.
“You have no idea, do you?”
To say Viktor is taken aback would be a planet-sized understatement. “No idea of what?”
“What you look like.”
Viktor is finally imbued with the wherewithal to let go of Jayce, but misses the heat the second it’s gone.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jayce,” is his brusque reply, “I have a mirror.”
“ No, not like that.”
Exasperated, Jayce combs his hair back with his fingers. As if done on purpose, a few perfect strands fall in a gentle curl over his forehead. Of course.
“You have this look on your face when you concentrate- like, I mean, when you’re really trying, where your face is all scrunched up, y’know?”
Viktor can’t say he does. He doesn’t typically look at his reflection while hard at work. It’s a perfect place for an off-hand, sarcastic comment, something like no, us Undercity folk don’t have all the time in the world to stare at ourselves in the mirror like you topsiders, but it just won’t come out. There maybe wouldn't be space for it, anyway — Jayce is a vehicle with the brakes ripped clean out, mouth moving as if powered by an engine and thoughts turning straight into words, filter be damned.
“And then, when you figure something out or- or solve something that’s really been bugging you, your eyes light up.” Jayce flexes his fingers in front of his face for good measure. “It happened just a few minutes ago. You put so much of yourself into everything you try, V, and it’s really- it’s-”
Embarrassing. Humiliating. People like me shouldn’t try to be anything more than they are-
“-beautiful.”
No. No, that’s not-
Viktor grips his cane, dropping down back onto his stool. “Jayce- you don’t-”
“Viktor, please-”
Jayce surges forward, forge-hot hands taking hold of each of Viktor’s thin shoulders. It’s back again: that feeling of the lab, their research, and all of Piltover melting away into nothingness, leaving just the two of them as the only remaining people in the universe. Viktor knows, scientifically, he must be breathing to still be conscious right now. But he doesn’t feel like it, only aware of the sensation of being completely frozen in time.
Jayce’s voice is a soft rumble, each word wrapping itself around Viktor’s eardrums and making itself at home. He could get used to that.
“You’re so smart, which I know you know,” he starts shakily. “But you’re so capable of so much else and I feel like you have no idea. Watching you dance, it was- I was-”
He sighs, dropping his head, as if he can’t bear to look Viktor in the eye for what he’s about to say. And once he lets it loose, it becomes apparent why.
“...I loved it. I could watch that every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.”
Equations are straightforward. This plus this equals that, putting this and this together makes that, so on and so forth. That’s what’s always appealed to Viktor about math and science: they are what they are. They make sense.
If this situation was a math problem, Jayce made a mistake within the first step or two. This isn’t how the world works. You don’t see a poor, sickly trencher with a near-useless leg stumble his way through a rich man’s dance and call it beautiful. You certainly don’t imply that it’s something you could watch in good faith forever.
Viktor is defeated. His analysis is taking him nowhere. Quietly, timidly, he whispers, “I don’t understand.”
Jayce’s expression immediately softens, and he slides his palms down to rest on Viktor’s biceps.
“I know, but you don’t have to. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
A little smile graces Jayce’s lips. “Then believe me. You’re really something, Viktor.”
Something. It makes something in Viktor’s chest seize — Undercity dirt with a broken body, and Jayce of House Talis is here telling him after a lifetime of being convinced he’s nothing that it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Jayce of House Talis, who has leaned in closer and closer throughout the course of the conversation and is now nearly nose-to-nose with Viktor.
They stay that way for a while. But Jayce just laid his heart out on the table right here in the lab. It’s only fair for Viktor to repay the favor, no?
Viktor from the Undercity surges forward and kisses Piltover’s golden boy, square on the lips and without a single reservation in the way he goes about it. And, as fate would have it, Jayce kisses him back, those beautifully warm hands coming up to cup both sides of Viktor’s face.
Jayce’s mouth is hot and tastes like the tea he drinks whenever they work — cloves, cinnamon, some other fancy Piltovan spices. Damn topsiders and their damn expensive imports.
Viktor can’t really find it in his heart to care. He’s a tad preoccupied.
He’s peripherally aware of the sound of his cane clattering to the ground as he raises both his arms up slightly, gripping the lapels of Jayce’s uniform and yanking him down. Jayce, the damn smooth pretty boy, sweeps his arms around Viktor in one fluid move, wrapping him in an embrace and pulling him closer.
Viktor is sure he must have fallen down one of those entrances to the Undercity and hit his head. This cannot be real. It just can’t.
He grounds himself as they begin to slowly pull away from one another, Jayce pausing just briefly to rest his forehead on Viktor’s, breathing raggedly through a handsome, easy smile.
It’s real. It’s real and he’s real and he wants me.
Jayce stands up, but not before pressing a gentle kiss to Viktor’s sharp cheekbone.
“You see?” he says softly. “I told you your dancing does something to me.”
***
That night, the two of them dance together at the Gala. The people stare, but neither of them care one bit.