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1.
Summer has officially begun and the academy grounds are empty.
Save for Jayce, who is squinting at the chalkboard in front of him, and Viktor, who is pretending like he’s not falling asleep at his desk. They’re packed into the coatroom of an office the academy so graciously offered them for their hextech project and neither of them have slept for at least thirty hours. Possibly more, on Viktor’s end. The one window in the room is open, the summer sun pouring in and gifting Jayce with an incredible headache. Which may be caused in part by the lack of sleep and empty stomach, but he’s decided to blame the sun.
It’s been two and half months since the fiasco of Jayce’s trial, his near-death experience (thwarted by Viktor) and their subsequent break-in of Heimerdigner’s office, and the research is going…well. It is going well, truly. Once it was clear the two of them weren’t going to be exiled from Piltover altogether and were in fact rewarded with funding, Jayce and Viktor had hit the ground running and haven’t stopped since. It’s amazing, the strides that they’ve been making considering Jayce is still taking classes and Viktor is still teaching one (although he resigned from his job as Heimerdigner’s assistant, he still needs to “pay the bills” and hextech’s grant money doesn’t quite cut it). Now that summer is here, it means that classes are on break. For most people, that would be prime vacation time. For them, it means that they now have two whole months to devote solely to hextech.
The goal is to have enough viable material to present to the council to double the funding and get their own, real lab so they don’t have to keep stealing beakers and saline solution from the chemistry building. Right now, two weeks into the break, they’ve hit a wall. They’ve figured out how to stabilize the crystals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the things are risk free. All their attempts to channel the crystal’s energy into some other device have results in—well, as Cait had once put it, making things go boom. Which is not great evidence to present for further funding. Hence the thirty hours of no sleep. Hence the headache. Hence Viktor snoring lightly into his notebook and the chalkboard numbers twisting into odd shapes as Jayce stares at them.
Suddenly, Jayce can’t take it anymore: the sunlight through the window and his pounding head and his hunger and the complex-math-made wall in front of him.
“Hey, Viktor,” he says, turning away from the chalkboard. And again, when Viktor continues to snore. “Viktor.”
Viktor stirs, burying his face in the crook of his elbow and grumbling unintelligibly. Jayce risks nudging him by the shoulder. The glare he receives from under Viktor’s mop of curls makes him take a step back.
“What?” Viktor gripes. He blinks a few times, taking in his surroundings, and lifts his head from the desk with a series of bone-cracking noises that make Jayce wince. “Did you think of something new to try?”
“Uh, no,” Jayce admits.
“Then why did you wake me?”
“I think we need a break.” This is an out of character thing for Jayce of all people to suggest, but if he spends one more second in this room he thinks he’s gonna break the chalkboard.
“That was my break.”
“Like, a break from all this,” he gestures loosely at the entirety of the room, “I think we’ve been looking at it for too long. We should get lunch or something and come back with fresh eyes. Or maybe sleep before we come back.”
Viktor frowns, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand and then staring at the chalkboard and its nonsense numbers. “I don’t know,” he says, “I feel like we’re close.”
Which is a phrase both of them have said and innumerable amount of times over the last three days. And yet the wall remains.
“Come on, V. I think fresh air will be good. And I’m hungry.” Viktor remains unconvinced, so Jayce barters: “You can pick the place.”
They end up in a small, “family run” joint called Crickets, which is located across the bridge and two levels down, deep enough into the undercity to make Jayce yearn for the headache-inducing summer sun once again. This was not what Jayce had in mind when he offered to let Viktor pick, considering the guy seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with this one noodle place in the shopping district, not to mention this is also certainly not Jayce’s definition of fresh air, but he’s not going to complain! Not when he made the offer in the first place. And he doesn’t want to, like, offend Viktor by refusing his choice. Even if his mouth kind of tastes like chemicals and he has the nagging feeling that he’s going to get robbed before the day is through.
Jayce stares down at the menu on the table, a laminated sheet that has clearly seen better days, words scrawled in a barely legible hand, which the thirty hours without sleep are not helping him decipher. He’s never tried most of these dishes before in his life. Never even heard of half of them. There’s a group of guys in the corner who keep glancing over at them and the lighting is somehow both low and harsh at once and he does not think this place would pass any kind of health inspection.
Despite all of these things, the restaurant does have a homey, bustling feeling to it. Viktor sits across from him, skimming the menu in his hands with the air of someone who already knows exactly what is written and exactly what he wants. He’s wearing a tattered old coat over this uniform, stitching up one of the sleeves, and had insisted Jayce also cover up. The winter coat he grabbed from their room’s supply closet has him sweating profusely.
Without glancing up at him, Viktor asks, “Are you ready to order?”
Jayce has a sudden, dreadful feeling that he’s stumbled into a test of some kind, and that he is most definitely going to fail. He clears his throat, pretending to be enthralled by the menu in front of him.
“I don’t really know what to pick. It all looks so…” He watches a woman bite into what appears to be some sort of bio-luminescent slug drenched in a thick sauce; his stomach turns slightly as it drips down her chin and onto her plate, and he finishes, lamely, “...good.”
He can’t tell whether the slant of Viktor’s eyebrows is bemused or judgemental. He sets his own menu down and props his elbows on the table. “I have a few got-to’s, but I know they can be, eh, acquired tastes.” He seems to think for a moment, and then reaches across the table to point at one of the items on Jayce’s menu. “I think you might enjoy the number four.”
The Number Four is called, simply, Hot Dog. Jayce does not know what this means.
“What is a hot dog?”
Viktor tilts his head to the side, considering. “It’s kind of like a sandwich, but not really. And it’s long instead of square.”
That doesn’t seem so bad. “What’s in it?”
“Better not to ask.” This does not inspire confidence. “It’s good, though. Trust me.”
In the few short months they've been working together, Jayce has learned to trust Viktor wholeheartedly. He trusts Viktor with his life’s work, with his very life. When it comes to food, however, Jayce is a bit more hesitant. Still, the expectant look on his partner’s face has him crumbling easily.
“Alright,” he says. “I guess I’ll have the number four.”
Instead of the waiter coming to them, Viktor rises and goes to stand at the long counter near what seems to be the kitchen. Jayce stays at their table to keep their claim. It’s within hearing range of the counter, though. and Jayce listens as Viktor orders for both of them, slipping seamlessly into the language Jayce has heard in snatches of Viktor muttering to himself deep in his work or rattling off insults when annoyed. The waiter responds in kind. Jayce feels strangely left out, especially when they both glance at him and Viktor laughs at something the waiter says.
Viktor returns with the ghost of a smile on his face. “Food will be ready shortly.”
Jayce tries for a grin; he hopes Viktor will blame the lack of enthusiasm on the lack of sleep. Which, now that he thinks about it, is going to make them way more likely to be robbed. Jayce can throw a decent punch on a good day, but today is not that day.
He fiddles with the hem of one of his jacket sleeves as they wait for their food. One thing about Jayce is that he’s not great with awkward silences—or silences in general, even when they’re not awkward. One thing about Viktor is that he doesn’t seem to mind them at all. He’s not a quiet guy necessarily, not once you get to know him, but he doesn't share the incessant need to fill a silence that Jayce has inherited from his years amongst Pilover’s elite.
Viktor is content to sit there and wait, gazing out the single window at the bustle of the street outside. The bustling of it all only seems to make Jayce’s tired, strung out brain more anxious.
Finally, he cracks. “So, um, do you come here often?” He asks, and then immediately cringes.
Viktor snorts the funny little half-laugh that Jayce has heard many times now, often at his expense, but he answers softly: “Not as often as I used to. I’ve been very busy lately.”
Jayce cracks a smile. He opens his mouth to answer and insteads lets out a surprised yelp as two plates of food—and a glass full of strange blue liquid for Viktor—are dropped unceremoniously onto their table. He looks up to see the tall, one-eyed waiter from the counter. He gives Jayce a brief, unimpressed once over. Viktor says something in their shared language, probably a thank you, and the waiter replies with a nod and walks off.
“That was fast,” Jayce comments, bewildered. Suspiciously fast.
“I told you it would be ready shortly. Cricket is all about efficiency.”
“Huh,” Jayce answers weakly—does that mean someone called Cricket is the owner? did the sign outside lose an apostrophe?—and then risks a glance down at his plate. What he sees is…not terrible. It’s like Viktor said: kind of like a sandwich, but not really. A long, sausage shaped piece of meat fit snugly inside a long bun, some kind of sauce coating the top. There are two of them.
“I didn’t know how hungry you were,” Viktor explains, despite Jayce not voicing any of his thoughts.
“Thanks,” he says instinctually, even though he’s not sure if he means it. There’s a long beat where he stares down at the Hot Dogs on his plate, afraid to touch them. He can feel Viktor’s expectant eyes on him. His vision is kind of starting to blur around the edges, though whether it’s from hunger or lack of sleep he can’t tell, so he decides to take the leap and eat the damn food before Viktor takes supreme offense and maybe even quits the hextech project altogether.
Jayce bites cautiously into the hot dog. Flavor explodes in his mouth, tangy and meaty and kind of salty. The still-warm bread bun balances it out into something manageable. He’s not sure what the sauce on top is, but it’s also not bad. Jayce makes a surprised noise; Viktor sits there looking all smug and proud of himself.
“Okay, yeah,” Jayce admits once he’s swallowed, “This is pretty good.”
“I told you it was,” Viktor says, scooping up his own food—some sort of dumpling-looking dish that’s faintly glowing from the inside out. Jayce decides not to ask what’s in it. “Do you want to try mine?”
Vikor holds his fork out almost threateningly.
“I’m alright,” Jayce holds up his hotdog as though it can protect him from the glowing dumpling-pasta-thing. “Thanks though.”
Viktor just shrugs and shoves the fork into his own mouth. Silence falls as they eat; Jayce hadn’t realized just how hungry he was. He’s done with his first hotdog and starting on his second when the years of table manners his mother and Mrs Kiramman drilled into him come flooding back to him. The silence suddenly feels distinctly awkward despite the fact that nothing has changed moment to moment.
He looks across the table, where Viktor has propped a cheek in one hand while he stabs lazily at his food with the other. He looks as sleepy as Jayce feels. It probably wouldn’t be good if Viktor fell asleep again in the middle of an undercity food joint with Jayce as his only protector.
Jayce clears his throat, scrambling for a topic of conversation to keep them both awake. He picks up the thread from earlier. “You said you used to come here a lot?”
Viktor makes a noncommittal noise around his fork, shrugging a shoulder. “Not a lot,” he drawls, accent thick with fatigue, “My parents would bring me sometimes. It was their favorite spot. My mother called it a fun mishmash of cultural cuisines. Some of it is similar to food from her home country. Or at least the closest you can get with the ingredients here.”
This is the most information Viktor has given about himself in a single sitting before now. It’s also barely about himself, and probably only because he’s so tired and therefore less prone to be secretive and mysterious. Jayce tries to commit it all to memory anyways.
He hasn’t given much thought to what Viktor’s life in the undercity might have been like before he came topside, let alone what his parents were like. He knows Piltover is full of clusters of immigrants—the City of Progress was created as a safe haven, after all—and he supposes it makes sense that the undercity would have them as well. And that Viktor grew up in one of them—he’s never heard an accent like Viktor’s before, not even in his few trips into the Lanes, but he’d certainly never dared to ask him about it.
“That’s cool,” he offers, internally wincing at the juvenile word. “They had ‘hot dogs’ in your mother’s country, then?”
Viktor laughs softly; Jayce has never enjoyed being laughed at half so much as he does when Viktor is the one doing the laughing. “No,” he says with a small, crooked smile. “Hot dogs are a purely undercity invention. I thought you might find them more palatable.”
Jayce smiles bashfully—he doesn't know why he’s feeling bashful, only that he and Viktor spend so much time together in their cramped little pseudo-lab talking about nothing but runes and numbers and how long do you think it’ll take Heimerdinger to stop giving me his disappointed little frown whenever he sees me, and barely any time together outside of it.
And now Viktor has taken him to his favorite undercity restaurant, a place he used to go with his parents, and ordered him something he thought Jayce might like, which Jayce did like, and he’s smiling at him softly from across the table and the harsh-low lighting in this place really brings out the gold of his eyes and the little mole beside his mouth and this whole thing suddenly feels like a date. Or at least, date-adjacent. Jayce chokes on his hot dog.
Obviously it’s not a date, he thinks as he hacks up a chunk of bread and mystery meat. Because they’re partners, research partners, and Viktor saved his life and his work and inspires him daily but, like, in a purely platonic, scientific, research-y way. Plus, Jayce is the one who suggested this whole thing and Viktor merely took him up on his offer. It’s not weird. It’s just two friends getting lunch together. Normal, not weird, not-a-date lunch.
Viktor pushes his cup of blue liquid across the table and Jayce gratefully gulps half of it down. It’s sweeter than he expected it to be—and really, he should have expected it to be sweet—but it drowns out the lingering tickle in his throat.
“Sorry,” Jayce says hoarsely once he can breathe again. Viktor reaches across the table to give the back of his hand a conciliatory pat and then takes back his drink. Jayce feels the cool touch of Viktor’s fingers long after they’re gone. It’s not a date.
They toss idle chit chat back and forth as they eat—or, Jayce does most of the chit-chatting and Viktor interjects once in a while—and soon the food is gone. Viktor stares down at his empty plate forlornly. Jayce is about to offer to buy him another round despite the fact that he feels about ten seconds away from nodding off in his sleep, when Viktor sits up in his seat so suddenly that Jayce nearly falls out of his chair.
“Jayce,” Viktor says urgently.
“What?” Jayce looks around nervously for some unknown threat, “What? What is it?”
“We need to try reversing the polarity. I know usually that would make things go—” he makes a vague explosion gesture with his hands, “But with the right runes, we might be able to disperse the excess energy.”
Jayce’s sluggish mind takes a moment to process; when it finally does, he looks at his partner in awe.
“Viktor,” he says, and leans forwards to grab one of Viktor’s hands. Viktor doesn’t even pull away like he normally would. He feels like he’s vibrating. “You’re so smart.”
“I know!” Viktor laughs wildly, grabbing his cane with his free hand and yanking Jayce up and out of his seat. “We have to go see if the math works.”
“I feel like we should probably go home and sleep…” Jayce puts up token resistance. They both know there’s zero chance of either of them successfully falling asleep now that they might have an answer.
“We can sleep after we check the math.”
“Yeah, okay.” And then, because Jayce knows both himself and now Viktor well enough to admit that they probably won’t be heading home to sleep anytime soon. “Should we get coffee on the way?”
Viktor nods eagerly. “There’s a stall on the Promenade we can stop at.” Which was not what Jayce had in mind, but what the hell—they’re already here, might as well indulge his partner a little bit more. “I’ll make sure you don’t order anything you can’t handle.”
Jayce is feeling too energized from their breakthrough to be nervous about what the fuck that could possibly mean. Better not to ask.
He smiles instead. “Thanks, V. Appreciate it.”
Viktor’s answering grin, crooked and beaming and a bit manic around the eyes, makes the whole perilous lunchtime not-a-date journey worth it. Jayce just hopes that undercity coffee isn’t as strong as their liquor.
2.
Summer is in full swing and the lab is sweltering. They’ve cracked open the window and dragged in Viktor’s rickety old fan from the supply closet, both of which have helped a negligible amount. Jayce is down two layers, left only in his undershirt and slacks, and he’s still sweating through both of them.
Summertime is here, the academy is on break, and they’ve shut off the laboratory’s air conditioning unit. They being whichever academy staff member is trying to drive them from their lab this time. Might be Heimerdinger’s work. He is always telling them to take some time outside of the lab because you boys work too hard and the entire academy is on break right now, you should join them and et cetera.
Three years into their partnership, neither Jayce nor Viktor feel the need to take a summer break. Hence the sabotage. Hence Jayce sweating through his bottom layers and Viktor’s vest draped over his chair, shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up past the elbow. Hence Jayce being able to see part of the strap of Viktor’s back brace and having to manually redirect his thought process away from the alluring mystery of an imaginary shirtless Viktor. The heat must be going to his head.
“I think Heimerdinger is trying to kill us,” Jayce says, when the sweat dripping down his brow blurs his vision. He can barely focus on the page in front of him.
Viktor grunts where he’s hunched over his notebooks and scribbling sluggishly, his usual zeal made heavy from the heat. “We don’t know that this is Heimerdigner’s work. In fact, I hope it’s not, because if we ever find the culprit I will beat them to death with my cane and I wouldn’t want the professor’s murder on my hands.”
He delivers this threat as placidly as one would comment on the weather. It makes Jayce laugh, even though laughing is a monumental effort, the thick blanket of heat weighing him down. Viktor sighs, leaning back in his seat and swiping the back of his hand over his eyes.
“Where is the conditioning unit located?” Viktor asks. “Let’s just turn it on ourselves.”
“I actually don’t know. Probably somewhere locked.”
Viktor sighs. Alas, his access to Heimerdinger’s many, many keys was revoked after the whole breaking and entering thing three years ago; he’s long since stopped teaching classes, too, so no more teacher’s lounge perks. Jayce used to devour the donuts Viktor would swipe at the end of each week.
“Should we continue this elsewhere, then?”
“Like where?”
Viktor shrugs. “Your place? Or mine?”
The idea of dragging their current prototype all the way across academy ground and beyond to one of their apartments in this heat does not sound like a very fun time. Especially since Jayce will have to be the one doing all the dragging.
A beat of silence. “I could maybe go buy another fan?” Jayce offers.
Another beat of silence, where they both consider the merits of this idea. Viktor puts his pen down and closes his notebook.
“I fear we may have been outmaneuvered this time.”
If Viktor is admitting defeat, then they are well and truly beaten. The two greatest scientists in Piltover, defeated by the heat and a locked door.
“Tactical retreat?” Jayce offers, even though he has only the vaguest idea of what it means. He’s picked up some of Mel’s strategy talk over the years; she speaks of polite society politics like it’s a battlefield.
“I think this would just be a retreat.” Viktor sighs again. “I suppose I have some personal projects I could work on at home.”
Which would leave Jayce all alone with nothing to do. Maybe he can convince Viktor to let him come help him with his personal projects. Maybe Jayce should start some personal projects of his own. Hextech was his personal project for so many years that it’s kind of become an all-consuming force in his life; he has no time for anything else and nothing else he wants to spend his time on besides.
“Maybe we should take a break,” he hears himself say. Viktor quirks a sluggish brow at him.
“And give in to our enemy’s demands?”
Jayce fights a hysterical giggle. “You did say we were outmaneuvered. It could be fun.”
Viktor frowns. “What would we even do?”
This draws Jayce up short. He’s self-aware to know that for all Viktor’s talk of non-science hobbies and Jayce’s brief baking spree, neither of them have very good work-life balance. Most of their time is spent here, in the lab. Most weekends they don’t even make it two full days away. Viktor has his occasional disappearing acts, but Jayce doesn’t think he’s taken a single personal day off himself in…he doesn’t even know how long. Maybe never.
Still, there must be something. The forge is too hot. It’s also too hot to cook. He remembers Viktor mentioning how he would go to the gardens during his academy days, but Jayce isn’t super big into flowers. The silence carries. It’s summertime, Jayce thinks desperately, the season of fun and relaxation. There must be something they can do.
“Have you ever been down to the beach?” Jayce finally asks. There’s always something going on down at the beaches this time of year. It’s the end of the week, too, which means more people will be out.
Viktor fixes him with an unimpressed look. “I’ve lived in Piltover for almost a decade, Jayce. Of course I’ve been to the beach.”
“I mean during the summer festivities.”
“Eh, once or twice. Not much for me to do, considering I cannot swim.”
Jayce bites back the urge to offer to teach Viktor how to swim, mostly because the image his brain conjures up of Viktor, half dressed and dripping wet like that time he slept on Viktor’s couch and caught sight of him leaving the bathroom after a shower, threatens to make him dizzy. He blames the heat once again.
“There’s other stuff to do,” Jayce argues. “There’s that sailors market down by the docks. We could go poke around for spare parts.”
Viktor’s mouth twists in contemplation. Jayce watches him think, his tired eyes gazing down his desk and the mess of papers strewn across his it. He sees the moment he gives in, sighing deeply and blinking slowly as though staving off a headache.
“Alright, fine,” He says. Jayce almost whoops in triumph. “But I think you should change first. You’re going to scandalize the general populace if you go out like that.”
Jayce flushes, but doesn’t argue, his white undershirt firmly plastered to his chest. Luckily, he has a spare change of clothes in the supply closet.
The heat is somehow less oppressive outside the lab—probably something to do with the open space and light breeze and not being stuck inside what has come to feel like a large metal oven with a window. They walk until they’re far enough away from academy ground to catch a rickshaw ride to the shoreline. The swell of music and voices reaches them from at least half a mile out; the salty ocean air fills Jayce’s nose and lungs with the smell of summertime. Which is much better than the smell of his own sweat.
The docks and beaches are busy and bustling. Trading vessels lines the coast, food stalls and merchant tents ans the occasional musician with upturned hats full of change making up the bulk of the market. Jayce hasn’t been here in at least two years—last year he spent most of the summer in the lab with working air conditioning.
They walk up and down the docks and peruse the vendors for a while, stopping whenever something catches their eye. Jayce gets some Ionian chocolates for his mom and a butterfly knife for Cait, and Viktor finds some spare parts for the little robot he’s been tinkering with whenever they hit a dead end. When he starts to sweat again, Jayce buys them both ice cream, cookie dough for himself and strawberry for Viktor. He finds he can’t watch Viktor actually eat the ice cream, pink tongue against the pink dessert, without strange butterflies fluttering in his stomach.
The whole thing feels overwhelmingly like a date. Even though, again, it’s definitely not. Probably. He’s pretty sure you have to actually ask someone out to make it a date, and the thought of asking Viktor out is terrifying. Not because he thinks Vitkor would laugh at him or something—though, maybe he would—but because Jayce has no idea what Viktor would even say.
Something shifted between them this spring. With the gifts and the baking and the feelings and such. Winterfest was maybe the start of it, Viktor and his stew and his pleased little smile. Maybe it had started long before that, in the blown up remains of Jayce’s apartment. Either way, something has changed. There’s a tension between them when they’re alone and without any work to distract them. Not a bad tension, he doesn’t think. But it’s there.
“I’ll admit it,” Viktor says softly, his voice nearly lost amongst the crowd; Jayce steps closer to hear him better. “This was not a bad idea.”
Jayce nearly beams. Viktor’s praise always makes him feel warm and fluttery, which is a very normal and professional reaction to have about a research partner saying things like it seems your math is all correct for once or good job on this metalwork or this was not a bad idea.
“I’m known to have a good idea from time to time.”
Jayce pushes down the ridiculous urge to reach out and take Viktor’s hand or something. He doesn’t even have a free hand to take, cane in one and melting ice cream cone in the other. Some of it drips down onto his wrist; Jayce looks away as Viktor catches it with his tongue. There’s a crunching noise as he bites into the waffle cone. Jayce finished his own dessert within minutes.
“We should get an ice cream machine for the lab,” Viktor jokes. “To cool us down on days like this.”
Jayce knows that Viktor is joking, but the idea isn’t a bad one. “We could probably make one.”
Viktor shoots him a bemused quirk of his lips. “A hextech ice cream maker?”
“Hex-cream maker?” Jayce suggests with a laugh.
“I begin to worry about your creativity,” Viktor comments dryly. “The ice cream wouldn’t be hextech. And I don’t think it would taste very good if it was.”
Considering some of the things Jayce has seen Viktor put into his mouth and then chew and swallow, he has no room to talk.
“We could just dye it blue, then.”
“Perhaps we should present this wonderful idea to the council at our next meeting. I’m sure we could find someone to invest in it.”
Viktor’s mouth is set straight but his eyes are full of mischief. Jayce has never met anyone with eyes as full and expressive as Viktor’s. Or maybe he’s just never known anyone as well as he’s come to know Viktor, enough to gauge what he’s thinking with a decent amount of accuracy without them having to exchange words. Things that come with three years of twelve-to-sixteen-hour days in a shared space.
“I bet we could actually make it.”
Right now Viktor’s eyes are saying you’re being ridiculous, but there’s intrigue there, too.
“Maybe,” Viktor says, considering, and Jayce knows he’s already won. “Do you even know how ice cream is made?”
Jayce does not. Neither does Viktor. They spend the next twenty minutes interrogating the poor ice cream cart owner about her methods, Jayce scribbling down bullet points on his arm—and then both of Viktor’s arms—with a spare pen that Viktor had tucked away in his pocket. She seems more amused than annoyed, and even lets them know where they can buy rock salt in bulk. Because rock salt is something they need to make ice cream, apparently.
Filled with newfound purpose, they set off on their self-assigned mission. They hit the rock salt supplier on their way to the shopping district—and Jayce feels a bit ridiculous carrying a sack of the stuff over his shoulder while Viktor buys normal things like milk and sugar. They stop by the lab next and search the closet for some spare parts, a bucket and the blades of an old fan Jayce took apart and a metal canister and the tiniest shard of a crystal, and then lug everything to Jayce’s apartment, because it's closer than Viktor's and and his shoulder is starting to get sore.
His place is a mess as usual, but Viktor has seen it in much worse states than this and doesn’t comment. They give the kitchen counters a brief wipedown and get to work.
Viktor, the closest thing to a chemist out of the two of them and the better cook by a large margin, is the one who handles the preparation. Jayce watches him stir the milk and cream and sugar together over the stove until it’s hot, with the small ring of foam around the edge that the vendor had mentioned. He pours the mixture into a large measuring cup and stirs in the vanilla extract. The whole thing goes into the ice box, and then they start on the machine itself.
It takes them the better part of two hours to put it all together; the final product is crude and rudimentary, all spare parts and willpower, and most of the bits and pieces don’t fully fit together since Jayce doesn’t exactly keep spare welding gear around the apartment. They’re not actually sure how to incorporate hextech into what’s already a simple and intuitive design, so the final product is basically a jankier version of a normal, hand-cranked ice cream maker. Which they could have just gone out and bought somewhere.
This realization sends Jayce into a hysterical fit of giggles, which makes Viktor smile indulgently at his pain and suffering.
“You knew,” Jayce accuses breathlessly, “You fucking knew there’d be no point to a hex-cream maker.”
Viktor just shrugs, unrepentant. “We would have to think up a whole new design to incorporate hextech. This seemed much easier.”
And Jayce can’t even be mad about essentially wasting the last two hours fucking around in his underused kitchen, not when it’s the most fun he’s had outside of the lab since Caitlyn’s birthday party. Instead he just laughs some more, and opens the ice box to grab some ice. Nothing left to do now but test the damn thing.
They set it all up, ice cream mix in the little cylinder inside, ice and rock salt and ice and rock salt layered up around it in the bucket. It feels like he’s a kid again, putting together a low-stakes presentation for the science fair, but also like this is a very serious experiment that he will be personally gutted about if it doesn’t work.
Finally, it’s ready. They look at each other across the messy kitchen island; Viktor nods once, resolute, both of them taking this far too seriously.
Jayce cranks the handle to spin the blades inside the canister—which he just has to hope and assume is working, since the lid is closed. It’s…very anticlimactic, honestly. Viktor occasionally replenishes the layers of ice and salt as they melt. Jayce continues to crank it.
“This thing definitely needs a hextech upgrade,” Jayce grumbles. “My arm’s getting tired.”
Viktor just scoffs. “I don’t believe you at all. You spend hours hammering away in your forge.”
“C’mon, Viktor,” Jayce whines, "Switch with me.”
“Sorry,” Viktor holds up his bucket of ice. “But I don’t think you can handle such a difficult task.”
And so Jayce continues to crank it. Finally, after what feels like two hours but is closer to twenty minutes, they decide to check the canister.
“Moment of truth,” Jayce says, popping the lid off and pulling out the makeshift dasher. Or trying to pull it out. Whatever strange substance they’ve created doesn’t seem to want to let it go. Jayce pulls and pulls and pulls—the entire slab of ice cream suddenly pops out, sending Jayce reeling off balance, and flies straight into the air. It hits the ceiling with a wet splat. There’s a moment or two where it sticks there, before gravity does its job. Viktor shoves the canister forwards just enough to catch the remains.
They both stare at their poorly churned creation for a moment.
“Good aim,” Jayce says.
Viktor snorts. “I don’t think we cranked it for long enough.”
“Should we keep going?” Jayce asks dubiously, eyeing the new stain on his kitchen ceiling, “I don’t know if it’s even good to eat anymore.”
Viktor shrugs a shoulder, “I think it should be fine. Haven’t you ever heard of the 6-second rule?”
And so they put the lid back on and keep fucking cranking it. Fifteen minutes later—and Jayce’s arm is actually getting sore now, thanks—and they’ve reached peak ice cream consistency. Or as close as they’re going to get.
Viktor pokes around the mostly empty cabinets until he finds two bowls and some spoons and serves them both. He takes a seat on Jayce’s only stool; Jayce clears a spot for himself on the counter.
Finally, after their long shopping journey and three hours of intense mental and physical labor, Jayce tastes the results of their work. It’s…fine. It tastes like vanilla ice cream. There’s something not quite right about the flavor; he’s not sure if that’s from the ceiling or just the nature of it being their first time ever making it.
Jayce’s eyes find his partner, as they often do, sitting across from him and leaning back against the counter. His eyes are closed and his jaw works as he licks his spoon clean, a little, dissatisfied furrow to his brow. His eyes flutter open; Jayce doesn’t have time to look away.
“What d’you think?” he asks, “Should we quit hextech and start an ice cream business?”
That makes Viktor bark a genuine laugh. “Absolutely not. This is terrible.”
“It’s not terrible,” Jayce defends half-heartedly, because it kind of is. They just spent most of the day making the most mediocre ice cream Jayce has ever had in his life with a jerry-rigged piece of shit ice cream maker that probably somehow violates the ethos.
Still, Viktor’s amused little smile lights up the whole room. His eyes are warm and glowing. Jayce’s heart does something strange and summersaulty in his chest. Despite their complaints, they both finish their bowls. The sun set at least an hour ago and all Jayce has had to eat today is two cups of coffee, a day old bagel, some of the best ice cream he’s ever had and now some of the worst. He knows there’s little to nothing else to eat in his apartment, so he fixes himself another bowl.
Viktor teases him for enjoying the taste of your own ceiling so much, but his eyes are soft and fond and warm. Jayce feels a swell of longing so strong it would knock him off his feet if he weren’t already sitting down. He has a mad urge to slide off the counter and kiss Viktor on the mouth, even though their lips would both be sticky and it would taste like their shitty ice cream and Viktor might not even want to him to do that.
What a day this has been, to be putting these kinds of thoughts in his head—what a date this would have been, wild and unconventional and fun, if only Jayce had the fucking nerve to ask.
“This was…fun,” Viktor says softly, breaking Jayce from his sudden spiral. “I’m glad I didn’t go home.”
Jayce smiles, pushing his silly fantasies of kisses and dates to the far back of his mind where they belong.
“Me too,” he says. “We should, um…we should do this again. Sometime. I mean, not this exact scenario, but—-take a break. I think it’s good to take breaks sometimes.”
Viktor smiles softly, eyes crinkling around the edges. “Alright. Maybe next time I can show you how to make the stew. If you’d like.”
“Yes,” Jayce tries not to seem too eager as he nods. “I mean, I would like. To do that next time. Whenever that is.”
Viktor smiles again, tips his head back to look at the stain on the ceiling. “Hopefully it will turn out better than the ice cream.”
Jayce hopes so, too.
3.
Summer is nearing its end and the air of the city is anything but festive. There has been no rest or relaxation for anyone this season, least of all for Jayce, who has spent the last two weeks being pulled in every single direction possible while the safety and security of Piltover has crumbled all around him like a badly packed sand castle.
Progress Day had been the first in a long and seemingly never ending line of awful dominoes. Jayce hasn’t stopped reeling since their lab was broken into. His heart hasn’t stopped racing since he found Viktor collapsed on the floor in front of his desk, blood splattered everywhere like some awful crime scene. Someone cleaned the blood off the floor—probably Sky, bless her heart—but Jayce can still see it every time he’s in the lab. Which is little and less these days.
The streets are nearly empty as he stalks towards the shopping district. The sun hasn’t even set yet, but the riots on the bridge have struck fear into the citizens of Piltover in a way even the Progress Day attacks failed to do. The blockade still holds. It feels like sticking a tiny strip of medical gauze on a gaping head wound, or maybe a powder keg. He can still see Viktor’s eyes, sharp and accusing: I’m from the undercity. Jayce’s stomach twists. He walks faster.
It feels like he and Viktor’s relationship is crumbling as quickly as Pilotver’s peace. As quickly as Viktor himself. His partner had hardly looked at him on the long walk back to the lab. Jayce couldn’t tell if it was because Viktor was mad at him or because he was lost in his own thoughts. Maybe it was both.
He doesn’t like that he couldn’t tell. He hates that he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even stick around to ask any further questions or spitball ideas because he had to go put out bridge-riot-related fires in the councilroom. Viktor had barely looked at him before he left, the sudden chasm between them deep and vast.
Their next interaction, with Mel and the Firelights' bomb in tow, had not gone much better. The disgust on Viktor’s face when Mel suggested building weapons; the flint in his voice when he said there is always a choice. Jayce had fled not long after, Mel and Viktor’s words both ringing in his head.
Later, alone in his room flipping through his old books, Jayce had been struck with a sudden sense of urgency—not unlike the many other sudden senses of urgency he’s been struck with over the last week—to do something for Viktor. Something nice. Something personal. Something that showed he still cared for him, still saw him, still needed him. The hexcore is Viktor’s beast—there’s some form of understanding there that Jayce hasn’t reached—so it has to be something else.
Hence Jayce rushing to the shopping district, hopefully for some groceries. Hence the spiral of self-doubt and uncertainty that befalls him when he reaches the food stalls and realizes he doesn’t really know what to buy. He ends up with twice as many groceries as he probably needs, all of them discounted on account of being the Man of Progress and all of that. He lugs them all back to his apartment at record speed.
He had initially thought about making the stew Viktor had once gifted him all those winters ago, the stew he had walked Jayce through making step-by-step in his tiny kitchen, laughing when Jayce had botched the carrot chopping, but that feels too… something. Too much, maybe. Too painful. Too deeply entrenched in those bright colored years before the launch of the hexgates, before Viktor got sick, before, before, before. It might break something in both of them, if Jayce tried and possibly failed to make Viktor’s dead mother’s stew. Besides, Jayce doesn’t even own a slow cooker.
No—Jayce had decided on what is, in hidnight, a much riskier move. Over the course of their many years of partnership, Jayce had gone back to Crickets with Viktor three other times, coaxed into trying something new with each visit. Viktor, on the other hand, got one of two things: either the little glowing dumplings or a stack of crispy hotcake-adjacent foods that were also slightly glowing. Sometimes Jayce would find half a plate boxed up in the laboratory fridge, remnants of one of his partner’s disappearing acts. Jayce’s first thought had been to just go down two levels and buy some from the source—but he had cut off that option himself. He couldn’t break the blockade that he ordered just to get his friend some food.
The academy library had been the next logical stop. He only managed to snatch a good thirty minutes of free time, which he spent in the Cuisine And Cooking section, searching frantically through the sprawling stacks. There had been very few books or even mentions of undercity cuisine, all generalized and unhelpful. There was nothing about Crickets or other places like it, nothing about the differing cultures of the different levels. He had realized, halfway through skimming a book about foreign cuisine, that he doesn’t even know where Viktor’s mother is from. Viktor never told him and he never fucking asked.
All of this to say that he’s basically going to be winging it. He decided to go with the hotcake things instead of the dumplings, because he already knows the dumplings would be a disaster. He found a few cookbooks with similar enough looking dishes that he thinks he gets the gist of it. The books sit on the kitchen island, cracked open, just in case. He unpacks everything he bought and spreads in on the counter and stares down at them.
He got potatoes, and some eggs, and some milk because he’s pretty sure the carton in his icebox is at least a month old. He was halfway out of the shopping district before he realized he didn’t own anything to shred the potatoes with and had to circle back. There are some spices as well, garlic and salt, and vegetable oil. One of the cookbooks had said something about lard, but he doesn’t know what that is and was too embarrassed to ask any of the vendors.
“Okay,” he says to himself. He pulls out a knife to peel the potatoes, because that seems like a good starting point. He thinks about the Viktor of three years ago, always tired but not yet weary, peeling potatoes and chopping up carrots in his little kitchen to make Jayce stew as a winterfest gift. Jayce wonders how late he stayed up making it. The thought kind of makes him want to cry.
Instead of doing that, he slices into three of his fingers, bandages them up, and keeps slicing. Once there are a decent amount of naked potatoes, he begins shredding them like cheese. He turns on the stove because he thinks he might need to preheat it, and gets potato juice all over the knobs.
Jayce realizes once again that he does not know what he’s doing. He’s a mediocre chef on the best of days and desserts are his usual choice of weapon. But Viktor has been looking so small and tired lately—because he is dying, his brain reminds him, because Viktor has been dying for years—and Jayce wants so badly to give him something that could help him. To do something, to make something that will save him. They’re running out of time and the hexcore isn’t working and Jayce cannot do a single thing about it.
Science, for the first time in his life, has failed him. They will figure something out, they have to, but Jayce doesn’t want Viktor to drop dead from malnutrition before they can. He wants Viktor to eat and to eat well, he wants to bottle up life itself and serve it to him on a fancy plate. All he’s got instead are a few haphazard ingredients and a strong will to succeed, because if he can’t even do this one little thing for his partner after all Viktor has done for him then what’s even the point of any of this?
He knows, in theory, how to make hotcakes. He’s seen street vendors do it. He’s one of Piltover’s greatest scientists, the co-creator of Hextech, the Man of Progress and now a councilor. How hard can it be to do a street vendor’s job with different ingredients?
Turns out, very hard. He burns the first one to a crisp, smoke flooding the kitchen and making him cough until he opens a window. The next one is undercooked, soggy and lumpy and gross. He flips the third with far too much gusto and the uncooked side sticks to the ceiling with a loud splat. He stares at his dwindling pile of shredded potato and begins to wonder if he shouldn’t just pick up something from Viktor’s favorite noodle stall tomorrow and go the fuck to bed.
His fourth comes out relatively normal looking, but when he takes a bite he realizes he forgot to add any of the spices. The next batch has far too much garlic. He burns the next one, too, and then he’s gone through all the peeled-and-shredded potatoes and if he wants to keep going he has to start again from scratch. It’s two thirty in the morning. He has to get up early tomorrow to go check on the bridge.
Jayce sits down on the tile of his dirty kitchen, counters covered in flour and salt and his mothers’ pots and pans, and shoves the palms of his hands against his eyelids so that he doesn’t cry. He can feel it building in him, the awful, hot sting in his eyes as his throat closes up. He’s so tired. He’s so fucking tired and his city isn't safe and his best friend is dying and he can’t even make him dinner because he’s stupid and useless and nothing is working and Viktor is dying.
He should have just stayed at his mom’s house and made more sweet bread.
Eventually, he peels himself off of the floor, drags himself to his underused bedroom and collapses into the sheets. He’ll start again once he’s had a few hours of sleep, he resolves. He just needs to clear his head.
The next morning, semi-refreshed, he manages to get the spice ratio right and doesn’t even burn any of them. Mostly. Just as he’s packing them up in a little dish his mom let him borrow, securing the whole thing in a thick layer of aluminum foil, there’s a knock on his door.
He’s informed by a breathless messenger that there’s been an attack on the bridge. Marcus is dead, along with countless other enforcers. Jayce goes to survey the damage and throws up over the railing. Afterwards, stomach churning and Mel’s worried eyes etched into his mind, he goes home, picks up the food and marches to the lab. He has yet another council meeting to attend tonight—Cait is back, finally, and apparently has big news—but for now, Jayce needs to see his partner before he loses his fucking mind.
Viktor is, as he has been for the past week, sitting in his chair, laser-focused on the hexcore floating on his desk. It’s evolved even more since Jayce was last here, now something solid and fleshy, floating and twisting and staring right back. Viktor doesn’t even seem to notice Jayce at all until he puts a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his head.
Viktor only looks at him briefly, a cursory glance, and says, “Oh. Jayce. I didn’t expect to see you today.”
Jayce clears his throat, feeling out of place, a stranger in his own lab. “Yeah, well. I can’t stay long.”
“Mm,” Viktor hums disinterestedly. “More council business, then.”
“Yeah…” Jayce looks down at the dish in his hands, suddenly feeling like he’s made a terrible mistake. He powers through despite this. “I just wanted to drop this off.”
Viktor finally deigns to look at him again, turning his chair the slightest amount. He looks as exhausted as Jayce feels, eyes sunken and cheekbones so sharp Jayce fears they might slice up his hands if he tried to touch.
“What is it?” Viktor asks.
“I, um,” Jayce swallows nervously; he’s dealt with a lot in his very few days as a councilor, but nothing has felt as daunting as Viktor’s eyes on him do right now. The way his heart beats in his throat reminds him of standing on a very tall precipice, the ledge of his blown up apartment and the concrete far below. “I made you lunch.”
Which was obviously not what Viktor was expecting him to say, expression going slack in surprise. “What? You…what?”
“I made you lunch,” Jayce repeats, confidence growing as he sets the dish on the No Science Cart, a smaller, portable version of the No Science Table, and wheels the whole thing over. Viktor stares at it, uncomprehending.
“...Why?” There’s no inflection in his tone; fatigue seeps into Viktor’s every word these days, as though it’s exhausting even to speak. “Don’t you have more important things to be doing than making me lunch?”
“No. I mean, yes I have other things I need to do, but this is also important. You’re…you need to eat, V. I know I can’t make you go home and sleep, but you at least need to eat.”
“I eat,” Viktor argues unconvincingly.
“When was the last time you ate something?” Viktor opens his mouth to speak. “Other than coffee.” Viktor closes his mouth. A beat, where he seems to think about it, and then sighs in defeat.
“Fine. I see your point.” Viktor says, sounding so tired that Jayce can’t even feel smug about the concession. “But I’ll eat when I’m hungry. I don’t need to be coddled.”
“I know that,” Jayce hurries to say. “I just wanted to do something…nice.”
Viktor looks at him warily for a moment. “You cannot bribe me into making weapons with food, you know.”
Jayce feels for a moment like Viktor just socked him in the stomach and knocked the wind straight out of him. He doesn’t know whether to be offended or sad that Viktor would really think he would do something like that. The chasm between them suddenly seems insurmountable.
“I’m not…” he trails off. Something awful must show on his face, because Viktor looks away like he’s ashamed, mouth twisting in discomfort.
“That was a joke,” Viktor says, voice small. “Sort of. Sorry. I know you wouldn’t—” he cuts himself off with a sigh and a shake of his head. “Sorry. What did you make?”
Jayce swallows, brushing it off with a shake of his head and a strained smile. He wheels the cart closer to Viktor’s chair and gives a little see for yourself flourish of his hands.
With hands that Jayce pretends aren’t shaking the slightest amount, Viktor peels back the aluminum foil and then sucks in a sharp breath. There is a beat of heavy silence, where Jayce is sure they can both hear how hard his heart is pounding.
“Jayce,” Viktor says, a quiet rasp of awe. “Is this…?”
Jayce nods sharply, a strange swell of emotion rising in his throat. He swallows it down. “It’s probably not one hundred percent accurate. Or even fifty percent. I couldn’t…go down and get some for you, so I tried my best to just…make it myself. I’m sorry if it tastes bad.”
Something in Viktor’s expression crumples. He stares up at Jayce in silence, eyes shining and brows furrowed like Jayce is breaking his heart. This is not the reaction Jayce was hoping for at all. He wants to take it all back, to sink into the ground or light himself on fire or turn on his heel and run. He doesn’t do any of these things, because he’s a grown man and a councilor and he put too much effort into these stupid things to take it back now.
For a very long moment, it seems like Viktor genuinely might burst into tears. Jayce doesn’t know what he would do if Viktor started crying. He’d probably just cry with him. The moment passes. Viktor swallows, mouth wobbling dangerously before he lets out a deep, steadying breath.
“Thank you, Jayce,” he says hoarsely, thick like his lungs are full of water. “This is…you didn’t have to go through the trouble.”
“I know,” Jayce says. “I wanted to.”
“When did you even find the time?”
Jayce shrugs casually, hoping his hours of intense cooking labor aren’t someone plastered across his face. “Last night. And a little bit this morning.”
Even as ill and tired as Viktor is, his considering gaze is still as intense as it always was. Jayce fights not to melt beneath it.
“Well, thank you. This is very thoughtful of you.”
Jayce fights not to beam. “There are utensils in there, too.”
Viktor quirks an amused brow at him. “What, are you going to watch me eat?”
“I just wanna see how I did,” Jayce would laugh, if they were the people of ten days ago. “Then I probably have to go.”
Viktor concedes him this, as well, cutting a piece off of the top hotcake in the stack and taking a bite. There’s no explosion of awe behind his eyes or the surprised noise he made when he tried the sweet bread all those years ago, but he doesn’t spit it out in disgust either. He chews slowly, thoughtfully, and swallows.
“Not bad, for your first try," Blunt and honest as usual. "These are real potatoes?”
Jayce nods. Viktor’s expression droops a little bit; Jayce panics.
“I’m sorry, should I have used something else?”
“No, no,” Viktor waves off his concerns with a loose gesture. “That’s how they’re meant to be made. I suppose I’ve never actually had them this way. Fresh produce is hard to come by in the undercity.”
“Oh,” Jayce supposes that makes sense. It makes him feel kind of sad, the thought that Viktor has never had one of his favorite foods prepared with the proper ingredients.
“This is how my mother used to eat them, then,” Viktor muses, so softly Jayce isn’t sure if he’s supposed to hear it. “I wonder what Cricket uses as a substitute.”
“Probably best not to ask,” Jayce says lightly, echoing Viktor’s words from all those years ago. Viktor smiles wryly; only the slightest twitch of his lips, but it’s something. “It tastes okay, then?”
Viktor’s smile melts into something warmer; it’s all in the eyes, Jayce knows. He remembers how they shimmered in the blue glow of Heimerdinger’s lab.
“Yes, Jayce. It’s very good. Thank you.”
Jayce smiles back, fighting the wave of tears threatening to well up in his eyes. He will not cry over this. If he starts crying now he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop, and he has far too much to do.
“Of course. I’m—I’m sorry, I have to go. But I’ll come back later, to check on the—“
Viktor shakes his head, waving him off. “It’s alright. I know you’re very busy. Me and Sky have it handled.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Another quirk of the mouth. “I’ve had…something of a breakthrough last night. We’ll see what comes of it.”
“That’s great news,” Jayce says, and he wants so badly to stay and hear all about it, listen to Vitkor and his expressive hands. But the council awaits. “Let me know how it progresses.”
Viktor nods absently, already turning back to his work. He wheels the cart closer as he does, sawing off another piece of the hotcake.
“Have fun with your—councilor business.”
“I probably won’t,” Jayce jokes weakly. It falls flat; Viktor doesn’t laugh, already consumed by his hexcore once again.
At least he’s finally eating. Jayce takes in the image of his best friend hunched over his notes, a pen in one hand and a fork in the other. The fear-dread-love that blooms in his chest carries him out the door and all the way back to the council.