ellie

Something about the way his sentence is punctuated by his whole body slumping further down the wall, even in his seated position, triggers Jayce into action. “Shit,” he lunges forward, gripping a thin elbow, “are you okay? Can I – uh, I have water.” He fishes through one deep pocket and pulls out a small, still sealed, plastic water bottle. “Painkillers too, if you need.”

The man looks up at him from his slouched position, hazel eyes rimmed with a light smudge of eyeliner and shadowed with dark bags. He pulls a little silicone earplug out of his ear and gives Jayce an odd look. “You bring painkillers to a concert?”

Jayce gives him an odd look right back. “Yeah? That’s, like, not weird.”

“Hm,” he man smirks up at him. It sounds closer to approval than judgement. Though one sharp eyebrow remains raised in his direction, the hazel eyes beneath it narrowing slightly. “Why were you out here?” It is somehow only now, perhaps with the adrenaline of his panic attack starting to ebb, that Jayce notices the tones of the man’s accent. 

“I, er… just needed some air.” It’s not convincing. His own voice is still shaky. “What about you?” 

He shrugs, his bottom lip protruding in a pout. Jayce, for one mad second, thinks he sees the flash of a piercing on the inside of it. “Eh, you know. Crowds.” It’s equally unconvincing, which weirdly makes Jayce feel a little better. But the man is still clutching his sides. His boxy t-shirt does nothing to hide how slim he is, the fabric of it bunching up under his grip. His equally narrow arms are all but painted with a dark mesh long-sleeve shirt layered underneath his tee, which only highlights the small pinch of his wrists, the sharpness of his pale knuckles where they’re tucked around his ribs. 

“Did someone knock you? Hit you in the pit?” 

“No, no,” he’s shaking his head dismissively. “No, I just should have brought my cane. So much lab work this week, sitting long hours, it’s bad for my back. Which is,” he says, like it’s the beginning of a joke, “bad for my leg.” He gestures then to his leg, as if it’s a very obvious punchline. Jayce just stares at him wide-eyed. “Eh. I’ll be okay,” he scoffs dismissively. 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’ve had this back for a very long time. I’m sure.” It’s veered slightly back into unconvincing territory but Jayce feels like he shouldn’t push. 

Silence settles around them. The drumbeat pulsing distantly at their backs. And Jayce notices that his heart is no longer racing, that the lights are no longer blurring in his vision. His panic subsided by the unexpected diversion. He takes a long, easy breath, his shoulders relaxing as he exhales. 

“Are you a student?” The man next to him pipes up, nodding his head in the direction of the academy. They are only about three blocks away from campus, and since this is the closest pub, most of it’s patrons are students, so Jayce supposes it’s a fair question. 

Then he realises this guy is looking at his chest, poorly pretending to hide a smirk, and Jayce remembers what shirt he’s wearing. A tight, cropped baby tee that barely reaches his hips, the words Piltover Academy stretched almost to the point of distortion across his chest. “Oh. Yeah.” He says, looking down at the shirt.

“I didn’t know they made them that small,” his companion jokes, giving up the pretense of hiding his smirk now. 

“It was a joke from a friend.” Cait had thought it was a hilarious congratulatory gift when he first enrolled. “Surprisingly comfy, though,” he shrugs. 

“Mm,” the man hums in agreement. Then he narrows his eyes, looking Jayce up and down, “Sports medicine?”

Jayce laughs. “Science track.”

“We are peers then,” he says, chin rising. “Any particular focus?”

And gosh he’s pretty. It must be the frenzied panic finally leaving his system that’s allowing his brain to finally process what he’s looking at. Because the man next to him quirks one dark brow at him again and it must be the way he tilts his head because suddenly Jayce notices the piercings dotted up his ear, glinting in the light, and it’s like his whole body is limned with soft, hazy, golden light. There’s a curl of hair resting on top of his shoulder that is definitely a creamy white-gold at the ends.

“Uh. Physics and engineering.” 

“An engineer,” hazel eyes sparkle up at him. “A man after my own heart.” 

“You’re an engineer, too?” Jayce feels himself perk up, a shot of energy at some common ground. 

“Among many things. What d–” the man begins, then pitches forward, a hand shooting out to grab Jayce’s arm to hold himself up. 

“Fuck,” Jayce grabs him around the shoulders, gently pushes a hand to his chest to get him back upright. His face is twisted, brows pinched, lips pale and bared around gritted teeth. “What can I do? What is it?” 

“Those painkillers,” he grits out.

With one arm still wrapped around his shoulders Jayce digs through his pocket one handed til he finds the sheaf of pills. “This okay?” He holds the packaging up in front of the other man’s face. He checks it through squinted eyes and nods. Jayce pushes two pills out into the palm of his pale hand, then goes to grab the bottle of water next to him. 

He hears as the man swallows the tablets dry, his throat clicking, slightly dehydrated by the pills. He presses the water into his hand anyway, and is relieved when he does take a drink. One small sip, then two, three huge gulps. 

A moment passes. Then perhaps a full minute. The hand on his arm slowly releases its grip. The man’s face slowly relaxes, brows easing out of their painful pitch. He takes a slow, dragging breath in through his nose. 

“That’s better.” He murmurs. “I’m okay.” 

“Can I help? Are you here with anyone, do you want me to get them?” 

“Do you live on campus?” He asks instead.

“Uh. Yeah?” 

“Good. Help me back to the dorms.”

“Are you sure?” This was a bad idea. Surely he should just call someone. His arm is cold where the man’s hand has drawn away. “Which building are you in?” 

“C Building.” He lolls his head back against the brick wall. “It’s not far.” 

“I didn’t drive here, I don’t have a car.”

“Neither did I. It’s fine. I can walk it. Probably. I just need someone to be my cane.”

“Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather I call someone?”

“There is no one to call.”

Anxiety is starting to bubble under Jayce’s skin again. Not like earlier, though. But enough that the back of his neck starts to prickle. This feels like a lot of responsibility. And this guy is so pretty, prettier with every passing moment, and Jayce has never been good at this part. Never been good at keeping pretty things. He always mucks it up somehow. “I – I don’t even know your name.” 

Hazel eyes look across at him, a soft, gold limned smile slipping over the man’s face. “It’s Viktor.”

The walk is a slow one, and mostly peaceful, but for the lingering anxiety in the back of Jayce’s brain. He picks at his already chipped black nail polish as they walk through the narrow park that separates the academy from the city blocks. Listens to the soft, rhythmic, clinking of the chain hanging from Viktor’s belt as it jangles with each step. It wasn’t until they stood up that Jayce had noticed that despite the boxy width of Viktor’s t-shirt, the length was just shy of his hipbones, the sharp shadow of which he could just about see between the hem of the shirt and the thick aesthetic band of his underwear, which sat an inch proud of his low-slung pants. Jayce had glanced away quickly before he could read the brand name, but he’d noticed the silver hardware on Viktor’s belt along the way.

“Is this okay? You said you needed a cane.” 

“Mm,” Viktor nods beside him, the creamy bleached ends of the long hair at his neck catching the lamplight. Jayce couldn’t tell back in the beer garden but the long sheer sleeves emerging from under Viktor’s t-shirt are shot through with a metallic, iridescent thread, and along with the silver rings up his ear and the light ends of his hair, he seems to glow at various points, like a constellation in motion. He tilts his head slightly towards Jayce as he speaks, adding the glint of his eye to the starscape. “I did. But, the downside of a cane is that it does not have a brain, eyes to see if I stumble, ears to hear if I call for it, arms to hold out for support. You, Jayce Talis,” he faces him more properly now, eyes sparkling with the same sense of recognition as when Jayce had introduced himself before they left the pub, “have the benefit of all of those. A cane cannot walk – if I need it I must carry it. You, I do not have to hold onto all the time, if I need you –” he gestures one hand up and down, indicating Jayce’s whole self, “here you are.” He smiles up at him and Jayce thinks it’s genuine, something pleased and almost satisfied, it softens the corners of his eyes, even as he can still see the uncomfortable stiffness in Viktor’s movements, still in pain.

“Okay,” Jayce nods, smiling back. It’s still a bit nervous, a bit small, but he hopes Viktor realises it’s real, too. 

The rest of the walk isn’t that long, and soon they’re rounding the corner of C Building. Viktor makes no move to wave Jayce off, and so Jayce finds himself standing at Viktor’s door as he flips through his keychain and unlocks it, walking through first but holding it open, waiting for Jayce to follow. 

Viktor’s room is… kind of like a classroom. On acid. A lot of wallspace is covered with notes – sheets of A4 tacked directly into the wall, some are pages of handwritten notes, some are printouts, some seem to be photocopies of textbooks and pages of theory. There are some larger pieces as well, informational charts and pictograms. One seems to be a poster of the large hadron collider. In the kitchenette there is a small whiteboard mounted onto the wall. 

In the little amount of wallspace that’s not papered with notes there’s a handful of band posters – Jayce can see the sharp, spidery text of what must be a metal band, but he can’t read it and doesn’t recognise it. There’s another that looks to be in cyrillic. And then there’s sketches, in pencil and in ballpoint, which he can’t tell if they’re scientific or creative. One appears to be the cross-section of the inner workings of a clockwork engine. 

There’s a laptop on a small, overflowing desk, crowded with at least six coffee cups and two cans of energy drink. 

“Uh, Viktor?” Jayce peers into the empty mugs, tilts one of the cans to feel that it’s empty, “When’s the last time you drank water?” 

“Don’t be absurd,” he replies, loading a heat pack into the microwave, “you witnessed it. Earlier, in the beer garden.” The microwave hums to life and Viktor leans heavily against the counter.

“Yeah, okay. And before that?”

He doesn’t even have the good graces to look ashamed. “Eh,” he shrugs one shoulder, “there’s water in coffee.”

“There’s water in the Pilt, too, but I wouldn’t recommend that for hydration either.” 

“Since when did you become a nutritionist?” He rolls his eyes, flashing one slightly crooked canine as he smirks at Jayce, not offended in the slightest. 

“Hey,” Jayce grins back, holding his palms up in front of him, “just saying – maybe going to a crowded gig in a sweaty bar on negative hydration won’t help make you feel awesome.” 

Viktor dips his chin and looks up at Jayce from across the the room, still smirking. “Is that why you have your little bottles of water?” His expression is teasing, but there’s enough softness in it that Jayce can tell he’s not being judged maliciously. Or, at least, he hopes so. He has no idea, really, what Viktor is like. Has never even seen him in passing on campus or heard him mentioned by classmates. He seemed to recognise Jayce’s name when he heard it, but Jayce is in the dark about Viktor. He should probably be a bit more cautious about a guy who is this casual about just opening his room to anyone. But it’s hard, because he’s already felt such an ease talking to him, and with each passing moment Jayce’s tired brain is waking up to more and more details about Viktor that draw him in. Under his iridescent sleeves Jayce can see the dark lines of asymmetric tattoos trailing down his arm, from shoulder to wrist. And Jayce wants to know more. Wants, the more he thinks about it, the more he looks, to follow the path of those tattoos with his fingertips, as though they’re something tactile that will reveal a story to him he can’t gain access to any other way. 

The microwave is still humming. Jayce realises he hasn’t answered. Is just grinning like a fool. Viktor’s smirk has fallen into a delicate, barely-there smile. 

“So,” Jayce breaks the not-quite-silence, “do you invite all the boys you meet in beer gardens back to your room?” It’s half a joke, half gathering intel. Jayce isn’t quite sure why he’s still here. He wants to be, but he’s not sure why Viktor isn’t kicking him out so he can settle in and rest. 

Viktor’s chin raises again so he can look at Jayce properly. “Only the ones who have had a panic attack.” 

“I – ! What – I wasn’t – didn’t – I mean – when you – how would you – I don’t… Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Viktor smiles, “Okay,” before schooling his features into a more neutral expression, eyes glittering. 

“Is that,” Jayce’s gaze falls to the floor, he rubs at the back of his neck, feeling the bristle of his buzzed undercut against his palm, “is that why?” 

“Why what?” The microwave finally beeps, and Viktor takes out the heat pack. “Why my back gave up after a long week of sitting like a shrimp?” 

“Why you spoke to me at all.” 

Viktor, passing the heat pack between his hands to even out the temperature, turns to make direct eye contact with him. “No.” 

One word shouldn’t send such a wave of relief down Jayce’s spine – Viktor could just be lying – but it does, and he decides not to question it. “Okay,” he breathes out his relief, smiling again. 

Viktor nods and heads across to the bed, stacking a bunch of pillows against the wall before propping himself against them, wedging the heat pack between himself and the cushions.

Jayce busies himself as Viktor settles on the bed, wandering closer to the walls, peering at the notes there. And the looping handwriting, with a start he realises –

“Wait, I’ve seen this before…What is this?”

Viktor frowns in confusion. “My notes.”

“No but I’ve definitely seen this before, in a classroom, I —” his eyes track down the page, the tip of his index finger following along the lines of text and numerals, and then he spots it – a half finished formula at the top of a second page taped onto the bottom of the first. “Yes! Here!” 

“I know,” Viktor’s voice filters over his shoulder. “It is incomplete.” 

“No, it’s not.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wait here.”

“Where else would I go?”

Jayce is already half way out the door. 

He races to his own dorm building, across the dark quad, takes the stairs two at a time, thinking only then that this might be too much, behaviour-wise, but he’s too far in now. He crashes into his room, upends half the papers on his desk, finds what he’s looking for, grabs it and bolts back out the door. 

When he gets back to C Building, he prays he’s remembered Viktor’s room correctly, breathing a sigh of relief when the still-unlocked door gives way to the newly familiar sight of note covered walls. 

He stands in the middle of the room, chest heaving as he catches his breath. 

“What,” there’s a strong smell of sweet anise in the air as Viktor looks at him over the rim of a mug, still tucked up on his bed but with his boots kicked off now, “was that?”

“This!” Jayce brandishes a leather bound notebook above his head, gulping down one more steadying breath. “I told you I’ve seen this before!” He points to the wall, then frantically flips through his notebook. “Look…here,” he finds the page and wedges his finger against the binding as a bookmark, turning it so Viktor can see the double page. “The formula. It was driving me crazy. It’s brilliant, but I couldn’t figure out —”

“You have my formula in your notes. My sketch…” There is, indeed, a little sketch of a tripod-like design that Jayce copied down, too, not quite knowing whether it was tied to the formula or not.

“It was left on a whiteboard, in one of the classrooms near the offices — I thought maybe one of the professors was trying something for a class, or a project or whatever.” 

Viktor is looking at him with wide eyes. “I… use that classroom in the evening sometimes. There’s not many classes small enough to use it so it’s often empty.”

“I was cramming for an assignment, I was in there super late.” 

“You…” Viktor’s eyes drop from Jayce back to his notebook, then snatches it out of his hand. Blindly he puts his mug down next to the bed and grips the book with both hands, flipping a couple pages ahead, then back to his own formula. “You completed it.” 

“I think so?” 

“You…” still engrossed in the notebook Viktor rises, fishes around on his desk one-handed, flips open a notebook of his own, and then places both books on the table side-by-side. Grabbing a pen he taps the page of one notebook, then the next, clearly comparing. He looks between them to the note tacked to the wall. “That is beautiful work, Jayce,” he breathes. It sounds like maybe the first breath he’s taken since he started reading. 

“Do you think so?” 

“I see why you would want to study physics. You will be a credit to it.”

Jayce thinks he might cry. Or laugh. Or peel open his chest and pluck his heart right out of it because it’s currently climbing his ribcage, trying to wriggle out his throat. Viktor might be, like, an actual borderline genius, if Jayce is correctly understanding even half of the notes on his walls. And the idea he thinks Jayce did some work even remotely worthy of standing next to his own. He could cheer. Or kiss him. 

He really kinda wants to kiss him. Which could be the praise talking. It might also be the glint of silver Jayce can see peeking out behind Viktor’s bottom lip again as his mouth remains slightly open, in shock or in thought Jayce couldn’t possibly say, he isn’t paying anywhere near enough attention anymore.

“I… don’t have access to the modelling program on my laptop.” Jayce tries to tear his eyes away from Viktor’s lips and force himself to understand the words that have just been said. 

It takes him a second. “...Oh?” 

Viktor is taking a step closer. Eyes wide, grinning, and Jayce swears he’s breathing heavier too. “I don’t have the program here. It’s only on the lab computers.” 

“That’s…” Jayce’s concentration evaporates somewhere between Viktor’s dark eyes and his mouth. But it doesn’t seem to matter, because Viktor continues on regardless.

“Would you care for another excursion tonight?”

“What?”

“Pass me my shoes.” 

Jayce is halfway to grabbing one of Viktor’s boots when he hears the other man turn.

“Oh,” his voice lilts above Jayce, “I meant to give you this,” he says, almost sheepish. Jayce looks up to see Viktor pick up a second mug from his desk, previously disguised amongst the others. 

“What is it?” Jayce rises, trading Viktor a shoe for the mug. The anise scent that had filled the room in Jayce’s absence strengthens as he inhales the cooling steam from the mug. 

“Anijsmelk.” Viktor, despite his recent excited frenzy, is quiet now.

“And what’s that when it’s at home?” Jayce swirls the liquid around a little, then takes a sip.

“Sweetmilk. It’s meant to be a good nightcap, but I drink it all the time,” he shrugs, pulling out his desk chair to sit and slip his shoes back on. 

The sweetness of the drink spreads lazily across Jayce’s tongue, and a flush of warmth blooms in his chest that has nothing to do with the hot drink. Viktor knows he had a panic attack. Viktor invited him in and made him a nightcap. Jayce wants to pull the boots back off Viktor’s socked feet and bundle him up into the nest of pillows on his bed and kiss him and trace his tattoos with his fingers and find out what other secret piercings he has and inhale the sweet spice of his room and fall asleep in his warmth. 

“Do you like it?” Viktor looks up at him through dark lashes. 

“Yeah,” Jayce nods, voice strained and stilted. “Yeah, it’s good. Thank you.” 

“I’d say bring it, but we can’t take liquids in.”

Jayce swallows another mouthful, the taste and temperature making the sweetmilk easy to drink. “I can finish it later,” he offers. Only realising after that he’s inadvertently invited himself back to Viktor’s room.