#jayce fic

At first he’s small without telling her. They lay on her bed together as the sun sets, Jayce’s head in Mel’s lap and her fingers carding through his hair. It’s a typical pattern for them, a safe space they love to come to and rest quietly in one another’s presence. However, Jayce finds it difficult to hold all of his emotions in and winds up sniffling in her lap one evening, hiding his face in the soft fabric of her dress and quickly dissolving into sobs of relief and embarrassment when Mel tells him that it’s alright, sweetheart. You can cry if you need to.

Mel takes very good care of her boy. She slowly chips away at this new, vulnerable side of him and learns a lot about little Jayce by treating him gently. For one, Jayce is much more sensitive when he’s little, both physically and emotionally. He doesn’t like wearing his stuffy senatorial clothing, and especially hates the high collars of many of his usual shirts and jackets. A way that Mel can tell Jayce is close to regressing or needs to be small is when he tugs at his shirt collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat and practically itching to flee whatever room he’s in.

Emotionally, Jayce is quick to look down on himself and is oftentimes teary. If Mel tells him not to touch her painting while it’s drying after he’s caught curiously poking the canvas, a deep pout will appear on his face and he’ll apologize and go sit himself down in the corner of the room. ‘M sorry, Mel. Didn’t mean to be bad.

He also gets embarrassed very easily, quite unlike his adult self. He has a hard time shaking off his internal adult monologue that tells him there’s something wrong with acting the way he does. He struggles with asking Mel for food or toys and oftentimes prefers to listen to her read out loud rather than participating in a child-like activity. Jayce will hold onto her hand while she reads to him and grows easily frustrated when she has to let go to turn the page.

Viktor knew Jayce was regressing months before he directly found out. Viktor’s incredibly smart and very sharp, so it wasn’t any less than completely obvious to him when he picked up on the way Jayce would skitter away to Mel after a long day or grow too quiet when they worked on the newest Hextech formula together. He was hesitant to bring it up to Jayce, though. Viktor figured that if Jayce wanted him to know he’d say so. Besides, Viktor respects Jayce far too much than to pry in his personal business.

They ended up being forced to confront Jayce’s regression during a late night at the lab. Jayce had fallen asleep at his desk, softly snoring as Viktor quietly tinkered with a new Hextech prototype. However, Jayce’s gentle breathing turned into the smallest sounds of distress — these were common for Viktor to hear, after all, Jayce started having stress dreams about the same time he became a councillor. Viktor glanced over at Jayce, brow furrowing, concerned about the other in a way he didn’t typically show from day to day. His brow furrowed even deeper when Jayce woke with a start and glanced around the room with wild eyes, like he didn’t know where he was.

Then, a soft and scared Mel, left his lips, and Viktor immediately identified what was going on. Jayce had been feeling small even before he fell asleep, and waking up without being in his normal environment with Mel made him regress further. Viktor had never seen him truly regressed before, and everything about Jayce’s body language made him seem so much smaller and unsure than he usually was.

Jayce, you’re here in the lab. It is alright. Viktor reassured him as best he could, despite being very unsure about how to speak to Jayce. The little’s ears went red immediately as he realized where he was and that Viktor was talking to him, and oh no, that Viktor knew he was small when he was supposed to be big. He couldn’t help but to burst into tears of embarrassment, his crying only making him even more upset. Viktor’s oh dear didn’t help matters much either.

Viktor managed to calm Jayce down by simply sitting quietly and allowing him to get all his tears out. Once Jayce’s sobs had slowed down to sniffles, Viktor got up and gently squeezed the little’s shoulders, meeting his eyes. He murmured that everything was quite alright and that they could go and find Mel together. Jayce nearly knocked Viktor down with the force that he threw himself at, wrapping the smaller man in a hug. Viktor wheezed and then chuckled, patting Jayce’s back affectionately as they parted. He knew it was time to see Mel when Jayce’s next action was to tug at the high collar of his shirt. Come on, little one, Viktor remarked, as the pair went off to wake Mel in the middle of the night.

You managed to get into one of the top schools in the country: the University of Piltover. You would say you didn’t know how, but you did. You worked hard and it paid off. You landed a teaching fellowship, securing a huge majority of your tuition, and a roommate in one of the campus apartments offered to you. You were dreaming of orange autumns wrapped in a scarf on cobblestone campus walkways, faded sunlight filtering through stained glass library windows, creaky wooden chairs circling ancient lyceums.

It was all laid out before you now. Things were going to be perfect from here on out.

You arrived at your new living space in mid-August, a few weeks before classes started, your rickety car absolutely packed with your precious belongings. Your breaks creaked as you pulled into the driveway outside the little townhouse. The siding was painted a handsome cream to pair with the brick foundation and the ivy that climbed up the sides and front and choked the huge bay windows. A maple tree, verdant in the summer light, sat old and happy and fat in the front yard.

You could hardly kill your engine fast enough. You virtually skipped up to the front door, unlocked it, took a deep breath of your new home base as you stepped in. It was hard to not contain the joyous ichor that dripped from the fruits of your labor. You laughed, did a little dance, oblivious to the far nicer car that was tucking itself beside yours or the very tall, very handsome man that was scaling up the porch steps and through the door—

“Oh, hello,” a timbre voice said bemusedly as it stumbled upon your victory dance in the foyer. You froze, blood rushing up your neck to settle in a nice, tomato red glow on your cheeks and ears as you tried not to gape at this Greek god of man in horror.

“...Oh god. Hi.”

“No, please don’t be embarrassed, I’m the one that stepped in on your celebration,” he said warmly as he stepped forward and offered a huge hand to shake. “Plus, I just really don’t want start off on the wrong foot. I’m Jayce.”

Ah. So this was he. You had been emailing him sporadically, of course, but it was really the university that matched you up. You knew he was an architecture major and... not much else. Neither of you even had profile pictures attached to your school emails, so you had no clue that your roommate was going to be a tall, dark, handsome Superman.

You extended your own hand and shook it as firmly as you could, what with your knees suddenly feeling like a poor attempt at gelatin and the afternoon light haloing his perfect hair a little too brightly.

“I thought you’d be coming a little closer to the start of classes,” you said with a bashful laugh.

“That was the plan, but I have some furniture being shipped that’s coming over the next few days. Plus, y’know, I wanted to… make a good impression, I guess.”

“...On me?” you asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah! We’re gonna be rooming together for at least the rest of the year, if not through our degrees.” He smiled warmly. “I’d like if we at least tolerated each other.”

“...And you figured you’d do that by... getting here early?” you teased.

Jayce’s jaw went slack as he struggled with words for a moment. “Well I—Well, I was gonna buy my textbooks and have them all stacked up on the counter so you’d see what I was taking and how sm—y’know what, never mind.”

You were already laughing and he was already laughing, and the horror of dancing like nobody was watching when, indeed, someone was watching was already fading.

“Consider a good impression made, Jayce. No need to do all that.”

You could virtually see an invisible tail start wagging, a pair of floppy ears perking up at your words. You almost wanted to reach out and pet the faultless mop of hair on his head.

“Well, I still want to live up to that good impression! You just got here, right? I mean, I can still see the boxes strapped to the top of your car. Let me help you unpack!” he immediately offered.

“No, you just got here too, that’s really not necessary—” But he was already bounding out the door before you could say no. Not that you were going to run after him and adamantly refuse—some of those boxes were more than difficult just to lift into your car. But you found yourself at his heels anyway, insisting that he take his own stuff in first.

“No, really, it’s okay! It’s just my clothes and some of my weights. Holy shit, you packed a lotta stuff in this tiny thing!”

“That’s what she said,” you immediately shot back. Jayce just lit up.

“That is what she said! And here I was, all worried we wouldn’t get along!”

You popped open the trunk and you began your work. Jayce, naturally, made it look like child’s play with the way he stacked boxes to carry two, three at a time without breaking a sweat. You were content with carrying just the one. Until that one particularly difficult box—filled to the brim with books that wouldn’t fit anywhere else—stared up at you, innocently, from the back of your car.

You didn’t want to look like a wuss, or to even ask your roommate for more help than he had already so graciously offered. So you took a deep breath, got a good grip on the sides, lifted, and immediately began to fall backwards.

“Woah, careful there!”

Your back met the soft cushion of Jayce’s chest. Two huge arms came out to catch you as well, wrapping around your shoulders as he bore your weight and helped you regain your balance. Up this close, you caught a whiff of bergamot and spices—a delicious-smelling cologne he had draped himself in. Of fucking course he wears really nice cologne.

“Here, let me.”

His hand slid to rest on your back to ensure you’d stay upright as he rounded you, only leaving your body to bear the brunt of the box. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and you could feel another rush of blood flushing your face.

“God, thanks. I dunno what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

“Eat asphalt?” he replied cheekily, to which you threw him a playful glare and pushed him onwards to the house.

“Shut up! You’re taking that to your grave!”

“Am I taking the dancing too?”

“Shut up!”

You followed Jayce, sheepish and endeared, as he laughed warmly at your apparent embarrassment.

“Aw c’mon, you’ll be laughing with me about all this by the time we move out!”

You’ve barely known the guy for five minutes, but the thought of going through all of grad school living with him and suddenly moving away made your heart twist sadly. He seemed like a good guy, someone you were actually excited to get to know, someone you’d be happy to spend these upcoming years with. Preemptive grief was a bitch.

“Whatever,” you managed to grumble out, lightheartedly enough for him to not catch onto your overly-sentimental train of thought.

With all your boxes at least inside the house, the two of you looked over the pile that sat patiently at the bottom of the stairs. Your bedroom, of course, was up the flight.

You looked at him wearily. He looked back and smiled.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Lunch,” you agreed.

Jayce turned out to be a wonderful companion to spend the weeks leading up to classes with. You learned he came from a known engineering family but was here on the word of one of the school board’s council members: Cassandra Kiramman. The name made you raise your eyebrows, but he insisted it was really her daughter, Caitlyn, that made the relationship worth mentioning. He was childhood friends with her and that fact certainly didn’t make jealousy stab green through your chest.

Nonetheless, you and Jayce spent the upcoming days prepping for rigorous mental work. Mostly. There was plenty of studying completed, but you quickly learned Jayce was the type of guy to drag you off as soon as something more interesting made itself known. Movies that you just had to watch, groceries you just had to get right this very second, parties you just had to join—hell, you even met Caitlyn on one of his whims. (You had nothing to worry about between her and Jayce. By the time you were dragging him from the party, she was snogging the face off some girl with a terrible pink undercut.)

It felt weirdly strange leaving the apartment without him. It was your first day of classes and this was always how it played out in your head; but Jayce had a way of tunneling into your consciousness and making you feel as if he had always been there, waking you up with the extra eggs he “accidentally” cooked before he peeled off for the gym, hooking his finger over the top of your phone when he wanted your attention, already recommending books to you left and right.

You chewed on the inside of your cheek as you tried not to smile. It was all a little obvious, right? He hadn’t mentioned a partner or romantic relationship of any kind and he was being otherwise… overtly boyfriend-ish. It certainly felt like he was courting you.

Your mind wouldn’t allow you the happiness of that for too long. He was probably just super friendly. You saw the way he looked at other girls, treated them just like you—like they were his entire world and there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. That was just it. He was exceedingly kind—to everyone. You weren’t special. Certainly not to someone you only knew for a handful of weeks. It was best to keep your hopes and imagination in check before getting stung. A guy like him was a perfect catch.

You? You subconsciously pulled your finger away from your mouth, refusing to acknowledge the nail you were biting. Or the chipped nail polish you hadn’t bothered to reapply since arriving at your apartment.

You spent the rest of your walk to class consuming yourself with more pleasant thoughts: how nice your room was shaping up, all the new supplies you had splurged on to make studying a little more appetizing, all the new people with similar passions you’d connect with. Your life retook the rose-tinted film again. You were living your dream.

You reached the English building with plenty of time to spare. It was a beautiful sight, inside and out; tall, gleaming windows, masterful stonework, gilded details that shone proudly in the morning sun. You counted your lucky stars ten times over as you opened the main doors and filed in with the other early birds. The interior managed to feel more like a palace than a place of study with the absurdly high ceilings and grand arches, but there were still plenty of nooks where students had taken up reading and crannies where other students were gossiping. You narrowly avoided stepping on a piece of gum.

Ah, a whiff of normalcy in this foreign land of rich kids and rich land. Jayce was wonderful and all, but people born with a silver spoon in their mouth always had a way of being… off-putting to you. They always seemed just a little too nonchalant about life.

You continued on, looking at the map you printed just to make sure you were going the right way. You already knew, from having taken the route preemptively, but it felt good to visualize the arrow you had drawn guiding you along like those little quest helpers in MMOs. You smiled to yourself at the thought and continued until you made it to a set of huge doors leading to the largest lecture hall in the building.

Your first class was with Dr. Heimerdinger, a well-known professor more in physics and engineering than in your side of academia; but he was also well-versed in philosophy and ethics, which was what you were taking to ease yourself into the heavy course load of grad school. There were at least a hundred other students who were doing the same thing, of course, but a much larger portion of them were just genuine fans of Heimerdinger’s work. He had published a great many books that took high-concept math and physics and digested them for the layman, making him not only a spokesperson to the general public for wilder scientific concepts but a beloved figure to those who wished they could take a similar place in society. He was intelligent, charismatic, and flippantly folksy. What wasn’t there to love?

You appreciated his books on the level of language they used, but not much past it. You were here for linguistics, literature; to you, these contained the realm of math—for what would math be if one didn’t have the language to express it?—and were therefore more worthwhile expenditures. Heimerdinger had a few fun interviews that you had enjoyed, but that didn’t push you into the realm of awe when you saw him, also early, when you stepped into the hall.

What did catch your eye was the dark-haired man speaking with him. He was far taller—though, in the case of Heimerdinger, that wasn’t a difficult feat—and leaned casually on a cane; but when his amber eyes caught yours, you couldn’t help the trill of excitement that flashed through your stomach. He was smartly dressed and exceedingly handsome. He had an air of someone who knew he belonged there. All of this expounded the fluttering in your stomach, the blush that rose to your cheeks, the way you scuttled past the desk towards a chair near the front of the hall.

There were a few others who were now dotting the Colosseum-style seats, but you felt the man’s gaze follow you and settle as you did. You met them again, to feel that flash of attraction. You weren’t sure it was mutual, but his hooded eyes lingered on you before returning to your professor.

Now that was a man that could distract you from Jayce. A crush was just about the only thing potent enough to distract from, well, another crush. While one was virtually demanding your attention like a golden retriever puppy, it was equally as fun to burn slowly.

Students began to pour in as the class’ beginning time drew near. You had long set up your laptop and notebook, neatly assigned the date at the top of your paper, had the day-one presentation pulled up on your screen; you were now preoccupied with a worn paperback that had survived both your high school and college years. It brought a comforting slice of familiarity when you needed it most.

But you were mostly just using it to stop yourself from looking at the handsome stranger still chatting with Heimerdinger. His hair defied the laws of physics. In fact, it was making you a little jealous; just how the hell did he get perfect, beachy waves like that?

“Good morning everyone!”

Heimerdinger’s pleasantly squeaky voice earned the immediate, rapt attention of the entire hall. You supposed that was precisely the measure of someone’s power—just how quickly they could command a room.

“I’m so very glad you could all make it! We’ll start class in a few minutes. Make sure you have a notebook and your brains at the ready! Joining us today is my assistant, Viktor. He’s not my TA, so don’t address him as such—he will be contributing to future lectures just as much as I.”

Viktor.

The name immediately stuck in your memory. You gazed over to him, just as you were sure hundreds of other eyes did; but that amber gaze was only returned to you. He held it, just for a moment, before the professor was speaking again and had regained control of everyone’s attention.

You knew day-one classes were going to be a breeze and Heimerdinger was thankfully no exception. He went over the syllabus, his expectations, how this class was situated in the overarching graduate program, and his long, long list of philosophy books that were “recommended” (but totally implied to be mandatory so as to not be the object of his academic ire).

Class otherwise went off with a hitch, though something—other than the man grading papers quietly at the furthest end of the lecture hall—caught your attention. A quote, misworded and misattributed, soiled a slide on Heimerdinger’s presentation. You scribbled it down in your notebook. You doubted you’d have the guts to talk to a master like your professor himself, but…

You mentally smiled like the fucking Grinch.

Class wrapped up, and you virtually skipped down the steps to the front of the hall. While a large flock of freshmen surrounded Heimerdinger, asking for autographs or gushing praise, you were the only one to break off for his assistant. He was already rising from his seat, but he stopped in his tracks when he realized you were beelining towards him, fully intent on starting a conversation.

“Yes?” he asked, voice low and thick with an accent you couldn’t quite place.

“Viktor, right?”

“That’s correct. Who am I speaking to, exactly?”

You babbled your name as you side-eyed your professor, hardly distinguishable from the crowd of awed students. “But that’s really not important. I, uh… I think I caught a mistake in Dr. Heimerdinger’s presentation.”

Viktor’s eyebrows raised dramatically. “A mistake? On day one? You must be very confident to make a claim like that.”

“I am,” you insisted. You opened your bag, fumbled through it to break your notebook free.

“Then speak with Heimerdinger.”

You gaped for a moment, enough for him to start headway towards the exit without so much as a wave goodbye.

“I—Well, hold on!” you gasped, catching up with him as you flipped to the page where you wrote your note. “There’s a reason I came to you. First of all, he has more fangirls than a boy band.”

Viktor let out a quiet chuckle. He wasn’t convinced you were much more than a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first-year grad student that was attempting to use him to get to his boss. But your comment was funny, he’d give you that.

With his cold exterior melted, just enough to give you confidence, you continued.

“Secondly, I like corroboration. What would academia be if people published journals with zero peer review or references? Little more than fairy tale.” You gestured loosely. “A nice thought, but nothing to hold it down in reality. It also means that the experienced are subject to the same rules as the inexperienced. Basic quote credentials included.”

Viktor adjusted the black frames on his nose, as if he was actually seeing you for the first time. He leaned heavily on his cane as you both stopped before the exit. You assumed he was thinking of something to say until he, with apparent annoyance, tapped the door with his cane.

“Oh shit!” you gasped, pushing the heavy thing open for him as you began to blush. “I’m so sorry!”

When he passed by you, his indignation had warmed to a sort of mischievous smile.

“What was that about being inexperienced?” he teased.

“I—Well, to be totally fair, I was trying to have a conversation! Y’know, a thing that usually happens when two people talk?” You crossed your arms, embarrassed. “I wasn’t really paying attention to walking.”

“I can’t really say the same,” he replied, looking down at his cane. The casualness of his comment caught you off-guard, but it was only a moment before you both shared a laugh.

“See? Nothing to get so flustered about,” Viktor virtually purred at you. You swear it was just his accent, but no amount of justification or explanation was going to make that flash of attraction stop pulsing through you. “I apologize for leaving you hanging. I do believe we share a similar point of view—after all, Heimerdinger hired me as his assistant for a reason.”

You looked at him, a little befuddled. “Just to catch his mistakes?”

“Ehh…” He tilted his head side to side as he searched for words. “That makes him sound bad, and me sound rather useless. We catch each other’s mistakes, no? Peer review, as you said yourself.”

“Why be his assistant then, if you’re on the same level?”

“Because experienced and inexperienced still play by the same rules,” he replied with a knowing smirk.

“...Touché,” you replied, unable to help the smile growing across your face.

“Now, do tell of this mistake you found. I’m more inclined to believe you after that little spiel.”

“That’s a little hypocritical to say, after admitting you’re inexperienced yourself.”

“I’m not a first-year.” He replied with a smile that belied how he was teasing you once again. Neither of you could help the smiles creeping onto your faces.

“Ohhhhh, I see, so there’s a double standard.”

“Mm… yes, exactly. Now you’re starting to get it.”

While you were concerned with mentally keeping up with Viktor and trying to not drown in your attraction to him, a dark figure tagged behind you, clouded in a cluster of students. It carried a book, not to blend in. It was fated to carry this weight.

"I believe, Councilor, it can be considered a form of stress-relief," You comment, almost mild and off-handed as you slip one arm out of a sleeve, in time with your step forward. Hazel-eyes lock on the bare-skin revealed, save for a short strap of high-end lace, connected to a tight, all-too bodice of equal fabric, a sight that, once-detected, the new-councilor has no will-power to drag his gaze from. "You could also consider it an invitation."

"Invitation?" His voice sounds so distant, trailing off into muteness when you shrug off the rest of your shirt as you come within a foot-space of him. Reaching around, and clicking the lock shut with a single flicker of your finger as you gaze up at him through your lashes.

"Indeed," You murmur, voice low and something almost fox-like as you tilt your lips. "Unless you would like to adjourn this little meeting as well? I hear you've gotten quite good at that."

Instantly, the tips of his ears flush darkly, embarrassment, and definitely the culmination of another emotion entirely. "I-i didnt... I thought we were done-"

"Councilor. Jayce." Your hand travels from the door to his broad, well-toned chest, from even beneath the fancier layer of his new suit, you can feel his skin shudder at the contact, a ripple of his pectorals at only the softest of touches at your fingertips. "This is an invitation. Nothing more, nothing less." You tilted your head, gazing up at him fully, and smiled, softly, understanding. Sympathetic. "I'll leave, if you wish me to."

"No."

"No? You want me to stay?"

"No, I... I mean, yes. Yes, I want you to stay-"

"Good," Your hand crept upward, and curled slowly around the length of his silk-tie... fingers curling in-time around the fabric, as they curled at the hem of your pants. Pushing down enough for his gaze to follow the motion, and soon widening at the sight of matching lace at your hip.

His attention is soon preoccupied by other matters, when you jerk his tie forward enough that the man was forced to stumble with you back towards the bed, a prayer on his lips, and a smirk on yours as his gaze turns from wholly surprised, to teeming with newfound hunger.

Not all that different from when he first got a taste of political power... now, you're determined make sure he learns that he has a craving for something else, too.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢: 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐨𝐧