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The whispers start almost as soon as Jayce exits the rideshare and steps foot on campus.
He’s used to the stares by now, the way eyes immediately snap towards him whenever he steps foot in a room. Once, it only happened in rooms full of fellow engineers and schoolers, or during networking and charity events when he was trying to find investors. Ever since Mel started encouraging him to dip his toes into politics -- a keynote speech at a climate change conference here, a mildly painful campaign endorsement there, he’s even considering running for Council these days -- the looks of recognition have only increased.
But something about this was different. Jayce felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he walks from the parking lot through the student union, where the driver had dropped him off -- a place he admittedly rarely visited when he himself was a student here, as between his partial scholarship and his Aunt Cass’ funds, he hadn’t needed the resources offered here, outside of maybe the printing lab or the campus gym when the library was overcrowded or he didn’t have the mental energy to go to his then-usual gym off campus -- as students lean towards their friends, cupping their hands around their mouths and pointing at him. Jayce’s fist tightens around the handle of his cane, the bag of food he’s holding with the same hand crinkling under his fingers, and he feels his insides burning under the weight of their eyes.
Normally, the stares would give way quickly to a crowd of starry eyed students flocking around him, tossing question after question at him. It's something he can handle, something he even enjoys -- sometimes, he even thinks about cutting back on the traveling and networking, minimizing everything back down to just his research role and dedicating his spare time to being a professor, if only temporarily. Yet none of them have approached him.
It's his first casual public appearance in a while, he realizes. Is it the beard? It must be, he thinks -- he’s been the face of HexTech for nearly a decade now, never letting his facial hair get past a five o’clock shadow for the sake of consistency. The beard was practically a drastic rebrand in the public eye. He’d meant to shave it off months ago.
But Viktor likes it, and Jayce likes how much Viktor likes it, and so it's stayed.
Jayce keeps his head held high, fighting the urge to hide behind the travel mug of coffee he’s holding in his other hand, when suddenly he hears it -- a loud, cackling laugh, and a shout, “Oi, golden boy, you and sugar cookie been holding out on us?”
Jayce whips his head around over his shoulder, hoping the look on his face is more unimpressed yet completely professional entrepreneur in his 30s and less flustered teenager. He finds Powder Warwick, Vi’s younger sister, making strides towards him, followed by her boyfriend, Ekko. Jayce doesn’t know if he should be relieved or terrified, especially considering the all too amused grin on her face and mortification on his.
Jayce is 90% sure neither teenager likes him very much. Given that Vi is one of his best friends and practically his sister-in-law, he’s tried over the years to be the same cool big brother he was to Caitlyn, but neither ever seemed impressed by his efforts. More than once, Powder had stolen the food off his plate, and he had learned at last year’s holiday party at the Kiramman manor that Ekko would intentionally overcharged him when Jayce visited his adoptive father’s curio shop (and while he doesn’t necessarily hold it against the kid, he’s admittedly still a little hurt that he had apparently failed a ten year old’s vibe check so thoroughly that it had apparently been a running joke among his friend and her family for years without his knowledge).
Still, they were practically family, and they at least seemed willing to respect him in lab settings -- they were practically prodigies in engineering and had been his and Viktor’s unofficial lab assistants ever since Sky had completed her thesis on eco-biology and pollution, leaving them for her own research team. Plus, he’s fairly certain they had been the ones to tip off Mel earlier that afternoon. She had come into his office, asked if he’d heard from Viktor, and before he could start panicking had assured him that everything sounded fine, but that there had been some sort of disaster during Viktor’s lecture and that it wouldn’t be too terrible if he had to leave early (he has no idea how they got her personal contact information, especially considering how tightnit her security team is, but given the less than legal things he and Viktor got up to before their dream got off the ground, he’s willing to look the other way as long as she is).
They had also tipped off just about everyone else in their social group, it seems, as on the way there he’d gotten a text from Vi that just read “😬😬😬you heard from V yet,” a voicemail from Caitlyn promising to be his personal lawyer if need be, and a hastily written email from Dean Heimerdinger of all people that told him not to worry, that any investigation would simply be a formality if it even came to it, that they of course respect his and Viktor’s privacy, and a possible joke about how pretty please lets not cause a fuss and sue on either end .
No word from Viktor at all.
Jayce would be palming his face if he had a hand to spare. As Powder skips to a halt in front of him, all he can say is, “ Please tell me he’s okay.”
“Oh, Cookie’s okay,” Powder laughs, “Looked a little burnt to a crisp by the time class ended though.”
“Oh, god, tell me there wasn’t an explosion in your lab.” Mel had assured him that Viktor probably hadn’t been injured or gotten sick, otherwise Jayce wouldn’t have stopped to get him a coffee and pastry from that cafe by the office he likes so much.
She rolls her eyes with exaggeration before replying, “Not a --” she mimed an explosion, complete with a boom sound effect “-- more of a --” she wiggled her fingers, making a faint hissing sound. This, frankly, did little to comfort Jayce.
Ekko decided to take pity on him at this point by saying, “There wasn’t a fire, or anything like that. Just…” He trailed off, cringing.
Was Jayce actively going gray? He swears he could practically feel his hairs turning gray from stress at this point. “Just what ?”
“Just… kinda embarrassing. Maybe a little cute?” Ekko added with a shug.
Powder nodded, dropping her teasing to elbow Jayce lightly. “Yeah, gross, a little embarrassing, but totally cute.” She looked sincere as she said it, something she rarely was around Jayce.
Jayce felt the tension leave his shoulders at that. Embarrassing, he could work with, whatever that meant -- Viktor has a lot of insecurities and self worth issues that they’ve been working through, but he also paradoxically seems to have no shame. For the longest time he resisted even having a picture of himself on their website, somehow convinced that even acknowledging his existence would scare investors and clients away, but he’s also broken into restricted areas without a care that security wouldn’t hesitate to toss him out, all to calmly tear some rich asshole a new one.
Jayce is about to ask for more details when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He blindly shoves the coffee mug out in hopes one of the two takes it and fishes his phone out. Disappointment floods him when he sees its a text from an unsaved number -- Silco’s, of all people -- one of Zaun’s few representatives on the Council and Vi’s stepfather, Jayce runs into him now and then, but he’s frankly been too terrified after each interaction to give the man his contact information (Jayce chooses then and there to worry about how Silco got his number later). Clarifying that it's him in the first line, his message tells him that Viktor is welcome at Vander’s bar, all drinks half off, if he needs it.
“Seriously?” Jayce scowls at them. “You told your dads about what happened?”
Powder simply shrugs. “Hey, excuse me for thinking he needs all the support he can get.”
“Suport for what, exactly? What the hell-” Jayce cuts himself off, stopping himself before his voice rises too much. Trying to be subtle about it, a quick glance around tells him that he’s very much still the center of attention. Softer, he hisses out, “What the hell even happened? Specifically.”
“Sugar cookie’d kill us if we told ya,” Powder replies, and in her hands, somehow, is the bag of food he’d been carrying, “You didn’t make this, right? Sure doesn't smell burned,” She asks, a weird glint in her eyes, and Ekko barely manages to hide a surprised laugh with a cough.
Jayce reaches out to snatch it back before she can start digging into it, only mildly offended by whatever the hell she means by that -- like they don’t raid his kitchen and eat his food on a regular basis, he thinks, annoyed. She ducks under his arm, her blue braid swinging behind her, before just dropping it back into his hand with a “Trade ya.”
She turns her back on him, throwing an arm around Ekko’s neck, forcing him to hunch over something suddenly in her hands. Jayce blinks at them as they both start chuckling and aww -ing over whatever she’s holding. His eyes drift over to his hand, staring at the bag blankly for a moment, before it hits him -- his phone.
She stole his phone.
“Hey-!”
“I knew it!” Powder lifted her head to call out to the scattered crowd of students around them. “It is Professor T, and he’s cuddly a couple’a kitties!”
A couple young women d’aww at her words, and off to the side, Jayce sees a young man’s shoulder’s slump. Everyone else exchanges looks of disbelief, the whispering starting up again. This time, Jayce could make out the words “-Professor T?!-,” “-always knew he was a softy-,” “-Wait, you weren’t exaggerating?!-”
Ekko took the phone from Powder, handing it back to a very confused Jayce, who moved the bag into the crook of his elbow to take it. After sniffing at the opening of the mug and pulling a face, hands it back as well, muttering, “How does he even still have teeth? I can smell the sugar in that thing.”
“Hence the name,” Powder said. “He’s our sweet lil softy, sugar obsessed cookie-wookie.”
“Guys,” Jayce interrupts helplessly. “Is he at least in his office?”
“Oh- ho yeah, locked himself in there and everything.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Jayce stands there for another moment, frankly a little stupefied. It’s times like this that make him understand why Silco’s PA Sevika would refuse to babysit Powder when she was younger. A glance down at the phone in his hand shows him it's still unlocked, his homescreen on display. The picture is years old at this point, Viktor’s hair still short and one solid auburn-brown. He was reclining on the couch, the corner of a stack of paper peaking into the frame from his off-screen hand. It was a couple weeks after they had adopted Blitz, the then-kitten, clumsy and full of endless energy, trying to climb down from the back of the couch, one tiny paw braced on Viktor’s cheek. Their other cat, Crank, looked dead-on into the camera, unamusement clear on his face, though not enough to make him move from where he was curled up on Viktor’s chest. Viktor’s mouth is open, forever frozen in one of his rare laughs.
Jayce remembers taking this photo -- it was just after they became roommates and before they started dating, and Viktor hadn’t noticed Jayce watching, hadn’t realized he’d snapped a photo. It had taken an embarrassingly long time still for Jayce to realize what the fluttering in his chest had meant. Immediately after they’d finally gotten together, Jayce had made it his phone background, and it had stayed his background through three phones and counting.
Why in Runeterra Powder felt the need to describe it to the world, Jayce had no idea. Shaking his head, knowing at this point she and Ekko wouldn’t feel like helping him any farther for the sake of their own amusement, he turns to where he knows the biology department professors hold their offices.
As he marches away, he overhears the disappointed student say to his friend, “I always thought the last name was a coincidence.”
His friend snorts, “Sorry about your crush, but you know you had no chance with him.”
“...Damnit, they do make a fine couple though.”
“ Damn straight.”
“Well-”
Jayce is too far away at this point to make out the rest of his reply, but similar whispers follow.
--
Viktor’s office is the one closest to the elevator, and as Jayce steps off it he can already see the paper taped to the door, reading:
OFFICE HOURS CANCELLED
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Underneath, scribbled in Viktor’s chicken scratch handwriting, is a note saying any emergencies should be sent via email to his current TA, Huck.
Leaning his cane against the wall, Jayce tries the handle. Sure enough, it's locked.
“Viktor?” Jayce leaned against the door. “Am I interrupting something?”
He faintly hears Viktor mutter, “ Janna help me. ”
“V, full disclaimer, I have no idea what’s going on, but I need to make sure you’re alright. Can you come out?”
“I fear I may never leave this office again,” Viktor called out.
“I have coffee from that one place you like?” Jayce offered. When the door remained locked, he added, “C’mon, V, don’t make me kick the door down.”
“It’s a nice door,” Viktor replied, slightly impishly, “You wouldn’t kick down such a nice door.”
Jayce couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. “I’ll call one of the Warwicks to come pick it, then,” he fired back. “I’ll camp out here all night if I have to until Vi or Mylo comes to break me in.”
There’s a long moment of silence until Jayce here’s a click, and the door handle turns in his hand. Pulling the door open, Jayce finds Viktor hunched over his desk in a way that can’t be good for his back, face buried in his arms, looking like he hasn’t moved from that spot for a while. “Shut it behind you,” he requests weakly.
Jayce closes the door behind him, hearing the lock click back in place. “How’d you do that?” he can’t help but ask.
Without lifting his head, Viktor silently holds up something that looks like a car fob. He presses the button, and Jayce hears the click of the door unlocking again. After a moment, the lock clicks one more time as it presumably slides back into place.
“Magic,” Viktor says flatly into the desk.
“Clever.” They should probably implement a locking system like that for their office and work lab, Jayce thinks -- he can see the appeal of being able to unlock the door to let people in without needing to physically get up to unlock it yourself. “How’d you get Heimberdinger to agree to let you install it?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Jayce laughs, fondly. Of course, he thinks. Of course. “Have I told you lately I love you?”
Viktor lifts his head finally, and for a moment Jayce is taken aback by how flushed he is -- from high on his cheeks down his neck to where his shirt collar is popped open, tie loosened. Oh god, Jayce thinks. God, Janna, please he can’t be getting sick again, not this soon-
“I fear,” Viktor says with all the resignation of a man standing before a firing squad, “that every one of the students here knows that you love me.”
“...Huh?”
Jayce pulled one of the chairs set aside for students around the desk, settling himself beside Viktor. Viktor makes grabby hands at the mug, but Jayce holds it out of his reach. Instead, he wraps his free arm around Viktor’s shoulders, pulling him into Jayce’s body.
Jayce presses his lips against Viktor’s forehead, right where the semi-permanent crease between his eyebrows lie, and holds them there -- it's how he learned to check for fevers from his mother. Slowly, he feels Viktor relax into him, a tension melting from his body.
No fever. He’s a little warm, but that seems to be a by-product of his flushed skin, not the cause of it.
Satisfied, Jayce presses a proper kiss against Viktor’s forehead, before leaning back. He’s blushing, Jayce realizes. What had Ekko said -- something embarrassing but cute?
He finally slides the mug into Viktor’s hands, who accepts it eagerly, immediately downing it in one go.
“Long day?” Jayce asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Did anyone see you?” Viktor asks instead of answering.
“Um, everyone saw me, I think.”
“Janna save me.”
Viktor takes another long chug of the coffee, like its the only thing giving him the strength to go on.
“...I love you, too, by the way,” Viktor says, sheepishly after a moment.
“He says after I’ve caffeinated him.”
“This is your fault, for the record.”
Jayce leans back to try and meet Viktor’s eye properly. “Uh… What is, exactly?”
Viktor, somehow, blushes even harder, glaring down at his desk. Jayce tucks his hair behind his ear, and sure enough his ears are bright red as well. “How much did Ms. Warwick and Mr. Voland tell you?” He asked warily.
“Not much. Not as much as they told everyone else, at least.”
“...Sakra.” Viktor’s curls forward, hiding his red face in his arms again. “I suppose I did make them promise not to run straight to you over this before I could break it to you myself.”
“Viktor, please.” Jayce ran a hand down his face.
Viktor tilted his head up, resting his chin on the desk in a way that was definitely not good for his back. He was pouting, though Jayce knew better than to point it out. “Last night, when my work laptop needed that repair,” he began.
Jayce furrowed his eyebrows. It had needed a relatively simple debugging, something either one of them could’ve handled, but since Viktor also had papers to grade, Jayce had taken care of it for him. “Yeah? Did I miss something?”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Jayce, but I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to test it out.”
Jayce followed Viktor’s glare to where he seemed to be trying to burn holes with his eyes into the laptop sitting on his desk -- his personal laptop, Jayce recognized, not his work one.
“Since I was working off of this one last night, I left it where I usually leave my university laptop by mistake,” Viktor explained. “I accidentally grabbed this one on the way out. During my last class, we had a discussion on extinction and using genetic engineering to attempt to bring extinct species back. I was being indulgent and let the students convince me to play one of those SciShow videos on the topic. When I projected from this laptop…”
“What, did it not connect or something?” Jayce could see why someone like Viktor might find it embarrassing to not be able to figure it out, but it was hardly worth locking yourself in your office while your loved ones were contacted one-by-one.
“I wish it hadn’t,” Viktor grumbled.
"Do you have a secret OnlyFans or something?"
Viktor made a face but otherwise didn't bother to respond. Straightening up with a groan (Jayce knew his back would suffer from how he was sitting), he opened the laptop and typed his password with nimble fingers. It unlocked, his desktop background on full display.
Jayce’s eyebrows shot up, surprised. “Oh.”
That explained why Powder (and evidently her peers) had been so interested in Jayce’s homescreen background.
It also explained why Ekko would call it cute, and why Viktor, someone so private, would be embarrassed, though admittedly Jayce still didn’t understand the degree of embarrassment.
He also didn’t understand why, of all the photos they’ve taken over the years, Viktor had chosen this one as his background -- it was a photo of both of them sitting at their table, their open oven behind them, covered in scorch marks and foam from a fire extinguisher. Dangling by one thread, covered by the laptop’s icons, was a half burned “WELCOME HOME!” sign. Sitting on the table in front of them were the scorched remains of what was supposed to be their dinner. Jayce was looking into the camera with a slightly loopy grin, his beard and hair completely unkempt, not at all styled and properly maintained like it is now. Viktor, sitting with one of Jayce’s arms thrown over his shoulder much like it is now, is giving the camera a bemused look, wet hair clinging to the sides of his face. He’s wearing nothing but the blue blanket he stole from Jayce early in their relationship.
Peeking out from the blanket was a single pale hand, the hospital bracelet still wrapped around Viktor’s wrist. Jayce was shirtless, showing off the wrapping around his torso, his leg propped up on an extra chair, displaying the cast on his leg.
They had just gotten out of the hospital, and Jayce had nearly sent them right back into it.
***
Viktor had gotten pneumonia late into last winter.
He had gotten so pale, lips and fingernails turning blue, struggling to breathe as Jayce frantically drove him to the hospital. His O2 levels had been dangerously low. He had struggled to answer basic questions like what the date was and where he lived in between painful, bloody coughs. His lungs, already scarred from a childhood being exposed to pollution, had been full of fluid, one of them partially collapsed. He had been going into respiratory failure.
Jayce had been the one to make the decision on his behalf to allow the doctors to put him in a medically induced coma so they could put him on a ventilator in the ICU, while they started him on antibiotics.
It's not a time he likes to think about.
Guilt still gnawed at him to this very day -- Jayce had knowingly and happily married a disabled man with health issues. Obviously they had discussed scenarios like this, and while Viktor didn’t have a DNR, he was adamant that if he was going to die, he wanted a dignified death, not to be kept living, but not alive, on machines. Jayce told himself that this was different, that the doctors had said there was a chance of not just survival, but recovery, that he wouldn’t consent to something like a surgery on Viktor’s behalf, that he’d take Viktor off the ventilator and have them wake him up if the antibiotics weren’t working -- on and on and on in his head and he stared down at the wires and tubes connected to his life partner.
Viktor had been under for nine agonizing days, and when the medical staff took him out of the coma, he had given Jayce this look -- Jayce knew he shouldn’t have taken it personally, that Viktor was still sick and groggy from drugs, but when Viktor had looked at him with confusion, fear, exhaustion, and betrayal--
Well, Jayce hadn’t handled it well.
He, thankfully, doesn’t remember the next part too well -- he’d left the hospital in a heartbroken daze, exhausted from days of lost sleep, and on the drive home, he’d gotten into a crash. Badly.
Broken ribs. A lacerated back from lab equipment in the back seat tearing through the driver's seat. An open compound fracture in his left leg.
No one had died, thankfully, but he’d definitely gotten close.
Both he and Viktor had spent weeks in the hospital, Viktor undergoing round after round of antibiotics and oxygen while Jayce’s leg needed to be surgically repaired, the bone held together by metal. Both of them had ended up contracted sepsis at separate points, keeping them there longer. The scaring on Jayce's leg still looked gnarled, angry, and he's still a little stunned that he didn't end up losing it entirely, especially after the infection.
Jayce had only gotten out a couple days before Viktor, and he’d spent them at his mother’s house in a haze, trying desperately to push the memories from his mind so he could get some sleep.
***
Jayce, sick of hospital food at that point and desperate to give Viktor an apology he hadn’t yet ever asked for, had tried cooking something, in hopes of-- what? Making up for all the medical decisions he never would have agreed to himself through food? He’d been loopy on pain killers and had forgotten to set a timer. When Viktor had quietly asked to take a bath to wash off the smell of the hospital, Jayce had metaphorically jumped on the opportunity to help him as much as he could with his broken leg and healing ribs. When the smell of smoke hit them, Jayce had panicked and tried to carry Viktor from the bath, forgetting his own injuries momentarily.
He’d ended up soaking through his clothes and pulling all their clean towels down into the bath with him. Thankfully, their friends had been on the way for a Welcome Back “party” -- it was, ironically, less a party and more them wanting to make sure their freezer and refrigerator were full of food, and a chance for Vi and Caitlyn to return their cats home. Mel, who may as well have a sixth sense for them getting into stupid and dangerous situations, had arrived first and called for the firefighters before their kitchen could burn down.
She had also been the one to take this photo in the immediate aftermath. Compositionally, it was a good photo, with a solid foreground, midground, and background, and if you applied the rule of thirds to the photo, he and Viktor were off center in a way that was still appealing. Mel was at her heart an artist, and it shows. Jayce’s mother, Ximena -- who’d been the one to pick Viktor up and drop them off back home -- even had a copy in one of her photo albums, right beside Jayce’s other great embarrassments such as him being bathed as a baby or struggling to lift one of his father’s hammers as a toddler.
In Jayce’s silence, Viktor explains further, “Most of them didn’t even know I was married.”
Jayce blinked, coming back to the present to stare at Viktor. “I- what? How? We literally have the same last name.”
Viktor looked away, mouth thin. “Well, people don’t notice what you don’t draw attention to,” he said airily. Holding his hand up, he adds, “Every semester, I have at least one student loudly point out my hand tattoos midway through, and half a dozen others also say they never noticed them.”
“You wear gloves.”
“Sometimes, but not that often.” Viktor lets his hand drop. “They do not think I am the type of person to have tattoos, so when they look at me, they do not see them.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Most of them do not research me beyond what Rate My Professor says, and if they do, they’d don’t notice that my name on my research papers changed within the last few years. As far as they care, I have always been Professor Talis. Despite how famous you yourself may be, the Talis House is not a small one, even if it was considered a ‘lesser’ one until recently.”
“What about HexTech? Your name is listed on our website. Our wikipedia page even lists us as married!” Jayce had fought hard for Viktor to be included -- not just biased investors and reporters, but Viktor himself -- Viktor had been convinced that whether because he was raised a Zaunite, was raised with Common as a second language, had grown up poor, is disabled, or some other petty reason, bigoted investors wouldn’t be interested in their company because of him. While yes, early on they had lost funding from the occasional rich bigot, they were big enough, independent enough, successful enough that they didn’t need their money anymore.
Viktor had also been afraid that proxy to him might affect Jayce’s reputation. While yes, Jayce’s Aunt Cass had installed in him that his reputation could be the thing that kills him or grants him the world on a platter at the end of the day, the longer he’s known and loved Viktor, the less of a shit he’s given about what the world thinks.
Viktor clawed his way to the Piltover Academy, through every degree and discovery, and Jayce would be nothing without him at the end of the day. He needed the world to know that.
“...I may have curated something of a reputation for myself,” Viktor admitted.
Jayce looks at him, hurt and confusion clear on his face. Viktor’s face twisted with apology, his hand coming up to cup Jayce’s cheek. He lightly scratches at the hair on Jayce’s chin, and Jayce, despite himself, leans into it. His large hand rises to cover Viktor’s.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
Viktor looks embarrassed again, and Jayce can see him eyeing the door, like he’s thinking of bolting -- never mind the fact that he’d have to go through Jayce to even get to his forearm crutches and get around the desk.
“I’m a, ah. I suppose the word ‘hardass’ is appropriate?”
Jayce snorts. Viktor so rarely swears in Common.
“‘Bitchy’ also gets thrown around during exams,” Viktor says. “It's just… I’m here to not just teach them bioengineering, but to help them curate that knowledge and understanding. I make a point of shutting down any and all questions of myself -- not because I’m ashamed of you or myself, I swear, Jayce -- but because it isn’t relevant. I am not here to teach about myself. While HexTech does occasionally come up, it doesn’t come up that often in lectures or student lab settings. I often make a point of shutting down students that do make the connection as it often distracts from what I’m trying to teach them.
“Because of my efforts to keep who I am out of the classroom, combined with, well, how I am in the classroom, it's easy for the students to forget -- I don’t seem like the type of person to be married, so I simply must not be.”
Jayce lasses their fingers together. “I’d marry you again in a heartbeat. ”
“Take one of my midterms and see how you feel then.”
Jayce laughs openly at that, it all clicking into place, and he can’t help but tease, “Aww, so you’re embarrassed that the kids know their scary robot of a professor has a heart?”
Viktor gives him a glare without any heat. “Yes, exactly,” he says deadpan.
Jayce laughs again, and at that, Viktor hides his face into Jayce’s neck. “It was chaos, Jayce,” Viktor whines into his skin. Jayce starts stroking his hair, amusement growing as he listens. “I lost control of the entire lesson -- one would think a class of mostly 300 and 400 level students would know how to be professional, but no. I had to throw them all out early because they kept asking questions. I think one of them found our wedding photo on your Instagram. I fear they may never listen to me again.”
“...Is it really so bad, for them to know?”
“It changes everything about who I am to them.”
“Again, is it really that bad?”
Viktor leans back, searching his face. Jayce simply smiles and keeps running his fingers through Viktor’s hair. “...I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Jayce looks back at the laptop, the screen half dimmed now. He taps on the space bar to bring it back to full brightness. “...Why this photo?” he asks.
Jayce’s phone background is Viktor and the cats. His laptops and desktops have a different wedding photo. He’s fairly certain that the last time he saw Viktor’s laptop background it was a rare photo of Blitz and Crank cuddling.
“....” Viktor reaches a finger out, hovering over the image of Jayce’s face. “...Things changed this year. We changed.”
“I mean, not that much?” Jayce tilts his head, considering. “I guess I’ve got PT now, and I’m glad we both finally started therapy, even if I hate the trauma we had to go through to push us into it, but, hey, I’m still me. You’re still you.”
Viktor’s lip quirks up, a wry smile grows on his face, and Jayce fights the urge to kiss it. “I suppose that’s why I like it. That despite everything, you remain you and I remain me.” He chuckles softly, adding, “Plus, your face makes me laugh.”
Jayce shakes his head fondly. “Alright,” he says, “No more catastrophizing, then? I don’t know why Powder and Ekko contacted as many people as they did, anyway, or why they blew this up with them. Caitlyn was talking to me about legal troubles, and Heimerdinger sent me an email about privacy and an investigation.”
Viktor’s face falls, draining of color. “Oh, ah, no. No, they weren’t the ones to contact Heimerdinger, I assure you. I was. I… I had to inform him of this, er, incident.”
“...’Incident?’ Why?”
“Jayce, beloved,” Viktor cringes, the red rushing back to his face. “I am clearly naked under that blanket, and you’re hardly decent yourself. There’s a reason I kept this photo on my home laptop -- I seriously doubt it can be considered safe for work.”
That burning feeling from earlier hits him all at once. “...Oh. Oh shit.”
“Oh shit, indeed.”