Chapter Text
Geneva airport is a fluorescent, echoing nightmare. It’s stuffed with teenagers restless from the flight and well beyond testing the limits of Viktor’s patience. Every sound feels weaponised.
Viktor stands stiffly by a row of blue plastic chairs, holding his sore, withered arm to his chest, watching one of his students attempt to vault a luggage trolley. He closes his eyes for a long breath before opening them again. It is, regrettably, not a hallucination, nor a dream.
He checks his watch. They have not even been off the plane for fifteen minutes.
His phone finally finds a signal and buzzes with two texts from Sky, who he left behind in England. He had begged, in fact beseeched her, to accompany the trip, and she had more or less laughed in his face.
She has written good luck followed by you’ll need it. He senses that these well-wishes relate less to the students, and more to his impending ordeal with Jayce.
Viktor can hear Jayce laughing from across the terminal. He has always been loud, the golden boy, booming and unapologetically American. The students swarm him like wasps on sugar. A half-circle of bodies, their backpacks swinging, phones out, voices raised in near-hysteria. Powder is yelling something unintelligible while Ekko films her with the solemn dedication of a documentarian.
It’s Vi, Viktor finally realises, her shock of pink hair flashing as she vaults the trolley again, nearly sending it careening into an elderly couple. She play-bows like an idiot when the couple scowl at her, as Powder howls with laughter in the background. It has all been captured in high definition by Ekko.
Viktor resigns himself to intervening. It drains the last of the marrow from his bones, but he has ignored the chaos long enough. He makes eye contact with Ekko across the sea of bored travellers, and with a single look makes it abundantly clear that if said footage materialises on social media, Ekko’s life will become significantly more difficult, in ways he would very much prefer to avoid.
Ekko swallows and nods curtly.
It is the second week of term. They’ve barely settled the new timetable. The induction booklets are still stacked in the science office; half the students don’t know how to use a Bunsen burner, or what a Newton is. Viktor has not yet learned all the names of the Year 12s, and now he is in Switzerland with them.
He shifts his weight. His leg aches from the flight and his head aches from everything else. The CERN trip had been his idea. He had proposed it to their headteacher Mel last year, with the noble intention of cultivating academic curiosity and exposing the students to real-world physics in a dignified, intellectually rigorous setting. But he had pictured quiet note-taking and hushed awe, not sixteen teenagers hyped up on Haribo and giving each other piggy-back rides through a crowded airport terminal.
The significance of Mel’s dry, pitying smile as she listened to his vision is crystallising by the second. He’s been teaching long enough to know better — so he had thought.
Of course Jayce had volunteered to help, and in any case he was the only warm body available with a first aid certificate. For all the trials of supervising an international field trip, the indignity of doing so with Jayce is, he is sure, the worst by far.
“Jayce,” he snaps, when another trolley narrowly misses his foot. Jayce materialises at his side, sheepish, and the students go satisfyingly quiet, clearly delighted that Jayce is in trouble on their behalf. “Get them under control.”
Jayce grins with infuriating ease. “We’re in an airport,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the other travellers by the baggage carousel as if to demonstrate his point. It’s a point badly made, as no-one else here is behaving like a circus clown. “They’re just excited.”
Viktor still has not recovered from the way Jayce looks now; it’s proving a significant obstacle to staying properly annoyed at the students. Broader in the shoulders, softer in the middle, with a beard that he clearly believes is doing something for him. Infuriatingly, it is. He had taken Viktor’s breath away at his teaching interview at the tail end of last year, his eager smile and the impossible earnestness in his eyes, so familiar, stirring the memory, the knife in his chest that never got dislodged. And again on the first day of term, striding through reception looking like an excited dog stuffed into his owner’s borrowed suit. He is still utterly, ridiculously gorgeous, but Viktor is not ready to accept it, or how he’s been doomed since the moment Jayce stepped back into his life.
“Precisely,” Viktor finally says. They are in an airport in a foreign country, in loco parentis of a handful of feral children. “They should behave accordingly.” Viktor gestures toward the carousel, which has still not begun to spit out their bags. “They could hurt themselves.”
Jayce claps his hands. The students, to Viktor’s great surprise, actually listen, and hasten to obey, for the most part. They corral together, forming a loose, humming semicircle, watching the conveyor with increasingly excited impatience. The school mobile phone in Jayce’s hand buzzes, again and again, as it has been since they stepped off the plane.
“The coach driver’s mad,” Jayce mutters, holding his phone at arm’s length. Viktor peers at the screen, a blur of French. “Uh. Very mad. I think he’s saying he’s going to leave without us.”
“Tell him we are still waiting for our luggage,” Viktor says tightly.
“I did. Hang on —” He thumbs a reply. Autocorrect is clearly not helping him. Viktor watches the word ‘fromage’ flash across the screen just as Jayce presses send. “Oh, God.” Jayce grimaces. “That was supposed to say ‘for us.’ Not cheese. Hopefully he gets the gist.”
Unbidden, a memory, his lovely Jayce, flustered under pressure, tongue-tied trying to explain their project to a room full of sceptical professors. How Viktor had steadied him, looped their little fingers together under the desk. Just enough to remind him to breathe.
Viktor sits down slowly in the nearest chair, his body creaking as his stubborn joints give one by one. The edge of the chair digs into the back of his knees. The conveyor belt clunks into motion and bags finally begin to appear, to unnecessary cheers from their students.
Jayce bounds forward and starts grabbing suitcases and barking names. Viktor closes his eyes and rests, for a moment. Jayce’s enthusiasm is worth something, at least.
It takes twenty minutes. Then thirty. Eventually all the students have their bags. Jayce has his. Viktor does not.
It’s already clear the news is not good, when a man in a hi-vis vest arrives to try to explain the situation. The man’s accent is thick, his English halting. Viktor switches to French, realising halfway through that his vocabulary has entirely atrophied. It does not help that he is exhausted and in pain from the journey. The man keeps gesturing wildly, speaking slower and slower, as if Viktor is hard of understanding.
His luggage is elsewhere, possibly in the country, at least. It may arrive tomorrow. Or the next day. Or it may no longer exist at all, lost somewhere in transit, swallowed by the purgatory between airports.
Jayce appears at his shoulder with a concerned look.
“What’s up?”
“My suitcase,” Viktor says. He sighs, deeply. “Is lost.”
“Shit. Uh. Want me to get you a toothbrush, or —?”
“No,” Viktor says, barely containing his tantrum. “I want to go home.”
Jayce laughs, but it’s far from a joke.
They turn and make their way through the terminal with the gaggle of students, who have taken back up their rendition of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ in preparation for the coach trip to the hostel. The driver is going to hate them even more, when he hears it.
“Don’t worry, V,” Jayce says, and Viktor wants to scream, to protest, to turn himself inside out to escape the warmth he still feels when Jayce calls him that old nickname. “We’ll figure something out.”
They always did, didn’t they? Until the day it became too difficult, and stopped being worth the effort.
Viktor stamps on these thoughts as violently as he can, brushes Jayce off with pure venom, and hobbles away after the children.
The coach driver curses them in French, and German, and in particularly florid Italian, as they disembark and crowd into the youth hostel. Its entrance hall is plastered in posters for ski trips, pizza nights, and some manner of insufferable team-building exercise with a promise to ‘unleash your inner explorer’. Viktor’s inner explorer has been mugged and left for dead somewhere between the airport and this stifling building.
The students are beyond delighted. The second they’re handed their room keys, the chaos boils over again. Powder and Ekko take off running, keys in hand, cackling about something, instilling Viktor with a vague sense of trepidation. Vi and Caitlyn hang back, their luggage in tow, quietly squabbling over who should get the top bunk. It’s clear Vi isn’t going to win this particular argument.
They disappear up the stairs, luggage clattering behind them.
Viktor exhales slowly. He is too tired to process teenage nonsense, or anything else. He follows Jayce, who is still somehow unerringly peppy, up two flights to check on the rooms. It is slow going. Viktor’s leg burns with every step, but he refuses Jayce’s offered hand with a flat look and an even flatter tone. He keeps his face neutral, ironed smooth, the effort it takes not to limp too obviously radiating off him like heat. Jayce, to his credit, says nothing. Just keeps pace beside him, quiet, but watching, pretending he doesn’t notice.
The boys’ room is in a state already. Powder, who is not meant to be in the boys’ room at all, is sitting on one of the bunks, and has already appropriated someone’s phone, passport, and wallet. Ekko is half unpacked and Vi has settled in beside him, rifling through his things. Jayce gently herds the girls out, cracking jokes, reuniting belongings with their owners – including a stern warning to keep hold of their passports – and somehow making the chaos seem entirely natural. Almost survivable.
The girls’ room is calmer. Caitlyn has commandeered a corner, already unpacking her toiletries into a frighteningly orderly row. Vi has returned, loudly arguing with Powder about what happened to the snacks she’s sure she packed.
They agree to reconvene with the students in an hour to walk into town and find dinner, praying that nothing combusts in their absence.
“Should we have brought a female teacher?” Jayce says as they retreat into the corridor.
“Yes,” Viktor says, having talked this point in circles with Mel for hours already. They are to call on the female hostel manager if anything happens. Viktor prays it will not, but knows with complete certainty that it will.
“Cool,” Jayce says flatly. “I figured.”
At reception, things fall apart.
The manager is apologetic, in the disingenuous way someone is when they’ve already decided they can’t help you. “We were told one of you needed an accessible room,” she says. “We have one. Unfortunately, there’s only one bed.”
Jayce blinks. “Excuse me?”
“One bed,” she says again, more slowly. “I am sorry. We are completely full this week.”
Viktor opens his mouth, and almost immediately closes it again. His head throbs, his eye twitches.
“Can we get a spare mattress, or —?” Jayce attempts.
“No. It’s against policy. Fire safety, you see.”
Viktor looks at the woman. Then at Jayce. Then at the smiling poster behind her promising free Wi-Fi and ‘posi vibes’. He thinks about what it’s going to be like when the students find out the vending machines only take coins. They need the manager on their side, because the students are shortly going to become completely ungovernable.
“Fine,” he says, with doomed finality. “No matter. We will make it work.”
Jayce looks at him sideways as they take the key. There is far too much meaning in this look for Viktor’s comfort. He can’t ignore it.
The room is fine. Small, clean, nondescript. The bed is... a bed. A double, pushed against the wall, not made up yet, but clean. There is a single wardrobe, and a desk and chair that look as though they might fall apart in a strong breeze.
Viktor drops his carrier bag on the floor, hastily packed with an emergency toothbrush and a multipack of underwear from the shop at the airport. He stands in the middle of the room, breathing slowly.
Jayce occupies himself making up the bed, folding hospital corners into the flat sheet.
“Hey,” he says. “V.”
“What?” Viktor says, bristling.
“It’ll be okay,” Jayce says, stuffing the pillows into pillowcases. “I won’t touch you, or anything.”
Viktor turns, struggling to process this.
“I mean,” Jayce says quickly, holding up his hands, “in the bed. I’m not — I’ll stay on my side. I just — I know you don’t want this, and I’m sorry. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable, and —”
“Stop,” Viktor whispers. “Please.”
Jayce shuts up. The silence stretches. Viktor sits heavily on the edge of the made bed, lets his cane drop unceremoniously to the floor and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. The day folds over him, suffocating: the flight, the lost luggage, the howling students, the wheels on the fucking bus.
Jayce sits beside him, careful not to touch him.
“You did great earlier,” he says. Viktor cannot fathom what he is referring to. Possibly Powder’s panic attack in Heathrow. Viktor had talked her down. The students had accused him of having a heart, but he’d never tried to hide that from anyone, really. Just Jayce. “You’re awesome with the kids.”
Viktor whimpers. He can’t stand the kindness.
Jayce leans further away from him. “Sorry. I’ll shut up.”
Viktor does not want this. This softness. His warmth. He wants to hate Jayce, to keep hating him for the rest of his life.
But it’s so hard. When he is right here, and still so kind, after everything, every bitter, vicious word between them. Viktor shakes with how desperately he needs Jayce to touch him, hold him, make all the stresses and worries of the day seem so insignificant, insubstantial, with just one of his soft kisses. He always could, like magic.
He closes his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says, so quiet it barely makes a sound. After a beat he says, “For shutting up. Between you and the students, I am going to lose my mind.”
Dinner is at a suspiciously charming Italian restaurant with gingham napkins and white tablecloths, tucked off a side street that Viktor would never have found on his own. It is, endearingly, candlelit. Ekko nearly sets his sleeve on fire messing around over one of the candles, but Caitlyn catches it just in time. Viktor makes a mental note: Caitlyn could probably be trusted with a Bunsen burner.
The students are thrilled to be sat in a real restaurant. The waiters are patient and endlessly indulgent of the students and their terrible French, the food is warm and carb-heavy, and the mood is buoyant. Powder vibrates with excitement when she finds out she’s allowed a small glass of wine. Viktor watches her warily as she takes a sip, grimaces, and returns to her orange juice.
Jayce pours Viktor’s wine for him, obliging, generous, grinning at him. Viktor gives him a tired, tiny smile in return. It is a brief and uncomfortably familiar moment of peace.
“Oh my God,” Powder says, pointing at them across the table. “Are you guys in loooooove?”
Viktor stares at her. Jayce tells her to grow up, and Vi whacks her arm, but it is already too late, the damage is done.
Afterwards, they walk down to the lake. The air is cooler now, the clear September sky turning a deep ink-blue as the sun sinks below the mountain ridges. The lights along the water are soft and gold. Jayce lets the kids loose in twos and threes with strict instructions not to fall in the lake, get arrested, or bankrupt themselves on overpriced souvenirs.
“And no smoking, and no drugs,” Jayce says, counting these instructions off on his fingers as the students nod moony-eyed back at him.
They disappear, and the quiet as they walk the lakeside is the loudest that Viktor has ever endured. In any case Viktor only lasts twenty minutes, before the pain in his leg bites his breath away, renders his hobbling even more clipped than usual.
Jayce notices, of course. “Hey,” he says, “catch you up in a sec, okay?”
Viktor nods. Jayce disappears, and when he returns shortly, it’s with a carrier bag sporting a green cross.
By the time they return to the hostel, the students are too exhausted to be unruly. Lights-out goes surprisingly smoothly, with Powder’s hushed attempts to start a deep philosophical discussion devolving into silly giggles, before being summarily ignored by the rest of the exhausted cohort.
Jayce and Viktor finally retreat for some peace in their room, before Viktor remembers: it only has one bed. And his suitcase is lost in the ether. He sits on the edge of the bed and stares at his hands.
“I do not even have pyjamas,” he despairs.
Jayce, from across the room, says, “Here.”
He tosses a bundle at Viktor. It unfolds into a t-shirt that reads ‘never trust an atom, they make up everything’ in crispy, peeling screenprint. Viktor holds it gingerly at arm’s length, more than mildly offended.
“It was a gift,” Jayce says hastily.
“It is enormous,” Viktor says.
“You’re welcome.”
Jayce’s flannel pyjama trousers follow, flung softly into his face. Viktor gives in, and gets changed. Jayce’s clothes smell of him; now there’s really no escape.
Viktor moves to lie down and instantly winces, clutching his thigh. The pain spikes. He bites his lip.
“My medication,” he grumbles, “was in my suitcase. I should have packed it in my hand luggage. I am such — an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. You had a lot to think about, and the kids made it in one piece.” Jayce crosses the room to stand at the bedside. “Here.”
He produces a small red tube. Pain gel. He must’ve run to the pharmacy earlier, pre-empting Viktor’s pain. Not for the first time, Viktor is reminded that he doesn’t deserve this man, nor any of his kindness.
“Take it,” Jayce says gently.
Viktor does not move. He just looks at Jayce for a long, tired moment. There is something naked in Jayce’s expression, something raw and painfully obvious. Viktor’s expression must be a mirror of his, because —
“You don’t have to give me puppy dog eyes, V,” Jayce says, his voice soft. “You know I’ll do anything for you.” After a beat, perhaps realising how much he has over-stepped, if he cares, he says, “Also, it looks weird on you. You ought to be scowling.”
Viktor swallows as the knife in his chest twists further.
“Please, Jayce,” he mutters, still not looking at him.
Jayce kneels, obliging, and rolls up the leg of Viktor’s pyjamas.
His hands are warm and gentle, exactly as Viktor remembers. He massages the gel into Viktor’s thigh, slow and careful, never taking more than he should, just giving. Viktor exhales, shakily, as the sharp edge of pain softens. He can’t look directly at Jayce, not while he’s touching him so tenderly. It’s unbearable, his beautiful boy, kneeling between his legs.
Only Jayce isn’t his anymore. In fact he’s almost a different person entirely, a thousand miles away from the version of Jayce that Viktor nearly loved. Could’ve loved, if he had applied himself to it, to being less stubborn and afraid. Now he’s an NQT and Viktor’s his mentor, and not even two weeks in they are facing down a complete disaster. They are smart enough to know they shouldn’t let it happen, and apparently too stupid to prevent it.
They sleep beside each other, not touching. Viktor hardly sleeps at all.