Chapter Text
Viktor is almost frustrated at himself for not noticing sooner.
The thing was, to him, this was... not particularly unusual. Missing short bursts of work. Needing to tap out of physical activity. Needing to resort to mechanical aids for handling things when his hands got unsteady. These were all accommodations the lab had already. They were normal.
What wasn’t normal was Jayce needing them.
It had happened seamlessly enough that it had seemed as though Jayce was just... low on sleep. He’d certainly used the grips and the robotic extensions plenty enough when his hands were jittery from caffeine or exhaustion. So what if he was using them a little more than usual? So what if he was taking the lift and not the stairs? So what if he was--
A week past the first time Jayce had politely excused himself from a meeting with Heimerdinger to talk about their research and get another set of eyes on it, which was the first time Viktor had managed to say the words are you certain you’re alright? And jayce had told him he was fine, and viktor had believed him. Six days past the day he shattered a coffee mug against the lab’s tile floor when it slipped through his fingers, five since he fell asleep face down mid-experiment in the middle of the afternoon.
Four since Jayce was late to the lab and turned up looking like he’d literally just rolled out of bed at two in the afternoon, three days since he’d ducked out to lose his lunch in the lab trash, two since Viktor’d glanced over his notes and been unable to read the shaky lettering. Yesterday Viktor’d caught him staring into a magnifying glass completely zoned out, and caught him again half an hour later, not having moved.
Today, Jayce passed out.
And when he hit the lab floor with a final kind of noise, the metal tray he was holding crashing down with its contents against the floor, that was about when the rest of it clicked.
Viktor called the hospital, and it was all, admittedly, a bit of a blur from there. Jayce had half woken back up, but he’d looked hazy and out of it, and trying to answer questions had been a lot of slurred nonsense. Mel’d come and gone, had stuck by Viktor’s side in the waiting room of the hospital, leaning just a bit into his side, and he’d let her. That had lasted about until the results came back.
Poison.
Something slow-acting: almost unidentifiable except for the way it was building in his veins. Without an antidote, there was little to be done besides... wait. Sit with him. Hope he pulled through.
Of course, neither Mel nor Viktor was prepared to accept that. Mel disappeared to shake down every person who’d been to a diplomatic event with Jayce in the last month, and Viktor... well. Viktor had slipped into the hospital in the middle of the night to steal a sample of the stuff they’d pulled out of Jayce’s bloodstream, and taken it to a contact in the undercity, because as much as he was loathe to admit it, this was... not his field.
After that, though, he was . Stuck. Waiting.
He’d just returned from his field trip and settled in the chair next to the bed when Jayce started tossing and turning, almost tearing at the monitors on him.
“Jayce.” Viktor tries, soft. When that doesn’t work, Viktor presses himself up out of the chair and sits carefully on the bed. “ Jayce.” he says, cupping Jayce’s face.
As soon as Viktor touches him Jayce starts awake, staring at nothing for a moment, his cheeks red, burning with fever.
Viktor just brushes his hair back from his forehead. “Are you with me?” he murmurs.
“What-- happened?” Jayce asks, as his bright eyes focus on Viktor.
“You passed out. Apparently you were poisoned. The-- doctors think it was a week or so ago. Slow acting.” Viktor swallows a bitterness in the back of throat before he manages the next sentence. “I presume they assumed it would simply look as though you were overworking yourself while it took effect.”
“I’m sorry.” Jayce murmurs, and Viktor blinks at him.
“What for?”
“I-- scared you. I remember the look on your face. Before I hit the floor.”
Viktor bites back a sigh, because he’s not really frustrated with Jayce, but there’s an unpleasant little stab of something in his chest that translates roughly to of fucking course you won’t worry about yourself.
“You’re alright.” he says, with a certain amount of weight. “That’s what’s important.”
“I feel like shit.” Jayce mutters, sinking more into the pillows, even as he turns his face into one of Viktor’s hands.
Viktor’s heart does something painful in his chest, but he just brushes his thumb across the sharp line of Jayce’s cheekbone.
“Get a little more sleep.” he says. “You won’t feel better tomorrow.”
“Did you misspeak?” Jayce asks, smiling a little.
“I did not.” Viktor says, tone gentle. “You’re going to feel miserable and awful for a while longer. We’re working on it.”
“I trust you.”
“It’s not misplaced. Rest.”
Jayce falls asleep, almost on command, leaving Viktor with the other man’s face in his hands and... some complicated feelings to unpack.
Okay. He thinks. Jayce. Jayce is affecting him on a level well beyond... what is probably normal for platonic relationships. The pain in his chest isn’t something he’s experienced with anyone else. The sheer anger he’d felt finding out about the poison had only been matched by the anger in Mel’s face and- ah.
This was probably bad.
He resolved, quietly, to bury this again, as he kept running his fingers through Jayce’s hair, not quite able to let it go. Something was taking root in his chest, in the cavity he’d pushed it into. He’d done this to himself, he reflected. Every time Jayce had smiled at him, every touch and sidelong look, he’d taken all of them and pushed them as far under the surface as he could. Now they were buried too deep to remove.
Tomorrow. He reflects, Tomorrow Jayce will wake up. And he’ll belong to Mel again, and to Piltover, as their golden boy. They’ll be newspaper ads and manhunts. Tomorrow everything will go to hell and I’ll be in the shadows again, no one but his lab partner.
But tonight. Tonight, he was the only one here, the only one who could be.
Just for tonight, Jayce could be his.