Chapter Text
The first time Viktor had seen her, it had been in a blur of tears. She had mistakenly bumped into him – almost knocked him off his feet –, too busy running away from whatever had made her hold her head so low to care or notice. No, that wasn’t true. She had muttered a croaking ‘sorry’ after it had happened; barely turned her head, he saw her tear-stained cheek shining in the sun. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyebrows scrunched. Looking back on it, she was already the most beautiful woman in the world. The sun on a clear spring twilight. A summer rain, the ones that come after days of heavy muggy weather. It had been such a brief interaction that Viktor was sure he would have forgotten it immediately– and he did. Life went on, robotics and physics taking up all his attention. He and Jayce were on the verge of cracking the code to their final project (a month in advance, he was very proud to add), but something just refused to work, an equation refused to be solved, a string of code simply refused to compute. They were going insane, they’d been pulling all-nighter after all-nighter, leaving the engineering lab only to go to class, shower, and eat – oftentimes in the same quick exit. That was why, when Jayce returned with a change of clothes and Viktor’s toothbrush he almost fell out of his chair.
“Did you go through my underwear drawer?” he asked, incredulous.
Jayce scoffed.
“I’m pretty sure I’m wearing your boxers right now,” he said as he threw Viktor his clothes. “Go change, we’re going to a housewarming party.”
It took a moment for Viktor’s brain to register what Jayce had said. He sighed, heavily, and pinched his nose in annoyance.
“And who’s throwing this… party?”
“Mel?” Jayce raised an eyebrow. “My girlfriend? Whom I haven’t seen in almost two weeks because of this stupid project, might I remind you.”
Right, Mel. They’d gotten together almost six months prior, and Viktor had met her a couple of times. He remembered Jayce saying something about her moving in with some friends for the remainder of the school year. Maybe.
Viktor wasn’t sure he had it in him to protest, however, he had really never been a party person, especially one full of strangers (Mel was quite the social butterfly). At the same time, he knew Jayce would not let him say no, so he decided to cut his losses and just stay for a couple of hours before going back to their dorm. He grabbed his cane and made his way to the bathroom to change, grumbling something about needing to buy a lock for his dresser, and scoffing at Jayce’s reply about how he would just pick it (Viktor deeply regretted teaching him how to).
Viktor looked at himself in the mirror while buttoning up the powder blue shirt his roommate had brought him, and realized he looked positively exhausted. Hair disheveled, dark circles way too pronounced, scrunched eyebrows, and slightly sunken cheeks. He sighed and splashed some water on his face, hoping it would at least make him feel refreshed. He ran his still wet fingers through his hair to (unsuccesfully) tame it just a bit. He heard the door unlock as he was adjusting the leg-brace tightened over his black slacks – it was a little too loose on his knee – and Jayce's boisterous voice telling him to hurry it up. He sounded excited to leave the lab for more than an hour for the first time in a while.
“Need a hand?” Jace asked, noticing the frustration on Viktor’s face. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the malfunctioning, worn-out brace, or because he didn’t want to attend this party. No matter, it would be good for him to socialize for once.
“Need a leg,” Viktor muttered in reply.
“Oh, cut it out,” Jayce scoffed. “You’re perfect, bro. Besides, it’s just going to be a chill night with a couple of friends,” and he patted him on the back.
Chill night his ass. Viktor could hear the loud thumping of the bass from the outside the apartment complex. He didn’t even bother looking at Jayce, who was trying in every possible way to make himself smaller next to him. He tapped his cane on the ground twice in annoyance before telling him to just get it over with. The ride on the elevator to the top floor was filled with Jayce’s rambling trying to lighten Viktor’s mood – it wasn’t working –, until they reached the one door that was left ajar, from which the music was absolutely blaring. As soon as they made their entrance, they were met with the smell of sweat and alcohol; the light had been dimmed to a low, pink hue, and they could barely make out the mass of bodies scattered all over the living room. Viktor was about to tell Jayce this was definitely not a good idea and leave, when a blur of dark curls and golden jewels engulfed his friend in a tight hug.
“You came!” Mel exclaimed, barely audible over the music. “And you brought Viktor!” she gave the brunet a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“Mel, darling,” Jayce said trying to disentangle his libs from hers. “You said it was going to be a lowkey thing with a few friends”.
“I lied,” she replied, voice dripping with honey. When she saw the scowl forming on Viktor’s face, she quickly tried to justify herself with a slew of ‘oh, but you wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t’ and ‘Vik, I really wanted you here! You need to get out of the lab more’. She was still in the middle of making excuses when she got called from out of the kitchen.
“Mel, we’re out of gin, should we order some more or- oh, hi Jayce!”
The girl smiled and all but ran over to the three friends to greet them. Her face was flushed from the alcohol and her eyes glazed over from something else. She was all legs, a tight, black dress barely covering her ass and hugging her in all the right places. She was as tall as Viktor in those dizzyingly high heels. He was staring. He had to stop.
“Who’s pretty boy over here?” she asked, a slight slur in her speech. She flashed him a smile and he could feel himself drown in embarrassment.
“Viktor,” he replied, trying not to sound too unsure of himself.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, a glint in her eyes.
“You’re Viktor? Holy shit, nice to finally meet you! Jayce talks so much about you I feel like we’ve been friends forever, now,” she giggled and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. Viktor froze, he wasn’t used to so much friendliness in so little time. She smelled of alcohol and coconut and something sharper, her hair brushed against his ear and neck, and he wasn’t sure if the thump he was hearing in his chest was the bass or his heart.
“I’m (y/n), by the way. Let me pour you a drink.” She offered Viktor a hand and he hesitated in taking it.
“I have to be back in the lab in a few hours,” he tapped his cane on the wooden floor, trying to steel his nerves. He really didn’t want to be there; he felt uncomfortable and stuffy because of the air that was thick with smoke. He had been trying his best not to cough every time he took a breath, but he didn’t know if he could hold out much longer. He was sure his discomfort was evident – if not palpable –, because he saw her gaze soften and her hand drop. She got closer to him and whispered loud enough over the music only for him to hear.
“Do me a solid, Viktor,” she put a hand on his shoulder. “I need you to get away from these two for at least two hours. I promised Mel she’d get some alone time with her boyfriend, so- best friend to best friend, let me keep my promise,” her tone was dripping in alcohol and manipulation. Viktor thought it wouldn’t be such a bad time if he could hear that syrupy sweet voice for some more time. He shot Jayce a look to let him know he’d be leaving him to do whatever, but he only saw Mel’s hands grabbing his broad back.
“You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to, it was just an excuse to get you away before you saw anything unsavory,” she giggled.
“I’ll take a drink,” Viktor sighed, exhaustion setting in.
They made their way to the kitchen, weaving through an indistinct mass of people dancing and chatting and making out. She hoped and prayed she had locked the door to her room properly. She asked Viktor what he preferred, and he settled on a shot of vodka just to appease her.
“I don’t mean to police your choices,” he said while picking up his shot and watching her pour another. “But are you sure you want to do that?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she laughed and clinked her (plastic) glass to his. “I’m celebrating tonight.”
“Yeah? Nazdrave, then.” The alcohol burned in Viktor’s throat, not helping his urge to cough one bit. “May I ask why?”
She exhaled sharply to try and soothe the effects of the shot, grimacing slightly at the taste.
“Oh-,” she coughed. “Professor Medarda approve my application to be her TA next semester-,” She could barely finish the sentence before she was almost knocked over by a drunken passerby, a blue haired girl being held up by her tatted up friend.
“Damn, Vi, watch it!” she giggled as the pink haired girl apologized for her girlfriend.
She grabbed Viktor’s elbow and urged him to follow her to the balcony, as the kitchen was getting way too crowded; he didn’t even have time to protest, not that he wanted to. As soon as she slid the glass door open and the cold air hit his blushing face, Viktor felt the effects of the alcohol in his chest. The sudden change in temperature and air made him dizzy, good thing he had his cane to steady him. She brought him to a secluded spot on the enormous balcony, a couple of rattan chairs and a coffee table were surrounded by plants forming a sort of barrier with the rest of the space. There were a few plastic cups scattered on the ground, and a few roaches left in the semi-full ashtray. Viktor sat down on the soft, green cushion and felt himself sink in it. He was tired, all those sleepless nights in the lab catching up to him. The tiny bit of alcohol in his system and the cool air of the night weren’t helping his heavy lids.
He would have fallen asleep had it not been for the repeated flick of a lighter and the slight hiss the cigarette made when lit. He frowned slightly, not particularly looking forward to having the smell of smoke in his nostrils once more.
“Not a fan of parties, huh?” she said while exhaling a puff of smoke as far from Viktor as possible. “Don’t worry about it, I can take you back to your dorm if you want. Or maybe the lab? Mel tells me you and Jayce have been working hard on this project,” she took another drag of her cigarette. “What is it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Her tone seemed genuinely interested, though Viktor couldn’t quite focus on it. He was fixated on her bare, crossed legs, a sheen of sweat making her thighs glisten. He looked away before she noticed he was staring and picked up the deck of cards that had been abandoned from whatever game had been previously played. He shuffled the deck to distract himself from the view.
“It’s a more advanced maze solver,” he split the deck in half and picked up a card between his pinky and one half of the cards. “it’s built to find optimal pathing in whatever situation you place it. The more rudimentary versions use what is called the left hand on the wall technique, but we built a camera with scraps from a broken drone so that it could detach and get an aerial view of the maze itself.” He twirled another card between his fingers and flipped it onto the one resting on his pinky. “We wrote a code that makes it possible to calculate the optimal path in the maze and direct the robot to follow it automatically. In theory.”
Viktor waited for the girl to reply, or at the very least acknowledge what he’d just said, and when nothing came, he shot her a quizzical look and found her staring at him. His hands, to be precise. His heart skipped a beat, the deck almost slipping from his grasp. He was still instinctively shuffling the cards, slender fingers playing tricks with them. Her mouth was half open, ash accumulating at the tip of the now half-wasted cigarette.
“Sorry,” she said, flicking the smoke. “I’m positively hypnotized. Where did you even learn to do that?”
He chuckled, finding some more confidence in his antics.
“I couldn’t exactly do sports in high school,” Viktor pointed to his brace with his nose. “I had a lot of time to build stuff and learn useless tricks.”
“Pretty and smart,” she smoked the last of the cigarette and crushed the still-lit end on the ashtray. “Quite the rarity in a man, I’m impressed.”
Was she… flirting? Viktor wasn’t blind, he knew he was an attractive man; he was just so used to comparing himself to Jayce that he momentarily forgot about it.
“I could say the same thing,” he smirked, hoping his voice sounded firmer than he felt. “I hear Medarda’s is a tough class. What was it, ethics?”
The conversation felt so easy, Viktor wasn’t sure of it was because that one single shot of vodka had loosened him up or because she was just that kind of woman who could talk to anyone. He hoped it was the former.
A couple of days passed before Viktor saw her again. She looked completely different; the thick sweater and baggy jeans made her feel like the exact opposite of what he had witnessed the night of the party. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, honestly- but he almost hadn’t recognized her at first. The quiet ambiance of the library and the slight frown the homework she was completing gave her was nothing short of adorable. He was staring, again, he knew he was, but he just couldn’t help himself. In all the talking they had done, the one thing they had forgotten to do was exchange numbers, most likely because he inadvertedly fell asleep in the middle of listening to her ramble on about Medarda's class. And it wasn’t as if Viktor could just ask Jayce to ask Mel to ask her if he could have a way to contact her, he was sure it would have been weird and awkward. Who knows, maybe she had deliberately decided not to give him her number because, at the end of the day, she had just been doing Mel a favor with keeping him busy – because she knew he didn’t know anyone at the party – and wasn’t actually interested in talking again. He lightly tapped his cane on the carpeted floor of the library and shut the book he was consulting with a sigh. He must have been too loud because he heard an exasperated sigh coming from one of the desks, but when he lifted his head to apologize, he saw her looking straight at him and flashing him a bright smile. She had a few strands of hair on her face, and her glasses were slightly crooked. She looked pretty.
She closed her laptop shut and shoved it in her bag, quickly making her way to him. Viktor hoped she couldn’t hear how his heart skipped a beat. She greeted him in a whisper, going in for a hug and kissing his cheek, now having to be on the tip of her toes to reach it.
“(y/n), hello,” he whispered back. Oh, how sweet her name sounded from his mouth.
“I was going to grab something to drink from the vending machines, can I get you something as well?” she asked while rummaging through her purse for her wallet. A light blush dusted her cheeks, and Viktor wanted to think it was because she’d seen him again, but it could have just as well been from the heaters blasting in the library.
“Would you like to go to the café down the street?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise at the sudden proposition, unexpected, but not unwelcome. She didn’t have enough time to reply, though, because before she could Viktor started speaking again.
“If you’re not busy, I mean. It’s no problem if you don’t feel like it, I only ask because it seems like you’ve been here a while-,”
“Viktor,” she interrupts him, a hand on his bicep. He suddenly felt self-conscious. “I’d like that, but didn’t you just get here?”
It was true, he had quite literally barely taken his coat off and gone searching for the physics manual he needed to consult.
“No, I‘ve been here a while,” he lied. “Regardless, I can come back.”
He spoke softly, a faint smile showing his crooked teeth.
“Alright then, let’s go.”