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Before
Jayce arrives just in time to watch a pair of enforcers lead away a Piltovan nobleman. He ignores the enforcers as well as the special unit van, though he’s glad to notice that so far no reporters have made it here. He flashes his councillor badge at the enforcer standing guard, who lets him through without another word, and makes his way down to where he assumes the experiments were made. It’s not hard to find; Jayce just follows the sounds of cruel laughter. With every room he passes, the density of enforcers increases. It makes him a little sick.
He’s not quite sure where in the house Caitlyn is, but he’s pretty sure that she would not condone whatever is happening in the cellar.
The room is large with a high ceiling and security doors made of steel. In the centre stands a mortuary slab. The drain beneath has the colour of rust. Floor to ceiling shelves line the walls, filled with vessels containing body parts and organs and other, unidentifiable things swimming in formol. It smells like iron and bile and chemicals Jayce can’t name. He swallows.
On the far side of the room, metal cages line the concrete wall, cold and empty and terrifying. They range from small enough to imprison small animals like rodents or cats to cages big enough to hold a human sized being. The bars show signs of use, scratches barely visible in the cold, detached overhead lights, dirt and dried fluids on the bottom of the cages.
A group of enforcers has gathered at one of said cages. They all share a manic glee in their eyes as one of them lifts his arm and cuts across to form a shallow, barely bleeding wound. The onlookers cheer, and the cage rattles. Only when one of them shifts, Jayce can spot what—or more precisely, who—is in that cage.
They are humanoid, forced into such a small space, unable to fully straighten out in any direction, though if Jayce had to guess, he’d estimate them about a head shorter than him. Their skin is so pale it appears nearly translucent, though it darkens towards the ends of their extremities, ending in black, animal like claws. These claws are caught in the cage’s bars as the being strains their face up, red eyes fixated on the single drop of blood that slowly runs down the enforcer’s forearm.
Bang! A baton collides violently with the cage, and the humanoid captive flinches back with a whimper. The enforcer grins and brings the baton back down on the metal, and this time the captive jerks back, crying out in pain as one of their claws tears right out of their finger.
“Pathetic,” the enforcer says. “Not sure why they’re calling special forces for this. Animal control could handle it, no problem.”
He raises his hand once again, when one of his colleagues stops him. “Look,” she says, pointing her chin at the drop of blood that is just dripping down into the cage onto the floor, which is covered with vomit.
The creature—the vampire—darts forward but isn’t fast enough. Their eyes fixate on the drop of blood on the cage’s floor, their face a sunken, malnutritioned mask of desperation.
“Go on, kitty,” the bleeding enforcer says. “Lick it up.”
Jayce swallows, unable to look away as the vampire wars with themself, though hunger seems to win over pride, and they lean down, licking up that drop of blood. The enforcers laugh, and the bleeding man lowers his arm, barely flinching when the vampire shoots up, their face colliding with the cage as they try to reach what is held out of their reach. The other enforcer chooses that moment to bring the baton back down, and Jayce has seen enough.
“Step back,” he says. “Your job is done here.”
“Can’t we entertain ourselves until the special forces arrive?”
Jayce pins the young woman with a glare until she realises who he is. Her cheeks go beet red and she excuses herself. Jayce doesn’t particularly enjoy seeing his own face plastered on the walls of half of Piltover, but it does have its perks to be widely known and well loved.
“All of you,” he grunts, “piss off. And get me Captain Kiramman ASAP.” He raises his eyebrow at a few stragglers, until they, too, cave and Jayce is left alone with the feral, starved vampire. The poor thing is pressed against the bars that are the furthest away from Jayce, watching him with wild eyes. Jayce sighs, not sure how exactly to proceed.
The thing is, he came here with the intention to get a picture of the cruelty and abuse against non-human sentient beings. As one of the first and few councillors who strongly oppose the oppression of other sentient beings, he sees it as part of his duty to understand what is happening, who is enacting the violence, and to come up with possible solutions to prevent such abuse in the future.
“I really shouldn’t be surprised, eh?” he says, not sure if he’s talking to the vampire or to himself. “First Zaun, now this. I really have been blind.”
The vampire clutches their hand, which is bleeding a little from the wound where the claw was ripped out. Their chest rises and falls, and Jayce realises that he can’t leave them here. He searches the lab for research notes and observations, anything that might give him a clue as to who the vampire is and what happened to them. He finds a small leather notebook, which contains detailed descriptions and drawings that make Jayce want to throw up. Still, he persists, searching the notes for a name, an identification number, anything that could be a clue to the vampire’s identity.
Behind him, Caitlyn clears her throat. “What exactly are you doing here, Jayce?”
Jayce looks up, to see the vampire frozen in their cage, panic in their eyes as they stare at Caitlyn, whose gun is trained on the naked, shivering body.
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t hurt them.”
Caitlyn shoots him an incredulous look. “Them?”
Jayce loves her like a little sister, but this is where their upbringing creates such a deep divide between them that it makes his stomach churn. It used to be—and still is—a fashion among Piltovan nobles to keep magical creatures, may they be sentient or not—as pets like one might an exotic animal. Something for the nobility to entertain themselves with while showcasing their wealth and adventurous streak. It’s nauseating to Jayce, but Caitlyn’s mother kept a siren until during a particularly bad summer the pool died and the siren with it.
“You know I have to put it down, Jayce,” Caitlyn says. “I know it’s not fair, but no shelter will take it in this state.” She softens a little. “It would be cruel to prolong its suffering.”
Jayce bites down on his lip to prevent from saying something that will alienate his best friend. “Let me take them.”
“Are you insane? What if it gets out and kills all your neighbours in a blood frenzy?”
“They won’t,” Jayce says. “I’ll take full responsibility.”
“I can’t,” Caitlyn says. “You could die, Jayce. And it’d be my fault because I allowed you to take a feral vampire home.”
“I won’t die,” he says, though he’s not so sure. “Please, sprout. They’re sentient, I know I can reach them. They’re just violent because they have been kept in a cage and treated like an animal.”
“Oh ye Gods,” Caitlyn groans, though Jayce can see in her eyes that he’s won. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but take the cage, take the blood reserves in the fridge and go. Don’t get caught.”
“Thank you,” he breathes.
“If you end up in court, I can’t help you.”
“I know. It won’t happen.”
Jayce searches the rest of the lab and stumbles over the files by accident, but there it is. He thumbs through the pages, realising that the file contains the findings from the notebook, but in a cleaner way that is more accessible than the quick notes of a researcher deep in their hyperfocus. Jayce swallows and skips the drawings and photographs until he gets to the beginning.
The photo shows a young man with high cheekbones, thick eyebrows and deep, golden eyes. Two moles dot his face, one beneath his right eye, one on the left side of his face, above his upper lip. This is what the vampire must look like in a well fed, healthy state, Jayce realises. Except for the slightly pointed ears and the fangs, which are shown in the picture below, he looks human.
Subject HM01, Jayce reads. Species: higher vampire. Sex: male. Chosen name: Viktor. His eyes dart over to the vampire, who has calmed significantly after Caitlyn left, though his eyes are tracking Jayce’s every move.
“Hi, Viktor,” Jayce says.
He doesn’t expect the man to lash out, hissing at him, baring his long, white fangs.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jayce continues, crouching down next to the cage so they’re at eye level. He flinches a little when Viktor throws himself against the bars of the cage, but he refuses from backing away. “I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”
He finds the fridge and retrieves one of the blood bags in there. Viktor’s eyes widen, suddenly looking pleading, and Jayce realises with sudden horror that in this state, Viktor would do anything to get the blood in his hands. The power he holds is wrong, and he curls his lip in disgust. No sentient being, human or not, should have such power over another.
“I am going to hand it to you if you promise not to scratch, pierce or bite me.”
The vampire cocks his head, confused, but after a moment, he nods. Jayce offers the blood, and Viktor snatches it out of his hands and tears into the bag with his fangs. Jayce is reasonably sure most of it goes down his chest, but Viktor seems to preoccupied with feeding to notice. When the plastic bag is empty, he licks up the blood that ran down his hands, his arms, even swiping at the drops on his chest and popping the finger into his mouth. His eyes watch Jayce, still wary.
The only clothes Jayce finds are lab coats, but it’s better than parading Viktor around naked, so he takes what he can get. Viktor stares at him, uncomprehending.
“Okay,” Jayce says, sitting down next to the cage, surrounded by tools he thinks he’ll need. He takes a deep breath, and laughs self-deprecatingly on the exhale. “I have no idea what I’m doing. Um, I’m Jayce, by the way. I dunno if you listened in to me’n sprout’s conversation.”
It’s probably too soon to expect a man who was treated like a lab rat to speak after years of abuse, but a part of Jayce still hopes.
“I can take a look at your wound, if you like? I’ve got some antiseptic and bandages.”
Viktor blinks and very slowly offers his injured hand. When Jayce reaches for it through the bars, Viktor jerks it back and hisses.
“Fair enough,” Jayce says. “Look, I know you don’t trust humans. I wouldn’t either if I was in your place. But I promise, from the bottom of my heart and on my mother’s paella.”
The hand is stretched out to him again, and when Jayce gets a hold on the wrist, Viktor’s skin is ice cold. The vampire hisses at the skin to skin contact but doesn’t pull away. Jayce cleans and bandages the fingertip as carefully as he can. “Will it—will it regrow?”
Viktor bares his fangs, pulling back his hand. His eyes dart over to his file.
“I’m not going to read that in detail,” Jayce says. “I was just looking for a name, I promise.”
The vampire blinks slowly, then shrugs. He seems almost lucid now, and Jayce hopes that’s a good sign because he cannot carry a cage all the way through Piltover to his home, so he needs Viktor to cooperate.
“If I am going to open the cage, will you flee and hurt people?” He winces at his own words. “Sorry, that was insensitive. I just need you to stay with me if you don’t want them to kill you like a rabid dog.” As if that’s any better, Talis, he chides himself.
But Viktor shakes his head, pointing again at the file. Jayce sighs and flips it open on the first page. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me,” he admits.
Viktor points more insistently, first at the file, then at his legs. Jayce looks closer at the information given in the file. Peculiarities upon acquisition: malformed right leg, presumably birth defect.
“I’ll have to carry you, then, at least to the car.”
Viktor shrugs again. All fight seems to have left him, which Jayce tries not to worry about, even as it makes his life easier. He opens the cage and steps aside to allow Viktor to crawl out. He knows it’s demeaning, but there is nothing he can do to help until Viktor is safe at his house.
Wrapped up in a lab coat that’s way too big on him as well as Jayce’s jacket, Viktor is finally given some modesty, and Jayce picks him up carefully. The vampire doesn’t struggle. Jayce’s heart beats hard and fast in his chest.
Nobody pays him any mind, which Jayce assumes is due to Caitlyn keeping her enforcers busy so that Jayce can slip past the perimeter, cooler filled with blood bags hanging from his shoulder, Viktor safely gathered in his arms. It’s not a long way to his car, and soon Viktor is sitting in the passenger seat and Jayce drives them back to his house. He’s glad it’s dark. Otherwise he would have had to worry about how to get Viktor out of that house. He knows the vampire’s body is littered with scars, but he doesn’t dare observe him closer. It feels disrespectful, inappropriate. Jayce is sure Viktor has been prodded and scrutinised enough to last him several lifetimes.
“Sorry I’m not very talkative today,” he says to his silent company. “It’s been a long day, though I’m sure you’ve had worse.”
He’s not prepared for the breathy, croaking sound of Viktor’s laugh. It seems involuntary, as the vampire’s eyes widen and he stiffens in his seat. Jayce turns his head back to the road.
“We’re nearly there, and then you can rest.”
At home, Jayce carries Viktor to his bed, which he tries to refuse, but Jayce won’t let his injured, malnourished guest sleep on the ratty old couch. His mother raised him better than that. Viktor watches him, his eyes glowing more orange than red now, as Jayce climbs over the bed and tapes a blanket over the window to make sure no sunlight comes in.
“I’ll do the same for the bathroom,” he says awkwardly. “Just, um, stay there, I suppose. If you can avoid getting blood all over my bed, I can get you something more to eat.”
Viktor nods. This time, he drinks more slowly, taking care not to spill any of the blood from the bag. He grimaces a little at the taste, and Jayce wonders if blood gets stale, and if yes, whether fresh blood tastes distinct based on the person or if it’s all kind of similar. Viktor meets his gaze and raises an eyebrow, and Jayce hurries to tape off the bathroom and the hallway connecting it to the bedroom so Viktor can travel between those during the day, too.
“Um,” he says when he’s done. “I’ll just go…to bed, then. Sleep well.” He turns and flees, but a cold hand shoots out and closes around his wrist. Jayce swears he can feel his pulse hammer against the vampire’s fingers. Gods, this is it, he thinks. Cait was right and I am going to die.
“Jayce,” says Viktor. It sounds raspy, deep, accented in a way Jayce can’t quite place.
“Jayce,” Viktor repeats, and then he smiles at Jayce, which looks a little terrifying, seeing as his mouth is still stained red with some random stranger’s blood. Jayce’s heart skips a beat, and he knows already that this is what seals his fate.
After
Living with a vampire is not that different from living with a cat, if the cat was an undead man whose voice refuses to cooperate unless it is saying Jayce’s name. Viktor, Jayce finds out, is clingy. It takes a while for him to realise that no, Jayce has no intention of harming him, and no, Jayce does not plan on keeping him as a pet, either, but once Jayce has gained his trust, and once Viktor gets to drink blood regularly, he pushes into Jayce’s personal space constantly.
It’s not what Jayce expected. In fact, Jayce thought he’d have to really, really control himself not to reach out and touch Viktor, no matter how much he craves contact.
The first time it happens, Viktor climbs onto Jayce’s couch the night after he received the cane Jayce made for him. It’s dark, and Jayce is trying to fall asleep, which is hard because the couch is really bad for his back, and then there’s a shadow above him, and Viktor climbs on top of him, teeth bared in triumph.
“What are you doing?” Jayce asks sleepily.
“Jayce,” says Viktor, which could mean a lot of things, even if Jayce has been getting better at deciphering what Viktor means.
“I’m not sure I understand?”
“Jayce.” Viktor yanks at the blanket.
“Are you cold?”
The vampire pauses, then nods, only to shake his head immediately after. He ends with a shrug, his fingers—claws mercifully retracted—poking him in the chest.
“Alright, then,” Jayce says, and soon he’s surrounded by Viktor, who presses his cold body against Jayce’s warm chest and sighs contentedly. Viktor buries his face in the crook of Jayce’s neck, his nose tickling the soft skin, and tightens his grip.
Vampires, Jayce finds out, don’t sleep. Still, Viktor seems perfectly content to spend most nights cocooned in Jayce’s arms, and Jayce has no reason to push him away. In fact, with every night, he falls a little more, a little deeper in love.
The first time Viktor says more than just Jayce’s name, they are cuddling, with Viktor’s breath ghosting gently over Jayce’s throat. It’s very comfortable, and Viktor’s cold body has warmed considerably from Jayce’s body heat, and yes, perhaps Jayce is a second from falling asleep.
“Jayce.”
“Hm?” He blinks his eyes open and looks down at Viktor, who is leaning back, yellow eyes staring at him.
“Do you have a death wish?”
“I—what?”
“A death wish,” Viktor repeats. “In the last three months I could have killed you countless times. What if I got hungry? What if I lost control? What if I decided to stop caring and simply drank you dry?”
“But you didn’t. And you don’t,” Jayce points out, a little dazed at the sudden onslaught of words in that lovely, accented voice. Gods, he wishes Viktor would keep speaking. He loves that voice and that accent just as much as everything else about Viktor.
The vampire pokes his clawless finger into Jayce’s chest. “You have the worst self-preservation instinct I have ever seen,” he says. “Only a madman would take a feral vampire into his home and nurse him back to health.”
“Except you’re sentient,” Jayce says. “And compassionate, intelligent, caring, and very cute.”
“I’m not cute.”
Jayce smiles. Viktor smiles back, baring his fangs, one of which is a little crooked.
“See?” Jayce says.
“What if I wanted to leave,” Viktor says, sobering up. “Would you let me?”
Jayce’s hand finds Viktor’s hairs at the nape of his neck and starts playing with them. “Of course. You’re a free man. Though I do hope that you’ll stay.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Viktor snuggles closer, seemingly content with Jayce’s answer. “He—” He swallows and tries again. “He made me walk on hands and knees. He told me I wasn’t a person. He—he starved me until I was more animal than man and laughed when I hurt myself in my desperation to fill my stomach.”
Jayce tightens his hold on Viktor. “You’re safe here.”
“I know,” Viktor says. “I never thanked you.”
“You didn’t have to. I just did what any decent person would have done.”
“There aren’t many decent people.”
“Perhaps not. I don’t know.” Jayce presses a kiss to Viktor’s forehead. “I’m glad I did.”
So yes, things are good. Sometimes, Viktor disappears for a day or two. During those times, Jayce watches the news, terrified to hear of another magical pet raid, and, feeling quite guilty about it, people drained dry by a hungry vampire. But Viktor always returns to him, whole and alive and beautiful, and Jayce relaxes.
Viktor stays, even after getting used to being treated like a person again. And he stays, even when he could be living elsewhere. And he stays, and Jayce has to bite his tongue much more often lest he say something he can’t take back, like ‘I love you’ or ‘stay forever’ or ‘marry me’.
Things take a turn for the worse when Viktor’s short excursions stop. Jayce doesn’t notice at first, but soon it is undeniable—Viktor looks sick.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Viktor says. “Vampires don’t get sick.”
But he’s a remarkably bad liar for someone who is capable of controlling minds, and Jayce sees right through him. “Yeah, try again,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Jayce says and points at Viktor’s fingers, which have taken on a darker, greyish tint. “Your glamour is fading. So why don’t you sit down and tell me what’s really going on?”
Viktor sits on the chair at the kitchen table and glares, and perhaps this would have worked to intimidate him at the beginning, but Jayce knows Viktor now and it doesn’t work on him.
“It’s the blood,” Viktor finally caves. “It’s been harder to get it in an…ethically sourced way. My contact has stopped responding, so I’ve been rationing.”
Jayce’s heart clenches. “You were just getting back to healthy eating habits,” he says softly. “How long have you been ‘rationing’?”
The vampire blinks at him slowly. Now that Jayce looks for it, he can see the first signs of starvation. Viktor is more sluggish than usual, taking longer for tasks he used to perform easily. He seems more easily exhausted, too.
“A month or two?”
“Viktor!”
“What would you like me to do?” Viktor hisses, and his fangs glint in the light of their kitchen. “I can’t just walk up to a stranger and ask if I can drink their blood, can I?”
“But this is killing you!”
“Well, better than killing them!”
Viktor rarely speaks of his time before meeting Jayce, but Jayce knows that Viktor was forced to kill innocent people in order to survive, his fate guided by that sadistic arsehole who called himself a scientist.
“You could have asked me!” Jayce yells, before his brain catches up with his mouth and he presses his lips together, but the damage is done.
Viktor stares at him, mouth agape, shock written all over his face. “What?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“You could have come to me,” Jayce repeats, because the cat is out of the bag now, so there’s no need to try and stuff it back in. “I’m strong, healthy. I won’t miss a bit of blood every now and then, my body replenishes it quickly enough.”
But his attempt at explaining his offer does nothing to reassure him. In fact, Viktor seems to get even paler, his skin almost devoid of any colour other than the dark bruises under his eyes. “Is that how you think of me?” he asks. “That I would put you in such a vulnerable position, just for my craving? That I would hurt you, gorge myself on the very substance you need to live?”
“Wha—no, Viktor, of course not.” Jayce pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “You won’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that! I hurt plenty of people.”
“I trust you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.”
“Viktor.”
“Jayce.”
Jayce reaches out, his fingertips brushing against the back of Viktor’s hand. He’s imagined it, before. Imagined what it would feel like to have Viktor drink from him. To allow him to feed, to be the very source of Viktor’s vitality. He was surprised how much he liked that thought. Perhaps he likes it a bit too much, though Viktor doesn’t need to know that. “I don’t like the way you talk about yourself,” he says. “You need blood to live, too. It’s not evil of you to crave something you need to survive. And I’ve got enough around to share a little. I truly wouldn’t mind.”
Viktor’s gaze is that of a man studying a very strange specimen that is not behaving like he predicted it to. There is a furrow in his brow, and his eyes pin Jayce to the spot. “You are not disgusted?” he asks. “Afraid?”
“You didn’t hurt me when we met. I trust you will not hurt me now.”
“Why?”
Jayce sighs. “You’re my friend.” It’s not quite the truth.
“This is not something friends do for each other, Jayce.”
Okay, so perhaps Jayce isn’t very good at lying, either. So instead, he cups Viktor’s cheek with his hand, his thumb pressing softly against the mole above Viktor’s upper lip. He’s sure that Viktor knows, he has to know because Jayce is many things, but subtle is not one of them. He sighs and presses their foreheads together. “I’d give you the world if I could, V,” he confesses into the warm space between them.
“I don’t need the world,” Viktor says, though something shifts behind his eyes. “I have all that I could want right here.”
So Jayce kisses him. He kisses him and Viktor kisses him back, and his lips are cold, Viktor is always cold, and so Jayce pulls him into his lap and wraps his arms around him, a promise to share his warmth.
“Jayce,” Viktor says, breathes, begs. Words fail him, and he can just stare at Jayce helplessly. “Jayce,” he repeats.
“Anything,” Jayce promises. “Please, let me help. Feed from me.”
Viktor kisses him, shuts him up with his tongue that explores Jayce’s mouth. Jayce groans, tightening his hold on Viktor, until the vampire pushes him back into the chair’s back rest. “Jayce.”
“Let’s move somewhere more comfortable,” Jayce suggests.
Viktor climbs off of his lap and retrieves the first aid kit from under the sink, a few paper towels, and a cushion from the sofa. Jayce watches him with fascination, following him around the flat before letting Viktor push him onto the sofa. The vampire arranges him how he likes it and disappears once more, only to return with his arms full of snacks and bottles of juice.
“Jayce.”
Placing Jayce’s arm on the sofa’s arm rest on top of the cushion, Viktor curls over the arm. First, he tightens a scarf on Jayce’s upper arm before pressing his fingers on the skin of Jayce’s forearm and elbow, finding the vein he is looking for quickly. The competency of it is quite attractive.
“Jayce,” Viktor says, eyes burning as they find Jayce’s.
“I’m alright,” Jayce promises. “Take what you need, V.”
Viktor holds his gaze for a long time, then he gently sets his lips over the spot he found. Then he readjusts his hold, and his fangs slide into Jayce’s arm. It hurts, just a little, and when Viktor begins to drink, his mouth moving against Jayce’s skin, the feeling is strange, not quite pleasant, but also not too bad. Jayce watches him. He wants to thread his free hand into Viktor’s hair, but their positions don’t allows for that without Jayce manouvering them around, and he doesn’t want to disturb Viktor before he’s got what he needs.
His arm twitches, and Viktor holds it tight, a low growl escaping his lips, sinking his teeth deeper, and for the blink of an eye Jayce sees the predator he should be terrified of. But the moment passes, and he watches, his eyelids growing heavier, as Viktor’s cheeks take on a bit of colour.
“Viktor,” he says, trying to alert his friend. “Viktor, I think you have to stop.” Still, nothing. Frustrated, Jayce kicks him, gently, in the shin. “Viktor!”
Reluctantly, Viktor looks up. Whatever he sees has him sitting up, concern in his eyes. “Jayce!”
“Thanks,” Jayce says. “I think we’ve reached my limit. ’M feeling a little tired.”
Viktor carefully cleans and bandages the small puncture wounds. He looks a lot better, Jayce thinks, though Viktor always looks very good. He also looks incredibly guilt ridden, which is not something Jayce can tolerate.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Look at me.”
“Jayce,” Viktor says, pressing a bottle of orange juice and a sandwich into Jayce’s hands.
“I’m okay,” Jayce says with a smile. “Thank you.”
What for, Viktor’s eyes seem to say.
“For taking care of yourself for me,” Jayce says.
“Jayce.”
“You controlled yourself and you stopped when I asked. And I didn’t even pass out.”
Viktor rolls his eyes and pushes Jayce’s full hands closer to his chest.
Jayce grins. “Yes, okay. Can I get a kiss first?”
Viktor obliges, and Jayce can taste his own blood on his boyfriend’s mouth, red and metallic and sweet. Viktor hums and pulls away way too soon, looking pointedly at the sandwich, and Jayce thinks that’s fair. Taking a bite, he leans back into the couch, pulling Viktor with him, happy to cuddle and share his body heat.
“Jayce.”
Jayce smiles. “I love you, too.”