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There's something in the air inside the star shine
There's something in the air we'll never know
I can feel it take hold
Infected
— Starset, Infected
— V —
There's always been something sick inside of him. Twisted. If Viktor closes his eyes, he can see it, a great hulking black mass, sticky-wet in his lungs like tar. It’s what’s responsible for his limp. For his failing body.
So different to Jayce. Tall, strong, charming.
Beautiful.
At first Viktor thinks it's admiration, this foreign feeling settling in his lungs. There's no room next to the black tar coating his insides but the feeling makes a home for itself anyway. It's too easy, after all, standing next to Jayce, bouncing ideas back and forth. Jayce is a hungry man, hungry for information, for knowledge, for progress and change. Jayce with his kind smile and stubborn persistence and awful jokes. Jayce, who makes Viktor laugh so easily. Viktor has never been the type to smile too often. He can’t seem to stop when he’s with Jayce.
It's weightless to spend time with Jayce, like floating on the emerald summer sea. The days stretch before them like taffy and Viktor lets himself become stuck, the sugary joy of Jayce's company a wonderful craving to have.
"We wouldn't be here without you," Jayce keeps telling him, time and time again until the words are smoothed over the way a stream wears away pebbles. "It's our dream."
And Viktor is like Jayce, because he has always known hunger, he was born into it. It’s written in his very bones to crave things he cannot have.
So he doesn't question the way that feeling in his lungs twists and churns when he sees Jayce and Councillor Medarda locked in conversation. Doesn't stop to ponder why Jayce is the first person he wishes to see in the morning when he drags himself from sleep. Jayce has a brilliant mind, a warm presence that draws Viktor in like a cat to a sunbeam, the afternoon haze golden and addictive on his skin.
It makes sense.
Until one day, Jayce's palm finds the nape of Viktor's neck. Usually he claps Viktor on the shoulder, hip checks him when they stand side by side at the chalkboard, will press his chest against Viktor's arm when the night is waning and the beginnings of birdsong tells them just how late they've stayed up.
Not this time.
Jayce's hand is hot and heavy as it folds over Viktor's spine, and Viktor can't explain why he immediately breaks into goosebumps when it squeezes there, firmly, like a claim. Can't explain why he tilts his head back, why a small wounded sound wants to escape from behind his lips.
Oh. Oh no.
Yes, Viktor will always crave things he cannot have, and by some cruel twist, the latest unattainable thing is Jayce. It's a kick straight to Viktor's teeth, the realisation that the thing he thought was admiration is instead desire.
And it’s awful, because so suddenly after realising that he will never get to have Jayce the way he truly wishes, does every interaction warp, transform, dissolve. Viktor cannot be around Jayce without thinking of the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, the neverending lilt in his voice when he gets excited about something. He cannot keep ending their days together by curling around his pillow at night, mind tripping over memories of Jayce’s broad shoulders, his strong hands, the splay of his thighs as they sat watching the moonrise, talking about their dream, because Jayce refuses to let Viktor take a backseat.
It’s a horrible disease to acquire, borne of guilt and hunger rolled into one terrible beast, and Viktor can cough all he likes but it refuses to leave.
So he withdraws, like a river that runs dry in the fall, a lake that freezes over in winter, hardening itself to the world. Their late night chats devolve into Viktor spending more time at the lab, brushing off Jayce's attempts to get dinner with him, to sit under the harvest moon and talk about their future. He cannot stand Jayce’s touch without yearning for more, and if there’s one thing that life has taught him, it’s that he will always crave things he cannot have.
It’s easy to think Jayce will not notice. He’s Piltover’s golden boy, after all. Everyone wants a piece of him. Viktor is someone who was raised in shadows and is happy to remain there, with his afflictions and wishes and bone-deep longing.
Except he’s a fool.
Because Jayce—silly, perceptive, Jayce—notices immediately. Viktor eyes the way Jayce’s brow pulls together when Viktor shies away from the hand Jayce attempts to plant on his shoulder, and his heart snags in his throat.
Don’t look at me like that, he thinks, desperate for Jayce’s approval the way a flower longs to be drenched in sunlight. Do not make me wish for impossible things.
“You okay?” Jayce asks, and gods, his voice alone could break Viktor and remake him all at once.
“Fine,” Viktor says, even though his body immediately protests, the sickness roiling within him and clambering eagerly up his throat. “Just tired.”
It hurts more, to lie to someone who has come to mean so much to him. Viktor tries to tell himself it’s worth it as he limps away, cursing his legs and his body and his useless heart.
You are merely a cog, he reminds himself. Part of a machine, of a greater future. Do not confuse Jayce’s kindness for anything more than it is.
But oh, he forgets that Jayce is a stubborn, hungry man.
Jayce doesn’t let him leave, instead following him through the darkened lab. “Viktor, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
Jayce’s nose scrunches up. “How quiet you’ve been. How you don’t want to spend time together anymore. How you barely talk to me now. What is it? Are you sick?”
Yes, Viktor thinks miserably. Sick with love.
“It is nothing, Jayce.”
His first mistake. Jayce didn’t find all his success by just letting things go, and he hooks his claws into the vague answer, tears it apart.
“It doesn’t feel like nothing, Viktor,” he says, running a hand through his hair, brushing it from his eyes. Viktor watches him do so, longing to touch him.
“It is,” Viktor insists, horrified to feel his eyes begin to burn just from that, and he cannot lose it like this in front of Jayce. Even now the confession sits on his tongue, demanding to be set free, to land on the floor between them and destroy everything they have built together.
“Viktor…” Jayce says softly, clicking his tongue before stepping close, lifting a hand as if to lay it on Viktor’s shoulder, the way he’s always done. Except he stops just before touching Viktor, and that makes Viktor want to curl up and die. “What is it?” he asks. “What’s gotten you so upset? You know you can tell me anything, right? Anything at all. I won’t judge, you know this. You know me.”
Viktor is glad the whole laboratory is not lit. That he can hide from the light, as if stepping into it would mean revealing the rot within him.
“Jayce,” he forces out. “I am fine.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Jayce snaps. “Not after everything we’ve been through.” And then, softer, “Not after all you’ve done for me.”
"I cannot tell you," Viktor whispers, vision blurring.
"Why?" Jayce's tone changes, turns low, hurt. "Is it me? Did I do something?"
Viktor laughs bitterly. "No, Jayce. It is not something you did."
"But it is me, right?"
"I…" The sentence dies on Viktor's tongue. He doesn't have the right words for any of this.
"Viktor," Jayce says, with feeling. "What is it? Tell me, I want to fix this."
Of course he does.
"It's not you," Viktor chokes out, "it is me."
This is the aftermath, Viktor thinks, the inevitable come down. So many days chasing the sticky honey daze of Jayce's companionship has revealed the cavities in Viktor's teeth, the lack of air in his lungs.
"It is me and my stupid—" want need craving— "desire for more."
"More?" Jayce echoes, and he's so close now, Viktor can barely breathe. "More what?"
"Time, " Viktor says in a rush, really meaning attention and affection and regard. He doesn't have one word for what he wants, can only think of Jayce. "Your time—"
"Time?" Jayce interrupts, shaking his head. "Viktor, you can have as much of my time as you want. It's yours."
"That's not—"
"Yours," Jayce insists. "Anything of mine is yours. You know that, right?"
"This is not something you can give me," Viktor hisses, hating his temper for rising to the surface. His eyes are still stinging, still too watery.
"What makes you so sure?" Jayce says, just as stubbornly.
"Because I don't want just your time," Viktor snaps, and the rot in his teeth is aching, the sugar has finally caught up to him. "I want—everything." He cannot look at Jayce then, has to fix his glare on somewhere to the left of Jayce's head. "Everything you're willing to give. And then some."
"Oh," Jayce says, quite dumbly.
Viktor blinks fiercely, hating the way his tears slip free at the movement, slide unbidden down his cheeks.
"Yes," he manages to get out. "Well, if you've nothing further to ask, then I would appreciate it if you let me leave."
Jayce is still looking at him, like he can't quite fathom why Viktor would request such a thing. “What…” he says slowly. “What does ‘everything’ mean?”
Viktor cannot believe Jayce, truly. He wants to curl into a hole and perish.
“This,” he says, poking awkwardly at Jayce’s abdomen until he thinks to hell with the hesitancy and folds his whole palm over the softness there, except Jayce’s raised brow tells Viktor just how successfully he is getting his point across.
It’s easy though, to push his palm up up up until he can fold it over the thundering pulse of Jayce’s heart, and oh, maybe it is not just Viktor who feels like nothing more than a heartbeat and shaky, shuddering breaths.
For a long, terrible, drawn out moment, they do nothing other than breathe. Viktor cannot raise his eyes from where they are frozen on the gallop of Jayce’s pulse beneath his fingertips, cannot look up and find out what Jayce’s reaction is, because the silencing is deafening and if he sees anything close to indifference or worse, disgust, then it will ruin him.
Tanned fingers close over Viktor’s, and Viktor braces to be pushed away, rejected. But instead he is crowded even further, and Jayce is seeking out his gaze, trying to hold it.
“Viktor,” he says, voice so very kind. "It's already yours."
Viktor blinks again. "What?"
"It's yours," Jayce repeats, like he is explaining how the sun is warm, how water is wet. “I… I couldn’t have done any of this without you. You brought our dream to life, you saved me, there’s—there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to you.”
He smiles then, and his other hand comes up to cup Viktor’s cheek, blot away the tears that fell earlier as Viktor stares wide-eyed at him.
“Jayce…” Viktor breathes, because gods, what is that supposed to mean?
He cannot keep picking apart every tick of Jayce’s mouth, every sweep of his calloused thumb, every loaded sentence like a vulture to carrion. He cannot sit here pinned to the wall the way a butterfly is to a board, with Jayce’s hands on him and care about consequences now. The crash from earlier is gone, the sugar high is rising with every second and Viktor doesn’t care, cannot care—
He rises up, uses the palm laid over Jayce’s heart for leverage and stutters out, “I want—I want to—” and Jayce lets him brush their noses and press their mouths together, messy, rough, uncoordinated.
Viktor doesn’t know what he’s doing, is running on pure fumes here, but suddenly it doesn’t matter, because Jayce is gasping, is tilting his head and then he is kissing back and oh, oh, Jayce knows what he is doing, clearly.
He's so warm, the kind of warmth that Viktor has soaked up from the stone pathways in the afternoon, chased in front of the hearth on a wintry night. Warm and addictive the way a hot shower is after a long day at work and Viktor takes. Jayce may be a hungry man but Viktor is greedy and he digs his fingers into Jayce’s jacket, leans up on his toes and prays his spine will not punish him too much later and simply let him have this, because oh god, how could he have gone without for so long?
It feels like water after the drought, like sunshine on Viktor’s skin after the rain clears, like daybreak after nightmares.
“Jayce,” he mumbles, reeling with the desire and disbelief roiling around inside him like a ship to a stormy sea.
"I'm here," Jayce says, hands burning Viktor's face where they cup his jaw, breath salty-hot on Viktor's lips. "I'm here, I promise, Viktor—"
"I…" Viktor says, because it cannot be. He cannot be allowed this, surely.
"You are," Jayce responds, and Viktor realises he thought out loud. "You have me, I swear. However you want me."
Haloed by light, he takes up Viktor’s entire view.
“I want everything,” Viktor repeats quietly, wanting it the way water seeks its own level, the sun seeks the horizon.
He doesn’t wait to be told no.
Don’t ask for permission, he told Jayce right before they kickstarted their mission to change the world, and like this, with Jayce’s body blocking everything out, with Jayce’s eyes on him and him only, with Jayce’s promises and undivided attention, Viktor thinks he is well within his rights to follow his own advice.
His hesitance is for nought.
In the next moment, Viktor is crushed against the wall by Jayce's big body, head tilted up towards the light, and then he is claimed. Jayce's kiss is no longer soft, his touch rough and clumsy as he grasps at Viktor’s shoulders, his neck, his cheeks. He gasps into Viktor's mouth, like a benediction, teeth scraping over Viktor's bottom lip, and Viktor can only hold on and do his best to meet Jayce's movements, to push him further the way oxygen fuels a forest fire.
"Gods," Jayce breaks away to say, voice wrecked and jagged like a ship to a rocky shore. "Viktor."
"What?" Viktor pants, fingers twisting into Jayce's hair, unable to suck in a proper breath with how pinned he is.
Jayce doesn't answer for a moment, biting at Viktor's mouth before kissing him properly, gripping Viktor's face. "Thought I'd go mad, thought I'd never have this."
"You have me," it is Viktor’s turn to promise, a muffled noise escaping him when one of Jayce's thick thighs splits his legs.
Jayce moans when the movement brings their pelvises flush, and Viktor breaks away to gasp when he feels his cock brush against Jayce's.
"Oh," he breathes, eyes widening at how undone Jayce looks, hair falling into his eyes.
Jayce swallows, chest heaving, and Viktor wants, parts his legs around the breadth of Jayce’s thigh and grinds down.
“Viktor—” Jayce says, strangled. "Is this—"
Viktor does not let him say anything more, thrusts against him, chases the reckless sensation and kisses Jayce again and again until it’s the only thing he can remember. Jayce groans into his mouth as he lets Viktor grind their hips together clumsily, cradles the back of his head to keep him from hitting it against the wall, and the hunger in Viktor rears its head, sings in his veins.
“Yes,” Viktor hisses on a particularly well-aimed thrust, fingers pressing into Jayce's ribs, grabbing artlessly at his jacket buttons. "That's—that’s so—oh—”
“Gods,” Jayce mumbles, laughing against Viktor’s kiss-swollen mouth before he draws away for a moment, nudges his nose to Viktor’s. “Is this… this is what you want?”
Viktor can barely breathe. This body of his was not made for function or enjoyment. It’s a miracle he can crawl out of bed after all these years with his braces and crutch and sheer stubborn mindedness, and yet here, pressed up against Jayce in so many places, all he feels is pleasure, thick in his veins like molasses.
“And more,” he whispers, fingers flexing in Jayce’s shirt jacket, afraid that even now, Jayce will leave him.
“And more,” Jayce repeats, before setting his jaw.
The tempest leaves them then.
“I’ve never…” Viktor says, embarrassed to admit, but Jayce sighs and slots in against Viktor, presses his mouth to the hollow of his neck and Viktor wants.
“It’s okay,” Jayce says, mouthing at Viktor’s throat, and he’s sensitive here too, evidenced by the way he breaks into goosebumps.
Viktor lets his eyes slide shut as Jayce sucks messy kisses over his Adam’s apple and behind his ear, scrapes his teeth over Viktor’s jaw. There’s a slowness to his movements, a languid pace that makes Viktor think of summer days spooling out before him, a luxury he has never known but desperately wants if it feels like this.
“I’m—” Jayce mumbles, breath hot against Viktor’s skin. “I want what you want. Just tell me.”
Except Viktor doesn’t know how to explain what he craves, has only ever touched himself out of necessity, has never felt so consumed by the need to have Jayce’s touch all over him.
“Your hands,” he chokes out, memories flooding through him of watching Jayce’s hands as they work: the way he grasps Viktor’s shoulders, cradles a hextech gemstone, grips a piece of chalk. He’s wanted Jayce for so long he doesn’t know how he never realised it before; thought intrigue and companionship were the only reason he wanted so much from the moment they met.
“Yeah?” Jayce says, planting kisses to Viktor’s face, like he cannot bear to be without for more than necessary. It’s a sentiment they both share, and Viktor’s chest is going to explode, he was not built to contain everything he feels for Jayce. It’s all seeping out from him like an oil spill, thick and suffocating.
“Please.”
“Fuck,” Jayce curses, and his hands are strong and bruising on Viktor’s waist before he seems to remember his strength and pets Viktor’s hipbones apologetically.
Don’t, Viktor thinks, break me. I’m all yours.
But Jayce kisses him once more and then says, “Whatever you want,” like the pollution of Viktor’s longing is a welcome balm to the stormy sea of the two of them.
And his eyes are so bright as he rubs his thumb over the swollen wreck of Viktor’s mouth, trails his fingers down Viktor’s chin, his marked up throat. Viktor’s heart kickstarts painfully when Jayce’s palms make their way down his chest, brushing over his nipples through his shirt, and then his breathing stops altogether when Jayce reaches the waistline of his trousers.
“And more,” Jayce says again, as if to steel himself, and he brushes his knuckles over the line of Viktor’s cock.
Viktor sucks in a breath, lets it shudder out of him in the next second when Jayce rubs gently, eyes never straying from Viktor’s face. Slowly, slower, up and down with every inhale Viktor manages to get into his lungs, and with each movement the syrup in Viktor’s blood gets thicker, almost makes him dizzy.
“You’re so sensitive,” Jayce muses, and Viktor could kiss him again for being so dorky and taking notes of Viktor’s reactions when he’s literally rubbing Viktor off through his clothes. “Does this feel good?”
Viktor nods, legs feeling like they could collapse at any moment, and he grips Jayce’s forearms, braces against the wall, prays he’ll survive. “Yes,” he whispers, “so good, so—”
Jayce kisses him once more, feeds Viktor his tongue as if that was all Viktor was made for. Viktor’s nails sink into Jayce’s arms and he chases the heat of his mouth, gasps when Jayce folds his whole palm over Viktor’s cock and rubs him properly and oh, this is even better.
“Gods,” Jayce breathes, “Viktor,” moaning a little when Viktor sucks on his bottom lip, and Viktor has never felt more powerful.
He pushes his own tongue to Jayce’s, lost in the salt-slick kisses, the way Jayce breathes into him and stares down at his mouth like it’s the best thing he’s ever discovered. It must be impossible to want something so bad but here Viktor is anyway, drunk on the feel of Jayce.
Each pass of Jayce’s palm lights Viktor on fire and he whimpers high in his throat when Jayce swears under his breath and flicks open the button of Viktor’s trousers.
“Still okay?” he says, laughing when Viktor snaps something like, don’t ask, and then his hand is trailing down through the sweat damp-curls of Viktor’s abdomen. “I’ve got you,” Jayce says, fingers curling around Viktor’s cock, calluses dragging over the foreskin.
Viktor has to rest his forehead against Jayce's shoulder, try to suck some air into his shattered lungs. “Oh—oh gods—”
“I’ve got you,” Jayce says, kissing Viktor's neck and face as he strokes. "Gods, I've got you."
“Please,” Viktor sobs.
Momentarily he wonders if Jayce has explored someone else’s body the way he is with Viktor right now, or if the brazen jerking movements Jayce is doing are from simply practising on himself, and gods, Viktor feels like he’s been punched at the thought of Jayce touching himself like this.
"Breathe," Jayce says, and his smile is a beautiful thing, it almost hurts to look at.
Viktor has to look away, focus on pulling at Jayce's clothing and try to find enough coordination to undo his trousers. It takes a moment for Jayce to figure out what he’s up to, because Viktor is already reaching into his trousers and grasping his cock.
"Shit, Viktor—"
Viktor bites his lip at that, unable to keep from smiling at the gravel-rough tone of Jayce’s voice. Jayce’s cock is blood-hot and heavy in his hand, the head already slick enough that when Viktor carefully eases his palm over it, the impulsive thrust Jayce gives makes his cock slide wetly.
“Ungh—fuck,” Jayce grits out, rhythm stumbling.
Viktor briefly contemplates pausing this long enough to move them somewhere more discreet and comfortable, and is about to suggest it when Jayce hauls him up into his arms.
“Jayce,” Viktor scolds, clinging on with all his limbs.
“Sorry,” Jayce says, looking incredibly unapologetic as he brings them over to the bench and deposits Viktor onto it to kiss him breathless again.
Viktor allows himself to get swept away with the tide, molten heat curling between his legs when Jayce’s hand finds his cock again and resumes its previous task. It’s easier like this on Viktor’s aching joints, but he also discovers when Jayce breaks away to breathe that it’s easier to look. Jayce’s hand is tanned and huge as he strokes, the head of Viktor’s cock flushed and dripping precome freely, and Viktor gulps in air and reaches for Jayce’s cock as he tries not to look at what Jayce is doing because he’s going to come in a matter of seconds and—
“Gods, touch us together,” Jayce says suddenly, voice pitched low and heady with lust.
Viktor startles a little at the insistent press of Jayce’s cock in the crease of his hip, before opening his hands enough for Jayce to slide against him. Jayce’s cock twitches when Viktor grips both their cocks, and then Jayce’s hands are folding over his in turn.
He’s so small compared to Jayce, and all thoughts of staving off his orgasm evaporate then because can’t tear his eyes away as Jayce commands the pace and they stroke each other together.
“Does that feel good?” Jayce asks, the slick sounds of their hands loud and inescapable in the dark lab.
Viktor is nodding and babbling something nonsensical because he can barely form words right now, but then Jayce leans forward, eyes hungry and dark like a promise, and then he spits, right onto where their cocks are pushing through the ring of their hands. Everything is wetter than wet and it’s the glisten of Jayce’s spit hitting Viktor’s cockhead and the resultant pulse of Jayce’s cock against his that makes Viktor come, has him gasping and groaning as his orgasm implodes within him, white-hot pleasure bursting outwards.
“That’s it,” Jayce is murmuring as Viktor comes all over their cocks, still jerking their hands and wringing Viktor’s orgasm out. “That’s—gods—”
Viktor’s come is coating Jayce’s knuckles, it’s striped all over Jayce’s cock, it’s oozing down his palm, and Viktor can barely stand the sight of it, at how Jayce’s eyes are glued to the mess Viktor has made, his cheeks stained wine red, hips stuttering, and then Jayce is gasping out, “Oh god, oh fuck—”
Viktor doesn’t get to see the sight he makes because Jayce crashes into him as he comes, body shuddering, face tucked tight against Viktor’s throat. But what he does get is the sounds Jayce makes, loud, filthy ones right in his ear that make Viktor’s skin tingle and heart pound, ones that he never wants anyone else to hear.
Jayce doesn’t move off him immediately; instead he seems content to bask in the afterglow, even though part of Viktor feels like preparing to pack himself back into his box because he can hardly comprehend what just happened.
But before he can, there are kisses, careful light ones on his neck and throat, larger, sucking ones to his jaw, and finally, Jayce is face to face with him, eyes brighter than the stars during the meteor shower they spent together last year.
“Hey,” Jayce says, very softly, and then he kisses Viktor on the mouth, once, twice, and then for long enough that Viktor forgets the black tar that has clogged his windpipe for so long, feels it falling away from him the way leaves do in the fall and wonders at the new feeling taking root in his chest.
It almost reminds him of champagne, how bright and weightless it is, bubbly and contagious.
“I have loved you,” Jayce says eventually, breath washing over Viktor in waves. “For so long now. I meant what I said. I’m all yours, if you will have me.”
“If I’ll have—Jayce—” Viktor wants to cry again, because he has been so hungry for so long, has always craved things he cannot have. And he wants to say things too, things that will mean exactly what Jayce has laid out for him, but his tongue is thick and uncooperative and his eyes are blurring once more and it is too late to stop them.
Viktor buries his face in Jayce’s shoulder as he is held, as Jayce slides his hand up to grasp the nape of his neck and keep him there.
“Will you have me?” Jayce asks, voice rumbling between them.
Viktor seizes him greedily, knees knocking Jayce’s broad hips. “Yes,” he says, acutely aware of the strength in Jayce’s large body, and how even if he wanted to he couldn’t move from Jayce’s grip. “Yes, Jayce, yes.”
Jayce laughs, and it’s one of Viktor’s most favourite sounds. “Very well then,” he says, staring at Viktor’s mouth. “Everything it is.”
“And then some,” Viktor nods, meeting him halfway.