Archive of Our Own

Viktor preferred solitude, the deep, quiet kind that fostered contemplation. Even daily chores felt tolerable in that comforting hush—a peace as warm as the sun on his skin, much like the plump, black cat that had once spent hours basking on his Piltover apartment’s sun-drenched windowsill.

Yes, he loved being alone.

But he didn’t hate people, contrary to popular belief among their Piltovian benefactors. In fact, Viktor loved people, at least the ones with kinder souls than those he’d often found himself in the unfortunate company of. He valued peace and quiet above all else, leading many to mistakenly believe he was unfriendly and aloof. He never cared enough to correct the assumptions because the people he did care about understood his nature.

His parents, Heimerdinger, Sky—her memory still haunted him—and even Dr. Reveck.

Jayce, most of all.

Jayce had initially presented as an extroverted tornado of a man.

He was once the type of man who needed to fill every moment of silence with something. Whether that be the tapping of a pen against wood, with mumbled words, or with some inane comment about the weather, the news, the weather again.

During those first few months, he’d lost count of how many times Jayce had asked, with a worried frown, if Viktor was upset about something.

If he was upset with him.

It had taken months for Jayce to realize that, no, Viktor was not mad, nor was he upset with him.

It had taken Viktor many more months of observing Jayce’s behaviour—his eager smiles, his quick agreement, his tendency to put others’ needs first—to realize that he was a people-pleaser, and not a true extrovert. The extroversion was an act; a performance Jayce would put on, hoping to please others.

Jayce became much quieter when he realized a performance wasn’t a necessity to please Viktor, because Viktor didn’t need pleasing. Viktor just needed his partner. No impressive displays necessary.

As a result, Viktor was treated to a different side of Jayce. He was still a talkative man when he wanted to be, but Viktor got to see the quiet, hyper-focused side of him. Where he’d sit at his desk with his brows creased, quietly picking away at complicated equations, devouring books—both peer-reviewed and not—or simply staring out the window at the goings-on in the city. It was comfortable and familiar.

The Jayce and Viktor of now were not the Viktor and Jayce of then.

The silence between them was no longer comfortable or familiar.

Jayce was taciturn now. He’d say what little needed to be said, and nothing more. His gaze would become distant, and Viktor could sometimes physically see Jayce leaving their mortal coil—mind stuck somewhere else, somewhere Viktor couldn’t follow him. He went about his day like a ghost, much like Viktor.

Despite all that burning pain that ravaged Jayce, that woke him in the middle of the night shouting, sweating, and calling out for people who were no longer there, he never once blamed Viktor.

It was almost worse that he didn’t.

After being stripped from the arcane like gaudy wallpaper, shredded and filthy, they were left with nothing near an unfamiliar village that went by the name of Penance. It was funny, almost funny enough that Viktor would have laughed if he had been capable of such a thing. Viktor remembered looking up at the sky, at those thick, roiling grey clouds as the rain drowned him, wondering why in the world he had been allowed to live after all that.

Had he been alone, he would have laid there until the rain did drown him. If the rain hadn’t done the job, then let it be exposure, or maybe even starvation. Perhaps a wild animal would have shown up and eaten him alive. A fitting end, considering all those souls he had consumed.

Either way, Viktor would have given up had it not been for Jayce.

Instead, undeserving as he was, Jayce carried him until his feet were raw, not even a flicker of anger on his face, until they’d happened upon Penance. He spent weeks ingratiating himself to the aloof villagers, selling off little pieces of his armour, his pocketwatch, his soul—until he convinced them he could be their blacksmith.

They were lucky.

Rather, Jayce was lucky.

The place was in good shape despite it having been out of use for several years. The village was dying, their population aging as their young people left for bigger and better opportunities. The previous blacksmith, a young man by the name of Yuno, had left for Noxus, and there had never been anyone to fill his position. The villagers had settled on going to the blacksmith three towns over, though it was enough of an inconvenience that they begrudgingly put Jayce at the forge.

“He’s good, you know.” They’d told Jayce. “The blacksmith in Credence.”

“I’m better.” Jayce had responded.

A small flicker of the Jayce he was in that firm confidence; tall, broad-backed and standing straight despite his festering leg injury trying to force him down. Jayce was still quiet—reserved—but he was healing. Slowly but surely, and though the terrors might never cease, he could have a life.

And Viktor was mute.

He tried to speak, at first, but quickly gave up. He resigned himself to a life of silence. His voice was gone, and that was it. Perhaps it was some kind of punishment from the arcane—from all those souls he’d stolen.

Penance.

He tipped his head back.

The sun-warmed stones felt pleasant beneath Viktor’s backside as he sat at the river’s edge. Behind him, the rhythmic clanging from the forge punctuated the gentle lapping of the water. Jayce was once again working tirelessly at reforging a sword commissioned by a local for the fourth time that month. The man requesting it had absolutely no use for it and was clearly testing Jayce’s mettle by claiming some small defect upon each visit.

He wondered if, on this fifth visit, the man would finally claim the sword and leave Jayce alone.

Thankfully, he was one of the few that bothered Jayce.

Most of the villagers had come to accept him. He was a pleasant man, after all, and had a way of talking that left most people unable to dislike him. He was also very easy on the eyes, of course.

Viktor gazed back at the water. Sunlight warmed his face, reflecting off the still surface, a pleasant heat he savoured. Wildflowers, hot metal, and smoke hung heavy in the air. Cool water soothed his sore legs, dangling loosely over the bank. The cool air around the river was a welcome relief from the forge’s intoxicating heat.

This daily ritual was unlikely to end anytime soon. 

Viktor was useless.

He’d spent much of his young life feeling useless, once driven by his impediment to work harder and prove everyone wrong. Even sleeping in on weekends felt like falling behind. Yet, in a humorous twist of fate, he hadn’t been useless then, but he was useless now. Jayce toiled away in the forge for hours on a near daily basis, while Viktor ghosted around inside their house, or sat at the edge of the river like now. Jayce kept him clothed, fed, and housed while Viktor did nothing at all—not even speak, no matter how much Jayce begged at the start.

He’d stopped begging of late.

He stood from the side of the river, intending to bide his time in the house with a mid-afternoon nap, when he caught something in the distance.

Coiled blonde hair. An abundance of it.  

She was a sprightly thing. The warm tones of her chestnut skin, several shades deeper than Jayce’s, complemented the sunny blonde of her hair.
 
She was unaccompanied and struggled to get the smooth, wooden wheels of her over-large chair to climb over the rocks on the path leading to the forge. It was the kind of road even the traditional carriages struggled on, bracketed by trees whose roots had made divots and pockmarks all over, so it was a wonder the girl had even made it that far.

Viktor considered ignoring her and heading back into their home to leave this particular problem for Jayce. But the forge was loud today—Jayce was overrun with commissions—and the girl’s chair would never be able to make it past the steep ledge that led up to wide doors of the forge. It was the kind of indignity Viktor had suffered many times with his own infirmity when he’d found himself unable to climb some of the particularly steep steps in Piltover.

As broken as Viktor was, he had no desire to be cruel to a young child.

“Hi,” she said.

The wheels of her chair struck the rough stone, bringing her to a stop before the forge’s ledge. Honestly, what a terrible oversight that was. Both Viktor and Jayce struggled with mobility issues, even with the arcane having left them in slightly better condition than they’d been before, and not once had they considered a ramp for the forge or their home that sat only a few feet away.

Viktor stepped over to meet her. And gods, she was young. Why was she alone all the way out here? Their forge was nearly half a kilometre outside the city, and he doubted the child had come from any of the nearby farms.

He pinned her as no more than four or five years old. Her cheeks were still chubby with tenacious baby weight, as were her little arms that could barely reach the wheels of her chair. The chair itself had clearly been made for an adult, so it was likely something that had been handed down to her instead of custom made.

“Um, this is the blacksmith, right?” The girl asked.

The girl didn’t give Viktor time to answer. Not that he would answer—could answer.

She reached into a bag sitting in her slight lap and hauled out a garish yellow robot. Its arms dangled loosely at its sides, and he noticed one of them was just barely hanging on. It was a patchwork job, something clearly made by clumsy hands, but it was impressive for what it was.

“I—I don’t have much money, but I know you fix things,” she said, voice shaking despite the confidence her posture tried to impress. “He stopped working yesterday, and I don’t know why.”

It was a toy.

Viktor had never really worked on children’s toys before, nor had Jayce, as far as he knew.

Their careers had never brought them anywhere near children. They were always cooped up in the lab, and when they weren’t, they spent most of their time around rich, insufferable pseudo-royalty, all of which hoping that they could hijack Jayce and Viktor’s talents to siphon even more money into their bloated pockets.

Children were certainly much easier to be around than the rich and greedy. His life certainly would have been a lot better if he had decided to be a toymaker instead of taking the path of affluent scientist, ripe for abuse.

Even this village, small as it was, had a class structure that Viktor didn’t particularly care for. The politicians, bankers and then the farmers. It wasn’t as dramatic or nuanced a dichotomy as what was found in Piltover, but Viktor still found himself rolling his eyes when a particularly pushy client showed up at the forge, waving money around and demanding that their so very important projects be prioritized.

He realized he had spaced out, and the girl before him was quickly losing confidence in her petition. She was packing away the toy before Viktor stopped her with a raised hand. He motioned toward the small table that sat on the grass in front of their home. It was meant for picnicking or quiet evenings spent chatting and enjoying the weather, but it stayed mostly unused by both Viktor and Jayce, who didn’t have much to say at all these days.

Viktor sat down, and the girl wheeled up to the table in front of him as he splayed the toy out. It didn’t look broken, so perhaps it was something inside it. The arm that hung just a little too loose could use some work, as well.

“He doesn’t move anymore,” she said, sensing his question. Perceptive, as most children were. “His arms used to spin around.”

Viktor hummed quietly at this; the most he could muster, the most he had mustered in weeks. He searched the little robot for a panel to his innards and found it quickly. The metal was smooth, but imperfect, covered in little divots and nicks that pointed to the toy being made by hand with scrap metal and without the use of any specialized tools. Despite being imperfect, it was impressive craftmanship for such a small toy. It reminded Viktor a little of the boat he’d made as a child with spare parts he’d found throughout Zaun; his very first engineering project.

“You don’t talk?” The girl asked.

Harmless, and asked with the gentle but prodding curiosity of a young child.

Viktor shook his head lightly.

“Oh,” she said, making Viktor wonder if she’d be upset, but she appeared undeterred. “That’s fine! Mrs. Lockford says I talk enough for two.”

Viktor found himself smiling, for the first time in a long, long time. There was something about the innocent exuberance of a child that made it difficult to stay completely miserable.

“I made him myself, you know,” she said, proud as she sat up straight, hands on her hips with her nose turned up. “His name is Blitzcrank.”

Viktor looked up at her, eyes wide, before he looked back down at the toy. Imperfect as it was, to have been made by a child so young was beyond impressive. This was the work of a prodigious talent. 

And how had she smoothed out the scrap metal without a hammer?

“I used a rock to make the pieces,” she said, as if sensing the question in his expression alone.

He peeked in at the rusty, gear-stuffed innards of her robot. He could see exactly what the issue was with the toy. She’d built the toy inside to out, but as a result, she’d made the outer shell too small and left herself with no space to make corrections to the innards without precise tools.

A small gear, something that would require slim tweezers and a deft hand, had been broken into a crescent shape.

He considered going into the forge to quietly borrow some tools from Jayce.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she said, bringing Viktor back into the moment.  

Viktor cocked his head.

“The big one, with the beard,” she said, voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper as if the big man with the beard would hear her. “He’s scary.”

Viktor couldn’t contain the small laugh that escaped him—a light, airy sound, like wind chimes faintly stirred by a dull breeze. It was a sound, but it was still voiceless.

How long had it been since he’d actually laughed?

When Viktor finally reined in the residual huffs of laughter, he looked at the girl who smiled radiantly back at him. He cocked his head to the forge and shook his head to indicate that, no, Jayce was not scary.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, he looks scary.” 

Perhaps Viktor might have thought that if he didn’t know Jayce so well. His downy raven hair that he now kept long, often tucked behind his ears to keep from tickling at his chin, those gentle hazel eyes, and that charming tooth gap. No, no, he didn’t think he’d ever have found Jayce scary.

“Vik?” Jayce called from the door to the forge, as if he’d sensed Viktor’s thoughts.

The rhythmic clang of the forge, usually a constant companion of his, faded into silence, unnoticed by Viktor who was too captivated by the enigmatic girl. He turned, the heat of the forge still radiating warmth from the open doors, to meet Jayce’s gaze. Disbelief etched itself onto Jayce’s face, a stark contrast to the flickering flame behind him; then, a slow smile, easing the tension on his handsome face.  

The girl stiffened at the sight of him. She looked torn between fight or flight, but decided to put up a brave front. She puffed up her chest.

“A customer?” Jayce asked as he trudged down the steps, his voice light at the girl’s posturing. He looked down at the toy, splayed open on the table like a cadaver. “Cracked gear, huh?”

He’d spotted it even quicker than Viktor had, with hardly a passing glance. Jayce was ever the observant one of the two of them.

The girl’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the toy from the table and brought it up to her face. Her brows furrowed deeply, giving her the air of someone so much older than she was. So serious about her craft. She gasped before she reached her fingers into the gap where the cracked gear rested.

“Ah,” Jayce started.

At the same time, Viktor held up his hand for her to stop.

She’d done fine work on the toy, but she was still a child that would be prone to clumsiness. Sometimes, you needed more than just your hands to work on something. She looked up at them, eager to get on with the work.

“I have tweezers and some extra notched gears inside,” Jayce said. “Give me a minute.”

Jayce hoofed it back into the forge before he returned with the aforementioned tools and the bucket of miscellaneous small parts they kept for moments like these.

Amaranthine got back to work the moment he walked out, and they both watched, rapt as she diagnosed and fixed the problem on her own. She found the right sized gear to replace the cracked one and proudly showed it to the two of them when she was finished. The arms spun around the circumference of the robot, and she giggled to herself at the sight.

“I don’t think I got your name, honey,” Jayce started. “What—”

“Amaranthine!” a booming voice called from down the road.

A stout woman with ruddy hair came storming toward them. Her face was red and swollen from exertion, hair frazzled, and lips turned down in a deep frown. Viktor recognized her as the headmistress of the orphanage just outside of town. Despite seeing her only a handful of times in the village centre and never learning her name, her presence was unforgettable. She was a truly miserable character, like something out of the fairytales his parents would read him as a child—the cruel villainess.

Amaranthine’s eyes widened.

“I looked high and low for you, young lady,” the woman chided as she stormed up to them. She gave Jayce and Viktor a hard look before her eyes settled back on the girl. “What did I say about running off?”

“I just needed help,” she said defensively.

“And I told you what?”

“You told me no,” Amaranthine said, head lowered. 

The woman sighed before she looked back at Jayce, then Viktor. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“It’s fine,” Jayce said. “No trouble at all, really. She’s a smart girl. Is she attending classes in the city?”

The woman turned her steely eyes to him. “That’s hardly any of your business, Mr. Talis.”

“I suppose not,” Jayce said mildly, trying for good-natured. They had both experienced much nastier characters than this cranky woman, after all. “Just a curiosity. Like I said, she’s very bright.”

“All our children are bright,” she snapped.

“I don’t doubt that.”

That seemed to mostly do the trick on the woman. It wasn’t like she could continue tearing into Jayce without looking like a complete animal, and she seemed to want to uphold some measure of professionalism.

“Like I said,” she continued, “I apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll get her out of your hair.”

“Of course,” Jayce said. “Thank you, Mrs.…”

“Mrs. Lockford.”

So that was who the girl was talking about earlier. He could finally put a name to that perpetually scowling face.

“Of course,” Jayce said. “Well, have a nice day, Mrs. Lockford.” He nodded to the girl. “Amaranthine.”

Amaranthine, still looking dejected as she was wheeled away by Mrs. Lockford, turned to wave at them one last time.

When the girl was long gone, and Mrs. Lockford’s broad back had disappeared, Jayce turned to look at Viktor. “Why do the worst people always work with children?”

Viktor shrugged.

A silence had fallen between them, and Viktor saw Jayce examining him. It was something new he did, and while Viktor loathed when Jayce did it, he allowed the man, if only to quell the ceaseless questions he would ask when Viktor grew upset with it.

“You laughed,” Jayce said, as if it were staring down a modern marvel.  

Viktor flushed, for reasons he didn’t quite understand yet.

“I missed your laugh,” Jayce breathed, and a faint smile decorated his dark face. He’d been out in the sun a lot of late, and his skin had taken on a darker hue. Viktor was so used to seeing him slightly grey from their time cooped up in their sunless lab.

He looked healthy.

There were good days and bad days.

It was a good day.

☼

They were in town the second time they ran into the girl.

It was one of the rare few days that Jayce managed to convince Viktor to follow him into town. He’d denied him, at first, but Viktor, despite everything that had happened, was not immune to the kicked puppy expression Jayce made when Viktor would refuse him something one too many times.

Viktor had no idea why Jayce even bothered with him. Not only was he a burden, slow and infirm as he was, but he had done unspeakable things. Yet Jayce looked at him like he always had, that same gentle, knowing smile he always shared with him in the lab.

As Jayce attempted to elicit a reaction from Viktor with a dazzling display of sugary sweets at the bakery, the sound of wheels crunching on gravel reached their ears. Her wheels struggled over the unpaved roads of the village centre. Not only was the chair too big for her, but the wooden wheels were made for smooth surfaces, and the village’s roads were decidedly not smooth.

She battled through it, arriving before they could even react.

“Hi,” she said, waving exuberantly with both hands.

She was as sprightly as she was the day she’d arrived at the forge. She held her little yellow robot close to her chest and had what looked to be a plastic bag filled with rocks in her lap. She saw them both eyeing the bag, and she lifted it up, nearly upending the entire bag in her excitement.

“I found these behind the orphanage,” she said, conspiratorially. “I think they’re magic.”

“Magic,” Jayce began, a flicker of a horrible memory visible deep within his eyes. He suppressed it quickly, though; Jayce was a master at concealing his emotions. “Let’s see the magic rocks, then.”

The girl plucked a few choice rocks from her bag, holding them up for Viktor and Jayce to examine. For their part, they put on a good show, playing the part of interested novelty appraisers at each rock she deigned to show them.

“Do you think these could make Blitz walk?” She asked.

The question seemed innocent enough, but Viktor heard the real question, like a scared animal hiding beneath her words. His heart ached to hear such worry in a child so young, a worry no child should bear. Yet, it was unsurprising; these were the very questions he’d posed to himself, and to his own parents, as a boy struggling with his disability. It was a difficult thing to come to grips with.

“I’m not sure,” Jayce said, crouching down, so he was level with the girl. “But I think Blitz is perfect the way he is. Don’t you?”

“I guess, yeah.” She didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, but she nodded her head earnestly despite that. She looked over her shoulder once, ducking her head.

“I’m guessing you ran away from Mrs. Lockford again?” Jayce asked, though he already knew the answer to that question.

Amaranthine nodded her head, apologetic. She hugged Blitz closer to her chest, her small comfort.

“How about I walk you back to her?” Jayce asked. He leaned in. “I’ll tell her we distracted you, and that you didn’t mean to wander off.”

The girl beamed up at him, and Viktor could see that one of her little canines was missing, a small sprout of white where an adult tooth pushed through. He kept forgetting her age because she carried herself like a child much older than she really was.

“Do you want me to push you?” Jayce asked.

“I can do it myself,” she huffed, a small pout on her round face. She was so proud.

“I know you can, silly,” Jayce corrected. “I’m asking if you want me to push you. I bet I can get you to Mrs. Lockford in thirty seconds.”

“You can’t do that,” she laughed. “She’s at the seamstress, and that’s far!”

“You wanna bet?” Jayce cracked his knuckles. “If I can do it, you owe me two magic rocks—” she gasped “—If you’re right, I owe you some new parts for Blitz.”

Jayce gripped the handles of her chair and ran off before Viktor could say anything.

Not that Viktor could say anything.

He’d raised his hand, mouth opened, breath caught in his throat—nothing.

“Your leg, Jayce,” he’d wanted to warn.

Jayce was already halfway across the promenade, hobbling already because, yes, his leg.

He was smiling so brightly though, and Amaranthine’s laughter was a delightful, soothing balm on that over-warm night. Viktor couldn’t fight the smile that crept up onto his face when Jayce disappeared around the seamstress’ shop, Amaranthine’s laugh still echoing in the still air.

When Jayce returned, his hair a wild tangle, a brilliant, slightly pained smile on his face, Viktor could only smile back, even when he noticed the limp in his gait, a subtle shift in weight that spoke of a nagging pain.

Jayce told him, later that night while he held ice to his old wound, that it was worth it.

☼

Viktor was sitting on the edge of their shared bed—and really, what a strange arrangement that neither of them seemed keen on bringing up—when Jayce stirred beside him. It wasn’t strange for Viktor to wake in the deep of night from night terrors, or for him to not be able to sleep at all. This one had been particularly bad, and Viktor could only stare at the wall, stricken.

Jayce had his own night terrors, though he’d been having them less frequently.

Or he was getting better at hiding them.

“Viktor?”

Viktor’s shoulders trembled, a building tremor he desperately tried to suppress, but to no avail. Years of close collaboration, of shared secrets and whispered confidences, had forged a bond of unsettling intimacy between the two. They knew each other’s tells: the subtle flinch of a muscle, the barely perceptible hesitation in speech, the fleeting shift in gaze.

It was a curse, this ability to read one another; a curse that rendered any attempt at deception moot.

This would be a good time to talk.

If Viktor could talk.

He tried, and nothing came out but a strangled sound, like something had physically grabbed him by the throat to silence him. He braced his own hand around his neck, certain that there was a physical force there, stopping him. But there was nothing, only his own smooth flesh under sweat-damp fingers.

“It’s OK,” Jayce soothed, one hand rubbing circles on Viktor’s back. “It’s OK, Vik.”

Viktor wondered if Jayce even knew what he was saying was OK.

That he wasn’t able to talk anymore? That he constantly woke Jayce in the middle of the night with his ceaseless night terrors? That he had ruined Jayce’s life?

This setup was strange, or at least, would look strange to any outsider looking in.

They slept in the same bed because they couldn’t stand to be separated for longer than an hour—even in sleep. Whether it was the arcane or something else that had created that intense codependency, Viktor didn’t know. Perhaps it had been the arcane, when their bodies had intertwined at an atomic level, however briefly. 

Some nights, he felt like he’d only be satisfied if he could crawl into Jayce’s skin and live there. Proximity wasn’t enough—he needed to be inside him. The feeling wasn’t sexual. It went far beyond that. It was an almost cannibalistic desire.

It made Viktor sick, sometimes.

He wondered if Jayce ever felt the same.  

It was a bad night.

☼

“Hi, Mr. Viktor.”

Viktor turned around sharply.

The river was loud today—the water rushing over rocks and splashing up against the bank, wetting the hem of his trousers. It was so loud that he hadn’t heard her wheels breaking over the loose gravel. He nodded at Amaranthine, and she rolled her chair as close to the bank as she could get.

“You’re so lucky,” she sighed. “You get to see this every single day.”

Viktor nodded his head in agreement. She wasn’t wrong. He was very lucky to have such a view every day. Perhaps a little too lucky, considering all that he had—

“Does Mr. Jayce ever come out here?” She asked. “This is the fourth time I’ve been here, and he’s always just working.”  

Viktor could only shrug to that, the closest approximation to sometimes that he could figure out. It was hard expressing specific emotions without words and no working understanding of sign language. Who would have thought?

“Wow, adults can be really boring,” she said. “I would be out here all day. I think I would learn how to fish and catch everything in the river, but I wouldn’t eat them! I would keep them as pets. Do you think Blitz would get jealous? I don’t think so. Well, actually—” 

He smiled good-naturedly at her and her childish babbling. It was nice, this break from the silence, and from the miserable thoughts plaguing his mind. Her voice was a soothing background noise, much like the river itself.

She watched the river with him for some time, telling him a definitely very true story about the time she fought a giant squid in the harbour near Credence, before she pointed at something glinting in the river. “Wow.”

Viktor looked to where she was pointing one small finger, but he couldn’t see anything but the sunlight beaming off flowing water.

“That rock is so. Cool.”

She really had a thing for rocks, it seemed. Rocks and engineering.

Engineer or geologist?

She could be both, he supposed.

He didn’t think as he stepped down into the water from the bank, paying no mind the way it drenched his trousers. Despite sitting here and spending most of his time staring into the water, he’d never actually gone in like this. He’d always just been content looking in—an outside observer, just as he’d been his entire life.

The cold water felt good on his legs, sharp and biting but soothing all the same. He waded deeper until he was standing before the rock, reaching deep into the rushing water to fish it out. He’d underestimated how slippery the rocks were, however, and fell flat on his ass, the water pluming up around him. He’d managed to not dunk his head under the cold water, a small mercy. Amaranthine looked concerned before he smiled and lifted the large red rock out of the water. She lit up and clapped her hands in excitement, practically bouncing out of her chair.

His ass would be a little sore the following day, but seeing the girl smile made it all worth it, somehow.

It was a cool rock, too. To be fair.

“Viktor?”

Jayce always had a way of showing up at the most inopportune times.

When Viktor was crying. When his mind was filled with thoughts of ending things. When he was wondering how he could end it without upsetting Jayce.

This was significantly different than those times, though.  

He looked up at Jayce, who had come out of the forge looking soot-blackened, tired, and overheated. Viktor waved him away, indicating that he was fine, but Jayce decided to ignore that and waded into the water after him, concern writ plain on his face. Of course, Viktor couldn’t warn him of the slippery rocks at the bottom of the river, and Jayce slipped and plunged under the surface right beside Viktor.

Viktor didn’t have time to worry as Jayce sat up quickly, hacking up some of the water he’d swallowed. He’d fallen much less gracefully than Viktor, who’d luckily avoided dunking his head under the freezing deluge. Some dirt and silt had stuck to Jayce’s body from the bottom of the lake, and a few stray blades of grass clung to his hair like chunky streaks.

He brushed his hair out of his face, still spitting out water.

Although Jayce was clearly in worse condition, a look of worry and concern was etched onto his features as he gazed at Viktor.

Viktor let out a soft huff, and then a bubbling laugh escaped him. It was the warm, affectionate chuckle reserved for adorable pets or silly children. Jayce wasn’t either, but his innocent ways often evoked the same feeling.

He looked at Viktor, indignant at first, before his features softened. “Viktor, you’re so—”

Amaranthine began laughing from the bank, and he’d almost forgotten the girl was there. Jayce hadn’t realized, and he whipped around to look at her. He’d come out of the forge doors; eyes focussed on Viktor alone.

“Amaranthine,” he said, surprised. “Where did you come from?”

“Town, duh,” she said.

Jayce snorted as he stood, trying to wring out his clothes as best as he could before he reached a hand down for Viktor.

“What are you doing here?” He asked when they’d finally climbed out of the river.

The girl was still giggling at their drowned forms. “I came to say hi.”

“I see,” Jayce said. “And did you ask Mrs. Lockford this time?”

“Um.”

“Amaranthine,” Jayce chided. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble again, young lady.”

She looked down into her lap. Viktor took the opportunity to hand her the red rock that was, in a way, the cause of their drenched clothes.

Jayce looked down at the rock, then back at Viktor. “Is that why you were in the water?”

Viktor shrugged.

Jayce huffed. “Well, since this little lady got her treasure, I think it’s time she heads home.”

“Aww,” she lamented. “Can’t I stay for a little longer?”

Jayce had his hands on his hips, looking at Viktor for any indication of what to do. Viktor, for his part, thinned his lips, making a show of looking at Amaranthine, considering.

“Please,” she begged, hands clasped together. “Just a little while longer. I’ll be good.”

Viktor shrugged before giving a quick nod.

She threw her hands up, nearly dropping Blitz and her new rock.

“Just for lunch, then it’s back to Mrs. Lockford, alright?”

Amaranthine nodded enthusiastically.

☼

Viktor cocked his head.

He’d walked into their kitchen to Jayce, frantically scribbling away at a rolling chalkboard. A chalkboard that belonged in the forge, not in the middle of their already tiny kitchen.

He wanted to ask Jayce what he was doing, even though his voice no longer worked for him. His unvoiced question received an immediate answer, however, upon his turning the corner and seeing what was on the board.

Jayce was designing a wheelchair.

“Pet project,” Jayce said when he noticed Viktor over his shoulder. “I figure it should be pretty easy, and I have all the materials here. I’ll need to commission the wheels because I’m not confident working with rubber, but that shouldn’t take too long. She can’t keep getting around with wooden wheels. It’s probably really hard on her arms.”

Jayce rubbed his hands together to get rid of the buildup of chalk, hands on his hips, as he examined his work.

It was near perfect, really, but—

Viktor hesitantly reached out for the chalk, buffing away one of Jayce’s measurements with the flat of his hand. She was a tiny girl, yes, but children grew quickly. He’d made the chair a little too close to the ground and the wheels just a little too small.

“Right,” Jayce said. “Don’t want her feet dragging when she gets taller.”

Viktor gave him a quick nod.

“Thanks, Vik,” Jayce said, brushing a hand over his shoulder before Viktor left for the river again.

It felt, however briefly, like their time back in the lab.

☼

The weather was rapidly becoming cool and balmy, a signifier that winter was approaching. The crisp air carried a hint of frost, and the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colours, painting the landscape with hues of red, orange, and yellow.

 Over the past two months, Amaranthine had become something of a fixture in their lives. Like clockwork, at least once a week, she would sneak away from the orphanage to visit them at the forge.

Mrs. Lockford would get mad at the child, and then Jayce and Viktor, but she’d eventually given up on arguing with them every time they rushed Amaranthine back to the orphanage. Mrs. Lockford claimed she was a troublemaker—which Viktor was hard pressed to believe—and that her being away offered them a brief reprieve.

She certainly didn’t act like a troublemaker when she was with them.

Jayce’s goggles, comically large on her small face, were perched on her nose as she sat beside him at the anvil. Completely captivated, she watched intently as Jayce unveiled his latest project, a surprise still unknown to her: the custom-made rims for the wheels of her soon-to-be-completed wheelchair.

“That’s so cool,” she said, her voice now a charming lisp as she’d lost one of her front teeth. It’d been loose when she’d arrived, and Jayce and Viktor had helped her remove it with a piece of string and a door. Unorthodox and probably a little reckless, but it had made the girl laugh.

Viktor was standing in the doorway to the forge, and they’d yet to notice him.

“Do you think I’ll be able to do this when I’m older?” She asked.

“Of course,” Jayce said, before a pause. “But you have to eat your vegetables every day, or you won’t be strong enough.”

“I’m strong enough now,” she countered, flexing both of her little arms at Jayce.

“Nuh uh,” Jayce said.

Amaranthine huffed in response, shaking one balled up fist at him.

That got a laugh out of Jayce, and he pretended to cower away from her.

That only made the girl more annoyed. “I am strong enough. Let me hold the hammer!”

Jayce possessed a rare and special talent when it came to interacting with and understanding children, a skill that set him apart from most. Jayce’s interactions with children were a novelty to Viktor, something he’d never witnessed before Amaranthine, and a thought he never really entertained in Piltover. Yet, it shouldn’t have surprised him; Jayce’s gentle nature and youthful spirit made him ideally suited to child rearing.

“I’m gonna tell on you,” she grumbled when Jayce wouldn’t hand over the hammer.

“Go ahead,” Jayce said, spotting Viktor over Amaranthine’s shoulder.

Amaranthine smiled widely when she saw Viktor. She wheeled toward him, but not before she turned around in her chair and stuck her tongue out at Jayce.

“What is it, Vik?” Jayce asked.

Viktor tapped his wrist.

“That late already?” Jayce said. He’d been in the forge with Amaranthine for the better part of the morning. “Guess it’s lunchtime.”

Amaranthine held her arms up, already familiar with this song and dance. Viktor picked her up, careful to keep his cane tucked under his arm to keep him steady. Jayce grabbed her chair and brought it down the steps and into their house that stood only a few feet away.

“Remember what I told you,” Jayce said when they were inside. “Vegetables, young lady.”

“Fine,” she sighed as Viktor placed her back in her chair at the table.

Really, she was over often enough that they should be building ramps outside. Viktor looked out the door at the stairs, then back at Jayce, who looked at him knowingly. It was almost a little alarming how well they knew one another.

☼

It was very uncomplicated work, but Viktor revelled in it. It had been so long since he’d had the chance to really dig his teeth into something and work. It wasn’t an unhealthy load of work like he was used to in Piltover, either. It was just something to briefly occupy his mind.

They’d gotten some leftover lumber from one of their neighbours who Jayce often helped with different issues around their home. Though he was the town blacksmith, he’d also been unofficially appointed the all-around handyman that people would call on when something broke.

He was still an engineer, after all.

The neighbours had noticed Amaranthine’s frequent visits, as well, and gave them some sweets to give to the girl the next time they saw her. Little sugary candies that would surely have the girl bouncing off the walls when she finished them. Viktor was certain Mrs. Lockford would take their heads for that one.  

He was outside, straddling the sawhorse and taking a break with Jayce at his side. He’d not been active in a long time, so something as simple as sawing wood had depleted his energy rather quickly. He’d always envied Jayce, in a way, for those enormous arms and his near boundless energy.  

Jayce was carefully measuring out the incline of the ramp so it wasn’t too steep for her chair. His energy wasn’t flagging in the least, and really, Viktor shouldn’t have been surprised by that. This would be nothing to a man who swung a hammer around for a living.

Viktor handed him a piece of wood he’d finished sawing, and Jayce quietly got to work sanding the rough edges.

They worked together as well as they had in the lab. Quiet and confident in one another’s abilities as they completed separate tasks. It wasn’t as if it were a particularly hard project, but the fact remained. They made a great team.

Jayce muttered something under his breath, marking a piece of wood with a pencil where he’d discovered a flaw.

The sun had been shining intensely all day, and Viktor realized with some concern that the back of Jayce’s neck was starting to look unusually dark. He knew Jayce was naturally quite dark and could get even darker in the sun, but he wondered if he could actually burn. He’d never seen it, anyway.

Viktor himself was covered in a nearly comically large straw hat Jayce had plunked on top of his head when they’d stepped outside. He’d had no idea where Jayce had gotten the offensive item, but he was grateful to avoid any nasty sunburns. He was often flanked by trees and their mossy shade by the river, but the space in the front of the forge and their house was directly under the sun with no shade in sight.

Still, it was a beautiful day.

Viktor lifted the brim of his hat to better see their progress.

They’d finished the ramp for the forge earlier in the morning, and as the afternoon was fading into evening, they were nearly finished with the ramp for the house. The forge hadn’t been difficult because the entrance was already just one short ledge. The house, however, had a relatively steep set of stairs leading to the front door.

Jayce had ambitiously suggested they just redo the whole front end of the house, so the front door was closer to the ground, to which Viktor had responded with a single raised brow. They were engineers, not carpenters. They’d found that out the hard way, years ago, when they’d tried to build a bookcase in their lab without the instructions.

They’d settled on having the ramp start at the far end of the house instead of in front so the slope wouldn’t be too steep. It was quite the undertaking, but nothing exceptionally difficult.

Jayce clicked his tongue, and Viktor saw him thumbing at another flaw in the wood he was holding.

“Can I see the saw for a second, hon?” Jayce asked.

As one, Jayce and Viktor paused, both of them straightening their postures in near perfect, comical unison.

Jayce turned around, flush high on his cheeks. “Sorry,” he said. “Distracted.”

Viktor, of course, said nothing as he handed Jayce the saw.

Jayce got back to work, a little more quiet and reflective than he’d been earlier. Viktor felt a little sympathy for him, though the nickname had caught him off guard. He didn’t see Jayce as the type to use nicknames, particularly mushy ones like he just had.

Viktor’s face felt hot.

He blamed it on the sun.

☼

Viktor, to his and Jayce’s surprise, was quite skilled at the games at the local fair. It turned out that while being a gifted engineer didn’t make you a carpenter, it certainly made you a pro at sneaky, rigged games. Math was his best friend.

The yearly fair, a kaleidoscope of bright banners flapping in the crisp fall air, had arrived. Though smaller than Piltover’s extravagant spectacles, it was still impressive. The city’s generosity, a free trip for the orphanage kids, filled the town square with a cacophony of joyous shrieks and peals of laughter—a surprisingly pleasant, almost overwhelming, wave of sound.

They’d told Amaranthine they would drop in for a quick visit while she was there. They’d expected the girl to be busy having fun with all the other children, only to see her sitting outside the gate to one of the impressive roller coasters.

Right.

Once again, they hadn’t even considered.

Amaranthine couldn’t get on most of the rides. Viktor remembered vividly that some of the more expensive fairs that would arrive in Piltover could be accommodating, but he shouldn’t have expected little cities to have gotten that far.

She looked melancholy, tired and resigned to being sat on the sidelines for most of the day. Mrs. Lockford stood beside her, and for all that the woman could be a nasty character, she looked pityingly down at the girl. She’d noticed their approach before the girl did, waving them over. Amaranthine was watching the rollercoaster loop around with a detached sadness, the light in her eyes dulled despite the torrent of colourful lights around her.

Mrs. Lockford leaned over and whispered into the girl’s ear, and she turned around, her face lighting up with a smile. She had her new wheelchair, the one Jayce had painstakingly put together for her—gods, how he had cursed up a storm while building it—and she glided over the rocky path easily. She got as close as she could to them without running over their feet, leaning in and trying her best to hug both of them even though her tiny arms couldn’t reach.

Jayce crouched down, eye-to-eye with her. “Are you having fun?”

They all knew the answer, really, and it almost felt cruel to ask. He wanted her to feel safe admitting when she was unhappy, however. She always put on a brave face, but it was OK to be sad sometimes.

She nodded, a quick, shallow thing. “Yeah, but I—I wish I could go on the rides too. But that’s OK, I’m still having fun.”

While Amaranthine was busy babbling to Jayce about the different rides she’d seen at the fair, Viktor looked to Mrs. Lockford. He cocked his head toward the game stalls, but she shook her head sharply.

“I would if I could, but I’m afraid those are too expensive. The funds only covered the rides.”

Despite how low Mrs. Lockford’s voice was, Jayce heard her over the screaming of children and Amaranthine’s chattering. He looked at Viktor, almost pleadingly.

Viktor shrugged. “It’s your money,” he wanted to say.

“Well,” Jayce said. “How about we visit some of the stalls, then? I think Mrs. Lockford can watch over your friends, hm?”

Mrs. Lockford gave them a nod to go ahead, and they left for the stalls with Amaranthine. It wouldn’t do for her to just watch while her friends had fun. Financially, they’d been doing well, too. They didn’t live particularly lavish lives, so letting the girl have a little fun was no skin off their backs.

They rolled up to one of the stalls, only to realize that Amaranthine was still too small to even see over it.  

“OK,” Jayce started, “up you go.”

With gentle hands, he carefully lifted Amaranthine from her chair, and a yelp escaped her lips as his hands settled her securely on his shoulders. Viktor’s hand rested on her back, a gesture of support born of concern, until he was satisfied she wouldn’t fall backward.

Amaranthine was determined to win the giant teddy bear on the wall, as most children were, gravitating toward the largest stuffy on the wall. Viktor figured they spend about five times the actual cost of the bear in tickets alone, if the stalls were as predatory as the ones in Piltover had been.

The game was simple enough—shoot the balloons with the darts they gave you. Amaranthine missed about every single one of them, as did Jayce. Viktor was familiar with this little trick, however. Not only had he seen it employed in stalls at the fairs in Piltover, but he’d also seen it as a cheap tactic when people played darts in Zaun for whatever amount of money.

Some of the darts were heavier than others, filled with sand in the handles to make the dart inconsistent no matter how good your aim was. He noticed some of the balloons were also attached to small recesses in the wall, making some appear closer—or farther—than others.

To spare Jayce’s wallet, he took over.

And hit every single balloon.

“What—” Jayce sputtered. “Where did you learn to do that, Vik?”

Viktor wasn’t sure how to express without words that he’d learned it in Zaun, so he just pointed at the ground.

“Zaun, huh?”

Leave it to Jayce to figure Viktor out in seconds. He sometimes wondered if Jayce couldn’t actually read his mind.

Viktor nodded.

Two more rounds and Viktor had won her the silly oversized bear, and Jayce and Viktor were only marginally poorer for it.

OK, a lot poorer for it.

The sight of her face, illuminated with pure joy as the grumpy stall operator finally relinquished the bear, made it all worthwhile. She clutched it tight, and its feet dwarfed Jayce’s head. With his vision blocked, Viktor helped him get Amaranthine off of his shoulders and back into her chair.

The afternoon was spent wandering the fairgrounds, the sounds of laughter and carnival music swirling around them, while Amaranthine indulged in an assortment of sweet and savoury fair foods. Mrs. Lockford would have their heads for feeding her so much sugar again.  

She’d started to flag as the sun went down, and despite how much she protested Jayce wanting to push her chair for her, she ended up allowing it. She’d always had a strong aversion to being pushed, and Viktor could understand the sentiment. When he was young, he always fought back against people trying to carry him everywhere.

She had a stick of cotton candy in one hand, her teddy bear in another, and Blitzcrank tucked into the chair next to her. Her head was hanging off to the side, cotton candy stuck to her face when they finally walked her back to Mrs. Lockford, who tutted at them when she realized just how much candy they had inundated the girl with.

“You shouldn’t spoil her,” Mrs. Lockford said.

Jayce shrugged. “It’s fine. She deserves it.”

Their smiles wide, they walked home, the setting sun painting the sky in warm hues.

☼

It happened on a random day of the week, so suddenly it left both Viktor and Jayce reeling.

Viktor was helping Jayce write up a job posting for the local paper. Overwhelmed by his workload, he finally admitted he needed assistance. He also avoided openly admitting that he wanted time away from the forge for Amaranthine’s regular visits. Viktor was just happy he’d found something that would make him stop overworking himself.

Viktor was thinking, head resting on his fist as he looked down at their drafted job posting. He wasn’t completely satisfied with it, nor did Jayce seem to be. Perhaps they could make it an apprenticeship? There weren’t many unemployed older men in town, but there was a wealth of young men looking to get experience under a gifted craftsman. In fact, a neighbour of theirs that did woodworking had two apprentices working with him.  

Viktor scribbled out a section and began writing anew.

“I just want to make sure we don’t accidentally attract some weirdo,” Jayce sighed, twiddling his thumbs as Viktor toiled over their ad. He leaned far back in his chair, two of the legs lifting from the floor. Viktor really hated when he did that—he always told him he would fall and hurt himself one day.

“Is there anyone weirder than us?” Viktor asked, distracted as he scratched out another not-quite-right sentence.

Jayce jumped and then promptly tipped over. The chair clattered to the floor, and Jayce hit the ground with a heavy thump. He scrambled back to his feet in record breaking time, standing over Viktor with his hands on the table. He looked down at him with wide eyes, mouth slightly agape.

“Vik,” he marvelled. “You spoke!”

Viktor blinked once, twice, thrice. He could only stare up at Jayce owlishly for a long moment, his mind reeling. The words had tumbled out, a spontaneous utterance, unexpected even to himself. Yes, he had spoken, and the act had felt remarkably natural, a stark contrast to the agonizing struggle he had endured for so long where even the thought of speaking made his skin crawl. 

“I—I did.”

Jayce let out a disbelieving laugh, running a hand over his face before he wrapped Viktor into a crushing hug.

The pencil in Viktor’s hand clattered to the ground, entirely forgotten.  

“I’m so glad,” Jayce breathed, running his fingers up into Viktor’s wavy, bicoloured hair. “I thought I’d never get to hear your voice again.”

“I thought I’d never hear my voice again.”

I didn’t want to hear my voice ever again.

A sound, something between excitement and shock, escaped Jayce’s lips. He broke from the hug, the warmth lingering on his skin, cupping Viktor’s face gently in his large hands, his thumbs brushing soft cheeks.

“You’re back,” Jayce breathed. “You finally came back to me.”

Not all of him, no.

Some.  

Pieces of his former self were strewn about, lost within the anomaly that was the arcane, scattered back in Piltover, within their lab, and back in the ruins of his failed commune. But the vital pieces, the ones truly important, the ones that made him Viktor, were finally back. Jayce’s dedication had brought them back, aided surprisingly by a little girl who, though not related to them by blood, somehow embodied their best qualities.

“Yes,” Viktor said, forehead dropping to Jayce’s. “I’m back.”

☼

Viktor was familiar with this one.

The ugliness that came with infirmity.

The rage, the sadness, and the desperation that would crawl out when it all finally ground you down. It was always something small that triggered it, too. Some otherwise miniscule barrier that would finally be the thing that tipped you over the edge, because it was the small things that hurt the most. The small things hauled you back down to reality, reminding you of just how difficult things really were.

Amaranthine had been trying to get her chair over a small ledge in town, and the chair had tipped over, not quite able to get over the barrier and spilling her onto the ground.

The slope she’d fallen onto was a soft, yielding carpet of grass that was cool thanks to the approaching winter. Physically unscathed, she lay there; Viktor saw the invisible wounds. He knew them all too well: the bruised ego, the raw ache in the brain’s tender shame centres, the urge to dig into the ground and hide there so no one could look at you and really see.

Mrs. Lockford had called them, exasperated, claiming that Amaranthine was refusing to go home and throwing a tantrum in town that was drawing a crowd. She’d called on Jayce and Viktor as a last resort, and it was clear she was none too pleased about having to do so.

When they’d arrived, Amaranthine was lying facedown in the grass, wailing not out of sadness, but out of that same frustrated, embarrassed anger that Viktor had experienced more than once in his life. A rage over wanting to just be like everyone else, for things to be easier, but realizing there was nothing you could do about it.

This was not the tantrum that Mrs. Lockford had made it out to be.

“Amaranthine, that’s enough—”

Jayce shook his head at the woman, motioning her away as Viktor slowly lowered himself to the ground beside the girl, setting his cane out of her reach. She was pulling out handfuls of grass, and the ground was nearly bald beneath her chubby fists. She huffed and panted, and in between the angry grunts, broken little sobs.

Viktor gave her a few more moments before he pressed a hand to her back, rubbing gently.

She turned her head to look at him, staring up into his eyes.

She had a deep crease between her eyes from all the crying and raging, and some soil on her chin from having her face pressed into the ground. The little face, screwed up in a mask of indignant fury, was etched with lines of pain so deep it spoke of burdens far beyond her years.

“I hate being a cripple,” she cried, tears streaming down her face as she felt the full weight of her disability. The fury was gone now, and all that was left was a deep sadness too big for her little heart. Her sadness was uncontainable, a torrent of tears that poured from her eyes like a broken dam. “I wanna play too. I wanna go to the park and play on the sw—” a deep, shaky breath, “swings too.”

She moved her hand to pull at that pretty, coiled hair, and Viktor gently guided her hand away and back to the grass.

The grass wouldn’t hurt, but she would.

“I just wanna play.”

“I know,” Viktor said, reaching out to tuck some of her stray curls behind her ear. “You can still play, broučku.”

“I can’t.” She wailed, more tears falling. “I can’t do anything.”

“Yes you can,” he said. “You’ll play different from everyone else, but you’ll still play, sweet thing.”

“That’s not true,” she said, stubbornly. She pulled another handful of grass from the ground, and then another, and another, until she’d made another bald patch in the grass.

“Do you think I can’t do anything?” Viktor asked.

“You can do lots of things,” she said between sniffles. The tears were still flowing, but she was calming, if only a little. Viktor could feel the slowing thump of her racing heart beneath the hand he still had on her back.

“I can,” he said. “I did more than most, even with the way I was—am.”

Amaranthine’s face contorted in a frown again. “But you’re not stuck in a stupid wheelchair like me.”

“No,” Viktor said. “I’m not. I’m not, but I know what it feels like when your body doesn’t work the way you want it to. It can be very upsetting.”

“It’s not fair,” she whispered, voice tired.

“It’s not,” Viktor agreed. “I’ve said those words myself many times over, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s not fair, but we shouldn’t let that stop us from being happy, yes?”

Jayce had quietly picked his way over to them after settling Mrs. Lockford.

The commotion had drawn something of a crowd, but Jayce had done a good job of shooing them away to give the girl some privacy. She deserved to leave with her dignity intact. Viktor sat there, rubbing circles into her back until her breathing was slow and even and the tears had dried on her face.

Jayce sprawled out on the grass, belly-down beside her, not at all mindful of the white button-down shirt he was wearing that would doubtless be covered in grass stains and dirt.

Amaranthine turned to look at him.

“Would you like to stay at our place for the night?”

Amaranthine let out a small noise, nodding her head.

Viktor met his eyes over her back, questioning, and Jayce only winked in response.

Mrs. Lockford shared a few clipped words with Jayce before she let them leave with Amaranthine for the night.

It was unorthodox to let a child leave an orphanage for the night, but the place wasn’t exactly aboveboard as it stood. Viktor was pushing Amaranthine’s chair along the dirt path back to their home, but Blitzcrank was sitting in it instead of Amaranthine. Jayce instead held Amaranthine in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder. She was sleepy from all the crying, and she periodically rubbed at her tired, swollen eyes.

“You can talk,” she said, suddenly. It had just occurred to her that Viktor had been talking to her that whole time. She tried to blink some of the tiredness from her eyes, but to no avail.

“Yes,” Viktor said. “I remembered how, just for you.”

“Wow,” she breathed, her eyes slipping shut. She blinked them open again.

“You can sleep, love,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

“But if I sleep, then I won’t be able to spend more time with you,” she whined softly.

“There’s always tomorrow,” he whispered, thumbing at a dried tear track on her face.

“What if you forget how to speak again.”

“I won’t,” Viktor said. “I promise.”

The battle against sleep was lost.

She breathed softly against Jayce’s chest, face slack. As she unconsciously tucked herself deeper into Jayce’s shoulder, she brought a hand up to her face and sucked one of her thumbs, once again reminding them both of just how young she was. She was still a baby. A baby with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

They didn’t have an extra bed, or a couch that they were comfortable leaving the girl to sleep on when she could easily roll off, so when they finally reached home, they tucked Amaranthine between them on the bed.

Today was a bad day, but there was always tomorrow.

☼

It became a routine.

The orphanage was, indeed, not aboveboard, and Viktor didn’t know whether to be happy about that, or deeply concerned. Happy, because they were now letting Viktor and Jayce sign Amaranthine out on the weekends, but concerned, because really, they shouldn’t be allowed to just do that. Regardless, it worked in their favour, and Amaranthine had been ecstatic. She no longer had to run away, but instead got to spend scheduled time with them.

As a result, they’d started accumulating items in their home.

A little cot that they set up in the kitchen for her—with guardrails hastily built to keep her from falling during the night—and a small bedside table where she had started keeping the different items she collected during their weekends together. In it were some seashells from a trip to the beach, her first notched gear she’d made with Jayce’s help, a notebook with some math Viktor had helped her with for Blitzcrank, and a photo.

Viktor was sitting on the edge of the cot, collecting her things and putting them back into storage for her next visit, when he happened upon it. It was a photo taken by a woman in town whose name was evading Viktor. Amaranthine was in her chair between Jayce and Viktor, both her hands up in the air making twin peace signs while Viktor and Jayce both smiled down at her, too captivated to pay any attention to the camera.

His heart jumped, feeling uncomfortably warm. He’d dismissed it initially as some abnormality in his body, some lingering effect of the arcane. Or perhaps his body was beginning to fail him once more. He pressed a firm hand to his sternum, his brows knitting together.

“Everything OK?” Jayce asked, body eclipsing the doorway.

Viktor let his hand slide from his chest, falling to his lap to rest there. “I am fine, Jayce.”

Jayce trudged over despite his assurance, pressing the back of one forge blackened hand to Viktor’s forehead.

Viktor let out a soft laugh, brushing Jayce’s hand away. “Your skin is so overheated you wouldn’t be able to tell if I had a fever.”  

“I guess,” Jayce said, his eyes sliding down to the photo in Viktor’s other hand.

Viktor noticed his gaze, and he held it out to him. “It was in her drawer.”

Jayce looked at the photo for a long time, and Viktor saw something stirring there in his eyes. Something igniting behind those lids that Viktor hadn’t seen since they were young scientists, still working out the logistics of hextech. An inherent happiness; youthful excitement.

Jayce carefully put the photo back into the bedside drawer. “Let me help,” he said.

Amaranthine was a bright spot in their lives. She’d brought life back to the both of them, in a way. They’d just been existing before, biding their time before—what? Who knew?

Even their apprentice, Jason—and Viktor had complained to Jayce about hiring someone with such a similar name—enjoyed the girl’s company. He laughed brightly at her jokes, never bothered when she trudged into the forge and inundated him with questions or some inane fact she’d learned from one of her many books. He’d told them he had three little sisters, so he was used to it.

“They didn’t make children like her in Piltover or Zaun,” Viktor said when the cot was carefully closed into the storage room.

“No,” Jayce agreed. “If they did, I think everyone would have been a lot happier.”

☼

Viktor was making pancakes on a blustery Saturday morning. They had been planning to take Amaranthine further up the river to pick cattails, but the weather seemed determined to keep them indoors and playing board games instead. Not that any of them minded.

Amaranthine was seated at the kitchen table beside Jayce, and they worked quietly on a puzzle that the neighbours had given them. Their neighbours liked the girl and often came by to say a quick hello before heading into the city. They brought her candies and toys, so of course Amaranthine liked them back.

“You can’t do that,” Amaranthine huffed. “That piece doesn’t fit!”

Jayce snickered, and Viktor smiled to himself at the stove at the sound. He recognized it for Jayce being mischievous, a personality trait Viktor had not seen since their early days in the lab.

“It’s a sky piece,” Jayce said smartly.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t go there, dummy,” Amaranthine complained.

Viktor could hear the sound of her plucking the piece from the table and tossing it back into the box.

“I guess I’m just bad at puzzles,” Jayce lamented. “And my puzzle partner is so mean to me. She thinks I’m a dummy.”

Viktor heard a thud.

“Hey,” Amaranthine started, “get up!”

Viktor could hear the dull thwack of Amaranthine hitting Jayce. Viktor turned to see Jayce’s top half sprawled across the puzzle, blocking it as he pretended to be in the throes of despair.

Amaranthine shook him, but Jayce was a solid wall.

Jayce sighed in despair.

“Fine, you’re not that bad at puzzles,” she conceded.

Jayce hummed. “I don’t know…”

Viktor quietly turned off the stove, turning around to watch as Amaranthine picked up Blitzcrank from where he rested in her lap. She brought him up to Jayce’s face, and said, in her best approximation of a robot voice: “I think you’re super cool.”

Jayce sat up straight, looking at the toy instead of Amaranthine. “Wow, you really think so?”

“Yes,” Amaranthine said in her robotic voice, but Viktor could hear the undercurrent of annoyance in her tone.

Such a funny girl.

“You’re so much nicer than your stinky owner, Blitz.”

“Hey!” Amaranthine shouted, indignant. “I’m not stinky. You’re stinky!”

Jayce snickered devilishly.

Viktor wondered if he had been like this with Caitlyn Kiramman.

Viktor walked the pancakes over to the two of them, a cup of coffee for him and Jayce, and juice for Amaranthine. They put it in a mug because she liked to pretend she was drinking coffee with them. “No one is stinky.”

Amaranthine huffed and crossed her arms, pouting.

“I’m only playing with you, mija,” Jayce said, tucking one of her errant curls behind an ear. “You’re not stinky. I promise.”

“You better help me finish the puzzle right after breakfast,” Amaranthine said. “No more funny business, mister.”

And where had she learned that phrase?

Viktor chuckled where he sat, hiding his face behind his mug.

Jayce tried his best to mask it, but he was outright laughing when he caught Viktor’s eyes.

Amaranthine narrowed her eyes at Jayce.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce said, laughter fading. “You’re just so funny.”

She looked like she didn’t know whether to take offense to that or be delighted, so she settled instead on eating her pancakes with Blitz seated at the table beside her plate. He had to eat too, of course.

“You’re on thin ice, pal,” she muttered between mouthfuls.  

Viktor and Jayce both erupted into laughter.

☼

Viktor was seated on the shore again, but this time he wasn’t staring out and despairing like he’d been doing for months. Instead, he was chuckling to himself, thinking about the “scary” story Amaranthine had told him and Jayce about a goblin that would prowl around at night, stealing toenails, of all things.

He heard Jayce’s footsteps as he approached, the grass quietly shifting around his feet. It was a quiet, unnaturally warm night, considering they were already halfway through the winter. There still wasn’t a hint of snow to speak of. The neighbours had told them their winters were usually short, with a few nasty storms nearing the end.

The water was perfectly still as Jayce sat down beside him.

He’d been in town picking up bread, but it seemed he’d made a detour on his way back and dropped a small bag of candies in Viktor’s lap. Viktor eyed them skeptically.

“The baker said they’re made with sweetmilk,” Jayce said.

“I see.”

Jayce then handed him a piece of paper. Viktor felt a bit like a bird being handed little trinkets for his nest.

He’d assumed it was another invoice Jayce wanted him to look over for errors, but flipped it over, realizing it was a little drawing made with crayons.

“She said she worked on it for us all night,” Jayce said. “She was in town with the other kids.”

It was a classic child’s drawing, sweet and scribbled crayon strokes, a vibrant, slightly smeared rainbow of colour. They were at the beach, and Jayce and Viktor flanked her sides in the picture, both gripping one of the handles of her chair. All three of them were smiling, and Viktor couldn’t help but smile back at the picture.

“She even got your streaks,” Jayce said.

“Artist, engineer, geologist,” Viktor hummed. “What can’t she do?”

“I’m thinking she might just be a prolific arborist, too.”

“Oh?”

“She corrected my naming of a tree in town,” Jayce said. “I called it a pine tree, and she said, very eloquently, that I was a big dummy and that it was a Noxian spruce tree.”

Viktor smiled at him, lopsided and just a little fond. “What a foolish mistake, Jayce.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, we can’t all be geniuses.”

Viktor put the candy and the picture off to his side, being careful not to bend the drawing or get it wet. He would hang it up on their icebox when he went back inside, or perhaps he’d frame it and place it on their wall.

He looked back at Jayce, who was observing him from across the grass, his head resting on his fist.

“What is it?” Viktor asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

Jayce shook his head. He looked tired, or rather, sated.

“You just—you look really beautiful, Viktor,” he breathed. “You look content.”

Jayce was usually the two of them that would flush easily, but it was Viktor’s turn this time. He felt heat crawling up from under his collar up to the crown of his head. He wanted to look away, but that would be too obvious.

“I am very content,” Viktor said, faltering some. “I feel like I shouldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“You know why, Jayce,” Viktor said.

He hated that all those memories were becoming obscured in the back of his mind. All those faces of the people he’d harmed were fading, as were their memories that he’d consumed in the arcane. They left him like a steady drip, just like the whispers of the hexcore had. Despite how they tormented him, he tried his best to hold on. He felt it was a disservice to forget their faces and what he had done to them.

“I think the blame rests on both of us,” Jayce said, like it was that simple. “There’s nothing we can do to fix what was broken, but I think living without hurting anyone else is a good start.”

“A low bar to clear,” Viktor chuckled humourlessly.

“Have you wanted to hurt people since then?”

Viktor looked up; brows furrowed. “Of course not. I would never hurt a living soul. Even then, I didn’t want—” He swallowed. Saying harming all those souls wasn’t his intention felt like a weak cop out. Whether he’d wanted to hurt people or not, he had, and that was all that mattered in the grand scheme of things.

“I think that’s good enough then, don’t you?”

Jayce was being sincere, and Viktor felt his arguments collapsing in on themselves. He brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them to himself as he looked out at the water, then back at the hand drawn picture beside him.

“It’s OK to be happy,” Jayce reiterated.

Viktor said nothing, distracting himself by brushing his fingers over the messy crayon lines on the paper.

“I wasn’t, at first,” Jayce confessed to Viktor’s silence. “I wasn’t happy that I’d survived. I had braced myself for death, and accepted it, only to be thrown back into the world. It felt like a punishment, like this was my penance for what I’d done, and I accepted that. Then we met Amaranthine, and you started talking again, and I started looking forward to waking up in the morning.”

It was funny how Jayce’s words almost exactly mirrored Viktor’s thoughts. He felt the same way.

Viktor finally turned back to him, and Jayce’s expression was so vulnerable he almost looked away again. He didn’t, though, and instead reached his hand out. Jayce grasped it, running a thumb over Viktor’s soft skin.

“I’m happy to be alive with you,” Jayce whispered. He pressed a kiss to the back of his hand, like a soft punctuation mark. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

“I’m happy to be alive with you, too,” Viktor said. “I couldn’t do this without you, either.”

A gentle breeze finally rustled the grass, leaving behind a bitter chill.

“Let’s go in?”

Viktor nodded, letting Jayce pull him up by the hand. He’d been sitting out here for some time, and he felt pain creeping up on him, an old friend.

He’d underestimated just how long he’d been sitting, and how sore his leg truly was, when he stumbled. He fell into Jayce’s chest, and solid as he was, he caught him without any issue.

“Sorry,” Viktor started, looking up at Jayce, “my leg isn’t—”

Jayce kissed him.

A soft press of lips, slightly chapped from the dry air. It was a punctuation mark at the end of a long, unspoken question—a question that had hung between the two of them for as long as they’d known one another.

Viktor was startled speechless, but that was nothing new to him. He was so overcome he couldn’t respond, only capable of standing there, stock still. Their lips separated, and Jayce instead pressed his forehead to Viktor’s, resting there before he moved to back away.

Viktor’s wits sharpened, and before Jayce was out of his space, his fingers threaded through the soft, dark hair at the nape of his neck, tugging Jayce back. The kiss that followed was a torrent of feeling—clumsy, yet fervent. Inexperienced, yes, but the raw emotion vibrated, a desperate, urgent need expressed in the press of lips and the tremor in his breath.

Jayce’s hair was so silky in his hands. He marvelled at the texture, one of the few things Viktor hadn’t known about Jayce despite their closeness.

Jayce’s mouth was relentless, moving from Viktor’s lips down to the elegant column of his throat, sucking kisses into the exposed flesh. Viktor had always been so buttoned up and modest in Piltover, it was a wild temptation even just to see the elegant curve of his collarbone.

The path of his kisses felt intentional, and Viktor realized that Jayce was kissing each of the moles that decorated his neck, and what little was exposed of his chest. He pressed kisses onto each of them until he’d worked his way back up to Viktor’s lips.

Viktor cupped Jayce’s face in his thin hands, looking into his eyes.

“Sorry,” Jayce said, only a little breathless. “Too much?”

Viktor shook his head minutely. “No, I’ve just never kissed anyone before.”

“What?”

Jayce’s shocked tone was almost comical.

“I have had other partners, but no, no kissing,” Viktor said.

Jayce searched his eyes for a lie, and when he saw none, he laughed, though not mockingly. “Why? How?”

“I just—didn’t? There is no explanation.”

Jayce pressed a kiss under Viktor’s sharp jaw, and it made a shiver lance up his spine.

“Lucky me,” Jayce said, pressing his lips back to Viktor’s. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of warmth and pressure, the taste of chilly air and Viktor lingering on his tongue. For a moment, nothing else existed but the frantic beat of his heart echoing Viktor’s own. They were utterly lost in one another until someone cleared their throat only a few feet away from them.

They both jumped away like two teenagers caught sneaking around instead of two grown men in their thirties.

“Uh, sorry,” Jason said, bashful as he rubbed the back of his head. “You said you wanted me to bring an order into town—”

Jayce cleared his throat, doing a really poor job of discreetly adjusting himself. “Yeah, sorry Jason. One uh…one second.” He sprinted back to the house, leaving Viktor mortified, standing in front of Jayce’s young apprentice.

“Sorry,” Jason sputtered. “I swear I wasn’t trying to disturb you two, it’s just, Jayce said he really needed to me to bring that order into town, and it’s getting late, and—”

“It’s fine, Jason,” Viktor said. “It is our fault. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Jayce returned with the order, along with the invoice written up by Viktor. It was something that a farmer from a neighbouring village had put a rush on, so it really had to be sent out tonight.

Jason nodded. Before he left, Jayce called out. “Take tomorrow off. You’ve worked hard this past month.”

Jason brightened, a slight spring in his step as he left for the city centre.

Jayce let out a wheeze of a laugh when Jason was out of view. Viktor elbowed him in the side, however softly. “Felt like getting caught by my mom.”

“Mom being a nineteen-year-old boy,” Viktor said, dry.

Jayce grabbed him by the waist again, pulling Viktor back to his chest. Viktor was grateful, in a way, that Jason had disturbed them. The tension between them had been choking. Now, it was lighthearted between the two of them. They kissed again, but it was slow now. A tender exploration, a silent conversation unfolding on parted lips. The world dissolved, leaving only the warmth of breath and the hesitant rhythm of hearts. It felt a little like Jayce was teaching him, guiding him with his own lips.

Jayce pulled away, but not before pressing another kiss to the mole under Viktor’s eye. He seemed fixated on it.

“Let’s go inside before we get caught again.”

Viktor laughed.

☼

Golden sunlight, warm and hazy, streamed through the open window whose curtains they’d been too distracted to draw closed during the night. A faint scent of sweat and skin still clung to the air, the sheets lay rumpled and clinging to their bodies like a second skin. The lingering warmth of their lovemaking radiated between them; a symphony of sighs and gasps still echoing in the quiet room.

They were both too lazy to get up, and instead found themselves in a sticky, drowsy pleasure, gradually bringing one another to orgasm again upon waking.

Jayce brushed a damp strand of hair behind Viktor’s ear, marvelling at the streaky blonde strands buried under his mousy brown hair. He’d thought it beautiful when he’d first seen it, and was grateful to the arcane for leaving it behind when it ejected them like spoiled food.

Jayce didn’t remember how long ago it had been that he spent an afternoon in bed, even with partners. In Piltover, it was a ceaseless onslaught of activity. He was always awake with the slowly rising sun and out of bed before it had a chance to crest in the sky. Idle days were wasted days, according to him and the rest of the Piltover elites that expected progress, progress, progress. He’d always felt guilty about even spending a few extra minutes in bed.

It was nice, not having those responsibilities on his shoulders. He didn’t feel like he was wasting the day away anymore, but instead that he was relaxing and basking in their newfound freedom. If anything, those days spent in the council room, arguing moot points for hours, felt like a waste.

It was Friday, the sun a hazy orange-gold disc low in the west, hinting at mid-afternoon, if Jayce were to wager a guess. A warm breeze, carrying the clean scent of the river, gusted through their open window. Amaranthine was coming for her weekend visit; the thought brought a smile to his face, a familiar warmth spreading through his chest. They would have to pick her up before supper.

It would be a good day.

Viktor was softly nuzzling into his hand, where Jayce cupped his cheek. His eyes were shut, and his inky lashes dusted against moon pale cheeks.

They hadn’t spent a great deal of time actually talking between the kiss from the previous night and all the passion between then and now. Instead, a silent understanding had bloomed, nurtured by stolen glances and lingering touches, a language spoken not in words, but in the shared rhythm of their breaths.

Still, it would be worth putting to words, as nervous as it made him.

“You know I love you, right?” Jayce asked. “I just realized I never said it.”

“You did, actually,” Viktor chuckled softly. “Many, many times.”

“Oh?” Jayce asked, gripping Viktor by those sharp hipbones and pulling their hips flush together. They’d both just come, but Jayce felt like he was worked up enough that he could go again within the hour.

“You’re very vocal,” Viktor said, tilting his head to allow Jayce to mouth at his throat.

“Sorry,” Jayce said, flustered.

 “I wasn’t complaining.”

“I’ve had a few people tell me it was a bit much—”

“You could never be too much,” Viktor said. “You’ve never been too much.”

Viktor pet his slender fingers through Jayce’s hair. Jayce absorbed the affection like a sponge.

Viktor, feeling the silence had gone on too long, replied, “I love you too. I think I have for a very long time.”

“Since when?” Jayce asked.

“I think—” Viktor paused, searching his mind for the right words. “I’ve always had a boyish infatuation with you.” He paused again. It was difficult to dredge up the uglier parts of their past, but that was where the truth lay. There was healing in reflecting on it—on saying it aloud. “In the commune, when I saw you again after so many months apart. When I saw you standing there…I wanted.”

Jayce grasped Viktor’s hand, its warmth a comforting contrast to his own, fingers still weaving through the silken strands of his hair. He lifted it to his lips, the faint scent of Viktor’s natural musk mingling with the soft skin as he pressed a tender kiss to his palm.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce said.

Viktor shook his head, the sheets rustling under him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You did what needed to be done, Jayce. I am—proud of you.”

“Proud of me for shooting you, Viktor?”

“Yes,” Viktor said.

Jayce sighed into Viktor’s palm. “We’re a little messed up, huh?”

“I’d go so far as to say very messed up,” Viktor said, though there was a touch of mirth in his warm voice.

“Would it be corny for me to say I fell in love with you back at my destroyed apartment, when we decided to make hextech together?”

Viktor chuckled. “Yes.”

“Well, sorry, but it’s true,” Jayce shrugged. “I had a big, fat, mushy crush on you for years. I had a notebook filled with hearts around your name.”

Viktor snorted a laugh. “You did not.”

“Not quite, but I drew pictures of you all the time in my notebook. I was a little obsessed with you.”

“What?”

“You seriously never snuck through my notebook when I left it behind in the lab?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I—snuck through yours all the time,” Jayce said sheepishly.

Viktor swatted him on the head playfully. “Jayce.”

“I mean, not like there was anything incriminating in there.”

“Why would I do that in my lab notes?”

“I did it.”

“I am not you,” Viktor reminded him.

“Come on,” Jayce said, nibbling playfully at Viktor’s sharp jawline. “I wanted to believe you were just as infatuated as I was.”

“I was, but I was also never a lovesick sixteen year old girl.”

Jayce sniggered, bumping his forehead into Viktor’s collarbone. “I was only a lovesick sixteen year old girl in spirit.”

“Why did you never say anything?” Viktor asked. “You were always so confident…”

“I was good at playing confident,” Jayce corrected. “I always wanted other people to make the first move. Actually, before last night, I’d never been the one to make the first move.”

“I’m very proud of you, zlato.”

“Why did that feel condescending?”

“You’d know if I were being condescending,” Viktor said. “You’ve seen it with your own eyes.”

“Like that time you told Hoskel he was so very impressive for figuring out that kid’s puzzle Mel gave him?”

“Exactly like that.”

Jayce wrapped himself around Viktor like a vine. “Honestly, though—I think my feelings were amplified when I was in that…ravine. I think my lovesickness turned into an actual sickness. Shooting you was—it was—”

Viktor shushed him with a gentle kiss. He didn’t need to say more, because Viktor understood every unspoken word. The words, both said and unsaid, hung between them, fragile as dandelion fluff, before a comfortable, familiar silence settled once more. Viktor nearly drifted off again before Jayce spoke.

“The way you squeeze your knees together when you come is really cute,” Jayce said. “You do it every time, you know.”

Viktor let out a breeze of a laugh, golden eyes opening to meet Jayce’s. “You’ve only seen me come three times, Jayce.”

Jayce paused before a shrewd expression painted over his features. “You’re right, the sample size is too small for my study. Guess I’m going to have to see it a few more times—what do you think? Five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred?”

Viktor snickered, pushing Jayce’s face away from where he’d started mouthing wetly at the column of his throat. “You’re insatiable,” he said.

Jayce licked Viktor’s hand, where it was splayed loosely over his face.

“Jayce,” Viktor yelped. “Gross.”

Jayce scoffed, “what do you mean, gross? We just swapped at least a litre of spit.”

“That’s different,” Viktor said, tittering as Jayce wrapped him in a tight embrace, tucking his head beneath his chin and licking at the smooth line of his clavicle as Viktor laughed and tried to pry him away.

A knock on their front door.

Jayce looked up at Viktor. “Sounds like you have a visitor.”

Viktor snorted. “I think you have a visitor.”

“Mr. Viktor?” they heard through the door.

“See,” Jayce laughed, prodding at Viktor’s ribs, before the voice called out again.

“Mr. Jayce?”

Viktor looked at him, a smug smile on his face.

“Don’t get smug, we both have to go out now,” Jayce said as he climbed out of their bed, pulling a loose white shirt over his head as he quickly made his way out of their bedroom and to the front door, Viktor only a few steps behind him.

☼

Jayce and Viktor both learned how to braid hair.

Jayce was a little—a lot better at it—than Viktor was. As a child, he’d seen his mother braiding her hair, had even let him try his hand at it with some success, but Amaranthine’s texture was different.

But in all fairness, Jayce had some experience.

“I mean,” Jayce said, scratching the back of his head. “I used braid Mel’s—”

Viktor looked up at Jayce, waiting for him to continue. Jayce looked flushed and wouldn’t meet his eyes. He looked deeply uncomfortable, as well as apologetic, and Viktor realized it for what it was.

“Jayce,” Viktor started, “you can talk about Mel. I’m not going to go into conniptions.”

“OK,” he said, though he seemed hesitant to continue. “I, uh—her hair texture is really similar to Mel’s. That’s all.”

“I see.”

Viktor wasn’t typically the jealous type, especially now. Even when they were younger, still fresh into their first years as partners, Jayce’s infatuation with Mel was obvious. Viktor had been a little jealous then, but it was nothing more than his boyish crush on Jayce causing it. What they had now was different than whatever could have bloomed between them back then.

Their relationship, Viktor and Jayce’s, would never have worked during those years. Viktor’s illness all but consumed him near the end, and when it wasn’t his illness tamping him down, it was hextech, or the hexcore itself. Jayce had also been deeply enmeshed in the council, too busy to have spent any meaningful time with Viktor.

As such, he never dwelled on what could have been for too long. They were here now, and that was enough for Viktor. 

Had they been the people they were before the war in Piltover, Viktor thinks it likely that Jayce would have stayed with Mel, and they’d likely have been happy for a long time. They made a fetching couple, as well.

But the war in Piltover had happened, and all of them had come out different for it; they were changed.

“Who’s Mel?” Amaranthine asked innocently.

“Someone we used to know,” Jayce said, after a brief pause. “Before we moved here.”

“Was she nice?”

“She was very nice,” Viktor said when Jayce faltered. “She got us out of trouble all the time.”

“You got into trouble?” She gasped.

“Sometimes,” Viktor said. “Jayce and I were a little reckless when we were young men.”

“That’s not good,” she intoned. So serious.

“It’s not,” Viktor laughed. “I trust you won’t make the same reckless mistakes we did.”

“I never make mistakes,” she said confidently.

Viktor finished with a few serviceable braids.

He was getting better at it.

He finished it off with one of the many beads Amaranthine had chosen. The wooden click of all the beads hitting together was loud as she shook her head out.

Jayce gave her a mirror, and she admired herself in it with a dazzling smile.

“I’ve never had my hair like this.”

“Do you like it, mija?” Jayce asked.

Amaranthine nodded furiously.

It seemed they would need to get a lot better at braiding.

☼

The dog showed up on a cold afternoon. Winter had settled, and with it, as promised, a slew of storms. Jayce wasn’t particularly fond of the storms, for obvious reasons, and they were unused to it. Both Piltover and Zaun were perpetually temperate, and their “winters” were virtually nonexistent.

The snow was light that afternoon, and Jayce was outside with Jason sorting through their completed and incomplete projects. Jayce and Jason were both, unfortunately, very messy and had gotten their orders confused enough to cause their clients to complain about it.

Viktor was helping where he could, but he mostly left the culprits to deal with their own mess. He handled the invoices and orders for supplies, and he hadn’t made one mistake with those.

Jayce was letting out the occasional annoyed huff every time he realized he had misplaced another order. He was so focussed on his digging and complaining that he hadn’t seen the little yellow puppy running up to him, a little sphere of fur, until it nipped at his ankles.

Jayce jumped, nearly tipping over as he tried to balance two handfuls of completed projects. He had a rebuilt engine in one hand, and a shovel in the other.

Viktor took that as his cue to get up, gathering the excited puppy into his arms before it could knock Jayce down completely.

“Where did he come from?” Jayce asked.

The dog barked at him, as if in response.

They found out, about an hour later, when one of their neighbours showed up at their front door, panting and apologizing. The surprise arrival of puppies, along with a busy season, left the owners struggling to control the tiny, chaotic bundles of energy.

One of the said little monsters was lying down, flat on his stomach with front and back paws outstretched, in front of a bowl of water Viktor had put out for him.

“Are you…Looking to rehome this one?” Jayce asked.

Viktor looked at him, brows raised, but he also said nothing in protest.

“That’s the goal,” the man had said. “Farm’s big, but it’s not big enough for another six full grown dogs.”

Jayce and Viktor met eyes.

“We’ll keep him.”

Amaranthine had once said she loved dogs, after all.

☼

“OK, eyes shut, young lady.” Jayce’s voice carried from outside the house.

Viktor was seated in a chair at the kitchen table, the puppy held in his lap with a little red bow they’d gotten from the tailor. They’d had the puppy for three days now, and while the thing was a little terror that loved to destroy anything they made the mistake of leaving in its wake, it had also been easy to fall in love with.

Viktor heard the sound of Amaranthine’s wheels rolling up the ramp outside.

“Is it a new stand for Blitz? Is it new parts for Blitz? Is it a new boardgame? Is it a—”

The door opened, and Jayce smiled at Viktor as Amaranthine kept babbling, making increasingly silly guesses at what their surprise for her was.

“OK, eyes open.”

Amaranthine opened her eyes and nearly jumped out of her chair when she saw the puppy in Viktor’s lap. She rolled up to him, very nearly crushing Viktor’s feet, before he tucked them under his chair. She cooed over the puppy, and though she was so excited she was nearly shaking out of her skin, she also wasn’t rough with the little animal. She pet him gently on his head, marvelling at his soft, fuzzy ears.

“What’s his name?” She asked.

“We didn’t pick one yet,” Viktor said. “We were waiting for you.”

Originally, Viktor and Jayce had tried to come up with a name for the dog. But, as it turned out, they actually weren’t great at coming up with names. (The suggested Hexdog from Viktor had gotten an uproarious laugh from Jayce).

Amaranthine was giving this some serious thought. She looked at the puppy, eyes wide, before she looked at Blitzcrank in her hands.

“Hank,” she said with conviction.

“Hank?” Both Viktor and Jayce.

She looked embarrassed, head down.

“Oh, no, no, it’s a great name,” Viktor said. And really, it was better than anything Viktor could have come up with. But still, Hank? With the way she’d looked at Blitzcrank, he had been certain she would come up with a name similar to that.

“He looks like a Hank.” Jayce nodded.  

The little mass of yellow fur barked once, and Amaranthine took that as affirmation. “See, he likes it!”

“Looks like it,” Viktor said.

“Can I hold him?”

“Of course,” Viktor said. “Be gentle with him. He’s still very small.”

He put the puppy on Amaranthine’s lap, and she hugged him close to her chest. The dog, for his part, looked incredibly happy to be doted on. He licked her face, and then moved to lick Blitzcrank, sharp little teeth nibbling at his head. It seemed they were going to have to be careful about leaving Blitz around the puppy, at least until he was old enough to stop chewing on everything.

“You’re going to be my best friend,” Amaranthine said to the puppy. “Well, Blitz is my best friend, but you can also be my best friend.”

☼

Viktor was pressed up against the headboard with Jayce’s bare back to his chest. He was covered in a light sheen of sweat, but for once, not from the heat of the forge. There was a heavy winter storm raging just outside, making the window panes shake and groan. But their room, their bed, was warm from their combined body heat and the small fire Jayce had stoked in the fireplace.

They’d been stuck inside for most of the day. Jayce had left, ahead of the storm, to tell Jason not to bother coming in that day. The old Jayce might have decided to work through the storm, but this Jayce decided it would be better to spend the day inside, keeping warm. Viktor couldn’t complain.

Sweat glistened on Jayce’s skin as his ragged breaths, high and reedy, punctuated each moan. Viktor’s hand, strong and sure, pumped his slick cock, keeping an almost leisurely pace.

Jayce’s large hands, calloused and powerful, gripped Viktor’s knees, the pressure a stark contrast to the delicate bones beneath. His heels dug deep into the mattress, the springs groaning a discordant sound.

Viktor kissed the shell of one of Jayce’s ears softly, parallelling the soft strokes of his hand on Jayce’s cock—still too light to bring him to orgasm.

“Ah—so good, Vik,” Jayce huffed. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t think he could stop at this point, staring down the broad expanse of Jayce’s chest, a thick swatch of chest hair covering him—once upon a time, he’d kept his chest carefully shaved, even waxed on occasion, and Viktor was glad he no longer bothered. He brought his free hand up to his furred chest, finger skimming through the surprisingly soft hair, before stopping at a dusky nipple.

It was thrilling to Viktor that Jayce enjoyed having his nipples played with. He was so sensitive everywhere.

He softly pressed his thumb up underneath his nipple, over it and back down again, repeating the motion until Jayce’s toes were curling, his knees bending and his legs splaying wider. He tipped his head back onto Viktor’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, chewing his bottom lip.

Jayce loved this treatment, and Viktor loved offering it to him. Jayce liked being pampered—touched everywhere, allowed to enjoy himself freely and to indulge in every feeling.

“You’re doing so good,” Viktor whispered in his ear, hot breath ghosting over his overheated flesh. “You’re such a good boy, Jayce.”

Jayce whimpered, voice thready. He was squirming now, his slick back sliding against Viktor’s bare chest. Viktor’s touch was still too light to get him off, but Viktor could tell he was right on the cusp of orgasm.

Jayce squeezed his legs shut suddenly, and Viktor tsked in his ear. Jayce had turned his head in toward Viktor’s neck, stifling his high, pinched cries. He wanted to come, but the light stimulus was becoming too much for him—the pleasure almost biting, now.

“You want to come, Jayce?”

Jayce opened his mouth to speak, but Viktor squeezing his hand just a little tighter around the base of his cock, a pleasurable kind of torture, turned his words into a loud, punched out moan.

“Mm,” was all he could manage, his legs falling open for Viktor to continue. He thrusted up once into the slick circle of Viktor’s fingers, and Viktor promptly loosened them, letting his hand rest on Jayce’s hip instead.

Jayce let out a pathetic cry, hips still thrusting up into nothing. “Oh—fuck.”

He stared down at where his flushed red cock rested, heavy against his stomach, Viktor’s warm, wet hand just a few inches away.

“What do you say, Jayce?” Viktor asked softly, tucking a strand of sweaty hair behind Jayce’s ear. 

Jayce let out another desperate whine. “Please. Please let me come, Viktor.”

Viktor wasn’t much for torture, so he circled Jayce’s cock, tighter this time, and began pumping him firmly.

Jayce’s hands moved from Viktor’s bony knees to slide up and grip Viktor’s upper arms. It made pumping his hand just a little harder, but Viktor loved when Jayce got desperate like this right before orgasm, unable to stop squirming, his hands grabbing at anything for purchase.

“F-fuck, Vik,” Jayce cried, his heels digging into the bed, scrambling desperately in a weak attempt to ground himself. “I’m gonna come—I’m gonna come.”

“That’s it,” Viktor breathed into his ear. “Come, love.”

His free hand once again returned to his hairy chest, thumb mercilessly rubbing one of his already flushed, oversensitive nipples. Jayce’s teeth clenched in response, sharp canines on display as he breathed, a hiss through a tensed jaw. His head tipped back again, his hair tickling Viktor’s shoulder. “Fuck me, fuck me—”

One more thready whine and Jayce was coming, his hips jerking up into Viktor’s firm grip, ropes of come splattering his stomach, his chest, Viktor’s hand. He was gripping Viktor’s arms so hard he was certain it would leave some interesting bruises behind as he shook through his orgasm.

He was breathing so hard that it almost sounded like hyperventilation, still sensitive through the dregs of his orgasm. Viktor’s thumb playfully brushed against an abused nipple, and Jayce let out a small, breathless laugh as he batted Viktor’s hand away.

“Fuck,” Jayce breathed, his breath unsteady, large chest heaving in waves. He let go of Viktor’s arms, bringing his hands back to Viktor’s thighs, running his hands almost reverently over the length of them. “That was so—fuck.”

“You are so insightful after orgasm,” Viktor teased.

Jayce let out a breathy laugh, finally craning his neck to look up at Viktor. He brought one of his sweaty hands up and brushed over a sharp cheekbone, down to his equally sharp jawline. “Want me to—”

Viktor shook his head softly, leaning down to gingerly kiss Jayce. “Not tonight.”

“OK,” Jayce said, between kisses.

It wasn’t an abnormal occurrence.

Jayce had been concerned, and maybe even a little offended, the first time Viktor said he didn’t want him to reciprocate. He’d thought it a rejection, or that Viktor might have been repulsed by him, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth of it.

Viktor had spent the first evening it had happened explaining to Jayce that sometimes, he simply lacked a desire for sex. He desired Jayce, loved him, enjoyed kissing him, holding him, and loved watching him unravel from orgasm, but sometimes that was all he desired.

Viktor had never had a particularly high sex drive, once blaming it on his illness but then realizing that no, he was just like that. In his younger days in the academy, he’d tried casual sex not only because he didn’t want the embarrassment of saying he was a virgin into late adulthood, but also because he felt like he should be having sex. Everyone liked sex. It was normal to want it.

Those scant few sexual encounters that he’d had, trying with both men and women in hopes of figuring himself out, had ended with him not reaching orgasm, or being all that interested in it. He didn’t hate it, nor was he repulsed by it, but he’d decided after those encounters that it just wasn’t for him.

Then he’d kissed Jayce, and it had all changed.

He still had a relatively low sex drive, but the desire would hit him.

Coupling with Jayce was nice. It felt good, and he enjoyed reaching rapture with him, but sometimes, just sometimes, he was more interested in helping Jayce reach orgasm than seeking his own pleasure.

This was one of those times.

Jayce understood now, as was his nature to be so understanding—just another thing for Viktor to love about him. Jayce instead settled on kissing him and cuddling up to him in their bed.

“I need a bath,” Jayce said between lingering kisses, after some time had passed. “I feel gross.”

“You’re never gross,” Viktor said softly.

“Do you want me to rub come and sweat into the bedsheets?”

Viktor chuckled, running a hand through Jayce’s downy hair, still damp with sweat. “Not particularly, no.”

“Then I need a bath,” Jayce said decisively, pressing a kiss to the underside of Viktor’s jaw, where a small mole hid in the shadow cast on that elegant neck.

“Maybe I’ll join you,” Viktor said, kissing the crown of Jayce’s head, petting through that dark hair again. He really did love Jayce’s hair.

Jayce stood from their bed, and Viktor couldn’t help the small, self-satisfied smirk at the way Jayce’s legs faintly trembled as he stood. Jayce turned and met his eyes, as if sensing Viktor’s smug expression.

Jayce raised his brows. “Proud of yourself?”

Viktor shrugged, unable to bite the smile back. “A little.”

Jayce scoffed before he reached out and gripped Viktor by the ankle, pulling him down on the bed so his legs were hanging off the side. Viktor yipped in surprise, and Jayce laughed.

“Come help wash my back.”

☼

They celebrated Amaranthine’s sixth birthday with a cake made by Viktor and Jayce (and a little help from Jason). Neither of them were particularly gifted cooks, nor bakers, but they could get by with recipes that detailed each step carefully.  

They’d asked one of their neighbours, Mary Ellen, for some tips.

“Now you’ve done it,” her husband had said.

It turned out that they were empty nesters, their children long having left for bigger and better prospects in neighbouring cities. They’d had seven of them—seven children.

“I would have had more, too,” she said as she rummaged around in the shed outside their farm. She tossed back heaping handfuls of decorations at them, which they couldn’t protest to as the woman continued lamenting not having the joy of more children in her home.

She’d then brought them inside their home again, pulling out a recipe book that was at least as thick as it was wide, and started firing off questions about what Amaranthine liked. They’d both floundered for a bit—because what did she like?—before the answers came easily to them. They knew the girl much better than they realized, after nearly a year of her visiting their home.

“She’s a sweet girl,” the woman said. “Your daughter is always welcome here whenever she wants. I always liked having kids around.”

Her husband made a noise of protest from the den, but she waved a dismissive hand in his direction.

It was such a kindly offer, said so sincerely, that neither Viktor nor Jayce bothered to correct her about Amaranthine not being their daughter.

The cake they’d made with the recipe card didn’t turn out quite as beautiful as the examples Mary Ellen had shown them, but it was a good effort for three men who had no real practical baking skills.

“It’s fine,” Jason assured them before they left to pick up Amaranthine for her surprise. “All my little sisters are monsters. They never cared what the cake looked like, just how good it tasted. But anyway, I’ll watch Hank while you guys go and collect Ama.”

She’d loved the cake, and the decorations, and really everything about the little celebration they put together for her. They’d all gotten her gifts, even Jason and their neighbours. Jayce had also addressed one gift as “from Hank” to keep the child entertained.

She was so overwhelmed, when they had her blow out her candles and brought out her gifts, that she started crying. Soft little overwhelmed huffs, and little tears, as she rubbed at her eyes. Jayce hugged her close to his chest, pulling her free of her chair to settle in his lap. He let his head rest on top of hers as she calmed down.

“I’m not sad,” she sniffled. “I’m happy. I’ve never had a birthday before.”

That tugged at Viktor’s heartstrings, a raw, visceral ache like a physical wound. Though Viktor had lost his parents young, he’d still had them for his formative years. Life was difficult, yes, but they always made him feel special and loved on his day. This girl had never had the luxury; the cruel lottery of life.

“From now on,” Jayce started, “you’ll have a special birthday for as long as we’re alive.”

It was a big promise, but one Viktor would get behind without question.

“Now, want to open your gifts?” Jayce asked.

Amaranthine nodded.

There was a little bit of everything in her gifts. They weren’t things that Viktor and Jayce had casually picked up, but things they’d put a great deal of thought into. In fact, one of the nights where they were supposed to be having a quiet night together, they’d instead spent it planning out what to get the girl.

Jayce had sneakily gotten the girl’s measurements when she was over a previous week, and went to the tailor to get her a new outfit. She had always been wearing the same drab, hand-me-down outfits that they had at the orphanage.

Pink overalls, a small daisy sewn into the front, and some new shirts she could tuck underneath. He’d also gotten her new shoes, just to match, and a basket that she could fit under her wheelchair so she could store all the rocks she collected throughout the day.

Viktor had spent one afternoon taking a carriage five hours out of town just to buy her a geology book so she could identify all the handfuls of rocks she regularly collected. It was a giant tome, and extensive enough that she could identify any rock she happened to pick up. He watched her face light up, and he knew she’d be hauling him outside the next day to help her identify rocks for hours.

Not that he minded.

Not that he would ever mind.

Jason had gift wrapped her some hair bows and new, colourful beads for her hair. Viktor and Jayce both looked at each other, a knowing look, that they’d be asked to braid her hair again the next morning.

They really were getting good at it, though.

“This is the best birthday ever.”

☼

Viktor was running a few minutes late for a meeting with two of their regular clients. He’d started doing this now, instead of expecting them to show up at the forge to make requests. It took some pressure off Jayce’s back, and it helped Viktor feel like he was actually earning his keep. The added plus was that the clients really appreciated having them come to them.

Happy customers, happy pockets.

He was distractedly checking his notes, making sure he was headed to the right business, when he saw something that made him freeze in his tracks—meeting immediately abandoned in his mind.

Had he not glanced around for that split second, he might have missed it.

Kids could—and would—be cruel, especially to those they deemed different from them. Viktor had been the unfortunate victim of his fair share of bullying, all the way up to, and into, adulthood. It was why he had been surprised when he’d asked her if there was anyone at the orphanage that she didn’t get along with, and she’d responded that they were all friends.

He shouldn’t have accepted that so quickly, knowing the kind of child Amaranthine was. She was so determined to keep a brave face, and it was a façade that would rarely crack.

Perhaps she’d done it to hide, ashamed that it was happening to her at all, because gods knew Viktor had done the same as a child. It was also possible she hid it because she felt she might get in trouble, or make it worse, by speaking it into the world.

Either way, the idea that she had been enduring this alone for so long made Viktor sick to his stomach.

Amaranthine lay on the ground, one small hand covering her head from the relentless kicking of four of the children from the orphanage. Viktor recognized each and every one of them, shocked silent by their behaviour. They’d seemed like such kind children from the few times he’d interacted with them.

The pink overalls Jayce had ordered for her birthday—how proud he was to have picked out something the girl loved—were ripped at her left shoulder. Her chair was askew on the ground, one of the wheels deflated and bent, the other completely missing.

The worst of it all was how she cradled the broken pieces of Blitzcrank to her body with the hand that wasn’t busy trying to protect her head.

“What are you doing?” Viktor demanded as he approached the children. The urge to lift and hit one of them with his cane was present at the back of his mind, but despite how cruel they were being, he could never hurt a child.

The children fled at the sight of him, tittering to themselves as they left Amaranthine on the ground, her hand moving from guarding her head to instead cradle Blitzcrank closer to her chest. Her sobs were so furious that her breath stuttered on each inhale.

Viktor abandoned his cane, dropping to his knees, despite hie leg’s protests, so he could pull the girl into his arms. She didn’t even acknowledge him, a sign that this had been going on for some time. She was mentally and physically exhausted. He tried to soothe her, his fingers tracing the loose strands of her once-meticulously braided hair, a testament to her ordeal.

“They broke Blitzcrank,” she blubbered. “They broke him. He’s ruined now. They broke my best friend.”

“We’ll fix him, broučku,” Viktor soothed. “There’s nothing here that we can’t fix. It’s OK.”

Simple words weren’t going to fix what had just happened, though. The girl wailed harder than Viktor had ever heard, clinging to him like the last port in the ocean.  

He felt so full of righteous fury, and with nowhere to put it, he could only sit there, quietly simmering as he tried to calm the squalling child in his arms. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there with her, but the sky had darkened significantly by the time Mrs. Lockford trudged over to them, looking ever the beast.

She looked around at the mess the children had made of her chair, of her toy, and of Amaranthine herself. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, then closed it, and for perhaps the first time in her long life, she looked ashamed.

“You should be watching them closer,” Viktor spat, unable to keep calm. It was rare that he ever raised his voice. “They must have been out here tormenting her for hours!”

Mrs. Lockford sputtered, and it seemed her shame had decided to creep away at Viktor’s accusatory tone. She didn’t like receiving any kind of criticism, it seemed.

“There are a lot of children here, Mr. Talis. We simply cannot keep an eye on each and every one of them, particularly our more troubled children.”

Mr. Talis.

Not like he had the energy or the wherewithal to correct her.

“How long has this been going on under your nose?” Viktor demanded. “Why have you never brought this up to us?”

“With all due respect, she’s not your child, Mr. Talis. I’m under no obligation to tell you anything.” 

Viktor clenched his teeth.

“She’s not staying here tonight,” Viktor said, disgust lacing his voice. He struggled to stand, weakly using his cane to bring himself back to his feet with the added weight in his arms. She was light, but Viktor’s leg could barely carry his own weight as it stood.

“There’s no need for all that,” Mrs. Lockford said, and her dismissive tone only served to make Viktor’s hackles raise. She was treating this like it was simple pigtail pulling, and not the assault it actually was.

“Two crip—two people with mobility issues such as yourselves shouldn’t be wandering around without an escort. Bring her back to the orphanage, and perhaps you can come by tomorrow to clean up this mess.”

So this was the indignity that Amaranthine was facing at the orphanage every single day. Viktor felt the shamefrustrationanger climbing up his throat like bile.

Viktor grit his teeth. “You—you old hag,” he spat.

The woman reeled, frowning. “How unexpectedly rude of you, Mr. Talis. I always thought you the kinder of the pair.”

Perhaps a little childish, but the indignity of it all, and the anger still clawing at him like a mean cat, left Viktor without any eloquent words for the woman. He could normally get a good sneaky dig in, but today wasn’t the day.

He readjusted the still sobbing Amaranthine in his arms and took a deep breath as he readied himself for the long walk back to the forge. The woman didn’t protest when he left.

Halfway through, when Viktor felt some of his energy flagging, deflating after the intensity of it all, he felt Amaranthine’s breathing even out. She fell asleep against him, clutching what little remained of Blitzcrank in one pudgy hand.

☼

“Vik?” He heard, and thank the gods. Jayce jogged up to him, looking down in surprise when he spotted Amaranthine. “What’s going on? I was just in town because we ran out of milk.”

“That horrible place—” Viktor started, and mortifyingly he felt tears pricking insistently at his eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Jayce started, cocking his head to keep eye contact with Viktor who tried to wither away from him. “Let me take her first, OK?”

He handed Amaranthine over, the girl still blessedly sleeping, and Jayce got a good look at her ruined clothing, and her favourite toy, broken to pieces.

“What in the world happened?” He asked, trying to keep his voice low.

“Mrs. Lockford decided it wasn’t important to watch them outside, and a few of the children attacked her.”

“Attacked her?” Jayce asked, barely hidden anger in his soft voice.

“They left as soon as they saw me,” Viktor said, and yes, he was crying. “They destroyed her chair, and Blitz, and they were kicking her on the ground. She couldn’t even get away. It’s not like she could.” He bit at his trembling lower lip, biting back the pained whimper that tried to escape.

Jayce gripped Viktor around his shoulders and hugged him tight, careful not to crush Amaranthine between the two of them.

They made their way back to the house, and Jayce carefully maneuvered her into the cot they hadn’t yet had the time to put away. Viktor watched, tired and sore from carrying Amaranthine so far, as Jayce wet a cloth and returned to clean her face and arms as best as he could. She would need a proper bath tomorrow, and some ointment on all her cuts and scrapes.

“Did you sign her out?” Jayce asked as he worked some soil out of one of her knuckles.

Viktor paused, like he was hearing through water, before he realized Jayce was asking him. “No. I argued with that horrible woman and left. I’ll go down tomorrow and—and apologize. I don’t think she deserves an apology, but I will, for Amaranthine’s sake.”

Jayce let out a sigh, eyes lingering on the deep sleep Amaranthine was in, her face pressed into the pillow. Jayce had carefully pried Blitzcrank out of her hands, and the toy robot was a wreck. He would need new parts, and a lot of work.

Hank whined beside her cot, licking at one of her slack hands.

Jayce motioned toward the door, to the front yard, where the wind billowing in from the front door softly stirred the sweaty hairs at the nape of Viktor’s neck.

“You need some air,” Jayce said, guiding Viktor toward the door when he made no motion to move. They sat at that picnic table, the one Viktor swore would get no use but was now the hub of activity in their home.

“What happened to her chair?” Jayce asked.

“Those little—” Viktor breathed out, calming himself. “The other children broke it.”

Jayce looked down at the table, recently painted over and varnished. “Fixable?”

“No,” Viktor said.

Jayce looked defeated, in that moment, and Viktor suddenly felt bad. With the way Jayce was, it was likely that he was blaming himself for not being there when it happened, or not realizing what was happening to Amaranthine at the orphanage.

Viktor reached out, clasping Jayce’s hand in his. “I know. I think I wanted things to be good for her there, and I refused to see the forest for the trees. I should have known.”

“We couldn’t have known,” Jayce sighed. “I wish she had said something—if…I don’t know. If she had said something, maybe we could have done something.”

“Done what? That miserable hag seems to think Amaranthine instigated it.”

“What do we do?” Jayce asked.

The answer was there and had been there for a long time. He didn’t know why they’d skirted around it for so long. Perhaps they were afraid it would change the fine balance they’d achieved, that it would throw them back into chaos again.

Perhaps they felt they weren’t worthy, and that someone better, someone more well-adjusted, would come along.

Viktor swallowed.

“She cannot thrive there, Jayce,” Viktor whispered. “They’re terrible to her. She’s miserable.”

Jayce regarded Viktor for a long time, and Viktor stared back.

“I think,” Jayce said, finally cracking the silence, speaking despite the fear that boiled under his skin, nibbling at him like gnats. “I think we should go down to the orphanage first thing in the morning.”

Viktor’s eyes shone with uncontainable hope as he looked at him.

Read my mind, Viktor thought.

“She’s with us all the time now,” Jayce said. “We might as well make it official, right?”

Viktor grabbed Jayce in a tight hug, surprising him. Outside of their bedroom, Viktor was rarely one to initiate any kind of physical contact—Viktor was not one for hugs. When he settled, he wrapped those big arms around Viktor’s back and held him tight.

“Yeah,” Viktor said. “Let’s make it official.”

“We have some work to do first, though,” Jayce said.

“We do?” Viktor asked.

They moved Amaranthine into their room and got to work cleaning out the messy storage room that held all their commissioned projects.

☼

“Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?” Jayce asked. His apprentice was sitting at the anvil, book in hand. He really was so eager that it was almost cute.

He jumped. “I don’t mind at all!”

“Good. We’ll take our time coming back.” He held Amaranthine in his arms, and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. She’d had a rough night, still too sleepy to stay awake for long. It was still early morning—much earlier than the girl was used to waking up. Viktor felt his chest ache at her puffy under eyes, still ruddy from all the crying.

Viktor and Jayce hadn’t slept a wink. The storage closet was filled from front to back, and the chore of painstakingly cleaning everything out was not something he would have wished on his worst enemy. Still, he wasn’t tired.

Instead, a nervous, jittery excitement buzzed under his skin.

It was warm and sunny out, a perfect parallel to the terrible day that yesterday was.

They were going to make something of a surprise of it for Amaranthine.

“Her chair was scattered all over the ground,” Viktor said, voice low so as not to wake the sleeping girl. “I don’t think it’s salvageable, but we can at least collect the scraps to repurpose them.”

“That’s fine,” Jayce said. “We’ll make her a better one.”

“We will.”

The orphanage, a miserable looking structure of weathered grey stone, sat at the end of a long, winding, gravel road that snaked through a dense spruce and pine forest.

The building itself was a picture of deceptive beauty; ivy climbed its crumbling walls, softening the harsh lines of its architecture. Tall, arched windows, some shuttered, some cracked, offered glimpses of dimly lit interiors. A rusted wrought-iron fence, half-collapsed in places, enclosed a neglected garden overgrown with weeds and wildflowers—The sight always made Viktor feel less terrible about his own chaotic gardening.

“I’m glad this is the last time she’ll be here,” Jayce said.

“Mm, me too,” Viktor said. He lifted his hand, brushing away an errant coil on Amaranthine’s still-chubby cheek. “I always hated bringing her back to this place.”

It was a good thing she slept through it all. He didn’t like the idea of her thinking they were bringing her back, nor did he want to spoil the surprise.

Of course, it was the headmistress at the front instead of the kindly secretary that normally sat there. She smiled at them, a hard, false thing filled with teeth. Beside her stood that old wheelchair, the one that was still too large for her.

She motioned to the chair for Jayce to put Amaranthine down, and Jayce shook his head softly.

“You offered it once before, and we declined,” Viktor said. “We’ve had some time to think, and we’d like to adopt her now.”

For the first time since Viktor had come to, unfortunately, know the woman, she smiled genuinely. “Wonderful. I’m glad to hear it.”

Of course she was.

The woman was overjoyed at being rid of the girl, and Viktor was more than happy to take her off her hands. She overzealously pulled out a large tome’s worth of papers, and Amaranthine stirred some.

“I’ll fill them out,” Viktor said, no stranger to being inundated with paperwork after their time working for Piltover, and now the citizens of the town. “Get the rest of her things.”

“Of course,” the headmistress said, looking to Jayce. “I’ll have Zara bring you up.”

Jayce disappeared around the corner with her, and Viktor was left to tuck into the papers. It was mostly nonsense, just the orphanage protecting their own asses in case overeager parents wanted to take the children back—as if Jayce and Viktor would ever want to do that.

“We left the rest of your chair parts on the side of the building,” Mrs. Lockford said. “If you don’t mind collecting them before you leave.”

“Of course,” Viktor said, biting his tongue against the argument he wanted to have with the woman for allowing the other children to batter Amaranthine in such a way. He was going to hold his tongue, that was, until the woman deigned to speak again.

“She’s a troublesome girl,” she said. “I hope you don’t change your mind and darken our doorstep with complaints. We can’t accommodate for her anymore.”

“I’m well aware that you can’t accommodate for her, but that’s because you make no effort to do so,” Viktor said.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me,” Viktor sighed, unwilling to go down that road again. It was an argument they’d had before, and he had no intention of having it again. “And she’s not a troublesome girl; she’s a very good girl with a brilliant, curious mind. That should be encouraged and rewarded, not punished.”

“Perhaps it’s best that she’s with eccentrics such as yourselves,” Mrs. Lockford said. It seemed the matter was settled, and there were no more arguments to be had. They’d already hashed it out the night before, and quite dramatically. Viktor had no desire to drag it on longer than he had to.

“And, for the record, I apologize for my language the night before. It was inappropriate.”

He could still be the bigger person, even now, mad as he still was.

“Indeed,” the woman grunted. “Your apology is accepted, Mr. Talis.”

He was finishing the paperwork as Jayce came back around the corner with a small bag of Amaranthine’s things. It seemed the girl didn’t have much to call her own, and that only made Viktor feel worse for the girl. She was awake now, but still groggy as she rubbed at her eyes with doughy hands. She brightened when she saw Viktor, tired eyes crinkling.

“Do I get to spend the day with you again?” She asked.

Viktor smiled at her, reaching a hand up to brush beneath a swollen eye. “Yes, sweet thing.”

☼

Jason was pouring sweat when they finally returned to the forge. He was lying prone, and Viktor almost panicked before the man stirred at their approach.

“He deserves a bonus for this,” Viktor said, voice too low for the man to hear. He pinched Jayce’s side, and he yipped before he laughed.

“I know; already got it sorted,” Jayce said. “I’m giving him the week off, too.”

“You’re a good boss,” Viktor said, and he smiled at the way Jayce straightened at the compliment, a light flush dusting his cheeks. He was a little like a puppy in that way. By no means was Viktor diminishing Jayce’s intelligence, but he was simple in the way he responded so unabashedly to praise.

They’d changed, but it was one of the few things that remained the same about Jayce.

“The very best,” Jayce said.

“Don’t overdo it,” Viktor said, pinching a dark cheek.

Jason fully sat up at their approach. “It’s all done.”

Amaranthine looked between them.

“We have a surprise for you,” Viktor said.

“Another surprise?” She asked, and her excitement was only dampened some by how bone-tired she was from the night before.

Jayce walked her into their little house, through the kitchen where they normally kept the cot and nightstand for Amaranthine’s visits, and straight to what was once their storage room. It wasn’t a massive room, by any means, but it was a room of her own. Hank was even curled up beside her new bed, like he had been patiently waiting for her this entire time.

“We can expand,” Jayce had said that night they decided to make her a part of their family. “When she’s older. We can build her a whole house, if she wants.”

Jason had done an outstanding job of putting everything together, really.

Viktor was going to tell Jayce to give him two weeks off instead of one.

Her new bed was nestled up against a small window that had always been obscured by their commissions. The bedding had been another thing they’d requested from the tailor—another errand for Jason to run while they were gone, and really, the boy deserved a raise on top of the bonus and weeks off.

“It’s your room,” Viktor said.

“My room?” Amaranthine asked.

Viktor smiled, his gaze lingering on the way she nestled into Jayce’s embrace, a picture of sleepy contentment.

The papers were already signed, but Viktor asked anyway. “Would you like to stay with us, Amaranthine?”

Her eyes were already welling with tears, and she clutched the broken parts of Blitzcrank tighter to her chest. He wasn’t exactly the warmest or most comfortable toy, but she held him like a child would a beloved stuffy. “Forever?”

“Forever.”

She was quiet when she cried this time, unlike the night before. Little hiccupping things, small gasping breaths, as she tucked her face into Jayce’s neck.

Viktor felt hot little pinpricks in his eyes, and he fought to quell them until he looked up to see Jayce actively crying. Long streaks of tears rolled down his cheeks in a flood, his lip trembling—Jayce had always been a heavy crier.

Viktor reached over to rub Amaranthine’s back as she shook through the tears.

“We,” Viktor started, but found his voice leaden with thick, unshed tears. He cleared his throat. “We don’t have your chair ready yet, but we can carry you until then, OK?”

She nodded her head into Jayce’s chest.

They’d placed a small service bell beside her bed for the time being, just so she wouldn’t have to yell across the house for them when they were wrapped up in their own projects, though Viktor suspected she would often want to be there while they worked on things. She was always so curious, no matter how tedious or boring the work was.

When she’d calmed enough, Jayce brought her around the small room to show her what was in there. A small wardrobe they’d made hastily while she slept through the night—and maybe they could be decent carpenters—that same nightstand with all her favourite things, a place to secure Blitzcrank while she slept, and a small bookcase with some engineering books they’d picked out from the bookstore.

And a few fairytales too, because she was still their little girl before their little engineer.

Viktor heard Jason enter the house, rounding the corner to stand in the doorway.

“So, how does the princess like her room?”

She was still sniffly. “I love it.”

“Thank you, Jason,” Jayce said. “Come by in an hour—I have something for you.”

Jason tipped his ball cap before he left the house.

☼

“What’s that?” Amaranthine asked, waist-deep in the water. Viktor sat on the bank beside her.

They had built a small, waterproof platform so she could safely enter the water, using a ramp to reach it. The water came up just to her waist on the platform. She knew, however, that she was only allowed to use the platform when either Jayce or Viktor were outside with her.

Jayce was rooting around in the lake for frogs, but he had only managed to find some really piddly looking fish.

“Just a river bass,” Jayce said.

“Ew,” Amaranthine said as it wiggled out of his grip. “Slimy.”

“The bottom of the river is really slimy too,” Jayce said. He reached down into the water, pulling up some brown moss.

“Ew!” She exclaimed again, turning her head away as Jayce brought it closer.

“Jayce,” Viktor warned. “Stop tormenting Amaranthine.”

“I’m not tormenting her,” Jayce said indignantly.

Amaranthine stuck her tongue out at him. “Yeah, stop tormenting me.”

A snort escaped Jayce’s mouth as he flung the damp moss back into the cool, rushing river. The sound echoed faintly amongst the rustling leaves. He loved teasing Amaranthine, and Viktor couldn’t blame him, in a way. The girl’s giggle was like wind chimes.

“Perhaps we’ll take a trip to the beach before the colder weather comes,” Viktor said. “There’s a bit more to see there.”

Amaranthine’s eyes lit up. “The beach?”

They’d only ever gone once before with the girl, before she had been officially adopted. She had loved it, of course.

“Well,” Jayce said, pretending like it was a great bother, “we’d have to rent a carriage, and then we’d have to get snacks for the trip, and then we’d have to get souvenirs…”

Princess indeed.

“Hank has never been to the beach,” she said, hands lifted above her head. “Let’s take him!”

“Not today, sweetheart,” Jayce said.

Amaranthine noticeably deflated. It was always a knife to the heart because the girl never whined or complained.

Jayce waded up beside her on the platform. “How about this weekend?”

Amaranthine nodded exuberantly.

“You’re planning it this time,” Viktor said, tapping him on the chest with a thin finger.

“OK, Vik.”  

☼

It happened when Jayce was leaving her room after reading her a bedtime story.

It was just a random day of the week.

She was tucked up under her pink sheets, smiling to herself as she always did after story time with Jayce. Jayce was a better storyteller than Viktor, a small victory that Viktor would allow Jayce.

He was halfway out the door, hand on the doorknob, when Amaranthine spoke up behind him, voice heavy with sleep.

“Goodnight, dad.”

Jayce paused in the doorframe, hesitant, before he turned back. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Jayce lurched out of the room, his eyes glazed over, bumping into the doorframe on his way out. He looked like a man leaving the bar after one too many stiff drinks.  

Viktor had heard everything, and he smiled to himself. He patted his lap when he saw Jayce’s tortured expression. He didn’t need to look long to know the waterworks were coming.

Jayce kneeled down beside Viktor’s chair, head pressed to Viktor’s thin thighs, sniffling. “She called me dad.”

Viktor’s chin rested on the crown of Jayce’s head, the soft, slightly coarse hair a familiar comfort against his skin. New white hairs, like tiny, stubborn snowflakes, were slowly dotting the raven-black locks, a stark contrast against the dark. It would be a long time before the transformation was complete, the thought a quiet, warm smile against his lips. Each silvery strand was a testament—a whisper of shared years, and a promise of many more to come.

“Yes,” Viktor said, fingers combing through Jayce’s hair. “You’re a great dad.”

☼

It happened on a Sunday evening when Viktor was overseeing Amaranthine working on Blitzcrank. He’d long since been fixed after the disaster at the orphanage, and she was now convinced she could make him walk. Viktor didn’t doubt her ability, but that was complex work that she’d need a partner for.

It was a slow-moving process, replacing his legs with new ones, but it worked.

She’d finally gotten him to stand up straight. Getting him to walk steadily would be another feat entirely, but it was huge progress for such a young girl.

Viktor helped her stabilize Blitz on the table, and Amaranthine threw her hands into the air in excitement when the little robot took one steady step forward. Viktor was close enough that she could reach across to him, gripping him in a tight hug.

She was so strong, much like Jayce, but careful about how she wielded that strength. He knew that, biologically, Amaranthine was neither his nor Jayce’s child, but he couldn’t help but compare her to the man he loved.

She was their child, blood relation or no.

“Thank you, daddy,” she said, before she let go and wheeled out to the garden as if she hadn’t entirely shaken Viktor’s world down to its foundation. He knew she’d called Jayce dad only a week prior, but to hear it directed at him felt different.

He blinked owlishly in her wake.

“She’s going to be dangerous when she gets older,” Jayce said, twisting Viktor out of the world’s longest dumfounded pause. “I think she’ll get anything she wants out of us.”

Viktor had to agree.

☼

She was growing like a vine.

Though she still kept her charming chubby cheeks, she was growing taller. There was doubt about it.

Her arms now reached near the centre-point of the wheels on her chair, and her feet were close to skimming the ground.

“She’ll need a new chair soon,” Viktor noted as Amaranthine left the house in a flurry, on the hunt for Jason to make her another stand to accommodate for Blitzcrank’s growth. She was making him taller, and Jayce claimed he would be life-sized by the time Amaranthine was an adult.

Jayce gently grabbed him around his slim waist, resting his chin on Viktor’s shoulder. “I don’t want her to grow up. I want her to be our little girl forever.”

Viktor scratched under Jayce’s chin before he craned his neck to look up at him. “She’ll always be our little girl.”

☼

“—and I need two, two!” Amaranthine’s voice carried out of the forge. He could hear Jason’s laughter, and Jayce’s muffled voice over the natural din outside. “The panels need to be four-by-four and at least two inches thick. That’s important, too. If it’s too thin it’ll bend under his weight, and if it’s too thick, he loses mobility!”

“Anymore demands, your royal highness?” Jason.

Viktor walked into the forge, and Jayce was smiling down at Amaranthine, his arms casually hanging over the anvil in front of him.

There was a growing white patch in Jayce’s beard now. He complained about it to Viktor on an almost daily basis, claiming he wanted to shave it all off because he didn’t like how patchy the white hair was coming in. Viktor told him he would leave him if he did that.

He was only being half serious.

“Daddy,” she said when she spotted Viktor over her shoulder. “Dad and Jason are making fun of me.”

Jayce threw his head back and laughed at the accusation, and Jason rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

“Whatever for?” Viktor asked. He quietly handed Jayce some blueprints he’d been proofing for a building in the city.

“I need more panels for Blitz! The last ones crumpled under him, but I swear these ones will work. I did the math this time.”

“You didn’t do the math before?” Jayce asked, eyebrows nearing his hairline. No daughter of his would be slacking on her math.

“I did the math, dad, I just didn’t think about the extra weight he’d put on his legs when he walked. A simple mistake.”

“Seems like a pretty big oversight,” Jayce said, smirking at Viktor who decidedly did not react to the teasing. He was going to play neutral party today.

“Proof your math, young lady, and you’ll have your panels.”

☼

Viktor opened the door to one of the children from the orphanage on their doorstep. He’d thought he’d long since gotten over his anger from that night, nearly a year and a half ago now, but it reared its ugly head as soon as he saw the boy. Viktor frowned and moved to close the door on the boy, but was abruptly stopped.

“I’m sorry,” the boy shouted before Viktor could close the door on him.

Viktor paused, opening the door enough to look down at the boy. Thankfully, Amaranthine was in the forge with Jayce and Jason, and was unlikely the hear the commotion outside.

“It is not me you should be apologizing to,” Viktor said.

“I wanna say sorry to her too,” he said.

“No.”

“Please!”

“No.”

The boy thinned his lips, and Viktor could see the start of tears in the corners of his eyes. He was still so upset he’d forgotten this boy was still a child, and one who’d grown up in that awful orphanage. He could give him a chance, at the very least.

“Why did you do that to Amaranthine?” Viktor asked. He wasn’t angry when he asked, careful to keep that out of his voice. He wanted to know what drove the attack.

The boy clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides. “I was jealous. We were all jealous.”

“Jealous?” Viktor asked.

“She was always out having fun with you guys, and it annoyed us. We never got to do fun things like that. We were always stuck in the home doing chores and going to bed early. We never got snacks or treats or sleepovers. Amaranthine was always coming back with toys and new clothes and candies. We—I was really jealous.” The boy scrubbed a hand over his red eyes. “It’s not fair.”

And just like that, all the anger fled Viktor’s system. Regret, instead, filled the gap it had left behind.

“It’s not fair.”

How many times had he said that, or heard it said, in his life?

Many.

In spending their time with Amaranthine, they had forgotten there was also an orphanage filled with children who had no home to call their own. They had no parents to soothe their aches when they were upset, or to hold them and love them. Mrs. Lockford was a brutal woman at the best of times, so it was unlikely the children there felt much love.

It didn’t make what they had done to Amaranthine right, and they would need to seek her forgiveness—though Viktor suspected their kind daughter would offer it unflinchingly.

But they were damaged children who’d been dealt an unfair hand in life, frustrated and jealous and not knowing what to do with that.

Just like Amaranthine, they were still babies.

Viktor reached out, and the boy flinched away, but Viktor ruffled his ruddy hair softly.

“She’s in the forge,” Viktor said. “Would you like me to get her?”

The boy nodded furiously, his body trembling with nerves.

Viktor walked into the forge, the boy following nervously behind him. He told him to wait patiently, and walked in to see Amaranthine and Jayce building what looked to be an umbrella.

Out of metal, though?

Viktor raised a mild brow before he cleared his throat.

They both looked up at him, and he couldn’t stifle the laugh at the way they were both biting their tongues in concentration, goggles on.

“You have a visitor, Amaranthine,” he said.

She cocked her head. “Is it Mary Ellen?”

Viktor shook his head. “It is one of the boys from your old orphanage.”

“Uh, Vik,” Jayce started, but Amaranthine talked over him.

“Why is he here?” She asked.

“He wants to say sorry,” Viktor said. “But if you don’t want to speak with him, I will send him away.”

She didn’t hesitate as she said, “I’ll talk to him.”

Viktor made room for her to wheel past him, and he closed the forge doors behind her, giving them some privacy.

“Vik, seriously?” Jayce asked. “Those little shits that beat her up?”

“I almost slammed the door in his face at the house,” Viktor said. “But I am glad I listened to him. It is—more complicated than it seemed.”

“I don’t think it’s complicated at all,” Jayce said, moving to leave the forge.

“They’re just children, Jayce,” Viktor said, shaking his head, a sympathetic frown on his face. “Do you think they’re happy at that orphanage? Children that age almost never get adopted. They were lashing out, and even though it doesn’t make it right, it also tracks. Things like this happened in Zaun often.”

Jayce eyed him critically, thinking, before he let out a deep sigh. “They should know better than to hit, though.”

“They should, but they’re still young enough to learn. If they’re coming to apologize, then that means they realize this, yes?”

“You’re right,” Jayce said, leaning back on the anvil where he and Amaranthine’s strange metal parasol sat.

“If Amaranthine forgives them, then I will too.”

“I guess…” Jayce drew out the word like a hiss. “Kinda hard to stay pissed off at kids, anyway.”

“What’s the little brat’s name?” Jayce asked after some time had passed. The sound of Amaranthine’s laugh filtering through the doors.

“Naph.”

☼

“No, you’re not allowed to see it yet!” Amaranthine cried.

Viktor had taken one step into the forge, an invoice in hand that he needed to verify with Jayce.

“See what yet?” Viktor asked, baffled as Amaranthine turned him around and bodily pushed him from the forge, invoice forgotten. She slammed the doors shut behind him, leaving him standing on the other side, dumbfounded.  

“It’s a secret,” Amaranthine said through the door. He could hear the sound of her barricading the door, as if Viktor had the strength to push past her.  

He sighed and leaned down to slip the invoice under the door instead. “Jayce, please look this over when you have the time.”

“Will do,” Jayce’s voice called through the doors.

It seemed he was in on whatever Amaranthine was doing, because he hadn’t stopped her from booting him out of the forge.

He wondered what they were building that they didn’t want him seeing, and he hoped it wasn’t something dangerous. Gods knew the two of them could get up to trouble when they got something in their minds. Jayce would also often build whatever it was Amaranthine wanted, resulting in almost endless chaos.

He instead busied himself with a secret project of his own. It was something he’d been thinking about since Naph had appeared to apologize to Amaranthine. It was only a month after the boy’s visit that Viktor decided to put pen to paper.

Viktor was no carpenter.

Not yet, anyway.

He kept the mess of paper hidden from Jayce. He would only bring it to his attention when he was certain he was pleased with what he was doing. He knew Jayce would be on board, as he always was, but he wanted the blueprints to be perfect before they started commissioning people. It would be something that they’d need the entire town to join in on, after all.

It was a public school.

There was a school a few cities over, but it often left the children in town having to catch a bus that would take two hours one-way. As such, many of the parents homeschooled their children, and that wasn’t always ideal when they were already busy with their farms or businesses.

It would also make it so the children of the orphanage could get away for a few hours and make friends with the other children in town. Naph’s words had struck a chord with Viktor, and he realized a lot of the problems the children faced could be mended with a healthy education.

He knew Mrs. Lockford said she taught them on her own at the orphanage, but clearly, she had not been doing a good job.

So, Viktor couldn’t be annoyed with Amaranthine and Jayce keeping a little secret from him.

He’d become so distracted by his blueprints, mulling them over for the seventh time that night, that he jumped when he heard the doors to the forge swing wide. Amaranthine’s wheels were loud on the ramp, and he stuffed the papers into a folder on the table to hide them just before she rolled into the room, a suspicious smile on her face, near trembling with excitement. She was terrible at keeping secrets, just like Jayce.

“Am I allowed to know your secret yet?” Viktor asked.

She nodded. “Dad’s bringing it.”

Jayce walked in with that same poorly contained, trembling excitement that Amaranthine had. Except, unlike Amaranthine, he had his hands hiding something behind his back.

“Tell me it’s not another dog,” Viktor sighed. “Or a cat.”

“We should get a cat,” Amaranthine said.

“I like cats,” Jayce agreed.

Viktor eyed him critically. “No cats…yet. Now, can I see what you’ve been keeping me out of the forge all day for?”

“I’ve been working on this with Amaranthine for a long time, actually,” Jayce said. “I think we did a good job hiding things.”

“It seems so,” Viktor teased, “you’re both notoriously bad at keeping secrets.”

“Hey,” Amaranthine whined.

When Jayce walked up to him, he thought it might be a new cane—something that Amaranthine could easily help with. He also braced himself for the event that it was actually another animal.

Then Jayce dropped to one knee, and Viktor froze.

From behind his back, clasped in one hand, was a ring.

It was a thin and delicate gold band, something that would have required deft hands and tireless work to render it as smooth as it was. That wasn’t to mention that gold was incredibly expensive, especially in their new part of the world.

Embedded in the top of the ring, small but no less beautiful, was a gem Viktor had never seen before. Green with veins of white throughout, shiny and buffed to perfection.

“Sorry I don’t have a box,” Jayce said sheepishly. “I tried making one, but I’m not good with fabric.”

Viktor felt like he was listening to Jayce from deep underwater. He knew Jayce was a master blacksmith, but he’d never considered the fact that the man could make delicate jewellery. He always spent his time making parts or tools; rough, indelicate things that required strong arms and boundless stamina.

“Amaranthine picked out the stone,” Jayce said nervously at Viktor’s silence. “She said it reminded her of you.”

Imperfect lines split the gem at random, but it was beautiful all the same. Despite what many would call imperfections.

“So, uh,” Jayce cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I don’t have a speech prepared. I mean, I did, but I can’t…I can’t remember it now.”

Viktor didn’t need a speech. Jayce’s actions every single day were a far grander gesture than words could ever compare to.

“Will you marry me, Viktor?”

It was endearing how sweet he looked, kneeling there trembling like a leaf. As if Viktor would ever refuse him.

Viktor leaned forward, cupping Jayce’s face in his hands. “Of course I will.”

Jayce practically jumped from the ground, pulling Viktor into a tight hug. Amaranthine was clapping behind them and even Hank gave them a few soft barks, disturbed from his peaceful slumber under the table. Viktor gave an undignified yelp when Jayce lifted him from the floor, spinning him around and pressing kisses to every inch of his face.

“Ew,” Amaranthine mumbled behind them.

“Oh,” Jayce started, “I forgot.”

He took Viktor’s hand gently into his own and slipped on the ring that fit him perfectly.

“It’s beautiful, Jayce,” Viktor breathed, realizing that he’d been so distracted he’d forgotten to comment on Jayce’s impressive craftsmanship.

“Well, I had a great partner for this project,” he said, looking back at Amaranthine.

“The best partner,” Amaranthine corrected.

“How did you get my size?” Viktor said while admiring the new ornament on his slender finger.

“I just did it while you were sleeping,” Jayce said. “You sleep like a log lately.”

He hadn’t, once upon a time. Even as a young man, he woke at every little creak or groan, guarded. It was a testament to how comfortable his life had become, and to how happy he was, that he could sleep through Jayce taking his measurements.

“So,” Jayce started, “when do you want to get hitched?”

☼

It turned out that Viktor was just as bad at keeping secrets as Jayce was. Perhaps even worse.

“When do you think you’ll be done with those school blueprints?” Jayce asked.

Viktor paused, gaping.

They were seated by the river on a warm night, Amaranthine already tucked into bed with Hank at her side.

“How do you know about that?”

Jayce cocked his head. “I mean, you leave them on your nightstand in an envelope. They’re not exactly hidden. I thought—was I not supposed to see them?”

Viktor groaned, head in hands. “No, not really.”

“Oh,” Jayce said smartly. “Uh, sorry, I guess?”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Viktor sighed. “I supposed I should have done a better job hiding them, in hindsight. The nightstand is not the greatest place.”

Jayce snickered. “No, not really. I actually thought you were leaving them there for me to look over.”

“I didn’t want you to see them before they were finished,” Viktor said. “I’m also not sure if the school is such a great idea. It will be an expensive endeavour, and time consuming, and that’s not to mention how the townspeople might react to the idea.”

“Oh—uh, well,” Jayce’s lip turned up in a sheepish smile. “They really like the idea, actually.”

Viktor narrowed his eyes at him.

“Like I said, I didn’t know it was a secret,” Jayce defended. “I already went around and…talked to people? Like, talked to everyone. I even got the go ahead from the mayor. In fact, she offered to subsidize it if we commissioned locals.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone is just waiting on your blueprints, Vik.”

“They just accepted it like that?”

“Well, yeah,” Jayce said with a smile. “We’re not in Piltover. You don’t have to jump through hoops and play games with people to get what you want, Vik. If it’s a benefit to the community, then of course people will be on board.”

“I was dragging my feet with it,” Viktor said. “I guess I should get on with it, then.”

“Take your time,” Jayce said, a warm hand coming up to grip Viktor’s shoulder. “We have all the time in the world.”

☼

The school took only five months to build.

It was impressively fast, given that it was exclusively built by people in the community—some laymen, too, that were learning on the job. On the day it officially opened, where they allowed the community to walk through, Viktor and Jayce were approached by the mayor.

A handful of children from the orphanage tore by, almost knocking them all over. It only got a laugh from the hefty man.

“It’s so nice to see them happy,” he said.

Viktor hadn’t had many interactions with the man, but he’d done a great deal for the orphanage out of pocket. Paying for their trip to the fair was one among many other things he helped them with. It seemed he had a big heart and a genuine care of his community.

“It is,” Viktor agreed.

“Now, the matter of teachers to staff the school,” he started.

“Yes, I heard it’s been difficult to find teachers. Perhaps looking outside the community? It could be good, and encourage people to start moving back.”

“Yes,” he said, “but that will take some time.”

“I suppose it will.”

“We do have a few people here, however, that are truly cut from the cloth.”

Viktor cocked his head.

“We wanted you to teach here, Mr. Talis,” he said. “Your education is impressive, far overqualified for a position such as this, but if you’d have us…”

Viktor furrowed his brows. “Me?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re well liked in the community, and everyone knows the two of you are geniuses. You also have a kind, well-behaved daughter.”

“But the invoices and—”

Jayce looked at him fondly. “You can’t tell me you’d be happy writing up invoices and taking orders forever, Vik. I know you.”

“Well…” He really didn’t like making invoices, but it kept him feeling useful.

But what was more useful than cultivating young minds?

“I can find someone else to do that,” Jayce said. “I promise that you’re not leaving me hanging. I want you to enjoy what you’re doing.”

But, a teacher?

He’d done some TA work when he was the dean’s assistant, but that would hardly qualify him to be an educator.

“I’ve only ever worked with adults,” he said haltingly.  

Jayce seemed to see the war happening on his face as he spoke. “Yes, but you’re a great teacher to Amaranthine, aren’t you?”

Viktor smiled. “That’s a poor example. She hardly needs teaching—she’s already outsmarting the both of us.”  

“I suppose that’s true,” Jayce said. “Still, I know you, Vik. You can do this—and you can do it well.”

“Why don’t you try it out?” The mayor prompted. “Give it a week, and if you don’t like it, then there’s no obligation for you to stay. Do what you will, but know that the community would be more than happy to have you working here.”

 ☼

Viktor had given it a week.

Then another week.

Then another.

Then another, until it turned into four months of teaching at the school. He loved it far more than he thought he would have. The children were so kind, and so keen on learning, that it only encouraged him to work harder to make sure the children had the best shot they could in life.

They still had very few teachers, so it wasn’t uncommon for Viktor to be teaching several different classes in a day. It was tiring work, but it was good work. He felt satisfied with work in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

Invoices were nothing compared to watching a child finally grasp a difficult concept for the first time.

He wondered, sometimes, if the ever-cold Dr. Reveck had ever felt the same way when he was teaching Viktor. The man was an enigma with a face that was impossible to read. Viktor supposed he’d never know.

Not that it mattered.

He was sitting at his desk, grading papers when Naph strode into his office.

It wasn’t uncommon for the boy to seek out Viktor during the day. He wasn’t prodigiously smart like Amaranthine was, but he had the drive and dedication required to get to that level. A child who worked hard deserved just as much praise as a child who was naturally gifted, after all.

He was also a sweet boy, three years younger than Amaranthine. He had looked much older than her when Viktor first saw him, but the boy was just naturally tall. He was reaching the point now where he was becoming incredibly thin thanks to his rapid growth. Viktor suspected he might be as tall as Jayce someday—perhaps even taller.

“Yes?” Viktor inquired at the boy standing patiently in the classroom doorway.

The children had long since been dismissed for the day, but it wasn’t uncommon for some of the children from the orphanage to linger a little longer, reading in the study room or playing outside. Naph had become Viktor’s faithful little companion, often finding him after class to simply talk, or work on things he struggled with during the day.

“I’m sorry I did bad at math today,” he said solemnly.

Viktor let out a quiet sigh, motioning the boy over to his desk. Naph walked over, eyes downcast as he took a seat across from him.

“You have nothing to apologize for, young man.”

“I did really bad though.”

“We can’t be good at everything, yes?”

“I want to be good at it, though,” he said. “Amaranthine is good at everything.”

Viktor rested his head on his hands, watching the boy pick at his cuticles. He didn’t look jealous, or angry, just disappointed in himself. It was a difficult topic to approach with children. Similar to telling Amaranthine that she would never walk like the other children, it was also difficult to tell them that sometimes they just weren’t as good at certain things as others.

“Sometimes,” Viktor said, voice soft and deliberate. “Some people are just better than others at certain things, and that’s OK.”

The boy shrugged.

“You know that Mr. Jayce works in the forge all day, yes?”

Naph nodded.

“I cannot work in the forge, and I never will. Even if I wanted to.”

“Why?” Naph asked.

“I simply was not built to handle something like that,” Viktor said. He pointed down at his brace, and then the cane lying against his desk. “My leg cannot handle that kind of work, nor can my back. I get tired quickly, too, and out of breath.”

“But you could try!”

“I could try, but I would never master it the way Mr. Jayce has.”

He thought he saw the spark of realization in the boy’s eyes. He was perceptive, even as young as he was.

“I’m good at other things,” he said.

“Of course you are,” Viktor said, gently pinching one of Naph’s cheeks. “You are a very smart boy. Don’t get discouraged when you don’t understand something. It does not make you worth less than anyone else.”

“OK,” he said. “Will you still help me?”

“Of course I will,” Viktor said.

☼

They were sitting in the kitchen, quietly drinking tea as they listened to the shouting and barking outside.

Naph had followed them home after school to play with Amaranthine, as was becoming the standard. He could see them through the window and smiled at how gentle Naph was with her. He was always mindful of her chair, finding ways to include her on the playground, and at home.

“His overalls are looking a little worn,” Jayce said, breaking the comfortable silence. There were more greys in his hair now. While he wouldn’t qualify as salt-and-pepper quite yet, it was slowly getting there. Viktor quite liked it—it made him look refined.

“They are,” Viktor agreed.  

“I’ll get his measurements when they’re done playing.”

“Hm.”

He watched Hank tear across the yard with a yellow ball in his mouth, stolen right out of Amaranthine’s hand. The sound of the two children laughing uproariously ran through the house like a sweet song.

“You know,” Jayce said. “I know she said to never darken her doorstep again, but this wouldn’t be to return a child.”

Viktor turned to look at him languidly. Jayce had a half smile on his handsome face, cheeky, because he knew exactly what Viktor’s response would be.

There were good days and bad days.

But even on the bad days.

The sun was still hidden there.