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“You're coming with me to this party,” Jayce says to Viktor, who makes a distracted sound of acknowledgement as he shuffles through a mountain of notes. He’d timed the question strategically to avoid an instant and violent refusal, and his observation had paid off. Half-distracted, Viktor is much more malleable.
“Viktor.”
Viktor grunts, seizing the paper he'd been searching for and tracing through his own illegible scrawl with a frown as he jots down a couple notes. He tilts his head like: aha. And scrawls something on his original paper.
He has ink on his temple and in his fingernails. His clothes are dusted with a fine layer of chalk. Jayce has yet to see him physically leave the lab this week.
“Viktor.”
“What?”
“We need to go to the Kirammans’ New Year's party. Both of us.”
“I predict my leg will hurt too much for me to make it.” Viktor says dismissively. Viktor tucks his pen behind his ear the wrong way around, and ink drips on his neck. He does not notice.
Jayce follows the drop of ink as it carves a slow trail down his throat, slipping underneath Viktor’s collar before he breaks.
He grabs the pen and leans over Viktor. Viktor does not care. “V. Have you been lying about your leg to get out of these parties?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Viktor says with faux innocence, finally looking up from a heavily annotated research paper. “My leg has hurt every day I have been alive. I am such an unwell man, Jayce.” He looks at Jayce with soft, melting honey eyes. Jayce is suddenly violently reminded of the exactly one time Viktor had met Cassandra Kiramman: she cooed over him, wrapped him in blankets, plopped him in front of the fireplace, and fed him soup until he physically couldn't eat any more. She doesn't even do that for her actual daughter.
Jayce almost falters.
Almost.
But he only knows one way to approach his goals and it's with enduring, relentless pursuit.
“It's not for the Kirammans or any investors,” he says carefully. He knows Viktor, and he needs to appeal to practicality if he wants Viktor to be cooperative. “I think we have a shot at getting our Academy grant.”
Viktor immediately turns his full attention to Jayce like a cat that spotted a rat. They've submitted and resubmitted the application six times now. They had Heimerdinger review every last detail of their latest attempt three times. Viktor has been plotting the deaths of the committee members in his free time for two years. The rejections are pinned to a sandbag in a corner of the lab which Jayce and Viktor occasionally wander over to, to beat the shit out of.
“What do we need?”
Gotcha.
Jayce smiles his widest, sincerest grin. “You're not gonna like it.”
“This looks good,” Jayce offers as Mel says, “Absolutely not.”
Viktor says something in a language which neither of them speak but is very obviously an expletive. He's leaning on his cane, newly polished and lacquered, and wearing a cream coat with a blood-red tie.
“We would match, though,” Jayce contemplates. “We want to look like a team.”
Viktor is holding a couple pages of a recent crystallography paper, which is a concession Jayce and Mel made when they had a heated argument about an outfit, and Viktor threw his cane at them.
“I have met strippers who are less particular about their appearance,” he says. He is ignored. Jayce and Mel are busy debating other, more important things, like:
“Look at his face, we have to show off his cheekbones.”
“Yes, but this isn't the color for him. We don't want him to look sick. We want him to look like a promising young inventor. Someone who inspires trust.”
Inspires trust. They look at Viktor. Viktor balls up a paper and throws it at them.
“Yeah, maybe not the right color,” Jayce concedes.
Viktor throws another.
“Hmm,” Mel says. “Gold accents to match. Maybe a burgundy coat. Here, Viktor.”
A helpful shop assistant with a perfect, polished smile is already offering Mel three options that fit her description. She navigates around the mounds of discarded outfits like she doesn't even notice they're there.
Mel grabs one and holds it up to Viktor. It’s massive, but the color is nice.
“Thank you, Mel. This is worse than when someone tried to sell me into prostitution,” Viktor says.
“Yes, but you'll look so pretty,” she coos. He even lets her pat his shoulder. Jayce knows she’d almost given up on getting Viktor to call her by her first name. Apparently an outfit fitting was all she needed.
“You have piercings?” Mel murmurs.
Jayce sits up so fast he almost hits his head on a coat rack. Viktor gives her a dead look. “Yes. Almost everybody in Zaun has tattoos or piercings.”
Mel snaps her fingers and points at Viktor. “Matching earrings and cufflinks. Dark brown. And gloves?”
Viktor waves a hand as if to say, why not? Which is great because Jayce is still processing the fact that he has had piercings this whole time.
Mel bustles off to pick out the accessories. Viktor makes a sound of annoyance and starts shucking his clothes right there.
“V!” Jayce says, cheeks burning.
Viktor looks at him as he ditches his shirt, revealing his back brace and the gleaming ridges of his spine implants. There's something terrible about knowing exactly how small his waist is. “What?”
“You aren't gonna use the changing room?”
“You’ve seen me naked in the decontamination shower,” he says dismissively, discarding his pants. Which is true, but Jayce had also been distracted by the pool of acid eating through the concrete floor. And yeah, it’s another one of those undercity things that Viktor sees nothing wrong with being undressed around strangers. He thinks every person in Piltover is a massive prude.
Jayce claws the air uselessly.
Viktor ignores him and starts pulling on the outfit Mel had chosen.
The shop assistant makes herself known once again to pin up his clothes, and Viktor turns to Jayce as Mel glides back in.
“This is it,” Jayce and Mel say at the same time.
“Finally,” Viktor sighs, slipping on the accessories Mel selected. He looks—good. Gorgeous. Professional.
Mel surprise-assaults him with blush and even more surprisingly does not get stabbed. He looks a bit less like he's actively dying.
“This looks amazing,” Mel says.
Viktor glances at himself in the mirror. “I look like a politician.”
“Exactly. And you and Jayce will reasonably match. This is the one.” Mel turns, and the shop assistant is already there taking measurements. Jayce takes a moment to soak in the scene before he realizes Mel and Viktor are both trying to pay, and that will absolutely not do.
Mel intercepts Viktor and Jayce as they enter the party, as planned. Viktor's attire is flattering and appropriate and means that he won't stick out in a crowd. Jayce can generally handle himself at these gatherings, but Viktor rarely appears and also has funny ideas about social norms and personal space.
The plan, which Viktor is not explicitly aware of, is: Jayce attracts the attention of Piltover’s elite like a lightning rod. He'll make himself a big distraction while Mel gets Viktor to the knot of academics meandering around the mezzanine like a school of sleep-deprived fish with minimal interaction with anybody else. It is a very simple plan.
It is almost immediately a disaster.
They hadn't accounted for people specifically targeting Viktor. A fact which Stevan Ferros, son of one of the biggest merchants in Piltover, takes full advantage of.
He'd been waiting for them. Had been waiting for Viktor.
He slinks up to them as they part from Jayce with an air of expectation that is destined to go unfulfilled. Viktor is laser-focused on the handful of guests he's truly here for: two grant committee members and a materials science professor. Academia is Viktor’s home field, and Viktor has a preternatural ability to get every academic he meets to love him.
He’s so focused that he misses Ferros’ approach and walks right past him.
And Ferros—
—grabs his cane.
Mid-stride, Viktor slams against the stairway railing, bad leg crumpling even with the brace.
The violence of it is startling even to Mel. Piltover has made her slow.
But the surprise only lasts a moment; Noxus raised her.
“Ferros,” Mel hisses with more venom than is perhaps wise. She advances on Ferros like a soldier, puts herself between him and Viktor, and it's infuriating that Ferros doesn't even have the sense to be afraid. “Have you lost your mind?”
The man gives her a dumb, surprised look.
Perhaps, perhaps he’s too used to canes for fashion rather than necessity. Perhaps it’s an innocent mistake.
But his hand is still on Viktor’s cane.
Viktor twists around with the support of the railing, bony joints and sinew straining against his skin. His cheek is starting to bruise.
He shows teeth like a predator. “Ah,” he sneers and rips his cane out of Ferros’ hands. Mel can see him weigh the merits of shoving Ferros down the stairs in a room full of rich witnesses, and she wonders for a split second if she would stop him. “Typical,” he spits like a curse.
Ferros’ surprise morphs instantly to offense. He colors, splotching red and pushing into Viktor’s personal space. “Don’t be so arrogant, trencher,” he says lowly with a glance to Mel that says he'd have a great deal more to say if she wasn't right there.
“‘Arrogant’?” Viktor repeats like he'd brought up an amusing debate point. “From my view, I am being very magnanimous, Mister Ferros.” Here, he leans in too close for Mel to hear and whispers something that drains the color from Ferros’ face.
Mel wonders if Jayce was a bit naive, thinking Viktor needed defending.
When Viktor straightens up, she perches herself on his arm with a gentle tug. After a moment, he acquiesces to her silent suggestion, moving further into the hall and leaving Ferros frozen behind because they are still somehow right in front of the entrance.
The only thing that has gone right is that Jayce is an excellent distraction, and he has decided to not beat the shit out of Ferros in front of the entirety of Piltover right now. Based on the look on his face, later is up for debate.
Mel bustles Viktor to the mezzanine, fending off other idiots coming to try their luck.
She snags two glasses of champagne, and Viktor drains his like it's juice. He stares at the cut-crystal in silent fury, but there is no outburst forthcoming. He takes a deep breath, and the bulging veins in his neck fade.
Mel says, “I'm sorry. I should've intercepted Ferros before he ever touched you.”
Viktor returns his glass to a server. He says, “No. I didn't see it either. I had on, eh, goggles? Glasses?” He makes a vague gesture at his face as if that'll help remind him then snaps his fingers, “Blinders.”
“I'm just glad Jayce didn't storm over and commit a crime.”
“I signaled him off,” Viktor says. He snags another glass of champagne and drains it. He takes another deep breath and releases it slowly, anger falling away like a shed skin. The ease of it gives Mel a pinch of dread. “Why waste a favor from you?”
Mel looks at the hand still clenched on his cane. “You knew.”
“That Jayce asked you to babysit? Yes. His concern is cute, but he need not worry so much,” he says. “Tantrums are for the privileged.”
With that, he disappears into the crowd of academics.
The thing is—helping Hextech get independent funding doesn’t really align with Mel’s monetary interests.
She's not a very sentimental woman, nor does she have an incredible need for a return favor from Jayce Talis. No, something far more dire has come to her attention that somehow even Jayce hasn't noticed:
Viktor wants to leave.
He and Jayce own the single most successful business in Piltover. Jayce insisted on matching pay and equal stakes for him and Viktor when they drew up contracts. They in no way lack the funds for a high-class lifestyle, and yet—
Viktor lives at the edge of Piltover on the third floor of a building that should've been condemned a decade ago. It's an hour-and-a-half walk to the Academy, even longer with his bad leg, a path through neighborhoods where well-bred Piltovans shudder and turn back and warn their children to never step foot there . Mel has never seen it with her own eyes because the enforcers strongly advise against councilors entering the area. Ridiculous, for a man with the size, weight, and structural integrity of a porcelain doll to choose to live there. Ridiculous, for someone who could easily afford better.
But those crumbling, bullet-riddled buildings house the particular Shuriman-Zaunite diaspora Viktor belongs to, and she’s become increasingly convinced that nothing could prise him away.
The thought had occurred to her just a couple weeks ago. She’d walked into the Hextech lab while Viktor and Jayce were ostensibly taking a break from Hextech work. Viktor had slanted a glance over at her and greeted her with a neutrality she was beginning to realize was apathy. ”Councilor Merdada.”
Jayce hadn’t noticed her entrance because he was furious. Incandescent. He was penning something in slanted, barely-legible strokes like he’d scream if he didn’t write it fast enough. Next to him was a letter which Mel only caught a glimpse of, but managed to get the gist:
Councilor Talis, it began. We are writing as concerned stakeholders in your company. We understand your fondness for your partner, but his activity and affiliation with the undercity present numerous security risks. The damage to our brand image—
She did not need to see more beyond the collection of signatures at the bottom of the petition to oust the other half of Hextech.
Viktor’s eyes were on her when she looked back at him.
“My favorite part is where they imply I am a prostitute,” he’d said delightedly. “If only. I’d be paid better. And work better hours.”
She’d laughed, the notion dismissed, but something about the interaction struck her as odd as she ruminated over it that night.
The shareholders had real power. Jayce and Viktor had to bend to them more than a couple times in the past, and each time, Viktor had been silently furious, promptly fucking off to the undercity to vent and lament his angers as soon as he could be released. This petition was a genuine threat to Viktor, and yet.
And yet.
A shrug and a joke. That petition could see him banished to Zaun without a single penny to show for a company built upon his research.
That wasn’t blind confidence, it wasn’t faith in Jayce and Mel or Piltover, or foolish, reckless arrogance. That wasn’t characteristic of Viktor, of Zaunites. He didn’t believe he deserved anything. The things he owned, he took, and he guarded like a dragon and their hoard.
The business, the research, Piltover—
He didn’t care.
He’d lived in Piltover for a decade, and he behaved as if he’d need to drop everything and flee to Zaun at a moment’s notice.
If Jayce wasn’t his research partner, perhaps he would’ve already left.
Mel is sure Jayce hasn’t consciously made the realization—the fallout of that would be impossible to miss—but his drive to get Viktor to make connections, to put down roots in Piltover, has become a constant secondary goal for him. His need to credit Viktor, drag him into the spotlight alongside Jayce, has taken on an undertone of urgency in the past few months.
Mel can envision exactly what will happen if—when—Viktor decides to leave, and it’s nothing short of disastrous.
So she takes it upon herself to help.
Independent funding, so Jayce and Viktor may pursue the research that they want to do, not just for the profits of the shareholders. Surely the research that originally prised him away from his precious undercity would also keep him here. The grant committee members are essential to this, but equally essential is getting shareholders to back off.
So while Viktor is enchanting the academics and Jayce is networking, Mel has her own job to do: warning off the shareholders leaning on the grant committee members.
It would be a pity for Piltover to lose such an excellent mind.
And Mel would rather miss him if he were to leave.
They reunite in the early hours of the morning as the party winds down. Mel bids a couple trembling shareholders a saccharine goodbye as she makes her way to Viktor, with his captive audience of a handful of researchers. She can’t claim a deep understanding of the intricacies of their specialties, but she knows genuine debate and discussion when she hears it. She’s almost sorry to break apart the gathering, but there’s one final errand to do for the night, and it’s cowing the grant committee members into submission.
Carrot and stick.
“Ah, Mel,” Viktor says in greeting. “Professors, Councilwoman Medarda. Mel, these are Professors Morichi, Torek, and Cadwalder.”
“A pleasure,” she says, shaking their hands. “Unfortunately, I’m here to break up your discussion. Jayce asked me to come get you, a business colleague insisted on greeting you before he left.”
He tilts his head, eyes incisive. “Ah, a pity. Well, I can’t leave Jayce to flounder. Apologies, perhaps we may continue our discussion later. My lab is 309 on the top floor of the university.” They exchange contact information for correspondences, and Viktor bustles off, leaving the three professors enchanted behind him.
A beat, and their gazes redirect to her. The dislike is palpable.
Academics don’t need nearly as much subtlety as politicians. The moment Viktor disappears, she says, “It’s come to my attention that some of the shareholders in Hextech have been influencing your decisions on certain grants.”
Their stances become defensive. Cadwalder draws herself up in fury. She lets the tension hang for a moment before gentling her tone. “I’d like to inform you that you need not worry about them any longer.”
“Pardon?” Morichi says.
Mel smiles. “Viktor is my friend. Please inform me if anybody tries to pressure you about his latest grant submission.”
They stare at her, defensiveness falling in favor of surprise.
“Have a safe trip home,” she says and begins walking away, leaving the professors in silence.
Behind her, Cadwalder says, “Thank you, Councilor.”
Mel reunites with Viktor in time for both of them to find Jayce threatening Ferros. There’s a small crowd of vultures lingering around the edges of the confrontation, but nothing enough to generate a scandal.
“A colleague who insisted on greeting me before they left?” Viktor quotes back at her as they happen upon the scene but don’t join it quite yet.
She says, “I have a prophecy: your latest grant application submission will be approved for the full amount.”
“You are a delight to work with,” Viktor says, and they clink glasses, sipping champagne to the background noise of Jayce verbally eviscerating a man. Mel is a little impressed Jayce didn’t just abandon all propriety and beat him up in an alley. He does get so protective over Viktor.
A scuffle draws them back towards Jayce, who's backed Ferros into a wall like a prey animal, one fist in his collar. Mel doesn't know exactly how Ferros put his foot in his mouth to provoke that kind of reaction from Jayce, but the buzz of victory and alcohol makes her feel generous enough to intervene. After a moment.
“Jayce,” she calls, ignoring the fact that Jayce is clearly threatening a man. “I hear you and Viktor are sharing a ride home?”
This is not true, but Jayce will never admit it. He jerks to attention like a well-trained herding dog with an automatic smile. Always quick on the uptake. “Yeah, sorry, V, you must be tired, I'll meet you outside in a minute, just finishing up some business.” He’d look almost charming and boyish if his fist wasn’t still in Ferros’ collar.
True to his word, he shows up a couple minutes after they reach the entrance. His smile is strained around the edges, and he grips Viktor’s shoulder as if reassuring himself that Viktor is solid.
She can hazard a guess about what Ferros said.
Jayce wraps an arm around Viktor as they head outside to the waiting carriages and helps him inside.
Behind Viktor, he makes eye contact with Mel. She nods an acknowledgement: a successful evening, and his smile turns victorious.
“Come, Jayce,” Viktor drawls, slouching into a seat and abandoning all semblance of manners. He rubs fingers over his face and leaves trails of concealer across his cheeks. He looks like he'll take his knife out and start swinging if one more person tries to talk to him. “Your prostitute beckons.”
Jayce barks a laugh as he alights the carriage, bidding Mel goodnight.
Yes, she would miss him dearly if he were to leave.