Work Text:
The thing about trying to kill yourself is that you start noticing all the things you’d miss. Not the people. Not the sweeping gestures or life-altering regrets. Just the tiny, dumb details.
The scent of freon curling beneath the bleachers. The hollow echo of skate blades carving into ice like a name you’re afraid to forget. That breathless, hanging second right before you land a jump and the world forgets how to fall apart.
Jayce Talis hasn’t skated in 147 days.
But he still comes here. Most mornings, just before sunrise. Climbs to the top bleacher like he’s surveying a holy ruin. One leg strapped in carbon and velcro. The other twitching with the echo of routines he used to run in his sleep. The ache is familiar now. A quiet, persistent hum beneath the ribs.
He used to own this place. The rink, the ice, the silence. It bowed beneath him like it was lucky to be chosen. Every jump was a threat, every spin a dare. He hadn’t realized how much of his sense of self came from the sound of applause.
Now the silence feels accusatory.
But still — he comes.
Today, though, there’s someone else on the ice.
A thin figure moves across the rink. Not fast, but not unsure either. The body is unfamiliar — angled in a way that suggests endurance rather than ease. The stride isn’t smooth. There’s a catch to the right leg, a delay that says: I’m here, even if it costs me.
Jayce watches, puzzled. He doesn’t know this person. Not really. But there’s something in the shape of the motion, the hunch of shoulders braced for impact, that tugs at memory. The skater is wearing an oversized hoodie, the sleeves bunched at the elbows. Jayce recognizes the brace. The gait. The cautious pause before starting.
And then he knows.
Viktor.
Engineering major. One of Heimerdinger’s favorites. The kind of guy who answers questions with better questions, who always seems like he’s already halfway through solving something you haven’t thought to ask.
Jayce’s first impression of him had been forgettable. Quiet, stiff, like he was trying to make himself smaller. But here — on the ice — he isn’t small. Every movement has weight. Not showy. Not smooth. But intentional.
He skates like someone who fought to be here.
Jayce leans forward, breath fogging against the plexiglass. He doesn’t mean to speak. Doesn’t plan it. The words come out before he can pull them back.
“Hey — how the hell are you doing that?”
Viktor startles. His head lifts, eyes narrowing. Thin, sharp features. Tired, maybe, but not weak. He skates to the wall and hooks one hand over the railing.
“I beg your pardon?”
Jayce flushes. Too loud. Too abrupt. He wasn’t trying to interrupt.
“I just meant — you’re skating. With a brace. I’ve seen you. In class. You walk with a cane.”
Viktor glances down at himself, then back at Jayce with a flicker of wry amusement.
“Yes. I do that. Sometimes.”
Jayce huffs out a laugh. Dry. Embarrassed. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be weird. I just… didn’t think it was possible. After—”
He doesn’t finish. Just gestures vaguely to his own leg. Steel. Screws. A daily reminder.
Viktor’s expression sobers. The amusement vanishes, but the look that replaces it isn’t pity. It’s... matter-of-fact.
“It’s possible,” Viktor says. “Difficult. But possible.”
The words hit harder than they should. Not dramatic. Not even kind. Just honest.
Jayce swallows. He wants to ask a dozen questions — how long did it take? Did it hurt? Are you scared every time you push off? — but he says none of them. Instead, he wraps his coat tighter and mutters, “Didn’t mean to yell. Just surprised me, that’s all.”
Viktor tilts his head. “You didn’t startle me. I just didn’t expect company.”
“Yeah,” Jayce says. “Me either.”
They fall into a pause. Not quite comfortable. But not strained, either. Jayce watches Viktor shift his weight, then push back into motion. It takes a second — his right leg doesn’t cooperate right away — but then he’s gliding again. Not with elegance. Not like a performer. But like someone who understands the rules of pain well enough to bend them.
Jayce can’t look away.
“You skate like you’re angry,” he blurts.
Viktor slows to a stop. Resting one hand on the rail. “I am. Most of the time.”
Jayce lets out a sharp breath. “Yeah. Same.”
There’s something quiet in the exchange. Not empathy exactly, but recognition. A kind of mutual understanding that doesn’t need to be named.
“I’m Jayce,” he adds, awkwardly.
“I know,” Viktor replies. “You were good.”
The word stings. Past tense. Jayce feels it settle like cold metal against his ribs.
“Not anymore.”
Viktor studies him, eyes thoughtful. “Not yet.”
Jayce blinks.
It should sound naive. It should feel like a hollow platitude. But it doesn’t. It sounds like data. Like a hypothesis he hasn’t been brave enough to test. He sits back, as if trying to make room for the feeling blooming uncomfortably in his chest.
He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good at not knowing.
“I didn’t think anyone else here—” He falters. Doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.
Viktor nods. Once. “If you ever want to try again… I usually come at six.”
“In the morning?”
Viktor’s mouth twitches. “The ice is emptier. Quieter. People don’t look at me the same when it’s quiet.”
Jayce nods, slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”
Viktor begins to skate again. It’s not showy. Just steady. Earned. Jayce watches until he can’t bear it.
Then, just before Viktor rounds the far side of the rink, Jayce calls out, “I’ll be here. Tomorrow.”
Viktor lifts a hand. Doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t promise anything.
But somehow, it feels like he already has.
Jayce lets the silence settle again. Cold breath curling in the air. The ache in his leg hasn’t gone away. But it feels smaller. Like it’s no longer the only thing he’s made of.
For the first time in 147 days, he doesn’t want to disappear.
Not today.
And maybe not tomorrow either.
The morning begins like most others: with the crackling pulse of his spine reminding him that sleep is a ceasefire, not peace. His bones don’t wake so much as resume — aching like old debts, stiffer than yesterday. He’s learned not to groan. That only makes it worse.
Instead, he lies still. Counts to twenty. Breathes through the drag of his right leg across the bedsheets, through the twitch and squirm of nerves trying to shout down movement. There’s no grace in getting out of bed with scoliosis and a twisted femur. Only repetition. Bracing. Ritual.
But today is not quite like most others.
Because today, Jayce might come back.
The thought bubbles up before he can shove it under. It's not reasonable. Not scientific. To think that one conversation — five minutes of mutual silences and halfway confessions — might compel Jayce to wake before dawn, brace his leg, and step back onto the ice.
But Viktor has always had a weakness for flawed hypotheses.
Especially ones with broad shoulders and a devastating smile.
He doesn't say it aloud. Hope is a noisy thing, and noisy things don’t last long on cold rinks and early mornings. He packs his skate bag in silence. Drinks his protein shake like it doesn’t taste like drywall. Wraps his brace tight around his shin until the leather binds him to his body again.
His cane clicks against the dorm stairwell as he descends. For once, he welcomes the sound.
By the time he reaches the rink, the sky is still gray with sleep. The air bites, and he lets it. Pain is anchoring. Pain means he’s still here.
Inside, the rink is hollow and humming, just the way he likes it. The lights stutter overhead, flickering like they haven’t yet decided whether to wake. He breathes in the cold and the faint whiff of ammonia from the locker room. Laces his skates — left one first, always, like a prayer.
And then the door creaks open.
Jayce stands in the entryway like a ghost half-summoned — sleep-creased hoodie, sweatpants pulled over his brace, curly hair half-flattened by slumber. He looks less like a champion and more like someone stumbling through the wreckage of their own myth.
Viktor doesn’t smile.
Much.
“You came,” he says, quiet under the hum of the fluorescents.
Jayce shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured I might as well do something stupid.”
It sparks something behind Viktor’s ribs. Not hope. Not yet.
Just — curiosity.
(Okay, fine. Hope.)
“I wasn’t sure you’d actually show.”
“I wasn’t either,” Jayce mutters. “Still deciding if this is the worst idea since… well.” His jaw clicks shut over whatever disaster he almost named.
Viktor nods once. “It’s only stupid if you let the ice win.”
Jayce huffs. “Didn’t know I was in a fight.”
“You’re always in a fight,” Viktor says lightly, and doesn’t add: You always have been. You just used to win more of them. He stands carefully and gestures to the boards. “Come on then. We’ll take it slow.”
Jayce gives him a dubious look. “We?”
Viktor lifts his cane. “You’re not the only one with a limp.”
That gets half a laugh, rough and reluctant. It breaks the ice between them more cleanly than their skates will.
They step on together. Jayce wobbles almost immediately.
Viktor reaches without thinking, steadying him at the elbow. He’s close enough to smell laundry detergent and the faint citrus of shampoo. Close enough to feel Jayce’s breath spike — not pain. Fear. The good kind. The kind that means he still wants things.
They start slow.
Not graceful. Just in tandem. Viktor keeps pace just ahead, blade carving soft, shallow turns. Jayce follows, uneven but trying.
Eventually, Viktor careens toward the exit, leaving Jayce hugging the wall, and returns with his secret weapon.
A poro-shaped skate aid.
Plastic. Ridiculous. The horns serve as handles, its belly rounded so it can slide ahead of an unsteady skater. Kids love it.
Jayce stares at it like it’s an insult.
“Is that a poro?”
“Yes,” Viktor says, deadpan. “The kids go crazy for it when they bring it out.”
Jayce's face contorts. “You want me to skate with a poro walker?”
“It’s not a walker. It’s an aid. Lots of people—”
“I’m not using a toddler’s ice scooter shaped like a glorified sheep.”
“He’s a magical creature of Freljord,” Viktor corrects. “He would be honored. And I thought it might help. With your balance.”
Jayce’s pride bristles so visibly Viktor could probably sketch it. “Thanks, but I’d rather fall.”
“You probably will.”
“Then I’ll fall with dignity.”
Viktor lifts his brows. “Suit yourself. Sir Tuftsalot is extremely disappointed.”
“I’m sure he’ll recover.”
But the corner of Jayce’s mouth is twitching like he’s suppressing a smile. Viktor lets the poro drift to the boards and they skate on.
Jayce says it without fanfare, after a long, breathless loop around the rink. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
No judgment. Just the shape of curiosity.
Viktor doesn’t flinch. “Femoral anteversion. Twisted femur, turns the foot in. That, and scoliosis. Spine does a sort of lazy river thing.” He tilts his head. “What about you?”
Jayce exhales, skates to a slow glide. “Ravine. Camping trip last August. I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak, took a wrong turn and—” He makes a plummeting motion with one hand. “Tumbled straight down. Shattered my whole lower leg and ripped open half my back on the way down. Missed my spine by about an inch.”
Viktor nods. Like he hasn’t already read every headline. Memorized the trajectory of every rumor. Jayce Talis, 2021 World Junior Silver Medalist. Jayce Talis, devoured by a fall too steep for cameras to follow.
“Lucky it didn’t paralyze me,” Jayce says after a pause, voice wry. “So that’s what everyone says. ‘Lucky.’ Like ‘career-ending injury’ sounds better if you survived it upright.”
He shrugs, but it’s all wrong — like it doesn’t sit right on his frame. “Still had to drag myself out. Screaming, freezing, trying to keep pressure on my leg while it bent the wrong direction. I passed out twice before someone found me. Don’t even remember the airlift.”
Viktor looks away so he doesn’t say too much with his face. Doesn’t let Jayce see how long he’s kept his name tucked in the back of his throat. Doesn’t say how many nights he stayed up watching grainy videos from old competitions, the way Jayce used to fly like physics didn’t apply.
“That’s a rough one,” Viktor says softly. “Must’ve been hell.”
Jayce hums, quiet and sharp. “Still is.”
They pass a line of rainbow cones. Jayce clips one and swears under his breath. Viktor watches him recover — strong arms, that soldier’s jaw — and keeps pace.
He doesn’t say: I’ve been watching you for years. Not like a fan. Not exactly. More like… a rival who lost the rivalry before it began.
He says instead, “Is this your first time back on the ice?”
Jayce nods.
“Then you’re doing better than you think.”
Jayce looks over. Not sure whether to believe it.
So Viktor offers more. “I’ve been skating with this leg since I could stand. There’s photographic evidence. I wore corduroy overalls and used to throw orthopedic sandals at my physical therapist.”
Jayce actually laughs. Low and real.
Viktor smiles back, unguarded. Honest.
“You think our pain’s the same?” Jayce asks, quieter now.
“No,” Viktor says. “Yours is new. Mine’s familiar. Doesn’t mean we can’t meet in the middle.”
Jayce just looks at him, eyes flickering.
And Viktor — God help him — says, “If you want, I can show you what I’ve figured out. How to fall. How to land. How to stay.”
Jayce doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at him, like he’s seeing something he wasn’t prepared to find.
“You’re incredible,” he says finally, voice low, like it might crack if it rose any higher.
Viktor’s cheeks go hot, but he doesn’t look away. “I’m persistent,” he corrects.
Jayce’s mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Persistent and incredible.”
The ice whispers beneath them. The cold no longer bites. Viktor skates ahead just a little, just enough to be followed, and calls over his shoulder, “Come on then. Lesson one: how not to eat shit on a crosscut.”
Jayce follows. Not perfectly. Not smoothly. But he follows.
And Viktor feels it in his chest — the giddy stretch of it, the place where admiration has bloomed into something more unruly, more fragile, more dangerous than he ever meant to let it become. He’s skating just ahead of Jayce now, but every sense is trained backward. He listens to the scrape and stutter of uncertain blades. The grunt when Jayce overcorrects. The soft curse when he nearly tumbles. Viktor doesn't laugh. He doesn’t dare.
He stops near the boards, turns neatly, and gestures for Jayce to come to him. “Okay. Crosscuts are your new religion,” he says. “Forget everything else. Plant your weight in the inside edge of your dominant foot and let the other cross over. Easy.”
Jayce raises an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s not going to destroy my knee.”
“Only if you do it wrong,” Viktor says, and for once, he lets himself grin. Not the polite curve he gives professors. Not the strained twist he gives medical staff when they ask how his pain is on a scale from one to ten. A real grin. Crooked. Stupid. His.
Jayce blinks at it like he wasn’t prepared.
“I can’t promise it’ll be smooth at first,” Viktor continues, nodding toward Jayce’s braced leg. “But you’ll get the hang of shifting weight off it. There’s tricks.”
“And you’re going to teach me all of them?”
“Of course,” Viktor replies, too fast, too much. He catches himself. Dials it back. “If you want.”
Jayce holds his gaze, something unreadable flickering behind the hazel. “Yeah. I do.”
Viktor just skates backward and beckons him again. “Okay, then. Let’s try again. And don’t lean with your shoulders. Lead with your hips.”
Jayce snorts, cheeks pink with exertion. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
Viktor shrugs. “I like a good puzzle.”
Jayce tries again. Fumbles again. But his laughter when he slips is breathy and real. And Viktor finds himself smiling for no one but him.
They skate until the lights flicker. Until the rink manager waves them out with exaggerated sighs and a scarf swallowed up to her nose. Viktor clutches his cane, waiting by the gate. Jayce, ever the perfectionist, pulls off his skates with a frown, already dissecting every wrong move like it’s a midterm exam.
“Same time tomorrow?” Jayce asks, not looking up.
Viktor’s heart stutters. “Yeah,” he says. “But fair warning — you’re going to feel like you got hit by a bus.”
Jayce huffs a low laugh, the kind that starts in his chest and spills out like he’s surprised to find it there. “Then I guess I’ll text you if I can’t move,” he says, tugging his hoodie over his head. Static clings to his hair as he fishes out his phone. “Here. What’s your number?”
Viktor blinks, halfway to reaching for his cane. “My — ah. Sure.”
He rattles it off. Jayce types it in slowly, deliberately, the way people do when their fingers are colder than they want to admit. He flashes the screen toward Viktor. “That you?”
Viktor nods, dry-mouthed.
Jayce sends a message: This is Jayce. The guy you’ll be dragging across the ice all week. Then pockets his phone with a shrug. “In case I’m too sore to stand. You know. For survival logistics.”
Viktor lifts a brow, hoisting his bag. “You will be sore.”
“I’m already sore,” Jayce mutters, laughing as he leans his weight against the door to push it open.
Outside, the night is brittle and breathless, their exhales fogging in soft white clouds. Campus is still winter-stunned — snow crusted in the corners of the lot, lamplight puddling gold across patches of ice.
“You bussing back?” Jayce asks, hands shoved in his pockets.
Viktor jerks his chin toward the dark bulk of a building just across the street. “Nah. Stillwater.”
Jayce stops. “Seriously? I’m in Bluewind.”
Viktor exhales sharply. “So we’ve been neighbors this whole time?”
Jayce raises a brow. “Guess I’ve been really unobservant.”
“Guess so,” Viktor echoes, a little too fast, a little too dry. “I’ve seen you around.”
Jayce doesn’t push. He just starts walking again, slower this time, like he doesn’t mind dragging it out.
“Well,” he says, “if you’re just across the street, you don’t even need to text. Flick your lights at me. Morse code.”
Viktor laughs — quick, sharp, real. It scrapes out of him like something he didn’t know he’d been holding in. “You are going to be sore tomorrow,” he says, adjusting his bag strap. “But no excuses. You don’t build tolerance by giving up every time something hurts. First time I skated in a rink, I thought my hips had dissolved.”
Jayce glances over. “And you just… kept going?”
Viktor shrugs. “It’s either that or let pain pick your whole life for you. I try not to give it the satisfaction.”
Jayce walks in silence a moment. His breath curls into the cold.
“I could stand to learn that,” he says finally. Then, with a crooked grin, bumps Viktor’s shoulder. “You better text me if you’re the one who can’t get out of bed tomorrow.”
“I never said hopeless,” Viktor says, raising an eyebrow. “Just tragic.”
Jayce chuckles. It’s warm. It lingers.
They reach the fork in the path — Stillwater to the left, Bluewind glowing to the right. Jayce lifts a hand, hesitating in the cold.
“See you tomorrow, Viktor.”
The way he says his name — soft, deliberate — burns behind Viktor’s ears.
Viktor lifts his cane in a mock salute. “Nine sharp. Or I start without you.”
It’s not until he’s halfway up the stairwell, sweat cooling at his collar, scarf damp from breath, that he realizes what he missed in the moment:
Jayce had called him persistent and incredible.
Jayce’s thighs scream every time he shifts. Each push across the ice feels like dragging a concrete block by the tendons in his lower back. But he keeps skating — because Viktor is, and because the rhythm of it, halting and clumsy as it is, stitches something quiet into the morning. Something that feels — if not easy — then at least survivable.
By the time noon drags itself toward them, they’re both red-cheeked and breathless. Viktor coasts to the gate and calls a break, bracing one hand on his knee, his cane standing like a sentinel by the bench.
Jayce peels himself off the ice like old wallpaper. His brace tugs stiffly, chilled through. Every joint is already promising revenge.
“We can meet back here after lunch,” Viktor says, breath fogging in the cold. “Two o’clock?”
“Yeah.” Jayce grunts as he fights with the latch on his skate. “That works.”
Viktor dips his head in a nod and starts the slow, practiced walk toward the exit, his cane clicking in time with his steps. He reaches the doors — but then pauses. Blinks back at Jayce, who’s still hunched on the bench, skate half-off, elbows on his knees like he’s holding himself together with gravity alone.
Jayce doesn’t look up. He’s not in any rush to move. Part of him hopes, quietly, that if he stays still long enough, the ache will just… swallow him. That the cold will settle deep enough to dull whatever else is lurking under the surface. That no one will notice if he simply forgets how to leave.
Viktor’s voice breaks the stillness, softer this time. “You good?”
Jayce forces a breath. Nods, eventually. “Yeah. Just… resting.”
“What are you doing for lunch?”
Jayce shrugs without looking up. “Dunno. Might skip. Or head back to the dorms. Make a sandwich or something.”
There’s a pause — long, but not uncomfortable. Then Viktor says, flat but not unkind, “You want to come with me?”
Jayce finally glances up. Viktor leans against the wall, his expression hard to read, the kind that seems to tug at the seams of what you say, searching for what you didn’t.
Jayce tries to deflect. “I don’t usually eat out much these days.”
Viktor lifts a brow. “Jayce Talis,” he says slowly, “are you avoiding restaurants because of your disability?”
Jayce blinks. “I — what? I mean, I wouldn’t put it like—”
“I can ask that,” Viktor cuts in, stepping closer. His cane taps lightly against the tile. “Because I’m also disabled. So. Are you?”
Jayce looks away. His shoulders pull in tighter. “It’s not a big deal. I just... people stare. Or ask questions.”
“You don’t have to answer,” Viktor says, calm as anything. “Or better yet, tell them to fuck off.”
Jayce exhales — more of a breath than a laugh. “You say that like it’s easy.”
“It’s not,” Viktor replies, easing down onto the bench beside him. The cane rests across his lap. “But it’s easier with someone next to you. And they’re less likely to stare if I’m there to glower back.”
Jayce glances sidelong. “You offering to be my personal glarer?”
Viktor smiles, crooked and unbothered. “Only if you buy lunch.”
That’s how they end up in line at Jericho’s, the narrow seafood joint that always smells like Old Bay and hot oil. The kind of place that soaks into your clothes.
Jayce hasn’t been here since before. Before the limp. Before the brace. Before he learned which kinds of pain quieted a room, and which made kids ask if he’d been in a war. The windows are still fogged with kitchen steam. The walls still cluttered with framed snapshots of regulars and retired fishermen, grinning behind cracked sunglasses. Nothing’s changed. And Viktor — Viktor acts like there’s nothing strange about any of it.
He’s just ahead in line, leaning slightly on his cane, pointing out the overpriced sides and which hushpuppies are worth regretting. Jayce listens, grateful and awkward, trying to remember what it felt like to be in public without running mental calculus on every movement, every exit, every expression.
“Try the catfish platter,” Viktor says. “It’s cheap, greasy, and will absolutely ruin your insides.”
Jayce lets one corner of his mouth lift. “Perfect.”
The cashier barely looks up when it’s their turn. Just chews her gum and waits. Jayce braces for it — her glance flicks to his leg, then Viktor’s cane, then back again. He stiffens.
Before the silence can settle, Viktor speaks. Dry and unapologetic: “Hey, we’re in a hurry. Can you speed this up before we both need to sit down permanently?”
The cashier blinks, then snorts. “Sure thing, sweetheart. What’ll it be?”
Jayce doesn’t say anything, just watches Viktor as they order. It isn’t disbelief. It’s something closer to wonder. Not because Viktor is sharp, but because his sharpness doesn’t cut indiscriminately. It shields.
They take a booth by the window. Viktor slides in with the ease of someone who’s done it a hundred times. Jayce follows with a quiet grunt, hands bracing the edge of the table, trying not to wince as he sits. By the time their food arrives, the tension that’s been soldered into his spine for months has already begun to loosen.
Outside, the dorms loom through the glass, blurred and wet with condensation. Inside, Viktor is dissecting a hushpuppy like it’s an art form. Jayce watches him tear off a strip of catfish with his fingers and eat it like he hasn’t just casually dismantled the whole fortress Jayce built around himself.
Across the table, Jayce chews slower than he needs to. Focuses on the salt, the texture, the rhythm of eating next to someone who doesn’t make him feel like an apology.
“You always eat like that?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as Viktor begins constructing some cursed sandwich monstrosity — fish, hushpuppies, pickles, no regard for the structural limits of the bun.
Viktor shrugs. “Like what?”
“Like someone who’s never had a self-conscious thought in their life.”
Viktor snorts and nearly chokes, then washes it down with water. “Please. I’ve got a bad leg and a spine shaped like a question mark. You think I survived middle school without emotional damage?”
Jayce smiles before he can stop himself. “You don’t act like it.”
“That’s because I stopped caring.” Viktor points a hushpuppy at him like a teacher with chalk. “You should try it. Very liberating.”
Jayce nudges a piece of fish around his plate. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t,” Viktor says. “But it gets easier if you pretend it is. Eventually, you trick yourself into believing it.”
Jayce falls quiet. Outside, past the fogged window, the sidewalk cracks split the concrete outside Ferros Hall. He remembers standing there the first night back from the hospital, brace tight around his leg, hands raw from gripping the rail too hard. Thinking how many ways there were to disappear. How none of them seemed loud enough to bother anyone.
Now it feels far. Not gone. Just distant enough to seem unreal.
He glances across the table. Viktor’s humming to himself, licking crumbs from his fingers, utterly unaware of the shift he’s caused. And Jayce, somehow, feels full for the first time in weeks. Not just from the food.
From being seen and not flinching.
“You know,” Jayce says slowly, “you’re not what I expected.”
Viktor quirks a brow. “Oh? What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” Jayce leans back, the vinyl seat creaking under him. “Something quieter. Someone who’d just nod and disappear after class.”
“Ah,” Viktor says, mock offense blooming in his voice. “You thought I’d be tragic.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, no. You thought I was one of those soft-spoken, brooding types. Staring out windows. Writing poetry about rust and winter.”
Jayce laughs — startled by it, like it got past his defenses. “Okay, maybe a little.”
Viktor smirks. “Sorry to disappoint. I’m neither tragic nor poetic. Just stubborn. Stubborn enough to fall on my ass a hundred times a week and still think figure skating is a good use of my time.”
There’s a beat. A hush. A shared, wordless understanding of what it takes to keep choosing this life — this version of movement and pain and grace. Jayce looks at him, really looks, and it lands hard: this sharp, clever boy with a crooked spine and something like hope tucked under every jab he makes.
Jayce hesitates, fingers tensing around the rim of his cup. “Can I ask you something kind of personal?”
Viktor gives him a look — dry, expectant. “You already have. Several times. But go on.”
Jayce huffs, then sobers. “What’s it like, I guess… adjusting, when your body suddenly can’t do what it used to?”
Viktor doesn’t answer right away. He sits back, thumb grazing the condensation ring left by his glass. The silence stretches — not sharp, just thoughtful.
“I was born this way,” he says at last. “But that doesn’t mean it’s always been the same. Some things get harder. Some stop altogether. It’s not just one adjustment — it’s a thousand tiny ones, all the time.”
Jayce listens, gaze fixed, afraid to breathe wrong and shatter the moment.
Viktor’s voice softens. “It’s not the loss of one ability that hurts. It’s the accumulation. The way people stop expecting things of you. The way you start bracing for their pity before they’ve even opened their mouths.” He glances up. “But you still get to choose how you move through it. Even if it looks different now.”
Jayce nods slowly, throat tight. “Yeah.”
“You’re allowed to be angry,” Viktor adds. “Or sad. Or completely gutted by it. But it doesn’t make you broken. Just… in progress.”
Jayce presses his tongue to his cheek, blinking a little too fast. “You ever think about becoming a therapist?”
Viktor smiles wryly. “God, no. I hate listening to people.”
Jayce laughs again, and this time, the sound stays — settling between them like warmth, like something that might keep.
They fall into silence. The comfortable kind. The kind that forms when two people realize they’ve stopped pretending. Outside, the sun starts to pierce the clouds. Inside, Jericho’s smells like grease and warmth and something strangely like belonging.
“I still think you’re a little tragic,” Jayce mutters.
Viktor throws a napkin at him. “And I think you’re more dramatic than I am.”
Jayce grins. “Probably.”
The lull that follows is neither awkward nor tense. They pick at the remains of their fries, half-soggy with condensation, and let the quiet stretch around them. Viktor’s water glass sweats a ring into the warped laminate table. Jayce’s knee taps beneath the booth — an uneven rhythm like he’s counting thoughts.
“So,” Jayce says finally, nudging his plate aside. “Any competitions coming up?”
Viktor stiffens, just barely. Not enough to notice — unless you’re already watching. And Jayce is.
“No,” Viktor says after a beat. “Not unless something changes. Figure skating still isn’t part of the Paralympics.”
Jayce blinks. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious.” Viktor shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but his mouth is drawn tight. “They’ve been ‘considering’ it for years. Not enough participants. Not enough interest. No money in it.”
Jayce folds his arms, trying not to scowl. “That’s bullshit.”
“You’re not wrong,” Viktor says. “But when are we ever the priority?”
Jayce doesn’t answer. Just glares at the sticky table like it’s complicit.
“I mostly skate for myself,” Viktor adds, quieter now. “Always have. I didn’t have teammates or a coach growing up. Just a crummy pair of skates and an outdoor rink with no rail.”
Jayce looks up. “You taught yourself?”
Viktor nods. “There were books. YouTube. A lot of falling down.”
“Jesus,” Jayce mutters. “That’s kind of badass.”
Viktor smirks faintly. “Why, thank you.”
Jayce fiddles with his straw. Then: “I never really… fit in with the team. Back when I was skating. I’m autistic, and that’s not exactly a social asset when you’re stuck in a locker room full of guys who think ‘team bonding’ means mocking whoever messes up their salchow. I’m either instantly social or I forget people exist. I sound like an asshole, don’t I?”
“Not at all,” Viktor says, his expression softening. “But that locker room dynamic? Yeah, that tracks.”
“They either wanted to hook up with me,” Jayce says dryly, “or assumed I should be hanging out with the hockey players. You know, because I’m built like a refrigerator.”
“You forgot ‘handsome,’” Viktor says, deadpan.
Jayce stares.
Viktor blinks innocently. “What? I’m just being thorough.”
Jayce clears his throat and looks away, ears pink. Viktor doesn’t press. Just sips his lukewarm lemonade and waits.
“There are groups, you know,” he offers after a moment. “For disabled skaters. Some are even local.”
Jayce perks up. “Yeah? Why aren’t you in one?”
Viktor hesitates. “Because… I’m antisocial?”
Jayce gapes. “You? No. Never would’ve guessed.”
“I mean it,” Viktor says, smirking. “I get overwhelmed. I hate group chats. I only have three people in my phone and one of them is my pharmacist. And you’re one of the other two.”
Jayce folds his arms. “You need one of those stupid shirts. You know — ‘Anti Social Social Club.’”
Viktor groans. “Please. I beg you.”
“Or better,” Jayce says, grinning now, “a black tee that says ‘Normal People Scare Me’ in Helvetica. Very 2012 Tumblr.”
Viktor stares at him in mock horror. “That’s the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Jayce laughs, loud and warm, and Viktor laughs too — startled by how easily it comes. It bubbles up, bright and breathless, leaving him blinking in its wake, off-balance in a way that has nothing to do with skating.
The windows of Jericho’s are fogged with warmth. Someone behind the counter is arguing about tartar sauce. But in their booth, time moves differently. Slower. Gentler.
“You think we could try one of those groups?” Jayce asks eventually, voice quieter now.
“I think,” Viktor says, “we could try a lot of things. Together.”
Jayce nods. Not like he’s made a decision. More like he’s found a reason to.
“Okay,” he says. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll wear one of those ‘normal people scare me’ shirts with you in solidarity.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Viktor grimaces.
Two weeks later, and it’s already dusk when they get there — the sky gone soft with lilac smog, the rink’s windows lit up like a birthday cake left too long in the dark.
Jayce is talking. Something about how he used to do warmups before competitions, how weird it feels to walk into a rink without the nerves of solo performance, how good it’ll be to get Viktor “out of his own head for once.” Viktor hears all of it — every word — and files it away in a little anxious drawer marked ignore until later.
Because right now, his stomach is in knots.
The sign by the parking lot reads: Blades of Courage – Saturday Night Open Ice!
Beneath it, in thick marker, someone’s scrawled: All skill levels welcome. Disability-positive space. Come move with us!
It sounds friendly. Earnest. Maybe a little too sincere.
Jayce is practically buzzing beside him, adjusting his jacket and sneaking glances like he’s afraid Viktor might bolt. Viktor doesn’t. Bolting would require turning around, and his knees have already locked into place.
“Why are we doing this again?” he questions lowly.
“Because I’m very charming,” Jayce says, nudging him lightly. “And I said I’d wear one of those shirts with you if it didn’t work out.”
Viktor snorts under his breath, but it doesn't dislodge the pressure in his ribs. He glances through the glass doors. The lobby’s crowded — more than he expected. Not just college kids or sleek athletes. There’s a man in a retro puff vest carefully lacing up beside a teenager in a neon green wheelchair with ribbon streamers fluttering off the push rims. A kid zips past the windows in a metallic gold prosthetic skate boot, arms stretched out like they’re testing the theory of flight. Near the rental counter, a woman with oxygen tubing looped behind her ears leans over a sledge, showing a younger skater how to adjust the handles.
It’s not just movement. It’s joy.
Unrestrained, unabashed joy.
And Viktor has no idea what to do with that.
Jayce looks over, more serious now. “We can just watch,” he offers gently. “If you’re not feeling it. No pressure.”
Viktor hesitates. He’s already holding his skate brace in one hand, cane looped over his wrist. The familiar bones of his discomfort are pressing in hard tonight, jabbing at his temples and the back of his throat. He’s not a joiner. Never has been. He doesn’t know what people do with him in spaces like this — whether they’ll stare or ask questions, or worse, pretend like they already know who he’s supposed to be.
But Jayce is watching him like he trusts him to decide. Like he won’t think less of him either way.
And that trust makes something uncoil, just slightly.
“Alright,” Viktor murmurs. “Let’s give them a chance.”
Jayce beams. “That’s the spirit.”
The cold hits hard when they step inside. It smells like Zamboni water and old rubber mats and the faint stink of nachos topped with pork or jalapeños. There’s laughter bouncing off the high ceilings, music that’s a little too loud, and out on the ice, someone shouts, “Try again! You’ve got it, Isha!”
Viktor’s pulse thuds against his collarbone. He shrugs on his jacket and sets his cane down, starting the ritual of tightening his brace and adjusting the fit of his boots.
Jayce crouches to help without being asked. It’s not the first time, but it still makes Viktor go still — the easy way Jayce’s fingers check each strap, double-knot the laces. Like it’s second nature. Like this has always been their routine.
“There,” Jayce says as he stands. “Now we match.”
They do. Both of them braced up, scarred, and unbalanced.
It shouldn’t be a comfort. But it is.
“C’mon,” Jayce says, shouldering his bag. “Let’s go find the corniest people on ice.”
Viktor exhales once, slow and steady, and steps with him toward the cold.
And it’s stupid, but he feels it in his chest — the ache of something starting.
Something moving.
Something like a yes.
The rink is a riot of sound and color — wheelchairs with neon tape curling behind them like comet tails, skate sleds gliding low and fast across the ice, braces and orthotics peeking out from beneath leggings patterned with stars and snowflakes. There’s a man in a bright vest gently pushing a young skater in a gait trainer. A pair of teens with cochlear implants bop along to the beat of the music, one signing lyrics while the other spins clumsily in time.
Near the benches, a sign lists what’s available for loan: adaptive sledges, PVC walkers with skate blades, wrist guards, helmets, backup braces, extra-wide skates in half sizes. Next to it, another sign reads: “If you need something that isn’t here, tell us and we’ll try to get it by our next meet.”
Viktor skates mostly in silence. He always has. The clamor of voices and music scrapes raw against his nerves. But Jayce, beside him, doesn’t seem to mind it as much — and more importantly, he sticks close. Their little bubble of two holds firm.
They skate in wide, steady arcs near the edge of the rink, nodding politely when someone waves, but not quite ready to merge. Whether that’s shyness or pride or sheer stubbornness, Viktor doesn’t know.
Jayce talks less than usual, but his skating is smoother tonight, more confident. He lets his brace drag less on the crosscuts. Viktor notices. Doesn’t say anything.
The air smells like old popcorn and ice polish. The music pulses under Viktor’s ribs, synthetic and tinny. He’s mid-glide when he notices her.
A small girl in a thick, glittery purple coat stands near the rink’s edge, arms rigid at her sides. Her blue hair is done up in two poofy buns and her skates — clearly borrowed — are a bit too big, padded out with bulky socks. Her eyes are wide, locked straight ahead. There’s a laminated sign clipped to her collar that says ISHA in bright block letters.
Then, without warning, she moves.
No build-up. No prep. Just a sudden tilt forward and she’s skating — sort of — her legs pumping unevenly, coat flaring behind her like a cape.
Viktor doesn’t have time to react. But Jayce does.
“Hey, whoa!”
He lunges, full speed, arms out. Catches her a second before she hits the ice. It’s not elegant — clumsy and frantic, Jayce nearly loses his own balance — but he lands on his knees with a wince and a sharp intake of air, pulling her upright against his chest.
Isha blinks up at him, her breath sharp through her nose. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t smile. But she clutches the front of his coat in one small fist and gives a solemn, deliberate nod.
“I got you,” Jayce says, still kneeling. “You okay?”
She nods again. Then taps his sleeve twice, with purpose.
By the time Viktor makes it over, Jayce is cross-legged on the ice, adjusting the velcro on her brace. Isha’s hand rests steady on his knee.
“She’s alright,” Jayce murmurs. “Just… eager.”
Viktor crouches beside them. “That was brave,” he says softly to her. “Very fast.”
She doesn’t answer, but her lips twitch, fighting a smile.
From across the rink, two young adults come hurrying over. The man — bleached braids pulled into a neat bun, combat boots clomping against the rubber mat — skids to a stop. A nametag clipped to his jacket reads EKKO in the same bright block letters as Isha’s.
“God, is she okay? I told her not to run off — Jinx, I told you—”
“I thought she was still tying her laces,” says the lanky woman beside him, half-apologetic, half-panicked.
“She’s fine,” Jayce says quickly. “No harm done. Brave little rocket.”
“She does that,” Ekko sighs. “Sorry — she’s mostly nonverbal. We try to keep her near the boards, but…” He shrugs, frazzled but fond. “I’m Ekko. This is Jinx. We’re Isha’s parents.”
Jayce stands and dusts off his pants. “Jayce. This is Viktor. We’re new.”
“Well,” Jinx says, smiling like she means it, “you’re part of the group now. It’s the rule. If Isha doesn’t scream at you for touching her skates, you’re in.”
Jayce laughs. “She’s got high standards.”
“She’s the boss,” Ekko says. “We’re just the ride home.”
After that, something shifts.
Jinx ropes them into a warm-up train. Ekko shows Viktor where the extra gloves are stashed and which snack bar not to trust. Viktor finds himself in a lazy spiral near the center of the rink while Isha shadows his path like a satellite. She never speaks, but she mimics his posture with laser precision. It makes something tight in his chest unravel.
Jayce tries out awkward pirouettes with an older skater in a sledge. Someone puts on an ABBA remix. The lights overhead spin low and slow across the ice.
Viktor’s legs ache. His brace pinches. His head’s still too full of noise.
But for once, it’s the kind of noise he might learn to live with.
On the way back to the university, the car is quiet.
Not the heavy kind. Not the awkward kind. The kind that sinks in deep when something good has happened and no one wants to break the spell by naming it aloud. Outside, the town is soft with early spring dark — trees still skeletal, streetlights smeared across rain-slick pavement. Puddles glint like old coins. Everything is quiet except the hum of the tires and the ghost of music still ringing in their ears.
Jayce drives with one hand on the wheel, his left leg braced out slightly in that crooked angle he’s still adjusting to. Every stop and start is deliberate — careful and practiced, like the control it takes to land a jump without shattering your knees on the landing.
“Driving’s still weird,” he says eventually, his voice rough from cold air and too much laughter. “Took me forever to figure out how to keep the brace from catching. Reverse is hell.”
Viktor turns his head just enough to watch him. “You’re getting good at compensating.”
“I’m getting loud at swearing,” Jayce mutters, then cracks a grin. “But hey, I’ll take what I can get. That handicap placard? Best thing I own.”
“That’s the only reason you invited me, isn’t it?” Viktor deadpans. “Skate buddy-slash-disabled-parking-accomplice.”
Jayce laughs, warm and full. “Obviously. You're my ultimate disability lifehack.”
Viktor snorts. “I’ll ‘lifehack’ your kneecaps.”
Jayce just beams wider. “That’s not very community-minded of you.”
They fall into silence again — easy, open. Not needing to fill it. The streetlights slip over their faces in passing streaks. Viktor leans his temple to the window. The glass is cold, and the ache in his muscles feels clean, earned. A good ache. The kind that says you moved, you tried, you didn’t sit this one out.
Beside him, Jayce exhales, a sound that seems to unspool from deep in his chest.
“I didn’t think it’d feel this good,” he says quietly. “I thought going back would just… remind me of everything I lost.”
Viktor watches his reflection in the window — Jayce’s jawline cut soft by sodium light, the shape of his brace outlined beneath the hem of his hoodie. There’d been a time, not long ago, when Jayce looked untouchable. Sharp suits. Gold medals. His name carved into campus buildings. But tonight, he’s real in a way Viktor hadn’t expected. Messy and flawed and still choosing joy anyway.
“I don’t think you lost anything,” Viktor says at last. “I think maybe it just took a different shape. Had to be rearranged.”
Jayce hums, low in his throat. Not quite agreement, but not denial either.
“Did I ever tell you I didn’t talk much as a kid?” he says suddenly.
Viktor blinks. “No?”
“Yeah.” Jayce flexes his fingers on the steering wheel. “Not really nonverbal, but I barely spoke until third grade. My mom used to say I was quiet because I was thinking too hard. But I think it was the year after my dad died. I don’t really remember that part of it. Just that talking felt… heavy. Like it didn’t matter.” He lets that sit a moment. Then glances at Viktor, almost sheepish. “I guess I saw a bit of that in Isha. Just — being in the room and not needing to say anything. And still being in it, you know? Still mattering.”
Viktor nods, slow and thoughtful. “She liked you.”
“She didn’t scream,” Jayce says, smiling. “Apparently that’s high praise.”
Then he goes quiet again. This time, not the soft silence from before, but something more unsettled.
“I think I’ve been avoiding stuff like this,” he admits. “Not just skating. The people. The—” He gestures vaguely, like the word disabled still catches somewhere between his teeth. “Everyone tonight. I’ve been pretending I’m not... in it. That I’m just passing through until I get fixed.”
He laughs, but it’s thin. “Which is stupid, right? I mean, I was all over the local and sports news for weeks after the accident, and I still felt like showing up tonight was crashing someone else’s party. Like any second someone was gonna point at me and say I didn’t belong. Fuck, I even helped plan the accessibility renovations for campus because my mother’s got a partial hand prosthetic and I care.”
Viktor doesn’t answer right away. He lets the words settle, heavy and familiar. Watches Jayce’s thumb pressing again and again into the steering wheel leather— like he’s trying to work loose a knot he doesn’t quite have the name for.
“It’s not stupid,” Viktor says finally. “It’s just honest. You can’t feel part of something you haven’t accepted in yourself yet.”
Jayce glances over, wary. Waiting.
“It takes time,” Viktor continues, quieter now. “To admit you’ve changed. To stop waiting for your body to go back to how it was. And even more time to believe you still deserve space in a room you weren’t in before.”
Jayce looks back toward the windshield. Blinks once.
“Is that what you did?” he asks.
Viktor lifts one shoulder. “I told you — I was born like this. And still, somehow, I’m still doing it. Even though I’ve been disabled my whole life, I wake up every day and feel like I have to prove to someone I’m not faking it. Sometimes even to other disabled people.”
Jayce doesn’t respond. But he’s listening in that way Viktor has learned to recognize — the still, deep kind.
By the time they pull up to the dorms — mirror buildings across from one another, like a pair of mismatched bookends — the tension in Jayce’s shoulders has gone soft. He eases the car into the nearest accessible spot and cuts the engine.
“You know,” he says, glancing over, “we’ve got that Heimerdinger lecture tomorrow. We could walk over together. If you want.”
Viktor gives a tired, sideways smile. “I’m starting to think you might enjoy my company.”
“Never,” Jayce says, grinning, and nudges him lightly with his elbow.
There’s a pause, easy and companionable. The kind that doesn’t ask for filler.
Then Viktor says, “So. Your mom’s got a prosthetic hand?”
“A partial,” Jayce corrects, bending to adjust his brace strap with practiced hands. “I helped with the wiring. Would you believe me if I said she lost the fingers on a camping trip? Maybe the Talis family isn’t meant for the outdoors.”
They both laugh, and it’s not forced. It’s the kind that lingers, warm as breath on cold glass.
They’re practicing cross-grabs again, Viktor’s idea. Something about challenging their balance and core alignment — Jayce had half-teased him for sounding like an overpaid coach, but truthfully, he likes how precise it feels. Like choreography for two people who shouldn’t move in sync and yet somehow do.
The rink’s mostly empty, just them and one kid practicing slaloms in a sled near the far wall. A pop remix of something orchestral plays over the speakers, warbling a little in the rafters. Cold air swirls down from the ceiling vents in steady breaths. Jayce adjusts his stance and glides backward, arms wide.
“Okay — left grab,” Viktor calls from across the circle, skating forward into the curve.
Jayce twists, reaches for Viktor’s arm, and for a moment they’re connected by nothing but muscle memory and the shared resistance of their braces catching against the push.
It’s not perfect. Jayce wobbles on the landing, skates catching just shy of parallel. Viktor pulls him upright with a muttered “got you,” and they drift to a slow stop near the boards, chests heaving.
Jayce grins, breathless. “You’ve got some sneaky upper body strength, you know that?”
They stand there catching their breath, leaning against the rail. Viktor takes a slow sip from his water bottle, watching the kid in the sled try a turn.
Jayce clears his throat. “Hey, so — totally random — but I’ve been looking into something.”
Viktor glances over.
“Paralympics stuff,” Jayce says. “Why skating isn’t in it. It doesn’t make any sense — there are adaptive leagues in Canada, parts of Scandinavia… and after everything we saw at the community night? I mean, there’s a whole ecosystem here. People skating in braces, prosthetics, sleds — it’s real. It’s just not recognized.”
Viktor tilts his head, listening.
“I think we could push it,” Jayce says. “Get some traction. Public interest. Maybe even a campaign. I know people from when I competed — sports writers, activists, the guy who does press for that amputee bobsled team.”
A pause.
Jayce shifts his weight. “I don’t know. I guess I just... I want it to count for something. Y’know? All this.”
Viktor’s expression softens, the way it does when he’s weighing kindness against truth. “It would be nice,” he says. “To be seen like that.”
Jayce exhales, hopeful.
“But not everything has to be a competition,” Viktor adds, voice quieter. “Not everything needs an audience to matter.”
Jayce goes still.
Not because he disagrees — but because he’s not sure he knows how to live like that.
He’s been skating since he was twelve, competing since not long after. His whole life shaped around routines and scores, clean lines and cleaner reputations. Being watched. Being ranked. Being worth something only when it came with a medal attached.
Without it… what’s left?
Jayce leans back against the rail and looks out over the ice.
“I don’t know who I am,” he says quietly, surprising even himself. “Without it. Without the next thing to prove.”
Viktor skates over, slower now. His strides are uneven, a little stiff, but sure. He rests his forearms on the rail beside Jayce, looking out at the empty rink.
“I think,” Viktor says, “you’re still someone. Even without the gold medal version.”
Jayce swallows. It burns on the way down. “I miss being good.”
“You are good,” Viktor says. “You just changed the definition.”
Jayce leans his head back, stares at the ceiling like it might offer some kind of answer. The lights hum above them. The world keeps being ordinary.
He exhales, slow. “You think skating just for fun is enough?”
“For some people,” Viktor says. “It’s the only kind that ever was.”
Jayce lets that settle. Lets the silence hum around it. And maybe he doesn’t have to have the answer tonight. Maybe it’s enough to be out here. Blades on ice. Someone beside him who doesn’t need him to be anything but what he is.
Viktor shifts beside him, his fingers tapping against the boards in a slow, unconscious rhythm. He’s quiet for a long while, the kind of quiet that means he’s thinking — gears turning behind his eyes even as the rest of him seems still.
“It wouldn’t hurt,” he says finally, “to bring it up with the group. The committee’s mostly local. A few regional reps. They like the idea of legacy. Of stories.” His mouth quirks at the corner. “You’re a damn good story.”
Jayce scoffs, half-laughs. “That a compliment or a sales pitch?”
“Both,” Viktor says dryly. “You’re an elite athlete who nearly died, clawed your way back to the ice with a brace and a bad attitude, and you’ll be skating better than half the able-bodied showboats out there in no time. They’ll eat that up. Businessmen love a narrative that makes them feel charitable.”
Jayce hums, eyes still on the ice. “Wouldn’t be able to do it without you.”
Viktor tilts his head, brows arching. “What, you need a translator for your tragic origin story?”
Jayce laughs again, this time fuller. “No. I mean — this. I wouldn’t be back on the ice at all if it weren’t for you. You pushed me. You challenged me. You kept showing up even when I was a moody bastard about it.”
Viktor shrugs, not quite brushing it off. “And now I’ve been tricked into a motivational support role.”
“You’re my partner,” Jayce says, looking at him now. Serious, but not too heavy. “Like it or not.”
Viktor turns to face him fully, eyes narrowed like he’s inspecting a suspicious label on a tin of soup. “When did I agree to that?”
Jayce grins, leans back on his heels. “You can’t deny we’ve got good chemistry on skates.”
Viktor rolls his eyes. “God help me, you sound like a Piltie romance drama.”
Jayce just nudges him lightly with one elbow. “You didn’t say no.”
Viktor huffs, the ghost of a smile curling at his lips. “Fine. But I’m not wearing matching costumes.”
Jayce snorts. “You say that now. Wait until you see the sequins.”
They push off the boards together, skating back toward the center of the rink — not with the fierce momentum of training drills, but with the ease of movement for movement’s sake. No coach. No clipboard. No countdown. Just them. Still here. Still moving. Still making space.
The library is too warm. The kind of low, static heat that settles in with early spring and the half-hearted hum of ventilation, only made worse by the radiator’s stubborn ticking beneath the windows. Viktor sits curled into one of the study carrels near the back, knees drawn up, fingers drumming absently against the open pages of a book so dense with diagrams it might as well be written in blood.
Capacitor modulation in triple redundancy systems. Thrilling.
He tugs his hoodie sleeves down to his knuckles, blinking slow. Heimerdinger’s lectures always come with optional “suggested reading,” which really means “required if you want to survive the exam without crying.” Viktor has every intention of surviving, but his brain is starting to feel like someone’s poured wet sand into it and asked it to do algebra.
His phone buzzes against the desk.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:45 PM
Person A: you look like you just sucked on a lemon
Viktor frowns. Glances around the stacks, cautious. The library is quiet. Students hunched over laptops. Someone asleep on a beanbag in the corner. No sign of Jayce.
Another buzz.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:46 PM
Person A: you look like you just sucked on a lemon
Person B: seriously. full lemon. lips puckered and everything
Viktor lifts his gaze — slowly — and there he is.
Jayce leans over the second-floor railing like some smug academic gargoyle, half-lit by the skylight and grinning down at him like he’s just won something. His hoodie is half unzipped, hair a mess from wind or sleep or both.
Viktor doesn’t dignify him with a wave. Just rolls his eyes and picks up his phone.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:46 PM
Person A: you look like you just sucked on a lemon
Person A: seriously. full lemon. lips puckered and everything
Person B: Don’t you have something better to do
Person A: nah
Person A: mama taught me young to finish all my classwork the second it was assigned to me lol
Person A: seems like someone else would’ve benefitted from that lesson
Viktor sighs. Jayce starts making exaggerated lemon-pucker faces from above, shamelessly juvenile. Viktor pointedly opens his book back up, shielding his face with it like a makeshift wall.
He texts without looking.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:48 PM
Person A: you look like you just sucked on a lemon
Person A: seriously. full lemon. lips puckered and everything
Person B: Don’t you have something better to do
Person A: nah
Person A: mama taught me young to finish all my classwork the second it was assigned to me lol
Person A: seems like someone else would’ve benefitted from that lesson
Person B: I hope you fall.
Person A: i’ll happily fall
Person A: but only if you catch me
Viktor stares at the words a beat too long.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:49 PM
Person A: talked to the team about the paralympics thing btw
Person A: coach was actually interested??
Person A: idk how far it’ll go but she said she’d pass it up the chain
Person A: been on the same ice with half of them for years and i can name maybe 1.5 of them
Person A: i was always too busy chasing scores to notice anyone else
Person A: are you seriously pretending to ignore me when i can see you reading my texts lmao
Viktor sits up a little straighter. Tilts the phone back in his palm. Jayce’s words hang heavy in the space between them, even from a floor apart.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:49 PM
Person A: talked to the team about the paralympics thing btw
Person A: coach was actually interested??
Person A: idk how far it’ll go but she said she’d pass it up the chain
Person A: been on the same ice with half of them for years and i can name maybe 1.5 of them
Person A: i was always too busy chasing scores to notice anyone else
Person A: are you seriously pretending to ignore me when i can see you reading my texts lmao
Person B: 1.5?
Person B: yeah one of the girls is pregnant
Viktor snorts, too sudden, loud enough that someone shushes him from two rows over.
Jayce sees it, clearly. Grins wider from above.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:50 PM
Person A: you laughed
Person A: i win
Person A: Is everything a competition with you?
Person A: I’m filing a restraining order
Person A: too late lol we’re legally skating partners so you’re stuck with me
Person A: you signed with your soul over when you let me hold your waist on the turn last week
Person B: You are so annoying
Person B: and yet you keep responding
And he’s right. Viktor is still responding. He’s still here — book open, muscles aching from yesterday’s practice, and somehow lighter in spite of it. Even with Jayce leering at him like a gargoyle.
He types slowly, then hits send.
jayce t.
Fri, 17 Feb 12:50 PM
Person A: you laughed
Person A: i win
Person A: Is everything a competition with you?
Person A: I’m filing a restraining order
Person A: too late lol we’re legally skating partners so you’re stuck with me
Person A: you signed with your soul over when you let me hold your waist on the turn last week
Person B: You are so annoying
Person B: and yet you keep responding
Person B: Tell Coach I said good luck convincing the IOC
Person B: want to grab dinner together before practice tonight?
Person B: I guess. If I have to
Jayce’s typing bubble flashes again, but Viktor’s already smiling before the next reply comes in.
Jayce waits outside Viktor’s dorm with his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, the morning air prickling sharp against his cheeks. The sidewalk is still damp from a half-hearted rain last night, the sun barely cresting the library dome across the quad. He rocks slightly on his heels, not because he’s cold — though he is — but because waiting for Viktor has become his favorite part of the day. There’s something grounding about it, like clocking into a job he wants to be good at. They’ve been doing this for a month and a half now and, somehow, Jayce doesn’t think he could live without it.
Viktor appears at last, cane in one hand, messenger bag slung low across his back. His gait is stiff this morning — stiffer than usual — but his face lights up when he sees Jayce.
“You’re early,” he says, voice still sandpapery from sleep.
Jayce shrugs. “You always say that like I’m not supposed to be.”
“You’re not.” Viktor grins. “But I suppose I’ve stopped minding.”
They fall into step together, their strides mismatched but comfortable, the silence companionable. Jayce doesn’t mind slowing down. Viktor doesn’t mind when Jayce walks with a rhythm that lurches, especially today — he forgot to loosen the bottom strap on his brace last night and his calf is paying the price. But Viktor just tips his head toward Jayce’s foot with an inquisitive eyebrow, and Jayce nods like, yeah, I know.
Heimerdinger’s lecture is across campus, and for once Jayce doesn’t dread the stairs. They take the long way, the smooth ramped path around the planetarium, and Jayce doesn’t notice his leg as much when Viktor is next to him, pointing out birds on the sculpture garden roof and bitching about how none of the benches are shaded correctly.
“We’ll have a guest today,” Viktor says suddenly, as they approach the science building.
Jayce glances over, not liking the twinge of disappointment that hums low in his chest. “Guest?”
“My friend Sky. She’s from Zaun too. We used to steal change out of broken meters together.”
Jayce huffs a laugh, trying not to frown. “Sounds charming.”
“She is,” Viktor says, with a fondness that does not help the weird squeeze in Jayce’s chest. “You’ll like her.”
Sky is already outside the lecture hall when they arrive, sitting on the rail with her feet kicking rhythmically. She’s petite and dressed in a long skirt and a gray hoodie, curls tightly held back by a colorful scrunchie. She hops down when she sees them and gives Viktor a quick hug, eyes flicking curiously to Jayce behind her glasses.
“This him?”
Jayce’s eyes widen slightly. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. I’ve been hearing about some guy who skates like a baby moose. I assume that’s you.”
Viktor coughs, eyes skyward. “That was meant to be flattering, actually.”
Jayce forces a smile. “I’m honored.”
Sky grins. “You should be. I grew up watching your competitions. I had your ‘21 Regionals program saved on my phone until it died.”
That takes Jayce off guard. The words land too fast for him to catalog properly, so he just stammers a “Thanks,” unsure whether to be flattered or alarmed.
“We’ll have to skate together sometime,” Sky adds, nudging Viktor with her shoulder. “I still remember how to land a double axel — probably.”
Jayce stiffens. It’s not rational, he knows that. The meet-ups at the community rink are one thing, but skating with Viktor has become their thing. Quiet, private, and fiercely theirs. Sky’s suggestion crashes through the fragile scaffolding of Jayce’s routines and expectations like a badly aimed toe pick. He opens his mouth to object — but the lecture doors open and the flood of students drowns the moment.
They file into the hall and take seats near the middle. Viktor ends up between them, his bag tucked beneath his feet. Sky leans in close to murmur something and Viktor chuckles under his breath. Jayce tries not to listen. The words aren’t for him. He stares straight ahead and focuses on keeping his leg from bouncing.
Heimerdinger starts speaking. Something about thermodynamic paradoxes and entropy models, but Jayce’s mind is full of static. Sky’s laughter, soft and familiar. Viktor’s hand brushing hers to pass a page of notes. Jayce clenches his jaw and grips his pen too tightly.
Viktor glances his way eventually. Slips him a folded piece of paper without comment. Jayce unfolds it under the table.
You okay?
He doesn’t answer at first. Then, finally, scrawls back:
Does she skate with you?
Viktor reads it, lifts one brow in a way that makes Jayce feel immediately transparent. He scribbles his reply.
Jealousy doesn’t suit you.
Jayce huffs. Underlines doesn’t three times. Slides the paper back. It’s petty. He knows it. But the idea of someone else — even a childhood friend — slipping so easily into something Jayce has only just begun to cherish makes him nauseous.
Viktor reads, bites his lip like he’s trying not to smile, and passes the note back one last time.
Relax, Jayce. It’s still just you I want on the ice.
Jayce can’t focus the rest of the lecture. Not on entropy. Not on paradoxes. Only on the faint curl of warmth blooming in his chest and the way Viktor’s handwriting loops when he’s being sincere.
Jayce reads that last note three times. Once too fast, like he’s afraid the words might vanish if he blinks. Once again, slower, taking in the small curve of the J in “just,” the steady line of you. And a third time, because his brain, ever-wired for overanalysis, demands confirmation: It’s still just you I want on the ice.
He tucks the paper into the back of his notebook with all the care of a sacred relic. Viktor doesn’t look at him after that — just faces forward, flipping a page like nothing happened, like he hasn’t just reset Jayce’s heartbeat with one sentence.
The lecture rolls on. Heimerdinger’s voice dips and drones through heat conductivity and entropy decay curves, but Jayce only half-hears him. Sky stops whispering eventually. Maybe she notices the shift in the air, the narrowing of Viktor’s attention. Or maybe she’s just taking actual notes. Either way, the room feels stiller. More balanced. Jayce sits a little straighter.
When the lecture finally ends and students begin gathering bags and pulling on coats, Viktor stands slowly, stretching out his spine with a soft grunt. Jayce watches him from the corner of his eye, still trying to work up the nerve to say anything.
Sky loops her bag over her shoulder. “You two heading to the lab?”
Jayce opens his mouth, but Viktor speaks first. “Not today. We’re heading to the rink later.”
Something loosens in Jayce’s chest at we.
Sky raises a brow, but smiles. “Well, don’t break anything. Don’t want to end up like me.”
She makes a quick gesture at her face then, tapping two fingers near the corner of her eye, and it’s only then — maybe because of the angle or the light or the way she isn’t performing anymore — that Jayce sees it. Behind the rounded lenses of her glasses, one eye doesn’t quite track the same as the other. A lazy drift, subtle but unmistakable. There’s also a small, silvery scar carved through her left eyebrow, faint but permanent. He hadn’t noticed it before.
Sports injury, he thinks automatically. The kind you don’t brag about. Maybe from skating, if her words mean what he thinks they mean.
A flicker of guilt grips him. For the way he’s been glaring holes through her all class whenever Viktor leaned back or forward too far, the way his stomach tightened when she sat beside Viktor like she belonged there. She probably does belong there, more than he does. They’ve likely known each other since long before he ever limped into Viktor’s orbit. Kids from the same part of the city, both disabled, probably finding whatever community they could in the cracked alleys and after-school programs of Zaun. She’d been in his seat long before he was.
And still, none of that makes the jealousy ebb. He hates how small it makes him feel.
“Bye, Jayce,” Sky says, offering him a wave. “Hope you find your moose legs again.”
He manages a laugh. “Thanks. It was, uh, nice to meet you.”
She salutes him with two fingers and disappears into the crowd, two binders held close to her chest.
Jayce and Viktor step into the hallway together, the door swinging shut behind them. The hallway is brighter than the lecture hall, washed in a winter blue light, and a little quieter now that the rush of students has moved on. They fall into step like usual — Viktor just slightly ahead, Jayce half a step behind, matching his rhythm to the tap of the cane.
“You were quiet,” Viktor says, not looking over.
Jayce doesn’t answer immediately. Then: “She’s nice.”
“She is.”
“And you two… go back a long way?”
“Since we were kids,” Viktor confirms. “She gave me my first soldering iron. And one of my first concussions.”
Jayce snorts. “Sounds like friendship.”
They reach the doors at the end of the hall and the cold spills in as they step outside, their breath rising faintly in the February air. Viktor stops beneath one of the overhangs and turns toward him, eyes narrowed slightly.
“I meant what I wrote,” he says.
Jayce rubs at the back of his neck. “I know. I’m just… I don’t usually get this way.”
“What way?”
“Stupid,” Jayce mutters.
Viktor grins. “That’s new. You’re normally the opposite of humble.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” Viktor shifts his weight. “You’re allowed to want to keep something for yourself. But you don’t have to panic every time someone else gets close. I’m still here.”
Jayce looks at him then. At the shadows under Viktor’s eyes, the wild, wind-tossed edge of his hair, the steady grip he has on his cane. He’s here. He always is. Showing up in the mornings, waiting with a thermos of cheap coffee, pushing through pain just to meet Jayce at center ice like it’s nothing.
“Yeah,” Jayce says softly. “You are.”
Viktor nudges him with his shoulder. “Now let’s go get some lunch before you pass out from emotional repression.”
Jayce laughs — genuinely this time. “God, you’re such a jerk.”
“And yet, you’re still walking next to me.”
He is. And that feels like the only place he wants to be.
Viktor laughs. Not cruelly, not sharply — just a quiet, startled little huff of amusement that curls at the corners of his mouth.
Jayce squints at him. “What?”
“You,” Viktor says, brushing his fingers along the strap of his bag, still smiling faintly.
Jayce frowns. “What about me?”
Viktor tilts his head, expression warm but maddeningly knowing. “The jealousy.”
Jayce immediately bristles, neck prickling. “I wasn’t—” He stops himself. “Okay, maybe I was a little.”
Viktor glances sidelong at him. “Jayce, I’m gay.”
Jayce blinks. “I… yeah. I know. I didn’t want to assume.”
“And Sky’s not interested in anyone in that way.” Viktor raises a brow, clearly enjoying himself now. “So, you’ve managed to envy the two most romantically disengaged people on campus.”
Jayce makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat. “You don’t have to sound so smug about it.”
“I’m not smug. I’m…” Viktor’s mouth twitches again. “Amused.”
Jayce groans and rakes a hand through his hair, glancing away. His ears are red now. “So. Uh.” He clears his throat. “Are you… seeing anyone?”
Viktor doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leans slightly on his cane and lifts one brow at Jayce as if weighing whether he’s serious. “Would I be spending every spare hour at the rink with you if I were?”
Jayce opens his mouth. Closes it. Thinks. “I mean… we’re already spending a lot of time together. So maybe it wouldn’t change that much if we, you know…” He gestures vaguely. “Went on a date?”
Viktor stops walking.
They’re in front of the science building, the wind tugging at the cuffs of their jackets. The sidewalk gleams faintly from last night’s frost, and somewhere to their right, someone’s longboard rattles over the pavement.
Viktor looks at him, all thoughtful eyes and crooked stance, like he’s not quite sure whether to laugh again or take him seriously. “You’re really asking me out here? On the sidewalk?”
Jayce shrugs, suddenly shy. “I can do better. If that reaction means I’ve got a chance.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Viktor smiles — wry and warm and real — and shifts his weight, motioning ahead with his cane. “Then hurry up. We’ve got ice to ruin.”
And Jayce, heart flipping somewhere inside his chest, follows.
Late that night, Viktor’s phone starts vibrating against the bedside table, screen lighting up the dark like a strobe. The buzz cuts through the quiet. Again. Again.
Five missed calls. A string of texts.
jayce t.
Fri, 26 Mar 2:39 AM
Person A: not an emergency
Person A: but it’s important
Person A: wait shit ur probably asleep
Person A: SORRY
Person A: i’ll explain in the morning
Person A: but also. it’s important
A FaceTime request comes in before Viktor can even process the last message.
He groans, rolls over, and accepts it. The sudden light makes him squint.
Jayce’s face fills the screen immediately, bright-eyed and breathless. “I have a meeting,” he says, no preamble, “with the national adaptive athletics committee— the committee — in two weeks.”
Viktor blinks. “You woke me up to brag?”
Jayce grins, wide and wild. “No. I woke you up to tell you we might actually pull this off.”
Something tightens in Viktor’s chest, warmth flooding behind his eyes. The quiet weight of pride and relief settles deep inside him. “Jayce... I’m so damn proud of you. Of what you’re doing, what you’ve built. It’s more than I ever dreamed for you.”
Jayce’s smile falters just a little, the bright energy dipping into vulnerability. His breath catches again, a tiny quiver in his voice. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you,” he admits softly, as if saying it out loud makes it more real.
The silence between them is heavy with meaning. Jayce’s eyes shimmer with the start of tears he’s trying not to spill. “Before you helped me tie my skates again… I was broken. Lost. I was so dark inside, Viktor. I didn’t think I’d want to keep going. Skating wasn’t just a sport for me — it was everything. And when I lost it all...” His voice cracks like a fragile glass. “I thought that was the end of my story.”
Viktor’s hand instinctively presses to his chest, feeling the weight of the confession. “You changed the meaning of everything for me. That fall, the silence after... it felt like the world had folded shut. But you showed me a way through. You made it survivable.”
Jayce swallows hard, blinking quickly, a tear slipping free but caught again. “You made me believe there was still a path forward. And now maybe… maybe this meeting is part of that path.”
Viktor’s own throat tightens, and he swipes at the moisture gathering at the corner of his eye. “Jayce, you’re not just building a path. You’re lighting a fire. A fire that’s going to change everything.”
They both linger in the quiet, the distance of the screen suddenly feeling unbearably thin.
Then Jayce’s voice breaks softly, barely above a whisper: “I could really use a hug right now.”
Viktor chuckles, warmth spilling into his voice despite the lump in his throat. “If I could, you’d have one already. I swear.”
There’s a brief, trembling smile on Jayce’s lips before he sighs, ending the call.
Viktor stares at the dark screen, heart hammering with all the things they still haven’t said — the weight of love unspoken, the years folded between them, the fragile hope blooming quietly.
He lowers his phone to his chest and stares up at the dark ceiling as the minutes tick by, stunned by the revelation that Jayce pulled it off.
A knock sounds at his door, soft but urgent.
He opens it, and there’s Jayce — breathless, cheeks flushed from the cold night air, hoodie half zipped, hair tousled like he just ran across the street from his dorm, up the stairs, every step pounding like a promise… because that’s exactly what he did, Viktor’s sure.
Viktor grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “We’re so lucky we don’t have roommates. They’d hate us.”
Jayce catches his breath, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips. “That sounds like a very good argument for us being roommates next semester.”
Viktor laughs, a rich, easy sound. “I could live with that.”
Jayce steps forward without hesitation, arms wrapping around Viktor in a tight, grounding embrace. The world outside their door shrinks to nothing but the warmth of skin and breath, the steady beat of two hearts echoing in the quiet night.
Viktor leans into the hug, hand slipping up to cradle the back of Jayce’s neck, fingers threading through his hair. There’s a softness there. The way their bodies fit together, the way the silence between them hums louder than words, says everything.
They hold each other as if they’ve been waiting for this moment forever.
It’s been four days. Four days since the sidewalk, since the question — not even a proper one, not the way Viktor would’ve asked — but a question nonetheless, since the announcement.
And in those four days, Jayce has tried to ask him out six different times.
Once with a coffee. “If I brought your favorite drink every day this week, would that count as courting?”
Once with a playlist. “Technically it’s not romantic unless you listen to the lyrics.”
Once with a meme compilation Viktor didn’t understand until the fourth slide, at which point he threw a granola bar at his head.
Now, Jayce is laid out dramatically on the top row of the bleachers like he’s waiting for a camera crew to pan in slow-motion across his suffering.
Viktor plants his skates at the edge of the rink and cups a hand to his mouth. “You can think of more ways to ask me out later. Come on out here and practice this already.”
Jayce groans. “What if I die of shame first?”
“You won’t. You’re too stubborn. And we’re working on that one-footed transition today, remember? You were so close to landing it clean yesterday.”
He sees Jayce peek an eye open. Gauging him. Pouting a little.
“Jayce Talis, if you make me skate alone—”
“I’m coming!” Jayce calls, hauling himself upright with unnecessary flair and rolling down the bleachers like a man condemned. “Just know I’ve suffered for you.”
“Good,” Viktor says, turning and skating backward now, a lazy glide he doesn’t show off for just anyone. “Put it into your form.”
Jayce steps onto the ice, a little clumsy with sore knees and a brace that still pinches when it’s cold, but he’s better than he was last week. He’s smoother. More certain. More daring.
Viktor watches him shake out his arms, gather breath, and move into the setup — left foot planted, right extended, upper body carving around like a slow-brewing storm — and he wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he’s gotten himself into.
Because Jayce is trying. At skating, at healing, at this.
And Viktor — well.
Viktor is trying not to let it terrify him.
He lands it.
Jayce lands it like the ice itself had been holding its breath. A clean, balanced arc. His arms outstretched just right, knee bent into the motion, blade whispering across the rink like it belongs there. No wild pinwheel arms this time. No muttered swearing. Just motion — strong, sure, and earned.
Viktor is already cheering before Jayce even registers what’s happened.
“Yes!” he calls, loud enough that his voice echoes in the empty rink rafters. “That was it, that was perfect!”
Jayce blinks, still catching up to his own body. And then he laughs — a full, startled laugh that transforms into a whoop of triumph. He throws both fists into the air and lets himself coast on the victory, grinning like a man on fire.
And then — suddenly — he’s skating toward Viktor.
Fast.
“Wait — Jayce — what are you—”
Too late.
Jayce barrels forward and lifts him.
Viktor lets out something between a gasp and a yelp as his feet leave the ground, skates dangling uselessly in open air, his hands scrabbling for purchase at Jayce’s shoulders. The world tilts — not unpleasantly, just startling — and Jayce’s arms are tight around him, secure even with the bulk of their braces between them.
“Jayce!” Viktor hisses, half-mortified, half-fascinated. “Are you trying to rupture something?”
Jayce is laughing so hard he can barely breathe. “You’re so light. I knew I could do it. I’ve been wanting to do that since week one.”
“You absolute lunatic—”
“You didn’t even flinch!”
“I flinched internally.”
They’re both laughing now, Viktor helpless in his arms, Jayce holding him like he’s a prize, not something fragile. The rink smells like cold air and steel polish and the lingering musk of too many training sessions. For a second — just one — Viktor lets himself lean into it.
Jayce finally lowers him slightly, but doesn’t let go.
Their faces are close. Very close. Viktor can feel the heat of Jayce’s breath and the adrenaline still thrumming beneath his skin.
Jayce swallows. “I’ve been trying to ask you properly for days. So, Viktor… will you go on a date with me?”
Viktor blinks. His hand is still curled in the fabric of Jayce’s hoodie, knuckles gone white from instinct. He stares at him for a beat, overwhelmed and breathless in a way that has nothing to do with the lift.
“This,” Viktor manages, “might be the most romantic and terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Jayce grins, eyes sparkling.
Viktor narrows his gaze. “And please, never try it again. You’ll throw your back out and I’ll end up needing a hip replacement.”
Jayce laughs and it’s real — the kind of laughter that comes from relief and the dizzying high of success. “Noted. Less spontaneous lifting, more smooth operator.”
“Put me down, smooth operator.”
Jayce lowers him, slow and careful like he’s setting down something precious, and Viktor adjusts his stance automatically once his skates touch the ice again. They’re still close, almost too close, and Jayce hovers — awkward, unsure what to do with his hands, like he doesn’t know if this is the moment or just the prelude.
So Viktor reaches up, tugs lightly on Jayce’s collar, and presses a quick, warm kiss to his cheek.
Jayce goes stock still.
Viktor grins, pulls back. “There. That’ll keep you hovering all day.”
Jayce’s ears go bright red. He watches Viktor skate off like he’s watching a celestial event.
Viktor throws a look over his shoulder. “Come on, now that you’ve mastered the crossover sequence, we’re starting edge switches.”
Jayce groans. “Viktor, please, can I get one day off? Just one.”
“You can rest later,” Viktor calls back.
The noise Jayce makes is almost a wail. It echoes.
And Viktor is already grinning as he skates backward to meet him halfway.
Jayce finally catches up with him, groaning dramatically as he pushes into a wide, lazy glide.
“You’re lucky I’m still riding the adrenaline high,” he says. “Otherwise I’d stage a rebellion.”
“Oh no,” Viktor deadpans, circling to his left, just out of arm’s reach. “A rebellion. From a boy who needs twenty minutes of motivational speeches to put on his knee brace.”
Jayce gasps, hand flying to his chest like he’s been shot. “You wound me.”
“I could, very easily. I know your weak spots.”
Jayce squints. “That’s cheating. You have, like, medical precision. This isn’t a fair match.”
Viktor skates around him again, a perfect semicircle with his hands clasped behind his back like this is all just a casual stroll. He clicks his tongue. “Then you’ll simply have to charm me into a truce.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” Jayce turns on a sharper arc now, tracking Viktor’s movement with unpracticed ease. “I thought I already did that with the whole sweeping-you-off-your-feet thing.”
“You nearly dislocated my spine,” Viktor shoots back.
“And yet,” Jayce teases, “you kissed me.”
“On the cheek,” Viktor feigns a sigh. “A moment of weakness. It won’t happen again.”
Jayce raises an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”
The rink lights buzz faintly overhead, their white glow reflecting off the slick, pristine ice. The world is quiet aside from the occasional scrape of blades and their own private, circling game.
Jayce’s orbit tightens. Viktor lets him. They skate in spirals now, looping closer and closer with every lap — like stars tugged into one another’s gravity, playful but inevitable.
“You know,” Jayce murmurs as they pass each other again, “I’m still not totally sure if that kiss meant yes.”
Viktor smirks. “You’ll find out. Eventually.”
Jayce laughs, loud and boyish. “You’re gonna keep me guessing, huh?”
“I’m going to keep you skating,” Viktor says. “We’ve got edge switches to run.”
“You’re such a taskmaster.”
“And yet you keep showing up.”
Their skates shush over the ice in rhythm. Viktor’s shoulder brushes Jayce’s as they pass again, just the faintest press of warmth through two layers of sleeves and years of unspoken longing.
It’s new. It’s terrifying. It’s theirs.
Viktor pushes off into another loop, glancing back just enough to catch the determined glint in Jayce’s eyes.
Jayce’s grin widens as he gives chase.
They’re seated beneath a blooming tree, petals scattering like soft confetti over their shoulders, their knees, the bench that creaks beneath their combined weight. The air is thick with spring and the hush of late night, the city distant and hushed, the stars bright enough to be real.
Earlier tonight, they celebrated at the rink with the Blades of Courage after Jayce opened conversations with the Paralympic committee about allowing ice skating in the games. The kids, especially Orianna, a wheelchair user with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, had been buzzing with excitement. Jinx and Ekko somehow managed to pull the whole thing together without Jayce knowing — Viktor was a great distraction, after all. The celebration was their quiet victory, a first step toward something bigger.
Jayce leans back, one arm slung behind Viktor on the bench, his other hand picking lazily at a fallen petal. “Say,” he starts, voice light but edging into something mischievous, “Sky mentioned keeping a video of one of my old routines.”
Viktor tenses beside him, just slightly.
Jayce turns his head, catching the hesitation. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
Viktor doesn't answer. He ducks his head, fiddling with the silver ring on his thumb, the corner of his mouth twitching. He opens his mouth like he might lie, or dodge, or change the subject entirely — but instead he sighs, quiet and doomed.
“I might have,” he murmurs.
Jayce goes still. Then: “You were a fan of mine. Oh my god.” His voice lifts with glee, incredulous and delighted. “You were an actual, honest-to-god fan.”
“I wasn’t—” Viktor starts, but it’s useless. Jayce is already grinning, already sitting forward.
“No, no, this is amazing. You had links. You probably had folders. You had opinions on my triple loops. Oh my god, did you ever buy one of those posters from the campus store? Do you have a poster of me hidden in your room right now?”
“I said I might have seen one video—”
Jayce laughs. “This explains everything. The rink. The lectures. The way you looked like you were trying not to pass out the first time I touched your waist during training—”
“Jayce,” Viktor groans, dragging a hand down his face.
Jayce only inches closer, shameless. “You had a crush on me. Admit it.”
“Would you shut up?”
“Make me.”
The words are barely out before Viktor turns, quick and instinctive, catching him mid-smile. Their lips collide in the hush between words. It’s graceless at first — hot and startled, mouths crashing together like waves against a break — but Jayce only deepens it, groaning softly against Viktor’s lips as his hand comes up to cradle the back of his neck.
They kiss like they’ve been meaning to since that first skating lesson. Like they’re making up for all the time they wasted.
Viktor tilts his head, mouth opening under Jayce’s, and the next kiss is slower. Then deeper. Then hungrier. They taste like tea and sugar, like salt air and something sweeter. Like years of aching that’s finally found relief.
Jayce’s fingers curl around Viktor’s hip, careful of his brace, and Viktor’s hand fists in the front of Jayce’s jacket, knuckles white, breath shallow. The tree above them shifts in the wind. Petals fall like a blessing. The bench creaks, again.
When they part — just for breath, just barely — Jayce presses their foreheads together and grins, all teeth and wonder. “That was… wow.”
Viktor hums, eyes still half-lidded. “I was going to say something poetic. But yes. Wow.”
Jayce kisses him again, just because he can. Just because it’s Viktor, and it’s nighttime, and the world is finally quiet enough to hold this.
The air between them hums — like the silence after applause, like the glide before a perfect landing. Viktor’s breath catches, then settles. Jayce leans back just enough to look at him, eyes still glazed with warmth.
“The rink’s still open this time of night,” Jayce says, voice low. “We could go.”
Viktor arches a brow, but he’s smiling. “You want to squeeze in one more lesson?”
Jayce groans, forehead bumping against Viktor’s shoulder. “Can we stop calling them lessons?”
“No?” Viktor teases, running a thumb over Jayce’s knuckles.
Jayce lifts his head again. “I really think we should just cut the bullshit and start calling them dates instead.”
There’s a pause, and then Viktor tilts his head, soft and smug all at once. “Already ahead of you,” he murmurs.
Jayce beams, wide and unguarded. He kisses Viktor once more — shorter this time, smiling into it — then gets to his feet and offers a hand.
“Come on then,” he says. “Let’s go on our thirtieth date. Or sixtieth. I’ve lost count.”
Viktor takes his hand, lets himself be pulled to his feet, and brushes a blossom from Jayce’s shoulder. “Ah, yes, how could I ever forget the one where you tried to seduce me with your moose legs.”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
They walk back toward the car hand in hand, laughter tucked between their ribs, the streetlights painting twin shadows behind them on the pavement.