Chapter Text
There are definitely worse jobs to have, Jayce thinks, than being on a forty-hour-a-week busywork retainer as a crisis interventionist and hostage negotiator for the Piltover Police Department.
“What happened to all police officers being violent assholes, huh?” Caitlyn had smirked, when he’d taken the job.
“I’m not an officer,” Jayce had insisted, “and also my sole purpose is to prevent shit from getting violent.”
He’s good at what he does. He’s excellent at reading people and seeing what they’re really saying behind the words they use, and he’s also, according to Caitlyn, completely unable to resist the impulse to save people - which is why when he’s not in a bulletproof vest he’s at the local community centre teaching promising underprivileged youth with a passion for science.
Today he’s on scene trying to talk a suspect down. There have been a string of kidnappings recently, and the police think they’ve managed to track them here, at three in the morning, to this run-down house in the bad part of town where half the windows have plastic sheeting over them instead of glass. The dude is holed up in the kitchen with a shotgun, and it’s taken Jayce the better part of an hour to get him to say anything other than, “Why don’t I just blow this whole place up then, huh?”
Jayce thinks he’s bluffing, but the place is full of exposed wires and he can’t be sure whether that’s just because it’s an old building or if there really is a trigger switch somewhere.
None of his usual approaches have been working. He’s getting absolutely no mileage out of appealing to the guy’s reason, emotion, or humanity; when Jayce mentions the people he’s accused of keeping captive, he doesn’t deny it, just refers to them as “them whores” and refuses to entertain the idea that they’re people with families who love them.
Finally it’s the suggestion of notoriety that gets through. The idea that if he blows up the house, or shoots himself now, then he’ll die an anonymous loser with no higher drive than violence. But if he walks out of here with his head held high and surrenders to the police, then he’ll get the chance to see the world react to what he’s done. Everyone will know his name. His face will be on front pages. He’ll never be a hero, but he could be a supervillain.
So the guy finally concedes. Puts his gun down on the table. Nods towards the hallway, says, “They’re all upstairs,” and walks out the front door with his hands out in front of him as if presenting them to be kissed rather than cuffed.
And this is the part where Jayce’s job is done. Where he makes his retreat, falls back and lets the police do their bit, sweeping the house, saving the victims, etc etc.
That’s what he should do.
But as the officers begin to swarm in, Jayce hears a muffled noise.
He holds his breath, and there it is again - in the space between one fall of boots and the next, a soft, hoarse, “Help me.”
It’s coming from somewhere in the kitchen where he’s standing.
Jayce starts flinging open cupboards, shoving aside the stacks of boxes cluttering up the room, and finally, muscling a heavy apple crate out of the way, he wrenches open a cabinet and finds there’s someone tied up inside.
It’s a young man, absolutely filthy, his face caked with blood and his clothes torn in places that turn Jayce’s stomach. His hands are tied to the pipe above his head. Only his eyes are visible past his arm, and they are terrified. He blinks back from the light that floods in, and before he can react any further Jayce is on his knees, reaching for the cable ties around his wrists, saying, “It’s okay, you’re safe now, I’ve got you-”
“Jayce?”
And Jayce, hand halfway to the pocket knife on his belt, freezes. Takes another look at the man. And whispers, “Viktor?”
He’s still reeling, still trying to make Viktor, his friend Viktor, fit into this picture, when Viktor gives a little gasp and bursts into tears.
“Jayce- help me-”
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, V, you’re okay now.”
He opens his pocket knife, snaps off the zip ties, and Viktor just crumples into him, almost screaming from the pain of lowering his arms. Jayce wraps his arms around him, brain still spinning, and God, he’s glad he didn’t know Viktor was in here today because he would not have been able to do his job with the stakes this high.
“What- V, how-” These are not questions he is supposed to ask. This is important information that should be discussed on tape, at the station, with all the right people present and every protocol followed so that whatever Viktor has to say can put the piece of shit that did this to him so deep in the sewers of Stillwater Prison that he’ll never see the light of day again.
Maybe it’s fortunate, then, that all Viktor seems able to do is bury his face into Jayce’s chest and sob.
An officer comes through the kitchen.
“What you got?” He blinks when he realises it’s Jayce on his knees in front of the cabinet. “Oh, Talis- uh, shouldn’t you-”
“I’ve got this one,” Jayce says. “Can you get Kiramman to meet me at med? You do whatever you need to here.”
He has absolutely no rank or authority to give any of these guys orders, and he’s also arguably contaminating the scene, but the officer just purses his lips and nods. “Will do. Mind if I snap a photo before you move him?”
It physically hurts Jayce to stand back so the officer can take a picture for evidence, and once he gets the nod he’s right back on his knees, scooping Viktor up and cradling him to his chest as he stands and carries him out of the house and towards the waiting ambulances.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Viktor is whispering as they make their way down the porch steps. “I thought you weren’t going to come for me.”
Jayce’s heart fucking hurts, in spite of the fact that there’s no way he could possibly have known where Viktor was or that he was even in trouble at all, and all he says is, “I’m sorry, V, I’m so sorry.”
Jayce takes him to the medics, then stays by his side as they begin their triage process, examining and assessing and photographing. So much photographing. The cuts on Viktor’s face, the blood under his nails, the welts on his wrists and arms and ankles and neck and-
“Jayce.”
He turns, and Caitlyn is there, her hair hanging wet in her face from the rain that’s just begun sprinkling over them. She’s frowning at him.
“Why did one of my boys say you were still in there when he went to sweep the kitchen? You’re supposed to leave when the perp does, you’re not-”
“It’s Viktor.”
She stops. “Viktor… your coworker?”
Yes, that Viktor, the Viktor who used to teach the kids chemistry at the community centre, whose classes were always such a favourite that the kids would arrive at Jayce’s physics lessons still talking about them. Viktor who quit his job three months ago without even saying a proper goodbye to go travelling or something.
How did his travels lead him here?
A medic taps him on the shoulder and informs him that they’re running Viktor to the hospital. Whatever’s been done to him, it’s beyond their ability to adequately treat in the field. Jayce just nods and climbs into the back of the ambulance, and cuts off the beginnings of their surprise with a look that says he’s going nowhere without Viktor.
At the hospital, it takes an agonisingly long time before they let him see Viktor. When they finally allow him in, Viktor is propped up in a hospital bed, his face clear of blood but quilted together with butterfly strips. He’s in a hospital gown, wrapped up in blankets, and Jayce hopes against hope that the splints on half his fingers are the worst of it.
“Viktor.” His voice breaks.
Viktor gives him an exhausted attempt at a smile. “Hi.”
Jayce drags the chair from against the wall and sits as close to Viktor’s bedside as he can get. “Viktor, I’m so- What happened to you?”
Viktor opens his mouth, then pauses. “I…” his eyes travel over Jayce’s face, as if he’s searching for something, and finally he whispers, “What took you so long?”
Jayce shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, V, if I’d known- if I- if I’d even suspected that you were in trouble-”
“Did you not get my message?”
Jayce blinks at him. “Your message?”
“When I called the school. When he made me call.”
Jayce shakes his head. “What do you mean? When did you call?”
“He made me call and quit my job. So that nobody would be worried when I didn’t show up.”
Jayce’s blood runs cold in his veins. “That was… you quit months ago. Viktor. How-”
“And you didn’t come looking!” Viktor’s voice begins to choke, and he gasps at the sting of tears against the cuts on his cheek. “Didn’t you get my message?”
Jayce racks his brain. “They said…” He thinks back to the office lady poking her head around his door, informing him that Viktor wouldn’t be teaching anymore, so if he wanted to take on another class Chemistry was up for grabs. “They said you were going on a family vacation.”
Viktor’s eyes close. His head falls back against the pillows. For a moment he just sits there like that, his face slowly twisting into a new kind of agony. Finally, after a long minute, he swallows with what seems like an immense effort, takes a deep breath, and says, “I told them, tell Jayce that my brother is passing through town, and that he’s going to take me to spend some time with Dad.”
Jayce looks at him. The world feels like it’s stopped spinning. No, it feels like it’s started turning in the other direction. Because there are two things about Viktor that Jayce knows without even having to think about them:
Viktor is an only child, and an orphan.
And suddenly the bile is rising in his throat, because he’s spent the last three months thinking that Viktor was off travelling with some distant cousins, or that uncle he mentioned a few times who was always nice to him, and meanwhile Viktor was sitting in a fucking cupboard waiting for Jayce to come rescue him.
Because he would have, is the thing. If he had been given Viktor’s message exactly as he had worded it, it would have been a klaxon. The most obvious distress flare.
The number of times a minor inconvenience had prompted Viktor to make a dark joke about “going to spend some time with his dad”, how could it not have been?
“My brother is passing through town and is taking me to spend time with Dad,” to Jayce’s ears, would have been mutually intelligible as, “Someone I don’t know has taken me somewhere and is going to kill me.”
“You were never travelling,” Jayce whispers. “You- the whole time-”
“I made that call from his kitchen table, with the phone against one ear and a gun against the other.”
Jayce doesn’t even realise he’s crying until Viktor’s expression changes, and his hand is lifting off the bed and reaching out to trace his shaky, unsplinted middle finger against Jayce’s cheek.
“You had no idea,” he murmurs.
“No.” Jayce shakes his head. “No, Viktor, I- I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I would- I’d have-”
“No, that’s- that’s better.” Viktor brushes away Jayce’s tears. “It’s better that you didn’t know.”
Jayce shakes his head again, because why is that better, he should have known, he should have spent the last three months tearing the city apart-
“Because the only alternative I could think of was that you just didn’t care.”
“Oh, God.” Jayce lurches forward, and he knows Viktor is bruised and broken in pretty much every part of his body but he can’t stop himself from pressing his face to Viktor’s chest, heedless of his little gasp of surprise, desperate to take the world and shake it in his hands like a snowglobe until it shows him a scene that isn’t this. “God, Viktor, of course I care. Of course- how could I not, how could I know and not do anything-”
“I know,” Viktor muses. His hands are on the back of Jayce’s head, stroking down his neck. “It didn’t make sense to me either.”
Jayce stays by Viktor’s bedside for the rest of the day, refilling his water, adjusting his blankets, calling for the nurses when his pain starts creeping up higher than he can handle. He stays while various people come and go, doctors, specialists, victim services, detectives. He sits there, lips carefully placed together in a mask of neutrality that is usually effortless to affect, while Viktor gives statements. How he’d been carrying too much on his way to the community centre one day, how the kind stranger who had held the door for him on his way out of a cafe had offered to help him with it, saying how nice it was of him to buy coffee for all his colleagues, and how he was heading in that direction anyway so why didn’t he take something off of Viktor’s hands for the last block - and then how the stranger had taken advantage of the shortcut Viktor himself had suggested to sweep his cane out from under him and bludgeon him with it until he could barely breathe, let alone scream.
Jayce listens as Viktor describes the man, the house, the other victims. He hears the detective ask what happened within the house, and he forces himself to listen as Viktor recounts it. Clinically. Methodically. Things he saw, things he heard, things that were done to him.
Jayce keeps the mask on, keeps the bile down, keeps his hand soft in Viktor’s grasp and lets Viktor squeeze it for comfort, because that is his job here. To be here for Viktor. Not to think about the fact that he had this same mask on not twelve hours ago as he talked to the man who did this. As he tried to appeal to his humanity. A fool’s errand, in retrospect. What humanity?
When all the questions have been answered and all the professionals are gone, Jayce lets out a long-held breath in a shaky stream between pursed lips. The mask is cracking. It’s been on the verge of falling off completely since about the third time Viktor told the same story to a different set of notepads.
“Are you okay?” Viktor asks.
“Am I okay?”
“Yeah.”
Jayce presses his lips together. He’s going to need a new mask. This one is so thoroughly beaten he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to use it again.
“I’m- Hm.” He lifts Viktor’s hand in his and kisses the small patch of skin between the splints and the tape and the IV tubes. “I will be. I just. Do you mind if I go take a minute real quick?”
Viktor blinks at him, and when Jayce lets go of his hand he stares at it, like he can’t work out what just happened. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “take all the time you need.”
“Thank you.” Jayce gets up, walks out of the room, and closes the door behind him. He turns to the nearest nurse, says, “Do you have somewhere-”, and she takes one look at his face and drags him into a vacant room just in time for the mask to shatter completely.
Jayce sits on the floor at the foot of the unmade bed and screams.
There’s no consciousness behind it, no coherent thought or even an intent to do it. He just opens his mouth and anguish pours out, a screeching, wailing thing that completely consumes him. He cannot keep it in anymore, and yet letting it out does not lessen the amount of it inside him. All he can do is sit on the cold linoleum and howl until he thinks he’s going to choke on it, and even then he still can’t stop.
When he takes his next conscious breath, he finds there’s a blanket around his shoulders, a bottle of water next to him, and the nurse from earlier sitting cross-legged against the opposite wall.
“Hey,” she says. “How are you doing?”
Jayce stares at her. How is he doing? He feels like he just fell a hundred feet into a ravine and then dragged himself out with his bare hands. That’s how he’s doing.
“Don’t worry,” the nurse says, “we’re looking after your partner. He’s all good. Let’s look after you for a sec.”
Jayce opens his mouth, and his throat hurts as he drags his voice out of it. “I think I’m going to commit a murder.”
“Yeah. Sure seems like it.” She pulls something out of her pocket and slides it across the floor towards him. Jayce picks it up. It’s a snipped-off section of a blister pack, with two little lozenges inside. “Thought your throat might appreciate those,” she says. “You’ve got some lungs on you.”
Jayce glances up at her. “I should get back to him.”
“Mm.” She makes no move to get up. “He’s really been through it, hasn’t he?”
“You… could say that.”
“It’s been a rough couple months for him.”
Jayce wonders how much the nurses know about what happened to Viktor. Probably most of it, he realises, since they’ll need to know what wounds they’re treating.
“And now you’re speedrunning that same experience,” the nurse continues, in the same quasi-casual tone.
Jayce shakes his head. “I’m not- that’s- I’m just-”
“Yeah, you are,” she says. “You don’t hear the details of something so awful happening to someone you love so much and just shrug it off. You’re processing it. Your body is feeling the horror of it. It’s okay. It needs to happen.”
Jayce shakes his head again. “It’s not about me,” he croaks, “I’m supposed to be here for him, not-”
“Sure. Which is why I suggest you do that necessary processing in here with me rather than trying to shove it all down and be big and strong and then going and murdering the guy.”
Jayce gapes at her. “I… I wasn’t serious.”
“Yeah, you were.”
Jayce swallows hard.
“Talk to me,” the nurse says. “Tell me what’s going on in your head.”
When he just stares at her, she raises an eyebrow, and somehow that’s what does it. The floodgates open. It all comes pouring out.
By the time he runs out of words, it’s dark outside. Several custodians have opened the door to come and turn over the room, and every single time the nurse has shaken her head and made a little spinning gesture with her finger, and they’ve walked right back out again.
“How are you feeling now?” she asks him, when he trails off into silence, staring at the blister strip in his hands.
Jayce shrugs. Sniffs. Pops one of the lozenges out and puts it in his mouth. “Like this is the worst day of my life.”
She nods. “It probably is. How’s the whole murder idea looking?”
Jayce’s laugh is dry and humourless. “Less like an immediate thing, more like a contingency plan.”
“Okay, we’ll take that.” She uncrosses her legs. “Do you wanna go see your boy again?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”
He takes the hand she offers him and staggers to his feet. “You know, you would be really good at my job.”
“Oh yeah?” she smirks. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever get bored of saving lives.”
Outside Viktor’s room, she pats Jayce on the shoulder.
“Don’t feel guilty for putting your own lifejacket on first,” she says.
He nods. “Okay. Okay, yeah.”
She gives him a smile and turns to head off down the corridor, her blue buns bouncing on top of her head.
When Jayce slips back into Viktor’s room, he finds him asleep, his head turned against the thin pillow behind him, his split lips softly parted around deep, even breaths.
Thank God, Jayce thinks, slumping down into his seat and letting his head droop forward to rest on the edge of the bed. At least in his sleep Viktor’s not in pain.
He stays there like that, cheek resting on his folded hands so that he can look up at Viktor’s peaceful face, for a long time. When the night shift nurse comes in, he asks her what their visiting hours are.
“We don’t really have any,” she says, as she pushes a syringe of something into Viktor’s IV line and takes the slip of paper his monitor spits out. “Usually we just ask people not to stay the night, but…” she glances at him, at Viktor, back to him, “I can grab a spare mattress.”
Jayce wants to tell her how he has no intention of sleeping, how he let Viktor slip from his view for three months and he won’t lose sight of him for even a minute longer, but instead he just nods and returns his cheek to his hands. And by the time the nurse comes back with a little foldaway cot, he truly is very tired. So when he catches himself sliding off his seat for the third time, he concedes defeat and crawls onto the cot beneath one of the same blue-and-white flannel blankets that are currently keeping Viktor safe.
He’s right there. Jayce can even touch his hand, if he reaches up.
It’s enough.
-
Viktor sleeps sporadically through the night. Every so often he opens his eyes, abruptly wide awake no matter how deeply asleep he was a moment prior. Sometimes he moans in pain and fumbles for the call bell. Sometimes he shifts in his bed as if trying to get comfortable. Every time, he inevitably turns his head, searching the darkness with wide eyes until he finds Jayce, and the monitor behind him slows its beeping as Viktor speaks, or reaches out, or just looks at Jayce where he lies on the low cot. He stays awake for anywhere between fifteen minutes to an hour each time - typically until a nurse comes in with his next dose of painkillers, after which he drifts off again for another couple hours until the next burst of wakefulness.
Jayce wakes with him every time, attuned to the slightest movement or change in rhythm on the monitors hooked into Viktor’s tubes and wires. And when Viktor’s eyes find Jayce in the darkness, Jayce shakes off sleep and meets his gaze. If Viktor speaks, he answers. If Viktor reaches out, Jayce takes his hand. If Viktor stares at him, Jayce smiles back in a way he hopes looks like he knows what to do and isn’t terrified of everything that has, is, and will soon happen.
“Jayce,” Viktor whispers, when he wakes at four o’clock in the morning.
“What’s up? Does it hurt? Should I grab a nurse?”
“No.” Viktor pauses. “Maybe. I don’t know. I need to pee.”
“Oh.” Jayce sits up. “Uh. Did they give you one of those-” he’s sure he saw a bedpan somewhere.
Viktor shakes his head. “No, I can’t- I tried that earlier, I couldn’t go.” He points to the door in the opposite wall. “I just need to get to the bathroom.”
“Oh, okay.” Jayce gives a doubtful look to Viktor’s many monitor hookups. “Maybe a nurse-”
“Will you help me?” Viktor’s voice is small and tired. “Please, Jayce. I don’t want all their fuss. I just want to pee.”
“Okay. Yeah, okay.” Jayce sits up and gives the monitors another, more critical look. “Do we need to unhook any of these?”
“I think they’re all attached to this one,” Viktor says, indicating the main pole with the monitor screen on the front and the IV bags hooked over the top. “It should roll with us.”
Jayce nods. “You need a hand getting up?”
“Yeah.” Viktor fumbles with the buttons on the side of the bed until he has the back raised to its highest position and is sitting upright. Between the two of them they get Viktor’s legs untangled from the blankets; Jayce is relieved not to see any giant casts underneath.
“Okay.” Jayce holds out his hands. “How do we-”
Viktor goes to take hold of him, then seems to remember half his fingers are splinted. “Maybe… under my arms.”
Jayce nods and reaches out to grasp Viktor under the armpits. It feels weird, picking him up like a child, but it works - Viktor slides off the bed, wires gathered in a clumsy bundle against his chest, and Jayce sets him on his feet.
He’s disturbingly easy to lift. Viktor has always been thin, but he really feels like he weighs nothing. It makes something sick and uncomfortable crawl through Jayce’s chest. No adult man should be this light.
“Don’t let go,” Viktor says. “I need- let’s see- one arm around me, and I’ll hold the pole, and then you be my other leg.”
They make their way across the room in a little shuffle-shuffle-hop. Viktor seems completely unable to put any weight on his right leg, and his left is shaky at best. Jayce almost wants to suggest he just carry Viktor to the toilet, but thinks better of it when he glances down and catches the look of determination on Viktor’s face.
“Almost there,” he says instead.
When they finally reach the bathroom, Viktor’s sigh of relief is equal parts triumph and exhaustion.
“Are you good from here?” Jayce asks.
“Um.” Viktor considers the toilet, then his legs, and then finally his splinted hands. “Dammit,” he sighs, “I’m gonna have to sit, aren’t I?”
“Probably a good idea.”
“Can you help me sit down?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He takes Viktor under the armpits again and prepares to avert his eyes, but Viktor just gathers his gown to the front so that it hangs like an apron as Jayce lowers him onto the toilet.
“You steady?”
Viktor nods.
“Good. Um. I’ll just wait outside?”
“You don’t have to.” Viktor shrugs. “I think it’s safe to say the concept of modesty is long gone for me.”
Jayce tries not to wince at that. “Would you like some privacy anyway?”
Viktor shrugs again, like it’s all the same to him, but when Jayce reaches for the door handle he says, “Wait.”
Jayce stops.
“I just.” Viktor sighs. He’s clinging to the IV pole with both hands, like he can’t quite hold his body upright on his own. “I keep forgetting,” he says, “where I am.”
“You’re in the hospital,” Jayce says.
“I know. I mean. Every time my mind wanders, or when I zone out. I’m still there.”
Jayce looks at him, at the deep circles gouged under his eyes and the splits of fists or worse across his cheeks.
“Oh,” he whispers.
“You can close your eyes, or turn around, if you want,” Viktor says. “Just. Please don’t leave?”
Jayce shakes his head. “Of course not. I’m right here.”
Viktor gives a grateful nod, and leans his head against his hands where they’re clasped around the IV pole.
While Viktor pees, Jayce turns his head to look at himself in the mirror. All things considered, he thinks, he’s doing pretty well. The man above the sink only looks sad and worried. Not a trace of nausea or absolute heartsick devastation in that reflection.
“Okay, help me up.” Viktor reaches behind himself to flush the toilet, then holds his arms out so Jayce can lift him to his feet. He looks at the sink, then at the splints and tubes encasing his hands. “Hm.”
“I think you’re good,” Jayce says. “There’s hand sanitiser by your bed.”
“Yeah,” Viktor sighs. “God, I’m so tired. Okay. Back to bed.”
“Can I…” Jayce trails off, biting down on the rest of that thought.
“Hm?” Viktor blinks up at him. His eyes don’t quite open all the way.
“Do you want me to just… pick you up?”
Viktor grimaces. “Not really.”
“Right, right, sorry. Forget I said anything.”
Viktor looks down at his legs, at the mottled purple bruising visible between the bandages that patchwork across his shins. His right calf is barely more than bone, the muscle completely wasted away.
“Would you?” he asks in a small voice.
“Yes,” Jayce replies. “If you wanted me to, absolutely.”
Viktor nods, bites his lip, and then nods again.
“I think it would maybe be easier.”
“Sure.” Jayce considers Viktor, gauging the best way to hold him. “Uh, okay. Let’s try this.”
Very gently, trying not to grip too hard, he slots an arm around Viktor’s shoulders. Then he reaches down and carefully sweeps him behind the knees, tipping Viktor’s weight towards his chest and lifting him into his arms.
“Oh, this is familiar,” Viktor mumbles.
“Ah. Yeah.” He hadn’t even thought twice about it when he’d scooped Viktor up to carry him out of the house yesterday. Then it had felt fierce and protective; now it feels almost unbearably gentle, a tender intimacy entrusted to him along with the meagre weight of Viktor’s body.
With Viktor pushing the pole ahead of them, they make their way back to bed.
“I thought I was hallucinating,” Viktor mutters, as Jayce rounds the end of the bed.
“Hm? When?”
“When I looked up and saw it was you. I thought I was imagining it. I was so sure you weren’t coming.”
Ah.
“I got called in to negotiate.”
“I know, I heard. It was very impressive. I didn’t recognise you - I don’t think I’ve ever heard your negotiator voice before.”
Jayce gives a little breath of laughter as he sets Viktor carefully back on the bed.
“It’s a bit different from the voice I use to teach the kids,” he says.
“It’s a bit different from the voice you use the rest of the time too.”
Viktor’s gaze is soft when Jayce steps back far enough to meet it.
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Jayce asks.
Viktor tilts his head.
“It was interesting to hear it,” he says finally. “But I like regular Jayce more.”
Jayce feels a grin steal across his face, and sees it reflected in Viktor’s eyes. For a minute they just look at each other.
“I would have, you know.”
Viktor blinks. “Would have what?”
“Found you. If I’d gotten your message. It was such a clever code, V, seriously- but I would have come looking, I’d have torn the city apart, I’d have-”
“I know,” Viktor says. “I know you would have.”
“I’d have gotten the entire force on it, every officer- that’s why you picked me, right? Why you sent the message for me? Because you knew I had an in with the police.”
Viktor shakes his head. “No, Jayce, I-”
He purses his lips for a thoughtful moment.
“I thought of you,” he says, “because you are the only person who knows me well enough to understand the message. And you’re the only person who cares enough to do anything with it.”
“I…” Jayce stares at him. “That’s not- surely there are other-”
Viktor shakes his head again. “Nobody I would trust with my life.”
“What about-” Jayce casts around, “your friends, or-”
“Jayce.” Viktor tilts his head consideringly. “I was taken for three months, and nobody reported me missing. How many friends do you suppose I have?”
When Jayce just gapes at him, Viktor gives a sad little smile. “I know we are just friendly colleagues, but-”
“No, I- Viktor, come on. Is that how you think of us? We’re not just coworkers, we’re friends! You’re the best part of my week. I’ve missed you so much-”
The first well of tears is as mortifying as it is unstoppable.
“I missed you so much,” he gasps, “nothing was the same, and I hated not seeing you, and the only reason it was okay was because I thought you were off having exciting adventures somewhere-”
“Oh,” Viktor breathes, as Jayce presses a futile hand to his face. “I thought… I thought it was a me thing.”
Jayce gives him a confused look. “What was a you thing?”
“Ah.” Viktor looks away. “I am not… good at making friends. I am always too much, or not enough.” He shrugs. “Just. With the way other staff would tease you about me, I assumed I was just doing that again.”
Jayce frowns. “What teasing? Oh, the work wife stuff? That’s not- that wasn’t teasing, that was-”
Viktor looks back at him. “I thought they were mocking you for being nice to me.”
“No.” Jayce shakes his head. “Viktor, no. That’s- you say that about someone you work with when the two of you look after each other like you’re married. They were talking about the way you’d always bring me coffee, or I’d buy you lunch. That sort of stuff.”
“Oh.”
“It wasn’t teasing, it was- it was them noticing that you’re important to me.”
“… Oh.”
They stare at each other for another handful of seconds.
“I thought it was a ball-and-chain joke,” Viktor says.
“No.”
After a moment, “I’m. Important to you.”
Jayce closes his eyes for a throb of his heart. “Of course you are, Viktor. Of course you are.”
“Oh.”
Viktor looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that. Like it’s too much - not in the sense that Jayce’s feelings are too big, but that Viktor is too small to hold them all.
“I admire you so much,” Jayce says. “You’re so smart, and you’re so good at what you do. Every time your class is before mine, the kids come in raving about it, and it makes me wish I could be even half the teacher you are - you’re brilliant, Viktor, you’re incredible.”
Viktor blinks at him.
“And you’re such a- just a lovely person! You’re thoughtful, and generous, you bring cookies for the staff room, you memorised my coffee order and I’m still not sure how, cause I don’t think I ever told you what it was - you’re attentive. You’re sweet.”
“I.” Viktor opens his mouth, closes it again. “We got coffee together one time before class,” he says. “I remembered what you ordered.”
Jayce snorts a laugh. That’s really what Viktor felt compelled to address first? “Okay, well that’s that mystery solved.”
“Nobody has ever called me sweet before,” Viktor murmurs.
“Clearly nobody’s been paying attention.”
The monitor on the IV pole beeps a warning, and Jayce jumps back.
“Fuck,” he says, “sorry. I should let you sleep.”
“It’s okay.” Viktor eyes the monitor. “I think that’s the IV alarm.”
The monitor beeps again, and Viktor feels around for his call button.
“My screen’s beeping,” he says, and a minute later a nurse comes in with a handful of packets and pouches.
“How are you feeling?” she asks as she silences the monitor and begins hanging a new drip bag.
“Okay,” Viktor says. “I think I’m hungry.”
“I’m not surprised.” The nurse closes the drip feed, pushes a syringe into the IV line, and tears off the printout strip. “I’ll grab you some crackers to see you through until breakfast.”
As she leaves, Viktor sighs. “Apparently I am suffering from moderate dehydration and severe malnutrition. They’ve given me about half a dozen of those saline bags. I don’t remember the last time I peed this much.”
He sure looks malnourished. He’s skin and bone.
Jayce eyes him cautiously. He doesn’t want to prod for more details than Viktor is willing to give, but there’s a pit of nausea in his chest that only gets worse the longer he sits here not truly knowing what Viktor’s been through. He’s heard his statement, sure, but that’s the bullet-point version, condensed legalese for a detective’s report: I was beaten. I was kept tied up. I was forced to perform sexual acts. I was made to watch as other people were beaten and tied up and forced to perform sexual acts.
But the details - the ones that put not just the scars on Viktor’s body but the wounds behind his eyes - are still hanging over him, a looming cloud that anyone can see but only Viktor can touch. Jayce wants to take it from him, dismantle it piece by piece and carry his share.
“Is there-” he stops.
Viktor looks at him. Jayce tries again.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Viktor’s face does something complicated that Jayce can’t interpret.
“Not really,” he says eventually.
“Okay,” Jayce nods. “Yeah, that’s- of course.”
“Is it okay if I do?”
“Huh?”
Viktor looks down at his hands, his unsplinted finger and thumb plucking at the edge of the blanket.
“If I do want to talk about it,” he says. “Is it okay if I tell you things?”
“Yes, of course,” Jayce says, the words tumbling out in a rush. “You can tell me anything. Anytime.”
Viktor glances up, and there’s a tiny smile tugging at the split in his lip.
“Thanks,” he says.
The nurse returns, delivering a handful of saltines and digestive biscuits along with a fresh cup of water before leaving again. Viktor picks up one of the packets and tears it open, takes one of the digestives, and holds the other out to Jayce.
“Oh- uh-”
“They’re not fantastic,” Viktor says, “but they’re food. C’mon, I know you didn’t eat dinner.”
“How do you know? You were asleep.”
“Cause your stomach’s been growling for the last twenty minutes. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Jayce wants to protest, but Viktor waggles the biscuit at his face and it’s easier to just take it. And when he bites into it he discovers that he actually is quite hungry, and no, the biscuits aren’t particularly tasty, and nor are the crackers, but it does fill a little of the hole in his chest to share them with Viktor.