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There had been an embarrassingly short struggle. Jayce had simply, effortlessly, overpowered him.
"This is not what I agreed to," Viktor said. His voice sounded thin and shaky. He was trying not to panic.
"Uh-huh," said Jayce. He wasn't really listening. His face was set in the expression he got when he had decided on a course of action and was going to see it through. Usually, this related to some experiment.
Well, this was an experiment. One that Viktor had not consented to be part of.
"This is not necessary." Viktor attempted to regain the tatters of his dignity. Jayce was trying to undress him, his thick fingers fumbling with the buttons on his waistcoat. Yes, not so easy to do it this way round, was it, Jayce?
"It is necessary. We won't know if it works until we try it." Jayce was saying this in an eminently reasonable tone of voice, like Viktor was the one being unreasonable. Viktor, on his back on the hard floor of the lab, tried to twist away from Jayce's fingers, which had managed to open his waistcoat without damage but were now starting on his shirt.
"I don't want to try it!"
"Even if it might make you better?" Jayce looked him in the eye. His face was serious. "Viktor, I'll try anything."
Viktor tamped down the urge to howl in frustration. He could not physically resist Jayce: nor, apparently, could he persuade him. Things were not looking good.
He squirmed unhappily, which made it more difficult for Jayce to continue unbuttoning his shirt. But he couldn't get Jayce off him. Jayce knelt above him, knees around his, strong calves holding Viktor's legs in place. Jayce was a great deal bigger than Viktor in height and width. Viktor had never thought that would be used against him.
It would be embarrassing if anyone were to walk in on them in this position - certain assumptions would be made about their relationship, assumptions that had already sometimes been made and would merely be, incorrectly, confirmed - but Viktor longed for it anyway. There didn't seem to be any way to get Jayce to stop undressing him without outside help. Surely there must be a lab assistant around, even at this late hour? Other people worked in this building and were in the habit of staying late just as Jayce and Viktor were.
He didn't have it in him to scream. Not yet.
"Just relax," Jayce soothed him, running a hand down Viktor's side. He'd given up on Viktor's shirt, which was still mostly buttoned. His tie was loose around his neck where Viktor had yanked on it earlier. "I know how it works, it'll be fine."
Not I've done this before.
Well, nor had Viktor.
Jayce turned his attention to Viktor's trousers. His fingers found the buttons. Viktor really did protest at that, half-rising from the floor. But one of Jayce's broad palms pushed him back, and Viktor couldn't push away the thick forearm of the hand that continued to work on the buttons of his flies.
"Get off," Viktor snapped. He was usually slow to anger, and fright had taken centre stage earlier. He was still scared, but now he was also upset with Jayce's refusal to listen to him. "Stop touching me!"
"I've seen your dick before, it's not such a big deal. Uh, that's not a comment on your dick, by the way."
They had, twice, had to strip entirely when an experiment had gone very wrong and covered them in foul and possibly dangerous goo. Viktor had not tried to look at his big, handsome, naked partner - more accurately, he had tried not to look - but of course he had got a glimpse of what hung between those powerful thighs. The image had been seared onto his brain as neatly as a photograph. He hadn't realised that Jayce might have been just as curious about him.
Jayce had unbuttoned his trousers and his big warm hand was touching Viktor's dick through his underwear. Viktor let out a mangled swearword. Jayce just snorted, like they were working on a problem together in the lab and Viktor had got frustrated enough to say a bad word.
Jayce's hand wasn't quite the first ever to touch Viktor's dick apart from his own, but it was close. Viktor gritted his teeth. In most other situations, Jayce eagerly touching his penis would have been wildly arousing. They were even in the lab, site of a few of Viktor's embarrassing private fantasies about his partner.
"Get off," said Viktor again in a low, serious tone.
"I'll be careful," Jayce reassured him. He was still holding Viktor back with an implacable hand on his thin chest. His fingers delved into Viktor's underwear and - oh, God - curled around his dick.
"Jayce," Viktor tried again, "stop touching me. Let go." He couldn't get to any useful part of Jayce in this position, so all he could do was ineffectually rake Jayce's bicep through the cloth of his uniform. He could feel his own heartbeat in his dick, which Jayce was now thoughtfully fondling.
"It's fine." Jayce's expression was still set and determined. It was like arguing with someone who spoke a different language and was determined to misunderstand you in any case. Panic began to well up again in Viktor's throat. He had exhausted his avenues for escape and found they availed him not.
Jayce pulled out Viktor's dick into the cool air of the lab. Viktor looked down at his own soft pale pink penis in Jayce's tanned grip. Another familiar fantasy. He let out a shuddering breath.
Jayce toyed with Viktor's dick slowly, carefully.
"I've never touched another guy's dick before," he confessed. Viktor had guessed as much from his cautious touch. Why would he have? Jayce wasn't into men, as far as Viktor could tell - and he flattered himself that he usually could.
Viktor pressed his lips together and breathed hard through his nose. Jayce, his lab partner Jayce, was sitting more or less on top of him, touching his dick. He seemed determined to do this whether Viktor agreed to it or not.
If only this were all Jayce intended to do. Viktor knew perfectly well what was coming. Jayce had outlined it to him before things had got slightly violent.
Jayce seemed embarrassingly interested by Viktor's dick. He was stroking it now, very lightly, pulling the foreskin back and forth over the head. It felt nice. It was what Viktor might do to himself when he was horny and thinking of masturbating.
Viktor didn't want it to feel nice. He gritted his teeth and considered the merits of screaming.
"Okay," said Jayce to no-one in particular. He let go of Viktor's still-soft dick. This was not a relief: Viktor knew what must be coming next. He stared furiously up at Jayce. He felt small and weak and helpless. Absent a fire alarm or someone walking in, Jayce wasn't going to be diverted from his course.
Sure enough, Jayce sat back on his haunches and considered him, Viktor, lying helpless below him. He took his hand slowly from Viktor's heaving chest. Viktor would have used the moment to escape, if he'd thought it would do any good. He couldn't outrun Jayce any more than he could fight him off.
"It's easier if you're on your front," Jayce said to Viktor.
"How would you know?" asked Viktor in the most withering voice he could muster. He was starting to panic again. He shoved it down, away. Panic never solved anything. His ability to keep a cool head was one of his better qualities.
"Okay, I assume it's easier if you're on your front," admitted Jayce. "You can stay on your back if you like, though. How do you usually do it?"
Viktor felt his face flush. He didn't do it at all, usually or otherwise. His paltry sexual experience thus far had been a few handjobs and once, thrillingly, giving a blowjob during which he'd actually come without touching himself. It had not extended to anal play in either direction.
"None of your business," he said shortly.
"Okay, sorry for trying to be considerate."
"Considerate? Considerate?" Viktor demanded. "You are - you are doing this against my will!" He couldn't quite make himself say You are going to rape me.
"I know it'll be a lot to put up with, but if it works, it'll be worth it," Jayce promised him. "You know I can't just let it go without trying, not when it might cure you or at least make you a little better."
Yes. Viktor did know that.
"There is no plausible mechanism by which sex would..." He gave up. His words were not getting through to Jayce. His cane lay several metres away on the floor. His knee was already aching. He hoped Jayce didn't try to force him onto his belly: the idea of not being able to see what was going on behind him made the panic well up again.
But Jayce was looking down at the brace on his leg, and Viktor could see the conclusion he was coming to. If he were to fuck Viktor on his back, he would need to remove the brace so he could remove Viktor's trousers, or else awkwardly bend him in half in a way Viktor suspected he did not bend. If he fucked him from behind, the trousers only needed to be lowered to expose his buttocks.
Jayce's hand went between Viktor's legs again to fondle his dick, like he was trying to get him hard. It felt nice and terrible at the same time. Viktor looked up into Jayce's focused expression and felt an oily trickle of fear in his stomach.
"Come on," murmured Jayce, just like he did when he was staring intently at an experiment in the lab, "let yourself enjoy it."
Viktor was, in fact, in danger of getting a hard-on from all this groping: but fear prevented it. His dick stayed mostly soft in Jayce's warm careful hand.
"Tell me what you like," said Jayce. Viktor said nothing. He would only be telling Jayce to go to hell.
"Fine," said Jayce, like Viktor was being deliberately unreasonable. He let go of Viktor's dick, which felt very sensitive now Jayce had rubbed it. "I'm going to put you on your front. I'll be careful," he promised, as if Viktor had agreed to this.
True to his word, he was careful. He and Viktor had worked together closely for almost seven years. He had made Viktor's crutch and then his brace. Viktor had hidden the truth of his condition from Jayce for as long as possible, was still hiding it in fact - but he could not hide that he was getting thinner, sicker, weaker. Jayce didn't know how little time Viktor had left because Viktor had concealed this from him, preferring to let Jayce think his life expectancy was more in the range of fifty years old rather than him being unlikely to see forty; but he had seen that Viktor's condition was getting worse. Viktor had coughed up blood and Jayce had seen it. And so, this desperate, unwanted, outlandish attempt to save him.
Viktor found himself rolled onto his front. As predicted, he didn't like that he couldn't see what was going on above him, now behind him. He struggled against Jayce, not because he thought he had a hope of escaping, but because his body acted instinctively out of fear.
"It's fine, it's fine," Jayce assured him breathlessly. Viktor heard him unbuttoning his own flies. "I'll be so careful with you, I swear. I love you," he added quietly.
Not, despite their positions, in the carnal way. Viktor was Jayce's best friend. He was virtually Jayce's only friend. And it was the same vice versa. They spent all their waking hours together; they finished each other's sentences; at times it felt like they shared a brain. Yes, Jayce loved him. It was why he was about to rape Viktor on the floor of their lab.
Viktor would have liked to say I love you too. Under the circumstances, he couldn't.
Jayce pulled down Viktor's trousers and underwear, exposing his backside. Again, Viktor struggled; again, it made no difference. Jayce made a soothing noise and clapsed one cheek in his big warm hand. Viktor heard the other hand start up the telltale shuf-shuf of masturbation. A little pulse of self-disgust ran through Viktor. It might take some work for Jayce to get hard enough to penetrate him.
For a long moment, there was no sound but their mingled breathing. In other circumstances, listening to Jayce masturbate would have sent Viktor absolutely wild. He could hear his hand pumping his dick and his laboured breathing. Viktor had his own jack-off fantasies about just that, just watching Jayce masturbating, even just overhearing it when they both stayed in the lab overnight to keep an eye on some experiment that couldn't be left. He never had, of course.
A sigh from behind him. Viktor's faint hope that Jayce couldn't get it up and had decided to abandon the experiment died when the hot blunt tip of something pressed between his cheeks.
"Stop," he panted - his heart was racing even though he was still.
"Lube," said Jayce, like he was agreeing. "I know, it's not like doing it with a girl, i-it's dry." His weight over Viktor lifted a moment as he fumbled with...was he getting something out of his pocket? "Brought it from home," he explained, "when I decided we were going to do this."
Pointing out that Jayce was in fact doing it to an unwilling Viktor would be pointless. Viktor got stuck on the idea of Jayce bringing lube with him - the lube that he kept for, what? Masturbating? - once he'd decided that he was going to fuck his best friend in an attempt to cure him. Viktor presumed that in Jayce's imaginings, he'd been willing.
The masturbatory noises returned, slick this time. Jayce breathed a little heavier. How could he even get it up? It wasn't as if he were so desperately attracted to Viktor that just the sight of his pale flat ass would do it for him. Maybe he was trying to envision Viktor as a woman. Good luck to him, thought Viktor blackly.
The hot blunt head of Jayce's dick, now slick with lube, slid between Viktor's buttocks. It slid up and down, as Jayce tried to find the hole. Viktor wanted to say something unkind about how badly girls must take this kind of fumbling, but he couldn't get the words out. He could feel his own ribcage rising and falling against the floor. His lower ribs, the soft cartilage ones, were starting to hurt from being pressed against a hard surface.
The tip of it found Viktor's asshole. Viktor gasped, then felt stupid. It felt huge, hot, throbbing. That was Jayce's pulse he could feel. That was Jayce's dick.
"Stop," he croaked. He didn't expect it to have any effect on Jayce, and it didn't. Things had been set in motion and he didn't have the power to stop them. He never had.
"I'll be careful," Jayce promised him breathlessly. The pressure on Viktor's hole increased. He was pushing it in.
Viktor tossed uselessly underneath Jayce's weight. It wasn't rational considered resistance. He struggled because his body was panicking and he couldn't stop himself. He had very rarely been involved in fights as a child - the crutch and the limp had perhaps made him too pathetic even to duff up. But he did remember the advice that to end a fight, you simply had to have the courage to stick your thumb in the other child's eye. He had done it once, and only once. It had worked.
He had not done it to Jayce. Well, Jayce hadn't hit him. They hadn't fought. Jayce had simply caught him, and Viktor had struggled in vain. The animal fear and perhaps childish lack of perspective that had let him poke the horrid Dinlo in the eye before he had made it out of double digits was not in him. Jayce was his friend, not his enemy. It had not occurred to him to put such a decisive end to things. He could surely talk Jayce out of it, he'd thought.
And now he was on his belly without any hope of even reaching Jayce's eye. Stupid, incautious. There was no escape.
Jayce continued to press his erection into Viktor's tight virgin hole. He was breathing heavily through his nostrils, which Viktor could just about hear over the pulsing of his own blood in his ears. It felt very strange and very frightening to have this alien body part push inside him, into an orifice which no-one else had ever touched. Viktor twitched as the pressure grew. It wasn't painful so much as intensely strange. Things didn't go in there, except thermometers which felt nothing like this thick pulsing organ.
Did Jayce know what Viktor had fantasised about in the privacy of his own head? Had Viktor looked at him a little too keenly on those days Jayce had taken him to the forge and stripped to the waist in the sweltering heat, and had Jayce noticed? Jayce hadn't said I know you want it so presumably not. Viktor hoped not. It was the one thing that could make this whole sordid event worse.
The head of Jayce's dick pushed inside him. It felt alien and uncomfortable. Viktor licked his lips and stared at the floor. He could get through this. It was like a hideous invasive medical procedure, and he'd got through several of those.
"You're really tight," Jayce whispered. Viktor's ears burned.
"I don't need a commentary," he snapped. His hole squeezed involuntarily on the head of Jayce's dick inside him. Jayce grunted like it felt good. Hell. He was in hell.
Perhaps in his eagerness, Jayce shoved in another inch or so of his erection - and that did hurt. Viktor gasped hoarsely as pain seared through him. The lube didn't help. The size, the pressure, the invasion - he twitched and writhed, an insect transfixed on a pin. How could something so objectively small hurt so much?
"Take it easy," Jayce was saying. His voice was concerned and strained. Not concerned enough to stop. He clumsily stroked the sweaty hair on Viktor's nape. Viktor convulsed and swore.
"Take it out," he panted into the floor. He pressed his cheek to it and gained a blurry view of the wheels of his chair. The door was a long way away. Pain was sapping his strength.
"Relax." Jayce's voice was still strained. His hips bucked, making his first short thrust. Viktor gasped again. "I - I can't stop," confessed Jayce quietly. "You're so tight."
"Shut up," Viktor gasped. His fingers were claws.
Jayce started to fuck him. He was trying to control himself, but perhaps he was overwhelmed - they spent twelve hour days together, so Viktor knew that Jayce was not spending time with women outside their lab and had as best as he could tell had no more sex in the past seven years than Viktor had - because he kept making short jabbing thrusts that seemed to stab Viktor inside. Viktor panted and twitched and felt sweat run down his back.
He had imagined that this might feel good; enough men did it and appeared to enjoy it, and he understood the physical principles behind it. Men of his persuasion knew about the pleasures of prostate stimulation even if they didn't practise it.
But either Jayce was doing it wrong or Viktor was once again built wrong - or, quite possibly, both - because it hurt far beyond what a penis ought to be able to achieve. Viktor's mouth was open and he panted through the whining pain that spread from his hole through his lower body. It felt like Jayce's cock was hitting things inside him that ought not to be touched.
"God," said Jayce thickly. He continued to hump Viktor frantically. The obvious pleasure in his voice made Viktor's stomach turn. "Oh, God." He bent and kissed Viktor's bony shoulders. His hands were flat on the floor on either side of Viktor's head.
It seemed to go on forever, the endless thrusting and heaving and groaning. Viktor scarcely had the strength to twitch beneath Jayce's weight, which was increasingly on him and increasingly uncomfortable. Every thrust seemed to stab him deep inside. Only the knowledge that anal penetration rarely did any real damage kept him from panic.
Maybe two minutes had passed - it was difficult to keep track of time - and Viktor found the pain was receding. It still felt strange and uncomfortable, but it was as if the force was now hitting instead of stabbing. The change let Viktor appreciate the terrible wrong and invasive feeling of that thick hard cock ramming his insides.
Jayce's head hung down and his panting breath washed hot over Viktor's ear. Perhaps he was still trying to be gentle, because whenever his humping got too frantic he deliberately slowed down, as if out of consideration. Perhaps it was what he remembered from making love to women.
Viktor wished Jayce weren't enjoying it quite so obviously. The stiff throbbing prick going into him and the heavy breathing were unmistakable. He had never thought of his lab partner as a man who could enjoy - could consider - rape. What must Jayce be telling himself to appease his moral conscience?
Jayce's big hand clumsily stroked Viktor's side through his shirt. His hot fingers felt Viktor's brace, not his skin. His balls slapped Viktor's ass with a horrible loud smack-smack-smack.
"You're doing well," he assured him breathlessly. "It'll be done soon."
This was the whole point of the exercise. It was Jayce's semen that would effect the proposed healing - if indeed any healing there was, which Viktor sorely doubted. And if there were healing properties, he didn't see why the substance had to be put into him by sexual force instead of Jayce ejaculating into a suitable receptacle and Viktor imbibing it separately. Jayce had of course pointed out that even with their research into melding magic with science, magic was governed by its own principles, and they were not scientific ones; but then, it wasn't his ass on the line.
"Hurry up," he managed to gasp out. There was a strange and terrible feeling growing in his belly. Not sickness but pressure all through his abdomen. It felt like he might piss himself. The hard floor was more uncomfortable by the second. His knee would hate him tomorrow.
Jayce grunted and set up a steady rhythm of hard thrusts, deeper and longer than before. Viktor turned his head to press his other hot cheek to the cold floor. Soon enough, it would be over. He had only to bear it. He was good at that.
He was lying flat against the floor on his belly. Maybe it really would have been more comfortable to be on his back; though that would have involved holding up his legs. Every thrust jolted him forward across the hard floor and rattled his teeth. At least the stabbing pain had subsided into dull aching. Or was it a bad sign that he was becoming numb inside?
The strange pressure continued to build and spread. It went from the base of his soft penis outwards, where it felt like Jayce's thick cock was hitting the inside of it, through his whole body between his bottom ribs and his knees. His skin tingled. He twisted unhappily but weakly, not trusting the feeling. It had stopped feeling like he needed to piss, at least.
Jayce was breathing raggedly behind him, pushing his erection into him over and over. He sounded like he was about to come. Well, as far as Viktor could judge, anyway, however much his little experience counted for.
"L-let me make it good for you," said Jayce in a laboured rasp. "What do you like?"
"I don't!" Viktor snapped. What was he supposed to enjoy about having his best friend and lab partner's dick rammed up his backside? Except that he had been deeply attracted to Jayce for years and sometimes fantasised about his body; but not about this act, and anyway, Jayce didn't know that. If Jayce had known, he would have mentioned it by now.
"What do you n-nnnngh-normally do?"
"I don't," repeated Viktor in a gasp. The strange pressure inside him was getting stronger. He felt his toes twitch.
"Never?" Jayce sounded surprised through the thick lustful growl.
Viktor gritted his teeth. No, never. What had Jayce assumed about his partner's sex life? That he had one, apparently, which was more flattering than most. And that he would be the one taking it. In fairness, several men of Viktor's own persuasion had made the same assumption.
Jayce's breath was coming in big shuddery heaves. Maybe the idea that he was taking Viktor's virginity - Viktor rebelled at the thought - was exciting to him.
The strange feeling in Viktor's belly made him squirm, made him tense, made him let out tiny guttural noises. He still didn't know what it was but Jayce's dick hitting his most intimate parts made it worse. It was like being aroused, but his dick was still soft. Pressure, building, coiling, sparkling - he couldn't contain it -
It left him in long pulses, almost like orgasm. The overwhelming sensation was a hum of feeling, pressure washing through him in waves, contracting his muscles, opening his mouth in a silent groan. Jayce's thrusting prolonged it. Release, relief, tingling, shuddering. On and on it went, Jayce's moaning in his ear distant under the sound of his own blood rushing. He could taste his pulse in his throat.
While Viktor was experiencing this strange all-encompassing paroxysm, Jayce suddenly groaned loudly, twice - and stopped, trembling, his thick hard cock shoved as deep inside Viktor as it would go. Viktor could feel pubic hair against his buttocks. The thick rod inside him pulsed. Viktor envisioned it spurting semen deep inside his bowels.
Jayce breathed unsteadily and his fingers twitched and spasmed on Viktor's hips. Viktor wanted to say something cutting about how good it must feel, but he couldn't get out words. The strange pressure and pulsing inside him had finished and his whole body was heavy. His tongue felt like a foreign body in his slack mouth.
At length, Jayce let out a long sigh. He kissed Viktor's shoulders again, drowsily. Then he carefully disengaged. His semen spilled down the inside of Viktor's thigh and the wet head of his penis slid over his buttock. Viktor shivered a little in distaste.
"Have I hurt you?" Jayce asked him. His tone was considerate and concerned. He was still kneeling behind Viktor but had straightened up instead of kneeling over him on his hands and knees. Viktor could hear his breathing was still laboured.
"Yes." Viktor was very tired. His knee, his hips, his back were all very sore, to say nothing of his more intimate parts.
"I'm sorry, Viktor." A caress of his buttocks, then Jayce's hands split his cheeks apart. Viktor wriggled uncomfortably as the cold air hit his sensitive rim. "Quite red, but I don't think there's any blood. You've come loads." Jayce sounded impressed.
"I have not!" He would have known! He might not be sexually experienced but he knew damn well what an orgasm felt like.
"There's a puddle underneath you." His tone was affectionate and a little insinuating, like he was telling Viktor he'd made a big fuss about something he'd actually ended up enjoying.
A puddle? Had he pissed himself after all? Was that what that strange almost-orgasmic feeling been? Viktor's ears burned with humiliation.
"I wonder if that's something that normally happens with prostate stimulation." Jayce was musing aloud. "It's thinner than semen usually is. Has this happened to you before?"
"What are you, my doctor?" Viktor struggled into a kneeling position. His hip twinged nastily. "Help me up or go away." He did not especially want Jayce to touch him, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Of course Jayce helped him up. Jayce was always considerate about Viktor's physical limitations. His face, when Viktor caught a glimpse of it, was mortified at the idea that he'd hurt Viktor.
Viktor turned his face away as Jayce helped him lean on the desk and stooped to get his cane. Jayce had put away his dick, but Viktor found himself still uncomfortably exposed. He hurriedly dressed, even though he was still leaking Jayce's come.
He looked at the floor where he had just been lying and found, as Jayce had described, a puddle of pearlescent liquid. It was not urine, but it was indeed thinner than semen. His body had betrayed him and done something embarrassing, per usual.
"I don't know how fast you're supposed to be feeling better," Jayce was saying. He helped Viktor to a chair, his usual chair in the lab. Viktor felt his face scrunch up in distaste as he sat in underwear damp with his lab partner's come.
"There is nothing to say I will feel better at all." Jayce had done what he had just done in a desperate attempt to preserve Viktor's life and health. Viktor was in no mood to appreciate it. Jayce might well have seen it as a selfless act to start with, but he had enjoyed the physical aspect too much to claim it was purely for Viktor's benefit.
It might in time comfort him to remember how much pleasure Jayce had taken from fucking him, from those tender kisses to his shoulders. I love you. Yes, well, look what love had done.
Jayce was still looking at him in concern and looked about to whip out a thermometer and take his temperature - a fine thing when it was him who'd just knocked Viktor about. Viktor felt sick and sore and he wanted to lie down and be alone.
"I am going home," said Viktor. Jayce goggled at him. Neither of them left the lab before six o'clock unless it was Jayce having to leave early to get ready for some evening society 'do. There were cots for if they chose to stay overnight to keep an eye on an experiment at a ticklish stage.
"But we need to monitor your symptoms!" Jayce's hand touched Viktor's upper arm. It was, despite what had just passed between them, reassuring. Jayce peered down into his pale thin face with an expression of concern and affection. How could he still look like that after what he'd just done? Didn't he realise how it damaged Viktor, damaged their relationship?
"I will monitor my symptoms. I feel ill. I will go home." This was the name he gave his university-provided rooms, in which he spent little time and for which he felt little affection.
"You're hurt."
Viktor lost his temper for a second and snapped:
"And whose fault is that, Jayce?"
"It was the only way," said Jayce, stupidly.
It was not an easy task to get out of his chair again. He levered himself up with the help of his cane, then leaned on it as he wobbled. Jayce reached out to catch him if he fell. His face was creased with concern, and not just for the necessity of monitoring an experiment. His hands hovered underneath Viktor's elbows rather than seizing them. It would have been nice if he could have mustered this concern for Viktor's autonomy about fifteen minutes ago.
"I'll see you tomorrow," said Jayce. He was still hovering near Viktor in a way he no doubt thought was helpful. He didn't usually say that: neither of them bothered, since they had 'seen each other tomorrow' just about every day for the past seven years.
Viktor did not reply. He limped slowly and painfully out of the lab. Their lab, the scene of their greatest triumphs. Yes, he would see Jayce tomorrow, in their lab. He would not feel any better for Jayce's unfortunate 'experiment'. They would return to work on Hextech, that would improve the lives of many and maybe, perhaps, extend Viktor's.
And he would have to trust Jayce again somehow, because there was no other option. What was the point in being angry? Jayce didn't even know what he had done wrong.