Chapter Text
Viktor lets out a sigh of relief as he walks into the academy building. It has snowed this morning which only caused him mild issues now but when the snow started to melt and refreeze into ice his walks to around town would become a lot more dangerous. But for now he was taking in the relief that being inside was giving from the wind and snowfall. However it was only moderately warmer than the outside considering he had gotten there at 6 AM and no one had turned on the heat yet.
He continued to his and Jayce’s lab, flicking the lights on and heading to the thermostat to increase the temperature. As his fingers lingered on the knob he started to notice laboured breathing coming from the closet room and suddenly remembered that he didn’t have to unlock the door when he came in. He had gone home early last night after his pain started to ease enough for him to finally get a good night’s sleep and left Jayce to lock up but as he looks around the room he noticed that Jayce had failed to clean up his things before leaving, though to be fair this wouldn’t be the first time that happened.
His breath hitched as he assessed the situation and what might be hiding in that closet. But if this was someone trying to rob him, it wouldn’t be the first time so he grabbed his dagger he kept with him out of habit and slowly headed towards the door. But as soon as he was able to clearly hear the voice he lowered his weapon, it sounded closer to sobbing than a criminal’s scared pants.
He pushed open the door anxiously to see Jayce, shivering under a blanket on the floor, his face marked with fear and old streams of tears that dried up on his face. He flinches back when he notices Viktor’s dagger but Viktor quickly puts it back in his shoe and kneels to be on the same level as Jayce.
“What happened?”
“It- itz not sff—” He tries to push out the words between his heaves.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, just breath”
Jayce looks to Viktor for comfort, “the-the snow. I’m- it’s not safe”
“Jayce, you're going to be alright” he tried to reach out to feel his temperature but Jayce pulled away at Viktor’s cold touch.
“No-no, mama, sh-she needs help”, he begins to sob again, “I need to get her help”
“Your mother is alright Jayce”
He buries his head into the blanket, “SHE’S NOT MOVING”
Viktor tries to meet Jayce’s eyes but he knows he’s not there right now. “Jayce, you're going to be okay, just follow me.” He reaches a hand around the blanket to grab Jayce and slowly leads him to his feet.
“We have heating machines here, alright. I’m going to bring you to one and help you warm up” Viktor continues.
“Need to bring mama, need to get her safe”
“We will, just follow me now.” He slowly leads Jayce to where the heat comes out for the room and grabs one of their newer inventions, a hextech heater and pops a crystal into it.
They sit around the heater for a bit before Viktor can see Jayce’s anxiety go down. “How are you feeling, Jayce? Are you warm enough?”
“Yeah, itz good here, is mama safe? Where is she?”
Viktor looks at Jayce for a few moments before answering. “They took her to get checked out. She’s going to be okay, they just wanted to look at her”
“Good, good” Jayce looks at him with big, round eyes, and holds his index and middle finger with his other hand “sh-she didn’t look good… her fingers”
“She’ll be okay” Viktor rubs Jayce on his back with his now warmed hand.
Viktor slowly analyzes Jayce as they sit. He had seen people have panic attacks before or get dragged into past memories but this was different.
His shoulders were turned in and his back was hunched as if he was trying to make himself as small as possible which is something Viktor had never seen him do before. He had this look in his eyes which was at first hopeless and vulnerable that turned into a kind of childish playfulness as they sat. He saw Jayce look around their room filled with half finished projects and equations with a kind of curiosity rather than the normal confident determination.
“Jayce, how are you feeling, like besides what just happened?”
“I think I’m doing good”
“...you just don’t seem like your normal self”
“What is my normal self?” Jayce responded with the same childlike confusion Viktor had just picked up on.
“Just more… adult”
“Oh,” he giggles, “I’m not very good at being an adult. My mama always says I’m her little man but I’m just a kid”
Viktor raises his eyebrow. Jayce seemed to be okay, the stressful part of the morning had long passed and the lab wouldn’t have been cold enough throughout the night for Jayce to get any sort of hypothermia. He looks into Jayce’s eyes, he’s happy, so Viktor decides to go along with it.
“So, you’re not an adult”
“Hah, no, I’m like 11”
“Okay, well I have some adult things that I have to do today so do you think you’d be able to help me with them?”
“Yeah! I’m great at helping” his face lights up.
At first Viktor tries to continue with their work as normal but it quickly turns into lessons about different parts of hextech. He can tell that Jayce isn’t grasping that much of what he’s teaching but Jayce is still happy to listen. Viktor pulls out some of the prototypes Jayce has been working on for a hammer and he is beyond excited.
“And then I blast all the bad guys away with the laser beam and save the day!” Jayce explains as he swings the prototype around.
“That’s very impressive, but be careful with that, it’s heavy and the stuff here is very breakable”
“Okay, mr.Viktor” he puts the hammer down and continues to analyze the mechanics of it. “What have you been working on? It’s all papers, not any fun stuff”
Viktor sighs, “it’s a report for the council, on our progress for the hexgates”
“How do the hexgates work?” Jayce happily throws himself over the chair next to Viktor.
Viktor smiles at the chance to relive some of the easier parts of their work. “These crystals are able to warp spacetime,” he picks up a piece of paper and draws two dots on it. “So if I’m here, and I want to be here then I could either take the longer journey walking across the paper or I could fold the paper like this to momentarily connect the two spots and easily move between them”
“Wow, so you can just go anywhere in seconds!”
“Yes, but it becomes complicated trying to find where to push the paper to perfectly align to two spots” he draws another dot on the paper and keeps it flat against the table. “So these ruines represent different ways I can push or pull the paper to try to connect the two dots and that equation is supposed to figure out what amount of each ruine we need to connect the two”
“That’s so cool, which equation is it?” Jayce asks, staring at the messy chalkboard filled with crossed out attempts and half finished equations.
“We… haven’t been able to perfect it yet”
“I think this one looks the best” Jayce says, circling a smaller, more condensed equation.
“Thank you for the help. I believe it is time for lunch now?”
“Yay, lunch time”
Viktor checks the minifridge they keep stocked and finds just enough ingredients to make the two of them sandwiches. He gives the more generous portions to Jayce and cuts both of their sandwiches in half. He then goes to the kettle to make some sweet milk they can both have with it.
Jayce decides to lay down a blanket for them to sit on in the middle of the lab floor and Viktor sets down their meals.
“Lunch is served”
Jayce pauses, staring at their two sandwiches for a moment before switching two of the sandwich halves, “there, now it’s even”
Viktor chuckles to himself, “it’s okay. You need to extra food, you’re bigger”
“Yeah, and you need the food so you can grow big and strong too”
“...Okay, thank you”
In the afternoon Viktor tends to some more urgent work that needs to get done and gives Jayce some pencil crayons and paper, telling him to make some ideas for more hextech machines while he works.
After a few hours Viktor has handled the most urgent of their tasks for the day and turns back to Jayce to see what he has created.
“This is the hex cup. It’s a special cup that warms up your drink on it’s own and it keeps it warm all day”
“Wow, so I wouldn’t need a kettle anymore”
“Nuh uh! And this is my favourite. I call it the hex leg, it goes around your leg and it helps you walk around cause you seemed like you were struggling to walk all day, so this would help you”
“That’s very thoughtful Jayce, how about we look at how we could implement those tomorrow”
Viktor hadn’t thought about tomorrow before this, it was nice getting to see this side of Jayce but they did have work that needed to be finished and if he couldn’t recover then it’d bring a halt to hextech. But his fears were eased when he looked into Jayce’s shining eyes, looking up at him like Viktor knew how to make everything in the world okay again.
So Viktor helped Jayce get bundled up to go outside, helping him tie his shoes when he got frustrated with the task and reassuring him they’d be okay if they left the comfort of the heated lab.