Archive of Our Own

Viktor rarely miscalculates.

If nothing else, he prides himself in his engineering and mathematical genius. And with years upon years of practical experience, it is very much an anomaly when he commits an error as big as this one.

He's slumped against his operating chair, metal chest cavity open, a mass of misaligned wires protruding from within, both arms fallen limply to his side, various medical instruments having clattered to the floor.

His consciousness drifts in and out as his internal systems scream, flashing line after line of red warning in his augmented vision — he's fading fast.

Safety protocol engaged. Shutdown imminent, it says. A timer begins in the corner of his eyes, an irritating creation of his own, taunting him with every second that ticks away.

Viktor's human hand twitches, feebly attempting to reach the panel in his metal arm where he can input code to override the safety process. So long as he can shut it down and trigger another dose of epinephrine release, it should reboot his body into a stable enough state that he can wrap up his work and properly knock out.

He grits his teeth, willing himself to move, but the pain proves to be too overwhelming, substantially more than enough to have set off the safety protocol in the first place — he really should have completely turned off the pain sensitivity before he'd started.

Unusual levels of cortisol and epinephrine within system, incongruent to manual epinephrine administration, the system suddenly flashes. Panic attack detected, emergency plan #100 engaged.

Panic attack? Emergency Plan #100?

Viktor hardly has time to be indignant about the supposed "panic attack". He'll have to fix that bug next time, but he's much more preoccupied with this emergency plan — he scarcely remembers implementing it, let alone know what on earth it entails.

Not that he has enough brain cells to put that together at this point. His vision is fading fast, mechanical pupils shuttering, electrical impulses in his limbs shutting off one by one, leaving him cold and numb except his central system, a state of protective hibernation.

>>Message to Jayce Giopara received.<<

Wait, what—

>>Shutdown in 3… 2… 1…<<

And the world fades into nothing as Viktor slips into unconsciousness, the last of his thoughts crumbling to dust.

Viktor comes around to the sound of someone in his lab, and his arm immediately shoots out to punch the offender.

Or — that's what he planned to do before his wrist is stopped by what feels like a thick loop of metal pinning it down.

His eyes fly open in alarm, darting around in rapid flicks as he takes in his surroundings.

He's still sitting in his operating chair, at least, but both arms have been strapped down on either side with metal cuffs. His waist, too, has been tied snugly against the chair, as well as his legs, spread open and propped up from below the knee by creaky leg supports he'd never removed.

His chest cavity remains open, wires jutting out, thick cables connecting his internal systems to a large machinery next to him as a familiar — infuriating — man blocks his vision, head down, tinkering away with commands that streak through Viktor's vision, lightning fast.

Jayce Giopara turns around in that eyesore of his red and bronze jacket. With the white, lined collar, it always makes him look a bit like a peacock — oversized, annoyingly ostentatious. Too much.

"You're awake," the other man says cheerfully. Dripping with mockery, more like, a smug grin on his face that Viktor wishes he was able to punch out.

"Get out," Viktor snaps, a fierce scowl underneath his mask.

That damned Emergency Plan #100 is coming back to him now, a pathetic moment of weakness when he had a little too much to drink.

War had been raging between the chembarons within Zaun — before he had struck up his current arrangement with Renata — and Viktor came to realize he had no back up of his own if he ever found himself in genuine trouble.

He'd loathe for his research to fall into the hands of those filthy, power hungry miscreants, so it had been reasonable at the time to create a backup.

And sadly, the only person he could trust — however little — was Jayce.

For as much of a thorn to his side as Jayce has been throughout his life — betrayed Viktor, even, stripped him of everything and threw him into the depths of nothing — that man would still have a modicum more honor than the chembarons.

That was years ago, though.

He should've remembered to update the backup contact.

"And leave you all tied up like this?"

Jayce raises an eyebrow, smirk growing wider as he scans Viktor's body, lingering a little too low, too long beneath Viktor's eye level. "I knew you liked getting freaky with Renata, but huh. I see."

"Release me and get out," Viktor repeats again, a deep blush rising to his cheeks, but not denying. "You have enough depraved flings of your own, Defender. I've read those tabloids."

He's all too aware that he's currently wearing nothing, not even a pair of boxers.

It's simply routine for his bigger procedures; they are not unlike traditional medical surgeries — the necessity of maintaining a sterile environment, the limitation of messes, so on and so forth.

But it is one thing to not have pants as part of protocol, and another to be tied down the way he is, legs unnecessarily parted and raised in front of his mortal enemy.

Jayce is clearly having a field day with it, as the bastard would.

Rising cortisol levels detected, his system chirps. Shame surpassing preset maximum.

"Oh," Jayce says, glancing towards the machine. He lets out a hum as he reads the indicators, then begins to input something into the commands to Viktor's horror.

It's his worst nightmare unfolding before his eyes — unfiltered access to his data, his biological responses and interpretations, an open book and all of it readily under Jayce's control, free to do whatever he wishes.

Viktor laments his oversight again in not switching his backup contact to Renata.

>>Voice modulator disengaged<<

Jayce strides back to Viktor, looking all too satisfied with himself. Then he reaches towards Viktor's mask, hooking behind both ears to unclasp it from where it attaches to the back of his neck.

Viktor squirms against the move, but he has no real ground to resist, trapped as he is in the chair.

It unlatches with a hiss, unfiltered air hitting his nose instead of the clarified oxygen his mask feeds into him, the scent of machinery and antiseptics and a pungent waft of perfume.

Viktor scrunches his nose and glares harder.

"There you are," Jayce says, pleased. His eyes rake over Viktor's face, hand curiously tilting him by the chin, as if examining an interesting specimen.

Viktor has half a mind to try and bite those fingers if he isn't so busy trying to will the blush back. He can feel the heat continuing to flare in his cheeks and ears, growing impossibly hotter the longer Jayce stares at him.

Which should not be happening, come to think of it.

The main modulator for his emotions has preset values — he cannot feel beyond those carefully regulated limits. These feelings of anger, of shame all running unchecked — the engineering should not have allowed it in the first place.

With his mask off, he loses access to the bulk of his readings, but he more than suspects that Jayce has turned off his emotions regulator.

That damn bastard.

"What do you want?" Viktor demands, then resists the urge to wince when he hears his own voice, human and feeble.

Emotional instead of the level, measured tone it ought to be.

Jayce lets go of his face, seemingly happy with whatever he was looking for. "I'm here to fix you, of course," he says, matter-of-fact, brimming with saccharine confidence. "You're the one who asked me to come."

"A bug in the system. It should have gone elsewhere," Viktor corrects, lying through his teeth, hoping his voice doesn't betray too much, unsteady as it is. "Untie me now and you can go. I will not attack."

Jayce tilts his head and makes a show of considering for a moment. Even puts a finger on his lips, as if in thought. "I don't think so," he says after a prolonged pause.

And his hand suddenly plunges into Viktor's chest, bullying through the mass of his wires before he reaches the slow pumping cartridge of metal that's since replaced Viktor's fragile, human heart.

There's an uncomfortable tightness as Jayce does, a strange pressure around the heart, almost itchy but not yet painful, and Viktor feels his breath accelerate as Jayce fiddles with it just beyond his view.

"Your heart almost failed," Jayce says plainly.

The second hand goes in, tugging at a few more cables. It feels like his nerves are being pulled on, marionette-like, stray electric impulses running down his appendages as his fingers and toes jerk in response, erratic, uncontrolled motions.

But it's active now, and it's working as Viktor expected.

With the upgrade to more powerful ventricular chambers, it should take just a few more days of calibration before he will be able to perform even faster, even stronger than before at greater energy efficiencies.

"I was handling it myself," Viktor says, another lie as his mind whirls, taking in the marked changes he feels within his body. Every drag of his lungs feels even smoother than before, and he did notice a subtle uptick in the speed at which his internal systems have been able to process inputs.

It's obvious that Jayce took over the last of his surgery and completed it with flawless ingenuity while Viktor was unconscious — as much as Viktor would expect from the other man, the only other man who's ever matched Viktor in wit and brilliance, who can actually parse through Viktor's notes and understand his thought processes.

And Jayce didn't have to. He didn't even have to come in the first place, but he did.

"Your backup generators were an hour from failing by the time I got here," Jayce says, voice falling flatter, colder. "You were close to dying."

Viktor snorts. "Is that not what you would have wanted?"

Jayce gives him a look. A self assured, gear grinding look that has Viktor wanting to aim his fist at the man again, but he can only keep scowling when both arms and legs are out of commission.

There's something about Jayce and his ability to bring out the worst, the most human parts of Viktor. He will need to fast track his next patch to neutralize this pesky effect.

One more twist of a part being tightened under the other man's hands, and Viktor feels that corresponding jolt in his spine, tingling, streaking down the length of his back to his groin like lightning, and he bites back an involuntary noise.

"All set," Jayce says and pats Viktor's chest, leaving dark, sloppy trails of engine grease, then rearranges the wires back inside and flips the panel shut.

He shucks off the gloves and tosses them in the pile of other medical discard before feeling around Viktor's jaw, bare skin against bare skin. Viktor resists the urge to flinch from it, the familiar temperature, the curves and callouses he knows by heart. "I feel like I deserve credit for this. Carve a little J in there so you remember that we both contributed."

"If you dare—" Viktor begins, yanking at his bonds again.

"Tsk tsk. So feisty today." Jayce's fingers nimbly dodge Vktor's teeth to snake behind Viktor's neck, double checking for the main cable connectivity before he walks back to the larger machine.

A series of vitals and warnings flash through the screen, too rapid for Viktor to parse before they disappear. He wiggles listlessly against his bonds as he waits, gritting his teeth and debating how he can break out from them.

There's little give to the metal, though. Without the ray from his mechanical arm to help, he's trapped for all intents and purposes.

"I need some final checks to make sure the new heart is functioning properly," Jayce explains, eyes glued to the screen as he taps at a few more keys. "I had to make alterations because you didn't account for the altered lung capacity. It almost caused another critical failure in your systems."

Viktor huffs, but he cranes his neck and tries to peer around Jayce's — maddeningly broad — shoulders to the graphs the other man's pulled up. What looks like 3D holographic renders of his lungs and heart are rotating slowly, with occasional portions highlighted in yellow and annotated in blue text.

That can't have been done in just a few hours.

He steals a glance at the clock on the wall, and his eyes widen, breath catching when it shows that it's half past 11.

It's been nearly 14 hours since he'd passed out.

Between the time it would've taken for Jayce to come into his lab — even discounting how long he may have spent debating if he should check on Viktor at all — and how much time has passed, the thought that Jayce has poured all these hours into repairing Viktor is…

>>Sudden increase in shock detected. Regulate to preset levels?<<

[Yes] [No]

Jayce looks over to Viktor, an eyebrow cocked, before his attention moves back to the monitor.

Viktor grimaces and turns his face away, opting to stare at the patch of his ceiling to his left. It was blasted to ruins by Jayce's hammer a few months ago, and he'd hastily repaired it with scrap metal when an ensuing thunderstorm threatened to flood his lab and the rest of Emberlift Alley.

It's shoddy patchwork by his standards, but the reminder of how Jayce nearly destroyed his lab swiftly distinguishes any hint of goodwill Viktor almost formed for the other man.

"You know," Jayce starts with an air of casual small talk. Never a good sign. "It's actually pretty nice to see you more emotional for a change."

Viktor chooses to ignore the note of sentimentality permeating those words, viscous, sweet like honey, yet sharp, bitter like nettle, barbed with thorns.

His ceiling is atrocious, and this new heart is partially because Jayce's gaudy hammer almost caused his old one to short-circuit on the spot.

They're decades past sentimentality, with everything that's since come between them.

"It is a hindrance," Viktor mutters, gaze fixed on the warped patch of metal, mentally constructing how he would fix it, make it mold into the existing structure, near undetectable. Preferably with the expensive type of ore he knows Jayce keeps in his lab by robbing the man clean next time. "I would like to have the regulator back on."

Jayce seems to shrug in his periphery, almost as if in disappointment. "Can't. Need to make sure your heart can take higher doses of stimuli first. Standard stress test and all that."

Jayce is right, unfortunately, to Viktor's continued ire.

(He is right much more often than Viktor likes to admit.)

"Take a few deep breaths," Jayce instructs. "I need to make sure first that your lungs and heart are properly synchronized now."

Viktor suppresses the urge to throw another snipey comment — he closes his eyes instead and does as he's told, as unwilling as he feels.

He draws in a long breath. Holds. Exhales. Holds.

Beep beep. Beep beep.

He repeats, in and out, large, deep lungful breaths each time, hears the muted whirl of his engines as his new heart works in harmony with every part of him, focuses on how it beats stronger, more stable than before, a fully, smoothly integrated machine.

It's undoubtedly a cut above the old one, and Viktor has to admit that Jayce did him well this time.

The monitor continues its steady beeping when Jayce turns around, a wide smile back on his face. "Good job, kitten."

Whatever contentment Viktor was feeling vanishes in a snap.

"For the last time, Jayce, these are not kitten paws," he spits out as he wiggles his feet, ire flaring for the umpteenth time. "These are specialized boots designed for maximum support and grip. They—"

Jayce keeps the smile plastered on his face as his hand comes down on a button.

A jolt of pleasure hits Viktor deep in his core, sudden like a flood as he chokes on his words, nervous system lighting up, sweeping outwards from the center to his back and legs, toes — not paws — curling from the force.

"Good," Jayce says, eyes flickering to the monitor where it'd emitted a slew of frantic beeps before drawing back, stabilizing along with Viktor's breath, almost like the calm before a crashing wave, a false stillness.

He logs the note into the machine. "Heart functioning as expected with abrupt introduction of stimulus."

"What the fuck, Jayce—" Viktor grits out, fists flexing in anger, head still spinning from what Jayce had just hit him with.

To have exact, perfect control over his biological functions and emotions is to include every hormone, every stimulus without restriction, and pleasure would naturally be one of them.

It was just never in the books to have someone else get a hold of it.

"I assume your usual alternative is pain," Jayce says with another nonchalant shrug. "But why do that when it can be something enjoyable?"

"Do not play with my—"

The words barely leave Viktor's mouth before he's hit with another wave of pleasure, this time even more intense than the last. He moans out loud, unable to stop himself as the sensation curls in his gut, courses through his body and stays, clinging onto every sensitive region as he itches, burns from the artificial stimulation.

Like a phantom hand, it caresses everywhere that aches, over his skin and within him, lingers, loathe to let go.

"Introduction of prolonged, intense stimulus is also a go," Jayce remarks, letting go of the button at last.

There's a smirk in that tone, but Viktor is too dizzy from pleasure to look at him, can only gasp as he wills his system to regulate his heartbeat and breathing. The system's flashing bright red in his pupils again, noting that the heightened measures are akin to that of having sex.

>>Accelerated vitals and high levels of arousal detected. Congruent with sexual intercourse. Continue or regulate to preset levels?<<

[Continue] [Regulate]

Jayce lets the prompt hang on his own screen as he ponders. "Why do you have this option anyway? Is it a kink thing?"

Viktor bristles — or tries to, if he wasn't strapped down in the chair. "I maintain control over every function. Just having the option does not necessarily mean they are used."

"Ah," Jayce nods in slow and exaggerated thoughtfulness. He turns to look at Viktor again, head tilted, curious, eyes more eerily blue than usual against the dim lighting and harsh highlights of Viktor's instruments.

Viktor's almost forgotten when they weren't blue at all, just a much more natural, human shade, back when they were much younger and still at the Academy.

"You sure you don't use it for fun? Your pussy looks like it's having a good time."

… The radiation from working with hex crystals has done more than turning Jayce's eyes blue, if his brains are clearly also addled like Viktor'd always suspected.

"That's just a natural biological response, you piece of—"

And Jayce's hand comes down a third time, letting pleasure sweep through Viktor, a powerful storm tearing into him, just as vicious as the last. Viktor cries out, body seizing, shuddering through every fierce pulse as the stimulus works through him, all at once and all too much.

His cunt clenches emptily down on nothing as slick floods between his legs, and he whines, somehow still wanting more.

Artificial sensations are starting to not be enough — he craves something tangible. Needs to be stroked, fingered, fucked by something concrete, not just mimicked through the pattern of signals and hormones coursing through his neural network, an echo that doesn't quite compare to the real thing.

Jayce mercifully puts a stop to it when Viktor's voice breaks into a sob.

"Oh look. It even comes with a meter for how high your arousal levels are, and how much more you need for an orgasm," he says. Still that irksome, casual tone, unperturbed, as if he's merely commenting on an experiment. "Very, very thorough, V."

The nickname rankles Viktor like no other, and if looks can kill, Jayce would be dead on the floor.

"I have a measure for all quantifiable emotions," Viktor snaps, his blush intensifying when his voice comes out reedy and feeble. Natural responses to stimuli, of course. Nothing more than that.

He doesn't know why he even bothers to justify himself when it's obvious that Jayce is baiting him, but something about Jayce always manages to set off every bit of anger in him, making him lose all semblance of control. "It is necessary for regulati— haah—"

The button turns back on.

It's not an overwhelming sensation this time, no longer the sort that takes over and wipes any coherent thought from his brain.

It's a pleasurable buzz, warm and soothing, sinking in every part of him, like a tender lover's touch.

But it does nothing to take the edge off — just hangs onto him, an itch he can't quite scratch, a mockery that keeps his body fever hot and high strung, begging for more.

"Anyway," Jayce says, ignoring the quivers that pass through Viktor's body, the half aborted whimpers spilling from Viktor's lips. Sounds cheerful, even. "Your heart should be in order. I've conducted different levels of stimuli with varied durations. No flags that I can see."

Viktor squeezes his eyes shut as the ripples continue to flow at a steady pace, his breath labored, hitching with every noise he can't swallow down, the engines in his respiratory system whirring under the strain.

His cunt is so soaked that the fluids are dripping down his perineum, soaking where he sits, a growing, damp patch.

"Will you turn that off already?" Viktor wheezes. He sounds hoarse, even more feeble than earlier, a pathetic mewl to his own ears.

Jayce waits, expectant.

"Please."

And he can feel his pride shattering when Jayce flicks the control off in response, returning Viktor back to blissful, grating emptiness.

He wants— he needs something, and the irritating, all consuming desire clings to him like syrup, nauseatingly sticky and stubborn and saccharine.

But he's loath to give Jayce that satisfaction, so he sucks in a deep breath in a bid to calm the haywire senses, then says in what he hopes is a more controlled voice this time, "And the bonds?"

"Not yet," Jayce says. Not to mock Viktor for once — he sounds serious, eyes concentrated on the screen before him as he taps away, flying through lines and lines of readouts as new graphs begin to render, more detailed schematics of Viktor's augments. "Your emotion regulator still needs to be recalibrated."

He stops at one part of the log, angling his body away so the screen is in better view for Viktor. Angry, red text covers much of the surface — multiple warnings and critical failures, one after another littering the graph where it highlights every fault in the system. "It almost broke with your new heart, by the way. The records right before you passed out weren't pretty."

Viktor scowls even as he feels heat rushing back into his face. "I am perfectly capable of doing it myself," he insists.

The graph is, admittedly, worse than he had expected though — he must've been too out of it by the time everything went downhill to have realized the extent of damage.

>>Unnaturally high levels of embarrassment detected, incongruent to preset levels.<<

[Continue] [Regulate]

… He needs to permanently dismantle these useless indicators.

"Right," Jayce says drily as he scans the updated note. He strolls up to the counter next to Viktor, seemingly rifling through the bits and bobs Viktor's amassed there, a mess of spare parts and medical instruments tossed carelessly to the side.

"You did not almost die 14 hours ago. My mistake."

"I had it under control, Jayce," Viktor says. All bravado, unfortunately, given the evidence right in front of their eyes, and the heat in his face that continues to hold. "Do not act as if I don't know my own—"

Jayce whips around, hand roughly grabbing Viktor's jaw, keeping Viktor's mouth half open as he shoves something into there, muffling Viktor's next words — a wad of fabric, scratchy on his tongue and tasting vaguely of dust and engine grease.

Viktor immediately attempts to spit the offending ball out, incensed, arms straining against the bonds as his feet kick uselessly in the air.

Jayce then produces a strip of webbed cotton and ties it around his mouth, pulling it taut and buckling it in place behind his head. Pats his cheek all condescending and struts away again, pretending to not hear the long string of muffled curses that Viktor's unleashing.

It's all garbled and incomprehensible with his mouth gagged, but it doesn't stop Viktor from flinging every single insult he can think of at Jayce, some even in his mother's tongue that he still remembers, though it only fuels his anger when Jayce seems more amused than anything.

He can tell that Jayce is fiddling with the controls again when commands fly across the screen in staccato rhythm, and within moments he begins to feel a wave of quiet washing over him.

>>Emotion regulator engaged. Levels set to maximum of 10%.<<

It's a welcome, familiar sensation, a calmness that cuts through the noise of emotion, the din and the chaos, the voices that cloud his mind with doubt and insecurity, triggering his worst impulses.

His head finally feels as if it's clearing up to where it should be, a fog being lifted at last, logic and reason coming back in sharp focus, allowing him to see things for what they are, unburdened, untainted by human weakness.

Continuing to yell through his gag feels silly now.

The energy wasted on being indecipherable is one thing, but he'd also be playing right into Jayce's hands.

The obvious goading, the condescending attitude, riling him up with the right words and toying with his bodily functions, all to showcase the total control Jayce exerts over him as he strips Viktor of his autonomy, every bit calculated on Jayce's end to derive the responses he wants to see.

It's childish, this need from Jayce to constantly keep him under his boot, to prove that Jayce has and always will be better than Viktor.

And Viktor would be a fool to fall into his trap and be pulled along like a marionette.

He stares impassively back at Jayce now, silent and content to stay this way. He won't be the first one to crack anymore. Not like this.

Jayce's face is unreadable as he approaches Viktor again — almost like a predator stalking its prey, slow and cautious, gauging for Viktor's reaction, analyzing the risks, the outcomes.

Except Viktor is and will never be Jayce's prey, no matter how much the other man deludes himself into thinking so.

He simply continues to hold still when Jayce trails a hand across his cheek, pausing for a moment as Jayce looks him squarely in the eyes, searching, waiting for a reaction that Viktor will not give. Then the hand trails downward, lingering by his throat before it reaches his collar bones, gentle, loving caresses like Jayce used to when they were younger.

(When they were still in love.)

And it moves to his chest, thumbing over the raised nub, the half of him that's still organic flesh and blood. It draws the vaguest notion of pleasure, dulled under the effects of Viktor's regulator.

He merely feels and acknowledges the feeling, but there is no longer a need to respond, freed from the usual human impulses.

To think that not even a minute ago, he was piloted almost solely by his desire, the desperate drive for relief. It's not gone, but it is a severed thing he no longer feels the need to act upon, a partitioned, separate entity.

Jayce catalogues this all with those piercing blue eyes, and something seems to change ever so subtly in his features.

Viktor's enhanced scleras are quick to scan and process it, and he nearly frowns at the result.

Disappointment.

Sadness.

>>99.7% match.<<

"Looks like your body is reacting the way it should," Jayce says. His tone is as level as it has been this whole time, clear, dry, straight to the point — not a hint betraying how he truly feels. "The suppression system is correctly integrated now.'

But Viktor trusts his processors and the meticulous database he's built over the years on Jayce's microexpressions, the catalogue of every flicker, every twitch in the other man's muscles. It has never served him wrong, and he knows with certainty that Jayce must be upset, no matter how much he's trying to hide it.

Perhaps Viktor would feel a sense of vindication had the inhibitor not been in place. Instead, the knowledge that he's not like Jayce — a puppet ruled by emotion — that he's better than Jayce, that he's always been right about the Glorious Evolution is enough.

Then he catches another shift in Jayce's expression — the scientist's curiosity, the same drive they both possess and exemplify. But a little darker, a little soured, just so that it sets off an internal alarm in Viktor's mind.

A few more lines of code streak by, and suddenly Viktor's bowled over by the shattering force of … everything.

>>Inhibitor removed. Amplification set to 150%. Warning: system overload may occur if left uncontrolled.<<

The noise, the doubts and hatred and shame and humiliation and fury, personified as figures in his head, and their incessant, maddening chatter returning with a vengeance.

Louder than usual, even, coming at him like a whirlwind, one thought yelling over the other, overlapping and ceaseless.

That he's not enough, that he'll never be enough because Jayce ruined him all those years ago, ripped his life and his work to shreds and stomped on his name, over and over.

How he's at Jayce's mercy again, his body and heart laid bare for Jayce to see, to toy with because Jayce knows it's how to break him best.

Because Jayce knows that Viktor's never stopped caring for him, knows that he'll always have Viktor wrapped around his finger.

And not a day goes by that Viktor doesn't hate himself for it, wants to claw out his brains and mechanical heart and let the inhibitor run nonstop to keep these demons at bay.

Jayce's touch returns, uncertain, experimental against Viktor's cheek. Viktor shudders from the contact; he can't help but lean traitorously into it, yearn for that softness, the proximity to Jayce, coveting the pitiful scraps he can get as something wells in his chest, fear and sadness and anger at how content Jayce has always been to shower him with affection, then toss him away as if he meant very little to the other man.

"Amplification is working as intended, too," Jayce says. Less level and mechanical this time, almost as if his voice is softening like his touch. His hand trails back down to Viktor's chest, and a sob threatens to break through Viktor's gag.

That damned fire in his gut is back, too, the desire that's been left unattended, and every stroke, every caress serves to stoke those flames, causing them to burn even hotter as Viktor's back to wanting more and more, acutely aware of the way his cunt throbs and leaks and clenches.

Jayce pauses and observes Viktor again.

Lines of code are flying across the screen and within his vision, many of them red, no doubt warning signs as Viktor's neural system is overloaded by the flood of negative emotions, the state of instability he's currently in that only continues to intensify.

>>Warning: system is on track to overload if present settings remain unchanged.<<

Jayce doesn't turn to look, though, just keeps his eyes trained on Viktor as if he can see right through Viktor anyway.

He can, of course.

They've known each other for too damn long.

"... Is it so hard to be honest with your feelings?" Jayce says at last. Still soft. Maybe a touch wistful, bitter.

And Viktor's pathetic impulse strikes again like the puppet on emotional strings that he is, and he nods before he can catch himself, sickeningly desperate to grasp onto any shred of affection from Jayce, any indication that perhaps the other man still cared.

He hates this weakness of his, of having to feel as much as he does, so much that it takes over and paralyzes him, the complete and utter destruction of his sense of self because he's lost in feeling and can't stop feeling.

He'd never wanted to feel this way again.

"Anyway," Jayce says, withdrawing his hand, switching back to an off-handed tone, as if he doesn't see the turmoil, the panic and the desperation. "Your new heart is working. Your functions are all clear. The regulator is fixed. My job is done."

Viktor whines at the loss, skin tingling with the remnant of Jayce's warmth, already craving for it to return. The panic, the anxiety that Jayce is leaving smashes into him like a hammer, and his head spins, breath quickening as a fresh wave of warnings begin to crop up.

>>Continuing to register unusually high levels of distress. Recommendation to engage inhibitor and remove amplification before system is compromised.<<

[Yes] [No]

"I should leave," Jayce continues, making a show of ignoring the alarms. There's a shrill beep echoing throughout Viktor's lab now, the same noise that's ringing in Viktor's ears, signalling an oncoming breakdown. "I'm sure Renata can sort the rest out."

Stupid, worthless hot tears well up in Viktor's eyes, upset and incensed because Renata and all the other men and women are just not the same as Jayce, nor will they ever be the same.

He can hardly remember, either, the last time he and Jayce even shared a moment in the past year, and it's just fucking unfair that Jayce keeps pulling out Renata when he's had more than his own fair share of trysts.

(Viktor would know. He has the tabloid clippings somewhere, documented and locked in the third drawer.)

He feels himself shaking, tears cascading down his face, frustration snowballing into something bigger and bigger, uncontrollable, until—

It all comes to a grinding halt again.

He distinctly registers the noise of some more tinkering and a responding beep, but he's too busy taking deep lungfuls of air through his nose, engine grease and antiseptic burning a path down his windpipe.

It's as if he can breathe again, as if he's almost forgotten how it feels to break through the surface, have enough air when he was drowning just a moment before.

>>Amplification removed. Emotions have returned to baseline, unregulated states. Engage inhibitor?<<

[Yes] [No]

That hysteria fades into just a noise in the background, no longer the overwhelming force it was.

But it's still there.

The emotions have always been real, raw, an ache that gnaws away at Viktor when he accidentally lets his guard down. Just not as amplified as they were a moment ago, so much that it had struck him frozen.

He thankfully regains the brain space and energy to glare at Jayce again, as if to say you know exactly what you just fucking did.

If only it isn't dampened by the fact that he's trying to blink his tears away and clear his vision, and the way he sniffles, hiccuping, diaphragm stuttering, still trying to recalibrate himself back to a calmer state.

Something passes through Jayce's eyes.

Viktor braces himself for another snide comment, another jab designed to dig right where it hurts and crush Viktor a little more, as Jayce does.

But the other man seems to be contemplating, jaw working, brows furrowed, forehead lined, as if something weighs heavily on him.

Then he turns his back to Viktor.

Viktor squeezes his eyes shut.

He can't find the strength in himself to be angry anymore. Just disappointed, perhaps, a familiar, bitter, age old disappointment.

It would not be an encounter with Jayce if he did not leave feeling this way.

>>Attempting to connect to Contact 159: Renata Glasc<<

"Oh for fuck's sake, Viktor," he hears Jayce call out loudly, pitchy and alarmed. There's a flurry of movement and banging, and then—

>>Attempt to connect aborted.<<

Jayce's panicked face comes back into view, suddenly magnified, body just inches away when Viktor opens his eyes, and that minty scent of Jayce's perfume hits his nose.

Viktor would scowl if it wasn't for the gag.

"Can't even ask for dick like a normal person, can you?" Jayce huffs with a quick eye roll. He waves a set of keys, clanging them together loudly. "I wasn't leaving, you dumbass. I was just getting keys to let you out before I actually left."

Viktor only glares harder, lips working around the gag, pulling his features into his best attempt at displeasure despite the restricted movement.

As if Jayce isn't the biggest fucking hypocrite, too, with the number of times he's tried to smash Viktor's lab or almost killed him as a poor excuse to get into Viktor's bed.

Or Gods forbid, the rambling calls he's gotten from Jayce after the man's drunk himself sick at a gala.

Jayce lets out a long exhale, though, and there's a surprising touch of softness in the way he brings a hand back to Viktor's cheek, thumbing at the tear streaks. And that same softness, wistfulness and regret, is in his voice when he says, "I did miss this."

The contact elicits a far greater reaction than Viktor had anticipated, sending a feverish jolt down his spine and straight to his core.

He can't help but lean into the hand again, fighting the urge to actively nuzzle against it and seek more of that familiar warmth he's never stopped craving. The amplifier should be off, but—

>>Tactile sensitivity levels: 150%<<

Ah.

Viktor grinds his teeth against the rough cotton rag in his mouth even as the hand drifts downward and wanders around his body, lingering by the parts that have remained human, soft and supple, drawing out more bitten off, needy moans.

He doesn't like the way Jayce looks at him, as if the other man doesn't see him at all. Those eyes pierce through him like a blade through the chest, searching for a version of Viktor that no longer exists, the weak, pathetic past he crushed with his own hands.

It's an ever sour reminder that Jayce will never accept him as he is now, no matter how much stronger, better he's become.

His eyes flutter shut again, would much rather prefer to shut out that self pitying gaze, arches and keens when Jayce rolls a hardened nipple between his fingers.

Every touch feels much more intense under the new sensitivity parameters, pulse after pulse of pleasure coursing through Viktor's mind and body as Jayce continues, oscillating between gentler and harsher, as if testing out the range and documenting Viktor's every response.

And it does feel good to Viktor's consternation, the way every sensation is amplified to an intoxicating degree. He hates how overwhelmed he is, though — he's only able to helplessly moan and squirm as Jayce's hand settles over a thigh and creeps ever closer to his cunt, teasing, tantalizing.

Viktor jerks and cries out when Jayce touches his folds and just holds it there for a moment, watching as his muscles contract in response.

He can scarcely imagine how it'd feel if Jayce rubs his cock or even puts a finger inside him, when mere contact against his cunt is enough to send his mind spinning, drunk and dizzy from the sensation.

"So wet already, Viktor," Jayce comments. He presses down a little harder, palm ghosting over the swollen nub of his clit, and Viktor keens again. "So desperate. When was the last time you fucked?"

That infuriating, feigned innocence — as if Jayce isn't the one who's been keeping him on edge and artificially altered his responses to stimuli.

If only Viktor still had his mechanical arm attached, he would zap Jayce into smithereens.

Viktor curses again under the gag, loud enough that he's sure Jayce gets the point. Not that Jayce ever cares to listen to him, the self absorbed bastard.

But then the palm pushes down hard on his cock, and all that anger flies out the window as he whimpers and tries to rut against it. He is very wet and desperate, and he can hear it in the sloppy, obscene noises as Jayce's hand grinds against his cunt.

Two fingers curl inwards, pushing apart the folds to where his entrance flutters, just shy of penetrating. He whines and cants his hips, body abuzz and greedy, wanting to see just how good it'll feel when they're finally in him.

"Slut," Jayce chuckles. But he slips the fingers in before Viktor can even protest, gliding easily up to his knuckles from how soaked and ready Viktor has been, and the immediate, concentrated pleasure goes straight to his gut and makes his toes curl and vision swim.

It's all too much with the heightened sensitivity, and yet it's exactly what Viktor's needed as his cunt pulses around the fingers, more slick dribbling, collecting into the small pool between his thighs.

Jayce thankfully doesn't make him wait any further as the fingers promptly begin to move, fucking smoothly in and out, crooking in all the right places as his palm continues to grind against Viktor's cock.

He's very much attuned to Viktor's body like it's second nature — as vexing as it is mortifyingly good — and in the matter of moments, he's rendered Viktor into a quivering mess, an incessant string of moans leaving Viktor's throat as he's bombarded by pleasure.

And he starts to feel himself seizing up all too soon, much sooner than he usually does, but it's no surprise when his body's lit on fire like this, has been aching too long for this last push.

Every part of him locks in place, both mechanical and human, his pussy clamping down on the two fingers busy pistoning inside him, and he lets out a sob as the sheer force of his orgasm knocks him over and overwhelms his system, vision temporarily going white.

He hears that damn beeping in his ears again, warnings that his heart has accelerated too quickly, too much as he continues to shake with every rhythmic wave that passes through him, breath pitchy and labored, but he's a little too far gone to care at the moment as the chemical dosage of bliss takes over.

The fingers exit from him with a wet squelch, and he yelps when he feels the hand slap playfully against his pussy, drops of his come splashing against his thighs and stomach, squirming when it sets off yet another round of aftershocks.

Then a second slap, this time centered closer to his swollen clit, harsher, packing more power, and Viktor can barely control the sob that rips through his throat from the sting, the oversensitivity that threatens to break his limits.

"I can get used to this," Jayce comments, all too smug. His fingers dip briefly back into Viktor's hole, just a brush of the digits against the twitching walls, and draws them out, tacky and glistening with Viktor's fluids.

They drag up and down Viktor's folds, as if savoring the way Viktor jolts to the stimulus before drifting further down, drawing a sticky line from his cunt to the furled opening below.

Viktor freezes when he feels them pressing tentatively against there, curious and gentle, seeking entry but not pushing thoughtlessly in, a sharp contrast to Jayce's ministrations just a beat ago.

"You know," Jayce drawls, still smug, a tone that Viktor knows he's up to no good. The tiny modicum of good will Viktor harbored flies right out of the window. "I'm starting to think I can just fuck your ass and make you squirt just from that. Don't even need to touch your pussy."

A finger breaches into him before Viktor can even protest, coated in enough of Viktor's own fluids that the tip slides in without much resistance.

Viktor chokes back a desperate moan — it feels much too good, much more than usual, and he already wants more, squirming to get it deeper in him.

Jayce is probably not wrong, what with his currently altered state, and it's the sort of degrading comment that should incense him.

Yet he just feels the heat in his core grow, face burning hotter as he imagines more fingers in him, stretching him loose until something more satisfying can replace them, the thick girth of Jayce finally filling him up.

Jayce makes brief eye contact, another wide grin plastered on his face as he withdraws his hand. He's holding a small bottle in his other hand and dousing his fingers now with it, trails of oil shining, dripping down to his wrist.

Viktor probably should be annoyed by the fact that the other man just seems to conveniently carry a bottle of lube with him, but the first finger slides back in, so mindnumbingly good that he simply whimpers and grinds down for more.

His body is still a touch too wound up from the orgasmic aftershocks, but Jayce patiently works the finger to the knuckle, slowly and methodically loosening him up.

Pleasure floods his system, and before long Jayce is able to add a second finger when Viktor fully relaxes into his movements with occasional brushes to his cock, gentle rubbing motions the way Viktor likes it. Then a third, crooking, scissoring in him until they're comfortably sliding in and out of him, all sloppy and wet from the lube and slick that's dribbled down.

He whimpers more insistently, quivering, tightening around Jayce's fingers with every thrust, beginning to want more than just the fingers and the light strokes to his cock.

As if reading his mind, Jayce removes his fingers.

But he turns and walks away instead, and Viktor immediately whines in frustration, loud and reedy beneath the gag, wriggling against his restraints.

He can make out Jayce returning to the main console. At least the man seems to have the decency to sanitize his hands before contaminating the controls, but Viktor's baffled — and more than fed up — by how the man hasn't gotten tired of messing with his internal systems yet.

The answer's made clear rather quickly.

>>Ability to orgasm temporarily restricted. Override permissible by admin user JayceG only.<<

That fucker.

His gaze burns into Jayce with what he hopes is all daggers and poison, but Jayce's smile only grows. There's a faint rustling of cloth as Jayce presses forward against Viktor, cockiness positively dripping off of him, and Viktor jolts when he feels something hard and throbbing hot against his pussy.

Jayce grinds against him, rutting between his folds, grinning when Viktor moans, muscles clenching down at the first real touch of Jayce's cock. He reaches a hand behind Viktor's head and finally, finally unbuckles the damn strap, pulling out the saliva soaked rag and tossing it to the side.

Viktor promptly spits.

He narrowly misses Jayce's eyes, and some of the liquid splatters on Jayce's cheek as he works to get rid of the bits of fiber stuck in his mouth, still tasting rancid engine grease.

"F-fucking took you long enough," he gasps, another moan rising in his throat when Jayce rocks forward, the head of his cock rubbing harshly against Viktor's clit.

"Because you're a fucking handful," Jayce shoots back, hand wiping away the spit on his face, smearing the residue on Viktor's metal chest plate.

"I'm—"

And Jayce moves to thrust into his ass, a sweet burn of pleasure going right to Viktor's gut, stretching him open as he throws his head back, a pitchy whine escaping from his lips.

"That good, huh?" Jayce says, all too satisfied with himself.

"S-shut it— haah—"

Viktor squeezes his eyes close when Jayce pushes himself in to the hilt, steady and insistent, forcing Viktor's body to relax, to mold itself around Jayce's cock with every shaky breath Viktor takes.

The sensitivity meter seems to have cut short his usual period of adjustment, though, the brain chemicals suspiciously happy to translate that stretch, that feeling of fullness into another lethal shot of need.

Before long he's panting, greedy for more, and Jayce scarcely waits a beat before he's moving his hips, betraying his own impatience for the first time tonight as he snaps back into Viktor, quick and deep. The heavy red and gold coat is deftly unbuttoned and tossed to the side, landing in a loud thud, leaving Jayce in just a tight fitting undershirt.

He keeps a demanding pace, almost the full length of him slamming in each time, every thrust dragging out whines from Viktor's throat, the impact causing Viktor's chair to shake and the restraints to chafe against the human parts of his limbs.

Maybe he can get used to this, Viktor thinks deliriously. The pounding and the heightened sensitivity is like a drug, overwhelming, intoxicating, much too good than it has any right to be.

And maybe he really will come from just this, too. He can feel it creeping in, the building heat in his core and the pulsing in his cunt, the familiar coiling of tension even with an orgasm not so long ago.

Jayce has his brows furrowed in concentration, grunting, breathing labored as he drives himself into Viktor over and over, sweat beading on his forehead, seeming intent on making Viktor come, except—

Viktor can sense himself hitting a wall. The pleasure climbs and climbs, ready to drop from its precipice, yet it seems to just halt and hold there, keeping him on the edge, a maddening block his body is unable to break through.

>>Access denied.<<

"Jayce, you—" he spits out, furious. The force of it is somewhat undercut by the quiver and moan that cut the rest of his sentence off as Jayce rolls his hips just right, a hand ghosting over his pussy, not quite applying pressure, just holding it there.

But Jayce does slow in his thrusts, though, tapering into a leisurely speed.

"I what?" he asks. The hand settles fully over Viktor's cunt now, playing absent-mindedly with his folds, more stimulus to Viktor's overwhelmed core that makes him shiver even harder under Jayce.

"Let me come," Viktor demands. Tries to pack assertiveness behind it, but it's hard when Jayce's thumb keeps brushing over the swell of his cock, short-circuiting his brain and making him want those fingers in his cunt, too.

"No," Jayce says shortly.

He removes the hand as Viktor whines, but Viktor knows the kind of games Jayce likes to play. "Please," Viktor says immediately, his pride be damned.

Jayce tilts his head as if considering for a beat, then pauses entirely in his movement, keeping his sheathed cock inside Viktor's ass. "Not good enough."

Viktor's eyes narrow as he wriggles against the bonds, trying to get the tiniest bit more friction, but he scarcely has any leverage in the position he's trapped in. He lets out a frustrated huff. "Don't test my patience, Jayce."

"Or what?"

Jayce pulls out just enough before slamming back in, drawing a punched out gasp from Viktor. Then he repeats it again and again, powerful but unhurried, fingers returning to roll Viktor's clit between his digits, squeezing and pinching as Viktor keens and squirms.

"Please," Viktor gasps, voice softening this time. Begging. "Please let me come."

"I want you," Jayce says, every other word punctuated with a thrust that digs deep into Viktor's gut. "To apologize for almost killing me two weeks ago."

As if to drive his point home, he lifts his undershirt, revealing the expanse of toned muscle that is his abdomen, all that Viktor is too intimately familiar with. But there's now a thick, raised scar, a deep slash across his stomach, clearly new and in its early stages of healing.

Viktor vaguely recalls this.

His freshly augmented arm had caught Jayce right there in their last skirmish, drawing a clean, blistering line across Jayce. Probably would've cut Jayce in half if it wasn't for the reinforced armor Jayce wears underneath the coat that absorbed the bulk of his laser's power.

"Y-you almost blew up my lab that time," Viktor bites back. This earns him a harder pinch of his clit and his body convulses in response, cunt pulsing, more slick dripping out of him. "Fuck. Jayce, please—"

"You actually blew up my lab and nearly took out a whole residence street."

"You stole my crystals— haah— please—"

"I took back what's mine," Jayce corrects, just as petty as Viktor expects. "But you know what? I'll give them to you if you beg for it. And apologize for almost killing me. And blowing up my lab."

In ordinary circumstances, Viktor would snort and roll his eyes. Feel anger, humiliation with how Jayce seems bent on wanting him to grovel today, to step on him and dig his stupid polished heel in.

But between the stimulation to his clit and the way Jayce is fucking into him, Viktor's systems are overflowing again, whittling away at his will to think, to keep arguing. And the promise of getting hex crystals without having to enter Piltover is just too good to pass if Jayce is honest with his words.

There are fingers playing with the quivering entrance of his cunt now, long stroking motions from his cock to his hole. Then a flash of blue — Jayce seems to have produced a hex crystal from his pockets and is holding it up to Viktor's view, perfectly round, smooth, and refined, glowing in the dimly lit lab.

It's an easy choice.

"I'm sorry," Viktor says through gritted teeth, eyes looking anywhere but to meet Jayce's condescending stare. His voice continues to pitch and break with every thrust, every labored pant. "For almost killing you. And blowing up your lab. And the street. Please, Jayce, I need—"

"Good," Jayce says, and Viktor almost lets out a relieved breath before those fingers slip into his cunt and hold his entrance open, and he suddenly feels something hard and icy cold squeezing against the muscle there.

He keens, body seizing in shock as his pussy swallows the orb hungrily in. Two of Jayce's fingers follow, pushing it deep into Viktor as he continues to convulse around the intrusion, trying to warm it to his internal temperature. Then a second hex crystal slips in to join the first, guided easily by the amount of slick.

"You can keep them warm and safe for me in there, kitten," Jayce says. A hand slaps his pussy again, this time a much lighter sting, but it jostles the hex crystals in him, causing Viktor to involuntarily clench and moan.

The audacity of this fucking bastard and that fucking nickname—

But then the fingers move back in, too, filling him and making him feel so full that he can only whine and shake his head in indignation as they begin to pump in an alternating rhythm with Jayce's cock. Viktor squirms even harder, rapidly overwhelmed again by the stimulation in both holes, mouth open in a litany of choked noises.

All too soon he's hitting that wall again, the pressure building to dizzying heights, trapped within his core with no outlet — he even wonders if it's possible that his internal systems will start breaking down, overheating from too much.

Frustrated tears spring into his eyes as he struggles against his restraints with renewed vigor.

"Please," he forces out. His voice sounds pathetic to his own ears, shaky, weak, pleading in earnest, cracking with every whimper. "Please let me come, Jayce. Haven't— haven't you had enough?"

Jayce looks at him and that look of cold, haughty concentration slips, melting the blue frost into something Viktor would call kind and warm if he didn't know better, that hint of wistfulness and regret re-entering Jayce's eyes as his free hand moves to cup Viktor's cheek.

And he leans down and presses his lips against Viktor's, soft, gentle, slow, a marked juxtaposition from the way his hips and fingers continue to thrust intensely into Viktor. Moves almost affectionately, coaxing Viktor's mouth open, slipping his tongue in against Viktor's, a familiar taste of black coffee and musk that Viktor can't help but chase.

Viktor doesn't remember the last time they kissed.

It's certainly not when they last met, not when Jayce admittedly did come close to dying. And not the time before, either — he and Jayce have been on colder terms than normal in the past few months, for reasons he can't even recall anymore.

Yet the kiss now tastes like their Academy days. Sweet and patient, cold and bitter, full of a loneliness that only the two of them shared and understood, back when it was just the two of them sequestered in the library.

Like a flame, a fragile solace in each other that they've more than lost over the years, rekindling quietly as a tiny ember.

Something hot continues to well in Viktor's eyes, spilling past his closed eyelids and streaking down his face.

Just biological tears from the overstimulation — nothing more, nothing less.

He ignores the indicators blaring in his vision. Almost wants them turned off for once, would rather wish he didn't have to be confronted with every minute shift of his body and mood, that he can sometimes just be without constant, clinical precision.

Jayce pulls back when another sob breaks through Viktor's throat, and he thumbs Viktor's kiss swollen lips, eyes still infinitely soft.

"You're beautiful when you're not hiding yourself," he whispers, and Viktor chokes, vision blurred by his tears. "Come for me, V."

…

>>Restriction removed.<<

And Viktor comes with a cry, a full body shudder sweeping through him, all the built up tension collapsing in an instant, shattering him and wringing him dry. His cunt flutters rhythmically, slick gushing all over his thighs and Jayce's fingers, hole tightening around Jayce's cock.

His indicators are running haywire, white noise in his ears as his vitals flash before his eyes, alarms pinging one after another at the unusual levels of pleasure and emotion his system is detecting.

He vaguely hears Jayce curse between the chaos of his alerts, feels the other man pull his fingers out and slam his cock into Viktor just a handful more times, rough and erratic, before Jayce shoves himself in fully in Viktor's ass and comes too, hot spurts of his spend coating Viktor's insides.

Hands tangle in his unruly hair as Jayce smashes their lips together. Much rougher this time, teeth clashing, scraping against Viktor's lips, and Viktor tastes sweet, wet copper between their tongues, moaning as Jayce works his hips and fucks him through the aftershocks.

The hex crystals are still buried in his cunt, and he clenches in reflex when he senses them sliding in all the come, threatening to slip out, mewling into Jayce's mouth as the movement triggers another wave of tremors.

Jayce groans in response, hips stuttering to a gradual, careful pace until he finally rides out the remainder of Viktor's orgasm, staying inside Viktor when he comes to a stop at last.

He pulls back from the kiss, eyes searching for something within Viktor's expression as Viktor blinks back at him, mind hazy, and Jayce's lips seem to pull into the faintest, rueful smile before he leans down against Viktor again, pressing their chests tightly together, hands carding through Viktor's hair.

For once, Viktor lets him as he stares up blankly at his patchy ceiling.

His brain feels like it's full of cotton, sluggish but sated. Calm. The usual anger towards Jayce is muted within this moment as he takes in Jayce's weight on his body, the heat, the strange mix of his sweat and perfume, the gentle hands caressing him and holding him close, tangible, and achingly familiar.

He does miss this.

He misses Jayce.

He wishes he didn't.

But for once he lets himself soak it up, indulge in the weakness, the emotions he usually keeps behind locked doors like glass, fragile and jagged, and he closes his eyes and lets the tears flow.

Eventually his body begins to cool down, though, and his internal regulators begin to fire up in response, kick-starting the heat generation process and circulating warmth throughout him that Jayce's heat feels too hot to be comfortable anymore.

"Get off me," he mutters, hoarse and dry.

There's the barest brush of Jayce's lips against his cheek before the other man extricates himself from Viktor, groaning as he does, softened cock slipping out of Viktor's ass with a squelch.

He bends down and disappears briefly from Viktor's view before popping back up with his obnoxious jacket in hand, and he drapes it over Viktor, taking care to cover Viktor's torso and hips underneath the plush lining.

Viktor stares, dumbfounded. As much of an eyesore as Jayce's jacket is, he cannot deny that it is quite comfortable.

But more importantly—

"Are you not letting me out?"

Jayce shrugs and buttons his slacks back up, then picks his way past the mess of instruments on the floor to the couch shoved in a corner.

He flops onto it as the springs squeak in protest, body laying horizontally across, feet dangling off the ends of a couch arm. Even grabs Viktor's folded cape — to Viktor's increasing annoyance — and shakes it out with a flourish, pulling it neatly over himself like a blanket as he settles deeper into the cushions, clearly comfortable.

"Later," Jayce says with a big yawn. "I need to nap before heading home, and I can't risk you trying to kill me while I'm asleep."

Viktor bristles.

This is why any semblance of positivity he feels towards the man never lasts, what with the way Jayce always gets under his skin with his insults and that insufferable attitude. "Do I seem like I would resort to such dirty-handed tactics?"

"Why yes, you do." Jayce cocks an incredulous eyebrow, a hand gesturing pointedly to the gnarly cut on his torso. "My scars would know."

"That's different, you—"

"Hush, kitten. I need to recover from a 14 hour surgery shift because someone had to save your sorry ass, and it wasn't going to be yourself."

"Stop calling me kitten, Defender. And you must be getting old to have such little stamina."

Jayce throws him an unamused look as he holds up something in the air — a rectangular object that Viktor squints at and recognizes as one of his remote controls. Then begins to fiddle with the controls and inputs, eyes trained on Viktor as he does, mouth quirking into a smug smile.

"Don't you fucking dare—"

The words scarcely leave Viktor's lips before he's knocked over by a pulse of pleasure, the heat curling, radiating from his core as he shudders and moans, an ache settling back in his pussy as he squeezes down onto the hex crystals still stuck inside him.

And it persists, jolt after jolt of stimulation running down his spine and through his limbs as he squirms and heaves for air, every bit of movement causing the orbs to continue rubbing against his tender and oversensitive channel.

Viktor clenches his fists and grits his teeth in concentration.

>>Attempting to connect to Contact 159: Renata Glasc<<

"Oh for fuck's— you're so fucking childish, V—"

>>Attempt to connect aborted by admin user JayceG.<<

And he watches as Jayce flings away his cape and bolts up from the couch to stalk over, face hot, frantic, and Viktor hides a satisfied grin of his own.