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valaruakars · 2 years

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Let’s Get Physical (Part 3)

Viktor/F!Reader || 6k || Modern!AU + Gym!AU || SFW (for now!)

Jayce makes eggs. Viktor gets a do-over. Vi does not pet the lizard. Caitlyn snitches. And you? You start to catch feelings beyond I fucking hate running for something (someone?) equally as miserable.

Part 1 → Part 2 → Part 3 (Ao3 Link)

It’s quite the change of pace, sitting in Jayce’s kitchen, spending another early Sunday morning with him.

That it doesn’t involve burning muscles and profuse sweating—yet, you remind yourself—is especially nice. There’s a certain warmth you feel, body and soul, still bundled in your sweatshirt as you watch him bustle around the sun-soaked space—starting a pot of coffee, chopping vegetables, cracking eggs over the frying pan. All to the soft, grainy sound of an old portable radio, playing upbeat songs in Spanish that he absently mouths the words to.

Normally, right about now, you’d be fighting yourself to get up and pour a shitty bowl of cereal with the perfect luck to be out of milk. You’d be trying to coax yourself into productivity—gym, cleaning, errands, anything—only to sit alone in your dark apartment with its west facing windows, pretending you don’t feel the slow growth of loneliness using your ribs like a trellis.

Perhaps you’re a little envious of how bright and lived in Jayce’s house feels. It’s a lovingly cluttered clash between old and new, the more you look around and pick at its details.

There’s the renovated kitchen, but with dated wallpaper left in subtle places—above the cabinets, inside the little pantry. Worn leather sofas. Old stains on older carpet, neighboring new hardwood vinyl. Pictures that are at least as old as he is; wall hangings that don’t look like a late twenty-something man put them up on his own.

But the posters that scream science fair, some of them crudely taped up?

That’s about right.

All of it is the backdrop to an inordinate amount of stuff. Books, papers—wait, blueprints?—scattered in stacks. There’s a bizarre array of trinkets, crystals on the windowsill, and is that a guitar shoved in the corner by the living room tv?

You aren’t sure what it says about Jayce compared to the relative neatness of his garage. And you certainly can’t tell how much of it is Viktor, besides a spare cane or two tactfully placed.

The sun shifts through the back windows, brighter, and you absently track the reflection of water swaying along the ceiling, down the wall. A fucking pool, you realize. What else is this house hiding?

Your eyes follow the line of movement back to Jayce. He pulls a plate down from the cabinet and sets it in front of you, frying pan in hand.

“Think you’ll want more?” Jayce asks, shoveling a steaming heap of veggie speckled eggs onto your plate, the spatula half-melted.

You swivel back and forth on your stool at the island, considering the capacity of your stomach. Back and forth, constant motion in time with the ebb and flow of your thoughts, racing with new context. “Mm, no,” you settle on, “this is plenty, but thanks. Don’t want to puke later.”

He pulls a fork from the drawer next, sliding it across the granite countertop. “It’s going to be at least an hour until we go running. You won’t.”

“Love the confidence,” you say, leaning on the counter with your chin in your hand, twirling the fork with the other, “but speaking from experience here, I’m not taking my chances on that kind of embarrassment.”

“I wouldn’t judge you. Nine out of ten people agree, I’m the ‘supportively holds your hair back’ type of friend.”

“Who’s the tenth?”

He thinks for a moment, shifting his weight. Flashes a lopsided grin when he picks an answer. “Viktor.”

“Because…?”

“Because once, in undergrad, I came home and he was wasted on probably half the bottle of this really expensive vodka I was saving. All since he turned something in late or failed an exam—I don’t remember, but it wasn’t that bad. Yeah, I was so mad that I just dropped him in the bathroom and told him to sort his shit out.”

You poke thoughtfully at the fluffy yellow bits on your plate. “If that’s the case… Well, I guess it’s safe to trust you,” you shrug, no intention of ever stealing his fancy rich boy liquor, “but personally, I think Vi would definitely laugh, so it’s still a no.”

“C’mon, more protein would be good for you…” he coaxes in a way that reminds you of trying to get a difficult child to eat their vegetables.

And just like one, you turn up your nose. “Peddle your eggs elsewhere.”

Jayce looks over his shoulder at the clock on the microwave.

9:03am.

He seems pleased with himself, smug even, and says, “Fine, maybe I will,” as he puts the nearly full frying pan back on the range.

“Vi texted maybe… ten minutes ago,” you tell him, checking your phone to confirm as he drifts out of your peripheral vision, “and said she was just leaving, so it’s going to be a minute until you can force them on her next.”

But he isn’t talking to you anymore.

You glance up to see him standing right past the refrigerator, at the mouth of a dark hallway just off the kitchen; to watch him shout, “Viktor!” down it, leaning his shoulder against the framing.

And all you can think is oh, fuck as dread swallows you whole.

Several beats of silence pass before there’s a distant, muffled, “What?” shouted back. It ruins your private hope that maybe he’ll sleep through it or just ignore Jayce entirely.

“I made eggs!”

Silence, again, beyond the sounds of your anxious chewing.

And then the hinge of a door creaks.

“Oh, hey, good morning—!” Jayce says, sounding surprised. He cheerfully repeats, proud and labrador retriever-esque: “I made eggs.”

“Yes, I heard,” comes Viktor’s quiet voice, barely there at the edge of your hearing. “I don’t want any.”

Jayce takes up that coaxing tone again. “And I also started coffee for you…”

“Oh… Very nice, thank you.”

“—No, wait!” he says in a hurry.

Your best guess? Viktor had moved to shut him out.

Jayce’s voice drops, colored faintly with frustration. There’s no way to tell whether he’s smiling or gritting his teeth. “Can you please come out here?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking.”

“May I finish getting dressed? Would that be alright with you, hm?”

“Sorry, yeah. Do your thing,” Jayce says sheepishly, withdrawing into the kitchen as the door shuts firmly again.

You pick at your food and tap absently at your phone, pretending that you haven’t been raptly listening. Looking busy, with a fake little furrow to your brow as you check your email and notice a belated follow back from Mel. You even briefly consider spending a chunk of change on a new pair of sneakers, but hey, you need them. Bonus points that they’re in your favorite color.

Anything to distract from talking to Jayce about his roommate and whatever the fuck he thinks he’s doing.

Embarrassed and a little sore in the heart, you haven't breathed a word to him about what happened just two days ago.

But has Viktor?

You can’t figure a way to ask without incriminating yourself—not in the moment, your hands getting clammy, thoughts like static. You fight against it, to be brave and a little less sweaty, but the threat of confrontation makes you squirm.

The thought of seeing him again certainly has nothing to do with it.

Nope, not at all.

Jayce lets you be alone with your low-grade panic, and fixes himself a plate.

That is, until he comes to stand across from you, leaning down against the counter on his forearms. Waiting, you notice, over the top of your phone. You do a double take as he finally catches your attention enough to sigh and ask him: “What?”

He huffs a laugh, but before you can ask what could possibly be so funny, he levels you with a serious, beseeching sort of look. “Listen,” he says, lowering his voice as if to share a secret; in a way, you suppose it is. “It would mean a lot to me if you went easy on Viktor.”

“What about me suggests that I’m about to bully your roommate?” you snap, on the defensive before you even realize it. If you’re pouting, at least you keep your chin up.

“Hold on,” he soothes. ”I’m not saying anything about you here. I’m just trying to warn you that he has a history of, uh, not great first impressions.”

“So, in other words, bad.”

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to be nice about it. It’s just something you have to get past.”

And there it is: The perfect question to see where you stand.

“...What did he say to you?” you ask, vague and trying to look disarming with your chin cradled in your hand. “Just curious.”

Jayce chuckles, warm and reminiscent. The look in his eye is much the same, thoughtful too, as he pushes around the food on his plate. “He called me egotistical when we first met. It’s a long story, but I didn’t let it get to me and we’ve been best friends ever since.” He sighs as he says, “I just don’t want to be his only friend, so that’s why I’m asking you to give him a chance.”

Oh.

Oh…?

“That’s your angle?” You can’t keep the skepticism out of your voice. ”You want him to make more friends?”

“That’s it,” he nods. “That’s the setup. Sorry, I didn’t give you the wrong impression, did I?”

You know a trap when you see one. That, and you’re just a little paranoid. “...What impression would be the wrong one?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to set you up with him—not like that.”

You tell yourself you don’t care. If you want to pursue someone, you can do it on your own anyways. But somewhere deep and vulnerable and lonely, it hurts all the same. You have to wonder what it is about you, what other people see, that isn’t good enough.

You try to bury it, fast and frantic, before it shows on your face.

So you wave it off, a playful eye roll for good measure, and hope to heaven above you aren’t sitting across from a mind reader.

“No, don’t worry, I wasn’t thinking that.” And like an absolute fucking liar, willing to do anything to guard your heart from disappointment, you say: “I mean, he’s not really my type anyways.”

“Really? Cait said—''

He shuts his mouth quickly, but not before you can assume what might come next.

She must’ve ratted you out about more than just your struggles at the gym. You can only hope that it came up naturally, that you’re just… chronically single. Maybe Viktor would fit the profile of someone you would’ve swiped right on—your mistake for letting a detective watch you thumb through Tinder back when you used it—but Jayce doesn’t need to know that, and Caitlyn had no business telling him.

“No, never mind,” Jayce says, waving it off with one of his signature deflecting laughs. “We’re on the same page here.”

Except you aren’t. It feels like everyone except you is a page ahead in your very sad, gross personal biography.

You have some questions, of course—that’s reasonable when people are talking about you behind your back, right?—but there’s no time for answers.

Because you hear it then, the soft sound of a door opening and closing. It halts your train of thought, and stops the words forming in your mouth.

Triplicate steps follow, getting louder, closer, and suddenly distraught, you look to Jayce for some sort of cue.

“Act natural,” he whispers and shovels a ridiculous, heaping forkful of eggs into his mouth.

Natural? Okay. You flick open a book on your phone that you started two nights ago. Trying to look lost in the LED pages, head down, you tell yourself over and over, ‘Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.’

But your eye is instinctively drawn to the movement of Viktor limping stiffly into the kitchen, weighed down by a hefty bag on his stooped shoulder.

He still looks rough, and for as much as you can be judgemental—mostly of yourself, sure— it’s just an observation. Even in neat, fitted slacks and a dark knit sweater, collar peeking out of the top, it looks like an exhausted, bony sort of wraith is wearing his clothes. At least it can tame his lovely umbra of curling cowlicks, prettier when it’s clean, into something that resembles tidiness.

Just barely.

“What—” he starts to say, but he looks at you too, tired eyes catching the only outlier in a familiar landscape. They spark with recognition.

So you make yourself smile, a nonchalant thing, and swear you see him bristle—flinch?—in that fraction of a second before he looks away.

Looks at Jayce and finishes: “Did you want to talk to me about?” His voice still has that gravelly pitch of someone who just woke up. Woven around that lilting accent and you wish it makes you feel cold, callous nothing.

It doesn’t.

“Actually…” Jayce says, struggling to speak around a mouthful. He circles his fork like a loading display as he chews.

Viktor’s dark, heavy brows furrow at the delay. He drops his bag and lets it hit the floor at the opposite end of the island with a heavy thunk. Moves over to the ancient coffee maker by the stove and starts fishing around in the cabinet above, cane hooked on his arm.

Jayce finally swallows and manages to say: “Sorry, actually, now that you have great timing, I want you to meet—”

But Viktor cuts him off.

“—We’ve met,” he says, his tongue sharp, impatience cool and casual. He’s keen to leave; that’s clear once you see him pull down a stainless to-go cup and its matching lid. “I meant to tell you,” he says to Jayce, and you catch the implication that it wasn’t particularly important.

Jayce stands up straighter, leaning his hip against the granite. He crosses his arms, looking from you to Viktor, clearly confused, and mutters, “Huh. Okay then…”

All at once you feel trapped and tender with nowhere to go to avoid this moment. Floundering as you search for something to say that doesn’t give away how awkward and sore you are about the whole thing. ‘Well fuck you too then,’ certainly isn’t appropriate, but you’re thinking it. Hard. It’s pathetic, sure, but it shields you from the awful discomfort of being disliked and so powerless to it.

Viktor remembers himself, though. Remembers that it’s, at the very least, decent to acknowledge even people you don’t care for. Over his shoulder, he forces that thin smile you’ve sort of seen before. With a deceitfully soft spoken voice, he simply says, “Hello.”

Oh, now he’s one for proper greetings?

He’s probably trying to make up for shitty behavior in front of Jayce, who observes the two of you quietly, much like a scientist observing a reaction between two variables.

Fitting.

“Good morning,” is all the response he gets from you, in the most even, unaffected tone you can summon. Polite, but you don’t smile like you mean it. Hopefully it’s convincing, but you might’ve been glaring a little.

“Hm,” he hums, nodding to himself as he’s satisfied. You wait for him to say something, anything further, but he simply goes about gathering up cream from the refrigerator and a sugar dispenser from another cabinet in silence.

You look to Jayce for help, wide-eyed, flailing your flexed hands in Viktor’s general direction.

Totally discreet.

Jayce just cants his head toward his roommate and mouths: Say something. Which is absolutely no help. At all.

But Viktor beats you to it. He picks up the carafe from the coffee maker, and you hear the accusation: “What is this?”

“Uh, coffee?”

“It’s flavored, Jayce. I can smell it.”

“Didn’t you say it was pumpkin spice?” you add quietly, back to poking around on your phone to feign disinterest. You finally decide to order those goddamn shoes to make yourself feel better about the current situation—being an unwelcome voyeur to their morning.

“Yeah. Found it in the back of the pantry,” Jayce shrugs. “It’s probably been there a while, but I figured it’d be better than nothing.”

“Disgusting,” he mutters. “Why must I be punished in this way?” Viktor asks beneath his breath, but you still hear. Still going to drink it, apparently, since he pours it into his cup.

“If you told me you’d used up the last bag of plain grounds…” Jayce says, cutting Viktor off when he opens his mouth to protest, “Nuh-uh, don’t start, I know it was you.”

“Fine, a preventable error on my part. You should know, then, that we’re also out of dish soap. And bread. And, eh, laundry detergent, among other things.”

Jayce groans. “I’ll go to the store later.”

“No, no. Write a list, I can stop on my way back.”

Jayce’s voice is conversational, but by his narrowed eyes, there’s suspicion lurking somewhere beneath it. “From where?”

“The university.”

“Seriously?” Jayce says, standing straight and giving him a good, long look. “It’s Sunday.”

“What was it you used to say, hm? Science never sleeps?”

“First of all, I only said that a handful of times when I was taking adderall and pulling all-nighters—so, in other words, making shitty choices. And second, if you’re going to use that against me, the key word is sleeps. Not never takes a day off.”

“I had plenty of those,” Viktor counters, voice terse and tight and leaving no room for argument.

You don’t understand, but Jayce certainly does. He shuts right up.

Viktor continues as he casually drowns his drink in sugar, “Besides, I agreed to meet a student this afternoon. If I’m there already, I may as well go to the lab, and then take care of our errands on the way home. It’s… efficient.”

“Just…” Jayce sighs. “Just focus on getting some work done, okay? I don’t care if you’re already out, I’ll go grab whatever we need so you can come straight back. Good compromise?”

“Good enough. Unless you forget that I want more pickles. You know the kind.”

“Ew...” you whisper, thinking out loud with a crinkle to your nose, and Jayce snorts behind his closed fist.

Viktor pivots, looking between the two of you and asks, “What?” with the most open, confused expression that dulls all his sharp edges. Makes him look sweet when you’re only familiar with scathing so far.

Vi chooses that moment to come bursting through the garage door.

You flinch as it slams shut, as her voice and heavy footsteps echo down the hall. “Jayce, I swear if you didn’t make anything for me again—!”

She rounds the corner in an effortless black tracksuit that hugs in all the right places, and yes, you’re jealous. Her mouth morphs into a smirk as her eyes jump from Jayce, to you—waving as you slide out of the chair—to Viktor, trying to gather himself up in much more of a hurry.

Poor thing, he isn’t very fast.

“Good morning to you too,” Jayce says, getting another plate down. “There’s still food on the stove if you want some.”

“Uh-huh, thanks,” she answers absently, instead sidling up to Viktor who can’t possibly be described as excited to see her, all pursed lips and stiff shoulders.

“Hey stranger.” Her hands are shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket, cool and casual. “How about you let me hold Rio?”

He looks at her for a long moment, sighs and says, “No.”

“What if I just pet her?”

“No.”

“Okay, can I at least go look at her?”

“Mm… No.”

“What?! This is bullshit,” she sniffs, angling her chin defiantly. It can’t be that serious, though, if Jayce isn’t intervening. “You’re just jealous that she likes me.”

“I’m perfectly capable of sharing, Violet, but I have somewhere to be. Another time, please.”

“Yeah, yeah, you just don’t want anyone to know how many dirty dishes you’re hiding in there. I get it.”

“That is not—”

It bubbles up out of you so quickly that there’s no biting down on the question to stop it. “What’s a Rio?” you ask innocently enough.

He startles as if you’ve crept up on him, the quiet way you came around the island to put your plate in the dishwasher. Right next to him. Close enough to see the tendons in his neck tense and release as he shifts away to create space.

“A gecko,” they both say, not quite in perfect unison, earning Vi a dirty look from Viktor. He scowls like it’s not her right to answer that question, which makes Jayce laugh.

“You should show her, Vik,” Jayce suggests, and for it, a twinge of panic flashes across his roommate’s face. His eyes dart from Jayce to you.

It passes quickly.

Viktor recovers with a nod of understanding. “Oh, right. Yes.”

He pulls his phone out, wakes the screen and holds it up with a firm grip that suggests not to touch or take.

His lockscreen is a picture of a spotted pink gecko cupped in pale hands. A precious thing, larger than you might expect, with her little tongue poking out.

“Cute,” you coo. “It looks like she’s smiling.” Your lips curl into that very same expression as the screen fades to black all too quickly.

“Yes, that’s just her face,” he nods, much like a proud parent, as he pockets his phone once more. “She always looks that way.”

Vi slides over and slings an arm around your shoulder, a thick-knuckled finger pointed at Viktor.

“Get this,” she mutters conspiratorially, not making much of an effort to keep her voice down, “Viktor stole her.”

You size him up as he struggles to situate his bag, and decide in quick order that this blunt, pickle-eating man with reclusive tendencies probably has it in him. If only because it’s so strange that it has to be true, even if Vi is embellishing. Which she tends to.

“Eh…” He clears his throat, unable to conceal a tiny, sheepish smile. “I like to think that I borrowed her. Permanently.”

A willowy nerd and now somehow also a bad boy? Oh fuck. You’re really in it now.

“There’s a story, right?” you prod, a little starry-eyed with curiosity. “There has to be a story.”

“For another time, yes,” he says, shifting his weight restlessly. And then to no one in particular: “Have a nice, eh… run, is it?”

Jayce responds with a cheery, “Will do!”

The antithesis to the way you groan and mutter, “Unlikely...”

Truthfully, you aren’t so excited for the misery that is road running, the asphalt harder on your joints and the inclines entirely out of your control, but you like to be included. Besides, it might just be good for you.

He laughs, though.

Viktor laughs, a soft, amused hum of a thing as he departs, and you feel for a moment like it is going to get better from here; like you finally didn’t fail the social interaction, thank God. You just need more time, more exposure to figure him out and get it right with him.

Vi lets you go to catch up to him. Does what you’d worry is overstepping and helps him carry his things out to the car, relieving some of the burden. He still thanks her, if flatly, even after you hear her call him stickbug.

When you go to sit down again, Jayce has stolen your spot. That’s right, it’s decidedly your spot now. You pout, but take the seat next to him, folding a leg up beneath yourself and leaning into the good mood you suddenly find yourself in.

He nudges your shoulder with his own and simply tells you, “Thanks.”

“Mmhm,” you shrug. But being decent is nothing you want to be thanked for, and it’s high time to focus on the other reason—excuse?—you’ve come by so early. “Actually, I’m accepting gratitude in the form of that training plan you’ve been working on. If it’s done, I’m ready to see it.”

Jayce’s laptop is upstairs, so you huddle up over his phone, shoulder to shoulder. You read along with him as he scrolls and thoroughly explains. Being in his space hardly bothers you. He takes up a lot of it, but it feels easy and natural the way it does to lean up against Caitlyn or have Vi put an arm around you.

A few minutes pass before the door to the garage opens and shuts again, except the steps aren’t quite right for Vi. It doesn't fully register until you hear Viktor loudly clear his throat behind you.

You startle and look up to find that the way he’s looking at you has, once again, changed.

His hand is fretful on the grip of his cane like it can’t settle comfortably—that draws your eye first. Then the hard set of his jaw, but his eyes are the worst. Narrow, flashing sharp and suspicious—you’re suddenly paranoid that he can read you for all your private thoughts about him.

Your breakfast sours in your stomach under a look like that, hit by a wave of the nauseous feeling you so dread.

“What’s up?” Jayce turns and asks, his expression just as quizzical.

“I forgot my cup,” Viktor says slowly, coming to snatch it off where he’d left it on the island.

“Sorry, Vik. If we’d noticed, I would’ve brought it out to you.”

“Mm. Well you do seem preoccupied.”

He’s looking straight at you.

“Yeah, I guess?” Jayce says, a little confused as Viktor retreats for the second time. “Uh, well, drive safe and text me if you think of anything else I need to get!” he shouts after him.

Jayce receives no response but the door slamming shut.

And you’re left with the whiplash of taking two steps forward and being shoved promptly back.

Try as you might to ignore them, to be as strong inside as your body feels outwardly, your feelings weigh on you throughout the rest of the day. You feel them keenly, at intervals.

Disappointment on your run with Jayce and Vi, struggling to keep up with the pace they set—thinking of Viktor.

Frustration as you wander through Target with just Jayce, looking for toothpaste and dumb shit from the dollar section to salve the hurt. Tiny pumpkins? Perfect. But you still think about him.

Unease as you drive home, right through the University of Piltover north campus where Viktor undoubtedly is today and yup, you’re fucking thinking about him again.

And each time you think of him? Of those curious, redeeming details you’ve barely caught a glimpse of? The ones that make you feel that, at the very least and not just because Jayce asked, you’d like to be his friend?

You feel an ache you won't name, and cycle back to hopelessness.

–

That night you stare up at the popcorn ceiling above the couch and listen as the phone rings and rings and rings.

Caitlyn’s voice eventually comes through, but it’s not the pre-recorded greeting of her voicemail box you want to hear.

You hang up and try again. Only to be sent right back to the recording after two rings. You aren’t about to leave her a whole droning message, nor are you going to send her an emotional wall of text. Especially one that Vi might read. You like her by proxy, more and more since you’ve been hanging out without Caitlyn, but she lacks a filter and isn’t great with secrets sometimes.

With a grumble of frustration, a little twinge of disappointment, you open your messages and begin typing up a whiny, emoji ridden request for her to please just answer.

But she beats you to it.

[Caitlyn [gun emoji], 7:43pm]: I’m working. Talk later.

What a fucking surprise.

She is, in fact, the number one workaholic in your life, but you can’t blame her. She has to work three times as hard to be taken seriously, especially since she’d been demoted from some task force or another. What was it, Shimmer? Sounds right.

You could say any number of things to be communicative, to have her take you seriously. But instead, like an absolute genius skilled in the art of speaking to others, you just send back:

[7:44pm]: Boo, you whore :((((

She doesn’t text back.

She doesn't call either.

And you start to think that you must be bothering her too.

—

Jayce reclines on the sofa, feet propped up on the armrest as he mashes the buttons on his Switch. He peeks over the top of the console, his attention split as his eyes flit back and forth, screen to Viktor, as his roommate walks inside. Late, as usual; it’s long since grown dark outside.

Running the errands only enabled Viktor to stay later. He should’ve seen that coming.

“So…” he drawls, going straight for the kill. In Hades, that is. He’s about to beat Alecto again. “Change your mind yet?”

Viktor sighs. He does that a lot lately. “About what?” he asks softly, dropping his keys on the entryway table.

Jayce strikes the final blow and lowers the game, enough to flash Viktor a wolfish, suggestive smile. It’s enough to make him understand, apparently.

“No,” he says evenly, carefully measured, “I haven’t.”

But the subtle twitch of his fingers, that nervous tick, says something else entirely.

As did the fact that Jayce didn’t even have to say your name.

Viktor’s thought about it. Thought about you. The very same person who lied to his face this morning. ‘Not my type’ his ass, but Jayce is a forgiving person. He lied too, after all, though aren’t the strongest relationships built on friendship first?

His smile turns smug, but that’s a mistake. He miscalculated.

Viktor’s jaw clenches as he begins to shutter, to retreat into himself. With or without another word from Jayce, he’ll retreat into the solitude of his bedroom next.

Well, relative solitude. Rio keeps him company, but how can that really be enough? And for how much longer?

She can’t be there for him forever.

Neither can he.

Viktor’s cane betrays first his pain, then his frustration, striking hard against the floor as he walks away. But not before he says, his voice stern and serious and so, so tired:

“Drop it, Jayce.”

—

The next time you pull into the driveway, a windy evening after work, Jayce is there.

You would have known that if you’d texted him, but in a fit of work-related stress, your brain fried to forgetfulness, you hadn’t thought to do it before peeling out of the parking lot. Actually, the honest truth was that you’d intended to go home.

Overwhelmed by the midterm rush overtaking your office, you were struggling to keep it together. Your heart said to cry and eat ice cream about it; your body said to sleep it off for twelve hours straight. Your mind said to go run and lift heavy and make endorphins to fix it.

It’s a wonder which one you listened to—you aren’t always so disciplined.

Jayce waves to you from the mailbox, a few letters and a package in hand, and gestures for you to stop. Not in athletic shorts for once, he’s actually dressed to go out somewhere swanky. Shiny shoes, pressed pants, crisp white shirt—it has to be a date.

He leans down, bracing his forearm against the top of the door, as you roll down the window. The heavy cloud of cologne strikes you immediately.

“You might not want to park behind me, I’m leaving pretty soon.”

“Wow,” you snort, fanning your hand in front of your face, “where are you going smelling like that?”

“Mel has a fundraiser tonight. I’m her date.” He picks at the cuffs of his tailored shirt; sniffs his wrist and winces. “Is—is it too much?”

“Jayce… Buddy…” you say gently. “It smells like you swam in it.”

“Fuck…” he mutters, hanging his poor little head, “How am I supposed to fix this? She picked out this shirt so we could match, I can’t change.”

“Easy. Just take some rubbing alcohol if you have it, vodka if you don’t, and dab where you sprayed it. It’ll help.” That’s right, you have tricks. “Go, go go,” you usher, shooing him away. “You can thank me later.”

He hustles up the driveway and you put your car in park behind Viktor’s, grabbing your gym bag out of the passenger seat. By the time you change and stretch, Jayce is still upstairs doing battle with the stench he’d wrought. You want to see him off, make sure he’s actually been somewhat successful, but you also want to get in a run around the block before the evening gets too cold or too dark.

That’s right. You’re going road running.

Again.

As much as you prefer the treadmills, Sunday’s run was just so shameful that it warranted this punishment—sorry, practice. You hated how much you struggled to keep up with Jayce and Vi. Gave you that depressing ‘girl in high school PE who always finishes the mile last’ kind of feeling, considerate as they were to stop at intervals and let you catch up. Or, really, catch your breath, especially on the hills.

You could’ve blamed it on the blustery wind that morning, chapping your lips and drying out your airways to an uncomfortable degree. Or on the thorny stitches in your side, always back with a vengeance after each time you managed to breathe through them. And the asphalt, coated with wet, moldering leaves—you could’ve blamed that too for the shockwaves it sent up your knees impact after impact.

None of that helped your case, but it isn’t the crux of the issue. It’s all you. On your own at the big box gym, nobody to challenge you to get out of your comfort zone, you’d avoided running and lack stamina now as a consequence. You’ve been working on it on Jayce’s treadmills lately, but running on the street is a whole different challenge.

So naturally, Jayce and Vi who’ve been at this way longer than you, they’re the stronger runners of your Sunday morning pack.

For now.

But you aren’t one to be left behind. Nor are you someone who shies from a challenge, that’s for damn sure. Even if the muscle stitches hurt and your lungs burn and your shins ache, you are going to keep trying for the sake of being included. Pushing yourself on your own time so that they don’t regret inviting you on their weekend runs. That’s the last thing you want, their pity right after that.

Even with your favorite hype song blasting through your headphones, the hills in Jayce’s neighborhood are rough. It isn’t just your lack of conditioning.

You’re tempted, as you always are, to give up with each uphill battle you encounter. Especially as the sweat starts to collect uncomfortably in your windbreaker.

Your thighs are chafing miserably in your shorts and your new shoes are rubbing blisters into the side of your little toe. Whining about it usually helps in a cathartic sense, but all by your lonesome, it isn’t something you want witnessed by the occasional driver that passes through.

Mercifully, though, you hit a nice flat section of road.

You weren’t going to stop—really, you weren’t—but the music cuts off to your headphones and your phone vibrates in your pocket, and you have to stop to unzip it. Taking harsh, quick breaths, you find your screen reading out an unfamiliar number.

Probably spam.

You reject the call and go to pocket your phone again.

Except that same number calls right back.

And so, no harm in it, you answer.

“Where are you?!” a familiar voice with a lovely, livid accent hisses.

Ah.

Viktor.

Fuck.

#arcane #viktor #viktor x reader #viktor x f!reader #arcane viktor #arcane fanfiction #reader insert #my writing #twerks but in a distinctly sad way #sorry this took so fucking long i HATE DIALOGUE!!!!!!#and also i find these transitional chapters between strangers to [redacted] very difficult #all in all very hard time be nice to me bitches

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