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Leather loafers squeaked on mirror polished tiles, Jayce's shoulders tensed further as he heard Viktor muttering something under his breath about “prestigious academies and their squeaky clean slippery-ass floors”.
This was a bad idea. This was irrevocably, unquestionably, a very, very bad idea, and Jayce was a scientist! He was used to bad ideas. It came with the profession. You win some, but actually, you lose most.
In his defence, he had sort of tried to end his own life what felt like 5 seconds ago, so all in all, things were… looking up?
Viktor unceremoniously dropped to his knees and started fiddling with the lock.
Okay so maybe he was jumping the proverbial gun here. But it was 2 a.m. Jayce had been conscious for about, oh he isn't sure, 48 hours??
These had been his accomplishments, so far, in said 48 hours:
- He had been thrown into a cell because of his “unsanctioned experiments” (that had, he admits, blown up a building).
- Put his foot in his mouth when he testified against the council instead of keeping it shut (effectively exiling himself from one of the best academies in the world).
- Got disowned by his patron family.
- Had his dream ripped out of reach.
- Aaaand, in the abyss of his despair, almost walked off a ledge.
A little breaking, entering and embezzlement weren't really going to tip the scales at this point.
At least, that was the silent mantra he kept repeating to himself in his crazed mind, instead of the mental image of a judge listing charges and how many years he'd spend in Stillwater. The number kept irrationally multiplying by the second.
While Jayce kept darting his eyes around the hallway, trying, and barely succeeding at suppressing his 3rd, 4rth? silent breakdown of the last few days, Viktor kept muttering to himself, trying to keep calm and not let panic exponentiate human error as his fingers shook to get the dumb door open.
Objects had no intellect, but as a certified intellectual, Viktor decreed that this was a very obtuse door.
He was sooo close, he was tempted to ask Jayce to drop-kick the door with his paradoxical un-nerdy physique, but that would definitely alert somebody. Sweat started to bead at his temple.
A flickering light down the corridor rapt Jayce’s attention, and he felt a hysteric giggle try to bubble up his throat as he tapped Viktor’s shoulder.
“Almost, almost -” but Jayce’s tapping was not dissuaded, if anything, it became frantic.
With a quiet, calm, voice he didn't feel he shout-whispered, “Somebody's coming! Maybe we should book it?”
Viktor actually stopped his ministration at that and bent his torso to look up at Jayce with an unimpressed ‘is this guy for real?’ frown and then elaborated with a deadpan, “I don't run.”
Jayce winced and would have apologised for his misstep if it weren't for the light reappearing at the end of the corridor. He considered just yanking his new partner —in crime— by the scruff of the collar and dragging him away, and considered how hard Viktor would whack him with his cane in retribution. Asking for forgiveness later than permission now would surely go across much smoother if they weren't both in handcuffs.
Viktor, on the other hand, stopped dead in his tracks. He felt cold determination take hold of him. An idea blossomed to life in his mind. A very, very, bad idea.
You might be starting to sense a pattern here.
He mentally braced himself as he got up with a stiffled groan, followed by a tired apprehensive sigh. Still facing the door. Seemingly not at all unnerved by the oncoming guard.
Building up courage for… something??
They were out of time.
Jayce had a fistful of his sleeve and was tugging desperately now. His eyes transfixed on the light drawing near as Viktor, nonchalantly, turned with a matter of fact “Sorry bout this,” and without preamble, grabbed Jayce by the lapels.
Jayce got out an incredulous “Wha-?” but was promptly cut off and his protests muffled as Viktor pulled him down with surprising strength, and crashed their mouths together.
Something… clattered to the ground, but Jayce wasn't listening. In fact, he had lost the ability to hear, or see, or think for that matter.
Jayce was usually very proud of his ability to think, it was one of the best things he had going for him. Even in the worst of times, he was able to scrounge up something coherent. A stream of thoughts always going off in the background, but all that chatter came to an abrupt halt. Anything resembling human language fuzzed and sputtered out of his brain as a deafening silence filled his ears and head.
This was the last shock to his system he couldn't override.
He had the remaining grace that at least his body went into autopilot. Without him even processing, he circled one arm tight around the waist of the svelte man, effectually saving them from slamming awkwardly against the door (by Viktor’s tipping off their balance) by bracing his other arm against the door with a loud thump.
For a second that stretched out into eons, Jayce just- existed. Everything else had been cut off.
It all faded away and the only thing that remained was… this. The press of his mouth and body against another.
That inconceivable bubble popped.
Someone let out a mannered but forced (maybe not the first) cough.
It was like a dam broke and reality flooded back in.
They sprung apart like opposing magnets, like a paper ripping in two.
One second they were just one intertwined being. Subatomical stable particles with different charges. Circling and chasing each other, and the next they were two, separate, individuals again. Purple reverting to blue and pink.
Jayce shoved himself away with such force he barely avoided tripping over his own feet. Viktor had the aforementioned door to hold him up. He slumped back against it, with a thousand-yard stare, momentarily stupefied by his own actions. The man was too stunned to speak. Head sunk between his shoulders and arms down his sides with his hands pressed flat against the door. The feeling of wood, the only anchor to the physical world as his soul attempted to leave this mortal plane. He audibly blinked once, twice, as awareness slowly came back. Unsteadily, he kicked his brain into gear to try and regain control of the spiralling situation said brain had gotten them into.
Jayce was reeling, one hand over his mouth, the other grasping incomprehensibly at nothing as if trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered psyche from thin air. His back was to Viktor and the newcomer, turning away and putting some much needed distance between him and his relabelled “deranged but brilliant but fucking terrifying” partner in crime. He was trying to get his shit together, he really was.
In actuality he was flailing his arms in the air, looking up into nothing and opening, closing and reopening his mouth like a fish out of water. As if trying to explain himself to an invisible judging crowd but coming up empty.
Viktor had no such luxury as this was his plan. Oh we are calling this dumpster fire a plan now? he quipped back at himself. It didn't matter, he had bigger fish to worry about, he would just have to roll with it.
He let himself stare wide-eyed into nothing for the span of a harsh exhale, before pulling himself together and facing their involuntary crowd.
He gingerly swivelled to the guard and held up an arm to shield himself from the torchlights glare.
He had a split second to think “oh, shit” and then summoned a cheery voice that was hinging on a hysteric giggle, “Ah, councillor Medarda! What a... pleasant surprise.”
He tried to feign embarrassment and banish the manic self-satisfied smirk he felt crawling up his face, but it was a losing battle. His cheeks ached from the force of the glee. He felt like a child again, caught with his red hand in the cookie jar, or however the saying goes.
He was slightly light-headed and more unsteady on his feet than usual. Don't break character, don't break character.
At any point in time, Jayce’s panic would have given him the adrenaline to get back on his feet, but his brain wasn't jumpstarting. He was barely hearing or processing the fact that there was a whole ass councillor who had caught them! Making out in a dark corridor. Like hormonal teenagers.
He suppressed a keen, an illustrious whine if you will.
“Gentlemen,” Councillor Mel fucking Medarda intoned in a rich velvety voice as she nodded to them in greeting “a bit late to be wandering the halls at these hours” she said, in a way that wasn't at all reminiscent of a disappointed teacher.
She exuded an untouchable confidence, but there was laughter in her eyes that made Viktor pause. Ah, time to bullshit the bullshiter.
“Yes, ehh we must have gotten lost at some point,” he tried to say bashfully, but it came across as unapologetic.
She arched a pristine eyebrow, and her gold freckles scintillated in the spare light. Every inch of her utter perfection and betraying nothing.
“Must have been quite… distracted. That's quite an amount of wrong turns you took, and stairs.” Her gaze was unimpressed but entertained.
I can work with that.
He started to hunch forward to give himself a moment to mull over his words as he reached for something on the floor.
Viktor’s cane, supplied Jayce's mind helpfully. It probably fell when Viktor had to sacrifice it to use both his hands to kiss him, his brain added, unhelpfully.
That finally spurted Jayce into action. In a few quick strides he was by their side. He bowed with a stretched out arm to stop Viktor as he took up the cane and looked Mel straight in the eyes (gold flecked) with startling composure.
“Terribly sorry about that, Viktor forgot something at the lab.”
Viktor refrained from stomping on the others foot at the lame excuse and risk breaking this fragile illusion.
“Right, well… I'll leave you two to it then, try to not get more, how did you put it? Ah, lost.”
She took a moment to stare each of them down, and gave them one more meaningful look before spinning on her heels and sashaying away.
They both slightly deflated, incredulous, and slowly turned to each other.
Did that, did that actually work?-
“Ah, one moment,” both their heads spun back at neck-breaking speed. Medarda stopped as if suddenly remembering something.
They both tensed, trying to not look like two startled deer caught in headlights, and failing miserably.
She walked back to them, the clack of her heels echoing off loudly in the petrified silence of the hall. A steady, slow beat at odds with their rabbit racing hearts. A wolf stalking its prey. When she reached them she lazily stretched out an arm, “You seem to have dropped this.”
It was a key.
No, it was the key, Viktor’s brain chimed in.
Viktor took it from her offering palm and instinctively said a breathless “thank you”.
She stood there for a moment, nodded, and was back on her way down the corridor and out of sight.
They both kinda just stood there in disbelieving silence, with Viktor holding up the key.
Their eyes darted to each other again and they, at last, crumbled.
A laugh tore itself out of Jayce's strained lungs and it felt like the strings holding him up snapped. Viktor was hunched over with one arm steadying him against the gods' forsaken door as he snickered. He didn't know how long their giggle fit lasted, but Viktor was softly coughing and Jayce was on his knees, wheezing from lack of air and abdomen screaming from the tension. He finally let out a relieved sigh and rubbed at his eyes.
“I can't believe that actually worked,” he said as his hand fell away and he cast his gaze up to Viktor, mirth brimming in his eyes, “it did work, right?”
Viktor looked drawn, but his eyes flashed in triumph. He was still standing, by some miracle, but it was a near thing.
“Oh, it worked alright. The councillor was even gracious enough to give us this,” he drawled out in his heavy accent.
Jayce froze, and looked at the key Viktor was holding up. A key that neither of them had previously possessed, least of all "dropped".
Oh, they hadn't been nearly as smooth as they thought they were. Like at all, but by some stroke of good luck Councillor Medarda had decided to play devil's advocate and by the look in Viktor’s eye, he had known she was in on their little escapade.
“No point in wasting her gift, eh?”
At that, Jayce pushed himself hastily to his feet. Right, they weren't out of the woods yet.
Viktor was looking down at the key now impatiently being turned in the lock when a very familiar object came into view.
His cane.
He normally soured at the sight of it, but Jayce held it out with such gentle reverence that his heart couldn't help but thaw a few degrees.
Somehow, this is what startled Viktor, and he paused as his face rose to meet Jayce's open gaze.
There was a new-found trust there and… something else neither of them currently had the time to put into words, but the silence wasn't empty. It was crackling with a sort of… understanding.
Viktor nodded at him and their hands graced as he accepted his cane back. Not a second too soon, a resounding click filled the space, and the door went, blissfully, open.
Viktor looked back one last time, a promise of mischief glinting in his eyes as he slipped inside.
Jayce followed him as quietly as he could, casting one last glance over his shoulder down the corridor, before pulling the door softly closed behind him with a satisfying click.