Dreams
Viktor’s mouth fell into a grimace. Which was, actually, well suited to the events of the day.
Initially, the nervous, excited sort of effervescence that came with most firsts and beginnings had sparked a small fire that spread throughout the layer just beneath his skin, overriding the typical monotony of getting out of bed and starting the day.
He listened to an upbeat, pop-y top 100s song as he brushed his teeth. He added an extra sugar into his coffee. Hell, he even sang along to one of the trashy AM radio hits that flooded his mostly barren apartment from the vintage radio on his kitchen counter.
Of course, this was Viktor, after all, so he’d assumed it would only be a matter of time before something had snuffed the spark.
Unfortunately for Viktor, he was usually, if not always, correct. So as he packed the last of a few duffle bags into the trunk of his very humble, very champagne-coloured 1995 sedan, and the hatch decided that today was the absolute perfect day to just ever so slightly not fit over the bags, all Viktor could do was sigh. It was a pitiful sight. Viktor threaded an emergency bungee cord into the latch mechanism on the trunk and tied it as well as he could to the bumper.
He’d successfully trekked across the grey, littered streets that were riddled so greatly with potholes that it might have been simpler and, in Viktor’s opinion, more cost-effective to just scrape up what was left of the tar and leave the dirt path. He’d crossed the couple of wide, ever-extending highways and that severed the rural, more domestic side Piltover from the sparkling, energized gold and noticeably white side.
Eventually, sleek buildings, each dotted with their own security personnel or overworked, underpaid bouncer, gave way to an extensive field of grass so green Viktor would have believed was spray-painted had someone told him. Kilometres of vegetation and excruciatingly immaculate hedges veined alongside the grass and pointed shamelessly at the massive building sitting greedily in the centre.
Piltover University of Scientific Advancement. The university that Viktor had attended for all of eight years, completing his undergraduate degree in Evolutionary Biology and, at the moment, pursuing his fourth year under a five year PhD in Bioengineering.
He’d pulled hastily into the nearest parking spot to the graduate-level suites that he undoubtedly would be sharing with another unlucky soul who would inevitably request to be “relocated” into a single-suit. Viktor found that most of the relocation decisions were actually the result of lazy bribes to the campus-living officer, spoiled students trying to snag a high-rise for them and their other obscenely wealthy friends. Anyway, it was best for Viktor to play the ever-grateful and passive Zaunite card until his roommate decided they’d had it with the insomnia-fueled and mildly mad-scientist-esque textbook revision and moved on.
He’d received his suite allocation, a small but central building that was almost close enough for him to be able to walk quite comfortably to and from the majority of the classes he assisted every day, but just far enough to suggest that he most definitely would be needing to brush up on the full-body stretches recommended to him by a physical therapist from years ago. It’s not that he neglected the stretching, it was clearly important and at the best of times provided some relief to his strained joints, but university was a busy time. His priorities simply lay within his studies.
He’d gathered a seemingly unused luggage cart, loaded his — considerably more battered than when he’d left — duffle bags and adjusted the thick leather strap of his book bag over his shoulder. Turning around, Viktor slammed the trunk shut with probably more force than necessary, and began his final journey.
The terribly inconvenient and increasingly aggravating effort of lofting the metal cart that he’d discovered had a faulty wheel at the perfect time, after he had already denied the help of some unassuming student, had him steaming on his journey back home.
The struggle of a faulty piece of machinery, combined with the absolute incompetence of car manufacturers led him to his current position, grimacing as he re-read the boldly lettered, fairly condescending First Day Back! brochure that was handed to him at the same place where he’d picked up his student ID and suite allocation. Grimacing, because he had forgotten to actually read the damned thing, which happily doomed him to a suite on the top floor.
The top floor of one of the oldest buildings on campus, designated for either need-based scholarship international type students - like Viktor - or the ultra wealthy, spoiled, born-with-silver-spoons-up-their-asses or however the saying goes, pompous little shitheaded children of Piltover’s elite.
And, wow, if you didn’t know that the building, aptly named Kiramman Hall after the university's second-highest alumni donor, was the oldest building on campus, you could gather it pretty quickly from the exterior alone.
Disheveled-looking vines that had outlasted even the most dedicated weed-killing poison crept up along the bottom of the charming white window, sills interrupting the reddish, colonial-typical brick that made up the bones of the building. Though it was tall, it didn’t evoke the same foreboding sense of sterility that the more recently updated sides of campus had, instead drawing in an air of warm wiseness that comes only with age. A small set of steps lined the entrance.
Viktor’s grimace worsened as he craned his neck up toward the highest windows, the sun casting a sharp beam of oppressive bright right into his eyes. The dull ache that reached its hands around the top of Vitkor’s spine tightened its grip, an irritating reminder of his lack of sleep the night prior. Viktor usually slept better during winter, anyway, not having experienced the high-tech HVAC systems of Piltover through his formative years. The occasional space heater or fire filled the space nicely nonetheless, and Viktor in fact preferred it to the suffocating and borderline obsessive levels of sterility that infested the city.
Well, he decided, can’t stand around all day. Blinking the intrusive rays of gamma radiation that had offended his retinas away, he removed his grip on the luggage cart and tightened his grip on the dark wooden cane beneath his other hand to push the grand, slightly showy doors of the entrance open, and stepped inside.
A simple seating area furnished with glossy pleather chairs and a simple rounded coffee table sat inoffensively in the centre of the lobby area, on a platform minutely more sunken than the rest of the space that was probably to create depth or levelling or whatever filthy rich bullshit was popular at the time. On the normally levelled floor, behind the arrangement, was a set of two elevators flanked on each side by a pair of staircases that were absolutely, for lack of a better term, ornate. The lightness of the steps matched the slats that lined the floors, but the cleanness of the material was starkly overshadowed by a sultry ebony bannister, carved in sweeping wave-like patterns that ebbed and flowed at random, enchanting the room with the small refractions of light it projected onto the walls from the otherwise forgettable fluorescent bulbs overhead.
The rounded stake at the end of the bannister was polished to perfection, not a single fingerprint tarnishing its dark surface. Viktor glanced down at his cane, accentuated with subtly crafted carvings and etchings that had worn from years of consistent use. The comparison was striking. It was as if his cane and the wood of the staircase had come from the very same tree, been carved by the very same craftsman, with the very same feeling in mind.
Viktor, being what he considered fairly sane, didn't ponder too long on his connection with a fucking staircase and instead turned his head back to the entrance of the building, where his cart rested obtrusively. He had gotten a bit distracted by the apparent care that had been taken when refurbishing this building, so he shook his head lightly and hoped that with proper sleep, he’d be back to his aloof self in time for classes to start.
Stepping back to the cart with a significantly greater amount of intention than how he’d mindlessly meandered about the lobby, he noticed the cart had begun to move on its own. His eyes scanned the thing for some sort of demon or imp that undoubtedly dedicated its life to making Viktor’s life absolute chaos, but when they landed upon the faulty wheel that was spinning wildly beneath the weight of nothing but a few duffle bags, he scowled.
God damned hunk of metal zkurvená sračka piece of crap- he soliloquised elegantly as he stepped even faster toward the thing.
Much to Viktor’s horror, it wasn’t just moving, it was sliding. Careening down the second-thought wheelchair ramp that sat a bit too steep into the preexisting stairs that led up to the entrance of the building, and had hopefully been an effort in response to some not so kindly worded articles published anonymously about the university over the summer.
He shook his head again. Cart. Rolling down ramp. Right now. Oh, Shit. He would have stepped forward to grab the handle before it slid, had he not been caught up in his half-smug, half-bitter train of thought about Piltover’s poor accessibility.
Instead, he let out a resigned sigh and pushed the knuckles of his right hand into the bridge of his nose, awaiting the desperate, pitiful sound of the damned cart crashing with alarming speed into the concrete sidewalk below.
His mind flitted to the secondhand lab materials that the university had insisted every student bring. A couple of measuring cylinders of different volumes, a set of sterilised pipettes, and… Viktor sighed. A microscope. Not one of the latest models that adorned the undergraduate classrooms and shone proudly upon well-lit pedestals in storefronts within the city of Piltover, but a reliable and somewhat personal microscope that Viktor had purchased as a gift for himself a the start of his university days, and had brought loyally to every single scientific event since starting college. Though he could very simply borrow one of the fresher ones from the student-laboratories, this microscope in particular had been with Vitkor through a lot.
As he stood, entering the first step in the process of what he’d call grief over perfectly adequate scientific equipment, there was no sound from outside the grandiose double doors. Raising his head a bit higher, and squinting his eyes, Viktor saw a woman. Holding his cart back from the very steep demise that was the wheelchair ramp.
She hadn't seen him yet, and was reaching around with another slender, well-manicured hand to grab the thing with two hands. Her thick, dark brows were furrowed very slightly in focus, and one of the gold-studded locs that adorned her daunting updo fell out of place. A few cowries clinked together as the loc swayed down past her softly sloped shoulders and rested just above her hip.
Viktor’s eyes narrowed further. She was the absolute spitting image of Piltover. Her linen blouse, the kind with the sleeves that widen at the wrist, laid across her frame without so much as a wrinkle to disrupt its simple elegance. Perfection, in human form. He tried not to make any self-deprecating comparisons between them, though he was pretty sure that anyone would feel insecure when faced with the image of, like, genuine flawlessness.
“Whoops! That could’ve been a disaster!”
Viktor’s ears rang at the unexpected curve of her speech, indicating she wasn't a Piltover native in the form of a soft accent. In his many years at the university, he had only met a very select few that also adorned an accent, but that was mostly because the university’s board members thought it a good idea to group every international student together in the same cramped, out-of-the-way dorm during undergrad. Way to be inclusive, Piltover.
“Yes, well,” Viktor’s own voice surprised him, “we should be glad that at least one of us was paying attention to all of my belongings.” Again, he made an effort, somewhat unsuccessfully, to avoid drawing comparisons between the rounded softness of her accent and the clipped curtness of his own.
As if scripted, she chuckled politely and nodded. “Quite. Here, I assume you do want them back, yes?”
Content to be released from the sterile pleasantries that normally intruded on his intellectual train of thought for far too long, he smiled back and stepped forward to grab the cart from the woman.
“Wait,” she stepped back in tandem, pulling the cart farther from Viktor. “That’ll be five bucks.” She raised one hand, palm open, to Viktor and looked up expectantly. He noticed the amount of gold rings that she wore on each finger excluding the fourth digit, the strikingly metallic eyeliner that brightened the inner corners of her sharp eyes. She was practically made of the stuff.
Viktor bristled. He was sure she’d been making a joke (not a particularly funny one, but a joke nonetheless), but the intensity of her stare threw him off. He jerked his head back and sneered, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s going to take a lot more than a couple of old hoodies and outdated textbooks before you ever see a cent from me.” He chuckled briskly, but his tone was infused with a harshness that could be brought out only by the most out-of-touch of Piltover’s elite. Something in her demeanor exuded the confidence of someone not only with money, but also immense power. Though unassuming initially, it was as though her entire being was a threat, masked by the scent of excruciating piety that wafted throughout the marble streets of the entire city.
The lighthearted smirk that didn’t quite reach her eyes faded, and she scoffed quietly. “A simple thank you would have sufficed. Though I suppose some people are raised differently depending on their…” she considered her words carefully, though made no real effort to conceal her intention. She quirked an eyebrow. “Background.”
A final award-winning smile was thrown his way, alongside a head tilt that could have meant an entire array of things, and she brushed coldly past him and into the building. Viktor’s eye twitched. Every god-damned Piltie prodigy is the same.
Quickly, before it could make another mad-dash to the unforgiving concrete at the end of the ramp, Viktor placed a firm hand onto the cart. As if burning under his intense scrutiny, the metallic handhold was warm, reminding Viktor once again of the unforgiving summer weather outside.
Schooling his expression back into an unaffected sort of frown, he made his way to the elevator and up to the sixth floor of the building. There were only two suites on the top floor, both with wide open floor plans and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, boasting the sprawling grandeur of Piltover below.
On the surface, it was a beautiful city. Known for its dedication to scientific research and its surprising openness to extravagant nightlife, Piltover could easily be a city that Viktor would have grown to love. But the surface was all there was. Once its hardened, plastic shell was cracked open, a steaming mass of blubbering smog and corruption rivalling that of Viktor’s hometown, Zaun, would foul the otherwise pristine image.
Swiping the hard-plastic key against the impressively large reader that took up significant space on his front door, Viktor pushed his way inside.
Though not a single light had been turned on in the entire suite, Viktor had to squint whilst his pupils constricted, compensating for the sudden flooding of light he’d been attacked with. There were few buildings on campus that bested Kiramman Hall in terms of vertical height, which meant that the unobstructed view of Piltover was coupled with an unobstructed pathway for the blistering light that bled through the large windows and stained the entirety of the main entryway. If nothing else, Piltover’s sun was bright.
He pulled his belongings behind him and nudged the door further open with his shoulder. The stiffness in his neck was no longer restricted to his spine, and was now creeping up just over the nape of his neck and into the base of his skull. Regardless, he swivelled his head slowly to each side, scanning the space passively.
His eyes landed on a couple of half-unpacked suitcases to his left, and left of that a few impressive-looking appliances sat on a marble countertop. The door closed heavily behind him and he turned to fully face the small, mostly-white kitchenette that sat unobtrusively before him. Against the wall, there rested a sleek black electric stove, flanked by an unremarkable dishwasher and stainless steel sink. Beside them, smooth white cabinets punctuated only by small black handles provided storage for whatever Piltovian ingredients and snacks that his roommate undoubtedly indulged in. Above them, a simple white tiled backsplash covered the wall, below another row of smooth white cabinetry nailed into place. No microwave.
That was going to be an issue. Potentially a major issue. An issue that Viktor might even consider approaching the student-living administration about. If he didn’t have his shitty, awfully convenient, microwaveable plastic-infused foil dinners whilst he worked until the early hours of the dawn on some biology paper, then what did he have?
A pompous, rich asshole for a roommate, that’s what. Viktor’s internal monologuing was cut unfortunately short by the stomping of what he presumed to be an actual giant based on the sheer force with which the steps shook the suite. Instead of an enormous brutish creature, though, what emerged from the room that faced from the kitchenette was in fact much worse.
A man that seemed to be no less than a year younger than Viktor himself, with wide sweeping shoulders that squared the top of his absolutely sculpted arms quite sharply, wearing an unexceptional grey shirt that Viktor was pretty sure had to be at least two sizes too small. Dark, soft looking hair hung just above his eyes, parted seamlessly down the middle and casting subtle shadows across his angular jaw.
Viktor didn’t bother looking at his eyes. Those would probably be perfect, too. This man was hot. Attractive, In every sense of the word.
Thankfully, Viktor hadn’t been a teenager in a few years, if ever, considering his chronically aching joints that left him feeling like those miserable old people that families in Piltover liked to chuck into nursing homes once their insurance had run out. The point was, Viktor’s hormones were totally in check. His stomach didn’t even curl into small, tense knots when the man finally spoke up.
“Uh, hey. Are you, uh, is this your suite, too? Like, are you my new roommate? Not that you’re new! Just, like, is this making any sense?”
Viktor watched the man struggle painfully over his words, and tried not to think too hard about that last line. Defensive wasn’t exactly the way he liked to come off, especially in first impressions.
“Yes. This is my suite as well, meaning I am your new roommate.” Viktor hesitated. A little bit of pettiness never hurt anyone. “Is that clear?”
“Ah,” The man chuckled a plastic laugh, “yeah, sure. So, like, who actually are you, then?”
“Viktor.”
He paused, expecting Viktor to continue or perhaps politely return the question, but it just so happened that Viktor’s lower back decided to twinge uncomfortably, so unfortunately he wasn’t in a prime mood for typical Piltovian discretion.
“...Right. I’m Jayce. Talis. You’ve probably seen me everywhere, like the school website and stuff. I’m one of the major university reps, and kind of, like, PU’s sweetheart, you know? Like, that’s me!” He flashed a bright, self-assured smile. Viktor raised an eyebrow.
“Unfortunately, no. I’m afraid I have not heard of this,” he raised one hand to gesture air quotes, “‘Piltover University’s sweetheart.’” Despite the fact that “Piltover’s sweetheart” may have been the most embarrassing, cringe-inducing statement possibly of all time, this man - Jayce Talis, it seemed - was grating in a way that Viktor thought to be entirely new. Viktor’s dismissal of his apparent popularity didn’t even seem to affect him, like, at all.
“Well,” Jayce’s welcoming smile twisted into something better resembling a smirk, the cocky bastard, “Everyone hears about me eventually. Seems you got lucky enough to bunk with me for the next year. Try not to look too excited, I know I can be irresistible to some-”
Viktor interrupted with a dry laugh. “You, I’m afraid, were the one unlucky enough to bunk with me for the next year. We’ll see how long Jayce-trust-fund-Talis can last with the international student.” Though no real self-deprecation sat within his words, he knew the effect it would have on the man in front of him.
Viktor was right, Jayce’s head jerked back and his thick, dark brows furrowed. He spoke, mind clearly finding it difficult to play catch up with his mouth, as he asked, “How did a- an international student get assigned-?” Whatever questionable sentiment was leaving his mouth was cut much shorter by a loud a-hem type of sound as his fist shot up to cover the shocked expression on his face. “I- I just mean, uh-”
Instead of interrupting Jayce’s apparent struggle with this newfound knowledge, Viktor simply tilted his head sharply and silently, refusing to compensate for his pious idiocy and allowing Jayce to fill in the blanks himself. Yes, Mr. Talis, what did you mean?
“Uh… that… usually international students are bunked together in a… different hall. Is all. Just… gotta make sure I’m clear. I wouldn’t say anything like… I’m not- you know, like that. I’m actually very accepting! It’s part of why I’m so good at my job as a rep! I’m open minded! I-”
Viktor decided to stop paying attention to the scrambling, disastrous ramble that was spewing out of this poor man’s mouth and turned right, away from the kitchenette, away from Jayce’s room and past the seating area that furnished the main area of the suite and bisected the two bedrooms, and to the closed door that protected the other unoccupied room.
Viktor’s room, in short. He walked toward it, allowing Jayce to continue to compliment himself endlessly whilst spouting the university’s principles or whatever, at the same time entirely degrading himself through the unadulterated insecurity that laced his desperate speech.
Viktor tuned out his voice. Pushing his door open, Viktor was slightly relieved to see that the Kirammans—or whoever furnished this place—had resigned to utilize the university’s very common and very unassuming layout and furniture. It was as if this was any other dorm room, or graduate suite, and not the most highly coveted, prime spot in all of on-campus living. Someone might actually kill Viktor for this room.
Viktor smirked. All of his bouts of misfortune, every opportunity snatched from his grasp, every little Piltie prodigy, could try as hard as they could to claw their way up Viktor’s spine, not dissimilar to the way his arthritis did, and sink their little claws into his gritty heart. Viktor would always persist. Sometimes, his persistence won him a trip to the dean’s office for insubordination or some other invented complaint that Piltover’s finest would cook up in order to avoid calling him what they really wanted—a Zaunite. Sometimes, though, it won him the best spot on campus.
The view of the campus from the windows that took up the entire wall farthest from him did nothing to quell the pooling sense of satisfaction in his chest. Turning, he gathered his duffle bags from the metal cart behind him.
Though unwilling to reveal his attachment to the contents of his bags to the woman earlier, Viktor was actually very excited to unpack his stuff. Organising his beloved equipment, clothes, and plants in his room was a small comfort that Viktor found himself quite enjoying at the start of every school year. Viktor loved his plants.
Unzipping the heftiest of the duffles, Viktor flexed the muscles in his face that had been neglected for the majority of the day. A bright, genuine smile illuminated the apples of his otherwise defined cheekbones, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in a way that was very befitting, he thought, of the name crow’s feet.
A few dark green waxy plants smiled back at him, happy to be somewhere with access to actual sunlight, instead of a dingy and well-loved sack barrelling down the highway, inches away from flying onto the unforgiving pavement.
He picked each one up by the warm terracotta pots they rested in, and carried them over to the window-wall that was inviting oceans of free flowing infinite sunlight onto the simple wooden desk that had been placed in front of it.
Setting the plants down onto the desk, a sense of pride flowed into Viktor’s chest. He had worked damn hard to get to where he was. The university, the room, and the plants on his desk had all been results of a process that had been nothing short of painstaking. Though rather unlucky in many of his domestic pursuits, Viktor usually ended up where he was meant to be. It was hard to not appreciate what he had.
His mind flashed back to his life in Zaun. Immensely underfunded medical research, chronically unloved children as far as the eye could see, and billows of smog that the untouchable steel factories belched out in place of the sky. All indicators of an unimaginably steep class divide that Viktor had been personally privy to witnessing, especially as he spent more time in Piltover. There was rarely a moment where he wasn’t mulling over each deeply instilled issue within the city, picking at the skin around his nails until it bled whilst he paced back and forth or chewing his lips until they cracked.
Despite the glaring troubles that infested Zaun from every angle, it was hard for Viktor to claim that he didn’t love the place. He had spent so many years there, living lifetimes in each day. Habitually dropping a coin or two into the grabby hands of a child on the street, paying a two week old tab at the bar that knew his order before he’d even opened his mouth. Bright pinks of acceptance. Blood red danger. Warm, yellow familiarity no matter where he went. Sickly green pollution. Just fucking colour.
He missed colour. It wasn’t as though Piltover was drained of colour entirely. An occasional high-end contemporary art gallery or installation would allow Viktor a small breath of freshness in a sea of white. Whitewas everywhere. Stucco exteriors, power-washed sidewalks, gleaming sports cars and modernized buildings that were just a stack of windows, separated by nothing but steel. To Viktor it was unfeeling. It allowed no room for expression or differentiation, deviation from the crowd. It snuffed out uniqueness at its conception and stomped it under a shiny black loafer.
This was fairly reflective of Viktor’s perception of the city, anyway. He had never found the exposed suffocation of Piltover to be interesting in any way. Truly, he was just here for the education. He would have been content remaining in Zaun if it weren’t for its tragic lack of scientific funding, and limited options for education.
And for Viktor’s condition. The arthritis that ground every joint together, starting from his right knee and shooting in every direction until it reached his ankle, hip and, more recently, his spine. The vertebrae in his lower back ached more every day, as the fluid that wasmeant to separate the bones from scraping together drained slowly from its place between joints. Too much walking, standing, or even sitting could be detrimental to the state of his leg in a day.
Naturally, if Zaun didhave effective medical care for such a condition, there would be many others like Viktor who would benefit immensely. Unfortunately, the rich have to stay rich somehow. Everyone knew that medicine in Piltover was unmatched across the country.
So when he’d worked enough hours at a small plant shop underneath a massive elevated highway that sliced the city into two, and gathered enough money, he scheduled a medical appointment in Piltover. After many expensive sessions of endless bureaucratic paperwork, consultations, and testing, he’d finally gotten his hands on an effective brace. It definitely improved his situation, and alleviated a certain amount of the pressure being placed on his leg, but it wasn’t perfect. After 17 years of working, walking, and attempting to run despite the pain, there was a sort of ‘nothing we can do about it’ to his difficulties.
A cane was provided to him, but he had turned it down. If he could avoid as much stainless (soulless) steel and white plastic as possible, then he would. When he returned to his life in Zaun, he approached a beloved wood carver that had produced works city-wide, and asked him a favour.
Viktor’s grip tightened on the brassy-gold handle on his cane. He extended his thumb and brushed it lightly against the ornamented designs. It meant a lot to him. Something so beautiful, so meaningful, as a result of something extremely difficult for Viktor.
Something within Viktor’s chest squeezed at the juxtaposition. He couldn’t help but feel an immense fondness for the joys he’d latched onto so desperately during some of the hardest moments in his life. Colours, craftsmanship, memories, plants.
He turned again to his plants and hummed appreciatively. The unluckiest, luckiest bastard in the world.
He realised he had been staring quite intensely at the city for a considerable amount of time, and figured that he really should just finish the unpacking all at once, so as to avoid any organisation errors and maximise his free time before courses started in two days.
So, taking his time, he packed every shelf and every drawer with the secondhand sweaters and vintage turtlenecks that he sought out on each impulsive trip to the thrift within the suburbs of Piltover. That was something they had over Zaun. Everytime a rich Piltie kicked the bucket, a fresh set of well-loved and carefully crafted formal attire would flood the thrifts.
He placed more plants on the minimalist shelves, set up a bookcase with his overdue library books and ever-familiar biology textbooks from undergrad. He fitted his bed with the same dark green linen duvet that he had every year, and placed his handmade metalwork robot figurine, dubbed Blitzcrank, on his bedside table.
He also tested out the desk lamp and standing lamp instead of the cool white overheads, deciding he liked them better even though they were a bit cooler than what he normally liked. He placed a few toiletries in the connected personal bathroom — something completely unique to this suite hall — along with some new soothing creams recently recommended to him by his primary care technician. And, of course, the ever-trusty hot water bottle for when he needed to curl up in a heated space, and let the coolness that perpetually permeated his fingertips bleed out into the warmth around them.
Once finished, the suite looked like a place Viktor would love to come back to after a long day in the bio lab, or the odd socratic seminar for his obscure Czech literature course that really only covered the non-obscure Czech authors like Kafka.
He sighed happily, and his face relaxed into a thoroughly content expression. He was in a significantly better mood than when he’d arrived, and the frazzling events of the prior day faded into unimportance.
Perhaps he’d better go check on his roommate. Viktor had been quite short with him before, tolerance for the stifling discretion of Piltover at an absolute low, but now was feeling much more up for simple, non-complicated small talk.
Something created pause in his head. Approaching someone after a heated moment is difficult, no matter who you are. But Viktor intended to enjoy this year, so he made his way out the door and across the sitting area in the centre of their suite.
Passing into the small walkway, he moved to knock on the door, but stopped when he noticed it was already cracked open. He pushed it all the way open, revealing a space entirely symmetrical to his, but entirely different in contents.
Each wall had something to show off this guy’s apparent scientific skill. A shiny gilded medal and a personal accolade from the dean, congratulating him on some undergraduate research project caught Viktor’s attention. His room was much more centered around his own personal comforts and interests, each trinket reflecting something he wanted to see or something that appealed to him, but this man — Jayce — seemed to live for external validation.
It was a bit overwhelming, in Viktor’s opinion.
Across from Viktor, who stood semi-awkwardly in the doorway, was Jayce, turned away from him and toward the window-wall, sat uncomfortably in the basic dorm-chair hunched over his desk. He was scribbling away in some journal, bound with a wine-red leather cover and accented with small gold icons. It certainly didn’t seem like an academic notebook.
Viktor cleared his throat. Jayce whipped around, possessed by someone who definitely just forgot they had a stranger as a roommate instead of one of his equally filthy rich prodigy friends.
“Yes, well, I just wanted to properly introduce myself. As you know, my name is Viktor. International student, as you’ve gathered. I’m from Zaun.” He looked up from where he’d been scrutinising the hard-laminate floor beneath him, a nervous habit he had been trying to break since he started living in Piltover, and pressed his mouth into a polite smile.
“I, ehm, I am a graduate student in the Bioengineering Program, with a degree in Evolutionary Biology. At the moment I specialise in Environmental Systems.” He stared at Jayce, who stared right back at him with a singular, slightly quirked eyebrow.
Jayce didn’t say anything for a few seconds, long enough for Viktor to wonder if he’d actually just introduced himself entirely in his mother tongue, or if somehow he’d forgotten some vitally imperative Piltover expectation or social cue about meeting roommates.
Jayce laughed. “This isn’t, like, an interview or anything, man. You don’t have to stand there and give me your whole credentials or whatever. Chill out a bit.”
Viktor’s nose twitched. Things would be much easier if Jayce just matched his cadence and introduced himself properly. Instead, everything had to be one big joke. Viktor wanted to wonder where he’d gotten his general cockiness from, but the medal that hung on the wall just across from Jayce’s bed reflected an arrow of sharp sunlight into his eyes gave him the answer. Arrogance with a solid foundation.
Damn. It was significantly harder to humble someone who was deeply intellectual and knew it. Not only that, but handsome, too. The type of handsome that stops maidens in their paths and causes even the most stoic of men’s hearts to stop, even if for just a moment.
Viktor chuckled anyway, undeterred from making this good impression. Hopefully they at least had a shared interest. That was the good part about going to a school that had a specific focus. Everyone had something in common, even if it was just an appreciation for science, or technology, or something similar.
Viktor’s appreciation for biology had wrapped its strong arms around him and refused to let go for the twenty-something years he’d been alive. The soft, organic, natural world that influenced not just science but culture, human behavior, conditions, and emotion was endlessly compelling to him.
Maybe Jayce shared the same adoration for the inherent tenderness in life. From the smallest unit of life — the cell — to the largest aspen grove living and breathing as one organism, there was a sort of connection.
Viktor watched Jayce hopefully as he cleared his throat and finally began to introduce himself.
“Yeah, anyways, I’m Jayce. Which you already know from our, ehm, previous conversation—” his voice emulated Viktor’s as he repeated his words back to him, “and I live here. Have for the past couple years, actually, with a bit of luck concerning the head of the student-living department, wink wink.”
Viktor was on the verge of turning back around and slamming the door shut, but scraped up just enough patience to allow Jayce to finish speaking.
“So I pretty much know my way around everything. I’m from Piltover, well, kinda and kinda not… but that’s a story I’m sure you don’t wanna hear about!” He laughed again, elongating the already strenuous conversation and dancing suspiciously around the fact that he was kinda not from Piltover himself.
“But, yeah. I’m a student rep for the University, as I’ve mentioned, and… Oh! I do Mechanical engineering. Focus in kinematics, you know. Super cool, like, bridges. Well- actually- I’m not really partial to structural stuff myself, but that’s the most well known part of the program, so, y’know.” Somehow Jayce was still chuckling that same, plasticky laugh, but Viktor could feel the discomfort from where he was standing.
Piecing together whatever the hell Jayce was trying to say, Viktor deduced two things. One: Jayce was holding back. Significantly. Each time he would almost let something genuine—god forbid—about himself slip, he would backtrack immediately. Probably a habit he picked up from interacting with other Pilties. It seemed to trouble him more than it did others, his facade much weaker than most Viktor had seen.
The second thing: Jayce Talis was afucking Mechanical Engineering major. Any hope of the two having something in common immediately evaporated in front of Viktor’s eyes.
Fantastic.