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[hexrot]

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☆AR_CANE

[hexrot]

cw: suicide ideation

[ jayce got a new job.

after his forced work leave (stemmed from a horrid accident with a loose hammer, a skittish clydesdale and his leg), a dark time and months where he'd considered ending everything from the chronic pain, financial failure and miscarried expectations in having the simple family business thrive— jayce found strength to get up and try again. one more time.

maybe it was his mother, who wouldn't be able to carry the name to fruition by herself. not only would jayce leave behind a disaster for her emotionally, she'd de wracked in debt. he was an only child, his father retired and sick. maybe it was also the inkling of hope in this grey, dreary world that urged him to relearn how to walk, pick up his hammer and forge the shoes champion jumpers won competitions with.

it's nothing flashy nor prized, but his parents always said their humble work was dignified. that was true enough. no shoe, no horse, but no one really thought that when a treasured stud was worth more than a house. jayce had bigger plans, sustaining himself with dreams that could almost seem impossible to achieve. sketches of special shoes that would heal injured hooves, even legs, and save the beautiful life behind the money and prestige. but . . . what else did he have? what else would give his life worth and greater meaning? sometimes he feels like anger alone is keeping him alive— he refuses to be a worthless grain in the sand. he needs to accomplish something.

the manor that wishes to hire him is the biggest one he's seen. he'll have his own quarters, food and drink, somewhere to sleep. in turn they want exclusivity and all his focus on the horses. they must be fed, groomed, turned out, with stalls mucked. they'll all be shoed down to the individual gate with the talis eye, and on top of that, paid handsomely.

it's enough to start paying all that debt and getting out of it in a few years, if he can keep their interest. he plans on it. jayce has already put the thought to truth: it's not going to be the trainers' work getting the horses to win. it's going to be his work. he'll been seen for it. he has to.

jayce's arrives with little on his back: two changes of clothes at most, a book to write in, his apron and tools. he's given the house's uniform, toured around the stables and where he'd be staying. work started on the same day. this family believed in him for something, so he's going to work until he's gotten every single thing down and finished.

he's being talked about, already, and sad to say other house employees don't have many good things to say to begin with. a scruffy, too quiet disabled man. would he even be able to pick up a horse leg? he cares more about the horse's names than the hour they should be groomed and ready for the riders. they don't give him a week before he's sent away. ]

☆AR_CANE

[hexrot]

[ it's been a few months, and the projects have been coming along wonderfully. this partnership was the best thing to happen to jayce— he feels more at ease, more enthusiastic to do something as simple as wake up and start the day again, all under the pretense that latsr, after work, he'd get to babble the night away with viktor, pitching ideas and coming up with even greater, bolder technology. they had some ways to go, still. it's only recently that riosilitta has excelled in her march and fully recovered for sport. the rest of the herd are well on their way to near perfectly clipped hooved with little to no accidents.

things were going, well, fantastically. but one idea led to another, and jayce noticed, quite early on in their friendship, that viktor would improve his wellbeing drastically if he had a brace of his own, custom fit. the accommodation could make standing more comfortable, even walking a little more bearable when faced with chronic aches. jayce brainstormed support, weight removal, mobility and pain relief into a single, multipart design. he was even incredibly sneaky in getting viktor's measurements!

now, during the last month is where things likely started to get . . . odd, for viktor. jayce wouldn't object to their usual meeting hours, but he would begin to claim fatigue and ask to rest early.

every day.

some days, he would say he's backed up with some work he needs to do. never said what, and he'd always avoid the details. if viktor didn't know any better, yes. it was beginning to feel too frequent. even jayce knew that— he just hopes to god viktor would understand when he's finished.

it's only on a fine day, that jayce finally asks if viktor could pass by the stables at dusk. with urgency. with importance!

(please, don't be too mad at him, please—) ]

☆SYNAPSED

[hexrot]

[ they're working on something; in between the construction of the hexgates, and it's some of the best years of jayce's life. with his new partner, friend, even a bit more than that— what jayce has found in viktor, he has not found anywhere else. he excitedly rushes to and from the forge for new materials, anything that viktor would ask to be made for project a or b, and it was his command to fulfill and then bring them together in the lab. work was tiring, but never has he been so stimulated.

a ripple happens, somewhere, space and time distorts, rips a tear in its continuem and spits someone out on a drizzling night in piltover. hexgate construction has paused until dawn, and it is there, alone in gaping chambers that jayce finds himself after months surviving in that dreaded ravine.

this might've been a bit too far back.

this jayce does what he thinks is the safest possible stop: take the elevators up and sneak through dark hallways into the lab. he only hopes . . . there's no one there, right now. ]

☆AR_CANE

[hexrot]

[ jayce stays up in his quarters after parting ways with his partner for the night. he's been up just . . . replaying the moments they had, the plenty of times viktor had laughed or when his eyes twinkled or the way his eyebrows would kink when he was upset, the turn of his lips down in a frown or the clever simper he'd dawn. the moles on his face. he noticed another on his neck last night. how many constellations did he have? what color were his eyes? were the curls in his hair as soft as they looked? what did he smell like from up close?

would he keep looking his way?

his lips . . . he wished he could—

jayce had started the header of his journal entry describing the brace's success. before he knew it, he'd filled out pages of his notebook only with sketches of viktor. just viktor, moments with viktor in his mind's eye. he begins studying the greyscale pieces, smiling to himself in boyish infatuation page after page. he's thirty-two years old, and his stomach sommersaults like a teenager's. the space between his legs burn with wanting. he—

jayce rests his head on his desk, and runs his hands through his hair in quiet bliss and biting agony.

because he is absolutely smitten, and they're worlds apart. men, separated by wealth and class. and work. what does he do? what does he do when faced with this, but so enamored, pulled by a connection so deep— that he cannot fathom ignoring it? he'll lose his mind. he feels like he'll lose the piece of himself that he's been searching for all of these years.

jayce presses his forehead against a bust sketch and ends up smudging the pencil strokes that bring viktor's hair to life. he's lovesick, and at the same time it brings him completing joy, it also scares him. again: what is he to do?

it is a question that would not be answered tonight. he refrains from touching the roused heat at the base of his pelvis, feeling shame to taint their partnership he wouldn't dare lose, and instead forces himself to curve sideways. he soon exhausts himself and dreams, and it's wild— he and viktor conduct magical experiments together. they eventually achieve success, floating in a magical space of blue, although he wouldn't know how to point it out as such.

runic symbols ripple around them. jayce laughs with childlike youth, pokes a loose cog in the air— and viktor, with a smile he's never seen before, catches it in mid-flight. it's wondrous. it's . . . fun. it's beautiful.

he does his work in the morning, during the day— and waits for the evening with an invite in the works. he doesn't stop thinking. he never stops thinking. as he waits, jayce ends up journaling earlier in the night, resting on one of the benches with two horses tacked up in their stalls. he writes about his dream and it's odd vividness, along with drawing viktor's grinning, sweet face.

what is he going to do . . . ]

☆ MODIFICATION

[hexrot]

( ⬅️ )

Well, no.
But yes.

[ help ]

Just trust me on this.

☆AR_CANE

[hexrot]

[ after their first date, jayce has made it a habit in asking viktor to sneak off for plenty more midnight promenades— but in a shifty, dreadfully romantic way. during the day, on the clock in the stables, he'd slip smoldering gazes. if he were in the forge, his shirt was sure to be gone, and his musculature a bit more flexed than rested. in viktor's presence, no matter the distance— he'd make his appeal in the little gestures, dangerously toying with the limits of publicly appropriate— but never breaching them. it's always when he thinks no one is looking. it's always when jayce's colleagues have their backs turned.

it's always then, too, that jayce has begun to smuggle letters to viktor. in his gear or snug between saddlewhere when certain horses are prepared for his practice. in his pocket, when no one would notice but himself. in his hand, when he's explaining something about hooves or shoes, or the details of viktor's saddle design, passing blueprints with the letter just underneath it and a knowing gaze.

they always start similarly, charcoal fingerprints smudging the letter's body or edges. viktor, it addresses some times. my dearest partner in others.

they are always a declaration of colorful feelings; short, sweet, genuine language, an overwhelming amount of yearning. who knew jayce was such a romantic? they weren't very long. a paragraph at most, separating sentences with lines. the rest of the body was art. a little unkempt, as he was, but indubitably detailed, a scene from sometime during the day when he'd seen viktor. it is viktor, down to every feature. smiles, smirks, gazes he'd exchange, more serious looks of thoughtfulness . . . the mole above his lip, under his right eye, even the one on his neck— all of them are snapshots that jayce takes to heart and brings to life in his bedroom.

it's never signed ordinarily, if one were to simply look over it. only scrutinizing eyes would be able to find the intricately hidden initials in each sketch: JT. not only that, but there is a pattern jayce is certain viktor will have the time of his life cracking: codes. placement of certain letters forming a new word that he'd have to solve.

every time, it's a location, and an hour.

this time, the cracks something different than the others.

There is beauty in imperfections, and it is everything I admire about you.

You choose the place tonight. I'll be where I always am. ]