Chapter Text
It was cute hearing Viktor speak in his native tongue, even if Jayce didn’t most of it. He picked up bits and pieces over the years, like:
Zlatíčko-Darling
Hodný kluk-Good Boy
Kurva-Fuck
He could read him an instructional manual and Jayce would swoon. His voice thick, accent heavy on the remaining words Jayce did understand.
Usually, if Viktor spoke an entire sentence in his native tongue, it was either magnificent or horrifying.
Jayce surprising him with breakfast in bed, lots of sweet praise.
Throwing a birthday party of Rio, a happy birthday rendition in Czech.
Some asshole stealing Viktor’s clearly labeled handicap parking spot, not so good.
Jayce did learn a lot of new words that day, some Viktor couldn’t even properly translate. Jayce just assumed they were bad.
So when Jayce was walking down the hall and could hear Viktor cursing up a storm, he knew their night would at least be interesting.
Carefully opening the door, Jayce had his signature, nothing can go wrong, smile on, knowing in fact that everything was going wrong.
Their living room was a mess of engineering paper, red ink covering the pages. He spotted at least one with an extra page of comments stapled on.
Oh, this was not going to be good.
Jak mohou být tak do prdele hloupí?
Zabij mě teď
Double oh no, there were very few words he understood.
On the couch in the center of the pile of tests was Viktor, hair falling out of the already loose ponytail, glasses tossed somewhere out of reach.
He hadn’t even noticed Jayce enter until he spoke.
“Am I interrupting?”
Amber eyes snapped up from the cacophony of papers, squinting a bit before his eyes caught up to his brain, “Jayce, what the peklo is wrong with this generation!?”
“That bad?”
Viktor grumbled some more under his breath, slamming his pen on the table. He didn’t bother to grab his cane, hobbling to Jayce to use as his support. He buried his face into his neck, grumbling yet again.
Jayce wrapped one hand around his slim waist, keeping the other arm up to keep their take out food safe, “Vitya, I can’t understand you.”
Instead of a response, he got a muffled scream against his skin.
Good enough.
Jayce never would have expected Viktor to be as clingy as he is, not that he’s complaining. Especially on hard days like today, the best support Jayce could give were hugs.
Together, the two did their usual little shuffle into the kitchen. Dinner was tucked away on the counter, freeing his arm to fully secure Viktor to his body. He rocked back and forth on his heels, keeping one hand on Viktor’s lower back and the other on his neck.
Neither spoke as they soaked in the presence of the other. Jayce’s calming aura brought Viktor down from his rage induced grading session. His shoulders slumped and fingers twisted in the soft material of his sweater.
If it wasn’t for a very hangry cat at their legs, they could have stayed intertwined all night or until Viktor’s leg gave out.
Either way, Rio was screaming, demanding her bowl be filled with her special evening meal. She dug her claws into Jayce’s leg, as if he was the sole reason she was withering away to nothing.
“Ow! Son of a-“
“Don’t you dare curse at her. She’s just a small baby.”
Viktor pulled back enough to lock eyes with Jayce, expression dead serious, “I-I’m sorry.” Jayce stammered out, afraid to get on either one’s bad side.
Viktor stepped back, grabbing his dinner, practically hissing at the exams he left behind before sitting at the dinning room table. The fire in his spirit bubbled over as he ate, stabbing his fork aggressively into his orange chicken.
For now, he’d let Viktor simmer. Rio was starving and she was letting the world know.
Viktor insisted Rio should have a special wet food for dinner. It made her coat and eyes much shinier. Only thing is, Viktor gagged every time he opened the can, so it was delegated to Jayce.
Grabbing a little can from the cabinet, Jayce shuffled to Rio’s bowl, still having her circling around his legs. More than once she had taken Jayce out with her antics, earning herself special floor dinner and an extra can.
Once the queen was appeased, Jayce joined Viktor, throughly washing his hands to rid himself of the nauseating smell, “So, do you wanna talk about it?”
Viktor’s eyes followed the fork pointed towards the tests, “Ugh, I hate teaching undergrads.” Another stab at his chicken, “They try to memorize problems and don’t do a…what do you call it…”
“An idiot check?”
“Yes! An idiot check!”
Viktor was getting animated, throwing his free hand in the air for emphasis, “I don’t think these kids can properly comprehend what radiation is!”
Both Viktor and Jayce were professors in nuclear engineering. Their researches focused on small modular reactors and actually making them feasible to the public. The down side, at least for Viktor, they still needed to teach courses.
With one of the professors suddenly leaving the university in the middle of class, someone needed to teach the undergrads.
Viktor drew the short straw.
Twice a week, Viktor stood in front of forty odd some wide eyed undergrads, attempting to understand the effects of radiation on the body. It was not going well.
This was the first exam. Viktor thought it was pretty straightforward. Most of the calculations they should have learned in their 200 level course.
Seeing their exam answers, Viktor couldn’t trust any of them near a radioactive source.
“It was a simple problem! Calculate the soft tissue dose rate of a neutron beam.”
Jayce nodded. Simple enough.
“The answers are always reasonable. How does calculating an outlandish answer help in the real world?” Viktor clicked his tongue, angrily chewing a fork full of rice.
Jayce nodded again, trying hard not to laugh. Viktor was too cute when he was this pissed off. His right eyebrow twitched and lips downturned into a deep frown. Jayce almost felt like Viktor was disappointed with him instead of his students. But he knew better.
“Why the kurva would you believe that an answer of 8.283x10^6 Grays/second is reasonable!?” Viktor smacked his hands on the table, the rest of his hair finally falling out his ponytail in front of his face.
Jayce almost choked, “Holy shit! 30 Grays is fatal! That’s beyond lethal acute radiation!”
“Exactly! Extremely unreasonable!”
Viktor could finally get all his pent up frustration out of his system, softening up with each word. A sleepy glint replaced the rage burning in his eyes.
His words came out slower, less passionate. Jayce took over most of the conversation at that point, babbling on about whatever came to mind, including an extremely fluffy, friendly dog he met on campus.
With his palm pressed to his cheek, Viktor’s eyes began to flutter shut, almost falling asleep, “Hey, let’s go to the couch, I’ll make some hot chocolate.” Jayce wanted to get a little bit of snuggling in before they turned in for the night.
Clearing off the disgraceful exams from the couch, the pair made their way into each other’s arms.
Jayce sipped on his hot chocolate, pulling the blanket around him and Viktor. Viktor sat with his eyes closed, breathing in the delicious smell of chocolate and sweetmilk. If he wasn’t about to fall asleep before, he surely would now.
Rio pattered her way across the living room until she could curl up between their legs, “Feeling better, honey?” Jayce kissed the top of Viktor’s head, arm wrapped around his center. His fingers absentmindedly rubbed along his stomach as they spoke.
Viktor groaned loudly, taking a long sip of his drink, reveling in the warmth that filled his body, “Yeah, but I still need to actually grade the exams.”
He knocked one stray exam that was still on the couch onto the floor. The sudden movement spooked Rio for a second before she curled back up, “I should ask my TA to help…” His voice trailed off, eyes lifting from Rio to Jayce.
“Oh your TA?” Jayce arched up his eyebrow, playfully smiling, “I didn’t know you had one.”
“It’s a secret.” Viktor tapped his finger to his lips, “I sleep with him and he helps me with class shit.”
Jayce gasped and covered his mouth, “Scandalous.” Shaking his head, he planted another kiss to his head, “Do you think he’d help you at such a late hour?”
Viktor snorted, unable to stop the wide, sleepy, smile, unable to play along any longer, “I don’t know Jayce, how late do you plan on staying up tonight?”
“It depends…what’s in it for me?”
“Whatever you want, má láska.”