OPEN POST

[techmaturgy]

misc starters ⊛ meme continuations ⊛ overflow ⊛ i do not care just go wild

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misc starters lets goo.

[hexteched]

i chose the nebulous post-act i time but if you want something more angsty/dramatic just lmk

[techmaturgy]

[Here is the thing about agreeing to share the culmination of your life's worth with someone after knowing them for less than a day: it's impossible to be certain of what you're really getting into. That much should be obvious, and isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is part of the risk. When Hextech works, well. Viktor is fully aware that he's tied his entire career to someone who is still a relative stranger, and that he might be walking into a situation where the two of them discover that they're fundamentally incompatible in the long run.

The good news is that Jayce is just as passionate as the trial had led Viktor to believe, and incredibly smart on top of that--their conversations are intellectually stimulating in a way he hasn't experienced in quite some time, and it's refreshing to finally find someone who can keep up with him. That said, he knows this goes both ways, and Viktor is well aware that he is probably not what Jayce was expecting, at least insofar as his tolerance for property damage and general risk-taking is concerned. Now that there's funding, and Council buy-in, and he's not an assistant anymore, what's to stop him from going a little wild?

Nothing, that's what. Viktor is occupying one corner of the lab, his rig for testing various runes sprawling across the floor, a crystal poised carefully in the middle, two thick, ominous cables in each hand, a matching set of plugs.

The good news is that he's wearing goggles.]

You might want to stand back.

[Jayce is working on some separate task, and Viktor can only assume he is wholly unprepared for what is about to transpire on his side of the room. The warning is a courtesy.]

[hexteched]

[ viktor does, of course, have a point. there are inherent dangers in this association, in this merging of research and plans and life's work. ideas and theories and everything that had kept jayce going for years, everything that had kept him up for hours and days and weeks on end. everything he'd almost lost, in a single day, was no longer just his own. and that's a bit terrifying, he supposes. having what equates to his heart ripped open and spread across this laboratory for someone who - yes, does amount to a stranger, but also a stranger who believed in him - could do just about whatever they wanted with it.

jayce supposes he should be more concerned about what could go wrong. supposes he should be worried about the risks.

or he could simply accept this for what it was. a chance. an ally. someone who believed. something good.

and yes, alright, sure, there were some additional perks that jayce was more than willing to accept (and even enjoy) as they came across them. things like how viktor didn't think he was insane for half the ideas that came out of his mouth, or how they both had the tendency to hyperfocus for hours (sometimes days) on end given the project, and how viktor just seemed to. get it. whether it was conversations, or the sheer joy of a successful step completed, or the general understanding of working in a lab with someone who had the same level of drive, the same level of intellect, who just got it. and maybe this was just part of that accepting the good. maybe this could actually work.

because it has been working - like that night, where viktor's been over on his part of the lab, with his new rig in motion and had been planning on a couple of tests with the crystals, and jayce was over at his desk in the lab, trying to figure out why his plans for this particular device weren't translating from his blueprints to the actual device itself, when viktor's voice rang out. you might want to stand back. ]

Yeah, okay- [ jayce response automatically, because it's not the first time they'd called out those warnings for each other (something they'd both had to learn to do, after a disastrous attempt or two, before they were really used to sharing a space).

but then jayce thought about the warning, thought about what it was viktor had mentioned he was working on. ] Wait. [ a blink, a lift of his head. ] What? [ he steps back from his project, whatever steps he was completing now forgotten in favor of whatever it is he's been warned away from, as his attention turns towards viktor. ]

Why? What are you doing?

[ only jayce talis would be told to stand back, and then immediately step closer.

at least his has his own goggles? ]