Jayce never liked going to the undercity, specially the lower levels. It's wet, cold, dark, the air stings and the streets are dirty
But since his "reconciliation" with Viktor, going there feels like a escapade from the poster boy duties, a place where he can truly be himself again. And Viktor's lab feels exactly as how their own lab felt, back in their golden days, organized chaos, coffe, and sense of familiarity.
He is home
Ughhhhh I love this one so much.
Jayce hasn’t felt at home in Piltover for a long time; if you were to ask him when it stopped feeling like home, he can’t really pinpoint a time… he just knows the last time he felt truly at home, felt content and safe and happy, he was in the lab, working with Viktor.
And he’s tried, in the many years since Viktor’s banishment, to get it back—to recreate a home for himself. He talks to a therapist that encourages creature comforts, surrounding himself with things that bring him joy. But this is more of a hindrance than a help, because Jayce doesn’t really find comfort in things. But he tries it anyway—collecting stones and gemstones like he used to when he was a boy. But walking on the beach alone to seek them out just reminds him of the people that used to take those walks with him—his mother, Viktor.
He tries his mother’s old recipes, the ones that used to make him run down the stairs as a kid when he smelled them cooking. He tries listening to his father’s vinyl records, the ones that are so burned into Jayce’s mind that the walls of his boyhood home practically echo with it… but all any of this does is make him ache with nostalgia—yearn for the days when he was a carefree boy with nothing but homework and schoolyard crushes to trouble him. No one idolized him, no one expected the impossible of him. He didn’t have to earn love. It was freely given.
And he was just about to give up—accept that he was never going to feel at home anywhere ever again. Accept that home is an idealized concept, and… not meant for people like him, who once took it for granted.
That is, until those first few nights spent at Emberflit after his reconciliation with Viktor. Viktor built air filtration vents into every room, so the house has a crisp, almost sanitized smell to it, but… Jayce finds that he likes it. Loves it, even—it smells like steam and hot metal… like Viktor himself. He loves the weak light and how it makes the space feel small and intimate. He likes that never-ending hum and tick of Viktor’s gadgetry, the gurgle of chemicals boiling in their beakers. It becomes like a symphony to Jayce’s ears, and he finds that without it, he feels uneasy—the silence of his lab in Piltover made all the more foreign.
He knows this is ass-backwards, that he should not feel so at-ease down in the depths of a city that despises him, breathing moderately-filtered toxic air and writing on a busted old blackboard with repurposed chalk. But he does feel at-ease, he feels safe and comfortable in a way he hasn’t felt in years. And he’s actually kind of embarrassed that it took him this long to figure it out. Home was never a building, it was never a collection of polished stones shining in a windowsill. It was never warm meals or music-filled halls.
It was this. Working into the wee hours of the morning, and sharing a mug of cold coffee. Dozing in uncomfortable chairs to the sound of another’s voice. Passing notes back and forth and leaving ridiculous and sometimes wildly inappropriate doodles on the page before handing it back.
He feels stupid, only just now understanding the meaning behind the saying “home is where your heart is.” It’s been said so many times, but it always rang hollow, it never really clicked. But he gets it now. He may return to Piltover, he may spend whole months up there at a time, splitting his obligations between his lab, his apartment, the Academy, the Council chamber. But his heart resides at Emberflit Alley.
31 notes
·
View notes
Oh my gosh!!! Congrats on the follower milestone!! It's so amazing to see your blog grow and you deserve so many more followers 💕
I think I'm gonna go with 🧐 but I'm gonna be super boring because you mentioned it in your example and now I have to know!! how did Hunter figured out that the reader's attracted to them in “Absence//Fonder” 👀👀👀
Thank you so much, Deeja!!! You continue to be a major and amazing part of my time here, and you inspire me so much! Also coming up with all kinds of wild adventures for Rex’s scalpel jockey and the 501st is *chef’s kiss*, grade A+++++, good soup, 5 stars, ask for seconds 🤩
So there were several different incidents where Hunter noticed something was definitely up. Here are 2 of those times because I don’t have an ounce of self-control:
Warnings: incredibly suggestive, thoughts about marking, thoughts about fingering, Hunter’s senses doing what they do when your body does what it does 👀, if I missed something lemme know.
The time when your datapad landed you in a cold shower:
After dinner, you, Hunter and Tech had decided to relax in the barracks instead of joining the others in the range. You sat cross legged on the table, as you so often did when Crosshair wasn’t there to stop you, while you fiddled with your holopad. You’d been trying to download a game before dinner, and it still wasn’t finished. You stopped the download, restarted, and ran through the whole process again only for it to stick in the same place.
Releasing a noise of irritation, you ran through the process again, your face scrunched in frustration. You were about to give up and fill out a requisition form for a replacement when Tech came up behind you.
“You are making an uncharacteristic amount of upset noises. What appears to be the trouble?” He asked.
“This blasted thing won’t complete my download, and it keeps giving me an error message.”
He peered over your shoulder, his chest pressed gently to your back.
“Oh, that’s an easy fix,” he said, as he reached around you. His face just barely brushed yours, and you could feel the slight twitches in his muscles, as he began tapping away on the screen.
Hunter looked up from a twirling his vibroblade to watch the pair of you. Once again, your heart was dancing in your chest, and the scent of your body wanting, needing to be touched was driving him insane.
This wasn’t even a new level of intimacy. None of them really maintained physical boundaries with you anymore, save Crosshair, and even he wasn’t as stringent about it as he used to be. The Marauder wasn’t very big, and you’d stopped being precious about space, privacy, and nudity pretty quickly.
The knife continued to move through his fingers. Twirling up, as he watched you swallow. Spinning down while you worried your bottom lip between your teeth.
Forward in time to your fingers tapping along the back of the device clutched in your hands. Backwards, as you shifted your hips. Hunter knew without a doubt that if he could slide his hand beneath the waistband of your body glove, you would be slick and ready.
The knife moved faster, practically on autopilot while Tech continued to hold you in place, working on the screen in your hands until the error message was cleared out, and the download you’d been attempting completed.
“Thanks, Tech,” you said in a soft, breathy voice.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, moving around the table to sit down and work on a project of his own.
Hunter sheathed his knife with a click, noting the way you watched Tech a moment before turning your attention to the game you’d downloaded. Your breathing pattern remained irregular, and the smell of your desire was permeating the room. He was almost relieved when you announced you were showering and practically fled the room.
After the door shut behind you, Hunter swallowed, and exhaled slowly.
“Did you do that on purpose?” He asked, sliding out of his bunk to take a seat at the table with Tech.
“I was helping you test your theory. Was I successful?” Tech replied without looking up.
“Her heart was pounding so loudly, I could barely hear what you were saying,” Hunter said.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re welcome.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it, Tech,” Hunter said in a teasing tone.
“That was never in doubt,” Tech replied, continuing to focus on his project.
***
The time when you definitely didn’t fuck up the Marauder with your lack of piloting skills:
“You know, if you weren’t such a hot shot, we could do this less often,” you grunted out as you strained to loosen a bolt on the Marauder.
“Technically, the current repairs were necessitated by your need to be ‘hot shot’ as you so eloquently put it,” Tech replied.
You heard Echo’s muffled chuckle from somewhere to your left, and your face burned. You were glad Tech couldn’t see the look on your face from his position farther aft. You didn’t have your bucket on, so your lack of a poker face would be a true disservice to you here. In fact you didn’t have any of your armor on.
It was absolutely sweltering on the backwater planet you were stuck on for the time being, so you were stripped down to your underwear.
The boys were equally undressed, and you’d slathered them all down with skin protectants to prevent them from burning. Mostly Crosshair. He was already prickly, and the last thing you or anyone else wanted was to deal with him sunburnt and peeling.
Wrecker had you up on his shoulders, so you could reach the necessary panels, and you couldn’t believe how hot he was beneath you. Clones ran hot, but Wrecker was a damn sun.
“Wrecker, I’m gonna have to check my thighs for burns after this. How are you this hot?” You asked.
“You’re the doctor, you tell me,” He replied, chuckling.
“Fair point. Pass me the spanner wrench please,” you asked with a smile. “With any luck we’ll be done soon, and we can get out of here.”
“You could try focusing on medicine and not piloting, and we can avoid things like this in the future,” Crosshair said, placing a toothpick between his lips.
“You know, Cross, it’s amazing how you have the best eyesight in the galaxy, and you still can’t watch your mouth,” you snapped, the heat having sapped every ounce of your patience.
Crosshair looked absolutely stunned, and scoffed before disappearing into the ship. Clearly it was too hot to bother bickering with you this time.
Wrecker buried his face against one of your thighs to muffle his laughter, and a jolt shot through your core. His lips and teeth pressed against the sensitive skin, if he wanted he could bite down, mark your skin. Only the two of you would know.
Don’t go there. You chastised yourself. It was not right to think of him like that, right? Besides you were in a terrible position to get aroused. Think unsexy thoughts, you thought taking a deep breath, as you began reciting all of the bones in the human body.
Hunter had been content to focus on inventory while you all worked on repairs, but he couldn’t ignore your heartbeat pounding in his ears like a war drum. He strolled down the ramp of the ship, under the pretense of stretching his legs, easily finding you perched atop Wrecker’s shoulders.
Wrecker’s hands had a light grip on your bare thighs, and Hunter could hear the strain in your breathing. Deep inhale, shaky exhale.
His nose caught the faintest hint of your arousal, and he had to retreat back into the ship. He’d tried his best to get used to it, as it was bound to happen every now and then, but it still hit him like a rampaging rancor every time. His body reacted as quickly as yours these days. You didn’t even know what you were putting him through.
“Did Dr. Brat annoy you too?” Crosshair asked from his bunk, as Hunter made his way back to storage.
“No, she saves that just for you, Crosshair,” he said with a smirk, nearly laughing when his brother’s heart skipped a beat.
tagging: @dystopicjumpsuit @iamburdened @sunshinesdaydream @dukeoftheblackstar @rexxdjarin @wolffegirlsunite @sleepingsun501 @808tsuika @wings-and-beskar (think you’ll enjoy this too!)
91 notes
·
View notes