Dinner

With each step he took, the thought of a new food wafted through Ren's mind. Another pass over the balance beam was a plate of grilled vegetables. A lap around the training room was an extra slice of honeyed ham. Each shaky stretch was a taco. Even wiping his brow made him think of licorice icing on cookies. His mouth began to water at the thought of these cookies and the sweet herbal scent of anise that would accompany them.

Ren's growling stomach interrupted his pleasant daydream and decided that he had had enough training for the day; a decision that his trembling knees agreed with. Begrudgingly, he grabbed his crutch and hobbled off to the bathroom to clean himself before dinner. He locked the door to the small room, grabbed the hand towel from its bar, and pulled off his shirt.

Cold water flowed form the tap as Ren wrung the cloth below the stream. He gave the towel a quick shake before moving to clean himself, but his hands stopped. It was his reflection. He hadn't seen himself since before that fateful day that the machines took his leg. There were few mirrors in the factory, so his reflections was usually only glimpsed on pieces of glass and metal, and when he did see himself, he had always been clothed. He had also only recently regained enough balance to be able to bath himself without Viktor's aid but the mirrors from the employee shower room had been looted long before Ren's arrival to the factory.

So now was the first time he had really been able to look closely at himself. A frown crossed his face as he looked over his scrawny form. He had lost a lot of weight and though he had undoubtedly gained some back since coming into Viktor's care, he was still skinnier than he had been a year ago. Several dark bruises that stood out on his skin like an oil spill on clean canvass. There were still many times when he would lose balance and fall into something or catch himself in the ribs with the top of the crutch. But it did not matter how often he fell. He kept getting up and now he was here.

His gaze drifted upwards, taking in his determined face and his mood softened. His hair had grown longer, dark curls almost reaching his shoulders. He had to smile at this. If he had known how handsome longer hair had looked on him, he would have grown it out years ago. And peeking through this curly mess, his eyes, green like bottle glass, shone with a brighter, larger, inner smile.

His mood continued to improve as he continued to examine his body. His cheeks had regain their ruddy color, his hair sweaty, his muscles sore, and his body standing. Ren gave a quick look down and the metal connected to his stump. No longer a mangled mess, it was glorious. Invigorated again, he wiped himself down with the hand towel before returning to the training room to wait for Viktor.

The clanking of metal boots coming down the hall told Ren he didn't have to wait long. He straitened himself up, pushed his curls form his face, and cleared his throat so he could address his host with his most charming, if not over the top, tone.

"What took you so long?" he asked, an easy smile crossing his face, "I thought I was going to waste away in here."

"Unlikely," Viktor replied stoically, "you have been gaining weight. It would take more than a day for you to starve to death."

Ren sighed, dropping the exaggerated tone as the wind was taken from his sails.

"You really don't like jokes, do you?"

"I have no qualms with jokes when they are intelligent. It is your over exaggerations that you attempt to pass off as jokes that annoy me."

"My humor isn't that bad."

"Come," Viktor said, choosing not answer Ren's question, "the food will grow cold if we keep wasting our time talking."

"I can walk and talk at the same time," Ren said, "it is one of many talents."

"I am aware," Viktor answered as he moved towards the door.

"So, what's for dinner," Ren asked, "I don't really see you as the type of person who knows how to cook Zaunite street food, no offense. I imagined that your pallet is more upscale than that. Did you cook one of those fancy Noxian dishes that you drink with blood red wine?"

"I do not spend my time making needlessly decedent meals," Viktor replied, "what I have prepared is sufficient."

Viktor pushed open the door to the kitchen. The building, having originally been a factory, had lacked a fully functional kitchen, so Viktor had to create on himself. The appliances weren't the sleek, steel designs of the Piltovan homes, but rather repurposed scrap assembled to resemble the intended object. The counter was an old workbench (keeping with Ren's suspicion that Viktor believed every room deserved a workbench), a locker had been repurposed into a chem-icebox, and a stove was welded together from parts of an old kiln, with the coarse soft brick lining the inside of the stove. Ren's eyes caught site of a basket made from an old zeppelin propeller, in which fruit for Viktor's smoothies were piled high.

"Have a seat, N-12," Viktor said, "these were simple creations, nothing worth staring at."

The scientist stepped to the counter, picked up a bowl in each hand and spoons with his third arm. He set the bowls on the table with where a loaf of bread was already sliced neatly. Ren took one look at the meal and had to hide some disappointment.

"It's soup," Ren said.

"How observant of you," Viktor replied dryly.

"Soup," Ren thought, "hot smoothies,"

Still, soup did have solid components to it. Ren stirred his spoon through the murky broth and watched the layer of oil at the top shimmer. Potatoes, carrots, and onions bobbed from the unseen bottom of his bowl to join the beef that gave the soup its faint herbal fragrance of bay leaf. Viktor placed a napkin on the table for each of them before sitting down himself.

"And we just eat now," Ren asked.

"I am surprised you haven't started already," Viktor responded, "after the way you were carrying on about wasting away."

"No 'how was training', no grace for Janna, not even a 'dig in', just eat?"

"Why would I bother with such formality over such a mundane meal?"

"Conversation."

Viktor didn't comment, so Ren stopped talking with a shrug and took a bite of his soup.

The first thing Ren noticed about the taste was how salty it was. The potatoes were especially saturated with it. The basil that floated in the broth was more for appearance and fragrance than taste. A few more bites and Ren came to a revelation; Viktor couldn't cook.

"Quick question about the food," Ren said.

"If you do not approve," Viktor mumbled, "then I can take it back."

"Oh no," Ren hastily replied, "I'm not complaining. I wouldn't be as ungrateful as that. All I have is a simple question about the nutrition of the meal. You want me to be a healthy test subject, don't you?"

"I do, which is why you must already know that the food I gave is nutritious."

"I understand," Ren said, "but humor me. Answer me this one question completely, no half answers, no vague responses, just one honest answer."

Viktor paused for a moment.

"Ask," he responded, "but this is your only question."

Ren cleared his throat.

"Did you make this soup?"

"It is on the table and hot, is it not?"

"Ah-ah, no vague answers. Did you, Viktor, buy the ingredients for the soup, prepare them, and cook them?"

Ren leaned forward in his chair to hear the response.

"No," Viktor answered.

A smug smile slid on to Ren's face.

"I knew it," he chuckled.

"You knew what," Viktor demanded.

"Oh," Ren teased, "you're allowed to ask questions."

"Yes, I am."

"Alright, I knew you couldn't cook. Living the bachelor life, I get it, no need to impress anyone, just keep yourself fueled and happy. Canned soup is enough for you. Crystal."

"Bachelor life," Viktor mused, "such wording implies that I am seeking a partner."

"You aren't?"

"No."

"Then what am I? I'm hurt now."

"You are a research subject, not an equal, and not psychically injured by words. I do not desire an equal. Assistants who would do as I ask without question would be welcomed. No, the only partner I want is Lady Science."

Ren choked down a laugh.

"Lady Science? Who in the Sump's name is Lady Science?"

"I said I wouldn't answer any more questions," Viktor responded harshly.

"Ugh, you're no fun," Ren grumbled.

"Fun is not necessary for progress."

Ren shook his head and continued to eat, knowing this was an argument he would not win. But still, Ren reasoned to himself, it might be amusing to try. He cleared his throat and looked up from his meal. But his words froze in his throat.

A few silent clicks filled the empty air. Viktor's fingers ghosted around the edge of his mask before he gently pried it off and set it on the table beside him. Ren would have sworn that he forgot how to blink in that moment.

Viktor's face was as pale as specter's. His eyes were a clouded amber color, cool as the steel he worked with and they were bloodshot, as though he always chose productivity over sleep. His brow showed similar signs of stress with the faint creases of worry lines. The bridge of his nose was long and narrow, ending in a small sharp point. This sharpness was complimented by the equally hard lines of his cheekbones, which stood out prominently beside his sullen, sunken cheeks. A few strands of his dark hair were beginning to droop over his forehead, the wax that kept them slicked out of his face having worn off.

But it was not these normal features that held Ren spellbound. A crooked cheekbone, the remnants of an old fracture, was the least troubling of his telling marks. The veins around his eyes had long been discolored to the dark purple of a bruise. Small concaved machines covered his ears so closely to his face that Ren had a hard time believing that there were any ears below them at all. Below these were small sockets with scar tissue radiating around them, similar to those that held on Ren's leg. They were polished to perfection and matched with the pegs on Viktor's mask.

None of this however, troubled Ren so much as the quick glimpse he had at Viktor's neck. The skin was raised in narrow bands, as though wires snaked their way through his body where veins should be.

"Your face," Ren stammered after finding his speech, "what did-"

"We agreed to no more questions, N-12."

"How can you expect me not to ask questions?"

"There's another one."

"Alright, alright," Ren groaned, "but the second my ban on asking questions is up, they're coming. In fact, I'll probably have even more to ask you since I've now got the time to think of more."

"I do not doubt that you will, but I am not obliged to answer any of them."

"Coward," huffed Ren.

At this Viktor chuckled.

"A coward you say, it is for your own weak stomach that I withhold information, child. Looking at your own stump after the amputation made you feel faint. You do not want to know about these."

His fingers taped at the veins around his eyes.

"I bet I do have the stomach for it," Ren protested.

"Very well," Viktor said, his voice calm and cool, "after dinner I shall prepare the syringes so you may undergo the same augmentations. You will find your eyesight greatly improved afterwards."

"Syringes?"

"Yes, this process requires several injections. I did not believe you were afraid of needles."

"I'm not."

"Good. You will receive several injections around each eye. The final one is on the eyeball itself."

"On the eye?"

Ren's face turned as pale as Viktor's.

"My eyesight is fine," Ren laughed nervously, "they don't need any improvement. Nope, not these beauties. Don't trouble yourself."

"Are you positive," Viktor asked in a mocking tone, "your eyesight is average. I can improve it for you."

"Nah, I'm good, and I wouldn't want you to overwork yourself, not after the effort you put into this lovely meal. I see everything crystal clear."

"Enjoy your mediocrity."

Viktor took a bite of his food.

"Now," he continued, "for the bet you just lost. I demand you to be silent for the duration of the meal."

"Bet? I didn't bet anything."

"'I bet I do have the stomach for it', were those not your words?"

"They were," Ren's voice said without its previous bluster, "but I never said what I was staking."

"No, you didn't, so I decided for you, and I decided silence."

"But-"

"Eat your dinner and let us enjoy the silence between us or I shall recount, in great detail, the many dissections on eyes I performed in preparation for my own procedure."

Ren sighed as loudly as he could, forcing out all his reaming words in that great exhalation, but said no more that night save for a single 'thank you' after dinner's end.