former cartoonist, died in an awful tiger tragedy

"Look for yourself. That's what happens when you need your sugar to be a 1:1 ratio with your coffee."

"That wouldn't dissolve." Viktor grumbles just to get a last word in as he takes a sip. Jayce makes an acquiescing noise, letting Viktor get the last word.

Halfway through that first sip, he realizes they veered entirely away from Jayce's original interruption. Was it on purpose? That would be unusually crafty for Jayce. It's just as likely that Viktor was accidentally swept into the way Jayce's mind jumps from topic to topic.

Viktor continues nursing his coffee while it's still hot, letting half of his mind go to cloying places about Jayce pulling him unconsciously along in brief moment of perfect superposition. The other half of his mind replays the past few moments until he gets to the question that started it. The oddness with Kanis was days ago, but Viktor can connect dots to safe assumptions here.

"Twice."

"Yeah?" Jayce hums distractedly, then looks up in a replay of Viktor's earlier confusion. "What?"

"You asked how long we'd been together. You meant Kanis, yes? While I assume you meant as a couple, we weren't one. Giving a period of time together as a couple then wouldn't make sense. So," Viktor waves a hand around, "twice."

Jayce stares at him, uncomprehending. Comprehension makes his ears turn an adorable shade of red.

This entire interaction has given Viktor insight that he slots in alongside Jayce being a prude. Jayce assumes sex comes with a relationship. It's charming. Unexpected. Intoxicating with possible implications...

That is until the insight is held up alongside the way Jayce has smiled at Medarda multiple occasions. An unfeigned, truly honest, outright goofy grin. Possibly no more than amused. Possibly appreciative. Fuck.

Viktor sets his mug down with a queasy knot in his stomach. That could be nothing. It's best if it stays that way. The very idea that Jayce could go off and have an entire other bit of life with someone else, a bit of life where sex and romance were assumed together, elsewhere, with someone Viktor would have to interact with...

He's just spiralling at this point. Prepare for the possibility, yes, but dwelling won't do him any good now.

"Twice." Jayce repeats. With a hand to his jaw.

Viktor blinks. Registers. Refocuses. It's a nervous tic, the hand to the jaw. It's always the first step of Jayce's various little twitches of energy. Jayce is sitting back in his chair with one arm folded across his middle, supporting the other arm with the hand scratching along his jawline, half covering what at first could be taken for a teasing grin.

"Twice, but he isn't impressive enough to consider for a job, huh?"

It's said like a tease, but there's something to the grin. It isn't fake. Not exactly. Except...

There's a mean curl to it that bares the teeth differently than a simple knowing, teasing smirk.

Viktor tilts his head, smiles a sly smile as if he's only joking back and not as if he is examining every twitch of muscle when he answers, and he examines. He isn't as practiced at putting on expressions as Jayce is, but this is for the purpose of not corrupting potential data. "It wasn't twice for his intellectual capabilities, of course."

Jayce laughs. But it's not a laugh. It is, technically, but it's more of a sharp bark of noise. A "huh!" that makes Jayce's eyes bright and hard. A scoff, maybe? Something almost angry veneered with a burst of desperate cheer.

"Yeah! Yeah. Yeah guess not!" Jayce says with that too-sharp brightness that Viktor can't work out. It's said while Jayce is twisting back to his work, making it more difficult for Viktor to examine his expressions.

It's a natural end to the exchange, so it's natural for them to fall into silence as the focus returns to progress. It's natural for Viktor to set his goggles back in place, to click the torch back on and adjust the valve to finesse the flame to the proper size and intensity. The work takes primary thought while everything else settles into his lower levels for sorting. But they don't quite settle fully....

Which means that when Jayce shoots to standing, perhaps ten minutes later, Viktor is able to smoothly slide his focus to look up without a single complaint about distractions.

"I'm. Going to get us something to eat!" Jayce announces. Is his voice fast? Is it faster than it might usually be? How would Viktor measure a normal speed to compare it to...? "And sugar. We need more sugar."

"Hmn." Viktor answers agreeably.

Jayce is walking as he talks. Viktor's eyes follow. Is the spine more stiff than it should be? Are the movements of his hands more or less clenching?

"Steam buns?"

"I suppose." The stand they prefer is a few miles from here. Jayce used physical exertion to vent himself off. Is the distance to that particular food stand beyond the standard convenience for Jayce?

"Great!! Won't be long!"

Jayce is out the door by the time the last words are said with a brittle snap over his shoulder. Viktor listens intently, trying to work out if he can work out if the speed of Jayce's footsteps is actually notably different, or if he's skewing his own readings.

He sits back, torch off, fingers meditative in their twirling a lock of hair around and around and around. Something is just there, just outside his scope. There are a million outside factors that could feed into Jayce's odd behavior. Viktor doesn't even know what question he's trying to work out. There are the.... impressions of questions. Impressions that it feels too self indulgent to even work out into a thought. There's no objectivity here.