[ Jayce's eyes—his gorgeous, colorful eyes—are as wide as saucers as Viktor looks up at them expectantly. He knows that he shouldn't be hoping for anything, that Jayce is free to reject him and they would continue to be partners and friends. Viktor could handle the heartbreak as long as Jayce didn't want him out of his life completely—that would be something worth fighting against, no matter how much he should accept whatever wishes follow his lack of impulse control.

Nothing comes. Viktor feels himself getting hotter and hotter, embarrassed and hurt despite all he tells himself he doesn't have a right to feel that way. He's Jayce's employer, his business partner, higher in social class yet lower in aesthetic value. It was stupid to assume that the closeness they had shared, and what Viktor perceived as flirting, meant that Jayce would want him.

Viktor runs a shakey hand through his hair, willing it to smooth into place. He takes the offered cane without a word and turns abruptly in the opposite direction. Whatever Jayce had invited him here for—a walk, he recalls briefly, probably innocent curiosity about the brace—is forgotten. ]

I'm sorry, I— It's alright, we don't need to talk about it. It won't affect any of our arrangements if you'd prefer to forget it happened.