That wink nets Jayce a glancing roll of his eyes—the most typical reaction. Still, it ignites the traces of amusement in his expression, too, which he turns away from the open room and the other sooty man currently sat within it—an unconscious act, however intentional it may appear.

Viktor's is a very readable face; one needn't have Bastien's skillset to see the fondness there. To him, along with all the other subtleties of eyes and angles and timbre—not only now, but every other time they've been seen together, in good spirits or otherwise—the depth of it must be so clear: this is a partnership, in every sense of the word. It lingers, too, as Viktor turns his attention back his way. It can't not.

"I had the keys," he says, with a crooked shrug. "It was fine."

It was not actually fine. But it turned out fine, and that's what counts.