As Bonheur departs to tend to the more politically-shaped garden of school finances, Viktor gets his feet under him, fully unbothered by the lack of assistance (he doesn't doubt the doctor thought of it) and only superficially worse for wear, though he'll likely be regretting this and every other choice in his young life tomorrow. (Supplementing in the morning won't be an option, either; he can feel the empty charge of delirium sizzling around the edges, taste the whiff of ozone deep in his sinuses: signs of a limit he oughtn't cross.)

Rumpled, the both of them. Perhaps a touch crumpled.

Neatening the twisted fit of his jacket, with some amusement for how decisively Stephen emphasizes reasonable, "My work took on some tangential relevance to botany later in its development—we used plants as test subjects while investigating arcane influence, not so unlike what the professor was doing here."

How easily the desperate scrabble for survival can be spun into a casual study with just a little flexibility of phrasing. He thinks his dispassion is total as he adds,

"The work was left unfinished,"

but it isn't quite. The barest flicker of something glints behind it—sadness, anger. A grief that won't fade.