Viktor's leg was flaring up again.

In the middle of an experiment. While he was handling dangerous objects--magical objects. Making him almost drop one when a sharp burst of pain rushed through him. His leg was flaring up again, and as usual, with impeccable timing.

Usually, he could deal with these sort of situations well. Well, reasonably well. His little procedure was easy. Take a pain pill, and curl up in bed and pray to every god imaginable for the pain to go away. Or, when he was in public, take a pain pill and agonise quietly while the world bustled on around him.

When you were with him, though? Different story all together. To Viktor's great dismay, you were weirdly perceptive. Enough to be able to see through his masterfully crafted facade of 'oh-no-I-am-not-in-pain-no-way' without even having to blink. And to his even greater dismay, you were an absolute sweetheart. Which meant that no matter how much he insisted that he was fine, you kept pushing to help him until he finally broke.

Today, honestly, he was not in the mood. The experiment was a failure. It was abundantly clear. And your constant, almost suffocating concern was starting to grate on his nerves. You were all Viktor-this, Viktor-that. All he wanted was to go home to bed, but now he was saddled by you being worried on top of everything.

So without thinking, he waved his cane at you a bit too harshly. And hit you square in the nose.

It was only when the silence stretched out for a bit too long that he realised that something had happened. His eyes flicked up to your face, immediately widening when two drops of red blood dripped down your chin. Your nose didn't look broken--thank Janna--but yet again, it was bleeding, and he was no professional.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, let me get you a tissue--" Stupidly, Viktor tried to stand up to get the box, just to fall back down on his chair with a wince. "I'm really sorry..."