Grim looked different today. Or, rather, he looked like he had a fresh haircut. Tibalt had gotten used to seeing him in armor, but now he was wearing plain black pants, a poet's shirt, and a vest, and he looked... nice. Very nice, actually. His dark curls were shining in the light, freshly washed and conditioned, cut close to his scalp on the sides and long on top, and the five o'clock shadow was still there, but it looked like it had been cleared of stray hairs.

"Got a date or something tonight?" Tibalt asked as he approached him in the bustling marketplace, and Grim stared down at him.

"Not to my knowledge."

"Well, you look nice." He smelled like fresh cut cedar. Had he been running errands? He didn't normally smell like that. Mostly dust and dirt and a hint of human blood beneath it all...

Wait, since when could Tibalt differentiate between different blood scents?

"Thanks. I, uh, got a haircut," Grim said, rubbing at the back of his head, and a long silence spilled out between the two of them. Awkwardness ticked up steadily in Tibalt's head, coupled with a fervent wish that this world maybe had Xanax, and he opened his mouth, shut it, and then rushed to speak.

"Hey, I'm so---"

"I'm sorry," Grim blurted, cutting him off, and Tibalt stared up at him.

"Sorry?" he repeated, and Grim rubbed at the back of his head again. He was going to irritate his skin if he kept doing that.

"I shouldn't've swung by thinking you would need me," Grim said and Tibalt's mouth dropped open. "That was kinda arrogant of me. My bad. I know how you are up there, and how you work, so I don't know why I thought that would go my way."

"No, no, no!" Tibalt protested and flapped his hands ineffectually. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that! You were just trying to be a good friend and I was an asshole."

"No, no, it was on me. I knew you'd be stressed out and acting like a feral cat and I just popped up thinking you'd give me attention and---"

"You weren't going for my attention; you were going to make sure I was actually eating!" Tibalt corrected, and then kind of stopped, because this was becoming a way bigger deal than it needed to be. He had literally just popped his head out and told Grim he didn't need anyone's help, and Grim hadn't even argued with him. He just... looked a little hurt, and left. It had been bothering Tibalt for the past three days.

"No, no, I was definitely going to get your attention," Grim corrected and Tibalt stared at him. Should he let this conversation continue or shut it down now?

Shutting it down now seemed the better option.

"Well," he said magnanimously, "let's just buy each other food and call it forgiven and agree we were both terrible?"

Which wasn't true, but that was easier than acknowledging Grim had been hunting for his undivided attention.

"Doesn't buying each other food just cancel it out?" Grim asked and Tibalt grinned up at him.

"It's the thought that counts, not the effort."

"I'm not sure that's how that works."

"Well, I'm sure it does."

Teacher in his bag vibrated oddly, almost as if in admonishment, and Tibalt elected to ignore it.

"Anyways, how did the written test go?" Grim asked as Tibalt started to stride off down the street.

"It was fine," Tibalt said, and wondered idly if he was allowed to talk about it. Oh, well. He would, anyway. "There was this really interesting question where I had to transliterate a charm from another continent, and now I have to find some new books to read to see about their climate and how it affects the connective points of charms."

"You have to or want to?"

"Both," Tibalt replied promptly. "It's an all consuming desire, you see."

"Oh, of course," Grim agreed easily. "What do you want to eat?"

"Well, I want to get back thirty minutes early, and I have to walk off all this energy, so something that lets us walk and talk?" Tibalt was actually just thinking of meat skewers, but he wouldn't be caught dead saying as much.

"Was sitting still really so painful for you?" Grim asked in amusement and Tibalt crinkled up his nose.

"There's a reason I pursued my own version of higher education, Grim Faretti," he said stiffly. "Sitting still is one of the all-time top punishments you can give me."

"What are the other ones?" Grim asked and Tibalt glanced up at him.

"The quiet game when I don't want to shut my mouth."

"Surprising, given how long you were happily in a tower on your own."

Tibalt was viscerally aware of the weight at his hip of Teacher's presence.

"It didn't feel like I was on my own," he said and looked up at the sky. "I had company."

"Fish don't count."

"Books do."

"Well, I can't argue that one," Grim agreed and tucked his hands into his pants, only to remove them a second later. He didn't seem to know what to do with them. Tibalt was also going to ignore that, because he didn't know what else to do about it.

"What about you?" Tibalt asked and turned to walk backwards, effectively putting himself out of the way of wandering hands that most certainly carried the danger of butterflies injected into the stomach. "What are your all-time top punishments? What do you despise?"

Grim studied him for a second, still striding forward with those irritatingly long legs that had Tibalt almost stumbling over his feet to keep pace while going backwards.

"People that don't watch where they're going," Grim said and reached forward, grabbed Tibalt by the shoulder, and spun him around to walk abreast of him with his arm slung over his shoulder.

It was a heavy arm. It was a very heavy arm that seemed to possess the power to press him deep into the earth, spawning terrible little ideas of what it might be like to feel smooth skin over his bare stomach and a warm face pressed between his shoulder blades.

He really had been in the tower too long, because Tibalt made no moves to remove it from his shoulder. When Grim realized that, he relaxed only just so, making it all the more heavier as Tibalt's shoulder pressed into his ribs.

"You know I can hear and smell things approaching?" Tibalt asked in amusement, and Grim snorted.

"I know. But you have a habit of going off on your own when I want you right here."

"Selfish."

"Well, I guess that is something I despise," Grim said and looked up at the sky. Tibalt watched the light of the sun bounce off his glowing, bronzed skin, and wondered if he looked that good all the time on purpose. "I've always been a bit of a doormat, and I used to hate that about myself. So, I'm a bit entitled. I despise it when I decide to be selfish for once and get told no."

"I could call that a dangerous character flaw," Tibalt teased and Grim glanced down at him.

"We've all got them," he replied with a bit too much smugness coloring his tone, and Tibalt considered smacking him, but this was a man that hunted an entire deer, butchered it, and trekked across the country just to give it to him so he could have some meat.

And, well, if a little toxicity was going to turn him on, he'd rather it come from a man like that. This didn't feel even remotely safe, and Tibalt shouldn't be letting him yank him around like this with such an important test in just a few hours, but...

"Yeah," Tibalt agreed. "We've all got character flaws."

He didn't really mind Grim's, but he also wasn't going to be saying that any time soon. Absolutely no one needed to know he had feelings.