Greylock stood leaning over his desk, trying to see himself in a hand-mirror there while both hands were occupied with the hair bow he was attempting to clip to his collar. After repeated failures, he thought to tie a ribbon around his collar, and clip the bow on to that instead. It seemed to work, in that at least the bow was staying in place. It was hard to say if it was straight, but… that didn't matter much. Perhaps not being quite straight - well, aside from apropos of how nearly nothing about Greylock was 'quite straight' - but perhaps, more to the current idea, it would make the bow more noticeable, which was the point, though having it crooked may also be overdoing it.

…'Overdoing it' was practically Greylock's middle name. He took one corner of the bow and tugged it downward, putting it at about a thirty-degree angle (or so, Greylock wasn't a mathmagician) from the horizontal.

Satisfied, Greylock stood up straight - there was that word again, but he'd already made his pun with it, time to move on - stood up and turned to Cedric, who sat reading on his bed opposite Grey. "Hooow do I look?" Grey asked, striking a dramatic pose with one hand behind his head to emphasize his face.

Cedric looked up from his book. "Just as handsome as ever, Greylock." That was… obviously a dig, a witty response to banter, but it was still a bit surprising to actually hear Cedric say that, especially since the joke wasn't that Greylock was actually ugly, but that he did care perhaps overmuch about his appearance.

"Also, your bow tie's on crooked. Since when precisely do you wear bow ties?"

Greylock grinned. "As of now." ...Perhaps the crookedness of it was a bit much even for him, though. He straightened the bow again, at least well enough. It was only for the benefit of one person anyhow.

Greylock glanced at the door. He waited for a moment, two.

Huh. His narrative sense was telling him that she'd have appeared when he thought that, but it seemed to be a bit off for now.

"So, Kendrick. Did you ever find that- what was it you'd lost, again? A notebook?" Might as well pass the time.

It took Cedric several moments to answer. Greylock thought that Cedric may not have heard, and was about to shrug it off and find something else to do, when he finally said, "A journal would be a more accurate word, but yes that's it. And no, I haven't."

"That's a shame. I'm sure it'll turn up eventually." Cedric didn't respond to that, though it took Greylock a few moments to know for sure. He waited a few additional moments, or would that just be a short while at this point? When did a drop of water stop being a drop, when did a pile of something stop being a pile?

Good questions, for another time. For now, since Sofia was apparently not actually about to arrive, it would probably be wise to get back to homework until she did.

Just as Greylock got settled and found his place in his text book, there was a knock at the door. Of course it would be, that should have been obvious - Greylock was even a little angry at himself for not guessing that would happen.

"Last chance to back out, Cedric!"

"If you look to the left, you'll see- well, I don't actually visit the greenhouse much. Flow'r-pick, would you like to do the honors?"

Cedric and Sofia both gave Greylock an odd look. "What's that about the floor?" Cedric asked before Sofia could figure out the joke. "I feel as if floor-slick would make a bit more sense, or something along that vein."

A - was that nervous? - chuckle escaped Greylock's lips before he said, "Ah, no. Picking flowers? It was supposed to be a part of the joke." He put a hand on the back of his head and grinned.

"Mm. I think you'd be better served to just pronounce both syllables rather than-" Cedric cut himself short. "Ah, that is…"

Greylock fell back a bit to be even with Sofia and Cedric, and put his arm around the other boy's shoulders. "Is that permission I hear?"

Cedric's eyes widened, and looked at Greylock - whose face was only a few inches from his, especially after turning head to look - then looked back at Sofia. After a moment's hesitation, he shrugged off Greylock's arm with a scoff. "At any rate, I have no desire to play into this little tour guide game anymore."

All right, so obviously avoiding the permission question. Cedric was a grumpy butt, so he probably didn't want to just be like 'yes, sure, I think it's adorable' or whatever. But directly saying 'no' might actually stop it, which apparently Cedric didn't want.

On the other hand, Cedric seemed to be trying to put distance between himself and Greylock, and he did dislike sudden unexpected contact, which Grey had to know and was just casually disregarding. So… Sofia was still coming up unsure, but was leaning towards Cedric having lingering feelings, probably. Maybe.

Or perhaps he was embarrassed he'd ever been interested, or maybe Greylock had gotten a hold of the journal at some point in the past and drawn the doodle in it to mess with Cedric a bit more.

She was getting nowhere with this. Sometime later, she'd have to just ask Cedric after all, though there was no reason to believe-

"Now you listen, Greylock," Cedric said with a sharper tone of voice than before, "just because I didn't feel like giving a lousy tour description doesn't mean you can just- that's not-"

Whoops. Sofia briefly wondered what she'd missed.

Greylock was grinning. "Are you saying I'm wrong?"

"I- I- " Cedric huffed a sigh, then continued, "You wanted to do a tour? Then yes, let's do that. You're coming with me to see inside it. You'll keep your hands to yourself, though, as picking any old flower in there may leave you rather worse for the wear." Cedric turned to Sofia and said, "You know that, yes? You'd corroborate what I'm saying?"

Sofia shrugged and smiled, saying, "Uh, yeah! Definitely." There wasn't much else she could do, really, and the idea of going into the greenhouse at night was- well, more exciting than the rest of the campus. It was still… interesting but apparently not as strange or supernatural feeling as it had last time.

Unnnfortunately, the feeling of close, quiet tranquility that Sofia might have found in the greenhouse was broken by the semi-quiet bickering of Cedric and Greylock. Or was that banter? Either way, this entire excursion seemed to be shaping up to be a failure in both the 'have fun while breaking silly rules that the Amulet didn't care about' and the 'try to decide what the specific nature of Cedric's feelings regarding Greylock are' departments. Apparently two great things do not always go great together.

"As you might notice," Cedric said, at the front of their little line between the aisles, "there aren't even many flowers in here. Some of these herbs are flowering plants, and- well, of course there's the experiment or whatever he is."

Greylock snorted and said, "I didn't expect you to gender inanimate objects." He then promptly ran into Cedric, given the latter had stopped walking.

In a strained voice, Cedric said, "Do you really-" then cut himself off. "Sofia, do you hear what he's-? Oh, ah, right. Nevermind."

Right? Right what exactly?

Sofia didn't have time to ask, as Cedric was already tugging Greylock's wrist and leading him down to the other end of the greenhouse. When she caught up, she could hear a high-pitched voice saying, "Oh, howdy Cedric! Golly, isn't it a bit early for you to be back? It's only been a few days since I last saw you here." It took Sofia a few moments to realize it was coming from the golden flower. Huh she didn't realize it - he could talk, or even had a face. He was pretty cute, if you ignored the posted warning signs.

"Yes, hello Flowey. We'll be out of here shortly enough, I just-" Cedric abruptly stopped talking and looked quite worried, and glanced at both Greylock and Sofia.

Sofia glanced around too, but didn't see anything. Still, "Did you hear something?" she whispered, already starting to kneel down below the planting tables.

Greylock… didn't seem to be as worried about that, instead looking hard at Cedric, levity gone from his face.

Cedric blinked a few times, before whispering back, "Ah, yes, I did. Probably drawn by Flowey's voice, it is loud and piercing, let's, ah, move. And quickly. Don't want to be caught."

He started to move away, but Greylock caught his wrist before he got too far and said, "Cedric, are you-"

Greylock's words were interrupted by several white pellets popped into existence, sound effect and all, around Greylock's chest, and one in front of his face. "Golly, I wouldn't do that if I were you," came Flowey's voice from the table. "He's the only human besides Frisk who's any fun to talk to. The rest of humanity?" He cackled, and his voice took an… otherworldly, almost, strained quality.

"I couldn't care less for you idiots." The ring of pellets started closing in around Greylock's chest, though the one in front of his face stayed in place.

Greylock barked a mirthless laugh. "All right, but not until-"

"Just let go, Grey," Cedric said, tugging his wrist but keeping his eyes on the floating ring of pellets. "You don't know how those hurt like- like- just let go!" His voice became more strained as the ring closed in, thankfully slowly.

Sofia huffed a sigh and added, "Can't whatever it is wait? This area's off limits to the younger students, and I'd bet he's the reason why." Not to mention the poisonous plants grown here for some older students' and the professor's research, but that wasn't relevant at the moment.

With a smile that was too wide to be genuine, Greylock dropped Cedric's wrist. "Honestly, all this just raises more questions, but yes, I'll drop it. And we were leaving, weren't we, Cedric? You heard a bad excuse coming to find us?" The pellets around his chest had stopped moving in, but had not moved out, either.

Cedric sighed. "Flowey, if you hurt this boy I very much doubt if I would be able to come back and talk with you anymore. He's- just please drop the bullets."

Flowey turned to look at Cedric and- oh, wow, Sofia hadn't noticed when his faced changed to look rather frightful, and she honestly didn't see much now as it morphed back into its previous simplistic and cute smile. "Sure, whatever you say, buddy ol' pal of mine! Don't bring any more folks back here though, golly, it's almost like they don't know how to deal with me, or something." Most of the pellets fell to the ground and seemed to pass through it harmlessly, though the one in front of Grey's face remaind.

Cedric began to talk again, but Flowey interrupted. "You're not off the hook, buddy." The last pellet moved too fast for anyone to react to, flying at Cedric's face, landing in his left eye. Cedric let out a muffled cry, but bit his lip to suppress anything more.

Sofia and Greylock bumped shoulders as they both tried to get to him, and Sofia only barely heard Flowey say, "Don't be one of the idiots."

Whatever, he wasn't important right now, Cedric was. And it looked like Cedric's eye was - probably red, and hurt a lot, but it wasn't bleeding, it looked… okay? He wasn't literally dying, which was… pretty common with eye trauma."Do you need the infirmary?" she asked. "It's probably a good idea, even if we will-"

"No, no his bullets don't… work quite like that. Eating something has helped the most in the past, so let's just… get back to our rooms."

Greylock stood next to Cedric's bed as the latter ate one of the scones from… whenever that was. It was probably incredibly stale by now, but didn't look moldy or anything, so that was good, his preservation charm had worked. Or they were just dry pastries to begin with.

Hopefully Sofia would be able to make it back to her dorm. The plan had been for Grey to lead her back, but they both agreed that Cedric needed him by his side - though Greylock had more reason to believe that than Sofia.

"Cedric, are you doing all right?" he said, finally.

Cedric looked up at him with raised eyebrows. "I was just shot in the eye, how do you think I feel."

The eye looked better than Greylock expected, actually. Still, "That's not what I mean, and I think you know that. Damage without scars, I - you're not intentionally antagonizing that flower, are you?"

With a laugh, Cedric said, "Of course not, Greylock!" He also didn't meet Grey's eyes.

"So then, Cedric," Greylock continued with a sigh, "why is it that you feel the need to sneak out after I fall asleep, apparently rather regularly."

A moment passed. "...You caught that."

Grey nodded. "I did."

"I, uh, you see," Cedric said, glancing Greylock's way finally, but only for a moment before returning his gaze to the scone still in his hand, "I'm… I like to pretend that my personal herb collection is entirely school sanctioned, but it - it exceeds expectations by a considerable margin?" And finally Cedric actually held Greylock's gaze, though he wore an odd expression.

Still… "And that's really the only reason? No -" Greylock couldn't bring himself to say the words, so pantomimed instead, dragging the fingers of one hand across the wrist of the other. "Nothing like that?"

Cedric heaved a sigh. "It's only for herbs, I can guarantee you that."

"You don't have to sneak around me for that, Flower-pick old pal. You know I don't care."

With a snorted laugh, Cedric said, "See? I said that it worked better just leaving it two syllables."

Greylock smiled and clapped a hand on Cedric's shoulder. He… well, it didn't matter so much what he wanted right now. So a quick squeeze, then he went back to his own side of the room.

"Familiaris comhericus," he said, and Fiyer- ah- right, girl. He still hadn't thought of a better name for her. Maybe Ilianora? - whatever her name was, she appeared in a puff of smoke. "Go hop out the window and make sure Sofia gets to her dorm safely, would you? Or is already there."

From the other side of the room, Cedric said, "So, what was the point of wearing the awful bow tie, again?"

…

"Frodo's frilly frock."