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"You learned once..."

"Exactly. Once was enough." This is him being childish.

Horvath gives him the classic big-brother scolding look over reading glasses. "If you're not willing to relearn, then stop complaining about it."

"I wasn't complaining because I especially wanted to play one. I was complaining because my memory has holes in important places." He considers a moment, then makes a swipe to steal said glasses.

It's safe to say he's gotten more comfortable with this alternative Horvath.

With a notebook in one hand and the cane in the other, his attempt to retrieve the glasses is only half-hearted and awkward. He's done using them for the moment, anyway. "You think mine doesn't? All those wonderful bits of swordplay, just slipping away, bit by bit- and I don't have much chance to get that back, at least in any fashion that's of use to me."

He peers through the lenses with interest. Looks like their prescriptions are pretty close.

"I'm sorry, Maximus," he says after a moment, with genuine feeling but without relinquishing the glasses. "I'm sure that's just as annoying. I'm just sulking over the irony that we're both getting old without getting old. I'm not sure I like it."

He puts on the glasses and frowns. They're more or less the same shape as his, too.

Horvath tucks the notebook away in his coat pocket, frowning mildly in thought. "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure the other half will catch up with us, provided we survive Morgana's defeat..." He's never been much of an optimist.

Balthazar blinks at him from behind the glasses, finding this distinctly not-comforting. "Well...why don't I try to brush up on my swordsmanship and you learn to play the rebec? Then we'll have the same skills between us, and each have only had to learn once."

He takes the glasses off and offers them back.

Comforting is also not one of his specialties. This may be one of the reasons he's fallen into so much trouble with apprentices. He quirks one eyebrow, accepts the glasses back, and folds them up to tuck away as well. "I'm not certain I have the ear for music that you do... and these make you look like some sort of professor." A very ragged, absent-minded kind of professor, but he's kind enough not to say so.

"Does that mean you won't start a band with me?" He makes a mock-pout, then adds, "And I am some sort of professor. I have degrees somewhere. Probably outdated now."

Maybe a little. The last degree he got was in the early 1800s.

"...A what?" He gives a quiet snort. "I think I'd make a better drummer. But I stand corrected, professor. You need some of those elbow patches on your jacket... degrees in what?" He's just curious, now. He's got a few of his own, after all.

"You can be the drummer. I'll be everything else."

He leans back in his chair. "Elbow patches on this coat? I don't think that would quite work. And mostly history, literature, and languages."

"No, no, you need a proper professor's suit jacket. Courderoy. I'll get you one." He smirks faintly, and eases into a seat with a sigh. "Why not music? Surely there's room for a professorship in that..."

He gives him a long, dry look, but he's privately amused. "Fine, but I won't wear an ascot."

"I don't like breaking music down too much. I like folk music traditions, people singing from the heart rather than analyzing the technical aspects."

"I wouldn't dream of forcing you." The corner of his mouth twitches with restrained mirth.

"Ahh, well, I suppose that's a good reason." He leans back. "Did you actually teach? In a university or something, I mean. Something besides apprentices." Because he already knows Balthazar has had those.

"Good." He's about to threaten potential bitings, but stops short of it, not wanting to call up distressing memories of previous fights. For either of them.

"I taught a grade school in the '50s," he says. "Before that...a couple universities between 1600 and 1820 or so. Other than that, mostly apprenticeships and informal tutoring."

Notably, Horvath does not open the floor to any questions about his own wardrobe. He assumes Balthazar wouldn't be able to give any good advice, there.

"Grade school? With little ones climbing all over you and clamoring for attention?" He rests his chin in one hand, both amused and touched by the idea.

Balthazar smiles, nostalgia creeping in. "Yes. And apples. All the damn apples I could eat and then some. It was a poor town. They couldn't pay much, but I didn't need much. I used to find fresh eggs and milk on my windowsill. But you know I like children."

"That sounds... positively idyllic." He smiles and sighs a little wistfully, but watching Balthazar relive happy memories makes him happy, at least at the moment. "I don't dislike them, you know, they just don't like me."

"It was. For just a few years." He shakes his head. "Have you had many students?"

"Fewer than you have, it seems." It's probably telling, how quickly his gaze shifts away, and he starts to play with his rings a little. There's not much to read in his expression, but that's because he's making sure there's nothing there. He's fidgeting, subtly. He's worried. "I've never been as much of a people person, you know how it is..."

"I do," he says quietly. "We all have strengths and weaknesses. You're not easy to get close to, but for a child who needs protection and guidance, you're more than enough. Believe that."

He glances up, and gives Balthazar a lopsided smile. "I'm afraid my track record rather speaks against that, but thank you."

"It's hard to be comforting when you're in pain." He shrugs, awkward and a little uncomfortable himself. "But you were good to me, when we were boys."

He's careful not to mention the way things went wrong since then, in both their worlds. But he doesn't blame Horvath for that, in either case.

That's a surprising answer, in its way, and his heavy eyebrows jump a little. He looks sheepish, but it does help, more than Balthazar might know. "Was I? Even when I was being a brat? Not that you weren't a brat sometimes, too..." He means that with the deepest of affection.