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“You don’t know how to dance?!”
The shock in Quirrel’s tone and that wide-eyed look stirs a very familiar urge of violence in Tiso. He temporarily entertains the idea of swinging a solid right hook to knock that expression of pity right off the pillbug’s face. But he knows better and satisfies his battered ego’s calls for violence by chopping the fruit a little more harshly than they probably deserved.
“I don’t need to, what is dancing other than a waste of valuable time?”
“Oh don’t be like that! It’s fun.”
A splash of berry juice from a particularly unnecessarily hard chop covers Tiso’s hand in sticky blue liquid. He groans in annoyance, setting aside the small blade in favor of a nearby cloth. “In what world is stumbling around like a blind fool fun?” He asks while wiping down his fingers and palm.
“There’s nothing wrong with not knowing how to do something.” Quirrel replies like it was a simple observation.
Tiso curses Quirrel and his inexplicably fantastic ability to read people. Somehow, someway he always knew just how to dig past every barrier to get to the real heart of someone’s motivations. And for someone like Tiso, who depended on every single one of those walls built exclusively with bravado and confidence to get him through any given social interaction, it really ground on his nerves sometimes.
Taking Tiso’s furious silence as an admittance of Quirrel’s expert eye, the pillbug holds out a spindly hand and tilts his head. He knows Tiso well enough that the bug won’t refuse. So when a hand hesitantly settles in his, Quirrel keeps down the bubbling smugness and the urge to comment on Tiso’s paper-thin resistance. He instead focuses on shifting their form, guiding Tiso’s hand to settle on the small of his back and setting his own just on the nape of the other bug’s neck. Tiso is stiff as he always was but Quirrel can work with it. When he’s satisfied, Quirrel lifts his gaze and gives an encouraging pat with his free hand. Tiso would’ve been mad at the sheer audacity to think he needed comfort but that was shrouded by trying to hide the warmth in his face and the embarrassment that kept him from meeting Quirrel’s eyes.
“Now it may be difficult considering there’s no music-” Quirrel begins as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Tiso takes much too long to get the hint and mimics Quirrel’s slight movements. Though he pretends otherwise, he’s listening intently. “-but we will just have to make due. We’ll start with something pretty generic.”
Slow dancing wasn’t particularly complicated but Tiso wasn’t always the most graceful bug in the room. Made evident when compared to Quirrel. There was a reason Tiso didn’t particularly like nails, he just never had the patience or the smooth graceful footwork required to use it expertly. Tiso steps when Quirrel steps, turns when Quirrel turns. Eventually his stumbling becomes less frequent.
Tiso only notices that familiar soft look in Quirrel’s eyes when he meets them after too long spent averting his gaze and then nervously looking down to make sure he didn’t step on Quirrel as they lazily waltzed. His face warms again and Tiso pulls away, his hands stay held out like he can’t fathom what to do anymore when they’re not on Quirrel.
“Can we finish cooking or do you have more ideas to waste time?” Tiso asks, indignant. He tries so very hard to pretend it’s solely because of dinner being delayed. Even though that was also his fault.
Quirrel —ever more patient than Tiso probably deserved— takes it in stride. Always one to let offense run off him like water.
“I could always handle the cooking-” Quirrel starts with a mischievous hint to his tone.
“Never again. Are you trying to kill me?!”