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Professor Lyall is the perfect picture of alertness and calm as he follows Biffy to the tea shop, but behind that mild exterior, his mind is a hurricane. Clearly things are not as he had left them when he boarded a train to Scotland; clearly something had changed - or reverted, more accurately. A werewolf cannot live for over three hundred years and become the expert Beta of one of England’s most important packs without honing his senses particularly well. Biffy smells of inexperience the way he hasn’t quite in years, he walks not-quite-comfortably in his werewolf skin, even when in human form, and his eyes - well, they are as warm and attentive as they have always been, but Lyall sees none of the understanding in the pup’s gaze that he has come to expect.

Most people would not make the logical leap, for it is too impossible. But Professor Randolph Lyall is not most people, and he has seen his share of impossible things in his long life. Somehow, this is not his Biffy, the one he left with tears in both their eyes. This is the Biffy he had only barely begun to know, some years past.

The realization hurts like a bullet of silver, lodging deep within him, but Lyall barely lets an eyebrow flicker. When they reach the tea shop, he automatically steps forward to hold the door open for Biffy, removing his own hat with his other hand. “After you."

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Biffy was perhaps not the wolf that Professor Lyall had known, but he was still a perceptive mind. He knew that sort of warm smile and what it meant on someone normally so reserved as Randolph Lyall. He could disseminate the statements that Lyall had so casually said, such as the gentle insistence that Biffy could address him by his first name. That he had been for some time.

As if they had enjoyed a level of emotional intimacy at some point. Perhaps, as well, a physical intimacy.

It made him think guiltily of Dorian, probably still asleep in their shared bed. What Randolph must think of him now.

"Thank you." He had no hat to remove. In fact, his clothes were all possibly a bit...contemporary for someone like Lyall. He wore tailored jeans that edged towards being daringly fitted, alongside a pale blue button-up shirt and cashmere sweater-vest layered over a silk cravat.

He kept the thoughts from his face as they were seated and offered menus.

On the street, everything is hustle and bustle, but in the quiet of the cafe, Lyall realizes just how many eyes turn his way and pause with quizzical looks to inspect him. For a man expert at blending into the background, it is an unnerving experience. He sits and takes the menu with a quiet thank you. “I can see you’ve gone native,” he observes with a quiet smile, indicating Biffy’s clothing.

"I work in a boutique store, helping my clients to choose the most flattering outfits. It behooves me to update my tastes to suit the times," he said. Leaning back, he allowed the waitress to fill their glasses with water.

"There are advantages to the modern world, I think you'll find."

“Oh yes?” Lyall is not a traditionalist by any means, for he is a man of science, after all, but there are some who might call his manners conservative - especially in comparison to Biffy. That difference between them has always been a bit of the attraction, and despite himself, a smile twitches at Lyall’s lips. “Like what?”

If confronted, he will entirely deny any flirtation buried in the simple question.

Biffy, a master of subtle flirtation, returned Lyall's hidden barb with a raised brow and a smile but did not openly comment on it. Instead, he went into his shirt pocket and withdrew his phone for Lyall's perusal. "On this one device, I can access the services of an aethographic transmitter, post, camera, alongside a wealth of information."