Campion gripped the handle of his suitcase tightly, his knuckles turning white. The rain was constant, unyielding like the regret that hammered body almost as a savagely as the downpour.

A sequence of events replayed in his mind, over and over and in each one he found some new way to avoid what had happened. And it was so easy, to walk away from that room. But he hadn’t. Because the Campion in his head was far stronger than the weak creature walking home, wet through so his hair stuck to his head wearing a bedraggled ill fitting suit- the same way he wore his good intentions, so it would seem.

Clocks, you were supposed to help the passives. Did what happened strike you as anything like help at all? said the sharp, didactic voice in the back of his head. It sounded a lot like his mother and should have very well been around a few hours ago when Campion needed it most.

See, there’s line. It’s not a small one and it’s not hard to miss- there are armed guards with weapons all around it- laws and high fences and chroves with sharp teeth, all designed to keep people like you from even glancing at the line. Campion Luccullis, you just urinated all over that line. And you didn’t even wash your hands afterwards.

He tried to swat his thoughts away like errant flies, but they stuck fast, pinned to his mind like a butterfly to a corkboard, flapping and struggling. Sick. That’s what you are. In the head.

He’d wondered if running would make Brunnhold seem like a just a bad dream, but as his feet touched the familiar cobblestones of Vienda, the cold light was just as unforgiving, the saturated ground glistening with rainwater- causing him to catch sight of himself in puddles. In each one he looked guilty. Campion needed to go home, to regroup and gather his thoughts, avoid the eyes of people looking at him as if they knew. As if he was wearing a sign, above his head, which of course he wasn’t.

Home. He walked down his street quickly, very desperate to be away from people, but at the same time rather loathe to be left alone to his thoughts.

While Campion was outside in the rain, he was inside, warm and dry, but surrounded by masses of sugar cookies.
He wasn't even sure why he had baked the cookies; he wasn't the least bit hungry. But for some reason, this was what happened. Thinking back, he often cooked when stressed. He also didn't eat when stressed. This was not a great combination, of course.

His head still felt light. He'd gotten his hair cut on the afternoon of the seventeenth; had whipped the bit he could get off with a knife and gone into a barber and paid him to cut off the rest. His hair was a normal length now; of course, it stuck up like mad, especially in this humidity. At that point, he decided he could no longer wait among the baked goods, and decided to go outside and check if it had stopped raining, while shaking his head to try and settle the mass of short hair down. He'd forgotten how wild his hair had been when he was a kid, and how his mother was always trying to smooth it down.

When he got outside, he blinked a few times. He had been expecting to either see wet cobblestones and a cloudy sky or pouring hard rain. There was the expected rain, but there was also a familiar disheveled scarecrow figure out in it. Was it...? Could it be...? It was.

He stood in his doorway, leaning on his good side, candlelight pouring out into the rainy day outside. "You're...back." It was all he could manage to say at that point, but it was rife with emotion. He was worried he was going to cry, but for what? His friend had been gone barely over a week. Part of it was that it was the worst week to leave Campion could have possibly picked, but part of it Eran wasn't sure about.

At least someone would eat the cookies.

"So it would seem," said Campion, the smile that he forced was weak and pained, like a knife gliding across his jaw bone. He was going to have to behave himself around the lower races, said his mother's voice shrilly, to make an excuse and go inside because clearly not acting like a galdori had been rather detrimental to his...not to mention her, well being.

"I should have ended my stay in Brunnhold-" the young galdor's voice caught in his throat and he coughed savagely, "some days ago," he finished hoarsely.

Her . He allowed his thoughts to wander back, she would have read the note when she woke and what? It wouldn't be enough. If word got out- then...what? It wasn't as though had a reputation to protect, but even so- there was disinheritance and then there was...this.

And as for her. It wasn't fair- what happened was his fault. He'd wanted to tell her that if it ever got out she was to say that he had forced her- which was the only thing society would understand- but how does one explain that in a letter? How does any decent person even explain that to someone's face, let alone a note that had amounted to ten words in the end.

Even now his face grew hot with guilt and shame as he looked at Eran. Trying to work out if he knew too. As if the world were some giant joke, or even a silly little cosmic comic aimed at him- Campion felt very much like trying to joke- it was his comfort zone after all- but all attempts of humor stuck to the roof of his mouth, coating his throat like thick treacle so hard that he couldn't breath.

"You're well, I take it Mr. Scully?" he said, stiffly to a man that was once his friend, after everything with the fight how could he not be? But he was a human man.

"Come on in. You're soaked. You'll catch cold if you're not careful." Of course he noticed the change in his friend's demeanor, but how to handle it? He put on a pot of water for tea. Tea was essential.
"Have a cookie, there're millions. You've gotta be hungry after all that traveling." He didn't seem to know what to say; what did you say to a friend that had suddenly become humorless and cold, from the complete opposite? He had a sudden instinct that Campion possibly needed a great big hug, but also that he didn't want one. Poor thing. He'd get him to talk about it, somehow. "And I thought I told you you could call me Eran. 'S not like I care, though, whatever." He hated the fact that Campion wasn't calling him by his name, though, actually. It hurt. Like they didn't know each other anymore. Was he allowed to call Campion Campion anymore? Did he have to call him Mr. Luccullis again? He'd even gotten used to not calling his employer Ms. (it was most definitely Maria or Ria now) and it just seemed silly to have to call his friend that again. Wait. Did that mean they weren't friends anymore?

This was turning out to be a rather confusing day, and he had a feeling it would get worse.

Warm?... a cookie? Campion blinked at Eran, as though his brain couldn't quite work out what on vita was going on- which it genuinely couldn't. "P-pardon?" he said weakly, putting down his suitcase for a few moments. For a brief interlude, he was put in mind of his childhood nanny, fussing over him with food and sweets far more than his own parents. Nanny had spoiled the Luccullis children rotten and it showed; Chervil's weight problems and various other addictions, Vervain's infidelity and cruel nature, Campion's...well Campion had turned out the worst.

Being patted on the head and offered a cookie wasn't quite the reprimand Campion had been expecting. A baked snack wasn't quite in the same class as being chased out of town by an angry mob with pitchforks. Even if the cookies were burnt and rat flavored- which Campion sincerely doubted- it was hardly a fitting punishment for such a stupid course of events.

"I should probably..." the galdor jerked his head homeward, "I mean, it's very kind of you to offer but..."

He trailed off, but didn't move in either direction, looking lost as he clenched his fists together.

"Traveling...can take a lot out of one, I'm rather tired...hardly decent," the word caught in his throat and came out rather strangled, "company at present. Eran I..." he looked at his feet, and said quietly "Good lady, Eran, I don't know what I'm going to do." It was quite obvious that Campion was not talking about contemplating afternoon tea.

"Campion? You wanna talk? About, ummm...look, you've got me worried. I missed you more than I wanted to, and now you're all...look, just come in. Please. I don't care what shape you're in right now. If you're in such bad shape, you shouldn't be out in that downpour." He didn't know how he had acquired a maternal instinct, but it was there, and it told him to take care of this drowned little thing. He thought he knew how, but he was probably wrong. Oh, gods, this could be bad. He had to know what had happened to help, though, and if Campion wouldn't talk this was a lost cause. He wasn't good at comforting people he couldn't talk to, at least without venturing into a sort of comforting that involved touching, which no one appreciated, he was pretty sure.

Nodding weakly, in a weary form of capitulation Campion allowed himself to be led inside with all the cheer of a man about to be led to the gallows. He hadn't the strength to argue or let more people down.

"Eran, it's nothing to worry about...really, I," he took his hat off and began to play with it, staring firmly at his hands, "I need to start finishing more sentences it would seem." Laughing weakly, stopping it short so it wouldn't turn into a sob, he glanced about Eran's room, felt oddly tarnished amongst the gleaming surfaces. It was as though the human man ought to run around cleaning whatever Campion touched.

"Anyway...how-how have you been?" he glanced at the human, only just taking in his somewhat altered appearance before saying faintly, "Oh, You lost some of your hair. That's nice. Perhaps I might trouble you for a cup of tea, with a lot of sugar and no milk? Please."

"Already had the tea on," he said, going to check on it. After the cookies, he didn't have too much sugar, but there was just enough for one cup of overly sweet tea. He sat down on the couch in the living room, waiting for the water to heat up. "You want me to be honest? I've been kind of, well, awful. You probably don't want me to go into it. Have a feeling you're a lot worse off than me." The tea boiled, and he got up and poured it into a mug. "How strong? And tell me how much sugar."

"Like I'm sticking tea leaves directly into my mouth and then washing them down with a bag of sugar, if you'd be so kind."

Campion sat down and pressed a hand to his temple. The minutes passed in silence as he wondered what to say, if anything at all. What had happened was hardly something one shouted from the rooftops.

"What I did...it's not something one talks about, Eran. Not gollies anyway. We have to internalize, rationalize- always save face," miserably he chewed his lip, voice cracking. "But I feel as though, if I don't say at least something however small to someone- I might go mad, " he said finally over the whistling of the teapot.

He wondered if it were different for humans- from what he had heard, and to a lesser extent from what he had seen, it seemed as though it was. Humans had always been portrayed as slightly more base creatures, pursuing physical desires as opposed to the galdori who were intellectual- perhaps that was why Campion was here as opposed around other gollies.

"At Brunnhold I received some terrible news. And I reacted badly... made a bit of a mess, really," And that was certainly putting it lightly. Rather like saying that Chrove's Erse was a 'bit' alcoholic, that the King was a 'bit' mad and that Campion Luccullis was a 'bit' of an idiot.

"I mean, I never meant...and she..." Campion sniffed sharply, his previously morose voice growing slightly hard "all I will say is that events got very out of hand. But please don't ask me to say any more."

"Alright. I'll let it steep and then add all the sugar I've got." He was even more worried now, and went to sit down beside Campion, putting an arm gently around his shoulders. Very gently. Hopefully Campion wouldn't hate him for that. "What, you think I'm going to go spread it around, Cam? But it's okay, I understand. Just, if you need to get anything off your chest, I'm here. Mmkay? Sorry." He couldn't figure out why he apologized for everything, either. It was stupid. He got the tea after quite a while, and put all the sugar he had in. He brought it with a spoon in it, though clearly he couldn't stir it as he walked. "Here, it's hot, don't burn yourself. Lemme go get you a cookie. I'll never eat all these by myself before they go stale." He was stalling, now. Completely unsure of how to help his friend through this, or anything. This was one of those times when you called people by little names, rubbed their backs, that sort of thing? Or was that crying? Maybe he'd cry soon and Eran would know what to do.

"No," he said sharply, "Don't. I don't want you to understand. I don't deserve that. Alioe, none of this is fair- a cup of tea, a cookie? You wouldn't be crowing over me if you knew what I was really like." Triston certainly wasn't going to be offered a cookie by anyone any time soon. Campion felt as though he were like one of those men who visited the women in the stacks and then returned to their wives and their children as though nothing had happened, confident that they would never be caught out, and they rarely were.

"I'm sorry Eran, I did not mean to snap," Campion continued, once his vigor had subsided, his voice becoming tired again. "I am, in a way, fortunate that urgent business in Vienda keeps me from dwelling over what has transpired in Brunnhold," her scent, her hair in my hands, her skin against mine, "Though it is something of a bleak task. I told you of a friend, Daisy?

She's missing. An acquaintance of her sister returned to Brunnhold under the notion that we had run away together ," he grimaced, "which was of course not the case." no of course, Campion Luccullis would never have anything untoward to do with the lower races, "I fear my treatment of Daisy has been less than satisfactory- so I have taken up the task of finding her. And while I have doubts it will be pleasant, it will be my penance."

"I'm pretty...irrational. I doubt there's too much that would make me stop, yanno, caring. About you. Kind of." It was strange to admit he cared, really, and he was blushing slightly. "And I don't care if you killed babies or something, you're still not getting sick, at least until I turn you in to the Seventen. You want me to get you something dry? You really are soaked to the skin. You must be freezing." He rubbed his friend's back slightly through the wet shirt, wondering now what Campion was convinced he'd done that was so horrible.

He got up, got him a few sugar cookies and put them on a plate, and brought them back. "You always look half-starved. You know I'll cook for you, right? Especially if you help me out buying ingredients. You have a job yet?" Eran placed high value on jobs. He'd had one since he was old enough to do decent work, running letters and packages for the local stores as a kid...sort of the same thing he did now, actually.

"Campion, you need me to go with you for any of that? S' gotta be tough. I hope you can find her. Been hearing about some murders around town, especially while you were gone. I hope that's not what happened, sweet. That'd be...you don't wanna lose someone that close. I've had that, and I knew what happened to her, and I'm still thinking about it sixteen years later. I don't think you deserve it...barely anyone deserves that. I don't know one person who does, except maybe this guy who's running around killing people. Or girl. I don't think you're quite capable of that kind of thing."

Campion winced a little at the touch, he'd been feeling volatile all morning, kept his shoulders to himself in the carriage to avoid brushing a snoring old woman's arm and gritted his teeth. Quite without meaning to he thought of Triston again, he could hardly forget. Campion shut his eyes to block out the images in his head and must have looked quite insane to an onlooker.



Campion reached hopefully for a pocket of calm between the sound of Eran fussing and the blood roaring in his ears. He didn't deserve this, didn't want Eran to offer to cook him meals like some kind of servant, not now. Perhaps a week sooner Campion would have felt differently, smiled with the man...but today, he couldn't. He could pretend he was cranky from the trip, but that wasn't the reason. He was on the edge of a steep precipice and the chattering of voices in his head and the chattering voice of Eran pushed him- he felt as though he were dangling over the edge.



"STOP IT. JUST STOP IT," he cried, standing, and with a strangled yell flung the plate of cookies at the wall. It shattered into a white few pieces, the cookies lying limply on the floor, looking lost and abandoned.

Breathing heavily, his anger cooled and his expression turned incredulous, staring at the cookies on the floor as though wondering how on earth they got to be there.

He didn't do things like this...get violent, start yelling, throw cookies at the wall- even at Brunnhold with the worst of the bullies and the teasing he had always laughed rather than shouted. But Campion thought he wasn't the sort to take advantage of girls and then leave them with little more than a note. Clearly his knowledge of himself, of his own desires and emotions was as terrible as his knowledge of almost everything else.

"Eran I-" he tugged at a lock of blond hair and tried to bring himself to say something, anything and not to let weakness overcome him.

He winced a bit at the plate and the scream.
"It's okay." He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. "I...I don't know what's wrong. And I want to help you. I'm sorry. This's the only way I know how. What...what do you...oh, just." He got up, and, probably risking life and limb, gave Campion a soft hug. "Campion, I'm..sorry. If it's me. I hope I didn't do something to make you mad. ...I'm talking too much. Sorry. I'll stop bugging you."

He shut up then, thought about not touching this man anymore...he was probably disgusted, he bet. No more of this. He let go, walked away, went to his room, shut the door. Somehow, he managed to cry. He hadn't cried in years. But...gods. He wasn't supposed to care about people he didn't know well, especially gollies. Male gollies. Campion was barely more than a kid, too. He'd never asked how old his friend was, but he had to be barely over twenty. You were supposed to like people your age, weren't you? Even if he was going to be this way, he could at least like someone his own clocking age. His parents were rolling over in their graves now, he was sure. He sat down on his bed, cried a bit. Like a girl. Dammit. He was already weak, couldn't handle a wife, a family...he might as well. He just hoped it wasn't him that had made Campion angry. He'd never seen his friend any bit angry before. He hadn't even thought he could get angry. He expected Campion would hate him now. He probably deserved it, for even trying to be his friend.

"Oh for fff--" Campion ran a hand through the back of his hair watching Eran leave, not entirely sure what to do. Bravo, seriously old boy, bravo. I'm surprised you aren't more of a hit on the social scene since you are clearly on a roll.

If he went in and apologized to Eran profusely, what then? Would the lint be brushed off the cookies and the broken plate swept away- out of sight and out of mind? Would they start again, all of Campion's misdeeds forgiven and forgotten. It could never happen like that, and even if it did Campion wouldn't be able to bear that.

Why don't you just leave? You're very good at that He sighed and picked up his hat. Looking over at the plate. In the middle of the spotless room. He bent down and picked up each shard reverently. When the mess was tidied and the cookies disposed of he stopped. Oh, and now you might as well leave a note again, because that was an inspired idea the first time around.

No way. Not again. Campion followed the route Eran had taken, and knocked hesitantly on the door. "Eran, I'm sorry. It was a mistake to come here, I'm just not in any fit state to be around people. I'm..." he muttered under his breath something incomprehensible, "I'm going to go now, alright?"

Eran got up, took one look at Campion with tears still running down his face, and punched him in the jaw. It was a fine line between love and hate, it was. After this, he'd be himself again.

The punch shook the galdori a little, rocking his head and vibrating his jaw. A burst of pain seared through him and little spots swam in front of his watering eyes. It hurt, it was a good punch, but it didn't make anything break or bleed. Campion would have a decent bruise in the morning though, something that would be awkward to explain.

The pain was intense and Campion felt his eyes sting as his jaw began to throb. Blinking, once his eyes began to focus, he stared at Eran. Whatever Campion had expected it had not been that.

Well I can't say I didn't deserve it.

He touched his jaw lightly and remembered another incident with a punch to the jaw quite vividly. If he had known then, what he did now what that incident would lead Campion wondered if he would have behaved differently. It was that punch that had started everything, and here he was now, suffering another. Triston. He backed away quickly.

"Right, well..." he said hoarsely, "goodbye Eran."

Campion left the house quickly, picking up his suitcase as he left. He walked along the road, the rain had strengthened in the time since entering Eran's house and now the saturated ground glistened like polished glass. He felt his back grow wet, and a cold sweat around his neck, thinking. Just thinking, and wishing he didn't think at all- that life would be easier if he were a senseless chrove or a piece of lint on a cookie- since he had the brain power of one. It's very hard to break people's hearts when you are seventy percent dust.

He fumbled for his key, and entered a familiar room. Home. Campion Luccullis sat down among all he had in the world, a moth bitten chair, a scavenged writing desk littered with old drawings, small kitchenette and sink as well as a bed. Putting his head in his hands, he felt his cold wet palms on his face and stared at the dark of his lifelines, etched into the skin of his hands, willing more than ever to travel back along them somehow.