Eran really, really wanted pears. There were no pears, though, none for sale. Out of season? He didn't know. However, there were lots of apples, and out of convenience he decided to buy some of those. Generally convenience was what most people went for, after all. There was a large bin at the markey today, which he picked through and scrutinized. Bruise, bruise, wormhole, too squishy, another wormy, ooh this one was quite nice actually. He didn't want to buy too many--they'd go bad--but a good apple was a good apple. There was a beautiful one in the middle of the lot--pink and pale green, looking fresh as spring somehow. He picked that one up, too.

Several more, in fact, were bruised, and it was making him slightly nauseous. He hadn't meant to lash out, not at all. He'd just been embarrassed about crying like a little girl over something quite stupid, really, and apparently when he was embarrassed he hit people. His friends people. He'd been embarrassed about punching him the second after he walked out the door. The two days since, he'd been attempting to go apologize, but every time he tried, he'd frozen up. What was it with apologizing to people? It was damn hard. Hopefully Campion would present him with an unavoidable opportunity at some point. In the meantime, he needed another apple.

Campion felt tired- but it seemed as though every time his eyes drifted shut, there were images seared into his brain, burning white hot like the tip of a match, his whispering conscious sharp like a knife. He was tense- but there was no release to be found in yet another juvenile cartoon, there was not enough ink the world. He was hungry- but any food caked the back of his throat with all the taste and consistency of an old newspaper.

All he could do was wait. For time to take pity on him, to dull the shame which stung his nose, to- gods willing- reveal to him the fate of Daisy once and for all, to fade the picture of Triston in his mind's eye. But time, it seemed, had stopped still.

To attempt some fleeting sense of normality, he had ventured out into the market, under the pretense of buying food he wouldn't be able to eat and a book or two that he wouldn't be able to read and now regretted it intensely.

A thousand eyes were on him, he felt, they were watching him slide a finger over a root vegetable and whispering to themselves. But they couldn't know. he told himself firmly, again, over and over, They can't know

And there he was, like someone had clued him in. He awkwardly waved. "Might want to stop feeling up the produce." He buried himself in the apples again, looking for another good one. He found none. It was probably a good idea to talk, anyway.
"Hey. Um. Can we talk? Sorry." He was probably going to be saying that last bit a lot. Sorry about hitting you and making that giant purple-brown-green monstrosity on your face. Sorry for being a crap friend. Sorry for not knowing what to do about you anymore. Sorry for...most of this.

At the sound of Eran's voice, Campion dropped the carrot as though scalded. Pervert, said a sharp voice in his head, salad pervert .

He looked up as Eran stumbled and finally got to 'sorry' puzzled until he remembered that punch. Coughing, he realized just how interesting the paving was, "Really- it's...it's fine, Eran." I'm getting quite used to this whole being punched in the face business as it so happens. "Honestly, don't worry."

Can we talk? was not really a question he wanted to answer so he coughed awkwardly, scratched the back of his head and found it difficult to speak in whole sentences. "My fault too. More. Sorry. Just... pretend it never happened." Please, just let me pretend it never happened.

"No, no, no. It's my fault. I lost my temper when I shouldn't have, and I'm really, really sorry." There are a lot of things I shouldn't have done, Cam, but I won't go into those. "You've got a really nasty bruise there, gods. Wish I could do something, but...I think you have to stick with bruises. But, yeah. Think we can be friends again? I...well, I miss you. Sorry."

Why were all these apples bad? After a bit more awkward digging, he found another good one.

"Think three's enough?"

"What? Three's enough of what?" he looked up so sharply his thin neck hurt, and then- realising what Eran meant, he relaxed visibly- though there was still a tension on his shoulders signifying a great amount of stress still upon them, "Oh. Apples." Campion looked at the fruit stall as though seeing it for the first time, studying it like an alien artifact. Fruit was hardly his cup of tea, especially when his cup of tea was so loaded with sugar it was more solid than liquid.

But apples were inoffensive, buying apples was safe and no one was about to leap out at him for purchasing a green one when everybody else was eating red.

"I was the one who beat up an innocent plate of cookies, Eran. Now, I won't hear any more about the incident," said Campion, attempting to sound firm, while trying not to sound too much like a golly giving orders. He had to wonder, with the supposed lower races, whether they felt they had some kind of duty to him as a golly- supposed to be in charge. Would Eran cease to mention the incident because he wanted to, because Campion asked him, or because Campion told him?

There had been a letter, last night, asking the same thing- saying a lot of things, but at the same time saying nothing. Campion had put that letter in the wastepaper basket- he hadn't quite torn it up, but he wasn't prepared to send it either.

"So...uh," he scratched the back of his head. "I didn't get a chance- what with one thing and another- to ask you how your week was, it sounded bad."

"Umm. Well. My week? Pretty much all crap. The ninth, I had a terrible horrible customer who made me deliver something to her house and then decided it'd be funny to accuse me of raping her. I didn't, by the way. Ew. She looked about your age. Maybe you know her. Una Stillwater? And the tenth of Loshis is never a good day for me, ever. Thirteenth there was a riot, sixteenth I bought sheets. They're in the spare room. Just in case. Basically, not very good. I kept forgetting to eat. Umm...how was your week? Anything so great as these happen to you?" He absentmindedly picked through the apples again. "Any of those vegetables look good? Maybe I'll get some."

Campion blinked at the way Eran breezed through being accused of rape, and being involved in a riot- putting them in the same category as buying a sheet and realized, watching Eran nonchalantly look at vegetables that the life of a human was a strange thing indeed.

"Wait a minute Eran. Excuse me? She- how- why would somebody even do that, Eran?" Campion looked at Eran aghast, "Goodness, you aren't in trouble with the Seventen are you? Has this woman pressed charges?" He believed his friend, he honestly did, but still..."You didn't...act in a way, that she might have- I mean you are a human, old chap...and while it absolutely shouldn't, sometimes things can be construed as..."

He stopped sharply, because- really- it was hardly his place to give advice, and tried to smile.

"And a riot, good gracious? Was it bad? I hadn't heard...in the paper, but the paper only really talks about- in loving detail I might add- what some human actor was doing rather publicly with a man of ill repute. Good lady knows why I buy these rags."

He looked at the vegetables too when Eran asked him about his week, not ready to divulge anything- not to anyone. "Yes. I had a week. The article is done." Campion had almost burnt it the night earlier, but had decided to stop being so destructive. "I should go back to the SPE, but what with this Daisy thing and..." the fact that I don't want to think about passives at all, and that to go to an SPE meeting now would make me the biggest hypocrite in the world- I don't think I'm strong enough.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. I don't even like women." The phrase came out before he could censor it with some sort of word that sounded like women. "Just...forget I said that. Anyway, the Seventen cleared me. Cast some spell and all that so they'd know I was telling the truth. I would never do something like that." He hoped his friend hadn't even paid any attention to that thing he had just said there that was really embarrassing. "And yeah, you know Turien Fendin the butcher? Apparently his writ was funny and they tried to kick him out, and there was a big riot. Ria and I, plus this fishmonger girl who'd done a lot of the rioting, got him back to the shop. Was pretty crazy. And that's good. Meet anyone interesting?"

"Hmm," said Campion lightly. It happened- an awful lot in golly society- and clearly, if the paper and the story of human actor were to believed it happened to humans too. And Eran did like to clean a lot more than the average human man. So Campion didn't give it much thought.

"Well that's a relief...about the being cleared by the seventen thing, I mean." Campion reached into his pocket for his pack of pear drops and picked a green one, sucking the sugar off the sweet though it tasted oddly bitter in his mouth. He offered the bag out to Eran.

Of the lower races, Campion clacked the boiled sweet between his teeth thoughtfully, wicks always seemed a bit funny to Campion- one never knew where they stood with a wick. His mad grandmama had been so adamant that they were going to slit her throat while she slept, but she had also been adamant that Campion was a girl and that flowers could talk so the old woman was hardly the benchmark for rational thinking. And at any rate, Campion was a liberal through and through- far too liberal, perhaps that was where he was going wrong- and it didn't seem fair somehow that they needed writs when nobody else did. "No I don't know the butcher. Sounds awful though, I certainly hope nobody was hurt."

As Eran asked him if he had met someone interesting, Campion gave a cough- his plan to say 'oh no one' casually. But it didn't quite work like that. Campion coughed and the pear drop lodged somewhere in his through, causing the stupid golly to gag inelegantly on his sweet- the airway in his too thin neck clogged. Campion punched his chest trying to dislodge the blasted thing. No way of looking casual now. That was if he didn't choke to death on a piece of candy. It was a suitably pathetic end, really, when one thought about it.

He gasped again, his body lurched forward and to keep himself standing he grabbed for the apple stall. Campion found himself causing a tidal wave of green and red. Battered apples spilled onto the paving with a light rumble and he could do nothing to stop the onslaught but gag over his sweet.

"No, it isn't--oh, you meant the Seventen thing. Yeah. I wouldn't like jail. And--Cam?" He bent and hit Campion on the back a few times, to try to dislodge the sweet. He turned to the apple seller. "Sorry, sir, I'll pay. Just a second." He dislodged his wallet, and took all the money he had out of it. "Hope this is enough." He hit a few more times. His friend was not going to die by the hands of a pear drop.

"What the clock—" The man behind the counter, a rather large human who looked like he hardly cared for the vegetables and fruits he sold, was just handing over some change to another customer when the side of the stall Campion had leaned on while choking whined and lilted precariously, spilling more than just a handful of apples and other fruits, but entire boxes of them.

He might not have cared if the pale-haired golly was suffering from something lodged in his throat so much as the soft pieces of his livelihood landing in various places of foot traffic danger all over the dirty, muddy ground around his stall.

"You're going to be payin' for those!" He shouted without any sensitivity to the situation, face reddening as he shook a fist.

Meanwhile, at least Eran was trying to be helpful. After a few rather painful blows to the back of Campion, something seemed to give a little, granting the galdor a bit of air with a wheeze and another round of coughing. With that, the pear drop not only dislodged, but actually seemed to fly in perfect formation to land ungracefully on the shop owner's apron, sticking just so in defiant wholeness.

The human blinked, looking down, then back up to the pair standing in a pile of dirtied and smashed fruits. He looked like he might have been trying to think of something to say.

Campion watched the carnage unfold, and stared at the fruit. Shards of an apples, shattered in it's descent flecked his shoes and a particularly lightweight, forlorn looking carrot found itself whisked away along a rain gutter like a pirate ship particularly rich in vitamin C.

"Heh," he said quickly, "good lady, I'm really terribly sorry old chap. Really just, I mean, or I didn't meant to rather- it's just that....long arms," he waved his hand weakly and very nearly missed hitting himself in the face with it.

With as much dignity as he could muster, Campion wiped the spit from the pear drop's flight off of his chin and dove for a bruised peach.

"But I'm fairly sure most of this can be salvaged." Like an old decayed corpse the peach drooped into mush and coated his fingers with it's sticky orange flesh and juices. "Eh...fairly sure," he said tossing away that particular peach- the squelch as it hit the floor agonizingly audible even over the buzz of the market- and trying his luck with another.

Digging furiously through his pockets for any kind of currency in order to appease the man, Campion- groaning- found nothing but more and more blasted pear drops coated in lint.

He should never ever have drawn that picture of his superior with all that nudity when he was working in that law office. He should never ever have gotten himself disinherited. After that, it had been just one bad decision on top of another, stacked high like a wobbling tower, almost about to topple over.

Campion gave Eran a nervous, pained smile, the kind of smile that said "I don't actually have any money, and this is quite possibly the most painful moment of my life- discounting all of those other most painful moments of my life- but there you have it."

Asking to borrow money from a human. It stung quite a lot. Just when Campion thought he couldn't sink any lower, just when he thought he'd fallen through every story in the tallest building on vita, he had to go and fall through into the basement.

Eran walked back and put down the money from his wallet on the counter the fruit seller was behind. "Here. Sorry for the mess. Hope it's enough."

He turned around, went back, turned to his friend then. "Look, I'm glad you're okay, but you're gonna have to pay me back. Don't care how, but it's either pay me back or I'll pretty much starve for the next month. So get a job or something. You need to go home? I'll walk you."

The fruit vendor stared at the money the other human so casually passed to him, one bushy eyebrow going up in surprise. He seemed to be waiting on the galdor, however, watching the blond awkwardly fumble about with his ruined fruit, arms crossed over his chest. The burly man looked unimpressed and while there may have been a hint of well-instilled intimidation, when Campion deferred to Eran for coinage, the vendor's expression turned comically incredulous. Oh, he was still pissed, but this was perhaps the strangest thing he'd ever seen in his whole oppressed life!

"What in Vita's name kinda game you two playin'?" Snickered the angry man, "That sure as the Arova flows ain't enough to pay for all my damn fruit you went and spilled on the muddy ground. I hope you've got some more in your pockets, or else I'm gonna have to take it out on your one-armed hide."

He was not, of course, stupid enough to threaten the galdor, but Campion's presence and activity in the accident with his produce didn't stop him from threatening the only man present he could.

Tocks-tocks and blast. Eran didn't have nearly enough to pay the storekeeper and Campion already knew that peardrops would not be enough to placate the human. They always seemed to have much less of a sweet-tooth than the galdori, many of the frivolous gollies Campion knew saw no reason to eat bread when they could have cake instead. Apart from, of course, his mother who prefferred to eat absolutley nothing at all with her breakfast Chardonnay.

His mother. His mother. Within himself, Campion felt the very stirrings of an idea. A feeble, ill thought out- as so many of his actions were- idea.

"Now, now," said Campion, drawing himself up to his full height and affecting a haughty expression worthy of Mrs Hyzenthlay Luccullis herself- learnt from years behind parlour doors watching his mother scold waiflike, trembling human servants for pressing too many creases into a gown or serving soup from the wrong side at dinner time.

"That won't be necessary old chap." Patting his pocket, praying that the lie would stick, Campion smiled his best smile, "My manservant carries all of my small change and it seems to me that in his attempts to offer you compsensation Scully has tried to do his employer a favour and you a great disservice. I will deal with you later, Scully." He spoke firm but winked as subtly as he could at Eran, praying the human would play along- and that he wouldn't punch him for this.

"Of course, I can see that both the fruit and my manservant's rather poor attempts to placate your goodself require something a little more substantial . And of course, a galdori gentleman prefers not to carry such an amount about his person. Terribly crass and not to mention dangerous in such a part of town. You understand?"

The shopkeepers always assumed he had more money than sense when the young galdor was trying to buy tea leaves- so it would be the most awful luck if today was the day that Kingsway market decided that not all gollies lived in mansions and had conchords dripping out of their colons.

"I'm already late to dinner with a lady friend and I was buying a gift for her- she's terribly fond of fruit and vegetables. To her a radish is as good as a rose, a peach is better than a poppy, a cabbage like a carnation. Woman are a strange breed do you not think?" Campion chuckled falsely , it sounded horrible and was thick and heavy in his nose. The perfect laugh for a horse faced toffin,

"My my, what are we to do- Mr...?" he beamed, "I have the very thing! I must run now, or my companion will be fuming- but if you would come to my home at dusk and ask at the house- at the servant's entrance, please. I will have the money ready for you. Here, my name and address."

He wrote smoothly on the peice of paper in his best hand and held it out to the shopkeep. "You only have to name your price my man. You have my word as a galdor." To give his word so falsely might once have bothered Campion- but as it was, he did not imagine his word amounted to all that much.

The fruit vendor stared and blinked at Campion, a little lost for words. It might have been because he hadn't expected such a sudden change into what he'd always figured a real galdor should be acting like or because he was actually being told he'd be paid more. The only thing that might have soured it all was the realization that he'd have to be waiting. Possibly for quite some time.

That didn't sit entirely well, but the air of actual society and authority threw the human off just a little.

He stood there, one bushy eyebrow slowly climbing upward, eyeing the piece of paper before cautiously taking it and squinting at the words, revealing his ability to read was most likely very, very, very limited. He stammered a bit, a little frightened now, "You want me ... to come to your house ...?"

He'd certainly never been invited any further than the tavern up the street, and damn if it had never been by a galdor, "Surely, you're makin' fun of me now. I ain't got a clue where this is."

"Sorry, sir, but you only gave me enough to do the shopping with," he said, looking down deferentially, "and I didn't know you'd be coming out now. Should I go and wait for you at home? I'll be expecting a reprimand as usual." He would rather like to be Campion's manservant in reality, he decided. Getting to be around him all the time and helping him with things and Campion not yelling at him for helping him with things were some serious perks there. He did not consider the added perk of helping him dress, but given his current state of density that was probably not abnormal.

The fruit man cast a glance at the suddenly apologetic Eran, eyes narrowing as he studied his expression and listened to his voice. He watched his change in posture, fooled enough by the ploy at servanthood to look back to Campion,

"I can't read your card." He offered it back, a hint of something more typical, more afraid, creeping into the still-present anger in his voice. He was still human, still at the mercy and whim of his magical oppressors, whether or not he believed this blond one was telling the truth, "I'm here all week and if I ain't, my wife is. Sir. I would appreciate if you make good on your promise, as I'm just a fruit vendor an' that there on the ground is my livelihood."

He disliked having to lower himself any further, but feared he had little choice. Eran's show had reminded him of his place, though it was still with resentment.

Campion was impressed with Eran's acting skills, though of course rather obvlious to the older man's train of thoughts his own mind busy with a sharp internal cringe as the fruit vendor not only believed him but pleaded with him, once again reminding the 22 year old boy that the world was not divided into 'goodies' and 'baddies' the way his julvenile imaginings had believed they were.

"Of course I will," he said with a nod, losing some of the original impetus of the charade. He would have to find some way to pay the vendor back, that was obvious. But the closure of the Kingsway Press was hardly good for Campion's career prospects- with the state of the nation the way it was, nobody was going to publish a picture of the king pooping in a hand basket, however clever (Campion at least believed) the satire surrounding the allegorical poop was.

People still needed organs though? Right? Campion was fairly sure he had more sloshing about than was totally necessary.

"Come along, Scully," said Campion quickly, walking away from yet another scene of stupidity.

"Yes, sir." He walked along silently next to his friend, hoping that no one would remember they'd been talking coloquially just a few minutes ago. When they'd gotten far enough away, he decided to try talking again, in a low voice. "Good save." He would have possibly patted him on the shoulder, but touching was just not working lately. "Just...pay the guy back. He's got a family. I never will."

Campion nodded, "I know. I have to pay him back." Fiddling, with the cuffs on his sleeve he thought about where he was going to get the money from. There was nothing more he could sell.

"I need to get a job. Somewhere, Eran. I've put it off far too long- and good lady knows cartoons aren't going to get me anywhere." He almost laughed, his mother had told him exactly the same thing shortly before the whole disinheritance debacle. "Office work, I shouldn't think- good lady help me."

Campion looked at his friend and the strange cloud that had fallen over him at the mention of never having a family. Of course, assuming Eran's urr, position then a family in the traditional sense was a little out of the question. But Campion had been raised in the knowledge that his birth had been little more than a necessity to secure the family line, should something have happened to Vervain or Chervil before his older brother had too successfully spawned- and one only really needed heirs when there was something to inherit. Campion had nothing he could offer- could barely afford to pay back a fruit vendor.

He thought of himself, working in an office with a wife a two children- like miniature versions of himself and found the picture to be little more than one of the cartoons he had doodled into his sketchbook, just as ridiculous, just as laughable.

"Families are better suited to some people than others, Eran," shrugged Campion- hoping to come across as helpful, "My parents for one. They were wholly unsuited, and I suspect I am much the same- pear drop?"

"Sure." He took one. Hopefully he wouldn't choke on it. "Hey, Cam, do you think I could adopt? I've always wanted kids, just, erm, haven't been interesting in making any--wouldn't be easy with no one to help, but...I could try? Later? You think? Oh, I don't know. And there are worse parents out there than you'd be." He walked, thought. "You in an office would be a crime. The only thing I could help you with'd be a job with me. You could handle the annoying ones, maybe? I'm sick of being patronized. But I doubt you'd want that job. I hate those people so much. Talk to me like I'm three just because I can't do magic. Maybe they'd be nicer to you, though. Dunno. You've gotta find something, though. I'm kind of worried. You...you look like you're maybe getting sick. Are you okay?" He wanted to get home as fast as possible and maybe clean and maybe freak out about the fact that he'd let slip to his friend something very bad today.

"I-uhhhh....oh....eh....mmmmm, maybe," was all Campion could think to say to that, reminded how very different he and the human were. And not just due to race, but in age and- rather obviously- priorities.

"Gollies patronize everyone," said Campion with a shrug, "I doesn't matter who you are really. I should probably do something that coincides with my qualifications- I sometimes forget I actually went to school...well, I'll think about a job. And perhaps see you at some other point I don't doubt."

(( bah, sfr ))

"Sorry, I shouldn't be asking you. Just have no one else to talk to. Should work on that."
After a rather long walk, they'd reached their street. Eran's house was first, as always.
"Well, I'll be seeing you. I hope. You'll find somewhere, I'm sure. You've got quite a few more qualifications than me, that's for sure. Umm..." He reached out and awkwardly shook his friend's hand. It was a better option than hugging him or something, he surmised. "Have a good day."

As he reached his kitchen counter to put down his purchases, he again remembered that there weren't any. He had nothing to eat until next paycheck. Clock.