Cam takes half a step towards Timothy.

And gets an unsteady hug. 

Hug.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, of course. If there's some kind of - tug in the multiverse - towards yous making stupid commitments that seems like the best way to clear it, really."

"Thank you," Timothy says to Orik. "I'll consult you on all of the stuff related to your world, you're safe - safer, even - it'll be okay -"

...nod. 

He leans into Cam's wing. "You can use my tab."

"Thank you," Orik says, and leaves.

"Good luck getting Karen to make him a wand," mutters Cam when he's gone, hugging Timothy tightly.

"Crossed my mind." Sigh. "Though he's not dangerous."

"Under these conditions."

"Yeah. If Mingling still wants to reform bad people he's a decent candidate, I think he'd be - stably non-dangerous after a while I just don't have the energy - I'm so sorry -"

"I'm not mad at you." Hug hug hug hug hug.

"Under the circumstances you are very entitled to disapprove of my taste in friends."

"I stuck him in a Mike Newton because I feel like Mike Newton is emblematic of the attitude I would prefer to have towards him in the long run."

"Who is Mike Newton -"

"Guy I knew in high school. Took over his parents' sporting goods store later in life. Sort of friendly in a way that just managed to reinforce how totally uninteresting and irrelevant to everything about my entire life he was. I haven't thought about him in more than a hundred years and I only remember his last name because it was attached to the store." Pause. "I wonder if the new Bell has one."

He giggles weakly. "That works.

I begged him not to - but I didn't know him well enough yet -"

Hug. "I keep asking myself if there was anything I should've noticed, but. I don't think there was, he -"

"They're really really good at it."

"Smiled your smile and talked in your voice and your idiom and touched me with your hands -" He shakes his head and cuts himself off.

"And he didn't even fucking need to -"

Shiver. "Could've put me off, wouldn't have suspected a thing. Maybe would've wondered why you weren't kissing me, maybe that, that's all."