Feeding Hanna Falk Cross was literally the least thing Conrad could possibly do, which was how he rationalized plugging his nose and continuing to brave the supermarket every few weeks. He comforted himself with the thought that he wasn't the red-head's maid, like the Zombie, a thought which never failed to make him snort derisively. He would never, ever put himself in a situation like that willingly, not if he could help it. And he would swear that had nothing to do with the fact that he'd had enough trouble taking care of himself some days, or that his mother had long ago convinced him that no one would want him to do that for them.
So, not surprisingly, the first time Conrad got the overwhelming urge to grab Hanna by the collar and drive them to his mother's uptown flat and rub the skinny boy in her face, he all but dropped the Lucky Charms he'd been about to toss haphazardly into the cart. Of all of the food smells that bothered him most, sugar was of the largest olfactory offender—but for once he couldn't attribute his clumsiness to those few molecules that somehow got by his plugged nostrils.
He paused for a moment in the isle, trying to recapture that rush of feeling, staring down at pale, empty hands he could never remember being quite so pale, or stand out so starkly against the tight black turtleneck he wore as equal parts necessity and irony.
"F%$#ing kid." The muffled syllables ground out as the feeling vanished in a wash of agitation. Thoughts like that had been popping up with increasing frequency at the strangest times. The most nonsense things would remind him of Hanna—from the blurred outline of a taxi to his own work, when an artistic little squiggle at the corner of a custom business card would come to resemble one of the kid's magic runes.
Hanna Falk Cross was invading his life, and Conrad hated it. Most of the time. Taking a calming breath he glanced back into the cart and almost couldn't help a tight smile. Mixed in with Hanna's usual requested litany of junk were a few anathemas- vitamin supplements and V8 because he honestly wasn't sure if the boy got anything from that tier of the food pyramid, mixed in with a few cartons of Muscle Milk in the vain hope that it would put a little weight on Hanna by the next time he had to make one of these trips. That, and maybe the next time a ghost decided to pick a fight, Conrad wouldn't be quite as horrified at the fact that if need be he could have carried Hanna all the way to the HWHT- Hack With Head Trauma. The sudden thought of Worth was enough to illicit a full-body cringe from the older Brit, bringing him out of his ruminations; back to pushing the near-full cart down a deserted isle. That was it, really—none of it was for Hanna, it was just assurance that Conrad would have to see Doc Worth as little as absolutely necessary. That was it, of course it was.