The next time Conrad marches into Worth's clinic, it is with a very curt "Justherefortheblood,thanks." He damn well can't meet the man's eyes, but has to spare a greeting to Lamont Toucey or otherwise raise suspicion which was ridiculous because nothing was wrong, thanks.

"Hanna left yer somefin'," Worth grumbles over the top of his newspaper, waving toward the minifridge in which Conrad's food supply was being kept. Stuck to the fridge with a little skull magnet was a note.

Conman,

Don't worry. There are like, a bagillion (bajillion?) kinds of love, and not all of them romantic. I didn't want to marry the seraphim so I know it's not like you want to marry me. (Unless you do? In which case, don't feel bad when I say no.) Point I'm saying, writing, whatevs, is that you don't have to avoid me. I was mad but I'm not anymore. If you want to get this thing taken care of, you know where to find me.

Sorry I'm always such a fuckup,

H. F. Cross

Conrad slumps against the filing cabinet, his dead shriveled heart clenching with ghost pains. Hanna wasn't a fuckup, he was just... he tried, and Conrad knew that, and – oh fuck when was he going to STOP DOING THAT? Of course Hanna was a fuckup! Of course Conrad should be angry! He just couldn't... manage... to do that right then. Not with Hanna's apology note still folded between his fingers. And hell, maybe there was some sort of cure to be found, some bizarre and dangerous scavenger hunt to find all the right ingredients for an anti-love potion or something.

"You gonna decorate my office all night, Connie?" Worth chuckles, and Conrad nearly throws the blood bag at Worth's head just to wipe off that damn near pleasant sort of grin, so alien on the sharp face. Worth had even shaved, and to Conrad's horror seemed to have had his hair cut too. "Not that 'm complainin'."

A look passed from Lamont to Conrad that was equal parts confusion and alarm, and Conrad had no choice but to shrug with an acidic aside, "I'd throttle him if I could stand to touch him."

"R-right," Lamont gives one of his uneasy laughs. "Want me to throttle him for you?" He ducks a long-armed swipe, laughing in earnest.

"Bugger off, the both of yeh." Worth settles back to his paper with hunched shoulders. The usual grimy off-white coat is absent, his bony forearms exposed by a moth-eaten Harley T-shirt with bandages wrapped tight from wrist to elbow (more likely covering track marks, the thought to which Conrad shudders).

Lamont seems nonplussed at the lack of further retaliation. Conrad toes his way carefully across the room, slamming the door after himself. He doesn't wait to get the bag to his apartment; he tears it open in the alley and drains it in seconds, discarding the evidence of having even been to Worth's clinic right there in the nearby dumpster.