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He and Apollo had been given to the same excesses, and they had experienced the same ease in their lives once they had become rich and successful. Because they were handsome. He had taken his looks for granted, as he knew his friend did as well. He had not been a vain man, rather they had simply been another tool with which he could accomplish what he set out to accomplish.
And he had used them. Shamelessly. And well.
It shamed him to realize just how much he had depended on his looks. For it was no small thing. That had become apparent after the accident. He could not stand to look at himself.
It was deeper than that, though, the reasons he needed to stay away from people.
It was the pity he could not stand. And he had seen much of it when he had been in the hospital. Doctors and nurses had looked at him as though he was a monstrous thing, and they ought to be used to seeing people altered by accidents.
To realize that you had the look of a man who should not have survived... To realize that you, a man who had been successful, who had been envied by all, was now pitied was...
He could not stomach it.
But he worked in technology, so he had fashioned for himself an aura of mystery, and had made his reclusiveness part of the mystique.
If he were truly honest with himself, he could see why Apollo thought it was time for him to reappear. It would create waves. It would say volumes about the smart home system.
He sat there in the dark, and asked himself truly if he cared at all.
If he did not do this, if he let the company die, what did it matter to him? That he could live out his days here, alone, did he truly care if everything else crumbled?
He thought of Apollo.
Apollo was the only person who cared for him. His lifelong friend, who he had met at fifteen when they had both been school dropouts living on the streets in London, because it had been an easier place for them to scrape by then their home countries.
Never mind the ways they had gotten there. They had shown each other their internal scars back then.
And they had found their strength together.
But even now, Apollo was willing to hurt him for the sake of his own survival.
Of course he was. Survival was what they knew.
Apollo still had his looks. Apollo still had a legion of sycophants.
Without him, Apollo’s life would still be full.
But his life? Without Apollo his life would be completely desolate.
Apollo was the only person he spoke to with any sort of regularity. Everyone else he spoke to through messages. He did not speak to them.
His house was stopped by people he never saw. Cleaned by people he never saw.
His whole life was orchestrated from behind a shroud.
And Apollo was his only connection in the world.
The truth was, had his friend given him time to think about it, he wouldn’t have even needed to blackmail him.
Because very few things scared Cameron. But falling all the way into the blackness of his own soul was one of them. And his only link to the light was Apollo.
He would do this. He would find a way.
He paused for a moment. Athena.
Athena was the key. The stag had taught him that he did not frighten everyone.
Aslan taught him that he could still have connection.
