Haru Holds Perfectly Still Even Though His Right Hip Is Really Starting To Dislike That.

Well, Julien curls up real tight in on himself, which is definitely a movement.  It's not aimed at doing anything to Haru's hip, though.

"Iiiiis it okay if I move also, you didn't seem to like it when you were asleep."

"I -" he's got to come up with a pretend backlash, hasn't he.  And maybe whoever's running things will think it's funny, he's funny, if - well first he should get off of Haru.  "I can touch you but you can't touch me, is the thing.  Or else I might turn into a monster."

"...I don't think I follow you."

"If I know - exactly - where I am, and what I am, then I can't turn into a monster.  But if there are surprises then I could."

"...okay. Uh, I don't really expect telling you this to help but just in case, espers do not physically transform into nonhuman organisms, ever, it's just some pigment stuff and getting fitter and more symmetrical."

Hahahahaha yeah, sure, espers in the real world don't.  "I know."

"And psychological backlash is often a little malleable though I guess it's completely plausible that this is the best you can do at the moment. But if the idea is just - that you need to be the one to close the distance - that's simple, I can remember that." He crosses his knees to quiet the angry hip, stretches out his spine a bit, holds out his arm again.

Julien - should be thinking about this as a negotiation, as, he did a thing that was maybe causing more entertainment for the showrunners, but also kind of making things easier on himself.  He really and truly has no idea what they want, no way of guessing it.  So to play it safe, he should... give them crumbs.  Something to entice them.  Make it look like he's working his way up to something juicy.

Arm.  Snuggle.  "Does... do you think that would work for more - traditional - forms of guiding?"

"Uh, I can't say I've ever specifically tried to hold perfectly still while someone kissed me before."

"....Maybe before that we could try - you letting me know where... places you might move are.  Like if I know you're going to be moving your hand around my arm, then I can - take a minute, to pay attention to my whole arm in the right way, and then say go."

"...sure, I can try to do that. Does this only apply to parts of me that are in contact, you've mostly seemed okay about me turning pages...?"

"Yeah it's about contact."

"Gotcha. Uh, I'm comfortable at present but as a dry run how about - I'd like to pick up my arm and switch to having my wrist on your right shoulder, give my elbow a break from being extended?"

"Okay."

Haru stretches out his arm and repositions as described.

Julien doesn't jump.

"Success."

"Success."

If that seems to be all Haru returns his attention to Les Mis.

Okay????  Confusing.

(If this carries on long enough he might get dozy again.)

It doesn't go on that long. Eventually Haru says, "Thoughts on lunch?"

Okay, okay, so, the thing is, the last time he made the very slightest foray into anything resembling 'fun' conversation, everything got very scary very fast, and like, was really bad not even from a simulation perspective.  He would have been pretty upset even if it had happened in the real world.  The monster said something that - customers at Tim's sometimes treat him like a simpleton but they don't usually call him one, or even equivalent terms except once.  And Haru didn't say anything about it, he said literally nothing.  And the scary part is that Julien doesn't know what it means.  The most concrete idea he has is that Cricket's in charge and so Haru doesn't feel like speaking up against him for whatever reason, out of fear or resignation or what, but he's really not confident in that at all; he just doesn't have any other frames.

But if he's supposed to be kissing Haru then he should attempt, even a little, to be - charming, or something like it; casual, friendly.  If he's too stressed for charming to be on the table.  So he wants to point out self-depreciatingly that he just ate like half a bag of chips, but then something awful will happen.  Like maybe Haru will point out that it wasn't 'just', because some large amount of time passed while he was napping, or he'll say something judgey and disparaging about the idea of anyone eating half a bag of chips in one go, or -

"My secondary sometimes doesn't like to eat when backlashed but if he were going to eat something in spite of that it would absolutely never be potato chips so I assume you don't have exactly his thing."