This morning, a woman is rushing out the door carrying several drinks, steps hurried, face blank.

Haru tries to get out of her way, but he does not completely avoid a brush of contact. "- hey! Ma'am!"

She turns, giving him a look of faint confusion. "Can I help you?"

"Are you okay? You're pretty backlashed and you're getting coffee? I do that sometimes too but -"

"...I'm bringing coffee to some people in the library?"

"To... your partner who is in the library?"

"I don't have a partner."

"...are you awakening?"

Headtilt.

"...Maybe?" 

"Are the people in the library your friends?"

"Not really?"

"Do you... know them at all."

"Vaguely? It's a study group, but we haven't met up before."

Her hands are shaking.

"...can you show me?"

She nods seriously. "Yes." 

She heads off towards the library, glancing back every so often to make sure he's still with her. 

Oh yeah he's following.

They get to the library. She leads him into a study room and wordlessly begins distributing the drinks to the ?grad students? in the room, brow furrowed. 

"Hey. Do any of you know this woman? I'm pretty sure she's having an esper awakening and I need to find her folks."

"Uh, that's..." 

   "Cara. She sat next to me in History 503 last fall. We never really talked much?"  

      "-esper awakening?"

"Wait, are you an esper?" the first one asks Haru. 

"Yes. Traceless. That's how I noticed. What school is this, in case I need to talk to admin types?"

"University of Toronto."

   "...her full name is Cara Mavi, by the way", the second student says, looking up from her phone.

       "Is she really awakening? What's her backlash? She looks fine."

"Dude -"

"I don't know what it is and it's none of your business anyway, a lot of people keep theirs private and it's good she still has the chance to do that. Cara Mavi, thank you." He notes this in his phone. "Cara, who's your emergency contact?"

"Aunt Rachel."

"Can you tell me your aunt Rachel's number?"

She pulls out her phone, pokes at it, and reads out a number, hands fidgeting the whole time.

He dials it.

It goes to voicemail immediately.

"Hi, sorry I missed you! Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I get this, which usually doesn't take me long but sometimes I'm out of town! You can also email me at rachel_l_mavi@gmail.com."

"Hi, Rachel, this is Traceless, Toronto esper, calling on behalf of your niece Cara, who appears to be having an awakening, please call or text me back, or contact my agent Paula Bescond, as soon as you get this." And there's not really a way to call Aunt Rachel any harder, but he can email her at the provided address too, similar content.

There's no reply just yet.

(Cara continues to fidget, staring at Haru silently.)

"Do you have a backup emergency contact?"

Headshake.

"...roommate? Academic advisor? RA?"

shake, nod, shake.

"Who's your advisor, what's their number?"

"Professor Meadows..." poke poke poke her phone, and then she reads a phone number out.

Dial dial.

Once again straight to voicemail! "Hi, you've reached the work voice mailbox of Professor Irene Meadows. Please hang up and email me! If it's urgent, I will reliably respond within 15 minutes if you put URGENT in the subject. ...If I'm awake."

"...Cara, what's Professor Meadows's email address?"

She reads it off her phone.

(...fidget fidget)

from: traceless@traceless.com
subject: URGENT - your advisee is awakening

I encountered Cara Mavi in the apparent midst of awakening today. I was unable to promptly reach her emergency contact (Aunt Rachel) so I'm letting you know also. Since she shouldn't be left alone and does not obviously need to be in the hospital I'm going to stay with her but would appreciate guidance from people in her life about how to look after her.

- Traceless

Confused stare; no reply.

"When was the last time you drank water?"

"...around 9 pm last night?"

"Let's go find you a water fountain." Will she follow him into the main space of the library to hunt for one?

She will!

And will she then drink from the water fountain?

When they get there, she reverts to staring at him.

"Cara, can you drink some water please?"

drink drink drink! (Some gets on her shirt.) 

Success. "When was the last time you went to the bathroom or ate anything?"

"...last night?"

"........can you go to the bathroom without help?" he asks, pointing at the bathroom adjacent to the water fountain.

She nods and heads into the bathroom.

Wow he sure hopes she is correct about being able to do this without help.

from: prof_meadows@utoronto.edu

subject: re: URGENT - your advisee is awakening

Goodness! thank you for reaching out.

Cara works as a TA - I'll cancel her shifts for the week. She's a very self-sufficient young woman - I admit I can't really think of anything special in terms of care, she's very outgoing and well-spoken.

Have you tried her parents?

from: traceless@traceless.com
subject: re: re: URGENT - your advisee is awakening

Can you tell me where she lives? (It is OK if I need to present myself and her to you in person first, obviously you shouldn't give out student info like that just because I said she's awakening, but is this information you have?) I think she might also be able to tell me but I'm not sure yet.

Haven't tried her parents yet, wasn't sure given the aunt emergency contact if they were alive etc., but I can ask her about them.

from: prof_meadows@utoronto.edu
subject: re: URGENT - your advisee is awakening

I'm teaching a class here - if you can't get her address from her, you can bring her here?

I don't know what the situation with her parents and aunt are.

(Cara emerges from the bathroom)

"Success?" Haru asks Cara.

Nodnod. (Fidget)

"Can I have your parents' phone numbers?"

He sure can! She has these memorized.

This is Traceless, a Toronto esper; your daughter Cara is awakening, please respond when you get this

She recites an address! It's about a 30 minute walk from here?

<Cara's mother>: Sorry, there must be some confusion - we don't have a daughter, but our son, Alex, has been telling people all kinds of weird things since he left for college... If he's been pranking you, I apologize - I would call him to scold him, but he doesn't pick up when we call him anymore.
<Cara's father>: If he's really awakening as an esper, maybe he'll snap out of it! I heard that fixes all kinds of problems people have going in. Tell him to call us in a week, will you?

...well THAT explains the Aunt Rachel situation.

"I am so sorry about that," he tells Cara, though his model of her is that she is not going to noticeably register this for the next week. "Will you come to my house to get my truck, so we can go to your place and get you some changes of clothes?"

Confused head-tilt at the first bit, but at the question she nods, ready to follow.

His house is not far from the Tim Horton's, which is why that's the one that he goes to. He gets her into the truck, reminds her to wear her seatbelt, and drives her to her address.

It's a good thing he remembered the seatbelt! Click click.

When they arrive and park, she starts to open the door, and then frowns, looking at the seatbelt and then back at him, questioningly.

...

"When the truck is turned off, it's okay to unbuckle your seatbelt and get out."

Then she'll take off her seatbelt, get out of the car, and head towards her small studio apartment.

It's up several flights of stairs - she's panting heavily when she reaches the top, but she makes her way to the door, stumbling only a little.

".......when was the last time you had anything to eat."

"seven" pant, pant "seven-thirty pm?"

She unlocks the door to her place, heading inside (the door stays open), and starts gathering up some clothes.

...she lives alone, what's she got in the way of breakfast food in here that he can put in front of her.

Some locally-sourced eggs, fake meat corn dogs, frozen tatter tots, yogurt, trail mix, standard baking supplies, and... a pound of habanero powder?

While he's inspecting her pantry, she returns from her room with a bundle of loose clothes wrapped up in her arms, swaying back and forth a bit.

Fake meat! "Are you a vegetarian?" he asks, pulling out a yogurt cup.

"...Not exactly?"

"What does that mean?" Can he find her a spoon.

Her brow furrows. "I... I'm not sure."

The silverware drawer is labeled!

Spoon. "Have yogurt for breakfast."

Cara will attempt to do this while still carrying the bundle of clothes she gathered!

 Getting the yogurt open is a struggle - she drops a shirt, frowns, puts the yogurt down, bends down to pick the shirt up again,

"...give me the clothes, I'll go put them in the truck while you're eating."

Clothes: given! Yogurt - being eaten.

He's an esper and can run down and up the stairs again in pretty short order. Do the clothes add up to a couple complete outfits?

They do, in various combinations of sleeveless tops, flowy skirts, and biker shorts.

She finishes her yogurt and stares at him expectantly.

"Let's go back to the truck and I'll take you to my house at least for now, okay?" The 'okay' is kind of phatic even when talking to someone with their full mental faculties, but, well.

Back to the truck she'll go! Going down stairs is easier than going up them.

And he drives home, and parks in the garage. Will she get out on her own when the truck is turned off this time, let's find out.

She will not!

...he gets out, goes around to her side, opens the door. "Follow me?"

She takes off her seatbelt, gets out of the car, and follows him.

"Kitty!" Haru calls once they're inside.

Cricket trots up. "Yes? Who's this?"

"This is Cara. She's awakening. I do not know exactly what her backlash is but I need you not to give her even the most obviously joking instructions imaginable, okay? She seems really - suggestible, she could hurt herself if she took something the wrong way."

"Okay. What if I do actually want her to do something?"

"If the house is on fire tell her to evacuate, obviously, but not cool to use it to get petted or anything."

He gets a text from Aunt Rachel!

Thank you for reaching out! Is Cara okay? I'm visiting BC right now and just woke up with a busy morning schedule, can I call you and check in in about 90 minutes? I do think she'll make a great esper: she's outgoing, driven, very good at juggling the various pieces of her life, and whenever I see her in person she's very cuddly with her friends. Is she tolerating her backlash okay? Does she need anything?

I've taken her to my house since she doesn't have a roommate or anything to look out for her and we're compatible and she shouldn't be left alone during hellweek. I think it will not be too hard to get her through the week without bringing her to the hospital but if you can explain what she meant when she said she was "not exactly" a vegetarian that would be handy, and if you know if she's taking any meds that shouldn't be interrupted likewise. I foolishly followed her advisor's suggestion to contact her parents, who immediately made it clear why I shouldn't have done that. You can call in 30, absolutely.

Oh, "I try not to eat meat when I'm alone, and I try harder to avoid eating chicken if I can help it when I am eating meat, but getting protein in my body takes priority" is how she put it when she was texting me over the summer.

For medicine, she takes HRT and ADHD stimulants, I don't know the exact kinds or dosages. She skips the stimulants on weekends and holidays, so she should be fine without those.

Is she unable to talk properly? I would have expected her to have explained all of this to you already. 

She can talk, that's how I got your number, but she doesn't volunteer information and I didn't think of it while we were at her apartment getting her changes of clothes. I can probably get her to walk me through picking up and administering the HRT though. She might not need that either, though, I think trans espers usually don't? I'll have to look it up.

Cara, not volunteering information? Oh, that's so unlike her... the poor girl.

Thank you so much for looking after her - I'm sure she'll appreciate it when she can. 

If that's all, I'll call in about 90 minutes, but don't hesitate to reach out sooner if you need to! 

Thumbs up emoji. He looks up trans espers; looks like he was right and she won't need the hormones, so that saves a trip.

"Your Aunt Rachel says you're cuddly, is that right?"

Confused headtilt.

"...She would know?" 

"Do you... remember being cuddly, in the past."

"Oh, yes." (fidget)

...okay in that case he's going to take off his shirt and scootch right up to her and hug her. She reacted shockingly little to touching him in the first place but she's sort of - generally insensate to things that only affect her, or something? - so he doesn't think that means she's not actually getting any guiding out of it.

She doesn't react to this, but yeah wow that sure is a compatible very backlashed esper he's touching!

He's a professional and he does this all the time with someone who acknowledges his presence even less. Maybe he'll start hovering a bit once he's got Rachel on the phone. He texts Ren, meanwhile.

And after about 80 or so minutes of guiding a stationary Cara...

Where is - what is - 

hurts

she lets out a whimper, and weakly attempts to cling to Haru.

- guiding is not supposed to make it worse! But she's - approaching not avoiding, so - maybe it isn't and she just couldn't act upset before?? He can hug her more thoroughly now that she's helping with that. "Cara?"

Wait - who -

Oh right, she... vaguely remembers - this is - 

"T-Traceless?" she manages to say, after a pause.

(The hugging is good, she's leaning into it as best she can, the only positive sensation in a terrifying sea of-)

"Yes, that's me, can you tell me what's wrong? I know you're really backlashed but I don't know how."

She - really tries to think about it - whimpers again -

"I, I, I don't think I can, i'm sorry, it hurts and I can tell now that I can't think right, sorry, sorry," 

(she's hyperventilating, a bit)

"It's okay, you'll get through it, I've got you. Did it hurt before, would it be better to go back to how you were before I hugged you -"

"H-hurt more, before." But she gets ready to let go of him, since maybe that's what's he wants.

(She's shaking pretty badly).

"Okay, then you can keep hugging me. If you want to, you can take off your shirt, I won't be weird about it."

Oh! She can keep hugging him! She will keep hugging him.

If [¿?], she can take off her shirt... [¿?]? What... what does that mean... 

"...I don't think I understand the second thing you said, sorry", she mumbles, after a pause.

"...yeah. Uh. I recommend taking off your shirt." He would really rather not just straight up order her to the way he was willing to with the yogurt.

Oh! He wants her to take off her shirt! He should have just said that the first time?

She briefly unhugs him to wiggle out of the shirt, and then reclings. Oh, that feels nice...

"Does it hurt physically or is it just - upsetting -"

Hmmm. What's going on... 

"...B-both. I think? It's.. hard to tell." 

"Okay. I've got you. This week is going to suck but then it'll go away - you're awakening as an esper, did you catch that -"

Cling, nod. She's going to be an esper. Okay. 

"T-thank you", she manages to mumble out.

"Hey, we've all been there. Awakening sucks."

Yeah. Yeah it really does. 

She fidgets a bit, still clinging to him. "...Do you need anything?"

"- uh, in a little bit your Aunt Rachel's going to call me and I might want you to talk to her, but no, I don't... need anything..."

...oh, okay.

She'll... keep hugging him, then, and wait. 

(her shaking seems to be lessening a bit, at least.)

Poor Cara. "- the cat over there is Cricket, he's a person. I've told him not to give you any instructions."

The cat is a person? Cool -

- wait, what??? Why???

 "...but what if he needs something? I can help..."

She looks at Haru in confused concern.

"I'm worried it'd be hard for him to be careful about only saying - real instructions and not ones that are jokes or exaggerations, which he wouldn't want you to obey in the first place - and also it's not your job to take care of him."

She frowns in confusion, trying to think that through. Not her job to take care of him?

Not her job...

WAIT OH NO HER JOB???

"Oh no oh no I don't remember when I'm supposed to be at work next but I think it might be soon?? And I'm not there, I'm here, and I don't know where here is, and,"

"- you have a job on top of school? I wrote your advisor and she said she was cancelling your TA shifts for the week but if you have another job I didn't know about we can cancel that too, you're awakening. You're at my house."

"- oh, sorry, I meant my TA shifts, that's my job."  Apparently awakening means that she's useless and won't be allowed to help anyone? Oh no...

She lets herself slump into Haru's arms, shivering.

Pet pet. "Everybody'll understand, everyone knows hell week is a valid medical excuse for an absence."

...the words kind of wash over her but the pets are really nice. She melts, eyes drooping shut.

Pet pet. "I'm not going to be able to keep you at a lower level of backlash than this all week, but some of the time I can use my powers a little and then that will pull yours down harder. We could go flying."

Woah, flying? But it sounds like that's a lot of work for him...

"...If you want!" 

"Only if you're not scared of heights or anything. - if that's too hard to think about I'll ask Rachel."

His phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this Traceless? This is Cara's Aunt Rachel."

"Hi, Rachel, this is Traceless, good to meet you. Thanks for the tipoff that she's cuddly, I wasn't sure how huggy I should get but she seems a bit more lucid now."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well! And oh, that's good to hear", especially because it means that Traceless is being careful with her dear niece, though what she skimmed off the man's blog over breakfast certainly implied good things in that direction, "glad I could help! Is she lucid enough to answer your other questions?"

"Mostly? Cara, are you scared of heights?"

She thinks about it for a bit, then shrugs.

"I would be shocked if she was! She's always loved climbing trees, rocks, furniture, the occasional wall..."

"So, she can't answer all my questions because one of them was that, I can fly and I'll be able to guide her down farther if I've got some backlash of my own. Oh, and, I did look it up and trans espers don't need HRT, she'll be all set for life on that front."

"Oh dear! Well, I bet she'll love flying, and she will definitely love being less backlashed, the poor girl. And thank you for looking that up! She's going to be so happy about not needing HRT anymore. In the meantime, are there other questions I can answer for you? And" (Traceless has an agent, the answer to this question is probably no, but - Cara would absolutely want her to offer) "do you need any help with other things you might be busy with this week?"

"I'm taking the week off to look after her, and she's so much less high maintenance than I was when I was awakening, so I think I've baaaasically got it covered? But it's kind of you to ask. Is there anyone besides her advisor, who already canceled her TA shifts, and you, who might need to know where she's keeping?"

Awww, he's taking the week off? That's so kind! She smiles. "Hmmm... She has a pretty active online life? If you don't think it'd be good for her to be engaging with that, you might want to post on her twitter for her that she's awakening."

"I'd be pretty worried about the suggestibility thing from Twitter, yeah. What's her handle?"

"It's CaramelCorny. And - goodness, I almost forgot - Cara can get really nasty headaches, from noise sensitivity and if she isn't eating or drinking enough. Tylenol usually helps with them, and if you're going to take her flying, it would probably be good to cover her ears with something, if you can?" 

"Okay, I've got earplugs but does she need over-ears? How much is enough, I made her drink some water and have breakfast but I don't know how much she usually eats."

"Hmm. I always see her wearing over-the-ear headphones, I'm not sure if it's important? And I'm afraid I don't know what her eating habits really look like... I love the girl to death but I've never really lived with her."

"Okay, I'll guess wildly and ask an advice nurse how much Tylenol is safe as a maintenance just-in-case dose for a week. She did say something hurt, which might just be the headache and not the backlash..."

He started hovering just a little bit off the sofa when he began having a phone call and will be getting steadily more cozy for Cara, if she's in a state fit to appreciate this.

Oh, poor Cara... "Thank you for doing so much to take care of her, I deeply appreciate it and I know she does too."

"We've all been there, hell week is the worst."

What is on CaramelCorny's Twitter.

Lots of stuff! Memes and shitposts, various kinds of news, a spattering of abstract / landscape visual art, some interesting papers, comments on various friends posts, posts about a promising new dungeon material, and a retweet of someone linking one of his blogposts about the importance of dungeon studies.

"- oh my god she reads my blog. Or, well, retweeted a link to it."

Well, it really is quite a neat blog. "She told me she really only reads things when people send her articles, so you probably don't have too much to worry about there! Unless one of her friends is a big fan, I suppose?" 

"I can't tell from this if they're friends or just Twitter acquaintances. Cara, can you post to Twitter that you're having an esper awakening and should be back in a week?"

She can do that! (she adds a "sorry" to the end of the text Haru supplied).

After sending it, she's sent to her feed, where she sees a post from a friend asking if someone can catsit for them this weekend. She clicks reply, and-

- he takes her phone. "You cannot catsit this weekend."

Oh, right, useless week. Ughhhhh. Back to being a lump, then? 

(... touching him feels really nice. it's hard to notice, most of the time, but it's nice.)

Hopefully the cat-having friend will see the tweet and understand. He logs her out of Twitter and then returns her phone.

...well, if handed her phone, she's going to start going through her chat and text notifications.

Oh, look, here's one from "shitty parent #1", telling her not to lie to espers for attention, she was raised better than that.

She frowns, thinking. Did she lie to Traceless? She doesn't think so. 

"...okay never mind no phone at all actually, you can catch up on that in a week if you want. I'm really sorry about texting your parents."

Oh, ok. luuuump time, then? 

(she's struggling to keep her eyes open).

"You can go to sleep, it's okay."

zzzzzzzz

He settles down to the couch. "Okay, she's posted to Twitter," he tells Rachel, "and now she's passed out on me. Anything else I should know at all?"

"Awww. Hmmm... She hates the texture of tofu and loves every variant of fried potato? She listens to a lot of instrumental music, I think... if I think of anything else, I'll text you?"

"- I was totally gonna feed her tofu, good to know. What else do vegetarians even do for protein. Fake meat, I guess, and... peanut butter. I don't think I'll be able to gauge when adding music will help rather than hurt if she's also got the noise sensitivity and can't manage the tradeoff on her own..."

"Cheese and fake meat and nuts and milk, but she does eat ground beef when she goes out." 

"Without knowing how she makes that tradeoff and pretty confident I could get her to eat a live baby if I tried I'm reluctant to push it. My mother was a vegetarian for three months once, we still have recipes, I don't think they all contain tofu."

"Oh dear. Point taken! I can text you her usual Indian and Thai orders, if that helps?" 

"Please do, and anything else you know her to eat, I saw a few things when I was hunting up a breakfast for her in her apartment but I couldn't swear to the brand on the fake meat or anything."

"Will do!" 

He was NOT expecting Cara to pass out on him and would like to keep Rachel talking a LITTLE longer. "What's her usual sleep schedule, is she allergic to anything - she won't be next week but it's not always clear exactly when that kicks in -"

"She's allergic to bee stings - 'in the painful way, not the deadly way', she always says, but it is pretty bad, not that I think you'll be encountering any bees, probably! She'll be glad to know she doesn't have to worry about that. She gets between 6 and 9 hours of sleep - she stays up pretty late talking to people, sometimes, but I'm not sure if that will really be relevant..."

Aunt Rachel can be easily lead to chatter more about Cara's mundane preferences for as long as Haru needs.

He doesn't need that long, he's getting guided and it's not long before he can go text Paula and Ren and Casey and then moderate his blog comments on the way down.

Then the phone call will end with a "And once again, thank you so much! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything, okay?"

"Absolutely, thanks for everything, Rachel!"

Cara stirs a bit as he hangs up the phone.

"Mmmnmn?"

"You can sleep, it's okay."

"Mmmmk. Thank youuuu" aaand she's out again.

He sits there and Reads The Comments till he zeroes out, and then he works on blog post research.

She is conked and has no objections to this!

(if left to her own devices, she'll sleep for about 90 minutes)

She can sleep for about 90 minutes. He orders Indian food.

She yawns, starts to stretch, and then notices she's flopped on someone and freezes. 

"gmrgnmn"

"Hey Cara. Lunch'll be here in ten. Meantime I thought of a task for you."

She perks up slightly at the mention of lunch and much more at the mention of !Task! 

"What's up?" 

"I have somebody I need to look after this week and it is very important to me that I get it right. But I'm not telepathic so I don't know when my charge needs things. I need you to tell me. Can you do that?"

She thinks about it carefully, for a while.

"I'll do my best! I feel like... right now, I could do that reliably when asked, but - probably not proactively? It's... my needs are visible, but not salient? but earlier.... I was still suffering, but it was hidden, I couldn't see it even when you asked." 

"physically - I'm thirsty, I have a headache, and my legs are kinda sore, maybe from the stairs? And I'm very hungry" 

"Food's coming. Cups are in the cupboard above and left of the sink, go get a glassful for yourself, I'll get you some Tylenol. And I can set myself a reminder to check in on you periodically." He does this.

She nods and extracts herself so she can go get water, shivering as the guiding contact fades. "Do you have a name that I can use that's not your codename?" 

"I'm Haru." He runs up the stairs to the medicine cabinet and comes back with two Tylenol and a hug for her.

She stops gulping water to melt into his arms "-oh that helps a lot, thanks. And nice to meet you, Haru." 

She'll carefully maneuver so she can take her Tylenol while safety wrapped in haruarms. 

"Nice to meet you too, would that it were under better circumstances. - in case this is not taken as a given please go to the bathroom whenever you need to, it'll be among the things I check in about but if it comes up before that."

"Agreed, but also I'm absurdly lucky I tripped on you, being like this seems - really dangerous, actually-" oh actually thinking about that is scaaary, she's going to cling tighter. 

"Yeah, you are not wrong. Is the only thing people got you to do bring them coffee or was there anything else before that?"

"I stayed up helping someone with their homework? I probably would have done that anyways, but I would have stopped at 2 or 3 am to go to bed..." 

"Oof, no wonder you're tired." There's a knock; they can do the hug-walk over to get the takeout. "Your aunt said to get you malai kofta at maximum spicy and a mango lassi so that's what you've got."

Oooh, Indian! She will excitedly hugwalk doorwards. "Malai Kofta is good!" 

"It is!" They can sit snugged up next to each other at the dining table. If Cara is not conveniently southpawed Haru with his already-fully-fledged esper coordination will eat left handed and sit on her left.

She is conveniently southpawed! nomnomnomnom

In that case he'll sit on her right. Gotta feed awakeners to fuel the glowup. Possibly trans ones especially so??

She hasn't gotten the chance to think about esper glowups! But she's sooooo huuungy and is stuffing her face while leaning hard into Haru. 

A very suitable pastime. Presumably she doesn't want any of his salmon but if she finishes her lassi quickly enough he will offer her the bottom half of his.

She does in fact slurp her lassi up extremely quickly! She gratefully accepts when Haru offers her the rest of his.

(...Cara maybe has gotten some food remains on her face.)

There's napkins in reach, he passes her one.

She... looks at it blankly, for a bit, then...

"ohnodoihavefoodonmyface" 

"A little bit. It's okay."

Sheeee is just going to wipe her face while not making eye contact with him. 

"It's seriously okay, my awakening was a lot more embarrassing than yours seems likely to be."

Headtilt. "Huh. What's yours?" 

"I get debilitatingly lonely."

"Oh! and you presumably did not get guidance during your awakening..." 

she clings to his side. "that must have been horrible, I'm so sorry." 

Pet pet. "It wasn't amazing. My dad flew out so he and my mom could take shifts with me."

eeee pets! This gets him happy Cara noises.

"Awww, I'm glad you had them there for it, at least." 

"I am eternally grateful! This is also why I still live with my mom. And also why I have a monster cat."

"Cricket! who is not allowed to give me orders because he's sarcastic and I'm sooooooooo suggestable like this." She giggles sleepily. 

"That's right. I really don't want to find out what happens if somebody tells you to go soak your head. Which I am not telling you to do. To be clear."

she laughs. "I deeply appreciate how careful you're being with me! The use-mention distinction was obvious to me, and also right now I could probably avoid doing it if you did tell me to? 's not nearly as bad as it was before you started guiding me..." 

she shivers a bit, thinking about it, and tries to get more skin contact.

"Hell week sucks real real bad." Snug.

"'m really really glad you found me." 

stomach now full, Cara is veerry droopy.

"How does getting carried into bed and taking another nap sound?"

!!! "reeeaalllyy niceee" 

He scoops her up, collects his laptop en route, and figures out a guidey position wherefrom he can laptop, which might involve using her as a lap desk or something.

She's happy to be esper furniture! 

"-uh, hmm. I. usually sleep topless? the bra gets hurty... Is that, um, okay?" 

"You're not going to distress me and I'm not going to be weird about it. I can't guess if you're going to freak out about it once you're all the way awakened, though."

"Nahhhhhh. I'm. kinda slutty. Which is, I hear, going to be a good culture fit!" 

Time to change for sleeps?

"Popular perception exaggerates it but yes, you'll fit right in." He can resume lap desking on her when she's comfy.

topless esper furniture mode activated! she's out like a light. 

He works on his blog while she's doing that.

She'll sleep well for a few more hours! She mumbles in her sleep, and clings to Haru tightly during what must be a nightmare. 

Poor girl. When she's got a nightmare he'll compute slightly less comfortably to get more skin on her in case that helps.

It does seem to help, yeah.

He's full of curry and he's got a blog post to research, he can be a nap surface for as long as she needs.

Afternoon naps after all-nighters are usually 3 to 4 hours affairs! Cara will stir herself awake after 3, and look up at Haru. 

"whatcha upto?"

"Blogging. You feeling better?"

"Yeah. The guiding is really really nice, I feel... almost normal? Except for the tired, I'm still tired, I'll be tired till tomorrow morning, I think"

"I don't think I have you to nearly normal, I'm not carrying any backlash of my own and we haven't been doing anything very high-bandwidth, but you have more of a - triggerable, condition, rather than a constant one? So it might be functionally similar."

Ugh... Why did she think... "...sorry,  it's like... making me worse at introspection, in addition to the triggered thing. Ugh."

She slumps on him. "My powers better be really cool."

"No guarantees there, sorry. Do you still have a headache? Want some water?"

She tilts her head to the side, thinking. "I think water is a great idea. And also I should use the bathroom... Headache yes, but - I think it's the 'Cara you should sleep at night' kind?"

"Well, we can solve the first two problems." Hup. Glass of water for Cara and then she can be alone in the bathroom.

Water! Bathroom! She - has enough of her brain to notice how leaving contact with Haru feels really bad. 

Ah well. 's useless week. And it could be so much worse.

She finishes up, makes her way back to him, and attempts to re-wrap.

"You said you live with your mom?"

"Yes, she's out a lot but home for dinner more days than not. I've told her you're here."

"Got it. ...should I put on some kind of shirt before she gets back?"

"I don't think she'll be scandalized, I can warn her if you'd rather not."

"...I really don't want to get more backlashed again... That sucked a lot."

Clingy Cara.

"I'll alert her."

"Thanks." 

Come on, Cara, what would be an interesting thing to say here...

"What's the next blog post going to be about?"

"Natural categories in esper powers. They mostly don't exist, but only mostly."

oh, maybe he can be the interesting one and she can just be guided and listen...

"ooooh, so there are some? -is this the kind of thing where you giving a verbal preview of the post is fun and/or useful for you, or should I just wait and read it when it's out?"

"It'd be helpful if I were backlashed. Might be a good topic for during or after a flight, if you wanna go for a flight."

"That sounds nice! I've always wanted to fly, if my power lets me fly I will be soso happy."

"It probably won't, it's rare and there's no obvious connection with your backlash, but stranger things have happened. I don't get to practice as much as I'd like though, so I'm happy to swoop you around. You will need to wear a shirt for that though."

"I have no idea what kind of power goes with this backlash! I will definitely put a shirt on for flight, though we don't have to do that right now or today? Whenever's good." Snuggle.

"Maybe after dinner. Sunset flight."

kinda romantic shhh brain "Oooooooh! Sunset flight! That sounds really nice." 

"That's the idea! Do you have access to what you want for dinner or should I pick something?"

"Hmmm. Coming up with an opinion like that is hard, but - my memory works fine, so i can just - "

In a squeaky voice: "Hey Cara, what did you eat for each meal every day in the past two weeks?"

Cara Mavi is many things, and none of them are "gourmand". The list is populated with various kinds of microwave/oven frozen foods for lunches and dinners, yogurt / cereal / fruit for breakfast, mac and cheese, impossible burgers...

"Okay, KD it is."

"KD sounds good! Do you have hot sauce?"

"Yes, though it's going to be mostly weird things Ren buys for novelty rather than hyper-spicy things from the habanero dimension."

"That's fine!" Wait, how did he - oh right, they went to her place to pick up her clothes and he got her a yogurt from the kitchen, he would have seen her powder there.

 "...Huh. Does esperification reduce spice tolerance? It enhances other senses, right, and I could see how some kinds of enhanced taste would lead to a lower spice tolerance..."

"I've never heard of it reducing spice tolerance. It's enhanced senses in the sense that if you only liked spicy things because half your tastebuds were dead and you wanted to have any food-related sensations at all, then maybe this would be less appealing once you could enjoy things like vanilla and rosemary, but if you just like spice for its own sake I think you're good. Besides, the changes are mostly very polite and cooperative. If that's your habitual hair color it's probably going to start growing in just exactly like that."

"Huh, I'm not sure if I like spicy food because of weird taste bud problems or not! Though I had a friend speculate that it's downstream my anosmia, so... maybe?" ...wait, wrong question, the right question is -

"Woah, is this going to give me a sense of smell??? oh that would be so weird... "

And ooooooh, not having to dye her hair anymore sounds awesome.

"- yes, if you don't have a sense of smell it's probably going to fix that! There are things it doesn't fix, I wasn't sure it'd do my dyspraxia though thankfully it did, but I think that'll be handled."

"Ohhhh, that's exciting! I wonder when it will happen, I wonder what the first thing I smell will be..."

Oh no, she doesn't know what dyspraxia means, she's going to get a bad grade in conversation... 

Well. it's worse if she keeps not knowing! She can ask in a way that indicates she kind of has a brain. "...dyspraxia? dyslexia but for - praxis means, like, doing things?"

"Yeah, I had a balance problem. I fell down the stairs all the time. I had a wheelchair, mostly for using in the winter but I'd also break it out when I had a sprained ankle or was going somewhere with a lot of stairs and an elevator they won't let people use without a good reason."

She holds him tighter at the mention of falling down stairs. "...wow. I'm - really glad you don't have to deal with that anymore."

"I might be the only dungeoneering esper who gets injured dramatically less than I did before I took it up!"

"Huh! Yeah, quite possibly. I was just thinking that I am going to be one of a very small number of people who remember the first scent they ever smelled, which feels like a similar genre of 'weird tiny groups', though I can't be the only one of those." 

She nuzzles him, mostly on autopilot. (It's a thing to do while snuggling!)

That's fine. "I don't know exactly when it'll come in, or I'd propose having a suitably nice smell on hand for the occasion."

"I don't even know what kinds of smells I'll like! Maybe it'll be just like my sense of taste and I will be snorting habanero powder on purpose, instead of on accident." She giggles.

"Whoa, ow."

"As places I have accidentally gotten habanero powder, it's pretty low on the list in terms of pain intensity! It lasted for a while, though."

"And yet you continue to own habanero powder!"

"I did eventually get bullied into using a little dispenser instead of just pinching it onto things, which has dramatically cut down on such incidents! And it's very useful stuff to have, I think."

"Well, we have some things that smell nice even if due to unpredictable timing the first thing you wind up smelling happens to be, like, the couch, or toast."

"It's a better story if it's something unique and memorable! Like..."

 hmm, what would be an interesting thing to tell a story about around here... ideally a good conversational topic in its own right... oh! 

"Like Cricket! 'I remember the first thing I ever smelt and it was a winged talking cat', that's a world first for sure."

"I bet he will let you put your face on him if you butter him up enough first."

She giggles. "But then I'd get butter all over my face!"

"...okay you're probably just being silly but if your backlash does impair metaphor comprehension..."

Ack! "-just being silly, sorry. I would love to metaphorically butter Cricket up and then physically place my face on him. Respectfully."

"I wish you luck. You shouldn't take it personally if he doesn't turn out to like you, though, he doesn't like almost anyone."

She can (probably) manage to not take it personally! She really hopes she can befriend him, though, she wants to be friends with a talking winged cat sooo bad.

zzzzzzzzz

soooo cuuuuteeee!!

 "How much does he sleep? More or less than a normal housecat?" she asks Haru in a whisper.

"About the same amount, but that's a lot."

She nods. "I have a bunch of additional questions but plausibly there's blog posts I should read before asking them?"

"Eventualities dot traceless dot com."

She reaches for her pocket - there is no phone in her pocket.

Right. No phone for backlashed Cara. She slumps a little.

"You can have it but you should stay off messaging apps and I'm not sure how well you'll remember how to do that," he says, handing over the phone. "So possibly you should only phone when I'm present and alert."

She should stay off messaging apps, huh...

She takes her phone back and starts uninstalling discord, instagram, tumblr, facebook, twitter,

"Uhhh I don't know that you need to uninstall them, just, people could give you instructions on them without being responsible about it."

Oops! She stops. "Um - it's not hard to reinstall apps afterwards, and those ones don't store anything locally that isn't in the cloud..." she trails off as she actually stops to think through possible repercussions.

"...it would have been bad if I'd deleted signal, those aren't backed up anywhere, thanks for saying something. I could... delete the shortcuts, set up parental controls for messaging apps, turn off notifications globally?"

"Those sound like fine precautions as long as you're not losing any data."

"No, those are all pretty straightforwardly reversable - I do this when I have schoolwork I really need to stop procrastinating on."

Shortcuts - deleted. Calendar and news widgets - removed from homescreen. Do Not Disturb - enabled. Parental Controls - enabled, forbidding her remaining social media apps.

She hums to herself while she does it.

Pet pet. "Hopefully things framed as imperatives in blog posts don't trigger you but I guess 'while the author is there to belay orders' is a good time to find out."

"-seems like a good time to test, yeah. Can you think of any posts that would make an easy test of this?"

"Uh, I yell at people to fill out their dungeon surveys a lot but if you've never been taken by a dungeon that will probably not land... probably some of my monthly roundup posts have donation drives and stuff."

She selects one and starts reading it.

haru doesn't want her to take orders from the post, haru doesn't want her to take orders from the post, haru doesn't want her to take orders from the post,

9. Racehorse finally fixed the bug that erroneously told people names were free based on special characters, spaces, and punctuation. No, you cannot be Tomorrow Girl.

10. There's donation matching available for various antimalarial charities through July, but donation matching is slightly fake so even if it's not July any more go give them some money.

She reads it, stops, looks at him, and then back at the page, and keeps scrolling, leaning harder against him. "weird."

Snug snug. "Weird how?"

She waves a hand vaguely. "The experience of having one request override another like that is mildly jarring. And - maybe vaguely informative? There's like..." she pulls up a notes app on her phone to type it out, it's hard to hold all in her head. Factors she thinks mattered:

- the command in the blog is more direct (go give them some money) than the thing Haru said to me just now (which has a very obvious command, but it's entirely implied).
  - More Direct > Less Direct?
- the command in the blog is less targeted-at-me - it's for everyone reading the site, and not something Haru said to me directly.
   - More Specific > Less Specific?
- the command in the blog is older than the thing Haru said to me just now.
   - Recent > Older?
- the command in the blog wants me to do something, and the thing Haru said to me just now wanted me not to do something.
   - Negative action > Positive action?

She hands it to Haru to read.

"Huh. That does seem informative, yeah. This kind of thing is relevant for if you want to do dungeons, sometimes victims say some shit and you'd really really want to be - under standing instructions that would overrule them saying shit -"

"I think probably it cares about who is giving the instruction, too. Like..." she thinks back to earlier in the day. "If my mom had texted me telling me to do something that contradicted an instruction from you, it would have been really easy to ignore her? Because she's " kind of shitty notably irrational about Cara because of her own brainworms " less trustworthy than you are. Not sure how that would stack up with victims, though."

"I probably see unusually irrational victims because I go into psychic dungeons that are driving them nuts, but even a bog standard dungeon is going to get lots of people who are stressed out and taking it out on the closest thing to a customer service agent. But I guess brainstorming about how to navigate that will best wait till we know what your powers'll be, you might not even have dungeoneering powers."

"I might not!" she agrees. 

Now she wants to read something about esper powers and backlashes... is there anything like that on Haru's blog?

Sure, she might want Galaxy Brained Opposites.

Ooooh! She does in fact want Galaxy Brained Opposites.

Snuggled reading esper.

...

Not all backlashes are public, of course, but we can still figure out a lot from the ones that are. Yan Xiu has a fever backlash. Does he have cold powers? No! He has the power to lure creatures to him, which then act docile in his presence. What the hell? Well, a fever is an immune response: you become inhospitable to microbes and parasites that wanted you to be your original temperature. What's the opposite of "inhospitable to hostile organisms"? Apparently, according to whatever wacky gacha game our powers come from, it's "inviting to no-longer-hostile organisms". (See also Yan Xiu's photo gallery featuring him surrounded by tamed critters, he's one of the only espers who does as much dungeon photography as I think needs doing.)

This is probably to some extent a just-so story. I didn't, of course, hear about the fever backlash in isolation and independently make up Yan Xiu's power based on what would be opposite a fever backlash. (The obvious thing would be cold powers - and some espers do in fact have power/backlash combinations that straightforward, like Jenny Papadopol (sonar/deafness), Mr. X (telekinetic folding/joint stiffness), or Salve (healing/malaise), But if you gave Yan Xiu a completely randomly chosen other power - say, Tomorrowgirl's precognition - then I wouldn't be able to think of anything at all...

Huh. So basically there are a lot of different kinds of powers she could have with this backlash and it doesn't make sense to think of it as "something that is the opposite of Traceless's power", which - is not really a super coherent category to begin with.

"Reading this makes me wonder if there's like - an esper RPF subgenre where people try and come up with alternate powers while keeping the backlashes fixed?"

"Huh, I don't know, I don't really read fanfiction."

"I've read some crackfic but I bounce off of most of it, it's usually less interesting than talking to people and affords less talking-to-people than consuming popular source medias. But I know a lot of people who are really into it and it's fun hearing them talk about the kinds of things that happen in those communities, you know? If there weren't so many vastly more important things to be doing I would love to be a digital anthropologist, there's so much gold out there that almost nobody knows about or hears about..."

"That does sound like it'd be neat. I can't really read anything that wasn't intended as communication to me when I'm backlashed even a smidgen, so I have to ration my reading and prefer literature by dead people, but I'd believe there's gold out there."

"...Huh, that does seem pretty limiting... I could read aloud to you when you're backlashed, if you wanted?"

"That can work really well but only if you can hold up your end of tangent conversations about the book."

Could she? Hmmm...

"I think it would probably depend a lot on the tangent - if we are talking facts about the world, it's going to be fine, but if it leads to - " she waves a hand vaguely

"...anything about you subjectively?"

is that even the right way to put it? "...it's hard from the inside to map the boundary, but - yeah, something like that. When I'm less backlashed I can be less weird about it, I think?" And when she's more backlashed he can always just Cara you met this man YESTERDAY

"Well, maybe we can try that after a flight. Do you read French?"

"I'm okay at it but not great? I'm better at conversations."

"I ask because I do - a sweet spot for me is language practice conversations but that gets me more facility with the language in general I can use to read - and some of the literature I wanna get around to is French."

"Well, if I get more backlashed, you could tell me to work on my French reading and I'd get better at it!" She sticks out her tongue at him.

Then she frowns. "Well. I think I would, anyways! Something to test..."

"I'm definitely going to want to hear from zeroed-out you how you want to be - handled, when you're backlashed."

He's so careful! It's really sweet... "That makes sense, yeah. I'm pretty confident I'll want to be steered towards getting myself guided, getting other espers guided, other safety stuff?" She shrugs.

"Presumably! But in terms of things that isn't safety stuff like working on your French reading."

"I mean right now I'm tempted to like, draft up a setup for using it for doing chores I don't want to do? but probably that's a bad idea." 

"You'd... still have to do them?"

"It would be, like, a situational executive function superpower? But it seems, uh. Fraught." 

"I mean, if it happens to work out like that for you in a way you approve of I guess there's nothing wrong with it, but t- I'd tread carefully if I were you."

She giggles. "You're treading very carefully, yes." squeeeze "I appreciate it now and will plausibly appreciate it even more in a week." 

"Oh good. Awakening sucks and hopefully yours will suck way less than usual."

She nuzzles him. "You're doing a really good job of making it tolerable instead of terrifying." 

"It's an incredible stroke of luck that I happened to bump into you at Tim's."

"Yeah. On a lot of levels." leeean. "Thank you for rescuing me!" 

She can't tell if he's noticed that she's trying to flirt a bit and is just being his careful self about it or if she's not getting through, but she's enjoying herself either way.

"You're welcome. We've all been there."

"-well, except for anyone else who got scooped up like this, right? I can't be the first purgatory week esper! I wonder if we have an online community..."  wonder how many of the others sleep with their rescuers

"It doesn't happen very often! There was somebody in Singapore who wanted a new partner so badly she specifically scoured hospitals till she got one, but usually it's hard to get suspected awakenings checked, and most pairs are not compatible."

She snorts. "She was pre-ordering... but for a new esper partner... did something happen to her old one or was it just that bad of a match?"

"I don't remember, I'd need to look it up."

"Do you remember the name?" Or, well, she has her phone, if she searches "Singapore esper visiting hospitals for partner" does she find anything?

Apparently the Singapore esper liked to characterize her hospital sweeps as a public service but did do it a lot less often after she found her partner, and her previous one was low-compatibility.

Extremely valid of her, honestly. How many espers did she identify before she found her partner? 

Fifty-four.