The feeling grows stronger but also more pointed. He should be telling people things. Why is he trying to hide himself? Secrets are obviously bad.

Nope, he’s going crazy. He’s very intently not-listening to that rising voice when he runs into someone-

Sable, an esper recently through her own hellweek, is walking to a coffeeshop to relax. She's looking forward to enjoying ambient people-presence while debating what to do about her powers and backlash.

And then a guy bumps into her, obviously in some kind of hurry—

Um what that is way too good for a collision to feel. Wait that's what compatibility feels like. Oh. 

"Um, hi? Didn't expect to literally bump into a compatible esper on the street."

“Sorry”, he apologises automatically, taking a step away. And then, since he’s already talking, the madness takes over and he can’t stop himself from adding, “although I don’t regret it because that felt weirdly good-”

Which is when his brain catches up to what the purple-haired girl has said. That gets him to shut up for all of less than a second before he continues with a reply. 

“Oh, no, I’m not an esper.”

(He also manages to stop after that, he might be proud of himself for not continuing to give in to the impulse to overshare if he wasn’t still fighting it.)

He's... not?

She tilts her head.

"Odd, given that I'm an esper, and it felt weirdly good — compatibility good — for me, and you reported the same. Maybe you're awakening?"

“Oh, that explains the eyes”, he comments despite his resolution to not saying every thought that shows up. (He’s sooo failing at it so far.) 

If she noticed the absurdly large amount of backlash he’s under during that brief touch, she probably won’t even need him to reply to that.

“I guess I could be? I do feel weird. That’s why I was heading back home. I didn’t want to be weird in public. Which I am being. Now.”

"Yeah, my glowup got my theme color right, for sure." She hums a bit. "Do you want no-pressure guiding company to come home with you? Or go to my place? Or something? It sure feels like you're under way too much backlash for a dude who didn't know he was an esper until a minute ago, which sure sounds like you're starting hellweek, and that's generally a bad time to be unsupervised and unguided."

“I’m actually not sure what I want! The touching did feel pretty great but also I’m pretty sure I very strongly didn’t want to be around people not very long ago and I certainly didn’t want to be telling a stranger everything but that’s clearly what I’m doing right now anyway so who knows anything anymore?”

She taps her lips for a moment. "Hm. Short term fix idea: I put headphones in, turn on some loud music, and read shit on my phone, while you talk to someone you trust to get advice since your backlash is messing with your judgment, with optional handholding or more contact if you wish to take the edge off the endless fountain of backlash while you do?"

Oh, hey, new discovery. If he has enough thoughts at the same time or they’re vague enough, he’s unable to voice them all.

“That sounds like the best option. Otherwise I’m probably going to get even more eager to confess everything and anything I think of to as many people as possible, right?

“I’ll call Leo, I don’t think the party he was going to has started yet. He’s pretty good at guessing what I’m thinking even when I’m not saying it,  so it might feel less like being emotionally naked in front of a stranger…

“Uh, anyway, I’d rather go to your place if it isn’t too far,” and now he’s going to bite his lower lip and hold back an unnecessary (no no, it’s really necessary, why is he hiding it?) explanation so she can reply.

"No, it's not far. I only just left, honestly." She offers him a hand to hold (and revels in the fact that her backlash is low enough that the gesture still means things!), and leads the way back to her apartment. It's just a couple blocks away.

“That’s good”, he nods and takes her hand, relaxing very slightly at the touch. “I’m going to keep babbling your ear off on the way there and feeling simultaneously absolutely embarrassed and eager to tell you more.”

Sable smiles gently back at him. "Extremely valid on both points. I don't judge, though. Like unless you're plotting to blow up a city. I'd probably frown a bit about plots to blow up a whole city. But short of that?" She shrugs and keeps smiling.

“I have no plans to blow up a city but if I came up with any right now just get me on the phone with the police and I’ll for sure tell them every detail.

“Unfortunately being forced to be fully honest doesn’t also make me believe that everyone else also is being so —well, that’s actually a good thing but figures of speech or whatever— and I still think that everyone judges others even if it’s unintentionally.”

She nods softly. "Understandable. Only way for me to demonstrate differently is with time, consistency. It'll take a heap of personal experience before you can trust something like that."

“Leo will smack me with a figurative newspaper for being a cynic,” he replies. “For backlash-enforced clarification, that’s in a slightly amused, mostly neutral, and obviously still embarrassed tone.”

She giggles and grins. "I'll probably stick to noseboops rather than figurative rolled up newspapers. Mostly I just try to provide a hopeful counterpoint for any cynics in my life, rather than expecting scolding to help." She'll give his hand a squeeze, too.

"Besides, cynics make some good points, sometimes. Rosy dorks like me need y'all to help balance us out."

“I’m pretty sure he means it lightheartedly, he’s somewhere between amused and concerned about my worldview. Mostly the first one.”

He’ll stare down at her hand at the squeeze, “I don’t really understand what that was for.”

“The need is probably mutual. Team projects would not work if everyone was like me. That’d be a lot of lost scientific discoveries.”

"Sort of... a mix of appreciation and wishing the world would be nicer to you."

"Good point about the discoveries, too. Can't push the world forward on spite alone."

“Oh, the world is plenty nice. I’ve been pretty lucky. Being an esper will also be good once this week is over if I don’t die of shame or over-people’ing.”

“And I don’t function on spite, I’m just not very prosocial either. Group projects would be done by assigning tasks to people to be done separately and then joined in the end by a single person with the minimal amount of actual interaction.”

Sable nods. "Well, we'll do what we can to keep the emotional consequences of your backlash from ending you. On the positive side, if we can keep you just sharing all this stuff with Leo and me, that's better than making it all public, right?"

“The backlash says that absolutely not, I should be telling everyone. Regular me will prefer it but still think it’s too many people,” he replies with a nod. “Oh, and the dying was a hyperbole.”

"Figured, yes, but I'm just as happy to help prevent metaphorical death as well as literal. And yeah, I think we should err on the side of your unbacklashed preferences over your backlash's demands as much as we can get away with, just for longer-term well-being. Probably you should talk with Leo about locking you out of social media for the week, or making it read-only somehow."

“Absolutely. Gods, I don’t want to know what I’d end up sharing there otherwise. I’m very glad you found me before I started posting things.”

She nods. "Yeah, I can imagine that would suck. Telling me may be embarrassing, but at least I can keep the backlash down to a dull roar and keep you from telling everyone."

“And that’d be without people asking things. It could get even worse if they did. I doubt I can refuse to answer any questions-”, and he’s going to stop there before he comes up with examples of bad questions to get asked and feels like he should answer them.

"Yeah, definitely you're gonna be the 'sequester with your partner and filtered comms' kinda esper. And keep the media well the fuck away from you on your way out of dungeons, if you wind up doing those."

She starts taking notes on her phone with her free hand. Gotta get all these concerns down, he'll wanna remember them when he's going agent-shopping.

“It’ll be soooo appealing to go to the media but non-backlashed me will agree with the plan of hiding from everyone. If my power’s useful for them, I’ll certainly do dungeons.”

He can respect other people’s privacy, so he’s not going to try to read over her shoulder and will let her have a moment of (fidgety) silence to write. 

"Oh, I'm just writing these ideas down, by the way. Wanna make sure I don't forget anything. You'll probably wanna keep these things in mind once you know what your power is and start making plans."

She hums. "I'm still figuring out good opportunities to test how useful I can be in dungeons. I think I'd be good for rescue targeting, at least in spatially-consistent dungeons, but I haven't had a good opportunity to test properly."

“Thanks, that’ll be useful. By the way, what’s your power? I’m also curious about your backlash but don’t feel forced to tell me, I’m the one who can’t keep a secret right now.”

"Power's sensing minds and reading goals, and as for the backlash," she scratches the back off her head sheepishly, blushing a bit, "it's not really a secret, it's not like it's something that could be used against me. I just don't like it. I lose the ability to understand all the non-text parts of communication, a piece at a time. All the richness and tone and emotional context goes away, until all I've got left are the words themselves."

She shakes her head.

“I’d honestly,” wow, that’s everything you’re saying right now, you don’t need to mention it, “really prefer that.”

She laughs and smiles lopsidedly. "Likewise. I don't mind sharing things with people, just don't take my emotional context away."

He nods, “Anyway, I don’t know how to continue from that and I’d usually shut up but the backlash demands that I tell you what I’m thinking.”

They keep walking. It's not far now. "What sort of things do you like to do in your spare time?"

“Going out for a walk or a run, that’s what I was up to before this all started. I make do with going to the park but I really prefer being out in nature. I’ve got plants in my apartment and I take care of those. I’ve been wanting to get into making bonsai but I also really like how they look when left to grow wild so I haven’t done more than watch some documentaries on it so far.”

"Sounds like fun," she replies with a smile.

"Oh!" She realizes something suddenly. "I forgot to introduce myself! Sable Meyer, somewhat newly awakened esper."

“I also forgot to do that. I’m Eliel Denver. I don’t think nice to meet you quite cuts it in this circumstances but, embarrassment aside, I’m glad you’ll be helping me avoid making a bigger mess for future me during this week.”

"Glad to help how I can, and very understandable for things not to quite count as nice." She reaches a medium-sized house, and leads Eliel around to a door at the back, which leads down to a cute studio apartment in the basement. 

There's a reasonably big bed, a kitchenette, a couch with a desktop computer set up in front of it on a coffee table, and a bathroom through a door.

"Shoes off, feel free to sit wherever," she says as she closes the door. Her laptop bag goes beside the couch, her shoes go into a little row of shoes by the stairs, and then she gestures grandly. "And welcome to my home, humble though it is."

He takes off his shoes while talking about where he got them and how he usually prefers black or grey shoes but once his parents got him ones in bright green and they never looked good with anything but he actually found it kind of funny.

Once the shoes are part of the row, he’ll head couch-wards.

She giggles at the shoe story, then flops onto the couch with him, still holding hands. Her headphones come out of her purse and go into her ears, and she queues up a few songs. "So, I'm going to put on loud music and read some manga, and you call Leo, and get my attention when you're done. A tug or shoulder-tap or something should do."

He nods, taking out his phone and forcing himself to not open any social media because it doesn’t matter what he currently thinks it’s not a good idea to share everything on the Internet.

Instead, he’ll call Leo (he has the contact saved as ‘Leo Fletcher (Chem. 1)’ ), place the phone on his lap and sit on his free hand while waiting for Leo to take the call. The public-ness of the Internet is still way too tempting.

The use of speakerphone will get an arched eyebrow from Sable, before she says, "Might wanna use headphones? Or something? I can loan you a pair if you need, I'm just worried that I'll hear the whole conversation over the music if you're on speakerphone. Up to you, though."

“You don’t want to hear it?”, is his first answer, then his thoughts catch up purely backlash-based reply gets amended. “Sorry, still confused on what should or shouldn’t be private. I think I have my headphones in one of my pockets, let me just grab them.”

"I don't mind hearing it, and I always love having more context, but I strongly prefer not hearing things unbacklashed Eliel would rather I not hear when we can reasonably control it. At the very least for this conversation I shouldn't be listening, most likely."

That’ll get a nod from him and somewhere during talking he found the headphones so he’s going to put them on (and hope that Leo answers soon because otherwise he’s going to make bad decisions).

Leo was out with some friends. However, Eliel calling him is weird enough that he’s made his way to somewhere more private as soon as he’s noticed that he was being called.

Now he takes the call, speaking quickly with concern obvious in his voice. “El? Are you alright? You’ve never called me before.”

“Leo! I’m almost certainly not okay. I’m probably awakening. Either that or I’ve been drugged. Anyway, whatever it is it’s making me talk extendedly and truthfully about anything I think of and Sable —that’s the probably a compatible esper but likely the kidnapper in the weird situation in which I have been drugged— thought I should call someone I trust to decide things for me. And that’s been you.”

It takes Leo a second or two longer than usual to reply, for obvious reasons (Eliel is never this talkative).

“I- uh- thanks, I'm glad you trust me for this,” he's not entirely caught off guard by the knowledge but he never expected to hear it outright. That's not the main concern now and typical Eliel will probably want him to forget he's said it. “Back to the other parts: if someone had kidnapped you I really doubt they'd let you call me. So, either someone else drugged you for an unknown reason, in which case Sable doesn't have a reason to lie about being an esper, or you're awakening. I think the second one's more likely. Although you should still ask Sable if I can check her identity with her agent or something.”

“That makes a lot of sense but everything is just so weird –well, mainly my brain– that I think I'm allowed some doubts. I'll ask her that once we're done with the call and message you about it.”

He nods despite the call not having video, “Alright. What else do you need me to decide for you?”

“What I should do about social media.”

“About social media? Oh, is awakening making you want to go confess your secrets there? Yeah, definitely avoid it. Otherwise you'll feel absolutely terrible when hell week is over.”

“Are you staying with Sable for it? Do you need me to bring you anything?”

“I don't think so, thanks. I'm not sure what the plans are, I'll ask her about that too. And call you again if needed.”

Am I also your emergency contact? now's not the time to ask him, he'll be forced to answer even though Leo would just be teasing and he'll later be embarrassed regardless of what the answer is.

“Got it, you know my phone's always on.”

He'll then wait a second in case Eliel wants to say anything else but otherwise hang up before he starts sharing stuff he doesn't want to. 

And Eliel manages to stay silent for that second so the call is soon over.

After taking another moment to breathe deeply, he'll take off the headphones and touch Sable's shoulder to get her attention.

She pops an earbud out with a curious smile. "Call's done?"

“I probably forgot to ask or mention something important but yes. Leo wants to confirm your identity with your agent or in whatever other way you think will work.”

"Hm. I haven't registered or gotten an agent yet — wanted to have a better handle on my capabilities first," Sable replies sheepishly.

"Maybe Leo could come over and meet me, though?"

“I’ll text him. He’ll almost certainly come. He likes meeting new people even when there’s no reason for it so now that there is plenty reason he would be at the door before he’s done answering if he could.”

(He sends the message, it gets a thumbs up almost immediately and an ‘on my way’ just after.)

"Looking forward to meeting him," she replies with a smile. "Have you known him long?"

“Not really. It’s been less than two years. We met on our first year in college, we had to do a project together and then he just wouldn’t stop talking to me. He reminded me a bit of my older brother.”

"Awww, that's kinda cute. I've mostly fallen out of touch with my high school friends. What're you studying in college?"

“Botany,” he answers with a small smile. “Although I guess I’ll probably abandon that to focus on esper-ing unless my power is pretty useless.”

"I haven't looked much into the field, but it always seemed interesting. I kind of lucked out, I was already taking a break this semester to sort myself out and make some decisions when I awakened just a couple weeks ago. Don't have additional paperwork if I wind up not going back. to focus on my powers. Was studying computer science before."

He nods. “I’ll have to check what paperwork I need to fill after this week. It should be decently documented since a lot of espers abandon their studies, right? Or maybe I’ll have a power I really don’t like and will go back to class.”

"Yeah, it's a common problem, they should have easy paperwork for it. I hope you wind up liking your power. Or if not, that it's at least easy to avoid using."

“A power that I don’t like and is easy to use on accident would be terrible. I’d rather only be backlashed under controlled circumstances from now on. And I’m very glad I didn’t begin to awaken in the middle of this afternoon’s party.”

Sable winces and nods. "That sounds like it would suck so hard for you. I'm glad we figured it out quick enough to keep you from posting on social media or going to a party or anything. Probably that's something you should be looking for in an agent, someone who can help with social media lockouts and restricting your comms to a shortlist when you're backlashed."

“That’s all definitely important. On that topic, here”, he hands her his phone. “I’m currently more likely to open any social media than delete them but you can remove all of them except the basic messaging one —does that count as social media? Anyway, I’m pretty sure they don’t have any exclusively local data.”

She knows enough about tech stuff to double-check that while she's deleting. Any encrypted comms apps like Signal or such, that would have locally-stored keys or messages? Or is it all cloud stuff?

Eliel doesn’t have many social media apps downloaded and they’re all cloud based so it shouldn’t take long for her to delete them.

In the meantime he’s very intentionally not looking and telling her the first random anecdote that came to mind. (Some incident with bees while on a family hiking trip, it’s fortunately not particularly embarrassing.)

Pretty shortly she's done. She hands the phone back to him. "Okay, all of that was cloud stuff, so you should be safe from data loss and public exposure alike."

“Thank you”, he replies, taking the phone and putting it back into his pocket.

And then they’re saved from more awkward storytelling by a knock on the door.

"Probably Leo," Sable says, rising from the couch. "You coming to the door with, or tanking the backlash for the minute?"

“Yes, it should be him. My backlash would probably have me looking for you or someone else to tell stuff to so I’ll just come along.”

Not having let go of her hand yet, he also stands up.

And back to the stairs and up to the door. She opens it and smiles. "Hello!"

“Hi!”, Leo replies with a similar smile. “You’re Sable, right?”

He’ll glance briefly at Eliel (who nods at him for a greeting and continues to try very hard to stay silent) but otherwise keep his attention on her.

"I am! You're Leo, I take it? Come in!" She'll step back down the stairs with Eliel to clear the way for Leo to enter.

“That’s me! Eliel’s extrovert,” he adds lightheartedly, “he’ll usually say that it’s against his will but he doesn’t really mean it.”

Eliel was going to interrupt to comment that he doesn’t actually dislike Leo’s company but Leo says it first.

(See, backlash? He doesn’t need to say things when Leo’s around. Leo probably knows him better than Eliel knows himself.)

"Cute. So, welcome to my studio apartment. I do not have esper money yet, because I'm a two-weeks-old baby esper who is still trying to figure out how to handle backlash management enough for better testing because I stubbornly want to have better information before I go agent hunting."

“That makes sense. Esper powers look like they can get complicated! And I guess that having found someone you’re compatible with will be helpful?” He gestures at Eliel.

“Back to what I’m here for, uh, can you demonstrate your power? I hope that’s not a weird request but, well, you’re a stranger and El’s probably awakening and I’d like to be a bit more sure that him staying with you is a good choice.”

"Permission to peer a bit at your mind, your goals specifically?"

“El wouldn’t like it but I don’t mind. Go right ahead!”

No, but you see, it would be a great idea! If Sable looks into his mind then he’s hiding less stuff! Shut up, backlash. (It doesn’t listen but he’s going to focus on deciding what to tell Sable next time he’s speaking instead of interrupting now, and feel generally miserable but it’s a different flavour than the embarrassment.)

She opens eyes that aren't physical, listens to something that isn't a sound, the feeling is unlike anything she can describe properly. Around her are minds, sparkling bright, glimmering with intents and goals. One of them, just a few feet in front of her, is Leo. What are his goals, what does he want, what does he seek?

His most immediate goal is making sure that Eliel is as safe and comfortable as possible. Much less intensely and it’s obvious to her that this will immediately get discarded if it interferes with the first one, he would like to help everyone at the party he was planning to go to have fun. The third near-future goal she might notice is to get a good grade on the exam on Tuesday.

And there's the non-obvious fact she can use to demonstrate.

"Good luck with Tuesday's exam," she says with a smile. "What's it on?"

He smiles back, “Analytic Geometry, not my favourite subject.”

"Not one I've gone deep into, unfortunately, and I think Eliel's going to probably be taking up all my attention, otherwise I'd offer to help you study. Your other goals were to make sure he's safe and comfy, and to make sure the party guests have a fun time if that doesn't conflict with Eliel Protection Duty, but those were much too obvious given what I already knew. The exam was new, something Eliel hadn't told me about."

Leo nods, “thanks anyway. Luckily, I already have a study group and none of its members are busy watching over awakening espers, at least as far as I know. I’m not really a hidden motivations kind of guy,” he adds with a chuckle, “but you found something to confirm your esperness, so everything’s good.”

"Glad to soothe your concerns. My plan is to keep him fed and watered, keep him from reinstalling social media apps, chat as much as he needs, and give him as much platonic cuddling as he wants. Then we'll see what he wants to do when hellweek's over."

“Thank you. Let me know if either of you needs anything. If you want my guess, once hell week is over he’s going to want to hide for a while.”

Eliel hasn’t been paying much attention to the conversation and has been sending Leo text messages to avoid interrupting out loud. Still, he nods at that last part. 

"Extremely valid of him! He can hide as much as he wants once it's no longer a health risk! The one big thing I think we're going to need is a trip out to get him some clothes and such, and whether he has any allergies I should know about."

“No allergies as far as I know but you can ask him if you want confirmation. I can get the clothes for him if that works better?”

She shrugs. "That's up to you two, I'm fine with either. I just wanted to get that idea out there while you were here."

He nods and looks at Eliel, “El, what do you prefer?”

“If I go out I’m going to want to tell everyone I see everything I think off.”

That gets another nod from Leo, “I can go get them now.”

"Figured. Okay. Anything else you think I should know, Leo, before you head out?"

“Nothing I can think of, well, maybe my phone number?”

"Good idea." Phone out of skirt pocket, screen unlocked, contacts app opened, and she hands it to Leo on the New Contact screen. "Add yours, I'll text you right now."

He’ll take the phone and add his contact under the name ‘Leo 🏹’ before giving it back to her.

And then he'll presently get a text!

Hi! It's Sable, the weird baby-esper looking after Eliel!

"Thanks, Leo. See you in a few?"

Leo here! I’ll send El your number if that’s okay.

“Yes, be back soon,” he nods and, after a quick wave, heads outside.

Sounds good.

She shuts the door behind him and then heads back to the couch with Eliel.

"So at some point we should probably talk about how much contact you're comfy with for guiding," she suggests with a smile. "I'm pretty flexible, so we're going to go by your limits."

“I’m not sure. I’m not a physically affectionate person. The guiding does feel nice though. I can take off my shirt if that would help? And I’ll let you know if I don’t like it, I mean, I obviously couldn’t hide it even if I wanted to, at the moment.”