"Before I heard that one study found that, I would have guessed it made it worse. But one study is still evidence, if weak evidence. Man, this one really sounds like the sort of thing that would work awesomely for some people and not others, if I was checking it I'd want an absolutely massive sample. Gonna guess it failed to replicate but my probability is very close to point five."

"Well, you're right, it didn't replicate. --Do you want to keep going? I can do this literally all day."

"Lemme estimate how many we'd need to do to get decent statistical power." He whips his phone out of his pants. "Swear I'm not looking up answers," he jokes. (He is in fact doing math and not looking up answers.) After a minute he comes up with a number that won't take too long to do but which will meaningfully compare him to Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.

Oh no Bruce is really cute.

Lev can name the results of dozens of studies and whether they replicated off the top of his head.

Bruce comes up with answers, sometimes immediately, sometimes after a bunch of closing his eyes and going "hmmm". He's not right every time, but he's quite good.

"You're not even looking these up in the book, are you, you just have all this stuff memorized, that's so impressive."

"I don't really have a life."

Bruce makes a "pfah" hand gesture. "Lives are for the real world; this is MIT. Science is cooler than having a life."

"Yeah, well, this is not exactly the science I'm supposed to be doing either."

"Maybe you should switch subjects. There are plenty of professors who'd love you, and you know so much you'd hardly lose any time. I--we'd miss you in the lab but that shouldn't be a factor, I mean we've been shorthanded before."

+1 SED for successfully seducing someone with the replication crisis!

+1 SED for eliciting one of ???'s deepest and most shameful secrets.

Quest available: Deep and Dark

Learn all of ??? Aaron's deepest and most shameful secrets. 

Success: +7,500 xp, 'Good Listener' status effect, +1 LST, +2 PRV, ?????
Failure: +2 ERO, reduced relations with ???

"I can't."

Bruce has just enough time to make a sympathetic face before the popups appear and set his mind racing.

If, as seems likely, all those question marks are pointers to Lev, Lev has a secret extra name (like a superhero secret identity?) and the game wants him to find it. And also to pry into Lev's business generally. And also apparently Lev is into him now, and now that he thinks about it that's definitely reciprocated, but that's so not the important thing here.

Bruce does want to get to know Lev better, but more than that he wants to keep him safe from the game. He needs to get Lev alone and tell him the full truth as soon as possible, and if he's lucky he'll end up in a mental institution if and only if he is in fact having a psychotic break. He's not clicking either yes or no on that quest any time soon.

He wrenches his train of thought back to the conversation at hand, after a pause that's surely way too long. "Can you tell me why you can't? If, if it isn't a secret or something?"

Lev has looked increasingly uncomfortable over the long pause.

"Not a lot of jobs for people with a PhD in psychology. And I did biochem in undergrad, I'd be competing with people who actually have relevant undergrad degrees."

"I can't really advise you there, my life plan is 'apply for tenure track positions and pray'." Last week he would have added "and I don't believe in prayer" but he has occasionally had powerful alien beings respond directly to his thoughts so uh.

A gust of wind blows in a piece of newspaper; out of the corner of his eye Bruce catches the phrase YOU'RE WELCOME.

"I'll just go into industry."

He sounds distinctly unthrilled by this prospect.

That newspaper thing was weird and having someone sane to talk to about this shit is going to be such a relief.

"I feel like, maybe, if you try something risky it might suck, but if you commit to something you hate it will definitely suck. But it's your life. Listen, do you want to come back to my dorm? There's something I want to show you."

"Sure!" he says. 

+1 SED for accidentally successfully propositioning someone. 

Oh, did Lev-or-whatever-his-name-is just agree to make out with him? Thank you, Erogame, for pointing that out, he would have totally missed it and that would have been mega awkward. Now he will instead get to make out with Lev! If Lev doesn't decide he's insane, and if he's still interested after learning about the Erogame, both of which are pretty big ifs. Still, he smiles and stands up from the table.

Lev-or-whatever-his-name-is is smiling at him and gingerly reaches out to take his hand as they walk back. 

Lev's hands are very very soft.

Eeee handholding! Bruce adjusts his stride length so they can hold hands more easily. They get back to his building pretty soon.

Lev smiles at him when they're back at his room.

"You're really cute."

"Thanks! So are you, I've been admiring your taste in jewelry. . . . But I need to explain some stuff before we do anything else. And before I lose my nerve."

Bruce bites his lip, trying to figure out what order to say stuff in. Possibly he is also trying to remember where he put his nerve.

"So should I, probably," Lev says.