"A fair bit."  He combs his fingers through Haru's hair.  "There are a handful of drugs that aim for effects similar to your loneliness; the closest match lasts between two and twelve hours depending on dosage, with the strength of the effect matching the duration.  The description of neediness is similar to what you display, although the fact that it continues even as you receive attention is not."

"If we assume that my memories have any validity I think they incline me to a model where I am from another timeline or something where there are espers, those haven't always been around, we'd just have to diverge sometime before the seventies. And also in this timeline at least some people believe that you can knock people harmlessly unconscious without this being a concussion, which, maybe some people kind of believe that at home from watching too many action movies, but they don't also offer to do it."

"I was getting to that.  The first part at least - let's be careful of your head, then, shall we?"  He scritches Haru thoughtfully.

"Thank you, when it's working right I'm really attached to it."

"But now you're intermittently suicidal?"

"Assuming that blah blah memories etcetera I should be able to stay on top of that if I'm careful, with practice, psychological backlash is malleable a little bit. The suicidalness pops up if I get solipsistic and I hate my other choices less even though they are also very unpleasant and embarrassing."

"Hm.  In that case I shall still offer to throw together a helmet you can't take off by yourself, but not expect you to accept."

"I've had a concussion before, because I'm dyspraxic and fell down the stairs, but I think becoming an esper might fix that, so that's a nice consolation prize for not getting to safely try out my new superpowers. Unless you are planning to punch me in the head I don't think a helmet is a good use of... any of the things it trades off against, just keep me away from the kitchen knives and don't leave me alone."

"...Noted.  As for your memories, I haven't been able to find record of any drugs which by themselves produce anything remotely as immersive as you seem to be experiencing.  Or rather, there might be some that operate on a similar scale internally, such that you might not be able to distinguish them yourself, but as someone interacting with you - receiving logical responses to my questions, seeing you look at things that are actually in the room instead of phantoms that aren't there - I can rule them out.

"Much more likely, from a shall we say local perspective, is the possibility of extensive conditioning work.  There are various methods, but the gist of the idea is that someone wanted you to believe in espers and did a large amount of very fine detail work to make it so.

"However, since many governments have at least occasionally been publicly working on contacting other universes for decades, I'm most inclined towards believing your suspected version of events."

"...contacting them enough that they could send me home?"

"Unfortunately, all material on the subject younger than a few decades old is generally both secret and not something I personally have been working on.  But it doesn't seem out of the question."

"Espers are useful and stuff, if that's the kind of consideration they're responsive to. Lots of 'em work in civilian industries, you don't need to have dungeons kidnapping people to want the espers that came with that."

"I'm interested to hear more, but if that's really the truth behind your situation I expect at least our government will not need convincing in order to be motivated to help you."

"I am not going to want to prove it before I can get back to my universe, I do not want undischargeable chronic backlash."

"Easy transportation to a separate Earth even with no magic and much worse technology then our own would still be a huge advantage for any country that could control it.  No one reasonable is going to ask you to demonstrate."

Ari returns with two glasses of water.  She hovers awkwardly for a moment until Xavier holds his hands out to take them, then nabs some coasters and sets them on the coffee table.

"Would that everyone were reasonable." He scootches in a little when the arm is no longer around him.

Then there's room for Ari on his other side.  "Is it my turn for a massage or does it not work like that, is that not helpful."

"It is probably just as satisfactory to the compulsion situation but I can't guarantee I'll be any good at it." He will make an attempt.

"That's fine, I'm not either."

Xavier scoots back a bit to make room.  "Is there any danger besides suicide in not indulging your compulsions?"

"I... could have sleep deprivation related problems, over the week? I don't think I'll be able to sleep alone."

"Eugh."

"There's room enough with me."

"Thanks. It probably doesn't have to be a human if you know someone with a dog you could borrow though."