"I don't think I can get you all the way to sane even if we do, awakening backlash is a lot and keeps pulling itself back up to the level it's trying to hold steady at as though you were constantly using powers - optimistically maybe you could spend, like, ten fifteen minutes at, like, sssssixty percent of what you're carrying right now if if went flying for as long as I could stand first. - what's your blood type?"

"I don't know."  He has a donor app on his phone with a digital card but even if he could check that right now he wouldn't.

"Tomorrow we can go back to the hospital and check and if I can donate you blood that works almost as well if they've got the quick transfusion machine working. If you can give it back there's theoretically no reason not to sit there for kind of a long time circulating blood back and forth if you need more time with the marginal additional sanity."

"But I want to have sex with you.  It's - you only get one shot at awakening sex, ever - or, most people don't get the shot, most espers don't get the shot, not with someone compatible - I have to do it, unless you really don't want to.  For -"  Don't say 'for the meme', that's not convincing.  "Or else I'll regret it forever."

"There is nothing stopping you from racking up stupid amounts of backlash next week!"

"You're right, I haven't been leveling with you.  My backlash is... that I'm really horny.  Or - it's definitely not just that, but -"  What did the nurse say he should have?  Confusion and paranoia?  "I feel kind of in love, with everyone - not - not romantically, exclusively.  But I just feel like I should trust everyone and like they're each the greatest person in the world, and I - have been trying really hard to counterbalance that.  And I don't know who to trust, or even what to trust, but - you saved me, and I kind of know you but not in the weird, unsettling way like how it is with people I'm actually close to - I don't even know how to describe that part, it's the worst bit of all of this - but, you seem really admirable, and I like your blog, at least what I've had the time to read, and - I was hoping - that I could just kind of throw myself at you and, and - come out okay on the other side.  But I am going kind of insane will you please fuck me."

"Julien, I said next week. You are among other things jeopardizing my willingness to sleep in the same bed as you."

Well what if he starts crying again!  Not actingly!  He can't help it!

He will get a hug. A platonic hug.

Well, it's not Haru deciding to torture him with instruments sharp and blunt.  He'll take that.  ....At least then he wouldn't have to deal with just having done - that, though.

Sob, shake, cling, et cetera.  "I'm sorry - I'm really sorry -"

"Awakenings are fucked up. You can tell me what the heck that was about in a week. Or not, it's your business. In the meantime are we going to have ongoing problems about taking no for an answer?"

"No.  I just - I don't understand what - you want me to do -"  Is the existence of any tissues obvious from Inside The Hug.  "What I'm supposed to be doing.  I thought - it was that?"  Sob.  "There were so many hints.  But I guess I, I just can't tell.  Please don't torture me I'll do what you want if I know what it is -"

There's a box of tissues on the bathroom counter. "I'm not going to hurt you but I'm also not going to take it personally if you can't believe me. You're supposed to survive the week and as what is very much a stretch goal minimize the extent to which you are miserable now and embarrassed later. I don't know exactly how what you are going through sucks but I do have an idea of how much, okay, I'm - trying to help you, not trying to -" Shrug.

That's so far away and they might as well not exist.  Do things he can't see even exist?  What's the draw distance on this simulation.  Probably father than to the bathroom; he's pretty sure that would just be inefficient.

"I - just - 
"Please, can I have some notes?  I didn't know what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't know at all what my actual backlash is supposed to be, I thought making one up would help because I don't get this one - I don't get how to make it work with what's happened - please don't torture me I'll stop being meta in a minute -"

Well at this point Haru's pajama shirt is getting a little soggy so he is going to take it off and shuffle Julien over to the tissue box and grab him a tissue. "The hospital said paranoid delusions, but they didn't seem sure and it doesn't necessarily have to follow a pattern of a nonmagical condition. You don't have to tell me anything more about it because I can tell just by having touched you that you've got some kind of backlash, and a lot of it, and that's what I need to know to want to help you given that I'm compatible enough to do it. I guess unless you decide that it's intolerable that I talk in my sleep and decide to stab me about it, I'd send you back to the hospital then."

Okay well Julien is going to need more than one tissue but he can do that with his eyes closed, except for the locating-the-trash part.

"Were you going to take a shower?  I can go to bed."  (Cling.)

"I was going to do that, yes." And under the circumstances does not intend to invite company. "Five minutes, okay?"

"Thank you five minutes," he murmurs rotely, and takes the box of tissues with him as he navigates out of the bathroom with his eyes closed.  Once he's out, he - could open them?  He doesn't really want to.  ...But it would be irresponsible; he'd trip and break something.  Or himself.  It doesn't do to give them more excuses to hurt him.

Five minutes later he's, yeah, in bed, weeping actively again.

A damp Haru in pajama pants and no shirt gets in next to him and puts an arm over him.

"...Don't you want a shirt?" he sniffles.

"Do you want me to put one on? More skin is more guiding."

"I - don't care either way."

What if he curls up facing away from Haru, with his hands to himself in front of his chest, and then - pulls the hem of his own shirt up.  So that his midsection is all bare skin.  (Except for how it's under blankets.)

Then he'll get a Haru big spoon around him and a lot of Torso Guidance.

Well, it's not that he doesn't want to go into a big guilt spiral about this late into the night, but what if instead he passed the fuck out and stayed that way for a solid almost-seven hours.