And then he jerks awake.

And lies there, for a moment, thoughts racing.

"Perambulator," Haru mumbles into his hair.

What.  Right, he said something about that, maybe - "Haru - Haru wake up -"  Julien sits up and shakes him by the shoulders.

"Zzbwuh? - Julien?"

"Sorry.  Hi.  I don't know how much time I have - it's - the thing you said, I think, about how sometimes it's different shapes, the backlash?  I spent all of yesterday and also the day before thinking that nothing was real, that I was trapped in a fake world, run by malicious people who were going to torture me if I didn't play along - even though I kept not being tortured except for what I did to myself, you must hate me, god, I'm such an idiot - my phone password is 753159882246, can you remember that?  I'll go unlock it for you and then you can just do what you want with it, the fingerprint should work after that as long as you don't let me restart it again -"

"...I definitely can't remember that? Is it important for some reason to have your phone unlocked?"

"You can use it to find out all the stuff that I'll try and hide from you.  I give you permission - hereby - to look through it, to - in case it helps stop me from doing anything fucking stupid - you don't have to remember it, I'll do it and then the fingerprint will work unless you let me restart it.  There's not an actual problem with the reader; it just doesn't let you in after a restart as a security measure.  And it says so on the screen when you try, who did I think I was fooling - argh -"

"Is there in fact something important hidden on your phone? I wasn't really planning to go through your phone even," yawn, "if it was unlocked."

"I don't know.  My contacts?  My mom, I have to tell my mom - I didn't want to see her because I thought she wasn't real and it would probably be way more traumatizing to have her torture me -"  Hyperventilation?  Hyperventilation.

"Oh, yeah, sucks real bad to not think your mom's real -" He's got a notebook on his nightstand. "You don't know her number? Does Starbucks?"

"It's in my phone -"  He crawls over Haru and out of bed; where is it.  Still in his pants pocket?  Yeah, okay, 753159882246 - texting app, where's the conversation there we go - mom I'm having an esper awakening with paranoia love you - send.  Back into bed.

"Do you want to tell her where you are or do you want to - not do that because she might insist on visiting and that could be bad with your symptoms -"

"I don't care about my symptoms - I guess it might be upsetting for her?  What's the address."

Haru recites it.

Type type.  Send.  Cuddle?  It's so much more important now that he knows it's the thing getting him sane instead of the reverse.

Yeah, they can cuddle. "- maybe tell her my number so she has a way to get ahold of me short of coming to the house."

"Good idea.  What is it."

"Hm, is this... work related... yeah let's call it work related..." Number.

Type.  And then his shirt should come off, for better guiding, so he doesn't turn back into that guy.

"I'm - really sorry for trying to sexually assault you..."

"Awakening sucks incredibly bad and I'm not gonna be weird about it."

"Okay.  Thank you."  What if he was lying back down.

...Phone actions phone actions.  "O-positive.  Is my blood type."

"Drat, I'm A-positive."

"Eughh."

"Alas. Well, we don't have to put on shirts, and this level seems - workable? At least in whatever shape you've currently got it in?"

"I guess.  It's -"  There's a noise outside and he jumps.  It's still fucking early in the morning, why would there be a car out - "I didn't want to be guided, before.  I just thought I had to, to stay in character, and also it felt nice and I didn't have very much willpower.  But now it seems like the most important thing to strategize."