"For this?"

"I don't... go out and run errands, backlashed? I run dungeons while it goes up and I sit with June while it goes down. Sometimes there is an awkward interstitial period where the dungeon's over with or I need to quit and June's not available yet and then I hang around talking to reporters and calling everybody I know while I wait for her. But it doesn't strictly speaking advantage me, it just disadvantages me way more at some things than at other things."

"Hmm yeah.  ...My nurse only called you because she knew yours was that, though.  But maybe that's not an advantage."

"I mean, I'm glad she called me, but Paula screens out most random people who are calling me."

"Maybe this is a useless line of conversation.  I'm not going to figure out how I feel about this until I know whether I'll ever have to deal with it," or if he'll die first "and Julien also probably won't have any very productive relevant introspection until he's saner."

Nod.

"Howww was your not-a-nap?"

"Queued a blog post on dungeon response in Egypt, guy finally got back to me about it the other day."

"Nice.  Spoilers?"

"They have really strict gun control and they don't like compromising on it for dungeoneers. They're an exceptionally urbanized country because of how they concentrate along the Nile and they seem to be enjoying decent luck with dungeon sirens."

"Ooh.  Do they sub out explosives for guns or just use magic or what."

"They have guns but there's a special agency that handles them, somebody can't just have a shitload of munitions in their garage like I do."

"- Oh!  I wish I didn't know that.  They're like, really locked up and not going to affect my life at all, right?"

"Sorry. They are super locked up and will not affect your life."

"That's good."

"I only pull them out when I'm going to a dungeon and I'm not doing those this week."

"I believe you!  ...I don't, I'm sorry, I'm made up of pretending but mostly in a way that's not really false, but that one.  Was.  It just slipped out.  But uh, I think probably they won't actually affect my life except for how it's another thing to fixate on, even if I don't have the, the experience of believing you.  Or, it doesn't matter whether I think they'll affect my life as long as they, y'know, don't.  I'm rambling."  He shuts up, with great intention.

"Do you want me to go into more detail about how they're locked up or do you want to not talk about the contents of the garage any more."

"The latter."

"Okay. Mom, how long till dinner?"

"Maybe twenty minutes."

"Thank you!"

"No problem. Haru, I got bacon bits for ours."

The soup is pretty good when it's ready, with or without bacon bits, and then it's back to the couch for the espers.

You know what; he'll have a go at some of Julien's homework.  And check over the existing progress, which looks good to him.  And then - what does he want to spend what might be his last few hours on....  More ice cream, actually, more ice cream and - what's the most indulgent thing he can think of.  Not music and not a brainless podcast - maybe an audiobook?  No, poetry.  He has an ebook of a Les Fleurs du Mal with side-by-side-by-side text in French and literal English and rhyming English.