"Ren's into the strawberry basil combination but I don't, culinarily speaking, get it."

"Oh, see, that sounds good to me -" and so on until they're both out of gelato.

Whereupon all four spoons and both cups are done away with and they can get back in the truck.

Indeed.  And Bug's normal about it!

Good for Bug. Back into the house they go.

The garage is still included among the things Bug's normal about.  He snuggles up and checks the shipping tracker for the package.  Should be set to arrive in the next few hours; good.  And then he will again maybe die permanently.  (He is spending soooo much time thinking he's going to die permanently.  Probably that comes with the territory and in any case he most likely only has a few hours of it left, either way.)  So, what else does he want to do before then.  Well, there's dinner with his mom, which he wants to go well.  He wants... to indulge himself, which the outing was admittedly pretty good for.  There's another kind of classic thing, besides food, when one's looking for decadence, but Julien would be deeply upset if he propositioned Haru, possibly enough so to show up on the spot, and trying to find anyone else would be impractical at best.

So, he can... practice music?  Homework is not indulgent at all but it would make him seem very cool...  He could write Julien another letter, except that the utility there is mostly in the assumption that he'll ever be back again as a party needing, for example, financial negotiation.  But maybe he'll think of something.

"I'm going to go hang out in the guest room," he announces.

"- okay, under what circumstances should I check on you, you seem stable, but I've got years of practice and have still once or twice accidentally fallen into the wrong backlash hole."

"...I'll set an alarm to come out at least for a minute in an hour?"

"Okay. I will also come bother you if I hear, like, particularly concerning noises." Haru sets a one-hour timer for himself, and picks up Candide.

"Sounds good."  Bug sets one for 58 minutes and gathers his (...and Julien's) laptop and guitar on the way to the bedroom.

He spends a while playing guitar without reference, seeing what he can remember with only his head and his hands, and that feels... nice.  Fine.  It's satisfying.  They've put work into this and now he has results.  It is not per se decadent, but..... okay he will do something definitely decadent, and he'll be very quick and quiet about it, and he won't think about Haru during it so that Julien doesn't die of embarrassment and self-loathing later.  It's kind of convenient how much of a mood-killer being very scared is, in terms of how embarrassed and self-loathing Julien would have been if the topic of him being turned on had come up more than once (and a half, with the delusional lies part).  But also, he's just kind of a freak, they're collectively kind of a freak, and it's not enough to stop him when he doesn't want it to instead of when he does.  Which he already had some idea of from the three-hour bath the other day.

With that done, he - yeah, he feels up to doing some homework.  Which will be nice to have accomplished.  It's cool to be a cool person and doing homework during his awakening makes him a cool person.  Totally.

But that motivation doesn't last very long and so he gets distracted after like twenty minutes.  Phonecheck.  Apparently the harness has arrived!  Which is a great excuse to swing by the bathroom and then out to the front door and then back to Haru for snuggles and unboxing, well before either of their alarms go off.  (He singsongs "Packaaaaage~" on the way out, so as not to appear like he's making a break for it, or whatever other dangerous backlashy thing.)

"What exactly is the plan for putting the package to use, I don't know that you ever spelled it out."

"Sometime after dinner but ideally a bit more before bedtime than the last switch attempt, we strap up and go flying, ideally with you still holding onto me about as much as you would to a harnessless person because the cost difference between two skydiving harnesses and two rock-climbing ones was nearing a couple thousand dollars and Julien went with the former?  And ideally with some drops sharp enough to terrify me into turning back into him."  He's having a bit of trouble getting the tape off.  "...This would be easier with a knife, do you want to -"

Haru accepts the package and gets the kitchen scissors to slice it open. "I normally carry people in a not very harness-esque position but I can, like, hug you."

"We can trial some configurations hovering in the living room first, is maybe the way."

"Sure. Like shortly before the excursion or like now?" Harnesses are extracted from their packaging.

...Sigh.  "I kind of want to lie down and get guided but it's probably better to try a few now and then also later for redundancy."

"No reason not to lie down for like half an hour and try stuff after that, dinner's not that soon."

"This is so true.  Should I play with your hair some?  It seems only fair."

"I don't have a specific thing about it but I wouldn't stop you."

".......I can't tell whether that means you think it sounds niceish or whether you would just be humoring me."

"It sounds niceish, it would never have occurred to me to ask, I might be pleasantly surprised, who knows."

"Mmkay."  Hair.  Hand.  Starting out on the gentler side.

"Mmm."

Hooray, it's not going horribly somehow, yet.  Bug will gradually increase the scritching factor based on vibes.

The vibes wind up being that he is done after not very much of this.