"I just kind of hope I can steer.  Into something stably better than that."

"You maybe can, so long as you remain convinced you're supposed to be doing that. I have my three backlash flavors and I steer to the less suicidal ones."

"Mm, yeah.  .....I might go sleep again.  If I'm going to do that.  And not other things."

"Okay. I can... stay till we're both zeroed, shouldn't be long if you keep a handle on it?"

"Sounds good."  He lies down.  He's not going to ask about - anything else.

Haru rests a hand on his arm and waits. (...anything new in the groupchat?)

Not yet.

He answers an email in the remaining time to zero, and then lets himself out of the guest room.

Julien sleeps till around 4.

Yes, Cricket understands that this guy is a pretty strong candidate for a partner whose guiding needs are less stupid than June's. Yes, Cricket understands that this involves tolerating a person who isn't Haru and doesn't start out necessarily predisposed to accommodate all Haru's needs for a wonderful kittycat the way Ren is. Yes, potentially even at home and not just when he's working and has to interact with vics/Hyperion/Hyperion's partner/etc. He understands all this and wants to be scratched under his left wing NOW, Haru.

Purrrrr.

occurs to me that we should make sure Cricket's okay with mysterious accidental power use before I meet him

awkward to arrange in that order! it's not out of the question but he'll feel like you owe him a favor

this seems okay insofar as he's a responsible favor holder

might help build rapport even

Ironically he is sometimes an extremely petty favor holder but nothing outrageous. Should I tell him that you want this favor?

If I'm probably going to be able to exceed his expectations I do but otherwise I think I hadn't better.

The good news is that he has very low expectations. We could also ask someone else for power testing help, if this is getting too complicated?

I have hope in my ability to exceed very low expectations.  Let's do it.

Ready when you are.

He hups and glances around for whether there's a shirt in here.  Not a clean one, he thinks: to the door.

Downstairs on the couch is Haru.

On his lap, a sprawling belly-up monster getting scritches. He can purr and talk at the same time. "Hello."

"Hello!  Nice to properly meet you and sorry about before."

"It looks very tiresome to have superpowers that require that sort of thing," says Cricket magnanimously.

"No kidding."

"It really was, and probably also will continue to be.  I hope I didn't inconvenience you too badly."