"Yeah. The best case scenario is -" He's wending back to the house by now, though he's taking his time about it - "is that we can operate in similar dungeons and I can be with you the whole time, I remain mostly lucid at quite high levels."

She perks up. "Oh! I really hope so, that would be great. We could guide each other if needed, and I trust you to keep tabs on me if I need it." Also, being weaponized in general is scary, but being an extension of his will in a high stakes scenario is really hot, she should talk to him about that when they're at zero backlash and probably not any sooner. 

"I have pretty generic powers so if you've got something good it should be workable in most possible cases of 'something good', but if you wind up being good at four dimensions, then you'd have to make friends with Cricket instead, which would be... harder."

She nods seriously. "I was definitely hoping for something good, rather than bad." 

Then she grins at him. "Gosh, it's easy to forget that in addition to being a ridiculously gorgeous winged cat who is also a talking person and your roommate and friend, Cricket has 4D powers. I do typically enjoy a social challenge, but he does seem a bit... capricious. Do you have any tips?"

"Not enough data. He likes me, seems to pretty robustly like me - and basically only me out of all the people he's ever met and from almost immediately after we encountered one another. I can't rule out that he's judging people ninety percent on smell and I'm just lucky, though he does also form opinions of online people."

"Fascinating! Well, I will start trying to chat with him more. Maybe we can bond by talking about what we like about you! I hear common interests are a great way to start friendships." She grins at him.

It's fun, flying with him like this. She can imagine Mags being here instead, building detailed models of his range, how much thrust he gets off of each jump, stuff like that, but she'd much rather just enjoy the experience.

He seems to like flying too, for all that his speech gets more pressured and he holds a little tighter to his guide-passenger as the backlash climbs. "He's also really into movies and TV. I taught him to read but he's still more comfortable with audio."

Awww, she's really glad she gets to give him more opportunities to fly, then. (She shifts around slightly to maximize skin contact as best she can.)

"Huh! Do you think he'd enjoy being read to? Or would that be too much of a hassle for him.." Her mind wanders back the days of calling 43 before bedtime and reading to them while they drifted off. High school was... so much worse, obviously, but she does miss that.

"I've done it, me reading to people doesn't play as well with backlash as them reading to me but there's a band where it works, but he finds it pretty slow-moving and understimulating compared to a show."

"I definitely want to read to you while you're backlashed sometime, it sounds really cozy." Probably most of the time they will instead do higher bandwidth activities, which she also really wants to do, but the variety is good! "...also if you have, like, shareable notes about your backlash ranges and the activities that work in them, I'd love to check them out sometime, it seems neat." Nuzzle nuzzle.

"What kinds of TV shows does he like? And does he enjoy talking about what he likes about them?"

"I can send you what I wrote up for my agent. And yes, that's the default thing he does if he's being my social outlet, he tells me about what he's been watching and I ask questions and we critique the themes and decide which things it's worth me watching in their entirety and stuff."

Happily wiggling blue esper. "I'd love that!" And ohhh that's so cute and good... she makes a little 'squee' noise. "Delightful! Perhaps I will attempt to solicit his media opinions later this week, I really enjoy learning about what people like in media as a window into their brain."

"He has good if acerbic and... catly... taste." Haru comes in for a landing. "Like he likes action movies a lot more than I do and will sometimes bat at the screen. But he can suss out what I'm getting out of the things I like and assess stuff through that lens."

The squee noise this time is both a bit louder and lasts much longer - she has to take a deep breath afterwards before saying "He bats at the screen??" Oh no that's so cute.... 

"Sometimes! During chase scenes. It's really adorable." Into the house with them. Cricket is watching Gravity Falls.

She nods. "That is adorable, yes." Ooooh, she loves Gravity Falls... She'll note what episode he's on for later; right now Haru is backlashed and needs her attention.

So she kisses him on the mouth. "Are you at a good backlash level to call about Esper Awakening Science? If not, would you like help getting there?"

"Ooh, could go either way on that."

Giggly Cara. She kisses him again, for a bit longer this time. "Well, tragically, due to my backlash, I have no idea which one I want more, so you will have to pick for us."

"I think probably," kiss, "everybody I might want to call," kiss, "will still be there in a few minutes."

"mmmmmmmmmmm" and then it's esper makeouts time (perhaps in Haru's room to avoid Cricket's important TV time?)

Yes, they can maneuver up the stairs so they don't bother the kitty.

Excellent! She would hate to bother the kitty.

...it maybe takes them more than a few minutes to remember that phone calls, but they do eventually.

Phone calls and also a massage! He can start getting calibrated on how hard to press on her shoulder muscles while he's narrating the process of scrolling through his contacts.

Cara very quickly stops saying words. "hhmmmmmmmmmmmmgnnnnnnngmmaaaaaahhhhhh...."

Her back muscles are really knotted. Her pressure tolerance is pretty high, though if he keeps pushing she'll eventually squirm and manage to say "mmmaaaybe lesssssssssss..."

He backs off a little and, with his non-phone hand, gets to work on those startlingly obvious knots, and he calls his chosen phone contact.