"I'm not planning on it! I want to be a full time esper, and I don't think school will really help me with that." She leans into him. "I'd love to do dungeons with you, if you'd have me." 

"When do you want to start? I can have Paula look for suitable ones."

She wiggles happily, then starts thinking aloud. "I'll want to do some power use practice with you and think about tactics - oh, I need to get some noise cancelling headphones that only link to you (or primarily link to you?). Possibly some other kinds of gear, but that's the thing that seems the most important to have before even my first dungeon..." 

"I'm prone to comms chatter when I'm backlashed but I should be able to avoid superfluous imperatives. You want durable clothes you can move in, really good durable shoes you can move in, and eventually you'll want things like goggles and a gas mask and hearing protection but you don't need those in every dungeon."

"I won't mind you being chatty at any backlash level!" She nuzzles him.

"Hmmm, I need to go clothes shopping anyways," (she glances down and grins) "so I can hit up somewhere for active wear and then I guess an athletic shoe place? I can do that all this afternoon, I think!" 

He glances at her chest. "I'll be of no help, I have the fashion sense of the average forklift."

She sees him glance and wiggles her eyebrows. "I'm a social butterfly in her early 20s, I know lots of people with clothes opinions. I'll poke around and see who I can get to go shopping with me." 

"You could pull out a hair and look at the root really closely to know what exact shade you need to match."

"Oooh, good idea." She pulls one out and takes a photo for later. 

"So, probably it takes me a day to get clothes and stuff ready, and also I wanna go back to grab some stuff, but if you're cool with it I'd love to come back here and spend the night and it sounds like we could do a simple dungeon as early as tomorrow?" 

"Sure. What should I tell Paula about what kind of dungeon you think'd be good for dipping your toes in? There's usually a few open in Toronto at any given time and if we're willing to wait or travel we can get more options."

Eee yay!

"Hmmm. Something where there's a lot of stuff moving around, maybe? I dunno."  Nuzzle.

"What do you think makes a good starting dungeon? What was your first one like?" 

"My first one was -" He can dig up pictures of the hilly armadillo dungeon. "I went with Rhombus, she's really passionate about onboarding new espers, but I have enough experience now to be your shepherd."

Cara peers eagerly at the photos, then makes a surprisingly realistic sheep noise at him.

- sporfle.

"Beep beep I'm a sheep!" She giggles and nuzzles him. 

Okay, now's as good a time as any. "So do you want to chat at some point  (now is fine, later is also fine) about - what we each want / are looking for in an esper partnership? 

"Soon is good but I want to finish texting Paula - she knows not to put a baby esper in a really gnarly one, but like, what about your power do you think will respond the most to live fire practice, how are you feeling about geeshing monsters..."

She leans into him and thinks.

Dungeon monsters invariably want to kidnap people into dungeons and prevent them from escaping. Dungeons torture people.

It's not complicated, when you put it like that.

"I'm okay with using it on dungeon monsters, yeah. I think - I need practice deciding how best to use it in live situations, practice using it on myself as a mobility tool, and practice using it on large amounts of momentum. Maybe the last two at the same time?" 

Pat pat. "Okay." Text text. "So, partnerships. I've been limping along with June for kind of a long time, I don't like mixers and when I've dragged myself to them I usually can't find anyone compatible there..."

She nods. "So basically, this is new territory for you too?" 

Lean. What does she want...

"Yeah, pretty much. Uh, it's not a good idea for me to live alone and I want the opposite of a silo in the classical sense when I'm backlashed but I don't have to live with my mother in particular. If the powers synergize well then doing dungeons together is a great idea because it lets both people go a bit farther and hold out a bit longer and you obviously need a - tripsitter - when you're backlashed even if I normally don't. The - paradigm - that one sees occasionally in real life, albeit less often than in fanfiction - is partners who are also romantically involved and having amazing sex all the time, and that does - sound nice - but I don't know that it can happen just by way of it sounding nice, necessarily -"

She blushes. 

"Okay, let's see. So it might be good to conduct a low-stakes experiment on cohabitating while I'm not awakening, but as it currently stands I'm enthusiastic and optimistic about living with you! I hope our powers synergize because - yeah, I don't want to go into dungeons without someone I trust there to keep me out of trouble, if things get too bad, and you are very extremely trustworthy." She leans into him happily.

"I - am definitely at least falling to you a little, though if you end up not being interested in a romantic relationship I am still interested in being esper partners." She blushes and looks away. "And, uh, I'm definitely interested in guiding sex. Tonight, if you want." She kind of wants to jump him right now, but she has things she wants to get done today that aren't him.

Happy wiggle.

!! he wiggled!! She wraps both arms around him and kisses him on his nose. 

Oh he's so cute. This calls for more kissing! All over his face. Including even the lips, maybe.