Haru gets a text in the late afternoon.
Hey I think I might be awakening. And also my TA. We’re both having some kind of weird psychotic break that reduced in intensity after I more or less abducted her for implausibly pleasant snuggles for several hours. HELP
She texts him her dorm building and room number. Backlashed her did not think to consider where the TA lived.
Haru doesn't have room for two passengers in his truck. He shows up in an Uber instead. Will the building admit him?
Lucy is bored. Nothing interesting is happening and none of the objects in front of her are fun.
Oh! One of her pockets contains Phone, though. Phone has Games. That’ll do.
And nothing of note happens until the class ends and she continues sitting there while everyone else leaves, and someone suggests to the TA that she check on her.
The TA walks over to Lucy, says her name a few times, waves a hand in front of her face, and then, when none of these get a reaction, taps her lightly on the upper arm.
WHOAH.
That was REALLY GOOD. There was some amount of increasing goodness as the thing approached but it didn’t occur to her to correlate them until the thing touched her. Lucy immediately grabs the thing—yep, still REALLY GOOD—okay time to glomp.
Works for her!!! Wow this is so excellent. And she can maintain lots of skin contact while also still playing phone games! Life is good.
"What - Cara??" She pauses, several objections piling up in her head at once.
She finally settles on "I have a class in here, you and your ?girlfriend? need to clear out of here."
Sure why not.
She doesn’t bother to collect most of her stuff, just lets herself be tugged along. She can always come back for it later.
"-no, take that stuff with you, I am teaching a class in here?" What is with these girls.
Cara collects Lucy's stuff and puts it in her bag, then leads the two of them out of the room and a little ways down the hallway.
Sure why not.
Hmm. They are now standing up. This is less comfortable than not that. Lucy starts doing the tugging. There exist places, with, like, soft couches, it’d be good to end up at one of those.
They don’t happen to encounter one before Lucy drags Cara into her dorm room. Which does not actually contain a couch but the bed is soft enough.
The comfy blanket is easy to arrange in whatever form Lucy wants it! (It is Nice To Touch from the shoulders down, the neck up, and about 3/4ths of the way down the legs to about the ankles.)
Good. Excellent.
The Comfy Thing is pretty warm, though, and it’s already a pretty warm day. Lucy considers this for a moment and then takes off her pants.
(This action elicits no response from the Comfy Thing, though it does provide increased surface area for contact.)
After a while, Lucy’s roommate enters the room, takes one look at this tableau, does an about-face and exits. She knocks on the door of the next room over, borrows a sock, hangs it on the doorknob, and leaves to find somewhere else to study.
…Huh. Lucy knows that noise. It’s a pain noise. And she isn’t making it.
Which means that someone else is. And from pretty up close. Why would someone else be in her bed?
As she puzzles through this question, she contemplates the past several hours—wait, she was in class. And completely blew off the course material. Why would she do that?
“Hello?”
Cara tries to say something and discovers that her mouth is mysteriously very dry, and so the sound doesn't really come out properly at all! That's... bad...
She whimpers.
Well that’s not good. After some thought, she can identify the person as the Warm Thing that feels really good to hug—
Wait. Hang on. Snuggling doesn’t normally feel this good. And her brain is not working correctly.
Um.
Okay the first thing she’s going to do is make the person who is in pain drink some water and take a painkiller. She doesn’t have water immediately at hand so in order to do this she grabs a glass and the pill bottle and drags the other person out of her room and into the bathroom.
(If they pass any other people in the hallway, while Lucy is pantsless, none of them identify themselves by expressing pain.)
Moving: it's now surprisingly difficult! She does her best, leaning on Lucy for support.
Well Lucy is going to make this work.
Okay. Bathroom. Fill the glass of water. Now…hm.
She’s going to experiment with pushing the pain pill into various bits of the person’s surface until one of them turns out to be the mouth. If the person isn’t right side up this is going to get Not Excellent fast.
Lucy... wants to feed her this pill, apparently. She opens her mouth obediently.
Ah! That’s the mouth, probably! She stops trying to jam the pill up Cara’s nose, inserts the pill, and then starts slowly tipping water into the probably-mouth-hole.
She manages to get pill and water into her mouth and swallow! Her throat is so parched that she starts coughing, the cup of water spilling onto her shirt.
With practice, Cara gets better at being watered! (She still spills some, but less this time.)
Eventually Lucy decides that probably enough water has gone in the person and drinks a glass of water herself.
”Hello?” she tries again.
Oh no, a hard question. she tries to pay attention to sensations.
after a long pause, she says:
"My head hurts the most. My stomach hurts some. My back and neck and arms are sore. And - something - feels wrong, but it's not... pain."
“Okay. I gave you a headache pill; you can’t have another of those for a while but when we get back to my room you can have a pill for muscle pain. I think I remember something about lime and coconut for stomach pain but I don’t know where to find those. Is it harder than usual to think.”
"...I don't know. The headache makes it harder?"
she pauses, thinking.
"...it is harder to notice... things I'm feeling..."
Good enough. She texts Traceless about the situation, then refills the water glass and herds the person, who she’s now pretty sure she recognizes as the TA from the class she ignored, back to her room.
Cara continues to be very herdable! (She stumbles, once or twice, but catches herself on the wall)
Okay. Once they’re there she finds her bottle of muscle pills and feeds the TA one with the water. She replies to Traceless’s return text and then…hm.
Pain is bad. There’s not a lot she can do for the stomach pain, but…
She rummages in her minifridge for a pudding cup—not as cold as would be ideal, but not nothing—and pulls her over to the bed. Without breaking contact, she lays the TA facedown, the pudding cup under her forehead, and then…well, when Lucy has muscle pain…
When Traceless finds Lucy’s dorm room, the door is slightly ajar with a sock on the knob. Lucy is wearing a shirt, and underwear, but no pants, and straddling a thankfully-fully-clothed girl while pressing a pair of (clean) vibrators into her shoulder; one a magic wand and one a purple jelly dick with exquisitely molded details.
"...oh my god. Okay. Let's figure out whether I need to put on gloves for this operation or not. Fistbumps?" He holds out both of his hands.
"...okay, great, why stop at one ridiculous coincidence today. Lucy, put those down and put pants on and pack yourself a couple changes of clothes... actually will your stuff fit her..."
Lucy attempts to use her hands to compare the size of her hips to the TAs in a way she maybe wouldn’t at zero backlash.
Cara pulls her dress up out of the way to make it easier to measure! (She's wearing biker shorts underneath.)
This Might As Well Happen. "It's probably closer than my size, anyway. Fourish changes of clothes. We're going to my house. I need to get ahold of your families, are either of you in a state to help with that."
Yeah close enough. Lucy attempts to get up to grab clothes. She does not, to be clear, let go of the TA for this.
”My phone has a contacts list.” She unlocks her phone for him.
Cara can easily be towed around while Lucy gets clothes!
She pulls out her phone. "I can send messages on my own if you tell me what they should say and who they should go to?"
"I need you to tell me who they should go to, who's your emergency contact, both of you." He will help with clothes retrieval when Lucy's encumbered reaching makes it clear enough what she's trying to get.
Mostly shorts and shirts with short or no sleeves, but also a couple of skirts because why not.
”Um…my mom. Or my brother. Either one.”
This is the esper Traceless borrowing Lucy's phone, she is awakening, please text me rather than calling for the immediate future, my number is..."Tell your aunt Rachel 'I am awakening, please text the esper Traceless at -" And his number aloud again.
Lucy’s brother responds immediately:
Traceless? With the blog? Can you provide some evidence you’re not some clown who stole my sister’s phone, please, that’s statistically more common than esper awakening.
Her mother replies a few seconds later:
Awakening??? Is she alright, what’s happening???
You can get the same number for me through my agent if you prefer. Paula Bescond, like it says on my blog's about page.
She's OK, in a bewildering coincidence one of her ?classmates? awakened at the same time and they've been glommed on to each other till Lucy was guided enough to text me, I'm going to take the both of them home. What do I need to know to look after a not-all-lucid Lucy for a week?
Paula, OK to give my number to concerned parties asking about these two uni students who just started awakening at each other today till one of them texted me, you're expecting a Wilbur Wayne
Okay, I’ll do that, thanks.
She doesn’t eat cephalopods but there are no other dietary restrictions—she’s photosensitive, usually she can handle that on her own but I don’t know how lucid is not—if she’s in a bed with another person she categorically won’t stay on her own side, I imagine that’s unlikely to be a problem under the circumstances?
Yeah, that's not a problem, I'm planning to put her and the other girl in my guest bed together and they seem like they will be fine with this arrangement
She seems fine so far but awakeners shouldn't be left alone. I'm going to take her home with me, and also the other awakener she's been glommed onto for the last several hours (t's a newsworthy coincidence but I checked them both and they're legit, if you're not sure I'm legit you can go to eventualities.traceless.com and find my agent's name and go through her to make sure I'm who I say I am). Anything I should know about for looking after her? She can talk but I'm not sure exactly in what way she's impaired yet.
(a pause while she checks with the agent)
She's usually very expressive, but
(Aunt Rachel proceeds to share the same information she shared about Cara in the other thread)
Thanks
Okay, agent checks out
Wilbur texts.
thank you for looking after my sister and also rescuing her from a dungeon that one time
she admires you a lot
please do not take undue advantage of that
I'm just going to put her in the guest bedroom with the other awakener she has coincidentally already glommed onto and make sure they eat and stuff, I'm not going to be weird about it and wouldn't even if there were only one of them
Yeah, legit
“Oh—you should know—she’s in pain. Head, and stomach, and muscles. I gave her an acetaminophen for her head just before I texted you the first time and a naproxen sodium for her muscles just after I texted you the second time.”
"Yeah, her aunt says she gets headaches if she's overstimulated, I'm going to get her lunch and earplugs and hopefully that'll help. You can go on giving her a backrub if you want, that's a perfectly good guiding activity, but no more vibrators."
"We did not pack them, it will work less well at guiding than your bare hands will, and it may embarrass you when you're more fully lucid."
She worries at her lip and nods. “We didn’t pack them” is kind of overriding, but—pain is bad. Backlash is also bad but she doesn’t have that as a cached certainty the way she does with “pain is bad,” so she’s not 100% sold on trading off pain relief for guiding.
But she doesn’t have them so it’s kind of moot.
She understands what she's supposed to do! Stay attached to Lucy and stay with the group.
However, her body... isn't quite cooperating. She stumbles a few times in the hallway, and then - trips -
Nope, he's got her. He'll just carry her over to the sofa. "Food soon, that should help if you're faint. Lucy, your order or should I guess?"
“Oh—curry. I’m not a spice freak but my tongue is less white than I am. Do they have mango lassi?”
being carried is embarrassing but it's also soooo much nicer than walking...
"...oh, can I get one too?"
"Mango lassis for all. Butter chicken good, Lucy? Cara, your aunt suggested malai kofta so that's what you're getting if you don't have a better idea."
Medium butter chicken, extra spicy paneer tikka, a tandoori salmon for Haru, three mango lassis and an order of gulab jamun, express delivery, finalize order. "That should be here soon."
Good. Lucy snuggles closer to Cara, petting her forehead as though that would fix the headache.
"I'm gonna go get you some earplugs, Cara, I have over-ear protection but it's meant for shooting and it'd be hard to hear a conversation."
She leans into the petting, making small happy noises.
"... don't think I need earplugs? if Aunt Rachel mentioned sounds, that's like - parties, big crowded areas with low ceilings..." she mumbles.
"Makes sense, I'll grab them anyway but no need to put them in unless they'd help." He fetches a jar of earplugs and puts them on the end table.
"Either of you need anything else? Bathroom's over there, I'm going to stash your clothes in the guest room which is the one on the end of the hall to your right once you go up the stairs..."
oh wow she actually needs to use the bathroom pretty badly. She will regretfully extract herself to do this
Oh that’s also good. Although—
“Does it feel—less—with you, because you’re not awakening too?”
"Right, I don't have any backlash," he gets out of Cara's way and gestures her into place, "and I'm not sure if we're all the same amount of compatible, either."
She wriggles back into place, some tenson starting to leave her body once she's touching Lucy again.
"Huh, how would we check?"
"It'll be easier to tell when you're both zeroed out and we can see at baseline. I think I'm more compatible with Lucy than I am with you, at least on my end, it's sometimes asymmetrical."
"We are going to be espers!! Gosh." that's... exciting? It's supposed to be exciting, she's pretty sure. but mostly she just feels... what does she feel? huh. hard to tell.
"This is a lot of coincidences but fortunately they all seem to add up to you two having a comparatively nice awakening. Maybe all those ER folks who want espers on call to check for suspected awakenings should just be having the patients poke each other."
“That would rule out multiple espers in the batch but not any one. I think. This is a pretty big coincidence.”
"Yeah, but the argument you always hear is 'one in fifty thousand people is an esper but most people aren't young adults in the ER'... and it'd be cheap."
They are talking a lot and it's a bit hard to follow but they haven't asked her to do anything new and she's being a good blanket and she is SO TIRED so she is just going to chill here -
oh, huh, that's actually interesting.
She perks up a bit excitedly. "I'm tired! And... I noticed all on my own?"
"Do you want to nap and then have your curry later or wait five minutes for it to show up?"
Oh that's a really hard question. Does she - hmm, no, that's not quite working yet, it's frustratingly at the edges... "Woah. My brain is really weird right now???"
Okay, Cara, come on, think differently if the same thing isn't working...
Is she hungry - what and when did she last eat -
Oh. whoops.
"...Um. I should. really eat first... because... I had a very light dinner last night, and. haven't had anything since."
"Okay. That's convenient since probably you should sleep on Lucy, who herself needs food."
Yay being convenient! She's going to get a good grade in awakening esper.
How else can she get a good grade in awakening esper...
The mental motion of when did I last eat? was way easier than am I hungry?, is that a rule that generalizes? When did she last sleep?
"...Oh. Um. So I am noticing that... I didn't really sleep last night? I might be out for a long time."
"You good to turn in very early, Lucy? Or like read a book or something while slept on."
"I have the taste of a literature professor but presumably you can grab ebooks on your phone if you don't like Shakespeare or would prefer your Victor Hugo not in the original French. Uh, I promise not to be weird about it if you guys want to be wearing less for guiding but I'm not sure how accessible either of you presently find your normal comfort level with that?"
"More guiding sounds better to me, if everyone is okay with that! I'm okay with arbitrary amounts of skin contact..."
"Your aunt said, doesn't affect anything for me, my mom will also be fine with it, my cat might conceivably say something rude but this is true of almost every trait you could possibly have."
To Lucy: "... it's the kind of thing some people have strong opinions about, so - I tend to be very upfront about it? I'm glad that it's not a problem for you! I'm wearing biker shorts and a bra under this dress - should I take it off?"
"...um did I mishear or did you just imply that you have a talking cat?? "
"Talking winged cat! He's out terrorizing the wildlife but he'll be back at some point!"
she squeals. "Talking winged cat? How'd you meet? What's he like? Is your relationship more like it would be with a pet, a roommate, a friend..."
"When I was awakening I decided I should get a cat, because my backlash is loneliness and inevitably sometimes other people have their own stuff going on and won't want to talk to me, but I thought I could probably project the neediness onto a pet pretty well. Ren - my mom - posted about this on an esper forum and someone from my agency kind of jokingly offered me this monster cat they had around, doing 4D dungeons for them in exchange for sashimi but getting along really dreadfully with everyone because he's a judgmental jerk to most people. So when I was done awakening I went in to their offices to meet him and he took a pretty immediate liking to me and let me name him. It's a confusing blend of the pet-friend-roommate relationship, he's my best friend and lives in my house but also wants to be petted and brushed and stuff."
“Petting cats is nice but right now snuggling another human being is more appealing than usual.”
Sheeee is going to want to ask more questions about Cricket and also talk to him when she's more herself! For now she just nods along.
She nuzzles Lucy at the snuggling comment. "and 'm very pet-able! peeetable. pet table..."
“You are!” Pet pet pet nuzzle. All pets located on totally safe body parts that do not invite questions of consent.
"mmmmmmmnnnmm wow the guiding makes it sososo nice..."
she (very effortfully) attempts to reciprocally pet Lucy, though she is SO flopped and does not do a very good job.
Lucy bends down and puts Cara’s hand on the top of her head for hairpets.
And then straightens up again because curry!
She looks up at Lucy, mock surprise on her face.
"Lucy! That's us! we're espers!"
She giggles like this is extremely funny.
"What handedness have you two got?" Haru asks, separating out the various items from the delivery bag.
"Convenient. Paneer is here, chicken is here." And a lassi at each place and he'll sit across from them.
This is really good butter chicken! Lucy largely unhugs in order to use her hands for eating but remains pressed against Cara’s side with an ankle hooked around hers.
The reduced surface area for guiding contact is regrettable, but it still feels nice and eating her favorite food while absurdly hungry is very very good! Cara is a well-cared for awakening esper, in this moment.
"Gotta fuel your glowups. Speaking of, you don't need HRT any more, Cara, I double checked and awakening takes care of that."
!!!!
"oh that is soooo exciting" she says once she's swallowed the curry she's chomping on.
"Doesn't re-plumb anything but cosmetically you're all set, yup. And the esper vision standard is 20/10. The hearing's even more dramatic."
That part does sound really good for Cara! Although, for Lucy, personally—“I’m excited to see what powers we get.”
"And you'll know where to go for guiding the powers testing backlash off right off the bat! You don't have to go to those mixers!"
"Well, it's already remarkable that we're all three compatible, it literally can hurt to - well, literally feel like chewing on tinfoil, to expand the cuddlepile, depending, but some people go the have-six-partners route, seems to work for them."
... oh, huh. that's. scary, actually.
she manages to mumble "I - probably will want to stick with you two, for guiding. if that's mutually agreeable. initially."
"We probably have some, if you really want." He looks in a drawer and comes up with a mouth-sized tinfoil scrap.
Thoughtful nom.
“I mean, I wouldn’t make a hobby of it, but it’s whatever, I’ve had much worse at the dentist’s.”
"And that's fine by me, if you guys want to be a routine cuddle pile I can probably do three, four times as many dungeons as I do with my current partner," he adds to Cara.
“Right, yeah, I mean, I might go to mixers, but that’s a fact about me, not a fact about you.” Forehead-smooch. “This is a very nice cuddlepile.”
...oh! they did hear her!! she smiles gratefully at Haru and opens her mouth to say-
"thahmhmnhmnmm", because the forehead smooch turns her already struggling brain off entirely.
"hhhkgfhjfkhfngh...."
Lucy has unlocked: boneless Cara. She is soooooooo flooooooopy. And leaning Lucywards.
this is so much affection and there is also nice guiding going on and Lucy is extremely pretty and Cara is. too tired to suppress her default reaction to this kind of treatment, apparently.
she lets out a quiet moan, and reaches up with her left hand to start stroking Lucy's hair.
"So, not that I'm eager to burst your bubble, it's a very cute bubble, but neither of you are in your right minds, you have a complementary set of gametes, and while backlash is known to be hostile to pregnancy it is not foolproof."
"I-I, also, had no plans to-", she manages to stammer out, flinching backwards a bit.
"If you were both in full command of your faculties not planning to would be plenty and I'd mind my own business! But you're not."
She.... doesn't really know how to respond to that, actually, so she will just. slump.
"Honestly even if nobody involved were trans I'd lightly disrecommend getting up to hanky-panky with an approximate stranger while insane but less emphatically."
"...No, I asked because when I was in student housing I got assigned a roommate for who didn't want to share a room with me. Because I was trans. It made her uncomfortable. And it was this whole deal, because, I didn't think to ask beforehand, and I just - "
She slumps further. "it sucked."
“Well, that’s dumb and bad. Anyway, I’m a virgin, and this would be a terrible week to change that.”
"I'm. not. but I do agree that this is a bad week to be sleeping with people." Even if they're VERY PRETTY and FEEL INCREDIBLE TO TOUCH and KEEP KISSING HER???
“—Are you okay?” Lucy has forgotten that slut-shaming exists but does remember other reasons why someone might have negative affect around “not a virgin.”
"I'm -" embarrassed, overwhelmed, backlashed, developing inadvisable romantic attachments, what else is she forgetting...
"Finish up your curry and we'll get you both situated in the guest room and you can crash."
Cara can finish up her curry as well! It's so nice to have eaten a meal.
And they and the gulab jamun (less one which Haru claims for himself) can go ensconce themselves in the guest room.
ohhh a bed...
she starts to take her dress off, and then - stops and looks at Lucy - "'sthis ok?"
She pulls her dress off over her head and all but collapses into the bed.
"Text me if you need anything and don't want to wake her up," Haru murmurs to Lucy, and then he leaves them be.
"iffyouuuusaaaaaysoooooooo..."
She halfheartedly tries to increase her amount of skin contact with Lucy, but Cara hasn't slept in 40 hours and her meds are wearing off, so she's out like a liiiight.
Aw. Cara’s really cute.
Lucy snuggles up, pulling out her phone to read something since she isn’t ready to go to sleep yet herself.
zzzzz. Cara is a bit of a clingy sleeper.
About an hour in, she starts murmuring. "didn't mean... please don't..."
Oh no!
Lucy presses herself closers against her and if that doesn’t help after a few minutes she’s going to have to take more drastic measures.
The increased contact does seem to help (though it does also increase Cara's clinginess). The traces of stress and fear leave her sleeping face.
Clinginess is fine. Goodness knows she’s been on the other end of the sleepy octopus situation often enough.
Over an hour later, Cara starts twitching in her sleep again. This time, she jolts and startles awake before her murmurs become intelligible.
"Wuh-"
Cara lets out a sob and clings to Lucy, trying not to tremble too much. "s-sorry, I,"
Snuggle pet pet. Slow strokes of Lucy’s hand down Cara’s spine, from between her shoulders to the small of her back.
This is an effective way to calm a scared Cara! The sobs stop, and her breathing becomes more regular.
"t-thank you."
'want' is hard to evaluate but the words come pouring out so apparently she is going to!
"I was - I was watching myself tell my parents that I was trans again, for the first time, but I was backlashed and so when they told me to be quiet, to let them explain how wrong I was about myself, that I was their beautiful son and that they loved me so much, I just - I couldn't -"
clingclingcling
Bleh. She shouldn't overstate it, they're really not that bad.
"They - I think they do mean well, in their own way, but - they don't get it at all, and when they don't get something, they get really - defensive, especially when they think I'm ignoring them recklessly."
Lucy takes Cara’s chin in one hand, tilting her head to examine the tear tracks, and then texts Haru asking for water.
Haru appears presently with a glass of water; he opens the door without knocking because the established reason to text was if Cara was asleep.
hhhhgh niceprettynicepretty girl touching her face...
-oh Haru is here now. "Hi?"
Ohhh.
She picks up the cup of water and offers it to Lucy. She's helping!!
And Lucy will accept it, and hold it to Cara’s mouth!
“She was crying and gets dehydration headaches,” she explains to Haru.
oh no this is one of those tricky questions and there's so much happening already!
She stops thinking about the process of being watered while it continues to happen, which predictably results in her getting unexpected water in her mouth and throat! She starts coughing, and some of the water spills on her. Ack!
Oops!!! Lucy quickly puts what’s left of the water down and tries to help with some combination of Coughing and Wet. Which is difficult when she doesn’t have a handkerchief or towels or anything but still.
Cara will recover from the coughing on her own, but appreciates the effort!
Lucy petting her chest with a blanket is not helping with the furious blushing and associated feelings, but apparently those are just fine to have, so she relaxes.
That's is only a hard question if she takes it literally! "Yeah."
leeean. Lucy is soooo nice to touch.
"yesm"
glug glug glug ohhh it's good to be hydrated. She puts the cup down and flops Lucywards.
Good! Lucy kisses the top of her head. “Good girl.”
(Possibly she shouldn’t copy that aspect of her mother taking care of her own small-child-after-nightmare self, but: backlash, babey.)
"mghfmghmmm" her life is just like this now, apparently??
Hopefully it's dark enough that Lucy can't see just how much Cara is blushing, now.
A few hours later, Cara wakes up quietly for once. She's very entangled with Lucy [!!!warmsafegood!!!], but it means she needs to extract herself VERY CAREFULLY because. She really needs to use the bathroom.
While she's doing her best to extract her arms and legs without waking her snugglebuddy, she does an experimental checklist in her head to see if she's missing anything.
Is she tired - yes, but that's fine, she's going back to sleep after. Is she thirsty - no, she's been well watered. Is she in pain - nothing super noticeable, no. Is she hungry - yeah, actually she is.
She'll go raid the kitchen for a snack after bathroom. Ha! Take that, backlash she thinks, grinning.
D: "sorry", she whispers as softly as she can, and then tiptoes off to the bathroom.
go to the kitchen for a snack after, go to the kitchen for a snack after, go to the kitchen for a snack after...
She washes up, heads out to the kitchen, and turns on a light to poke at the pantry. What's for snacks?
Couple kinds of Pepperidge Farm cookies, cans of tuna, potato chips, instant ramen, Pop Tarts, saltines, goldfish, microwave popcorn, peanut butter cups, and Ho Hos.
She'll grab a pack of frosted strawberry and take them to the kitchen table to consume. Crinkle Crinkle monchmonchmonch.
!!!The talking cat!!! "Cricket? What's up, little guy? late night snack time for you, too?"
"...also hi, my name is Cara, Haru rescued me earlier today."
"Maybe I am in the fridge for the charming conversation and not a snack," says Cricket witheringly. He bites a paper-wrapped fish counter item, hops down, and closes the fridge.
He sets down the packet on the floor and hops up to the counter to open a cupboard and get a plate. "Maybe you should think. Maybe you should think before you ask stupid questions. You could even think about how not to be annoying in the middle of the night." Fish gets unwrapped and put on plate.
A few hours later -
There's a shirtless young woman sitting at the dining room table. A half-eaten poptart lays forgotten in front of her. Her eyes are slightly unfocused, and she's trembling.
Who appears blearily a minute later. "Cara? What's going on?" he asks, touching her arm.
She doesn't react to the touch, but he can tell she's very heavily backlashed. "'m thinking."
"...oh did he. Ignore him. Cricket's an asshole. Do you need anything? Water, the bathroom, the rest of your poptarts?"
Frown. "I think it's - I do things other people ask me to do, or obviously want me to do. And I get - worse at - at - some kinds of questions?"
"...okay. I suspect, but very much want contravening evidence if any exists, that you should finish your poptart, drink some water, go to the bathroom, and get back in bed with Lucy."
Lucy: Wanders out of the bedroom crankily. SOMETHING is wrong, and she DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS.
"- hey Lucy." Four hours can't have done her any favors either; he leaves Cara to it and goes over to hold Lucy's hand.
Hmmmmmmm. This thing is comfy, but she feels like she was expecting more comfiness. She peers suspiciously at it.
Well, whatever more-comfiness situation she was expecting, she doesn’t know how to get there from here. She hugs the available comfy thing.
...that's fine. Cara should go to the bathroom before he puts them on the couch together for the day anyway.
She looks at the couch, and then back at him, a confused look on her face. "It's... a nice couch??"
HOPEFULLY Lucy will notice if she needs to pee or eat or anything and probably it will not become pressingly urgent before she's cuddled Cara long enough to say so. Haru orders coffee and donuts because he can't leave them alone to go to Tim's.
Nope! She’s—
Well actually she maybe should pee. She attempts to drag Cara to the bathroom with her.
Then Lucy will pee with Cara present; undoubtedly the most mortifying thing she’s yet done backlashed. Washing her hands without unsnugging is challenging but she manages.
After that…well, she could just go back to the couch. Or she could drag the comfy thing outdoors to explore! While both of them are visibly in undergarments at most.
Then Haru's going to go pick the both of them up and put them on the couch and then go close the door.
This is true…hm…
What if she gets off the couch and attempts to, in addition to the Very Comfy Thing, also capture the Moderately Comfy Thing.
Sure, fine, Lucy can be in the middle of an esper sandwich till the donuts and coffee show up, Cara's apparently very convenient for every goal except her own well-being when backlashed and Lucy is not and can help look after Cara once she's less nuts.
And then the Moderately Comfy Thing gets up to retrieve the donuts and coffee.
He didn't get any coffee for the girls, but there's plenty of donuts; he puts the box on the coffee table. "Cara, are you hungry?"
...well, she just finished a poptart and had plenty of dinner, he can try again when she's talkier. Lucy seems like she'll just grab a donut if she wants one. He takes a Boston cream.
Haru resumes sandwich position once his coffee is cooled off enough that sudden crazy-girl movements will not scald anyone.
After a while Lucy lifts her head from Cara, looks at Cara, looks at Haru, and looks around for a blanket to HIDE under.
There are blankets under the couch but this might not be immediately obvious. "Lucy?"
“Well, I dragged Cara into the bathroom with me and tried to go outside next door to naked.”
"Should I not let you drag her into the bathroom if that comes up again? I wasn't sure how it'd go down if I tried to separate you and I did not go to the bathroom by myself when I was awakening and survived this..."
"Okay. Hopefully it won't happen again, she got up for a snack and Cricket encountered her and said - something - that got her stuck, and has not woken up yet to be told off for this."
“Oh, I was wondering what happened, but it hadn’t gotten out from under the embarrassment yet.”
"Yeah. What is your backlash, I'm realizing that I was rounding you both off to 'fine if fed and watered and supervised and together' but I need more information if some of those assumptions break down."
“Even when I’m verbal—like, when I was giving Cara a headache pill, I had to guess which part of her was the mouth until she realized what I was doing and cooperated.”
"...wow, that's not obvious to me as a feature of forgetting people exist but also good to know."
“It’s—pretty easy for me to keep track of you and Cara, so long as we’re all touching, because of the guiding, but if it weren’t for that I wouldn’t be confident it was you who kept me from going out.”
"That makes sense. When I'm at dangerous levels I wind up with delusions about people not existing but I can consistently notice my partner exists even then. Which is rough for her because she hates it when people notice she exists, but."
“Well, right now I’m very good at not noticing that people exist. We’d have to be so incompatible.”
"I'm not sure if you'd be compatible with June or not, I feel like that could go either way. When you and Cara are all done I can ask her brother if he thinks it's worth a try."
“Well, it sounds like it’d be really good if it did work. I wonder what the opposite of not noticing that people exist is. I hope I don’t do mind control, it could be useful against Nightmare but the everyday utility applications would be nonexistent.”
"You could wind up doing mind control but it could be lots of things, it's hard to predict except that you probably don't do, like, lightning."
“Lightning would be okay if I could learn to charge my phone with it. The dream is healing, obviously.”
"I could see this backlash with a, like, psychiatric healing power!"
Whoa hey does it need to be Cara's turn in the middle of the sandwich? "Cara?"
Cara is sobbing and still breathing way too fast and might be a bit hard to maneuver at the moment! "I-I abandoned Lucy when I shouldn't have and I c-confused your mom and m-made her wake you up early and all because I t-tried to be c-clever and came out here to eat while letting myself get more backlashed and then I m-made Cricket snap at me and"
"Whoa, hey, no, absolutely not. Ren woke me up because she knew I'd want to be woken up to help you. You were within your rights to go get a snack and it would have been completely fine if my asshole cat hadn't said anything, he's due for a telling-off when he wakes up."
Wait, no, that's not what she wants! "-please don't be mad at him? You can tell him to be careful about it but he didn't know, right, being mildly grumpy at an annoying human isn't - usually going to cause this many problems for everyone -"
“Cara, I made you come to the bathroom with me while I peed, if you had done anything wrong, to me, which you didn’t, you’d’ve had your just desserts anyway.”
"I am mad at him. He didn't know what your backlash was doing to you but he knew you were awakening."
"If you really want I can hold it down to telling him not to talk to you."
And then she clings to Lucy and whimpers, because while it's not Cricket's fault, that was an absurdly unpleasant experience she had this morning and she's still pretty fucked up about it!
is she being annoying now, will they tell her if she is, should she have just pretended it was fine,
"weh", she manages to say, and then because she's an adult and can use her words, she adds "I woke up at 2 am. probably I could use more sleep?"
"I'd rather you not eat in the bedroom, so if you want any more donuts that comes first."
"Also, Cara, can you... describe your backlash, now that you're more lucid, for future reference and planning?"
"mmmmhh?" , she says when Lucy kisses her, because what are words.
(she's breathing more slowly, now, the panic fading away.)
"The thing I told you earlier was basically correct? When I'm asked to do something I lean towards doing it automatically, like stepping out of the way when someone walks by. And - it's hard to know or notice -" she waves a hand frustratedly.
"When you ask questions and I don't really answer it's because I tried to and couldn't?"
"...okay. Good to know. Is it all right to enlist you in managing Lucy if she gets more backlashed again, I shouldn't need to but things like asking you to stay inside, was that okay -"
"Yeah, that was fine and good, I want to be helpful during this process and the guiding is good for both of us."
She pets Lucy. "And she takes care of me when she's backlashed even when she's not sure I'm a person, so it's nice and symmetrical."
"I'm so tempted to get pictures of you but I can do that next week."
".... you could get them now and then ask us next week if we want them deleted?"
"Maybe if I'm very careful to not let them automatically back up to the cloud." Phonepoke phonepoke. Angle from which the shirtlessness is not super conspicuous. Photo.
"mmnhgnmnn!" This earns Lucy some retaliatory nosekissing, and also some hairpetting!
"All right, you two, were you going to go back to bed and let Cara get some more sleep?"
"do we haaaaveee tooooo" she protests weakly, but she'll wriggle towards uprightness, staying in as close contact with Lucy as she can.
Cara's face lights up. "That's true! We caaaaaaaan."
She looks at Haru happily. "She's so smart!"
She looks back at Lucy, scandalized. "Underappreciated in your time..."
Giggling, she starts moving towards the bedroom.
Cara is both of those things, yes! Full marks.
She snuggleshuffles into the spare room, still giggling a bit at her own mediocre joke, and attempts to navigate into the bed with ✨Lucy ✨
Cara is veerrrryyyy sleepy but she's also very distractable. She nuzzles Lucy, then kisses her forehead.
Deeply unfair strategies. Cara cannot resist the siren song of hummed lullaby... Lucy has her asleep within a few minutes.
Oh, good.
Lucy goes back to reading fanfic on her phone. With one hand, while petting Cara with the other.
If Cara has any bad dreams this time, they don't seem to wake her up. (She does wrap herself around Lucy pretty tightly about 30 minutes in, though.)
Once she's properly entangled with Lucy, Cara will sleep for another 3 hours before she starts to stir.
He brings up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water on a tray.
She signs thank you, so as not to wake the sleeper. Backlash prevents her from considering that he might not know ASL.*
*Yes, they use ASL in Canada.
She yawns, stretches, and then hugs Lucy with more intent than she was doing 30 seconds ago.
"mmmormmoorninnnn..."
She wiggles happily. "Ahhhh, it's so nice to be something approximating well-rested..."
She counts off on her fingers. "Tuesday I procrastinated on some work and was up until like 3, and I went out skating Wednesday night and didn't get home till 1. Thursday nights I usually go to bed early to make up for the skating, but instead I awakened, got asked to help someone with a homework project they were in too deep on, and stayed up doing that until my phone reminded me to take my meds and go to library for a studygroup. At the study group, someone asked if someone could make a coffee run, so i did, and i spilled the coffee on the way out the door so i had to wait in line for the orders again, and then the study group was basically over and I went to class, and then I started my TA shift and this extremely cute undergrad decided I was being underutilized in the human blanket department and you know the rest from there!"
"I maaaay have editorialized slightly. Will the court of public opinion forgive me this transgression? Only time will tell..." She sticks out her tongue at Lucy.
Cara is going to stare thoughtfully at Lucy for a bit, and then... licks her arm.
Then she will have a flailing, shrieking, desperately gasping Cara in her hands in about... 5 seconds. "Aaamdlikmn Lucy, please,"
she will attempt a counterattack to this sudden escalation! Is Lucy tickleish???
Cara unleashes her hands with a wicked vengeance! She wriggles on top of Lucy to pin her down for more tickling.
She stops right away, panting hard herself. Then she boops Lucy on the nose, grinning. "Defeated on your own battlefield..."
"You did!", she agrees breathlessly, "but it was hard to hear over the sounds of your shrieking laughter~"
Lucy will have to answer that one, because Cara is going to collapse into another fit of laughter on top of her.
"Only if you want to have color-named teams! We can mix it up." She grins.
Okay he's going to open the door. "Rather not. My hair's actually iridescent in the sun but Iridescent Team is kind of a mouthful..."
“Hm! That’s neat. I wonder if my hair will improve. White is already a bit exotic and I like it.”
"If you can think of a color change that would constitute an improvement your follicles are probably on it already."
She picks up a lock of her hair and considers it. “It could be a little bit cooler-toned,” she decides.
"I'm not 100% sure which of the different shades I dye my hair I'm going to get, but honesty I'd be fine with any of them - I'm just so excited to not have to dye it anymore", Cara adds, playing with a lock of her own.
"It's worth it but there's a lot of mildly annoying steps, and it's just such a time sink. And basically nothing is permanent; the longer lasting stuff just fades slower."
She plays with a lock contemplatively. "Bleach damages hair! And to get vibrant blues you need to have a really light base. My natural hair is a dark brown, so I rotate through a few different kinds of hair masks to keep it nice to touch. It's sisyphean, and I can't wait to be free of it."
"It'll still take a bit for the new blue to grow in to the length you like."
"Maybe I'll shave it all off in a month, take up one of those classic late 2010-era blue hair and pronoun looks... But also I do have a decent supply of hair mask to keep using, and I could try out the fancy chemicals that everyone on reddit swears by but I couldn't justify buying without esper money." She leans on Lucy. "Can I touch your hair?"
“Absolutely. …Do you have a hairbrush?” she asks Haru. “I haven’t brushed my hair since this whole thing started.”
"Oooh, I'd love to brush your hair, if that's ok!" she runs her fingers through it, enjoying the texture. "Have you ever thought about doing black highlights? I think it could be striking."
Haru goes and gets his wooden comb and Ren's brush, which he picks hair out of.
“—Okay, hang on, that can’t be right. When they’re darker they’re called lowlights, right?”
Cara gets out her phone and runs a search. "Oh! So they are. TIL!"
She takes the comb from Haru and starts combing Lucy's hair. "So Lucy... have you ever thought about getting black lowlights in your hair? I think it could be striking."
“Hmmmmmmm. I agree, but…red would also look pretty striking, right? And it’d match my eyes.”
She gets ready to emerge, staying in contact with Lucy. "Okay, yeah, red would look amazing on you. Have you ever done it before?"
“Yeah! Did you know you can do temporary hair dye with the ink cartridge from a washable marker?”
She squeals. "You can? ... do you want to do that? this week? together?" please please please please please-
"I don't think my hair needs color! but... can I draw on my skin with one?" she wiggles.
"I can cover it, you're probably competent to make purchases but why risk it. Is there a specific kind?"
"There's a specific kind of markers that are good for skin drawing, I had a friend tell me about them at her Halloween party. Search term 'skin safe marker' should get you some, but I can find you a link. I don't know if they're any good for hair, though; maybe just a basic set of washables for those?" Excited wiggling Cara. They're going to do body art together!
"Yes! Please please do, I love being drawn on. That was like 80% of what I did at that party. ...There may have been a drinking game involved."
“I read a fanfic once where Batman wrote the First Federalist Paper on some girl’s back.”
Cara's eyes light up. "As a sex thing? Or was it plot-relevant for some reason?"
“It was sort of ambiguous whether she found being written on sexy or just relaxing? But it was definitely sex-adjacent.”
She giggles. "Wait, and did it need to be the first federalist papers, did she have visibility and/or the super senses you would need to distinguish it from, say, the opening paragraph of My Immortal?"
She snorts. "Okay but that's kind of a great meme characterization prompt? 'What does your character use as their lorem ipsum in a kink context.' Though personally I feel like Bruce would actually just use lorem ipsum, I feel like it's exactly the kind of thing he'd memorize as a flex."
Oh no she really likes Lucy. "Oh, it absolutely is! But - it's a different one, right? It's a thing that establishes a hero as a crying-eagle-us-flag-emoji type of guy? Captain America would write the First Federalist Paper on Bucky's back, for sure. But for Batman I think it's genuinely a bit of an odd choice!"
“Hmm, I’m not sure? Captain America would write the Constitution, or maybe the Bill of Rights. The Federalist papers are more obscure and/or intellectual. I mean, anyone who just wants to flex can memorize Loren Ipsum.”
"Okay, yeah, point taken, it would absolutely be the Bill of Rights for Cap. Federalist papers are... governance/democracy nerd, I suppose. For Batman... you could have him do Art of War if you wanted to lean into the mastermind stuff? But that feels kinda... basic?" Hmmm, Haru hasn't said anything for a while...
"Got any Batman thoughts, Haru?"
"It's not really my genre, I have pop culture knowledge of Batman but no insight into his psyche."
“Also he was Bruce Wayne at the time, so he definitely wouldn’t do something that would be obviously Batman-ish.”
To Haru: "Fair enough! Though it's a common take that 'no insight into his psyche' has been a common trait among DC authors writing Batman." giggle.
To Lucy: "Well, but if he's panicking and grabbing the first thing that comes to mind, does that matter? Like, if it's Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne pretending to be panicking and picking something... Actually, does Bruce Wayne have big blocks of text memorized? Maybe he's too busy being a silly billionaire nepo baby CEO to do boring things like read."
“You know what, I’ll text you the link, you can see the author’s take on Batman for yourself.”
She nods happily, then looks at Haru.
"...do you want to cuddle pile with us?"
Yessss cuddle pile! Cara will do her best to maximize surface area contact with both of them, sighing happily as she does. "It's been so long since I've gotten to do a good cuddle pile..."
Ooops. "No, just... " she sighs, then shrugs. "My usual snuggle buddies moved to BC a few months ago for an exciting program they both got into."
She burrows herself a bit deeper into the cuddle pile.
"Thanks. I - still talk to them when I can, of course, but they're really busy with their lives over there, now." Snuggle snuggle try to think of a topic change, but... bleh, she really does miss them. She sighs again.
“Hey, that was a professor who caught us in the classroom, right? Do you think we should let them know we’re having a medical emergency?”
Oh! "I should probably tell Prof Meadows if she doesn't know yet, I TA for her." She looks at Haru. "Who all did you tell? Just our emergency contacts?"
"Just those, yeah, if you're expected anywhere then you're being missed."
"...Well, I don't work on Saturdays, but. She should definitely know."
She gets out her phone, emails Professor Meadows:
I'm awakening as an esper and will not be able to TA for the next week. (...and I will probably drop out? To be an esper? Sorry).
P.S. Sorry about yesterday! It was esper-related.
She'll show the message to the other two before sending it.
She sends it!
Then she gets a fundraising text telling her to act now, because with a donation of just 5 dollars, she can make a difference in this local candidate's campaign!
She clicks the link and starts filling out the form.
Hm. How to solve this problem.
“Tell us something non-private that you like about yourself,” she suggests.
"I like how easy it is for me to meet and like and care about people! So many good things in my life have happened because I bumped into someone and spent a few minutes or hours listening to them talk about the things that are important to them and came away from it understanding them or the world or both a bit better, even if I never see them again."
... Lucy is really sweet. She gets a nuzzle from Cara.
"I gotta steal your conversational scripts, I'm still falling back on tortured smalltalk way too frequently."
"I don't know if they're - implemented as scripts or not in this case but I'd be borrowing them in that form? Things to say that get to meaningful interesting conversation with strangers."
"Openers! Or icebreakers, or whatever you want to call them. I just think about them as - ways to ask people about what's important to them, or on their minds recently? And once I know that just ask them for details about the parts I find most interesting or think I might have something interesting to say about." Hmmm, what's a good example to poke at...
"Haru, what were you planning on doing, before your awakening?"
“Oh, okay. You are welcome to make scripts out of what I say. Within reason. I wanted to do data science for DDSI.”
"I actually meant I wanted Cara's scripts, your question was good but I wouldn't call it a script by itself."
"So - why epidemiology? What drew you to it?" and hmmm, how to weave Lucy into the conversation, this is easy as a 1:1 thing but with 3 people it's trickier "...Actually, Lucy, do you know the answer to this one already? I know you two were friends before all this happened." and wait, how did that happen, she should ask about that soon.
"We still may die of other things, but we will not die of this!" She sings.
"Have either of you seen the gene drive stuff they're working on to try and wipe out the mosquitos? Everyone I know who's qualified to read those papers seems super excited about it."
“Yeah! Of course, mosquito nets are still the bread and butter, but I think we can all agree that inventing jam is good.”
She nods. "The AMF does incredible work! But it'd be great if they didn't have to, anymore." Thoughtful face. "Or pivot to something else? That'd probably be more efficient."
"The personnel might pivot, if the org didn't make sense afterwards."
"Yeah! I was thinking that there's a lot of organizational value in the institution, they might as well rebrand for whoever's next on the list."
Oh, she really likes these two... she wiggles happily.
"Tell me about how you guys met?"
Huh! But presumably he pulls a lot of people out of dungeons, and... Oh!
She tilts her head. "Hmmm. How do you handle your backlash, Haru?"
"...is the answer you want 'I talk to people' or 'I put my feet on June's feet while Cricket purrs on me'?"
She giggles. "The former is more what I was thinking of! But also, wait, what, feet? What's her backlash?"
"She can't stand interacting with people. She hides under a blanket and sticks out her feet and has headphones on so she can pretend I'm not there or something, I don't know the details because I've never had a conversation with her."
To Haru: "That sounds awful. That poor woman."
Then she processes what Lucy said and wiggles happily. Jackpot!
"Oooh! How'd you find it? What do you like about it? What's your favorite post and why?"
“Oh, man, how did I find it originally? I’m not sure I remember, I think I was just fucking around on the internet and I found a link and then I forgot what I had been doing because the blog was really cool. I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite favorite but the ‘Yelling About Basic Research’ series is so good.”
Oh is he blushing? This is great.
"Well, my phone is mysteriously absent! I will have to check them out when I can be trusted with it again."
She sighs dreamily. "Dungeon rescue meet-cute with a favorite blogger, huh..."
"Well! Unfortunately I've never read a work of fiction in my life, so I wouldn't know anything about that", she says serenely.
"If the denotation of 'meet cute' is anything other than 'meeting, cutely' it's lost on me."
Whooooops. "Ah, sorry - a 'meet-cute' traditionally refers to a scene in a work of fiction where 2 characters who will usually go on to have some kind of relationship, typically romantic, meet for the first time in some unusual or humorous way. Running into each other on foot and falling down together is a traditional one. I did not actually mean to imply that you two are or at some point will be dating," though at this point she would bet on it and also is hoping for it "but the scenario as described is both a literal cute meeting and also the kind of thing I could see employed as a meetcute in esperfic?"
She shoots an apologetic look at Lucy.
Hmm... "Speaking of esperfic, maybe I should give some another try! I never got into it because I kept bouncing off written descriptions of guiding, because - well, I kept getting really sad thinking about how I'd never get to experience it." She wriggles a bit, relishing the cuddle pile skin contact. "I have to say, it lives up to the hype."
"This is pretty high-end, my secondary in B.C. is less than half this compatible."
She shrugs. "Yeah, I dunno! I was reading smut before I was having sex, but it was with the understanding that I would have the opportunity to change this state of things in the future, if I wanted to. And with esperfic... there was only a very tiny chance I would be able to experience guiding, and no actions I took would change this, and it made me sad to think about."
She turns to Haru. "That makes sense. And I think Lucy and I are even more compatible than you and I are? I can feel it when she's nearby, even when we're not touching."
"I have that with June, but the limitations on how she can put up with guiding are so bad that it adds up to worse."
"Look at all this non-feet skin, available for guiding!" Also, she could hmmm maybe don't think about that in the cuddle pile!
She sighs. "Man. Poor June."
“A backlash that actively interferes with guiding does sound like a special kind of hell.”
This train of conversation gets her thinking about her own backlash, and also how she spent her morning.
...she shivers.
Oh no!
”So obviously your hair is already delightfully decorated, but I still felt like it was worthwhile to ask what color of marker you wanted, since it’s temporary anyway and, like, purple streaks, or something, would totally work.”
...awww. she doesn't have to - "...Hmmm. I would do some black streaks, for enrichment? No purple, though, I am pretty committed to the blue bit, purple is Fraternizing With The Enemy."
"Nono, red is the enemy, purple is the result of fraternizing with the enemy, because it's a mix of red and blue." She's nodding confidently. "It just makes sense!"
after a pause she adds "...uh, in my culture, we say 'I am normal about X' to mean 'I am vividly aware that I am being really weird about X', though if it gets confusing I can switch to something else."
“I did actually understand that you weren’t being literal, I just thought the extent to which you were admitting to non-normalcy still constituted an understatement. I’m red. And white. Am I the enemy?”
"-Oh, no, the rules are different when it's other people! it's great that you are red and white, actually. We're similar but we are not the same! That's way more aesthetically pleasing to me than it would be if we were two blue girls."
She grins, and gives Haru a thumbs-up.
“Well, most people I’ve seen voice opinions on it! I guess I haven’t exactly polled the general public.”
She shrugs. "I've seen a few different large polls on favorite colors and blue won all of them! But 'favorite' and 'like' are different variables."
Ehehehe. "But Lucy..." she takes one of Lucy's hands in hers, and attempts to clasp it to her collarbone.
"I promise that if I find any shiny purple rocks, I will save them and give them to you, okay?"
She sighs dramatically. "Okay, fine, I guess you can have the red ones too. If you must."
She manages to hold her silly pouty face for almost 3 seconds before she starts giggling too.
"Cricket, thanks for joining us. Do not talk to Cara while she is backlashed. In particular do not give her any instructions."
Cara was in the process of booping Lucy back, but she freezes when she hears Cricket.
no, come on, don't do this, they've worried about me enough today already, it's fine, i'm fine, it's okay...
She takes a deep breath, and exhales it in a big sigh, giving Lucy a weak little smile.
...oh.
Well, that makes sense, and is honestly it's very kind of Lucy to reassure her like this, and Cara agrees! Cricket is fine.
She'll... rest her head against Lucy such that so her face isn't visible, and nod. It's easier than talking.
-she should just look at Cricket, is what she should do, if she's looking at him it'll be less startling when he talks. She doesn't want to be flinchy every time Haru's roommate-pet-friend talks, that is bad guest behavior. So she will just look at him.
...she does not seem to be moving her head. ah well. so much for that plan.
Wait, shit, she just heard her name.
"-sorry, say again?"
"...is it a problem if there's TV or a movie on, and the characters give each other instructions. I can have Cricket watch TV in my room, if it might be."
Oh, questions are good! She can answer questions. "I really don't think it would be! You've said things to Cricket and to Lucy that we know are the kinds of things my backlash treats as commands, and I haven't followed them, so it clearly distinguishes based on intended audience. Maybe something like the Blue's Clues genre of children's' TV shows that address the audience could do something, but I assume that's not what we're dealing with here, so it should be fine!" ugh. babbling.
Whatever, it's better than clamming up. It's okay. She's okay.
(she's also clingy!)
Cricket hesitates, then jumps off his window seat and approaches the cuddlepile only just close enough to bonk his forehead into Haru's knee, and then returns to his windowseat and puts on Groundhog Day.
topic change, topic change, topic change...
...too much work.
Instead she will boop Lucy's nose and whisper "boop"
ah... busted. and... she really shouldn't lie.
She shrugs.
"... I think it is probably going to take a little while for me to get comfy with being around Cricket, is all." she says quietly, after a long pause. "it's not his fault, of course, he didn't know, but... my midnight snack misadventure was. really bad for me?" She tries to force a bit of lightness into her voice, but it comes out sounding wrong, even to her.
She places her other hand on Haru's, stroking it gently, and shakes her head. "He didn't know. I didn't explain my backlash, so nobody knew, not him and not either of you."
She leans into Lucy. "And... yeah, they do. He - I got hurt, and maybe it'll take me a while to feel safe around him. And that's sad. But it'll be okay."
The smile on her face is a little sad, but it's genuine, too.
Okay but maybe he should have considered being less of an asshole probably not constructive to say.
“It’d suck if you were traumatized. I bet a lot of people are traumatized by hellweek though.”
"I'll be okay! It sucks a bit right now, but I'll be okay." She's gotta be. She's gonna be an esper. She can handle this.
She does her best to pull them both closer to her. "And I'm real optimistic about this week! Like yeah, the backlash sucks, but. I get to snuggle and talk with the two of you a lot? And I get lots of guiding? And at the end I get to be an esper! We get to be espers!" She grins.
“We get to be espers! I really hope I don’t get a mind control power! Unless I can cure Alzheimer’s with it!”
"Man. Big mood on the mind control power..." Should she say it? She wants to say it. She's gonna say it.
"...If you do get one, you can test it on me, if you want. I trust you."
“…Yyyyyeah no offense but you’re gonna need to say that totally unbacklashed before I take that seriously.”
Oh no they're both so gooooood she is fallllllling for them both they should kiss. each other. and also her.
She nods agreeably. "Of course!" She'll agree, obviously, but they have no way of knowing that! And so they're being careful.
Happy wiggling Cara.
And then she's distracted by the movie! Like many contemporary classics, Cara knows the basic premise of Groundhog Day, but since nobody ever sat down and made her watch it, she hasn't seen it.
(And if she's much less chatty than she usually would be, in this scenario - well, there are a lot of reasons why that might be true, and she's definitely enjoying herself, and this snuggle pile.)
It's not a great angle from the couch to Cricket's laptop screen but she can follow the dialogue, at least.
Then the markers are delivered.
“Markers! I don’t know much about body art markers but probably my hair is where it’ll be a little trickier to maintain contact.”
"Hmmm, maybe!" What are the considerations.... "How does this work? Do we need paper underneath to avoid making a huge mess? Is it going to smear while it dries, depositing ink on Haru's poor couch?"
"You might want to do this in the kitchen, it'll be easier to clean up there."
"Better lighting and a bit more space seem good! As for guiding logistics for hair stuff..." hmmm, she doesn't want to be weird about this but so far they've been pretty chill and this does seem like it could work, so "...we could take turns hugging each other's legs, with one of us sitting on a floor cushion and the other in a chair? It's not as much contact as cuddles, but we'd have good access to each other's hair."
Oh she should have asked whooooops "For guiding, ink application, or both?"
"An extra pair of hands wouldn't be useless. I can totally do it without, but like, expertise is not necessarily the limiting factor."
"Yeah, holding hair steady while it's being drawn on would probably be very helpful." Group activity group activity group activity!
“Well, you don’t draw on the hair, exactly.”
Step one is to tie her hair into seven discrete sections.
Cara will attempt to help, if this is desired! She's got nimble fingers, and this isn't the first time she's helped a friend with hairstuff.
She’s less worried about nimble fingers here and more concerned with having someone who can look at the back of her head without weird mirror arrangements check the sections for approximate size equality.
Well, luckily Cara can do that too! She sighs happily as she does. "Your hair is really nice to touch, did you know that?"
Hmm... She kinda wants to get Haru to touch Lucy's hair too but she doesn't want to embarrass Lucy, is there an obvious way to... hmm, she's not coming up with anything. Ah, well.
"And you made it yourself!" She finishes her part of the hair tying task.
Oh! That's an idea. "...actually, before we get to the next step, I think I need to use the bathroom... Haru, do you want to swap guiding positions and double check my work with your superior esper senses while I do?"
"I think possibly aesthetic discernment and hairdressing experience is more the limiting factor than sensory acuity but I can hug Lucy while you're gone, yes." He assumes the position.
She's rolling her eyes so hard on her way to the bathroom. Hopeless! (But no, it's valid of Haru to not be interested in the hair stuff, and it's not like she minds getting more focused Lucytime. Quite the opposite, in fact!)
Hug. "I don't know if anyone has done a study on whether they can precisely control their hair repigmentation with last-minute dye but it wouldn't astound me. If you want yours to stay white probably it will oblige."
“I do want it to stay white! It has been white all my life and I like it quite a lot. And it matches my mum, I can’t remember if I said or not but she’s got albinism too.”
“—I’m going to blame my backlash for the fact that that hadn’t already occurred to me. Yes.”
She calls her mother.
“Mum! Hi!”
“Lucy! Are you alright? I was told your backlash wasn’t dangerous but I don’t know how okay that leaves you—”
“I’m doing really amazingly better than expected because of my TA—her name is Cara—awakening at the same time and then we’re compatible. You can get guided during hellweek, it’s just, the backlash keeps getting piled on without any power use. But this arrangement is really efficient!”
“Good. That’s good. Not that—I mean, I’m sure you’d think it was worth it anyway, but—”
“Yeah. Although I currently have no idea what my power’s going to end up being. And I’m trying not to think about it too much, because I don’t want to be even more impatient for the end of the week than necessary.”
Lavinia laughs. “Of course not.”
“I’m really okay, mom, even when my backlash is relatively high it only does terrifyingly impaired cognition and not horrible suffering!”
“I…suppose that’s better.”
“I’m not sure if it is or not, in the long run, but it is making this week specifically less hellish.”
“I am glad of that part, anyway.”
“Yeah. I’m actually going to call Wilbur now, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks for checking in.”
“You’re welcome. Love you bye.”
She waits until there's a lull in the voices to return.
...Ahhh, even just getting closer to them feels nice. "It's really neat how I can sense you at a distance! What'd I miss?"
Snuggly Cara! Some tension visibly leaves her body as she comes into contact with Lucy. "Haru is smart like that! Did I miss my chance to say hi through you? ....do you mind if I ask you to say hi for me, I love doing this but I know some people find it very odd."
“You are too late to say hi to my mum on that particular call but you can say hi to my twin when I call him and I will text Mum about you.”
She squeezes Lucy happily. "Eeee yay! And ooooh, your brother is a twin? ...fraternal or trans?"
“Fraternal, or I would have included him when I—wait, no, you weren’t here when I commented on my albinism matching Mum. He has a normal skin tone and hair color and either he is cis or I categorically don’t have permission to out him.”
She giggles. "I would not want to know your brother's secret gender if he did not also want this! I just was trying to distinguish between 'identical twin who is transmasc' and 'not that'. And oooh, that sounds neat. Is it common, for albinism to be passed down like that?"
“I mean, it is genetic. Being albino is more likely if you have an albino parent, but still pretty unlikely unless you live somewhere with a bit of a boxed-in gene pool.”
Oh! Probably she should have known that it was genetic. Ah well.
She nods. "Did you want to call your brother before we started reddening your hair? Or do you want me to do that while you're on the phone?"
“I’ll call him first, there’s no real hurry on the hair. Oh, but is it okay if I take a picture of you to send them? From the neck up,” she adds, mostly to Haru, “so it doesn’t matter exactly how much clothing we are or aren’t wearing.”
"Yeah, of course!" She giggles. "It does seem likely they would prefer not to be getting topless photos of me."
"Am I also in the photo shoot or do we assume if they want to know what I look like they can find me online?"
“You can be in the photoshoot if you want to but I have made both of them read your blog.”
-she does not say anything but her eyebrows do go so high, hearing that.
"The blog has more pictures of the kitty than of me but it at least means they know where to find the links."
Cara does not elaborate on her facial expression choices!
"I also have pictures posted publicly, if you want to link those, but also we should take one of the 3 of us! It'd be cute."
“Saying there are fewer pictures of you than of Cricket isn’t saying much! I recognized you when we met! …Can we do a picture of the three of us that doesn’t display more underwear than we want, without it being just three heads weirdly in the bottom of the frame.”
"I probably have the nicest phone camera. We could all get under a quilt together?"
She sighs dramatically. "For you, Lucy, I would be willing to make the grave sacrifice of putting on clothes before we take a photo for your family."
She looks at Haru. "I do think a quilt is maybe not exactly the right vibe for this? Like - we could do that, but it'd be a nicer picture if we didn't, and it won't take very long."
“That works for me, then. But my shirt at least is coming back off before we do the hair dying, because otherwise, staining.”
"Yeah, I will not wearing be the dress longer than necessary! I love being able to notice when I need to use the bathroom too much for that."
“…How would wearing a dress make you unable to notice you need to use the bathroom??? I know your backlash makes it harder for you to notice things but I don’t have the impression that outie plumbing has visible indicators of OH you mean because skin contact is better for guiding.”
Cara is valiantly fighting to avoid collapsing in a fit of laughter at that, because she does not want to make Lucy feel weird. "Yeah, I was just describing a reason I did not want to let myself get more backlashed, sorry."
She pats Lucy on the head fondly. "Shall we go retrieve our garments?"
"If it makes you feel any better about it; it's very nice, when I'm more backlashed, to be around you at a similar backlash level. You handle the decisionmaking that I literally can't, and we both get guided!"
She pets Lucy's hair. "Well. I feel pretty similarly about needing a chaperone to use my phone, so. Handshake emoji. Backlash sucks."
Once everybody has clothes on Haru can take a slate of selfies and text them to each girl to pass on as they will.
She smiles wide for the camera and manages to be unsilly about it! (because she wants Lucy's family to liiiiike herrrrr).
"Oh, I think those came out well!" She says, once she's gotten her dress back off and one of them can show it to her on their phone.
"We can take another one at the end of the week when you two are all done getting symmetrized."
She sends the picture. “Wilbur is either going to decline to notice or mathematically quantify the changes, and I’m not sure which.”
Oh that's delightful. "I'm hoping for the latter!"
Snuggles, phone call?
Phone call! Dial ring ring—
“Lucy?”
“Hi, Wilbur! I am currently verbal.”
“Currently.”
“My backlash makes me forget that other people exist, at high levels.”
“…What. You. That. How.”
“It catastrophically impairs my cognition!”
“Yeah, on you, it would!!!”
- she mostly stifles a giggle, though she has to bury her face in Lucy's neck to do it.
“Hello, Cara, I’m Wilbur,” he sighs.
“Traceless is also here! His name is Haru.”
“Hello also Haru, thank you for keeping my sister in good enough condition to laugh at me.”
“I also thank emergency service workers whose job it quite literally is.”
“What Wilbur means is that just because something is totally reasonable doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate it.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
awwwwww their dynamic is delightful!
She's grinning as she says "It's nice to meet you, Wilbur! I'm sure you know this already, but your sister is very good."
Cara giggles again, but decides not to reply - it's safer not to banter with strangers friends she hasn't met when she can't see their body language, even if it's so tempting.
She snuggles herself against Lucy quietly, eyes closing in content.
“Anyway, I just wanted to check in, let you know I’m fine.”
“I appreciate it. Congratulations on getting to be an esper.”
“…Thanks. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Anyway, please verbally confirm that you are fine and being well taken care of and nothing sketchy has occurred.”
“I am fine and being well taken care of and the single sketchiest thing that happened was an accident and the cat did it.”
“And I’m not going to ask. Love you bye.”
“Love you bye!”
And Wilbur hangs up.
She manages not to have a facial reaction when the incident is mentioned, which is progress!
She does let herself squeeze Lucy harder, though.
When the call ends, she perks up a bit. "Tell me about him?"
Whoops.
“His name is Wilbur, I’m sure you heard that. He’s an introvert—he likes to say sometimes that I got all the extroversion for both of us and he got all the caution. He’s really into math and science. I’m going to use esper money to fund him getting a Ph.D.”
