"...yes. But I'm not sure this should be in this report? Might be the backlash talking. ...I want to talk to Quasar about it."

"Okay. But tell someone now, give the gears time to grind so we're not standing around waiting for them to scare up another psychic with spare capacity on our next run."

"Yeah. Good thinking."

Jaeha'll... message Lee Juheon about it. He's probably asleep but they've been chatting on and off, he's one of the people who's in on Jaeha's whole thing, and Jaeha is kind of too embarrassed to tell Park Yoo-min about it.

Haru squeezes him. "You didn't break your leg, did you? Twist your ankle? You were just - lying there -"

"I, I just. I tried to keep going but I had, I." ("I felt you die. I felt it. I felt you burning and suffocating and I, I just.")

"I'm okay," murmurs Haru. "Not even singed. And I would've wanted you to get out."

"I. I tried telling myself that. I tried. I just. I."

Squeeze. "I love you."

"I love you too." He hits send on the report and summons the teleport screen. "Let's go home."

"Should I be summoning the energy to get railed or are we just gonna sleep this off."

"...near-death experiences aren't great for my libido." Teleport. "And I'm so tired and I just want to hold you."

"Okay. Whatever you need." Haru divests himself of gun and flashlight and other random dungeon gear.

"...but I want to take a shower with you." Wash Haru's hair, make sure that he's really real and really here and, and wash off this feeling that's clinging to his skin that's not even grime, it's something psychological, like Nightmare's got its grubby hands on him and he wants it off.

"Okay. We can do that." They can head to the bathroom and Haru can remove more articles from his person.

And Haru really is real. Really is here, and alive, and okay, and solid, and with him. 

God, he's such an idiot. It's a good thing he has a Haru to set him right.

"I can't shield myself, and back when—back before you, I was just too... proud to admit it, and embarrassed. But Nightmare in particular, you saw how it was before the fire. It just never came after me. So I forgot. Or, I didn't forget so much as it just became part of my work habits. Just automatic. 

"And of fucking course as soon as I'm free of backlash for the first time and have something I couldn't bear to lose it pounced."

Haru pets him with the hand he isn't using to eat... brunch? Is it brunch if it's after lunchtime but you just woke up because you were up for hours in fucking Nightmare? "Yeah. You did your standard operating procedure in Nightmare that has worked before. Or... has probably worked. Probably it wasn't conspicuously using what it got off you against anyone else, but it might have been doing some kind of subtle thing."

"Yeah. Though I'm not sure what it could've gotten. Maybe details about what other espers were likely to be inside it, although as soon as they ran into victims it would know they were there through their eyes anyway..." Assuming it works the way people think it does, but he's already said his opinion on the idea of expecting things. "But yeah."

"If you'd been shielded maybe it wouldn't have taken so long to find the victims? It wouldn't have known where to hide them - do other people usually have shorter trips -"

"I haven't noticed a difference, not reliably, but it's not like I measured, I hadn't read your series about yelling about basic research yet back then."

Snort. "Well, you can notice if the times drop when we go in next. - are you good to go in again tonight?"

"I think so. But I'll want to check the shields after every victim. At least at first. I want to be... a bit paranoid."

"Super legit to be paranoid after a close call. Also, no splitting the party."

"No splitting the party," he agrees vehemently. "God, what was I thinking. ...well, I wasn't, I was sleep deprived, that's another unforced error to go on my ledger."

"Me too, we should probably have quit sooner and maybe just not gone that day. Or done the shields only thing."