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Her fathers take her to the hospital the next morning, worried about how faint her pulse is and the fact that she hasn't woken up. (They let her keep Ms Weiner. They want her to have something comforting and familiar there, if when she wakes up).
A coma. She's in a coma. They suspect backlash is involved, but don't really have a way of telling, without an esper to help. Dave starts posting on esper sites, as many as he can find, with his best description of her backlash.
Thanks!
She finishes writing up her grocery list (various veggies fresh and canned, some fake meats, and spices for the chili - hot sauce, fruits, poptarts, noodles, tortillas and other burrito supplies for her) and then heads back into the living room to give it to Gary, presumably via text message or fancy local sharing protocol.
Kani can try strange Canadian fake meats! She thanks him for the help, then goes to investigate the sleeping area and bathroom. Is there a good place for her to unpack her clothes? What's the bath/shower situation like?
The bathroom's very nice, with a tub and a shower. There is one bedroom with a queen bed and a dresser.
Hmmm. She doesn't know how Epione likes to have a room arranged, so she will leave her bag packed and out of the way. But a really nice shower sounds great, so she's going to go take one of those, fishing out a spare change of clothes and the toiletries she likes.
She checks herself out in the mirror. It feels weird to have changed so much in what felt like so little time, but... she's certainly not complaining about the changes. She looks like the implausibly hot version of herself she'd draw for their RP games...
She will take a pretty long shower, assuming nothing stops her.
Nothing stops her, at least assuming she is making person-moving-around noises and not screaming noises or fell-on-the-floor-unconscious-and-left-the-shower-on noises.
She doesn't make any screaming or falling noises! On account of not doing any screaming. Or falling.
This shower is soooooooo niiiiiiiiice. Her shower at home takes a while to heat up, and the water pressure is decidedly meh. Kani had forgotten how nice a Good Shower feels. She stays in it a while, whistling to herself and thinking about the implications of "professional partner". ("Hey Mags. I'm dropping out of school because I found out I can earn absurd amounts of money weekly by cuddling with a woman almost twice my age in Toronto. How've you been?")
Oh! Food activities! Kani wiiilllll - not try and help, as she realizes:
1. It's possible Epione has Opinions about where things should be in the kitchen?
2. She's hungry.
3. There's poptarts.
Sheeeee going to eat some of her fruits and like 4 poptarts with the table manners of a teenager who hasn't been able to eat with both hands for close to a month and hasn't eaten a meal with a non-father since - since before.
When she's finished (and has dispensed of the evidence crumbs) she will put on some good Background Video Entertainment and then start the Chili Process by heating up the pot, inspecting the fake meats, and chopping up all the veggies.
Gary finishes putting the groceries away and then sets about some kind of inscrutable apartment inspection that involves running all the faucets, trying the windows, investigating the bed, wiggling all the doors on their hinges, and turning over all the couch cushions.
She'll actually pause the cooking (turning the heat on the pot way down so nothing bad happens) to watch this process; it seems important to understand the basics if she's going to be a professional cuddler. (Is she going to be a professional cuddler? It does seem... easy. simple.)
Occasionally she asks questions about things (what's up with the couch cushions?) and also asks if there are things she should know about e.g. where she should put her spare clothes and toiletries.
"My job description is silo prep. Epione usually just lives in her own house, but lots of espers have requirements for their silos that aren't necessarily met by a random AirBnb and it's my job to make sure they meet them. I'm just making sure the cushions don't have anything stuck behind them that might poke her or anything if she sits down. You can have the left half of the bathroom counter, and put anything slidey or tall in back where it's less likely to get knocked over."
She nods and goes to set up her stuff in the bathroom. (She doesn't have much stuff, it fits tidily in the left corner.)
Then it's back to cooking! This will take her an hour or so.
It's only after she finishes that she remembers to look around for some kind of leftover container to store it in.
Ooops. Yeah, she'll do that after doing a taste test (no spicy that she can notice, just salty) and then spicing up a small bowl for herself.
Does Gary want some?
Gary sticks around all day even when he's clearly out of silo prep to do (though he'll do the dishes, knife first but he'll stop after that if she insists).
In the evening, Kevin drops off Epione. She's got big soft headphones on, and watches her feet when she walks.
Kani is 100% fine with someone else doing the dishes. (Dad usually does it in their house, at least when she cooks).
When Epione arrives, she does her best to stay out of the way and also take cues from Kevin on... what to do... (Possibly she should have asked for advice in advance here? Oh no...)
"Hey. She's right-handed, just park at her left and hold hands once she's served herself something for dinner and sat down. If something happens and she freaks out, give her a minute to catch her breath before getting in there with the guiding hugs, since you're in private and not in front of a patient and their entire family and sometimes touching her when she's already agitated makes it worse. She'll want to go to bed pretty much right after dinner so you'll want to squeeze in a trip to the bathroom soon. She might not take the chili, don't be offended."
Instructions!! Kani nods gratefully.
She puts on some nice gentle wordless music in her left earbud only (low volume), and then unobtrusively makes herself visible to the left of Epione, hand available for holding. (She's using some of her stored behaviors for "how to not freak out a startled wild animal", which feels vaguely rude to point at a real human person who is also 14 years older than her and hot?? but also it's the closest thing she has in her head for this??)
Epione smiles at her and gets a packaged turkey wrap out of the fridge, and a cup of yogurt, and a little chocolate mousse thing that comes in a glass jar, and a bottle of herbal iced tea, and cllects a spoon and sits down and opens all the packaging and then holds Kani's hand while she gets underway on eating dinner.
A smile! She'll smile back, and then settle in poke her phone with her off hand once Epione starts to eat her dinner.
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