"All set," she agrees as she approaches the table. "Do you actually want to be carried? I will, but I was teasing, really, you can walk if you like." 

"Eh, I don't certainly need it.  I probably shouldn't be a slug all day long."

She offers him a hand, "You'll make up for it tomorrow, though." 

"You do have a point, there.  It's a good thing, too, it'd be pretty tricky to roll me through dungeons."  I suppose it's not unlikely, given the fact that my backlash is magic narcolepsy. Tim accepts the hand and theatrically heaves himself to his feet!

"Oof, heavy!" Sara does some theatrical staggering of her own. 

"Hey, whose fault is it that I had to gain all this weight?"  Sara feels just a liiittle trickle of backlash racking up.  Definitely net-zero with the guiding he's getting.

She giggles, "You sure you don't need carrying? I can feel that backlash, mister." 

"That backlash is for your benefit!  What if you picked me up and pulled a muscle, I'd never live it down."  Why is it so hard for you to say yes to something you want, Timothy, you're a grown-ass adult and you can be carried if you want to.  Shy outstretched arms?  Just a little bit, so it's deniable if she says 'no'?

"Well, luckily if I do pull a muscle there's a local healer I can get help from."

That sure looks like a request to be picked up! How about bridal carry again? She fears if she tried to fireman carry him right now the results would be Unfortunate. Scoop!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wolf-whistle!  "Bring that man home, girl!"

She ignores this with great dignity (and some irritation). 

"Maybe I should wear a sign," she muses at him as they exit the building. 

"Um.  A sign?"  Tim has significantly less dignity, but less irritation.  Because all of his emotionional space is being taken up by augh.

"Yes, you know, 'Wolf-whistle at your own risk'? Something like that. If I warn them they can't get mad if I punch them, right?"

"Not the first time you've been whistled at?  I shouldn't be surprised."

"For any number of reasons, yes. I think it's a hazard of being an esper."

He can feel her backlash tick up for a moment as she pauses, and then turns down another street towards the silo.

"Did you know there's a fair amount of copper under this city?" 

"N...no?  It...had never occurred to me to think about whether there's copper under the city???"  What????????

"I'm changing the subject," she informs him, "Because I don't want to think about that anymore. Copper! I haven't noticed any good seams, or I suppose someone might have dug it up earlier and Montpelier would be a proper mining town. I wonder if there might be some nearer the surface around here?" 

"Ohhhh."  That...makes sense.  "I'm sorry."  Wait, is this even a reasonable thing to apologize for?  Maybe I should ask to be set down.  Wait, no, she just wants to ignore it!  Ignoring things is great, vastly underrated approach to drama.  "Maybe they did get out all of the good seams already, Vermont is pretty old."

"Hmm, maybe, though played out mines leave signs I should be able to sense. Do you know what the metal detecting laws are here? Maybe there will be some in the park. It would be fun to make something entirely with found materials." 

"I don't think you count, can't you do it for like, a ten mile radius or something like that?"  Tim wraps his arms around Sara's neck, puts his head on her shoulder, and starts playing his phone where she can't see it.

"At my maximum, yes. If I wanted to find copper specifically I would have to be much closer." She is actually kind of curious about phone contents, given they're happening just below her line of sight, but she will restrain herself. 

Tappy tappy tappy.  "So finding everything is easy, but finding copper, specifically is hard?  That's...counter-intuitive?"

"No, hm. It's... At my maximum range, I suppose I could use a more detailed granularity, but then I would drop you, among other problems. I can find copper, specifically, when I am using a medium granularity. At my lowest detail sense I can only feel the difference between solid and fluid." 

"That makes sense.  You can set me down, if you want to?"  Tappytaptap and then Sara receives a text message.  Whenever she looks at it, she'll see a text from Tim.  It is a ridiculously overwrought business card which reads: Lepine Geographical Services: We Detect What We Want.  In very small text at the bottom-left, it has writing to the effect that this is clearly a parody and not to be taken as an actual business.