She reads it over as he continues tapping.

"Maybe... Lab mice testing? You were going to. For pregnancy, wii? And... Things your healing can mess up. Get medic who can specialize. In those." 

"Yeah.  Maybe.  I'm not sure...how well it would transfer, but it's not like it's an expensive test."  Except if you mind killing mice.  I grew up hunting, but it seems...fucked up to just kill them.  No, you're being squeamish and stupid.  And they might not die.  Probably will, though, it's not like they have much keeping them alive.  "Mrrrggghhh."  I mean, she wasn't really looking like she was in pain at all?  Shut the fuck up, Tim, you did it, you own it.

She pats his arm, "Ask Uisa. About what she does. For backlashed esper. Consent." 

Grrrmmbbbleee.  That can go on the List.  He holds his phone in his hand and stares at it and the Backlash goes Up, even with double-cuddles.  After a minute, it auto-locks.  He doesn't respond.

"...Three months Tim," he gets another squeeze. "Longer espers than you. Make worse mistakes." 

"Yeah."  He's looking at her photo on the lockscreen, but he's not really seeing her.  Good job!  You just tortured a girl in the process of putting her legs back together!  But hey, soon you won't have to wonder if you made the right call in absence of consent, because she'll be ABLE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU MADE THAT MISTAKE!

I mean, you know how bad it was, after that one time after the range.  And it's okay for you to choose that, if you're willing.  How long does a local take?  Ten minutes to kick in?  Could have given her the local, had her hold still.  Actually, that's another thing to put on the list.  He unlocks his phone again, and adds that to The List.

Fast-acting local anesthetic.  Currently only have general, consider changing that?

He rubs at his eyes and leans back against Sara.

Yeah. 

"Good idea." 

She will just snuggle him (and April) now. 

He hums in acknowledgement.  Then, he realizes that he's still wearing his dungeon kit.  Not his standard vest, because it wouldn't do anything against a sandworm.  "D'you mind if I take my shirt off?"  So I can help finish the job before she's able to...actually, no, I'm not even going to think about her backlash.

Sara doesn't mind, she's also still wearing most of her dungeon kit. 

"No. Me too?" She looks to April. 

"Heck yeah shirtless Tim. Shirtless Tim is the best pillow," April opines.

"He's very comfy," Sara agrees, suppressing a giggle but not a smile. 

She's going to get her coat, vest, and long-sleeved shirt off, then, leaving her in her undershirt. 

April is already in her Healing Circle Guiding Clothes. Very convenient how they just hand those out at the healing circle.

Most red-blooded teenaged men would be happier about being complimented and cuddled by scantily-clad women.  But, well, Tim's having a bit of a rough day.  His pants are rolled up to mid-thigh, for April support, and his upper garments set carefully to the side.  Then: flop back into Sara.

Huh.  What's that...oh.  That's crying.  Coming from the tent that the blue girl went into.

Tim curls miserably into his partner's stomach.

Pat pat. "You fucked up. It'll be okay. I'm not very comforting, sorry."

This is blunt enough to get a little laugh out of him.  More of a huff, really.  "It's - it's okay.  She lived, which wasn't...uh, guaranteed.  She can live with that, and so can I."  I'm not actually sure that I fucked up, but I definitely hurt her and I might have been able to save her some of that pain.  And me doing something definitely better than just ignoring it would have been.

"Psych backlash. Sucks," Sara nods firmly. "Learn what to do. Next time. But, her legs aren't broken!" 

April smiles a little.

"Yeah."  Huh, I can hear the Legs Chick saying something.  Sounds like...Willowbark?  Willowbark...have I heard that before?  "Yeah.  They're - well, I shouldn't say anything, patient privacy.  But she'll be fine.  Well.  Her legs will be."  Actually, maybe I could tell Sara?  But not April, April hasn't done the Privacy Paperwork and there's no way I'm going to ask her to sign anything while she's awakening.  "I'll - think about it later." Racehorse on his phone, is Willowbark an esper?  She is?  Oh.  Hm.  Well.  I thought she was crying about her legs, but it looks like she had a lot going on.  Ugh.  Fuck.

"Patient privacy is important," April agrees.

Snuggle and nod. No need to say anything here, thankfully. She should really learn more sign at some point. Dungeon sign is useful, but not really sufficient for other contexts. 

Actually, "Can you. Make a note. That we should learn. More sign?" 

Swipe to unlock his phone, and...noted.  "Done.  Oh, because of your backlash?"

Affirmative, she signs, with a little wry smile.

He huffs out another little laugh.  Then he pats her solar plexus and signs back.  Surmountable obstacle.

She lets out a little huff, Affirmative. Acquire information. 

Compliance. He browses around for a moment, finds an ASL flashcard course and gets to work.  While listening to Blue Legs Chick sob.

April caught none of that, but it's fine, she has shirtless Tim pillow.

Sara can find her phone and do that too. Would April like to look at her phone with her? 

Sure!

Then they can learn a little sign language together! 

Yeah.  They can.  They can have a little sign language cuddlepuddle.  It's nice to have something to do while he waits for Blue Legs Girl to get cleared.

Who knows if this will be useful to her but it's sure interesting. And hey, if she ends up as a professional partner, knowing she's already compatible with these two... it could come in pretty handy to keep up with them on sign language, actually.

Honestly, Tim would be happy to hang out with her even if she doesn't wind up with a combat-useful power.  It's not like she needs to stay in Toronto, right?  Houses take a while to rebuild, if nothing else.  She could think of it as a little vacation.  After Hell Week, she's definitely earned one.

Absorbing herself in sign language lessons helps, to an extent, with keeping herself on a relatively even keel. Her backlash seems to respond pretty strongly to what emotions she is actually feeling, and when she's reliably far enough below Constantly Weeping and putting in the effort to manage herself, she can go for quite a while being almost normal before she inevitably gets lost in a gigglefit or has to fight back tears.

...which means she almost misses it, when her backlash starts to go down; the first thing she notices is actually the shift in how guiding feels, and then it takes her a second to connect the dots, and then before she can stop herself she exclaims, "Oh thank fuck!" and, in full awareness of the irony, bursts into tears of relief.

Well, that's a relief.  Pardon him a moment, Sara, he's got a Princess Koala to lift into his arms.  "Shhh-shh-ssh.  It's okay.  You did it.  Mark the time, Sara, we can't have our girl here cheating on how many lives she saved during her Hell Week.  There you go."  Tim's right hand holds April while his left rubs circles on her lower back.  He cocks an eyebrow at Sara over his shoulder and jerks his chin towards Princess Koala - does she want in on this hug?

"Hghbllllrghl. Fuck," she sighs, nestling into Tim's arms with an exhausted sniffle. "Shit. It's so stupid that I'm crying right now." But she can't spare the energy to contain herself, not when she's so tantalizingly close to just not having to deal with that anymore.

She marks the time! Then, yes, she would like in on this hug. 

"Silly. Hellweek is over. I cried." When she woke up, anyway.

"I" snf "hate crying! Gah, fuuuuuck. You guys are great." Hugs for the very good esper pillows. Sniffly wobbly still kind of backlashed hugs.

Well, one of his arms is going to be reallocated to Sara.  The other one is still on backrubbing duty.  "Look on the bright side."  He takes on a familiar cadence for a moment and says, "Awakening fucking sucks!  And you're done with it, or pretty close to it."

April can have many hugs and also backrubs from Sara, as well, as her backlash drains out with the end of her hellweek. 

A soft and slightly teary snicker, fading into a long sigh.

"Oh damn!" says Sean, coming around the back of the tent. "You're so much less fucked now!"

...she giggles harder.

"I am! I'm so much less fucked now!!!"

He comes in closer, reaching for her, and when he finds a hand reaching back for him he squeezes it firmly.

A handsqueeze from Sean does wonders for the feelings side of this situation.

Aww.  These two really are cute.  "C'mon in, man.  You've earned it.  It takes a village to make for half-decent awakening, right?"  Will Sean come join the pile?  He hopes so.

...sure. Sure, he can do that.

...he can't guide her, he's not an esper, but somehow it still feels like he's anchoring something in her that was previously adrift.

Her backlash is slow to fade, but as it comes down, the tears stop flowing. She takes a few deep breaths.

(He's really, really glad she's okay.)

Then he's treated to a quiet voice.  It's not esper-quiet, he's not an esper.  But it's pretty low.  "You're the reason she's here, you know."  He's really running low on hands, but April of all people won't fault him for abandoning her for a moment to pat Sean's shoulder.

"...that still seems so wild. It... didn't feel like I was being a hero or anything."

"I'm thinking at this point maybe being a hero usually doesn't."

"I mean...if you see someone in a car crash, it feels like a big thing, right?"  Or in my case, someone in a dungeon.  "But that's a few minutes of effort, and then it's over.  It's harder to put in the hours and keep putting in the hours.  It was tough enough the last few days, even with Uisa sleeping with April, and you had to somehow keep her alive and fed and clean with no breaks.  I don't remember if I told you, but you had hearing damage, Sean.  Not anymore, but.  The crying, you know?"  Pat the April to reassure her.  "You probably saved her life when she wouldn't stop crying, and you definitely fucking saved her life when the house fell."

"...I just, you know. Did what I could. It... never really occurred to me not to."

"Despite your best efforts, Sean, I think you might be a good person."

...he laughs softly.

Her backlash might be all the way clear by this point. She thinks? How are you supposed to tell?

She is, nevertheless, not eager to leave this pile. It's a good pile.

It's a very nice pile, and Tim and Sara still both have backlash, so they certainly won't be hurrying them off! For that and other reasons. 

The pile is pretty great. No complaints here.

"So how does getting power testing actually like, work," she wonders. "Is there a whole thing or do you just have to find somebody who can guide you and a quiet spot with nothing too valuable in it."

"Agent can help with that." She waves her phone at April, "Mine has contacts in Toronto, if you want. A recommendation." 

"It really depends on your power, too.  Does it feel like you can do anything?  I mean, don't actually do anything.  But."

"Sweet, thanks. And, hmmm..."

She considers.

"...feels like... something about me, I think? Like - I dunno, it's hard to describe and I don't wanna poke it too hard. But I don't think it has a range."

"Yeah, please don't.  I uh - had an accident after Hell week, and it was sheer luck that nobody got hurt permanently.  So - please be very careful.  No scary movies for a little while, okay?"

"Believe me, the last fucking thing on Earth I want to do right now is get any more backlash without a plan for how to make it go away. I'm a little nervous about it even with a plan for how to make it go away."

One of these days someone (besides her) is going to put together his statements about how dire that incident could have been with his vague story of what happened to that poor nurse. 

"Luckily you have the two of us here at the moment. Still. Would rather not get thrown. Through a tent wall." 

"I am not gonna do the thing until I am in a good time and place to do the thing. No throwing people through walls for me."

"...if it's any good, though, I should use it. Dungeons are fucked up, man."

"Yeah.  It's what we're for, a little bit.  I mean, we don't have to, right?  But it's...I couldn't just never do a dungeon if I had a usable power.  I wouldn't - force my choice on anyone.  But.  Well, here I am.  Fuck dungeons."

"Fuck dungeons!"

"Mhm," she nods firmly. 

Hnh?  Something's a little off with Sara.  He...can't quite put a finger on it?  Maybe just a long day.  She can get a squeeze and a li'l nuzzle?

She squeezes him back! 

"Kiyaam. Just. Getting used to being able to breathe properly."

She's... also any worried about Tim's self-sacrificing attitude spreading, but that's not something she's going to bring up.

"Eekoshi."  His pronunciation is pretty good, these days.  "Just checking.  I uh, didn't get the chance to tell you earlier?  But I'm really glad you were able to solo-sensor for this one."  I'm so proud of you that doesn't even make sense, Tim.

Aww, friendship.

Friendship good. Esper pile good.

Pleased blushing: also good? Well, it's happening regardless. 

And so are cuddlepuddles, guiding or no.  And they can pass the time chit-chatting, and learning sign language.  Eventually they'll escape and go on to other dungeons or to guiding or to some R&R.  But for now, they can take a load off.