in which the narration is suggestive, yet vague

[subtly_artistic]

Neckrubs become a more regular part of Bella's life. And she does not tell him to stop until she is good and done. There is hugging. There is snuggling. There is kissing. There are some impressively sappy looks from his end, some fascinated mindreading from hers. The semester wraps up, Bella goes home for a week, and she comes back (now signed up for Utility Psionics 2, Intro to Mental Healing, Arcane Defense, Intro Cognition, and her survival credit, a lecture entitled "Wilderness Triage" (subtitled: Quick And Dirty Mechanisms For Identifying The Lesser Of Several Evils).

She missed Celo! She seeks him out at once. Hugs.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

"At least let Celo try talking to her first. And - and I'm going to be late for Arcane Defense. It's the first class of the semester, if you guys want to - can you be invisible?"

[autokinetic]

"Of course!" Pause. "Usually. Wished power. We use it all the time, though - safe to try?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Yeah. Should be."

[autokinetic]

Aegis turns invisible, then turns visible again. "Okay, we can follow you to class. Won't do anything rash till we hear from Celo."

[pythbox]

"Okay," says Celo. "I have class with her later, I'll see if I can catch her then. Meanwhile, I'm gonna be fucking Jellybean, so go away unless you wanna join in."

[lifes_sake]

Cam thinks about this, but then he kisses Jellybean goodbye instead. "Maybe later. We're gonna be here for a while." He turns invisible and follows the other Bells out of the room with Aether.

[pythbox]

Celo and Jellybean have sex.

In much the same way that the Bells are following Aether to her classes, Jellybean follows Celo to his. This means he is present for Celo's conversation with Callahan.

They wait until they're back at the dorm and Celo has a batch of cookies in the oven before Jellybean brainphones the Bells to let them know the results. (Although Celo was added to the brainphone earlier, he doesn't see any reason to use it if he doesn't have to.)

[Callahan scares me,] Jellybean announces. [And she definitely knows something. Doesn't wanna cough it up, though.]

[subtly_artistic]

[Don't all go charging off to break down her door,] Aether tells the other Bells desperately, [please, I'm terrified of her.]

[autokinetic]

[We could spy on her invisibly, see if we can find anything?]

[subtly_artistic]

[That is a worse idea.]

[pythbox]

[Oh my fucking mother,] Celo agrees, [don't do that, really truly absolutely don't do that.]

[I'm with him,] says Jellybean.

[dark_light]

[We have to do something! We can't just stay here forever! The arcane defense was calmly talking about logical paradox like that's a thing!]

[lifes_sake]

[We could just - wait for a door,] says Cam. [Amariah, you visited Juliet for a while...]

[dark_light]

[Yeah, sure, but I'd gotten to Sunshine through Milliways on both ends, I knew to expect no time to pass back home - with Jane down and us having gotten here through a door only on the one end it could already have been years! I just got my afterlife sorted out. I have witch queens to talk to and subworlds to explore and trapped angels to visit once a week in case they decide to talk to me!]

[pythbox]

[Tough shit,] says Celo. [Look, you're all more or less adults. If you want to go pester Callahan, I'm not gonna knock you down and sit on you until you think better of it. I'm just saying, you could die. You could seriously permanently no-takebacks die. Up to you if you like the risks.]

[lifes_sake]

[I haven't gotten to my afterlife yet. There's billions of people on Syntropy who are disappearing to some unknown fate. Don't think I don't understand the urgency of being able to go home. But, look, they find doors here. We can wait for a door. It could've been years, but it could've been less time than we've spent, too.]

[autokinetic]

[...If I for-real-forever die Jane probably does too.]

[dark_light]

[Ugh.]

[pythbox]

[Anyways,] says Jellybean, [there's no indication that how long we spend here matters at all to how long it will have been back home, right? Once Jane's down, it's all up for grabs. She was out for three seconds from her end last time and some of the gaps in other worlds lasted years. ...I guess if it is proportional, that's a big problem.]

[autokinetic]

[It's probably not proportional, but it probably is monotonic. If we got home now, less time would have passed than if we got home tomorrow.]

[pythbox]

[How do we know?] says Jellybean.

[autokinetic]

[It's the simplest explanation for what Jane noticed about her clocks when she came back last time.]

[pythbox]

[Why is it the simplest - you know what, never mind, I don't care,] says Celo.

[autokinetic]

[What did Scary Fighting Teacher even say?]

[pythbox]

[I stayed after class and she asked me if I'd met anybody interesting lately. I said 'like who?' and she said 'like anybody'. It's the same thing she asked me and Bella when we ran into her at Milliways that one time.]