Issue 1 Downtime

There were lots of little things that one forgot about in everyday life. Sometimes you forgot where your car keys were. Sometimes you forgot that you left the oven on.

Cal had been focused for the past month or so on finding a way to destroy a ghost. So in the process of his rather crazed obsession, he'd forgotten one thing:

God damn, was science fun.

He was alongside the building, testing out the new additions to the power staff. He'd even added on some empty segments to make it actually be full length, with the downside that he found he was having a hard time not chuckling maniacally.

Next to him on the brick wall was a basketball-sized patch of rippling energy. "All right... bricks work to conduct the portals. Now... let's see..." Taking aim, he fired at a tree.

"That laugh usually means you're up to something, hottie," a familiar voice said from behind Cal.

Cal looked back at her with a not-quite-manic-but-close grin. "Shit, was I laughing again? I thought I had a lid on that..."

Haley smirked. "Yeah, not at all."

"...and what ARE you doing with that thing?"

"I'm testing... ah... I guess it's easier to show you," he said. He aimed the staff at another spot on the wall and gave it another zap, which seemed to leave the wall with two holes in it.

Holes where Cal could reach through one and have his hand come out the other.

Haley's eyes widened. "Holy shit! That's awesome!"

"I know, right!?" That manic look was coming back into his eyes. "I was just trying to figure out what all it works on, now. So far, it just kind of fizzles if I try to use it on a wood surface. Or skin. Or dirt."

"...can you go through it?"

He looked at the basketball-sized hole. "I... well, I can't figure out how to get it big enough to go through yet," he admitted. "I mean, if you could squeeze through, yeah, it should be safe. I've stuck my hand through, my head through... I just can't get it big enough to squeeze everything through."

Haley promptly stuck her head through the portal.

She'd feel a tingling sensation as she passed through it, and it would probably be pretty disorienting. Aside from that, though, the most she'd feel was a static crackle in her hair as her head came out the other hole.

Also, she'd have a good view as Cal came up behind the rest of her at the first hole and started tickling her.

Haley shrieked and pulled her head out quickly, falling backwards into Cal.

Cal laughed and fell back under her, grabbing her around the waist as he did. Then, playfully, he tried to bite her neck.

Haley laughed and let him nibble. "Oh God, not you too! The whole campus is turning into vampires," she joked.

"If you can't stake 'em, join 'em?"

Haley laughed before picking up her boyfriend with her TK, floating him upwards, and then escaped from his tickling.

"So. I know we talk like every day online and stuff but I feel like we haven't had a real date in like. Forever. We should order takeout and watch a movie and then get distracted by other things like. Yesterday," she grinned, not letting him down from his spot 4 feet floating above the ground.

Cal seemed... surprised? "I... yeah, that'd be great," he said. He tried very, very hard to keep possibly not-quite-accurate and probably unkind thoughts about whether this meant the history professor was busy tonight out of his mind. He was VERY focused on those thoughts not being in his mind... possibly to the point of self defeat. "So... ah, what do you want to get?"

The problem with dating a telepath--and one who isn't amazing at reining in her telepathy--is that trying really hard NOT to think something is almost as bad as really thinking it. Or just saying it.

Haley was, however, getting much better at hiding things herself--it's just not fair to not let people have an inner monologue after all. Her grin only slightly faltered, and that, she reasoned could be due to her focus on returning Cal softly to the ground with her TK, which she did with only a slight furrow of her brow.

"You pick. I'm not picky about food and I don't plan on watching most of the movie," she said, a mischievous gleam in her eyes...but maybe not QUITE as cheerful as normal.

Well, screw it, he figured. If she didn't want to come back, she-

Oh for fuck's sake. If you're not going to blindly trust Haley, who are you going to blindly trust?

"All right, that sounds good, I just need to check how much I have to work w- what the fuck?" He seemed to be staring, confused, at a random spot in the air, but by now she'd probably be used to him shifting his attention from what he saw to what his computer feeds were showing him.

"Uh...what's going on?" she asked, choosing to ignore his train of thought for the moment, and looking to where he was.

"My freaking bank account," he said, frowning a confused, but not upset, frown. "This is weird. I dumped all... well, a lot of money back into my parents' bank account, like... couple months ago. It looks like it's all back. This is... really weird."

"Really? When did it come back?"

"I don't know. I... there's no transfer listed. It's just there." He frowned as he thought about this more. "Well, guess there's nothing wrong with an extra... lot of money."

"So, we should get expensive takeout?" she giggled.

"Um, yeah, at the very least." Cal still looked pleasantly surprised. "Hell, looks like our only limit is what we can get away with."

"So...I dunno. Chinese? Thai? Pizza?" Haley said shrugging and starting to float up into the air where she sat cross legged as if the air was solid.

"Pizza in England is crap," Cal said. "Or rubbish, if you want to go local. Chinese could be good, though..." He turned around and looked at her, then at the ground, then back at her. "Getting better at that?" he said with a grin.

"I think pretty soon we could make out in mid-air," she winked at him.

"Chinese it is then."

"We could already do that. There'd just be a lot of freefall involved," he joked.

"We'll if you don't have that much confidence in me, then we'll see if I take YOU flying," she giggled.

"Hey, you're the one who said we'll be able to soon, not now," he said with a grin. "All right, Chinese delivery on the way."

"What'd you order? Do you already know what I like ordering?"

She liked quizzing him unnecessarily.

Cal blinked. "Well, I ordered... a whole lot of food," he admitted. Which of course sounded better and/or less creepy than 'I have an algorithm that remembers what you eat and matches it to the closest thing on the menu available.

"Food comas, yay!" she giggled.

Cal grinned, feeling secretly relieved that that one passed by. "Well, we'll just have to keep a lot of leftovers. I like you conscious a lot better," he said, giving her a wicked little look.

"Oh? Why's that?" she asked innocently.

He smirked. "Because kissing you when you're passed out would be kinda creepy. And I don't need more of a weirdo reputation."

"Good answer," she giggled, floating back to the ground and straightening her legs to land on them and walk over to Cal.

"So what should we do until the food gets here?" she asked, leaning in flirtatiously.

Cal grinned, setting his staff against the wall. "You look like you have an idea or two..."

Haley smirked and gave his mind a quick flash of exactly what she had in mind. It wasn't g-rated in the least.