ArchivedLogs:The Smell of Broken Dreams

The Smell of Broken Dreams
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Peter, Rasa, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-06-01 (Part of Them! TP)
Location <XS> Art Room - FL2 and <XS> Computer Lab
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. Peter is /probably/ dragging Rasa with him when he comes into the art room. Or maybe Rasa is dragging Peter. Or maybe they're dragging each other. One way or another, the art room door is getting opened - ka-WHUMP -- and now there's a Peter, clad in a white Pulp Fiction / Star Wars t-shirt, along with blue jeans -- his two-toed socks -- and new, very /sleek/ looking wrist-watches. Much different than the awkward leather-strapped ones, these ones look like clever little digital watches, and are easily hidden under his sleeves (even though at the moment, he's not hiding them). "Mr. H--Jack--JAX," Peter finishes, cycling through two different iterations of his name before hitting on the one he remembers he prefers. Jackson has been rearranging -- there are supplies laid out on the tables, one cabinet mostly-emptied and in the process of being inventoried and re-shelved. /Has/ been, but in the bright summery afternoon his excess of energy makes focusing on one task difficult. And so instead he has diverted himself to -- balancing small tubs of paints on each other in a precarious Jenga-stack of colour, a process he seems highly entertained by until the door whumps open. His eye widens, a flush of colour pinkening his cheeks as the top half of his stack teeters and crashes to the countertop. "Wooooah hey hi!" His smile is quick and bright although it dims into a faint frown as he looks at Peter. Only for a second, though. "What's up, honey-honey, you seem kinda --" He doesn't finish this except to flutter his fingers vaguely in the teenagers' direction as he starts to gather the scattered paint tubs, snagging one small tub of purple before it rolls straight off the counter. He is less colourful than his paints -- electric-blue hair but otherwise just dark cargo shorts and a Xavier's t-shirt. No shoes. It is TOO HOT for shoes. Rasa is similarly barefoot, wearing baggy jeans that make room for hir tail a basic blue tee shirt over the top. Hir skin is vibrant, but sickly green, the texture nearly the same as Peter's, as he is holding hir arm tight. Hir eyes have a yellowish hue, and they shift around hopefully, like Ivan is hiding out in the room with Jax somewhere. Ze is not happy, demonstrated in the way hir tail whips back and forth behind hir like an angry snake. "Ivan is missing. We don't know where he is. I saw him before he went to talk to Kai, to check in on him before he went to sleep and now no one knows where he is." Ze would pace, if Peter would let go. "There is a problem. There was something in his head. He told me not to worry, but I worried any way and I'm worrying now more because he is GONE." "Ivan is missing," Peter repeats what Rasa just said, as if Jax might not have correctly /heard/ this. He is also! Notably not releasing Rasa, as if worried ze might DART OFF and start looking for Ivan on hir own. "Since -- I dunno. I didn't see him since the dance," Peter mentions, before adding: "I thought he might, um -- I, we, just wanted to tell you, and maybe, maybe get -- Sebastian and Shane? To help us find him. Or -- does his phone -- maybe --" Through the contact he makes with Rasa, ze can see Peter's brain /reeling/ over a dozen or more ideas, each clamoring to shove its way up to the front. There's also an apprehension, there, that Peter is trying to squash. Thinking about FIGHT CAMP. Even though, there is no way they would snatch Ivan here on CAMPUS and he thinks Jax and his friends have taken care of that /anyway/, but. His mind keeps zipping back toward it, even as he tries to stop it. "Is Kai still around?" is Jax's first question, with a brief and worried furrow of brow. "Are you sure that he ain't lurking somewhere -- y'checked out by the hives?" His teeth sink down against his lip, and he stops rearranging his tower of paint, just setting the tubs upright on the counter so they do not roll away. His head tilts, eye fixing on Rasa curiously. "-- Something in his head? What do you mean, somethin'?" "I have looked everywhere," Rasa replies impatiently, forcing hirself to answer questions in order. "I would not just come to you if I did not have reason. You do not need to hear about possible speculations of missing people when you have already gone through so much. Ivan is missing." Ze pauses to take a deep breath, meeting Jackson's gaze when he stares at hir. "In his brain, while we were at the dance there was a... thing. Like a busy ... occupied part of his mind, like when he is communicating with his powers. I have felt it before with his bees, but they tell him things, like where they are and what they are doing and what the others are doing. It was very... different than normal. There was no feed back. No communication. Just a sense that it was getting stuff from him." Ze rubs hir hand againsr hir thigh and frowns. "When I asked him what it was, he got absorbed, distracted. It took him a while to come back to me." Peter /squeezes/ Rasa's hand as ze goes on to Jackson, frowning very firmly -- his eyes on Rasa, at first, but then slinging back to Jackson when Rasa finishes. "I haven't -- I don't think any of us have talked to Kai. Maybe Ivan said something to him that might help? We should --" The chitin darkens to violet. "Does -- can Professor Xavier, like -- we should do something," Peter says, a bit more strenuously, "/quick/ in case he's still. In range." Rasa can tell 'in range' wasn't what Peter was going to say first. "Was Kai the last person who talked to him?" Jackson frowns, somewhat preoccupied, teeth wiggling at his lip ring. "Do you know if he had his phone? We can trace that if it's on. Maybe start there." He starts to pick up some of the paint tubs to put them away but then apparently just decides screw it and leaves them on the counter. "Why don't you guys," he suggests, "ask the Professor to make sure he ain't anywhere close by -- out in the woods or somewhere and I'll see about tracking his phone down and talking to Kai." He's starting towards the door but then he stops, rocking back on his heels, his sort of preoccupied frown abruptly deepening to a real one, sharp and stark in his usually composed features. "-- Like with his bees," he repeats. "But -- different." Taptaptap; his fingers are drumming restless-quick against his thigh. "Peter thinks New Jersey. If he is walking he would be far away. If he were taking public transportation, he would be there by now." Rasa eventually grabs Peter's hand off hir wrist and moves hir hand to his, the position more comfortable. << Thank you. I am sorry. This is good but I am... >> there is an indescrible worry that follows, one ze can't or won't put words to. Someone /hirs/ is missing, just when ze got hir people back. Ze does not like it. Ze cannot handle this. "We will go to the professor. I do not know if he has his phone, he is not replying. Come Peter. We should go." Rasa is ready to move. "I'm not -- sure, but -- giant bugs, Ivan disappearing -- kind of a weird --" Peter's comments are cut off by Rasa shifting hir grip on him; Peter squeezes back as ze shifts into the new position. << ...s'okay. We'll find him, >> Peter responds, a sort of ironclad harshness to this statement. "Okay. We'll talk to the Professor." And then Peter is darting off, with Rasa. All modernism in contrast to the old-world elegance of most of the mansion, this room has been dragged into the twenty-first century wholeheartedly. Rows of top-of-the-line computers provide internet access to any students who lack their own in their rooms, and sleek tablets give the mansion's artists a place to practice their digital art when the art studio does not suffice. Whether knuckling down to pull an all-nighter on a research paper or simply killing time browsing, students can be found in here at all hours in front of the glows of the screens. It's some time later that a pair of sharktwins are making their way through the school! Searching. They have LOCATED one (1) cellphone (kind of broken-up in its screen sad-smashed against the ground) but that has no doubt been relinquished to their father's care. Now they have moved on to PROWLING. For wherever a PeteRasa might be found. Today there is not much to distinguish them. With their plans to head back HOME to the city and do some intensive /lounging about/ derailed, they are just kind of. Drabbish. Matching dark cargo shorts, almost-matching tank tops (loose and ribbed and identical in cut though one is black and one is white.) They were sniffing around outside! But now. They are. Instead. Sniffing around INSIDE. On the HUNT. For friends. Peter is currently in the library. On the computer. Maybe with Rasa nearby; Peter is /typing/ and /searching/ online, reading up on -- events. In New Jersey. MAYBE because well, that is the only lead he can think of at the moment. He's still clad in his white Pulp Fiction / Star Wars shirt, blue jeans, sneakers -- and webshooters. /Glaring/ at the monitor a little even as he does type, reading yet another boring article on the whole New Jersey sinkhole that seems to fail to mention GIANT ANTS ATTACKING. Rasa is near by, fidgeting. Ze has hir tail wrapped around Peter's ankle, perhaps a little under his pant leg, frowning at a computer as well. Ze is looking for missing persons reports, places that lists unconscious John Does, whatever hir internets can find. The progress is slow. Ze tries adding in something about only speaking Russian or not speaking and the results come back as zero. Discouraged, ze goes back to the general search and starts reading with more attention to detail. Ze is still wearing hir blue tee shirt and baggy jeans, the ones that have a hole for hir tail. << Peter. Why is searching so stupid. Why do we have all the dead ends? >> Creepcreepcreep. Creepcreepcreep. Actually, stalking works far better out in the woods or under the water than it does in the stark-bright cool of the computer lab. So there's not actually much stealth to the twins' arrival, slipping in through the door and moving to FLANK Peter and Rasa, whitecladtwin on Peter's outside elbow and blackcladtwin at Rasa's. PEER. It is, of course, only a matter of /time/ before talking inevitably gives away who is who. TwinInBlack speaks first: "-- what in the fuck dude who the hell files fucking missing persons anything after a /day/ -- not even a day, shit. You know, pretty much everyone who'd give a fuck about filing one is right here in this room?" Sebastian just cringes. Rubs knuckles against his eyes. "... sorry, um, I think what he means is we're -- probably going to have to file one /ourselves/. Or look ourselves. Or --" "-- what smells like broken dreams?" Shane is interrupting this Shane-to-polite-English translation with an absent rap of knuckles against the back of Rasa's chair. "I think it smelled more like, um," Bastian frowns, contemplative. "Despair." Peter shakes his head to Rasa, continuing to search: "This is like /nine-tenths/ of superhero work, Rasa. Batman would spend all his time in the Bat-Basement, searching the Bat-Computer--" Oh. There's a Shane and a Sebastian. BUT WHICH IS -- oh, that's one mystery Peter won't have to solve. When Shane goes on about missing persons, Peter's foot slides to give Rasa's tail a nudge. << S'okay, we'll find him. >> "Br--what." Peter asks, head swinging back to /peer/ at Shane, then Sebastian, brows /rumpling/ oh so deeply. "Smelled like -- despair? You tracked Ivan with -- sniffing?" he continues, thinking. "What -- didyoufindanything?" Rasa's eyes narrow when Shane starts speaking, gruffly and suddenly. Hackles rise, then freeze, turning toward the computer once more and setting hir jaw. "I do not know if I can report him missing. All of this is very confusing and …" Lips press into a tight line as words fail hir. Ze glances over at the more rational voice of Sebastian and then to Peter, finally looking back to Shane. << I want to go look. Have to go look. Why do I have to wait? This is dumb. >> This is all to Peter, hir grip with hir tail tightening for a moment before relaxing, but staying attached. "We should requisition Logan to escort us while we look. Or someone. So we can look." "We tracked him -- to a point," Shane says with a shrug. "Not a very far point," Bastian adds. "Also, the fuck good do you think it's going to do -- I mean, the world is a /bigass/ place, you know. /How/ exactly do you propose to look?" Shane snorts, moving aside to commandeer a computer of his own beside Rasa's. Bastian leaves Peter's chair, heading over to Shane's instead. /He/ takes its mouse. Keyboard. He is driving this thing! Even if there's plenty of free computers still. "I don't think anyone's likely to let y-- /us/ look," he says more carefully to Rasa, "there's not really all that much we can /do/." "Except get in trouble again," Shane's teeth flash sharp to his computer. It's not /really/ a smile. Bastian is -- looking at bugs! Macro photography of bugs. Pensively. Clickclickclick. He is scrutinizing these with apparent deep interest. "Looking makes people feel better," he says with a shrug. "Even if it doesn't actually help at all." "Yeah, well, nobody feels better when you go --" Sebastian cuts Shane off kind of /abruptly/: "Quiet. Look at these." Shane quiets! Obediently. Ziplip. When Sebastian leaves Peter's chair -- and Shane starts criticizing Rasa's idea of looking -- Peter gets up, sliding out of his chair to follow Sebastian -- maybe with Rasa's tail still around his ankle! -- and drops his hands, one atop of Rasa's shoulder, the other atop of Shane's shoulder. /Squeezing/ both shoulders. Maybe Shane's a little harder than Rasa's (on account of, no BONES to crush). "Why are you looking at bugs," Peter says, his expression tense, peering at the photographs of bugs. "...did you smell... or see -- bugs?" He is leaning forward even as Shane is zipping up and leaning forward to look at those pictures. Rasa's tail unwinds and rewinds gently around Peter's leg after he clamps a hand on hir shoulder, when he is situated on hir other side. Ze turns and focuses on the computer screen quietly, biting back words that are accidentally channeled to Peter. << I know what happens when I run off half cocked, with no real information or direction. I'm not doing that again. >> "I don't know," Bastian sounds a little distracted, still looking through pictures. Shane reaches into Sebastian's pocket, plucking out /Sebastian's/ phone (thankfully unbroken!) and swiping its unlock pattern. He pulls up a photograph! Strange poky tracks in the ground. LARGE poky tracks in the ground, judging scale by the human-sized shoeprint also in the picture. He tips its screen to show it to the others. His other shoulder twitches slightly beneath Peter's hand. "Doesn't smell /good/," Bastian says. "Too sharp. Too --" His head shakes. "... big." "...fuck," Peter says, the curse very /soft/; his eyes are on the picture Shane's showing him and Rasa, his breath briefly hitched. The hand on Shane squeezes a little harder. "Ivan -- the bees sometimes get ahold of his brains. Because there are so many, and -- I don't know how his power works, but I always got the sense it was kind of -- two way? He controls them and they -- kinda -- control him. The things in New Jersey were /huge/, though. Maybe they could --" Peter cuts himself off, just /frowning/ hard at the phone pictures. "...maybe -- somebody should -- where we saw them, first? Holycrap, though. Someone would have -- noticed. A giant ant, just lumbering through the streets -- were there any holes...?" His eyes flick back to the computer screen, at the pictures Sebastian's bringing up. "You would have smelled acid. From ants. Pheromones, too. I think they leave a trail, for others to follow." "You think that Ivan was taken by giant bugs?" Rasa is quiet now. << ohgodohgodohgodohgod >> "What... does … anyone do about giant bugs?" "Not ants," Bastian answers immediately. "Ants --" "-- walk," Shane finishes, "This vanished. Jesus fuck I hope it's not like giant fucking --" "... Anophelii," Sebastian's lips kind of twitch at this, but only for a second. Shane /shudders/. "No holes," he answers. "I can't track a scent-trail through the air." Which he looks incredibly disgruntled about. "So -- maybe more than just ants. Do we, uh. Know anyone else with bug-powers?" Bastian frowns at the screen, still scanning through images of SO MANY BUGS. Creepybugs. Close-up-bugs. Pretty bugs! Peter thinks. "No one I know of." At Rasa's mental hammering, Peter just responds with a gentle << shhhh >>, and the vague sense of -- petting. Soothing. He is /new/ at the idea of sending psychic signals, so it might come off a little bit awkward. "We have some people who can fly, I think? But -- if there are -- we don't want to, oh man. Giant bugs," Peter finishes, gnawing on his bottom lip, /thinking/. "When we were in New Jersey, Doctor McCoy was doing some sort of weird stuff -- with the other adults -- I think, I think we need to find out what the heck they know. Um. Would you recognize the smell again? If you smelled it -- smaller?" "Yes." The twins answer this last question at least in unison. Jackson is also kind of quiet about making his way into the computer lab, but -- no more unobtrusive about it than the twins. He has actually put on shoes now! Heavy black boots that are not at all summery, alas. He slips into place alongside Peter, behind the twins' chairs, to peer at their images in silence. His fingers drum at the back of the seat. "Sometimes," he remarks kind of -- /quiet/; it could almost be mistaken for calm to those unfamiliar with him but it's kind of very /carefully/ quiet, "I feel like we should put the tracking chips in all of /you/." "I have not left school grounds!" Rasa chimes immediately, eyes wide, staring at the teacher. "Jesus fuck," Shane mutters, after this. But that's all. Ze takes a deep breath and attempts to calm down. A glance is directed at Shane but ze turns away and looks down at hir keyboard. "Sorry." Ze squeezes hir tail around Peter's leg, then withdraws it, wrapping the appendage up and into hir lap now. "I am not going to do anything bad, I promise. I cannot face down giant bugs... whatever they may be. If they are... giant bees or something else that flies or... I don't know. I just. I'm..." Another deep breath. The chitin starts to fade back to skin as hir skin darkens. "It's just... Ivan." Peter /squeezes/ Rasa's shoulder again, both immediately after hir outburst and then as ze retracts the tail. "It's okay, Rasa. You're -- I know you, just /need/ to do something. And it's frustrating and--" he glances back to Jackson, then, before turning to the twins: "--there's a /smorgasbord/ of bugs in our room. Ivan's terrariums. Not a lot of them are fliers, but -- maybe you could start there? Smell them, see if -- after that. Go bug-hunting. I could help, maybe. Figure out -- it would tell us what we're trying to /track/, anyway." He turns back to Jackson, frowning stiffly: "...uh, we think. Maybe. The twins -- they -- Ivan might have got bugnapped. By a giant flying bug. What were -- in New Jersey, do you know what you were all doing?" "Might be you actually should," Shane answers this wryly, "save you some trouble when people are --" "... in trouble," Sebastian finishes quickly, "Which, um, /does/ kind of seem to happen a lot around here." He looks down at the picture on his phone again, frowning. "We could start there," he agrees, "does he keep a lot of flying bugs? They weren't bees, bees I can recognize. The hives are pretty distinctive." "Everyone wants to do something." This time it doesn't sound like a criticism from Shane, a little more tired, a little more disgruntled. "It's just shitty because there's not always much to do. If you were a giant-ass flying bug --" He just slumps in his seat further, scowling now at the screen. << ass-flying >> Peterbrain HELPLESSLY thinks, this thought broadcast to Rasa with an ass equipped with dragonfly wings. << Oh... Peter. >> Rasa cringes a little inwardly and shakes hir head. "Next up, school issued GPS trackers. I guess we could volunteer for that. Might be worth it." Hir tail pets Peter's hand before slipping down and around his ankle again. Ze does not get chitin'd but does stay dark. "You'd think people in air traffic control would notice large unidentified flying objects. Unless their bodies are stealth. Maybe we should have someone hack into their … do we even hack? Man, I have been watching too many spy movies." "Hack into -- bugs --" Jackson's head turns, gaze fixing on Rasa for a loooong moment before his head tips downwards again, "I ain't quite sure how big y'gotta be to register on -- air traffic control radar but these things still ain't quite so big as airplanes, I mean, you can send crop dusters up and down without --" His head shakes slightly. "Worth a look at least," he agrees in the end. His fingers have stopped their drumming, just clenching down harder at the back of Shane's chair. "In Jersey we was tryin' to find the source'a the problem. I guess," his tone is matching Shane's for wry, now, "we're still doing just that." "He doesn't have a lot of flying bugs," Peter says, "I don't /think/, anyway." His hand tenses briefly as Rasa's tail brushes across it; he squeezes Shane's shoulder again, a little tense. "We -- maybe, if the twins. Or, someone else who can smell -- go there?" An edge of hopefulness to it, followed by: "I could go -- maybe with someone who could -- if there was danger, or -- we can't just --" His hand suddenly slips off Rasa's shoulder, a moment before his thoughts start darkening on what might be happening to Ivan right now. MANY BUGS. Are not friendly. "We already /have/ school-issued GPS trackers," Sebastian points out. Shane's fingers tighten around Bastian's phone. "Yeah, they just kind of only work if you keep 'em." His head turns, slightly, pressing his cheek against the back of Peter's knuckles. "It'll be OK. They found /us/ and /that/ was the shittiest goddamn bullshit." "If they're flying," Bastian says slowly, "they probably won't have left a trail from Jersey all the way up to here, that's -- hella far." Shane swipes the keyboard from him. "They don't all fly. What if they're not flying." "You thinking something like grasshoppers?" Rasa's brow furrows as ze glances at the screen Shane is working at. "What," is Shane's answer, "in the goddamn fuck." He's pulling up a transit map. Looking at the trains and how far out they go. "There's nothing wrong with thinking short term jumpers. Instead, you think one just landed on a train and no one noticed?" Rasa exhales and turns to hir computer, searching for 'large objects spotted on trains' and 'strange subway sightings.' Image Search! Peter untenses slightly beneath the brush of Shane's cheek against his fingers, but there's still a certain edge of urgency in his tone: "But that was people. These are --" A little ripple of something hard goes through Peter's throat. "...even when he loses control, the bugs don't. Hurt him. /Usually/." There's an exception there. Or two. "You could track the ants, I bet. From that site in New Jersey -- find out where the bugs are coming from. It could be -- anywhere. Oh man," Peter says, briefly eyeing the image search Rasa pulls up. Among the pictures, there /might/ be a blurry one of what looks like -- something in a hoodie clinging to the side of a train as it rushes by. "...um, I don't do that anymore." Very quickly, very /quietly/. "Oh, can we just go back to Jersey and try to find an ant to tag? You know, like they do with wildlife? We can figure out where they next. If someone had made the ants purposefully, then they've got to go back to whatever their 'home' base of operations is. It's not like someone would just turn ants loose and then forget about them - let them live free." Rasa clicks through some images and enlarges one of Peter. << Really? Actually giving it up? >> "If they're bugs he -- might be in less danger," Jackson says kind of distractedly; he only flicks a brief glance to Rasa's computer before looking back to Shane's. "I mean, they /don't/ usually. Hurt him. -- The ants we ran into down there seemed like they'd, uh, disappeared so I don't know if..." He trails off, thoughtful. "I don't think he means hitching a ride on trains," he adds, "I think he means they might --" "-- We know someone," Bastian says suddenly. "Who knows underground-things." Shane flicks his fingers to Sebastian in wordless indication: see, he gets me. Duh. Cuz twins. "-- Yeah I guess we do." This makes him frown. "What /did/ you guys find when you went -- disappeary?" << Psshh no, >> Peter responds, but it's distracted -- he's listening to the twins, and to Jackson, now. Brows rumpled. "-- Underground-things," Jackson says in answer, straightening kind of abruptly. And then bending again to plant a kiss on top of Shane's spiky head. "Guys, can you -- maybe not tell, uh, everyone all of -- I don't want the entire student body panicking. It just leads to more people in more trouble." "If they were just using the tunnels and they went by platforms, people would take pictures too." Rasa offers, still combing through endless weird pictures. "Maybe I should look under new 'urban legends.' People might label that kind of thing … that." "Actually," Peter mentions, eyebrows crumpling even /more/ deeply now, "there are /tons/ of abandoned platforms and tunnels that don't even get used -- it's kind of a maze down there, I mean -- uh, I kind of -- read about it, after --" A flicker of violet. "--bloodmonster. The vibrations from the trains could drive them away from the active tunnels, t--" A flicker of concern, then, head /snapping/ toward Jackson. "--have you talked to -- the people down there? Recently? Anole was at the dance--" "Don't know about these motherfuckers," Shane gives a wave towards Rasa and Peter both; his hand falls afterwards to rest atop Peter's, "but we can keep a secret." "Just stay --" Jackson starts to say, but then reconsiders this with a shake of his head. "Maybe you should," he agrees with Rasa, "there's no /telling/ what someone mighta seen down there. Could at least help let us know if they're in the city or --" His cheeks puff out for a moment, and he exhales sharply. "Only just Anole. But I'll reach out to them now. See if they done heard nothin'." "I can keep a secret." Rasa replies, softly. Ze remains still in hir seat, hir side of the telepathic connection very quiet. Shane looks up kind of /pointedly/ at Peter, here. "...oh," Peter comments, as if, suddenly /realizing/ what Jackson said might be -- right. "Um. Yeah, I can --" His eyes flick from Shane toward Jackson. "--I will. Because," he adds, drawing in a slow, /tense/ breath: "Because I know you'll get him back. And -- if you need help, I know you'll. Ask." He peers down toward his feet at this last bit. "So. Okay. I, won't. Tell anyone. For now. ...promise." "Thank you," Jackson answers, and seems to actually mean it. "It's just real easy for things to get spun off into all kinds of -- terrible panic. When we find out something for /real/ 'stead'a just speculating, I'll make sure people know what's going on." His hand lifts, fingers scrunching for a moment through hair that -- /was/ electric blue and then goes kind of bizarrely /fuzzy/ and fades back to plain black. "I should go talk to the others. If y'all find --" he gestures towards Rasa's computer. "/Anything/, let me know?" His hands move -- one to Peter's shoulder, one to Rasa's (careful to stay on the t-shirt); for a brief moment he squeezes, gently. "We'll do everything we can," he assures them.