[Oct. 25/11] Casey's Room, Morning

[space_casey]

There was something akin to a disturbance in the force today, coming from Casey's room. Or, rather, a telepathic blip, a pocket of worry that threatened to suck anybody nearby into it and leave them continuing down the hallway in a daze. And normally Casey was prone to some pretty good luck. It was right there in his stone, after all. But this...

"Where did it go where did it" go where did it "go?"

It wasn't anything important, except for how it was. It was a thing that followed him around, survived the worst and then the best but the best was really the worst and it was all still the same thing all over again.

It wasn't much and it was everything and it was gone.

At least Casey had the light on this morning while he tore his room apart, looking.

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[space_casey]

Days. Today, yesterday, the day before. Not many. And then more... And more. And more.

Casey wrapped himself in that peace like it was a blanket, the himself-outside-of-himself staying close to Raph, zeroing in on the quiet and the calm and the familiar.

Things people think about. They lose their think-things.

[ange_du_sang]

"Nothing else? Just those?"

Raphael tried to imagine someone who knew enough about many people to claim their important bits of what would be junk in any other's hands.

It was troubling.

[space_casey]

The list was small.

Casey would have been on it, but his own think-thing was gone, and with it, his tether to life before grade ten. He had no interest in anyone else's. He just wanted his back.

"Just those," he whispered, reaching back into his own head just long enough to say those words aloud. "Other days, people lose things and find them. Jasper couldn't remember where he left a library book. Jasper only remembers forward. It was in his bag."

Because everyone cared. Really.

[ange_du_sang]

If he'd been a more tactile person, he might have reached to brush Case's hair, as reassurance.

Raphael was not that tactile. It was enough for him to be leaking soothing calmness deliberately.

"I will find it," he said quietly. "If there are those who are good at the taking, I am good at the seeking."

Mostly because Raphael had very little care for other peoples' boundaries when they weren't in them. He never took but he wandered while searching for Monster.

[space_casey]

Sometimes, wandering was enough.

Can I help?

He was going to help, whether he got permission or not. Even if he wasn't actively listening, he heard, after all.

[ange_du_sang]

"As if I would do this without your help," Raphael said. "Have I ever struck you as that kind?"

Ignore the fact that right now, yes, he was being quite kind.

[space_casey]

... Casey was going to ever-so-tactfully just not answer that question.

I don't know where to start. I can listen. I listen a lot, and people are never aware that I am. But they're always so loud. "It's not the nines. Nines couldn't do this yet."

He didn't want to listen to the nines. They were confused, it made his brain hurt, no nines. No.

[ange_du_sang]

Probably for the best.

"No," Raphael said. "I think you're right. It cannot be the nines. Their powers are not awake enough for that. If there are thoughts about the things people miss then there should be thoughts from the one who has taken them. Otherwise, why take them?"

Why take them at all?

"I will search physically."

[space_casey]

"And I'll listen. I haven't heard anybody" thinking "about taking people's before-things." But maybe they do not think "or can't be heard."

So many options. There weren't many people that Casey couldn't hear, either.

[ange_du_sang]

"That's a very limited list," he noted, knowing Casey knew that as well or better than he did. "You're one of the most powerful in your field currently at the school."

And one of the least trained. Leakages were harder to block out as well.

[space_casey]

"I just hear more," Casey replied, stubbornly. "It's their own fault if they don't know how to listen."

Well! It was.

[ange_du_sang]

"I am not arguing that."

Except he sort of had.

Raphael set the clutter he'd accumulated on Casey's desk. "Are you well enough to leave your room?"

[space_casey]

Casey looked up abruptly, as if stepping back into his own head more thoroughly than he'd been all day, and considered the clutter.

"I won't" leak "if that's what you're worried about," he informed Raphael. "I want to find my thing." I'll be good I'll be good I promise I will I won't "bleed so people are afraid."

[ange_du_sang]

Raphael idly considered the blood on his sleeves before even thinking of how to answer that.

"I care not if they are afraid of your leaks," he said finally. "But if you are overwhelmed, it will be up to me to deal with you."

And Raphael was in the sort of mood where it was even odds how great his care would be.

[space_casey]

"I'll curl up" in my safe place, "I'll be okay there," Casey replied, looking up at Raphael with a stubborn set to his jaw. "People are loud everywhere but there. And..."

He hesitated, not wanting to get too hopeful, lest he find himself disappointed later on.

We'll find it?

[ange_du_sang]

Raphael was loathe to say an untruth.

There was no absolutely guarantee that they'd find it.

"We'll do our best to find it," he said. "And if we don't, we'll keep looking. The missing homes won't stay lost forever."