He shudders at their collision, the jarring wrongness of souls too painfully exposed, too close. Shudders, slouches, but keeps pushing forward through the crowd.

Somehow, painful and nauseating as that was, it wasn't as bad as he'd feared. Everything feels so wrong, it almost doesn't stand out. Stopping, talking, thinking, caring... All of it, everything everything except moving toward the stage. Everything except the music, getting to the source of the music. He needs to soak in it like it's the only warm thing in a frozen world.

"I... have to," he says, almost an apology. "Down, to the stage. That's... the only..."

Midway through the sentence he trails off. Not quite forgetting why he's trying to answer, but why answering would matter. The answer doesn't matter. That awful collision, or their hurts, or her fears, don't matter.