station72 | mental link; whichever day is today

[The mental voice is... hesitant. Like he's trying his best to modulate his tone, and not sure if he's speaking too loudly or too softly.]

(This has probably been a long time coming... but I have to admit. I'm not good with people in my head.) [A flicker of regret and flashing images quickly stifled.] (Or at controlling what goes through my mind. Someone here called them flashbacks. Guess that works out.)

(It's a long story.)

[So please don't ask, goes unsaid, but like a lot of things here, it's probably felt.]

(But it's been affecting others here, and for that, I'm sorry. I need to be better at this. So I'm asking for help...)

[So he doesn't accidentally overwhelm the wrong person with the wrong memory. Or panic right in front of someone.]

(And before anyone asks - the answer to 'are you okay' is ... not something I want to talk about right now. Sorry.)

[Wait, wait, crap. How does he close this. There's a flustered feeling before just... the mental image of a closed comm connection. He figures that's as good as anything.]

[For anyone who wants to talk in person, he's hauled himself back up onto the roof, bundled up into an oversized hoodie. Black, of course. Hands shoved into his pockets. Probably being all brooding-looking while inside, he's just wondering what it's like to pilot one of the vehicles he sees zooming around.]

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( Damn right I am. )

[ It's accompanied by a low chukle as he makes his way up to the roof. He can guess without asking that's where Shiro is - it's something they have in common - and sure enough, that's where he finds him. Sam tucks his own hands into the pockets of his coat as he sidles up next to him. ]

No food this time, figured it might be a better idea to wait until after we got some work done. [ He rolls out his shoulders, pulling in a breath and letting it out, slow and even. ] We'll go for the basics - shielding yourself so stuff doesn't get out, and a couple of options for pulling yourself out of them. I won't go in your head, but, uh. How comfortable are you with taking a little peek in mine?

[He's still dressed in black. But it's looser clothing now. Sweats and a hoodie. With the sleeves pulled down around his hands.]

That's fine.

[Then he's quiet. Just listening.]

Honestly, right now, shielding sounds like the best possible option. [A shake of his head.] I don't mind doing that, if you don't.

Shielding it is, then. All right, man, here we go.

[ He's already done this with Sam, just on the surface, and he's willingly let both Clint and Barnes in a little deeper, but there's still a prickling on the back of his neck and a feeling of tension at the prospect of letting someone in his head. For all that he was the one who made the offer.

But it's easier like this, for something like this, when he can tell himself it's little different from opening up at the VA. When he can remind himself how hard it was to talk about Riley at first, to stand up in front of a group and tell strangers about some of the worst parts of himself, and how it'd eventually felt easy, natural.

Some of that ebbs through the connection as Sam stops shielding as much and lets some of his emotions flow - unease, guilt and regret, bitterness and anger like windblown rain around a center of calm. Inhale, exhale, and then Sam turns his thoughts to how he makes it stop. It's second nature by now to pull up an image of a cloud layer as seen from above. Something he's seen thousands of times, and he can visualize mounds of grey and fluffy white, turned pink and orangey gold by the varying light of the sun. He holds onto that image, putting as much detail into it as he can until it grows stronger, until the emotions and thoughts drift of one by one below the clouds, evaporating into mist.

There's nothing left but a sea of clouds and the weightless feeling of flight. ]

[He actually takes a step back at the sudden influx of feelings. Maybe he should have expected this. Should have expected feeling and seeing things that aren't his memories.]

[What... what does all of it mean? A shielding trick, that's what it's supposed to be.]

[He doesn't realize he's extending a hand, as if trying to touch the clouds. It's a little like the experiment when they'd first started -- being in each others' heads for focus' sake. It had been calm enough, then. He'd been focused and driven to do it then.]

[But he trusted all of those kids. And none of them really had a choice.]

[Honestly, he'll just watch. Spectate. To try and gain as much as he can from observation, before anything else.]

[ He chuckles a little at Shiro's urge to touch the clouds, a soft trickle of warmth as it brings up the memory of Sam doing the same. For a moment he's caught in it as if he was back there, mist through his fingers and Riley's laugh in his ear. And then his hand curls around the challenge coin in the pocket of his coat as he brings his focus to it - counting the number of ridges, noticing the way his skin warms the metal, thumbing over the letters and numbers and reading them to himself.

It wasn't a real flashback, and he didn't need the coin to pull himself out of the memory, but he'd done it more for demonstration than anything else. To let Shiro see exactly how he uses it. ]

It's called grounding. It anchors you in what's real, what's right now, and pulls you out of the past.

And... your grounding is clouds? And a quarter?

[He can't really help the note of confusion and vague skepticism in his voice. Sure, he'd just seen it in action, but it just seemed so bizarre.]

[To think that a coin and clouds could bring you back from a ... from the past.]

I'm trying to follow. But I think I'm missing something.

The clouds are how I shield. It works best if you pick something that means something to you - for me there's nothing I can focus on easier, better, than the clouds below me when I was flying. The important part is to keep visualizing it. The more you practice, the stronger it'll get, and the better you can keep everything else behind it.

[ As for the second part - Sam pulls the coin out of his pocket, twisting it in his fingers to show Shiro the front and back. ]

It's a challenge coin; I got it after my first year as a pararescueman. It's what works best for me, it gives me something to focus on other than what's going on in my head. It's something I know is real, and if I'm busy forcing myself to notice every detail about it, I can't get stuck in the memory. I don't always use the coin - sometimes it's easier to grab for whatever's close by, rock or metal or whatever, hold it hard and keep yourself grounded in reality. [ He pauses, quirking a little smile. ] And yeah, I know it sounds weird. That's what I thought at first, too.

Does it need to be something physical? [Like clouds were. Because there are options there. At least one image he'd already used as a focus before. But now... now there's something else. That memory of everything fitting...]

[Of the Black Lion. He can't think of a better shield than that.]

[Then it's on to the coin, and he tilts his head to look at it more easily.]

It sounds like it could get dangerous, if you grabbed the wrong thing.

Nah, it can be anything you want. Whatever works for you. The important thing is practicing it, all the time. Even when you think you don't need it right then. S'like anything else, the more you practice, the more natural it is.

[ He holds the coin out, offering it to Shiro so he can take it to get a better look. It's worn in parts that make it obvious that it's well-loved, that Sam's used it often. ]

Grounding can knock you out of a flashback or a panic attack. Regulating your breathing is another good one - there's two techniques I use, square breathing and 7-11 breathing. You just got to make sure you're breathing from your diaphragm, and not your chest. When adrenaline hits and we don't know what to do with it, we start breathing up here- [ He taps the upper part of his chest, near his collarbone, and demonstrates: sharp, quick breaths, the rapid rise and fall of his upper chest, shoulders hitching. ]

And then you get in danger of hyperventilating. Lot of people breathe like this most of the time, just not as extreme, and they don't realize it can be what contributes to stress, but it means it feels weird to breath lower at first. But there's a trick- [ And he demonstrates again, lacing his hands together in front of him and then tucking them behind his head, leaning back a little as if he was that stereotypical 90s business guy relaxing instead of working. The difference is obvious, though, breathing evening out to become slower and deeper. ] Makes it impossible to breathe higher like this.

mental link; whichever day is today

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