station72 | sometime after day 5

Oh, Commander, I'm wounded.

[She isn't, but she is tickled. Casually, she leans against the wall, swords on her back shifting with her.]

A gun would not help you. And in any case, the Nest will not allow me to mortally wound you -- or compromise you in any excessive fashion.

[She taps her forehead, as if to note she speaks from experience. She then glanced toward Sam. Just because she couldn't seriously hurt Shepard didn't mean she was going to go easy on her.]

How adapt are you with this ability?

Edited 2017-01-29 04:27 (UTC)

[ Sam makes just the smallest bit of a face when Sev mentions the Nest not allowing her to do something. Like his own symbiote, whenever it senses injuries on another member of the Nest and he has to fight it not to heal them. In Sev's case, it sounds like it's a good thing, but he's still not a fan of the Nest's influence. ]

It looks out for its own. [ Except when it doesn't, but that's not for now. ] All right, here's how it is - this thing works through touch. If you get wounded and I touch you, you're healed and I get your injury. If I'm injured and I touch you, it heals me and gives it to you. I need practice with both sides, but I'm all about what you're comfortable with.

[ He's telling the two of them more than he might with someone else, but Shepard's given him the impression that she'll be practical about this, and Sev - well, he gets the feeling that Sev isn't going to be all that bothered by whichever way it goes. ]

As far as adapt, well. So far there's only been one thing I couldn't heal, and that was death.

[ That's part of why he's doing this, actually, needing to push his limits. ]

Edited 2017-01-29 05:12 (UTC)

It's cute that you think you could.

[Shepard's grin has just a little too much teeth in it. Oh, Seviilia, you are a peach, pit and all. Ah, but to business: Sam is talking.]

Hey, technically speaking, both of us are already among the undead. So let's just play it by ear.

[Medigel is a hell of a drug.]

You wanna give or take, first? I'm not too bothered which way.

Mm, indeed.

[Swords are probably a bad idea in the middle of the hallway, so she takes the opportunity to unite them from her person in order to shrug them off and set them aside. Shepard asks her question, but Seviilia's reply is non-verbal.

Instead, she aims directly to grab Shepard by her throat, to which she will squeeze at the base of her jaw with her nails until she draws blood while lifting her in the air.]

Age before beauty.

[ Play it by ear, that works for him. Whatever he'd been about to say to that is cut off when Sev immediately moves forward to grab Shepard. For a moment it has his hackles up, sets off his instinct to step in, to fight. But he smooths it back down, helped a little by the quip Sev throws out.

It's training. People get hurt in training - or they do when you train with Natasha Romanoff, anyway. ]

And here I was gonna ask about ground rules, but all right, I guess diving right in works.

[ He is going to watch this closely, shifting to take a stance where he can see the doorway while also being close enough to the two of them that they're in arm's reach. Whatever injuries Sev inflicts on Shepard, Sam is going to be the one leaving here with them. There's no way in hell is going to stand on the sidelines. ]

[What, in the everloving fuck.

Shepard is not experienced at controlling her symbiote. What she is experienced at is, controlling everything else. She dangles there, just a moment, as if to see what Seviilia will do-- this wasn't in the agreement. This was nothing that go discussed.

Age before beauty.

Jane Shepard is five feet, three inches tall. She is running out of air, out of floor, but mostly, just running out of patience. Alright, fine. We do this the Krogan way.

All at once, the biotics flare, blue-bright, electric on her skin. Little bolts of static discharge turf themselves on Seviilia's hands and wrists-- and Shepard lashes out with both feet, a powerful biotic kick. Let go, or lose your arm, but one way or another, Shepard's not having it.]

[The moment when Shepard dangles there, barely losing blood from the puncture of the death knight's nails, where Seviilia appears to finally tune into Shepard's instinctive burst of confusion and fight response. Her heart might have stopped, but adrenaline floods dead veins anyway, and her lips peel back with obvious delight. Like a cat bathing in the sun, she soaks every ounce of discomfort that she can wriggle out of the other woman before she manages to lose her patience.

And the response, of course, is shared between the three of them. She had hardly been shy about her true motive here, but perhaps if she had been more descriptive, they might have been more prepared for the sudden and distinctive race of their hearts -- even if choking might not have been on their list of preferred foreplay, perhaps they weren't masochists, Seviilia's undying sadism knows no boundaries. Its arousal, little more than a tease for how quickly the other woman decides she's had enough.

Her limbs tighten the second she feels the energy flare in Shepard, torn between the desire to clamp down further on her throat and force submission and the knowledge that the symbiote would likely rebuke her for such an action. The spark of it reacts with her magic sensitive self, and the feeling of breath high in their throat is brief and sudden before she's forcibly separated by the kick of her legs. Shepard is released, and Seviilia cracks hard into the wall.

Something bruises in the shoulder that connects with it, and Seviilia chooses to simply rest there and give Shepard her distance. A euphoric, chestborn laugh bubbles out of her. The bliss she had experienced was short, not enough to do much more than tickle at the chasm of hunger in her stomach, but enough to keep her amused rather than angry.

Teasingly:]

I suppose you would prefer blades then?

Edited 2017-01-29 06:32 (UTC)

[ And that escalated quickly. He's not surprised that Shepard lashes out, turns it into a fight after Sev had moved in so fast, but he sure as hell is surprised by the feedback he gets from Sev.

What the fuck.

Breath play may or may not have been on the list of foreplay that Sam's indulged in, in his time, but that doesn't matter a damn bit here. The sudden sharp inhale he makes, the heat that spreads over his skin, the flare of arousal - he's caught completely off guard by it, and it takes root enough to leave him a little bit thrown even after Sev holds against the wall, laughing giddily.

When she'd compared it to their need to eat or drink, he'd assumed she'd needed it to survive. And maybe she still does, maybe this is just a side effect, but it's not one Sam'd thought of. Would he still have agreed to this mutually beneficial exchange if he'd known about it? Honestly, he can't say, but he sure as hell would have appreciated a head's up. And judging by the way Shepard had flung Sev back with whatever the hell space magic she's got, Sam's inclined to say she would, too.

Is it enough to make him pull back now?

Well. He'd meant it when he said he was running out of options. ]

Ground rules.

You think?

[Shepard likes Sev. She even likes Sev, but there's good clean fun, and then there's the kind of thing that leads a body to try and kill you, for good. Either way, the blue wicks off, fading to nothing more than a few strange lensing twitches in the air, then to nothing at all-- and then Shepard flicks her wrist and the orange glow of her Omni-tool answers the gesture with a long, wickedly sharp blade.]

I don't know where you learned your manners, Seviilia, but you're gonna remember them real damn fast. Before we start.

[The truth is, at one point in her life, she might have had manners -- she was a noble after all. But she didn't remember that time in her life having ever existed. All knowledge of it was second hand. So she rolls her injured shoulder with a forced and false sigh out of her nose.

Sometimes, she missed the company of her fellow knights. At least some of them might have had a sense of humor about it.]

Oh stop.

[Said with a very clear roll of her eyes before she turns her back to Shepard in order to reach down and grab one of her runeblades. She knows how dangerous she could be, and nothing about what Shepard or Sam wanted was unreasonable. She could hardly help being blaise about it after seeing what had happened to her when the Darkling had fed her too much of his power.

Even if she could not (or didn't want to) stop herself, something else would whether she liked it or not.

When she turns back around, she does it slowly, to stop any kneejerk strike reactions. The burn of Shepard's biotics cause her tongue to tingle, and the soft buzz of her delight slowly (and sadly) dies off.

She speaks again: more professionally, and less sarcastically this time.]

Go on, then. I'm listening.

Edited 2017-01-29 07:13 (UTC)

This from the one who decided to spring hey guess what kinks I'm into on us?

[ He's totally unimpressed with her oh stop, and his own eye roll probably makes that obvious.

Really, all of this could probably be considered unreasonable, to some: him and Shepard letting Sev injure them, knowing she was getting off on and they'd be feeling the bleed over from it, all because Sam needed to get a handle on this ability he was still working on understanding. But he does need this, and he believes Sev when she says she needs it, too, so here they are.

Starting with ground rules, this time. ]

We're the ones getting injured, we decide what the limits are. And they're the same for both of us - we're walking out of here with each other's injuries, so we gotta agree about them. I'm just gonna go ahead and veto anything broken right now.

See, what I thought I was agreeing to here, was standing still for something not actually all that dangerous, so that this one, [Sam, here indicated with a sharp, angry gesture, snapping from the elbow.] could get some practice. I let it happen, you get what you need....Practically theraputic, all around.

[Shepard is not happy.]

Everybody's happy.

[You can hear the fuck this in her tone, let alone the roil of her mental state. Shepard has her secrets, but what she doesn't hide is enough to make it seem like there's nothing below it.]

You pull out shit that a normal person's going to feel the need to defend themselves from? That's a problem. You wanna fight, that's fine, but I have had more than enough of your disingenuous information.

Ah-ah. [She addresses Sam's complaint first, gesturing toward him.] Side-effect. Had I thought you might share it, I would have thought to mention it.

[Maybe. But that's not really the crux of the issue. She then turns to Shepard.]

Which part? The part where I require your suffering to continue to possess a functioning mind, or the part where the Nest will prevent me from killing you?

[Still, she understands that she's losing ground the longer she tries to argue, and she can't really afford that in the long run. So:]

Very well, you've both made your positions clear. As I've stated in good faith, I have already tested this on another willing member of our number. You are not in any danger -- however, if you do not wish to take my word for it, then you may take first blood Commander.

[First actual blood, that is.]

[ He's not actually sure he believes that she would have told them if she'd known - but then, she seems like the kind of person to at least know what's to her best advantage, and not telling them when she'd known they'd find out anyway doesn't seem to be to her advantage.

But no, that's not really the issue. Shepard and Sev have obviously already got some experience with each other, and Shepard... Shepard is a soldier, and if Sam hadn't already suspected she was one with PTSD, he would now. She's triggered and angry and used to the fight in a way that screams survivalist with trust issues.

Doing this, letting someone injure you without fighting back against them, it takes a hell of a lot of trust. And honestly, if Sam hadn't asked them to be here, if he didn't have his symbiote ability, he wouldn't trust either one of them with that.

He did ask, though, and he does have it. He'd said he'd help Sev with hers if she helped him with his, and he still will, even if he can't help but try to give Shepard an out. ]

Look, if you two wanna fight this out, I'm not gonna stop you. But you don't gotta be here, Shepard. You said you'd come down and get the specifics, and you got it. I can heal what you've got and that's it, you've held up to your end of the deal. [ His gaze shifts to Sev. ] I'll still hold up mine.

[For just one, very strong second, it's Sam she wants to clock, and not Seviilia. There's something very like pity about sympathy, and having laid out the options so openly, Shepard can't leave now, not on her own terms. And she's damn well not doing it on anyone else's.]

Last I checked, the point of being here wasn't to fight anyone. Or get my damn trachea caved in.

[She hates this, regrets coming, regrets staying, tastes bile, and if it's suffering Sev is after, well. Mission fucking accomplished. What she'd expected had been a knife, a cut, and then the healing of said cut for practice, whatever the hell that meant in practice. Whatever else Sam says, that much is bull: Shepard hasn't upheld shit.

Shepard swallows, and quietly deactivates her omni-tool. The blade fizzes away, rendered back into its component omni-gel as quickly and efficiently as it had been manufactured. Outwardly calm, she offers her other arm to Seviilia, wrist-down.]

Age before beauty?

[Seviilia can't help her sadistic little smile when Shepard refuses to back down, stowing her blade the same moment the other woman chooses to stow her's. She will show her neither pity nor sympathy -- after all, she had called herself a warrior. If that were true, a bit of pain should be standard.]

Age before beauty.

[Her clawed fingers find the flesh of Shepard's arm -- her touch is cold, as if it had been sitting near an open window for too long. She lets it numb her for a moment, more a courtesy than a real desire to make her feel better. The pierce of her nails is slow, there's no question at all that she's savoring it for what it is, because there's a good chance she won't get the opportunity again.

And as she pinches the vein between her nails, the shared headache between them dissolves, replaced by bliss -- the touch of kin, a soft press at the temple, warmth at the back of their necks, the hunger absolving into dust.

And then she releases Shepard almost as swiftly as she had grabbed her, with great force of will -- like a rubber band, she forces some distance between herself and the other woman, so that Sam could move in and do what it was that he needed to do.

But also so she wasn't tempted to go farther -- and she is tempted. No matter how hard she swallows, how pointedly she tries to separate their minds, she fails. Its a curse, one that snaps at her heels and begs her to return to tearing skin from bone, punishing her for yielding.

But it is something. Some small relief, a relaxation of pressure, even if the need for contact doesn't quite evaporate.]

[ Don't get cranky at him for trying to be a decent guy, Shepard, it's not his fault she's apparently so contrary that when someone agrees with what she wants and attempts to make it a graceful exit, she stomps back in and stands there being pissed off about every second of it.

In retrospect, he probably could have said he wouldn't be surprised, with what he's read from her, but still.

He's on edge from what he's getting off both of them - anger, bile at the back of his throat, fight or flight instinct raring up mixed in with pain changing to pleasure, warmth and comfort and something that could almost set him at ease, if he didn't know where it was coming from. Sam keeps his shields up as much as he can, and normally they'd be good enough to block it out - but he can't make them as thick as he needs to when he's focusing on his symbiote ability and needs to keep his connection to them open.

It's now that he thinks about what Ilde had brought up to him, about what would happen if he took from those who weren't human to heal himself. Would it work, he wonders, if he let her take her fill of what she needed from him and then used her to heal himself? He doesn't say anything, both because it's something that needs more thinking over and because it's not something he's going to bring up in front of Shepard in case she takes it as him giving her another way out.

But because he's thinking about Sev with his shields not up to their full strength, it slips out to her anyway, the idea remarkably clear for the fact that he hasn't even put it into mental words. And he can't take it back, so he doesn't even bother to try, just lets it be. She'll make whatever she's gonna make of it, and he needs to turn his attention to Shepard.

He offers his hand out to her instead of grabbing for her, letting her take the lead here. ]

Edited 2017-02-01 05:28 (UTC)

[Mixing pleasure with pain; Shepard knows a thing or two about that. She knows more than she'd like to know, and with the weird, filthy mixture roiling up through Seviilia and across, she's learning more all the time. Drop the tablet into your drink, watch it dissolve, greater and lesser densities swirling in the ambient currents, that's what it felt like. Seviliia's sensation was polluting Shepard's perspective, and while the experience wasn't exactly bad, what it was was... weird. And, if not familiar, then it echoed older sensations.

Mixing, as it were, youth with beauty.

Shepard got far enough along to realize she was beginning to conflate wet streets and drug trips with green scales and the smell of blood, and shoved off the reverie with a violent, humiliated half-twist. God.

You leave the fucking Galaxy, ostensibly to fight, and end up spending your entire first couple of weeks in some kind of extended mental breakdown. Could there be anything shittier than this? Motion draws attention-- Ah.

Here, Sam. Have a hand, with blood running down, red from elbow to wrist. Good luck.]

[It takes a minute or two to come down from the high of bloodletting and, in spite of her clear lack of mental control herself, she's practiced at appearing the exact opposite outwardly. Her only tell is the slight lay of her ears backward, like a dog who spotted something they didn't approve of -- otherwise, her expression is as cold as the ice that tended to grow on her armor, eyes focused on some far off point as she goes about compartmentalizing the memories she'd accidentally dug out of herself, out of Shepard, and out of Sam.

If her heart still beat, it would have been racing. Its not so easy, to put thoughts away while others are hearing them, seeing them, experiencing them. Shepard's memories are polluted by a presence and sensation she doesn't wholly recognize.

Seviilia wets her lip in silence, pickled in the bliss she's won for herself as she allows her eyes to fall to Sam's symbiote process. She hadn't missed that thought that passed between them, but in order to access whether or not it would work, she would need to see it in action -- and then there was the matter of all of the side-effects.

It was clear that nobody was hot on the idea of being ripped into, and she supposes she couldn't blame them.]

[ This is something else he's going to need to work on, he realizes quickly. He's gotten to the point where he can shield damn near anything out and in - long as it isn't one of his broodmates - but apparently that goes to shit when he's also got to keep the connection open enough for his symbiote ability. This is a lot more connected than he's gotten to anyone he doesn't know, and that makes him more uncomfortable than any physical injuring going on.

No better time than the present, and he struggles to find the balance as he takes Shepard's hand. Shielding himself feels just like fighting his symbiote ability, and he can't quite manage to completely separate them out before he gives in to the way it tugs at him, to the way he can practically feel it cataloging Shepard's injuries and trying to pull from him to heal them.

There's a trickle of warmth as it activates, and the gouge on Shepard's wrist closes up at the same time as one opens on his own wrist, although his is a little more healed - as though it had been inflicted hours ago instead of seconds. ]

[Shepard watches the wound seal itself-- and open on Sam's arm, with a clinical detachment. She's not yet accomplished at shielding, even in ordinary circumstances, but something about this, the connection between them, makes it a two-way street. She could shut this down, if she wanted, if she really put forth effort. It's a connection, pulling the physical injury from one party to another, like transferring power-load from one battery to the next in an array. It's a circuit; cut one connection, and they all go down.

The wound degrades, too. It's beyond explanation; or was it the way the Asari always said it? Mind over matter. Man, fuck the Asari.

All this to distract her from the sensation of leather and steel at her back. From the memory of medical cuffs and the strangely muffled, disembodies voices of--]

That's a little freaky. [This said to break the tension, as sarcastic as it is, it's only a joke.] I swiped a pack of medigel on my way here, if you want it. Unless passing that thing [The wound] back and forth is part of your practice.

[Even Seviilia, who had bore witness to incredible feats of magic, had to admit that wound transfer was strange to watch. Blood magic was not exactly a common practice back on Azeroth, though it was the work of a blood mage that had allowed her to be pieced back together post-resurrection. Subconsciously, she rubs the tattoos on her fingers against each other.

Eventually, she turns all the way around and allows herself to get a closer look -- slowly, more due to the fact that she doesn't trust her sense near an open wound.]

Curious.

[ There's a soft huff at Shepard's sarcasm, somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. ]

You're telling me. [ But he shakes his head at the offer of medigel - whatever that is. ] Nah. I'm guess that's the good stuff, so it's probably better to save it for someone who isn't gonna heal this pretty quick.

[ He holds his arm steady, letting Sev take as close of a look as she wants - though he watches her a little, just in case. ]

There's still a lot I don't know about it; that's why I need to do this.

sometime after day 5

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warning: there's a hint of spice here

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and here we go again

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