sometime after day 5

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam’s never really reached out to the Nest in general like this before, but at this point - well, he’s running out of options. The work he’s done on his mental walls has paid off, and nothing escapes his thick cloud layer except his words, and the soft hint of wind and feathers that flavors his mental link. ]

( Seems like we got a bit of down time, and I’m looking to put it to good use. I’m getting better with my symbiote ability, but I need someone who’ll let me practice it with them.

Simple explanation is that it’s healing, with a side effect that means it’s gonna hurt. Most likely for me. I can get into specifics if you’re up for it. ) [ If it doesn’t bother them or they’re willing to overlook that it means Sam getting hurt, he means, but seeing as he’s communicating with the Nest in general, he’s not gonna say that.

He already knows more than who person who is bothered by it and never seems willing to let Sam use it on them. ]

( I’ll take as many as I can get, more training can’t hurt. )

Comments

[narcissithstic]

(Where are you.)

[Which, if that is indicative of anything (it is): now is when he'd like this demonstration to go down.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

( In the training area; I'll wait for you. )

[narcissithstic]

[He shouldn't. He is, but he shouldn't, and true enough Ren is there in no more than fifteen minutes: stripped down to the lowest layer of his robes - a thin black coat, gloves, and boots. For a beat he eyes Sam from a distance, but as he closes the distance his fingers move to the saber at his side. Unblinking, unflinching— a flash of blue light and his shoulders hunch forward as he cuts right through his own side, teeth gritted, stare entirely unbroken.

Hi Sam.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Jesus fucking Christ Ren. That's so completely unnecessary and yet also completely unsurprising. Sam probably should have already figured he could add Ren to the list of people who assumed that Sam meant he wanted them to hurt themselves so he could heal them.

No wonder this Nest is a disaster zone.

He stares at Ren back, expression completely unimpressed. ]

What if I was lying, huh? What if I wasn't able to heal something this big? [ But he can, and Sam moves into Ren's personal space. ] Just keep your ass still.

[ Normally he asks if it's okay to touch someone, but since Ren decided he was going to slice himself open, Sam's just going to take that as permission. Despite the exasperation in his voice, Sam's touch is gentle as he reaches out to cup the side of Ren's face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. There's a flicker of warmth as his ability activates, and Sam holds it back for just a moment - still testing his own control, always testing it - before he gives in to the way it pulls at him.

It flows out across their connection, and Sam concentrates on the feeling - when he was drunk he told Shiro it was like it was pulling from his own life force, but he's starting to think that's not inaccurate. In any case, it's only a few seconds before the saber wound to Ren's side has healed itself up, as though it was never there.

Of course, under Sam's shirt, a very similar one forms, and he hisses quietly in pain. ]

[narcissithstic]

Perhaps I did this— [Hissed through his teeth as he watches Sam close in:] —to ensure you were not lying.

[Still, a moment later there's a hand across his cheek— and Ren has to stop himself from recoiling from it. From the memory of the man that had once done the same in death, rather than in life, stroking his cheek with equal kindness. Disgust boils in his throat like bile...and then abates. Dissipates in the same breath as his wound knits at his side.

A pleasant sensation, dampened only by the Force and the symbiotic connection they share as it flinches alongside Sam's clipped hiss.

His eyes drop downwards; focus on the wound for a wordless beat, observant.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Hell of a risk to call me on my shit if I was.

[ But even as unimpressed as Sam is with Ren's cavalier disregard for his own self, understanding drifts between them. They've discussed it before - they're both men of action.

The fingers of his free hand slip through the freshly made hole in Ren's clothes, palm warm where he rests it against Ren's skin, whole and unblemished where a wound should be. It's not like he has to physically check, not when he can feel that his ability worked, but it's habit. Too long of patching people up the old fashioned way.

His hand stays on Ren's side as he lets the one on his cheek fall, moving instead to hitch up his own tee-shirt. There are a scattering of faint scars on his stomach and chest, but nothing like the saber wound seared into his side. It's a just little further along in its healing, as though it had been made hours ago instead of seconds, but it still hurts like hell. ]

It'd work the other way, too.

[erbier]

[ She's there faster than she should be. She's begun to understand the Station better, how it moves, how it hears what she wants and her want to be where they are is sharp and angry. She appears in the doorway, that anger radiating off of her body like an electrical storm. She takes in the scene for a moment, her lips pursed before she comes closer in silence.

The girl tilts her head between the two of them, looking up into their faces in turn, vibrating. ]

Have you finished.

[narcissithstic]

[His attention snaps to her when she rushes in, a flood of sensory information— and then he recognizes her, and it diffuses somewhat, the tension in his shoulders. Has him turning back towards Sam to further survey the depth of the wound in his side with an almost unreadable curiosity (or sympathy, maybe) before absently responding.]

...For the moment.

[There's time still to mull over his Nestmate's abilities. What it means for him.] You seem distraught.

[Probably because you just cut yourself, Ren, jfc]

[erbier]

You have never spared me a moment of your pain, and I endure it.

[ Her tone is terse and clipped, but belied by the way she draws close to him, hands reaching out to inspect his side. Her own side still burns, nerve endings still shocked from an unexpected pulse of electricity. Body making the mind into reality. ]

But I wonder when it will be my privilege to provoke such suffering on to you.

[ Both a threat and a love letter. ]

[narcissithstic]

[The wound is gone by the time her hands fall on him - moved instead to Sam's body, and Ren's arms fold proudly over his own chest; content that she won't have evidence to scold him with.]

Perhaps I'll deny you that satisfaction, Ilde.

[erbier]

[ Her hand lingers all the same, making certain. In this moment, she certainly puts no faith in whatever it is Sam Wilson claims to do, and will not be satisfied without her own investigation. She certainly feels Ren's vindication that his ugly gambling paid off. She looks up into his face, unamused with him but fond even in anger, ]

That would be very cruel.

[ An idle retort but one with a truth beneath that brings a faint flush to her throat and chest. She ignores it. Turning very slowly to finally give attention to Sam. ]

Did I hear you say your powers also work in the other direction?

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He moves his hand from Ren's side when Ilde steps in, shifting back to give them space. His focus goes briefly to the wound on his side, and part of him wants to ask Ren what the hell the thing that made it is - and maybe how Sam can get one - but right now he'll leave them to it.

Normally he might feel awkward about watching them, but this is the Nest. It's hard to keep things private unless you work at it, and they're making no attempt not to do whatever this is in front of him.

When Ilde turns to him, after that statement about suffering, he looks at her warily. ]

Yeah, I did.

[erbier]

[ Something sharp moves beneath the surface of her expression. It amuses her, somewhere dark and bitter, that he then thinks his power is to heal when indeed, it seems to her, his power is a conduit of pain. Just as she is a conduit of fear. If he were to change his attitude, he would be very dangerous indeed. But for now, he looks at her with nervousness, and that tells her the things she needs to know. She hides none of this from Kylo Ren, as she hides nothing from him. ]

Perhaps a test for another day.

[narcissithstic]

[As wary as Sam is, Ren's stare matches it equally: she wouldn't dare, would she (she would). Running that knife's edge between trust and uncertainty— and denial.

She is still his. She will always be his.]

You grow more vindictive by the day.

[That said, it isn't disapproval. From there, he refocuses yet again on Sam:] Thank you for proving your capability. Should I find myself wounded in the future, I now know who I can trust to see to it.

[erbier]

[ She raises an eyebrow ever so slightly at Ren. Such cordial manners, and a promise she would prefer him not to keep. But he is welcome to make his own mistakes. For her part... she doesn't think she'll be having Sam Wilson's healing hands laid upon her. They are not all they seem to be. ]

Of course, thank you, Sam.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's yours anytime you need it.

[ Which is a dangerous promise to make to someone like Ren, Sam's well aware - but he does it anyway, and he means it. There may be a darkness in Ren that runs deeper than what Sam's seen, but that doesn't change the points of commonality he's found with Ren, and it hasn't made him stop thinking of Ren as something like a friend.

Sam'd be out a hell of a lot of friends if he ruled out all of the ones with an unknown darkness in them, both here and back home. That probably says something about him, but it's not something he's willing to examine.

Instead he nods at Ilde, and doesn't ask if she's volunteering to be a subject in this test she's proposing. Another time. ]

[narcissithstic]

[For a moment longer Ren says nothing, aching to clarify to whom Sam's response was aimed towards. Defensiveness at its finest.

But no, he isn't so willing to be cruel. Samuel is, at his core, a good man. And a good man would not eagerly submit himself to Ilde's sharper, darker urges.

Not willingly, anyway.]

Should I escort you to the Nesting Deck?

[He'll need to heal. Moreso than what his body has done - and there is no better place on the station for it.]