station72 | sometime after day 5

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sometime after day 5

[ 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. )

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(How exactly are you suggesting you train yourself?)

[Doing his best to keep his own tone neutral. Because on the one hand, yeah, they could all use some training in... that area. Himself included.]

[But this doesn't sound all that good of an idea, and he's sure it's his own personal feelings talking. Hence why he does his best to keep from letting that show through.]

[Shepard hates using the mental link for conversation, but she hates it in the way she used to hate helmets on hardsuits-- you hate something when you're young with the deep and abiding hatred that comes of not seeing the point. And then, when you grow up, you carefully make sure the shoulder-strap is correctly belted across when you drive, because you've had enough time to imagine what it'll be like to die without one. She is at least this self-aware: so she replies.

So, there is a pause, to master the reflexive flinch away from the task at hand. Take a breath. And then--]

(Let me guess.) [Her tone is caustic sarcasm, but then, there's always a heat to Shepard, even when she's being merely dry. Her mind is not a gentle landscape.] (I'm gonna bleed for this.)

[She's not exactly dismayed by the concept, although clearly she'd like to pretend to be.]

(Yeah, I can help. Might as well use somebody with an enhanced healing factor to begin with. In case you screw it up somehow.)

[ And there's one of the people who Sam knows doesn't like it. Maybe Sam should work more on figuring how to to block specific people out when speaking over the mind link in general, though hell if he knows if that's even possible.

Still, it's a neutral enough question, and Sam can respond in kind. ]

( Depends on who volunteers, if anyone, and what they're up for. )

[ He's actually a little relieved to hear from Shepard. Sam likes her well enough, in the way he feels a common bond with soldiers and with people who aren't afraid to speak their minds, who're down for a little flirting - but more than that, from the sense he'd gotten from her, she's one who won't balk at the practicality of needing to be able to control this ability he has because someone's getting hurt. ]

( Usually I'm the one bleeding for it, but yeah, it works the other way, too. ) [ There's the sense of him perking up when he hears she has an enhanced healing factor. Sam has one, too, when it comes to the injuries he takes on, and it makes him feel a little better than he would about using it on someone who didn't. ]

( It might be easier to think of it as less healing and more transferring. If you're injured or sick or tired, I can take it from you. Or I can give you mine. )

[She senses that interest with a vicious amusement to answer. What the hell, man, you a masochist?]

(I already heal like a Krogan, let's see where it takes us) [Nothing so like an image accompanies that term, just a sensation, tagging along like a kite-trail; weight and shadow. The fondness between brothers-in-arms, a protective, furious strength. So sue her; she likes the Krogan.] (Just don't ask me to do paperwork about it and you're on. Where are we doing this?)

[She thinks, if she tries, she can almost-- almost tell where he is. Or the direction, maybe. Fuck if this isn't some form of science here, Shepard's just doing her best.]

(You're evading the question.)

[Says the usual suspect of question evasion. But, that just makes this a little more concerning.]

( Healing, you say? Is it magic-born? )

[She likes to imagine not, if its a result of the symbiote. Any healing spells were almost always harmful to her kind -- but she isn't looking to be healed. She is more than happy to do the harming that requires the healing.]

( Perhaps we might help one another. )

[ Really, Shiro, you're going there? Sam lets just how unimpressed he is with Shiro calling him out on that when he does the same damn thing drift across the mental link. But of course, Sam calls Shiro out when he does it, too, so it ain't like he can ignore it. ]

( I'm gonna ask people to let me fix them up until they're at full health, whatever shape they're in. If they wanna know how my ability works and what I can do with it, I'll tell them. If they have an idea for how we can train with it, I'll listen. )

(... Then I'm in.)

[Call it responsibility, assumed or real. But he can't let someone close to him just recklessly jump into something like this alone. He wouldn't let any of the others do it.]

[Not without a plan. And clearly, Sam doesn't have a solid one yet.]

[ Technically he'd be a sadist if he's interested in her healing factor so he can hurt her - except also a masochist since he's the one who said he was looking for people who didn't mind hurting him - all right no, that's enough down that line of thought. This is weird and potentially uncomfortable, he knows that, but he also knows it doesn't do him any good to have an out of control ability. ]

( Hell no. The best thing about this operation is the distinct lack of paperwork. ) [ There's a pause as he considers, then the equivalent of a mental shrug. ] ( Where ever you're comfortable. It'll be easy enough to show you how it works, we can figure it out from there. )

( Not unless the symbiote counts as magic. )

[ He's not sure it doesn't, but that's beside the point. Sam lets his curiosity around that trickle out through the mental link. ]

( What'd you have in mind? )

[ ...all right, that's a surprise. Not that Shiro hasn't done something just to be contrary before or to prove something, but still. ]

( After all the faces you made at me whenever I tried to heal you? )

[She pulls back when she feels his curiosity brush against her -- as much as she's able to without severing her conversation with him. Offering up a weakness was not something she trusted the collective with just yet.]

( To heal, you must possess an injury. )

[Its hard for Seviilia not to sense that there are other minds surrounding this topic, and that one or two of them won't like what she has to say.]

( Perhaps this is better explained in person. Your abilities, and my own. )

[There have been weirder kinks than you have known on this heaven nor earth, Horatio-- Shame is almost a foreign concept, to Shepard. Almost. For a moment, though, guilt is a thing that must happen, welling up like blood before it's wiped away; she left them all behind, to join this fight, and all she's done with it is sit around. Jacob Taylor would have loved this. But then, he had a family now. A life, if you could have one in the middle of a war.

Then it's gone.]

(I'll come to you)

[And she does, suiting deed to intention. She won't run, but as they say, a bitch might just power-walk.]

Hey. [there's a moment of awkwardness when she crosses the threshold. It's weird, this mental... thinking at one another. It almost seems like something she hallucinated, or imagined, than a real conversation. Shepard muscles past it.] How d'you wanna do this?

(Training is important. I can't really argue against it. But I know I'd feel a lot better if there were something I could do.)

[Because it's not just for his sake. This is for everyone. That... and he didn't say he'd let himself be the one healed. In this experiment.]

[ More than fair enough, and Sam isn't the type to push when someone clearly doesn't want to share. He pulls back himself, withdrawing the question implied by the curiosity.

It's replaced with agreement quickly enough. After that first comment - yeah, Sam's definitely going to bet this is a conversation better had in private. ]

( Where should I meet you? )

( My quarters are not particularly hospitable to the living. I will find you. )

[And the probing presence of her mind is like a sharp needle -- inexperienced with this connection, but clearly knowledgeable on how to navigate a hivemind.]

[ Hey, no, Sam ain't judging. It's not like he's got all that much shame, either. That guilt, though - that, he's got his own share of. It's only because his walls have gotten so good that his doesn't pour out to echo hers, that he's able to keep it back to focus on what's at hand.

The mental thing is something he's... gotten more used to than he's strictly comfortable with, but it means that there's not much awkwardness from his side. Instead, he nods a greeting back, pushing himself up from where he'd been leaning against the wall of the empty room. ]

I got another volunteer who might have an answer to that. They're on their way, too.

It's Sev, isn't it.

[She says it automatically, in the same way she'd point out without a moment's lost though the source of a ship-board prank. Then, she blinks, furrowed brow at her own competence. How in the hell-- ah, but this was that bullshit again.

She's not calling it a Brood, no one can possibly make her. Screw you, Sam Wilson.]

I'm not given to understand that she does so hot with other people bleeding around her.

[Seviilia's mental presence comes into range about the time her boot steps can be heard echoing down the long hallway. She's abandoned her armor in favor of the loose, hole-ridden garments which appear somewhat out of place alongside the vestments that peace-tie her ominous and glowing runeblades to her spine.

Her mostly neutral expression widens noticeably when she spots Shepard.]

Commander.

[A pleasant surprise, to be certain.]

I do hope I'm not interrupting.

[ It's that bullshit again.

Sam raises an eyebrow at her reaction to knowing who it is, but all right, all right, he won't push the brood thing.

Probably not. Maybe only a little to pester her.

He's about to say he didn't ask their name when she appears, and Sam shoots her another a small smile. ]

Not on my account. I appreciate you both being up for figuring this out.

[Shepard offers her a polite, formal nod. She likes Seviilia, well enough.]

Sev.

[For just one clear, open moment, the roiling, volcanic smog parts, like a breath of cold, fresh air in a stifling heat. One more body enters the equation and the space is suddenly-- the exits, the vents, here to stand back to the wall, no surprises. Threat assessment, automatic, cold as calculus, like checking the time in a glance before refocusing on the task at hand. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Shepard doesn't even seem to realize she's doing it. She only steps back, to all appearances politely, to give Seviilia room to stand with them.]

Eh, I've taken worse for stupider reasons. At least this is potentially useful.

[Shepard's instinctive need for threat assessment invites an amused, slightly musical titter from her -- or it would have been musical, were it not for the haunting echo attached to her voice. Her chosen short-hand for her name is equally amusing as much as it seems to invoke an unpleasant memory. Two elven men arguing, one in gilded gold, another with two curved horns protruding under his hair--

The memory falls away almost as soon as it appears.]

It will be useful.

[Perhaps it was time to explain herself -- it had been a few days now, and if they were all going to be brain-tied to one another, they would figure it out sooner rather than later and there was no controlling it.

The hunger headache in the back of her head scratches at its doors in anticipation.]

Commander Shepard is already somewhat familiar with the nature of my...condition. As you both require food to eat and water to drink, my kind can only be satisfied through the suffering of the living.

[ His mind grinds out like his voice does, but where he's still too new to really have the walls up - and, rather, that the void would abide being kept, he rolls in like a house in flood around the ankles.

Heavy, steady, and so always in pain. ]

( What can I help you with? )

[ That threat assessment echoes so damn strongly with Sam - something he does without thinking about it, something he used to do to the point of obsession - that it's hard to keep that feeling behind his walls. It's only because Shepard doesn't seem to be aware of it that he doesn't respond to it, doesn't draw attention to it.

Stupider reasons, yeah, Sam knows something about that, too, and he focuses his attention on Sev.

He hadn't quite been expecting exactly that, but it doesn't surprise him after what lead her here. He runs a hand over his jaw for a moment, considering that, before he nods. ]

So you get what you need to be satisfied, I get something to practice my ability on.

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sometime after day 5

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hell yes threesome

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