mental link | day: 006

[shri]

[ Her options are at this point, are brood up how much she wants to kill Damon and Elena, or get on with work. She didn't do so well at brooding, though her mind is still so new, so sharp and edged and not kept inside of herself. But in this case, a fire trying to find new kindling to keep itself going. Her own impatience and frustration are evident. But when isn't she anyway - ]

( I was informed when I arrived that we need to be ... ascertaining particular pieces of information.

Have we begun such? If not, should we not begin planning to reconnoitre? )

[ She has already plans, but even so, if it's already been done - well, she's happy to be told if it means she doesn't have to go chasing her own tail. ]

( And does anyone know how to use these - light books - that has the time to show me? It keeps flashing at me and I cannot make it stop. I think it wants something. )

[ The data pad, she means the data pad, she's grouchy at it for not! giving her! the things! she wants! Being a grandma in space is a trial. ]

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[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ She pins him and his body moves automatically, one leg between hers and the other over, setting himself up for some leverage if he needs to twist his way out from under her - but he doesn't, because he can feel the way his question resonates with her, and if this means he's finally going to get an answer to what he really cares about -

She is no better than a killer and though she doesn't want his understanding, she has it. She is what the war has made her, she is what she'd had to become - and so was he, once. So is he still, in some ways. She is what she is and she has nothing else left inside her but the flicker of a flame stoked by every day she fought.

He wants to change her mind, not for himself or anyone else, but for her. So she can see another path but to keep going until the fire finally snuffs itself out.

But he has his answer, and she's looking for one in return.

There are whispers in his mind, the words clear despite the voices being blurred and distorted - 'I will fuck it up, you can't let that happen,' 'Next time is the last time, do whatever it takes,' 'If that's what it takes to stop me, I don't want you to hold back,' - and he holds her gaze, steady and determined.

He doesn't reply out loud, just gives her who he is, the feeling inside him that can be summed up easily by the words etched in his bones: these things we do, that others may live.

He is who he is, too, and he will always do what must be done. He will always fight to protect those who can't, always come after those who are lost, will always sacrifice so others don't have to. ]

[shri]

[ She presses heavy to the hold, fingers around his wrist and her weight into the knee between his leg as his works up between hers - if not for topic, how intimate this would be. If not for the topic, how lacking a word like intimate could be for this: this bound up in each other's miseries.

Because she can not help but bite at the bit, when he gives her such things - no, no she will have no comfort, not just because it had been denied her - but because so many still had none. So many suffered, and her people, her people - ]

I told you. Keep it.

[ It has no heat anymore, only a thick, full misery in her words as she pushes up off of him. ] I will have solace when my work is done.

[ Exhausted, wary, she undoes herself from him. A wound that needs to be licked, curled away from. Shaking, ragged, burned out to the wick that desperately holds to its own heat, she reaches for her blade once more. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It's more than intimacy. It's occupying the same mental space, it's for a moment bleeding so much into someone else that your breath might as well be their own, it's a tangled mess where similarities only serve to heighten the differences.

She has a piece of him now, and her mind has twisted into his even after they no longer share the space he temporarily created for them. It lingers, their connection stronger than it'd been before, even as they pull aware from each other. ]

It's who I am.

[ He's not sure he knows how to keep it any more, if he ever did. Doesn't know how to do anything but leave it up there for her to take, if it ever comes to it -

If she ever believes herself worthy of anything like comfort, when the people she failed will never get it. It's familiar, achingly familiar, from himself and Shiro and Bucky, but from that, too, he knows not to push it where it can't be accepted.

Not now, anyway, though he won't take it back either.

He untangles his legs from hers as he pushes himself upwards. He can feel Shiro raging in the back of his mind, worried and angry and seconds away from losing control, and his mind is already split as he watches her, making no move to stop her. ]