mental link;

[cognitived]

PRACTICAL if we're gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it.	RESILIENT do you know what it's like to be unmade?
SKILLED if i miss, it means im just another dude with a bow.	DETERMINED this is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for.

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

sad birbs

[cognitived]

[ It's a gasp of breath, the moment before a fall, the sinking feeling of sand crumbling underfoot. The feedback of the loss of a pillar of support, and suddenly Sam is there sinking into the connection between them. Pinions carving deep into the yielding span of his mind, a dazed gasp for air, reaching back back back. Sam, he murmurs, curling the louder flurry of feather-wheat-smoke-nothing to see tighter around the both of them. Tighter, blocking the world from this tenuous space between them.

There's no need for further words, but something slips through anyway. That all encompassing, overwhelming loyalty, the notion that Clint will go to the ends of the world for the man written deep in the span of his mind. I've got you, in the wordless embrace. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He calms a little at the quiet murmur of his name - or maybe as Clint starts closing around him, blocking out the rest of the world. Sam lets himself sink in, nestled deep in the spaces of Clint's mind that no longer feel so much like places he's occupying as places that were meant for him.

Clint winds the smoke of his shields around them, and Sam's wings rise to meet it until they blur together - until their connection is so wide that all Sam can feel is Clint, until the rest of the Nest is quiet and distant. Maybe it should feel like too much, but, well. What about them isn't too much these days?

I've got you, Clint breathes, and feeling just how much he means that - yeah, overwhelming is one word for it. Sam hasn't quite realized he's started moving by the time he's followed their connection back to Clint, but it doesn't bother him all that much when he blinks and Clint's there.

Instead he pulls Clint in, fingers tangled in the fabric of whatever clothes he's wearing as Sam all but crashes into him. ]

[cognitived]

[ Somehow, it's become second nature to offer this. Instinct, to wall away the rest of the nest as best as he can. Hidden there behind borrowed pinions and decades of shadows, Sam sinks further into the deeping dark of his mind and Clint curls around him. Relieved, if anything, to be able to react rather than dwell.

Only, Sam takes him by surprise. Startling to have all the minds of the nest pared away like nothing so much as background noise. Like waking up in the new Avenger's base, and missing the sounds of New York's bustle. But it's...heady more than anything. Sam's mind gleams, all the brighter without the Nest's feedback.

A breath, shared between lungs despite distance, and they settle somehow. Something new, yet well worn already. Fingers tugging at their connection, and it's somehow not a surprise to look up and see Sam standing there before him. Easier still to open his arms and hold them steady as Sam slumps against him. Hands grasping at fabric, and Clint simply hauls Sam in, holding him close and steady, until the shock of loss lessens. Quiet and calming, the smoke of his mind winding in along the coils of their connection. Curiosity blooms in the back of his mind, easily put aside in favor of Sam. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Clint curls around him, and Sam begins to feel like he can breathe again. He knows, with a quiet, never spoken of certainty that they breathe in sync, no matter where they are. It's been a reassurance when he focuses on his breathing to ground himself, because it means he's grounding himself in Clint, too.

But this is - more. He hadn't entirely meant to steal Clint's focus so completely, to turn it onto himself until he's brighter than everything else, but he can't bring himself to take it back.

Clint is - Clint is. There's no way to finish that sentence that could easily encapsulate everything Clint is to him. It's in the way Clint opens his arms without a second thought and hauls Sam in as though he was the one who needed this, in the way smoke drifts through everything in Sam, soothing all it touches.

His mind is a jumbled mess, so much more than it usually is. It's never quiet, not really, always vibrant and alive - but there's usually a steadiness, a calmness and a certainty born from knowing who he is and the journey he'd taken to get here. It's jeweled tones in the colors of the sunrise, and even though there's a dark undercurrent of something hollow and aching, the faint echo of something that'd once been chaos - it's dull and distant, never forgotten, but faded.

It teams towards the surface now, a whirlwind of old and new grief, the fear of loss and not being enough - has he ever been, fast enough to catch strong enough to hold good enough to keep - his mind catches and skips like an old record, played too many times and familiar in its faults.

Skips again and holds tight to Clint, remembers the last time they came together like this, and the time before that. It's a theme with them, and he remembers how deeply he'd felt that Clint's mind skips the same way, how much Clint knows the same fears. Why the hell hasn't Sam told him, when he could lose him at any moment -

No. But there's something he's told him before, when they'd pulled Clint out of one of his nightmares, and he thinks back-

Murmurs in the press of lips to the hollow of Clint's throat where he doesn't remember burying his face - ]

You will always be enough.

[cognitived]

[ It's a slow, steady thing. Inhale, exhale, again, again -- until the rabbit quick gasps of breath become softer, smoother, synchronized with ease once more. Less like that first half-drowned gasp, and more like the exhale that follows a perfect shot.

Funny, because the focus is familiar. Eagle eyed and sharp, Sam pares the world away and it's like the hyper-focus of a fight, fletching between fingers and targets marked. Brighter, gleaming, honed to perfection. But it's Sam. But it's Sam, curling desperate in the shadow of his mind, sheltered under smoke and wings. Curled in his arms, gasping for breath against his throat, hollowed out and grieving. Easy enough to settle at hand at his nape, murmuring soft, nonsensical comfort. Easy enough for Clint to touch Sam's mind, struck by his grief and the fear and weathering it like a storm. The impression of fingertips, soft and gentle as they soothe down feathers, ease the tangled mess of Sam's mind.

But -- but it shudders through him. Shock like a starburst upon his tongue, guilt and bitter denial twisting and turning beneath the cage of his ribs like a familiar beast, sinking it's teeth into flesh. It's a familiar fear, a well-worn worry, something older than the circus. Something written deep into gristle and bone, carved into the very core of what makes him up.

Something he cannot deny, something he cannot accept. Not yet, perhaps.

So instead, Clint drags in another sharp breath, pulse a drumbeat against Sam's lips. He swallows, cheek pressed to the top of Sam's head, and holds him tightly. Closer, just shy of too tight, bones pressing close and hands fisting in fabric. Fingertips beat a jerky staccato against the rungs of Sam's spine, Clint's body verbose despite the silence of mind and mouth. ]