A Sister's Touch

[conduit]

Rayen woke up with a bit of a hangover, but she'd slept a black, dreamless sleep, so that made up for it. Her first thought was Bandero.

"FUCK!" She nearly yelled, leaping out of bed and rushing into the shower. She was running down the stairs with wet hair and half-laced boots within ten minutes.

Slowing down as she reached Forge's room, she peeked her head in.

"Bandy?" She said, stepping in and shutting the door behind her. She smiled, even if she felt about two inches tall. She'd left him for what... twelve hours now? Some sister. "Morning lazy. Shit, you gonna lay there all day?" She chuckled a little nervously, hoping he still had a sense of humor. Surely the morphine would help.

[forge]

Forge was sleeping soundly, the pain in his leg barely a memory. Of course it still felt like it was there, and his sleep was absolutely haunted with the Juggernaut ripping it off – but he pain in his dream was surreal, more like an itch. That didn't stop the dreams from being terrible... didn't change the fact that he slept well, though, and when he woke to his sister's voice, he could barely remember them.

His eyes opened, blinking the sleepy away until his hands raised and rubbed at them.

“hey,” He croaked, then cleared his throat. “Hey.” he said, looking at her with warmth in his eyes, and a smile spreading on his face. “How are you? What time is it? Did Bishop finally go to bed?”

The train of questions seemed to make sense to him, anyway.

[conduit]

"It's about eight oclock," she said, pouring him a new glass of water. She handed it to him, sitting on the side of the bed.

"I'm... I'm not sure when Bishop left." How to tell her brother she'd been out with the one person Forge would prefer stayed the hell away from them both... and that he'd kissed her until she thought she'd melt into a little Rayen puddle at his feet? It was impossible. "I... went out, and then ended up crashing. I'm sorry." She winced.

"Well.. we should likely get your bandages changed right? You cool with me helping you out with that again? I figure it's better than Bishop doing it." She smiled at him.

[forge]

Well, wherever she went she seemed slightly uncomfortable by it. Forge made a mental note to ask her about it, hoping she didn't have a drug problem or something. Still, it was her business, and he'd only been back in her life for a little over two days – one of them a horrible, horrible disaster. Then again, he promised to be there to help keep her safe. If she had a problem like drugs, it was his duty to interfere.

His dark thoughts were interrupted by her question about bandages. That brought him back to the leg... and do the man of gold who fixed it.

“Oh!” he said, excitedly. “You didn't hear? Holy shit. Take a look at this...”

He threw back the blanket, and hiked up the leg of his boxer's enough to show her the smoothed over stump that was, just hours earlier, a ragged mess of clotted and burnt flesh.

“Apparently there was a mutant they brought back that can heal wounds. I can't freakin' believe it. Doesn't even hurt.”

[conduit]

She gasped. There should have been elation there, but it was panic. She reached out her hand to run her fingertips over the healed flesh there, even if it was sort of an intimate place to be touching someone you didn't know that well.

"Bandero!" She said almost accusingly, looking at him. "I was working on you! Making sure you had nerve endings for a prosthetic... dammit..." She frowned. It was a completely unreasonable reaction, but one born obviously of deep concern.

To Rayen, it should have been clear that only a sibling with a similar mutant ability could help him.

"I mean..." she blushed pinker by the second, her voice lowering. "I'm really glad you're healed up. I just... think I could have made sure everything was kosher." Rayen looked at her brother, a reluctant expression on her face. "Guess I should have stuck around. I'm sorry. Again."

Tell you what, she thought. That isn't going to happen twice.

Sighing, she plastered a smile on once more. "So. Guess we better get you out of here eh? Care to try out the new wheels?" She gestured to the wheelchair in the corner.

[forge]

Not to pun, but the healing had definitely struck a nerve. She was clearly quite upset about this particular turn of events… and it took Bandero a stunned minute to try and think of why. Could’ve been two things: One, she was his sister, and there was a great streak of familial protection running through her. This seemed highly likely, as he felt a similar thing… maybe now that they’re both out from the clutches of the evil bastard called father, they’d want to make sure each other was safe. The second was that she had a particular plan with the nerves… yes, she’d said prosthetic. Maybe if they were just healed, it’d be as if he were born without a leg, which could easily hurt the process of attaching a prosthetic – at least if you were going to use nerves. But that was more than a prosthetic, it was like a cybernetic.

He looked over at the wheel chair, heart sinking a bit. Any sign that the damn thing was gone seemed to choke him up, and his sadness always surprised him. He was always and adaptable man and easily did he change to a situation emotionlessly. What’s with this, then? The permanence… the possibility that he may not be a field worker with the X-men? Likely the both combined.

Still, he nodded with a smile at the wheelchair. “Alright, let’s do it. Make me mobile again! Later you can roll me to my shop, and I’ll put an electric motor on this mug so I can control it with my power.”

[conduit]

Seeing the look on her brother's face, her own eyes watered. How would it be to lose an entire limb within the first week of finding your dream? She knew Bandero was overjoyed at being an X-Man, and if he couldn't adjust and find his place among them without a leg, it would kill something inside him.

"Thunderbird protected you," She said suddenly. It wasn't often their father had ever talked about the spirits common to their heritage. He'd been raised by Mohanes on the same reservation Rayen eventually escaped to, but in his greed and lust for power, he'd lost touch with it. As a result Bandero and Rayen never really talked about it when they were younger. She wondered if Bandero had ever gone to the reservation in the years between when he left and she arrived.

"He protected both of us. And he'll light the night sky so you can see your path." Rayen nodded, as if agreeing with herself.

Slipping an arm around his, she patted his knee. "Come on. Get that foot down on the floor, I'll be your crutch. Shouldn't be hard."

[forge]

Say what you will about adjusting, dexterity, and balls-out determination, when you first stand on a single leg after having lost the other – it’s a tad bit difficult to maintain balance. This happens for many reasons, the most obvious is that you’ve never, EVER done it before. Your brain thinks it should be like balancing on one leg when you have a second leg, and tries to work it that way, but you don’t have the weight of the other leg this time.

Forge stumbled, barely holding on to the bed for balance, and over-tipped both directions, using his sister as leverage (and a potential victim to a nasty fall) before finally sitting up straight. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to prevent the feeling of nausea from swelling up inside. For the love of God it still felt like he had a leg there…

He had to change the subject, and suddenly went back to what she said.

“Thunderbird?” He asked. It’d been a long time sense he’d heard that name mentioned. Bandero had really like Mojanes growing up, but naturally, his father did all he could to limit their interaction. Now, though, he found the thought of his sister’s faith comforting… for once, he did believe the same, long ago. Though, like his father, he’d lost sight of faith over time. “You reckon’ Thunderbird still gives a crap about me?”

[conduit]

Rayen put both arms around him and counterbalanced him. It was an outright embrace, and she rested her face against his chest for a moment as he spoken, willing herself not to cry. This was awful. And so fucking unfair.

When he asked about Thunderbird, she laughed softly. "You know better than that. Thunderbird looks over you. The mountain remains whether you name it or not."

She stood there with him, not rushing anything. There should have been a leg where her feet were right now, and it struck some sort of primal fear in her. She could feel the goosebumps along her arms, and felt vaguely sick.

Then a familiar sound snapped around the room. The very faint snik-snaking of electricity. Lifting her head, as she took an inbreath she felt it wind up her arms and back down, looping through her ribcage. It made a circuit just like her embrace around Bandero, slipping in a figure eight through her brother's chest cavity as well.

She was pulling from the electrical signature of his body, creating a circuit of their two life forces. Looking at him, she was quietly astounded for a few moments before whispering. "That's never happened before." The electrical pulse hummed around them, crawled over her skin in faint white-blue vines. Rayen could feel their heartbeats synchronizing.

[forge]

The electricity was there, through his body, through hers, connecting them somehow. He could feel it inside and out, a slight tingling on his skin as a vine of white and blue would snake its way over it. He looked down, studying it, taken aback… It made him calm, made him feel peaceful, somehow. It felt like coming home.

“I don’t know what it is… but there is research, in families of mutants. Some are immune to one another’s powers, there are other affects…something between us.” He sagged a bit to the side, then straightened himself. He couldn’t help but giggle, an odd noise for the occasion. “This is incredible. Do you feel it? It feels… warm.”

[conduit]

Rayen felt about six years old again, discovering something new with her big brother there as some sort of reassurance. She smiled. "How cool is that?" She still nearly whispered, in awe.

"I could speak it up, or slow it down. I wonder... you know, I don't know a lot about what it is you can do. We should take some time, when you're..." She almost said 'back on your feet', but figured that wouldn't be the best idea. "when you're back at it." She smiled a bit.

Making a conscious effort, she slowed the current, and cut herself out of it after a moment. "You know..." she began, leading him in the direction of the wheelchair. It was an extremely slow process, letting him lean into her as his foot joggled across the room. She couldn't hold is weight entirely, after all. "I bet that reaction is why the accident happened when we were kids. If you generate an electrical charge, and I'm a conduit for that charge..." She moved a chair out of their way. "Then my body may have completed the circuit between the power box for the hotel and your heart. It's amazing you didn't die, honestly."

[forge]

Forge grunted as he finally got seated into the wheelchair, and scooted around until he was comfortable. He smiled up at her, and covered his legs … errr, lower body… with a blanket.

“That makes sense, actually, you acting as the conduit. I’d never experienced any electrokenetic properties, though, until that day. Only been a minor telekinetic and psychometricist… or, however that’s said. Object reading.” He looked off, mouthing words until he shrugged. “Anyway, I never had my electrokenetic manipulation… but since then, I have. I don’t know if it’s because of the accident, or if it caused the accident. I really suck at manipulating any electricity over a certain, very small amount… though I can generate the stuff, slowly, and build the charge I have over time. There’s a limit to it, though.”

He grinned up at her, deciding that was enough of a ramble. “I probably should’ve been dead, yeah. Thunderbird, right?”


(( End Scene ))