Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

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Comments

[carniravenous]

Even if Sokka thought that Bucky might be asking for a doctor, he wouldn't be keen on bringing him anywhere — or on bringing anyone to him. There's only one healer that Sokka would call for help in this circumstance, and she isn't here. Outside of that, Bucky would have to be in truly dire condition — or truly adamant — in order for Sokka to ask anyone else for help. He doesn't trust anyone outside of him (and maybe the guy he lives with, a little, though Sokka's feelings about him are a lot more complicated), especially the locals, but his distrust extends to a lot of the new arrivals, too. Sokka is operating on a basis of suspicious unless proven otherwise.

As it stands, however, Sokka isn't sure what Bucky is trying to say, or if he even meant doctor, considering he also said the word duck and his words are slurring a lot. He's trying very hard not to make any assumptions until he has more information, because acting on partial statements is too dangerous. He needs to know exactly what they're up against first. He is also trying hard to be patient, the way Katara would probably snap at him to be, focusing on helping with the water and letting Bucky get words out instead of continuously urging him to continue.

He sees the restraint marks on Bucky's wrist and his stomach drops. He knew, of course, that whatever happened to Bucky was bad, given his current state, but the evidence scares Sokka a little. He's never been immune to fear; on the contrary, he's felt scared a lot, he just never allows his fear to hold him back. Sokka fights through it, and he does that now by ignoring it completely, disregarding any thoughts that arise to remind him that Bucky is bigger and stronger, and if they could do this to him —

It doesn't matter, because Sokka is going to treat the enemy here just like the Dai Li in Ba Sing Se or Azula or even the Fire Lord. He's going to come up with a plan to beat them — in time. For now, he doesn't force too much water on Bucky, pulling it away when Bucky coughs and setting it on the floor again. Too much too fast might make Bucky sick, so Sokka will give him a break and encourage him to drink more later.

He's still looking at Bucky's wrist, eyes traveling up his arm, when Bucky tries to speak again — and grabs his shirt. Sokka places his hand over Bucky's, trying to reassure him in hopes that it'll help him stay calm. It's what Katara would do for him, and what Sokka would do for her or Aang or Toph, if they were in need of support. He wants to be comforting, even if he's still prioritizing trying to work through Bucky's partial statements, which sound more like half-formed thoughts than useful warnings.

If it weren't for the hand tightening around the fabric of his shirt, Sokka could interpret those words as telling him to stay away from here, or from Bucky himself. But there was the mention of the doctor (and the duck), and there's the way that Bucky is keeping that hold on him. He rephrases the statements for confirmation: "Stay away from the doctor?" And then asks, "Did the doctor do this?" with a gentle squeeze of the hand that rests atop Bucky's, an attempt to get him to open his eyes again as he uses his other to point at the marks on his wrist. Yes or no questions are probably better than anything open-ended, Sokka decides.

[freakymagoo]

Bucky forces his eyes to open again, makes eye contact with Sokka, then follows Sokka's line of pointing to his wrist. He nods a few times, although whether he can't or doesn't want to talk about it isn't clear from his current state. He does move his legs though. Or tries to. He can feel through them even though it feels like the bones in them have been surgically removed and they're not particularly cooperative. He's struggling to kick the blanket off enough to expose his legs. Somehow he manages to get his left heel down onto his lower pants leg covering his right shin, and moving his right leg exposes the bruising on one ankle.

Technically the doctor didn't do any of that. Bucky did. If he hadn't fought like hell he wouldn't have hurt himself that way. But let's be fair - if he hadn't fought as the doctor was strapping him in, the first jolt of electricity would have sent him flying as far out of his restraints as he could manage anyway. The end result would have been the same.

But there's curious things about the doctor too that indicated to Bucky that maybe Doctor Pollock isn't just a-- 'reeducator'. Maybe he's a killer. Maybe he's one of the overseers of this experiment. Did someone try to leave and get executed? Did they go crazy and shot themselves in the head or something? Why would he be keeping a copy of a toe tag? Bucky only has a fleeting sense of familiarity with the Walter Reed military hospital, but only as much as anyone else who fought in WWII had heard about it in passing. He needs to do more research. Is Norman also the local town's mortician? Could he simply be investigating someone's death? All questions that Bucky should be asking, but all he can manage for the moment is the letters K-I-L-L-E-R scrolling across the forefront of his mind like the latest price of gold on a LED ticker tape wrapped around the outside of a Manhattan office building back home.

Although he's in a bit of a daze, can't focus on anything - not even on the K-I-L-L-E-R marquee for very long - he has managed to keep his eyes open long enough to spot a pager on the floor. He's not sure if it's his own or Sokka's. Where he could have once crushed it in his bare hand, he now grabs it and slides it halfway across the room under the bed as far as he can push it.

Can't trust those. Can't trust anything. Or anyone.

[carniravenous]

There's a lot going through Sokka's head when Bucky confirms that The Doctor is responsible for his injuries. The loudest part of his brain is telling him that they need to take action — Sokka wants to barricade them inside this room, or maybe take Bucky down to the basement, because that's where Bucky said they're supposed to go when facing threats. They need time to discuss and plan in safety, and if there's even a remote chance that The Doctor will return, they need to be ready. He's also thinking about trying to get a hold of a sword, which has been on his mind a lot given the violence he's faced here, and that in turn makes him think of something that Bucky mentioned to him when they first met — something he should ask about before anything else, even before he presses Bucky for more details.

But Sokka is also thinking about what Katara would say, as Bucky kicks off the blanket and shows the marks on his legs. She'd probably yell at Sokka to get something for the cuts and bruises — bandages or salve or anything that will keep his injuries from getting infected. Well, technically that's what Katara would have said before she learned to heal with water, but since Sokka isn't a waterbender, it's what applies to him.

There are more thoughts, too — half-formed escape plans, like going to the car and figuring out how to drive it away, and a small sense of vindication, when Bucky slides his weird messaging device under his bed because Sokka knew it. He did! All along he's been thinking that it was so weird to send messages without hawks or scrolls, and he was so suspicious — too suspicious to say anything important on the network. And here Bucky is, proving him right! He almost wishes the others were here just so he could say, I told you!

But the others aren't here. It's just him and Bucky, and Bucky still needs his help.

Thankfully, Sokka left his device at home; otherwise he'd be chucking his under the bed just like Bucky's. Or maybe he'd smash it with the end of his boomerang. Or, well, no, not yet at least; it might still be useful. If nothing else, Sokka needs to hold off on destroying it until he understands what, exactly, makes it worth shoving under the bed. Before that, however, there's something important he needs to know first: "Did you buy a gun?"

Sokka doesn't know how to use a gun, but he looked them up in the library after Bucky mentioned them, so he understands the basics — how they are more powerful than a sword or boomerang. Sokka once used a bomb to protect an Air Temple and the people within it; explosive power doesn't scare him, and he'll use it if it's necessary, but he needs to understand how it works before he does anything with it. Still, if Bucky has it somewhere, Sokka can at least grab it and keep it close by.

[freakymagoo]

Bucky shakes his head. He loved his guns once upon a time, don't get him wrong, and he's still very good with them even if he might need to make a few adjustments to use a bigger firearm one-handed. He wouldn't be afraid to use it if he had to. It might have deterred the vacuum cleaner salesman (probably not, but. That fight would have been... neater, at least?) But scientist-technician-handler-doctors aside, this isn't the kind of place or the kind of warfare where you really need guns. And it's not exactly as easy as walking into the local gun shop and picking out his pieces. He's not sure how much money he's been given. If he needs a license. His comfort knife had been sufficient, but the question has him reconsidering - as best as he can think anyway given the heavy brain fog he's dealing with - if he should prioritise getting at least some handguns and ammo.

Even if he did have a gun, he kind of-- woke up at the doctor's office, even though he's pretty sure he didn't sleep that deeply that he wouldn't have noticed someone coming in to whisk him away like that. At any rate, he's not sure he would have had the opportunity to use it. Regardless, if nothing else, he can at least teach Sokka how to shoot. He'd be able to defend himself better than that boomerang. No shade on boomerangs, but he just can't imagine a boomerang winning out in a gunfight.

All of that might have to wait though. Bucky seems to be trying to get under the blanket again. He should maybe-- try and get up. Or crawl down the stairs, try to feed himself or something. Be productive somehow. But he's not used to being so exhausted. He's halfway to passing out again, although hopefully it's more of a restful sleep than a losing consciousness kind of flopping over.

i'm so sorry for the delay on this

[carniravenous]

"Okay," Sokka says when Bucky shakes his head. No gun, only a boomerang and a knife. That's fine; Sokka is used to only having his boomerang as protection. He was before he learned how to use a sword, and it's been fine now that he's without his sword again. It's the weapon he knows best, and no matter what anyone says about it, he could use it to seriously hurt someone if he had to. A gun would have been extra security, but Sokka is still confident in his ability to protect Bucky with his boomerang alone. It hasn't failed him yet, even when facing down creepy mannequins or salesmen who didn't want to die.

That means it should be time for more questions, but Sokka hesitates again, Katara's voice still in the back of his head. He looks at Bucky a little uncertainty as he maneuvers the blanket, trying to determine if he wants to get under it or if he's trying to get up. In the end, Sokka picks up the blanket himself and drapes it over him, deciding that regardless, it's better if Bucky rests as much as he can.

"Wait here. Don't move — I'm coming back." He says that because he feels like it's what he would want to hear, if he were vulnerable and set to be left alone. Sokka leaves the knife but brings his boomerang with him — first, to the bathroom, where he rummages around until he finds some bandages and stuff that looks (and smells) like salve. Then he goes to the kitchen and spends a few minutes trying to figure out what a person in Bucky's state would want to eat, if he even can eat, and settles on grabbing a can of soup and the can opener, similar to what he grabbed when he first raided Bucky's cabinets. He brings everything back to the bedroom, then sits near bucky again.

Quietly, he says, "Let me see your arm. I'm going to treat your cuts," as best he can, considering his lack of healing abilities, "and I'm going to ask you more questions about the doctor." It's fair warning; Sokka already feels like he's wasting important time, as much as he wants to help Bucky.

no rush at all!

[freakymagoo]

Thanks, he hates this. Being tucked in by a teenager he hardly knows. Feeling so-- tired and vulnerable in a way he hasn't felt in as long as he can remember. His body refusing to cooperate with him is nothing new. He can live with that betrayal. But usually it isn't failing on him so spectacularly as it is now. Even if he wanted to go somewhere, he can barely leave the room. He's not safe here, but. He doesn't necessarily feel safe anywhere. He's about halfway regressed to wanting to crawl into a cryo chamber and shut the lid over himself, encase himself in the glass and metal coffin he's come to feel like his bed, his protection, his prison.

When Sokka returns, Bucky is lying on the floor, eyes closed, handle of his knife under his relaxed hand, chest rising and falling in a steady, slow rhythm. He doesn't want to talk about the doctor. He doesn't really want to talk about anything really. He doesn't even want to be babied by Sokka. His wrist will heal, even if it won't look like nothing happened in a few hours' time like his body used to be able to heal.

But he doesn't pull his arm back when Sokka takes his hand. And Bucky's head inches closer instinctively, like an abandoned, scarred dog too old to fight anymore, slow to trust but quietly seeking affection.

[carniravenous]

This is another one of those tasks that would be better performed by Katara. Sokka has the desire to help, and he does have some experience with tending to basic scratches and scrapes — it's an easy thing to do — but his approach is more about smearing on ointment and hoping that it's enough, rather than what it looks like Bucky needs right now. Gentle care, soft words, not — the impulse to make a stupid joke, which bubbles up inside of Sokka as a misplaced urge to make all this feel less...terrible. Not that a joke has that kind of power; it's just what Sokka would do, if the others were here. He wants to lighten this incredibly heavy moment.

But a joke would derail everything, and probably come across as insensitive, which Sokka is guilty of seeming at times. It's the easier route, but that doesn't mean it's the correct route, so he swallows it down as he holds Bucky's hand and dresses his wounds, following up the ointment with the bandages, which are probably overkill but at least his cuts won't get infected. There's no telling what's going to happen after this; if they end up needing to make a run for it, somehow, then it'll be better for his wounds to be covered.

He still thinks yes or no questions will be easiest for Bucky to answer. As he sets a bandage over one of the restraint marks. "Did the doctor want something from you?" In his mind, it's a valid hypothesis; if the doctor restrained Bucky, then let him go, maybe he got whatever he wanted.

[freakymagoo]

It stings and Bucky makes a disgruntled little noise, barely audible. In the grand scheme of everything he's been through, it's just a bit of discomfort, and certainly not a test if it's coming from Sokka, which is the only reason he's comfortable enough to just let his fingers curl in response even as he resists the temptation to pull his hand away.

If they need to make a run for it, Sokka better have the sense to leave Bucky behind and just go. He's of no use to the kid and will likely continue to be of no use to the kid for days to come.

Bucky's head rolls and he buries his face against the floor. What did the doctor want, exactly? A dozen words roll around in Bucky's head. He's encountered a lot of men like him. A lot of scientists like him. They don't necessarily want to hurt anyone, they just-- don't really care. It's just a job. Or sometimes it's worse than that - it's just an experimental procedure. One of many. And the people they're experimenting on, they're not people. They're as valuable as any test subject that passes a few trials, and nothing more.

His eyes flutter open slowly, although the light doesn't quite reach them from where he's lying.

"...compliance." Maybe he wants more than that. Or other things beyond that. But at bare minimum, Bucky wasn't playing along as well as he should have been, and he sought to correct that first and foremost. The other things the doctor could potentially want... Bucky hasn't figured that out yet.

[carniravenous]

In the middle of smoothing one final bandage over Bucky's arm, Sokka's hand pauses. "With what?" he asks, because that single word doesn't give him enough information. Maybe the doctor wanted Bucky to comply with whatever he did to him, when he restrained him — or maybe the doctor expected him to do something that Bucky refused and that's what led to all of this. But even as he asks the question, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, because Sokka thinks about that Christmas party, and the locals acting like there was nothing to be concerned about, reminding him of a certain city in his world — and a certain woman who smiled as she asserted that everything was fine.

He finishes with the bandage but doesn't hurry to release Bucky's hand. Whether it's thinking about facing the doctor, dealing with the locals, or the trying to get back home, Sokka feels ill-equipped for this place, being that he's alone. If his sister and their friends were here with him, then they could surely take down whoever is responsible for this together, but — Sokka can't bend. He isn't the Avatar, or a master of anything, except for his boomerang. He can think and he can plan, and he can fight off all the mannequins and salespeople this place throws at him, but can he really do anything to fix a creepy yet powerful town that's essentially holding him captive, if he doesn't have the others to help?

But it isn't a matter of can or can't. He has to, and he needs all the help he can get. Allies, like during the invasion. He needs to think of next steps. He needs Bucky to tell him more. Hence the light squeeze to his hand, encouraging him to speak again.

[freakymagoo]

Bucky starts to give his hand a testing little tug back, wanting to tuck his arm under his torso almost protectively, not because he's in significant pain so much as he is unfamiliar with a gentle touch in general. He understands the doctor's language intimately well. The violence. The violation. The loud whirring of machines and the red and green lights flashing across an array of cold steel panels. The pinprick of a thousand needles that have pierced through his veins over decades and decades of experiments and enhancements and failures. He also knows of Wakanda's touch, the silent judgement of technology far beyond his understanding, the precision and the necessary picking at scabbed over wounds to force him on a better path of picking up the pieces.

But this - a smaller hand holding his, even though it's not much smaller - this he doesn't quite understand. His eyebrows furrow as he tries to make sense of the question - 'with what'? - and push aside the unnaturalness of the strange warmth in his palm.

With what? Their conversation isn't easy to follow, and he's quiet for a moment, both wanting to be left alone but craving the company in an inexplicable sort of push-pull struggle.

"Here." Here. This place. This time. Compliance with this town. Whatever authority runs it. Whatever deeply problematic interpretation of Captain America this is supposed to be. Whether this is an experiment or a mistake or some timey wimey multiverse shit nobody can make sense of. Playing pretend at their happy family.

"Home." Bucky swallows. That word, like the feel of Sokka's hand, is also uncomfortable to say. This isn't home. He doesn't know these people. Beyond looking out for them in case of imminent danger, he's not really in a position to help them nor does he have any interest in all this-- domesticity. Why it's important that they just go along with it is something Bucky will mull over when he's in better shape. For now it's all one increasingly frustrating and incoherent mess.