silentspringlogs | [ota] February/March Catch-All

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[ota] February/March Catch-All

Who: Chell and her new neighbors!
When: Some February, mostly March
Where: Around and about!
Open/Closed: Noted in starters
Applicable warnings: Feb TDM warnings may apply; descriptions of agoraphobia. Anything that comes up will be in the comment headers.

a. The Errands - OTA, early February

Once the smoke clears, and people are allowed out of their houses again, Chell is faced with a brand new test: grocery shopping.

It's not like she's never done it before. She knows she has. Her memories of life before waking up in Aperture may be hazy in places, but she certainly knows that she used to go to the store and buy food and probably even make it sometimes, although she also has a feeling she used to eat a lot of microwave meals. That's not an option here. And her household has gone through most of the easy-to-prepare stuff like canned food during the lockdown, so now she needs to go restock.

And the thing is -- the thing is, Chell has faced down giant mashy plates with spikes and arrays of turrets training their sights on her and bombs and floors covered in toxic waste. A grocery store should be no problem. And yet, faced with the aisles of food, the people, the constant mechanical whirr and ching of the cash registers, Chell is finding herself uncharacteristically overwhelmed. She can't see the exits when she's trying to pick between oatmeal and cream of wheat. Everyone else seems to be moving with certainty and purpose where she's a welter of indecision and nerves. What if she picks the wrong thing? What if everything is poisoned? What if something comes through the door? What if she throws up? What if--?

All of which has resulted in Chell standing in front of the freezer case for at least five minutes, looking more like a deer in the headlights than a shopper. She moves out of the way when other customers need to get past her, but she doesn't seem quite able to shake herself into either picking something or moving along herself.

b. The Zoomies - mid-March, OTA

It's been several weeks of adjustment, and the idea that Chell doesn't need to be running for her life and probably isn't going to be put into cryosleep unexpectedly is starting to sink in. That hot urgency that propelled her through testing chamber after testing chamber is being replaced with a cool, prickly unease that never entirely goes away.

Unease, and boredom, particularly as the weather gets nicer and there's reason to be outside. Mid-March finds her in the park pretty regularly, despite the masses of pigeons, power-walking laps around the pond and the edge of the park. Occasionally -- very occasionally, and usually only if she thinks she won't be observed, because she's already gotten some odd looks for it from the locals -- her energy gets the better of her and she breaks into a sprint for a few dozen meters, her skirt fluttering indecorously and her jacket flapping behind her. Then she brakes to a walk again, breathing hard.

Who'd have thought that a whole town could still feel as enclosed as a salt mine?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The movement startles Chell; she half-sits up, propping herself on an elbow and oh holy shit that is a MAN WITH A KNIFE.

She inhales sharply in alarm and throws herself off the other side of the bed with a clatter. Unlike Bucky, she does turn her back on this new danger, because she's scrambling towards the nearest window. She bangs into the nightstand on her side of the room as she goes, knocking a framed photo onto the floor: a man with one empty sleeve, his remaining arm around a woman, both of them smiling brightly at the camera as the woman waves.

When she gets to the window she does look over her shoulder to see if he's following, even as her hands run over the frame to figure out the latch.

That's-- not how this normally goes. Usually she'd be all over him (not in that way) trying to choke the shit out of him (also not in that way) or wrestle his knife out of his hand and turn it on him. Usually she would know that he's a fraction of the man he used to be, tired and used up and struggling along just trying to make it through each tiresome day.

His knuckles go white as his grip tightens on his comfort knife. Is this another test? He squints as he tries to make out her shadows groping around for the little window latch, making no movement towards her. He's too attached to his only form of defence to want to risk throwing his knife at her, especially given how vulnerable he's been since he got here.

Sure, he's got some height and a few pounds on her, but. It doesn't feel enough. Especially if she's HYDRA.

(It's always HYDRA. Even when it's not HYDRA.)

Is this another test?

Chell's fingers find the latch, finally. She flicks it open, slams the window upwards with a rattle of glass, and takes a cursory look outside. Ten or twelve feet to the ground? Easy.

She's fully halfway out the window before it occurs to her that her feet are bare, and that usually she takes these falls in Long Fall Boots, aaaaand then she's overbalancing and crashing into the bushes below the bedroom window.

Ow.

Scratched and a little winded, she rolls out onto the lawn and sits up, shaking her head. The early morning light paints the street pink and gold and blue; the grass under her hands and knees is soft and green and fresh. Chell appreciates none of it. She looks back up at the window warily to see if the man with the knife is following her, barely noticing her surroundings just yet.

Oh.

Oh she-- really went out the window?

He hears her land with a thud and somehow he thinks he might not be dreaming after all. Head tilting a bit, looking out the opened window, he doesn't go to check at the window. Instead, he turns to head downstairs, knife still clutched in his hand. He passes the photograph then and notices that it's different now. That she's in it. That they're both having a weird, artificial smile when people ask you to smile to take a photo, but not the kind of smile he would have produced at gunpoint. Which of course is strange since he doesn't smile.

Padding down the stairs quietly, still trying to make sense of it all, he has to leave his knife on the counter next to the door where he normally puts the keys to grab and turn the doorknob. Pushing the door open, he takes two steps outside but lingers in the doorway instead of approaching her. Scowl firmly affixed, glaring, but looking like he's all bark and not much bite for the moment.

"Who the hell are you." And what is she doing in that photograph, with him, in his fake house, with those fake clothes?

He doesn't seem to immediately be following, so Chell turns to look at her surroundings. At the sky. Lightening over at the horizon, stars slowly fading, wisps of cloud scudding past. It's huge. She'd forgotten how huge the sky is. When was the last time she saw the whole sky? She saw the moon through the roof, but--

The man speaks behind her and she whirls around, alarmed. She doesn't see a knife, and at first glance, she assumes he must be hiding it behind his back with the other hand.

Who am I? she signs, blinking. Who are you? Where am I? Are you going to kill me?

He doesn't need to know how to sign to be able to tell she's afraid of him. For now he reasons that it's a good thing. Even if she doesn't recognise him, the Soldier's reputation is a double-edged sword he's contended with for many decades. Rather she not fuck with him than launch straight into mind games.

He doesn't have much exposure to signing beyond military commands so he isn't able to understand everything she's trying to tell him. He is, however, very comfortable with silence. He doesn't respond, the rusted old gears in his mind groaning as they turn while he figures out what he should do next. She looks genuinely confused, but he doesn't trust her. Should he test her? Try to find some identification? Murder her on the front lawn?

Clenching his teeth, he decides against the latter. He should at least murder her quietly in the basement. No witnesses. No reconditioning program.

He leaves her standing there while he retreats back into the house. He should turn on the radio, check the pager thing. See if anyone's mentioned anything. While he closes the door, he doesn't lock it. Although hopefully she doesn't go wandering around too much if she decides to come back in... in a previous fit of paranoia he's booby trapped the back door and the basement entrance, various other doors and windows.

It's almost twenty minutes before the front door opens again. In the intervening time, Chell has determined it is a) way too cold to be outside, b) extremely quiet on the street, and c) not entirely safe to go back into the house with the guy with a knife unless she's got something of her own. Options are limited in front of the house. She finally settled for prying an ornamental rock from the edge of the garden, and has it hefted in one hand as she steps carefully back into the house. It'll be just like a live fire course: if the turret spots you, you huck something heavy at it and sprint for cover.

If she doesn't see anyone in the living room, she'll start for the stairs. There should be clothes and shoes she can take in the bedroom, right?

But a framed photo on the sideboard catches her eye before she can get too far. A photo of her. A photo of her, and knife guy, posed at a party of some kind. Chell stops, arrested, and picks up the photo in her free hand to stare at it more closely.

By the time she returns, he's already checked everything he needs to check and found every avenue of potential answers to be rather unsatisfying. Of course, he was aware that other people who showed up in Sweetwater like him, out of place and out of time, are housed together with people they don't know. Hasn't met anyone whose pretend spouse showed up many weeks later though. Nor has anyone mentioned that their photographs and wardrobes magically changed.

But he's managed to ascertain that she's supposed to be in the house, with him. And this is all her stuff. And he's already removed some of the booby traps so she won't get hurt, although he isn't taking all of them down. He might be newly married but he's not stupid. He'll just tell her about the ones he left up and expect her to be careful.

He's standing silently at the top of the stairs, pillow clutched under his arm, watching her inspecting the inexplicable photo of them. Just one of several disconcerting photos sprinkled around the house.

"You can have the bedroom." His voice sounds a little haunted, a little empty as it rolls lowly down the stairs. "I'll be on the couch."

Chell jumps and turns, raising the rock defensively. There's no knife in evidence this time, though, and with slightly less adrenaline in her system she can finally track one important piece of information: the man with the pillow tucked under his arm only has one arm. So if he's holding the pillow, he can't easily hold a knife.

Okay. Okay. This doesn't seem like an immediate threat, but he sure does seem morose. After a moment, Chell slowly puts down the rock and then displays her empty hand. Nobody's armed now, right?

Then she displays the picture, assuming that he'll be able to get the gist of it even from the top of the stairs -- points at it quizzically, points at him, points back at the picture. Who are you and why are you in this photograph with her?

Where did she even get the rock from? Whatever. He seems interested enough to stare and squint, but doesn't ask in the end. He starts down the stairs, grunting when she points out the photograph. His dog tags read his full name, James Buchanan Barnes and she'll be able to get a good look at it as he makes his way past her and steps into the lounge.

"Yeah. I know. Congratulations," he says dryly. She won the lottery here, stuck with the asshole of the neighbourhood. Look, he didn't choose any of this, and clearly neither did she.

"I'm your man now." Tossing the pillow onto the edge of the couch, he rubs his face a few times tiredly. He realises she might have a hundred questions, and he's not exactly being fully cooperative and eager and enthusiastic about this sudden new arrangement. He'll warm up to her eventually. For now he doesn't fully trust her. And truth be told he doesn't much like the idea of a complete stranger living with him. Figuring him out. Seeing him like this.

"When did you get here?"

She steps aside, keeping distance between the two of them. Their detente doesn't seem steady enough to survive getting into each other's personal space too much.

Dog tags. That means military, right? She frowns at him. Aperture took military contracts, didn't they? Or at least wanted them, if Black Mesa didn't get them first. Maybe it's another set of tests for the army or something. And he -- James? -- he's tired of it. In that much, she can relate.

To the question, she blinks, shrugs, and waves her finger and thumb in front of her forehead. Then she mimes writing and raises her eyebrows. This conversation is going to be pretty information light if she just has to mime things.

Oh.

Oh...

"Um... hold on." Teetering somewhere between awkward and embarrassed, Bucky moves to the kitchen and grabs the shopping list pad that's magneted to the fridge. There's proper stationery upstairs but they'll probably have to go out and buy more. She might need to go through entire notebooks to have a conversation. Or at least have an entire notebook of pre-written responses and questions she can flip around to.

She gets half the pad and the red pen placed in front of her. He holds onto the other half and the black pen.

name = Bucky
military sign only
I will learn yours
are you hurt?

No expectation that they will have to be penpals permanently. But no promises on how fast he can start to communicate with her either.

Okay, progress. She eyes him uncertainly when he takes his own half of the notebook, but then ducks her head to start writing before she even sees his notes.

WHERE AM I WHO'S IN CHARGE

When he does show her what he's written, she adds:

MUTE NOT DEAF WHY DID YOU ATTACK

Okay he didn't actually attack her but he did pull a knife.

Edited 2024-03-16 15:57 (UTC)

Sweetwater in Maryland
its 1960

When she is is just as important as where she is. As for who is in charge, his eyebrows furrow and he hesitates. He realises he doesn't have to write back, he could just tell her. But he doesn't know exactly who is in charge. He's still convinced it's HYDRA. But people here either genuinely don't know about HYDRA or everyone around him is trying to gaslight him. Again. And it's difficult to talk about HYDRA when they're supposed to play the all-American nuclear family part. It's difficult to have those affiliations, even though he's renounced them time and time again.

you broke into my bedroom
put your clothes in my wardrobe
didnt set off any booby traps
photoshopped yourself into my photos
slept in my bed

Shifty eyes. Squinting. What's the normal reaction to a home invasion? Invite her to stay in his bed and offer her breakfast?

trust no one

Chell stares at that list of accusations and finally writes:

NO???

Just no to all of that, dude, what the fuck.

The fact of him including the date strikes her as weird -- that's not a normal thing to put in an introduction, unless you've just woken someone out of cryosleep. Wait, 1960?

ARE THEY TESTING TIME TRAVEL?

Who's "they?" Doesn't entirely matter. She assumes there's a "they," and that it's not a "she." Because she let Chell go.

Unless she didn't. Unless she let Chell think the elevator was going to take her to the surface, and really it was taking her to another test. Or Maryland.

I DIDNT BREAK IN I JUST WOKE UP SOMEONE PUT ME THERE NOT MY CLOTHES

He looks at her like something might be moving on her face. What does she mean by 'no'? Yesterday she was not in the photos. Today she is in the photos. The only reason he isn't stomping his foot and calling her out is because he knows he's been an unreliable narrator in his own life story. He doesn't fully trust his own grip on reality. Maybe she was in the photos all along and he just-- well. He doesn't know. But his mind does abnormal things to protect him from all these cumulative damages.

maybe
thought it was 2024
but I dont know

Far be it from him to convince her that he's the leading authority on the fabric of their current reality. He's still trying to figure out if the last 65 years happened at all or which part of what he thinks has happened is just part of a long cryo fever dream.

ok
same
but 3 months ago

She looks back at him with equal annoyed bemusement. What does he want her to say? That she didn't show up with no idea what's going on?

SO WE WERE BOTH PUT HERE ? I THINK IT'S LATER THAN 2024

Can't be sure, though, can she? She frowns at their two notepads, two halves of what barely counts as a conversation, and bends her head to write for a minute.

MY NAME IS CHELL. THE LAST THING I REMEMBER IS THE APERTURE FACILITY. WILL THEY STOP ME IF I LEAVE?

is it?

He's willing to take what she's saying at face value. It's not the craziest thing he would have heard so far. And time travel hasn't been that weird since, well. Since that's how they saved the world, the last time he saw Steve.

dont know aperture
camera company?
dont do anything stupid
mad scientist doc

There's no way to talk about Doctor Norman that sounds less crazy or conspiratorial, but he wouldn't wish that reconditioning fate upon anyone. Not least of which because being strapped to a chair and electrocuted is kind of doubly traumatic for him, much as he pretends it doesn't affect him anymore.

AI, PORTAL TECH, SHOWER CURTAINS

uhhhh can they focus on the important part though?

MAD SCIENTIST ? ? ?

Shower curtains? Bucky tips his head, still not sure what 'aperture' is exactly, and also trying to join the dots between those three things. It's starting to sound like some kind of smart home feature where people can... maybe portal out of their showers and have some machine autonomously draw their shower curtains...?

He has no interest in talking about his time spent with Doctor Norman - or anyone else's time, really. So he goes back to what he'd written before and underlines:

dont do anything stupid

Like what? Chell signs, annoyed.

DEFINE STUPID

He doesn't need to know how to understand sign to be able to read annoyance.

attacking the locals
asking too many questions
talking about the internet
sympathise with Nazis

His perpetually furrowed eyebrows deepen as he tears off the paper, lets her read his scrawl - look it's not as easy writing with one hand without the other hand to hold the paper still - and continues his seemingly random list of sins on the next sheet.

stop pretending to be a God fearing American
question or subvert authority
dye your hair pink
take laxatives with sleeping pills

Struggling to think if he's missed anything...

making escape plans on the pager
using the pager in general
eyes and ears everywhere

any questions?

Chell's annoyance dissipates as he scribbles. She wasn't expecting such specificity!

Still a little cautious about getting in his personal space, she reaches out to take the first sheet, and mimes putting it in her pocket, raising her eyebrows inquisitively. Can she keep this?

NO QS I CAN DO THAT

She frowns at the list and then realizes she does have a question, actually.

WHAT DOES A GOD FEARING AMERICAN ACT LIKE??

Well. She's going to find out that he's a man of two extremes. Either he will be excruciatingly vague and she has to decipher what all those grunts, chuffs, growls and groans are supposed to mean. Or she'll find him following directions to a tee. But having a sustained, semi-normal conversation, either written or signed or spoken - that's going to be quite a challenge for him.

He nods once, firmly, when she pockets the sheet. No idea what she's going to do with it. It was just a random dump of... recommendations to keep her head down and try and make it through this place in one piece. He didn't even expect her to take him all that seriously, truth be told.

Her question has him leaning back a bit, tilting his head, pursing his lips. What does a God fearing American act like? It's a weird question. One nobody's asked him before. This time he gives it some thought before he starts writing, so as he tears off that sheet and starts with a new list - although it is still a jumble of Sunday school, pre-WWII propaganda, Sweetwater conditioning, the man everybody else thought Steve Rogers was, and the man Bucky wishes he could be - it hopefully seems a little more coherent than the last list.

be kind to your neighbour
accept others differences
stand up for what you believe in
help and protect people
be fair honest and humble
go to church on Sundays
call your mom and tell her everything
work hard and dont cause trouble
and dont be an asshole

Of course, this is not the world he'd come from. It certainly isn't what Brooklyn looks like in 2024. But it may have never been what Brooklyn looked like in 1943, or before. It may have been what Uncle Sam told him he was killing other people for, what he would have liked to have died for. But it's not what Bucky went back to. And sadly, Sweetwater might be perpetuating more of these false comforts than any place or time Bucky has been through, as manufactured and plastic as the world around them is.

Some of those honestly seem ... not so bad? She's got no problem with being kind to her neighbors, or accept others' differences, or working hard.

On the other hand, not causing trouble might be tougher. Also:

OK I DON'T HAVE A MOM TO CALL

She shrugs when she shows him that note; it's not something she feels a lot of angst about, it's just a fact.

I HAVE TO GO TO CHURCH?

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