[ LOG ] What do you call a fake noodle?

[bossyboiler]

Who: Winter, Yelena and Kate
When: April 1, evening
Where: Their apartment.
Summary: Kate is going to teach Winter how to cook and Yelena how to bake. Then it's movie night!
Warnings: N/A

Kate is going to teach Yelena and Winter how to bake and cook. She has faith in them. They are both competent individuals and she is certain that they can follow written instructions. It's all about the recipe.

She has selected two recipes for them each to follow. Kate will teach them the same day but at different times. After all, the cookies will take longer to prep than the pasta.

After dinner and desert, Kate thought they could watch a movie. She found one in the Library called the Iron Giant. While it is animated, the synopsis of the story seems compelling. And certainly a cartoon would provide more escape than a traditional film. There shouldn't be anything triggering in it.

What could go wrong?

Comments

[musicdied]

Yelena isn't what anyone would call media-blind. There are a number of movies she's seen over the years, things she'd need to be familiar with to hold up a cover, and things that make good packaging for subliminal training.

This particular movie isn't one of them. So she didn't know to give warning ahead of time. Didn't know until partway through to watch Winter as well as the movie. His reaction isn't as obvious as previous ones have been - with all of them sitting around the television, there's no freezing mid-stride. Still, she notes the lines of white at his knuckles, and the fixed stillness with which he regards the screen. From where she sits on the couch, she leans carefully forward, prepared to pull away if she triggers a startle response.

"Winter?"

[bossyboiler]

On this Earth, Kate is media blind. There are so many things that she hasn't seen or heard. She often has to quietly google certain things after pretending that she gets a certain reference or hears a piece come up in conversation. It's exhausting.

Later, she will wish that she had looked up The Iron Giant first before deciding that it would make a good film for movie night. Later, she will feel terrible. She'll end up feeling like a real jackass.

She sniffs and then looks over at Yelena and then down to Winter. Kate had been engrossed in watching the film from start to finish. She had laughed at the wave and is still trying not to cry from the ending. It had been sad and then hopeful. She thought it a good movie only she hadn't been expecting Winter's reaction.

She notices how Winter is completely still. She sees how tightly his right hand is gripping his elbow. Kate does not reach out to touch his shoulder. She pulls back a little into the back of the sofa as Yelena leans forward.

[worthallthis]

He doesn't startle. He's back to himself now, even if he's chewing hard on memories, and now the inside of his cheek. His voice sounds creaky and tight, though, when he says: "Yelena. Did you ever see. Hear. Words?"

It might not be immediately clear what he's asking. He's vaulted straight back from the painful memory of nearly killing someone his very core insists he protect and care for, and into the equally painful but more urgent memory of the last few words of his triggering sequence. Which he hadn't remembered he even had, until now.

[musicdied]

"I..." Yelena pauses, brow furrowing slightly as she turns the disjointed question over in her head.

"I'm sorry, Winter. I am not sure what you mean."

[bossyboiler]

Kate is still and quiet. What words does Winter mean? She looks to Yelena and then to Winter unsure of what to say or even do.

[worthallthis]

"After the Chair. I. Did you ever hear anyone. Say Words? Specific Words. In Russian. That made me--" He stops, throat closing up against the fear in the memory, then gestures vaguely and helplessly at the screen. He's not sure he can clearly articulate it, he's not sure he can even speak again yet, but he kind of hopes someone puts two and two together with the robot's switch into combat mode and subsequent (if brief) loss of self.

[musicdied]

Yelena exhales slowly, hands clenching on the hem of her sweater.

"Trigger words?" she asks, and is distantly pleased that she manages to keep her voice absolutely level. "For your conditioning? No. I'm not surprised they had them."

She shudders slightly, a sharp roll of her shoulders.

"But I don't know what they are."

It's half apology, and half reassurance. Without anyone knowing what the trigger words are, deprogramming would be a much more difficult task, if he wants to pursue it. But without anyone knowing what they are, they can't be used against him again.

She wouldn't - but can't is more certain.

[bossyboiler]

Kate looks to Winter and then to Yelena again. Should I go? She mouths because she is honestly not sure. Yelena and Winter know each other, Kate knows. They have a special bond. He may need some alone time with her to figure out where he is.

Kate does not like seeing Winter like this. It's her fault. She should have researched the movie. She should have taken more than just a librarian's word that it's a good movie. She should have done more.

"That's good that she doesn't know, right? That means no one else that's here knows them." Right?

She understands the gist of their conversation. Whatever had been done to Winter had been started with words or words triggered something in him. She doesn't have to understand it all to know just how horrible it must have been for him.

[worthallthis]

It might have been a relief... if this wasn't a world with magic. If the magic of this place hadn't already pulled memories out of him that he didn't want, before. "I might know. Somewhere in my head. I. I just remembered two of them. I think." He can only feel the edges of the memory, right now, he wants to flinch away from it, but he knows they're there.

He shudders all over and puts his head down onto his knees. "Which means someone here might be able to get the rest out," he finishes, slightly muffled.

[musicdied]

Yelena shakes her head minutely in response to Kate's mouthed question. They're both Winter's people, part of the little family he calls his team.

And, perhaps more importantly, she doesn't share their history, or the context of their world - which means she might see some measure neither of them would spot.

"Maybe," Yelena says, because much as she wishes it were otherwise, it is a risk. "Someone could have that kind of power. But I think they'd have to know what they were looking for - or at least suspect it."

[bossyboiler]

They have another problem than Winter realizing he has trigger words. It's the secret of them. It's a secret that only the three of them know and no one else. It's a good secret too the kind that could ruin a person. Kate isn't aware of it at first but the Eye is feeding.

"Yelena is right. They'd have to know that they existed and know where to look. I'm not going to tell anyone. I know Yelena won't. I think it's a fairly safe secret."