bakerstreet | Sensory deprivation meme

Sensory deprivation meme

the SENSORY DEPRIVATION meme:
You know those things you rely on to navigate you properly through life?
Senses? Yeah, well, kiss those goodbye.

(TRIGGER WARNING: This meme deals with the loss of senses:
blindness, inability to feel. If the concept of blindness, deafness
and/or the loss of any of your senses bothers you, please do NOT play this meme)

✖ Post with your character name/fandom/options for scenarios
(ie; het/slash fluff/smut) and your prompt.
✖ Use RNG to pick your numbers.
1-5 for regular senses, 6-10 for moral sense, 11-16 for cracky senses.

The Basic Five

1. Sense of Sight - Whether you woke up that way, had an accident, a brain tumor expanded or you had a bad reaction to something, you're now blind. Fully and completely. Watch out for that bu--*wince*

2. Sense of Smell - Did someone step in dog crap? It could be you, but you'd never know. You've lost your sense of smell. I guess there's no stopping by the roses for you, huh?

3. Sense of Hearing - "I'M NOT YELLING!!" Yes, yes you are. And no matter how loud you crank AC/DC, you're never hearing Highway to Hell again. Guess I shouldn't have gotten you the Stones compalition CD's, huh?

4. Sense of Taste - No, it doesn't taste like chicken. In fact, it doesn't taste like anything. Perfect time to get that friend that burns everything to cook for you - at least it'll make them happy and you can smile through the whole ordeal.

5. Sense of Touch - Where'd you get that bruise? Or that gaping knife wound? No clue. You have utterly lost the ability to feel anything, like your body is enveloped in fuzzy packing tape. Punch the wall all you want, you ain't gonna feel anything.

The Guiding Factors

6. Sense of Right and Wrong - Tripping people that get in your way? Taking candy from babies? Killing someone that hurt you and yours? All sound like pretty good ideas right about now. Your entire moral code has been thrown into the 'grey' area. There is no right or wrong, only what you want.

7. Sense of Decency - Things that just 'aren't done' are in play for you now. Evicting old ladies and orphans because they can't pay? Pff. Good. Lousy Mooching leeches. Hitting on that underage and naive little thing? Puh-leeze, they're an easy mark. Deflower, deport and debauch yourself to your heart's content.

8. Sense of Self - You don't even know who you are anymore. What are you doing with your life? What's it all mean? What the hell's it for? Why even bother to get up in the morning? Are you going to go try and 'find' yourself? Or just give up?

9. Sense of Preservation - Your life? Means about as much as a mouse fart. Why should you step out of the way of that speeding train? You were there first. Mouthing off to that huge, angry, overpumped steroid-faced goon sounds like a good idea too. He took your seat. And he smells.

10. Sense of Empathy - That ability that lets you put yourself in the shoes of others, to relate to them? Gone. No, you don't know what they're feeling, and quite frankly, you don't want to. You have your own things to deal with, and they're much more important. Why? Because they're yours.

The Quirky Ones

11. Sense of Humor - Wait, am I supposed to laugh now? You have to take your cue from those around you, laughing when they do, usually a little bit late and a little too long. Not even a fart joke will crack a smile.

12. Sense of Direction - You couldn't find your ass with both hands. Literally. You tried. And wound up getting thrown in the clink for inappropriate conduct with a nun. Don't drop the soa-- Too late.

13. Sense of Modesty - So what if you're using a belt as a skirt. It looks good, right? Bending over and showing off too much isn't an issue for you, neither is changing in the middle of the store if you just have to wear that cute little shirt now.

14. Sense of Fashion - Yes, you think a pink polka-dotted bikini top goes just smashingly with the neon green bellbottoms. Bubblewrap tops? Freakin' awesome. Put it on and flaunt it, and watch people's eyes bleed.

15. Sense of Timing - "What do you mean now's a bad time?" Yes, because you think trying to pick up a girl at her husband's funeral is a good thing. What? She's single. You're late to everything. A clock? Wassat? Strange, foreign words...

16. Mix and Match - You poor bastard, you've lost more than one sense. 2? 3? The whole lot? Who knows, that's up to you.

(reposted from memebells@lj, originally here)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

Sure. You wanna play in the 'verse we already have going on, or a nicer one that doesn't have the WS as a mass murderer? Also who loses their sight? I can do either, but I've got work in like 20 minutes so I won't be able to start or respond for a few hours at the very least.

(( We can do a time jump in our verse? And WS, as a sniper/assassin/etc probably relies on his sight more, so that might be more interesting? Unless you want to do something else. I'm good with anything. ))

[lol really doesn't matter to me at all. I'll roll with whatever, so if you have an idea just go ahead and start.]

((Here goes! I can rewrite if you like!))

The hospital room is quiet. He hadn't needed to be attached to any machines, and while Sharon was grateful for that, it doesn't make her feel better. He isn't waking up. And while there had been times that she had thought about his death, this is the first time she's thought that she won't know what to do if he dies.

She hates him for making her think of him like that.

But it was true. There had been too many missions where it was just the two of them, too many weeks and months where they'd lived close together. She might not trust him as she trusted Peggy or Nick or Steve or Natasha, but-

She pulls her chair closer to his bed and bites her lip. After a moment, she gingerly covers his hand with one of her own. Another moment, and her fingers curl around his.

"You need to wake up now, James." She speaks quietly, as if any noise might draw the nurses back. "I can't cook well enough to live on my own. And- and you never do that again, you hear me?"

Because whatever they'd hit him in the face with, whatever they'd knocked him out with, they'd almost managed to use it on her. But he'd seen something she hadn't and had kicked her out of the way.

And she hates that about him, too. She'd expected him to kick her some time, sure, but helping her when he didn't have to? And now they're alone in a refugee camp, and she's wounded and he won't wake up.

She rests her forehead against the bed and silently wishes him awake.

[So I was gonna reply to this on my lunch but I was fucking exhausted, and then I was going to reply to this when I got home but I had a migraine.... Yesterday was not my day at all and today's not looking too awesome either]

James didn't wake up right then, as nice as that would have been. Instead, he wakes three days later, in a fog of dark grey. He doesn't open his eyes right away and he wakes silently. He steadies his breathing after a moment and listens. He can hear breathing not too far from him, feels the weight of a hand on his. He lets his head fall to the side, trying to do it casually enough so as not to attract attention, and opens his eyes.

But the fog doesn't go away. His eyes are open but he can't see. And it's not that it's dark, either.

He's pretty sure the person with their hand on his is asleep, so he carefully frees it and lifts his hand. He manages to find hair and carefully draws a strand of it between his fingers - long, soft, slightly coarse and unwashed... He really doesn't know for sure, but he thinks he can guess. He asks, voice low, "Sharon?"

[[ No problem! I can wait. I just hope you feel better soon! ]]

The past three days had tried Sharon's patience like few things before. At least during SHIELD training, she'd known it was part of training. She'd known there was an end in sight, but as more and more people emptied out of the area, including the nurses and the reporters, and she'd had less reliable intel, she'd learned about nerves she didn't know she'd had. She's spent the last three days arguing with doctors about whether or not to move him, trying to get them both out of there despite the doctor's protests that to move him might cause him more harm. She understood what they really meant - if the refugees were seen with her and James, they might be killed just for the association. Too many reporters had been killed for the rest to hang around, too, and with their absence and the locals fleeing, Sharon had spent the past three days trying to figure out when their enemies would be here without any information but the knowledge that it was inevitable.

Her sleep had turned to naps, and those had become more and more restless. The best chance she has of sleep comes from holding his hand, waiting for him to wake in the quiet of his room.

When he calls her name, she only makes a soft noise in her throat and turns her head. Five more minutes.

And then her head pops up, and she glares at him. "Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me? I'm your handler. That means I protect you." That was probably a bad time to smack him in the chest, but she tries to do it as gently as possible and gets to her feet. "Not the other way around. Do you understand? NURSE? He's up!"

Her hand finds his again and gives it a squeeze without a thought. "Once you get checked out," she says quickly, "we're out of here. Tilda. Good. He's awake. Give him a clean slate, and I'll take him. You guys have to go." Her tone is rushed. There are only three nurses left, and they have to get out of there before Salazar comes. James will be fine. Sharon will help him walk if she has to. She'll carry him if she has to, but she's getting him out of this godforsaken place alive.

He manages a small smile. He can imagine the glare she's giving him, can practically see her turning to call for the nurses. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, "I'll make sure not to do that again." He's not sure he'll be able to, either, considering he can't see. He sits up and decides to pretend he can see. He feels perfectly fine, aside from the fact that he's blind. His body doesn't hurt at all, he doesn't even feel sore. A handy side effect of the serum he had gotten so long ago.

He slips his feet off the side of the bed and feels cool tile beneath his feet. He moves one leg to the side and yes, there are his boots. He leans down to grab them and starts to pull them on, fingers working off of pure muscle memory. He stills when a hand that's not Sharon touches him, but it must be the Tilda Sharon had just spoken of. He turns into the nurse's touch, lets her check him over.

Tilda declares him good to go and James carefully gets to his feet, keeping one hand on the bed for stability. "Let's go," he says.

Sharon nods, having already gathered their few possessions in the room. They amount to little more than a duffel bag, and she's had it ready to go since they got here. "Tilda. You guys are leaving, right?" At Tilda's nod, Sharon started pulling some guns out of their bag. "There. One for you, two for the others. We can take care of ourselves." She hopes, at any rate. "But we'd appreciate splitting whatever food is left."

Tilda responds in broken English, trying to refuse the guns, and Sharon argues politely as she follows Tilda to the kitchen area. She keeps half an eye on James, relieved that he's all right but not entirely trusting it. Their luck hasn't been that good lately.

Once Tilda and the other nurses have accepted the guns and Sharon's shoved enough food and bottled water in their pack to last them close to a week, she shoves it at James. The weight doesn't affect him as much, and though her arm is healing, it's still in a sling. "See how long you can manage that, Mr. I Don't Need Ice To Go Comatose For Seventy Years."

She makes a face. She'd had three days to think of more nicknames for him, and she'd squandered them.

James isn't expecting the bag to be thrusted into his arms and he staggers back a step before he catches it. He feels out the straps and slings the bag onto his back. "Sharon... There's something I need to tell you." And he really does need to tell her that he can't see at all, that's he's blind. But there's no urgency in his voice. Sharon's trying to get them to go, and she's trying to keep the nurses safe and who knew what else. Maybe now isn't the time to tell her.

She frowns at him as Tilda and the others leave to ravage everything that's left in the hospital. It's been picked pretty clean already, but she wishes them luck.

"Tell me on the move. We're almost a week late in meeting our contact." If the boat isn't where she'd been told it would be, she'll have to come up with something new.

Her more pressing concern is James. He isn't back to form yet; she'd seen him stumble. Something's off.

She forces herself to stop and take a breath. Something's off, and he's trying to tell her what it is. She takes a couple more breaths. "Sorry. We should be good for a minute. It's not like Salazar's here right now. What is it?"

He hesitates. James can hear the tension in her voice. She's strung tight as a wire. He should wait. But if something happens and she tries to depend on him... He can't be depended on, not like this. "I can't see," he says finally. He adjusts the bag on his back. "Like, at all. I thought it was going to be temporary, a lingering affect of whatever knocked me out, but it's not getting any better."

She stops and stares at him. Blind. James. The Winter Soldier. Blind.

Her chest feels tight. They'd barely made it out of the compound. Salazar will be looking for them. And James is blind.

She lifts a hand and slowly reaches toward his face. "Can you see what I'm doing right now?"

She can't believe it. They're odds were bad enough before, and now he's blind. His shooting skills are compromised, he won't see his enemies until it's too late. She might not be enough to keep him safe.

The past several days, and she hasn't been as close to crying as she is now.

"No, I can't. That's sort of what 'blind' means, that I can't see." He can't help but feel a bit exasperated. He reaches out and his fingers bump into her arm that's in a sling. "Let's get out of here." He closes his fingers around her upper arm gently. "I can still hear, give me a gun." He holds out his other hand.

She hesitates, but after a moment digs out a gun and carefully wraps his fingers around it. "Don't get smart with me, asshole." Despite the words, her tone is almost gentle. "And don't shoot me, either."

She moves the hand that's on her arm to her shoulder, and her fingers give it a faint squeeze. She heads to the door, waiting to make sure the coast is clear as she talks. "We take it slow, play it safe. Keep working our way west." The directions are more for her own peace of mind than his.

She had a duty to keep him safe, and that was what she'd do. "Let's go," she whispered, cracking the door open and tugging him through. She doesn't verbally tell him of any pitfalls they might cross, instead stepping into them and out of them so he can feel her shoulder fall and rise again.

He automatically thumbs off the safety on the gun and follows. He keeps the gun down by his side, his hand on her shoulder a good guide. He has to stay almost completely behind her because if he steps to the side he bumps into the walls.

He steps into a couple of the potholes but soon figures it out so he isn't surprised by them anymore.

He's not used to being so dependent on another person and while he trusts Sharon, she doesn't have the experience and the training, nor the enhanced senses that he does. He'll have to rely on his ears and his nose for everything, instead of his eyes. Once he adjusted he had the feeling he would be fine, but until then...

The town isn't large, but it's large enough that Sharon is cautious as she guides him through narrow streets and alleyways. She leads him into the undergrowth of the jungle at long last. Once they're deep enough in that she doesn't think they'll be spotted from the town, she takes his hand and presses it against a tree. "Wait here. I'm going to find a trail. I'll be right back."

She gives his hand another squeeze in promise and glances at his gun, making sure it's good to go.

Satisfied, she melts into the brush, moving faster now that she isn't guiding him. She's back not long after. "It's me," she murmurs so he won't shoot her. She takes his hand and puts it back on her shoulder. "Found a game trail. Let's go."

They can't use the trail much, since that's most likely watched, but with his lack of sight and Salazar hunting them, she's putting speed over caution for now.

He's not sure what to think about Sharon leaving him in the middle of the jungle with only a tree to hold onto and his ears, but he doesn't protest. She's got the only pair of working eyes around here.

Still, once she's gone he's tense, ready and waiting. She speaks almost too late - he had nearly convinced himself to shoot in the direction of the rustling leaves. He lowers his gun and stands, grip closing more firmly on her shoulder. "Tap your foot against anything I might trip over," he says quietly, "So I know it's there."

"Got it." If she weren't so worried about getting him out alive, she'd allow herself to feel more concern. As much trouble as it is for her to deal with his blindness, it must be far, far worse for him.

But sentimentality isn't their friend right now. She sets off, tapping her foot against rocks and roots as requested. Once she gets to the trail, she picks up the pace, only slowing when she suspects there's a trap. While most of the traps are for game, she studies each one in case Salazar might have left one for them.

"We'll stop soon," she promises, guiding him around another trap. They're getting more frequent, and she won't be able to avoid them as well - if at all - at night. And she knows he has to be tired.

Or maybe not, with his enhancements. But she's tired. And since they're both relying on her, she can't afford to make mistakes because she's tired. They'll have to stop to rest, if only for her sake. "What a pair we make, huh?"

"Even more of a pair than we used to," he agrees tiredly. His body's been pumping with adrenaline ever since he woke up and couldn't see. It's not any better now except the adrenaline's wearing off so he's tired. He thought he hadn't been sore when he woke up, but that definitely wasn't the case. "I hope you brought food, Sharon, because I haven't eaten in three days."

"Longer than that, actually," she says quietly. "You've been in a coma for- we'll stop soon."

True to her word, she guides him off the path almost half an hour later to a small copse nearby. She takes him around by the hand, knocking her hand against the trees around him so he can get an idea of the layout. Once she's fairly confident he won't sprint headlong into a tree, she sits and opens the pack.

"I figure it'll take another two days to reach the checkpoint, and we can't be sure the boat is still there. Last I heard, Salazar has control of nearly half the country, and the government is in a panic." She presses a closed water bottle into his hand.

"I'm sorry, by the way." She clears her throat as she opens a can of fruit. "I should have killed him at the compound. If I had, we wouldn't be in this mess."

If she had, they'd probably both be dead. But hundreds of others would still be alive, and the country would be safe from a tyrannical, insane future dictator. So there's that.

"It's not your fault," he says. He's grateful that she took him around the trees - he now knows the rough size and shape of the little clearing they're in. And with her there in front of him, he can listen to her move - the zipper of the bag unzipping, her hand rifling through the contents of the bag, the rough cloth rustling gently. Then the crinkle of a bottle of water and a can opening. He opens the bottle of water and has to guide the mouth to his lips gingerly, so as not to spill. He takes a few gulps of the water then offers the bottle back to her. "You did what you thought was right."

He leans back a little, feels the rough bark of the tree behind him through his thin shirt. His other hand, the one not occupied with the water bottle, reaches up and back. The bark is pebbly, hard under his fingers up yielding easily to his nails.

He's going to have to learn how to navigate again. Learn how to walk without being dizzy. But already, his hearing is sharper, he can track the way Sharon moves her upper body just by listening to her breathing, her fingers tapping against the metal of the can.

"What happened to your arm?" he finally asks, curious. It hadn't been that way when he had last seen her - as he was kicking her out of the path of some kind of smoky spray that had knocked him out cold.

No, she hadn't done what she thought was right. Doing what she thought was right would have left them both dead.

She doesn't say that, though, doesn't point out that she'd ultimately decided to save James. She doesn't want him to know that she'd been worried about him and upset that he'd been hurt.

"Tried to get to Salazar anyway. Should have just dragged your lazy ass out." She moves back to him and takes the water bottle, replacing it with the can of fruit. She puts the fork in his other hand. Her gestures reveal a gentleness she rarely shows. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet. "I landed on it and sprained it. It's nothing. Doesn't hurt much, and I should be good as new soon."

It's close enough to the truth. She had sprained her arm by landing on it. But the bullet had only nicked her shoulder, and she isn't going to make him worry about something that doesn't matter. The important thing is that her arm be fully operational soon. That's all.

But the dark mirth returns quickly. "I told Tilda I wanted a pudding cup of my own. I did warn her."

She leans back to give him some room. "Do you want some help? I won't tell."

He hesitates with the fork, trying to surreptitiously run his finger up over the top then down to the tines. Still, James is more focused on listening to Sharon. Over their time spent together he had learned her tells, learning how to look at her and know she was lying to him. He has that same feeling now, but there's no way to know.

Finally, he shakes his head. "No, I can handle it." He stabs the fork into the can then brings it out. He lifts the fork to his mouth and manages to drip fruit juice all down his front but does get a few pieces of the fruit into his mouth, which is the important part. He stabs in again. He slurps at the juice after a few moments then remembers to offer the can to Sharon. "Here, eat."

If he had his sight and they had the time, he would be able to hunt, catch them some food. But all the have to live off of is what Sharon managed to get into the pack. And after carrying it for several hours, he knows it's not even heavy with food.

Her lips quirk into a smile as the fruit juice dribbles down his chin. If she didn't know him so well, she'd think it was cute.

She sits close by and and watches him for another moment to make sure he's all right. But then her stomach grumbles, and she doesn't bother delaying anymore. She takes a couple bites before handing it back. She has to fight the urge to clean some of the juice away.

"Maybe it's temporary, like the unconsciousness was," she suggested. "And even if it isn't, we'll get out of here and work something out."

He wipes his chin with his right hand then returns to eating. "That would be the best thing. If this is permanent..." He doesn't want to waste his energy thinking about that just yet. "We just have to get somewhere safe. Find a doctor, see if they can tell me what's wrong with my eyes. Get away from Salazar. We can come back and mop him up once I can see, that won't be hard."

Re: I rolled a 1 - loss of sight. Want to see how it goes?

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